The Glory of the Conquered Part 24

"I am at a loss to know to what popular idea you refer," said the professor, with a suitable indifference.

"Oh merely to the popular idea that this place amounts to something; that it has let go of a little mediaevalism, and is more than a crude, cheap pattern--funny what ideas people get, isn't it? Now there are people who think the university here puts a value on individuality, that it would actually bend a rule or two to fit an individual case, in fact that it likes initiative, encourages originality, wouldn't in the least mind having a few actual achievements to its credit."

"At the same time," goaded from his icy calm--"it does not propose to make itself ridiculous!"

"And doing a rather unconventional thing, in order to bring about a very great thing, would be making itself ridiculous, would it?"

"I fail to see how anything so preposterous could bring about good results," said the man in authority, introducing into that a note of dismissal.

"Do you?" replied Parkman, not yet dismissed. "Well, if you will pardon a little more plain speaking, I will say that this is something I know a good deal more about than you do."

"We have made other arrangements for the laboratory," and the professor picked up a paper from his desk and looked it over, nice subtilties evidently being lost.

"So? Going to give it to some fellow who will devote himself, after the fashion of university men, to verifying other men's conclusions?"

Then Dr. Parkman rose. "Well," he said, "you've had your chance. You had a chance to do something which would give this place an excuse for existing. I'm sorry you weren't big enough to take it.

"I fear medical men may feel some little prejudice about this," he remarked, easily--not in the least as though dealing in heavy ammunition.

"Hubers commands the medical men, you know. They care more for him than for all the rest of the fellows out here put together. About that medical school of yours," he said, meditatively, "that you're pushing so hard just now,--to whom shall I tender my resignation as chairman of the committee I'm on? And, at the same time, I'll just be released from the lectures I was to give in the winter quarter. I'm entirely too busy to spend my time on a place that doesn't care for anything but dead men's bones. Lewis and Richmond will probably want to pull out too. Of course,"

he went on, seemingly to himself, "a thing like this will unfortunately be noised about, and all doctors will be a little sore about your not caring to stand by Hubers. But I suppose I had better see the president about all that. He gets home next week? And, come to think of it, I'm pretty close to a couple of members of the board. I operated on both Lessing and Tyler. Both of those fellows have a notion they owe their lives to me. That makes people feel rather close to one, you know. But then, of course, you don't know--why should you? And, dear me--there's that rich old patient of mine, Burley. Now isn't it strange,"--turning genially to Lane, as if merely interesting him in a philosophical proposition--"how one thing leads to another? I fear Burley may not be so interested in making that gift to the new medical building, if he knows I've cut loose from the place. The president will feel rather sore about that, too,--you know how the president is about such things. But then,"--shrugging his shoulders indifferently--"he needn't feel sore at me."

Dr. George Lane was swallowing very hard. Though learned, he was not dull. Word by word he had drunk in the bitter truth that this big, dark, gruff, ill-mannered man was not to be put down with impunity. Call it bullying--any hard name you would, there was no evading the fact that it was power in sledge hammer strokes. "The professor" was just wise enough to see that there lay before him the unpleasant task of retraction.

"Ah--of course, doctor," he began, striving for nonchalance, "do not take this as too final. You see anything so unusual as this will have to come before the committee. You did not present it to me--ah--very fully, but the more I consider it, the more I am disposed to think it is a thing we--may care to undertake. I--will present it."

"Oh, don't bother about that," said the doctor pleasantly. "I wouldn't worry the committee about it, if I were you. I can get a down-town laboratory all right. I simply thought I would give the university a chance at the thing. It doesn't matter," he concluded, opening the door.

"Well now, I'll tell you, doctor," said Lane, and part of his face was white, and part of it was red, "while you're out here, you would better go up and see Hastings. I'm sure I can say--speaking for the committee--that we will be very glad to have Mrs. Hubers here."

"I fired his soul all right," thought the doctor, grimly, as he walked up to find Hastings. "Those little two by fours!"

CHAPTER XXVI

OLD-FASHIONED LOVE

Karl's new secretary was what Karl himself called "one of those philosophical ducks." "That is," he explained to Ernestine, "he is one of those fellows who has been graduated from science into philosophy."

"But wouldn't you get on better with one of the scientific students who hadn't been graduated yet?" she laughed.

"Oh, no; no, I don't mind having a graduate. Ross can do the work all right. I'm lucky to get him. There aren't many of them who are stenographers, and then he can give me most of his time. He's finishing up for his Ph.D."

"And was he really a student of science in the beginning?"

"Well, after a fashion. The kind that is graduated into philosophy."

"Karl," she laughed, "despite your proud boast to the contrary, you're bigoted. It's the bigotry of science."

"No, it's having science patronised by these fellows who don't know anything about it. If they'd once roll up their sleeves and do some actual work they'd give up that idea of being so easily graduated. But they want to get where they'll not have to work. Philosophy's a lazy man's job."

"There you go again! A clear case of the scientific arrogance."

"No, they amuse me; that's all. 'I had a great deal of science in my undergraduate work,' Mr. Ross said, 'but I feel now that I want to go into the larger field of philosophy.'"

"Karl," she laughed, a little amused and a little indignant, "did he actually say that to you?"

"He actually did. And with the pleasantest, most off-hand air. It was on the tip of my tongue to reply: 'Fortunately, science never loses anything in these people she graduates so easily into philosophy.'

"I wonder what they think," he went on, "when we turn them upside down two or three times a century? It doesn't seem to worry them any. 'Give me some eggs and some milk and some sugar and I'll make a nice pudding,'

they say--that's about what goes into a pudding, isn't it? And then they take the stuff in very thankless fashion, and when their pudding is done, they say--'Isn't it pathetic the way some people spend their lives producing nothing but eggs and milk and sugar?' And the worst of it is that half the time they spoil our good stuff by putting it together wrong."

"Such a waste of good eggs and milk and sugar," she laughed.

"But fortunately it is a superior kind of eggs and milk and sugar that can't be hurt by being thrown together wrong. The pudding is bad, but the good stuff in it is indestructible. And as we don't have to sit down to their table, why should we worry over their failures?"

"Why, indeed? But then, I don't agree that all puddings are bad."

"No, not all of them. But it rubs me the wrong way to see bad cooks take such liberties with their materials."

"Because good eggs and milk and sugar aren't so easy to produce," she agreed.

"Some of us have paid a pretty good price for them," he said.

That turned them to the things always close to them, and they were silent for a time. It was Sat.u.r.day evening, and on Monday Ernestine would begin her new work. Dr. Parkman had arranged it for her--she did not know how, but it had been done, and Professor Hastings, who would have her in charge, was eager to give all possible help. That day, while Karl was busy, she had been reading a book Dr. Parkman had given her. He would keep her supplied with the best things for her to read, he said, selecting that which was vital, so that she would not waste time blundering through Karl's library at random. Dr. Parkman was being so splendid about it all. He was a man to give himself to a thing without reservations; if he helped at all he made his help count to the uttermost. She felt him back of her as a force which would not fail. And she would show him his confidence was not misplaced--his support not given to a vain cause! Resolution strengthened within her as the way was cleared. Unconsciously she caught Karl's hand and held it tight in both of hers.

"You know, liebchen," he said, caressing her hand in response, "I've done considerable thinking of late. Perhaps a fellow thinks more about things when he is not right in them, and it seemed to me to-day, when I was thinking over these things suggested by Ross, that the reason most people don't get on better with their work is just because they don't care for it enough. You have to love a thing to do much with it. Take it in any kind of scientific work; the work is hard, there is detail, drudgery, and discouragement. You're going to lose heart and grip unless you have that enthusiasm for the thing as a whole. You must see it big, and have that--well, call it fanaticism, if you want to--a willingness to give yourself up to it, at any rate. The reason these fellows want to get into the 'bigger field of philosophy' is because they've never known anything about the bigger field of science."

She loved that fire in his voice, that rare, fine light which at times like this shone from his face. In such moments, he seemed a man set apart; as one divinely appointed. It filled her heart with a warm, glad rush to think it was she would bring him back to his own. It was she would reseat Karl on his throne. And what awaited him then? Might not his possibilities be greater than ever before? Would not determination rise in him with new tremendousness, and would not hope, after its rebirth in despair, soar to undreamed of heights? Would not the meditation of these days, the new understanding rising from relinquishment and suffering, bring him back to his work a scientist who was also philosopher?

She believed that that would be true, that the things his blindness taught him to see would more than atone for the things shut away. And would not she herself come to love the work just because of what it meant to Karl? Care for it because of what it could do for him? Loving it first because he loved it, would not she come to love it for itself?

A quiver of pain had drawn the beautiful light from his face. "Tell me about your work, dear," he said abruptly. "You haven't said much about it of late."

She turned away her face. She was always forgetting that he could not see her face.

"You know you must get to work, sweetheart," he went on as she did not answer. "I am expecting great things of my little girl."

"I hope you will not be disappointed," she answered, very low.

"Of course I'll not be--if you just get to work. Now when are you going to begin?"

"I'm going to begin Monday," replied Ernestine.

"Good! Painting some great picture?"