The Glory of the Conquered. Susan Glaspell
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was the man of affairs; the other the man of thought; they supplemented and helped each other. As the practicing physician, Dr. Parkman could see many things from which the laboratory man would be shut out. He was Karl's channel of communication with the human side of the work. And Karl gave Parkman his complete confidence; that was why there was so much to tell now. He must go over the story of his year's work, touch upon his plans, his new ideas. And the doctor had something to say of the observations he had made for Karl; he told of an operation day after to-morrow he must see and said he had several cases worth watching.
"You will have to come out to the laboratory," Karl finally urged. "We can't begin to get at it here."
"We're forgetting the hungry and thirsty men," said Georgia, after they had been eagerly chatting across the kitchen table for ten or fifteen minutes. But Ernestine said it did not matter. She knew what was going on in the library and how glad they were of their chance. She and Georgia too had much to discuss: the work done in Europe, Georgia's work here, how splendid Karl was, what a glorious time they had had, something of the good times they would all have together here, and then this house which Georgia had found for them and into which they had gone at once.
"I knew well enough," she said, buttering a sandwich in order to stay her conscience, "that you and Karl didn't belong in a flat. There couldn't be a studio and a laboratory and library and various other exotic things in a flat. But only old settlers and millionaires live in detached houses here, so please appreciate my efforts. I thought this place looked like you—not that you're exactly old-fashioned and irregular."
"I liked it at once. Big enough and interestingly queer, and not savouring of Chicago enterprise."
"Not that there is anything the matter with Chicago enterprise," insisted
Georgia.
"You like Chicago, don't you, Georgia?"
"Love it! I know one doesn't usually associate love with Chicago, but I love even its abominations. You know I had a tough time here, but I won out, and most of us are vain enough to be awfully fond of the place where we've been up against it and come out on top. I haven't forgotten the days when I edited farm journals and wrote thirty-cent lives of great men and peddled feature stories from office to office, standing with my hand on door knobs fighting for nerve to go in, but now that it is all safely tucked away in the past, I'm not sorry I had to do it. It helps one understand a few things, and when new girls come to me I don't tell them, as I was told, that they'd better learn the millinery trade or do honest work in somebody's kitchen. None of that kind of talk do they get from me!"
It was always absorbing to see Georgia very much in earnest. Her alert face kept pace with her words, and her emphatic little nods seemed to be clinching her thought. People who had good cause to know, said it was just as well not to turn the full tide of her emotions to wrath. She was a little taller than Ernestine, very quick in her movements, and if one insisted on an adverse criticism it might be admitted she was rather lacking in repose. The people who liked her, put it the other way. They said she was so breezy and delightful. But even friendship could not deny her freckles, nor claim beauty for her bright, quick face.
They seemed to fall naturally into more serious things when they met over what Georgia called the evening bite. Although differing so widely, they were homogeneous in that all were workers; they touched many things, their talk live with differences.
"How do you like it?" asked Ernestine, following Dr. Parkman's eyes to her favourite bronze, a copy of Mercie's Gloria Victis, which she had unpacked just that day and given a place of honour on the mantel.
"It's so Christian," he objected laughingly.
"Oh, but is it?"
"A defeated man being borne aloft? I call it the very essence of Christianity. I can see submission and renunciation and other objectionable virtues in every line of it."
"Go after it, Parkman," laughed Karl. "Ernestine and I all but came to blows over it. I wanted her to buy a Napoleon instead. I tell her there is no glory in defeat."
"I don't think of it as the glory of defeat," said Ernestine. "I think of it as the glory of the conquered."
"But even so, Ernestine," said Georgia, who had been looking it over carefully, "there's no real glory. When I fall down on an assignment, I fall down, and that's all there is to it—at least my city editor thinks so. If Dr. Parkman doesn't win a case, he loses it. His efforts may have been very worthy—but gloria's surely not the word for them. Or take a football game," she laughed. "Sometimes the defeated team really does better work than the winners—but wouldn't we rather our fellows would win on a fluke than go down to defeat putting up a good, steady fight? The thing is to get there!"
"In football or in life," laughed Karl. "Defeat furnishes good material to the poets and the artists, but none of us care to have the glory of the conquered apply to us."
They were all looking at the bronze and Ernestine looked from one face to another, trying to understand why it moved none of them as it had her. Karl's face was very purposeful tonight, reflecting the stimulus of his talk with his friend. Filled with enthusiasm for this fight he was making, he had no eye in this hour for the triumph of the vanquished.
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