The obligations imposed by his wife's fortune
and position were sometimes distracting to a man who followed his
profession, and he was expected to be interested in a great many worthy
endeavors on her account as well as on his own. His existence was
becoming a network of great and little details. He had expected that
success would bring him freedom and power; but it had brought only power
that was in itself another kind of restraint. He had always meant to
keep his personal liberty at all costs, as old MacKeller, his first
chief, had done, and not, like so many American engineers, to become a
part of a professional movement, a cautious board member, a Nestor de
pontibus. He happened to be engaged in work of public utility, but he
was not willing to become what is called a public man. He found himself
living exactly the kind of life he had determined to escape. What, he
asked himself, did he want with these genial honors and substantial
comforts? Hardships and difficulties he had carried lightly; overwork
had not exhausted him; but this dead calm of middle life which
confronted him,--of that he was afraid. He was not ready for it. It was
like being buried alive. In his youth he would not have believed such a
thing possible. The one thing he had really wanted all his life was to
be free; and there was still something unconquered in him, something
besides the strong work-horse that his profession had made of him. He
felt rich to-night in the possession of that unstultified survival;
in the light of his experience, it was more precious than honors or
achievement.
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