"
"Ah, you think the Norumbia doesn't hide anything," he began, and he was
going to speak of the men in the furnace pits of the steamer, how they
fed the fires in a welding heat, and as if they had perished in it crept
out on the forecastle like blanched phantasms of toil; but she interposed
in time.
"If there's anything worse, for pity's sake don't tell me," she
entreated, and he forebore.
He sat thinking how once the world had not seemed to have even death in
it, and then how as he had grown older death had come into it more and
more, and suffering was lurking everywhere, and could hardly be kept out
of sight. He wondered if that young Burnamy now saw the world as he used
to see it, a place for making verse and making love, and full of beauty
of all kinds waiting to be fitted with phrases. He had lived a happy
life; Burnamy would be lucky if he should live one half as happy; and yet
if he could show him his whole happy life, just as it had truly been,
must not the young man shrink from such a picture of his future?
"Say something," said his wife. "What are you thinking about?"
"Oh, Burnamy," he answered, honestly enough.
"I was thinking about the children," she said. "I am glad Bella didn't
try to come from Chicago to see us off; it would have been too silly; she
is getting to be very sensible.
Pages:
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092