The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding in Munsey’s Magazine 1920-1928.

SHE had got used to Andrew’s forgetting all sorts of important anniversaries. In fact, she rather liked him to do so. It gave her something to forgive, and fed her measureless indulgence. All his eccentricities, his absurdities, his brilliant and explosive energy, his terrible exactions, constituted “Andy’s ways,” which she loved with a deep and pitying love.

Even if he was clever and successful and attractive, he couldn’t do the things she could do so easily and so well. He couldn’t darn his own socks or cook a dinner or make a bed. She insisted that he was helpless—that all men were helpless. She was the sort of woman who would have pitied Julius Cæsar because he couldn’t make an omelet.

Something of this kindly indulgence was reflected upon her nice face as she sat in the library sewing and waiting for Andrew. She was a handsome, dignified, good-tempered woman of thirty-five, who was never to be taken by surprise. No matter what might happen, she would raise her eyebrows and smile and say, “Well?”—which was her nice, kind way of saying, “I told you so!”

And generally she had told you so, because, like so many other unimaginative people, she could almost always foresee ordinary consequences. Her prognostications were based, not upon probabilities, but upon experience.

It was the tenth anniversary of their wedding—an important day in a household. And yet, knowing Andrew as she did, Marian had made no preparations for festivity, because he was as likely as not to forget or to neglect even a special dinner. She would remind him when he came in, and smile at him, and he would be startled and contrite. She would not acknowledge the little wound that was there, even to herself.

Nor would she acknowledge what she really knew quite well—that Andy wasn’t happy, as she was. Hadn’t she provided him with all the materials for happiness—a lovely, peaceful home, three pretty, healthy children, and just the social background he required?

What is more, she knew that no just man could find a fault in her as a wife. She was thrifty, conscientious, sympathetic, a correct and popular hostess, an excellent mother. She was never irritable, never gloomy, never exacting. She was handsome, and understood how to dress. There was really nothing within the domestic cosmos to which a sane man could object.

That may have been the trouble. Andrew was a man who did not approve of happiness. He wanted and required to be forever struggling and rebelling and resenting. Marian had often, with amusement, noticed him trying to provoke a quarrel with her; but of course he never could, for she never quarreled.

The clock struck eleven. She sighed a little, laid down her sewing, and picked up a book. It had been a very trying day. Andrew had vanished, without the least regard for appointments he himself had made, or office hours, and she had had to placate all sorts of people without knowing at all the cause of his delinquency. It was simply another of “Andy’s ways,” and a very troublesome one in a doctor.

She recognized it as part of a wife’s duties to smooth the path of her husband—above all, of a husband who was the next thing to a genius. She was accustomed to hearing him spoken of as “brilliant.” She was proud of it, and secretly a little proud of his eccentricities. He was an extraor[Pg 3]dinary man, no doubt about it, and he required a wife of extraordinary tact.

He was a physician, but not satisfied with that. He liked to write articles and give lectures, and he had a reputation as a very daring if not very sound investigator along sociological lines. He had proclaimed and printed office hours; but if he were busy writing, he wouldn’t see any one who came, and it was Marian, of course, who did have to see these people and get them away not too grossly offended.

At other times there would be some patient who interested him, and he would shut himself up with him or her; and again in this case Marian had to soothe and placate the other patients who had seen the favored one admitted, and who naturally resented being kept waiting so outrageously. There was not a trace of jealousy, or of curiosity, in Marian. She smiled at his interest in a pretty woman.

She wasn’t too much interested in anything—certainly not in the book she had taken up, for she put it down again with a yawn within a very few minutes, to look at the clock and to give a small sigh. She couldn’t help wishing that Andrew had remembered what day it was, at least to the extent of an extra kiss. Even the most able and placid woman might wish that.

Then, at last, he did come in, in a mood she knew well; and her faint hope that perhaps he had remembered, and would bring her flowers, fell stone dead. He flung himself into a chair, hot and tired and rather pale, with his red hair ruffled up, giving him the look of a sulky and earnest child.

“Well!” said Marian, with a nice smile. “Here you are! Such a day as I’ve had, Andy! People telephoning and insisting that they had appointments and refusing to be put off; and poor me without the least idea where you were or when you’d come back! There was that poor woman with the albino twins—”

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t want the case, anyway. No! See here, Marian. I want to talk to you.”

She said “Yes?” inquiringly, with her kind and pleasant face turned toward him, but he didn’t look at her. He sat staring at the ground, huddled down in his chair, rumpled, disheveled.

“What is there about him so attractive?” Marian reflected, not for the first time.

He was not handsome, he was very untidy, he was casual, rude, distrait; a slender, wiry red-haired fellow of thirty-five, with a sharp-featured, rather pale, freckled face and restless, bright brown eyes.

“I’ve been walking,” he went on, “for hours—almost all day—thinking it out. This lecture that I’m to give, you know, to-morrow—”

“I’d made fairly comprehensive notes of what I was going to say; but it’s been growing on me, every day, how weak and cowardly it is—how evasive. I hadn’t dared to be frank, I never have dared. I’ve compromised. I’ve lied. I’ve kept it up for ten years—ten years to-day, Marian!”

“This damnable hypocrisy!” he cried. “This wretched, revolting pretense! Do you know that it’s the anniversary to-night of that horrible ceremony—that perjury—that mockery we called our marriage?”

“Why, Andy!” she faltered. “I never thought—I thought—I always hoped you were—happy!”

“I can’t stand it any longer!” he cried. “I’m at the end of my tether. Oh, this marriage!”

“No! No! It’s simply marriage—marriage with any one. It’s this base, disgusting monotony, this abominable pettiness, this eternal talk about servants and children and coal-bills and neighbors and card-parties. It stifles me. It sickens me. I can’t live any more unless I’m free!”

“Do you mean that you—want a divorce, Andy?” she asked, with a gallant effort to disguise her terror and distress.

“No,” he answered, “not necessarily. I shouldn’t like to lose you altogether, Marian—unless, of course, you’d like to form another connection. Would you?”

“I didn’t think so. What I want, Marian, is simply to ignore our marriage. I want to be released from its petty restric[Pg 4]tions and obligations. Will you do that, Marian? Will you absolve me from all these preposterous ‘vows,’ and so on?”

“And you won’t be hurt? You won’t be petty? You won’t think I’m not fond of you, Marian?”

“You see, don’t you, that we can be just as fond of each other, and yet go our separate ways?”

“No! Can’t you see? I want to be alone—to live alone—in freedom. I’ll take a house for myself somewhere, and you’ll go on here, just as usual; except that I’d like to have the children part of the time. I won’t be unreasonable, though.”

“I don’t think I’d—like to—go on here, without you,” she said in a trembling voice. “I’d be—lonely.”

“Nonsense! Not after a day or so. You’d enjoy the freedom, too. I’ve got my eye on a little house that will suit me very well. And really, Marian, I’d very much prefer you and the children keeping on here in the same way. Of course, I should make you the same housekeeping allowance, and so on.”

“I would like a little freedom, too,” she said. “I—can’t stop here—without you, Andrew.”

“Well, of course,” he answered, rather disconcerted, “I’ve no right to dictate to you.”

“You can stay here,” she said, “with the children, and I’ll go and stop with mother for a few days, where I can think it over quietly. Then I’ll send for the babies. I—you see, I want to—get used to this. It’s—rather sudden.”

It was no longer possible to conceal the fact that she was weeping. Her husband was really distressed. He patted her lovely, shining hair with a careless hand, while he scowled anxiously before him.

“My dear girl! Please! This isn’t a tragedy, by any means. Simply let’s be two sensible, modern people who refuse to be bound by certain conventions. Do be your own sensible self, won’t you?”

“I—will—try!” she sobbed. “Only—you’ll have to give me—a little time.”

“Well, you see—that lecture to-morrow. It’s to be ‘Marriage from the Man’s Point of View.’ I can’t, with any dignity, any decency, say what I wish to say—be really honest—in the character of a domestic man. It would be a farce. I must be able to say that I’m a free man, do you see?”

“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes. “But—does that mean it’s got to begin now?”

“I’m afraid so. I thought I’d go to a hotel for the night, and send after my things in the morning.”

“Oh, no, Andy, please! I couldn’t explain—to the servants. No! That’s the only thing I ask you. Let me be the one to go. You can say it’s a telegram from mother.”

“Nonsense, my dear girl! I won’t hear of it! Turning you out of the house at this hour of the night! Let me go!”

“No, Andrew, I’d rather; really I would! I’d like to go. I—need a change. If you’ll call a taxi while I pack my bag—”

“You’re quite sure?” he asked anxiously, and again she assured him that she really wished to go.

She went up to the big, lamp-lit bedroom, so immaculate, so charming, with its two brass beds, the dressing-table and bureau gleaming with silver, the soft gray rug on the floor, her dear little sewing-table, all the photographs—

She went about in her brisk, sensible way, selecting things out of one drawer and another and packing them neatly into a bag; but long before she had finished a sudden spasm of pain overcame her. She sat down in her own particular wicker chair, and sobbed bitterly.

“I don’t understand!” she cried. “I don’t! I don’t! Not a bit!”

She was her usual calm self when she came down-stairs again, and was able to[Pg 5] give her husband a great many directions and suggestions as they rode to the station.

“I’ll send a night letter to Miss Franklin to come and take care of the children till I send for them,” she said. “I happen to know that she’s free now. She’s such a capable girl! You’ll have nothing to worry about with her in the house.”

Anxiously, but timidly, afraid that it was a reactionary and contemptible insistence, but resolute to save herself in the eyes of her world, contemptible or not, she added:

“And you’ll be sure to say that I got a telegram from mother, won’t you, Andrew?”

She kissed him good-by kindly, pleasantly, and succeeded in getting into the train with her nice smile still on her lips. Andrew was reassured, and went home to spend what was left of the night in completing his lecture notes.

He fell asleep toward morning on the sofa in his office. He would no doubt have slept peacefully on till noon, as he had often done before, if it hadn’t been for an unusual noise in the dining-room at breakfast-time. He was a little indignant, for he had never been disturbed before, and he was curious, too. His children—even the four-year-old Frank—were singing lustily, in unison, a jubilant sort of chant, led by a very fresh, clear, loud young female voice.

All ruffled and rumpled as he was, he entered the room, to find a strange spectacle. His three children were standing on the window-seat, with arms outspread and face upturned. Behind them stood a young woman in the same yearning attitude, while they all cried their invocation:

That must have been the end of it, for the children got down and made a rush at him.

“Oh, daddy! Mother’s gone to grandma’s!” the eldest little girl told him eagerly. “Miss Franklin’s going to take care of us. I’m going to write to mother every single day, but not Jean and Frank. They only scribble. She couldn’t possibly read it!”

He was not attending. He was looking at the young woman who stood beside him, smiling. She was a short, sturdy blonde with a very pretty and impudent face, a wide, jolly mouth, and queer gray eyes, which were at the same time immensely candid and quite mysterious.

“I’m Christine Franklin,” said she. “I’m the originator of the Franklin method of child care. I dare say you’ve heard of me. Your wife sent me a night letter to come and take charge of your little family for a time. That’s what I do, you know—go from house to house, and liberate.”

“That’s how I put it. I always insist that there shall be no interference from parents or relatives or servants. Then I begin to set the children free—to let them express themselves—to be natural.”

It was not, and after a brief toilet he sat down to enjoy it with his family. He felt that he rather liked Miss Franklin.

“Nothing clinging and hyperfeminine about her!” he thought. “A man could make a friend of a girl like that.”

He decided to study her. Now that he was free and couldn’t be misunderstood, he had decided to make a comprehensive study of woman in general. He knew that there were points about them that he didn’t understand. He couldn’t really generalize upon the effects of marriage without a better knowledge of females—he admitted that. Why not, he asked himself, begin with this interesting specimen?

“It’s not really a method at all,” she said. “It would be better to call it a theory. It’s simply nature and art, hand in hand. I don’t believe in directing or controlling a child. I simply help it along the road it indicates itself. My mission is solely to point out beauty to it.”

“That’s likely to make it very much more difficult for them to become accustomed to discipline and self-restraint when they’re old enough to be held responsible.”

“But, you see, I don’t believe either in discipline or self-restraint, in children or in adults. The natural impulses are sufficient. No, Dr. Nature implants in us only right and beautiful desires. I look upon self-restraint as superfluous, if not absolutely wrong, in a wholesome person.”

“We shouldn’t interdepend. We should each be a law unto himself. Let us be healthy, in mind and in body; then let desire be the sole rule, the sole conscience. Personally, I know that if I want to do a[Pg 6] thing, it is right to do it. If I want to have a thing, it is a right thing for me to have.”

“Well!” she said. “As for me, when I want something, I go after it—and I generally get it.”

Andrew met her clear, shameless glance, and an unaccountable shudder ran through him. What a girl! What an enemy she would make—or what a pursuer!

She was undoubtedly an interesting and convenient subject for his new study, but he didn’t study her. On the contrary, he avoided her. He shut himself up in his study and tried to write, but the new freedom for his children entailed such a distressing amount of noise and quarreling that he accomplished very little.

He wished to write a long and careful letter to Marian. He was afraid that she hadn’t fully understood, that she was a little hurt, in spite of what she had said; but he found it a remarkably difficult thing to explain to a woman that you are very fond of her and yet wish to be rid of her. He was not the first man who has essayed such a task.

The noise in the dining-room became intolerable. He tore up his third attempt at a letter and went in there, in a very bad temper.

“Why the devil do you stay in here?” he shouted to his young family. “Why aren’t you out in the garden, or at school, or wherever it is your mother sends you? Don’t you know that I’m trying to work?”

“Ask the cook for some!” she suggested, and the children vanished. “What are you writing?” she inquired frankly.

“For a man,” he said, “marriage is moral death. It is slavery—bondage of the worst sort. It is a handicap which prevents any effective progress. It is, of course, an invention of woman’s, to safeguard herself and her offspring. She has found it necessary to provide herself with a refuge, and she has ruthlessly taken advantage of her sinister influence over the more sensitive and conscientious man to impress him with a mass of false and pernicious ideas about the ‘home.’ Man has not one single advantage to gain from marriage, yet he has actually been taught, by mothers, by women teachers, by all the females who surround young children, to think of it as a privilege. He secures a home. What is a home? A nest for the woman, a cage for the man. What is a wife? The most unprincipled, exacting slave-driver ever yet developed. For her and her children he is required to give all the fruit of has labor, and, in addition, a fantastic and debasing reverence and flattery—”

“I wasn’t,” he said, with an immense effort at self-control. “Quite the contrary. One doesn’t apply general remarks to—specific cases.”

III

He went off quite in the wrong frame of mind to deliver his lecture. When he had taken a stealthy peep at his audience, he became actually nervous. The Moral Courage Club seemed to be made up almost entirely of women—rows and rows of earnest faces. It would be very unpleasant to wound and distress them, as his words were sure to do, especially as they had all contributed toward the fee he was to receive. For a minute he was almost tempted to soften some of his remarks, but his reformer’s ardor flamed up again, and he went out upon the platform bravely.

The sight of their feathers and furs and earrings helped him. After all, they were nothing but barbarians, who must be enlightened at any cost. He began. He told than, as kindly as possible, how selfish, how greedy, how uncivilized they were, how unpleasant they looked in their skins of dead animals and feathers of dead birds, with all their savage and unesthetic finery; how brutally they preyed upon man.[Pg 7]

“Marriage ruins a man,” he said. “It stifles his ambitions; it coarsens him, it debases him. It outrages his manly self-respect. He is debarred from wholesome and essential experiences. He is shamefully exploited. He is forced into hypocrisy and deceit. Partly from his native kindliness, partly from his woman-directed training, he never dares to tell the truth to the opposite sex.”

And so on, directly into those earnest faces, framed by all their barbaric plumes and furs and jewels. To his surprise and dismay, none of them changed, grew abashed or angry or stern. They were only interested, all of them.

Only one of the earnest horde made any sort of individual impression, and that was a slender, dark, elegant woman who approached him after every one else had gone.

“Doctor!” she said in a low, thrilling voice. “I feel that I must speak to you. Let me take you home in my car, won’t you?”

She was interesting, distinguished, and, he fancied, intelligent; so he was quite willing to follow her to her waiting motor-car and to seat himself beside her.

“Your lecture,” she began. “It’s such a startling idea to me—that of man being the victim in marriage.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s not the conventional, romantic idea, of course.”

“Nor the true one,” she cried. “Oh, doctor, your brain may be right, but your heart is wrong! There is so much that you don’t seem to know—to understand! You don’t seem to realize how hideously we suffer—what we endure. I cannot pretend to be impersonal. I want to tell you the truth—a side of it that you don’t know. I want to tell you of one case. Then you must tell me what you think.”

“I want you to hear my story, and then tell me frankly whether or not my husband was a victim!”

It was a very long and very harrowing story. It obliged them to go to the lady’s house and to have tea there, and to sit in her charming little sitting-room until dark, in order that it should all be told.

She was Mrs. Hamilton, she said, known to Marian, as to all other women of any social pretentions in that particular suburb, as the martyr wife of a fiendish husband. What she had suffered no one knew—except the twenty or thirty people whom she had told. She ended in tears.

Andrew comforted her with kindly words and complete exonerations. He said that she was blameless. The clock struck six, and he rose to take leave.

“Good-by!” said Mrs. Hamilton, giving him her slender hand. “Doctor, you’ve helped me. You’ve understood. Mayn’t I see you again? You don’t know what sympathy means to a lonely, heart-broken woman.”

He assured her that he would be delighted to come again, as soon as he had a free moment.

He had declined the use of Mrs. Hamilton’s motor; he preferred to walk home and to reflect upon this new type. He was not altogether a fool. In spite of the fact that she was a very attractive woman, he had made up his mind that he would never go to her house again—not even to study her.

“No!” he was saying to himself. “She’s morbid—irresponsible. They’re really dangerous, that reckless sort!”

It was little Mavis Borrowby, daughter of an old patient. Always in the past Andrew had taken Mavis for granted as part of old Borrowby’s background. He was quite disconcerted to see her, this spring evening, as a detached individuality, and a very vivid one.

She took his arm and hung on it, looking up into his face with babyish violet eyes.

“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “I went to your lecture. It was simply wonderful! But it depressed me awfully. Please let me walk along with you and ask you some questions!”

“Child, you shouldn’t go to my lectures,” said Andrew indulgently. “You’re too young. They’re not for you.”

“Oh, but they are, doctor! Why, [Pg 8]I’m engaged, you know—at least, I was engaged, but I sha’n’t be any longer. I wouldn’t for worlds do all that harm to a helpless man. I’m going to tell Edward so to-night.”

Andrew was a little taken aback. He said something about thinking things out for oneself—not accepting another person’s ideas.

“Oh, no!” said little Mavis confidently. “I know you can think ever so much better than me. I like to get my ideas from wonderful men like you!”

The innocent, naive, violet-eyed little thing touched him with pity. What, he thought, was there in life for her except marriage? He couldn’t imagine her engaged in any work, any profession, any art. Would it not perhaps be better if some man were enslaved and sacrificed for the sake of this poor little baby-girl?

“Look here, Mavis,” he said; “this won’t do. You mustn’t throw over this fellow, you know, without a great deal of serious reflection. You might ruin your life and his, too.”

“Never mind that. You—you’re too young to grasp it. And there are always exceptions. If you care for this chap—”

“I don’t really think I do, much,” she said thoughtfully. “Anyway, I simply couldn’t stand making a martyr of him, and having him be the one to do all the sacrificing. But, doctor, what are we to do, if men mustn’t get married?”

He couldn’t answer. To tell the truth, he had thought of marriage so exclusively from a man’s point of view that he had quite overlooked the woman’s. Freedom was all very well, but it wasn’t for the little Mavises of this world. He began to deliberate whether there weren’t certain men who should be set apart for marriage and martyrdom for the sake of the really nice young girls.

He was about to suggest this theory to Mavis, when he found himself before his own door.

“Hurry off home now, won’t you?” he said. “It’ll be dark soon. And see here, Mavis, don’t say anything to your Edward just yet—don’t do anything until we’ve talked it over. Come into the office some afternoon.”

As he let himself in, he heard from the dining-room the uproar which seemed an inevitable accompaniment of the Franklin method. Because playing in the dining-room had formerly been an unimaginable thing rather than a forbidden joy, it was now the rule. The doctor didn’t like it. He wanted his dinner in peace. It was not the sort of dinner he liked, either, and Miss Franklin distressed him by incessantly crunching lumps of sugar.

He retired to his study, where he swore furiously to himself; but for some reason which he didn’t care to analyze, he dared not tell Miss Franklin to take away the children. Nor was he surprised when she knocked at the door, and, being told to enter, did so, and sat down opposite him, prepared to spend the evening.

Crashes, screams, and slaps from the dining-room disturbed her not at all. She said she didn’t believe in supervising children; it hampered them.

She talked persistently about free love, which Andrew didn’t like. When spoken of as the relation of the sexes, it was quite proper and scientific; but directly one introduced that idea of love, it was entirely changed. It became sensational and distinctly alarming.

He was thankful when an accident occurred in the dining-room which could not be ignored. Little Frank had climbed into a drawer of the sideboard and broken through, and in the course of his struggles he upset everything within reach.

Once he had got Miss Franklin out, Andrew took good care that she should not get in again.

He had forgotten all about Mavis, and he was pleasantly surprised when she came into his office the next afternoon.

“I pretended that I had a sore throat,” she said, “so I could come and see you. You see, Edward came last night, and oh, doctor, he did seem so awfully flat, after you!”

“You mustn’t be so extreme,” he said. “There are some men who aren’t at all unhappy in marriage.”

“I know. Ordinary little men aren’t. It’s only the wonderful men like you. But, doctor dear, I couldn’t be happy with an ordinary man. I—I want a man like you!”

It wouldn’t do, of course, to tell her that there were mighty few men of this sort, and[Pg 9] that they wouldn’t care for naive little girls, anyway. Andrew wasn’t even much flattered by her admiration; it was too indiscriminate.

“I thought you could tell me. I thought, of course, you had some perfectly wonderful sort of plan for women.”

Well, he hadn’t, and he saw that he must make one. It seemed that his first step toward the settlement of this specific case would be to make an analysis, and he at once began. Mavis answered all his questions readily and fully, but he had a suspicion that she told him what she thought he would like to hear, instead of keeping to facts. Still, even at that, he learned a great deal, for she was too ignorant and young to deceive a trained observer. Of course it took a very long time; his other office patients had to be sent away.

He went politely to the door with Mavis, and he was surprised to see Miss Franklin standing in the hall—the little private hall which was only for outgoing patients, and in which she had no possible business to be.

“I was just wondering what you were doing,” she retorted, “shut up in there with that girl all this long time!”

“Oh, yes, I do know Miss Borrowby!” said Miss Franklin. “I know her better than you do!”

Andrew didn’t like her tone, but he let it pass, with a meekness quite new to him. Miss Franklin smiled and went away.

He intended to spend the evening perfecting his analysis in peace; but scarcely had he got well started when Miss Franklin opened the door.

It was a lady. She sat down beside Andrew’s desk, without raising her veil, and at once began to sob.

“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “I don’t know what to do! Oh, my suffering! What shall I do?”

He felt quite sure that this was a drug addict, and his manner, though kind, was one of thorough sophistication.

“I do!” he protested guiltily. “It’s Mrs. Hamilton. I knew your voice; but it’s dark here in the corners of the room when there’s only the lamp lighted.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s it. I’m lost in the darkness, outside the circle of lamplight!”

“I’m speaking figuratively, doctor. I’m in such trouble. I wish I were dead!”

“You’re the only one I can tell. You showed such an interest in me the other day. You cared, didn’t you?”

“Oh, dear doctor, it is your own great trouble that makes you so sympathetic to others, I am sure!”

“I heard of it indirectly—through Miss Franklin. She mentioned it to some one I know. She said that your wife”—Mrs. Hamilton dropped her voice, and ended with the greatest delicacy: “That your wife has left you. I am so sorry!”

Then it occurred to him that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain so modern a situation to so romantic a creature; so instead he encouraged her to tell him her own sad story.

He never learned what her trouble was, because she didn’t tell him. “My husband” and “a woman’s sensitive heart,” and “disgusting intoxication,” had something to do with it. She cried forlornly, and he tried to stop her. Common sense and all that he had learned from experience of her type warned him not to be too sympathetic, but it was difficult. She was exquisite. She had a sort of morbid charm about her—a sensibility at once dangerous and pitiful.

“It’s hard,” he said. “Life is bound to be hard for people like you; but you must try to see it in a more robust way, with more humor, more indifference.[Pg 10]”

“I do! No one knows how I try!” she said, looking up into his face with her dark eyes, luminous with tears.

Suddenly the door opened, without warning. Miss Franklin looked in, and disappeared again. Mrs. Hamilton rose.

“Good night, doctor!” she said, and there was a decided coolness in her voice.

Peculiarly disturbed, Andrew returned to his office, to find Miss Franklin there, waiting for him. He was about to reprove her sharply for her outrageous intrusion, but she spoke first.

“A patient; and you must never, under any circumstances, come into this room when I have a patient here.”

“It’s long after office hours. I didn’t know it was a patient. She was ‘a lady to see the doctor,’ and I wondered what you were doing shut up here.”

“As I told you once before, I am making a series of analyses. I was making a study of—that lady.”

“Certainly not!” he answered with a frown. “Only they happen to be about—”

“Yes, they do!” Miss Franklin agreed warmly. “They certainly do happen to be about!” She sat down. “I’ve been analyzing you,” she said.

“I can analyze you,” she went on; “but I can’t understand myself. I don’t quite see why you should affect me so. I’m not at all inclined to sentimentality. I’ve never felt like this before.”

“And as a perfectly free woman,” went on, “I’m not ashamed to tell you that I want you.”

“I’d be even willing to marry you,” she said, “as soon as you get a divorce. I can see that you’re timid and conventional, like most men.”

“Why not? If you don’t love me now, you will later. I’ll make you. I’ve set my mind on you. I think you’re a fascinating creature!”

“I do. I know that I’m in love with you, anyway, and that you’re lonely and need me.”

Aloud he said nothing, but sat silent, conscious of the steady gaze of her fierce, candid eyes.

“I hadn’t intended to tell you to-night,” she went on. “I know you’re very shy, and I’d intended to win you over little by little. Not by any feminine trickery or illusion, you understand. I’d just reveal myself. I’m sure that if you knew me, you’d love me. We’re so perfectly matched,” she ended, a bit impatiently. “I wish there weren’t all this fuss and trouble! I wish you’d make up your mind promptly!”

“Don’t answer me now, when you’re in this contrary, obstinate humor. I’ll wait till to-morrow evening. Now let’s talk about something else.”

He went off with a quick step and a frown; but his going was not effective. It was too much like flight, and it was spoiled by the grin on Miss Franklin’s face.

“That woman’s got to go!” he cried. “I’m not going to be hounded and bothered by her like this! How am I to do any work? How can I get rid of her?”

Until what? What was to save him? Where could he find a refuge from feminine persecution?[Pg 11]

He went to bed, but he could not sleep. He was quite worn and haggard in the morning, and Miss Franklin observed it at the breakfast-table.

“You look awfully tired,” she said. “Why don’t you take a rest to-day?”

“Never was busier!” he answered hastily. “I haven’t a free moment all day. Please see that I’m not disturbed.”

“How am I to know which women disturb you and which ones you’re—studying?” Miss Franklin asked with outrageous impudence. “Better give me a list.”

He strode into his office, closed the door, and tried to resume that unfinished letter to Marian. He hadn’t got well started when the bell rang and the parlor-maid ushered in little Mavis Borrowby, flushed and out of breath.

“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “Such a row! Imagine! I’ve had to run away! Papa is in the most awful rage!” She sank into a chair. “You see,” she said, “I told Edward last night that I wouldn’t marry him—ever. I said I didn’t believe in marriage. And he—nasty little sneak!—ran off to papa and told him. You can imagine how papa took it, with his old-fogy ideas. He roared and stamped and swore. He wanted to know where I got such ideas from; and I said, very calmly, from you. Then he said I must never speak to you again, and all sorts of nonsense. Of course I said I would speak to you, and I would never, never renounce you for any one—”

“I told him that you were the most wonderful man I’d ever seen, and that I would not give you up. But, doctor dear, where are you going to hide me? He’ll be here after me any minute!”

“I’m not going to hide you at all!” cried Andrew. “It’s all nonsense!”

“Oh, but you must!” she cried. “You can’t be so horrible, when I’ve been so loyal to you.”

“There’s no reason for hiding, you silly child! You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Oh, but papa thinks so! He told me not to dare to see you again. He says it’s all your fault that I won’t marry Edward. He says you’ve put all sorts of awful ideas in my head. Oh, doctor! There’s the door-bell now! I know it’s father! Oh, don’t let him get me! He says he’ll send me to a convent!”

She had clutched his arm frantically and was looking into his face with brimming eyes.

“Oh, please, please hide me!” she cried. “Just till I can think of some sort of plan!”

“Lock the door and keep quiet,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get him away.”

After an earnest look around to see that she had not left any trace of herself—hat, gloves, or other incriminating articles—the doctor opened his office door, and there stood Mrs. Hamilton. She looked very pale and ill.

“Just an instant!” she said, with an odd smile. “I won’t keep you a minute. I only came to say good-by.”

“It doesn’t matter. I thought if I came early, before your office hours, I might catch you alone for a few minutes; but it doesn’t matter.”

“But you have caught me alone,” he answered cheerfully. “Sit down, Mrs. Hamilton. I’m in no hurry.”

“Please don’t try to deceive me,” she said coldly. “I know all about that girl who came in here. That nursery governess—that Franklin person—told me in the hall. I have no claim on you, doctor. There’s no reason for deceiving me. You’re quite, quite free to do as you please. You won’t be troubled with me again. I’m going away.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said again. “Nothing matters. My husband insists upon my going out to Wyoming with him at once. Of course I refused; so here I am penniless, alone in the world—”

“He’s going to take them. They’re better without me, anyway. I’m a weak and indulgent mother. I love too intensely. That’s my nature—to be intense. I give—I ask nothing, I expect nothing, I simply give and give. I’m not complaining. I only wish,” she ended, with a pitiful little break in her voice, “that there were some one—just one person in the world—who cared! I’m not strong enough to stand alone. I’m not complaining. I know one can’t command the heart; but for a little while I did think[Pg 12]—”

“Good-by!” she said, holding out her slender hand and smiling pitifully. “Good-by, my dear!”

VII

As Mrs. Hamilton went out, there came brushing by her, bursting into the room, a stout, middle-aged man. It was Mr. Borrowby, in a terrible fury. He resembled a heavy, solid little dog. One could imagine the impact of his body against the furniture, how he might hurl himself about and always rebound unhurt. His talk was like barking, growling, and snapping, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed unwaveringly upon his enemy. He was terrific.

“Don’t shout like that!” said Andrew. “I can’t stand it. I’m worn out.”

“Don’t lie to me, you dirty, low-lived, degenerate hound! You vile, treacherous Bolshevist!”

“You’re going too far!” cried Andrew. “You’ll behave yourself, or I’ll put you out!”

“No, you won’t! I’ll have my daughter, or I’ll call in the police. Don’t you dare!” he shouted, shaking his fist in Andrew’s face. “Don’t you dare deny it! That young woman who opened the door for me told me Mavis was in here.”

It occurred to the desperate Andrew that the only possible course was that of complete candor.

“I know what you are! Didn’t the girl herself tell me that since she’d known you, she could never marry? Good God! I could kill you, you scoundrel! Where is she?”

“In there,” said Andrew. “I sha’n’t deny it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of—absolutely nothing wrong.”

He was really afraid, for an instant, that the angry little dog was about to launch itself upon him. Instead, to his relief, Borrowby began to pound upon the closet door.

“All right! Begin! There’s a window in here, and I’ll jump out of it and run away; and every one will see me from the street!”

“Keep quiet!” Andrew roared. “Stop your infernal noise! It may be something important!”

Mr. Borrowby desisted for an instant. Andrew took up the receiver, to hear the voice of Mrs. Hamilton.

“I want to say good-by to you,” she said in a calm and bitter voice. “It’s the last word you will ever hear from me. This is really good-by, to you and to all the world. I have something here that will end it all, all my sufferings—”

The doctor gave vent to such a strange and terrible howl that even Mr. Borrowby was startled.

“Now, go up-stairs and lie down, dear,” said Marian. “You’re worn out. I’ll send your lunch up to you. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll manage.”

“There’s Mavis Borrowby shut up in the closet,” he told her wearily; “and Mrs. Hamilton—and something worrying about Miss Franklin—I’ve forgotten just what.”

“Poor boy!” she murmured. “I’m so sorry! Go on, dear, and lie down. Try not to worry.”

He went up-stairs to his room and lay down on the bed, quite exhausted, trying to think, but unable to do so. A long time passed. He watched the trees moving in[Pg 13] the April wind, and the clouds slipping across the gay blue sky.

VIII

At last Marian came, bringing a lunch-tray well laden with the proper things. She set it down on a table at the bedside, and drew up two chairs.

“Now, Andy dear!” she said in her old pleasant way. “Come on! You need food, you know. It’s after three o’clock!”

He was really very hungry. He began to eat without delay, while Marian watched him indulgently.

“I telephoned to Dr. Gryce. He’ll take your patients to-day,” she said. “You need a rest, don’t you? Miss Franklin’s gone home. Mr. Borrowby took Mavis home, and left a note, apologizing for his mistake. I explained to him about your theories, you know. I sent for Mr. Hamilton, and I stayed with his wife until he came. They had a perfectly beautiful reconciliation. They’re going out to Wyoming with the children, to start a new life; so there’s nothing to trouble you, is there?”

“Marian,” he said gravely, “I’ll tell you all about it later on. Just now I can’t think of anything but the relief—”

“There’s a young gentleman from the Daily Review, sir,” she said. “He says the doctor promised him an interview.”

“I’d rather you stayed,” said Andrew. “I’d like you to hear what I’m going to say.”

He was sitting up in bed, more rumpled and excited than ever, when the young man entered. The interviewer was surprised and a little embarrassed by the presence of a wife, because the opinions which the doctor was reputed to hold on marriage were not the sort of views that most wives like. However—

“We thought it would be of great interest to our readers if you would give us a few words on ‘Marriage from a Man’s Point of View,’” he began; “along the lines of the address you gave before the Moral Courage Club one afternoon last week, you know.”

“I said that marriage hampered and degraded a man, didn’t I? I said that marriage was slavery for my sex—don’t take that down, that’s only what I said last week. Now, please get this properly. I offer, as my earnest conviction, based upon experiment, that marriage is man’s only safeguard. Without its protection man could not survive. This is a woman’s world, dominated and developed by women. Every man imperatively requires the protection of a wife. Without it, he—he would be hounded to death.”

“That’s all. You can enlarge on that. I suppose you would, anyway. You might head it ‘Marriage Man’s Only Hope.’”

“I shall never know,” said he, “whether you had any hand in all this, or whether it just happened; but I’m beaten, absolutely, and you are supremely vindicated. That’s what women always do. They’re able to prove a man wrong and make him see it himself, in spite of the fact that he’s right![Pg 14]”

The Foreign Woman

NO WONDER THE SOUL OF RUSSIA IS ONE OF THE GREAT ENIGMAS OF THE WORLD

HE sat in the small, hot room, in a state of pleased expectancy. He awaited the entrance of something exotic and highly interesting, probably with a beard. The catalogue of the Institute of Foreign Languages had promised him a “native teacher,” and what could a native Russian be but a bearded and mysterious creature?

He looked again through the pages of the unintelligible little red book—all in Russian—and thought with delight of the time to come, when it should be plain as day to him, when he should be able to say, with a casual air, that he could read and speak Russian.

He was anxious, poor young fellow, for some claim to distinction. He was only too well aware of his own ordinariness—a pleasant, friendly sort of mediocrity which distressed him profoundly. He was slight, sandy-haired, wiry, not unattractive, but certainly not fascinating. People liked him but didn’t remember him.

He was not an idiot. He knew well enough that he had no brilliant or remarkable qualities, and therefore, sure that he could not be anything extraordinary, he had decided to do something extraordinary. He had decided, in short, to go to Russia, live there for a long time, and write amazing books about it all.

Why not? He was a journalist; he could and did write articles about everything; he wrote with facility and a certain skill. He had, moreover, a naïve and innocent journalistic point of view. He saw the “human interest” in things. He felt that he would very easily discern the “human interest” in this Russian situation and present it to America in moving terms. His paper was willing to buy the special articles he intended to write, and on the pay for them he would live, Bolshevist fashion, while he collected his material.

He took out his watch. He had paid for an hour, and fifteen minutes of it had already passed. He frowned. After all, you know, he was somebody. He was a newspaper man, and a graduate of Columbia University, and he had paid cash for his twenty lessons, and people had no business to keep him waiting.

He got up, opened the door, and walked about, hoping that his restlessness might be observed from the corridor, and assuaged; but no one passed. All the other doors along the corridor were closed, and he heard a diligent hum, with now and then a French or German word familiar to him, from other teachers and other pupils, properly employed. He had decided to return to the office and “make a row,” and had got himself into the proper mood for one, when he saw a figure hastening along the corridor, and he went back and sat down.

She came in, breathless, sat down beside him, closed her eyes, and placed both hands above her heart. He waited for her to speak with some alarm, she gasped so. She was a plump little woman of indefinite age—forty-five, he imagined—dressed in clothes such as he hadn’t seen for fifteen years. All that she wore was dainty and fresh, with a pitiful sort of elegance—little ruffles of fine lace about her wrists, a bit of black velvet about her high collar. Her very shape was old-fashioned—a succession of curves, a round, tight look, a sort of dowdy neatness.

Nothing more foreign could be imagined. She didn’t stir, and he ventured a look at her face. With her eyes thus closed, her[Pg 15] soft, plump visage had a look of profound sadness and immense wisdom. It impressed him, it almost hypnotized him.

“My heart!” she said, in excellent English. “I suffer very much!” She picked up the book. “Do you know any Russian words?” she asked, with a shadowy smile.

She began reading him something from the middle of the book. Of course he couldn’t comprehend a word, but he liked to hear it. Her voice was charming, and the foreign sounds entertained him. She turned a page and went on.

“This is an extract from a most beautiful Russian tale,” she explained. “You would surely admire it.”

She continued. Her voice became sad, she made soft, slow gestures with her small dimpled hand.

“Ah, how very sad this is!” she said. “All that is best in Russia is so sad!”

“It is about two young men who are in an inn—” she began, when suddenly a bell rang loudly in the room. “My God!” she said mildly. “What is this?”

“It must be that the lesson is ended,” said she. “One would not believe how the time flies! You have not had your full time—I was so late. I think I must go with you to the office and ask if I cannot make this up to you.”

“Ah, but it does!” said she. “You have paid, and it is very important that one should secure what one has paid for.”

She had risen, and went walking briskly along the corridor, an odd little figure in a long, trailing skirt. He followed her into the quiet office, where a severe director sat writing at a desk. He looked up with a surprised air.

“I was late for this gentleman’s lesson,” said the stout little woman. “He has missed much of it.”

“Then why do you waste more time in coming here?” cried the director, with a frown. “Go back, madame, and finish it. Make the best of the time that is left.”

“I don’t understand everything of this,” she explained to him. “This is my first lesson that I give. This position of Russian professor belongs to my husband, but he is ill, and they kindly permit me to take his place for this little while. Now we must not waste more time!”

“A difficult language,” she said; “but so very beautiful! The English and Americans can never learn to pronounce our consonant sounds—never! Could you say this?”

She uttered a sound, and he tried to imitate her, but failed. She smiled with a sort of benevolent triumph.

“Ah, it cannot be done—not ever! Now, on the contrary, we Russians have no difficulty whatsoever with any of the English words. I don’t know—it is the Russian soul, perhaps. We have so great a sympathy. Nothing is strange to us, nothing is foreign—nothing at all. We are at home in all languages, in all countries. It is our mystery.”

“Why not? I lived for years in England; but in this country, only three months.”

“Well, I thought of going to Russia, you know—to study the people and write a book.”

“Never can you know our people—above all things, now, in our time of trouble. Oh,” she cried, “it is so terrible! I cannot bear that strange people should go there now—to our Holy Russia, to see our agony! If you knew!”

“If you knew! We have left everything there, all we had on this earth. We have no news of our friends. Perhaps they are dead; certainly they are ruined. Such wonderful people—real Russian souls! We, too, are ruined. We have lost everything we had.[Pg 16]”

“For Russia, yes—for us, no. We are ruined. We are finished,” she said quite simply. “We are torn up by the roots. We are not young enough to begin again. Above all, such a man as my husband—one of the greatest minds of Russia. A wonderful man! Imagine you, he is an artist, he paints, composes music, writes poetry, all in the most charming taste, and he is also a marvelous financier. Ah, what is one to say to comfort such a man? And that now he must teach Russian in this place!”

Again she was silent, and he didn’t like to interrupt her. He was deeply interested in her—her fine voice, her passionate gesture, the extreme novelty of her. He was aware of a depth and variety of feeling in her which amazed him. She was like a woman in a novel; and with it all she had a simplicity such as he had never seen before. It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of a single word she uttered.

“What is it that you think you will see in Russia?” she asked. “I tell you, nothing! You will never see the Russian soul. You will stay there a year, five years, ten years, and never will you know a single Russian. No; we do not wear our hearts on our sleeves. Shall I tell you something of us?”

She began to tell him of Petrograd—of shops there, more elegant, she said, than anything to be found in Paris. She described a certain confectioner’s shop. When you went in, you were invited to sample all the sweets displayed there, and there were hundreds of different sorts—hundreds, she assured him! She described forty to him, lingering in ecstasy over their perfections.

She told him of the houses, warm, full of flowers, in the bitterest winter weather; and the women—the kindest women in all the world. She talked of the court, but only briefly. She began to speak of the Czarina, but she could not go on. The words strangled her.

He carefully concealed his American disapproval of courts and sovereigns. He even felt sorry, on her account, that it had gone.

“I do not think that you know in this country what social life is,” she said. “Here it is so formal, so without heart. With us, it is so different. It may be that on a certain day I am tired, ill, lazy. I do not wish to dress. I am in negligee. My friends come, and I receive them just in this fashion. No one is surprised.

“‘For God’s sake, do not apologize, Anastasie!’ they say. ‘It is you we come to see, not your fine clothes!’”

And here the bell rang again, unmistakably for the lesson’s end. Again she was surprised.

“Ah!” she said. “It has been very pleasant for me to talk to you! You are of a sympathetic nature, there is no doubt of that!”

He hadn’t learned a word, not a syllable of Russian, but he was entirely satisfied. He felt that he had met with something even more truly Russian than the language. He walked out of the building, feeling decidedly more cosmopolitan.

Two days later he returned for his next lesson, in the dusk of a snowy February afternoon. This time he found her waiting for him, sitting before the table in the little room. They smiled in friendly fashion.

“I was thinking, as I came,” he said, “that this must be like a Russian winter afternoon.”

“Oh, no!” she said. “It isn’t! It has not the—the feeling. There is—how shall I tell you?—a sort of excitement about our snowy days. But I must not waste your time. Let us begin!”

For ten minutes or so she worked industriously, teaching him Russian words for chair, table, wall, floor, ceiling.

“It seems, however, that as a teacher I am not successful,” she said, with a melancholy little smile. “To you I give my first lesson, and to you I give my last. After this I have finished.”

She got up, went over to the window, and stood there looking out. He couldn’t help thinking, as he regarded her round form in profile, that she looked like the[Pg 17] little wooden figures of Noah’s wife in the arks that children play with. And then he saw her face, and was sorry for his fancy. She was gazing out across the dark, snow-covered expanse of Madison Square, wonderfully misty in the falling snow, and she was silently weeping.

He felt terribly sorry for her, but he could think of nothing at all to say. She came back and sat down in the full glare of the electric light. She looked intolerably pitiful, her scanty eyebrows red with weeping, her mouth compressed and trembling a little.

“And they tell me this morning that there will be no more lessons for me. It seems that I talk too much English to the pupils, and that must not be. I must talk only in Russian, and I always forget.”

She shrugged her shoulders, while she wiped her eyes, quite unaffectedly, with an elaborate little lace handkerchief.

“About your husband,” he began respectfully. “Are you sure you have a good doctor? Being in a strange country, you know—”

“I don’t need a doctor, my friend!” she told him, with a stern smile. “I have seen too much of illness and death. A doctor can tell me nothing and can do nothing for me.”

“But,” he said, “in other ways—if you’re leaving here, can’t I help you to find some other sort of—occupation? I’m a newspaper man; I know all sorts of people. I should be more than happy to help you.”

“Thank you! I know enough of the world to appreciate kindness. You are very good—very kind. I had a little plan. I thought perhaps I would give private lessons in my home, if I could find pupils.”

“Oh, no! With you that is not possible. At least, not now. You have paid for a course of twenty lessons here.”

“But you have paid!” she cried, with a sort of horror. “You must not waste that money!”

“The French form of the name,” she explained. “It would be impossible for any one in this country to pronounce the Russian form.”

She repeated it, and in spite of Russian ease in foreign tongues, she certainly said “Vinslow.”

They arranged for an afternoon the next week, and they settled the terms, which were high. Hardy was by no means well off, and his heart sank a little at the thought of this expense; but a fine pity swayed him. He would have made many sacrifices for this unhappy woman.

He had never before been conscious of this chivalry in himself. He had been in love from time to time, but it had not been a disinterested passion. He had always sought for the advantage. He had always been kind, generous, a little idealistic in his dealings with his fellows; but never before had he been really moved by pity.

He thought time and again of the poor Russian lady. In fact, he hardly ever forgot her. He imagined the unhappy soul, with all her little elegancies, living in squalor and anxiety, and his mind was busy with schemes for her salvation. He planned to force or persuade every one he knew to study Russian.

III

Imagine Hardy’s surprise when he reached the address given him, and found it to be an imposing apartment house, with a palm-bedecked entrance and two negro boys in uniform to receive him and inspect him with a hostile air. He went up on the lift to the top floor, and found her there in a splendidly furnished sort of double salon, high-ceilinged, bright with sunshine, with flowers and plants all about. She herself was dressed in a short white garment suspiciously like a wrapper, worn over a voluminous black skirt. Over her soft, mouse-colored hair was tied a bit of lace.

He could scarcely avoid staring at her; she didn’t look dressed. It took him a long time to get used to her domestic costume.

The room, too, disconcerted him. It[Pg 18] was no sort of room to have a lesson in. The elegance, the airy charm of it, destroyed his serious intent. He wanted to sit there and chat with his hostess; and in fact that is what he did.

She offered him Russian cigarettes from a little lacquer box, and while he smoked she instructed him for a few minutes; but they were interrupted by the entrance of a gaunt young girl who brought them weak, fragrant tea and a plate of biscuits. After that there was no more lesson. They talked—or, rather, Mme. Sensobiareff talked and he listened.

The hour passed very agreeably. When he saw by his watch that it was finished, he got up to take his leave.

He waited, looking about him, wondering how it was that a woman existing in such comfort should either need or wish to give lessons for a living. Though it increased the illusion of aristocratic refinement there was about her, it filled him with some misgiving. They couldn’t be entirely ruined!

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall, the curtains parted, and she came in again, followed by a man.

“My husband,” she said. “Paul, this is the gentleman who has been so very kind to me.”

Oh, no doubt that he was ruined, poor devil! His face was like wax, his eyes sunken and extinguished, all his bearing hopeless and despairing. He was a slender, high-shouldered man, younger than she by some years, with fair hair and a light mustache—an upcurled mustache, bitterly at variance with his utter despondency. She was right—no doctor was needed to read his fate. Whatever mysterious malady he had, it had progressed beyond any earthly check.

He shook hands with Hardy. He offered him cigarettes again, and insisted upon giving him a glass of sherry. He was very polite, very nervous. He spoke English beautifully, but so fast, so volubly, that it was difficult to follow him.

Hardy couldn’t get away; he had to stay and talk for a long time. The poor chap was marvelously well informed upon American affairs, and it delighted him to talk. He said that he was “considering financial opportunities”; he asked questions about the stock market.

All the time he talked, Hardy was conscious of the stout little woman beside him, watching her husband’s ghastly face with a terrible fervor. It was as if she wanted to remember every one of his looks and his words forever.

It was a devotion of absolute simplicity. He was her sole object in life, her one interest. At the next lesson she began talking about him, and she never stopped. She felt obliged to interpret this great mind of Russia for her American friend. She showed his paintings, she played his music on the piano, she read aloud his Russian poems, and she explained his surroundings.

“Paul is dying of nostalgia,” she said. “He loved his country so! He is used to big, beautiful rooms and light and air. Ah, I never thought they could cost so dear! I have got the best I could for him, but at what a cost—what a cost! It is draining us of every penny. I am taking it, little by little, all we had put away, only to give him these few little things. He is so ill he doesn’t know how I manage. It is the last I can ever do for him. At least he shall die in peace and quiet!”

She did, inevitably, teach Hardy a little Russian. He was presently able to speak to the servant and to be comprehended; but he learned other things of greater value to him. He had before him a lesson in fortitude, in sublime unselfishness, which touched him to the heart. He was beginning to learn something of the charm and the magic that lie in utter sincerity, in spontaneous and artless intercourse.

However, his lessons were abruptly terminated. He found a new position on a Middle Western newspaper, and he left New York.

He parted from Mme. Sensobiareff with real regret. She listened to his plans with an actually motherly interest. He had decided, after all, that he would write a book about the Middle West, which he had heard was replete with atmosphere, and she approved his plan.

“Write, by all means!” she said. “I am sure that you will do well. You Americans are so clever! With us, it is so different. We feel—my God, we feel so deeply, but we are dumb!”

He hadn’t found her or her husband noticeably dumb; however, he didn’t say so. He said that he would write to her, and he went away, filled with hope and his own special and touching enthusiasm. It was[Pg 19] not that he particularly liked writing, but it seemed to him the readiest way to distinguish himself, and that was his great desire.

Hardy’s book was never written. In fact, his Middle Western career was brief and very unpleasant. He didn’t suit his editor at all. He was perpetually criticized and badgered, and his air of sophistication and cynic wisdom was resented as an affectation from the execrated metropolis. He came back to New York in midsummer, terribly disappointed and sorely perplexed. He couldn’t understand his failure, both professional and personal.

He had saved a little money, and he used it to give himself a vacation before applying to his old newspaper. He went on a fishing trip with two other men, to a beautiful, remote mountain spot, far from all noise and turmoil, and far from any supervised source of water supply.

When he came back to the city, he wondered that his vacation had done him so little good. He felt so tired, so wretched, so despondent, that he couldn’t think of going to work. He sat in his furnished room, in a stupor of misery, scarcely able to drag himself out for meals, waiting with alarm and anxiety for his physical and mental condition to improve.

He tried to fight it off. He insisted to himself that it was nothing. He couldn’t lay a finger on any alarming symptom, except this weariness, this chill dread. He couldn’t eat, but he slept a great deal.

It was a sweltering August afternoon, and his room was like an oven. He awakened from a long nap, and sprang up, dizzy and confused, but filled with sudden activity. He wanted to go out, he wanted to talk to somebody, at once. He was in great haste. He brushed his hair with the greatest precision, but he didn’t observe that he had on no collar or tie.

He found it difficult to get down the stairs, and when he reached the street he had to walk very rapidly to keep from staggering. The fierce glare of the sun was intolerable.

Suddenly there came to his distracted brain the thought of Mme. Sensobiareff and her cool, airy rooms, the kindness of her voice. He felt that if he could have a cup of her weak, fragrant tea, and sit quietly listening to her for a little while, his malady would leave him. He needed to talk to her. He was so anxious to talk that he muttered to himself as he walked.

She said, afterward, that he had been guided to her. Perhaps he was; certainly he never quite understood how he got there. He arrived at the hottest hour of that intolerable day, a disheveled and sinister figure. The hall boy didn’t want to let him in, but Hardy pushed him aside with a melodramatic scowl, and began ascending the seven flights of stairs. It didn’t occur to him to use the lift.

He went on at a terrific gait, with his heart pounding madly and his head almost bursting. He didn’t rest once. He reached her door and rang the bell. She opened the door herself, and he lurched in, gasping, his face crimson. He couldn’t speak. He waved his hands feebly and flung himself down on the sofa and cried.

He didn’t faint, he didn’t actually lose consciousness, for he was aware of talking volubly for a long time; yet he didn’t know what was going on about him. At last he came to himself, and gradually became aware that he was lying in bed in a darkened room, with his shoes and coat off, and a damp towel about his forehead. The dark green shades at the windows were flapping with a gentle, pleasing sound. There was an agreeable fresh fragrance in the air—a feeling of wonderful peace and calm. He felt very sick and inert, and he made no effort to move, although he heard voices at his bedside. He looked with languid interest at a big bureau facing him, on which were two framed photographs and a silver toilet service.

“Then you’ll have to get two nurses, one for the day and one for the night. You’ll have to turn your house upside down. It’ll cost you a great deal—a very great deal; and it’s unnecessary and foolish. Put him in the hospital, and—”

“Never! As for two nurses, that cannot be arranged. I shall take care of him myself.”

“Nonsense! He’ll have to be looked after constantly. There are all sorts of[Pg 20] things to be done for him which an inexperienced—”

“Ah! Inexperienced, you tell me?” she whispered fervently. “There is no one in the world who can nurse better than I. I have a genius for nursing. I was at Port Arthur during the most awful days, and I nursed—my God!—perhaps five hundred men. I shall take care of him. My servant will help me.”

“Impossible! You’ll kill the fellow between you. And you’ll be held responsible for—”

“Enough!” she said curtly. “This is my affair. I take it upon myself. Give your instructions; they will be carried out to the letter.”

In the night he awoke, or grew conscious again, and he saw sitting bolt upright beside his bed the gaunt young servant, in a red calico dressing jacket and a tremendous braid of dark hair. Her flat face looked so immobile, so inhuman, that he suddenly became terrified.

Mme. Sensobiareff hurried into the room almost at once. She soothed him, gave him something to drink, and brought an ice cap for his head. He grew calmer and presently quite lucid.

“Don’t keep me here,” he said, in a weak whisper. “Send me to the hospital. This is too much for you!”

For two weeks Hardy was very ill, often delirious. Then he began little by little to improve, to enter into a delightful period of rest and peace. The two women devoted their lives to him. They waited upon him with the most passionate seriousness. There was no annoying fuss, no superfluous attention, but one or the other of them was at hand every minute, and they divined his every want.

The quiet, beautiful order of the room, the odd and touching delicacy of his nurses, sank into his spirit. In spite of his weakness, in spite of the minor pains and discomforts of his malady, he was happy.

But he couldn’t help worrying. One morning, while Mme. Sensobiareff was busy about the room, he spoke to her about his anxiety.

“It isn’t right!” he said, in a feeble, plaintive tone. “Your husband is ill, too, and I’m taking up all your time and upsetting everything. He won’t—”

“It makes no difference to him,” she said. “He is not here. Only rest and be tranquil, my dear!”

“But I feel like a beast!” he protested. “To come here like this, and to let you do all this! And the expense! I haven’t a cent to repay you. You can’t imagine how it makes me feel. I’m ashamed!”

“That is foolish, my dear—very foolish. I understand how it is with you.” She paused for a moment. “I do not think there is any one on this earth who can understand better the troubles of others,” she said; “because I have felt them all—all! You must believe me!”

“Three months ago. But we will not speak of that, if you please. You will see now what a blessing it is for me that I can help you.”

As he grew stronger they talked more and more together—or, rather, she talked and he listened. It was a sort of monologue made up of her own vast experience. She had seen so much, traveled so much, suffered so much. She had seen plagues, famine, battles, she had lived in alien and hostile countries, she who lived so much through her friends had seen so many of them suffer; and now, past her youth, she found herself utterly alone, poor, friendless, thousands of miles from her home.

Hardy would sit propped up in a chaise longue near the window, and, while he smoked the five cigarettes he was permitted daily, he would listen to her charming voice, talking and talking. Sometimes he grew sleepy, but he concealed it.

There was one thing that puzzled him. She never sat with him in the evening.[Pg 21] After they had had dinner, which he now took in the dining room, he was always conducted back to his own room, and Anna would come in, with her sewing, to keep him company. This was not very entertaining, for she didn’t know a dozen words of English, and he didn’t like to read and entirely ignore her.

What on earth did Mme. Sensobiareff do with herself? He heard the doorbell ring, time after time, every evening, but he heard no sounds to indicate social activity, no voices, no moving about. Who came? He couldn’t ask Anna, and he didn’t care to ask her mistress; but he thought about it a great deal, and he didn’t like it.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “I have this beautiful lodging, all paid for five months to come. You must stay here until you have found a position.”

“I can’t do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t—you see, it’s awfully kind of you, but it wouldn’t look—you see, you’re here all alone. People would talk.”

“These people, who are they? I have no friends. No one will know or care. Don’t trouble yourself, my friend!” she said, smiling. “There will be no difficulty. I am a thousand years old!”

In the end he decided that he would stay, for a time at least, as much for her sake as for his own, until he could find work and in that way be able to help her. He resolved to protect her and care for her all his life.

An amazing existence! It continued for six weeks, for even after he had found a place as copy writer for a mail order house, she insisted upon his taking his earnings to buy clothes.

“Without clothes one can do nothing,” she said. “It is always necessary to present a good appearance.”

She was truly like a mother to him. She looked after his clothes, she wanted to hear every detail of his day, and she dearly loved to give him advice, which was always sensible, but sometimes a little irritating, because it was so obvious. Never was there such a wonderful friend, so unfailingly kind, so loyal, so delicate.

And yet—would you believe it?—all his natural affection for her was poisoned by suspicion, because of those mysterious evenings. He bitterly resented being shunted off into his own room after dinner. He resented the secrecy and the mystery. He would sit there, listening to the sound of the doorbell, the front door opening and closing, and then nothing further. The room she had given him was at the back of the flat, because it was quiet there. It was very quiet.

One evening he went into the kitchen, to try to talk with Anna. Since he had been declared well, the maid no longer sat with him in the evenings, and he felt that even her silent company would be better than none.

He found her sitting by the table, her head in her hands, the picture of a despondent exile; but when he entered she looked up with a friendly, anxious smile.

She shrugged her shoulders, to show her despair at not understanding, and kept on smiling.

Suddenly the swing door from the dining room was opened, and Mme. Sensobiareff came in. She looked at Hardy gravely; then, without a word, she drew herself a glass of water and went out again, leaving him astounded and distressed, a prey to the most disagreeable suspicions. What in Heaven’s name was she doing, dressed like that, in evening dress, with bare arms and neck and so elaborate a coiffure?

He went back to his own room and walked up and down in the dark, angry, terribly humiliated. After all, what did he know about her, except that she had been kind? Women of a certain sort were often kind, with a facile, lavish kindness. He felt that he comprehended the mystery now, that he knew what sort of house this was, and the thought of all that he had accepted was intolerable to him.

She had no right to force her kindness on him! It was shameful; she had degraded him. If any one should ever hear of it, that he had been supported—yes, certainly supported for weeks by this woman, out of her disgraceful earnings!

She thought him a little moody and ill-humored the next morning at breakfast; but with her unfailing generosity, she made allowances. She sat there in her crisp white wrapper, a very model of domesticity, and smiled at him over the pretty little bouquet of flowers that she always arranged on the table. She went to the[Pg 22] front door with him, and bade him good-by; and with constraint, in misery, he replied to her, and hurried off. He had decided never to return.

He fully intended to write to her, but he never did. He found it too difficult. He couldn’t reproach her, for her conduct was none of his business, and he could think of no plausible lie. He put off writing for day after day, and little by little the pain of the thing wore off and his regret and shame grew faint.

However, he wasn’t ungrateful. He tried to compute the cost of his illness and his long stay, and he made a magnificent effort to save enough to repay the disconcerting total; but it wasn’t possible. It would take many months. He had got back into newspaper work again, doing special articles, and his earnings were not imposing.

When he had scraped together a small part of his debt, he decided to take the money to her. He trusted to her tact and good sense to avoid the necessity of an awkward explanation.

He arrived at the apartment house, and was about to enter the lift when the boy stopped him.

“Yes, sir—moved away.” He chuckled. “She certainly did move away. She wuz moved away. Seems she’d borrowed some money on that furniture of hers, and couldn’t pay it. One day the people came and took it away. Ah thought Ah’d never get over laughin’. There she stood, watching it go; and she didn’t have a stick left in the place!”

Hardy went away, heavy-hearted. For many, many nights she came to haunt him—that poor, friendless foreign woman, so wonderfully kind, so wise and so sad. He blamed himself bitterly for losing track of her. She hadn’t investigated his morals, she hadn’t blamed, she hadn’t judged—she had simply helped. His scruples now appeared petty and cruel. He thought that he would give anything he had if he could only see her again, in her beruffled white wrapper, sitting before the samovar and talking.

He remembered her devotion to her husband. What if she had taken a wrong way, in order to live? Who was he, whom she had so greatly benefited, to despise her?

Hardy owed many of his special articles to a detective friend of his named Clendenning—a big, magnificent creature with a princely air and a marvelous wardrobe. When there was something interesting to be “pulled off,” Clendenning used to “tip off” Hardy; and when it was possible, the detective would take his friend along, to witness his exploits.

He was a very useful man for a certain sort of work, for his gentlemanly air made it possible for him to go without arousing suspicion into places where some of his colleagues would have been conspicuous. He was an adroit fellow, full of guile and ironic humor. Nothing in life gave him such pleasure as his “little surprises,” his neat traps for knaves of all sorts.

“If you’re around such and such a corner, at such and such a time,” he would say, “you might see something you could work into a story, old man.”

One evening Clendenning came into the little restaurant where Hardy almost always ate his dinner, and sat down at the table beside him.

“There’s a poor old feeble ass of a man who’s been complaining of a mysterious Persian woman,” he said. “He says she’s bewitched him, and he can’t keep away from her. He goes every night to get a psychic consultation, and she gives him advice about the stock market. He’s lost thousands already, but he says he thought he hadn’t interpreted her advice right, and kept going back for more. At last he came to headquarters with a complaint—says she’s a fraud. He says her place is crowded every evening with people clamoring for a chance to press ten dollars into the mysterious Persian’s hand and get a psychic message. Of course, it’s a pretty plain case for the police; but from what he said I thought it might be funny. I like to see how those things are done. It’s wonderful to see how easy it is to fool people. I like[Pg 23] to watch ’em work. She calls herself the Princess Zoraide. Ready?”

They rose and strolled out into the mild October night. They lighted cigars and sauntered uptown to a street of grim and moribund stone houses, given over to more or less mysterious enterprises. They stopped at one, rang the bell, and were admitted to a little drawing room furnished in moldy satin and poorly illuminated by a gas chandelier. Almost every seat was occupied, and the dreary light revealed a set of figures so dramatic, so interesting, that Hardy’s professional instincts were at once aroused.

He saw two women, probably a mother and daughter, sitting side by side, hand in hand, on a sofa, both weeping. He saw a white-bearded old man with his head thrown back and his dim eyes staring raptly at the ceiling. He saw a man who appeared to be on the brink of delirium tremens, his body twitching, his face contorted. He saw a great, fat blond woman in diamonds and silks and feathers, with a false, distrait smile on her painted face. In shadowy corners he saw other women whispering together. He was impressed by the atmosphere of pain, of terrible anxiety, that surrounded these people who came to receive relief and assuagement from the Princess Zoraide.

He sat down near the door with Clendenning, to await his turn. One by one he watched these people receive their summons, vanish into an inner room, and reappear again as shadows hastening through the dark hall to the front door. He would have liked to see their faces then, to see if the psychic consultation had in any way altered them.

The room had filled again, but Hardy was no longer observant. He was thinking. He was thinking of the immeasurable human longing after hope, and it occurred to him that perhaps even a charlatan might satisfy this.

The young woman who gave the summons to the waiting clients once more appeared before the curtains, and repeated her formula:

He walked across the room, past all those strained faces, opened the curtains, and entered a room completely dark, filled with a heavy perfume. A hand guided him to a chair, and he vaguely discerned a white form opposite him.

He knew that more questions would follow, but he was unable to arm himself, to set himself to invent something plausible. He was troubled, unhappy; he sat there in the dark with a blank and apprehensive mind.

“And what is the difficulty?” asked the Princess Zoraide. “What is it that you wish to know?”

“Come, my friend!” she said a little impatiently. “Can you expect that I should enter into your heart and know its secrets? I have the most sympathetic nature in the world, but—”

“Yes,” she said. “See how I am obliged to gain my living! Ah, well! But why do you come here? Have you some trouble, my dear?”

“No! Listen! Don’t you know how dangerous this is? It’s illegal—it’s not allowed.”

To him, an American, her alarm seemed exaggerated. To be arrested had not the same terrible meaning that it had for her. The hand that had clutched his arm trembled violently.

“Arrested? No, no! I do no harm. I help many people. I am very psychic. I am very sympathetic. I comprehend the troubles of others. If you knew! So many people bring their friends to me, because I have helped them! Oh, no! I cannot be arrested! Oh, my friend! At my age! And I am so alone here, in a[Pg 24] foreign land! It will kill me! I shall die!”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Wait! Let me think! Can you slip out without being seen? I will wait for you on the corner of Fifth Avenue. Hurry!”

He went stealthily down the dark hall, opened the front door, and went out. He didn’t know whether the formidable Clendenning had seen him or not. He expected every moment to feel a hand on his shoulder, to see that handsome and ironic face; and then he would be lost. He felt himself absolutely incapable of deceiving Clendenning, or of outwitting him.

But no one came. Hardy stood in the shadow, nervous as a cat, watching the quiet street. He saw some one go up the steps of the house, and enter, but no one came out. Why didn’t she hurry? Had Clendenning already seized her?

He stopped a passing taxi and told the driver to wait, and once more he looked down the silent street. Certainly Clendenning would be growing impatient; if she didn’t come soon—

“I left by the back door and went through the yards to the next street,” she whispered. “I am sure that no one saw me. Oh, my friend!”

He took her to his lodging house, where they entered unobserved and went upstairs to his little room. He locked the door behind them and sat down on the bed, trying to smile, to reassure her; but he expected every moment to hear a knock at the door, and the detective’s voice, demanding satisfaction for this outrageous betrayal. What in Heaven’s name was he to do with her?

“Now, you know,” he said, with a distorted smile, “it wouldn’t be such a serious matter, even if you were arrested. Perhaps a fine—”

“No!” she said firmly. “I should die. If they come to arrest me, I shall kill myself. I have a pistol here in my hand bag!”

“Do you think, then, that I have so much to live for?” she asked. “I have nothing—nothing at all. When you went away, without a word—I had thought I should always have you. Well, never mind; let us not speak of it. I am a foolish old woman. Let us say no more.”

He stared at her with a new idea dawning upon him. She wasn’t old. She wasn’t much over forty, he imagined, and she had certainly not renounced the intention to charm. He observed her queer little hat, made up of odds and ends of jet, lace, and satin, her carefully powdered face, her earrings, her drab hair artfully disposed, all her harmless coquetry. He recalled all that she had done for him, how she had nursed him and provided for all his wants. He thought of his base suspicions with shame. The poor soul had simply been holding her psychic consultations to earn money—so much of which she had used for him.

Why hadn’t he seen it before? She loved him—it must be that! For what other reason would a woman do all that she had done?

What sublime sacrifices she had made, and how brutally he had rewarded her! He thought he had never heard of so generous and noble a nature before. He felt crushed and immeasurably humiliated before her—her who had almost undoubtedly saved his life.

“Why shouldn’t I make a sacrifice?” he asked himself. “What better could I do with my life than to try to make her happy? I’m not much good. I’ll never be much use any other way.”

“Of course she’s at least twelve years older than I; but she’s a charming, intelligent woman, and I respect her.”

And then the unworthy thought came to him—what a startling and distinguished thing it would be to marry her!

“I know I’ve acted badly, but I—at the time I didn’t understand. I didn’t really appreciate you; but now—if you will—”

“Is it possible that you didn’t know?” she said. “Couldn’t you see? That man—that saint—”

“One of the master minds of Russia—a noble soul—the kindest and best of men!” she sobbed. “Is it possible that[Pg 25] you think—oh, how little you know of women! You think I would replace him?”

“No,” she said, drying her eyes. “I have thought of nothing but him. Only help me to get away, where I shall be safe, and then forget me! I am the most unhappy wretch in the world. I have wished only to gain my living, and it seems that I have become a criminal. Only save me from this disgrace!”

“Yes, I have money. In time, if it had not been for this, I should have become rich. But why are you so pale? Is there danger?”

She rose, adjusted her queer little hat before his mirror, and carefully patted her eyes.

He went out into the street and looked carefully up and down. No one there! He returned to fetch her. She took his arm with a pathetic, appealing gesture, and they went off through the quietest and darkest streets, both filled with haste and dread, unable to speak.

She was terribly out of breath when they reached the Grand Central Station. While he bought her ticket, she sat panting on a bench, her face concealed by a thick veil, but her little plump hands clasped passionately. A more forlorn, utterly foreign figure couldn’t be imagined.

They had nearly an hour to wait. He sat down beside her and tried to reassure her.

“You needn’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure there won’t be much of a search for you, and probably there’s no fear of further trouble. Only—you’ll never do that again, will you?”

“What will you do? Write me as soon as you reach Montreal. I’ll be anxious until I hear from you.”

He persuaded her to take a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the lunch counter. Then he bought her some magazines and a box of chocolates.

“It’s time for you to go now,” he said. “I want you to know that never, as long as I live, shall I forget what you did for me. It was—”

“Hush!” she said. “You are repaying me, my dear. I only hope I have not brought you any trouble.”

Hanging’s Too Good for Him

THE PATHETIC STORY OF TOMMY ELLINGER, OF NEW YORK, AND AN INNOCENT YOUNG GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY

HE first emerged from obscurity at his father’s funeral. He was the only son and the heir to everything, and therefore, of course, the center of interest; but immediately and forever he destroyed all the tepid sympathy and good will of the assembled relatives by his curious air of immense carelessness, his foppish nonchalance.

He hadn’t even the decency to wear a dark suit, they observed. He was dressed in light gray, evidently quite new, and he kept his hands in his pockets. It never occurred to any of them that his indifference might be a clumsy effort to conceal an immeasurable embarrassment. Neither did any one else remember what he remembered—that his father had detested any sort of formal mourning. And it was Tommy’s destiny always to do a thing in the wrong way, always to antagonize, invariably to blunder.

It was not regret for the loss of his father, or any great regard for his opinions, that caused Tommy to remember and to respect his wishes. It was nothing more than a naïve and kindly sentimentality. His father had been a horrible bully to him, the great bogey of his childhood. His mother had died when he was very little, and he had been sent off to boarding school at once.

It seemed to the family that Tommy had always been at school, winter and summer. Once in a great while he had emerged at some cousin’s Christmas party, a rather silly blond boy in military uniform, always spoken of as “poor little Tommy Ellinger.” There were no family rumors or traditions about him, no reports of his behavior at school.

Now, however, that he had definitely come to life, it was necessary for the family to decide upon him, and they decided unfavorably. He got, then and there, the name of being “defiant” and “conceited.”

His father’s elder brother was to be his guardian until he was twenty-one—a task which disgusted and appalled Uncle James. He was an old bachelor lawyer, living in a hotel. Naturally his first thought for Tommy was college, which would remove the boy for all his minority, and even longer; but Tommy fought desperately against that. His hatred for books, for herding with other young males, for all the bullying and chaffing which terrified his awkward innocence, for the competition which dazed his lumbering mind, made him unusually resolute. Business, too, he summarily repudiated.

“Well,” said Tommy desperately, “why couldn’t I be a lawyer, like you?”

His uncle looked at him with a grim smile, and answered nothing. The subject was dropped for the time being, and Tommy went to live at his uncle’s hotel, to make up his mind about his very important future. He lived a wretched sort of life, forever hanging about the lobby, or sitting through vaudeville shows and musical comedies. He ate breakfast with his exasperated old uncle every morning, and dinner almost every evening.

There was something peculiarly and intolerably irritating about Tommy—some quality which, in spite of his invariable good temper and his ingratiating manners, infuriated his uncle. A perfect young ass, the old lawyer called him.

Why was it that the qualities which would have been so endearing in a girl of eighteen were so maddening in Tommy? Why was he, with his youth, his boundless good will,[Pg 28] his plaintive innocence, really nothing on earth but a young ass?

He was a great lanky boy with a naïve, good-humored face and a preposterous foppish air, a man-of-the-world air; wearing clothes ostentatiously correct and an amazing eyeglass with a broad black ribbon. He imagined that he looked like a foreign diplomat, while at the bottom of his heart he was quite conscious of being and looking a puppy. He swaggered, but without any self-assurance.

He devoted great thought to his clothes, and he could not refrain from mentioning his sartorial inventions and improvements to his uncle.

“What do you think of the cut of this coat?” he would ask. “Do you notice this shoulder? Rather good, eh?”

“Beautiful!” his uncle would say. “I never saw such grace and elegance—a regular Beau Brummel! You’re fascinating. There’s nothing that interests me like the cut of your coats!”

Then Tommy would open the evening paper and laugh loudly and ostentatiously at something in it, to show how undisturbed he was.

“Why don’t you go out?” the old gentleman used to ask, often and often, when, their dinner finished, they went up together in the lift to the little sitting room they shared. “What’s the matter with you, Thomas? A boy of your age, sitting at home here with an old fellow like me, night after night! Why don’t you go out somewhere and enjoy yourself? Haven’t you any friends?”

Well, he hadn’t. All the boys he had known and liked in the military academy up the Hudson had come from the farthest ends of the country—from Texas, from California, from Maine. He had never been particularly popular, anyhow, and he was too shy and too ridiculous to make friends now.

His uncle attached great importance to this, for he himself had scores of friends. He wished Tommy to be a sort of creature the like of which is no longer to be found—the traditional, old-fashioned beau, the arbiter of elegance, welcomed everywhere, affable, agreeable, but forever unattached, the society man of a past generation. He supplied the boy with spending money, and introduced him to a few charming young married women and a great many old bachelors.

“Now go ahead!” he told him. “Make yourself popular! Make yourself liked! A young man of your age, of good family, with a little money in your pockets, with good prospects!”

He was invited to one or two sedate houses, for his uncle’s sake, but nothing came of it. The society life toward which his uncle urged him forever eluded him. In fact, he had no life of any sort. He was only waiting, hanging about in innocent and dreary idleness, unable to believe that life should so cheat him of every joy, every excitement.

It was spring when Tommy’s father died and he left the military academy. He spent a horrible summer with his uncle, in a hotel in town, or at other similar hotels in the mountains, on the coast, anywhere and everywhere. Then came a still worse winter, during which the old gentleman’s exasperation rose to a fury.

They would go now and then to a musical comedy of the liveliest sort, this being the Uncle James’s idea of what the boy ought to like. When the old man saw him sitting there not liking it, when he saw him not caring for or comprehending wines, a barbarian as to food, absolutely indifferent to the arts, and hopeless in regard to sport, he became almost homicidal.

“Go away!” he shouted at him. “Go and spend this summer by yourself! I won’t waste the money on taking you to a decent place. Go on a farm! Go to some cheap, miserable, damnable little country boarding house, where you can sit and gape all day, like the booby you are!”

Tommy felt that it would be paradise now to get away from his uncle, no matter where. The idea of going off alone, unbullied, unthwarted, quite dazzled him. He was only too ready to go anywhere his uncle suggested.

So Uncle James answered several newspaper advertisements, and at last found a place which he felt would be suitable. He wrote and made all arrangements, and then gave Tommy his directions, money that was to last him for a month, and the following advice:

“Don’t make a fool of yourself about any of the girls there. Remember, you haven’t a penny for the next three years except what I choose to allow you; and if you get yourself mixed up or compromised, I won’t help you. I won’t recognize any responsibility of that sort![Pg 29]”

“Not in my line, Uncle James!” he replied, with extreme jauntiness. And off he went.

His uncle almost forgot about Tommy for some time. He had a letter from the boy every week—a stupid, schoolboy letter which he hardly bothered to read. “The weather had been very hot. I guess you are glad not to be here, aren’t you? There is a lot of hay fever around now. It is certainly a lucky thing that you didn’t come”—and that sort of thing.

Then, while Uncle James was enjoying his little breakfast at the corner table in the grill room, which he had occupied for years and years, just as he was about to taste that invariable bowl of oatmeal with cream and powdered sugar, his eye was caught by a headline on the front page of his paper. He dropped his spoon on the floor.

He stared and stared at the thing. The paper crackled in his trembling hands, the letters swam before his eyes. Nonsense! “Son of the late Thomas Ellinger”—must be a mistake!

He read the story with a furious sort of incredulity. It was a nasty story of a young city man going out to a little country town for a vacation, boarding in the house of a decent farmer, and running off one night with the poor little sixteen-year-old daughter. He had taken her to a disreputable hotel and registered as man and wife, which they weren’t. And the decent farmer, the outraged, the desperate father, had tracked them, and, standing in the doorway of the crowded and noisy restaurant, had fired two shots at the girl’s betrayer—at Tommy! At the boy who a few months ago had been sitting opposite Uncle James at this very table!

“No! Nonsense!” he cried, crumpling up the paper and throwing it under the table. “One of those beastly newspaper stories! Damned lies, all of them!”

He went up to his room, got his hat and stick, and hurried out, furtive, terrified, afraid that every one was pointing him out as the uncle of that fellow. He wanted to telephone, where he would not be seen or heard, somewhere outside of his hotel. He went into a booth in a cigar store, and called for the Hotel Tressillon.

The boy gave a sort of gasp. Then, with his unfailing genius for doing the wrong thing, he assumed an airy and offhand tone.

“Hello, Uncle James!” he said jauntily. “I didn’t know that you were back in town again.”

“See here!” shouted the old gentleman, in a tremendous voice. “Is it true—this abominable thing I saw in the papers? Is it you?”

“Yes?” repeated his uncle’s voice, incredulous. “Yes? You did a thing like that? Good God! Explain yourself, Thomas!”

“You—you young cur!” The old man’s voice was trembling. “Don’t ever come near me again. Don’t let me see you. I’d like to shoot you! You miserable, dastardly cur! You’ve disgraced the whole family. You’ve disgraced your father’s name. I’d like to see you hanged—only hanging’s too good for you!”

III

Tommy’s face was scarlet, as if he had been struck. He went across the room, as far as he could get from the telephone, sat down, tried to smoke a cigarette, and tried to smile carelessly. He had to give it up. He hid his hot face in his arms, and sat there, amazed, confounded, utterly overwhelmed, at his own deed and at the awful consequences of it.

His uncle’s voice he recognized as the voice of the world in general. That was how he was to be regarded in the future—a cad, a cur, hanging too good for him. A pariah—he who so valued the good opinion of others! It was the sort of thing one couldn’t live down, ever. His life was blasted at its very beginning.

He knew that he could never justify himself. There were the facts in the newspapers, and he couldn’t deny any of them. How explain, even try to explain, what lay[Pg 30] behind them? He himself didn’t comprehend it. He was more surprised, more shocked, than any one else could possibly have been.

He looked at his wrist watch, which lay on the table because it couldn’t be put on over his bandaged wrist, and saw with dismay that it was only ten o’clock in the morning. The thought of the hours he would have to pass, shut up there alone, overwhelmed him. He was ashamed to go out, even into the corridor. He had already had to face a doctor and the waiter who had brought up his breakfast, and his raw sensibilities had made each of these encounters an ordeal.

He imagined a quite preposterous hostility. He was already an outcast, he was deserted, no one would come or telephone; he had nothing whatever to do now, or in the future. He looked around the ugly little hotel bedroom, and he felt that he was in prison, judged and convicted by his fellow men, and already banished from them.

Nothing to do, but plenty to think of, to recollect, and to examine. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, and tried his honest best to retrace all the steps of the affair and to discover the true measure of his guilt.

He remembered every minute detail. He saw himself getting on the train at the Grand Central, saw himself in the train reading magazines, hoping that the other passengers admired his clothes and his luggage, and fearing that they didn’t. He remembered the dust and the heat and the tedium.

It was late afternoon when he reached Millersburg, and he was gratified to see from the window that a fair proportion of the population was assembled to see the New York train arrive. He was confident that he was causing more or less of a sensation as he descended, with his irreproachable tweed suit, his imposing eyeglass, and the latest thing in traveling bags.

He walked leisurely over to a solitary old carriage, climbed in, and directed the driver to take him to Mr. Van Brink’s. Then he leaned back carelessly, prepared to review the landscape, when the jolting old vehicle stopped. They were not yet out of sight of the station, from whence the natives were still watching his progress.

“Well, what’s wrong?” he asked the old driver. “Horse given out already?”

Tommy knew very well that he was being laughed at by the loungers at the station, as well as by the old driver, and he liked it no better than any one else would have liked it; but he was a genuinely good-natured sort of devil, and he grinned, in spite of a very real chagrin at so unimposing an arrival.

Having paid the driver lavishly, he walked along the little garden path before him, and up some steps to a little veranda. The door opened at once, and a hand reached for his bag.

The little house was cool and very dark, every shade pulled down, every shutter closed. Tommy followed the white dress that was ascending the stairs, and was presently led into a dim, breezy room, smelling of verbena.

You could see that she was very young, although her figure was almost matronly—short, full, agreeably rounded. She had calm, clear gray eyes, fair hair neatly arranged, a rather pale, chubby face with blunt features, pretty enough; but what was she but a nice, ordinary little country girl in a calico dress? What was there, or could there be, in such a young person to arouse the faintest interest in a man of the world like Tommy?

Ah, it was something to which far more sophisticated souls than his must have succumbed—a lure so flamboyant, a charm so candidly voluptuous!

She was serenely aware of her carnal fascinations. She was ignorant, but not without a certain experience, and she had a fatal sort of instinct. She knew her power, and knew how to employ it.

She looked at Tommy with complete self-possession. She was not in any way awed by his clothes, his eyeglass, or his magnificent air. Indeed, it was he who grew red and confused before the calm gaze of the girl in the calico dress.

“Is there anything you’d like to have, Mr. Ellinger?” she asked politely. “There’s towels[Pg 31]—”

“No, not at all!” protested Tommy, in his best manner. “Thanks awfully, but there’s nothing.”

Tommy unpacked his bag, and then, restless and hungry, wandered about the room, looked out of the window, yawned, whistled, brushed his hair again, wondered what was expected of him. At last a knock at the door, and the gentle young voice said:

She was waiting to show him the way to the dining room. She behaved, in fact, like a very nice little hostess, properly concerned with his comfort. He liked that, of course, and he liked the supper, too. It was a novel sort of meal to Tommy—cold meat, fried potatoes, little glass dishes of preserves and pickles, cakes, pies, strawberries, and coffee, all on the table together.

Old Van Brink and his wife made no impression on him at all. They were what he had expected—what they ought to be. He talked to them in his best manner, genial, very much at ease. He was ingenuously sure that they were kind and honest people, and that they admired him. All his interest centered on the calm little thing across the table.

Supper over, Van Brink retired to a rocking-chair with the newspaper, and his wife began to carry the dishes into the kitchen. The little thing looked at Tommy.

“Would you like to take a little walk?” she asked. “‘Most every one does—down to the village.”

“Charmed!” he assured her, with his inane magnificence. “Will you wait till I get my stick?”

So they set off together down the dark, tree-bordered street. It was cool and very quiet, with a wistful little breeze stirring in the leaves.

“Oh, yes! I hope it will do you good,” the little thing answered benevolently.

Thanks, said Tommy, there wasn’t much wrong with him—he needed a rest, that was all.

“But you’ll be getting married one of these days,” he assured her gallantly.

They had come into the brightly lighted Main Street, and Tommy became somewhat distrait. He was wondering what sort of impression he was producing on the natives. They were observing him. He saw girls turn to stare after him, and a group of youths on a corner snickered as he passed.

All this pleased him. He swung his stick and strolled on with exquisite indifference. The little thing, he fancied, must be admiring him tremendously.

But she wasn’t. He was undoubtedly causing a sensation, this lofty stranger from the city with his remarkable clothes; but his smooth face was too innocent, his manner, for all its swagger, too ridiculously boyish. He was more or less stupid to this maiden accustomed to the loutish gallantries of the corner loafer, to facile caresses and furtive advances. He was insipid—“slow,” she called him to herself; but of course he could be taught.

Coming to Egbert’s Drug Store, they went in, at Tommy’s suggestion, and each of them had a glass of soda. She did feel a certain triumph then, at his manners and his handful of change.

“Would you like to sit on the porch?” she asked. “All right! Let’s bring the hammock around.”

So they brought the hammock from the little back garden and slung it on the veranda. They were hidden from the street by a tangle of honeysuckle. The window behind them was unlighted, and there wasn’t a sound from the house. They might have been alone in the universe. No one disturbed them, no one came into sight. There they sat, in the sweet-scented dark, Tommy on the railing, the little white figure swaying in the hammock.

He was surprised and rather offended, because this wasn’t according to his idea of her.

“Oh, no!” she answered pleasantly. “We used to smoke at boarding school, you know.”

He proffered a lighted match, and in its glare he caught a glimpse of her face, quietly smiling. Again he was fascinated, suddenly, unexpectedly.

They smoked for some time in silence. Tommy could see her curled up in the hammock, swinging just a little. All of a sudden she sighed.

He tried to laugh in an amused way, but he was chagrined and puzzled by her tone.

“I’ve no objection to telling you, my—my dear young lady,” he answered, nettled. “I’m—eighteen.”

He didn’t like that. Moreover, he perceived something sinister beneath the words.

“Call me ‘Esther,’” said she. “Don’t let’s be silly! What’s your name?”

He hesitated, and finally decided upon “Tom”; but she, like every one else, saw the inevitability of “Tommy.”

The situation was quite out of hand now. He didn’t know what was expected of him as a man of the world. He did know, though, that he was failing.

With a quite artificial alacrity he jumped up, went over to her, and sat down in the hammock, close to her. He called himself a fool, an imbecile, a contemptible ass.

“I ought to kiss her,” he said to himself, “or put my arm around her, or at least hold her hand!”

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even talk to her. He wanted, above everything else in the world, to run away. He was not flattered or in any way stirred or excited—only miserably ill at ease and instinctively alarmed. He dared not move, even to turn his head.

He did not sleep well. He lay in bed, his hands clasped under his head, looking out at the summer sky.

“She’s a queer girl,” he thought, with a sort of resentment. “She’s bold—runs after a fellow; and yet you can see she doesn’t care two straws for him.”

In long imaginary conversations with Esther he regained his lost advantage. He was affable but cool—very cool. He could see her round little face quite clearly before him, her serene eyes, her neat fair hair.

He awoke after his restless night to a hot, still morning. He could not find a bath tub. Dressing reluctantly, unrefreshed and a bit irritable, he went downstairs. It was a few minutes after eight by his watch—a very decent, early hour, he thought; but, looking into the dining room, he saw only one place laid on the long table.

“Set down to the table, Mr. Ellinger,” she cried in her shrill voice. “I’ll bring your breakfast right off. We’re all done. You won’t have to wait more’n a minute.”

He ate alone, a little resentful that Esther didn’t appear. Then he went out on the porch. No one there—the shady street was quiet and empty. He went around the house to the sun-baked little yard at the back, where he discovered Mrs. Van Brink hanging dish towels on a line in terrible haste. Her face became positively convulsed with worry at the sight of his listlessness.

“Now, then!” she cried. “You don’t know what to do with yourself, I’ll be bound! And I haven’t got a minute to spare, with the dinner I have to get up for Mr. Van Brink at noon. His farm’s four miles off, you know.”

“Maybe you’d enjoy to play on the harmonium,” she suggested. “Esther’s got some real sweet music.[Pg 33]”

Tommy did not know what a harmonium was; but she showed him a queer little organ in the parlor, and he sat before it all the rest of that intolerable morning, picking out tunes and experimenting with the stops.

At noon old Van Brink came driving home in his buggy, and his hot and anxious wife began hurrying back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, bringing in an enormous hot dinner. The farmer had nothing to say to Tommy. He sat there with his napkin tucked in his collar, consuming one dish after the other as fast as his wife brought them in, absorbed and ravenous, like a feeding animal. Now and again Tommy caught the old man’s small blue eyes surveying him with an expression which he could not comprehend, but which he didn’t like.

Van Brink drove off directly after eating, and his wife withdrew to the kitchen again. With growing resentment, Tommy seized his hat and went out, followed the route of the night before, and reached the village. Entering the only hotel, the Gilbert House, he ordered a cocktail and bought a newspaper; but the drink was shockingly bad, and he couldn’t endure the stale dullness of the place long enough to read the paper there.

He had never before in his life suffered from such boredom. He went back to the house, determined to write at once to his uncle and say he couldn’t stand it any longer.

And there, rocking on the porch and enjoying the cool of the afternoon, sat Esther.

“I’m sorry; but it wasn’t my fault, was it? You needn’t be cross at me.”

“It was your fault, in a way. You might have told me what there is to do in this place.”

“Oh, but there isn’t anything! I’ll take you for a walk after supper, if you want.”

So after supper, when Mrs. Van Brink had gone back to the kitchen, and her husband, in stocking feet, sat reading his newspaper, Esther and Tommy set out again.

“Shall we go right out in the country?” Esther asked him. “Or would you rather go through the village and see some of the fine houses?”

They turned north, followed the dark and quiet street past all the little houses, and into a road soft with dust, under the black shadow of great trees, with a sweet breeze blowing from the meadows.

“One day’s enough for you,” said Esther. “How would you like to spend years here?”

They were going uphill steadily. The fields were left behind, and the pine forest was closing in on them, dark and fragrant.

Again that vague alarm came over the boy. He felt defenseless, lost. He dreaded to go farther; but, chattering pleasantly, Esther went on and on, and he had to answer and to follow.

“You needn’t worry about them! Let’s sit down and rest a few minutes, if you like.”

There was a great flat rock a little way up the bank from the roadway. Sitting there, they could catch a glimpse of an enormous orange-colored moon through the branches.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” said Esther. “And doesn’t my ring look pretty in the moonlight?”

“Are you engaged?” he asked, for even he knew that the question was expected of him.

“Yes—to the young man you saw last night in the drug store. It’s a secret, though; mommer and popper don’t know.”

“I don’t see how I can be,” she answered plaintively. “I don’t really like him; but oh, dear, what else can I do? Why, I’ve only seen one real refined man in all my life. He was a traveling salesman. He wanted to marry me and go and live in New[Pg 34] York; but popper wouldn’t let me. He said I was too young.”

“Well, you know, you are, rather. You don’t want to be hasty, my dear young lady!”

“I’m going to take off this ring now, while I’m with you,” Esther went on. “I want to forget all about Will for a while.” She slipped her warm little hand into his. “Oh, Tommy!” she said coaxingly. “Be nice, won’t you?”

The light of the moon shone clearly on her pretty upturned face, her white throat. He stared and stared at her. She leaned back, more and more, until her head was resting on his breast and her smooth hair brushed his lips.

The first wave of some immense and terrible emotion, something he had never before experienced, came rushing over him. He clenched his hands, struggling against a fierce desire to push her away.

“What are you doing to me?” he wanted to shout. “What’s happening to me? Go away! Get out!”

But she did not stir. She rested against him, contented as a kitten, soft, gentle, and still. Little by little his mood changed, his panic was allayed, and he bent over and kissed her. Then he wanted never to let her go again. He kissed her violently, time after time. He couldn’t stop.

A sort of madness possessed him. A terror greater than ever assailed him—a terror of himself. He knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He put her aside brusquely and got up.

“I shouldn’t have kissed her,” he said to himself. “Now she’ll think I’m in love with her.”

He knew well enough that he was not. He disliked her—almost loathed her; she was so soft and clinging, so irresistible and so inferior. He didn’t want to see her again.

He hadn’t yet been able to devise a suitable attitude when he met her the next morning. Seeing her so perfectly unmoved helped him, and they sat down to breakfast in friendly accord.

“It’s another hot day,” she said. “Mommer thought maybe you’d enjoy a picnic.”

She nodded, and waited for his reply, watching his face with candid eyes. He grew red and hot.

“Not if I know it!” he said to himself. “She won’t get me alone again!”

But his reflection in a distant mirror caught his eye. What? Here he was, six feet tall, dressed in absolutely the latest fashion, a thorough man of the world, and yet uneasy in the presence of this sixteen-year-old country girl! “Dumpy,” he called her—stolid, ignorant, rustic, in a cheap cotton frock.

His good humor came back. He smiled down upon her kindly, all alarm gone. Let her make love to him if she liked—there was no harm in it.

They started directly after breakfast, walked mile after mile through the fields in the full glare of the hot August sun, up stony hills, through bramble-lined woodland paths, until Tommy, carrying the big lunch basket and a walking stick, and wearing a rather heavy Norfolk jacket—the only correct thing for picnics—was dazed and tired. Not Esther, though; she was as fresh and cheerful as ever.

In the course of time they reached the place predestined by her for lunching—a little clearing on the slope of the pine-covered mountain, a sort of sunny nest in the forest, where a brook ran by, rapid and cool.

When he had at last satisfied his appetite—a strangely hearty and indiscriminate one for such a man of the world—Tommy lay back against a sun-warmed stone, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the bright sky. It was nice to have Esther there, he admitted to himself. It was nice to see her, contented and blessedly quiet, sitting beside him.

He turned his head to see her better. What a round, pretty, white throat she had! And her lashes were almost dark against her cheeks. He was annoyed by a sudden great longing to kiss her again. He tried to put[Pg 35] the thought out of his mind—tried desperately; but in some inexplicable way, even as she sat there with her eyes closed and her little face so tranquil, she conveyed the fact to him that she was waiting to be kissed.

He did it, with a violence surprising to them both. She struggled half-heartedly, then settled down, close to his side, with his arm about her, and said no more. He kissed her again and again, stroked her hair, looked at her in delight. Dear, gentle, ardent little soul! Truly it was an afternoon on Olympus!

Tommy was done for now. She had awakened his innocent, primitive manhood, had aroused in him a feeling which he was too immature to appraise. He believed that he was, that he must be, in love with her. How otherwise explain his joy in kissing her, his immeasurable admiration for her charms?

He said it with amazement, with pride, with profound distress, because his passion tormented him. He was ashamed of it. He knew very well that it was not spontaneous; Esther had forced its growth. He had not wooed and won her; he had been captured in a most obvious way. He was a slave, and he knew and resented it.

Not that Esther was at all a difficult lady to serve. She had no whims, no caprices. She was neither jealous nor exacting. Indeed, she required nothing at all of Tommy. She let him alone. She was very affectionate, whenever he was; but if he were moody or anxious, she was peacefully silent.

There was always an air of content about her. She might have been the personified ideal of the man of forty—the woman who is always responsive, and yet who exacts nothing. Very, very different from the ideal of generous eighteen!

Precious little joy did poor Tommy find in this his first love. He was perplexed and confused; he couldn’t imagine any sort of end to it. He couldn’t contemplate marrying Esther, and the idea of any other sort of arrangement never occurred to him. In his eyes she was simply a respectable young girl, under her father’s roof, not good enough, or not suitable, to be the wife of a man of the world, but far too good to be thought of in any improper way.

He didn’t even know what he wanted—whether he wanted to leave her, or whether he couldn’t live without her. He was weary beyond measure, those hot and sleepless August nights.

At last, one evening, there came a sort of crisis. It was a sultry, rainy night, and they were in the little parlor, bored and constrained by the presence of old Van Brink in the next room, with the door open. Esther had been playing hymn tunes on the harmonium, and Tommy had been watching her, feverishly impatient to kiss her. She had stopped playing, and they sat in silence, listening to the squeak of the old man’s rocking-chair and the rustle of his newspaper.

The room irritated Tommy by its amazing tastelessness. Even Esther looked different in it, he thought. Outside, under the summer sky, alone with him, she was a goddess. In here, what was she more than the plump, phlegmatic Esther Van Brink?

A door opened, and Mrs. Van Brink came in to her husband, her work in the kitchen finished until the next sunrise. She looked exhausted. It occurred to Tommy, not for the first time, that Esther was not a remarkably kind daughter. He had never yet seen her do any sort of work for her mother.

Immediately, with artless tact, Mrs. Van Brink closed the door. Tommy sprang up and caught Esther in his arms.

“I don’t know what you’ll do to-morrow evening,” Esther went on. “Will Egbert’s coming to see me.”

Tommy could scarcely grasp the idea. An evening without Esther! Another man! He was silent for some time. He realized then that he would rather marry Esther than lose her, than be supplanted by any Will Egbert.

“Look here, Esther!” he said at last. “I know I haven’t any right to complain. I’m not—anything to you; but I’d like you to know something. Before I came here, my uncle—”

“He warned me—told me I couldn’t get engaged, or anything of that sort. You understand, don’t you, Esther? You see,[Pg 36] I haven’t any income. I depend on him, and I know, very well, that he’d never consent to—to anything.”

“I’ve thought it over a great deal,” he went on; “but I don’t know what to do exactly.”

To his chagrin and surprise, Esther got up and, going back to the harmonium, began to play loud, triumphant hymns. He could not guess her mood. He was afraid he had offended her; and with that a shade of the old magnificence returned.

She had a book of “College Songs,” ugly and tasteless, like everything else in her life, and they sang them, one after the other, until bedtime. In the next room the mother and father listened, proud and pleased.

“Hark to sis!” said old Van Brink. “Sings and plays pretty good, hey, mother?”

“I’ll bet you that young man don’t see many girls like sis, city or country, hey, mother? He’s no call to turn up his nose at our gal, hey?”

The next morning, at breakfast, as soon as they were alone for a minute, Esther whispered:

“Tommy, I’ve got a plan! Let’s go out on the porch,” she suggested aloud, as her mother came in to clear the table.

“Well!” she repeated. “Come on—sit down and listen. I want you to take me to the city to see your uncle.”

“No!” cried Tommy, startled. “No, my dear girl! That wouldn’t do at all!”

“It would! I’ll be so nice he’ll have to like me. I thought and thought about it last night. Please do, Tommy!”

“But, my dear child, don’t you see that you couldn’t go off with me that way? You’d—you’d compromise yourself!”

Tommy put forward all the objections he could think of, but she was able to answer them all.

“I’ll manage him,” she insisted. “Only let me see him! And then, Tommy,” she went on, “it’s getting horrid for me here. Egbert is jealous. He says he won’t give me up, and won’t take back his old ring. And”—amazing invention!—“mommer and popper say that you’re just trifling with me, and they want me to take back Will. Every one says I’m a silly little fool to think so much of you!” Tears came into her gray eyes.

And at last, because she wept, and because he could see no other way, he agreed to take her.

VII

Reluctant and harassed as he was, he couldn’t help a certain delight in the adventure. He hadn’t yet lost a boyish relish for running away; and this getting up after the others were asleep, stealing downstairs, bag in hand, and meeting Esther in the dark little hall, thrilled him to the marrow.

They hurried through the empty streets, black beneath the shadow of the old trees, and entered the station, where an oil lamp burned. The ticket office was closed; there wasn’t a soul in sight. They sat down side by side on a bench, to wait for the New York train.

In her usual way, Esther put her hand in Tommy’s. He turned to look down at her in the dim lamplight, and the sight of her flushed, excited little face, combined with the pressure of her hand, nearly brought tears to his eyes. How she trusted him, poor little girl! Leaving her home and her parents and going off with him this way! He swore to himself that she should never be sorry for it; that, even if she were not quite the wife he would have chosen, he would respect her forever for this generous, this noble trust in him.

He had, in short, never in his life been so overwhelmingly asinine. His fair, infantile face was pale from the intense seriousness of his resolutions and the weight of his responsibility. He would at that moment have been ready to assure you that it was he who had implored and persuaded Esther to run away with him—that it was his idea and his wish.

It was midnight when they arrived at the Grand Central. The moment they stepped off the train, a realization of his colossal folly rushed over the boy. The[Pg 37] subtle excitement of the hurrying crowds, the sophistication of this environment, suddenly destroyed his rustic romance, and he grew cold with fright.

What was this that he had done? What was he to do with Esther? He couldn’t marry her without a license. He had thought of taking her at once to Uncle James, to convince him on the spot of Esther’s desirability as a wife. Uncle James might be asleep; or, if he were awake, he would surely need some preparation. He was courtly toward ladies—ladies with money; but one never knew—

They had eloped from the girl’s home. He was now and forever responsible for little Esther. There she sat, waiting for his wise decision.

They sat down on a bench in the immense hall, he with his latest thing in traveling bags, Esther with a shabby little wicker suit case. Forlorn, young, weary, they sat in silence—waiting, both of them, for Tommy to become a man.

“I know!” he cried suddenly. “Esther, you go into the ladies’ waiting room while I telephone. I have a cousin. I think she’d be willing to do something. At least she’ll put you up overnight.”

But in the telephone booth his courage fled. He couldn’t explain all this over the wire. He ran out and got a taxi, and at one o’clock he arrived at his cousin’s little flat uptown.

She was a charming, gracious, good-natured young widow. She got up, put on a dressing gown, and sat listening with angelic patience to Tommy’s story; but she could not conceal her horror.

“Oh, Tommy, my dear boy! You’re so young! Don’t be hasty! Oh, Tommy, don’t rush into—anything!”

“Now, look here!” said Tommy, sick with nervousness and alarm. “Don’t lecture me, Alison. It’s done. Just suggest something. She can’t go back now. I’ll have to see Uncle James about getting married; but what shall I do now? I can’t leave the poor kid sitting there in the Grand Central Station all night.”

“No, of course you can’t,” Alison agreed. “Bring her here, Tommy—and hurry: I’ll wait up for her.”

She set about making preparations for this most unwelcome guest, thinking and hoping all the time that Tommy might be saved—that this distressing thing might blow over without hurting him.

She pictured Esther as a poor innocent little rustic, as simple as Tommy. She never saw the girl, and so was never enlightened. She waited for two hours, but no one came. Then, worried, heavy-hearted, she went back to bed.

VIII

Tommy had hurried back to Esther, and found her just as he had left her—a model of patience and propriety, with her little bag beside her. Though she was pale and heavy-eyed with sleep, she was as neat and fresh as ever. He told her his plan.

“I can’t! I can’t! I just couldn’t face a strange woman now. What would she think of me, running away with you like this?”

“Oh, Tommy! Please don’t leave me! I’m so frightened and so lonely! Don’t send me away!”

“But you must be reasonable, sweetheart,” he implored. He began to realize how terribly he had mismanaged this affair. He cursed himself. Why hadn’t he made plans? “You know we’ve got to consider your reputation,” he said.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” she cried. “No one’ll ever know about it. Only don’t go away from me, Tommy! I couldn’t bear it!”

He yielded. He was so distressed, so confused, so alarmed, that he had no moral strength to withstand her. He took her to the Tressillon, a quiet, dingy place where he had once or twice had dinner. He took two rooms for them, on different floors, and he registered as “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ellinger, Jr.” What else could he have done?

He slept soundly, although he hadn’t expected to close an eye. The first thing he thought of upon waking was to telephone to Esther’s room. He was told that she wasn’t there.

He dressed and hurried down to look for her everywhere—in the dining room, the[Pg 38] grill, the lounge; but he couldn’t find her. He was seized with panic.

When he found that her bag was still in her room, he resigned himself to wait; but he was angry—more angry than he had ever been in his life.

She came back at lunch time, composed and smiling. He was sitting on the lounge when she entered. He got up, took her arm with a nervous grip, and led her into a quiet corner.

“Look here, Esther!” he said. “You mustn’t act like this! Where have you been?”

“I’d planned for us to go to the City Hall and get the license this morning, and get married.”

“Oh, Tommy!” she said, with a pout. “I don’t want to get married. I’m too young!”

“Don’t be silly!” he said impatiently. “We’ll have a bite of lunch and then we’ll hurry down town.”

“I think it’s silly to get married. We’re too young. What could we live on?”

“You needn’t worry about that,” he said, wounded. “I dare say I can manage to take care of you.”

“I don’t think you could, Tommy. We’d only be miserable. No, let’s not be married.”

“I think we’ve made a mistake. Let’s not be silly and make it any worse. The best thing would be for us to part. I can look out for myself perfectly well. I know a man here in the city—I dropped in to see him this morning, and he said he’d get me an engagement to go on the stage. He’s an advance agent, or something. I met him out in Millersburg. He has lots of pull.”

“Don’t talk that way!” he thundered. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? Haven’t you enough sense to see that you’re compromised?”

“No one knows anything about it, and there’s no harm done. I’ll write to mommer and tell her I ran away to go on the stage.”

“No, you won’t!” said Tommy. “I sent them a telegram this morning to say that we were married. I thought we would really be by the time they got the message.”

“I suppose I am,” he replied bitterly. “However, it’s done now. They know you’re here with me, and they think you’re my wife, so you’ll have to see it through.”

“Not I!” she said cheerfully. “I’m not going to marry a kid like you!”

“Don’t be silly!” she said. “Of course I do; but I think we’re too young to think of marriage. It was a mistake.”

She was absolutely incomprehensible to him; but she could read him through and through, and the better she knew him, the greater grew her contempt.

“No, it isn’t. I knew you were a nice boy. I knew I could trust you. I’ll always remember you, Tommy—always. You’re the nicest—”

“What do you propose to tell your parents? They’ll write to you here, or they may come.”

“They won’t find me. I’ll leave to-morrow morning. Mr. Syles told me of a nice boarding house. You’ll go back to your uncle. He’ll never know about it, and we’ll both forget the whole thing, won’t we?”

They went up into her room, and they argued all afternoon. Tommy tried to show her the enormity of her conduct, but she insisted upon regarding it as an escapade. She emphasized her sixteen years. She behaved with an airy childishness which she had never shown before, and which he knew to be false.

He had played the part she had determined he should play, and there was an end to him. Her modest little pocketbook was well stuffed with his money. She was in the city where she wished to be.

At last she said she was hungry, and reluctantly he took her downstairs to the dining room, crowded and noisy, with dancing going on to the music of a fiendish orchestra. Gone was his pride, gone was his kindly protectiveness. He was overwhelmed with shame; he saw himself a dupe, when he had fancied himself a hero.[Pg 39]

He couldn’t eat. He sat there across the table, in sullen wretchedness, keeping his eyes off her detestable face, listening to her calm voice, telling him that it was “better for them both to part now.” She was affable, but she made no effort to be kind. She had nothing to say about love, about grief at parting. She placidly ignored their romance. She urged him to be “sensible,” and a “good boy.” And with every word she made a fresh wound in his quivering, childish soul—scars never to be healed.

He was sitting with his back to the door, and he hadn’t seen old Van Brink enter. He had looked up in alarm at a shriek from Esther, and there was that face, convulsed with hatred—hatred for him! Then the shot, the crowd, the atrocious sense of unreality, of insane confusion, the pain in his wrist.

Some one had hurried him off in a taxi. He had looked back blankly from the doorway at the brightly lighted room, at an old man held by force from following him. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be real!

It occurred to young Thomas Ellinger that perhaps the tragedy had not, after all, been averted.

“Everything passes,” runs the old saying, and the contrary is also true. Nothing passes.

If you had looked at that stalwart and serious gentleman in the box, correct, evidently prosperous, with his honest and rather blank gaze, you would certainly have imagined him to be one of those fortunate creatures without a history, a soul without a scar. He was there with an agreeable, well-bred wife and a pretty young daughter, and he was apparently enjoying the play with a temperate and sedate enjoyment—interested, but not very much interested, you know.

And yet he is none other than the black sheep of twenty years ago, the disgraced and abandoned Tommy. Moreover, the actress whom he is watching with so tepid an air is Esther herself, and he is very cunningly concealing a great confusion of feelings.

He had casually suggested going to see her act that evening, as he had done four or five times before, since he had by chance discovered that Esther and the celebrated Elinor Vaughn were one and the same person. He had no knowledge of the means by which she had risen, but he was by no means surprised to find her at the top. Why shouldn’t she be? Indeed, how could she not be? She was certainly born for victory.

Each time that he watched her magnificent outbursts of dramatic passion, her rages and her griefs, he felt a secret and delightful joy. Only imagine what he had escaped! Only think what such a woman, capable of moving the most cynical heart, could have done with him! He looked cautiously at the people about him, saw them stirred to horror, grief, or delight, and he felt himself superior to them all. They didn’t know that it was only Esther Van Brink!

He watched her to-night, at the end of her famous second act, winning by heartbreaking entreaties the mercy of a vindictive and obdurate husband. Never could he have withstood her. He would have been lost!

The curtain fell, rose again, fell, and she came out to stand for a moment before the footlights, bowing, smiling a little wearily; and then she saw him.

He drew back hastily, but it was too late. When she came before the curtain again, she looked at him and smiled. Before the third act began, a boy came to the box with a note:

“It seems she’s some one I used to know,” he explained to his wife. She raised her eyebrows and smiled politely, but he knew she wasn’t satisfied. “I suppose I’ll have to go,” he said.

He found her in her dressing room, with a crowd of people, but she sent them all away.

“He’s an awfully old friend,” she explained, “and very shy. I’ll never be able to catch him again.”

The little country girl had certainly become a handsome woman, he reflected, and she had lost none of her impudent charm, her mocking tranquillity.

“Well!” he answered, and he had exactly his old air of a boy acting the man of the world.

“My, you’ve got on!” she said admiringly. “You’re really splendid, Tommy! Are you a millionaire?”

“No,” he answered, flushing, well aware that she was laughing at him. “I’m in business.”

Naturally he didn’t care to talk about his heroic effort to rehabilitate himself—how he had actually found himself a job, and won his alarming uncle’s forgiveness for his one wickedness by patient industry and some years of complete self-effacement.

He wasn’t going to permit any Esther on earth to make light of that respectable and very happy union.

“Oh, Tommy!” she sighed. “I’m glad! I’m glad it’s all turned out so well for you—and for me, too. I don’t believe I would ever have become the actress I am if it hadn’t been for all I suffered through your desertion.”

“But—but—” he stammered, with a feeble effort to remind her of her own treachery.

“I only wanted to see you and tell you that I forgave you long ago, Tommy—forgave you frankly and freely. I owe my success to that suffering.”

She held out her hand. He grasped it, and hurriedly took his leave. She forgave him! She forgave him his desertion, which had nearly broken her heart!

He stopped in the street outside the theater, ready to denounce her to the silent sky; but in spite of himself began to smile, with reluctance, with an immense and grudging admiration.

Like a Leopard

HOW JOHNNY BRECKENBRIDGE RECEIVED A NEW LIGHT ON THE NATURE OF A GOOD WIFE

IT was a frightful night. Brecky turned up the collar of his overcoat, pulled his cap lower over his eyes, and left the shelter of the railway station for the open road. He heard the train that had brought him from the city pull out again and rush whistling through the fields and marshes. When it had gone, everything human had vanished, leaving him alone with the great and terrible wind and the cold rain.

He made what haste he could along the muddy road, his head down against the gale. The driving rain half blinded him, the tumult confused him, with the unceasing rush of the wind and the dull sound of the sea. His way lay through immeasurable desolation, past house after house empty and black, shops all closed and shuttered, streets in which there was not one human creature. It was a sort of Pompeii, a deserted village, a nightmare; but to the practical Brecky it was nothing more or less than Shorehaven, a summer resort, naturally deserted in midwinter.

He was not a man of imagination, this Johnny Breckenbridge. He was a wiry young chap with an impassive, weather-beaten face. He dressed very soberly, but he had an incorrigibly sporting air, and there was something rakish and jaunty about him. He was nimble, alert, and just a trifle bow-legged. He was never tired, never discouraged. He had all his wits about him, and knew his way in the world.

He had been, one might say, born a jockey, and he had been a good one, too, for years; but he had grown tired of the restrictions of a jockey’s life. He was fond of eating and drinking, and he liked to be his own master.

He had continued his activities on the race track in a less official capacity. He had done well as a bookie, too, for he was shrewd, cautious, and trustworthy; but he had suddenly fallen in love and married.

“And that’s no life for a married man,” he observed to his many friends. “Got to settle down now.”

Brecky was thorough in everything, and he wished to be a thoroughly married man. He took his new obligations with great seriousness. He intended to do well for his jolly little Kathleen. He knew that his duty in life was to make money for her.

He never thought of consulting her, however. She had been a waitress in a little restaurant in the city, and he had admired her brisk good humor and her common sense. She was a pretty kid, too—dark, small, vigorous. She had received a great deal of attention, but she was never silly or vain about it. She knew how to take care of herself. She liked a good time, but no monkey business. She was mighty independent, Kathleen was.

To Brecky’s uncomplex mind, the wedding ring was to transform her completely. She was to be no longer Kathleen, but a wife; and to him all good wives were alike. They were kind, gentle, contented, and very helpful. You made money gladly for them; but if you were a real man, you didn’t let them spend much of it.

He had looked about the world thoughtfully for a few months. Then he had taken nearly every penny he had saved and had bought a hotel at the seaside, with a heavy mortgage on it. To this place he had brought his Kathleen, that she might help and comfort him while he mastered his new business.

Extraordinary friends of his used to come down and give him advice. He listened and learned. He knew a number of men connected with hotels, night clerks, head waiters, and so on; and they were[Pg 43] willing and anxious to help him, because every one liked him.

He had no iconoclastic ideas. He wished to run his hotel according to all the tried and tested rules of the business. He wore out his advisers. Those who came down to look over Brecky’s hotel went away exhausted and squeezed dry, leaving whatever valuable knowledge they owned in Brecky’s possession.

In midwinter, when the place lay like a frozen village on the shore of an inhuman sea, lights used to shine from the windows of Brecky’s immense hotel, and to flit from one floor to another. That meant Brecky and some consulting friend, muffled in sweaters and overcoats, inspecting the rows and rows of bedrooms, discussing the wall paper, the flimsy furniture, debating with breath that congealed in the frigid air, whether this or that room was going to be cool enough, shady enough, airy enough.

But however the lights might flit about the building in those winter nights, there was one that remained steady and constant as the beam from a lighthouse. It came from the kitchen window. It sprang up every evening when dusk began to close in, and it always burned until nine o’clock or so. Brecky saw it now, as he turned the corner and struggled down the street at the end of which his hotel stood.

This was the hardest stretch, in the teeth of the terrific wind blowing inshore. It was like leaving the world and plunging into chaos. He went at it, head down, his eyes fixed upon the cheerful light, an agreeable hunger rising within him. That light meant Kathleen and the excellent dinner she was sure to have ready for him.

Brecky stamped up the wooden steps and across the veranda, opened the front door with his latchkey, and entered the house. It was colder in there than it was outside. The place wasn’t designed for winter occupation, and there was no means for heating it. Moreover, its construction was flimsy, and a wind like that now blowing found its way in without trouble, and went moaning through the hall, rattling the doors and windows.

He passed through the dining room. It was entirely dark, but there was no fear of running into anything, for all the tables were drawn back against the walls and the chairs piled on them. He pushed open the swinging doors into the pantry, and another door, and was suddenly in a different world, warm, light, filled with delightful savors.

He slipped off his overcoat, cap, and rubbers, and went over to the stove, holding out his numb hands to its welcome heat. Then he turned and kissed his wife, absent-mindedly, almost without looking at her, in spite of the fact that she was well worth looking at.

“No—no one came. I haven’t seen a soul all day,” she answered; but he missed the significance of her tone.

She hurried back and forth with steaming dishes, and at last informed him, rather curtly, that his dinner was ready. He sat down at once and ate with good appetite, but in silence and abstraction, because he had to think about those sash cords. At last he finished and leaned back in his chair, ready for the amenities of life.

He was innocently oblivious of his wife’s state of mind. It hadn’t occurred to him that she kept on existing and thinking when he wasn’t there. His remark was a match to dry straw.

“A fine little cook, I guess you mean!” she said with sudden asperity. “That’s your idea of a wife!”

It was his habit to ignore remarks like that. Women, he considered, were often fanciful and “touchy.” It was better to leave them alone at such times. He lighted a big cigar, deliberately took his mind off his wife and all domestic concerns, and began to meditate on his business.

“I didn’t start out in life to be a cook,” she said, in an ominously calm and reasonable tone. “I’m glad enough to do it for your sake, Johnny; but I’d like you to remember that I’m not used to this kind of life.”

“Yes, yes!” he said soothingly, and continued to smoke and stare at the fire.

“For the Lord’s sake, what’s the matter?” he asked, with despairing good nature. “I’ll look at you for an hour, if you like; only don’t cry, that’s a good girl!”

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and went on crying. He swore under his breath, and, getting up, went around the table and put his arm about her.

“Come now!” he said. “You’re as pretty as a picture, and you know I love you.”

“Yes!” she said. “You want to make it up quickly and forget all about me!”

“Well!” he said. “If I do think such a lot about this business, who’s it for? Don’t be silly! It’s all for you.”

“It isn’t! It’s because you like it. You’d go on with it just the same if I was dead!”

He was a little in doubt what to do. Should he ignore her, and let her get over her inopportune temper alone? Or should he wheedle her?

He was really annoyed. He thought it all rather touching and feminine. They were all like that—wanted a man to spend his time making love and playing the fool; and yet, if he didn’t provide all they wanted, or thought they wanted, they’d nag him to death. He kissed her again.

“We’ll go in to the city some day next week,” he said. “We’ll take in a show, and all that. That’s what you need.”

“It isn’t! What I need is some one to talk to. You never want to listen to me. You never ask me what I’ve been doing.”

“But there’s nothing you could do,” he answered innocently, “except cooking and sewing and—”

He was really surprised at her outbreak, she was usually so cheerful and equable. He looked at her flushed and furious face, the tears still in her eyes, and an unpleasant conviction came to him that this was going to be serious—and lasting.

“You come in,” she went on, “and you sit down and eat your dinner, and the only thing you can find to say to me is to call me a cook!”

“I said you were a fine little cook,” he began ingratiatingly. “Nothing wrong in that, is there? Why, I’m proud of you, Kathleen! Only this afternoon I was telling Sawyer how you could cook.”

“Well, you’d just better find something else to praise me for!” she cried. “I’m something more than a cook, and the sooner you learn it the better!”

He was astounded and somewhat shocked at her violence—dismayed, too. He had an uneasy feeling that he couldn’t handle this situation adequately. So, according to his habit, he decided to go away, believing, as many other people believe, that if he weren’t in the situation, there would be no situation. But his cool deliberations were upset. Moreover, his cigar was out, and he didn’t like relighted cigars.

He got the books in which he was trying to work out a new idea of hotel bookkeeping, but he couldn’t do a thing. He couldn’t put out of his mind the image of that girl, that provoking and beloved girl, with her angry, rosy little face and her eyes full of tears.

No denying, though, that she was a wonderful wife and companion. She had never complained before, she had never failed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her get up and begin carrying the dishes over to the sink. He thought he would help her, and then he thought he wouldn’t. It would be weakness.

Still, it would do no harm to conciliate her. Perhaps, if he did, his working mood would return. He watched her for a few minutes longer, bending over the dish pan. Then he got up, went over to her, and, putting an arm about her, drew her close against him.

“Why, you silly kid!” he said, kissing her. “You’re the best little cook!”

He was so astounded that he couldn’t speak. He stared at her flushed and furious face, his own perfectly blank. Then, very slowly, the color began to rise in his lean cheeks.

He was a man slow to anger, a man of self-control and sang froid; but when his temper was aroused, it was a bad one. His wife was secretly horrified at what she had done. She hadn’t meant to do it. She knew he was only trying to be funny. She was ashamed and alarmed.

“Because I’m sick and tired of being called a cook, that’s why!” she answered valiantly.

“Well, I won’t!” she answered promptly. “I’m glad I did it. I’m just sick and tired of—of all this—shut up here alone all day long!”

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she began, very deliberately, to dry her hands. He turned away and walked back to his books, but she saw that his hands were clenched, and she knew that he was filled with fury. She was elated, and she was sorry.

He began figuring, but he grasped his pencil so fiercely that it broke, and he had to get up and look for another.

He saw Kathleen standing before the little mirror she had hung up on the wall, dressed in her fur coat and engaged in pinning on her hat.

Taking the key out of the lock, he went out of the kitchen, slamming and locking the door behind him.

III

Brecky made an effort to be light, careless, superior. He whistled as he went upstairs to the two rooms they used on the floor above—one as a bedroom, the other as a sort of office, where Brecky “saw people.” He had plenty of material to occupy himself with here—letters and catalogues and estimates and so on. A little gas stove was burning in one corner, and the room was as neat, cheerful, and comfortable as it could be made by Kathleen’s benevolent genius.

He had scarcely set foot over the threshold before a pang of remorse assailed him. Wherever his glance fell, there was something to speak of Kathleen and her care for him. He was by no means imaginative, but he was suddenly able to imagine his young wife alone all day in this huge, cold place. He began to have some idea of what her life must be.

“By gosh!” he thought. “After all, I don’t know that I blame the poor girl for landing on me!”

And all at once the pathos of the thing overcame him—that poor little bit of a thing flying out at him like that—at him, who could have picked her up and shaken her like a kitten. He shouldn’t have teased her. After all, there was more to her than her cooking. He hadn’t fallen in love with her for that.

His impulse was to hurry downstairs and make it up; but he didn’t see how one could make up a quarrel with a woman without giving her a present. It wasn’t decent. Moreover, it would be too difficult. A present relieved a man from the necessity of making any sort of explanation, or of talking at all. You give the present, with a kiss, and it’s done.

He walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, haunted by the image of Kathleen angry and Kathleen gay. The more he reflected, the more mysterious and oppressive was his sense of guilt, the more contrite and tender his heart. In the end he came to a decision extraordinary in one so stiff-necked. He resolved to go downstairs and say, quite frankly, that he was sorry, and that he loved her and didn’t care whether she cooked or not.

The house seemed blacker and colder than ever as he descended the stairs. He wondered if she was crying in there, or scornfully washing the dishes. He unlocked the door, opened it, and entered.

He couldn’t see her at all. He stared about the huge kitchen, which was well lighted. There were the dishes, just as he had last seen them, but no human being. Kathleen had gone!

He couldn’t believe it at first. She couldn’t have got out by the windows, for the heavy shutters were locked on the outside. There was no possible means of egress from that room except an incredible one; and yet, as she wasn’t in the room, she must have got out that way. She must have gone down the flight of rickety wooden steps and through the cellar.

She had always been in mortal fear of the cellar, because there were rats in it. Brecky had always brought up the coal for her when she wanted some. In order to pass through it at night, she must have been in a desperate mood, he thought.

He was more disturbed than he cared to admit. Where could the girl go, alone, on[Pg 46] a night like this, with a regular hurricane blowing? There was nothing for it but to put on his cap and overcoat and go in search of her.

The wrath of a woman had in it something peculiarly alarming and mysterious for Brecky. He felt that Kathleen was capable of the most amazing deeds, that she was not bound by any of his rules or scruples. He couldn’t imagine what she would do. He was completely lost.

He opened the front door and stepped out into the tumultuous night. Fortunately there was only one direction in which to go, unless one wished to walk into the sea, and he didn’t think that even an enraged wife would do that. There was nothing suicidal about Kathleen, anyhow. She was too sane, too solid, too honestly fond of life.

He was also aware that she was well able to withstand this weather. Where he could go, sturdy as he was, she could go, too. She was vigorous and resolute.

The wind was at his back now. He went with fierce impetus along the empty streets, and he went, inevitably, to the railway station. He entered the warm little waiting room, where a white-bearded agent dozed in his ticket booth.

“Ten minutes ago,” the agent went on, full of the secret triumph he always felt at the spectacle of a thwarted traveler. “You’ll have to wait two hours, and mebbe more.”

Brecky sat down near the stove and set to work to frame a question which should in no way compromise his wife. He wished to seem aware of all her doings. He couldn’t ask whether she had been at the station; but the agent assisted him.

“Your missus would ’a’ lost the nine o’clock train herself, if it hadn’t ’a’ been near half an hour late.”

“I’m glad she caught it, anyway,” replied Brecky. “It’s a case of serious illness. I told her to hurry along, and I’d follow as soon as I could.”

“I wonder who she got on the phone!” said Brecky. “Probably her aunt or her cousin.”

Splendid improvisation, for Kathleen hadn’t a single relative in the city, to his knowledge!

“It just happens I heard the name,” said the agent. “‘Charley,’ she says, ‘I’m coming in unexpected, and you must come and meet me!’”

“She didn’t phone New York,” said the agent. “I just happened to hear. It was New Chelsea.”

He took a cigar out of his pocket and began to smoke, and to think. His impassive face showed no trace of emotion. He was simply waiting for a train; but within he was in a panic, torn with rage, fear, and a frantic desire for action.

Who the devil was Charley? After all, what did he know of Kathleen? What did he know of women, anyway? He had left her alone for days and days, while he looked after business matters in the city. He had left her alone, partly because he wanted to go into the city, because he disliked solitude and quiet. How did he know what she thought of when he was gone? Charley!

He could scarcely endure it. His lean body trembled, like that of a nervous horse held brutally in check. He wanted to bolt. Charley!

Unfortunately, Brecky did not find it difficult to believe evil. His experience of life had been hard and definite. He had as high an opinion of Kathleen as he had ever had of a human being, but he was not trustful. He knew too much, and it was a one-sided knowledge.

It was possible that Kathleen was merely a fool, and didn’t realize what she was doing; but this Charley wouldn’t be like that. If women were more or less a mystery to Brecky, men were not. He had a sudden and very clear picture of Kathleen, neat, rosy, pitifully self-assured, alighting from the train, to be met by Charley.

All at once he knew who Charley was—that fat, owlish fellow who used to sit so often at Kathleen’s table in the restaurant. Sands, his name was. He had money of his own, and used to bother Brecky for tips on the races. He used to sit for hours ab[Pg 47]sorbed in the form sheets, trying to figure things out for himself—with the usual results. And Kathleen had turned from Brecky, the shrewd, the alert, the competent, to that fellow!

Brecky’s voice rang out sharply in the quiet little room. The agent opened his eyes, more startled than the words warranted. He fancied there was something in the other man’s tone. He stared at him, instantly wide awake.

“Don’t be late, though,” said the agent. “This’ll be the last train to-night.”

Brecky vanished, slamming the door behind him. He retraced his steps with dreamlike ease. He was not conscious of progressing until he found himself once more at the hotel. He was filled with emotions so violent, with such a confusion of hatred, jealousy, and pain, that he was truly overwhelmed. His inarticulate soul could find no other words for his anguish than—

He put his hand into his coat pocket for the key of the front door, but it wasn’t there. He was obliged to go around to the back of the house and enter through the cellar. He felt his way through the piercing cold of that black underground cavern, and ascended the shaking wooden steps to the kitchen.

The kitchen gave him a shock. It was exactly as he had left it, neat, quiet, warm, with the clock ticking, the kettle gently steaming, Kathleen’s apron across a chair. It was like the memory of a past irretrievably gone. Brecky’s heart contracted with pain. He stopped for a moment, to muster all the resolution he had.

He went upstairs into the bedroom, and from a drawer of the bureau he took what he wanted. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, saw his face strained and hard beneath his inevitable cap, and he thought he looked like a criminal in the movies. Well, why shouldn’t he?

He caught the train. He got in and settled himself comfortably in the smoking car, deserted except for two men playing pinochle.

The train ran on smoothly, stronger than the wind. Brecky could see very little from the window except the slanting rain and now and then a blurred light. The turmoil in his brain never ceased. He looked unpleasantly wide awake, staring, like a somnambulist. His gray eyes never seemed to blink, or his face to move a muscle.

And for all his grief and fury he had no other words than that pitifully inadequate refrain:

His cigar was out, but he did not notice it. He sat with a curiously alert air, like a pointing dog, immobile, but terribly ready. He was thinking.

“It’s not an express stop,” he said. “You’ll have to go on to New York and then take a train back. You’ll have to wait till to-morrow morning, too. No more trains to-night!”

Brecky reflected. He took it for granted that if Kathleen had telephoned to the fellow at New Chelsea, that was where he lived, and where he was most likely to be found. He pulled at the conductor’s sleeve as the man was moving away.

“Just you tell me when you’re going to slow down a bit,” said Brecky. “I’ve got to get there. You won’t be responsible.”

“I should be,” said the conductor sententiously. “Morally speaking, I should be responsible.”

Brecky knew every inch of that line. As they approached the desired destination, he got up and went out upon the platform. The pinochle players saw him standing there, in the wind and the rain. Then, suddenly, he vanished. He had climbed down the steps and jumped.

The fall stunned him, and he lay still for an instant. When he could breathe freely again, he rose, and mechanically tried to brush himself off. He was always a neat fellow.

The train had disappeared, and he was alone in the universe. He could still hear the sea, dull and menacing, and the demoniac wind still blew. He didn’t quite know where he was. His plan was to follow the tracks.

Wet to the skin, a sinister enough figure with his face nearly hidden by pulled down cap and turned up collar, he went doggedly[Pg 48] forward toward the next station. He presented the appearance of a highwayman.

Before long he saw the feeble light of the New Chelsea station ahead of him, blurred through the rain. With a sigh of relief he mounted the wooden platform, where he was for the moment sheltered from the weather.

He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He looked in through the window, and saw the dimly lit room, quite empty, and the stove, without fire. Evidently the station master had gone for the night. This was a blow to Brecky, for he had counted upon making inquiries here.

He prowled around the platform, scowling, trying to plan his course. To his right he saw a few scattered lights, which must be, he thought, the village of New Chelsea; and he went toward them, along a muddy road. In due time he reached the main street. There was a drug store, closed and locked, with a ghostly green light in the window. There was also a protective light in the window of a well stocked grocery; but not a human being to be seen, not a sound to be heard, except the yelping of a dog somewhere in the hills that rose behind the town and partly sheltered it from the wind. Only a sudden cruel gust, from time to time, met him full in the face.

He turned a corner, and at the end of the street he saw a distant form, walking with a slow and deliberate step very familiar to him. It was a policeman, and Brecky hastened after him.

“I’ve lost my bearings,” he said. “Is Charley Sands’s place anywhere near here?”

“Well,” said Brecky, laughing, “I suppose because I don’t want to walk around New Chelsea all night in this weather. Three of us started here in a motor, but we broke down a little way up the line, and we couldn’t get our bearings. We each tried a different direction, and I guess I’m the lucky one. Charley will have to turn out with a lantern to find the other fellows.”

“Oh, they’ll be all right!” said the policeman, disarmed. “There’s houses and little settlements all around this part of the country.”

He directed Brecky to the house of Charley Sands. A good walk, about three miles, he should say—uphill, and mighty hard to find in the dark.

He very nearly found something else that night. He lost his way entirely. He went on, as in a dream, along muddy roads, up hills so steep that he thought his weary heart would burst. He would not admit his intolerable fatigue, and the frightful ravages made by passion and bitterness. He wished to continue, inexorably, until he had accomplished his object.

The country was unfamiliar and hostile to this denizen of cities. When at last his strength was wholly gone, he did not know where to turn. He dared not wake any of the people in the dark farmhouses he passed. He crept up to a barn once, but a dog drove him away.

At last, at very last, he found an open shed behind a church, used as a shelter for the buggies and the Fords of the worshipers; and he crouched in there, relieved for a time from the unendurable confusion of the dark and the wind. His cigars and matches were dry and safe in an inside pocket, and he began to smoke. He hadn’t the slightest wish to sleep. He didn’t even feel tired. He only wanted to stop for a moment, to secure a pause in his superhuman exertions. He knew very well that if he hadn’t found this refuge, he would have been defeated.

Wide-eyed and reflective, he sat in his corner until he observed that the stormy dark was changing its aspect, that it was growing faintly and drearily gray. It surprised him. He had forgotten that morning was ever coming again. He got up and set out on his way once more.

An extraordinary thought occurred to him. It would have been better, he said to himself, if he had died. He had lost Kathleen; why was he to live? What had he left?

He had no longer any heart for revenge. He was sorry he had to see it through; but, according to his queer code, it was absolutely necessary to vindicate himself. Otherwise his self-respect would be gone, and he could neither live nor die in peace.

It was nearly eight o’clock when he approached the house of Charley Sands, which an early stirring laborer had pointed out to him. He had planned that hour. He[Pg 49] had also looked up the time of the train he meant to take—when he had finished. It was due to his self-respect to make a valiant effort to escape, although he didn’t really care.

It was a trim white house surrounded by placid lawns. He went up to it with careless audacity, his hand grasping the revolver in his pocket. What did he care? Let Sands see him, let him ask what he wanted; he would soon find out!

Brecky had made himself neater, after his horrible night, than almost any other man could have done; but at best he looked haggard and menacing. He knew it, and was glad.

The weather had cleared, but he was still wet to the skin and cold, although he was not aware of it. He walked along the gravel path, which crunched under his firm tread. He was making no effort to conceal his presence. He wished to be observed, to bring this thing to its climax, to be done with it.

He ran up on the veranda, and, with one of those queer impulses of an abstracted mind, instead of ringing the bell, he knocked sharply on the door. He heard some one coming down the stairs, and he smiled. If it was Charley—

But it was not. It was an entirely strange young woman, who looked at him with distrust. He was so taken aback that he could not speak. He stared and stared at her.

Brecky hesitated. His tired brain, flung loose from the pivot of his fixed idea, spun round helplessly. He couldn’t really think at all. Another woman here!

He was roused by the sight of her preparing to shut the door in his face. He set his foot against it.

Brecky entered, still dazed. They didn’t seem at all surprised to see him, even at that hour of the morning, and in the lamentable state he was in. He sat down uninvited, threw off his cap, and lighted a cigar.

“This is my wife, Brecky,” said Sands, in a tone of severe rebuke. “Kathleen’s second cousin, you know.”

His manners, usually punctilious, had deserted him entirely. What he wanted was for these people to clear out of their own room, and let him think for a moment; but the young woman sat down opposite him. She was rather nice-looking, in a shrewish way, but obviously hostile.

“I don’t think she wants to see you,” said the young woman. “I don’t blame her. If she takes my advice, she’ll never go back to you!”

Brecky looked at her steadily. He felt, however, that it was better not to say what he thought just then.

“You’re just making a drudge out of her,” the other went on. “It’s a shame—a pretty, lively young girl like Kathleen shut up in that awful place! All you care about is getting your meals cooked. I wouldn’t do it for any man. She’s sick and tired of it, I can tell you—being your cook. If she takes my advice, she’ll go back to her old job, where she’ll have a little money to spend and see a little life.”

“All right!” said Brecky again. “But maybe she doesn’t want to take your advice. Anyway, I’d like to ask her.”

“Well, I hope she won’t see you. I know what you’ll do—make all sorts of promises, till you get her back there again, and then she can go right on cooking!”

“I’ll see,” said the peppery young woman, and went off and left him alone.

He had a new idea to contend against, and one for which there was in his experience no precedent. He could comprehend an elopement, but any subtler reason for his wife’s leaving him was extremely hard for him to grasp. It was his habit, though, to face facts, and he tried now.

He tried to imagine Kathleen as a human being, and not as his wife; but he failed. What more could the girl want? He was filled with rage at her ingratitude, and at the humiliating position she had got him into. He was certainly being made a[Pg 50] fool of, for the first time. He had done his best, had worked for her, had been sober, kind, loyal. What more could the girl want?

Whatever it was, she wouldn’t get it—that she wouldn’t! She had left him, and she could come back, if she wished; but he wasn’t going to ask her.

“That’s not my way!” he said to himself, with a grimace. “I won’t crawl for any one. I haven’t done anything. It’s all her fault!”

He was half inclined to walk out of the house then and there, but if by any chance Kathleen was going to be sorry, he didn’t want to miss it. He discovered that he was extremely anxious for her to be sorry, and that if she were, he might perhaps not be so very angry. She needn’t even say it. One nice smile, and the thing would be over.

“I don’t know,” he thought. “Maybe it has been hard for her. She’s only a kid. Of course, it doesn’t excuse her running away like that, and making such a fool of me, but—well, I don’t know. Maybe, later on, I’ll get a servant for her. I could afford it.”

Brecky wheeled about, for some one had entered the room. It was the rebellious Kathleen herself. She seemed to him to have grown miraculously prettier overnight, and he was still less angry.

Without another word, he picked up his cap and made for the door; but he was met by Charley Sands.

He wanted breakfast badly. He also wanted to show Kathleen how unconcerned he was, that he was not hurt and bewildered and angry. He stood in the hall, talking to Charley. He was aware of Kathleen’s voice in a near-by room, talking to that vixenish young woman.

He couldn’t imagine how any man could marry if he couldn’t marry Kathleen. He despised and hated Kathleen, but in common justice he had to acknowledge to himself that she was the prettiest and sweetest girl in the world, and utterly superior to all other women. She was—

“No,” she was saying. “I think I’ll make some pancakes for Johnny’s breakfast. But see here—you needn’t tell him I made ’em, Grace. I don’t want him to think—but he looks dead tired, and he does love pancakes!”

That did for Brecky. He ran down the hall and pushed open a door. It opened into the kitchen, and Kathleen, in an apron, stood at the table, before a large bowl. He paid no attention to the second cousin. He darted around the table and took Kathleen in his arms.

“Don’t be silly!” he said anxiously. “See here, Kathleen! Listen! We’ll get a cook. We’ll go to the theater, and—”

“Oh, Johnny!” she began, but stopped short, dried her eyes, and went on with great dignity. “Johnny,” she said, “I wouldn’t mind cooking and all that, for you, if you didn’t—kind of expect it. That’s what made me mad last night. You just expect—”

“Well, I won’t any more,” he assured her. “You come home, and I’ll be darned surprised every time I get a meal!”

A few minutes later they all sat down to enjoy Kathleen’s matchless pancakes. Eating them, Brecky also partook of the fruit of knowledge.

“You’re one grand little cook, Kathleen,” he thought; “but this time I won’t say it!”

The Aforementioned Infant

THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO LOVED HER BABY

“‘Free access to the aforementioned infant,’” he repeated. “That means that you may see your child at any time—any reasonable time, of course,” he hastened to add.

It did not take Maisie long to discover that there was no reasonable time. No matter at what hour she came to the house, she had to wait in the hall, sitting in a high-backed chair against the wall, humble, patient, like a child herself. The servants passed and repassed as often as they could find pretexts, for the sake of staring at this creature who had trapped young Mr. Lester into a scandalous marriage. The fact that she had not been notably successful as an adventuress stirred no one to pity. They had married, and it must have been due to Heaven knows what beguilement on her part.

Maisie had little charm for the casual observer. She was small, fragile, with untidy black hair and gray eyes immense and sorrowful. She dressed like a schoolgirl in a blue sailor blouse and a short dark skirt. Her pale face had the rounded contour of extreme youth. If the reckless Mr. Lester had betrayed her, one might have felt compassion for her as a forlorn and lovely child; but the fact that he had married her proved her to be basely calculating.

After a long time she would be taken up to the nursery. If the baby was asleep, she would stand beside the crib, her hands clasped, tears raining down her face. She would wait patiently until it awoke. Then she would lift the sturdy little thing, strain it to her childish breast, kiss its faint, silky hair, and press her own cheek against its plump one. She scarcely dared to whisper her passionate endearments, for the trained nurse was always there, looking at her critically.

“I don’t like to see her pick up the baby,” the nurse said to Mrs. Tracy. “She doesn’t look healthy.”

“I dare say she’s not,” replied Mrs. Tracy, with a sigh; “and who knows what she’s been doing, or where she comes from? But I suppose it can’t be helped. She had a legal right to see the child, of course. My son is very strict about her rights, and so on—very generous.”

Her son himself was not always so sure of his generosity. He had moments when he thought himself little short of contemptible. Only moments, though; he was no rebel, and if his world was inclined to condone his offenses, or even to deny them, who was he to contradict it?

He was young himself—only twenty-two; a good-looking, silly, sweet-tempered boy. His life was one folly after another, always repaired by some one else. He did not imagine that he could do no wrong, but he felt pretty sure that any wrong that he might do could easily be undone by some one else.

He had found Maisie behind the counter of a candy shop, where he went to buy lavish presents for other girls. Her luminous and innocent eyes, her soft little English voice, had taken his fancy. She was quite alone in the world. She had come to America with her brother, a third-rate actor, a hard-working, ambitious fellow, for whom she was to keep house.

She had been pitifully ready to love. She had taken all Lester Tracy’s extravagant speeches in perfect seriousness. She didn’t know how to conceal her sweet delight; and he had been very much touched[Pg 53] by her artless affection. There was no one like little Maisie.

He often took her out to dinner, and to save his life he could see nothing in her to find fault with. She was always gentle, quiet, appealing. What if she was a shop girl? He knew plenty of girls of his own sort who might have learned much from Maisie. She was no gold digger, for she demanded nothing, expected nothing. She was happy if he took her out, but she was quite as happy if he stood in the vestibule of the wretched apartment house where she lived, and talked to her and kissed her.

She cared nothing at all for his money. He had tried to explain that, but no one would believe it.

He couldn’t explain his marriage very well. He had come into the candy shop, one day, on his way home from a wedding breakfast, where he had had a good deal too much to drink. He had leaned across the counter and said to Maisie:

She had got her shabby little hat and walked out of the shop with him, and they had gone down to the City Hall. He had been well aware of his condition, and a little afraid that he wouldn’t be granted a license; but he had made a great effort, and had carried it off splendidly.

He had been very happy with Maisie. He had run away. For a time no one knew where he was or what he had done, and they had lived in a big seaside hotel, undisturbed by any thought of the consequences of the thing. He did not like to remember how sweet Maisie had been. He tried to forget the innocent gayety of that fortnight.

Of course he had been discovered, and the monstrousness of the escapade had been shown to him. He had been hectored and wept over and bribed, and he had given in, as he always did.

Maisie was no less docile. She had been told that she must give him up, and she did as she was told.

Her docility was a sore temptation to the Tracys’ lawyer, who saw no reason why they should throw money away on a girl who didn’t want it. He advised them to waive the question of a divorce for the present, but to ask her to sign an informal—and infamous—separation agreement, to accept a very small cash settlement, and to vanish. She saw clearly that no one on earth—alas, not even Lester—cared where she went, or what happened to her.

To the lawyer she seemed to be a singularly insensitive creature. Even Lester was surprised that she gave him up so readily, without even a word of farewell. She would have got more sympathy—and more money—if she had made a scene; but that never occurred to her. She accepted whatever life offered with the blind resignation of a child. She felt herself entirely helpless and ineffectual, and took refuge in a strange inner life of her own, in the most piteous dreams and fancies.

Without energy, without bodily or mental vigor, Maisie had the immeasurable strength of fortitude. She could live one day at a time, endure each misery as it came; and in her baby she found a sublime compensation for every sorrow. Her money was exhausted when she left the hospital, but she was accustomed to the idea of a lifetime of work; and now that she had something to work for, a new ambition had awakened in her.

Her brother had taught her to dance. Indeed, they had once laboriously rehearsed a “turn” of his invention which was to thrill the music halls. She knew all the hackneyed steps, the conventional gestures, and performed them with a conscientious and touching grace.

The stage was out of the question—she knew that. She had no stage presence, no commercial value; but she could teach. Her naïve confidence in her ability to do so convinced the manager of the Palace Dancing Academy, and he engaged her as a “lady instructor.” The hours were irregular. She had to be on call from ten in the morning till ten at night, and was paid by the lesson.

She bought an evening dress from a secondhand dealer, an amazing affair of tarnished spangles and frowzy net, in which she looked incredibly dowdy. She could never learn to dress her hair. There were always silky threads waving as she moved, and one dark lock that insisted on falling across her forehead. One of her pupils said privately that dancing with her was like dancing with a rag doll. She seemed boneless and unsubstantial.

On the whole, however, she was well liked, for she took the greatest pains, was never impatient, never discouraged. Neither[Pg 54] did she resent anything whatever. Some of her clients went far in their compliments, but her pale cheeks never flushed. She simply didn’t care. She had done with men, and all her steadfast and gentle heart was given to her baby. The Maisie who went dancing about in the Palace Academy was an automaton, whose soul was locked up at home.

She knew nothing at all about babies. She didn’t even know that there was anything to know. She read the label on a package of infant food, and followed the directions given. For the rest, she had vague ideas about keeping it swathed in flannel, giving it a daily bath, and taking it out in the fresh air whenever she could. She knew nothing of infant hygiene, and had never been told that the child should be let alone in order to develop naturally and healthily. She never let it alone, if she could avoid doing so; and still it developed mightily.

When she went out to give her lessons, she simply locked the room and left the baby in the crib. Sometimes she worried about fire, but she had no idea that what she did was wicked and shocking. On the contrary, she thought it inevitable.

She hadn’t told any one that there was a baby, but Mrs. Tracy found it out, and was very much agitated. Her grandchild! Try as she would to let well enough alone, the idea tormented her. It was an intolerable shame that her grandchild should be brought up in squalor and degradation by this girl!

“I’ve no doubt she’d be willing to give up the child for a suitable consideration,” said he. “She seems to be a matter-of-fact young person.”

So he went with Mrs. Tracy to offer the suitable consideration. They found the miserable furnished room and knocked at the door. It was locked, but the baby inside began to cry.

“I guess Mrs. Tracy’s out,” said the landlady, who was interested in these imposing visitors.

“Does she leave the child locked in the room alone?” demanded the outraged grandmother.

“Well, what else can she do?” replied the landlady. “But she’s always home by quarter past ten.”

So they came again at that time. Maisie had brought in a sandwich and a piece of cake for her supper, and had spread them out on the table. The baby’s food was simmering over the gas jet, and the baby itself was propped up with pillows on the bed, jolly as a sandboy. Maisie had taken off her evening frock and put on a short, old-womanish sort of flannel dressing sack. Her short dark hair hung loose about her neck. She looked startled when she opened the door.

The senior Mrs. Tracy was an impressive woman, tall, slender, straight, with a high-bridged nose and pale, restless eyes. She had an arrogant spirit, but she came prepared to hold it in subjection, and to cajole, if necessary. She must and would have her grandchild.

Moreover, she fell in love with the baby at once. It was a vigorous, wild little thing, with rough dark hair and a glance farouche and bright. It was rather undersized, but perfectly formed and healthy.

“And she’s dressed it like a monkey!” she thought angrily. “The child is certainly ten months old, and still in those ridiculous long clothes, and that absurd jacket! And why a bonnet in the house?”

Mrs. Tracy considered all this as evidence of Maisie’s lack of maternal feeling, and she was astounded when the girl refused to sell her baby.

“Oh, no, thank you!” she persisted. “Oh, thank you very much, but I’d rather not. Thanks, but really I can’t!”

The lawyer and Mrs. Tracy pointed out to her how grossly selfish she was, and told her that she thought only of her own pleasure, and not of the child’s advantage. Maisie kept to herself certain ideas she had about these advantages. She was terrified, but resolute. She would not give up the baby.

III

Several times, after that, Maisie was summoned to the lawyer’s office to be bullied and cajoled. She came as promptly and obediently as if a letter from him were an order from the Inquisition, but she would not abjure.

One evening, when she came home, the baby was gone. She might have protested against the illegality of her locked room being forcibly entered; but, as the lawyer well knew, those who are not aware of their rights are little better off than those who have none.[Pg 55]

She came to his office early the next morning. He had expected her to come. He had also expected her to be somewhat lacking in self-control, but she was worse than he had imagined. He was very reasonable. He explained that the child was now in the custody of its father, and she would have to show cause why it should be removed therefrom. He hinted that she would not find that easy to do.

“Now, then, my dear young woman,” said he, “you mustn’t be selfish. Your child will be brought up with every possible advantage, and you shall see her whenever you wish. Compare what her grandparents have to offer her with the life that she would have with you. Your—er—young Mr. Tracy has no money of his own, you know, and there is no way to force any sort of—”

He saw with alarm that she was likely to become troublesome. She no longer wept, but her mouth twitched and her eyes burned.

“Then let them give me the money to take care of the baby, instead of their nurses!” she cried. “I’d do it all alone! The baby was always well with me, and so happy you can’t think!”

It would have been convenient to expel this naughty child from school, but it could not be done. She would not consent to write a letter refusing to return to her husband. On the contrary, the mention of such a thing caused her a most ludicrous hope. Perhaps Lester really wanted to ask her, and these people were trying to stop him. She had strangely little affection for him left. She was, in fact, perfectly indifferent in regard to him; but if she got him, she would get the baby. That was all she wanted.

“Now, my dear child,” she said, “you’re very young. For your own sake, you don’t want to go on like this, married and yet not married. You want to be free, so that you can make another choice, and, I hope, a happier one.”

She went on to explain that if Maisie would only do as she was told, she would soon have a dazzling freedom. She might marry again; she could do exactly as she pleased.

Maisie had an ignorant fancy that she already possessed about as much freedom as she was ever likely to get, and she said she didn’t want to marry any one else.

She held firmly to that. Lester could have everything there was—freedom, money, as many wives as a Turk; she wanted nothing but the baby.

Mrs. Tracy desired and intended that her son should have everything desirable, and the baby as well; and she felt sure that in time this would come about. She had observed that everything comes to those who can afford to wait. If poor people were simply let alone, their own poverty would drown them.

Lester Tracy was alone in the house, technically speaking. To be sure, there were four servants drawing the breath of life on the premises, but even they would have admitted unanimously that Mr. Lester was alone. He was dressing to go out, moving about in his room, and whistling cheerfully.

He was a lean, blond young fellow, his face already marked by dissipation; yet it was not a coarse or an evil face, only a frivolous one. He was little more than a tragic buffoon, and sometimes the poor devil was aware of it. Not now, however. Now he was happy, with his unfailing infantile zest for facile pleasures. He stopped whistling for a moment, to examine his closely shaved jaw; and then he heard a stealthy footstep in the hall.

Because nothing had ever happened to him, he was afraid of nothing. He had a vague belief that his person was sacred, that any evildoer would fall back abashed before Lester Tracy. He hoped it was a burglar; that would be something to tell his friends. He turned out the light and pushed open his door without a sound, very much excited.

But it was only Maisie, stock still, with her hand at her heart, and a white face. She wore a scanty rain coat over her tawdry, bespangled frock, and one of the big, floppy hats that she fancied. She had somehow the look of a masquerader, in clothes that didn’t belong to her, and she certainly did not belong there in the Tracys’ hall.

A very unpleasant emotion came over Lester at the sight of that little figure. He had grown accustomed to thinking of Maisie—when he thought of her at all—as one of his follies of which some one else was[Pg 56] disposing. He had forgotten that she was real; but now that he saw her, she seemed more real than any one he had ever seen or imagined.

She was pale and motionless, and yet she seemed as startling as a blaze of light. Her forlorn and betrayed loneliness was like a halo about her young head.

Recovering from her momentary alarm, she went on toward the nursery. Lester was miserably irresolute. He wanted to go out and tell her to go boldly to her baby, to go arrogantly, proudly. He couldn’t endure her furtiveness.

“After all, it’s her baby,” he thought. “My God, what an awful thing we’ve done!”

He imagined her in the dimly lit nursery, standing beside the crib, and looking into that chubby little face. It suddenly occurred to him that the nurse might be about, and might send Maisie away. He decided to stop that.

He had come out into the hall on that errand when Maisie, too, came out from the other room. She had the baby in her arms, huddled in a blanket.

They faced each other for the first time since their honeymoon. In spite of all that they had forgotten, in spite of the gulf of injustice and suffering between them, some little spark of honest and beautiful good will was in their hearts. It was not love—that had been murdered—but loyalty to their past love.

Mrs. Tracy turned the world upside down. Not a soul in that house could sleep, could rest, could eat, during her reign of terror. It was not only her personal grief at the loss of the child that distracted her, but the monstrous affront to her pride.

She was informed that Maisie had called to see her, and had been told to wait in the hall until she returned from the theater.

“And the treacherous, wicked creature must have crept up the stairs and stolen the child!” she cried. “She must have taken the poor, helpless little thing while it slept! Didn’t you hear a sound, Lester?”

If she could have had her way, she would have made it a criminal offense for any one to harbor the treacherous Maisie, to give her a morsel of food or a roof to shelter her. Her haughty spirit brooded over the insult until she was ill from it. The lawyer dreaded the sight of her haggard face.

“It’s very difficult to trace so obscure and ordinary a person,” he protested.

“My grandchild is neither obscure nor ordinary,” she said. “Set your wits to work. The child must be found!”

As Mrs. Tracy had large resources and Maisie none at all, this was accomplished. The girl was discovered acting as general servant in a lonely country house—a wretched, ill paid position, with work beyond her young strength; but she could have her baby with her, and she fancied herself safe. From the kitchen window she could see her small idol staggering about in the grass. She could lie at night in her attic room with the child in her arms. They had food to eat, clean air to breathe, and a roof overhead.

Mrs. Tracy’s idea was to go out there by motor and simply take the child away, but the lawyer dissuaded her.

“No,” said he. “I shouldn’t like that done again. It’s apt to create prejudice against you if the case comes to court.”

“I fancy I should only need to inform the judge how the child is living—sleeping in a servant’s room—”

“No,” he said. “You never can tell how those things will go. I advise you to compromise with her—to leave the child in her custody six months—”

“With a servant? When she can have every possible advantage with her father? I will not do it. Let the case go to court. I fancy—”

“But you see,” he explained, “after all, the mother is supporting the child more or less decently; and as far as I can ascertain, there’s nothing against her character—no evidence to prove her an unfit guardian.”

The lawyer understood her very well, but he did not care to go so far. That sort of thing was done, of course, but not by him.

“I’m going to save the child,” said she. “If you don’t care to help me, I’ll do it alone![Pg 57]”

He quite believed that she would, and he felt a small twinge of pity for Maisie.

Maisie accepted blessings as she did curses, patiently and incuriously. She was not startled when a young man came out to the country, told her that he had noticed her dancing at the Palace Academy, and made her an offer to be his dancing partner for two or three cabaret turns.

She was no analyst of character, either. She took people on their own valuation, which is generally a flattering one. She was pleased and a little touched by Mr. Denbigh’s friendly interest. It was a long time since she had talked freely with any one near her own age. She told him that she had studied stage dancing with her brother, and was sure she wouldn’t be shy in public. She told him how anxious she was to get on in the world, for the baby’s sake.

He offered her a loan as an advance, and she accepted it, agreeing to go back to the city at once and to sign the contracts he would bring her. She was so artless, so impersonal, so ignorant, that Mr. Denbigh went away a little disconcerted by the facility with which the first step had been accomplished.

“Mr. Ainsworth Denbigh,” his card read. That, however, was not his name, and though he spoke with the slurred, agreeable accent of the New Yorker, he was not one. He was a slender, supple young fellow, with the queer beauty of Heaven knows what mongrel blood. He had dark, narrow eyes, olive skin, high cheek bones, and a delicate jaw. He had sprung up from nowhere; he had no tradition, no background, no scruples, no country, no friends.

In the middle of the dancing craze he had come to the surface. With his adroitly acquired manner, he had some success as a professional dancer in hotels, because women liked him. Then, as his vogue fell off, his means of living became more and more unsavory. Through a new and unmentioned lawyer, Mrs. Tracy had got hold of him. It was to be his rôle to prove Maisie an unfit guardian for the baby, and the thing was to be done thoroughly. Mrs. Tracy intended it to appear natural, inevitable, without the faintest trace of her guiding hand. She couldn’t have found a better tool than Ainsworth Denbigh.

He had no trouble in teaching Maisie. She had a remarkable talent, a matchless grace, and she was docile. She learned the steps exactly as he wished. She was light in his arms as thistledown, but she was not passive. Her movement had a strange, exquisite quality; with all her supple body apparently at rest, she moved through space like a floating leaf, like a wind-blown flower.

She was utterly devoid of any sensuous allurement. Dancing to vulgar music, wearing the insolent dress he had advised her to buy, before gross eyes, the plaintive innocence of her beauty was unimpaired. Her gray eyes could meet any regard with the same clear wonder, her pale cheek never flushed.

Ainsworth Denbigh was decidedly overshadowed, but this didn’t trouble him. Maisie was welcome to all the credit provided he got the cash, and their partnership was very profitable. They were making a name for themselves in a second-rate sort of way—“Mr. Ainsworth Denbigh and Miss Maisie Kent in ballroom dances de luxe.” Better still, they were making money.

He often regretted that he had entered into an agreement to remove Maisie from the Tracys’ path—not because he was touched by her forlorn youth and sweetness, or had any scruples of honor, but because he was well satisfied with affairs as they were, and resented the effort required of him. He made no headway with Maisie, and he had the wit to see that he never would. She was polite enough, and very easily swindled out of her fair share of their profits. Apparently she had confidence in him: but that was not enough. She was expected to fall in love with him, and obviously she was not going to do so.

She had taken a small flat near Morningside Park, and had engaged a colored woman to look after the baby. When their last turn was over, she was so eager to get home that she couldn’t even attend to what Denbigh said to her. She refused to go out with him at any time, not from dislike or from caution, but because she had something so much better to do. She flew home to her baby as a white soul to heaven, and was divinely happy. She had no room for one thought of her dancing partner.

There used to be a proverb about the horse that was taken to the water and would not drink. Under modern conditions that horse would no doubt be forcibly watered and taught better. If Maisie refused to[Pg 58] disgrace herself, then she must have disgrace forced upon her.

“See here, Maisie,” Denbigh said one evening. “Let me come home with you and see this wonderful kid.”

“Oh, I’d like you to!” she cried. “She’ll be asleep, but sometimes I think she’s prettier asleep than any other way. She gets a little paler, but that makes her lashes look so black!”

Mr. Denbigh was remarkably interested in her baby, but his entire behavior was remarkable that evening. He was terribly nervous, and seemed to be apprehensive about the time, consulting his wrist watch every few minutes.

VII

Lester Tracy was just leaving the house when he was called back to the telephone. He went petulantly. He wouldn’t have gone at all if it had not been an anonymous call, and therefore faintly interesting. The past six months had not improved him; he was jaded, irritable, restless.

“Lester!” she said. “Will you please come? There’s a man here, and he won’t go away.”

It was the first time he had ever been directly appealed to, had ever been asked to play a man’s part. It steadied and fortified him miraculously.

“I don’t know. He said he wanted to see the baby, and when he got into the room he locked the door. He won’t open it. Maybe he’s been drinking. So I came here, to the telephone in the little dressing room—where I bathe the baby, you know,” she explained in her careful, patient way. “It hasn’t any door into the hall. I can’t get out. And—oh, I’m so afraid he might try to hurt the baby!”

Lester didn’t think that. He wrote down the address and ran headlong down the stairs and into the waiting car.

VIII

It was by this absolutely unexpected action of Maisie’s that Mrs. Tracy was defeated. Two detectives, who believed—because they had been so informed—that they were employed by Mr. Lester Tracy to collect evidence against his wife, arrived precisely at the time when they had been told to arrive, and entered the flat. They found Maisie there, with a man who brazenly insisted that he was Mr. Lester Tracy. He didn’t look it. He was disheveled, his coat was torn, he had a bad bruise on his cheek bone and a cut over one eyebrow, and he was incoherent with rage.

The detectives had reason to believe that the fellow was a Mr. Ainsworth Denbigh, and they said so. He told them that they would very likely find Mr. Denbigh in a hospital, although jail was where he belonged. He showed a marked inclination to make a row, which was not what they had been led to expect. In fact, he was so vigorous in his methods that the detectives were at a loss.

“Telephone to Mrs. Tracy,” said he. “She’ll come and identify me. Then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing who it is that kicks you out!”

They agreed to this, and sat down to wait. It was an odd enough group—the two detectives, both burly and severe, their hats on their knees, while up and down the room walked the disordered and vehement young man. All three were somehow overshadowed by the quiet and downcast Maisie, sitting with her feet crossed, her hands clasped, in that patient, meek attitude of hers. The light of a shaded lamp fell upon her shining dark hair, untidy as always. Just once she raised her clear, honest eyes to the young man’s face, and he stopped short.

Mrs. Tracy had had to be fetched from a bridge party, and she was in no good humor. She was astounded, too, by the maladroitness of that man Denbigh in thus dragging her into an affair which she had strongly desired to avoid.

“I suppose something went wrong,” she thought, “and he wants me to prove that he’s not Lester. It’s incredibly clumsy of him. Oh, I’ll be so thankful when the wretched anxiety of this thing is over, and I have the poor little baby again! If it wasn’t for the baby, I couldn’t go through with it, but I’d do anything in the world to save the child from that outrageous girl!”

She rang the bell of the apartment, and one of the detectives let her in. He was impressed by her frigid magnificence, her crown of white hair, her penetrating eye.

“Sorry to trouble you, ma’am,” he said. “Won’t take you a minute to clear this[Pg 59] thing up. This fellow here claims he’s Mr. Tracy, and—”

She smiled scornfully. The detective stood aside, and she preceded him down the hall to the living room.

Her face blanched. She flung out her hand in a curiously helpless gesture, and it rested upon the detective’s shoulder. She needed his support.

He had been filled with a terrible anger against his mother for this brutal and shameful ruse. He had thought he could never bear to see her face again, could never speak to her with common humanity; but when he did see her, in the anguish of her defeat, all that passed.

With the resignation acquired in their profession, they went off, and the door closed behind them. Lester brought forward a chair, but Mrs. Tracy would not sit down. She had recovered something of her poise, and looked at him steadily.

“I’m glad it has happened,” he said aloud. “I needed something like this to show me where I was drifting. If I hadn’t known—if I hadn’t come here—this—this crime would have been done, and very likely I’d have taken it all for granted. I’ve let this thing go on, I’ve let little Maisie be tormented and persecuted, and I’ve never lifted a finger to help her. It has been no one’s fault but mine, because she’s my responsibility. It’s no use saying I didn’t realize; it was my business to realize. But it’s ended now. She’s going to keep her baby!”

“Lester! My son! You don’t know what you’re saying! Simply because you’ve seen this girl again, and perhaps felt a little of your old, tragic infatuation—”

“I don’t know whether it’s that,” he said slowly; “but whatever it was I felt for Maisie, there’s never been anything else half so fine in all my life. I always knew that, but I hadn’t the sense—or the manliness—to understand what it meant. I thought I’d get over it. I should have, in the course of time, and I should have been getting over the only thing in me that’s good!”

“You’re free, you know, Maisie,” he said. “You can do exactly as you please. I give you my word you won’t be disturbed again. You’re to have the baby, and I’ll see that there’s a proper provision made.”

“I do put you aside,” he said sternly. “It’s Maisie’s child, and she’s going to have it. I wish to Heaven she’d take me, too!”

Maisie had not stirred or spoken a word. She got up now and went out of the room.

“Oh, try to realize!” she whispered. “It’s your child, too. It’s a Tracy. You can’t abandon your own child to that ignorant, common girl!”

Maisie reëntered with the baby in her arms. It was asleep, lying limp and flushed against her frail shoulder. Over its dark, rough head, her eyes, misty with tears, met Mrs. Tracy’s.

“I know it’s my baby,” she said in an unsteady voice. “My very own! It’s wrong of any one to take her away from me, for one minute; but I know you love her. I wanted to say—” Maisie’s voice broke entirely. “I couldn’t be—cruel,” she sobbed; “not now when I have her safe. I’ll go to-morrow—I will indeed—to sign a paper—”

He came up beside her and put his arm about her. She looked up into his face with her old trust and candor.

“But I want to,” she said. “I mean a paper to say that Mrs. Tracy is to have—” She paused for a moment, struggling with her tears. “I remember just how it goes. I want it to say that Mrs. Tracy is to have free access to the aforementioned infant at any reasonable hour. And any hour’ll be reasonable—really it will. Even if the baby’s in her bath, she’ll be welcome to come in.”

“I mean it! I mean it with all my heart!” cried Maisie. “I know you love the baby. I know what it is to long to see her, and not be able to. I thought you’d like to hold her for a minute, now before you go home. It just makes the whole night different, when you’ve done that!”

On the way home in her car, Mrs. Tracy reflected upon the incredible thing that had happened. Of all wildly improbable things, the most improbable was that she should ever beseech and entreat Maisie to come home with her to live; yet she had done that.

Lester sat on one side of her, very silent, but she was not troubled by his silence. The sleeping baby lay against her heart, and one of her hands held Maisie’s in a firm clasp.[Pg 61]

It Seemed Reasonable

FAR BETTER TO DO IT YOURSELF, OR HAVE IT DONE BADLY—BY SOME ONE ELSE

CHRISTINE and Paul were peaceably reading that evening in their model sitting room. The room was properly ventilated, the air was kept at the correct degree of humidity, the lighting was restful and hygienic, the furnishings were all in the best of taste.

They were a serious young couple. Paul was reading “Post-War Conditions in Beluchistan,” Christine was reading “Civilization’s Last Sigh,” and they concentrated their attention upon the books. Beside Paul, on the table, lay the three cigarettes which he allowed himself every evening, while Christine had three ounces of milk chocolate. There was not a sound from either of them, because the correct hygienic temperature, the bland light, and their own well balanced temperaments, prevented them from being fidgety. They had made up their minds that marriage should not make them frivolous, narrow, or dull, and it had not.

It was a January night of cruel, silent cold, black as the pit. It was nearly ten o’clock, and they certainly expected no intruders upon their serious quiet. Once, when Paul found that he had not exactly grasped the meaning of a paragraph, and had to turn back, he glanced up. By chance Christine also looked up, so that he met her eyes—her clear, honest blue eyes, so soft as they rested upon his face that he grew a little dizzy with the joy of it.

He could not take Christine quite sensibly yet. He knew that she was nothing but a human being, with many faults; yet very often he had wild hallucinations that she was an angel, a goddess, a mystery. She may have been subject to similar delusions, for she continued to look at her Paul, half smiling, as if lost in the contemplation of a miracle.

But suddenly their peace was destroyed—and for a good long time, too, as it happened—by the sound of the doorbell and the entrance of a glowing, dark-eyed girl with a tam-o’-shanter and a scarf of violent green. She brought an icy breath of air with her, but she herself seemed warm, almost fiery, with her rosy cheeks, her red hair, her gay and confident manner.

“Excuse me, people!” she said. “I know it’s an awfully unconventional time to burst in on you, but I’ve locked myself out of my poor little house, and I’d rather be a little unmannerly than freeze!”

Paul drew forward a chair, and down she sat, drawing off woolen gloves from a pair of very pretty little hands. She was very pretty, altogether, in a startling sort of way, and she had an incomparable self-possession.

“My name’s Lucille Banks,” she remarked. “I’ve taken that little cottage down at the crossroads. I moved in this morning, and I was so busy getting settled that I forgot about dinner until awfully late. Then I went out to buy something to eat, and I forgot my key.”

“Lord, yes!” replied the other cheerfully. “I don’t mind that. I’m used to being alone. I like it.” She laughed. “I look like a kid, but I’m not,” she said. “I’m twenty-four. I was with the Red Cross in Italy. I’ve lived in Paris and London. I did a thousand miles by airplane. I’ve written a book. So you see!”

“But where could you get anything to eat at this hour in this place?” asked Christine.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t; but that does[Pg 63]n’t bother me. I’ve never pampered myself by eating a certain amount of food at certain intervals. If I could possibly beg a cigarette?”

“Let me get you something to eat, instead,” she said. “It’s so bad for you to—”

“Nothing hurts me,” Miss Banks coolly interrupted. “Even if it did hurt me, I shouldn’t care. I’m going to do all the things I like to do, and hang the consequences!”

This speech did not please Christine very much. She glanced at Paul. Somewhat to her surprise, she found him with a faint smile on his lips.

“Every one who says ‘hang the consequences’ thinks there won’t really be any,” he said.

“Consequences fall alike upon the just and the unjust,” remarked Miss Banks, through a cloud of smoke.

She, too, was smiling now, with her strong little white teeth gleaming, her dark eyes alight. She went on to express her audacious theories of life, and her energetic and reckless views about everything else, at some length.

Christine liked it less and less. She admitted freely that this Miss Banks was extraordinarily pretty, and had a debonair charm of her own, but she imagined that the girl was not to be trusted very far. She felt sure that Paul would think as she did, for they always agreed; so she looked at him, and the expression on his face surprised her. He was regarding Miss Banks with a sort of indulgence, almost compassionate, as if she were a rash and silly child, and he a man of the world.

Until this moment, Christine had looked upon Paul as a comrade, a friend, whose heart she knew as she knew her own; but now it suddenly occurred to her that Paul had been alive for twenty-six years before she had seen him, existing and thriving by himself. For some reason this idea hurt and dismayed her. She no longer listened to the lively dialogue between him and Miss Banks. She wasn’t good at talking; what she liked was to listen to Paul—but to Paul when he was talking to herself, not to Miss Banks.

“Of course I’m not interesting,” she thought. “I’ve never done anything but grow up and go to college and get married. I’ve never seen Paul so interested!”

“Well!” she said. “If you can get me into my little house, please do. I’ve got to be up early to-morrow morning, to cover the Industrial Women’s Peace Convention for my paper.”

“I’m a free lance journalist,” said Miss Banks. “I suppose they picked me for this job because I don’t know anything about industry, and hate peace and women!”

“As much as Nietzsche did,” Miss Banks assured him. “Only in general, of course. There are exceptions.”

She smiled at Christine and held out her hand—which Christine had to take, and from which she received a fierce grasp that tingled through her arm and positively made the color rise in her face.

“You little beast!” she murmured, with energy, as Paul and Miss Banks went out of the front door.

As they stepped out of the tranquil, bright house, the cold sprang like a wolf at Paul’s throat and made him gasp. The blackness and the stillness of that night!

“We’ll make a dash for it,” he said, taking Miss Banks’s arm—a very solid little arm it was, too.

“No hurry,” said she. “I like this kind of weather, and I like this awful, dismal little place. At night it doesn’t look like a suburban residential park. It might be Siberia!”

Paul, being a man, was therefore obliged to conceal his extreme discomfort, and to stroll along at the girl’s side, though the cold bit him to the bone and made his throat ache, though his numbed feet struck against stones and caused him anguish. He had to talk, too, and even to laugh, as they went down the long, lonely road.

Then they reached the corner, and turned off down a lane, not yet improved, but full of ruts and ridges of frozen mud. Paul had heard of the good old-fashioned punishment in which the culprit had to walk over red-hot plowshares. He thought that it could not have been much more painful than traversing this lane. The[Pg 64] friendly interest he had felt in Miss Banks was greatly chilled. He thought she was an inhuman little monster.

They came in time to her cottage, all dark and silent, with a low, white fence faintly visible, like a necklace of bones round the stark garden. There wasn’t another house within sight. No one but an inhuman little monster could have endured to live here.

She perched herself on the fence, quite blithe and unconcerned. She even whistled.

Paul and Christine had always agreed that woman should be man’s comrade and helper. When woman, however, was not a helper and comrade, but sat upon a fence, whistling, and simply waiting, man was conscious of a new and not displeasing sense of obligation. He felt that he must display the primitive manly qualities of strength and cunning, that he must be practical, energetic, and so on.

Christine would have wanted to help and advise him. If he had insisted upon doing it alone, she would have thought he was “showing off.” Well, perhaps he was. He deserved that privilege, set down as he was on a bitter night before a strange house and told to get into it.

He did get into it. After finding everything locked, he broke a window pane with a stone, inserted his hand, and turned the catch. The window then lifted readily enough, so that he could crawl through. Ingenuity, always ingenuity!

Nothing for him to stumble about in that musty, cold, strange blackness, find a lamp and light it, and open the front door. Nothing for him to light a fire on the hearth of the sitting room and another in the kitchen stove. Nothing to him that his hand and wrist were cut and bleeding. He pretended not to notice that, and Miss Banks really didn’t.

Then he stuffed up the broken window pane with rags, and then Miss Banks had plenty of other little things for him to do—boxes to open, furniture to move, and so on.

Now Paul was grimy and very weary, and those cuts were painful. The sight of Miss Banks sitting comfortably in an armchair by the fire did not give him the unselfish pleasure it should have given.

“How did you manage to get on, then, in Siberia, or wherever it was?” he demanded.

“I’ve never been in Siberia,” said she, “but I’d get on there—or anywhere. I know how to get things done!”

This struck Paul as a very tactless remark. Such knowledge was not a thing to boast of; but he happened to look at her, and she was looking at him, and his serious face broke reluctantly into a grin.

“Don’t you know,” said she, “that Adam delved while Eve spun? I’m perfectly willing to sit comfortably by the fire and spin, as long as there’s a man to go out in the cold and delve; and there always is!”

Now Paul did not like this attitude. He thought Miss Banks a selfish, unscrupulous, and domineering creature—but challenging. She was quick and clever and audacious, besides being very pretty; and it was necessary to show her that he was not a cat’s-paw.

Of course, he could not very well refuse any of her requests. He had to chop wood, to break open a cupboard door, and to nail up rows and rows of hooks; but he did all this with a bland and superior air. Being unused to such work, it took him a long time. When at last he had done, and had put on his overcoat, instead of thanking him, Miss Banks remarked:

“They say that if you want a thing done well, you must do it yourself: but for my part I’d rather have things done badly—by some one else!”

Miss Banks was standing quite close to him, staring at him with candid interest.

“Thanks!” he said again. “And now, if there’s nothing more you want done I may as—”

“There’ll be lots more things to-morrow,” she interrupted; “but you’ve had enough, haven’t you?”

This was too much for Paul. He saw by her self-satisfied smile that she fancied she had exploited him and made an idiot of him, and was laughing at him.

“No,” he said, in a calm, reasonable tone. “If you want me to help you, I’ll come again to-morrow.”

Then he went off, scarcely feeling the[Pg 65] cold now, because of the wrath and resentment that burned in him.

III

“The silly girl has things in such a mess,” he said, “I thought it would only be decent to stay and help her a little.”

She was uneasy at Paul’s appearance. He looked pale and tired and severe. There were smudges on his face and on his collar; and then she caught sight of a grimy handkerchief tied around his wrist.

“Have you hurt yourself, Paul, darling?” she asked anxiously. “Do let me see—”

“Certainly not!” he answered, frowning. “I’m not one of those clumsy imbeciles who are always getting hurt!”

This was the first time that Paul had ever behaved quite so much like a married man; but Christine was prepared for it, and was tactful.

“She may be pretty,” Paul answered judiciously; “but she’s not the type that appeals to me. Personally, I think she’s the very worst type of modern woman. She’s—there’s nothing feminine about her. She’s an egotist.” He paused. “After all,” he went on, “what a woman should be is a man’s comrade and companion. They should share their work and their play. This idea of a woman having all sorts of absurd privileges, and behaving like an empress, simply because she’s a woman, is monstrous!”

Christine made a heroic effort not to cry. She knew Paul was not speaking of herself. Never had she behaved like an empress, or wished to do so, and she did share the work loyally. Of course it wasn’t his fault if her share was composed of very monotonous, dusty, dull little tasks, and of course it wasn’t his fault that there was mighty little play to be shared.

He went on, in that severe tone, talking about women, and she was certainly one of them. Indeed, she had a guilty consciousness that she was more of a woman than Paul suspected. She tried to stifle her shameful, ignoble feelings, and when she couldn’t stifle them, she hid them. Never should Paul know how she felt about Miss Banks. He expected his wife to be a comrade, and a comrade she would be, at any cost.

Thus it was that a curious situation arose. Paul would denounce Miss Banks with great energy, while continuing to go and see her and to assist her; but Christine, who avoided the girl as far as possible, defended her chivalrously.

Miss Banks now had a telephone, and knew how to use it. Suddenly, in the middle of a calm, sensible evening, her voice would come over the wire, asking Paul to come and mend a leak, or kill a rat, or investigate a mysterious noise. Paul always said no, he wouldn’t go, but Christine always persuaded him to go—and generally cried after he had gone, because he so obviously wished to be persuaded.

He never suggested that Christine should accompany him. Neither did Miss Banks. Indeed, she said things about tame husbands that prevented Paul from even considering such an idea.

Why he liked to see the girl he couldn’t understand. She was as rude, as impertinent, as mocking, as she chose to be. She frankly admitted that she liked to “take him down a peg.” She made fun of him, she kept him busy at arduous and humiliating tasks. And all this, instead of crushing him, had the odd effect of making him—well, Christine’s private word for it was “bumptious.”

He really was bumptious. He was bumptious while he killed rats for Miss Banks, and still more bumptious when he got home and told Christine about it.

Generally, when he went down to the cottage, he stayed there a long time. After he had finished the work she set for him, Miss Banks would graciously let him sit before her fire, and smoke, and be baited. One night, however, he came home so promptly that he almost caught Christine in tears. Although he was so much upset, he probably would not have noticed.

“That girl’s a little too much!” he said. “Of course, I make allowances for her being so silly and spoiled, but—”

Well, Paul didn’t know. He said it didn’t matter; that wasn’t the point. The[Pg 66] point was, apparently, that Miss Banks didn’t understand what a man would put up with and what he would not put up with. Paul said he had already done too much for her, and would no longer submit to her outrageous claims.

“If she’s so blamed independent,” he said, “then let her be independent, and shift for herself!”

And their peaceful evenings began again. Christine was delighted. She didn’t mind Paul’s being bumptious and talking so sternly about women. In her heart she thought it was rather pathetic and sweet and young. She was very sorry that Miss Banks had hurt him, for he was hurt, though he called it disgust. He had firmly believed that the girl couldn’t get on without him, couldn’t light a fire or open a reluctant door; yet he hadn’t been near the cottage for a week, and she still lived.

Now, in his heart, Paul didn’t care two straws for Miss Banks. He believed that there never had been, and probably never would be, a woman in any way comparable to his own Christine. Christine was beautiful, good, kind, sensible, and brave; only Christine admired him and Miss Banks didn’t, and by some diabolic art Miss Banks had aroused in him a violent desire to be admired by her.

Paul was almost ashamed to remember how boastful he had sometimes been, with what an air of unconcern he had done things frightfully difficult for him to do; but not once had Miss Banks praised or thanked him, or even been agreeable to him. Nevertheless he was obliged to go on and on.

He missed all that when it ceased. He felt like a warrior tamely at home after the war. He didn’t miss the outrageous girl, but he greatly missed the inspiration she had given him to exert himself mightily. He found it irksome to sit still and read in the evening, without the least chance of an emergency arising in which he could distinguish himself. He became restless and sometimes a little irritable.

Christine, seeing this, believed that he was unhappy because he had quarreled with Miss Banks. That made Christine bitterly unhappy herself.

She set to work with all her heart, then, to win back her hero. She kept the most miraculous order in the house, and cooked the most appetizing meals. She worked out a number of ways in which to save more money. She read “Post-War Conditions in Beluchistan” and other such books, in order to discuss them with Paul. She dressed her hair in a new way. She did all she could think of to make herself and her home delightful to him.

He noticed everything, or almost everything, and he praised her; yet his praise lacked something for which she longed. It was sincere, but it had no enthusiasm. In some way she failed.

She had always accepted Paul’s theories without reservation. It seemed reasonable to her that Paul should wish to find a helpmeet and comrade in his wife, and it also seemed reasonable to believe that Paul really knew what he wanted. When she made of herself exactly what he said he wanted, it seemed reasonable to expect that he would be satisfied; and yet he wasn’t. He tried not to show it, but he wasn’t.

One evening Christine decided to make apple fritters. Not that she so little understood Paul as to imagine that fritters, even if made with apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, would move him to tenderness, or that she was so stupid and so gross as to think any sort of cooking a solution for spiritual problems; but he liked the things, and she liked to please him, even in the smallest way.

When he came home, she met him at the door, with the smile and the casual air she knew best suited him. She didn’t ask him to hurry with his interminable routine of washing and changing his clothes, because it did not agree with him to hurry, and he could not, even when he tried. Instead, she wisely made due allowance for that time, and when at last she heard him coming down the stairs, she dropped the first spoonful of batter into the frying pan—

Paul heard her scream, and flew to her, but she had already flung a box of salt into the blazing fat, and she turned toward him, smiling again; only it was a distorted and piteous smile.

“Nothing,” she answered, struggling with an anguish nearly intolerable. “The fat blazed up, and I burned myself a little—that’s all.”

She held out her pretty arm, cruelly scalded. Paul was beside himself. He tele[Pg 67]phoned for the doctor and then set to work to assuage her pain, with the best intentions in the world, but without much skill. He spilled a great deal of linseed oil on Christine’s frock and on the rug, he put a frightfully thick and clumsy bandage about her arm, and he got cologne into her eyes, while trying to relieve a headache which did not exist.

All the doctors in the world could not have done Christine so much good. She lay on the sofa, and Paul sat beside her, looking into her face with miserable anxiety; and so great was her delight in his awkward tenderness, his terrible concern, that it needed no effort to smile.

“I can’t help it, my dearest girl. If we love each other, and share our work and our play, we can’t help sharing each other’s pain. And you know, don’t you, little Christy—”

She could have wept when the telephone rang, because she wanted so dreadfully to hear the rest of that last sentence. She watched Paul cross the room and take down the receiver. Then he turned and dashed toward the hall.

“Miss Banks’s house is on fire!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll leave the door unlatched for the doctor!”

“You beast!” she sobbed. “You horrid little beast! You’ve spoiled everything! You did it on purpose—I know you did!”

This was manifestly unjust. Miss Banks might have been capable of burning down a house to attract attention, but she couldn’t have known just the right moment in which to do it. She might have been glad enough to interrupt Paul’s speech, but she couldn’t have managed it so well unless chance had favored her.

Christine, suffering as she was, may well be excused for being unreasonable. Perhaps it would be kinder not to tell you all the things she thought about Miss Banks.

The village fire apparatus went tearing down the road with a noble uproar. Surely that should have released Paul, but still he didn’t come, or the doctor, either, and Christine began to grow alarmed.

“He’ll be hurt!” she thought. “She’ll urge him to do all sorts of dangerous things! He’ll be killed! He’ll be killed, showing off!”

In another instant, regardless of the pain that made her sick and faint, Christine would have run out of the house and down the road, if she hadn’t heard Paul’s voice outside.

Christine threw open the front door, and there he was, supporting a partially collapsed Miss Banks up the steps. Christine forgot all her resentment at the sight of that limp, helpless figure. She forgot her own bandaged arm, forgot everything except the honest sympathy and kindness that made her what she was.

Paul half carried Miss Banks in, and she dropped face downward on the sofa—a pitiful little figure, with her bright, disheveled hair and her slender body.

“She’s not exactly hurt,” said he, still solemn. “It’s more a nervous shock, I think.”

All sorts of curious things took place in Christine’s mind, but she said not a word. She watched Paul ministering to the nervously shocked one. She watched Miss Banks growing a little better, so that she was able to sob forth a catalogue of the marvelous things she had lost; but never a word did Christine say—not even when Paul sat down on a near-by chair, and wrote lists for the insurance company, dictated by Miss Banks with many sobs.

“He’s a wonderful patriot—from one of those wonderful, brave little countries—I forgot which. It’s a signed photograph. Oh, I can’t bear to lose it! Not that! Anything but Deccabroni!”

She became hysterical about the lost Deccabroni. When the doctor came, she was in an alarming condition, and was making quite a disturbance. Taking it for granted that this was the patient, and with only a bow for the silent Christine, the doctor advanced to the sofa, and calmly and competently set about tranquillizing her.

He showed little enthusiasm for the task, and perhaps Miss Banks noticed this, for quite suddenly she became tranquil, and explained that the cause of her agitation was the loss of an invaluable photograph.[Pg 68] She even began to relate some of the exploits of Deccabroni, in so interesting a way that the doctor sat down to listen more comfortably. He might have sat there for a long time, if Christine had not fainted.

Paul had not needed the doctor’s blunt words to awaken his violent remorse. He walked up and down the sitting room for the better part of the night, hating himself, blaming himself beyond all measure or reason. He had neglected his own Christine, forgotten her suffering, in his shameful preoccupation with Miss Banks and Deccabroni. He wasn’t fit to live!

As is often the way with human beings, he wanted very much to blame Miss Banks for everything; but he was, after all, a just and logical young man, and he refused to do that.

After Christine’s arm had been dressed, and she had gone to bed, he had politely conducted Miss Banks to the door of the guest room. At intervals she had called down the stairs for towels, for cigarettes, for matches, for a glass of milk, for a book to read, and for the exact time. He had responded politely to each summons; but never in his life had he felt less chivalrous.

Toward morning he lay down on the sofa and dropped asleep. It was late when he awoke, with stiff limbs, heavy eyes, and the frowzy discomfort that comes from having slept in one’s clothes. He ran up to see Christine, but she was sleeping.

His next idea was to take a warm bath; but Miss Banks had forestalled him. She required one hour and four minutes, and she took every drop of hot water.

Christine had got up, and was just then at the head of the stairs, prepared to make coffee; but when she heard this dialogue, she stopped where she was, and listened.

“It’s got nothing to do with being domestic,” said Paul. “You might simply be fair. You don’t understand the rudiments of fair play. You want—”

“I want a cup of coffee, and I’m going to have it!” said she. “Fair play doesn’t interest me. Women aren’t expected to play fair.”

“On the contrary,” said Paul, “a man has no respect for the type of woman that—”

And so on, about sharing work and play and being comrades. Christine listened with great delight. So severely eloquent was Paul, so reasonable did his arguments seem, that she expected Miss Banks to be abashed. But—in the end, Paul made the coffee.

“Oh, no!” said the nurse pleasantly. “Your wife’s resting comfortably; but she’s suffering from nervous shock, and the doctor thinks she’d better take a good, long rest.”

He found Christine resting comfortably, to be sure, and not much inclined to talk; so he left her, saying that he would come up again after dinner. He went into the sitting room, where Miss Banks was reading and eating some fudge that she had made.

The nurse was moving about upstairs, but no sounds came from the kitchen. Still, with three women in the house, he could not credit the monstrous suspicion that was dawning upon him.

“Good night,” she said. “I’ll be here at seven in the morning. Just give your wife her medicine at nine, and I think she’ll sleep all night.”

And off she went. Miss Banks continued to read and to eat her candy. Paul saw now that there was no dinner, that there would not be any dinner that evening.

At nine o’clock he went up to give Christine her medicine. He was as gentle and affectionate as he knew how to be. He knew she mustn’t be worried; yet he[Pg 69] couldn’t help asking, in a somewhat plaintive voice:

“Oh, yes,” said she. “The nurse made me some delicious soup and some nice, crisp toast. I think you’d better see about getting a servant to cook your meals, Paul.”

Then she closed her eyes, and he didn’t dare to disturb her repose by asking questions.

“Can’t you help me?” he demanded. “Just tell me what to do, if you’re too high and mighty to do anything yourself. I’m hungry. I don’t know how to cook anything.”

“I always said you were spoiled,” said Miss Banks. “You’re a perfect baby. You can’t even feed yourself!”

“My share is to provide the money,” Paul began, when a horrible idea came to him.

It was one thing to provide money for the thrifty and ingenious Christine, but a trained nurse, a servant, and doctors’ bills! He didn’t care so much about dinner now. He ate some bread and butter, while he did some constructive and intensive thinking.

He came home the next evening, earlier than usual, bringing with him a cook—a masterful and unscrupulous woman who saw his deplorable plight and intended to take the fullest advantage of it. Still, she did go to market, and she did cook dinner; and if he paid an exorbitant price for the privilege of eating a collection of the dishes he most disliked, he was nevertheless grateful.

He sat down at the table with the nurse and Miss Banks, and he was in a better humor than he had been for weeks. Christine, upstairs, heard his cheerful voice and his laugh, and tears came into her eyes, although she smiled.

He came up later to sit beside her, and he was so affectionate, so genuinely concerned on her behalf, that her heart smote her.

“See here! You’re not to worry, you know,” he said. “I can manage very well, Christy. All you have to do is to rest. I want you to rest, my dearest girl, and to enjoy it as much as you can.”

“I’ve arranged for that,” he said magnificently. “I’ve got some extra work to do in the evening, and next month I’m going to a new firm, at almost double my present salary.”

She knew he wouldn’t like her to appear surprised or too much delighted, so she merely said:

“Oh, yes—nice enough,” he replied casually; “but I shouldn’t be much of a man if I weren’t able to get you whatever you needed.”

“And the more I need, the more you’ll get,” she reflected. “Oh, you dear, splendid, silly boy!”

“But isn’t Miss Banks rather a superfluous burden, when you have so much on your shoulders?” she asked, after a long silence.

“Well, you see, Christy,” he answered seriously, “now that her little fool house is burned down, she hasn’t anywhere to go. We can’t very well turn her out, can we? Shell be gone in a few weeks, anyhow. She’s going to take charge of Deccabroni’s publicity campaign, and she’ll have to live in the city.”

“Didn’t she have a picture of him that was burned?” said Paul. “I don’t remember who he is; but Heaven help him!”

“I’ve got to get at my work now, Christy, darling,” he said. “You won’t worry any more now, will you? You see that I can handle things fairly well.”

Modest words, and a modest enough expression upon his face, but in his heart the fellow was shamelessly exultant. Certainly he could handle things, all things, and not fairly well, but wonderfully well. Wives, cooks, trained nurses, and Miss Bankses could all be borne upon his capable shoulders.

So full was the house of dependent females that he had no place to work except a cold and dismal little sewing room; but what did he care? His little world was revolving, and he was its axis. Everything depended upon him and him alone. He put on an overcoat, lighted a cigarette, and set to work on a pile of documents with zest and good humor. He didn’t care any longer whether he had eight hours’ sleep or a temperature of the correct humidity, or how much he smoked. Nor was he much in[Pg 70]terested in post-war Beluchistan. He had a man’s work to do!

He didn’t hear Christine as she came down the hall and stood in the doorway. He was absorbed in his work, his black hair wildly ruffled, his overcoat collar turned up, and his feet wrapped in a quilt.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” he cried, with a frown. “You’re supposed to be resting, Christy.”

She was ready then to tell him that she was a fraud, and her need of rest a deception; but she valiantly resisted the impulse.

“But I like to do something for you, Paul,” she said. “I want to help you.”

“Nonsense!” said he, grinning in spite of himself. “Now you run along and rest.”

And she did. She had said that Paul was wonderful, and she knew, and he knew, that it was true. That was what he needed.[Pg 71]

Old Dog Tray

SHOWING HOW A LONG COURTSHIP CAME TO AN UNEXPECTED ENDING

MURCHISON ascended the hill to the house that Saturday afternoon as usual, his pockets filled with presents for the children, and under his arm a box of Scotch kisses for Gina. His obstinate, lantern-jawed face showed all the satisfaction possible to it. This was always one of his happy moments, when he could fancy that he was coming home.

He had nothing else but Gina and Gina’s children. It would not be true to say that he could not have lived without them, for he was not that sort. He would tenaciously have gone on living if he were translated among savages.

But the welcome he got at Gina’s house was ineffably dear to him. From a distance he saw them all on the lawn. His face would have brightened, had that been possible to his dour visage, and he would have hastened his step, if he had not been already striding as fast as he could. Then one of the small boys saw him, and came rushing out of the gate.

Gina called him back sharply, and came herself to welcome Murchison; but let her be ever so sweet and friendly, it was obvious by her overanxious manner and her flushed cheeks that she knew he had heard, and that she felt guilty.

Murchison was by no means delighted with the name. Quite the contrary—he was deeply affronted. He distributed the presents, but instead of handing the invariable box to one of the children, with the invariable joke—“Here are some Scotch kisses for your mother. You’d better give them to her”—he merely set down the box on the bench. He would have been glad to destroy the offensively arch object. He made up his mind never to bring another such box; and his mind, when made up, was an imposing thing.

He conducted himself as usual. He played “red rover” with the children, dodging miraculously, lean, solemn, dignified even in his agility. He sat down to tea on the veranda, and when offered a slice of lemon he asked little Rose, according to precedent:

“Now do you think it would do more good to my complexion than harm to my disposition?”

There was his customary plate of buttered toast, and he ate three slices, as usual. No one but Gina, who knew him so well, would have suspected that he was hurt and angry.

She knew, though, that the only way to deal with Murchison was by rough outspokenness. He both dreaded and adored plain speaking. He was never happy until a thing was made clear and explicit, yet he shied away from any attempt at intimacy. He had, so to speak, to be seized by the neck and forced to listen.

She waited until the children were all in bed, and they had the sitting room to themselves, before she tackled him.

“Aye!” said he, and at once began to sheer off. “Roddy’s getting to be—”

“I’m sorry you heard it,” she said gently. “It was just my own little name for you, and I wanted to keep it to myself.”

There was magic in the woman, sewing in the lamplight. Even the few gray hairs in the shining flood of brown were dear to him, and so was the uncertain quality of her voice.[Pg 73]

“But I do mind it, Robert,” she protested. “I’m sure you don’t understand.”

He looked nothing less than mulish, and she saw with despair that he intended not to understand. This must not be. The unclouded admiration of her faithful Robert was the breath of life to her. She looked long at him, but he smoked his pipe, refusing to raise his eyes, and at last she rose.

He glanced up quickly enough when he heard the piano. He liked nothing better than a song. Never did Gina touch his heart more surely than by her music. She was a slender, gracious little woman, still pretty. She often fancied that it was Robert who kept her young, that his sturdy refusal to admit any change in her arrested the course of time. She smiled over her shoulder at him, and began:

“Don’t you see, Robert,” she said, “that it’s really a beautiful thing to think of you?”

“Yes, Gina, I’ve no doubt it’s as you say,” he answered, and she was satisfied.

She didn’t know that she had made a terrible mistake, that she had done irrevocable harm. All the time she sang, he had endured torments. Suppose the children heard, or the servants? He was not Old Dog Tray! He would not be!

All the way over on the ferry Murchison deliberated the matter, and his slow wrath mounted high. He was not angry at Gina, for he could not be; what enraged him was his own position. He firmly believed that he possessed a fine Scotch sense of humor, but he was utterly incapable of laughing at himself. The idea of being sweetly sung to as Old Dog Tray had for him no comic appeal. On the contrary, he was obliged to admit that to some extent he was Old Dog Tray, and it was intolerable. “Kind” he was pleased to be, but “gentle” he was not, and “faithful” was no word to apply to a man.

He looked back over this affair. He had met Gina when she was a young girl, a lively, witty young thing. He had fallen in love with her, and had set to work in a decorous way to court her. He had come over to Staten Island twice a week. This had seemed to him sufficient evidence of devotion, but when he observed that other young men brought her presents, he did likewise. Books and music were what he preferred, and he was willing to go as far as candy, but he would rather have died than be seen carrying flowers.

Privately he thought this American lavishness very foolish. His idea was to save up to get married; but he realized that if he wished to marry Gina, he must please her. So he tried, but while he was engaged in the process, she married Wigmore.

It was then necessary for Murchison to show that he didn’t mind that in the least, for he was horribly proud and sensitive. Obstinately he kept on coming twice a week with books and sweets, and Wigmore became attached to him. He was really more interested in Wigmore’s conversation, and in the children, than he was in Gina, although he didn’t know it.

Gina had changed astoundingly. She had ceased to be lively and witty, and had grown sweet and a little vague. Murchison was too obstinate to admit any change in her, however—or in himself, either. He refused to think at all.

When Wigmore died, and poor Gina had so much trouble about money, and was so ill and grief-stricken, she became real for Murchison again. He had felt a passionate tenderness for her. He had done everything in the world for her, though well knowing that such disinterested devotion might make him appear ridiculous.

After a seemly interval of three years he had suggested marriage. Gina asked for time to make up her mind. He thought that quite reasonable and proper, but it occurred to him this evening that five years was longer than necessary, even to the most cautious woman. It wasn’t as if he were a stranger. She had seen him twice a week for nearly twelve years.

He was suddenly convinced that he was a fool. Other men came to see Gina when he wasn’t there. He heard the children speak of Dr. Walters, for instance, as if he were a familiar friend. The same thing would happen again.

No, it wouldn’t. Perhaps grief could not drive him away, but other things could.

When he returned to his boarding house, he wrote a grim letter to Gina, in which he said that she must make up her mind at[Pg 74] once either to take him or leave him. At once, mind you; he refused to wait for an answer longer than six months.

He appeared again on his usual evening, and didn’t mention the letter. Gina knew that he never would mention it until exactly six months had passed. He was quite as usual, and only one small incident perturbed her. After dinner, when they were alone, he said:

“Well!” he thought. “It’s a queer world, to be sure! Who’d think that at my age I’d come courting, and the object of my affections a woman thirty-eight years of age? I’m forty-one, and here I come courting like a lad!”

This made him grin. It seemed to him a very humorous idea, and when, later in the evening, it recurred to him, he was obliged to grin again.

“Well—well, it’s nothing, as you might say.” But he could not banish the grin.

“Do tell me!” she implored. “It’s so seldom you find anything funny. Please share it with me, Robert!”

He burst into a shout of laughter, so that his lean face was creased with long lines.

“What will you say, Gina,” he said, with difficulty, “to Old Dog Tray going courting, and you a woman of thirty-eight?”

“It’s the funniest thing—that’s come to my mind—this long time,” he said, almost helpless with laughter. “Think of it!”

“Insult you!” he repeated. “What’s this, Gina? Insult you! Why, my dear—”

“You think—” she began, but sobs choked her. “You’re laughing at me because I’m thirty-eight!”

“But I was not, Gina, my dear! Only it struck me comical for two old bodies like us to be courting.”

“I’m not courting!” she cried. “Don’t dare to say it! And I’m not old!”

“Don’t you believe it, my dear,” he said earnestly. “They may say so to your face, but behind your back no one would call a woman of thirty-eight—”

“Stop!” she cried hysterically. “Don’t call me a woman of thirty-eight again!”

“Don’t be thinking I mean anything against your—your personal attractions,” he said. “You’re one of the neatest, best-looking women of your age—”

“That’s an ill-considered remark,” replied Murchison, growing red, “to a man who’s been your true friend for twelve years and ten months. I was only trying to tell you that I think as much of you to-day as I did when you were young and pretty.”

“You needn’t go on, Robert,” she said, frigidly. “I appreciate your friendship, but I have never known a man so lacking in tact.”

“I don’t doubt you’re right, Gina,” he observed, also frigidly. “It didn’t occur to me that a mature and sensible woman couldn’t endure to hear her age mentioned.”

“Please say nothing more,” she interrupted sharply. “There are other—other people who don’t think it’s so absurd to—to like me.”

Now, well as Gina knew him, there were certain traits in her Robert which had eluded her. She never knew that by this simple remark she had mortally insulted him. She was comparing his twelve years and ten months of devotion to the false flattery of that Dr. Walters.

III

On the last day of the six months Murchison presented himself before Gina, and without embarrassment, and also without fervor, requested to know his fate. He was greatly displeased with Gina’s conduct on this occasion. She wished to be indefinite;[Pg 75] she wished neither to take him nor to leave him, but to keep him in reserve.

“No,” he replied, “I don’t. My question was just, as you might say, to determine that point.”

“Sometimes I think that, on account of the children, I shouldn’t marry again,” she said tentatively.

He bowed stiffly. There came to Gina the recollection of what Dr. Walters had said. He had assured her that she was like a young girl.

“That’s for you to say,” he repeated. “You ought to know your own mind.”

His chief purpose was to avoid showing how horribly wounded and bereft he was. So valiantly did he conceal his hurt that Gina herself was offended and angered by his high spirits.

“I believe he’s glad!” she thought. “He’s delighted to get out of it!”

She forgot entirely how she had lain awake at night, planning some way to tell Robert that she couldn’t marry him. On that night she lay awake marveling at his treachery. She had decided that he didn’t really care.

On the evening of his next visit she had Dr. Walters there. She had the doctor’s superior devotion on exhibition, and encouraged him to be incredibly gallant and tender. He did his part admirably, but Murchison failed her. He was pleasant, unusually pleasant and talkative, and he gave no more sign of being a disappointed suitor than if he were her grandfather. He made a most favorable impression upon Dr. Walters.

“Will you not sing ‘Old Dog Tray’?” he asked blandly. “It is a great favorite with me.”

She refused, but Dr. Walters joined his entreaties to Murchison’s, and she had to yield. So she sang the simple old ballad with burning cheeks; and while she sang it, there sat Robert, smoking his pipe in wooden silence.

He went home that night in a queer mood. He was hurt and he was angry, but depressed he was not. He went up to the room he had occupied for years and years—a room which, like his face, showed no trace of the spirit that possessed it. He sat down to unlace his boots and put on his slippers. When that was done, he filled another pipe.

“Perhaps it’s just as well,” he reflected, with a philosophy Gina would not have appreciated. “A wife’s a very unsettling thing. Now I’ll go on just the same!”

And, if you will believe it, the next Saturday afternoon he bought a box of blocks, and a doll’s cradle, and the familiar package of Scotch kisses, and with perfect composure set off for Staten Island.

“There’s no reason at all for a quarrel,” he thought. “To be sure, I’ve nothing against the poor woman. I’m not one to change.”

There was a heavy fog, and the boat was late. He stood downstairs, close to the gates. He was in no sort of hurry. Indeed, he rather enjoyed the little stir of excitement caused by the fog.

He heard people about him saying it was the worst they had seen in years, that a small boat had been run down a few hours before, that steamers were held up. He liked the din from the bay, the whistles low or shrill, the clamor of the bells, the blasting wail of a great foghorn.

There was, unfortunately, no way in which he could verbally express his scorn for this excitement, and his own miraculous coolness and detachment. He could look it, however, and more than ever he assumed the aspect of a wooden image. For some reason this inspired the confidence of a fellow traveler.

He turned, intending to answer somewhat loftily, but he was utterly disarmed at sight of the questioner. Indeed, he at once felt that there might well be danger. He removed his hat with ceremony.

She was a tall and rather thin girl, very dark, with a wonderful rich color in her cheeks and great, serious eyes. That seri[Pg 76]ousness was the thing which first attracted him—that, with her sober dress. It took a second glance to reveal that her dress was shabby and her seriousness tinged with something forlorn; to say nothing of her being very young and very pretty.

Now Murchison was a cautious and practical fellow, by no means given to talking to strangers; and he decided that he would not look at the girl again. A boat had just come in, so that he really had something justifiable to stare at.

There came first the inexplicable persons who run and sometimes shout; then motor cars, and streams of people, and drays and trucks with vociferous teamsters. It was what happened every half hour or so, all day long, yet it had the thrill there always is at the end of a journey, no matter how short. And now, belated and fog-haunted, the incoming ferryboat might have returned from the Antipodes.

The traffic, the shouts, the procession of people, ended abruptly. Then the gates were pushed open, and the new swarm crowded forward, as eager to be carried south as the others had been to rush northward. Murchison was perfectly aware that the girl kept beside him, although he didn’t turn his head. He could lose her easily enough by crossing over to the smoking cabin; but he had to let a truck go by before he could do so, and, without quite turning his head, he saw her, hesitant and dismayed, looking after him.

Long after he was settled with his pipe he remembered her dark face, her troubled eyes, something alien and tragic in her, and he felt uneasy, almost guilty. He knew it was nonsense, the particular sort of nonsense that he most disliked. He was sorry he had not bought a newspaper to distract his mind.

A bell clanged; the boat slowed down, and the throb and jar of the engines stopped. A great many people rushed to the windows, as always happens, and this gave Murchison the chance for being most notably Scotch, and not stirring. His sharp ears caught all the wild and confused rumors and surmises of those about him. He felt incipient panic in the atmosphere. He was grimly amused, until it suddenly occurred to him how silly women were—how very, very silly a young girl would be, with no Scotsman beside her!

He got up and crossed to the other cabin. That was not ridiculous; it committed him to nothing. He entered the cabin and sauntered through it, looking with an eye casual but very keen at the backs of the people crowded two deep at the windows.

That girl wasn’t there. Perhaps she had rushed upstairs. If so, she might stay there, for he had gone quite far enough.

He pushed open the door, and stepped out upon the forward deck. No denying that the fog was unpleasantly thick, and that ominous and immense shapes appeared half hidden behind it. The bells and whistles on every side made a diabolic clamor. The boat was drifting silently, and the fog concealed even the water on which it floated; and yet, with nothing visible, he was in a crowded and noisy world, menacing, incomprehensible.

He saw her out there, one hand on the railing, her young face in profile. She had, he thought, such a forsaken air! She was so lovely and young! She put him in mind of the beloved and half forgotten creatures in the romances he had read in his young days—heroines brave, gentle, and beautiful, for whom a man could die gladly. She was shabby, she was frightened, she was alone, as a heroine should be. There was a halo of romance about her dark head.

But still Murchison was entirely Murchison. He could have leaped overboard and saved her from the sea more easily than he could address one single word to her. He was eager to speak to her, to reassure her, but it was not possible.

“Do you think anything’s going to happen?” she asked, as promptly and simply as if he were an old friend.

“No, no!” said he. “But with these crowded ferries they’re very cautious.”

He came over to the rail and stood near her. He had an absurd desire to remove his hat and to stand bareheaded before her innocent youth; but he resisted this preposterous impulse, and spoke in his driest way. He gave her facts about the shipping in this stupendous harbor, quoting figures, reports. He had an uneasy feeling that he was tiresome, and probably making mistakes in his statistics, but he was so desperately occupied in not looking at her that it distracted his mind.

He was obliged to look at her then, to see if his talk had wearied her, and he observed[Pg 77] a strange expression upon her downcast face.

“My father was a captain,” she said. “He was drowned when I was a baby; and my brother was drowned in the war. So—you see—”

He did not try to express sympathy, he did not speak one reassuring or consolatory word. He stood silently beside her, neither seeking nor evading her attention, simply being his own uncompromising self. Never in life had he tried, never in life would he try, to make a favorable impression upon any one. He took it for granted that she knew all the compassion, interest, and respect he felt; and she, on her part, accepted him without question.

“I’m late,” she said anxiously. “You see, I’ve come all the way from Philadelphia this morning, and I got a little mixed up. I was expected for lunch, but it’s much too late now.”

“They’re strangers,” she said. “I’ve never seen them. I’m going as a governess. I was recommended to Mrs. Wigmore—”

“I am acquainted with the lady,” said Robert, in so curt a manner that she was abashed.

She fancied that he regretted having been drawn into conversation with the governess of some one whom he knew. She flushed a little, and turned away her head. She expected him to make some excuse and to leave her; but he did not. He stood where he was, filled with the most unaccountable chagrin and disappointment.

She was going to Gina! She would see him there, see him as Old Dog Tray! He felt as if some ineffable happiness had been snatched from him. He felt suddenly middle-aged and preposterously unpleasing.

An instant ago he had really believed that this marvelous girl was interested in him, friendly toward him, even glad of his company. Well, only let her see him climbing the hill with his arms full of bundles, only let her see him playing with the children, being treated with slightly condescending affection by Gina, only let her see Old Dog Tray in his natural habitat, and he would never again be anything but that in her eyes!

“I’ll not go,” he decided. “I don’t doubt they’ll do well enough without me.”

But, thought he, what good would that do? He knew so well Gina’s fatal lack of discretion, her shocking habit of confiding in every one. It was impossible to believe that she could have a governess in the house twenty-four hours without telling—even boasting—about her Old Dog Tray.

Then he realized that he had spoken aloud, and he apologized earnestly to his companion. He was surprised and relieved to see her smile—not plaintively and sweetly, like Gina, but with a wide, youthful smile that was almost a grin. With a faint shock he realized that while she was undoubtedly an angel, she was also a delightful human being.

They were suddenly upon a new footing. They began to talk with miraculous ease. They exchanged names. She said she was Anne Kittridge, and instead of being, as he had half imagined, an isolated phenomenon, she had a mother and a home in Philadelphia.

“I’ve never been a governess before,” she said. “I’ve never even been away from mother. I hope—do you think I’ll get on with Mrs. Wigmore’s children?”

“And no lunch!” said he. “I’d forgotten that. It’s—let’s see—it’s nearly three o’clock.”

“Well,” he said, after much thought, “I’ve a box of sweets here. Very poor things they are for the teeth and the digestion, but I dare say they’re better than nothing.”

He set to work to unwrap his neat package. As he did so, the box of blocks fell out upside down, and the contents scattered over the deck.

He did not answer until he had picked all the blocks up. Then he straightened himself, with a slight frown.

“I’m a bachelor,” he said. “They were for the child of an old friend.” And he added resolutely: “A very respectable, middle-aged body.”

The boat had started again, but they didn’t notice it. Miss Kittridge was steadily and happily consuming Gina’s Scotch kisses.

It would be impossible to any chronicler to describe all that took place in Murchison’s soul during that brief trip. The easiest way is to say bluntly that he fell in love, and for most readers that will go a long way toward an explanation; but one must bear in mind the character of the man, his frightful obstinacy, his outrageous pride, and the matter-of-fact romanticism of his secret heart.

He was amazed, delighted, awed. He knew that he was in love; he knew that this was the real thing, for which he had always been waiting. Lack of self-confidence was not among his faults. He hoped, he believed, that if he could have a clear field, he would have a fair chance with this matchless girl. She liked him, she trusted him, she was amused by his jokes, interested in all the information he had to give. If he could keep her from seeing him as Old Dog Tray!

“I won’t have it!” he thought fiercely. “I won’t have this spoiled by such a thing!”

The boat bumped its way into the slip, and a lurching procession of people came up to the gates. Miss Kittridge wished to join them. She glanced anxiously at Murchison, but he didn’t stir. The gates opened, and the crowd began to hurry off.

“Mrs. Wigmore told me to take the North Shore train,” she began, but Murchison grasped her arm firmly and led her to the waiting room.

“Miss Kittridge,” he said, in a peculiar voice, “you’d better not go there.”

“Well,” he replied, “well—mind you, I’ve nothing to say against Mrs. Wigmore. I’ve a very high opinion of her. She’s a very pleasant, respectable woman; but I advise you not to go there.”

“I can’t, Mr. Murchison. It was my own idea to go out and earn my own living, and I’m certainly not going home before I’ve even tried.”

“There’s a train every hour,” said he. “I’ll go with you, and I’ll explain to your mother.”

“It’ll be better explained to your mother,” he told her. “You’re too young.”

The doors were opened, and a new crowd was pressing through them. Murchison joined the stream of people, leading his reluctant and protesting companion back on board the ferryboat.

Gina was shocked and hurt beyond measure. She had thought it very strange of Murchison to write to her from Philadelphia, to say, without explanation, that he would be there for a week or two on private business. How unfriendly of him to have private business after all these years!

After that he didn’t come near her for three months. He telephoned now and then, and said he was very busy; apparently he did not notice how grieved was her manner.

And then, after all this, what happened? A thing incredible—he telephoned to her one afternoon and told her that he had been married that morning. She could never, never forgive such brutality. He might at least have given her a chance to marry Dr. Walters first!

“It seems to me that is the least you can do,” said Gina, and he was defeated.

Naturally she had Dr. Walters there for dinner, and naturally she was charmingly gracious and kind. No denying that she was impressed by the youth and prettiness of Robert’s wife. The fact that a well bred, lovely creature certainly not more than twenty-one or twenty-two had been willing to marry him forced her to admit that she had not appreciated him.[Pg 79]

Then, of course, she had to look at him, to see if he was still there and still as wonderful. He was. He met her glance, and they smiled at each other with sublime confidence and understanding. Gina found it a little hard to go on talking.

“Do you know,” she said brightly, “such a curious thing happened! A friend of mine wrote me about a girl in Philadelphia, and I sent for her to come as governess for the children. She told me that she’d arrive on a certain day, but she didn’t come, and I never heard another word from her. I wonder if you know the name—Kittridge?”

“Of course,” Gina assented. “Now do tell me about yourself and Robert. Was it romantic?”

“Oh, very romantic!” said Anne, in no little confusion. “It was—I think it was—unique!”

“Please do, Gina!” he said, with all his honest admiration reflected in his beaming face.

“Of course not, if you don’t wish to,” he said gently; “but upon my word, Mrs. Wigmore’s rending of ‘Old Black Joe’ is—”

“That’s a hateful, silly song!” said Gina. “I can’t endure it. It’s—the whole sentiment is false. There are no Old Dog Trays!”

Robert’s hand fell lightly on her shoulder, and she turned to look at him. Something that she saw in his face brought the tears to her eyes.

“There are old friends, though, Gina,” he said, “and nothing drives them away![Pg 80]”

The Matador

A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE IN THE CAREER OF GRAVES, THE HARD-HEARTED OFFICE MANAGER

TECHNICALLY Graves was the personnel manager, but we called him “the matador” because it was his job to deal the death blow, to give the fatal thrust. He had, in other words, to do the “firing.”

He had developed a beautiful technique, and, like all good workmen, he enjoyed his work. He was really a very kind-hearted fellow. His idea was that it did people any amount of good to be discharged, if it were done in the right way—if, for instance, you told the departing one exactly why he or she was no longer wanted.

It was necessary, he said, to keep the nicest balance between candor and brutality. What you wanted was to destroy conceit without injuring self-respect. He added proudly that all the people whom he had fired remained his firm friends.

I asked him how he knew this, and I refused to believe it a proof of friendliness that these victims had never yet waylaid and assaulted him. He said, however, that he could always tell—that no one could deceive him. I denied that any man could know he had never been deceived. Such a negative statement was impossible to prove.

“I never tell a man that we’re laying him off because business is bad,” he said. “I try to show him what defects in himself make him the kind of man who’s always laid off as soon as business drops. And as for those printed slips in a pay envelope—‘Your services will not be required after such and such a date’—inhuman, I call that. No, sir! I’ll call the fellow, or the girl, as the case may be, into my office, and I’ll say something like this:

“‘Now see here, So-and-So,’ I’ll say, ‘I’m going to give you the gate; and if you’ll listen to me fair-mindedly, it’ll be the gate to something a whole lot better.’”

“Of course,” I continued, “you’ve kept a record of the subsequent careers of all the poor devils you’ve fired, so that you know exactly how much they’ve benefited by your valediction?”

“Of course,” I went on, “you keep a card index? You write down the fault for which you discharge the fellow, and you keep track of the length of time it takes him to overcome that fault?”

“What, Graves?” said I sternly. “You make me a positive statement, you tell me it benefits people to be discharged by you, and you have not one fact by which to substantiate your statement. I demand to be shown one of these alleged persons!”

He was so much perturbed that I hadn’t the heart to perturb him further. He was such an honest, artless, enthusiastic fellow, and altogether so likable, that I can’t for the life of me explain why it was so natural to worry and badger him; but everybody did. When some especially woeful-looking derelict passed by, some one was sure to call Graves to the window and say something like—

“See here, Graves! Isn’t that the shipping clerk you discharged for not keeping his nails manicured?”

Rather gruesomely, we used to read aloud from the newspapers various reports of suicides.

We kept up a fiction that twelve desperate men were banded together to take vengeance on him, and that their motto was “Give Graves the final discharge.” I dare say we were pretty tiresome about it, and sometimes I am afraid we hurt the poor devil more than we intended.

Of course “firing” was not all that Graves had to do. There was also the hiring, but he wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic about that—or at least he was warier, for his mistakes in character analysis could be too readily checked up. He pretended that he took every one on trial, and withheld even mental opinions until he had observed the applicant.

That, however, wasn’t true. Many and many a time he was tremendously hopeful about some fellow who turned out to be quite worthless. I say “fellow,” because he was notably reticent about the girls, and never hopeful.

He objected to girls in an office. He said that the principle of the thing was wrong, and so on; but the real reason was that he was afraid of them. They knew this very well. Once he had had a booklet of “Suggestions” printed and circulated among them. He wrote it in a chatty and reasonable style, as for instance:

“Mr. Graves,” said she, “about your ‘Suggestions’—I have been in this office six years, and have never seen a peekaboo waist. I have not observed that openwork hosiery has been worn. My department has asked me to mention this to you, as we feel it an unmerited slight. Incidentally, Mr. Graves,” she added, “girls don’t as a rule wear waists in a ballroom. Even stenographers have some knowledge of etiquette!”

The conscientious Graves bought a household periodical, and found no mention of peekaboo blouses and openwork stockings. Unfortunately he was discovered reading this magazine, and he had to explain. He became a little annoyed at hearing so much laughter.

“Oh, shut up!” he exclaimed. “I know I’ve heard of those things. Read articles about ’em in the newspapers.”

“But when?” somebody wished to know. “When did you last cast a glance at a girl, oh, innocent and artless Graves?”

“Well,” he said, scowling, “the difference is so small that no one but an idiot would laugh. I might have said ‘sheer hosiery’ and ‘chiffon blouses.’”

Graves talking about chiffon blouses was too much. He regretted those “Suggestions,” and made no more. We subscribed to a fashion magazine for him, and by a most pleasing error it came addressed to “Miss F. Graves.” This was even better than we had planned.

“You know I don’t often express an opinion on an untried worker,” he said; “but this time I’ve made a find. I’ve got just the sort of girl I want in the office. She’s a college graduate; comes of an old Southern family—”

“And her father died, and she was obliged to go out into the world and earn a living,” I said.

“I know Miss Clare like my own sister,” I told him. “I’ve met her a thousand times. I’ve read her in books and seen her in movies—”

“Oh, that!” said Graves. “Well, you’re entirely wrong, you chump. She’s absolutely original.”

“I knew that,” said I. “She makes the most wonderful clothes for herself out of old quilts, and she can get up the most delicious little suppers for two for thirty cents—”

“Well, I haven’t got as far as that yet,” he said. “I don’t know what she eats or[Pg 83] makes her clothes out of, but I can tell you this—she’s the neatest, most sensible-looking girl in the place!”

When I saw Miss Clare, I had to admit that in some ways she deviated from the usual type. She was what you might call a tall, willowy blonde. She had fine eyes, and knew it; but she was not kittenish, or pathetic, or appealing. She was doggedly in earnest. I liked her for that.

When I knew her better, I liked her for many other things, too. She was as honest and candid as daylight, and she left her fine old Southern family and her college and all her past glories where they belonged. She was there to work.

“She’s stupid!” she told me, with fierce exasperation. “I’ve told Mr. Graves several times that she doesn’t measure up to our standard of efficiency. I don’t see why he keeps her on!”

“Beauty in daily life,” said I. “It’s what Morris recommended. She’s an ornament to the office, Miss Kelly. She has artistic value.”

“Superfluous ornaments have no value anywhere,” said Miss Kelly. “I worked once for an interior decorator, and I learned that. A thing must not only be beautiful in itself, but in harmony with its surroundings, and serving some definite purpose. She isn’t and doesn’t, and she ought to be scrapped!”

Now not only was Miss Kelly a notably good-looking young woman, and intelligent and alert and sensible, but she was infallible. Graves knew it. He had had other disagreements with her, and had always been worsted. Still, for a time, he defied her in regard to Miss Clare.

“D’you know,” he said to me, “I hate like poison to discharge that poor girl! You see, this is her first job, and it’ll be hard for her to get another, with only a four weeks’ record here.”

“Oh, no, Graves,” said I. “Not at all! After you’ve talked to her and pointed out her faults, she—well, she’ll get rid of her faults, don’t you see? And after that—”

“She hasn’t any faults, exactly. It’s lack of training that’s the trouble. If she could stay on here a little longer, she’d do as well as the others—and better. She has brains!”

“Her output’s below the average,” he said dismally. “Miss Kelly keeps charts and so on.” He scowled. “Miss Kelly’s worth her weight in gold, and all that,” he said, “but she’s pig-headed. I’ve tried to explain to her that it’s actually more efficient to keep and train an employee, even if you have to shift him to another department, than to break in a new one. I’ve shown her in black and white what the actual cost of this eternal hiring and firing is; but no! She jumps down my throat with a lot of her own figures about what this Miss Clare costs the department every day. Hair-splitting, that’s all it is!”

Graves should have been warned, each time he opened his mouth, that what he said would be used against him. Of course this was. Each time he dealt the death blow, we reminded him of the cost of this eternal hiring and firing, and how much more efficient it was, and so on.

Miss Clare was shifted out of Miss Kelly’s department into another, which had a human man, young Allen, at its head; but he, too, rebelled.

“She won’t do,” he said to Graves. “She tries, but she’s—well, I don’t know just what the trouble is. She’s simply not on the job.”

“I’ll have a talk with her,” said Graves. “I’ll see if I can find out what’s wrong.”

III

I saw Miss Clare going into Graves’s office, and I felt sorry for him. I shouldn’t have enjoyed pointing out her faults to her. She was very young and quite without affectation, but she had a natural and altogether charming dignity about her. You couldn’t think of her as an office worker; you were obliged to remember all the time that she was a woman.

She came out after half an hour, looking downcast and grave. She smiled at me, as she passed, with the air of a lady who never neglects her social obligations, but I fancied her lips quivered a trifle.

“Poor girl!” I thought. “She’s out of place here. She hasn’t the stuff in her for a competitive worker. She’ll never get on!”

“The poor girl’s worried sick,” he said. “It seems she’s trying to support her mother, and she’s so desperately afraid she won’t make good that she can’t do her[Pg 84] work. She does try, you know, and she’s fairly accurate, but she’s slow, and she knows it. She said she’d never tried to hurry before, and when she does, she gets nervous.” He paused, and frowned a little. “Well,” he said, “it’s irregular, but I think it’ll work. I’m going to let her come half an hour earlier than the other girls and stay an hour later, so that she can finish her share of the work.”

“Not so hard as getting fired,” he answered. “She’s got a queer point of view about that. She says that if she were discharged, she’d be so discouraged that she’d—I think she said she’d go to pieces.”

“Well,” said Graves, “there’s more than one sort of stamina. It takes some grit for a girl brought up as she’s been to tackle the job of supporting herself and her mother, I can tell you!”

I agreed with him, and said so, and he was delighted; but he paid heavily for his kind-heartedness. Miss Kelly let the thing go on for one week. Then, on Saturday morning, she appeared before him.

“Mr. Graves,” she said, “after due consideration, I have decided that the only course for me is to leave this office. I shall remain, of course, until you have filled my position to your satisfaction.”

“Now, see here, Miss Kelly,” said Graves, as man to man. “This wants talking about. Sit down and let’s discuss it frankly.”

“My salary is quite as much as the overhead permits,” said she. “In proportion to the calculated profits, it is perfectly fair and adequate. No, Mr. Graves—it’s a question of prestige and morale.”

“My girls are constantly coming to me now with requests to be allowed to finish their work at irregular and unauthorized hours, instead of keeping up to the standard output required by my department. They assert that a girl in Mr. Allen’s department was allowed to do this, and they had never understood that employment in his department carried any special privileges. I went to Mr. Allen about this. I pointed out to him that it affected the morale of my girls to see one of his people favored, but he told me he could do nothing. He said it was not his idea, and—”

“All right!” said Graves, suddenly getting up, with a flushed face and a constrained smile. “I—very likely you’re right, Miss Kelly. I’ll—I’ll make some adjustment that’ll suit you.”

“Please don’t consider suiting me,” said Miss Kelly. “It’s the morale of the office, Mr. Graves.”

“Well, you know,” he said, “she’s right. It does upset the routine, and so on; but, hang it all, that girl simply couldn’t stand being discharged! She has pluck enough, and all that, but she’s sensitive. She’s too darned sensitive entirely. I wish to Heaven she’d picked out some other office to start in! She’s got some fool idea in her head that it’s the first job that makes or breaks you. It’s no use pointing out her faults to her; she knows ’em. She’s trying to overcome them; but she’s just naturally slow.”

He tried her at filing. Not for long, though; the tumult was too great. He tried her at bookkeeping; but she herself admitted that figures were not her forte.

“There must be something that girl can do, or can be taught to do!” he cried in despair. “Everybody has some aptitude, and she’s not stupid. She can talk well about books and so on.”

“Oh, yes,” he answered innocently. “I talk to her a lot. I try to find out what she’s adapted for; but I can’t, for the life of me. And yet I can’t fire her. I simply can’t do it. She says no one else would give her the same chance I do; and that’s no lie. She wouldn’t last a week in any other office!”

“Well,” said Graves, “it’s this way—there’s a big responsibility attached to my job. I shouldn’t like to think I’d destroyed the self-confidence of a girl like Miss Clare.[Pg 85]”

“Well, you’re all wrong,” he said severely, “if you think there’s any—any personal element in this. It’s simply that I’ve got a heavy responsibility—”

The thing began to assume a dramatic aspect. Graves was a haunted man. He was obliged, or he felt himself obliged, to find a place for Miss Clare in our organization, and the task was a hideous one.

He changed. His brisk self-assurance gave place to a harassed air, and he acquired a new and rather touching way of appealing to the rest of us. In fact, we were all deeply concerned about Miss Clare. We would go joyously to Graves, to tell him we thought something had turned up that would suit her. We always phrased it that way; but it never did suit her.

In the final analysis this was Graves’s fault, because it was he who had made the office so brutally efficient. To be more frank than modest, it was not so much that Miss Clare was very bad as that the rest of us were so good. She failed to come up to our standard. Graves was the Frankenstein who had created this monster, and now he had to suffer for it.

I had become very friendly with Graves during this little complication. He seemed to me less amusing than before, and much more human and engaging.

“Yes,” said he. “She’s got to go. I’ve been thinking it over pretty seriously. I’m afraid I’ve wasted the firm’s time and money in this instance; but you don’t know how hard—”

“Graves,” I said, “you’re inconsistent. You’ll destroy any number of harmless lives, and boast of it, and then you’ll apologize for having been kindly and generous and altogether admirable.”

“Oh, get out!” he said, like a small boy, but the sympathy pleased him. “Well, you see, it’s—well, she tries hard.”

No one denied that. Indeed, the unfortunate Miss Clare looked exhausted and wan from her terrific efforts. She came early in the morning, before there was any work given out, and she was always contriving plans for working through her lunch hour. She was always thwarted in this, however. We were too efficient to allow people not to eat; neither was she allowed to stay after five o’clock.

This day, as on so many others, she was still typing frantically at half past twelve, hoping to escape detection; but Miss Kelly espied her.

“You ought to be out for lunch, Miss Clare,” she said, in a human, decent, kindly way. “Run along now. You’ll do all the better when you come back.”

This was painful to me, because I knew that the poor girl was going to be fired when she came back; but she didn’t suspect. She raised her weary, anxious eyes to Miss Kelly’s face.

“Please let me stay!” she entreated. “I’ve fallen behind, and this hour will help me to catch up.”

She was interrupted by the suave and mellow voice of Mr. Reddiman, our great president.

“What’s this?” said he. “What’s this? One of our young women making herself ill, eh? Working too hard?”

Every newcomer in our office marveled at Mr. Reddiman, and resented him, and was convinced that he had no ability, no force, no possible qualifications for being president of the company; but that never lasted. Mr. Reddiman grew on you little by little until, after a few months, you were willing to admit that you could scarcely have done better yourself.

He had a mild, slow way. He put me in mind of an old gardener pottering about in a greenhouse, when, with his hands clasped behind him, he walked through the various rooms, stopping here and there. He was a notably successful gardener, however. He made the business grow; and—he got things done.

“I’m not working too hard!” said Miss Clare, perilously close to tears. “I don’t want any lunch. I want to finish these letters.”

“No, no, no, no!” said he pleasantly. “That won’t do. We can’t have that!”

The poor creature was blandly hustled out of the office, well knowing that Miss[Pg 86] Kelly would be questioned about her, and that Miss Kelly would answer with complete frankness.

But neither Miss Clare nor any other person could have imagined what actually took place. Personally, while giving due credit to Mr. Reddiman’s kind heart, acumen, and wisdom, I am inclined to give still more credit to Miss Clare’s eyes; for I assure you that those eyes, when filled with tears and raised to your face, were terribly potent. As I said before, they were blue, but only the advertising department could adequately describe the sort of blue.

Listen to the sequel, and bear in mind that I saw her look up at Mr. Reddiman. I know that if I had been Mr. Reddiman, I, too—

“In regard to this—er—Miss Clare,” he said. “I hear from Miss Kelly—”

“Yes, I know,” Graves answered miserably. “I’m going to discharge her this afternoon.”

“I’ve done all I can to place her—” he began, but Mr. Reddiman interrupted.

“Graves,” said he, “I’m afraid you are just a little inclined to overlook the human element. After all, Graves, what is more valuable in an employee than zeal? A—er—person who works with zeal and loyalty is, to my mind, very much more desirable than one of your efficient, soulless machines. The human element, Graves, the human element! This—er—Miss Clare seems to be most earnest. I learn that she comes early and remains late. To my personal knowledge, she wished to-day to forego her lunch in order to complete her work. I shall not interfere in your province, of course, but I hope—I hope strongly—that you will reconsider your decision.”

“Well,” he said, “what could I do? Heaven knows I didn’t want to say a word against the poor girl; but in duty to the company I had to tell him what I’d done. He listened, and then he said again that I overlooked the human element. He said that what she needed was encouragement, and that she could start to-morrow morning as his secretary!”

“Pleased?” he exclaimed. “I’m—I’m horrified! I’m—it’s outrageous! It’s cruel! I can’t bear to think of it!” He paused. “It’s the end of her,” he said tragically. “She’s about as well fitted to be his secretary as she is to be president of the Chamber of Commerce. It’s bound to end in a big row!”

Miss Clare arrived the next morning a little pale and nervous, but wonderfully happy. She was always neat and dainty, but this morning she had a sort of festive air, produced, as well as I can tell you, by little extra ruffles and by magic.

Looking into Mr. Reddiman’s private room, and seeing her there, with her fair head bent and her fragile hands so busy, in all her gallant and touching youth, I entertained serious thoughts about the human element. I understood the ancient institution of chivalry. I fancied I knew exactly how knights used to feel about forlorn damosels. It seemed idiotic to estimate a creature as valiant and sweet as she by the number of words she could turn out per minute. Indeed, I forgot all about the economic system for a time, in a long meditation upon a system considerably older.

I rejoiced in her innocent and happy triumph. I delighted in seeing her walk past Miss Kelly and smile at her before entering the august private room.

Graves was decidedly under a cloud now. We were all a little hard on him. We forgot his kindly efforts on her behalf, and remembered only that he had been on the point of discharging one who now worthily occupied an important post.

“It was naturally a—a tentative arrangement—something in the nature of an experiment,” the president said. “I am well satisfied with Miss Clare’s zeal and industry, but she lacks experience. I have no doubt she can work up to some superior position; but in the meantime, Graves, wouldn’t it be possible to find her some work that carries less responsibility? She’s very young, you know.[Pg 87]”

The implication was that Graves had thrust monstrous responsibilities upon her young shoulders, that he was a sort of Simon Legree.

“She’s a young woman of education and refinement,” Mr. Reddiman continued. “I should imagine it would not be difficult to find a place for her in an organization of this size and scope. I don’t mind saying, Graves, that I am very favorably impressed with Miss Clare. Of course, if you’re convinced that she’s not useful—”

And there he was, with the whole thing to begin over again, and with the wind of public opinion dead against him. I observed him sitting at his desk, with his stubby hair ruffled, his sturdy shoulders hunched, and a look of unassuageable despair upon his not very mobile face. He looked up as I approached.

“Go on!” said he. “Tell me I’m a brute! Of course, I know that what I’m really paid a good salary for is to run a charitable institution here. I know—”

“Look here. Graves!” said I. “I’ll try your Miss Clare in my department—”

“She’s not my Miss Clare,” he returned, with vigor. “She’s—” He got up. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “She’s an albatross! You know the story about the fellow who had one tied round his neck, and couldn’t get rid of it.”

“Well, I’m not paid to be chivalrous,” he said. “I know she’s a fine girl—a—a lovely girl; but she’s out of place here. She can’t do one darned thing well enough to deserve a salary for it. If old Reddiman wants me to start a training school, very well, I’ll do it; but if he wants me to keep up the standard of efficiency I’ve set, then he’s got to give me a free hand—that’s all!”

I had my own ideas about office management. No private room for me! I sat out with all the others, in a little railed off pen. I contended that the moral effect of my being always visible, and always busy, was admirable. Graves, on the contrary, upheld the principle of remaining invisible and popping out suddenly.

“And you were elected the head of it by popular vote, weren’t you?” inquired Graves, with irony. “Bet you wouldn’t be willing to put it to the vote now. All bunk! Humbug! You’re an autocrat, and so am I!”

I remembered this the next morning, when Miss Clare started to work for me, and I resolved to be a benevolent autocrat. The poor girl had lost her triumphant air. She was crestfallen, anxious, apprehensive.

I gave her some letters to answer herself, without my dictating. They certainly were not letters of importance. In fact, it would make small difference to the business whether they were ever answered or not.

Hypocritically, I told myself I ought to keep an eye on her. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t have helped it, because she was the most incredibly lovely creature.

Her concentration was distressing. I felt inclined to tell her that the letters weren’t worth all her trouble—that no letters could be. She was very nervous. I saw her put sheet after sheet into the typewriter, only to take it out and crumple it up.

Naturally, she knew our excessive dislike for paper being wasted; and after a while I saw her stealthily stuffing those crumpled sheets into a drawer, where they wouldn’t be noticed. Then, suddenly, she straightened her shoulders, gave a despairing glance round the office, pulled all the paper out of the drawer, and put it into the wastebasket. It was a small thing, but it touched me. Whenever I looked at her, and saw that incriminating mass in the basket beside her, in full light of day, I mentally saluted her as an honorable soul.

There had come in the morning mail a letter from a rather doubtful customer, inclosing a check for his last bill and a new order. I felt pretty sure he was ordering a bit more than the traffic would stand, yet he seemed to have substantial backing, and it wouldn’t do to risk offending him. It was Saturday, and I had meant to talk the thing over with Mr. Reddiman before putting through the order on Monday, when a telegram came:

This was very awkward. We were somewhat overstocked just then, and not par[Pg 88]ticularly busy, so that it would have been easy enough to ship the stuff; but I was reluctant to take the responsibility. At the same time I didn’t want to cancel an order of that size.

There wasn’t much time for thought. I sent for my assistant. I told him to take the check down to the bank it was drawn on and get it cashed. I also suggested his seeing the manager.

And then I couldn’t find the check. It was nearly eleven already, and there wasn’t a minute to waste. I turned over every paper on my desk; I made every one else do the same. Check and letter were absolutely gone.

Nothing like this had ever happened before during my régime. I couldn’t believe it. Now that it’s well in the past, I will admit that perhaps I didn’t take it very tranquilly; but, after all, it was not soothing, when I knew some one must be to blame, to have people make idiotic suggestions about my looking in my pocket. Was I in the habit of putting the mail into my pocket?

“The thing’s going to be found,” said I, “and found now. Empty the wastebaskets, and see if it’s been thrown away by mistake.”

The office boy appeared to enjoy doing this, but the rest of them failed in loyalty. No one looked worried or distressed.

Attracted by the excitement, Miss Kelly appeared, followed by others who had no business to come. How cool and reasonable they all were!

She spoke, of course, of the contents of poor Miss Clare’s basket, now turned out upon a newspaper. She approached it, and picked up one or two sheets.

“It seems to me scarcely justifiable to waste a sheet merely for writing ‘Dear Bir,’” said she, “or a wrong figure in the date. Errors like that can easily be—is this the missing letter, by any chance?”

“Oh, I didn’t know!” cried Miss Clare. “I’m so awfully sorry! I must have taken it by accident and torn it up with—with some other things. I’m so sorry!”

But my exasperation was too great to be melted even by tears in those incomparable eyes.

No use recounting the rest of my bad-tempered outburst. I paid for it later in very genuine regret.

VII

It was probably due to ill temper, but it was attributed to my wonderful business foresight that I did not ship those goods. Mr. Reddiman sent for me on Monday morning and praised my wisdom, good sense, and judgment. That customer was to be dropped.

This praise did not make me happy, but quite the contrary. I knew I didn’t deserve it—in this instance, that is. I was already very remorseful on the score of Miss Clare. I remembered things of which I hadn’t been aware at the time—her white face, her quivering lip, her wide, tearful eyes. She had gone away, after listening to every word I said, and she had not returned.

It would be hard to describe how startling, how conspicuous, was her absence. I missed her from rooms, from desks, where she had certainly never been. The wan sunshine made phantoms of her bright head in dim corners. Other and very different voices took on fleeting resemblances to hers. Once I saw the neat, spare form of Miss Kelly taking a drink at the water cooler, and she seemed to melt into the gracious outlines of that lost one.

My conscience troubled me. My heart was heavy. Very long was the day; and at the end of it I secured her address and went off to see her.

Never mind the eloquent speech I had prepared, for I never uttered one word of it. Suffice it to say that I intended to offer Miss Clare a permanent position, with no possibility of being fired.

She lived in an apartment house on a side street uptown on the West Side—a street that was just on the border of a slum—a street of woeful and dismal gentility. I rang the bell, blundered down a black, narrow hall, and would have gone upstairs if a voice behind me hadn’t murmured:

Turning, I asserted that a Clare was what I sought, and I was bidden to step[Pg 89] through an open door and into a prim little sitting room. It was dismal there, too, but light enough for me to see that I was confronted by a mother out of a book—a gray-haired, delicate little creature with a smile of invincible innocence and good will.

I said that I came from the office to see Miss Clare. Strictly speaking, this was true; but the implication was not, for my business had nothing to do with the office.

“Am sorry ma daughter’s not in,” said Mrs. Clare, in her slurred Southern accent. “If you’d care to wait, Ah don’t think she’ll be long.”

“Rosemary made the cake,” Mrs. Clare explained. “She’s wonderful at baking!”

She was; nothing could have been more delectable. Naturally I praised it, and naturally Mrs. Clare rose to the praise like a trout to a fly. There was something very touching in her artless talk about her child, and something still more touching in the picture she created for me of their gracious and gentle life together.

“Ah’ve never heard a sharp word from Rosemary,” she assured me. “Ah don’t think you could say the same of many other girls in the same circumstances. There’s not only her business career that she’s so interested in, but she does almost all of the housekeeping as well. She’s a wonderful manager, and so clever with her needle! Ah never saw a girl so handy in the house. Of co’se Ah know a girl with her brains and education is just naturally adapted for business, but—” She stopped, with a smile. “Ah’m an old-fashioned woman, Ah reckon. Ah’m glad Rosemary’s going to give it up.”

“She’s been engaged for two years,” said she. “That’s long enough. Of co’se, dear Denby understood how she felt about proving her ability befo’ she settled down, but Ah’m glad it’s over. He came up from No’folk yesterday, and he persuaded her to give up her position.”

I was suddenly aware that it was late, and that I couldn’t wait another minute.

“Ah’m sorry,” said she. “Rosemary’ll be back sho’tly. She just took Denby to see the Woolworth Building. Ah wish you could have stayed to see Denby.”

I said how remarkably sorry I was not to see this Denby, but go I would and did.

“Graves,” I said, “I hope you won’t thing I’ve been underhand or treacherous about this. I’d have told you, only that it came on pretty suddenly. I didn’t really know until this morning, and then it put everything else out of my head. I acted upon impulse, Graves—upon my word I did! I missed her so much in the office to-day—”

“And I just hurried off, you know—to call upon her. Graves, old man, it’s—in fact, there’s nothing doing. She’s engaged—she’s been engaged for two years to some young—”

“She told me in the very beginning,” said Graves. “Naturally she didn’t want it talked about, but she explained it to me. It seems this fellow didn’t take her seriously enough. He had plenty of money, but he expected her to settle down there in Norfolk and just be his wife. She didn’t say so, but I gathered that he’s a domineering sort of young chap. She said that if they started in that way, they’d never be happy. She had to show him that she amounted to something on her own account; and he was impressed when she got a job here with us. She showed me a letter, or a part of a letter, from him about it. He got down from his high horse, I can tell you—said he knew she’d be making a sacrifice to give up her career and marry him, but he’d do his best to make it up to her, and so on.”

“So you see,” he said, “it would have been a very bad thing for her—a very serious thing—if she’d been fired. Might have spoiled her whole future life. After she told me that, and appealed to me, why, I had to—don’t you see?”

“Pshaw!” said Graves, turning red. “D’you know, my boy, I read a story once about a hangman who was a pretty good sort of fellow when he was at home. Ever occur to you that even the matador mayn’t be as black as he’s painted?[Pg 90]”

A Hesitating Cinderella

THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF MADELINE, THE PRETTY WAITRESS AT COMPSON’S CHOPHOUSE

“Well, I never asked you to listen,” Mr. Ritchie said valiantly, but he knew very well that this was not a clever retort.

At that moment he was greatly dissatisfied both with his wit and his person. He thought it brutal on the part of fate that a young man as passionate and resolute as himself should have so frail a form, and that after having taken a correspondence course in rhetoric and oratory he should still be so tongue-tied—especially with Madeline.

He could see himself in the mirror opposite. He sat so straight that he leaned over backward a little, but this did not disguise the fact that his shoulders were narrow and not quite even, and his chest somewhat hollow. Neither had his studies or his burning thoughts left any visible impress on his sallow, rather ratlike face; and all this hurt his terribly sensitive soul.

“I never said you were a jazz baby,” he insisted. “I only said lots of girls were—and that’s a fact. Why, a lot of those girls wouldn’t spend a cent to get a decent, well balanced meal! All they care about is clothes and—”

Her tone was scornful, and the outrageously sensitive Mr. Ritchie at once saw all sorts of implications. She meant that girls wouldn’t bother with him. She meant that he was nothing but a mechanic. She meant that his clothes were shabby, and that he was small and slight. She meant everything that could affront his manly pride.

He turned away his head, though he was a little alarmed as he did so. He had always felt that chivalry required him to keep his head turned rigidly toward Madeline, to atone for the fact that she stood while he sat. Of course, that was not his fault. Madeline being a waitress, and he a customer, anything more gallant was impossible.

He certainly did not enjoy being waited on by this splendid girl. In fact, he so bitterly disliked it that he would have ceased coming to Compson’s Chophouse, if he had not realized that in his absence she would very likely be waiting on some other man, possibly not so chivalrous.

It was altogether a sacrifice on his part, because the food did not conform to his standards. He could not get here the well balanced rations necessary for building up his physique. Of what use to work night and morning with a patent exerciser, if he did not get the proper muscle-building foods? This worried him very much, for he desired a fine physique as greatly as he desired a master mind.

Then, too, he often had to wait a long while for Madeline to be free to attend to him, and he fretted at the waste of time. He couldn’t light a cigarette to beguile his tedium, for he knew that the smoker cannot have a fine physique. If he saw a smoker who looked as if he had one, Ritchie knew him to be a whited sepulcher, with a failing heart, exhausted lungs, and no will power.[Pg 92]

To be sure, he might have passed the time with some improving book. He always carried in his pocket a volume of a set he had bought—a set guaranteed to broaden his mind, and to contain all that he ought to read; but he couldn’t keep his mind on a book when Madeline was about.

This time he said it with a new significance. He meant that, as far as he was concerned, Madeline might have everything her own way forever.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there to hear him. She was waiting on a man at another table. She never so much as glanced at Ritchie. He knew she wouldn’t look at him, and he took a gloomy pleasure in staring at her.

She was worth looking at, was Madeline. Tall, spare, straight, in an austere white uniform and a sleek coiffure, she was a miracle to irradiate any chophouse. Her features were subtle—a delicate nose, a rounded chin, a mouth very red in her pale face. Her black brows made an incomparable line above her dark, steady eyes.

In spite of her thinness and her pallor, in spite of twenty years of bad air and wretched food, she was strong and tireless, with muscles like steel—a heritage from ancestors of Slavic peasant stock. She had a cool, careless manner, inclined to sudden hauteur when she thought it necessary, but she could also chat with the greatest affability—as she was doing now.

He had merely invited her, very politely, to a dance to be given by the Coyote Club that evening. He worked very hard all day as a mechanic in a garage. In addition to building up a fine physique and broadening his mind by reading, he was taking a correspondence course in mechanical draftsmanship; and the Coyote Club, of which he was treasurer, was his one frivolity.

Every week they engaged a pianist, a saxophonist, and a drummer, and had a dance in a hall over a restaurant on Eighth Avenue. There was no “rough stuff.” It was a seemly and refined entertainment—Madeline ought to have known that. Ritchie only meant that some of the girls brought by some of the Coyotes were jazz babies. The remark was not intended as personal, and she shouldn’t have taken it as such.

Nothing could have been more galling, especially as it was true. Ritchie had noble ideas about girls, though. He was not exactly in a position to marry at the present moment; but later on, when his heroic efforts began to show results, he intended to have a home, a garden, and a wife whom he would venerate and take to lectures and concerts.

He did not care to admit that that wife must be Madeline or no one. He was far too proud to acknowledge how much he cared for a girl with her silly ideas; but unhappily he was not clever enough to conceal it, and Madeline knew only too well.

These were her silly ideas. Knowing herself to be rare and seductive, she intended to marry a millionaire. She was weary and disgusted with her present condition. She wanted a life of exquisite refinement and languor. She hated the restaurant, she hated her home, her uniform. She turned up her delicate nose at everything about her, including Ritchie. Not that he wasn’t “refined,” for he surely was, and she secretly admired him; but it was not the right, the princely, sort of “refinement,” and she would have none of him.

Still, she felt a pang of regret when he went out. A girl as attractive as she, alone in the world, could not well help learning to appreciate the chivalry and restraint of Mr. Ritchie. He never “said anything,” and never would, until encouraged. He came every night to Compson’s for his dinner, and of late he had fallen into the habit of being on the corner when she came out, at ten o’clock. He never said that he was waiting for her, and she had manners enough to be surprised every time. He walked home with her, both of them conversing with the utmost formality.

He had never invited her anywhere, except to this dance at the Coyote Club. He had never so much as shaken hands with her. She knew very well that the reason for this was his severe sense of respect for her. While she admired this, she would have been better pleased with a little more impetuosity.

Still, it was no use denying that he left a gap. Madeline missed him. Even when she was busy, she had found comfort in the sight of his head bent over one of his little books.

“Now he’s mad,” she reflected. “He[Pg 93] won’t come back. All right! I don’t care! Let him go to his old dance and have a good time with the jazz babies!”

She consoled herself by imagining the balls she would go to in the future, when the millionaire arrived—balls like those she saw in the movies. She herself would wear a long, swathed dress and carry a feathered fan. She would be languid and scornful, and would flirt in a refined manner impossible to one who was at present a waitress in Compson’s Chophouse.

By eight o’clock the room was growing empty. As a hint to possible intruders, each time a table was left vacant the lights near it were turned out. A few solitary men still ate, in bright oases, but they had a hasty and guilty air; they knew that their tardiness was resented.

One by one the waitresses disappeared into the little back room where they changed into their street clothes, and returned, crossing the restaurant with eager steps, until there remained only Madeline and Miss Sullivan. Miss Sullivan remained because her customer was a pig-headed old gentleman and refused to hurry; but Madeline was there because Mr. Compson had great confidence in her, and allowed her the privilege of turning out the lights and locking the door.

The proprietor himself had gone, with the cash box. Madeline would have the responsibility of guarding, until morning, whatever sum the pig-headed old gentleman might pay.

“Gosh, I could stick a pin in him!” murmured Miss Sullivan. “Twenty past! There goes that dishwasher, even!”

“I’ll do as much for you some day,” declared Miss Sullivan, like a creature in a fable, and off she went.

The room was very still. At intervals the elevated trains went by with a thundering roar, leaving behind a sort of vacuum of quietness. The old gentleman looked up.

This annoyed him very much; but in view of the fact that he was known never to leave more than a nickel for a tip, his annoyance never caused much concern in Compson’s. He got up, folded his newspaper, felt in all his pockets, and very slowly took down his overcoat.

Madeline, leaning against the wall in a careless attitude, refused to show signs of impatience. Indeed, when she saw him struggling into the tight sleeves of his shabby old coat, she felt an impulse of scornful pity, and came to his aid. He didn’t thank her. Apparently he preferred to consider it her fault that he was old and slow and stiff, and couldn’t enjoy his dinner.

After he had gone, she began turning off the few remaining lights. The place was nearly in darkness when the door opened and two men came in.

But the taller of the two led his companion to a table and pushed him into a chair.

“Can’t you manage a cup of coffee?” he entreated. “My friend’s ill.”

Madeline was not very credulous. She snapped on the nearest light, so that she might look at the alleged invalid.

One look was enough. She hadn’t lived twenty years without learning something, and she knew at once what ailed the fellow; but she didn’t care. She felt instinctively that he was a victim. He had been led astray, very likely by this burly ruffian with him.

His curly head was thrown back, his eyes were closed, and he seemed sunk in innocent slumber. Not only was he singularly handsome and engaging, but he wore a dinner jacket. Never had Madeline seen one so close at hand before. It invested the suffering hero with a high, romantic interest. It thrilled her. He was a creature strayed from another world. He was helpless and abandoned, and not for anything on earth would she have forsaken him.

She said it rudely, because she hated the other man, and knew it was all his fault.

There was a little left in the coffee urn, and it was still warm. She brought it promptly, but the sufferer could not be roused to drink.

“Good Lord!” said the other impatiently. “I don’t know what to do with the young idiot! Pour water on him.”

“I never!” cried Madeline, with passion[Pg 94]ate indignation. “And get his nice clothes all wet?”

“Well, do something with him,” said the other. He showed an alarming tendency to shift the responsibility for his unconscious companion to Madeline’s shoulders. “I can’t take him home with me. Lock him in here till the morning, and let him sleep it off!”

“I never!” she said again. “Just suppose he waked up all alone in the dark, and couldn’t get out! Don’t you know where he lives?”

“Of course I know, but he wouldn’t thank any one for sending him home in this state. He’s the only son of wealthy and respectable parents,” the other answered, in a flippant tone that was obnoxious to Madeline. “It would bring their gray—or dyed—hair to the grave in one swoop. This fellow, my dear girl, is young Benny Bradley!”

“I don’t care who he is, he’d ought to be took care of. He’s got to be!” Madeline said sternly.

“Not by me,” returned the other. He rose, and looked at Madeline with a smile. “It’s time for me to clear out.”

“Oh, my!” cried Madeline, in despair. “Oh, my! What ever will I do with the poor feller?”

She dipped a folded napkin in water, and laid it on his forehead. A glance in the mirror startled her. In her white uniform, wasn’t she just like a trained nurse with a wounded hero? The vision inspired her. She felt that she must be calm, brave, resourceful.

Somewhat timidly she lifted his limp, white hand, to feel his pulse; but, having little idea how a pulse should behave, she gained no reassurance.

“Poor feller!” she repeated. “Anyway, I’m not going to leave you, if I have to sit here the whole night!”

She would have done that, and would have faced Mr. Compson and her sister workers the next morning undaunted, if she had not been saved by the entrance of Mr. Ritchie.

III

To the casual observer there was nothing heroic in Ritchie’s coming, but truly it was heroic. It had cost him a horrible effort to subdue his outrageous pride, to forego the Coyotes’ dance, and to return here for the ungracious Madeline. And how did he find her? Bending over a strange man in evening dress, all alone, long after the place should have been closed!

With vehement indignation Madeline told him the story of the base desertion of the helpless sufferer.

“And what am I going to do with him?” she ended. “It’s the worst I ever heard—going off and leaving him like this!”

“Well, send for the police,” said Mr. Ritchie, but he regretted his words when he saw her eyes blaze.

“Well, now, see here,” said Ritchie. “I guess you don’t know what’s the matter with him. He’s not sick; he’s just—”

“Hush up!” she interrupted fiercely. “I guess I do know! It isn’t his fault—he got in with bad comp’ny.”

“I do know,” she replied firmly. “Never you mind how! And I’m going to see he gets taken care of till he’s all well again.”

All this did not contribute to Mr. Ritchie’s happiness. Wasn’t it just like a woman, he thought, to be captious and haughty to a devoted young man of blameless life, and an angel of compassion to this unknown profligate?

Nevertheless, in spite of his jealous alarm and his pain and his distrust, it was Ritchie’s sure instinct to behave generously. Heaven knows where he got his magnanimity. He hadn’t learned it in the mean and sordid little home of his childhood. He hadn’t been taught it in school, and it had been a part of his nature long before he had read a line of those improving little books.

He had never done this before. He hastened to a cab stand on Fifth Avenue, and it seemed to his proud soul that all the chauffeurs knew he had never used a taxi, and despised him. He was very truculent about it.

An infinitely greater humiliation was in store for him. When he returned to the restaurant, he couldn’t lift, or even move, the helpless young man. All those hours with the exerciser availed him nothing. His physique was shamefully deficient.

Without much trouble, she took the fellow under his arms and got him to his feet. He opened his eyes, then, and smiled a dreamy, innocent smile. Supported by Madeline and pushed by Ritchie, he made a sort of attempt at walking to the cab.

“I’d better go with you,” said she, “or you’ll never get him up the stairs.”

Sick with shame, Ritchie was obliged to consent. Neither of them for an instant contemplated asking the chauffeur’s assistance; and the chauffeur, being class conscious, did not volunteer it.

Ritchie had the worst fifteen minutes of his life during his first ride in a taxi. He felt himself a mean, contemptible, worthless thing, with his lack of bodily strength. He contrasted his worn, shabby suit with the stranger’s expensive clothes. He knew that Madeline must despise him. She would despise him far more when she saw his room, yet he could devise no way for preventing that.

When the cab stopped before his door, he paid the fare, torn between a certainty that his natural enemy, the chauffeur, was cheating him, and his desire to appear lordly before Madeline. Then, together, they began to get the stranger up the stairs.

The noise of the operation made Ritchie’s blood run cold. Suppose some one saw him with a drunken man and a girl? He hauled at the fellow’s arm in no very gentle manner.

At last, at the top of the house, he unlocked a door, and, supporting the stranger against the wall of the corridor, he brusquely said to Madeline:

The room was a bleak, bare, cold little cell, with the exerciser fastened to the wall, and the window nailed open, to admit all the hygienically fresh air possible. On the bureau, instead of the little accessories of a fastidious gentleman, were a pair of military brushes, the vital library, all in a row, and a bottle of ink. On the table were an alarm clock and the apparatus of the correspondence course. There were no other visible articles personal to Ritchie, except a razor strop and six cakes of carbolic soap, economically unwrapped to dry.

“All right!” he thought defiantly. “Now you can see just how I live—and I hope you’ll like it! Go on—laugh, if you want to!”

“Oh, my, what a dusty towel!” she was thinking, in distress. “And no curtains. The woman that runs this house ought to be ashamed of herself!”

It was the first time she had used his name. He needed that assuagement to compensate for the lingering glance she gave to the prostrate unknown.

Ritchie came home in a somewhat bitter humor, partly due to his having spent the night on a hard chair, and partly to other and finer causes. He hoped that drunken fellow would be gone. He wished never to see him again; but when Ritchie opened the door, there he was, lying on the bed and reading one of the little books.

“Hello!” he said, as joyously as if Ritchie were his heart’s dearest friend.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the other went on. “Absolutely the whitest thing I ever heard of! I must have been pretty far gone last night—can’t remember a blamed thing.”

“I shan’t forget this, you know,” he continued. “You darned nearly saved my life. Can’t imagine what my people would have said, if I’d come home like that. You know how it is[Pg 96]—”

“Shows sense,” said the other warmly. “I think I’ll have to be one myself. My name’s Bradley.” He waited. “What’s yours?” he asked.

“Ritchie,” responded the other. “And as good as Bradley any day,” he added mentally.

In some respects, however, honesty obliged him to admit that he was not so good as Bradley.

Bradley, after stretching, got up. He was in his shirt sleeves, and Ritchie surveyed his tall, slender figure with the eye of a connoisseur in physiques. The fellow was young yet, not fully developed, but certainly those shoulders, that solid neck, that broad chest, were promising—very promising.

“Well, he probably eats too much meat,” thought Ritchie, with dejection. “Living like he does, he won’t last!”

In order to show his perfect ease and indifference, he began to wash, whistling when the process permitted.

“I must be badly in your way,” said the other, in his good-humored manner. “I’ll clear out, I think. Got a spare overcoat? I don’t like to go out like this.”

Ritchie grew scarlet. His overcoat—certainly spare enough—was in that place where winter overcoats naturally go in the spring.

There was a knock at the door. Ritchie flung it wide open, with the air of one who has nothing to conceal. In the hall stood two resplendent young heroes, broadly smiling.

They both came into the room as if Ritchie did not exist. Trembling with resentment, he stood aside, collarless, in his cheap striped shirt, with his black hair still wet on his forehead. These three well fed, well clothed creatures, with their vigorous voices, completely filled the room—filled, he thought, the whole world, squeezing him out of it.

In an affectionate and blasphemous manner Bradley reproached his friend for deserting him the night before.

“You ought to thank me,” said his friend, “for leaving you in the care of that peach of a girl!”

The friend recounted the circumstances. No one observed Mr. Ritchie’s rage and dismay.

“I went there just now to make inquiries,” the friend went on, “and she told me where I’d find you. Bradley, old son, if you’re a man and a brother, you’ll go there at once and thank her! She’s a beautiful girl, and—”

“Here!” interrupted Ritchie. His voice was so strange that they all turned to look at him. “Leave her out!” he cried. “You can thank me!”

Bradley was smitten with compunction. He began thanking Ritchie with energy, introduced his friends, and invited him to dinner.

“No!” said Ritchie. Like many teetotalers, he had acquired the habit of saying “no” somewhat ungraciously. “No! But you can just leave her out!”

Again he was thanked by all of them, and at last they left his room; but he knew that Madeline would not be left out. He felt certain that they would go at once to Compson’s Chophouse. He could see them talking to Madeline. He knew how she would admire their dress, and their silly language, and their frivolous and disgusting manners.

“All right!” he said to himself. “You’re welcome to ’em; but you don’t catch me going there any more, to be made a fool of. Not much!”

Suddenly he decided that he wanted no dinner—not at Compson’s, or at any other place. He threw himself down on his cot, with a scornful laugh that sounded like a sob. Fellows like that always got everything. They thought they owned the earth—and very likely they did.

Young Bradley was not subtle or astoundingly clever, but he did know better than to go to thank a beautiful girl in the company of his two friends. He went alone.

He was instantly struck down, completely conquered, by Madeline’s haughty glance. It was the first time he had met a haughty girl. He found most girls very much otherwise. He was accustomed to the ardent pursuit of mothers and aunts, and not much coyness on the part of their protégées. He had no conception of Made[Pg 97]line’s idea of man as a dangerous and persistent hunter, with woman as his prey. In his circle the girls did the hunting and he the evading.

He was captivated by her severity. She refused to go out with him that evening; so he came again the next evening.

“Please come!” he entreated. “I’ve got the car outside. I’ll wait for you as long as you like, and then we’ll run up to a little place on the Post Road.”

“No, thank you,” said Madeline. “I never go out with strange gentlemen.”

“How am I going to stop being a strange gentleman if you’ll never go out with me?” he complained.

Madeline didn’t know, and didn’t care to encourage strange young men by trying to explain. She knew perfectly well that he would come back.

To be sure, he did, and this time he was dreadfully insistent. Now perhaps the cause of Madeline’s hauteur was the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the men she knew. Certainly she had never before encountered a persistent suitor, or one who was not offended by rebuffs. Customers inclined to gallantry were very much annoyed if not encouraged. Even Mr. Ritchie was fatally ready to be insulted; but this young fellow didn’t care in the least. Let her be haughty, captious, even cruel, still he was charmed and delighted.

Though she did not think this quite manly, Madeline could not withstand the cajolery of the handsome and good-natured boy. She was thrilled with pride that this splendid creature should come to seek her in Compson’s lowly chophouse. She was secretly overwhelmed when he brought her orchids. She didn’t really resent the innuendoes of the other girls. They were simply jealous because no such hero ever had or ever would come to seek them.

In her heart she was grateful, almost humble. She regarded her incomparable Bradley with something very like awe. To placate Compson, he would order coffee and pie while he waited to talk to her; and his manner of eating and drinking, the way he rose and remained standing when she approached, all the careless ease and grace of him, were a marvel and a joy. Moreover, even in her most fervent admiration, she had never lost the protective tenderness she had felt the first time she had seen him. She worried about him, about his health and his morals.

This was really the reason why she finally consented to go out with him—so that she could talk seriously and firmly, and perhaps reclaim him.

“Well, you can be waiting for me to-morrow at nine o’clock,” she said. “You’d better go along now.”

As he was leaving—a notable figure in a suit such as never entered Compson’s, and a straw hat, and a walking stick—he was met by Ritchie coming in. Ritchie was dressed in threadbare serge, and wore brown shoes, which he had attempted to make black. Bradley went by without a sign—not by intention, for he would have saluted his benefactor joyously if he had known him; but Ritchie, to him, was exactly like countless others, and quite indistinguishable.

Of course Ritchie took this apparent neglect as a personal insult. He sat down at his usual table, burning with shame and fury. When Madeline approached, he said truculently:

“Him, isn’t it? All right! Go ahead! That’s just like a woman,” said Ritchie. “If a feller has good clothes and a fine physique, what do they care if he drinks, or anything?”

“I wasn’t aware I was requesting your valuable advice, Mr. Ritchie,” observed Madeline frigidly.

“I wasn’t giving it,” said he. “All I was saying was, women are all for show. They never see below the surface. Anyway, I’m going to Chicago the end of this week. I’m sick of New York!”

“I’m sick of the girls here,” he went on vehemently. “Just a lot of jazz babies—that’s what they are!”

“Jazz babies,” he repeated. “There isn’t one of them with—with any brains or any feelings.”

“I’m not paid to be insulted by customers,” said she. “I’ll send some one else to wait on you. I’m sure I hope you’ll find some one in Chicago that’s good enough for you, if such a thing is possible![Pg 98]”

In the course of her twenty years Madeline had not shed so many tears as during this one night. There was time for a deluge, for it was surely the longest night that had ever covered the earth. It had the interminable confusion of a dream; and, like a dream, it was made up of vivid and apparently unconnected flashes.

First there was herself leaving Compson’s with a not very genuine air of composure, entering Bradley’s car, and settling herself by his side, determined not to be impressed or perturbed either by his magnificence or by the rakishness of the small car.

Then there was the flight through the bejeweled and marvelous city—a delight seriously marred by her companion’s sinister silence. Not being a driver herself, she had mistaken his preoccupation with traffic signals and so on for a grim and alarming determination. She had, as etiquette required, tried to talk, but he scarcely answered.

Then they shot out into the country—a world dark and unfamiliar to her. Almost the first thing Bradley did was to draw up the car by the roadside and produce a pocket flask. He had been surprised and amused at her indignation, and not overawed by her firm principles. She had said that she wished to go home, but he had been so very persuasive about the supper agreed upon that she had yielded.

She had regretted her weakness. The road house was an awful place. It was like the “haunts of vice” that she had read about in the Sunday newspapers. The prices on the menu appalled her, and the dancing was beyond imagining. Bradley knew some of those people, and had danced with a girl, leaving Madeline alone and unprotected at their table.

He said that what he had to drink was ginger ale, but she didn’t believe it. Ginger ale couldn’t have made him so flushed and silly; and when at last, after he had sat there smoking cigarettes and dawdling, they rose to go, she had noticed that his gait was unsteady. He had grown talkative, too, and never had she heard such silly conversation.

And now here they stood, on the brow of a hill. It was dark, but the dawn was already tingeing the sky. The birds were awake all about them, each one giving his own note—a reedy quaver, a chirp, a clear, exultant carol, each one indifferent and independent, but part of a glorious orchestral symphony. It was dawn, and here they were, for the graceless Bradley had lost his way in the dark.

They had gone jolting up lanes that ended in walls and fences, they had rushed across bridges, they had turned this way and that. Bradley made inquiries, but was not quite capable of profiting by them. Moreover, Madeline’s tears and reproaches had made him frantic. Dawn, and here they were! So fair and tranquil a dawn, it might have inspired to poetry the most insensitive soul; but to poor Madeline it meant only another working day. It made her think of Compson’s.

“Oh, my!” she cried. “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, how could you do such a thing?”

“I’m very sorry,” was all that the sobered young man could say. “I didn’t mean to.”

“My aunt’ll never let me in the house again!” she lamented. “Somebody’s sure to come from Compson’s and ask where I am, and my aunt’ll say she don’t know. I wish I was dead!”

She was amazed at his stupidity, but the poor chap was quite unaware of the villainous aspect he had in the eyes of Compson’s staff. He had never considered himself a villain—certainly not where Madeline was concerned. He was very grateful to her, and he had tried to show his gratitude. That had not been at all difficult, because she was so pretty; but, thought he, what an awful temper!

Bradley was used to girls who concealed the most fiendish rages when in his company, and he believed that all girls were amiable. Ritchie would have understood Madeline’s outbreak. He might perhaps have quarreled with her, but all the time he quarreled he would have been terribly moved by her plight. Bradley couldn’t see that there was any plight. If she hadn’t been so terribly upset, he would have thought the thing a joke.

He was about to speak, but when he looked at her, he could not. Some faint comprehension of her point of view came[Pg 99] to him. The more he looked, the better he understood.

Grief had dignified her. Her tear-stained face, her brimming eyes, her trembling lip, distressed him beyond measure. He was an honest and kind-hearted fellow, and even something more than that. In his way, he was chivalrous. He felt deeply ashamed just then to remember that only a few hours before he had thought it rather comic to be taking out a waitress. He regretted the harmless but not very decorous jokes that he and his friends had made about the episode. He wished he had shown his gratitude in some other way. She wasn’t a waitress—she was a forlorn and miserable girl whom his ill-behavior had got into a situation which she regarded as serious.

“I’ll make it all right,” he said earnestly, wondering how this might be done.

She didn’t mean to be ungracious or unkind, but she was in anguish. Neither she nor any of the people she knew could take such things lightly. She saw herself irretrievably disgraced, her haughty respectability forever tarnished. She knew so well what the girls at Compson’s would say!

She had been so proud of her discretion, of her superiority! She had been so very cautious about “strange gentlemen”! And to be away from home all night! She couldn’t bear it. Grief and resentment drove her to tears again.

“Don’t!” entreated Bradley. “Please don’t! I’ll make it all right, somehow—I give you my word I will!”

What he meant was that he would fly to some sympathetic feminine spirit, who could and would make it right for him.

VII

Madeline’s aunt didn’t believe one word of her niece’s story. Madeline quarreled haughtily and scornfully with her, but in her own heart she couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t have believed it herself. Getting lost in a motor car with a millionaire! That was simply nonsense.

She lay down on the bed in her dismal little room, as close to despair as she was ever likely to be. One of the girls had come from Compson’s, and her aunt had said she didn’t know where Madeline was.

She might have been mourning for a lost paradise. After all, it was as hard for her to lose her standing among her peers at the chophouse as for a duchess to lose prestige in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. She had nothing else.

She neither expected nor wished to see Bradley again. He was a sinister mystery to her; she couldn’t understand him at all. She was convinced that he had got lost on purpose. The very fact of his not having tried to make love to her made the case all the more perturbing. He must have some deep design which she could not yet fathom.

He was bad. He drank. He went gladly to road houses where every one was bad, and drank, and danced improperly. His fascination was the fascination of a villain. His whole life must be a phantasmagoria of splendid evil.

As the room grew dark, she shuddered at the very thought of him. She dozed, and dreamed nightmares, and woke and cried and slept again. The blessed security of her honest, hard-working life was gone. She would have to give up her job. She couldn’t face the other girls again. Perhaps she was caught in one of those awful snares elaborately laid by millionaires for the daughters of the poor. Perhaps it was Bradley’s purpose to see that she never got another job—to hound her to the brink of starvation, that she might be obliged to listen to his evil proposals.

There was not a soul in the world to assuage the heartsick young creature, no one to speak a word of common sense or solace. Her preposterous fears were terribly real to her. She had eaten nothing all day. She was exhausted, frightened, inimitably wretched.

She heard her aunt moving about in the kitchen. She knew that nothing on earth could induce the older woman to bring her even a cup of tea, and nothing could persuade her to ask for it.

“Tell him yourself,” said her aunt promptly. “I guess I got something better to do than carry messages for you!”

Her aunt was a severe, stout, bespec[Pg 100]tacled creature of fifty, a woman of invincible propriety, and Madeline’s conduct had stricken her to the heart. She was as glad to see Ritchie as if he were an angel, because obviously he could remedy all that was wrong; but she had no other way of expressing gratification, affection, or the most profound grief, than by her habitual disagreeableness.

She rose, too wretched to care how she looked, and went into the lugubrious little parlor where Ritchie waited.

Although he refused, as always, to look squarely at her, he had none the less observed her wan and tear-stained face, her untidy hair, her piteous dejection. Something which he imagined to be anger came over him.

“Well, if you—if you had more sense,” he said, and paused. He could not well have been more miserable than he was at that moment, nor could he have concealed it better. “Well!” he said again, with a sort of fury. “All right! It’s nothing to do with me. Go ahead! Suit yourself!”

He drew one of his books from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to her in a shaking hand.

“You can just look at this, if you like,” he said. “I’m going away to-morrow—that’s all I’ve got to say!”

She did look. Heavily underscored were two lines unfamiliar to her, and of striking beauty and significance:

VIII

The very next evening, when he should have been on his way to Chicago, he was ringing the door bell of Madeline’s flat. His presence brought ineffable consolation to the aunt, and was not displeasing to the girl herself.

“Well, I did,” said he. “Aren’t you going back to Compson’s any more?”

“That’s my business!” she answered, but she let him in, and he did not appear rebuffed.

“Let ’em!” she retorted with spirit. They were both too polite, too formal, to take any notice of the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I went out with that Mr. Bradley, and we got lost in his car. We never got back here until near noon. There’s no use telling those girls that. They’re awful spiteful, and they’d never believe me.”

“I should think you ought to!” said Madeline, with a sternness that concealed a very warm gratitude.

“He was here to-day,” said Madeline; “him and his sister. I must say I didn’t think much of her—all painted and everything. She wants to get me a job with one of those Fifth Avenue dressmakers, as a model, to show off the dresses.”

“It’s not meant to be sweet,” replied Ritchie severely. “It’s more like, now, tragic. If you’d read more—”

In spite of himself, he was mollified. He glanced at her covertly. She was quite as lovely and disturbing as ever.

“Well,” he said, “of course I got to read. I want to get on. I’m making twenty-seven a week now, and more when there’s overtime. I spend a good lot on those correspondence courses, and the Coyote Club and all; but I guess I could do without them, if I felt like it.”

“I’m not going to take that job,” said Madeline suddenly. “I wouldn’t—not for anything. I guess I’ve had enough of that[Pg 101] kind of people—all that drinking and all. I’d never get on with that kind!”

The collapse of castles in the air doesn’t make a sound. Down came the magnificent edifice of Everard Ritchie’s ambitions, and the airy palace of Madeline’s dreams. In their place was instantaneously erected a three-room flat in a respectable quarter.

Their hands met, but not their eyes. They were timid lovers; but by that handclasp they could say all they wished.

“Those people just make me sick,” said Madeline. “You ought to have seen them dancing out at that place!”

Then their eyes did meet, full of profound confidence and understanding. His arm went round her shoulders, and she drew close to him.

“I know!” said he. “Fellers like that are no good at all; and those girls!” He looked at his haughty and incorruptible Madeline. “Those girls,” said he, from the depths of his vast worldly knowledge, “are nothing but a bunch of jazz babies![Pg 102]”

The Postponed Wedding

IN WHICH THE PRINCIPALS WERE A TEARFUL BRIDE AND A SUBSTITUTE BRIDEGROOM

MILDRED stood like a statue—a trite figure of speech, but in this case an apt one. With the white satin draped about her bare shoulders, immobile in her cool and tranquil loveliness, she was truly like a statue, and an admirable one.

The dressmaker knelt at her feet as if before an idol, gathered the gleaming material into folds here and there, and put in pins, serious and happy in this congenial work. She admired Mildred immeasurably, because Miss Henaberry was polite and kind and beautiful, and did justice to a dressmaker’s art.

Mildred was not the first idol to be obliged to stand still and look lovely while the keenest anguish racked her. Not by the flicker of an eyelash would she betray what she suffered. She had read the letter calmly; she held it now in fingers that trembled not at all. Obediently she turned, or lifted an arm, and did everything necessary, so that the dress might be perfect.

It was her wedding dress, and her wedding had been announced for the first day of June—and for the past fifteen minutes she had known that there would be no wedding then.

The dressmaker rose and stood back a few feet, to look at the tall, straight young creature, with her proud little dark head, so nobly set off by the lustrous satin.

Mildred smiled then, somewhat faintly. She was able, even willing, to endure the worst that fate could inflict upon her; but she very much wanted one hour alone, to endure the first shock. She did not want to cry, or even to think; all that she needed was a little space of time to steady and fortify that pride so horribly shaken.

Pride was at once the girl’s finest quality, and her worst. It was a splendid pride that had made her come out so bravely after her father’s bankruptcy and death, and, after twenty years of easy and luxurious living, had set to work to earn her bread as a teacher in a private school. It was a pride diabolic that made her stand so aloof, and refuse friendship, because of her morbid fear that some one might pity her.

You could read all that in her face; for though she had the profile, the wide, low brow, and the fine, grave eyes of Minerva, there was that about her mouth and chin which was simply mulish obstinacy. She never had listened, she never would listen, to any warning or advice. Any number of people had wanted to warn and advise her about Will Mallet.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Terhune, an old friend of her mother’s, “Will can’t support a wife.”

Impossible to describe just what was wrong with Will Mallet. He came of a good family, and, though he hadn’t a penny, he had influential connections. He wasn’t lazy, he hadn’t a vice in the world, he was intelligent, almost scholarly, and altogether a handsome and endearing boy. Even the fact that at twenty-four he was still at loose ends, and still looking for his appointed work in the world, couldn’t justify what Mrs. Terhune said.

She declared that as a husband Will was impossible. He couldn’t be taken seriously. It was nice to dance with him, play tennis with him, hear him recite his poems—but marry him!

He had seldom been seen in the little[Pg 104] town on the Hudson where he had been born. Now and then he came to visit an indulgent relative, and to get assistance moral and material, after which he would go off to try his luck once more. Every one liked him and no one respected him.

On this last visit he had surprised them all by deciding to stay. He said he intended to open a florist’s shop and greenhouses. He had looked about for a likely site, and had asked for advice—which he got in generous measure. His relations were pleased and rather touched by this venture, which seemed at once practical and poetic, and he had received more attention and encouragement than was good for him; but when his engagement to Mildred was made known, he lost all favor. He was severely condemned, and remonstrated with, and still further advised.

Will was a young man of no great vanity or self-assurance. He was fatally inclined to agree with people. He listened, downcast and wretched, to the admonitions of friends and relatives, and hastened off to tell Mildred that he was no good, and that she would be better off without him.

She thought otherwise. She had few illusions about her Will, but she thought that with help and encouragement he might be improved. She had for him a maternal sort of love, exacting and yet very tender. She didn’t wish to spoil him. She meant to inspire him with greater energy and self-reliance. She told him that he was capable of great things, for she really thought so. She was kind, indulgent, and yet firm with him—and she never suspected how she terrified him.

She had all the virtues. She worked hard and earnestly, she saved money, she read, she studied, she was intelligent, tender-hearted, modest, reserved, and matchlessly polite. She was beautiful, she knew how to dress and how to carry herself, and socially she was perfect; but there is one little truth which Mildred had never been taught. A good example must not be too good, or, instead of producing a desire for imitation, the beholders feel only despair and hopeless inferiority.

The bell rang for lunch, and Mildred had difficulty in suppressing a sob of relief. The dressmaker had the pleasure of going downstairs and eating at the same table with her idol. She looked about the dismal dining room of the boarding house with a happy smile.

Mildred agreed with that. She knew what she could endure, and she knew also what would be too much for her. She could not endure to remain there, among those friendly, interested people—not after this!

Mrs. Terhune read the letter, read it again with a distressed frown, and passed it to her husband.

Dear Mrs. Terhune:

Please believe that I am very sorry to go away without seeing you and thanking you for all your many, many kindnesses. Will and I have been obliged to change our plans, however, and to postpone our wedding for a time; so in order to avoid all the awkward and tiresome explaining, and so on, I thought it better to go for a visit to some old friends in the country, until our arrangements were complete. Of course I shall let you know all about it at the earliest possible moment.

Please, dear Mrs. Terhune, don’t think me ungrateful or lacking in affection for running off this way. As you know, I have an almost morbid horror of gossip, and I couldn’t bear to stay and explain a hundred times that the wedding was postponed until Will had improved his position. He is inclined to be far too sensitive about his earning powers, but I am sure you agree with me that a man is not to be judged by his financial success. I have perfect faith in Will.

And then and there, over the breakfast table, floated the word from which poor Mildred had run away—that word bitter as death, which she could not tolerate the thought of hearing. It passed between Mr. and Mrs. Terhune, it went out to the servants in the kitchen, it found its way into many other houses—the word “jilted.”

The Terhunes were very fond of Mildred, and were really perturbed by her disappearance. They knew she had no money and no friends elsewhere. They consoled themselves, however, by their knowledge of her remarkable dignity, self-possession, and determination. A girl like Mildred, they said, would be sure to get on, wherever she went.

“And, in a way, it was the best thing she could have done,” Mrs. Terhune said, after a week or so. “There’s so much spiteful gossip about the affair. Poor Mildred!”

Even Mrs. Terhune’s genuine affection was tinged by a faint hue of complacency.

“Of course I knew how it would be,[Pg 105]” she remarked. “I knew Will was absolutely worthless. Poor Mildred!”

Now, in order to comprehend the case of Mildred Henaberry, one thing must be admitted. She had a thousand good qualities, the best manners in the world, and a rare type of beauty, but she was not lovable. You were obliged to respect and to admire her, and sometimes you resented the obligation.

As a result, the gossip about her had a decidedly malicious flavor. Any number of people were delighted at being able to laugh at perfection brought low. All the malice was toward Mildred—none for Will. Perhaps, if she had stayed for pity, she would have been pitied, but in running away she forfeited all claim to generosity.

So that when Robert Dacier arrived, a few months later, he heard Mildred spoken of as a jilted spinster, who had vanished in order to hide her hideous disappointment. He heard that she had been a school-teacher, that she had been “dignified” and “fastidious.” This conveyed to his mind the picture of a severe and unpleasant female of forty who had got what she deserved.

Not that Dacier gave much time to thinking about Mildred, for he was not at all a thoughtful young man. He was a cheerful, careless, good-looking fellow, who was a nephew of Mrs. Terhune. That lady refused to admit that of all her nephews and nieces he was her favorite, because she prided herself upon being a just and sensible woman, far too reasonable to be beguiled by the lad’s curly head and debonair good humor.

Not that he didn’t have solid and excellent qualities. He was doing very well as an architect, and was making a creditable income. Certainly he spent it all, but he spent it in a nice, gentlemanly way.

He earned less in a year than his uncle spent in a month; yet when the fellow came on a visit to the Terhunes, there was not a trace of poor relation about him. He had excellent cigars to offer to his uncle, and he showed his aunt all sorts of little attentions that touched and delighted her beyond measure. She had never had children of her own, and I don’t believe she had ever felt much happier than she felt when making a round of calls with that engaging and delightful nephew, showing him off with naïve complacency, and fairly basking in his affection.

Naturally she talked to him about Mildred Henaberry, because the affair had upset and troubled her. He listened good-humoredly, not in the least interested; but he was destined to be plunged into that affair, head over heels, and it was Mrs. Terhune who was to push him into it.

“I heard about a new tea room up near Beacon,” he said to his aunt one afternoon. “Let’s run up there, Aunt Kate!”

“You don’t want to go with your old aunt,” said she, beaming with delight. “At your age, you want the society of young people.”

He answered exactly as she wanted him to answer. She dressed herself in her best and most imposing style, and off they went.

It was the most perfect sort of August day—bland, fair, not too hot, not dusty. Mrs. Terhune leaned back, greatly enjoying it all—the light air blowing against her face, the pleasant scents of the countryside, and, above all, the festive feeling caused by the presence of the holiday-making nephew.

Being only twenty-five to her fifty, Dacier was perhaps not quite so contented. He would have liked to drive, but it made his aunt nervous, so he had foregone that pleasure—although, to tell the truth, it made him nervous to sit back and go creeping along at such a calm, moderate pace. However, he enjoyed life so much that he was indulgent toward other people, and wished to make them happy as well; so on they went, conversing affectionately.

III

“Mercy!” suddenly cried Mrs. Terhune. “Can it be? Johnson, please stop the car!”

This Johnson did, and Mrs. Terhune pointed to a field to the right of the road, across which a white figure was sauntering.

“Robert,” she said to her nephew, “I’m sure that’s Mildred. I should know that figure and that walk anywhere. Oh, dear, she’s going through the fence! I can’t lose her. Do run after her and bring her back—that’s a dear boy!”

So off went young Dacier across the sunny field, bareheaded, and, his aunt thought, marvelously fleet and graceful.

The figure in white had gone through a gap in the fence, and had turned up a shady little road, but Dacier took a short cut, leaped over the fence, and stood be[Pg 106]fore her, flushed and very hot. He had forgotten the jilted spinster’s surname, if he had ever heard it; but he felt quite certain that this was not she—not this serene and lovely young creature.

“But I’m afraid you’re not the right one—not Mrs. Terhune’s Mildred.”

“Oh, Mrs. Terhune!” cried the girl, very much distressed. “Did she send you?”

“Yes,” he replied, rather absent-mindedly, because he was trying to reconcile his imaginary portrait of the jilted spinster with the reality before him. He was impressed, deeply impressed, by this dignified and serious girl, because he was not very dignified or serious himself, but careless and light-hearted and sometimes a little impertinent. “Then,” he added politely, “if you are the right one, won’t you come and speak to Mrs. Terhune? She’s waiting in the car. She’s very anxious to see you.”

Mildred turned. Mrs. Terhune had now got out of the car, and was standing beside it. At that distance she seemed a small and shapeless creature, with veil and scarf fluttering, and her hand waving in earnest welcome.

Her tone was so odd that Dacier looked quickly at her, and saw her gray eyes filled with tears. Why tears at the sight of Aunt Kate?

“I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t see her just now. If you’ll please tell her”—Mildred turned away her face—“please tell her I’ll write. Please tell her I’m just as fond of her. Thank you! Good-by!”

“You’re welcome,” he said courteously. “Very pretty country about here, isn’t it?”

“Well, you see, I hate to go back and disappoint her. She wanted so much to see you. She’s always talking about you.”

“Then please tell her that Will—Mr. Mallet—is coming back very soon. I’ll let her know, of course, when the wedding is definitely arranged. Just now I’m very busy with my preparations.”

Dacier was not lacking in wit. He didn’t believe a word of this, but he was so sorry for the girl, he so much admired her fine pride, that he answered in the most convincing way. He remembered everything he had ever heard about Mallet, and he spoke of him seriously, with interest. He asked about the florist project, and talked to Mildred as to a girl authentically and eternally engaged. It was the nature of the fellow to make himself agreeable. He did it without effort, and almost without motive—although he was by no means unsusceptible to Mildred’s grave beauty.

She was disarmed. She scarcely noticed that he went on walking beside her to the very gate of her little garden, so absorbed was she in her talk about Will. Dacier still didn’t believe her, but he was not at all amused. He thought it very pitiful that she should bring out this phantom lover, should lean upon this straw man, when she herself was so strong, so splendidly alive.

“Mercy!” she suddenly exclaimed. “What will Mrs. Terhune think? Please hurry back to her! And you’ll tell her—about Will, won’t you?”

“She was too busy to come,” he said, with a smile. “She’s too busy waiting for Mallet.”

“Oh, dear, how very foolish! She’s a splendid girl, but she is so obstinate. I can’t bear to lose her again!”

“Don’t worry,” said her nephew cheerfully. “We’ll arrange all that, Aunt Kate. I’m rather obstinate myself.”

Mildred lived in the most wonderful little cottage, so tiny, so neat, like the cottage of the three bears, or the abode of the dwarfs. The old woman who came to keep it so bright and spotless was exactly like a witch, too, and Mildred herself might well have been an enchanted princess—except that she worked rather hard, and kept accounts. A small sign in the window read, “Miss Mildred Henaberry—piano lessons,” and all through the day confirmation[Pg 107a] of this floated out across the garden and into the road—stumbling scales, painful excursions in Czemy, and then the masterly touch of the teacher herself, showing what might be done.

Her pupils liked her, because she was patient, polite, and always clear and definite. She liked them because they were young, and because they had such stubby little fingers, such earnest scowls, and such jolly laughs.

On this morning of pelting summer rain she had escorted one of them to the front door—a rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles—and was opening a minute umbrella that would shelter the little cropped head, when she saw, coming down the lane, the young man who had been Mrs. Terhune’s emissary. He saw Mildred, raised his hat, and came splashing on through the mud, with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled down. He entered the gate and reached the veranda steps just as the little girl was coming down.

He smiled down at the child; and, if you will believe it, this youthful creature, not more than ten years old, hesitated, and then came up the steps after him.

“If he’s going away soon,” said the little girl, “shan’t I wait and let him go under my umbrella?”

“I’m very much obliged,” he told her; “but I’ve come for a music lesson, so you’d better not wait.”

“Of course it’s a subterfuge,” said he; “but even at that, why shouldn’t I have a music lesson? It would be such a good way for us to get acquainted.”

“Even that little girl,” he said, “could read my face and see the sort of fellow I am—honest as daylight, kind, simple—”

“The sign doesn’t say so,” Dacier pointed out. “I noticed that sign when I was here before. Legally, I’m not so sure that you’d be allowed to discriminate against any person of good character who—”

“Miss Henaberry,” said Dacier firmly, “if I’m personally repulsive to you, of course I’ll go at once; but otherwise, why can’t I talk to you for a few minutes? I’m Mrs. Terhune’s nephew, Robert Dacier. I didn’t bring a certificate in my pocket, but I hope you’ll believe me without that.”

Now Dacier was not personally repulsive to Mildred—not in the least. She considered him somewhat presumptuous and overconfident, yet there was about him something that pleased her, something gallant and high-spirited and endearing.

“And he’s Mrs. Terhune’s nephew,” she thought. “I ought to be nice to him.”

To tell you the truth, no matter whose nephew he had happened to be, I don’t believe that Mildred could have helped being nice to him. Very few people could. She let him into her neat little sitting room, and she felt concerned, as any properly constituted woman would have felt, because he was dripping wet. She made him a cup of tea, and, having an hour to wait for the next pupil, sat down to talk to him. Dacier was good at talking.

After he had gone, she was not sorry that he had said he would come again. The smoke of his cigarette lingered in the room, and was not disagreeable. The sound of his voice lingered, too, and perhaps the memory of his audacious, blue-eyed, sunburned face. It was as if a fresh breeze had blown through her neat, lonely little house.

Come again he did, the very next evening, and he made of it the single happy, jolly evening in a long succession of solitary ones. They sat out on the veranda, with the moon shining; and if he had not the respectful humility she had found in other young men, he was none the less interesting for that.

He had no poems to read, as Will Mallet had had. Indeed, he knew little about poetry, or music, or any of the arts; but he said he would like to learn, if she would teach him. When he was going, he asked what time he should come the next day.

“I don’t think you had better come to-morrow,” she said, a little regretfully.

He pointed out that his holiday wouldn’t last forever, and that it did him good to come and hear her talk. He gave other unreasonable reasons, and he did come the next day, and the day after, as well.[Pg 107]

Before a week had passed, Mildred saw that this must be stopped. It made her angry—so very angry that she nearly wept over it alone at night.

“I suppose he thinks, and Mrs. Terhune thinks, that he’s doing a kindness to a poor, forlorn, jilted old maid,” she thought. “He’s entirely too sure of himself. He takes it for granted that I’m glad to see him all the time. He thinks—”

Her ideas of what he thought distressed her beyond measure. That evening, when he appeared again, he found her very cool and aloof—even on the moonlit veranda, and even while he made his best efforts to amuse her.

“Mr. Dacier,” she said suddenly, “I’m very sorry, but I think you’d better not come any more.”

“Because—I’m afraid Mr. Mallet wouldn’t like it,” she said at length. “While he’s away—”

“I suppose you’ve heard all sorts of malicious gossip!” she said vehemently.

As he was coming down the lane the next morning, he met the rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles, and they stopped for a chat. She told him all about her kitten at home, and talked of other interesting topics. They shook hands at parting.

“Oh, my goodness, Mr. Dacier!” she called, as he was moving off. “I’ve forgotten Miss Henaberry’s letter. I stop in at the post office for her, you know, to ask if there are any letters, only there never are; but there was one to-day.”

He was at a loss how to proceed. He couldn’t hurt the obstinate, proud creature by so much as hinting that he knew Mallet would never come back. He had decided to entreat her to give up this elusive lover; and he understood Mildred well enough to know that she would make it hard for him.

Not that Dacier shirked things that were hard. Whatever his faults, he was not lacking in courage and persistence. It was the pretense, the cruel comedy which her rebellious haughtiness made necessary, that he dreaded. He wanted to be utterly candid and truthful with her, because it was his nature to be so, and because he loved her.

When he saw her face, however, he was no longer casual. She had grown very pale. She looked at the letter with the oddest expression.

“Did she write it herself?” he thought. “It can’t be from him! Good Lord, if he did come back, she’d marry him, whatever he was, just out of sheer pig-headedness! Nothing would count with her, in comparison with her infernal pride. All she wants is to show people—who don’t care a straw—that she hasn’t been jilted. She deserves to be jilted! She’s heartless! She’s inhuman! She doesn’t care—”

When she reëntered the room, every trace of anger and resentment left him. In her face, still pale, but very composed now, he saw plain and clear, her secret anguish and her terrible stubbornness. She was going to send him away, at any cost to herself or to him. She was going to drive away love and keep cold pride alone in her heart.

Dacier looked at her. He thought that he had never seen so lovely a face as this, with her dark, straight brows, her steady eyes, her mutinous and defiant mouth. Even folly was dignified there.

What humiliation and loneliness and bit[Pg 108]ter disillusionment had never been able to do, his question accomplished. Tears filled her eyes. She struggled with them, and with rising sobs.

Will Mallet had an unhappy, furtive conscience trapped inside him. The words of other people, even things that he read, would stir up the poor creature and send it rushing about in its cage, terribly alarmed. It made Will so uncomfortable that he would do anything to quiet it. Sometimes he fed it with lies, sometimes he reasoned with it, and sometimes he plunged into rash action.

He had told his conscience that it was for Mildred’s sake alone that he left her. When he had “got on his feet,” he would come back and claim her, and she would praise his nobility and self-sacrifice. In the meantime he wouldn’t be obliged to work so very hard and be so very earnest—two things which disagreed with him.

Unfortunately, however, he could not “get on his feet.” On the contrary, it might be said that he fell down pretty heavily. Of course, he was proud of the fact that his poems were not “popular,” but he would not have objected to their being a little more profitable. Bitterly he said that a man must live, and he got a job as proof reader in a publishing house. No use! When certain phrases of an author distressed him, he would make changes. When he had been forbidden to do that, he wanted to point out such passages and argue about them.

After this, a cousin got him an amorphous job in an office, but the light hurt his eyes. Then, on the strength of his good appearance and his learning, he secured a position as rewrite man on a newspaper. Well, newspaper offices are easy to get into and still easier to get out of. Again a cousin helped him, and again he failed. It was summer now, and he began to think with longing of the country.

“The only thing left,” he reflected, “is to go back and try that florist business seriously. I’ll write to Mildred first, of course. She’ll understand. She’s very loyal. Moreover, she’s not the sort of girl most men take to. She’s—well, she’s too fine. She’ll help me to get the thing started, and then we’ll be married.”

So he had written, and very promptly he received an answer. He sat on the edge of the bed in his furnished room and read it again, while his conscience flew wildly about inside him.

“But I’m not worthy of her!” he cried. “I never can be!” And he might truthfully have added: “I never want to be!”

Impossible to say what his conscience would have driven him to, if the landlady had not come up just then and spoken very disagreeably about his rent; so he saw that it was right for him to be a florist. He sent a telegram to announce his arrival three days later.

VII

“It’s a tragedy,” she said. “A wonderful girl like Mildred, and that wretched Will Mallet!”

“It’s certainly a pity,” said her husband; “but I suppose she knows what she’s doing.”

“Of course she knows, but she doesn’t care. She’s always been like that. I remember that once, when she was a little girl, she said she was going to make a birthday cake for her father. Well, almost as soon as she began, she hurt herself with a hammer, trying to crack walnuts. Her mother told me about it. She said the child was sick and white with pain, but she would have her poor little crushed fingers tied up, and she would go on. The cake turned out not fit to eat, and the obstinate[Pg 109] little thing was suffering so much that she had to be put to bed and the doctor sent for; but all she said was: ‘Anyhow, I made it. I did what I said I’d do!’ And that’s just the way she’s been about Will Mallet. She said she would marry him, and she’s going to. She’d wait—she’d wait forever!”

“Like poor Madama Butterfly,” said her husband. “Still, you’re obliged to admire that spirit. It’s fine!”

“Fine!” said his wife. “Not a bit of it! Devilish—that’s what it is. And when she’s married that scarecrow—yes, he is a scarecrow; I don’t care how handsome he is, he’s stuffed with straw—when she’s married Will Mallet, she’ll grow worse and worse. She’ll trample on him. It’ll do him good, but it’s terribly bad for her. If she’d had a real man like Robert Dacier, she’d have got over that. He’s the best-tempered, best-hearted boy in the world, but nobody could trample on him!”

Mr. Terhune respected his wife’s distress, and said no more. He couldn’t feel quite so strongly about weddings as she did, although he was very fond of Mildred Henaberry, and very sorry for her headstrong folly. He thought that on the whole the world was a pleasant place—especially on such a matchless day as this, the great climax of the summer.

They were speeding along smooth roads to the village where Mildred lived, and where the wedding was to take place that morning. The cloudless sky overhead was a brave, glorious blue, and the sun went up it like a conqueror. The grain stood ripe in the fields, the trees were at their best. You would think the countryside serenely quiet, unless you stopped to listen, and caught the ecstasy of sound from birds and insects all about.

None of this gave comfort to Mrs. Terhune. Her eyes were red when she alighted at the church, and she was glad, for she didn’t intend to look happy. She marched up the aisle and sat down in a front pew beside her husband. No one else was there except a rosy little girl in spectacles, and her mother.

Consulting her wrist watch, Mrs. Terhune saw that she had time to cry a little longer, and she was about to begin, when she was startled by the sight of her favorite nephew, Robert Dacier.

“You here?” she exclaimed, because she had fancied that there were reasons why he would not enjoy Mildred’s wedding.

As was mentioned before, he was good at talking, and his aunt and uncle were pleasantly beguiled, until the chiming of the clock in the belfry aroused Mr. Terhune.

Dacier went on talking, but his aunt had grown restless. The little girl in spectacles had grown restless, too, and was wriggling.

“Fifteen minutes late!” said Mrs. Terhune. “It’s very odd, Robert! You’d better see if the clergyman is waiting.”

Dacier reported that the clergyman was waiting in the vestry, and growing a little impatient.

Twenty minutes—twenty-five—half an hour. Then the clergyman came in, and, impressed by the appearance of Mr. Terhune, approached him.

“It’s somewhat awkward for me, as it happens,” he observed. “I have an important engagement for half past twelve. I was informed that the young man’s train arrived here shortly after ten, and that he would stop at Miss Henaberry’s house and bring her here at eleven; and my wife informed me that she saw a strange young man with two bags get off that train.”

“Shall I go and see what’s wrong?” asked Dacier. “It’s only a step.”

Off went Robert. He pushed open the little gate, and went up the garden path to the enchanted cottage, which seemed quieter than ever under the hot sun. He rang the bell.

The sitting room was gay with flowers from the garden, and, if possible, neater and daintier than ever—but empty. Dacier went into the kitchen, and there, on the table, he saw a frosted cake that caused him a sharp pang. No one there!

A door slammed open upstairs, and down she came like a whirlwind, such a tragic and heart-stirring figure! Her dark hair was wildly untidy, her eyes were heavy with tears, yet she had a look of such stern[Pg 110] and dauntless pride on her face that a man might well feel abashed.

“No,” said Dacier. “I’m not going away. They’re waiting for you in the church. What do you want me to tell them?”

“Polite!” she cried. “Do you want to make one of your schoolboy jokes about—this? Go away! I won’t listen to you! I can’t bear to see you!”

“You’ve got to face this,” said Dacier firmly. “There’s no use flying at me. Perhaps I can help you.”

It was a blunt enough question, but the shock of it steadied her. She turned away her head for a minute, and then faced him with something of her old composure.

“The—a boy came with a note,” she said evenly. “Mr. Mallet has been called away on business. The wedding will have to be postponed.”

“I mean just what I said. I think it’s time the wedding came off now,” he answered. “The clergyman’s there, and the guests; and if you’ll take me, here’s the bridegroom.”

“I scarcely think you’re called upon to sacrifice yourself for Mrs. Terhune—or for me, either,” said Mildred, still scornful. “I’d rather not talk any more.”

“There are lots of other reasons,” he said; “only there’s not time to tell them now, even if you were in the mood to listen. Anyhow, Mildred, I think you know. I’m sure you know. You must have seen, long ago, how I felt.”

“Oh, no!” she said, with a sob. “Not now! Do, please, go away, and leave me alone! You don’t know—you can’t imagine—I could die of shame and wretchedness. Do go away!”

“Darling girl!” he said. “Dear, darling girl! Come and have your wedding! Hold up your dear head again! We’ll say it was a sort of joke, and you meant me all the time. After all, I’m almost as good a fellow as Mallet, don’t you think?”

He said it in a boastful, conceited way that should have been rebuked; but Mildred did not rebuke him.

“Oh, you’re a thousand times better!” she cried, instead. “Better and dearer than any one else in the world! Only—”

It has been mentioned before that Dacier was good at talking. He needed all his skill now, for he had only a few minutes in which to overcome any number of objections, to change her tears to smiles, and to persuade her to make haste and get ready. He succeeded.

VIII

The clergyman was not surprised, because the bridegroom was unknown to him anyhow; but the little girl in spectacles, and Mr. and Mrs. Terhune!

Moreover, there were several things which startled Mildred. When they had all got back to the cottage, and the bride had gone into the kitchen for that noble cake, and Dacier had naturally followed her, she asked:

“I have carried one there for some time, in case of emergencies,” he answered promptly.

He had come around the table and put his arm about her shoulders, and she looked up into his gay, audacious face.

“I don’t know,” he answered, “and I don’t care; but I don’t mind telling you that I found out from the moonfaced little girl when he was expected, and I met him at the railway station.”

“But—” she began indignantly—and stopped, because he was no longer smiling. He looked—she was surprised at his expression—he looked like a person pleasantly but firmly resolved not to be trampled upon; so all she did was to kiss him.[Pg 111]

The Marquis of Carabas

THE STRANGE STORY OF TWO YOUNG DOCTORS

PERHAPS you remember the story of “Puss in Boots”—how the talented and resolute cat caught game in the woods and presented it to the king as the gift of his master, the Marquis of Carabas. Then the cat advised his master to bathe in the river, and, as the king’s coach rolled past, he set up a great shout that the Marquis of Carabas was drowning, and that his fine clothes had been stolen by thieves. The king stopped, ordered new clothes for the marquis, and took him into the royal coach. While they drove on, the cat ran ahead, and bullied the workers in the fields into saying that all the land belonged to Carabas.

There is more in the story, but the chief thing is that the cat secured for his master a fine castle and estate, and the hand of a beautiful princess. And, mind you, the young man was nothing on earth but the youngest son of a poor miller, the Marquis of Carabas being simply an invention of the clever animal’s.

Well, there are people alive to-day who have the same ambition as that devoted cat—people who try to make a Marquis of Carabas out of some ordinary young man. Unfortunately, they do not always succeed. I know of a case in point.

There appeared one day in a certain town in Westchester a new doctor, arriving unknown and without introduction in the midst of a quite sufficient supply of well established practitioners. It was a prosperous town, but not a growing one. There seemed to be nothing for a new doctor to do, unless he set to work to create a demand for his services—a thing that doctors can’t very well do. He put out his sign, however, on his tidy little house—“Noel Hunter, M.D.”—sat down behind his sign, and waited.

Now and then he was seen out on his veranda, looking at the barometer, or strolling out to the garage, where an energetic little car ate its head off in idleness. Whoever saw him was favorably impressed, because he was a charming young fellow, slender, tall, and dark, with an honest, good-humored face and very fine black eyes. Indeed, he was almost too handsome for a doctor. It was cruel to think of his being called out at night in all weathers, of having hurried and inadequate meals and too little sleep, of losing his endearing youth in arduous and exhausting toil.

Well, to be sure, that was not happening, He had ample time for sleep, and, providing he was able to pay, there was nothing to prevent his eating all day. And that, too, was a pity and a waste, because obviously he must be longing to give his medical services, and must have studied a long time to prepare himself. The people who lived on the same street felt embarrassed and a little guilty when they caught sight of Noel Hunter, M.D., all ready to be a doctor, but wanted by no one.

One day there came to Mr. Miles, the rector of the parish, an affable little lady, dressed in a conservative style suited to her years—which were fifty-five or so—and presenting a letter from a clergyman in Brooklyn. The letter gave information that the bearer was Mrs. Edwin Carew, “whom we are more than sorry to lose, because of her tact and sympathy and her invaluable assistance in parish work.”

There was more of this, too, so that Mr. Miles blushed a little in deference to Mrs. Edwin Carew as he read it. He welcomed her very cordially. He assured her that she would find plenty of opportunities for using her tact and sympathy and for giving her invaluable assistance in parish work. He[Pg 113] was so favorably impressed by the lady that he sent at once for Mrs. Miles, and Mrs. Miles was instantly charmed.

“The Needlework Guild is meeting now,” said she. “If you would care to come in and meet some of the ladies—”

Mrs. Carew accepted graciously, was brought before this gathering of her peers, and was judged and found worthy. She seemed to be the nicest sort of little body, cheerful and kindly and gentle, and though she was far too well bred to boast, it was obvious that she was a person of some social importance. She had traveled; she knew the world; she knew what was what; she was an acquisition.

“Are you going to be here permanently, Mrs. Carew?” asked the august and resplendent Mrs. Lorrimer.

“I hope so,” she answered, smiling. “I’m beginning to be quite fond of your pretty little town; but it all depends on my nephew. You see, he’s used to life in a large city, and I’m afraid—Still, I hope he’ll like it.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Carew. “Perhaps I did wrong in persuading him to leave the city and come here, where it’s so—so much quieter; but I feel sure that after he’s used to it, it will really do him good. He had so many friends in the city, and so many, many engagements, that it interfered with his work; and though I know we must make allowances for young people, still I can’t bear the idea of his talent being wasted.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Carew. “He’s a physician. I think he has already ‘hung out his shingle,’ as they say—Noel Hunter. Of course, he doesn’t expect to do much practicing yet. I want him to rest first, and to get accustomed to the place.”

As if by magic, Dr. Hunter was transformed by those words from an object of pity into a very interesting young man. Professionally his life was not altered, but the very next week he was invited to a little dance; and every one who saw him there was irresistibly urged to invite him to something else. Ladies came to call upon Mrs. Carew, to sing the praises of her charming nephew. He was forever going out, or getting ready to go out, and he seemed to be very happy about it.

From the window Mrs. Carew would watch him drive off in his little closed coupé, so useful for a doctor, who must be abroad in all weathers. Much as she admired his resplendent appearance, and rejoiced in his popularity, she did wish that now and then he might be summoned to something less cheerful than a party.

That never happened. The more he was danced with and flirted with, the more did it seem tactless and ill-bred to mention one’s sordid ailments to him. It was unthinkable to call in one’s dancing partner and confess to a bilious headache from too much pastry. No one could see him as a doctor.

He seemed not at all downcast by this. Indeed, Mrs. Carew sometimes imagined that he had forgotten all about being a doctor.

“Don’t you think you ought to read your medical books now and then, Noel?” she suggested. “Just to—to keep up?”

“Oh, no!” he replied cheerfully. “I’m not likely to forget all that stuff that was so much trouble to learn. Don’t worry!”

He flushed a little, for he had at the moment two preoccupations which were nearer to his heart than the theory and practice of medicine. The first of these was Nesta Lorrimer, and the second was her brother’s hydroplane. They merged very well, because Nesta was frequently in the vicinity of the hydroplane, so that they could both be studied together.

It was unfortunate that Noel did not mention this to his aunt, because she would have approved heartily of one of those interests; but he knew that aunts were extremely likely to worry about flying. He was very fond of her, and didn’t want to worry her; so the poor lady knew nothing.

“Alan,” she said to her son, “don’t you think you encourage that young Dr. Hunter a little too much?”

She spoke moderately, because she had a great respect for her son. He was a level-headed, intelligent young fellow, who used such things as hydroplanes only for diversion, and never neglected his business. He was not handsome, like his sister, but he didn’t need to be. He was a remarkably successful lawyer for his twenty-seven years, and he was a good-humored, quick-witted, tolerant fellow whom every one was obliged to like.[Pg 114]

“Encourage him?” he repeated, with a smile. “That’s a queer way to put it. I’d like to think I encouraged any one. But why? What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s mistaken his métier,” her son replied casually. “But I like him very much. Plenty of nerve and grit. As a pilot—”

“That’s not the question,” replied his mother, a little indignant. “I think she might do very much better.”

“Oh, every one likes him!” she interrupted impatiently; “and every one seems to have forgotten that we don’t know anything at all about him. Mrs. Carew is very nice, of course; but after all, they’ve only been here a few months. They don’t seem at all well off, and yet he doesn’t appear to be worried about not having the least sign of a practice. I can’t help thinking—”

“What can’t you help thinking?” inquired her son, with a smile. “That poor Hunter has some sinister secret in his past?”

“No,” said she. “No, not that. I don’t like to say it, but I’ve sometimes thought he might be nothing but an adventurer, who came here to find a wife with money.”

But his trained and disciplined brain refused to remain shocked. He was obliged to admit that the qualities for which he admired Hunter—courage and daring and steady nerves—did not always signify moral excellence. An adventurer might very well possess them; and about Hunter’s former life, about his home life, he knew absolutely nothing.

“Very well!” he said to himself. “In justice to Nesta, and in justice to Hunter as well, it’s my business to find out.”

III

Alan felt unpleasantly like a spy as he drew near the house that evening. He would have preferred putting Hunter on the stand and cross-examining him. After all, he was a lawyer, not a detective, and to go to a friend’s house for the purpose of observing and judging him seemed an unworthy thing to do.

“Still, if he hasn’t anything to be ashamed of, he won’t care,” he reflected. “If he has, I’d better know it. I’ll have to study him carefully for some time.”

He rang the bell, and was amazed at the confusion the sound apparently caused. He had to wait outside for a long time, while furniture was being pushed about, footsteps hurried to and fro, and doors were closed. Then, at last, the door was opened, and he was still more amazed.

No one had ever heard mention of any other members of the household but Mrs. Carew and Hunter. Who, then, was this lovely girl, dark and serious, a little flushed and ruffled, as if from haste, but with the high-held head, the level, unabashed glance, the dignity of a young princess?

Having come expressly to observe, Alan did observe, and he thought this was the most intelligent and charming face he had seen in many a day. The girl was obliged to repeat her question.

“Sir”—impossible! She didn’t speak like a servant, or dress like one, or look like one.

He asked for Mrs. Carew, and gave her his name, and she left him in the little sitting room, where he began to walk up and down, very much perplexed. A pretty room, furnished in a very good taste, but shabby. Through the half-open folding doors he could see a dining room of very much the same sort, with the table still laid, as if the diners had just risen. And—the table was laid for three!

“For three!” he said to himself. “And yet there’s no guest here. Mrs. Carew and Hunter—and who else?”

There was a light, quick step on the stairs. Turning, he saw the inexplicable girl descending. This was an excellent op[Pg 115]portunity to study her, which Alan did not miss. A remarkable girl! Mere prettiness was not a thing that particularly appealed to this young man. He had met dozens of pretty girls without losing his heart. What interested him now was not the fine regularity of her features, but her air of candid and unassuming dignity, and the thoughtful intelligence of her face.

“Thank you!” said he, and sought desperately for something to say that would keep her there.

Before he could do so, she had gone—only into the dining room, however, where he could still watch her as she cleared off the table. The more he watched, the more impressed and the more puzzled he became. When he caught sight of her hands—strong and beautiful hands, exquisitely tended—he very nearly exclaimed aloud. Three places at the table, and a girl with hands like that playing the servant!

“It’s a good thing I came,” he reflected grimly. “There’s something here that needs explaining.”

Well, he didn’t get much out of Mrs. Carew when she came down. He brought the talk around to the topic of servants. She said that she never had any trouble with them.

“Indeed I am!” she replied brightly. “How charming the country is beginning to look now!”

After this, he couldn’t very well go on with the subject; but he felt no hesitation in approaching Hunter in a more direct fashion when they were alone.

“That’s a very remarkable young woman who opened the door for me,” he said. His eyes were on the other man’s face, and he saw him turn red.

“She’s—not exactly a servant, you know,” he said. “In fact, she’s a sort of—relation. Helps my aunt, you know. She—she is remarkable, Lorrimer, very.”

Alan gave serious attention to this problem. His legal training did not make him disposed to believe everything he heard, though he was too intelligent to go to the other extreme and believe nothing.

What was the explanation? Had Hunter made a misalliance, which he was ashamed of, and wanted to conceal? No—marriage with that girl wouldn’t be a misalliance for any one, and she wasn’t the sort who would consent to being concealed.

His sister? There was no possible reason for keeping a sister like that hidden. If it was the case that she really was a poor relation kept as a servant to help Mrs. Carew, then it was a very bad case, and the aunt and the nephew might well be ashamed of themselves. Alan believed that they were ashamed, too.

Hunter had mentioned that he was going to take Mrs. Carew to the moving pictures that evening, and Alan decided then and there that he would use that time for further investigations.

“Because, if they’re capable of making a drudge of a girl like that,” he said to himself, “Nesta’s going to be told. It’s the most beastly piece of snobbishness I’ve ever come across! Evidently she eats with them. No doubt she’s one of the family until an outsider appears, and then she’s nobody.”

He was a little surprised at the vigor of his indignation. As a rule, he didn’t easily become indignant.

“But she’s such a remarkable girl,” he explained to himself. “I’ve never seen any one like her.”

This time, when he returned to the house, Alan did not feel in the least guilty, although he was now coming deliberately in Hunter’s absence, and to collect evidence against him. On the contrary, he felt like a knight sallying forth to rescue a lady from duress.

He rang the bell without hesitation, and the girl opened the door. He had a plan. He explained to her that the doctor had invited him to make use of his medical library whenever he wished—which was true—and that he needed to look up fractures for a plaintiff in a damage suit—which was not true. He made his explanation long and markedly polite, and he was pleased to notice that she forgot all that nonsense about saying “sir.” Instead, she preceded him into the library as if it were her own, lighted a lamp, and, going to the bookshelves, brought out two volumes.

This did not surprise him. She looked like a girl who would know all sorts of things.[Pg 116]

“I’ll sit here and make a few notes, if you don’t mind,” Alan said, for this was part of his plan.

He waited until he heard a door close after her somewhere. He waited a little longer; then he rose. He intended to be awkward, and to pull down a lot of books, making a great deal of noise. Then she would come back and help him to pick them up, and it would be easy enough, in such circumstances, to start a conversation. But—well, if his intention was to make a noise, he did that, certainly, and the girl did come back, in great haste; but it is not possible to believe that it was part of his plan to pull the bookcase over entirely, or that a bronze bust should fall and hit him on the side of the face.

“I’m very sorry,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know how I came to be so clumsy. I—really I’m very sorry.”

To his amazement, she took his chin in fingers surprisingly strong, and turned his face toward the light.

“It’s nothing, thanks,” he began, but she had already vanished through the door, and he felt obliged to follow.

He said nothing at all while she washed and dressed the trifling wound, but he watched her moving about the bright, glittering little room, he noted her precision, her deftness, her familiarity—and he tried to draw conclusions.

“No, Mr. Lorrimer, I’m not,” she said. “Now I think you’ll do very nicely.”

He said that he wanted to, and must; and because he was just the sort of young man he was, and because she had the intelligence to see it, she admitted him then and there to a sort of friendship. After the bookcase was set upright again, and all the books restored to order, they sat down, one on either side of the library table, in the most natural way in the world.

“I’m afraid not,” she answered, smiling again. “I shouldn’t like it at all!”

“But you seem to know a good deal about that sort of thing,” he went on. “It must interest you.”

She made no reply, and for a moment he feared she had thought him unduly curious—impertinent, perhaps; but there was no sign of displeasure in her face. She was looking thoughtfully before her, grave, serene, almost as if she had not heard him. Suddenly he fancied he understood.

“Of course!” he said to himself. “She’s in love with Hunter, and naturally she takes an interest in his work. That’s why she’s here, filling a servant’s place, simply so that she can be near him!”

There was no reason why this should make him indignant, yet, instead of being touched by the idea of such devotion, he was angry and disappointed.

“I wonder what Mrs. Carew thinks of it!” he pursued. “She probably thinks that this girl isn’t good enough for her precious Noel. She would object to such a marriage; or perhaps she doesn’t know what the girl is. Perhaps he doesn’t know, either. I may be the only one who has guessed her secret.”

Then it occurred to him that he was drawing conclusions from very insubstantial premises, also that he was forgetting the object for which he had come, and that his silence might not be impressing her favorably. Looking at her again, he was forced to the unwelcome conclusion that she didn’t care whether he spoke or not. It was presumptuous nonsense to feel sorry for a girl like this. Whatever she did, she intended to do; there was no helplessness or futility in those fine features.

Alan felt ashamed of himself for trying to find out about her in any indirect way. She deserved to be treated with absolute honesty and candor. He knew she would not misunderstand anything else.

“As soon as I saw you, I felt a very great interest in you,” he went on. “I don’t mean that as an impertinence, or as a compliment. It’s simply the truth. There are some human beings who make that sort of impression on others, and it seems to me a foolish and a wrong thing to stifle that interest because it doesn’t happen to be conventional.[Pg 117]”

“As a human being, I welcome your interest,” said she, with her quiet smile. “I’ve heard of you from Noel, and I’m sure I should enjoy talking to you.”

“Of course I knew at once that you weren’t what you—you pretended to be,” he went on rather clumsily.

“It suits me. After all, there’s nothing better in life than really serving the people who need you, is there?”

“Sometimes there is,” he answered promptly. “It may mean the sacrifice of a fine life to a much less valuable one.”

“Well, you see,” she said, “I don’t feel wise and perfect enough to judge which lives are the most valuable.”

He was silent, because he could not well say that her life was a hundred times more valuable than all the Mrs. Carews and Dr. Hunters ever born—that in her grave youth, and her fine and dignified simplicity, she seemed to him absolutely invaluable.

“I dare say you’re right,” he answered seriously. “I’m sure your way is a good way. If you think you really would care to talk to me, when may I come again?”

“I have Sunday afternoons off,” she answered, and he believed there was a hint of a laugh in her voice.

“Oh, no! That’s not the way it’s done. I’ll meet you somewhere and we’ll take a walk,” she said, and this time she could not suppress a smile.

Alan refused to smile, however. He didn’t care if she came in an apron. He was willing to sit on the back steps, or in the kitchen, so long as he could be with her. It wasn’t a joke—it was serious, the most serious thing he had ever known.

“But I’d rather you didn’t mention me to any one, please,” she added. “I like a—a very quiet life, just now.”

This day was going to be the day. Nothing was going to put him off—not the fact that the mirror showed him a face he hated to think was his own, not the inner voice which warned him that it might be better to remain in doubt and still have hope. He didn’t want hope, if it was a false one.

He went downstairs, aware of all sorts of new defects in himself. He felt that he was the most commonplace, uninteresting fellow imaginable, and that there was nothing about him that could possibly please or interest any one.

Mrs. Lorrimer and a group of friends were on the veranda. He saluted them with a strange sort of severity, and went off down the road, in an odd state of despair and determination.

“Yes,” said his mother proudly. “It’s very unusual to see a man as serious as Alan is, at his age!”

She was wrong. She had herself seen any number of young fellows of twenty-seven overtaken by exactly the same sort of seriousness, only, in the case of her son, she didn’t recognize it. Alan himself, however, had known what it was for weeks—it was Judith.

She had told him to call her Judith, and he did, hundreds of times, but not once in her hearing. Indeed, there was an astounding difference between the things he said to her when she was not there and the words she actually heard from him. If she could only have heard those other things, or guessed them! He knew that what he was going to say would be so inferior to what he felt and thought.

He turned into the lane where they always met, and sat upon the stone wall to wait. He was thinking about her, in a curious way, half wretched, half blissful. He didn’t care two straws about her very humble position, nor did she. He had sat on the back steps and talked to her when the others were out, he had seen her in an apron, peeling potatoes, and she was more than ever exalted in his eyes by her quiet acceptance of such things. There was to him a sort of nobility in everything she did, in all her words and gestures, in her smile, even in her little transient moments of gayety.

Nor did he care two straws for the mystery that surrounded her. Wherever she came from, whatever her name or her history or her reason for living as she did, he knew that she was right, and could never be anything else.

No—the things that troubled him were those things which so often trouble people in his condition—all sorts of doubts and alarms and hopes and determinations mixed[Pg 118] together. He wasn’t good enough, but he was obliged to convince her that he was. She couldn’t care for him, and yet she must.

At last he saw her coming, and went forward to meet her. She was walking unusually fast, as if, he thought with a fast beating heart, she were hurrying to him. Whatever joy he had felt in that thought vanished at the sight of her face.

She had all her usual fine composure, but she was very pale, and, in some subtle way apparent more to his heart than to his eyes, there was grief upon her face. She did not answer him, but she held out her hand, and he fancied that she clung to him.

They went on side by side along the lane, thick with cool, white dust under the old trees. So dense was the foliage on the branches meeting overhead that the light came through it greenish and wavering, like water. The dust might have been the sandy floor of the sea, and the church bells that rang seemed mournful and distant, as they must sound to the mermaids.

A painful sense of unreality oppressed Alan. He didn’t know her; she was terribly remote, a stranger, indifferent to him. Not once in all the time they had spent together had she talked freely about herself, about her life. She might have any number of anxieties and griefs of which he had no suspicion. She had been friendly, but in such an impersonal, untroubled way!

At last they reached the fence at the foot of the lane, where the fields began, and she spoke.

“He left a letter,” she continued. “Perhaps I had better read you a part of it.” She took a letter out of her pocket, and turned as he noticed, past the first page to the second. She read:

“So I’ve taken this job in the airplane factory. It’s a remarkably good job, and I expect to do rather more than well. I’m sorry, my dearest girl, to disappoint you so after all you’ve done for me, but, to be frank, I can’t be a doctor. I always hated the whole thing. I’d never have been any good at it. Now I’ve found the one thing I am good at. I think you know how I felt about Nesta Lorrimer, and now I see some faint chance of being able to speak to her some day.

“Try to forgive me, Judith. It is really the best and kindest thing I can do for you—to clear out and leave you free.

Her look amazed and angered him terribly. She seemed so sure that he would understand and sympathize. She wasn’t a child, she was very far from slow-witted, and she must have seen how it was with him. And now this!

“Not now!” he said vehemently. “It was cruel of you to do this. Why didn’t you tell me before that you weren’t free? Why did you let me go on? I trusted you so! And all this time you’ve been thinking of him! No, please don’t speak to me! Let me go!”

She was looking at him with a curious sort of inquiry, her dark brows drawn together in a faint frown.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you had guessed long ago. I didn’t think you’d have—gone on like this, if you hadn’t guessed!”

She was not by nature impulsive, but it was impulse alone that moved her now. She came nearer to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face, with bright tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Alan!” she cried. “It was a beautiful thing to do—to accept me on faith, like that! Not to know, or to care! Oh, Alan, my dear!”

“Judith!” he said. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? Nothing else could have mattered to me, except your caring for him—”

“For Noel?” she asked. “I’m afraid I cared for him a little too much—more than was good for him. But, you see, he’s my only brother.”

“Walk home with me, and I’ll explain,” said she. “I thought you had found out long ago.”

Alan went on by her side, willing to wait forever for any further explanation. There[Pg 119] were a few questions he wanted to ask, and Judith answered them to his satisfaction, but they had nothing to do with Noel.

He did look, but he saw nothing but the front of Dr. Hunter’s neat little house.

It was nothing but the usual sign in the window. “Noel”—but it wasn’t! In blue letters on a white ground was printed:

“You see,” she said, a little later, when they were in the library, “Noel and I were left orphans when we were very young, and Aunt Katherine Carew took care of us. I couldn’t begin to tell you all she did, all the sacrifices she made. Naturally, it was Noel, the boy, that she hoped and expected most from. I wanted to study medicine, and poor Noel couldn’t make up his mind exactly what he wanted to do; so he chose that, too, and we studied together. It was a terrible strain for Aunt Katherine. It took almost all she had, and after we’d both left the hospital, she couldn’t possibly set up two young doctors. We talked it over, and it was my idea to give him his chance first. He’s two years older, and—well, I thought I could wait. Poor Aunt Katherine couldn’t manage everything herself, and we couldn’t afford a servant, and yet she felt that it was very important to keep up appearances; so I decided that I would be the servant. I intended to be invisible until I was ready to appear as a full-fledged M.D. myself.” She paused, and smiled a little. “We both worked very hard to make a doctor of Noel,” she went on. “I think now that we tried a little too hard. If he hadn’t felt that so much was expected of him, he might have gone through with it.”

“I can’t think that,” said she, “even if he makes a great deal of money; because, for me, our profession is by far the noblest one in the world. There’s nothing else so fine and so—”

He thought that the slight confusion she betrayed was infinitely more becoming to her than her usual composure.

Out of the Woods

THE STORY OF AN ARTLESS GIRL, A HUNGRY WOLF, AND A WONDERFUL GRANDMOTHER

WHEN you learn that this story begins with the heroine setting off through the woods to visit her grandmother, who was ill, you may guess that it is the familiar tale of Little Red Riding Hood. I must admit that that is what it is, and I warn you that you may count upon a very artless little heroine and a wolf of insinuating manners and glib tongue; but this grandmother will not be eaten up.

Nor did Ethel carry a basket containing a little pat of butter and a cake. She had, instead, a large and luxurious box of candied fruit under her arm; and instead of singing through the woods, she wore a sulky and miserable expression. Unfortunately red hoods are not in vogue, for such a thing would have been notably becoming to her little gypsy face. However, she was young enough and lovely enough to look well in anything, even a sulky expression.

She was not without some excuse for her discontented air. Ethel was one of those unfortunate little bones of contention so often to be found in divided families, and she had been so much disputed over and argued about, and so rarely consulted or even questioned, that she had grown to think of herself as a helpless pawn in an incomprehensible game, where she could never win anything.

The disputes had begun long before she was born. Her father’s family had that pride of newly acquired wealth beside which pride of ancestry shrinks to nothing. Indeed, to spring from splendid ancestors may often make one feel a little humble, but to feel that one is vastly more important than any of one’s forbears makes for arrogance.

The Taylors had objected very much to the marriage of their only son. Even when the marriage was made, and there was no earthly use in objecting, they kept on, in a very unpleasant way. All the misfortunes which the young man brought upon his wife and child by his recklessness and folly only increased their anger against the victims; and when he died, they all came forward with helpful suggestions as to what he should have done when he was alive.

Ethel had been a small girl of nine then, and not yet looked upon as guilty; but when she refused to leave her mother and take advantage of the offers made by several of the Taylors, she lost their sympathy. Her mother, with criminal selfishness, hadn’t made the least attempt to persuade her child to leave her. On the contrary, she had gone back to her own people, and had lived with them in quiet contentment.

It was to these people of hers that the Taylors so strongly objected. She herself was a quiet and inoffensive creature who gave little trouble, but her parents were Italians, and poor, and not ashamed of either of the two things.

Dr. Mazetti had been professor of romance languages in a small Western college, but he had become so absorbed in the enormous commentary upon Dante which he was writing that he found his teaching very much in the way; so he gave up his chair. Mrs. Taylor, the paternal grandmother, had spoken about this.

“Of course,” she had said, not very pleasantly, “it’s a good thing to have faith in your husband’s work; but suppose it’s not a financial success?”

“We don’t expect it to be,” replied Mrs. Mazetti, in her excellent English. “Such work as that is not undertaken for money.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ll permit your husband to give up his—” began Mrs. Taylor, but the other interrupted her.[Pg 122]

“A man does not ask the permission of others to do what he thinks best,” she said quietly. “I should be ashamed of myself if I were even to suggest that he should sacrifice his life’s work on my account.”

“I sacrifice nothing,” said Mrs. Mazetti. “I am very, very happy and proud.”

And so she was, and so was her only child until she married young Taylor; and so she was again when she came home with the little Ethel, to live with those simple, gentle people once more. Not for long, however, for she died some two years later.

Then the arguments and disputes began again, and this time the Taylors won. Children of eleven are pitifully easy to bribe, and while Ethel was still dazed and stricken after the loss of her mother, all these relations competed for her favor. She was petted and pampered as she had never been before in her life.

It is regrettable to admit that she liked all this, liked the toys and the pretty clothes and the indulgence better than the benign and quiet régime of her grandfather Mazetti, who believed that children should be literally “brought up” to the level of the wiser and more experienced adults about them, instead of bringing a whole household down to childish standards. He was always very patient and gentle, but he was too fond of talking about Dante, and of relating anecdotes about an Italian poet who insisted upon being tied into his chair, so that he couldn’t run away from his studies.

Moreover, old Dr. Mazetti had no money to spend upon toys and clothes. The Taylors took no interest in Dante or any other poet, but they took Ethel to the circus; so she said she wanted to live with Aunt Amy, her father’s sister.

She wasn’t aware, at the time, how terribly she had hurt the Mazettis. They said very little. Indeed, they discussed it in private, and decided that it was their duty to say very little. Aunt Amy could give Ethel material benefits which they could not give; and if the child preferred that sort of thing, it was, after all, neither unnatural nor unexpected.

“Each must find his own,” said Dr. Mazetti. “What is joy for one is a burden for another.”

So they let her go, and they did it beautifully, without saddening her little heart with reproaches or tears. She came back to visit them once a month or so, but somehow, in her new existence, this quiet old couple had begun to seem very foreign, very unreal.

She was abroad with her aunt when Dr. Mazetti died. Though she grieved for him honestly, she was too young and too busy to nourish any sorrow long.

When Ethel Taylor came home, at nineteen, her grandmother seemed like a little ghost from the past, utterly unconnected with her present life. She still went to visit the old lady, and sat in the familiar room in her little cottage, where the bronze bust of Dante appeared to impose a dignified calm; but these visits were nothing but interludes to real life, and real life, just now, was a miserable thing.

The trouble was that Aunt Amy kept on being Aunt Amy, while the childish Ethel and the nineteen-year-old one were entirely different persons. Aunt Amy wanted her to come out, and to be a nice, happy débutante like other girls; but something in Ethel’s blood rebelled against that. She called it a “modern spirit,” and never realized that instead of being modern, it was the old Mazetti strain, come down to her from people who for generations had not lived by bread alone.

“Please don’t repeat my words in that odd way,” said Aunt Amy, a little hurt. “If you want to study singing, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, so long as you’re not excessive about it.”

“But I want to be excessive! I want to give all my time to it! I want to be a professional singer!”

Aunt Amy laughed, not in order to be irritating, but because she really thought it was funny. Not being a woman of much penetration, she told some of her friends[Pg 123] about that absurd little Ethel’s fantastic idea.

As a result, the girl was teased about it. Ethel couldn’t endure being teased. She had that queer lack of self-confidence, combined with tremendous resolution and a little vanity, that belong to young artists, and she felt that she was absurd, although she really knew that she wasn’t. She was ashamed to practice now, and at the same time she exulted in her clear, strong, flexible voice. When she was asked to sing, she refused; yet sometimes, when she knew there were people in the drawing-room, she would go up the stairs or through the hall, singing her loudest and sweetest, half terrified, half delighted, at the glorious flood of melody that rose from her heart.

She didn’t want anything else. She couldn’t and wouldn’t be bothered with “social duties.” She wanted to work hard, all day and every day, until she was mistress of this great gift of hers, until she could sing in reality as she did in imagination. She had fits of black depression, when the sounds that came from her throat seemed a mockery of what she intended. At other moments she was in wild spirits, because she was sure she had made a little progress.

Her changing humors were so marked that Aunt Amy was gravely perturbed. She felt that Ethel was becoming “eccentric,” which was the worst thing any one could be, and she attributed it all to this annoying obsession with singing. In all good faith, she did what she thought best for the girl—she stopped her lessons.

Ethel wept and stormed and entreated and argued until she was almost ill, but without moving Aunt Amy.

“No!” that lady said firmly. “If you’ll put all that nonsense out of your head, and lead a normal, sensible life like other girls, I’ll let you take up singing again in a year.”

She hoped and believed that within a year’s time such a pretty and delightful girl would surely find something better to think about.

Ethel was helpless. She was exquisitely dressed, and she lived in great comfort and luxury, but she hadn’t a penny of her own to pay for lessons.

Artists, however—even young and undeveloped ones—are very hard to deal with, because they will not give up and be sensible. Instead of resigning herself to doing without what she wanted, Ethel did nothing but think how she could get at least a part of it. Being nineteen, and rash, and terribly in earnest, she was dallying with a singularly unsuitable idea.

III

“Hello, Lad!” she said, not at all surprised, and apparently not very much pleased, at the sudden appearance of a young man on that quiet path through the woods.

She didn’t trouble to glance at her companion. She knew exactly how he looked, anyhow. He was slender and supple and dark, and handsome in his way—which was not her way.

There were times when the sleekness of his hair and the brightness of his smile and the extreme fastidiousness of his clothes exasperated her. There were other times when his talk about music made her see in him the one sympathetic, understanding person on earth. He had learned to read the signs, and to tell which sort of time it was; and he fancied that this was a favorable moment.

“Do you mind my walking with you, Ethel?” he asked patiently. “I came all the way out from the city on the chance of meeting you here, because I had something special to tell you.”

She thought she knew what he meant, and frowned; but when he began to speak, the frown vanished, and she sat down on the grass to listen.

Old Mrs. Mazetti was waiting and waiting in her chair by the window. All the bright spring afternoon had passed. The sky was blue no more, but faint and mournful as the sun went down. Outside, the light lingered, but in the room it was dark—very dark, very quiet. Ethel had written to say that she would come early, and for hours the old lady had been watching the road along which her granddaughter must come. It always made her uneasy to think of a girl as young and pretty as Ethel traveling alone.

This was one of the very few ideas that[Pg 124] Aunt Amy shared with Mrs. Mazetti. Aunt Amy wanted Ethel to go properly in a motor car, but her niece was so obstinately set on going by train that she had yielded. After all, it was such a trifling matter—an hour’s journey to a suburb, to visit a grandmother. The good lady never so much as imagined the existence of Ladislaw Metz, or any one like him.

But old Mrs. Mazetti did. Not that she knew anything of this particular young man, but she had had opportunity, in her long life, to observe that in such cases there generally was a young man. When Ethel began taking more and more time between the station and the house, the old lady grew more and more sure, and more distressed.

She said nothing, however, because her grandchild showed no disposition to confide in her, and she knew that more harm than good would result from asking questions. She couldn’t get near to Ethel. She had tried time after time, with all her quiet subtlety, to bring about a greater intimacy, to show how steadfast and profound was her sympathy; but Ethel never saw.

In fact, Ethel didn’t know that she needed sympathy. She thought that all she wanted was to be let alone. Without in the least meaning to be unkind, she ignored the invaluable love that would so greatly have helped her.

For the third time the servant came in to light the lamp, and this time Mrs. Mazetti permitted it. She had given up expecting Ethel for that day.

In spite of her bitter disappointment, she could still smile a little over the girl’s careless youth. The sun had vanished now, and a strange yellow twilight lay over the earth like a sulphurous mist. It was a melancholy hour. The brightness of the little room made the outside world more forlorn and dim by contrast.

Mrs. Mazetti was about to turn away from the window with a sigh, when she caught sight of Ethel hurrying along the road—with a young man. The girl’s companion left her when they were still some distance from the house. If the old lady hadn’t had remarkably sharp eyes, she would never have seen him.

“Grandmother!” she said. “I’m awfully ashamed of myself for being so late!”

She really was ashamed and sorry, but it was not her nature to invent excuses, and she had no intention of explaining. Mrs. Mazetti saw all this perfectly, and did not fail to note something defiant in her grandchild’s expression. Nevertheless, she meant to come to the point this time.

“No, grandmother, she doesn’t. He’s just a boy I met at the studio where I used to take singing lessons.”

“I know she wouldn’t,” Ethel answered candidly. “I don’t care for him so very much myself; but we’re interested in the same things, and nobody else is.”

What was the use of going on, and being told again how absurd she was? Mrs. Mazetti was silent, too, but not because she felt discouraged. She was thinking, trying to understand.

“I’m not going to listen to any more lectures,” she thought. “No one understands. No one ever will!”

“Yes, in a way,” said Ethel. “Isn’t the country pretty at this time of the year, grandmother?”

The old lady looked out of the window at the rapidly darkening sky, against which the trees stood out as black as ink. It seemed to her not at all pretty now, but vast and terrible.

“My little Ethel!” she thought. “My little bird, who longs to sing! What is this going on now, poor foolish little one? What am I to do?”

She missed her husband acutely. She missed him always, but more than ever at this instant. Ethel would have listened to him, for every one did. Quiet and tranquil as he was, there had been an air of authority about him that she had never seen disregarded.

Ethel was very still. The lamp threw a[Pg 125] clear light on her warm, vivid young face, downcast and plainly unhappy.

“It wouldn’t do the least bit of good, grandmother. I’ve said everything there is to be said; and—anyhow, I don’t care now.”

“Oh, I don’t know!” Ethel replied airily. “Let’s not talk about it, grandmother. I’ve brought some candied fruit. You like that, don’t you?”

The old lady untied the flamboyant package with fingers that were not very steady. While she was doing so, the clock struck six.

“I’ll have to go,” said Ethel quickly. “I’m sorry I came so late and had such a tiny visit, grandmother, but—”

“No!” said the old lady with unexpected firmness. “There must be a taxi, and Gianetta will go with you to the train.”

“Come here, my little Ethel!” said her grandmother. When the girl stood before her, she took both of her hands. “This friend—this young man—is waiting for you?”

Ethel flushed, but she answered with the fine honesty that had been hers all her life.

“Yes!” she said, in just the sturdy, defiant tone she used to confess a piece of childish mischief years and years ago.

“You see me here,” said Mrs. Mazetti, “unable even to rise from my chair. I could do nothing to stop you, if I wished. I do not wish, because I trust you; only I ask you to tell me a little.”

Ethel was more moved than she wished to be. She bent to kiss the soft white hair.

“If you will remember, my little Ethel, that your mother always came to me, always told me what troubled her! I am very old. I have learned very much, seen very much. I could help you.”

Mrs. Mazetti felt the girl’s warm hands tremble, and saw her lip quiver. She waited, terribly anxious.

“You see,” said Ethel, “all I care about is being able to sing. Nobody believes that. No one understands except Ladislaw!”

“Yes—Ladislaw Metz,” said Ethel, a little impatient at this interest in the least important part of her story. “He knows what it means to me.”

“Well, you see, he’s poor, and he can’t afford to go on studying just now. So—I don’t like to tell you, because you’ll think he’s not really a musician—he’s on the stage.”

“Ah!” said the old lady, with perfect composure. “The theater? An operetta?”

“Well, no—it’s vaudeville. He’s been singing awful, cheap, popular songs, just to keep himself alive. Now he wants a partner for a better sort of turn—an act, you know. We should sing—”

“He’s going to give me a chance,” said Ethel quietly. The old lady was silent for a moment.

“I should like to hear about it,” she told the girl at last, in a voice that touched Ethel profoundly—a voice so determined to sound cheerful and sympathetic.

“I can’t tell you, grandmother,” she said gently; “because you’d think it was your duty to tell Aunt Amy, and she’d try to stop me. I don’t intend to be stopped. I may never have another chance. I don’t care what I have to sacrifice. I’d gladly give up anything on earth for my singing. You can’t think what it’s like to have that in you—such a terrible longing—to know that you can do it, and to be stopped and turned aside and laughed at!” She bent and kissed the old lady again. “I’ve got to go now, grandmother dear!” she said, with a sob.

“Good-by, darling!” she said. “You’ve always been my dearest, kindest friend. If I hadn’t been a little beast, I’d never have[Pg 126] left you; but I am a little beast. I must go my own way. I’ve got to go. Good-by, dear!”

With one backward glance, tearful, soft, but utterly resolute, the girl was gone.

Gianetta came in from the kitchen with the querulous expression natural to her. She had been the old lady’s servant for nearly twenty years. She adored her, and had never found her anything but just, kind, and generous. Nevertheless, Gianetta had a great many grievances, and did not keep them to herself.

“But you are very ill! With this rheumatism, you can’t walk! How do you think then that you—”

“Patience! Patience!” said Gianetta, in her most annoying tone. “I order this taxi, but you cannot get into it. It is only a waste of money. No matter—you are the mistress. I telephone!”

“Now!” said the old lady to herself. “I must get up. Leo always said that what one ought to do, one would find strength for. I must do this. For one minute more I shall sit quietly here, and then I shall rise and get myself ready.”

She clasped her hands in her lap and laid her head against the back of the chair, looking out at the sky, now quite dark. Then, with a long sigh, she grasped the arms and slowly raised herself to her feet.

“Silence, you foolish one,” said the old lady. “Get me my cloak and hat.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Ladislaw, in a deeply injured voice. “You’ll trust your whole life to me, and yet—”

The little wood was dark and unfamiliar, and he found it very disagreeable to hurry along at the pace she set.

“I’m not trusting my whole life to you,” replied Ethel vehemently. “I’d be sorry to think there was nothing better than that to trust in!”

“That’s not quite the way to talk to the man you’re going to marry, is it?” he asked. “I’ve always tried my best to do what you wanted. I don’t see why you shouldn’t trust me.”

“I don’t see, either, Lad,” Ethel answered, with her discounting frankness. “Only somehow you seem so—so dreadfully strange to me. I never understand you. I know you must be fond of me, or you wouldn’t have asked me to marry you; and I know it’s a sensible, practical idea if we’re going on tour. But I can’t—I can’t—” She choked down a sob. “I can’t feel—friendly—with you!”

“But they ought to go together!” she cried. “I’m awfully grateful to you, and I love to hear you sing, but I’m afraid! Oh, it’s not fair to you, because I know I’ll never feel like that!”

“You will some day,” he answered, with a patience that frightened her still more.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, Lad. I’m sure I shall never feel so. It’s only because I want this chance so much—so much that I’d do almost anything to get it. I know that if I can once sing in public, I shall be all right, and—”

“It doesn’t go so fast,” he said. “Nothing does. You will have what every one else has—two failures for each triumph, two pains for every joy. You will have hard work, discouragement, anxiety, and a good many other troubles you’ve never thought of. That’s why I ask you to marry me, because you need some one to protect you. If you don’t love me, very well! I’ll love you twice as much, to make up for it.”

That did not offend him. He never seemed to be offended or impatient. He was always reasonable, kind, sympathetic; and yet, instead of being pleased or touched by this, Ethel found it disquieting and mysterious.

His polite endurance of her changing humors was more like that of indifference than that of love. Of course, he did love her. He must, and she was a very fortunate girl to have found, at the very beginning of her career, a man who loved her and who could and would help her so greatly.

This first venture was in itself a thing[Pg 127] very displeasing to her. It was a vaudeville act of his own devising, in which, with several changes of costume, they would sing snatches from the most popular operas, all woven together to make a silly story. She tried to look beyond that, to the great triumphs of the future. She tried to feel that these triumphs would be ample compensation for the monstrous sacrifice she was making of her life.

Once in a while, in a brief flash, she half realized what she was doing. The memory of her mother came back to her—that gentle and quiet woman who had held so steadfastly to her own ideals.

No matter how ardent her desire for perfection in her beloved art, no matter how splendid her ambition, Ethel could not be rid of a secret and bitter sense of guilt. It was wrong—she knew it—it was wrong and unworthy to marry Ladislaw.

“But why?” she demanded of herself. “I don’t care anything about love, and men, and things like that. Ladislaw knows it, and if he doesn’t care, why should I? Anyhow, it’s too late now. I’ve promised, and I’m going to keep my word. Mother would want me to do that. Oh, but if mother had been here, she would have understood! She would never have let me get into such a dreadful, miserable, heartbreaking situation! If she could come now, just for one little minute, just to say one word—”

But there was no one there except Ladislaw. The lights of the railway station gleamed before them, and he drew close to her.

She hated his voice, she hated to have him so near her, she hated herself. The little wood seemed like a black and sinister forest.

This time he was not patient and humble. He caught her arm, and tried to draw her to him.

In growing alarm, she stared at him in the dark, and she fancied she saw his white teeth revealed by a wolfish grin. With a violent wrench, she freed herself. With the swiftness of terror, she ran out of that haunted wood into the safe, bright road before the station.

As she stood there, flushed and panting, trying to consider the situation, he came leisurely up to her.

“You can’t go back now—not after that telegram you sent your aunt,” he said. “There’s nowhere for you to go, except with me. You haven’t even your ticket or your purse. You gave them to me to keep—and I mean to keep them!”

“Walk where?” he inquired. “You told your aunt you were going away to get married. You’ll have hard work explaining that you changed your mind; and you’ll have hard work getting home at all without a penny. Come! Here’s the train. Don’t be a little fool!”

“Oh, give me my purse!” she cried in terror and despair. “Oh, please! Oh, please, Ladislaw!”

“I won’t,” he said. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll leave you here alone. You’ll be sorry, Ethel. You’ll lose your chance to be a singer, and you’ll lose more than that. Your aunt won’t take this very well.”

She looked around in anguish. The ticket office was closed for the night, and there were only strangers on the platform. All about that little lighted oasis were the woods and fields and tiny distant houses, filled with more strangers.

It was the voice of the one person who would understand and help and solace her—a voice she could never hear again in this world, strong, tender, and clear.

“It’s some one in that taxi,” whispered Ladislaw. “Better not answer.”

“Grandmother, what are you doing here?” she demanded, wild with delight and relief.

“Ah! Mr. Metz!” the old lady repeated, looking thoughtfully at him. Her calm old eyes seemed terrible to him. “Are you leaving?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he remembered that Ethel had never seemed to regard her grandmother as especially important. She was old, and poor, and obscure; what harm could she do?

“Yes,” he said. “Ethel and I are going to be married. She’s already sent a telegram to her aunt in the city, to tell her.”

“Very!” said she. “It is a surprise to me, because I see that you are not American. Americans marry that way—for love; but with the people of Europe, it is often different. They think of how they shall live. They wish a dot—a dowry—something more than love. It is very beautiful, this; because the poor little Ethel will never have anything.”

“Her aunt has only the income of an estate. She leaves nothing to Ethel; and certainly she gives nothing to Ethel when she is the wife of Mr. Metz.”

“Be off!” she cried, raising her hand in a threatening gesture. “Away with you, miserable, beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! Bestia! Be off!”

He started back. She leaned out of the window, her voice wonderfully strong and vigorous for her years. As he retreated, even above the roar of the incoming train, he heard her only too plainly, and was aware that other people heard her, too.

The taxi went hastening back along the dark, still roads, and the old lady held the sobbing Ethel tight in her arms.

“But what is there to cry about?” she asked, in tears herself. “Foolish little one! You shall stay with me, my little bird, until you are ready to fly away. There was something put by for you to have—later. You shall have it now, for the singing lessons. Why do you cry, then? You shall sing, I tell you!”

“Grandmother!” she said. “The first time you called me—it sounded—I thought it was—mother!”

Benedicta

AND HOW SHE DISCOVERED JUST WHAT IT WAS THAT SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED

WHEN the charming prince at last cut his way through the enchanted forest, and set foot in that silent palace, the sleeping beauty was delighted to be waked with a kiss. It is not difficult, however, to imagine some beauties who would prefer to be left in dismal, cobwebby peace—beauties who had grown so used to sleep that waking would be a pain and a shock. It is pitiful to think of the poor young prince in a case like that—except that princes are almost always fortunate in the end, and probably know that they will be.

The real sleeping beauty, you will perhaps remember, had a spell put on her at her christening by a disgruntled fairy. If ever she touched a distaff, she would prick herself and die. Another and a better fairy interfered, and arranged that, instead of death, an enchanted sleep should overtake the princess; and so it happened. In vain the royal parents prohibited distaffs. Curses are very, very hard to avoid, and the poor, lovely girl did find a distaff, and did prick her finger, and did fall asleep, and so did every other living creature in the palace with her, to stand or sit or lie just where they were for I don’t remember how many years.

Benedicta had nothing to do with fairies, and she wouldn’t have known a distaff if she had seen one; nevertheless, at the time when this story begins, she had been going about for years in a sort of enchanted slumber. She didn’t know that it was a slumber. She called it dignity, and pride, and so on, and clung most tenaciously to her twilight existence.

She was a tall, disdainful creature, very pretty, if you had the courage to look at her; but the people of Elderfield were so well used to her that they had no particular wish to look at her. She was simply Miss Benedicta Miller, from the old Miller place, and the Millers had ceased to be interesting long before she was born.

They had been rich, but now they were poor. They were very tiresome about it, too, keeping up a moldy, lamentable sort of state in their dilapidated house, turning up their noses at every one new and friendly, and being frightfully sensitive toward all the “old” people who offered them any courtesy.

There were only two of them left now—Benedicta and her father. Mr. Miller had grown so sensitive and squeamish and absurd that he was practically invisible, and was very nearly forgotten. The more he saw that he was forgotten, the more hurt and resentful he became, and the less would he come out into the world.

Some one had to come out, however. They couldn’t be Robinson Crusoes on a farm where nothing grew any more. They had to buy what they wanted, and, to do so, Benedicta had to go to the village.

This she did two or three times a week in a little car, beautifully polished and cared for, as she cared for everything. She would come rattling down Main Street, and no amount of jouncing could make her look anything but dignified, just as no hat, however old and unbecoming, could destroy the beauty of her proud little head and fine features. She would enter a shop and give a pitiful little order; and because she remembered what a wonderful family the Millers had once been, and because she was so miserable at their present eclipse, and so ashamed of herself for being miserable, she would be quite cold and curt.

Then home she would go, to her father, who always asked her what was the news. She knew what sort of news he wanted to[Pg 131] hear—that some one had inquired about him, or sent a message; but no one did that any more.

They would sit down to a meager little lunch cooked by the cheapest servant obtainable. Though Benedicta herself could have cooked one ten times better, it would have choked them. Even the heartbreaking bills that came had to be presented to Mr. Miller on a silver tray.

Benedicta admired her father beyond measure, and agreed with him that the only self-respecting thing for them was to hide their shameful poverty from the rest of the world; but he was fifty, and she was only twenty-three, so that sometimes she was not able to find quite the same satisfaction in solitary pride that he did. She kept up the tradition splendidly, but she didn’t always relish it.

For instance, when that Wilkinson girl had come to see her, uninvited and unencouraged, she had found it difficult to be courteously disagreeable every instant. She had to be constantly reminding herself that the Wilkinsons were impossible people who had been retail grocers when the Millers were in their prime. She had also had to remind herself that this jolly, friendly girl was not, could not be, really friendly, but had doubtless come to spy upon their poverty and to laugh about it afterward.

When, from the window, she had watched her visitor drive off in a smart little roadster, tears came to Benedicta’s eyes—not tears of envy, but of genuine regret that the pride of the Millers forbade her to like Miss Wilkinson. Her life seemed duller and mustier than ever.

Nevertheless, instead of being pleased, Benedicta was affronted when the impossible girl came back. It was late one June afternoon, in the bright and tranquil hour before the sun goes down, and Benedicta, weary and idle, was in the sitting room, because it was proper for her to be in the sitting room.

She looked out of the window, because she was thoroughly tired of looking at the room. The fact of its being filled with genuine Colonial furniture of fine mahogany gave her no pleasure at all. The landscape, too, was uninspiring—a straggling, neglected garden, and a stretch of fields which had once been part of the Miller estate, but which had been first rented and then sold to farmers who did not object to working.

Something was coming along the road. She recognized the smart little roadster. It turned in at their gateway and stopped before their door.

It was a memorable interview. Indeed, it was a battle, and Miss Wilkinson conquered. In the most ordinary way, she made a preposterous suggestion.

Benedicta, almost overcome, said that she had never spent a night away from home.

“Then begin now,” said Miss Wilkinson. “Please come! It’s going to be awfully nice. Two—”

Miss Wilkinson seemed perfectly unaware that it is bad manners to press an invitation. She had taken a fancy to Benedicta’s dark beauty, with her sulky mouth and her unhappy eyes, and she was sorry for her. She kept on urging until Benedicta was obliged to point out to her that invitations must come not from daughters, but from mothers, and that she was not acquainted with Mrs. Wilkinson.

“All right!” said the other good-humoredly. “Then mother ’ll come to-morrow and ask you.”

She found it hard to go on. Impossible as Miss Wilkinson was, it was difficult to dislike her. The idea of a week-end in her company was terribly tempting. It was an invitation to be young for a little while.

“But,” Benedicta went on more gently, “you see, you live so near, it really seems absurd to stay overnight. I should like very much to come some afternoon—”

“If I could get her away from this ghastly house, the girl would be entirely different,” she thought. “Poor thing! She really wants to come, too.”

So she kept at it, and, being an obstinate creature, accustomed to her own way, she at last obtained Benedicta’s reluctant consent.

Off she went, well pleased with herself, and with Benedicta, and with almost everything else in the world.

But Mr. Miller! Better to pass over that[Pg 132] interview, for it accomplished nothing except to make both father and daughter very miserable. Even Mr. Miller was forced to admit that, as the invitation had been accepted, nothing could be done. All the Millers did what they said they would do, no matter how disastrous the consequences. All he wished was to say what he thought of this undignified, improper proceeding, and he did so.

III

Wilkinsons being kind to a Miller! Mrs. Wilkinson conducting Benedicta to a charming little bedroom, and actually kissing her at the door! Mr. Wilkinson meeting her in the dining room and saying:

“It’s a pleasure to see the daughter of Mr. Hamilton Miller in my house. Your father was one of my earliest customers.”

Mr. Wilkinson saying this, and not seeming at all ashamed of having had customers! Nan—that was Miss Wilkinson’s name—doing everything possible to make her somewhat difficult guest feel at home!

When at last she was left alone in her room to dress for dinner, Benedicta had to struggle with a great desire to cry, for ridiculous reasons—because Mrs. Wilkinson had kissed her, because the room itself was so pretty, furnished in white and lit by a rose-shaded lamp, because she was touched, and was ashamed of herself for being touched. She reminded herself that she had come as a favor to Nan, and against her own will. She remembered that everything in her chilly, bleak little room at home was an heirloom.

When she came down to dinner, she had perhaps a little too much poise. The Wilkinsons all kept on being kind, because it was natural to them, and because they knew all about the Millers and understood Benedicta; but the other guests saw in her nothing but a very stiff, cool, silent girl in a dowdy frock, and they didn’t like her.

There were two girls and three others, whom Nan called “boys,” but who were what Benedicta considered young men, and very frivolous ones. Three men and four girls!

“Of course, I’m the extra one,” she thought. “It doesn’t matter to me, of course.”

She felt still more extra and superfluous after dinner, when they began to dance as a matter of course. One of the men asked her to dance, but she declined. She told Mrs. Wilkinson that she didn’t care for dancing, but the truth was that she knew nothing but waltzes and two-steps, which were of no more use than minuets. It wouldn’t do, though, for a Miller to confess herself ignorant of the art.

So she sat beside her hostess, consoling herself with pride, and finding it a very dismal sort of thing. Indeed, she was scarcely able to speak, for fear the unsteadiness in her voice might betray her misery.

“Oh, why did I come?” she asked herself. “Oh, why, why didn’t I stay home, and not know how happy every one else is? Here I just have to sit and look on. I’m young, too! Oh, I wish I wasn’t! I wish I was old—old, like father. Then I wouldn’t care!”

“Here’s some one else who doesn’t care for dancing,” remarked Mrs. Wilkinson, and beckoned to a newcomer who had strolled casually in through the open French window. “It’s Francis Dumall. You know the Dumalls, don’t you?”

The history of the Dumalls had been familiar to Benedicta from her infancy. Like the Millers, they had come down in the world; but not sadly and slowly like the Millers, or generation by generation. Paul Dumall had caused the disaster alone and unaided, and had brought down his family with a crash.

There was nothing discreditable in the debacle. Dumall had ruined himself like a gentleman, and had aroused nothing but sympathy. What is more, he had died before becoming vieux jeu, like poor Mr. Miller, and he was now a sort of legend. His wife and child had gone away, no one knew where.

She was pleased and a little excited at the idea of meeting some one with a history so like her own—some one fallen from greatness like herself, suffering the same humiliation and sadness. She would have liked this young man, even if he hadn’t been so very likable.

He was a tall, slight fellow, a perfect Dumall, with gray eyes, fair hair, and the fine, big Dumall nose. He was not handsome, but he was agreeable to look at, because of his kind and rather shy smile, and the sensitive intelligence of his face.[Pg 133]

He was presented to Benedicta, and they looked at each other with rather artless curiosity. How many Millers and Dumalls had met in the past, in circumstances so different! Indeed, a Dumall had once married a Miller, long ago, so that they were distantly related.

The affection in her manner impressed Benedicta. It was obvious that Mrs. Wilkinson had a great regard for this boy. His dinner jacket was shabby, his fair hair was a little ruffled, he had none of the sleek elegance of the other guests; and yet his hostess showed him a sort of deference not given to the others.

“It’s his family, of course,” thought Benedicta. “She ought to remember that the Millers were just the same!”

In spite of their mutual interest, the two young people were constrained and silent when Mrs. Wilkinson left them alone. Benedicta knew that she ought to talk and be gracious and entertaining, but she completely lacked practice. Young Dumall made no effort whatever, but sat looking at the dancers in the next room, not enviously or wistfully, but in a calm and thoughtful way.

That “either” pleased Benedicta. It seemed to place her with Dumall in another and superior world. It made her feel that she really didn’t care for dancing; so she said:

“Sometimes I think people have forgotten how to enjoy themselves,” he went on. “They did know long ago, in Greece. They danced out in the sun, and did it beautifully. They were happy, instead of simply being excited.”

Benedicta looked with amazement at his boyish face, but he did not look at her. He was staring ahead of him with a strange, lost look that fascinated her, and was talking earnestly of Greek festivals, now and then using a Greek word.

Benedicta was, just then. She was listening to young Dumall with shining eyes and parted lips, entranced by his words. She thought he was marvelous.

Well, perhaps he was. Another listener might have found him a little dogmatic and immature; but, after all, he did think, and he did imagine, and he had a rare and fine admiration for the perished beauties of the ancient world. He knew his facts, too. He had studied honestly and intelligently.

“No,” he answered. She knew very well that he was looking at her, although she seemed unaware of it. “I have to go into the city to-morrow, to buy some books; but I’ll be here on Sunday afternoon again. I—I hope I’ll see you then!”

On Sunday evening Benedicta pretended that she was sleepy; and when Mrs. Wilkinson told her to go to bed, and get a good night’s rest, she assented willingly. As a matter of fact, she thought that very likely she would never go to sleep again. Certainly she didn’t want to waste time in that way.

She sat down in the dark by the window, where she could look out over the garden, but she didn’t see it. She had abolished time and space, and was looking into the middle of the afternoon that had passed.

She saw herself and Francis Dumall sitting on a fallen tree in the woods, where the sun shone through the leaves in queer bright spots on his hair, like gold coins. He was dressed in an old belted coat and tweed trousers that didn’t match, but his shabby clothes were worn with his own air of careless distinction. He was hatless. Sometimes he looked like a boy, and sometimes very much of a man.

He had talked about books. He had talked in an enthralling, a marvelous way. He had made Benedicta resolve to begin to read books herself.

“Why have I gone on like this?” she thought. “Never even trying to improve my mind, with all the spare time I’ve had! It’s disgraceful. I’m ashamed of myself. I don’t know what Mr. Dumall must think of me!”

This was somewhat hypocritical, for she had at least a suspicion of what Mr. Dumall thought of her. He hadn’t talked about books all the time; nor was it likely that when he had asked if he might come[Pg 134] to see her, he had contemplated nothing but a literary monologue.

In spite of this, however, and in spite of the look in his gray eyes, which was unmistakably admiration, Benedicta was doubtful.

She did not realize how unworthy of a Miller such humility was. Why shouldn’t he really like her? What was he but a boy not much older than herself, and, like herself, obscure and poor? She didn’t even realize how lovely she was, lost in her ridiculous admiration for him.

“He’s so different from me!” she thought. “He’s not ashamed of being poor. He doesn’t care one bit about clothes, and dancing, and things like that. He could hold his own anywhere. Everybody respects him and likes him. Nan thinks he’s splendid. He is splendid! He’s risen above his disadvantages, and I haven’t. I’ve let myself be so miserable about being poor that I’ve neglected everything else. He remembers that he belongs to a fine old family, and he’s worthy of it!”

She must follow this inspiring example. She must be worthy of her fine, old family. She wished the magic summer night would pass so that she might begin. She was filled with impatience and hope, half happy, half miserable.

She began to dream of the past, when the Dumalls and the Millers were in their prime, when the two houses blazed with lights in the evening and were filled with guests, when the estates were intact, when the ladies exchanged visits, riding along the roads in carriages, and all the country people uncovered as they passed. All gone now—gone forever!

“I don’t care!” she said, wiping away a tear. “I’d rather have what I have than ten times the Wilkinsons’ money!”

The result of her meditations was to make her none too gracious to the Wilkinsons the next morning. She took leave of them, firmly resolving never to set foot in their house again, because it wasn’t worthy of a Miller. She was going home to improve her mind, and never to see or think of any one less august than a Dumall for the rest of her life.

“She’s a high and mighty young woman, I must say!” observed Mr. Wilkinson, a little hurt by her patronizing farewell.

They didn’t explain, but the thought both of them had was that it is a lamentable piece of folly to bite off one’s nose to spite one’s face, especially in the case of such a delightful nose and such a pretty face as Benedicta’s.

Once inside the Miller stronghold again, Benedicta went from bad to worse. Her father confirmed and strengthened all her theories. He was inordinately interested to hear that she had met young Dumall, and he remembered any number of new things about the two families.

When they sat down to their ill cooked, meager dinner, the fact that it hadn’t been paid for was amply compensated by eating it with old silver from old china. Mr. Miller, looking at his child, had not a single pang of regret that her youth and her loveliness were shut up in that dismal ruin. He felt, instead, a surge of pride and gratitude that she was a Miller.

Young Dumall came that very evening, bringing a book for Benedicta; but he did not show the least desire for a decorous conversation on family topics with her father.

In spite of his scholarly tastes and his shy, quiet air, he was a young fellow of enterprise and resolution. He suggested taking a walk, for the inadequate reason that the moon was up. So Mr. Miller was left alone—which, after all, was the fate he had chosen for himself.

Benedicta had fixed ideas about courtships. It cannot be denied that, although she had seen this young man only twice, and had no proper foundation for such a notion, she believed that this was the beginning of a courtship. The most singular delight and confusion filled her heart. She didn’t wish to speak, or wish him to speak. Later, after they had known each other for weeks and weeks, would come the moment when he would tell her those wonderful things of which she had read; but now all she wanted in the world was to walk by his side on the long, dim road, soft with dust, with the crickets chirping in the parched grass, and the breeze, sweet with the breath of the fields and the hills, blowing against her face.

“Oh!” Benedicta interrupted. “What does that matter? It’s something to be proud of—in these days, when people like the Wilkinsons have so much money.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with the Wilkinsons,” he said. “They’re the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“Of course they’re very nice, and all that,” she answered; “but they’re not at all our sort.”

“That’s our misfortune,” declared Francis. “Mr. Wilkinson made money because he worked hard and used his wits. Our sort of people wouldn’t work, and thought it a fine thing not to have any common sense. I’m not proud of being poor—and I’m not going to stay poor!”

“There are better things in life than hard work and common sense,” observed Benedicta stiffly.

“I know that,” said he; “but you can’t get or keep those better things without hard work and common sense. Valuable things have to be paid for.”

“But, see here!” he interposed. “Haven’t you ever heard or read how the people we came from—the old Millers and the Dumalls—got what we’re so proud of now? They bought all they ever had. They often paid with their lives, and always with the hardest, most dangerous kind of service. After they’d come to this country and cleared their land, they had to defend it. All the Dumalls who amounted to anything were fighters in one way or another—not necessarily soldiers, but men who held their own. When they stopped fighting—and paying—they didn’t amount to anything any more. I don’t intend to spend my life talking about what other and better men have done before me. I’m a man myself, and I mean to do something worth doing!”

Benedicta was a traitor. She agreed with every word he said. She was so thrilled by his boyish spirit that she could have wept with pride and joy. She thought to herself that he was like a knight, that he was the bravest, finest, most wonderful creature who had ever walked the earth.

“Benedicta,” he said again, “I can’t say what I want to say to you just now—not yet; but if I thought—I could do anything in the world if it was for you!”

It was necessarily a very long walk, with so much to be said. Benedicta came home with a hole walked through one of her best slippers; but she had heard the important things necessary for her to know. She had heard exactly why he felt that way, and at what instant he had begun to feel that way. She had given him permission to go ahead and do anything in the world for her; and he had kissed her—an awkward little kiss—when they said good night at the gate.

Benedicta awoke to a rainy morning, but it was not the sort of rain that had hitherto fallen upon the earth. It was sweet, fresh, exhilarating. The sound of it drumming on the roof was as gay as martial music.

All the old wearisome things were gone out of her life, and the new ones had scarcely begun. She felt wonderfully free and spirited, like a person on a journey who has got as far as the railway station—who is definitely away from home, but still in familiar country.

She was thinking of nothing but Francis Dumall, the knight, the adventurer, the man determined to do something worth doing. She could imagine nothing in the modern world quite splendid enough for him to do. It was brave to be an aviator, but it wasn’t important enough. A statesman? Not picturesque enough. A writer? Not sufficiently active or daring.

“But he’ll have thought of something,” she reflected. “I know he has his life all planned. I wonder why I didn’t ask him about that, instead of about—other things. It’s because I’m frivolous and silly!”

Even that didn’t depress her. She was so full of hope and courage this morning that it seemed the simplest thing in the world to acquire wisdom at once. She in[Pg 136]tended to buy and read a new book this very day, so that she might talk about it to the incomparable Francis in the evening; and this not from any desire to show off, or to impress him, but simply from an honest and touching wish to follow him, to go at his pace, to prove her sympathy with his aims.

She had never bought a book in her life. It had been difficult enough—impossible, at times—to buy the barest necessities; and what they did get was usually procured on credit in mysterious ways by Mr. Miller.

Money of her own was a thing unknown to Benedicta. Nevertheless, she went in the calmest way and asked her father for a little. Mr. Miller was equally calm when he gave her all he had. Indeed, he forgot the present moment, and felt himself one of the old Millers making a lavish gift to a daughter whose hand was sought by a scion of the Dumalls.

It didn’t matter that she went rattling off in her little car along muddy roads. She couldn’t have been lovelier in a coach with footmen. The rain blew against her face and made it beautifully rosy. Her dark hair became a little loosened under her wide hat.

When she sprang out, and went into the butcher’s, he was astounded by this new aspect of the high and mighty Miss Miller. To tell the truth, he felt more respect and admiration for her happy youth than he had ever felt for her Millerness.

“Mr. Schultz,” she said eagerly, “can you tell me where there’s a book shop?”

Mr. Schultz had an educated son who bought books. He told her that for the first time in many years there was now a book shop in Elderfield, and a good one, too, just behind the post office.

It was a trim, attractive little shop, with a striped awning, and in the window were displayed books as fresh and tempting as the first delectable fruits in spring. No bookworm was Benedicta, however. She pulled up the little car smartly, jumped out, and entered the shop with a brisk and resolute air.

“Have you a copy of—” she began, addressing the young man who came forward.

“Benedicta!” he cried. “This is the best thing that ever happened; I never thought of seeing you on a rainy day like this! Benedicta! How especially pretty you look!”

“But—” she faltered. “But I didn’t know—I didn’t think—you never told me you were here in a place like this!”

“Didn’t I?” he answered, with an air of triumph. “Well, take a good look at it, Benedicta! It’s my own!”

“Fact!” he said. “Mr. Wilkinson set me up six months ago, and I’m doing even better than I expected. I tell you, Benedicta, I’m really making the people here sit up and take notice that there are such things as books in this world. A fellow told me the other day that I was doing splendid missionary work. Why, look here, Benedicta—”

And he went on, showing her things, explaining, taking up books and opening them, and never noticing her frozen silence.

A customer came in. He sold her the book she wanted, and another which she hadn’t wanted before. A Dumall waiting on customers! A shopkeeper! That was what Benedicta’s knight, her splendid adventurer, was doing—selling books and wrapping them up!

When they were alone again, he sat down on the edge of the table and took both her hands.

“You see, darling, beautiful girl, in a year’s time, even if I don’t do better than I’m doing now, I’ll have paid back Wilkinson, and I’ll be standing on my own feet. Then I’ll be able—”

Benedicta tried to draw away her hands, tried to find words for the anger and bitter disappointment within her; but before she had uttered a syllable, the door opened again and a man entered.

“Dumall,” he said, politely ignoring the flushed Benedicta, “I wish you’d come over to the station with me and see that fellow from Cowan’s. He’s waiting for the up train, but he’d like to see you about that Bijou line of cards.”

“You won’t be afraid to look after the shop for a quarter of an hour, will you?” he asked earnestly. “You needn’t try to sell anything. If any one comes in, show those new books, you know—and keep them talking until I get back.[Pg 137]”

VII

“I won’t do it!” Benedicta thought, angry tears in her eyes. “I’ll leave his horrible, vulgar shop! I never want to see him again! So this is what he calls something worth doing! In a year he’ll pay back Mr. Wilkinson and be standing on his own feet—”

Somehow the phrase arrested her. Standing on his own feet! Working honestly and faithfully and happily, proud of his work, confident of success, looking forward, instead of back—standing on his own feet!

Benedicta was at the door, with her hand on the latch, but she could not open it. It was as if a crowd of new ideas were holding it fast, keeping her in there. This bright, neat little place, where something was done, instead of remembered—this thing that was being built up, instead of falling into ruins—what had she ever had in her life one-half so fine? After all, wasn’t it an adventure, wasn’t it a worthy thing to do, to stand on his own feet?

The door was pushed open then, and the next instant the daughter of the Millers was confronted by a customer. Suddenly a strange new desire came over her—a desire to do something, instead of just being herself, a fierce determination to make even the smallest sort of individual effort.

In an instant, Benedicta knew all sorts of things she wasn’t aware of knowing. She understood the arrangement of the stock. She knew how to talk to this strange man. She was calm, reasonable, efficient. He wavered, and said he didn’t think he would take anything that morning; and she persuaded him! She made a sale!

She wrapped up the book and took the money for it. She kept the coins in her hand and stared at them. The shop was an entirely different place. The whole world was changed. She walked thoughtfully about, she saw improvements that could be made.

“The agency. I’m sorry I had to leave you, Benedicta. I ought to have some sort of assistant, but that’ll have to wait. Now, then, dear girl, let’s go out to lunch!”

“I’ll close it for an hour. I often do, you know. No one’s likely to come in.”

“Some one did come in, just now,” said Benedicta, “and bought a book.” She handed him the money. “So you see,” she went on quite sternly, “if there’d been no one here—”

“But, Benedicta!” he objected. “I want to be with you. Never mind the shop!”

“Francis, I’m ashamed of you!” said she. “The shop shan’t be left alone. I—I love it!”

“Well, anyhow—I’d like to help you, Francis,” she murmured. “I’d be glad to come every day until—until you don’t need me any more.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re undertaking, Benedicta,” he said. “If you’re going to come until I don’t need you, it’s a life job!”

“Do run along and get your lunch!” replied Benedicta, dignified in spite of very flushed cheeks. “I—I believe a job was just what I always wanted, Francis![Pg 138]”

Nickie and Pem

THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO WASTE HER LIFE

“I don’t call it being good,” replied Miss Pembroke. “I call it simply being self-respecting.”

This was the sort of thing her friends found objectionable, and Nickie began to object now.

“Lord!” said she. “Don’t we work hard enough to deserve a little fun now and then? It won’t hurt your precious self-respect to speak to a man now and then, will it? I can’t—”

“Oh, that’s all nonsense!” interrupted Miss Pembroke. “I see enough of men, and I put up with enough from them. When I’m off duty, I don’t have to put up with anything, and I won’t!”

“Nobody wants you to. The boys who are coming this evening are awfully nice boys. If you’d just come in and speak to them—”

“Nickie,” she said, “I’m very fond of you; but I don’t like your friends—not any of them—and I wish you’d let me alone.”

She turned all her attention upon the process of manicuring, but neither the haughtiness nor the silence reassured Miss Pembroke, who knew that they wouldn’t last. It was hardly worth while to open her book again, for Nickie would be sure to interrupt.

“It’s getting to be too much of a good thing,” she reflected. “I needed a good rest after that last case, but I’ll never get it while Nickie’s here. This whole thing was a mistake. I ought to have taken a room somewhere by myself, where I couldn’t be bothered.”

This was by no means the first time she had regretted her present domestic arrangements. It was all Nickie’s fault, of course. Nickie had told her what a fine thing it would be to join with three other graduate nurses in taking a flat.

“A nice little home of our own,” Nickie had said, “where we can rest when we want to, and entertain our friends, and keep all our things. The other girls are simply great. You’ll like them.”

“But we’ll never all be home at the same time,” Nickie had assured her. “Lots of times you and I will have the place to ourselves.”

In the course of a year this had happened only once. When Nickie was at home, Pem was off on a case. When Pem came home, instead of finding her faithful[Pg 140] Nickie, one of the other girls would be there, or sometimes two of them; and Pem didn’t like them. She didn’t like their “parties,” or their conversation, or their cheerful, careless style of housekeeping.

She herself was never careless, and, though she was even-tempered and polite, she wasn’t often cheerful. As a nurse, she was matchless. Doctors wanted to send her to their most troublesome and exacting patients, because not only was she quick, capable, and intelligent, but she could hold her tongue and keep her temper, and she had a cool, quiet way with her that kept her patients in good order.

But this cool, quiet way of which doctors so highly approved was not at all pleasing to her housemates. Even Nickie thought it deplorable.

“Pem,” she had said to her once, “you could be young and beautiful, if you’d only learn how!”

There was truth in that observation. Miss Pembroke had both youth and beauty, and somehow managed to disguise them, so that they often went unnoticed. People would say that she was “impressive,” or “dignified,” or something of that sort, because they never saw her off guard, as Nickie saw her now. She was a tall, slender, dark-haired girl, with an austere, fine-bred face—not the sort of face one would turn to look after in the street, but a face which patients—above all, male patients—found very, very hard to forget. Her slender hands were clasped about one knee, and her clear amber eyes were staring thoughtfully before her. She was, thought Nickie, engaged in daydreams of some mysterious and enchanting kind unknown to more ordinary girls. But in reality—

There was no coarseness to be seen in Miss Nicholson’s rosy, jolly face, nor to be observed in her manners and conversation. Indeed, no one but Miss Pembroke had yet seen any trace of it; but Pem was by nature critical, and just at this moment she was jaded and dispirited after six weeks of a ferocious typhoid patient, who had fallen in love with her in a very trying and ill-tempered way. Moreover, she was mortally weary of Nickie’s persistence.

“I’m sick and tired of men,” she thought. “All Nickie ever thinks of is men, and going to parties, and having what she calls a good time.”

Now this was not quite doing justice to Nickie. When she was not working, she was undeniably very fond of playing; but when you consider how very short and infrequent were her play times, and how very hard and exhausting was her work; when you consider that this lively, warm-hearted young creature had to witness every sort of human agony and wretchedness; when you bear in mind the tremendous responsibilities she so faithfully accepted; her generous readiness to do more than she needed to do, her charity, her sympathy, her sturdy courage—when you think of all this, it is not difficult to forgive her for being somewhat frivolous during her little hours of freedom.

There were weeks at a time when men, parties, and having a good time gave her mighty little concern. Just now, however, her mind was entirely given to such matters; and, as Pem expected, she couldn’t help trying again to persuade her friend.

“Oh, Pem!” she said coaxingly. “Just this once! Come in and speak to the boys, and if you don’t like them—”

She had no intention of seeing Nickie’s friends. In fact, she came nearer to quarreling with Nickie than she had ever yet come, and she retired to her own room with flushed cheeks and a frown on her calm brow. She was not in the habit of losing her temper, and this unusual annoyance disturbed her. She was restless, and couldn’t settle down to read or sew.

Her neat little room seemed all at once too neat and too little, and she wanted to get out of it. It was a clear, fine night. A walk, even a solitary and aimless one, wouldn’t be bad. She had put on her hat and coat, and was just about to open her door, when—when Nickie’s party arrived.

Impossible to go out now! In order to reach the front door, she would have to pass by the sitting room, and Nickie would see her and stop her.

“Nickie has absolutely no pride!” she thought, angrier than ever. “Even after what I said to her, she’d try to drag me in there!”

She couldn’t read. The party disturbed her too much. They were laughing and[Pg 141] talking, and presently some one began to play the piano and sing. It was an idiotic song, but it was delivered in a hearty, boyish voice that was somehow very touching.

There was violent applause when the singer finished, and after a few minutes he began again.

Pem came nearer to the door, her face grown very pale. “Keep the Home Fires Burning!” Some one else sang that—one night in Montreal—the night before the troop ship went out—a boy in a lieutenant’s uniform. Pem snapped the light and stood listening in the dark, her hands clenched, her eyes closed.

“Oh, God!” whispered Pem; for that boy would never come home, and the Pem who had listened to his gallant young voice was gone, too.

The singing stopped, only not for Pem. It went on sounding in her ears. The voice that she would never hear again and the living voice mingled together until she could bear it no longer. She must go in and see this other one—see with her own eyes that he was a stranger, in no way like—any one else.

“Here’s my pal!” she said, triumphantly. “Now you’ll all have to be good little boys. Pem, here’s Mr. Brown and Mr. Caswell and Mr. Hadley. Look ’em over!”

But the only one Pem wanted to see was Caswell—the boy who had been singing, the boy who must not look like some one else. Well, he didn’t. That one had been fair and this one was dark. There was no resemblance in a single feature; and yet the spell was not broken.

There was some quality in this man that stirred intolerable memories to life in Pem—something in his voice, in his smile, in the hearty grip of his hand. She looked and looked at him, trying in vain to catch that fugitive likeness.

She had never been so lovely, or so utterly careless of her own beauty. Her eyes were wonderfully luminous and soft in her pale face. Her hair, a little disordered by the hat she had pulled off, floated about her forehead in tiny, misty threads. She hadn’t a trace of that cool, quiet manner now.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Nickie, delighted. “Now sing some more, Cas. That’s what brought her to.”

The spell was slowly dissolving. She could see Caswell without illusions now—an ordinary nice-looking young fellow, unfortunately a little the worse for drink just now, like the others.

She had come in without any idea of staying, but for Nickie’s sake she resigned herself to a wearisome half hour. This was Nickie’s idea of a good time, and these were Nickie’s “awfully nice boys”! One of them offered Pem his pocket flask, but she declined, civilly enough, and sat down on the piano stool, so that Caswell couldn’t sing again.

She was quite aware that he was looking at her all the time. Very well, let him look! She felt a thousand miles away from him and the others, and somehow very lonely.

This sudden change disturbed Nickie. Now that she had got Pem here at last, it would never do to let the party prove a fizzle. She whispered to one of the men, and then called out:

“Oh, come on, Pem!” Nickie entreated. “I don’t want to go alone with three fellows, and I’m dying for a dance. Please, Pem, just for an hour!”

“No, thanks,” said Pem again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel up to it. I’m tired.”

And then, beside her, she heard a voice which, in spite of herself, she could not hear unmoved.

She shook her head, but she smiled, for once more she caught a glimpse of that curious likeness, and it made her gentle toward him. What was it? What could she see in this flushed, unsteady boy to put her in mind of that other, fine and stern, a young knight?

“Look here!” said Caswell, bending lower, so that only she could hear. “Please don’t—don’t judge me by this. I—I’m—I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you to see me—like this. I—I don’t do it, you know, I give you my word. You see, I’ve[Pg 142] just come back from Melbourne, and this was my first night on shore, and—if you’d just give me another chance!”

“All right, I will,” said Pem suddenly. “I’ll see you again. I’ll be glad to.”

And she meant it. She no longer wanted to deny the unreasonable, half scornful liking she felt for this man. She did like him, and that was enough.

“Oh, but, look here!” he cried. “We’re sailing to-morrow for Halifax. I’ve only got this one night!”

“Oh, some day!” he answered bitterly. “God knows when—I don’t. We’re running all over after cargoes. We may come back here from Halifax, and we may go anywhere. It may be months before I see you again.”

Pem was annoyed at her own response to his emotion. She wanted to laugh at him, and she could not. This was the worst sort of nonsense—the sort of thing Nickie was always telling her about. Nickie would call this “thrilling.” Well, Pem didn’t.

“I’m sorry for you,” she said ironically; but, as if there were magic in his eyes, the words turned to truth when she looked at him. “Please don’t be silly!” she added, in a quite different voice—gentle, almost appealing.

“The only silly thing would be to pretend it wasn’t like this,” said he. “I didn’t want it to be this way, but—it just happened. As soon as I saw you—”

III

“Then I hope to Heaven I’ll never be anything else! I’d give all the common sense and prudence and so on in the world for one night like this. Hang being sensible, anyhow! Let’s be silly, Pem!”

“I am—I have been—sillier than I ever was before in my life. Don’t, Arthur!”

She felt obliged to object to his putting his arm about her shoulders and kissing her—a very unconvincing little objection, however, to which he paid no attention.

“You do love me, don’t you, Pem?” he asked, and waited a long time. “Pem! I say, Pem! You do love me, don’t you?”

Was it love, she thought? It was not in any way the love she had felt before—not that strange and terrible thing, half pride, half humility, half anguish and half ecstasy.

It had been her consolation for so long, that never again would that intolerable emotion stir her heart. After she had lost that one man, there wasn’t another walking the earth who could capture her interest—until this evening.

She couldn’t understand the glamour that enveloped young Caswell, the inexplicable charm of him. He was neither very handsome nor very clever—just an ordinary nice-looking boy; and yet, when he said that he would give all the common sense and prudence and so on in the world for one night like this, she agreed with him in her heart.

They had gone to a restaurant and danced, they had taken a taxicab to another restaurant and danced again, they had had supper—that was all there was to it. It was simply one of those brainless “parties” so dear to Nickie—with too much drinking on the part of the men, too much smoking, the stupidest sort of talk and laughter. Then why had it been so beautiful? Because of that boy’s glance which always followed her, that look on his face, his fervent, halting love-making?

Suddenly she stopped trying to reason about it. It was beautiful. She had been utterly happy again; she was happy now.

“Pem!” he said. “Oh, Pem! Can’t you tell me? I’m going away, you know.”

His voice broke, she felt the arm about her shoulders tremble a little, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t talk any more about it—not now,” she said. “Look! The sky’s getting light. It’s morning.”

“And I’m due on board at ten o’clock,” he said. “I’ll come back to you, Pem.[Pg 143] Pem, you won’t forget me? You won’t—you couldn’t, could you, Pem?”

The taxi had stopped before the apartment house, where Nickie and the two other boys, just arrived, were waiting for them in the street. A pallid light was spreading in the sky, and a strange quiet lay over the city. Trucks rumbled far away, but there wasn’t a voice or a footstep. The street lamps still burned wanly.

“It’s time for breakfast,” suggested one of the boys. “Let’s go to a beanery and have something to eat.”

For she had seen on Nickie’s face something that hurt her—something that she had often seen in the mirror, reflected in her own eyes.

Nickie was lying on the bed, flat on her back, without a pillow, her eyes resolutely closed, in a stern effort to rest. That morning, just as she was saying good-by—very willingly—to the cantankerous old lady with a broken arm whom she had been attending for three weeks, Dr. Lucas had telephoned and told her that he wanted her for night duty on a pneumonia case. It was a bad case, and she had a bad night ahead of her. She must rest now; but she couldn’t. This wasn’t rest.

“For Pete’s sake!” she exclaimed. “What’s the meaning of all this, Pem?”

“I don’t know,” replied Pem slowly. She had taken off her hat and coat, and was looking at herself in the glass—at her carefully dressed hair, the artful touch of color in her cheeks, the new frock of navy twill with red leather buttons. “I look rather nice, don’t I, Nickie?”

“Yes,” said Nickie, “stunning; but—well, I suppose I’m not used to it. But what’s the reason, Pem?”

Pem’s explanation did not satisfy her. Pem said that her patient was a wealthy young woman suffering from a mild form of melancholia. She had to be diverted, and—

“I had to look halfway decent, going about with her,” said Pem. “She wanted me to.”

“No—it may last for months; but I often get an afternoon off when her sister comes to stay with her. She likes me to clear out sometimes, so that she can tell her sister how awful I am.”

“Oh, pretty well; but she doesn’t really like anybody but herself. That’s what’s the matter with her. She’s got everything on earth—money, and friends, and a wonderful husband. Lend me some of your powder, Nickie?”

“Of course it’s not my business,” observed Nickie, “but it—it isn’t the husband, is it?”

“I do,” she said. “I tell you anything that really matters. You see, Pem, the reason I am asking this is because I thought you were rather gone on Arthur Caswell. You see, I’ve known him for a long while, so I—”

Pem turned to open the bureau drawer, and to take out a pair of white gloves and a handkerchief.

“I’ll tell you something, Nickie,” she said in a curt, cool voice. “He would never have looked at me that night if I had been my real self. I acted like a fool, and that’s what he liked. That’s what every one likes. After he’d gone, everything seemed tame and flat, and I felt so lonely that I couldn’t stand it. I’m going to keep on being a fool, Nickie. I’m going to make people like me. I’m going to live, and enjoy myself!”

“If he does, then—but he won’t. I’m not going to waste my life—or what’s left of it.”

“If I was going to waste any lives,” said Nickie, “I’d rather waste my own than any one else’s.”

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Are you trying to preach to me, Nickie? It was you who started the whole thing—always pestering me to go to parties.”

“I never went out with a married man in my life,” said Nickie; “and I never would, either.”

“That’s a little too much, after that last party!” returned Pem scornfully. “You wouldn’t go out with a married man, but you don’t mind three fellows who’ve been drinking!”

“How do you know I didn’t mind?” cried Nickie, jumping up. “Just let me tell you, Pem—I knew Arthur Caswell’s people in Halifax. His father’s a strict Presbyterian. I know what he’d think about that, and I’d have stopped Arthur, too, if—”

Pem was about to make a sharp retort, but she changed her mind in time. Going over to Nickie, she put her arms about her friend.

“All right, Pem,” she said. “I know! But, Pem, for my sake, please don’t go out with this man. You’ll be sorry for it—awfully sorry. It’s not like you. Don’t do it, Pem!”

“How can he help it, when she’s turned her back on him for good? She’s horrible to him. Nobody else would have put up with her as he has. He is honorable, Nickie; he’s a gentleman through and through. He’s so lonely—you don’t know what that is, but I do. He’s longing and longing for women to be nice and friendly to him. If his wife was ever halfway decent to him—”

“There he is,” she said. “Nickie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I wish you’d see him and talk to him. Then you’d understand. Open the door and talk to him while I’m getting ready.”

Without even troubling to smooth her unruly hair, off she went, down the passage. In a moment she was back.

“I’ll take him out, quick,” said Pem. “When Mr. Blanchard comes, tell him something—anything. I’ll see you later, Nickie. I’ll stop here before I go back to Mr. Blanchard’s.”

When Pem had gone, she closed the bedroom door after her; but she didn’t even try to rest now.

Pem went down the passage with a lagging step and a heart strangely troubled and doubting.

“No,” she said to herself. “Of course it can’t be like that. I just imagined it. I’ve thought about it so much that—no, it couldn’t really have been so wonderful. He couldn’t have been so dear. When I see him again I shall get over being so silly.”

But that silliness was the best thing in her life. For weeks the glamour of that enchanted evening had colored all her days. The music they had danced to still sounded in her ears, faint and stirring. When she closed her eyes, she could see again the sparkle and glitter of that tinsel fairyland of Broadway, made true and fine by the boy’s love.

“I won’t be an idiot!” she told herself. “When I see him again, I’ll find that he’s—not really like that!”

So, with what fortitude she had, she entered the little sitting room. He didn’t hear her. He was standing at the window, with his back toward the room, his hands in his pockets—such a straight, stalwart figure!

Then he turned, and it was true, all of it—that look she had remembered, that glamour, that enchantment.

For a minute she was utterly content in his arms, as if her restless and disconsolate spirit had at last found peace; but not for long. She moved away, still holding his hand, and looking at him with a misty smile.

“You’re so beautiful!” he said. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t be as lovely as I remembered, but you’re a hundred times—”

“Not here. We can talk somewhere else. I know a nice little tea room where we can dance.”

“I don’t want to dance,” said he; “and—look here, Pem! I’m a bit hard up, this trip.”

“No, we won’t do that, either,” said he, half laughing. “We’ll stay where we are. I want to talk to you. I—does this suit you, Pem?”

From his pocket he pulled out a ring, carried loose in there, without a box, without even a bit of paper, and laid it in her hand. There it was, honest and unashamed, like himself—the tiniest little diamond. She stared down at it through a veil of tears.

“Best I could do,” he said a little forlornly. “You see, I never tried to save my pay, and it’s darned small, Pem, old girl. I’m only third mate. I dare say I don’t make as much as you do.”

“Never mind! That doesn’t matter,” she answered, so low that he could scarcely hear.

It seemed to her the most touching and beautiful thing that had ever happened, that he should come to her with his poor little ring, so simply and loyally offering her all he had.

“But we can manage,” he went on more cheerfully. “I’ve figured it out. We can take a little flat, you know, and if we’re careful, we can get on. You won’t mind a pretty quiet life, will you, Pem? Nickie told me you weren’t keen on going out and all that. I’m not, either—at least, not now. I was, you know, but not now. We’ll settle down—”

He stopped short, looking at her with a faint frown, but she did not meet his eyes. She was shocked, appalled, at her own traitorous thoughts. She glanced again at the ring, and tried in vain to recapture the tenderness and pity she had felt.

To settle down and marry this boy—not to dance with him, not to listen to his love-making to the accompaniment of music, in a bright dazzle of light, but to marry him and settle down to a deadly quiet life—she knew very well what that meant. She had often enough been in the sort of little flat they would have to live in. She went into such places when sickness was already there. She had seen all the makeshifts, all the sordid and pitiful anxieties of such existences—people who hadn’t enough towels and sheets, who couldn’t afford hot water bottles, who couldn’t afford even the necessary sunlight.

The quiet life! What had he to do with a quiet life? He had come suddenly into her own chill, somber existence, startling her into youth and gayety—that was why she loved him. A dear, honest, silly boy, to dance with, to be happy with for an evening, but—

At his peremptory tone, she found it less difficult to speak. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke as kindly as she could.

“I’m afraid you’re going ahead a little too fast,” she said. “After all, we’ve only seen each other once before, you know. Doesn’t it seem—”

“No,” she said, with a trace of impatience; “but we don’t really know each other. I think we ought to wait—until we’re sure.”

“You’re sure now, aren’t you?” he asked at last. “All right, Pem! All my fault! I might have known—”

And in the face of his sincerity, his honest and unresentful pain, she could give him no false hope, no false consolation, nothing but the truth revealed to him by her silence.

He took the ring from her hand and looked at it with a shadowy smile. Then, before she knew what he was about, he[Pg 146] threw it out of the open window into the street.

She came to the window and looked down, but she couldn’t see it in the street far below.

A sob rose in her throat. She turned away her head, so that he should not see her tears.

“Don’t cry!” he said. “It’s all my fault. I should have known better, of course. I say, Pem! Please don’t cry! The whole thing isn’t worth it. Just—let’s say good-by, Pem!”

“Nothing to forgive,” he assured her, with a gallant attempt at a smile. “I—anyhow, I’m glad I ever saw you. Good-by, Pem!”

If it could only have ended then! If he could have gone then, with that moment for them to remember! But it was their great misfortune that no such memory should be left to them.

Pem looked at her helplessly. As the flat was arranged, the front door could not be opened without affording a plain view of the sitting room.

“I’ll let it ring,” said Nickie, with a fine effect of carelessness. “No one we want to see.”

But that was not Pem’s way. She came of an austere and stiff-necked family, living secluded on an exhausted little Vermont farm. They had nothing much but pride to keep them warm in winter, to feed and clothe them. Pride was the only heritage that came down to Pem, and pride would not allow her to refuse admission to Mr. Blanchard, no matter what it cost her. As for the possible cost to Arthur Caswell and to Nickie, that didn’t occur to her just then.

“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said a courteous, apologetic voice. “Please—”

Then, as he followed Pem inside, he caught sight of the others, and made a general bow.

He looked altogether what Pem had called him—a gentleman through and through. He was a rather slight man in the middle forties, with a sensitive, harassed face, hair a little gray on the temples, and fine, dark eyes. He hadn’t in the least a furtive or shamefaced air. Indeed, there was a quiet sort of straightforwardness about him that favorably impressed Nickie, in spite of her prejudice against the man.

Nickie liked his smile, his voice, his well bred ease. She liked all this, and yet, when Pem presented Caswell to him, her liking was a pain. Arthur seemed so young, so awkward, such an immature and unimpressive creature, in contrast to his senior. She wanted to defend him against comparison. She wanted to force Pem to see, and Mr. Blanchard to see, the splendid qualities in the young sailor.

But she had no chance. Before she could interfere, Blanchard had mentioned that it was growing late. Pem had answered that she was ready, and off they went.

“I would never have told you,” said Blanchard. “I would have gone on the best way I could, without you; but now—”

Pem looked at him across the table. By the light of the gold-shaded electric candle his thin face was almost incredibly fine. He looked, she thought, a little inhuman, with his delicate features, his dark, glowing eyes, and the silvery gleam of white on his temples. His tremendous consideration for her, his squeamishness, had made his story such a long one!

“I’ve seen more of life than he has,” she reflected; “and yet it has taken him two hours to tell me that his wife is going to divorce him. I suppose it’ll take another hour before he can tell me that he hopes I can marry him when he’s free. I suppose it ought to take me a week to answer him!”

She stifled a sigh. It was nonsense for him to try to shield his wife from Pem, who had two months in which to observe her savage egotism. Such a dilemma for his chivalrous soul—to make it clear to Pem that his wife had no just cause for divorc[Pg 147]ing him, and yet to protect the woman against the implication of cruel unreasonableness. All things considered, he had done very well.

“A—a mutual agreement,”, he had called it. “I think you’d better not go back,” he went on gently. “She’s very much upset. Her sister and her mother are with her.”

Silence fell between them. The orchestra was playing in a gallery behind them—a gay and delicate air. The rooms were filled with the sort of people Pem liked about her, with light, laughing voices, faint perfumes, and the smoke of cigarettes.

One of Blanchard’s hands was extended on the table—a slender hand, beautifully tended. He was so fastidious in everything, so kind, so honorable, so appealing in his masculine assumption of her ignorance and helplessness. He wanted to take care of her and shelter her. He would have been horrified at the thought of her living in a little flat on a third mate’s pay. He would have turned pale at the sight of that poor, poor little ring.

“You’re very quiet,” he said, a little anxiously. “I hope I haven’t—”

“No!” she thought, as if defying a voice that had not spoken. “It’s no use! I’m not like that. I couldn’t stand it. I shall be happy with Everett. It’s his kind of life that I want.” Aloud she said, in the ladylike, noncommittal tone he expected of her: “I’d better be going back to Nickie now.”

Blanchard took her back in a taxi, and all the way he talked of impersonal matters—not a word of love. She knew he wouldn’t mention that until he was free to do so honorably.

He left her at the door. She turned as she entered, and saw him standing bareheaded in the street—a handsome and distinguished man, yet somehow pitiful to her, with that touch of white at the temples.

The flat was empty when she got in. Nickie, of course, had gone to her case. Arthur Caswell—she couldn’t imagine his destination.

On the kitchen table were the disorderly remains of a tea for two. The sitting room, too, was very untidy, as Nickie always left it. Pem turned on the electric light and began to set it in order. She emptied the ash tray, full of the stubs of those horrible cheap cigarettes she had seen Caswell smoking. She picked up the magazines that lay on the floor, and straightened the chairs.

The piano was open, with music on the rack. She went to close it. The lid slipped from her hand, and, falling, jarred the strings with a queer, trembling discord. She could have imagined it the faint, distant echo of a voice—a young voice.[Pg 148]

His Remarkable Future

THE STORY OF A RAPTUROUS BUT SOMEWHAT TUMULTUOUS ENGAGEMENT

She was dignified, he was somewhat severe. Both were important, preoccupied, adult persons, full of business concerns; nevertheless, they did not quite know how to proceed with the conversation. They stood side by side in the lobby of the office building, looking not at all at each other, but at the steady and violent rain. Miss Patterson was reluctant to walk off in such a downpour, and Hardy was determined that she should not.

Any number of other girls ran past, some with newspapers over their hats, some laughing, some gravely worried, but he was not perturbed by them. They could stand it. No other living girl was so peculiarly fragile as Miss Patterson, or beset with so many dangers.

“Because it always does stop,” she said. “At least, it always has, in the past.”

He turned his head to look at her, and he grew a little dizzy. In the bleak light of that dismal day, Miss Patterson seemed to glow with a strange radiance. Her light hair was like a nimbus under her hat, her blue eyes were lambent, and she chose just that moment to make the color deepen in her cheeks. It was not fair!

“Oh, no!” she protested. “Please don’t! I live miles and miles uptown.”

He stopped a cab with the air of a highwayman, and returned to Miss Patterson. As he put her into the vehicle, a curious change came over them. Hardy ceased to be masterful and severe, and Miss Patterson was no longer dignified. They looked at each other steadily, with a strange sort of despair.

“Look here!” said Hardy, in an uncertain voice. “Can’t I come with you?”

But they both knew that he was going with her, that he must, that the inevitable moment had come, the moment foreseen by both of them all through the winter.

That was the last thing needed. Now he knew where the human, unofficial Miss Patterson lived. She was disassociated from business now. She was not a typist, but a girl.

She seemed aware of all this, for, as he got into the cab beside her, she looked at him in a new way—a look so bright, so clear, so gentle!

“Look here!” he said. “I—I don’t want to be a nuisance. If you’d really rather I didn’t come—”

She only shook her head. If she had tried to speak, she would have ended in tears.

He didn’t know that he, too, had a new look—that his young face had grown pale and strained, his eyes dark with his great fear and his great hope. And this was the splendid, vainglorious Mr. Hardy from the import department, the young man of whom great things were expected, who was to be made assistant buyer when Mr. Hallock left at the end of the year.

The other girls had talked about him a good deal, for he was a figure to capture[Pg 150] the imagination—a handsome boy, swaggering a little in the honest pride of his young manhood: only twenty-three, and going to be made assistant buyer!

“You know,” he said. “I’ve often wanted to—to have a little talk with you. I—I often noticed you.”

“Did you?” said Miss Patterson, ready to laugh through her unshed tears, for he needn’t have troubled to tell her that.

“But you see,” he went on, “I didn’t know—I couldn’t tell whether you—”

She was very glad to hear that, because sometimes she had been afraid that he could tell, could read in her face what was in her heart.

“You know, you’re so different from any one else,” he said. “Every time I saw you, I—whenever I saw you, it seemed—that is, I thought you were so different from any one else.”

He stopped, aware that he was doing very badly, and filled with horror at his own idiotic words. She would think he was a fool.

Yet how could he possibly convey to this ethereal, fragile, and unworldly creature any idea of his own tempestuous love without alarming and offending her? He had no business to love her. It was a gross impertinence. She was an angel, and he was nothing but a clumsy—

The taxi turned a corner sharply, and he was flung sidewise, so that his shoulder brushed hers.

“Yes, I am,” said Miss Patterson. “I am. I can’t bear to—to think of your getting so wet and catching a cold—just to get me a—a taxi!”

“But I shan’t catch cold,” said Hardy. He was trying to bear in mind that her words, her tears, were nothing but an expression of her wonderful kindness and humanity. She would be sorry for any one who got wet and caught a cold in her service. That was all that she meant—absolutely all. “I shan’t catch cold,” he went on. “I never do: but you—you see, you’re so delicate—”

“I’m not!” said she. “Not a bit! But I remember perfectly well that last February you had the most—oh, the most awful cold!”

“Edith!” cried he, astounded, overwhelmed by this confession. “You remember that?”

“Because I—ever since the first time I saw you, I thought perhaps you’d noticed.”

“Noticed what?” inquired Miss Patterson, and he fancied that there was a shade of coldness in her voice. He was in despair. Of course she had no idea what he was driving at, he was so appallingly clumsy and stupid about it. He must do better than this! He drew a long breath.

“My prospects are pretty good,” he remarked. “They’re going to make me assistant buyer at the end of the year.”

“So I’ve heard,” said she, and this time there was no mistaking the coldness in her tone.

“I didn’t say that to boast,” he assured her anxiously. “I only wanted to tell you because—I wanted you to know that I—”

“I shouldn’t blame you for boasting,” said Miss Patterson, in a polite, formal way. “Every one says you have a remarkable future before you.”

“Not without you!” he cried. “I don’t want any future without you! Oh, Edith, I don’t know how to tell you—”

The head of the auditing department, in which Miss Patterson worked, often praised her for the quickness with which she grasped new ideas. This praise seemed justified, for she understood Hardy without further explanation.

Nevertheless, they both had an enormous amount of explaining to do. All the way uptown they were engaged in explaining to each other, with the greatest earnestness, just how they felt, why they felt so, and when they had begun to feel so. When they reached the depressing West Side street where Edith lived, they hadn’t half finished.[Pg 151]

The taxi stopped, and the driver turned around, so that they couldn’t go on explaining, or even say good-by; but Hardy went into the dingy little vestibule with his Edith.

“Darling girl!” he said. “Shan’t I come upstairs with you and see your aunt?”

He was willing to do anything in the world she wanted, except to leave her; but that was almost impossible. She seemed to him so forlorn, so little and so young. The brightness had left her face now. She was downcast and pale.

When she saw what that did to him, how much it hurt him, she was overcome with remorse.

“Oh, but it doesn’t matter—now!” she said. “Not now—when I have you. Really and truly, Joe, I don’t care a bit!”

Her anxiety to reassure him, to send him away happy, touched Hardy almost beyond endurance. He had always been aware of something wistful, something a little sorrowful about her, like a shadow over her clear beauty. She had been the dearer to him for that. She was a thousand times dearer to him now because she was sad, and must look to him for her happiness. He meant to make her happy—at any cost!

Those words, “at any cost,” did not come consciously into Hardy’s mind. He didn’t really believe that happiness cost anything—or love, either. You found them, suddenly, on your way through life, and of course you had a right to keep what you found.

He did see difficulties, though. His prospects were good, but in his immediate present there were many things that troubled him.

His chief trouble was one which young fellows of twenty-three who want to get married have encountered before. It was money. His salary of twenty-five hundred a year was more than he needed for his own wants, and he had done a very sensible thing—he had begun buying stock in the company that employed him, turning in ten dollars of his salary every week for this purpose. He had four hundred dollars saved in that way, but no one ever repented a folly more heartily than young Hardy now regretted his prudence.

He couldn’t touch that money. He knew very well that one of Mr. Plummer’s strongest reasons for promoting him was that infernal stock he was buying. If he were to sell it, or to stop his payments, Mr. Plummer would want to know why, and Hardy’s prospects would be in jeopardy. He couldn’t marry without those prospects, nor could he very well get married without the money.

Well, any wise and experienced person could solve that difficulty for him. He must wait. Even Edith, who was neither wise nor experienced, told him that. They were having lunch together a few days after their great discovery of happiness, and Hardy had been explaining the situation in detail.

“But I’d be a hundred times more miserable if I thought I was doing you any harm!” said Edith.

As soon as the words were spoken, she realized that she had made a serious mistake, and tried hastily to remedy it.

He knew better, though. Without even having seen her, he was becoming acquainted with Edith’s aunt, and learning to appreciate her talent for making people miserable. Edith never told him about it. It wasn’t her habit to complain, but to any one who watched her as Hardy did, the thing was obvious.

One evening, when he was walking to the Subway with her, she had to stop in the drug store to buy a bottle of “nerve tonic” at two dollars a bottle.

“Oh, no!” she replied. “It’s for Aunt Bessie. She’s in very poor health, you know.”

He did not fail to notice Edith’s troubled, face and rising color; and the answer that Aunt Bessie was “terribly nervous” seemed to him to explain a good deal.[Pg 152]

Then he learned that Aunt Bessie was upset if Edith was a few minutes late in getting home, and that she would be still more painfully upset if Edith should even suggest going out in the evening.

“She’s alone all day, you see,” the girl explained, “and it does seem selfish to go out again.”

“Oh, very selfish!” Hardy interrupted. “And what about Saturday afternoon and Sunday?”

“Well, you see, Joe, she’s alone all week, and—and she hasn’t any one but me. Anyhow, Joe, we see each other every day in the office, and we can have lunch together, can’t we?”

He said nothing more just then, for he could see that Edith was unhappy and anxious. For those first few days even having lunch with her was almost too good to be true; but the day when Edith said they must wait, and Hardy said he wouldn’t, was Monday, after he had spent a horrible Sunday without a glimpse of her.

Again she pointed out that they saw each other every day in the office, and could have lunch together. She added that they had only been engaged five days.

“I know,” said he. “It would be all right if I could see you, but you won’t let me come to your house, and you won’t go out with me.”

“Yes, and we can have lunch together, for the next ten years, I suppose!” Hardy interrupted.

“It won’t be anything like ten years, you silly boy! At the end of the year, when you—”

“Yes, and do you know what’s going to happen then? They’re going to send me to Europe, with Preble, for two months.”

For a moment she was silent, overcome by this news. Then she made a gallant attempt at a reasonable, calm, businesslike manner.

Her smile was a very poor one, and her voice betrayed her. Instead of helping her, Hardy became unmanageable.

“Look here!” he said. “September, October, November—that’s three months that we can have lunch together. Then I’ll be away for December and January: so perhaps after five months I may have a chance to—kiss you once more, if your aunt doesn’t mind. Five whole months, and you won’t let me see you alone for five minutes!”

“You’re a little too reasonable,” said he. “If you really cared for me—”

There is no better way to begin a quarrel than with those classic words. Edith grew angry, but her anger was such a mild little thing compared to Hardy’s that she took refuge in flight, and left him sitting alone in the restaurant. All was over!

That afternoon they had four hours to think over their words. When Edith came downstairs, Hardy was waiting for her in the lobby.

“Edith!” he said. “Edith! I don’t know how I could have been such a brute! Edith, I can’t—”

“Oh, Joe, you weren’t! I know it must seem heartless to you for me to talk that way: but you don’t understand, Joe!”

As they walked toward the Subway, she tried to tell him. It was the hottest hour of that sultry September day, and she looked so jaded, so pale, that he was frightened. He held her arm, his tall head bent, to catch every word, his eyes fixed on her face.

“You see,” she said, “I owe so much to Aunt Bessie. She took me when I was a tiny girl, after mother died, and she gave up everything for me—everything, Joe! She used the little bit of money she had to send me to a good school, and when that was gone she went to work. That’s what ruined her health—working in an office; and she did it for me, Joe. If she’s a little—a little trying now, I—you do see, don’t you, Joe?”

“Yes, my darling girl, I see,” he answered, more gently than she had ever heard him speak before. “I think—see here, Edith! Could you spare time for a soda?”

She thought she could. They went into a shop near by, and sat down at a little table in a dark corner. He stretched out his hand toward hers, which lay on the table, but he drew it back again. He wasn’t going to do anything that might bother her, never again. He would be patient, he would do anything in the world she wanted. He was sick with remorse and alarm at her pallor and fatigue.

“I’ll do whatever you want, Edith,” he said. “Only—I love you so! If you[Pg 153] would just tell me more about yourself! It’s hard not to know.”

“As if I didn’t understand! Oh, Joe, I worried so awfully about you that time you got wet! If you had been sick, I couldn’t have been with you. I didn’t even know who there’d be to take care of you.”

“Don’t!” he said suddenly. “Please don’t, little Edith! I don’t need much taking care of. It’s you! Do you mind telling me what—how you—how it is with you financially?”

She did tell him, readily and frankly, and he was appalled. She was supporting herself and her aunt on her meager salary. Two persons entirely dependent on this slip of a girl!

“Edith!” he said. “Won’t you marry me now? My salary’s enough for us to scrape along on.”

“We can take your aunt to live with us for a while, until I’ve got my raise.”

“You couldn’t! Don’t you see, Joe, that that would spoil everything? We couldn’t start like that. But if you’d—”

She reminded him that he had promised her to do whatever she wanted, and he replied that he would do so—except in this instance.

“Well, I won’t let you have the burden of taking care of Aunt Bessie,” she told him. “It’s bad enough for you to think of getting married, anyhow, when you’re so young, and just at the beginning of a wonderful career—”

“Young, am I? Then what about you?” he asked. “No! When you marry me, you’ll be done with offices. That’s something I won’t argue about.”

She pretended to be angry, but in her heart she adored him when he was magnificent and arbitrary.

III

“It isn’t really a lie,” said Edith. “I really do go to the French class.”

“It’s too near a lie to suit me,” said Hardy bluntly. “I’m sick of this hole-and-corner business. It’s—can’t you see for yourself that it’s degrading to both of us? Edith, can’t we be honest about this? Let me go and see your aunt, and tell her the whole thing. If she makes a row, I dare say I can live through it.”

They were coming near to one of the gates of Central Park. Their walk together was almost at an end—a walk which only a few weeks ago would have been a delight almost unsupportable, a thing to lie awake at night remembering, to think of all through a busy day. Now that rapture, that glamour, was gone. With all their love, their hope, their blind tenderness for each other, they were bitter at heart.

It was a wild, bright October evening. The moon seemed rocking in the fitful clouds, the wind sprang like a kitten along the paths after the dry leaves, the bare trees creaked stiff and resistant. All the world was in motion, restless, hurried. All things were free—except themselves. It was intolerable to Hardy, an affront to his fine young pride in himself, his magnificent assurance. It was petty, base, shameful!

“I’m tired of hearing that,” she replied, in a queer, unsteady voice. “You’re always saying that—always blaming me; and you know we’ve got to go on like this—or not go on at all!”

“We haven’t. That’s what I’m always trying to tell you,” he said stormily. “We don’t have to meet this way—in this beastly, lying way—pretending to your aunt that your French lesson is for two hours instead of one, so that we can have one hour a week alone together. Tell her! Let her be upset! She’ll have to know some time. Then at least I can come to see you in your own place, decently and honorably.”

“I will not tell her now! You do[Pg 154]n’t realize what it’ll mean to Aunt Bessie. You don’t care. She hasn’t any one but me. I won’t tell her now, and let her have all that long time to think about—losing me. She’s going to be happy as long as possible.”

“Come on,” he said, “or you’ll be ten minutes late, and she’ll have a nervous attack and keep you up all night, as usual!”

But when he felt how she was shivering in her thin jacket, a terrible compunction seized him.

“Oh, Edith!” he cried. “Edith, never mind all that! Darling little Edith, it’s only our affair, after all! Let’s get married now, before I go!”

“You know we can’t,” she said, with a sob. “Not when you’re so obstinate and—and unkind. You know we couldn’t manage for ourselves and Aunt Bessie, too, in any place where she’d be comfortable, just on your salary; and you’re so unreasonable about my job!”

“Look here, Edith—I’ll sell that blamed stock, and that’ll provide for Aunt Bessie until I’ve got my raise.”

“You won’t! You shan’t!” She pulled her arm away from him, and roughly wiped away the tears running down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare to mention such a thing! I’m not going to ruin your whole life just for—”

“Well, you’ve ruined it!” said Hardy. “I can tell you that, if it’s any satisfaction to you. I don’t care now what happens to me, or whether I go on or not. You’ve shown me how little you care for me. You’ve—Edith!”

She had started running along the path, but he easily overtook her. All at once their arms were about each other, Edith’s wet cheek against his, and all their pain, their bitterness, lost in a passion of tenderness and remorse.

Still Hardy went about the office, magnificent as ever, very well aware of being a remarkable young fellow, who was to be made assistant buyer at twenty-three, a man talked about, admired, and envied. He was still proud of himself, still sure of himself, but some of the magic had gone out of it, some of the zest. He couldn’t look forward to that trip to Europe with unmixed joy now.

Indeed, all the joys he had at this time were so mixed with anxiety and impatience that he could scarcely recognize them. He dreaded leaving Edith. He imagined all sorts of misfortunes that might befall her in his absence. Sometimes he even resented his splendid future, because it so burdened and harassed the present. He wanted to live now, not to wait.

Worst of all was the humiliation he endured from their furtive and hasty meetings. He had never before in his life been furtive, or even cautious. He had lived boldly and rashly, in the light of day, and it hurt and angered him to do otherwise. He wanted to love boldly and rashly. He wanted to be proud of his love.

He couldn’t understand Edith’s viewpoint. Her life had been so repressed, so weighted down by unjust and inordinate demands upon her, that she was thankful for the briefest minutes of happiness. If she could meet Hardy for ten minutes on a street corner, she was joyous for those ten minutes—when he would let her be. He tried to let her. He would watch her coming toward him—such a gallant little figure!—and he would make up his mind to be tender and considerate; but when she was with him, when he saw her ill dressed and ill nourished, and couldn’t help her, when he saw her glance at her watch even when he was speaking, his good resolutions only too often vanished, and he reproached her bitterly.

She didn’t endure his reproaches meekly. He wouldn’t have loved her, if she had. On the contrary, she replied to him vigorously, and so many, many times they had left each other in anger, to be paid for later by hours of remorse.

Neither of them was quarrelsome by nature, nor was there any lack of real harmony between them. They were both generous, quick to forgive, eager to understand, passionately loyal to each other. Every one of their disagreements would have been quickly adjusted and forgotten, if they had had time; but they never did have time, and neither did this fellow of twenty-three and this girl of twenty have any greater amount of patience and ripe wisdom than others of their age.

Sometimes a sort of panic seized them, and they felt it necessary to “explain.” They had fallen into the habit of taking a little more than the allotted hour for lunch. Though Edith had been solemnly warned[Pg 155] by her superior, she found it impossible to leave Joe in the middle of a speech. He was so unreasonable about her always being in a hurry.

So there was lunch almost every day, and the walk to the Subway, and that hour stolen from the French class once a week, all through October and November, until the trip to Europe was only a few weeks ahead of them. Mr. Plummer hadn’t actually told Hardy he was to go, but the thing was understood. Mr. Loomis, the buyer, was taking pains to train him, and had once or twice said such things as:

“It’ll probably be before Christmas,” said Hardy. “The idea is that I’m not to be told until Hallock is gone, because I might slack up on my present work. Silly, childish way to do—as if it was a treat for a good boy!”

“Well, it will be a treat, won’t it?” said Edith. “You’ve always—”

He looked across the table at her. The cold air had brought no color into her cheeks. She looked weary, downcast. He could see that her smile was an effort, and in her eyes was the look that he couldn’t bear.

“No!” he said. “I wish to Heaven I wasn’t going! I mean it! If I have to leave you like this—”

“Joe,” she began, and was silent for a minute. “I—I know it’s selfish of me; but—oh, Joe, when I think of your going away—”

Mr. Plummer, who was also taking lunch in that restaurant, saw his promising young man lean across the table and lay his hand on that of Miss Patterson from the auditing department.

“Too bad!” thought Mr. Plummer. “A boy with a remarkable future before him—and getting himself entangled before he’s begun! Too bad! Too bad!”

“I won’t go, Edith! I’ll stay here with you. Nothing else counts with me but you—only you. I’ll—”

“I want you to go, Joe, darling,” said she, with quivering lips; “but I thought—only I know you wouldn’t! I—if we could just get married before you go, and not tell any one till you come back—just so that we’d really belong to each other—then it wouldn’t be so hard!”

And Hardy, the bold, the rash, the magnificent, who hated anything secret and furtive, looked only once at her dear face, and agreed.

But she didn’t look sorry. She sat down at her desk, flushed and a little out of breath, and, to Mr. Dunne’s great displeasure, there was a smile hovering about her lips.

She couldn’t explain to Mr. Dunne that this was a most pardonable lateness, and not at all likely to happen again. Going to the City Hall for a marriage license wouldn’t occupy much of her time in the future. Thinking of this, she smiled again—and lost her job. Mr. Dunne didn’t like people who smiled when they were late.

So it happened that just when she badly needed a smile she hadn’t one. The wretched little imitation she gave to Hardy, an hour later, didn’t deceive him for an instant. He stopped beside her desk—a thing he had never done before.

No use to tell him that he shouldn’t stand there and talk to her! He knew that very well, and he didn’t care. A mighty rage filled him. Edith, his Edith, his own girl, to be discharged and humiliated like this!

“Look here!” said he. “I won’t have you here like this. If Dunne told you to go, then go now. Good Lord! Haven’t you any pride?”

She was too wretched to be angry at him. She did get on her hat and jacket, and, in full view of every one. Hardy walked out of the office with her at three o’clock on a busy afternoon.

“We’ll take it now,” he had said: “and[Pg 156] whenever we see anything especially good in the way of furniture, we’ll buy it. Then, when I come back, we’ll have a place of our own all ready for us.”

It wasn’t quite what they wanted, but Hardy had very little money just then, and their only time for house hunting was what they had been able to pilfer from their lunch hour; so they had taken the first one that seemed at all suitable. It consisted of three tiny rooms in a remodeled house west of Central Park.

They had already become inordinately fond of this future home. To be sure, there was nothing in it except a barrel containing a Limoges dinner set, which Hardy had bought from a shipment received at the office; but Edith had made a flying visit and measured the windows for curtains, and after that she could look upon the place as her own.

This afternoon, when Hardy opened the door with his latchkey, the place was obviously a future home. It was bare, bleak, and dusty, with slanting sun rays falling across the ill laid board floor of what was going to be the sitting room.

The door closed behind them, and there they were, alone, with plenty of time for talking now, and neither of them said one word. Hardy began walking about. His footsteps made a loud and somehow a melancholy sound. His voice in the empty little rooms was not at all his confident office voice, but boyish, and, to Edith, terribly touching.

She sat down on the barrel, struggling against her despair and misery, while he moved about in the kitchen, mocked by a gas stove with no gas in it, and water taps that gave forth no water. She knew how he felt; she knew what he would say.

“But I won’t!” she thought. “I’ll get another job. I won’t let him take care of Aunt Bessie now. I won’t! I won’t! Not now, when he’s just beginning.”

If she were making resolves in the sitting room, so was Hardy in the kitchen. He hadn’t been singled out by Mr. Plummer because of his gentleness and consideration. He had a remarkable future because he was remarkably persistent and clear-sighted about getting his own way, and Edith was no match for him.

“No!” said he. “No more jobs! We’ll tell your aunt now, and we’ll get married to-morrow, as we planned, and we’ll move in here.”

“We’ll see Aunt Bessie now. Look here, little Edith! It’s got to be this way. I couldn’t have my wife running about looking for a job. I couldn’t go away and leave you working in a strange office. It was bad enough in the old place. Look here, Edith, don’t you think you can be happy with me? Don’t you love me enough?”

“I love you too much, Joe! It’s not fair to you. You’ll—oh, Joe, you’ll have to sell your stock, and Mr. Plummer—”

“Edith,” he said, “I’ve been thinking lately—I don’t know how to put it very well—but it seems to me that maybe it’s a mistake to live so much in the future. Suppose there wasn’t any future—for us? Suppose something happened to one of us? Edith, I can’t stand thinking of that! Look here! Let’s just live now, and not be afraid of what’s going to happen. Let’s start this thing”—he stopped for a moment—“with courage and confidence,” he finished.

She put her hand on his cheek and turned his head so that she could look into his honest, steady eyes.

“Let’s!” she said, with a very unsteady little smile. “I feel that way, too, Joe. We’ll begin this minute, and unpack the china, just so that we’ll—we’ll feel at home!”

Hardy turned his back upon Mr. Plummer, and looked out of the window. It was a cold, rainy day. The people far below on the street were hurrying by under umbrellas.

He couldn’t, at that moment, say anything more. Something had risen into his throat and silenced him. He would have liked to speak, to tell the man who had shown so kindly an interest in him that he regretted his hasty and violent words. He hadn’t meant all that he said. He had come to tell Mr. Plummer that he wanted to sell his stock. He had listened, as patiently as he could, while his employer remonstrated with him. He had endured a pretty stiff lecture upon his recent slackness and lack of attention to work, because[Pg 157] he knew he deserved it; but when Mr. Plummer undertook to warn him about “entangling” himself with that “young woman in the auditing department;” all his genuine respect for his chief had vanished in an overwhelming anger. That “young woman” was his Edith!

“I’m sorry, Hardy,” said Mr. Plummer again. He was looking at the boy with an odd expression on his lined face, a look half respectful, half sorrowful. As a man, he liked Hardy the better for his outburst, but as a business man he deplored it.

“I wish you the best of luck, my boy,” he said. “Refer to me at any time.”

Off he went, with his words of apology unsaid, with five years of friendly interest unrewarded, and with his own heart like lead. He walked through the office for the last time, and into the corridor, leaving so much behind him.

“Oh, Joe!” she cried. “I found a place uptown where they promised to deliver the furniture this afternoon. Imagine! And I got the dearest material for curtains! I brought a sample to show you.”

Here she was, chattering about curtains, after all that had happened! He remembered how he had left her the evening before, after a horrible interview with her aunt. He remembered her pitiful attempts to soothe and comfort that hysterical old demon, and her anguish when she failed so utterly, and was told that if she married “that man” she would be cast off—except for the trifling communications necessary to continuing her support of the martyr.

“And I couldn’t sleep for worrying about her!” he thought bitterly. “I thought she’d be ill, and look at her now—perfectly happy, talking about curtains!”

“Come on!” he said aloud, and then stopped, with a frown. “Haven’t you any umbrella?” he asked.

“I have one,” she replied, “but not here. It wasn’t raining when I started.”

How could he have imagined that she was happy, or that her mind was filled with thoughts of curtains? That small, gallant, smiling thing, so pale, so troubled, with the shadow of her suffering dark in her eyes!

“It’s nearly twelve, Joe,” she said, looking at her watch. “We haven’t much time.”

“Oh, yes, we have!” he told her. “We have any amount of time, for I’m never going back there.”

“You’ve got a young man with a remarkably uncertain future,” he said. “Never mind—we’ll start a new future. Anyhow, I shan’t have to go to Europe now, and leave you.”

“I did it myself,” he said sturdily, “and I’m glad. Thank Heaven, we’ve got time, now, for a nice, peaceful wedding![Pg 158]”

His Own People

MRS. DENIS LANIER’S FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HER HUSBAND’S FAMILY PROVES TO BE A TRYING ORDEAL

AFTER each stroke of the brush her bright hair flew out in glittering threads, and in the strong light that centered upon the mirror her vivid little face seemed framed in a sort of unearthly radiance. She looked at the reflected image, at her great, solemn amber eyes, at her white shoulders, at that sparkling flood of hair.

A brief moment of joy that was, however, for almost at once came other thoughts that put an end to it. She grew disconsolate and troubled. With a sigh she threw down the hairbrush, and, going over to the table, picked up her book. Being pretty wasn’t going to do her any good. On the contrary, it might well be another charge against her, another offense in a list already very long.

And it was not so! Her incomparable Denis had seen and loved and praised all those things in her heart of which she was honestly proud. He loved her because she was valiant and loyal and tender.

“Of course, he does like my looks,” she thought; “but even when I’m old and ugly, he’ll still feel the same toward me. He said so—and I know it!”

But how was she to make these terrible people see all that? What she needed for the ordeal before her was dignity, assurance, poise—that was it. She had even gone so far as to buy a book on etiquette, to find the secret. Useless! No situation like hers was mentioned in the portentous volume. The bride received a visit from her husband’s family, or he brought her to visit them, but there was no help offered to a bride who was suddenly commanded to go all alone to meet her new people for the first time.

She looked through the pages again. “The Etiquette of Weddings”—there had been precious little of that about their wedding—just she and Denis and a strange clergyman, with a deaconess and the sexton for witnesses. “The Bride’s Family”—hers was hundreds of miles away, in Maine. “The Groom’s Family”—she closed the book violently.

It seemed like treachery toward her own people, this fear of Denis’s family. There was no reason on earth why she shouldn’t go to them with her head high, no reason why she shouldn’t have poise. She must; she would summon it up from the depth of her anxious heart, so that she might do credit to her Denis.

“And they may be very nice to me,” she said to herself, without for an instant believing in the probability.

She remembered the letters that Denis had received from his mother after he had written to tell her of his engagement. He had never read a word of them to Emily, but his face told her enough, and the black gloom that settled over him. He admitted that his mother wanted him to wait—he didn’t say how long, or for what, but Emily knew very well. His mother was hoping that time would cure his deplorable and unaccountable folly of wishing to marry an American stenographer.

Well, it hadn’t. Their engagement had lasted five months—not a very happy time for either of them, because of the depression that seized Denis every time he had a letter from his people, or was in any way reminded of them. Emily had endured this with admirable patience. She knew that he loved her with all his honest heart, that he was proud of her, and that he could[Pg 160]n’t help his queer, tribal notions about his family. He was always saying that “a fellow owes it to his family” to do this or that, and it was the strongest possible proof of his love for Emily that he clung to her in spite of their opposition.

Still, no matter how willing she was to understand Denis’s point of view, Emily couldn’t be expected to share his reverence for his relatives. On the contrary, she often found it very hard to hold her tongue—as, for instance, on the day when he came to her with the air of an absolutely desperate man, and told her that he was ordered off to New Orleans on forty-eight hours’ notice, to survey a damaged hull, and that they must be married before he left.

When she objected, he threatened to throw up the whole business—that flourishing business as a marine surveyor which was the very apple of his eye—because he could not and would not leave Emily unless he left her as his wife. She was secretly delighted by this impetuous and domineering conduct, and sorry for him, too, because he was so obviously upset; and yet she was exasperated. He couldn’t hide the fact that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in affronting his sacrosanct people for her sake.

After the wedding he had sent a cable announcing it to his mother. Then a reckless gayety had come over him, like that of a man who has nothing more to lose.

“I don’t care!” said Emily to herself, with tears in her eyes. “It’s all part of his darlingness. He’s so terribly loyal!”

Of course, he hadn’t imagined that his family would descend upon Emily like this, when he was away. He had expected them to stay in England, where they belonged. He would have been appalled at the thought of this meeting.

The latest development had come upon Emily like a thunderbolt. That morning a letter had been brought up to her, and, without the faintest suspicion, she had opened it to read:

She had sent a messenger boy with her acceptance, because she knew that that was what Denis would have wished; but she couldn’t make the best of it, couldn’t recapture the smiling, careless bravery that Denis so loved in her. She had had courage enough to leave her dear, shabby old home at eighteen and go off to try her luck in the wide world. She had been able to give Denis the most gallant, bright farewell. She had faced more than one black moment in her twenty years, but she could not face Denis’s family untroubled.

She had given herself two hours to dress in, and she needed every second of the time. Her prettiness seemed to ebb away with every breath she drew. That radiant hair was an unruly tangle when she tried to put it up. The brightness fled from her face, leaving it pale and strained. The dark dress that Denis had admired so much was admirable no longer, but austerely plain and grievously unbecoming. Emily could have wept at her own image in the mirror.

“I look so—so mean!” she cried, with a sob. “Such a meek, scared, silly little object!”

This wouldn’t do. The thing that the serious Denis had loved best of all in her was her absurd, delightful gayety. She straightened her shoulders and drew a long breath.

“You know,” she said to her own reflection, “Denis picked you out from all the other girls in the world, and now you’ve simply got to show the reason why. Even if you’re hideous, you needn’t be dismal. Here goes!”

She had been Mrs. Denis Lanier for only five weeks, had had a check book and money to spend for the same short time, and it was still a little intoxicating. She ordered a taxi from her room by telephone, and when it was announced she went down into the lobby almost her own debonair self again. Think of Mrs. Denis Lanier, in a fur coat and a pearl necklace, getting into her taxi!

Her father was a professor in a small New England college, and Emily had been brought up with a full understanding of the woeful discrepancy between the tastes and the incomes of professors and their families. She had learned to be happy without any of the things for which her young heart thirsted. It was the very essence of her nature to be happy; but it cannot be denied that she was a hundred times more happy now that she possessed some share of worldly goods. She wished[Pg 161] and tried to be high-minded, and still she couldn’t forget her pearl necklace.

Mrs. Lanier was established in a hotel of the sort which Emily had never yet entered. Directly she entered its august portals, she felt herself dwindle again. What were her fur coat and her necklace here? Who was Mrs. Denis Lanier? Nothing at all!

She went up to the desk and told the haughty young man there that Mrs. Denis Lanier wished to see Mrs. Cecil Lanier; and then she waited.

It was the waiting that unnerved her. If some one had come at once, if she had been taken upstairs without delay, her courage might have held out; but to sit there, alone and unregarded, while fifteen endless minutes went by, was too much for her. She began seriously to contemplate running away.

“She’s doing it on purpose—just to be rude and hateful!” she thought. “I won’t stay! Denis wouldn’t want me to stay. It’s humiliating and—”

She was aware then that some one had come up behind her and stopped at her side, looking down at her. What is more, she felt certain that it was a critical, hostile look.

“Very well!” said she to herself. “Go ahead and stare! It doesn’t bother me the least little bit in the world!”

She sat quite still, trying valiantly not to care; but it was unendurable. She felt her face flush. She stirred uneasily, and very soon she turned, to glance up into a pair of glacial blue eyes.

“Yes,” said Emily. “I’m—I am. And you’re—this is Denis’s mother?”

For a moment they regarded each other in silence, and each with the same thought, almost audible:

Of course Denis’s mother was like this—a handsome, gray-haired woman, tall, rather angular, with a disdainful nose and a faint, chilly little smile. In spite of her queer, stiff, high-waisted figure, her very unbecoming coiffure, her positively ugly black satin dress, she produced an effect of extraordinary magnificence.

“Cecil, my younger son, called in at Denis’s office directly we landed, and he was told that Denis had gone away,” Mrs. Lanier went on, without noticing the interruption. “As soon as we had his cable, we arranged to come. It seems to me very odd that he should run off like that! However”—she paused for a moment, looking carefully at Emily—“perhaps we’d better dine upstairs, alone,” she added, “instead of in the restaurant. I know quite a number of people here.”

As they walked together toward the lift, she tried to smile, to talk brightly; but she was terribly hurt—even more hurt than angry.

But this was Denis’s mother, a person of supreme importance in his world. He couldn’t help but be influenced by her opinion; so her opinion must be favorable.

Mrs. Lanier seemed surprised that any one should imagine her comfortable here. She smiled wearily.

“I’ve been in the States before,” she answered. “I dare say I shall do very well for a time. I’m sorry, though, to hear that you and Denis are going to live about in hotels.”

“But we’re not! We’re going to start housekeeping just as soon as he—”

“Denis is very domestic, like his father. I’m sorry to think of his having to live about in hotels,” Mrs. Lanier went on. “However—”

She preceded Emily down a corridor. At the end she opened a door, and they entered a small sitting room.

“We must have a little chat,” said Mrs. Lanier, “before Cecil comes in.”

She took up a packet of letters from the console near her, and began looking over them.

“Let me see,” she said. “Ah, here it is! ‘She is only twenty, and very young for her age,’ Denis tells me. Are you really? And then he says—let me see—‘a remarkably sweet disposition.’ That’s very nice, I’m sure. ‘Her people are thoroughly respectable, decent people, but [Pg 162]they’—well, no matter. ‘She is a very clever and amusing girl.’”

This went on for an intolerable time. Extracts from poor Denis’s letters were read aloud, as if for purposes of comparison with the real Emily, and from time to time Mrs. Lanier asked very direct questions about her parents, her education, her financial position. In the end, Emily had an excellent picture of herself as she appeared to Denis’s mother—a silly, awkward girl, without money or position, who had somehow cajoled a fine young man to his destruction.

She made no attempt to defend herself. She had no great talent for that. She was a sensitive, impulsive creature, quite lacking in self-satisfaction. Moreover, she was very young and inexperienced, and perhaps a little too willing to learn.

She began to think that she really was the contemptible creature that Mrs. Lanier believed her to be. A sense of guilt oppressed her. She sat before her imperturbable judge, pale and downcast, answering the older woman’s questions in a low, unsteady voice.

Presently Mrs. Lanier had an ally in her daughter Cynthia, a cool, casual blond girl, who looked as if she could be beautiful if she liked, but didn’t think it worth trying. Cynthia didn’t ask questions. That, too, she seemed to think not worth trying. She simply began conversations which died at once, because Emily could take no share in them.

There was really no malice in Cynthia—only a measureless indifference to other people and their unimportant feelings. When she discovered that Emily had never set foot in Paris, had never been to the opera or to a race, and bought her clothes in department stores, she saw that poor Denis’s wife was hopeless, and simply stopped talking.

By this time Emily quite agreed with her. The window was open, and Mrs. Lanier had asked her daughter to shut off “that horrible heat.” In a temperature that caused Emily to shiver in misery, those two superior creatures sat in calm comfort.

Very well—if they could endure the cold, in their low-cut frocks, then Emily, in a cloth dress, could also endure it, and would. She would endure their little stinging, icy words, too—every one of them.

In desperation she made an effort to imitate Cynthia’s cool and casual air. A pitiable failure! There was precious little coolness in her strained smile, her faltering words. The last trace of poise had slipped from her. She no longer tried to hold her own, but simply to endure.

“They’ll tell Denis,” she thought, over and over again. “Nothing could really make him change toward me; but oh, this will hurt him so! If only they had waited! Oh, if only they had waited until—until I was a little older and—and had more poise!”

A waiter came in to lay the table, and Mrs. Lanier ordered a dinner of all the things that Emily most heartily disliked—such a cold, flat sort of dinner!

“Cecil should be here by now,” observed Mrs. Lanier, with a glance at the clock. “He promised to make a particular effort to come, on Denis’s account. Poor Cecil!”

Emily wondered in what way she had injured Cecil, that he should be sighed over in this fashion.

It was now after eight o’clock, but Mrs. Lanier decided to wait for the poor boy until half past eight; so there they sat, in the icy room, and all of them silent now. Cynthia had given up, Mrs. Lanier had asked all the questions in her mind, and certainly Emily was not inclined to introduce any topic on her own account. She was stiff with cold, and she fancied her miserable heart was numbed, too. She didn’t care very much about anything.

III

There in the doorway stood a most engaging young fellow—a real human being, thought Emily, a creature warm and happy, and able to smile. Smile he did, and directly at Emily.

She looked up at him, half incredulous, but in his face there was no mockery, no disdain—nothing but a very frank approbation. She knew that he thought her pretty. In the bright glow of his admiration her prettiness seemed suddenly to come to life again, her frozen heart beat faster, and color rose in her cheeks. A friend had come!

What is more, Cecil was a powerful[Pg 163] friend. He had a cheerful, domineering sort of way with his mother and sister, and it was obvious that they idolized him. He said that Emily was chilly, and that the window was to be closed and the heat turned on. They suffered terribly, but did not complain. He consulted Emily about the proposed menu. He insisted upon knowing what she really liked, and saw that she got it. He made her talk and made her laugh, because he was so persistently cheerful and silly, and his mother and sister looked on with an air of patient indulgence.

Back came all her native gayety. She didn’t fear or dislike these frigid women any more. She wasn’t a meek, scared, silly little object now; she was the girl Denis loved, and they would have to love her, too. She felt sure of herself, radiant, happy, no longer alien and oppressed; and beyond all measure grateful to her new friend, her brother Cecil.

Nothing had been said by any of the Laniers about seeing her again, and Emily had consulted her book on etiquette in vain for a hint. She was the more disturbed by this because she had had a letter from Denis—a solemn, miserable letter, filled with careful descriptions of the scenery and the weather. Through it all, in every line, she could read his longing for her and his great anxiety about her. Such a dear, stupid letter—honest and serious and manly, like Denis himself. He knew well enough how to love, but nothing at all about making love.

He hadn’t heard yet of his family’s arrival in New York, and, thought Emily, he was not going to get the news from them first. Very likely his mother would write to him by the same mail, but he would surely read Emily’s letter first, and he should have her account of the meeting.

Just what ought she to tell him? She would say, of course, that she had dined with his people.

“And then shall I say I’m going to call on them? Or should I invite them here to dinner?” she thought. “Or ought I just to wait?”

She was in her room, struggling with this problem, when Mr. Cecil Lanier was announced. She hastened down into the lounge, very much pleased. Here was something else to tell Denis. There was at least one member of his family that she could praise with candor.

She welcomed Cecil with frank pleasure, and he, on his part, seemed so remarkably glad to see her again, so very friendly, that a new and daring idea sprang up in her mind. It might be more diplomatic and more polite to wait a little, however. In spite of his jolly, friendly manner, there was something rather impressive about Cecil. He wasn’t to be treated too casually.

He was really younger than Denis, but he seemed older, not only because his face was a little worn, and his smiling eyes a little tired, but because of his affable worldliness. Denis, in his earnestness, his straightforward simplicity, had sometimes seemed quite boyish to Emily, but there was no trace of boyishness in Cecil. He was a charming fellow, handsome, courteous, and amusing, and he knew it. Emily had mighty little worldly wisdom, but she did not lack intuition, and she thought—and rightly—that Cecil would be extraordinarily kind and obliging to any one he liked, and by no means so to those he did not like; so she decided to make him like her.

It was not difficult. He had already been attracted to her the evening before, and he was delighted with her this afternoon. The time fairly flew. They had tea together at five o’clock; and after what seemed only a few minutes, it was seven.

“Oh!” said Emily. “I’d like to, but—aren’t there other things you have to do?”

“I never have anything to do,” Cecil assured her cheerfully. “That’s the great advantage of being hopelessly incompetent. I can’t do anything, you know.”

“I don’t believe that. I’m sure you could do almost anything, if you tried,” said Emily.

She hadn’t meant to say it in quite that tone, or with quite that admiring glance, and she grew a little red as he returned the glance with interest.

“I’m never going to try,” said he. “Once you start, people begin to expect things of you.” He paused. “But if there’s anything you’d like done, Emily—”

She had no more poise left then than you could put into a thimble. She had a favor to ask of Cecil, and she felt sure he would grant it. She was determined to ask it,[Pg 164] too, and saw no reason why she should not, and yet—and yet, in spite of his kindliness, Cecil made her uneasy and confused.

“I just thought,” she began, “that if you were going to write to Denis—”

She did not look there, but down at her clasped hands. After a glance around the empty tea room, Cecil bent forward and took one of these hands.

“Look here!” he said again. “Do you mean—you poor little kid!—do you mean there’s something you don’t like to tell him yourself? Denis is such a confoundedly high-minded—”

“Oh, no!” cried Emily, shocked. “Mercy, no! I only thought—if you were going to write—” Well, she had to finish it now. “I thought maybe you’d tell him that you’d met me, and that you—you didn’t think I was so horrible.”

“I see!” he said, with a faint smile. “I don’t think you’re exactly horrible, Emily; but still, I don’t think I’d better write and tell old Denis so.”

Emily, looking at him, did see, in a vague, uneasy fashion. She did not care to ask Cecil for any explanation. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk to him any more. She made all sorts of polite excuses, which he accepted very good-humoredly, and they parted in the most friendly way; but in her heart, Emily never wanted to see him again.

She cried herself to sleep that night, longing for her dear, honest, comprehensible Denis, and wishing she need see nobody else but Denis all the rest of her life.

When Cecil came again the next afternoon, she could think of no good reason for refusing to see him. After all, what had she against him? Nothing at all—nothing real. He hadn’t said a word that she could resent. It was only—well, she didn’t know what—something in his smile, in his tired eyes.

“It’s my own fault,” she decided. “I know he’d be all right, if I weren’t so—silly. If I had more poise—”

This afternoon she had an unusual amount of poise, for she had had a letter from Denis that made her happy. She was Denis’s wife, and she really didn’t care a snap of her fingers about any one else on earth.

“Let’s go out somewhere,” he suggested. “It would do me no end of good—that is, if you’ll be jolly and a little bit kind to me. I’m not happy to-day, Emily.”

She believed that. She fancied that perhaps he was never very happy, and she felt sorry for him. She was still more sorry when she saw how quickly he responded to her own cheerful mood.

It cannot be denied that this very superficiality of his made him a most engaging companion. They took a taxi up to the Botanical Gardens, went into the hemlock forest there, and wandered about for two hours, breaking the enchanted stillness with their careless, happy talk, without a moment’s constraint or weariness. Away from hotels and family conventions, Cecil was a very different fellow. His polite sophistication vanished, and with it his misleading pretense of being a cheerful idiot. He wasn’t that. He was clever, adroit, and by no means apathetic.

As the sun was beginning to sink, they strolled out of the forest and across the hilltop and the smooth meadows, past the greenhouses, to the entrance. It was growing chilly, and they were tired and furiously hungry.

“We’ll have tea now,” said Cecil. “Please don’t always object, Emily!”

So they took another taxi down town, to a sedate little tea room that Emily suggested, and after tea he left her at her hotel.

Emily, too, was happy. She wanted to rush upstairs and write all about it to Denis. He was always pleased when she spent her time out of doors, and he looked upon walking as a solemn duty. He said that she didn’t walk nearly enough—that no American girls did.

With a cordial smile, he handed her a note. She recognized the handwriting as her mother-in-law’s, and took the envelope with no great pleasure. Nor was she in a hurry to open it. She took off her dusty shoes and her street suit, put on slippers and a mandarin coat, let down her glittering flood of hair, and only then, when she[Pg 165] was lying in comfort on the bed, did she open the thing.

Jumping up, she looked in the desk to see if the other was missing. There it was, and, taking it out, she compared the two. Except for the date, they were exactly alike, word for word. That made her laugh, and laughter gave her courage.

“I shan’t go!” she thought. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to go! I don’t have to rush off every time I’m sent for!”

She reached out for the telephone at the bedside and, with admirable poise, asked for and obtained the hotel where the elder Mrs. Lanier was living. It seemed somehow an audacious, almost an arrogant thing, to telephone to that majestic creature while lying in bed with her hair down. And to refuse her invitation! It was an adventure—it was thrilling!

But when Mrs. Lanier’s voice came to her over the wire, all Emily’s exultation fled.

There was more than chilly indifference in her tone. There was actual hostility, and something very like a threat.

“If you will be at home, we shall call after dinner,” said Mrs. Lanier. “Will you be alone?”

“Yes, of course,” Emily answered, with as much cordiality as she could manage.

After she had hung up the receiver, the odd intonation of that word “alone” still sounded in her ears. Wasn’t she always alone? Ever since Denis had gone she had had no visitor, except one of the girls from the office where she had formerly been employed. She had seen no one.

Not that she cared for that. This new life, this new dignity, the delights of buying new books to read and new clothes to wear, of eating in the restaurant downstairs, of going to a matinée now and then, and, above all, of writing immense letters to Denis every evening, had filled her time in the most satisfactory fashion.

“Who did she imagine would be here?” she thought, puzzled. “Some of my awful friends that she couldn’t bear to see? I just wish Nina would drop in again this evening!”

That wasn’t likely, however. In all probability she would have to entertain her difficult guests alone, and, as it couldn’t be avoided, she resolved to make the best of it. Her sitting room was far inferior to theirs, but it was bright with flowers, books and magazines lay about on the table, and it was warm!

“I’ll see if I can’t make them thaw out,” she decided. “Denis would be so pleased!”

No, the warm, bright room couldn’t thaw them. On the contrary, Mrs. Lanier seemed to bring in her own frigid atmosphere. She entered, followed dutifully by her daughter and her son, and, without so much as a smile, bade Emily good evening.

“It’s so nice of you to come to see me!” said Emily. “Isn’t this a cozy little room?”

A chill silence fell. Cecil broke it by asking if he might smoke a cigarette. Emily was about to say “Please do,” when Mrs. Lanier interposed:

With a trace of sulkiness, Emily got up and opened a window. A gust of cold air blew into her face, stirring her bright hair. For an instant she looked down into the street below—the hurrying taxicabs, the hurrying people, all bent on their own concerns, all going somewhere. If she were only out there with Denis!

“I think,” said Mrs. Lanier, “that you had better come to live at my hotel, Emily.”

“Oh, thanks!” said Emily, alarmed. “But I’m very comfortable here. Anyhow, I couldn’t afford it.”

“You ought not to be here alone. You should be with your husband’s family. I’m sure Denis would agree with me.”

“We called yesterday afternoon, and the clerk informed us that you had gone out with a young man. I really don’t think Denis would—”

“I say!” interrupted Cecil, in haste. “Not our affair, is it? I mean—hardly the thing, is it, to bother Emily like this? I mean to say—”

His pleasant, well bred voice trailed off into silence, and Emily, after one amazed glance at his face, was silent too.

So he hadn’t told them, and his eyes implored her not to tell! She sat very still. All the heat of anger had died in her, leaving only bitterness and scorn. She could not endure to look at any of them—not at Cecil, with his contemptible faith in her good nature, not at the hostile and suspicious Mrs. Lanier, not at the utterly indifferent Cynthia.

“Then I shall feel it my duty to write to Denis,” she said, “and explain this unfortunate situation to him. I wish him to know that I have done my best.”

After ceremonious farewells they all left, Cecil last. He turned in the doorway, but Emily was not looking at him. She was already absorbed in the letter she was going to write to Denis.

As soon as the door closed after them, she sat down at the desk, to put down on paper all her burning indignation and resentment. She wrote seven pages at lightning speed. Then she began to read over what she had written, and suddenly she broke into tears.

“No, I can’t!” she sobbed. “Poor Denis! They’re his own people. I can’t say all that to him. Oh, poor Denis!”

So in the end, after her fit of weeping had subsided, she wrote another letter—a cheerful, airy little letter. Part of it was:

And then, moved by an honest and generous impulse to make her Denis happy, she added:

She went to bed happier after that. As for her husband being in the least troubled by any tales of her going out with young men, that was simply absurd. He trusted her just as she trusted him.

VII

Emily was not surprised at receiving a visit from Cecil the next day, and not at all displeased. She wanted to see him—once more.

He was waiting for her, and came toward her as she came out of the lift. It was a relief that he did not smile. He was as grave as she was.

“I can’t expect you to understand,” he went on. “I shouldn’t like you so well if you could understand that sort of thing. No use trying to explain; but I had to come and thank you for being so decent to me. Besides, I wanted to tell you that I would set the thing right—tell them I was the man, you know—before I go away.”

“There’s a ship sailing on Saturday. I’ll try to get a passage on her. Anyhow, I’ll go as soon as I can, Emily, so that I can clear up this thing.”

“You mean that you have to run away because you came to see me?” she cried, with a sort of sorrowful scorn.

“Yes,” he answered. “You see, Emily, I haven’t a penny of my own—nothing but an allowance from mother. She’s a bit—difficult, at times. If she hears that I’ve come to see you, she’ll call it disloyal, d’you see? Fact! She’ll make it too hot for me, so I’d better run home and—”

It was intolerable to hear him so frankly, almost carelessly, admitting his shameful humiliation; and a little while ago she[Pg 167] had thought him a fine and gallant figure, so insouciant, so independent!

“No!” she went on headlong. “Don’t tell your mother! I don’t care, no, not one little bit, what any one thinks! Denis would—”

“It simply doesn’t matter,” she added more calmly. “You needn’t tell any one. You needn’t—run away; only please don’t talk about it any more.”

And so was she—terribly sorry, remembering what an endearing companion he had been, how considerate, how kindly. She was still grateful for those poor little kindnesses. She saw much that was good in Cecil, no malice, no harshness, only that pitiable lack of manly pride and honor, that degradation of which he was not even aware.

“Never mind, Cecil!” she said. “It’s all over now, and forgotten. Let’s just say good-by and—”

“Does it have to be good-by, Emily?” he asked wistfully. “Look here! Suppose I tell mother, and simply face the row? Suppose I write and explain to old Denis? Then why couldn’t you and I go on being friends?”

“Nothing has to be explained to Denis,” she said. “I’ll just tell him, if he asks me; and—I’m sorry, Cecil, but it does have to be good-by. I wouldn’t make any trouble in the family for anything in the world!”

He submitted to her decision, as he was inclined to submit to anything definite, and off he went, with one last miserable look. Emily watched him with misty eyes.

“Poor Cecil!” she thought. “Poor fellow! But how terribly his mother must hate me, if it’s disloyal for him even to come to see me!”

Pain and dismay seized her at that thought. Ill will was a new thing in her life, something which she had never felt in her own heart or in the air about her. A most potent and subtle poison!

She waited for a letter from Denis with a new feeling of resentment. He ought to have written at once, to assure her that he only laughed at other people’s tales—or, better still, that he was angry. Much better if he would be angry. Emily found herself hoping for that with a bitter delight that half frightened her. She wanted that! She wanted her complete triumph, wanted to stand beside Denis while he humbled her enemies. It was an ignoble hope, she knew, and yet it was beyond measure precious to her.

On the third day his letter came, and she tore it open eagerly. It was unusually brief:

That was how he vindicated her! So he believed what other people told him! He wanted her to go where his mother could watch her! This was his faith, his pride, his love! This was her triumph!

VIII

“I’ll give him just one more day,” Emily declared in a tremulous voice. “Then I’ll go home!”

She knew, even while she spoke, the pitiable folly of her words. One more day, when she had long ago given Denis all the days she ever could live! And to talk of going home, when she had no home in all the wide world!

Her father’s house wasn’t her home now. If she went there, she would be a visitor, welcomed and beloved, but always a visitor. She didn’t belong there any more. The words of the old proverb came into her mind—“Home is where the heart is.” Once upon a time she had thought that a fanciful idea, but now she knew it to be true; and her heart, alas, was wandering homeless.

She had written Denis a very prompt reply to his letter. She had told him that his people had treated her shamefully, that she was done with them, and that he must take his choice. “Either them or me,” she had said. “Please let me know when you have made up your mind.”

She hadn’t thought that he would take so long about making up his mind, or that her just anger would prove so feeble a flame. It was anger that had warmed and strengthened her, anger that was her justification; and it was flickering dimly now,[Pg 168] leaving her defenseless against the cold wind of doubt and bitter regret.

If only she had had patience, if only she had waited until Denis came back! They could have talked it over together; but instead of that, she had forced upon him a decision that would inevitably cause him untold pain.

It was cruel! He couldn’t choose between her and his venerated people; and he couldn’t compromise—he was too downright for that. He would take what she said seriously. Well, suppose he didn’t choose her?

She thought that if Denis never came back to her, or if he came back changed, she could not bear to live.

It was half past five—time to put on her hat and go out to meet Nina at the little table d’hôte where they were to have dinner together. She slipped her arms into her fur coat—the coat Denis had bought for her—and pulled on a little hat without troubling to look in the mirror. Who cared how she looked, anyhow? A whole week, and he hadn’t written. Seven days, utterly shut off from him!

“Perhaps there’ll be a letter for me downstairs,” she thought, knowing very well that if there had been, it would have been sent up to her.

There was no letter, but there was Denis himself. At first she couldn’t possibly believe it. She saw some one come through the revolving door—some one like Denis, only it couldn’t be he. He was in New Orleans, and very busy there. The man she saw was very much like Denis—the same sort of well knit, stalwart figure, the same sort of dark, serious face.

His voice gave her no clew, nor did his keen, quiet face. She wasn’t going to be silly. If he could be as cool as this, then so could she.

He stood aside for her to go out of the door. Then he followed her out, and they walked down the street side by side, turned a corner, and went down another street, without a single word. This was by no means what Emily wanted.

That was too much for Emily. They were at a crisis in their lives. She was waiting in desperate anxiety for what he would say, and he couldn’t speak, because they were in the street, and some one might possibly hear! He couldn’t for an instant forget his stiff Lanier propriety.

“You’re angry,” she said. “I can see that. Well, it’s no use. I said you’d have to choose, and I meant it. There’s not a bit of use in your coming to quarrel with me. If you’re disgusted with me, go back to your—”

“Look here, old girl!” he said. “I’m—you’ll have to make allowances, you know. It’s been a bit hard. I dare say it doesn’t seem much of a job to you, but after all, you know, they’re my own people, and it’s been a bit hard.”

“I went to see mother, but they were all out. I left a note. I think I made it pretty clear.”

“Don’t do that!” he said in alarm, pulling out a great handkerchief and hastily dabbing at Emily’s eyes. “You are a silly kid, and no mistake! Of course it’s you, always. I thought you knew that well enough.”

“I can’t possibly stop crying,” said Emily. “You’d better get a taxi.”

He did so. Once they were in the cab, Denis Lanier took his wife in his arms and kissed her in his own earnest and resolute fashion.

“How could I not come? It seemed to me I was rather badly needed. Dont’t cry, dear girl, please! I’m going back to-morrow, and I’ll take you with me. I’ll not leave you again. But I say, Emily, exactly[Pg 169] what was there in my letter that upset you so? I couldn’t—”

“I know; but that wasn’t so bad, was it? She wanted you to come, and I thought that if you did, you know—if she saw more of you, there’d be—well, more harmony.”

He was smiling down at her, as her head lay on his shoulder, but in his eyes there was a pain that he could not hide or stifle. She sat up suddenly.

“There will be, Denis!” she said vehemently. “There will be harmony, my dear, darling old Denis! I’ve been selfish and horrible!” He tried to stop her, but she would go on. “I knew all the time that I was. Oh, Denis, forgive me, and let me have another chance! Let’s go now to your mother, and—”

“It’s early. Perhaps she hasn’t come home yet. Oh, do tell the man to hurry! Denis, let me have my chance!”

There Denis sat, as much at home in that icy room as a frog in water. To be sure, he had offered to close the window, but Emily had declined, preferring to wear her fur coat. His very voice had changed. All the warmth had gone out of it, and his face wore a look she had not seen before—a bored and disdainful look.

Yet she knew that he was really happy. All the talk about old friends and old days, from which she was so entirely shut out, interested and pleased him. She knew that he thought Cecil amusing and Cynthia a beautiful and distinguished girl, and that he profoundly admired his mother’s frosty calm. He was among his own people, and immeasurably glad to be there.

And Emily herself was quite happy, quite content to sit in silence. She had two supreme consolations. One was the look in Denis’s eyes each time he turned toward her, and that was often. He wasn’t good at expressing himself in words, but his glance was eloquent enough, and it spoke only to her. His own people were entirely shut out from their secret happiness. They might ignore her if they liked; she didn’t care in the least. They were the real outsiders.

And the other compensation was a bit of paper tucked inside her blouse—Denis’s note to his mother, which Mrs. Lanier was never to see. Emily could well afford to be generous, for her triumph was complete and magnificent.[Pg 170]

Who Is This Impossible Person?

THE STORY OF A VERY FORMIDABLE AUNT AND A VERY PERSISTENT YOUNG MAN

THE up train stopped, a porter sprang down the steps with two heavy bags, assisted a lady to descend, climbed on board again, and he and the train went off, leaving the lady and the bags there. The platform was deserted, shining like a treacherous sheet of water beneath the dim lamps. The rain fell steadily. It was the blackest and most dismal night that ever was.

For some time the lady stood just where she had been left, with an annoyed, affronted expression upon her face, as if she was waiting for some one to come and remove this unpleasant weather. Nobody came, nothing stirred, and she herself was strangely inactive.

Did she look like a submissive or helpless creature? On the contrary, she was a portly, white-haired lady, dressed in black of a somewhat majestic style, and not only her face, but the set of her plump shoulders and even the jet ornament on her toque, seemed to be alive with energy and resolution.

Yet she did not move. She turned her head to the north—rain and darkness were there. She turned it to the south—the same thing. Behind her she knew there was nothing but the railway track; so, with a sigh, she picked up the bags and went on toward the waiting room.

Then, had there been any one there to see, the secret of her reluctance to move would have been revealed. This imposing and dignified lady, whose very glance was a rebuke to frivolity, had nevertheless one outrageous vanity—she would wear shoes that were too small for her.

Setting down the bags, she turned the handle of the door, and it was locked. Through the glass she could see into the dimly lit room, where there were plenty of benches upon which a sufferer might rest. Exasperated, she rattled the knob and rapped upon the glass, but all in vain. Picking up the bags again, she made her way painfully to the end of the platform, to see what she could see.

The town of Binnersville, however, was one of those illogical towns which are almost invisible from their own proper railway stations. There lay before her a forlorn and lifeless street lined with small shops, all tight shut, and not a human being in sight.

Her sharp eyes, however, caught sight of something very welcome. At the end of the street, standing before a faintly illuminated drug store, there was a real, civilized taxi. With all the speed possible to her she went toward it, to seize it before it could vanish.

The street was slippery, the bags were heavy, and the portly lady in her little high-heeled shoes made a dangerous progress. Nevertheless, she got there. Seeing no driver where a driver should have been, and being a woman of enterprise and resource, she set down her bags, leaned across the seat, and blew the horn three or four times—great, loud squawks that resounded startlingly through the night.

At once the door of the drug store opened, and a young man appeared on the threshold.

“Kindly take me to No. 93 Sloan Street,” said the portly, white-haired lady.

Opening the door of the cab, she managed, with considerable effort, to shove one of her bags inside. The young man was there to help her with the other.

“The driver’s in the shop,” he explained, “getting something taken out of his eye; but—”

The young man seemed a little taken aback. She was now settled inside the cab, and he was standing outside in the rain. It was very dark, and they could not see each other; but so expressive was her voice that he fancied he knew how she looked.

“I shall instruct the driver to return here for you, if you wish,” said she.

“But, you see,” said the young man, quite good-humoredly, “I had engaged this cab. It’s late, and the weather’s bad, and I’m going in your direction. We can—”

“It is not my custom to encourage chance acquaintances,” replied she. “If you insist upon getting in, I shall get out.”

As he turned, he saw the driver coming out of the shop, holding a handkerchief to his eye.

“This lady wants to go to No. 93 Sloan Street,” said he. “Oh, never mind me!”

And he set off on foot up the hilly street, in the pelting rain. The portly, white-haired lady watched him go.

“I cannot,” she said, half aloud, “encourage chance acquaintances—especially on Lynn’s account.”

For years the house at 93 Sloan Street had displayed a sign announcing that it was “to let or for sale,” and these words might as well have been followed by “take it or leave it,” for that was the owner’s attitude.

It was a hopeless house, dark, damp, and badly arranged, standing in a garden where enormous old trees cast so dense a shade over the front lawn that not even grass would thrive. As for the back garden, only the queerest, most obstinate, ancient shrubs were there, huddled against the side fence, because anything less tenacious was inevitably carried away by the river in its annual spring flood.

Just now the river was low, dolloping along dejectedly between its brown and uninteresting banks. Everything was brown—the water, the bare trees, the fields, the road in front, and No. 93 itself. Altogether the breath of life had gone out of Sloan Street, and to any one coming down from the sunny, breezy hilltop it seemed a sorry spectacle.

Some one had come down from the hilltop this morning—a brisk, neat little red-haired lady. She came smartly along the road to No. 93, pushed open the gate, and walked up the garden path. She saw the portly, white-haired lady standing on the veranda, looking down the road.

She waited at the foot of the steps, because she thought she would not go up on the veranda until she was invited. Well, she never was invited.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, with honest and neighborly good will.

The portly lady looked down at her as if doubtful whether such a creature could really exist.

“I thought perhaps—” she began, in a tone not quite so neighborly, but the other interrupted.

That last “thank you” seemed capable of lifting Mrs. Aldrich out of the garden all by itself.

“I wouldn’t set foot in that place again,” she declared, “if she begged me on her knees!”

This declaration was addressed to her nephew, Jerry Sargent. She had made it before, to her husband and to a neighbor or so, but she found special pleasure in telling things to Jerry, for the strange reason that he never agreed with her. She was a shrewd, sensible, rather peppery little woman. She had been his guardian when he was younger, and she still interfered[Pg 173] pretty considerably in his affairs—which he good-humoredly permitted.

“If you could have seen the way she looked at me!” she went on. “As if I were a—a toad!”

“I know,” replied Jerry. “I didn’t see her, but I heard her, and I know the sort of look that would go with that tone. ‘Who is that impossible person?’ She told me she didn’t encourage chance acquaintances, and it looks as if she meant it!”

“I should have made her get out of that taxi and walk—in the rain!” cried Mrs. Aldrich, who had been informed of the episode of the previous night.

“Of course you would,” her nephew agreed, with a grin. “I know you! And you’d have called her names out of the window as you passed her, wouldn’t you? But I’m much milder. I was ashamed of being a chance acquaintance, anyhow. It didn’t seem respectable.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take everything so lightly!” complained Mrs. Aldrich, but she didn’t mean it. The thing she loved best in her nephew was his careless and generous good humor, his utter lack of malice or resentment. “You ought to have more pride, Gerald, than to allow yourself to be trampled on.”

He rose to his feet, and stood looking down at her with an expression of great severity; and though his aunt knew it to be assumed, she thought it very becoming to his face. A big, handsome fellow he was, with the gray eyes and black hair and all the wit and charm and grace of his blessed mother, and all the energy and practical good sense of his father. A good man of business he was, but into the dullest matter of routine, into the most trifling details of everyday life, he brought his own sort of laughing romance.

“Very well, madam!” said he. “You’re disappointed in me because I’ve let myself be trampled on. Now you’ll see what I can do when my pride is roused!”

III

Without the slightest hesitation Jerry opened the garden gate, went up the path and up the steps, and rang the bell. At least, he imagined that he rang the bell, but as a matter of fact he did nothing except turn a handle which was connected with nothing. After two or three attempts he began to suspect this, and knocked instead, which soon brought some one running along the hall to open the door.

He was astounded—not because it was a girl, and not because she was pretty. He had seen pretty girls before, and knew that they were likely to crop up anywhere; but this girl had exactly the sort of prettiness he had been looking for and waiting for so long that he had almost given up hope of finding it.

She was tall, slender, dark-browed, so gracious and serene, with lovely, fragile hands; and her eyes! They were black eyes, so clear, so quiet, so luminous and untroubled! It didn’t make the least difference that she was wearing a gingham apron and carried a rolling pin under her arm. She was matchless, she was incomparable, in her was personified all the romance left in the world.

“I thought—” he answered, still a little dazzled. “That is, I thought maybe—”

It was this tremendously important and significant conversation that the portly, white-haired lady interrupted. She appeared suddenly in the background, and regarded them with severe astonishment.

“Are you the plumber?” she inquired of Jerry, raising her eyebrows. “Run away, Lynn!”

“I don’t think so,” he answered absently, because he was watching Lynn “run away” as slowly as any healthy human being could well move.

“No,” he added, with a smothered sigh. “I just stopped in to see if there was anything you wanted done.”

“There are several things that I want done,” she replied; “but I trust I shall be able to find the proper workmen to do them. I need a plumber and a carpenter. Are you a carpenter?”

Now Jerry knew very well that she knew he wasn’t a carpenter, and that she simply wished to be obnoxious. On the spur of the moment, looking steadily at her, he answered:[Pg 174]

With that, he promptly took off his coat, and she, equally determined to see the thing through, led him into the dismal front room.

“I want shelves put up,” said she. “Three rows—on this wall. There are boards in the cellar for that purpose.”

Fortunately Jerry was by nature “handy,” and in his younger days had had much experience in building chicken houses and rabbit hutches and such things. With the calmest air in the world he set to work, wondering for what possible reason she could want a triple row of enormous shelves. For some time the portly lady watched him, but that didn’t worry him, for he felt sure that she knew even less than he did about putting up shelves; and at last she went away.

When he was alone, he couldn’t help laughing. It might have ended that way, with Jerry thinking the whole thing a rather idiotic joke, in which he was getting somewhat the worst of it, if something had not happened to change the aspect of the situation.

He was hammering away at a bracket which would—he hoped—support one end of one of those monster shelves, when he heard a light footstep behind him. He turned and saw the incomparable girl.

She smiled in her serious way, and Jerry tried to look equally serious, but did not succeed very well. In the first place, it wasn’t natural to him to be serious, and, in the second place, he was extraordinarily pleased to see the incomparable girl again. He couldn’t help fancying that she shared at least a little in his delight.

Anyhow, she was very friendly toward this strange carpenter. She asked him if he needed anything else for his work. He thanked her earnestly and said that he did not. Then she advanced a little farther into the room, and laid one of her slender little hands on the boards standing against the wall.

There was a long silence. She was still standing beside the boards, running her delicate fingers along the edges, with her eyes thoughtfully downcast. The shifting sunshine, filtering through the leafy branches outside, threw a wondrous light upon her gleaming dark hair and her pale, clear features. Somehow it hurt Jerry to look at her. There was something about her, some intangible shadow over her young face, which made him feel sure that she had endured much, and had endured it with fortitude and courage.

“The poor little thing!” he thought. “Shut up here in this dismal hole, with that dragon! Oh, the poor, poor little thing!”

He suddenly realized that he was in his shirt sleeves. With a hasty apology, he put on his coat.

“I knew you weren’t,” said she. “I knew you were—well, I mean, I knew you weren’t.”

“Nothing,” she answered, but he saw her pull a handkerchief out of her pocket and wrap her hand in it.

“Really it’s nothing,” she protested; “only a splinter from those boards. I should have known better.”

Well, splinters ought to be taken out, lest they fester; and it was the most natural thing in the world for Jerry to insist upon performing the operation. She fetched a needle, and he burned the point in the flame of a match, and grasped her injured hand firmly.

He hadn’t realized what it would mean. The splinter was long and deeply embedded, and he could not help hurting her. She winced and bit her lip. When at last the heartbreaking job was done, his face was quite pale. He still held her hand, and was looking at her with the most miserable contrition; but she smiled.

Lynn, suddenly growing very red, escaped at once, and Jerry saw her no more that day.

He would perfectly well endure being called a plumber, a carpenter, and a chance acquaintance, but he could not endure this. He no longer wished to laugh, he no longer[Pg 175] saw this thing as a joke. On the contrary, he was immeasurably offended by the suspicious and scornful glare he got from the portly, white-haired lady.

Next morning the postman delivered a letter at No. 93, addressed to Mrs. Nathaniel Journay, who was none other than the portly lady.

“Nothing,” said the other calmly. “Simply one of the necessary annoyances of a business career.”

She was prepared to say a good deal more than that to a certain person. She was by no means stupid. She put two and two together, and chalked up a mighty black four against that fraudulent carpenter. He was the talebearer. Very well—only wait until he presented himself again!

In the meantime the indomitable woman finished the carpentering herself. The noise of the hammering made her very nervous, but she made up her mind to defy Cooper & Cooper if they should appear. She had to have those shelves, and she would have them.

That afternoon a man came by, asking for work. He said he was a gardener; and after Mrs. Journay had cross-examined him until he was reduced to an abject condition, and she felt sure he was no spy, she set him to work.

The next morning she had another letter from Cooper & Cooper, pointing out to her that it was strictly prohibited to tenants to remove shrubs in the garden, to lop off branches from trees, or in any way to mar or deface the garden.

This time she wrote a tart answer, remarking that the garden was in a lamentable condition which no one could deface or mar, that the branches lopped away had been those which shut off light from the house, and that she would really be justified in sending the landlord a bill for this work. Nevertheless, she did not employ the gardener again.

For a few days she and her niece were invisibly busy within the house, but at last, one bright morning, they came out with a ladder, which Mrs. Journay held while Lynn climbed up it and hung out a glittering gilt signboard, lettered in black:

The sign shone in the sun like a warrior’s shield. The two women regarded it with pride and pleasure.

“Never mind, my dear!” said the other. “You go on painting your boxes, and I’ll attend to the business arrangements.”

Mrs. Journay spoke in her usual confident manner, but at heart she was alarmed and not at all certain as to what she ought to do. She was certain, however, that her niece must not be worried by these unexpected developments. To protect Lynn was her chief duty on earth, and her chief pleasure, too. Terrible as she might be to others, to Lynn she was never anything but kind and generous and affectionate, in her august fashion.

“I’d rather know, auntie,” insisted Lynn. “I think I really ought to know. We’re partners, aren’t we?”

“We can’t carry on our business,” Lynn continued, “unless we both know everything about it—can we, darling?”

She was now standing behind her aunt’s chair, resting her soft cheek against that imposing coiffure. Mrs. Journay frowned.[Pg 176]

She was already conquered, however. To tell the truth, her serious and quiet niece had always been able to wind Mrs. Journay around her little finger.

“It’s that man!” declared Mrs. Journay. “There’s no possible doubt of it. He came here to spy. Some one sent him. My theory is that some one knew we were going to start this shop, and, fearing the competition, determined to drive us out!”

From her face one might imagine that whatever it was she saw gave her very little pleasure.

They were both silent for a time, with their meager little breakfast forgotten between them. They had always been more or less poor, but never in this way. Until recently they had lacked neither dignity nor comfort. They had had their friends and their little diversions, and a cozy sort of existence, until something happened. It doesn’t much matter what the catastrophe was. The important fact is that their small income vanished, and here they were, gallantly prepared to make a new one for themselves.

And was this enterprise, into which the very last of their savings had gone, to be wrecked by Cooper & Cooper? Mrs. Journay would not permit it. Often in the past, when she had coldly ignored people, such people had disappeared from her sight—beneath the surface of the earth, for all she knew; and she decided to try this on Cooper & Cooper. She would scornfully ignore them. The shop should go on—it must!

“Yes!” Lynn went on, with a sort of vehemence. “Let’s give this up and go away from here.”

“I’d like,” said Lynn, “to see them all sailing down the river! Oh, auntie, do let’s go away! I hate this house and this place and—we’ll go back to Philadelphia, and I’ll take a position in an office, and—”

“Oh, my dear!” she cried. “I didn’t really mean that! No—we’ll stay here, of course, and we’ll make a wonderful success of the shop.”

She sat on the arm of her aunt’s chair, and they talked with enthusiasm of their dazzling future; but they didn’t look at each other—not once. They talked, they even laughed, and after breakfast they went about busily preparing for customers; but all the time there lay over them the black shadow of this persecution. Why should any one wish them ill?

“I’d really be glad to go,” thought Mrs. Journay, “if it weren’t for Lynn; but I can’t and won’t have Lynn working in an office. I’ll make this—this disgusting shop a success!”

“He was the only one who knew about the shelves,” she said to herself. “Out of petty, despicable spite against poor auntie, he went off and told the agents; and after he’d been so—not that I care, though. I knew all the time that he was one of those men who always—who always pretend to—to like people!”

Still, in spite of not caring in the least, it seemed to her that this incident was harder to bear than all her other misfortunes—harder to bear than exile from her old home and her old friends, than her desperate anxiety about money, or than the frightful tedium of painting boxes.

The admiration of young men was certainly no new thing to Lynn, but that a man should look at her like that, should speak as he had spoken, and then so basely betray her aunt and herself—

Her cheeks burned with just anger, or perhaps with shame, that even for a moment she should have thought so well of him.

No one came to molest them that day, or the next, or all that week, or that month, but this good fortune was counterbalanced by the fact that no customers came, either.

Mrs. Journay and her niece took turns in attending to the shop with the regularity of deck officers standing watch; and, having once arranged a schedule, they were[Pg 177] afraid to depart from it, for fear of admitting in any way that trade was not brisk. Lynn went on and on painting boxes, because, in the first place, they had a large stock to be painted, and, in the second place, she had nothing else to do; but the dismalness of sitting in that big, dim room, to see the boxes piling up on the shelves, and to make calculations which showed that the money decreased even faster than the boxes increased, was not a life to give animation to a girl, or comfort to an elderly lady.

Indeed, the only thing that supported them was their splendid, ridiculous Journay fortitude and obstinacy. They had gone into this thing without help or advice. They wouldn’t ask help or advice now, and they wouldn’t complain.

It was Lynn’s turn in the shop that afternoon. She sat there behind a long table on which were a tin cash box, wrapping paper, twine, and a pile of pretty little blue cards on which was printed:

She was sewing, but when she heard a step on the veranda she hid the sewing in a drawer and began to write busily on a pad. The front door was open, and the customer entered the room. Lynn looked up with an alert, businesslike expression—and it was that man!

“I’ve been away,” he began eagerly. “Otherwise—” He stopped short, looking at Lynn. “Is anything wrong?” he asked.

For an instant her clear eyes rested on his face, and then they glanced away, as if he wasn’t worth regarding. She was not rude, or scornful, or awe-inspiring like her aunt, but her attitude was unmistakable.

“I’ll have to ask you to excuse me,” she said politely. “I’m busy this morning.”

“No!” he cried. “Please wait! Please tell me what’s the matter! Every minute I’ve been away, I’ve been thinking of getting back and seeing you again. I—please don’t go! Just tell me!”

“I have nothing to tell you,” said Lynn, with energy. “I have nothing to say to you at all, except that I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t come again.”

Then she vanished. Before Jerry had recovered himself, he was confronted by his mortal enemy, Mrs. Journay.

“Kindly send your bill for the carpenter work you did,” said she, “and it will be attended to promptly.”

“Well, I prefer not to send bills,” said he, resolutely good-humored. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll introduce myself—”

“I’m sorry,” he replied firmly, “but it’s time it was done. I’m Mr. Sargent, your landlord.”

“Indeed!” said she. “Now I see it all! Very well, call your Cooper & Cooper to put us out. Let them—”

“But there’s no question of that!” he protested. “I’m only too glad—” She really was magnificent!

“I refuse to be under obligations to you,” she said. “Your agents may forbid me to do such and such a thing, and I shall do it. I defy them. I defy you. I intend to continue in this course until I am forcibly ejected. Instruct your Cooper & Cooper to that effect. I do not recognize you!”

This was ordinary rain. From a sullen sky it came driving down like a sheet of fine wires, digging into the sodden ground, dashing on the roof, beating down the tiny new leaves on the trees, riddling the muddy water of the now hurrying river. This was the worst of three rainy days, and the house on Sloan Street was in a sad state. There was water in the cellar, there were spots of mold on the walls, and everywhere there was a most miserable, dank, bleak chill, which even these two resolutely cheerful women could not ignore. They did not appear to relish their breakfast.

“I—” began Mrs. Journay, and, for the first time since Lynn had known her, she visibly hesitated. “If you can look after the shop alone,” she said, “I’d like to—to—attend to some business.”

Now, if she had not been so intent upon her own duplicity, Mrs. Journay would have observed that Lynn’s conduct was unusual. The girl showed no surprise at her aunt’s singular decision to go out in such weather. On the contrary, she seemed relieved and pleased.[Pg 178]

So Mrs. Journay put on an old raincoat with capes, and a hat that was good enough for the rain, and her overshoes, and set off.

Lynn, watching that erect and imposing figure tramping through the mud of Sloan Street, took out a handkerchief and cried into it for a good ten minutes. She planned treachery that day. She had made a secret appointment with a wholesaler who would, she hoped, buy all those boxes for a lump sum, and thus put an end to some of their financial difficulties—and also to the shop.

Fortunate that she did not suspect her aunt’s errand! Even Mrs. Journay, with her unconquerable spirit, was very, very unhappy that morning.

“But,” she said to herself, “there wouldn’t have been enough to pay that man his rent on the 1st of next month, and that I could not bear!”

In the meantime, on she pressed. The mud was slippery, the rain disconcerted her by beating in her face, and her shoes were even more uncomfortable when worn with rubbers. What was worse, her way lay uphill, and up a mighty steep hill at that, and she had a heavy heart to carry with her. She turned her ankle rather painfully, the top button burst off her raincoat—she breathed so hard—and the rain ran down her neck. Still, as was her admirable way, she reached her goal. At last she stood upon the summit of the hill, and though to be sure she did not cry “Excelsior!” she felt a little like that.

She turned for a last glance behind her. There lay Sloan Street far below, and No. 93 was plainly visible in every detail. She sighed sternly, faced her destiny again, and turned in at the gate of a fine stone house before her. She rang the bell.

She was asked to step into the music room, but would not. She was too wet. She would stand in the hall; and there Mrs. Aldrich found her when she descended.

Now Mrs. Aldrich, when she saw that card, had meant to treat Mrs. Journay as Mrs. Journay had treated her; but it was impossible. In the first place, Mrs. Aldrich was not capable of a majestic manner. She was peppery and sharp, sometimes, but never hoity-toity. In the second place, the caller looked so forlorn and tired and wet that all her rancor vanished. She held out her hand with a smile and a friendly greeting.

“Pardon me,” replied Mrs. Journay, in the most frigid tone she had ever used. “I fear you mistake my purpose. I have come”—here she opened her purse and took out a bit torn from a newspaper—“I have come to apply for this position as cook.”

“If the position is not filled, I believe I have at least some of the qualifications you desire. I understand cookery in all its branches. I am honest, clean, and strictly sober.”

“Oh, but, my dear Mrs. Journay!” cried Mrs. Aldrich, immeasurably distressed. “I—don’t you see? I can’t! Let’s sit down and—”

“Thank you,” interrupted the other. “Then I must apply to the next place on my list.”

“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Aldrich, for she could not endure the thought of Mrs. Journay going out into the rain again, and tramping about, looking for a position as cook. She could not endure to see this magnificent creature so humbled. “Can’t—something else be done?” she asked.

“Then,” said Mrs. Aldrich, “if you really feel that you must, then please stay here with me.”

“Thank you. I shall ask you to allow me to use the telephone for the purpose of sending a message to my niece. May I safely say that I shall return to her at ten o’clock this evening?”

“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Journay, “but I believe I understand the requirements of such a position.”

VII

He made this melodramatic announcement with great calm, because it was a very unimportant dam, and not likely to evoke much excitement; but Jerry Sargent, his employer, sprang to his feet.

“What?” he cried. “Elliot’s dam? Then Sloan Street must be under water!”

“I’m afraid so,” said Cooper, somewhat[Pg 179] startled; “but No. 93 is the only house there that’s tenanted, and I didn’t imagine you’d be much upset about them.”

He was still more startled by the expression he now saw upon Sargent’s usually good-humored face.

“What do you mean by supposing that?” thundered Jerry. “On the contrary, they’re—they’re special tenants. They—”

“Well,” said Mr. Cooper, “you see, in view of the correspondence we had with them—”

“Why, those letters that Mrs. Aldrich directed us to send while you were away. You distinctly said we were to take directions from her in your absence.”

He flung himself into his overcoat, jammed a felt hat well down on his head, and started out, slamming the office door behind him. His roadster stood at the curb. He got in, started off with a jerk, and went down the street, around the corner, and out into the road that led to Sloan Street from the town. It was a good road, and he took advantage of it. He turned another corner, and Sloan Street lay before him at the foot of the hill.

Oh, Sloan Street was under water, sure enough! It was, in fact, a shallow stream, moving sluggishly. It was certainly not more than six inches deep, and there was no danger, visible or implied; yet to Sargent it was horrible, that sullen, muddy stream, under the merciless downpour of rain, with stanch old No. 93 standing there among the tossing, dripping branches of the trees.

He left his car, ran down the hill, and splashed into the water, ankle deep. His feet sank into the mud, the rain beat in his face, but he bent his head and floundered on, the slowness of his progress putting him into a dogged fury. He wanted to get there at once, to explain.

He stumbled over something, fell to his knees, and lost his hat while regaining his feet. He wiped his rain-blurred eyes with a muddy sleeve, and went on.

“I had to come,” he said, “to tell you that I didn’t know anything about those letters from Cooper & Cooper. I never heard of them till to-day.”

Never in his life had he imagined that a girl could look like this. Her hair lay dank across her forehead, giving to her glowing face an adorably childlike look. Her dark lashes were wet, and were like rays about her clear eyes; and the kindness, the heavenly kindness of her regard! The poor fellow had positively no idea that she was a forlorn, bedraggled little object. There he stood, looking up at her, and she looked at him, and tears came into her eyes.

She meant that he didn’t know how splendid and gallant and handsome he appeared, bareheaded in the rain, with a great streak of mud across his face, and how deeply touched she was by his coming through a flood to explain about the letters; and of course she didn’t wish him to know.

“I—my boxes!” she said, by way of explaining the tears. “I’ve been into the city to see a wholesaler, and he’s bought them all. I had them all on the dining room floor, ready to pack, and I’m afraid—”

“No! No! Mr. Sargent, come out of that water!” said she sternly. “It doesn’t matter!”

No. 93 was built on the side of a little slope. The front door was reached by a flight of steps, but the back door was level with the garden, and Jerry knew very well that the house must be filled with water. He kicked open the gate, made his way along the path and up the steps to the veranda, and put the pass key he carried with him into the lock.

The key turned readily, but the door would not open. He pushed his hardest. At last he drew off a little and crashed against the door with his shoulder. Then it opened, and a great flood of water, dammed up inside, came rolling down the steps in a cascade. Suddenly something heavy, borne on the swift-moving current, struck Jerry on the shins, knocked him backward, and, sailing on, struck him violently on the head. The chill, muddy water[Pg 180] rolled over him, but he was as indifferent to it as the fleet of hand-decorated boxes that went down the front steps with him.

VIII

Mrs. Aldrich and Mrs. Journay sat in the kitchen, side by side, on two straight-backed chairs. They had just had a quarrel, due to Mrs. Journay’s obstinately refusing to eat her lunch with Mrs. Aldrich and insisting upon having it in the kitchen. In the course of this quarrel Mrs. Aldrich had explosively confessed that it was she who had ordered the Cooper & Cooper letters sent, and who had observed from her hilltop all that went on below.

“Because I didn’t like the way you treated my nephew,” she explained. “Can you forgive me for that?”

“I can,” said Mrs. Journay, calmly. “I should have felt the same, if it had been my nephew.”

“Then,” said Mrs. Aldrich triumphantly, “if you really do forgive me, the least you can do is to come in and have lunch with me decently!”

But Mrs. Journay would not, so Mrs. Aldrich had sent away the two servants and eaten there in the kitchen with Mrs. Journay. In the beginning both of them were very angry, but they became more and more friendly every minute. They had a great deal to talk about—they had Lynn and Jerry to talk about.

“Jerry tells me that your niece is a charming girl,” said Mrs. Aldrich. “He’s talked about her incessantly ever since he first saw her; and it isn’t like Jerry to be so enthusiastic.”

“She is a charming girl,” replied Mrs. Journay complacently; “and as for your nephew—”

The front doorbell rang, and Mrs. Aldrich went to open the door. Mrs. Journay sat where she was.

“Don’t worry!” answered a cheerful voice which Mrs. Journay recognized without difficulty. “It’s only a scratch; but—this is Miss Journay. She saved my life!”

Mrs. Journay then entirely forgot her position, and hurried into the hall. There she saw that man, with a bandage around his head, and Lynn standing beside him.

“Mr. Sargent got hurt trying to save my boxes,” Lynn explained anxiously; “so you see, auntie—”

“Jerry,” said she, “now that I’ve had an opportunity of knowing Mrs. Journay better, I see that I was wrong—altogether wrong. I want her and her niece to stay here with us until that horrible old barn is put in order for them again—if it ever is; and I want you—”

Jerry stepped forward and held out his hand, smiling. Lynn thought, with a flash of hope, that even her aunt could not resist him; but Mrs. Journay regarded him sternly.

Then Mrs. Journay took his outstretched hand and smiled, the jolliest sort of smile.

Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN OLIVE’S ARDENT ADMIRER AND HER FORMIDABLE AUNT

OLIVE was weeping quietly, but Miss Torrance, sitting beside her in the dark, was very calm, and even a little scornful. The unmerited sufferings of the hero and heroine on the screen before them didn’t trouble her. It was sure to come out all right in the end; and even if it didn’t, who cared?

Olive was a sentimental little thing, and yet the strong-minded, prodigiously sensible Miss Torrance could understand, perhaps too well, how she felt. It wasn’t the story that made Olive cry. It was the spectacle of that swift, vivid, intense life that so disturbed her; and it disturbed Miss Torrance, too.

Yachts, tropical islands, coral reefs, dark figures in oilskins seen by lightning flashes on storm-swept decks, clear lagoons, palm trees in the moonlight—when you saw all that, and when you thought of getting up six mornings a week at half past seven, and going down to the office, and coming back to the boarding house at twenty minutes past five, and when you were a stern, adventurous spirit, like Miss Torrance, or only twenty-one, like Olive—

Miss Torrance and Olive often talked about traveling. They even got booklets from the steamship companies, and planned routes and figured expenses. Olive took it all very seriously, but Miss Torrance smiled indulgently at such a childish pastime.

Miss Torrance was not the sort of woman to cry for the moon. She often said she wasn’t, and she never suspected that she was one of those still more romantic creatures who try to build bridges to reach the moon. Olive longed for impossible things, but Miss Torrance tried to get them.

“Come, my dear!” said she, with just a trace of impatience. “This is where we came in.”

They squeezed past a row of people and went up the aisle and out into the lobby.

The April rain was coming down in a steady torrent, drumming loud on the roof, and spattering on the pavement. The streets shone like deep, black water under the arc lights. Taxis spun by like incredibly swift motor boats. It hadn’t at all the appearance of a shower. It was obstinately and definitely a rainy night—chill, too, and windy, so that it was almost impossible to believe that only six days ago, on Saturday, spring had begun, and Miss Torrance and Olive had been irresistibly tempted to buy spring hats.

“We’ll take a taxi,” said Miss Torrance. “It’s cheaper than ruining our new hats.”

So Miss Torrance advanced to the very limit of the covered entrance, and signaled to the taxis that went by, fleet and careless; but not one of them stopped—no, not one.

“Maybe they’re all taken,” suggested the gentle Olive, but Miss Torrance would have none of that.

She, too, still had in her mind the images of tropical islands and coral reefs and high adventures, and somehow it hurt and angered her, and the taxis that would not stop were like the stream of life itself that hurried past and left her behind.[Pg 183]

“I’ll make one stop!” she declared grimly. “Here!” Taking off her brave new hat, she thrust it into Olive’s hands. “I’ll stop one if I have to stand in the middle of the street!”

Turning, they both looked into the face of an unknown young man. It was by no means a face to inspire alarm, nor was his manner at all sinister. He was a sturdy, square-shouldered young chap, with a sunburned face, in which his eyes looked amazingly blue. As he stood there, hat in hand, he looked altogether so good-humored and friendly and honest that Miss Torrance’s glare softened.

“Oh!” cried Olive. “Oh, Miss Torrance! Oh, we forgot! We can’t pay for it! We have only fifteen cents!”

She certainly had forgotten, for the moment, that they had come out simply for a walk, and hadn’t meant to go to the movies, or to buy the cake of chocolate they had just eaten inside. To-morrow was pay day at the office, and only that morning Miss Torrance had deposited the week’s surplus in the savings bank, and Olive never had any surplus.

“I’ll stop him!” she said hurriedly, and she, too, dashed off into the rain.

Just as she reached the curb, the young man arrived there on the running board of a taxi.

“I meant—” said Miss Torrance. “Thank you just the same, but we have changed our minds. We—we are going in the subway; but thank you.”

The lights from the brilliant lobby shone across the street, making it very bright where they were. The rain was pelting down on her sleek blond head. The valiant little white ruffle at her neck was already beaten flat, but she herself was indomitable—a little woman and a good-looking one, although, by her severe expression and her curt manner, you might fancy that she was trying to deny both the littleness and the good looks, and to force you to remember only her thirty-five years and her ability to earn her own living.

“Thank you, just the same,” said Miss Torrance again, and, turning, hastened back to Olive.

“Look here!” he said earnestly. “You haven’t even an umbrella. You’ll catch cold!”

She spoke sternly, but she didn’t really dislike this man. There was something rather engaging about him, and she was very much pleased to observe that not once did he even glance at Olive. Miss Torrance did not wish strange young men to look at Olive.

“I meant to take a taxi, anyhow,” said he. “Won’t you please let me drop you?”

He looked at Miss Torrance with a wistful, humble expression, which she knew very well to be false. There was precious little humility in that young man! Still, she didn’t dislike him on that account, either. Indeed, she was almost ready to smile, when he added:

“I’m going through West Twelfth Street. If you live anywhere near there—”

Politely the young man stepped back a little. Miss Torrance gave Olive a long and severe glance.

In those two words there was something not far from tragedy. Miss Torrance was not stupid. She had seen in Olive’s face the dawn of a new spirit of independence, and the shadow of the end of her own fiercely benevolent despotism. And she loved Olive so!

She put on her hat—such a smart little hat!—and, at that moment, she hated it. It was absurd that any one who felt as she[Pg 184] did just then should wear a jaunty little hat like this!

The young man was standing by the open door of the taxi. In they got, she and Olive side by side, the stranger facing them. There was something else in that cab which almost stifled Miss Torrance—something which she insisted upon in stories, but found unbearable here—something known professionally as “heart interest.” Olive did not speak one word, and did not stir. The stranger’s conversation was quite impersonal, and yet Miss Torrance knew. It seemed to her that she knew exactly what was in the minds of her companions.

“Personally,” said Miss Torrance, “I don’t believe in thinking about the weather. I agree with Dr. Johnson that it is contemptible for a being endowed with reason to live in dependence upon the weather and the wind.”

“Well—” said the young man, who knew not Dr. Johnson, but was respectful toward Miss Torrance. “You can’t help it very well at sea, you know.”

“Ever since I was seventeen. I’m chief officer now,” he answered, with modest pride. “Passenger ship.”

It seemed to Miss Torrance that even as he spoke she could smell a salty vigor in the air. He came from the sea, did he—the sea of which she and Olive talked so often? He was a sailor, was he? Miss Torrance’s heart sank, remembering all that she and Olive had said about sailors. The romance of the sea—what nonsense!

They had reached the house. The young man sprang out and held open the door of the cab; but he stood in the doorway, so that no one could get out.

“I wish I could see you again!” he said earnestly. “We’re not sailing until Monday—engine trouble. The cargo’s all in, and I know I could get another afternoon or evening on shore.”

“My name’s Martin—Sam Martin,” he went on anxiously. “I—I know a fellow who lives in your house—Robertson. He could tell you—”

“We don’t know any one in the boarding house,” said Miss Torrance stiffly; “but thank you for bringing us home, Mr. Martin. Good evening!”

The house door closed behind them, leaving them in the dark hall and Mr. Martin out in the rain. Miss Torrance began to mount the stairs, and Olive followed her, rather slowly. They entered the room which they shared.

“How,” inquired Miss Torrance, “did that young man know we lived on West Twelfth Street?”

“Well,” said Olive, who was taking off her shoes, so that her fair head was bent and her face not to be seen, “I think perhaps he saw me coming out of the house this morning.”

Now Olive was not inclined to object to anything that Miss Torrance might say or do. Her memory for office details was not remarkable, but her memory of her friend’s thousand queer little kindnesses was unalterable, ineffaceable.

When she had been left an orphan by the death of her father, the very first person to arrive at the house was Miss Torrance, her mother’s cousin; and as soon as Miss Torrance entered the door, she had taken charge of the bewildered and heartbroken girl. She had brought Olive home with her, got her into bed, brought up dinner to her herself, and looked after her in a brisk, matter-of-fact way for a long, weary fortnight.

There remained, for Olive to remember forever and ever, a Miss Torrance who got up half a dozen times on bitter winter nights to mix medicines and heat broth and milk, or even to talk pleasantly to an invalid who sometimes wept for sorrow and weariness; a Miss Torrance who rose earlier in the morning to attend to Olive’s breakfast, who rushed back from the office at lunch time with little delicacies, who hurried home at five o’clock as brisk, as competent, as unfailingly kind as ever. Her salary was not a large one, yet she was ready, was glad and willing, to feed, clothe, and shelter Olive for the rest of her days. She loved the girl. From the very first moment that Olive had wept on her shoulder she had loved her in a fierce, generous, tyrannical way of her own.

She had never loved any one before, and sometimes she couldn’t quite understand why she was so very, very fond of Olive; for the girl had none of the qualities which[Pg 185] Miss Torrance herself possessed, and which she admired in others. Olive was a slender, quiet young girl, pretty enough in her gentle way, but not of the type Miss Torrance was wont to praise. Her brown eyes had a wistful sort of eagerness, and her mouth was oversensitive. Altogether, there was something dreamy and unpractical about her.

At the end of the fortnight she had told Miss Torrance that she wanted to set about earning her own living. The older woman was torn between her wish to shelter and protect this gentle young creature and her conviction that every human being should work. Conviction conquered, and she found a place for Olive in the office of the Far Afield magazine, of which she was fiction editor. With a severe sort of patience, she labored over Olive until she had made a pretty fair worker out of her, but she had no illusions as to the girl’s lack of business ability. She had begun now to train her for the career of a writer, and she saw more hope in that.

They were not friends in the office. Miss Torrance would not permit it. Directly they entered the building, all intimacy was put aside until five o’clock. They did not even lunch together, because Miss Torrance considered it a bad precedent. Yet, the morning after the meeting with that Mr. Martin, Miss Torrance, to save her life, could not help looking very often through the half open door of her office toward the end of the outer room where Olive sat.

“Nonsense!” she said impatiently to herself. “She’ll forget him in a week. She doesn’t know him—doesn’t know anything about him. He wasn’t at all the type to suit her. A very ordinary, commonplace young man! I’m glad I discouraged him. He was inclined to be troublesome.”

“If she were—interested in him,” thought Miss Torrance uneasily, “she’d look different.”

“This is Sam Martin,” came the answer. “I wanted to ask you and—and—I don’t know her last name, but I think I heard you call her Olive—I wanted to ask you both to lunch.”

A sort of panic seized Miss Torrance. Was she never to be rid of this young man, never to have Olive all to herself again?

“Then won’t you?” said he. “I’d like very much to talk to you.” She consented to that, and at twelve o’clock she put on her jaunty little hat and hurried out of the office, giving Olive a very strained smile as she passed her.

How much she regretted having consented to see Mr. Martin! She had meant to crush him utterly, to point out to him how ungentlemanly, how disgraceful, it was for him to persecute two defenseless women with his unwelcome attentions; but instead of being offended or ashamed, all he did was to entreat her for a chance.

“Just give me a fair chance!” he begged. “If you find you don’t like me, why, there’ll be no harm done. Let me come to see you, or write!”

“No!” said Miss Torrance. “It’s ridiculous. It can’t possibly matter to you.”

For a moment they were both silent, sitting at the table in the very good restaurant, and not eating the very good lunch the young man had ordered.

“Look here, Miss Torrance!” he went on. “I’ve got to tell you. I’d been in to stay overnight with Robertson, and in the morning I saw—her—going out. The moment I saw her, I—look here, Miss Torrance, you’ll have to believe me—the moment I saw her—she’s so—I—I can’t tell you; but she’s so—sweet!”

Miss Torrance could not endure this. She could not endure the sound of his earnest, entreating voice, his pathetically inadequate words, or the sight of his unhappy, honest young face. She did not know whether she was contemptuous and angry, or even more unhappy than he was; but she did know very positively that she wanted to get away, wanted to end this.

“You don’t know Olive,” she said coldly; “and I do. I tell you frankly, Mr. Martin, that I shall do all I can to protect her from—” She stopped. “She’s all I have in the world!” her heart cried. “I won’t let her go. I won’t let her see you! Because, if she does see you—you confident, good-looking, detestable creature!—how can she help loving you and forgetting me, and how shall I live without her?”

“But I’m—I give you my word I’m—respectable!” said he, in despair. “I’ll tell you all about myself. I’ll get people to write you letters about me. I[Pg 186]—”

“I don’t doubt you, Mr. Martin,” said Miss Torrance, with a chilly smile; “but that’s not the point. You’ll pardon me, but I see no advantage to Olive in making the acquaintance of a man whom she might never see again. A sailor’s life—”

“Marry you?” cried Miss Torrance. “What preposterous nonsense is this, when you haven’t spoken half a dozen words to each other?”

“I can’t help it,” said he, terribly downcast, but resolute. “That’s the way it is with me; and if she even seemed to—to be beginning to like me, I’d give up the sea.”

“I mean it!” said he. “I have to make this trip, but when I come back, I’ll stay. I promised, long ago, that if ever I met a girl I wanted to marry, I’d swallow the anchor.”

“The best friend I ever had made me promise that,” he went on. “He’d had a hard lesson when he tried to mix the two—falling in love and going to sea, I mean. He lost his ticket and his girl both.”

“Indeed!” said Miss Torrance again. “Very interesting, I’m sure!” The poor young man believed that she meant that.

“Yes,” he said, “it is an interesting story. This chap—I’ll call him Smith, if you don’t mind, because naturally he wouldn’t like to be named. It happened some time ago—eighteen or twenty years ago, and this chap was third officer on a cargo steamer running between London and Antwerp. Well, one trip he met a girl in London, and he—well, you know, he liked her, and she seemed to like him. He told her when he’d be likely to dock again, and she said that that was her birthday, and that she wanted him to come to a little dance she was having. Well, of course, he got her a present. He pretty well broke himself to get her something he thought she’d like, and I suppose he thought about her a good deal. A fellow would, you know, at night, on watch, you know, and so on. Well, they got in the morning of the very day he’d said—docked at Tilbury—and then the old man told him he needn’t expect to get ashore this trip. The first was married and lived in London, and the second was signing off, so Smith would have to stay on board. Of course he couldn’t say anything, but it hit him pretty hard. Look here, Miss Torrance, does this bore you?”

“Well, then, as soon as the others had cleared out, Smith stepped ashore and telephoned to her. She began to tell him how glad she was, and how she’d been hoping he’d be able to come to her dance, and he had to tell her he couldn’t come. She asked him”—Martin grinned—“she asked him if he couldn’t tell the captain it was her birthday, and then she asked him if he couldn’t get some one to do his work for him. You know, girls never understand responsibility; but they’re—there’s something sweet about—”

“Anyhow, this girl didn’t—or wouldn’t—understand. She said if he didn’t come that night, he needn’t ever come. She told him he was no better than a slave—had no spirit, and so on. Well, there he was! It was a rainy day, and—ever seen Tilbury Docks on a rainy day? I wish I knew how to give you the—the effect. It’s the most dismal, desolate place you’d ever want to see. The Alberta was coaling, too, and you know what that means.

“Except for a steward and some of the crew, there was no one on board but Smith and the second engineer, and they didn’t hit it off very well. The cargo was all out of her, and the new lot not coming in till the next morning. The coaling was nearly done, and there was a train up to London about four o’clock. Well, if you were making a story out of this, you’d put in a lot here about a moral struggle. He must have had one, you know—love and duty,” said Mr. Martin, obviously pleased with his phrase. “That’s it—a struggle between love and duty, and love conquered. He must have been very fond of that girl! He went to town on the four o’clock train. He saw his girl, and she must have been a remarkably pig-headed, unreasonable young person. She said she’d marry him if he would give up the sea, but he would have to make up his mind then and there, or she’d know he didn’t really care for her. So he said he’d let her know before he sailed.

“The dance broke up pretty late, so Smith went to spend the night with a friend[Pg 187] of his in London, and took the first train back to Tilbury in the morning. Hadn’t been able to sleep all night, trying to make up his mind whether he’d give up the sea or the girl. Well, he got back, and on the dock he meets the marine superintendent of the line—a terrible old fellow, Captain Leavitt. Poor Smith felt pretty sick when he saw the captain. Anyhow, he says ‘Good morning, sir,’ and goes on to explain that he’d just stepped ashore for a bit of breakfast at the hotel.

“‘If you’ve any complaints to make,’ says old Leavitt, with a queer sort of grin, ‘now’s the time to make ’em, Mr. Smith!’

“‘Satisfied with the Alberta, eh?’ asks old Leavitt. ‘Everything all right on board when you stepped ashore for a little breakfast, Mr. Smith?’

“By this time Smith felt pretty sure that Captain Leavitt knew how long he’d been away, but he thought he’d better try to see it through. So he says yes, everything was all right.

“‘Humph!’ says old Leavitt, staring hard at him. ‘Well! So you’re quite sure everything’s all right on board this morning, eh?’

At that Leavitt takes his arm, and, without another word, stumps along beside him to the Alberta’s berth. The Alberta wasn’t there!

“‘Sure everything’s all right on board, eh?’ says Captain Leavitt. ‘My eyes aren’t as good as they were.’

“Poor Smith just stared and stared at the empty slip. He couldn’t say one word.

“‘She’s gone to the bottom!’ shouts Captain Leavitt. ‘And too bad you didn’t go there with her, you young liar and blackguard!’”

“Do you find that humorous?” demanded Miss Torrance, with a severe glance at his laughing face.

“Well, I can’t help it!” said Martin. “No one was hurt, you know. The trimmers had loaded her down too much on one side, and she simply rolled over and sank. And when you think of old Leavitt asking him if everything was all right on board, when he knew all the time, I can’t help thinking it’s funny!”

“Oh, Lord, no! But he’s a serious, high-minded sort of fellow. He thought it was a disgrace, you know, and he went off and told the girl that he was disgraced and ruined, and she threw him over. He never got over it, and that’s why he got me to promise that if ever I—well, you know, if I got seriously interested in a girl, I’d swallow the anchor. I think he’s right. It’s not fair to a girl—”

“I think, Mr. Martin,” said she, with a frigid little smile, “that if I were you, I shouldn’t renounce my trade.”

“Occupation,” Miss Torrance compromised. “It is one thing for you to be seriously interested in a girl, and quite another thing for her to be seriously interested in you.”

And with that she walked off, leaving her unfortunate young host standing beside the table, on which remained the last course of that excellent lunch.

III

It was a lamentable day. There was a smoky fog outside, which was, for some reason, twice as bad inside the house. When Miss Torrance let herself in, the ill lit hall was thick with it, and the puny gas jet spurted as if panting for breath.

As usual, she stopped at the hall table to look at the letters there. She picked one up hastily, and put it into her hand bag. Then, as she was about to ascend the stairs, she caught sight of Mr. Robertson standing in the doorway of the sitting room.

Even in the dusk, she could see the gleam of his white teeth as he smiled. She knew how he looked when he smiled, anyhow, for hadn’t she been seeing him twice a day for at least six months? Olive had remarked that he “looked like a darling.” Though Miss Torrance didn’t agree with any such extravagant statement, she had secretly thought him a rather distinguished man—until she had learned that he was a friend of Mr. Martin’s.

He was tall, very slender, very dark, with keen, thin features and an odd smile that lifted his neat black mustache up to his narrow nostrils, giving him an expres[Pg 188]sion a little fierce, but altogether agreeable. Of course, she didn’t know him, and wouldn’t know him. Let him smile! He was a friend of that Mr. Martin’s, and he and Mr. Martin were both in a conspiracy to rob her of Olive.

Still, she couldn’t very well refuse to answer, and so she did, after a fashion. Mr. Robertson did not seem to be discouraged. He made another remark, which she also felt obliged to answer. Indeed, he began to talk, and so artful was he that before she realized what she was doing, Miss Torrance was engaged in conversation with him.

She was thus engaged when Olive came, but that brought her to herself. With the coldest little nod for Mr. Robertson, she went upstairs.

“I couldn’t help it,” said Miss Torrance, with a frown. “He’s—well, I don’t like the man.”

Strange, then, that as she lay awake that night Miss Torrance should constantly see before her the image of Mr. Robertson—a tall, dark form in the dark hall, lounging against the hat stand in one of his characteristically easy and nonchalant attitudes! Strange that she should keep seeing his gleaming smile, and hearing in her ears his quiet, courteous voice!

All this caused her a curious uneasiness. For some reason it seemed to her a great misfortune, almost a disaster, that he had spoken to her. A very great misfortune! There he was, however, whether she liked him or not.

Being in all things so much quicker and brisker than Olive, she got downstairs first in the morning. When she entered the dining room, Robertson spoke again, and smiled. He pulled out her chair for her, and paid her various polite little attentions not at all remarkable in themselves, but new to Miss Torrance. She couldn’t actually be rude to the man, for he hadn’t offended in any way, and he wasn’t really obtrusive; but—

Morning and evening, for an endless week, she was obliged to see him, and to make civil responses to his civil greetings. By the end of the week she knew why she didn’t like Mr. Robertson. She didn’t like him because she couldn’t manage him. She couldn’t overawe him. She couldn’t impress him. When she was with him, she couldn’t really be Miss Torrance at all.

This, of course, she couldn’t endure. She wasn’t much used to talking to men, and she had a pretty poor opinion of them in general. She thought they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and Mr. Robertson evidently was not at all ashamed of himself. He was a surveyor of hulls, and she couldn’t help admitting that he had advanced further in business knowledge than herself. He had lived in all sorts of outlandish places—in Surabaya, in Hongkong, in Cape Town. He knew the world, and seemed to take it for granted that she didn’t. Apparently he regarded her as a dear, helpless little creature, and the incredible thing was that, while with him, Miss Torrance couldn’t help feeling like that.

One morning, when they were alone in the dining room, talking together in what certainly looked like a friendly manner, she looked up at him and asked him a question, with exactly the look and the voice of a dear, helpless little creature. Mr. Robertson looked back at her. Their eyes met. This made Miss Torrance very angry.

“I’m down town almost every day,” said Mr. Robertson. “Can’t we arrange to have lunch together some day?”

She said it in a way that Mr. Robertson could not very well help understanding. And the whole morning long she remembered this—remembered how the smile had vanished from his face, how stiffly he had bowed.

“I hope I did discourage him!” she told herself vehemently. “He’s the friend of that troublesome Mr. Martin, and he’s trying to scrape up an acquaintance with me, so that he can give messages and so on to Olive. Well, he shan’t!”

It was really spring now, a wild, gay April day, and Miss Torrance felt unusually restless. She was wearing a new suit, dark blue, very plain, very smart, and what with that and the spring in the air, she felt inclined to festivity. She thought it would be nice if she was going to meet somebody for lunch. Well, of course she wasn’t, but instead of going to the tea room where she had been going for years, she went to a near-by hotel.

The first person she saw there was Olive, very cozily lunching with Mr. Robertson.[Pg 189]

Miss Torrance got away without being seen, and went back to the office, for she did not want any lunch now. She went home a little earlier than usual, but she left nothing undone that should have been done.

Olive noticed nothing amiss with her friend. When she left the office, she didn’t hurry. She was glad to go slowly through the sweet afternoon. The western sky was clear and clean, ready for the down going of the sun, and the quiet and beautiful light of that most beautiful hour shone full in her face. Seeing her at that moment, you could well understand why poor Mr. Martin had been so suddenly overwhelmed.

She gave a last glance at the sky before opening the front door. Then she entered the house and went upstairs. The door was closed, so she knocked.

Olive was silent, not by any means from guilt or confusion, but because she was struggling against an unwonted anger. She thought of a good many things to say in regard to this unwarrantable interference with her affairs, but she did not say one of them. Instead, she looked down at Miss Torrance, who was working away in hot haste, and every one of her friend’s generosities and queer little kindnesses rose up before her. She crossed the room and knelt by the other woman’s side, putting an arm about her shoulders.

“Oh, my dear!” she said gently. “If I’ve done anything to—to hurt you, can’t you forgive me?”

“It’s not that,” said Miss Torrance, in a hard, cold voice. “I’ve nothing to forgive. It’s simply that I’ve—I’ve made a fool of myself.” The tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she pretended not to know it. “I’ve made the worst sort of fool of myself—and I will not face that man again! I will not!”

“But, darling,” said Olive gently, “if you feel like that, we’ll both go.”

“No!” cried Miss Torrance, with a loud sob. “I will not come between you and your precious Mr. Martin!”

“What do you mean?” said Olive. “I don’t—” She stopped. “That’s silly, darling,” she went on, in an airy sort of way. “I’ve forgotten all about Mr. Martin, and he’s gone off to sea and forgotten all about me, long ago.”

“He has not!” said Miss Torrance. “He wrote you two letters, and I tore them up. Take your arm away, please, and let me get up!”

“Well, now you know,” said Miss Torrance. “Now you know what a—a beast I am!”

“I won’t!” said Miss Torrance. “I pretended to myself that I wanted to save you, but to-day, when I saw you with that man, I knew that I was nothing but a jealous, meddlesome old—”

It was nothing—nothing at all—for Olive to give up the hope of seeing Mr. Martin again. Twice only had her eyes rested upon his jolly, sunburned face, and it ought to have been very easy to forget that. His letters she had never seen, so they were surely nothing to think about. Altogether, he and his letters were only the briefest sort of episode in a life that might go on for thirty, forty, even fifty years longer.

She had so much to be thankful for—a good position, a comfortable home, and the immeasurable gratitude and devotion of her friend. Well, to be sure, she was as quietly good-tempered as usual, and gave no sign that she had not forgotten the whole thing; yet Miss Torrance knew that Olive hadn’t forgotten.

She could read it in the girl’s face, and she could read it in her own heart. She could understand how Olive felt about her lost Mr. Martin. She understood very well what it was to remember one face, one voice, so constantly that all others were a weariness.

“It really is like that!” she sometimes said to herself, with a sort of awe. “I didn’t believe it, but it’s true!”

She never spoke about this to Olive, nor did she think it necessary to tell her that a week after they left the boarding house[Pg 190] she had returned there, to see Mr. Robertson, and to get from him the address of the roving Mr. Martin. Mr. Robertson had gone away, the landlady didn’t know where, so Miss Torrance was spared that humiliation, and had no inclination to mention it. She had done away with the young man so effectively that now, when she would have given her right hand to get him back for Olive, she couldn’t find him.

She tried her very best to atone. She no longer attempted to interfere in Olive’s affairs, for she no longer felt herself supremely competent to manage other people’s affairs. Indeed, the poor little woman was sometimes so subdued, so crushed by remorse, that it was all Olive could do to enliven her.

There were times when Olive found it rather a strain to enliven any one, when she would have welcomed any one who would perform that kind office for her. To-day was one of those days. The work in the office had been very heavy, and the weather was warm and sultry. She wanted to go home and rest, and yet she was reluctant to enter the new boarding house, so discouragingly like the old one.

She closed the front door behind her, and sighed. The servant had forgotten to light the gas, and the hall was inky black. There wasn’t a sound in the house, and the only sign of life was a steamy smell of rice and mutton ascending from the basement.

Olive was about to go upstairs when the doorbell rang furiously, and she thought she would wait and see what it meant. There might be a telegram for herself. She knew of no living person to send her one, but still, who knows what may happen?

Anyhow, she lit the gas herself, and pretended to be looking at the letters on the rack. She heard the maid coming up the basement stairs. The bell rang again, louder and longer.

“Mercy on us!” said the servant. “You’d think it was a fire!” She opened the door, and in came a man, in great haste.

“Look here!” said the stranger. “I made them tell me at her office where she lived, and this is the place, and I’m going to see her!”

Olive was not so much startled as he, because she had been looking at Mr. Martin ever since he entered. Nor did she seem pleased. Mr. Martin had apparently come here filled with rage against her Miss Torrance, and that she would not tolerate.

“I came,” said Mr. Martin firmly, “about this story—in this magazine. It’s—it’s an outrage!”

“Yes,” said Olive, in a faint little voice. “But—I didn’t think it was so—so bad.”

“Look here!” he said. “You don’t mean—you can’t mean—it was signed with a man’s name, but I felt sure Miss Torrance wrote it, because it’s based on a story I told her myself, about Robertson. I called him ‘Smith,’ but I suppose she knew all the time—”

“No!” Olive interposed. “No! Mr. Martin, I’m awfully sorry, but—I wrote that story!”

“I’m awfully sorry,” Olive said again, and she looked so. “You see, Mr. Robertson told me the story himself, and he didn’t say that it wasn’t to be used.”

“But, you see, I didn’t mean—I didn’t think—I only thought it was funny.”

“Funny!” cried Mr. Martin, all his indignation returning. “You thought it was funny to say—wait a minute!” He pulled a magazine out of his pocket and turned the pages. “This!” he said in a terrible voice. “You say, ‘The man went bowed under the weight of his infidelity. False to his duty, false to his inmost self, he—’”

“Here it is in black and white. ‘Raising his glass in his shaking hand, he drank again, his bleared eyes peering—’”

“You’ve made him out a drunken old beach comber—Robertson, the finest fellow who ever lived! You’ve got all the[Pg 191] facts there—any one could recognize ’em. You say—”

Olive could endure no more of this nightmare. She snatched the magazine out of his hands. “Remorse,” the story was called, and the author’s name was given as “John Hunt.” She suddenly collapsed upon the bottom step of the stairs.

For a moment the young man remained the just and stern judge. Then he bent over her and said, in a voice of quite human solicitude:

“I’m—perhaps you didn’t realize. Look here—I wish I hadn’t said all that! I’m—please don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying,” replied Olive, in a stifled voice. “Please forgive me! It really isn’t funny, but—oh, oh, I just can’t help it!”

“Oh, please forgive me! It’s horrible, but—I’ll stop in a moment. You see, that awful story is Miss Torrance’s, but I wrote a story, too—only mine was better, I think, and funnier. You see, we both—”

“Yes, both of us, and neither of us knew. Oh, imagine the editors, and Miss Torrance, and poor Mr. Robertson, and you, and me—”

“Personally, I don’t see anything—” he began in a frigid tone, but it was of no use.

They were all having dinner together in a restaurant. In the circumstances, Miss Torrance could not well refuse, especially as it was Mr. Martin’s one night on shore; but she was not happy. Every one else was happy, but not she.

As a rule, she strong-mindedly concealed her feelings, but to-night she didn’t. She allowed Mr. Robertson to see just how miserable she was. Olive and Mr. Martin might have seen this, too, if they had looked at her.

“It looks as if there was a new story beginning there,” observed Mr. Robertson. “Might be called ‘Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor.’”

“I shall miss Olive so,” she said, in a not very steady voice, “if she—”

“I’m sure you would,” agreed Mr. Robertson; “but she couldn’t find a better fellow than young Martin. I’ve known him all his life, and—”

“Yes, I know,” said Miss Torrance; “but I shall be lonely—oh, so lonely!”

Too French

THE STORY OF A NERVOUS WRECK AND HER ATTRACTIVE YOUNG COMPANION

YOUNG MANDEVILLE RYDER entered the employment bureau with extreme reluctance. Indeed, when he opened the door and saw so many women in there, and heard so many feminine voices, he would have backed out again, only that he was too young to dare to run away.

He was twenty-five—the age of pig-headed valor. He had undertaken to do this thing, and he meant to do it. Instinct warned him to flee, but he paid no heed. Hat in hand, he advanced to the desk and somewhat vaguely made known his wants.

It was a question of engaging a companion for his sister, who was a nervous wreck. His brother-in-law had implored him to do this.

“B-because,” Sheila’s husband said, “if I find any one—well, Mandy, you know what she’ll probably say.”

Mandeville did know. He had taken pity upon his luckless brother-in-law, and had agreed to go and pick out a companion for Sheila; so here he was.

The young woman in charge of the bureau listened to him with courteous inattention. She had long ago ceased to trouble with any one’s detailed requirements. She knew that both employers and employees wanted and demanded things that never existed in this world, and that in the end they would take what they could get and be more or less satisfied.

She was, however, rather favorably impressed by this client. Not only was he more than six feet tall, extraordinarily good-looking, and extremely well dressed, but he had an air about him—a superb sort of nonchalance, which she saw through at once, and which she recognized as merely a disguise for an honest, candid, and endearingly youthful spirit; so she decided not to inflict Miss Mullins upon him. Miss Mullins had been registered for six weeks, and, considering her temperament and personal appearance, she needed every possible chance.

“No!” thought the young woman in charge. “I’ll let him see Miss Twill.”

Smiling pleasantly, she led Mandeville into a room where four women were already established, talking, two in each corner, in low tones, and eying each other with quick, terribly penetrating glances. A prominent clubwoman was interviewing a poor little secretary, and a mild, home-keeping lady was being interviewed by a stern and handsome English governess.

Young Mandeville had to sit either on a very low wicker rocking-chair, or on a settee. He tried the rocking-chair first, but it brought his knees up to his chin, so he had to take the settee, and this caused him considerable anxiety; for suppose—

Well, it happened. Miss Twill, brought in and presented to him, did sit down on the settee beside him. She was a cheery soul. All her unimpeachable references mentioned her “cheerful disposition.” She really had no perceptible faults at all, but she wouldn’t do.

Young Mandeville was absolutely incapable of telling her this to her cheerful face, and their conversation had trailed into an awful succession of one “well” after another, when the intelligent manageress of the bureau saved him. She sent him another prospective companion to be interviewed, another and yet another, and none of them would do.

Mandeville suffered exceedingly. He wished that he could give the discouraged, pinched little old one a present—a dozen pairs of gloves, for instance. He wished that he could invite the pert, pretty young one out to lunch. He was sorry for all of[Pg 194] them, and he felt like a brute; but he knew what he wanted, and these would not do. There he sat, like a caliph in his divan, pronouncing judgment upon these poor, anxious creatures, and waiting, without much hope, for the right one.

He had a clear idea of the right one. He had met her—in novels and in the theater—a tall, grave, lovely young woman, exquisitely well bred, dignified, and yet subtly pathetic; the sort of companion who can stand about and converse with diplomats. Not that his sister ever entertained diplomats, but that was the type.

The manageress was becoming a little severe. It was dawning upon her that this client was not so manageable as he looked. After he had seen and—with great mental suffering—rejected six companions, she decided to make an end of him.

The room was temporarily empty of all but Mandeville when she returned with the seventh applicant.

Miss La Chêne did not sit beside Mandeville on the settee—not she! She took the low rocking-chair opposite him, crossed her feet modestly, clasped her little white-gloved hands in her lap, and raised her eyes to his face. Enormous, soft black eyes they were, set in a dark, lovely, pointed face. She was dressed with an innocent sort of elegance, in a dark suit and a small, close-fitting hat. She had about her such an air of propriety, something so decorous and demure and delightful, that Mandeville couldn’t repress a smile. She smiled, too, and dropped her eyes.

He didn’t know how to begin. This charming little thing was nothing but a child, a kid.

“Er—” he said, in his vague, grand manner. “Er—I don’t imagine you’ve had much experience as a—er—a companion.”

“None!” said she, almost with vehemence. “None at all; but I speak French just as I do English, I can sew, I can read aloud, I can play the piano. I have good personal references from people in Quebec, and I have a diploma from the convent.”

In hot haste she opened her hand bag, brought out some letters, and handed them to the young man. Somehow he didn’t care to read them. Somehow this interview lacked a businesslike tone. No—he couldn’t read the poor little thing’s letters!

“I know,” said Mandeville earnestly; “but—you see, my sister wants—”

“You see—” he went on, but stopped short, because the poor little thing’s black eyes filled with tears.

This was more than he could endure. He was silent for a moment, trying honestly to weigh the merits of the case. She was obviously well bred, she spoke French, she could sew, she could read aloud, she could play the piano; but all these qualifications became confused in his mind with the quite irrelevant facts that she was only eighteen and all alone in the world, and that she had those extraordinary, those marvelous eyes.

“I’ll take you to see my sister,” he said, at last, for he thought that his sister could not fail to be touched by so much youth, beauty, and innocence.

Sheila Robinson, the nervous wreck, lay on a couch in her boudoir, and from time to time she wept. She was a handsome woman, a fine woman, tall, regally formed, with long, languid blue eyes and a superb crown of red hair. She was not unaware of her natural advantages, yet compliments almost always made her weep.

“If you could have seen me before I married Lucian Robinson!” was what she usually said.

She had just said this now, to Miss La Chêne, and Miss La Chêne had answered instantly:

Considering the age and inexperience of the girl, this reply showed talent; but what had the poor little thing, only eighteen and all alone in the world, to depend upon except her own native wit? She had made a determined effort to please Sheila Robinson, and she had succeeded at the very first interview. Mrs. Robinson had been much gratified by her wide-eyed interest and fervent sympathy.

For a whole week Miss La Chêne had not failed once. She had been earnestly attentive, obliging, polite, and amusing.[Pg 195] She had been, without complaint, a servant in the morning, a dear and intimate friend in the afternoon, and completely forgotten in the evening. Everything had gone very nicely indeed.

But a week of calm was about as much as Mrs. Robinson’s nerves could endure. Her husband was away on a business trip, and his daily letters upset her horribly. She could, she assured Miss La Chêne, read between the lines. She was wonderfully clever about this, though she modestly said that it was all intuition.

For instance, if a letter was dated the 12th, this remarkable woman knew at once that it had really been written on the 5th, and given to some complaisant friend to mail. If Lucian said that business was bad, it was because he wished to lavish his money elsewhere. If he said that business was good, it was because he was disgracefully happy.

Altogether Mrs. Robinson was so barbarously ill-used and deceived by her husband that she no longer cared what happened to her. The hotel suite which she occupied became the scene of a lamentable martyrdom. She trifled with her life. When she lay in bed, she observed to Miss La Chêne that the doctor had positively ordered her to go out and divert her mind. When she passed a hectic day away from home, she would frequently remind Miss La Chêne, with a brave, scornful smile, that the doctor had forbidden any excitement. Every meal, every cup of coffee, every cigarette, was a reckless defiance of the doctor’s orders; but, as she said, what did it all matter? Perhaps it would be better if she were dead, and the heartless Lucian free to marry again.

“If I should not be here when he comes back,” she said to Miss La Chêne, in a low, thrilling voice, “tell him that I forgive—everything!”

Nevertheless, it seemed that she wished to know definitely what there was to be forgiven, for on this particular morning she said she had a “strange, psychic feeling that something was wrong,” and she desired to verify the suspicion. She read her husband’s letter over and over.

“My dear!” she said, with dangerous calmness. “He says he is at a hotel in Washington, but I do not believe him! Something tells me he is not in Washington at all!”

“Please,” Mrs. Robinson went on, “get the hotel on the long distance for me, my dear. I must know!”

This the willing companion did. Mrs. Robinson took up the receiver and requested to speak to Mr. Robinson. There was a pause. Then a pleasant feminine voice answered her:

It was terrible! In vain did Miss La Chêne point out that Robinson was not a very unusual name, and that there might well be a Mrs. Robinson in that hotel totally unknown to Mr. Lucian Robinson.

“Don’t go on!” cried Mrs. Robinson. “I knew it—I knew it all the time! My heart told me!”

She began at once to prepare for her departure. In every crisis she was wont to fly to some one who could “understand,” and it was now the turn of her sister, Mrs. Milner, to perform this office for her. She was going away. She cared not where she went, in her anguish, but she thought that Miss La Chêne might as well buy her a ticket for Greenwich and look up a train and order a taxi.

“I must go at once,” she said, “while I have the strength. My dear, do I look too terrible?”

“Well,” replied Miss La Chêne, “of course, any one could see how much you were suffering.”

Mrs. Robinson cast a glance at the mirror. With her handsome face pale with grief and Rachel powder, her eyes somber with pain and mascara, her regal form dressed all in black, she did indeed look tragic.

“What does it all matter?” she demanded. “You’ll stay here and look after the packing, won’t you, my dear? And my jewels—” This was too much for her. “My jewels!” she said wildly. “Almost all of them were given to me by him, in those days when he still loved me. Take them away! Never let me see them again—never! But be sure to get a receipt from the safe-deposit, my dearest child, and remember that the bank closes at three o’clock.”

She gave the jewel case to Miss La Chêne and turned with a shudder, covering her eyes with her hand.

“Take the five o’clock train, my dear,” she said. “I’ll see that you’re met at the station. Good-by! Good-by![Pg 196]”

Directly she was left alone, Miss La Chêne, with remarkable skill and energy, set about the business of packing. She did the job well—as, indeed, she did almost everything she undertook.

In a way she enjoyed the task, but in another way it was unspeakably painful. She adored handling these satin, silk, lace, chiffon, batiste, and georgette garments of Mrs. Robinson’s, these perfumes, powders, rouges, creams, and lotions, these hats, shoes, slippers, gloves, and scarfs. She could thoroughly appreciate the somewhat flamboyant tastes of the unhappy lady; but oh, how she coveted! Actually tears came into her eyes—tears of fearful envy.

She was an honest and sturdy little soul, however, and she tried to console herself with the reflection that, if she continued to be honest, industrious, and virtuous, she might some day have all that Mrs. Robinson had, and more. Even in boarding school she had known that she was going to marry a millionaire, and now she was so situated that she might meet one at almost any minute. Who could tell what might not happen at the house of this sister in Greenwich?

So she did her work; and when it was done, and the trunks had gone off, she sat down to rest for a little. It was at this minute, when her busy little hands were idle, that temptation assailed her. She wondered what Mrs. Robinson had in her jewel case. She discovered that the key was in the lock. She did not see what harm it could possibly do just to look at the jewels; and then she did not see what harm it could possibly do just to try on a few of them.

She tucked in her blouse, so as to leave her slender neck and shoulders bare. She took the net off her smooth, neat coiffure, and produced a fascinating effect of wildness by a few deft touches. Cosmetics she needed not, for her eyes were starry, her cheeks flushed with delight. She slipped two or three rings on her fingers and a broad gold bracelet on one childish arm. She put on a long rope of pearls, and clasped about her throat a short necklace of emeralds.

Then she found a jeweled butterfly, the use of which she didn’t comprehend, but she fastened it in her hair, just above her eyebrows; and she stared and stared at her image in the mirror, enthralled by the magical glimmer of the jewels. She was altogether the most amazingly lovely little creature, and the man standing in the doorway behind her was very properly overwhelmed. He never forgot that first glimpse of Miss La Chêne.

She spun around, as white as a ghost. He was a slender, well dressed man, with a thin, harassed face, pleasant brown eyes, and hair a little gray. He was greatly embarrassed, and she was terrified; and that made conversation difficult.

III

“I?” said he, surprised. “B-but the thing is, who are you? I’m Robinson.”

Impossible! This mild and nervous gentleman the heartless brute who had ruined Mrs. Robinson’s life, shattered her illusions, and made her the nervous wreck she was? And yet, looking at him, Miss La Chêne could not doubt him. He seemed authentic.

Then, so abashed was she, so humiliated at being caught thus, bedecked in Mrs. Robinson’s jewels, that she began to cry. She would not admit that she was crying, however. With great tears rolling down her cheeks and her lashes like wet rays, she explained, in a formal tone, that Mrs. Robinson had left her behind to pack, and that she had just tried on the—the jewels.

“W-well, what of it?” he said cheerfully. “Th-there’s no harm done. See here! Please don’t cry! Why shouldn’t you t-try on the things? Very natural!” He paused. “And very becoming,” he added, with a singularly nice sort of smile.

She liked him. He was kind and courteous, and he evidently admired her. When he asked where his wife had gone, Miss La Chêne found that she was sorry for him. He was so innocent, so absolutely unaware of his latest crime. He said that he had “popped in to surprise her.”

For an instant the tactful and zealous companion was at a loss. She was not very old and not very experienced, and this seemed to be rather a delicate matter; but she was a warm-hearted little thing, and pretty sharp-witted, and she was convinced now that Mr. Robinson was an old darling,[Pg 197] and badly misunderstood. So she told him the truth, in the most tactful way she could.

“B-but, good Lord!” cried the unfortunate man. “There might be t-ten Robinsons in a b-big hotel!”

“I know,” Miss La Chêne agreed. “I said that to Mrs. Robinson, but you know how—sensitive and high-strung she is.”

“Yes,” he said ruefully. “Yes, she is.” He sighed. “Well!” he said, and sighed again.

Miss La Chêne took advantage of his abstraction to retire to another room, to take off her borrowed ornaments, and to restore her costume to its usual demure neatness. When she came back with the jewels in her hand, to restore them to the case, she found Mr. Robinson sitting in a chair, staring before him, profoundly dejected. The only thought that entered her kind little heart was a very admirable and very feminine desire to cheer and comfort this unhappy man.

So Miss La Chêne telephoned downstairs to the restaurant, and a tea was sent up, but it did not suit the fastidious young woman. She did magical things to it with various electric devices; and the tea itself was so delectable, and the temporary hostess was so gay and amusing and delightful and kind, that Robinson soon completely recovered his spirits. He was a very good sort of fellow, too, when he had half a chance, and altogether they were so cozy and jolly that they quite forgot the time, until the clock struck.

Then, startled as Cinderella was by the same sound, Miss La Chêne sprang up from the tea table.

“Mon Dieu!” she cried. “Quatre heures! Madame sera bien fâchée! Mais que je suis bête! Mon Dieu!”

All this sounded very alarming to Robinson. He was relieved to hear that the only trouble was that the bank had closed at three o’clock, and Miss La Chêne could not deposit the jewels, as she had been directed to do.

“Well, if that’s all,” said he, “I’ll take ’em myself to-morrow morning. You run along and catch your train, and don’t worry.”

Then he had to spoil all that cheerful, innocent little hour they had had together. His face grew red, and he did not care to look at Miss La Chêne.

“Er,” he stammered, “I—I—I think it would be just as well not to mention to Mrs. Robinson—”

Mandeville Ryder sat in a corner of the screened veranda, reading. It was a good place for reading, cool and breezy; the electric lamp afforded an excellent light, and his book was an interesting one. Twice his young niece, Elaine Milner, had come out to entreat him to come in and dance, but with a smile of lofty amusement he had refused. He said he preferred reading.

Yet, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t read one page. From where he sat he could look through the window, through the long room where the dancing was going on, into the smaller room beyond, where sat his two sisters, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner, and with them Miss La Chêne. He could look, and he did look.

Elaine was a pretty girl, and she had collected two or three rather pretty young things and a proper number of young fellows. All in all, they were a cheerful, well dressed, well mannered lot of young people, and the spectacle of their harmless merriment might well have brought a smile to the lips of any observer; yet Mandeville did not smile.

He was looking at Miss La Chêne, sitting there with the two ladies, silent, decorous, and patient, in her plain little dark silk dress, the very model of a companion. Only her enormous black eyes moved restlessly, following the dancers with a look which Mandeville could hardly endure.

“Poor little thing!” he said to himself. “Poor little thing! It’s a confounded shame!”

There wasn’t a girl there half so pretty as she, not a girl with anything like her style, her charm, her grace. She was beyond measure superior to all of them, yet there she had to sit, looking on.

“And I let her in for this!” young Ryder thought. “She has no business being a companion, anyhow. By George, if she had half a chance!”

And, with a rather touching naïveté, he thought he could remedy all this, could notably assist and hearten the poor little thing. He rose, put down his book, entered the house, threaded his way among the[Pg 198] dancers, and presently stood beside Miss La Chêne’s chair. She raised those big eyes to his face with a startled look.

For a moment she hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t accept. Elaine wouldn’t like it, Elaine’s mother wouldn’t like it, Mrs. Robinson wouldn’t like it; but Miss La Chêne couldn’t resist. With another glance at Mandeville she rose, he put his arm about her, and off they went.

And, as he put it, they stopped the show. He was a wonderful dancer, and she was incomparable. They danced with the curious gravity of professionals. They did not smile, they did not speak, except when he gave a low, brief order for a change of step.

Somebody did this, and now they had the floor to themselves. They stepped out with splendid arrogance, in absolute accord, lithe, utterly easy, utterly and disdainfully sure of themselves. Mandeville looked down at the dark, glowing little creature before him with a fine fire in his blue eyes.

“You’re the prettiest girl in the world!” he whispered. “And the sweetest!”

Well, this went to her head. When the tango was at an end, young Lyons, who was Elaine’s latest interest in life, came entreating Miss La Chêne for a dance. She forgot all worldly wisdom and discretion, she forgot everything, except that she was young and pretty, and that the handsomest and most distinguished young man in the room—or perhaps in the universe—had singled her out for his attentions, and that all the other men admired her.

She liked to be admired, and she loved to dance. The music had got into her blood. Her slender shoulders moved restlessly. She smiled, and dimples showed in her olive cheeks. Her eyes were as bright as stars.

She did. Penniless and obscure, in her plain, dark little dress, she had come among these luxurious girls and eclipsed them all. Every one of the young men was dazzled by her dainty coquetry, the faint foreign flavor of her allurement. The girls were prodigiously civil. They jolly well had to be, when this little intruder stood so high in favor with the opposite sex.

And all this was due to Mandeville Ryder. He had raised her up from her sorrowful obscurity. She made no secret of her gratitude. Her eyes were forever seeking his, and she generally found him looking at her. They smiled at each other with a sort of friendly understanding.

But there came, of course, that moment so dear to sour and middle-aged moralists—the moment when the party breaks up, the music stops, and fatigue comes across laughing faces. The guests went away, and there was nobody left but the family and Miss La Chêne. She had danced, and now she must pay the piper; and his bill was likely to be a large one.

Elaine whispered something to her mother, Mrs. Milner whispered something to Mrs. Robinson, and they all looked at Miss La Chêne in a certain way. Mandeville had gone out on the veranda for a smoke, and she had no friend here.

“You needn’t wait,” said Mrs. Robinson, in a tone she had never used before.

There were two things the matter with Mandeville Ryder, and neither of them was fatal. He was too young, and he was spoiled. He was a handsome fellow, the only son of a well-to-do father; and he was so much run after and so much flattered that he had acquired a manner and an outlook lamentably toploftical. At heart, however, he was wholly honest, generous, and chivalrous.

On the morning after the dance, he went off to the city, resolved not to come back to his sister’s house, and not to think any more of Miss La Chêne; but even before lunch time he had resolved that he would go back. He was a conceited ass, he told himself, and a girl like Miss La Chêne was too good for any man.

So back he went, arriving a little before the dinner hour. Perhaps he was a little too consciously heroic in his determination to show the greatest deference toward Miss La Chêne; but he soon got over that, for he had no chance to display his heroism.

All the sparkle and gayety had gone from the poor girl. When he began to speak to her, she answered him with a hurried little nervous smile, and flitted away. He couldn’t even catch her eye. She fairly clung to Mrs. Robinson, hiding in the[Pg 199] shadow of that regal lady. She was so pale, so subdued, so startlingly changed from the charming little creature of the evening before, that Mandeville was worried.

It never occurred to him that he was responsible for this lamentable change, and he went ahead, making a sufficiently unpleasant situation worse and worse by his well meant efforts. At the dinner table he tried to bring the pale and downcast Miss La Chêne into the conversation, and wondered at her very brief answers and her flat, small voice. He knew that she could talk.

“I’ll try a dance with you, Elaine,” he said to his niece, benevolently, after dinner.

The wisdom of the past is very clearly demonstrated in the story of Cinderella. You will remember that that long-suffering girl maintained a canny silence regarding her succès fou at the court balls until the prince had made a frank declaration of his honorable intentions. Otherwise her life between balls, with those stepsisters and that stepmother, would have been unendurable—as Miss La Chêne’s life was now. Naturally Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner did not like to see their adored and only brother making an idiot of himself about a girl who was just a little nobody, and naturally they firmly believed it was all the girl’s fault. They didn’t actually say anything, but they managed remarkably well with implications.

Miss La Chêne could not defend herself. Never before in her brief life had she shown herself deficient in spirit or in proper pride, but now a terrible humility had come over her. She thought Mandeville Ryder was so marvelous that he couldn’t possibly be interested in her. She thought he hadn’t really meant it when he said she was the prettiest girl in the world, and the sweetest. She thought he hadn’t really looked at her like that. How was it possible, when the most beautiful and charming and brilliant girls were all competing for his favor? No—he had only been kind to her, because it was his dear, splendid way to be kind to every one.

And, after all, his kindness had brought her nothing but misery. It seemed to her sometimes that she couldn’t bear the slights and the innuendoes of Mrs. Milner and Mrs. Robinson another moment; and yet she couldn’t quite make up her mind to go back to some cheap little boarding house, to wait there until she could find another position, possibly worse than this—and never, never to see Mandeville Ryder any more. She generally cried after she got into bed at night.

As for young Mandeville, he generally sat out on the veranda alone, smoking, and meditating in a very miserable way. Miss La Chêne as a dancing partner, gay and sparkling and lovely, had charmed him, but Miss La Chêne subdued and obviously unhappy touched him to the heart. What was the matter with her?

A week went by, and then the household was thrown into turmoil by a dramatic and tremendous reconciliation between Mrs. Robinson and her husband. Mrs. Robinson enjoyed it very much, Mr. Robinson not quite so much. Indeed, he had a pretty sheepish look when his wife sat beside him on the sofa, weeping, with her head on his shoulder, and announced to the assembled family:

“Lucian and I are going to make a fresh start, and all the miserable, miserable past is to be as if it had never been!”

Her dancing eyes met Mandeville’s. He was obliged to get up and walk over to the window, to hide a reluctant and irresistible grin; but Mrs. Robinson noticed nothing. She had no sense of humor. She was too intense.

The next evening Robinson brought out his wife’s jewel case from the city, and, knowing what was expected of him in any reconciliation, he brought also a gift—a diamond pendant on a gold chain. It was impossible for Mrs. Robinson not to show to the other members of the household this proof of her husband’s penitent devotion. She took it downstairs, and Mrs. Milner and Elaine hastened to her, and they all three stood by the piano lamp, vehemently admiring the glittering thing.

Robinson was rather pleased with himself; but then, unfortunately, he caught[Pg 200] sight of little Miss La Chêne standing outside the charmed circle, pointedly disregarded by the others, and trying her valiant best to look as if she didn’t care. Though he was years and years older than Mandeville, and most bitterly experienced, the same dangerous notion came into Mr. Robinson’s head—the wish to be kind to the luckless young creature. He remembered how nice she had been to him, how kind and jolly over that impromptu tea, how loyal and discreet in never mentioning it to Mrs. Robinson.

He crossed the room to her side, and stood there, talking to her. Miss La Chêne, in the joy and comfort of being spoken to like a real, human girl, came to life. Her face grew bright and piquant again, and she said funny, amusing things that made Robinson laugh. They both forgot their terribly precarious positions, and were happy and cheerful.

Mrs. Robinson saw this; and that evening, when she went upstairs to her room, she discovered that one of her bracelets was missing from the jewel case. She had given the case to Miss La Chêne unlocked, and no one else had touched it.

“I c-can’t tell her!” thought the thrice-wretched Robinson. “Not now! If I’d mentioned it in the beginning—but now, after all this t-time! If she knew that we had t-tea together, and that I t-took the infernal case! I can’t stand another of these rows—I simply c-can’t! I’ll make it right, somehow.”

So he persuaded his outraged wife not to summon policemen, or detectives, or sheriffs that night, but to wait until the morning. Then he pretended to go to sleep, but it was a long time before sleep really came to him. He felt certain that Miss La Chêne would not betray him, and he felt equally certain that to count upon her loyalty was about as contemptible a thing as his sorry weakness had ever led him into doing.

Mandeville Ryder returned to his sister’s house the next evening at the usual hour, and found Elaine sitting alone on the veranda.

“Yes!” said Elaine. “They’ve been looking for a chance to destroy her ever since you danced with her. We’ve all been pretty beastly. I’m sorry. I don’t believe she ever stole—”

“That’s the tale—that she stole Aunt Sheila’s bracelet—the one you gave her two years ago on her fifth anniversary.”

“She?” cried Mandeville. His healthy face grew pale. His eyes narrowed. “That’s a damned lie!” he said.

“You never heard such a row!” she continued, with unction. “You know what mother and Aunt Sheila are when they get going. I feel sorry for the poor girl.”

“Oh, she’s gone!” said Elaine cheerfully. “But—oh, here’s Uncle Lucian! Better and better! Poor Uncle Lucian! He—”

But Mandeville waited to hear no more. He ran up the stairs, to face his sister, and to find out where Miss La Chêne had gone.

At first he could find neither of his sisters, although he heard their voices. He flung open door after door, and at last he discovered them in the little room that had been Miss La Chêne’s.

Sheila Robinson was very busy there. She was emptying out the bureau drawers, ransacking the wardrobe, and unpacking a trunk. All over the floor lay Miss La Chêne’s dainty belongings—filmy little garments, shoes, bits of ribbon, a pathetic wreath of flowers from a hat. The sight of these things—her things—trampled underfoot, was more than the young man could endure.

“My bracelet is gone,” said his sister, “and I’m going to search that girl’s room thoroughly.”

“Look here!” said he. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the time you accused that poor little chambermaid of stealing your ring, when it was in your purse all the time; but I haven’t. I won’t have Miss La Chêne called[Pg 201]—”

“Lucian!” she cried, spying her husband in the doorway. “Don’t let Mandeville insult me like this!”

“I—I—I say, Mandy!” he stammered. “Sheila’s upset, you know, and—”

“This is my house,” said Mrs. Milner, “and Sheila has a perfect right to be here. That little French thing has robbed—”

“Stop that!” shouted Mandeville. “Look here, Lucian, if you don’t get them both out of here—”

“Lucian, are you a man?” his wife demanded wildly. “Will you allow your own wife to be insulted and ordered out—”

Mandeville advanced toward his brother-in-law until he stood towering above him.

With one glance at him, Mandeville turned away. Only one glance—but it might better have been a blow.

VII

Elaine Milner was sitting on the veranda again, the next afternoon, all ready with an astounding piece of news. A station taxi came up the drive, and out stepped Mandeville Ryder.

“Oh, Mandy!” she cried, when her attention was diverted by the arrival of a second taxi, from which descended her Uncle Lucian.

“For Heaven’s sake!” thought she. “Separate taxis—and they’re not even speaking to each other!”

Before she had recovered herself, both men had gone into the house. Robinson went to his wife’s room, where she was not. Mandeville went to Mrs. Milner’s boudoir, where she was. He knocked on the door.

“Sheila!” he said. “Look here! I—I want you to send for Miss La Chêne to come back—”

His face was flushed, and no man had ever a guiltier air. Young Mandeville was not diplomatic, not adroit. So far in his life he had had no occasion to be. He had existed in magnificent candor.

“You made a big mistake,” he went on. “I knew it all the time. I knew she—”

These words very greatly perturbed him. He didn’t know quite what his sister meant, and he was alarmed; but he continued doggedly:

“Because I found your confounded bracelet this morning—in your room at the hotel, where you’d left it.”

Mrs. Robinson took the velvet case that he held out to her, opened it, and looked inside.

“I see!” said she. “What a sweet, dear boy you are, Mandy! Isn’t he, Nina?”

“Well, look here!” he went on. “Now that you’ve got the thing, will you send for her to come back? Or you can tell me where she lives, and I’ll go and explain—”

There was another knock at the door, and in came Lucian Robinson. He started at the sight of Mandeville. He wished never to see Mandeville again. He couldn’t forget that look; and he couldn’t forget that if Mandeville had known the truth, his contempt would have been beyond measure greater. At the same time, he couldn’t help liking the contemptuous young man, and admiring him, because he knew that nothing in this world could ever induce Mandeville to do a base or cowardly thing.

“I—I—I—” he said, turning toward the door again. “L-later, my dear!”

“Do come in, Lucian!” said his wife. “Mandeville was just speaking of Miss La Chêne.”

“Th-that’s queer!” cried Robinson, with very strained geniality. “Dashed queer! Because I—”

“N-no,” said he; “but—but—but—the thing is, I got thinking about that b-bracelet, and—well!” From his pocket he pulled a velvet case. “H-here it is!” he said. “I found it in your room at the—”

He stopped, stricken with horror by the[Pg 202] expression on his wife’s face. She rose. She opened the door into Mrs. Milner’s bedroom.

“Miss La Chêne!” she said. “Kindly come here! Perhaps you can explain this!”

In came Miss La Chêne. Her face bore the marks of recent tears, but she looked not at all abashed or humbled. On the contrary, she held her little head mighty high.

“You see,” Mrs. Robinson said to her, “both these gentlemen found my bracelet in the room at the hotel. Doesn’t that seem rather strange?” She turned toward her husband. “Because,” she went on, “I telephoned to Miss La Chêne this morning, to tell her that I had found it myself, in my bureau drawer.”

“I wanted to apologize to Miss La Chêne,” Sheila continued. “I thought she might be feeling badly about it. I didn’t know how many people there were to look after her and defend her. Mandeville and Lucian—Mandeville I can understand, but why you should take it upon yourself, Lucian, to shield this girl before you knew whether or not—”

“Please!” Miss La Chêne interrupted anxiously. “It was a kind and generous thing for Mr. Robinson to do for—”

“You have the effrontery to take his part against me?” cried Mrs. Robinson. “This—”

They all turned, startled by his tone. The harassed and wretched man had spoken with a sternness no one had ever heard him employ before. The spectacle of Miss La Chêne defending him was a little more than he could bear. He had come to the end of his tether. Indeed, he had cut it, and he stood free. His stammer had left him, and so had his nervous smile.

“Be good enough to keep your disgusting suspicions to yourself,” he said to his wife. “They only lower you in my eyes.”

“I’m sick and tired of being bullied and suspected and accused,” he went on. “Of course I bought this bracelet. I did it partly to save a defenseless girl, whom I knew to be innocent, from the outrageous treatment I knew she’d get at your hands; but I did it chiefly because I owed it to her. I was the last one to handle your accursed jewel case. I took it from Miss La Chêne in the city. I met her there the day you left. I had tea with her; and you can be proud or not of the fact that I was afraid to tell you I had spoken to her.”

The effect of this speech was tremendous. Every one in the room was stricken into sinister silence.

There stood Robinson, pale, but absolutely resolute, waiting for the storm to break. It was going to be awful, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be badgered and bullied any more. Sheila was a fine woman. He always had thought so, and he thought so now, but she—

And he saw that instead of being temporarily speechless with rage, she was looking at him as she hadn’t looked for years and years—not since that day, before they were married, when he had won the tennis singles, and she had called him “my hero” in a very silly but somehow rather touching way.

His business training had taught him that nothing is more fatal than a half triumph. He must go forward.

“No!” said he. “Don’t talk to me. I won’t be talked to about this. Only I want to offer my most sincere and humble apologies to Miss La Chêne—”

“Mon Dieu!” cried Miss La Chêne, completely overcome. “Ah, monsieur! Que vous êtes gentil! Que vous êtes bon!”

He really couldn’t bear this, especially as, for all he knew, her words might be an appeal to his better nature. He came nearer to her and patted her shoulder.

And the poor little thing, worn out by the series of terrific scenes in which she had been engaged, and by the misery and anxiety she had endured, rested her head on Mr. Robinson’s shoulder and cried and cried.

“Lucian!” she said, beginning to cry herself, and speaking in an imploring tone. “Please forgive me! Oh, please forgive me—and come over here!”

Robinson looked at his wife over Miss La Chêne’s shoulder. In his heart he felt extremely sorry to see that regal creature[Pg 203] brought low, but he meant never to admit this.

“The episode,” said he, “is ended. You have your bracelet—three of ’em in fact; so we’ll say no more about it.”

Then he looked at Mandeville. The young man was frowning heavily. He was profoundly displeased, but he was no longer contemptuous. On the contrary, he was envious.

She raised her head from Robinson’s shoulder, smiled uncertainly, and walked off to a corner of the room, there to dry her eyes. Mandeville followed her.

“Look here!” said he to her, very low. “Robinson’s a fine fellow, and so on, but he’s married!”

“Oh, no!” Mandeville replied hastily. “Of course not. Only—look here! Don’t—please don’t be—too French, you know!”

They went out into the garden, and walked about there; and Mandeville must have advanced some excellent arguments, because, before dinner was announced, Miss La Chêne had promised not to be French at all any more, but to become an American for the rest of her life.[Pg 204]

The Good Little Pal

HOW BARTY AND JACKO STARTED THEIR MARRIED LIFE UNDER ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES

IT was an afternoon very much like many other afternoons. Leadenhall stood on the corner waiting for her. He was so weary, and still so much absorbed in the work he had just left, he had waited for her so often, and he was so sure of her coming, that he scarcely thought of her at all.

It was five o’clock of a fierce July day, and the sun still blazed unabated in a cloudless sky. Before him, along Fifth Avenue, went an unceasing stream of busses and motor cars. The noise, the heat, the reek, the tireless movement, exasperated him. He wanted to go home for a cold shower and a quiet smoke. He wanted to be let alone.

Then he saw her, and there was nothing else in the world. She was coming down a side street with that eager, beautiful gait of hers, so straight and gallant, so self-possessed and debonair—and so touchingly slight and young. He noticed for the first time, with an odd contraction of the heart, how thin she had grown this summer.

She had stopped at the corner. She smiled at him across the stream of traffic, and a pang shot through him, because her dear face was so tired. He raised his hat, but he could not smile in return. All the other things—the minor things that had troubled him—were lost in his great anxiety for Jacqueline. He dashed across the street, with the luck of the foolhardy, and stood before her, looking at her in alarm.

“Well, I know it,” she answered, laughing. “So are you! Who isn’t, this awful weather?”

But she stopped laughing as their eyes met. They stood there, looking at each other in silence for a long minute. Then the color rose in her cheeks, and she turned her head aside.

He did not answer. He took her arm to pilot her across the street again. It seemed to him a terribly frail arm. He seized it tightly, in a sort of panic. She meant to make a laughing protest against being hustled along in this fashion, but somehow the light words would not come. A glance at Barty’s face made her heart sink.

“Oh, he is going to be silly!” she thought, in despair. “And I’m so tired, and so hot, and so—unconvincing!”

It had been decided between them that spring that they were to be simply good pals—until a more propitious season. They were not even engaged. No, they were both perfectly free. She had insisted that it should be so, and so it was. She was free to worry about him and yearn over him—even to cry over him night after night, if she liked. He was free, too, to do as he chose; but when she looked at him now, at the close of this weary day—

“You don’t take one bit of care of yourself!” she said suddenly, in an angry, trembling voice. “I know perfectly well you’ve been smoking too much, and I know you didn’t eat a proper lunch. Just look at you!”

“There’s nothing the matter with me, dear girl,” he said. “It’s only—”

“I wish you could see yourself!” she cried. “You have a big black smudge on your chin!”

“Well, that’s not fatal,” he said, beginning to laugh; but then he saw tears in her eyes. “Jacko! You’re nervous and upset. You’re overworked. You’re tired. You’re—Jacko, you look like the devil!”

“I can’t stand it,” he went on doggedly, “and I won’t stand it! I want to take care of you!”

“Silly!” said he. “I’ve been a fool! I won’t go on like this. If you love me at all, if you care for me even a little, you won’t ask me to.”

They had entered the park, and were walking down their usual path at their usual brisk pace, only that to-day Barty held her by the arm, like a captive, and their customary friendly conversation failed. The hour she had dreaded had come.

Barty was not easy to manage. Her ideal had been not to manage him, not to use any feminine arts to beguile him, but to be frankly and splendidly his comrade; but somehow that didn’t work. She could not reason with Barty, she could not persuade him, she only could make him do as she wished by the power she had over him. He loved her so much that for love he would yield, and she did not want that. A true friend, a good pal, would not stoop to managing.

So he sat beside her on a bench and listened. All the time she spoke, she saw—with dismay, and yet with a queer little thrill of delight—that her words made absolutely no impression. Of course, she spoke of Stafford, because Stafford was the dominant factor in their problem. If Barty were to marry now, it would seriously offend Stafford, and that would be the height of folly.

A queer fellow, Stafford was—sensitive and touchy. He had done a great deal for Barty, and he expected Barty to appreciate it. Certainly he gave a great deal, but it had always seemed to Jacqueline that Stafford got the best of the bargain.

He was one of the foremost architects in the city. It was an honor for the obscure young Barty to be singled out by such a man, to be taken into his office, and, just recently, to be asked to share a studio apartment with the great man; but in return he got all Barty’s honest enthusiasm, his fidelity and gratitude. He had Barty’s companionship, Barty’s sympathy for the many affronts this rough world offers to sensitive men.

Indeed, Jacqueline thought, he had a most unfair share of Barty’s life; but Barty did not see that, and she was not going to mention it. Not for any consideration on earth would she speak one word against Barty’s hero. Not for any possible gain to herself would she tarnish his faith in his friend, or injure his prospects for the future. She simply spoke in a quiet, reasonable way of all that he owed Stafford.

“And when it means so much,” she said, “to both of us—when it affects your whole future—”

“Well,” said Barty deliberately, “I dare say you’re right.” She glanced up hopefully. “But I don’t care,” he went on. “I love you, and I won’t go on like this any longer! I’ve tried, and I can’t—that’s all. I can’t stand seeing you thin and miserable and shabby—”

“You are—for you,” he said. “You ought to have everything in the world! You’re so beautiful and wonderful! And you won’t let me do anything for you. You won’t—”

“I would let you,” she said hurriedly. “I’d let you—I’d love you to do all sorts of things for me, Barty. I’d marry you to-morrow, if—”

This idea had been so long in her mind, these words had been so often on the tip of her tongue, that now she was going to speak them, whether he liked it or not.

“I mean, just go down to the City Hall and get married, and you go on with your work, and I’ll go on with mine, and we won’t tell any one.”

He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. There was a hard, cold look in his gray eyes.

“It’s no use talking about that,” he said curtly, “because I won’t do it.”

But he did. Later on, she remembered that hour with bitter regret and remorse—the hour of her victory and his defeat. She had been unfair, cruelly unfair. She had made use of those tears which he could not endure. She had held out to him the prospect of gaining everything and losing nothing, of having her and yet not alienating Stafford.[Pg 207]

He was ambitious, and she tempted him. She took advantage of his hot-headed, unreasonable love for her, and she conquered him; and his defeat was bad for her and worse for him.

She meant only to do him good, to help him; but she was very young, and she was a woman, and she had all a woman’s blind and beautiful and absurd determination that her beloved should have his cake and eat it, too. Barty needed her, and he should have her; and he needed Stafford, and he should have Stafford too. Barty should have everything—except his own way.

Good pals don’t mind waiting. They understand how unimportant are tea engagements compared with careers. They understand that often a man simply can’t get away at a certain time. Even if he is too busy to telephone, even if he forgets the engagement altogether, why, a good pal accepts all that cheerfully.

Still, Jacqueline did not think it necessary to be superfluously cheerful. She was sitting at a table near the window of a down town tea room, waiting for Barty to join her.

The tea room closed at seven. It was now half past six, and she had been sitting there since half past five. The brightness of the September day had faded into twilight. The street outside, so crowded a little while ago, was quiet now. One by one people were leaving the tea room, so that she was surrounded by a widening area of empty tables. A group of waitresses stood in a corner, talking together. There was a general air of home-going; but she had no home.

“It’s not Barty’s fault,” she said sturdily, to herself. “It was my own idea.”

She had made Barty do this. She had insisted upon this sort of marriage. If it had turned out to be so much harder than she had foreseen, it was her fault, not his. She was gallantly determined to carry on to the very end, like a good pal. She did not want Barty to know how hard it was. She was glad he did not know, and yet—

If he had not become resigned to the situation quite so readily! They had been married seven weeks now, and his protests had ceased. He no longer rebelled. All his thoughts were of the future. He was working with a sort of dogged fury for that marvelous future, so that the present seemed scarcely to exist for him.

She knew he meant that, and she loved him for his ambition, his energy, his determination. Presently he would come hurrying in, eager to tell her exactly what he had been doing, absolutely confident that she would understand, that she hadn’t minded waiting. He would talk about the fine things that were going to happen—in five years’ time. He would talk about large, impressive things. The little things—her things—would never be mentioned.

For she could not hurt and trouble him by telling him how her back ached and her head ached from typing all day, or how unreasonable, how beastly, Miss Clarke had become, how lamentably the meals had deteriorated in her little hotel under the new management, or how very awkward it was to explain to sundry young men that she would never go out with them, and wished to see them no more.

“It would be like throwing rocks on a railway track,” she reflected, smiling a little at the fancy. “It would derail poor Barty, just when he’s flying along so splendidly, too!”

A very nice young couple at the next table rose and went out, and Jacqueline looked after them with a curious expression. She decided that they were engaged, would soon be married, and would go to live in a new little house somewhere, or even a flat—any place where lamps would be lighted at this twilight hour.

“Miss Miles!” exclaimed a delighted voice. Looking up, she saw Mr. Terrill. “I just dropped in to buy some chocolates,” he explained, “and I saw you!”

He spoke as if it were the most amazing and delightful thing that could have befallen him. Never before had Jacqueline seen Mr. Terrill except in the presence of Miss Clarke, and she was surprised at the difference in him.

Miss Clarke, the authoress, somehow had a way of dwarfing all those about her. She was so brilliant, so handsome, so humorous. Jacqueline herself, secretary to this eminent woman, had always felt very young and very uninteresting, and Mr. Terrill had seemed to her an agreeable but rather insipid gentleman.

He did not appear insipid now. He had, thought Jacqueline, a really distinguished[Pg 208] air. He was a tall, slight man of perhaps thirty-five, with a sensitive, well bred face and a singularly pleasant voice. He was looking down at her.

It was a relief to admit this, instead of pretending, like a good pal, that she was not tired and never could be tired.

“But can’t we have tea while you’re waiting?” said he. “The place will close in fifteen minutes or so, you know.”

A queer little anger arose in her. Barty would not like her to have tea with Mr. Terrill. He was more than an hour late already, but he would think nothing of that. He would explain casually that he had been too busy to get away, and he would expect her to understand. Well, it was her own fault—she had told him so many times that she did understand.

“All right!” she said to herself. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have tea with Mr. Terrill. It’ll do Barty good. Let him do a little of the understanding, for a change!”

But when the tea room had closed, and Barty had not come, she discovered that it was Mr. Terrill, after all, who exasperated her, because he was not Barty. It was her own Barty that she wanted, and no one else. The idea of Mr. Terrill presuming, even unconsciously, to take Barty’s place!

She was humiliated, too, that Terrill should have seen her here, waiting and waiting for some one who did not come. She was so tired, so dispirited!

Terrill was walking along the street beside her, in the direction of the subway, and he was asking her to go down to Long Beach in his car on Sunday.

“It would do you good,” said Terrill. “You look played out, Miss Miles. A day at the seashore—”

Terrill was neither discouraged nor offended, and his patience and courtesy made her ashamed of herself; but, for some inexplicable reason, being ashamed of herself caused her to behave still more outrageously toward Terrill. She had never in her life been so disagreeable to any one.

The worst of it was that she found a wicked satisfaction in it, because she saw that Terrill regarded her little outburst of pettishness as an engaging feminine caprice. Apparently he did not care how trying she was. He seemed to think she had a right to moods and humors. Evidently he had no notion of her as a pal.

III

As she ate her solitary dinner, Jacqueline reflected upon this episode. Not a trace of wholesome contrition for her treatment of poor Mr. Terrill remained. On the contrary, the whole thing filled her with reprehensible contentment. Evidently Terrill admired her very much. She felt that she ought to tell Barty about him.

Rank hypocrisy! Afraid? She hoped with all her heart that he wouldn’t like it. What if he should be really jealous and angry, and should insist upon a public announcement of their marriage? What if she had to give up her job and just be Barty’s wife?

A sudden rush of tears filled her eyes. Not for anything on earth would she hinder or worry Barty; but if he really insisted upon it—

He did not, however. Nothing, apparently, was farther from his thoughts. Before she had finished her meal, a bell boy came in to tell her that Mr. Leadenhall was waiting in the lounge, and she hurried in to him. She had entirely forgiven him for breaking that tea engagement. In fact, she was rather glad he had done so.

There he stood, waiting for her, and the sight of him aroused in her a tenderness that was half pain. Something she had once read in a book came to her now. “A young falcon”—that was what Barty was like. He was a strong, splendid, free creature whose heart would break if he were fettered.

“I’m not silly about him,” she thought. “I know he’s not so awfully handsome.”

But she thought there was something about Barty that marked him out among all other men. His tie was crooked, his sandy hair was a little ruffled, he might seem to others simply a passably good-looking young fellow with a somewhat impatient and careless manner. His conver[Pg 209]sation was practical enough for the most part. Indeed, his feet were solidly planted on the earth; but Jacqueline had had a glimpse now and then of his jealously guarded spirit, of his passion for beauty, of his love for the mute harmonies of his great art. She loved all that was Barty—even his faults; but his spirit she very nearly worshiped.

When she had first met Barty, she herself had been ambitious. She had wanted to write, to make a name for herself. She could laugh—or weep—at that thought now. Ambition? She hadn’t known the meaning of the word. For no imaginable reward could she have worked as Barty did. He would work for days and days on a sketch or a plan, careless of rest or food, in a fire of enthusiasm. Then, putting his enthusiasm aside, and looking at it with his cool, impersonal brain, he would accept his work, or he would reject and destroy it and begin all over again.

Her own little ambition had flickered and died. It seemed to her a sublime destiny to help Barty, to serve this rare talent which her honest heart acknowledged as beyond measure superior to her own.

Their hands met in a formal clasp, and they smiled at each other, with their own secret smile of understanding. It was a wonderful thing to meet thus in public, and to let nobody know that they belonged to each other.

Looking into his steady gray eyes, all desire to tease him about Mr. Terrill left her. All she wanted in the world was to help her man, at any cost.

“I’ve only got a few minutes,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and finish that thing.”

“The museum?” she asked, with a sinking heart, but with a bright expression of interest.

“No,” he answered, with a trace of impatience. “That can’t be hurried. This is a bit of hack work—a plan for remodeling a house that ought to be blotted out of existence.”

“Oh, do you?” said he, smiling. “Well, I’ll tell you what it means, Jacko. The fellow’s coming to look at the plans to-morrow, and if he likes ’em—which he will—it means a week off for you and me.”

“Oh, Barty! You don’t mean that we could go away together for a whole week?” she cried. “Oh, Barty!”

“Don’t, Jacko!” said he, turning away his head. “It—it makes me feel like a brute. You know, I had meant you to have a honeymoon in Europe.”

“Well, I care,” said he, with a sort of fierceness. “You deserve it. You deserve—Jacko, you deserve more than I can ever give you in all my life!” He met her eyes, which were bright with unshed tears. “No one like you, Jacko!” he ended huskily.

She made up her mind not to count upon that week together. She felt sure that something would happen to prevent it, that Miss Clarke wouldn’t let her go, that Barty would be detained by some important work.

Hers was the wildly unreasonable pessimism of a woman’s love. She foresaw the direst misfortunes, and was almost resigned to them. She was tired, too, after a long summer of hard work, and Miss Clarke was increasingly disagreeable to her. She was worried about Barty, worried about all sorts of absurd little things, so that she did not sleep well, and could scarcely tolerate the meals in her hotel. A whole week away somewhere with Barty? Impossible!

But on Sunday morning he actually came. She went upstairs and got her bag, which, with such wretched misgivings, she had packed the night before. She got into the taxi with Barty. His bag was in there. They really were going!

“But where?” she asked, like a happy child. “Where are we going, Barty?”

“I’ve engaged a room,” he went on, “for Mr. and Mrs. Leadenhall. If we see any one we know, all right. I’m pretty sick of this hole-and-corner business, anyhow.”

It was then that she noticed there was something wrong with Barty—something very wrong. There was about him an air of grim recklessness, almost of desperation. He was trying to be jolly, but he achieved only a strained sort of hilarity utterly foreign to him, and beyond measure distressing to Jacqueline. She watched him with growing anxiety, pretending to believe in[Pg 210] his pretense, but positively sick at heart with apprehension.

And she pretended to enjoy the trip. She was even jollier than Barty. She spurred on her anxious heart to a hectic gayety. She talked and laughed, always with her eyes on Barty’s face.

He had engaged not a room, but a suite of parlor, bedroom, and bath. Mentally she computed the cost of this, and was appalled; but even then she said nothing. If this was what Barty wanted, very well, she was glad he had it. If it gave him any joy to waste what he had worked so hard to get, very well, she would not spoil his week by a single remonstrance.

He was walking up and down the parlor, with his hands in his pockets, and Jacqueline was in the bedroom, unpacking her bag. She had said all the things she could think of in praise of the suite. While she tried to think of some more praise, a blank little silence had fallen.

“Jacko,” he said, “you—you really do like this, don’t you? You really will be happy here, won’t you—for this week?”

He spoke like a doomed man, as if this week was to be their last. He didn’t even try to smile. Jacqueline could not bear it.

“Well?” he repeated, in surprise. “Of course I’m well! I’m always well!”

She hesitated for a moment. Then she got up and went into the parlor, barring his path, so that he had to stop short in his pacing; and she asked him the question that had been in the back of her mind all the time.

“I’d like to know, though, Barty,” she said quietly. “I’d rather know.”

“I can’t see that it makes any difference what Stafford says or thinks. After all—”

It seemed to her that this was the first time she had really felt like Barty’s wife, with a wife’s dignity, a wife’s right to know what concerned her husband. She saw that he felt this, too, for his high-handed air was conspicuously absent.

“Some trouble with his eyes. Can’t use them for a week or so. He wanted me to put off going away.”

“Because I didn’t want to. I had told you we’d have this week together.”

“I know it; but, don’t you see, Jacko, you’re my wife, and you come first.”

“I’m not prudent where you’re concerned,” said Barty, “and I’m sick of trying to be. If it hadn’t been that I had promised you not to tell any one, I’d have told Stafford then that I was going away with my wife.”

“I told him I had made arrangements for a week’s holiday with a friend of mine, and I couldn’t put it off.”

Her moment of pride and delight was over now. She realized what had happened. For her sake he had left the friend to whom he owed so much at the time when that friend most needed him. It was the supreme proof of his love for her, but it was a proof which she must not and could not accept.

She gently pushed Barty into a chair. Then she sat on the arm of it and drew his head down against her heart; and with all the wisdom, all the ingenuity, all the art born of her love, she talked to him, argued, pleaded, warned, cajoled. There was dismay in her heart, but she was unwaveringly resolute, and she vanquished him.

Once more she took ruthless advantage of his masculine instinct to yield to the beloved woman whatever she asked. For the second time she safeguarded him to her own cost. Their love must be a help to him, not a handicap. She was not a weak, silly creature to be indulged and protected. She was his friend, his pal. She understood.

“I’ll stay here by myself,” she said, “and it’ll be a splendid rest for me. Of course, I’ll miss you, Barty, but we’ll write[Pg 211] to each other every day; and it won’t be very long before we shall be together all the time.”

She managed to say this without a tremor, and even with a smile; but Barty could not respond. Almost unconsciously, she had used two terribly potent arguments. She had evoked the sacred name of honor, telling him that he was in honor bound not to desert Stafford; and she had warned him that, in hazarding his future prospects, he was endangering her happiness as well as his own. With these weapons she had defeated him.

They went down into the dining room for lunch, and it was dust and ashes to them. They sat facing each other across a small table. Their eyes met, they tried to speak, but what was there to say?

This was not an episode. It had the air of a final tragedy. Their week, their one beautiful week, was lost! And they were so young, so honestly and utterly in love! That day, neither of them believed that happiness would ever come again.

As they were leaving the dining room, a man rose from one of the tables and bowed to Jacqueline.

At that moment Mr. Terrill was not of sufficient importance to have a name. He was less than nothing.

They went up to their suite again, and Barty put into his bag the few things he had unpacked so short a time before. Jacqueline helped him. She brushed his hair with his military brushes, she straightened his tie. She kissed him and sent him off with a smile.

Odd, how people keep on existing, completely unaware how superfluous they are! Jacqueline turned from her contemplation of the moonlit sea to the vastly inferior spectacle of Mr. Terrill, and answered him as civilly as she could just then.

“I enjoy a place like this,” he went on; “but not for a rest. What appeals to me is the stimulation one finds in a motley crowd like this.”

If he would only go away and leave her alone! His voice and his presence were an intolerable exasperation to her. She wanted Barty—and, failing Barty, she wanted to think of him undisturbed; but Mr. Terrill continued to exist, unabashed.

“It’s a curious thing,” he continued, “the transformation that certain qualities of light can effect. Of course, it’s been pretty thoroughly studied in the theater; but to the average mortal—well, moonlight, for instance. I’ve seen your face in lamplight and in the sunlight, but now, in the light of the moon—”

“It makes every one look ghastly, doesn’t it?” Jacqueline interrupted hastily. “I hate it!”

“Yes!” she answered stoutly. “I’m not one of those sentimental idiots!”

He seemed to grasp her meaning, for he asked, in quite a different tone, cheerful and matter-of-fact, if he might come down to visit her while she was stopping here.

He waited patiently for the reason why he must not come to see Miss Miles, and she tried hard to think of one.

“Well,” she said lamely, “you probably wouldn’t find me at the hotel. I—I take long walks, and I shouldn’t like you to come all that way from the city, you know, and not find me.”

“I’d take a longer trip than that, any day,” said Terrill, “just on the chance of seeing you!”

She had to let that pass. There was no way of explaining to him; but she made up her mind that he should not find her in, whenever he might come.

You should have seen Stafford when I got back. There he was, sitting in the dark. I told him I’d thought better of it—took all the credit for your idea, little Jacko, but what else could I do?[Pg 212]

I see now that you were right. It was so hard to leave you that I couldn’t see it then. All the way back on the train I was thinking things about you that you wouldn’t have liked. I thought you were a cold-blooded little beast to send me away like that; but after I’d seen poor old Stafford, I saw how right you were. You know, Jacko, I’d have given up Stafford, or anything else on earth, for that week with you, but you wouldn’t let me make a fool of myself. I’ve got it in me, you know, Jacko. I could make the most exalted, glorious sort of fool of myself, and I’d enjoy it; but you’ll always be my sensible little pal.

Jacqueline put down the letter and sat for a time staring before her, with a very odd expression on her face. Then she took it up and finished it.

And then many affectionate messages, and a check, “so that you can stay where you are for another week.”

This check was the first money Barty had ever given her. He had paid for things—dinners, taxis, and so on—and he had bought her presents, but this was different. If she was his friend, his pal, why should she let him do this?

He warned her in his letter not to swim out too far. They had often bathed together. She was a good swimmer, strong and sound of wind, and she knew Barty was proud of her; but she could not swim as well as he. He could always have outdistanced her easily, if he had wished, but the idea of competition had never occurred to them. They were pals, friends, equals; but in almost everything he was stronger and more skillful.

He earned four times as much as she, and he was going forward while she stood still. When they went walking, she always tired first. Whatever they undertook, he did better than she, and it seemed to them both so much a matter of course that she had never thought of it before.

She looked about her, at those rooms, so terribly empty without Barty. She had made him go. She had sent away her man, telling him that she could do without him; but could she? He would do very well with Stafford. He would enjoy himself, no doubt, but how was it with her, left alone here, and sick at heart, longing and longing for Barty?

Suppose she had done wrong not to let him be a “glorious fool”? Suppose it was all a mistake to try to be a pal?

Mr. Terrill did find her. He came across the beach to her, his thin, sensitive face bright with pleasure, and stood before her, hat in hand, looking down at her.

She was not sorry to see him. She had had no letter from Barty for three days. She had written to him every day—jolly, friendly little letters; and not a word from him! Three days!

“I went into the hotel and asked for you, Miss Miles,” said Terrill, “but they would have it that there was no Miss Miles stopping there.”

“How stupid!” murmured Jacqueline, with a smile; but at heart she was ashamed and distressed. “He ought to know,” she thought. “It’s not fair!”

“I came down in my car,” Terrill went on. “I thought perhaps you’d let me take you for a ride.”

“He’s got to know!” she thought. “Poor thing! At least I can give him some sort of hint.”

But he gave her no opportunity. He said nothing that could be seized upon as an excuse for mentioning that there was a Barty in the offing. It was his way of looking at her, the tone of his voice—intangible things which, of course, he meant her to notice. He very well knew that she did notice them, too.

It was a distressing situation, yet not without zest; for she was young and pretty, and when Mr. Terrill looked at her she felt ten times younger and prettier than when she sat on the sands alone and lonely. She tried not to like this, but she could not help it.

“We could run along the Motor Parkway,” he was saying, “turn off at Philipsville, and go—”

He went on to describe the beauties of the trip he proposed. He need not have troubled. Any road that passed through Philipsville was of peculiar interest to Miss Miles. She accepted the invitation very graciously, and off they went.[Pg 213]

It was a bright, cool morning, early in September, still summer, with summer’s green beauty all about; yet in the air there was an indefinable hint that the end was coming. There was an invitation to haste, even to recklessness—to live in joy while the roads were still open, before the iron frost came.

Never had Mr. Terrill seen Miss Miles so charming. To be sure, she responded with frank mockery to his sentimental glances, but he could forgive that, because her mockery was so gay and so kindly. Indeed, he liked everything she said and everything she did. She was willful, lively, imperious, and he submitted gallantly to her least caprice. This went to Jacqueline’s head a little; she found it only too agreeable to be imperious.

She made him stop the car while she gathered goldenrod and purple asters. She made him halt at the top of a hill and sit there for a long time in silence, while she admired the view. His patience and meekness encouraged her to further boldness. She insisted upon getting out of the car in Philipsville, pretending that she found that very dull and commonplace little village “quaint.”

With the obliging Mr. Terrill she strolled down the drowsy, tree-shaded Main Street until she found what she was looking for—a sign reading “Jordan Galloway, groceries and hardware.” Mr. Galloway’s store she also acclaimed as “quaint.” She went in, and bought some wizened little apples by way of excuse for lingering; and, behind the corner of a calendar hanging on the wall, she saw a little sheaf of letters addressed to Barty in her own handwriting. Then he hadn’t troubled to come and get her letters!

She was glad that the store was so dim and shadowy, for she could not keep back the tears. Terrill was talking affably with the proprietor, and nobody was looking at her just then. She could struggle valiantly against her pain and bitterness, and could master them.

She had turned toward Terrill, outwardly quite cool and self-possessed again, and was about to suggest their going on, when a man came in—a man so incongruous in Philipsville that she at once suspected his identity. He was a tall, lean man, fastidiously dressed in a theatrical sort of camper’s outfit—a gray flannel shirt, tweed knickerbockers, and high boots, all fatally belied by his neat Vandyke beard, his delicate hands, his toploftical air. What was more, he was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder. It was scarcely necessary for Galloway to address him as “Mr. Stafford.” She had felt sure enough of that already.

“Er—we want potatoes, Galloway,” he said; “and—er—bread and bacon and coffee, and so on.”

He went over to the calendar, took down the letters, and put them into his pocket. Then he saw Jacqueline. His hand went involuntarily to his hat, but he was wearing none, so he bowed gravely instead.

“Er—Galloway!” he said. “I’m in no hurry. Attend to the lady first.”

“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, “but I’ve finished. I was only going to ask if any one here would be kind enough to tell me where the old Veagh house is. I wanted to see that doorway.”

“No! Really?” cried Stafford. “Upon my word, that’s very interesting! You’ll pardon me, but do you mind telling me where you heard of that doorway?”

“I read about it,” said Jacqueline simply, “in a book by Luther Stafford, ‘Vistas of Enchantment.’”

“No!” he cried, his dark face all alight. “Please allow me to introduce myself—Luther Stafford, the writer of that little book.”

So it came about that Mr. Terrill and Mr. Stafford were presented to each other. When the enthusiastic Stafford suggested it, Terrill drove them all in the car to see the doorway of the old Veagh house; but he was singularly lukewarm about that architectural relic, and he did not even pretend to share in Miss Miles’s hitherto unsuspected passion for old doorways.

No—he simply drove the car, and Miss Miles and Stafford sat on the back seat. He heard them talking. Miss Miles was not imperious now. She was so sweet, so gentle, so serious, so humbly anxious to be instructed. She seemed to possess such a surprising acquaintance with architectural terms!

If she could only win Stafford’s unqualified approval, think what it might mean to Barty and herself! She had never wanted anything so much in her life before.[Pg 214]

Barty had often told her that Stafford was the most thoroughly likable fellow he had ever met; but, hearing of the famous architect’s high-strung nerves, his squeamishness, his minor affectations, she had privately doubted the soundness of this estimate. Now she understood, however. His fine enthusiasm for his art, his eagerness to share it, his spontaneous courtesy, and, above all, something generous and frank and indisputably great that was obvious in all that he said and did, won her immediate respect and liking. And, oh, how she wanted him to like her!

As they drove away from the abandoned farmhouse, it occurred to Stafford that the sun was going down the sky.

“By George!” he cried, alarmed. “I am an idiot! It ’ll be dark now, and I have all that stuff to carry back! The young chap who’s with me is laid up—”

Her tone made Stafford turn toward her, and Terrill threw a startled glance over his shoulder.

“Why, it’s nothing much,” replied Stafford, puzzled. “He caught his foot in an old trap that was buried under some leaves.”

“I want to know,” she said bluntly, “because I’m Barty Leadenhall’s wife.”

There was a long silence. The sun had vanished now, and the dusty road before them was somber under the deepening shadow of the trees. The sky was pallid, the world was without light or color, and a terrible oppression had suddenly descended upon Jacqueline.

She no longer saw this episode as a gay little comedy. It was very close to tragedy. Her high spirits of the afternoon seemed to her now only heartless flippancy, tarnishing the dignity of her wifehood.

“I see!” said Stafford, and again he was silent for a long time. “I think you’d better come back with me,” he said at last.

Terrill turned his head, only for an instant, just long enough for her to see on his face a smile she never forgot.

“I would if I were you, Mrs. Leadenhall,” he said. “Set your mind at rest about—your husband.”

There was nothing in his voice but honest, chivalrous kindness. He did not resent her trickery, he did not despise her. He was only kind—so kind that in the dusk she wept a little to herself.

VII

They set off together across the fields. Stafford was burdened with a tremendous sack, which he did not know how to carry properly. Jacqueline could have given him good advice, for she had had five years’ experience of girls’ camps; but she tactfully refrained.

Whenever they came to an unusually rough bit of the trail, Stafford took her arm, to render her assistance, which she did not in the least require; but she accepted it with polite gratitude. There was absolutely nothing of the pal in Stafford. He would only have thought the less of her for knowing how to carry heavy sacks, and for being able to look out for herself.

A canoe was waiting for them at the head of a lake. As a matter of course Jacqueline took up the second paddle, but Stafford earnestly entreated her to put it down. He paddled in a very amateurish fashion, and she could have done much better; but she held her tongue, and listened to Stafford while he reassured her about Barty.

Barty’s foot had not been badly injured in the first place, and it was now almost healed.

“He’s walking about,” said Stafford. “He could just as well have come to-day, but I thought I’d like to try it alone.”

The shores of the lake, where trees and bushes grew, were densely black, but in the center of the lake there was a dim reflection of the moonlight, though the moon itself was not yet visible. It was very still. The woods were all alive with bird, beast, and insect, and the water beneath the canoe[Pg 215] was teeming with life, but no sound reached their human ears but the dip of the paddle. Stafford’s voice broke the stillness.

A singularly inept remark for a man of his intelligence, yet in Jacqueline’s mind it conjured up the most vivid images. She turned her eyes toward the dark woods.

The naked, copper-colored figures which had passed by there, silent as the beasts themselves, the other canoes which had sped through these waters; and after them their enemy, the paleface—an enemy inferior in strength and endurance, ignorant of the forest ways, utterly alien here, and yet, because of the invincible spirit in him, always conquering. Indian and pioneer, warriors, hunters, killers—and behind them the faithful, patient shadow of the burden bearer, the woman. Squaw woman and white woman, carrying babies in their arms or on their backs, their own God-given burdens; and always with other burdens, too—the homely implements of daily life laid upon the shoulders of women, so that the hands of the men might be free for their weapons.

It had to be so. Only by the strong arm of her man could the woman and her child live; but all that was over and done with. Where civilization was established, woman was the friend and equal of man.

Jacqueline moved a little, uneasy and resentful at the thoughts that came to her. Those half legendary loves that were the glory of the civilized world, those names which had, after hundreds of years, still the power to stir the heart—Romeo and Juliet, Hero and Leander, Paul and Virginia—magic names of imperishable glamour and beauty! All good pals, weren’t they? All the women for whom men had ventured sublime and terrible things, the women who had inspired the heroic undertakings of history and romance, the women for whom men had gladly died—all good pals, weren’t they?

A pal? The nearest approach to a pal was the Indian squaw. She had shared her man’s life, she had been his indispensable helper, and the humble, unconsidered bearer of his burdens. The whole idea was a turning back, a renunciation of something lofty and beautiful for something commonplace and inferior. Barty had wanted to be a lover, and she made him a comrade. He had asked for bread, and she had given him a stone. He had longed for the high romance and glory of life, and she had said they couldn’t afford it. She had tried to keep his money in his pockets for him. She had kept his spirit pinned to the earth.

VIII

The sack had bumped poor Stafford black and blue. With a weary sigh he flung it across the other shoulder—and whack, those stony potatoes caught him on the left leg. But he was nearly there now. That silly, adorable girl must have had plenty of time to make her explanation to Barty. Stafford had sent her on ahead from the landing stage with an electric flash light. It was only a short half mile over a good trail, and he was only a little way behind her, never out of hearing of a call. He thought that she ought to see Barty alone. They must arrange their own affairs in their own pathetic, blundering way.

Whack! This time just behind the knee. Stafford flung the sack on the ground and began to drag it after him. Let happen what might, he had the tobacco safely in his pocket. If further meals depended upon carrying that accursed sack any more, then he preferred never to eat again.

“Halloo-o-o, Stafford!” Barty responded cheerfully. “What’s been keeping you so late? I was beginning to get a bit uneasy.”

Stafford made no answer, but came on at a very much quickened pace, dragging the sack behind him over the rough ground.

“Leadenhall!” he said. He stood still, looking anxiously about him. The flickering light of the fire illumined a small cleared space in the dark woodland, and there was no one there but Barty. “Didn’t some one else come?” he demanded sharply.

At first it seemed to Barty preposterous, and even a little annoying, that the alert and self-reliant Jacko should have got herself lost in this fashion. The trail up from the landing was perfectly clear and easy to follow, and Stafford had given her his flash light.

Barty went all the way down to the lake again, calling her name. Then, as he stood on the shore of the black water, the note in his voice changed. A fitful wind had sprung up, driving clouds across the face of the moon. The trees stirred and sighed.[Pg 216] No matter what feminine folly had induced her to leave the trail, she had left it. She was gone, beyond reach of his voice. Which way?

He remembered Stafford’s words—hard words for a young man of his temper to swallow.

“You accepted the responsibility for her life and her happiness,” Stafford had said; “and you left her—a young, lovely thing like that. I think you failed her pretty badly, Leadenhall!”

It was Barty’s way to hold his tongue, and he had held his tongue then, but he had thought.

“I tried to please her and I tried to please you,” was what he thought; “and I’m hanged if either of you know what you want. All right—I do!”

So he had set off in a grim and dogged humor. Of course, he was glad—very glad—that Stafford had found Jacko so charming. Of course he did not object to her going about with that fellow named Terrill—certainly not! He trusted Jacko absolutely, and he was glad she had been able to amuse herself a little; only it was a queer sort of gladness. Of course, he wanted to be fair to his little pal.

His lusty voice died away across the lake, and nothing answered. The canoe was still there, so she couldn’t have gone back. She must have turned off the trail into the woods. It was not a cold night; and there was nothing there that could hurt her. Barty said that over and over again to himself as he turned back—not along the trail, but through the whispering wood.

His flash light threw a valiant little pathway through the surrounding darkness. He stopped every now and then to call her. He limped painfully, and because of his injured foot he had on soft moccasins, not good for going over stones and broken branches; but he could have gone barefoot over red-hot plowshares then, and scarcely known it.

What, nothing here to hurt her—little Jacko, alone in the black shadow of the whispering trees—in the forest, where the old enemies, the nameless and formless things, never wholly forgotten by the most civilized heart, still lurked? He saw the wood not with his own eyes, but with Jacko’s. Little Jacko, with her eager, beautiful gait, her gallant little head held so high, and her pitiful youth and slightness!

He was in a panic now, trying to run, stumbling and falling, whirling the flash light in a wide circle, shouting until his voice was hoarse and strange. There was no fear, however baseless, that he did not feel for her now, no disaster that he did not foresee.

He caught her up in his arms and held her strained against his heart. The flash light had fallen to the ground, and he could not see her face.

She flung her arms round his neck and drew down his head. He felt tears on her cheeks. He was filled with a sublime and almost intolerable tenderness for this beloved creature, clinging to him. He had no words. He could only hold her close in his arms and kiss her cold face again and again.

But he would not. He carried her back to the camp, and he did not stumble or falter once. White and haggard with exhaustion, he came staggering into the friendly firelight with Jacko in his arms, her face hidden on his shoulder, her dark hair hanging loose over his arm.

When he set her down, and she looked at him, she did not regret his pain, his weariness, or the fear he had felt for her. On his face there was a look that she would never forget—an exultation, a sort of splendor that stirred her beyond all measure. This was his hour, the hour that was due him, his hour of supreme effort and glorious victory.

He could not quite suppress a groan as he turned aside, for his foot throbbed horribly; but she knew that he was glad to endure it for her, that it was his right and his pride so to endure for the woman he loved. For the sake of his love she had done this for him. She had strayed away so that he might find her anew, so that they might start all over again, with the past effaced and the future all before them.[Pg 217]

Barty came limping toward her with a plate of unduly solid flapjacks that he himself had cooked. He was followed by Stafford with a cup of ferociously strong coffee. Both of them were so anxious, so concerned, so busy doing clumsily what Jacqueline could have done so easily herself. What she longed to do was to throw her arms about Barty’s neck, to tell him that she did not want him to wait on her and serve her, but to let her help him and share everything, good or bad, with him.

But she stifled that longing. As he stood before her, she looked up into his face with a smile—a strange and beautiful smile which he did not quite understand.[Pg 218]

Flowers for Miss Riordan

A CAVALIER’S FLORAL TRIBUTE WHICH HELPED ITS RECIPIENT TO ACHIEVE THE FREEDOM OF HER SOUL

THE gates were opened, and the crowd went shuffling and pushing out of the dim ferry house. Fleet and glittering motor cars shot by, and after them came thundering trucks, and great dray horses with earth-shaking tramp—the whole world going by on parade, until it seemed that only an enchanted ship could hold all of it. Then bells clanged and winches rattled, the gates shut before Miss Riordan’s nose, and off went the boat, with the world aboard, leaving in its wake a strip of foaming water that after a while grew tranquil and a lucent green.

Miss Riordan turned back and began to saunter up and down the ferry house. She wore an annoyed expression. She was a cruel lady, frowning upon the tardiness of her cavalier, who was doubtless rushing to her from somewhere, breathless and humbly apologetic.

“I am here,” she said in effect, “and I may as well wait, but it shall never happen again—never!”

“Well, of course, I came too early,” she reflected. “That makes it seem longer; but I just won’t wait after the next one.”

She knew she would, though. He knew it, too—knew he would find her there. He would come when it suited him, and there she would be, waiting for him.

“He makes me sick!” she said to herself, with a sudden rush of tears. “Who does he think he is, anyway? I bet, if everything was known—”

But she hoped the time would never come when everything was known, even if it should effect the well deserved humiliation of Mr. Louis Pirini.

On the Day of Judgment there would be an angel with an immense book. He would ask you questions, and write down your answers in letters of fire; but he would know the right answers beforehand, or have them on file somewhere, so you’d have to be careful what you said. It was a comfort to think, though, that if that time came, you would be purely a soul, without bodily contours, and certainly without age. Miss Riordan was not very clear in mind about her sins, but she knew well enough which were the things that filled her with the greatest shame and guilt—her age and her physical luxuriance.

“Well, anyhow, I don’t look it!” she said forlornly to herself. “He don’t really know. He just tries to tease me—but I don’t care!”

The energy she was obliged to expend in not caring for the humorous remarks of Mr. Louis Pirini was, however, a considerable drain upon her nervous system. Usually she was able to laugh when he did; but sometimes he was too mean, and then she cried—a weakness she dreaded beyond measure. Always, whether she laughed or cried, when he was with her and when he was absent, she was filled with a passionate resentment against him.

Her grievances had grown monstrous; her heart was bursting with them. Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she thought that the only good thing in the world would be to “get even” with him.

But Mr. Pirini was safe as an immortal god from her vengeance. There was no conceivable way in which she could hurt him. She couldn’t retaliate by making unpleasant remarks about his personal appearance, because they both knew that he was superb. She could not shame him by reminding him of all she had done for him—she had tried that once. She couldn’t even tell any one of her own generosity and[Pg 220] his vile ingratitude. On the contrary, she felt obliged to lie quite wildly. When she bought anything new, she pretended that Louis had given it to her. When they went out together, she pretended that it was his treat.

“And he just stands there grinning!” she thought. “All I’ve done for him, and look how he acts! Look at last Sunday, down to Coney, when we met Sadie. She’s seen me and Louis going together nearly a year. It was perfectly natural for her to say was him and me going to get married; and what did he up and say, after all I’ve done for him? ‘Sure we are,’ he says, ‘when hell freezes over!’ I’d just like to have told Sadie a thing or two about him!”

Unattainable consolation! She couldn’t ever tell any one, for nobody would understand. She did not even care to bring the matter to the attention of God prematurely, for she feared He would not consider all the evidence, but would give a judgment based upon one or two salient facts; and the facts were somehow so insignificant, compared with her feelings.

Twelve minutes, now, before the next boat. A sort of panic seized her. He mustn’t come and discover her walking up and down like this, as if she were impatient, as if she were eagerly waiting for him. No—she would be found reading something with profound interest, unconscious of the passing of time, of the waste of this Saturday afternoon, so precious to her after a week’s work in the factory.

She sauntered up to the news stand and fluttered over the pages of a magazine. She thought it was “high-class,” and yet it was full of pictures. She paid for it, and sat down on a bench.

“Well, I read a lot of good things in school,” she reflected, always on the defensive. “‘Hiawatha,’ and all that. I was real good in English.”

She turned to an article on Turkey, a country which she thought immoral and interesting, but it was difficult to divert her attention from her feet. Funny, the way they hurt more when you were sitting down than when you were walking!

“Maybe I might have took a half a size longer,” she reflected. “Well, anyways! This shiny paper kind of hurts my eyes. It’s an awful foolish thing to wear glasses—makes you look so much older; only they do say it gives you wrinkles to squint.”

Wistfully she looked at the photograph of a group of Turkish beauties. Certainly they were all stout, but somehow it was a different sort of stoutness; and their eyes, their languorous, ardent eyes.

Just then she became aware that some one was looking at her—some one who had sat down beside her. She began to assume various expressions of interest in her magazine. She frowned, as if absorbed. She raised her eyebrows, amazed. She smiled and shook her head, incredulous. Then, as she turned the page, she cast a furtive sidelong glance, to see who it was.

It was a little old man with a woeful face. His wrinkled brow, his hanging jowls, and his sad, dim old eyes gave him rather the look of a superannuated hound. Perhaps he was pathetic, but not to Miss Riordan. She was very angry. She stared at him in haughty surprise, and turned back to her magazine; but she could still feel his eyes fixed upon her.

Presently he moved a little nearer and cleared his throat, as if about to speak. This time she gave him a look calculated to destroy; but, just the same, he did speak.

“I have had the honor of contributing one or two articles to that publication,” he went on. “Little sketches of my various journeys; but after all—” He smiled. “After all,” he said, “east or west, home is best. I always return to Staten Island with renewed appreciation.”

Miss Riordan was perturbed. She did not wholly understand this speech, but she was impressed, and she was embarrassed. Clearly she had misjudged this man. There was no occasion here for haughty glances. He was venerable.

“Yes,” he continued, “I find a rare combination of beauties in Staten Island. The stirring panorama of the bay, with ships from the four corners of the earth, the drowsy little hamlets, and the hills. The words of our national anthem have always seemed to me peculiarly applicable to the island—‘I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills.’ May I ask if you are a resident?”

“You mean do I live there? Well, no,” said Miss Riordan. “I just go there sometimes, with my friend.[Pg 221]”

“Ah!” said he. “There are so many delightful rambles—hilltop vistas which linger long in the memory.”

Miss Riordan and her friend were in the habit of taking the train at St. George and going direct to South Beach. The vistas on that journey had not appealed to her as memorable, nor had her rambles along the boardwalk been especially delightful; but she did not care to say so.

“I like the country,” she observed timidly, and was enchanted to see by his face that this pleased him.

He went on talking—which was what she desired. She would have sat there for hours, listening to him. Never had she heard such words, never imagined such refinement. She was filled with reverence that was almost awe. And when he talked poetry!

It was too much! Miss Riordan’s own thoughts did not lie too deep. Her tears welled up and brimmed over. She wiped her eyes with her perfumed handkerchief, and mutely shook her head.

Her companion had long since passed the age of such facile relief. He peered at her in kindly distress, unable to find assuaging words for a grief so inexplicable.

“Please wait a moment!” he said, and with a little difficulty got upon his feet. “Just wait a moment, please! I’ll be back directly.”

She believed him, and while she waited, confident that he would return to her, she thought about this thing in a misty fashion.

Not yet in her life had Miss Riordan attempted to account for her emotions. She felt, and that sufficed. She had no idea why the old gentleman’s discourse upon the natural beauties of Staten Island should have made her weep. She did not know why his talk had so charmed her. She knew only, cared only, that a strange, tearful happiness had come upon her.

“I guess he liked to talk to me!” she thought, with satisfaction beyond measure.

Then she saw him coming toward her again, toddling along in his long overcoat, with a little bouquet of roses in his gloved hand.

“Oh, my goodness!” thought Miss Riordan, beginning to cry again. “Did you ever?”

“If you’ll allow me,” he said, proffering the flowers. “From one lover of Wordsworth to another. I saw that you were much moved by my little allusion.”

“You hadn’t ought to have done it!” said Miss Riordan, with a sob. “I just don’t know what to say!”

She held the flowers to her nose, and her tears rained upon them. This was her first bouquet. Her next would very likely come when she was no longer able to enjoy its fragrance or shed any more tears.

“A feeling heart!” said the old gentleman. “There! Isn’t that the bell? We’d better make our way on board, madam, or we shall be crowded out.”

“I can’t! I got to wait!” she cried in despair; “but I’ll go with you as far as the gates.”

So she did. When they got there, he removed his hat and held out his hand, standing before her bareheaded and in matchless dignity, in spite of the jostling crowd. She took his hand and squeezed it hard.

She watched the old gentleman as he made his way toward the cabin. Each time some one brushed against him, she cried under her breath:

“Well!” she exclaimed indignantly. “You’re a nice one, you are! But come on! Hurry up! We can get this boat.”

“Too late!” said she. “And me waiting here all the afternoon! What do you mean, too late?”

“When I say too late, I mean too late,” replied Mr. Pirini, with his own special insolence.

This speech was surely a cue for exit, but she did not go. She said to herself, as usual, that she just wanted to stay and tell that fellow what she thought of him—which was manifestly impossible, as she had[Pg 222] never yet been able to discover what she really did think of him, except that she hated him.

There he stood, with his gray spats and his gray felt hat, worn rakishly, and even new gray gloves. She knew that he had no job, nothing at all to justify his swagger. Very likely he hadn’t enough in his pocket to pay for his dinner. What cared he? He wouldn’t even thank her if she paid for it.

His white teeth showed in a broad smile, and his eyes were fixed steadily upon her. Though Miss Riordan, when she looked in the mirror, may have seen an image which somewhat flattered the truth, she had no illusions as to how she appeared in the eyes of Mr. Pirini. She tried to roll the magazine so that her hands should be concealed. She changed the position of her feet.

“You mind your own business!” she retorted hotly. “I wasn’t crying over you, anyways!”

“Have it your own way,” he said soothingly. “Whadder you say we go an’ get some dinner?”

She always rejected his suggestions—at first; but, as always, she regretted what she had done. Here was the very situation she had dreaded—herself seated, flushed, struggling against her ever ready tears, while he stood there smiling.

This was another familiar move. How many victories had he won by his patience, his smiling silence! He could wait, and he could hold his tongue, and she could do neither.

“And me waiting here all afternoon!” she burst out. “And then you come and you say it’s too late to go down to the island. Well, what made you come so late?”

He did not answer. Another crowd had begun to move toward the gates, like a herd seized with a migratory impulse. Perhaps something of that ancient instinct stirred now in Miss Riordan. Certainly she had a melancholy sensation of being left behind, abandoned, while her fellow creatures moved on toward a better land—toward a Staten Island green and fair, where in a glen a cataract came foaming down, and wild flowers grew, very much like a landscape which hung up in her furnished room. Well, didn’t she, too, wish to see that lovely spot?

She wavered shamefully between the quite real Louis and the imaginary Staten Island.

“I’m going!” she answered in a loud, firm voice, but added: “Unless you say you’re sorry you were so late.”

“Sure! I’m sorry!” answered Louis readily. “Now let’s go an’ get some dinner somewheres. All dressed up to kill, ain’t you? Bought yourself some flowers an’ everything!”

Miss Riordan had temporarily forgotten her bouquet. She glanced down at the pallid blossoms, fainting in her hot hands, and a very curious emotion came over her.

“No, I did not buy them for myself!” she said vehemently. “They were given to me.”

“Now you look here, Louis! A gentleman gave them to me—he bought them for me.”

But Mr. Pirini was so overwhelmed that he was obliged to drop into the seat beside her, and there he sat, his handsome head thrown back, all his strong white teeth showing in a prodigious and soundless laugh. Miss Riordan turned upon him in a fury.

“You stop that!” she commanded. “You just better believe me! It’s the truth! A gentleman came and sat down beside me and began talking to me, and by and by he got me them flowers.”

For a moment she could not speak. Her hate, and the insufferable conviction of her impotence, made her heart beat fast and violently. She felt stifled in a desperate[Pg 223] struggle against complete submersion. Louis would not believe her. She could not make him believe in her gentleman, and to doubt his existence was to deny her a soul. That the old gentleman had talked poetry to her and given her flowers was the sole proof of her own immortal value.

His unfaith was destroying her. Under his arrogant, smiling glance she was disintegrating. The woman whom the old gentleman had addressed, the woman who longed for the mystic beauties of Staten Island as one longs for Paradise, was being done to death, and there would remain only the creatures she saw in her mirror—this ungainly body, this flushed and troubled face. No! No! She had been worthy of the poetry and the flowers. It was Louis who was too base to see her worth.

III

Her hot anger began to cool, to harden into an emotion which she did not comprehend. She stared back at Louis, at first with scorn, but after a moment with puzzled curiosity. Had he always looked like this? Never any different from this?

“I don’t know,” she said, still staring at him. “Just—so kind of—measly.”

His swarthy face turned dark red, and in a low voice he made a forcible retort; but Miss Riordan was past anger. She was looking at her bouquet, lifting up the drooping heads with anxious care.

“I’ll dry ’em in a nice little jar,” she thought. “I guess they’ll keep forever that way.”

“You’d better go away,” she said casually. “I’m going down to the island.”

“I’ll go, all right!” said he. “An’ you can git down on your knees an’ beg me, an’ I’ll never come back. Let me tell you—”

He walked away, swaggering, his gray felt hat to one side, his toes pointed out, his curly hair pushed up at the back of the neck by his high collar. He passed through the turnstile and out of the ferry house, and then, as far as she was concerned, he ceased to exist. Miss Riordan got up and sauntered toward the gates.

“He’s gone,” she thought. “He’d come back if I’d ask him, but I won’t!”

This was true. Mr. Pirini’s charm had been completely dissolved in his laughter. He had refused to believe in her gentleman.

Thinking of that elderly cavalier, her heart swelled with enormous aspirations. Here she was going to the country for a ramble, and carrying a high-class magazine and that mystically precious bouquet. It seemed to her that a monstrous burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Shame, resentment, and miserable anxiety had departed with Mr. Pirini.

“I’m going to get a real comfortable pair of shoes!” she said to herself. “A size—two sizes—bigger!”

Sometimes Things Do Happen

HOW THE LIVES OF FOUR YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE WERE UTTERLY RUINED—FOR A TIME, AT LEAST

MR. SAMUEL PEPYS set down the happenings of his days with unique candor and spirit, and, by so doing, became immortal. Edward Cane also kept a diary. Like that of Mr. Pepys, it was written in cipher, and it had a good deal about the author’s wife in it; but in other ways it was very different.

Edward was passionately concerned with the future. He made prophecies, and it displeased him that these prophecies were not fulfilled. His was a just and reasonable mind. He knew—none better—how things ought to be, and he was displeased that they were not so.

He had, indeed, given up looking through the earlier pages of his diary, because it hurt too much; but he remembered some of the things. He remembered, if not the actual words, at least the spirit in which he had prophesied about this marriage of his. It was going to be different from all other marriages. Why not, since he and his Mildred were different from all other persons? It was going to be a splendid adventure.

“In my own room,” he was going to write, but that was not exact. It was Mildred’s room, too. She could come in if she liked. He couldn’t really shut himself up anywhere on earth. He crossed out the last two words, and leaned his head on his hands, struggling valiantly to be just, fair, and exact, and to crush down the extraordinary emotions that outrageous woman aroused in him.

Never, before his marriage, had he felt such fury, such unreasonable, ungovernable exasperation. He had had a well deserved reputation for being a strong, self-controlled, moderate young man. That was one reason why he had risen high in the credit department of a mammoth store—because he could handle angry, cajoling, or desperate customers so firmly and calmly; and here in his own home he was utterly defeated.

He raised his head and looked about him. He saw Mildred’s things everywhere, crowding and jostling his things—even her silly white comb standing up in one of his military brushes.

“Well, what of it?” he asked himself. “I’m orderly and she’s not. I always knew that.”

No use—he could not be philosophic about it. He got up and removed the comb with a jerk. As he did so, he caught sight of his own face in the mirror. It startled him. It was a strained and haggard face.

And just at this moment the door burst open and she—the cause of all his exasperation—appeared in the doorway.

“Edward!” she said in a furious, trembling voice. “Will you get that ladder, or won’t you?”

His own voice was not altogether steady, but he was much calmer than she. She had been crying—he could see that; and, as he faced her, she began to cry again.[Pg 226]

“Look here!” said Edward. “I can’t—I won’t stand any more of this! I’m sick and tired—”

“And what about me?” she retorted. “After your promising to make me happy!”

That was too much. Edward could have reminded her of things she had promised, but he scorned to do so. Contempt overwhelmed him. She had no scruples. The only thing on earth she cared about was to get her own way; and she wasn’t going to get it—not this time! Her monstrous unfairness, her ruthless egotism, appalled him. He felt anger mounting to his brain, destroying his fine moderation.

“I won’t!” said she. “If I’d had any idea what you were really like, I’d never have married you, Edward Cane!”

All he had been going to say was that another woman—any other woman in the world, indeed—would have considered him a fairly good husband; but Mildred chose to take his words in a different spirit.

“If things happened as they should,” Edward went on, with heightened color, “I’d go away—now. I’d go off—”

He was glad to hear the doorbell ring. If he hadn’t gone out of the room just then, he felt that he would certainly have put himself in the wrong. His patience was exhausted.

“Oh, are you leaving me now, Edward?” Mildred called after him mockingly. “Hadn’t you better take a clean collar—or a toothbrush, at least?”

Evidently she hadn’t heard the bell, and he did not condescend to enlighten her. He made up his mind not to speak to her again, no matter what the provocation. He went on down the stairs to the front door, and opened it.

He opened the door wider, and, as he did so, he heard her start down the stairs. It was only a bill, left lying on the veranda. He stepped out to pick it up.

A sudden gust of wind blew the door to with a crash, and an equally sudden impulse made him go hastily down the steps and along the path.

“Do her good!” he said grimly to himself. “Now I’m out, I’ll just stay out for a while. I’ll smoke, and take a stroll.”

Unfortunately, however, he had changed into an old coat, and had nothing to smoke with him, and no money to buy anything. Also, he was hatless. He shrugged his shoulders with a fine gesture of indifference. He could stroll, anyhow, and think—think this thing out to the bitter end.

It was all bitter, beginning and middle as well as the end. Mildred wished to make a slave of him, to break his spirit, to destroy his manly pride. No—this should not be!

It was a strange, uneasy sort of night—blowing up for rain, he thought. Filmy black clouds went racing across a pallid sky, and the trees rocked and tossed. It was cool, too, for May. He quickened his steps a little.

Somehow, the familiar suburban street had a new and almost sinister aspect. The trim houses with their lighted windows looked like houses on the stage—delusions, with no backs to them. Faint and eerie music was coming through some one’s radio. A dog howled, far away. Everything was different.

“This is a fool trick,” he thought suddenly. “I can’t stay out here. I’ll go back and—and simply not answer her.”

A taxi came round the corner. The wheels, spinning over the road, sounded like rain. He turned back.

The taxi had stopped, and a woman was leaning out of the window. Was she calling him? It must be so, for there was no one else in sight.

“Er—no,” said he. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know any one of that name here.[Pg 227]”

He spoke a little stiffly, because he did not like that voice. It was musical enough, but lacking in calm. She was not discouraged, however.

“If you’d just please look at this—card,” she said. “Perhaps I’ve read the name wrong.”

Now Edward was frankly suspicious. He did not want to approach that taxi, but he had not the moral courage to refuse. He would have preferred to be set upon by bandits, to be blackjacked and robbed, rather than show his reluctance. He stepped off the curb and crossed the road. He knew that something was going to happen.

The woman in the taxi handed him a card; and at the same moment she clutched his collar, and, leaning forward, whispered in his ear:

What could he do? He didn’t want to say anything, but he did not know how to refuse this agitated creature. He took the card, went around to the front of the taxi, and pretended to read the card by the fierce white glare of the headlights.

The instinct of self-preservation warned him to be off then, but he had also another instinct—that of helping other people who were in trouble. Something was obviously wrong here, and, prudent or not, he could not turn his back and walk off. The woman had got out, and stood beside him in the road.

“I’m sorry,” said Edward blandly, “but I’ve come out without a penny in my pockets.”

“Here!” said she, and thrust a purse into his hand. “Only please get rid of him!”

He opened the little purse, and found it crammed with bills—large bills, some of them—an extraordinary amount of cash. He was searching for change when the driver commenced.

Now Edward, as assistant credit manager, was not unaccustomed to remonstrances from persons who could not get what they wanted; nor was his nature a submissive or timid one. He felt quite able to withstand the driver’s attack; but women are not like that. Bluster impresses them, and this woman was impressed.

“Oh, please!” she cried. “Give him the five dollars! Give him anything! Only do get rid of him!”

After all, it was her money. Edward gave the driver a five-dollar bill, with a low and forcible remark. The engine started up, and off went the taxi. It seemed extraordinarily quiet after it had gone.

She was going to cry, if she had not already begun; and he wanted no more of that.

“Now, then!” he said, in a loud, cheerful voice. “Shall I get you another taxi?”

She was crying now—no doubt about it. What was worse, she took his arm and clung to it.

“Oh, I can’t!” she cried. “Oh, please don’t go away and leave me all alone!”

He saw himself that it wouldn’t do to leave her standing here in the street while he walked half a mile to the station for a taxi.

But Mrs. Baxter was a particular friend of Mildred’s. She would bother him. She would ask questions. She would want to know what he was doing, wandering about at ten o’clock at night. She would suspect that there had been a quarrel.

The idea was intolerable. He would not go to the Baxters’; and, not having been long in the neighborhood, he knew no one else.

As he stood deliberating, the lights in the house behind them went out, leaving the world very dark. For the moment, he felt a thousand miles from home. He felt[Pg 228] marooned, cut off. He couldn’t believe that just around the corner was that six-room house of hollow tile, with all improvements—that house which was mystically more than a house because it was his home. He owned it. In his experience as assistant credit manager he had seen what fatal accidents could happen to defer deferred payments, and he would have none of them. His rule was to pay cash. Mildred had more than once protested against this rule, but in vain.

“You’re always looking ahead and imagining that all sorts of queer, awful things are going to happen,” she had said, only the day before; “but they never do!”

“Where can I get a taxi?” asked the voice at his side, and he came out of his reverie with a start.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to walk to the station,” he said; “unless you happen to pick one up on the way.”

“Oh, dear!” said she. “Is it far? Half a mile? But if I’ve got to walk that far—isn’t there some sort of hotel in the town?”

“Then I’ll go there,” said she. “If you’ll just please tell me the way—”

He knew that he must go with her—that she was one of those women who can never go anywhere or do anything alone. Impossible to explain how he knew this, or how, in the dark, and without having even once looked squarely at her, he knew that she was young, pretty, and charmingly dressed. Stifling a sigh, he set off at her side. It had to be.

She thanked him very nicely. He assured her that it was no trouble at all, and then they both fell silent. She sounded as if she were walking quickly, her little high heels clacking smartly on the pavement; but as a matter of fact their progress was slow—a snail’s pace, Edward thought. At this rate, he wouldn’t get back to the house for an hour—that is, if he ever did go back. He said to himself that he had not made up his mind what he would do; but in his heart he knew that he couldn’t help himself. He was a victim of destiny.

“But it is awfully nice of you!” said the fair unknown. “Were you just out taking a walk?”

“That’s like me,” said she. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care where I go, or what becomes of me!”

This alarmed Edward. After having been married to Mildred for nearly six months, he knew that such people were possible. They really didn’t care where they went or what they did. They were incalculably dangerous and reckless.

Perhaps at this moment Mildred was not caring where she went or what became of her.

“I know you must wonder,” the fair unknown continued. “I don’t suppose any one in the world could understand.”

“I really did know a Mrs. Rice who lived somewhere in this neighborhood when I was a little girl,” she resumed. “Such a dear old lady. And somehow, in my desperation, I thought of h-her.” She was wiping her eyes with a small handkerchief. “You must think I’m so weak and s-silly!”

A fatalistic gloom enveloped him. He felt no curiosity at all. He knew not where he was going, or why; and what chiefly occupied his mind was a profound longing for a smoke and a hat. With a cigar, he felt, he could have regained his philosophic outlook. With a hat, he could have faced this situation more like a man of the world. He had neither, and he was walking off into the night, away from home.

“I think it’s going to rain,” he observed in an easy, conversational tone. “Country needs rain badly.”

He might have known that it wouldn’t work. She paid no attention whatever to this remark.

“I only want to hide,” she said. “If I could have found dear old Mrs. Rice! That driver—he was so awful! He was going to drive out into the country and murder me. I saw it in his face. And then you came!”

“Isn’t it strange, the way things happen?” she said in a low, intense voice. “Doesn’t it seem like fate?”

It did. Edward said nothing. He was trying to invent some excuse for getting his[Pg 229] arm away from her before they passed any shops where he was known. He failed to do so, however. The lights in all the shops on the main street shone upon him, hatless, with the desperate lady clinging to him.

The portico of the American House was in sight now. They drew nearer and nearer. Ten steps more—

“Quick!” she whispered. She pulled violently at his arm, and in an instant he found himself inside a jeweler’s shop. “He was there—outside the hotel!” she whispered. “If he’d turned his head! He’d surely have killed you! Isn’t that a sweet bracelet?”

This last remark was for the benefit of the young man who had come behind the counter. He seemed pleased, and brought out the bracelet in a velvet box.

She nudged Edward hard. He glanced at her, and a thrill of terror ran through him. She was smiling archly at him. Her tears had in no way marred a most lovely and piquant face. She was a beautiful and elegant woman, such as Edward had frequently seen in his office. He knew these pampered beings, and their naïve and exorbitant demands.

“I want it! Get it for me, dear!” she repeated, with the same arch smile; but her elbow dug sharply into his ribs.

He turned aside, and from her well filled purse took out the requisite amount. The young clerk wrapped up the bracelet and handed it to her. As he did so, she leaned across the counter.

“Is there a back way to get out?” she asked in a low and confidential voice. “They’re out there, looking for us, and we want to give them the slip.”

He opened a door at the rear of the shop. They followed him along a dark passage, across a yard, through a gate in the fence, and out into another street.

“Don’t you see? He thought we were a bride and groom, trying to get away.”

Edward believed none of this. He did not believe that he was in any danger of being killed by any person whatsoever, or that the clerk had thought what the unknown imagined; but women, as he had noticed before, always believed what they wished to believe.

Of course this observation did not move her. Women never considered the future. They lived, reckless and heedless, in the present moment.

“Leave me!” said she. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you for all you’ve done. Go away and leave me!”

“I can’t leave you here—in an alley,” said Edward, repressing a violent irritation.

“I mean,” Edward explained hastily, “that I couldn’t leave any woman alone in a place like this.”

“You’re so ch-chivalrous!” she sobbed. “I knew it the moment I heard your voice!”

“I am not chivalrous,” replied Edward firmly; “only—look here! I’ll get a taxi and see you home.”

“I don’t—not any more. Oh, leave me! Leave me! I don’t care!” She clutched his arm again, in that frenzied manner which so startled and annoyed him. “Oh, my hat!” she cried. “It’s raining!”

Now, Edward’s was a just and logical mind, and yet even he had sometimes been illogically moved by trifles. This infantile plaint about a pretty little hat reminded him of certain things Mildred had said, and aroused in him a pity which the strange[Pg 230]r’s tragic and mysterious sorrows had hitherto failed to inspire.

III

Edward was now the leader of the enterprise; he did not know where they were going, but he led the way, down the alley and out into a street which was new to him. It was one of those streets that may so often be found lurking near neat little suburban railway stations—a mean street, dark and deserted. A light burned dimly in a cutthroat barber’s, another light in a shoemaker’s, revealing the shoemaker and his family of pale infants. There was a—what was that?

He purposely refrained from saying “we,” but he knew that he could not desert the silly, helpless creature. They sat down at a little table near the window, and, when the proprietor came up to them, Edward ordered ham and eggs and coffee.

“I couldn’t eat anything in this horrible place!” whispered his companion.

At first Edward was inclined to agree with her. It was not an appetizing place. The tablecloth was stained, and there was a stale and unpleasant aroma in the air. A glass case displayed a lemon meringue pie and a raisin cake which did not appeal to him.

When the food came, however, he ate it—to his regret, for, after having eaten, his desire for a smoke increased tenfold. He could think of little else. Stern and silent, he sat there thinking of the cigars in the pocket of his other coat, of the box of cigars in his office. He knew this to be a weakness, and he was struggling against it; but the struggle was difficult, and he was in no mood for his companion’s words.

She went on, about life, and how hard it is when you really feel things, and how alone you are, even in the midst of crowds. He tried not to listen, but he had to hear some of it, and it infuriated him.

“Very likely,” he said; “but I’d like to know your plans. What do you want me to do? Get you a cab, or what?”

“Oh!” she said. “I see! You mean—I understand! You want to go. Leave me, then! Go! Why should you care what happens to me?”

“Very well!” she said coldly. “I shall take the next train into the city.”

There was another silence. The proprietor had retired, and they had the Palace Restaurant entirely to themselves. The rain was dashing against the windows. The street light outside showed only darkness.

What, Edward wondered, was Mildred doing now? She was capable of anything—of telephoning to the Baxters, to the police. Perhaps she had gone away herself. Perhaps she was wandering about in this storm, searching for her husband. It was a wild and fantastic notion, but that was the sort of thing women did. Look at this one! He did look at her, and she looked at him, with cold scorn.

Just then the door opened and two men came in. They were the editor and the subeditor of the local paper, both of whom Edward knew.

“Hello, Cane!” said the editor. “Just put the paper to bed. What are you doing here?”

“How do you like our little town, Mrs. Cane?” he asked. “Once you get to know—”

He waited a moment, but no one said anything. Then he and his colleague sat down at a table as far away as they could get.

“Why didn’t you keep still?” said Edward in a low, fierce voice. “He’s editor of the newspaper here.”

“Did you imagine I was that sort of woman?” she returned. “Did you think I would pretend to be the wife of a perfect stranger?”

“No,” said Edward; “but you didn’t need to say anything. He’ll talk[Pg 231]—”

Of course she didn’t. Women care only for themselves. Edward could not trust himself to speak, but he thought. He thought.

“I’ll find out who she is,” he said to himself, “so that I can send her back for the money for her ham and eggs.”

“What I’ve done?” said he, amazed and indignant; but she was far more indignant than he.

“Now what am I going to do?” she demanded. “The last train’s gone. I can’t go into the city, and there’s nowhere here for me to stay.”

“I don’t care!” said she. “Very well! I’m going to stay here all night.”

The image of Mildred rose before him, remarkably vivid. With great justice and moderation he compared her with this unknown individual. All women were not alike. Mildred was different. There was something about her—Sometimes, of course, she was simply outrageous, but, even at that—That time when he had the flu—or when anything went wrong in the office—

“And she’s very young,” thought the just man. “She’s nothing but a kid. Perhaps I should have made allowances.”

Glancing up, he saw the fair unknown proffering a silver cigarette case. Edward did not smoke cigarettes, and he had pretty severe theories about people who did so, but this time he was weak. He took one and lighted it. It was a horrible perfumed thing, but it helped him. The fact that he had broken one of his rules helped him, too. He felt more tolerant.

“Arthur doesn’t like me to,” she said. Her voice had changed, and her face, too. She was downcast and pale. “I made him get me that case,” she went on. “He hated to, but I made him.”

Tears had come into her eyes again, but this time Edward felt rather sorry for her.

“Don’t cry!” he said kindly—the more so as the two editors had just gone out, in discreet silence.

“I can’t help it!” said she. “My whole life is ruined. You don’t know—oh, you don’t know what a beast I’ve been! And now—now I’ve lost Arthur!”

“My husband,” said she. The tears were raining down her cheeks. “My dear, kind, wonderful, darling husband! I wanted to punish him, and frighten him, and I ran away. We had a quarrel. My life is ruined, and all because of a penny!”

“Yes. Arthur said the two sides were called heads and tails, and I said they were called odds and evens. I know he was wrong, but why didn’t I give in? Oh, why didn’t I give in? Both our lives ruined! He’s frightfully jealous. Hell never forgive this—and for a trifle like that!”

“I—” said Edward, and stopped. His face, too, had grown pale. “Ours was about a cat—Mildred’s cat,” he went on. “It got up a tree, and she wanted me to go next door and get a ladder and get it down. I told her it could get down by itself when it was ready. She—”

“If she loved me, she wouldn’t ask me to make such a monkey of myself,” retorted Edward. “I did it once, and the people next door laughed at me. I heard them.”

“You shouldn’t care,” said the fair unknown severely. “You were entirely in the wrong.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Edward, “you were entirely in the wrong yourself, about that penny.”

She rose and faced him with flashing[Pg 232] eyes. Edward rose, too. His eyes did not flash, but they were steely. They regarded each other steadily, with magnificent pride.

“Oh, dear!” she said, sinking back into her chair. “Aren’t we pig-headed, both of us?”

“Come on!” said she, rising again. “Let’s go back and start all over again!”

“Oh, do come on!” she cried impatiently. “It was Arthur I saw outside the American House—when I pulled you into the jeweler’s, you know. Oh, do hurry! He’s traced me that far—perhaps we’ll find him still there!”

“Of course!” she said. “You’ve got to explain everything to Arthur. Come on!”

“Whew!” said Edward to himself, wiping his moist brow with a still moister handkerchief. “Whew!”

Arthur had been found in the American House, and he had been difficult to handle. If Edward had not had such a thorough training in his business, he could never have handled the situation in so masterly a fashion. Arthur was a rich young man, and accustomed to being kotowed to. Edward, however, was accustomed to rich people who were accustomed to being kotowed to. Many times he had explained to wealthy and indignant customers facts which they had not cared to consider—that, for instance, the mere possession of enough money to pay one’s bills did not suffice for a credit department; that there must be a certain willingness to use the money for that purpose.

Edward had not kotowed to Arthur. He had been mighty firm with him, though kind, for he had felt sorry for the man. It had been a bad night for Arthur. He had been desperately worried about his wife. Patiently, inexorably, Edward had made him listen to reason, and in the end there was a touching and beautiful reconciliation. Arthur’s wife, with truly admirable unselfishness, had said that it did not matter who was right about the penny. Both of them had declared that they owed everything to Edward and would be his lifelong friends.

He was now at liberty to attend to his own little affair. Having no money to pay for a taxi, he set off on foot in the direction of his home. It was still raining, and as black as the pit, yet he fancied he could feel dawn in the air. Taking out his watch, he saw that it was half past four. He had been away all night. He remembered his last words to Mildred:

She had said that they never did, but they had. He was strangely justified, yet he felt no triumph. The rain fell cold upon his uncovered head, and his spirit was cold within him.

Indeed, that was an inadequate word for what he knew she must have felt. He thought about Mildred, not in her outrageous moments, but as she was at other times, when she was her unique and incomparable self. He thought about marriage, in a large, general way. He also thought about his own marriage, and what he had intended it to be.

At last he thought about himself. Soaked through to the skin, cold and weary, Edward groped after justice. It was a creditable performance—the more so because he was unaware of it. He groped, and he found a new and startling piece of wisdom.

He quickened his pace. The wind had died down and the rain had stopped, but he did not know that, for the drops still pattered thickly from the trees. As he turned the corner of his own street, he saw in the sky the first streak of dawn—a pale gray creeping up into the black.

His reasonable mind told him that there was no cause here for wonder, yet he did wonder. He stopped for a moment and watched the marvelous dawn—watched it make a fresh and utterly new day and a new world. His own house seemed to grow before his eyes, turning from a shadowy mass into something familiar and yet strange. He had come home—after what extraordinary wanderings![Pg 233]

He advanced, walking on the sodden grass, so that his steps should be noiseless. He entered his neighbor’s garden, thankful that they kept no dog. He took a ladder from the unlocked tool shed, and, carrying it with some difficulty, set it up against a certain tree on his own front lawn.

Then, still noiselessly, he stole up on the veranda, and, stooping, examined the doormat and the darkest corners. Unsatisfied, he went around to the back of the house; and there, against the kitchen door, he found that which he sought—a cat. He wished to tell Mildred that he had brought her cat down from the tree, and he would not lie. It should be true.

The cat was mutinous. She struggled as he held her under his arm, and it was difficult to ascend the ladder. However, he did so. He put the cat on a branch, and let go of her for an instant, in order to get a better hold on her for the descent. She began climbing higher up. He clutched at her, but she eluded him. She was a heavy cat, but she went up a slender branch, which bent perilously beneath her.

Her hind legs had slipped off, and for an instant they were kicking desperately in the air, reminding him of a Zouave in white gaiters.

The creature clawed and clutched desperately, swung under the bending branch, came up on the other side, and began to come down, facing him with wild yellow eyes. He caught her as she came within reach. He thought the touch of a firm human hand would reassure the terrified animal, but it was not so. She appeared to be suspicious and resentful.

As the cat’s claws pierced his shoulder, Edward recoiled, and very nearly fell from the ladder. Probably he uttered some sort of exclamation, as almost anybody would. Anyhow, Mildred’s head appeared at an upper window.

By the time he had reached the foot of the ladder, with the cat, Mildred had opened the front door. She was carrying something in her arms, which she set down in the shadow of the veranda. She gave it a gentle push with her foot, and it ran off, unseen by Edward.

It was quite light now in the open. He could see her face, and it seemed to him rather wonderful.

“Eddie!” she said. “You’re soaking wet! Oh, Eddie, it was all my fault!”

“I don’t know that it was,” replied Edward meditatively. “Some of it was my fault, I think.”

“Oh, Eddie!” she cried. “It really doesn’t matter one bit whose fault things are, does it?”

He was startled, for that was his own particular bit of wisdom, painfully arrived at. Mildred was a remarkable girl![Pg 234]

Miss What’s-Her-Name

AN INEXPERIENCED TRAVELER’S EVENTFUL VOYAGE TO A SUMMER ISLE OF PALM TREES AND SAPPHIRE WATERS

MISS SMITH was a governess. She was not one of those beautiful young governesses so popular in romance, who live in the families of earls or millionaires and suffer all sorts of persecutions. Though young, Miss Smith was not exactly beautiful, and certainly she was not persecuted. On the contrary, the Pattersons were kind to her and thought very highly of her.

She was a brisk, sensible little thing, neat as a new pin, with crisp, curling black hair, clear blue eyes, and a lovely, healthy color. Her dress, her manner, her smile, were brisk and neat and sensible. Everything about her was pleasant—except for one great black shadow at the back of her mind, which she bravely pretended to ignore.

Sometimes, however, this lurking shadow refused to be ignored and crept out, clouding her clear blue eyes, troubling her nice, sensible thoughts, and making her, all in an instant, pale and downcast and dismayed. The shadow was a fear—fear of poverty, fear of defeat and failure, fear, above all, of romance.

Miss Smith’s charming mother and father had been a romantic couple, and she remembered what had happened to them. They had both been too poor and too young and too charming. They had had no business to get married, but they had got married, and their daughter remembered—

She remembered her mother putting a piece of cardboard inside her slipper, because of a great hole in the sole, and her father going down on one knee to kiss the slender little foot. It was very romantic, but Miss Smith had seen tears in her father’s eyes and in her mother’s.

She remembered a terrible quarrel over a boiled egg. There had been only two eggs. She, a little girl, had got one of them for her breakfast, and the other had been set before her father; but he wouldn’t have it. He said that Nora positively needed it; and Nora—her mother—said that she didn’t need it, didn’t want it, and wouldn’t have it.

In the end Mr. Smith had thrown the egg out of the window, where it lay in the mud, with the summer rain beating down on it. He had shouted bitterly that he was no good, because he couldn’t make enough money to buy enough eggs for his family; and the little girl had cried, and her mother had cried, and their poor devoted little servant—their servants were always devoted—had cried, too. It had ended with her father sitting on the arm of her mother’s chair, tenderly stroking that wonderful black hair, and herself sitting on her mother’s lap, while the little servant stood in the doorway, drying her eyes on her apron. Everybody begged everybody else’s pardon, and, after a while, they all laughed; and that very morning a devoted neighbor—for their neighbors were generally devoted, too—sent them a dozen new-laid eggs.

That was the sort of thing which was always happening to them; but Miss Smith remembered, not the gay ending, but the storm itself. Her mother had said, often and often, that her life had been a beautiful one, that she had been blessed above any woman she knew in the love and comradeship of her husband; but Miss Smith remembered too many tears, too many anxieties. She sometimes added, at the end of her prayers:

She would not have made that particular prayer with such particular earnestness if she had not known how easy it would be for[Pg 236] her to do something like that; but she did know. She knew that the germs of that fatal disease called romance were in her blood, and she had to take frequent doses of a bitter sort of moral quinine to keep them inactive.

One of the best of these cures was in repeating to herself her full name—her poor, pathetic, dreadful name, which she never let any one know. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson were middle-aged and very serious, and Gladys Patterson, though only ten in years, was quite a settled and responsible character; and the life in that sedate West Side house was so calm, so orderly, that there was much time for idle, foolish thoughts. When any such came drifting through her mind, Miss Smith would repeat her name to herself with a stern smile, and would be deeply thankful for the “Smith” part of it, which was so thoroughly unromantic and sensible.

She tried to be thankful all the time. Before going to sleep she would tell herself how thankful she was for this nice, dignified, safe position, where she could probably remain five years longer, if she continued to do her duty. The very thought of having to leave the Pattersons and go out to look for a new position dismayed her; but she comforted herself by the thought that in five years’ time she would be twenty-nine—which is almost thirty—and that she would probably be much more sensible then than she was now.

In the meantime all she asked was that life should let her alone, and she would let it alone. She couldn’t bear the idea of change.

When Mr. Patterson first began talking about a trip to Bermuda, she was so much delighted with the idea that she knew it must be wrong, and became frightened, and hoped and hoped that that wonderful and dangerous thing would never happen. When the trip was definitely settled upon, she was increasingly miserable. Of course it wasn’t her business to give advice to Mr. Patterson, and she never said a word, but she knew that it was foolish. She knew how much better it would be to stay at home and be safe.

When Mr. Patterson talked about crystal caves and sapphire water and angel fishes, when he spoke of blue skies and palm trees and roses in December, she was ready to cry. She knew it was perfectly impossible for such things to exist, and still more impossible that she could ever see them. It was a dream, and dreams are terribly dangerous. She would not buy any new clothes for the trip, and she would not believe in it.

That is how matters stood on that dreadful Saturday morning when Miss Smith cried:

Certain psychologists say that we forget only what we wish to forget, but it would be a gross libel to say that poor Miss Smith had wanted to forget her ticket. Quite the contrary! She was terribly ashamed of herself, and terribly worried.

They were all on the pier then, and other passengers, who had not forgotten their tickets, were showing them and going aboard. Trunks and bags were being trundled past. Miss Smith caught a glimpse of the gangplank, a curtain of fine, steady rain, and, behind that curtain, the deck of the ship. There was magic about that ship, as there is about all ships. There was the ship smell, as exciting as gunpowder.

That was really the beginning of the whole thing, and quite as strange as any of the other things that happened. For Miss Smith to cry, in that eager voice, that she would “rush,” for Miss Smith to be so flushed and starry-eyed, for Miss Smith to be saying to herself, “Oh, I wouldn’t miss going for anything!”—all this was nothing less than marvelous.

She rushed madly. A taxi had just drawn up outside, and a young man dashed out of it in a frightful hurry. Miss Smith seemed vaguely to remember his face, but it didn’t matter. She was in the taxi almost as soon as his foot touched the ground. She was off. She was urging on the taxi, in silence, with clenched hands. She would not miss that ship. She wanted to go! She would go!

Like a whirlwind she tore up the stairs of the sedate West Side house. She pulled open her bureau drawer so violently that it came out altogether and fell to the floor. There was the ticket. She thrust it into her coat pocket, flew down the stairs, past the astonished servants, hopped into the taxi again, and was off. How thankful she was[Pg 237] now that Mr. Patterson, in his characteristic fashion, had insisted upon their going down to the ship in good time!

The rain was coming down steadily. The taxi splashed through puddles, and sometimes skidded a little, but what cared she? She felt triumphant and happy. She felt sure she would not miss the ship; and she did not. The crowd standing on the pier and the crowd standing on the deck, separated by the curtain of rain, saw a flushed and breathless young woman hurry up the gangplank at the very last moment. Up went the plank, a minute later the whistle blew, and they were off.

Still a little breathless, Miss Smith stood by the railing. In the excitement of the moment she felt inclined to wave her hand, or her handkerchief, as the people about her were doing; but that was absurd, for she wasn’t saying good-by to any one, wasn’t leaving any one behind. She turned, instead, to look for the Pattersons.

They were not in sight, and Miss Smith, being a very inexperienced traveler, did not quite know how to find them. As they were all on the same ship, however, this did not worry her very much. She found a steward to lead her to the stateroom that she was to share with Mrs. Patterson and Gladys, and knocked on the door. No one answered. She opened the door and went in. Not a trace of a Patterson there—no baggage except her own suit case. She had had a steamer trunk, too, but it was not there.

Miss Smith sat down in a wicker armchair and waited. She meant to wait patiently, but as a matter of fact she waited delightedly. The throb of the engines set her blood dancing. Everything she saw was fascinating—the three berths so neatly made up, the snugness, the coziness of this little cabin, with the rain falling outside. She knew that she had been very stupid and careless about the ticket, and that Mr. and Mrs. Patterson were surprised and not very well pleased; but even that couldn’t disturb her just now. She was on a ship, sailing the sea!

The sound of a bugle interrupted her reverie. Common sense, and another and stronger inner voice, told her that this must mean lunch. There was a little book hanging up on the wall. She looked in it, and learned that lunch began at half past twelve. It was noon now.

“Perhaps they’ll wait for me in the dining room—I mean, the dining saloon,” thought Miss Smith. “I wonder if I ought to go down there or wait here! I wonder what I ought to do!”

She sat where she was for another very long half hour. Then she washed her hands, straightened her hat, and set forth, rather timidly. She felt that the Pattersons were keeping away from her in order to show their disapproval, and she didn’t altogether blame them.

That apologetic look, that little shadow of a doubtful smile, were singularly becoming to her. What is more, the damp air had made her hair curl quite riotously, and the glow of her recent excitement still lingered on her face. Mr. Powers saw her standing there, looking anxiously about the dining saloon, and he thought he had never seen such a pretty little thing.

III

The fog had closed round them. The engines stopped, and the ship wallowed helplessly in a heavy sea. The great whistle blew warningly, threateningly, but nothing answered. The engines started up again, and the ship moved forward slowly. The captain was maneuvering very cautiously against this worst of all sea enemies.

The passengers, thought Mr. Powers, were as unconcerned as so many babies in a huge perambulator. There they sat, wrapped up in their steamer chairs, reading, or talking, or flirting, or disapproving of flirting, trusting absolutely to that unseen captain. Mr. Powers had traveled so much that he knew that things could happen. He was not apprehensive or nervous, for that was not his nature; but he was alert and interested. He lay back in his own deck chair, his soft hat pulled well down, and under it his dark eyes stared thoughtfully before him at the impenetrable fog. People tramped past him, but he took only a mild interest in them until—

By “that girl” he meant Miss Smith, who had just hurried by like a leaf in the wind, her face pale and anxious. It was the third time she had hurried by like that, and he felt quite sure that she was not walking for amusement or health. Evidently she was troubled—very much troubled; and Mr. Powers, instead of telling himself that it was none of his business, wanted to help her.[Pg 238]

That little figure hastening through the rainy dusk, so pale and troubled, made a strong appeal to his imagination. He did not make light of other people’s difficulties, and was not afraid to meddle in other people’s affairs, either, if he thought he could be of any use. He was not a very cautious or prudent young man, anyhow. He felt thoroughly at home in this world, and on excellent terms with his fellow creatures, and was not at all shy or awkward with them. He was waiting for a chance to speak to this young woman, and it came.

Miss Smith did not appear for some time. Before she passed Mr. Powers again, she had climbed to the upper deck, and had got thoroughly wet and chilled. She was thoroughly disheartened, too, so that there were tears in her eyes, and she couldn’t see very well. In consequence, she stumbled against an empty deck chair.

“Oh! Excuse me!” she said, to nobody at all, and crossed hastily to the rail, ostensibly to look out over it, but really to dry her eyes.

“Don’t mention it,” said he, equally polite; “but you really are. If I were you—”

“But I—I can’t find the people I’m with!” cried Miss Smith, with something like a sob.

She was too miserable to realize that she was actually talking to a strange man. She didn’t even glance at him. She didn’t care what he looked like. He had an agreeable and steady sort of voice, however. Anyhow, the moment had come when she had to tell some one.

Now some people pretend, out of pompousness and self-importance, never to be surprised by anything, and Mr. Patterson was one of these. If you told him of anything amazing, he would say:

Some people really are not surprised by anything, because they know what an astounding world this is; and Mr. Powers was one of these. So he said, in a quiet and friendly way:

Poor little Miss Smith had no objection to his trying. She went below to her cabin, changed into dry clothes from her suit case, and rested. She did everything that Mr. Powers had suggested, and one thing that he had not suggested—which was to shed a few tears, for it was a very distressing situation.

A little after four o’clock she descended to the dining saloon for a cup of tea, and to see Mr. Powers, who was to meet her there and give her his news of the lost Pattersons. She had felt sure that Mr. Powers would be there waiting for her, and he was; yet Miss Smith gave a start at the sight of him.

This benevolent stranger who had so kindly offered to help her was not the bespectacled, middle-aged stranger he ought to have been, but a remarkably good-looking young man. Though he was neatly and quietly dressed, and in no way conspicuous, either in appearance or manner, yet there was something in the nonchalant grace of his tall body, in the expression of his dark, keen face, that was unmistakably—romantic. She felt it, she knew it. As she came toward him, her own expression changed, and she became every inch a governess.

It seemed to be part of Mr. Powers’s mental equipment, however, to judge pretty shrewdly what other people were feeling. He spoke to Miss Smith in quite an impersonal tone.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that the people you’re with aren’t with you. It appears that neither they nor their luggage ever came aboard.”

“Oh!” cried Miss Smith. “But they must have come! They had their tickets, and I left them on the pier, with all their trunks and bags. Oh, can I possibly have got on the wrong ship?”

“No,” said he. “Your name’s on the passenger list, and so are their names; but they’re not aboard.”

“Well,” said Mr. Powers thoughtfully, “three of them together would make quite a splash. I imagine some one would have noticed it.”

“I’ve read about people falling down into holds,” said Miss Smith. “Do you think—”

“I shouldn’t count on that,” said Mr. Powers. “No—it seems pretty clear to me that they changed their minds at the last moment, for some reason, and remained ashore.[Pg 239]”

Mr. Patterson change his mind at the last moment? That was the most impossible solution of all.

“It can’t be that,” said Miss Smith, shaking her head. “No! Something has happened!”

“Is it—serious?” he asked. “I mean, does it make very much difference to you, your friends not being here?”

“Difference!” cried Miss Smith. “Why, it—” She stopped short. “You see,” she went on, in an altered tone, “I’m their governess.”

She looked steadily at the stranger as she said this, because she knew that to some persons a governess would be quite a different creature from an independent traveler. If it made a difference to this young man, she thought she would like to know it. As far as she could judge, it did not. He returned her glance in the same friendly, quiet fashion.

Miss Smith was quite sure, however, that he did not see, or even imagine. If he had, he wouldn’t have suggested her sending a radio message to the Pattersons’ house.

“I—no, thanks,” said Miss Smith. “It really wouldn’t do any good. I’m here, and I’ve got to go on. I’ll come back on the same ship.”

For she had her return ticket and nothing else—absolutely nothing else except two quarters, which she found in her coat pocket. When she made her mad dash for the forgotten ticket, she had had a bill clutched in her hand, and the two coins were the change that the driver had given her. She knew that she had had her purse with her on the pier, just before that, but what had become of it she could not tell. Had she dropped it on the pier? Had she intrusted it to the Pattersons? Had she left it in the taxi, or in the house? Anyhow, it was gone. The Pattersons were gone. Her trunk was gone. Here she was, sailing over the Atlantic, with two quarters and a suit case.

She wasn’t going to allow this strange young man to pay for a radio message for her. Besides, what could she say? “Where are you?” “What shall I do?” Impossible! Something had happened—something mysterious, inexplicable. All that she could do now was to go on to Bermuda, come back as fast as possible, and present herself before the Pattersons. Then she would be informed; and she felt pretty sure that she had lost not only her purse but her nice, safe position as well.

The Pattersons had been disgusted with her for forgetting her ticket, and, in their anger, they had set her adrift. Perhaps she would never find them again. She would never get another position, if she couldn’t get a reference from the Pattersons. Her trunk was lost, with almost all her clothes. Things were as bad as they could be.

As she considered this appalling situation, a strange thing happened to Miss Smith. Instead of feeling utterly crushed, a curious sort of elation came over her. She suddenly felt very happy, very light, as if her worldly possessions and prospects had been so many heavy burdens, which had now fallen from her shoulders and left her free.

There were little fancy cakes on the table, and she liked little fancy cakes. The tea was good, too. It was the most refreshing, invigorating tea she had ever tasted. She had two cups of it. Then she went up on the promenade deck with Mr. Powers, and they walked. It was dark now, and chilly and windy, but she liked that strong, salt wind.

“I’ll find it for you,” said he, and settled her comfortably in his, with his rug wrapped about her, while he went off.

She watched him going. Then she watched every one else who passed by; and it could not be denied that of all the men whom Miss Smith saw not one was so handsome, so distinguished, so interesting as Mr. Powers.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. The wind had blown away the fog, the ship was forging steadily ahead through the rainy night, and she was on it! Penniless and alone, she was sailing the sea to a coral isle! She, the brisk, sensible Miss Smith who, twenty-four hours ago, had been a governess on the West Side of New York!

“I don’t care!” she said to herself, with a sort of triumph. “I’m young and healthy. I can—”

She didn’t complete the thought, but at that moment she actually felt that she could[Pg 240] do pretty nearly anything, and could face the wide world undaunted. It was a very nice sort of feeling.

The weather was rough, and many people who had appeared for lunch were not to be seen at dinner; but Miss Smith came down, quite fresh and rosy. Her suit case could provide nothing better than a blue linen blouse, which she had intended for breakfasts, not dinners. As she dressed, she thought, with a sigh, that she looked very sedate and unattractive; but Mr. Powers did not seem to think so. At least, he looked pleased to see her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I’ve taken a place for you at Herbert’s table. I’ve had Herbert for table steward before, and he’s good.”

“But I shan’t be able to give him any tip,” she thought. “And when I come back, all alone—”

Resolutely she banished that thought. She remembered how her father and mother used to talk about the folly of “borrowing trouble.” She had often thought that a shiftless sort of maxim, but now she found it wise. Perhaps they themselves had been wiser than she realized, for they had lived joyously in the day that was actually present, not troubling about days that had gone, or about future days which no one can really foresee.

Perhaps, she thought, the people who so anxiously provide for the future are the true romantics; for don’t they invent a future all full of troubles, and then believe firmly in what they have invented? Perhaps the so-called romantic people are the most practical, after all.

It was a good thing that notions like this came into her head, for they helped her to endure the disturbing events of that evening with more calmness than she could have felt if she had been entirely the old Miss Smith. Even as it was, she was not a little upset. She sat in the wicker armchair in her brightly lighted little stateroom. The ship pitched up and down. Her coat, hanging on a hook, flapped like a great bird, and her patent leather suit case slid over to the wall and out again. The thoughts in her mind were quite as uneasy.

For Mr. Powers had casually mentioned that his first name was Darcy. He was an Irishman—a mining engineer—and he had lived in South America for several years.

For here were all the qualifications for a true hero of romance. And the way he had told her all this! It was on the almost deserted promenade deck, where the storm curtains filled and flapped in the wind, and the rain beat against them, and the scuppers rippled and gurgled like little brooks. Sensible people stayed within, but there these two had sat, side by side. The electric lights overhead had shone fiercely upon Mr. Powers’s dark, eager face, and upon his hair, black as a raven’s wing. He had told her all these things because he wanted her to know about him, because he hoped she would understand and like him. He had almost said so in words, and he had certainly said so with that half smiling, half anxious glance of his.

She might be silly, but she wasn’t so silly as that. This thing might be an adventure. Indeed, she was willing to admit that it was one, and to see it through gallantly; but an adventure with a “heart interest” in it she would not have!

In desperation she looked about for something to distract her mind. There was nothing to read except the little booklet hanging on the wall and an old copy of Lamb’s “Essays,” which she had brought along partly because she loved it, and partly because it seemed a fitting book for a governess. She took the booklet down. Once more she read the hours for meals, and then:

Then payment had been made to the deck steward for her chair and rug, and by Mr. Darcy Powers, and she could not reimburse him!

Sunday was the fairest day that ever dawned. Mr. Powers was on deck early. He saw the sun come up, and he was sorry Miss Smith was not there to see it, too.[Pg 241] He thought she would have enjoyed the spectacle, and he himself would have enjoyed it more if she had been there.

At half past eight he went down into the dining saloon and looked about. Ten minutes later he descended again. Three times during the half hour he went into the dining saloon and looked about; and at last, at nine o’clock, he sat down and ordered his breakfast.

Powers, as a rule, like all those who are never seasick, was unsympathetic toward those who were. He was inclined to consider seasickness a rather humorous thing; but in this case he did not think so. He thought of Miss Smith with unreasonable compassion. Sitting there over his very hearty breakfast, he began to worry about her. He thought it was a monstrous thing, an outrage, that she should be seasick. He began to grow angry with the Pattersons for getting themselves lost. They had no right to be so careless about themselves, and to leave Miss Smith all alone.

“She shouldn’t have to be a governess, anyhow—a pretty little thing like that,” he reflected.

Why Miss Smith’s small size or personal appearance should have debarred her from that useful employment he could not have explained, or why he found her so very touching. He had no idea how truly terrible her situation was. He had fancied, indeed, that it might be a good thing for her to have a little holiday from her Pattersons; but he was sorry for her, just the same. He remembered how her curly dark hair blew about her face in the wind, how the ruffled collar of her blouse stood up, how busy her small hands had been in quelling this enchanting disorder.

Mr. Powers sent a steward to inquire after her, and ten minutes later she appeared in person.

He did not realize what that meant. For years and years Miss Smith had got up at seven o’clock. She had needed no alarm clock, for her sense of duty had never failed to arouse her; and now the sense of duty had slumbered. She was a little shocked at herself, and just a little proud. Coming down to breakfast at half past nine!

“I think you’ll like Bermuda,” he said. “It’s a pretty place. I have an aunt living there, you know. I hope you’ll let me bring her to call on you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but, you see, I shan’t be there,” said Miss Smith. “I’m going right back on this ship.”

The breakfast had come. Herbert stood by, benevolently watching, but Miss Smith could not eat. She swallowed a cup of coffee and rose.

Mr. Powers naturally went with her. He settled her in her deck chair and sat down beside her, and for a long time there was silence.

“Look here!” he said at last. “I’m sorry to see you so upset, Miss Smith; but these people—these Pattersons—can’t be so unreasonable as—”

“I wish you’d tell me,” he said at length. “I know I’m a stranger to you, but—” He paused. “My aunt’s down there, you know,” he went on. “She might be able to—to advise you.”

Advice! What good would that do? Miss Smith was obliged to live on a strange island from Monday until Saturday on two quarters. She shook her head mutely. She couldn’t talk. She wished Mr. Powers would go away and leave her alone, to think.

After a while, he did. He saw he wasn’t wanted, and he went; but then it was worse than ever.

Now, however, she was not so anxious for Mr. Powers to go away and let her think, and he did not go.

“Look here!” he said firmly. “Miss Smith, are you a good judge of character?”

There is no one in the world who does not think the same thing. Just ask anybody!

“Then won’t you trust me? Tell me what’s wrong. I’m older than you, and I’ve knocked about a lot. I’ve been up against all sorts of difficulties, and I know pretty well how to get out of them. You’re here, all alone. You’re very young and very—” Again he paused. “Very much worried,” he continued; “and if you would tell me—”

Miss Smith stole another glance at his face, and it seemed to her not only trustworthy but intelligent and friendly; so she told him. The sedate and sensible Miss Smith confessed to a strange man that she only had two quarters.

“If I’m any good at all,” he thought, “I’ll handle this thing properly, so that she won’t be hurt or offended or troubled in any way.”

“I see! Of course you were worried; but it’s all right now. I’ll take you to my aunt, Mrs. Mount. She’ll understand.”

Fortunately Miss Smith was not a sufficiently good judge of character to read Mr. Powers’s mind just then; for he was thinking:

“You poor, sweet little thing! You poor little darling! I’d like to buy the whole island and give it to you! You ought to have everything. You deserve everything, you dear little thing!”

Nor was Darcy Powers so good a judge of character as he fondly imagined; for his aunt did not accept the situation in the right spirit at all. She pretended to do so, and he thought she did, but in her heart she was bitterly angry and hurt. Her nephew was all she had in the world, and she loved him. She had been looking forward to this vacation of his for two years; and then he came driving up with this Miss Smith!

She listened to his explanation with a pleasant smile. Still with a pleasant smile, she conducted Miss Smith to the spare bedroom and was very civil to her. Then her nephew had to go off to see certain old ladies who had known him since childhood and wanted to see him immediately, and Mrs. Mount ceased to smile.

Miss Smith was not worrying any more. Indeed, she had almost stopped thinking altogether. She had got off the boat that morning into a new world. She had got into a carriage with Mr. Powers and driven along a dream road. The colors. The white road, the white walls, the white houses, glistening like sugar in the sun! The pure blue of the sky, the glimpses of the sapphire sea, the glossy green of the palm leaves, the dark green of the cedars, the pink roses, the purple bougainvillea, the scarlet hibiscus!

Mrs. Mount’s cottage was an enchanted cottage, like the one that Hänsel and Gretel found in the wood, standing in a garden glorious with flowers. And Mrs. Mount herself was so handsome and dignified and polite, and this little bedroom was so bright, so sweet, so sunny!

She had not even taken off her hat or opened her suit case. She just sat there by the window, lost in an innocent and utterly happy dream. This new world was so beautiful, and every one was so kind to her!

“Darcy is a dear boy,” said a voice from the garden, which she recognized as Mrs. Mount’s; “but this is too much!”

“I heard,” said another voice, unknown to Miss Smith, but belonging to Mrs. Mount’s cousin, Miss Pineville, “that Darcy got off the boat this morning with some stranger—”

“And brought her here!” said Mrs. Mount. “She scraped up an acquaintance with him on shipboard—you know how easy that is—and told him some preposterous tale about being a governess, and having lost her purse and the family she was with. Of course there’s not a word of truth in it. A governess! An adventuress—that’s what she is!”

“Oh, Darcy!” interrupted Mrs. Mount impatiently. “He’s completely taken in[Pg 243] by her; but I’m going to talk to him later. For instance, there’s her name. She distinctly told me her name was Nina Smith; but she left the book she’d been reading on the sitting room table, and written in it was ‘Little M., from father.’ Nina doesn’t begin with an ‘M,’ does it? And Smith! That’s just the name any one would take as an alias, to avoid suspicion. But you wait! I’ll find out the truth! I won’t have my nephew imposed upon!”

“I’ll call her out for a cup of tea,” said Mrs. Mount. “But be polite to her, Eliza, until I’ve found out.”

So Mrs. Mount went in and knocked on Miss Smith’s door. There was no answer. She knocked again, and then she opened the door. Miss Smith and her suit case were gone.

“She must have heard what I said to Eliza in the garden,” she told her nephew. “She was frightened and ran away.”

“Frightened?” said he. “Is that how you imagine a sensitive young girl feels when she hears herself slandered and insulted? I brought her here—to you—because I thought you’d understand, and you’ve driven her away. An adventuress? Why, one look at her face might have told you—”

He turned away abruptly, but one look at his face had certainly told Mrs. Mount something. She was no longer glad, but very sorry. She would have told him so, but it was too late. He had gone out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

VII

Miss Smith had done the obvious thing. She could not set off with her suit case and walk home, so she had taken the next best course. She had gone quietly out of the back door, through the garden, and down the road in the direction of the ship, which was, after all, a sort of bridge to home.

It was a long walk, and she had to ask her way, but in the course of time she got there. A young officer was standing under the shed, superintending the unloading of the cargo, and she went up to him.

He took off his cap and smiled at her. It was such a nice smile that she was able to go on, in a brisk, sensible way:

“And I want to go back,” said Miss Smith. “I want to go on the ship now, and stay there until it sails.”

“Well, I’ve got to!” cried Miss Smith, and he saw, with dismay, that there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve g-got to! I have some money in the savings bank in New York, and I can pay whatever it costs as soon as we get back.”

He was silent for a moment, thinking of some tactful way of offering his assistance to this young person with tears in her eyes. No one could have felt more sympathetic than he; but Miss Smith, weary and sick at heart, firmly believed that he, too, thought her an adventuress.

“I’m a governess,” she said, in an unexpectedly loud and severe tone. “The family I was coming with somehow missed the ship, and—”

“Yes, but look here! I was at the gangway, you know, and just before we sailed a young chap came dashing up and gave me a purse—a long brown purse—”

“‘It’s for Miss—can’t remember the name,’ he said. ‘It’s for Miss What’s-Her-Name, the governess,’ and then he dashed off again.”

“Look here! I’m most awfully sorry!” said the young officer earnestly. “It’s all my fault. I turned it over to the purser and told him that Miss What’s-Her-Name would probably come and ask for it. You see, I never thought you could be a governess, you know. I am sorry!”

“Rather!” said he. “Purser’s on board now, getting ready to go ashore. I’ll fetch him.”

Off he went, and was back in no time with the purser and Miss Smith’s pocketbook. There was a note inside it.

My dear Miss Smith:

At the moment of embarkation I have received a message that my father in Chicago is danger[Pg 244]ously ill, and wishes his family with him. I find we have just time to catch the next train. As it is too late to cancel our tickets, it seems advisable that you at least should continue with the trip, so that the entire outlay will not be wasted. You will, I am sure, have an instructive and entertaining account of your experience for Gladys when you rejoin us in New York. You will find your trunk and suit case in your stateroom.

As I do not know what money you may have in hand, I inclose an express money order, to cover whatever expenses may arise.

Wishing you a pleasant and profitable trip, I remain,

Very truly yours,
Henry Patterson.

But she could not go on. The purser and the second officer—the latter had come up just then—decided that she ought to have a cup of tea, to quiet her nerves, so they all went over to a little tea room in the town.

It was there that Powers found her sitting at the table with two young men, all of them very jolly and cheerful. For a moment she was glad that he should see her like that—no longer forlorn and dejected, but a real human girl. Hat in hand, he stood beside her. He, too, tried to look jolly and cheerful, but he failed; and, looking up at him, Miss Smith felt a sudden sharp stab of regret. The adventure was over.

She introduced him to the two young men, and explained to him about the recovery of her purse.

Of course everything was all right now, and yet—and yet somehow it wasn’t. Something seemed to be wrong. The two young men from the ship seemed to know this. They said they had better be getting along, and, after cordial farewells, they did go along.

Mr. Powers still stood where he was, still trying to look pleased, and still failing to do so; and in a flash Miss Smith understood just how he felt. He had wanted to be the one to make everything come out right, and it was cruel that he had not been. It was their adventure—his and hers. Nobody else had any business to get into it. It was coming out wrong!

Now Miss Smith knew very well that heroines in adventures rarely take a very active part, and that things just happen to them; but she was not quite accustomed to adventures yet, and she was in the habit of doing things for herself. Moreover, Darcy Powers was playing his part very poorly, simply standing there and not suggesting their talking it over.

“See here!” he interrupted. “It’s not for you to make explanations!”

So they got into a carriage and drove off along that same road; but it was all very different now. The sun had gone down, leaving a soft, dark violet sky. The bright colors were dimmed. It was, she thought, a subdued and rather melancholy world. The adventure was over.

Mr. Powers remarked again how glad he was that everything had come out all right; but, as Miss Smith said nothing in response to this, he was discouraged and fell silent for a time.

“I never thought you’d come back there,” he said at last. “I thought—perhaps you had overheard what my aunt said, and—”

“Yes, I did overhear it,” said Miss Smith, in a calm and reasonable tone; “but, after all, she knew nothing about me. Why should she?”

Miss Smith waited in vain to hear what she was. Turning a corner, they entered a road where the trees arched overhead and the low white walls gleamed ghostlike. A faint breeze rustled the leaves, and the little whistling frogs had set up their music. The lights of Mrs. Mount’s cottage were visible at the end of the road.

A strange pain seized Miss Smith. The lights of that little house, shining out steadily into the tranquil dusk, put her in mind of another cottage—her home, so long ago—and of the mother and father who had lived in it. She thought of the careless laughter, the hope, the courage, the great love, that had made their whole life a delightful adventure. Foolish? Romantic? Unpractical?

“They were the wisest, most wonderful people who ever lived,” she said to herself, with a stifled sob; “and the bravest. They weren’t afraid of life, like me![Pg 245]”

“I don’t know,” she answered; “and I don’t care, either. I suppose it must have been taken away by mistake with the Pattersons’ luggage.”

“I did tell Mrs. Mount one thing that wasn’t quite true,” said Miss Smith.

“What was that?” asked Darcy Powers, and she knew by his voice that he thought whatever she had said was right.

The carriage had stopped before the gate. He got out and helped her down, and they both stood there until the sound of the horse’s hoofs had died away.

“Please!” he said. “I know you’re going away. I think you’ve begun to go already. Can’t you just let me know that, so that I can think of you by your own dear name?”

She was really frightened. She knew that if she told him her name, here in this enchanted garden, in the twilight, it would be fatal. The adventure was becoming too much for her. Her own heart was getting too much for her, filled with emotions she could not bear. She was Miss Smith, the governess—the brisk, sensible, unromantic Miss Smith—she tried valiantly to remember that.

Just then the door of the cottage opened, and Mrs. Mount appeared in the lighted doorway.

Her voice had warmth in it, and kindliness. It reminded Miss Smith of her mother, who used to stand in a lighted doorway like that, and call her in from her play. She thought of herself going back to New York to be a governess again. She thought of Mr. Powers—Darcy—left alone in that garden, thinking of her. Was he, after all his kindness, to be left thinking of her as “Miss Smith”?

“My name’s really Mavourneen,” she said. “You see, I was the only child, and father and mother—”

“Mavourneen!” said he, and somehow, as he said it, the name was not a silly one at all. “That means—”

“Yes, I know,” she interrupted hastily, and walked quickly up the path toward Mrs. Mount.

Somewhat to the young man’s surprise, Mrs. Mount held out her arms, and Miss Smith went into them; and after all, it was not the end of the adventure, but only the beginning.[Pg 246]

The Wonderful Little Woman

MRS. FREMBY DEMONSTRATES HER ENERGY, COURAGE, AND EFFICIENCY, WITH SOMEWHAT UNEXPECTED RESULTS

THE clock struck midnight, but Mrs. Fremby did not even glance up from her work. She had an old skirt, stretched over the transom, so that the landlady could not see that the light was still on. The door was locked. She was safe, and very snug.

Outside, a preposterous storm raged. It was almost the beginning of April, yet it snowed, and the wind howled. Let it! Mrs. Fremby had a forbidden electric heater glowing richly before her. It could not warm the vast and dingy front parlor that she inhabited, but it could and did keep her feet warm. The flame of righteous indignation in her heart helped, too, as she wrote:

Heavens, how she hated Paris! For years and years she had been fighting its insidious influence upon American modes. Even when, in order to earn her daily bread, she was obliged to describe what milady had worn at the Longchamp races, she always managed to get in some clever bit of propaganda—something like this, for instance:

What if this independent American woman of unimpeachable standing was an invention of Mrs. Fremby’s? Never having been within thousands of miles of Longchamp, she was obliged to invent a little, and this mythical creature was very real to her, and dear. She could absolutely see that “American type,” tall, proud, and beautiful, completely dominating all the Parisiennes.

Mrs. Fremby herself was small. That was her misfortune; but she made the most of herself. Even now, in an old and faded dressing gown, she was a mighty smart, trim little woman, and, if she was not pretty, she had the wit to know it, and to behave accordingly. Her good points were her miniature figure, which was excellent, and her crown of glittering, wiry red hair, which she arranged with much skill. The very foundation of style, she often said, was individuality, and she had it.

“The modes of this season will be marked by—” she was writing, when there was a knock at the door.

Mrs. Fremby got up. Swiftly and noiselessly she detached the heater and thrust it, still red-hot, into a cupboard under the washstand. Then, with a lofty expression of annoyance, she went to open the door; but it was not the landlady—it was Judith Cane.

Judith came in. Snowflakes were melting upon her furs, her eyelashes were damp, and there was a fine color in her cheeks. She was indeed a superb creature, tall, dark, and beautiful, the physical embodiment of that “American type” who should have attracted considerable attention at[Pg 248] Longchamp. Unfortunately, however, she lacked a certain vital quality—animation, Mrs. Fremby would have said, but in the office of the Daily Citizen they called it “bean.” They said in that office that Judith was beautiful but dumb.

Mrs. Fremby, however, was not one to pick flaws in her friends. She was loyal, even to the point of prejudice. She was devoted to Judith, and she acknowledged no faults in her.

As Judith did so, she locked the door again, and hastened about, making hospitable preparations. She connected the heater again, and also a small electric grill. The light grew perilously dim.

“They ought to put in a larger meter,” observed Mrs. Fremby, with the air of an electrical expert. “I can’t make coffee, my dear. It smells; but we’ll have tea and rolls, and some perfectly delicious Bologna. Isn’t it wretched weather?”

“Yes,” said Judith. “And there I sat, rewriting and rewriting that article about smoking accessories for Mr. Tolley, and in the end he killed it!”

“She is,” he had said, “a space writer—which means that she fills blank space in a blank manner.”

“Never mind!” she went on. “I’ve got a thing here that ought to run to a column, if you pad it a little. We’ll fix it up, and you can turn it in to-morrow. Now, my dear, do tell me!”

It was a question here of an orphan child. The child’s mother had been Judith’s sister, and upon the sister’s decease Judith had put in a claim for the custody of the infant. According to all the laws of justice and humanity—as interpreted by Mrs. Fremby—Judith should have got the infant, but another woman, a sister of the mere father, had likewise put in a claim; and as this woman had a very wealthy husband, and a home, and other things which surrogates deem advantageous for infants, and Judith had none of these, the other claimant had triumphed.

“It’s an outrage!” Mrs. Fremby repeated. “You’ll fight it, of course?”

“It’s so expensive, Evelyn. Even if I got the poor little thing, I don’t know what I could do with her. I only made twelve dollars last week.”

Mrs. Fremby recognized in her friend a mood which exasperated her—a large, vague despair and resignation.

“You ought to know that I’ll always help you till you get on your feet,” she said sternly.

“I do know,” said Judith, shedding more tears; “but it seems to take me so long to get on my feet! All I do is—to get on your feet.”

She had, in her heart, no very great illusions about Judith’s ability to earn money, but what did that matter? Judith wanted her niece, and what Judith wanted she ought to have. That was nothing more than justice.

“Don’t do anything—awful,” said Judith. “You know, Evelyn, you’re so—”

“Leave it to me,” she said. “Just drink your tea, my dear child, and don’t worry.”

It was a riotous sort of day. The wind went rampaging about Central Park, and the sun laughed down upon the gay confusion of tossing branches, just beginning to grow green. In sheltered spots traces of snow still lingered, but it was melting very fast. The ground was soft, the iron thrall of winter was loosed.

It was not quite the sort of Sunday that Miss Mackellar could approve of. The wind disarranged her hair, and the promise of spring troubled her spirit. Her feet hurt, too. She sat down upon a bench and buttoned her voluminous plaid coat tightly about her, and, as the young child whose governess she was ran around and around the bench, she said “Woo!” each time the child appeared before her.

She did this with all the fervor she could command, for she was fond of the little girl, and she was a conscientious woman; but she knew that she failed. The child[Pg 249] was generously giving her every chance to be entertaining while sitting still, and she was not being entertaining. Before long she would be obliged to rise and limp off in quest of ducks and squirrels, who could do better.

Miss Mackellar could think of no other retort than a fresh “Woo,” but it was not accepted.

“Look out, then!” cried a gay voice. “I’m a tiger! And I pounce! Gr-r-r!”

It was a trim, brisk little red-haired woman who had just come around the turn in the path. In fact, like a real tiger, she had been lurking there in ambush for some time, watching and waiting unsuspected.

“Gr-r-r!” she said again, moving forward with gleaming eyes and outstretched claws.

The little girl was delighted. With shrieks of joy she ran behind the bench, pursued by this wholly satisfactory tiger. Around and around they went, the brisk little woman as indefatigable as the child.

But the dejected Miss Mackellar had a conscience which hurt her even more than her shoes. She believed that life was very hard and painful, and that if it wasn’t, then you were certainly doing wrong. She felt that she had no right to sit there and be comfortable.

“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” she said to Mrs. Fremby—for the tiger was that lady; “but really I shouldn’t let you. I ought—”

“It’s a pleasure,” Mrs. Fremby assured her. “I am very much in harmony with children. Gr-r-r!” She disappeared around the bench again. “In fact,” she continued, when she reappeared, “I wrote a series of articles once upon ‘Scientific Play.’ Play is really work, you know.”

“I mean for the child. It is in play that a child develops those qualities of—aha! Gr-r-r!” And again she was gone. “Now then!” she said, addressing the child. “The tiger’s going to hide around the corner, by those bushes, and you’d just better not look for it!”

Miss Mackellar could not help feeling glad that the lively game was now a little removed from her bench. She did not, however, believe in luck, unless it was bad, and she wondered earnestly why this little interlude of peace was granted to her. Perhaps it was to give her a chance to think about serious things. She did so.

But wasn’t it almost too quiet? Hunter and tiger had vanished around the corner. That had happened half a dozen times before, but this time it seemed so long—

“I shouldn’t let that child out of my sight,” she thought. “I am failing in my duty! They’ll have to come back and stay where I can see them, or”—she sighed—“or I suppose I’ll have to follow where they go.”

It is strange what a sinister effect may be caused by calling a person who does not answer. As soon as she had called, Miss Mackellar grew really frightened. She actually ran up the path, and, meeting a nursemaid with a perambulator, she cried:

“Oh, did you see a little girl with a tiger? No—I mean a little girl in a pink hat and a red-haired woman?”

“Er-huh,” said the nursemaid, staring hard at her. “Just a minute ago—goin’ up that way, to the entrance, walking terrible fast.”

“Oh, Heavens!” cried Miss Mackellar, ashen white. “Oh, stop them, somebody! The child has been kidnaped!”

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed. “I never! Then I’d better get this baby home, quick as ever I can!”

The luckless Miss Mackellar stood in the middle of the path, clasping her trembling hands, and trying in vain to make her panic-stricken brain function lucidly.[Pg 250] What she really wanted to do was to scream.

“No, no!” she said to herself. “I must keep calm. Oh, there’s a policeman! But I don’t know—perhaps that’s the wrong thing to do. It might get into the newspapers, if I tell a policeman, and Mr. Donalds is always so angry at newspapers. Oh! Oh! If they had only come to me and told me they were going to steal the child, I’d have been glad to draw all my money out of the savings bank and hide it under a tree for them! That’s what they always seem to want some one to do. Of course I know I wouldn’t have enough, but—oh, my precious Natalie! Oh, Mr. Donalds! Oh, my poor darling Natalie!”

“I’ll go to Mr. Donalds this instant,” she thought. “I don’t care what happens to me. Let them put me in jail—that’s where I ought to be! It’s all my fault!”

Off she went, as fast as her shaking knees and her fluttering heart permitted; and this is her last personal appearance in this story, for any account of her interview with her employer would be too painful to set before a humane reader.

Only let it be said that she survived—that when Mr. Donalds rushed out of his house on East Seventy-Fourth Street, Miss Mackellar was still breathing. He had at first intended to take her with him, to identify persons and places, but even he could see the uselessness of doing so. She was in no condition to identify anything. She was beginning to rave about the child’s having been carried off by a tiger; so he left her behind.

Like a stone from a catapult he shot out of his house and down the street toward the park. He had no intention of allowing the police to interfere with his private affairs. He believed he knew very well who had stolen the child, and why.

III

Mr. Donalds knew that the child would suffer no bodily harm, and he was confident of his ability to snatch her away from contaminating moral influences before serious injury to her character could result. Mr. Donalds never failed. If he did not always accomplish exactly what he set out to do, at least he did something else which seemed to him just as good.

He knew that in this case he would succeed, as usual, and therefore he was able to devote his mind to being angry. His fury rose within him like steam, actually seeming to inflate him, so that he bounced rather than walked. A short, stoutish man he was, with a pale Napoleonic face and a piercing glance—a man of tremendous energy and determination.

Sometimes, however, he was a man of too little patience and deliberation. This morning, for instance, although he had thought to take his hat and his walking stick, he had forgotten to change his slippers. He was wearing red morocco slippers that came up over the ankle, and not only were they conspicuous, but they were too thin for outdoor walking.

However, it was not his way to turn back, and forward he went. He entered the park and proceeded direct to the spot where Miss Mackellar said she had last seen the child. He looked for clews. There were none.

He followed the course which the nursemaid had pointed out to Miss Mackellar, and in due time he arrived at another entrance. There was a cab stand here, in which stood one taxi, with the chauffeur standing beside it, leisurely surveying the world in which we live. Mr. Donalds approached him.

“See here!” he said. “Did you happen to see a red-haired woman and a child in a pink hat come out of the park near here?”

Mr. Donalds had not lived some fifty years for nothing. He knew how to inspire enthusiasm. He put his hand into his pocket.

“Yes, sir!” answered the driver promptly, in a brisk and earnest tone. “They came out here. I noticed ’em because she was in such a hurry. I thought there was something queer about it. Anyways, she took Wickey’s cab.”

“Couldn’t tell you that, sir. They started up the avenoo; but they might ’a’ bin goin’ anywheres.”

“Well, I don’t know, sir. He’ll prob’ly come back here before long. Him and me are buddies, an’ we gen’rally eat lunch together, if we can. O’ course, lots o’ times[Pg 251] we can’t. F’r instance, I might have to go out any minute now.”

“Don’t know, sir—didn’t notice. You see, we don’t always take out the same one. Some days the one you’re used to is laid up.”

“Yes, sir; but they wouldn’t know where he went. Wouldn’t do much good, unless you want to set the cops after him.”

“No,” said Mr. Donalds. “I’ll handle this myself. You’re fairly certain, then, that this Wickey will return here before going to his garage?”

“Very well, then—I’ll wait here. I’ll engage your cab. I’ll pay you for your time until this Wickey comes,” said Mr. Donalds.

“Oh, he’d gimme a hail,” the driver assured him. “Don’t you worry, sir.”

But time was flying. At least, time was undoubtedly flying for the nefarious red-haired woman, but for Mr. Donalds it passed with leaden foot. The chauffeur was smoking what Mr. Donalds was wont to call a “filthy cigarette,” and though he had often declared that such things were not tobacco at all, still the aroma of this one put him painfully in mind of cigars. He had none with him. He grew more and more restless.

“Ask him to go somewhere and buy me half a dozen cigars,” said Mr. Donalds. “Tell him to get Havana perfectos.”

This was soon done, and as he began to smoke, Mr. Donalds felt calmer; but a new and more serious craving now assailed him. He was in the habit of lunching promptly at one o’clock, and it was now half past one. The cab was hot with the sun blazing down upon it, and this, combined with the bad effects of boiling rage, sizzling impatience, and fast growing hunger, were impairing Mr. Donalds’s health. He felt positively ill. He threw away his third cigar half finished.

“I’m going to get a bite to eat, sir,” he said. “This here fellow knows Wickey. He’ll stay till I get back.”

This was intensely distasteful to him, but he knew that without food he could not be at his best.

“Bring me back something to eat,” he said; “something—er—small and not conspicuous, if possible.”

Thus it was that Mr. Donalds, eminent business man and mirror of respectability, might have been seen eating a “hot dog” in a taxicab on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday afternoon. He had pulled down the blinds, had taken the first bite, and was discovering that he had never tasted anything so exquisite, so zestful—when the door was opened and a policeman looked in.

“Now, what’s all this?” asked the policeman reproachfully. “This won’t do, you know!”

Mr. Donalds managed to convince the officer that his presence was perfectly legitimate; but the incident disturbed him. He felt himself an outcast from society. He no longer relished the “hot dog,” but he finished it.

Then he was assailed by a fearful thirst, and there is no knowing what might have happened next, if the elusive Wickey had not appeared.

“Yes,” he said, in answer to Mr. Donalds’s questions. “I took ’em out to a place on the Boston Post Road—long run. I jest got back—empty to City Island; then I picked up a fare.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Wickey, “but I can’t afford to take the chance of comin’ back empty.”

In dust, in gasoline fumes, in an endless procession of cars, Mr. Donalds proceeded on his way. They stopped for gasoline, they stopped while Wickey investigated a knock in the engine, they stopped again[Pg 252] and again because the procession stopped. Signs told them to “go slow,” and they went slow, until Mr. Donalds was on the verge of frenzy.

He tried to be calm. He reminded himself that he was a relentless human bloodhound, never to be eluded, and that no matter where the criminals went, were it to the very ends of the earth, they could not escape him. Even these thoughts could not appease him. He was hungry, he was extremely thirsty, and he was displeased with his red morocco slippers.

It is fortunate that he did not know how streaked with dust and perspiration his face was, how rumpled his stubby hair. As it was, when he caught any one staring at him, he believed it was because of the ruthless determination of his expression.

At last Wickey turned off the Post Road and stopped halfway down a lane, before a little old-fashioned cottage which bore this sign:

Mr. Donalds sprang out, and, bidding the man wait, opened the garden gate and advanced up the path. The cottage door was unlatched, and he entered, to find himself in a dim, cool little room, filled with small tables and high-backed settees.

There was no one else in the room. He had come in so quietly, in his slippers, that no doubt he had not been heard. He waited a moment, and then he rapped vigorously upon one of the tables.

Almost immediately there entered a thin little white-haired woman wearing a chintz apron.

She was such a very respectable sort of little woman, and the atmosphere of the place was so very tranquil, that Mr. Donalds felt somewhat abashed.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I’m looking for a woman with red hair and a child in a pink hat.”

Suddenly the whole thing seemed to him so fantastic that he was almost apologetic—until he observed that the woman’s face grew very pale.

“I—I—I—” she faltered. “You must be mistaken. I—I never heard of them. They’ve gone away.”

“You contradict yourself, madam!” said Mr. Donalds sternly. “Come, tell me what you know—at once!”

“I—I—I—” said she, trembling with an alarm which he could not but think guilty. “Oh! Please go away!”

“Go away!” he repeated, affronted and amazed. “I have come here for the purpose of—”

She began to cry. Mr. Donalds had not been an employer of great numbers of female stenographers for years and years without learning to withstand tears. In fact, he had formed the notion that women generally cried whenever they had made a mistake, and that it was a feminine way of apologizing.

But all she did was to back into a corner and go on crying. Mr. Donalds was not profoundly moved. On the contrary, he was irritated.

This was undoubtedly a warning, and Mr. Donalds went forward very rapidly. He reached the foot of a narrow, boxed-in stairway, and had his foot on the bottom step, when, with a rustle of skirts and a click of high heels, down rushed a little human whirlwind, with such impetuosity that he had just time to spring aside.

“What do you mean by this?” the whirlwind demanded. “What’s he been doing, Betsy?”

Mr. Donalds was silent, staring at this new one. She had red hair. She had, moreover, the air of one who is capable of anything. He felt absolutely certain that she was the kidnaper; and he decided that he would confute, abash, and alarm her by a sudden onslaught.

“Come!” he shouted. “Where is the child? Quick! No nonsense! Where is the child?”

He was very much taken aback and shocked by this unaccountable display of effrontery.

“By all means,” said she. “The more time you waste over it, the better for me.”

Now, there might be some truth in this. He hesitated, scowling, staring at the criminal, who returned his stare without flinching. He saw that he had no ordinary person to deal with. This was a master mind.

It was Mr. Donalds’s belief that those who could not be bullied must be bribed; so he changed his tone.

“Madam,” he said, “my sole object is the recovery of the child. To accomplish this, I am willing—”

“Come into the tea room, Mr. Henderson,” she interrupted, “and we’ll discuss the matter. I can assure you that the child is quite safe and happy, and that you will accomplish nothing by violence. No, Mr. Henderson—the best thing you can do is to come to terms with me.”

“My name is not Henderson,” he began, but she had gone past him into the tea room, and he followed.

“And sandwiches,” went on the red-haired woman, unperturbed. “And cake, if you please, Betsy dear. Sit down, Mr. Henderson!”

The woman sat down, and she said nothing. Mr. Donalds appreciated the cleverness of this silence. By saying nothing at all she had him at a disadvantage, for she did not mind waiting, and he did. He was obliged to begin.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Donalds, at last, “that you have some sort of terms to suggest. Let me hear them!”

“Certainly,” said she; “but here’s our tea. How nice! Thank you, Betsy dear!”

Mr. Donalds remained silent until the timid Betsy had set the tea out on the table and once more retired.

“Mr. Henderson,” she replied in a grave tone, “I wish you would sit down and take a cup of tea—and a sandwich. They’re very nourishing sandwiches. I made them myself; and you need nourishment and refreshment. You are tired, and in an extremely nervous condition.”

This was almost more than Mr. Donalds could bear. He struggled with his indignation for a moment, and then gave a short laugh.

“No doubt my pitiful condition distresses you very greatly,” he observed, with biting sarcasm.

“It does,” said she. “I am a good judge of character, and, since I have actually seen you, I am inclined to believe that you are not really a bad or heartless man. I feel now that what you have done, you have done more through lack of understanding than from deliberate cruelty.”

He was dazed. He sank heavily into a chair opposite her, and stared at her; and she actually smiled at him—smiled gravely but kindly.

“Good!” said she. “Now we can talk like two reasonable human beings. Milk and sugar?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said he, as if in a dream. “I don’t want it, anyhow.”

“I don’t care much for tea myself,” she told him; “but it is refreshing. A sandwich? If you don’t like cheese, I’ll get you—”

“Most men do,” said she. “My poor husband was so fond of it! He was a newspaper man, and when he came home late I would make him a nice little Welsh rarebit, and he’d have that and a glass of beer. That was years ago, of course, when you could get beer.”

She sighed, but Mr. Donalds understood that the sigh was only for her late husband, not for any other vanished joys.

He believed her. Extraordinary and preposterous as it was, he believed that she really wished him to be comfortable. She had prepared a cup of tea for him, and she watched him while he drank it and ate a sandwich—yes, two or three sandwiches—with the air of a solicitous hostess.

He lit a cigar and took a few puffs. He really felt very much better now. The tea and the sandwiches had done him good, and the atmosphere of the place was most restful. The sun was sinking. Already the corners of the room were shadowy, and a shaft of mellow light from the window illumined the woman’s glittering hair in a singular fashion. Seen thus, and through a faint haze of tobacco smoke, she looked not exactly pretty, but certainly attractive, so straight was she, so trim, so smart, so self-possessed.

“Mr. Henderson,” she replied, “I shouldn’t like you to misunderstand me. Perhaps it is a weakness, but I shouldn’t like you to think that my motives were unworthy.”

“I—” he began, and stopped himself just in time. “I don’t think so,” he had been about to say, but that would never do; so he said nothing.

“I give you my word,” she continued, in a voice almost sorrowful, “that I personally have nothing whatever to gain by this. My only object has been to secure justice for others.”

“I do,” said she. “Now please listen. First”—she paused—“first, that poor creature—that governess—”

“No, she isn’t. She’s simply a victim, and I don’t wish her to suffer for what isn’t her fault. Any one could see what she is,” the red-haired woman went on with great earnestness. “She’s perfectly helpless. She’s a victim of life—of man.”

“Well, then, the first article of our agreement must be this,” said she. “Miss—Mackellar, you said? Miss Mackellar is to have an annuity of one thousand dollars a year.”

“You assure me that the woman is absolutely innocent of any participation in the kidnaping?” demanded Mr. Donalds.

“Absolutely! Any one could see that. She’s only a poor, muddled, tired little woman who does her best. She needs help, and you can very well afford to do this for her.”

To tell the truth, the red-haired woman’s description of Miss Mackellar had rather touched him.

“Will you write it down, please?” said she. “Just say that you will provide an annuity of one thousand dollars a year for Miss Mackellar, as from the 10th of April, 1925.”

She spoke in an efficient, businesslike tone, which somehow gave an air of plausibility to this incredible proposal, and he obeyed. He wrote on a page of his notebook, signed it, and put it on the table before him.

“And now,” she went on, “you will agree to settle upon Judith, for life, an income of—”

“Write this,” she said calmly, “and I shall at once take you to the child.”

“Mr. Henderson,” she replied sternly, “don’t you think, in your heart, that you ought to do this for Judith? Think, Mr. Henderson! Think of all that poor Judith—”

“My name is not Henderson—I told you that before! My name is Donalds—William Donalds, importer. Here! Here’s a card!”

From his pocket he pulled not one card, but many, and they fell all over the table.

“Donalds!” he repeated. “Now you know with whom you have to deal. This farce must end! This—”

He stopped, because such an extraordinary change had come over the woman. Her face had grown alarmingly white, and she was staring at him with a sort of horror.

“I will not be!” he shouted. “I [Pg 255]refuse! Nothing can induce me to assume a false name! You have kidnaped my grandchild—”

“Wait a minute!” she interrupted. She rose to her feet and stood, holding the back of the chair. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that there’s been—some terrible mistake!”

“Mr. Donalds,” she said. “I—I must apologize. I’m afraid—it’s the wrong child!”

She went out of the room, and he followed her up the stairs. She opened the door of a room, and there, on a bed, he saw his grandchild, sleeping peacefully.

“Then you are not acting on behalf of my scoundrelly nephew, Masterton Donalds?” he said.

“But I thought—he has made certain threats that he would attempt to force me to make him an allowance. I thought—”

“No,” said the red-haired woman in a very low voice. “Take her! I’m sorry. It was all a mistake!”

Judith was waiting in Mrs. Fremby’s room. She had been told to come there at six o’clock, in order to hear some news. She had come, and had found the room empty. Judith’s nature, however, was not an impatient one. She waited, full of a calm confidence in her friend. She ate the entire contents of a bag of chocolates that she found on the table, she tried on Mrs. Fremby’s hats, and then she sat down to read Mrs. Fremby’s latest article, which began thus:

The door opened, and Mrs. Fremby entered. As was her habit, she locked the door behind her. Then she smiled. It was a pretty sickly smile, but Judith was not observant.

“Hello, Evelyn!” answered Judith. “What is the news you said you’d have for me?”

“My dear,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you to-night. Later on—”

“Oh, Evelyn!” she said. “I did hope there’d be something—something about little Doris, or at least an order for an article. I only have two dollars, Evelyn!”

She spoke absent-mindedly, for she was calculating. The cost of that taxi had been terrific—and all for nothing! She was tired and downcast and miserable; but it was not her way to allow others to know such things. She reflected that after Judith was gone she could be as miserable as much and as long as she liked, but in the meantime—courage!

It was never a difficult matter to divert Judith’s mind, and within a few minutes Mrs. Fremby had got her to talking about the spring costume she wished she could buy. It was scarcely necessary to listen. Mrs. Fremby was able to indulge in her own far from cheery thoughts.

There was a knock at the door. Mrs. Fremby rose and opened it promptly. It was the landlady. Let it be! There were no surreptitious cooking or heating processes going forward just now.

“There’s a gentleman wants to see you, Mrs. Fremby,” said the landlady, with perfect affability. “He’s waiting down in the hall.”

With a firm step she left the room. At heart, though, she was by no means easy. She felt sure that this visitor was Mr. Donalds, and she was not very anxious to see him again.

It was Mr. Donalds. As she descended the stairs, she saw him standing, hat in hand, in the dimly lit hall, and her heart sank still lower. He was not a man to be trifled with. He was[Pg 256]—

“Not a handsome man at all,” thought Mrs. Fremby; “but distinguished-looking.”

“Madam,” said he, “I obtained your name and address from the—ah—person in the tea room.”

“I succeeded in convincing her that I intended no harm,” he went on; “and I wish to assure you that I bear no ill will.”

“I gave you a great deal of quite unnecessary trouble and anxiety,” she said. “I regret it very much; but—perhaps I ought to explain. You see, there is a friend of mine—Judith Cane—who has a little niece, her own sister’s child; and the father’s people have taken the little girl away from her. It’s shameful! Judith loves the child so much!”

“The law!” said Mrs. Fremby scornfully. “They’ve got the law on their side; but what I wanted was justice—for Judith, I thought I’d steal the child, and force them to do something for Judith.”

“I don’t care about risks,” said Mrs. Fremby calmly. “Nobody would dare to do anything to me!”

Mr. Donalds knew well how absurd this statement was, yet he was impressed. The dauntlessness of this little woman!

“Judith knows nothing about it,” she continued; “and I don’t intend her to know until the thing’s done.”

“Yes, I do,” she interrupted. “It’s the only way; and this afternoon I saw that you—even a man like you—you were willing to make all sorts of concessions. Oh, I do wish!” she exclaimed. “I do wish you had been the right one!”

“Because we got on so well. I could discuss things with you. You were so reasonable—about that poor Miss Mackellar, for instance.”

“Mrs. Fremby,” he said solemnly, “I consider that you were in the right about Miss Mackellar. I mean to carry out your wishes in that matter.”

“No!” she replied incredulously. “You can’t mean that, after I caused you so much worry and—”

“You did me good,” said he. “I don’t mind admitting it. The example of your—your heroism—”

“Your heroism,” he repeated doggedly, “and your unselfish devotion to the interests of others—What is more, my grandchild is—is enthusiastic in your praise. Mrs. Fremby, allow me to say that you are a wonderful woman!”

“Mr. Donalds,” she said, “for you to say that—after what has happened—is magnanimous!”

“I mean it,” said he; “but I most earnestly implore you not to do it again. The risk is—appalling! It is possible—it is highly probable—that I can be of some assistance to this friend of yours, this—er—Miss Judith. Whatever I can do, Mrs. Fremby, I will—anything authorized by law,” he added a trifle anxiously.

“Mr. Donalds!” she cried. “Oh, Mr. Donalds! This is—oh, this is really too much! I never—I never in my life—”

He thought she was going to cry. She thought so too, for a moment, but with a pretty severe effort she recovered herself. She smiled. That smile completely finished Mr. Donalds.

“Mrs. Fremby,” he said, “one thing more. I believe I told you that I was an importer—”

“Mrs. Fremby, I should be honored—it would be a favor to me—if you would come to our showroom to-morrow morning and pick out for yourself any one of the new model gowns from Paris—”

“Paris!” cried Mrs. Fremby. “Never!” Mr. Donalds was startled by her impassioned tone. “I wouldn’t wear a Paris gown—not for anything!”

“Wouldn’t wear a Paris gown!” he repeated, overcome. “I never before heard of a lady—”

“You mustn’t think I don’t appreciate your generosity,” she said. “It’s just a matter of principle.[Pg 257]”

It was amazing, the difference that one word of six letters made in that phrase. Mrs. Fremby became quite confused.

“What can I do,” continued Mr. Donalds, still holding her hand, “to mark my profound appreciation?”

Appreciation of what? Of Mrs. Fremby’s kidnaping his grandchild? Strange that so practical a man as Mr. Donalds should become so curiously obtuse about the clearest moral issues! Mrs. Fremby was undeniably a lawless, reckless, dangerous sort of creature.

“Mrs. Fremby,” said he, “will you do me the honor of dining with me to-morrow evening?”

And you may believe it or not, but neither of them doubted for a moment that it was an honor which she conferred upon him.[Pg 258]

As Patrick Henry Said

THE UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED DR. JOE TO CHANGE SOME OF HIS IDEAS ON THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL LIBERTY

“MEAN to tell me she won’t let you go?” demanded Dr. Joe, in his big voice.

“No,” said young Bennett stoutly, “I don’t mean to tell you anything of the sort. Of course she’d let me go; only, if I did, there’d be no one—well, no one to look after the furnace or—”

“Merciful powers!” said Dr. Joe, staring at his friend in pity and wonder. “So that’s what it’s done to you!” he thought. “Can’t take two weeks off for a hunting trip with your old friend! Can’t call your soul your own!”

“If the man’s happy,” he thought, “the thing for me is to be tactful.”

And no one could have convinced him that he was not tactful. He got up, a formidable figure of a man, more than six feet in height and stalwart in proportion. He was under thirty-five, yet no one ever spoke of him as a young man, any more than people called him a handsome man, in spite of the fine regularity of his massive features. He was simply Dr. Joe. There was no one like him.

“Well, my boy,” he said, in a soothing way, “I’ll be off now. Got half a dozen calls to make before lunch. See you—”

“You’ve got to do it, Joe. She wants to meet you, and I want you to see—what she’s done for me.”

“Seen that already!” thought Dr. Joe, but, true to his policy of tactfulness, he kept the thought to himself. “Some other time, old man,” he said.

“And I’ll have to go some time,” he thought ruefully, so he said: “All right, old man—Sunday it is!”

It was a genuine sacrifice. Although Sunday was six days off, the thought of it recurred to him from time to time during the morning, and bothered him. He hated to be pinned down to a definite engagement. His day’s work was always heavy, and, when it was done, he liked to go home. If no calls came for him in the evening, he was glad to drop in to see a friend, for he was a sociable sort of fellow, but he very much disliked feeling that he had to go, that he was expected somewhere at a definite time. He liked, in short, to feel free.

“Breath of life to me,” he reflected. “As Patrick Henry said, give me liberty or give me death. There’s Bennett—married—tied down like that—dare say he’s happy, but it wouldn’t suit me. No, sir! I’ve got to have my liberty. Come and go as I please—meals when it suits me—come home tired—put on an old coat and light my pipe—that’s the life for me!”

Leaving the enslaved Bennett in his office, Dr. Joe drove off about his business. He flew along the quiet country roads in his little car. He would stop before a house and run up the steps. He never rang bells. If a door was locked, he knocked vigorously upon it. If it was not locked, he flung it open and walked in; and he had never yet failed to find a welcome inside. His step was by no means light, yet no one, not even the most querulous and nervous patient, had ever com[Pg 260]plained of that. He was Dr. Joe. He expected every one to be glad to see him, and every one was.

Things went well that morning. All the patients he visited were doing nicely, and the weather was superb—a cool, bright October day. He drove home for lunch in a very cheerful humor. He was contented and hungry.

As he neared his own house, however, a faint cloud came over his satisfaction. He hoped that Mrs. MacAdams, his housekeeper, would not give him that stew again to-day.

“Don’t like to say anything to her,” he thought; “but seems to me we’re having that stew pretty often these days. It’s not—well, it’s all right, of course, but—”

He went up the steps of the veranda and burst open his own front door with a magnificent crash. That was his signal to Mrs. MacAdams to put his lunch on the table.

He did not turn his head in the direction of the waiting room, though he knew that people were in there. His office hours were from two to four, and patients had no business to come at one o’clock. He often said, with vehemence, that he would see no one—absolutely no one—before two o’clock; but he did. He said he would eat his lunch in peace; but he didn’t. He always had to hurry.

So he was going sternly toward the dining room, without even glancing in at the waiting room, when an extraordinary sight arrested him. There was some one sitting in the hall!

This was altogether too much. Bad enough for patients to come long before office hours, and haunt him while he ate his lunch, but to come out into the hall to waylay him!

He gave this person a severe glance. He got in return a glance which somehow disconcerted him—a cool, amused, very steady glance. He stopped short. The intruder was a woman. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, her hands lying extended on the arms, and her feet planted solidly before her, side by side. It was an Egyptian sort of attitude.

There was nothing else about her, however, to suggest old Egypt. That wrinkled, weather-beaten face with the long upper lip, half doleful, half humorous, and those twinkling little gray eyes, were unmistakably Irish; and Dr. Joe had rather a weakness for that race. Moreover, she was shabbily dressed—a thing difficult for him to resist—and her hair was gray. His just resentment vanished.

“See here!” he said reproachfully. “You ought to be in the waiting room. Patients aren’t allowed to sit out here.”

“I am not one o’ thim,” she said. “It’s business I’ve come to see ye about.”

“I mean the young bye—the lad—” she began, when Mrs. MacAdams appeared in the doorway of the dining room.

“Your lunch is on the table, doctor,” she announced, in a faint, sad voice. “I told that person—”

Dr. Joe waved his hand toward Mrs. MacAdams, and, as if he had been a wizard, she vanished. It was never her policy to argue with her employer.

“I don’t understand you,” said Dr. Joe to the Irishwoman. “What is it you want?”

He spoke almost gently, for something in this shabby, gray-haired stranger touched him. He didn’t care to eat his lunch and leave her sitting in the hall.

From a shadowy corner, where he had been standing unobserved, came a small boy—a very small boy, thin and wiry, with red hair and a pale, freckled face; a sulky-looking little boy, very neatly dressed in a sailor suit and a cap which proclaimed him as belonging to the United States Navy.

“He’s a fantastical bye,” she explained. “Ye’d never believe the notions he has. What’s in his mind now is he wants to be a doctor; and I’ve come to see will ye make a doctor of him?”

“He knows,” she asserted tranquilly. “It’s a doctor he wants to be. I’ve been told yourself is the best doctor in it at all,[Pg 261] and I’ve brought the bye to ye to see will ye lave him study with ye.”

“His father’ll be paying whativer is right for the larnin’,” said the woman. She paused a moment. “His father is a grand, rich man,” she went on. “Him an’ his wife is travelin’ in foreign lands, and they’ve lift the bye with me. It’s his nurse I am. Katie is me name.”

“See here, Katie!” said Dr. Joe, very kindly. “The child’s far too young. Later on, perhaps—”

“Doctor dear!” she interrupted with intense earnestness. “Will ye not lave him try? He’s to school in the mornin’s. Will ye not lave him be with ye in the afternoons, to be watchin’ the way ye’ll be healin’ the sick? Ye’d not know by lookin’ at him all that’s in his head. If ye’ll talk to him, drawin’ it out of him, ye’ll see!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question,” said Dr. Joe firmly. “When the boy’s parents come back, I’ll talk to them, and—”

“The one day, doctor dear!” she cried. “Ye’ll do that for an ould woman! He’s fed. He’ll need no more till I’ll come for him at six o’clock. All o’ thim tellin’ me what a grand, kind man ye were, at all—and me ould enough to be yer mother!”

“Sure, what trouble will it be for yer honor?” she pleaded. “An’ Frankie only the small young child he is—just wantin’ to watch ye! Lave him come with ye the one day, doctor dear! His father’ll—”

This was the most absurd and unreasonable request that had ever been made of him—which was saying a good deal, for his generosity was well known, and full advantage was taken of it. And yet, somehow, the incident touched and troubled him. He couldn’t forget the passionate earnestness of the old Irishwoman.

“Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense!” he said half aloud, and sat down at the table.

In his heart he was afraid of Mrs. MacAdams. She was such a resigned, subdued woman, and always so completely in the right, that he felt vaguely guilty every time he saw her.

“I thought you would be in a hurry, doctor,” she said faintly. “I had no idea you would stay out in the hall so long, talking to that person.”

“No, no, of course you didn’t,” Dr. Joe hastily assured her. “Quite all right, Mrs. MacAdams. Many of ’em in the waiting room?”

“I believe I opened the door six times,” she answered, with angelic patience.

He felt guiltier than ever. The feeling that he was a tyrant to Mrs. MacAdams mingled with a wretched conviction that he had been unduly abrupt with the poor old woman in the hall, until he saw himself as an utterly heartless bully. He couldn’t bear it.

“I just want to see,” he murmured, with an ingratiating smile, and, getting up, opened the dining room door.

Katie was gone. The high-backed chair was occupied by the little red-haired boy, who sat there with his head thrown back and his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Now see here!” said Dr. Joe indignantly. “Did she—did your nurse go off and leave you here?”

The child’s manner was not in any way defiant or impertinent, but he certainly was not abashed. He stood, cap in hand, looking straight into the doctor’s face; and though he was by no means a handsome child, being slight, pale, and undersized for his years, there was something in that straightforward glance which Dr. Joe found very attractive.

“See here, my boy!” he said. “What[Pg 262] put the idea of being a doctor into your head, anyhow?”

“It just came,” said Frankie. “When I was in the hospital. When I had pneumonia last winter. In New York. The internes used to talk to me. And I liked it.”

“I didn’t care,” said Frankie. “I liked to be there. I liked—” He paused. “I liked the smell of the hospital,” he continued earnestly.

Frankie did not seem to care for this. He turned away again and made for the door, and this time Dr. Joe stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

Now the words themselves had very little significance; it was the spirit behind them that conquered Dr. Joe. The boy was obviously frightened by that heavy hand on his shoulder. He was only eight, and he lived in a child’s world. He had no understanding of these all-powerful grown people, who laughed or flew into tempers for no reason at all. He thought Dr. Joe was angry, and he was frightened—his eyes showed that; but his mouth set in a firm, sulky line, and once more he declared that he didn’t care.

III

It was the first time Dr. Joe had ever been alone with a child. Of course he had visited innumerable sick children, and had been very popular with them, but he was ashamed now to remember the sort of things he had said to other children of Frankie’s age.

“Talked about bunnies and pussy cats!” he thought. “Must have made a regular idiot of myself. This child’s exceptional, though.”

That comforted him. He was convinced by this time that there was not and never had been another child like Frankie. He couldn’t have explained this, and he wouldn’t have tried.

He firmly believed that he was a notable judge of human nature. He often said that he could read a character at a glance; but, as a matter of fact, what he really felt was usually a sudden and vehement prejudice, and it was a prejudice he felt now, in favor of Frankie. He had talked to him—“drawn him out,” as Katie had suggested, and he found the child not only intelligent, but an independent, clear-sighted, honest, sturdy little spirit.

“We’ll go home now,” said Dr. Joe. “We’ll step on the gas, too. It’s going to rain.”

He looked up at the sky. The brightness of the autumn day had vanished long ago, and the clouds were driving up fast before a steady, bleak wind. He tucked the rug carefully about Frankie. A very little fellow he was, after all, for all his cleverness—a queer little fellow.

With that in view, he drove at breakneck speed along the roads that lay white before him in the stormy dusk, past houses where warm little lights were beginning to gleam in the windows. It was the hour of home-coming—and it suddenly occurred to Dr. Joe that he and Frankie hadn’t much to go home to. Frankie had only a nurse waiting for him, and the doctor had only Mrs. MacAdams.

The storm couldn’t be dismissed as nonsense, however. Before they were halfway home it came upon them, a fierce downpour, drumming on the leather top of the car, dashing against the wind shield, crushing down into the mud the last valiant green things by the wayside. The headlights shone mistily into a world all darkness and confusion.

It was no new thing to Dr. Joe. It was simply a storm, and he was accustomed to being out in all weathers; but Frankie was of an age when one is, unfortunately, only too carefully protected from the elements, and he was thrilled. He wriggled joyously under the rug.

Dr. Joe smiled to himself at the touch of brogue—picked up from the boy’s nurse, no doubt; but he had to keep his mind on his driving.

There were many turns in the road, and the mud was slippery. He was glad when at last he turned into his own driveway. He hustled Frankie out of the car and up the steps, burst open the front door, and entered his own hall.

Now, if Dr. Joe had been the sort of man to be overcome by the sight of a pretty[Pg 263] face, he would never have been a bachelor at thirty-three; but he wasn’t that sort of man, and it was not the prettiness of this girl that made so great an impression upon him. It was the look on her face.

He had never seen quite that look on a woman’s face before, that magical and beautiful look of welcome. She came hurrying down the hall, and her step was eager, her eyes were shining. She was smiling and holding out her hands; and Dr. Joe felt that he had, for the first time since he could remember, really come home. He didn’t know or care who she was, or how she had got there, but only that she seemed somehow familiar and dear, and he was happy because he found her here.

He would have taken her outstretched hands—but the boy was ahead of him. Frankie ran up to the girl.

Dr. Joe saw then that the smile and the welcome and all the magic had been for Frankie, not for him. The girl turned to him, and she was a different girl—a polite, composed young creature.

“I’ve come to take Frankie home,” she said. “Thank you very much, doctor.”

For a moment he was too disappointed, too dejected, to answer. He was only a doctor; people were glad to see him only because they thought he could make them well. Nobody had ever looked at him as Molly looked at Frankie, and nobody ever would. What was there waiting for him when he got home? A lot of patients who wouldn’t give him time to eat his meals, and Mrs. MacAdams. His house was dark and dusty and cheerless, and the aroma of that stew still lingered in the air.

She waited a moment, holding Frankie by the hand. If he had looked at her, he would have recognized her expression, for it was the expression worn by mothers, aunts, and all female relatives of young children, and it meant that she was waiting to hear what a unique and wonderful child Frankie was; but Dr. Joe was lost in his unusually dismal thoughts. He was roused from them only by the sound of her voice.

“Well, thank you again!” she said. “Come, Frankie! We’ll have to hurry.”

“No!” he said. “You can’t go out in this storm. No—I’ll take you home in my car.”

Perhaps, on Frankie’s account, the girl would have accepted this offer, but just at this moment the dining room door opened and Mrs. MacAdams appeared.

“Your dinner is on the table, doctor,” she said, in a severe and deeply wounded tone.

“Oh, no!” cried the girl. “No, please! No, we really won’t let you! We’ll sit here till the rain lets up. I have an umbrella. Please, doctor, don’t keep your dinner waiting!”

“Doctor,” said the girl, “if you let your dinner get cold, after you’ve been so good to Frankie, I’ll never forgive myself!”

He couldn’t help smiling at her tremendous earnestness, yet it pleased him. He looked down at her and she looked up at him, and he was still more pleased. Hers was the sort of prettiness that he liked best of all—not the fragile, exquisite, rather alarming kind, but the simple, honest, gentle sort—the home sort.

She was little and slender, but she looked strong. She had blue eyes, and they were beautifully kind; she had black hair that curled, and a mouth that was generous and firm. What is more, Dr. Joe remembered the look she had given Frankie when he came in. He knew what she was capable of; he thought she was a wonderful girl.

“See here!” he said. “Stay and have a bite with me—you and Frankie—and I’ll take you home afterward.”

Mrs. MacAdams coughed again. Goodness knows what meaning she intended to convey, what warnings and reproaches, but certainly the effect was very different from what she had wished. That cough awoke in Dr. Joe a firm determination to ask whom he pleased, when he pleased, to his own board. It also caused the girl to make a curious remark.

“Dr. Joe,” she said, “Frankie’s nurse, that you saw this afternoon—she’s my grandmother.”

Now no one had ever heard Dr. Joe mention the word “democracy,” and he never thought about it, either. If you had questioned him, he would have told you, with considerable vigor, that he did not believe all men to be equal. He saw human beings at all the crises of their lives, and he knew[Pg 264] that they weren’t equal. He saw people who were heroic in suffering, and he admired them; he saw people who were not heroic, and he pitied them, and that was about as far as he went in judging his fellow creatures. As for dividing people according to their wealth, or their social standing, or their education, that never entered his head; so that he hadn’t the faintest notion that he was being tested, or that the girl was being plucky.

“I see!” he said cheerfully. “Now, then, Mrs. MacAdams! Can you scratch up something for these two young people to eat?”

Mrs. MacAdams did not like being asked to “scratch up” anything, and she did not like these young people.

It is regrettable to be obliged to say that she didn’t keep her promise. Even Mrs. MacAdams could have done better, had she tried.

Dr. Joe didn’t notice this, though. He was filled with delight at his dinner party. He bustled about, pulling chairs up to the table, and turning on more lights. His big, hearty voice was plainly audible to the patients in the waiting room, and they wondered how he could be so cheerful when they were not.

He was sitting at the head of the table, and Miss Ryan—that was her name—was at the foot, with Frankie between them, and the whole thing seemed to him extraordiarily jolly. There was something on his plate, and he was about to eat it, when he observed Miss Ryan lay her hand on Frankie’s arm and whisper to him.

“I’m hungry!” said Frankie, with something like a sob. “Bread an’ butter isn’t enough!”

“But hasn’t he got—what has he got, anyhow?” inquired Dr. Joe, puzzled.

“I don’t know,” said Miss Ryan; “but—I’d rather he didn’t eat it.”

“I’m hungry, Molly!” cried Frankie at last, in a most mutinous voice. “I don’t care what it is! I’m—”

“Frankie!” said she. “You shan’t eat it, and that’s all there is to it.” She took away the child’s plate. “I’m sorry,” she explained to Dr. Joe, in an unsteady voice, “but we have to be very careful about what he eats; and all that fat—”

“See here, Mrs. MacAdams!” said Dr. Joe entreatingly. “Can’t you rake up something for the child—milk—oatmeal—something of the sort?”

“Doctor,” said Mrs. MacAdams, “I can neither rake up nor scratch up anything else. This is the dinner I had prepared—for you. I was not informed that there would be”—she paused—“a party of guests.”

Then Dr. Joe had a bright idea—the sort of idea that would never have occurred to any one else.

“Tell you what!” he said. “Poor kid’s hungry. You know what suits him. Perhaps you could find something if you looked around in the kitchen, Miss Ryan, eh?”

He didn’t realize what he had done, but Miss Ryan did. She looked at Mrs. MacAdams with the nicest, most friendly sort of smile, but she got from that lady a look that roused all her native spirit.

And she rose and went into the kitchen. Mrs. MacAdams did not follow, nor did she make an offer to help Miss Ryan. Perhaps she felt that this girl was one who did not require much help; perhaps she had other reasons. Anyhow, she stood there in the dining room, perfectly silent. Frankie was silent, too, and very sulky. Dr. Joe was silent, and no longer happy. His dinner party was not successful.

He wondered. He wondered why he had so many dishes made from roasts, and so seldom the roasts themselves. He wondered why the tablecloth was neither dirtier nor cleaner. If it was never changed, it would certainly have been worse than it was. It must, therefore, be clean sometimes; but he couldn’t remember having ever seen it so.

It seemed a long time before Miss Ryan came back, but the delay was justified. Upon a tray she bore three plates. What[Pg 265] there was in two of them Dr. Joe never knew, but what she set before him was a miracle. Cheese and eggs and toast were part of it, but there must have been other things.

His spirits revived, and so did Frankie’s. He made jokes, and Frankie laughed at them. So did Miss Ryan, but in a different way. Dr. Joe suspected that something was amiss with her, and later, when he was helping her on with her coat, he felt sure of it. The light in the hall was dim, and he bent nearer. It was true—there were tears in her eyes.

He said nothing at the moment. He waited until he had got them snugly stowed into the car, Miss Ryan beside him, with Frankie on her lap.

He knew there was, though. She wasn’t the sort of girl to have tears in her eyes for nothing. He thought about it for awhile, and then he came to a conclusion.

In his wide experience of other people’s troubles, he had learned the terrible and pitiful importance of jobs, or the lack of them.

“Well, doctor,” she replied, “I play the piano in the music department of the Novelty Bazaar.”

Again he was silent, thinking of Miss Ryan at work in the basement of the Novelty Bazaar.

“I wish you’d get yourself another housekeeper!” she cried, with a vehemence that startled him. “I never saw—anything so—awful. It’s a sh-shame!”

“I’m not c-crying at all,” replied Miss Ryan, with dignity. “Only—when I saw that kitchen—and that dinner—it’s cruel!”

“It is cruel,” said Miss Ryan, “when you’re so busy and so—wonderfully kind and good.”

He had been called kind and good often enough before in his life, but it had never sounded like this. He looked at Molly Ryan. The interior of the little car was well lighted, so that he could see her clearly, sitting there beside him, with Frankie in her strong young arms, and those blue eyes of hers misty. Kind? He wasn’t the only one.

“It’s down this street,” she told him. “There—that’s the house—with the white fence.”

He stopped the car before the house—such a poor, forlorn little house it was—and Miss Ryan tried to set Frankie on his feet; but Frankie would not stand. Limp and dazed with sleep, he sank down on the floor of the car.

“I’ll carry him,” said Dr. Joe. “Come on! We’ll make a dash for it.”

So they did make a dash for it, through the pelting rain, to the veranda of the poor little house, and Miss Ryan rang the bell. Nothing happened. She waited a moment, rang again, and then opened the door with a latchkey.

Dr. Joe followed her inside, still carrying Frankie. She had lighted an oil lamp on the table, and, as he came in out of the stormy darkness, there was a picture he did not soon forget. It was a very little room, and a very humble one; it was not tastefully furnished; indeed, regarded in detail, it was quite the contrary; but it was a home. It was clean and neat and blessedly tranquil in the lamplight. It was a house with a heart—and Molly Ryan was in it.

“She’s left a note,” said Molly. “I don’t understand. She’s never gone out so late before; but perhaps some of the people she works for sent for her.”

“People she works for?” he repeated. “Thought she was the boy’s nurse.”

“She is,” answered Molly; “only while he’s at school she—she does other things.”

For a moment Molly looked dignified, and as if she would not answer, but she thought better of it. She looked up at Dr. Joe with the straightforward glance that he liked so well.[Pg 266]

“But see here—I don’t understand this! Do you mean to tell me that the boy’s parents have gone off and left him with his nurse, and haven’t given her any money to look after the child?”

“She does look after him!” cried Miss Ryan hotly. “He goes to the Lessell Academy. He’s getting the best education and the best care—”

“I’m sure of that,” interrupted Dr. Joe. “What I don’t understand is why his nurse has to go out scrubbing by the day. Why does the child live here? Why don’t his parents—”

“They can’t help it!” said Miss Ryan. Her cheeks were flaming, her blue eyes alight. “They’ve done the best they can. They’re the—the finest, most splendid people in the world. They—they just are!”

Dr. Joe respected her loyal defense; but he didn’t agree with her. He felt pretty sure now that Katie and this girl were burdened with the entire support of the boy, that they went shabby while he was well dressed, that they worked, scrubbing floors and playing the piano in the Novelty Bazaar, while Frankie went to an expensive private school. To his thinking, there was no possible excuse for parents who would do such a thing.

“See here!” he said. “I’ve got to go now—patients waiting for me. Send Frankie to me again to-morrow. No trouble to me. Fact is, I rather like to have him.”

Miss Ryan held out her hand, and Dr. Joe took it. He didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t very well ask her to come to see him, and he didn’t quite know how to suggest coming to see her; so he only gripped her little hand and said nothing, and it made him very unhappy. He wanted to see her, not just some time in the indefinite future, but the very next day and all other days. Going away from her was going away from home.

The next day was a dismal day by nature, and Mrs. MacAdams did nothing to make it better. She gave Dr. Joe the worst breakfast he had yet had, and she presented a curious and disturbing appearance. She had a bandage around her throat and another around her left wrist, and a plug of cotton wool in one ear. Time was when Dr. Joe would have made kindly inquiries about these matters, but not now. He had learned that her troubles were all due to opening the door for patients, to answering the telephone, or to going up and down the stairs; and as he couldn’t remove the cause, he was obliged to ignore the symptoms.

Nevertheless it disturbed him and made him feel guilty, and he set off to make his rounds in an unusually downcast mood. He did not forget that he had promised Molly Ryan to find her another job. Indeed, he forgot nothing at all about Molly—not even the way her dark hair curled above her ears; but his morning was too busy and hurried, and he had no chance to serve her. And this made him feel worse.

When he came home at lunch time, he did not run up the steps. He walked, and this gave him an opportunity to observe that the glass in the door was grimy and the curtain covering it limp and spotted. He was about to fling open the door when, to his surprise, it was opened for him. It was opened by Miss Ryan, hatless, and wearing an apron.

“Lots of people in the waiting room,” she whispered. “Your lunch is all ready.”

He followed her into the dining room. There was a clean cloth on the table, and its radiance dazzled him. There was a wonderful aroma in the air.

He did sit down, dazed and helpless. In a minute back she came, with a broiled steak such as no man had ever eaten before, and fried potatoes, and tomato salad, and other things.

“Begin to eat, then!” she insisted sternly. “Well, you see, you must have dropped your notebook out of your pocket last night. I found it on the veranda this morning, and I thought I’d better bring it to you. When I came, that Mrs. MacAdams—well, she marched upstairs and got her hat and coat, and she said—”

“All sorts of nasty, silly things,” answered Molly, growing very red. “Any[Pg 267]how, she went out of the house and said she was never coming back if—”

“Oh, nothing!” said Miss Ryan hastily. “Only—she went. Some one had to get your lunch, so I stayed.”

“It wasn’t anything to do,” she said. “I couldn’t go to work, anyway, on account of Frankie, because grandma hasn’t come back yet.” Her face changed. “I can’t help thinking it’s queer,” she went on anxiously. “I can’t help worrying. She never did such a thing before. She just left a note.”

The girl hesitated for a moment. Then from the pocket of her apron she drew out a piece of wrapping paper and handed it to him. On it was printed, in pencil:

“She’s the finest woman God ever made,” said Molly quietly. “She’s done everything in the world for me. She’s worked and slaved so that I could have an education—and all the things she’s never been able to have.”

Dr. Joe understood all that she meant him to understand, and he loved her for it. Yes, he admitted that he loved her. He knew it wasn’t the proper time to love her; he had only seen her twice. But he did, just the same.

“I—I can’t think about anything but grandma just now,” she said. “I’m—I’m so worried about her!”

“I’ll look after her,” said Dr. Joe. “I’ll see that she doesn’t go out scrubbing any more. I’ll look after Frankie, too; and if you’ll only let me—”

They both reached the doorway at the same instant, and there was not room there for the broad-shouldered doctor and any one else; so he turned, and they faced each other.

“Won’t you let me help you?” he said. “I don’t know how to explain—it has come so suddenly. Of course, I know you don’t—of course, you can’t—but—”

“It’s the lunch,” said Miss Ryan. “You’re so glad to get a decent meal.”

“It’s not!” he denied indignantly. “It’s—if you’d only just come here twice a day, and stand in the hall and smile when I come in!”

“I know it,” said she. “I didn’t mean to be silly and horrid; only, until grandma comes back—”

The doorbell rang again. This time Molly got ahead of him, and ran down the passage.

“Well!” he said, with a smile. “You’ve been causing a good deal of anxiety—”

“It’s sorry I am for that,” she broke in; “but it couldn’t be helped at all.”

“Whisht now!” said Katie. “It’s about Frankie I’ve come. Ye had the bye with ye yesterday; and what did ye think of him, doctor dear?”

“I was talking to Miss Ryan about that,” replied Dr. Joe seriously. “I’d just told her that I’d be glad to look after the boy, and—”

“D’ye mean it, doctor dear? D’ye mean ye’ll make a doctor out of him?” she cried.

“My work’s done,” she said. “Ye’ve tould me ye’d make a doctor of him, an’ ye’ll do it. Good day to ye, doctor dear!”

“Here! Wait a minute!” he called. “I’d like to speak to you. Come in and have lunch with me.”

“Ye’d ask an ould woman like me to sit down at the table with ye?” she inquired gravely.

“Then ye’re not one o’ thim that—then ye’d not think the worse of Frankie if his parents wasn’t the grand, rich people they are?”

“It is not myself has the queer ideas,” said she. “It’s others has thim. I’m an ould woman, an’ I have seen a lot. If Frankie’s parents wasn’t Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Depew of New York, he’d niver have been took into that academy; but they writ a latter, the two o’ thim, and he is there.”

“Whisht now!” said the other. “I know well what I’m doin’. Didn’t I see the way it wint with me own bye? If Frankie was to be the greatest doctor that ever lived, he’d niver be the equal o’ that bye. He come here from the ould country, and not a penny in his pockets. It was in his head he’d be a doctor; so he worked in the days and studied in the nights. Thim that had money had all their time for the studyin’, and they wint ahead of him. Five years he took for that they’d do in two, him workin’ in a garage in the days. Thin what does he do but get married? A fine girl she was, too—a fine girl. ‘She’ll help me,’ says he, ‘for she’s had a grand education.’ A school-teacher she was, a fine girl. Thin Molly was born, and the two o’ thim schemin’ and plannin’ the way she’d be a doctor’s daughter, and the grand time she’d have of it. Thin the war came and he wint, like the rest o’ thim, and in the end of it he was kilt; and it wasn’t so long before the poor girl died, too.” Katie was silent for a moment. “But it’s different with Frankie,” she said. “He’ll have a grand chance!”

“He will,” said Dr. Joe. “He would, even if his parents weren’t Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Depew of New York.”

“Certainly, if you say so,” agreed Dr. Joe; “but I can’t help thinking that it’s rather a pity. A father like that boy of yours, for instance, would be some one he could be proud of.”

“I couldn’t think of a much better one,” said Dr. Joe, pretending not to notice that she was hastily wiping her eyes.

“Whatever way it is,” she said, “I had me mind made up Frankie should get his chance. And now ye’ve promised me, doctor dear, and I can go off home to me brother in the ould country.”

“Ye’ll get on, acushla,” she said gently. “I want to go back to the ould country, and to what frinds is left me there. You’ll get on, you and Frankie, the both o’ ye. Where is the bye?”

“Studyin’ music, she was, and goin’ to be one o’ thim—thim that gives concerts an’ all,” she told him; “but I couldn’t go on with it. Frankie’s a bye, and it’s a bye has to have the chance.”

“You may be sure that if there’s anything I can do for her,” said Dr. Joe, “I will.”

“Well, there might be something,” said Katie judicially. Then Dr. Joe was astounded to see a grin on the old woman’s face—not a smile, but a broad grin. “Doctor dear,” she continued, “didn’t I pick ye out, the day I saw ye in the clinic, an’ me there with Mrs. O’Day? Didn’t I know if ye once set eyes on the two o’ thim—Frankie and Molly—ye’d be a frind to thim? I’m an ould woman. I cannot do much more for thim. I wint off to Mrs. O’Day’s last night, the way ye’d get better acquainted with thim. Sure, ye’re not angry with me, doctor dear?”

On Sunday morning Mrs. Bennett telephoned to Dr. Joe, to remind him that he had promised to come to dinner that night. She knew by his tone that he had forgotten all about it.

“But—yes, of course,” he said. “I—yes; but see here! I—I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask Molly.”

“Yes,” he answered, with immense pride. “Girl I’m going to marry next month. Can’t very well make any arrangements without consulting Molly, you know![Pg 269]”

The Worst Joke in the World

A STORY WHICH THROWS A NEW AND INTERESTING LIGHT UPON THE TIME-HONORED PROBLEM OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW

MRS. CHAMPNEY was putting the very last things into her bag, and Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane sat watching her. The room in which she had lived for nearly four years was already strange and unfamiliar. The silver toilet articles were gone from the bureau. The cupboard door stood open, showing empty hooks and shelves. The little water colors of Italian scenes had vanished from the walls, and the books from the table. All those things were gone which had so charmed and interested Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.

They were old ladies, and to them Jessica Champney at fifty was not old at all. With her gayety, her lively interest in life, and her dainty clothes, she seemed to them altogether young—girlish, even, in her enthusiastic moments, and always interesting. They loved and admired her, and were heavy-hearted at her going.

Hanging beside the bureau was a black velvet kitten with a strip of sandpaper fastened across its back, and underneath it the inscription:

It was intended, of course, for striking matches. As Mrs. Champney never had occasion to strike a match, this little object was not remarkably useful. Nor, being a woman of taste, would she have admitted that it was in the least ornamental; but it was precious to her—so precious that a sob rose in her throat as she took it down from the wall.

She showed a bright enough face to the old ladies, however, as she carried the kitten across the room and laid it in the bag. She had often talked to these old friends about her past—about her two heavenly winters in Italy, about her girlhood “down East,” about all sorts of lively and amusing things that she had seen and done; but she had said very, very little about the period to which the velvet kitten belonged.

It had been given to her in the early days of her married life by a grateful and adoring cook. It had hung on the wall of her bedroom in that shabby, sunny old house in Connecticut where her three children had been born. She could not think of that room unmoved, and she did not care to talk of it to any one.

Not that it was sad to remember those bygone days. There was no trace of bitterness in the memory. It was all tender and beautiful, and sometimes she recalled things that made her laugh through the tears; but even those things she couldn’t talk about.

There was, for instance, that ridiculous morning when grandpa had come to see the baby, the unique and miraculous first baby. He had sat down in a chair and very gingerly taken the small bundle in his arms, and the chair had suddenly broken beneath his portly form. Down he crashed, his blue eyes staring wildly, his great white mustache fairly bristling with horror, the invaluable infant held aloft in both hands. If she had begun to tell about that, in the very middle of it another memory might have come—a recollection of the day when she had sat in that same room, the door locked, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes staring ahead of her at the years that must be lived without her husband, her friend and lover.

She had thought she could not bear that,[Pg 271] but she had borne it; and the time had come when the memory of her husband was no longer an anguish and a futile regret, but a benediction. She had lived a happy life with her children. They were all married now, and in homes of their own, and she was glad that it should be so.

These four years alone had been happy, too. Her children wrote to her and visited her, and their family affairs were a source of endless interest. She had all sorts of other interests, too. She made friends readily; she was an energetic parish worker; she loved to read; she enjoyed a matinée now and then, or a concert, and the conversation of Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.

With all her heart she had relished her freedom and her dignity. Her children were always asking her to come and live with one or the other of them, but she had always affectionately refused. She believed that it wasn’t wise and wasn’t right.

She had stayed on in this comfortable, old-fashioned boarding house in Stamford, cheerful and busy. It had been a delight beyond measure to her to send a little check now and then to one of her children, a present to a grandchild, some pretty thing that she had embroidered or crocheted to her daughters-in-law. Her elder son’s wife had written once that she was a “real fairy godmother,” and Mrs. Champney never forgot that. It was exactly what she wanted to be to them all—a gay, sympathetic, gracious fairy godmother.

But she wasn’t going to be one any longer. What her lawyer called a “totally unforeseen contingency” had arisen, and all her life was changed. He was a young man, that lawyer. His father had been Mrs. Champney’s lawyer and friend in his day, and she had, almost as a matter of course, given the son charge of her affairs when the elder man died.

She had not wanted either of her sons to look after things for her. She didn’t like even to mention financial matters to people she loved. Indeed, she had been a little obstinate about this. And now this “totally unforeseen contingency” had come, to sweep away almost all of her income, and with it the independence, the dignity, that were to her the very breath of life.

If it had been possible, she would not have told her children. She had said nothing when she had received that letter from the lawyer—such an absurd and pitiful letter, full of a sort of angry resentment, as if she had been unjustly reproaching him. She had gone to see him at once. She had been very quiet, very patient with him, and had asked very few questions about what had happened. She simply wanted to know exactly what there was left for her, and she learned that she would have fifteen dollars a month.

So she had been obliged to write to her children, and they had all wanted her immediately; but she chose her second son, because he lived nearest, and she hadn’t enough money for a longer journey. Now she was ready to go to his house.

“Whoever else takes this room,” she added sternly, “it won’t be you—and I don’t care what any one says, either!”

Mrs. Champney put an arm about each of them and smiled at them affectionately. She was, in their old eyes, quite a young woman, full of energy and courage, trim and smart in her dark suit and her debonair little hat; but she had never before felt so terribly old and discouraged.

She couldn’t even tell these dear old friends that she would see them again soon, for in order to see them she would have either to get the money for the railway ticket from her son, or else to invite them to her daughter-in-law’s house. It hurt her to leave them like this—and it was only the beginning.

“The taxi’s here, Mrs. Champney,” she said, with a sigh. “My, how empty the room does look!”

So Mrs. Champney kissed the old ladies and went downstairs. The two servants were waiting in the hall to say good-by to her. She smiled at them. Then the landlady opened the front door, and Mrs. Champney went out of the house, still smiling, went down the steps, and got into the taxi.

She sat up very straight in the cab, a valiant little figure, dressed in her best shoes, with spotless white gloves, and her[Pg 272] precious sable stole about her shoulders—and such pain and dread in her heart! There was no one in the world who could quite understand what she felt in this hour. To other people she was simply leaving a boarding house where she had lived all by herself, and going to a good home where she was heartily welcome, to a son whom she loved, a daughter-in-law of whom she was very fond, and a grandchild who was almost the very best of all her grandchildren; but to Mrs. Champney the journey was bitter almost beyond endurance.

She loved her children with all the strength of her soul, but she had been wise in her love. She had tried always to be a little aloof from them, never to be too familiar, never to be tiresome. She had given them all she had, all her love and care and sympathy, and she had wanted nothing in return. She wished them to think of her, not as weak and helpless, but as strong and enduring, and always ready to give. And now—

“Now I’m going to be a mother-in-law,” she said to herself. “Oh, please God, help me! Help me not to be a burden to Molly and Robert! Help me to stand aside and to hold my tongue! Oh, please God, help me not to be a mother-in-law!”

Mrs. Champney had arranged matters so as to reach the house just at dinner time. She even hoped that she might be a little late, so that there wouldn’t be any time at all to sit down and talk. She had never dreaded anything as she dreaded that first moment, the crossing of that threshold. Her hands and feet were like ice, her thin cheeks were flushed, anticipating it. She wanted to enter in an agreeable little stir and bustle, to be cheerful, to be casual; but Robert and Molly were too young for that. They would be too cordial.

“I don’t expect them to want me,” said Mrs. Champney to herself. “They can’t want me. If they’d only just not try—not pretend!”

She did not know Molly very well. She had seen her a good many times—Molly and the incomparable baby—but that had been in the days when Mrs. Champney was a fairy godmother, with all sorts of delightful gifts to bestow. Robert’s wife had been a little shy with her. A kind, honest girl, Mrs. Champney had thought her, good to look at in her splendid health and vitality, but not very interesting. And now she had to come into poor Molly’s house!

She was pleased to see that her train was late. She had not told them what train she would take. Perhaps they wouldn’t keep dinner waiting. When she got there, perhaps they would be sitting at the table. Then she could hurry in, full of cheerful apologies, and sit down with them, and there wouldn’t be that strained, terrible moment she so much dreaded.

A vain hope! For, as she got out of the train, her heart sank to see Robert there waiting for her—Robert with his glummest face, Robert at his worst.

There was no denying that Robert had a worst. He was never willful and provoking, as his adorable sister could be upon occasion. He was never stormy and unreasonable, like his elder brother; but he could be what Mrs. Champney privately called “heavy,” and that was, for her, one of the most dismaying things any one could be. She saw at the first glance that he was going to be heavy now.

“But, my dear boy, how in the world did you know I’d get this train?” she asked gayly. “I didn’t write—”

“I’ve been waiting for an hour,” he answered. “You said ‘about dinner time,’ and I certainly wasn’t going to let you come from the station alone. This way—there’s a taxi waiting.”

Mrs. Champney was ashamed of herself. Robert was the dearest boy, so stalwart, so trustworthy, so handsome in his dark and somber fashion, and so touchingly devoted to her! After all, wasn’t it far better to be a little too heavy than too light and insubstantial? As he got into the cab beside her, she slipped her arm through his and squeezed it.

“Mother!” he said again. “By Heaven, I could wring that fellow’s neck! Speculating with your money—”

“No, it’s not!” said he. “It’s—the thing is, you’ve been used to all sorts of little—little comforts and so on; and just at the present time I’m not able to give you—”

“You’re not going to be hurt,” he said grimly; “not by any one, mother!”

“A victim, then,” Robert insisted doggedly. “You’ve been tricked and swindled by that contemptible fellow; but Frank and I are going to see that it’s made right!”

“Oh, Robert! You’re not going to do anything to that poor, miserable, distracted man?”

“Nothing we can do. You gave the fellow a free hand, and he took advantage of it. No, I mean that Frank and I are going to make it up to you, mother.”

He might as well have added “at any cost.” Mrs. Champney winced in spirit, but at the same time she loved him for his blundering tenderness, his uncomprehending loyalty. He meant only to reassure her, but he made it all so hard, so terribly hard! She felt tears well up in her eyes. How could she go through with this gallantly if he made it so hard?

Then, suddenly, there came to her mind the memory of a winter afternoon, long, long ago, when Frank and Robert had been going out to skate. She had heard alarming reports about the ice, and she had run after them, bareheaded, into the garden. She could see that dear garden, bare and brown in the wintry sunshine; she could see her two boys, stopping and turning toward her as she called.

Frank had laughingly assured her that there was no danger at all. That was Frank’s way. She didn’t believe him, yet his sublime confidence in himself and his inevitable good luck somehow comforted her; and then Robert had said:

“Well, look here, mother—we’ll promise not to go near the middle of the pond at the same time. Then, whatever happens, you’ll have one of us left anyhow—see?”

And that was Robert’s way. The very thought of it stopped the dreaded invasion of tears and made her smile to herself in the dark. Such a splendidly honest way—and so devastating!

The taxi had stopped now, and Robert helped her out in a manner that made her feel very, very old and frail.

“Wait till I pay the driver, mother,” he said. “Don’t try to go alone—it’s too dark.”

So Mrs. Champney waited in the dark road outside that strange little house. Her son was paying for the cab; her son was going to assist her up the path; she was old and helpless and dependent.

“Hello, mother dear!” she called, in that big, rich, beautiful voice of hers. “Hurry in! It’s cold!”

Mrs. Champney did hurry in, and Molly caught her in both arms and hugged her tight.

“Just don’t mind very much how things are, will you?” she whispered. “My housekeeping’s pretty awful, you know!”

Tears came to Mrs. Champney’s eyes again, because this was such a blessed sort of welcome.

She took the bag from Robert, who had just come in, and ran up the stairs. Mrs. Champney followed her. All the little house seemed warm and bright with Molly’s beautiful, careless spirit. It wasn’t strange or awkward. It was like coming home; and the room that Molly had got ready for her was so pretty!

“Dinner’s all ready,” said Molly; “but—if you’ll just take one look at Bobbetty. He’s—when he’s asleep, he’s—”

Mrs. Champney got herself ready as quickly as she could, and followed Molly down the hall to a closed door. Molly turned the handle softly, and they stepped into a little room that was like another world, all dark and still, with the wind blowing in at an open window.

“Nothing wakes him up!” whispered Molly proudly, and turned on a green-shaded electric lamp that stood on the bureau.

Mrs. Champney went over to the crib and looked down at the child who lay there—the child who was her child, flesh of her flesh, and was yet another woman’s child. He was beautiful—more beautiful than any of her children had been. He lay there like a little prince. His face, olive-skinned and warmly flushed on the cheeks, wore a look of careless arrogance, his dark brows were level and haughty, his mouth was richly scornful; and yet, for all this pride of beauty, she could not help seeing the baby softness and innocence and helplessness of him.[Pg 274]

He might lie there like a little prince, but he was caged in an iron crib, he wore faded old flannel pyjamas, and beside him, where it had slipped from the hand that still grasped it in dreams, lay such an unprincely toy! Mrs. Champney, bending over to examine it, found it to be a rubber ball squeezed into a white sock.

It seemed to Mrs. Champney that she could never tire of looking at that beautiful baby. She hadn’t half finished when Molly touched her arm and whispered “Robert,” and, turning out the light, led her husband’s mother across the dark, windy room out into the hall again.

Side by side they descended the stairs. Mrs. Champney was happy, with that particular happiness which the companionship of babies brought to her. She had friends who were made unhappy by the sight of babies. They said that they couldn’t help looking ahead and imagining the sorrows in store for the poor little things. But to Mrs. Champney this seemed morbid and quite stupid, because, when the sorrows came, the babies would no longer be babies, but grown people, and as well able as any one else to deal with them.

No—babies were not melancholy objects to Mrs. Champney. On the contrary, they filled her with a strong and tender delight, because of her knowledge that whatever troubles came to them, she could surely help; because, for babies, a kiss is a cure for so much, and a song can dry so many baby tears; because love, which must so often stand mute and helpless before grown-up misery, can work such marvels for little children.

She was happy, then, until she reached the foot of the stairs—and not again for a long time.

Robert was waiting for them there. He came forward, with a faint frown, and pushed into place two hairpins that were slipping out of Molly’s hair. It was the most trifling action, yet it seemed to Mrs. Champney very significant. He didn’t like to see those hairpins falling out, didn’t like to see Molly’s lovely, shining hair in disorder. He noticed things of that sort, and he cared. He cared too much. There had been a look of annoyance and displeasure on his face that distressed Mrs. Champney.

Fussiness, she thought, was one of the most deplorable traits a man could have. It was only another name for pettiness, and that was something no member of her family had ever displayed. Could it be possible that Robert, the most uncompromising and high-minded of all her children, was developing in that way—and with such a wife as Molly?

She watched her son with growing uneasiness during the course of the dinner. It was a splendidly cooked dinner. The roast veal was browned and seasoned to perfection, the mashed potatoes were smooth and light, there were scalloped tomatoes and a salad of apples and celery, and a truly admirable lemon meringue pie; but Robert frowned because the potatoes were in an earthenware bowl, and the plates did not match. When the splendid pie appeared, in the tin dish in which it had been baked, he sprang up and carried it out into the kitchen, to return with it damaged, but lying properly on a respectable dish.

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Robert!” Molly said, each time that Robert found something wrong; and there was such generous contrition in her honest face that Mrs. Champney wanted to get up and shake her son.

What did those silly little things matter? How could he even see them, with Molly before his eyes?

“She’s beautiful,” thought Mrs. Champney. “She wouldn’t be beautiful in a photograph. I suppose she’d look quite plain; but when you’re with her—when she smiles—it’s like a blessing!”

III

It was not a comfortable meal for any of them, and Mrs. Champney was glad when it was finished. She offered to help Molly with the dishes, and she really wanted to do so; but when Molly refused, and she saw that Robert didn’t like the idea, she did not persist. She went into the little sitting room with Robert, and he settled her in an armchair, putting behind her shoulders a plump cushion that made her neck ache. He lit his pipe and began to move about restlessly.

Mrs. Champney did not hear the rest of[Pg 275] his speech. She was vaguely aware that he was making excuses for Molly, but she did not stop him. He had said enough. He had given her the key, and now she could understand.

This was not pettiness, and Robert was not fussy. It was because he loved Molly so much that he could not endure to have another person see in her what might be construed as faults. If he had been alone with Molly, he wouldn’t have cared, he wouldn’t even have noticed these things. It was because his mother had come, and he was afraid.

It is an old and a deep-rooted thing, the child’s faith in the mother’s judgment. If the mother has been honest and wise, if the child has been never deceived or disappointed by her, then, no matter how old he grows, or how far he may go from her, that old and deep-rooted faith lives in him. Robert, at twenty-six, was surer of himself than he was ever likely to be again. He was certain that all his ideas were his own, and that no living creature could influence him; yet he was terribly afraid of what his mother might think of Molly.

For, after all, his mother was the standard, and the home she had made for him in his boyhood must forever be the standard of homes. She would see that this home of Molly’s was not like that. She would think—

“You needn’t worry, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Champney gently. “I’m sure I’ll understand Molly.”

And no more than that. It wouldn’t do to tell him what she really thought of Molly. It would sound exaggerated and insincere. It would startle him, and it might conceivably make him contrary; so she held her tongue.

Presently Molly came in from the kitchen, flushed and smiling, and sank into a chair.

She was tired, though, and a little nervous, and Mrs. Champney felt sorry for her; but Robert would have it so. His mother must see what Molly could do. He lay back in his chair, smoking, with an air of regal indifference, as if he were a young sultan who had commanded this performance but was not much interested in it; but as a matter of fact he was twice as nervous as Molly.

He had spoken to his mother before about Molly’s singing, and Mrs. Champney had thought of it as an agreeable accomplishment for a son’s wife, but this performance amazed her. This was not a parlor accomplishment, this big, glorious voice, true and clear, effortless because so perfectly managed. This was an art, and Molly was an artist.

“Molly!” she cried, when the song was done. “Molly, my dear! I don’t know what to say!”

“I do love music,” she said. “I often hope Bobbetty will care about it.”

But Mrs. Champney had seen the tears come into her eyes. Molly was hurt. She didn’t understand, and unfortunately Mrs. Champney did. She knew that Robert had been trying to tell his mother that Molly could do even better than this—that she could, if she chose, sing the most prodigious songs. He was afraid that his mother would judge and condemn Molly for that darned silly song about “the flowers all nodding on yonder hill.”

“That’s what being a mother-in-law really means,” said Mrs. Champney to herself. “It means being the third person, the one who stands outside and sees everything—all the poor, pitiful little faults and weaknesses. Love won’t help. The more I love them, the more I can’t help seeing, and they’ll know—they’ll always know. When Robert is impatient, Molly will know that I’ve noticed it, and she’ll think she has to notice it, too. When Molly is careless, Robert will imagine that I’m blaming her, and he’ll feel ashamed of her. That’s why mothers-in-law make trouble. It’s not because they always interfere, or because they’re troublesome and domineering. It’s because they see all the little things that nobody ought to see—the little things that would never grow important if a third person wasn’t there. I used to feel so sorry for mothers-in-law. I used to think it was a vulgar, heartless joke about[Pg 276] their making trouble. A joke? Oh, it’s the worst, most horrible joke in the world—because it’s true!”

Mrs. Champney did not sleep well that night. When she first turned out the light, a strange sort of panic seized her. She felt trapped, shut in, here in this unfamiliar room, in this house where she had no business to be, and yet could not leave. She got up and turned on the light, and that was better, for she could think more clearly in the light. She propped herself up on the pillows, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and sat there, trying to find the way out.

“There always is a way out,” she thought. “It’s never necessary to do a thing that injures other people. I must not stay here, or with any of my children. If I think quietly and sensibly, I can—”

“Are you all right, mother?” asked Robert’s voice. “I saw your light.”

“Perfectly all right, dear boy!” she answered brightly. “I’m very comfortable. Good night!”

She wanted to jump up and go to him and kiss him—her dear, solemn, anxious Robert; but that wouldn’t do. Never, never, while she had a trace of dignity and honor, would she turn to her children for reassurance. She was the mother. She could not always be strong, but she could at least hide her weakness from her children. She could endure her bad moments alone.

“Quite sure!” she answered, and snapped out the light. “There! I’m going to sleep! Good night, my own dear, dear boy!”

His voice touched her so! If only she could let go, and be frail and helpless, and allow her children to take care of her! They would be so glad to do it—they would be so dear and kind!

“Shame on you, Jessica Champney!” she said to herself. “You weren’t an old lady before you came here, and you’re not going to be one now. You’re only fifty, and you’re well and strong. There must be any number of things a healthy woman of fifty can do. Find them!”

The next morning, as soon as Robert had gone, she told Molly that she wanted to “see about something”; and off she went, dressed in her best again, and took the train to a near-by town. She was going to see Miss Lyons. She had not met this old school friend for a good many years, but she remembered her with affection and respect, and perhaps with a little pity, because Emily had never married. She had devoted her life to charitable work—an admirable existence, but, Mrs. Champney thought, rather a forlorn one.

A very earnest young secretary ushered the caller into a big, quiet, sunny office, and there, behind a large desk, sat Miss Lyons. She rose at once, and came forward with outstretched hands. Her blue eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles were as friendly and kind as ever, and yet Mrs. Champney’s heart sank. The Emily she wished to remember was a thin, freckled girl with a long blond pigtail and a shy and hesitating manner—an Emily who had very much looked up to the debonair and popular Jessica. This was such a very different Emily—a person of importance, of grave assurance, a person with a large, impressive office at her command. To save her life Mrs. Champney couldn’t help being impressed by offices and filing cabinets and typewriters.

She sat down, and she tried to talk in her usual blithe and amusing way, but she knew that she was not succeeding at all. In the presence of this new Emily she felt shockingly frivolous. She was sorry that she had worn her white gloves and her sable stole. She wished that the heels of her new shoes were not so high.

“I’m afraid I’d have to be paid,” said Mrs. Champney, with a guilty flush. “You see, Emily, I’ve had a—a financial disaster. Of course, my children are only too willing, but—”

Something in the grave, kindly tone of her question stung Mrs. Champney into a sort of bitterness.

“Yes,” she answered. “All of them are married. I’m a mother-in-law, Emily.”

Miss Lyons did not smile. She was si[Pg 277]lent for a time, looking down at her polished desk as if she were consulting a crystal. Then she looked up.

“We happen to need somebody in the Needlecraft Shop,” she said. “I could give you that, Jessica, at eighteen dollars a week; but—”

She had known love, and happiness with the man she loved. She had endured the anguish of losing him. She had borne three children and brought them up. She had traveled a little in the world. She had even known a “financial disaster” at fifty; but in the presence of Emily Lyons she was ready to admit that she had had no experience—that her sole qualification for any useful occupation was the parish work she had done.

“If you’d like to try it, then,” said Emily gently. “I’ve found, though, that women who have led a sheltered domestic life are inclined to be a little oversensitive when it comes to business.”

Mrs. Champney, into whose sheltered domestic life had come only such incidents as birth and death and illness and accident and so on, said that she hoped she wasn’t silly.

“Of course you’re not, my dear!” said her old friend, taking her hand across the desk. “You’re splendid! You always were!”

And Mrs. Champney had to be satisfied with that. She was to begin at the Needlecraft Shop the next morning. She was at last to enter the world; but instead of being filled with ambitious hopes and resolves, she actually could think of nothing but how she was to tell Robert about it.

The only possible way was to take a mighty high hand with him from the start, and the trouble was that she didn’t feel high-handed. She felt depressed, and tired and—yes, crushed—that was the word for it. She was not going to let Robert suspect that, however, or Molly, either.

She decided to take her time about getting back. After leaving Emily, she walked for a time through the streets of the brisk suburban town. Then, seeing a clean little white-tiled restaurant, she went in there and had her lunch. It was noon, and there were a good many other business women there. Mrs. Champney tried to feel that she was one of them now, but somehow she could not. Somehow the whole thing seemed unreal, and even a little fantastic.

She mustn’t think that it was unreal or fantastic, or how could she convince Robert? She tried to make it real by doing all sorts of calculations based upon eighteen dollars a week. With that amount, and with what was left of her income, she could manage to live by herself, somewhere near Robert and Molly, where she could see them and the baby often, and yet be independent. Once more she could be a fairy godmother—with sadly clipped wings, to be sure, but still able to bestow a little gift now and then.

She thought she would get something for Bobbetty now, and she bought one of the nicest gray plush animals imaginable. The saleswoman said it was a cat, but Mrs. Champney privately believed it to be a dog, because of its drooping ears. Anyhow, it was a lovable animal, with a frank and kindly expression and a most becoming leather collar. On the train, going back, she regretfully took out its round yellow eyes, for they were pins, and unless she forestalled him, Bobbetty would surely do this.

Even then it was a lovable animal, and Bobbetty received it with warm affection. He was sitting in his high chair in the kitchen, while Molly cooked the dinner. He was almost austerely neat and clean after his bath, and he was eating a bowl of Graham crackers and milk, with a large bib tied under his chin. A model child—yet, in the sidelong glance of his black eyes in the direction of the new bowwow, who was not to be touched until supper was finished, Mrs. Champney saw a thoughtful and alarming gleam. Bobbetty was not quite sure whether he would continue being good, or whether it would be nicer suddenly and violently to demand the bowwow.

Mrs. Champney helped him to choose the better course. She entertained him while he ate, and then carried him off upstairs, with the bowwow, and put him to bed. He became very garrulous then. He lay in his crib, clasping the bow-wow, and he told Mrs. Champney all sorts of interesting things in such a polite, conversational tone that she felt quite ashamed of herself for interrupting him and telling him to go to sleep.[Pg 278]

He was nice about it, however. He paid no attention to this rudeness, but pleasantly went on talking. Even when she went out of the room and closed the door behind her, she heard his bland little voice continuing the story of a wild horsy who stampled on six policemens. Bobbetty was not yet three, but he had personality.

She was smiling as she went down the stairs—until she saw Robert. He came to the foot of the stairs, watching her as she came toward him. She had to meet his eyes, she had to smile again, but it was hard beyond all measure.

She had never seen that look on his face before. He had always been utterly loyal to her, had always loved her, but it had been after the fashion of a boy. The look she saw on his face now was not a boy’s; it was the profound compassion and tenderness of a man. It came to her, with a stab of pain, that she had cruelly underrated her son. She had thought of him as a dear and rather clumsy boy, and he was so much more than that—so much more!

Her own affair seemed more fantastic than ever now. Here was Robert, making his valiant battle in the world for the life and safety of his wife and child. Here was Molly, busy with the vital needs of life, with food and clothes, with the care of their child; and she herself was going to work in the Needlecraft Shop.

She had to tell them, of course. When they were all seated at the table, she did so, in the most casual, matter-of-fact way.

“It’s charitable work, really,” Mrs. Champney explained. “The foreign-born women bring their needlework to the shop, and we sell it on commission for them. The idea is to encourage their home industries, and—”

“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Champney brightly. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the work, too. I’ve always—”

“You mean you’re going off to work every morning in this shop?” said Robert. “Do you mind telling me why?”

“Because I consider it very useful and interesting work, Robert,” replied Mrs. Champney, with dignity.

She knew how terribly she had hurt him. He had wanted to do so much for her, to take her into his home and protect her and care for her, and she would not let him. She had turned away with a smile from all that he had to offer. She would take nothing.

“I’ve always led—such an active life,” she said, in a very unsteady voice. “I should think you could understand, Robert—”

She could not go on. She bent her head and pretended to be cutting up something on her plate, but she could not see clearly. He never would understand that she was doing this only for love of him, only so that she might not be here in his home as the sinister third person who saw everything and—

“If that’s your way to be happy, darling,” said Robert’s wife, and Mrs. Champney saw tears in her honest eyes.

Mrs. Champney envisaged her life as divided into epochs, each one with its own significance and its own memories. There was her childhood, there was her girlhood. There were the early days of her married life, when she and her husband had been alone. There were the crowded and anxious and wonderful years when her children had been little. There was the beginning of her widowhood, overshadowed with anguish and loneliness, yet with a dark beauty of its own. There was her tranquil middle age, and there was her business life.

She had begun it on Tuesday, and this was Friday. It had lasted four days, yet it seemed to her quite as long as all the years of her youth. It seemed a lifetime in itself, in which she had acquired a new and bitter wisdom.

The train stopped at her station, and, with a crowd of other home-going commuters, Mrs. Champney got out and hurried up the steps to the street, to catch a trolley car; but she was not quick enough. By the time she got there the car was full, and she drew back and let it go. She never was quick enough any more. She seemed to have been transferred into a world of terrific speed and vigor, where she was[Pg 279] hopelessly outdistanced, hopelessly old and weary and slow.

She had thought, until this week, that she was a fairly intelligent and energetic woman. She had even had her innocent little vanities; but now, standing on the corner and looking after the car—

“I’m a silly, doddering old thing!” she said to herself, with a trembling lip.

She remembered all the dreadful defeats and humiliations of the week. She remembered how slow she had been about wrapping up things and making change—how curt she had been with some of the wealthiest and most important customers—how stupid she had been about understanding the Polish and Italian women who brought in their work. She remembered the weary patience of Miss Elliott, who managed the shop. Miss Elliott was not more than twenty-eight, but she had been to Mrs. Champney like a discouraged but long-suffering teacher with a very trying child.

She was alone on the corner. In this new world nobody waited for anything. Those who, like herself, had missed the car, had at once set off on foot; and Mrs. Champney decided to do so herself. It was less than a mile—a pleasant walk in the soft April dusk.

This walk might have been specially designed by Miss Elliott to teach Mrs. Champney another lesson; only it was a lesson that she had already learned. She really needed no further demonstration of the fact that she was fifty, and utterly tired and miserable. It was superfluous, it was cruel, and it made her angry. When she reached the street where Robert’s little house stood, her heart was hot and bitter with resentment.

“If they’d only let me alone!” she thought. “I don’t want any one to speak to me or look at me. I know I’m unreasonable. I want to be unreasonable. I want to be let alone!”

But of course she couldn’t be. Nobody can be let alone except those who would give all the world for a little tiresome interference. Molly saw at once how tired she was, and wanted her to lie down and have dinner brought up to her. Robert, by saying nothing at all, was still more difficult to endure.

“I’m not particularly tired, Molly, thank you,” said Mrs. Champney, with great politeness.

“Let me alone! Let me alone! To-morrow is Saturday, and the next day is Sunday. You can talk to me on Sunday. Let me alone now!”

She sternly repressed all this. She sat down at the table and tried to eat her dinner. She forced herself to remain in the sitting room until ten o’clock.

“In a week or two I’ll go away and get a room for myself,” she thought, “where I can be as tired as I like!”

When the clock struck ten, she sat still and counted up to five hundred, so that she wouldn’t seem like a tired person in a dreadful hurry to get to bed. Then she rose, said good night to Robert and Molly, and went upstairs.

Even then she would not slight or omit any detail of her routine. She washed, rubbed cold cream into her hands, braided her hair, folded her clothes neatly, ready for the morning, and knelt down to say her prayers. Then she turned out the light, opened the window, and got into bed; and she was so glad to be there, so glad to lay her tired gray head on the pillow, that she cried.

She was ashamed of this weakness, and meant to struggle against it; but sleep came before she had driven it away—a heavy and sorrowful sleep, colored with the mist of tears.

She slept. Then she sighed, and stirred in her sleep. Something was coming through into the shadowy world of dreams—something imperious and menacing. She didn’t want to wake up, but something was forcing her to do so. She heard something calling.

She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”—a sound which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.

“Mother! Mother! I want you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no one answered him. “I want you, mother!”

“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of anger.

She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its heartbreaking cry:

Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and Molly[Pg 280] standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door—Molly with her magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him up—said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s perfectly all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”

Molly made a move forward, but Robert clutched her arm. He, too, was pale and desperate.

“Bah!” cried Mrs. Champney, in a tone that amazed both of them. “Dr. Pinney, indeed!”

She opened the door of Bobbetty’s room, went in, snatched him out of his crib, and carried him off, past his speechless parents, and into her own room.

Bobbetty’s hand was flung out and fell, soft and limp, across Mrs. Champney’s face. She opened her eyes. The dawn was stealing into the room, coming like music. One drowsy little bird was awake in the world, piping sweetly. The breeze came, fluttering the window curtain, and it seemed to her that she could hear the footsteps of the glorious sun coming up the sky. All creation waited for him—waited breathless, to break into a great chorus of ecstasy when he appeared.

Bobbetty was waking, too. His hard little head bumped against her shoulder. His toes moved softly, he scowled, his great black eyes opened, he looked sternly into her face, and then he smiled.

In his superb arrogance he looked upon his mother somewhat as he looked upon the sun. She existed solely for him. He adored her and he needed her—that was why she existed. Mrs. Champney did not trouble to explain. He would learn soon enough how very many other people there were in this world, and that it was not his own world and his own sun at all. In the meantime, let him make the most of it. She said that they would surprise mother, and the idea appealed to Bobbetty. He said he would be as quiet as a mouse, and so he was.

Mrs. Champney got his ridiculous little garments and dressed him. She knelt at his feet to put on his stubby sandals. She even kissed his feet, and his hands, and his warm, olive-tinted cheeks, and the back of his neck. He smiled upon her, condescendingly but kindly.

Then she carried him down into the kitchen. He was a plump and sturdy baby, but he was no burden to her arms. She wasn’t tired now. Indeed, she thought she had never in her life felt so gay and light and happy.

The sun had come, and the kitchen was filled with it. The aluminium saucepans glittered like silver, and the water ran out of the tap in a rainbow spray. She laid the table in the dining room, and Bobbetty followed her back and forth, carrying the less dangerous things.

There was a wonderful perfume in the air—the intangible sweetness of spring—and with it, and no less wonderful, was the homely fragrance of coffee and oatmeal and bacon. It was a divine hour, and Bobbetty knew it. Bobbetty could share it with her—he and he alone.

He dropped a loaf of bread that he was carrying, and, moved by impulse, kicked it across the room. Mrs. Champney picked it up, without a word of reproof. She knew how Bobbetty felt.

“There are four chairs!” she cried aloud. “There are four of us! Why, I’m not the third person at all!”

She was so overcome by this that she sat down, and stared before her with a dazed look.

“There were three already—I’m the fourth, and four’s such a nice number! I can’t go away and leave Robert and Molly alone together. They’ll never be alone together any more—there’s Bobbetty. I can help so much! They’re both so very, very young, and I could do so much! Molly could have time for music. There are two buttons off Bobbetty’s underwaist. Mother-in-law, indeed![Pg 281]”

She heard the percolator boiling too hard, and she got up. In the kitchen doorway she met Bobbetty with the bowwow.

“Bobbetty,” she said, “there’s a Lucy Stone League for women who don’t want to use their husbands’ names. I believe I’ll start a Jessica Champney League for women who refuse to be called mothers-in-law. There’s really no such thing as a mother-in-law, Bobbetty. It’s just a joke, and a very nasty one. Really and truly, Bobbetty, there are nothing but mothers-in-nature. I think I’ll invent some other word. Why not ‘husbandsmother,’ or ‘wifesmother,’ or—”

“Oh, mother darling!” she cried. “You shouldn’t have done this! You shouldn’t be up so early! You’ll be tired out before you start!”

Mrs. Champney stirred the oatmeal, which was bubbling and spouting like molten lava.

“I don’t believe I will go,” she said. “It seems—such a waste of time. I think I’ll stay home, and help you, and be a grandmother. I’ve tried everything else, and I believe I’d do well at that.”

“Robert!” she called, in her ringing, joyous voice. “Robert! Mother’s going to stay home![Pg 282]”

As Is

HOW MAUDE’S AUNT DEMONSTRATED THAT SHE WASN’T YOUNG, LIKE HER CHARMING NIECE, AND DIDN’T CARE TO BE SILLY

MISS CARTER fished out the last doughnut from the kettle of bubbling fat, laid it on a sheet of brown paper, and sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

She stood looking down at them. There they lay in rows and rows, feathery light, richly crisp and brown.

“You’ll ruin your figure and your digestion by eating between meals, Auntie Sue,” Maude had said. “Promise me you won’t!”

Miss Carter had refused to promise, but she had said that she would try, and she did try. She turned her back upon this temptation, with a faint sigh, and gave a last glance round the kitchen.

Nothing more for her to do here! It was as spotless as a chemist’s laboratory. Indeed, that was what Maude wanted it to be like. She said that a kitchen ought to be a home laboratory, and she wanted it all white and bleak and stern.

Even a high white stool had been provided for Miss Carter. She found it very convenient for many purposes, but she did like a rocking-chair, and she had apologetically brought one down from the attic. To please Maude she had painted it white, so that it also had a somewhat severe look; but when there was nobody else in the house, Miss Carter always got out that nice, downy old red silk cushion from the hall cupboard, put it into the chair, and sat down and rocked comfortably while she shelled peas or hulled berries, and so on.

The cushion always disappeared before Maude got home, because it would distress her. If she were to see it, she would surely go out the very next day and buy a scientific, up-to-date one—perhaps one like those hard, shiny things that dentists have in their chairs.

Maude disapproved of old, soft, comfortable things, and called them “slipshod.” She hated all that was not exact and efficient. It was misery for her to hear Miss Carter talk about putting in “a pinch” of cinnamon, instead of one-eighth of a teaspoonful, and the mention of “a lump of butter the size of an egg” appalled her.

She had bought Miss Carter glass measuring cups, quart measures, pint measures, scales, and sets of spoons of all sizes; and yet, in the making of these very doughnuts, Miss Carter had used that old blue teacup for measuring, and she had put in many “pinches” of things. It made her feel guilty to think of it, but she really couldn’t help it. At forty—

“Never think of yourself as forty,” Maude often said, “and you won’t feel forty.”

But in her secret heart Miss Carter wished that she could just comfortably be forty. It seemed to her a remarkably nice age to be. Indeed, she felt proud of it. When she went to buy a hat, and the saleswoman said something nice about her splendid head of hair, Miss Carter liked to say:

She didn’t say this any more, because it[Pg 284] worried Maude, but there were times when she defiantly thought it. It gave so much zest to life. For instance, that evening when they came back from the picnic, and every one else was so tired, and she wasn’t, one bit, even if she was for—

As she left the kitchen and the tantalizing aroma of the doughnuts, another perfume came floating in at the open front door. It was the scent of those dear little pinks and verbenas in the garden.

“I guess I’ll go out and sit on the porch for half an hour,” thought Miss Carter.

So out she went, and the very sight of the garden on this summer day made her so happy that tears came to her eyes. Maude had improved the house a good deal, but she had been satisfied to leave the garden to her aunt, and it was just as it had always been—a gay, careless sort of garden, with a lawn shaded by fine old trees, and a rebellious crowd of bright, old-fashioned flowers. The sweet alyssum was foaming over the borders of the largest bed and marching down to the path, just as it had done when she was a little girl. There were the rosebushes that her mother had planted, and the privet hedge that had seemed so tall and dark and impenetrable to a child’s vision. It was indeed a dear and wonderful old garden!

With a sigh of content, she sank into a chair—and almost at once jumped up again. She mustn’t sit out here in her gingham house dress, wearing these old shoes! Somebody might see her, and Maude would never get over it if anybody should see her aunt looking really comfortable; so she went back to the house, and up to her own room.

This was, in Miss Carter’s eyes, the most charming room in all the world. The things in it were old, and some of them were not very beautiful, but she liked them—all of them, even the two old calendars on the wall and the French clock that had not ticked for years and years. The dark shades were pulled down against the afternoon sun, and a limpid green light filled the room. The mahogany bureau shone like dark water, and the big four-post bed, with its old-fashioned bolster and the ruffled spread, looked exquisitely restful.

“Upon my word,” said Miss Carter to herself, “I believe I could take forty winks! Such a hot afternoon! And there’s nothing much I ought to do for the next half hour.”

Now the naps of housekeepers are different from the naps of other people. There is always a faint feeling of guilt about them, no matter how much work has been done, or how well earned the rest—always a consciousness of all sorts of other things that ought to be done. Even Miss Carter, whose house was a model of cleanliness and order, had this feeling of guilt, and was quite human enough to enjoy her nap all the more for it.

She settled herself comfortably on the sofa, and closed her eyes. One of the shades flapped softly in the breeze, and she thought that it was like a sail, and that she was floating off somewhere—floating off—

Miss Carter sat up, frowned a little, yawned, and went downstairs; and over the wire came the voice that was dearer to her than any other voice in the world.

“Auntie Sue, darling, would it bother you if I were to bring some one home for dinner?”

“Bother me?” cried Miss Carter. “Why, of course not, child! You can bring a dozen people, any time you’ve a mind to!”

A very odd sort of feeling came over Miss Carter. She smiled graciously, as people do who wish to hide their emotions from the watchful telephone, and said:

But this was not quite true. She had never heard of Mr. Rhodes before, yet she had been expecting him for five years, ever since Maude was eighteen. She had known that somebody was bound to come and take Maude away, and this was the man—she was sure of it! The way Maude said she would “ask Mr. Rhodes” was enough.

“Well, why not?” Miss Carter demanded sternly of herself. “You couldn’t expect a girl like Maude t-to s-stay—Pshaw, I’ve left my handkerchief upstairs!”

She went upstairs hastily, and lay down on the sofa again for a little while, but she did not go to sleep.

After awhile she got up and washed her face in cold water, and began to get ready for Maude’s guest. Naturally Maude would expect her to wear the crêpe de Chine dress she had given her aunt as a birthday present, so Miss Carter opened the cupboard door, and there it was—a dark and elegant stranger, hanging there[Pg 285] with a sort of disdainful air among the sensible, sturdy linens and cottons.

She brought it out, took off her loose, comfortable house dress, and struggled into the crêpe de Chine.

She did not like herself in that dress. She looked at her image in the mirror, and she did not like it. A sturdy little woman she was, straight as an arrow. Her face, with its small, clear, regular features and healthy color, and those very blue eyes of hers, was quite as pretty as it had been fifteen years ago—perhaps even more so, because of the patience and the compassion she had learned; but she had long ago forgotten to think about being pretty. She noted nothing except the dress, which didn’t suit her.

“And I’m not!” thought Miss Carter. “What’s the sense in a dress being long and slender, if the person inside it is short and”—she paused—“and roly-poly,” she added firmly. “That’s what I am!”

She covered up all this magnificence with a big checked apron, and went down into the kitchen again. The dinners that she prepared for Maude every night were so good that it was scarcely possible to improve upon them, but this evening she intended to try. She intended to outdo herself for Maude’s Mr. Rhodes.

From the garden she picked enough early June peas to make cream-of-pea soup. The chicken, which she had intended to roast, was not, she thought, quite large enough for three, so she made it into a fricassee, with dumplings beyond description. Then she had a dish of wax beans, and a dish of asparagus, cooked to perfection and seasoned only with plenty of butter, and potatoes most marvelously fried, and she made fresh strawberry ice cream. When you consider what it meant to crack ice and turn the freezer, in that dress with long, tight sleeves and floating things that hung from the shoulders—

She didn’t dare to take it off, though, for fear of their coming by an early train, because she knew that even more than a superb dinner Maude would want to see her aunt in all her glory.

Then she laid the table with her finest tablecloth and her grandmother’s china, and with every rose in the garden in a bowl in the center. She really was pleased with the result.

As it happened, they came by a late train, so that Miss Carter was sitting on the veranda, looking very calm and leisurely, as they approached. She did not feel so, however. When, around the corner of the hedge, she saw Maude’s familiar gray hat, which came down almost to the tip of her niece’s pretty little nose, and beside it a most unfamiliar straw hat on a tall head that bent deferentially, she was anything but calm—and, for a moment, anything but hospitable. How could she be glad to see this man who might take Maude away from her?

“He’d never appreciate her!” said Miss Carter. “Not in a month of Sundays!”

Perhaps this might seem a little unjust, when Miss Carter hadn’t even seen the man yet; but what she meant was that neither this man nor any one else in the world could know the Maude she knew. He had never seen and never would see the remarkable infant Maude, the neatest baby that ever was, who used to lie out in a basket under that elm tree, her long white dress pulled down perfectly straight, her little dark head exactly in the center of the tiny pillow, her clenched fists lying one on each side of her round, serious face.

How Maude’s mother used to laugh at that neat baby of hers! And how she used to laugh at the slightly older Maude who went, every day for weeks, in a pink sunbonnet and a pink dress, to try to open the garden gate, and each time sat down unexpectedly upon the path!

When there was no mother to laugh any more, Miss Carter had taken on the job. At first she had thought that without her sister she never could laugh again; but it proved easier than she had expected. She found that when the person you love wants anything, you can do impossible things. When figured out on paper, she had seen that it was impossible to send Maude to college; but she had sent her. And now, when she realized how impossible it would be to let Maude go, she knew in her heart that she could and would do that gladly.

She felt pretty sure, though, that Maude would never look at a man who was not[Pg 286] admirable. She had seen that this Mr. Rhodes was tall, and she expected him to be marvelously handsome, with knightly manners and a commanding intellect. Maude was so very particular, and so intelligent herself—a private secretary at the age of twenty-three!

The garden gate opened, and there they were. Miss Carter rose with a welcoming smile, but—

He carried himself well, this tall man. His face, in its way, was a fine one, kindly and strong and trustworthy; but Miss Carter saw the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and the touch of gray in his dark hair, and she was cruelly disappointed. If she had seen him alone, she wouldn’t have dreamed of calling him old, for he wasn’t more than forty-five; but with Maude beside him he was a Methuselah. Maude was so pathetically young! Her very earnestness was such a young sort of thing! She hadn’t really learned to smile yet.

Over the telephone her voice had sounded very happy, but now there was a note of portentous solemnity in it. She spoke as if she were bidding her aunt gaze upon one of the wonders of the world; and this did not please Miss Carter.

She said it pleasantly enough, but in a tone that Maude had never heard before. She looked different, too. No one would have dared to think of her as roly-poly now. Her dignity was such that she actually looked taller.

From the way she spoke, there might have been a butler and two footmen to serve dinner. It was hard to imagine that this Miss Carter knew what a gingham apron was. Nevertheless, she put one on as soon as she entered the kitchen.

But Maude, though young, was also a woman, and she knew what a deceitful answer this was.

“Yes, but—” she said, and paused. “You know, auntie, he’s a very remarkable man,” she went on briskly.

Well, she didn’t think so. When called, Mr. Rhodes came in from the veranda, took his place at the table, and ate his dinner. He said yes, the weather was cool for this time of the year, and no, he hadn’t been in this part of the State before, and yes, thanks, he would have a little more of the fricassee, and the roses on the table were very fine, and he liked roses. Remarkable, was he?

It hurt her to see Maude sitting there, with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, fairly hanging on the man’s words, and to see that he never looked at the girl in that way. When he did look at her—which was not often—he wore a kind, grown-up sort of smile which Miss Carter thought detestable. He did not appreciate Maude. Miss Carter was sorry she had made ice cream, and she wouldn’t let him have a single doughnut.

When dinner was over, they all went out on the veranda. Dusk had settled over the garden, and the stars were out, faint in the violet sky. A breeze stirred in the leaves of the old trees and swayed the gay little flowers, which, scarlet or blue or orange, all looked white now. It was a lovely night. Even the disapproving and indignant Miss Carter yielded a little to its softening influence, and was silent, thinking of the old, dear things that haunted her garden.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” came Mr. Rhodes’s deep, quiet voice from the dark corner where he sat.

Nobody had smoked a cigar on this veranda for a good many years. Miss Carter’s father used to smoke. How the smell of the smoke drifting through the dark brought back the memory of that big, jolly man, who used suddenly to chuckle aloud when something amusing crossed his mind! She smiled to herself, thinking of the days when the house had not been the silent, orderly place it was now—the days when she and her brothers had been young, and the house alive with voices, and laughter, and youth.[Pg 287]

“And that’s what poor little Maude ought to have,” she thought. “Young people—silly young people—music and dancing. She shouldn’t be sitting out here with me and this wooden Indian!”

She made up her mind that at least the man should be made to talk, and in a firm and resolute manner she set about the task of drawing him out. Perhaps, in her heart, she hoped that he would reveal himself as dull and pompous; but he did not.

He was a shipbuilder, the descendant of a long line of Massachusetts shipbuilders. To Miss Carter there was romance in that business, and Mr. Rhodes evidently had the same feeling. He had a sort of reverence for ships, and an inexhaustible fund of interesting tales about them. Not that he was at all eloquent. He was rather a shy man, and halting in his speech, and he needed a good deal of drawing out; but Miss Carter did it.

He talked, and Miss Carter, leaning back in her chair, enjoyed hearing him. She liked the sound of his quiet, careful voice, and liked the fragrant smoke of his cigar. She intended to go into the house presently, to wash the dishes, leaving him and Maude by themselves for awhile; but a dreadful thing happened. There was a pause in the conversation, and suddenly the clock in the hall struck eleven.

Mr. Rhodes got up hastily. He apologized for having stayed so long. He seemed conscience-stricken, and wouldn’t even wait while they looked up a train for him. He said good night and set off hurriedly.

“He never will,” thought Miss Carter, in despair. “Never! I’ve spoiled everything! I never even gave him a chance to speak one single word to Maude. Of course he’ll never come again!”

And it did not add very greatly to her peace of mind to see that Maude was unusually silent and pale.

This startled Miss Carter, because somehow she never thought of her work as work. It touched her, too, very much, and if she had not been a Connecticut Carter she would probably have cried; but she was one, so she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t even hint to Maude how sorry she was for her wicked, selfish conduct. All she could do was to be very, very brisk and cheerful, and to fly around the kitchen like a bee.

And there was Maude, drying the dishes, her lovely young face so pale, so grave!

“I think Mr. Rhodes is—very nice,” she observed, in an unexpectedly loud voice.

“Do you, auntie?” said Maude. “Well, I—I think so, too; but”—she turned away, to put some glasses up on a shelf—“but I’m afraid that he doesn’t consider me very interesting.”

Miss Carter was on the point of telling Maude that she was a college graduate and a private secretary, and probably the most intelligent young woman alive; but something stopped her. Instead, she said that she must wind up the clock while she thought of it. In passing behind the girl, she laid a hand on her shoulder.

And in those six words they said more than some people could have expressed in an hour’s conversation.

III

Miss Carter, lying awake in the dark, had before her eyes the image of Maude, so pale and grave and so very young, standing there in that dazzlingly white, highly efficient kitchen. The night wind blew in at the open window, fluttering the curtains, and outside in the dark garden a little owl gave its tremulous cry. A great loneliness came over her. She thought of this old house, with all those rooms, so neat and orderly—and empty, standing in the dark, quiet garden, and with herself and poor[Pg 288] lovely young Maude all alone in it. Two spinsters all alone!

Miss Carter’s forefathers, three hundred years ago, had kept themselves alive on the “stern and rock-bound coast” of New England because of their grim determination; and though Miss Carter had inherited very little of their grimness, she certainly was determined. Then and there she made up her mind; and, what is more, she was positively artful about it.

“I was wondering,” she said to Maude, the next morning. “Didn’t Mr. Rhodes say that his business was up in Massachusetts? How did you come to meet him, child?”

“Oh, he’s a great friend of Mr. Lawrence’s,” said Maude, very, very casually. “Mr. Lawrence’s firm are shipowners, you know, and we write all their insurance for them. Their office is on the same floor with us, and I often—I often have to run in there. Whenever Mr. Rhodes comes to New York, he always stops in there, and I’ve met him there several times.”

What she saw was the wave of color that rose in Maude’s cheeks. She also saw how a letter could be addressed to Mr. Rhodes, in care of Mr. Lawrence, in the same building where Maude worked.

After Maude had gone, she wrote the letter. She told Mr. Rhodes that she and her niece would be very pleased to see him next Sunday afternoon, and she said that the “best” train was one that arrived at their station about three o’clock.

How could the truthful Miss Carter write such a letter? How could she say that Maude would be glad to see Mr. Rhodes when she never told Maude a word about his coming? How could she call a train a “best” train that stopped at every tiniest station, and that arrived, moreover, at a time when Maude would not be at home? But she did say all this, and was not even ashamed of it.

And then, right under Maude’s nose, she prepared a supper which utterly surpassed the previous dinner; and when the poor, unsuspicious girl had gone off to the Sunday school where she taught a class, Miss Carter flew upstairs, put on the crêpe de Chine dress, arranged her hair in a new fashion, and just had time to get down to the veranda when Mr. Rhodes appeared.

She kept on in the same deplorably artful manner. Although she was still a little out of breath from her struggle with the dress, she pretended to be so deeply absorbed in the magazine she had just that moment snatched up that she didn’t hear him coming up the path. There she sat, looking calm, serene, almost queenly.

As he mounted the steps, she glanced up with a mendacious air of surprise, and rose, smiling, very polite, but still queenly.

He did so, and Miss Carter began her campaign. She said she was sorry Maude wasn’t at home, but nothing could induce that girl to miss her Sunday school class.

“She’s so conscientious!” Miss Carter said, and told him several anecdotes about Maude’s conscientiousness.

Then she told him how devoted the children in the class were to Maude. There was no pretense about Miss Carter now. She was speaking from her heart, telling him what she knew to be the truth about her dear girl, pleading Maude’s cause with dignity and sincerity. This man, this wooden Indian, must be made to realize what Maude was!

Miss Carter watched him pretty closely, but it did her no good, for it was impossible to tell from his face what impression she was making. He just listened. She waited for him to ask questions about Maude, but he did not. After awhile she grew indignant, and spoke no more. He, too, fell silent, and there they sat.

He was one of those persons to whom the sunshine is becoming. In spite of his age and his exasperating silence and his shocking lack of curiosity, Miss Carter was obliged, in justice, to admit that she liked his face. It was honest and keen and strong. She remembered, too, that when he had talked about his ships he had been really interesting. Well, he wasn’t going to talk about ships this time. He had been brought here to be taught appreciation of Maude, and taught he should be.

“Maude’s making a little rock garden,” Miss Carter said. “She had the prettiest violets this spring!”

“I like those bright-colored things that grow in the sun better,” said he, with a gesture toward the glowing bed of pinks and phlox and verbena. “My mother used to have those things in her garden.”

Miss Carter didn’t say that she was[Pg 289]n’t interested in his mother’s garden, but she looked it, and he seemed a little taken aback. He glanced at her anxiously. He felt that somehow he had said the wrong thing, and that he had better start another topic.

Miss Carter made no sort of reply to this. She could not. Going home, was he? Going away? She thought of Maude’s pale, grave young face, of the odd little note in her voice when she had said that she was afraid Mr. Rhodes didn’t think she was very interesting.

This thought, too, was reflected in her honest face, and Mr. Rhodes saw that once more he had said the wrong thing.

“You see,” he explained, still more anxiously, “I’m obliged to go there. My business—”

Miss Carter raised her eyebrows with a toplofty expression never before seen upon her face.

The unhappy man could not imagine in what way he had offended her, but he had no doubt that she was offended. He felt that he must go on explaining.

From the pocket of his coat he brought out an advertisement. Miss Carter glanced at it, and saw that on the 8th of July, at Rhodes’s dock, two schooners were to be sold “as is where is.”

“Very well!” said Miss Carter, but not aloud. “Go home, then, and stay there! I wish you’d never left your home! Maude was happy before you came. Oh, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

She looked at him, and to save her life she couldn’t help feeling just a little sorry for him. He had such a bewildered and miserable air.

So she went into the kitchen, took six doughnuts out of a stone crock, put them on a plate, and brought them out to the veranda.

It was a mistake. While the man was eating a doughnut, he did not look in the least old, or like a wooden Indian. Indeed, his enjoyment was positively boyish, and Miss Carter could not help feeling a little touched. She invited him to take another and another.

“You know,” he went on, “your niece told me a good deal about you, and—”

“Maude makes the most delicious soda biscuits!” cried Miss Carter, suddenly recalled to her duty.

“She told me all you’d done for her,” he continued. “I—I wanted to meet you. I”—he paused—“I knew you’d be—like this!”

It was Miss Carter’s intention to greet this statement with an amused, indulgent smile; but she could not. There was something in the man’s straightforward glance, in his quiet voice, that filled her with confusion. She turned her head aside, feeling her cheeks grow hot.

“Yes, I do,” said he. “When I came this afternoon, you didn’t see me, at first, but I—I saw you.” His face had grown red, but he went on sturdily. “You—you don’t know how you looked, sitting there—in your own home!”

Miss Carter understood his speech only too well. She understood, by a sort of instinct, that he was one of those men who see all the romance and glamour of the world about the head of a woman in her own home. She understood, too, that he was very lonely and very homesick; and she made another mistake.

“Well, you see,” he said, “when my father died, my elder brother got the old place; and he and his wife—well, they’ve made a good many changes.”

Miss Carter felt a sudden and most unreasonable indignation against Mr. Rhodes’s brother and sister-in-law.

“I hate changes!” she said. Then, feeling that she had been too vehement, she smiled. “That’s a sign of growing old,” she said. “I’m—”

Now this was the sort of thing almost[Pg 290] any chivalrous man would have said in the circumstances, but the way he said it—the way he looked at her—

A most curious thing happened. Suddenly Miss Carter saw the Miss Carter that he saw—not the practical, brisk, busy woman who was simply Maude’s aunt and a good housekeeper, but the woman who had bidden farewell to romance fifteen years ago, when the man she was to have married died. No—this Miss Carter was a charming and gracious woman, and a pretty one. She positively felt the lovely color in her cheeks, the soft tendrils of her brown hair about her temples, and even the clear blueness of her eyes; and all her heart was filled with an innocent and beautiful joy that it should be so.

She sat very still, almost afraid to breathe, for fear of breaking the enchantment. She was so happy!

Miss Carter was a wonderful hostess that evening. Maude was amazed. Never in her life had she seen her aunt so lively and amusing, with such a fine color on her cheeks and such a light in her eyes. She herself was a serious and quiet young creature, as a rule, but this evening Miss Carter made her talk and made her laugh—and Mr. Rhodes, too.

There they sat at the table, a most cheerful little party, with a most delectable tea set before them—a cold baked ham, a salad of tomatoes stuffed with celery, corn muffins, little custards baked in brown cups, strawberries and cream, and a superb three-layer chocolate cake; but Miss Carter didn’t seem to be very hungry. It was all dust and ashes to her. Every minute was a penance to her, and every smile she gave was a little stab of pain.

“Maude!” she cried, in her heart. “Oh, Maude, my dear, beautiful girl, talk to him! Laugh, my darling! Talk to him, and make him see! I do truly believe he is a good man—almost good enough for you! Oh, Maude, my darling, laugh, and talk, and be young! Make him see your beautiful, blessed youngness!”

Poor serious Maude was always trying to turn the conversation toward business, always bringing up charters, and marine insurance policies, and so on; and Miss Carter was forever turning her skillfully aside from these dangers, making her talk about dances and picnics and frivolous and entertaining episodes from her college days. Miss Carter understood the man, and Maude didn’t. Miss Carter knew only too well what things pleased and touched him, and she was fiercely determined that he should discover all those things in Maude.

It was very hard, though. Every time she got a chance, Maude began again about business. Her interest in shipping matters was prodigious.

“Do you think those two schooners you’re going to sell will bring—” she began, but again Miss Carter intervened.

“I saw the advertisement,” she said. “For sale ‘as is where is’—that’s a pretty high and mighty way to do business, I must say! Here they are—take ’em or leave ’em!”

Miss Carter felt sure that the girl wanted to explain to her aunt exactly how schooners were sold.

“Oh, can’t she see?” she thought, almost in despair. “He doesn’t want to talk business! Oh, why can’t she just be young and—silly?”

In the end, for all her gallant efforts, she was defeated. Maude got the conversation where she wanted it, and she and Mr. Rhodes talked gravely about charters.

Miss Carter left them on the veranda, and went into the kitchen to wash the dishes. She wished that there were twice as many. She wished that there were enough dishes to keep her busy all night long, so that she needn’t go to bed and lie there in the dark.

She had failed—she knew it. Mr. Rhodes was very courteous and kindly to Maude, but nothing more. All her youth and loveliness were wasted on him. She was trying so desperately hard to please him, and she couldn’t!

“Oh, it’s so cruel!” cried Miss Carter to herself, alone in the kitchen. “Never mind, my dear little Maude! I’ll sell this house, dear, and we’ll go and live somewhere else, where there are more young people—more life for you. You mustn’t mind—you mustn’t care. Just forget all about him! He’s going away, and we’ll never think about him again—never!”

She could not see him. It was dark out there. She hoped she would never see him again, never remember his face, never think of the words that he had not spoken.

The front door closed, and he was gone. Miss Carter and Maude stood alone in the dimly lit hall, and for a time neither of them spoke or stirred.

Then they looked at each other and smiled. With their arms about each other they went up the stairs and through the dark house, with all its orderly, empty rooms; and at Maude’s door they said good night, both of them still smiling. That was their way.

It was the stillest afternoon. The sun blazed on high in a blue sky without a single cloud, and all the growing things stood patient and motionless in the fierce heat. Miss Carter was down on her knees, weeding a flower bed. She wore an immense blue sunbonnet and a gay blue and white calico dress. Grubbing down there among her beloved flowers, she somehow had the air of belonging to them—a sort of flower nurse.

“I don’t know,” she said to herself, “whoever decided which were flowers and which were weeds. Why are the dear little dandelions weeds, when the big, staring sunflowers aren’t? I guess it’s the same with a good many other things. People look at children, and then set to work to weed them—to uproot all sorts of brave little dandelion qualities in them, and water and tend the big, showy sunflower traits.”

Her reflections were interrupted by the sound of the telephone ringing inside the house. She rose, clapped her hands vigorously together to get rid of the clean, warm dirt, and went into the hall to answer the summons.

Miss Carter did not answer for a moment; but when she did speak, it was with all her usual affectionate heartiness.

“Of course it won’t bother me, my dear!” she said. “Any one you want, any time!”

But when she had hung up the receiver, she stood there in the hall with a great weariness and dismay upon her face. All the peace of the hot, still day was shattered—all the peace that she had won through the long, long week. He was coming back!

It seemed to her that she could not bear it. She could not watch Maude, with her shining eyes and her flushed cheeks, looking at the man who returned only a kindly, grown-up smile—the man who did not find Maude’s sweet youth “interesting,” but turned to herself instead. She remembered how he had looked at her, how his voice had sounded, speaking to her; and that look and that tone should have been for Maude.

She felt a tear warm on her cheek, and she dashed it away, leaving a smudge under her eye.

“There I was,” she said, “all dressed up, sitting on the porch as if—well, it won’t be like that this time! It was that dress—I always hated that dress! Oh, Maude, my dear!”

“It won’t be like that this time!” she repeated with a grim smile. “You’ll see!”

“Plenty good enough!” she said. “It won’t take me half an hour to get it ready. Now I’m going to finish that weeding!”

Certainly Mr. Rhodes wouldn’t bother her. He could come if he liked. There was plenty of good, wholesome food in the house for him to eat; but not one extra touch would she give to the dinner, and not one extra touch to her own appearance. She would have to wash her hands and face and put on a clean dress, but not until after he arrived. First he should see her just as she was.

So, when she thought it was about time for him to be coming, out she went again, and down on her knees by the flower bed. The garden gate clicked, but she did not raise her head until Maude spoke. Then she rose, dusted off her hands, and turned.[Pg 292]

But who was there? Who was that nice boy standing beside Maude, hat in hand, with such an anxious, appealing smile on his young face?

Then, recovering her senses, she held out a somewhat grimy hand, and the young man seized it in a hearty grasp. His face was scarlet, but his eyes met hers very honestly.

Miss Carter beamed upon him, to reassure him, but he turned an imploring glance toward Maude. No help did he get from her, however. Never had Miss Carter seen that serious young woman so confused. She actually frowned at the poor fellow.

Miss Carter could scarcely believe her eyes; for Maude shrugged her shoulders and turned her head away, and upon her face there was an expression very like a pout. Now at last Maude was being young and silly, and it was all most thoroughly appreciated.

They had both entirely forgotten Miss Carter. Maude looked coldly at the young man. Then her eyes fell, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.

Again she looked at him and he looked at her, and it was the most touching and absurd and beautiful look that Miss Carter had ever seen.

“I’ll have to go in and look after the dinner,” she murmured; but they didn’t even hear her.

She was in too much of a hurry, just then, to trouble her head about the mystery of this second Mr. Rhodes. It was enough for her to know that for Maude he was the right and only Mr. Rhodes; and therefore he must have a dinner such as had never been equaled. She flew about the kitchen like a little whirlwind, and presently enchanting odors began to float out from the oven and from the bubbling saucepans. She rushed down into the cellar, and brought up her best preserves. She rushed out to the ice box, and brought in a box of eggs, a crock of butter, a basket of peaches, and a bottle of cream. As she hurried about, she was inventing a dessert that should have freshly baked sponge cake and peaches and strawberry preserves and cream in it.

“Isn’t it a pretty hot afternoon for you to be doing all this?” asked a voice from the doorway.

Suddenly she was aware that she was very hot and tired and flustered, that her hair was untidy, that she was wearing a rumpled and unbecoming calico dress. She also remembered that she was sternly displeased with Mr. Rhodes, and had intended him to see her like this; but she was still more displeased with him because he did so see her.

“If you’ll go out on the veranda,” she said, “I’ll have the dinner ready in a—”

“He’s my nephew,” said Mr. Rhodes. “Perhaps I can explain. You see, he’s in Lawrence’s office—doing very well, too; and your niece—well, the first time I saw them together, I knew how the land lay.”

“I’m fond of the boy,” he went on; “and—of course I saw what sort of girl she was, but I wanted to see you.” He smiled. “It was a pretty mean trick,” he said. “She telephoned to Lawrence’s office and asked for Mr. Rhodes, and I happened to be there. I knew she meant Jack, but I answered; and when she asked if Mr. Rhodes would like to come to dinner, I said yes. We arranged to meet at the station, and”—he smiled again—“there I was! Poor little thing, she made the best of it, but—”

She took up the egg beater and began to turn it vigorously, so that the noise of it drowned whatever the man was saying. She didn’t want to hear, anyhow. A strange and unreasonable alarm filled her. If this man wasn’t Maude’s Mr. Rhodes—no, she wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t think at all, but would simply turn that egg beater with a prodigious clatter in the earthenware bowl.

A large, strong hand was laid upon the handle of the thing, and the noise ceased abruptly, leaving the kitchen amazingly quiet.

“I know it was, but I thought—well, you see, I came again. I—I wanted to see you.”

Miss Carter left the egg beater and faced him squarely. She stood where the golden light of the setting sun fell upon her soft, untidy hair. She stood there, in her unbecoming dress, with her flushed, tired face, and defied Mr. Rhodes. She thought that when he really looked at her, when he realized what the true Miss Carter was like, a great change would come over him.

And now that he had seen her “as is,” of course he would never want to see her again!

“Now it’s harder than ever to go away,” he said. “Now I never want to go away. You don’t know how you look—how—how lovely!”

His steady eyes were fixed upon her face, but Miss Carter would not look at him—not she! It was very well for Maude and that young man to stand and stare at each other, but she wasn’t young, and she wasn’t going to be silly.

Then she did look at him, and she gave a smile which she believed to be a very sensible, noncommittal, grown-up smile; but it didn’t seem like that to him.[Pg 294]

That’s Not Love

SERENA PAGE’S COUNTRY PLACE WAS A HOUSE OF MIRTH, BUT MERRIMENT AND TRAGEDY ARE OFTEN CLOSE TOGETHER

A GAY world, that summer morning! The sprinkler on the lawn flung a rainbow mist into the air, and left tiny diamonds shining on the grass blades. Everything was astir—the leaves rustling on the trees, gay flowers swaying on their stalks. Curtains fluttered at the open windows, and through the cool, bright house voices came floating, light as butterflies. Serena Page had arisen.

To be sure, she had told her house guests the night before that just because she had to get up was no reason why any one else should be disturbed at the outrageous hour of half past eight; but somehow everybody was disturbed. Somehow her getting up made confusion all through the house; for that was Serena’s especial talent—to create an exciting sort of bustle about her, without herself doing anything at all. Serena! Never was a woman so misnamed!

She came down the stairs, her filmy black negligee floating out behind her, so that she seemed, as always, to be coming in a breeze—an artificial breeze, though, perfumed and enervating, bringing no health or color. She was without make-up at this early hour. Her handsome, haggard face was pale, her eyes were heavy.

She entered the breakfast room, and there was the Moriarty girl, standing by the window.

Serena smiled, too, but faintly. Geraldine Moriarty was beginning to get on her nerves very badly, and she was longing for an excuse to fly into a rage with the girl. That was the only way Serena could get rid of people. She could do nothing in cold blood. She had taken on Geraldine in an outburst of generosity, and she would have to have an outburst of anger before she could send her away.

Serena took her place at the table, and the Japanese butler came forward to serve her. She did not know his name. She was not even sure that she had seen him before. She got her servants from an agency in the city, which upon demand would send her out a “crew” commanded by a butler. Sometimes things went wrong, and the whole lot left together; but another crew always came promptly, and her household suffered very little from the change. She had the art of making her home as impersonal as a hotel; but she did notice this butler. She smiled upon him, because his charmingly deferential air pleased her. He seemed to appreciate the solemnity of the occasion.

It was indeed an important occasion. It was the beginning of Serena’s diet. Before this elegant and luxurious creature the butler set half of a grapefruit, two slices of Graham bread toast without butter, and a cup of black coffee.

She shuddered a little, and closed her eyes. Every morning, henceforth, she was to get up at half past eight, go through a set of exercises, take a cold shower, and come downstairs—to this! Every one said she wouldn’t be able to stand it. Those who pleased her best said she had absolutely no need of a reducing diet, and would be made ill by it.

Only the Moriarty girl showed no interest at all. Serena observed that Geraldine had a slice of grilled Virginia ham on her plate.

“How Connie could ever have called[Pg 296] her a sweet child!” she thought. “She’s as hard as nails!”

Some six weeks ago Connie Blanchard had come to Serena with a most piteous tale about Geraldine Moriarty.

“Her mother and I went to the same school in Paris,” she had said; “and now this sweet child’s all alone in the world. Something awful happened to her father. He went bankrupt, or lost his mind, or something—I can’t remember now—and Geraldine simply hasn’t a penny. Fine old Irish family, you know, and she’s awfully well educated. I’d love to help her, but you know how it is with me, my dear, living as I do in hotels—and I’m not strong. Do please do something for the poor child, Serena!”

Who could have done more? Serena had at once engaged Miss Moriarty as secretary-companion, and here she was, getting a nice little salary, and with practically no work to do. The secretarial duties were almost nonexistent, for Serena very seldom wrote or even answered a letter. She and her friends carried on their social activities by telephone, and they liked to do their own talking.

As for the companion part, that was absurd. Serena was always surrounded by companions, and mighty obliging ones, too—penniless cousins, ambitious and ambiguous ladies, all sorts of eager and pliant creatures, who made up a little court where Serena ruled magnificently. No—all the Moriarty girl had to do was to look on, and of course to admire; and it was at this simple task that she so utterly failed.

She didn’t seem to admire anything or anybody, not even herself. She was ironically indifferent to her own dark beauty. She had no decent clothes, and when Serena had offered her some very good things that she was tired of, Geraldine had refused—politely, of course. She was always polite, always careful not to give Serena any excuse for getting rid of her.

“But you’ll go, my dear!” thought Serena. “I’ve done quite enough for you!”

“Hopeless!” she reflected. “Simply hopeless! Of course she’s good-looking, in a way—but she has absolutely no charm, and no figure.”

Miss Moriarty went on eating with an excellent appetite. She was never talkative. She was quiet, but with a quiet which Serena did not find restful or soothing. She was a tall girl, thin and supple, with a careless grace in every movement. Her face had a gypsy darkness, with high cheek bones, features delicate and yet bold, and black eyes with a scornful light in them. She was dressed in a black skirt, a black jersey, and a plain white blouse—a costume that made her look lanky, thought the dieting Serena; and she had that air of not caring.

“For Heaven’s sake, do talk, my dear!” cried Serena, overcome by exasperation. “I’m all on edge this morning, and it makes me horribly nervous to see you sitting there like a—like a graven image!”

“I’ll try,” said Miss Moriarty obligingly. “Have you seen the delphiniums?”

“Never heard of the things,” said Serena. “Oh, do answer that for me, my dear!”

For the butler had come forward to say that a “generman” wanted to speak to Mrs. Page on the telephone.

There was, inevitably, a telephone in the breakfast room. There were telephones everywhere in that house, so that, in order to speak to a friend perhaps a hundred miles away, one need not have the fatigue of walking more than twenty feet. Geraldine took up the receiver.

“This is Mrs. Page’s secretary,” she said. “Will you give me the message, please?”

She was surprised by the change that came over that haggard, petulant face. Forgotten were the nerves and the cruel diet. Serena sprang to her feet and ran to the telephone, and even her voice was changed.

“Sambo!” she cried. “What an hour! Yes, I know, but why didn’t you write me, just once? I’m not reproaching you, silly boy! Only I did think you’d have time just for a line. No, no! To-day, Sambo? But can’t you give me some idea what time? Surely some time to-day? Oh, all right! By-by, big boy!”

“I’ll take a slice of that ham,” she said to the butler, “and cream for my coffee. Quick! I’m starving!” Then she looked at Geraldine. “Sammy Randall is coming,” she announced.[Pg 297]

But Serena missed any irony there may have been in the words. Mrs. Anson had appeared in the doorway, and she called to her:

Serena expected that fervor. She took it for granted that all her friends would rejoice with her; and so they did. Serena, the queen, was happy, and all her court was happy, too, reaping the benefits of her good humor.

“But that awful Moriarty!” she whispered to Betty Anson. “She’s worse than usual this morning. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She’s so indifferent and ungrateful!”

“Those people are always envious,” said Mrs. Anson. “Governesses and companions—they’re not exactly servants, you know, and yet they’re not—well, they’re simply out of everything.”

Geraldine Moriarty wished the same thing. As she stepped out through the long window of the breakfast room to the lawn, she wished that she need never set foot in that house again. She hated it, she hated the life there, and at times she came dangerously close to hating the people in it.

For, though Serena’s conclusion that the girl was “as hard as nails” was an exaggeration, there was a grain of truth in it. She had, for her nineteen years, a character remarkably definite and independent. She had fortitude, courage, and the pride of Lucifer. She had come here, penniless, solitary, and so young, direct from the almost cloistered life she had led with her invalid mother, and not for one instant had she been dazzled or swayed by the luxury and the feverish gayety about her. She stayed because she knew no other way to earn her bread, but all her salary she put into a savings bank, and would not touch a penny of it. When there was enough, she meant to go away. She would learn typing and shorthand, find work in an office, and be done with this existence which she hated.

She lived here in exile, utterly alien and lonely, among these people whom she neither comprehended nor pitied. Her people had been gentlefolk. She had been brought up in a tradition of dignity, honor, and reserve, and she clung to that tradition with all the strength of her loyal heart. What her people had been, she would be. Their ways were the right ways. Their manners, their speech, their tastes, formed the standards by which all others should be judged. And, so judged, Serena and her friends were damned. Geraldine saw no good in them at all. They were base, heartless, and vulgar.

She walked across the lawn to the sea wall at the foot of the garden, and jumped down to the beach, a few feet below. She wanted to be alone for a little while in the fresh, sweet summer morning, in the sun and the salt wind, and to forget the monstrous thing she had seen; but she could not forget. In anger, in contempt, she was obliged to remember Serena’s face at the mention of that man’s name.

Evidently Serena “loved” this man with the mountebank name, and her friends seemed to think it a charming idyl—the “love” of a woman of forty, who had divorced one husband and was living in constant bickering with a second. The fact of her being married was simply a side issue. Faith and honor had no meaning at all for these people, and love—that was what they called “love”!

The summer day was drawing to a close. The shadows of the trees were long upon the grass, the sun was sinking through a sky wistful and delicate, faint rose and yellow.

There was a blessed quiet all through the house. Serena and her friends had certainly intended to be back for tea, but they had not come. They never could do what they meant to do. Obstacles intervened, and they were not well equipped for dealing with obstacles. It took so little to stop them, to bar a road, to turn them off toward a new destination. They had not come back, and Geraldine was having her tea alone in the library, reading a book as she sipped it.

That was how Sambo first saw her, sitting, very straight, in a high-backed chair, with the last light of the sunset on her clear, pale face. He said later that she had put him in mind of a Madonna, and there were not many women he knew who could do that. He stood in the doorway, staring at her, for quite a long time—so long that he never afterward forgot how she looked then, so still, so lovely, so aloof.[Pg 298] For a moment he was almost afraid to disturb her.

But the fear of disturbing other persons had not yet greatly influenced young Samuel Randall. He was a conqueror, nonchalant and superb. He took whatever things pleased him in this world. Slender, almost slight, with his fine features, his mournful dark eyes, he had a poetic and touching look about him; but it belied him. He was not poetic. He was greedy, and willful, and reckless.

“I said I was coming to-day,” he went on, “and they’re all out. That mean I’m not wanted?”

And he smiled his charming, arrogant smile, for he knew so well that he was always wanted.

“Mrs. Page meant to be home by five,” said Geraldine, with no smile at all. “Something must have delayed her.”

She said yes, none too cordially, and rang the bell for fresh tea. He sat down opposite her, slouching in his chair, his handsome head thrown back, his dark eyes watching her.

A faint color rose in her cheeks. She resented his attitude, his easy and careless manner, his appraising glance, and he read the resentment in her face.

This did not annoy him. He liked this tall, dark, unsmiling girl just as she was, a charming novelty; but he would have to change his tactics.

“You were reading, weren’t you?” he said respectfully. “I hope I didn’t interrupt you.”

Then, suddenly, his undisciplined soul was filled with a sort of envy for this untroubled and superior creature who read books.

“I try to read,” he said. “I wish to Heaven I could; but it’s too late now.”

“I don’t see how it could ever be too late to read,” said Geraldine, with a trace of scorn.

He had straightened up in his chair. He was no longer staring at her, but at the unlighted cigarette that he was rolling between his fingers.

“The thing is,” he said, “I’ve been spoiled. People listen to me—any damned nonsense I spout—and I’ve got out of the way of listening myself. Now, you see, when I take up a book that’s worth reading, I feel as if the writer fellow had got me into a corner, and was trying to lay down the law; so I want to contradict him, and I chuck the blamed thing across the room.”

He spoke earnestly, and he was in earnest. It was his great charm that he was always sincere. He was not inventing things to say to this girl. He was simply selecting from his restless, curious mind those things which he thought would interest her. He was succeeding, too—he saw that.

Geraldine did not speak, because to her reserved and proud spirit it was impossible to speak easily to a stranger; but she thought over his words with an odd sensation of distress. She felt sorry for the conquering Sambo.

He had picked up her book, and was turning the pages. It was a copy of “The Hound of Heaven,” which her father had given her long ago.

He stopped, and for a moment he sat silent. The light was fading out of the sky now, and in the dusk his face looked white and strained. The echo of his strong young voice seemed still to drift through the shadowy room.

Looking at him, Geraldine had an extraordinary fancy, almost a vision, of his terribly defiant soul fleeing, swift and laughing, to its own destruction. She was filled with an austere compassion and wonder. It was as if, in an instant, and without a word spoken, he had told her all the long tale of his wasted years.

He struck a match, and by the flame that sprang out, vivid in the gray dusk, she had a glimpse of his face, with eyes half closed, proud and sorrowful; and he was changed in her sight forever. She saw him, not as a puppet in a shameful drama, but as a fellow creature with a soul.

The match went out, and the room seemed very dark now. Geraldine wanted to speak, to tell him something, but she could not remember, afterward, what incredible words had come to her mind. They were never to be spoken, however, for just at that moment Serena came home.

III

In her first generous enthusiasm Serena had declared that the “sweet child” must dine with them, no matter who was there, and now neither she nor Geraldine could find a plausible reason for altering the arrangement which had grown so irksome. This evening, as usual, Geraldine went upstairs to put on her one and only dinner dress.

But she was not so reluctant as usual, nor so disdainful. She felt that she was no longer utterly alone. This man who had come to the house was different from the others. She remembered his face as she had seen it in the flare of the match, and remembered the sound of his voice. If he was lost, it was because he had been misguided. He was somehow a victim.

Nobody noticed Miss Moriarty when she came to the table, for they were all very well used to her and her one evening gown—that is, nobody but Sambo; and to him she was new and lovely and profoundly interesting. He thought that her slender hands were beautiful. So was the sweep of her shining black hair away from her temples, and so was the proud arch of her brows; and he thought that her poor little black dress, and her youth and her disdainful air, were beyond measure touching.

But he prudently kept his interest in Miss Moriarty to himself, and behaved as he was expected to behave. The diet was postponed, and Serena had asked the butler to see that there was “an awfully good dinner.” He had justified her blind faith in him, for the dinner was an excellent one. From the well stocked cellar he had selected the proper wines; but nobody cared for these. They all preferred whisky. Throughout the meal they drank whisky and smoked cigarettes, and their talk was in keeping with this.

“It’s not my business,” thought Geraldine. “I can’t change the world. I’m just here to earn a living.”

But the contempt and indifference which until now had been her armor failed her to-night. She was troubled and very unhappy. None of these people were mere puppets any longer. They had come alive, and they were pitiful, and a little horrible.

There was the girl they called Jinky—tall, gaunt, with a sort of wasted beauty in her face. A year ago she had eloped with a very young millionaire, and, as he was under age, his parents had had the marriage annulled—annulled, wiped out, so that Jinky had come back from her wedding trip discredited and shamed before all her world. She didn’t seem to care. She seemed hilariously amused by the whispered conversation of Levering, who sat next her; but to-night Geraldine felt sure that Jinky did care—that the wound had left a cruel scar.

There was Levering himself, with his supercilious, high-bred face. He had married for money, and he hadn’t got the money. It was a notorious joke in that circle that his middle-aged wife begrudged him every penny. He suffered his ignoble humiliation, and his wife suffered, too, because of her jealous and bitter infatuation for him.

There was the chic and lively little Mrs. Anson, with her eternal scheming for invitations and other benefits. There was her husband, gray-haired, distinguished in appearance, a slave to her ambition and his own weakness.

There was Serena, magnificent in her diamonds, talking only to Sambo, looking only at Sambo. There was Sambo himself, the man who had said that he was lost. He listened to Serena carelessly, and smiled, even when her face was anxious and frowning. He smoked incessantly. The light ashes from his cigarettes fell upon his plate, into his glass, and he swallowed them, as if he neither knew nor cared what was barren ash and what life-giving food.

Geraldine had risen, too, and she fancied that she heard Mr. Anson, standing beside her, mutter:

He was unsteady on his feet, and his weary face was a curious gray. Geraldine[Pg 300] had seen him like this before. He was trying to play, trying to be one of them, to forget—and he never could.

They all went into the drawing-room, and one of the servants started the phonograph playing. The music began, the thud of drums like bare feet stamping, the sweet whine of Hawaiian guitars, like lazy laughter. Geraldine had followed the others, meaning only to pass through on her way to the garden, but halfway across the room Sambo stopped her.

The touch of his hand filled her with a great anger. She turned her head and looked at him with scornful amazement—and found in his face only laughter and cajolery.

He could not very well misunderstand—or pretend to misunderstand—her tone. He dropped his hand and stood back.

She knew that he wasn’t sorry. She went past him, threading her way among the dancing couples, and went upstairs to her own room. She locked the door and stood leaning against it, in the dark, breathing a little fast from her haste and anger.

She hated him! Vivid before her was the image of his handsome face, flushed with drinking, and of his conqueror’s smile. Intolerable was the memory of his hand upon her shoulder. She hated him, and she could almost hate herself because even for a minute she had thought he was different.

The next morning, when Geraldine came downstairs, the house was like an enchanted castle. The sun was streaming in, for it was full day, yet all the rooms were silent and deserted. The little Japanese men had done their work like brownies, and were now invisible, and all the people who had danced the night before were lost in sleep.

She went into the breakfast room and rang, and the butler came hurrying in, smiling cheerfully. She told him what she wanted to eat, and crossed to the window, for a breath of sweet air and a glimpse of the garden in its morning beauty.

The first thing she saw was Sam Randall, on the terrace, smoking a cigarette. Her first impulse was to run away. He was down at the other end, and he had not seen her yet; but she checked herself with a sort of severity. Why should she run away from him? What had she to do with him, or with any of the people in this house? She had judged and condemned them long ago. It was only through a moment’s weakness that she had been betrayed into taking an interest in this man. The weakness was mastered now, and the interest had turned to scorn. He was just like the others—perhaps a little worse!

She heard his leisurely footsteps on the flags outside. She heard him come in through the long window. She knew that he was standing beside her, but she paid no heed until he spoke.

She was sorry, then, that she had looked at him, for there was no laughter or arrogance about him now. He seemed subdued and anxious, younger than she had remembered, and somehow appealing.

“Look here!” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you last night. I don’t quite see why—but anyhow, I’m sorry!”

Her breakfast was on the table, and she sat down before it. It occurred to her that her silence was ungracious and unkind, but she knew no way to break it. For all her self-reliance, she was very young and very inexperienced. She could not mask her resentment; she could only hold her tongue.

Sambo sat down opposite her. She was determined not to raise her eyes, but, without doing so, she could see his slender brown hands extended across the table, and the cuffs of his soft blue shirt. She also saw that he was holding a little field daisy. Surely there was nothing in that to touch her heart, yet it did, and the pity that she felt for a passing instant increased her anger. An obstinate and forbidding look came over her face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Look here! Do you mind if I sit here with you?”

“You can dictate to me all you want,” said he. “Nothing I’d like better![Pg 301]”

Again she was conscious that she was behaving ill, and again it strengthened her obstinacy.

“I’ll go away, if you like,” he went on; “but the way you talked to me yesterday—I’ve been thinking so much about it! Please tell me what I’ve done—what has made you change?”

“Look here!” he said entreatingly. “Don’t treat me like this! Don’t shut me out! I came down early, just on the chance of seeing you. The others will be down presently, so I only have this little minute. Let me talk to you! You’re so wonderful—no one like you in the world—you and your poetry and your lovely, quiet face! Don’t send me away, dear girl!”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You wouldn’t mind, if you knew how I felt about you. I’m at your feet.”

“You—” she began, but her voice was so uncertain that she could not go on.

“I’m at your feet,” he repeated quietly. “If you want to treat me like this, I can’t help it. It won’t make any difference. I’ll always—”

Without another word he walked away, through the window, out to the terrace again.

Geraldine tried to go on with her breakfast, but a strange confusion and pain filled her. She told herself that this was only an episode, of no significance. Randall would go away soon, and she need never see him or think of him again. What he had said to her he said, very likely, to every woman he met. He had come here to see Serena. He belonged to Serena. He was one of that circle, one of those people without heart, without honor, without decency.

Geraldine remembered his hand on her shoulder, his laughter in the face of her just anger. It was a lie! He had no more respect for her than he had for these other women. He thought she was like them, and would be flattered by a smile from him. She hated him!

She had a fine opportunity to test his alleged humility that very day. By noon, the rest of the household had come downstairs, languid and heavy-eyed, and all in need of “bracers”; but not Sambo. He was not jaded or depressed. He laughed at the others. It seemed to Geraldine that wherever she went she could hear the sound of his debonair laughter. He was easily the leader among them. No longer was Serena their queen; it was Sambo who reigned supreme, not only because she had exalted him, but because of his quick wit, his audacity, his graceless and irresistible charm.

They sat about half dead, until lunch time. After lunch they were revivified enough to begin considering what to do with the afternoon. Serena wanted to visit some friends, Mrs. Anson wanted to play bridge, Levering wanted to go out on the yacht, but Sambo said they would go to the Country Club, and he had his way. Every one went upstairs to dress, except Geraldine. She wasn’t expected to come. Nobody thought about her at all.

Sambo had not spoken one word to her, had scarcely glanced at her. When they were alone, he called her “wonderful”; but when the others were there, he ignored her as they did.

Geraldine was in her room, dressing for dinner, when they returned. The house was suddenly in confusion. Electric bells rang, and she heard their voices in an excited babel. They came in like a party of raiders taking possession of an abandoned stronghold.

“I can’t stand it much longer,” thought Geraldine. “I’m getting nervous and irritable. I ought to go, only—”

Only she had nowhere to go—nowhere in all the world. Strangers were living in her old house. She wondered how it looked now. There used to be an air of peace about it at this hour of a summer day, when the tangled garden had grown dim, and the old house full of shadows. She and her mother used to sit by the open window, in the dusk, not talking very much, but so happy! Even old Norah in the kitchen was blessed by that peace, and would croon contentedly as she moved about. All gone now!

Geraldine had been a young girl then, like a child in the safe shelter of her[Pg 302] mother’s love—only a little while ago; but she would not think of that. She would not shed a single tear. Her mother had been so brave, even when her father was ruined and heartbroken by his failure in business—for that was the “something dreadful” that had happened to him. Even when he died, her mother had been so brave, and always so quiet. That was the right way, and the way that Geraldine would follow. If her forlorn young heart grew faint in her exile, she would look back, just for a glance, would remember, just for an instant, and would be comforted and strengthened.

She put on her black dress, gave an indifferent glance in the mirror, and opened the door; and there in the hall was Sambo, waiting for her.

“Look here!” he said. “I want to know—I’ve simply got to know—what’s the matter!”

“No!” he said. “I’m going away to-morrow morning, and I’ve got to know. Have I offended you, or done anything you don’t like? The first time I saw you, yesterday afternoon—what has made you change?”

“Look here!” he said. “If I thought it was simply that you disliked me—” He paused for a moment. “But I don’t think that,” he went on. “You did like me, at first. I’ve been thinking—Is it on account of Ser—of Mrs. Page?”

“Because, you know”—she noticed that he glanced up and down the softly lit hall before he continued—“if it’s that, I give you my word there’s nothing in it—absolutely nothing! I’ve never even pretended to her—”

“Do you think I’m going to discuss that with you?” she said, looking at him with a sort of horror.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” he answered. “I wanted you to know that; but then—”

He did not move. He stood squarely before her, with a queer, dogged, miserable look on his face.

She was silent for a moment, her heart filled with almost intolerable bitterness. Then suddenly she laughed.

“Oh, but you’d really better go!” she said. “You wouldn’t like it if some one should come and find you speaking to me!”

She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. A singular change came over him.

“You mean—” he began, and paused. “You think I’m ashamed to be seen talking to you?”

But her defiance was little more than bravado. Her knees felt weak. She was frightened by the inexplicable thing she had done.

“That was a beastly, unjust thing to think,” he went on. “It was only on your account. I thought you wouldn’t want any one to know—”

“Know? Know what?” she interrupted, with an attempt at her former scornfulness; but in her heart she was dismayed and terribly uneasy.

“All right!” he said. “You think I’m ashamed. By Heaven, you’ll see! I’m proud of it! It’s the finest thing I ever did in my life—to love you!”

“No! I’d like every one in the world to know it. I’m proud of it! I told you I was at your feet, and I meant it. I’ll—”

He stopped, looking at her as if stricken dumb by some unbearable revelation. All that was hard and proud had vanished from her face, leaving a tragic and exquisite loveliness. She stood there, in her distress, like a lost princess, bewildered and solitary, but unassailable in her mystic innocence.

“Look here!” he said. “I—” His voice was so unsteady that he could not go on for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize how—how young you are. If you’ll forgive me—”

She shook her head mutely. He waited in vain for a word, but none came. Then he turned and walked away, and she went back into her own room and locked the door.

She, too, had not realized how young she was, how untried her strength. This overwhelmed her; she was so miserable, so shaken, that now at last the tears came in a wild storm. Her pride was mortally wounded. It was a disgrace to her that[Pg 303] Sam Randall should think of her like that. It was cruel, horrible, unforgetable, that the first words of love she had ever heard from a man should be his words. His talk of love was a mockery, an insult.

Yet the memory of his set face and his unsteady voice caused her a strange pain that was not anger.

And it was the first time in her life that Geraldine, with her rigid code, her intolerant and sharply defined opinions, had ever thought that.

Jesse Page ordered the car stopped at the entrance to the driveway, and went the rest of the way on foot. The stars were out in the bland summer sky, and among the dark trees, stirred by no wind, the house with its lighted windows had a gay and delicate beauty, an air of festival. Down by the sea wall the little yacht was moored, swinging gently, throwing into the black water two little quivering pools of red and green; but there was not a sound from house or garden.

“Not even a dog to bark when I come home!” he thought, with a faint, bitter smile.

Heaven knows he had made this solitude for himself! He was a man who had found it easy to win affection—so easy that he distrusted what cost him so little effort. He could believe in nothing and no one—himself least of all.

He walked on the grass, so that his footsteps made no sound. He was a stalwart man, tall and of soldierly bearing, with a handsome, heavy face and dark hair a little gray on the temples. He was a domineering, headstrong, passionate man, and terribly unhappy. He wanted to be angry, but it was unhappiness that filled him—a queer, pathetic sort of bewilderment.

“By God, it’s not fair! It’s not fair!” he said to himself over and over again.

That was the way he saw it—it was not fair that he should be hurt like this. He never once looked for a cause, for any fault in himself, or for any general rule to apply. It simply was not fair that this should happen to him.

He had been away, in Chicago, looking after some business affairs, making more money—for her to spend, of course; and then this letter came. What if it was anonymous, what if it was written in savage malice? He had a pretty fair idea as to who had written it, and why. Serena had enemies. He had listened to innuendo before; and now he was going to know.

The front of the house was deserted, and he went round to the side, where the dining room was. Just as he turned the corner, he saw some one come out through one of the French windows. He stopped, and drew back into the shadow of the wall. It was a man, and he fancied he recognized that slender and vigorous figure. He waited and watched.

The other man stopped to light a cigarette, but his back was toward the house. Then he strolled on leisurely toward the garage. Page followed him a little way, but when the other entered the brightly lit building, he was satisfied. It was young Randall.

That was all he needed to know. He went back to the front of the house and entered there. It was his own house, but the servants—a new crew—did not know him. The butler tried to stop him, but he pushed the anxious little man aside, and proceeded to the dining room.

They were there, the whole crowd of them, sitting about the disordered table, jaded and hot, and full of a restless languor. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. A little blue-eyed man with a gray mustache was performing an elaborate conjuring trick with match sticks and somebody’s gold watch, and Serena lay back in her chair, looking at him with a distant smile. Her haggard face was flushed, her eyes heavy. Jesse Page thought he had never seen her more beautiful, or more hateful.

“By God, it’s not fair!” he thought again. “I’ve given her everything, I’ve put up with all her whims, and now I—I could kill her!”

It was as if his thought had sped through the room like an arrow. Serena straightened up in her chair, turned her head, and saw him standing in the doorway.

He did not speak or move. He stood there, his straw hat pushed back, staring at her with narrowed eyes.

She half rose from her chair, her own eyes dilated and fixed upon him. Then some one near her stirred, and the sound recalled her to her surroundings. Here was the stage upon which she was accustomed[Pg 304] to play a leading part, and every one was looking at her.

“You beast!” she said. “You startled me so! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home, Jesse? Have you had your dinner?”

He gave his hat to a servant, and sat down in the one chair that was vacant. Now he had found out; now he knew. Startled her, had he? That was guilty terror he had seen in her face! Let her sit there smiling, radiant in her jewels, at the head of her own table! She was frightened, she couldn’t take her eyes off her husband.

“Hello, everybody!” he said genially. “Don’t let me spoil the party! Come on, now! All have another drink, eh?”

“God, what people!” he thought. “They’re all afraid of me—afraid of a row!”

He looked around the table at the eagerly smiling faces, and he smiled himself—a broad grin.

“One missing, isn’t there?” he asked. “Who was sitting in this place?”

“Oh, there?” said Serena. “Miss Moriarty. She’s gone upstairs with a bad headache.”

“I suppose I really ought to go up and see how the poor girl’s getting on,” continued Serena.

“Oh, no!” he said suavely. “Don’t go! Wait a bit, and perhaps she’ll come back.”

“We don’t want to sit here!” cried Betty Anson nervously, pushing back her chair. “Let’s go!”

“I like to sit here,” said Page. He poured himself another whisky, and lit a cigarette. “I think I’ll have a demi-tasse and a sandwich. You people must keep me company. Don’t go, Betty!”

She settled back again. She was sorry for Serena, but it would never do to offend Jesse.

“If there’s any serious trouble,” she thought, “poor Serena ’ll be done for!”

The ambitious Mrs. Anson couldn’t afford to take up the cause of people who were done for. She glanced covertly across the table. Her husband sat with his eyes fixed on the cloth, his distinguished gray head bent. Levering was grave, but the shadow of a smile hovered about his lips. Jinky, sitting next him—what was the matter with Jinky?

She was really distressed by the look on Jinky’s wasted young face; for of all the people there, Jinky could least afford any indiscreet pity. Jesse Page was a distant cousin of hers; he had been generous to her, and she needed it. No—she really shouldn’t look at Serena like that!

Suddenly Jinky jumped up, and, without a word, walked across the room to the window, and out on the terrace.

She turned her head and glanced at him, but she did not answer. For a moment she stood there in the bright light, a curiously dramatic figure in her emerald green dress, with her gleaming black hair and her white, thin face. Then she put her jade cigarette holder between her teeth, and went off over the lawn.

“See here, Jesse!” she interrupted. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“It’ll take,” said Jinky deliberately, “just about five minutes for you to make such a mess of things that you’ll regret it all the rest of your days, Jesse!”

“Oh, no!” he said, with a grin. “It’ll take a good deal less than five minutes—when I catch sight of that lad!”

Jinky stopped. From where she stood she could look into the garage, and she was satisfied.

“Somehow,” he said, “I feel that where Jinky goes, there must I go, too.”

They found the dining room deserted, with an air of haste and disorder about it. A cigarette smoldered in a saucer, a cup of coffee had been overturned, and a dark stain was still spreading slowly over the lace cloth. Page went into the drawing-room, and Jinky followed. Serena was not there.[Pg 305]

He went toward the door again, hesitated, and came back. Jinky had vanished now, through the card room.

VII

Jinky met Serena coming down the stairs. There had been no love lost between these two. They had never been friends, and Serena, with the memory of more than one petty blow dealt to Jinky, expected no mercy from her now. She was about to pass with a vague, strained smile, when the girl stopped her.

“You’ll have to try another line, Serena,” she said. “No use pretending that Sambo wasn’t here.”

“Down on the shore road, waiting for me. We were going to run over to the Abercrombies’ in his car. If I don’t show up, he’ll come back here, and they’ll telephone. Oh, Jinky, I’m—”

“Hold up a minute! Let’s see! No use in my going—Jesse would tag along; but the Moriarty girl could go.”

“Moriarty!” cried Serena. “You’re simply insane, Jinky! Why, she’s the most—”

“But, Jinky, she’s ill—didn’t come down to dinner. She sent me word that she had an awful headache. There’s no use wasting time over her.”

“Jinky!” said Serena, with fervor. “You’re a simply wonderful pal to me! I’ll never forget this—never!”

But Jinky did not answer for a moment. She was looking at Geraldine, studying her, with all her hard won wisdom. A child, she thought her—a lovely child, with her heavy hair in a braid, and her outgrown bath robe; but a child already half awakened to reality.

“Look here!” she said briefly. “Do you want a chance to do a decent thing?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Jinky. “If you want to help, you can get dressed and run down to the Shore Road and meet Sam Randall—”

“No!” cried Geraldine. “I won’t! I won’t have anything to do with—with that!”

“You needn’t think it’s a grand operatic tragedy,” said Jinky. “Serena and Sam aren’t exactly Tristan and Isolde. There’s nothing very wicked in their little flirtation; but Jesse Page just came home in a pretty poisonous temper, and if Sambo comes back to the house now there’ll be trouble.”

“I suppose you don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jinky. “I hope you don’t. If you understood that you could stop a nasty scandal, and perhaps something even worse, and you just wouldn’t do it, and didn’t care—” She paused. “It’s serious,” she went on. “Jesse means business. You can help these people if you want to. If you don’t want to, all right! It’s up to you.”

This was the first time Geraldine had had a problem presented to her in such a way. There was no question of right or wrong. Evidently Jinky thought it didn’t matter whether these people deserved to be helped or not. She simply offered the other girl a chance to do a decent thing.

Geraldine looked at Jinky, and found Jinky looking at her; and Savonarola never preached a more eloquent sermon than Jinky did by her silence. She stood there, smoking her cigarette, a haggard, reckless, wasted young creature, just waiting to see if the other girl was willing to help. It was up to Geraldine.

“Moriarty,” cried Jinky, “you’re a little gentleman! Hurry up now! I’ll help you.”

Geraldine needed assistance. Her hands were so unsteady that she was glad to let Jinky pin up her hair and hook her belt.

“Now, step!” said Jinky. “And see here, Moriarty—better let Sambo run you down to the Abercrombies’ and tell them not to telephone here. See Olive Abercrombie yourself; she’s got a down on Sambo. Tell her not to say anything about anything. She’ll understand.[Pg 306]”

Geraldine put on her hat and took up a scarf—a funny, old-fashioned knitted scarf that made Jinky smile. She could never afterward think of that evening without remembering the old scarf.

VIII

Sambo sat in his car, smoking, and contemplating the starry sky. He was very unhappy, very much troubled, and so intent upon his own affairs that Serena’s lateness had caused him no concern whatever. Indeed, when he thought of her at all, it was to wish that she would never come. He wished that he could start up his car and drive off somewhere—into another world.

Yet the world he was in was beautiful to-night. His car was drawn up beside a coppice of pine trees—brave, tall trees standing black against the sky, which was filled with the mild light of the stars. Behind him lay the sea. He could hear it breaking quietly on the sand, and the salt savor of it was in the air, with the aromatic fragrance of the pines. A beautiful world, and he was young and vigorous, and his pockets were well filled, and still he was saying to himself:

His quick ear caught the sound of footsteps hurrying along the road. He sighed, sat up a little straighter, and waited, with a resigned and somber expression upon his face. Now he realized that Serena was very late, and he thought he would be justified in being rather disagreeable about it. He didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to go to the Abercrombies’. He was mortally weary of all this.

The hurried steps drew nearer, and now he could dimly see an approaching figure. Serena never walked like that—never came light and swift, tall and free-moving as a young Diana! It looked like—but of course it couldn’t be. It seemed so only because he had been thinking so much of that other girl, and longing so much to see her.

He turned up the headlights of his car, sending a clear river of light along the road; and the hastening figure was plain to him now. It was Geraldine.

“I don’t care why you came,” he began. “You’re here—that’s enough!”

Then he noticed how anxious she was, how hurried, and how pale. The light died out of his face. He became grave, as she was.

His voice was gentle, and he stood before her with a sort of humility. He knew now that she had not come on his account, and he was terribly disappointed. She saw that, yet she felt that, after all, it would not be hard to explain to him, to ask anything of him. She felt sure that he would understand, and would do whatever she wanted; and that knowledge caused her an odd little thrill, half of pain, half of pride.

She stopped, and he saw a change come across her face—that cold and scornful look again. When she had to put this thing into words, the shamefulness and the ugliness of it were not to be disguised.

“So they sent me,” she went on curtly, “to say that you had better not come back now.”

“I see!” said Randall. “I’m to run away, when Jesse comes? Well, I won’t!”

“But don’t you see?” she said vehemently. “You’ll have to, on—on Mrs. Page’s account.”

“Look here!” he said abruptly. “How did you get mixed up in this? Why did you come?”

“Because—I wanted—to help,” she answered, as if the words were hard to speak.

“Miss—Jinky is the only name I know her by—she thought I’d better go and speak to Mrs. Abercrombie.”

He opened the door of the car, but made no effort to help her in. Then, when she was seated, he got in beside her.

“You needn’t bother to answer,” he went on, without even turning his head toward her. “I know you won’t. I just wanted you to know that that was how I felt about you. Now you understand, anyhow!”

He started the engine, and the little car shot off smoothly along the road, under the shadow of trees, out into the open country, past wide and quiet fields, past little lighted houses. They went at a terrific speed. Geraldine closed her eyes, dazed by the rush of wind against her face, the steady hum of the engine, and the dark landscape that seemed to be streaming past her like a figured scarf.

Randall did not speak again, yet she could almost believe that this wild haste was the very voice of his reckless spirit. It was as if she were listening to him all the time, as if he were telling her again that he was lost—that he didn’t know where he was going, and didn’t care.

And a very passion of regret and pity seized upon her. She did not judge him now, or remember his misdeeds. She could not see him, but she knew so well how he looked—so young, so gallant, so debonair, and so pitiful. She was not frightened; she was sorrowfully resigned to go with him, rushing through the dark, whatever their destination.

Suddenly the car slowed down. Geraldine opened her eyes, faintly surprised to find the world so quiet again.

He stopped before a little gasoline station, theatrically brilliant against the dark trees. He jumped out, lifted the hood, looked in at the engine, was satisfied; and, closing the hood, turned to speak to the man who had come out of the station.

The thing that followed was utterly unreal. Geraldine saw him standing there, bareheaded, in his dinner jacket, in that brilliant light, like an actor on a stage. He had just lit a cigarette, and was smiling at something the garage man said, when another car came by and stopped with grating brakes, a voice shouted something, and a shot rang out. Before the girl could believe that it had happened, the other car had gone on, and Randall and the garage man stood there, motionless, white, as if listening intently to the shot that still echoed in the air.

She saw Randall put his hand into his pocket and bring out a roll of bills. She could not hear what he said, but it was a short enough speech. The man thrust the money into his own pocket, and ran to connect the hose. Randall climbed back into the car.

In a minute they were off again. They went around the drive before the station, turned homeward.

“Nothing,” he said curtly. Then, in a moment: “I suppose you’ve got to know. It was Page, trying a little melodrama. No harm done, but—but I wish to God you hadn’t got mixed up in it! I’m going to get you home as fast as I can. Just keep quiet about the whole thing, won’t you? Don’t—”

He stopped abruptly, and the car swerved to one side. He muttered something under his breath, and went on steadily again; but suspicion began to dawn upon her.

“Mr. Randall,” she said, “I’m sure—oh, please stop the car! I know you’re hurt!”

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, I would care! Oh, please don’t go on! Stop the car, and let me see!”

But he went on along the smooth, empty road, not driving fast now, but very, very carefully.

“It would be worth a bullet through the head,” he said, “to hear you speak like that! But I’m not hurt—I’m—not—”

“My little darling!” he said. “My little blessed angel! For you to care like this!”

She let her head rest against his shoulder. She let him kiss her pale, cold cheek. Then she began to sob.

“I’m not hurt,” he said gently. “Nothing for you to cry about, little sweetheart; only, don’t you see, you’ve got to get home quick, before he does? If you’ll go quietly[Pg 308] to your room, and say nothing, there’ll be no harm done. Come, now!”

He took his arm from her shoulder, and started the engine. He went still faster now. She spoke, but he did not answer. His eyes were intent upon the road before him. He stopped at the foot of Serena’s garden.

“Look here!” he said. “There’s just one thing on earth you can do for me, and that is to clear out. There’s nothing that could be so bad as your getting mixed up in this. I mean it! Don’t—don’t make it hard. Just go!”

She could not withstand his broken and anxious voice. She obeyed as a child obeys, leaden-hearted, in tears, only half comprehending, going simply because he entreated her to go. She opened the door of the car and got down into the road; but her scarf had caught in something. She pulled at it, jerked it upward, and still it held fast.

He turned to help her, tore the scarf loose, and then, with a strange little whistling sigh, doubled over, with his head lying against the side of the car.

There was no answer from him. The engine was still running, the headlights were shining out in the dark. The car was like a living creature, trembling with impatience to be off, but the owner and master of it lay still and silent. Geraldine reached out her hand, and her fingers touched the soft, short hair on his temple.

For a moment she was lost, panic-stricken, ready to sink down in the dust beside the car and hide her eyes; but not for long. Little by little her native courage flowed back. She grew strong again, and tried to face this situation with her old austere and straightforward mind.

“He’s fainted—that’s all,” she thought. “I must help him. I mustn’t call any one else, because that’s just what he doesn’t want. It would be unfair and cruel to call any one else, now that he’s—helpless!”

Helpless, this man who, not an hour ago, had been so vividly alive, so headstrong, so impetuous! Such pity seized her that she sobbed aloud. Her hand still rested upon his bent head. She drew nearer, and kissed his hair.

Then she set off across the lawn that lay before her like a vast wilderness. She dared not hurry, lest some one might see her and question her. She had to go at a quiet and ordinary pace, had to restrain her passionate impulse to run.

“Brandy!” she thought. “That’s what they give people who faint. I’m sure there’s some on the sideboard in the dining room. I mustn’t be silly. I mustn’t let go of myself!”

She had left him there alone, unconscious and helpless, but she must not run. Nobody else must know. As she passed the front of the house, she heard the sound of music and dancing feet from the drawing-room, and she went by, carefully avoiding the bright rectangles of light from the windows. On the buffet were three decanters. She was not quite sure which was the brandy, but there was no time for hesitation. She poured out a glassful from what she hoped was the right one, and turned toward the window again.

“Caught in the act!” It was Serena. She stood in the doorway, gay and glittering, her face bright with a feverish excitement. “I’d never have thought it of you!” she said, laughing.

Geraldine stood like a statue, with the glass in her hand. It was horrible to her to be caught like this, to be judged guilty as these others were guilty; but it never occurred to her to invent a plausible lie. Serena might think what she liked; there would be no explanation. The girl turned to face her.

“It’s a pretty stiff—” Serena began, and stopped short, staring at the girl. “My God!” she cried. “What’s happened? Your scarf—”

Geraldine looked down. One side of the scarf about her shoulders was sodden and stained with blood.

The glass dropped from her hand and crashed upon the floor, and a sickening blackness swam before her eyes. She stretched out her hands, and they touched nothing. Her knees gave way, and she[Pg 309] staggered back. Then, with a supreme effort, she recovered herself. She leaned against the wall, sick and trembling, until the wild chaos in her brain passed by. She heard Serena speaking. Presently she could see Serena’s frightened face before her.

“It’s Sambo,” said Geraldine, with an effort. “He’s hurt. Send some one to bring him in!”

“See here, Geraldine!” she whispered. “I can’t! Wait! Let’s see—let’s think how we can get him away!”

“Hush! Not so loud! I can’t have him here! You don’t understand. I’ve had the most awful time with Jesse! I had to promise I’d never speak to Sambo again. I simply can’t—”

“I tell you he’s hurt!” reiterated Geraldine, with a sort of horror. “It may be serious. He may be—”

“I can’t help it! I’m awfully sorry, but I simply can’t have any more trouble with Jesse. You ought to see that—”

“Mrs. Page,” said Geraldine, “he may be dying. He’s got to be brought in here at once!”

“I can’t help it!” cried Serena petulantly. “Sam Randall is nothing to me, and Jesse is simply everything. Jesse’s the only man I ever really cared for, and I won’t—”

Serena stared at her in blank astonishment. It was incredible that the cold and correct Miss Moriarty should have said that.

She stood holding the stained scarf against her heart, and it was as if she held him, as if she were sheltering and defending the man who had done so gallant a thing for her. Wounded and suffering, his one thought had been for her—to protect her good name, to bring her safely home. He was helpless now, and it was her turn. Nothing else mattered. All her stern reserve, her stiff-necked dignity, her pride, were flung to the winds. She was ready to fight for him, to defy all the world for his sake.

“Send some one out for him at once!” she said. “He’s been shot—and I know who shot him. It was your—”

“I don’t care!” said Geraldine. “I don’t care who hears me! He’s been shot. He’s going to be brought in here and taken care of, no matter what it means to you or any one else. If you won’t do it, then I’m going to—”

When young Randall opened his eyes again, he found himself back in his room at the Pages’. He lay still for a moment, remembering. The window was open, and the dark blue silk curtains fluttered, giving a glimpse of darkness outside. The room was filled with a mild, quiet light, however, and he felt sure that some one was there. He could not turn; his shoulder was stiff and painful, and a mortal weariness weighed him down. He tried to speak, and could not. All that he could manage was to draw one hand across the cover a little way.

But it was enough. Geraldine saw it. She came and stood beside him, grave and lovely as ever, so untroubled, so quiet.

“Everything’s all right,” she said gently. “The doctor’s seen you. You’re very weak, but he says you’ll soon—”

She stopped, because it was so hard to see him there, white and still, with that mute appeal in his eyes.

That was more than Geraldine could bear. She knelt down beside him and laid her hand over his. She did not know how to say the words he wanted to hear. She could only look and look at him, with tears in her eyes and a little anxious, trembling smile on her lips.

The Thing Beyond Reason

A COMPLETE SHORT NOVEL—THE STORY OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE THAT LED LEXY MORAN TO A HOUSE OF TRAGEDY AND MYSTERY IN THE SUBURBS OF NEW YORK

THE house was very quiet to-night. There was nothing to disturb Miss Alexandra Moran but the placid ticking of the clock and the faint stir of the curtains at the open window. For that matter, a considerable amount of noise would not have troubled her just then. As she sat at the library table, the light of the shaded lamp shone upon her bright, ruffled head bent over her work in fiercest concentration. She was chewing the end of a badly damaged lead pencil, and she was scowling.

“No!” she said, half aloud. “Won’t do! It can’t be ‘fix’; but, by jiminy, I’ll get it if it takes all night!”

She laid down the pencil and sat back in the chair, with her arms folded. Though her present difficulty concerned nothing more serious than a cross-word puzzle, an observer might have learned a good deal of Miss Moran’s character from her manner of dealing with it. The puzzle itself, with its neat, clear little letters printed in the squares, would have been a revelation that whatever she undertook she did carefully and intelligently—and obstinately.

She was a young little thing, only twenty-three, and quite alone in the world, but not at all dismayed by that. Her father had died some three years ago, and, instead of leaving the snug little fortune she had been taught to expect, he had left nothing at all; so that at twenty she had had her first puzzle to solve—how to keep alive without eating the bread of charity.

It was no easy matter for a girl who was still in boarding school, but she had done it. She had come to New York and had found a post as nursery governess, and later as waitress in a tea room, and then in the art department of an enormous store. She had gained no tangible profit from these three years, she had no balance in the bank, but that did not trouble her. She had learned that she could stand on her own feet, that she could trust herself; and with this knowledge and the experience she had had, and her quick wits and splendid health, she felt herself fully armed against the world. Indeed, she had not a care on earth this evening except the cross-word puzzle.

“It must be ‘tocsin,’” she said to herself. “There’s something wrong with the verticals. It can’t be ‘fix,’ and yet—”

The telephone bell rang. Still pondering her problem, Lexy went across the room.

“No!” said the man’s voice. “She can’t—I—for God’s sake, where’s Miss Enderby?”

“She’s out,” Lexy repeated, startled. “She went to the opera with her mother and father.”

“Look here! Didn’t Miss Enderby say anything? Isn’t there any sort of message for me?”

“Nothing that I know of. The servants have gone to bed, but I’ll ask them, if it’s anything important.”

“That’s queer!” said Lexy to herself, as she walked away from the instrument, and then she dismissed the matter from her mind. “None of my business!” she thought, and returned to her puzzle.

“It is ‘fix’!” she cried. “And it’s not ‘tocsin,’ but ‘toxins’! Hurrah!”

This practically completed the puzzle, and she began to fill in the empty squares with the peculiar satisfaction of the cross-word enthusiast. It was perfect, now, and she liked things to be perfect.

“Golly! I didn’t realize it was so late!” she reflected. “Queer time for any one to ring up!”

She frowned again. Her special problem solved, she began to take more interest in other affairs; and the more she thought of the telephone incident, the more it amazed her. Caroline Enderby wasn’t like other girls. The mere fact of a man’s telephoning to her at all was strange and indeed unprecedented.

“And he was badly upset, too,” thought Lexy. “He asked if she left a message for him. Think of Caroline Enderby leaving a message for a man!”

“I’ll tell her when we’re alone,” she thought; “and she’ll have to explain—a little, anyhow.”

Lexy wanted an explanation very much, because she was fond of Caroline, and very sorry for her.

Mrs. Enderby was a Frenchwoman of the old-fashioned, conservative type, with the most rigid ideas about the bringing up of a young girl, and her husband—Lexy had often wondered what Mr. Enderby had been before his marriage, for now he was nothing but a grave and dignified echo of his wife. Between them, they had educated Caroline in a disastrous fashion. She had never even been to school. She had had governesses at home, and when a male teacher came in, for music or painting lessons, Mrs. Enderby had always sat in the room with her child. Caroline never went out of the house alone. She was utterly cut off from the normal life of other girls. She was a gentle, lovely creature—a little unreal, Lexy had thought her, at first; and she, at first, had been afraid of Lexy.

Mrs. Enderby had advertised for a secretary, and Lexy had answered the advertisement. Mrs. Enderby had wanted personal references, and Lexy had supplied them, some five or six, of the highest quality. Mrs. Enderby had investigated them with remarkable thoroughness, and had asked Lexy many questions. Indeed, it had taken ten days to satisfy her that Miss Moran was a fit person to come into her house, and Lexy had lived under her roof and under her eagle eye for a month before she was allowed to be alone with Caroline. After that first month, however, Mrs. Enderby had made up her mind that Lexy was to be trusted, and the thin pretext of “secretary” was dropped.[Pg 312]

Mrs. Enderby suffered from a not uncommon form of insomnia. She could not sleep at convenient hours—at night, for instance—but could and did sleep at very inconvenient hours during the day; and what she wanted was not a secretary, but a companion for her daughter during these hours.

She realized, too, that even the most strictly brought up jeune fille needed some sort of youthful society, and in Lexy she had found pretty well what she wanted—a well mannered, well bred young woman of unimpeachable honesty. So she had permitted Lexy and Caroline to go shopping alone, and sometimes to a matinée or to a tea room. She asked them shrewd questions when they came home, and their answers satisfied her perfectly. They had never even spoken to a man!

“And yet,” thought Miss Moran, “somehow Caroline has been carrying on with some one, without even me finding out! I didn’t know she had it in her!”

Lexy yawned mightily. She was growing very sleepy, but not for worlds would she go to bed until she had seen Caroline. She lay down on the divan, her hands clasped under her head, and let all sorts of little idle thoughts drift through her mind. Now and then a taxi went by, but this street in the East Sixties was a very quiet one. The house was so very still, and there was nothing in her own young heart to trouble her. Her eyes closed.

She was half asleep when the sound of Mrs. Enderby’s voice in the hall brought her to her feet. It was a penetrating voice, with a trace of foreign accent, and it was not a voice that Lexy loved. She went out of the library into the hall.

“Did you enjoy—” she began politely, and then stopped short. “But where’s Caroline?” she cried.

“But certainly! She had a headache. At the last moment she decided not to go with us. You were not here when we left, Miss Moran.”

“She went directly to bed,” Mrs. Enderby continued. “I thought, however, that she would have sent for you during the course of the evening.”

At heart, however, she was curiously uneasy. Mr. Enderby stopped for a moment, to give her some kindly information about the opera they had heard. Then he and his wife ascended the stairs, followed by Lexy; and with every step her uneasiness grew. She was sure that Caroline would have sent for her if she had been in the house.

“The light is out,” she said. “She will be asleep. I shall not disturb her. Good night, Miss Moran!”

She gave Mrs. Enderby twenty minutes to get safely stowed away; then she went out quietly into the hall, to Caroline’s room. She knocked softly; there was no answer. She turned the handle and went in; the room was dark and very still. She switched on the light.

Lexy’s first impulse was to close the door of that empty room, and to hold her tongue. It seemed to her that it would be treachery to Caroline to tell Mrs. Enderby. She and Caroline were both young, both of the same generation; they ought to stand loyally together against the tyrannical older people.

“Because, golly, what a row there’d be if Mrs. Enderby ever knew she’d gone out!” Lexy thought.

That was how she saw it, at first. Caroline had pretended to have a headache so that she would be left behind, and would get a chance to slip out alone. It was simply a lark. Lexy had known such things to happen often before, at boarding school; and the unthinkable and impossible thing was for one girl to tell on another.

“She’ll be back soon,” thought Lexy, “and she’ll tell me all about it.”

So she went into Caroline’s room, to wait. It was a charming room, pink and white, like Caroline herself. Lexy turned on the switch, and two rose-shaded lamps blossomed out like flowers. She sat down on a chaise longue, and stretched herself out, yawning. On the desk before her was Caroline’s writing apparatus, a quill pen of old rose, an ivory desk set, everything so dainty and orderly; only poor Caroline[Pg 313] had no friends, and never had letters to write or to answer.

“I wonder who on earth that was on the telephone,” Lexy reflected. “It was queer—just on the only night of her life when she’d ever gone out on her own. And he sounded so terribly upset! It was queer. Perhaps—”

She was aware of a fast-growing oppression. The influence of Caroline’s room was beginning to tell upon her. Caroline didn’t understand about larks. She wasn’t that sort of girl. Quiet, shy, and patient, she had never shown any trace of resentment against her restricted life, or any desire for the good times that other girls of her age enjoyed. The more Lexy thought about it, the more clearly she realized the strangeness of all this, and the more uneasy she became.

When the little Dresden clock on the mantelpiece struck one, it came as a shock. Lexy sprang to her feet and looked about the room, filled with unreasoning fear. One o’clock, and Caroline hadn’t come back! Suppose—suppose she never came back?

Lexy dismissed that idea with healthy scorn. Things like that didn’t happen; and yet—what was it that gave to the pink and white lamplit room such an air of being deserted?

She noticed now for the first time that the photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Enderby in silver frames, which had always stood on the writing desk, were not standing there now.

She turned to the bureau. Caroline’s silver toilet set was not there. She made a rapid survey of the room, and she made sure of her suspicions. Caroline had gone deliberately, taking with her all the things she would need on a short trip.

She went out into the corridor, closing the door behind her, and turned toward Mrs. Enderby’s room. She was very, very reluctant, for she dreaded to break the peace of the quiet house by this dramatic announcement. She hated anything in the nature of the sensational. Level-headed, cool, practical, her instinct was to make light of all this, to insist that nothing was really wrong. Caroline had gone, and that was that.

“There’s going to be such a fuss!” she thought. “If there’s anything I loathe, it’s a fuss.”

And all the time, under her cool and sensible exterior, she was frightened. She felt that after all she was very young, and very inexperienced, in a world where things—anything—things beyond her knowledge—might happen.

She knocked upon the door lightly—so lightly that no one heard her; and she had to knock again. This time Mrs. Enderby opened the door.

“I thought I ought to tell you—” Lexy began; and still she hesitated, moved by the unaccountable feeling that this might be treachery to Caroline.

“Tell me what?” asked Mrs. Enderby. “Come, if you please, Miss Moran! Tell me at once!”

The words were spoken. Lexy waited in great alarm, wondering if Mrs. Enderby would faint or scream.

The lady did neither. She came out into the corridor, shutting the door of her room behind her, and her first word and her only word was:

Then she glanced about her at the closed doors, and, taking Lexy’s arm in a firm grip, hurried her to Caroline’s room. Not until they were shut in there did she speak again.

“Now tell me!” she said. “Speak very low. You said—Caroline has gone?”

“Yes,” said Lexy. “I came in here after you’d gone to bed, and—you can see for yourself—the bed hasn’t been slept in. She’s taken her things—her brush and comb and—”

“Me? Why, nothing!” answered Lexy, in surprise. “I didn’t see her. I haven’t seen her since dinner.”

She spoke with cool certainty, and her black eyes were fixed upon Lexy with a far from pleasant expression.

“Very well!” she said. “You do not know exactly where she has gone. Bien, alors! You guess, eh?[Pg 314]”

She spoke firmly enough, and she was telling the truth; but she remembered that telephone call, and the memory brought a faint flush into her cheeks. Mrs. Enderby did not fail to notice it.

“Listen!” she said. “There is one thing you can do—only one thing. You can hold your tongue. Tell no one. Let no one know that Caroline is not here. You understand?”

“I am going to do nothing. You understand—nothing. There is to be no scandal in my house.”

“Hush! No one must know of this. To-morrow morning I shall have a letter from Caroline.”

“Oh!” said Lexy, with a sigh of genuine relief. “Oh, then you know where she’s gone!”

“I?” replied Mrs. Enderby. “I know nothing. This has come to me from a clear sky. I have always tried to safeguard my child. I—”

“It is the American blood in her,” Mrs. Enderby went on. “No French girl would treat her parents so; but in this country—She has gone with some fortune hunter. To-morrow I shall have a letter that she is married. ‘Please forgive me, chère Maman,’ she will say. ‘I am so happy. I, at nineteen, and of an ignorance the most complete, have made my choice without you.’ That is the American way, is it not? That is your ‘romance,’ eh? My one child—”

“No more!” she said. “It is finished. But—attend, Miss Moran! There must be no scandal. No one is to know that she is not here.”

“I don’t care!” she said to herself. “She’s wrong—I know it! It’s not what she thinks. Caroline’s not like that. Something dreadful has happened!”

III

It seemed perfectly natural to be awakened in the morning by Mrs. Enderby’s hand on her shoulder, and to look up into Mrs. Enderby’s flashing black eyes. Lexy had gone to sleep dominated by the thought of that masterful woman. She vaguely remembered having dreamed of her, and when she opened her eyes—there she was.

“Get up!” said Mrs. Enderby in a low voice. “Go into Caroline’s room. When Annie comes with the breakfast tray, take it from her at the door. I have told her that Caroline is ill with a headache. You understand?”

She sprang out of bed and began to dress, filled with an unreasoning sense of haste. It wasn’t a dream, then—it was true. Caroline had gone, and there was something Lexy must do for her. She could not have explained what this something was, but it oppressed and worried her. She could not rid herself of the feeling that she was not being loyal to Caroline.

“And yet,” she thought, “I had to tell Mrs. Enderby she wasn’t there. I suppose I ought to have told her about that telephone call, too, but I hate to do it! I know Caroline wouldn’t like me to; and what good can it do, anyhow? Whoever it was, he didn’t know where she was. It was the queerest thing—a man asking, ‘For God’s sake, where’s Miss Enderby?’ when she wasn’t here! No, Mrs. Enderby is wrong. Caroline hasn’t just gone away of her own accord. She’s not that sort of girl. Something has happened!”

Lexy finished dressing and went into Caroline’s room. In the gay April sunshine, that dainty room seemed almost unbearably forlorn.

She went over to the window and looked down into the street. People were passing by, and taxis, and private cars—all the ordinary, casual, cheerful daily life at which Caroline Enderby had so often looked out, like a poor enchanted princess in a tower. A wave of pity and affection rose in Lexy’s heart.

“Oh, poor Caroline!” she said to herself. “Such a dull, miserable life! I do wish—”

There was a knock at the door, and she hurried across the room to open it. The[Pg 315] parlor maid stood there with a tray. Lexy took it from her with a pleasant “good morning,” and closed the door again. Caroline’s breakfast! There was something disturbing in the sight of that carefully prepared tray, ready for the girl who was not there.

The door opened—without a preliminary knock, this time—and Mrs. Enderby came in. She turned the key behind her, and, without a word, went over to the bed and pulled off the covers. Then she went into the adjoining bathroom and started the water running in the tub. This done, she sat down at the table and began to eat the breakfast on the tray.

“All she cares about is keeping up appearances,” the girl thought. “The only thing that worries her is that some one might find out. She doesn’t know where poor Caroline is—and she can sit down and eat! I’m comparatively a stranger, and even I—”

Lexy was an honest soul, however. The fragrance of coffee and rolls reached her, and she admitted in her heart that she, too, could eat, if she had a chance.

Mrs. Enderby was not going to give her a chance just yet. She finished her meal and rose.

So they looked, in the wardrobe, in the drawers, even in the orderly desk. Very little was gone.

“And now,” said Mrs. Enderby, “you lent her—how much money, Miss Moran?”

Mrs. Enderby’s tone aroused a spirit of obstinate defiance in her. Those flashing black eyes were fixed upon her with an expression which did not please Lexy, and Lexy looked back with an expression which did not please Mrs. Enderby.

“So you will not tell me what you know!” said Mrs. Enderby, with a chilly smile.

It was on the tip of Lexy’s tongue to say, with considerable warmth, that she had told all she knew; but the memory of the telephone call checked her.

“If I tell her about that,” she thought, “she’ll just say, ‘Ah, I thought so!’ And she’ll be surer than ever that Caroline has eloped with a fortune hunter, and she won’t make any effort to find her. No—I’m not going to tell her until she gets really frightened.” Aloud she said: “I’ll do anything in the world that I can do, Mrs. Enderby, to help you find Caroline.”

There was another tap at the door. Mrs. Enderby closed the door leading into the bathroom, and then called:

“You may take away the tray,” her mistress said graciously. “Miss Enderby has finished.”

Again a feeling that was almost horror came over Lexy. There was the bed Caroline had slept in, there was the breakfast Caroline had eaten, there was Caroline’s bath running—and Caroline wasn’t there! Lexy wanted to get out of that room and away from Mrs. Enderby.

“Do you mind if I go down and get my own breakfast now?” she asked, when the parlor maid had gone out with the tray.

“But certainly not!” Mrs. Enderby blandly consented. “We shall go down together.”

She turned off the water in the bath, and, following Lexy out of the room, locked the door on the outside. The girl dropped behind her as they descended the stairs, and studied the stout, dignified figure before her with indignant interest.

“A mother!” she thought. “A mother, behaving like this! How long is she going to wait for her letter, I wonder? Well, if she won’t do anything, then, by jiminy, I will!”

A fresh example of Mrs. Enderby’s remarkable strength of mind awaited them. Mr. Enderby was already seated at the table in the dining room. As his wife entered, he rose, with his invariable politeness, and one glance at his ruddy, cheerful face convinced Lexy that he knew nothing of what had happened.

“Caroline has a headache,” Mrs. Enderby explained. “It will be better for her to rest for a little.”

“Ah! Too bad!” said he. “Don’t think she gets out in the air enough. Er—good morning, Miss Moran!”

Lexy almost forgot to answer him, so intent was she upon watching Mrs. Enderby open her letters. There must, she thought, be some change in that calm, pale face when she didn’t find a letter from Caroline,[Pg 316] there must be something to break this inhuman tranquillity.

But nothing broke it. Mr. Enderby ate his breakfast, and his wife chatted affably with him while she glanced over her mail. The sunshine poured into the room, gleaming on silver and linen, and on the cheerful young parlor maid moving quietly about her duties. It was a morning just like other mornings; and, in spite of herself, Lexy’s feeling of dread and oppression began to lighten. Mr. Enderby was so thoroughly unperturbed, Mrs. Enderby was so serene and majestic, the house was so bright and pleasant in the spring morning, that it was hard to believe that anything could be really amiss.

Mr. Enderby finished his breakfast and rose, and, as usual, his wife accompanied him to the front door. Alone in the dining room, Lexy made haste to finish her own meal. Just as she pushed back her chair, Mrs. Enderby returned.

“I shall ring, Annie,” she told the parlor maid, and the girl disappeared. Then she turned to Lexy. “The letter has come,” she said.

Lexy stared at her with such an expression of amazement and dismay that Mrs. Enderby smiled.

“You are very young,” she said. “You wish always for the dramatic. When you have lived as long as I, you will see that such things do not happen.”

“No, my child,” she went on. “In this life it is always the same things that happen again and again. At twenty, one breaks the heart for a man; at forty, one breaks the heart for one’s child. There is only that—and money. Love and money—nothing else!”

Lexy felt extraordinarily sorry for Mrs. Enderby; but even yet she couldn’t quite believe that Caroline could have done such a thing.

Mrs. Enderby smiled again, faintly, and held out her hand for the letter. Lexy returned it to her, with an almost mechanical glance at the postmark—“Wyngate, Connecticut.”

All her defiance had vanished. She was obliged to admit now that Mrs. Enderby was wise, and that she herself was—

“Do you mind if I go out for a walk?” asked the crestfallen Lexy; for that was her instinct in any sort of trouble—to get out into the fresh air and walk.

“No,” answered Mrs. Enderby; “but I shall ask you to return in half an hour. There is much to be done.”

“That I shall tell you when you return,” said Mrs. Enderby. “In the meantime, I trust you to say nothing of all this to any person whatever. You understand, Miss Moran?”

Miss Moran certainly did not understand, but she gave her promise to keep silent, and, putting on her hat and coat, hurried out of the house. Mighty glad she was to get out, too!

“But why make a mystery of it like this?” she thought. “Every one has to know, sooner or later, and it’s so—so ghastly, pretending that Caroline’s there! Oh, it doesn’t seem possible, Caroline running off like that, and I never even dreaming she was the least bit interested in any man! I don’t see how she could have seen any one or written to any one without my knowing it. It doesn’t seem possible!”

She had reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, and was waiting for a halt in the traffic, when she became aware of a young man who was standing near her and staring at her. She glanced carelessly at him, and[Pg 317] he took off his hat, but he got no acknowledgment of his salute. He was a stranger, and she meant him to remain a stranger. The bright-haired, sturdy little Lexy was a very pretty girl, and she was not unaccustomed to strange young men who stared. She knew how to handle them.

As she crossed the avenue, he crossed, too. When she entered the park, he followed. Now Lexy was never tolerant of this sort of thing, and to-day, in her anxiety and distress, she was less so than ever. She turned her head and looked the young man squarely in the face with a scornful and frigid look; and he took off his hat again!

“Just you say one word,” said she to herself, “and I’ll call a policeman!”

Yet, as she walked briskly on, something in the man’s expression haunted her. He didn’t look like that sort of man. His sunburned face somehow seemed to her a very honest one, and the expression on it was not at all flirtatious, but terribly troubled and unhappy.

“Perhaps he thinks he knows me,” she thought. “Well, he doesn’t, and he’s not going to, either!”

“When did Caroline go?” she pondered, continuing her own miserable train of thought. “While I was doing cross words in the library? If she went out by the front door, she must have gone right past the library. She must have known I was there—and not even to say good-by!”

It hurt. She had grown very fond of the shy, quiet Caroline, and she had firmly believed that Caroline was fond of her. What is more, she had thought Caroline trusted her.

“She didn’t though. All the time, when we were so friendly together, she must have been planning this and—what?”

She stopped short, her dark brows meeting in a fierce frown, for the unknown man had come up beside her and spoken to her.

“I’ve got to speak to you,” he said. “It’s—look here! I’ve been waiting outside the house all morning. Look here, please! You’re Lexy, aren’t you?”

“If you don’t stop bothering me this instant—” she began hotly, but he paid no heed.

Lexy grew very pale. Those were the words she had heard over the telephone last night, and this was the same voice.

For a moment she was silent, staring at him, while he looked back at her, his blue eyes searching her face with a look of desperate entreaty. All her doubts vanished. She had not been wrong. She had been right—she was sure of it. She knew that something had happened—something inexplicable and dreadful.

“Please tell me!” he said. “You don’t know—you can’t know—she told me you were her friend.”

“I—” he began, and stopped. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” he went on. “I’d like to, but, you see, I can’t. If you’ll just tell me where Car—Miss Enderby is! She’s safe at home, isn’t she? She—of course she is! She must be! She—she is, isn’t she?”

“Well,” said Lexy slowly, “I don’t see how I can tell you anything at all. I don’t know what right you have to ask any questions. I don’t know who you are, or anything about you.”

“No,” he replied, “I know that; but, after all, it’s not much of a question, is it—just if Miss Enderby’s all right?”

Lexy felt very sorry for him, in his obvious struggle to speak quietly and reasonably. She wanted to answer him promptly and candidly, for his sake and for her own, because she felt sure that he could tell her something about Caroline; but she had promised Mrs. Enderby to say nothing.

“It’s so silly!” she thought, exasperated. “If I could tell him, I might find out—”

Find out what? Hadn’t Caroline written to say that she had gone away to get married? In a day or two, probably to-morrow, they would learn all the details from Caroline herself. This unhappy young man couldn’t know anything. Indeed, he was asking for information.

Who could he possibly be? A rival suitor? Lexy remembered Caroline’s pitifully restricted life. Two suitors of whom she had never heard? It wasn’t possible!

“Look here!” the young man said again. “Aren’t you going to answer me? Just tell me she’s all right, and—”

“You’re playing with me,” he said. “You’re fencing with me, to make me give myself away; and it’s a pretty rotten thing to do!”

“Rotten?” Lexy repeated indignantly. “Rotten, not to answer questions from a perfect stranger?”

“Yes,” he said, “it is; because that’s a question you could answer for any one. I’ve only asked you if Miss Enderby is—all right.”

This high-handed tone didn’t suit Lexy at all. He was actually presuming to be angry, and that made her angry.

“I shan’t tell you anything at all,” she said, and began to walk on again.

“Look here!” he said. “Caroline told me you were her friend. She said you could be trusted. All right—I am trusting you. I’ve felt, all along, that there was—something wrong. I’ve got to know! If you’ll give me your word that she’s safe at home, I’ll clear out, and apologize for having made a first-class fool of myself; but if she’s not, I ought to know!”

“I can’t answer any questions this morning,” she told him. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

He was silent for a long time, staring at the ground, and Lexy waited, with a fast beating heart, for some word that would enlighten her. At last he looked up.

“I’ve got to trust you,” he said simply. “Caroline meant to tell you, anyhow. You see”—he paused—“I’m Charles Houseman, the man she’s going to marry.”

She stared and stared at him, filled with amazement and pity. Such a nice-looking, straightforward, manly sort of fellow—and such a look of pain and bewilderment in his blue eyes!

“Of course she did! She—look here! You don’t know what I’ve been through. It was I who telephoned last night. I—”

“But why did you? Oh, please tell me! I am Caroline’s friend—truly her friend. I want to understand!”

“All right!” he said. “I telephoned because I was waiting for her, and she didn’t come.”

“We had arranged to get married last night. She was to meet me, but she didn’t come,” he said, a little unsteadily. “Perhaps she just changed her mind. Perhaps she doesn’t want to see me any more. If that’s the case, I’ll trust you not to mention anything about me—to any one. You see now, don’t you, that I—I had to know?”

Lexy’s eyes filled with tears. Moved by a generous impulse, she held out her hand.

“Why? You mean—for God’s sake, tell me! You mean she has changed her mind?”

“You can’t leave it at that,” said he. He had taken her outstretched hand, and he held it tight. “I ought to know what has happened. I can’t believe that Caroline would let me down like that. She—she’s not that sort of girl. Something’s gone wrong. She wouldn’t leave me waiting and waiting there for her at Wyngate.”

She stopped abruptly. Caroline’s letter had been postmarked “Wyngate.” She had gone there to meet—some one. She had married—some one.

“I can’t understand,” Lexy went on. “It’s terrible! I can’t tell you now; but I’ll meet you here this afternoon, after lunch—about two o’clock—and I’ll tell you then.”

She turned away, then, in haste to get back to Mrs. Enderby, but he stopped her.

“Remember!” he said sternly. “I’ve trusted you. If Caroline hasn’t told her people about me, you mustn’t mention my name. I gave her my word that I would let her do the telling. I didn’t want it that way, but I promised her, and you’ve got to do the same. If she hasn’t told about me, you’re not to.”

“Oh, Lord!” cried poor Lexy. “Well, all right, I won’t! Now, for goodness’ sake, go away, and let me alone—to do the best I can!”

Lexy was late. The half hour had been considerably exceeded when she ran up the steps of the Enderbys house. She rang[Pg 319] the bell, and the door was opened promptly by Annie.

“Mrs. Enderby would like to see you at once, miss,” the parlor maid said primly.

But Lexy stopped to look covertly at Annie. Did she know anything? It was possible. Anything was possible now. Lexy was obliged to admit, however, that Annie had no appearance of guilt or mystery. A brisk and sober woman of middle age, who had been with the family for nearly ten years, she looked nothing more or less than disapproving because this young person had presumed to keep Mrs. Enderby waiting for several minutes.

“Anyhow, I can’t ask her,” thought Lexy. “That’s the worst part of all this—I can’t ask anybody anything without breaking a promise to somebody else; and yet everybody ought to know everything!”

In miserable perplexity, she went upstairs to Mrs. Enderby’s sitting room. Only one thing was clear in her mind, and that was that she must be freed from her weak-minded promise not to mention Caroline’s absence.

“And that’s not going to be easy,” she reflected, “when I can’t explain to her. There’ll be a row. Well, I don’t care!”

She did care, however. She respected Mrs. Enderby, and in her secret heart she was a little afraid of her. She felt very young, very crude and blundering, in the presence of that masterful woman; and she doubted her own wisdom.

“But what can I do?” she thought. “He said he trusted me. I can’t tell her! No, first I’ll get her to let me off that promise, and I’ll go and tell that young man. Then I’ll make him let me off, and I’ll come and tell her. Golly, how I hate all this fool mystery!”

Mrs. Enderby was writing at her desk as Lexy entered the room. She glanced up, unsmiling.

She rose, and Lexy followed her down the hall to Caroline’s room. Mrs. Enderby unlocked the door, and, when they had entered, locked the door on the inside.

“In fifteen minutes the car is coming,” she said. “I wish you to put on Caroline’s hat and coat and a veil, and leave the house with me.”

“I wish it to be thought that you are Caroline,” Mrs. Enderby corrected her. “Please waste no time. The car will be here—”

But Lexy was pretty close to desperation now. Her honest and vigorous spirit was entangled in a network of promises and obligations and deceptions, and she could not see how to free herself; but she would not passively submit.

“No,” she said, “I can’t. I’ve found out something—I can’t tell you about it just now, but this afternoon I hope—”

“This afternoon is another thing,” said Mrs. Enderby. “In the meantime—”

“You think I do not know? You think this letter sets my mind at rest?” Mrs. Enderby demanded, with one of her sudden flashes of temper. “That is imbecile! I know how serious it is that my child should leave me like this; but I know what is my duty—first, to my husband. That first, I tell you! It is for me to see that no disgrace comes upon his house, no scandal—that first! Then, next, I must see to it that the way is left open for Caroline to come back—if she wishes.” She came close to Lexy, and fixed those black eyes of hers upon the girl’s face. “I tell you, Miss Moran, there will be no scandal!”

“No—we shall not suppose. I have told the servants that to-day Miss Enderby goes into the country, to visit her old governess for a few days. Very well—they shall see her go. If there is no other letter to-morrow, I shall tell Mr. Enderby.”

As if hypnotized, Lexy began to dress herself in Caroline’s clothes; but, as she glanced in the mirror to adjust the close-fitting little hat, the monstrousness of the whole thing overwhelmed her. She had so often seen Caroline in this hat and coat!

“Oh, I can’t!” she cried. “I can’t! Suppose something terrible has happened to her, and I’m—”

“Keep quiet!” said Mrs. Enderby fiercely. “I tell you it shall be so! Now, the[Pg 320] veil. No, not like that—not as if you were disguising yourself! So!”

She unlocked the door, and, taking Lexy by the arm, went out into the hall. Together they descended the stairs, Mrs. Enderby chatting volubly in French, as she was wont to do with her daughter. None of the servants would think of interrupting her, or of staring at her companion. It was an ordinary, everyday scene. Annie was crossing the lower hall.

“Miss Moran will be out all day,” said Mrs. Enderby. “There will be no one at home for lunch.”

The maid would not notice when—or if—Miss Moran went out. There was nothing to arouse suspicion in any one.

They went out to the car. A small trunk was strapped on behind. Everything had been prepared for Miss Enderby’s visit to the country. The chauffeur opened the door and touched his cap respectfully, the two women got in, and off they went.

“Now you will please to dismiss this subject from your mind,” said Mrs. Enderby. “I do not wish to talk of it.” She spoke kindly now. “You will have a pleasant day in the country.”

“Oh, I’ve got to get back this afternoon! I’ve got to see some one! It’s important—terribly important!”

“The chauffeur must see you descend at Miss Craigie’s house,” she said. “Once we are there, I have a hat and coat of your own in the trunk. I shall explain what is necessary to Miss Craigie, who is very discreet, very devoted. You can change then, but you must go home quietly by train; and I think there are not many trains.”

Lexy had a vision of the young man waiting and waiting for her in the park that afternoon—the young man who had trusted her, who was waiting in such miserable anxiety for some news of Caroline.

“Mrs. Enderby,” she protested, “I can’t come with you. I’ve got to get back this afternoon.”

“It’s important—to you,” she said. “I have to see some one about Caroline—some one who can tell you something.”

This time Mrs. Enderby made no answer at all. There she sat, stout, majestic, absolutely impervious, looking out of the window as if Lexy did not exist. What was to be done? She couldn’t communicate with the chauffeur except by leaning across Mrs. Enderby, and a struggle with that lady was out of the question.

She waited until the car slowed down at a crossing. Then she made a sudden dart for the door. With equal suddenness Mrs. Enderby seized her arm.

“Sit down!” she said, in a singularly unpleasant whisper. “There shall be no scene. Sit down, I tell you!”

“I won’t!” replied Lexy, but just then the car started forward, and she fell back on the seat.

That overbearing tone, that grasp on her arm, were very nearly too much for Lexy. She had always been quick-tempered. All the Morans were, and were perversely proud of it, too; but Lexy had learned many lessons in a hard school. She had learned to control her temper, and she did so now. She was silent for a time.

“All right!” she agreed, at last. “I’ll come. I don’t see what else I can do—now; but after this I’ll have to use my own judgment, Mrs. Enderby.”

“I know very well what you mean,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You mean that you will keep faith with me no longer. I saw that. You wished to run off and tell your story to some one this afternoon. I stopped that. After this, I cannot stop you any longer. You will tell, but I think no one will listen to you. I shall deny it, and no one will be likely to listen to the word of a discharged employee.”

“You are discharged,” interrupted Mrs. Enderby, “because I do not like to have my daughter’s companion running into the park to meet a young man.”

And nothing more. All the warmth of her anger had gone, and in its place had[Pg 321] come an overwhelming depression. For all her sturdiness and courage, she was young and generous and sensitive, and those words of Mrs. Enderby’s hurt her cruelly.

She sat very still, looking out of the window. They had left the city now, and were on the Boston road. It was a sweet, fresh April day, and under a bright and windy sky the countryside was showing the first soft green of spring.

Lexy remembered. She remembered the things she had so valiantly tried to forget—the dear, happy days that were past, spring days like this, in her own home, with her mother and father; early morning rides on her little black mare, and coming home to the old house, to the people who loved her; her father’s laugh, her mother’s wonderful smile, the friendly faces of the servants.

She was not old enough or wise enough as yet, for these memories to be a solace to her. They were pain—nothing but pain. There was no one now to love her, or even to be interested in her. She had cut herself off from her old friends and gone out alone, like a poor, rash, gallant little knight-errant, into the wide world to seek her fortune. Caroline had disappeared, and Mrs. Enderby had dismissed her with savage contempt. She would have to go out now and look for a new job.

“This won’t do!” she said to herself. “It’s disgusting, mawkish self-pity, and nothing else. I’m young and healthy, and I can always find a job. What I want to think about now is Caroline, and what I ought to do for her.”

So she did begin to think about Caroline. The first thought that came into her head was such an extraordinary one that it startled her.

Lucky? Caroline, who had lived like a prisoner, and who had now so strangely disappeared, lucky—simply because a sunburned, blue-eyed young man was so miserably anxious about her?

“I suppose he’s thinking about her this minute,” Lexy reflected; “and I’m sure nobody in the world is thinking about me. Well, I don’t care!”

The car took them to a drowsy little village, and stopped before a small cottage on a side street. Mrs. Enderby got out, followed by Lexy, the living ghost of Caroline. Side by side they went up the flagged path and on to the porch. Mrs. Enderby rang the bell, and in a moment the door was opened by a thin, sandy-haired woman in spectacles.

“Mrs. Enderby!” she cried, her plain face lighting up in a delighted smile. “And my dear little Caroline!” She held out her hand to Lexy, and suddenly her face changed. “But—” she began.

“Hush!” said Mrs. Enderby. “I shall explain to you. Please allow the chauffeur to carry upstairs a small trunk, and please have no air of surprise.”

Evidently Miss Craigie was in the habit of obeying Mrs. Enderby. She opened the front door and called the chauffeur, who came in with the trunk.

“Turn your back!” whispered Mrs. Enderby to Lexy. “Go and look out of the window!”

Lexy heard the man go past the sitting room and up the stairs. Presently he came running down, and the front door closed after him.

“Now, Miss Craigie,” said Mrs. Enderby, “if you will permit Miss Moran to go upstairs?”

“Oh, certainly!” answered the bewildered Miss Craigie. “Whatever you think best, Mrs. Enderby, I’m sure.”

The lady’s tone aroused in Lexy a great desire not to go. Of course, now that she had gone so far, it would be childish to refuse to continue; but she meant to take her time. She stood there by the window, slowly drawing off her gloves, her back turned to the room. Suddenly Mrs. Enderby caught her by the shoulder and turned her around.

“Go!” she said again. “Take off those things of my child’s. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Have you no heart?”

There was such a note of anguish in her voice that Lexy no longer delayed. She followed Miss Craigie up the stairs to a neat, prim little bedroom, where the trunk stood, already unlocked.

“If you want anything—” suggested Miss Craigie, in her gentle and apologetic way.

Miss Craigie went out, closing the door[Pg 322] softly behind her. Lexy took off Caroline’s hat and coat and laid them on the bed.

For a long time she stood motionless, looking down at the things that Caroline had worn. Most pitifully eloquent, they seemed to her—the hat that had covered Caroline’s fair hair, the coat that had fitted her slender shoulders. Lexy looked and looked, grave and sorrowful—and in that moment her resolution was made.

“I’m going to find her!” she said, half aloud. “I don’t care what any one else does or what any one else thinks. I know she’s in trouble of some sort, and I’m going to find her!”

The last trace of what Lexy had called “mawkish self-pity” had vanished now. She was no longer concerned with Mrs. Enderby’s attitude toward herself. It didn’t matter. Finding another job didn’t matter, either. She had a little money due her, and she meant to use it—every penny of it—in finding Caroline.

She washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, put on her own hat and jacket, and went downstairs again. Mrs. Enderby was standing in the tiny hall, and from the sitting room there came a sound of muffled sobbing.

“She is an imbecile, that woman!” said Mrs. Enderby, with a sigh; “but she will hold her tongue. And you?”

“I’ve got to do as I think best,” answered Lexy. “I’ll say good-by now, Mrs. Enderby.”

“There is no train until three o’clock. It is now after one. We shall have lunch directly.”

“No, thank you,” said Lexy. “I’d rather go now. I dare say I can find something to eat in the village.”

She was not in the least angry now, or hurt; only she wanted to get away, by herself, to think this out.

“Good-by?” repeated Mrs. Enderby, with a smile. “You think, then, never to see me again?”

“No,” said Lexy. “I mean to see you again—when I have something to tell you; but just now I want to go back and pack up my things.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then, to Lexy’s amazement, Mrs. Enderby laid a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.

“My child,” she said, “you think I am a very hard woman. Perhaps it is so; but, like you, I do what seems to me the right. Certainly it is better now that you should leave us; but not like this. You must have your lunch here, then you must return to the house and sleep there, all in the usual way. To-morrow you shall go.” She paused a moment. “You shall go, if you are still determined that you will not keep faith with me.”

It was not a very difficult matter to touch Lexy’s heart. Whatever resentment she may have felt against Mrs. Enderby vanished now, lost in a sincere pity and respect; but she was firm in her purpose.

“I’ve got to tell one person,” she said. “If I do, I shall be able to tell you something you ought to know. I wish you could trust me! I wish you could believe that all I’m thinking of is—Caroline!”

“I do believe you,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You are very honest, and very, very young. You wish to do good, but you do harm. Very well, my child—I cannot stop you. Go your way, and I go mine; but”—she paused again, and again smiled her faint, shadowy smile—“if I think it right that you should be sacrificed, it shall be so. I am sorry. I have affection for you. I shall be sorry if you stand in my way.”

And so she was. There was nothing in her heart now but sorrow for them all—for Caroline, for Mrs. Enderby, for the luckless Mr. Houseman, even for Miss Craigie; but most of all for Caroline.

“I’ve got to find her,” she thought, over and over again; “and he’ll help me!”

She had lunch in Miss Craigie’s cottage—a melancholy meal, with the hostess red-eyed and dejected and Mrs. Enderby sternly silent. Then, after lunch, poor Miss Craigie was sent out for a drive, in order to get rid of the chauffeur while Lexy slipped out of the house and down to the station.

Everything went as Mrs. Enderby had willed it. Lexy caught the designated train, and returned to the city. All the way in, her great comfort was the thought of Mr. Houseman. He would help her. Now she could tell him that Caroline had gone, and he would help her.

“Of course, I’ve missed him to-day,” she thought; “but he’s sure to be in the park again to-morrow. Perhaps he’ll telephone.[Pg 323] He’s not the sort to be easily discouraged, I’m sure.”

It was dark when she reached the Grand Central, but, at the risk of being late for dinner, Lexy chose to walk back to the house. She could always think better when she was walking.

“I want to get the thing in order in my own mind,” she reflected. “Mrs. Enderby is so—confusing. Here’s the case—Mr. Houseman says Caroline promised to meet him last night at a place called Wyngate, and they were to be married. She left the house. This morning there was a letter from her, postmarked Wyngate; but he says she didn’t go there. Well, then, where did she go?”

“I’ll have to wait,” Lexy went on. “I’ll have to find out more from Mr. Houseman. Perhaps they misunderstood each other. It’s no use trying to guess. I’ll have to wait till I see him.”

She recalled his honest, sunburned face with great good will. He was her ally. He was young, like herself, not old and cautious and deliberate. She liked him. She trusted him. In her loneliness and anxiety, he seemed a friend.

“Yes, miss,” she answered. “Mrs. Enderby came home in the car half an hour ago. Dinner ’ll be served in ten minutes. Here’s a letter for you. A young man left it about twenty minutes ago.”

“If I’d taken a taxi from Grand Central, I’d have seen him!” was Lexy’s first thought.

Even a letter was something, however, and she ran upstairs with it, very much pleased. Of course, it was from Mr. Houseman. She locked the door, and, standing against it, looked at the envelope. It was addressed to “Miss Lexy” in a good clear hand. That made her smile, remembering her first indignation that morning.

Dear Miss Lexy:

Please excuse me for addressing you like this, but I don’t know your other name. I forgot to ask you.

I waited in the park for you all afternoon. When it got dark, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I went to the house and asked for Miss Enderby. The servant told me she had gone away to the country with her mother this morning.

Please tell Miss Enderby that I understand. I am sorry she didn’t tell me before that she had changed her mind, instead of letting me wait like that; but it’s finished now. Please tell her she can count on me to hold my tongue, and never to bother her again in any way.

We are sailing to-night, or I should have tried to see you to-morrow. In case you have any message for me, you can address me at the company’s office, J. J. Eames & Son, 99 State Street. I expect to be back in about six weeks.

Very truly yours,
Charles Houseman.

VII

It was after breakfast the next morning. Mr. Enderby had gone to his office, and Mrs. Enderby and Lexy were alone in the dining room. There was an odd sort of friendliness between them. Lexy felt no constraint in asking questions.

Lexy could have smiled at this. She knew how likely Mrs. Enderby was to be guided by her husband; but she kept the smile and the thought to herself.

“My child,” said Mrs. Enderby, “it is clear that you wish to amuse yourself with a grand mystery. I tell you there is no mystery, but you do not believe me. I ask you to say nothing of this matter, but you refuse. So I say to you now—go your own way, proceed with your mystery. I do not think you can hurt me very much.”

“I don’t want to hurt any one,” she declared stiffly. “I just want to help your daughter.”

“Then I’ll say good-by, Mrs. Enderby,” she said. “My trunk’s packed. I’ll send for it this afternoon.[Pg 324]”

“Pardon me—you saw it yesterday. It is a small village through which we passed on the way to Miss Craigie’s house.”

“Now that you do know, perhaps you will spare yourself the trouble of going there,” said Mrs. Enderby. “I assure you you will not find Caroline there. I myself made certain inquiries. No such person has arrived in Wyngate.”

“But I observe by your face that you are not convinced,” Mrs. Enderby went on. “‘This Mrs. Enderby, she is a stupid old creature,’ you think to yourself. ‘I shall go there myself, and I shall discover that which she could not.’”

“I don’t mean it that way,” she said. “It’s only that we look at this from different points of view, and I feel—I feel that I’ve got to go.”

“Very well!” said Mrs. Enderby, and she, too, rose. “You will please to come to my room with me. There is part of your salary to be paid to you.”

Lexy followed her, still flushed, and very reluctant. She wished she could afford to refuse that money.

“But I’ve earned it,” she thought; “and goodness knows I’ll need it!”

Mrs. Enderby sat down at her desk and took out her check book. While she wrote, Lexy looked out of the window.

“The amount due to you, including to-day, is thirty-two dollars,” said Mrs. Enderby. “Here is a check for it.”

“You will please take it and say nothing more. I give you this because I shall give you no reference. I shall answer no inquiries about you. You understand?”

Mrs. Enderby pushed back her chair, and rose. She crossed the room to Lexy, put both hands on the girl’s shoulders, and then did something far more astonishing than the gift of the check. She kissed Lexy on the forehead.

“Good-by, and God bless you, little honest one!” she said, with a smile. “I think we shall not see each other again, but I shall sometimes remember you. Go, now, and bear in mind that you can always trust Miss Craigie. She is an imbecile, but she can be trusted. Adieu!”

“Au revoir!” she said stoutly; and then, with one of her sudden impulses, she put both arms around Mrs. Enderby’s neck and returned her kiss vigorously. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I’m awfully sorry!”

This was their parting. Lexy was thankful that it had been like this, very glad that she could leave the house in good will and kindliness. It strengthened her beyond measure. She wanted to help Caroline, and she wanted to help Mrs. Enderby, too.

“And I will!” she thought. “I know that I’m right and she’s wrong! She’s rather terrible, too. Sometimes I think she’d almost rather not find out the truth, if it was going to make what she calls a scandal. She will have it that Caroline’s gone away of her own free will, to get married; and if it’s anything else, she doesn’t want to know. She is hard, but there’s something rather fine about her.”

There was no one in the hall when Lexy left, and this was a relief, for she supposed that Mrs. Enderby had told the servants, or would tell them, that Miss Moran had been discharged.

She went out and closed the door behind her. A fine, thin rain was falling—nothing to daunt a healthy young creature like Lexy; yet she wished that the sun had been shining. She wished that she hadn’t had to leave the house in the rain, under a gray sky. Somehow it made her only too well aware that she was homeless now, and alone.

As was her habit when depressed, she set off to walk briskly; and by the time she reached the Grand Central her cheeks were glowing and her heart considerably less heavy. She learned that she had nearly three hours to wait for the next train to Wyngate; so she bought her ticket, checked her bag, and went out again.

In a near-by department store she bought a little chamois pocket. Then she went to the bank, cashed both her checks, and, putting the bills into her pocket, hung it around her neck inside her blouse. It[Pg 325] was very comfortable to have so much money.

Then, only as a forlorn hope, she rang up the offices of J. J. Eames & Son, on State Street.

“I don’t suppose they keep track of their passengers,” she thought; “but it can’t do any harm.”

“Certainly!” answered an equally polite voice at the other end of the wire. “Just a moment, please! You mean Mr. Houseman, second officer on the Mazell?”

There was an instant’s silence. Then the voice spoke again, a little unsteadily.

“He’s laughing at me!” thought Lexy indignantly, and her voice became severely dignified.

“Thank you!” said Lexy. “And that’s that!” she added, to herself. “So he’s a sailor! I rather like sailors. Well, anyhow, he’s gone.” She sighed. “Carry on!” she said.

She went into a tea room on Forty-Second Street and ordered herself a very good lunch.

“Much better than I can afford,” she thought. “Goodness knows what’s going to happen to me! Here I am, without visible means of support. I suppose I’m an idiot. Lots of people would say so. They’d say I ought to be looking for a new job this instant; but I don’t care! I’m not going back on Caroline. Mrs. Enderby won’t do anything, and Mr. Houseman’s gone away, and there’s nobody but me. Perhaps I can’t do very much, but, by jiminy, I’m going to try!”

There was still an hour to spare, and she passed it in a fashion she had often scornfully denounced. She went shopping—without buying. She wandered through a great department store, looking at all sorts of things. Some of them she wanted, but she resolutely told herself that she was better off without them.

Then, at the proper time, she went back to the Grand Central, recovered her bag, bought herself two or three magazines and a bar of chocolate, and boarded the train. For all that she tried to be so cool and sensible, she could not help feeling a queer little thrill of excitement. Her quest had begun, and she could not in any way foresee the end.

VIII

Now it certainly was not Lexy’s way to take any great interest in strange young men. There was not a trace of coquetry in her honest heart, and she had always looked upon the little flirtations of her friends with distaste and wonder.

She believed that. She would have denied indignantly that her present mission was romantic. She thought it a matter-of-course thing which she was in honor bound to do for her friend Caroline Enderby. She felt that she was very cool and practical about it, and a mighty sensible sort of girl altogether.

Certainly she saw the young man on the train, for her alert glance saw pretty well everything. She saw him, and she thought she had never set eyes on a handsomer man.

He was very tall, and slenderly and strongly built. He was dressed with fastidious perfection, and he had an air of marked distinction. In short, he was a man whom any one would look at—and remember; but Lexy, the unromantic girl, thought him inferior to the blue-eyed Mr. Houseman. She preferred young Houseman’s blunt, sunburned face to the dark and haughty one of this stranger. She simply was not interested in dark and haughty strangers, however distinguished and handsome. She looked at this one, and then returned to her magazines.

She had a weakness for detective stories, and she was reading one now—reading it in the proper spirit, uncritical and absorbed. Whenever the train stopped at a station, she glanced up, and more than once, as she turned her head, she caught the stranger’s eye. She wondered, later on, why she hadn’t had some sort of premonition. People in stories always did. They always recognized at once the other people who were going to be in the story with them; but Lexy did not. Even toward the end of the journey, when she and the stranger were the only ones left in the car, she was not aware of any interest in him.[Pg 326]

Even when he, too, got out at Wyngate, Lexy was not specially interested. It was only a little after five o’clock, but it was dark already on that rainy afternoon, and the only thing that interested her just then was the sight of a solitary taxi drawn up beside the platform. Bag in hand, she hurried toward it, but the stranger got there before her. When she arrived, he was speaking to the driver.

There was no other taxi or vehicle of any sort in sight, no other lights were visible except those of the station. It was a strange and unknown world upon which she looked in the rainy dusk, and she felt a justifiable annoyance with the ungallant stranger. He jumped into the cab and slammed the door.

But before the driver could answer, the door of the cab opened, and the stranger sprang out.

“I beg your pardon!” he said, standing hat in hand before Lexy. “I’m most awfully sorry! Give you my word I didn’t notice. I should have noticed, of course. Absent-minded sort of beggar, you know! Please take the cab, won’t you? I don’t in the least mind waiting. Please take it! Allow me!”

He tried to take her bag. His manner was not at all haughty. On the contrary, it was a very agreeable manner, and the impulsive Lexy liked him.

“Oh, no!” he protested. “Please take the cab! Give you my word I don’t mind waiting.”

“It’s a dismal place to wait in,” said Lexy. “We can both go, just as well as not.”

“I don’t know,” said Lexy. “I suppose there’s a hotel, isn’t there?”

“I say!” exclaimed the stranger. “Just what I’d been asking him, you know! He says there’s no hotel, but a very decent boarding house.”

The stranger took her bag, and put it into the taxi. He would have assisted Lexy, but she was already inside; so he, too, got in. He closed the door, and off they went.

“I am sorry, you know,” he said, “shoving ahead like that; but I didn’t notice—”

“Right-o!” said he. “You won’t mind my saying you’ve been wonderfully nice about it?”

“No, I don’t mind that a bit,” replied Lexy. “I like to be wonderfully nice.”

“Will you allow me to introduce myself?” said the stranger. “Grey, you know—George Grey—Captain Grey, you know.”

“Captain of a ship?” asked Lexy, with interest. She thought she would like to talk about ships.

“Oh, no!” said he, rather shocked. “Army—British army—stationed in India.”

“Did you really?” said he, as if surprised. “People do seem to know. My first visit to your country—six months’ leave—so I’ve come here to see my sister—Mrs. Quelton. She’s married to an American doctor.”

Lexy thought there was something almost pathetic in his chivalrous anxiety to explain himself.

There was no opportunity for further polite conversation, for the taxi had stopped and the driver came around to the door.

So Captain Grey took Lexy’s arm, and they did make a run for it, through the fine, chilly rain, along a garden path and up on a veranda. The door was opened at once.

They followed her into a dimly lit hall. She opened a door on the right, and lit the gas in what was obviously the “best parlor”—a dreadful room, stiff and ugly, and smelling of camphor and dampness. Captain Grey remained in the hall to settle with the driver, and Lexy decided to let her share of the reckoning wait for a more auspicious occasion. She went into the parlor with Mrs. Royce.[Pg 327]

“He’s not my husband,” replied Lexy, with a laugh. “I never set eyes on him before. There was only one taxi, and we were both looking for a hotel. The driver said you took boarders, and that’s how we happened to come together.”

“I don’t take boarders much, ’cept in the summer time,” said Mrs. Royce. She was a stout, comfortable sort of creature, gray-haired, and very neat in her dark dress and clean white apron. She had a kindly, good-humored face, too, but she had a landlady’s eye. “People don’t come here much, this time of year,” she went on. “Nothing to bring ’em here.”

These last words were a challenge to Lexy to explain her business, and she was prepared.

“I passed through here the other day in a motor,” she said, “on my way to Adams Corners, and I thought it looked like such a nice, quiet place for me to work in. I’m a writer, you know, and I thought Wyngate would just suit me.”

“I was born and raised out to Adams Corners,” said Mrs. Royce. “Guess there’s no one living out there that I don’t know.”

“Miss Margaret Craigie? I should say I did! If you’re a friend of hers—”

“Set down!” suggested Mrs. Royce, very cordial now. “I’ll light a nice wood fire. A writer, are you? Well, well! And the gentleman—I wonder, now, what brings him here!”

“He told me he’d come to see his sister,” said Lexy. “Mrs. Quelton, I think he said.”

“Quelton!” cried the landlady. “You didn’t say Quelton? Not the doctor’s wife?”

“Yes,” said the captain’s voice from the doorway. “Nothing happened to her, has there? Nothing gone wrong?”

Mrs. Royce stared at him with the most profound interest, and he stared back at her, somewhat uneasily.

“Yes, indeed you can!” said Mrs. Royce. “Right away!” But still she lingered. “Mrs. Quelton’s brother!” she said. “Well, I never!”

Lexy was also wondering, and longing to ask questions, but she felt that it wouldn’t be good manners.

“People in small places like this are always awfully curious,” she observed.

“Yes,” said he; “and Muriel may be a bit eccentric, you know. I rather imagine she is, from her letters. I’ve never seen her.”

Lexy would certainly have asked questions now, manners or no manners, only that Mrs. Royce entered the room again, to fulfill her promise to make a “nice wood fire.” Amazing, the difference it made in the room! The ugliness and stiffness vanished in the ruddy glow. It seemed a delightful room, now, homely and welcoming and safe.

“It’s real cozy here,” said Mrs. Royce, “on a night like this. I’m sorry the dining room’s so kind of chilly.”

“Oh, can’t we have supper here, by the fire?” cried Lexy. “Please! We’ll promise not to get any crumbs on your nice carpet, Mrs. Royce!”

And so it happened that the ancient magic of fire was invoked in Lexy’s behalf. Probably, if she and Captain Grey had had their supper in the chilly dining room, they would have been a little chilly, too, and more cautious. They might not have said all that they did say.

It was an excellent supper, and Captain Grey and Lexy thoroughly appreciated it. They ate with healthy appetites, and they talked. Mrs. Royce, from the kitchen, heard their cheerful, friendly voices, and their laughter, and she didn’t for one moment believe that they had never met before. Listening to them, she wore that benevolent smile once more, and felt sure that she had encountered a very charming little romance.

It was all Lexy’s doing. It was Lexy’s beautiful talent, to be able to create this atmosphere of honest and happy camaraderie. Before the meal was finished, Cap[Pg 328]tain Grey was talking to her as if they had known each other since childhood, and he didn’t even wonder at it. It seemed perfectly natural.

“Going to set here a while?” she asked, looking at the two young people with a smile of approval. “I’ll bring in some more wood.” She hesitated a moment, and the landladyish glimmer again appeared in her eyes. “If it was me,” she observed, in the most casual way, “the fire’d be enough light. If it was me, now, I wouldn’t want that gas flaring and blaring away—and burning up good money,” she added, to herself.

The rain was falling fast outside, driving against the windows when the wind blew; and inside the young people sat by the fire, very content.

“Queer thing!” said Captain Grey meditatively. “Never been in this place before—never been in this country before—and yet it’s like coming home!”

“I know that feeling,” said Lexy. “I’ve had it before. I think only people who haven’t any real homes of their own ever have it.”

“No,” she answered; “but please don’t think it’s tragic. It’s not.”

“Thank goodness!” she said. “I do want to keep on being—well, ordinary and human, even when outside things seem a little tragic.”

It was some time before he spoke again. Lexy took advantage of his abstraction to study his face by the firelight. When you come to understand it a little, it wasn’t a haughty face at all, but a very sensitive and fine one.

“Miss Moran!” he said again. “About being ordinary and human—of course, one wants to be that; but the thing is—I don’t know quite how to put it, but if you have a feeling, you know—I mean a feeling that something is wrong—” He paused again. “I mean,” he went on, “if you have a feeling like that—a sort of—well, call it uneasiness—the question is whether one ought to laugh at it, or take it as”—once more he stopped—“as a warning,” he ended.

“I’ve been thinking a good deal about that very thing lately,” she replied. “I believe feelings like that are a warning. I’m sure it’s wrong—foolish and wrong—to disregard them. Even if every one else, even if your own mind tells you it’s all nonsense, you mustn’t care!”

“I think you’re right,” he gravely agreed. “I’ve been trying to tell myself that I’m an utter ass, but all the time I knew I wasn’t. I knew—I know now—that there’s something—”

An unreasoning dread possessed Lexy. She felt for a moment that she didn’t want to hear any more.

“I’d like to tell you about it, if you wouldn’t mind,” he said. “Somehow I think you could help.”

“Please do tell me,” she said at length. “I’d be glad to help, if I can.”

He took a cigarette case from his pocket. As he struck a match, she could see his face very clearly in the sudden flame; and, for no reason at all, she pitied him.

The sensation of dread had gone, and she felt only the liveliest interest. She wanted very much to hear about Captain Grey’s sister.

“It wasn’t quite true to say I’d never seen her,” he explained, in his painstaking way. “I have, you know; but not since I was six years old and she was a baby. Our mother died when Muriel was born, out in India. An aunt took the poor little kid to the States with her, and I stayed out there with my father.”

“She’s twenty-one now,” he said. “Last picture I had of her was when she was fourteen or so. A pretty kid—a bit more than pretty—what you’d call lovely.”

“When I was at school in England, it was arranged that she was to come over; but she didn’t, and we’ve never met again. Twenty-one years—it’s a long time.”

“Yes, it is,” said Lexy gently, for something in his voice touched her.[Pg 329]

“We’ve written to each other, on and off. I’m not much good at that sort of thing, but I thought her letters were—well, rather remarkable, you know; but I dare say I’m prejudiced. She’s the only one of my own people left.”

“You poor, dear thing!” thought Lexy, with ready sympathy, but she did not say anything.

“Anyhow,” he presently continued, “I got an impression from her letters that she was rather an extraordinary girl. She was studying music—said she was going on the concert stage—awfully enthusiastic about it; and then she married this doctor chap. She never said much about him, only that she was very happy; but—well, I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know. Anyhow, she was married about two years ago, and a few months after her marriage she began writing oftener—almost every mail. She was always wanting me to come over here and see her; and lately, in her last letters, I—somehow I fancied she wanted me rather badly. It—it worried me, so I arranged for leave. On the very day when I wrote that I would be coming over this month, I had a letter from her, asking me not to make any plans for coming this year. She said she’d taken up her concert work again, and would be too busy to enjoy the visit, and so on. I’d already made my plans, you see, so I went ahead. Then, about a fortnight later, after she’d got my letter, I suppose, I had a cable. ‘Don’t come,’ it said. I cabled back, but she didn’t answer.”

He looked anxiously at Lexy, but she said nothing. She sat very still, curled up in a big chair, staring into the fire with an odd look of uncertainty on her face.

“You know,” he went on, “I’ve tried to think that she was simply too busy, or something of that sort. But, Miss Moran, didn’t this woman’s manner rather make you think there was something a bit—out of the way?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Lexy, in a casual tone which very much disconcerted him.

“I’ve been making a fool of myself!” he thought, flushing. “Why the devil didn’t I keep my old-woman notions to myself? Now she’ll think—”

But Lexy was not thinking that Captain Grey was a fool. She was only very much afraid of being one herself, and was engaged in a severe struggle against this danger. That dread, that vague and oppressive dread, had come back, and she was fighting to throw it off. She wanted to be, she would be, her own normal, cheerful self again, living in a normal, everyday world.

“All this about his sister, and about Caroline!” she thought. “It’s really nothing—nothing serious. Our both being here in Wyngate—that’s nothing, either. It’s just a coincidence. If the gas wasn’t turned down, I wouldn’t feel like this.”

She would have risen and turned up the gas, only that she was ashamed to do so. The fire was blazing merrily, shedding a ruddy light upon the homely room, the most commonplace room in the world. There was Captain Grey sitting there smoking—just an ordinary young man come to visit his sister. There was herself—just Lexy Moran, well fed and warm and comfortable, with more than a hundred dollars in a bag round her neck. She could hear Mrs. Royce moving about in the kitchen, humming to herself in a low drone.

And just then a train whistled—a long, melancholy shriek. Lexy had a sudden vision of it, rushing through the dark and the rain. She had a sudden realization of the outside world, vast, lonely, terrible, stretching from pole to pole—forests, and plains, and oceans. The monstrous folly of pretending that everything was snug and warm and cozy! Things did happen—only cowards denied that.

“Captain Grey!” she cried abruptly. “What you’ve told me—it is queer; and it’s even queerer when I think what has brought me here to this little place. Both of us here, in Wyngate! I think I’ll tell you.”

He listened in absolute silence to the tale of Caroline Enderby’s disappearance. Even after Lexy had finished, it was some time before he spoke.

“Oh, thank you!” cried Lexy, with a rush of gratitude. She wanted some one to help her, and she could imagine no one better for the purpose than this young man. He would help her—she was sure of it. Even the fact of having told him most wonderfully lightened her burden. She gave an irrepressible little giggle.

“We have almost all the ingredients for a first-class mystery story,” she said; “ex[Pg 330]cept the jewel—the famous ruby, or the great diamond.”

“You don’t really mean that?” she demanded. “There isn’t really an emerald?”

“I’m afraid it hasn’t much to do with the case—with either of the cases,” he said; “but there is an emerald—my sister’s.”

“Don’t tell me it was stolen from a temple! That would be too good to be true!”

“I’m sorry,” he said; “but as far as I know, it’s never been stolen at all, and its history for the last eighty years hasn’t been sinister. One of the old rajahs gave it to my grandfather—a reward of merit, you know. When my father married, it went to my mother. She never had any trouble with it. She never wore it, because she didn’t like it.”

“Well, you see, it’s an ostentatious sort of thing, and she wasn’t ostentatious.” He paused a moment. “My father told me, before he died, that he wanted Muriel to have it when she was eighteen; and so, three years ago, I sent it over to her.”

“You’re a good detective,” said he, smiling again. “You don’t miss any of the points. It was a bit of a problem, how to send the thing; but I had the luck to find some people I knew who were coming over here, and they brought it. So that’s that!”

“An emerald!” said Lexy. “This is almost too much! I think I’ll say good night, Captain Grey. I need sleep.”

As she followed Mrs. Royce up the stairs, she saw Captain Grey still sitting before the fire, smoking; and it was a comforting sight.

Lexy slept late the next morning. It was nearly nine o’clock when she opened her eyes. She lay for a few minutes, looking about her. The gray light of another rainy day filled the neat, unfamiliar little room, and outside the window she could see the branches of a little pear tree rocking in the wind.

“I’m here in Wyngate,” she said to herself. “I was bent on coming here to find Caroline; and now, here I am, and how am I going to begin?”

She got up, and washed in cold water, in a queer, old-fashioned china basin painted with flowers. She brushed her shining hair, and dressed, feeling more hopeful every minute.

“One step at a time!” she thought. “The first step was to come here; and the next step—well, I’ll think of it after breakfast. Perhaps Captain Grey will have thought of something.”

“Jest a few minutes ago,” Mrs. Royce informed her. “He was down real early—around seven, and he waited and waited for you. At half past eight he et, and off he went.”

“No,” said Mrs. Royce. “He didn’t say much of anything. He’s a kind of quiet young man, ain’t he? Well, he’d ought to get on with his sister, then.”

“Quiet!” repeated Mrs. Royce. “Set down an’ begin to eat, Miss Moran. I’ve fixed a real nice tasty breakfast for you, if I do say it as shouldn’t. Corn gems, too. Mis’ Quelton quiet? I should say she was! Quiet as”—she paused—“as the dead,” she went on, and the phrase made an unpleasant impression upon Lexy. “An’ her husband, too. I never saw the like of them. They never come into the village, an’ nobody ever goes out there to the Tower. About twice a week the doctor drives into Lymeswell—the town below here—and he buys a lot of food an’ all, an’ he goes home. I can see him out of my front winder, an’ the sight of him, driving along in that black buggy of his—it gives me the shivers!”

“Don’t ask me what kind of doctor he is, Miss Moran! He don’t go to see the sick—that’s all I know.”

“Miss Moran,” said the landlady, with profound impressiveness, “I guess there ain’t three people in Wyngate that’s ever set eyes on her!”

“You may well say ‘queer,’” said Mrs. Royce. “There she stays, out in that lonely place—never seeing a soul from one month’s end to another. She’s a young woman, too—young, an’ just as pretty as a picture.[Pg 331]”

“I’m one of the few that has seen her,” said Mrs. Royce, with a sort of grim satisfaction. “That’s why I take a kind of special interest in her. I seen her the night the doctor brought her here to Wyngate a young bride. That’ll be three years ago this winter, but I remember it as plain as plain. There was a terrible snowstorm, and he couldn’t git out to his place, so he had to bring her here, and she sat right in this very room, just where you’re sitting.”

“I feel that same way myself—as if she was a ghost,” said Mrs. Royce solemnly. “Near three years ago, and her living only three miles off, an’ I’ve never set eyes on her again. I’ve never forgotten her, though, the sweet pretty young creature!”

“Miss Moran,” she said, “that doctor is crazy. I’m not the only one to say it. He’s as crazy—hush, now! Here’s that poor young man!”

“Good morning!” he said. “I say, I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you a bit longer, Miss Moran.”

“I went out to telephone,” he explained. “Thought I’d tell Muriel I was here, you know; but they have no telephone. Dashed odd, isn’t it, for a doctor not to have a telephone in the house?”

“I don’t think he’s a real doctor—a physician, I mean,” said Lexy. She glanced around and saw that Mrs. Royce had gone. Springing up, she crossed the room to Captain Grey. “Has Mrs. Royce—has any one said anything to you?” she asked, almost in a whisper.

Captain Grey took the news very coolly. Lexy observed that he suppressed a smile.

“Oh, that!” he said. “But you know, Miss Moran, in these little villages any one who’s at all out of the ordinary is called crazy. I’ve noticed it before. I can soon find out for myself, though, can’t I? I thought, if you didn’t want me this morning, I’d go over there—pay a call, you know. I understand it’s three miles from here, so I shouldn’t be very long. I’d come back here for lunch.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “Only you said you’d let me help you in your little job, and I want to!” He smiled down at her. “So,” he said, “I’ll be back for lunch;” and off he went.

Lexy went to the window and looked out. She saw Captain Grey striding off up the muddy road, perfectly indifferent to the rain, and curiously elegant, in spite of his wet weather clothes. She was thinking of him with great friendliness and appreciation; but she was not thinking of him in the least as Mrs. Royce imagined she was thinking.

Mrs. Royce stood in the doorway, watching Lexy watch Captain Grey, smiling and even beaming with benevolence; but she would have been disappointed if she had suspected what was in Lexy’s head.

“He’s awfully nice,” thought Lexy, “and awfully handsome, and I’m certain that he’s absolutely trustworthy and honorable, but—”

But somehow he wasn’t to be compared to Mr. Houseman. She knew practically nothing about Mr. Houseman. She had talked with him for five or ten minutes in the park, and his conversation had been entirely about Caroline Enderby. He had shown himself to be quick-tempered and sadly lacking in patience. He had written Lexy a stiff, offended, boyish letter, and then he had disappeared. There was no sensible reason in the world why she should think of him as she did, no reason why she should hope so much to see him again; but she did.

“Well, now!” said Mrs. Royce, at last. “You’ll be wanting a nice quiet place for your writing.”

“Writing!” said Lexy. “I never—” She stopped herself just in time, remembering her shocking falsehood of the night before. “I never care much where I write,” she ended.

“Well, I’ve fixed up the sewing room for you,” said Mrs. Royce. “I’ve put a nice strong table in there with drawers, where you can keep your papers an’ all.”

She said this because she thought it, and without the least calculation. She liked Mrs. Royce, and when she liked people she told them so. That was what made people love her.

“I’m real glad to do it for you,” she said. “I won’t bother you, neither, while you’re working. I know how it is with writing. My cousin, now—her husband was writing for the movies, an’ he was that upset if he was disturbed!”

Still conversing with great affability, Mrs. Royce led the reluctant writer upstairs to the small room prepared for her, and shut her in. Lexy sat down in a chair before the workmanlike table, and grinned ruefully. She had said she was a writer, and now she had to be one.

“Well,” she reflected, “here’s a chance to write to Mr. Houseman, anyhow.”

She never had the least difficulty in writing letters. For one reason, she never bothered about them unless she had something to say, and then she said it, briefly and lucidly, and was done. She told Mr. Houseman all she knew about Caroline’s disappearance, and explained that she had gone out to Wyngate in the hope of picking up some trace of her.

“Of course,” she wrote, “I don’t know whether I’ll still be here when you get back. If I’ve gone, I’ll leave my address with Mrs. Royce, in case you should want to communicate with me.”

This was admirable, so far; but, reading it over, Lexy was not satisfied. She remembered the misery, the trouble and anxiety, in Mr. Houseman’s blue eyes. She imagined him sailing the seas, bitterly hurt because he thought Caroline had changed her mind. She thought of him coming back and getting this letter, to revive all his alarm for Caroline. This wasn’t, after all, a business letter. She took up her pen again, and added:

This last phrase rather astonished her. She hadn’t meant to write just that. She picked up the letter, intending to tear it up and write another; but she thought better of it.

“No!” she said to herself. “Let it stay. It’s true; why shouldn’t I hope that we’ll meet again?”

So she addressed the letter and sealed it, and then sat looking out of the window at the rain. It was a hopeless sort of rain, faint and fine—a hopeless, melancholy world, without color or promise.

“Hush! The doctor!” answered Mrs. Royce. “You could ’a’ knocked me down with a feather!”

Feathers would not have knocked down the sturdy Lexy, however. On the contrary, she was pleased and interested by this utterly unexpected visit. The sinister doctor here, in this house, and asking for her! She started promptly toward the stairs.

“Miss Moran!” cautioned the landlady, in a whisper. “Don’t tell him nothing!”

With this solemn warning in her ears, Lexy descended the stairs. She saw Dr. Quelton standing in the hall, hat in hand, waiting for her. The doctor was rather a disappointment. He was not the dark, sinister figure he should have been. He was a big man, powerfully built, with a clumsy stoop to his tremendous shoulders. His heavy, clean-shaven face would have been an agreeable one if it had not been for its expression, but that expression was not at all an alarming or dangerous one. It was an expression of the most utter and hopeless boredom.

“My brother-in-law, Captain Grey, told us you were here, and I did myself the honor of calling,” he went on.

“You certainly were quick about it!” thought Lexy. “Captain Grey couldn’t have reached his sister’s house an hour ago, and it’s three miles from here. Won’t you come into the sitting room?” she asked aloud.[Pg 333]

“Thank you,” he replied, and followed Lexy into the decorous and dismal room.

He sat down opposite her in a small chair that cracked under his weight, and he smiled a bored and extinguished smile.

“My wife and I were very much interested,” he went on, with as little interest as a human being may well display. “We don’t have many newcomers here. It’s a very quiet place.”

“My wife and I like a quiet life,” he said. “My wife asked me to explain, Miss Moran, that she is something of a recluse. Her health prevents her from calling upon you; but she wished me to say that she would be very happy to see you at the Tower, whenever it may be convenient for you to call, any afternoon after four o’clock.”

“Thank you,” replied Lexy. “Please thank Mrs. Quelton. I shall be very pleased to come.”

And now why didn’t he go away? This visit was apparently a painful duty for him. He had delivered his message, and yet he lingered.

“A very quiet place,” he repeated; “but perhaps you are not sociably inclined?”

“But at the present time you prefer solitude? For the purposes of your work? As a change from the stimulating atmosphere of the city?”

“I lived in New York myself for a number of years,” he went on. “I wonder if you—may I ask what part of the city you lived in, Miss Moran?”

Lexy hesitated, and she meant him to see that she hesitated. After all, however, it was not an unnatural or impertinent question, and she couldn’t very well refuse to answer it.

“In the East Sixties, near the park,” she said. “It wasn’t my own home, though—I was a companion,” she added.

She always liked people to know that. She was far from being cynical, but she was aware that this information made a difference—to some people.

She was astonished to see the difference it made in Dr. Quelton. He raised his black, weary eyes to her face and stared at her with unmistakable insolence.

“And you’ve come to Wyngate to—er—to write?” he went on. “Very interesting—very!”

Lexy felt her cheeks grow hot. She wished with all her heart that she had not involved herself in that stupid falsehood. It humiliated her so much that she couldn’t answer Dr. Quelton with her usual spirit. He noticed her confusion—no doubt about that.

“The solving of mysteries!” he said, with his unpleasant smile. “That makes very interesting fiction!”

Lexy rose, too. His tone, his manner, exasperated her almost beyond endurance. She felt an ardent desire to contradict everything he said. What is more, she was in no humor to hear mystery stories made light of. She had had enough of that—first Mrs. Enderby pretending there was no mystery, and then Mr. Houseman going off and pretending it was solved, so that she was left alone to do the best she could. Wasn’t she in a mystery story at this very minute, and without a single promising clew to guide her?

“Never solved?” said Lexy. “But lots of them are! You can read in the newspapers all the time about crimes that—”

“The mystery of a crime is never solved,” the doctor blandly proceeded. “Never! Let us say, for example, that a murder is committed. The police investigate, they arrest some one. There is a trial, the jury finds that the suspect is guilty, the judge sentences him, and he is executed. Public opinion is satisfied; but[Pg 334] as a matter of fact, nothing whatever has been solved. It is all guesswork. Not one living soul, not one member of the jury, not the judge, not the executioner, really knows that the accused man was guilty. They think so—that is all. What you call a ‘solution’ is merely a guess, based upon probabilities.”

“In the days of witchcraft trials,” said he, “it was not uncommon for women to come forward voluntarily and confess to being witches. In the course of my own practice I have known people to confess things they could not possibly have done. No!” He shook his head and smiled faintly. “An acquaintance with the psychology of the diseased mind makes one very skeptical about confessions, Miss Moran.”

“Even an eyewitness,” Dr. Quelton went on, “is entirely unreliable. Any lawyer can tell you how completely the senses deceive one. Three persons can see the same occurrence, and each one of the three will swear to a quite different impression. Each one may be entirely honest, entirely convinced that he saw or heard what never took place.”

“Do you mean that you think it’s never possible to find out who’s guilty?”

“Never,” he replied agreeably. “It can never be anything but a guess, as I said, based upon probabilities. Human senses, human judgment, human reason, are all pitifully liable to error.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said slowly, “about the senses, and judgment, and reason. Perhaps their evidence isn’t always to be trusted; but there’s something else.”

Lexy looked up at him. There was a smile on his heavy, pallid face, aloof and contemptuous; but she was chiefly concerned just then in trying to put into words her own firm conviction, more for her own benefit than for his. It was not reason that had brought her here to look for Caroline, it was not reason that sustained her.

“There’s something else,” she said again, with a frown. “There’s a way of knowing things without reason. It’s—I don’t know just how to put it, but it’s a thing beyond reason.”

She stopped, because he had abruptly turned away and was walking toward the door. She stood where she was, amazed by this unique rudeness; but in the doorway he turned.

“The thing beyond reason!” he said, almost in a whisper. Then, with a sudden and complete change of manner, he went on: “It has been very interesting to meet you, Miss Moran. My wife will enjoy a visit from you. Any afternoon, after four o’clock!” He bowed politely. “After four o’clock,” he repeated, and off he went.

“Crazy?” she said to herself. “No—that’s not the word for him at all. He’s—he’s just horrible!”

XII

At half past twelve Captain Grey had not yet returned, and Mrs. Royce declared that the ham omelet would be ruined if not eaten at once; so Lexy went down to the dining room and ate her lunch alone.

The rain was still falling steadily, and the little room was dim, chilly, and, to Lexy, unbearably close. She wasn’t particularly hungry, either, after such a hearty breakfast and no exercise. She felt restless and uneasy. When Mrs. Royce went out into the kitchen to fetch the dessert, she jumped up from the table, crossed the room, and opened the window.

The wild rain blew against her face, and it felt good to her. She drew in a long breath of the fresh, damp air, and sighed with relief.

“I’m going to go out this afternoon,” she said to herself, “if it rains pitchforks! I can’t—”

Just then she caught sight of Captain Grey coming down the road. Her first impulse was to call out a cheerful salutation, but after a second glance she felt no inclination for that. He was tramping along doggedly through the rain, his hands in his pockets, his collar turned up. He was as straight and soldierly as ever, but his face was pale, with such a queer look on it![Pg 335]

“Oh, dear!” thought Lexy. “Something’s gone wrong! Oh, the poor soul! And he set off so happy this morning.”

She went into the hall and opened the front door for him. Filled with a motherly solicitude, she wanted to help him off with his overcoat, but he abruptly declined that.

“Am I late?” he asked. “I thought one o’clock, you know—I’m sorry.”

“Mercy, that doesn’t matter!” said Lexy. “Aren’t you going to change your shoes? You ought to. Well, then, you’d better come in and eat your lunch this minute.”

“You’re no end kind, to bother like that!” he said earnestly. “I do appreciate it!”

“Who wouldn’t be?” thought Lexy, glancing at him. “You poor soul, you look as if you’d seen a ghost!”

He took his place at the table, and Lexy sat down opposite him, her chin in her hands, anxiously waiting for him to begin to tell her what had happened.

“Beastly day, isn’t it?” he said, with an obvious effort to speak cheerfully.

“And yet, you know,” he went on, “I rather like a walk on a day like this. The country about here is pretty, don’t you think?”

Lexy glanced around, to make sure that Mrs. Royce had closed the door behind her.

“Captain Grey!” she said, leaning across the table. “Tell me, did you see her?”

He did not meet Lexy’s eyes. He was looking down at his plate with that curious dazed expression in his face.

Lexy was hurt and disappointed by his manner. Evidently he didn’t want to tell her anything, didn’t want to talk at all. Very well—the only thing for her to do was to maintain a dignified silence. She did so for almost ten minutes, but then nature got the upper hand.

“All right?” he repeated. “Oh, rather! Oh, yes, thanks—absolutely all right.”

“That’s good,” she said frigidly. “I’m going upstairs now, to write some letters.”

“No! Look here!” he said. “Please don’t run away! I—I want to talk to you, but it’s a bit hard. You can’t imagine what it’s like to see one of your own people, you know—after such a long time.”

He paused for a long time, and Lexy waited patiently, for she felt very sorry for Captain Grey. At first sight she had imagined him to be haughty, stiff, and aloof. She knew now that he was a very sensitive man. He was terribly moved, and he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t.

Captain Grey was a little startled by this Yankee notion of liking a person at first sight.

“Well, you see,” he said, “I’ve only met him once; but he seems to me a very decent sort of chap. He’s clever, you know, and—and so on, and my sister seems very happy with him.”

“Yes. I’ve been an ass, imagining all sorts of silly rot. She’s not very strong, I’m afraid, but she’s happy, and—well, you know, their life out there is lonely, of course, but there’s something about it, rather—rather charming, you know. I’d like you to see it for yourself. I was speaking about you to Muriel. She wants to know you, and I think you’d like her. Would you come out there to tea with me this afternoon?”

There was nothing in the world she wanted more at that moment than to see Captain Grey’s sister and to visit Dr. Quelton’s house. She didn’t exactly know why, and she didn’t care, but she wanted to.

Her trunk had not yet arrived. Indeed, she had only sent to Mrs. Enderby’s for it that morning, but she was able to make herself presentable with what she had in her bag, and excitement gave her an added charm. She was in high spirits, gay and sparkling, so pretty and so lively that Captain Grey was quite dazzled.

He had engaged the one and only taxi.[Pg 336] After they were settled in it, and on their way along the muddy road, he said:

“I can believe that!” he said. “I’ve never seen any one like you. I was telling Muriel how much I hope that you and she will hit it off. It would be a wonderful thing for her to have a friend like you in this place.”

Something in his tone made Lexy turn serious. He was speaking as if she was simply a nice girl he had happened to meet, as if she had nothing to do but go out to tea and make agreeable friendships.

“Yes,” she said, “but I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I certainly haven’t accomplished much so far.”

“I came here for a definite purpose,” she told him. “I haven’t forgotten that, and I’m not likely to forget it.”

“But,” interrupted Lexy, “I know very well what you’re thinking—that it’s a wild-goose chase, and that I’m a young idiot. Isn’t that it?”

“I don’t!” Lexy grimly denied. “You’ve thought over the talk we had last night, and you’ve decided that it was all nonsense.”

“No, Miss Moran—not nonsense; but we were both a bit tired then, and perhaps a bit overwrought.”

“All right!” said Lexy. “Don’t go on! No—please drop it. I’ve talked too much, anyhow. From now on I’m not going to talk to any one about my little job. I’m going to go ahead in my own way, alone.”

This did not appease Lexy, and she remained curt and silent all the rest of the way. For a couple of miles the taxi went on along a broad, smooth highway; then it turned off down a rough lane, bordered by dark woodland, and entirely deserted. The rain drummed loud on the leather top of the cab, the wind came sighing through the gaunt pines and the slender, shivering birches; but when there was a lull, she heard another sound, a sound familiar to her from childhood and yet always strange, always heart-stirring—the dim, unceasing thunder of the sea.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Lexy. “Our old house, where I was born, was on the shore, and on days like this I used to love to go out and walk with father. I love the sea so!”

Captain Grey gave her an odd look, which she didn’t understand. Perhaps that was just as well, for her words and her voice had troubled the young man to an unreasonable degree. He wished he could say something to comfort her. He wished he could offer her the sea as a gift, for instance; and that would have been a mistake, because Lexy did not like to be pathetic.

Just at that moment, however, the taxi turned into a driveway, and there was the house—the Tower. Lexy was disappointed. The name had called up in her mind the picture of a gloomy edifice of gray stone, more or less medieval, and altogether somber and forbidding; and this was nothing in the world but a rather shabby old house, badly in need of paint, and forlorn enough in the rain, but very ordinary and very ugly. Even the tower, which had given the place its romantic name, was only a wooden cupola with a lightning rod on top of it.

“Well, not from the library, where I was,” he answered; “but perhaps—”

“Captain Grey, I want to get out! I want to run down on the beach for one instant!”

“I’m not made of sugar,” said Lexy scornfully, “I’ve got to run down there just for an instant, before I go in.”

Lexy pulled off the nice little hat and laid it on his knee. Then she rapped on the window, the driver stopped, and Lexy opened the door.

“No! Look here! Please, Miss Moran!” cried Captain Grey. “Very well, then, if you will go, I’ll go with you!”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” said Lexy. “I feel as if I’d like to go alone just for one look. You know how it is, sometimes. I[Pg 337] haven’t had even a smell of the sea for so long; and it reminds me—”

She did so, to oblige him, and off she went, half running, down the lane, in the direction of the sound of the surf. Captain Grey looked after her—such an absurd little figure in that aquascutum of his that almost touched the ground! He watched her till she was out of sight; then he sat down in the cab and lit a cigarette.

He thought about her, but Lexy had forgotten him. She found herself on a desolate stretch of wet sand, with the gray sea tossing under a gray sky. She smelled the hearty, salt smell, she remembered old things, sad and sweet. Tears came into her eyes, and she felt them on her cheeks, warm, salt as the sea. If only she could go running home, back to the house where her mother used to wait for her! If only she could find her father’s big, firm hand clasping her own!

“I mustn’t be like this,” she said to herself. “Daddy would feel ashamed of me.”

In a cavernous pocket of the captain’s overcoat she found a handkerchief. She dried her eyes with it, and turned back. The Tower faced the lane, and the left side of it fronted the beach, rising stark and high from the sands. She looked up at it. On the first floor a sun parlor had been built out, and through the windows she could see a woman sitting there in a deck chair.

“I suppose that’s Muriel,” she thought, with a reawakening of her lively interest.

She came a little nearer. The woman was wearing a negligee and a coquettish little silk cap. Her back was turned toward Lexy. She lay there motionless, as if she were asleep.

Lexy drew closer. The woman turned, straightened up in the chair, and rose. A shiver ran along Lexy’s spine. She stopped and stared and stared.

The woman had raised her thin arms above her head, stretching. Then, for a moment, she stood in an odd and lovely pose, with her hands clasped behind her head. Oh, surely no one else ever stood like that! That figure, that attitude—it couldn’t be any one else!

The woman did not hear. She was moving toward the long windows of the room, and her every step, every line of her figure, was familiar and unmistakable to Lexy.

“Caroline!” she cried, running forward across the wet sand. “Wait! Wait for me, Caroline!”

A hand seized her arm. With a gasp, she looked into the pale, heavy face of Dr. Quelton. He was smiling.

Lexy jerked her arm away, and looked up at the windows of the sun parlor. The woman had gone.

“Caroline?” he repeated. “I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, Miss Moran, that you’ve made a mistake.”

Their eyes met. In that instant, Lexy knew. He was still smiling with an expression of bland amusement at this extraordinary little figure in the huge coat; but he was her enemy, and she knew it.

They turned and walked side by side around the house to the front door, where Captain Grey stood waiting.

“I say!” he exclaimed anxiously. “Your hair—your shoes—you’ll take a chill, Miss Moran!”

“I feel anxious about Miss Moran myself,” said Dr. Quelton. “I’m afraid she’s a very imprudent young lady.”

XIII

The doctor’s library had a charm of its own. It was a big room, careless, a little shabby, but furnished in fastidious taste and with a friendly sort of comfort. A great wood fire was blazing on the hearth, and Dr. Quelton drew up an armchair before it for Lexy.

Lexy sat down. Captain Grey stood, facing her, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece. Dr. Quelton paced up and down, his hands clasped behind him. He looked like a dignified middle-aged gentleman in his own home.[Pg 338]

A door opened somewhere in the house, and for a moment Lexy heard the homely and familiar sound of an egg-beater whirring and a cheerful Irish voice inquiring about “them potaters.” It was surely a cheerful and pleasant enough setting; but Lexy did not find it so.

“I saw Caroline!” she insisted to herself. “I don’t care what any one says. I saw Caroline!”

A strange sensation of pain and dread oppressed her. What should she do? Whom should she tell?

“Captain Grey,” she thought; “but not now. It’s no use now. Dr. Quelton would deny it. I’ll have to wait until we get out of here; and then, perhaps, it ’ll be too late. He knows I saw her. Something—something horrible—may happen!”

“I should be inclined to think it nervousness,” said Dr. Quelton. “Our landscape here is lonely and depressing, and Miss Moran has the artist’s temperament, impressionable, high-strung.”

“Not I!” declared Lexy, in a tone that startled Captain Grey. “Lonely places don’t bother me. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Oh!” said the doctor. “But here’s Mrs. Quelton. Muriel, this is Miss Moran, the young writer of fiction.”

Mrs. Quelton was coming down the long room, a beautiful woman, dark and delicate, with a sort of plaintive languor in her manner. She held out her hand to Lexy.

“I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said. “George has told me so much about you—the first American girl he’s known!”

She glanced at her brother with a little smile. Lexy glanced at him, too; and she was surprised and very much touched by the look on his face. He couldn’t even smile. His face was grave, pale, almost solemn, and he was regarding his sister with something like reverence.

“Oh, poor fellow!” thought Lexy. “Poor lonely fellow! It’s such a wonderful thing for him to find his sister—some one of his own. I only hope she’s as nice as she looks.”

This thought caused her to turn toward her hostess again. She was beautiful, and in a gentle and gracious fashion, and yet—

“I don’t know,” thought Lexy. “There’s something—she doesn’t look ill—perhaps she’s just lackadaisical; but certainly she’s not simple and easy to understand. She must know about Caroline Enderby. The thing is, would she help me, or—”

Or would Mrs. Quelton also be her enemy? Lost in her own thought, Lexy sat silent. She had, indeed, certain grave faults in social deportment. The head mistress of the finishing school she had attended had often said to her:

“Alexandra, it is absolutely inexcusable to give way to moods in the company of other people!”

In theory Lexy admitted that this was true, but it made no difference. If she didn’t feel inclined to talk, she didn’t talk. It was so this afternoon. She merely answered when she was spoken to—which was not often, for Dr. Quelton was asking his brother-in-law questions about India, and Mrs. Quelton seemed no more desirous to talk than Lexy was. What is more, Lexy felt certain that the doctor’s wife was not listening to the talk between the two men, but, like herself, was thinking her own thoughts.

The parlor maid wheeled the tea cart in, and Mrs. Quelton roused herself to pour the tea and to make polite inquiries, in her plaintive tone, as to what her guests wanted in the way of cream and sugar. The maid vanished again, and Dr. Quelton passed about the cups and plates.

“It’s China tea,” he observed. “I import it myself. It has quite a distinctive flavor, I think.”

Captain Grey praised it, and Lexy herself found it very agreeable. She sipped it, staring into the fire, glad to be let alone. Behind her she could hear Captain Grey talking about the Ceylon tea plantations. His voice sounded so pathetic!

Poor Captain Grey and his precious, new-found sister! The sound of his voice brought tears to her eyes.

Still the tears welled up. She gulped down the rest of her tea hastily, hoping that it would steady her, but it did not help at all. Sobs rose in her throat, and an immense and formless sorrow came over her.[Pg 339]

“This has got to stop!” she thought, in alarm. “I can’t be such a chump!”

“Are you going to grow any—” she began, but her voice was so unsteady that she had to stop for a moment. “Any flowers in—in your—g-garden?”

The question ended in a loud and unmistakable sob. They all turned to look at her, startled and anxious.

Then, suddenly, all her defenses gave way. The teacup fell from her hand and was shattered on the floor, and, burying her head in her arms, she cried as she had never cried in her life.

Mrs. Quelton stood beside her, one hand resting on Lexy’s shoulder. Captain Grey was bending over her, profoundly disturbed. She tried to speak, but she could not.

“Miss Moran!” said Dr. Quelton solicitously. “Will you allow me to give you a mild sedative?”

“I’ll telephone for the taxi,” suggested Captain Grey. “He wasn’t coming back until half past five.”

“Unfortunately we have no telephone,” said the doctor; “but I’ll drive Miss Moran home.”

“Not in this rain,” the doctor protested, “and in your overwrought condition.”

“I must!” She got up, the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I must!” she said wildly. “Let me go! Please let me go!”

The doctor turned to Captain Grey. In the midst of her unutterable misery and confusion, Lexy still heard and understood what he was saying.

“In a case of hysteria—better to humor her—the exercise and the fresh air may help her.”

The doctor’s wife helped Lexy with her hat and coat. She was very gentle, very kind, and genuinely concerned for her unhappy little guest. Lexy remembered afterward that Mrs. Quelton kissed her; but at the moment nothing mattered except to get away, to get out of that house into the fresh air.

Without one backward glance she set off at a furious pace, splashing through the puddles, almost running. Captain Grey kept easily by her side with his long, lithe stride. Now and then he spoke to her, but she could not trust herself to answer just yet. The storm within her was subsiding. From time to time a sob broke from her, but the tears had stopped.

Twilight had come early on this rainy day, and it was almost dark before they reached the end of the lane. Lexy slackened her pace. Then, as they came to the corner of the highway, she stopped and laid her hand on her companion’s sleeve.

He looked down at her, but it was too dark to see what expression there was on her pale face. He was vastly relieved, however, by the steadiness of her voice.

“Captain Grey!” she said again. “If I told you something—something very important—would you believe me?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he answered hastily. “Of course, I would always believe you; but I wish you wouldn’t try to talk about anything important just now, you know. Let’s wait a bit, eh?”

Lexy smiled to herself in the dark—a smile of extraordinary bitterness. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him about Caroline. He would think she was hysterical. She saw quite plainly that by this strange outburst she had lost his confidence.

She could in no way explain her sudden breaking down. Such a thing had never happened to her before. She could not understand it, but she was in no doubt about the unfortunate consequences of it. She was discredited.

XIV

Lexy sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped loosely before her, her bright head bent, her eyes fixed somberly upon nothing; and she could see nothing—not one step of the way that lay ahead of her. She could not think what she ought to do next. For the first time in her life, she had a feeling of utter confusion and dismay.

“It’s because I’m so tired,” she said to herself. “I’ve never been really tired out before.”

But that in itself was a cause for alarm. Why should she feel like this, so exhausted and depressed? Horrible thoughts came to her. Dr. Quelton had called her nervous, high-strung, hysterical. Was that because[Pg 340] he had seen in her something which she herself had never suspected? Was she hysterical? Mrs. Enderby had laughed at her. Mr. Houseman had gone away, satisfied with his own solution. Captain Grey, chivalrous and kindly as he was, had obviously lost interest in her affairs. Nobody believed in her. Was it because every one could see—

She remembered the intolerable humiliation of the day before, her wild outburst of tears in the Queltons’ house. Even in her childhood she had never done such a thing before.

“What does it mean?” she asked herself in terror. “What is the matter with me? Is this whole thing just a delusion? I came here to find Caroline, and I thought—I thought I did see her. Am I mad?”

That was the awful thing that had lain in ambush in her mind ever since yesterday, that had haunted her restless sleep all night. She had not admitted it, but it had been there every minute. All her actions, all her words, to-day, had the one object of showing Mrs. Royce and Captain Grey how entirely normal and sensible she was.

All day, hiding her terror and weakness, talking to Mrs. Royce, sitting at the lunch table and talking and laughing with Captain Grey, trying to make them believe her quite cheerful and untroubled—and all the time perhaps they knew. Perhaps they were humoring her!

She sprang up and went over to the window. The sun was beginning to sink in a tranquil sky. It had been a beautiful day, but Lexy felt too weary and listless to go out. She remembered now that both Captain Grey and the landlady had urged her to do so, that they had both said it would do her good. Then they must have noted that something was wrong with her. What did they think it was? Did she look—

She crossed the room and stood before the mirror. The rays of the setting sun fell upon her hair, turning it to copper and gold. It seemed to her to shine with a strange light about her pallid little face. Her eyes seemed enormous, somber, and terrible.

She covered her face with her hands and flung herself on the bed, sick and desperate. She could not see any one, could not speak to any one. When a knock came at her door, she thrust her fingers into her ears and lay there, with her eyes shut tight, trembling from head to foot; but the knocking went on until she could endure it no longer.

Mrs. Royce expostulated and argued for a time, but she could not persuade Lexy even to unlock the door; and at last, with a worried sigh, she went downstairs again.

The room was quite dark now, and the wind blowing in through the open window felt chill; but Lexy was too tired to close the window or light the gas. She was not drowsy. She lay stretched out, limp, overpowered with fatigue, but wide awake, and with a curious certainty that she was waiting for something.

There was another knock at the door, and this time Captain Grey’s voice spoke.

“But don’t you think you ought to eat something, you know? Or a cup of tea?”

“Can you open the door for half a moment?” he asked. “I’ve some roses here that my sister sent to you. She wanted me to say—”

The door opened with startling suddenness. Lexy appeared, and took the roses out of his hand.

“Thank you! Good night!” she said, and was gone again before he quite realized what was happening.

Then he heard the key turn in the lock, and, bewildered and very uneasy, he went away.

Lexy flung the roses down on the table, not even troubling to put them into water.

“Anything to get rid of him!” she said to herself. “I want to be let alone!”

She lay down on the bed again, pulling a blanket over herself. Downstairs she could hear Mrs. Royce moving about in the kitchen, and Captain Grey’s singularly agreeable voice talking to the landlady. It seemed to her that they were in a different world, and that she was shut outside, in a black and terrible solitude.

“If I can only sleep!” she thought. “Perhaps, in the morning[Pg 341]—”

She was beginning to feel a little drowsy now. How heavenly it would be to sleep, even for a little while! To sleep and to forget!

The wind was blowing through the dark little room, bringing to her the perfume of the roses—a wonderful fragrance. It was wonderful, but almost too strong. It was too strong. It troubled her.

“I’ll put them out on the window sill,” she murmured. “It’s such a queer scent!”

But she was too tired, too unspeakably tired. She didn’t seem able to get up, or even to move. She sighed faintly, and closed her eyes. The wind blew, strong and steady, heavy with that sweet and subtle odor.

Lexy laughed, and ducked down into the cockpit while the boom swung over. The little sailboat was flying over the sunny water like a bird. There was not a cloud in the pure bright sky, not a shadow in her joyous heart.

“Of course I came,” he answered. “I had to swim all the way from India.”

“Hold my hand!” he shouted, and she reached out for it; but she couldn’t find him at all.

There was no answer. She stared about her, numb with terror. What was it that rustled like that? What were these black, tall things that were standing motionless about her on every side?

“I’ve been dreaming,” she said to herself. “I’m in my own room, of course. If I go just a few steps, I’ll touch the wall. I’m awake now—only it’s so dark!”

And what was it that rustled like that—like leaves in the wind? What were these black, still forms about her? Trees? No—they couldn’t be trees.

In a wild panic she moved forward. Her outstretched hand touched something, and she screamed. The scream seemed to run along through the dark, leaping and rolling over the ground like a terrified animal. She tried to run after it, stumbling and panting, until her shoulder struck violently against something, and she stopped.

And into her sick and shuddering mind her old sturdy courage began to return. She tried to breathe quietly. She struggled desperately against the awful weakness that urged her to sink down on the ground and cover her eyes.

“No!” she said aloud. “I won’t! I’m here! I’m alive! I will understand! I will see!”

She was able now to draw a deep breath, and the horrible fluttering of her heart grew less. She stood motionless, waiting. It was coming back to her, that immortal, unconquerable spirit of hers. The anguish and the strange fear were passing.

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m in a wood somewhere. These are trees. What I hear are only the leaves in the wind. I don’t know where it is, or how I got here; but I’m alive and well. I can walk. I can get out of it.”

She moved forward again, quietly and deliberately. Her eyes were more accustomed to the darkness now, and she made her way through the trees, looking always ahead, never once behind her.

“The wood must end somewhere,” she said. “The morning will have to come some time. All I have to do is to go on.”

“Only the leaves on the trees,” said Lexy. “All I have to do is to go on.”

And she went on. Sometimes a wild desire to run swept over her, but she would not hasten her steps, and she would not look behind. The primeval terror of the forest pressed upon her, but she cast it away. Alone, lost, in darkness and solitude, she kept her hold upon the one thing that mattered—the honor and dignity of her own soul.

And then she saw a light. At first she thought it was the moon, but it hung too low, and it was too brilliant. Even then she would not run. She went on steadily toward it. In a few minutes she stepped out of the woodland upon a road—a hard, asphalt road with lights along it. It was[Pg 342] quite empty, it was unfamiliar to her, but she would have gone down on her knees and kissed the dust of it. It was a road, and all roads lead home.

There were no stars and no moon, for the sky was filled with wild black clouds flying before the wind. Lexy could not guess at the time. She had no idea where she was, but it didn’t matter. The morning would come some time, and the road would lead somewhere.

“It’s better here,” she said to herself. “I’d far, far rather be here, wherever it is, than shut up in that room with the thoughts I had!”

Those thoughts, those fears, had utterly gone from her now, but the memory of them was horrible. She shuddered at the memory of the hours she had spent locked in her room, with that monstrous dread of madness in her heart. Thank God, it had passed now! She walked along the interminable empty road, her old self again, but graver and sterner than she had ever been before in her life.

“I’ve got to understand all this,” she said to herself. “I’ve got to know what’s been the matter with me. That breakdown at the Queltons’, that awful time yesterday afternoon, and this! I suppose I’ve been walking in my sleep. I never did before. Something’s gone wrong with my nerves, terribly wrong; and I’ve got to find out why.”

She quickened her pace a little, because a trace of the old panic fear had stirred in her.

“It’s over!” she thought. “I’ll never imagine such a thing again; but I wonder if I’ll ever feel quite sure of myself again!”

For all her valiant efforts, tears came into her eyes. She had always been so proudly and honestly sure of herself, she had always trusted herself, and now—now she knew how weak, how untrustworthy she could be. Now she would always have that knowledge, and would fear that the weakness might come again.

“I don’t know whether I really did see Caroline. I can’t feel certain of anything. Perhaps I ought to give up all this and go away and rest; only I’ve no place to go. There isn’t any one I can tell.”

She straightened her shoulders and looked up at the vast, dark sky, where black clouds ran before a wind that snapped at their heels like a wolf; and the sight assuaged her. This world that lay under the open sky—the woods, the hills, and above all, the sea—was her world. It belonged to her equally with all God’s creatures. She had her part in it and her place. There was no one to whom she could turn for comfort, her faith in herself was cruelly shaken, and yet somehow she was not forsaken and helpless. Some one was coming. It was dark, but the light was coming!

She went on, her brisk footsteps ringing out clearly in the silence. The road was bordered on both sides by woods, where the leaves whispered, and there was no sign anywhere of another human being; but the road must lead somewhere. It began to go steeply uphill, and she became aware for the first time that she was very tired and very hungry, and that one of her shoes was worn through; but she had her precious money in the bag around her neck, and, if she kept on going, she couldn’t help reaching some place where she could get food and rest.

It was a long, long hill, and the stones began to hurt her foot in the worn shoe; but she got to the top, and then below her she saw the lights of a railway station.

She went down the hill at a lively trot, and it was as if she had come into a different world. Dogs barked somewhere not far off, and she passed a barn standing black against the sky. It was a human world, where people lived.

When she reached the platform, the door of the waiting room was locked, but inside she could see a light burning dimly in the ticket booth, and a clock. Half past one! With a sigh of relief, she sat down on the edge of the platform. She wouldn’t in the least mind sitting here until morning, in a place where there were lights and a clock, and she could hear a dog barking. She took off her shoe and rubbed her bruised foot, and sighed again with great content. In four hours or so somebody would come, and then she would find out where she was, and how to get back to Mrs. Royce, and Mrs. Royce’s comfortable breakfast—coffee, ham and eggs, and hot muffins.

She started up, and hastily put on her shoe again, for in the distance she heard the sound of a motor. She told herself[Pg 343] that it would be the height of folly to stop an unknown car in this solitary place, for there were evil men abroad in the world; but there were a great many more honest ones, and if she could only get back to Mrs. Royce’s now!

She crossed the road and stood behind a big tree. The purr of the motor was growing louder and louder, filling the whole earth. Her heart beat fast, she kept her eyes upon the road, excited, but not sure what she meant to do.

“Now, then! What’s up?” he demanded suspiciously. From a safe distance, the light of an electric torch was flashed in her face. “Well, I’ll be gosh-darned!” said he. “Ain’t you the boarder up to Mrs. Royce’s?”

“Yes! I am! I am!” cried Lexy, overwhelmed with delight. “Can you take me there?”

“Yes,” said Lexy. “Aren’t you the driver who took me up the day I came here?”

“That’s me—only taxi in Wyngate. Took you out to the Queltons’, too. Hop in, miss!”

His engine had stalled, and he set to work to crank it, while Lexy stood beside him.

He was too busy to answer for a moment. Then, when his engine was running again, he straightened up and looked at her.

“No, ma’am!” he said firmly. “No more of that for me! Not after what happened a while ago. No, ma’am! I had my lesson!”

“Well,” he said slowly, “I s’pose it was; but the more I think it over, the more I dunno!”

In the brightness cast by the headlights, Lexy could see his face very well, and the look on it gave her a strange little thrill of fear. It was not a handsome or intelligent face, but it was a very honest one, and she saw, written plain upon it, a very honest doubt and dismay. Like herself, he wasn’t sure.

“It was this way,” he went on. “About three miles up Carterstown way there’s a bad piece of road. There’s a steep hill, and a crossroad cuts across the foot of it, and it’s too narrer for two cars to pass. It’s a bad piece, and I always been keerful there. I was keerful that night. I was coming along the crossroad, and I heard another car somewhere, and I sounded the horn two or three times before I come to the foot of the hill. Jest as I got there, and was turning up the hill, down comes another car, full tilt. I couldn’t git out o’ the way. There’s stone walls on both sides. I tried to back, but he crashed into me. I kind of fainted, I guess. My cab was all smashed up, and I was cut pretty bad with glass. They found me lying there about an hour after. The other fellow—he was killed.” He stopped for a minute. “If it hadn’t been fer his license number, nobody could ’a’ known who he was, he was so smashed up. Seems he was from New York, driving a taxi belonging to one of them big companies.”

“Yes,” said the other solemnly. “I kin say that, too, whatever he meant to do.”

“I keep thinking about it,” he said in a half whisper. “This is the queer thing about it, miss. That there car didn’t start till I got to the foot of the hill! The engine was just racing, and the car wasn’t moving along—I know that. It was as if he’d been waiting up there for me, and then down he came as if he meant”—the speaker paused again—“to kill me,” he ended.

She had a very odd feeling that this story was somehow of great importance to her, but that she must put it away, that she must keep it in her mind until later. This wasn’t the time to think about it.

“Joe,” she said, “I want to hear more about this—all about it; but not now. I’m too tired.”

He gave himself a shake, like a dog. Then he turned to her with a slow, good-natured smile.

“I guess you are!” he said. “Lucky[Pg 344] for you I just happened to be late to-night, taking them Ainsly girls ’way out to their house after a dance. Hop in, miss!”

Lexy got in, and they set off. She leaned back and closed her eyes, but they flew open again as if of their own accord. There was something she wanted to see. Through the glass she could see Joe’s burly shoulders, a little hunched—Joe, who, like herself, wasn’t sure.

“Not now!” said something inside her. “Don’t think about that now. Try not to think at all. Wait! Something is going to happen.”

At the corner of the road leading to Mrs. Royce’s, she tapped on the window. Joe stopped the cab with a jerk, sprang down from his seat, and ran around to open the door.

“Nothing,” said Lexy. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Joe. I thought I’d get out here and slip into the house quietly, without disturbing any one.”

“I’ve got kind of jumpy since—that,” he said. “Howsomever, come on, miss!”

Grateful for his genuine kindness, Lexy made no further protest. Side by side they walked down the lane, their footsteps noiseless in the thick dust, and Joe opened the garden gate without a sound.

“I thought perhaps I could climb up that tree and get in at my window,” Lexy whispered.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Joe, “and come down and let you in by the back door.”

He was up the tree like a cat. He went cautiously along a branch, until he could reach the roof of the shed with his toes. He dropped down on the roof, and Lexy saw him disappear into her room. She went to the back door. In a minute she heard the key turn inside, and the door opened.

But he paid no attention to her. He stood still, drawing deep breaths of the night air.

“Them roses!” he said. “The smell of ’em made me kind of sick, like. Throw ’em out, miss! Don’t go to sleep with them roses in the room!”

“I’ll see you to-morrow, Joe,” she said. “I’ll pay you for the taxi, and have a talk with you. And thank you, Joe, ever so much!”

Lexy went in, locked the kitchen door behind her, and stood there, leaning against it, half dazed by the great light that was coming into her mind. She was beginning to understand! The roses—the roses with their strange and powerful fragrance! Her hysterical outburst after her tea at Dr. Quelton’s house! She was beginning to understand, not the details, but the one tremendous thing that mattered.

“He did it,” she said to herself. “He made all this happen. I didn’t just break down. I haven’t been weak and hysterical. He made it all happen!”

For a time her relief was an ecstasy. She could trust herself again. She was so happy in that knowledge that she could have shouted aloud, to waken Mrs. Royce and Captain Grey, and tell them. The monstrous burden was lifted, she was free, she was her old sturdy, trustworthy self again.

She sank into a chair by the kitchen table, staring before her into the dark, her lips parted in a smile of gratitude and delight; and then, suddenly, the smile fled. She rose to her feet, her hands clenched, her whole body rigid.

“He did it!” she said again. “It’s the vilest and most horrible thing any one can do. He tried to steal my soul. He turned me into that poor, terrified, contemptible creature. I’ll never in all my life forgive him. I’m going to find out—about that, and about Caroline. I’ll never give up trying, and I’ll never forgive him!”

She groped her way through the dark kitchen and into the hall. That was where she had first seen Dr. Quelton. She stopped and turned, as if she were looking into his face.

XVI

Lexy came down to breakfast a little late the next morning, but in the best of spirits, and with a ferocious appetite. She had no idea how or when she had left the house the night before, but obviously neither Mrs. Royce nor Captain Grey knew anything about it, and that sufficed. She could go on eating, quite untroubled by their friendly anxiety. Let them think[Pg 345] what they chose—it no longer mattered to her.

For, in spite of the warm liking she had for them both, she felt entirely cut off from them now. If she told them the truth, they would not believe her, they would not and could not help her. Nobody on earth would help her. She faced that fact squarely. Whatever Dr. Quelton had meant to accomplish, he had perfectly succeeded in doing one thing—he had discredited her. Anything she said now would be regarded as the irresponsible statement of a hysterical girl.

Captain Grey was standing by the window in the dining room, keeping her company while she ate. He turned his head aside as she spoke, but not before she had noticed on his sensitive face the odd and touching look that always came over it at any mention of his sister. Evidently he worshiped her, and yet Lexy was certain that he was somehow disappointed in her.

“I’m glad,” said Lexy; “but how did you manage to keep the roses so wonderfully fresh, Captain Grey?”

“The doctor wrapped them for me—some rather special way, you know—damp paper, and then a cloth. He told me not to open them until I gave them to you. Very clever chap, isn’t he?”

He lit a cigarette and sat down on the window sill. He was silent, and so was Lexy, for she fancied that he had something he wished to say.

“Miss Moran,” he said, at last, “you’ll go there again to see her, won’t you?”

“I was afraid you might think—it’s the atmosphere of the place—I’m sure of it—that made you nervous the other afternoon. It’s something about the place, you know. I’ve felt it myself. I was afraid you wouldn’t care to go again, and I don’t like to think of her there—alone.”

“She’s not alone,” observed Lexy blandly. “She has her clever husband.”

“Yes, I know that, of course, but he’s—well, he’s not very cheery,” said the young man earnestly.

“No, he’s not very cheery,” she admitted. “Of course I’ll go again—this afternoon, if you’d like.”

“I say! You are good!” he cried. “I know jolly well that you don’t want to go.”

“If you don’t mind,” said Lexy, “I’ll go by myself. There’s something I want to attend to first. I’ll meet you there at four o’clock.”

“You poor dear thing!” she added, to herself. His solicitude touched her. He seemed to feel himself responsible for her, as if she were a very delicate and rather weak-minded child. “You’re not very cheery, either!” she thought. And indeed he was not. His meeting with his sister had upset him badly. Ever since he had first seen her, he had been troubled and anxious and downcast. “And that’s because she’s not human,” thought Lexy. “She’s beautiful, and gentle, and all that, but she’s like a ghost. Of course it bothers him!”

She did not give much more thought to Captain Grey, however. As soon as he left the house, she went upstairs into the little sewing room, and until lunch time she was busy writing the clearest and briefest account she could of what had occurred. This she put into an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Charles Houseman and laid it on her bureau.

“If anything happened, I suppose they’d give it to him,” she said to herself. “I’d like him to know.”

Somehow this gave her a good deal of comfort. Not that she expected anything to happen, or was at all frightened, but she did not deny that Dr. Quelton was a singularly unpleasant sort of enemy to have; and he was her enemy—she was sure of it.

Just because he had made such a point of her arriving after four o’clock, she had made up her mind to reach the house well before that hour—which would not please him. Directly after lunch she walked down to the village. She found Joe taking a nap in his cab, outside the station; and, regardless of the frightful curiosity of the villagers, she stood there talking to him for a[Pg 346] long time. He assured her, with his sheepish grin, that he had told no one of his having met her the night before, and he willingly promised never to mention it to any one without her consent.

That was true, too. He was reluctant, to-day, to talk about his strange adventure with the cab on the hill; but Lexy made him answer her questions, and he wavered in no respect from his first version.

“There was an inquest, an’ all,” he said. “I’m darned glad it’s all over!”

“It isn’t!” thought Lexy. “Somehow it belongs with other things. It’s a piece of the puzzle. I can’t fit it in now, but I will some day!”

So she thanked Joe, and paid him for last night’s trip, though he made miserable and embarrassed efforts to stop her. Then she set off on her way.

It was four o’clock by her watch when she reached the garden gate. She stopped for a moment with her hand on the latch, and, in spite of herself, a little shiver ran through her. The battered old house in the tangled garden looked more menacing to-day, in the tranquil spring sunshine, than it had in the rain. It was utterly lonely and quiet. Lexy could hear nothing but the distant sound of the surf, which was like the beating of a tired heart.

Against the advice of Mrs. Enderby, almost against her own reason, she had come here to Wyngate, and to the house—and she had seen Caroline. The thing which was beyond reason had been right—so right that it frightened her; and now it bade her go on. It was like a voice telling her that her feet were set in the right path.

Lexy pushed open the gate and went in. The pleasant young parlor maid opened the door. She looked alarmed.

“I don’t know, miss,” she said. “Mrs. Quelton—I’ll go and ask the doctor.”

But from the hall Lexy had caught sight of Mrs. Quelton in the drawing-room alone, and, with an affable smile for the anxious parlor maid, she went in there.

“I’m afraid I’m awfully early—” she began, and then stopped short in amazement.

Mrs. Quelton did not welcome the visitor, did not smile or speak. She lay back in her chair and stared at Lexy with dilated eyes and parted lips. Her face was as white as paper, and strangely drawn.

Mrs. Quelton only stared at her with those brilliant, dilated eyes. Lexy took the other woman’s hand, and it was as cold as ice, and utterly lifeless.

Somehow it added to her horror to see, as she bent over her, that the unfortunate woman’s face was ever so thickly covered with some curious sort of paint or powder. It made her seem like a grotesque and horrible marionette.

She drew back her hand, for she could not touch that painted face. She didn’t fail in generous pity, but she could not overcome an instinctive repugnance. She turned around, intending to call the parlor maid, and there was Dr. Quelton striding down the long room with a glass in his hand. Without even glancing at Lexy, he stooped over his wife, raised her limp head on one arm, and put the glass to her lips. She drank the contents, and lay back again, with her eyes closed. Almost at once the color began to return to her ashen cheeks. Her arms quivered, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at him with a faint, dazed smile.

“Come, now!” he said indulgently. “The faintness has passed. Now you must go up to your room and rest a little before tea.”

She rose, and to Lexy’s surprise her movements showed no trace of weakness. Then, turning her head, she caught sight of the girl, and her face lighted with pleasure.

“Miss Moran will wait, I’m sure,” the doctor interrupted. “You must rest for half an hour, Muriel.”

Taking her by the arm, he led her down the room. In the doorway she looked back and smiled at her visitor; and if anything had been needed to steel Lexy’s heart against the doctor, that smile on his wife’s face would have done it—that poor, plaintive little smile.

Standing there by Mrs. Quelton’s empty chair, she waited for him to return, a cold and terrible anger rising in her. She heard his step in the hall, heavy and deliberate,[Pg 347] and presently he reëntered the room and came toward her, his blank, dull eyes fixed upon nothing. She was quite certain that he wanted to put her out of his way, and that he had no scruple whatever as to methods; yet for all her youth and inexperience, her utter loneliness, she felt that she was a match for him.

“So you’ve come back to us, Miss Moran,” he said in his lifeless voice. “I was afraid you might not.”

“Oh, but why not?” Lexy inquired in a brisk and cheerful tone. “I like to come here!”

A curious thrill of exultation ran through her, for she saw on the doctor’s face the faintest shadow of a frown. He was perplexed! She baffled him, and he didn’t know whether she understood what had happened.

“It is a great pleasure to Mrs. Quelton and myself,” he said politely. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at her. “Perhaps,” he went on, “you would be kind enough to spend a week here with us some time? Although I’m afraid you might find it very dull.”

“Oh, no!” Lexy assured him. “I’d love to come—whenever it’s convenient for you.”

XVII

Captain Grey was enchanted with the idea of Lexy’s spending a week with his sister. He was going, too. Indeed, Lexy felt sure that Mrs. Quelton had wanted him to go there some time ago, and that he had refused simply on her own account. He didn’t like to leave her alone at Mrs. Royce’s, and after her nervous breakdown that afternoon nothing could have induced him to do so. He was anxious about her. He tried, with what he believed was great tact, to find out her plans for the future. He was genuinely troubled by the loneliness and uncertainty of her life.

Lexy appreciated all this, and she liked the young man very much—perhaps as much as he liked her; but the sympathetic understanding which had promised to develop on the night when they talked together in the firelight had never developed. Something had checked it. They were the best of friends, but Captain Grey never again referred to what Lexy had told him about Caroline Enderby, and about her reason for coming to Wyngate; and Lexy said nothing, either. Evidently he thought that it had been a far-fetched, romantic notion of hers, and hoped that she had forgotten all about it.

Lexy did not try to undeceive him. Her story would be too fantastic for him to believe. Nobody would believe it, except a person with absolute faith not only in her honesty but in her intelligence and clear-sightedness; and there was no such person. She was not resentful or grieved over this. She accepted it quietly, and prepared to go forward alone.

It had occurred to her lately that perhaps Mr. Houseman had been right, and that Caroline had gone away of her own free will; but she meant to know. She had seen the missing girl in Dr. Quelton’s house. Whatever the doctor might say about the false evidence of the senses, Lexy’s confidence in her own clear gray eyes was not in the least shaken. She had seen Caroline once, and she was going to see her again. That was why she was going to the Tower.

“It’ll do Muriel no end of good,” said Captain Grey, when they were in the taxi. “She’s—to tell you the truth, Miss Moran, I don’t feel altogether easy about her.”

“Well,” he said, “it’s hard to put it into words; but that’s not a wholesome sort of life for a young woman, shut away like that. The doctor says her health’s not good, but it’s my opinion that if she got about more—saw more people, you know—”

Lexy felt a great pity for him. Apparently he did not even suspect what she was now sure of—that the unfortunate Muriel was hopelessly addicted to some drug, which her husband himself gave to her.

“And I hope he’ll go back to India before he does find out,” she thought. “It’s too horrible—he worships her so!”

“I’ve tried, you know,” he went on. “I wanted to take her into the city, to a concert. Seems confoundedly queer, doesn’t it, the way she’s lost interest in her music? She didn’t want to go. Then about the emerald—”

“Chap I know designed a setting for it. It’s unset now, you know, and I thought I’d like to do that for her while I was here; but she doesn’t seem interested. I can’t even get her to let me see the thing. I’ve asked her two or three times, but she always puts me off. Do you think it bores her?”

“Well,” said the young man, “when a woman’s bored by a jewel like that, she’s in a bad way. I wish you could see it!”

“I wish I could,” said Lexy, and added to herself: “But I don’t think I ever shall. Probably her husband’s got it.”

They had now reached the Tower. The parlor maid opened the door for them, and at once conducted Lexy upstairs to her room.

It was a big room, with four windows, and very comfortably furnished; but even a fire burning in the grate and two or three shaded electric lamps could not give it a homelike air. There was a musty smell about it, and there was an amazing amount of dust. It was neat, but it wasn’t clean. Dust rose from the carpet when she walked, and from the chair cushions when she sat down. She saw fluff under the bed and under the bureau.

“Not much of a housekeeper, poor soul!” thought Lexy. “It’s a pity. One could do almost anything with a house like this, and all this beautiful old furniture!”

But this, after all, was a minor matter. She took off her hat, washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

“The house is strange to me,” she said to herself, with a grin. “I shouldn’t wonder if I turned the wrong way, and got lost!”

That was what she intended to do. She did not expect to make any sensational discoveries, for Dr. Quelton did not seem to be the sort of person who would leave clews lying about for her to pick up; but she did hope that she might see or hear something—Heaven knows what—that might bring her nearer to Caroline.

So, instead of walking toward the stairs, she turned in the opposite direction, along a hall lined with doors, all of them shut. At the end there was a grimy window, through which the sun shone in upon the dusty carpet and the faded wall paper. There was a forlorn and neglected air about the place, a stillness which made it impossible for her to believe that there was any living creature behind those closed doors.

“I wish I had cheek enough to open some of them,” she thought; “but I’m afraid I haven’t. I shouldn’t know what to say if there was some one in the room. After all, I’m supposed to be a guest. I’ve got to be a little discreet about my prying.”

She went softly along the hall to the window, to see what was out there. When she reached it, she was surprised to see that the last door was a little ajar. She looked through the crack. It wasn’t a room in there, but another hall, only a few feet long, ending at a narrow staircase.

“That must be the way to the cupola,” she thought. “I suppose a guest might go up there, to see the view.”

So she pushed the door open and went on tiptoe to the stairs; and then she heard a voice which she had no trouble in recognizing. It was Dr. Quelton’s.

“My dear young man,” he was saying. “I am not a psychologist. It has always seemed to me the greatest folly to devote serious study to the workings of so erratic and incalculable a machine as the human brain. It is a study in which there are, practically speaking, no general rules, no trustworthy data. It is, in my opinion, not a science at all, but a philosophy; and philosophy makes no appeal to me. I frankly admit that I am entirely materialistic. I care little for causes, but much for effects. Consequently, I have devoted myself to medicine, in which I can produce certain effects according to established rules.”

“But I meant more particularly the effect of—of things on the mind—the brain, you know,” said Captain Grey’s voice.

Again Lexy felt a great pity for him. He sounded very, very young in contrast to the doctor—so young and earnest, and so helpless!

“Exactly!” said the doctor. “You were, I believe, trying to lead to a suggestion that psychology might be of help to Muriel. Am I right?”

There was a moment’s pause, during which Lexy very cautiously went halfway up the stairs.

“I did think of that,” said the young man valiantly. “It seems to me she’s a bit—well, morbid, you know; and I’ve heard about those chaps—those psychoanalysts, you know. Simply occurred to me that one of them—merely a suggestion, you know. I’m not trying to be officious.[Pg 349]”

“A psychoanalyst,” said Dr. Quelton, “is a man who analyzes the psyche, who solemnly and expensively analyzes something of whose existence he has no proof whatever.”

By this time Lexy had reached the head of the stairs. Beside her was an open door, through which she could look, while she herself was hidden from view. Beyond it was, as she had thought, the cupola—a small octagonal room with windows on every side, through which the sun poured in a dazzling flood. There was nothing in the room except a white enamel table, a stool, a porcelain sink, and an open cabinet, upon the shelves of which stood rows and rows of bottles, each one labeled. Facing this cabinet, and with their backs toward the door, stood the two men—the doctor with his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped behind him, and Captain Grey, tall, slender, straight as a wand.

“Materia medica—that is my art,” said the doctor. “I have devoted my life to it, and I have learned—a little. I have made experiments. A psychologist will offer to tell you why a man has murdered his grandmother. I can’t pretend to do that, but I can give that man a tablet which will make it practically certain that he will kill his grandmother if they are left alone together for ten minutes.”

“I can assure you that I have never made the experiment,” said Dr. Quelton, with a laugh; “but I could do it. I have learned that certain states of mind can be produced by certain drugs.”

Captain Grey turned his head, so that Lexy could see his handsome, sensitive face in profile.

“That seems to me a pretty risky thing to do,” he said, with a trace of sternness. “I hope, sir, that you don’t—”

“Don’t give Muriel drugs that make her disposed to murder her grandmother?” interrupted the doctor, with another laugh; but he must have noticed that his companion was unresponsive, for he at once changed his tone. “No,” he said gravely. “I have made a particular study of Muriel’s case. She seriously overtaxed herself in her musical studies. Don’t be alarmed, my dear fellow—there is no permanent injury. It is simply a profound mental and nervous lassitude—obviously a case where artificial stimulation is required, until the tone of the lethargic brain is restored. I am able to do for her what, I feel certain, no one else now living could do. In this bottle”—he tapped one of them with his forefinger—“I have a preparation which would make my fortune, if I had the least ambition in that direction. Five drops of that, in a glass of water, and her depression and apathy are immediately dispelled. There is an instantaneous improvement in—”

Lexy waited to hear no more. She slipped down the stairs as quietly as she had come up, hurried along the hall, and went into her own room again. Her knees gave way and she collapsed into a chair, staring ahead of her with the most singular expression on her face.

“No!” she said to herself. “It’s out of the question. It’s too dangerous. I can’t do it!”

But the idea remained solidly before her; and the more she contemplated it, the more was her honest heart obliged to admit the possibilities in it.

“It can’t do any real harm,” she said; “and it might do good—so much good! All right, I’m going to do it!”

Half an hour before dinner she went down into the library, a polite and quiet young guest, even a little subdued. Dr. Quelton took Captain Grey out for a stroll on the beach. He asked Lexy to go with them, but she said she would prefer to stay with Mrs. Quelton.

It was very peaceful and pleasant there in the library. The late afternoon sun shone in through the long window, touching with a benign light the shabby and graceful old furniture, picking out a glitter of gold on the binding of a book, a dull gleam of silver or copper in a corner. A mild breeze blew in, fluttering the curtains and bringing a wholesome breath of the salt air.

Mrs. Quelton was at her best. To be sure, she was not very interesting. She talked about rather banal things—about the weather, about a kitten that had run away, about the flowers in the conservatory; but Lexy, as she watched her and listened to her, could understand better than ever before what it was in Captain Grey’s sister that had so seized upon his heart. Languid and aloof as she was, there was nevertheless an undeniable charm about her, something sweet and kindly and lovable. She said, more than once, how[Pg 350] very glad she was to have Lexy with her, and Lexy believed she meant it.

“I must have left my handkerchief upstairs,” said Lexy. “Excuse me just a minute, please!”

But she was gone more than a minute, and when she returned her face was curiously white.

XVIII

The clock struck eleven. Lexy glanced up from her book, in the vain hope that somebody would speak, would stir, would make some move to end this intolerable evening; but nobody did.

Dr. Quelton and Captain Grey were playing chess. They sat facing each other at a small table, in a haze of tobacco smoke, silent and intent, as if they had been gods deciding human destinies. Mrs. Quelton lay on her chaise longue, doing nothing at all. If Lexy spoke to her, she answered in a low tone, but cheerfully enough; but she so obviously preferred not to talk that Lexy had taken up a book and vainly attempted to read.

It was the most wearisome and depressing evening she had ever spent. Her lively and restless spirit had often enough found it dull at the Enderbys’, and at other times and places; but this was different, and infinitely worse.

To begin with, a sense of guilt lay like lead upon her heart. She hoped and believed that what she had done was right, but she was afraid, terribly afraid, of what might result. She could not keep her eyes off Mrs. Quelton’s face. She watched the doctor’s wife with a dread and anxiety which she felt was ill concealed; and she had a chill suspicion that the doctor was watching her, in turn.

“Of course, he’s bound to find out some time,” she said to herself. “I wasn’t such a fool as to expect more than a day or two, at the very most; but I did hope there’d be time just to see—”

Again she glanced at Mrs. Quelton. Was it imagination, or was there already a faint and indefinable change?

“No, that’s nonsense,” she thought. “There couldn’t be, so soon—although I don’t know how often he gives her that priceless tonic.”

Suddenly she wanted to laugh. She had a very vivid memory of Dr. Quelton tapping that bottle with his finger, and saying to Captain Grey that he had a preparation in there which would make his fortune, if he chose.

There was nothing in that bottle now but water. Just before dinner she had run up to the cupola, emptied its contents into the sink, and filled it from the tap.

The idea had come to her when she overheard the two men talking. It had seemed to her then a plain and obvious duty to destroy the drug that so horribly affected Mrs. Quelton. Fate had allowed her to see which bottle it was. Fate gave her an undisturbed half hour when the doctor and Captain Grey were out; and, to make her plan quite perfect, the liquid in the bottle was colorless and almost without odor.

She had thought it possible that the doctor would not notice the substitution until his unhappy wife had had at least a chance to return to a normal condition. Lexy had meant to wait and to watch, and, when the moment came, to speak to Mrs. Quelton. She had thought that she could warn the doctor’s wife, and implore her not to submit to that hideous domination.

She had scarcely thought of the risk to herself, and it had not occurred to her that there might be serious risk to Mrs. Quelton. She knew almost nothing about drugs and their effects. Her one idea had been to destroy the thing that was destroying Mrs. Quelton. Only now, when it was done, did she realize the mad audacity of her act. A man like Dr. Quelton couldn’t be tricked by such a childish device. He would know what had happened, and who had done it. Very likely he had plenty more of the drug somewhere else. If he hadn’t—

“He’d feel like killing me,” thought Lexy. “I suppose he could, easily enough. He must know all sorts of nice, quiet little ways for getting rid of obnoxious people. Perhaps there was something in my dinner to-night!”

“No!” she said to herself. “He asked me here just to show me how little I mattered. He knew I’d seen Caroline here, and he asked me to come, because he was so sure I couldn’t do anything. I’m too insignificant for him to bother with. He knows that nobody would believe what I said. He’d only have to say that I was hysterical, and Captain Grey and Mrs.[Pg 351] Royce would be obliged to bear him out. He won’t trouble himself about me!”

She stole a glance at him, and, to her profound uneasiness, she found him staring intently at her. A shiver ran down her spine, and she turned back to her book with a very pale face. If only it had been an interesting book, so that she might have forgotten herself for a little while!

“After all, I don’t see why I have to sit here,” she thought. “I shouldn’t exactly break up the party if I went to bed.”

“I’m so tired!” she said in a high, wailing voice. “I’m so tired—so tired—so tired!”

He helped her to rise, and she stood, supported by his arm, her face drawn and ghastly.

She did not answer, or even look at him. Leaning on the doctor’s arm, she went out of the room, into the hall, and up the stairs. Her wailing voice floated back to them:

“Don’t stand it!” she whispered. “Take her away! Can’t you see? Take her away!”

“You mustn’t be alarmed,” said Dr. Quelton’s voice from the hall. They both looked at him with a guilty start, but his blank eyes were staring past them, at nothing. “It is unfortunate,” he said. “The little excitement of this visit—”

He walked past them into the room and over to the table, where his pipe lay among the chessmen. He lit it deliberately and stood smoking it, with one arm resting on the mantelpiece.

“In her present highly nervous condition,” he went on, “the little excitement of this visit has proved too much for her. I shall drive over to the hospital and fetch a nurse—”

“There is absolutely no occasion for alarm, as I told you before. A few days’ rest and quiet—”

“Look here, sir!” said Captain Grey. “It seems to me—I’ve no wish to be offensive, or anything of that sort, but it seems right to me”—he paused for a moment—“to get a second opinion.”

“Possibly not, sir; but perhaps you would be willing to oblige me to that extent. I don’t want to insist—”

“My dear young man,” he said, “you oblige me to be frank. I should have preferred a discreet silence; but as you are obviously determined to make the matter as difficult as possible, you must hear the truth. For some years your sister has been addicted to the use of certain drugs. When I discovered this, I set about trying to cure the addiction. You probably have no idea what that means. I venture to say that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—more difficult in the entire field of medicine. I have been working on the case for more than a year, and I have made distinct progress; but it will be some time before the cure is completed, and I can assure you that it never will be unless I am left undisturbed. There is no other man now living who can do what I am doing.”

He spoke gravely and coldly, and his blank eyes were fixed upon Captain Grey with a sort of sternness; but Lexy had a curious impression—more than an impression, a certainty—that within himself Dr. Quelton was laughing.

“If you care to take another doctor into your confidence,” he went on, “I can scarcely refuse permission; but you will regret it.”

The young man said nothing. He turned away and stood by the open window, looking out into the dark garden. Lexy waited for a moment. Then, with a subdued[Pg 352] “Good night,” she went out of the room, up the stairs, and into her own room.

XIX

“My dear Miss Moran, what in the world can I do?” returned Captain Grey, with a sort of despair.

They were sitting together on the veranda in the warm morning sunshine. They had had breakfast in the dining room, with the doctor—an excellent breakfast. The doctor had been at his best—courteous, affable, very attentive to his guests. Everything in his manner tended to reassure the young soldier.

Everything in the world seemed to tend in that direction, Lexy thought. A Sunday tranquillity lay over the country. Church bells were ringing somewhere in the far distance. The windows of the library stood open, and the parlor maid was visible in there, flitting about with broom and duster. Everything was peaceful and ordinary, and Captain Grey had come out on the veranda and attempted to begin a peaceful and ordinary conversation.

But Lexy had no intention of allowing him to enjoy such a thing. She felt pretty sure that her time in this house would not be long. She had caused Dr. Quelton an anxiety that he could not conceal. She had got in his way. She could not tell whether he had discovered her trick yet, but the effects were manifest; and if he didn’t know now, he would very soon, and then—

“You’re properly satisfied—with everything?” she went on mercilessly. “You’re not allowed even to see your sister. No one can see her. You’re not allowed to call in another doctor.”

“Even if I’m not properly satisfied,” he answered, “what can I do? In her husband’s house, you know—I can’t make a row.”

He looked at her, startled and uneasy. Her question was ridiculous. Why couldn’t he make a row? Simply because he couldn’t; because he wasn’t that sort; because it wasn’t done; because almost anything was preferable to making a row.

“Put on your best commanding officer’s air,” said Lexy. “You can be awfully impressive when you like. If I were you, there’s nothing I’d stop at.”

The idea of Captain Grey trying to laugh off anything made her grin from ear to ear.

“Not much of a joke, though, is it?” he said rather stiffly. “Suppose he hoofs us out of the house?”

“Oh, dear!” cried Lexy. “You’re not a bit resourceful! Let’s try it, anyhow. It’s horrible to think of her shut up like that. Perhaps she’s longing to see you.”

Together they went up the stairs and down the hall of the other wing, opposite that in which Lexy’s room was. Captain Grey knocked on a door, and a quiet, middle-aged little nurse came out.

“I’ll just pop in to see how my sister’s getting on,” said the young man, and Lexy silently applauded his toploftical manner.

“I’m sorry,” said the little nurse, “but Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—”

“Er—yes, quite so!” he interrupted suavely. “I shan’t stop a minute.”

He came nearer, but the nurse drew back and stood with her back against the door.

“No more of that, please!” he said with a frown. “I’m going to see Mrs. Quelton for a moment. Stand aside, please!”

He did not raise his voice, but the quality of it was oddly changed. Lexy felt a thrill of pleasure in its cool assurance and authority. Perhaps he objected very much to “making a row,” but what a glorious row he could make if he chose! If he would only once face Dr. Quelton like this!

“Stand aside, if you please!” he repeated, and the poor little nurse, very much flustered, did so.

“I’m afraid Dr. Quelton will be—” she began, but Captain Grey had already entered the room.

The nurse followed him, closing the door after her. Lexy opened it at once and went in after them. She caught a glimpse of the young man and the nurse vanishing[Pg 353] through one of the long windows that led out to the balcony. For a moment she hesitated, looking about her at the big, dim room. The dark shades were pulled down, and not a trace of the spring’s brightness entered here.

“My dear, my dear!” he said. “Can I do anything in the world for you? My dear!”

There was no answer. Lexy crossed the room to the window and looked out. The balcony, too, was dim, with Venetian blinds drawn down on every side, and on a narrow cot lay Muriel Quelton. There was a bandage over her forehead and covering her hair, and under it her face had a mystic and terrible beauty. She was as white as a ghost, with great dark circles beneath her eyes; and she was so still—so utterly still—that Lexy was stricken with terror.

Captain Grey was sitting beside her in a low chair, holding one of her lifeless hands, and Lexy saw on his face such anguish as she had never looked upon before.

Her weary eyes opened and looked up at him. Then the shadow of a smile crossed her face.

Lexy drew nearer. Tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to read the nurse’s face, but she could not.

“Lexy!” came a voice from the cot, almost inaudible. “Take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”

“Hush, please!” said the nurse severely. “Mrs. Quelton is not to be excited.”

Lexy was silent for a moment. Then, just as she was about to speak, her quick ear caught a very unwelcome sound—the sound of a horse’s trot. She turned away and went back through the window into the room. Dr. Quelton was coming home. She couldn’t wait to find out what Muriel Quelton had meant. Once more she was compelled to do the best she could amid a fog of misunderstanding.

That was what she thought Mrs. Quelton had said, and she acted upon that premise. She crossed the room to the bureau, and opened the top drawer. In the dim light that filled the shuttered room she could not see very clearly; but, as far as she could ascertain, there was nothing in the drawer except some neatly folded silk stockings, a satin glove case, some little odds and ends of ribbons, and a pile of handkerchiefs. She looked into the glove case—nothing there but gloves. There was nothing hidden away among the stockings, nothing among the ribbons.

She heard the front door close and a step begin to mount the stairs, deliberate and heavy, in the quiet house. In haste she went at the pile of handkerchiefs. There were dozens of them, all of fine white linen, all with a “2” embroidered in one corner—very uninteresting handkerchiefs, Lexy thought; but halfway through the pile she came upon one that she had seen before.

It was so familiar to her that at first she was not startled or even surprised. It was a handkerchief that she had embroidered for Caroline Enderby.

She took it up and looked at it with a frown. Then she heard Dr. Quelton’s step in the hall outside. She tucked the handkerchief in her belt, and tried to close the drawer, but it stuck. Her heart was beating wildly, her knees felt weak. He would find her there, like a thief!

But the footsteps went on past the door. She waited for a moment, and then went noiselessly across to the door, opened it, looked up and down the empty corridor, and ran, like a hare, back to her own room.

Caroline’s handkerchief! Was that what Mrs. Quelton had meant her to find? Or had she discovered it by accident? Did it mean that Mrs. Quelton was at heart her ally? Or was this little square of linen all that was left of Caroline?

Lexy took it out of her belt and looked at it again, and her tears fell on it. Whatever else it might imply, it told her clearly enough that her friend had been there. Poor Caroline—the helpless little captive who had left her prison to be lost in the strange world outside—had come here, and she had brought with her the handkerchief that Lexy had embroidered for her. It had come now into Lexy’s hand, a mute and pitiful emissary, whose message she could not understand.

“What shall I do?” she thought. “Oh, what must I do? Perhaps it’s time for the police. Perhaps, if I show this to Captain[Pg 354] Grey, he’ll believe me. There must be some one, somewhere, who’ll believe me and help me!”

She put the handkerchief inside her blouse and stood facing the closed door, with her hands clenched. Now he knew!

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “It is better, perhaps, for us not to meet again. Even making every allowance for your hysterical, unbalanced mind, I find it difficult to excuse this latest manifestation which I have just this moment discovered. It was you, of course, who filled that bottle with water?”

“Why you did it, I don’t know,” he went on, “and probably you don’t know yourself. It was the wanton mischief of an irresponsible child, but the consequences in this instance are serious—very serious. Mrs. Quelton will suffer for them. I doubt if she will recover. No, Miss Moran, you are too troublesome a guest. You had better go—at once!”

She did not wish to have her bag sent after her. She packed it in great haste, put on her hat and coat, and, opening the door of her room, stepped out cautiously and looked up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight, so she picked up her bag and set forth.

She was running away—worse than that, she was being driven away; but just at the moment she could see no other course open to her. She could not appeal to Captain Grey while he was in such distracting anxiety about his sister. It would be cruel, and it would be useless. What could he do? If Dr. Quelton did not want her in his house, certainly his brother-in-law could not insist upon her staying.

“No!” she reflected. “He would only think it was his duty as a gentleman to leave with me, and he would be miserable, not knowing what became of his sister. I’ve got to go, that’s all; but, by jiminy, I’ll come back! And then we’ll see how much more wanton mischief this irresponsible child can manage!”

There was in her heart a steady flame of anger. Hatred was not natural to her, but her feeling for Dr. Quelton came dangerously near to it. For Caroline’s disappearance, for Mrs. Quelton’s pitiful state, for her own humiliation and suffering, she held him responsible; and she meant to settle that score.

She met no one on her way through the house. She went down the stairs, opened the door, and stepped out into the dazzling sunshine. It was a warm day, her bag was very heavy, and the three-mile walk to Mrs. Royce’s was not inviting. It had to be done, however, and off she started.

The lane was thick with dust, and it was hard walking with that heavy bag, but she went on at a smart pace as long as she thought any one could possibly see her from the cupola. Then she set down the bag and rested for a moment.

“There’s a certain way to carry things without strain,” she thought. “I read about it in a magazine. You use the muscles of your back, or your shoulders, or something.”

But she couldn’t remember how this was to be done; so, picking up the bag in her usual way, went on again. Obviously her way was a very wrong way, for by the time she had reached the end of the lane her fingers were cramped and painful, and her arms ached; and there was the highway, stretching endlessly before her under the hot noonday sun—two miles of it or more. There was no reasonable chance of a taxi, and she knew no one in the neighborhood who might come driving by. There was nothing in sight but a man walking along the road toward her, and that didn’t interest her.

She went on as far as she could, and then stopped under a tree, to rub her stiffening arms.

“I wonder,” she thought, “if I could hide this darned old bag somewhere, and send Joe for it later!”

But her nicest clothes were in it, and the risk was too great. With a resentful sigh she lifted it and stepped out again. The man coming along the road was quite close to her now. She stopped short, and so did he.[Pg 355]

“Lexy!” he shouted, and came toward her on a run, with a wide grin on his sunburned face.

She dropped the bag with a thump, and stood waiting for him. He held out both hands, and she took them.

“Well, I got two,” he told her. “The second one came yesterday, about this doctor, and the roses, you know.”

“Mrs. Royce must have posted it!” said Lexy. “I wrote it, but I didn’t mean it to be sent to you unless something happened to me.”

It suddenly occurred to her that the proper moment had come for withdrawing her hands from Mr. Houseman’s firm grasp. Indeed, she thought the proper moment might already have passed, and a warm color came into her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to call you that,” he said; “but Caroline used to write a lot about you, and she always called you ‘Lexy,’ so I got into the way of thinking of you—like that.”

“Queer, isn’t it?” he said seriously. “Here we’ve only seen each other once, and yet somehow it seems to me as if I’d known you for years!”

“You’re right! But look here—we’ve got to talk about all this. Where were you going?”

“Let’s go!” he said cheerfully, and picked up the bag as if it were nothing at all.

“To find you. You see, we ran into some awfully bad weather, and the engines broke down, and we came back for repairs; so I got your letters. I explained to the old man that I’d have to have leave, for some very important business, and off I came to Wyngate. Your Mrs. Royce told me you’d gone out to the Queltons’. I didn’t like that. Why did you go there, after what had happened?”

“I’ll tell you all about that later,” said Lexy; “but now you’ve got to tell me things. How did you ever meet Caroline? How in the world did she manage to write to you?”

“Well, you see, I met her about a year ago, on board the Ormond. She and her parents were coming back from France, and I was third officer, you know. Her mother and father were seasick most of the time, so we had a chance to—to talk to each other; and, you see—”

“One of the servants—a girl called Annie—used to post Caroline’s letters for her, and I used to write to her in care of Annie’s mother. We never had a chance to meet again, after that trip. I wanted to come to the house and see her people, but she said it wasn’t any use; and from what I saw of them on the Ormond I dare say she was right. I wouldn’t have suited them. I haven’t any money, you know—nothing but my pay; but it was enough for us to live on. Other fellows manage!”

“After all,” he said, “I’m not a beggar. I can hold my own pretty well in the world, and I could look after a wife.”

“I know it!” cried Lexy, with vehemence. She felt curiously touched by his words, and quite indignant against the Enderbys and any one else who did not appreciate him.

“I asked Caroline to marry me,” he went on. “I told her I couldn’t give her much, but we could have had a jolly sort of life. Look here! Are you crying?”

“A little bit,” Lexy admitted; “but don’t pay any attention to it. Go on!”

“That’s about all there is. She said she would meet me here in Wyngate, because that’s the nearest station of the main line to some little place where a nurse or a governess of hers lived.”

“Never heard the name. Anyhow, she wanted to go there after we got married, and—I wish you wouldn’t look like that!”

“It was pretty hard, at first,” he said; “but—well, you see, I’ve thought a bit about it, and after all I’m glad we didn’t get married.[Pg 356]”

“Because I—you see, she didn’t—well, I don’t think she really liked me very much.”

“Fact!” said he. “What she wanted was romance, and all that sort of thing. She wanted to get away from home, and I was the only chance she had; so there you are!”

“I don’t blame her,” he said thoughtfully. “We were both—but what’s the sense of talking about all that? The thing is to find her!”

He listened to her with alert attention. He interrupted her often to ask questions, but they were always questions that she could answer. He wanted all the facts, and what Lexy told him he unquestioningly accepted as fact. When she said she had seen Caroline at the doctor’s house, he believed her. He didn’t suggest that her eyes might have deceived her. He trusted her—not only her good intentions, but her good sense.

At last she came to the part of her story about which she was most doubtful—the episode of the emptied bottle. She told it with reluctance.

“I don’t know now,” she said. “Perhaps I did wrong. Perhaps that really was wanton mischief. I did so hate that horrible drug that changed her so! When I did it, it seemed right; but now—”

“It was right,” said he. “Any one’s better off dead than being drugged. Everything you’ve done was right and splendid. You’re the pluckiest girl I ever heard of—the best and most loyal little pal to poor Caroline! There’s no one like you!”

After Mrs. Enderby’s cold and skeptical smile, after Dr. Quelton’s parting sneer, after Captain Grey’s doubts and uncertainties, this speech rather went to Lexy’s head. The world seemed a different place. She glanced at the young man, and he happened at that moment to be looking at her. They both looked away hastily.

“This fellow—this Captain Grey,” said Charles. “He seems to me to be rather a chump!”

Charles Houseman, who had believed everything that Lexy had said, did not appear convinced of this; and for some inexplicable reason Lexy was not greatly displeased by his lack of belief.

XXI

Mrs. Royce was very much pleased to see her pet, Miss Moran, return. She was well disposed toward Mr. Houseman, too, and willingly agreed to put him up for a few days. She set to work at once to cook a good lunch for them, but she did not hum under her breath, as was her usual habit. In fact, she was greatly perplexed and worried.

When her guests were seated at the table, she retired, leaving them alone; but she did not go very far. She remained close to the door, so that she could look through the crack. She observed that Miss Moran seemed very lively and cheerful with this newcomer—though she had been quite as lively and cheerful with Captain Grey.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure!” said Mrs. Royce to herself, with a sigh. “It beats me!”

For the question which so troubled her was—which young man was the young man?

“Both of ’em as nice, polite young fellers as you’d want to see,” she repeated. “T’ other one’s handsomer, but he’s kind of foreignlike and gloomy. This one’s got more gumption. The way he walked in here, smart as a whip, and asked for Miss Moran, an’ when I says she’s gone to visit the Queltons, why, off he went, after her! I like a man with gumption!”

So did Miss Moran. Charles Houseman seemed to her the only living, vigorous creature in a world of ghosts, the only one whom she could really understand. There were no shadowy corners about him. He was altogether honest, direct, and uncomplicated. He had no tact and no caution. He had come now, in the midst of this wretched tangle, and she completely believed that he would cut the Gordian knot.

“I think I’ve got the facts straight,” he said; “and now I want to think them over a bit. Let’s take a walk, and talk about something else.”

Lexy agreed to the entire program. If she was tired, she either didn’t know it, or she forgot it in the joy of this beautifully[Pg 357] careless companionship. She could say exactly what came into her head to Charles Houseman. He understood her. He was interested in every word she spoke, and, what is more, she was aware of the profound admiration that underlay his interest. He thought she was wonderful, and that made her strangely happy.

“Do you know,” he said, “the first time I saw you, there in the park, I—I liked the way you talked to me!”

“How?” asked Lexy, with great interest. “I thought I must have seemed awfully irritating and mysterious.”

“You were awfully mad when I spoke to you,” he said; “but I liked that. I don’t know—somehow you made me think of Joan of Arc.”

“Me?” cried Lexy. “With freckles, and such a temper? You couldn’t imagine me listening to angels, could you?”

She glanced at him to see if he was laughing, but he was not. His eyes met hers with a quiet and steady look.

“I didn’t need to imagine much,” he said. “You’ve told me what you’ve been through, and I can see for myself what you are. I don’t think there ever was another girl like you!”

“Nonsense!” said Lexy, looking away. “I’m just pig-headed—that’s all.”

They had wandered across the fields until they came to a little river, running clear and swift under the elm trees. By tacit consent they sat down on the bank. They didn’t talk much. Houseman skipped stones with skill and earnest attention, and Lexy watched the minnows flitting past through the limpid water. The sky was an unclouded blue. The sunlight came through the branches, where the leaves were scarcely unfolded, and made little golden sparkles on the hurrying current. It was all so quiet—and yet it wasn’t peaceful. The world seemed too young, too warmly and joyously alive, for peace. The spring was waiting in eagerness for the summer. This still, fresh, sunlit day was only an interlude.

“From Baltimore,” he said. “My people wanted me to go into the navy. My father and grandfather were both navy, but I couldn’t see it. Too cut and dried! I’m on a cargo steamer now, and I like it.”

And this information—with the additional facts that he was twenty-six, that he had two brothers in the navy and three married sisters, and that both of his parents were living—was all that he had to give about himself. Lexy was satisfied. There he was, and any one with eyes to see and ears to listen could understand him. Honest, blunt, and careless, fearing nothing, shirking nothing, and facing life with cheerful unconcern, he was, she thought, a comrade and an ally without an equal.

The sun was setting when they turned homeward. The sky was swimming in soft, pale colors, and a little breeze blew, stirring the new leaves. It was a poetic and even a melancholy hour; but Houseman found nothing better to say than that he was hungry.

They looked at each other as if they had discovered still another bond between them. They were happy—so happy!

Mrs. Royce saw them from the kitchen window. They were strolling along leisurely, side by side. They were quite composed and matter-of-fact, and their desultory conversation was upon the subject of shellfish. The young Baltimorean was an authority on oysters, but Lexy, as a New Englander, had something to say on the subject of clam chowder.

“He’s the one!” she said to herself. “Well, I’m real glad, I’m sure!”

So glad was she that she at once began to make a superb chocolate cake, and she hummed a song about a young man on Springfield Mountain, who killed a “pesky sarpent.”

George Grey heard her. He was in the sitting room, smoking, and apparently reading a book; but he never turned a page. He lit one cigarette after another, and his hand was steady. He looked as he always looked—fastidiously neat, self-possessed, and a little haughty; but in spirit he was suffering horribly.

Lexy knew that as soon as she saw him, because she knew him and liked him so well. She held out her hand to him, not even pretending to smile, but searching his face with an anxious and friendly glance.

“Here’s Mr. Houseman, Caroline Enderby’s fiancé,” she said. “I’ve told him the whole thing, so if there’s anything new—”

Captain Grey stiffened perceptibly. He couldn’t see what possible connection [Pg 358]anybody’s fiancé could have with his affairs. He shook hands with Houseman, but not very nicely; and Houseman was not excessively cordial.

Lexy took no notice of this nonsense. Her mood of happy confidence had passed now, and the dark and mysterious shadow had come back. There was something of greater importance to think about than her personal affairs.

“Captain Grey,” she said, with a sort of directness, “I didn’t tell you before, but I’m going to tell you now. I saw Caroline in that house, and this morning I found—this.”

“It means that she’s been there, or that she’s there now,” Lexy went on. “It’s time we found out. Of course, I know how you feel about Dr. Quelton. He’s your sister’s husband, and you didn’t want—”

“It doesn’t make much difference now,” he said. “If you’ll wait a day or so, she—”

“It won’t be long,” he said quietly. “She—my sister—he says it won’t be more than twenty-four hours, at the most.”

“I tried not to,” he said. “I—well, we had a bit of a row, and I made him let me bring in another doctor from the village here. He said the same thing.”

Captain Grey seemed to find some difficulty in lighting his cigarette; but when he had done so, and had drawn in a deep breath, he turned back toward Lexy with a smile that startled her. She had never imagined he could look like that. It was a wolfish kind of smile, lighting his dark face with a sort of savage mirth.

“When it’s over,” he said, “I’ll be very pleased to help you to hang him, if you can; or I’ll wring his neck myself.”

“I don’t know whether he has actually murdered her or not,” said Captain Grey; “but he has destroyed her—utterly wasted and ruined her life. He taught her to take that damned drug; and when Miss Moran broke the bottle—”

“He did. He says you’ve killed her. There was some rare drug in it that he can’t get for a fortnight or so, and she can’t live without it.”

“I know,” he said gently. “You meant to help, and I’m glad you did it. She’s better dead. This afternoon, for a little while, she was—herself. She talked to me. She was very weak, but she was herself. She asked me to help her not to take it again. She thought she was getting better. Then that”—he paused—“that damned brute brought in a lawyer, so that she could make her will. She couldn’t believe it. She looked up at me. ‘Oh, I’m not going to die, am I?’ she said. Before I could answer her, he told her she must be prepared. Then I—”

“It’s not time to settle with him—yet,” said the other. “That’s why I came away, because I don’t want to kill him—yet. She’s unconscious now. She will be, until it’s finished. I’m going back later, but I wanted to come here—” He ceased speaking. “To you,” his eyes said to Lexy.

She forgot everything else, then, except this tormented and suffering human being who had turned to her for comfort. She pushed him gently down into a chair, and seated herself on the arm of it. She took both his hands and patted them, while she racked her brain for the right thing to say.

“We’ll do something!” she said. “There’s no reason to be in despair. That young country doctor was probably entirely under the influence of Dr. Quelton. We’ll get some one else. We’ll telephone to one of the big hospitals in New York and find out who’s the very best man, and well get him out here. Mr. Houseman will ring up—”

But Mr. Houseman had disappeared. Worse still, Mrs. Royce’s telephone was out of order.

“Never mind!” said Lexy. “We’ll have a nice hot cup of tea, and then well go to the grocery store. There’s a telephone there.[Pg 359]”

She made the captain drink his tea and eat a little. Then she ran upstairs for her hat; and she was very angry at Charles Houseman for running away.

XXII

They set off together down the village street. There was no one about at that hour. All Wyngate was partaking of its Sunday night supper within doors, and one or two of the little wooden houses showed lights in the front windows; but for the most part life was concentrated in the kitchen.

The drug store was locked, but a dim light was burning inside, and a vigorous ringing of the night bell brought Mr. Binz, the owner, to open the door. He was deeply interested in their errand. He suggested St. Luke’s Hospital, for the reason that he had once been there himself, and therefore held it almost sacred.

“But,” he said, in his slow and impressive way, “if I was you, I’d ring up Doc Quelton first, and find out how things are going up there; because you may find out—”

Lexy interrupted him hastily, for she didn’t want him to say what he evidently wished to say.

“There won’t be any change in Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It would only be a waste of time.”

It was not so much for that poor woman, who she feared was beyond hope, that she wanted the New York specialist, as for Captain Grey. It would help him so much to feel that something was being done, that some one was hurrying out here!

“Might be more of a waste of time,” said Mr. Binz, “if some one was to come all the way out here after she—”

“Oh, all right!” cried Lexy impatiently. Then suddenly she remembered. “They haven’t any telephone at the doctor’s house,” she said.

“I’d rather see how she is, first,” he repeated. “If there’s no change, I’ll come back.”

Lexy looked at Mr. Binz with an angry and reproachful frown, which the poor man did not understand. He had only wanted to give helpful advice.

“No, you won’t!” she contradicted with a trace of severity. “If you will go, I’m going with you!”

He protested against this, but she would not listen, and so they went to the garage for Joe’s taxi; but Joe and his taxi had gone out. An interested bystander said that they could get a “rig” from the livery stable with no trouble at all. They had only to find the proprietor, and he, in turn, would find the driver, who would harness up the horse.

“No, thanks,” said Captain Grey. He turned to Lexy. “I can’t wait,” he told her. “I’m going to walk. Thank you for—”

For that instinct in her, the thing which was beyond reason, drove her forward. She could not let him go alone. She had walked that three miles once before to-day, and she had walked farther than that with Houseman in the afternoon. She was tired, terribly tired, and filled with a queer, sick reluctance to approach that sinister house again; but she had to go. She had said to herself that morning that she was coming back, and now she was going to do so.

They did not try to talk much on the way. What had they to say? They were both filled with a dread foreboding. They hurried, yet they wished never to come to the end of the journey.

They turned down the lane, leaving the lights of the highway behind, and went forward in thick darkness, under the shadow of the trees. The sound of the sea came to them—the loneliest sound in all the world.

Her own voice sounded so small, so pert, so futile, in the dark, that she felt no surprise when Captain Grey showed a faint trace of impatience in answering.

Only, to her, it did not seem natural, that one little light shining out through the glass of the front door. It would be more natural, she thought, if there were only the darkness and the sound of the sea.[Pg 360]

They turned into the drive. Their footsteps sounded strangely and terribly loud on the gravel, and became as sharp as pistol shots when they mounted the veranda. The captain rang the bell, and the sound of it ran through the house like a shudder; but no one came. He rang again and again, but nothing stirred inside the house. He knocked on the glass, and they waited, looking into the bright and empty hall; but no one came.

Captain Grey turned the knob, the door opened, and they went in. The door of the library was open, showing only darkness. The stairs ran up into darkness. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Then, suddenly, a little breeze rose, and the front door slammed with a crash behind them. Lexy cried out, and caught the young man’s arm.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said; but his face was ashen. For a moment they stood where they were. “Miss Moran,” he went on, “would you rather wait here while I go upstairs?”

He started up the stairs, and she followed him closely. At almost every step she looked behind her, and she did not know which was the more horrible to her, the brightly lit hall or the darkness before them. Suppose she saw some one in the hall behind them!

Captain Grey did not once glance behind. He went on steadily. When he reached the top of the flight, he took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the gas. There was the long corridor, with the row of closed doors. He turned down in the direction of Mrs. Quelton’s room, but Lexy touched him on the shoulder.

“I think you had better let me go first,” she suggested. “Perhaps she won’t be ready to see you.”

He had never used her name before. He was trying to tell her that he understood what she had wished to do for him. She had offered to go first, alone, into the silent room, to see whatever might be there—to spare him something, if she could.

But he would not have it so. He stopped outside the door, and knocked twice. Then he went in.

It was dark and still in there, with the night wind blowing in through the open windows. He struck a match and lit the gas. The room was empty.

He went across to the long windows and out on the balcony. There was no gas connection there. He struck one match after another, and went from one end of the balcony to the other. There was nothing.

Lexy could not speak at all. She had come out on the balcony, and stood beside him. The sound of the sea was loud in her ears—or was it the beating of her own heart? She held her breath and strained her eyes in the darkness.

She followed close at his heels. He went into every room, lit the gas, looked about, and found nothing. Lexy grew confused with the opening and closing of doors, the sudden flare of light in the darkness, the succession of empty rooms.

He went up into the cupola. Nothing there, nor in the servants’ rooms. Then downstairs, through the long library, the dining room, the sitting room, the kitchen, the pantry. He proceeded with a sort of merciless deliberation, opened every door, looked into every cupboard.

Finding a stable lantern in the kitchen, he lighted it and carried it with him. The door to the cellar stood open. He went through it, down the steep wooden stairs, and Lexy followed him.

To her exhausted and frightened gaze the cellar seemed enormous—as vast and august as some great ancient tomb. The lantern made a little pool of light, and outside it the shadows closed in on them thickly. She came near to him and caught him by the sleeve.

“This is the last place,” he said gently. “After this, we’ll give it up.”

Fighting down the sick terror that had come over her, she walked beside him in the little circle of light, and tried not to look at the shadows.

He went back a few paces and set down the lantern. Then he advanced again and bent over, staring at the floor.

“It comes up from below,” he said. “There must be a subcellar. Let’s see!”

He brought back the lantern and examined the floor by its light, going down on his hands and knees.

“Stand back!” he said suddenly. “It’s a trapdoor. See—here’s a ring to lift it.”

Moving over, he pulled again, and a square of stone lifted. A clear light came from below, showing a short ladder clamped to the floor.

“Stay there, please,” he told Lexy. “You have the lantern. I shan’t be a minute.”

But as soon as he had reached the foot of the ladder, Lexy climbed down after him; and just at the same moment, they saw—

They were standing in a tiny room with roughly mortared walls. A powerful electric torch stood on end in one corner, and at their feet lay the body of a man, face downward across a wooden chest. It was Dr. Quelton.

With a violent effort Captain Grey lifted the doctor’s heavy shoulder, while Lexy covered her eyes. She knew that he was dead. No living thing could lie so.

Her head swam, her knees gave way, and she tottered back against the wall, half fainting, when the captain’s voice rang out, with a note of agony and despair that she never forgot.

She opened her eyes. For a moment she was too giddy to see. Then, as her vision cleared, she saw him on his knees beside the chest.

Not a chest—it was a coffin; and on it was a strange little plate glittering like gold, with an inscription:

XXIII

When she looked back upon the experiences of that dreadful night, it seemed to Lexy that both she and her companion displayed almost incredible endurance. Since morning they had lived through a very lifetime of emotion, to end now in this tragedy more horrible than anything they could have feared.

Yet, not five minutes after his cry of agony, Captain Grey had recovered his self-control. He was able to speak quietly to Lexy, and she was able to answer him no less quietly.

“We’d better go,” he said. “We can do nothing here. It’s a case for the police now.”

“I’ve got to go back to the balcony,” Lexy told him. “There was something there.”

“Very well!” he agreed, and, without another word or a backward glance, he went up the ladder.

They returned through the house. He had left the lights burning and the doors open, so that there was a monstrous air of festivity in the emptiness. They went into Mrs. Quelton’s room again, and crossed through it to the balcony. He carried the lantern with him, and by its steady yellow flame they could see into every corner. There was the couch upon which she had lain—disarranged, as if she had just risen from it. There was a little table with medicine bottles on it. All the usual things were in the usual places.

Lexy was sure, however, that there was. She stepped to the balcony railing, to look down into the garden below, and there, on the white paint of the railing, she found something.

For a moment they stared at the ghastly mark, a strange evidence of pain and violence in this quiet place.

They went down. The grass beneath the balcony was beaten down in one place, but there was nothing else. Some one had come and gone. They could not even guess who it had been. They knew nothing.

They both turned for one last look at the accursed house, blazing with spectral lights. Then they set off, away from it, over that weary road again.

“I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard[Pg 362] Mrs. Royce talk about the constable. Anyhow, she can tell us.”

“Yes,” he said, and was silent for a moment. “Rather a pity, isn’t it,” he went on, “that there has to be—all that? Because it doesn’t matter now. It’s finished. Better if the house burned down to-night!”

In her heart Lexy agreed with him. She had no curiosity left, and scarcely any interest. As he had said, it was finished. She wanted to rest, not to speak, not to think, not to remember; but it couldn’t be so. They would both have to tell what they had seen, to answer questions. It wasn’t enough that two people lay dead in that house of horror. All the world, which knew and cared nothing about them, must have a full explanation.

“You’re worn out,” he told her. “It’s altogether wrong. There’s no reason why you should be troubled any more, Lexy. Slip into the house quietly, and get to bed and to sleep. Nobody need know that you went there.”

The thought of Charles Houseman came to her, but she disowned it with a listless sort of resentment. She felt, somehow, that he had failed her. He had not been there when she needed him. He had not taken his part in this ghastly and unforgetable sight.

There was a light in Mrs. Royce’s front parlor. Perhaps he was in there, waiting for her, cheerful and cool, a thousand miles away from the nightmare world in which she had been moving. She did not want to see him or speak to him just now. He hadn’t seen. He wouldn’t understand.

Captain Grey opened the gate, and they went up the flagged walk. Before they had mounted the veranda steps, the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Royce appeared.

Her tone and her manner were so strange that they both stopped and stared at her.

“Oh, my goodness!” she cried again. “Oh, do come in! I don’t know what to do with her, I’m sure!”

“Brought her here and carried her up them very stairs,” declared Mrs. Royce impressively; “right up into the east bedroom, and there she lies!”

She stood aside, and Lexy and Captain Grey entered the house. The young man turned aside into the parlor, sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. Lexy stood beside him, looking down at his bent head, her face haggard and white.

“But ain’t you going upstairs to see what she wants?” inquired Mrs. Royce anxiously.

Mrs. Royce led the way upstairs. She went at an unusual rate of speed, so that she was panting when she reached the top.

“Kind of vi’lent!” she whispered, pointing downstairs, where Captain Grey was.

Knock on the door of the room where Mrs. Quelton lay? Knock, and expect an answer from that voice? It seemed to Lexy, for a moment, that she could not raise her hand.

But she did. She knocked, and she was answered. She turned the handle and went in. An oil lamp stood on the bureau, and outside the circle of its mellow light, in the shadow, Mrs. Quelton was sitting on the edge of the bed; and it seemed to Lexy that she had never seen such a forlorn and pitiful figure.[Pg 363]

Mrs. Quelton rose. She came toward Lexy, her hands outstretched—when a sudden cry from Mrs. Royce arrested her.

XXIV

If Lexy had not caught the unhappy woman, she would have fallen; but those sturdy young arms held her, and, with Mrs. Royce’s help, they got her on the bed. White as a ghost, incredibly frail in her black dress, she lay there, scarcely seeming to breathe.

“I know!” said Lexy softly. “Will you get me water and a towel, please?”

Mrs. Royce went out of the room, and Lexy knelt down beside the bed. She did know now—the woman whom they had all called Muriel Quelton was really Caroline Enderby.

Lexy did not blame herself for not having known before. Looking at that face now, in its terrible stillness, she could trace the familiar features easily enough, but how changed! How worn and lined, how old! The brows, the lashes, the soft, disordered hair, were black now instead of brown; but that merely physical alteration was of no significance, compared with that other awful change. It was Caroline Enderby, the gentle and pitifully inexperienced girl of nineteen, but it was Mrs. Quelton, too, that tragic and somber figure.

Mrs. Royce came back with a basin of water, clean towels, and a precious bottle of eau de Cologne.

Lexy wet a towel and passed it over that unconscious face again and again. Mrs. Royce watched, spellbound; for the dark and haggard stranger was passing away before her very eyes, and some one else was coming into life—some one quite young and—

“I’m here, Caroline!” said Lexy, with a stifled sob. “Everything’s all right, dear! Don’t worry—just rest!”

“I can’t, Lexy! I can’t!” she answered, and from her eyes, now closed again, tears came running slowly down her cheeks.

“Supposing I get her some nice hot soup?” whispered Mrs. Royce, and, at a nod from Lexy, she was off again.

“No!” her friend replied cheerfully. “Never! But don’t bother now. You can tell me later, when you feel better.”

“I’ll never, never feel better till I’ve told you! Oh, Lexy, I knew yesterday, and I didn’t tell you! Oh, Lexy, Lexy, I don’t understand! I want to tell you! I want you to help me!”

A flush had come into her cheeks. She was growing painfully excited. She tried to sit up, but Lexy firmly prevented that.

“No! No! I’m not ill—not ill, Lexy, only tired. Oh, you don’t know! You won’t let him come here, Lexy?”

She saw Captain Grey standing in the doorway, behind the head of the bed. She glanced at him, and then at Caroline again. Let him stay! Whatever had happened, he ought to know.

“I don’t understand,” said Caroline, clinging fast to Lexy’s hand. “I want to tell you—all of it. You know, Lexy, I did a horrible, wretched thing. I said I’d marry a man. I promised to meet him here in Wyngate, because it was near to dear Miss Craigie’s. I didn’t tell you, but it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, Lexy—truly it wasn’t! It was only because I knew mother would be so angry with you. I told him I’d take the train that got here at eleven o’clock that night; but after I’d left the house, I got frightened. I’d never gone out alone before. I couldn’t bear it. If I hadn’t promised him, I’d have gone home again. I wanted to go home. I was sorry I’d promised.”

“I must! So I took a taxi. I thought I’d get here as soon as the train, but when it was eleven o’clock we were still miles away. I thought perhaps Charles wouldn’t wait, and there’d be nobody in Wyngate, and I didn’t dare go home again; so I kept begging the driver to go faster. Oh, Lexy,[Pg 364] it was all my fault! He did go—terribly fast. It was wonderful to be alone, and rushing along like that; and then I think he ran into a telegraph pole, turning a corner. There was a crash, and I didn’t know anything more for—I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“Soup!” whispered Mrs. Royce, but Caroline was too intent upon her confession to stop.

“I don’t know how long it was,” Caroline went on. “It must have been days, or perhaps weeks. Sometimes I seemed to know, in a sort of dream. Oh, it was horrible! Oh, Lexy, I can’t explain! I didn’t really know anything, only that sometimes my mind seemed to be struggling—”

“Take some of this soup,” said Lexy. “You’ve got to, Caroline, or I won’t listen.”

Obediently Caroline allowed herself to be fed. She took fully half of that excellent soup, and it did her good.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I did know. I couldn’t sleep all night. I felt so ill, I thought I was going to die; and all the time it was coming back to me. I couldn’t think why I was there in that place. I was frightened—worse than frightened. The nurse kept calling me ‘Mrs. Quelton,’ and I told her I wasn’t Mrs. Quelton—I was Caroline Enderby. She must have told him. He came, he kept looking at me, and saying, ‘You are Muriel Quelton, I tell you!’ Then he sent the nurse away, and he said: ‘If you insist that you are Caroline Enderby, you’re mad, and I’ll send you to an asylum.’ I was—oh, Lexy, I’m not brave!—I was afraid of him. When you came that morning, I didn’t dare to tell you. I hoped you’d find the handkerchief, and know; and then—”

“Then I didn’t want you to know!” she sobbed. “Captain Grey—he sat there with me. Lexy! Lexy! I didn’t know there was any one like him in the world! I wanted to stay, then. I thought, if you found out, I’d have to go away—to go home again, or to marry Charles. I’d promised to marry him, Lexy, but I can’t! Not now!”

This was something Captain Grey had no right to hear, but he did hear it. He was still standing outside the door, motionless.

“Never mind that!” Lexy interrupted sternly. “Tell me how you got away.”

“George went away, and then—he told me. He said his wife had died a few months ago, and that in her will she’d left some jewel—a ruby—”

“Yes—it was an emerald. She’d left it to her brother, and he—Dr. Quelton—had taken it long ago, and sold it, to get money for his horrible drugs. She never knew that, and he didn’t tell her lawyer that she’d died. I don’t know how he managed, or what he did, but nobody knew. Then there came a letter from her brother, to say that he was coming; and the doctor said—I’ll never forget it:

“‘Consequently, Muriel Quelton had to be here, and she was; and she’ll remain here until her purpose is served!’

“He told me what had happened. He said that as soon as he knew Captain Grey was coming, he began to look for some one to take his poor wife’s place. The captain hadn’t seen his sister since she was a baby, you know, and all he knew was that she was tall and dark. Dr. Quelton said he had arranged for some one to come from a hospital; and then he found me. He drove by just a little while after the accident, and he found the poor driver dead and me unconscious. He found a letter to mother in my purse, and he mailed it afterward. Then he heard another car coming along the road, and he started the engine and sent the taxi—with the dead driver in his seat—crashing down the hill, to run into the other car. He wanted the driver’s death to look like an accident. He didn’t care if the other man were killed. He’s—he’s not human, Lexy! He told me he had never in his life cared for any one except his wife. He told me what a beautiful, wonderful woman she was—and yet he had stolen her emerald when she was dying. Love! He couldn’t love any one!”

But Lexy remembered her last glimpse of Dr. Quelton, lying dead across the coffin of the woman he had robbed. Who would ever know, who was to judge now, what might have been in his warped and utterly solitary heart?

“He told me,” Caroline went on, “that[Pg 365] he had never felt any great interest in me. A mediocre mind, he said I had. He told me he had never so much as touched my finger tips. He sat there, talking so calmly! He said he had kept me under the influence of some drug that made my mind suggestible—I think that’s the word. He meant that whoever took that drug would believe anything, accept anything. He had told me I was Muriel Quelton, and I believed I was. Then he told me to dye my hair, and to make up my face with things he gave me. He told me I was ill and tired and growing old, and I felt so. Lexy, he said that even without that, without making the least change in my appearance, no one would have known me, because my mind was changed. He said there was no disguise in the world like that. Was it true, Lexy? Was I old, and—and horrible to every one?”

“Then he went on. He said he had no more of the drug left, and that he’d have to dispose of me. ‘You know you’re very ill,’ he said. ‘The nurse and that young fool of a doctor agree with me. I think you’re likely to grow worse—very much worse—to-night. You’re very likely to die.’ Oh, Lexy! What could I do but agree? I was shut up—so weak and ill—I knew he could so easily give me something to kill me! He said that if I would make a will and sign it as he told me, he would let me go and be—be myself again. I couldn’t help it! And his wife was dead. It couldn’t do her any harm if I signed her name. He wrote it, and I traced it on another sheet of paper. I had to, Lexy! I knew it was wrong, but what else could I possibly do?”

“Never mind, Caroline!” said Lexy. “It didn’t do any harm, dear. And then did he let you go?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “After I’d signed the will, leaving him the emerald, he sent away the nurse. Then he came out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk to me. He was so pleasant and kindly! He made plans for my getting away unnoticed, and brought me some sandwiches and a cup of tea. He said I would have to eat a little, or I wouldn’t have strength enough to go. It was getting dark then, and he couldn’t see my face. I pretended to believe him, but I knew all the time. He kept urging me to hurry up, and to eat the sandwiches and drink the tea. I knew! I had made the will, and now, of course, I had to die. I tried to think of a way out; and at last, when he saw that I didn’t eat or drink, he spoke out plainly. He said that he had sent the servants away for the afternoon, and that we were alone in the house. He got up; he stood there and looked down at me.

“‘That tea is an easy way out—quite painless and easy,’ he said; ‘but if you won’t take it, there’s another way—not so easy!’

“He had some sort of hypodermic needle; but just then some one began pounding on the door downstairs, and he had to go. He locked the door after him, and he knew I was too weak to move. I tried. I got off the couch, but I fell on the floor beside it; and then Charles came—”

“He climbed up over the balcony. It was too dark to see him, but I heard his voice, whispering, ‘Where are you?’ He found me, lifted me up, and helped me over to the railing. Then we heard Dr. Quelton coming back. There was another man, down in the garden, with a taxi. Charles called out to him, and he stood below there. I heard Dr. Quelton unlock the door, and I was so frightened that I felt strong enough to do anything to get away. Charles helped me over, and the other man caught me. Then I heard Charles shout, ‘Quick! Get her away!’ The other man pushed me into the taxi and started off across the lawn. I fainted, and I didn’t know anything more until I opened my eyes here.”

“And you don’t seem to care, either!” said Lexy hotly. “He saved your life, and now—”

She thought of that bloody hand print, and the grass beaten down. The young man who had no caution, no regard for the proprieties, had done the direct and simple thing which appealed to his audacious mind. Perhaps he had been killed in doing it. He would know how to face death in the same straightforward way.

Lexy would be as straightforward as he. She would find him, and she wouldn’t try to think how much she cared about finding him.

“Do you think she could stand seeing me?” he asked anxiously. “I mean do you—”

XXV

After all, Lexy’s search for Charles Houseman was neither difficult nor heroic, except in intention. She found him in the Lymewell Hospital. Joe told her where he was, and Joe took her there.

Houseman himself was rigidly determined not to be heroic. He had refused to go to bed, and Lexy found him in a bare, whitewashed waiting room, where he sat on a bench.

“Just came in to get the hand dressed,” he said. “I’ll go back with you now.”

The doctor advised him not to, but Charles was not very susceptible to advice. He wished to be entirely casual and matter-of-fact, and Lexy tried to humor him. They stood together in the hall of the hospital while a nurse went to get him a bottle of lotion from the dispensary, and he talked in what he intended to be an offhand manner; but Lexy could see that he was in pain, and almost exhausted, and his hair was all on end.

Somehow, that was the thing she couldn’t bear—that his hair should be so ruffled. She could respect his determination to ignore the throbbing anguish of his hand, she would, if he liked, pretend that there was nothing at all tragic or unusual in the night’s adventure; but his hair—

The nurse returned with the bottle, gave him directions for its use, and told him sternly that he must come back the next morning for a dressing.

“Knife through it,” he answered. “You see, I held the old fellow, to give Mrs. Quelton a chance to get away. When I thought it was all right, I gave him a shove backward, and started to climb over the balcony; and he jabbed a knife through my hand. That’s what kept me so long—I couldn’t get it out; and after I did, I—rested for a while. Then I started for Wyngate, and I met Joe coming back to look for me. He said he’d landed Mrs. Quelton all right. So that’s all!”

“Of course you didn’t know it wasn’t Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It was Caroline all the time.”

“Caroline?” he cried. “What do you mean? It couldn’t have been Caroline!”

“Oh!” he said, when she had done; and again there was silence for a time. “Does she still want to go on with the thing—marrying me, I mean?” he asked finally, in a queer, flat tone.

“Oh!” he said again, with undisguised relief. “Well, then—it’s all right, then!”

“You don’t seem to be much surprised,” said Lexy. “Don’t you think it’s the most extraordinary story you ever heard?”

“Well, you see—I’m a bit tired,” he explained. “I haven’t grasped it all yet; only, if she doesn’t want to marry me now, Lexy, dear, will you?”

At last Lexy could do what she had longed to do for the last half hour—she could stroke down his ruffled hair.

And this, as far as they were concerned, was the last act and the fitting climax of the play. They were ready now for the curtain to rise upon another play; but there were other people not so young, or not so sturdy, for whom the first drama was not so readily dismissed.

There was Captain Grey, who was never to see his sister now, never to know if she had really wanted him and needed him. He did not soon forget what had happened at the Tower.

Mrs. Enderby was sent for, and arrived that morning before sunrise, with her husband. She listened to Caroline’s strange story, and made what she could of it. She had not one word of reproach for her daughter.

“We shall not cry over the spilled milk,” she said. “Let us see what is to be done, before the police come.” She had a thoroughly European point of view about the police. “If we are fortunate enough to find an officer with discretion,” she added, “even yet a scandal may be averted.[Pg 367]”

For that was still her passionate resolve—that there should be no scandal. She thought and planned with desperate energy; she directed every one as to the part he or she should play; and in the end she succeeded. Nobody knew that Caroline had disappeared, and nobody ever would know. Nobody knew that the so-called Mrs. Quelton was Caroline, and that, too, would never be known. Only let Joe and Mrs. Royce be persuaded to hold their tongues; as for Lexy, Captain Grey, and Houseman, she could of course rely upon them.

So the police were, as they say, baffled. Mr. Houseman told them a tale. He had been alarmed about the lady whom he knew as Mrs. Quelton, and he had climbed up on the balcony, hoping to see her alone; but he had met Dr. Quelton instead, and had been hurt in trying to escape from him.

Captain Grey also had a tale. He, too, had been alarmed about the lady whom he believed to be his sister. He had gone with Miss Moran to call upon her, and they had found the doctor dead, lying across the coffin.

There was an inquest, and Mr. Houseman had a very unpleasant time of it, being the last one who had seen the doctor alive; but there was no really serious suspicion against him. The post-mortem showed that the doctor had died of some unknown poison, at least half an hour after the young man had arrived at the hospital. The verdict was suicide, although the coroner’s jury had its own opinion about the mysterious dark woman who had posed as the doctor’s wife. An autopsy revealed that Mrs. Quelton had died from a natural cause—phthisis of the lungs. In short, as far as could be discovered, there was no murder at all.

This was a disappointment to the public, but there was always the mysterious dark woman. The police instituted a search for her, and there was much about her in the newspapers, but she was never found.

Miss Enderby returned to the city from her visit to Miss Craigie, and friends of the family were interested to learn that while away she had met such a nice young man—a Captain Grey, from India. He had to return to his regiment, but, before he went, Caroline’s engagement to him was announced. Later he was to retire from the army and come back to live in New York.

There was another item of news, of minor importance. That pretty little secretary of Mrs. Enderby’s got married, and the Enderbys were wonderfully kind about it—surprisingly so. It didn’t seem at all like Mrs. Enderby to let the girl be married from her own house, and to give her a smart little car for a wedding present. What is more, Mr. Enderby found a very good position in his office for the young man.

“My dear Sophie,” said one of Mrs. Enderby’s old friends, with the peculiar candor of an old friend, “I’ve never known you to do so much for any one before!”

Mrs. Enderby was standing on the top doorstep of her house, looking after the car in which Lexy and her Charles had driven off for their honeymoon, with Joe, of Wyngate, as their chauffeur.

And there were actually tears in her eyes as she went back into the house where Caroline was.

Dogs Always Know

INTO THIS DIGNIFIED LOVE STORY HUGE CAPTAIN MacGREGOR BARGES WITH A GRAND CARGO OF HUMOR TO MATCH LITTLE LEROY’S DRAMATIC DOG

THE lovely little Miss Selby came from Boston, and the large and not unhandsome Mr. Anderson came from New York, and they did not like each other.

Indeed, Miss Selby was not very fond, just then, of any one who did not come from Boston. Sometimes she even went so far as to declare to herself that she did not like any one at all except the members of one certain household in Boston.

It was at night, after she had gone to bed, that she usually made this somewhat narrow-minded declaration, because it was at that time, when she was lying in the dark, that she would most vividly imagine that especial household. Her mother, her grandmother, and her two aunts; they were the kindest, wittiest, most delightful, lovable people who ever breathed, and she compared all other persons with them. And, so compared, Mr. Anderson came out very badly.

As for Mr. Anderson, the reason he did not like Miss Selby was because she obviously did not like him. He was a little sensitive about being liked.

He almost always had been, in the past, and when he saw Miss Selby’s eyes resting on him, with that look which meant that she was mentally comparing him with her mother, her grandmother, and her two aunts, he felt chilled to the bone. Not that he looked chilled; on the contrary, his face grew red, and he fancied that his neck, his ears, and his hands did also.

He justly resented this. It was not his fault that he was sitting at her table. It wasn’t her table, anyhow; purely by luck had she sat alone at it so long. It was the only place left in the dining room, and the landlady told him to sit there.

As he pulled out his chair he said, “Good evening,” with a friendly and unsuspicious smile, and Miss Selby glanced up at him as if she were surprised to hear a human voice issuing from this creature, and bent her head in something probably intended to be a nod.

Naturally, he did not speak again. But, as he sat facing her, and with his back to the room, he could not help his eyes resting upon her from time to time, and it was then that he had encountered that chilly look.

It was very pitiful, he thought, to see one as young as she behaving in such a way—really pitiful. Because she was not unattractive; even a casual glance had informed him of that.

Dark-browed, she was, and dark-eyed; but with hair that was bright and soft and almost blond, and a lovely rose color in her cheeks; the sort of girl a man would admire, if there had been the true womanly gentleness in her aspect. But after that look, it was impossible to admire; he could only pity.

Strange as it may seem, Miss Selby pitied him, and for a somewhat illogical reason. She saw pathos in the man because he was so large—so much too large. His great shoulders towered above the table; knives and forks looked like toys in his lean, brown hands, and his face was invisible, unless she raised her eyes, which she did not intend to do again.

She had seen him, though, as he crossed the room, and she might have thought him not bad looking, if he had not come to sit at her table. It was an honest and alert young face, healthily tanned, with warm, gray eyes, and a crest of wheat-colored hair above his forehead. But when he did sit[Pg 370] down at her table, she immediately began her usual comparisons.

She imagined this young man in that sitting room in Boston, and she saw clearly how much too large he was. It was a small room, and her mother and her grandmother and her two aunts were all of a nice, neat, polite size.

This was unjust. It is never fair to judge bulls by their possible behavior in china shops, anyhow; they seldom go into them, and when seen in the fields, or in bullfights, and so on, they are really noble animals.

But that is what she did think, and as soon as she could finish her dinner, she arose, with another of those almost imperceptible nods, and went away. She went up to her own room, and began to study shorthand.

She did this every evening, with great earnestness, for she was very anxious to get a better position than the one she now had, and she was so far advanced in her study that she could write absolutely anything in shorthand—if you gave her time enough. She could often read what she had written, too.

As for Mr. Anderson, he also went up to his room, but not to study. He had had all he wanted of that at college. Nor did he need to worry about a better position.

The one he had was good, and he was confident that he would have a better one next year, and a still better one the year after that, and so on and on, until he was one of the leading paper manufacturers in the country—if not the leading one. He had just been made assistant superintendent of a paper mill in this little town, and he had come out in the most hopeful and cheerful humor.

The hope and cheer had fled, now. He felt profoundly dejected. He had no friends here, and if other people were like that girl, he never would have any. For all he knew, there might be something repellent in his manner, which his old friends had kindly overlooked.

He began to think sorrowfully of those old friends, of the little flat he had had in New York with two other fellows—such nice fellows—such a nice flat. When you looked out of the window there you saw a façade of other windows, with shaded lamps in them, and the shadows of people passing back and forth, and down below in the street more people, and taxis, and big, quiet, smooth-running private cars, and all the familiar city sounds. And here, outside this window, there were trees—nothing but trees.

He had heard, often enough, about the loneliness of country dwellers when in a great city, but he felt that it was not to be compared with the loneliness of a city dweller among trees. He got up and went to the window, and he couldn’t even see a human creature, only those sentinel trees, moving a little against the pale and cloudy sky.

It was a May night, and the air that blew on his face was May air, a wonderful thing, filled with tender and exquisite perfumes, so cool and sweet that he grew suddenly sick of his tobacco-scented room, and decided to go out on the veranda.

What happened was a coincidence, but it would surely have happened, sooner or later. He met Miss Selby. As soon as he had stepped outside, she opened the door and came out, too.

There was an electric light in the ceiling of this veranda, which gave it a singularly cheerless appearance, rather like the deck of a deserted ship, with the chairs all drawn up along the wall. There was nobody else there, and Mr. Anderson stood directly under the light, so that she could see him very plainly.

“Look here!” said Mr. Anderson crisply. “Don’t go in on my account. I’ll go, myself.”

Now, Miss Selby was not really haughty or disagreeable. Simply, she had been brought up on all sorts of Red Riding-hood tales, in which all the trouble was caused by giving encouragement to strangers.

She had been taught that it was a mad, reckless thing to acknowledge the existence of persons whose grandparents had not been known, and favorably known, to her grandparents. But certainly she had no desire to offend any one, and this stranger did seem to be offended. So she said:

She meant it kindly, but unfortunately she was utterly unable to speak in a natural way to a stranger. In reality she was a poor, homesick, affectionate, kind-hearted young girl of twenty, who, not fifteen min[Pg 371]utes before, had been weeping from sheer loneliness.

But she spoke in what seemed to him an obnoxiously condescending and superior tone. He was a young man of many excellent qualities, but meekness was not one of them, and he resented this tone.

So he spoke with an air of amused indulgence, as if he thought her such a funny little thing:

“Why, of course not!” she said, just as much amused as he was, and sat down in one of the chairs against the wall.

She sat there, and he stood opposite her, leaning against the railing, both of them silently not liking each other. Presently the silence became unbearable.

Mr. Anderson, the city dweller, knew precious little about what was expected of spring, but he was determined to say something, anything.

Miss Selby looked at him with a sort of horror. Was that his idea of spring—violets being sold on street corners?

“But that doesn’t mean anything!” she cried. “They were probably hothouse violets, anyway. You can’t possibly see the real spring unless you go in the woods.”

She needn’t think she owned the spring. Every year of his life he had spent several weeks in the country at various hotels. He had seen any number of woods, had walked in them, and admired them, too, with moderation, however.

“Yes, I know,” he admitted. “Last June I motored up through Connecticut—”

“Oh, but that’s different!” she explained. “Motoring—that’s not the same thing at all! There’s a little wood near here—I go there almost every Sunday—I wish you could see it!”

“Heavens!” she thought. “Did he think I wanted him to come with me to-morrow? Oh, dear! How—how awfully awkward! Oh, I do hope it will rain!”

“After that,” he mused, “of course I’ll have to ask her to let me go with her to-morrow. That’s only common courtesy.”

It did not rain the next day. On the contrary, it was as bright and blithe a day as ever dawned. There was no plausible reason why a person who went into the woods almost every Sunday should not go to-day.

“It would be too rude, just to walk off, if he thinks I meant him to come along,” thought Miss Selby. “But perhaps he won’t say anything more about it.”

“Probably he’s still asleep,” she thought, with that pardonable pride every one feels at being up before some one else.

He was not asleep. On the contrary, he was looking at her that very moment, as she sat down at her precious table, eating the Sunday morning coffee ring. He had breakfasted early on purpose, hoping that by so doing he would avoid her, for the more he meditated upon her behavior, the more sternly did he disapprove of it, and he had come downstairs this morning resolved to be merely polite.

He could not help sitting at her table; certainly he didn’t want to, and she had no right to treat him as if he were an annoying intruder. But, no matter what she did, he intended to be polite.

And, as he sat on the veranda railing and observed her through the window, he thought that perhaps it would not be so very difficult to be polite to her. She looked rather nice this morning, in her neat, dark dress, with the sun touching her brown hair to a warm brightness, and a sort of Sunday tranquillity about her. He felt a chivalrous readiness to take a walk in the woods with her; she might even point out all the flowers and tell him facts about them, if she liked.

She arose, and he turned his head and contemplated the landscape, so that he would not be looking at her when she came out of the door. Only, she didn’t come. Although he kept his head turned aside for a long time, he heard no sound of a door opening or of footsteps, nothing but the[Pg 372] subdued voices of the four old ladies who sat on the veranda, enjoying the sunshine.

He glanced toward the dining room. She was not there. Very well; probably she had changed her mind, and he would not be called upon to be chivalrous, after all. He would have the whole day to himself, the whole immensely long, blank, solitary day.

Miss Selby, however, had simply gone upstairs to put on her hat. Or, rather, she put on three hats, one after the other, two rather old ones, and one quite new. She decided in favor of an old one, and felt somewhat proud of herself for this, because didn’t it show how little she cared about strangers? If it happened to be a singularly becoming hat, she couldn’t help it.

She went downstairs and out on the veranda, and there he was, even bigger, she thought, than he had been last evening; a tremendous creature, fairly towering above all the old ladies, and looking most alarmingly masculine and strange.

Something like panic seized her. He was so absolutely a stranger; she knew nothing whatever about him; he might be the most undesirable acquaintance that ever breathed.

But when he said “Good morning,” she had to answer, and, in answering, had to look at him, and was obliged to admit that his face was not exactly sinister.

“Well—” he said. “If you don’t mind—I mean—I’d be very pleased—”

So off they went, together. They went across the lawn and down the road, and after the first moment of awkwardness, they got on very well.

Indeed, it was extraordinary to see upon how many topics they thought alike. They both agreed that it was a beautiful morning; that the spring was the best time of the year, that the smell of pine needles warm in the sun was unique and delightful, and that Mrs. Brown’s coffee was very, very bad.

Then, according to Miss Selby’s directions, they turned off the highway and entered the wood. It was not a thick and somber wood, but a lovely little glade where slim silver birches grew, among bigger and more stalwart trees, standing well spaced, so that the sun came through the budding branches, making a delicate arabesque of light and shadow.

And it was all so fresh, so verdant, so joyous, like one of those half-enchanted forests through which knights used to ride, long ago, when the world was younger. It was so serene, and yet so gay, that even Mr. Anderson, the champion of cities, was captivated.

He walked through that wood with Miss Selby, he saw how she looked when she found violets growing, saw her, so to speak, in her natural habitat, where she belonged, and that seemed to him something not easily to be forgotten. There was Miss Selby, down on her knees, picking violets; Miss Selby looking up at him, with that lovely color in her cheeks, and her clear, candid eyes, asking him if they weren’t the “prettiest things?”

He answered: “No!” with considerable emphasis, but somehow she did not trouble to ask him what he meant.

She fancied that Mr. Anderson appeared to better advantage in the woods. Seen among the trees he didn’t seem too large; indeed, with his blond crest, his mighty shoulders, his long, easy stride, he was not in the least like a bull in a china shop, but a notably fine-looking young fellow.

In short, when Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson returned to the boarding house for the midday dinner, they no longer disliked each other.

III

The old ladies had noticed this at once, and it pleased them. They saw Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson talking cheerfully to each other at the little table, and they said to one another: “Young people—young people,” and they were old enough to understand what that meant.

The “young people” themselves did not understand. They didn’t even know that they were especially young, and certainly they saw nothing charming or interesting in the fact that they were sitting at a small table and talking to each other.

They were, at heart, a little uneasy because they had stopped disliking each other. Dislike was such a neat, definite, vigorous thing to feel, and when it melted away, it left such a disturbing vagueness. Of course, Miss Selby knew that she could not possibly like a stranger; the most she would allow herself was—not to dislike him, and[Pg 373] simply “not disliking” a person is a very unsatisfactory state of mind.

It couldn’t be helped, however. The dislike was gone. And there they sat, not disliking each other, every single evening at that little table. Naturally, they talked, and naturally, being at such close quarters, they watched each other what time they talked, and when you do that, it is extraordinary what a number of things you learn without being told.

The little shadow that flits across a face, the smile that is on the lips and not in the eyes, the brave words and the anxious glance—these things are eloquent.

For instance, Miss Selby talked about that unique household in Boston. She did not say much, that wasn’t her way; yet Mr. Anderson deduced that the mother, the grandmother, and the two aunts were, so to speak, besieged in their Bostonian home, that the wolf was at their door, and that Miss Selby was engaged in keeping him at a safe distance. And that she was probably the pluckiest, finest girl who had ever lived, struggling on all by herself, homesick and lonely, and so young and little.

As for him, he talked chiefly about the manufacture of paper. Until now this subject had not been a particular hobby of Miss Selby’s, but the more she heard about it, the more she realized what an interesting and fascinating topic it was. What is more, while Mr. Anderson talked about paper, he told her, without knowing it, many other things.

She learned that he was a very likable young fellow, with a great many friends, and yet was sometimes a little lonely, because he had no one of his own; that he was prodigiously ambitious, yet found his successful progress in the paper business a little melancholy sometimes, because no one else was very much affected by it. He said he had been brought up by an aunt who had given him an expensive education and a great many advantages; he spoke most dutifully of this aunt, and of all that he owed to her, yet Miss Selby felt certain that this aunt was a very disagreeable sort of person, who never let people forget what they owed her.

Very different from Miss Selby’s aunts! She had even begun to think that perhaps her aunts, together with her mother and grandmother, might like Mr. Anderson, in spite of his size.

And then he spoiled everything. To be sure, he thought it was she who spoiled everything, but she knew better. It was his lamentable, his truly deplorable, masculine vanity. This man, who appeared so independent, so intelligent—

This disillusioning incident took place on the second Sunday of their acquaintance—the Sunday after that first walk. Almost as a matter of course they set forth upon another walk, and as it was a bright, windy day, rather too cool for sauntering in the woods, they went along the highway at a brisk pace.

The spring had capriciously withdrawn. The burgeoning branches were flung about wildly against a sky blue, clear and cold; the ground underfoot felt hard; everything gentle, promising and beguiling had gone out of the world. And perhaps this affected Miss Selby; her cheeks were very rosy, her eyes shining, and she was in high spirits, even to the point of teasing Mr. Anderson a little.

He found this singularly agreeable. For the most part, he could see nothing but the top of her hat, coming along briskly beside him; but every now and then she glanced up, and each time she did so he felt a little dazzled, because of the radiance there was about her this day. He thought—but how glad he was, later on, that he had kept his thoughts to himself!

There was a steep hill before them, and they went at it with that feeling of pleasant excitement one has about new hills; they wanted to get to the top and see what was on the other side. And very likely they were a sort of allegory of youth, which always wants to get to the top of hills and hopes to find something much better on the other side; but this idea did not occur to them. And, alas, they never reached the top!

Halfway up that hill there was a garden with a stone wall about it; a wide lawn, ornamented with dwarf firs, a fine garden of the formal sort, but not very interesting, and Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson were not interested. They would have passed by with no more than a casual glance, but as they drew near the gate a dog began to bark in a desperate and violent fashion. And a sweet and plaintive voice said:

Naturally they both turned their heads then, and they saw Mrs. Granger standing behind the gate. At that time they did not know her name was Mrs. Granger, or any[Pg 374] other facts about her; but Miss Selby always believed that, at that first glance, she learned more about Mrs. Granger than—well, than certain other people ever learned, in weeks of acquaintance.

A charming little lady, Mrs. Granger was—dark and fragile, very plaintive, very gentle, the sort of woman a really chivalrous man feels sorry for. Especially at that moment when she was having such a very bad time with that dog.

It was a rough and unruly young dog—a collie, and a fine specimen, too, but ill trained. She was holding him by the collar, and he was struggling to get free, and barking furiously, his jaws snapping open and shut as if jerked by a string, his whole body vibrating with his unreasonable emotional outburst.

“Keep quiet!” said she, with a pathetic attempt at severity, and when he did not obey, she gave him a sort of dab on the top of the head. It was more than his proud spirit would endure; he broke away from her, jumped over the low gate, and flew at Mr. Anderson.

But not in anger; on the contrary, he was wild with delight; he rushed round and round the young man, lay down on his shoes, licked his hands. And when Mr. Anderson patted him, he was fairly out of his mind, and rolled in the dust.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Granger. “But—how wonderful!” She turned to Miss Selby. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“What instinct?” asked Miss Selby, politely. “I thought he was just a friendly little dog.”

“Oh, but he’s not friendly with every one!” cried Mrs. Granger. “Not by any means!”

It was at this point that Miss Selby’s disillusionment began. She looked at Mr. Anderson, expecting to find him looking amused, and instead of that, he was pleased—a little embarrassed, but certainly pleased!

“What darling wild roses!” she exclaimed. “I do wish I could find some!”

“They’re azaleas,” said Miss Selby. “And the woods at the foot of the hill—next to your garden—are full of them.”

Mr. Anderson was not looking at them just then, but only heard their voices, and he was very much impressed by the contrast. One of them sounded so gentle and sweet, and the other so chill, so curt. It was deplorable that Miss Selby should be so ungracious; he was disappointed.

So he thought that he, at least, would be decently civil to the poor little woman, and he turned toward her with that intention, only he could think of nothing to say. He smiled, though, and Mrs. Granger smiled at him, and Miss Selby observed this.

And Mrs. Granger knew that Miss Selby observed this, and she smiled at Miss Selby. It was a smile that Mr. Anderson would never understand.

“I wish you’d both come in and look at my garden!” said Mrs. Granger, wistfully.

And she actually set off, down the hill. Mr. Anderson, of course, was obliged to follow, and the dog, Sandy, had the same idea.

Sandy gave a yelp of joy at being addressed, and stood expectantly beside him, grinning dog wise into his face. Mr. Anderson again ordered him home, and Mrs. Granger called him, but he did not go. He had to be dragged back by the collar and held, while Mrs. Granger fastened a leash to his collar.

“I never saw anything like it,” she declared. “He’s simply devoted to you.”

“I think that’s a very wonderful thing!” said she, quietly. “Because I’m sure they know. I’d trust Sandy’s judgment against any human being’s.”

“You must come and see Sandy again some day,” she suggested. “Poor little doggie!”

All this had taken considerable time, and Miss Selby was nowhere to be seen. He hurried after her and, turning the corner at the foot of the hill, saw her marching[Pg 375] briskly along ahead of him. She must have known that he would follow, yet she did not look back once, and when he reached her side she said nothing—neither did he. They went on.

Presently Miss Selby began to talk, making a very obvious effort to be polite. Mr. Anderson did not like this, but he, too, made an equally obvious effort at politeness, and succeeded quite as well as she did, and they continued in this formal, almost stately tone, for some time.

When she looked back upon it, Miss Selby was always at a loss to understand just how and when this correct tone had vanished from their conversation, and the quarrel had begun. For it was a quarrel—a genuine and a hearty one. And although Mrs. Granger was never once mentioned, yet the quarrel was about her.

Miss Selby declared flatly that dogs did not have any “wonderful instinct” for judging people. Mr. Anderson said he knew they did.

“What?” she cried. “You don’t mean to say you think a dog knows by instinct whether any one is—good or bad?”

Then Miss Selby laughed. She regretted it afterward, but it was done. She had laughed at Mr. Anderson, and he resented it, deeply.

They walked side by side for half a mile, and never said one single word, and by the time they reached the boarding house they had firmly established that worst of all complications, an angry silence. It was now impossible for either of them to speak.

It was impossible to break that silence without an intolerable sacrifice of pride. Yet, so very, very small a thing would have sufficed; one entreating glance from Mr. Anderson, and Miss Selby would have responded willingly; just a shade of warmth in her smile, and the young man would have made an impetuous apology. But he was not going to give entreating glances to persons who laughed at him, and her smile showed no warmth at all, but instead an extreme chilliness.

They smiled when they met every evening in the dining room, simply to keep up appearances—and it was a complete failure. The old ladies noticed at once that something had gone wrong; they discussed it with unflagging interest all week, wondering what had happened, and whose fault it was. They all hoped that matters would be adjusted by Sunday.

Sunday came, and it was a sweet, bright, warm day. The hour for taking walks came, and Mr. Anderson went out—alone. The old ladies were truly sorry to see this. Miss Selby also saw it. She came out on the veranda just as he was going down the steps and, although she did not turn her head, she had caught a glimpse of his tall, broad-shouldered figure going off—alone. She had a book with her, and, siting down in a sheltered corner, she began to read.

It was impossible. On this gay spring morning nothing printed in books could interest her. Not that she cared what Mr. Anderson did or where he went. Only, she was homesick and so very lonely. There was nobody to talk to, and it would be such a long, long time before she could afford to take a vacation and go back to Boston to see her own people.

For two months Mr. Quincey had been apologetically making attempts to talk to Miss Selby. He was a most inoffensive young man, a teller in the local bank; he had virtually all the virtues there are: thrift, industry, sobriety, honesty—and he knew people in Boston. Yet hitherto Miss Selby had discouraged him, for no good reason at all, but simply because she wished so to do.

Imagine his surprise and delight when this morning she replied to him with something like cordiality. The old ladies saw him sit down on the railing near her chair, they saw his pleased smile, and they decided that Miss Selby was a fickle and a heartless girl.

In the meantime, Mr. Anderson was striding along the quiet country roads at a tremendous pace. No; he did not like the country.

Except for his unique and wonderful paper mill, he could wish with all his heart that he were back in the city, where there were numbers of people he knew, friendly faces to see, jolly voices to hear. He could think of no particular person he was especially anxious to see, yet it seemed to him that he missed somebody, badly.[Pg 376]

So, he went up that hill again. Again Sandy was there, and Mrs. Granger; again he was invited to look at the garden, and this time he accepted.

Mrs. Granger was a widow, and she admitted herself that the loss of Mr. Granger had made her very sympathetic. She told Mr. Anderson that she “understood,” and he firmly believed this, without exactly knowing what there was to be understood.

Anyhow, her manner was wonderfully soothing to one who had recently been laughed at, and the young man appreciated it. Twice they strolled round the garden, followed by Sandy, and Mrs. Granger, in a charming and playful way, made a chaperon of Sandy.

Then, when they had come round to the gate for the second time, she said that she would be very pleased to see him if he would like to come in for a cup of tea that afternoon.

And he really did think it was very kind of her, and that she was a charming, gracious, kindly little lady, yet he had not said definitely whether he would come to tea or not.

For all the time, in the back of his mind, there was a queer, miserable feeling he could not define, a sense of guilt, as if he had been very careless about something very dear to him. He thought that he would not make up his mind until—well, until he saw—

What he saw was Miss Selby coming home from a walk with Mr. Quincey. She was carrying a small bouquet of violets, so he supposed that she had been in the woods—in those same woods—and with Mr. Quincey. So Mr. Anderson did go to tea with Mrs. Granger.

Mrs. Granger said he might come on Wednesday evening, and he went. She played on the piano and sang for him, and he praised her music so much that she was charmingly confused. Never did she guess that it was not admiration that moved him, but pity because she made so many mistakes in technique.

And he accounted all these mistakes to her credit; he thought, like many another man, that the worse her performance in any art, the more domestic and womanly she must be. He felt a fine, chivalrous regard for the poor thing.

But still he kept waiting for some sign of relenting on the part of Miss Selby. Every evening, as he crossed the dining room to the little table he thought that perhaps to-night it would be different; perhaps to-night it would be as it had been during that time when they had talked to each other.

Of course, if she didn’t care, he wasn’t going to force his unwelcome conversation upon her. She was a woman; it was her place to make the first move.

What had he done, anyhow? Maybe he had been a little hasty, but at least he hadn’t laughed at her, or ever had the slightest desire to do such a thing. And if, in her unreasonable feminine way, she wanted him to apologize for things he hadn’t done, he was ready so to do—if she would make the first move.

“Very well!” thought Miss Selby every evening when she saw him. “If he’s satisfied to—to let things go on like this, I’m sure I don’t care.”

She was much better able to wear a calm expression of not caring than he was. He looked dejected and sulky. But when out of the public eye, he did better than she, for he merely walked up and down his room, or gazed out gloomily upon those depressing trees, while she, locked in her own room, often cried.

The next Sunday it rained, but nevertheless he went out early in the afternoon, and Miss Selby knew very well where he was going.

“Let him!” she said to herself. “If he’s so easily taken in by that—that designing woman and her dog, I don’t care! She’s probably trained the dog to behave like that.”

This was unjust. Mrs. Granger had no need to train dogs to bring guests into her house. Undoubtedly she liked Mr. Anderson, but if he had not come there would still have been Captain MacGregor, whom she had been liking for a good many years. Mr. Anderson was soon made aware of the captain’s existence by Leroy.

Now, there is no denying that Leroy himself was a shock to the young man. To begin with, it seemed incredible that any one who looked as young as Mrs. Granger should have a son eight years old, and in[Pg 377] the second place, if she did have a son, it should have been a different kind of child.

Leroy was a nice enough boy in his way, but completely lacking in the plaintive and poetic charm of the mother. Indeed, he seemed more akin to Sandy, a rough, cheerful, headstrong young thing. But he had none of Sandy’s admirable instinct for judging human nature, and in the beginning he did not like Mr. Anderson.

He was frank about it. He said that Mr. Anderson’s watch was markedly inferior to Captain MacGregor’s, and he expressed a belief that Captain MacGregor could, if he wished, lick Mr. Anderson. He said a good many things of this sort, so that the young man was badly prejudiced against this unknown captain some time before he met him.

And when he did meet him, on that rainy Sunday, nothing occurred to soften the prejudice. He found MacGregor installed as an old friend. He found also that the man had brought to Mrs. Granger, as a gift, six silk umbrellas.

Six! It was an overwhelming gift. Anderson himself had brought a box of chocolates, but this was completely overshadowed by the umbrellas, just as he himself was overshadowed by the impressive silence of the other man.

A big, weather-beaten fellow of forty-five or so was this MacGregor, with the face and the manner of a gigantic Sphinx; he was neither handsome nor entertaining, but it was impossible to ignore or despise him. The solid worth of him, the honest self-respect, and the massive obstinacy, were plainly apparent.

He was not worried by the appearance of a strange young man; on the contrary, he seemed mildly amused. He let Anderson do all the talking, and just sat in a corner of the veranda, smoking his pipe.

This aroused in Anderson an unworthy spirit of emulation. He did not enjoy being so completely overshadowed by this man and his six umbrellas, and he returned the very next evening with four superb phonograph records. He found MacGregor there, just opening a paper parcel containing fourteen pairs of white gloves.

He waited until Wednesday, and then he arrived with a long box of the most costly roses. The captain was not there, but Mrs. Granger showed Anderson a little gift she had received from him the night before—five mahogany clocks.

The unhappy young man was almost ready to give up then, until Mrs. Granger casually explained that Captain MacGregor was a marine insurance adjuster and, in the course of his business, was often able to buy articles which had been part of damaged cargoes and yet were themselves in nowise damaged.

“So that he sometimes brings me the most wonderful things,” she said. “He is so thoughtful and generous. Don’t you like him, Mr. Anderson?”

He went home somewhat comforted. Not only had Mrs. Granger been unusually sympathetic and charming, but her words had inspired him with a new idea.

On Friday evening he arrived with a very large package, which he left in the hall. He then entered the sitting room, and found Mrs. Granger sweetly admiring the captain’s latest gift—seven handsome black silk blouses, all exactly alike.

He let her go on admiring, and even generously said himself that they were “very nice.” Then, after a decent interval—“By the way,” he remarked, and went out into the hall and fetched in his package.

It was pretty imposing. He had spoken to the foreman of the paper mill, and the foreman had shown a friendly interest, so that he was now able to present to Mrs. Granger:

“Those are for Leroy,” he said, with a modest air which failed to conceal his triumph. This time he had won; there was no doubt about it.

Why shouldn’t she go out to dinner? He simply hoped that she was enjoying herself. And, as he ate his solitary dinner, he thought about this; he imagined Miss Selby enjoying herself somewhere, sitting at some other table, and probably with some other young man sitting opposite her.[Pg 378]

He knew how she would look if she were enjoying herself, with that lovely color in her cheeks, and that wonderful smile of hers. Well, it was none of his business—absolutely none of his business.

And yet, after dinner, he found occasion to stop the landlady in the hall, and to say, with an air of courteous indifference:

“That young lady who sits at my table—didn’t see her to-night. Has she gone away?”

“No, Mr. Anderson!” answered Mrs. Brown, with stern solemnity. “She has not. She’s lying upstairs, sick, at this very moment that I’m speaking to you. And I think it’s pneumonia, that’s what I think.”

“It takes you sudden,” Mrs. Brown asserted. “And Miss Selby—well, people have often said to me how blooming she looked, but well I knew it was nerve, and nerve alone, that kept her going. Nerve strength!” she sighed. “It’s a treacherous thing, Mr. Anderson. You live on your nerves, and then, all of a sudden, they snap—like that!”

And her bony fingers snapped loudly, a startling sound in the dimly lit hall. The young man was in no condition to judge of the value of Mrs. Brown’s medical opinion; he was simply panic-stricken.

He went out of the house in a sort of blind haste, and began to walk along roads strange to him, under a cloudy and somber sky. He heard the voice of the wind in the trees, and to his unaccustomed ears it held no solace, but was a voice infinitely mournful.

Pneumonia! That little, little pretty thing—so far from home—ill and alone in a boarding house. Such a young, little thing.

He remembered that morning in the woods—her face when she had looked up at him from the violets she was picking—that radiant face, clear-eyed as a child’s.

“It’s my fault!” he cried aloud. “I ought to have known she couldn’t take care of herself properly. It’s my fault! The poor little thing! She’s done some fool trick—got her feet wet—probably makes her lunch of an ice cream soda—perhaps she can’t afford any lunch. And now—pneumonia! She had no right to get pneumonia! It’s—”

He stopped short, in a still, dark little lane, clenched his hands, stood there shaken by pain, by anger, by all the unreason of grief and anxiety.

VII

When he came downstairs the next morning, Mrs. Brown regarded his strained and haggard face with profound interest, and she observed to one of the old ladies that she believed Mr. Anderson was “coming down with something.”

He made inquiries about Miss Selby’s health, and obtained very vague and confused replies, which he interpreted as people jaded and despondent from a bad night are apt to interpret things. He went into the dining room, but he could eat no breakfast. Who could, sitting alone at a little table, opposite an empty chair? Then he went out again.

It was a rainy day, but that was so fitting that he scarcely noticed it. He remembered having seen a greenhouse not far away, and he went there. It was not open on Sunday, but he made it be open. He banged so loud and so long on the door that at last an old man came out of a near-by cottage.

“It’s a case of pneumonia!” said the young man, fiercely. “I’ve got to have some flowers.”

So he was admitted to the greenhouse, and he bought everything there was, and then sat down at a little desk to write a card. He never forgot the writing of that card, the rain drumming down on the glass roof, the palms and rubber trees standing about him, and the hot, moist, steamy smell like a jungle. He never forgot what he wrote, or how he felt while he wrote it.

But there would be no use in repeating what he wrote, for nobody ever read that card.

He put it with the flowers, and set off home. When he got there he gave the bouquet, very sodden now, to Mrs. Brown’s servant, and said to her:

Then he went up to his own room and locked the door. And the room was all filled with the gray light of a rainy day.

The clang of the dinner bell startled him; he jumped up, scowling, and muttered: “Oh, shut up!” But, just the same, he had to obey it. He had to go downstairs, and had to sit at the little table.[Pg 379]

Scarcely had he sat down when he saw Miss Selby enter the room—Miss Selby in a new dark green linen dress, looking unusually pretty, and not even pale.

He arose; he was pale enough. He couldn’t speak. She must have received that card; she must have read it. As she glanced at him, he saw the color deepen in her cheeks, and her smile was uncertain. She was so lovely.

He didn’t think so. He thought it was the most beautiful day that had ever dawned; and he might have said something of the sort if he had not just at that moment seen an awful thing. He stared, appalled, almost unbelieving.

But it was too late; she had come; she presented the bouquet to Miss Selby with a pleased and kindly smile.

“See here!” said the young man, in a low and unsteady voice. “I—I only got them because I thought—they—she told me—you had pneumonia. I thought—Give them back to her. Throw them away! I—I’m sorry—”

“Sorry I haven’t got pneumonia?” asked Miss Selby. “It’s too bad, but perhaps I can manage it some other time.”

Her tone and her smile hurt him terribly. He wished that he could snatch the flowers away from her. She was laughing at him again; every one in the room was laughing at him.

And it didn’t occur to him that Miss Selby couldn’t possibly know how he felt, but was a very young and inexperienced creature who was also hurt by his strange manner of giving bouquets. She thought he wanted her to know that, unless she were very ill, he wouldn’t dream of giving her flowers. She was even more hurt than he was.

Katie did bring a vase, and the hateful and offensive flowers were set up between them, like a hedge. He leaned over, and with his penknife deliberately cut off the card tied to the stems and put it into his pocket.

VIII

In his pain and anger and humiliation he turned blindly to Mrs. Granger, the charming little lady who never laughed at any one. He couldn’t get to her fast enough; he strode on through the mud in the steady downpour of rain, simply longing to see her, and to hear her soft, gracious voice, and to be within the shelter of her friendly home.

That card was still in his pocket; he took it out, and as he walked along, tore it into bits and strewed them behind him. They fell into puddles, where they would lie to be trampled on, those words he had written—a suitable end for them.

He pushed open the gate of Mrs. Granger’s garden, and was very much comforted by Sandy’s ecstatic welcome. Dogs did know. They appreciated it when you meant well; they were not suspicious, not mocking. When you gave them something they accepted it in good faith.

He went on toward the house, walking rapidly, impatient to get in there to the gentle serenity of Mrs. Granger’s presence. He rang the bell, and directly the parlor-maid opened the door he knew he was not going to have peace and solace.

Something had gone wrong. He could hear Leroy’s voice raised in a loud, forlorn bellow, and Mrs. Granger’s voice, tearful and trembling, and Captain MacGregor’s voice, with a slightly exasperated note in it. He entered the sitting room, and there was Mrs. Granger, weeping, and Leroy sobbing. Sandy began to bark.

“Oh, Mr. Anderson!” cried Mrs. Granger. “How can you let him do that? Oh, please keep him quiet!”

“See! Here on his leg!” she went on. “And he never told me! It happened late yesterday!”

“There’s no reason to assume that the dog was mad,” interrupted the captain.

“It was! Animals adore Leroy! Only a rabid dog would dream of biting him![Pg 380]”

“Well, see here!” said Anderson. “If you think—if you’re worried—why not have his leg cauterized?”

Leroy began to bellow at this inhuman suggestion, and Mrs. Granger clasped him in her arms.

“Don’t cry, darling!” she sobbed. “Mother won’t let them hurt you!” And she looked at Captain MacGregor and Mr. Anderson with unutterable reproach.

“Well, see here!” Anderson suggested. “If you could find the dog, and—keep it under observation for a few days—”

“Sure!” he said. “I’ll find him, mom. You just let me alone, and I’ll find him for you, all right!”

“Yes, I know. But I remember the street where it was, an’ I’ll go back there to-morrow,” Leroy declared. “I could stay out o’ school jist in the mornin’ and jist—ferret it out. I got lots of clews. An’ I bet you—”

“Perhaps that would be a good idea,” she admitted. “You might try it, anyhow, and see.”

So Leroy was fortified against the rain in oilskins and rubbers, and he and Mr. Anderson set forth together in quest of the dog. The small boy was highly pleased with the adventure; he did not often have an opportunity to frolic in the rain, and he made the most of it, caracoling before Anderson like a sportive colt. Sandy, too, would have enjoyed it, but he was tied up.

“One dog at a time,” said Anderson. “Now, young feller, let’s hear about it.”

“Aw, it was nothin’,” Leroy replied with admirable nonchalance. “Jist a dog ran up an’ bit me. I mean, I was runnin’, an’ I guess I stepped on his paw an’ he bit me.”

“I dunno what all I told her,” Leroy admitted. “Anyway, what’s it matter? Had to do somethin’ to keep her quiet.”

Anderson considered that it was not his place to rebuke this child, and he let the disrespect pass.

He spoke no more than the truth. It was a very long way. They went on and on, down long, quiet suburban streets, lined with dripping trees and houses with no signs of life. They went on and on.

At first Leroy was talkative and cheerful, and found great satisfaction in splashing in puddles, but as time went on he grew silent, and tramped through the puddles more as a matter of principle than through enjoyment.

“Well, I don’t know,” the boy answered, “but I guess I’d know it if I saw it. Somewheres around here, it was. Might be around the next corner.”

Mr. Anderson said nothing, but walked steadily forward, and Leroy trotted by his side.

“They sure did have good lollypops in there,” observed Leroy. “Best I ever tasted.”

Still no response from the adult, possessor of all power and wealth. Leroy sighed. And Anderson turned to look at him, and discovered a wet and not very clean face upturned to his, with brown eyes very like Sandy’s. Poor little kid, tramping along so bravely in his oilskins! He looked tired, too.

“All right!” said Anderson. “We’d better go back and get a few lollypops.”

“Here’s the street!” he cried at last. “The lil dog ran out o’ one of those houses—I don’t know which one.”

Mr. Anderson rang the bell of the first house. The occupants owned no dog, never had, and never intended so to do. In the second house he was confronted by a very disagreeable old lady. She admitted that she had a dog, and she said, with unction, that her dog could and would bite any persons unlawfully trespassing on her property, as was any dog’s right.

“I dare say Rover did bite the boy,” she suggested, “if he came in here trampling[Pg 381] and stampling all over my flower beds. And serve him right, I say!”

“I did not!” said Leroy, indignantly. “And that’s not the dog, Mr. Anderson. I can see him out the window. He’s a police dog, and my dog was a little one.”

They proceeded to the next house. Nobody came to the door at all. There was only one more house left on the street.

“Well, I hope the right dog’s in there,” said Leroy, “but—” He paused, then he laid his hand on Anderson’s sleeve. “Most any lil dog would do,” he said, very low, “for her.”

Mr. Anderson was about to protest sternly against such a dishonest and immoral suggestion, but somehow he didn’t. The child’s hand looked so very small, and his manner was so trusting. He said nothing at all, simply walked up the path to this last house.

He rang the bell, and the door was opened with startling suddenness by a little man with spectacles and a neatly pointed white beard. He looked like a professor, and he was a professor—of Romance Languages—and because of his scholarly unworldliness, he had been cheated and swindled so many times that he had become fiercely suspicious. He glared.

“This boy has been bitten by a dog,” Mr. Anderson explained. “And we want to find the dog, to see—”

“Aha!” said the professor. “I see! A blackmailing scheme! You wish to see my dog. You will then cause this child to identify the dog as the one which bit him, in order that you may collect damages. A ve-ry pret-ty little scheme, I must admit!”

Anderson had had a singularly trying day, and he was very weary of this quest, anyhow.

“Nothing of the sort!” he said curtly. “If you’ll be good enough to let us see your dog—or if you’ll give me your assurance that the animal is perfectly healthy—”

“Don’t you give him a penny, Joseph!” cried a quavering female voice from the dark depths of the hall.

“Ve-ry pret-ty!” he repeated. “But you may as well understand, once and for all, that I absolutely refuse to allow you to see my dog, or to give you any assurance of any kind whatsoever.”

And nothing could move him. Mr. Anderson argued with him with as much tact and politeness as he could manage just at that time, but in vain.

“See here!” he said at last. “Let me see the dog, and if it’s the right one, I’ll buy it. Now will you believe—”

But the professor would not believe until Anderson had signed a document which he drew up, solemnly promising that, if the dog were identified by Leroy as the dog which had bitten him, he, Winchell Anderson, would purchase the said dog for the sum of twenty-five dollars.

Then, and then only, was the dog brought into the room. And Leroy instantly, loudly and fervently asserted that it was the dog. By this time Mr. Anderson was perfectly willing to believe him. He paid the money and stooped to pick up the dog, a small animal, of what might be called the spaniel type.

It snapped at him. He could not pick it up, because on the next attempt his hand was bitten. At last, upon his paying in advance for the telephone call, the professor summoned a taxi. Mr. Anderson could not get the dog into the taxi, but Leroy had no trouble at all with it. It seemed to like Leroy.

They rode home in silence, because every time Anderson uttered a word the animal growled and struggled in the boy’s arms.

They reached Mrs. Granger’s house, and while Leroy ran ahead with the dog in his arms, Anderson delayed a minute to pay the taxi with the last bill remaining in his pockets. Then he followed. It had been a costly and a wearisome quest, but Mrs. Granger’s relief and gratitude would be sufficient reward.

In the doorway of the sitting room he paused a moment, smiling to himself at the scene before him. Leroy was down on his knees, playing with this quite unexpected and delightful new dog, and Mrs. Granger knelt beside him, one arm about her son’s neck.

Captain MacGregor was there, but in a corner, so that one need not consider him in the picture—the peaceful lamp-lit room, the gentle mother and her child.

“I’m very glad—” he began, when, at[Pg 382] the sound of his voice, the dog sprang up and rushed at him, and was caught by Leroy just in the nick of time. He growled threateningly.

“I guess I’d better tie him up,” said Leroy. “He doesn’t like Mr. Anderson.”

“But why doesn’t the poor little doggie like Mr. Anderson?” pursued Mrs. Granger, and there was something in her voice that dismayed the young man.

“It’s very strange,” she remarked. “Very! But sit down, Mr. Anderson. Perhaps you were just a little bit rough in handling him—without meaning to be.”

At this point the dog broke loose, flew at Anderson, and would have bitten him if Anderson had not prevented him—with his foot.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Granger. “Oh, Mr. Anderson, how could you! You kicked the poor little doggie!”

“I—I simply pushed him—with my foot,” said Anderson. “He’s a bad-tempered little brute.”

“Dogs are never bad-tempered unless they’re badly treated,” Mrs. Granger declared, with severity. “They always know a friend from a foe.”

“All right!” the young man agreed. “Then I’m afraid I’m a foe.” He turned toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll be getting along. I’m—I’m tired. Good evening!”

She let him go! He opened the front door and stepped out into the rain again, and never in his life had he felt so bitter, so disappointed, so cruelly, intolerably depressed. After all he had done, she let him go like this! Not even a word of thanks. Poor little doggie, eh?

Halfway down the path he heard a shout; it was Leroy, rushing after him bareheaded through the rain.

Words failed him, and he stretched out his hand, a rough, warm little hand, wet from the rain, sticky from lollypops. Yet Anderson was very glad to clasp it tight.

And he sat on the gatepost, watching, and waving his hand as Anderson went down the road in the rainy dusk.

Mr. Anderson had finished with women forever. And this resolve gave to his face a new and not unbecoming sternness; the old ladies noticed it directly he entered the dining room that evening. Miss Selby noticed it, too, but pretended not to; she smiled that same chilly, polite smile, and said never a word—neither did he.

Supper was set before them, and they began to eat, still silent. And then she spoke suddenly.

Again a silence. But she could not keep her eyes off that clumsily-tied bandage on his hand.

It was an entirely different tone, but he was no longer to be trifled with like that. He smiled, coldly.

“No doubt you’ll be very much amused,” he remarked, “to learn that I’ve been bitten by a dog!”

“Why don’t you laugh, Miss Selby?” he inquired. “It’s funny enough, isn’t it? After I said that dogs always know. It’s what you might call ‘biting irony,’ isn’t it?”

“I took your flowers upstairs,” she said. “I think—they’re the prettiest—the prettiest flowers—I—ever saw.”

“Miss Selby!” he exclaimed again. “See here! Please! When I thought you were ill—”

The old ladies had all finished their suppers, but not one of them left the room. They were watching Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson. Surely not a remarkable spectacle, simply a nice looking young man and[Pg 383] a pretty young girl, sitting, quite speechless, now, at a little table.

Yet one old lady actually wiped tears from her eyes, and every one of them felt an odd and tender little stir at the heart, as if the perfume of very old memories had blown in at the opened window.

“Let’s go out on the veranda,” said Mr. Anderson to Miss Selby, and they did.

The rain was coming down steadily, and the wind sighed in the pines. But it was a June night, a summer night, a young night.

Not an old lady set foot on the veranda that evening, not another human being heard what Miss Selby from Boston, and Mr. Anderson from New York had to say to each other.

Only Mrs. Brown, opening the door for a breath of fresh air, did happen to hear him saying something about the “best sort of paper for wedding announcements.[Pg 384]”

Highfalutin’

THE BUNGALOW COLONY WAS A MAELSTROM OF MISUNDERSTANDING, BUT THE SHIP’S OFFICER ASHORE NEVER LOST HIS BEARINGS

“WE must simply look on it as a—a lark!” said Mrs. De Haaven, resolutely. But her voice was not very steady, and her smile was somewhat strained, for in her heart she saw this, not as a lark, but as something very close to a tragedy.

This was true; a fresh sea breeze went blowing through the rooms, fluttering the curtains and stirring the dark hair on Rose’s temples. The tiny house was sweet with sun and salt wind. Both Mrs. De Haaven and her sister could appreciate this, and they were sternly determined to appreciate every possible good point about their new home.

But—it was so tiny, so bare, so terribly strange; a sitting room, a bedroom, and a kitchen, divided by partitions which did not reach to the unstained rafters; painted floors, badly scuffed, the queerest collection of scarred, weather-beaten furniture.

The trouble was, that neither of them had had any sort of experience in camping out, and, what is more, had never desired any such experience. They had led the most casual, pleasant existence; when they had wanted to be in the city, they had occupied Mrs. De Haaven’s charming little flat; when it occurred to them that they would enjoy the country, they had gone out to the old De Haaven farm on Long Island; if the impulse seized them to travel, travel they did, in a comfortable and leisurely fashion.

Wherever they had been, in town or in the country, in Paris, in Cairo, in Nice, there always had been plenty of people about to do all the disagreeable and difficult things for them, and to do them willingly, because not only had the two ladies paid well for all services rendered them, but they were polite, kind and appreciative.

And now, with a jolt and a jar, that smooth-moving existence had stopped. Their lawyer, who had had complete charge of their nice little fortune inherited from their father, had either done something terrible, or something terrible had happened to him. They preferred, in charity, to believe the latter, and anyhow, it did not matter.

The money had dwindled down to almost nothing, the flat was sublet, the farm rented, and the poor ladies had taken this beach bungalow on Staten Island for the summer. They took it because it was cheap, and because it was their tradition that one had to leave the city in the summer, and because they hoped in this obscure little place to be let alone, to get accustomed to their new life in peace.

So here they were in their new home, all paid for, all furnished, all ready for them to begin living in. It was certainly quiet enough, yet somehow it did not impress Mrs. De Haaven as being peaceful; on the contrary, there was something alarming, almost terrible, in the quietness.

Nobody was doing anything or preparing anything for them; nothing would be done until she and Rose did it; the house simply stood there, waiting for them to begin. How did one begin?

She was a little shocked with Rose for turning her back on the house and sitting down on the veranda railing.

“Oh, Rose!” she said. “Shouldn’t we set to work—get things in order?[Pg 386]”

But Rose only reached out and caught her sister by the arm and pulled her down beside her.

“That” was the sea before them—the North Atlantic, which rolled into the bay and broke upon the sands. They had looked upon the Pacific, upon the blue Mediterranean; they had seen many harbors, many beaches, beyond comparison lovelier than this flat shore.

But this, after all, was the great salt sea, the very source of life, and the sun made it glitter, and the wind blew off it, fresh and invigorating. It was something.

There they sat, with their arms about each other, such forlorn and lovely creatures! Nina De Haaven, dark and delicate; Rose taller, stronger, with a beautiful eagerness in her face, as if she waited in trust and delight for whatever her destiny might bring. She was twenty-four, and she had never really feared anything in her life.

Rose was not afraid, now, of this new existence, only a little puzzled, because she would have to be the one to start it. Nina was five years older, but she was too gentle, too easily rebuffed; she had never quite trusted life again after her beloved husband died.

“There’s dinner,” thought Rose. “I’m sure they don’t supply food with furnished bungalows. I’ll have to buy it and cook it. Mercy!”

“Bread and butter,” she also thought, “and eggs and milk, and tea and coffee, and sugar and spice. Everything goes in pairs! Coal and wood—”

“Somebody’s knocking somewhere!” she said. “I believe it’s our own back door. I’ll go.” And she vanished into the house. Rose followed promptly, and found her in the little kitchen, stooping over a basket on the table.

“It must be the dinner!” Nina declared, very much pleased. “There are all sorts of things here.”

“How can it be the dinner?” Rose asked. She, too, bent over the basket and was enchanted by the varied assortment therein.

“Perhaps the tradespeople do that when some one new moves in,” Mrs. De Haaven suggested. “As a sort of sample. A boy just left it without a word.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” she said. “I’m afraid it must be a mistake. But—” She was busy cataloguing these household things in her mind. Salt—she hadn’t thought of that; and a box of bacon, and matches.

“I wish I’d kept house when Julian was alive,” said Mrs. De Haaven, “and not lived in hotels. Then I shouldn’t be so—useless.”

“Encumberer of the earth!” she said, smilingly. “The thing is—whether I dare to pretend to be as artless as you really are.”

“Yes!” said Rose, firmly. “I’ll pay for it, of course, when I find out who it belongs to. But it’s such a wonderful collection. I want it! Here’s a package of pancake flour, and it tells you exactly how to make them. And the tin of coffee has directions on it, too. We could get on indefinitely, with pancakes and coffee.”

“We can’t afford complexions, any more,” said Rose. And she began unpacking the basket, setting the tins and packages in neat rows on the dresser. The effect delighted them both; they were beginning to feel really at home now.

The sun was going down behind the house, and the sea before them reflected in its darkening waters the faint purples and pinks streaking the sky. Mrs. De Haaven and her sister were on the veranda, facing the spectacle, but it aroused no enthusiasm in them; they were silent. They were tired, dejected and—hungry.

It was early in the season, and most of the bungalows were still unoccupied; there was not a soul in sight, not a human sound to be heard, nothing but the quiet breaking of the waves on the beach. A vast and inhospitable world.

Round the corner of the shore two figures came into sight, a girl and a man. They came on very slowly, so close to each other that now and then their shoulders[Pg 387] touched. The strange sunset light touched their young heads with a sort of glory.

“I suppose I’ll have to,” said Rose. “There’s no one else alive on the surface of the earth. But—somehow I hate to bother them about oil stoves at such a moment. Still, I can’t let her go!”

She sighed, and got up, but just then the couple turned and began walking up the sands directly toward them. They were so absorbed in each other, not talking very much, but looking at each other from time to time, long, long glances.

The man was a passably good-looking young fellow of a somewhat scholarly type, lean and tall, and wearing spectacles, but the girl was a marvel, a miracle of soft, rich colors and vigorous health. Her eyes were blue, her hair the shade of ripe wheat, her sunburned face beautifully flushed. She was strong, lithe, straight-limbed, and such a joy to see that Rose forgot all about oil stoves.

“Well, good-by, Margie!” said the young man in spectacles, in the most casual sort of tone.

She held out her hand, and he took it. They stood hand in hand, looking at each other. Suddenly she snatched away her hand.

She had gone into the bungalow next to them, slamming the screen door behind her.

“I’ll give her a chance to get settled first, before I go and ask her,” said Rose. “It’s too sordid to ask her how to light a stove when she’s just said good-by to Paul.”

So they waited a little. Their neighbor was extraordinarily noisy in there; doors banged, all sorts of things rattled and slammed, and while they waited for this alarming racket to subside, a small open car came down the road behind the houses, stopped, and presently the back door slammed and a voice sounded in there—a man’s voice, and a young one, too.

“The things haven’t come down from the store yet,” said Margie. “I ordered them—”

“Don’t make excuses,” the man interrupted. “I told you I’d be home at six, and that I’d be in a hurry.”

“Oh, I’m not making excuses!” answered Margie, scornfully. “I wouldn’t bother to do that to you. I was just explaining. It’s not my fault if the man doesn’t bring the things.”

“We’ve got their things!” Rose whispered to her sister. “I know it!”

“If you’d stay at home and look after your job, instead of running about with that measly little lawyer,” the man began.

And somehow that furious exclamation hurt both the listeners. For both those quarreling voices, in spite of their bad temper and unrestraint, were good voices, the voices of people who ought to know better.

“All right!” said the man. “You wait till Bill comes home, young woman!”

“I don’t give a darn about Bill!” she retorted. “If you’re in such a hurry, take the car and go up to the store and get the stuff.”

“Not much!” he said. “It’s your job to get the meals, and I won’t help you. I’ve got enough work of my own to do.”

“I’ll have to take them their things,” murmured Rose, and she and her sister went into the kitchen and, by the feeble light of an ill-trimmed lamp, began to repack the basket in haste.

And while they were so engaged, there came the most tremendous slam of all, next door, and a new voice sounded, another man’s voice, not loud and angry, like the others, but cool, deliberate, and masterful.

“Because the things haven’t come from the store,” explained Margie, sullenly. “I ordered them in plenty of time.”

And Gilbert was “stepping” out of the[Pg 388] back door just as Rose was coming in with the basket. He backed into the kitchen again, and she followed him.

“I think these are yours,” she said. “They were left at our house—by mistake, I’m sure.”

Some one took the basket from her, and looking up, she had her first sight of Bill.

He was, she thought, the most impressive human being she had ever set eyes on, and one of the handsomest. A tremendous fellow, blue-eyed and fair-haired, like Margie, but without a trace of her sullenness; there was a sort of grim good-humor in his face.

He was not smiling, though; none of them were, and Rose was seized with a sudden uneasiness in the presence of these three silent, blue-eyed creatures. With a deprecating smile, she opened the back door, to flee—when she remembered Nina.

“I—I wish—” she said, addressing Margie. “After you’ve quite finished here, of course. If you could just spare a moment to show me how to light that oil stove.”

“I’ll show you now,” said Bill. He followed her out the door, and his fingers closed like steel on her arm as he helped her down the steps in the dark and across the little strip of grass behind the houses. He did not release her until she was safely in her own bare, dimly-lit kitchen.

“Good evening!” he remarked to Nina, and swept off his white-covered uniform cap with a magnificent gesture. Then, without words, he dropped on one knee beside the stove, and he turned up the wick and struck a match, just as Rose had done.

“Mercy!” said Nina, after he had gone. “What a-an overwhelming creature!”

“Isn’t he?” Rose agreed. “He made me forget that, even if the stove ever does get lighted, there’s nothing to cook on it. I’ll have to ask him where the store is.”

“It’s dark now, Rose. You can’t go wandering about in this strange place.”

There was a knock at the back door; they both called “Come in!” and Bill reëntered, letting the screen door crash behind him. He was carrying a tin of kerosene, and at once he set to work filling the stove.

“I’m very sorry to put you to all this trouble!” Nina asserted, earnestly.

“If you’ll please tell me where the store is—the store that basket came from—and how to get there—”

“Now? It’s closed,” said he. His keen glance traveled round the bare little kitchen.

“I’ll see that you get your dinner,” he declared, and went off again, before they could say a word.

It was Gilbert who brought the dinner in on a tray, and no one could have performed a neighborly service more ungraciously. He was a remarkably good-looking boy of nineteen or so, but so surly, ill-tempered—

“My dear, when he banged that tray down, and never even took off his hat, I wanted to throw a plate at him,” said Nina, seriously. “I’d have enjoyed it!”

It was a good dinner, served on the coarsest of china, but well cooked. And after they had eaten it and washed the dishes, they were ready to go to bed and to sleep, not quite so forlorn in their new home.

III

They were awakened the next morning by a persistent and none too gentle knocking at the back door, and Nina, slipping on a dressing gown, hurried to respond. She opened the door upon a riotous, glittering June morning, and Margie, clear-eyed and glowing as the dawn—but far from amiable.

“Here’s your breakfast!” she said, thrusting a wooden box into Nina’s hands.

“Bill said you didn’t have a thing in the house,” Margie remarked, scornfully, “and couldn’t even light the stove. So he told me to bring this.”

“It’s very kind of you,” she said, with a polite smile. “But we’d have managed somehow—”

“Well, Bill told me to bring your breakfast,” she said. “And to ask what you wanted from the store.”

“Thank you, but I couldn’t think—” Nina began, but with another disdainful shrug Margie had turned away.

“We’ll have to swallow our pride,” Rose suggested from the doorway. “Let’s be quick, too, before it gets cold.”

“I’m going to dress first,” said Nina. “Because when that scornful Margie goes out, I’m going to follow. I’ll follow her all day long till she goes to the store.”

And she meant that. She dressed herself with all her usual unobtrusive art, and she kept an eye on the house next door. In the very act of lifting her second cup of coffee to her lips, she heard the front door slam. She sprang up, pulled on a delightful little hat, and ran out of her own front door.

Margie was walking quickly up the road, a strong, lithe young figure in a jersey and a short skirt, bareheaded in the sun. And after her went the slender and elegant Mrs. De Haaven, going to market for the first time in her life.

In a happy mood Rose set to work; she washed the dishes, made the bed, set the little place in order, and then began unpacking the two big trunks. Most of the clothes could stay in them, but there were all sorts of other things—silver toilet articles, photographs, books, writing materials, all the dear, friendly things that had often made even hotel rooms look homelike. They worked wonders here. The only trouble was, that there was no shelf for the books, and no flowers.

So she went out on the beach and found a suitable small board; then she screwed two coat hooks into the wall beneath the sitting room window, laid the board across them, and stood the favorite books on this in a row.

“Crude, but well-meaning!” she observed, surveying her first piece of carpentering with a smile, and she went out to see if there were any flowers about to delight Nina with when she came home.

The first thing she saw was Bill coming down the road. Her impulse was to step back into the house, but she was ashamed of such weakness; Bill ought to be spoken to and thanked. So she sat down on the steps, and Bill, catching sight of her, swung off his hat with that same fine gesture.

Certainly she had not expected French from Bill, but she politely suppressed her surprise and answered cheerfully:

“Tres bien, merci, monsieur! I was just wondering if there were any wild flowers growing about here?”

She looked up at him, but hastily glanced aside, for Bill was looking down at her with a smile which disconcerted her.

“Did you try to put up a shelf?” Bill demanded. “Let’s have a look at it.”

Somehow she did not want Bill to come into their house. Not that she distrusted or disliked him, but he made her uneasy. Still, she could not very well refuse to let him come, so, with a good grace, she opened the door and they entered.

His blond head almost reached the ceiling; his great shoulders blocked all the sunshine from the window; he seemed completely to fill the little room. And she did not like him to be there.

The pretty little things she had set out on the table seemed like a child’s toys, the house was like a doll’s house, and she herself, with her ineffectual shelf, felt altogether too diminished. He had been staring at the fallen shelf and the coat hooks for some time with an odd expression—as if he felt sorry for her.

“Look here!” he said. “When you want anything of that sort done, tell me.”

“Morgan,” said he. “It wouldn’t be a trouble. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing!”

“Look here!” he interrupted. “I’ve got to go away—and I don’t like to leave you like this. You can’t look after yourself any better than a baby.”

“You’re mistaken, Mr. Morgan!” she[Pg 390] declared, with a cold little smile. “You’re very much mistaken!”

“I’m not discussing anything,” said he, with a sort of gentleness. “I’m only telling you that you’ve got me to count on whenever you need me.”

“I don’t mean to make a nuisance of myself,” he declared, gravely. And then he smiled. “I’m going away,” he added. “But I’m coming back!”

The screen door banged after him, and Rose sat down on the couch and began to cry.

But the idea of her shaking Mr. Morgan made her laugh. She dried her tears, ashamed of her temper, and when Nina got back, she was her usual good-natured, delightful self again. She did not mention the episode to Nina; it would only distress her.

“And I think I’m capable of managing Mr. Morgan!” she told herself, grimly.

“I don’t care!” said Rose, with unwonted heat. “I don’t like them, and I don’t want anything to do with them. They’re a family of—savages!”

“Oh, Rose! When that poor little Margie brings us flowers from her own garden every day!”

“Yes, because that Bill told her to!” thought Rose. But aloud she said: “Brings them! She pretty nearly throws them at us.”

“Well, I don’t like her way, and I don’t want her flowers, and I don’t like any of those Morgans, or anything they do. I never imagined such an ill-tempered, quarrelsome family.”

“Yes,” said Nina. “Because there’s something so splendid about them, in spite of all that—something so honest and fine.”

“You must have noticed. They’re rough and unmannerly, but they’re never vulgar. And they speak well. I think they’ve come down in the world, Rose.”

“They certainly have!” Rose agreed. “Down to the bottom. Nina, you’re sentimental about your Morgans. You’ve seen how they live. A coarse, ugly life, without one gracious touch. They eat in the kitchen, on a table covered with oilcloth.”

“Yes, and it’s a spotless kitchen, and everything about them is wholesome.”

“It’s no use,” Rose objected. “I don’t like them, and I won’t like them. Now, you sit here on the veranda and read. I’m going to buy the Sunday dinner.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Nina, but she was glad Rose would not let her. It was a long walk, and she felt tired, very tired and languid. She did not want Rose to know how tired she was, or how worried.

It seemed that their financial affairs were not definitely settled, as they had believed. Mr. Doyle, the lawyer, kept writing to her letters she could not quite understand, anxious, almost desperate letters, accusing himself of “criminal folly”; begging her forgiveness, and making all sorts of promises. He wrote always to her, never to Rose, and she was glad of that, for she did not want Rose to know.

But she was so tired. She tried valiantly to do her share, to be a good comrade to her beloved sister; but she was not strong, either in body or in spirit; she was a gentle soul; she could endure, but she could not fight. She wanted only to live in peace and good will, harmless and lovely as a flower.

It was a Saturday afternoon; Gilbert had come home early in his little car, and he and Margie had at once begun to quarrel fiercely.

“Bill told you to take me to the village in the car, if I wanted!” she declared.

Presently the back door slammed, in the Morgan fashion, and Nina hoped he was going away. It hurt her to hear these two[Pg 391] young creatures quarrel so; she always wished that she had some magic word to stop them, to bring quiet to their stormy spirits. She was waiting for the sound of his engine starting up, when, to her surprise, she saw him standing on the path before her.

“With pleasure!” she answered, as if this amazing request were quite a matter of course. “Come up on the veranda, won’t you?”

He did come up, and when she asked him, sat down opposite her. He was silent for a few moments, and Nina studied him with frank and kindly curiosity. For the first time she saw what a remarkably handsome boy he was, a little haggard, a little too thin, perhaps, but tall and sinewy, and notably distinguished.

Yes, that was the word; he was distinguished looking, with his thin, rather arrogant face, his slender, well-kept hands, his neat dark suit. He was not surly to-day, and not shy or awkward; he looked at her candidly as he spoke.

“I hope you won’t mind,” he said. “But I knew you could tell me. If you’d give me your advice. I’ve got an invitation—but perhaps I’d better show it to you.”

Lucille Winter! And writing in this vein to this boy! Nina held the letter in her hand for a long time, unable to say anything to cloak her thought.

“You see,” said Gilbert, “I couldn’t go until to-day, on account of my job. And I’d have to come back to-morrow night. D’you think that would be all right?”

“No!” thought Nina. “Nothing could be less right. It’s—a horrible thing. You’re only a child. And Lucille—You don’t know Lucille, but I do.”

“You see,” he went on. “Mrs. Winter is my father’s cousin. You wouldn’t suspect it, but my father’s family were—decent people.”

“I don’t mean that mother’s family wasn’t—all right,” he said. “My mother—” He stopped. “My mother was a saint,” he announced. An odd change came over his face; all the arrogance vanished, leaving it weary and sorrowful. “And my father wasn’t,” he added.

“So Bill’s got this idea of a simple life,” he said, with something like a sneer. “He won’t let us see any of father’s people. Wouldn’t let me go to college. He made me take this job—in the National Electric—when I was only seventeen. In a year I’ll be twenty-one, and then Bill can go to blazes. In the meantime—not much I can do. He controls the finances. He’s away now, though. And I’m to Mrs. Winter’s.”

“Oh, I don’t blame you!” thought Nina. “What a dreadful thing—to take a boy like this and put him to work at seventeen, and make him live in such a way! And if Lucille is his father’s cousin—She knows really good people—It really would help him—”

And because she was, in spite of her worldly experiences, so innocent and good at heart, so ready to think well of every one, and so anxious to help this unhappy boy, she did give him her advice. She told him what clothes to take, what to tip the servants, and so on.

“Please don’t tell Margie where I’ve gone,” he said. “I’ll be back to-morrow night for dinner. And she’ll be all right—with you next door.” He arose. “Thank you!” he said. “You’ve been—very kind to me.”

She had meant to be. She hoped, she believed, that she had done well in helping him to elude the tyrant Bill.

Such a quiet afternoon. Rose turned off the highway, into the beach road; the bright sea lay before her, roughened by a frolic wind, and on its edge three or four little children played; their voices came to her joyous and clear. Their end of the beach had been described by the real estate agent as “the quiet end,” and so it was; their bungalow and the Morgans’ were the only ones occupied as yet, and even these two showed no signs of life to-day.

Rose entered the house. It was certain[Pg 392]ly not a good house to hide in, and she very soon discovered Nina in the bedroom with her hat on!

“I had a telegram from Mr. Doyle,” she explained, hurriedly. “He wants to see me about—something. So I thought to-day would be a good time to run into town.”

“That won’t do!” said Rose, severely. “You can’t treat me this way, Mrs. De Haaven! I want to know all about it.”

Nina turned and put both hands on her sister’s shoulders, looking steadily into her face.

“Rose!” she said. “Let me do this—my own way—alone. I’ve been such a useless creature. No! Please, darling, let me finish! I have been useless. I know you don’t mind, but—sometimes—Rose! I do so want to manage this all by myself. And I know I can!”

“All right! Go ahead, darling!” Rose agreed at last. “Only don’t come back to-night. Stay in a hotel and come back to-morrow morning.”

“The Morgans are here, and they’re enough. If you don’t promise not to come back to-night, I’ll—I’ll go with you!”

So Nina consented, although reluctantly, and a few minutes later they set off together for the railway station. Rose stood on the platform, looking after the train.

Poor valiant, gentle Nina, going off to attend to business affairs, to “manage” the elusive and plausible Mr. Doyle.

“But it would have hurt her if I’d said anything,” thought Rose. “And, anyhow, things couldn’t be much worse, financially.”

She walked back to the bungalow, a long walk; but she was in no hurry to reënter the empty house. It was ridiculous to miss Nina so, just for one night; it was weak and sentimental to feel so lonely.

“I might learn a lesson from the Morgans,” she thought, as she went down the beach road. “No one could accuse them of being too sentimental in their family life!”

And suddenly she felt sorry for the Morgans, with their quarrels and their banging doors and their stormy, miserable existence. She thought of them, and she thought of the love between Nina and herself which made any place home, any trial endurable. And she pitied them with all her heart.

There was Margie on the veranda now, sewing—sewing in such a Morgan way! She had a paper pattern spread out on the table, and the wind fluttered it, and Margie pounced down upon it furiously, upsetting her workbasket and getting herself tangled up in the yards and yards of green charmeuse on her lap. Rose watched her for a minute; then she said, moved by a friendly impulse:

“No, thanks!” she replied, in her scornful way. But something in Rose’s face made her flush and glance away. “Well,” she said, sullenly, “I am having a pretty bad time. There’s no reason why you should bother, but—”

“What a pretty shade!” she remarked. “It ought to go well with your hair.”

“I know,” said Margie. “Paul—I mean—I’ve been told I ought to wear green. And I’m going somewhere to-morrow afternoon.”

“I’ll tell you what!” she announced at last. “I have a green dress—a really pretty georgette. I’ve only worn it once. With just a little bit of altering, we could make it do beautifully for you to wear to-morrow. It’s a good model. I got it in Paris last autumn. Won’t you come and look at it?”

“No!” cried Margie. “I don’t want any of your old clothes. I don’t want—” Her voice broke. “I just hate you and your—highfalutin’ ways!” she ended with a sob.

“Upon my word!” Rose began, indignantly. “Is that—” But her resentment could not endure against the sight of Margie weeping in that furious, defiant way, the tears falling recklessly on the green charmeuse.

“You don’t really hate me, Margie,” she said. “You couldn’t—when I like you so much.”

“I liked you the very first time I saw you,” Rose explained. “You were saying good-by to Paul, on the beach.[Pg 393]”

“You saw Paul?” cried Margie. “I suppose you’ll tell Bill. Well, I don’t care! If you don’t tell Bill, Gilbert will.”

“It’s not that,” said Margie. “Only what do you suppose Paul would think of Bill—and this house—and the way we live? Oh, I’m so ashamed of us! I’m so—so ashamed of us! If you knew—when mother was alive—three years ago—we had our dear home, and everything so dainty and pretty in it—and she kept us from fighting—just by being there. Oh, mother! Mother darling! You don’t know—nobody knows—what it’s like—without her.”

Rose knelt down beside the girl, put an arm about her, and drew the bright head down on her shoulder.

“And now—I’m going to lose Paul,” Margie went on, in a choked voice. “He’s always asking why he can’t come to see me in my own home. He’s awfully particular and high minded. He hates to meet me on the sly that way. And—”

“Bill won’t let me! Bill’s a beast! When mother died, he gave up our dear old house—he’s packed up all her pretty things—they’re in the woodshed, in barrels and boxes. He won’t let me touch them. He says we’ve got to learn to work and to live simply. He just adored mother, and he thought father didn’t make her happy enough, so he’s got this idiotic idea about our not being like father’s people—not being highfalutin’. ‘Plain living and high thinking,’ that’s what he’s always saying. High thinking, when he hasn’t left one beautiful thing in our lives! It’s all very well for him; he’s away at sea most of the time—”

“Yes; he’s first mate on a cargo steamer,” said Margie, with a change in her voice. “I know he’s a beast, and all that, but there is something fine about Bill, after all. He’s a real man. And he’s been awfully good to us—in his way. When Gilbert had bronchitis last winter, Bill was—wonderful. And when mother died—I—I don’t know how I could have lived without Bill.”

She was silent for a moment. “Mother said she knew Bill would take care of us—and he does—only it’s in a wrong way. Bill’s so—I don’t know how to describe it—Bill’s so—big, he could live on a desert island and not be discontented. He can live in this rough, common way and still be—dignified. I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed, but Bill has a way of coming into a room sometimes and taking off his hat, that’s like—like a king.”

“Bill’s big,” Margie went on, “and he only wants a few big things. But Gilbert and I are little, and we want lots of little things. And—” She sat up straight.

“Paul wants to take me to see his sister to-morrow afternoon,” she said, “and I’m going! There’ll be a row—because Gilbert said he’d have to have his dinner at six, and he’s not going to get it. I’m not even going to try to get home by six. He can tell Bill about Paul if he wants. I don’t care. It’s got to happen some day.”

“I’d like to. And you can enjoy your afternoon with an easy mind. I’ll get Gilbert’s supper, and—Margie—bring Paul back with you, and I’ll have something nice ready for you both.”

Rose had left a lamp burning in her own sitting room, as a beacon for Nina, and all the time she was busy in the Morgan’s kitchen, she was listening for that footstep. And for all her pleasure and excitement in this surprise she had prepared for the Morgans, a vague anxiety lay in the back of her mind, because Nina was so long in coming. She had expected her for lunch, and the whole afternoon had gone by without her.

She wished Nina could have seen Margie set out, in that Paris dress—the loveliest, happiest creature! And she wished Nina were here now, to lend her moral support in this wildly audacious plan, for, now that the thing was done, she felt a little frightened. Margie and Gilbert were little more than children; she could manage them; she could really help them.[Pg 394]

But it seemed to her that the shadow of Bill lay over the house; he himself might be hundreds of miles away, but she couldn’t forget that this was his house, and that she was defying him. The thought caused her an odd sort of pain; you might dislike Bill, she thought, and vigorously resent his domineering ways, but it was impossible not to respect him.

It was even impossible not to like him just a little when you thought how honestly he tried to take care of his unruly household, and when you remembered all those little kindnesses. Well, the sensible thing was, not to remember.

She had a natural talent for cooking, and with the aid of a cookbook, she had managed an excellent dinner. That part of the plan caused her no worry. But the rest—She opened the oven door for one more look at the pair of chickens sizzling richly in there, and then with a sigh, went again to the dining room door.

An amazing change was there! The round table was covered with a fine damask cloth, and set out with gay, old-fashioned china, frail glassware, sturdy old plate, all gleaming in the light of the shaded lamp. On the walls hung two or three framed pictures, not masterpieces by any means, but somehow lovable and friendly.

Because, as she had unpacked these things from the boxes and barrels, such a strange feeling had come over her; she had felt that she understood that mother. Standing here now, surrounded by the perishable and infinitely touching belongings of that beloved woman, dead, but so tenderly remembered by all her children, she thought she knew how she had felt toward them all, how she had managed each one of them, wisely and patiently; how she had loved them for the qualities which were so splendid in them, and the faults that were only pitiful. And she wanted them to remember their mother, not in bitterness and grief, but happily, as if always conscious of her dear spirit.

A sound startled her; a noise like little feet running over the tarred paper on the roof. At first she thought, with no great comfort, that it was rats, but then the pattering came upon the windowpanes, against the door. It was rain.

She went into the kitchen and opened the back door; the summer rain was driving down with steady violence, drumming loud on the roof now, spattering up from the path. Such a dark, strange world for Nina to be out in alone! Moved by a sudden impulse, she ran out into the rain and entered their own house; the lamp still burned clear and steady in the neat little room. The clock struck six.

“Oh, Nina!” she cried, aloud, in an unreasoning panic of fear. “Nina, darling!”

And then, above all the noise of the rain, she heard a familiar sound, the slam of a door by which all the Morgans announced their home coming. She hurried back there, her courage, her generous hopes, all gone now.

“I’m an officious busybody!” she thought. “Why didn’t I stay at home and mind my own affairs? Oh, I wish I’d let the Morgans alone! I wish—”

She stopped short in the kitchen doorway, staring at Gilbert. He was wearing a dinner jacket, and it was soaked through with rain; his collar was wilted, his tie askew, his fair hair plastered across his forehead, his blue eyes very brilliant. And his face, his clear-featured, handsome young face, so white, so strained, so lamentably changed! The momentary disgust she had felt turned to a painful compassion.

“Gilbert!” she said, in a pleasant, matter-of-fact voice. “Get on dry clothes. Your dinner’s ready for you.”

She spoke to him as she thought his mother might have spoken; she thought she felt a little as his mother might have felt to see the boy like this.

“No!” he said, in an unsteady voice. “Let me alone! What are you doing here?”

“I’m so glad I am here!” she thought. “So glad! Poor little Margie! If she brings her Paul here now—” And aloud: “Gilbert!” she said, with quiet authority. “Please do as I ask you—at once. Change your clothes.”

“I won’t!” he said. “No, I won’t! You don’t know. You can’t understand. Only Bill. Bill knew. Bill was right. I wish I was dead!”

The same childish passion and unreason that Margie had shown. He sank into a chair by the table and buried his face in his hands.

And Rose, always listening for Nin[Pg 395]a’s step, had also to listen to this boy’s sorry little tale. He had gone to visit his father’s cousin, Lucille Winter.

“Bill told me they were no good,” he said, “but I wouldn’t believe him. And—you don’t know what it was like. I lost over a hundred dollars at bridge. And I drank. I didn’t mean to, but every one else did, and I’ve come home to my sister like this. If I’d had a penny left, I’d never have come home again—never! It’s—you don’t know—it’s all so beastly, and I thought I’d like that sort of life, but—I couldn’t get out fast enough. I’ve found out now that old Bill was right—but it’s too late.”

“I can’t pay that hundred,” he said. “And I’ve got to pay it to-morrow. I—you can’t understand.”

“And if you weren’t so honest and sound at heart you couldn’t feel so sorry!” thought Rose. But she did not intend to give him too much consolation; his shame and remorse were of inestimable value to him. “If you’ll wash and change your wet clothes, and eat your nice hot dinner, you’ll feel better,” she insisted.

“I’ll give you a cup of coffee now,” she began, when that sound, welcome beyond all others, reached her ears—Nina’s step on the veranda.

“Wait, Gilbert!” she cried, and ran back into her own house. Nina was standing in the front room, drawing off her gloves.

“Rose,” she said, in a strange, flat voice. “It’s all gone—every cent!”

Rose helped her off with her wet jacket, took off her hat, pushed her gently into a chair, and kneeling, began to unfasten her shoes, such absurd little shoes, and soaked through.

“Never mind, Nina!” she said. “We’re together, and that’s all that matters.”

“Even the check we gave for this rent was no good,” she explained. “The house belongs to Mr. Morgan, and I suppose he didn’t like to tell us. I tried to borrow—just a little—this afternoon—from friends—I thought they were friends—”

“Hush, darling! Who cares? You’ll get straight into bed, with a hot-water bottle at your poor cold feet, and I’ll make you a cup of beautiful coffee.”

Margie, bringing back Paul, to find Gilbert like that. And she had told Margie to bring him. It was all her fault.

She looked at the clock; half past six. Margie was to be expected any minute now. Gilbert was sitting there in the kitchen in his wet clothes. He didn’t look very strong. And Nina! Nina was telling her about Mr. Doyle, and she pretended to pay attention, but she was listening for Margie’s home-coming now with as much anxiety as she had listened for Nina’s. This might spoil Margie’s poor little romance forever—and it was her fault. Gilbert would be ill.

“One instant, Nina!” she cried, and rushed out, down the steps, through the sodden little garden in the driving rain, and back into the Morgans’ kitchen. Gilbert still sat just as she had left him, his head on his arm.

“I’ll—lock him in!” she thought, desperately. “But I’ll have to tell Margie.”

She went into the little passage, closing the kitchen door behind her, and on into the sitting room. No one there. So she went toward the dining room. The doorway was blocked by a tremendous figure, standing there hat in hand, his back toward her.

He turned; he saw her there, with her soft hair wet and disordered, her face so white; he had seen his dining table set out with his mother’s sacred possessions—and he showed no surprise. She thought that nothing would surprise him, nothing would shock him, that he would meet anything in his life coolly, honestly, and steadily—like a man.

“Gilbert’s been to a week-end party at Lucille Winter’s,” she said. “He’s—he’s in the kitchen. You’ve got to be very careful with him. He’s only a child.”

“All right!” Bill agreed, with the shadow of a smile. “I’ll take Gilbert back into the fold. But this—” His smile vanished as he glanced toward the dining room again. “This—”

“I’m sorry,” said Rose. “But—poor little Margie’s bringing Paul—a friend of hers, home to dinner to-night, and—” She paused a moment, then she looked resolutely up at Bill. “I thought she would like it,” she went on. “For her children—so that they’d remember—the things they’ve[Pg 396] forgotten. I’m sorry, but—” A sob choked her.

“Please,” she begged, “be very kind to Margie—and Gilbert—and Paul. I’ve got to go. I meant to stay, but—my Nina’s sick.”

She turned to go, but tears blinded her; she stumbled against the lintel. Bill’s hand touched her arm, the lightest touch, to guide her.

“I promise you,” he said, “that everything shall be just as you want it.”

She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked at him. And she thought she had never in her life seen anything like that look on his face.

“I want to help you,” he announced. “That’s what I’ve always wanted, since the first moment I saw you.”

Neither of them had another word to say, to spoil that moment. She ran back again to Nina, through the rain, and she thought she must sing, for joy and relief.

Everything was all right now, for Bill had come. She was so happy—so happy—just because Bill had come.[Pg 397]

Bonnie Wee Thing

MIMI DEXTER AND DESBOROUGH HUGHES WERE WORLDS APART IN THEIR APPRAISAL OF LIFE—WITH THE ODDS AGAINST COMPROMISE

HUGHES did not desire or intend to fall in love, ever, with anybody. And when he realized that he was doing so, and that the girl was Mimi, he rebelled vigorously against this injustice on the part of fate.

She was such an absolutely unsuitable person. She was so much too young, and too pretty, and too lively. Even her name was almost an insult to his intelligence. Mimi! That he should be devoted to a Mimi! He would have struggled gallantly against this outrage, if he had had a chance. But he did not see it coming. It fell upon him like a bolt from the blue, like a sandbag upon the head in an apparently peaceful street.

He met this Mimi on the ship coming over from England, where she had been amusing herself, and he had been attending to some business for his company. He never saw her dancing, or flirting, or promenading the deck, as so many other girls did; on the contrary, he saw her always in a deck chair at her mother’s side, reading books, or looking out over the sea, with a grave and thoughtful expression. So he had thought that she was different from other girls—and did not know that that thought is almost always fatal to a young man’s peace of mind.

Nor had he suspected that her grave and quiet air came, not from a meditative spirit, but was due entirely to the malaise she always felt on shipboard. And by the time she had overcome this, had her sea legs, and was her true self again, it was too late. Five days only were needed to deprive him of all freedom. That fifth evening the blow fell.

There was no moonlight, no music, none of those things which might have put him on his guard. It was four o’clock in the afternoon—one of the most unromantic hours in the day—and he met her outside the purser’s office—surely not a romantic spot. What is more, he had been changing money and thinking about money. Then she came. She said she wanted to send a wireless message to her Uncle Tommy in London.

In justice, Hughes was obliged to admit that she did not realize what she was doing. She was thinking solely of her Uncle Tommy at the moment; that misty look in her eyes was all for him. But when he saw that look, and when he heard her speak, Hughes was done for. He knew it.

A strange sort of confusion came over him, so that he saw her in a haze, her little, pointed face, her shining hair, her dark eyes, the striped scarf about her shoulders, all swimming before him in a sort of rainbow. He thought: “Good Lord! What a tender, sweet, lovely little thing! What a darling little thing! I can’t help it! I love her!”

It was a mercy that this confusion robbed him, temporarily, of all power to speak, otherwise he would have said this aloud. But all he could do was to stand there, staring at her; and her own preoccupation with Uncle Tommy prevented her from noticing the look on his face.

“You see,” she went on, “he said I’d probably never see him again. Of course he always does say that. Every year mother says we’ll probably never be able to go to England again, and every year they say good-by to each other like that. ‘Good-by, Thomas, my dear brother!’ ‘Good-by, Mary! It is not likely that we shall meet again in this world.’ I know they enjoy it,[Pg 399] but it does make me feel miserable for the first month. And just suppose we couldn’t ever afford to go over again!”

“‘Afford’?” thought Hughes. “Is she poor? Good Heaven! Is she poor—worried—not able to get what she ought to have?”

He studied both Mimi and her mother very critically after that. They didn’t look poor; indeed, they seemed to him better dressed than any other ladies in the world. But what did he know of such matters? All those charming costumes might be pathetically cheap, for all he could tell. Perhaps they made everything themselves.

And, when you looked at them carefully, you saw that both mother and child were very slender and little. They certainly were not the sort of persons who could be poor with impunity.

They asked him to call, and he did so without delay, the very day after they landed. And his fears were confirmed. They were poor. They had a flat over on the West Side, in the Chelsea district—the most pathetic flat!

In the sitting room there were two of the strangest bookcases, which Mrs. Dexter said she had herself made, out of packing cases. Enameled white, they were, with blue butterflies painted upon them by Mimi. And there was a couch, covered in gay cretonne, which, directly he had sat upon it, Hughes felt sure had also been made by Mrs. Dexter, perhaps out of barrel staves.

And everything was so dainty, and so neat, and so fragile. He could scarcely open his mouth all the evening, for the distress and compassion that filled him.

Now, Hughes did not know it, but he was really a young man. He had lived for twenty-six years, and he believed that those years had aged him and completely disillusioned him. But Mrs. Dexter knew better. She knew how young he was. She was sorry for him. She said so, to her daughter. She said:

She had seen other nice boys come into that pathetic flat, and she knew what happened to them. She knew, better than any one else, what a dangerous creature her child was. She expected Mimi to smile at her words as if they were, somehow, a compliment, but, to her surprise, the girl turned away, and pretended to look out of the window.

Mrs. Dexter could scarcely believe her senses. She looked and looked at her child, saw that dangerous head bent, heard that note of uncertainty in her voice. Mrs. Dexter no longer felt sorry for Mr. Hughes; on the contrary, she was suddenly inspired with an amazing insight into his character. She saw grave faults in him.

It might have been wiser if she had kept these revelations to herself, but where her child was concerned she was perhaps a little prejudiced. She had been a widow for many years, and had had nobody but this child to think about; and although she had long ago made up her mind that she must lose her some day, although she really wanted Mimi to marry some day, she did wish to have a voice in electing the husband when the time came.

She wished to make no unreasonable demands; this husband need not be extraordinarily handsome, or particularly famous; no, all she required was a man of ancient lineage, considerable wealth, lofty character, great intelligence, courtly manners, and a humble if not abject devotion to Mimi.

Mr. Hughes did not possess these qualifications. He was nothing more than the branch office manager of a large typewriter company. His income was pretty good, and the president of the company thought him a very intelligent young man, but it was not the sort of intelligence Mrs. Dexter valued. It was too businesslike.

He did not scintillate. As for his character, that seemed to be good enough, in a matter-of-fact way, and his manners were civil enough. But it was in humility and abjectness that he was so deficient. She had noticed that at once.

She couldn’t explain exactly what it was she thought. Only that the very first time she had set eyes on Mr. Hughes, she had realized that there was something about him. Even before she had spoken a word to him, she had watched him promenading the deck, had observed his long, vigorous stride, his keen and somewhat severe profile, and she had liked him. Impossible to explain just why; perhaps it was that very lack of abjectness that most entertained her.[Pg 400]

Other young men had been so terribly eager and anxious to please; and Mr. Hughes was the only one who had ever sat beside her and not even smiled when she smiled. Anyhow, whatever the cause, she liked him, and when Mrs. Dexter called him “ordinary,” it hurt her.

Never before had Mrs. Dexter seen her daughter look hurt about any young man, and it frightened her. When she was alone in her room that night, she cried, and when that necessary prelude was done with, she began to think, and presently she made up her mind.

It was obvious to her that Mr. Hughes did not appreciate Mimi. Probably he was not capable of so doing, but, in the circumstances, it was her duty to do what she could. So she very cordially invited him to call on a Saturday afternoon; and just before he was due to arrive, she told Mimi that she had forgotten to buy tea, and sent her out to buy half a pound of a sort which could only be bought at a shop some distance away.

When Hughes arrived, he found Mrs. Dexter alone. He was not at all alarmed by this, or by her extra-friendly manner; indeed, he was rather touched by her welcome. They sat down, and she began to talk, and he was not surprised that she should talk about Mimi. Such was his condition that he couldn’t imagine how anybody could wish to talk of anything else.

She told him anecdotes of Mimi’s childhood and school days, all designed to show him what a gifted, brilliant, remarkable child she had been. Hughes listened with serious attention; he was impressed; he thought to himself, what a wonderful girl Mimi was. What a wonderful girl!

And then Mrs. Dexter ruined everything. If she had but stopped there, content to demonstrate her child’s rare qualities by her own evidence, all would have been well. But, instead, she tried to strengthen her case by bringing in Professor MacAndrews as a witness.

She began with a fervent eulogy of Professor MacAndrews, his vast learning, his wonderful achievements, his noble character. And Hughes, although still politely attentive, grew secretly restive, and wished to hear no more of this paragon. Then she fetched a photograph of the professor, and the young man was in no mood to admire.

A small man, the professor had been, physically, that is; with a pugnacious little white beard and fierce little eyes, and an upturned nose. Hughes looked at the photograph with what might be called a noncommittal expression, and said, “Yes, I see!”

“A wonderful intellect!” Mrs. Dexter declared. “And you can’t imagine how devoted he was to Mimi! He always predicted a remarkable future for her. He said she was too young, then, for him to tell just how her talents would develop, but he knew she would be something.”

His tone should have warned Mrs. Dexter, but it did not. She was too intent upon making her point.

“It really was beautiful,” she went on, “the devotion of that lonely old scholar for little Mimi! Every one spoke of it. He used to come to the house, you know, and as soon as he got inside the door, he’d say, ‘And where’s the bonnie wee thing?’ That’s what he used to call her. From one of Burns’s poems. See, it’s written here, in this book he gave her.

He hoped it had sounded different, because, as Mrs. Dexter read it, he thought he had never heard anything so idiotic. The whole thing annoyed him. He had no objection to Mrs. Dexter’s talking about Mimi; in fact, he liked to hear her, and thought it natural and agreeable. But otherwise, apart from Mrs. Dexter, who was Mimi’s mother, he had wished to believe himself the sole true appreciator of Mimi.

It was a pity that there was nobody at hand to tell Mrs. Dexter anecdotes about Hughes’s childhood. If there had been any one—his sister, for instance—she would have learned what a pig-headed fellow he was; how, if you wanted to convince him, you must never, never argue with him; how he simply could not be driven, but must be humored. Any such person could have told her what a disastrous mistake she made in thus bringing Professor MacAndrews into the situation.

When Mimi came back with the tea, she saw at once that something had gone amiss.[Pg 401] At first she was worried, but presently the young man’s silence and his very serious expression became annoying to her. It seemed to her important to show him that she didn’t care in the least, and in order so to do, she became more frivolous than he had ever before seen her. For the first time she treated him as she had treated those other nice boys; she laughed at him, and teased him, and dazzled him.

Hughes was no more proof against this than any of the others had been, but, unlike those others, he stubbornly resisted the enchantment. He was ready to admit that she was dazzling, but the gayer she was, the more he thought of Professor MacAndrews. He thought to himself that she must know only too well how pretty she was, and how great was her power.

“It’s a pity!” he thought, sternly. “It’s very bad for a girl to have a silly old cuckoo like that making such a fuss over her. Calling her a ‘bonnie wee thing’! Of course I won’t deny that she is, but—”

But no one should have told her so before Hughes had a chance. Certainly he wasn’t going to tell her those things all over again, and he wasn’t going to accept any bearded professor’s opinion of her, either. No; he intended to study her gravely and dispassionately, and judge for himself.

Three times he came to the flat for that purpose, and each time that he came, with his grave and dispassionate expression, the girl was more frivolous than ever. And on the third evening she was outrageous.

She said that evening that she would make him a Welsh rarebit. It appeared to him no more than his duty as a guest, or a gentleman, or something of the sort, to go into the kitchen with her, and there he watched her make a most horrible concoction, the most leathery, nightmare-provoking rarebit. And he saw that she knew nothing about cooking, in its true and serious meaning, and she wore a silly little apron, and she burned her silly little finger.

As he walked home that evening, he told himself, almost violently, that he had not kissed Mimi, and had not said a single word to her of any significance. But that gave him precious little comfort. He had wanted to, and he knew that she knew it. He remembered an unsteady little smile of hers.

“I won’t be a fool!” cried Hughes to himself. “I know she’s—well—a very nice girl. I’ll admit that I—I like her. But she’s—well—she’s not my sort. She’s—Look at the way they live! I couldn’t stand that. All those little frilly curtains and covers and doodabs, and those antique plates—with nothing real to eat on ’em. I know it’s all very dainty and so on—but it’s—it’s too damn’ fancy!”

He was honestly frightened, now. He didn’t see how he could ever escape from that atmosphere of doodabs and fanciness. That moment in the kitchen, that one glance they had exchanged, had shown him that being in love was a malady which grew worse with time.

He would inevitably ask Mimi to marry him, and if she refused him, life would be intolerable; and if she accepted him, they would have to have a home which would be filled with little lace doilies and antique plates, and his existence would be made dainty—and fancy.

Hughes had been brought up with Spartan simplicity by his very poor and very proud family in New Hampshire, and their ways were the ways he admired. He was not quite so fond of being poor, though, and had cured himself of that, but he still lived in Spartan style.

He had a furnished room, from which he had obliged the landlady to remove all those things she most admired; he ate his meals in a shining white restaurant where there were no tablecloths, and in his office he would permit no trace of luxury. He wouldn’t even have a private office; he sat out in plain view of his staff, upon a severely efficient chair, before a desk which was a model of neatness and order. That was how he liked things. And now, here he was, in love with Mimi!

There was one woman in the world whom Hughes admired without reservation, and that was his aunt, Kate Boles. He saw in her no flaw. She was a childless widow, living alone in the loneliest little cottage in the Berkshires; she had a hard life, and she gloried in it.

Not only did Aunt Kate live upon an almost impossibly small income, but she saved out of it, and when Hughes wanted to help her, she refused. She said she had a roof over her head, and enough to eat, and clothing to cover her decently, and that[Pg 402] she wanted nothing more. He thought this admirable.

She admired him, too. It was a part of her philosophy of life to believe that men could never be so noble as women, but, for a man, she thought her nephew remarkably good. So, when he asked her, she came down from her mountains, for the first time in many years.

“Desborough Hughes!” she declared. “I shouldn’t do this for any one else on earth.”

“Women!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t mention that in your letter, Desborough!”

“All you told me,” she went on, “was that you wanted to open that house your Uncle Joseph left you out at Green Lake, and that you wanted me to keep house for you and some friends of yours for awhile. Not a word did you say about women.”

“Well, it does!” said she. “I don’t know that I’m inclined to keep house for a parcel of idle women.”

“I see!” said Mrs. Boles. “A couple of these highfalutin’ city people. I may as well tell you, Desborough, that I don’t feel disposed to wait on them hand and foot.”

“I don’t want you to,” Hughes asserted. “It’s only—” He paused. He saw that he would be obliged to give his aunt some inkling of his plan. “It’s like this,” he said. “They’ve got used to that artificial, effete sort of life, and I thought—a week or two of a different sort of life—I thought it might—well—give them a—a new point of view.”

“No, they don’t!” he pointed out. “I want to marry them. One of them, I mean.”

He had not wished to say that, but it couldn’t be helped. His serious face grew scarlet, and he turned away, very greatly dreading the questions and comments his aunt might utter. But, to his surprise, she said nothing at all for a long time, and presently, to his still greater surprise, she laid her bony hand on his shoulder.

He looked at her, but he could not read her face, and he was afraid to ask her what her words and her tone signified. They made him uneasy, and he wasn’t very happy, anyhow.

He knew that he could count upon his aunt to set a superb example of fine, old-fashioned simplicity and industry, but that, after all, was not quite what he had intended. His idea had been simply to let Mimi and her mother see what life was like—real life, without false and unnecessary adornments. He hoped that this glimpse would impress them, that was all, so that it would be easier for him to explain to Mimi later on:

“That’s what I call the right way to live. Plainly, simply—as you saw it out at Green Lake.”

And he did believe that when she actually saw this life in operation, she would admire it. Only, it was important that his Aunt Kate should not be too obviously an example.

There was nothing he could do about it now, though. He had written to his Aunt Kate, and she had come; he had arranged to open the house at Green Lake, and to spend a three weeks’ vacation there, and the house was open, and he was in it; he had invited Mrs. Dexter and Mimi for a fortnight, and they were coming this afternoon. The experiment was about to begin. He could only hope.

But this afternoon he found it difficult to do any really effective hoping. An unaccountable depression had come over him; he stood upon the veranda of this house of his, smoking a pipe, and regarding the scene before him with something very like dismay in his eyes.

He had only seen the house once before, and it seemed to him that his outlook must have been biased then by his pleasure in having inherited a house. Certainly it had looked very different, that first time. It had been midsummer, then, and he remembered standing in this same window and looking out at the lake—a glimpse of glittering water seen through the trees.

It was late September, now, and the leaves were thinner, and he could see the lake very well. Lake? It was a pond—a stagnant and sinister little pond, covered[Pg 403] with scum, the source and the refuge of all these swarms and swarms of mosquitoes. And the house itself, which had seemed so dim and cool and restful on that summer day, was strangely altered now.

His late uncle’s furniture was good, and quite plain enough to suit any one, but it seemed to him that there wasn’t enough of it; the rooms had so bare and desolate a look. And it was damp. He had been here now for a week with his aunt, and she herself said that the dampness had “got into her bones.” He thought that was a good way of putting it; the dampness had got into his bones, too; he had never felt so cold in his life. He was positively shivering with it.

“That’s all nonsense!” he said to himself, angrily. “The mercury’s up to fifty-eight. I can’t be cold!”

He was, though—wretchedly, miserably cold. He sauntered down the hall and stood in the doorway of the kitchen, pretending that he wished to chat with his aunt, but really to be near the stove. It did him no good at all; he felt as cold as ever, and the aroma of the plain dinner—a lamb stew—which Mrs. Boles was cooking, filled him with unaccountable distaste. Such was his mood that Mrs. Boles herself had a chilling appearance; her gray hair seemed frosty; her white apron looked as if it would be icy to touch.

The cuckoo clock in the hall struck three. It was a cantankerous old clock, and when it struck three, it meant a quarter to four; time for him to be off. So off he went, out to the barn where he kept his car, in he climbed, and set off for the railway station.

And it was no use insisting that it was the jolting over bad roads which made him shake so, because the shaking kept on after he had alighted and was waiting on the platform. He was shivering violently; his teeth were chattering; his head ached; he felt horribly ill.

Still, when his guests descended from the train, he greeted them cordially; he clenched his teeth to stop their chattering; he forced his stiff lips into a smile; he talked. He drove them back to the house. And that finished him.

But nobody would pay any attention to what he said. He was driven upstairs and ordered to lie down, and Mrs. Boles covered him up with blankets and brought him hot lemonade to drink. He felt so exceedingly miserable that he submitted to all this, but when she mentioned a doctor, he rebelled.

“L-look here!” he said. “I won’t have a doctor! I mean that! I’ll be all right in the morning. I’d be all right now if I had—”

He told Mrs. Boles what he fancied he needed to make him all right, but she sternly disagreed with him. She told him that this remedy he mentioned was simply “poison,” and that hot lemonade was beyond measure more beneficial. And, to be sure, the chill was already passing off, only what took its place was even worse. He now became unbearably hot, burning, and she wouldn’t let him take off a single one of that mound of blankets.

He remembered afterward that he had not been very amiable toward his aunt. He was so humiliated by this weakness, so anxious about his guests; he seemed to remember shouting at her to let him alone, and go downstairs and look after those people. Anyhow, she went, and the instant she was out of sight, he pushed the blankets off onto the floor, and, with a throbbing head, lay back again and closed his eyes.

“I tell you I’m all right!” he said, without opening his eyes. “For Heaven’s sake, don’t leave those people alone! Go downstairs—”

“It’s just me,” said the smallest voice. “I thought maybe you’d like a cup of tea.”

It was Mimi, standing there with a tray. He pulled the counterpane up to his chin, and turned away his face; what he really wanted to do was to cover up his head entirely, and not to answer, so that she could neither see nor hear him. But if he did that, she wouldn’t go away, and he had to make her go away immediately. It was unendurable that she should see him like this.

“Oh, thanks!” he said, in an odiously condescending voice. “But there’s nothing much wrong with me. Half an hour’s nap, and I’ll be all right again.”

“Oh!” she observed. “I thought—I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Hughes!”

And out she went. She was offended;[Pg 404] he knew that, but he had to make her go, at any cost. He could endure almost anything with fortitude, but not the thought of Mimi being sorry for him. He never allowed any one to be sorry for him.

As the door closed behind her, he turned his head. She had left the tray on a chair beside him. On it were a cup and a saucer and a plate of his uncle’s antique china which he had carefully put away. There was thin bread with butter, cut star-shaped and placed just so.

And there were two doilies. No, not doilies; those, at least, she could not find in this house; they were two little lace handkerchiefs spread out.

And he was ill, helpless, unable to combat with any vigor this insidious attack. In the gathering dusk he lay propped up on one elbow, looking at those terrifying handkerchiefs.

III

Hughes had said that he would be all right in the morning, but he was surprised to find that he really was so. It seemed incredible that one could feel as he had felt in the evening, and wake in the morning quite well. More than ever was he ashamed of himself. He couldn’t have been really ill at all.

The great thing now was to efface the disastrous impression he must have made by this weakness. He must make Mimi realize that he was not the sort of person who was ever ill, or ever laid down, or desired cups of tea. He came downstairs early, and after a few repentant words to Mrs. Boles—who had got down still earlier—he decided to take a walk.

Mimi and Mrs. Dexter would, of course, get up late, as was the habit of city people, and when he met them, he would remark casually that he had had a five-mile walk before breakfast. He went into the library, where he had left his pipe, and he had just taken it in his hand when Mimi appeared in the doorway.

“Oh! I see you’re better this morning!” she remarked, polite and nothing more.

“Yes,” Hughes replied. “It was nothing. A cold—something of the sort. But, Miss Dexter! Look here! I’m—I’m afraid I wasn’t—I didn’t—You may have thought I didn’t appreciate your great kindness—”

Hughes was silent for a moment. It was generous of her to think that, but it wouldn’t do.

“I’m afraid I was myself,” he admitted at last. “I mean—I am like that sometimes. I don’t want you to think that I’m—”

He was greatly disconcerted by this. He glanced at her; she was wearing a rose-colored dress, and it made him a little dizzy. She was so extraordinarily lovely. He did not think it wise to look at her any more or to speak to her just then, so he began to fill his pipe instead.

“Then you mustn’t smoke,” Mimi said firmly. “It’s the worst thing in the world before breakfast. Please put that pipe down!”

He was amazed, astounded, by this tone of authority, so much so that he forgot himself and looked at her again. Ordering him about, tyrannizing over him, this outrageous young thing!

He was saved just in the nick of time by Mrs. Dexter’s entrance. But he had had his warning. He knew that he would have put down that pipe. He saw clearly that he would be absolutely under the girl’s thumb if he didn’t look out.

Anyhow, she was getting a salutary example of the plain and simple life. Breakfast from thick, sensible china, set out on a red and white checked cloth, wholesome food, but no trace of demoralizing daintiness. He wondered anxiously what she thought of it; certainly she didn’t appear at all disdainful, and certainly her appetite was not adversely affected. And when the meal was ended, she offered, and even insisted, in the most sincere and friendly manner, upon helping Mrs. Boles with the dishes. He was proud of her.

But he was very much disappointed in Mrs. Boles. She wouldn’t allow this. She said: “No, child! Indeed you won’t!” as if she were defending Mimi against persons who wished to treat her like a Cinderella in the drudge phase. And when Mimi went out of the room to fetch something, both Mrs. Boles and Mrs. Dexter looked after her with the same sort of smile.[Pg 405]

“Yes!” Mrs. Dexter agreed, also sighing. “Our troubles come soon enough!”

They meant him. He knew it. They meant that if Mimi should marry him, she would at once cease to be young and happy. This exasperated him, yet it worried him. Was it possible that these two matrons could discern in him qualities fatal to a woman’s happiness?

Did they think him capable of any harshness toward that small, gay creature in a pink dress? Well, he wasn’t. He knew, and he alone, how he felt about her.

Still, he did not mention his plan of taking them for a fine, healthful cross-country walk that afternoon, and instead he telephoned to the village for a motor car. It came promptly at half past two, but it went back again empty. Nobody cared to go out in it, because Mrs. Boles had a chill.

It was nearly eight o’clock, and Hughes was suffering acutely from hunger. He walked up and down, and up and down, the library, smoking his pipe, and raging inwardly.

And she had said: “Oh, but it’s no bother at all! Mimi and I really enjoy getting up a dainty little dinner!”

They were in the kitchen now. He could hear the egg-beater whirring, and, at intervals, their light, agreeable voices, always so good-tempered and affectionate toward each other. They had been at it for hours; they must be exhausted. Every fifteen minutes or so he had appeared in the kitchen doorway, to suggest, to plead, almost desperately:

“Look here! I wish you wouldn’t! I wish you’d come out of there! Anything will do, you know, any little simple thing—”

“I wish I could make her see how wasteful and foolish it is to give all this time and effort to a meal!” he thought. “This idea that everything must be so elaborate and ‘dainty.’ Why, good Lord! I’d rather have bread and cheese—”

Bread and cheese! He thought of a slice of homemade bread with a piece of Swiss cheese lying upon it. He had had nothing to eat since twelve o’clock. Bread and cheese! How he longed for that! And how he appreciated the plain and simple life which provided meals of no matter what sort at reasonable hours!

It came into his mind that he would go upstairs and see his Aunt Kate again. Just see her. He didn’t want to talk to her; simply, it was a comfort to know that she was there, his ally. She felt as he did; their ideals were the same. Plain, sensible people.

He went out of the library and began to mount the stairs. A miserable little jet of gas burned in the lower hall, and another one on the landing, and they both sang a sad little piping tune. The house seemed vast, this evening, a place of black shadows and chilly silence, and many closed, menacing doors.

He thought of Mrs. Dexter’s flat, with its homemade furniture and its pathetic brightness. This was, of course, a fine, solid old house, and the flat was a cheap and paltry thing. A girl would be glad, wouldn’t she, to leave such a place, to leave the noise and dust of the city, and come here?

Of course there was this unaccountable malady which had attacked first himself and now Mrs. Boles. But it had left him overnight, and she, too, would no doubt be quite recovered in the morning. An odd sort of cold, that was all it was.

He knocked upon the door, and Mrs. Boles called “Come in!” and in he went. The gas was turned low, and by the dim light the room looked remarkably cheerless. Mrs. Boles lay flat on her back, her gray hair in two braids, like an Indian, her gaunt, weather-beaten face immobile, her eyes staring straight before her.

“Desborough!” she exclaimed. “It’s malaria. I thought so yesterday, and now I know it. You’ve got to get out of here. It’s a nasty, unwholesome place.”

“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” she declared sharply. “I know all about malaria.” She was silent for a moment; then her brows drew together in a severe frown.[Pg 406]

He looked where she pointed, and there, on the chair, he saw a tray. The antique china, the lace handkerchiefs—A great pain seized his heart.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Boles. “She brought me some tea. And just look how she fixed up that tray!”

“It seems to me Miss Dexter has—” he began again, but once more Mrs. Boles interrupted him.

“I never in my life had any one take so much trouble for me,” she announced. “Bread—cut out star-shaped. Her own little handkerchiefs. No, I never.”

She paused, and across her grim face came a smile the like of which he had not seen there before.

“It suits her,” said Mrs. Boles. “Her mother was talking to me to-day. She told me that there was an old professor—a Mr. MacAllister—”

“You’ve heard about him, then. Well, it seems to me—” Once more she paused. “As soon as I told Mrs. Dexter that this was malaria, and we ought to leave here, they both invited me to visit them. Both of them—without an instant’s hesitation. She told me about their flat in the city—and their life. They’re not at all well off, but they’re happy.

“They know how to live!” Mrs. Boles continued. “Kind, gracious people. They know how to live. Any one could see that. They make every detail—this tray, for instance. Desborough, it’s been a revelation to me!”

“Er—yes—” her nephew said absently. “Well, I’d better go downstairs, now, and—and see if I can help them. What? What did you say?”

He went out of the room, and closed the door behind him, but he did not go downstairs; he stood there in the dim and drafty hall, thinking. He had been going to show Mimi the right way to live, had he? He had brought her here, to this house, to these malarial mosquitoes, to this “nasty, unwholesome place.” He had made her eat her breakfast from a red and white checked cloth; he had deprived her of doilies and frilled curtains.

He had been the most heartless, the most presumptuous, priggish, despicable ass who had ever lived. Even his aunt had known better. His “plan”! It had served one purpose, though; it had shown him to Mimi as he really was, a blind, obstinate, humorless, cheerless—

She was coming up the stairs now; he knew her light, quick step. So he pretended that he was coming down, and in the middle of the flight they met.

He stood before her in silence for a few moments, his head bent; then suddenly he said:

“Heavens!” said Mimi. “I don’t care such an awful lot about being appreciated, Mr. Hughes!”

“But I do love you!” he declared. “I always have loved you. Only—I didn’t appreciate you. I thought—if you came here—”

“Well,” she said, “you were right! You knew perfectly well that if I came here, and saw you in this awful house—and such an awful, dismal life—You knew! It wasn’t fair!”

“I never thought of such a thing!” he protested, indignantly. “My plan was—”

“I mean,” she replied sternly, “that you’ve simply got to have somebody to take care of you!”

He came down onto the step where she was standing. And she had really very little trouble in convincing him of the merits of her plan.[Pg 407]

Vanity

MADELINE HOLLAND HAS A TRYING HOUR WHEN SHE SEES HER MIDDLE-AGED HUSBAND ATTRACTED BY A YOUNGER AND PRETTIER RIVAL

MRS. HOLLAND came out of her room, closing the door carefully behind her. A shaft of sun came through the skylight, but beyond that bright bar the hall was dim and very quiet, for her footsteps made no sound on the thick carpet. She stood there for a moment, as if listening. A tall woman she was, straight and slender, with a proudly carried head and a proud and serene face. She did not look her fifty years, but she felt them this morning.

She listened, but she heard nothing, and presently she went on through the warm patch of sunshine that for an instant brightened the smooth blackness of her hair. At the head of the stairs she heard a sound of life. Some one was coming up from the basement, breathing hard and walking heavily, and accompanied by a pleasant little jingling of china and silver.

Mrs. Holland began to descend, and halfway down the flight she met Hilda, carrying a tray.

Her hands, cool and slender, grasped the tray and came into contact with Hilda’s roughened fingers; and Hilda, the vassal, was somehow shocked by this.

Mrs. Holland took the tray and turned back. She heard a miserable little sniffle from Hilda, but she dared not take notice of it. She was not prepared to give consolation to other people this morning.

She set the tray down on the floor, and opened one of those closed doors. It was like another world in there, bright with sun, and a breeze rioting through, setting in motion all the charming disorder there—ribbons and silks and tissue paper in half open boxes, gay and frivolous things hanging over the backs of chairs. It was a very untidy room, but Mrs. Holland knew it would never be like this again. After to-day it would be a neat, quiet, empty room.

She closed the window, and then went over to the bedside. Joyce lay there, with the sheet huddled about her so that only the top of her rough, bright head was visible. Mrs. Holland touched her shoulder.

She forced herself to stand there and to greet Joyce cheerfully on this last morning.

Joyce sat up, dazed and heavy-eyed. Mrs. Holland held out a dressing gown, and the girl slipped her arms into it with a childlike passivity.

“It’s a beautiful day,” said Mrs. Holland. “You couldn’t have a better day.”

Suddenly Joyce awoke. Her dark eyes widened, and over her face stole a shadow—a look so tender, so lovely, that Mrs. Holland was obliged to turn away to bend over the tray.

Joyce did not speak, and when Mrs. Holland turned toward her again she saw tears in her child’s steady, shining eyes.

“Joyce,” she said, “my dear, my dear, let’s make this a very happy, a very wonderful day!”

They looked at each other, and Joyce’s lip quivered, but Mrs. Holland still smiled.[Pg 409]

She pulled the table close to the bedside, poured out a cup of coffee, and put cream and sugar into it, just as Joyce always liked it. Then she lifted the silver cover from the toast.

“Poor Hilda was so disappointed!” she said. “She wanted to bring the tray herself. Come now, my pet! There, there!”

“This won’t do!” said Mrs. Holland, and then, with that gracious gayety which so few were ever permitted to see in her, she tied a napkin about the girl’s neck and began to feed her—a spoonful of coffee, a bit of toast, a spoonful of coffee.

“Spoiled little thing!” she scolded. “Naughty little thing, when there’s so much to be done to-day!”

“I know it!” cried Joyce, sitting up straight. “Mother, what shall we do about old Mrs. Marriott’s candlesticks? When she comes and doesn’t see them with the other presents, she’ll be so frightfully hurt!”

“Your father’s going there as soon as he has had breakfast. He told me to tell you that if that clasp isn’t ready, he’ll buy you another necklace.”

The girl stretched out her arms, with tears raining down her face; but for an instant Mrs. Holland did not respond. She stood motionless, with an odd, stony look, as if beyond measure affronted by those tears.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, took her child in her arms, and stroked the ruffled head that lay against her breast.

“Don’t, my darling,” she said gently. “It’s not right. It’s not kind to Nick.”

“I c-can’t help it,” Joyce answered in a stifled voice. “You and daddy—my own darling people—”

“You must help it, my sweetheart. You’ve eaten nothing at all. I’m going to run your bath, now, and afterward Hilda will bring you some hot coffee and toast.”

She disengaged the clinging arms from about her neck, and took both the girl’s hands in her own. She looked steadfastly into her child’s face, and still smiled.

“Don’t be so naughty!” she said. “There! Sit up and read your letters until the bath’s run.”

The tiled bathroom was dazzling in the sunlight. The nickel fittings flashed like silver, and the water filling the tub was a wonderful translucent green.

“Mother!” Joyce called out. “Uncle Thomas has sent a check and an awfully sweet letter!”

Mrs. Holland pretended not to hear. She could not speak just then. She sat on the edge of the tub, staring down into the shimmering, greenish water, and even her child’s voice sounded very far away. The last moment was almost here. In a few hours Joyce would be gone.

“I must not spoil her day,” she thought. “I’ve got to be brave, just until she goes; and then—then I don’t care.”

The water had risen high enough. She turned off the tap and went back into the bedroom.

“That’s exactly how she looked when she went to apologize to grandma for losing the family photographs,” thought Mrs. Holland. “She was a tiny girl, then, and she was wearing that funny little plaid dress. She doesn’t look any older now. She’s so young—so young!”

She crossed the room briskly, opened the door, smiled back over her shoulder, and stepped out into the dim, silent hall. It seemed to her that the house had grown terribly old, a pompous, dull old house. She went down the stairs slowly, for she was old, too. Her life was finished. Joyce was going away.

Hilda was serving breakfast in the basement dining room this morning, leaving the upper floor to the caterer’s men. That basement room had not been used since Joyce was a small girl and Mrs. Holland a young and very anxious mother. She had had no one to help her then except Hilda, and Hilda couldn’t be expected to go up and down stairs with the dishes.[Pg 410]

How different it had all been in those days—such a busy, eager sort of life, with herself and Hilda always doing something for the baby! She remembered other sunny mornings like this, and both of them in the kitchen, Hilda ironing little white dresses, while she prepared barley water for the precious bottles. Now there was a cook in the kitchen; a competent woman, but a trifle forbidding—a stranger, not a friend like Hilda. Everything was changed.

“Oh, hello, Madeline!” he said with a vague sort of amiability. “How’s everything going, eh?”

As she sat down, he put aside the newspaper; but, after all, he found nothing to say. All he could think of this morning was Joyce, and he was afraid to mention her.

To be sure, it was a good many years since he had seen his wife at all upset. A quiet and dignified woman, she was, never at a loss; but this morning there was something about her that disquieted him.

“I remember how it used to be,” he thought, “when Joyce was a baby. That time when there was a blizzard, and the milkman didn’t come—Lord, she was almost wild! I had to go out in the storm to see what I could do. Couldn’t get milk anywhere, and I didn’t dare to go home and tell her so.”

He smiled a little at the memory of that very good-natured young husband, struggling through the blizzard in a vain search for milk. In the end he had gone to their family doctor. The doctor had laughed at him and told him to use condensed milk, and had written down directions on a piece of paper. Then Frank had gone home to find them all crying—Madeline and Hilda and the baby.

Mrs. Holland saw her husband’s smile, and it did not please her. It was so easy for Frank to smile, so easy for his nimble mind to turn away from anything disagreeable and go off upon another tack! She knew very well that his heart ached at the thought of losing Joyce. He had suffered and would suffer from that; but he could forget for a time, and she could not.

He had always been like that. There was gray in his hair, and he had grown much stouter—a big man, a handsome, jovial sort of Porthos, in place of the slender and romantic young fellow he had been; but he was changed in no other way. As he smiled, he had raised his hand to his mustache in a gesture that was familiar to her. It meant that something had amused him. He was not thinking about Joyce, because that would disturb him, and he did not like to be disturbed.

Sometimes the anxious young mother had found consolation in that debonair phrase, but to-day it seemed heartless and false. Life too short? It was the monstrous length of life that appalled her now. Twenty years more to her allotted span—twenty years, and they might be all empty, all useless.

Her divinely appointed work in the world had been to bear and to rear her child, and now it was done. Joyce was going away to a new life of her own in a distant city, and she no longer needed her mother. Nobody needed Madeline Holland any more—certainly not Frank. He loved her, but he was a remarkably independent creature, quite sufficient unto himself in his own cheerful fashion.

She looked across the table at him. He was a little downcast for the moment, but as he caught her eye he smiled. He had finished his breakfast. He rose, came round the table to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Well, old girl!” he said. “Here we are, eh? Day’s come at last! Thing is, she’s got a good man—fine fellow. She’ll be happy, eh?”

But her own words and her husband’s words had no meaning at all this morning. She had always hoped that Joyce would marry. Nick was a dear boy, and Joyce would be happy with him. If Joyce were happy, she, too, ought to be happy.

“Only—oh, I’m a selfish woman!” she thought. “A selfish, selfish woman! For I can’t be happy—not without my child, my baby, my one child. I don’t want to live without my child!”

Frank was speaking. She did not hear his words, for his voice sounded faint and far off, but she was grateful to him for his kindliness, and she looked up into his face with a smile.

“I know, old girl, I know,” he said.[Pg 411] “I’m sorry! Well, I’ll be off, now—some things to see about.”

She heard him go out of the room, and heard his heavy tread on the stairs. Halfway up the flight he stopped, and struck a match, and the scent of tobacco smoke drifted down to her. He had “things to see about”—he had his business, his many friends, his club. His life would go on as usual, but hers was ended. Her work was done.

She got up and crossed the room to the battered old high chair that had been Joyce’s. For a moment she thought she would sink on her knees before it, press her lips against the rung where scuffling little feet had worn away the paint, close her eyes, and let the black and bitter tide of pain close over her head; but the hour had not come yet. Joyce still needed her for a few hours more.

III

There was the strangeness of a dream about it. Madeline Holland stood there and smiled and chatted with her guests, and nobody looked at her curiously, nobody suspected her anguish. It was incredible, inhuman, unreal.

There was a slight confusion in the hall. Looking across the crowded room, she saw the chauffeur and another young fellow bringing down Joyce’s trunks to the car that waited outside. It was over. Joyce was married—only it didn’t seem real yet.

Even in the church it hadn’t seemed real. Madeline had been preoccupied, distrait, her mind filled with the stupidest little thoughts. The caterer’s men had been a little late. No one had remembered to thank old Mrs. Marriott for her candlesticks, and she looked affronted. Would Hilda be sure to stitch the collar and cuffs on that jersey dress before she packed it?

There was Frank standing before the altar; and he and Joyce and Nick all looked so strange, so pale, so grave, so unfamiliar. Joyce’s veil was a little too long. It was the veil that Madeline had worn at her own wedding, but the fashion had changed so!

No, the whole thing hadn’t been real. It was a dream, like all these last days, when she had gone shopping with Joyce, when people had always been coming and going in the house, and presents arriving, with such a queer, excited sort of gayety in the air, and so much to be done. There had been no time to think.

She wasn’t really thinking now—only waiting, in a daze, for that last moment which she knew she could not endure. The perfume of the roses made her feel a little faint. There were roses everywhere, the breeze from the open windows made a soft stir among them, and the petals floated down silently upon the carpet.

The big dining room had lost its look of solemn formality. It was thronged with people, and filled with the sound of gay, light voices and little muffled clinkings of silver on china. When a lull came in the talk, Mrs. Holland could hear the familiar noises of the city streets, of daily life going on out there in the heat and dust of the June day. Unreal, all of it!

She remembered a children’s party, here in this very room, years and years ago, yet a hundred times more real than this. It was a dreadful failure, for Joyce had been the worst of young hostesses—such an absurd, impulsive little thing! She had devoted herself entirely to a rather obnoxious little girl with blond pigtails and a smug face. She had neglected all her other guests, even quarreling with them in defense of this idolized creature; and afterward she had been so sorry. She had knelt in her mother’s lap, with tears running down her flushed face into Mrs. Holland’s neck, and their arms clasped tight about each other.

But really it wasn’t. Mrs. Holland found it easy enough to be polite, even cheerful, with that last moment drawing nearer and nearer. Mrs. Marriott was giving her an account of her grandson’s wedding in California.

“In a bower of roses!” concluded the old lady, with a triumphant glance at Mrs. Holland’s mere bowls and jars.

She went on talking, but Mrs. Holland no longer heard her, for some one had touched the piano in the drawing-room—a little chain of arpeggios like a sweet and drawling voice. It hurt her to hear it, for she did not want any one else to touch that piano. She remembered Joyce, so straight and correct, her long braid hanging down her back, playing her new pieces for her mother and father. Such funny, sprightly[Pg 412] pieces they were—“The Bullfrogs’ Carnival,” “The Elfin Schottische,” “Romping in the Barn”; and so earnestly, so heavily, so determinedly were they played by the blunt little fingers!

No, that surely was not Joyce’s touch. Madeline wanted to know who it could be, sitting there in Joyce’s place.

Skillfully she maneuvered the talkative old lady to the center of the room, where she could look through the open doorway into the drawing-room, and there she saw her—a little blond creature with the fragile figure of a child. She was a pretty girl, very young, and a little pitiful in her flimsy silk dress, sleeveless and short-skirted; but Mrs. Holland saw no pathos in her at that minute, for Frank Holland was standing beside her, looking down at her with an air of bland indulgence.

The blond girl touched the keys again, and then she raised her eyes to Frank’s face with a languishing smile. She spoke, and he raised his hand to his mustache with that familiar gesture.

She forgot all about Mrs. Marriott, and stood staring over the old lady’s head at the pitiful scene—Frank so pleased and flattered by that silly, vulgar little thing.

“Madeline,” said old Mrs. Marriott, “who’s that young woman talking to Frank? I never set eyes on her before.”

“She’s poor Stella’s daughter,” replied Mrs. Holland. “I thought I ought to ask them.”

She remembered Stella very well—a cousin of Madeline’s, a pale, silent girl, mulishly obstinate, who had taken a fancy to a man against whom all her family and her friends had warned her. She had been bent upon marrying him, had married him, and had vanished into a forlorn limbo.

“And that’s her child,” observed old Mrs. Marriott. “A saucy chit, I should call her!”

“Mother!” said a voice beside Madeline, and she looked up to see Joyce’s husband.

It was the first time he had ever called her that, and in her heart she winced at the word on his lips. It was hard for him to say it—she could see that. His honest young face had flushed, and his voice was not very steady. He was a little in awe of the grave and quiet Mrs. Holland, and yet he was doggedly determined to say what he wanted to say.

“I’ll—I’ll do my best,” he said. “She’s so fond of you, and she’s always been so happy with you, but I—I’ll try to make her happy. I’ll—”

“There’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t both be very happy, dear boy,” she said earnestly. “You’re both—”

She stopped, because Joyce had come. The last minute was here. She looked at her daughter, but that beloved and wonderful face swam in a haze before her.

She threw her arms about her mother, and for a moment they clung to each other, forgetting everything else in the world. Mrs. Holland felt her child’s tears warm on her cheek, felt the poor, eager young heart beat against her own. This was the last moment—and she could endure it. Shaken by a tenderness that was anguish, she could think quite clearly, could tell herself that her feeling was wrong, could detach herself from those clinging arms.

Her steady, smiling eyes were fixed upon her child. There was not the faintest shadow on her face, not the least tremor in her voice. There was nothing in her heart but the one passionate wish that Joyce should go away untroubled and happy, to begin her new life.

For a moment Joyce wavered, ready to fly once more into those faithful arms. Then, with a laugh that was half a sob, she gave her mother one more kiss—and was gone.

Mrs. Holland went out with the others and stood on the top step in a cheerful, excited group. As Joyce leaned out of the car, her mother had a last glimpse of her face, her eyes soft with tears, a trembling smile on her lips. Then the car started. Everything was over. Joyce was gone.

The front door had closed after the last of the guests. Mrs. Holland stood in the hall for a long moment, staring blankly at the closed door, and turned toward the stairs. The caterer’s men were busy in the dining room. She stopped to look at them,[Pg 413] glad that they were here, glad of any bustle or stir that postponed the hour when ordinary daily life should begin. After all, Joyce’s going away was not the intolerable moment. That would come when she would have to take up her life without Joyce.

“Go up in the sewing room, ma’am,” said Hilda in a stern, almost threatening voice. “I’ll bring you up a nice hot cup of tea. You never ate a mouthful of all that fancy stuff, and you need something.”

She climbed the stairs slowly, not because she was weary, but because there was so much time before her. The door of the sewing room was open, and Hilda had drawn up a chair to the folding table. It looked comfortable there in the ugly, familiar little room, with the sun pouring in across the faded carpet. As she went in, she saw a pin on the floor, glinting silvery bright in the sun’s path, and she stooped to pick it up.

“See a pin and pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck”—that was what Miss Brown, the dressmaker, used to say to Joyce, and Joyce, as a tiny girl, used to trot about the room, her head bent, her hair falling over her eyes, earnestly looking for pins.

Mrs. Holland smiled, remembering a shocking episode. She had promised the child five cents a dozen for all the pins she picked up, and so many, many dozens had been recovered from the floor that day—an abnormal quantity. Before she went to sleep that night, Joyce had confessed her crime. She had secretly emptied Miss Brown’s papers of pins upon the floor. Poor, contrite little Joyce!

Over in the corner stood a dress form—a pompous thing with a marvelously rounded figure. “Aunt Sarah,” Joyce used to call it, very disrespectfully. Only yesterday a skirt of Joyce’s had hung on it. No Joyce now, no more of her laughter, no more of her dear voice!

A heavy and deliberate tread was coming along the hall. It was Frank. Madeline did not want to talk to him, or to any one, just then, but of course he would come. Whenever he was at home in the daytime, away from his beloved office, he was always a little forlorn, inclined to follow her about from room to room.

“Tea!” he repeated, with his big, hearty laugh. “Why, my dear girl, I’m full of pâté de foie gras, and lobster salad, and café parfait, and all the rest of it! Caterer did pretty well, don’t you think?”

He came in and sat down in a queer, old-fashioned rocking-chair, with an antimacassar tied to its back with faded ribbons. Such an incongruous figure he was in a sewing room, this big, handsome man in his morning coat, with spats, and a white gardenia in his buttonhole! He was smoking a cigar, and was enjoying it. He crossed his legs and leaned back, and Mrs. Holland smiled at the sight of the scarlet ribbons of the antimacassar peeping coyly over his broad shoulder.

“That’s the idea!” he said. “Thing is, not to mope. First day or two—pretty hard, without the little girl. Thing is, to distract your mind. It’s early. Plenty of time for a matinée. I’ll telephone for a couple of seats at the Palace. You drink your tea and then get your hat on. That’s right, Hilda! Tea—that’s what Mrs. Holland needs!”

But Hilda was not responsive to his good humor just now. Her eyes and nose were red, and her blunt face wore an expression of angry defiance. She poured out a cup of tea and set it before Mrs. Holland in stony silence. She was suffering, this faithful heart, and it was her own grief that she defied. She had loved Joyce so, and she missed her so greatly!

“Well, it seems to me—I was talking to her—as far as I can see, a very pathetic case.”

He paused, and Mrs. Holland regarded him with a faint smile. His manner was apologetic, but he was pleased with himself. His hand was raised to his mustache,[Pg 414] and he was looking down at the floor with a modest air.

“Thing is,” he went on, “she wants to be a musician. She’s studied, but—present circumstances—family had to sell their piano last month. That’s pretty hard, isn’t it, my dear?”

“She said that when she saw the piano here, she couldn’t keep her hands off it. That’s hard luck, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I—well, that perhaps you won’t approve—”

“Well,” he said, “I told her—said she could come here and practice—arrange with you—when it wouldn’t bother you.”

Then she stopped short, because of the look she saw on his face—a little guilty, but pleased.

If she said she didn’t like it, he would be still more pleased. He would think she was jealous.

“Oh!” said he, somewhat taken aback. “Very good of you, my dear!” He rose and went toward the door. “As long as we’re going out this afternoon,” he added, “why not—well, why not let her begin to-day, eh?”

“Simply mentioned that we’d be out, and that—well, I didn’t think her practicing would bother any one, you see.”

He lingered in the doorway, as if there were something else he wanted to say; but whatever it may have been, he decided against voicing it.

Mrs. Holland sat very still, listening to his footsteps going down the hall. Her heart was filled with anger.

“On his own daughter’s wedding day!” she thought. “A girl younger than Joyce—a silly, artful little thing like that! Of course, she’s laughing at him. Very well—let her! I shan’t try to stop him. He can make himself just as ridiculous as he likes!”

She poured herself another cup of tea, and ate the toast that Hilda had brought with her. Anger had given her an appetite and a sort of energy. Mope? Not she!

As she went to dress, she passed the closed door of Joyce’s room, with only a strange little qualm that was like the warning of a neuralgic pain. Later would come the moment for the full realization of her loss. Just now she had an important task to perform. She had to dress so that she would look her best. She had to appear before Frank in the most nonchalant and pleasant humor. She had to show him that she wasn’t at all angry, and didn’t care in the least how absurd he was about poor Stella’s daughter.

She succeeded. That is, she was so very, very polite and casual that Frank was somewhat dismayed. His intention had been to cheer her up, and she gave him no chance for that. She never mentioned Joyce, she never once looked downcast, but kept her eyes fixed upon the stage, showing a lively interest even in the trained poodles.

He was in nowise deluded by all this. He knew that she was angry, and she could tell that he knew it by his anxious sidelong glances.

“See here, old girl!” he said, as they drew near the house. “Suppose we stay out for dinner? Eh?”

“Well,” he said, “we’ve got to go some time, of course; but it’s—Madeline!” There was a note in his voice that she had never heard before—an almost panic-stricken appeal. “Madeline!” he repeated. “I hate the thought of going back. She—I can’t realize it. She seemed such a child to me—such a—” He turned away his head. “Only hope the boy’ll turn out well,” he added gruffly.

They walked on in silence. When at last he spoke again, it was in his usual vague, good-humored way. He had recovered himself; yet Mrs. Holland was not glad. There was a strange little ache of regret in her heart, as if she had missed[Pg 415] some irrecoverable opportunity. She wanted to speak, but the moment had passed. He did not need comfort from her now, that was evident.

“There’s a young lady here, ma’am,” she said, “playin’ the pianner.”

That hardly needed saying, for all the house seemed filled with it—with the austere beauty of a Bach fugue, played with a noble and honest simplicity. It was music like a benediction upon a home. The hall was dim, but through the window on the landing came the glow of sunset. A pool of light lay upon the wine-red carpet; and that glow and color, and the music, were strangely and gravely exalting. The old house had found a voice for its loss—not sorrowful, not weary, but proclaiming a strong, sure hope.

Madeline Holland moved quietly to the doorway, and looked into the drawing-room. No sunset light was there. The long room was shadowy and without color, the roses set about were ghostly white, and their perfume was like a haunting thing. The little figure at the piano was only a shadow, too, with her head thrown back, her profile clear, pale, expressionless.

Mrs. Holland was strangely stirred. She turned toward her husband. The light was too dim for her to see his face clearly, but in the merciful dusk his features had their old romantic quality. He was staring straight before him, motionless as a statue. She stretched out her hand to touch his arm, to recall him from his distant world to herself, when just at that moment he moved abruptly, pressed the switch, and filled the room with light from the chandelier in the ceiling.

The spell was broken. The girl spun around on the stool, sprang up, and came toward Madeline.

“Oh, Mrs. Hol-land!” she cried in her drawling little voice. “I’m afraid I bothered you!”

Yes, the spell was broken now. There was no music in the big, bright room. The rapt young St. Cecilia was only Stella’s daughter, vain, insincere, coquettish.

Her tone might have warned the most impervious, but Stella’s daughter was not in the habit of noticing warnings. Instead, she looked at Frank, smiling up into his face; and Mrs. Holland saw his hand go up to his mustache.

He did, and she consented archly. She went back to the piano, and he sat down near her.

Frank talking about “technique!” Frank sitting there, quite unable to conceal his satisfaction in this flattering attention! The girl glanced at him sidelong, dropped her eyes, and bent her head.

“Oh—er—anything—anything,” he replied. “Er—what about something operatic? Wagner, eh?”

“Oh, how can he be so idiotic?” thought Madeline. “She’s laughing at him!”

As the girl began to play again, Mrs. Holland went out of the room. It was Rubinstein’s “Melody in F,” but Frank wouldn’t know the difference. He would recognize it as something familiar and “classical,” and would be impressed; but the girl would know. She was laughing at Frank!

For the first time in many years Mrs. Holland felt a desire to bang doors. It would be a positive satisfaction to slam the drawing-room door, and then to go upstairs and slam her own door and lock it. She had done that once, long, long ago. Frank had come running up after her, and had stood outside in the hall, angry himself, but very miserable, and secretly frightened by her obstinate silence. They had “made it up” soon enough in a silly, beautiful, generous young way, each of them insisting on taking all the blame; but of course she wasn’t a foolish, headstrong young thing like that any more. If Frank liked to make himself ridiculous, he was quite at liberty to do so.

At the foot of the stairs she paused, and decided that before going to her room she would see the cook. For the last two mornings the oatmeal had been much too thin, and a tactful remonstrance was needed. She turned back. As she did so, the music stopped, and she could hear their voices in the drawing-room. She could not help hearing.

“I’m so sorry for you! It must be awfully sad for you, your daughter getting married, and all![Pg 416]”

Mrs. Holland went on down the stairs to the basement, so angry that her knees trembled. Frank was delighted with that silly girl’s impertinent pretense of sympathy, charmed by her sidelong glances and her self-conscious smiles!

“It’s his vanity,” she thought. “He’s always been like that. Any one could flatter him.”

There was no denying that Frank liked flattery. In his younger days he used to come home and tell her, in the most artless way, of the various compliments he had received. He didn’t do that now, for he was older and wiser; but that didn’t mean that he got no more compliments, or that he had ceased to relish them. He was a remarkably likable fellow. If this girl so brazenly pursued him the first time she met him, there were probably others—

This was so arresting a thought that Madeline stopped halfway down the stairs. After all, how little she knew of Frank’s life outside his home! They were old-fashioned people. He seldom mentioned business affairs to his wife. That was his province, and the home was hers. There was a wall between them—a high wall.

It hadn’t been like that at first. She could remember very well the time when Frank used to talk to her about his business, when she had known the names of all his most important customers and had taken an anxious interest in all his “big deals,” even reading the market reports. Of course, when Joyce was born, everything had changed. She had been absorbed in her baby. That was natural and right, wasn’t it?

But perhaps Frank hadn’t changed when Madeline did. She began to remember more and more of him in those early days. Here, up and down these very stairs, he used to tramp, carrying the tiny Joyce on his shoulders, both of them filling the house with their laughter. In that basement dining room how many makeshift meals he had eaten, so cheerfully, because she and Hilda were both busy with the baby! He had always been so good-tempered about being put aside, so glad and willing to help, so interested in every detail about the marvelous baby!

She had depended upon Frank very much in those days. Then, as she grew older and more competent, she had needed him less and less, and he had been shut out of such domestic concerns. That was right, wasn’t it? A man ought not to be bothered by household matters. He had his work, and she had hers.

“But Joyce belonged to both of us,” she thought. “He always loved her so! He misses her, too.”

A great fear seized her. Frank missed Joyce. He was lonely, and in the moment of his loneliness this pretty young creature had appeared, to flatter and interest him. He was middle-aged and lonely, and Stella’s daughter was so pretty! Suppose this wasn’t a ridiculous and exasperating episode, but a serious thing? Suppose she lost Frank?

“I won’t!” she cried. “I’ll send that girl away! I’ll never let her come here again!”

That was stupid. She couldn’t keep Frank in a glass case. Even if this girl were gone, there were plenty of others in the world, pretty, cajoling, flattering young creatures.

“I’m not young any more,” she thought. “I’m old—old and selfish and dull—a hundred years older in heart than Frank. He’s still a boy. He always will be. If he likes to be flattered, it’s because he’s young enough to believe in people.”

Mechanically, moved by a blind impulse to hurry to Frank, she had mounted the stairs again, and had come to the door of the drawing-room.

Mrs. Holland stopped in the dimly lit hall and looked into the room. The girl was sitting on the piano stool, her hands clasped in her lap, her pretty head bent. Frank stood beside her.

Flattery? Why need it be that? Wasn’t it possible that she really liked Frank, and that he liked her? Oh, how young she was, and how pretty!

All through this long, long day Mrs. Holland had borne herself gallantly, with pride and with fortitude; but they both failed her now. She leaned against the wall and covered her eyes with her hand, shaken by a dreadful weakness and pain.[Pg 417]

“I’m old,” she thought. “I’m old and selfish. I’ve shut Frank out. I haven’t appreciated him—and now I’ve lost him. It’s my own fault!”

A door opened in the basement, and she heard Hilda’s tread on the stairs. Hilda mustn’t see her like this! She was about to go upstairs to her own room when it occurred to her that Hilda might think that was “queer,” so she went into the drawing-room instead.

Frank came a few steps toward her, with his vague smile, but the girl did not rise. She looked at Mrs. Holland with a sort of defiance.

“She’s old!” thought Stella’s child. “There’s gray in her hair, and there are lines around her eyes. She never laughs; and he’s so jolly—much too nice for her!”

“She’s young,” thought Mrs. Holland. “So young, so pretty—and her music is magic!”

Mrs. Holland turned, startled by his tone; and the sight of his face filled her with an intolerable emotion. All the old tenderness there, all the old kindliness and loyalty, not changed, not lost.

“Tired, eh?” said he. “Well, sit down, my dear—sit down! Hard day, eh?”

“That’s the way to look at it,” he replied approvingly. “That’s the spirit, eh?”

Stella’s daughter had risen now, and was looking at Holland with angry eyes and a trembling lip. He had forgotten all about her, just because Mrs. Holland had come in! The way he looked at his wife, as if he didn’t even know that there were lines around her eyes and gray in her hair! The way she looked at him, as if she were so proudly and gratefully sure of him and of herself!

They both turned toward her, a little surprised, so that she felt like an ill mannered child; and indeed she was a child, with only a child’s crude weapons—a poor, ignorant, reckless child.

“My dear,” said Madeline gently, “tell your mother I’ll come to see her to-morrow, and we’ll talk things over—about your music, and so on.”

The girl gave one last glance at Holland, but she knew it was useless. When Mrs. Holland was there, she simply didn’t count with him.

The front door closed vigorously behind her. Madeline sat still, and Frank stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder. The house was very quiet, but it was not empty. Life was still going on in it. Life never stopped, while the heart beat.

She stopped, and for a moment he was afraid that she would break down; but when he bent and looked into her face, he saw that she was smiling a very lovely smile.

He patted her shoulder, and, glancing up, she saw his hand raised to his mustache. In all simplicity, he was pleased, because she had remembered that.[Pg 418]

The Compromising Letter

A ROMANTIC AFTERMATH OF THE RARE OLD DAYS WHEN CHARMING LADIES WIELDED A FACILE QUILL

MR. RONALD PHILLIPS was an authority upon Mme. Van Der Dokjen; indeed he was the greatest living authority.

He was also the sole authority. His fellow countrymen knew little about Mme. Van Der Dokjen, and seemed to care less. He was not sorry for this.

He had written a book called “Mme. Van Der Dokjen and Her Milieu,” in which he gave as much information as he thought suitable for the public; but he had a large collection of her letters and so on. He was thankful that there were no other authorities to go snooping around and finding out the things he did not choose to publish.

Not that the lady had any guilty secrets in her life. She was perfection. Only, there were little things, what you might call trifling inconsistencies, things pardonable, even charming in themselves, but foreign to her austere and energetic character.

For instance, that letter written to her sister in 1777, in which she described, with such unexpected enthusiasm, a certain young captain in General Washington’s army. Mme. Van Der Dokjen was at that time forty-three years of age. No doubt her interest in the young soldier was pure patriotism.

But Mr. Phillips preferred not to publish that letter; so squeamish was he, that he did not even make use of the recipe it contained for quince conserve, which illustrated her splendid housewifely talents.

Indeed, he grew nervous about Mme. Van Der Dokjen. He lived in dread lest some one should discover new documents concerning her. It was for this reason that he went to live in the historic cottage on the banks of the Hudson, in which she had ended her days. He thought that perhaps there were documents hidden in it.

It was as historic a cottage as one could wish to see. There were in it a spinet, a frame for making candles, a spinning-wheel, and other interesting objects. He set to work at once upon a new book to be called “When Home Was Home,” which would depict Mme. Van Der Dokjen living in this cottage, making conserves and candles, playing upon the spinet, and entertaining the illustrious men of the age.

Mr. Van Der Dokjen was there, too, but Phillips did not care much for him. A dull dog, he must have been.

In this book, Phillips was going to kill two birds with a pretty heavy stone. He was going to give more highly valuable information about Mme. Van Der Dokjen, and he was also going to show how lamentably had the home declined since that day. Home life had degenerated, and home life was the very foundation of morality.

And the foundation of home life was—thrift. There was no virtue he admired more. There was a great deal about thrift in his book.

In the meantime, though, he had to eat to live. He could not himself make conserves and candles; there must be a womanly spirit to look after all this. So he invited his Cousin Winnie to become his housekeeper.

She said that life could hold no greater joy, but that she could not leave her only child. This was natural and admirable, and, as the child was a daughter of twenty, who would not be likely to scratch the furniture or steal the conserves, he said to bring her.

In that branch of the family, Ronald Phillips was supreme. Not only was he rich, but he was rich in the correct way—mysteriously. Everybody knew exactly how much he had inherited from his father,[Pg 420] but nobody knew how much he had now, or how much he spent—or how he intended to leave his fortune. Cousin Ronald’s money was one of the best and brightest topics in the family.

Also he was literary. He was rich, he was literary, and he had great natural distinction. He disapproved of more things than any one else in the family. He was tall, and handsome, in a distinguished way; he had gray hair parted in the middle, a gray goatee, and a fine voice. Cousin Winnie admired him profoundly.

Her child, though, the young Lucy, belonged to a more critical generation. She saw certain flaws. But she said nothing. She came with her mother to the historic cottage, prepared to do her best.

She had studied domestic science; she was energetic and healthy, and she thought that she and her mother could make Cousin Ronald very comfortable. She wished to do so; that was her nature. She was a kind little thing.

She was a pretty little thing, too. Cousin Ronald admitted it. Not in the Mme. Van Der Dokjen style, but she was young yet. The years might bring her more of the dignity, the calm of that matchless woman.

And, as it was, she had her good points; she had clear, steady blue eyes, and very satisfactory light hair, and she had a pleasing sort of gayety about her. She sang while she was working. It was agreeable to hear her.

She had faults, undoubtedly, but they were, Cousin Ronald thought, more the faults of her deplorable generation than anything inherent. He thought they might be cured. He interpreted Mme. Van Der Dokjen to her, also the significance of home life.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Cousin Ronald, I know it’s lovely. But, you see, I don’t have much time during the day, and in the evening I do like to read or write letters.”

“Mme. Van Der Dokjen wrote letters,” he pointed out. “An astounding quantity of letters, when one considers her unflagging devotion to her domestic duties, and her truly brilliant social life. There is no doubt but that many of these letters—models of the epistolary art—were written by the light of candles, Lucy.”

“I concede the point,” said Cousin Ronald, with a trace of severity. “Where, I ask, in the modern world, can one find a woman who is not different—deplorably different? But I should like to point out to you, Lucy, that this habit of continually saying—‘I know!’—gives a quite false impression of your character. I do not believe you to be one of these intolerable modern young women who fancy they ‘know’ everything.”

“Yes, I know!” said Lucy. “I mean—I know that what you say is right, Cousin Ronald. Only, I thought that just one oil lamp—”

He told her that even one oil lamp would utterly destroy the “atmosphere” of the historic cottage.

He remembered how Mme. Van Der Dokjen was wont to reply to the requests or commands of her elders. “You must be assured, Hon’d Sir, of my pleasure in conforming to y’r lightest wish.” “All right!” That was the modern way. He sighed.

“And now your dinner’s ready,” Lucy announced. “Something awfully nice, too.”

He sighed no more. These meals which Cousin Winnie and her child prepared for him were charming; he had never enjoyed anything more. They had the real old-fashioned homeliness; plain food, but beautifully cooked, and plenty of it. Cousin Ronald had spent his life in modest hotels; and this was his first experience, since childhood, of home life.

“You have been here one month to-day, Cousin Winnie,” he remarked, as he finished his fried chicken. “I must thank you. It has been—for me, that is—a most delightful month.”

“I’m sure, Cousin Ronald, it has been a pleasure,” said Cousin Winnie. Tears came into her eyes. It was so touching to see Cousin Ronald grateful.

By common consent they omitted Lucy from the compliments. Like most persons of middle-age, they knew that it is not wise to praise the young; they remember what you say, and use it against you later on. Cousin Ronald knew this by instinct, but Cousin Winnie knew from experience.

She was a thin, worn little lady, with a gentle and pretty face. It was the general opinion in the family that she had been the helpless victim of a cruel fate, and certainly she had had many undeserved misfortunes. But she had survived them. She[Pg 421] had kept upon the surface of the stormy sea, like a cork. She could stand a good deal.

It was a superb September morning, warm and still. The windows of the dining room were open as they sat at breakfast, and Cousin Winnie saw white butterflies out in the neat little garden. Most lovely perfumes drifted in, fresh-cut grass and pine needles, and the very last roses; and from the kitchen came another current, warmer, like a Gulf Stream, and less romantic, but beautiful, made of the aromas of pancakes, maple sirup, bacon, and coffee.

The sun shone in; everything was good, and right, and Cousin Winnie was happy. Her mail, too, was satisfactory. She had a letter from a jealous and spiteful cousin in California, who insinuated that Cousin Ronald was growing old, and falling prey to certain unscrupulous relatives.

The injustice of this really flattered Cousin Winnie. Nobody could have been less designing than she. The arrangement was entirely of Cousin Ronald’s making; he had sought them out, in their cozy little flat in New York, where they had managed well enough with the aid of Lucy’s salary as an assistant librarian.

They had been glad to come, but it was nothing like so dazzling a situation as the spiteful cousin in California imagined. The financial compensation was very modest. Very! Cousin Ronald was no spendthrift.

And there was a great deal of work to be done in this cottage which was so charmingly old fashioned. Still, Cousin Winnie was glad she had come, because, for all Cousin Ronald’s distinction, his literary attainments, she thought he was pathetic. She glanced up from the spiteful cousin’s letter, to enjoy the heart-warming spectacle of the poor man eating buckwheat cakes.

“Er—no, no,” he answered. “That is—nothing wrong with this most excellent breakfast, my dear Winnie. But—er—but—er—”

“No, no, thank you. I have received a letter. I fear I must ask you to excuse me, Winnie.” He arose. “I—I am perturbed!” he added. “I must be alone for a time.”

He gathered together his letters, most of which he had not yet opened, and went out of the dining room, into his study. He locked the door, and sat down before his desk.

Dear Mr. Phillips:

Having heard of your interest in Colonial history, and particularly in Mme. Van Der Dokjen, I feel sure you will be pleased to learn that I have discovered a letter written by her to an ancestor of mine—a certain Ephraim Ordway, captain in General Washington’s army.

Apparently Mme. V. took a pretty lively interest in Captain Ordway, and the letter may provide an amusing sidelight upon the lady’s history.

If you would care to see it, I shall be glad to bring it to you some day.

Very truly yours,
Stephen Ordway.

“This,” said Cousin Ronald to himself, “is blackmail. ‘An amusing sidelight—!’ Merciful Powers!”

On a shelf before him stood a copy of “Mme. Van Der Dokjen and Her Milieu,” chastely bound in gray and gold. As frontispiece there was a portrait of her, smiling; but how dignified, how superb! “An amusing sidelight!”

“Of course I shall write to this fellow, and bid him bring his letter,” thought Cousin Ronald. “But I’ll have to pay. Heaven knows what I shall have to pay!”

It was a truly horrible situation, for it combined the two greatest fears of his soul; the fear of injury to Mme. Van Der Dokjen, and the fear of spending much money. Because, as was mentioned before, Cousin Ronald was no spendthrift.

It was with the object of obtaining temporary relief from these painful matters that he opened his other letters. But instead of relief, here were more blows. It was the beginning of the month, and all the other envelopes contained bills—for groceries, for meat, for vegetables, for laundry. He added them together, and was appalled. He knew what it had cost Mme. Van Der Dokjen to run this house; this was five times as much.

For a moment, a sort of desperation seized upon him. He saw his hard earned—by his father—money being squandered and dissipated upon all sides. He saw himself paying these bills, and buying the com[Pg 422]promising letter, and being left a ruined man.

Then he arose, and went to Cousin Winnie, and told her that he was a ruined man.

In that chapter on Mme. Van Der Dokjen “During the War,” he had written with a certain eloquence about her benevolence, and about womanly sympathy in general; he had praised it, but not before had he encountered it. And he found it even sweeter than he had believed.

He and Cousin Winnie had a long talk. He assured her that he was confiding in her. To tell the truth, he told her nothing, but he spoke of his “troubles” in a large, vague fashion, he begged her to help him to economize. And she pitied him.

“If he’s ruined,” she said, “it seems to me that we’d better go back to the city, and I’ll get another job. And at least we’ll have hot baths, and electric lights, and enough to eat.”

“I could not leave your Cousin Ronald now,” her mother declared, solemnly. “He says that any day now he will know. And then we can decide.”

Indeed, matters were bad, very bad. A black shadow lay over the household. Every morning Cousin Ronald came to the breakfast table, with a stern, set face, opened his letters, looked at Cousin Winnie, and said “Nothing!” She knew not what fateful news he expected, but she dreaded it, and yet wished it would come, that the blow would fall, the suspense be ended.

In the meantime, she did her utmost to aid the stricken man. Her economies were heroic. No need to detail them here. She grew thinner and paler, but she did not falter. Cousin Ronald told her frequently that he did not know what he could do without her coöperation, and that was a spur to the willing horse.

She did not like her child to endure all this, though. Again and again she urged Lucy to go back to the city, but Lucy refused. She would not leave her mother, and she, too, was sorry for Cousin Ronald; quite as sorry as her mother, though in a different way. In her eyes he was not the distinguished and admirable figure Cousin Winnie thought him; he was simply a “poor, funny old darling.” So, she remained, also waiting for the blow.

But no one suffered as did Cousin Ronald. He had written at once to this Stephen Ordway, requesting him to bring the letter at his “earliest convenience.” No answer came; days went by, and Cousin Ronald wrote again. He waited and waited, in growing anguish. What, he asked himself, could be the reason for this silence? Awful fancies came to him.

His publishers wrote, asking if they might expect the manuscript of his new book in time for their spring list. He knew not how to reply. He dared not publish anything further about Mme. Van Der Dokjen while that letter was at large.

One night he had a dream. He dreamed that he went into Brentano’s, to look at his book—“A Historic Cottage”—which had just been published, in gray and gold, like the former volume. He was, in his dream, examining this volume with justifiable pleasure, when his eye fell upon another book beside it—a slim little book in a scarlet jacket—“The Lady and the Soldier—An Amusing Sidelight Upon Mme. Van Der Dokjen.”

“Whatever he asks, I’ll pay it!” he thought. “But—Merciful Powers! It may be a sum beyond the very bounds of reason.”

Still, he would pay. He would not see this noble woman held up to the world’s ridicule. Whatever the cost, he would pay.

And, until he knew the cost, every cent must be saved. Very well; every cent was saved. Cousin Winnie assisted him in this. He waited. They all waited.

III

The summer ran its course, and the great winds were beginning to blow. The leaves were falling fast. And, in the city, janitors were informing tenants that the furnace was being repaired; who so sorry as they for any delay in getting up a fine sizzling head of steam in the boiler these chilly mornings?

In the historic cottage there was, of course, not even a hope of a furnace. Cousin Winnie spent most of her time in the kitchen, where there was a coal stove,[Pg 423] and Cousin Ronald took long, healthful walks. So did Lucy; often they went together, but not on this especial afternoon. If they had, if Lucy had accompanied Cousin Ronald this afternoon, all might have been different.

Cousin Ronald, however, had remained in his study, communing, so to speak, with Mme. Van Der Dokjen. It was growing late when from his window he saw Lucy coming back from her walk. Her hair was blown about, her cheeks were glowing, she looked the most alive, warm, radiant creature imaginable.

And he was chilly and dispirited, and, seeing her, he thought that perhaps a walk might do all that for him. So he put on his hat and overcoat and took up his stick, and set forth. Not ten yards from his own gate he passed the man he so anxiously awaited, but he knew him not. He went on, in one direction, and the man went on in the other.

The man knocked at the door of the cottage, and Lucy opened it. She was still flushed from her walk, and in that dim, low-ceilinged room she seemed to him, with her fair hair that shone, her clear blue eyes, her scarlet jersey, almost impossibly vivid.

“Oh, yes!” Lucy answered. “But he’s just gone out. You might catch him if—”

“I’d be sure to miss him,” the stranger declared, firmly. “If it won’t bother you, may I wait? I’ll just sit down out here.” And he indicated a very historic settle which was built into the porch. All the winds that blew, blew here; an eddy of leaves whirled about his feet, now, and Lucy could scarcely hold the door open.

Fresh from the stir and color of the windy day, the sitting room seemed to him unpleasantly chill and dark as Lucy closed the door behind him. The fire was out, for economy’s sake, and the tiny panes in the historic window did not admit much light.

“Awfully!” said Lucy. “Sit down, won’t you? That chair’s a hundred and fifty years old. And it’s one of the junior set, too!”

“I’ve heard about this place. Belonged to Mme. Van Der Dokjen, didn’t it?”

“My name’s Ordway,” he explained. “I wrote to Mr. Phillips, and he asked me to come. I’ve been away—on my vacation—or I’d have come before.”

He wished that he had. He wished that he had come weeks ago. He felt that he had lost priceless time. And he looked as if he thought that.

Lucy had always liked red hair, and noses that turned up a little. This young man had red hair and that sort of nose; he was big, too, and broad-shouldered, and he looked cheerful. She asked him if he would care to look over the historic cottage and its antiques.

“Well—no, thanks,” he said. “Tell you the truth, I’ve had all I want of historic things. My aunts, you know—they’ve got ancestors, and documents. If you don’t mind, I’d rather just sit here and—”

He said “wait,” but what he meant was “talk to you.” The girl knew this. They did sit there, and they talked. The room grew dark; a very fine sunset was going forward in its proper place; indeed, at that moment Cousin Ronald was standing upon a hilltop, admiring it. But the laws of nature kept it away from the sitting room.

In the course of time Cousin Winnie was obliged to call for her daughter’s aid. She came into the doorway; Mr. Ordway was presented to her; she spoke to him graciously, and gave him a candle, then she took away the radiant Lucy.

Candle or no candle, the room seemed darker than ever to Ordway. He began to walk about, but he knocked his shins against too many historic objects, and at last he paused, in a spot where he could see into the kitchen. He saw Cousin Winnie and Lucy preparing dinner by candlelight.

And he did not find it picturesque. He saw Lucy vigorously plying the pump beside the sink. He was not reminded of the old days, when home life had been so much finer. He thought:

“Good Lord! A pump! Candles! It’s a shame! It’s a darned shame! A girl like that! It’s a darned shame!”

When Cousin Ronald came home, he found a Stephen Ordway even more sinister than he had feared; a stern and very reticent young man, a very large one, too. By the light of the one candle in the sitting[Pg 424] room, he loomed, in the dictionary sense of the word—“loom: to appear larger than the real size, and indefinitely.” His red hair had an infernal gleam.

“Mr.—er—Ordway?” said Cousin Ronald. “Yes—yes—I had—er—a communication from you?”

The young man said “Yes,” but made no move to produce any document. He was thinking of something else.

“Yes, indeed!” Cousin Ronald assented anxiously. “Yes, indeed!” He saw that the young man was leading up to something. “Suppose we step into my study?”

“I’m an electrical engineer,” said Ordway. “I’ve been looking around here. Think what electricity could do for you here! Light—plenty of light—electric water heater—pump—dish washer—vacuum cleaner—percolator—stoves. You could have decent comfort!”

Cousin Ronald could not fathom the motives of the stranger, but he felt sure that they were profoundly subtle, and inimical to Cousin Ronald’s welfare. Again he said:

Cousin Ronald felt a sort of illness, a sort of faintness. He believed that he could comprehend the plot now. Instead of bluntly demanding a certain sum for Mme. Van Der Dokjen’s letter, he was going to demand this job—this impious, this vandal job, of “wiring” the cottage. And the price—the price—

“I—er—fear it would be a somewhat costly undertaking,” said Cousin Ronald.

Ordway thought of the wonderful girl, groping about in this dismal house, cold, forlorn, captive to an ogre relative. He was perhaps a little obsessed by electricity—a good thing for one of his profession. He thought it the great hope of the modern world. And he could not endure the idea of a wonderful girl deprived of its benefits. He said:

“The question is—if anything can be too ‘costly,’ when it’s a matter of human dignity and welfare.”

A shudder ran along Cousin Ronald’s spine. The moment had come. Very well; he was ready. He admitted, in his own heart, that nothing could be too costly where Mme. Van Der Dokjen’s dignity was concerned. He was silent for a moment; then he raised his distinguished head.

“I didn’t mean that,” he explained. What he had meant was that he would be glad to do this job for nothing. But he feared to affront Mr. Phillips. “It’s—I’d enjoy doing it,” he said earnestly.

“Mr. Ordway,” he said, “let us be direct, sir. That is ever my way. I have long been prepared for this eventuality. I am ready, sir, to consider the purchase of this letter. Be good enough to name your price.”

Like many another man before him, Cousin Ronald was ill-served by his own impatience. Ordway had come, intending to hand the letter over as a gift of no importance, but being asked to name his price put ideas into his head. He reflected. He reflected so long that Cousin Ronald grew still more impatient.

“I have been practicing the strictest economy,” he announced. “I may say that I have endured something not short of actual discomfort, sir, in order that I might be in a position to meet any—er—reasonable terms—”

Cousin Ronald did some quick reflecting himself. If the young man could observe their strict economy for himself—

“Mr. Ordway, sir,” he said, “will you favor us with your company at a very simple meal?”

This dinner had, in Cousin Ronald’s eyes, a sweet, old-fashioned charm. A fire burned now upon the hearth; the board was set out with Wedgwood and with Sheffield plate. And Cousin Ronald positively recreated Mme. Van Der Dokjen, describing her just as she had been, here in this very room.

But Ordway was not moved. He did not give the Wedgwood or the plate anything like the attention he gave to the economical dinner, and the late Mme. Van Der Dokjen was, to him, of very inferior merit to the living Lucy. All the time Cousin Ronald discoursed, Ordway was thinking of Lucy, deprived of electricity and of all the other privileges she so richly deserved.

“It’s a darned shame!” he thought. “The old skinflint thinks more of that letter than he does of his own family. A darned shame!”

When the meal ended, Cousin Ronald suggested that Lucy sing, accompanying herself upon the spinet—an art she had recently acquired. He believed that this would soften the heart of the rapacious young man.

It did. It did, indeed. To the sweetly jangling spinet she sang some gentle old song. In firelight and candlelight—

The young man, watching her and hearing her, was quite as much moved as Cousin Ronald could have desired—but in the wrong direction.

Her song ended, Cousin Ronald and Ordway withdrew to the study, Cousin Winnie and her child to the kitchen. Twenty minutes passed; then Ordway reappeared. With a curtsy almost old-fashioned, Lucy went with him to the door, even across the threshold.

The wind slammed the door behind her, and for a few minutes she stood in the porch, talking to the young man. Cousin Winnie, in the kitchen, heard them; they were discussing a new play. Lucy said yes, she did like the theater, but she didn’t go very often now. And she had heard “The Maddened Brute” spoken of as a wonderful play—a really big thing. Cousin Winnie missed a little here, owing to her duties; the next thing she heard was Lucy saying good night to Mr. Ordway.

It had been a very brief conversation, but Ordway, as he walked to the station in the windy dark, imagined that she had said a great deal. He thought, somehow, that she had told him what a miserable existence she led in the historic cottage. What a darned shame!

Lucy was sitting at a small table by the dining room window. She had bought a tube of cement, and with it she was mending a varied assortment of antique china she had discovered in a cupboard. It was raining outside, a chill, steady downpour. And the room was dim and cold, and it was a dismal world.

“I wish I was thirty!” she thought. Because at that advanced age she believed that one could be content to live in a historic cottage, and not mind dullness, or rain, or anything, very much. At thirty she would be content to devote her life to the ruined Cousin Ronald and her heroic mother. Yet, in a way, she disliked the thought of being thirty. She disliked all her thoughts this afternoon.

“As far as that goes,” she reflected, pursuing a certain familiar line, “I don’t have to wait for anybody to invite me. I can take mother to see ‘The Maddened Brute’ this very Saturday, if I like. I’ve got enough money for that. Only, mother wouldn’t like that sort of play. Anyhow, I don’t care!”

Carefully she cemented a handle on an ancient sugar basin; then, setting it down to dry, she looked out of the window. The postman, in a rubber coat, was coming along the muddy road.

“I don’t care!” she said again. She was not the sort of girl who waited with the slightest interest for letters that people had said they were going to write a week ago. Let them write, or not write; what cared she?

The postman came up on the porch and whistled, and the door opened—like a sort of cuckoo clock—and Cousin Winnie took in the letters. But what a long time she was in the hall!

“I suppose she’s got another letter from a cousin,” thought Lucy. “If there was anything for me—But I don’t care, anyhow.”

“A letter for you, Lucy,” she said, handed it to her child, and vanished. With the utmost indifference Lucy opened her letter. It contained two tickets for “The Maddened Brute” for Saturday afternoon, an[Pg 426] explanation of the difficulty of getting them, and a very civil request that she and her mother meet Stephen Ordway for lunch at the Ritz before the play.

No answer. She got up and went into the kitchen, and found her mother standing by the window—just standing, doing nothing. This was alarming.

“Lucy—” said her mother. “Oh, Lucy! Oh, think of it! You can travel! You can have really nice clothes!” She was actually in tears.

It was a check for five thousand dollars which Cousin Winnie extended in her trembling hand.

“You wouldn’t remember,” said Cousin Winnie. “A—a second cousin of—your grandfather’s. Oh, Lucy! My dear, good child! Now you can go away!”

“A legal form,” Cousin Winnie explained. “I myself shall be well and amply provided for. This check is entirely for you, Lucy.”

Somehow, “The Maddened Brute” was a disappointment. It was truly, as the advertisements declared it, a tense and gripping drama of life in the raw, but the characters were all so very violent that it was rather a relief than a tragedy when any one of them was silenced by stabbing, drowning, and so on.

Mr. Ordway was a little tense himself. When Cousin Winnie had seen him in the historic cottage, he had appeared such a cheerful young man, and now he was so odd, so silent. He ordered a superb luncheon at the Ritz; he provided them with an unparalleled box of chocolates; he was, in material ways, a most satisfactory host.

But spiritually he was depressing. In the theater he sat on the aisle, next to Cousin Winnie, and whenever the curtain went down he kept asking her about her plans, in a low and alarmingly serious voice.

“You won’t stay in that house all winter, will you?” And he spoke of pneumonia, of bronchitis, of rheumatism, with a horrid eloquence. He said that candles often set houses on fire. He pictured such a disaster on a bitter midwinter night.

He spoke of thieves. He went on to escaped lunatics; and when the curtain rose on the third act and showed the Maddened Brute gibbering in a cellar by the light of one candle, she gasped.

“I must speak to Lucy!” she thought. “She’s got to go away!” It was her policy not to interfere with her child, and she had waited very patiently for some word as to what Lucy meant to do with the check. But now she would wait no longer; she would speak to her about going away.

She had no opportunity, though. The young man insisted on taking them all the way back to the cottage.

It did, indeed, look sinister that evening, so small, so lonely under a stormy sky. Mad things could so easily be hiding behind those bushes. Of course they weren’t, but they could.

“Thanks,” he replied. “But—thanks, but I’ve got to go. Only, I wish you’d tell me first that you’ve decided not to stay here this winter.”

“Why don’t you go to Bermuda?” continued the young man. “Or Florida? You—both of you—look pale.”

Although a little tiresome, Cousin Winnie thought the young man’s solicitude rather touching. But Lucy answered him bluntly.

“But five thousand dollars ought—” he began, vehemently, and stopped short. There was a blank silence.

“Mr. Ordway,” Lucy began. “What made you say ‘five thousand dollars’?”

“It couldn’t,” said Lucy, coldly. “I’d like to know. Will you tell me, please, why you thought I had five thousand dollars?”

“But—listen, please!” said the young man, in great distress. “It’s—if you’ll just listen. You see, I had a letter written by this Mme. Van Der What’s Her Name—and Mr. Phillips wanted it—badly. And when I saw how—what it was like in the cottage—and he seemed to have all he wanted to spare for that darn fool letter. I made him pay five thousand for it. Please! Just a minute! It really belongs to you. You’re his relatives.”

“I made him up,” said Cousin Winnie, faintly. “The letter said—from an anonymous friend—and I thought—perhaps your Cousin Ronald himself—But now, of course, Lucy will return it to you at once, Mr. Ordway.”

“I can’t,” said Lucy, with a sob. “You told me this Cousin Peter yarn—and you said you were amply provided for—and I’m young and healthy—and the poor thing did look so wretched—”

“You told me he was ruined,” said Lucy. “And he did look so cold, and wretched, and dismal—and I rather like him.”

“He had to,” Lucy replied. “I put it in an envelope and wrote—‘from an admirer of Mme. Van Der Dokjen’!”

“I know it was foolish,” said Lucy, finally. “But the day I got it, I felt so—I can’t describe it—so—well, so healthy, you know, and able to do anything I wanted. And he was sitting in there, writing his poor silly old book, with one candle. And his gray hair, and his funny little beard—and the way he clears his throat—sort of baaing—like a lamb. And I thought he was ruined.”

“Foolish!” repeated Cousin Winnie, and with that she walked briskly up the path.

“Well,” said she. “For you, I guess. You must feel pretty flat, just now.”

VII

Then they went in. They found Cousin Winnie standing by a console in the hall, with a strange look on her face.

And she held out to them a check for five thousand dollars, drawn by Cousin Ronald to her order.

“My dear Winnie:

“An unexpected stroke of good fortune enables me to tender to you this small token of my profound appreciation of your kindness toward me in a dark hour. I beg that you will honor me by accepting it.

“Furthermore, it occurs to me that this cottage, hallowed as it is to me by its associations, is scarcely suitable in its present condition for a winter residence for ladies accustomed to modern conveniences. I shall endeavor to arrange for the installation of electricity, and I am this afternoon going into the city to consult with an expert upon the advisability of a small furnace.

“I shall be somewhat late in returning. Indeed, my dear Winnie, I should prefer that you read this in my absence, and to consider—”

“That’s all that matters,” said Cousin Winnie, hastily, folding up the letter.

“Merciful Powers!” Lucy remarked, with a shocking mimicry of Cousin Ronald’s manner. “I fear this is another compromising letter!”

“It is not, at all!” Cousin Winnie declared indignantly. “Nothing could be more honorable and—”

Then suddenly they all began to laugh. Cousin Ronald, coming up the path, heard them. He thought it was an agreeable thing to hear, suggestive of that fine, old-fashioned home life.[Pg 428]

Miss Cigale

IT SHOULD BE QUITE NATURAL FOR A GRASSHOPPER TO KNOW MORE ABOUT PAWN TICKETS THAN DOES AN ANT

MRS. RUSSELL sat on the veranda, waiting for her son. A handsome and dignified woman she was, and a very calm one, but her calmness did not suggest patience.

On the contrary, she looked like one of those persons who wait until exactly the right moment, and then proceed to do whatever is exactly the right thing to be done, leaving late or careless persons to their well-deserved fate. Half past six was the dinner hour; at half past six she would go into the dining room, and if her son were not home—

He always was home, though. For twenty-three years he had been trained in punctuality, neatness, and economy, and his mother was satisfied with the result. She turned her eyes toward the west, where the sun was preparing to leave, gathering together his gorgeous, filmy raiment.

She was not looking at, or thinking of, any sunset, however, but looked in that direction because the railway station lay there, and she had heard a train whistle. It was not Geordie’s regular train, but once in awhile he came a little earlier; and, though Mrs. Russell was too reasonable to expect such a thing, she hoped he was coming now.

It was nice to have an extra half hour with her boy; nice to walk about the lawn with him, to talk to him, to listen to him, even just to look at him, as long as he didn’t catch her at it.

No; he wasn’t coming early to-night. The long tree lined street was empty, except for a woman who had just crossed the road. She was an odd figure; even the judicial Mrs. Russell had to smile a little at her frantic progress. A flower crowned hat had slipped far to the back of her head, a gray dust coat, unbuttoned, flew out behind her.

She walked bent by the weight of two heavy bags, pressing forward in haste, as if struggling against a mighty wind. She came nearer, and through the branches of a tree a shaft from the setting sun fell upon her wild fair hair.

“But—goodness gracious!” said Mrs. Russell, half aloud. “But—no! Nonsense! It can’t be!”

For there had been somebody else, with wild fair hair like that, shining not gold, but silver when the sun lay on it; somebody else slight and tall, and always in a desperate hurry. That was years and years ago.

She got up and came to the edge of the veranda, a queer flutter in her heart. Could there be any one else with quite that [Pg 430]air—distinguished, and yet a little ridiculous, and somehow so touching?

Down went the bags on the pavement. The newcomer stood where she was for an instant, then, headlong, rushed through the gate, up the steps, and clasped Mrs. Russell in her arms so violently that the flower crowned hat fell off and rolled down the steps. It lay on the gravel walk like a poor dry little flowerpot.

“There—” said Mrs. Russell. “Sit down, my dear! Try to control yourself!”

As a matter of fact, she was crying herself, in a quiet, dignified sort of way. But, by the time she had gone down the steps and fetched her sister’s lively hat, she had put an end to all such nonsense, and was quite calm again.

“I’m very happy to see you, Louie—” she began, but the other interrupted her.

“After all these years!” she cried, with a sob. “It doesn’t seem possible, does it, Bella? We were young then, Bella. Oh, think of that! Young, Bella—”

“I shan’t think of any such thing,” said Mrs. Russell, tartly. “Do stop crying, Louie, please, and tell me something about yourself.”

“It isn’t me yet, Bella; not the poor, silly forty-five-year-old me. It’s the other Louie, with her hair down her back, sitting here with the old Bella in that plaid dress. Do you remember that plaid gingham, Bella, that mother made for you? With the bias—”

“No!” Mrs. Russell replied. “I do not. I don’t want to, either. What I want to hear is something about yourself, Louie—something sensible and intelligible.”

“I remember you, Bella, so well—sitting at the piano, with a great black braid over your shoulder, playing that ‘Marche Aux Flambeaux,’ and poor father keeping time with his pipe. And that duet, Bella! You and I—the Grande Fantasia for Les Huguenots—” She giggled through her tears, and that giggle was more than Mrs. Russell could bear. It made the plaid dress and the duet and a hundred heartbreaking, dusty, forgotten things rise up before her.

“Louie!” she said. “I’m ashamed of you! When two sisters haven’t met for—”

“For two lifetimes!” said the incorrigible Louie. “I don’t care, Bella! The old things are the best.”

“What,” interrupted Mrs. Russell, sternly, “have you been doing all these years, Louie? Why didn’t you ever write to me?”

“I never had time, Bella. I’ve been too busy, failing. I’ve failed at everything, Bella, everything! I gave my recital—and you must have read how quickly and thoroughly I failed there. Then I tried giving music lessons, but I was always late, or I forgot to come at all, or I’d feel not in the mood for teaching. Then I studied filing and indexing, and oh, Bella, you should have seen the awful things I did! You know I never was exactly methodical! Then I learned typing. I was a little frightened then, Bella. I really tried, at that. But, you see, I wasn’t young any more then, and not good at the work. That failed, too. Then I tried to peddle things—scented soap, from door to door.”

“Well, you needn’t be!” said her sister, drying her eyes. “It’s been very wonderful—sometimes, Bella. I’ve been happy most of the time—because, you see, I never minded failing.”

“Are you—” Mrs. Russell began, with no little embarrassment. “Are you—in difficulties now, Louie?”

“I haven’t a penny in the world, Bella. You remember that fable of La Fontaine’s we used to recite in school? ‘La Cigale et La Fourmis’? (The Grasshopper and the Ant.) I’m Miss Cigale, Bella, and you’re Mrs. Fourmis. I’m the poor, silly grasshopper who danced the summer away—and here I am, Bella. It’s winter—for me—and I want to rest, here with you, until the summer comes back.”

“Oh, don’t be so—‘highfalutin’’!” cried Mrs. Russell, stung by emotion into using a long-forgotten word. “Try to talk sensibly, Louie.”

This was all so typical of her sister; all her memories of Louisa were made up of these queer little storms, these showers of tears, these rainbow smiles.

“Always so upsetting!” she thought, half angry. Yet there never had been any one dear to her in the way Louisa was.

“Come upstairs,” she said, firmly, “and get ready for dinner, and then—Oh! There’s Geordie!”

“Louie, listen to me! You must not be—silly about Geordie. He won’t understand it, and he won’t like it. Do, for goodness’ sake, pull yourself together![Pg 431]”

But Louie couldn’t. She tried; she sat up very straight in her chair, and smiled, but Mrs. Russell was not satisfied. She wished that she had had time to put Louie in order before the boy saw her. He was so fastidious; what would he think of this unexpected aunt, with her wild, fair hair, her blue eyes swimming in tears, her trembling smile?

“She looks worn,” thought Mrs. Russell, “but not—well, somehow, not grown up!”

Geordie had come up the steps now; a good-looking young fellow, and somehow touching, with his sulky mouth and his sulky blue eyes.

“Louisa!” said Mrs. Russell, in a threatening voice. “This is my son, George. Geordie, your Aunt Louisa!”

Poor Louisa said nothing at all, for fear of bursting into tears, but Geordie could be trusted to behave with decorum. He said something about this being an unexpected pleasure; said it punctiliously. But Mrs. Russell knew at once, by the tone of his voice, that he didn’t like this aunt. She saw him cast a quick glance at her lamentable untidiness.

“Are those your bags, out in the street?” he inquired. “Shan’t I get them?”

“Oh, no!” cried Louie. “Please don’t bother! I’ll get them!” And she made a sort of rush forward, which Mrs. Russell checked.

“Louie!” she said, sternly, and after Geordie had gone down the steps: “Louie! You must have more dignity!”

There was no dinner at half past six that evening, or at seven, either. When the clock struck the hour, there was Mrs. Russell sitting on the veranda, while her son paced up and down, hands in his pockets, and his face sulkier than ever. The sun was gone, now, and the clear sky was fading from lemon-yellow into gray; the honeysuckle was coming to life in the quiet dusk.

“Naturally I didn’t ask her,” she answered, stiffly. “She’s had a great many—difficulties, and she’s come here, to me, for a rest.”

He walked up and down in silence for a time, and to his mother there was something ominous in his steady footfall; it was, she thought, as if he were going away from her, miles and miles away. Suddenly he spoke again, from the other end of the veranda:

“Isn’t it hard enough for us to get on as it is?” he asked. “Without an extra—”

“Oh, let’s look at the thing from a practical point of view!” he suggested, impatiently. “You know what my salary is, mother, and you know how far it goes, or doesn’t go.”

“Please!” said Mrs. Russell, curtly. “Surely we needn’t discuss this now—before your aunt has been in the house an hour.”

“Just as you please!” said he. “But—” Again he walked down to the other end of the veranda. “All I mean is”—he went on, in a strained unsteady voice—“that I can’t do any more. I’ve—I’ve done my best, and I can’t do any more.”

Mrs. Russell sat like a statue in the gathering darkness. She had come face to face with sorrow and anxiety more than once in her life; she had had her full share of all that; but never, never before had anything wounded her like this. So she was a burden to her son.

All the little money left her by her husband she had used for the boy’s education and welfare, with all her love, her time, all her life thrown, unconsidered, into the bargain. And now she was a burden to him.

“Very well, my boy!” she answered, in her composed way. “We’ll say no more about it.”

He came a few steps nearer, but halted; he hadn’t been bred to the habit of affection. A hundred thousand old impulses that had been stifled by cool common sense made a great barrier now, just there, a few steps away from his mother. He turned away again, and Mrs. Russell did not stir.

It was over; that was their sensible way of dealing with all such matters; not to[Pg 432] take them out into the daylight and destroy them, but to shut them up, to weigh down the heart for many and many a day. They had ten minutes more alone there in the dusk together, ten long minutes, and neither of them spoke.

They were, of course, waiting for their luckless guest, and both silently condemning her unpardonable delay. But, if they could have seen her just then, down on the floor on her knees beside the neat little bed in the neat, strange little room, not weeping, but very still, as if a ruthless hand had struck into quietude all her flutterings.

She had come downstairs, quite airy, quite gay, in a fresh blouse and a not too dingy skirt, and, standing unnoticed in the doorway, she had heard her nephew’s words. She had rushed up the stairs again, silent as a moth, except for the tinkle of countless small hairpins dropping from her riotous hair, and had sunk down on the floor like this, to taste failure again.

The clear chiming of the clock roused her. She got up, a little bewildered for a moment.

“I’ll go away!” she thought, at first. But, after all, her failure had taught her something. She put more pins into her hair, a little more powder on her nose; she tried a smile or two before the mirror, and down the stairs she went, airy as before.

“The only really terrible thing,” she said to herself, “is to fail because you haven’t tried.”

And so she did try. She sat at the table with her unsmiling and calm sister, her unsmiling and sulky nephew, and she smiled for three; she talked, and in the end she made them smile, not because she was especially witty, but because her sweet, light spirit gave a glimmer to all her words. She was ridiculous, but she was charming; she made of that sober family dinner a high festival. And when they had finished:

“No!” said Mrs. Russell, startled. “We don’t have coffee, Louie. I think it keeps one awake.”

“But who doesn’t want to be awake on a night like this? Let’s be awake! Let’s have a little table on the lawn, and candles—candlelight under the trees is so wonderful, Bella!”

“Mary won’t like it!” whispered Mrs. Russell. “It means extra work for her.”

Mrs. Russell might have protested more, if she had not observed her son pushing the books and papers off the top of a small table in the next room. If he wanted it so, or if he were trying to atone, very well; she would agree to this absurd proposal.

So the table was placed in the back garden, and there Mrs. Russell and her son sat, to wait for Louie and the coffee. They sat there under the great dark beeches that rustled solemnly in the night wind and set the candles to flickering.

Candlelight wonderful under the trees? It was horrible; it was the most sorrowful, gloomy, bitter thing. Was that the leaves stirring, or a sigh from the boy? Mrs. Russell wanted to look at him, but dared not, for fear that their eyes should meet, and with what lay between them, they must not look into each other’s eyes. A burden to him—a burden too heavy for his young shoulders—

Louie came across the grass with the tray, and this time Geordie’s sigh was quite audible as he arose to take it from her.

Her gay voice sounded very pitiful in the dark. Mrs. Russell resolved to make an effort to help the poor creature.

There could be no silence where Louie was, though; even if no one spoke, there was a swarm of dainty little sounds, the clink of a porcelain cup on its saucer, the musical ring of a silver spoon on the brass tray; the sugar tongs against the crystal bowl.

“Thanks!” said he, gloomily, and taking a cigarette from his case, he leaned forward to light it at the candle.

“Mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Russell. The two others looked inquiringly at her, but she said hastily that it was nothing. For she certainly did not intend to explain what had startled her.

It was the sight of Geordie’s face as he had leaned over the candle. His blue eyes had seemed to dance and gleam, the flickering light had given him a look as if smiling in impish glee—altogether, he had looked so much, so very much, as Louie had looked years ago.

He had drawn back into the shadows, tilting his chair against the trunk of a tree, and, feeling herself deserted, Mrs. Russell[Pg 433] tried to talk to her sister. Useless! Geordie was there, and could hear if he wished.

She understood what Louie was thinking about—what things she had in her queer, pitiful life to think about, what compensations she had found for missing wifehood and motherhood?

“Because she’s not unhappy,” thought Mrs. Russell. “She hasn’t anything at all, as far as I can see, and yet she’s not unhappy. Perhaps I’m as much a failure as she is. I meant to help him—to make him happy. But he’s miserable. I’ve done the best I can; I can’t do any more. It’s as if his heart was breaking. Why? He has a good salary. I’ve only taken just enough to keep his home as he likes it. He has plenty for his clothes and whatever else he wants. I thought—I made him—happy.”

Not one minute more could she endure this soft, dark silence; she wanted to get into the house, in the lamplight, safely shut into her home, away from the vast summer night.

“Then where’s the one they gave you at the office, Geordie? Such a handsome one, Louie! A present to him on his twenty-fourth birthday. Engraved. Geordie, I hope you haven’t left it about, anywhere. It’s not a thing to be careless with.”

“It’s perfectly safe!” he answered, with such a note of exasperation in his voice that Louie pitied him.

“Well, I’m not. You don’t know what a boy that age is capable of. And it’s a handsome watch. Geordie, I wish—There! Now you’ve broken this new one! Oh, my dear—”

For, as he arose, his foot had caught in the chair; he stumbled, and dropped the watch with a thud. It was Louie who recovered it; Louie who hastily gathered together the small oblong papers that fluttered out of his breast pocket. One had fallen at Mrs. Russell’s feet; she stooped.

Mrs. Russell did not know what these tickets were, but Louie did. Louie knew well.

III

Indeed, all the three inmates of the house were heavy at heart that night, each with some especial knowledge not shared by the others. The night grew sultry, too, and when the morning came, it was the first day of real summer, hot and still. It was a day to make any one jaded who had not slept well.

Geordie was down first, and walking up and down the veranda; smoking, too, his aunt noticed.

“You shouldn’t, before breakfast!” she admonished him, cheerfully. “And you can’t smell the flowers, either, if you do.”

He smiled, a forced, strained sort of smile, but civil enough, considering how unwelcome the sight of her was. He stopped walking up and down, too, and, after a moment, said, in a perfunctory voice:

As much as his mother, did he hate and dread that note of fervor, of intimacy. He moved his shoulders restlessly, and smiled again.

“No, it’s not. Geordie, you won’t mind if I stay here with you and your mother for a little while, will you?”

“I want to stay—ever so much. But only if it can be my way. Because I’m a frightfully obstinate creature, Geordie; absolutely unmanageable. And I can’t bear not to be independent. I’m going to find myself a job—”

She seated herself on the rail of the veranda, a most undignified attitude for one of her years, and yet, as always, there was a debonair grace about her; something unconquerably girlish.

“I will get a job, Geordie!” she announced. “That’s settled. No matter where I live, I’ll do that. But I want so much to stay here, if you’ll let me stay on my own terms. Let me pay my board[Pg 434] and feel like a nice, independent business woman!”

And he couldn’t endure her smile; he couldn’t endure her proposal; it was the final straw for his already mutinous and unhappy spirit. If she had any faint idea of what he already suffered from this talk about being “an independent business woman”; if she had imagined what a sore subject that was.

“No!” he said. “If you want to stay here and make mother a visit, you’re more than welcome. But—I don’t approve of women going out to work.”

There was something in her good-humored protest that made him hot with resentment. She wasn’t laughing at him—and yet, she might as well have been; she couldn’t have pointed out more plainly the absurdity of his words and his attitude. Just by some little inflection of the voice, she made him the youngest twenty-five that ever lived—a boy, a child, a silly, pompous, impertinent young ass.

She saw her mistake then—she was always quick to recognize her failures—but it was too late to remedy it.

“I’m sorry you feel like that, George,” she said, gravely. “Because, you see, I couldn’t stay here unless it could be that way.”

“I only meant—” he began, but when he turned he found her gone, vanished in her own quick, quiet way. He hurried into the house to find her, and looked for her everywhere, but in vain.

And it seemed to him that he could not go off to the city with this new burden upon his conscience. It was bad enough that he should have hurt his mother the evening before; bad enough to endure the other harassments that had tried him so sorely, for so long, without this new misery. He thought of his aunt’s sprightliness; her gay and touching friendliness toward him; he remembered how grave her face had become.

“She might have known I didn’t mean that,” he thought, dismayed. “I don’t like her, and she’ll be a bore and a nuisance; but I didn’t mean to offend her.”

And all the time he was perfectly aware that she wasn’t “offended,” any more than a clover blossom is offended if you tread it underfoot. It was he who had been offended at the idea of his mother’s sister going out to work every day from under his roof—of any woman doing so, in whom he was interested. Come to think of it, he was glad he had said he “wouldn’t have it”; he meant that. He had told Nell also that he wouldn’t have it.

“Still,” he admitted, “I might have been a little more—well, more cordial to her. Because I can see that she’s another one of those people.”

For lately the poor fellow had been learning something about that other sort of people—people not sensible and restrained, but full of fancies and notions and feelings; people who needed careful handling, unless you were willing to see that look of pain and disappointment in their eyes.

Mrs. Russell thought that her son looked pale and jaded that morning, and noticed, with a heavy heart, how little he ate.

“I suppose he’s working too hard,” she said to herself. “Wearing himself out, and wasting all his youth—to take care of me. I suppose what he wants is—”

“Perhaps he’d rather go off and live in the city with one of his friends, like Dick Judson,” she thought. “I wonder if I couldn’t—” So there she sat, calm and composed as ever, making the most absurd plans for living on her own private income of thirty dollars a month.

“Perhaps Louie and I together might manage something,” she thought. “Louie knows more than I do about things of that sort. I’ll speak to her.”

Geordie went off, and still Mrs. Russell sat at the breakfast table, waiting for her sister, and silently condemning this sloth that kept her so late abed.

As a matter of fact, Louie was half a mile away from the house, picking daisies in a wide, sunny field. Seen from the road, you might have thought that tall and slender creature with fair hair shining in the sun was a care-free young girl; she moved so lightly, and now and then she sang a snatch of song.[Pg 435]

But all this was mere bravado, her own especial method of preparing herself for a painful ordeal. She had something to do that morning which she dreaded, and instead of taking an extra cup of coffee, or anything of that sort, the silly creature forgot all about breakfast and wandered off into a daisy field. No wonder she was such a failure!

She had peculiar compensations, though. The fierce hot sun, and the rank, sweet smell of the humble little field flowers and weeds, even the troublesome insects that crawled out from the daisies onto her hands, and the little winged nuisances that flew in her face, amused and solaced her, and did her, or so she fancied, more good than ten breakfasts.

And after a time she felt strong and tranquil enough to face her day. From a pocket in her skirt she drew out a bit of paper—one of those dropped by her nephew the evening before, and she looked at it carefully.

Now it happened that Miss Cigale, although she had said she hadn’t a penny in the world, really did have sixty-five dollars. Considered as the savings of a lifetime, it might pretty well be called nothing, and in her careless way she had so thought of it; but now she saw it in a quite different light.

She had kept that ticket when she had picked up the others, for her idea was to get back the watch for her nephew and make him happy. And to make him, perhaps, a little fond of her. She had thought it possible last night; had thought that if she brought him his watch, and told him that she was going to take a position, he would see she wouldn’t be simply an extra person to feed, but a friend and a helper; that he would like her, and they would all three live together in that dear little house, in that sweet, dear garden, in the jolliest way. She didn’t expect any of that now, though.

“No,” she said to herself. “I irritate and annoy him. I can see that. I’m afraid he belongs to the ants, and he can’t endure grasshoppers. Oh, I’m sorry! He’s such a dear boy!”

She didn’t cry, for her tears were far more apt to be brought by joy than by pain; but she was certainly unhappy, all by herself there in the daisy field. To tell the truth, Miss Cigale was very tired, and had of late been haunted by specters. Wan failure she knew and didn’t mind, but when loneliness and uselessness came out hand in hand, she trembled.

“I’ll get the watch,” she decided. “I’ll do that, anyhow. But I shan’t come back. He doesn’t want me here, and—he’s a dear boy, but I don’t think I want to come.”

It was characteristic of her that she didn’t tell her sister she would not return. If she had to do anything unpleasant, well, then, she did it, as gallantly as she could; but if unpleasant things could be avoided, right gladly would she sheer off. So she only said that she had to “run into town,” and hugged and kissed her rather unresponsive sister, and off she went, leaving behind her those heavy bags which contained all the clothes and books and ridiculous, sentimental rubbish she had in the world.

“I can send for them,” she thought, “when I decide where I’m going.” And she troubled her head no more about them. What did trouble her was a memory. It was a memory of a girl—a tall, slender, fair-haired girl, a music student in New York, living on an allowance from home. And living all too carelessly on it, so that one day she found herself penniless, and very hungry, and with four days to wait before the allowance could arrive. And this girl—in the persistent memory—had taken a little gold locket and a silver watch to the pawnbroker. She had thought it rather a joke, until she had got there.

“It’s silly to feel like that,” she said to herself this morning. “Very silly. There’s nothing dishonorable or disgraceful in—in being temporarily short of money. The most important business men have to get loans. Heads of trusts and—every one. People go to their banks to get loans, and they’re not ashamed of it. Well, this is exactly the same thing. I simply walk in, repay the loan, take the watch, and go. Exactly like paying a note at the bank.”

Was it, though? Exactly like a bank—this queer, dark little shop, with barred windows—and the man behind the counter was exactly like the cashier her father used to bring home to dinner. She handed the ticket across the counter, with the money; but the man pushed the money back to her.

Then he disappeared, and Miss Cigale stood there, trying desperately hard not to feel like a criminal, an outlaw, a highly suspicious character. If she had been a man she would certainly have whistled; but, as it was, she stared about her with the most casual, offhand air.

Oh, but it was pitiful! To think that there were people so hard pressed that they must bring here a cotton quilt, or a dingy umbrella, or, worst of all, a child’s pair of rubber boots. Hanging on a line from the ceiling were guitars and banjos and mandolins and ukeleles—music sold into bondage.

“Is this your own ticket, madam?” asked a voice, and, turning, she saw a severe little elderly man looking at her through his spectacles. The question dismayed her. He appeared so very much displeased; perhaps it was a wrong sort of ticket, which Geordie shouldn’t have had.

“Yes. Oh, yes!” she answered, with a very poor attempt at sprightliness. “It’s mine.”

“Oh, no!” Miss Cigale replied, quite certain now that there was something wrong. “It’s my own!”

So Miss Cigale sat down on a chair in a black corner, where a fur neckpiece, smelling terribly of moth balls, brushed her shoulder, and waited and waited. A little girl came in, gave up a ticket, and while she, too, waited, stared at Miss Cigale, and diligently chewed gum.

Such a queer little girl, with wispy hair, and a pale, drawn little face, and so very nonchalant an air. At last she was given a small gas stove, and went off with it. A young man came in with a traveling bag to dispose of; a stout woman came and drove a hard bargain over a ring. Nobody else had to wait, only Miss Cigale.

Her hands and feet were very cold, her thin cheeks flushed and hot; she wished now that she had taken a cup of coffee. For she was very far away now from any such consolations as daisy fields. A burly man, with a straw hat at the back of his head, entered the shop; he spied her, and, to her horror, came directly over to her.

“I don’t remember the number,” said Miss Cigale faintly. He went over to the counter and spoke to the elderly man in a voice too low for her to hear. Then he sat down beside her, tipping his chair, and lit a cigar. The smoke blew into her face, and his boot, crossed on his knee, brushed her skirt.

“I can’t stand this,” thought she. “I’ll take the ticket, and come back later. I can’t bear this.” And she got up to go to the counter and ask for the ticket.

Miss Cigale didn’t trouble to answer, but, to her amazement, he sprang up and barred her way.

“Go away!” she cried, in a trembling voice, but with a jerk of the thumb he turned back his coat lapel and revealed a badge.

Miss Cigale sank back into her chair again, in the dark corner. The man was speaking to her, but she did not hear him.

“What has he done?” she thought. “A detective! If I can only make them think it was me. But, oh! How can I bear this?”

Because, for all her failures, Miss Cigale had never before encountered disgrace. She had suffered the crudest disappointments, she had been hungry, cold, shabby, sleepless with anxiety, and all this she had endured gallantly. But to be arrested by a detective in a pawnshop!

Her idea of what was going to be done to her might have been laughable if there could be found on earth any one able to laugh at the stricken, heartsick creature. She thought that she would presently be taken before a judge, and that, if she kept silent, as she intended to do, she would be put into prison for whatever unimaginable offense the real owner of the ticket had committed.

“I can’t be brave about it!” she said to herself. “I can’t; I’m—I’m frightened.”

Why must she sit here so long? Why didn’t they take her away? It would be almost better to be in prison than here, where the door opened and closed, and people came in and out, and every one had a glance, casual or curious, at her corner. The detective was writing in a notebook. What was he waiting for?

“Handcuffs!” thought Miss Cigale. “Or—or a—warrant.” Imagination carried her[Pg 437] very far; she would not have been surprised by the entrance of a file of soldiers, or white-coated doctors with a strait-jacket. The most astounding images of things read or heard of filled her mind; she lost track of time and space; what she suffered was a timeless, universal thing, such as had been suffered these thousands of years by how many dazed and trembling victims. The law—The Law!

“Here she is!” said the detective to some one who had just entered. “Claims it’s her own ticket.”

“Oh—good—Lord!” cried a voice which reached Miss Cigale from very far away.

“Well, come along!” said the detective. “Come over to the station an’ you can make your charge.”

Miss Cigale did not understand; all she knew was that Geordie was here, and in danger.

“Never mind!” the detective retorted, laughing. “You will, soon enough!”

“No! Look here! It’s—it’s a mistake!” said Geordie. “It’s—I’ll drop it.”

That was the end of Miss Cigale’s struggle; at the critical moment she failed again, most shamefully. She fainted. That is what comes of preferring daisies to breakfast; of carrying romantic Victorian sentiments over into modern life. She fainted.

As long as she had failed, she thought she might as well do it thoroughly. She could have come to before she did; she could have opened her eyes before she did, only that there was nothing she cared to see. She could hear, too. She heard her nephew calling “Aunt Louisa!” but his low, furious tones did not make her in a hurry to answer. No; better to lie here, like this, for as long a time as she could.

“Aunt Louisa!” he said again, and this time his voice was quite desperate. She opened her eyes.

“But—” she began, and, raising her head, looked about her. The man behind the counter was writing in a book, the shop was empty. “The—the detective?” she asked.

He didn’t even answer; but, helping her to rise, and holding her very firmly by the arm, led her out into the street. No one molested them.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, curtly. “I’ve arranged the thing, anyhow, so that there’ll be no trouble for you. But if you wanted that watch—why didn’t you tell me? I’d have done anything, rather than have this happen.”

“George!” cried Miss Cigale. “Is it possible? No; it can’t be! You can’t think that I—” She stopped short, looking into his stern face, and with an expression on her own that somehow troubled him.

Out here, in the bright sun, she seemed so different. It was hard to think of her as a muddle-headed, desperate creature, trying, very clumsily, to get possession of a watch that didn’t belong to her. No; there was something about her that was—rather impressive. She didn’t look ridiculous now, or pathetic.

“I see!” she said. “You thought I wanted the thing for myself. Well, that was quite a natural thing to think, George.” She spoke without the slightest trace of rancor, simply admitting that it was natural—to some human beings—to think as he did, and she could not blame him.

“Well!” said he, surprised. “You see, when I couldn’t find the ticket, I telephoned to the pawnbroker, and to the police. I thought it had been stolen, and I said that if any one brought it in, to let me know.”

“Yes,” said Miss Cigale. “It was a perfectly natural way for you to think, my dear boy. And I was frightfully stupid to try to do it that way. I meant to help you a little bit, but—” She smiled. “Anyhow, it’s all over and done with now, and I hope we’ll part good friends.”

“But, look here!” said Geordie. “You did that for me—and I behaved—I behaved—like a—” His voice broke. “I didn’t know,” he went on, unsteadily. “Because, you see—I didn’t think any one could—any one in the world.[Pg 438]”

“Oh, there are lots of people like me!” Miss Cigale assured him. “Lots of grasshoppers. They dance the summer away, and then, when the winter comes, they’re a horrible nuisance to the ants, but they’re inclined to be pretty sympathetic toward any one else who has grasshopperish troubles. Not that I think you’re the least bit of a grasshopper, my dear boy! I’m quite sure you’re far too intelligent and sensible for that!”

“No!” said Geordie, vehemently. “I am a grasshopper! Nobody knows what a grasshopper—and a fool—I am!”

“I’ve been doing my best, for nearly a year, to make it permanent,” he said, grimly. “You see, there’s a girl.”

“I don’t care! As soon as I saw you, I hoped there was a girl,” Miss Cigale went on. “Because you’re such a dear, obstinate, helpless, splendid boy, and I hoped there was some one to see all that. She does, doesn’t she?”

“She sees the obstinacy, anyhow,” he answered. “You see, she’s a secretary, and—” His jaw set doggedly. “She won’t give up her job!” he said. “And I won’t get married unless she does.”

“Well, all of them together make a pretty big can’t,” said he. “We can’t get married, that’s all. I’ve tried to make her see that we could manage, but she says we can’t. Those—those tickets, you know. I bought her a ring, and a—” He had to stop for a moment. “A little inlaid writing desk for our home. Only—it’s nearly a year, and she won’t see that we can manage without her salary, and I won’t—”

“I won’t!” said he. “I won’t!” And a more mulish expression was never seen on a young man before.

And not one of them realized the outrageous folly of that dinner! There they sat, Miss Cigale, and Geordie, and Nell, who was the girl in the case, in that expensive restaurant, eating all sorts of expensive dishes, and all fancying themselves so businesslike! There was some excuse for Miss Cigale, but Geordie, who was considered a practical and level-headed young man by his business superiors, and Nell, whose employer could not say enough in praise of her good sense and ability—they should have known better.

“He offered the position to me,” Miss Cigale was saying. “He almost begged me to take it. To be his personal assistant in his booking agency for musicians and concert singers, and so on. He said—” An odd change came over her face; she looked for an instant remarkably handsome and dignified.

“He said,” she went on, calmly, “that no one else could handle his clients as I could—no one else would have just the right manner, and the sympathy and understanding of their problems. He always was very flattering, years ago, when I gave my unlucky concert. It’s really a very good position. But I wouldn’t take it then, because I was so sick and tired of jobs that didn’t do the least bit of good to any one except myself. I’m so tired of working just for myself. But now, if we arrange this thing in a really businesslike way, you could take that sweet, tiny house at the end of your mother’s street, Geordie. Nell could stay at home, to look after things, and I’d contribute toward the expenses, of course. It would be very much to my advantage—because then I’d have a home, you see.”

“You couldn’t be!” cried Nell. “There never was any one so kind and dear!”

He glanced at her, and then stared. For there was a light of the most charming malice in Miss Cigale’s eyes, and such a significant hint of a smile on her lips. She was laughing at him! She was getting the better of him!

She was giving him a chance to get married in his own, obstinate way, with Nell safely at home, and, in return, she demanded absolute surrender from him. He could have his way—but only if Miss Cigale had her way, and defiantly went out to work every day from under his roof. Could he allow this? He looked at his Nell.

Blotted Out

IN THIS STORY A TIGRESS MASQUERADES AS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN—IN OTHER WORDS, AMY ROSS WAS PREDATORY AND CRUEL

JAMES ROSS was well content, that morning. He stood on the deck, one elbow on the rail, enjoying the wind and the cold rain that blew in his face, enjoying still more his feeling of complete isolation and freedom.

None of the other passengers shared his liking for this bleak November weather, and he had the windward side of the deck to himself. He was alone there; he was alone in the world—and he meant to remain alone.

Through the window of the saloon he could, if he liked, see the severe, eagle-nosed profile of Mrs. Barron, who was sitting in there, more majestic than ever in her shore-going outfit. She was a formidable lady, stern, resolute, and experienced; she had marked him down as soon as he had come on board at San Juan.

Yet he had escaped from her; he had got the better of her, and so skillfully that even to this moment she was not sure whether he had deliberately avoided her, or whether it was chance. Yes, even now, if the weather had permitted, she would have come out after him with her card.

But, if the weather had permitted that, Ross would not have been where he was. The day before, she had captured him for an instant in the dining saloon, and she had said that before they landed she would give him her card.

He had thanked her very civilly, but he had made up his mind that she should do nothing of the sort. Because, if she did, she would expect a card from him in return; she would want to know where he was going, and he meant that she should never know, and never be able to find him. Even she was not likely to go so far as to rush across the rain-swept deck with that card of hers.

He could also see, if he liked, the little blond head of Phyllis Barron, who was sitting beside her mother, her hat in her lap. He knew very well that Phyllis had taken no part at all in pursuing him, yet, in a[Pg 440] way, she was far more dangerous than Mrs. Barron.

Before he had realized the danger, he had spent a good deal of time with Phyllis—too much time. It was only a five days’ run up from Porto Rico; he had never seen her before he came on board, and he intended never to see her again; yet he felt that it might take him considerably more than five days to forget her.

This made him uncomfortable. Every glimpse of that quiet, thoughtful little face, so very pretty, so touching in its brave young dignity and candor, gave him a sort of qualm, as if she had spoken a friendly word to him, and he had not answered. Indeed, so much did the sight of Phyllis Barron disquiet him that he turned away altogether.

And now, through the downpour, he saw the regal form of the Statue of Liberty. It pleased him, and somehow consoled him for those qualms. It was a symbol of what his life was going to be, a life of completest liberty. He had left nobody behind him, there was nobody waiting for him anywhere in the world; he cared for nobody—no, not he; and nobody cared for him. That was just what he liked.

He was young, he was in vigorous health, he had sufficient money, and no one on earth had any sort of claim upon him. He could go where he pleased, and do what he pleased. He was free. And here he was, coming back to what was, after all, his native city, and not one soul there knew his face.

He smiled to himself at the thought, his dour, tight-lipped smile. Coming home, eh? And nobody to greet him but the Statue of Liberty. He was glad it was so. He didn’t want to be greeted; he wanted to be let alone. And, in that case, he had better go now, before they came alongside the pier, and Mrs. Barron appeared.

He went below to his cabin, intending to stop there until all other passengers had disembarked. The steward had taken up his bags, and the little room had a forlorn and untidy look; not an agreeable place in which to sit. But it was safe.

Ross hung up his wet overcoat and cap, and sat down with a magazine, to read. But he could not read a word. The engines had stopped; they had arrived; he was in New York. In New York. Try as he would to stifle his emotions, a great impatience and restlessness filled him.

There were, in this city, thousands of men to whom Manila and Mayaguez would seem names of almost incredible romance; men to whom New York meant little but an apartment, the subway, the office, and the anxious and monotonous routine of earning a living. But to Ross, New York had all the allurement of the exotic, and those other ports had meant only exile and discontent. He thought uncharitable thoughts about Mrs. Barron, because she kept him imprisoned here when he so longed to set foot on shore.

Ross grinned to himself at what he considered a new instance of Mrs. Barron’s enterprise. For a moment he thought he would refuse to take the note, so that he might truthfully say he had never got it; then he reflected that Mrs. Barron was never going to have a chance to question him about it, and he unlocked the door.

He took the note, tipped the steward, and locked the door after him. Extraordinary, the way this lady had pursued him, all the way across! He was not handsome, not entertaining, not even very amiable; she knew nothing about him.

Indeed, as far as her knowledge went, he might be any sort of dangerous and undesirable character. Yet she had persistently—and obviously—done her best to capture him for her daughter.

He glanced at himself in the mirror. A lean and hardy young man, very dark, with the features characteristic of his family, a thin, keen nose, rather long upper lip, a saturnine and faintly mocking expression. They were a disagreeable family, bitterly obstinate, ambitious, energetic, and grimly unsociable.

And he was like that, too; like his father and his grandfather and his uncles. Without being in the least humble, he still could not understand what Mrs. Barron had seen in him to make her consider him a suitable son-in-law.

With Phyllis Barron it was different. He had sometimes imagined that her innocent and candid eyes had discerned in him qualities he had long ago tried to destroy. It was possible that she had found him a little likable.[Pg 441]

But she wouldn’t pursue him. He was certain that she had not written this note, or wanted her mother to write it. When he had realized his danger, and had begun to spend his time talking to the doctor, instead of sitting beside her on deck, she had never tried to recall him. Whenever he did come, she always had that serious, friendly little smile for him; but she had tried to make it very plain that, where she was concerned, he was quite free to come or to go, to remember or to forget.

Well, he meant to forget. His life was just beginning, and he did not intend to entangle himself in any way. He sighed, not knowing that he did so, and then, out of sheer idle curiosity, just to see how Mrs. Barron worked, he opened the note.

But, as far as he knew, he hadn’t a cousin in the world. With a puzzled frown, he picked up the envelope; it was plainly addressed, in a clear, small hand, to “Mr. James Ross. On board the S. S. Farragut.”

“Must be a mistake, though,” he muttered. “I’ll just see.” And he went on reading:

You have never seen me, and I know you have heard all sorts of cruel and false things about me. But I beg you to forget all that now. I am in such terrible trouble, and I don’t know where to turn. I beg you to come here as soon as you get this. Ask for Mrs. Jones, the housekeeper. Say you have come from Cren’s Agency, about the job as chauffeur. She will tell you everything. You can’t refuse just to come and let me tell you about this terrible thing.

Your desperately unhappy cousin,
Amy Ross Solway.

“Day’s End,” Wygatt Road, near Stamford.

But, all the same, it filled him with a curious uneasiness. Of course, it was meant for some one else—and he wanted that other fellow to get it at once; he wanted to be rid of it in a hurry.

He had nothing to do with any one’s Cousin Amy and her “terrible trouble.” He rang the bell for the steward, waited, rang again, more vigorously, again waited, but no one came.

Then, putting the note back in its envelope, he flung open the door and strode out into the passage, shouting “Steward!” in a pretty forcible voice. No one answered him. He went down the corridor, turned a corner, and almost ran into Mrs. Barron.

“Mr. Ross!” said she, in a tone of stern triumph. “So here you are! Phyllis, dear, give Mr. Ross one of our cards—with the address.”

Then he caught sight of Phyllis, standing behind her mother. In her little close fitting hat, her coat with a fur collar, she looked taller, older, graver, quite different from that bright-haired, slender little thing in a deck chair. And, somehow, she was so dear to him, so lovely, so gentle, so utterly trustworthy.

“I’m sorry,” Phyllis declared again. “We’ll really have to hurry, mother. Good-by, Mr. Ross!”

Her steady blue eyes met his for an instant, but, for all the regret and pain he felt, his stubborn spirit refused to show one trace. Evidently she knew he had tried to run away, and she didn’t want to see him again. Very well!

She turned away, and he, too, would have walked off, but the dauntless Mrs. Barron was not to be thwarted.

“Then I’ll tell you the address!” said she. “Hotel Bernderly—West Seventy-Seventh Street. Don’t forget!”

He went back along the corridor, forgetting all about the note, even forgetting where he was going, until the sight of a white jacket in the distance recalled him.

“Beg your pardon, sir, but a boy brought it aboard and told me to give it to you.”

“But it’s addressed to you, sir. Mr. James Ross. There’s no other Mr. Ross on board. The boy said it was urgent.”

“I shouldn’t like to do that, sir,” said the steward, firmly. “I said I’d deliver it[Pg 442] to Mr. Ross. If you’re not—satisfied, sir, the purser might—”

“Oh, all right!” Ross interrupted, with a frown. “I haven’t time to bother now. I’ll keep it. But it’s a mistake. And somebody is going to regret it.”

A casual acquaintance in San Juan had recommended the Hotel Miston to Ross. “Nice, quiet little place,” he had said; “and you can get a really good cup of coffee there.”

So, when the United States customs officers had done with Ross, he secured a taxi, and told the chauffeur to drive him to this Hotel Miston. Not that he was in the least anxious for quiet, or had any desire for a cup of coffee; simply, he was in a hurry to get somewhere, anywhere, so that he could begin to live.

In spite of the rain, he lowered the window of the cab, and sat looking out at the astounding speed and vigor of the life about him. This was what he had longed for, this was what he had wanted; for years and years he had said to himself that when he was free, he would come here and make a fortune.

Well, he was free, and he was in New York, and he had already the foundation of a nice little fortune. For eight years he had worked in the office of a commission agent in Manila, and every day of those eight years he had told himself that he wouldn’t stand it any longer. But he had stood it.

His grandfather had been a cynical old tyrant; he had thwarted the boy in every ambition that he had. When James said he wanted to be a civil engineer, as his father had been, old Ross told him he hadn’t brains enough for that. James had not agreed with him, but as he had no money to send himself home to college, he had been obliged to put up with what old Ross called “a sound practical education.”

At eighteen his education was declared finished, and he went to work. He hated his work, he hated everything about his life, and from his meager salary he had saved every cent he could, so that he would get away.

Long ago he had saved enough to pay his passage to New York—but he had not gone. His grandfather was old and ill, and, because of his bitter tongue, quite without friends; he certainly gave no sign that he enjoyed his grandson’s company, and James showed no affection for him; their domestic life was anything but agreeable.

Sick at heart, James saw his youth slipping by, wasted, his abilities all unused; he told himself that he had done his duty, and more than his duty to his grandfather. Yet he could not leave him.

Then, six months ago, the old man had died, leaving everything he had to “my grandson, James Ross, in appreciation of his loyalty,” the only sign of appreciation he had ever made. It was a surprisingly large estate; there was some property in Porto Rico, where James had spent his childhood with his parents, but the greater part consisted of very sound bonds and mortgages in the hands of a New York lawyer, Mr. Teagle.

Mr. Teagle had written to James, and James had written to Mr. Teagle several times in the last few months, but James had not told him when he expected to arrive in New York. He had gone to Porto Rico in a little cargo steamer, by the way of Panama; he had wound up his business there, and now he wanted to walk in on Mr. Teagle in the most casual fashion. He hated any sort of fuss; he didn’t want to be met at the steamer, he didn’t want to be advised and assisted. He wanted to be let alone.

The taxi stopped before the Hotel Miston, a dingy little place not far from Washington Square. Ross got out, paid the driver, and followed the porter into the lobby. He engaged a room and bath, and turned toward the elevator.

Ross hesitated for a moment; then he wrote “J. Ross, New York.” After all, this was his home; he had been born here, and he intended to live here.

He went upstairs to his room, and, locking the door, sat down near the window. The floor still seemed to heave under his feet, like the deck of a ship. He visualized the deck of the Farragut, and Phyllis in a deck chair, looking at him with her dear, friendly little smile.

He frowned at the unwelcome thought. That was finished; that belonged in the past. There was a new life before him, and the sooner he began it, the better.

He reached in his pocket for Mr. Teagle’s last letter—and brought out that note to “Cousin James.” At the sight of it, he frowned more heavily; he tossed it across the room in the direction of the desk, but it[Pg 443] fluttered down to the floor. Let it lie there. He found Mr. Teagle’s letter, and took up the telephone receiver. Presently:

He sat for a time looking out of the window at the street, far below him. The rain fell steadily; it was a dismal day. He could not begin his new life to-day, after all. Very well; what should he do, then? Anything he wanted, of course. Nobody could have been freer.

He lit a cigarette, and leaned back in the chair. Freedom—that was what he had wanted, and that was what he had got. And yet—

He turned his head, to look for an ash tray, and his glance fell upon that confounded note on the floor. In the back of his mind he had known, all the time, that he would have to do something about it. He disliked it, and disapproved of it; a silly, hysterical sort of note, he thought, but, nevertheless, it was an appeal for help, and it was from a woman. Somebody ought to answer it.

He began idly to speculate about the “terribly unhappy” Amy Ross Solway. Perhaps she was young—not much more than a girl—like Phyllis.

“Not much!” he said to himself. “She wouldn’t write a note like that. She’s not that sort. No matter what sort of trouble menaced—”

It occurred to him that if Phyllis Barron were in any sort of trouble, she would never turn to James Ross for help. He had shown her too plainly that he was not disposed to trouble himself about other people and their affairs.

His family never did. They minded their own business, they let other people alone, and other people soon learned to let them alone. Very satisfactory! Lucky for this Amy Ross Solway that she didn’t know what sort of fellow had got that note of hers.

Still, something had to be done about it. At first he thought he would mail it back to her, with a note of his own, explaining that he was not her Cousin James, but another James Ross, who had got it by mistake. But, no; that plan meant too much delay, when she was no doubt waiting impatiently for a gallant cousin.

Then he thought he would try to get her on the telephone, but that idea did not suit him, either. It was always awkward, trying to explain anything on the telephone—and, besides, she seemed anxious for secrecy. He might explain to the wrong person, and do a great deal of harm.

He began to think very seriously about that note now. And, for some unaccountable reason, his thoughts of the unknown woman were confused with thoughts of Phyllis Barron. It seemed to him that if Phyllis could know how much attention he was giving to this problem which was not his business, she would realize that he was not entirely callous. If she thought he was, she misjudged him.

Perhaps he was not what you might call impulsively sympathetic, but he was not lacking in all decent feeling. He was not going to ignore this appeal.

“I’ll go out there!” he decided. “I’ll see this Amy Ross Solway, and explain. And, if her trouble’s anything real, I’ll—” He hesitated. “Well, I’ll give her the best advice I can,” he thought.

No, James Ross was not what you might call impulsively sympathetic. But, considering how vehemently he hated to be mixed up in other people’s affairs, it was creditable of him even to think of giving advice, creditable of him to go at all.

He arose, put on his overcoat, caught up his hat, and went downstairs. Nobody took any notice of him. He walked out of the Hotel Miston—and he never came back.

III

It did not please the young man to ask questions in this, his native city. He had spent time enough in studying a map of New York, and he knew his way about pretty well. But there were, naturally, things he did not know; for instance, he went to the Pennsylvania Station, and learned that his train for Stamford left from the Grand Central.

It was after one o’clock, then, so he went into a restaurant and had lunch before going farther—his first meal in the United States. He had never enjoyed anything more. To walk through these streets, among the hurrying and indifferent crowds, to be one of them, to feel himself at home[Pg 444] here, filled him with something like elation. It was his city.

A little after three, he boarded the train. And, in spite of his caution and his native reticence, he would, at that moment, have relished a talk with one of his fellow countrymen in the smoking car. He was not disposed to start a conversation without encouragement, though, and nobody took any notice of him; nobody had, since his landing. A clever criminal, escaping from justice, could not have been much more successful in leaving no traces.

When he got out at Stamford, the rain had ceased, but the sky was menacing and overcast. He stood for a moment on the platform, again reluctant to ask questions, but there was no help for it this time.

He stopped a grocer’s boy, and asked him where Wygatt Road was. The boy told him. “But it’s a long way,” he added.

Ross didn’t care how long it was. This was the first suburban town he had seen, and it charmed him. Such a prosperous, orderly, lively town! He thought that he might like to live here.

Dusk was closing in early this dismal day; it was almost dark before he reached the hill he had to climb. The street lights came on, and through the windows of houses he could see shaded lamps and the shadows of people, comfortable rooms, bright little glimpses of domestic life. Past him, along the road, went an endless stream of motor cars, with a rush and a glare of light; he scarcely realized that he was in the country until he came to the top of the hill, and saw before him a signpost marked “Wygatt Road.”

He turned down here, and was at once in another world. It was dark, and very, very quiet; no motors passed him, no lights shone out; he walked on, quite alone, under tall old trees, to which clung a few leaves, trembling in every gust of wind. Overhead, ragged black clouds flew across the darkening sky; the night was coming fast.

And now he began to think about his extraordinary errand, now he began to think that he had been a fool to come. But it did not occur to him to turn back. He never did that. He was sorry he had begun a foolish thing, but, now that he had begun, he would carry on. If it took him all night, if it took him a week, he would find “Day’s End,” and do what he had set out to do.

There was no one to ask questions of here; no human being, no house in sight. On one side of him was a belt of woodland, on the other an iron fence which appeared to run on interminably. Well, he also would go on interminably, and if “Day’s End” was on Wygatt Road, he would certainly come to it in the course of time.

He did. There was a break in the fence at last, made by a gateway between stone pillars, and here he saw, by the light of a match, “Day’s End,” in gilt letters. He opened the gate and went in; a long driveway stretched before him, tree lined; he went up it briskly.

He saw nothing, and heard nothing, but he had a vague impression that the grounds through which he passed were somber and forbidding, and he expected to see a house in keeping with this notion, an old, sinister house, suitable for people in “terrible trouble.”

It was not like that, though. A turn in the driveway brought him in sight of a long façade of lighted windows, and a large, substantial, matter-of-fact house—which made him feel more of a fool than ever. Yet, still he went on, mounted the steps of a brick terrace, and rang the doorbell.

“You ought to go to the back door!” she remarked sharply. “You ought to know that much!”

Ross did not like this, but it was not his habit to let his temper override discretion.

“All right!” he said, and was turning away, ready to go to the back door, ready to go anywhere, so that he accomplished his mission, when the housemaid relented.

He followed her across a wide hall, with a polished floor and a fine old stairway rising from it, to a door at the farther end.

“It’s the room right in front of you when you get to the top,” she explained.

She opened the door; he went in, she closed the door behind him, and he found himself in what seemed a pitch-black cupboard. But, as he moved forward, his foot struck against a step, and he began cautiously to mount a narrow, boxed-in staircase, until his outstretched hand touched a door.

He pushed it open, and found himself in a well lighted corridor, and, facing him, a white painted door. And behind that door[Pg 445] he heard some one sobbing, in a low, wailing voice.

He stopped, rather at a loss. Then, because he would not go back, he went forward, and knocked.

There was a moment’s silence; then the door was opened by the loveliest creature he had ever seen in his life. He had only a glimpse of her, of an exquisite face, very white, with dark and delicate brows and great black eyes, a face childlike in its soft, pure contours, but terribly unchildlike in its expression of terror and despair.

She brushed past him, with a flutter of her filmy gray dress and a breath of some faint fragrance, and vanished down the back stairs.

Ross went in as he was instructed, and stood facing the door, waiting with a certain uneasiness for some one to come. But nobody did come, and at last he turned and looked about him.

It was a cozy room, with a cheerful red carpet on the floor, and plenty of solid, old-fashioned walnut furniture about; it was well warmed by a steam radiator, and well lighted by an alabaster electrolier in the ceiling; a clock ticked smartly on the mantelpiece, and on the sofa lay a big yellow cat, pretending to be asleep, with one gleaming eye half open.

It was such a thoroughly commonplace and comfortable room that the young man felt reassured. He decided to ignore the wailing voice he had heard, and the pallid, lovely creature who had opened the door. For all he knew, such things might be quite usual in this household, and, anyhow, it was none of his business. He had come to see Mrs. Jones, and to explain an error.

He watched the smart little clock for five minutes, and then began to grow restless. He had walked a good deal this day; he was tired; his shoes were wet; he wanted to be done with this business and to get away. Another five minutes—

It seemed to him that this was the quietest room he had ever known. Even the tick of the clock was muffled, like a tiny pulse. It was altogether too quiet. He didn’t like it at all.

He frowned uneasily, and turned toward the only other living thing there, the cat. He laid his hand on its head, and in a sort of drowsy ecstasy the cat stretched out to a surprising length, opening and curling up its paws. Its claws caught in the linen cover and pulled it up a little, and Ross saw something under the sofa.

He doubted the very evidence of his senses. He could not believe that he saw a hand stretched out on the red carpet. He stared and stared at it, incredulous.

Then he stooped and lifted up the cover and looked under the sofa. There lay a man, face downward.

He was very still. It seemed to Ross that it was this man’s stillness which he had felt in the room; it was the quiet of death.

Ross stood looking down at the very quiet figure in a sort of daze. He did not find this horrible, or shocking; it was simply impossible. Here, in this tranquil, cozy room—No, it was impossible!

Going down on one knee, he reached out and touched the nape of the man’s neck. But he did it mechanically; he had known, from the first glance, that the man was dead. No living thing could lie so still. Quite cold—

The sound of a slow footstep in the corridor startled him. He sprang to his feet, pulled down the linen cover, and was standing idly in the center of the room when a woman entered, a stout, elderly woman with calm brown eyes behind spectacles.

He spoke in a tone as matter-of-fact as her own, for to save his life he could think of no rational manner in which to tell her what he had seen. Such a preposterous thing to tell a sensible, elderly woman! The very thought of it dismayed him. Of all things in the world, he hated the theatrical. He could not be, and he would not be, dramatic. He wished to be casual.

But, in this case, it would not be easy. The thing he had found was, in its very nature, dramatic, and was even now defying him to be casual and sensible. He would have to tell her, point-blank, and she probably would shriek or faint, or both.

Her voice trailed away, and she stood regarding him in thoughtful silence. Ross was quite willing to be silent a little longer,[Pg 446] while he tried to find a reassuring form for his statement; he looked back at her, his lean face quite impassive, his mind working furiously.

“Yes?” said Mrs. Jones. “Miss Solway did think, for a time, that she might need some one to—advise her. But everything’s quite all right now.” She paused a moment. “She’ll be sorry to hear you’ve made the journey for nothing. She’ll appreciate your kindness, I’m sure. But everything’s quite all right now.”

He found difficulty in suppressing a grim smile. Everything was all right now, was it, and he could run away home? He did not agree with Mrs. Jones.

Without so much as turning her head, she went on a few steps, took the knitted scarf from her shoulders, and threw it over the end of the sofa. And he saw then that just the tip of the man’s fingers had been visible, and that the trailing end of the scarf covered them now. She knew!

“Well?” she asked, looking inquiringly at him through her spectacles. No; it was impossible; the whole thing was utterly impossible!

This sedate, respectable, gray-haired woman, this housekeeper who looked as if she would not overlook the smallest trace of dust in a corner, certainly, surely would not leave a dead man under her sofa.

She was stroking the cat, and the animal had assumed an expression of idiotic delight, pink tongue protruding a little, eyes half open. Would even a cat be so monstrously indifferent if—if what he thought he had seen under the sofa were really there?

“Would you like me to telephone for a taxi to take you to the station?” asked Mrs. Jones, very civilly.

And that aroused all his stiff-necked obstinacy. He would not go away now, after all his trouble, without any sort of explanation of the situation.

“There’s a good train—” Mrs. Jones began, with calm persistence, but Ross interrupted.

His own words surprised him a little. After all, why on earth should he want to see this Miss Solway? A few hours ago he had been greatly annoyed at the thought of having to do so; he would have been only too glad never to see or to hear of her again.

For the first time since she had entered the room, Mrs. Jones’s calm was disturbed. She came nearer to him, and looked into his face with obvious anxiety, speaking very low, and far more respectfully.

“It would be much better not to!” she said. “Much better, sir, if you’ll just go away—”

“I want to see Miss Solway,” Ross repeated. “There’s been a mistake, and I want to explain.”

“I know that, sir!” she whispered. “Of course, as soon as I saw you, I knew you weren’t Mr. Ross. But—”

“There was a little difficulty, sir,” said Mrs. Jones, still in a whisper. “But it’s all over now.”

All over now? A new thought came to Ross. Had the man under the sofa been Miss Solway’s “terrible trouble,” and had Cousin James been sent for to help—in doing what had already been done?

He had, at this moment, a most clear and definite warning from his brain. “Clear out!” it said. “Get out of this, now. Don’t wait; don’t ask questions; just go!” All through his body this warning signal ran, making his scalp prickle and his heart beat fast. “It is bad for you here. Go! Now!”

Mrs. Jones looked at him for a moment, and apparently the expression on his face filled her with despair.

“Oh, dear!” she said, with a tremulous sigh. “I knew; I told her it was a mistake to send. Oh, dear!”

“Very well, sir!” she said, with another sigh. “If you must, you must. This way, please![Pg 447]”

He followed her out of the room, and he noticed that she did not even glance back. She couldn’t know. It was impossible that any one who was aware of what lay under the sofa could simply walk out of the room like that, closing the door upon it.

They went down the corridor, which was evidently a wing of the house, and turned the corner into a wider hall. Mrs. Jones knocked upon a door.

“All right!” answered a voice he recognized; the door opened wider, and there was the girl he had seen before. Her body, in that soft gray dress, seemed almost incredibly fragile; her face, colorless, framed in misty black hair, with great, restless black eyes and delicate little features, was strange and lovely as a dream.

Too strange, thought Ross. For the first time he realized the significance of her presence in the housekeeper’s room. He remembered the wailing voice, her air of haste and terror as she had brushed past him. She had been in there, alone. What did she know? What had she seen?

“Hush!” said Mrs. Jones. “If you please, sir! It’s a mistake, Miss Amy, my pet. This isn’t Mr. Ross. It’s quite a stranger.”

Obviously she was warning her pet to be careful what she said, and Ross decided that he, too, would be careful. He would have his own little mystery.

“If I hold my tongue and wait,” he thought, “they’ll surely have to tell me something.”

“But I don’t—” the girl began, when, to Ross’s amazement, Mrs. Jones gave him a vigorous push forward.

Then he heard footsteps in the hall. He stood well inside the room, now; a large room, furnished with quiet elegance. It was what people called a boudoir, he thought, as his quick eye took in the details; a dressing table with rose shaded electric lights and gleaming silver and glass; a little desk with rose and ivory fittings; a silver vase of white chrysanthemums on the table.

“I’m afraid we can’t take you,” said Mrs. Jones, in an altogether new sort of voice, brisk, and a little loud. “I’m sorry.”

Ross was very well aware that some one else had come to the door and was standing behind him. He was also aware of a sort of triumph in Mrs. Jones’s manner. She thought she was going to get rid of him. But she wasn’t.

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” demanded an impatient voice behind him. He turned, and saw a stout, middle-aged man of domineering aspect standing there and frowning heavily.

“The young man’s come to apply for the chauffeur’s position, sir,” Mrs. Jones explained. “But I’m afraid—”

“Well, what’s the matter with him?” cried the domineering man. “Can he drive a car? Has he got references, eh?”

“Agency sent you, eh? Well, they know their business, don’t they? Can you take a car to pieces and put it together again? Have you brains enough to keep your gasoline tank filled, and to remember that when you’re going round a corner some other fellow may be doing the same thing?”

“He’ll do,” said the man. “I like him. Looks you straight in the face. Level headed. Well set up. Good nerves. Doesn’t drink. We’ll give him a chance. Eddy!”

“Moss, eh? Very well! Ah, here’s Eddy! Eddy, take this young man over to the garage. See that he’s properly looked after. He’s our new chauffeur.”

The door closed behind them, and Ross round himself in the hall, alone with this Eddy. They stared at each other for a moment; then, in spite of himself, a grudging smile dawned upon Ross’s lean and dour face. Eddy grinned from ear to ear.

A sheik, Eddy was; very slender, with black hair well oiled and combed back from his brow, and wearing clothes of the latest and jauntiest mode. But he lacked the lilylike languor of the true sheik; his rather handsome face was alert and cheerful; and although he moved with the somewhat supercilious grace of one who had been frequently called a just wonderful dancer, there was a certain wiry vigor about him.

Ross followed him down the hall and around the corner, into the corridor where Mrs. Jones’s room was. Ross saw that the door was a little ajar, and he dropped behind, because he wanted to look into that room, but Eddy, in passing, pulled it shut.

Did he know, too? Certainly he did not look like the sort of youth who went about closing doors unbidden, simply from a sense of order and decorum. And that grin—did it signify a shrewd understanding of a discreditable situation?

It was at this instant that Ross began to realize what he had done. Only dimly, though; for he thought that in a few moments he would be gone, and the whole affair finished, as far as he was concerned. He felt only a vague disquiet, and a great impatience to get away. He went after Eddy down the back stairs and through a dark passage on the floor below, at the end of which he saw a brightly lit kitchen where a stout cook bent over the stove, and that same disagreeable housemaid was mixing something in a bowl at the table.

“Step right along, shover!” said Eddy. “Here! This way!” And he took Ross by the arm.

It was black as the pit out there; the wind came whistling through the pines, driving before it great sheets of rain that was half sleet. It was a world of black, bitter cold and confusion, and Ross thought of nothing at all except getting under shelter again.

It was only a few yards; then Eddy stopped, let go of Ross’s arm, and slid back a door. This door opened upon blackness, too, but Ross was glad enough to get inside. Eddy closed the door, turned on a switch, and he saw that they were in a garage.

It was a very ordinary garage, neat and bare, with a cement floor, and two cars standing, side by side; yet, to Ross it had a sinister aspect. He was very weary, wet and chilled to the bone, and this place looked to him like a prison, a stone dungeon. Storm or no storm, he wanted to get out, away from this place and these people.

“Look here—” he began, but Eddy’s cheerful voice called out: “This way!” and he saw him standing at the foot of a narrow staircase in one corner.

The one thing which made Ross go up those stairs was his violent distaste for the dramatic. He felt that it would be absurd to dash out into the rain. Instinct warned him, but once again he defied that warning, and up he went.

He was surprised and pleased by what he found up there: the jolliest, coziest little room, green rug on the floor, big armchairs of imitation red leather, reading lamp. It was not a room of much æsthetic charm, perhaps, but comfortable, cheerful and homelike, and warm.

The rain was drumming loud on the roof and dashing against the windows, and Ross sighed as he looked at the big chairs. But he was beginning to think now.

“No,” Ross objected. “I can’t stay to-night. Didn’t bring my things along.”

“It’s raining too hard,” Eddy declared. “It wouldn’t be healthy for you to go out just now, shover.[Pg 449]”

Ross moved forward, and Eddy moved, too, so that he blocked the doorway. He was grinning, but there was an odd light in his eyes.

“Now, lookit here!” he said. “You just make yourself comfortable for the night, see?”

Ross looked at him thoughtfully. He believed that it would not be difficult to throw this slender youth down the stairs, and to walk out of the garage, but he disliked the idea.

“I don’t want to make any trouble, Eddy,” he explained, almost mildly. “But I’m going.”

Ross took a step forward. Eddy reached in his hip pocket and pulled out a revolver.

“Tell you what I mean,” said Eddy. “I mean to say that I know who you are, and what you come for, and you’re going to sit pretty till to-morrow morning. That’s what I mean.”

He spoke quite without malice; indeed, his tone was good-humored. But he was in earnest, he and his gun; there was no doubt about it.

It was not Ross’s disposition to enter into futile arguments. He took off his overcoat, sat down, calmly took out a cigarette and lit it.

“I see!” he remarked. “But I’d like to know who I am, and what I came for. I’d like to hear your point of view.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t,” said Eddy. “Anyway, that can wait. Got to see about feeding you now.”

He locked the door behind him and dropped the key into his pocket. Then he opened another door leading out of the sitting room, disclosing a small kitchen.

“Last shover we had, he was a married man,” he explained. “Him and his wife fixed the place up like it is. I been living here myself, lately. Let’s see—I got pork and beans, cawfee, cake—good cake—cook over at the house made it. How does that strike you?”

Eddy was moving about in the kitchen, whistling between his teeth; from time to time he addressed a cheerful remark to his captive, but got no answer. Presently he brought in a meal, of a sort, and set it out on a table.

“Look here!” he said, abruptly. “Who was that man—the one who—hired me?”

“Him? The Prince of Wales!” Eddy replied. “Thought you’d recognized him.”

This was Ross’s last attempt at questioning. Indeed, he was quite willing to be silent now, for his deplorably postponed thinking was now well under way. His brain was busy with the events of this day—this immeasurably long day. Was it only this morning that he had got the note? Only this morning that he had said good-by to Phyllis Barron?

And then, with a sort of shock, it occurred to him that nobody—absolutely nobody on earth knew where he had gone, or cared. These people here did not know even his name. He had come here, had walked into this situation, and if he never came out again, who would be troubled?

Mr. Teagle had not expected him at any definite time, and would wait for weeks and weeks before feeling the least anxiety about his unknown client. The people at the Hotel Miston would scarcely notice for some time the absence of Mr. Ross of New York, especially as his luggage remained there to compensate them for any loss. Nobody would be injured, or unhappy, or one jot the worse, if he never saw daylight again.

This was one aspect of a completely free life which he had not considered. He was of no interest or importance to any one. He began to consider it now.

Eddy had cleared away their meal, and had been turning over the pages of a magazine. Now he began to yawn, and presently, getting up, opened another door, to display a tidy little bedroom.

He set a chair against the locked door, pulled up another chair to put his feet on, and made himself as comfortable as he[Pg 450] could. But Ross made no such effort. His family had never cared about being comfortable. No; there he sat, too intent upon his thoughts to sleep.

The realization of his own utter loneliness in this world had set him to thinking about the man under the sofa. There might be some one waiting, in tears, in terrible anxiety for that man. Probably there was. There were very, very few human beings who had nobody to care.

He had made up his mind to go to the police with his story the next morning. And he saw very clearly the disagreeable position into which his perverse obstinacy had brought him. He had discovered a man who was certainly dead, and possibly murdered, and he had said not a word about it to any one.

He had refused to go away when he had a chance, and now, here he was, held prisoner while, if there had been foul play, the persons responsible would have ample time to make what arrangements they pleased. He could very well imagine how his tale would sound to the police.

It seemed to Ross that the great noise of the wind outside was mingled now with the throb of engines and the rushing of water. He thought he felt the lift and roll of the ship beneath him; he thought he was lying in his berth again, on his way across the dark waste of waters, toward New York. He wondered what New York would be like.

Phyllis Barron was knocking at his door, telling him to hurry, hurry and come on deck. This did not surprise him; he was only immensely relieved and glad.

“I knew you’d come!” he wanted to say, but he could not speak. He tried to get up and dress and go out to her, but he could not move. He made a desperate struggle to call to her.

“Wait! Wait!” he tried to say. “I’m asleep. But I’ll wake in a minute. Please don’t go away!”

Then, with a supreme effort, he did wake. He opened his eyes. There was Eddy, stretched out on his two chairs, sound asleep. And there was a muffled knocking at the door, and a little wailing voice:

For a moment Ross thought it was an echo from his dream, but, as the drowsiness cleared from his head, he knew it was real. He got up and touched the sleeping youth on the shoulder.

As a matter of fact, he was still more than half asleep, and Ross had to repeat his statement twice before it was understood. Then he sprang up, pushed aside the chairs, and unlocked the door.

It was Miss Solway. She came in, like a wraith; she was wrapped in a fur coat, but she looked cold, pale, affrighted; her black eyes wide, her misty dark hair in disorder; a fit figure for a dream.

“Lookit here, Miss Amy,” Eddy protested, anxiously. “Wait till morning.”

“But it is morning!” she cried. “Go away, Eddy! Quick! I want to speak to—Go away, do! I only have a minute to spare.”

“Morning!” thought Ross. He looked at his watch, which showed a few minutes past six; then at the window. It was as black as ever outside.

Her fierce and sudden anger astounded Ross. Her eyes had narrowed, her nostrils dilated, her short upper lip was drawn up in a sort of snarl. Yet this rage was in no way repellent; it was like the fury of some beautiful little animal. He could perfectly understand Eddy’s answering in a tone of resigned indulgence.

It seemed to Ross that that was the only possible way for any man to regard this preposterous and lovely creature, not critically, but simply with indulgence.

Taking up his cap and overcoat, Eddy departed, whistling as he went down the stairs. Miss Solway waited, scowling, until he had gone; then she turned to Ross.

He was greatly taken aback. He had not yet had time to collect his thoughts; nothing much remained in his mind except the decision of the night before that this[Pg 451] morning he was going to the police with an account of what he had seen. And, stronger and clearer than anything else, was his desire and resolve to get away from here.

Ross reflected well before answering. Eddy suspected him of something—Heaven knew what. Perhaps this girl did, too. He imagined that they were both a little afraid of him. And, if he held his tongue, and didn’t let them know how casual and unpremeditated all his actions had been, he might keep them in wholesome doubt about him, and so get away.

“No!” she said. “You got my note. But how could you? Who can you be? Nanna said—but I don’t believe it! I knew—as soon as I saw you—I felt sure you’d come to help me. Oh, tell me! My cousin James sent you, didn’t he?”

“Yes!” she answered, eagerly. “My cousin James. He did! I know it! Mother always told me to go to him if I needed help. Of course, I know he must be old now. I was afraid—so terribly afraid that he’d left the ship, or that I’d forgotten the name of it. But I was right, after all. I thought mother had said he was purser on the Farragut.”

He began to understand now. Years and years ago—the dimmest memory—he had had a cousin James who was purser on one of the Porto Rico boats. He could vaguely remember his coming to their house in Mayaguez; a gloomy man with a black beard; son of his father’s elder brother William. It must have been on the old Farragut, scrapped nearly twenty years ago.

And that cousin James had vanished, too, long ago. William Ross had had three children, and outlived them all. Ross could remember his grandfather telling him that.

“All gone,” the old man had said; “both my sons and their sons. No doubt the Almighty has some reason for sparing you; but it’s beyond me.”

“Your Cousin James?” said Ross, staring at her—because that had been his Cousin James.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she answered, impatiently. “I told you. Now tell me how—”

“Luis Delmano,” she replied. “But what does that matter? I only have a minute—”

“Oh!” she cried. “Now I see! You didn’t know the name of my mother’s second husband! Nobody had told you that! Of course! I should have thought of that. Mother told me how horrible her brothers were. When she married daddy, they were so furious. They said they’d never see her or speak to her or mention her name again—and I suppose they didn’t. Nasty, heartless beasts! Their only sister!”

Although Ross had never before heard of any sister of his father’s, the story seemed to him probable. His grandfather, his father, and his uncle were so exactly the sort of people to possess a sister whose name was never mentioned; grim, savage, old-fashioned, excommunicating sort of people. Yes; it was probable; but it was startling. Because, if this girl’s mother had been his father’s sister, then he was her Cousin James, after all.

He did not want to be. His dark face grew a little pale, and he turned away, looking down at the floor, considering this new and unwelcome idea.

“Now you understand!” she said. “And you did come to help me, didn’t you?”

This time his silence was deliberate, and not due to any confusion in his thoughts. The blood in his veins spoke clearly to him. What those other Rosses had condemned, he, too, condemned. He was like them. This girl was altogether strange, exotic, and dangerous, and he wanted to get away from her.

It was his gift, however, to show no sign of whatever he might be thinking; his face was expressionless, and she read what she chose there. She came nearer to him, and laid her hand on his arm.

He looked down at her gravely. He knew that she was willfully attempting to charm him—and how he did scorn anything of that sort! And yet—He looked at her as some long forgotten Ross of Salem might have looked at a bonny young witch. The creature was dangerous, and yet—Bonny she was, and a young man is a young man.

“I don’t see,” he began, doubtfully,[Pg 452] when suddenly she cried: “Look!” and pointed to the window. He turned, startled, but he saw nothing there.

That was true enough. The sky was not black now, but all gray, pallid, swept clean of clouds. The rain had ceased, but the mighty wind still blew, and the tops of the trees bowed and bent before it, like inky marionettes before a pale curtain. There was no sign yet of the sun, but you could feel that the dawn was coming.

What a thing to say! The last day. It filled him with a vague sense of dread, and it made him angry.

“Listen!” she said. “You must help me! I don’t know what to do. I’m—I’m desperate! I’ve—” She stopped, looking up into his wooden face; then, seizing him by the shoulder, she tried to shake him.

He had never in his life been so amazed. She had flown at him, and shaken him! It was unbelievable. It was pathetic. She was such a little thing; so fierce, and so helpless.

“Oh, you think it’s nothing!” she said. “You think I’m just a silly girl, making an awful fuss about some childish trouble. Don’t you? Well, you’re wrong. Listen to me!”

She stopped, and drew back a little, looking him straight in the face with those strange black eyes of hers.

“I’ve done a terrible thing,” she said, in a low, steady voice. “A wicked, terrible thing. If I get what I deserve, I’m ruined and lost.”

She turned away from him, and walked over to the window. Ross turned, too, and followed her. She was gazing before her at the gray sky; the curve of her cheek, her half parted lips, her wide brow, were altogether innocent and lovely, but the look on her pale face was not so. It was somber, bitter, and tragic.

“The sun is coming up,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Will you help me?”

VII

Ross stood by the window, watching the sun come up—the first sunrise he had witnessed in his native land. From the east the light welled up and spread, slow and inexorable, across the sky, like the Master’s glance traveling over the chill world; and in his soul Ross dreaded that light. It would mean discovery. That very quiet figure in the housekeeper’s room would have his revenge.

And why? Was it pity for that girl? Was it a stirring of sentiment because she was his kinswoman, his cousin? He did not think so. He might have pitied her, and still gone away. He might have recognized their kinship simply by keeping silent about what he had seen. No; it was something more than that; something he could not quite understand.

It was the claim of life upon a strong spirit. You are hardy and valiant, life said; your shoulders are fitted to bear burdens, and bear them you shall. Here before you is a cruel burden, and you cannot turn aside. All the strong ones shall be chosen to suffer for the weak. You are chosen, and you shall suffer.

“I’ve done a wicked, terrible thing. If I get what I deserve, I’m ruined and lost.”

That was what she had said to him, and he interpreted it readily enough. It was hideous to think of, but not difficult to believe. She was, he thought, capable of any imaginable thing, good or evil. She would not weigh, or calculate, or even understand; she would only want. She would want to possess something, or she would want to destroy something which irked her.

“And after all,” he thought, “it’s not a hard thing to do. Even a little, weak thing like her can—”

His mind balked at the fatal word, but, with a frown, he deliberately uttered it to himself.

“Can kill,” he said. “I’ve got to face this squarely. Other women have done things like that. A few drops of something in a glass, perhaps.”

“No!” he thought. “I needn’t think—that. I’ll wait till she’s told me. The whole thing may be—some accident—something else.”

But he remembered that she had been there alone in the housekeeper’s room, and that he had heard her crying in there. He remembered her words—“a wicked, terrible thing.” And he remembered, above everything else, her face, with that look upon it.

“Damn it!” he cried. “I won’t think at all—until I know something definite. I’ll just carry on.”

He could, and did, refuse to think of his immediate problem, but his mind would not remain idle. It presented him with a very vivid picture of Phyllis Barron. And now, for the first time, he welcomed that gentle image. She was so immeasurably remote now, so far away, in an entirely different world; a friendly, honest world, where she was living her daily life, while he stood here, watching the sun rise upon a dreaded and unpredictable day.

“Well, shover!” said Eddy’s cheerful voice behind him. “The big boss ’ll want the car for the eight forty.”

“All right!” Ross agreed, promptly. “I want a bath and a shave first. And maybe you’ll lend me a collar and a pair of socks.”

“I’ll do that for you!” said Eddy. “And say! You could try Wheeler’s uniform that he left behind. He was the shover before you. He left in a hurry. Got kicked out. Most of our shovers do.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Eddy explained, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and watching Ross shave with cold water, a very dull razor, and the minute fragment of a shaving stick. “Most of our shovers get tempted and fall—hard. Miss Amy ’ll ask ’em to take her some place where the boss don’t want her to go, and not to mention it at home. And they do. And then, the next time she gets mad at the boss, she tells him the whole tale, just to worry him. And the shover goes. See?”

“She was talking to me just now,” Eddy went on. “I guess I was mistaken about you. She says you’re going to stay. Well!” He grinned. “I wish you luck!”

He understood that Eddy was warning him against the devices of Miss Amy, but it was a little too late.

He took a bath in water colder than any he had yet encountered; then he tried on the uniform left behind by the unfortunate Wheeler. It was a bit tight across the shoulders, and the style was by no means in accordance with his austere taste, but he could wear it.

“We might as well go over to the house for breakfast,” said Eddy. “Ready?”

Ross did not relish the glimpse he had of his reflection in the mirror. That snug-fitting jacket with a belt in the back, those breeches, those puttees—he did not like them. Worst of all, Eddy’s collar would not meet round his neck, and he had fastened it with a safety pin. As he took up the peaked cap and followed the cheerful youth, he felt, not like an accomplice in a tragedy, but like a very complete fool—and that did not please him.

They crossed the lawn to the house, went in at the back door, and entered the kitchen. There he sat down to breakfast with the cook, the housemaid, the laundress, and Eddy. The kitchen was warm and clean, and neat as a new pin; very agreeable in the morning sunshine. The breakfast was good, and he was very hungry, and ate with a healthy appetite. But, except for a civil good morning, he did not say one word.

For he was listening. He was waiting, in an unpleasant state of tension, for something which would shatter this comfortable serenity. It must come. It was not possible that the figure under the sofa should remain undiscovered, that life should progress as if nothing at all had happened. Amy had said this was the “last day.”

Nothing interrupted the breakfast, though; and, when he had finished, he went back to the garage, to look over the sedan he was to drive. It was a good car, and in perfect condition; nothing for him to do there. He lit a cigarette, and stood talking to Eddy for a time.

“He’s the best man Gawd ever made,” said Eddy, seriously. “My father was coachman to him for eighteen years, and when he passed out, Mr. Solway, he kept me here. He seen that I got a good education and all. I wanted this here shover’s job, but he said nothing doing. He said I’d ought to get a job with a future. [Pg 454]I’m down in the telephone comp’ny now—repair man. He lets me live here for nothing—just for doing a few odd jobs. He’s a prince!” He stamped out his cigarette with his heel. “And he has a hell of a life!” he added.

“How?” asked Ross, thirsting for any sort of information about this household.

“Her,” said Eddy. “Remember, I’m not saying nothing against Miss Amy. I’ve known her all my life. But, I’ve done things for that girl I wouldn’t have done for my own mother.” He paused. “I done things for her I wish to Gawd I hadn’t done,” he said, and fell silent.

Ross was silent, too. He remembered how Eddy had closed the door of the housekeeper’s room. He remembered how very anxious Eddy had been to keep him shut up in the garage all night. And he remembered that Eddy carried a revolver.

Why should he imagine that Amy Solway would do for herself any unpleasing task, when apparently she found it so easy to make others do things for her? This boy admitted he had done things for her which he wished “to Gawd” he hadn’t.

“You better start,” said Eddy, and Ross got into the sedan and drove up to the house. He was undeniably nervous. He expected to see—he didn’t know what; a pale face looking at him from one of the windows, a handkerchief waved to him, a note slipped into his hand, some signal. But there was nothing.

Mr. Solway came bursting out of the front door, ran down the steps, said “Good morning! Good morning!” to his new chauffeur, popped into the sedan, and immediately began to read the newspaper. At the station he bounced out, said “Four fifty,” and walked off.

Ross stopped in the town and bought himself some collars. Even this delay worried him; he might be badly needed at the house. But, in spite of his haste to get back, he was mighty careful in his driving, because he had no sort of license. He returned to the garage and put up the car—and waited.

Four hours did he wait. Eddy was nowhere about; no doubt he was repairing telephones. Nobody came near the garage. Ross sketchily overhauled both cars, swept out the place, and waited, not patiently, either.

He had agreed to help that girl, and he was prepared to do so, but he was not going to be a chauffeur much longer. It was, he thought, a singularly dull life. What is more, he had his own affairs to look after; he wanted to get back to New York, and to see Mr. Teagle.

At one o’clock the telephone in the garage rang, and the disagreeable housemaid informed him that lunch was ready. Very well, he was ready for lunch; he went over to the house and again sat down in the kitchen, and ate again in silence. He had nothing to say, and the three women said nothing to him.

He was not a talkative young man; he and his grandfather had often passed entire days with scarcely a word between them, and he took this silence as a matter of course, quite innocent of the fact that it was hostile. The new chauffeur was not liked in the kitchen.

Then he went back to the garage, and waited, and waited, and waited, with grim resentment. A little after four o’clock he was preparing to take the sedan out again, when Amy appeared in the doorway, in her fur coat and a little scarlet hat.

“No!” said Ross. “Mr. Solway said four fifty, and I’m going to meet his train.”

“But he meant the four fifty from New York!” said she. “You’ll have plenty of time.” She came nearer to him. “Please, please be quick!” she said. “It’s my last chance!”

VIII

“To the left, and straight ahead!” said Amy, as they drove out of the gates.

So, to the left he turned, and drove straight ahead. And he looked straight ahead, too, although he knew very well that she was looking at him. This girl took entirely too much for granted. It was one thing to help her, but to obey her orders blindly was quite another, and it did not suit him. Here he was, dressed up in a chauffeur’s uniform somewhat too small for him, and behaving, no doubt, as those other chauffeurs had behaved—like a fool.

He heard her stir restlessly, with little flutterings and jinglings of her silly feminine finery. She sighed deeply.

“I don’t believe you’ve told me your right name,” she said, plaintively.

“Another James Ross,” he remarked, coldly. But in his heart he was rather pleased with the sensation his words caused.

“I do!” said she. “I think Jimmy’s a darling name.” Suddenly she flung one arm about his neck. “And I think you’re a darling!” she added, with a sob.

“Look out!” Ross cried, sharply. “You mustn’t do that when I’m driving.” He cast a glance along the straight, empty road, and then turned to her. Her dark eyes were soft and shining with tears, but she was trying to smile.

“All right!” said the Spartan young man. “Then suppose you tell me what’s wrong?”

“I can’t, Jimmy,” she answered. Her hand rested on his shoulder, but her head was turned away. “I can’t—just now. Only, oh, Jimmy! Sometimes I wish I were dead! Dead and buried with my darling mother—”

He could think of nothing adequate to say to that, and, once more giving a careful glance at the road, he patted her hand.

“I know it’s not fair—not to tell you,” she said. “But—can’t you just help me, Jimmy, and—and not care?”

“Why not?” he thought. “I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know. Better let well enough alone.”

But he knew it was not better, and not possible. Not all the pity in the world should make him a blind and ignorant tool. He was in honor bound to ask his question.

His heart sank. Disappointment, and a sort of disgust for this childish lie filled him; he did not want to look at her again. He drove on, down a road which seemed to him endless, like a road in a dream.

The sun was going down quietly, without pomp and glory, only slipping out of sight and drawing with it all the light and color in the world. They passed houses, they passed other cars, and it seemed to him that he and this girl passed through the everyday life about them like ghosts, set apart from their fellows, under a chill shadow.

“Jimmy!” she said, abruptly. “How can you be so horrid! Why don’t you talk? Why can’t you be like—like a real cousin?”

“All right, then! Don’t help me! Just go away and leave me to suffer all alone!” she cried. “You’re a heartless—beast! Go away!”

And she was honest now, wholly in earnest; the childish artfulness had gone, and she spoke quietly.

“He’s coming to-night,” she went on. “And if anything—goes wrong, he’ll go away, and never come back. And something’s very likely to go wrong, Jimmy.”

“You’ll have to remember that I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ross.

“In the house where we’re going,” she explained, “there’s some one Gayle must not see—no matter what happens. I’ll talk to—this person first; I’ll try to persuade him. But if I can’t—That’s what I want you to do for me. I want you to be sure to see that—this person doesn’t leave that house to-night.”

“Listen to me!” she said, with a sort of sternness. “This man—in the cottage—he’s blackmailing me. Because of something I did—something I’m sorry for—terribly, terribly sorry—”

“Oh, what does it matter what you call it? He’s coming to-night, to tell—this thing—and Gayle will go away!”

“Look here!” said Ross. “Let him tell. If this Gayle of yours cares for you, he’ll stand by you. If he doesn’t, you’re well rid of him. No; just wait a minute! Don’t you see? You can’t lie to a man you’re—fond of. You—”

“I’m not going to lie. I’ll just say nothing. The thing is over, Jimmy; over and done with. Mustn’t I even have a chance? Jimmy, I’m young! I’m sorry—God knows I’m sorry for what I did—but it’s done. Nothing can undo it. Won’t you—won’t you let me have just a chance?”

“But look here! Even if the man didn’t come to-night, he’d come some other time. You don’t expect me to—”

He stopped short, appalled by the words he had not spoken. He looked at her, and in the gathering dusk he saw upon her white face that terrible, still look again.

“Jimmy!” she said. “Just keep him from coming to-night. Then to-morrow I’ll tell you the whole thing. And perhaps you’ll think of something to do. But—just to-night—keep him from coming!”

“Down here, Jimmy—to the left,” she said, presently, and he turned the car down a solitary lane, narrow, scored with ruts of half frozen mud. It had grown so dark now that he turned on the headlights.

“Look here!” he began, but she had sprung out, and was hurrying across a field of stubble. He could not let her go alone. He followed her, sick at heart, filled again with that sense of utter solitude, of being cut off from all his fellows, in a desolate and unreal world. His soul revolted against this monstrous adventure, and yet he could not abandon her.

She went before him, light, surprisingly sure-footed upon those high heels of hers. For some reason of her own, she had chosen to approach the house from the side, instead of following the curve of the lane. She came to a fence, and climbed it like a cat, and Ross climbed after her.

They were in a forlorn garden, where the withered grass stood high, and before them was the sorriest little cottage, battered and discolored by wind and rain, all the shutters closed, not a light, not a curtain, not a sign of life about it.

She ran up the steps to the porch, where a broken rocking-chair began to rock as she brushed it in passing. She opened the door and entered; it was dark in there, but she ran up the stairs as if she knew them well; before he was halfway up, he heard her hurrying footsteps on the floor above, heard doors open and shut.

Then a light sprang out in the upper hall, and she stood there, looking down at him. By the unshaded gas jet he could see her face clearly, and it shocked him; such anguish there, such terror.

To Ross, with his rigid self-control, it seemed impossible that a human creature could safely endure such violent emotion as hers. She was so fragile; she looked ill, horribly ill, ghastly, he thought she would faint, would fall senseless at his feet. He sprang up the stairs to be with her.

Her dark brows met in a somber frown; she shook her head, waving her forefinger in front of her face; an odd, foreign little gesture.

“Think!” said Ross to himself. “I don’t believe you’re capable of it, my girl. But certainly you’re even less capable of listening to any one. Very well; go ahead with your thinking, then; and I’ll wait for the next development.”

He lit a cigarette, and leaned against the wall, smoking, not sorry for an interval of peace.

“Look at the time!” Amy commanded sharply. “You’ll be late getting to the station, unless you hurry. Why didn’t you remind me?”

“Come!” she ordered, and went past him, down the stairs, and out of that sorry little cottage. She ran all the way to the[Pg 457] car, and two or three times she said “Hurry!” to Ross, who kept easily at her side with his usual stride.

“Sorry,” said Ross, “but my only license is one I had in Manila—and even that’s expired. I can’t afford to take chances.”

She shrugged her shoulders, with an unpleasant little laugh. She was in a very evil temper; the light was on inside of the car, and now and then he glanced at her, saw her sitting there, her black eyes staring straight before her, her mouth set in a mutinous and scornful line.

She was in torment; he felt sure of that, but he felt equally sure that she would not hesitate to inflict torment upon others. She was cruel, reckless, blind, and deaf in her folly. He wondered why it was that he pitied her so.

Then he, too, shrugged his shoulders; mentally, that is, for he was incapable of so theatric a gesture in the flesh. He himself was in an odd humor, a sort of resigned indifference. He had, for the moment, lost interest in the whole affair. It was too fantastic, too confusing; he didn’t care very much what happened, just now.

“Let me out here!” she said. “There’s not time for you to take me up to the house. I’ll walk. Now hurry!”

He stopped the car at the corner of Wygatt Road; she got out, and he went on, alone. And he was surprised by the difference which her going made. It was as if a monstrous oppression were lifted from his spirit, and he could once more draw a free breath, and once more see the open sky. One clear star was out. No; it was not a mad world; there was awful and majestic order in the universe, inexorable law.

And she was truly pitiable, hurrying home beneath that one star; a poor, helpless futile young thing, defying the whole world for her own desire. She wanted him to help her! He would not help her in her desperate folly, but he would not leave her now. Not now.

These admirable ideas were entirely put out of his head by a new dilemma. He arrived at the station; he heard the train coming in, and he could find no advantageous place for his car. All the good places were taken. He had to stop where he was certain Mr. Solway would never find him, until, as the train came in, a taxi was seized by an alert woman, and Ross got his car into that vacant place.

Mr. Solway was not in the vanguard of the commuters; he came leisurely and with dignity, talking with another man. Ross stood beside the open door of the car; with a nod Mr. Solway got in, and the other man, too. They paid no attention whatever to Ross; they settled themselves, and went on talking, as if he were a ghost.

“They closed at five and an eighth,” said the other man. “I can’t help thinking that—”

“Now, see here!” Mr. Solway interrupted. “You hold on to them, my boy. I told you it was a good thing.”

“It would be,” said the other. “A very good thing, sir, if I could unload at five and an eighth—or even a bit less—when I bought at three and three-fourths.”

“Now, see here!” said Mr. Solway. “I’ll tell you something—which you needn’t mention anywhere. I’m buying at five and an eighth—up to six and a half. Buying, mind you, my boy!”

This was almost more than Ross could bear. This was just the sort of talk he had thirsted for; this was what he had come to New York for; to buy stocks at three and three-fourths and sell at six and one-half, or more. There he sat, with his peaked cap pulled down over his lean, impassive face, listening with a sort of rage. If he could only ask Mr. Solway questions, only tell him that he had a few thousands of his own all ready and waiting for a little venture like this.

“And you’ll need all you can get, my boy,” Mr. Solway went on, “if you’re going to marry Amy.”

Then this was Gayle? Ross turned his head for one hasty glance—and then, encountering the astonished frown of Mr. Solway, realized what an improper thing he had done. Chauffeurs must not look.

He had had this look, though, and had gained a pretty accurate impression of the stranger. A tall young fellow, fair haired and gray eyed; he was stalwart and broad shouldered, and altogether manly, but there was in his face something singularly gentle and engaging.

“And that’s the fellow!” thought Ross. “That’s the fellow who’s going to be fooled and lied to.”

He liked him. And he liked the vigorous and blustering Mr. Solway, and he liked this rational, masculine conversation. It[Pg 458] reassured him. He reflected that, after all, he was not alone in this miserable affair, not hopelessly cornered with the preposterous girl. No; Solway was her stepfather, and the other man was her “Gayle.” They were in it, too. They were his natural allies.

“She’s got to tell them, that’s all,” he said to himself. “They’ll both stand by her. I’ll make her tell them. I can’t handle this infernal mystery alone. I’m too much in the dark.”

He drove in at the gates, up the driveway, and stopped the car before the house with a smartness that pleased him. Mr. Solway bounced out.

“Here, now!” he said. “You—Moss—Moss, that’s it. Moss, just lend a hand with this bag. That’s right; up the stairs—first door on the left. That’s it! That’s it! There you are, Gayle, my boy!”

“Moss,” he said. “Everything going along all right? That’s it! That’s it! You let me know if there’s anything wrong.”

Ross was hard put to it to suppress a smile. He imagined how it would be if he should say:

“Well, sir, there was one little thing—a dead man under the housekeeper’s sofa. But, perhaps I shouldn’t mention it.”

He looked for a moment into the bluff, scowling, kindly face of the man Eddy had called “a prince.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and turned away, down the hall toward the back stairs. And, as he came round the corner into the corridor, where the housekeeper’s room was, his quick ear caught some words of such remarkable personal interest to him that he stood still.

“Another James Ross!” Mrs. Jones was saying. “That’s a likely story, I must say! Amy, that man’s a fraud and a spy!”

“Amy!” cried Mrs. Jones. “Can’t you trust me? I tell you it’s all right. He won’t come to-night. I promise you he won’t!”

“Oh, you mean well!” Amy remarked. “But you’ve made plenty of mistakes before this.”

“No,” said Amy. “You told me before that I needn’t worry, that you’d ‘settled everything.’ And what happened? No; I’m afraid you’re getting old, Nanna—old and stupid. I’m going to manage for myself now. And Jimmy’s going to help me.”

“I don’t care if he does,” said Amy. “He won’t tell, anyhow. Now don’t bother me any more, Nanna. I’ve simply got to go.”

Ross stepped quickly backward along the hall for a few yards; then he went forward again, with a somewhat heavier tread. And just round the corner of the corridor, he came face to face with Amy.

Her beauty almost took his breath away. She wore a dress of white and silver, and round her slender throat a short string of pearls. And against all this gleaming white the pallor of her skin was rich and warm, with a tint almost golden; and her misty hair was like a cloud about her face, and her black eyes so soft, so limpid.

“Please, Jimmy!” she said, earnestly. “I do so awfully want to be happy—just for a little while!”

Ross had a moment of weakness. She was so young, so lovely; it seemed important, even necessary, that she should be happy. But he valiantly resisted the spell.

“Jimmy, dear!” she said. “I’m coming to the garage after dinner—to ask you something—to beg you to do something. Will you do it, my dear little Jimmy?”

Ross went up to the room over the garage, and sat down there. He was hungry and tired, and in no pleasant humor.

“It’s entirely too damned much!” he said to himself. “I’m—comparatively speaking—a rich man. There’s money waiting for me. There’s a nice, comfortable room in a hotel waiting for me; and decent clothes. I could have gone to a play to-night. There was one I wanted to see.[Pg 459] And here I am—in a garage—dressed up like a monkey. No, it’s too much! I’m going back to the city to-morrow. I’m going to see Teagle, and settle my affairs. If Amy wants me to help her, I suppose I shall. But I won’t stay here, and I won’t be a chauffeur.”

The more he thought of all this, the more exasperated he became. And it was nearly nine o’clock before he was summoned to dinner, which did not tend to placate him. In spite of his hunger, he took his time in going over to the house. He had no objection to being late, and he would have no objection to hearing some one complain about it. Indeed, he wished that some one would complain. Just one word.

Looking for trouble, Ross was, when he entered the house. He pushed open the swing door of the kitchen.

What marvelous aromas were there! What a festive air! That grave woman, the cook, was wreathed in smiles, for had she not this night accomplished a dinner which even Mrs. Jones had praised?

And the disagreeable housemaid was in softened mood, too, for she had waited upon romance. She had already described, more than once, the splendor of Miss Amy’s costume, and the way “him and her” had looked at each other.

The laundress was elated, because she was fond of romance, and still more because she was a greedy young creature, and scented an especially good dinner. And they all welcomed Ross with cordiality.

“It’s too bad you had to be waiting the long time it was!” said the cook. “You’ve a right to be famished entirely, Mr. Moss!”

“You’d oughter of come over for a cuper tea this afternoon,” said the housemaid. “And a piecer cake.”

“You’d oughter of tole him, Gracie,” the laundress added. “Poor feller! He don’t know the ways here, yet!”

They did, and that unparalleled dinner began. It must be borne in mind that Ross was wholly unaccustomed to this sort of thing, to home cooking at its best, to the maternal kindness of women toward a hungry man. He liked it.

He was in no hurry to go back to the solitude of the garage, and his own thoughts. Being invited to smoke, he lit a cigarette and made himself very comfortable, while the cook washed the dishes, and Gracie and the laundress dried them. He was still taciturn, because he couldn’t be anything else; but he answered questions.

He admitted that he had traveled a bit, and when the laundress, who was disposed to be arch, asked to be told about them queer places, he gave a few facts about the exports and imports of Manila. Anyhow, they all listened to him, and said, “Didjer ever!” and it was altogether the pleasantest hour he had yet spent in his native land.

And then—the swing door banged open, and there stood Amy, with a fur coat over her shimmering dress, and an ominous look in her black eyes.

“Moss!” she said. “What are you doing here? Get up and come with me at once! I want to speak to you!”

“I told you I was coming to the garage!” she pointed out, in a low, furious voice. “Why didn’t you wait there?”

“I’m sorry, Jimmy!” she said. “I didn’t mean to be horrid. Only, it was so hard for me to slip away—and I went all the way out to the garage in the cold and the dark, and you weren’t there—and I’m so terribly worried. Oh, you will hurry, won’t you?”

“It may be too late, even now. Any instant he may come. He’ll ring the bell, and Gracie will open the door. I can’t tell her not to. He’ll come in. Oh, Jimmy, you won’t let that happen, will you? Oh, do, do please hurry!”

“Go out and hide some place where you can watch the front door. And if you see him coming—stop him! A thin, dark man, with a mustache. Oh, hurry, Jimmy! All evening long I’ve been waiting and waiting—in torment—for the sound of the bell. Go, Jimmy dear!”

“Oh, not so awfully long, dear. Just—” She paused. “Just till Eddy comes home. I’m sure he won’t be late. Now hurry!”

“Oh, shut up!” she cried; and then tried to atone by patting his cheek. “Jimmy, I’m desperate! Just help me this once! To-morrow I’ll explain it all, and you’ll see. Only go now!”

“All right, dear!” she said, gently, and turned away. And as he went toward the back door, he heard her sob.

All the way to the garage that sob echoed in his ears. Her tears had not affected him; they were too facile, too convenient. But that half stifled sob in the dark—He went quickly, taking the key from his pocket as he went; he, too, was in a hurry, now, to spare her this thing she dreaded.

He unlocked the door, turned on the switch, ran up the stairs, through the sitting room, and into the bedroom, where his coat hung.

He stopped short in the doorway. For, sitting on the bed was a tiny girl, seriously engaged in tying a ribbon about the waist of a white flannel rabbit. She looked up at the young man, but apparently was not interested, and went on with her job.

Ross was completely ignorant about young children, but he realized that they were not to be held strictly accountable for their statements. And this child was such a very small one; such a funny little doll. She had a great mane of fair hair hanging about her shoulders, and, on one temple, a wilted bit of pink ribbon; she had serene blue eyes, a plump and serious face, by no means clean.

She wore a white dress, still less clean, a coral necklace, white—or grayish white—socks all down about her ankles, and the most dreadful little white shoes. He observed all this, because it was his way to observe, and because he was so amazed that he could do nothing but stare at her.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Ross. “Won’t you please try to be—sensible? I don’t know—Are you all alone here?”

“The door was locked,” he said, aloud. “I can’t see—But what shall I do with you?”

Ross wished to treat so small and manifestly incompetent a creature with all possible courtesy, but he was handicapped by his inexperience.

“Look here, Lily!” he said, earnestly. “I’m in the deuce of a hurry just now. If you’ll wait here, I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

He could have torn his hair. He could not fail Amy now. And he could not leave a good baby alone and hungry, for he did not know how long.

“Shall I take it to the house?” he thought. “The cook would feed it. But—perhaps it’s another of these damned mysteries. I haven’t time to think it out now. I’d better keep it here until I’ve thought a bit. See here, Lily, what do you eat?”

He hurried into the kitchen, cut four good, sturdy slices of bread, covered them well with butter and sugar, and brought them back on a plate. Then, with a vague memory of a puppy he had once had, he thought of water, and brought a glassful.

“Now I’ve got to go, Lily,” he explained. “But I’ll come back as soon as I can. You just wait, see?”

He hesitated for a moment, half frightened; then he caught up the funny little doll and kissed its cheek.

It was not a doll. It was warm and alive, and solider than it looked. It clung to him, and kissed him back again.

That was what people in Manila and Porto Rico had told Ross. He thought of those people now. You didn’t feel it, did you? Yes, you did!

He had found “some place where he could hide and watch the front door”; a plantation of firs halfway between the house and the gates. He had been there more than an hour, prowling up and down[Pg 461] behind the screen of branches; he had at first tried to smoke, but darkness and cold annihilated any sort of zest in the tobacco. He had attempted the army setting-up exercises, considerably hampered by his overcoat; but nothing produced in him either bodily warmth or a patient serenity of mind.

He was worried about that child. Not once did he say to himself that it was none of his business; he admitted willingly that a creature of that size had a claim upon all full-grown persons; he admitted that, whoever it was, and wherever it came from, it was entitled to his protection.

“She’s too little to be left there alone,” he thought. “Much too little. They always have nurses—or some one. She might fall down the stairs—or turn on the gas stove. I’ve been gone more than an hour. Good Lord! This is too much! What the devil’s the matter with that fellow, anyhow?”

He was disgusted with this thin dark man with a mustache, who was so outrageously late in coming. Very likely the funny little doll was sitting up there, crying. The raw cold pierced to the marrow of his bones.

And this, he reflected, was his second night in his native land. The first had been spent imprisoned in the garage, at the point of a revolver, but it had been a thousand times better than this. He had been warm and comfortable—and he had been innocent, a victim. Now he was taking an active part in a thoroughly discreditable affair.

He was committed to wait for a thin dark man with a mustache, and to prevent his entering the house. And how was he to do this? Walk up to him and begin to expostulate? Try to bribe him?

The thought of bribery aroused in the young man an anger which almost made him warm. No Ross would ever pay blackmail. Indeed, no Ross of his branch was fond of parting with money for any purpose at all. They were very prompt in paying their just bills and debts, but they took care that these should be moderate.

“No!” thought Ross. “If I was fool enough to give this fellow money, he’d only come back for more, later on. I’m not going to start that. No! But how am I going to stop him? Knock him out? That’s all very well, but suppose he knocked me out? Or he may carry a gun. Of course, I suppose I could come up behind him and crack him over the head with a rock. That’s what my Cousin Amy would appreciate. But somehow it doesn’t appeal to me. After all, what have I got against this fellow? What do I know about him? Only what she’s told me. And she’s not what you’d call overparticular with her words.”

His thoughts were off, then, upon the track of that problem which obsessed him. What had happened to the man under the sofa? He couldn’t still be there. But who had taken him away, and where was he now? He looked toward the house, so solid and dignified, with its façade of lighted windows. He remembered his cozy dinner in the kitchen; he thought of the orderly life going on there.

It was impossible! Yet it was true. He had seen that dead man with his own eyes. He had touched him.

Who else knew? Surely Amy; but it was obvious that she had some one to help her in all emergencies. Mrs. Jones? Ross believed that Mrs. Jones had been well aware of the man’s presence in her room. Eddy? Eddy’s behavior had been highly suspicious.

He refused to go on with this profitless and exasperating train of thought. He was sick of the whole thing. Amy had said that she would “explain everything” to him the next day. Not for a moment did he believe that she would do anything of the sort, but he did hope that at least she would tell him a little. And, anyhow, whatever she told him, whatever happened or did not happen, he was going away—back to normal, honest, decent life.

“I said I’d help her, and, by Heaven, I am!” he thought. “After to-night we’re quits. I’ll hold my tongue about all this; but—I’m going!”

“Hotel Benderly, West Seventy-Seventh Street,” he said to himself. “I’m going there to-morrow.”

For he no longer saw Phyllis Barron as a danger. He was considerably less infatuated with liberty after these two days. It occurred to him, now, that to be entirely free meant to be entirely alone, and that to be without a friend was not good.

He wanted some one to trust, and he trusted Phyllis. No matter that he had known her only five days; he had seen that[Pg 462] she was honest; that she was steadfast, and, loveliest virtue of all, she was self-controlled. He knew that from her one need never dread tears, fury, despairs, selfishness and cajoleries.

Out there, in the cold and dark of his unhappy vigil, he thought of Phyllis, and longed for her smile.

“She’d never in her life get a fellow into a mess like this!” he thought. “But Amy—”

His distrust for his Cousin Amy was without limits. There was nothing, he thought, that she might not do. She was perfectly capable of forgetting all about him, and then, in the morning, if he were found frozen to death at his post, she would pretend to wonder what on earth the new chauffeur had been doing out there.

“After eleven,” he thought. “And Eddy hasn’t come yet. Very likely she knew he wouldn’t come. Perhaps he’s never coming back. All right! I’ll wait till twelve, and then I’m going to take a look at that little kid. I’ve got to. It’s too little.”

So he walked up and down, up and down, over the rough, frozen patch of ground behind the fir trees; his coat collar turned up, his soft hat pulled low over his eyes, his face grim and dour; a sinister figure he would have been to meet on a lonely road.

Up and down—and then something happened. At first he could not grasp what it was, only that in some way his world had changed. He stopped short, every nerve alert. Then he realized that it was a sudden increase in the darkness, and, turning toward the house, he saw the lights there going out, one by one.

“By George!” he thought. “They’re all going to bed! And I suppose I can stay here all night, eh? While they’re warm and snug, the faithful Cousin James will be on guard. All right! I said I’d do it. But I’m going to get a glass of milk for that baby.”

He set off as fast as his numb feet and stiff legs would carry him, toward the back door. He would tell the cook that he was hungry, and she would give him what he wanted. A kind, sensible woman, that cook.

He pushed open the back door and went in; it was dark in the passage, but warm, and the entrancing perfumes of the great dinner still lingered there. He went on, toward the kitchen, but before he got there, the swing door opened, and Mrs. Jones appeared. She stopped, and he thought that she whispered: “It’s I!”

He was a little disconcerted, because he knew that Mrs. Jones was not fond of him, and he was extremely suspicious of her. But she looked so sedate, almost venerable, standing there in the lighted doorway, in her best black dress, with her gray hair, her spectacles. He took off his hat, and spoke to her civilly.

Then she repeated what she had said before, and it was not “It’s I,” but the word “Spy!” uttered with a suppressed scorn that startled him.

“Leave this house!” she said. “You can deceive a poor innocent young girl, but you can’t deceive me. You and your glass of milk! I know you! And I tell you straight to your face that you’re not coming one step farther. I’m going to stay here all night, and I’m going to see to it that neither you nor anybody else comes to worry and torment that poor girl. Go!”

“All right!” said Ross, briefly, and, turning on his heel, went out of the house.

“If she’s going to take over the job of watchdog, she’s welcome to it,” he thought. “I guess she’d be pretty good at that sort of thing. But—spy!”

“I don’t feel inclined to swallow that,” he said to himself, deliberately. “Some day we’ll have a reckoning, Mrs. Jones!”

XII

The funny little doll lay asleep, very neat and straight, just in the center of the bed, the covers drawn up like a shawl, one cheek pressed against the pillow, its fair mane streaming out behind, as if it were advancing doggedly against a high wind. There was no creature in the world more helpless, yet it was not alert, not timid, as defenseless little animals are; it slept in utter confidence and security.

And that confidence seemed to Ross almost terrible. The tiny creature, breathing so tranquilly, took for granted all possible kindness and protection from him. It had asked him for food; it had offered a kiss.

He stood looking down at it with considerable anxiety, yet with the hint of a smile on his lips.[Pg 463]

As he looked, the child gave an impatient flounce, and threw one arm over her head. Ross drew nearer, frowning a little; bent over to examine that arm, that ruffled sleeve.

“I don’t believe—” he muttered, and very carefully pulled out the covers from the foot of the bed. His suspicions were confirmed; she was fully dressed, even to her shoes.

“Must be darned uncomfortable!” he thought. He hesitated a moment, half afraid to touch her; but at last he cautiously unbuttoned one slipper. She did not stir. He drew off the slipper, then the other one; then the socks, and tucked in the covers again.

“Poor little devil!” he said to himself. “Poor little devil! I wonder—”

“I’ll think about this in the morning,” he thought; “but I’m going to get some sleep now—before anything else happens.”

For, coming from the cold of his vigil into this warmth was making him intolerably drowsy. He took off his collar and sat down to remove those objectionable puttees.

As this unprincipled intruder had so coolly taken possession of the bed, he would have to sleep on the couch in the sitting room, but that didn’t trouble him. He felt that he could sleep anywhere, and that nothing—absolutely nothing—could keep him awake ten minutes longer.

In his blind fatigue, he was ready to ignore even that. He didn’t care who came; he wanted to go to sleep.

But he remembered the tiny creature in the bed, the creature who expected his protection, and that roused him. Closing the bedroom door, he went to the head of the stairs, and, in a voice husky with sleep, but distinctly threatening, called out:

Even before he saw the boy, Ross was aware that there was something amiss with Eddy to-night. His voice was different; he climbed the stairs so slowly. He came into the sitting room, and flung down the bag he was carrying.

He looked it. His face was haggard and white; his glossy hair was no longer combed back, but flopped untidily over his forehead. There was nothing jaunty about Eddy now. He was weary, grimy, and dispirited.

“Been doing overtime,” he explained. “Lot of wires down in that storm last night.”

“Look here!” said Ross. “There’s a child here—a baby. I don’t know whose it is, or how it got here. But it’s asleep in there. Better not disturb it.”

“Wha-at!” cried Eddy. He looked amazed, he spoke in a tone of amazement, but there was something—

“By Heaven!” thought Ross. “You’ve got the other key to the garage, my lad! And the child didn’t come through a locked door.”

“I’m going to turn in now,” said Ross. “Afraid you’ll have to put up with the chair again to-night.”

He crossed the room to the couch and lay down there. He was only partly undressed, and he put his shoes beside him, and his overcoat across his feet, because, in this nightmare existence, he had to be prepared for every impossible emergency.

He stretched out, with a sigh of relief, and closed his eyes, when an almost inaudible sound, like the faintest echo of his own sigh, made him glance up again. He saw that Eddy had buried his face in his hands, and sat there, his slight shoulders hunched, his young head bent, in an attitude of misery and dejection.

And Ross was sorry for him. All through his confused and heavy dreams[Pg 464] that night ran a little thread of pity, of regret and pain, which he could not understand. Only, he felt that in this adventure there was more than the tragedy of death.

When he opened his eyes again, the room was filled with a strange, pale light, unfamiliar to him. Dawn? It was more like twilight. He raised himself on one elbow and looked out of the window, and, for the first time in his life, he saw the snow.

Thick and fast the flakes went spinning by, tapping lightly against the glass, and, out beyond, he saw that all the world was white. White and unimaginably still. He had seen plenty of pictures of snow-covered landscapes, but he had never known the feel of a snowstorm, the odd tingle in the air, the sense of hushed expectancy.

He was amazed and delighted with it. Old and forgotten fancies of his childhood stirred in him now; queer little memories of glittering Christmas cards, of fairy tales. He remembered a story his mother had read to him, so very long ago, about a Snow Queen.

And it was good for him to remember these things, after so many ungracious years, just as it was good to see the snow, after so long a time of tropic sun and rain. He knew that it was good, and for a little time he was content, watching the snow fall.

But his destiny was not inclined to allow him many peaceful moments just then. Before he had even begun to think of his complicated anxieties, a sound from the next room brought the whole burden upon him like an avalanche. It was the child’s voice.

He jumped up from the couch, and then he noticed that Eddy had gone. He frowned, not knowing whether this was a disaster or a thing of no importance, and, without stopping to put on his shoes, went across to the bedroom door and turned the knob. He had come so quietly that no one had heard him, and he was able to observe a curious scene.

Eddy was on his knees, his head bowed before the little girl, who sat on the bed, lifting strands of his glossy hair and pulling them out to their fullest extent, with a grave and thoughtful air.

Ross saw, then, that Eddy was trying to put the child’s socks on, and getting no intelligent coöperation from her.

Eddy sprang to his feet like a cat. He looked at Ross, and Ross looked at him, and the little girl lay back on the bed and began jouncing up and down.

“Well,” Eddy replied, slowly, “if you really want to know, it was me brought her here, and now I’m goin’ to take her away again; that’s all.”

Once more Ross was conscious of a disarming pity for the boy. He thought he had never seen a human creature who looked so unhappy.

“I—I’m interested in the little girl,” he said, half ashamed of this weakness. “I’d like to know where she’s going.”

Again he looked at Ross, with a strange intensity, as if he were trying desperately to read that quite unreadable face.

“I don’t believe you told them, over at the house,” he continued. “‘Cause, if they knew, they’d of—”

Again Ross had a distinct warning of danger, and again he defied it, standing there stubbornly resistant to all the ill winds that might blow.

As if by common consent, they both turned to look at the child. She was holding the rabbit aloft, and trying to touch it with one little bare foot; she was quite happy; with superb unconcern she left her fate in the hands of these two young men.[Pg 465]

“I’d explain it to you, if I could,” Eddy went on; “but I can’t, just now. Later on, maybe. Only, she can’t stay here. I got to take her away before anybody sees her.” He paused. “I know somewheres I could leave her to-day, and bring her back here to-night, all right, only after that—”

A dim and monstrous suspicion stirred in Ross, but he would not examine it. He did not want to understand.

XIII

They had breakfast together, Ross and Eddy and the child. And the rabbit was there, too, propped up against the coffeepot; he was fed with spoonfuls of water, and he got pretty wet in the process.

It was an amazing meal. It seemed to Ross sometimes that he was still asleep, and this a dream—the little kitchen filled with that strange, pale light, the snow falling steadily outside, and the child beside him.

“Why did I say I’d look after her?” he thought, with a sort of wonder. “What’s the matter with me, anyhow?”

He didn’t know, and could not understand. He was hopelessly involved, now, in this sorry muddle, and he saw, very clearly, that every step had been taken deliberately, of his own free will. He could have got out, long ago, but—here he was. And he was committed now to an undertaking almost too fantastic, too preposterous to contemplate.

Yet he did not regret it. Just as, in a shipwreck, he would have given his life for a tiny creature like this, so was he obliged now to offer it his protection. Eddy said she had nobody in the world. Very well, then; he had to stop, to turn aside from his own affairs, and lend a hand to this forlorn little fellow traveler. He had to do it.

“More—evvysing!” she cried, bouncing up and down perilously upon the telephone directories he had piled on her chair. “More evvysing!”

And, with these words, the fantasy became real. He had actually assumed the responsibility, now. He was taking care of the child. He looked down at her, frowning a little, and she looked up into his face with cheerful expectancy. She knew very well! He was the one appointed to serve her, and she knew it. He was to supply her with “more evvysing.”

“Look here, Eddy!” he said. “There must be some one who’ll turn up later to—to take care of the child. There’s bound to be some one.”

Eddy glanced up as if he were about to speak, but his face grew scarlet, and he turned away.

“Well,” he said, after a time, “I dunno. It’s kind of hard to say. Only, I thought you—I thought you’d be a good one to—take her.”

Ross was surprised and curiously touched by this, and somewhat embarrassed. A good one, was he, for this charge? He looked at the child again.

“Her face is dirty,” he observed, sternly. “She ought to be washed. Any warm water in that kettle, Eddy?”

“Yep. But I got to hurry, before the rest of ’em get up. Go on and eat, kid!” He turned to Ross. “Tell you what I thought. I know a place where I can take her and keep her till you come and get her after dark. It’s a cottage where there’s nobody living just now. You go up the Post Road about eight miles, till you come to a church that’s being built on the left side of the road. Then you turn—”

“Yes,” said Ross. “I—” He stopped, and Eddy sat staring blankly at him.

“I meant I was listening to you. Go on, man!” And because of his distaste for this lie, Ross spoke with a brusque impatience which impressed Eddy.

“All right!” he said. “But lissen here! I—well—you’re a funny sort of guy. I never seen any one so close-mouthed in my life. I can’t make out yet who you are, or what you come here for. But—” He sighed, and stroked his glossy hair. “I got to trust you, that’s all. Last night I thought I’d go crazy, trying to think what I could do about the kid. I couldn’t—I’ll tell you where this place is, and I hope to Gawd you’ll keep still about it. ’Cause, if we get any one else monkeying around there—well—there’ll be trouble, that’s all. Big trouble.[Pg 466]”

So Eddy did go on, giving him careful directions for reaching the cottage Ross had visited the day before with Amy.

“And for Pete’s sake, come as early as you can,” he ended. “Come before it gets dark, will you? I—” He arose. “Come on, baby!”

She jumped down from her chair, with a piece of bread and butter in one hand, and the rabbit in the other; she was quite ready to go anywhere, with any one. Ross washed her sticky hands and tried to wash her face, but this annoyed her so much that he was not successful. Eddy brought out her coat and bonnet from a cupboard; put on his own very modish overcoat, and a cap, picked up the child, and off they went.

From an upper window, Ross watched them go across the great white waste that was so strange and yet somehow so familiar to him. Eddy stumbled now and then, over some hidden unevenness in the ground, but the child in his arms sat up straight and triumphant, her head, in the knitted hood, turning briskly from side to side. Then they were lost to sight in the falling snow and the gray morning light, and Ross turned back to the empty rooms.

It was only half past seven; he had nearly an hour before Mr. Solway expected him, and he thought he would use that time for investigating the engine of the limousine. Both cars were in deplorably good condition; there was little he could justifiably do to them, and he was, moreover, a mechanic of more enterprise than experience. But he was devoted to engines, and pretty well up in the theory of the internal combustion type.

He put on a suit of overalls he found in the garage; he started the engine and opened the hood; he was so pleased with that fine roar, that powerful vibration which was like the beat of a great, faithful heart, that he began to whistle. A superb motor; he would enjoy driving that car.

“She’s a beauty, all right!” said a voice, so very close to his ear that he jumped.

Standing at his elbow was a burly fellow of thirty-five or so, with a bulldog jaw; his voice and his smile were friendly, but his blue eyes, Ross thought, were not.

Ross said nothing. He did not care to continue his amateur explorations under those cold blue eyes. He shut off the engine, closed the hood, and turned toward the stranger with a challenging glance.

“No, thanks!” said Ross, and stood there, facing the other, and obviously waiting for an explanation.

His tone was very nearly savage, for, to tell the truth, his position was having a bad effect upon his temper. Having so much to conceal, so many unwelcome secrets intrusted to him, he had begun to suspect every one. He didn’t like this fellow.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the stranger, in an easy and confidential manner. “I came up this way, looking for a man. And I thought I’d drop in here and see if you could give me any information.” He stopped to light a cigarette, and his blue eyes were fixed upon Ross. “Fellow by the name of Ives,” he said. “Ever hear of him, eh?”

“Ives,” said the other, slowly. “Martin Ives. Fellow about your age. About your build. Dark complexioned—like you.”

“I wish you were,” said the stranger, and his tone was so grave that Ross had a sudden feeling of profound uneasiness.

“Well, I’m not,” he said, “and I never heard of him. I’m new here—just came two days ago.”

“I shouldn’t have told him that,” thought Ross, dismayed. “But, good Lord, I can’t remember to lie all the time! And, anyhow, what difference can it make—when I came here?”

“You came here on Wednesday,” he continued. “I wonder, now, did you happen to see any one—”

“No!” shouted Ross. “I didn’t see any one. I didn’t see anything. I never heard of your Ives. Go and ask some one else. I’m busy!”

“I don’t want to bother you,” said the stranger, grown very mild. “I can see you’re busy. But it’s a pretty serious thing. You see, Ives came to Stamford on[Pg 467] Tuesday. I’ve traced him that far. And after that—he’s disappeared.”

“My name’s Donnelly,” the stranger went on. “And I’ve come out here to find Ives.”

“I don’t know,” said Donnelly, thoughtfully. “Maybe it won’t be so lucky—for some people.”

He was not looking at Ross now; his cold blue eyes were staring straight before him.

XIV

Ross could not understand why that notion came as a shock to him. Naturally, the man under the sofa had a name; every one had. Yet, directly he thought of that figure as “Martin Ives,” instead of “the man,” the whole affair grew ten times more tragic and horrible—and ten times more dangerous.

“A man” might disappear, but not Martin Ives. Martin Ives was real, he had friends; he must have lived somewhere. He would be sought for—and found.

“This Donnelly—” thought Ross. “He’s got this far already. And he’ll keep on.”

In his mind he envisaged the inexorable progress of the search. Step by step, hour by hour. If this man went away, another would come. The awful march of retribution had begun. Nothing could stop it.

His anger, his impatience, had quite vanished now. He could not resent Donnelly’s presence, because he was inevitable. He seemed to Ross the very personification of destiny, not to be eluded, not to be mollified. He looked at him and, as he had expected, found the cold blue eyes regarding him.

“I don’t see how,” said Ross. “I don’t know the fellow you’re looking for. I’ll have to get along, now. Got to drive down to the station.”

“Oh, no, not here!” said the other. “See you later. So long!” And off he went.

Ross watched his burly figure tramping along the driveway until he was out of sight; then he made haste to get himself ready, took out the car, locked the garage, and drove up to the house.

It was much too early. There he sat, shut up in the snug little sedan, with the snow falling outside, as if he were some unfortunate victim of an enchantment, shut up in a glass cage. And he began to think, now, of what lay immediately before him.

“I’ll have to make some sort of excuse to Mr. Solway for going away,” he thought. “A lie, of course. I wish to Heaven I didn’t have to lie to him. Then I’ll get the child, and clear out. I’ll find some sort of home for her. Phyllis Barron will help me.”

The idea dazzled him, the magnificent simplicity of it, the unspeakable relief of just picking up the child and walking off. No explanations, no more lies. He contemplated it in detail. How he would walk into the Hotel Miston, into his comfortable room, and unpack his bags. How he would take the child to Phyllis Barron, and tell her that here was a poor little kid who had nobody in the world. She would know what to do; she would help him; the nightmare would end.

“I’ll have it out with her to-day!” he thought. “I’m not called upon to give up my entire life for that girl. I’ve done enough, and more than enough.”

The door opened, and out came Mr. Solway. Ross jumped out and opened the door of the car.

“Ha!” said Mr. Solway. “Very sensible—very sensible! You came early, so that you’d have time to drive carefully. Very important—weather like this. Very sensible! But wait a bit! Mr. Dexter’s coming along.” Standing out in the snow, he shouted: “Gayle! Come, now! Come!” to the unresponsive house; then he got into the car.

Mr. Solway observed how white and strained the young man’s face was, and he spoke to him very kindly.

“No, sir,” said Ross. The honest sympathy in the other man’s tone made him sick with shame. “It’s a—a younger sister of mine.”

“Well, my boy,” said Mr. Solway, “I’m sorry, very sorry. You’re the sort of young fellow I like. Family troubles—Too bad! I’m sorry. Come back here any time you like.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense! You’re the type of young—Ha, Gayle! Step in! Step in. Start her up, Moss!”

Ross did so. He had never been more unhappy in his life than he was now, with his lie successfully accomplished.

“This finishes it!” he thought, as he drove back from the station. “I’m going to see Amy, and have it out with her. I’ll tell her about this Donnelly. I’ll warn her—”

“But, hang it all, she’s not alone!” he cried to himself. “She’s got Solway, and she’s got her Gayle. Why doesn’t she go to him? He’s the natural one to share her troubles.”

Unfortunately, however, he could not help understanding a little why Amy did not want to tell Gayle. He had had another good look at Gayle when he got out of the car at the station, and he was obliged to admit that there was something very uncompromising in that handsome face. Nobody, he thought, would want to tell Gayle Dexter a guilty secret.

“I suppose she doesn’t particularly mind my knowing anything,” he reflected, “because, as far as she’s concerned, I don’t count.”

This idea pleased him as much as it would please any other young fellow of twenty-six. And, combined with his many anxieties, and his hatred and impatience toward his present position, it produced in him a very unchivalrous mood. He brought the car into the garage, and sat down on its step, with his watch in his hand. He gave Amy thirty minutes in which to send him a message.

Of course she didn’t send any. Then he went to the telephone which connected with the house. Gracie’s voice answered him.

He waited and waited, feeling pretty sure that Amy would not come; that she would, indeed, never speak to him or think of him unless she wanted him to do something for her. But presently, to his surprise, he heard her voice, so very gentle and sweet that he could scarcely recognize it.

“I don’t think I’ll want the car all day,” said she. “Not in this weather.”

“I shan’t need you at all to-day, Moss,” said she, graciously, and he heard the receiver go up on the hook.

He stood for a moment, looking at the telephone. His dark face had grown quite pale, and there was upon it a peculiar and unpleasant smile.

But he was, in his way, a just man, and not disposed to let his temper master him. He looked at the telephone, and he thought his thoughts for a few moments; then he resolutely put this exasperation out of his mind, and proceeded with his business.

He decided to go and get the child without any further delay. There was no reason for delay, and, to tell the truth, he was vaguely uneasy with her away. He could easily keep her hidden in the garage until the morning, and then get away early. And he wanted her here.

He took off the hated uniform, dressed himself in his customary neat and sober fashion, put his papers and what money he had into his pockets, and set off toward the station, where he knew he could get a taxi.

The beauty which had so enchanted him early in the morning was perishing fast, now. The fields still showed an unbroken expanse of white, but the trees were bare again. The flakes melted as they fell; the roads were a morass of slush, and all the tingle had gone out of the air. It was a desolate, depressing day, now, with a leaden sky. The slush came over the tops of his shoes, his hat brim dripped, his spirits sank, in this melancholy world.

But at least he was alone, and able to go his own way, in his own good time, and that was a relief. He stopped in the town, and bought himself a pipe and a tin of tobacco. He stopped whenever he felt like[Pg 469] it, to look at things; and, passing a fruit stand, went in and bought two apples for the little girl.

He reached the station, and saw three or four vacant taxis standing there; he selected one and went up to it, and was just about to give his directions when a hand fell on his shoulder.

His brain was working fast. He couldn’t go to the cottage now. He must somehow get rid of this fellow, and he must invent a plausible reason for being here.

“I walked down to get a few things,” he said, “but I guess I won’t try walking back. The roads are too bad.”

“Hold on a minute!” said Donnelly. “I’m going that way, too. I’ll share the cab with you.”

The unhappy young man did not know what to say. He felt that it would be extremely imprudent to antagonize the man.

The cab set off, splashing through the melted snow—going back again to that infernal garage. Suppose Donnelly hung about all day?

“I sort of thought you might be coming to the station some time to-day,” said the other, tranquilly, “and I waited. Wanted a little talk with you.”

“Now, hold on a minute! You told me you’d never heard of him. All right. Now, I told you I knew Ives came out to Stamford on Tuesday. That was about all I did know—this morning. But I’ve found out a little more since then.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” asked Ross, with a surly air and a sinking heart.

“That’s just what I don’t know. On Wednesday you came to Mr. Solway’s house. You didn’t bring anything with you, and you haven’t sent for any bag or trunk, or anything like that. Now, hold on! Just wait a minute! You said you’d come from Cren’s Agency, I’m told. But Cren’s Agency told me on the telephone that—Now, hold on! Don’t lose your temper! You can clear this up easy enough. Just show me your license. Haven’t got it with you, I suppose?”

“All right. You’ve left it in the garage. Very well. That’s where you’re going now, isn’t it? Unless—” He paused. “Unless you’d like to come along with me.”

“Why, there’s a little cottage off the Post Road,” said Donnelly. “I’d like to pay a little visit there this morning, and it came into my head that maybe you’d like to come along with me, eh?”

Ross was, by nature, incapable of despair; but he felt something akin to it now. He was so hopelessly in the dark; he did not know what to guard against, what was most dangerous. He remembered Eddy’s warning, not to let any one come “monkeying around” that cottage; but he did not know the reason for that warning. Nor could he think of any way to prevent Donnelly’s going there.

Should he lock the fellow up in the garage until he had warned Eddy? No; that was a plan lacking in subtlety. Certainly it would confirm whatever suspicions Donnelly might have; it might do a great deal more harm than good.

Should he tell Amy, on the chance that she might suggest something? No. The chance of her suggesting anything helpful was very small, and the chance that she would do something reckless and disastrous very great. Better keep Amy out of it.

Then what could he do? The idea came into his head that he might keep Donnelly quiet for a time by boldly asserting that he himself was Ives. But perhaps Donnelly knew that he wasn’t.

“By Heaven, why shouldn’t I tell him the truth?” he thought, in a sort of rage. “Why not tell him I’m James Ross? There’s nothing against me. I’ve done[Pg 470] nothing criminal. I don’t even know what’s happened here. I’ll just tell him.”

And then Donnelly would ask him why he had come, and why he was here masquerading as a chauffeur. How could he explain? For it never occurred to him as a possibility that he could ignore Donnelly’s questions.

There was an air of unmistakable authority about the man. Ross had not asked him who he was, and he had no wish in the world to find out, either; simply, he knew that Donnelly was justified in his very inconvenient curiosity, that he had a right to know, and that he probably would know, before long.

That was the thing! Somehow he must sidetrack Donnelly; get him off upon a false scent, while he himself hastened to Eddy. Such a simple and easy thing to do, wasn’t it?

“Well!” said Donnelly. “Do we go back, and have a look at that license of yours—or do we go and pay a little visit to that cottage, eh?”

“Of course,” Donnelly went on, in a mild and reasonable tone, “I know, and you know, that you’re not going to show me any license. What you want is a little time to make up your mind. You’re saying to yourself: ‘I don’t know this fellow. I don’t know what he’s up to. I don’t see any reason why I should trust him with any of my private affairs.’ You’re right. Why should you? You’ve talked to certain other people, and you’ve heard good reasons why you ought to keep quiet—about one or two little things. That’s sensible enough. Why, naturally,” he went on, growing almost indignant in defense of Ross, “naturally an intelligent young man like you isn’t going to tell all he knows to a stranger. Why should you?”

“No,” said Donnelly. “Naturally not. What you say to me is: ‘Put your cards on the table, Donnelly. Let’s hear who you are, and what you know, and what you’re after. Then we can talk.’ That’s what you say. All right. Now, I’ll tell you. I’ll be frank. I’ll admit that when I saw you this morning, I thought you were Ives. You see, I’m frank—not pretending to know it all. I made a mistake. You’re not Ives.”

“When Ives came out here on Tuesday,” Donnelly proceeded, “he took a taxi. I’ll tell you frankly that I just found that out this morning by a lucky fluke. No credit to me. He went out to this cottage, and there he met somebody.”

“Oh, Lord!” thought Ross. “This is—I can’t stand much more of this.”

“Now, I’m not going to pretend I know who that woman was,” Donnelly went on. “I don’t. I haven’t found that out—yet. Not yet.”

He felt sure of that. He believed that there was no hope now for the guilty ones, and he felt that he was one of the guilty ones. He did not know what had happened at “Day’s End,” but the burden of that guilt lay upon his heart. This man was the agent of destiny, inexorable, in no way to be eluded. He had come to find out, and find out he surely would.

Ross was a young man of remarkable hardihood, though; no one had ever yet been able to bully him, or to intimidate or fluster him. He had precious little hope of success, but he meant to do what he could. If he could only gain a little time, perhaps he might think of a plan, and, in the meanwhile, he would say nothing and admit nothing.

“Now, before we talk,” said Donnelly, “you want to know who I am, and how I came to be mixed up in this business. As soon as you saw me, you said to yourself: ‘Police!’”

“That was natural. But you made a mistake. I’ll tell you frankly that I was a police detective once, but I’ve left the force. I’m a private citizen, now, same as you are. Got a little business of my own—what you might call a private investigator. Collecting information—jobs like that. Nothing to do with criminal cases.”

“Nothing to do with criminal cases,” he repeated. “I don’t like ’em. Now, this—”

“We’ll hope this isn’t one,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it. My sister, she’s a widow, and she keeps a rooming house, down on West Twelfth Street. Well, yes[Pg 471]terday she came to me with a story that sort of interested me. She told me that about a month ago a young fellow took a room in her house. Quiet young fellow, didn’t give any trouble, but she’d taken a good deal of notice of him, in what you might call a sort of motherly way.”

“A good-looking young fellow, very polite and nice in his ways—and she thought from the start that he was pretty badly worried about something. She’d hear him walking up and down at night—and she said there was a look on his face—You know how women are.”

“So, when he didn’t show up for a couple of nights, she came to me. I told her to go to the police, but she had some sort of notion that he wouldn’t like that—and I dare say she didn’t like it herself. Bad for business—a thing like that in the newspapers, you know. So, just to please her, I got his door unlocked, and had a look at his room.”

“Well, the first thing I saw there was a pile of money on the table—about seventy-five dollars in bills, under a paper weight, and a half finished letter. No name—just began right off—‘I won’t wait any longer.’ But here’s the letter. You can see for yourself.”

Unbuttoning his overcoat, he took a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Ross. It read:

That was the end. Ross touched his tongue to his dry lips, and folded up the letter again. He dared not look at Donnelly, but he knew Donnelly was looking at him.

“Ives wrote that letter,” said Donnelly. “The way I figure it out is this. He began to write, and then he decided that, instead of sending a letter, he’d go. He must have been in a pretty bad state to leave all that money behind. But, of course, he meant to come back. Well, he didn’t. Aha! Here we are!”

The taxi stopped before the gates of “Day’s End,” and Donnelly, getting out, told the driver to wait for him. Then he set off with Ross, not along the drive, but across the lawn, behind the fir trees.

“I won’t bother you by telling you how I know he came to Stamford on Tuesday,” he proceeded. “It’s my business to find out things like that. He came, and he took a taxi out to this cottage I’ve mentioned, and a woman met him there. He sent the taxi away—and that’s the last I’ve heard of him.”

The snow was wholly turned to rain, now; it blew against Ross’s face, cold and bitter; the trees stood dripping and shivering under the gray sky. He was wet, chilled to the bone, filled with a terrible foreboding.

“That cottage belongs to an old lady in the neighborhood,” said Donnelly. “But she doesn’t know anything about this. She said the place had been vacant two years, and she didn’t expect to rent it till she’d made some repairs. She said anybody could get into it easily enough if they should want to. Well!”

“So you see,” said Donnelly, “that’s how it is. I’ve traced him that far. I know that there’s some woman in Stamford who has a good reason for wanting to get rid of him. And now—” He looked steadily at Ross, “And now I’ve about finished.”

XVI

Ross went upstairs to the sitting room over the garage. It did not occur to him to extend an invitation to his companion; he knew well enough that he would hear those deliberate footsteps mounting after him; he knew that Donnelly would follow.[Pg 472]

He took off his hat and overcoat and flung himself into a chair, and Donnelly did the same, in a more leisurely fashion. Certainly he was not a very troublesome shadow; he did not speak or disturb Ross in any way. He just waited.

And Ross sat there, his legs stretched out before him, hands in his pockets, his head sunk, lost in a reverie of wonder, pity, and great dread.

“Her child?” he thought. “Amy’s child? Ives was her husband, and that baby is her child?”

He recalled with singular vividness the phrases of that pitiful, unreasonable letter. “Just let me see you.” “It’s been so long!” “You’re sick of me. All you want is to get rid of me.” He could imagine Ives, that fellow who was about his age, about his build—alone in his furnished room, writing that letter. “How can you be so damned cruel?” And “darling.”

“In a pretty bad state,” Donnelly had said. And he had come, with all his hope and his fear and his pain, to “Day’s End,” and—

“But if—if that was Ives I saw in Mrs. Jones’s room,” thought Ross, “then who was it Amy wanted me to watch for last night?”

This idea gave him immeasurable relief. That man had not been Ives. Ives hadn’t come yet. The whole tragedy was an invention of his own.

“No reason to take it for granted that that letter was meant for Amy,” he thought. “Plenty of other women in Stamford. No; I’ve simply been making a fool of myself, imagining.”

But there was one thing he had not imagined. There was, among all these doubts and surmises, one immutable fact, the man under the sofa. He could, if he pleased, explain away everything else, but not that.

It seemed to him incredible that he had, in the beginning, accepted that fact so coolly. He had thought it was “none of his business.” And now it was the chief business of his life. It was as if that silent figure had cried out to him for justice; as if he had come here only in order to see that man, and to avenge him.

“No!” he protested, in his soul. “I’ve got nothing to do with justice and—vengeance. The thing’s done. It can never be undone. I don’t want to see—any one punished for it. That’s not my business. I’m nobody’s judge, thank God!”

“I’m sorry for that,” he said. “Mighty sorry. I’ve been very frank with you. Showed you the letter—laid my cards on the table. Because I had a notion that you’d heard one side of the case, and that if you heard the other you might change your mind. You might think that Ives hadn’t had a fair deal.”

“No,” said Donnelly, “of course you can’t. And I can’t help it now, either.” He sighed. “Well,” he said, “I’ll be off now. Good-by!”

“Why, I’m going to that cottage I mentioned,” said Donnelly. “And if I don’t find Ives there, or something that’ll help me to find him—then I’ll have to turn the case over to the police.”

Whether this was the best thing for him to do, he could not tell. But he could see no way of preventing Donnelly from going, and he would not let him go alone. He meant to be there, with Eddy and the little girl.

Donnelly had already gone to the head of the stairs, and Ross followed him, impatient to be gone. But the other’s burly form blocked the way. He was listening. Some one was opening the door of the garage.

Light, quick footsteps sounded on the cement floor below, and then a voice, so clear, so sweet:

“Miss Solway!” he cried. “Jimmy’s not here. Only me—Moss—and a friend of mine!”

This was his warning to her, and he hoped with all his heart that she would understand, and would go. Donnelly had begun to descend the stairs. If she would only go, before that man saw her!

But she had not gone. When he reached the foot of the stairs, and looked over Donnelly’s shoulder, he saw her there. She was wearing her fur coat, with the collar[Pg 473] turned up, and a black velvet tam; the cold air had brought a beautiful color into her cheeks; her hair was clinging in little damp curls to her forehead; he had never seen her so lovely, so radiant. And for all that he knew against her, and all that he suspected, he saw in her now a pitiful and terrible innocence.

“She doesn’t know!” he thought. “She doesn’t realize—she can’t realize—ever—what she’s done. She doesn’t even know when she hurts any one.”

And there was Donnelly, standing before her, hat in hand, his eyes modestly downcast; a most inoffensive figure. She was not interested in him; she thought he didn’t matter; she was looking past him at Ross, with that cajoling, childish smile of hers.

“Oh, Moss!” she said. “Will you bring the sedan round to the house? Please? I want to go out.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Solway,” he said, and it seemed to him that any one could hear the significance in his voice. “Mr. Solway told me not to take you out—in this weather.”

“Oh!” she said, and sighed. “All right,” with gentle resignation; “I’ll just have to wait, then.”

Didn’t she see how that fellow was watching her? It was torment to Ross. There was not a shadow on her bright face; she stood there, gay, careless, perfectly indifferent to the silent Donnelly.

“All right!” she said, and turned away, then, to open the door. But it was heavy for her small fingers, and Donnelly hastened forward.

“Oh, thanks!” she said, smiling into his face, and off she went, running through the rain across the sodden lawn. Ross looked after her; so little, so young.

Ross glanced at him, and his heart gave a great leap. For, on the other’s face, was an unmistakable look of perplexity.

“She’s pretty young, isn’t she?” Donnelly pursued, still following with his eyes the hurrying little figure.

“I suppose so,” said Ross, casually. It was difficult for him to conceal his delight. Donnelly was evidently at a loss; he couldn’t believe ill of that girl with her careless smile. He thought she was too young, too light-hearted. The very fact of her ignoring Ross’s warning had done this for her. If she had understood, if across her smiling face had come that look Ross had seen, that look of terror and dismay, Donnelly would not have thought her too young.

“He’s not sure now!” thought Ross. “He’s not sure. She has a chance now. If I can only think of something.”

He could not think of anything useful now, but he felt sure that he would, later on. There was a chance now. Donnelly was only human; he, like other men, could be deluded.

So they stopped at a restaurant in the town, and sent away the cab. They sat down facing each other across a small table. Ross was hungry, and Donnelly, too, ate with hearty appetite, but he did not talk. He was thoughtful, and, Ross believed, somewhat downcast.

“Getting up a new theory,” said the young man to himself. “Perhaps I can help him.”

The vague outline of a plan was assembling in his mind, but he could not quite discern it yet. It seemed to him plain that Donnelly had nothing but suspicions; that he had no definite facts as to any connection between Ives and Amy Solway. He had thought she was the woman to whom that letter was addressed; but since he had seen her, he doubted. Very well; he must be kept in doubt.

When they had finished lunch, they went round the corner to a garage, and took another taxi. Ross settled himself back comfortably, and filled and lighted his new pipe; a good time to break it in, he thought. Donnelly brought out a big cigar, which he kept in the corner of his mouth while he talked a little upon the subject of tobacco. The cab grew thick with smoke, and Ross opened the window beside him. The rain blew in, but he did not mind that.

They came to the cottage along the lane which took them directly to its front gate. There it stood, forlorn and shabby, the shutters closed, the neglected garden a dripping tangle. They went up the steps; Don[Pg 474]nelly knocked, but there was no answer. He pushed open the door, and they went in. He called out: “Is there anybody here?”

XVII

Ross said nothing. He had not even dared hope for such a stroke of luck as that Eddy and the little girl should be gone, yet the silence in this dim, damp, little house troubled him. Where and why had they gone?

He opened a door beside him, revealing a dark and empty room. He flashed an electric torch across it; nothing there but the bare floor and the four walls. He closed the door and went along the passage, and opened the door of the next room. The shutter was broken here, and one of the window panes, and the rain was blowing in, making a pool on the floor that gleamed darkly when the flash light touched it.

That door, too, he closed, with a sort of polite caution, as if he didn’t want to disturb any one. Then he looked into the room at the end of the passage. This was evidently the kitchen, for there was a sink there, and a built-in dresser. He turned on the taps; no water.

He mounted the stairs with remarkable lightness for so heavy a man; but Ross took no such precaution. Indeed, he wanted to make a noise. He did not like the silence in this house.

Donnelly opened the door facing the stairs. One shutter had been thrown back, and the room was filled with the gray light of the rainy afternoon. And, lying on the floor, Ross saw a white flannel rabbit.

It lay there, quite alone, its one pink glass eye staring up at the ceiling, and round its middle was a bedraggled bit of blue ribbon which Ross remembered very well.

He picked up the rabbit, frowning a little; he turned it this way and that, he fingered its sash. And, to Ross, there was something grotesque and almost horrible in the sight of the burly fellow with a cigar in one corner of his mouth, and an intent frown on his red face, holding that rabbit.

Donnelly glanced at him quickly. Then he put the rabbit into the pocket of his overcoat, from which its long ears protruded ludicrously.

The next door was locked, and here Donnelly displayed his professional talents. Before Ross could quite see what he was at, he had taken something from his pocket; he bent forward, and almost at once the lock clicked, and he opened the door.

It seemed to Ross that nothing could have been more eloquent of crime, of shameful secrecy and misery, than that room. There was a wretched little makeshift bed against one wall, made up of burlap bags and a ragged portière; there was a box on which stood a lantern, an empty corned beef tin, and a crushed and sodden packet of cigarettes. There was nothing else.

And they went on, into every corner of that house that was so empty and yet so filled with questions. They found nothing more. Some one had been here, and some one had gone; that was all.

“Now we’ll see if we can find some more clews here,” he said. “Like the fellows in the story books.”

He took up the packet of cigarettes and went over to the window with it. But, instead of examining the object in his hand, his glance was arrested by something outside, and he stood staring straight before him so long that Ross came up beside him, to see for himself.

From this upper window there was an unexpectedly wide vista of empty fields, still white with snow, and houses tiny in the distance, and a belt of woodland, dark against the gray sky; all deserted and desolate in the steady fall of sleet. What else?

Directly before the house was the road, where the taxi waited, the driver inside. Across the road the land ran downhill in a steep slope, washed bare of any trace of snow, and at its foot was a pond, a somber[Pg 475] little sheet of water, shivering under the downpour. But there was nobody in sight, nothing stirred. What else? What was Donnelly looking at?

“I think—” said Donnelly. “I guess I’ll just go out and mooch around a little before it gets dark. Just to get the lay of the land. You don’t want to come—in this weather. You just wait here. I won’t keep you long.”

Ross did want to go with him, everywhere, and to see everything that he saw, but he judged it unwise to say so. He stood where he was, listening to the other’s footsteps quietly descending; he heard the front door close softly, and a moment later he saw Donnelly come out into the road and cross it, with a wave of his hand toward the taxi driver, and begin to descend the steep slope toward the pond.

Before he had finished the question, the answer sprang up in his mind. Donnelly had not found Ives in the cottage, so he was going to look for him down there. Suppose he found him?

To tell the truth, he was badly shaken. He was ready to credit Donnelly with superhuman powers, to believe that he could see things invisible to other persons, that he could, simply by looking out of the window, trace the whole course of a crime.

“I’ve got to do something,” he thought. “Now is my chance. I can give him the slip now.”

But he was a good seven or eight miles from “Day’s End.” Well, why couldn’t he hurry down, jump into the taxi, and order the driver to set off at once? Long before Donnelly could find any way of escape from this desolate region, he could get back to the house and warn Amy. And, in doing so, he would certainly antagonize Donnelly, and confirm any suspicions he might already have.

“No,” he thought. “He’s not sure about Amy now. And I don’t believe he’s got anything against me. I can’t afford to run away. He hasn’t found anything yet that definitely connects Amy with the—the case.”

Donnelly had reached the bottom of the slope now, and was sauntering along the edge of the pond, hands in his pockets. He had in nowise the air of a sleuth hot upon a scent, but to Ross his leisurely progress suggested an alarming confidence. He knew—what didn’t he know? And Ross, the guilty one, knew nothing at all. In angry desperation, he turned away from the window.

The makeshift bed was the only place in the room where anything could be hidden; he lifted up the portière that lay over the bags, and there he found a shabby pocket-book in which were the papers of the missing Martin Ives.

Everything was there—everything one could want. There was a savings bank book, there were two or three letters, and there was a little snapshot of Amy, on the back of which was written: “To Marty—so that he won’t forget.”

Ross looked at that photograph for a long time. He was not expert enough to recognize that the costume was somewhat outmoded, but he did know that this picture had been taken some time ago, because Amy was so different. It showed her standing on a beach, with the wind blowing her hair and her skirts, her head a little thrown back, and on her face the jolliest smile—a regular schoolgirl grin.

It hurt him, the sight of that laughing, dimpled, little ghost from the past. He remembered her as he had seen her to-day, still smiling, still lovely, but so changed. She was reckless now, haunted now, even in her most careless moments.

He opened the top letter; it bore the date of last Monday, but no address. It read:

Dear Mr. Ives:

Amy has asked me to reply to your letter of a month ago. I scarcely need to tell you how greatly it distressed her. If you should come to the house publicly now, everything she has tried to do would be ruined. She had hoped that you would wait patiently, but as you refuse to do so, she has consented to see you.

She wants to see Lily as well, and, although there is a great deal of risk in this, if you will follow my directions, I think we can manage. Telephone to the nurse with whom the child is boarding to bring her to the station at Greenwich by the train leaving New York at 7.20 a.m. on Tuesday and Eddy will meet her there. You can take an early afternoon train to Stamford. Take a taxi there and go up the Post Road to Bonnifer Lane, a little past the Raven Inn. There is a new church being built on the corner. Turn down here, and stop at the first house, about half a mile from the main road. You will find the little[Pg 476] girl there, and I shall be there, waiting for you, between three and five, and we can make arrangements for you to see Amy.

Remember, Mr. Ives, that Amy trusts you to do nothing until you have seen her.

Respectfully yours,
Amanda Jones.

Ross folded up the letter. Yes; nobody could ask for a much better clew. He took out another letter, but before opening it, he glanced out of the window. And he saw Donnelly coming back.

He put the wallet into his pocket, and went to the head of the stairs. A great lassitude had come upon him; he felt physically exhausted. His doubt—and his hope—were ended now.

Donnelly came in quietly, and advanced to the foot of the stairs. It was not possible to read his face by that dim light, but his voice was very grave.

“I’ve finished,” Donnelly repeated, almost gently. “It’s up to the police now. We’ll have that pond dragged.”

He turned back into the room; Donnelly waited for him below. In a few minutes Ross joined him, and they got into the cab.

XVIII

M. Solway descended from the train and walked briskly toward his car. The new chauffeur was standing there, stiff as a poker.

“That’s it!” said Mr. Solway, with his vague kindliness. He got into the car, and Ross started off through the sleet and the dark. Mr. Solway made two or three observations about the weather, but his chauffeur answered “Yes, sir,” “That’s so, sir,” rather absent-mindedly. He was, to tell the truth, very much preoccupied with his own thoughts. He was wondering how a pond was dragged, and how long such a thing might take.

He had seen no one, spoken to no one, since he had left Donnelly at the police station and gone back to the garage alone. So he had had plenty of time to think.

He stopped the car before the house, Mr. Solway got out, and Ross drove on to the garage. There would be a little more time for thinking before he was summoned to dinner. He went upstairs and sat down, stretched out in a chair, staring before him. He was still wearing the peaked cap which had belonged to Wheeler; perhaps it was not a becoming cap, for his face looked grim and harsh beneath it.

He was not impatient, now, as that James Ross had been who had landed in New York three days ago. Indeed, he seemed almost inhumanly patient, as if he were willing to sit there forever. And that was how he felt. He had done his utmost; now he could only wait.

The sleet was rattling against the windows, and a great wind blew. It must be a wild night, out in the fields, where a lonely little pond lay. A bad night to be in that little cottage. A bad night, anywhere in the world, for a child who had nobody.

From his pocket he brought out a snapshot, and looked at it for a long time; then he tore it into fragments and let them flutter to the floor. He closed his eyes, then, but he was not asleep; the knuckles of his hand grasping the arm of the chair were white.

No; he wasn’t asleep. When the telephone rang in the garage, he got up at once and went downstairs to answer it.

For he thought he heard some one at the door. He was standing with the receiver in his hand when the door slid open and Eddy came in.

“He’s just—” he began, turning back to the telephone, when Eddy sprang forward and caught his arm, and whispered: “Shut up! Sh-h-h!”

“Just about due,” said Ross to Gracie. Then he hung up the receiver and faced Eddy.

“Don’t tell ’em I’m here!” said Eddy. “I—I don’t want—I c-can’t stand any—jabbering. I—Oh, Gawd!”

At the end of his tether, Eddy was. His lips twitched, his face was distorted with his valiant effort after self-control. And it occurred to Ross that, for all his shrewdness and his worldly air, Eddy was not very old or very wise.

“What’s up, old man?” he asked.[Pg 477] “Tell me. You’d better get your dinner now.”

“Lissen here,” said Eddy, at last. “You—you seemed to like—that kid. You—you’ll look after her, won’t you?”

He would have been surprised, and a little incredulous, if any one had called him tactful, yet few people could have handled Eddy better. He knew what the boy wanted; knew that he needed just this cool and steady tone, this incurious patience.

“Go and get her,” Eddy pleaded. “She’s down at the barber’s—near the movie theayter. Go and get her.”

“All right. I’ll have my dinner first, though. Want me to bring you something?”

“Not going to try,” said Eddy. “I—I’m too d-darn tired. I—I don’t care!” There was a hysterical rise in his voice, but he mastered it. “Let ’em come!”

“Oh, they’ll know, all right!” said Eddy. “They got ways of finding out things. They’ll know, and they’ll think it was me that—All right! Let ’em!”

And, very bluntly, he told. Eddy listened to him in silence; it was a strange enough thing, but he showed no surprise.

“I hope so. Anyhow, there’s a chance. Now, you better tell me the whole thing. There’s a lot that I don’t know—and I might make a bad mistake.”

“I’ll come as soon as I can,” said Ross, severely. “But I’m working on the car, and I can’t leave off for a few minutes.”

Eddy sat down on the step of the sedan, and Ross leaned back against the wall, his arms folded, his saturnine face shadowed by the peaked cap.

“Tuesday I went and got her—the kid, y’ know, and took her to the cottage.”

“Sure I did! I knew when they got married—her and Ives—four years ago. She told me herself. You know the way she tells you things—crying an’ all.”

“Well, I used to see Ives hanging around. He was a nice feller—but he didn’t have a cent. He was an actor. She was too young, anyway—eighteen—same age as me. I told her I’d tell Mr. Solway, and then she told me they’d got married. I felt pretty bad—on Mr. Solway’s account. But she—well, you know how she acts. Her mother’d left her some money she’s going to get when she’s twenty-five, if she don’t get married without her stepfather’s consent. Mrs. Solway had the right idea. She knew Amy, all right. Only, it didn’t work. Amy wanted to get married and have the money, too. That’s how she is. So she told me she was going to tell Mr. Solway when she was twenty-five. I know I’d ought to have told him then, but—I didn’t.”

“Mr. Solway went over to Europe that summer, and she and Mrs. Jones went somewheres out West, and Lily was born out there. And Ives, he took the kid, and she came back here. She used to see Ives pretty often for awhile—go into the city and meet him. Then she began talking about what a risk it was. That was because she’d met this Gayle Dexter. That made me sick! I said I’d tell Mr. Solway, but she said her and Ives was going to get divorced, an’ nobody’d ever know, and that I’d ruin her life and all. And I gave in[Pg 478]—like a fool. Only, you see, I—I’ve known Amy all my life.”

“Well, it seems Ives was beginning to get suspicious, when she didn’t see him no more. He kept writing; I used to get the letters for her—general delivery—an’ she kept stalling—and at last he said he was coming here to see her. Well, her and Mrs. Jones must have told him to come along. And Tuesday I met the kid and took her to that cottage. My idea, that was. I told Mrs. Jones about the place. I wish to Gawd I hadn’t.” He was silent for a moment. “Only, I thought it might—I was glad to do it, ’cause I thought maybe if Amy seen Ives and the kid, she’d—kinder change her mind. He come that afternoon, and seen Mrs. Jones. Well, I went there after work, and he told me Amy was coming to see him next morning. He was real pleased. He was—he was a—nice feller—”

Eddy’s mouth twitched again. “I wish—I’d known. Anyway, she wouldn’t go to see him. Jones tried to make her—said she’d got to have a talk with him—but Amy, she took on something fierce. Said she’d never see him again. Well, I guess he must of waited and waited, and in the afternoon he come here to the garage. I tried to argue with him and all, but it wouldn’t work. He started off for the house, and I telephoned over to Jones. An’ he went—he went out of that door—”

Eddy turned and stared at the door with an odd blank look. It was as if he saw something—which was not there.

“I didn’t never think,” he said. “Wheeler’d left, then, so I drove the big car down to the station to meet Mr. Solway, and when I brung him home, you was there. Old Lady Jones tried to tip me off. I saw her trying to tell me something behind your back. I couldn’t make out what it was, but I knew there was something queer. I thought you was a detective Ives ’d sent to see what was going on, ’cause he’d been saying he’d do that. I didn’t know, then—But next day Jones told me that—that Ives had—died. Said he’d fell down dead from a heart attack. And she said we’d got to get rid of him on the Q. T., for Amy’s sake. I—I thought I couldn’t—but I did. Fella I know lent me his Ford. I said I wanted to take a girl out. And, while you were out there on the lawn, I—I got him—out of Jones’s room.”

“I guess so. She told me she been sitting up all night, trying to—to see if she could—do anything for him. But he—Anyway, Jones told me what to do, and I did it. I—you don’t know what it was like—going all that way—alone—with him. And I had to put stones in his pockets.” He looked at Ross with a sort of wonder.

“I can’t believe it now!” he cried. “It don’t seem true! I don’t know why—only Jones told me that if I didn’t, there’d be a inquest an’ all. And she said everyone’d think that Amy—It would all come out, she said, and Amy and Mr. Solway’d be in the newspapers and all. And she said he was dead, anyway. The pond couldn’t hurt him. I—”

He came closer to Ross, and laid a hand on his sleeve. “Lissen here!” he said. “D’you think that’s true—that he—just died?”

XIX

Ross could feel sorry enough for Eddy, for his ghastly trip to the pond, for all the dread and misery that lay upon his soul. He was sorry for Ives, although his sufferings were at an end. He pitied Mr. Solway, in his ignorance of all this. He was sorry, in his own way, for Amy. But, above all creatures in this world, he pitied that little child.

Eddy told him about her. When Ives had gone to “Day’s End,” he had left the child with the obliging barber in town, and she had been there all that night and the next day, until Mrs. Jones had sent Eddy after her.

“She said it would start people talking, if the kid stayed there, and she told me to take her back to the cottage and leave her till she made some plans. But I couldn’t do that. The way I felt last night, I didn’t care. I’d rather have seen the whole thing go to smash than leave the kid alone there all night. That’s why I brung her here. And this morning—I couldn’t stay there—in that house. It kind of gave me the creeps. So I took her back to the barber’s.” He paused.[Pg 479]

“Jones don’t care about the kid,” he added. “She don’t care about anything on earth but Amy. Lissen here! I know she’s old and all, but I think—maybe she—I just wonder if the old girl had the nerve?”

Ross had had that thought, too. But it seemed to him that, no matter who had actually done this thing, even if it were an accident—which he did not believe—the guilt still lay upon the woman who had betrayed and abandoned the man and the child. Amy was guilty, and no one else.

“Come along!” he said. “We’ll get our dinner. No! Don’t be a fool, my lad. It’s what you need.”

Eddy was considerably relieved by his confession. He went upstairs, washed, changed his coat, and brushed his glossy hair, and when he set off toward the house, there was a trace of his old swagger about him. Only a trace, though, for he walked beneath a shadow.

As for Ross, there was precious little change to be discerned in his dour face and impassive bearing. And it was his very good fortune to be so constituted that he did not show what he felt, for he was to receive an unexpected shock.

“Sit down!” said Gracie, sharply. “I put somethin’ aside for you. Now hurry up! It puts me back with the dishes an’ all.”

“An’ thim extry people,” said the cook, who was also a little out of temper. “There’ll not be enough butter for breakfast, the way they did be eatin’, an’ me without a word of warnin’ at all.”

“It’s that Mr. Teagle,” said Gracie. “Them small men is always heavy eaters.”

“Haven’t you heard?” cried Gracie, almost unable to believe that she was to have the bliss of imparting this amazing news. “Why, there was a body found in a lake somewheres.”

“But lissen, Eddy! It turns out it was a cousin o’ Miss Amy’s! It seems they found some papers an’ letters an’ all near where they found him, an’ he turns out to be her cousin! This Mr. Teagle, he’s a lawyer. They sent for him, an’ he come out here to look at the poor feller, and then he come to the house, ’cause Miss Amy’s goin’ to get all his money. She took on somethin’ terrible! Mr. Solway, he telephoned to Mr. Dexter, and he come out, too. I guess it was kinder to comfort her.”

“What would she be needin’ all the comfortin’ for?” demanded the cook. “She’d never set eyes on the cousin at all, and her to be gettin’ all that money.”

Ross went on eating his dinner. He did not appear to be interested. When he had finished, he bade them all a civil good night, and got up and went out.

Yet, something seemed to keep him warm—something kept him steadfast and untroubled as he walked, head down, against the storm of wind and sleet, along the lonely roads to the town. He found the barber shop to which Eddy had directed him, and when he entered, the lively little Italian barber did not think his face forbidding.

“Oh, she’s all right!” cried the barber. “She’s O. K. She eata soom nica dinner—verrie O. K. She sooma kid.”

He was a happy little man, pleased with his thriving business, with his family, with his own easy fluency in the use of the American tongue. He took Ross through the brilliantly lighted white tiled shop—a sanitary barber, he was—into a back room, where were his wife and his own small children.

And among them was the little fair-haired Lily, content and quite at home as she seemed always to be. You might have thought that she knew she had nobody, and no place of her own in this world, and that she had philosophically made up her mind to be happy wherever fate might place her.

She was sitting on the floor, much in the way of the barber’s wife, who pursued her household duties among the four little children in the room with the deft unconcern of a highly skilled dancer among eggshells. The woman could speak no English, but she smiled at Ross with placid amiability. She could not understand why three different men should have brought this child here at different times; but, after all, she didn’t particularly care. A passing incident, this was, in her busy life.

As for the barber himself, he had his own ideas. He saw something suspicious in the affair; a kidnaping, perhaps; but he preferred to know nothing. It was his tradition to be wary of troubling the police.[Pg 480] He took the money Ross gave him, and he smiled. Nobody had told him anything. He knew nothing.

The barber’s wife got the little girl ready, and Ross picked her up in his arms. She turned her head, to look back at the children, and her little woolen cap brushed across his eyes; he had to stop in the doorway of the shop, to shift her on to one arm, so that he could see. And then, what he did see was Donnelly.

“Of course you are!” said Donnelly. “I’m not going to keep you a minute. I’ve got something here I’d like the little girl to identify.”

“Pshaw!” said Donnelly, with a laugh. “It’s only this.” And from his pocket he brought out the rabbit.

“Hi! Taxi!” called Donnelly, suddenly, and a cab going by slowed down, turned, skidding a little on the wet street, and drew up to the curb. Without delay, Ross put the child inside, and got in after her, but Donnelly remained standing on the curb, holding open the door. Light streamed from the shop windows, but his back was turned toward it; his face was in darkness; he stood like a statue in the downpour.

“Mighty funny!” Donnelly pursued. “And, by the way—” He leaned into the cab. “I’ve seen a good deal of you to-day, but I don’t believe you’ve told me your name.”

It seemed to Ross for a moment that he could not speak. But, at last, with a great effort, he said:

“No,” said Donnelly, soothingly. “No, never mind. And this James Ross. You never heard of him, I suppose?”

“He landed in New York on Wednesday, went to a hotel in the city, left his bags, and came right out to Stamford—and fell in a pond. Now, that’s a queer stunt, isn’t it?”

“I thought so myself. Queer! I found the man’s pocketbook in that cottage—in that very room where you waited for me. What d’you think of that? There was a letter from a lawyer in New York—name of Teagle. I telephoned to him, and he came out. He could identify the man’s handwriting and so on. But he’d never seen him. Said he didn’t think there was any one in this country who had. He has a theory, though. Like to hear it—or are you in a hurry?”

“Well, Teagle’s theory is that this Mr. James Ross knew he had a cousin out this way. Miss Solway, you know. It seems her mother made a match the family didn’t approve of, and they dropped her, years ago. Now, Teagle thinks this Mr. James Ross wanted to see for himself what this cousin was like, and that he came out to that cottage to stay while he sort of mooched around, getting information about her. Family feeling, see? Only—he met with an accident.”

“You’re right! Now, of course, there’ll be a coroner’s inquest to-morrow. But—” He paused. “I happened to be around when the doctor made his examination. And he says—the man was dead before he fell in the pond.”

“Hold on a minute! Hold on! Of course that startles you, eh? You think it’s a case of murder, eh? Well, I’ll tell you now that the verdict’ll be—death from natural causes. No marks of violence. And Mr. James Ross had a very bad heart. I dare say he didn’t know it. He died of heart failure, and then he rolled down that slope. I saw that for myself—saw bushes broken, and so on, where something had rolled or been dragged down there.”

“Then,” said Donnelly, “as far as I’m concerned, there’s no case. And I’ll say good-by to you. Maybe you wouldn’t mind shaking hands, Mr.—Ives?[Pg 481]”

“On Miss Solway’s account,” said Donnelly, “I’m mighty glad you’re Mr. Ives. Good-by!”

Ross was going away, at last. He was going as he had come, with no luggage, with no ceremony. Only, he was going to take with him a small child, and he left behind him his name, his money, and a good many illusions—and a friend. Eddy was not likely to forget him.

“You’re—you’re a white man!” he said, in a very unsteady voice. “You’re—a prince.”

“No,” Ross objected. “I’m a fool. The biggest damned fool that ever lived.”

“Have it your own way!” said Eddy. “I can think different if I like. I—” He paused a moment. “It makes me sick, you goin’ away like this. It—it—”

“Drop it!” he said. “Now, then! It’s about time for us to be off.” He turned toward the bedroom. “I’ll wake her up, while you start the car. I’ll take one of the blankets to wrap her in.”

It was a little early for the train he wanted to catch, but he was in a hurry to be gone. He might have known, though, that it was his fate never to leave this place when or how he wished.

He might have known that there was one inevitable thing still to be faced. He heard the throb of the sturdy little engine downstairs; he thought, he hoped, that the last moment had come, and, instead, he was called upon to endure a moment almost beyond endurance.

For Amy came. The sound of the engine prevented his hearing her entrance; he had just gone into the bedroom when he heard her footsteps on the stairs. In a wild storm of tears, desperate, white as a ghost, she ran in to him.

She was panting for breath, and her sobs were horrible, as if they choked her. He wanted to close the bedroom door, but she had seized him by the shoulder.

“I didn’t know!” she cried. “Not—till to-night. Oh, Jimmy, I didn’t know he was dead! He came to see me—and he died. Oh, Jimmy! Just when Nanna told him—that I didn’t want to see him ever again. It killed him, Jimmy. I killed him!”

“I can’t! I can’t! I can’t! If I’d only seen him—just once more! Nanna begged me to—but I wouldn’t. And when Nanna told him, he—died! How can I bear that? Oh, Jimmy! I didn’t think he’d care so much! Just as I care for Gayle. Jimmy, listen to me! I’ll tell Gayle. I’ll go to him now. I can’t let you do this for me, Jimmy!”

“I never meant it to be like this. Never! Never! I thought Martin would let me go—let me get a divorce. And if he hadn’t, I’d have given up Gayle. I’ll give him up now, if you tell me to. Even if I die, too!”

“You don’t understand!” she interrupted, violently. “You never could. You’re too good. And I’m not good—in your way. I was just a child when I met Martin. I’m not a child now. Gayle’s my whole life to me. I love him so that—”

“For God’s sake, stop!” cried Ross. “It’s—infamous! Have you forgotten?”

All the light and passion fled from her face at his tone. She looked up at him in terrified inquiry. Ross stood aside from the doorway, so that she could see the child lying asleep on the bed. She went in very softly, and stood looking down at the little creature.

He took her by the arm and led her out of the room, closing the door behind them.

“Very well!” he said. “On her account, it’s better like this. I’ll take her. And you’ll have to forget her. Do you understand? There’s to be no repentance, and so on. Make up your mind now.”

“No,” she said, faintly. “I can’t. I won’t! I’ll just do what you tell me. You’ve got to decide.”

The child gave a little chuckle in her[Pg 482] sleep. He thought what the child’s life would be, with Amy, if Amy were denied her Gayle. He thought of Ives. He had taken Ives’s name, and with it the burden that Ives could no longer carry.

“All right!” he said. “It’s finished. I only hope to Heaven that Mr. Solway can end his days without knowing. As for Dexter—he’ll have to take his chance—like the rest of us. Good-by, Amy!”

She caught one of his hands in both of hers, and pressed it against her wet cheek.

XXI

Obediently, Mrs. Barron took her left hand out of the bowl of warm water, and laid it on the towel, carefully, as if it might melt. And the manicurist bent over it with her nice air of earnest attention.

All this was agreeable to Mrs. Barron. She was rather proud of her hands; she was altogether comfortable and tranquil; she had a pleasant, restful day before her.

In the afternoon she and her daughter were going to look at fur coats, which was really better than the actual buying; and, in the evening, they were all going to a play. The sun was shining, too, and the formal sitting room of her hotel suite was cheerful and warm, and filled with the perfume of the roses that stood all about.

“It’s good to be home again,” she remarked. “At my time of life traveling is not—” The telephone bell rang. “Answer that, my dear. It’s dangerous to touch a telephone with damp hands—Oh! A gentleman to see Miss Barron? What a strange time to call—ten o’clock in the morning! Ask his name, my dear. He was on the Farragut with us? But how very strange! Why doesn’t he give his name? But ask him to come up.”

The door opened—and it was Mr. Ross! She took a step forward, with a welcoming smile; then she stopped short.

He did not fail to notice the change in her tone, the vanishing of her smile. It did not surprise him. He stood in the doorway, hat in one hand, the little girl clinging to the other, and he felt that, to her piercing glance, he was a sorry enough figure. He felt shabby, as if he had been long battered by wind and rain; he felt that somehow the emptiness of his pockets was obvious to any one.

“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I’m afraid I’ve disturbed you. I thought perhaps I could see Miss Barron, just for a moment.”

“Come in!” said Mrs. Barron, and, turning to the manicurist, “Later, my dear!” she said.

Ross came in, and the manicurist, gathering her things together on her tray, made haste to escape. She went out, closing the door behind her.

“And such a dear little girl!” said Mrs. Barron. “Such a dear little mite.”

She had sat down on the sofa beside the child, and was stroking her fair mane, while her eyes were fixed upon Ross with genuine solicitude. She looked so kind, so honest, so sensible—he marveled that he had ever thought her formidable.

“You wanted to see Phyllis?” she went on. “She’s out, just now; but you must wait.”

For he had an inspiration. With all his stubborn soul he had been dreading to meet Phyllis in his present condition. He was penniless, and, what was worse, he could not rid himself of an unreasonable conviction of guilt. And now that he found Mrs. Barron so kind—

“Mrs. Barron!” he said. “It’s really you I ought to speak to. It’s about this child. She’s a—sort of cousin of mine, and she’s”—he paused a moment—“alone.”

“I don’t know any one in this country,” he went on, “so I thought if you’d advise me. I want to find a home for her. A[Pg 483]—a real home, you know, with people who’ll—be fond of her. Just for a few months; later on I’ll take her myself. But, just now—” His dark face flushed.

“I’m a bit hard up just now,” he said; “but I’ll find a job right away, and I’ll be able to pay for her board and so on.”

Mrs. Barron continued to look thoughtful, and it occurred to him that his request must seem odd to her—very odd. The flush on his face deepened.

“I’m sorry,” he said, coldly; “but there are a good many things I can’t explain—”

“Yes, you can!” Mrs. Barron declared, in her old manner. “And that’s just what you’re going to do. As soon as I set eyes on you, on board that ship, I knew what you were. And I am never deceived about character. Never, Mr. Ross! I knew at once that you were to be trusted. I said to Phyllis: ‘That young man has force of character!’ I knew it. Now you’ve gone and got yourself into trouble of some sort, and you’ve come to me—very properly—and you’re going to tell me the whole thing.”

“Oh, yes, you can! Here you come and tell me you haven’t a penny, and don’t know a soul in this country, and here’s this poor little child who’s been foisted upon you—Don’t look surprised! I know it very well! She’s been foisted upon you by selfish, heartless, unscrupulous people, and you can’t deny it! Now, tell me what’s happened.”

There were a good many details that he left out, and he mentioned no names at all, but the main facts of his amazing story he gave to her. Especially was he emphatic in pointing out that he had now no name and no money, and he thought that would be enough for her.

“Nonsense! You’ve got your own name, and you can go right on using it. As for money, you’re never going to let that horrible, wicked woman rob you like that—”

“Look here, Mrs. Barron!” said Ross. “I am. I give you my word, I’ll never reopen that case again. It’s finished. I’m going to make a fresh start in the world and forget all about it.”

“I shan’t argue with you now,” said Mrs. Barron, firmly. “You’re too tired. And if you want a position—for awhile—Mr. Barron will find you one. The little girl will stay here with us, of course. Now, take off your coat and make yourself comfortable until lunch time.”

“No!” said Ross. “No! I—don’t you see for yourself? I don’t want to see—anybody.”

“Mr. Ross!” said Mrs. Barron. “I’m not young any longer. I’ve lived a good many years in the world, and I’ve learned a few things. And one of them is—that character is the one thing that counts. Not money, Mr. Ross; not intellect, or appearance, or manners; but character. What you’ve done is very, very foolish, but—” She leaned across the child, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “But it was very splendid, my dear boy.”

So he had to get up and face her—the girl he had run away from when he had had so much to offer her. He had to face her, empty-handed, now; heartsick and weary after his bitter adventure.

She held out her hand, and he had to take it. He had to look at her—and then he could not stop. They forgot, for a moment; they stood there, hands clasped, looking at each other.

Human Nature Unmasked

A CYNIC SEES THE TRUE CHARACTERS OF HIS FRIENDS REVEALED BY A SEARCHING TEST, THE LURE OF A MILLION DOLLARS

WILDER sprang off the train, jostled his way through the crowd on the platform, and dashed up the steps to the street, scowling with impatience; and yet, when he got there, he stopped short.

The trolley car that met the train was waiting in front of him, and there was a rush of commuters toward it. He had meant to get on that car, but he could not. He was too tired, too mortally sick and tired of his fellow creatures. He could not and would not be crowded in there. He wanted miles of uninhabited space about him. He felt that it was impossible to endure the sight of a human face or the sound of a human voice.

He pretended not to hear, and set off down the street, with that headlong gait of his.

All he asked was to be let alone, but he never was. At this moment Marian was waiting for him.

“I’m a slave!” he thought. “I’m a fool, an ass, an idiot, an imbecile!”

These weaknesses were not obvious in Leonard Wilder’s appearance. A big fellow, well set up, lean and vigorous, he looked like one abundantly able to take care of himself. His face, with its big, bold nose, its keen gray eyes, and that out-thrust underlip, looked like a clever face. He was by no means handsome, but there was something about him that pleased the eye. People were inclined to stare at him. People who knew him detested and loved him at the same time. He was impossible to get on with; yet, once you got used to him, it was hard to get on without him.

He was an architect; but he said that if he could choose again, he would be a house wrecker. There was, he said, no room on earth for an architect until ninety-five per cent of all buildings now standing had been razed to the ground. Feeling as he did, he nevertheless helped in the erection of more monstrosities. The owners of a “development park” employed him to design houses.

“Why d’you call these things ‘nests’?” asked Wilder. “Haven’t you ever seen a nest? Don’t you realize the fundamental decency of birds? Why, man, birds hide their nests! ‘Love nests,’ eh? Sheep pens, you mean!”

Connolly laughed; but he always arranged to keep his architect and his clients as far apart as possible. When this could not be done, he took care to explain in advance that Wilder was a genius. Connolly believed this. He believed that only a genius could be so outrageous; that only a genius would do such good work for so little money. He liked geniuses.

Leonard’s own opinion of himself was less flattering. He called himself a fool. For instance, here he was, hurrying home, when he so violently did not want to go home, simply because it would upset Marian if he were late. He always hurried home, and not out of good will. He felt no good will toward anybody on earth. He was the complete cynic. He did not love his fellow man. If he caught trains,[Pg 486] it was only through a very contemptible weakness.

The sun had gone, but it was not yet dusk. As he reached his own corner, the street lamps suddenly came alive, glowing with a faint, luminous violet against the pallor of the sky. He was startled and enchanted by the effect. He stopped, to stare up at them, to watch the delicate changes in the sky.

“Extraordinary thing!” he thought. “I spend my life looking for the beautiful line—the clean, strong, inevitable line; and here is beauty without line, almost without form or color—half tints, shadows—of nothing. Why is this beautiful to me?”

He wanted a formula, and could find none. He lit a cigarette, and leaned back against the lamp-post, meditating. Marian saw this from the window. She saw her brother-in-law standing on the street corner, smoking a cigarette and staring at the sky, when he knew very well that dinner was ready. Let him! She made up her mind that she would not say one word. She put everything into the oven to keep hot, went out on the veranda, and sat down there.

When, at last, Wilder came down the street, and saw her, he knew by her face that she was not saying a word. Instead of admiring this forbearance, a fierce exasperation rose in him. He wanted her to say a word, so that he could reply in other words. He desired a barrage of peppery words. He had stopped, just to look at the sky—and she begrudged him that!

“I will not be drawn into a dispute with Leonard,” thought Marian. “He’s simply looking for a chance to be nasty; but I shan’t say a word.”

From inside the house came a sound of hammering. It was Evan Wilder, doing some little carpentering job; and this—this creditable and helpful thing—filled Leonard with still greater exasperation.

He was weary and hot. He wanted peace. He wanted a dim and lofty dining room, a silent and highly competent manservant, and a rare sort of dinner; and when he thought of what he was actually going to get—

“Peter Pan, the Boy Scout who never grew up,” he observed. “What good turn is he doing now?”

Marian still said nothing, but the effort she made to hold her tongue vibrated through the air.

“He is misguided,” Leonard went on. “If he were to follow our example, Marian! Here we sit, developing serenity of soul in contemplation. I’m happy to see you contemplative, Marian. Don’t you feel strengthened by it?”

“Leonard,” she replied, in a voice unsteady from many suppressed emotions, “if, instead of sneering at Evan—”

“Why should I?” returned Marian. “I didn’t want to disturb you in your soulful contemplations.”

She, too, had risen. He admitted that she was a nice looking girl, but it exasperated him to see that she was tired. It made him feel that every one in the world was tired. He thought of Marian working all day in this detestable little house. He thought of Evan sitting in his office, waiting for the patients who did not come. Everything was awful!

Violet disturbed him. He was sorry for her, just entering upon life in all its awfulness; and she was so unsuspicious. She did not look either tired or discouraged. She was a designer, working in a fashion studio, and she did not seem to mind it.

There she stood in the doorway. The light behind her shone on her bright hair, making it glitter like gold wire. She had a nice color in her cheeks, and across her nose was a band of freckles that seemed to Wilder funny and very touching. She had serious blue eyes. She was a serious girl altogether, but he always felt that the seriousness was not quite honest. He strongly suspected that there were moments when she laughed.

She glanced at Leonard as he came in, and smiled seriously. He would have said that he was sorry he was late, only that Marian would have heard, and it would[Pg 487] have been mean to be sorry to Violet and not to her.

As he went upstairs to wash, he met his brother Evan coming down, with a clean collar, and his dark hair still damp. He looked neat and subdued, yet cheerful. Evan was always cheerful. His valiant smile did not soothe the cynic, who came downstairs worse than ever.

Evan retired, so that he might be mysteriously invisible to any patient, and Marian went to open the door.

From the dining room, Leonard and Violet could see who stood outside—a large figure in a plumed hat and billowing cloak, like a cavalier. It was no cavalier, however, but a lady.

“Yes,” said Marian. “If you’ll step into the waiting room, I’ll see if the doctor’s disengaged.”

“I am Dr. Wilder,” he announced sternly—sternly, because he had no Aunt Jean.

“No!” cried she. “You don’t say! You must be one of the boys; but it’s old Dr. Wilder I’m looking for.”

“No!” said she, all sympathy. “Gone? That’s just terrible! I looked in the telephone book, and I saw ‘Dr. Wilder,’ and I came here. My! That’s sad! And you’re a doctor, too? Deary, you’ve got a grand presence!”

Just then she caught sight of Leonard, who had come into the hall, urged by sheer curiosity. He wished to hear the preposterous tale this woman would surely tell. It was almost pathetic, to think of her coming before him, the cynic, the merciless detector of human weakness, with her ridiculous yarn.

“You’re the one to remember!” she said. “Your eyes—so kind o’ piercing looking, and all! You remember your Auntie Jean, I bet!”

Indeed, he felt that if he had ever set eyes on her before, he would have remembered. She was not one easy to forget. Stout and tall, she carried herself with majesty. In her face, powdered white as a clown’s, her lips were a vivid scarlet. Sticky dark lashes surrounded her eyes, and crowning all was a bushy halo of blond hair, dry and unreal as a doll’s wig. No, Leonard did not remember her.

Nevertheless, looking at her, a queer sympathy stirred in him. There was something honest in her. Even the paint and powder and dyed hair were honest. They showed no intention to deceive, but merely an artless desire to make the best of what nature had provided.

There really had been an Uncle Lambert, a black sheep brother of their father’s, and Leonard thought he could remember some talk about a dreadful marriage. He was almost ready to believe that this lady might be a relation—by marriage; but that did not exclude the possibility of her being also a swindler.

“I remember,” said she, “as plain as plain. Your mother was the only one in the family that ever had a kind word for me—a sweet, lovely woman, she was. Well do I remember her saying to me: ‘Jean,’ she said, and those were her words—‘Jean,’ she said, ‘come and see the children.’ Then she took me up through that rich, elegant house, and the taste there was in those lace curtains I shall remember to my dying day, and the carpet on the stairs as thick as fur, and there you were in the nursery, the two of you, in little black velvet pants and white silk shirts, as sweet and clean as two little lambs.” She sobbed. “Two little lambs!” she insisted. “And Evan, he sat on my lap and played with my locket, and well I remember he broke it off the chain and tried to swallow it, and you stood in a corner, saying, ‘Go ‘way! Go ‘way!’ Two l-little l-lambs!”

Leonard believed her. He could not[Pg 488] recollect the incident, but he believed it had been as she said.

Still in tears, she sat down, and so did Leonard, but the others remained standing.

“Boys!” she said. “I’m all kind of fluttery.” She paused. “Boys!” she said solemnly. “How are things with you?”

“A sweet, lovely woman!” said Aunt Jean, looking at Marian. “I can see that; but—” She glanced about the neat, quiet little room. “Boys!” she said. “I know!”

There was something so portentous, so mysterious in her manner that Evan glanced behind him, as if a specter had thrown a shadow.

“This is not what you’ve been accustomed to,” she went on. “This is not what you ought to have. No, sir! Servants to wait on you hand and foot, and a fine house and all—that’s what you ought to have; and that’s what you’re going to have! That’s just what I came for!”

“Yes, sir!” she continued. “As soon as ever I heard the news, I came right here. You’ve heard of Darcy Rose, of course?”

“A grand man!” she said. “Him and I—he and me—were partners years ago. A novelty act, it was—Rose and La Reine. He did mind reading and mesmerizing, and I was Jean La Reine, the galvanic girl. I used to be galvanized, you know, stiff as a board, lying in the air, all dressed in white, and my hair down. It was a real pretty act, if I do say it myself; but it kind of went out of style. Darcy, he went in for private mind readings—séances and all, and he made a lot of money.”

“Won’t you join us at dinner?” asked Evan, because he saw Marian looking so patient.

She flung off the voluminous cape with a fine gesture, and stood before them in a low-necked black satin dress, with a rope of pearls reaching to what might be called her waist. Combined with the plumed hat and the high-heeled velvet slippers, the effect was remarkable—especially if one did not notice how worn and dusty the slippers were, how shabby the dress, how bedraggled the feather.

“Darcy Rose is doomed,” she said. “A grander spirit I never saw. One week ago this very night he sent for me. ‘J.,’ he said, ‘I’m going,’ he said.” She wiped her eyes. “‘And I’m ready,’ he said. ‘I haven’t one of my own kin left,’ he said, ‘and me with a million dollars! J.,’ he said, ‘you and me were partners;’ and the way he talked about old times would have wrenched tears out of a stone. He wanted to know what I was doing, and I told him the solemn truth. ‘Darcy,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell you I’m resting, for the truth is, I’ve given up the profession. I may look all right to you,’ I said, ‘and there are many who admire a stately figger; but it’s not the style just now, and on the stage I do not look so young. I will not hide from you, Darcy, that I am demonstrating French Cream Balm of Lettuce in the stores.’ Tears came into the man’s eyes.” She turned to Marian. “He made a last will and testament,” she said, “leaving all to me.”

“And I wish to share it with the boys,” said Aunt Jean. “Darcy Rose isn’t the only one can be grateful. Their mother was an angel to me, when the rest of the family were—were not; and I’ve come to set things right.”

Leonard said nothing. Although he had long ago lost all illusions about human nature, he felt a queer sort of pain at seeing them all so very kind and attentive—to a million dollars. It sickened him. He was not going to join the crowd of flatterers. Let them truckle as they liked to the poor old soul; he would be rudely honest.

III

It was an unseasonably hot June that year, and Wilder suffered from it. He was tired to the bottom of his soul. A competition for a model house was organized by a popular magazine, and he had been working in the evenings on a set of plans, and had sent them in.[Pg 489]

He knew he would not win, for his house was much too good. Nobody would appreciate that roof line, that staircase. He had done it to please himself, as a relief from the love nests, and to divert his mind from the sickening state of affairs at home, where Aunt Jean was now installed in the house, an honored guest.

The hot weather had brought on a boom in love nests. His firm advertised that “every house will be built according to your ideas. The home we build for you will be your Home o’ Dreams;” and clients came in with all sorts of queer ideas.

Basically, the love nests were strangely alike, but it was Wilder’s task to give each one a mendacious air of individuality.

“Seems to me that sort o’ cupola effect isn’t so artistic as the others,” said Connolly, the senior partner.

“Oh, yes, it is!” said Wilder. “More so, if possible. That cupola is the most arty thing I’ve ever done. It makes the love nest a perfect little hencoop.”

“No,” said Wilder, “I’m a man of iron.” He took off his eye shade and got up. “And now,” he said, “peace and rest at length have come, all the day’s long toil is past.” He stopped to light his pipe. “And now,” he continued, “each heart is whispering ‘Home—home at last!’”

“Just think of that to-night, as you’re going uptown in the subway,” said Wilder. “Try to realize that all the hearts crammed in there with you are whispering, ‘Home—home at last!’ Good night!”

He took his hat and stepped out of the office; and there, in the arcade of the big building, he saw Violet. She was looking at the window where small models of the love nests were displayed.

He had not seen Violet for some weeks, and it seemed to him that she had improved during that time. He had seen her wearing the same hat and dress before; but she had not looked like this in them. No—formerly she had appeared serious and competent, and now she looked a gentle, an appealing figure. You could imagine her waiting for a man, and glancing up when he came, with a charming blush.

She glanced up, but she did not blush. On the contrary, the hot weather had made her unusually pale.

But he was not quite as usual. He could not help thinking that if she had been waiting for him, it would be a curiously agreeable thing.

“I’ve been to the house for dinner two or three times,” said Violet; “but you weren’t home, and I can’t stay overnight any more, on account of Aunt Jean having the spare room.”

Violet lived in a furnished room on West Twelfth Street, and she had been in the habit of spending the week-ends with her sister; but not any more. She had been sacrificed. Compared with Aunt Jean’s million, all Violet’s kindnesses, her loyal assistance in family crises, didn’t count at all. She looked pale and jaded, and she had grown so extraordinarily pretty in these last weeks! Leonard had been missing her—that was what was the matter with him.

Over her shoulder, he looked at the model love nests in the window. One of them was lighted now; there were curtains in its tiny windows, through which shone a mellow pink glow. Wilder knew that there was nothing inside except an electric bulb with a crape paper shade, and yet—

Somewhere there was a real house just like it, softly lighted in the summer dusk, with flowers in a little garden. He could imagine that a tired man, coming home to a house like that—to a smile, a kiss, to quiet and tenderness—might find even one of Connolly’s love nests not without beauty.

“Well—” said Violet. “I should like it awfully. I get so lonely, sometimes!”

“I’ll get a taxi,” said Leonard, “and we’ll go up to Claremont. I only ask you not to come across with the usual family line about its being an extravagance.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Violet. They[Pg 490] had come out into the street now, where a wan daylight lingered. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot—about being extravagant. I’ve been—just afraid. I could do ever so many things; but I’ve been afraid to get the thing I want to-day, because then I might not be able to get something else to-morrow.”

“That’s thrift, my dear girl—keeping your cake until you haven’t any teeth to eat it with.”

He hailed it, and the driver slid up to the curb. Wilder opened the door and took Violet’s arm, to help her in. Somehow it was such a young sort of arm, firm and sturdy enough, but very slender—too slender. She herself was altogether too slender and too young. It worried him.

“I’m going to stop being afraid,” she said. “I’m going to trust life.”

Wilder was silent. They were going up Broadway in an endless procession of cabs and cars. Out of every building more and more people were pouring, going home. Perhaps, for some of them, home was not a joke.

Trust life? Just go ahead, and take the things that belong to youth? Not to be so bitterly afraid of being disillusioned and disappointed, but to trust life—and trust this girl? Didn’t he know by this time how faithful, honest, and kind she was?

“Yes,” she said. “You see, Leonard, I’ve been thinking. I’d like a little house.”

“I want to get a house for the summer, where I can take Aunt Jean,” she said. “I think I can afford it. She’s nearly sixty, Leonard. Don’t you think she’s—pathetic?”

The most pathetic thing, he thought, was a man’s unconquerable longing for the sort of girl who didn’t exist—a gentle young thing who waited for him, who would be happy with him, in one of Connolly’s houses.

Violet was a practical girl. She was perfectly willing to be sacrificed for Aunt Jean’s million. She was sensible, and he was a fool.

He could not very well push the girl’s hand away, but his clasp became so limp that she withdrew it. She looked at him, but he did not look at her. She tried to talk to him, but he answered with marked indifference.

“If you can’t be a little more agreeable,” said Vi, a trifle unsteadily, “I don’t see much use in our having dinner together.”

“It wasn’t intended as a useful thing,” said Leonard. “Simply a diversion.”

“Well, I’m not diverted,” said Vi. “You’re being very—trying, Leonard!”

“I’m sorry,” said he; “but I didn’t think you’d be able to stand me very long.”

“I think—” said Violet. “Please stop the cab! I’ll take a bus home.”

Very well, he was not going to argue with her. He stopped the cab, and they both got out. He put Violet on a bus, and then he walked uptown along the Drive. There were lights in almost every window, now, and across the river other lights shone out—from homes.

Was he to be held responsible for that? Hardly. He had been on the point of offering her all he had, but he had discovered in time that she was after bigger game. Life in a love nest—with Aunt Jean and her million, not with him! It was funny, in a way.

And in another way it was not so very funny. He knew all about human nature, but for a long time he had thought that Violet was different. Well, she wasn’t. She had reproached him for being disagreeable. All right! He reproached her, in his heart, for something a good deal worse than that.

Leonard did not telephone home to Marian. After a solitary dinner in a restaurant, he caught the nine o’clock train. He walked up from the station at a leisurely pace. He was defying Marian.

The trouble was that she never did start[Pg 491] anything. In her way, she was a pretty decent sort of girl, and patient with Leonard. That winter, when he had had the flu—

If she knew now how he felt! Of course he could not tell her, ever; but if she did know! She would call him “poor boy,” and would not care how late he was.

He stopped in at the Greek confectioner’s and got a box of chocolates. It would please the foolish woman, and he was rather fond of her.

As he came down the street, he heard voices from the porch. He concealed the chocolates in his newspaper. When he entered the house, Marian would follow him, and then, if she happened to mention that he looked miserable, he might admit he was, and let her call him “poor boy.”

“Deary, you’ve got to put up a good front. Just you get a bigger house, and a car, and a maid in a cap and apron to open the door, and the patients’ll come fast enough!”

“And Marian ought to have a fur coat this winter. Deary, things like that are an investment!”

“I shouldn’t know myself in a fur coat,” said Marian, with an unnatural little laugh.

“And we’ll travel!” Aunt Jean went on, growing excited. “Go to California, and all!”

“And I’m going to get Leonard to build me a house,” said Aunt Jean. “He’s a real genius.”

Leonard could endure no more. All of them eager to take anything they could get from that poor old soul! Sitting there, discussing plans for the spending of her money! Even Vi—Vi was going to rent a love nest for Aunt Jean’s million.

“Well, Leonard!” greeted Aunt Jean, as he came up the steps. “Sit down! I bet you’re all tired out after this hot day.”

“I heard you,” Leonard interrupted; “but you can count me out, thanks. I don’t need any assistance.”

“No!” said Leonard. “I’m grateful to you, but you’ll have plenty of others to help you get rid of your money. I’m going—” He paused for a moment. “I’m going away,” he went on. “I’m going out to California. After you’ve finished helping everybody in sight, you can come out to me, any time you like.”

He went into the house, slamming the screen door behind him. He was sick of it. He loathed human nature. Knaves and fools! Aunt Jean was one of the fools, and he was another.

There were some letters for him on the hall table. He took them into the sitting room, and flung himself into a chair. He had never felt so tired and so dispirited in his life. All of them, even Vi!

He realized now that he had not been a really complete cynic. He had thought that Evan was a darned fine fellow, making a gallant fight in the world. He had thought Marian was a rather wonderful girl, loyal and patient and strong. He had thought that Vi was the pluckiest, dearest kid. He had had faith in these people.

But no more! He was a cynic now, all right; and he really was going away. He had not dreamed of such a thing until he said it, but he meant it now. He would leave the rest of them to divide poor Aunt Jean’s million, and, when she was cleaned out, he would look after her.

He lit a cigarette and lay back in his chair. The room was tranquil and pretty in the lamplight. The curtains fluttered in the night wind, and he could smell the honeysuckle outside. This place had been a home for him. He had believed that he hated it, but he hadn’t. He had loved it—the neat, airy bedroom upstairs, the porch where the honeysuckle climbed, the cheerful grin Evan had for him, Marian’s thousand affectionate little services, and Vi coming and going.

“They were all right,” he said to himself, forlornly, “until they smelled money. Well, that’s human nature.”

But he wanted to get away from human nature as fast as possible. There would surely be work in California for an expert designer of love nests. He knew nobody there; he would have no ties.

“Excuse me, Leonard,” she said evenly, “but I’ll have to make up the couch here for Vi. She’s coming out on the nine fifty.”

Let her be offended! Plain speaking might have helped them; anyhow, they knew now how he felt about things. He picked up his letters. The first one was addressed to “Miss Jean La Reine.” He rose.

He paid no heed. Holding the letter in his hand, he stood waiting until Aunt Jean came in.

“A letter?” said she. “My!” She looked at the envelope. “Boys!” she cried. “It’s from the lawyer! I’m all fluttery!”

Evan had come in with her, and, to Leonard’s furious disgust, he put his arm about Aunt Jean.

“It’s the news,” she said. “Poor Darcy Rose! He was a grand friend to me!”

Leonard sat down again, and began to open his letters. He heard Aunt Jean tear the envelope.

“Never mind, dear!” said Marian. She was kneeling beside Aunt Jean, her smooth cheek pressed against the raddled old one.

“We asked Vi to see the lawyer, weeks ago, because we were afraid, from the very beginning, that—that you were going to be terribly disappointed. Poor old Mr. Rose didn’t have anything to leave.”

“We only wished you’d never find out, dear. We thought that if you got used to us, you could be happy to keep on—”

“A s-silly old woman without a c-cent!” she sobbed. “And all those plans—that see-dan car for Evan, and the fur coat for you, and a little holiday this summer! Oh, I wish I was dead!”

Leonard had risen again. He saw that Evan and Marian were doing more for the silly old woman without a cent than even a millionairess could have expected. They had known all the time, all of them—Violet, too. Here was human nature unmasked at last!

“Look here!” he said, with a frown. “Aunt Jean, your idea was—to share with the family. Well, we can manage the car and the fur coat and the little holiday, all right. I’ve won the competition.”

“Here’s a box of candy,” he said briefly, and turned toward the other door.

He could not speak just then. He went into the dining room to escape; but Violet came after him. He turned and faced her.

She held out her hand with a friendly smile, but somehow the friendliness vanished. It turned into another sort of look, such as he had never yet seen on any face.

“I hated to, Leonard. You—you do feel things so. You’d have been so upset. You have said that life was unjust, and—you’re such an idealist, Len!”

“I—I know it!” replied Vi, with a break in her voice. “You can’t bear it if everything isn’t perfect. You don’t understand human nature or—”

“I do not!” contradicted Vi. “I think—” She tried to get her hand away, but it was impossible. “Imagine your wanting to give away your money the moment you get it! I—I think—”

“Don’t disturb ’em!” whispered Aunt Jean. “We’re young only once. That’s just human nature. Deary, what could be sweeter?[Pg 493]”

Home Fires

TEMPERAMENTAL HOUSEKEEPING MAY HAVE ITS DISADVANTAGES, ESPECIALLY IN A TWO-FAMILY HOUSE

IT was a long way home, and a lonely way, along a road of frozen mud, bordered by empty fields and trees stripped bare in the autumn winds. The short November day was coming to a close, and the fields seemed vast in the gathering dusk. Only at the top of the hill lingered a streak of wild, unearthly yellow light, in a sky of flying clouds.

Bess climbed the hill steadily, her eyes fixed upon that transient glory; and she repeated to herself bits of poems she had learned in school:

A most characteristic sentiment! The frosty air had brought a fine color into her cheeks, and her hair, in the sunset light, shone like copper where the wind had blown it loose under her tam-o’-shanter. She was a solitary little figure in a desolate world, but invincibly gallant and earnest.

At an early age she had become enamored of Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life,” and her diary was prefaced by the quotation:

She had always felt like that. She had been left motherless when she was a very tiny girl, and the chief influence of her childhood had been that of her father, a man whom nobody could accuse of undue frivolity. He believed that life was real, and earnest, and pretty awful—especially now, when he was a ruined man.

Bess, however, being only nineteen, could not see things quite as he did. She was very grave about the situation, and desperately anxious to help him. Just now she was on her way home from the village post office, where she had mailed a letter to an old school friend, politely but firmly refusing an invitation for a week-end. She realized that things were very bad, but she could not help thinking that they might take a better turn at any time.

Her father thought this attitude half-hearted. He was a ruined man, and he wished to do the thing thoroughly—wished to be completely and properly a ruined man. He refused to cherish any illusions, any false hopes. When ruin came, he had sold their old house in Connecticut, and they had moved into the lower half of a two-family building in a New Jersey suburb. Bess suffered quite as much as he did from this uprooting, only she pretended to like it, so that he should not reproach himself so bitterly. Whenever the least thing went wrong, he would say in his most hopeless voice that all this was entirely his fault.

As a matter of fact, it was. He was a professor who had written philosophic essays, pointing out the pitiful follies of the human race, and he should have known better than to trust persons who were enthusiastic about oil wells. He did know better now, but it was too late.

Bess had almost reached the top of the hill now, and a ray of the sun, shining upon a broken bottle, sidetracked her thoughts. It looked like a piece of ice.

She thought of last winter—only last winter—and of all the girls skating on the little lake in the school grounds. In her heart there echoed the sound of their laughing voices, the strange, ringing hum of skates on ice. She could feel again her own quiet content in the companionship of her friends, the satisfaction of an orderly and purposeful life.

“But all that was just—a preparation,[Pg 495]” she said to herself, valiantly. “This is the real thing. I’m really useful now.”

That was what she intended to do, certainly. The pursuing and laboring part was not so hard, but the waiting—

The sound of a car coming along the road made Bess draw to one side. Very few cars came here, and she was a little curious about it. She glanced up as it passed, and then stared after it, amazed.

It was what looked like the wreck of a fine touring car, battered and scarred, but with an engine that took the steep hill superbly. It was piled high with household goods. A man was driving it, on the running board crouched another man, and, perilously balanced upon a table wedged into the tonneau, there sat a woman. She was laughing, and the brightness of her face lingered in the girl’s mind.

As they disappeared over the crest of the hill, a lamp shade fell out of the car. Bess was hastening forward to retrieve it, but, before she got there, one of the men appeared. He picked it up, and then something arrested his attention.

They all stood there, as if entranced with the view; and Bess, as she passed them, heard the woman say something about “the austere charm of all this.” She was somewhat surprised, and very much impressed, to learn that any one could find charm of any sort in these barren fields, where great billboards stood, declaring them to be highly desirable building lots. She felt that she herself should have discovered this charm in the six weeks she had been here.

But now she observed something which the others had not seen. They had their backs turned to the car, which stood halfway down the slope, and they did not know that it had begun to slip. Bess called an anxious warning, but they were talking, and did not hear; and the top-heavy car was slowly gathering momentum.

It was. Oblivious of brakes, it went careering down the hill, faster and faster, bumping over the ruts, and flinging out all sorts of things as it went. The others had heard her, now, and turned, and they all began rushing after it.

Too late! Going at great speed, the car smashed squarely into the stump of a tree, stood up on its hind feet, and threw a great part of its load over its head. Then it stood still and waited.

Bess was the first to reach the scene of disaster, and she was dismayed. There was a little red lacquer cabinet in splinters; there were books with the pages fluttering away; a china clock was shattered to pieces; the ground was strewn with wreckage.

“Never mind!” said the woman, cheerfully. “Some of them were broken, anyhow; and I don’t believe in caring too much about things, do you?”

Struck by this philosophic point of view, Bess turned toward the speaker, and found her still smiling. She was not a pretty woman. She was small and pale and freckled, and her reddish hair was growing gray; but that smile offers was a thing rarer than youth or beauty.

The two men had begun to stow the débris into the car in a way that caused anguish to the girl’s orderly spirit.

“Have you much farther to go?” she asked anxiously. “Because, if the things are packed like that, I’m afraid they’ll fall out.”

“My dear,” said the woman, “I don’t know how far it is. I took the place, in blind faith, from an agent. It’s No. 9 Edgely Road.”

“Oh, but that’s right there!” cried Bess, pointing. “That house, where I live!”

“A two-family house, isn’t it? Well, my dear, we’re the second family, then!” said the woman, very much pleased, and she called out joyously: “Tom Tench! Alan! I’ve found the place!”

“As if she’d done something very clever,” thought Bess. “Didn’t they ever expect to find their house?”

“My dear,” said the woman, “I’m Angelina Smith. This is my brother Alan, and my cousin, Tom Tench. Boys, im[Pg 496]agine! This is the young lady who lives in the house!”

“Shall we move the things in now?” asked the cousin, a somewhat portly young man, in horn-rimmed spectacles.

Bess glanced at him, but looked away again, hastily. There was something in his steady, smiling gaze that confused her. He did not look much like his sister. She was little, and he was tall. Her hair was reddish, and his was black. He had the same wide, good-humored smile, but somehow it was different.

“It’s getting dark,” he said, “and it’s cold. You’d better run home.”

Bess might have felt a little annoyed by his rather masterful manner, if she had not noticed, as he moved to pick up a book, that he walked with a limp; but that disarmed her. She liked him; she liked all of them; there was something charming and a little pathetic about them.

“Won’t you all come in and have a cup of tea with us first?” she asked, strictly upon impulse.

And they all followed her to the house, leaving the hapless car just where it was.

Bess knocked upon the door, to warn her father. He opened it with the distressed air of a disturbed hermit.

“Father,” said Bess, “these are our new neighbors. Miss Smith, my father, Professor Gayle.”

Miss Smith held out her hand, and the professor took it. She presented her cousin and her brother, and they all shook hands gravely.

“Cozy” seemed a tactful word for that sitting room. When Bess and her father left their old home, they had brought with them what they had regarded, at the time, as just a few pieces of their old furniture; but in this room the things had become too many and too large.

Bess knew that the crowded room hurt her father not only æsthetically, but physically. He was a big, gaunt man, very near-sighted, and almost every time he moved his shins struck some sharp angle, or something bumped him under the knees. When he made one of his fine, sweeping gestures—sweeping, it truly was—it carried to the floor all sorts of things from near-by tables.

“Really a home!” said she. “You know, we all suddenly felt the need of a home, ourselves, last week. It was at breakfast in the studio. Alan said, ‘Christmas will soon be here.’ ‘What does Christmas mean to us, who have no home?’ Tom Tench inquired. ‘Boys,’ I said, ‘you shall have a home!’ So, you see!”

“Ah, yes!” said the professor, vaguely. Bess had gone off to make tea, and he was obliged to entertain the party alone. He scarcely felt equal to it. “You said ‘studio’?” he continued. “Am I to understand that you are—er—an artist, Miss Smith?”

“All of us! I paint, and Tom Tench writes, and Alan designs. We’re very quiet people,” she assured him. “We shan’t disturb you in the least.”

And he really did feel that, if he must have neighbors, these were remarkably unobjectionable ones—no children, no dogs, and he fancied that they were not the sort to possess a loud speaker.

He was still further encouraged when Tom Tench pulled a book from one of the shelves, and gave a stern and loud opinion upon it. That was the kind of thing the professor was accustomed to, and he immediately pronounced a loud and scholarly contradiction. Then he and Miss Smith and Tom Tench all began to talk about books. No one of them had any use for the books praised by the others, but that made it all the more interesting.

They did not miss the brother. He had followed Bess into the kitchen, and he said he wished to help her. She told him that there was really nothing that he could do, but still he stayed there. He sat on the end of the table, and talked to her.

His conversation was not scholarly. He did not talk about books. He talked about plays, and Bess had never seen anything except a few Shakespearean dramas. He[Pg 497] talked about dancing, and Bess had never danced, except at school. Her particular friends had been very serious girls, and her father was invariably serious; she was not accustomed to frivolous conversation, and she could not answer Mr. Smith. After awhile he gave up and fell silent.

That night, after she had gone to bed, Bess lay awake for a time in the dark. She endeavored to think of the future, and to decide whether she could study shorthand by mail; but her thinking was unaccountably disturbed by the memory of that young man, with his steady, smiling glance and his very insignificant conversation. Somehow, it made her unhappy.

III

The new neighbors worked late into the night, with a great deal of noise, and in the morning a van came with more furniture. Bess went upstairs, to ask if she could help, but Miss Smith thanked her warmly, said that moving meant nothing at all to her, and invited Bess and her father to come up and dine with them that evening notwithstanding the unplaced furniture.

“It is something of an experience to meet genuine artists,” he said. “It will do us good. Miss Smith is, I consider, a remarkable woman. I had a talk with her yesterday, and the extent of her information is great.”

“She forgot to tell me what time to come,” said Bess; “but if we go up early—a little before six—perhaps I can help her.”

When they went up, it might have been a little before six in the morning, for any sign of dinner to be seen. Miss Smith, in a smock, was busy drawing; Tom Tench was shut up in his room, writing, and all the other rooms were in darkness.

“You won’t mind waiting until I finish this?” she asked. “It’s a design for a book jacket. It’s not at all what they ordered, and probably they won’t take it; but it seems criminal to me to stifle a good idea. Tom Tench won’t be long now. He makes a point of writing at least twenty-five hundred words a day. He will do that much, even if he’s not in the mood, and has to tear it all up.”

“I see!” said Bess, politely. “But, Miss Smith, you’re so busy—please let me go into the kitchen and get things started for you. I’d really love to.”

“Never!” said she. “For busy people like ourselves, housekeeping has to be reduced to the utmost simplicity. I’ve worked it all out. You’ll see! The dinner will be prepared here, in this room, before your very eyes. It won’t take me any time at all.”

She continued to work, and to entertain them with pleasant conversation until half past six. Then she rose, and, with a calm and efficient air, went to a cupboard and brought out a number of electric appliances—grill, percolator, toaster, and so on—which she placed upon her cleared work table, and began to attach to the chandelier outlets.

“Pray let me assist you,” said the professor, greatly distressed by what he saw, for the plugs were screwed in askew, the cords wildly tangled, and the chandelier rocking dangerously.

She smilingly declined assistance, but when her back was turned, he did what he could for the safety and welfare of the party.

“But why,” he whispered to his daughter, “does she keep the window open? It’s a cold night, and I find the draft is becoming most unpleasant.”

Bess crossed the room to Miss Smith, who was leaning out of the open window, and once more asked if she couldn’t help her.

“It’s a l-little imp-provised ice box,” said the hostess, with chattering teeth. “I nailed it up this morning.”

To Bess it seemed extraordinary to improvise an ice box outside the window when there was a genuine one in the kitchen; but she was beginning to understand Miss Smith, and could not help admiring her adventurous spirit, which wished to live like Robinson Crusoe, always improvising, if not improving.

“The meat!” whispered Miss Smith. “It’s frozen fast! I can’t get it off the plate, or the plate off the shelf!”

But, alas, she did get her ice box off the nails, and down it went into the garden below.

“Never mind, my dear!” she said. “Don’t say anything about it; I’m always prepared for emergencies.”

So she closed the window, retired into[Pg 498] another room, and came back with a number of tins.

It was, however, nearly nine o’clock before they dined. Miss Smith had trouble with her forest of electric cords, and never knew which things were turned on and which off, so that the concoctions which she believed to be cooling began to burn directly her back was turned, and the pots which she was anxiously expecting to boil would be found, after a long wait, to have been standing upon stoves absolutely cold.

Young Smith was a model of cheerful patience. He came in cold and hungry, and uncomplainingly remained cold and hungry for a long time. The professor was courteously serene through everything, and Bess and Angelina were unfailingly good-tempered; but Tom Tench was otherwise. He was silent all through the meal; and, after it had been eaten, and the ruins hidden behind a screen, he made himself felt. It was then that the bitter Tench-Gayle feud began.

“I mean the house is cold,” said Tench, with a frown. “There’s not enough heat. The furnace needs looking after. Doesn’t somebody stoke it up in the evening?”

Now that furnace was the professor’s bête noire. He had not been able to get a man to look after it, and he had said that he believed he could do it himself. He was not so sure about it now, though, and this humiliating knowledge, combined with just resentment at the other’s tone, caused him to reply with considerable asperity:

“It might be advisable to put on more coal. Perhaps we might so arrange that I should attend to it in the morning, and you should see to it—”

“I?” said Tom Tench. “Not much! I’m a writer. My business is to write, and I have no time for anything else.”

But it was too late. The harm was done; the feud had started. Tom Tench strode off and shut himself into his own room, and Miss Smith interested the professor in a discussion of Hindu myths. She was, Bess thought, the kindest, the jolliest, the most utterly honest, and unaffected soul who ever lived, but she could not dispel the sinister cloud that had come over them. There was tension in the air.

Mr. Smith did not come back. Bess watched the door and listened for a footstep, but none came. At last she slipped out, without disturbing the other two, and went downstairs—not exactly to look for Mr. Smith, of course; but something might have happened to him. He might have fallen down the cellar stairs, he might have been overcome by coal gas.

The lower floor was very quiet. She listened, hesitated for a moment, and then opened the cellar door. A light was burning down there, but there was not a sound to be heard. Cautiously she began to descend the steep stairs—and there she saw the young man, sitting on a box, smoking a pipe, and reading a very frivolous comic magazine.

He sprang to his feet and came toward her, quickly enough, in spite of his limp.

“I’m waiting to see what will happen,” he explained. “I’ve done things to that furnace!”

He stood there, smiling up at her, and she felt obliged to smile back at him, but it was not easy.

“If he’d rather stay in the cellar,” she thought, “there’s no reason why he shouldn’t—absolutely no reason. I’m sure—”

“Look here!” said Mr. Smith, suddenly. “Couldn’t we go into the city to dinner some evening?”

A great indignation came over Bess, and a sort of alarm. Young Smith was not smiling now; he seemed earnest enough—too earnest. Nobody had ever looked at her like that before. He had preferred to hide in the cellar, rather than talk to her upstairs; and now, when she had come, merely out of humanity, to see if he were dead or alive, he misunderstood her. He thought she was one of those girls who would jump at any invitation, however casual. He thought she was running after him.

“Thank you,” she said, frigidly; “but I don’t care for things like that.”

Then she turned and went up the stairs. She went into the kitchen and made a cup of cocoa for her father to drink before he went to bed.[Pg 499]

Suddenly she was overwhelmed by a recollection of Mr. Smith’s face, after she had spoken. She remembered him standing there at the foot of the cellar stairs, with a smudge on his cheek, and such a contrite, miserable look in his blue eyes.

“In a house of this sort,” the professor observed severely to his child, a week later, “which is not adapted to the complete independence of two families, if the arrangement is to be tolerable, there must be a ready and harmonious adjustment of the responsibilities. Now this Tench—the other young man is away most of the time, and it is the natural, just, and proper thing for this Tench to do his share in taking care of the furnace.”

But “this Tench” steadily refused to do anything but write. He never went near the furnace. Miss Smith pluckily attempted to do his part. Three or four times a day she descended into the cellar, crammed the grate with coal, turned on or off whatever little turnable things she saw, and opened and closed all the doors, with great good will. Not only was this repugnant to Professor Gayle’s innate chivalry, but it was dangerous, and he implored so earnestly that finally she desisted, and the professor did it all. Alone he carried up the ashes, alone he intrigued with coal dealers.

When Miss Smith’s reckless management of her electric devices caused a fuse to blow out—which happened often—Tench simply lighted a lamp. He didn’t care.

Then there was the daily battle about the mail. The postman left all letters for the house with whatever person opened the door, and the professor, being on the ground floor, was usually that person. Now Tom Tench had all an author’s morbid attitude about mail. Whenever he thought a letter should have come, and it had not, he made general accusations of criminal carelessness. At last he took to walking out to meet the postman, and then the professor accused him of willful delay in the transmission of highly important documents.

But it was in the matter of waste paper that Tom Tench was most insufferable. He was always bringing down heaps of paper, and stuffing it into the ash can. On windy days it blew out all over the garden; but there was a still more serious aspect to this offense.

“Mr. Tench, sir!” protested the professor. “As you have persistently shirked your duty in helping me to carry up those ashes, you may not be aware that sometimes they are hot, and liable to set fire to any inflammable material placed upon them. Tie your—rubbish—into bundles, if you please, ready for the collector.”

No attempt was made to gloss over this hostility. The professor had not had a quarrel for years, and it seemed to Bess that he actually enjoyed this one. He would not make the least effort to avoid Tench. Almost every evening he went upstairs for a chat with Miss Smith, and his manner of ignoring Tench was not soothing.

Then he would go into his room and bang the door; but he would not stay there. He would come in and out of the sitting room, with an obnoxious smile.

If the two men enjoyed this, however, Bess and Angelina Smith did not. They had grown very fond of each other, and they said that this distressing situation did not and should not make the least difference in their friendship. Angelina held that it was all the fault of her temperamental cousin, Tom Tench, and that poor Professor Gayle was an innocent victim: while Bess thought secretly that her father, being older and wiser, should have avoided such an antagonism.

“But it does seem a pity,” she said once, “that—your brother has to suffer for it. He seems to work so hard, and he comes home late, and half the time the house is freezing cold, or the lights are out, because they’re squabbling about whose place it is to do things.”

“Oh, Alan doesn’t mind,” Miss Smith assured her. “He’s the most good-natured, darling creature! He doesn’t need to work so hard, either. My dear, he stays late at his office simply because he doesn’t like to come home. He told me so.”

Bess decided then that it would be more[Pg 500] sensible not to bother about Mr. Smith, especially if he stayed late in his office simply because he didn’t want to come home. That meant, of course, that there was no one in the two-family house he wished to talk to, no one he cared to see. She had scarcely exchanged a word with him since that brief conversation on the cellar stairs. Sometimes she saw him from her window, going off in that dreadful old car, early, before any one else was stirring upstairs, probably without having had a proper breakfast. At night she often heard him come in late, to be greeted brightly by his sister, who never seemed to go to bed.

To be sure, she had meant to discourage him, and apparently she had succeeded. Very well—what of it? She had made up her mind to be a little nicer the next time she talked to him, but evidently there wasn’t going to be any next time. Again very well—what of it?

He was Angelina’s brother, and a neighbor, and as such she was obliged, was she not, to take a human interest in him? She learned that he was a naval architect, and that he had hurt his foot by falling down a ship’s hold during a visit of inspection. She also learned that he was the best brother in the world. She was pleased to hear this, and pleased to think that that pathetic limp would soon be gone, so that it would no longer be necessary to feel sorry for him; but she was not going to bother about him.

The week before Christmas was one of terrific activity for Bess and Angelina, and of unusually bitter hostility between Professor Gayle and Tom Tench. They were shamefully immune from any sort of Christmas spirit.

Indeed, it seemed impossible to arrange any sort of neighborly celebration. Bess had made mince pies and a plum pudding; Angelina had painted place cards to be used on the dinner table. They had both planned all sorts of jolly little Christmas presents, and a Christmas tree; but where was the gathering to be? Tom Tench refused to set foot in Professor Gayle’s domain; and though the professor could probably be induced to go upstairs, who could foresee the consequences?

“At the very last instant we’ll find some way to reconcile them,” said Angelina. “We’ll have a wonderful Christmas—I know it! Let’s walk into the village this afternoon, and get quantities of holly and mistletoe. Why, my dear, it’s Christmas Eve! They can’t quarrel to-day. Nobody could!”

“They can, though,” said Bess, sadly. “I hear them now, out on the stairs.”

“It’s a shame!” said Angelina. “Of course, Tom Tench is very temperamental, but—my dear, I’m going to have one more talk with him this evening. Alan talked to him, but he only made it worse.”

“He said, my dear, that any one who could be boorish and ill tempered under the same roof as you was a—well, all sorts of things.”

“And he wants us to move away,” Angelina continued. “He says he simply can’t stand this.”

Something in her voice touched the warm-hearted Angelina. She crossed the room and put her arm about the younger girl.

“My dear,” she said, “I’m not going to leave you. I’m much too fond of you. And—if you don’t mind my saying so—I really do think you need somebody cheerful here. Alan said it was absolutely my duty to teach you to laugh. He thinks—”

It was getting late, because Angelina had been suddenly inspired to finish a drawing after lunch, and it was after three before they set off for the village. When they had bought all the holly they could carry, and turned toward home, it was beginning to grow dark.

It was a bleak and bitter day. The wind was against them now—a savage wind that brought tears to their eyes. With their heads down against it, they went along the desolate road, their numb hands clasping the prickly holly, their numb feet suffering cruelly from the ruts frozen as hard as iron.

They came to the foot of the long hill—and how long it looked, that treeless road, going steeply up to meet the wild, dark sky!

Bess could have kissed her for those gallant words. The good will she felt for her companion actually seemed to warm her, and she began the ascent doggedly. Shoulder to shoulder, on they went, nearer and nearer to home. They reached the top of the hill, where the wind was incredibly fierce, and—

Of one accord they started running, battling against the wind. For a time Bess clung to her armful of holly, because she so hated throwing things away, but in the end it had to go. Their footsteps rang sharply on the frozen road. They were breathless and panting, but the world about them seemed strangely still—no shouts, no hurrying engines, no audible excitement. The two-family house was burning in solitary and awful splendor.

Angelina stumbled to her knees at the foot of the hill, and Bess helped her up. They heard the soft, rustling sound of flames, mounting unhindered.

They struggled on, and turned in at the gate. The front of the building was still untouched, and no one was there. They flew along the path to the back of the house. Two figures were standing there, motionless, sharply outlined against the red light—Professor Gayle and Tom Tench.

“Father!” cried Bess, with all the breath she had left. “Can’t you do anything?”

“No! This is Mr. Tench’s fire. He is responsible, and he alone. His papers thrown upon the hot ashes—”

“Tom Tench!” cried Angelina, catching her cousin’s arm and shaking him. “Do something! This instant!”

“I won’t!” said he. “The fire started downstairs, on Gayle’s premises, and it was his business to check it.”

And they kept on doing nothing, in spite of the desperate appeals and entreaties, the wrath and despair, of Angelina and Bess.

Followed by Bess, she ran around to the front of the house and up the steps of the veranda. She was just opening the door when she was seized by the arm and spun around.

To the surprise and indignation of Bess, the mere fact of her brother’s being there seemed to reassure Angelina entirely. She sat down on the rail of the veranda with a sigh of relief.

But that did not suit Bess. She was not going to leave the fate of all their household goods in the hands of Mr. Smith. She opened the door and went in.

It was very much worse in there than she had expected. The hall was thick with smoke that stifled and blinded her. She groped her way toward the sitting room, with the desperate idea of saving at least an armful of her father’s precious books; but a few steps were enough. There was death for her there. Tears were streaming from her smarting eyes, and every breath was a fiery torment.

In a panic, she turned back. All she wanted now was to get out, to draw one breath of cold, clear air; but the room was a trap, overcrowded as it was with massive furniture. Stumbling and panic-stricken, she turned this way and that. She could not find the door. She could not get out. She tripped over something and fell.

Alan Smith lifted her up. She clung to him in that dreadful, choking darkness. She felt his strong arm about her, and heard his voice, cheerful and steady.

The village fire apparatus had done its best, and departed, and the tenants of the two-family house were assembled in the Gayles’s sitting room, dejected, weary, and silent. Bess lay on the sofa, still weak and[Pg 502] shaken. Angelina was looking over a mass of sodden papers which had once been a portfolio of drawings, and the professor was helping her. Tom Tench sat hunched in an armchair, staring gloomily before him.

The curtains were scorched rags. Through a hole chopped in the ceiling water was still dripping, and the room was devastated; but the worst damage had occurred upstairs. The flames from Tom Tench’s papers heaped upon the ash can had mounted upward, and had caught the curtains at a window that happened to be open. It was bad enough down here, but upstairs there was stark ruin.

“I wonder where Alan is,” said Angelina. “He drove down to the village—to buy something, I suppose; but it’s so late!”

“As a matter of fact,” Tom Tench told her curtly, “he went to find a doctor. He was hurt.”

“That’s what I said. He hurt himself. He came back in here—in this jungle—this old curiosity shop—”

“Oh, it’s your room,” said Tench. “If you like it this way—but Alan fell over one of these antique doodads and cut his head.”

The professor glanced up. It was a long time since he had been classified as a boy, and it was pleasing.

Bess sat up straight. Was it possible? The way her father and Miss Smith were looking at each other!

“I didn’t mean—” Angelina began, somewhat confused, and then: “But it’s true!” she said. “You really are—both of you—but there’s Alan!”

The front door opened, and just at that moment there came from upstairs the most pathetic, tired little voice. It was the cuckoo clock.

The words might have been a charm, striking every one speechless. They could only look at him, as he stood in the doorway, a bandage around his head, his collar a wet and dirty rag, his face white with fatigue and pain, and a wide grin on it.

“Oh, Alan!” cried his sister. “My dear, dear boy! Your new set of plans—for that yacht—they’re burned up!”

“Then we may starve yet,” he said; “but, anyhow, we’re all right for the present. Look at this!”

He held out a package that he was carrying. Bess took it from him, and opened it gingerly.

“It’s the best sort of plum pudding there is,” he said. “I only wish I could have got a bigger one. You’ll like it, all right!”

“But I’m afraid,” she said, “it—it must be a mistake. You see, it says—” She looked up at him, and her eyes filled with tears. It was too pathetic! His head bandaged, his plans destroyed, his home in ruins, and now this! “It says ‘corned beef’!” she faltered.

Then she could bear no more. Taking the corned beef, she ran into the kitchen, and began to cry there.

Alan came after her. He put his arm about her shoulders, but, this being the second time, she did not seem to notice it very much.

“Please don’t be!” he entreated. “Two-family houses are a mistake, anyhow. I’ve been staying late at the office, trying my hand at designing a house, for a change. I wish you’d look at the plans!”

“I think I’ll make some coffee,” said Bess, hastily, moving away. Then her glance fell again upon the tin of corned beef.

They had a good deal more to say. They took a very long time in getting a very simple supper; but nobody tried to hurry them. Nobody seemed at all impatient. Indeed, when Bess came in with a tray, they all smiled at her in a new sort of way, as if they, too, had been somehow touched by her gay young laughter.

Nothing could have been more festive than that supper of coffee and corned beef, eaten under a ceiling that still dripped, in[Pg 503] a room with a broken windowpane stuffed with rags, and heaps of charred débris from upstairs piled in the corners. The wind howled outside, but nobody cared.

“This,” he said, “is Christmas Day; and in some respects I may say that it is a—for me, personally—a merry one. I should like to take this occasion to say—Mr. Tom Tench, sir, your cousin, Miss Smith, has—er—shown me an example of—of—” He hesitated for a moment. “Mr. Tench, sir!” he said. “Your hand!”

“Gayle!” he said. “Gayle! I—I think I’ll run down and take a look at that furnace![Pg 504]”

The Old Ways

THE STORY OF A YOUNG MAN WHO FELT QUITE SURE THAT HE WAS A CONQUEROR, BUT WHO CAME TO HAVE SERIOUS DOUBTS ABOUT IT

“You deaf, hey?” bellowed Oscar Anders. “Don’t you hear that bell, hey? No! Ingeborg, you stay where you are! Marie, you go!”

Mrs. Anders went. Ingeborg turned to the stove again, and lifted the lid of a saucepan; but she could not see through her tears. From the hall upstairs she could hear her mother’s voice, faltering out her broken English; then the front door slammed. Some one else had gone away, impatient and annoyed, unable to understand her.

Outside the snow was falling—the first snow Ingeborg had seen. It was not like the snow her mother had told her there was in Denmark. There were no sleigh bells here, no dark fir trees to catch and hold a glittering burden, no blazing fire within. This snow was sorrowful and faint, vanishing as it touched the pavement, and through it monstrous trucks thundered by, and people were passing, all hurried, all strangers, never a familiar face.

It was growing dark in the basement kitchen. The gas stove burned with a clear blue flame in its shadowy corner. Mrs. Anders, coming into the room, was almost invisible, but Oscar saw her.

She answered him in Danish, and that made him so angry that he banged down the legs of his tilted chair.

“Yes, and everybody’s going to ‘vent avay,’ if you don’t learn some sense! I give you your food, and a nice room, and a pair of shoes last week! A hat, even, for the girl! Everything you take, and bring nothing. The two of you—ach, Gott, so dumb!”

They said nothing, Mrs. Anders and her daughter. They had to endure this, and they did endure it.

“Oscar is a good man,” said Mrs. Anders to herself. “He gives us a home—that I won’t forget. It is a home for me and Ingeborg.”

Six months ago her husband had died. The poor man had been ill a long time, and he left very little. A very bad time that had been, even though the neighbors had been so kind. Then Oscar Anders, her husband’s brother, had sent her the fare to New York, and had written that she and Ingeborg could come to live with him, and maybe could help a little in the rooming house he had just bought.

So they had left St. Croix, where Ingeborg had been born, and where Mrs. Anders had lived for twenty years, and they had come to New York; and Mrs. Anders had tried to repay Oscar’s kindness. From six in the morning until perhaps nine at night she worked, keeping the big, old-fashioned house clean and neat, and cooking meals for Oscar. It was hard work, but she did not mind that. What she did mind was any contact with the alien world outside.

She had led a sheltered life in the West Indies, just with her husband and his people. She had never troubled to learn English, and now nobody understood her; and[Pg 506] her timid air and poor clothes won very little patience for her. She was sick with dread when she had to enter a new shop to buy anything. She would return from one of these expeditions and shut the door of Oscar’s house behind her with a long sigh of relief.

Inside the house there were Oscar and the lodgers, all so cross! Well, let them be; she knew she did not deserve it. She was a respectable woman, and the mother of Ingeborg, and that was something to be proud of. Such a neat little woman, too—small and spare, with a long nose and a thin face with two spots of red on the high cheek bones; but only Ingeborg looked at her kindly now. Her man was gone, and she had nobody but Ingeborg, who was still a child to her mother.

“Oh, thou dear little one!” thought Mrs. Anders, looking at her daughter. “Thou little Ingeborg—so dear!”

Ingeborg was making the coffee. Oscar was a good man, but he ought not to call Ingeborg “dumb.” That was not right. Just think what the girl could do in the house—so clever and quick at cooking, fine ironing, sewing, anything you wanted done—

“The bell!” shouted Oscar. “Ach, Gott, she grows deaf now, the dumb old woman!”

She hurried up the stairs, whispering to herself the English words she might need. She opened the front door, and there was another young man. So many of them came!

Mrs. Anders had already begun to mount the stairs, and he followed her. On the top floor she opened a door and showed him a bare little room, very clean.

Mrs. Anders was terribly anxious to let the room, because Oscar said it was her fault that nobody had taken it yet. Perhaps seven dollars was too much for it. She knew nothing about such matters; only she did so want to let it.

“Ver-ry goot room!” she said, and looked about for advantages to praise. “Heatness!” she said, touching her worn shoe against the register, from which came a tepid current of air. “Vater!” And she turned on the tap in the wash basin.

“Excoos?” she said, straining every nerve to catch his meaning. She saw that he was growing impatient. A formidable young man he was, big and blond, with eyes like blue ice, and a dogged jaw.

He called after her, but she paid no attention. Down the last dark flight she stole, and looked into the kitchen, and behind Oscar’s back made a signal to her daughter. Ingeborg came out into the passage. They dared not even whisper, for fear of their tyrant; but Mrs. Anders pointed up the stairs, and Ingeborg followed her like a shadow.

The young man had not waited. He had come down into the hall, and was about to let himself out of the front door, when Ingeborg spoke.

He turned and looked at her. The hall was dim, with only a single gas jet high overhead, but he could see her well enough. She was small, and looked very slight in her plain, dark dress. Her dark hair was wound in braids about her head. Her face was pale and wide-browed, with clear, dark eyes that looked back at him steadily. A colorless, quiet little thing; what was there in her to catch at his heart?

“Yes,” he said curtly. “I wanted to know if I could get my breakfast here, and what you’d charge.”

Ingeborg explained the question to her mother in Danish, and then told the young man:

His blue eyes followed her as she moved away. Then he turned his head and looked out through the glass of the door. Mrs. Anders watched him, terribly anxious.

“Such a fine young man!” she thought. “So tall, and such a beautiful, rich overcoat! I only hope he’ll take that room![Pg 507]”

Now there came a great bellowing from downstairs. She could understand those words. Oscar was angry, and shouting at little Ingeborg.

“No!” he said with a frown. “Never mind, anyhow—I’ll take the room, without breakfast. I’ll be back later.”

He opened the door and let himself out. Mrs. Anders stood in the hall, with tears in her eyes. She had not understood what he said. She thought he had gone away, as so many others went away, angry because she was so dumb.

As a matter of fact, if the young man was angry with any one, it was with himself, for his own folly. He ran down the steps and set off along the street as if he were in a hurry to get away from that house.

He had to wait at a crossing for the traffic to pass. On the opposite corner he could see the snow swirling about the street lamp in a little tumult; and it reminded him of something he had loved when he was a child. His mother had had a glass ball with a paper landscape in it, and when the ball was shaken a fierce snowstorm would fill the tiny world inside it. He remembered it so well, and somehow the thought of it made him recall other memories of his boyhood days, faint and sad and beautiful—the jingle of sleigh bells, a glimpse of the lighted window of a little house among the snow-covered hills, the long hoot of a train speeding swiftly through the dark.

He did not want to think of the past. He walked faster, but those thoughts went along with him, and in them, all the time, was the face of little Ingeborg. He had never seen her before, yet she seemed familiar to him, like a figure from his own past, or from a dream.

That pale face of hers, with its steadfast eyes—it was like a picture in his old fairy tales of a snow queen, dressed in fur, driving off in a sleigh shaped like a swan, and looking back sorrowfully over her shoulder. It was like a face he had seen long, long ago, at some window. It was the face of the beloved maiden who is always waiting, in every tale, in every dream—waiting her deliverance.

Not for him! He would not have it so. He had chosen another road, and nothing should stop him. What did he care for that girl—a little, shadowy, humble thing like that?

He thought of Mabel, with her pearls about her throat, and her red lips, and he laughed aloud. Who, seeing Mabel, would look again at that other? Not he!

He went back to his old room and packed his bag; then he walked over to a little Italian restaurant for his dinner. He had minestrone and ravioli—queer food for that blond son of vikings; but he was used to things like that. He had eaten stranger food in more unlikely places—in Naples, in Calcutta, in Marseilles. He had seen the world—the beauty of it and the worst of it.

He took his time over his dinner, and it was nearly nine o’clock when he ran up the steps of Oscar Anders’s house and rang the bell. Nobody came to open the door. The young man set down his heavy bag, and frowned impatiently. He was cold and wet, he was tired, and for some reason he did not feel happy. He rang again.

Then she came. She opened the door, and he entered and threw down his bag. He did not want to look at her, but he could not help seeing her. She was wearing a white blouse with a funny little plaid bow at the collar, and a long, dark skirt. She was altogether foreign in those clothes, with her dark braids about her head, and her subdued air—foreign, and yet in some way familiar to him, and dear.

“But she doesn’t understand English very well. She thought—I’m so sorry—but just a little while ago we let the room.”

“What?” said he. He was angry now. “I should have paid, eh? Somebody came along with money—”

As she spoke, she looked straight at the young man, and she let him see that she really was sorry—as if she were his friend, and really anxious about him. Though she was so young and slight, there was a fine dignity about her.[Pg 508]

“Ingeborg!” shouted the voice again. From the basement stairs there appeared a great, fierce old head with grizzled brows and mustache. “You!” cried Oscar. “What you doing here, hey? Who’s this?”

“Daughter? She’s no daughter of mine. You, Ingeborg, get downstairs! When there comes a man, you shall call your mother. You hear me? Get downstairs!”

The girl turned away, toward the stairs; and at sight of her mute submission a great anger rose in the young man. Not even a glance over her shoulder for him, not a smile at that old bully! She was just one of those foreign girls, with no pride.

He went out of the house, banging the door behind him. No pride—what was a woman without pride? If she set no value on herself, how was a man to hold her dear?

He thought of Mabel, of all the American girls he had known. There was not one among them who would have bent her head humbly to that old fellow—not one; only this Ingeborg, this little alien with the dark braids about her head.

Halfway down the street he remembered his bag. He turned and strode back, ran up the steps, and rang the bell violently. Perhaps she would come again. What did he care?

The young man took up the bag, and for a moment the two of them looked at each other.

“So was I a fine fellow when I was young,” thought Oscar. Aloud he said, with a sort of mildness: “Too bad that that dumb one didn’t keep you your room! If you had come to me, it would have been different.”

“A nice thing for me!” said the young man. “A night like this—and I gave up my old room. A fellow I know told me to come here—name of Nielsen.”

“Nielsen?” repeated Oscar, staring thoughtfully at him. “Well, maybe I find something. One room I have, but that’s not for a young fellow like you—a fine room, with a piano in it. Maybe I let you have that room for one night at the price of the other, because that dumb one—”

“Oh, I’ll pay you for your fine room with a piano!” interrupted the young man. “You can charge what you like—I don’t care!”

“Make yourself at home,” he said carelessly; for he would not let the fellow see how much he thought of this parlor.

The young man brought out a wallet, and again he and Oscar looked at each other; and there was the same pride in both of them.

“Jespersen you call it?” he said. “Yespersen, I guess! That’s a name from the old country.”

They both laughed at that. They sat down on two slender chairs covered with faded tapestry, and began to smoke in the dim and chilly parlor.

“Gunnar Jespersen—that’s my name,” said the young man. “My father was a Dane and my mother was Swedish, but I was born here.”

“Twenty-five years I am here,” said Oscar slowly. “It is a good country, but some of the old ways are good, too.” He smoked for awhile in silence. “You been a sailor,” he remarked, looking at the other’s hand, with an anchor tattooed on its back.

For there would come across him, without warning in these days, terrible fits of bitterness and gloom. At the bottom of his soul there was a stern austerity, born in him and bred in him. He could laugh as much as he liked, he could swagger in his triumph, but in his soul he was sick and ashamed.

Six months ago he had been at Long Beach, strolling along the sands, in his best shore clothes. He had been all alone, but he didn’t mind that. There was plenty to look at. Now and then some girl would smile at him, and he would smile back scornfully and go on his way.

And then he had met Mabel. At first he could not believe that it was he that she was looking at like that, out of the corners of her long black eyes. Heaven knows Gunnar was proud enough, but he could hardly believe that. The way she was dressed! The air she had!

She was with another girl, and it was the other girl who had dropped her purse almost at Gunnar’s feet. He had picked it up, and had spoken to them arrogantly; but the more curt and scornful he was, the more did Mabel smile on him, she with her pearls and her gloves and her drawling voice. Ignoring her friend, she had walked close beside Gunnar.

That made him angry. He was studying navigation, he was going to take an examination and get his mate’s ticket, and some day he would be master of a ship.

“My father’s the superintendent of a factory,” she said. “I know he’ll give you a job.”

But, all the same, he went to her father the next day, and he did get a job, and after two months he was made foreman. Now he had a little car of his own, and two suits of clothes, and a fine watch. He was making good money, and he wanted more. He had never thought much about money until he met Mabel.

Sometimes she came to the factory to drive her father home, and always she stopped to talk to Gunnar. She didn’t care how much the men stared.

“Gunnar,” she said one day, “I want you to come to the house to dinner.”

But he went, and he could not forget it. In the factory, grimy, in his rough work clothes, he would remember how he had sat at table in their fine house that night, with the girl opposite him, in a glittering low-cut dress, and her mother and father making much of him. They wanted him for their girl—he knew that. They would help him along in the world, for her sake, and to his ruin—he knew that, too.

For she waked everything that was worst in him. Sometimes in his heart he called her a devil, yet he could not escape from her. Waking and sleeping, his one dream was to conquer her, to make more money, to have a house such as she lived in, to have a place in her world, and to be his own master in it.

III

“Well, Gunnar Jespersen,” said Oscar, getting up, “your breakfast you can have downstairs at seven o’clock.”

He got up early the next morning—too early. With the shades pulled down and the gas lighted, the parlor had a jaded look, as if it were tired and sullen, like himself. He dressed and went out into the hall, and downstairs to the basement.

At the kitchen door he stopped and looked in, and there he saw Ingeborg cooking the breakfast. She was as neat as a pin in her dark dress and white apron, and with her smooth coronet of braids. She was pale, and her eyes were red from weeping. A sad, quiet little thing she was, but so dear to him, all in a moment! How good she was, he thought, like a dear little angel! If only he could turn to her as his refuge!

He saw everything so clearly now. Here was his good angel, to save his soul from ruin. He had terrible need of her, of her goodness and gentleness and patience.

He went into the room. She turned at his footstep, and he came close to her and stood before her, looking down into her face. Her eyes, shining with clear truth, were lifted to his, but she did not smile. It was as if she knew how desperate was his case.

It was part of her blessedness that she could think of things like that—safe and homely things. She was the innocent little handmaiden, destined to make a home for his stormy spirit. He caught both her hands.

“Ingeborg!” he began, but just then there came a stamping and a great voice calling out:

She ran to the stove and looked into the coffeepot. Then she began to put the breakfast on the table, and Oscar and Gunnar sat down together.

“That room’s for a married couple,” objected Oscar, “not for a young fellow like you.”

“I guess you want to play on that piano!” cried Oscar, with a shout of laughter, and Gunnar laughed, too, because he was happy.

The sun was up when he left for his work. It was a sharp March morning, with a wind that blew the sky clear and clean.

“The spring is coming,” thought Gunnar. “On Sunday, if it’s a nice day, maybe I’ll get out my car and take Ingeborg for a ride.”

He thought about that with a masterful joy. She was a little angel, but she was human enough to falter beneath his bold gaze. He was a conqueror again.

It was late in the afternoon when Mabel came in. She came like a queen, for wasn’t she the daughter of the superintendent? She beckoned to Gunnar with her gloved hand, and he left his work and came to her; but not like a subject to a queen. He stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck, his fair hair damp with sweat, his hands blackened, but he was as cool and easy as she.

They stood apart in the great room that trembled and throbbed with the beat of machinery, and the men looked at them sidelong; but she was not abashed. She could do as she pleased.

“Gunnar,” she said, “I’ll wait for you by the bridge and drive you part of the way home.”

“You’ll have a nice long wait, then,” said Gunnar. “I won’t be finished here for another hour.”

“Perhaps they can manage to get on without you, if you leave a little early,” she suggested with a slow smile.

“There’s a rush order to get out,” replied Gunnar, “and I can’t leave early.”

“You’re a fool!” she said. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here at all.”

She wished it were like that. She wished she had the power of life and death over him. She would conquer him!

She was silent for a moment, thinking how she could do it. He watched her; and, for all his scorn, his heart beat fast at the sight of her vivid beauty. She was a tall girl, thin, with a dark, narrow face, rouged and powdered, her cruel mouth reddened. She was dressed in a fur coat and high-heeled shoes, with her pearls about her neck. She was for him the very symbol of the new world of money that he so fiercely desired.

A sort of fear seized them both, for they saw a crisis coming near. Either she must win or he must win.

“You can telephone me on Sunday afternoon,” she said, “if you want to come.”

She smiled, but it was a queer smile, and she said nothing. Perhaps she herself did not know what she meant.

“Let her wait!” he thought, and laughed aloud. “Here, you, Kelly! Get on the job there!”

He slept well that night, and the next morning, when he came down into the kitchen, he was swaggering a little. Mrs. Anders was there, and he had no chance to talk to Ingeborg; but he looked straight into the girl’s face, and she smiled at him.

As a matter of fact, he was laughing at the idea of his getting married. Gunnar Jespersen a married man! It was funny, but it made him very happy.

“Such a fine young man!” thought Mrs. Anders. “The best room in the house he takes. He must be rich; and so handsome and strong, and his people from the old country! If there should be a man like that for the little Ingeborg—”

The next morning was Sunday. Gunnar took his bath, put on his Sunday clothes, and came down into the kitchen, smiling with a secret happiness. It was a mild, bright day; he was going to get his car and take Ingeborg for a drive.

All morning he was busy in the garage where his sedan had been stored for the winter. Then he took off his overalls, scrubbed his hands, got some lunch in a dairy, and drove to the house. He let himself in with his latchkey, and went downstairs to the basement. In the kitchen Oscar was sitting alone, reading the newspaper. Not caring to disturb him, Gunnar went quietly away, looking for Ingeborg. He heard Mrs. Anders down in the cellar, shaking up the furnace.

Going upstairs again, in the front hall he stopped to listen, and he heard quick little footsteps overhead. He ran up the stairs to the next floor, and there he found Ingeborg, carrying a pile of clean towels.

“Come on!” said Gunnar. “Get your hat and coat. There’s a heater in my car.”

“No, you haven’t,” interrupted Gunnar. “None of his business! You’re working all the time. You can go out on Sunday afternoon if you like.”

He was not angry now at her old-fashioned, foreign ways. Indeed, they pleased him.

He went down into the basement, but before he got to the kitchen he passed the open door of Ingeborg’s dark little room, and in there he saw her hat and coat lying on the bed.

“He might say no, that old squarehead,” thought Gunnar; so he took the hat and coat, and ran upstairs again. “It’s all right,” he assured the girl.

If there was a row when they got home, he didn’t care. By that time he would have told Ingeborg that they were going to be married, and Oscar could say what he liked.

Ingeborg did not doubt his assurance. She put on her hat and coat, there in the hall.

He could have caught her in his arms that moment, she was so dear and so funny in that hat and coat!

“When we get married,” he thought, “I’ll buy new clothes for her—stylish clothes. She’s pretty—prettier than any one else.”

He knew where he wanted to go—out of the city, and across the bridge to Long Island. It was not a pleasant neighborhood, but the rush of wind against her face, and Gunnar beside her, made her heart sing. He turned down a street gloomy and empty, lined with shuttered warehouses, and at the end of it he stopped the car.

Then, even as he spoke, he saw what was going to happen. If he married Ingeborg, he wouldn’t be a foreman much longer. Mabel would see to that. He would lose his job. He would have to give up his car, give up the fine room, the good money. He could find another job in another factory, but not as foreman. That wasn’t so easy. He would have to go to work under another man.

For a time he sat staring before him, his blue eyes grown hard. He had not thought of this before. To give up so much, and of his own free will! He was terribly downcast.

Then Ingeborg stirred beside him, and he turned to her with a queer look. His eyes were narrowed; he stared and stared at her. She glanced at him, and then, with an uncertain little smile, bent her head. There she sat, with her small hands folded—patient, a little confused; and she was so dear to him—dearer than anything else in the world! He was glad to give up all these things for her. He would give his life for her, his beloved maiden, his little angel!

He looked up and down the empty street. There was no one in sight. He caught her in his arms, held her tight, and kissed her pale cheek.

He paid no attention to that. He laughed, because he was so proud and so happy; and, putting his hand under her chin, he turned her head and kissed her mouth.

Her eyes were looking into his, and he was astounded by the stern anger in them. She was not gentle now, not patient. Such a hot color there was in her cheeks, such a light in her eyes!

“You can’t talk to me like that,” said Gunnar. “I’ll go when I’m ready.”

But, just the same, he had to obey her. He turned the car and started back. He was sick to the soul with shame and disappointment. He had offered her everything, and she returned him only scorn and anger. Never before in his life had any woman been able to hurt him so. Whether it was anger or pure sorrow that he felt, he did not know; but it seemed to him that he could not endure it.

He wanted to say something that would hurt her; but when he looked at her, he could not. She had grown pale again, and sat very straight, looking before her, so stern and cold, and still dear to him. He could not endure it.

“You’re not the only one. If you don’t want me, all right! There’s somebody else that wants me—somebody who’s rich, with a fine house, and pearls. What do I care for you?”

In his heart he said this to Ingeborg, but not aloud. He dared not. For all his great anger against her, there was something in her, some strange dignity and power, that checked him.

He did not want to look at her again, but, as she walked off, he had to look. There she went, so slender and little, so unattainable!

He did not know, and yet a terrible sense of guilt oppressed him; and because he would not be humbled, not by any human creature, not by his own soul, he would go to Mabel. He was reckless now.

Unfortunately, Mabel would not be expecting him for several hours. He drove about at random. At first he made up his mind that he would never go back to the house where Ingeborg was. Never mind about the clothes he had there! Let them go—what did he care?

As the dusk came, and his bitterness still grew, he changed his mind and turned back there. He was going to tell Ingeborg, going to tell all of them. He wanted to do some reckless, arrogant thing, to show them what a fellow he was.

The most extraordinary ideas came into his head. He thought that perhaps he would go down into the basement and tell[Pg 513] Oscar that he wanted to buy that piano. He must do something to show them, and something to give rest to his inexplicable pain.

He strode up the steps, unlocked the door, and opened it with a violence that sent it crashing back against the wall. What did he care if he broke it? He could pay for it.

She spoke to him rapidly in Danish, but he had long ago forgotten the language of his fathers.

“Ach, what a spectacle!” said Mrs. Anders. “Her Uncle Oscar, he finds she is vent out, and she will not say who vas it. Ach, so mad is he!” She wiped her eyes on her apron. “It is a badness dat you do so, Gunnar Jespersen!”

He wanted to laugh, but he could not. Something of the same fear he had felt for Ingeborg he felt now for Mrs. Anders—the mystic reverence for a good woman that was in his soul.

“Well, I’ll tell the old squarehead,” he said. “What’s the harm if she does go out with a fellow?”

“Hush!” said Mrs. Anders sternly. “It is a badness when you speak so of the Uncle Oscar. He is a goot man. He gifs us a home.”

Gunnar had to understand that, for in his own heart there was an echo of that simple fidelity. Let him try to laugh if he would, the old austerities were deathless in him. He stood before a good woman, and he was abashed.

He thought no more of going boastfully and arrogantly to Oscar Anders. Anders was the master of this house, as Gunnar’s father had been master of his. He was not to be affronted.

“She sits up on the stairs,” she said. “Her Uncle Oscar is too mad, so he yells that she cannot come downstairs for it.”

Gunnar set his foot on the lowest stair. He did not want to go to Ingeborg. What had he to say to her? But he had to go. He went unwillingly, slowly.

Up at the top of the house he found Ingeborg sitting on the stairs, in the twilight. She was leaning her head against the wall, and her hands were folded in her lap. He stood looking down at her for a long while, but she paid no heed to him.

“Well!” he said, with a rough affectation of carelessness. “What you doing here?”

He could see her only dimly, and he dared not go a step nearer to her, or even stretch out his hand.

It was like a blow to him. He could not speak for a time. He had humbled himself again, and still she was cold and stern—and still so dear to him!

Suppose she did know? He was ready to believe that her clear and innocent glance had a terrible penetration. He could not understand her. Perhaps, in some way of her own, she did know all the wrong things he had done.

Despair and pain choked him. In his blind need for her kindness, he came close to her, sat down on the step below her, and buried his head in his hands.

“If you would marry me, Ingeborg,” he said, “then I’d be different![Pg 514]”

“Marry you?” she said. “Do you think I am like that? Do you think I would marry the first man who comes along? Why, I don’t even know you, Gunnar Jespersen!”

And that was all he could say. He could not tell her what he meant—that for her sake he would give up all his pride, that for her sake he was sick and ashamed. All he could do was to speak her name.

“I think I’ll—lose my job,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have to go away.” He thought that somehow she would understand all that he meant by that, all that he renounced. “If I have to go away somewhere, to get a job,” he went on, “promise not to marry some other fellow!”

He spun around. She had risen, and was standing close to him. He put out his hand, but she drew back, and his arm fell to his side. He must not touch her. He must wait. She had given him hope, and that was all.

And it was enough. He had found at last the beloved maiden who must be won. It would be hard, but it was good; it was what he wanted. It was a challenge worthy of him.

He ran down the stairs again, and his heart was light now. He was so proud of the little Ingeborg who made him wait![Pg 515]

By the Light of Day

THE STORY OF A MAN WHO WANTED LIFE TO BRING HIM SOMETHING MUCH FINER AND BETTER THAN THE COMMONPLACE THINGS IT BRINGS TO OTHER MEN

KIRBY lay stretched out on the sand, watching the driftwood fire he had built. The flame mounted steadily, this quiet night, sending out over the dark water a trembling path of ruddy light. Now and then a little rain of sparks fell, to die at once in the thick sand; and overhead a young moon swam, clear silver, in a sky without clouds.

He might have been alone on a desert island. Before him lay the calm summer sea, and all about him stretched the flat and empty beach. He liked this blank solitude—indeed, he needed it.

The tiny thread of smoke from his cigarette rose beside the column of smoke from the fire, like a sturdily independent spirit. His thoughts, too, were aloof, detached from the insistent current of other people’s thoughts.

“Now you ought to think about getting married,” his sister had said, not for the first time.

He was thinking about it, but in a way that would have dismayed her. She was always introducing him to “nice girls,” and growing a little annoyed with him because of his indifference.

“I don’t see what fault you can find with her!” she would say, as if one of the “nice girls” was as good as another; and, in her heart, that was what she did think. She wanted only to see Kirby married and in a home of his own.

He kept his own counsel, for it was no use trying to tell his sister. Let her go on trying to snare him, to capture him, to bind him tight to the life that he so utterly rejected! He had seen it happen to other fellows he knew. He had watched them fall in love, get married, and set up homes of their own, and had seen them grow harassed, preoccupied, sometimes bitter. There was his brother-in-law, for instance, complaining about the bills, talking of giving up his club, guilty and apologetic if he came in late. It was supposed to be comic, all this sort of thing, but Kirby did not see it so.

When he was younger he had been sure that there was something better. In books, in operas, in plays, he had caught the echo of a sublime thing, and he had believed that it was every man’s birthright—a love passionate and honest and beyond measure generous. He had meant to wait for it; but, as he grew older, his faith died.

He did not see any such thing in actual life. He saw, instead, love that began beautifully and honestly, but ended in a suburban home and a thousand ignoble worries; and he would have none of that. If there was nothing better, then he would do without. He was doing well in business, and he would keep on doing better and better, and that would have to be enough.

He threw away his cigarette, clasped his hands under his head, and lay looking at the stars. Here on this beach, as a boy, he had played intensely serious games of Indians and pirates, always with a fire like this. Even now he could recapture something of the old thrill of wonder and expectancy, the feeling he had had that marvelous things were surely going to happen.

Well, they never had. Here he was, twenty-six, and assistant manager of the accounting department of a machine belting company; a quiet, competent young[Pg 517] fellow with an air of businesslike reserve that disguised the moods of his exacting and sensitive spirit. He went to the office every day, he worked, he came home, he met those “nice girls.” He talked to them and danced with them, and sometimes made love to them a little, out of politeness; and that was all there was.

And it wasn’t enough. Out here, in the summer night, his restlessness grew intolerable. He wanted so much more—something stirring and lovely, something that would give to his work and his life a fine significance. So much more!

“I’d better go back now,” he thought, and tried to pretend that this was a concession to his sister. But it was not; it was because he had grown too lonely. He got up, and was about to kick out the fire, to scatter it and stamp it out, when, far down the beach, he saw a little white figure coming toward him.

He stood still, curiously intent. He had grown to think that this was his own private territory, for hardly any one else came here, especially after dark; yet here was this little thing coming on resolutely.

It was a girl in a white dress—he could see that now. Her step made no sound upon the sand. There was no breeze to flutter her skirts. She was like a wraith, silent and dim.

Then, to his surprise, she turned directly toward him. There was a rise in the beach here, up from the edge of the sea, and she mounted it briskly.

“Excuse me,” she said, in a serious little voice. “I just wanted to see the time.”

“You’ll have to come nearer,” Kirby told her. “I’m sorry, but mine’s stopped.”

“I saw your fire,” she said. “I’ve been watching it as I came along. I do love fires on a beach!”

Her confident and friendly manner disconcerted him. He had never encountered a girl like this. There was something unreal about her, walking out of the dark, up to his fire, and beginning at once to talk to him, as if she knew and trusted him.

“Thank you,” she answered promptly, and, coming nearer, sat down on the sand, facing the sea.

“She ought to know better,” thought Kirby. “She can’t know what sort of fellow I might be.”

He stood behind her, looking down at her. The firelight behind her threw her slight figure, sitting with her hands clasped about her knees, into sharp relief, but her face he could not see at all.

“Yes!” she said. “I read about it in a book from the library; and last summer I think I found a pirate’s earring. Auntie said it was a curtain ring, but perhaps it wasn’t.”

An odd thrill ran through Kirby. Pirates! Easy to imagine them, on just such a night as this, landing in the cove below the rocks—swarthy, evil men, creeping up inch by inch, with knives between their teeth. They would leap upon him suddenly; there would be a desperate fight in the glare of the fire. Then the pirate chief would carry away the girl, and Kirby, the hero, would somehow escape from his bonds and swim after them, and save her.

She would know exactly how to behave in such circumstances, he felt sure. He felt sure, too, that if he were to suggest that they should “make believe” there were pirates here, she would immediately and seriously agree. She was like a little girl, like some playmate from his lost youth. In some queer way of her own she evoked for him the glamour of childhood—she and her pirate’s earring!

He sat down beside her, and they began to talk. It no longer seemed to him a foolish and imprudent thing that she should have come to him like this. She had the unthinking independence that children have. She would go where she chose, and, if she was startled or distrustful, she would run away.

It made him happy that she should be here, this friendly little thing with her pretty voice.

Springing up, she gathered an armful of wood to put on it. So did he, and they stood side by side, throwing in the sticks with nice care. The flames leaped up, and he saw her face—a small, pointed face framed in dark hair, which floated in silky threads, and lit up by big, shining dark eyes. It was like a face in a dream, so lovely that it almost took his breath away.[Pg 518]

She sat down again, her head a little turned away from the blaze, and he could no longer see her face; but he remembered it. It was there before him in the dark, in all its vivid loveliness. He could not think of her as a playmate now. The magic evocation of childhood was gone; he was a man, and she was a young and beautiful woman. His content, his happiness, had vanished. He was troubled, almost dismayed.

“I’ve never seen any one like her!” he thought. “I didn’t know there was any one like her; and for her to come to me like this!”

After all, wasn’t it what he had been waiting for, just this glimpse of a lovely face, this clear and steady little voice in the dark, this utterly unexpected encounter in the firelight on the lonely beach?

She was still talking to him, with a sort of eagerness, but he scarcely listened now. It seemed to him that her voice had changed. Indeed, he could not hear or see her now. The fire was dying down, and she was no more than a little silhouette against the starlit sky; but in her place there was another—some one very beautiful and almost august, like the young Diana come to earth. The innocence and candor of her were sublime; she was fearless, of course, just as she was beautiful.

Kirby did not realize how long he had been silent, when she stopped speaking. Her voice still echoed in his ears, blended with the whisper of the sea. He sat beside her, lost in a reverie.

“This is how it ought to be,” he thought. “This is just right—to have her come to me like this, and for her to be like this!”

She turned toward him, and he had another glimpse of her face and her shining, solemn dark eyes.

“But, you see, I’ve got to,” she explained. “I promised I’d be home by nine o’clock.”

“But—” she began. “I—I’d like you to, only—I think you’d better not, please.” Then, as he was silent, she added, in distress: “I’m sorry—really I am,” and held out her hand.

He took it. He might have known, by the clasp of that warm and sturdy little hand, that this was no goddess Diana whose feet were on the hilltops; but he would not know it. His heart beat fast, and his fingers tightened on hers.

“Oh, yes!” she replied. “Yes, of course! Some other evening—but I’ve got to go now. Good night!”

“Look here!” he said. “You can’t go like this! I don’t even know your name.”

“Well, you see,” she said, “I can’t very well. I’m just visiting here.”

She stood before him with her head bent. The fire was almost out, and it seemed to him that the world had grown dark and very still and a little desolate. It was as if something had gone—some warm and living presence. In his heart he was vaguely aware of what had happened. It was the dear, jolly little playmate who had gone, taking with her the innocent glamour of this hour, driven away by the note of ardor in his voice.

“I will,” she promised. “I’ll come here again—some other evening—like this!”

He understood very well what she meant. She wanted to recapture the vanished charm, to come again in the same happy and careless way, to talk by the fire again; but he would not have it so.

“Look here!” he said. “Will you let me take you out to dinner to-morrow?”

She did not answer, but stood there with her head averted; and a fear seized him that was like anger.

“I don’t want to bother you,” he said curtly. “If you don’t want to see me again—”

“Oh, let’s not!” she cried. “I never go out to dinner—with people.[Pg 519]”

He smiled to himself at that, yet it hurt him. Poor little playmate, so reluctant to leave her world of make-believe!

“Well, all right!” she said suddenly, with a sort of desperation. “All right, then—I will!”

He stood beside what was left of his fire and watched her walking away, a swift, light little figure against so vast a horizon; and he felt very unhappy.

“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?” he asked himself angrily. “It’s no crime to ask a girl out to dinner, is it?”

He stamped out the last sparks and set off for his sister’s house. He was surprised, when he drew near, to hear the phonograph still playing. It seemed to him that he had been gone so long, so far!

He crossed the lawn, went up on the veranda, and looked in at the window. They were still dancing in there. He saw that pretty little blond girl in her short, sleeveless white satin frock. There came before him the face of that other girl, seen only for a brief instant in the firelight—that little dark face with shining eyes.

“I love her!” he thought, with a sort of awe. “She’s the girl I’ve always been waiting for. Emmy—little darling, wonderful Emmy—I love her!”

He could not endure to go in, to dance, to speak to any one else. He stayed out there in the dark garden, walking up and down, smoking, cherishing his dear vision.

After awhile the two girls who had been dancing, and whom his sister had invited specially on his account, came out, with two young fellows. Kirby stepped back into the shadow of the trees and waited until they had driven off, until he could no longer hear their gay voices.

He compared these girls with Emmy. She wore no paint or powder; he had not seen her dancing in a hot and brilliant room. She belonged to another world—a world of sea and open sky and firelight. She was a creature with the free, fearless innocence of the Golden Age.

Nearly all of that long summer night he walked there in the garden, profoundly stirred by the great thing that had overtaken him. Before him was always the vision of her lovely face, filling his heart with tenderness and a troubled delight.

Without realizing it, he began to forget that he had smiled to himself at the dear, funny things she had said, to forget what a little young thing she was. What was in his mind now was a sort of goddess, beautifully kind, but austere and aloof—a woman to be worshiped. His humility was honest and fine and touching, but it was cruel, because there was no goddess girl like that. There was only little Emmy Richards, who was nineteen, and altogether human and liable to error.

He let himself into the house quietly, so that no one heard him. He did not want to talk to any one.

When he came downstairs the next morning, he was still anxious for silence, but his sister was not disposed to humor him.

How was he to answer that? He had gone into an enchanted world, and he had found his beloved!

“A walk!” she cried. “You come here to visit me, and I ask people in to meet you, and you go off, without a word, and take a walk! I never heard of anything so selfish and hateful!”

Her indignation took him by surprise. It seemed to him the most preposterous thing that she should blame him for being with Emmy.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though he really wasn’t, and his sister knew it; but, looking at him, she saw that he was tired and troubled, and she held her tongue.

Kirby’s work suffered that day because of his preoccupation with the problem of the evening before him. He was determined to offer something at least a little worthy of her. He had taken other girls out to dinner, but this was beyond measure different.[Pg 520]

At last he thought of a restaurant he had seen advertised—a quiet, dignified place; and he went there, engaged a table, and ordered a wonderful little dinner. All the rest of the day he imagined how it was going to be, he and Emmy sitting at that table, softly lit by candles. He knew what he was going to say to her, and how she would look at him, with her shining, solemn eyes.

“She didn’t want to come,” he thought. “Perhaps she didn’t like me.”

A pretty girl sitting on one of the benches smiled at him, but he looked past her. Ten minutes late now! Of course, other girls were usually late, but Emmy was different—utterly different. He remembered her now with a sort of amazement—the innocent beauty of her face, the almost incredible charm of her dear friendliness.

And that was true. There was not, and never could be, any girl like the one that he, in his ardent, imperious young heart, had invented.

“I’ll find her!” he thought. “I know her name, and I’ll find her. I won’t lose her!”

He glanced around the waiting room again, and again he met the eyes of the pretty girl who had smiled at him before. No denying that she was pretty, but he was sternly uninterested. Let her smile!

He was a good-looking young fellow, and this sort of thing had happened to him before. At another time he might perhaps have been a little less severe. She was very pretty—a tall, slender girl in a very short frock, with a red hat pulled down over one eye. Her piquant little face was rouged and powdered. Kirby might have seen a sort of debonair charm about her, if he had not had in his heart the image of another face, so honest, so unspoiled, so very different!

He walked the length of the room, and when he came back he passed quite close to her. She smiled again—a tremulous, miserable, forlorn little smile. He stopped and stared at her.

He could not speak for a moment, so bitter was his disappointment. She was not rare and wonderful; she was only a pretty, silly, painted little thing, like thousands of others.

“If only she hadn’t come!” he thought. “If only I’d never seen her again! Then I could have gone on—”

He realized, however, that he had invited her to meet him, and that in common decency he must not let her see how he felt; so he smiled as politely as he could.

That was all he could manage for the moment. She, too, was silent, with a set, strained smile on her lips.

“We can’t stand here like this,” he thought. “I’ve asked her to dinner!”

But he was not going to take this girl to the quiet little restaurant with candles on the table. That had been for the other girl—the grave, aloof, and beautiful one, who didn’t exist.

Very well—if she didn’t care, neither would he. He gave the driver an address and got in beside her.

Then this would be merely an evening like other evenings. He would dance with her, spend more money than he could afford, and then forget her. She was not different, after all. There never had been any girl like the one he had dreamed of, or invented, last night in the firelight.

He wanted to laugh at himself, and could not; it hurt too much. He so badly needed the girl who did not exist—that honest, friendly, lovely little thing with the innocent glamour of childhood still about her. He glanced at the real one, sitting beside him. By the passing lights he could see her face, which was turned toward the window.

“She doesn’t know anything about me,[Pg 521]” he thought. “She doesn’t care. All she wants is a ‘good time’!”

He sat back in his corner, smoking, lost in his own thoughts. It was a long drive, for he was taking her to a road house just outside the city—a third-rate sort of place.

III

They went on in a stream of other cars, like a flotilla of lighted ships, in the mild summer night. He hated the whole thing—the dust, the reek of gasoline, the tawdriness and staleness of the undertaking. He had wanted something better. His ardent spirit had groped toward an ideal, and, when he thought he had found it, it was only this!

It was as if he had gone into a dim temple, ready to worship, and suddenly a flood of garish light had come, and he saw that it was not a temple at all, but a sorry palace of pleasure. He lit another cigarette from the first one.

“I didn’t want to come,” she went on. “I told you, but you made me, and now—and now—you see—”

He quite realized that he had been behaving very ill, not even trying to talk to her. After all, it wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t know what a fool he had been.

The feebleness of that made him ashamed, but he drew closer to her and took her hand. She kept her head averted, but she made no objection.

“That’s what she expects,” he thought bitterly. “She expects me to make love to her. All right!”

So he put his arm about her shoulders, and made up his mind to say to her the things he had said to other girls; and because he was young, and she was very pretty, some of his bitterness vanished.

“You’re the sweetest little thing!” he said. “The moment I saw you—”

“Sorry!” said Kirby stiffly, and withdrew to his corner; but the sound of a sob made him bend toward her, filled with a reluctant contrition. “Look here!” he continued. “I didn’t mean—”

“I just—bumped my head,” she said. “That’s all; but I’d rather go home now.”

“But we’ve just got here,” objected Kirby. “Better have some dinner first.”

He got out of the cab and held out his hand to her, but she jumped out unaided and walked to the foot of the steps. As he turned and saw her standing where the lights of the portico shone full upon her, a queer, reluctant tenderness swept over him. Her coat was a little too big for her. Her red hat was pushed back, showing more of her candid brow, and her dark hair was ruffled. She looked so weary and angry, and so young! Even if she was not what he wanted her to be, she was somehow dear to him.

She responded instantly to his tone. For the first time that night he saw in her some likeness to the lost little playmate.

He led the way to the glass-inclosed veranda where small tables were set out. The orchestra was playing, and through the long windows they could see the ballroom where couples were dancing.

Kirby did not think so. He was regretting that he had brought her here. They sat down at a table, and he took up the menu.

And again his disappointment came back, sharper than ever. He thought of the dinner he had meant to have, by candlelight, in that quiet restaurant, with the girl who didn’t exist. Was there never to be anything like that for him, nothing fine and beautiful and stirring?

“Well, I’m here, and I’ve got to make the best of it,” he thought. “What will you have to drink?” he asked aloud.[Pg 522]

“You can’t come to a place like this and not order anything to drink,” he explained when the waiter had gone. “Everybody does.”

She was looking about her with a different vision now. All the light was gone from her face. Evidently she didn’t find the place lovely now. Kirby himself became more conscious of the loud voices, the hysteric laughter, the ugly disorder about him. He was sorry that he had brought her here. He was ashamed of himself, and he did not like being ashamed of himself.

“Not now,” said Emmy. “It’s getting late. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home.”

They finished the dinner in silence. Kirby paid the preposterous bill, and they went out to the taxi.

“No bother at all,” returned Kirby, equally polite. “I’ll see you safely to the station.”

He got in beside her. He sat as far from her as he could, and neither of them spoke one word during all that long drive. In his heart he felt a great remorse and regret, but he would not let her know that.

But when the cab stopped at the address she had given him, and he helped her out, he could no longer maintain that stubborn, miserable silence.

Kirby stood where he was until she had gone up the steps and into the house. Then he paid the cab and set off on foot for the Pennsylvania Station. When he got there he found that there was an hour to wait for the next train, and again he set off to walk about the streets, his hands in his pockets, his pipe between his teeth. All the time her voice echoed in his ears—her quiet little voice.

“Good Lord!” he said to himself angrily. “It’s no tragedy! I asked the girl out to dinner, I tried to give her a good time, and that’s all there is to it.”

But still her voice echoed in his heart, and still he felt that bitter ache of regret. Let him walk as far as he would, he could not escape from it.

“She was unhappy,” he thought, and the thought pained him. He went on walking, and when he got back to the station he found that he had missed his train. It was the last for that day; the next one left at four o’clock in the morning.

He didn’t really care. He went to an all-night restaurant and had coffee and bacon and eggs. Then he strolled back to the waiting room where he had met her, and sat down there. He had the place to himself; there was nothing to disturb his reflections.

He had never been more unhappy in all his life. He dozed a little during those long hours; but whether he slept or waked, he was conscious all the time of that bitter ache of regret.

There was an air of unreality about the early morning train. It was almost empty, and such passengers as there were seemed to Kirby to be very incongruous. For instance, where could that neat little gray-haired woman be going at such an hour? Or that Italian with a fierce mustache, who carried a square package wrapped in newspaper?

The world outside, seen through the train window, had the same unreal air. It was still dark, but this was not the serene darkness of night; it was, he thought, more like the dim silence of an auditorium before the curtain goes up. There was a feeling in the air that something tremendous was about to happen, and that a myriad creatures waited.

He felt the thrill of that expectancy himself. The window beside him was open, and the wind blew in his face with a di[Pg 523]vine freshness. He could see the trees and the sharp lines of roofs, as if they had stepped forward out of the night’s obscurity. There came a drowsy chirping; the curtain had begun to rise.

Then all the birds began to wake, and the chorus swelled and swelled. The insects were chirping, and he could hear the lusty crow of barnyard cocks—such little creatures, raising so sublime and tremendous a “Laudamus.”

When he got out of the train the sky was gray, with only a thin veil before the face of the coming wonder. There was a single taxi at the station, and he hesitated, because two women had got out of the train after him; but one of the women set off briskly along the village street and the other one took the road, so he got into the cab.

A moment later he had passed the woman on the road. There was light enough to see her now.

“Stop!” he cried, but the driver did not hear him. He banged on the glass. “Stop! I want to get out!”

She was coming toward him steadfastly, a straight and slender figure in a dark dress and drooping black hat. He could see that the dress was shabby, that her shoes were dusty and a little worn. Her face was pale, and there was a smudge on her forehead.

She stopped short. A hot color rose in her cheeks, and ebbed away, leaving her still paler.

“Well, no,” she answered, in that serious little voice. “You see, I’d borrowed those clothes from a girl at the office. I stopped at her house to leave them, and I missed the train.” She paused a moment. “I’m sorry I ever wore them,” she said; “only she’s been so awfully dear and kind to me, and she said she wanted to make me look nice.”

He felt a sort of anguish at the sight of her. Why hadn’t he known, all the time, that she was like this? She was innocent and honest and lovely—and he had so grossly offended against her! He had taken her to that third-rate place; he had been surly, obstinate, utterly blind; and, worst of all, he had judged her so arrogantly!

“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I never went out like that before, and I wish I hadn’t done it.”

They stood facing each other, standing in the middle of the empty road. She was downcast, but he was looking at her with amazement. She was not that little flippant painted thing, like a thousand other girls! How could he ever have thought so? Neither was she the wise, aloof young goddess. She was just Emmy, rather shabby and very tired, with a smudge on her forehead.

“I’ve got to hurry,” she exclaimed, with that earnest politeness of hers. “You see, my little brother’s taking examinations to-day, and I promised I’d make pancakes for his breakfast.”

An immense happiness filled him. He knew now! He understood why those other fellows wanted to get married and set up homes! Bills and worries and even quarrels were not tragic, and not basely comic. They simply didn’t matter. The one great thing was this infinite tenderness. He did not want to worship a goddess any more; he wanted to take care of Emmy.[Pg 524]

For Granted

A COLORFUL STORY OF A PICTURESQUE ISLAND COLONY WELL KNOWN TO MANY AMERICAN TRAVELERS

THE streets of Port Linton were empty under the brazen glare of the sun, so that Captain Vincey’s steps rang loud. They were unsteady, too. The heat came up from the white coral road in tremulous waves, and worried him. The blue sea and the blue sky, the white buildings and the white roads, and the great, fierce, brassy sun all dazzled him. He dropped his stick with a clatter, and from under the swing door of Willie’s Bar a dog ran out, sniffed at the stick, and ran back again.

But in his heart he was a little frightened by the giddiness, the surging in his head, and by the theatrically empty look of the world. He could not quite remember what had brought him out at this hour, but his footsteps were certainly directed toward the club.

He decided not to go there, and went on down the hill—a big, swaggering man, in a rumpled white linen suit and a green-lined helmet.

He realized now that he could not very well go home alone, though he wanted to go home. He had had no lunch. He had sat in his office, looking over some papers, with a bottle of whisky on the desk.

“Got to c-cut down on that,” he thought. “Plays the devil with a man’s health!”

Sometimes, in his blackest hours, he felt that perhaps it was not only his health that had suffered. He would remember the James Vincey who had come to Port Linton twenty years ago, and sometimes he even shed tears, thinking of that promising young man and of what he had become.

Turning the corner, he saw before him the cool, dim office of the Green Arrow Navigation Company. He made for it with what haste he could. There was his refuge.

The doors stood open, and in he went. It was a dignified and handsome office. Along one side was a mahogany counter, and facing it were groups of wicker chairs and tables beneath palms in pots. At the end was a low wooden railing with a gate, and behind this a girl sat at a typewriter.

As he went toward her, she came hurrying out of the inclosure, shutting the gate behind her.

She entered the private office, where a mild little gray-haired man sat at a desk.

“Uncle James isn’t feeling very well,” she said. There was no embarrassment in her manner, nor in the gray-haired man’s. “I want to get a carriage, and I left my purse at home,” she went on. “Can I get ten shillings, Mr. Brown, please?”

He pulled forward a little tin cash box, unlocked it, and took out a ten-shilling note. The girl, bending over his desk, wrote on a slip of paper:

She was a thin young creature with dark gray eyes and bobbed hair cut square across her wide brow. She would have been[Pg 526] pretty, with more color and animation. She might even have been beautiful; but her face was pale and impassive, and she had an air of quiet indifference, like one accustomed to being taken for granted and thankful to have it so.

“There’s nothing much to be done, Joey. Sprague will be back in a few moments. You go along with the captain.”

“Pshaw!” said he. “Everything’s ready for the new man, Joey. Everything’s in order.”

There was a subdued sort of distress in her voice that touched him. He patted her shoulder kindly.

“I’ll be coming back to the island in six months, Joey, and then I’ll look in now and then to see how things are getting along. This new man—I don’t fancy he’ll make many changes. Things will go on in the same old way. You go along home with the captain, Joey.”

“I’ll just step out now and say good afternoon to your uncle,” said Brown.

He was perfectly aware that he was swaying on his feet and speaking indistinctly, and that his niece and Mr. Brown were both aware of it; but none of them felt constrained or embarrassed. Captain Vincey’s little weakness was simply to be taken for granted.

The hack driver took it for granted. He helped the captain into the carriage—carriages are the only vehicles in Port Linton—with a grave and sympathetic air. Joey climbed in on the other side, and they set off. Every one who saw them took it for granted.

They drove through the little town and out into the country, along the white road lined with oleanders, rose pink, creamy white, and scarlet, under the blue, blue sky. When she had first come here, this loveliness had stirred Joey to delight, but not any longer. She dare not be stirred now. She saw before her a way interminably long and weary, and she went forward in a sort of blindness, not stopping, not thinking, only enduring.

The carriage drew up before a little house standing on a hill, and the driver got down to assist the captain. He had a great deal of trouble, for Vincey was a big man and he a small one.

Joey picked up the helmet and stick from the road, and followed them to the house. Mrs. Vincey opened the door and received her son, and Joey paid the driver. All taken for granted!

An unconquerable woman was Captain Vincey’s mother—slight and small, straight as a dart, always neat and dignified and smiling. She was nearly seventy, but she did not look it, so great was the spirit that animated her fragile body.

She had made a pot of tea, and she and her granddaughter drank it in the kitchen.

“Joey,” she said, “I’ll have to ask you to get me a little money to-morrow.”

Both were silent for a time, looking out of the window, where below them the blue Atlantic stretched, unendurably bright in the sun. Mrs. Vincey was thinking of her old home in Kent, of green fields and dripping trees under the soft blue of an April sky. It was strange that the days of her girlhood seemed so close to her, so much more real than all the years of wandering with her engineer husband in South America, in Canada, in New York. That was all a little nebulous. What was vivid was the memory of her Kentish fields.

But to Joey the memory of her girlhood seemed so remote as to be incredible. She was the only child of Mrs. Vincey’s daughter and her American husband, left an orphan now, and penniless. She had come to Port Linton from New York, three years ago, a jolly, lively schoolgirl of seventeen, ready for adventure; and she had found—this.

“I think you’d be happier if you found something to do, wouldn’t you, Joey?” Mrs. Vincey had said.[Pg 527]

Joey had gone to see Mr. Brown—who was expecting her—and he had taken her into his office.

Mrs. Vincey stayed home and kept house. With smiling dignity she faced tradesmen who explained why they could give her no more credit. Morning after morning she telephoned her son’s business partner, to tell him that “Captain Vincey was ill, and couldn’t come to the office.” She cooked meals and served them decently, out of Heaven knows what pitiful materials. She had kept the house neat, she had sat up at night, patching and turning and mending clothes for them all.

And she would not see, she dared not see, what was happening to Joey—the jolly schoolgirl turning into this pale, still woman. She would willingly have given her life for Joey, but she would not admit her son’s shame. It must be taken for granted!

They did not mention the money again. Joey knew that her grandmother would not have asked for it, if it had not been urgently needed; and Mrs. Vincey knew that if it were in any way possible, Joey would get it for her at any cost.

The sun went down and a fresh breeze sprang up. The two women ate their supper of bread and cheese and more tea, in the kitchen, while Captain Vincey slept upstairs in his room. The moon came up and made a silver path on the dark sea, for prisoners to look at, if they chose.

But Joey did not sleep very well. She sat up in bed, looking out at the garden, where the moon was shining. A breeze blew in her face, fragrant with jasmine.

“If only the new manager will be nice!” she thought. “Oh, please let him be nice!”

The captain was much better in the morning. He bathed and shaved, put on a clean white suit, and came down to breakfast in a witty and cheerful humor.

“Left my bicycle at the club,” he said. “You’d better telephone for a carriage, Joey. The walk into town is a little too much for me—at my age.”

As Joey had had to leave her own bicycle at the office the day before, in order to take him home, he asked her to drive in with him; but she said she would enjoy the walk.

Two miles of white coral road in the blazing sun, after an insufficient breakfast! It was better, though, than sitting beside the captain, driving in state past the shops where they owed money.

She was a little late, and the boat had come in unusually early. She was lying alongside the wharf, already unloading, and the door of the private office was shut.

“He’s come!” Sprague whispered to her. “He’s in there, talking to McLean.”

She uncovered her typewriter and sat down before it, but she had no work to do. She could only sit there, with her heart like lead.

“Mr. Napier wants to see you,” he said briefly to Joey. As he moved away, she heard him mutter: “New brooms sweep clean!”

She got up and went into the private office, and there, at Mr. Brown’s desk, sat the new man. It was a shock to find him so young. He looked almost boyish. He was thin and dark, with a careless, preoccupied air.

“Miss Craig?” he said. “Sit down! Take a letter, please. ‘Messrs. Pryden & Fort, P-r-y—’”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t take shorthand,” Joey interrupted in her quiet way.

He had been a boy of eighteen, just out of school, and ready to enter Oxford, when the war broke out. He had enlisted, and had been sent to Flanders; had been wounded, patched up and sent back, and wounded twice again. The third time the doctors told him that very likely he would never walk again.

For six months he had lain in the hospital, facing that possibility, facing all the other new things he had learned. In the course of time the doctors had reversed their decision, and he was discharged as cured—a most interesting case.

He went home—only he had no home[Pg 528] to go to. The war had done for his family. His mother had died, his brother had been killed, and so had most of the friends he had cared for. There was no money—nothing at all left for young Napier.

He had got a post as clerk in the London office of the Green Arrow Navigation Company. He had been only twenty-two then, and a queer mixture of boyishness and maturity. He had had a lifetime of experience of a sort; but of average, everyday life he knew next to nothing. He was a shabby, silent boy, coolly and doggedly determined to get on in the world.

He had got on. Here he was, at twenty-nine, manager of the Port Linton branch, going to master Port Linton and go on to something better. He was still very young and intolerant in some ways, very mature in others. He was very lonely, proud as Lucifer, and stubborn as a mule.

The leisurely air of the office—his office—had annoyed him. He knew how to handle men—he had learned that as a lieutenant at twenty-one. He was just, and he was inflexible. He saw that things were lamentably slack here, and he had wasted no time in telling Sprague and McLean that a new era had begun.

He had intended to let this girl know it, too—until he had glanced up and their eyes met.

Hard as nails was young Napier with Sprague, and McLean, and every one else with whom he did business; but not with Joey.

“Mr. Brown used to give me notes about the letters, and I answered them myself,” she explained.

Napier gave her his letters, and she answered them in the courteous and stilted fashion that Mr. Brown had taught her.

“I’m sorry,” said Napier, “but I’m afraid this won’t quite do. Sit down, and I’ll give you some idea of what I want.”

While he talked, he often glanced at her, and always he found her steadfast gray eyes fixed upon his face. She took the letters away and did them over again—his way this time.

The others obeyed his orders because they had to; but Joey wanted to. She was eager to help. She admired his way of doing things. She was his friend.

He had plenty of difficulties in this new job. Port Linton was a conservative British colony, and some of the old clients resented young Napier. McLean was dourly hostile; Sprague, under an obliging manner, was impatient and scornful. Only Joey stood by him with absolute loyalty.

He would leave the door of his office open, so that he could see her at her typewriter. Even after she had gone, as he sat later at his work, he would look at the place where she had been and remember her wide-browed, candid face, her dark hair, her gray eyes. For that slender, quiet girl he felt a respect that was almost reverence, for she had the qualities that he prized above all others—dignity, reserve, and loyalty.

They had very little to say to each other during those first three days, for they were very busy; but he was always aware of Joey, and in his heart he always had confidence that she was his friend, his faithful helper.

He thought her beautiful, too. He thought that her rare, slow smile was a wonderful thing, that her voice was the most solacing in all the world, that her sunburned hands were lovelier than any he had ever seen. His solitary and inflexible spirit turned toward her as its one refuge.

Late on Friday afternoon McLean brought him the books, which he wanted to look over before paying the salaries on Saturday morning. Every one else had gone home, and he and McLean sat alone in the private office, which was filled with the light of the sunset.

“Now!” thought McLean, watching. “Now you’ll have something to talk about, my lad!”

“Here’s fifteen pounds advanced to Sprague against his salary, before Christmas. It seems that he began paying it off, ten shillings a week, but here’s a month without paying anything; and here—why, he’s been getting full pay for the past six weeks, and he still owes seven pounds!”

“You’ll also find,” volunteered McLean, “that on the first of the month I had a week’s salary in advance.[Pg 529]”

“What’s this?” said Napier, looking at the slips of paper. “‘July 5, five shillings—J. Craig,’ ‘July 8, ten shillings—J. Craig’—so many of them!”

He stacked all the slips into a neat little pile and sat for a moment staring at them. It was a disgraceful thing, to run an office like this. It was not only slack, but very close to dishonesty. It was the firm’s money these people were using.

“I can’t be hard on Sprague and McLean and not speak to her,” Napier was thinking. “That would be too damned unjust. Her whole week’s salary has been paid already, and she may need it badly. She may be in serious trouble.”

A great wave of tenderness swept over him as he thought of Joey. She was so pale and slight, so young.

“He’s almost human, after all!” McLean told himself, glancing at the new manager. He waited for awhile. “Well?” he inquired at last. “What do you want me to do about the pay envelopes, Mr. Napier?”

“Deduct ten shillings from Sprague’s,” said Napier. “Deduct ten shillings each week until his loan is repaid. It’s impossible to run an office like this. Now, what about you? How do you want to manage your advance? Ten—”

“What about—Miss Craig?” asked Napier. “Is she—entirely dependent on her salary?”

The sun was going down, and the light was draining fast out of the sky. Napier’s face was in shadow.

“McLean has a wife and child,” he thought, “and Sprague supports his mother. She lives at home, with her people. I’ve got to be just!”

After a solitary dinner, he walked down to the water front, and smoked a pipe, looking out over the little harbor. He was very unhappy over this problem.

III

“You see,” said Mark Napier, “I want to start with a clean slate, Miss Craig. You will understand.”

He was sitting on the edge of his desk, facing her, and she looked steadily back at him.

“I want to make a success of this thing,” he had told her before, and she had responded whole-heartedly.

He couldn’t understand her miserable anxieties, and she didn’t want him to. She wanted to help him make a success.

“But—er—if you would rather,” he said now, “we could deduct a little every week.”

His dark face had flushed, but he kept his eyes upon her with an anxious intensity. If she wanted her money, she should have it.

“Oh, no, thanks!” replied Joey politely. “It’s all right as it is, thank you.”

Her face grew scarlet. She dropped her eyes and turned away her head; and, seeing her so, he knew that he loved her.

She glanced at him, and again their eyes met. She had never seen a look like that on any face.

She had no money for lunch, but she was not hungry. The hours went by quickly; she worked well to-day, and her heart was singing.

“See here, Miss Craig!” She looked up from her typewriter and saw Napier standing beside her. “You haven’t been out to lunch—and it’s two o’clock.”

Again their eyes met, and he was dazzled by her loveliness. Her cheeks were[Pg 530] burning with heat and fatigue, and her eyes were brilliant.

“You do as I tell you!” ordered Napier. Fear made him brusque. He was worried about Joey. “Come! Get your hat and go home!” he said.

“Never mind the letters,” he said. “Plenty of time on Monday morning. Look here! You will rest, won’t you?”

He was dismayed by the change that came over her. All the color suddenly left her face, and she looked terribly white and strained.

She had just remembered that she was going home empty-handed; and she was conscious now of a sharp headache and a great weariness, as if these things had also been waiting to be remembered. As she mounted her bicycle, her knees felt weak. The sun beat down upon her, stinging her shoulders beneath her thin blouse. Her eyes hurt from the glare of the white road. Her heart ached, as well as her head. She was Captain Vincey’s niece again, burdened by a hundred disgraceful anxieties.

“He’ll find out,” she thought. “Some one will tell him about—Uncle James.”

She did not delude herself with the notion that it would make no difference. Napier was not the sort to take Captain Vincey for granted. He was not tolerant. He wanted everything just right.

“I just felt—tired,” replied Joey; “but I’ll be all right after a nice cup of tea, gran.”

There was a moment’s silence. Mrs. Vincey stood looking down at that little dark head.

Joey wanted nothing except to be let alone, but the anxiety in Mrs. Vincey’s voice touched her beyond endurance.

“That would be awfully nice!” she began brightly, and then suddenly burst into tears.

Mrs. Vincey went up with her to the neat little room, dim and cool with the blinds drawn down, fresh with the smell of the sea.

“Lie down, deary! That’s it! I’ll unbutton your slippers. Never mind, Joey, my deary—just take a little rest.”

Better not to notice that Joey was still crying, with her head buried in the pillow. Mrs. Vincey went out of the room, quietly closing the door behind her, and stood outside in the hall, clasping her hands tight.

“I haven’t anything to give her!” she thought. “Oh, it’s too much! She’s so young!”

She thought of one little thing she could do—a very little thing. She put on her hat and went down the road a little way, to a small grocery shop.

“I’d like two fresh eggs and a tin of milk and a quarter pound of Ceylon tea and a quarter pound of butter, please, Mr. Spier.”

She stood there while Mr. Spier put the things into a bag. Then she had to tell him that she would pay next Saturday, and to listen to Mr. Spier saying that the bill was already so large, and had run on so long, and times were so hard, that he didn’t see how he could—well, just this once, then.

A small package to carry, a small thing to do; yet Mrs. Vincey would have preferred to shut herself into the house and die for lack of food, rather than ask a favor from Mr. Spier.

When she got home, she made a nice little omelet, a cup of tea, and two slices of buttered toast, and brought them up to Joey; and Joey felt better.

Later in the afternoon a neighbor brought them a basket of tomatoes and[Pg 531] beans, and Mrs. Vincey and Joey sat out in the back garden under a cedar tree, stringing the beans, and talking a little to each other—not talking much because of the things they must not say.

“James was quite himself this morning,” thought Mrs. Vincey. “If only the—the heat doesn’t trouble him, and he can attend to business, things ought to be better next week. Sunday dinner—who wants meat in this weather? If only James can—can keep well!”

For, with all her superb courage, there were things that Mrs. Vincey would not face.

She was thinking that, after all, things couldn’t be so bad. Something would surely happen!

A carriage was coming along the road. Mrs. Vincey glanced up. Joey sat very still. Oh, no, it couldn’t be! Stopping here!

They did not move, or speak, or look at each other. The carriage had stopped. The garden gate creaked, and footsteps were coming along the path at the front of the house—heavy and uncertain steps. They could not see; they did not need to see.

At the sound of the steps mounting to the veranda, Mrs. Vincey rose and went around to the front of the house, neat, smiling, and dignified. With a civil nod for the driver who had assisted him, she took her son’s arm to lead him into the house; but he was in a bad mood.

“The damned young jackanapes!” he shouted. “Sitting there—old Brown’s place—damned young jackanapes—threw me out of office!”

Joey did not answer. She was standing near the foot of the steps, with such a look on her face!

The driver saw that look, and walked back to his carriage. Mrs. Vincey saw it, and her face grew rigid. Captain Vincey turned to see what she was staring at, and he, too, saw it. It silenced him.

Mark Napier was sitting in the club that evening, reading the newspaper. He had brought letters of introduction, and he knew a good many men here—to nod to, at any rate; but conservative Port Linton was quite willing to let him alone for awhile, and he preferred it so. He was not genial, and had no talent for camaraderie. He was slow to give his friendship, but, once given, it was worth keeping.

“Pig-headed young jackanapes!” thought Captain Vincey. “But here goes—on little Joey’s account!”

He had been alone in his office that afternoon when this man had come in—a big, swaggering man in a rumpled white suit, obviously half drunk.

The gentleman had protested vehemently, and had called Napier a “blasted little whippersnapper” and other things; but Sprague had taken his arm and got him out, murmuring soothing words in his ear.

“That was Captain Vincey, sir,” he had said, when he returned. “He’s Miss Craig’s uncle.”

He had spoken with a sort of horror, and he was horrified; but the new manager had only said:

Under Napier’s curt manner there had been a great dismay. This fellow her uncle? Evidently he was in the habit of coming to the office. Perhaps she would be hurt, or angry. Napier would do almost anything rather than hurt or anger Joey—almost anything; but he would not tolerate Captain Vincey. The firm had sent him out here to run this office properly, and he was going to do it. He hoped Joey would understand.

Napier did not reply, and the captain began to grow angry; but he remembered that look on Joey’s face.

James Vincey had been a handsome man in his day, and even now, wreck as he was, he had considerable personal charm. People liked him, and made allowances for him. For Joey’s sake he would make this fellow like him.

Unfortunately, it was a part of Vincey’s code to consider a refusal to drink as an insult, and his face grew crimson. He was about to speak, when again he remembered that look on Joey’s face, and again restrained himself.

“In climate like this—” he said. “You’re a newcomer. Wait till you’ve been here a bit. You’ve never been out of England before, eh?”

“I spent nearly four years—in Belgium and France,” said Napier, “and the climate wasn’t very wholesome, where I was.”

An unwelcome memory awakened in him. He remembered how, at the beginning of the war, he had gone to enlist, and the doctor had rejected him—a fine, big fellow in the forties, in the prime of life. Vincey had been very indignant.

“I’d advise you, Vincey,” he had said, “to cut down on—er—alcoholic stimulants.”

So Vincey had stayed behind in Port Linton, while his friends went overseas. He had wangled some sort of military post for himself, and had been made a captain; but a captain who sat at a desk was not what suited him, and for some weeks he had let “alcoholic stimulants” alone.

But he had gone back to them. “The strain of the war,” he said to himself; and then, when it was over, there was the strain of his uncomfortable financial position.

He glanced uneasily at Napier. This young jackanapes had had four years of it. Well, some fellows were like that—they could stand a strain.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know,” said Napier, and walked off.

Vincey was purple with anger. He half rose, but the whisky had come, and he sank back to drink it. His eyes glaringly followed Napier.

Slender and strong and straight was the young prig, with a fine pair of shoulders and a well set head. A steady hand the young prig had, a steady voice, a steady glance. Four years of it!

He gulped it down, waiting for the familiar feeling of partial oblivion; but it did not come. Something within him was wide awake.

His thoughts were not clear; they never were clear in these days. He felt a confused sort of anguish, for he had fleeting glimpses of Joey’s face, and it hurt him. He loved Joey, and had meant to do much for her—his only sister’s child. He still would do something for her—something, but what could he do?

That fellow—taken a fancy to him, had she? Well, perhaps she’d get over it, once she knew how he had treated her uncle.

Then he remembered the James Vincey he had been long ago—a promising young fellow. A girl had been fond of him, but she had decided to wait until he stopped drinking; and in the course of time he had forgotten about her.

“Don’t want—make trouble,” he thought. “If Joey likes the fellow—”

“You’ll never stop now!” he said to himself. “You’ll never do anything for any one now! ’Nother whisky!” he cried aloud, with a sob.

He saw James Vincey stumbling through the rest of his days, a cruel burden to his mother, a disgrace to Joey—ruining Joey’s life before it had well begun. He knew Joey. If it came to a choice between himself and that young prig, Joey would stand by her uncle.

And it had come to a choice. Joey would let Napier see what she thought of his turning her uncle out of the office!

As he was going out, somebody called Napier into the billiard room and held him in conversation for a few moments; and when at last he left the club, he saw Cap[Pg 533]tain Vincey going down the hill before him, reeling a little.

It was not pleasant for Napier to pass Miss Craig’s uncle, but he did not slacken his pace. He was going to be here, on a small island, with Captain Vincey, for a good long while. Inevitably he would have to meet the man often. The same quality which had enabled Mark Napier to face danger and death and agony, to make his way in the world quite alone, made it impossible to shirk any unpleasantness. He went on down the hill and passed Vincey with a curt good night.

For though Captain Vincey’s steps were so uncertain, his brain was very clear now.

Napier had turned the corner, and was walking rapidly along the street that fronted the harbor, when he heard a splash. He stopped and turned his head. The shops were all closed, and there was not a soul in sight. There was not a sound—not a sound of those stumbling footsteps that had been following his own.

He ran back to the corner and crossed to the deserted wharf. Floating on the dark water was a white helmet.

Caleb was half asleep on the seat of his carriage. He did not expect any fares, but it was a fine night, and his wife was always disagreeable if he came home too early.

He heard footsteps, and opened his eyes. Two men were coming along the street very slowly, arm in arm. That looked hopeful. He sat up.

Then, as they passed under a street lamp, he sat bolt upright; for he saw that they were both bareheaded and dripping wet, their linen suits sodden.

“Cap’n Vincey,” he said to himself, “and that new young fella!” He shook with silent laughter. “Dey surely been havin’ a good time!” he thought. “Been overboa’d!”

They came on in silence until they reached Caleb’s carriage. The young man hoisted Vincey in, and followed himself.

Off they went along the road, which gleamed softly white in the starlight. A breeze blew in their faces, bearing the sweet and heavy scent of night flowers.

“Napier,” said James Vincey, “I’m much obliged to you. Missed my footing. It might have ended badly for me. Very much obliged to you, my boy!”

“You didn’t miss your footing,” contradicted Napier in a very low voice. “You—”

“My boy,” interrupted Captain Vincey, equally low, “it’s necessary in this life to take a good deal for granted. When you reach my age, you’ll probably have learned”—he paused a moment—“probably have learned to take it for granted that almost every man has a white streak in him. Now we’ll say no more about it, if you please!”

The horse’s hoofs rang loud and brisk in the quiet night. As they passed the door of the club, two men were coming out.

“You see!” said Vincey, and chuckled. “My intentions were good—meant to make a neat exit.”

There was something in his tone which Captain Vincey had not heard for a very long time.

He might have been a young officer speaking to his senior; or, thought the older man, he might have been a son speaking to his father. Vincey leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and set his teeth hard.

“Here we are, sir,” said Napier, as the carriage stopped. “Wait,” he told the driver, and helped Vincey out.

“The kettle’s on,” said Mrs. Vincey. “Joey will make some nice hot tea, to ward off a chill.”

“Ha!” said Vincey. “Hot tea, eh?” He glanced at his companion, and then for the first time he saw Napier smile. “My boy!” he said.

Mrs. Vincey, watching them, felt as if an immense burden were lifted from her weary shoulders. This stranger, in his youth and strength and confidence, had come to her aid.

His dark hair was plastered against his forehead, and the water was running off his jacket into pools on the floor; but he paid no attention to that. The captain presented him, and he talked to Mrs. Vincey about London. He was perfectly quiet and matter-of-fact. He was taking everything for granted.

Joey brought in the tea, and he rose; and Mrs. Vincey hurried out into the kitchen, to cry, because of the look she had seen pass between them. It was a look of faith and love—taken for granted.[Pg 535]

Incompatibility

WHEN THERE IS NO COMPLETE SOLUTION OF A HUMAN PROBLEM, IT MAY BE THAT A PARTIAL SOLUTION IS BETTER THAN NONE AT ALL

FROM the window of his office Blakie saw them coming, hand in hand, looking very neat in their white dresses, shiny black pumps, and big straw hats. They came quickly, eyes front, with a rigid, frightened air, among the hurrying crowds of the down town street.

Snatching up his hat, he went out to meet them. A man jostled them, and they stepped aside, directly in the path of another man in a hurry, who ran into Irene and went on, frowning. Her hat fell off. She stooped to pick it up, still holding fast to Martha’s hand.

Taking a hand of each, he turned back toward the office. No one would jostle them now—not with his strength to protect them. Poor little devils!

There came back to him, in a rush, all the old savage exasperation he thought he mastered. Just like Katherine, to send them alone!

“Only just from the corner, daddy! Madge brought us to the corner, and then she pointed where your office was, and there weren’t any streets to cross or anything.” Something in Martha’s voice made him glance down at her. He found her looking up at him with a queer, anxious little frown knitting her brows. “She brought us right to the very corner, daddy!”

“That’s all right, chick!” he said, squeezing her hand. “I mustn’t even hint anything against—Katherine,” he thought. “Poor little kid—she’s worried. This way!” he said aloud. “In here!”

He opened the door of his new suite of offices. A fine suite it was, and he was proud of it.

She had taken Renie’s hand again, and they stood stiff and straight, terribly conscious of so many strange eyes regarding them. They were beautiful children, dark as gypsies, with a lovely color in their sunburned cheeks. Both of them were straight and sturdy, like himself. They were unmistakably his children.

“Dead image of you, Blakie!” said Cris[Pg 537]son, his partner. “Fine kids! Let’s see—how old are they?”

Katherine was to have the children for six months of the year and he for the other six months.

“But you won’t really do that, Lew?” she had said. “You won’t take them away from me?”

Just like her, when she had tried to take them away from him! She had come to his office—that was just like her, too; an outrageous thing to do. They were divorced, by her wish. She had a generous allowance, and he had agreed to everything she wanted, except to give up his children.

At first she had begged and pleaded, with tears streaming down her face. When he remained unmoved, she had grown angry in her reckless, vehement way. He was pretty sure that Crisson had heard her that day, and he often wondered how much Miss Deering had heard. Certainly every one in the outer office had seen her when she went out, with the marks of tears on her face.

He could never think of that day without growing hot with shame. For a moment he even felt ashamed of the children, living reminders of his disgrace. His wife had left him—every one knew that.

He felt a little thrill of pleasure at the girl’s instant response. She was always so eager, so willing. She answered his call with a smile on her grave young face and a quick glance at him, as if she were trying to read in his face what he wanted.

“Do you think you could entertain these two young ladies for half an hour?” he asked.

“Oh, I think so!” she replied cheerfully. He saw the color rise in her cheeks. She was proud to be chosen for this duty.

She took the little girls by the hand and went off, and Blakie stood for a moment, looking after them. Then he went into his private office and shut the door. There was some work he wanted to do before lunch; but he could not do it. The feel of those little hot hands had stirred him intolerably. His children! He loved them so, he wanted them so! His children!

“I’ll never forgive her!” he cried in his heart. “It was a damnable thing to do, to break up their home! They’re worried and puzzled. Poor little kids!”

His life with Katherine had been a misery to him, but he would have endured it all his days rather than hurt his children. It was she who had left her home. She had told him often enough that she “couldn’t stand it,” but he had never expected that.

“Heartless,” she had called him, and “a stiff, solemn prig.” That had been her standard reproach for him—that he was a prig. When, coming home late, he had found the children still up, romping with Katherine and mad with excitement, and he had protested, she had called him a prig. When he had asked her not to come down to breakfast in a dressing gown, and when he had asked her to be more careful of her gossip before the children, she had said the same thing.

“And, by Heaven, I will!” he thought. “I’ll have them, alone, for half the year. I can give them some sort of idea!”

Then, at the end of his six months, they would go back to Katherine and her careless, rebellious life—breakfast in a dressing gown; old Madge doing the work of the house just as it suited her; the telephone ringing and people dropping in; Katherine, with her shining black hair in a great, untidy knot, sitting at the piano, singing.

He could never think of her singing without a twinge of pain, because of what it had once meant to him—the big, glorious voice that came pouring from her throat without effort; the feeling in it, the pity, the tenderness. “Theatrical,” he had learned to call it, just as he had learned to look upon her beauty with a fastidious detachment. Certainly she was beautiful—a tall, full-bosomed, long-limbed creature, with a lazy grace in every movement, and a face indestructibly lovely, with dark gray eyes, clear, fine features, and a mouth too wide, too generous, unforgetably sweet.

It seemed to him that whatever Katherine took in her careless hands she ruined. She wasted everything. She had had a magnificent career before her, in light opera, and she had thrown it aside to marry him; and now she had thrown him aside, hurt beyond healing. His love for her had been a madness. He had been swept off[Pg 538] his feet, infatuated, desperate; and she had been so kind in the beginning—kinder than any other woman could be.

He had never criticized her then. He had not been doing so well in business. They had lived in a tiny house in Brooklyn, with only old Madge to help; and he had come home there at the end of the day like a soul to Paradise. He remembered how he used to open the door with his latchkey and go in; and no matter how quiet he was, she would always hear him.

“It’s himself!” she would call to Madge, with the trace of brogue that never quite left her. “Put the dinner on the table, Madge darlin’!”

Then she would come running to him, fling her arms around him, and draw his head down on her breast.

“You’re tired, my heart’s darlin’! There! Don’t you talk! Come in and see what Madge and I have got for you!”

“Wash in the kitchen, so you’ll not have to go upstairs, and you so tired, my dearest!”

Then they would have dinner, old Madge joining in the conversation as she waited on the table. Katherine had spoiled Madge from the start, calling her “darling,” and sitting in the kitchen to talk with her; but still, how Madge could cook!

After dinner people would usually come in—friends of Katherine’s, whom he did not much like, theatrical people, some of them charming, some of them queer old friends whom she would not abandon. To show her husband that he was supremely important, that he was not left out, she would sit on the arm of his chair, with her hand on his shoulder, bending now and then and kissing the top of his head.

“Talk now, Lew darlin’!” she would say. “Listen now, will you, to what Lew’s got to say!”

He did not want to remember all that. It was intolerable to remember, in his bitterness, those warm, glowing years of love and delight; and yet it seemed to him that it would be wrong and cowardly to shirk the memory, to shut his mind to any of the vivid little pictures that rose before him. He closed his eyes, to see more clearly, and let the full tide of the old pain rush over him. He was a man, and he could bear it. He must bear it.

Katherine had spoiled everything. As he got on in the world, he had had to live differently, and she would not help him. Once he had asked Crisson and his wife to dinner. He was not a partner then, and it was an important occasion for him; but Katherine took it with her usual careless good humor. When her guests arrived, she was not dressed. After a very awkward wait of nearly half an hour, down she came, laughing and lovely—and untidy.

Blakie saw her through the Crisson’s eyes that night. He got a fresh view of things to which he had grown almost accustomed—Madge’s casual fashion of waiting, and the badly ironed napkins.

After dinner she sat down at the piano and sang for them, and her coil of shining hair came loose and slipped down. Mrs. Crisson, with a tight smile, rose and put the pins in firmly, while Katherine went on singing.

“And her with a wisp of hair that looks like nothing at all!” Katherine cried indignantly.

“That’s not the point,” he told her, but she would not listen, and they said cruel things to each other.

That had been the beginning. Later there had been more and more quarrels—when she had bought things they couldn’t afford, or, in one of her fits of repentant economy, had insisted upon going shabby.

“What do you care at all what people will be saying?” she would say, when he protested.

For she never cared. She came of a good family; her father had been aid-de-camp to the governor of a British colony, but she had never cared.

“No!” she assured him, laughing. “Nobody else cared, either. They all loved me. I could have gone to a ball in a flour sack, and nobody would have cared![Pg 539]”

“I’ll try,” she said, and that same day she bought herself a huge plum-colored velvet hat that appalled him. They had quarreled about that, too.

At first she had only laughed at his criticisms, but as time went on she grew to resent them. In her girlhood, and during her brief time on the stage, no one had criticized her. Every one had loved her.

“And you!” she had cried once. “You’re the one ought to love me best of all, and you do not, Lewis!”

There were years and years of that. Even after they had two servants, the house was always a little untidy—not dirty, but with a disorderliness that tormented him. The meals were often late, and she herself was always late. Her friends were forever dropping in. They came to her with all their troubles, and she would lend them money, or give them warm-hearted, prejudiced advice, or just sit listening and crying gallons of tears over some sad tale. Then she would want to tell her husband all about it, and would grow angry at his lack of sympathy.

All this went on until there was nothing left but bitterness between them; and then she had gone away with the children and had written him a letter to say that she was not coming back.

He remembered that first night in the house. He had gone into her room, all in disorder from her packing, and then into the empty nursery, where Renie’s despised and ill-used rag doll sat in a broken rocking chair. If he could have seen Katherine then he would have begged her to come back; but when it came to writing a letter, that was a different matter. He had his pride to consider.

He had written briefly, asking her to come back for the sake of the children, and he had had an answer from her lawyer. He had not been sorry. Lonely as he was, there was an immense relief in that loneliness, and there was a dignity which had long been lacking. It was as if he had found his soul again.

Finished now all their life together; but life itself was not finished. Blakie was only forty-five, and there were years and years ahead of him.

He thought of Frances Deering, with the curious uneasiness that the thought of her always caused him. He couldn’t help knowing! She was very grave, very businesslike in her manner, but he couldn’t help knowing!

Sometimes, when he caught her looking at him, the honest, innocent admiration in her eyes gave him a thrill of pride and pleasure. At other times it troubled and irritated him. Twenty-two she was, not much more than a kid—a good girl, and a pretty one, but he was not interested in that sort of thing. He had loved Katherine with a love that would never come again, and he wanted no more of that.

Yet sometimes, in his hours of dejection and loneliness, he would think of the solace of an honest, faithful affection, of what it would mean to have some one waiting for him at home, some one to care if he were ill, a companion for his older years.

With an impatient frown he pushed away his papers and rose. He couldn’t work now.

As he went into the outer office he saw Frances sitting at her desk, with the little girls beside her, all of them busy cutting out rabbits from colored memorandum pads, and talking quietly together. Something in the sight displeased him. The girl’s fair head, as it bent down toward the children, had a meek look about it. Her quick and whole-hearted acceptance of all Blakie’s orders made him feel like a sort of sultan, a very lonely autocrat. He didn’t like that.

Her eyes sought his face, as if to read there the meaning of his crisp, impersonal tone.

“You are not the one,” his heart answered. “You are good and pretty and young, but you are not the one. What you want to see in my face no woman will ever see again!”

Blakie had made very careful plans. He had taken a flat near the park. He had engaged a good cook, and a nursery governess who would come every morning to take the children to the school on Riverside Drive where Katherine had started them. It was not the school he would have[Pg 540] chosen, but they could not change every six months.

He had consulted with his doctor about a proper diet for children of their age. He had drawn up a schedule, not too rigid, for their baths, meals, study, and exercise. He had bought roller skates for them to use in the park; he had arranged riding lessons and dancing lessons for them; he had bought them books and toys.

He had furnished a room for each girl. Martha’s was pink—a pink rug, rose-colored curtains, a little lamp with a rose-colored shade, wicker chairs with cushions, a bookcase, a desk, and a rose-colored eider down quilt on the foot of the little white bed. Next to Martha’s room was Renie’s, decorated in blue.

They stood one on each side of him, looking into those bright, cozy little rooms with wide, solemn eyes.

“Awfully sweet,” Renie echoed, but he saw her restless dark eyes roving about, looking for something. What could he have neglected or forgotten?

“She feels strange here,” he thought. “It was bound to be like that at first.” Aloud he said: “Dinner in ten minutes, chicks.”

All afternoon he had had them out at the Bronx zoo, and the cool April air and the excitement had made them healthily tired.

Just like Katherine, he thought! Dress up for a public appearance, and never mind how you looked at home!

“Never mind about your shoes,” he repeated a little impatiently. “Just brush your hair.”

He knelt down and unbuttoned the shiny pumps, while Martha, with a brisk, competent air, opened their small suitcase and brought out two pairs of cracked old pumps.

“Now!” he said, hoping that the sight of the dinner table would arouse them to some expression of delight.

It had seemed to him a matter of great importance that his daughters should learn to like a well appointed table, to appreciate a charming and orderly environment, and he had done his best here. A damask cloth and gleaming silver, a centerpiece of roses, and before each child a silver knife, fork, and spoon, monogrammed, and, to charm them, a little china basket filled with pink and white sweets.

“This is the way things ought to be,” he wanted to tell them. “This is the way you ought to live. This is what I longed for, all through those years of carelessness and disorder!”

But he could not say that. He must not even hint at any disapproval of their mother’s régime. That would be an inexcusable treachery.

He felt certain that Katherine had never belittled him to them. He could trust her for that. There was nothing petty about Katherine.

“They are strange here,” he thought. “After a few days it will be different.”

Their appetites were good, he noticed. Their mother had always looked after their physical welfare most vigilantly. Their table manners were good, too. Well, so were hers, when she bothered to think about such things.

He had known that she would. Her love for her children was an unfaltering, inexhaustible passion. She was often injudicious with them. She spoiled them, of course, and sometimes she grew angry at them. Once he had heard her call Martha a darned fool; but Martha had only laughed at her, and then Katherine herself had laughed and hugged the child tight.

It was hard to imagine Katherine without her children. She had always been with them, and had taken them everywhere with her. Indeed, she had been ridiculous about them, running to the school to say that she feared Marty was tired, and calling in the doctor on any pretext. Yes, she would be missing them to-night!

“Good God, haven’t I missed them for the last six months?” he thought. “They are my children, too!”

He glanced at their little dark heads bent over their plates, at their blunt little fingers grasping the new knives and forks, and such a wave of tenderness and pain swept over him that he could scarcely breathe.

“I want to keep them!” he thought. “I want to give them the very best! Poor little things!”

After dinner he took them into the sitting room and read to them from one of the new books. They were passionately interested.

“Go on! Go on, daddy!” they cried, whenever he stopped to puff at his cigar.

“They’ll miss their mother,” he thought. “It’ll be hard, this first night.”

“We’ll have a race with the undressing,” he said. “Call me when you are ready—and the first one in bed gets a prize!”

They were both under the covers, grinning from ear to ear. Their clothes were scattered all over the room, but he decided not to notice that to-night. He even had an impulse to pretend to forget their prayers, for fear of troubling them, but he resisted that. He didn’t insist upon any great accuracy, however.

“Now,” he said, “I’m going to be there in the sitting room. You can see the light from your beds. If you want anything, call me.”

Then he turned out their lamps, opened their windows, and kissed them in a cheerful, casual way, fighting down his longing to catch them up, to hold them fast, tight in his arms, after these six long months.

He sat down with a new book to read; but after all he could not read. Here they were, safe in his care, surrounded with everything they ought to have—except one thing.

He smoked, staring at nothing. They were here with him, his children, and yet there was a desolation in the place. He felt it, and he knew they must feel it.

He put down his cigar and went into Renie’s room. She was sound asleep. He touched her head, found it damp with perspiration, and took off the eider down quilt, which she had pulled up.

Then he went into Martha’s room. She, too, was perfectly quiet, but her head was covered up, and, as he tried quietly to draw down the quilt, she clung to it.

“Look here, Marty dear! Don’t cry!” He sat down beside her, and stroked her hair. “Don’t cry, pet!”

She sat up and flung her arms around his neck, burying her head on his shoulder. She was drenched in tears. Even her little hands were damp.

“Oh, I do miss mother!” she whispered. “I do miss her, daddy! I don’t want to be unpolite, but I do miss mother so!”

“Then I’ll miss you,” she said. “All the t-time I’ll be going away and m-missing you both![Pg 542]”

He was frightened to feel her tremble so. He picked her up and carried her into the bathroom. Her face was stained with tears, her eyes were heavy, her body was shaken with sobs.

He bathed her face with cold water, and gave her a drink. Then he carried her into the sitting room.

She was growing quieter now, and he held her in his arms, feeling her little heart beat against his. Then, suddenly, she burst out again wildly:

“Oh, daddy! Oh, daddy! I’ve got to be—always going away—and missing you both! I can’t bear it, daddy! Oh, I miss mother so awfully, terribly much! Oh, daddy, I want mother!”

“It’s worse for Renie,” she said soberly. “She slept right in mother’s room. I just had the door open between. I’d hate to have Renie wake up.”

She fell asleep there in his arms. Presently he carried her back to her bed, and sat there beside her in the dark.

Every six months a cruel parting, a difficult readjustment! It was bad enough for a mature and armored spirit, but for children, two little loving, bewildered children—what would it do to them?

They were too young to be critical. They gave only love to both parents, making no comparisons; but as they grew older it would not be so. Suppose he succeeded in his attempt to make them appreciate a gracious, well ordered life? Then, when they were with Katherine, they would suffer—would suffer all the more because they loved her. Every six months a cruel parting, a difficult readjustment!

It was not for them to suffer, to make readjustments, to have their love so tormented, their faithfulness so tried. No, let the guilty suffer, not these innocent ones!

He was guilty—he knew it; and Katherine was guilty. They had had a beautiful and invaluable thing, and they had destroyed it by a thousand almost imperceptible blows. It was gone now, and could never again be restored; but it need not have perished. If he had been less critical, if she had been less willful, if only there had been a little more patience and generosity on either side, their love could have lived.

Perhaps they were not well suited to each other. What did that matter? He and his business partner were ill suited to each other, but it was expedient for them to get on peacefully together, and they did. His mother had been a very exasperating old lady, but he had considered it his duty to get on with her, and he had done so. He had ardently disliked the captain of his football eleven at college, but as a matter of course he had mastered the dislike. He had learned to get on amicably with all sorts of people; but this woman whom he had chosen—

Any two persons who were reasonably civilized and self-controlled could get on together, if they tried. They might not be particularly happy in doing so, but they could do it, if they tried.

It was too late now to start again. There was too much to be forgiven and forgotten; but these children should not suffer.

III

The next day was Sunday, and Blakie had promised to take the two girls into the country for a picnic; but at breakfast he suggested another plan.

Renie’s sensitive face grew scarlet, but Martha frowned a queer little anxious frown. She couldn’t understand this.

He sent them into the kitchen to talk to the cook, while he went into Martha’s room to repack their bag. They would not come back to these gay little pink and blue rooms![Pg 543]

Then he took the bag downstairs, put it under the seat in the car, and went up to fetch the children. He would not tell them they were not coming back. If he could help it, there should not be another cruel parting for them.

He drove the car himself, leaving them together in the back seat; and all the way he tried to find some consolation for his great bitterness.

“I’ll marry her,” he thought. “I’ll have a home of my own. She’s a dear little kid!”

He must have some one, and he saw clearly that he could build up a good life with Frances. He was fond of her; perhaps he could love her, in a way. He could have a good life, honorable and dignified and comfortable.

Katherine’s flat was in a very second-rate neighborhood. That was just like her!

“What do I care at all for the neighborhood,” he could imagine her saying, “if it’s a nice flat with plenty of air and room?”

Going into the ornate entrance hall, he asked the colored boy to telephone upstairs to Mrs. Blakie that a gentleman had come to see her on business.

She opened the door for him herself. At the sight of him her face grew white as death.

“Oh, God!” she cried. “Something’s happened to them! Oh, God! I knew, if I let them go—”

“Don’t be silly!” he interrupted sharply. “They are both perfectly all right. I simply want to speak to you for a moment, if—”

He stopped short, shocked and dismayed that he had spoken in the old tone of irritation.

He followed her into the sitting room. It was untidy, with music scattered all about, and through the open doorway he could see the breakfast dishes still on the table.

There was a strange sort of humility about her that he had never seen before. She was wearing a silk kimono, with her hair in a loose plait. Her face was pale and jaded and stained with tears.

He knew what made her so apologetic. He had the upper hand now—he had her children.

“Sit down, Katherine,” he said, stung to a great pity. “I shan’t waste time beating about the bush. I’ve been thinking—most of the night.”

He was silent for a moment, looking about him. It was easy to see why her children loved her so, why she had so many friends. In all her carelessness there was something lavish and generous. She was never petty. She was like a child herself, reckless and impulsive—and lovely. Hadn’t Blakie loved her himself, and known how beautifully kind she could be? Never could his children suffer any great harm from her.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s too damned hard on them—this way. I’ve brought them back to you—to keep.”

“Buck up!” he said. “You’ve got to think of something to tell them, so that they won’t—be upset—about me.”

“All the night long I’ve been thinking,” she went on. “Can’t we start again—for their sakes?”

They faced each other now, and all that they had lost. If they were to start again! There would be no gracious and dignified life for him, no careless freedom for her. They would exasperate and hurt each other, again and again.

He walked over to the window and looked down to Renie and Martha, sitting side by side in the car.

Derelict

TELLING WHAT CHARLES HACKETT DID WHEN HE HAD HIS CHOICE BETWEEN A LIFE OF COMFORT AT HOME AND ONE OF ADVENTURE AND HARDSHIP IN THE TROPICS

THE private office was dim in the gray light of a March dusk; through the open window a chilly wind came blowing, with a fine drizzle of rain. Wickham Hackett sat at his desk, in a circle of light from the shaded lamp that illumined sharply his fine, haggard face, and made the graying hair on his temples glisten like silver. He had the look of some worn and ascetic recluse, sitting there in the chill and shadowy room.

He was making notes for his address to the board of directors. He knew very well that he could do this far better in the morning, that he was too tired now for any efficient work; but he was too tired to think of resting. The strain of his day had left him horribly tense, filled with an almost unbearable sense of exasperation and urgency.

He was silent for a moment, struggling gallantly against his savage mood. He wanted to shout at her, to swear at her, to tell her that it was her business to stay as long as he did, and that she was a little fool, with her high heels and her powdered nose; but he held his tongue, turned away his head so that he need not see her, and answered mildly:

After she had gone, he rose and went to the window. The pavement far below was glistening, the lights were blurred. The rain blew in on him, cold and fine. He liked the feel of it. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

“By Heaven, I won’t quit!” he said to himself. “I won’t give in! I won’t go home until I’ve got this thing straight in my mind, if I stay here all night!”

A great exultation seized him, a sense of power and energy. It was often like this. He would reach what would seem to be the very limit of his endurance, but if he held on, and would not rest, would not yield, this curious new vigor would come to him, this feeling of triumph, as if he had passed the boundary of normal endeavor and had become superhuman. He would pay for this later, in a long night of sleeplessness, but it was worth it.

He saw before him now, with perfect clarity, just the words he would use in his address. He drew back from the window, in a hurry to set them down, and as he turned he saw a tall figure standing near his desk. The shock made him dizzy for a moment.

“What—” he began furiously, and stopped, staring. “Oh, it’s you, is it, Charley?” he said.

“It’s me,” replied the other cheerfully. “Knocked at the outer door and nobody answered, so I walked in. Sorry I startled you.”

“Nerves, I suppose,” murmured Wickham Hackett. “I’m very tired. Sit down, man. I have something to tell you.”

But the other remained standing. He was a tall man, lean and sunburned, with a handsome, arrogant face and a swaggering air. He seemed like a man from another age, who should have worn a sword at his side. An adventurer, surely, but down on his luck now, with a frayed and threadbare overcoat, a shabby hat, and deep lines about his gray eyes.

“Sit down, man!” Wickham Hackett repeated impatiently. “Here, have a[Pg 546] smoke. I have some news for you, Charley.”

“Can’t refuse!” said Charles Hackett, and he sat down, with one long leg over the arm of the chair. “That’s good!” he added, at the first puff of the cigar.

Wickham Hackett looked down at the papers on his desk, because the sight of this battered rover stirred him almost intolerably. He could remember such a different Charles, years and years ago—such a careless, joyous, and triumphant Charles; and to see him now, like this—

The returned wanderer had come into his brother’s office two weeks ago, in his old casual way, as if the twelve years of his absence were nothing at all.

“Touch of fever,” he had said. “The doctors tell me I can’t live in a tropical climate any more, so I’ve come home. Do you think you can find me some sort of a job, Wick? There’s not a damned thing I can do that’s any use; but you’re such a big fellow now, you might be able to find me something, eh?”

Then Charley had begun asking about old friends. This one was dead, that one gone away; all the inevitable vicissitudes of twelve years were starkly revealed. It had been horrible, as if Charles were a ghost come back to a world that had long forgotten him.

“Well, yes, of course—it’s natural,” he had said. “The life there, in the West Indies—quite different, you know. I like it.”

“No,” Charles had said. “No luck about it, Wick. I had it coming to me. I’ve lived hard, and now I’ve got to pay. I’m forty, my health is broken, and I haven’t a damned cent. That’s not bad luck, Wick—it’s bad management;” and he had smiled, his teeth very white against his sunburned face.

That was the worst of it, to Wickham Hackett’s thinking—that incurable carelessness and swagger of his brother’s. He was not sobered or steadied by whatever misfortunes had befallen him. He still laughed, as a man of another day might have laughed, with his back to the wall and nothing left him but the sword in his hand. In a way, it was admirable, but it was hard to witness that flashing smile, that debonair manner—with the threadbare overcoat and the shabby hat!

“But you’re married now,” Charles had protested. “Perhaps your wife—”

He had not felt at all sure of that, but one thing he did know—whether Madeline was glad or sorry to see Charles, she would receive him kindly and graciously.

That was the best thing in his life, the feeling he had about Madeline. It was not the thing people usually speak of as “being in love.” In his early youth he had known what that was. He had been in love, miserably, bitterly, hotly in love, and he had come out of it, not unscarred; but this, his feeling for Madeline, was different. This was a love of dignity and utter trust. He honored her above all women on earth, and he profoundly admired her reserved beauty. He gave her everything freely, and put his very soul into her keeping.

He never told her things like that. In the course of his first disastrous love affair he had done plenty of talking, and he wished never to use those words again. He had proved to Madeline, in their five years of life together, what he thought of her, how he valued her, and of course she would understand.

She had been quite as kind and gracious to Charley as her husband had expected. She had looked after the poor fellow’s comfort, had made him feel at ease and happy. It had been good to see him so happy.

“And now,” thought Wickham, “his troubles are pretty well over. He’ll be all right.” Aloud he said: “Yes, I have news for you, Charley. I’ve—”

“Hold on a minute!” said Charles Hackett. “I have some news myself, Wick. Wait! Where is it? Here!”

He drew an envelope from his breast pocket, took out the letter inside, and spread it out on his knee.

“From a fellow I knew down in Nicaragua,” he observed. “He’s got a deal on there. Wants me to come in with him. Where is it? Here! ‘Your experience will be better than capital,’ he says. ‘I’ll put up the money and you’ll do the work.’ He says—”

“What are you talking about?” Wick[Pg 547]ham interrupted impatiently. “You can’t go down there. Now look here, Charley! I saw Carrick again to-day, and he’s willing to take you in there. It’s a remarkable opportunity.”

“Don’t belittle yourself!” said Wickham. “You’ve got certain qualities that ’ll be mighty useful to him. You’ve got brains, Charley—although you don’t like to use ’em. I’ve been after Carrick for the last ten days, and at last I’ve made him see the point. He wants to meet you to-morrow, and then we’ll make a definite arrangement.”

“Yes, but—” objected Charley. “I see; but—I think this Nicaragua job would suit me better, Wick.”

“Don’t be such a fool!” cried Wickham. “You know damned well that that climate would kill you in a year; and here I’m offering you a chance any other man would give his ears for!”

“Yes, I know,” said Charles. “Very good of you, Wick. I appreciate it; but—”

“You fool!” he shouted. “After I’ve—” He stopped suddenly, and stood there visibly making a tremendous effort at self-control; and he won it. “Sorry!” he said. “The truth is, I’m a bit tired. We won’t talk any more about it now, eh? We’ll go along home, and after dinner—”

“Yes,” said Charles; “but the thing is, Wick, I was thinking of having dinner in town to-night. You see, there’s a boat to-morrow—”

“No, you don’t!” said Wickham. “You’re not going to do any such foolish and suicidal thing as that until we’ve had a talk.”

“Charley,” said the other, “look here—I’m pretty tired. I can’t talk to you properly now, and I want to. I’m not demonstrative, and never was. Perhaps I haven’t let you see how much”—he paused, looking down at his desk—“how much I have your welfare at heart,” he ended stiffly.

“Wick, of course I’ve seen,” replied Charles, profoundly touched. “I’ve appreciated everything; only you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I’m a born tramp, Wick. I’d really better go.”

“For the Lord’s sake, shut up!” said Wickham, half laughing. “I can’t talk to you until after dinner. Come along now and we’ll just make the five forty.”

It was Wickham’s habit to read a newspaper on the train going home, not because his preoccupied mind felt any great interest in the outside world, but because it was a protection. It kept people from talking to him.

This time, however, sitting beside Charles, he did not open his paper. He showed his brother an almost exaggerated courtesy. For Charles’s sake he made an effort he would have made for no one else. He tried to talk about old friends and old days, turning his worn and sensitive face toward the other with a look of fixed attention; but his mind wandered. A thousand little anxieties and exasperations stirred him, and he grew silent and distrait.

Then his glance fell upon the sleeve of that threadbare overcoat, upon a worn shoe carefully polished, and an almost unbearable compassion seized him. Charley come home again, penniless and broken in health at forty!

It was dark when they reached the suburban station, and the rain fell steadily. They crossed the covered platform to Wickham’s car. The chauffeur held the door open, they got in, and the car started.

“I don’t know how it was,” said Charles, “but whenever I used to think of home it was always like this—cold, rainy nights, and the little houses lighted up. Sort of a charm about it, don’t you think?”

There was some curious quality about Charles, something vivid in him, which conjured up visions for the wanderer’s brother. He looked out of the window, and it seemed to him that he could see as Charles saw—the pleasant suburban street, lined with bare trees, and the comfortable houses, lighted now, here a window with a red-shaded lamp, here a bedroom light behind curtains, all of them so snug and safe from the wind and the cold rain. Men were coming home and dinners were being served, as men had been coming home to rest and eat since the dark beginning of things. A bitter thing, to have no home, no welcome or refuge!

“Unless he marries,” thought Wickham. “No reason why he shouldn’t do well with Carrick—soon be in a position to marry[Pg 548] and have a place of his own. No reason at all!”

A peculiar feeling of disquiet came over him, something shadowy and elusive. He felt abashed, as if some one had rebuked him. Well, perhaps it was a little hard to imagine Charles working in an office, making money, catching the five forty to go home to some cozy little house of his own; but it was not impossible.

“He’s only forty,” thought Wickham, “and I have influence enough to help him. No reason why it shouldn’t be like that!”

He glanced uneasily at his brother. The car was lighted, and he could see clearly that bold and arrogant profile.

“He didn’t want to come back with me to-night. He wants to get away, to go down there—to a climate that means the end of him. What’s the matter with him? Is it pride? Doesn’t he want to accept favors from me?”

“And I’ve been careful,” he thought. “I haven’t said a word or done a thing to hurt him.”

He had never even mentioned the threadbare overcoat and the shabby hat, or suggested a loan of money. He had noticed that Charles was always supplied with tobacco, that he was able to pay car fares and buy newspapers, and so on. He must have a little money left.

“And he can start in next week with Carrick,” thought Wickham. “Then he’ll be all right.”

“Restless,” his brother decided. “He’s lived in the tropics so long that the idea of going to Nicaragua appealed to him, just for the moment.”

The car turned in at the gates of Wickham’s place. He saw before him the lights of his own home shining through the rain; and mechanically he braced himself for an ordeal.

It was his inflexible rule to enter his house with an amiable and agreeable manner. When the parlor maid opened the door, he gave her something as much like a smile as he could manage, bade her good evening:, and entered the drawing-room.

“Nice and warm in here,” he observed. “I’ll go and have a wash and brush up, and get ready for dinner.”

It was hard for him to speak at all, fatigue so weighed upon him. He went up the stairs, forcing himself to a brisk pace, entered his room, and locked the door. Then suddenly he thought of things for his speech to-morrow—just the things he had wanted. He pulled out his notebook and fountain pen and began to make notes.

He took off his coat and went toward his bathroom. Then he thought of a most effective sentence and hurried back to the table.

“If I could have a quiet hour now!” he thought. “But that’s not fair to Madeline.”

He came down at the proper time, with more and more ideas for that speech running through his mind, and entered the drawing-room again. Madeline was sitting there, stretched out in a lounge chair, and Charles stood beside her. They were laughing at something.

Again that curious disquiet seized Wickham Hackett. He stood in the doorway, looking at her, and it seemed to him that somehow she had changed.

All through dinner Wickham’s eyes sought his wife’s face with covert anxiety. She was as cool, as gay, as gracious as ever—a tall young creature, exquisitely cared for, with shining dark hair and a delicate, half disdainful face. He had never seen her ill-tempered or impatient, had never known her to be anything but kind to him, and courteous and lovely; and she was so to-night. He must have been dreaming to fancy that there was a change, a shadow upon her unruffled beauty!

“Wickie,” said Madeline, “you’ve been sleeping better lately, haven’t you?”

“Ah!” she cried triumphantly. “I knew it! Wickie, I’ve been deceiving you. I’ve been giving you a new sort of coffee, with no caffeine in it!”

She had risen, and was standing by the radio. She smiled back at him over her shoulder and then began to turn the dial.

But Charles Hackett did not answer. He sat smoking a cigarette, with his coffee cup before him, and staring down at his worn and carefully polished shoes.

“Charles!” she cried, laughing. “You’re not very gallant this evening. Do I have to ask you to dance?”

He put down his cigarette, rose, crossed the room to her, and put his arm about her, and they began to dance.

What was the matter? Every evening since Charles had come he and Madeline had had a dance or two after dinner.

“Charles is the most wonderful dancer,” Madeline had said, and Wickham had felt a little sorry for him, with only so futile an accomplishment to his credit.

If it made them happy, Madeline’s husband had been pleased; but he was not pleased to-night. He was uneasy, the music worried him, and he moved restlessly in his chair.

“Perhaps it’s this new coffee,” he thought. “I need the stimulation of the real thing. Poor girl!”

“Wickie, I’ve been deceiving you!” The words came back to him with a horrible shock.

“Good God!” he cried to himself. “What’s the matter with me? This is—shameful!”

“I ought to take her out more,” he thought. “She’s so much younger than I am. It’s dull for her here, but she’s never complained—never once. The best wife a man ever had—the finest, straightest girl!”

If she would come behind his chair now and lay her slender hand over his closed eyes! Of course, she didn’t do things like that. There was beneath her gayety a fastidious and almost austere reserve. That was what he most respected in her. She was kind, always kind, but always aloof.

Well, he wanted it so. He would not have it otherwise; but if only just this once he could feel her hand on his eyes, if she would stop and kiss him!

III

Madeline had gone upstairs, and the two men were alone together in the library. Charles sat beside a lamp, with its light full upon him, but Wickham had moved into a shadowy corner.

Some neighbors had come in to play bridge, there had been more dancing and a little supper; and through it all, all the time, Wickham had been thinking of that look on his brother’s face—a look of terrible pain and regret and tenderness. He was never going to forget it.

“I can’t—just go on,” he thought. “It’s not possible. It’s—oh, God! It’s my fault—I’ve thrown them together, and she’s so lovely and sweet that I might have known. Oh, poor devil! That’s why he wants to go away!”

“I know, Wick. You’ve been more than decent—about everything; but, to tell you the truth, I have a hankering for the old life—see? I’m sorry to let you down, when you’ve taken so much trouble to get me a job, but I feel I’ve got to get South again, in the sun.”

“The doctors don’t always know what they’re talking about, you know. Personally I think it ’ll do me good to get down there in the sun.”

“Charley,” said Wickham, with a monstrous effort, “I—I think you have another reason.”

“I wanted to tell you,” said Wickham, still with a painful effort, “that it needn’t matter.”

“I wanted to tell you that—I don’t blame you. You can’t help it. Who could? I’m sure she doesn’t know. I was watching her this evening. I’m sure she doesn’t suspect.”

“She needn’t ever. You can put up at[Pg 550] a hotel, Charley, and just come out for a visit now and then.”

“Yes, it would. See here, Charley—that’s a remarkable opportunity with Carrick. You’ll—”

“I know,” said Charles; “but I think I’ll go down to Nicaragua, Wick.”

“Charley, don’t do it! She doesn’t know; and as for me—I want you here. It’s suicide to go down there. Stay here, Charley!”

“Can’t, Wick,” said Charles. Then he glanced up, with his flashing smile. “I’m off to-morrow, Wick. It’s the best thing. I’m going to make my fortune down there—see?”

“Charley, this is foolish melodrama stuff! You’re not a boy. It can’t be as bad as that.”

It was still raining the next morning, still blowing. Charles Hackett had made his adieus, had been driven to the station in Wickham’s car, caught an early train, and got into the city. He came out of the Grand Central into the steady downpour, pulled the shabby hat down on his forehead, turned up the collar of the threadbare overcoat, and set off on foot.

The wet and the mud soaked through his worn shoes, and the fine polish was hopelessly lost. A very battered rover he looked; but the girl in the florist’s shop thought him a splendid figure.

There was no one else in the shop at this early hour, and he went with her into the little back room, dim and chilly and bare, with a long table, upon which the carnations she had been sorting lay scattered.

She stood before him, a slender, fair-haired girl in a green smock. He had known her years ago in Havana, in the days of her father’s prosperity; and he had found her again here, a lonely, plucky little exile, earning her own bread. No one quite like her, he thought—no one else with eyes so clear and candid, with so generous and sweet a smile; but she was twenty-two and he was forty, and he hadn’t fifty dollars to his name.

“Well,” Charles told her, “I’ve only had one job offered me, and it doesn’t suit me; so I’m going down to Nicaragua.”

They were both silent for a time. The rain was rattling against the window. The room was filled with the spicy fragrance of the carnations.

“No,” he said gravely. “I don’t fit in here. I’m a derelict, and a derelict can be a danger to navigation. I’ve known some pretty good craft wrecked that way.” He was talking half to himself. When she looked at him in troubled surprise, he smiled cheerfully. “So I’ve come to say good-by, Betty,” he ended.

He shook his head, still smiling, his teeth white against his sunburned face. She saw the fine lines about his eyes, his shabbiness, his invincible gallantry.

“Charley!” she cried, and threw her arms about his neck. “Oh, don’t, don’t go, Charley!”

He held her tight, clasped to his wet coat, and with one hand stroked her fair head lying on his shoulder.

“Oh, don’t, don’t go away, Charley!” she sobbed. “I do—need you so!”

He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face, streaming with tears. He looked straight into her eyes, and smiled again. There was something almost terrible in that smile, something inflexible, hard as steel.

“No, you don’t!” he said. “You’re a sentimental kid, that’s all. You’re going to forget all about me, like a nice kid, and six months from now you’re going to write[Pg 551] me a letter and tell me about the wonderful boy you’ve got.”

“All right!” she said. “All right, if you want to pretend it’s that way; but you know I won’t forget.”

She raised her head and kissed him. For a moment he crushed her against him; then, with just the lightest kiss on her young head, he let her go, took up his hat, and hurried off. He knew she had come to the door to watch him go, but he did not look back.

All gray the harbor was that morning, and noisy with the hoarse din of whistles and fog horns; but Charles Hackett stood on deck, in the rain, to see the last of it.

A lucky thing, he thought, that Wick hadn’t brought her down to see him off! Lucky that last night Wick had looked at his face, not hers! It had been so plain there to read—the doubt, the question, the fear, in the eyes of Wickham’s wife. She didn’t know yet, but she was beginning to know.

“Why am I to have no life? Why am I to be shut out, denied everything that is real?”

She had turned with her unspoken question not to Wickham, but to his brother. Charles had come to her, almost as if the sun of the tropics had risen in the cool skies of her homeland. He had danced with her, talked to her, with his vivid smile, his immeasurable careless vitality. He had had for her not only his innate charm, but the charm of the unknown.

Even his very shabbiness had enchanted her, because it was a regal thing. He, too, might have had his pockets well filled, but he had not cared for money. He had thrown everything away, and had laughed a careless laugh.

Then he had seen what was coming. He had seen the doubt, the dismay, which she herself did not understand. He had seen her turn to him, not to her husband.

Well, she wouldn’t turn to him any more, for he would not be there. There would only be Wickham, chivalrous and quiet. She would forget the doubt and the question that would never be asked and never be answered. It was essential for Charles to go, never to be there again.

The rain and the mist almost hid the shores from his sight now. He could see only the tops of great buildings, like castles on a mountain top. His girl was there, the girl who had clung to him so.

Inches and Ells

SHE listened to his footsteps, going down and down the stone stairs, until the echo died away; and still she stood as if she were listening, one hand on the back of a chair, her lips parted, a faint frown on her brow.

But the silence settled about her, and even her own fast-beating heart and quickened breathing grew quieter.

Very well! She had told him to go, and she wanted him to go. She turned away from the doorway and went toward her bedroom.

“I never should have let him call here,” she thought. “He doesn’t understand. He’s impossible. I knew it, too. I knew that if I gave him an inch, he’d take ells and ells!”

“How silly!” she said to herself. “I’ll see him again to-morrow; and if he’s sorry—if he apologizes—”

“I’ll go to bed and get a good night’s sleep,” she thought. “In the morning—”

But the tears would not stop. She saw her orderly little room in a mist. The silver on the dressing table made a dazzling blur, and the edge of the mirror was like a rainbow.

There before her were the precious photographs of her father and her mother, in a double frame. She picked them up and looked at them, blinking away the tears until the beloved faces were clear to her. They had trusted her to come to New York alone, to manage her own life with dignity and discretion; they counted upon her not being silly.

At this moment they would be sitting in the library at home, in the serene quiet of their mutual affection and understanding. Perhaps her father would be writing at his table, his gray[Pg 554] head bent over some scientific treatise, and her mother would be sewing or reading; but whatever they were doing, their child would not be forgotten. The thought of her would come to them at any moment. They must miss her, but they were proud of her and sure of her.

“I’ve got to make Douglas see,” she said to herself. “He’s got to show decent respect for me. I know he’s fond of me, but—”

Imagine his coming like that, with a ring to put on her finger, before he had even asked her if she liked him! The very first time she had asked him here, too! Catching her roughly in his arms and kissing her!

He had shown no trace of delicacy or respect, no appreciation of the honor done him in being asked here. He knew that she was quite alone, and he had taken advantage of it. Kissing her like that, when she had forbidden him!

Well, she had made him realize her just resentment. She had sent him away, him and his ring, not angrily, but quietly.

“If he had even said he was sorry,” she thought. “Perhaps he will to-morrow.”

“Because I’m so disappointed,” she told herself. “I didn’t think he’d be like that.”

She had seen him in the office every day for two months, and once she had gone out to lunch with him, and once to dinner; and she had felt that a very beautiful thing was beginning. She had seen in his gray eyes a look that made her heart beat fast, had heard in his voice a queer, grudging tenderness not to be forgotten.

She had known, of course, that he was not quite the man she had dreamed of, no knightly figure of romance. His manner was abrupt and domineering. More than once she had seen him lose his temper with some unlucky fellow worker, and speak in a grim white anger that distressed her bitterly; but he was so honest and so uncompromising! She had respected that, and had admired his tireless energy, his undoubted cleverness.

There were not many men of his age who had gone as far as he—head of a department at twenty-four. Yes, she had been justified in liking him; but there were those other things, those unreasonable things. When she thought of him, it was not his business ability that she remembered, but his quick smile, his steady glance, his way of scowling and running his hand over the back of his head.

“If he just says he’s sorry to-morrow,” she thought. “If he’ll just realize that he was—horrible!”

She fell asleep in a troubled and confused mood, and waked the next morning with a heavy heart.

“I won’t be weak and silly,” she thought. “If he’s not sorry—if he can’t show the proper respect for me—then it’s finished!”

She was sitting at her typewriter when he came into the office. She heard his curt “good morning” to some one else, heard his footsteps behind her. A wave of emotion rushed over her, so that for an instant she could not breathe; but she sat very quiet, the slender, neat, dark-haired Miss Graham that the office always beheld.

Almost at once he sent for her. She rose, took her notebook and pencil, and went into his private office.

The color rose in her cheeks, but she paid no heed to the command. He rose and shut the door himself.

“Look here!” he said. “I—I shouldn’t have made such a fool of myself, only I thought you—liked me.[Pg 555]”

“I came to you,” he said. “I offered you all I had, and you told me to get out.”

“Do you mean to say,” she cried, “that you don’t see how outrageous you were?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t see. I thought that if you asked me there, you had been nice to me. I thought you liked me. Now that I see you don’t, I’m sorry.”

“You just call it making a fool of yourself, to be so arrogant and disrespectful?”

“I wasn’t arrogant!” he replied hotly. “Call it arrogance to come and ask a girl to marry you—to offer her all you have?”

“If you cared for me,” he said, “you wouldn’t have minded my—my kissing you.”

“I don’t!” she said. “No—I—it’s not fair to make me stand here and listen to you!”

She opened the door and went back into the outer office. She knew that the other girls would notice her hot color, would see that she had no dictation to transcribe, and would talk about it. She was humiliated, and it was his fault.

“He’s not worth bothering about,” she thought. “He is arrogant. He’s domineering and conceited. He calls it making a fool of himself to insult and hurt me.”

She did not see him again that morning. He used the dictaphone for his letters, and presently she had them to type. It was strange to hear his voice in her ears, his impatient young voice:

All that long day, and all the next day, went by without a word or glance between them. The following morning was Saturday, a half holiday, and Mildred was going, as usual, to spend the week-end at home. She came to the office dressed for traveling, and bringing her bag with her.

After she had returned to her own desk, his voice echoed in her ears, miserable, angry, and forlorn:

Promptly at twelve o’clock Randall left the office, without a word to any one. The door closed behind him.

“His lordship isn’t quite so gay this morning,” said the girl next to her. “He got an awful calling down. Mr. Williams sent for him. I was in Mr. Pratt’s office, and we both heard every word. I was tickled to death! I can’t stand Randall.”

“Oh, it seems that Randall had been out with the boys last night, playing poker and drinking, and Mr. Williams heard about it. When Randall made a mistake in his work this morning, the old man jumped on him—told him he wasn’t up to his work, and that if he kept on like that he’d get the gate—told him he was expected to get here in the morning fresh and fit. Oh, he just jumped on him! I was tickled to death, Randall’s so high-hat.”

“What could he say? ‘All right, sir. Yes, sir! No, sir!’ He had to come down off his high horse that time!”

Mildred had a vision of young Randall, not domineering and energetic, but standing downcast and unhappy before his chief.

“I think it’s a shame!” she cried suddenly. “Mr. Williams might have closed the door, anyhow, so that no one would hear!”

She felt certain that humiliation would not do Randall good, but harm. A great anger filled her, and a curious fear.

“He can’t stand that,” she thought. “He won’t stand it. He’ll do something silly. If Mr. Williams had just talked to him quietly and nicely—if some one would—”

III

She had lunch alone in a little tea room, and all the while she thought of Randall, the arrogant, who had been humiliated and humbled. Playing poker and drinking! They were things utterly outside her experience, and the thought of them filled her with dismay and alarm.

“He’s so reckless,” she thought. “He told me he was all alone in New York. There’s no one to talk to him.”

That public reprimand had come to him just after she had told him that she was leaving. Perhaps that ring had been in his pocket at the time—the ring that he must have bought with such a high heart.

Through the tea room window she could look out on the crowded street. That was the world out there—the world he lived in, hurried, careless, and jostling; and he was pushing his way through it, hurried himself and careless and solitary.

“I can’t let him go like this, without a word,” she thought. “Perhaps if I just spoke to him—nicely, it might help.”

It was hard for her to do that, for it was he who should have come to her, should have asked her not to go away, should have tried to set himself right with her.

“Now he’ll think I didn’t really mind his behaving that way,” she thought. “He’ll be hard to manage, if I encourage him.”

But she had to do it. Reluctantly, with a heavy heart, she telephoned to the address he had given her.

“Randall’s not in,” said a cheerful masculine voice. “I expect him any minute. Can I take a message?”

“Yes, please,” she said at last. “If you’ll tell him that Miss Graham is leaving for Hartford on the five o’clock train, and that she’d like to see him at the Grand Central for a moment before she goes.”

“Miss Graham—leaving on the five o’clock train for Hartford—wants to see him at the Grand Central. Right! I’ve got it all written down.[Pg 557]”

That was a later train than she had meant to take, and there was a long time to be filled. She went into the book department of a big store and picked out something to read—a serious book, the sort she had been brought up to appreciate. Then she went to a tea room and had a plate of ice cream.

At half past four she reached the station, and stood near the gates of the train, waiting—such a neat, composed, dignified young creature, with her book under her arm. At heart she was nervous, but she meant to try. She was going to speak to Randall gravely and earnestly. She would not encourage him too much, but she would offer him her friendship, if he would be worthy of it. It was a difficult thing for her to do, this cherished only daughter, so sheltered, so gently bred, so quietly proud in her own honorable and blameless life. She had taken a step down in doing this.

Her face was pale, but her eyes were steady and clear, searching the crowd for him. It was right to try and help him.

“He hasn’t got the message,” she thought. “I’ll just say good-by. I’ll tell him that perhaps I’ll see him again.”

“I did give him the message,” it protested; “but you see, he’s got a little party on here. He must have lost track of the time. I’ll call him.”

He had got her message and he had not troubled to come. She had to run now to catch the train. He hadn’t come. He didn’t care.

But she did not go. She turned away from the train with a strange blank look on her face.

She was surprised to find that it had grown dark when she reached the street. A cold wind blew, and the myriad flashing lights of Forty-Second Street, the noise, the crowds, confused her. Her composure and her dignified self-reliance were gone; she felt desolate and abandoned.

“What’s the matter with me?” she thought with a sob. “I ought to be ashamed of myself. He got my message—and he didn’t come!”

“But he wanted to come!” she cried in her heart. “I know he wanted to come, only he’s too proud. I hurt him too much.”

For somehow she, who knew so little of love and life, knew that if he saw her his stubborn pride would be melted. She must do it, at any cost to her own pride.

Terribly pale, she entered the hall of the apartment house where he lived. The hall boy came forward.

“It’s the rule—” the boy began; but after a glance at her pale, set face he resigned himself with a sigh, and took her up in the elevator.

He watched her going along the hall, so slender and straight, still with the serious book under her arm.

She rang the bell, and waited. She rang again, and the door was flung open with a crash by a cheerful, fair-haired young fellow.

From a room at the end of the hall young Randall appeared in his shirt sleeves, with his dark hair ruffled and his face flushed.

She tried to speak, but she could not. She stood there just outside the door, with the book under her arm, only looking at him.

He came down the hall to her. He, too, was silent. From the room at the back she could hear laughter and the rattle of chips, and the air was heavy with tobacco smoke.

She shook her head mutely, but he took her hand, drew her into the little sitting room at the right, and closed the door after him.

A terrible despair filled her. She had done this incredible thing, come here after him, and now he would despise her!

“I couldn’t—” she said unsteadily. “I couldn’t go—I was afraid.”

“Oh, darling!” he cried. He was on his knees beside her chair, with his dark head bent on her arm. “Oh, my darling girl!”

“I’m so sorry!” he said in a muffled voice. “My darling girl! For you to come here—you little angel! I’m so sorry!”

“I’m so sorry!” he cried again. “I wish I could tell you! You’re such an angel, and I’m not fit to speak to you!”

She laid her hand on his head. He caught it in his own and raised it to his lips in reverence.

“Mildred,” he said, “you don’t know how I feel. I mean it when I say I’m at your feet.”

“But—” she began, and stopped, struggling with a new idea. “Is it like this?” she thought. “If I’m just kind to him, and generous—”

If she stooped in love and pity—if she came down from her pedestal—would he worship her? She put her arm around his neck.

“Mildred,” he said, “you’ll see—I’ll do anything for you! I’m not half good enough, but, Mildred, I’ll try. I don’t care how long you want me to wait. I’ll do anything you tell me!”

When she had given him an inch, he had taken an ell; but when she was reckless in her giving, he stood before her like this, utterly humble.

“I’d like you to come out to Hartford and see my father and mother,” she said gravely.

He left the door of the room open, and she could hear his curt voice in the back room.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “My—the girl I’m engaged to—wants me to go out to see her people.”

“Good-by!” said Randall. “You can take my chips, Fry. We’ll settle up later.”

When she had been dignified and reserved, he had been angry and unmanageable. When she ran after him, at such a cost to her pride, she became his sovereign lady, whose least word he obeyed.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The collected stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding from Munsey's Magazine, 1920-1928

The Stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding in Munsey’s Magazine 1920-1928

The Married Man A MODERN COMEDY OF ENLIGHTENED THOUGHT

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

The Foreign Woman NO WONDER THE SOUL OF RUSSIA IS ONE OF THE GREAT ENIGMAS OF THE WORLD

II

III

IV

V

VI

Hanging’s Too Good for Him THE PATHETIC STORY OF TOMMY ELLINGER, OF NEW YORK, AND AN INNOCENT YOUNG GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

Like a Leopard HOW JOHNNY BRECKENBRIDGE RECEIVED A NEW LIGHT ON THE NATURE OF A GOOD WIFE

II

III

IV

V

VI

The Aforementioned Infant THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO LOVED HER BABY

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

It Seemed Reasonable FAR BETTER TO DO IT YOURSELF, OR HAVE IT DONE BADLY—BY SOME ONE ELSE

II

III

IV

V

Old Dog Tray SHOWING HOW A LONG COURTSHIP CAME TO AN UNEXPECTED ENDING

II

III

IV

V

VI

The Matador A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE IN THE CAREER OF GRAVES, THE HARD-HEARTED OFFICE MANAGER

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

A Hesitating Cinderella THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF MADELINE, THE PRETTY WAITRESS AT COMPSON’S CHOPHOUSE

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

The Postponed Wedding IN WHICH THE PRINCIPALS WERE A TEARFUL BRIDE AND A SUBSTITUTE BRIDEGROOM

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

The Marquis of Carabas THE STRANGE STORY OF TWO YOUNG DOCTORS

II

III

IV

V

VI

Out of the Woods THE STORY OF AN ARTLESS GIRL, A HUNGRY WOLF, AND A WONDERFUL GRANDMOTHER

The Stories of
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
in Munsey’s Magazine
1920-1928

The Married Man

A MODERN COMEDY OF ENLIGHTENED THOUGHT

The Foreign Woman

NO WONDER THE SOUL OF RUSSIA IS ONE OF THE GREAT ENIGMAS OF THE WORLD

Hanging’s Too Good for Him

THE PATHETIC STORY OF TOMMY ELLINGER, OF NEW YORK, AND AN INNOCENT YOUNG GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY

Like a Leopard

HOW JOHNNY BRECKENBRIDGE RECEIVED A NEW LIGHT ON THE NATURE OF A GOOD WIFE

The Aforementioned Infant

THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO LOVED HER BABY

It Seemed Reasonable

FAR BETTER TO DO IT YOURSELF, OR HAVE IT DONE BADLY—BY SOME ONE ELSE

Old Dog Tray

SHOWING HOW A LONG COURTSHIP CAME TO AN UNEXPECTED ENDING

The Matador

A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE IN THE CAREER OF GRAVES, THE HARD-HEARTED OFFICE MANAGER

A Hesitating Cinderella

THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF MADELINE, THE PRETTY WAITRESS AT COMPSON’S CHOPHOUSE

The Postponed Wedding

IN WHICH THE PRINCIPALS WERE A TEARFUL BRIDE AND A SUBSTITUTE BRIDEGROOM

The Marquis of Carabas

THE STRANGE STORY OF TWO YOUNG DOCTORS

Out of the Woods

THE STORY OF AN ARTLESS GIRL, A HUNGRY WOLF, AND A WONDERFUL GRANDMOTHER

Benedicta

AND HOW SHE DISCOVERED JUST WHAT IT WAS THAT SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED

Nickie and Pem

THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO WASTE HER LIFE

His Remarkable Future

THE STORY OF A RAPTUROUS BUT SOMEWHAT TUMULTUOUS ENGAGEMENT

His Own People

MRS. DENIS LANIER’S FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HER HUSBAND’S FAMILY PROVES TO BE A TRYING ORDEAL

Who Is This Impossible Person?

THE STORY OF A VERY FORMIDABLE AUNT AND A VERY PERSISTENT YOUNG MAN

Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN OLIVE’S ARDENT ADMIRER AND HER FORMIDABLE AUNT

Too French

THE STORY OF A NERVOUS WRECK AND HER ATTRACTIVE YOUNG COMPANION

The Good Little Pal

HOW BARTY AND JACKO STARTED THEIR MARRIED LIFE UNDER ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES

Flowers for Miss Riordan

A CAVALIER’S FLORAL TRIBUTE WHICH HELPED ITS RECIPIENT TO ACHIEVE THE FREEDOM OF HER SOUL

Sometimes Things Do Happen

HOW THE LIVES OF FOUR YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE WERE UTTERLY RUINED—FOR A TIME, AT LEAST

Miss What’s-Her-Name

AN INEXPERIENCED TRAVELER’S EVENTFUL VOYAGE TO A SUMMER ISLE OF PALM TREES AND SAPPHIRE WATERS