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BOOK TWO: Chapter XVI - The White-Hope Link
The White Hope slept. The noise of the departing car, which had roused
the birds, had made no impression on him. As Steve had said, dynamite
could not do it. He slumbered on, calmly detached, unaware of the
remarkable changes which, in the past twenty-four hours, had taken
place in his life. An epoch had ended and a new one begun, but he knew
it not.
And probably, if Kirk and Ruth, who were standing at his bedside,
watching him, had roused him and informed him of these facts, he would
have displayed little excitement. He had the philosophical temperament.
He took things as they came. Great natural phenomena, like Lora Delane
Porter, he accepted as part of life. When they were in his life, he
endured them stoically. When they went out of it, he got on without
them. Marcus Aurelius would have liked William Bannister Winfield. They
belonged to the same school of thought.
The years have a tendency to
destroy this placidity towards life and to develop in man a sense of
gratitude to fate for its occasional kindnesses; and Kirk, having been
in the world longer than William Bannister, did not take the gifts of
the gods so much for granted. He was profoundly grateful for what had
happened. That Lora Delane Porter should have retired from active
interference with his concerns was much; but that he should have had
the incredible good fortune to be freed from the burden of John
Bannister's money was more.
If ever money was the root of all evil, this had been. It had come into
his life like a poisonous blight, withering and destroying wherever it
touched. It had changed Ruth; it had changed William Bannister; it had
changed himself; it was as if the spirit of the old man had lived on,
hating him and working him mischief. He always had superstitious fear
of it; and events had proved him right.
And now the cloud had rolled away. A few crowded hours of Bailey's
dashing imbecility had removed the curse forever.
He was alone with Ruth and his son in a world that contained only them,
just as in the old days of their happiness. There was something
symbolic, something suggestive of the beginning of a new order of
things, in their isolation at this very moment. Steve had gone. Only he
and Ruth and the child were left.
The child--the White Hope--he was the real hero of the story, the real
principal of the drama of their three lives. He was the link that bound
them together, the force that worked for coherence and against chaos.
He stood between them, his hands in theirs; and while he did so there
could be no parting of the ways. His grip was light, but as strong as
steel. Time would bring troubles, moods, misunderstandings, for they
were both human; but, while that grip held, there could be no gulf
dividing Ruth and himself, as it had divided them in the past.
He faced the future calmly, with open eyes. It would be rough going at
first, very rough going. It meant hard work, incessant work. No more
vague masterpieces which might or might not turn into "Carmen" or "The
Spanish Maiden." No more delightful idle days to be loafed through in
the studio or the shops. No more dreams, seen hazily through the smoke
of a cigar, as he lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling, of what
he would do to-morrow. To-morrow must look after itself. His business
was with the present and the work of the present.
He braced himself to the fight, confident of his power to win. He had
found himself.
Bill stirred in his sleep and muttered. Ruth bent over him and kissed
the honourable scratch on his cheek.
"Poor little chap! You'll wake up and find that you aren't a
millionaire baby after all! I wonder if you'll mind. Kirk, do
_you_ mind?"
"Mind!"
"I don't," said Ruth. "I think it will be rather fun being poor again."
"Who's poor?" said Kirk stoutly. "I'm not. I've got you and I've got
Bill. Do you remember--ages ago--what that Vince girl, the model, you
know, said that her friend had called me? A plute. That's me. I'm the
richest man in the world."
Content of BOOK TWO: Chapter XVI - The White-Hope Link
-THE END-
P. G. Wodehouse's novel: The Coming of Bill
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