But indeed, (or so I presume; for at the moment my own imagination
swept on with theirs) none manned the walls or rattled the chains of
gate and bridge. The saffron Hiroshimi opened the screen door before
us, showing no surprise or interest in my strange companions. Thus we
made easy conquest of our castle. As we entered, there lay before us,
lighted softly by the subdued twilight which filtered through the
surrounding grove, the interior of that home which in three years I
had learned much to love, lonely as it was. Here I now dwelt most of
the time, leaving behind me, as though shut off by a closed door, the
busy scenes of an active and successful life. (I presume I may fairly
speak thus of myself, since there is no one else to speak.)
My pirate companions, suddenly grown shy, stood silent for a moment,
for the time rather at a loss to carry on the play which had been
easier in the open. I heard Jimmy draw a long breath. He was first to
remove his hat. But his companion was quicker to regain his poise,
although for a moment he forgot his pirate speech. "Gee!" said he.
"Ain't this great!"
I doubt if any praise I ever heard in my life pleased me more than
this frank comment; no, not even the kind word and hand-clasp of old
Judge Henderson, what time I won my first cause at law. For this that
lay about me was what I had chosen for my life to-day. I had preferred
this to the career into which my father's restless ambition had
plunged me almost as soon as I had emerged from my college and my
law-school--a career which my own restless ambition had found
sufficient until that final break with Helena Emory, which occurred
soon after the time when my father died; when the news went out that
I, his heir, was left with but a shrunken fortune, and with many debts
to pay; news which I, myself, had promulgated for reasons of my own.
After that, called foolish by all my friends, lamented by members of
my family, forgotten, as I fancy, by most who knew me, I had retired
to this lodge in the wilderness. Here, grown suddenly resentful of a
life hitherto wasted in money-getting alone, I had resolved to spend
the remainder of my days, as beseemed a student and a philosopher.
Having read Weininger and other philosophers, I was convinced that
woman was the lowest and most unworthy thing in the scale of created
things, a thing quite beneath the attention of a thinking man.