well and
good; and if I could not further hope he could understand that too. I
wanted to write to Dorothy to tell her that Zoe was still away and that
I thought she would never return. But perhaps after all Dorothy's
attitude was founded in an innate prejudice against the relationship to
which she would make herself a party by marrying me. Was this not
perfectly unreasonable? It made me distrust Dorothy's nature at times.
What was she after all? Finally, however, I wrote to Dorothy as best I
could and after many ineffectual trials at expressing myself. Promptly
enough a letter came back. It was not lacking in kindness, but it
offered no hope. Hurt and listless I tried to turn my thoughts to other
things. There were always my growing enterprises--and yet to what end?
To be rich, to be richer.

When December came I had a letter from Miss Walker. She was in
Springfield at the Ridgeway mansion for a visit through the holidays.
There were to be parties and dances. Why did I not come over? And I
went.

I looked up Douglas at once. He was making some headway at the practice
of law, but his energies, for the most part, were absorbed in perfecting
the organization of his party. He was putting together a compact
machine. He was on the very edge of being the leader of the Illinois
Democracy. What infinite details there are to any given end! If it is
the building of a house, tools must be bought, trees felled, foundations
dug. A carpenter's finger must be bandaged so that he can go on with the
work. Cloth must be found for the bandage and a string with which to tie
it. And so Douglas was engaged in infinite talks on the corners, at the
newspaper office; he was making short trips; he was writing dozens of
letters, he was inserting editorials in the newspapers. But he had time
for the gayeties of the season.

He was always the gallant, the amusing wit, the ready raconteur. We were
such friends! Again Miss Walker had both of us for attendants; but upon
such widely different footing. I was a suitor with many doubts. Douglas
was not a suitor at all. He came to her to enjoy the keenness of her
mind.

But as I was English, and as Miss Walker thought herself the next thing
to it, she took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life
around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but
also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the
sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women;