Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/458

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ARROWSMITH

Cultural Agencies. Among the men of measured merriment on the platform were Dr. Aaron Sholtheis, the new Director of McGurk Institute, and Dr. Angus Duer, head of the Duer Clinic and professor of surgery in Fort Dearborn Medical College.

Dr. Holabird's epochal address was being broadcast by radio to a million ardently listening lovers of science.

That evening, Bert Tozer of Wheatsylvania, North Dakota, was attending mid-week prayer-meeting. His new Buick sedan awaited him outside, and with modest satisfaction he heard the minister gloat:

"The righteous, even the Children of Light, they shall be rewarded with a great reward and their feet shall walk in gladness, saith the Lord of Hosts; but the mockers, the Sons of Belial, they shall be slain betimes and cast down into darkness and failure, and in the busy marts shall they be forgot."

That evening, Max Gottlieb sat unmoving and alone, in a dark small room above the banging city street. Only his eyes were alive.

That evening, the hot breeze languished along the palm-waving ridge where the ashes of Gustaf Sondelius were lost among cinders, and a depression in a garden marked the grave of Leora.

That evening, after an unusually gay dinner with Latham Ireland, Joyce admitted, "Yes, if I do divorce him, I may marry you. I know! He's never going to see how egotistical it is to think he's the only man living who's always right!"

That evening, Martin Arrowsmith and Terry Wickett lolled in a clumsy boat, an extraordinarily uncomfortable boat, far out on the water.

"I feel as if I were really beginning to work now," said Martin. "This new quinine stuff may prove pretty good. We'll plug along on it for two or three years, and maybe we'll get something permanent—and probably we'll fail!"

THE END