Changeling, and Other Stories 9 – Byrne · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 9Part 3 · Chapter 2
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 9
Part 3 · Chapter 2
ByrneEnglish
There were two mysteries in Simon Lovat's life. One was how he, a poor Highland Scots-born boy, reared in abject poverty, had ever come to be the great architect he was. And the other was how he had become engaged to Cecily Stanford, Gamaliel Stanford's only daughter, and Gamaliel Stanford was a millionaire.
He hated to think of his infancy in the little Argyle town where he was born. He hated even to think of his boyhood in New York. People, he felt, would n't understand it. They might talk of being hungry, but did they know what hunger for years was, abject hunger, malnutrition? Did these well-fed men who talked of hardship know, could they conceive of a family to whom for years a nickel meant the difference between butter on bread and dry bread? They talked of slums, and dirt, and poverty, but he kept his mouth closed. Were he to tell them what he knew of these--he himself--might they not draw back from him as they would draw back with a shudder from a man who had been close to lepers? Fine words mean so little in this world.
All his life until seven years ago, when he was twenty-five, had been a succession of cold ill-fed days, relieved by the magic thrill of bridges.
There had been a viaduct here, a railroad span there, an Egyptian arch somewhere else in Argyle that would vibrate some chord within him. A rainbow would flush him with sudden beauty. And in New York the wonder of the bridges made up for heartburnings and disappointments. The gossamer span to Brooklyn affected him like a long note on a hunting-horn. At times human weaknesses would boil within him, as when he thought with rage that other boys and men must be uplifted by the prizes and scholarships they won, feeling the pride of combat and of victory, but to him they meant only the wherewithal to live for himself and his mother and sisters. Other boys were welcomed with feastings when they had achieved success, but success meant to him only the filling of famished hands--not that he grudged it, God knows! but one hungers for a little praise, a little recognition, as one hungers for food. And then had come the days of obscurity, working for others until Gamaliel Stanford, the big, bluff builder, had recognized his genius and given him his chance. He did fine work for Stanford.
Stanford, the self-made millionaire, wished after the fashion of his kind to patronize the genius he had found, and so he brought him here, brought him there, to his club, to golf-links, to his house. And there Lovat met Cecily, Stanford's daughter....
