league in the football games of life. And just where would Gordon fit in? Oh, that was obvious enough. He would be the utterly trustworthy second in command, or executive officer, an aide whose primary value would lie in his unwavering loyalty.
Oh, yes, Gordon saw all this; he was not a fool, nor would he have been much use to David had he been one. But he also saw that he needed David. David could cope with the world, especially the Carnochan world, with which Gordon found it often difficult to cope. His father was remote and unpredictable, his mother intent on leading her own life, if cautious not to trespass too heavily on her husband's guarded territory. His sisters were giggly and silly, obsessed at this time with boys. The practical maternal philosophy of the family had no place for the moral doubts and questionings of what to them was a more or less neurotic son and brother who could be expected to answer them himself, and he turned in the end to David for the benefits of a relationship that he liked to think of as symbiotic. If David supplied him with confidence in his own ability to survive as a member of David's team, did he not help David by acting as a sounding board for his plans and projects and a consolation in his inevitable if temporary setbacks?
But it continued to trouble Gordon that David's failure to share any of the idealism that had inspired Gordon at Chelton seemed, when they progressed from Yale to law school, increasingly to divide them. At school and at college the atmosphere in the sometimes excited discussions, political, ethical, or literary, among the friends was apt to be imbued with a shared desire, if not expectation, for a better world to which the disputants might hope to make some modest contribution. But in law school, in all the heated general discussions that he and David shared with fellow students, David was apt to focus, not on the growth of the law as a material factor in the improvement of society, not on how best to interpret the Constitution to deal with changing times and conditions, but on how to achieve a client's purpose in the teeth of a seemingly prohibitive statute. David appeared to see law as something to get around and a lawyer's function as how to advise him to do it. And a good many of their classmates seemed to agree with him.
It was a woman, of course, who, at last, and at least temporarily, released Gordon from the pervasive influence of his cousin. He met Agatha Houston at a Sunday lunch party given by his mother during a Christmas vacation when he had come down from law school in Cambridge. Julie Carnochan and Agatha's mother were old friends, and Agatha's father, Dr. Houston, who was also present at the lunch, was the well-known throat doctor to some of the great singers at the Metropolitan Opera in what was coming to be known as the golden age of song. His name was associated with such shining ones as Fremstad, Nordica, and Eames. Agatha, however, reflected none of this glamour. She was pert, bright, and pretty, with large brown eyes, but she made an immediate point of being matter-of-fact and down-to-earth.
"If you had experienced the temperaments of some of Daddy's patients as I have," she told Gordon after he had spoken of his envy of her opportunities to meet the great divas, "you would be less anxious to hear them anywhere except on the stage, where they belong. It's just as well to keep on the other side of the footlights. They preserve the illusion, and that's what they're for."
"You never wanted to be a singer yourself?"
"Well, I didn't have a voice, which settled the question. But yes, I might have liked to, when I was in my teens. I used to fancy myself singing the 'Liebestod' to an audience too rapt even to applaud. I saw the curtain descend in a reverent silence more gratifying than the loudest cheers. But I've graduated from that. I live in the real world now. I hope it's better, but I'm not always sure. How about you? Do you dream of yourself
Oh, yes, Gordon saw all this; he was not a fool, nor would he have been much use to David had he been one. But he also saw that he needed David. David could cope with the world, especially the Carnochan world, with which Gordon found it often difficult to cope. His father was remote and unpredictable, his mother intent on leading her own life, if cautious not to trespass too heavily on her husband's guarded territory. His sisters were giggly and silly, obsessed at this time with boys. The practical maternal philosophy of the family had no place for the moral doubts and questionings of what to them was a more or less neurotic son and brother who could be expected to answer them himself, and he turned in the end to David for the benefits of a relationship that he liked to think of as symbiotic. If David supplied him with confidence in his own ability to survive as a member of David's team, did he not help David by acting as a sounding board for his plans and projects and a consolation in his inevitable if temporary setbacks?
But it continued to trouble Gordon that David's failure to share any of the idealism that had inspired Gordon at Chelton seemed, when they progressed from Yale to law school, increasingly to divide them. At school and at college the atmosphere in the sometimes excited discussions, political, ethical, or literary, among the friends was apt to be imbued with a shared desire, if not expectation, for a better world to which the disputants might hope to make some modest contribution. But in law school, in all the heated general discussions that he and David shared with fellow students, David was apt to focus, not on the growth of the law as a material factor in the improvement of society, not on how best to interpret the Constitution to deal with changing times and conditions, but on how to achieve a client's purpose in the teeth of a seemingly prohibitive statute. David appeared to see law as something to get around and a lawyer's function as how to advise him to do it. And a good many of their classmates seemed to agree with him.
It was a woman, of course, who, at last, and at least temporarily, released Gordon from the pervasive influence of his cousin. He met Agatha Houston at a Sunday lunch party given by his mother during a Christmas vacation when he had come down from law school in Cambridge. Julie Carnochan and Agatha's mother were old friends, and Agatha's father, Dr. Houston, who was also present at the lunch, was the well-known throat doctor to some of the great singers at the Metropolitan Opera in what was coming to be known as the golden age of song. His name was associated with such shining ones as Fremstad, Nordica, and Eames. Agatha, however, reflected none of this glamour. She was pert, bright, and pretty, with large brown eyes, but she made an immediate point of being matter-of-fact and down-to-earth.
"If you had experienced the temperaments of some of Daddy's patients as I have," she told Gordon after he had spoken of his envy of her opportunities to meet the great divas, "you would be less anxious to hear them anywhere except on the stage, where they belong. It's just as well to keep on the other side of the footlights. They preserve the illusion, and that's what they're for."
"You never wanted to be a singer yourself?"
"Well, I didn't have a voice, which settled the question. But yes, I might have liked to, when I was in my teens. I used to fancy myself singing the 'Liebestod' to an audience too rapt even to applaud. I saw the curtain descend in a reverent silence more gratifying than the loudest cheers. But I've graduated from that. I live in the real world now. I hope it's better, but I'm not always sure. How about you? Do you dream of yourself
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