The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

The next day after a little dance does not dawn very early. Ray woke / late, with a vague trouble in his mind, which he thought at first was / the sum of the usual regrets for awkward things done and foolish things / said the night before. Presently it shaped itself as an anxiety which / had nothing to do with the little dance, and which he was helpless to / deal with when he recognized it. Still, as a definite anxiety, it was / more than half a question, and his experience did not afford him the / means of measuring its importance or ascertaining its gravity. He / carried it loosely in his mind when he went to see Kane, as something he / might or might not think of.

Kane was in bed, convalescent from a sharp gastric attack, and he / reached Ray a soft moist hand across the counterpane and cheerily / welcomed him. His coat and hat hung against a closet door, and looked so / like him that they seemed as much part of him as his hair and beard, / which were smoothly brushed, and gave their silver delicately against / the pillow. A fire of soft coal purred in the grate, faded to a fainter / flicker by the sunlight that poured in at the long south windows, and / lit up the walls book-lined from floor to ceiling.

"Yes," he said, in acceptance of the praises of its comfort that Ray / burst out with, "I have lived in this room so long that I begin to / cherish the expectation of dying in it. But, really, is this the first / time you've been here?"

"The first," said Ray. "I had to wait till you were helpless before I / got in."

"Ah, no; ah, no! Not so bad as that. I've often meant to ask you, when / there was some occasion; but there never seemed any occasion; and I've / lived here so much alone that I'm rather selfish about my solitude; I / like to keep it to myself. But I'm very glad to see you; it was kind of / you to think of coming. " He bent a look of affection on the young / fellow's handsome face. "Well, how wags the gay world? " he asked.

"Does the gay world do anything so light-minded as to wag? " Ray asked in / his turn, with an intellectual coxcombry that he had found was not / offensive to Kane. "It always seems to me very serious as a whole, the / gay world, though it has its reliefs, when it tries to enjoy itself. " He / leaned back in his chair, and handled his stick a moment, and then he / told Kane about the little dance which he had been at the night before. / He sketched some of the people and made it amusing.

"And which of your butterfly friends told you I was ill? " asked Kane.

"The butterflyest of all: Mrs. Denton."

"Oh! Did _she_ give the little dance?"

"No. I dropped in at the Hugheses' on the way to the dance. But I don't / know how soon she may be doing something of the kind. They're on the / verge of immense prosperity. Her husband has invented a new art process, / and it's going to make them rich. He doesn't seem very happy about it, / but she does. He's a dreary creature. At first I used to judge her / rather severely, as we do with frivolous people. But I don't know that / frivolity is so bad; I doubt if it's as bad as austerity; they're both / merely the effect of temperament, it strikes me. I like Mrs. Denton, / though she does appear to care more for the cat than the twins. Perhaps / she thinks she can safely leave them to him. He's very devoted to them; / it's quite touching. It's another quality of paternal devotion from Mr. / Brandreth's; it isn't half so voluble. But it's funny, all the same, to / see how much more care of them he takes than their mother does. He looks / after them at table, and he carries them off and puts them to bed with / his own hands apparently," said Ray, in celibate contempt of the / paternal tenderness.

"I believe that in David's community," Kane suggested, "the male / assisted the female in the care of their offspring. We still see the / like in some of the feathered tribes. In the process of social evolution / the father bird will probably leave the baby bird entirely to the mother / bird; and the mother bird, as soon as she begins to have mind and money, / will hire in some poor bird to look after them. Mrs. Denton seems to / have evolved in the direction of leaving them entirely to the father / bird."

"Well, she has to do most of the talking. Have you ever heard," Ray / asked from the necessary association of ideas, "about her husband's / Voice?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, it seems that Mr. Denton has an inward monitor of some kind, like / the demon of Socrates, that they call a Voice, and that directs his / course in life, as I understand. I suppose it's authorized him to go on / with his process, which he was doubtful about for a good while, because / if it succeeded it would throw a lot of people out of work. Then you've / never heard of his Voice?"

"No," said Kane. He added: "I suppose it's part of the psychical / nonsense that they go into in all sorts of communities. And Hughes," he / asked after a moment -- "how is Hughes now?"

"He's generally busy with his writing, and I don't always see him. He's / a fine old fellow, if he does prefer to call me out of my name; he still / addresses me generally as Young Man. Mrs. Denton has tried to teach him / better; but he says that names are the most external of all things, and / that I am no more essentially Ray than I am Hughes. There's something in / it; I think one might get a kind of story out of the notion."

Kane lay silent in a pensive muse, which he broke to ask with a smile: / "And how is Peace these days? Do you see her?"

"Yes; she's very well, I believe," said Ray, briefly, and he rose.

"Oh! " said Kane, "must you go?"