"It was a mistake," he said aloud, in a decided, clearly modulated
voice, gazing blankly into the warm stillness of the room. It had come
partly from his innate impatience with any inferior state whatever, and
part from the old inability to identify himself with the practicalities
of existence. He had always viewed with distaste the apparently
necessary compromises of successful living; the struggle for money,
commercial supremacy, seemed unendurably ugly; the jargon and
subterfuges of financial competition beneath his exacting standard of
personal dignity. That had been his expression at the time--permeated by
an impatient sense of superiority; but now he felt that there was
something essential lacking in himself. An absence of proper balance.
Solely concerned with the appearance, the insignificant surface, of such
efforts as Bundy Provost's, their moving, masculine spirit had evaded
him. Yes, it had been a mistake. He had missed the greatest pleasure of
all, that of accumulating power and influence, of virile achievement.
Well, it was over now; he was old; his life, his chance, had gone; and
all that remained were memories of Patti smiling disdainfully in the
flare of oil torches about her carriage; the only concrete record of so
many years the scrap books such as that on his knees.
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