He was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive, and his side was sore where Sheridan had struck him.  He desired to be alone; he wanted to rub himself and, for once, to do some useless thinking again.  He knew that his father had not “happened” to run into him; he knew that Sheridan had instantly—­and instinctively—­ proved that he held his own life of no account whatever compared to that of his son and heir.  Bibbs had been unable to speak of that, or to seem to know it; for Sheridan, just as instinctively, had swept the matter aside—­as of no importance, since all was well —­reverting immediately to business.

Bibbs began to think intently of his father.  He perceived, as he had never perceived before, the shadowing of something enormous and indomitable—­and lawless; not to be daunted by the will of nature’s very self; laughing at the lightning and at wounds and mutilation; conquering, irresistible—­and blindly noble.  For the first time in his life Bibbs began to understand the meaning of being truly this man’s son.

He would be the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said, Bibbs had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly.  He had given his word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary Vertrees in her need.  And he shivered with horror of himself, thinking how he had gone to her to offer it, asking her to marry him —­with his head on his breast in shameful fear that she would accept him!  He had not known her; the knowing had lost her to him, and this had been his real awakening; for he knew now how deep had been that slumber wherein he dreamily celebrated the superiority of “friendship”!  The sleep-walker had wakened to bitter knowledge of love and life, finding himself a failure in both.  He had made a burnt offering of his dreams, and the sacrifice had been an unforgivable hurt to Mary.  All that was left for him was the work he had not chosen, but at least he would not fail in that, though it was indeed no more than “dust in his mouth.”  If there had been anything “to work for—­”

He went to the window, raised it, and let in the uproar of the streets below.  He looked down at the blurred, hurrying swarms and he looked across, over the roofs with their panting jets of vapor, into the vast, foggy heart of the smoke.  Dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly against it, chattering with steel on steel, and screeching in steam, while tiny figures of men walked on threads in the dull sky.  Buildings would overtop the Sheridan.  Bigness was being served.

But what for?  The old question came to Bibbs with a new despair.  Here, where his eyes fell, had once been green fields and running brooks, and how had the kind earth been despoiled and disfigured!  The pioneers had begun the work, but in their old age their orators had said for them that they had toiled and risked and sacrificed that their posterity might live in peace and wisdom, enjoying the fruits of the earth.  Well, their posterity was here—­and there was only turmoil.  Where was the promised land?  It had been promised by the soldiers of all the wars; it had been promised to this generation by the pioneers; but here was the very posterity to whom it had been promised, toiling and risking and sacrificing in turn—­for what?