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Title: Free, and other stories

Author: Theodore Dreiser

Release date: July 17, 2022 [eBook #68542]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Boni and Liverlight

Credits: Amber Black, Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FREE, AND OTHER STORIES ***





  FREE AND
  OTHER STORIES




  FREE AND OTHER
  STORIES

  BY THEODORE DREISER

  AUTHOR OF “SISTER CARRIE,” “THE HAND OF THE POTTER,”
  “JENNIE GERHARDT,” ETC.

  [Illustration]


  BONI AND LIVERIGHT
  NEW YORK      1918




Copyright, 1918

BY BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.

  _First Printing_         _August, 1918_
  _Second Printing_        _August, 1918_
  _Third Printing_         _August, 1918_
  _Fourth Printing_      _December, 1918_




CONTENTS


                                        PAGE

  FREE                                     9

  MCEWEN OF THE SHINING SLAVE MAKERS      54

  NIGGER JEFF                             76

  THE LOST PHŒBE                         112

  THE SECOND CHOICE                      135

  A STORY OF STORIES                     163

  OLD ROGAUM AND HIS THERESA             201

  WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR           229

  THE CRUISE OF THE “IDLEWILD”           300

  MARRIED                                323

  WHEN THE OLD CENTURY WAS NEW           351




FREE


The large and rather comfortable apartment of Rufus Haymaker,
architect, in Central Park West, was very silent. It was scarcely dawn
yet, and at the edge of the park, over the way, looking out from the
front windows which graced this abode and gave it its charm, a stately
line of poplars was still shrouded in a gray morning mist. From his
bedroom at one end of the hall, where, also, a glimpse of the park was
to be had, came Mr. Haymaker at this early hour to sit by one of these
broader windows and contemplate these trees and a small lake beyond.
He was very fond of Nature in its manifold art forms--quite poetic, in
fact.

He was a tall and spare man of about sixty, not ungraceful, though
slightly stoop-shouldered, with heavy overhanging eyebrows and hair,
and a short, professionally cut gray mustache and beard, which gave
him a severe and yet agreeable presence. For the present he was clad
in a light-blue dressing gown with silver cords, which enveloped him
completely. He had thin, pale, long-fingered hands, wrinkled at the
back and slightly knotted at the joints, which bespoke the artist, in
mood at least, and his eyes had a weary and yet restless look in them.

For only yesterday Doctor Storm, the family physician, who was in
attendance on his wife, ill now for these three weeks past with a
combination of heart lesion, kidney poisoning and neuritis, had taken
him aside and said very softly and affectionately, as though he were
trying to spare his feelings: “To-morrow, Mr. Haymaker, if your wife
is no better I will call in my friend, Doctor Grainger, whom you know,
for a consultation. He is more of an expert in these matters of the
heart”--the heart, Mr. Haymaker had time to note ironically--“than
I am. Together we will make a thorough examination, and then I hope
we will be better able to say what the possibilities of her recovery
really are. It’s been a very trying case, a very stubborn one, I might
say. Still, she has a great deal of vitality and is doing as well as
could be expected, all things considered. At the same time, though I
don’t wish to alarm you unnecessarily--and there is no occasion for
great alarm yet--still I feel it my duty to warn you that her condition
is very serious indeed. Not that I wish you to feel that she is certain
to die. I don’t think she is. Not at all. Just the contrary. She may
get well, and probably will, and live all of twenty years more.”
(Mentally Mr. Haymaker sighed a purely spiritual sigh.) “She has fine
recuperative powers, so far as I can judge, but she has a bad heart,
and this kidney trouble has not helped it any. Just now, when her heart
should have the least strain, it has the most.

“She is just at that point where, as I may say, things are in the
balance. A day or two, or three or four at the most, ought to show
which way things will go. But, as I have said before, I do not wish to
alarm you unnecessarily. We are not nearly at the end of our tether. We
haven’t tried blood transfusion yet, and there are several arrows to
that bow. Besides, at any moment she may respond more vigorously to
medication than she has heretofore--especially in connection with her
kidneys. In that case the situation would be greatly relieved at once.

“However, as I say, I feel it my duty to speak to you in this way in
order that you may be mentally prepared for any event, because in such
an odd combination as this the worst may happen at any time. We never
can tell. As an old friend of yours and Mrs. Haymaker’s, and knowing
how much you two mean to each other”--Mr. Haymaker merely stared at
him vacantly--“I feel it my duty to prepare you in this way. We all of
us have to face these things. Only last year I lost my dear Matilda,
my youngest child, as you know. Just the same, as I say, I have the
feeling that Mrs. Haymaker is not really likely to die soon, and that
we--Doctor Grainger and myself--will still be able to pull her through.
I really do.”

Doctor Storm looked at Mr. Haymaker as though he were very sorry for
him--an old man long accustomed to his wife’s ways and likely to be
made very unhappy by her untimely end; whereas Mr. Haymaker, though
staring in an almost sculptural way, was really thinking what a farce
it all was, what a dull mixture of error and illusion on the part
of all. Here he was, sixty years of age, weary of all this, of life
really--a man who had never been really happy in all the time that he
had been married; and yet here was his wife, who from conventional
reasons believed that he was or should be, and who on account of
this was serenely happy herself, or nearly so. And this doctor, who
imagined that he was old and weak and therefore in need of this loving
woman’s care and sympathy and understanding! Unconsciously he raised a
deprecating hand.

Also his children, who thought him dependent on her and happy with her;
his servants and her and his friends thinking the same thing, and yet
he really was not. It was all a lie. He was unhappy. Always he had been
unhappy, it seemed, ever since he had been married--for over thirty-one
years now. Never in all that time, for even so much as a single day,
had he ever done anything but long, long, long, in a pale, constrained
way--for what, he scarcely dared think--not to be married any more--to
be free--to be as he was before ever he saw Mrs. Haymaker.

And yet being conventional in mood and training and utterly
domesticated by time and conditions over which he seemed not to have
much control--nature, custom, public opinion, and the like, coming
into play as forces--he had drifted, had not taken any drastic action.
No, he had merely drifted, wondering if time, accident or something
might not interfere and straighten out his life for him, but it never
had. Now weary, old, or rapidly becoming so, he condemned himself for
his inaction. Why hadn’t he done something about it years before?
Why hadn’t he broken it up before it was too late, and saved his own
soul, his longing for life, color? But no, he had not. Why complain so
bitterly now?

All the time the doctor had talked this day before he had wanted to
smile a wry, dry, cynical smile, for in reality he did not want Mrs.
Haymaker to live--or at least at the moment he thought so. He was too
miserably tired of it all. And so now, after nearly twenty-four hours
of the same unhappy thought, sitting by this window looking at a not
distant building which shone faintly in the haze, he ran his fingers
through his hair as he gazed, and sighed.

How often in these weary months, and even years, past--ever since he
and his wife had been living here, and before--had he come to these
or similar windows while she was still asleep, to sit and dream! For
some years now they had not even roomed together, so indifferent had
the whole state become; though she did not seem to consider that
significant, either. Life had become more or less of a practical
problem to her, one of position, place, prestige. And yet how often,
viewing his life in retrospect, had he wished that his life had been as
sweet as his dreams--that his dreams had come true.

After a time on this early morning, for it was still gray, with the
faintest touch of pink in the east, he shook his head solemnly and
sadly, then rose and returned along the hall to his wife’s bedroom,
at the door of which he paused to look where she lay seriously ill,
and beside her in an armchair, fast asleep, a trained nurse who was
supposedly keeping the night vigil ordered by the doctor, but who no
doubt was now very weary. His wife was sleeping also--very pale, very
thin now, and very weak. He felt sorry for her at times, in spite of
his own weariness; now, for instance. Why need he have made so great a
mistake so long ago? Perhaps it was his own fault for not having been
wiser in his youth. Then he went quietly on to his own room, to lie
down and think.

Always these days, now that she was so very ill and the problem of her
living was so very acute, the creeping dawn thus roused him--to think.
It seemed as though he could not really sleep soundly any more, so
stirred and distrait was he. He was not so much tired or physically
worn as mentally bored or disappointed. Life had treated him so badly,
he kept thinking to himself over and over. He had never had the
woman he really wanted, though he had been married so long, had been
faithful, respectable and loved by her, in her way. “In her way,” he
half quoted to himself as he lay there.

Presently he would get up, dress and go down to his office as usual
if his wife were not worse. But--but, he asked himself--would she be?
Would that slim and yet so durable organism of hers--quite as old as
his own, or nearly so--break under the strain of this really severe
illness? That would set him free again, and nicely, without blame or
comment on him. He could then go where he chose once more, do as he
pleased--think of that--without let or hindrance. For she was ill at
last, so very ill, the first and really great illness she had endured
since their marriage. For weeks now she had been lying so, hovering, as
it were, between life and death, one day better, the next day worse,
and yet not dying, and with no certainty that she would, and yet not
getting better either. Doctor Storm insisted that it was a leak in her
heart which had suddenly manifested itself which was causing all the
real trouble. He was apparently greatly troubled as to how to control
it.

During all this period Mr. Haymaker had been, as usual, most
sympathetic. His manner toward her was always soft, kindly, apparently
tender. He had never really begrudged her anything--nothing certainly
that he could afford. He was always glad to see her and the children
humanly happy--though they, too, largely on account of her, he thought,
had proved a disappointment to him--because he had always sympathized
with her somewhat unhappy youth, narrow and stinted; and yet he had
never been happy himself, either, never in all the time that he had
been married. If she had endured much, he kept telling himself when he
was most unhappy, so had he, only it was harder perhaps for women to
endure things than men--he was always willing to admit that--only also
she had had his love, or thought she had, an actual spiritual peace,
which he had never had. She knew she had a faithful husband. He felt
that he had never really had a wife at all, not one that he could love
as he knew a wife should be loved. His dreams as to that!

Going to his office later this same day--it was in one of those tall
buildings that face Madison Square--he had looked first, in passing,
at the trees that line Central Park West, and then at the bright wall
of apartment houses facing it, and meditated sadly, heavily. Here the
sidewalks were crowded with nursemaids and children at play, and in
between them, of course, the occasional citizen loitering or going
about his errands. The day was so fine, so youthful, as spring days
will seem at times. As he looked, especially at the children, and
the young men bustling office-ward, mostly in new spring suits, he
sighed and wished that he were young once more. Think how brisk and
hopeful they were! Everything was before them. They could still pick
and choose--no age or established conditions to stay them. Were any
of them, he asked himself for the thousandth time, it seemed to him,
as wearily connected as he had been at their age? Did they each have
a charming young wife to love--one of whom they were passionately
fond--such a one as he had never had; or did they not?

Wondering, he reached his office on one of the topmost floors of one
of those highest buildings commanding a wide view of the city, and
surveyed it wearily. Here were visible the two great rivers of the
city, its towers and spires and far-flung walls. From these sometimes,
even yet, he seemed to gain a patience to live, to hope. How in his
youth all this had inspired him--or that other city that was then.
Even now he was always at peace here, so much more so than in his own
home, pleasant as it was. Here he could look out over this great scene
and dream or he could lose the memory in his work that his love-life
had been a failure. The great city, the buildings he could plan or
supervise, the efficient help that always surrounded him--his help, not
hers--aided to take his mind off himself and that deep-seated inner
ache or loss.

The care of Mr. Haymaker’s apartment during his wife’s illness and his
present absence throughout the day, devolved upon a middle-aged woman
of great seriousness, Mrs. Elfridge by name, whom Mrs. Haymaker had
employed years before; and under her a maid of all work, Hester, who
waited on table, opened the door, and the like; and also at present
two trained nurses, one for night and one for day service, who were
in charge of Mrs. Haymaker. The nurses were both bright, healthy,
blue-eyed girls, who attracted Mr. Haymaker and suggested all the youth
he had never had--without really disturbing his poise. It would seem as
though that could never be any more.

In addition, of course, there was the loving interest of his son
Wesley and his daughter Ethelberta--whom his wife had named so in
spite of him--both of whom had long since married and had children
of their own and were living in different parts of the great city.
In this crisis both of them came daily to learn how things were, and
occasionally to stay for the entire afternoon or evening, or both.
Ethelberta had wanted to come and take charge of the apartment entirely
during her mother’s illness, only Mrs. Haymaker, who was still able
to direct, and fond of doing so, would not hear of it. She was not
so ill but that she could still speak, and in this way could inquire
and direct. Besides, Mrs. Elfridge was as good as Mrs. Haymaker in
all things that related to Mr. Haymaker’s physical comfort, or so she
thought.

If the truth will come out--as it will in so many pathetic cases--it
was never his physical so much as his spiritual or affectional comfort
that Mr. Haymaker craved. As said before, he had never loved Mrs.
Haymaker, or certainly not since that now long-distant period back in
Muskegon, Michigan, where both had been born and where they had lived
and met at the ages, she of fifteen, he of seventeen. It had been,
strange as it might seem now, a love match at first sight with them.
She had seemed so sweet, a girl of his own age or a little younger, the
daughter of a local chemist. Later, when he had been forced by poverty
to go out into the world to make his own way, he had written her much,
and imagined her to be all that she had seemed at fifteen, and more--a
dream among fair women. But Fortune, slow in coming to his aid and
fickle in fulfilling his dreams, had brought it about that for several
years more he had been compelled to stay away nearly all of the time,
unable to marry her; during which period, unknown to himself really,
his own point of view had altered. How it had happened he could never
tell really, but so it was. The great city, larger experiences--while
she was still enduring the smaller ones--other faces, dreams of larger
things, had all combined to destroy it or her, only he had not quite
realized it then. He was always so slow in realizing the full import of
the immediate thing, he thought.

That was the time, as he had afterward told himself--how often!--that
he should have discovered his mistake and stopped. Later it always
seemed to become more and more impossible. Then, in spite of some
heartache to her and some distress to himself, no doubt, all would be
well for him now. But no; he had been too inexperienced, too ignorant,
too bound by all the conventions and punctilio of his simple Western
world. He thought an engagement, however unsatisfactory it might come
to seem afterward, was an engagement, and binding. An honorable man
would not break one--or so his country moralists argued.

Yes, at that time he might have written her, he might have told
her, then. But he had been too sensitive and kindly to speak of it.
Afterward it was too late. He feared to wound her, to undo her, to
undo her life. But now--now--look at his! He had gone back on several
occasions before marriage, and might have seen and done and been free
if he had had but courage and wisdom--but no; duty, order, the beliefs
of the region in which he had been reared, and of America--what it
expected and what she expected and was entitled to--had done for him
completely. He had not spoken. Instead, he had gone on and married her
without speaking of the change in himself, without letting her know how
worse than ashes it had all become. God, what a fool he had been! how
often since he had told himself over and over.

Well, having made a mistake it was his duty perhaps, at least
according to current beliefs, to stick by it and make the best of
it;--a bargain was a bargain in marriage, if no where else--but
still that had never prevented him from being unhappy. He could not
prevent that himself. During all these long years, therefore, owing to
these same conventions--what people would think and say--he had been
compelled to live with her, to cherish her, to pretend to be happy
with her--“another perfect union,” as he sometimes said to himself. In
reality he had been unhappy, horribly so. Even her face wearied him at
times, and her presence, her mannerisms. Only this other morning Doctor
Storm, by his manner indicating that he thought him lonely, in danger
of being left all alone and desperately sad and neglected in case she
died had irritated him greatly. Who would take care of him? his eyes
had seemed to say--and yet he himself wanted nothing so much as to be
alone for a time, at least, in this life, to think for himself, to
do for himself, to forget this long, dreary period in which he had
pretended to be something that he was not.

Was he never to be rid of the dull round of it, he asked himself now,
never before he himself died? And yet shortly afterward he would
reproach himself for these very thoughts, as being wrong, hard,
unkind--thoughts that would certainly condemn him in the eyes of the
general public, that public which made reputations and one’s general
standing before the world.

During all this time he had never even let her know--no, not once--of
the tremendous and soul-crushing sacrifice he had made. Like the
Spartan boy, he had concealed the fox gnawing at his vitals. He had not
complained. He had been, indeed, the model husband, as such things go
in conventional walks. If you doubted it look at his position, or that
of his children; or his wife--her mental and physical comfort, even in
her illness, her unfailing belief that he was all he should be! Never
once apparently, during all these years, had she doubted his love or
felt him to be unduly unhappy--or, if not that exactly, if not fully
accepting his love as something that was still at a fever heat, the
thing it once was--still believing that he found pleasure and happiness
in being with her, a part of the home which together they had built up,
these children they had reared, comfort in knowing that it would endure
to the end! To the end! During all these years she had gone on molding
his and her lives--as much as that was possible in his case--and those
of their children, to suit herself; and thinking all the time that she
was doing what he wanted or at least what was best for him and them.

How she adored convention! What did she not think she knew in regard
to how things ought to be--mainly what her old home surroundings had
taught her, the American idea of this, that and the other. Her theories
in regard to friends, education of the children, and so on, had in the
main prevailed, even when he did not quite agree with her; her desires
for certain types of pleasure and amusement, of companionship, and so
on, were conventional types always and had also prevailed. There had
been little quarrels, of course, always had been--what happy home is
free of them?--but still he had always given in, or nearly always, and
had acted as though he were satisfied in so doing.

But why, therefore, should he complain now, or she ever imagine, or
ever have imagined, that he was unhappy? She did not, had not. Like all
their relatives and friends of the region from which they sprang, and
here also--and she had been most careful to regulate that, courting
whom she pleased and ignoring all others--she still believed most
firmly, more so than ever, that she knew what was best for him, what he
really thought and wanted. It made him smile most wearily at times.

For in her eyes--in regard to him, at least, not always so with
others, he had found--marriage was a sacrament, sacrosanct, never to
be dissolved. One life, one love. Once a man had accepted the yoke or
even asked a girl to marry him it was his duty to abide by it. To break
an engagement, to be unfaithful to a wife, even unkind to her--what a
crime, in her eyes! Such people ought to be drummed out of the world.
They were really not fit to live--dogs, brutes!

And yet, look at himself--what of him? What of one who had made a
mistake in regard to all this? Where was his compensation to come
from, his peace and happiness? Here on earth or only in some mythical
heaven--that odd, angelic heaven that she still believed in? What
a farce! And all her friends and his would think he would be so
miserable now if she died, or at least ought to be. So far had asinine
convention and belief in custom carried the world. Think of it!

But even that was not the worst. No; that was not the worst, either. It
had been the gradual realization coming along through the years that he
had married an essentially small, narrow woman who could never really
grasp his point of view--or, rather, the significance of his dreams or
emotions--and yet with whom, nevertheless, because of this original
promise or mistake, he was compelled to live. Grant her every quality
of goodness, energy, industry, intent--as he did freely--still there
was this; and it could never be adjusted, never. Essentially, as he
had long since discovered, she was narrow, ultraconventional, whereas
he was an artist by nature, brooding and dreaming strange dreams and
thinking of far-off things which she did not or could not understand
or did not sympathize with, save in a general and very remote way.
The nuances of his craft, the wonders and subtleties of forms and
angles--had she ever realized how significant these were to him, let
alone to herself? No, never. She had not the least true appreciation
of them--never had had. Architecture? Art? What could they really mean
to her, desire as she might to appreciate them? And he could not now
go elsewhere to discover that sympathy. No. He had never really wanted
to, since the public and she would object, and he thinking it half evil
himself.

Still, how was it, he often asked himself, that Nature could thus allow
one conditioned or equipped with emotions and seekings such as his,
not of an utterly conventional order, to seek out and pursue one like
Ernestine, who was not fitted to understand him or to care what his
personal moods might be? Was love truly blind, as the old saw insisted,
or did Nature really plan, and cleverly, to torture the artist mind--as
it did the pearl-bearing oyster with a grain of sand--with something
seemingly inimical, in order that it might produce beauty? Sometimes
he thought so. Perhaps the many interesting and beautiful buildings
he had planned--the world called them so, at least--had been due to
the loving care he lavished on them, being shut out from love and
beauty elsewhere. Cruel Nature, that cared so little for the dreams of
man--the individual man or woman!

At the time he had married Ernestine he was really too young to know
exactly what it was he wanted to do or how it was he was going to feel
in the years to come; and yet there was no one to guide him, to stop
him. The custom of the time was all in favor of this dread disaster.
Nature herself seemed to desire it--mere children being the be-all and
the end-all of everything everywhere. Think of that as a theory! Later,
when it became so clear to him what he had done, and in spite of all
the conventional thoughts and conditions that seemed to bind him to
this fixed condition, he had grown restless and weary, but never really
irritable. No, he had never become that.

Instead he had concealed it all from her, persistently, in all
kindness; only this hankering after beauty of mind and body in ways
not represented by her had hurt so--grown finally almost too painful
to bear. He had dreamed and dreamed of something different until it
had become almost an obsession. Was it never to be, that something
different, never, anywhere, in all time? What a tragedy! Soon he would
be dead and then it would never be anywhere--anymore! Ernestine was
charming, he would admit, or had been at first, though time had proved
that she was not charming to him either mentally or physically in any
compelling way; but how did that help him now? How could it? He had
actually found himself bored by her for more than twenty-seven years
now, and this other dream growing, growing, growing--until----

But now he was old, and she was dying, or might be, and it could not
make so much difference what happened to him or to her; only it could,
too, because he wanted to be free for a little while, just for a little
while, before he died.

To be free! free!

One of the things that had always irritated him about Mrs. Haymaker was
this, that in spite of his determination never to offend the social
code in any way--he had felt for so many reasons, emotional as well
as practical, that he could not afford so to do--and also in spite
of the fact that he had been tortured by this show of beauty in the
eyes and bodies of others, his wife, fearing perhaps in some strange
psychic way that he might change, had always tried to make him feel or
believe--premeditatedly and of a purpose, he thought--that he was not
the kind of man who would be attractive to women; that he lacked some
physical fitness, some charm that other men had, which would cause all
young and really charming women to turn away from him. Think of it! He
to whom so many women had turned with questioning eyes!

Also that she had married him largely because she had felt sorry for
him! He chose to let her believe that, because he was sorry for
her. Because other women had seemed to draw near to him at times in
some appealing or seductive way she had insisted that he was not
even a cavalier, let alone a Lothario; that he was ungainly, slow,
uninteresting--to all women but her!

Persistently, he thought, and without any real need, she had harped
on this, fighting chimeras, a chance danger in the future; though he
had never given her any real reason, and had never even planned to sin
against her in any way--never. She had thus tried to poison his own
mind in regard to himself and his art--and yet--and yet---- Ah, those
eyes of other women, their haunting beauty, the flitting something they
said to him of infinite, inexpressible delight. Why had his life been
so very hard?

One of the disturbing things about all this was the iron truth which
it had driven home, namely, that Nature, unless it were expressed or
represented by some fierce determination within, which drove one to
do, be, cared no whit for him or any other man or woman. Unless one
acted for oneself, upon some stern conclusion nurtured within, one
might rot and die spiritually. Nature did not care. “Blessed be the
meek”--yes. Blessed be the strong, rather, for they made their own
happiness. All these years in which he had dwelt and worked in this
knowledge, hoping for something but not acting, nothing had happened,
except to him, and that in an unsatisfactory way. All along he had seen
what was happening to him; and yet held by convention he had refused to
act always, because somehow he was not hard enough to act. He was not
strong enough, that was the real truth--had not been. Almost like a
bird in a cage, an animal peeping out from behind bars, he had viewed
the world of free thought and freer action. In many a drawing-room, on
the street, or in his own home even, had he not looked into an eye,
the face of someone who seemed to offer understanding, to know, to
sympathize, though she might not have, of course; and yet religiously
and moralistically, like an anchorite, because of duty and current
belief and what people would say and think, Ernestine’s position and
faith in him, her comfort, his career and that of the children--he had
put them all aside, out of his mind, forgotten them almost, as best he
might. It had been hard at times, and sad, but so it had been.

And look at him now, old, not exactly feeble yet--no, not that yet, not
quite!--but life weary and almost indifferent. All these years he had
wanted, wanted--wanted--an understanding mind, a tender heart, the some
one woman--she must exist somewhere--who would have sympathized with
all the delicate shades and meanings of his own character, his art, his
spiritual as well as his material dreams---- And yet look at him! Mrs.
Haymaker had always been with him, present in the flesh or the spirit,
and--so----

Though he could not ever say that she was disagreeable to him
in a material way--he could not say that she had ever been that
exactly--still she did not correspond to his idea of what he needed,
and so---- Form had meant so much to him, color; the glorious
perfectness of a glorious woman’s body, for instance, the color of her
thoughts, moods--exquisite they must be, like his own at times; but no,
he had never had the opportunity to know one intimately. No, not one,
though he had dreamed of her so long. He had never even dared whisper
this to any one, scarcely to himself. It was not wise, not socially
fit. Thoughts like this would tend to social ostracism in his circle,
or rather hers--for had she not made the circle?

And here was the rub with Mr. Haymaker, at least, that he could not
make up his mind whether in his restlessness and private mental
complaints he were not even now guilty of a great moral crime in so
thinking. Was it not true that men and women should be faithful in
marriage whether they were happy or not? Was there not some psychic
law governing this matter of union--one life, one love--which made the
thoughts and the pains and the subsequent sufferings and hardships of
the individual, whatever they might be, seem unimportant? The churches
said so. Public opinion and the law seemed to accept this. There were
so many problems, so much order to be disrupted, so much pain caused,
many insoluble problems where children were concerned--if people did
not stick. Was it not best, more blessed--socially, morally, and in
every other way important--for him to stand by a bad bargain rather
than to cause so much disorder and pain, even though he lost his own
soul emotionally? He had thought so--or at least he had acted as though
he thought so--and yet---- How often had he wondered over this!

Take, now, some other phases. Granting first that Mrs. Haymaker had,
according to the current code, measured up to the requirements of a
wife, good and true, and that at first after marriage there had been
just enough of physical and social charm about her to keep his state
from becoming intolerable, still there was this old ache; and then
newer things which came with the birth of the several children: First
Elwell--named after a cousin of hers, not his--who had died only two
years after he was born; and then Wesley; and then Ethelberta. How he
had always disliked that name!--largely because he had hoped to call
her Ottilie, a favorite name of his; or Janet, after his mother.

Curiously the arrival of these children and the death of poor little
Elwell at two had somehow, in spite of his unrest, bound him to this
matrimonial state and filled him with a sense of duty, and pleasure
even--almost entirely apart from her, he was sorry to say--in these
young lives; though if there had not been children, as he sometimes
told himself, he surely would have broken away from her; he could not
have stood it. They were so odd in their infancy, those little ones,
so troublesome and yet so amusing--little Elwell, for instance, whose
nose used to crinkle with delight when he would pretend to bite his
neck, and whose gurgle of pleasure was so sweet and heart-filling
that it positively thrilled and lured him. In spite of his thoughts
concerning Ernestine--and always in those days they were rigidly put
down as unmoral and even evil, a certain unsocial streak in him perhaps
which was against law and order and social well-being--he came to have
a deep and abiding feeling for Elwell. The latter, in some chemic,
almost unconscious way, seemed to have arrived as a balm to his misery,
a bandage for his growing wound--sent by whom, by what, how? Elwell had
seized upon his imagination, and so his heartstrings--had come, indeed,
to make him feel understanding and sympathy there in that little child;
to supply, or seem to at least, what he lacked in the way of love
and affection from one whom he could truly love. Elwell was never so
happy apparently as when snuggling in his arms, not Ernestine’s, or
lying against his neck. And when he went for a walk or elsewhere there
was Elwell always ready, arms up, to cling to his neck. He seemed,
strangely enough, inordinately fond of his father, rather than his
mother, and never happy without him. On his part, Haymaker came to be
wildly fond of him--that queer little lump of a face, suggesting a
little of himself and of his own mother, not so much of Ernestine, or
so he thought, though he would not have objected to that. Not at all.
He was not so small as that. Toward the end of the second year, when
Elwell was just beginning to be able to utter a word or two, he had
taught him that silly old rhyme which ran “There were three kittens,”
and when it came to “and they shall have no----” he would stop and say
to Elwell, “What now?” and the latter would gurgle “puh!”--meaning, of
course, pie.

Ah, those happy days with little Elwell, those walks with him over his
shoulder or on his arm, those hours in which of an evening he would
rock him to sleep in his arms! Always Ernestine was there, and happy
in the thought of his love for little Elwell and her, her more than
anything else perhaps; but it was an illusion--that latter part. He did
not care for her even then as she thought he did. All his fondness was
for Elwell, only she took it as evidence of his growing or enduring
affection for her--another evidence of the peculiar working of her
mind. Women were like that, he supposed--some women.

And then came that dreadful fever, due to some invading microbe which
the doctors could not diagnose or isolate, infantile paralysis perhaps;
and little Elwell had finally ceased to be as flesh and was eventually
carried forth to the lorn, disagreeable graveyard near Woodlawn. How he
had groaned internally, indulged in sad, despondent thoughts concerning
the futility of all things human, when this had happened! It seemed for
the time being as if all color and beauty had really gone out of his
life for good.

“Man born of woman is of few days and full of troubles,” the preacher
whom Mrs. Haymaker had insisted upon having into the house at the time
of the funeral had read. “He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth
not.”

Yes; so little Elwell had fled, as a shadow, and in his own deep sorrow
at the time he had come to feel the first and only sad, deep sympathy
for Ernestine that he had ever felt since marriage; and that because
she had suffered so much--had lain in his arms after the funeral and
cried so bitterly. It was terrible, her sorrow. Terrible--a mother
grieving for her first-born! Why was it, he had thought at the time,
that he had never been able to think or make her all she ought to be to
him? Ernestine at this time had seemed better, softer, kinder, wiser,
sweeter than she had ever seemed; more worthy, more interesting than
ever he had thought her before. She had slaved so during the child’s
illness, stayed awake night after night, watched over him with such
loving care--done everything, in short, that a loving human heart could
do to rescue her young from the depths; and yet even then he had not
really been able to love her. No, sad and unkind as it might seem, he
had not. He had just pitied her and thought her better, worthier! What
cursed stars disordered the minds and moods of people so? Why was it
that these virtues of people, their good qualities, did not make you
love them, did not really bind them to you, as against the things you
could not like? Why? He had resolved to do better in his thoughts, but
somehow, in spite of himself, he had never been able so to do.

Nevertheless, at that time he seemed to realize more keenly than ever
her order, industry, frugality, a sense of beauty within limits, a
certain laudable ambition to do something and be somebody--only, only
he could not sympathize with her ambitions, could not see that she had
anything but a hopelessly commonplace and always unimportant point
of view. There was never any flair to her, never any true distinction
of mind or soul. She seemed always, in spite of anything he might
say or do, hopelessly to identify doing and being with money and
current opinion--neighborhood public opinion, almost--and local social
position, whereas he knew that distinguished doing might as well be
connected with poverty and shame and disgrace as with these other
things--wealth and station, for instance; a thing which she could never
quite understand apparently, though he often tried to tell her, much
against her mood always.

Look at the cases of the great artists! Some of the greatest architects
right here in the city, or in history, were of peculiar, almost
disagreeable, history. But no, Mrs. Haymaker could not understand
anything like that, anything connected with history, indeed--she hardly
believed in history, its dark, sad pages, and would never read it, or
at least did not care to. And as for art and artists--she would never
have believed that wisdom and art understanding and true distinction
might take their rise out of things necessarily low and evil--never.

Take now, the case of young Zingara. Zingara was an architect like
himself, whom he had met more than thirty years before, here in New
York, when he had first arrived, a young man struggling to become an
architect of significance, only he was very poor and rather unkempt
and disreputable-looking. Haymaker had found him several years before
his marriage to Ernestine in the dark offices of Pyne & Starboard,
Architects, and had been drawn to him definitely; but because he smoked
all the time and was shabby as to his clothes and had no money--why,
Mrs. Haymaker, after he had married her, and though he had known
Zingara nearly four years, would have none of him. To her he was low,
and a failure, one who would never succeed. Once she had seen him in
some cheap restaurant that she chanced to be passing, in company with a
drabby-looking maid, and that was the end.

“I wish you wouldn’t bring him here any more, dear,” she had insisted;
and to have peace he had complied--only, now look. Zingara had since
become a great architect, but now of course, owing to Mrs. Haymaker,
he was definitely alienated. He was the man who had since designed the
Æsculapian Club; and Symphony Hall with its delicate façade; as well as
the tower of the Wells Building, sending its sweet lines so high, like
a poetic thought or dream. But Zingara was now a dreamy recluse like
himself, very exclusive, as Haymaker had long since come to know, and
indifferent as to what people thought or said.

But perhaps it was not just obtuseness to certain of the finer shades
and meanings of life, but an irritating aggressiveness at times, backed
only by her limited understanding, which caused her to seek and wish to
be here, there and the other place; wherever, in her mind, the truly
successful--which meant nearly always the materially successful of a
second or third rate character--were, which irritated him most of all.
How often had he tried to point out the difference between true and
shoddy distinction--the former rarely connected with great wealth.

But no. So often she seemed to imagine such queer people to be truly
successful, when they were really not--usually people with just money,
or a very little more.

And in the matter of rearing and educating and marrying their two
children, Wesley and Ethelberta, who had come after Elwell--what
peculiar pains and feelings had not been involved in all this for him.
In infancy both of these had seemed sweet enough, and so close to him,
though never quite so wonderful as Elwell. But, as they grew, it seemed
somehow as though Ernestine had come between him and them. First, it
was the way she had raised them, the very stiff and formal manner in
which they were supposed to move and be, copied from the few new-rich
whom she had chanced to meet through him--and admired in spite of his
warnings. That was the irony of architecture as a profession--it was
always bringing such queer people close to one, and for the sake of
one’s profession, sometimes, particularly in the case of the young
architect, one had to be nice to them. Later, it was the kind of school
they should attend. He had half imagined at first that it would be the
public school, because they both had begun as simple people; but no,
since they were prospering it had to be a private school for each, and
not one of his selection, either--or hers, really--but one to which the
Barlows and the Westervelts, two families of means with whom Ernestine
had become intimate, sent their children and therefore thought
excellent!

The Barlows! Wealthy, but, to him, gross and mediocre people who had
made a great deal of money in the manufacture of patent medicines
out West, and who had then come to New York to splurge, and had been
attracted to Ernestine--not him particularly, he imagined--because
Haymaker had built a town house for them, and also because he was
gaining a fine reputation. They were dreadful really, so _gauche_, so
truly dull; and yet somehow they seemed to suit Ernestine’s sense of
fitness and worth at the time, because, as she said, they were good and
kind--like her Western home folks; only they were not really. She just
imagined so. They were worthy enough people in their way, though with
no taste. Young Fred Barlow had been sent to the expensive Gaillard
School for Boys, near Morristown, where they were taught manners and
airs, and little else, as Haymaker always thought, though Ernestine
insisted that they were given a religious training as well. And so
Wesley had to go there--for a time, anyhow. It was the best school.

And similarly, because Mercedes Westervelt, senseless, vain little
thing, was sent to Briarcliff School, near White Plains, Ethelberta had
to go there. Think of it! It was all so silly, so pushing. How well he
remembered the long, delicate campaign which preceded this, the logic
and tactics employed, the importance of it socially to Ethelberta, the
tears and cajolery. Mrs. Haymaker could always cry so easily, or seem
to be on the verge of it, when she wanted anything; and somehow, in
spite of the fact that he knew her tears were unimportant, or timed
and for a purpose, he could never stand out against them, and she knew
it. Always he felt moved or weakened in spite of himself. He had no
weapon wherewith to fight them, though he resented them as a part of
the argument. Positively Mrs. Haymaker could be as sly and as ruthless
as Machiavelli himself at times, and yet believe all the while that she
was tender, loving, self-sacrificing, generous, moral and a dozen other
things, all of which led to the final achievement of her own aims.
Perhaps this was admirable from one point of view, but it irritated him
always. But if one were unable to see him- or herself, their actual
disturbing inconsistencies, what were you to do?

And again, he had by then been married so long that it was almost
impossible to think of throwing her over, or so it seemed at the
time. They had reached the place then where they had supposedly
achieved position together, though in reality it was all his--and not
such position as he was entitled to, at that. Ernestine--and he was
thinking this in all kindness--could never attract the ideal sort.
And anyhow, the mere breath of a scandal between them, separation or
unfaithfulness, which he never really contemplated, would have led to
endless bickering and social and commercial injury, or so he thought.
All her strong friends--and his, in a way--those who had originally
been his clients, would have deserted him. Their wives, their own
social fears, would have compelled them to ostracize him! He would have
been a scandal-marked architect, a brute for objecting to so kind and
faithful and loving a wife. And perhaps he would have been, at that. He
could never quite tell, it was all so mixed and tangled.

Take, again, the marriage of his son Wesley into the De Gaud
family--George de Gaud _père_ being nothing more than a retired
real-estate speculator and promoter who had money, but nothing more;
and Irma de Gaud, the daughter, being a gross, coarse, sensuous girl,
physically attractive no doubt, and financially reasonably secure,
or so she had seemed; but what else? Nothing, literally nothing; and
his son had seemed to have at least some spiritual ideals at first.
Ernestine had taken up with Mrs. George de Gaud--a miserable, narrow
creature, so Haymaker thought--largely for Wesley’s sake, he presumed.
Anyhow, everything had been done to encourage Wesley in his suit and
Irma in her toleration, and now look at them! De Gaud _père_ had
since failed and left his daughter practically nothing. Irma had been
interested in anything but Wesley’s career, had followed what she
considered the smart among the new-rich--a smarter, wilder, newer
new-rich than ever Ernestine had fancied, or could. To-day she was
without a thought for anything besides teas and country clubs and
theaters--and what else?

And long since Wesley had begun to realize it himself. He was an
engineer now, in the employ of one of the great construction companies,
a moderately successful man. But even Ernestine, who had engineered
the match and thought it wonderful, was now down on her. She had
begun to see through her some years ago, when Irma had begun to
ignore her; only before it was always the De Gauds here, and the De
Gauds there. Good gracious, what more could any one want than the De
Gauds--Irma de Gaud, for instance? Then came the concealed dissension
between Irma and Wesley, and now Mrs. Haymaker insisted that Irma
had held, and was holding Wesley back. She was not the right woman
for him. Almost--against all her prejudices--she was willing that he
should leave her. Only, if Haymaker had broached anything like that in
connection with himself!

And yet Mrs. Haymaker had been determined, because of what she
considered the position of the De Gauds at that time, that Wesley
should marry Irma. Wesley now had to slave at mediocre tasks in order
to have enough to allow Irma to run in so-called fast society of a
second or third rate. And even at that she was not faithful to him--or
so Haymaker believed. There were so many strange evidences. And yet
Haymaker felt that he did not care to interfere now. How could he? Irma
was tired of Wesley, and that was all there was to it. She was looking
elsewhere, he was sure.

Take but one more case, that of Ethelberta. What a name! In spite of
all Ernestine’s determination to make her so successful and thereby
reflect some credit on her had she really succeeded in so doing? To be
sure, Ethelberta’s marriage was somewhat more successful financially
than Wesley’s had proved to be, but was she any better placed in other
ways? John Kelso--“Jack,” as she always called him--with his light ways
and lighter mind, was he really any one!--anything more than a waster?
His parents stood by him no doubt, but that was all; and so much the
worse for him. According to Mrs. Haymaker at the time, he, too, was an
ideal boy, admirable, just the man for Ethelberta, because the Kelsos,
_père_ and _mère_, had money. Horner Kelso had made a kind of fortune
in Chicago in the banknote business, and had settled in New York, about
the time that Ethelberta was fifteen, to spend it. Ethelberta had met
Grace Kelso at school.

And now see! She was not unattractive, and had some pleasant, albeit
highly affected, social ways; she had money, and a comfortable
apartment in Park Avenue; but what had it all come to? John Kelso had
never done anything really, nothing. His parents’ money and indulgence
and his early training for a better social state had ruined him
if he had ever had a mind that amounted to anything. He was idle,
pleasure-loving, mentally indolent, like Irma de Gaud. Those two should
have met and married, only they could never have endured each other.
But how Mrs. Haymaker had courted the Kelsos in her eager and yet
diplomatic way, giving teas and receptions and theater parties; and yet
he had never been able to exchange ten significant words with either of
them, or the younger Kelsos either. Think of it!

And somehow in the process Ethelberta, for all his early affection and
tenderness and his still kindly feeling for her, had been weaned away
from him and had proved a limited and conventional girl, somewhat like
her mother, and more inclined to listen to her than to him--though he
had not minded that really. It had been the same with Wesley before
her. Perhaps, however, a child was entitled to its likes and dislikes,
regardless.

But why had he stood for it all, he now kept asking himself. Why?
What grand results, if any, had been achieved? Were their children so
wonderful?--their lives? Would he not have been better off without
her--his children better, even, by a different woman?--hers by a
different man? Wouldn’t it have been better if he had destroyed it
all, broken away? There would have been pain, of course, terrible
consequences, but even so he would have been free to go, to do, to
reorganize his life on another basis. Zingara had avoided marriage
entirely--wise man. But no, no; always convention, that long list of
reasons and terrors he was always reciting to himself. He had allowed
himself to be pulled round by the nose, God only knows why, and that
was all there was to it. Weakness, if you will, perhaps; fear of
convention; fear of what people would think and say.

Always now he found himself brooding over the dire results to him of
all this respect on his part for convention, moral order, the duty
of keeping society on an even keel, of not bringing disgrace to his
children and himself and her, and yet ruining his own life emotionally
by so doing. To be respectable had been so important that it had
resulted in spiritual failure for him. But now all that was over with
him, and Mrs. Haymaker was ill, near to death, and he was expected to
wish her to get well, and be happy with her for a long time yet! Be
happy! In spite of anything he might wish or think he ought to do, he
couldn’t. He couldn’t even wish her to get well.

It was too much to ask. There was actually a haunting satisfaction in
the thought that she might die now. It wouldn’t be much, but it would
be something--a few years of freedom. That was something. He was not
utterly old yet, and he might have a few years of peace and comfort
to himself still--and--and---- That dream--that dream--though it might
never come true now--it couldn’t really--still--still---- He wanted to
be free to go his own way once more, to do as he pleased, to walk, to
think, to brood over what he had not had--to brood over what he had not
had! Only, only, whenever he looked into her pale sick face and felt
her damp limp hands he could not quite wish that, either; not quite,
not even now. It seemed too hard, too brutal--only--only---- So he
wavered.

No; in spite of her long-past struggle over foolish things and in
spite of himself and all he had endured or thought he had, he was
still willing that she should live; only he couldn’t wish it exactly.
Yes, let her live if she could. What matter to him now whether she
lived or died? Whenever he looked at her he could not help thinking
how helpless she would be without him, what a failure at her age, and
so on. And all along, as he wryly repeated to himself, she had been
thinking and feeling that she was doing the very best for him and her
and the children!--that she was really the ideal wife for him, making
every dollar go as far as it would, every enjoyment yield the last drop
for them all, every move seeming to have been made to their general
advantage! Yes, that was true. There was a pathos about it, wasn’t
there? But as for the actual results----!

The next morning, the second after his talk with Doctor Storm, found
him sitting once more beside his front window in the early dawn, and
so much of all this, and much more, was coming back to him, as before.
For the thousandth or the ten-thousandth time, as it seemed to him,
in all the years that had gone, he was concluding again that his life
was a failure. If only he were free for a little while just to be
alone and think, perhaps to discover what life might bring him yet;
only on this occasion his thoughts were colored by a new turn in the
situation. Yesterday afternoon, because Mrs. Haymaker’s condition had
grown worse, the consultation between Grainger and Storm was held,
and to-day sometime transfusion was to be tried, that last grim stand
taken by physicians in distress over a case; blood taken from a strong
ex-cavalryman out of a position, in this case, and the best to be hoped
for, but not assured. In this instance his thoughts were as before
wavering. Now supposing she really died, in spite of this? What would
he think of himself then? He went back after a time and looked in on
her where she was still sleeping. Now she was not so strong as before,
or so she seemed; her pulse was not so good, the nurse said. And now as
before his mood changed in her favor, but only for a little while. For
later, waking, she seemed to look and feel better.

Later he came up to the dining room, where the nurse was taking her
breakfast, and seating himself beside her, as was his custom these
days, asked: “How do you think she is to-day?”

He and the night nurse had thus had their breakfasts together for days.
This nurse, Miss Filson, was such a smooth, pink, graceful creature,
with light hair and blue eyes, the kind of eyes and color that of
late, and in earlier years, had suggested to him the love time or youth
that he had missed.

The latter looked grave, as though she really feared the worst but was
concealing it.

“No worse, I think, and possibly a little better,” she replied, eyeing
him sympathetically. He could see that she too felt that he was old and
in danger of being neglected. “Her pulse is a little stronger, nearly
normal now, and she is resting easily. Doctor Storm and Doctor Grainger
are coming, though, at ten. Then they’ll decide what’s to be done. I
think if she’s worse that they are going to try transfusion. The man
has been engaged. Doctor Storm said that when she woke to-day she was
to be given strong beef tea. Mrs. Elfridge is making it now. The fact
that she is not much worse, though, is a good sign in itself, I think.”

Haymaker merely stared at her from under his heavy gray eyebrows.
He was so tired and gloomy, not only because he had not slept much
of late himself but because of this sawing to and fro between his
varying moods. Was he never to be able to decide for himself what he
really wished? Was he never to be done with this interminable moral or
spiritual problem? Why could he not make up his mind on the side of
moral order, sympathy, and be at peace? Miss Filson pattered on about
other heart cases, how so many people lived years and years after
they were supposed to die of heart lesion; and he meditated as to
the grayness and strangeness of it all, the worthlessness of his own
life, the variability of his own moods. Why was he so? How queer--how
almost evil, sinister--he had become at times; how weak at others.
Last night as he had looked at Ernestine lying in bed, and this morning
before he had seen her, he had thought if she only would die--if he
were only really free once more, even at this late date. But then when
he had seen her again this morning and now when Miss Filson spoke
of transfusion, he felt sorry again. What good would it do him now?
Why should he want to kill her? Could such evil ideas go unpunished
either in this world or the next? Supposing his children could guess!
Supposing she did die now--and he wished it so fervently only this
morning--how would he feel? After all, Ernestine had not been so bad.
She had tried, hadn’t she?--only she had not been able to make a
success of things, as he saw it, and he had not been able to love her,
that was all. He reproached himself once more now with the hardness and
the cruelty of his thoughts.

The opinion of the two physicians was that Mrs. Haymaker was not much
better and that this first form of blood transfusion must be resorted
to--injected straight via a pump--which should restore her greatly
provided her heart did not bleed it out too freely. Before doing so,
however, both men once more spoke to Haymaker, who in an excess of
self-condemnation insisted that no expense must be spared. If her life
was in danger, save it by any means--all. It was precious to her, to
him and to her children. So he spoke. Thus he felt that he was lending
every force which could be expected of him, aside from fervently
wishing for her recovery, which even now, in spite of himself, he could
not do. He was too weary of it all, the conventional round of duties
and obligations. But if she recovered, as her physicians seemed to
think she might if transfusion were tried, if she gained even, it would
mean that he would have to take her away for the summer to some quiet
mountain resort--to be with her hourly during the long period in which
she would be recovering. Well, he would not complain now. That was all
right. He would do it. He would be bored of course, as usual, but it
would be too bad to have her die when she could be saved. Yes, that was
true. And yet----

He went down to his office again and in the meantime this first form
of transfusion was tried, and proved a great success, apparently. She
was much better, so the day nurse phoned at three; very much better. At
five-thirty Mr. Haymaker returned, no unsatisfactory word having come
in the interim, and there she was, resting on a raised pillow, if you
please, and looking so cheerful, more like her old self than he had
seen her in some time.

At once then his mood changed again. They were amazing, these
variations in his own thoughts, almost chemic, not volitional,
decidedly peculiar for a man who was supposed to know his own
mind--only did one, ever? Now she would not die. Now the whole thing
would go on as before. He was sure of it. Well, he might as well resign
himself to the old sense of failure. He would never be free now.
Everything would go on as before, the next and the next day the same.
Terrible! Though he seemed glad--really grateful, in a way, seeing her
cheerful and hopeful once more--still the obsession of failure and
being once more bound forever returned now. In his own bed at midnight
he said to himself: “Now she will really get well. All will be as
before. I will never be free. I will never have a day--a day! Never!”

But the next morning, to his surprise and fear or comfort, as his
moods varied, she was worse again; and then once more he reproached
himself for his black thoughts. Was he not really killing her by what
he thought? he asked himself--these constant changes in his mood? Did
not his dark wishes have power? Was he not as good as a murderer in his
way? Think, if he had always to feel from now on that he had killed her
by wishing so! Would not that be dreadful--an awful thing really? Why
was he this way? Could he not be human, kind?

When Doctor Storm came at nine-thirty, after a telephone call from the
nurse, and looked grave and spoke of horses’ blood as being better,
thicker than human blood--not so easily bled out of the heart when
injected as a serum--Haymaker was beside himself with self-reproaches
and sad, disturbing fear. His dark, evil thoughts of last night and
all these days had done this, he was sure. Was he really a murderer at
heart, a dark criminal, plotting her death?--and for what? Why had he
wished last night that she would die? Her case must be very desperate.

“You must do your best,” he now said to Doctor Storm. “Whatever is
needful--she must not die if you can help it.”

“No, Mr. Haymaker,” returned the latter sympathetically. “All that can
be done will be done. You need not fear. I have an idea that we didn’t
inject enough yesterday, and anyhow human blood is not thick enough in
this case. She responded, but not enough. We will see what we can do
to-day.”

Haymaker, pressed with duties, went away, subdued and sad. Now once
more he decided that he must not tolerate these dark ideas any more,
must rid himself of these black wishes, whatever he might feel. It
was evil. They would eventually come back to him in some dark way, he
might be sure. They might be influencing her. She must be allowed to
recover if she could without any opposition on his part. He must now
make a further sacrifice of his own life, whatever it cost. It was
only decent, only human. Why should he complain now, anyhow, after
all these years! What difference would a few more years make? He
returned at evening, consoled by his own good thoughts and a telephone
message at three to the effect that his wife was much better. This
second injection had proved much more effective. Horses’ blood was
plainly better for her. She was stronger, and sitting up again. He
entered at five, and found her lying there pale and weak, but still
with a better light in her eye, a touch of color in her cheeks--or
so he thought--more force, and a very faint smile for him, so marked
had been the change. How great and kind Doctor Storm really was! How
resourceful! If she would only get well now! If this dread siege would
only abate! Doctor Storm was coming again at eight.

“Well, how are you, dear?” she asked, looking at him sweetly and
lovingly, and taking his hand in hers.

He bent and kissed her forehead--a Judas kiss, he had thought up to
now, but not so to-night. To-night he was kind, generous--anxious,
even, for her to live.

“All right, dearest; very good indeed. And how are you? It’s such a
fine evening out. You ought to get well soon so as to enjoy these
spring days.”

“I’m going to,” she replied softly. “I feel so much better. And how
have you been? Has your work gone all right?”

He nodded and smiled and told her bits of news. Ethelberta had phoned
that she was coming, bringing violets. Wesley had said he would be here
at six, with Irma! Such-and-such people had asked after her. How could
he have been so evil, he now asked himself, as to wish her to die?
She was not so bad--really quite charming in her way, an ideal wife
for some one, if not him. She was as much entitled to live and enjoy
her life as he was to enjoy his; and after all she was the mother of
his children, had been with him all these years. Besides, the day had
been so fine--it was now--a wondrous May evening. The air and sky were
simply delicious. A lavender haze was in the air. The telephone bell
now ringing brought still another of a long series of inquiries as to
her condition. There had been so many of these during the last few
days, the maid said, and especially to-day--and she gave Mr. Haymaker
a list of names. See, he thought, she had even more friends than he,
being so good, faithful, worthy. Why should he wish her ill?

He sat down to dinner with Ethelberta and Wesley when they arrived,
and chatted quite gayly--more hopefully than he had in weeks. His own
varying thoughts no longer depressing him, for the moment he was happy.
How were they? What were the children all doing? At eight-thirty Doctor
Storm came again, and announced that he thought Mrs. Haymaker was
doing very well indeed, all things considered.

“Her condition is fairly promising, I must say,” he said. “If she gets
through another night or two comfortably without falling back I think
she’ll do very well from now on. Her strength seems to be increasing a
fraction. However, we must not be too optimistic. Cases of this kind
are very treacherous. To-morrow we’ll see how she feels, whether she
needs any more blood.”

He went away, and at ten Ethelberta and Wesley left for the night,
asking to be called if she grew worse, thus leaving him alone once
more. He sat and meditated. At eleven, after a few moments at his
wife’s bedside--absolute quiet had been the doctor’s instructions
these many days--he himself went to bed. He was very tired. His
varying thoughts had afflicted him so much that he was always tired,
it seemed--his evil conscience, he called it--but to-night he was sure
he would sleep. He felt better about himself, about life. He had done
better, to-day. He should never have tolerated such dark thoughts. And
yet--and yet--and yet----

He lay on his bed near a window which commanded a view of a small
angle of the park, and looked out. There were the spring trees, as
usual, silvered now by the light, a bit of lake showing at one end.
Here in the city a bit of sylvan scenery such as this was so rare and
so expensive. In his youth he had been so fond of water, any small
lake or stream or pond. In his youth, also, he had loved the moon, and
to walk in the dark. It had all, always, been so suggestive of love
and happiness, and he had so craved love and happiness and never had
it. Once he had designed a yacht club, the base of which suggested
waves. Once, years ago, he had thought of designing a lovely cottage
or country house for himself and some new love--that wonderful one--if
ever she came and he were free. How wonderful it would all have been.
Now--now--the thought at such an hour and especially when it was too
late, seemed sacrilegious, hard, cold, unmoral, evil. He turned his
face away from the moonlight and sighed, deciding to sleep and shut out
these older and darker and sweeter thoughts if he could, and did.

Presently he dreamed, and it was as if some lovely spirit of
beauty--that wondrous thing he had always been seeking--came and took
him by the hand and led him out, out by dimpling streams and clear
rippling lakes and a great, noble highway where were temples and towers
and figures in white marble. And it seemed as he walked as if something
had been, or were, promised him--a lovely fruition to something which
he craved--only the world toward which he walked was still dark or
shadowy, with something sad and repressing about it, a haunting sense
of a still darker distance. He was going toward beauty apparently, but
he was still seeking, seeking, and it was dark there when----

“Mr. Haymaker! Mr. Haymaker!” came a voice--soft, almost mystical at
first, and then clearer and more disturbing, as a hand was laid on him.
“Will you come at once? It’s Mrs. Haymaker!”

On the instant he was on his feet seizing the blue silk dressing
gown hanging at his bed’s head, and adjusting it as he hurried. Mrs.
Elfridge and the nurse were behind him, very pale and distrait,
wringing their hands. He could tell by that that the worst was at
hand. When he reached the bedroom--her bedroom--there she lay as in
life--still, peaceful, already limp, as though she were sleeping. Her
thin, and as he sometimes thought, cold, lips were now parted in a
faint, gracious smile, or trace of one. He had seen her look that way,
too, at times; a really gracious smile, and wise, wiser than she was.
The long, thin, graceful hands were open, the fingers spread slightly
apart as though she were tired, very tired. The eyelids, too, rested
wearily on tired eyes. Her form, spare as always, was outlined clearly
under the thin coverlets. Miss Filson, the night nurse, was saying
something about having fallen asleep for a moment, and waking only to
find her so. She was terribly depressed and disturbed, possibly because
of Doctor Storm.

Haymaker paused, greatly shocked and moved by the sight--more so than
by anything since the death of little Elwell. After all, she had
tried, according to her light. But now she was dead--and they had been
together so long! He came forward, tears of sympathy springing to his
eyes, then sank down beside the bed on his knees so as not to disturb
her right hand where it lay.

“Ernie, dear,” he said gently, “Ernie--are you really gone?” His voice
was full of sorrow; but to himself it sounded false, traitorous.

He lifted the hand and put it to his lips sadly, then leaned his head
against her, thinking of his long, mixed thoughts these many days,
while both Mrs. Elfridge and the nurse began wiping their eyes. They
were so sorry for him, he was so old now!

After a while he got up--they came forward to persuade him at
last--looking tremendously sad and distrait, and asked Mrs. Elfridge
and the nurse not to disturb his children. They could not aid her now.
Let them rest until morning. Then he went back to his own room and sat
down on the bed for a moment, gazing out on the same silvery scene that
had attracted him before. It was dreadful. So then his dark wishing had
come true at last? Possibly his black thoughts had killed her after
all. Was that possible? Had his voiceless prayers been answered in
this grim way? And did she know now what he had really thought? Dark
thought. Where was she now? What was she thinking now if she knew?
Would she hate him--haunt him? It was not dawn yet, only two or three
in the morning, and the moon was still bright. And in the next room she
was lying, pale and cool, gone forever now out of his life.

He got up after a time and went forward into that pleasant front room
where he had so often loved to sit, then back into her room to view
the body again. Now that she was gone, here more than elsewhere, in
her dead presence, he seemed better able to collect his scattered
thoughts. She might see or she might not--might know or not. It was
all over now. Only he could not help but feel a little evil. She had
been so faithful, if nothing more, so earnest in behalf of him and of
his children. He might have spared her these last dark thoughts of
these last few days. His feelings were so jumbled that he could not
place them half the time. But at the same time the ethics of the past,
of his own irritated feelings and moods in regard to her, had to be
adjusted somehow before he could have peace. They must be adjusted,
only how--how? He and Mrs. Elfridge had agreed not to disturb Doctor
Storm any more to-night. They were all agreed to get what rest they
could against the morning.

After a time he came forward once more to the front room to sit and
gaze at the park. Here, perhaps, he could solve these mysteries for
himself, think them out, find out what he did feel. He was evil for
having wished all he had, that he knew and felt. And yet there was
his own story, too--his life. The dawn was breaking by now; a faint
grayness shaded the east and dimly lightened this room. A tall pier
mirror between two windows now revealed him to himself--spare, angular,
disheveled, his beard and hair astray and his eyes weary. The figure he
made here as against his dreams of a happier life, once he were free,
now struck him forcibly. What a farce! What a failure! Why should he,
of all people, think of further happiness in love, even if he were
free? Look at his reflection here in this mirror. What a picture--old,
grizzled, done for! Had he not known that for so long? Was it not too
ridiculous? Why should he have tolerated such vain thoughts? What could
he of all people hope for now? No thing of beauty would have him now.
Of course not. That glorious dream of his youth was gone forever. It
was a mirage, an ignis fatuus. His wife might just as well have lived
as died, for all the difference it would or could make to him. Only,
he was really free just the same, almost as it were in spite of his
varying moods. But he was old, weary, done for, a recluse and ungainly.

Now the innate cruelty of life, its blazing ironic indifference to him
and so many grew rapidly upon him. What had he had? What all had he
not missed? Dismally he stared first at his dark wrinkled skin; the
crow’s-feet at the sides of his eyes; the wrinkles across his forehead
and between the eyes; his long, dark, wrinkled hands--handsome hands
they once were, he thought; his angular, stiff body. Once he had been
very much of a personage, he thought, striking, forceful, dynamic--but
now! He turned and looked out over the park where the young trees were,
and the lake, to the pinking dawn--just a trace now--a significant
thing in itself at this hour surely--the new dawn, so wondrously new
for younger people--then back at himself. What could he wish for
now--what hope for?

As he did so his dream came back to him--that strange dream of seeking
and being led and promised and yet always being led forward into a
dimmer, darker land. What did that mean? Had it any real significance?
Was it all to be dimmer, darker still? Was it typical of his life? He
pondered.

“Free!” he said after a time. “Free! I know now how that is. I am free
now, at last! Free!... Free!... Yes--free ... to die!”

So he stood there ruminating and smoothing his hair and his beard.




McEWEN OF THE SHINING SLAVE MAKERS


It was a hot day in August. The parching rays of a summer sun had faded
the once sappy green leaves of the trees to a dull and dusty hue. The
grass, still good to look upon in shady places, spread sere and dry
where the light had fallen unbroken. The roads were hot with thick
dust, and wherever a stone path led, it reflected heat to weary body
and soul.

Robert McEwen had taken a seat under a fine old beech tree whose broad
arms cast a welcome shade. He had come here out of the toil of the busy
streets.

For a time he gave himself over to blank contemplation of the broad
park and the occasional carriages that jingled by. Presently his
meditation was broken by an ant on his trousers, which he flipped away
with his finger. This awoke him to the thought that there might be more
upon him. He stood up, shaking and brushing himself. Then he noticed an
ant running along the walk in front of him. He stamped on it.

“I guess that will do for you,” he said, half aloud, and sat down again.

Now only did he really notice the walk. It was wide and hard and hot.
Many ants were hurrying about, and now he saw that they were black. At
last, one more active than the others fixed his eye. He followed it
with his glance for more than a score of feet.

This particular ant was progressing urgently, now to the right, now to
the left, stopping here and there, but never for more than a second.
Its energy, the zig-zag course it pursued, the frequency with which it
halted to examine something, enlisted his interest. As he gazed, the
path grew in imagination until it assumed immense proportions.

Suddenly he bestirred himself, took a single glance and then jumped,
rubbing his eyes. He was in an unknown world, strange in every detail.
The branched and many-limbed trees had disappeared. A forest of immense
flat swords of green swayed in the air above him. The ground between
lacked its carpet of green and was roughly strewn with immense boulders
of clay. The air was strong with an odor which seemed strange and yet
familiar. Only the hot sun streaming down and a sky of faultless blue
betokened a familiar world. In regard to himself McEwen felt peculiar
and yet familiar. What was it that made these surroundings and himself
seem odd and yet usual? He could not tell. His three pairs of limbs
and his vigorous mandibles seemed natural enough. The fact that he
sensed rather than saw things was natural and yet odd. Forthwith moved
by a sense of duty, necessity, and a kind of tribal obligation which
he more felt than understood, he set out in search of food and prey
and presently came to a broad plain, so wide that his eye could scarce
command more than what seemed an immediate portion of it. He halted and
breathed with a feeling of relief. Just then a voice startled him.

“Anything to eat hereabout?” questioned the newcomer in a friendly and
yet self-interested tone.

McEwen drew back.

“I do not know,” he said, “I have just----”

“Terrible,” said the stranger, not waiting to hear his answer. “It
looks like famine. You know the Sanguineæ have gone to war.”

“No,” answered McEwen mechanically.

“Yes,” said the other, “they raided the Fuscæ yesterday. They’ll be
down on us next.”

With that the stranger made off. McEwen was about to exclaim at the use
of the word _us_ when a ravenous craving for food, brought now forcibly
to his mind by the words of the other, made him start in haste after
him.

Then came another who bespoke him in passing.

“I haven’t found a thing to-day, and I’ve been all the way to the
Pratensis region. I didn’t dare go any further without having some
others with me. They’re hungry, too, up there, though they’ve just made
a raid. You heard the Sanguineæ went to war, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he told me,” said McEwen, indicating the retreating figure of the
stranger.

“Oh, Ermi. Yes, he’s been over in their territory. Well, I’ll be going
now.”

McEwen hastened after Ermi at a good pace, and soon overtook him. The
latter had stopped and was gathering in his mandibles a jagged crumb,
almost as large as himself.

“Oh!” exclaimed McEwen eagerly, “where did you get that?”

“Here,” said Ermi.

“Will you give me a little?”

“I will not,” said the other, and a light came in his eye that was
almost evil.

“All right,” said McEwen, made bold by hunger and yet cautious by
danger, “which way would you advise me to look?”

“Wherever you please,” said Ermi, “why ask me? You are not new at
seeking,” and strode off.

“The forest was better than this,” thought McEwen; “there I would not
die of the heat, anyhow, and I might find food. Here is nothing,” and
he turned and glanced about for a sight of the jungle whence he had
come.

Far to the left and rear of him he saw it, those great up-standing
swords. As he gazed, revolving in his troubled mind whether he should
return or not, he saw another like himself hurrying toward him out of
the distance.

He eagerly hailed the newcomer, who was yet a long way off.

“What is it?” asked the other, coming up rapidly.

“Do you know where I can get something to eat?”

“Is that why you called me?” he answered, eyeing him angrily. “Do you
ask in time of famine? Certainly not. If I had anything for myself,
I would not be out here. Go and hunt for it like the rest of us. Why
should you be asking?”

“I have been hunting,” cried McEwen, his anger rising. “I have searched
here until I am almost starved.”

“No worse off than any of us, are you?” said the other. “Look at me. Do
you suppose I am feasting?”

He went off in high dudgeon, and McEwen gazed after him in
astonishment. The indifference and sufficiency were at once surprising
and yet familiar. Later he found himself falling rapidly into helpless
lassitude from both hunger and heat, when a voice, as of one in pain,
hailed him.

“Ho!” it cried.

“Hello!” he answered.

“Come, come!” was the feeble reply.

McEwen started forward at once. When he was still many times his own
length away he recognized the voice as that of his testy friend of a
little while before, but now sadly changed. He was stretched upon the
earth, working his mandibles feebly.

“What is it?” asked McEwen solicitously. “What ails you? How did this
happen?”

“I don’t know,” said the other. “I was passing along here when that
struck me,” indicating a huge boulder. “I am done for, though. You may
as well have this food now, since you are one of us. The tribe can use
what you do not eat,” he sighed.

“Oh, nothing of the sort,” said McEwen solicitously, the while he
viewed the crushed limbs and side of the sufferer. “You’ll be all
right. Why do you speak of death? Just tell me where to take you, or
whom to go for.”

“No,” said the other, “it would be no use. You see how it is. They
could do nothing for me. I did not want your aid. I merely wanted you
to have this food here. I shall not want it now.”

“Don’t say that,” returned McEwen. “You mustn’t talk about dying. There
must be something I can do. Tell me. I don’t want your food.”

“No, there isn’t anything you could do. There isn’t any cure, you know
that. Report, when you return, how I was killed. Just leave me now and
take that with you. They need it, if you do not.”

McEwen viewed him silently. This reference to a colony or tribe or home
seemed to clarify many things for him. He remembered now apparently the
long road he had come, the immense galleries of the colony to which he
belonged under the earth, the passages by which he had made his way
in and out, the powerful and revered ant mother, various larvæ to be
fed and eggs to be tended. To be sure. That was it. He was a part of
this immense colony or group. The heat must have affected his sensory
powers. He must gather food and return there--kill spiders, beetles,
grubs, and bring them back to help provision the colony. That was it.
Only there were so few to be found here, for some reason.

The sufferer closed his eyes in evident pain, and trembled
convulsively. Then he fell back and died.

McEwen gazed upon the now fast stiffening body, with all but
indifference, and wondered. The spectacle seemed so familiar as to be
all but commonplace. Apparently he had seen so many die that way. Had
he not, in times past, reported the deaths of hundreds?

“Is he dead?” asked a voice at his side.

“Yes,” said McEwen, scarcely bringing himself out of his meditation
sufficiently to observe the newcomer.

“Well, then, he will not need this, I guess,” said the other, and he
seized upon the huge lump with his mandibles, but McEwen was on the
alert and savage into the bargain, on the instant. He, too, gripped his
mandibles upon it.

“I was called by him to have this, before he died,” he shouted “and I
propose to have it. Let go.”

“That I will not,” said the other with great vigor and energy. “I’ll
have some of it, at least,” and, giving a mighty wrench, which sent
both himself and McEwen sprawling, he tore off a goodly portion of it
and ran, gaining his feet so quickly that he was a good length off
before McEwen arose. The latter was too hungry, however, to linger
in useless rage, and now fell to and ate before any other should
disturb him. Then, feeling partially satisfied, he stretched himself
languorously and continued more at his leisure. After a time he shook
himself out of his torpor which had seized on him with his eating, and
made off for the distant jungle, in which direction, as he now felt,
lay the colony home.

He was in one of the darkest and thickest portions of the route thither
when there was borne to him from afar the sound of feet in marching
time, and a murmuring as of distant voices. He stopped and listened.
Presently the sounds grew louder and more individual. He could now tell
that a great company was nearing him. The narrow path which he followed
was clear for some distance, and open to observation. Not knowing what
creatures he was about to meet, he stepped out of it into a thicket,
at one side and took up a position behind a great boulder. The tramp
of many feet was now so close as to bode contact and discovery, and he
saw, through the interstices of green stalks, a strange column filing
along the path he had left. They were no other than a company of red
warriors--slave makers like himself, only of a different species, the
fierce Sanguineæ that Ermi had spoken of as having gone to war.

To war they certainly had been, and no doubt were going again. Nearly
every warrior carried with him some mark of plunder or of death. Many
bore in their mandibles dead bodies of the enemy or their larvæ
captured from a Fuscan colony. Others bore upon their legs the severed
heads of the poor blacks who had been slain in the defense of their
home, and whose jaws still clung to their foes, fixed in the rigor of
death. Still others dragged the bodies of their victims, and shouted as
they went, making the long, lonely path to ring with uncanny sounds as
they disappeared in the distance.

McEwen came furtively out after a time and looked after them. He had
gotten far to the left of the warriors and somewhat to the front
of them, and was just about to leave the shadow of one clump of
bushes to hurry to a neighboring stone, when there filed out from
the very shelter upon which he had his eye fixed, the figure of one
whom he immediately recognized as Ermi. The latter seemed to await a
favorable opportunity when he should not be observed, and then started
running. McEwen followed. In the distance could be seen a group of the
Sanguineæ, who had evidently paused for something, moving about in
great excitement, in groups of two or three, gesticulating and talking.
Some of those not otherwise engaged displayed a sensibility of danger
or a lust of war by working their jaws and sawing at heavy stones with
their mandibles. Presently one gazed in the direction of Ermi, and
shouted to the others.

Immediately four warriors set out in pursuit. McEwen hastened after
Ermi, to see what would become of him. Discreetly hidden himself, he
could do this with considerable equanimity. As he approached, he saw
Ermi moving backward and forward, endeavoring to close the entrance
to a cave in which he had now taken refuge. Apparently that warrior
had become aware that no time was to be lost, since he also could see
the pursuing Sanguineæ. With a swiftness born of daring and a keen
realization of danger, he arranged a large boulder at the very edge of
the portal as a key, and then others in such position that when the
first should topple in the others would follow. Then he crawled deftly
inside the portal, and pulling the keystone, toppled the whole mass in
after him.

This was hardly done when the Sanguineæ were upon him. They were four
cruel, murderous fighters, deeply scarred. One, called by the others
Og, had a black’s head at his thigh. One of his temples bore a scar,
and the tip of his left antenna was broken. He was a keen old warrior,
however, and scented the prey at once.

“Hi, you!” he shouted to the others. “Here’s the place.”

Just then another drew near to the portal which Ermi had barricaded.
He looked at it closely, walked about several times, sounded with his
antennæ and then listened. There was no answer.

“Hist!” he exclaimed to the others.

Now they came up. They also looked, but so well had Ermi done his work
that they were puzzled.

“I’m not sure,” said Og, “it looks to me more like an abandoned cave
than an entrance.”

“Tear it open, anyway,” advocated Ponan, the second of the quartette,
speaking for the first time.

“There may be no other exit.”

“Aha!” cried Og, “Good! We will see anyhow.”

“Come on!” yelled Maru, a third, seizing the largest boulder,
“Mandibles to!”

“Out with him!” cried Om, jumping eagerly to work. “We will have him
out in a jiffy!”

It was not an easy task, as the boulders were heavy and deep, but they
tore them out. Later they dragged forth Ermi, who, finding himself
captured, seized the head of Maru with his mandibles. Og, on the other
hand, seized one of Ermi’s legs in his powerful jaws. The others also
had taken hold. The antennæ of all were thrown back, and the entire
mass went pushing and shoving, turning and tumbling in a whirl.

McEwen gazed, excited and sympathetic. At first he thought to avoid
it all, having a horror of death, but a moment later decided to come
to his friend’s rescue, a feeling of tribal relationship which was
overwhelming coming over him. Springing forward, he clambered upon the
back of Og, at whose neck he began to saw with his powerful teeth.
Og, realizing a new adversary, released his hold upon Ermi’s limb and
endeavored to shake off his new enemy. McEwen held tight, however. The
others, however, too excited to observe the newcomer, still struggled
to destroy Ermi. The latter had stuck steadily to his labor of killing
Maru, and now, when Og’s hold was loosened, he gave a powerful crush
and Maru breathed his last. This advantaged him little, however, for
both Ponan and Om were attacking his sides.

“Take that!” shouted Om, throwing himself violently upon Ermi and
turning him over. “Saw off his head, Ponan.”

Ponan released his hold and sprang for Ermi’s head. There was a
kicking and crushing of jaws, and Ponan secured his grip.

“Kill him!” yelled Om. “Come, Og! Come!”

At this very moment Og’s severed head fell to the ground, and McEwen
leaping from his back, sprang to the aid of Ermi.

“Come!” he shouted at Ponan, who was sawing at Ermi’s head. “It’s two
to two now,” and McEwen gave such a wrench to Ponan’s side that he
writhed in pain, and released his hold on Ermi.

But recovering himself he leaped upon McEwen, and bore him down,
sprawling.

The fight was now more desperate than ever. The combatants rolled and
tossed. McEwen’s right antenna was broken by his fall, and one of his
legs was injured. He could seem to get no hold upon his adversary, whom
he now felt to be working toward his neck.

“Let go!” he yelled, gnashing at him with his mandibles, but Ponan only
tightened his murderous jaws.

Better fortune was now with Ermi, however, who was a more experienced
fighter. Getting a grip upon Om’s body, he hurled him to the ground and
left him stunned and senseless.

Seeing McEwen’s predicament, he now sprang to his aid. The latter was
being sadly worsted and but for the generous aid of Ermi, would have
been killed. The latter struck Ponan a terrific blow with his head and
having stunned him, dragged him off. The two, though much injured, now
seized upon the unfortunate Sanguinea and tore him in two, and would
have done as much for Om, had they not discovered that that bedraggled
warrior had recovered sufficiently to crawl away and hide.

McEwen and Ermi now drew near to each other in warm admiration.

“Come with me,” said Ermi. “They are all about here now and that coward
who escaped will have them upon us. There is a corridor into our home
from here, only I was not able to reach it before they caught me. Help
me barricade this entrance.”

Together they built up the stones more effectually than before, and
then entered, toppling the mass in behind them. With considerable
labor, they built up another barricade below.

“You watch a moment, now,” said Ermi to McEwen, and then hurried
down a long passage through which he soon returned bringing with him
a sentinel, who took up guard duty at the point where the fight had
occurred. “He will stay here and give the alarm in case another attack
is made,” he commented.

“Come now,” he added, touching McEwen affectionately with his antennæ.
Leading the way, Ermi took him along a long winding corridor with
which, somehow, he seemed to be familiar, and through various secret
passages into the colony house.

“You see,” he said to McEwen familiarly, as they went, “they could not
have gotten in here, even if they had killed me, without knowing the
way. Our passageways are too intricate. But it is as well to keep a
picket there, now that they are about. Where have you been? You do not
belong to our colony, do you?”

McEwen related his experiences since their meeting in the desert,
without explaining where he came from. He knew that he was a member of
some other colony of this same tribe without being sure of which one. A
strange feeling of wandering confusion possessed him, as though he had
been injured in some way, somewhere, and was lost for the moment.

“Well, you might as well stay with us, now,” said Ermi. “Are you
hungry?”

“Very,” said McEwen.

“Then we will eat at once.”

McEwen now gazed upon a domed chamber of vast proportions, with which,
also, he seemed familiar, an old inhabitant of one such, no less. It
had several doors that opened out into galleries, and corridors leading
to other chambers and store rooms, a home for thousands.

Many members of this allied family now hurried to meet them, all
genially enough.

“You have had an encounter with them?” asked several at once.

“Nothing to speak of,” said Ermi, who, fighter that he was, had also a
touch of vanity. “Look after my friend here, who has saved my life.”

“Not I!” cried McEwen warmly.

They could not explain, however, before they were seized by their
admirers and carried into a chamber where none of the din of
preparation penetrated, and where was a carpet of soft grass threads
upon which they might lie.

Injured though they were, neither could endure lying still for long,
and were soon poking about, though unable to do anything. McEwen was
privileged to idle and listlessly watch an attack on one portal of
the cave which lasted an entire day, resulting in failure for the
invaders. It was a rather broken affair, the principal excitement
occurring about the barricaded portals and secret exits at the end of
the long corridors, where McEwen often found himself in the way. The
story of his prowess had been well told by Ermi, and he was a friend
and hero whom many served. A sort of ambulance service was established
which not only looked to the bringing in of the injured, but also to
the removal of the dead. A graveyard was prepared just outside one of
the secret entrances, far from the scene of the siege, and here the
dead were laid in orderly rows.

The siege having ended temporarily the same day it began, the household
resumed its old order. Those who had remained within went forth for
forage. The care of the communal young, which had been somewhat
interrupted, was now resumed. Larvæ and chrysalises, which had been left
almost unattended in the vast nurseries, were moved to and fro between
the rooms where the broken sunlight warmed, and the shadow gave them
rest.

“There is war ahead,” said Ermi to McEwen one day not long after this.
“These Sanguineæ will never let us alone until we give them battle. We
shall have to stir up the whole race of Shining Slave Makers and fight
all the Sanguineæ before we have peace again.”

“Good,” said McEwen. “I am ready.”

“So am I,” answered Ermi, “but it is no light matter. They are our
ancient enemy and as powerful as we. If we meet again you will see war
that is war.”

Not long after this McEwen and Ermi, foraging together, encountered a
Sanguinea, who fought with them and was slain. Numerous Lucidi, of
which tribe he found himself to be a member, left the community of a
morning to labor and were never heard of again. Encounters between
parties of both camps were frequent, and orderly living ceased.

At last the entire community was in a ferment, and a council was
called. It was held in the main saloon of the formicary, a vast chamber
whose hollowed dome rose like the open sky above them. The queen of the
community was present, and all the chief warriors, including Ermi and
McEwen. Loud talking and fierce comment were indulged in to no point,
until Yumi, long a light in the councils of the Lucidi, spoke. He was
short and sharp of speech.

“We must go to war,” he said. “Our old enemies will give us no peace.
Send couriers to all the colonies of the Shining Slave Makers. We will
meet the Red Slave Makers as we did before.”

“Ah,” said an old Lucidi, who stood at McEwen’s side, “that was a great
battle. You don’t remember. You were too young. There were thousands
and thousands in that. I could not walk for the dead.”

“Are we to have another such?” asked McEwen.

“If the rest of us come. We are a great people. The Shining Slave
Makers are numberless.”

Just then another voice spoke, and Ermi listened.

“Let us send for them to come here. When the Sanguineæ again lay siege
let us pour out and destroy them. Let none escape.”

“Let us first send couriers and hear what our people say,” broke in
Ermi loudly. “The Sanguineæ are a vast people also. We must have
numbers. It must be a decisive battle.”

“Ay, ay,” answered many. “Send the couriers!”

Forthwith messengers were dispatched to all parts, calling the hordes
of the Shining Slave Makers to war. In due course they returned,
bringing information that they were coming. Their colonies also had
been attacked. Later the warriors of the allied tribes began to put in
an appearance.

It was a gathering of legions. The paths in the forests about resounded
with their halloos. With the arrival of the first cohorts of these
friendly colonies, there was a minor encounter with an irritant host of
the Sanguineæ foraging hereabout, who were driven back and destroyed.
Later there were many minor encounters and deaths before the hosts were
fully assembled, but the end was not yet. All knew that. The Sanguineæ
had fled, but not in cowardice. They would return.

The one problem with this vast host, now that it was assembled, was
food. Eventually they expected to discover this in the sacked homes of
the Sanguineæ, but temporarily other provision must be made. The entire
region had to be scoured. Colonies of Fuscæ and Schauffusi living in
nearby territory were attacked and destroyed. Their storehouses were
ransacked and the contents distributed. Every form of life was attacked
and still there was not enough.

Both McEwen and Ermi, now inseparable, joined in one of these raids. It
was upon a colony of Fuscæ, who had their home in a neighboring forest.
The company went singing on their way until within a short distance of
the colony, when they became silent.

“Let us not lose track of one another,” said McEwen.

“No,” said Ermi, “but they are nothing. We will take all they possess
without a struggle. See them running.”

As he said this, he motioned in the direction of several Fuscæ that
were fleeing toward their portals in terror. The Lucidi set up a shout,
and darted after, plunging into the open gates, striking and slaying
as they went. In a few minutes those first in came out again carrying
their booty. Others were singly engaged in fiercest battle with large
groups of the weaker Fuscæ. Only a few of the latter were inclined
to fight. They seemed for the most part dazed by their misfortunes.
Numbers hung from the topmost blades of the towering sword-trees, and
the broad, floor-like leaves of the massive weeds, about their caves
where they had taken refuge, holding in their jaws baby larvæ and
cocoons rescued from the invaders, with which they had hurriedly fled
to these nearest elevated objects.

Singly, McEwen pursued a dozen, and reveled in the sport of killing
them. He tumbled them with rushes of his body, crushed them with his
mandibles, and poisoned them with his formic sting.

“Do you need help?” called Ermi once, who was always near and shouting.

“Yes,” called McEwen scornfully, “bring me more of them.”

Soon the deadly work was over and the two comrades, gathering a mass of
food, joined the returning band, singing as they went.

“To-morrow,” said Ermi, as they went along, “we will meet the
Sanguineæ. It is agreed. The leaders are conferring now.”

McEwen did not learn where these latter were, but somehow he was
pleased. An insane lust of combat was now upon him.

“They will not be four to two this time,” he laughed exultingly.

“No, and we will not be barricading against them, either,” laughed
Ermi, the lust of war simmering in his veins.

As they came near their camp, however, they found a large number of
the assembled companies already in motion. Thousands upon thousands of
those who had arrived were already assembled in one group or another
and were prepared for action. There were cries and sounds of fighting,
and long lines of Lucidi hurrying hither and thither.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ermi excitedly.

“The Sanguineæ,” was the answer. “They are returning.”

Instantly McEwen became sober. Ermi turned to him affectionately.

“Now,” he said solemnly, “courage. We’re in for it.”

A tremendous hubbub followed. Already vast legions of the Lucidi were
bearing away to the east. McEwen and Ermi, not being able to find their
own, fell in with a strange company.

“Order!” shouted a voice in their ears. “Fall in line. We are called.”

The twain mechanically obeyed, and dropped behind a regular line. Soon
they were winding along with other long lines of warriors through the
tall sword trees, and in a little while reached a huge, smooth, open
plain where already the actual fighting had begun. Thousands were
here, apparently hundreds of thousands. There was little order, and
scarcely any was needed apparently, since all contacts were individual
or between small groups. It all depended now on numbers, and the
results of the contests between individuals, or at the most, these
small groups. Ermi, McEwen, and several other Lucidi were about to
seize upon one Sanguinea, who was approaching them, when an amazing
rush of the latter broke them, and McEwen found himself separated from
Ermi with a red demon snapping at his throat. Dazed by the shock and
clamor, he almost fell a prey to this first charge. A moment later,
however, his courage and daring returned. With a furious bound, he
recovered himself and forced himself upon his adversary, snapping his
neck in his jaws.

“Take that!” he said to the tumbling carcass.

He had no sooner ended one foe, however, than another clutched him.
They were on every hand, hard, merciless fighters like himself and Ermi
who rushed and tore and sawed with amazing force. McEwen faced his
newest adversary swiftly. While the latter was seeking for McEwen’s
head and antennæ with his mandibles, the former with a quick snap
seized his foe by the neck. Turning up his abdomen, he ejected formic
acid into the throat of the other. That finished him.

Meanwhile the battle continued on every hand with the same mad
vehemence. Already the dead clogged the ground. Here, single combatants
struggled--there, whole lines moved and swayed in deadly combat. Ever
and anon new lines were formed, and strange hosts of friends or enemies
came up, falling upon the combatants of both sides with murderous
enthusiasm. McEwen, in a strange daze and lust of death, seemed to
think nothing of it. He was alone now--lost in a tossing sea of war,
and terror seemed to have forsaken him. It was wonderful, he thought,
mysterious----

As enemy after enemy assailed him, he fought them as he best knew, an
old method to him, apparently, and as they died, he wished them to
die--broken, poisoned, sawed in two. He began to count and exult in the
numbers he had slain. It was at last as though he were dreaming, and
all around was a vain, dark, surging mass of enemies.

Finally, four of the Sanguineæ seized upon him in a group, and he
went down before them, almost helpless. Swiftly they tore at his head
and body, endeavoring to dispose of him quickly. One seized a leg,
another an antenna. A third jumped and sawed at his neck. Still he
did not care. It was all war, and he would struggle to the last shred
of his strength, eagerly, enthusiastically. At last he seemed to lose
consciousness.

When he opened his eyes again, Ermi was beside him.

“Well?” said Ermi.

“Well?” answered McEwen.

“You were about done for, then.”

“Was I?” he answered. “How are things going?”

“I cannot tell yet,” said Ermi. “All I know is that you were faring
badly when I came up. Two of them were dead, but the other two were
killing you.”

“You should have left me to them,” said McEwen, noticing now for the
first time Ermi’s wounds. “It does not matter so much--one Lucidi more
or less--what of it? But you have been injured.”

“I--oh, nothing. You are the one to complain. I fear you are badly
injured.”

“Oh, I,” returned McEwen heavily, feeling at last the weight of death
upon him, “I am done for. I cannot live. I felt myself dying some time
ago.”

He closed his eyes and trembled. In another moment----

       *       *       *       *       *

McEwen opened his eyes. Strangely enough he was looking out upon
jingling carriages and loitering passersby in the great city park. It
was all so strange, by comparison with that which he had so recently
seen, the tall buildings in the distance, instead of the sword trees,
the trees, the flowers. He jumped to his feet in astonishment, then
sank back again in equal amaze, a passerby eyeing him curiously the
while.

“I have been asleep,” he said in a troubled way. “I have been dreaming.
And what a dream!”

He shut his eyes again, wishing, for some strange reason--charm,
sympathy, strangeness--to regain the lost scene. An odd longing filled
his heart, a sense of comradeship lost, of some friend he knew missing.
When he opened his eyes again he seemed to realize something more of
what had been happening, but it was fading, fading.

At his feet lay the plain and the ants with whom he had recently
been--or so he thought. Yes, there, only a few feet away in the parched
grass, was an arid spot, over-run with insects. He gazed upon it, in
amazement, searching for the details of a lost world. Now, as he
saw, coming closer, a giant battle was in progress, such a one, for
instance, as that in which he had been engaged in his dream. The ground
was strewn with dead ants. Thousands upon thousands were sawing and
striking at each other quite in the manner in which he had dreamed.
What was this?--a revelation of the spirit and significance of a lesser
life or of his own--or what? And what was life if the strange passions,
moods and necessities which conditioned him here could condition those
there on so minute a plane?

“Why, I was there,” he said dazedly and a little dreamfully, “a little
while ago. I died there--or as well as died there--in my dream. At
least I woke out of it into this or sank from that into this.”

Stooping closer he could see where lines were drawn, how in places the
forces raged in confusion, and the field was cluttered with the dead.
At one moment an odd mad enthusiasm such as he had experienced in his
dream-world lay hold of him, and he looked for the advantage of the
Shining Slave Makers--the blacks--as he thought of the two warring
hosts as against the reds. But finding it not, the mood passed, and he
stood gazing, lost in wonder. What a strange world! he thought. What
worlds within worlds, all apparently full of necessity, contention,
binding emotions and unities--and all with sorrow, their sorrow--a
vague, sad something out of far-off things which had been there, and
was here in this strong bright city day, had been there and would be
here until this odd, strange thing called _life_ had ended.




NIGGER JEFF


The city editor was waiting for one of his best reporters, Elmer Davies
by name, a vain and rather self-sufficient youth who was inclined to
be of that turn of mind which sees in life only a fixed and ordered
process of rewards and punishments. If one did not do exactly right,
one did not get along well. On the contrary, if one did, one did.
Only the so-called evil were really punished, only the good truly
rewarded--or Mr. Davies had heard this so long in his youth that he had
come nearly to believe it. Presently he appeared. He was dressed in
a new spring suit, a new hat and new shoes. In the lapel of his coat
was a small bunch of violets. It was one o’clock of a sunny spring
afternoon, and he was feeling exceedingly well and good-natured--quite
fit, indeed. The world was going unusually well with him. It seemed
worth singing about.

“Read that, Davies,” said the city editor, handing him the clipping.
“I’ll tell you afterward what I want you to do.”

The reporter stood by the editorial chair and read:

  Pleasant Valley, Ko., April 16.

 “A most dastardly crime has just been reported here. Jeff Ingalls,
 a negro, this morning assaulted Ada Whitaker, the nineteen-year-old
 daughter of Morgan Whitaker, a well-to-do farmer, whose home is four
 miles south of this place. A posse, headed by Sheriff Mathews, has
 started in pursuit. If he is caught, it is thought he will be lynched.”

The reporter raised his eyes as he finished. What a terrible crime!
What evil people there were in the world! No doubt such a creature
ought to be lynched, and that quickly.

“You had better go out there, Davies,” said the city editor. “It looks
as if something might come of that. A lynching up here would be a big
thing. There’s never been one in this state.”

Davies smiled. He was always pleased to be sent out of town. It was a
mark of appreciation. The city editor rarely sent any of the other men
on these big stories. What a nice ride he would have!

As he went along, however, a few minutes later he began to meditate
on this. Perhaps, as the city editor had suggested, he might be
compelled to witness an actual lynching. That was by no means so
pleasant in itself. In his fixed code of rewards and punishments he
had no particular place for lynchings, even for crimes of the nature
described, especially if he had to witness the lynching. It was too
horrible a kind of reward or punishment. Once, in line of duty,
he had been compelled to witness a hanging, and that had made him
sick--deathly so--even though carried out as a part of the due process
of law of his day and place. Now, as he looked at this fine day and
his excellent clothes, he was not so sure that this was a worthwhile
assignment. Why should he always be selected for such things--just
because he could write? There were others--lots of men on the staff.
He began to hope as he went along that nothing really serious would
come of it, that they would catch the man before he got there and put
him in jail--or, if the worst had to be--painful thought!--that it
would be all over by the time he got there. Let’s see--the telegram
had been filed at nine a.m. It was now one-thirty and would be three
by the time he got out there, all of that. That would give them time
enough, and then, if all were well, or ill, as it were, he could just
gather the details of the crime and the--aftermath--and return. The
mere thought of an approaching lynching troubled him greatly, and the
farther he went the less he liked it.

He found the village of Pleasant Valley a very small affair indeed,
just a few dozen houses nestling between green slopes of low hills,
with one small business corner and a rambling array of lanes. One
or two merchants of K----, the city from which he had just arrived,
lived out here, but otherwise it was very rural. He took notes of the
whiteness of the little houses, the shimmering beauty of the small
stream one had to cross in going from the depot. At the one main corner
a few men were gathered about a typical village barroom. Davies headed
for this as being the most likely source of information.

In mingling with this company at first he said nothing about his being
a newspaper man, being very doubtful as to its effect upon them, their
freedom of speech and manner.

The whole company was apparently tense with interest in the crime which
still remained unpunished, seemingly craving excitement and desirous of
seeing something done about it. No such opportunity to work up wrath
and vent their stored-up animal propensities had probably occurred here
in years. He took this occasion to inquire into the exact details of
the attack, where it had occurred, where the Whitakers lived. Then,
seeing that mere talk prevailed here, he went away thinking that he had
best find out for himself how the victim was. As yet she had not been
described, and it was necessary to know a little something about her.
Accordingly, he sought an old man who kept a stable in the village,
and procured a horse. No carriage was to be had. Davies was not an
excellent rider, but he made a shift of it. The Whitaker home was not
so very far away--about four miles out--and before long he was knocking
at its front door, set back a hundred feet from the rough country road.

“I’m from the _Times_,” he said to the tall, rawboned woman who opened
the door, with an attempt at being impressive. His position as reporter
in this matter was a little dubious; he might be welcome, and he might
not. Then he asked if this were Mrs. Whitaker, and how Miss Whitaker
was by now.

“She’s doing very well,” answered the woman, who seemed decidedly
stern, if repressed and nervous, a Spartan type. “Won’t you come in?
She’s rather feverish, but the doctor says she’ll probably be all right
later on.” She said no more.

Davies acknowledged the invitation by entering. He was very anxious to
see the girl, but she was sleeping under the influence of an opiate,
and he did not care to press the matter at once.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

“About eight o’clock this morning,” said the woman. “She started to go
over to our next door neighbor here, Mr. Edmonds, and this negro met
her. We didn’t know anything about it until she came crying through the
gate and dropped down in here.”

“Were you the first one to meet her?” asked Davies.

“Yes, I was the only one,” said Mrs. Whitaker. “The men had all gone to
the fields.”

Davies listened to more of the details, the type and history of the
man, and then rose to go. Before doing so he was allowed to have a look
at the girl, who was still sleeping. She was young and rather pretty.
In the yard he met a country man who was just coming to get home news.
The latter imparted more information.

“They’re lookin’ all around south of here,” he said, speaking of a
crowd which was supposed to be searching. “I expect they’ll make short
work of him if they get him. He can’t get away very well, for he’s
on foot, wherever he is. The sheriff’s after him too, with a deputy
or two, I believe. He’ll be tryin’ to save him an’ take him over to
Clayton, but I don’t believe he’ll be able to do it, not if the crowd
catches him first.”

So, thought Davies, he would probably have to witness a lynching after
all. The prospect was most unhappy.

“Does any one know where this negro lived?” he asked heavily, a growing
sense of his duty weighing upon him.

“Oh, right down here a little way,” replied the farmer. “Jeff Ingalls
was his name. We all know him around here. He worked for one and
another of the farmers hereabouts, and don’t appear to have had such a
bad record, either, except for drinkin’ a little now and then. Miss Ada
recognized him, all right. You follow this road to the next crossing
and turn to the right. It’s a little log house that sets back off the
road--something like that one you see down the lane there, only it’s
got lots o’ chips scattered about.”

Davies decided to go there first, but changed his mind. It was growing
late, and he thought he had better return to the village. Perhaps by
now developments in connection with the sheriff or the posse were to be
learned.

Accordingly, he rode back and put the horse in the hands of its owner,
hoping that all had been concluded and that he might learn of it here.
At the principal corner much the same company was still present,
arguing, fomenting, gesticulating. They seemed parts of different
companies that earlier in the day had been out searching. He wondered
what they had been doing since, and then decided to ingratiate himself
by telling them he had just come from the Whitakers and what he had
learned there of the present condition of the girl and the movements of
the sheriff.

Just then a young farmer came galloping up. He was coatless, hatless,
breathless.

“They’ve got him!” he shouted excitedly. “They’ve got him!”

A chorus of “whos,” “wheres” and “whens” greeted this information as
the crowd gathered about the rider.

“Why, Mathews caught him up here at his own house!” exclaimed the
latter, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping his face. “He must ’a’
gone back there for something. Mathews’s takin’ him over to Clayton,
so they think, but they don’t project he’ll ever get there. They’re
after him now, but Mathews says he’ll shoot the first man that tries to
take him away.”

“Which way’d he go?” exclaimed the men in chorus, stirring as if to
make an attack.

“’Cross Sellers’ Lane,” said the rider. “The boys think he’s goin’ by
way of Baldwin.”

“Whoopee!” yelled one of the listeners. “We’ll get him away from him,
all right! Are you goin’, Sam?”

“You bet!” said the latter. “Wait’ll I get my horse!”

“Lord!” thought Davies. “To think of being (perforce) one of a lynching
party--a hired spectator!”

He delayed no longer, however, but hastened to secure his horse again.
He saw that the crowd would be off in a minute to catch up with the
sheriff. There would be information in that quarter, drama very likely.

“What’s doin’?” inquired the liveryman as he noted Davies’ excited
appearance.

“They’re after him,” replied the latter nervously. “The sheriff’s
caught him. They’re going now to try to take him away from him, or
that’s what they say. The sheriff is taking him over to Clayton, by way
of Baldwin. I want to get over there if I can. Give me the horse again,
and I’ll give you a couple of dollars more.”

The liveryman led the horse out, but not without many provisionary
cautions as to the care which was to be taken of him, the damages which
would ensue if it were not. He was not to be ridden beyond midnight.
If one were wanted for longer than that Davies must get him elsewhere
or come and get another, to all of which Davies promptly agreed. He
then mounted and rode away.

When he reached the corner again several of the men who had gone for
their horses were already there, ready to start. The young man who had
brought the news had long since dashed off to other parts.

Davies waited to see which road this new company would take. Then
through as pleasant a country as one would wish to see, up hill and
down dale, with charming vistas breaking upon the gaze at every turn,
he did the riding of his life. So disturbed was the reporter by the
grim turn things had taken that he scarcely noted the beauty that was
stretched before him, save to note that it was so. Death! Death! The
proximity of involuntary and enforced death was what weighed upon him
now.

In about an hour the company had come in sight of the sheriff, who,
with two other men, was driving a wagon he had borrowed along a lone
country road. The latter was sitting at the back, a revolver in each
hand, his face toward the group, which at sight of him trailed after
at a respectful distance. Excited as every one was, there was no
disposition, for the time being at least, to halt the progress of the
law.

“He’s in that wagon,” Davies heard one man say. “Don’t you see they’ve
got him in there tied and laid down?”

Davies looked.

“That’s right,” said another. “I see him now.”

“What we ought to do,” said a third, who was riding near the front,
“is to take him away and hang him. That’s just what he deserves, and
that’s what he’ll get before we’re through to-day.”

“Yes!” called the sheriff, who seemed to have heard this. “You’re not
goin’ to do any hangin’ this day, so you just might as well go on
back.” He did not appear to be much troubled by the appearance of the
crowd.

“Where’s old man Whitaker?” asked one of the men who seemed to feel
that they needed a leader. “He’d get him quick enough!”

“He’s with the other crowd, down below Olney,” was the reply.

“Somebody ought to go an’ tell him.”

“Clark’s gone,” assured another, who hoped for the worst.

Davies rode among the company a prey to mingled and singular feelings.
He was very much excited and yet depressed by the character of the
crowd which, in so far as he could see, was largely impelled to its
jaunt by curiosity and yet also able under sufficient motivation on
the part of some one--any one, really--to kill too. There was not so
much daring as a desire to gain daring from others, an unconscious wish
or impulse to organize the total strength or will of those present
into one strength or one will, sufficient to overcome the sheriff and
inflict death upon his charge. It was strange--almost intellectually
incomprehensible--and yet so it was. The men were plainly afraid of the
determined sheriff. They thought something ought to be done, but they
did not feel like getting into trouble.

Mathews, a large solemn, sage, brown man in worn clothes and a faded
brown hat, contemplated the recent addition to his trailers with
apparent indifference. Seemingly he was determined to protect his man
and avoid mob justice, come what may. A mob should not have him if he
had to shoot, and if he shot it would be to kill. Finally, since the
company thus added to did not dash upon him, he seemingly decided to
scare them off. Apparently he thought he could do this, since they
trailed like calves.

“Stop a minute!” he called to his driver.

The latter pulled up. So did the crowd behind. Then the sheriff stood
over the prostrate body of the negro, who lay in the jolting wagon
beneath him, and called back:

“Go ’way from here, you people! Go on, now! I won’t have you follerin’
after me!”

“Give us the nigger!” yelled one in a half-bantering, half-derisive
tone of voice.

“I’ll give ye just two minutes to go on back out o’ this road,”
returned the sheriff grimly, pulling out his watch and looking at it.
They were about a hundred feet apart. “If you don’t, I’ll clear you
out!”

“Give us the nigger!”

“I know you, Scott,” answered Mathews, recognizing the voice. “I’ll
arrest every last one of ye to-morrow. Mark my word!”

The company listened in silence, the horses champing and twisting.

“We’ve got a right to foller,” answered one of the men.

“I give ye fair warning,” said the sheriff, jumping from his wagon and
leveling his pistols as he approached. “When I count five I’ll begin to
shoot!”

He was a serious and stalwart figure as he approached, and the crowd
fell back a little.

“Git out o’ this now!” he yelled. “One--Two----”

The company turned completely and retreated, Davies among them.

“We’ll foller him when he gits further on,” said one of the men in
explanation.

“He’s got to do it,” said another. “Let him git a little ways ahead.”

The sheriff returned to his wagon and drove on. He seemed, however, to
realize that he would not be obeyed and that safety lay in haste alone.
His wagon was traveling fast. If only he could lose them or get a good
start he might possibly get to Clayton and the strong county jail by
morning. His followers, however, trailed him swiftly as might be,
determined not to be left behind.

“He’s goin’ to Baldwin,” said one of the company of which Davies was a
member.

“Where’s that?” asked Davies.

“Over west o’ here, about four miles.”

“Why is he going there?”

“That’s where he lives. I guess he thinks if he kin git ’im over there
he kin purtect ’im till he kin git more help from Clayton. I cal’late
he’ll try an’ take ’im over yet to-night, or early in the mornin’
shore.”

Davies smiled at the man’s English. This countryside lingo always
fascinated him.

Yet the men lagged, hesitating as to what to do. They did not want to
lose sight of Matthews, and yet cowardice controlled them. They did
not want to get into direct altercation with the law. It wasn’t their
place to hang the man, although plainly they felt that he ought to be
hanged, and that it would be a stirring and exciting thing if he were.
Consequently they desired to watch and be on hand--to get old Whitaker
and his son Jake, if they could, who were out looking elsewhere. They
wanted to see what the father and brother would do.

The quandary was solved by one of the men, who suggested that they
could get to Baldwin by going back to Pleasant Valley and taking the
Sand River pike, and that in the meantime they might come upon Whitaker
and his son en route, or leave word at his house. It was a shorter cut
than this the sheriff was taking, although he would get there first
now. Possibly they could beat him at least to Clayton, if he attempted
to go on. The Clayton road was back via Pleasant Valley, or near it,
and easily intercepted. Therefore, while one or two remained to trail
the sheriff and give the alarm in case he did attempt to go on to
Clayton, the rest, followed by Davies, set off at a gallop to Pleasant
Valley. It was nearly dusk now when they arrived and stopped at the
corner store--supper time. The fires of evening meals were marked by
upcurling smoke from chimneys. Here, somehow, the zest to follow seemed
to depart. Evidently the sheriff had worsted them for the night. Morg
Whitaker, the father, had not been found; neither had Jake. Perhaps
they had better eat. Two or three had already secretly fallen away.

They were telling the news of what had occurred so far to one of the
two storekeepers who kept the place, when suddenly Jake Whitaker, the
girl’s brother, and several companions came riding up. They had been
scouring the territory to the north of the town, and were hot and
tired. Plainly they were unaware of the developments of which the crowd
had been a part.

“The sheriff’s got ’im!” exclaimed one of the company, with that
blatance which always accompanies the telling of great news in small
rural companies. “He taken him over to Baldwin in a wagon a coupla
hours ago.”

“Which way did he go?” asked the son, whose hardy figure, worn,
hand-me-down clothes and rakish hat showed up picturesquely as he
turned here and there on his horse.

“’Cross Sellers’ Lane. You won’t git ’em that-a-way, though, Jake. He’s
already over there by now. Better take the short cut.”

A babble of voices now made the scene more interesting. One told how
the negro had been caught, another that the sheriff was defiant, a
third that men were still tracking him or over there watching, until
all the chief points of the drama had been spoken if not heard.

Instantly suppers were forgotten. The whole customary order of the
evening was overturned once more. The company started off on another
excited jaunt, up hill and down dale, through the lovely country that
lay between Baldwin and Pleasant Valley.

By now Davies was very weary of this procedure and of his saddle. He
wondered when, if ever, this story was to culminate, let alone he
write it. Tragic as it might prove, he could not nevertheless spend
an indefinite period trailing a possibility, and yet, so great was
the potentiality of the present situation, he dared not leave. By
contrast with the horror impending, as he now noted, the night was so
beautiful that it was all but poignant. Stars were already beginning
to shine. Distant lamps twinkled like yellow eyes from the cottages in
the valleys and on the hillsides. The air was fresh and tender. Some
peafowls were crying afar off, and the east promised a golden moon.

Silently the assembled company trotted on--no more than a score in
all. In the dusk, and with Jake ahead, it seemed too grim a pilgrimage
for joking. Young Jake, riding silently toward the front, looked as
if tragedy were all he craved. His friends seemed considerately to
withdraw from him, seeing that he was the aggrieved.

After an hour’s riding Baldwin came into view, lying in a sheltering
cup of low hills. Already its lights were twinkling softly and there
was still an air of honest firesides and cheery suppers about it which
appealed to Davies in his hungry state. Still, he had no thought now of
anything save this pursuit.

Once in the village, the company was greeted by calls of recognition.
Everybody seemed to know what they had come for. The sheriff and his
charge were still there, so a dozen citizens volunteered. The local
storekeepers and loungers followed the cavalcade up the street to the
sheriff’s house, for the riders had now fallen into a solemn walk.

“You won’t get him though, boys,” said one whom Davies later learned
was Seavey, the village postmaster and telegraph operator, a rather
youthful person of between twenty-five and thirty, as they passed his
door. “He’s got two deputies in there with him, or did have, and they
say he’s going to take him over to Clayton.”

At the first street corner they were joined by the several men who had
followed the sheriff.

“He tried to give us the slip,” they volunteered excitedly, “but he’s
got the nigger in the house, there, down in the cellar. The deputies
ain’t with him. They’ve gone somewhere for help--Clayton, maybe.”

“How do you know?”

“We saw ’em go out that back way. We think we did, anyhow.”

A hundred feet from the sheriff’s little white cottage, which backed up
against a sloping field, the men parleyed. Then Jake announced that he
proposed to go boldly up to the sheriff’s door and demand the negro.

“If he don’t turn him out I’ll break in the door an’ take him!” he said.

“That’s right! We’ll stand by you, Whitaker,” commented several.

By now the throng of unmounted natives had gathered. The whole village
was up and about, its one street alive and running with people. Heads
appeared at doors and windows. Riders pranced up and down, hallooing. A
few revolver shots were heard. Presently the mob gathered even closer
to the sheriff’s gate, and Jake stepped forward as leader. Instead,
however, of going boldly up to the door as at first it appeared he
would, he stopped at the gate, calling to the sheriff.

“Hello, Mathews!”

“Eh, eh, eh!” bellowed the crowd.

The call was repeated. Still no answer. Apparently to the sheriff
delay appeared to be his one best weapon.

Their coming, however, was not as unexpected as some might have
thought. The figure of the sheriff was plainly to be seen close to
one of the front windows. He appeared to be holding a double-barreled
shotgun. The negro, as it developed later, was cowering and chattering
in the darkest corner of the cellar, hearkening no doubt to the voices
and firing of the revolvers outside.

Suddenly, and just as Jake was about to go forward, the front door of
the house flew open, and in the glow of a single lamp inside appeared
first the double-barreled end of the gun, followed immediately by the
form of Mathews, who held the weapon poised ready for a quick throw to
the shoulder. All except Jake fell back.

“Mr. Mathews,” he called deliberately, “we want that nigger!”

“Well, you can’t git ’im!” replied the sheriff. “He’s not here.”

“Then what you got that gun fer?” yelled a voice.

Mathews made no answer.

“Better give him up, Mathews,” called another, who was safe in the
crowd, “or we’ll come in an’ take him!”

“No you won’t,” said the sheriff defiantly. “I said the man wasn’t
here. I say it ag’in. You couldn’t have him if he was, an’ you can’t
come in my house! Now if you people don’t want trouble you’d better go
on away.”

“He’s down in the cellar!” yelled another.

“Why don’t you let us see?” asked another.

Mathews waved his gun slightly.

“You’d better go away from here now,” cautioned the sheriff. “I’m
tellin’ ye! I’ll have warrants out for the lot o’ ye, if ye don’t mind!”

The crowd continued to simmer and stew, while Jake stood as before. He
was very pale and tense, but lacked initiative.

“He won’t shoot,” called some one at the back of the crowd. “Why don’t
you go in, Jake, an’ git him?”

“Sure! Rush in. That’s it!” observed a second.

“He won’t, eh?” replied the sheriff softly. Then he added in a
lower tone, “The first man that comes inside that gate takes the
consequences.”

No one ventured inside the gate; many even fell back. It seemed as if
the planned assault had come to nothing.

“Why not go around the back way?” called some one else.

“Try it!” replied the sheriff. “See what you find on that side! I told
you you couldn’t come inside. You’d better go away from here now before
ye git into trouble,” he repeated. “You can’t come in, an’ it’ll only
mean bloodshed.”

There was more chattering and jesting while the sheriff stood on guard.
He, however, said no more. Nor did he allow the banter, turmoil and
lust for tragedy to disturb him. Only, he kept his eye on Jake, on
whose movements the crowd seemed to hang.

Time passed, and still nothing was done. The truth was that young Jake,
put to the test, was not sufficiently courageous himself, for all his
daring, and felt the weakness of the crowd behind him. To all intents
and purposes he was alone, for he did not inspire confidence. He
finally fell back a little, observing, “I’ll git ’im before mornin’,
all right,” and now the crowd itself began to disperse, returning to
its stores and homes or standing about the postoffice and the one
village drugstore. Finally, Davies smiled and came away. He was sure he
had the story of a defeated mob. The sheriff was to be his great hero.
He proposed to interview him later. For the present, he meant to seek
out Seavey, the telegraph operator, and arrange to file a message, then
see if something to eat was not to be had somewhere.

After a time he found the operator and told him what he wanted--to
write and file a story as he wrote it. The latter indicated a table
in the little postoffice and telegraph station which he could use. He
became very much interested in the reporter when he learned he was from
the _Times_, and when Davies asked where he could get something to eat
said he would run across the street and tell the proprietor of the only
boarding house to fix him something which he could consume as he wrote.
He appeared to be interested in how a newspaper man would go about
telling a story of this kind over a wire.

“You start your story,” he said, “and I’ll come back and see if I can
get the _Times_ on the wire.”

Davies sat down and began his account. He was intent on describing
things to date, the uncertainty and turmoil, the apparent victory of
the sheriff. Plainly the courage of the latter had won, and it was all
so picturesque. “A foiled lynching,” he began, and as he wrote the
obliging postmaster, who had by now returned, picked up the pages and
carefully deciphered them for himself.

“That’s all right. I’ll see if I can get the _Times_ now,” he commented.

“Very obliging postmaster,” thought Davies as he wrote, but he had so
often encountered pleasant and obliging people on his rounds that he
soon dropped that thought.

The food was brought, and still Davies wrote on, munching as he did so.
In a little while the _Times_ answered an often-repeated call.

“Davies at Baldwin,” ticked the postmaster, “get ready for quite a
story!”

“Let ’er go!” answered the operator at the _Times_, who had been
expecting this dispatch.

As the events of the day formulated themselves in his mind, Davies
wrote and turned over page after page. Between whiles he looked out
through the small window before him where afar off he could see a
lonely light twinkling against a hillside. Not infrequently he stopped
his work to see if anything new was happening, whether the situation
was in any danger of changing, but apparently it was not. He then
proposed to remain until all possibility of a tragedy, this night
anyhow, was eliminated. The operator also wandered about, waiting for
an accumulation of pages upon which he could work but making sure to
keep up with the writer. The two became quite friendly.

Finally, his dispatch nearly finished, he asked the postmaster to
caution the night editor at K---- to the effect, that if anything more
happened before one in the morning he would file it, but not to expect
anything more as nothing might happen. The reply came that he was to
remain and await developments. Then he and the postmaster sat down to
talk.

About eleven o’clock, when both had about convinced themselves that
all was over for this night anyhow, and the lights in the village had
all but vanished, a stillness of the purest, summery-est, country-est
quality having settled down, a faint beating of hoofs, which seemed
to suggest the approach of a large cavalcade, could be heard out on
the Sand River pike as Davies by now had come to learn it was, back or
northwest of the postoffice. At the sound the postmaster got up, as did
Davies, both stepping outside and listening. On it came, and as the
volume increased, the former said, “Might be help for the sheriff, but
I doubt it. I telegraphed Clayton six times to-day. They wouldn’t come
that way, though. It’s the wrong road.” Now, thought Davies nervously,
after all there might be something to add to his story, and he had so
wished that it was all over! Lynchings, as he now felt, were horrible
things. He wished people wouldn’t do such things--take the law, which
now more than ever he respected, into their own hands. It was too
brutal, cruel. That negro cowering there in the dark probably, and the
sheriff all taut and tense, worrying over his charge and his duty, were
not happy things to contemplate in the face of such a thing as this.
It was true that the crime which had been committed was dreadful, but
still why couldn’t people allow the law to take its course? It was so
much better. The law was powerful enough to deal with cases of this
kind.

“They’re comin’ back, all right,” said the postmaster solemnly, as he
and Davies stared in the direction of the sound which grew louder from
moment to moment.

“It’s not any help from Clayton, I’m afraid.”

“By George, I think you’re right!” answered the reporter, something
telling him that more trouble was at hand. “Here they come!”

As he spoke there was a clattering of hoofs and crunching of saddle
girths as a large company of men dashed up the road and turned into the
narrow street of the village, the figure of Jake Whitaker and an older
bearded man in a wide black hat riding side by side in front.

“There’s Jake,” said the postmaster, “and that’s his father riding
beside him there. The old man’s a terror when he gets his dander up.
Sompin’s sure to happen now.”

Davies realized that in his absence writing a new turn had been given
to things. Evidently the son had returned to Pleasant Valley and
organized a new posse or gone out to meet his father.

Instantly the place was astir again. Lights appeared in doorways and
windows, and both were thrown open. People were leaning or gazing
out to see what new movement was afoot. Davies noted at once that
there was none of the brash enthusiasm about this company such as had
characterized the previous descent. There was grimness everywhere, and
he now began to feel that this was the beginning of the end. After the
cavalcade had passed down the street toward the sheriff’s house, which
was quite dark now, he ran after it, arriving a few moments after the
former which was already in part dismounted. The townspeople followed.
The sheriff, as it now developed, had not relaxed any of his vigilance,
however; he was not sleeping, and as the crowd reappeared the light
inside reappeared.

By the light of the moon, which was almost overhead, Davies was able to
make out several of his companions of the afternoon, and Jake, the son.
There were many more, though, now, whom he did not know, and foremost
among them this old man.

The latter was strong, iron-gray, and wore a full beard. He looked very
much like a blacksmith.

“Keep your eye on the old man,” advised the postmaster, who had by now
come up and was standing by.

While they were still looking, the old man went boldly forward to the
little front porch of the house and knocked at the door. Some one
lifted a curtain at the window and peeped out.

“Hello, in there!” cried the old man, knocking again.

“What do you want?” asked a voice.

“I want that nigger!”

“Well, you can’t have him! I’ve told you people that once.”

“Bring him out or I’ll break down the door!” said the old man.

“If you do it’s at your own risk. I know you, Whitaker, an’ you know
me. I’ll give ye two minutes to get off that porch!”

“I want that nigger, I tell ye!”

“If ye don’t git off that porch I’ll fire through the door,” said the
voice solemnly. “One--Two----”

The old man backed cautiously away.

“Come out, Mathews!” yelled the crowd. “You’ve got to give him up this
time. We ain’t goin’ back without him.”

Slowly the door opened, as if the individual within were very well
satisfied as to his power to handle the mob. He had done it once before
this night, why not again? It revealed his tall form, armed with his
shotgun. He looked around very stolidly, and then addressed the old man
as one would a friend.

“Ye can’t have him, Morgan,” he said. “It’s ag’in’ the law. You know
that as well as I do.”

“Law or no law,” said the old man, “I want that nigger!”

“I tell you I can’t let you have him, Morgan. It’s ag’in’ the law. You
know you oughtn’t to be comin’ around here at this time o’ night actin’
so.”

“Well, I’ll take him then,” said the old man, making a move.

“Stand back!” shouted the sheriff, leveling his gun on the instant.
“I’ll blow ye into kingdom come, sure as hell!”

A noticeable movement on the part of the crowd ceased. The sheriff
lowered his weapon as if he thought the danger were once more over.

“You-all ought to be ashamed of yerselves,” he went on, his voice
sinking to a gentle neighborly reproof, “tryin’ to upset the law this
way.”

“The nigger didn’t upset no law, did he?” asked one derisively.

“Well, the law’s goin’ to take care of the nigger now,” Mathews made
answer.

“Give us that scoundrel, Mathews; you’d better do it,” said the old
man. “It’ll save a heap o’ trouble.”

“I’ll not argue with ye, Morgan. I said ye couldn’t have him, an’ ye
can’t. If ye want bloodshed, all right. But don’t blame me. I’ll kill
the first man that tries to make a move this way.”

He shifted his gun handily and waited. The crowd stood outside his
little fence murmuring.

Presently the old man retired and spoke to several others. There was
more murmuring, and then he came back to the dead line.

“We don’t want to cause trouble, Mathews,” he began explanatively,
moving his hand oratorically, “but we think you ought to see that it
won’t do any good to stand out. We think that----”

Davies and the postmaster were watching young Jake, whose peculiar
attitude attracted their attention. The latter was standing poised at
the edge of the crowd, evidently seeking to remain unobserved. His eyes
were on the sheriff, who was hearkening to the old man. Suddenly, as
the father talked and when the sheriff seemed for a moment mollified
and unsuspecting, he made a quick run for the porch. There was an
intense movement all along the line as the life and death of the deed
became apparent. Quickly the sheriff drew his gun to his shoulder. Both
triggers were pressed at the same time, and the gun spoke, but not
before Jake was in and under him. The latter had been in sufficient
time to knock the gun barrel upward and fall upon his man. Both shots
blazed harmlessly over the heads of the crowd in red puffs, and then
followed a general onslaught. Men leaped the fence by tens and crowded
upon the little cottage. They swarmed about every side of the house and
crowded upon the porch, where four men were scuffling with the sheriff.
The latter soon gave up, vowing vengeance and the law. Torches were
brought, and a rope. A wagon drove up and was backed into the yard.
Then began the calls for the negro.

As Davies contemplated all this he could not help thinking of the negro
who during all this turmoil must have been crouching in his corner in
the cellar, trembling for his fate. Now indeed he must realize that his
end was near. He could not have dozed or lost consciousness during the
intervening hours, but must have been cowering there, wondering and
praying. All the while he must have been terrified lest the sheriff
might not get him away in time. Now, at the sound of horses’ feet and
the new murmurs of contention, how must his body quake and his teeth
chatter!

“I’d hate to be that nigger,” commented the postmaster grimly, “but you
can’t do anything with ’em. The county oughta sent help.”

“It’s horrible, horrible!” was all Davies could say.

He moved closer to the house, with the crowd, eager to observe every
detail of the procedure. Now it was that a number of the men, as eager
in their search as bloodhounds, appeared at a low cellar entryway at
the side of the house carrying a rope. Others followed with torches.
Headed by father and son they began to descend into the dark hole. With
impressive daring, Davies, who was by no means sure that he would be
allowed but who was also determined if possible to see, followed.

Suddenly, in the farthest corner, he espied Ingalls. The latter in his
fear and agony had worked himself into a crouching position, as if he
were about to spring. His nails were apparently forced into the earth.
His eyes were rolling, his mouth foaming.

“Oh, my Lawd, boss,” he moaned, gazing almost as one blind, at the
lights, “oh, my Lawd, boss, don’t kill me! I won’t do it no mo’. I
didn’t go to do it. I didn’t mean to dis time. I was just drunk,
boss. Oh, my Lawd! My Lawd!” His teeth chattered the while his mouth
seemed to gape open. He was no longer sane really, but kept repeating
monotonously, “Oh, my Lawd!”

“Here he is, boys! Pull him out,” cried the father.

The negro now gave one yell of terror and collapsed, falling prone. He
quite bounded as he did so, coming down with a dead chug on the earthen
floor. Reason had forsaken him. He was by now a groveling, foaming
brute. The last gleam of intelligence was that which notified him of
the set eyes of his pursuers.

Davies, who by now had retreated to the grass outside before this
sight, was standing but ten feet back when they began to reappear after
seizing and binding him. Although shaken to the roots of his being, he
still had all the cool observing powers of the trained and relentless
reporter. Even now he noted the color values of the scene, the red,
smoky heads of the torches, the disheveled appearance of the men, the
scuffling and pulling. Then all at once he clapped his hands over his
mouth, almost unconscious of what he was doing.

“Oh, my God!” he whispered, his voice losing power.

The sickening sight was that of the negro, foaming at the mouth,
bloodshot as to his eyes, his hands working convulsively, being
dragged up the cellar steps feet foremost. They had tied a rope about
his waist and feet, and so had hauled him out, leaving his head to hang
and drag. The black face was distorted beyond all human semblance.

“Oh, my God!” said Davies again, biting his fingers unconsciously.

The crowd gathered about now more closely than ever, more
horror-stricken than gleeful at their own work. None apparently had
either the courage or the charity to gainsay what was being done.
With a kind of mechanical deftness now the negro was rudely lifted
and like a sack of wheat thrown into the wagon. Father and son now
mounted in front to drive and the crowd took to their horses, content
to clatter, a silent cavalcade, behind. As Davies afterwards concluded,
they were not so much hardened lynchers perhaps as curious spectators,
the majority of them, eager for any variation--any excuse for one--to
the dreary commonplaces of their existences. The task to most--all
indeed--was entirely new. Wide-eyed and nerve-racked, Davies ran for
his own horse and mounting followed. He was so excited he scarcely knew
what he was doing.

Slowly the silent company now took its way up the Sand River pike
whence it had come. The moon was still high, pouring down a wash of
silvery light. As Davies rode he wondered how he was to complete his
telegram, but decided that he could not. When this was over there would
be no time. How long would it be before they would really hang him? And
would they? The whole procedure seemed so unreal, so barbaric that he
could scarcely believe it--that he was a part of it. Still they rode on.

“Are they really going to hang him?” he asked of one who rode beside
him, a total stranger who seemed however not to resent his presence.

“That’s what they got ’im fer,” answered the stranger.

And think, he thought to himself, to-morrow night he would be resting
in his own good bed back in K----!

Davies dropped behind again and into silence and tried to recover
his nerves. He could scarcely realize that he, ordinarily accustomed
to the routine of the city, its humdrum and at least outward social
regularity, was a part of this. The night was so soft, the air so
refreshing. The shadowy trees were stirring with a cool night wind. Why
should any one have to die this way? Why couldn’t the people of Baldwin
or elsewhere have bestirred themselves on the side of the law before
this, just let it take its course? Both father and son now seemed
brutal, the injury to the daughter and sister not so vital as all this.
Still, also, custom seemed to require death in this way for this. It
was like some axiomatic, mathematic law--hard, but custom. The silent
company, an articulated, mechanical and therefore terrible thing, moved
on. It also was axiomatic, mathematic. After a time he drew near to the
wagon and looked at the negro again.

The latter, as Davies was glad to note, seemed still out of his
sense. He was breathing heavily and groaning, but probably not with
any conscious pain. His eyes were fixed and staring, his face and
hands bleeding as if they had been scratched or trampled upon. He was
crumpled limply.

But Davies could stand it no longer now. He fell back, sick at heart,
content to see no more. It seemed a ghastly, murderous thing to do.
Still the company moved on and he followed, past fields lit white
by the moon, under dark, silent groups of trees, through which the
moonlight fell in patches, up low hills and down into valleys, until
at last a little stream came into view, the same little stream, as it
proved, which he had seen earlier to-day and for a bridge over which
they were heading. Here it ran now, sparkling like electricity in the
night. After a time the road drew closer to the water and then crossed
directly over the bridge, which could be seen a little way ahead.

Up to this the company now rode and then halted. The wagon was driven
up on the bridge, and father and son got out. All the riders, including
Davies, dismounted, and a full score of them gathered about the wagon
from which the negro was lifted, quite as one might a bag. Fortunately,
as Davies now told himself, he was still unconscious, an accidental
mercy. Nevertheless he decided now that he could not witness the end,
and went down by the waterside slightly above the bridge. He was not,
after all, the utterly relentless reporter. From where he stood,
however, he could see long beams of iron projecting out over the water,
where the bridge was braced, and some of the men fastening a rope to a
beam, and then he could see that they were fixing the other end around
the negro’s neck.

Finally the curious company stood back, and he turned his face away.

“Have you anything to say?” a voice demanded.

There was no answer. The negro was probably lolling and groaning, quite
as unconscious as he was before.

Then came the concerted action of a dozen men, the lifting of the black
mass into the air, and then Davies saw the limp form plunge down and
pull up with a creaking sound of rope. In the weak moonlight it seemed
as if the body were struggling, but he could not tell. He watched,
wide-mouthed and silent, and then the body ceased moving. Then after a
time he heard the company making ready to depart, and finally it did
so, leaving him quite indifferently to himself and his thoughts. Only
the black mass swaying in the pale light over the glimmering water
seemed human and alive, his sole companion.

He sat down upon the bank and gazed in silence. Now the horror was
gone. The suffering was ended. He was no longer afraid. Everything
was summery and beautiful. The whole cavalcade had disappeared; the
moon finally sank. His horse, tethered to a sapling beyond the bridge,
waited patiently. Still he sat. He might now have hurried back to the
small postoffice in Baldwin and attempted to file additional details
of this story, providing he could find Seavey, but it would have done
no good. It was quite too late, and anyhow what did it matter? No
other reporter had been present, and he could write a fuller, sadder,
more colorful story on the morrow. He wondered idly what had become of
Seavey? Why had he not followed? Life seemed so sad, so strange, so
mysterious, so inexplicable.

As he still sat there the light of morning broke, a tender lavender
and gray in the east. Then came the roseate hues of dawn, all the
wondrous coloring of celestial halls, to which the waters of the stream
responded. The white pebbles shone pinkily at the bottom, the grass and
sedges first black now gleamed a translucent green. Still the body hung
there black and limp against the sky, and now a light breeze sprang up
and stirred it visibly. At last he arose, mounted his horse and made
his way back to Pleasant Valley, too full of the late tragedy to be
much interested in anything else. Rousing his liveryman, he adjusted
his difficulties with him by telling him the whole story, assuring him
of his horse’s care and handing him a five-dollar bill. Then he left,
to walk and think again.

Since there was no train before noon and his duty plainly called him
to a portion of another day’s work here, he decided to make a day of
it, idling about and getting additional details as to what further
might be done. Who would cut the body down? What about arresting the
lynchers--the father and son, for instance? What about the sheriff
now? Would he act as he threatened? If he telegraphed the main fact of
the lynching his city editor would not mind, he knew, his coming late,
and the day here was so beautiful. He proceeded to talk with citizens
and officials, rode out to the injured girl’s home, rode to Baldwin to
see the sheriff. There was a singular silence and placidity in that
corner. The latter assured him that he knew nearly all of those who
had taken part, and proposed to swear out warrants for them, but just
the same Davies noted that he took his defeat as he did his danger,
philosophically. There was no real activity in that corner later. He
wished to remain a popular sheriff, no doubt.

It was sundown again before he remembered that he had not discovered
whether the body had been removed. Nor had he heard why the negro came
back, nor exactly how he was caught. A nine o’clock evening train to
the city giving him a little more time for investigation, he decided
to avail himself of it. The negro’s cabin was two miles out along a
pine-shaded road, but so pleasant was the evening that he decided
to walk. En route, the last rays of the sinking sun stretched long
shadows of budding trees across his path. It was not long before he
came upon the cabin, a one-story affair set well back from the road and
surrounded with a few scattered trees. By now it was quite dark. The
ground between the cabin and the road was open, and strewn with the
chips of a woodpile. The roof was sagged, and the windows patched in
places, but for all that it had the glow of a home. Through the front
door, which stood open, the blaze of a wood-fire might be seen, its
yellow light filling the interior with a golden glow.

Hesitating before the door, Davies finally knocked. Receiving no answer
he looked in on the battered cane chairs and aged furniture with
considerable interest. It was a typical negro cabin, poor beyond the
need of description. After a time a door in the rear of the room opened
and a little negro girl entered carrying a battered tin lamp without
any chimney. She had not heard his knock and started perceptibly at the
sight of his figure in the doorway. Then she raised her smoking lamp
above her head in order to see better, and approached.

There was something ridiculous about her unformed figure and loose
gingham dress, as he noted. Her feet and hands were so large. Her black
head was strongly emphasized by little pigtails of hair done up in
white twine, which stood out all over her head. Her dark skin was made
apparently more so by contrast with her white teeth and the whites of
her eyes.

Davies looked at her for a moment but little moved now by the oddity
which ordinarily would have amused him, and asked, “Is this where
Ingalls lived?”

The girl nodded her head. She was exceedingly subdued, and looked as if
she might have been crying.

“Has the body been brought here?”

“Yes, suh,” she answered, with a soft negro accent.

“When did they bring it?”

“Dis moanin’.”

“Are you his sister?”

“Yes, suh.”

“Well, can you tell me how they caught him? When did he come back, and
what for?” He was feeling slightly ashamed to intrude thus.

“In de afternoon, about two.”

“And what for?” repeated Davies.

“To see us,” answered the girl. “To see my motha’.”

“Well, did he want anything? He didn’t come just to see her, did he?”

“Yes, suh,” said the girl, “he come to say good-by. We doan know when
dey caught him.” Her voice wavered.

“Well, didn’t he know he might get caught?” asked Davies
sympathetically, seeing that the girl was so moved.

“Yes, suh, I think he did.”

She still stood very quietly holding the poor battered lamp up, and
looking down.

“Well, what did he have to say?” asked Davies.

“He didn’ have nothin’ much to say, suh. He said he wanted to see
motha’. He was a-goin’ away.”

The girl seemed to regard Davies as an official of some sort, and he
knew it.

“Can I have a look at the body?” he asked.

The girl did not answer, but started as if to lead the way.

“When is the funeral?” he asked.

“Tomorra’.”

The girl then led him through several bare sheds of rooms strung in
a row to the furthermost one of the line. This last seemed a sort of
storage shed for odds and ends. It had several windows, but they were
quite bare of glass and open to the moonlight save for a few wooden
boards nailed across from the outside. Davies had been wondering all
the while where the body was and at the lonely and forsaken air of the
place. No one but this little pig-tailed girl seemed about. If they had
any colored neighbors they were probably afraid to be seen here.

Now, as he stepped into this cool, dark, exposed outer room, the
desolation seemed quite complete. It was very bare, a mere shed or
wash-room. There was the body in the middle of the room, stretched upon
an ironing board which rested on a box and a chair, and covered with
a white sheet. All the corners of the room were quite dark. Only its
middle was brightened by splotches of silvery light.

Davies came forward, the while the girl left him, still carrying her
lamp. Evidently she thought the moon lighted up the room sufficiently,
and she did not feel equal to remaining. He lifted the sheet quite
boldly, for he could see well enough, and looked at the still, black
form. The face was extremely distorted, even in death, and he could see
where the rope had tightened. A bar of cool moonlight lay just across
the face and breast. He was still looking, thinking soon to restore the
covering, when a sound, half sigh, half groan, reached his ears.

At it he started as if a ghost had made it. It was so eerie and
unexpected in this dark place. His muscles tightened. Instantly his
heart went hammering like mad. His first impression was that it must
have come from the dead.

“Oo-o-ohh!” came the sound again, this time whimpering, as if some one
were crying.

Instantly he turned, for now it seemed to come from a corner of the
room, the extreme corner to his right, back of him. Greatly disturbed,
he approached, and then as his eyes strained he seemed to catch the
shadow of something, the figure of a woman, perhaps, crouching against
the walls, huddled up, dark, almost indistinguishable.

“Oh, oh, oh!” the sound now repeated itself, even more plaintively than
before.

Davies began to understand. He approached slowly, then more swiftly
desired to withdraw, for he was in the presence of an old black mammy,
doubled up and weeping. She was in the very niche of the two walls,
her head sunk on her knees, her body quite still. “Oh, oh, oh!” she
repeated, as he stood there near her.

Davies drew silently back. Before such grief his intrusion seemed cold
and unwarranted. The guiltlessness of the mother--her love--how could
one balance that against the other? The sensation of tears came to his
eyes. He instantly covered the dead and withdrew.

Out in the moonlight he struck a brisk pace, but soon stopped and
looked back. The whole dreary cabin, with its one golden eye, the
door, seemed such a pitiful thing. The weeping mammy, alone in her
corner--and he had come back to say “Good-by!” Davies swelled with
feeling. The night, the tragedy, the grief, he saw it all. But also
with the cruel instinct of the budding artist that he already was, he
was beginning to meditate on the character of story it would make--the
color, the pathos. The knowledge now that it was not always exact
justice that was meted out to all and that it was not so much the
business of the writer to indict as to interpret was borne in on him
with distinctness by the cruel sorrow of the mother, whose blame, if
any, was infinitesimal.

“I’ll get it all in!” he exclaimed feelingly, if triumphantly at last.
“I’ll get it all in!”




THE LOST PHŒBE


They lived together in a part of the country which was not so
prosperous as it had once been, about three miles from one of those
small towns that, instead of increasing in population, is steadily
decreasing. The territory was not very thickly settled; perhaps a
house every other mile or so, with large areas of corn- and wheat-land
and fallow fields that at odd seasons had been sown to timothy and
clover. Their particular house was part log and part frame, the log
portion being the old original home of Henry’s grandfather. The new
portion, of now rain-beaten, time-worn slabs, through which the wind
squeaked in the chinks at times, and which several overshadowing elms
and a butternut-tree made picturesque and reminiscently pathetic, but
a little damp, was erected by Henry when he was twenty-one and just
married.

That was forty-eight years before. The furniture inside, like the house
outside, was old and mildewy and reminiscent of an earlier day. You
have seen the what-not of cherry wood, perhaps, with spiral legs and
fluted top. It was there. The old-fashioned four poster bed, with its
ball-like protuberances and deep curving incisions, was there also, a
sadly alienated descendant of an early Jacobean ancestor. The bureau
of cherry was also high and wide and solidly built, but faded-looking,
and with a musty odor. The rag carpet that underlay all these sturdy
examples of enduring furniture was a weak, faded, lead-and-pink-colored
affair woven by Phœbe Ann’s own hands, when she was fifteen years
younger than she was when she died. The creaky wooden loom on which
it had been done now stood like a dusty, bony skeleton, along with a
broken rocking-chair, a worm-eaten clothes-press--Heaven knows how
old--a lime-stained bench that had once been used to keep flowers on
outside the door, and other decrepit factors of household utility, in
an east room that was a lean-to against this so-called main portion.
All sorts of other broken-down furniture were about this place; an
antiquated clothes-horse, cracked in two of its ribs; a broken mirror
in an old cherry frame, which had fallen from a nail and cracked
itself three days before their youngest son, Jerry, died; an extension
hat-rack, which once had had porcelain knobs on the ends of its pegs;
and a sewing-machine, long since outdone in its clumsy mechanism by
rivals of a newer generation.

The orchard to the east of the house was full of gnarled old
apple-trees, worm-eaten as to trunks and branches, and fully ornamented
with green and white lichens, so that it had a sad, greenish-white,
silvery effect in moonlight. The low outhouses, which had once housed
chickens, a horse or two, a cow, and several pigs, were covered with
patches of moss as to their roof, and the sides had been free of paint
for so long that they were blackish-gray as to color, and a little
spongy. The picket-fence in front, with its gate squeaky and askew, and
the side fences of the stake-and-rider type were in an equally run-down
condition. As a matter of fact, they had aged synchronously with the
persons who lived here, old Henry Reifsneider and his wife Phœbe Ann.

They had lived here, these two, ever since their marriage, forty-eight
years before, and Henry had lived here before that from his childhood
up. His father and mother, well along in years when he was a boy,
had invited him to bring his wife here when he had first fallen in
love and decided to marry; and he had done so. His father and mother
were the companions of himself and his wife for ten years after they
were married, when both died; and then Henry and Phœbe were left with
their five children growing lustily apace. But all sorts of things had
happened since then. Of the seven children, all told, that had been
born to them, three had died; one girl had gone to Kansas; one boy had
gone to Sioux Falls, never even to be heard of after; another boy had
gone to Washington; and the last girl lived five counties away in the
same State, but was so burdened with cares of her own that she rarely
gave them a thought. Time and a commonplace home life that had never
been attractive had weaned them thoroughly, so that, wherever they
were, they gave little thought as to how it might be with their father
and mother.

Old Henry Reifsneider and his wife Phœbe were a loving couple. You
perhaps know how it is with simple natures that fasten themselves
like lichens on the stones of circumstance and weather their days to
a crumbling conclusion. The great world sounds widely, but it has no
call for them. They have no soaring intellect. The orchard, the meadow,
the corn-field, the pig-pen, and the chicken-lot measure the range of
their human activities. When the wheat is headed it is reaped and
threshed; when the corn is browned and frosted it is cut and shocked;
when the timothy is in full head it is cut, and the hay-cock erected.
After that comes winter, with the hauling of grain to market, the
sawing and splitting of wood, the simple chores of fire-building,
meal-getting, occasional repairing, and visiting. Beyond these and the
changes of weather--the snows, the rains, and the fair days--there are
no immediate, significant things. All the rest of life is a far-off,
clamorous phantasmagoria, flickering like Northern lights in the night,
and sounding as faintly as cow-bells tinkling in the distance.

Old Henry and his wife Phœbe were as fond of each other as it is
possible for two old people to be who have nothing else in this
life to be fond of. He was a thin old man, seventy when she died, a
queer, crotchety person with coarse gray-black hair and beard, quite
straggly and unkempt. He looked at you out of dull, fishy, watery eyes
that had deep-brown crow’s-feet at the sides. His clothes, like the
clothes of many farmers, were aged and angular and baggy, standing out
at the pockets, not fitting about the neck, protuberant and worn at
elbow and knee. Phœbe Ann was thin and shapeless, a very umbrella of
a woman, clad in shabby black, and with a black bonnet for her best
wear. As time had passed, and they had only themselves to look after,
their movements had become slower and slower, their activities fewer
and fewer. The annual keep of pigs had been reduced from five to one
grunting porker, and the single horse which Henry now retained was a
sleepy animal, not over-nourished and not very clean. The chickens, of
which formerly there was a large flock, had almost disappeared, owing
to ferrets, foxes, and the lack of proper care, which produces disease.
The former healthy garden was now a straggling memory of itself, and
the vines and flower-beds that formerly ornamented the windows and
dooryard had now become choking thickets. A will had been made which
divided the small tax-eaten property equally among the remaining
four, so that it was really of no interest to any of them. Yet these
two lived together in peace and sympathy, only that now and then old
Henry would become unduly cranky, complaining almost invariably that
something had been neglected or mislaid which was of no importance at
all.

“Phœbe, where’s my corn-knife? You ain’t never minded to let my things
alone no more.”

“Now you hush, Henry,” his wife would caution him in a cracked and
squeaky voice. “If you don’t, I’ll leave yuh. I’ll git up and walk out
of here some day, and then where would y’be? Y’ain’t got anybody but me
to look after yuh, so yuh just behave yourself. Your corn-knife’s on
the mantel where it’s allus been unless you’ve gone an’ put it summers
else.”

Old Henry, who knew his wife would never leave him in any
circumstances, used to speculate at times as to what he would do if
she were to die. That was the one leaving that he really feared. As
he climbed on the chair at night to wind the old, long-pendulumed,
double-weighted clock, or went finally to the front and the back door
to see that they were safely shut in, it was a comfort to know that
Phœbe was there, properly ensconced on her side of the bed, and that if
he stirred restlessly in the night, she would be there to ask what he
wanted.

“Now, Henry, do lie still! You’re as restless as a chicken.”

“Well, I can’t sleep, Phœbe.”

“Well, yuh needn’t roll so, anyhow. Yuh kin let me sleep.”

This usually reduced him to a state of somnolent ease. If she wanted a
pail of water, it was a grumbling pleasure for him to get it; and if
she did rise first to build the fires, he saw that the wood was cut and
placed within easy reach. They divided this simple world nicely between
them.

As the years had gone on, however, fewer and fewer people had called.
They were well-known for a distance of as much as ten square miles as
old Mr. and Mrs. Reifsneider, honest, moderately Christian, but too old
to be really interesting any longer. The writing of letters had become
an almost impossible burden too difficult to continue or even negotiate
via others, although an occasional letter still did arrive from the
daughter in Pemberton County. Now and then some old friend stopped with
a pie or cake or a roasted chicken or duck, or merely to see that they
were well; but even these kindly minded visits were no longer frequent.

One day in the early spring of her sixty-fourth year Mrs. Reifsneider
took sick, and from a low fever passed into some indefinable ailment
which, because of her age, was no longer curable. Old Henry drove to
Swinnerton, the neighboring town, and procured a doctor. Some friends
called, and the immediate care of her was taken off his hands. Then
one chill spring night she died, and old Henry, in a fog of sorrow
and uncertainty, followed her body to the nearest graveyard, an
unattractive space with a few pines growing in it. Although he might
have gone to the daughter in Pemberton or sent for her, it was really
too much trouble and he was too weary and fixed. It was suggested to
him at once by one friend and another that he come to stay with them
awhile, but he did not see fit. He was so old and so fixed in his
notions and so accustomed to the exact surroundings he had known all
his days, that he could not think of leaving. He wanted to remain
near where they had put his Phœbe; and the fact that he would have to
live alone did not trouble him in the least. The living children were
notified and the care of him offered if he would leave, but he would
not.

“I kin make a shift for myself,” he continually announced to old Dr.
Morrow, who had attended his wife in this case. “I kin cook a little,
and, besides, it don’t take much more’n coffee an’ bread in the
mornin’s to satisfy me. I’ll get along now well enough. Yuh just let
me be.” And after many pleadings and proffers of advice, with supplies
of coffee and bacon and baked bread duly offered and accepted, he was
left to himself. For a while he sat idly outside his door brooding in
the spring sun. He tried to revive his interest in farming, and to keep
himself busy and free from thought by looking after the fields, which
of late had been much neglected. It was a gloomy thing to come in of
an evening, however, or in the afternoon and find no shadow of Phœbe
where everything suggested her. By degrees he put a few of her things
away. At night he sat beside his lamp and read in the papers that were
left him occasionally or in a Bible that he had neglected for years,
but he could get little solace from these things. Mostly he held his
hand over his mouth and looked at the floor as he sat and thought of
what had become of her, and how soon he himself would die. He made a
great business of making his coffee in the morning and frying himself a
little bacon at night; but his appetite was gone. The shell in which he
had been housed so long seemed vacant, and its shadows were suggestive
of immedicable griefs. So he lived quite dolefully for five long
months, and then a change began.

It was one night, after he had looked after the front and the back
door, wound the clock, blown out the light, and gone through all the
self-same motions that he had indulged in for years, that he went to
bed not so much to sleep as to think. It was a moonlight night. The
green-lichen-covered orchard just outside and to be seen from his bed
where he now lay was a silvery affair, sweetly spectral. The moon shone
through the east windows, throwing the pattern of the panes on the
wooden floor, and making the old furniture, to which he was accustomed,
stand out dimly in the room. As usual he had been thinking of Phœbe and
the years when they had been young together, and of the children who
had gone, and the poor shift he was making of his present days. The
house was coming to be in a very bad state indeed. The bed-clothes were
in disorder and not clean, for he made a wretched shift of washing. It
was a terror to him. The roof leaked, causing things, some of them, to
remain damp for weeks at a time, but he was getting into that brooding
state where he would accept anything rather than exert himself. He
preferred to pace slowly to and fro or to sit and think.

By twelve o’clock of this particular night he was asleep, however,
and by two had waked again. The moon by this time had shifted to a
position on the western side of the house, and it now shone in through
the windows of the living-room and those of the kitchen beyond. A
certain combination of furniture--a chair near a table, with his coat
on it, the half-open kitchen door casting a shadow, and the position
of a lamp near a paper--gave him an exact representation of Phœbe
leaning over the table as he had often seen her do in life. It gave
him a great start. Could it be she--or her ghost? He had scarcely ever
believed in spirits; and still---- He looked at her fixedly in the
feeble half-light, his old hair tingling oddly at the roots, and then
sat up. The figure did not move. He put his thin legs out of the bed
and sat looking at her, wondering if this could really be Phœbe. They
had talked of ghosts often in their lifetime, of apparitions and omens;
but they had never agreed that such things could be. It had never been
a part of his wife’s creed that she could have a spirit that could
return to walk the earth. Her after-world was quite a different affair,
a vague heaven, no less, from which the righteous did not trouble to
return. Yet here she was now, bending over the table in her black skirt
and gray shawl, her pale profile outlined against the moonlight.

“Phœbe,” he called, thrilling from head to toe and putting out one bony
hand, “have yuh come back?”

The figure did not stir, and he arose and walked uncertainly to the
door, looking at it fixedly the while. As he drew near, however, the
apparition resolved itself into its primal content--his old coat over
the high-backed chair, the lamp by the paper, the half-open door.

“Well,” he said to himself, his mouth open, “I thought shore I saw
her.” And he ran his hand strangely and vaguely through his hair, the
while his nervous tension relaxed. Vanished as it had, it gave him the
idea that she might return.

Another night, because of this first illusion, and because his mind
was now constantly on her and he was old, he looked out of the window
that was nearest his bed and commanded a hen-coop and pig-pen and
a part of the wagon-shed, and there, a faint mist exuding from the
damp of the ground, he thought he saw her again. It was one of those
little wisps of mist, one of those faint exhalations of the earth that
rise in a cool night after a warm day, and flicker like small white
cypresses of fog before they disappear. In life it had been a custom
of hers to cross this lot from her kitchen door to the pig-pen to
throw in any scrap that was left from her cooking, and here she was
again. He sat up and watched it strangely, doubtfully, because of his
previous experience, but inclined, because of the nervous titillation
that passed over his body, to believe that spirits really were, and
that Phœbe, who would be concerned because of his lonely state, must
be thinking about him, and hence returning. What other way would she
have? How otherwise could she express herself? It would be within the
province of her charity so to do, and like her loving interest in
him. He quivered and watched it eagerly; but, a faint breath of air
stirring, it wound away toward the fence and disappeared.

A third night, as he was actually dreaming, some ten days later, she
came to his bedside and put her hand on his head.

“Poor Henry!” she said. “It’s too bad.”

He roused out of his sleep, actually to see her, he thought, moving
from his bed-room into the one living-room, her figure a shadowy mass
of black. The weak straining of his eyes caused little points of
light to flicker about the outlines of her form. He arose, greatly
astonished, walked the floor in the cool room, convinced that Phœbe
was coming back to him. If he only thought sufficiently, if he made it
perfectly clear by his feeling that he needed her greatly, she would
come back, this kindly wife, and tell him what to do. She would perhaps
be with him much of the time, in the night, anyhow; and that would make
him less lonely, this state more endurable.

In age and with the feeble it is not such a far cry from the subtleties
of illusion to actual hallucination, and in due time this transition
was made for Henry. Night after night he waited, expecting her return.
Once in his weird mood he thought he saw a pale light moving about the
room, and another time he thought he saw her walking in the orchard
after dark. It was one morning when the details of his lonely state
were virtually unendurable that he woke with the thought that she was
not dead. How he had arrived at this conclusion it is hard to say.
His mind had gone. In its place was a fixed illusion. He and Phœbe
had had a senseless quarrel. He had reproached her for not leaving
his pipe where he was accustomed to find it, and she had left. It was
an aberrated fulfillment of her old jesting threat that if he did not
behave himself she would leave him.

“I guess I could find yuh ag’in,” he had always said. But her cackling
threat had always been:

“Yuh’ll not find me if I ever leave yuh. I guess I kin git some place
where yuh can’t find me.”

This morning when he arose he did not think to build the fire in the
customary way or to grind his coffee and cut his bread, as was his
wont, but solely to meditate as to where he should search for her and
how he should induce her to come back. Recently the one horse had been
dispensed with because he found it cumbersome and beyond his needs. He
took down his soft crush hat after he had dressed himself, a new glint
of interest and determination in his eye, and taking his black crook
cane from behind the door, where he had always placed it, started out
briskly to look for her among the nearest neighbors. His old shoes
clumped soundly in the dust as he walked, and his gray-black locks,
now grown rather long, straggled out in a dramatic fringe or halo from
under his hat. His short coat stirred busily as he walked, and his
hands and face were peaked and pale.

“Why, hello, Henry! Where’re yuh goin’ this mornin’?” inquired Farmer
Dodge, who, hauling a load of wheat to market, encountered him on the
public road. He had not seen the aged farmer in months, not since his
wife’s death, and he wondered now, seeing him looking so spry.

“Yuh ain’t seen Phœbe, have yuh?” inquired the old man, looking up
quizzically.

“Phœbe who?” inquired Farmer Dodge, not for the moment connecting the
name with Henry’s dead wife.

“Why, my wife Phœbe, o’ course. Who do yuh s’pose I mean?” He stared
up with a pathetic sharpness of glance from under his shaggy, gray
eyebrows.

“Wall, I’ll swan, Henry, yuh ain’t jokin’, are yuh?” said the solid
Dodge, a pursy man, with a smooth, hard, red face. “It can’t be your
wife yuh’re talkin’ about. She’s dead.”

“Dead! Shucks!” retorted the demented Reifsneider. “She left me early
this mornin’, while I was sleepin’. She allus got up to build the fire,
but she’s gone now. We had a little spat last night, an’ I guess that’s
the reason. But I guess I kin find her. She’s gone over to Matilda
Race’s; that’s where she’s gone.”

He started briskly up the road, leaving the amazed Dodge to stare in
wonder after him.

“Well, I’ll be switched!” he said aloud to himself. “He’s clean out’n
his head. That poor old feller’s been livin’ down there till he’s gone
outen his mind. I’ll have to notify the authorities.” And he flicked
his whip with great enthusiasm. “Geddap!” he said, and was off.

Reifsneider met no one else in this poorly populated region until he
reached the whitewashed fence of Matilda Race and her husband three
miles away. He had passed several other houses en route, but these not
being within the range of his illusion were not considered. His wife,
who had known Matilda well, must be here. He opened the picket-gate
which guarded the walk, and stamped briskly up to the door.

“Why, Mr. Reifsneider,” exclaimed old Matilda herself, a stout woman,
looking out of the door in answer to his knock, “what brings yuh here
this mornin’?”

“Is Phœbe here?” he demanded eagerly.

“Phœbe who? What Phœbe?” replied Mrs. Race, curious as to this sudden
development of energy on his part.

“Why, my Phœbe, o’ course. My wife Phœbe. Who do yuh s’pose? Ain’t she
here now?”

“Lawsy me!” exclaimed Mrs. Race, opening her mouth. “Yuh pore man! So
you’re clean out’n your mind now. Yuh come right in and sit down. I’ll
git yuh a cup o’ coffee. O’ course your wife ain’t here; but yuh come
in an’ sit down. I’ll find her fer yuh after a while. I know where she
is.”

The old farmer’s eyes softened, and he entered. He was so thin and pale
a specimen, pantalooned and patriarchal, that he aroused Mrs. Race’s
extremest sympathy as he took off his hat and laid it on his knees
quite softly and mildly.

“We had a quarrel last night, an’ she left me,” he volunteered.

“Laws! laws!” sighed Mrs. Race, there being no one present with whom
to share her astonishment as she went to her kitchen. “The pore man!
Now somebody’s just got to look after him. He can’t be allowed to run
around the country this way lookin’ for his dead wife. It’s turrible.”

She boiled him a pot of coffee and brought in some of her new-baked
bread and fresh butter. She set out some of her best jam and put a
couple of eggs to boil, lying whole-heartedly the while.

“Now yuh stay right there, Uncle Henry, till Jake comes in, an’ I’ll
send him to look for Phœbe. I think it’s more’n likely she’s over to
Swinnerton with some o’ her friends. Anyhow, we’ll find out. Now yuh
just drink this coffee an’ eat this bread. Yuh must be tired. Yuh’ve
had a long walk this mornin’.” Her idea was to take counsel with Jake,
“her man,” and perhaps have him notify the authorities.

She bustled about, meditating on the uncertainties of life, while old
Reifsneider thrummed on the rim of his hat with his pale fingers and
later ate abstractedly of what she offered. His mind was on his wife,
however, and since she was not here, or did not appear, it wandered
vaguely away to a family by the name of Murray, miles away in another
direction. He decided after a time that he would not wait for Jake Race
to hunt his wife but would seek her for himself. He must be on, and
urge her to come back.

“Well, I’ll be goin’,” he said, getting up and looking strangely about
him. “I guess she didn’t come here after all. She went over to the
Murrays’, I guess. I’ll not wait any longer, Mis’ Race. There’s a lot
to do over to the house to-day.” And out he marched in the face of her
protests taking to the dusty road again in the warm spring sun, his
cane striking the earth as he went.

It was two hours later that this pale figure of a man appeared in the
Murrays’ doorway, dusty, perspiring, eager. He had tramped all of five
miles, and it was noon. An amazed husband and wife of sixty heard his
strange query, and realized also that he was mad. They begged him to
stay to dinner, intending to notify the authorities later and see what
could be done; but though he stayed to partake of a little something,
he did not stay long, and was off again to another distant farmhouse,
his idea of many things to do and his need of Phœbe impelling him. So
it went for that day and the next and the next, the circle of his
inquiry ever widening.

The process by which a character assumes the significance of being
peculiar, his antics weird, yet harmless, in such a community is often
involute and pathetic. This day, as has been said, saw Reifsneider at
other doors, eagerly asking his unnatural question, and leaving a trail
of amazement, sympathy, and pity in his wake. Although the authorities
were informed--the county sheriff, no less--it was not deemed advisable
to take him into custody; for when those who knew old Henry, and had
for so long, reflected on the condition of the county insane asylum, a
place which, because of the poverty of the district, was of staggering
aberration and sickening environment, it was decided to let him remain
at large; for, strange to relate, it was found on investigation that
at night he returned peaceably enough to his lonesome domicile there
to discover whether his wife had returned, and to brood in loneliness
until the morning. Who would lock up a thin, eager, seeking old man
with iron-gray hair and an attitude of kindly, innocent inquiry,
particularly when he was well known for a past of only kindly servitude
and reliability? Those who had known him best rather agreed that he
should be allowed to roam at large. He could do no harm. There were
many who were willing to help him as to food, old clothes, the odds
and ends of his daily life--at least at first. His figure after a time
became not so much a commonplace as an accepted curiosity, and the
replies, “Why, no, Henry; I ain’t see her,” or “No, Henry; she ain’t
been here to-day,” more customary.

For several years thereafter then he was an odd figure in the sun
and rain, on dusty roads and muddy ones, encountered occasionally
in strange and unexpected places, pursuing his endless search.
Undernourishment, after a time, although the neighbors and those
who knew his history gladly contributed from their store, affected
his body; for he walked much and ate little. The longer he roamed
the public highway in this manner, the deeper became his strange
hallucination; and finding it harder and harder to return from his more
and more distant pilgrimages, he finally began taking a few utensils
with him from his home, making a small package of them, in order that
he might not be compelled to return. In an old tin coffee-pot of large
size he placed a small tin cup, a knife, fork, and spoon, some salt and
pepper, and to the outside of it, by a string forced through a pierced
hole, he fastened a plate, which could be released, and which was his
woodland table. It was no trouble for him to secure the little food
that he needed, and with a strange, almost religious dignity, he had no
hesitation in asking for that much. By degrees his hair became longer
and longer, his once black hat became an earthen brown, and his clothes
threadbare and dusty.

For all of three years he walked, and none knew how wide were his
perambulations, nor how he survived the storms and cold. They could not
see him, with homely rural understanding and forethought, sheltering
himself in hay-cocks, or by the sides of cattle, whose warm bodies
protected him from the cold, and whose dull understandings were not
opposed to his harmless presence. Overhanging rocks and trees kept him
at times from the rain, and a friendly hay-loft or corn-crib was not
above his humble consideration.

The involute progression of hallucination is strange. From asking at
doors and being constantly rebuffed or denied, he finally came to the
conclusion that although his Phœbe might not be in any of the houses
at the doors of which he inquired, she might nevertheless be within
the sound of his voice. And so, from patient inquiry, he began to call
sad, occasional cries, that ever and anon waked the quiet landscapes
and ragged hill regions, and set to echoing his thin “O-o-o Phœbe!
O-o-o Phœbe!” It had a pathetic, albeit insane, ring, and many a farmer
or plowboy came to know it even from afar and say, “There goes old
Reifsneider.”

Another thing that puzzled him greatly after a time and after many
hundreds of inquiries was, when he no longer had any particular
dooryard in view and no special inquiry to make, which way to go. These
cross-roads, which occasionally led in four or even six directions,
came after a time to puzzle him. But to solve this knotty problem,
which became more and more of a puzzle, there came to his aid another
hallucination. Phœbe’s spirit or some power of the air or wind or
nature would tell him. If he stood at the center of the parting of the
ways, closed his eyes, turned thrice about, and called “O-o-o Phœbe!”
twice, and then threw his cane straight before him, that would surely
indicate which way to go for Phœbe, or one of these mystic powers would
surely govern its direction and fall! In whichever direction it went,
even though, as was not infrequently the case, it took him back along
the path he had already come, or across fields, he was not so far gone
in his mind but that he gave himself ample time to search before he
called again. Also the hallucination seemed to persist that at some
time he would surely find her. There were hours when his feet were
sore, and his limbs weary, when he would stop in the heat to wipe his
seamed brow, or in the cold to beat his arms. Sometimes, after throwing
away his cane, and finding it indicating the direction from which he
had just come, he would shake his head wearily and philosophically,
as if contemplating the unbelievable or an untoward fate, and then
start briskly off. His strange figure came finally to be known in the
farthest reaches of three or four counties. Old Reifsneider was a
pathetic character. His fame was wide.

Near a little town called Watersville, in Green County, perhaps four
miles from that minor center of human activity, there was a place
or precipice locally known as the Red Cliff, a sheer wall of red
sandstone, perhaps a hundred feet high, which raised its sharp face
for half a mile or more above the fruitful corn-fields and orchards
that lay beneath, and which was surmounted by a thick grove of trees.
The slope that slowly led up to it from the opposite side was covered
by a rank growth of beech, hickory, and ash, through which threaded
a number of wagon-tracks crossing at various angles. In fair weather
it had become old Reifsneider’s habit, so inured was he by now to the
open, to make his bed in some such patch of trees as this to fry his
bacon or boil his eggs at the foot of some tree before laying himself
down for the night. Occasionally, so light and inconsequential was his
sleep, he would walk at night. More often, the moonlight or some sudden
wind stirring in the trees or a reconnoitering animal arousing him,
he would sit up and think, or pursue his quest in the moonlight or the
dark, a strange, unnatural, half wild, half savage-looking but utterly
harmless creature, calling at lonely road crossings, staring at dark
and shuttered houses, and wondering where, where Phœbe could really be.

That particular lull that comes in the systole-diastole of this
earthly ball at two o’clock in the morning invariably aroused him, and
though he might not go any farther he would sit up and contemplate the
darkness or the stars, wondering. Sometimes in the strange processes
of his mind he would fancy that he saw moving among the trees the
figure of his lost wife, and then he would get up to follow, taking his
utensils, always on a string, and his cane. If she seemed to evade him
too easily he would run, or plead, or, suddenly losing track of the
fancied figure, stand awed or disappointed, grieving for the moment
over the almost insurmountable difficulties of his search.

It was in the seventh year of these hopeless peregrinations, in the
dawn of a similar springtime to that in which his wife had died, that
he came at last one night to the vicinity of this self-same patch
that crowned the rise to the Red Cliff. His far-flung cane, used as a
divining-rod at the last cross-roads, had brought him hither. He had
walked many, many miles. It was after ten o’clock at night, and he was
very weary. Long wandering and little eating had left him but a shadow
of his former self. It was a question now not so much of physical
strength but of spiritual endurance which kept him up. He had scarcely
eaten this day, and now exhausted he set himself down in the dark to
rest and possibly to sleep.

Curiously on this occasion a strange suggestion of the presence of
his wife surrounded him. It would not be long now, he counseled with
himself, although the long months had brought him nothing, until he
should see her, talk to her. He fell asleep after a time, his head
on his knees. At midnight the moon began to rise, and at two in the
morning, his wakeful hour, was a large silver disk shining through the
trees to the east. He opened his eyes when the radiance became strong,
making a silver pattern at his feet and lighting the woods with strange
lusters and silvery, shadowy forms. As usual, his old notion that his
wife must be near occurred to him on this occasion, and he looked about
him with a speculative, anticipatory eye. What was it that moved in
the distant shadows along the path by which he had entered--a pale,
flickering will-o’-the-wisp that bobbed gracefully among the trees and
riveted his expectant gaze? Moonlight and shadows combined to give it
a strange form and a stranger reality, this fluttering of bog-fire
or dancing of wandering fire-flies. Was it truly his lost Phœbe? By
a circuitous route it passed about him, and in his fevered state he
fancied that he could see the very eyes of her, not as she was when he
last saw her in the black dress and shawl but now a strangely younger
Phœbe, gayer, sweeter, the one whom he had known years before as a
girl. Old Reifsneider got up. He had been expecting and dreaming of
this hour all these years, and now as he saw the feeble light dancing
lightly before him he peered at it questioningly, one thin hand in his
gray hair.

Of a sudden there came to him now for the first time in many years the
full charm of her girlish figure as he had known it in boyhood, the
pleasing, sympathetic smile, the brown hair, the blue sash she had
once worn about her waist at a picnic, her gay, graceful movements. He
walked around the base of the tree, straining with his eyes, forgetting
for once his cane and utensils, and following eagerly after. On she
moved before him, a will-o’-the-wisp of the spring, a little flame
above her head, and it seemed as though among the small saplings of ash
and beech and the thick trunks of hickory and elm that she signaled
with a young, a lightsome hand.

“O Phœbe! Phœbe!” he called. “Have yuh really come? Have yuh really
answered me?” And hurrying faster, he fell once, scrambling lamely to
his feet, only to see the light in the distance dancing illusively on.
On and on he hurried until he was fairly running, brushing his ragged
arms against the trees, striking his hands and face against impeding
twigs. His hat was gone, his lungs were breathless, his reason quite
astray, when coming to the edge of the cliff he saw her below among a
silvery bed of apple-trees now blooming in the spring.

“O Phœbe!” he called. “O Phœbe! Oh, no, don’t leave me!” And feeling
the lure of a world where love was young and Phœbe as this vision
presented her, a delightful epitome of their quondam youth, he gave a
gay cry of “Oh, wait, Phœbe!” and leaped.

Some farmer-boys, reconnoitering this region of bounty and prospect
some few days afterward, found first the tin utensils tied together
under the tree where he had left them, and then later at the foot
of the cliff, pale, broken, but elate, a molded smile of peace and
delight upon his lips, his body. His old hat was discovered lying under
some low-growing saplings the twigs of which had held it back. No one
of all the simple population knew how eagerly and joyously he had found
his lost mate.




THE SECOND CHOICE


  SHIRLEY DEAR:

 You don’t want the letters. There are only six of them, anyhow, and
 think, they’re all I have of you to cheer me on my travels. What good
 would they be to you--little bits of notes telling me you’re sure to
 meet me--but me--think of me! If I send them to you, you’ll tear them
 up, whereas if you leave them with me I can dab them with musk and
 ambergris and keep them in a little silver box, always beside me.

 Ah, Shirley dear, you really don’t know how sweet I think you are,
 how dear! There isn’t a thing we have ever done together that isn’t
 as clear in my mind as this great big skyscraper over the way here in
 Pittsburgh, and far more pleasing. In fact, my thoughts of you are the
 most precious and delicious things I have, Shirley.

 But I’m too young to marry now. You know that, Shirley, don’t you? I
 haven’t placed myself in any way yet, and I’m so restless that I don’t
 know whether I ever will, really. Only yesterday, old Roxbaum--that’s
 my new employer here--came to me and wanted to know if I would like an
 assistant overseership on one of his coffee plantations in Java, said
 there would not be much money in it for a year or two, a bare living,
 but later there would be more--and I jumped at it. Just the thought
 of Java and going there did that, although I knew I could make more
 staying right here. Can’t you see how it is with me, Shirl? I’m too
 restless and too young. I couldn’t take care of you right, and you
 wouldn’t like me after a while if I didn’t.

 But ah, Shirley sweet, I think the dearest things of you! There isn’t
 an hour, it seems, but some little bit of you comes back--a dear,
 sweet bit--the night we sat on the grass in Tregore Park and counted
 the stars through the trees; that first evening at Sparrows Point
 when we missed the last train and had to walk to Langley. Remember
 the tree-toads, Shirl? And then that warm April Sunday in Atholby
 woods! Ah, Shirl, you don’t want the six notes! Let me keep them. But
 think of me, will you, sweet, wherever you go and whatever you do?
 I’ll always think of you, and wish that you had met a better, saner
 man than me, and that I really could have married you and been all
 you wanted me to be. By-by, sweet. I may start for Java within the
 month. If so, and you would want them, I’ll send you some cards from
 there--if they have any.

  Your worthless,
  ARTHUR.

She sat and turned the letter in her hand, dumb with despair. It was
the very last letter she would ever get from him. Of that she was
certain. He was gone now, once and for all. She had written him only
once, not making an open plea but asking him to return her letters,
and then there had come this tender but evasive reply, saying nothing
of a possible return but desiring to keep her letters for old times’
sake--the happy hours they had spent together.

The happy hours! Oh, yes, yes, yes--the happy hours!

In her memory now, as she sat here in her home after the day’s work,
meditating on all that had been in the few short months since he had
come and gone, was a world of color and light--a color and a light so
transfiguring as to seem celestial, but now, alas, wholly dissipated.
It had contained so much of all she had desired--love, romance,
amusement, laughter. He had been so gay and thoughtless, or headstrong,
so youthfully romantic, and with such a love of play and change and to
be saying and doing anything and everything. Arthur could dance in a
gay way, whistle, sing after a fashion, play. He could play cards and
do tricks, and he had such a superior air, so genial and brisk, with a
kind of innate courtesy in it and yet an intolerance for slowness and
stodginess or anything dull or dingy, such as characterized---- But
here her thoughts fled from him. She refused to think of any one but
Arthur.

Sitting in her little bedroom now, off the parlor on the ground floor
in her home in Bethune Street, and looking out over the Kessels’ yard,
and beyond that--there being no fences in Bethune Street--over the
“yards” or lawns of the Pollards, Bakers, Cryders, and others, she
thought of how dull it must all have seemed to him, with his fine
imaginative mind and experiences, his love of change and gayety, his
atmosphere of something better than she had ever known. How little
she had been fitted, perhaps, by beauty or temperament to overcome
this--the something--dullness in her work or her home, which possibly
had driven him away. For, although many had admired her to date, and
she was young and pretty in her simple way and constantly receiving
suggestions that her beauty was disturbing to some, still, he had not
cared for her--he had gone.

And now, as she meditated, it seemed that this scene, and all that
it stood for--her parents, her work, her daily shuttling to and fro
between the drug company for which she worked and this street and
house--was typical of her life and what she was destined to endure
always. Some girls were so much more fortunate. They had fine clothes,
fine homes, a world of pleasure and opportunity in which to move. They
did not have to scrimp and save and work to pay their own way. And yet
she had always been compelled to do it, but had never complained until
now--or until he came, and after. Bethune Street, with its commonplace
front yards and houses nearly all alike, and this house, so like the
others, room for room and porch for porch, and her parents, too, really
like all the others, had seemed good enough, quite satisfactory,
indeed, until then. But now, now!

Here, in their kitchen, was her mother, a thin, pale, but kindly woman,
peeling potatoes and washing lettuce, and putting a bit of steak or
a chop or a piece of liver in a frying-pan day after day, morning
and evening, month after month, year after year. And next door was
Mrs. Kessel doing the same thing. And next door Mrs. Cryder. And next
door Mrs. Pollard. But, until now, she had not thought it so bad. But
now--now--oh! And on all the porches or lawns all along this street
were the husbands and fathers, mostly middle-aged or old men like her
father, reading their papers or cutting the grass before dinner, or
smoking and meditating afterward. Her father was out in front now,
a stooped, forbearing, meditative soul, who had rarely anything to
say--leaving it all to his wife, her mother, but who was fond of her
in his dull, quiet way. He was a pattern-maker by trade, and had come
into possession of this small, ordinary home via years of toil and
saving, her mother helping him. They had no particular religion, as he
often said, thinking reasonably human conduct a sufficient passport to
heaven, but they had gone occasionally to the Methodist Church over in
Nicholas Street, and she had once joined it. But of late she had not
gone, weaned away by the other commonplace pleasures of her world.

And then in the midst of it, the dull drift of things, as she now
saw them to be, he had come--Arthur Bristow--young, energetic,
good-looking, ambitious, dreamful, and instanter, and with her never
knowing quite how, the whole thing had been changed. He had appeared so
swiftly--out of nothing, as it were.

Previous to him had been Barton Williams, stout, phlegmatic,
good-natured, well-meaning, who was, or had been before Arthur came,
asking her to marry him, and whom she allowed to half assume that she
would. She had liked him in a feeble, albeit, as she thought, tender
way, thinking him the kind, according to the logic of her neighborhood,
who would make her a good husband, and, until Arthur appeared on
the scene, had really intended to marry him. It was not really a
love-match, as she saw now, but she thought it was, which was much the
same thing, perhaps. But, as she now recalled, when Arthur came, how
the scales fell from her eyes! In a trice, as it were, nearly, there
was a new heaven and a new earth. Arthur had arrived, and with him a
sense of something different.

Mabel Gove had asked her to come over to her house in Westleigh, the
adjoining suburb, for Thanksgiving eve and day, and without a thought
of anything, and because Barton was busy handling a part of the work
in the despatcher’s office of the Great Eastern and could not see her,
she had gone. And then, to her surprise and strange, almost ineffable
delight, the moment she had seen him, he was there--Arthur, with his
slim, straight figure and dark hair and eyes and clean-cut features,
as clean and attractive as those of a coin. And as he had looked at
her and smiled and narrated humorous bits of things that had happened
to him, something had come over her--a spell--and after dinner they
had all gone round to Edith Barringer’s to dance, and there as she had
danced with him, somehow, without any seeming boldness on his part, he
had taken possession of her, as it were, drawn her close, and told her
she had beautiful eyes and hair and such a delicately rounded chin, and
that he thought she danced gracefully and was sweet. She had nearly
fainted with delight.

“Do you like me?” he had asked in one place in the dance, and, in spite
of herself, she had looked up into his eyes, and from that moment she
was almost mad over him, could think of nothing else but his hair and
eyes and his smile and his graceful figure.

Mabel Gove had seen it all, in spite of her determination that no one
should, and on their going to bed later, back at Mabel’s home, she had
whispered:

“Ah, Shirley, I saw. You like Arthur, don’t you?”

“I think he’s very nice,” Shirley recalled replying, for Mabel knew of
her affair with Barton and liked him, “but I’m not crazy over him.” And
for this bit of treason she had sighed in her dreams nearly all night.

And the next day, true to a request and a promise made by him, Arthur
had called again at Mabel’s to take her and Mabel to a “movie” which
was not so far away, and from there they had gone to an ice-cream
parlor, and during it all, when Mabel was not looking, he had squeezed
her arm and hand and kissed her neck, and she had held her breath, and
her heart had seemed to stop.

“And now you’re going to let me come out to your place to see you,
aren’t you?” he had whispered.

And she had replied, “Wednesday evening,” and then written the address
on a little piece of paper and given it to him.

But now it was all gone, gone!

This house, which now looked so dreary--how romantic it had seemed that
first night _he_ called--the front room with its commonplace furniture,
and later in the spring, the veranda, with its vines just sprouting,
and the moon in May. Oh, the moon in May, and June and July, when he
was here! How she had lied to Barton to make evenings for Arthur, and
occasionally to Arthur to keep him from contact with Barton. She had
not even mentioned Barton to Arthur because--because--well, because
Arthur was so much better, and somehow (she admitted it to herself
now) she had not been sure that Arthur would care for her long, if at
all, and then--well, and then, to be quite frank, Barton might be good
enough. She did not exactly hate him because she had found Arthur--not
at all. She still liked him in a way--he was so kind and faithful, so
very dull and straightforward and thoughtful of her, which Arthur was
certainly not. Before Arthur had appeared, as she well remembered,
Barton had seemed to be plenty good enough--in fact, all that she
desired in a pleasant, companionable way, calling for her, taking her
places, bringing her flowers and candy, which Arthur rarely did, and
for that, if nothing more, she could not help continuing to like him
and to feel sorry for him, and, besides, as she had admitted to herself
before, if Arthur left her-- * * * * * Weren’t his parents better off
than hers--and hadn’t he a good position for such a man as he--one
hundred and fifty dollars a month and the certainty of more later on?
A little while before meeting Arthur, she had thought this very good,
enough for two to live on at least, and she had thought some of trying
it at some time or other--but now--now----

And that first night he had called--how well she remembered it--how it
had transfigured the parlor next this in which she was now, filling it
with something it had never had before, and the porch outside, too,
for that matter, with its gaunt, leafless vine, and this street, too,
even--dull, commonplace Bethune Street. There had been a flurry of snow
during the afternoon while she was working at the store, and the ground
was white with it. All the neighboring homes seemed to look sweeter
and happier and more inviting than ever they had as she came past
them, with their lights peeping from under curtains and drawn shades.
She had hurried into hers and lighted the big red-shaded parlor lamp,
her one artistic treasure, as she thought, and put it near the piano,
between it and the window, and arranged the chairs, and then bustled to
the task of making herself as pleasing as she might. For him she had
gotten out her one best filmy house dress and done up her hair in the
fashion she thought most becoming--and that he had not seen before--and
powdered her cheeks and nose and darkened her eyelashes, as some of
the girls at the store did, and put on her new gray satin slippers, and
then, being so arrayed, waited nervously, unable to eat anything or to
think of anything but him.

And at last, just when she had begun to think he might not be coming,
he had appeared with that arch smile and a “Hello! It’s here you live,
is it? I was wondering. George, but you’re twice as sweet as I thought
you were, aren’t you?” And then, in the little entryway, behind the
closed door, he had held her and kissed her on the mouth a dozen times
while she pretended to push against his coat and struggle and say that
her parents might hear.

And, oh, the room afterward, with him in it in the red glow of the
lamp, and with his pale handsome face made handsomer thereby, as she
thought! He had made her sit near him and had held her hands and told
her about his work and his dreams--all that he expected to do in the
future--and then she had found herself wishing intensely to share just
such a life--his life--anything that he might wish to do; only, she
kept wondering, with a slight pain, whether he would want her to--he
was so young, dreamful, ambitious, much younger and more dreamful than
herself, although, in reality, he was several years older.

And then followed that glorious period from December to this late
September, in which everything which was worth happening in love had
happened. Oh, those wondrous days the following spring, when, with
the first burst of buds and leaves, he had taken her one Sunday to
Atholby, where all the great woods were, and they had hunted spring
beauties in the grass, and sat on a slope and looked at the river
below and watched some boys fixing up a sailboat and setting forth in
it quite as she wished she and Arthur might be doing--going somewhere
together--far, far away from all commonplace things and life! And then
he had slipped his arm about her and kissed her cheek and neck, and
tweaked her ear and smoothed her hair--and oh, there on the grass,
with the spring flowers about her and a canopy of small green leaves
above, the perfection of love had come--love so wonderful that the mere
thought of it made her eyes brim now! And then had been days, Saturday
afternoons and Sundays, at Atholby and Sparrows Point, where the great
beach was, and in lovely Tregore Park, a mile or two from her home,
where they could go of an evening and sit in or near the pavilion and
have ice-cream and dance or watch the dancers. Oh, the stars, the
winds, the summer breath of those days! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Naturally, her parents had wondered from the first about her and
Arthur, and her and Barton, since Barton had already assumed a
proprietary interest in her and she had seemed to like him. But then
she was an only child and a pet, and used to presuming on that, and
they could not think of saying anything to her. After all, she was
young and pretty and was entitled to change her mind; only, only--she
had had to indulge in a career of lying and subterfuge in connection
with Barton, since Arthur was headstrong and wanted every evening that
he chose--to call for her at the store and keep her down-town to dinner
and a show.

Arthur had never been like Barton, shy, phlegmatic, obedient, waiting
long and patiently for each little favor, but, instead, masterful and
eager, rifling her of kisses and caresses and every delight of love,
and teasing and playing with her as a cat would a mouse. She could
never resist him. He demanded of her her time and her affection without
let or hindrance. He was not exactly selfish or cruel, as some might
have been, but gay and unthinking at times, unconsciously so, and yet
loving and tender at others--nearly always so. But always he would talk
of things in the future as if they really did not include her--and this
troubled her greatly--of places he might go, things he might do, which,
somehow, he seemed to think or assume that she could not or would not
do with him. He was always going to Australia sometime, he thought,
in a business way, or to South Africa, or possibly to India. He never
seemed to have any fixed clear future for himself in mind.

A dreadful sense of helplessness and of impending disaster came over
her at these times, of being involved in some predicament over which
she had no control, and which would lead her on to some sad end.
Arthur, although plainly in love, as she thought, and apparently
delighted with her, might not always love her. She began, timidly
at first (and always, for that matter), to ask him pretty, seeking
questions about himself and her, whether their future was certain to
be together, whether he really wanted her--loved her--whether he might
not want to marry some one else or just her, and whether she wouldn’t
look nice in a pearl satin wedding-dress with a long creamy veil and
satin slippers and a bouquet of bridal-wreath. She had been so slowly
but surely saving to that end, even before he came, in connection
with Barton; only, after _he_ came, all thought of the import of it
had been transferred to him. But now, also, she was beginning to ask
herself sadly, “Would it ever be?” He was so airy, so inconsequential,
so ready to say: “Yes, yes,” and “Sure, sure! That’s right! Yes,
indeedy; you bet! Say, kiddie, but you’ll look sweet!” but, somehow,
it had always seemed as if this whole thing were a glorious interlude
and that it could not last. Arthur was too gay and ethereal and too
little settled in his own mind. His ideas of travel and living in
different cities, finally winding up in New York or San Francisco, but
never with her exactly until she asked him, was too ominous, although
he always reassured her gaily: “Of course! Of course!” But somehow she
could never believe it really, and it made her intensely sad at times,
horribly gloomy. So often she wanted to cry, and she could scarcely
tell why.

And then, because of her intense affection for him, she had finally
quarreled with Barton, or nearly that, if one could say that one ever
really quarreled with him. It had been because of a certain Thursday
evening a few weeks before about which she had disappointed him. In
a fit of generosity, knowing that Arthur was coming Wednesday, and
because Barton had stopped in at the store to see her, she had told him
that he might come, having regretted it afterward, so enamored was she
of Arthur. And then when Wednesday came, Arthur had changed his mind,
telling her he would come Friday instead, but on Thursday evening he
had stopped in at the store and asked her to go to Sparrows Point, with
the result that she had no time to notify Barton. He had gone to the
house and sat with her parents until ten-thirty, and then, a few days
later, although she had written him offering an excuse, had called at
the store to complain slightly.

“Do you think you did just right, Shirley? You might have sent word,
mightn’t you? Who was it--the new fellow you won’t tell me about?”

Shirley flared on the instant.

“Supposing it was? What’s it to you? I don’t belong to you yet, do
I? I told you there wasn’t any one, and I wish you’d let me alone
about that. I couldn’t help it last Thursday--that’s all--and I don’t
want you to be fussing with me--that’s all. If you don’t want to, you
needn’t come any more, anyhow.”

“Don’t say that, Shirley,” pleaded Barton. “You don’t mean that. I
won’t bother you, though, if you don’t want me any more.”

And because Shirley sulked, not knowing what else to do, he had gone
and she had not seen him since.

And then sometime later when she had thus broken with Barton, avoiding
the railway station where he worked, Arthur had failed to come at his
appointed time, sending no word until the next day, when a note came to
the store saying that he had been out of town for his firm over Sunday
and had not been able to notify her, but that he would call Tuesday.
It was an awful blow. At the time, Shirley had a vision of what was to
follow. It seemed for the moment as if the whole world had suddenly
been reduced to ashes, that there was nothing but black charred cinders
anywhere--she felt that about all life. Yet it all came to her clearly
then that this was but the beginning of just such days and just such
excuses, and that soon, soon, he would come no more. He was beginning
to be tired of her and soon he would not even make excuses. She felt
it, and it froze and terrified her.

And then, soon after, the indifference which she feared did
follow--almost created by her own thoughts, as it were. First, it
was a meeting he had to attend somewhere one Wednesday night when he
was to have come for her. Then he was going out of town again, over
Sunday. Then he was going away for a whole week--it was absolutely
unavoidable, he said, his commercial duties were increasing--and once
he had casually remarked that nothing could stand in the way where
she was concerned--never! She did not think of reproaching him with
this; she was too proud. If he was going, he must go. She would not be
willing to say to herself that she had ever attempted to hold any man.
But, just the same, she was agonized by the thought. When he was with
her, he seemed tender enough; only, at times, his eyes wandered and he
seemed slightly bored. Other girls, particularly pretty ones, seemed to
interest him as much as she did.

And the agony of the long days when he did not come any more for a
week or two at a time! The waiting, the brooding, the wondering, at
the store and here in her home--in the former place making mistakes at
times because she could not get her mind off him and being reminded
of them, and here at her own home at nights, being so absent-minded
that her parents remarked on it. She felt sure that her parents must
be noticing that Arthur was not coming any more, or as much as he
had--for she pretended to be going out with him, going to Mabel Gove’s
instead--and that Barton had deserted her too, he having been driven
off by her indifference, never to come any more, perhaps, unless she
sought him out.

And then it was that the thought of saving her own face by taking up
with Barton once more occurred to her, of using him and his affections
and faithfulness and dulness, if you will, to cover up her own dilemma.
Only, this ruse was not to be tried until she had written Arthur this
one letter--a pretext merely to see if there was a single ray of hope,
a letter to be written in a gentle-enough way and asking for the return
of the few notes she had written him. She had not seen him now in
nearly a month, and the last time she had, he had said he might soon be
compelled to leave her awhile--to go to Pittsburgh to work. And it was
his reply to this that she now held in her hand--from Pittsburgh! It
was frightful! The future without him!

But Barton would never know really what had transpired, if she went
back to him. In spite of all her delicious hours with Arthur, she could
call him back, she felt sure. She had never really entirely dropped
him, and he knew it. He had bored her dreadfully on occasion, arriving
on off days when Arthur was not about, with flowers or candy, or both,
and sitting on the porch steps and talking of the railroad business
and of the whereabouts and doings of some of their old friends. It
was shameful, she had thought at times, to see a man so patient, so
hopeful, so good-natured as Barton, deceived in this way, and by her,
who was so miserable over another. Her parents must see and know, she
had thought at these times, but still, what else was she to do?

“I’m a bad girl,” she kept telling herself. “I’m all wrong. What right
have I to offer Barton what is left?” But still, somehow, she realized
that Barton, if she chose to favor him, would only be too grateful
for even the leavings of others where she was concerned, and that even
yet, if she but deigned to crook a finger, she could have him. He was
so simple, so good-natured, so stolid and matter of fact, so different
to Arthur whom (she could not help smiling at the thought of it) she
was loving now about as Barton loved her--slavishly, hopelessly.

And then, as the days passed and Arthur did not write any more--just
this one brief note--she at first grieved horribly, and then in a fit
of numb despair attempted, bravely enough from one point of view, to
adjust herself to the new situation. Why should she despair? Why die
of agony where there were plenty who would still sigh for her--Barton
among others? She was young, pretty, very--many told her so. She could,
if she chose, achieve a vivacity which she did not feel. Why should she
brook this unkindness without a thought of retaliation? Why shouldn’t
she enter upon a gay and heartless career, indulging in a dozen
flirtations at once--dancing and killing all thoughts of Arthur in a
round of frivolities? There were many who beckoned to her. She stood at
her counter in the drug store on many a day and brooded over this, but
at the thought of which one to begin with, she faltered. After her late
love, all were so tame, for the present anyhow.

And then--and then--always there was Barton, the humble or faithful, to
whom she had been so unkind and whom she had used and whom she still
really liked. So often self-reproaching thoughts in connection with
him crept over her. He must have known, must have seen how badly she
was using him all this while, and yet he had not failed to come and
come, until she had actually quarreled with him, and any one would have
seen that it was literally hopeless. She could not help remembering,
especially now in her pain, that he adored her. He was not calling
on her now at all--by her indifference she had finally driven him
away--but a word, a word-- She waited for days, weeks, hoping against
hope, and then----

       *       *       *       *       *

The office of Barton’s superior in the Great Eastern terminal had
always made him an easy object for her blandishments, coming and going,
as she frequently did, via this very station. He was in the office of
the assistant train-despatcher on the ground floor, where passing to
and from the local, which, at times, was quicker than a street-car, she
could easily see him by peering in; only, she had carefully avoided him
for nearly a year. If she chose now, and would call for a message-blank
at the adjacent telegraph-window which was a part of his room, and
raised her voice as she often had in the past, he could scarcely fail
to hear, if he did not see her. And if he did, he would rise and come
over--of that she was sure, for he never could resist her. It had been
a wile of hers in the old days to do this or to make her presence felt
by idling outside. After a month of brooding, she felt that she must
act--her position as a deserted girl was too much. She could not stand
it any longer really--the eyes of her mother, for one.

It was six-fifteen one evening when, coming out of the store in which
she worked, she turned her step disconsolately homeward. Her heart
was heavy, her face rather pale and drawn. She had stopped in the
store’s retiring-room before coming out to add to her charms as much as
possible by a little powder and rouge and to smooth her hair. It would
not take much to reallure her former sweetheart, she felt sure--and yet
it might not be so easy after all. Suppose he had found another? But
she could not believe that. It had scarcely been long enough since he
had last attempted to see her, and he was really so very, very fond of
her and so faithful. He was too slow and certain in his choosing--he
had been so with her. Still, who knows? With this thought, she went
forward in the evening, feeling for the first time the shame and pain
that comes of deception, the agony of having to relinquish an ideal and
the feeling of despair that comes to those who find themselves in the
position of suppliants, stooping to something which in better days and
better fortune they would not know. Arthur was the cause of this.

When she reached the station, the crowd that usually filled it at this
hour was swarming. There were so many pairs like Arthur and herself
laughing and hurrying away or so she felt. First glancing in the small
mirror of a weighing scale to see if she were still of her former
charm, she stopped thoughtfully at a little flower stand which stood
outside, and for a few pennies purchased a tiny bunch of violets. She
then went inside and stood near the window, peering first furtively to
see if he were present. He was. Bent over his work, a green shade over
his eyes, she could see his stolid, genial figure at a table. Stepping
back a moment to ponder, she finally went forward and, in a clear
voice, asked,

“May I have a blank, please?”

The infatuation of the discarded Barton was such that it brought him
instantly to his feet. In his stodgy, stocky way he rose, his eyes
glowing with a friendly hope, his mouth wreathed in smiles, and came
over. At the sight of her, pale, but pretty--paler and prettier,
really, than he had ever seen her--he thrilled dumbly.

“How are you, Shirley?” he asked sweetly, as he drew near, his eyes
searching her face hopefully. He had not seen her for so long that he
was intensely hungry, and her paler beauty appealed to him more than
ever. Why wouldn’t she have him? he was asking himself. Why wouldn’t
his persistent love yet win her? Perhaps it might. “I haven’t seen you
in a month of Sundays, it seems. How are the folks?”

“They’re all right, Bart,” she smiled archly, “and so am I. How have
you been? It has been a long time since I’ve seen you. I’ve been
wondering how you were. Have you been all right? I was just going to
send a message.”

As he had approached, Shirley had pretended at first not to see him, a
moment later to affect surprise, although she was really suppressing a
heavy sigh. The sight of him, after Arthur, was not reassuring. Could
she really interest herself in him any more? Could she?

“Sure, sure,” he replied genially; “I’m always all right. You couldn’t
kill me, you know. Not going away, are you, Shirl?” he queried
interestedly.

“No; I’m just telegraphing to Mabel. She promised to meet me
to-morrow, and I want to be sure she will.”

“You don’t come past here as often as you did, Shirley,” he complained
tenderly. “At least, I don’t seem to see you so often,” he added with
a smile. “It isn’t anything I have done, is it?” he queried, and then,
when she protested quickly, added: “What’s the trouble, Shirl? Haven’t
been sick, have you?”

She affected all her old gaiety and ease, feeling as though she would
like to cry.

“Oh, no,” she returned; “I’ve been all right. I’ve been going through
the other door, I suppose, or coming in and going out on the Langdon
Avenue car.” (This was true, because she had been wanting to avoid
him.) “I’ve been in such a hurry, most nights, that I haven’t had time
to stop, Bart. You know how late the store keeps us at times.”

He remembered, too, that in the old days she had made time to stop or
meet him occasionally.

“Yes, I know,” he said tactfully. “But you haven’t been to any of our
old card-parties either of late, have you? At least, I haven’t seen
you. I’ve gone to two or three, thinking you might be there.”

That was another thing Arthur had done--broken up her interest in
these old store and neighborhood parties and a banjo-and-mandolin club
to which she had once belonged. They had all seemed so pleasing and
amusing in the old days--but now-- * * * * In those days Bart had been
her usual companion when his work permitted.

“No,” she replied evasively, but with a forced air of pleasant
remembrance; “I have often thought of how much fun we had at those,
though. It was a shame to drop them. You haven’t seen Harry Stull
or Trina Task recently, have you?” she inquired, more to be saying
something than for any interest she felt.

He shook his head negatively, then added:

“Yes, I did, too; here in the waiting-room a few nights ago. They were
coming down-town to a theater, I suppose.”

His face fell slightly as he recalled how it had been their custom to
do this, and what their one quarrel had been about. Shirley noticed it.
She felt the least bit sorry for him, but much more for herself, coming
back so disconsolately to all this.

“Well, you’re looking as pretty as ever, Shirley,” he continued, noting
that she had not written the telegram and that there was something
wistful in her glance. “Prettier, I think,” and she smiled sadly. Every
word that she tolerated from him was as so much gold to him, so much of
dead ashes to her. “You wouldn’t like to come down some evening this
week and see ‘The Mouse-Trap,’ would you? We haven’t been to a theater
together in I don’t know when.” His eyes sought hers in a hopeful,
doglike way.

So--she could have him again--that was the pity of it! To have what
she really did not want, did not care for! At the least nod now he
would come, and this very devotion made it all but worthless, and so
sad. She ought to marry him now for certain, if she began in this way,
and could in a month’s time if she chose, but oh, oh--could she? For
the moment she decided that she could not, would not. If he had only
repulsed her--told her to go--ignored her--but no; it was her fate to
be loved by him in this moving, pleading way, and hers not to love him
as she wished to love--to be loved. Plainly, he needed some one like
her, whereas she, she----. She turned a little sick, a sense of the
sacrilege of gaiety at this time creeping into her voice, and exclaimed:

“No, no!” Then seeing his face change, a heavy sadness come over
it, “Not this week, anyhow, I mean” (“Not so soon,” she had almost
said). “I have several engagements this week and I’m not feeling
well. But”--seeing his face change, and the thought of her own state
returning--“you might come out to the house some evening instead, and
then we can go some other time.”

His face brightened intensely. It was wonderful how he longed to be
with her, how the least favor from her comforted and lifted him up. She
could see also now, however, how little it meant to her, how little it
could ever mean, even if to him it was heaven. The old relationship
would have to be resumed in toto, once and for all, but did she want it
that way now that she was feeling so miserable about this other affair?
As she meditated, these various moods racing to and fro in her mind,
Barton seemed to notice, and now it occurred to him that perhaps he had
not pursued her enough--was too easily put off. She probably did like
him yet. This evening, her present visit, seemed to prove it.

“Sure, sure!” he agreed. “I’d like that. I’ll come out Sunday, if you
say. We can go any time to the play. I’m sorry, Shirley, if you’re
not feeling well. I’ve thought of you a lot these days. I’ll come out
Wednesday, if you don’t mind.”

She smiled a wan smile. It was all so much easier than she had
expected--her triumph--and so ashenlike in consequence, a flavor of
dead-sea fruit and defeat about it all, that it was pathetic. How could
she, after Arthur? How could he, really?

“Make it Sunday,” she pleaded, naming the farthest day off, and then
hurried out.

Her faithful lover gazed after her, while she suffered an intense
nausea. To think--to think--it should all be coming to this! She had
not used her telegraph-blank, and now had forgotten all about it. It
was not the simple trickery that discouraged her, but her own future
which could find no better outlet than this, could not rise above it
apparently, or that she had no heart to make it rise above it. Why
couldn’t she interest herself in some one different to Barton? Why did
she have to return to him? Why not wait and meet some other--ignore
him as before? But no, no; nothing mattered now--no one--it might as
well be Barton really as any one, and she would at least make him happy
and at the same time solve her own problem. She went out into the
train-shed and climbed into her train. Slowly, after the usual pushing
and jostling of a crowd, it drew out toward Latonia, that suburban
region in which her home lay. As she rode, she thought.

“What have I just done? What am I doing?” she kept asking herself as
the clacking wheels on the rails fell into a rhythmic dance and the
houses of the brown, dry, endless city fled past in a maze. “Severing
myself decisively from the past--the happy past--for supposing, once I
am married, Arthur should return and want me again--suppose! Suppose!”

Below at one place, under a shed, were some market-gardeners disposing
of the last remnants of their day’s wares--a sickly, dull life, she
thought. Here was Rutgers Avenue, with its line of red street-cars,
many wagons and tracks and counter-streams of automobiles--how often
had she passed it morning and evening in a shuttle-like way, and
how often would, unless she got married! And here, now, was the
river flowing smoothly between its banks lined with coal-pockets and
wharves--away, away to the huge deep sea which she and Arthur had
enjoyed so much. Oh, to be in a small boat and drift out, out into the
endless, restless, pathless deep! Somehow the sight of this water,
to-night and every night, brought back those evenings in the open
with Arthur at Sparrows Point, the long line of dancers in Eckert’s
Pavilion, the woods at Atholby, the park, with the dancers in the
pavilion--she choked back a sob. Once Arthur had come this way with
her on just such an evening as this, pressing her hand and saying how
wonderful she was. Oh, Arthur! Arthur! And now Barton was to take his
old place again--forever, no doubt. She could not trifle with her life
longer in this foolish way, or his. What was the use? But think of it!

Yes, it must be--forever now, she told herself. She must marry. Time
would be slipping by and she would become too old. It was her only
future--marriage. It was the only future she had ever contemplated
really, a home, children, the love of some man whom she could love as
she loved Arthur. Ah, what a happy home that would have been for her!
But now, now----

But there must be no turning back now, either. There was no other way.
If Arthur ever came back--but fear not, he wouldn’t! She had risked
so much and lost--lost him. Her little venture into true love had
been such a failure. Before Arthur had come all had been well enough.
Barton, stout and simple and frank and direct, had in some way--how,
she could scarcely realize now--offered sufficient of a future. But
now, now! He had enough money, she knew, to build a cottage for the two
of them. He had told her so. He would do his best always to make her
happy, she was sure of that. They could live in about the state her
parents were living in--or a little better, not much--and would never
want. No doubt there would be children, because he craved them--several
of them--and that would take up her time, long years of it--the sad,
gray years! But then Arthur, whose children she would have thrilled to
bear, would be no more, a mere memory--think of that!--and Barton, the
dull, the commonplace, would have achieved his finest dream--and why?

Because love was a failure for her--that was why--and in her life
there could be no more true love. She would never love any one again
as she had Arthur. It could not be, she was sure of it. He was too
fascinating, too wonderful. Always, always, wherever she might be,
whoever she might marry, he would be coming back, intruding between
her and any possible love, receiving any possible kiss. It would be
Arthur she would be loving or kissing. She dabbed at her eyes with a
tiny handkerchief, turned her face close to the window and stared out,
and then as the environs of Latonia came into view, wondered (so deep
is romance): What if Arthur should come back at some time--or now!
Supposing he should be here at the station now, accidentally or on
purpose, to welcome her, to soothe her weary heart. He had met her here
before. How she would fly to him, lay her head on his shoulder, forget
forever that Barton ever was, that they had ever separated for an hour.
Oh, Arthur! Arthur!

But no, no; here was Latonia--here the viaduct over her train, the
long business street and the cars marked “Center” and “Langdon Avenue”
running back into the great city. A few blocks away in tree-shaded
Bethune Street, duller and plainer than ever, was her parents’ cottage
and the routine of that old life which was now, she felt, more fully
fastened upon her than ever before--the lawn-mowers, the lawns, the
front porches all alike. Now would come the going to and fro of Barton
to business as her father and she now went to business, her keeping
house, cooking, washing, ironing, sewing for Barton as her mother now
did these things for her father and herself. And she would not be in
love really, as she wanted to be. Oh, dreadful! She could never escape
it really, now that she could endure it less, scarcely for another
hour. And yet she must, must, for the sake of--for the sake of--she
closed her eyes and dreamed.

She walked up the street under the trees, past the houses and lawns all
alike to her own, and found her father on their veranda reading the
evening paper. She sighed at the sight.

“Back, daughter?” he called pleasantly.

“Yes.”

“Your mother is wondering if you would like steak or liver for dinner.
Better tell her.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

She hurried into her bedroom, threw down her hat and gloves, and
herself on the bed to rest silently, and groaned in her soul. To think
that it had all come to this!--Never to see him any more!--To see only
Barton, and marry him and live in such a street, have four or five
children, forget all her youthful companionships--and all to save her
face before her parents, and her future. Why must it be? Should it
be, really? She choked and stifled. After a little time her mother,
hearing her come in, came to the door--thin, practical, affectionate,
conventional.

“What’s wrong, honey? Aren’t you feeling well to-night? Have you a
headache? Let me feel.”

Her thin cool fingers crept over her temples and hair. She suggested
something to eat or a headache powder right away.

“I’m all right, mother. I’m just not feeling well now. Don’t bother.
I’ll get up soon. Please don’t.”

“Would you rather have liver or steak to-night, dear?”

  “Oh, anything--nothing--please don’t bother--steak will
do--anything”--if only she could get rid of her and be at rest!

Her mother looked at her and shook her head sympathetically, then
retreated quietly, saying no more. Lying so, she thought and
thought--grinding, destroying thoughts about the beauty of the past,
the darkness of the future--until able to endure them no longer she got
up and, looking distractedly out of the window into the yard and the
house next door, stared at her future fixedly. What should she do? What
should she really do? There was Mrs. Kessel in her kitchen getting her
dinner as usual, just as her own mother was now, and Mr. Kessel out on
the front porch in his shirt-sleeves reading the evening paper. Beyond
was Mr. Pollard in his yard, cutting the grass. All along Bethune
Street were such houses and such people--simple, commonplace souls
all--clerks, managers, fairly successful craftsmen, like her father and
Barton, excellent in their way but not like Arthur the beloved, the
lost--and here was she, perforce, or by decision of necessity, soon to
be one of them, in some such street as this no doubt, forever and--.
For the moment it choked and stifled her.

She decided that she would not. No, no, no! There must be some other
way--many ways. She did not have to do this unless she really wished
to--would not--only--. Then going to the mirror she looked at her face
and smoothed her hair.

“But what’s the use?” she asked of herself wearily and resignedly after
a time. “Why should I cry? Why shouldn’t I marry Barton? I don’t amount
to anything, anyhow. Arthur wouldn’t have me. I wanted him, and I am
compelled to take some one else--or no one--what difference does it
really make who? My dreams are too high, that’s all. I wanted Arthur,
and he wouldn’t have me. I don’t want Barton, and he crawls at my feet.
I’m a failure, that’s what’s the matter with me.”

And then, turning up her sleeves and removing a fichu which stood out
too prominently from her breast, she went into the kitchen and, looking
about for an apron, observed:

“Can’t I help? Where’s the tablecloth?” and finding it among napkins
and silverware in a drawer in the adjoining room, proceeded to set the
table.




A STORY OF STORIES


Take a smoky Western city. Call it Omaha or Kansas City or Denver,
only let the Mississippi flow past it. Put in it two rival morning
papers--two, and only two--the _Star_ and the _News_, the staffs
of which are rather keen to outwit each other. On the staff of the
_News_, slightly the better of the two newspapers, put Mr. David
Kolinsky, alias (yes, alias) David, or “Red” Collins (a little shift of
nomenclature due to the facts that, first: he was a South Russian Jew
who looked exactly like a red-headed Irishman--that is a peculiarity
of South Russian Jews, I believe--and secondly: that it was more
_distingué_, as it were, to be Irish in Omaha or Denver or Kansas
City than it was to be a South Russian Jew). Give him a slithery,
self-confident, race-track or tout manner. Put on him “loud” or showy
clothes, a diamond ring, a ruby pin in his tie, a yellowish-green
Fedora hat, yellow shoes, freckles, a sneering contemptuous “tough”
smile, and you have Mr. “Red” Collins as Mr.----

But wait.

On the _Star_, slightly the lesser of these two great dailies that
matutinally thrashed the city to a foam of interest, place Mr. Augustus
Binns, no less, young (not over twenty-two), tall, college-y, rather
graceful as young college men go, literary of course, highly ambitious,
with gold eye-glasses, a wrist watch, a cane--in short, one of those
ambitious young gentlemen of this rather un-happy go un-lucky
scribbling world who has distinct ideals, to say nothing of dreams,
as to what the newspaper and literary professions combined should
bring him, and who, in addition, inherently despised all creatures of
the “Red” Collins, or race-track, gambler, amateur detective, police
and political, type. Well may you ask, what was Mr. Collins, with
his peculiar characteristics, doing on a paper of the importance and
distinction of the _News_. A long story, my dears. Newspapers are
peculiar institutions.

For this same paper not long since had harbored the truly elegant
presence of Mr. Binns himself, and so excellent a writer and news
gatherer was he that on more than one occasion he had been set to
revise or rewrite the tales which Mr. “Red” Collins, who was then but
tentatively connected with the paper as a “tipster,” brought in. This
in itself was a crime against art and literature, as Mr. Binns saw it,
for, when you come right down to it, and in the strict meaning of the
word, Mr. Collins was not a writer at all, could not write, in fact,
could only “bring in” his stories, and most interesting ones they were,
nearly all of them, whereas about the paper at all times were men who
could--Mr. Binns, for instance. It insulted if not outraged Mr. Binns’s
sense of the fitness of things, for the _News_ to hire such a person
and let him flaunt the title of “reporter” or “representative,” for he
admired the _News_ very much and was glad to be of it. But Collins!
“Red” Collins!

The latter was one of those “hard life,” but by no means hard luck,
Jews who by reason of indomitable ambition and will had raised himself
out of practically frightful conditions. He had never even seen a
bath-tub until he was fifteen or sixteen. By turns he had been a
bootblack, newsboy, race-track tout, stable boy, helper around a
saloon, and what not. Of late years, and now, because he was reaching
a true wisdom (he was between twenty-five and six), he had developed a
sort of taste for gambling as well as politics of a low order, and was
in addition a police hanger-on. He was really a sort of pariah in his
way, only the sporting and political editors found him useful. They
tolerated him, and paid him well for his tips because, forsooth, his
tips were always good.

Batsford, the capable city editor of the _News_, a round, forceful,
gross person who was more allied to Collins than to Binns in spirit,
although he was like neither, was Binns’s first superior in the
newspaper world. He did not like Binns because, for one thing, of his
wrist watch, secondly, his large gold glasses--much larger than they
need have been--and thirdly, because of his cane, which he carried with
considerable of an air. The truth is, Binns was Eastern and the city
editor was Western, and besides, Binns had been more or less thrust
upon him by his managing editor as a favor to some one else. But Binns
could write, never doubt it, and proved it. He was a vigorous reporter
with a fine feeling for words and, above all, a power to visualize
and emotionalize whatever he saw, a thing which was of the utmost
importance in this rather loose Western emotional atmosphere. He could
handle any story which came to him with ease and distinction, and
seemed usually to get all or nearly all the facts.

On the other hand, Collins, for all his garishness, and one might
almost say, brutality of spirit, was what Batsford would have called a
practical man. He knew life. He was by no means as artistic as Binns,
but still-- Batsford liked to know what was going on politically and
criminally, and Collins could always tell him, whereas Binns never
could. Also, by making Binns rewrite Collins’s stories, he knew he
could offend him horribly. The two were like oil and water, Mussulman
and Christian.

When Batsford first told Collins to relate the facts of a certain tale
to Binns and let him work it out, the former strolled over to the
collegian, his lip curled up at one corner, his eye cynically fixed on
him, and said, “The Chief says to give youse this dope and let youse
work it out.”

Youse!

Oh, for a large, bright broad ax!

Binns, however, always your stickler for duty and order, bent on him
an equally cynical and yet enigmatic eye, hitched up his trousers
slightly, adjusted his wrist watch and glasses, and began to take down
the details of the story, worming them out of his rival with a delicacy
and _savoir faire_ worthy of a better cause.

Not long after, however, it was brought to the horrified ears of
Mr. Binns that Mr. Collins had said he was a “stiff” and a “cheap
ink-slinger,” a la-de-da no less, that writers, one and all, college
and otherwise, didn’t count for much, anyhow, that they were all
starving to death, and that they “grew on trees”--a phrase which
particularly enraged Mr. Binns, for he interpreted it to mean that they
were as numerous as the sands of the sea, as plentiful as mud.

By Allah! That such dogs should be allowed to take the beards of great
writers into their hands thus!

Nevertheless and in spite of all this, the fortunes of Mr. Collins went
forward apace, and that chiefly, as Mr. Binns frequently groaned, at
his expense. Collins would come in, and after a long series of “I sez
to him-s” and “He sez to me-s,” which Mr. Binns (per the orders of Mr.
Batsford) translated into the King’s best Britannica, he having in the
meanwhile to neglect some excellent tale of his own, would go forth
again, free to point the next day to a column or column-and-a-half or a
half-column story, and declare proudly, “My story.”

Think of it! That swine!

There is an end to all things, however, even life and crime. In due
time, as per a series of accidents and the groundless ill-will of
Mr. Batsford, Mr. Binns was perforce, in self-respect, compelled
to transfer his energies to the _Star_, a paper he had previously
contemned as being not so good, but where he was now made very welcome
because of his ability. Then, to his astonishment and disgust, one
day while covering a police station known as the South Ninth, from
which emanated many amazing police tales, whom should he encounter but
“Red” Collins, no less, now a full-fledged reporter on the _News_, if
you please, and “doing police.” He had a grand and even contemptuous
manner, barely deigning to notice Binns. Binns raged.

But he noticed at once that Collins was far more _en rapport_ with
the various sergeants and the captain, as well as all that was going
on in this station, than ever he had dreamed of being. It was “Hello,
Red,” here and “Hi, sport,” there, while Collins replied with various
“Caps” and “Charlies.” He gave himself all the airs of a newspaper man
proper, swaggering about and talking of this, that, and the other
story which he had written, some of them having been done by Binns
himself. And what was more, Collins was soon closeted intimately with
the captain in his room, strolling in and out of that sanctum as if
it were his private demesne, and somehow giving Binns the impression
of being in touch with realms and deeds of which he had never heard,
and never would. It made Binns doubly apprehensive lest in these
secret intimacies tales and mysteries should be unfolded which should
have their first light in the pages of the _News_, and so leave him
to be laughed at as one who could not get the news. In consequence,
he watched the _News_ more closely than ever for any evidence of
such treachery on the part of the police, while at the same time he
redoubled his interest in any such items as came to his attention. By
reason of this, as well as by his greater skill in writing and his
undeniable imagination, on more than one occasion he gave Mr. Collins
a good drubbing, chancing to make good stories out of things which Mr.
Collins had evidently dismissed as worthless. _Au contraire_, now and
then a case appeared in the columns of the _News_ with details which
he had not been able to obtain, and concerning which the police had
insisted that they knew nothing. It was thus that Mr. Collins secured
his revenge--and very good revenge too, it was at times.

But Mr. Binns managed to hold his own, as, for instance, late one
August afternoon when a negro girl in one of those crowded alleys
which made up an interesting and even amazing portion of O---- was cut
almost to shreds by an ex-lover who, following her from river-city to
river-city and town to town, had finally come up with her here and had
taken his revenge.

It was a glistering tale this. It appeared (but only after the greatest
industry on the part of Mr. Binns) that some seven or eight months
before [the O---- papers curiously were always interested in a tale
of this kind] this same girl and the negro who had cut her had been
living together as man and wife in Cairo, Illinois, and that later the
lover (a coal passer or stevedore, working now on one boat and now on
another plying the Mississippi between New Orleans and O----), who was
plainly wildly fond of her, became suspicious and finally satisfying
himself that his mistress, who was a real beauty after her kind, was
faithless to him, set a trap to catch her. Returning suddenly one
day when she imagined him to be away for a week or two of labor, and
bursting in upon her, he found her with another man. Death would have
been her portion as well as that of her lover had it not been for the
interference of friends, which had permitted the pair to escape.

Lacerated by the double offenses of betrayal and desertion, he now set
out to follow her, as the cutting on this occasion proved. Returning
to his task as stevedore and working his way thus from one river-city
to another, he arrived by turns in Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez and
New Orleans, in each case making it a point to disguise himself as
a peddler selling trinkets and charms, and in this capacity walking
the crowded negro sections of all these cities calling his wares.
Ambling up one of these stuffy, stifling alleys, finally, in O----
which bordered on this same police station and where so many negroes
lived, he encountered this late August afternoon his quondam but
now faithless love. In answer to his cry of “Rings! Pins! Buckles!
Trinkets!” his false love, apparently not recognizing his voice, put
her head out of a doorway. On the instant the damage was done. Dropping
his tray, he was upon her in a flash with his razor, cris-crossing and
slashing her until she was marred beyond recognition. With fiendish
cruelty he cut her cheeks, lips, arms, legs, back, and sides, so much
so that when Binns arrived at the City Hospital where she had been
taken, he found her unconscious and her life despaired of. On the other
hand, the lover had made good his escape, as had her paramour.

Curiously, this story captured the fancy of Mr. Binns as it did that
of his city editor later, completely. It was such a thing as he could
do, and do well. With almost deft literary art he turned it into a
rather striking black tragedy. Into it, after convincing his rather
fussy city editor that it was worth the telling, he had crowded a
bit of the flavor of the hot waterfronts of Cairo, Memphis, Natchez,
and New Orleans, the sing-song sleepiness of the stevedores at their
lazy labors, the idle, dreamy character of the slow-moving boats,
this rickety alley, with its semi-barbaric curtain-hung shacks and
its swarming, idle, crooning, shuffling negro life. Even an old negro
refrain appropriate to a trinket peddler, and the low, bold negro life
two such truants might enjoy, were pictured. An old negro mammy with a
yellow-dotted kerchief over her head who kept talking of “disha Gawge”
and “disha Sam” and “disha Marquatta” (the girl), had moved him to a
poetic frenzy. Naturally it made a colorful tale, and his city editor
felt called upon to compliment him on it.

But in the _News_, owing possibly to Collins’s inability to grasp the
full significance, the romance, of such a story as this, it received
but a scant stick--a low dive cutting affray. His was not the type of
mind that could see the color here, but once seen he could realize
wherein he had been beaten, and it infuriated him.

“You think you’re a helluva feller, dontcha?” he snarled the next day
on sight, his lip a-curl with scorn and rage. “You think you’ve pulled
off sompin swell. Say, I’ve been up against you wordy boys before, and
I can work all around you. All you guys can do is get a few facts and
then pad ’em up. You never get the real stuff, never,” and he even
snapped his fingers under the nose of the surprised Mr. Binns. “Wait’ll
we get a real case some time, you and me, and then I’ll show you
sompin. Wait and see.”

“My good fellow,” Mr. Binns was about to begin, but the cold, hard,
revengeful glare in the eyes of Mr. Collins quite took his breath away.
Then and there Mr. Collins put a strange haunting fear of himself into
Mr. Binns’s mind. There was something so savage about him, so like that
of an angry hornet or snake that it left him all but speechless. “Is
that so?” he managed to say after a time. “You think you will, do you?
That’s easy enough to say, now that you’re beaten, but I guess I’ll be
right there when the time comes.”

“Aw, go to hell!” growled Collins savagely, and he walked off, leaving
Mr. Binns smiling pleasantly, albeit vacantly, and at the same time
wondering just what it was Mr. Collins was going to do to him, and
when.

The sequel to this was somewhat more interesting.

As Mr. Binns came in one morning fresh from his bath and breakfast,
his new city editor called him into his office. Mr. Waxby, in contrast
with Mr. Batsford, was a small, waspish, and yet affable and capable
man whom Binns could not say he admired as a man or a gentleman, but
who, he was sure, was a much better city editor than Batsford, and who
appreciated him, Binns, as Batsford never had, i.e., at his true worth.
Batsford had annoyed him with such a dog as Collins, whereas Waxby had
almost coddled him. And what a nose for news!

Mr. Waxby eyed him rather solemnly and enigmatically on this occasion,
and then observed: “Do you remember, Binns, that big M.P. train robbery
that took place out here near Dolesville about six months ago?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And do you remember that the Governor of this state and his military
staff, all in uniform, as well as a half dozen other big-wigs, were
on board, and that they all reported that there had been seven lusty
bandits, all heavily armed, some of whom went through the train and
robbed the passengers while others compelled the engineer and fireman
to get down, uncouple the engine, and then blow open the express car
door and safe for them and carry out the money, about twenty or thirty
thousand dollars all told?”

Binns remembered it well. He had been on the _News_ at the time, and
the full-page spread had attracted his keenest attention. It was
illustrative, as he thought, of the character of this region--raw and
still daring. It smacked so much of the lawlessness of the forties,
when pack-train and stage-coach robberies were the rule and not the
exception. It had caused his hair to tingle at the roots at times so
real was it. Never had he been so close, as it were, to anything so
dramatic.

“Yes, sir, I remember it very well,” he replied.

“And do you remember how the newspapers laughed over the fact that
the Governor and his military staff had crawled into their berths and
didn’t come out again until the train had started?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well now, Binns, just read this,” and here Mr. Waxby handed him a
telegram, the while his eyes gleamed with a keen humorous light, and
Mr. Binns read:

  “Medicine Flats, M. K.

  “Lem Rollins arrested here to-day confesses to single-handed robbery
  of M. P. express west of Dolesville February 2d last. Money recovered.
  Rollins being brought to O---- via C.T.&A. this p.m. Should arrive
  six-thirty.”

“Apparently,” cackled Mr. Waxby, “there was nothing to that
seven-bandit story at all, Binns. There weren’t any seven robbers, but
just one, and they’ve caught him, and he’s confessed,” and here he
burst into more laughter.

“No, Binns,” went on Waxby, “if this is really true, it is a wonderful
story. You don’t often find one man holding up a whole train anywhere
and getting away with twenty or thirty thousand dollars. It’s amazing.
I’ve decided that we won’t wait for him to arrive, but that you’re to
go out and meet him. According to this time-table you can take a local
that leaves here at two-fifteen and get to Pacific fifteen minutes
ahead of the express on which he is coming in, and you’ve just about
time to make it. That will give you all of an hour and a half in which
to interview him. It’s just possible that the _News_ and the other
papers won’t get wind of this in time to send a man. Think of the
opportunity it gives you to study him! No seven robbers, remember, but
just one! And the Governor and his whole staff on board! Make him tell
what he thinks of the Governor and his staff. Make him talk. Ha! ha!
You’ll have him all to yourself. Think of that! And they crawled into
their berths! Ha! ha! Gee whiz, you’ve got the chance of a lifetime!”

Mr. Binns stared at the telegram. He recalled the detailed descriptions
of the actions of the seven robbers, how some of them had prowled
up and down outside the train, while others went through it rifling
the passengers, and still others, forward, overawed the engineer and
fireman, broke open and robbed the express car safe in the face of an
armed messenger as well as mailman and trainmen, and how they had then
decamped into the dark. How could one man have done it? It couldn’t be
true!

Nevertheless he arose, duly impressed. It would be no easy task to get
just the right touch, but he felt that he might. If only the train
weren’t over-run with other reporters! He stuffed some notepaper into
his pocket and bustled down to the Union Station--if Mr. Binns could be
said to _bustle_. Here he encountered his first hitch.

On inquiring for a ticket to Pacific, the slightly disturbing response
of “Which road?” was made.

“Are there two?” asked Mr. Binns.

“Yes--M.P. and C.T.&A.”

“They both go to Pacific, do they?”

“Yes.”

“Which train leaves first?”

“C.T.&A. It’s waiting now.”

Mr. Binns hesitated, but there was no time to lose. It didn’t make any
difference, so long as he connected with the incoming express, as the
time-table showed that this did. He paid for his ticket and got aboard,
but now an irritating thought came to him. Supposing other reporters
from either the _News_ or one of the three afternoon papers were
aboard, especially the _News_! If there were not he would have this
fine task all to himself, and what a beat! But if there were others?
He walked forward to the smoker, which was the next car in front, and
there, to his intense disgust and nervous dissatisfaction, he spied,
of all people, the one man he would least have expected to find on
an assignment of this kind, the one man he least wanted to see--Mr.
Collins, no less, red-headed, serene, determined, a cigar between his
teeth, crouched low in his seat smoking and reading a paper as calmly
as though he were not bent upon the most important task of the year.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Binns irritably and even bitterly.

He returned to his seat nervous and ill composed, all the more so
because he now recalled Collins’s venomous threat, “Wait’ll we get a
real case some time, you and me.” The low creature! Why, he couldn’t
even write a decent sentence. Why should he fear him so? But just the
same he did fear him--why, he could scarcely say. Collins was so raw,
savage, brutal, in his mood and plans.

But why, in heaven’s name, he now asked himself as he meditated in
his seat as to ways and means, should a man like Batsford send a man
like Collins, who couldn’t even write, to interpret a story and a
character of this kind? How could he hope to dig out the odd psychology
of this very queer case? Plainly he was too crude, too unintellectual
to get it straight. Nevertheless, here he was, and now, plainly, he
would have this awful creature to contend with. And Collins was so
bitter toward him. He would leave no trick unturned to beat him! These
country detectives and sheriff and railroad men, whoever they were or
wherever they came from, would be sure, on the instant, to make friends
with Collins, as they always did, and do their best to serve him.
They seemed to like that sort of man, worse luck. They might even, at
Collins’s instigation, refuse to let him interview the bandit at all!
If so, then what? But Collins would get something somehow, you might
be sure, secret details which they might not relate to him. It made
him nervous. Even if he got a chance he would have to interview this
wonderful bandit in front of this awful creature, this one man whom he
most despised, and who would deprive him of most of the benefit of all
his questions by writing as though he had thought of and asked all of
them himself. Think of it!

The dreary local sped on, and as it drew nearer and nearer to Pacific,
Binns became more and more nervous. For him the whole charm of this
beautiful September landscape through which he was speeding now was
all spoiled. When the train finally drew up at Pacific he jumped down,
all alive with the determination not to be outdone in any way, and yet
nervous and worried to a degree. Let Collins do his worst, he thought.
He would show him. Still--just then he saw the latter jumping down. At
the same time, Collins spied him, and on the instant his face clouded
over. He seemed fairly to bristle with an angry animal rage, and he
glared as though he would like to kill Binns, at the same time looking
around to see who else might get off. “My enemy!” was written all over
him. Seeing no one, he ran up to the station-agent and apparently
asked when the train from the West was due. Binns decided at once not
to trail, but instead sought information from his own conductor, who
assured him that the East-bound express would probably be on time five
minutes later, and would certainly stop here.

“We take the siding here,” he said. “You’ll hear the whistle in a few
minutes.”

“It always stops here, does it?” asked Binns anxiously.

“Always.”

As they talked, Collins came back to the platform’s edge and stood
looking up the track. At the same time this train pulled out, and a
few minutes later the whistle of the express was heard. Now for a real
contest, thought Binns. Somewhere in one of those cars would be this
astounding bandit surrounded by detectives, and his duty, in spite of
the indignity of it, would be to clamber aboard and get there first,
explain who he was, ingratiate himself into the good graces of the
captors and the prisoner, and begin his questioning, vanquishing
Collins as best he might--perhaps by the ease with which he should take
charge. In a few moments the express was rolling into the station, and
then Binns saw his enemy leap aboard and, with that iron effrontery
and savageness which always irritated Binns so much, race through the
forward cars to find the prisoner. Binns was about to essay the rear
cars, but just then the conductor, a portly, genial-looking soul,
stepped down beside him.

“Is Lem Rollins, the train robber they are bringing in from Bald Knob,
on here?” he inquired. “I’m from the _Star_, and I’ve been sent out to
interview him.”

“You’re on the wrong road, brother,” smiled the conductor. “He’s not
on this train. Those detective fellows have fooled you newspaper men,
I’m afraid. They’re bringing him in over the M.P., as I understand it.
They took him across from Bald Knob to Wahaba and caught the train
there--but I’ll tell you,” and here he took out a large open-face
silver watch and consulted it, “you might be able to catch him yet if
you run for it. It’s only across the field there. You see that little
yellow station over there? Well, that’s the depot. It’s due now, but
sometimes it’s a little late. You’ll have to run for it, though. You
haven’t a minute to spare.”

Binns was all aquiver on the instant. Suppose, in spite of Collins’s
zeal and savagery, he should outwit him yet by catching this other
train while he was searching this one! All the gameness of his youth
and profession rose up in him. Without stopping to thank his informer,
he leaped like a hare along the little path which cut diagonally across
this lone field and which was evidently well worn by human feet. As he
ran he wondered whether the genial conductor could possibly have lied
to him to throw him off the track, and also if his enemy, seeing him
running, had discovered his error by now and was following, granting
that the conductor had told him the truth. He looked back occasionally,
taking off his coat and glasses as he ran, and even throwing away
his cane. Apparently Collins was still searching the other train.
And now Binns at the same time, looking eagerly forward toward the
other station, saw a semaphore arm which stood at right angles to the
station lower itself for a clear track for some train. At the same time
he also spied a mail-bag hanging out on a take-post arm, indicating
that whatever this train was and whichever way it might be going, it
was not going to stop here. He turned, still uncertain as to whether
he had made a mistake in not searching the other train. Supposing
the conductor had deliberately fooled him! Suppose Collins had made
some preliminary arrangements of which he knew nothing? Suppose he
had! Supposing the burglar were really on there, and even now Collins
was busy with the opening questions of his interview, while he was
here, behind! Oh Lord, what a beat! And he would have no reasonable
explanation to offer except that he had been outwitted. What would
happen to him? He slowed up in his running, chill beads of sweat
bursting out on his face as he did so, but then, looking backward, he
saw the train begin to move and from it, as if shot out of a gun, the
significant form of Collins leap down and begin to run along this
same path. Then, by George, the robber was not on it, after all! The
conductor had told him the truth! Ha! Collins would now attempt to make
this other train. He had been told that the bandit was coming in on
this. Binns could see him speeding along the path at top speed, his hat
off, his hands waving nervously about. But by now Binns had reached the
station a good three minutes ahead of his rival.

Desperately he ran into it, a tiny thing, sticking his eager perspiring
face in at the open office window, and calling to the stout, truculent
little occupant of it:

“When is the East-bound M.P. express due here?”

“Now,” replied the agent surlily.

“Does it stop?”

“No, it don’t stop.”

“Can it be stopped?”

“No, it _cannot_!”

“You mean to say you have no right to stop it?”

“I mean I won’t stop it.”

As they spoke there came the ominous shriek of the express’s whistle
tearing on toward them. For the moment he was almost willing that
Collins should join him if only he could make the train and gain this
interview. He must have it. Waxby expected him to get it. Think of what
a beat he would have if he won--what Waxby would think if he failed!

“Would five dollars stop it?” he asked desperately, diving into his
pocket.

“No.”

“Will ten?”

“It might,” the agent replied crustily, and rose to his feet.

“Stop it,” urged Binns feverishly, handing over the bill.

The agent took it, and grabbing a tablet of yellow order blanks which
lay before him, scribbled something on the face of one and ran outside,
holding it up at arm’s length as he did so. At the same time he called
to Binns:

“Run on down the track! Run after it. She won’t stop here--she can’t.
She’ll go a thousand feet before she can slow up. Get on down there,
and after you’re on I’ll let ’er go.”

He waved the yellow paper desperately, while Binns, all tense with
excitement and desire, began running as fast as he could in the
direction indicated. Now, if he were lucky, he would make it, and
Collins would be left behind--think of it! He could get them to go
ahead, maybe, before Collins could get aboard. Oh, my! As he ran and
thought, he heard the grinding wheels of the express rushing up behind
him. In a thought, as it were, it was alongside and past, its wheels
shrieking and emitting sparks. True enough, it was stopping! He would
be able to get on! Oh, glory! And maybe Collins wouldn’t be able to!
Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It was far ahead of him now, but almost
stock-still, and he was running like mad. As he ran he could hear the
final gritty screech of the wheels against the brakes as the train came
to a full stop farther on, and then coming up and climbing aboard,
breathless and gasping painfully, he looked back, only to see that his
rival had taken a diagonal course across the common, and was now not
more than a hundred feet behind. He would make the train if he kept
this up. It could scarcely be started quickly enough to leave him
behind, even if Binns paid for it. Instead of setting himself to the
stern task of keeping Mr. Collins off the train, however, as assuredly
Mr. Collins would have done--with his fists or his feet, if necessary,
or his money--Mr. Binns now hesitated, uncertain what to do. On the
rear platform with him was a brakeman newly stepped forth and, coming
out of the door, the conductor.

“Let her go!” he cried to the conductor. “Let her go! It’s all right!
Go on!”

“Don’t that other fellow want to get on?” asked the latter curiously.

“No, no, no!” Binns exclaimed irritably and yet pleading. “Don’t let
him on! He hasn’t any right on here. I arranged to stop this train. I’m
from the _Star_. I’ll pay you if you don’t let him on. It’s the train
robber I want. Go ahead,” but even as he spoke Mr. Collins came up,
panting and wet, but with a leer of triumph and joy over his rival’s
discomfiture written all over his face as he pulled himself up the
steps.

“You thought you’d leave me behind, didn’t you?” he sneered as he
pushed his way upward. “Well, I fooled you this time, didn’t I?”

Now was the crucial moment of Mr. Binns’s career had his courage been
equal to it, but it was not. He had the opportunity to do the one
thing which might have wrested victory from defeat--that is, push Mr.
Collins off and keep him off. The train was beginning to move. But
instead of employing this raw force which Mr. Collins would assuredly
have employed, he hesitated and debated, unable in his super-refinement
to make up his mind, while Mr. Collins, not to be daunted or parleyed
with, dashed into the car in search of the robber. In the sudden
immensity of his discomfiture, Binns now followed him with scarcely
a thought for the moment, only to see Collins bustling up to the
bandit in the third car ahead who, handcuffed to a country sheriff and
surrounded by several detectives, was staring idly at the passengers.

“Gee, sport,” the latter was saying as Mr. Binns sat down, patting
the burglar familiarly on the knee and fixing him with that basilisk
gaze of his which was intended to soothe and flatter the victim, “that
was a great trick you pulled off. The paper’ll be crazy to find out
how you did it. My paper, the _News_, wants a whole page of it. It
wants your picture, too. Say, you didn’t really do it all alone, did
you? Well, that’s what I call swell work, eh, Cap?” and now he turned
his ingratiating leer on the country sheriff and the detectives. In
a moment or two more he was telling them all what an intimate friend
he was of “Billy” Desmond, the chief of detectives of O---- and Mr.
So-and-So, the chief of police, as well as various other dignitaries of
that world.

Plainly, admitted Binns to himself, he was beaten now, as much so
as this burglar, he thought. His great opportunity was gone. What a
victory this might have been, and now look at it! Disgruntled, he
sat down beside his enemy, beginning to think what to ask, the while
the latter, preening himself in his raw way on his success, began
congratulating the prisoner on his great feat.

“The dull stuff!” thought Mr. Binns. “To think that I should have
to contend with a creature like this! And these are the people he
considers something! And he wants a whole page for the _News_! My
word! He’d do well if he wrote a half-column alone.”

Still, to his intense chagrin, he could not fail to see that Mr.
Collins was making excellent headway, not only with the country
sheriff, who was a big bland creature, but the detectives and even
the burglar himself. The latter was a most unpromising specimen for
so unique a deed--short, broad-shouldered, heavy-limbed, with a
squarish, inexpressive, even dull-looking face, blue-gray eyes, dark
brown hair, big, lumpy, rough hands, and a tanned and seamed skin. He
wore the cheap, nondescript clothes of a laborer, a blue “hickory”
shirt, blackish-gray trousers, brownish-maroon coat, and a red bandana
handkerchief in lieu of a collar. On his head was a small round brown
hat pulled down over his eyes after the manner of a cap. He had the
still, indifferent expression of a captive bird, and when Binns finally
faced him and sat down, he seemed scarcely to notice either him or
Collins, or if so with eyes that told nothing. Binns often wondered
afterward what he really did think. At the same time he was so incensed
at the mere presence of Collins that he could scarcely speak.

The latter had the average detective-politician-gambler’s habit of
simulating an intense interest and an enthusiasm which he did not
feel, his face wreathing itself in a cheery smile, the while his eyes
followed one like those of a hawk, attempting all the while to discover
whether his assumed enthusiasm or friendship was being accepted at its
face value or not. The only time Binns seemed to obtain the least grip
on this situation, or to impress himself on the minds of the detectives
and prisoner, was when it came to those finer shades of questioning
which concerned just why, for what ulterior reasons, the burglar had
attempted this deed alone. But even here, Binns noticed that his
confrère was all ears, and making copious notes.

But always, to Binns’s astonishment and chagrin, the prisoner as well
as his captors paid more attention to Collins than they did to himself.
They turned to him as to a lamp, and seemed to be really immensely more
impressed with him than with himself, although the principal lines of
questioning fell to him. After a time he became so dour and enraged
that he could think of but one thing that would really have satisfied
him, and that was to attack Collins physically and give him a good
beating.

However, by degrees and between them, the story was finally extracted,
and a fine tale it made. It appeared that up to seven or eight months
preceding the robbery, possibly a year, Rollins had never thought of
being a train robber but had been only a freight brakeman or yard-hand
on this same road at one of its division points. Latterly he had even
been promoted to be a sort of superior switchman and assistant freight
handler at some station where there was considerable work of this kind.
Previous to his railroad work he had been a livery stable helper in the
town where he was eventually apprehended, and before that a farm-hand
somewhere near the same place. About a year before the crime, owing to
hard times, this road had laid off a large number of men, including
Rollins, and reduced the wages of all others by as much as ten per
cent. Naturally a great deal of labor discontent ensued, and strikes,
riots, and the like were the order of the day. Again, a certain number
of train robberies which were charged and traced to discharged and
dissatisfied employees now followed. The methods of successful train
robbing were then and there so cleverly set forth by the average
newspaper that nearly any burglar so inclined could follow them. Among
other things, while working as a freight handler, Rollins had heard of
the many money shipments made by express companies in their express
cars, their large amounts, the manner in which they were guarded, and
so on.

The road for which he worked at this time, the M.P., was, as he now
learned, a very popular route for money shipments both East and West.
And although express messengers (as those in charge of the car and
its safe were called) were well and invariably armed owing to the
many train robberies which had been occurring in the West recently,
still these assaults had not been without success. Indeed, the deaths
of various firemen, engineers, messengers, conductors, and even
passengers, and the fact that much money had recently been stolen
and never recovered, had not only encouraged the growth of banditry
everywhere, but had put such an unreasoning fear into most employees
connected with the roads that but few even of those especially picked
guards ventured to give these marauders battle.

But just the same, the psychology which eventually resulted in this
amazing single-handed attempt and its success was not so much that
Rollins was a poor and discharged railroad hand unable to find any
other form of employment, although that was a part of it, or that he
was an amazingly cold, cruel and subtle soul, which he was not by any
means, but that he was really largely unconscious of the tremendous
risks he was taking. He was just mentally “thick”--well insulated,
as it were. This was a fact which Binns had to bring out and which
Collins noted. He had never, as it now developed, figured it out from
the point of danger, being more or less lobster-like in his nervous
organism, but solely from the point of view of success. In sum, in his
idleness, having wandered back to his native region where he had first
started out as a livery hand, he had now fallen in love with a young
girl there, and then realizing, for the first time perhaps, that he was
rather hard pressed for cash and unable to make her such presents as
he desired, he had begun to think seriously of some method of raising
money. Even this had not resulted in anything until latterly, another
ex-railroad hand who had been laid off by this same company arrived
and proposed, in connection with a third man whom he knew, to rob a
train. At this time Rollins had rejected this scheme as not feasible,
not wishing to connect himself with others in any such crime. Later,
however, his own condition becoming more pressing, he had begun to
think of train robbing as a means of setting himself up in life, only,
as he reasoned, it must be alone.

Why alone? queried Binns.

That was the point all were so anxious to discover--why alone, with all
the odds against him?

Well, he couldn’t say exactly. He had just “kind o’ sort o’ thort,” as
he expressed it, that he might frighten them into letting him alone!
Other bandits (so few as three in one case of which he had read) had
held up large trains. Why not one? Revolver shots fired about a train
easily frightened all passengers as well as all trainmen, so the other
robbers had told him, and anyhow it was a life to death job either
way, and it would be better for him, he thought, if he worked it out
alone instead of with others. Often, he said, other men “squealed,” or
they had girls who told on them. He knew that. Binns looked at him,
intensely interested and all but moved by the sheer courage, or “gall,”
or “grit,” imbedded somewhere in this stocky frame.

But how could he hope to overcome the engineer, fireman, baggage man,
express messenger, mailmen, conductor, brakeman and passengers, to
say nothing of the Governor and his staff? How? By the way, did he
know at the time that the Governor and his staff were on board? No,
he hadn’t known that until afterward, and as for the others, well, he
just thought he could overawe them. Collins’s eyes were luminous as
Rollins said this, his face radiant. Far more than Binns, he seemed to
understand and even approve of the raw force of all this.

The manner in which Rollins came to fix on this particular train to rob
was also told. Every Thursday and Friday, or so he had been told while
he was assistant freight handler, a limited which ran West at midnight
past Dolesville carried larger shipments of money than on other nights.
This was due to week-end exchanges between Eastern and Western banks,
although he did not know that. Having decided on the train, although
not on the day, he had proceeded by degrees to secure from one distant
small town and another, and at different times so as to avoid all
chance of detection, first, a small handbag from which he had scraped
all evidence of the maker’s name; six or seven fused sticks of giant
powder such as farmers use to blow up stumps; two revolvers holding
six cartridges each, and some cartridges; and cord and cloth, out of
which he proposed to make bundles of the money if necessary. Placing
all of these in his bag, which he kept always beside him, he next
visited Dolesville, a small town nearest the spot which he had fixed on
in his mind as the place for his crime, and reconnoitering it and its
possibilities, finally arranged all his plans to a nicety.

Just at the outskirts of this hamlet, as he now told Binns and Collins,
which had been selected because of its proximity to a lone wood and
marsh, stood a large water-tank at which this express as well as nearly
all other trains stopped for water. Beyond it, about five miles, was
the wood with its marsh, where he planned to have the train stopped.
The express, as he learned, was regularly due at about one in the
morning. The nearest town beyond the wood was all of five miles away, a
mere hamlet like this one.

On the night in question, between eight and nine, he carried the bag,
minus its revolvers and sticks of giant powder, which were now on his
person, to that exact spot opposite the wood where he wished the train
to stop, and left it there beside the railroad track. He then walked
back the five miles to the water-tank, where he concealed himself and
waited for the train. When it stopped, and just before it started
again, he slipped in between the engine tender and the front baggage
car, which was “blind” at both ends. The train resumed its journey, but
on reaching the spot where he felt sure the bag should be, he could not
make it out. The engine headlight did not seem to reveal it. Fearing
to lose his chance and realizing that he was at about the place where
he had left it, he rose up, and climbing over the coal-box, covered
the two men in the cab, and compelled them to stop the train, dismount
and uncouple the engine. Then, revolver in hand, he drove them before
him to the express car door where, presenting one with a fused stick
of giant powder, he forced him to blow open the door; the messenger
within, still refusing to open it although he would not fire, for fear
of killing either the engineer or fireman. Both engineer and fireman,
at his command, then entered the car and blew open the money safe,
throwing out the packages of bills and coin at his word, the while
Rollins, realizing the danger of either trainmen or passengers coming
forward, had been firing a few shots backward toward the rear coaches
so as to overawe the passengers, and at the same time kept calling to
purely imaginary companions to keep watch there. It was these shots and
calls that had presumably sent the Governor and his staff scurrying
to their berths. They also put the fear of death into the minds of
the engineer and fireman and messenger, who imagined that he had many
confrères on the other side of the express car but for some reason,
because he was the leader, no doubt, preferred to act alone.

“Don’t kill anybody, boys, unless you have to,” is what Rollins said he
called, or “That’s all right, Frank. Stay over there. Watch that side.
I’ll take care of these.” Then he would fire a few more shots, and so
all were deluded.

Once the express car door and safe had been blown open and the money
handed out, he had now compelled the engineer and fireman to come down,
recouple the engine, and pull away. Only after the train had safely
disappeared in the distance did he venture to gather up the various
packages, only since he had lost his bag and had no light, he had
to fumble about and make a bag of his coat for them. With this over
his shoulder, he eventually staggered off into the wood and marsh,
concealing it under muck and stones, and then making for safety himself.

But, as it turned out, two slight errors, one of forgetfulness and
one of eyesight, caused him to finally lose the fruit of his victory.
The loss of the bag, in which he had first placed and then forgotten
an initialed handkerchief belonging to his love, eventually brought
about his capture. It is true that he had gone back to look for the
bag, without, however, remembering that the handkerchief was in it,
but fearing capture if he lingered too long, had made off after a
time without it. Later a posse of detectives and citizens arriving
and finding the bag with the initialed handkerchief inside, they were
eventually able to trace him. For, experts meditating on the crime,
decided that owing to the hard times and the laying-off of employees,
some of the latter might have had a hand in it, and so, in due time,
the whereabouts and movements of each and every one of them was gone
into, resulting in the discovery finally that this particular ex-helper
had returned rather recently to his semi-native town and had there been
going with a certain girl, and that even now he was about to marry her.
Also, it was said that he was possessed of unusual means, for him.
Next, it was discovered that her initials corresponded to those on the
handkerchief. Presto, Mr. Rollins was arrested, a search made of his
room, and nearly all of the money recovered. Then, being “caught with
the goods,” he confessed, and here on this day was he being hurried
to O---- to be jailed and sentenced, while Mr. Binns and Mr. Collins,
like harpies, hovered over him, anxious to make literary capital of his
error.

The only thing that consoled Mr. Binns, now that this story was finally
told, was that although he had failed to make it impossible for Collins
to get it, when it came to the writing of it he would be able to outdo
him, making a better and more connected narrative. Still, even here he
was a little dubious. During this interview Collins had been making
endless notes, putting down each least shade of Binns’s questioning,
and with the aid of one or several of the best men of the _News_ would
probably be able to work it out. Then what would be left?

But as they were nearing O---- a new situation intruded itself which
soon threatened on the face of it to rob Binns of nearly, if not quite,
all his advantage. And this related, primarily, to the matter of a
picture. It was most essential that one should be made, either here or
in the city, only neither Waxby nor himself, nor the city editor of the
_News_ apparently, had thought to include an artist on this expedition.
Now the importance of this became more and more apparent, and Collins,
with that keen sense he had for making tremendous capital of seeming
by-products, suggested, after first remarking that he “guessed” they
would have to send to police headquarters afterward and have one made:

“How would it do, old man, if we took him up to the _News_ office after
we get in, and let your friends Hill and Weaver make a picture of him?”
(These two were intimates of Binns in the art department, as Collins
happened to know.) “Then both of us could get one right away. I’d say
take him to the _Star_, only the _News_ is so much nearer” (which was
true), “and we have that new flash-light machine, you know” (which was
also true, the _Star_ being but poorly equipped in this respect). He
added a friendly aside to the effect that of course this depended on
whether the prisoner and officers in charge were willing.

“No, no, no!” replied Binns irritably and suspiciously. “No, I won’t
do that. You mean you want to get him into the _News_ office first.
Not at all. I’ll never stand for that. Hill and Weaver are my friends,
but I won’t do it. If you want to bring him down to the _Star_, that’s
different. I’ll agree to that. Our art department can make pictures
just as good as yours, and you can have one.”

For a moment Collins’s face fell, but he soon returned to the attack.
From his manner one would have judged that he was actually desirous of
doing Binns a favor.

“But why not the _News_?” he insisted pleasantly. “Those two boys are
your friends. They wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Think of the
difference in the distance, the time we’ll save. We want to save time,
don’t we? Here it is nearly six-thirty, and by the time we get back to
the office it’ll be half-past seven or eight. It’s all right for you,
because you can write faster, but look at me. I’d just as lief go down
there as not, but what’s the difference? Besides the _News_ has got a
better plant, and you know it. Either Hill or Weaver’ll make a fine
picture, and they’ll give you one. Ain’t that all right?”

At once he sensed what it was that Collins wanted. What he really
understood was that if Collins could get this great train robber into
the office of the _News_ _first_, it would take away so much of the
sheer necessity he would be put to of repeating all he had heard and
seen en route. For once there, other staff members would be able to
take the criminal in hand and with the aid of what Collins had to
report, extract such a tale as even Binns himself could not better. In
addition, it would be such a triumph of reporting--to go out and bring
your subject in!

“No, it’s not,” replied Binns truculently, “and I won’t do it. It’s all
right about Hill and Weaver. I know they’ll give me a picture if the
paper will let them, but I know the paper won’t let them, and besides,
you’re not doing it for that reason. I know what you want. You want to
be able to claim in the morning that you brought this man to the _News_
_first_. I know you.”

For a moment Collins appeared to be quieted by this, and half seemed to
abandon the project. He took it up again after a few moments, however,
seemingly in the most conciliatory spirit in the world, only now he
kept boring Binns with his eyes, a thing which he had never attempted
before.

“Aw, come on,” he repeated genially, looking Binns squarely in the
eyes. “What’s the use being small about this? You know you’ve got the
best of the story anyhow. And you’re goin’ to get a picture too, the
same as us. If you don’t, then we’ll have to go clear to your office or
send a man down to the jail. Think of the time it’ll take. What’s the
use of that? One picture’s as good as another. And you can’t take any
good pictures down there to-night, anyhow, and you know it.”

As he talked he held Binns’s eyes with his own, and all at once the
latter began to feel a curious wave of warmth, ease and uncertainty
or confusion creep over him in connection with all this. What was so
wrong with this proposition, anyhow, he began to ask himself, even
while inwardly something was telling him that it was all wrong and
that he was making a great mistake. For the first time in his life,
and especially in connection with so trying a situation, he began
to feel an odd sense of ease and comfort, or as if surrounded by a
cloud of something that was comfortable and soothing. This scheme of
Collins’s was not so bad after all, he thought. What was wrong with it?
Hill and Weaver were his friends. They would make a good picture and
give him one. Everything Collins was saying seemed true enough, only,
only---- For the first time since knowing him, and in spite of all his
opposition of this afternoon and before, Binns found himself not hating
his rival as violently as he had in the past, but feeling as though he
weren’t such an utterly bad sort after all. Curiously, though, he still
didn’t believe a word that Collins said, but----

“To the _News_, sure,” he found himself saying in a dumb, half-numb
or sensuously warm way. “That wouldn’t be so bad. It’s nearer. What’s
wrong with that? Hill or Weaver will make a good picture seven or eight
inches long, and then I can take it along,” only at the same time he
was thinking to himself, “I shouldn’t really do this. I shouldn’t
think it. He’ll claim the credit of having brought this man to the
_News_ office. He’s a big bluff, and I hate him. I’ll be making a big
mistake. The _Star_ or nothing--that’s what I should say. Let him come
down to the _Star_.”

In the meantime they were entering O----, the station of which now
appeared. By now, somehow, Collins had not only convinced the officers,
but the prisoner himself. Binns could even see the rural love of show
and parade a-gleam in their eyes, their respect for the _News_, the
larger paper, as opposed to the _Star_. The _Star_ might be all right,
but plainly the _News_ was the great place in the sight of these rurals
for such an exhibition as this. What a pity, he thought, that he had
ever left the _News_!

As he arose with the others to leave the train he said dully, “No, I
won’t come in on this. It’s all right if you want to bring him down to
the _Star_, or you can take him to police headquarters. But I’m not
going to let you do this. You hear now, don’t you?”

But outside, Collins laying hold of his arm in an amazingly genial
fashion, seemed to come nearer to him humanly than he had ever dreamed
was possible before.

“You come up with me to the _News_ now,” Collins kept saying, “and then
I’ll go down with you to the _Star_, see? We’ll just let Hill or Weaver
take one picture, and then we’ll go down to your place--you see?”

Although Mr. Binns did not see, he went. For the time, nothing
seemed important. If Collins had stayed by him he could possibly
have prevented his writing any story at all. Even as Binns dreamed,
Collins hailed a carriage, and the six of them crowded into it and were
forthwith whirled away to the door of the _News_ where, once they had
reached it and Collins, the detectives, and the bandit began hurrying
across the sidewalk to that familiar door which once had meant so much
to him, Binns suddenly awoke. What was it--the door? Or the temporary
distraction of Collins? At any rate, he awoke now and made a frantic
effort to retrieve himself.

“Wait!” he called. “Say, hold on! Stop! I won’t do this at all. I don’t
agree to this!” but now it was too late. In a trice the prisoner,
officers, Collins and even himself were up the two or three low
steps of the main entrance and into the hall, and then seeing the
hopelessness of it he paused as they entered the elevator and was left
to meditate on the inexplicability of the thing that had been done to
him.

What was it? How had this low brute succeeded in doing this to him? By
the Lord, he had succeeded in hypnotizing him, or something very much
like it. What had become, then, of his superior brain, his intellectual
force, in the face of this gross savage desire on the part of Collins
to win? It was unbelievable. Collins had beaten him, and that in a
field and at a task at which he deemed himself unusually superior.

“Great heavens!” he suddenly exclaimed to himself. “That’s what he’s
done, he’s beaten me at my own game! He’s taken the prisoner, whom I
really had in my own hands at one time, into the office of our great
rival, and now in the morning it will all be in the paper! And I
allowed him to do it! And I had him beaten, too! Why didn’t I kick him
off the train? Why didn’t I bribe the conductor to help me? I could
have. I was afraid of him, that’s what it is. And to-morrow there’ll
be a long editorial in the _News_ telling how this fellow was brought
first to the _News_ and photographed, and they’ll have his picture to
prove it. Oh, Lord, what shall I do? How am I to get out of this?”

Disconsolate and weary, he groaned and swore for blocks as he made
his way toward the office of the _Star_. How to break it to Waxby!
How to explain! The exact truth meant disgrace, possibly dismissal.
He couldn’t tell really, as he had hoped he might, how he had all
but prevented Collins from obtaining any interview. Waxby would have
sniffed at his weakness in a crisis, put him down as a failure.

Reaching the office, he told another kind of story which was but a
half truth. What he could and did say was that the police, being
temperamentally _en rapport_ with Collins, had worked with him and
against the _Star_; that in spite of anything he could do, these rural
officers and detectives had preferred to follow Collins rather than
himself, that the superior position of the _News_ had lured them, and
that against his final and fierce protest they had eventually gone in
there, since the _News_ was on the natural route to the jail, and the
_Star_ was not.

Now it was Waxby’s turn to rage, and he did--not at Binns, but at the
low dogs of police who were always favoring the _News_ at the expense
of the _Star_. They had done it in the past, as he well knew, when he
was city editor of the _News_. Then it had pleased him--but now----

“I’ll fix them!” he squeaked shrilly. “I’ll make them sweat. No more
favors from me, by----,” and rushing a photographer to the jail he had
various pictures made, excellent ones, for that matter--only, what
was the good? The fact that the _News_ had the honor of making the
first picture of this celebrity under its own roof, its own vine and
fig-tree, was galling. As a matter of fact, Waxby by now was blaming
himself for not having sent an artist along.

But to Binns the sad part was that Collins had him beaten, and that in
the face of his self-boasted superiority. In spite of the fact that he
might slave over the text, as he did, giving it, because of his despair
and chagrin, all his best touches, still, the next morning, there
on the front page of the _News_, was a large picture of the bandit
seated in the sanctum sanctorum of the _News_, entirely surrounded by
reporters and editors, and with a portion of the figure, although not
the head, of the publisher himself in the background. And over it all
in extra large type was the caption:

“LOAN TRAIN ROBBER VISITS OFFICE OF _NEWS_ TO PAY HIS RESPECTS” while
underneath, in italics, was a full account of how _willingly_ he had
visited the _News_ because of its immense commercial, moral and other
forms of superiority.

Was Binns beaten?

Well, rather!

And did he feel it?

He suffered tortures, not only for days, but for weeks and months,
absolute tortures. The very thought of Collins made him want to rise
and slay him.

“To think,” he said over and over to himself, “that a low dog like
Collins on whom I wouldn’t wipe my feet intellectually, as it were,
could do this to me! He hypnotized me, by George! He did! He can! Maybe
he could do it again! I wonder if he knows? Am I really the lesser and
this scum the greater? Do writers grow on trees?”

Sad thought.

And some weeks later, meeting his old enemy one day on the street, he
had the immense dissatisfaction of seeing the light of triumph and
contempt in his eyes. The latter was so bold now, and getting along so
well as a _reporter_, or “newspaper man,” that he had the hardihood to
leer, sniff and exclaim:

“These swell reporters! These high-priced ink-slingers! Say, who got
the best of the train robber story, huh?”

And Binns replied----

But never mind what Binns replied. It wouldn’t be fit to read, and no
publisher would print it anyhow.




OLD ROGAUM AND HIS THERESA


In all Bleecker Street was no more comfortable doorway than that of the
butcher Rogaum, even if the first floor was given over to meat market
purposes. It was to one side of the main entrance, which gave ingress
to the butcher shop, and from it led up a flight of steps, at least
five feet wide, to the living rooms above. A little portico stood out
in front of it, railed on either side, and within was a second or final
door, forming, with the outer or storm door, a little area, where Mrs.
Rogaum and her children frequently sat of a summer’s evening. The outer
door was never locked, owing to the inconvenience it would inflict on
Mr. Rogaum, who had no other way of getting upstairs. In winter, when
all had gone to bed, there had been cases in which belated travelers
had taken refuge there from the snow or sleet. One or two newsboys
occasionally slept there, until routed out by Officer Maguire, who,
seeing it half open one morning at two o’clock, took occasion to look
in. He jogged the newsboys sharply with his stick, and then, when they
were gone, tried the inner door, which was locked.

“You ought to keep that outer door locked, Rogaum,” he observed to the
phlegmatic butcher the next evening, as he was passing, “people might
get in. A couple o’ kids was sleepin’ in there last night.”

“Ach, dot iss no difference,” answered Rogaum pleasantly. “I haf der
inner door locked, yet. Let dem sleep. Dot iss no difference.”

“Better lock it,” said the officer, more to vindicate his authority
than anything else. “Something will happen there yet.”

The door was never locked, however, and now of a summer evening Mrs.
Rogaum and the children made pleasant use of its recess, watching
the route of street cars and occasionally belated trucks go by. The
children played on the sidewalk, all except the budding Theresa
(eighteen just turning), who, with one companion of the neighborhood,
the pretty Kenrihan girl, walked up and down the block, laughing,
glancing, watching the boys. Old Mrs. Kenrihan lived in the next
block, and there, sometimes, the two stopped. There, also, they
most frequently pretended to be when talking with the boys in the
intervening side street. Young “Connie” Almerting and George Goujon
were the bright particular mashers who held the attention of the
maidens in this block. These two made their acquaintance in the
customary bold, boyish way, and thereafter the girls had an urgent
desire to be out in the street together after eight, and to linger
where the boys could see and overtake them.

Old Mrs. Rogaum never knew. She was a particularly fat, old German
lady, completely dominated by her liege and portly lord, and at nine
o’clock regularly, as he had long ago deemed meet and fit, she was wont
to betake her way upward and so to bed. Old Rogaum himself, at that
hour, closed the market and went to his chamber.

Before that all the children were called sharply, once from the
doorstep below and once from the window above, only Mrs. Rogaum did it
first and Rogaum last. It had come, because of a shade of lenience, not
wholly apparent in the father’s nature, that the older of the children
needed two callings and sometimes three. Theresa, now that she had “got
in” with the Kenrihan maiden, needed that many calls and even more.

She was just at that age for which mere thoughtless, sensory life holds
its greatest charm. She loved to walk up and down in the as yet bright
street where were voices and laughter, and occasionally moonlight
streaming down. What a nuisance it was to be called at nine, anyhow.
Why should one have to go in then, anyhow. What old fogies her parents
were, wishing to go to bed so early. Mrs. Kenrihan was not so strict
with her daughter. It made her pettish when Rogaum insisted, calling
as he often did, in German, “Come you now,” in a very hoarse and
belligerent voice.

She came, eventually, frowning and wretched, all the moonlight calling
her, all the voices of the night urging her to come back. Her innate
opposition due to her urgent youth made her coming later and later,
however, until now, by August of this, her eighteenth year, it was
nearly ten when she entered, and Rogaum was almost invariably angry.

“I vill lock you oudt,” he declared, in strongly accented English,
while she tried to slip by him each time. “I vill show you. Du sollst
come ven I say, yet. Hear now.”

“I’ll not,” answered Theresa, but it was always under her breath.

Poor Mrs. Rogaum troubled at hearing the wrath in her husband’s voice.
It spoke of harder and fiercer times which had been with her. Still she
was not powerful enough in the family councils to put in a weighty
word. So Rogaum fumed unrestricted.

There were other nights, however, many of them, and now that the young
sparks of the neighborhood had enlisted the girls’ attention, it was
a more trying time than ever. Never did a street seem more beautiful.
Its shabby red walls, dusty pavements and protruding store steps and
iron railings seemed bits of the ornamental paraphernalia of heaven
itself. These lights, the cars, the moon, the street lamps! Theresa
had a tender eye for the dashing Almerting, a young idler and loafer
of the district, the son of a stationer farther up the street. What a
fine fellow he was, indeed! What a handsome nose and chin! What eyes!
What authority! His cigarette was always cocked at a high angle, in
her presence, and his hat had the least suggestion of being set to one
side. He had a shrewd way of winking one eye, taking her boldly by the
arm, hailing her as, “Hey, Pretty!” and was strong and athletic and
worked (when he worked) in a tobacco factory. His was a trade, indeed,
nearly acquired, as he said, and his jingling pockets attested that he
had money of his own. Altogether he was very captivating.

“Aw, whaddy ya want to go in for?” he used to say to her, tossing his
head gayly on one side to listen and holding her by the arm, as old
Rogaum called. “Tell him yuh didn’t hear.”

“No, I’ve got to go,” said the girl, who was soft and plump and fair--a
Rhine maiden type.

“Well, yuh don’t have to go just yet. Stay another minute. George, what
was that fellow’s name that tried to sass us the other day?”

“Theresa!” roared old Rogaum forcefully. “If you do not now come! Ve
vill see!”

“I’ve got to go,” repeated Theresa with a faint effort at starting.
“Can’t you hear? Don’t hold me. I haf to.”

“Aw, whaddy ya want to be such a coward for? Y’ don’t have to go. He
won’t do nothin’ tuh yuh. My old man was always hollerin’ like that up
tuh a coupla years ago. Let him holler! Say, kid, but yuh got sweet
eyes! They’re as blue! An’ your mouth----”

“Now stop! You hear me!” Theresa would protest softly, as, swiftly, he
would slip an arm about her waist and draw her to him, sometimes in a
vain, sometimes in a successful effort to kiss her.

As a rule she managed to interpose an elbow between her face and
his, but even then he would manage to touch an ear or a cheek or her
neck--sometimes her mouth, full and warm--before she would develop
sufficient energy to push him away and herself free. Then she would
protest mock earnestly or sometimes run away.

“Now, I’ll never speak to you any more, if that’s the way you’re going
to do. My father don’t allow me to kiss boys, anyhow,” and then she
would run, half ashamed, half smiling to herself as he would stare
after her, or if she lingered, develop a kind of anger and even rage.

“Aw, cut it! Whaddy ya want to be so shy for? Don’tcha like me? What’s
gettin’ into yuh, anyhow? Hey?”

In the meantime George Goujon and Myrtle Kenrihan, their companions,
might be sweeting and going through a similar contest, perhaps a
hundred feet up the street or near at hand. The quality of old Rogaum’s
voice would by now have become so raucous, however, that Theresa would
have lost all comfort in the scene and, becoming frightened, hurry
away. Then it was often that both Almerting and Goujon as well as
Myrtle Kenrihan would follow her to the corner, almost in sight of the
irate old butcher.

“Let him call,” young Almerting would insist, laying a final hold on
her soft white fingers and causing her to quiver thereby.

“Oh, no,” she would gasp nervously. “I can’t.”

“Well, go on, then,” he would say, and with a flip of his heel would
turn back, leaving Theresa to wonder whether she had alienated him
forever or no. Then she would hurry to her father’s door.

“Muss ich all my time spenden calling, mit you on de streeds oudt?” old
Rogaum would roar wrathfully, the while his fat hand would descend on
her back. “Take dot now. Vy don’d you come ven I call? In now. I vill
show you. Und come you yussed vunce more at dis time--ve vill see if I
am boss in my own house, aber! Komst du vun minute nach ten to-morrow
und you vill see vot you vill get. I vill der door lock. Du sollst
not in kommen. Mark! Oudt sollst du stayen--oudt!” and he would glare
wrathfully at her retreating figure.

Sometimes Theresa would whimper, sometimes cry or sulk. She almost
hated her father for his cruelty, “the big, fat, rough thing,” and just
because she wanted to stay out in the bright streets, too! Because he
was old and stout and wanted to go to bed at ten, he thought every one
else did. And outside was the dark sky with its stars, the street
lamps, the cars, the tinkle and laughter of eternal life!

“Oh!” she would sigh as she undressed and crawled into her small neat
bed. To think that she had to live like this all her days! At the
same time old Rogaum was angry and equally determined. It was not so
much that he imagined that his Theresa was in bad company as yet, but
he wished to forefend against possible danger. This was not a good
neighborhood by any means. The boys around here were tough. He wanted
Theresa to pick some nice sober youth from among the other Germans he
and his wife knew here and there--at the Lutheran Church, for instance.
Otherwise she shouldn’t marry. He knew she only walked from his shop
to the door of the Kenrihans and back again. Had not his wife told him
so? If he had thought upon what far pilgrimage her feet had already
ventured, or had even seen the dashing Almerting hanging near, then had
there been wrath indeed. As it was, his mind was more or less at ease.

On many, many evenings it was much the same. Sometimes she got in on
time, sometimes not, but more and more “Connie” Almerting claimed her
for his “steady,” and bought her ice-cream. In the range of the short
block and its confining corners it was all done, lingering by the
curbstone and strolling a half block either way in the side streets,
until she had offended seriously at home, and the threat was repeated
anew. He often tried to persuade her to go on picnics or outings of
various kinds, but this, somehow, was not to be thought of at her
age--at least with him. She knew her father would never endure the
thought, and never even had the courage to mention it, let alone run
away. Mere lingering with him at the adjacent street corners brought
stronger and stronger admonishments--even more blows and the threat
that she should not get in at all.

Well enough she meant to obey, but on one radiant night late in June
the time fled too fast. The moon was so bright, the air so soft. The
feel of far summer things was in the wind and even in this dusty
street. Theresa, in a newly starched white summer dress, had been
loitering up and down with Myrtle when as usual they encountered
Almerting and Goujon. Now it was ten, and the regular calls were
beginning.

“Aw, wait a minute,” said “Connie.” “Stand still. He won’t lock yuh
out.”

“But he will, though,” said Theresa. “You don’t know him.”

“Well, if he does, come on back to me. I’ll take care of yuh. I’ll be
here. But he won’t though. If you stayed out a little while he’d letcha
in all right. That’s the way my old man used to try to do me but it
didn’t work with me. I stayed out an’ he let me in, just the same.
Don’tcha let him kidja.” He jingled some loose change in his pocket.

Never in his life had he had a girl on his hands at any unseasonable
hour, but it was nice to talk big, and there was a club to which he
belonged, The Varick Street Roosters, and to which he had a key. It
would be closed and empty at this hour, and she could stay there until
morning, if need be or with Myrtle Kenrihan. He would take her there if
she insisted. There was a sinister grin on the youth’s face.

By now Theresa’s affections had carried her far. This youth with his
slim body, his delicate strong hands, his fine chin, straight mouth and
hard dark eyes--how wonderful he seemed! He was but nineteen to her
eighteen but cold, shrewd, daring. Yet how tender he seemed to her, how
well worth having! Always, when he kissed her now, she trembled in the
balance. There was something in the iron grasp of his fingers that went
through her like fire. His glance held hers at times when she could
scarcely endure it.

“I’ll wait, anyhow,” he insisted.

Longer and longer she lingered, but now for once no voice came.

She began to feel that something was wrong--a greater strain than if
old Rogaum’s voice had been filling the whole neighborhood.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Gee, but you’re a coward, yuh are!” said he derisively. “What ’r yuh
always so scared about? He always says he’ll lock yuh out, but he never
does.”

“Yes, but he will,” she insisted nervously. “I think he has this time.
You don’t know him. He’s something awful when he gets real mad. Oh,
Connie, I must go!” For the sixth or seventh time she moved, and once
more he caught her arm and waist and tried to kiss her, but she slipped
away from him.

“Ah, yuh!” he exclaimed. “I wish he would lock yuh out!”

At her own doorstep she paused momentarily, more to soften her progress
than anything. The outer door was open as usual, but not the inner.
She tried it, but it would not give. It was locked! For a moment she
paused, cold fear racing over her body, and then knocked.

No answer.

Again she rattled the door, this time nervously, and was about to cry
out.

Still no answer.

At last she heard her father’s voice, hoarse and indifferent, not
addressed to her at all, but to her mother.

“Let her go, now,” it said savagely, from the front room where he
supposed she could not hear. “I vill her a lesson teach.”

“Hadn’t you better let her in now, yet?” pleaded Mrs. Rogaum faintly.

“No,” insisted Mr. Rogaum. “Nefer! Let her go now. If she vill alvays
stay oudt, let her stay now. Ve vill see how she likes dot.”

His voice was rich in wrath, and he was saving up a good beating for
her into the bargain, that she knew. She would have to wait and wait
and plead, and when she was thoroughly wretched and subdued he would
let her in and beat her--such a beating as she had never received in
all her born days.

Again the door rattled, and still she got no answer. Not even her call
brought a sound.

Now, strangely, a new element, not heretofore apparent in her nature
but nevertheless wholly there, was called into life, springing in
action as Diana, full formed. Why should he always be so harsh? She
hadn’t done anything but stay out a little later than usual. He was
always so anxious to keep her in and subdue her. For once the cold
chill of her girlish fears left her, and she wavered angrily.

“All right,” she said, some old German stubbornness springing up, “I
won’t knock. You don’t need to let me in, then.”

A suggestion of tears was in her eyes, but she backed firmly out onto
the stoop and sat down, hesitating. Old Rogaum saw her, lowering down
from the lattice, but said nothing. He would teach her for once what
were proper hours!

At the corner, standing, Almerting also saw her. He recognized the
simple white dress, and paused steadily, a strange thrill racing
over him. Really they had locked her out! Gee, this was new. It was
great, in a way. There she was, white, quiet, shut out, waiting at her
father’s doorstep.

Sitting thus, Theresa pondered a moment, her girlish rashness and anger
dominating her. Her pride was hurt and she felt revengeful. They would
shut her out, would they? All right, she would go out and they should
look to it how they would get her back--the old curmudgeons. For the
moment the home of Myrtle Kenrihan came to her as a possible refuge,
but she decided that she need not go there yet. She had better wait
about awhile and see--or walk and frighten them. He would beat her,
would he? Well, maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. She might come
back, but still that was a thing afar off. Just now it didn’t matter so
much. “Connie” was still there on the corner. He loved her dearly. She
felt it.

Getting up, she stepped to the now quieting sidewalk and strolled up
the street. It was a rather nervous procedure, however. There were
street cars still, and stores lighted and people passing, but soon
these would not be, and she was locked out. The side streets were
already little more than long silent walks and gleaming rows of lamps.

At the corner her youthful lover almost pounced upon her.

“Locked out, are yuh?” he asked, his eyes shining.

For the moment she was delighted to see him, for a nameless dread had
already laid hold of her. Home meant so much. Up to now it had been her
whole life.

“Yes,” she answered feebly.

“Well, let’s stroll on a little,” said the boy. He had not as yet quite
made up his mind what to do, but the night was young. It was so fine to
have her with him--his.

At the farther corner they passed Officers Maguire and Delahanty, idly
swinging their clubs and discussing politics.

“’Tis a shame,” Officer Delahanty was saying, “the way things are run
now,” but he paused to add, “Ain’t that old Rogaum’s girl over there
with young Almerting?”

“It is,” replied Maguire, looking after.

“Well, I’m thinkin’ he’d better be keepin’ an eye on her,” said the
former. “She’s too young to be runnin’ around with the likes o’ him.”

Maguire agreed. “He’s a young tough,” he observed. “I never liked him.
He’s too fresh. He works over here in Myer’s tobacco factory, and
belongs to The Roosters. He’s up to no good, I’ll warrant that.”

“Teach ’em a lesson, I would,” Almerting was saying to Theresa as they
strolled on. “We’ll walk around a while an’ make ’em think yuh mean
business. They won’t lock yuh out any more. If they don’t let yuh in
when we come back I’ll find yuh a place, all right.”

His sharp eyes were gleaming as he looked around into her own. Already
he had made up his mind that she should not go back if he could help
it. He knew a better place than home for this night, anyhow--the club
room of the Roosters, if nowhere else. They could stay there for a
time, anyhow.

By now old Rogaum, who had seen her walking up the street alone, was
marveling at her audacity, but thought she would soon come back. It was
amazing that she should exhibit such temerity, but he would teach her!
Such a whipping! At half-past ten, however, he stuck his head out of
the open window and saw nothing of her. At eleven, the same. Then he
walked the floor.

At first wrathful, then nervous, then nervous and wrathful, he finally
ended all nervous, without a scintilla of wrath. His stout wife sat up
in bed and began to wring her hands.

“Lie down!” he commanded. “You make me sick. I know vot I am doing!”

“Is she still at der door?” pleaded the mother.

“No,” he said. “I don’t tink so. She should come ven I call.”

His nerves were weakening, however, and now they finally collapsed.

“She vent de stread up,” he said anxiously after a time. “I vill go
after.”

Slipping on his coat, he went down the stairs and out into the night.
It was growing late, and the stillness and gloom of midnight were
nearing. Nowhere in sight was his Theresa. First one way and then
another he went, looking here, there, everywhere, finally groaning.

“Ach, Gott!” he said, the sweat bursting out on his brow, “vot in
Teufel’s name iss dis?”

He thought he would seek a policeman, but there was none. Officer
Maguire had long since gone for a quiet game in one of the neighboring
saloons. His partner had temporarily returned to his own beat. Still
old Rogaum hunted on, worrying more and more.

Finally he bethought him to hasten home again, for she must have got
back. Mrs. Rogaum, too, would be frantic if she had not. If she were
not there he must go to the police. Such a night! And his Theresa----
This thing could not go on.

As he turned into his own corner he almost ran, coming up to the little
portico wet and panting. At a puffing step he turned, and almost fell
over a white body at his feet, a prone and writhing woman.

“Ach, Gott!” he cried aloud, almost shouting in his distress and
excitement. “Theresa, vot iss dis? Wilhelmina, a light now. Bring a
light now, I say, for himmel’s sake! Theresa hat sich _umgebracht_.
Help!”

He had fallen to his knees and was turning over the writhing, groaning
figure. By the pale light of the street, however, he could make out
that it was not his Theresa, fortunately, as he had at first feared,
but another and yet there was something very like her in the figure.

“Um!” said the stranger weakly. “Ah!”

The dress was gray, not white as was his Theresa’s, but the body was
round and plump. It cut the fiercest cords of his intensity, this
thought of death to a young woman, but there was something else about
the situation which made him forget his own troubles.

Mrs. Rogaum, loudly admonished, almost tumbled down the stairs. At the
foot she held the light she had brought--a small glass oil-lamp--and
then nearly dropped it. A fairly attractive figure, more girl than
woman, rich in all the physical charms that characterize a certain
type, lay near to dying. Her soft hair had fallen back over a good
forehead, now quite white. Her pretty hands, well decked with rings,
were clutched tightly in an agonized grip. At her neck a blue silk
shirtwaist and light lace collar were torn away where she had clutched
herself, and on the white flesh was a yellow stain as of one who had
been burned. A strange odor reeked in the area, and in one corner was a
spilled bottle.

“Ach, Gott!” exclaimed Mrs. Rogaum. “It iss a vooman! She haf herself
gekilt. Run for der police! Oh, my! oh, my!”

Rogaum did not kneel for more than a moment. Somehow, this creature’s
fate seemed in some psychic way identified with that of his own
daughter. He bounded up, and jumping out his front door, began to call
lustily for the police. Officer Maguire, at his social game nearby,
heard the very first cry and came running.

“What’s the matter here, now?” he exclaimed, rushing up full and ready
for murder, robbery, fire, or, indeed, anything in the whole roster of
human calamities.

“A vooman!” said Rogaum excitedly. “She haf herself _umgebracht_. She
iss dying. Ach, Gott! in my own doorstep, yet!”

“Vere iss der hospital?” put in Mrs. Rogaum, thinking clearly of an
ambulance, but not being able to express it. “She iss gekilt, sure.
Oh! Oh!” and bending over her the poor old motherly soul stroked the
tightened hands, and trickled tears upon the blue shirtwaist. “Ach, vy
did you do dot?” she said. “Ach, for vy?”

Officer Maguire was essentially a man of action. He jumped to the
sidewalk, amid the gathering company, and beat loudly with his club
upon the stone flagging. Then he ran to the nearest police phone,
returning to aid in any other way he might. A milk wagon passing on its
way from the Jersey ferry with a few tons of fresh milk aboard, he held
it up and demanded a helping.

“Give us a quart there, will you?” he said authoritatively. “A woman’s
swallowed acid in here.”

“Sure,” said the driver, anxious to learn the cause of the excitement.
“Got a glass, anybody?”

Maguire ran back and returned, bearing a measure. Mrs. Rogaum stood
looking nervously on, while the stocky officer raised the golden head
and poured the milk.

“Here, now, drink this,” he said. “Come on. Try an’ swallow it.”

The girl, a blonde of the type the world too well knows, opened her
eyes, and looked, groaning a little.

“Drink it,” shouted the officer fiercely. “Do you want to die? Open
your mouth!”

Used to a fear of the law in all her days, she obeyed now, even in
death. The lips parted, the fresh milk was drained to the end, some
spilling on neck and cheek.

While they were working old Rogaum came back and stood looking on, by
the side of his wife. Also Officer Delahanty, having heard the peculiar
wooden ring of the stick upon the stone in the night, had come up.

“Ach, ach,” exclaimed Rogaum rather distractedly, “und she iss oudt
yet. I could not find her. Oh, oh!”

There was a clang of a gong up the street as the racing ambulance
turned rapidly in. A young hospital surgeon dismounted, and seeing the
woman’s condition, ordered immediate removal. Both officers and Rogaum,
as well as the surgeon, helped place her in the ambulance. After a
moment the lone bell, ringing wildly in the night, was all the evidence
remaining that a tragedy had been here.

“Do you know how she came here?” asked Officer Delahanty, coming back
to get Rogaum’s testimony for the police.

“No, no,” answered Rogaum wretchedly. “She vass here alretty. I vass
for my daughter loog. Ach, himmel, I haf my daughter lost. She iss
avay.”

Mrs. Rogaum also chattered, the significance of Theresa’s absence all
the more painfully emphasized by this.

The officer did not at first get the import of this. He was only
interested in the facts of the present case.

“You say she was here when you come? Where was you?”

“I say I vass for my daughter loog. I come here, und der vooman vass
here now alretty.”

“Yes. What time was this?”

“Only now yet. Yussed a half-hour.”

Officer Maguire had strolled up, after chasing away a small crowd that
had gathered with fierce and unholy threats. For the first time now he
noticed the peculiar perturbation of the usually placid German couple.

“What about your daughter?” he asked, catching a word as to that.

Both old people raised their voices at once.

“She haf gone. She haf run avay. Ach, himmel, ve must for her loog.
Quick--she could not get in. Ve had der door shut.”

“Locked her out, eh?” inquired Maguire after a time, hearing much of
the rest of the story.

“Yes,” explained Rogaum. “It was to schkare her a liddle. She vould not
come ven I called.”

“Sure, that’s the girl we saw walkin’ with young Almerting, do ye mind?
The one in the white dress,” said Delahanty to Maguire.

“White dress, yah!” echoed Rogaum, and then the fact of her walking
with some one came home like a blow.

“Did you hear dot?” he exclaimed even as Mrs. Rogaum did likewise.
“_Mein Gott, hast du das gehoert?_”

He fairly jumped as he said it. His hands flew up to his stout and
ruddy head.

“Whaddy ya want to let her out for nights?” asked Maguire roughly,
catching the drift of the situation. “That’s no time for young girls
to be out, anyhow, and with these toughs around here. Sure, I saw her,
nearly two hours ago.”

“Ach,” groaned Rogaum. “Two hours yet. Ho, ho, ho!” His voice was quite
hysteric.

“Well, go on in,” said Officer Delahanty. “There’s no use yellin’ out
here. Give us a description of her an’ we’ll send out an alarm. You
won’t be able to find her walkin’ around.”

Her parents described her exactly. The two men turned to the nearest
police box and then disappeared, leaving the old German couple in the
throes of distress. A time-worn old church-clock nearby now chimed
out one and then two. The notes cut like knives. Mrs. Rogaum began
fearfully to cry. Rogaum walked and blustered to himself.

“It’s a queer case, that,” said Officer Delahanty to Maguire after
having reported the matter of Theresa, but referring solely to the
outcast of the doorway so recently sent away and in whose fate they
were much more interested. She being a part of the commercialized vice
of the city, they were curious as to the cause of her suicide. “I
think I know that woman. I think I know where she came from. You do,
too--Adele’s, around the corner, eh? She didn’t come into that doorway
by herself, either. She was put there. You know how they do.”

“You’re right,” said Maguire. “She was put there, all right, and that’s
just where she come from, too.”

The two of them now tipped up their noses and cocked their eyes
significantly.

“Let’s go around,” added Maguire.

They went, the significant red light over the transom at 68 telling
its own story. Strolling leisurely up, they knocked. At the very first
sound a painted denizen of the half-world opened the door.

“Where’s Adele?” asked Maguire as the two, hats on as usual, stepped
in.

“She’s gone to bed.”

“Tell her to come down.”

They seated themselves deliberately in the gaudy mirrored parlor
and waited, conversing between themselves in whispers. Presently a
sleepy-looking woman of forty in a gaudy robe of heavy texture, and
slippered in red, appeared.

“We’re here about that suicide case you had to-night. What about it?
Who was she? How’d she come to be in that doorway around the corner?
Come, now,” Maguire added, as the madam assumed an air of mingled
injured and ignorant innocence, “you know. Can that stuff! How did she
come to take poison?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the woman with the
utmost air of innocence. “I never heard of any suicide.”

“Aw, come now,” insisted Delahanty, “the girl around the corner. You
know. We know you’ve got a pull, but we’ve got to know about this case,
just the same. Come across now. It won’t be published. What made her
take the poison?”

Under the steady eyes of the officers the woman hesitated, but finally
weakened.

“Why--why--her lover went back on her--that’s all. She got so blue
we just couldn’t do anything with her. I tried to, but she wouldn’t
listen.”

“Lover, eh?” put in Maguire as though that were the most unheard-of
thing in the world. “What was his name?”

“I don’t know. You never can tell that.”

“What was her name--Annie?” asked Delahanty wisely, as though he knew
but was merely inquiring for form’s sake.

“No--Emily.”

“Well, how did she come to get over there, anyhow?” inquired Maguire
most pleasantly.

“George took her,” she replied, referring to a man-of-all-work about
the place.

Then little by little as they sat there the whole miserable story came
out, miserable as all the wilfulness and error and suffering of the
world.

“How old was she?”

“Oh, twenty-one.”

“Well, where’d she come from?”

“Oh, here in New York. Her family locked her out one night, I think.”

Something in the way the woman said this last brought old Rogaum and
his daughter back to the policemen’s minds. They had forgotten all
about her by now, although they had turned in an alarm. Fearing to
interfere too much with this well-known and politically controlled
institution, the two men left, but outside they fell to talking of the
other case.

“We ought to tell old Rogaum about her some time,” said Maguire to
Delahanty cynically. “He locked his kid out to-night.”

“Yes, it might be a good thing for him to hear that,” replied the
other. “We’d better go round there an’ see if his girl’s back yet. She
may be back by now,” and so they returned but little disturbed by the
joint miseries.

At Rogaum’s door they once more knocked loudly.

“Is your daughter back again?” asked Maguire when a reply was had.

“Ach, no,” replied the hysterical Mrs. Rogaum, who was quite alone
now. “My husband he haf gone oudt again to loog vunce more. Oh, my! Oh,
my!”

“Well, that’s what you get for lockin’ her out,” returned Maguire
loftily, the other story fresh in his mind. “That other girl downstairs
here to-night was locked out too, once.” He chanced to have a
girl-child of his own and somehow he was in the mood for pointing a
moral. “You oughtn’t to do anything like that. Where d’yuh expect she’s
goin’ to if you lock her out?”

Mrs. Rogaum groaned. She explained that it was not her fault, but
anyhow it was carrying coals to Newcastle to talk to her so. The advice
was better for her husband.

The pair finally returned to the station to see if the call had been
attended to.

“Sure,” said the sergeant, “certainly. Whaddy ya think?” and he read
from the blotter before him:

“‘Look out for girl, Theresa Rogaum. Aged 18; height, about 5, 3;
light hair, blue eyes, white cotton dress, trimmed with blue ribbon.
Last seen with lad named Almerting, about 19 years of age, about 5, 9;
weight 135 pounds.’”

There were other details even more pointed and conclusive. For over an
hour now, supposedly, policemen from the Battery to Harlem, and far
beyond, had been scanning long streets and dim shadows for a girl in a
white dress with a youth of nineteen,--supposedly.

Officer Halsey, another of this region, which took in a portion of
Washington Square, had seen a good many couples this pleasant summer
evening since the description of Theresa and Almerting had been read to
him over the telephone, but none that answered to these. Like Maguire
and Delahanty, he was more or less indifferent to all such cases,
but idling on a corner near the park at about three a.m., a brother
officer, one Paisly by name, came up and casually mentioned the missing
pair also.

“I bet I saw that couple, not over an hour ago. She was dressed in
white, and looked to me as if she didn’t want to be out. I didn’t
happen to think at the time, but now I remember. They acted sort o’
funny. She did, anyhow. They went in this park down at the Fourth
Street end there.”

“Supposing we beat it, then,” suggested Halsey, weary for something to
do.

“Sure,” said the other quickly, and together they began a careful
search, kicking around in the moonlight under the trees. The moon was
leaning moderately toward the west, and all the branches were silvered
with light and dew. Among the flowers, past clumps of bushes, near
the fountain, they searched, each one going his way alone. At last,
the wandering Halsey paused beside a thick clump of flaming bushes,
ruddy, slightly, even in the light. A murmur of voices greeted him, and
something very much like the sound of a sob.

“What’s that?” he said mentally, drawing near and listening.

“Why don’t you come on now?” said the first of the voices heard. “They
won’t let you in any more. You’re with me, ain’t you? What’s the use
cryin’?”

No answer to this, but no sobs. She must have been crying silently.

“Come on. I can take care of yuh. We can live in Hoboken. I know a
place where we can go to-night. That’s all right.”

There was a movement as if the speaker were patting her on the shoulder.

“What’s the use cryin’? Don’t you believe I love yuh?”

The officer who had stolen quietly around to get a better view now
came closer. He wanted to see for himself. In the moonlight, from a
comfortable distance, he could see them seated. The tall bushes were
almost all about the bench. In the arms of the youth was the girl in
white, held very close. Leaning over to get a better view, he saw him
kiss her and hold her--hold her in such a way that she could but yield
to him, whatever her slight disinclination.

It was a common affair at earlier hours, but rather interesting now.
The officer was interested. He crept nearer.

“What are you two doin’ here?” he suddenly inquired, rising before
them, as though he had not seen.

The girl tumbled out of her compromising position, speechless and
blushing violently. The young man stood up, nervous, but still defiant.

“Aw, we were just sittin’ here,” he replied.

“Yes? Well, say, what’s your name? I think we’re lookin’ for you two,
anyhow. Almerting?”

“That’s me,” said the youth.

“And yours?” he added, addressing Theresa.

“Theresa Rogaum,” replied the latter brokenly, beginning to cry.

“Well, you two’ll have to come along with me,” he added laconically.
“The Captain wants to see both of you,” and he marched them solemnly
away.

“What for?” young Almerting ventured to inquire after a time, blanched
with fright.

“Never mind,” replied the policeman irritably. “Come along, you’ll find
out at the station-house. We want you both. That’s enough.”

At the other end of the park Paisly joined them, and, at the
station-house, the girl was given a chair. She was all tears and
melancholy with a modicum possibly of relief at being thus rescued
from the world. Her companion, for all his youth, was defiant if
circumspect, a natural animal defeated of its aim.

“Better go for her father,” commented the sergeant, and by four in the
morning old Rogaum, who had still been up and walking the floor, was
rushing stationward. From an earlier rage he had passed to an almost
killing grief, but now at the thought that he might possibly see his
daughter alive and well once more he was overflowing with a mingled
emotion which contained rage, fear, sorrow, and a number of other
things. What should he do to her if she were alive? Beat her? Kiss her?
Or what? Arrived at the station, however, and seeing his fair Theresa
in the hands of the police, and this young stranger lingering near,
also detained, he was beside himself with fear, rage, affection.

“You! You!” he exclaimed at once, glaring at the imperturbable
Almerting, when told that this was the young man who was found with his
girl. Then, seized with a sudden horror, he added, turning to Theresa,
“Vot haf you done? Oh, oh! You! You!” he repeated again to Almerting
angrily, now that he felt that his daughter was safe. “Come not near
my tochter any more! I vill preak your effery pone, du teufel, du!”

He made a move toward the incarcerated lover, but here the sergeant
interfered.

“Stop that, now,” he said calmly. “Take your daughter out of here and
go home, or I’ll lock you both up. We don’t want any fighting in here.
D’ye hear? Keep your daughter off the streets hereafter, then she won’t
get into trouble. Don’t let her run around with such young toughs as
this.” Almerting winced. “Then there won’t anything happen to her.
We’ll do whatever punishing’s to be done.”

“Aw, what’s eatin’ him!” commented Almerting dourly, now that he felt
himself reasonably safe from a personal encounter. “What have I done?
He locked her out, didn’t he? I was just keepin’ her company till
morning.”

“Yes, we know all about that,” said the sergeant, “and about you, too.
You shut up, or you’ll go down-town to Special Sessions. I want no guff
out o’ you.” Still he ordered the butcher angrily to be gone.

Old Rogaum heard nothing. He had his daughter. He was taking her home.
She was not dead--not even morally injured in so far as he could learn.
He was a compound of wondrous feelings. What to do was beyond him.

At the corner near the butcher shop they encountered the wakeful
Maguire, still idling, as they passed. He was pleased to see that
Rogaum had his Theresa once more. It raised him to a high, moralizing
height.

“Don’t lock her out any more,” he called significantly. “That’s what
brought the other girl to your door, you know!”

“Vot iss dot?” said Rogaum.

“I say the other girl was locked out. That’s why she committed suicide.”

“Ach, I know,” said the husky German under his breath, but he had no
intention of locking her out. He did not know what he would do until
they were in the presence of his crying wife, who fell upon Theresa,
weeping. Then he decided to be reasonably lenient.

“She vass like you,” said the old mother to the wandering Theresa,
ignorant of the seeming lesson brought to their very door. “She vass
loog like you.”

“I vill not vip you now,” said the old butcher solemnly, too delighted
to think of punishment after having feared every horror under the sun,
“aber, go not oudt any more. Keep off de streads so late. I von’t haf
it. Dot loafer, aber--let him yussed come here some more! I fix him!”

“No, no,” said the fat mother tearfully, smoothing her daughter’s hair.
“She vouldn’t run avay no more yet, no, no.” Old Mrs. Rogaum was all
mother.

“Well, you wouldn’t let me in,” insisted Theresa, “and I didn’t have
any place to go. What do you want me to do? I’m not going to stay in
the house all the time.”

“I fix him!” roared Rogaum, unloading all his rage now on the recreant
lover freely. “Yussed let him come some more! Der penitentiary he
should haf!”

“Oh, he’s not so bad,” Theresa told her mother, almost a heroine now
that she was home and safe. “He’s Mr. Almerting, the stationer’s boy.
They live here in the next block.”

“Don’t you ever bother that girl again,” the sergeant was saying to
young Almerting as he turned him loose an hour later. “If you do, we’ll
get you, and you won’t get off under six months. Y’ hear me, do you?”

“Aw, I don’t want ’er,” replied the boy truculently and cynically. “Let
him have his old daughter. What’d he want to lock ’er out for? They’d
better not lock ’er out again though, that’s all I say. I don’t want
’er.”

“Beat it!” replied the sergeant, and away he went.




WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?


It was a sweltering noon in July. Gregory, after several months of
meditation on the warning given him by his political friend, during
which time nothing to substantiate it had occurred, was making ready to
return to the seaside hotel to which his present prosperity entitled
him. It was a great affair, the Triton, about sixty minutes from his
office, facing the sea and amid the pines and sands of the Island.
His wife, ‘the girl,’ as he conventionally referred to her, had been
compelled, in spite of the plot which had been revealed or suggested,
owing to the ailing state of their child, to go up to the mountains to
her mother for advice and comfort. Owing to the imminence of the fall
campaign, however, he could not possibly leave. Weekdays and Sundays,
and occasionally nights, he was busy ferreting out and substantiating
one fact and another in regard to the mismanagement of the city, which
was to be used as ammunition a little later on. The mayor and his
“ring,” as it was called, was to be ousted at all costs. He, Gregory,
was certain to be rewarded if that came to pass. In spite of that he
was eminently sincere as to the value and even the necessity of what he
was doing. The city was being grossly mismanaged. What greater labor
than to worm out the details and expose them to the gaze of an abused
and irritated citizenship?

But the enemy itself was not helpless. A gentleman in the publishing
business of whom he had never even heard called to offer him a position
in the Middle West which would take him out of the city for four or
five years at the least, and pay him six or seven thousand dollars
a year. On his failure to be interested some of his mail began to
disappear, and it seemed to him as though divers strange characters
were taking a peculiar and undue interest in his movements. Lastly, one
of the politicians connected with his own party called to see him at
his office.

“You see, Gregory, it’s this way,” he said after a short preamble, “you
have got a line as to what’s going on in connection with that South
Penyank land transfer. The mayor is in on that, but he is absolutely
determined that the public is not going to find it out, and so is
his partner, Tilney--not until after the election, anyhow. They are
prepared to use some pretty rough methods, so look out for yourself.
You’re fond of your wife, are you? Well, keep her close beside you, and
the kid. Don’t let them get you away from her, even for a moment, where
you shouldn’t be. You saw what happened to Crothers two or three years
ago, didn’t you? He was about to expose that Yellow Point Ferry deal,
but of course no one knew anything about that--and then, zip!--all at
once he was arrested on an old charge of desertion, an old debt that he
had failed to pay was produced and his furniture seized, and his wife
was induced to leave him. Don’t let them catch you in the same way. If
you have any debts bring them to us and let us see what we can do about
them. And if you are interested in any other woman, break it off, send
her away, get rid of her.”

Gregory viewed him with an irritated, half-pitying smile.

“There isn’t any other woman,” he said simply. Think of his being
faithless to “the girl” and the kid--the blue-eyed, pink-toed kid!

“Don’t think I’m trying to pry into your affairs,” went on the
politician. “I’m just telling you. If you need any further advice or
help, come to me. But whatever you do, look out for yourself,” and with
that he put on his high silk hat and departed.

Gregory stood in the center of his office after his visitor had gone,
and gazed intently at the floor. Certainly, from what he had discovered
so far, he could readily believe that the mayor would do just what
his friend had said. And as for the mayor’s friend, the real estate
plunger, it was plain from his whispered history that no tricks or
brutalities were beneath him. Another politician had once said in
describing him that he would not stop short of murder, but that one
would never catch him red-handed or in any other way, and certainly
that appeared to be true. He was wealthier, more powerful, than he had
ever been, much more so than the mayor.

Since he and his wife had come to this seaside hotel several things
had occurred which caused him to think that something might happen,
although there was no evidence as yet that his suspicions were
well-founded. An unctuous, over-dressed, bejeweled, semi-sporty widow
of forty had arrived, a business woman, she indicated herself to
be, conducting a highly successful theatrical agency in the great
city, and consequently weltering in what one of Gregory’s friends
was wont to describe as “the sinews of war.” She abounded in brown
and wine-colored silks, brown slippers and stockings, a wealth of
suspiciously lustrous auburn hair. Her car, for she had one, was of
respectable reputation. Her skill and willingness to risk at whist of
good report. She was, in the parlance of the hotel clerks and idlers
of the Triton veranda, a cheerful and liberal spender. Even while
Mrs. Gregory was at Triton Hall, Mrs. Skelton had arrived, making
herself comfortable in two rooms and bath on the sea front, and
finding familiar friends in the manager and several stalwart idlers
who appeared to be brokers and real estate dealers, and who took a
respectable interest in golf, tennis, and the Triton Grill. She was
unctuous, hearty, optimistic, and neither Gregory nor his wife could
help liking her a little. But before leaving, his wife had casually
wondered whether Mrs. Skelton would be one to engage in such a plot.
Her friendliness, while possible of any interpretation, was still
general enough to be free of suspicion. She might be looking for just
such a situation as this, though--to find Gregory alone.

“Do be careful, dear,” his wife cautioned. “If you become too doubtful,
leave and go to another place. At least that will compel them to
provide another set of people.” And off she went, fairly serene in her
faith in her husband’s ability to manage the matter.

Thus, much against his will, at first, Gregory found himself alone. He
began to wonder if he should leave, or weather it out, as he expressed
it to himself. Why should he be driven from the one comfortable hotel
on this nearest beach, and that when he most needed it, away from
a region where he was regularly encountering most of his political
friends, particularly at week-ends? For so near a place it had many
advantages: a delightful golf course, several tennis courts, food and
rooms reasonably well above complaint, and a refreshing and delightful
view of the sea over a broad lawn. Besides it was absolutely necessary
for him to be in the nearby city the greater portion of every single
working day. His peculiar and pressing investigation demanded it and a
comfortable place to rest and recuperate at night was also imperative.

“It’s beautiful here,” he said to himself finally, “and here is where
I stick. I haven’t a car, and where is there any other place as
convenient? Besides, if they’re going to follow me, they’re going to
follow me.”

In consequence, he traveled meditatively back and forth between this
place and the city, thinking of what might happen. Becoming a little
doubtful, he decided to call on Frank Blount and talk it over with
him. Blount was an old newspaper man who had first turned lawyer and
then broker. Seemingly clientless the major portion of the time, he
still prospered mightily. A lorn bachelor, he had three clubs, several
hotels, and a dozen country homes to visit, to say nothing of a high
power car. Just now he was held unduly close to his work, and so was
frequenting this coast. He liked golf and tennis, and, incidentally,
Gregory, whom he wished to see prosper though he could not quite direct
him in the proper way. Reaching the city one morning, Gregory betook
him to Blount’s office, and there laid the whole case before him.

“Now, that’s the way it is,” he concluded, staring at the pink cheeks
and partially bald head of his friend, “and I would like to know what
you would do if you were in my place.”

Blount gazed thoughtfully out through the high towers of the city to
the blue sky beyond, while he drummed with his fingers on the glass top
of his desk.

“Well,” he replied, after a time, scratching his cheekbone
thoughtfully, “I’d stick it out if I were you. If there is to be
a woman, and she is attractive, you might have some fun out of it
without getting yourself in any trouble. It looks like a sporty summer
proposition to me. Of course, you’ll have to be on your guard. I’d take
out a permit to carry a revolver if I were you. They’ll hear of it if
they’re up to anything, and it won’t cheer them any. In the next place,
you ought to make out a day-to-day statement of your exact movements,
and swear to it before a notary. If they hear of that it won’t cheer
them any either, and it may make them try to think up something really
original.

“Besides,” he went on, “I haven’t so very much to do evenings and
week-ends, and if you want me to I’ll just be around most of the time
in case of trouble. If we’re together they can’t turn much of anything
without one of us knowing something about it, and then, too, you’ll
have an eye-witness.” He was wondering whether the lady might not be
interesting to him also. “I’m over at Sunset Point, just beyond you
there, and if you want me I’ll come over every evening and see how
you’re making out. If any trick is turned, I’d like to see how it is
done,” and he smiled in a winsome, helpful manner.

“That’s just the thing,” echoed Gregory thoughtfully. “I don’t want any
trick turned. I can’t afford it. If anything should happen to me just
now I’d never get on my feet again politically, and then there’s the
wife and kid, and I’m sick of the newspaper business,” and he stared
out of the window.

“Well, don’t be worrying about it,” Blount insisted soothingly. “Just
be on your guard, and if you have to stay in town late any night,
let me know and I’ll come and pick you up. Or, if I can’t do that,
stay in town yourself. Go to one of the big hotels, where you’ll feel
thoroughly safe.”

For several days Gregory, to avoid being a nuisance, returned to the
hotel early. Also he secured a permit, and weighted his hip pocket with
an unwieldy weapon which he resented, but which he nevertheless kept
under his pillow at night. His uncertainty worked on his imagination
to such an extent that he began to note suspicious moves on the part
of nearly everybody. Any new character about the hotel annoyed him.
He felt certain that there was a group of people connected with Mrs.
Skelton who were watching him, though he could not prove it, even to
himself.

“This is ridiculous,” he finally told himself. “I’m acting like a
five-year-old in the dark. Who’s going to hurt me?” And he wrote
laughing letters to his wife about it, and tried to resume his old-time
nonchalance.

It wasn’t quite possible, however, for not long after that something
happened which disturbed him greatly. At least he persuaded himself to
that effect, for that was a characteristic of these incidents--their
openness to another interpretation than the one he might fix on. In
spite of Blount’s advice, one night about nine he decided to return to
Triton Hall, and that without calling his friend to his aid.

“What’s the use?” he asked himself. “He’ll be thinking I’m the biggest
coward ever, and after all, nothing has happened yet, and I doubt
whether they’d go that far, anyhow.” He consoled himself with the idea
that perhaps humanity was better than he thought.

But just the same, as he left the train at Triton and saw it glimmering
away over the meadows eastward, he felt a little uncertain as to his
wisdom in this matter. Triton Station was a lonely one at nearly all
times save in the morning and around seven at night, and to-night it
seemed especially so. Only he alighted from the train. Most people went
to and fro in their cars by another road. Why should he not have done
as Blount had suggested, he now asked himself as he surveyed the flat
country about;--called him to his aid, or stayed in the city? After
all, hiring a car would not have been much better either, as Blount
had pointed out, giving a possible lurking enemy a much sought point
of attack. No, he should have stayed in town or returned with Blount
in his car, and telling himself this, he struck out along the lonely,
albeit short, stretch of road which led to the hotel and which was
lighted by only a half dozen small incandescent globes strung at a
considerable distance apart.

En route, and as he was saying to himself that it was a blessed thing
that it was only a few hundred yards and that he was well-armed and
fairly well constructed physically for a contest, a car swerved about
a bend in the road a short distance ahead and stopped. Two men got out
and, in the shadow back of the lights, which were less flaring than was
usual, began to examine a wheel. It seemed odd to him on the instant
that its headlights were so dim. Why should they be so dim at this time
of night and why should this strange car stop just here at this lonely
bend just as he was approaching it? Also why should he feel so queer
about it or them, for at once his flesh began to creep and his hair
to tingle. As he neared the car he moved to give it as wide a berth
as the road would permit. But now one of the men left the wheel and
approached him. Instantly, with almost an involuntary urge, he brought
the revolver out of his hip pocket and stuffed it in his coat pocket.
At the same time he stopped and called to the stranger:

“Stay right where you are, Mister. I’m armed, and I don’t want you
to come near me. If you do I’ll shoot. I don’t know who you are, or
whether you’re a friend or not, but I don’t want you to move. Now, if
there’s anything you want, ask it from where you are.”

The stranger stopped where he stood, seemingly surprised.

“I was going to ask you for a match,” he said, “and the way to Trager’s
Point.”

“Well, I haven’t a match,” returned Gregory savagely, “and Trager’s
Point is out that way. There’s the hotel ... if you’re coming from
there, why didn’t you ask for directions there, and for matches, too?”
He paused, while the man in the shadow seemed to examine him curiously.

“Oh, all right,” he returned indifferently. “I don’t want anything you
don’t want to give,” but instead of returning to the car, he stood
where he was, following Gregory with his eyes.

Gregory’s skin seemed to rise on the back of his neck like the fur of
a cat. He fairly tingled as he drew his revolver from his pocket and
waved it ominously before him.

“Now, I’m going to walk around you two,” he called, “and I want you to
stand right where you are. I have you covered, and at the first move
I’ll shoot. You won’t have any trouble out of me if you’re not looking
for it, but don’t move,” and he began orienting his own position so as
to keep them directly in range of his eyes and weapon.

“Don’t move!” he kept calling until he was well up the road, and then
suddenly, while the men, possibly in astonishment, were still looking
at him, turned and ran as fast as he could, reaching the hotel steps
breathless and wet.

“That’s the last lone trip for me,” he said solemnly to himself.

When he spoke to Blount about it the latter seemed inclined to
pooh-pooh his fears. Why should any one want to choose any such open
place to kill or waylay another? There might have been other passengers
on the train. A stray auto might be coming along there at any time. The
men might have wanted a match, and not have been coming from the hotel
at all. There was another road there which did not turn in at the hotel.

Still Gregory was inclined to believe that harm had been intended
him--he could scarcely say why to himself--just plain intuition, he
contended.

And then a day or two later--all the more significant now because
of this other incident--Mrs. Skelton seemed to become more and more
thoughtful as to his comfort and well-being. She took her meals at one
of the tables commanding a view of the sea, and with (most frequently)
one or the other, or both, broker friends as companions, to say nothing
of occasional outside friends. But usually there was a fourth empty
chair, and Gregory was soon invited to occupy that, and whenever Blount
was present, a fifth was added. At first he hesitated, but urged
on by Blount, who was amused by her, he accepted. Blount insisted
that she was a comic character. She was so dressy, sporty, unctuous,
good-natured--the very best kind of a seaside companion.

“Why, man, she’s interesting,” the latter insisted one night as they
were taking a ride after dinner. “Quite a sporty ‘fair and forty,’
that. I like her. I really do. She’s probably a crook, but she plays
bridge well, and she’s good at golf. Does she try to get anything out
of you?”

“Not a thing, that I can see,” replied Gregory. “She seems to be simple
enough. She’s only been here about three weeks.”

“Well, we’d better see what we can find out about her. I have a hunch
that she’s in on this, but I can’t be sure. It looks as though she
might be one of Tilney’s stool pigeons. But let’s play the game and see
how it comes out. I’ll be nice to her for your sake, and you do the
same for mine.”

Under the warming influence of this companionship, things seemed to
develop fairly rapidly. It was only a day or two later, and after
Gregory had seated himself at Mrs. Skelton’s table, that she announced
with a great air of secrecy and as though it were hidden and rather
important information, that a friend of hers, a very clever Western
girl of some position and money, one Imogene Carle of Cincinnati, no
less, a daughter of the very wealthy Brayton Carle’s of that city,
was coming to this place to stay for a little while. Mrs. Skelton, it
appeared, had known her parents in that city fifteen years before.
Imogene was her owny ownest pet. She was now visiting the Wilson
Fletchers at Gray’s Cove, on the Sound, but Mrs. Skelton had prevailed
upon her parents to let her visit her here for a while. She was only
twenty, and from now on she, Mrs. Skelton, was to be a really, truly
chaperone. Didn’t they sympathize with her? And if they were all very
nice--and with this a sweeping glance included them all--they might
help entertain her. Wouldn’t that be fine? She was a darling of a girl,
clever, magnetic, a good dancer, a pianist--in short, various and
sundry things almost too good to be true. But, above all other things,
she was really very beautiful, with a wealth of brown hair, brown eyes,
a perfect skin, and the like. Neither Blount nor Gregory offered the
other a single look during this recital, but later on, meeting on the
great veranda which faced the sea, Blount said to him, “Well, what do
you think?”

“Yes, I suppose it’s the one. Well, she tells it well. It’s interesting
to think that she is to be so perfect, isn’t it?” he laughed.

A few days later the fair visitor put in an appearance, and she was all
that Mrs. Skelton had promised, and more. She was beautiful. Gregory
saw her for the first time as he entered the large dining room at
seven. She was, as Mrs. Skelton had described her, young, certainly
not more than twenty-one at most. Her eyes were a light gray-brown,
and her hair and skin and hands were full of light. She seemed simple
and unpretentious, laughing, gay, not altogether fine or perfect,
but fairly intelligent, and good to look at--very. She was at Mrs.
Skelton’s table, the brokers paying her marked attention, and, at
sight, Blount liked her, too.

“Say,” he began, “some beauty, eh? I’ll have to save you from yourself,
I fancy. I’ll tell you how we’ll work it. You save me, and I’ll save
you. The old lady certainly knows how to select ’em, apparently, and so
does Tilney. Well now, my boy, look out!” and he approached with the
air of one who was anxious to be a poor stricken victim himself.

Gregory had to laugh. However much he might be on his guard, he was
interested, and as if to heighten this she paid more attention to Mrs.
Skelton and her two friends than she did to Gregory or Blount. She was,
or pretended to be absolutely sincere, and ignorant of her possible
rôle as a siren, and they in turn pretended to accept her at her own
valuation, only Blount announced after dinner very gaily that she might
siren him all she blanked pleased. He was ready. By degrees, however,
even during this first and second evening, Gregory began to feel that
he was the one. He caught her looking at him slyly or shyly, or both,
and he insisted to himself stubbornly and even vainly enough that he
was her intended victim. When he suggested as much to Blount the other
merely laughed.

“Don’t be so vain,” he said. “You may not be. I wish I were in your
place. I’ll see if I can’t help take her attention from you,” and he
paid as much attention to her as any one.

However, Gregory’s mind was not to be disabused. He watched her
narrowly, while she on her part chattered gaily of many things--her
life the winter before in Cincinnati, the bathing at Beachampton where
she had recently been, a yachting trip she had been promised, tennis,
golf. She was an expert at tennis, as she later proved, putting Gregory
in a heavy perspiration whenever he played with her, and keeping him on
the jump. He tried to decide for himself at this time whether she was
making any advances, but could not detect any. She was very equitable
in the distribution of her favors, and whenever the dancing began in
the East room took as her first choice one of the brokers, and then
Blount.

The former, as did Mrs. Skelton and the brokers, had machines, and by
her and them, in spite of the almost ever-present Blount, Gregory was
invited to be one of a party in one or the other of their cars whenever
they were going anywhere of an afternoon or evening. He was suspicious
of them, however, and refused their invitations except when Blount was
on the scene and invited, when he was willing enough to accept. Then
there were whist, pinochle, or poker games in the hotel occasionally,
and in these Gregory as well as Blount, when he was there, were wont to
join, being persistently invited. Gregory did not dance, and Imogene
ragged him as to this. Why didn’t he learn? It was wonderful! She would
teach him! As she passed amid the maze of dancers at times he could
not help thinking how graceful she was, how full of life and animal
spirits. Blount saw this and teased him, at the same time finding her
very companionable and interesting himself. Gregory could not help
thinking what a fascinating, what an amazing thing, really, it was
(providing it were true) that so dark a personality as Tilney could
secure such an attractive girl to do his vile work. Think of it, only
twenty-one, beautiful, able to further herself in many ways no doubt,
and yet here she was under suspicion of him, a trickster possibly. What
could be the compulsion, the reward?

“My boy, you don’t know these people,” Blount was always telling
him. “They’re the limit. In politics you can get people to do
anything--anything. It isn’t like the rest of life or business, it’s
just politics, that’s all. It seems a cynical thing to say, but it’s
true. Look at your own investigations! What do they show?”

“I know, but a girl like that now----” replied Gregory solemnly.

But after all, as he insisted to Blount, they did not _know_ that there
was anything to all this. She might and she might not be a siren. It
might be possible that both of them were grossly misjudging her and
other absolutely innocent people.

So far, all that they had been able to find out concerning Mrs. Skelton
was that she was, as she represented herself to be, the successful
owner and manager of a theatrical agency. She might have known the
better days and connections which she boasted. Gregory felt at times
as though his brain were whirling, like a man confronted by enemies in
the dark, fumbling and uncertain, but he and Blount both agreed that
the best thing was to stay here and see it through, come what might.
It was a good game even as it stood, interesting, very. It showed, as
Blount pointed out to him, a depth to this political mess which he was
attempting to expose which previously even he had not suspected.

“Stick by,” the other insisted sport-lovingly. “You don’t know what may
come of this. It may provide you the very club you’re looking for. Win
her over to your side if you can. Why not? She might really fall for
you. Then see what comes of it. You can’t be led into any especial trap
with your eyes open.”

Gregory agreed to all this after a time. Besides, this very attractive
girl was beginning to appeal to him in a very subtle way. He had never
known a woman like this before--never even seen one. It was a very new
and attractive game, of sorts. He began to spruce up and attempt to
appear a little gallant himself. A daily report of his movements was
being filed each morning, though. Every night he returned with Blount
in his car, or on an early train. There was scarcely a chance for a
compromising situation, and still there might be--who knows?

On other evenings, after the fashion of seaside hotel life, Gregory
and Imogene grew a little more familiar. Gregory learned that she
played and sang, and, listening to her, that she was of a warm and
even sensuous disposition. She was much more sophisticated than she
had seemed at first, as he could now see, fixing her lips in an odd
inviting pout at times and looking alluringly at one and another,
himself included. Both Blount and himself, once the novelty of the
supposed secret attack had worn off, ventured to jest with her about
it, or rather to hint vaguely as to her mission.

“Well, how goes the great game to-night?” Blount once asked her during
her second or third week, coming up to where she and Gregory were
sitting amid the throng on the general veranda, and eyeing her in a
sophisticated or smilingly cynical way.

“What game?” She looked up in seemingly complete innocence.

“Oh, snaring the appointed victim. Isn’t that what all attractive young
women do?”

“Are you referring to me?” she inquired with considerable hauteur and
an air of injured innocence. “I’d have you know that I don’t have to
snare any one, and particularly not a married man.” Her teeth gleamed
maliciously.

Both Gregory and Blount were watching her closely.

“Oh, of course not. Not a married man, to be sure. And I wasn’t
referring to you exactly--just life, you know, the game.”

“Yes, I know,” she replied sweetly. “I’m jesting, too.” Both Gregory
and Blount laughed.

“Well, she got away with it without the tremor of an eyelash, didn’t
she?” Blount afterward observed, and Gregory had to agree that she had.

Again, it was Gregory who attempted a reference of this kind. She had
come out after a short instrumental interpretation at the piano, where,
it seemed to him, she had been posing in a graceful statuesque way--for
whose benefit? He knew that she knew he could see her from where he sat.

“It’s pretty hard work, without much reward,” he suggested seemingly
idly.

“What is? I don’t quite understand,” and she looked at him
questioningly.

“No?” he smiled in a light laughing manner. “Well, that’s a cryptic
way I have. I say things like that. Just a light hint at a dark plot,
possibly. You mustn’t mind me. You wouldn’t understand unless you know
what I know.”

“Well, what is it you know, then, that I don’t?” she inquired.

“Nothing definite yet. Just an idea. Don’t mind me.”

“Really, you are very odd, both you and Mr. Blount. You are always
saying such odd things and then adding that you don’t mean anything.
And what’s cryptic?”

Gregory, still laughing at her, explained.

“Do you know, you’re exceedingly interesting to me as a type. I’m
watching you all the while.”

“Yes?” she commented, with a lifting of the eyebrows and a slight
distention of the eyes. “That’s interesting. Have you made up your mind
as to what type I am?”

“No, not quite yet. But if you’re the type I think you are, you’re very
clever. I’ll have to hand you the palm on that score.”

“Really, you puzzle me,” she said seriously. “Truly, you do. I don’t
understand you at all. What is it you are talking about? If it’s
anything that has any sense in it I wish you’d say it out plain, and if
not I wish you wouldn’t say it at all.”

Gregory stared. There was an odd ring of defiance in her voice.

“Please don’t be angry, will you?” he said, slightly disconcerted. “I’m
just teasing, not talking sense.”

She arose and walked off, while he strolled up and down the veranda
looking for Blount. When he found him, he narrated his experience.

“Well, it’s just possible that we are mistaken. You never can tell.
Give her a little more rope. Something’s sure to develop soon.”

And thereafter it seemed as if Mrs. Skelton and some others might be
helping her in some subtle way about something, the end or aim of
which he could not be quite sure. He was in no way disposed to flatter
himself, and yet it seemed at times as if he were the object of almost
invisible machinations. In spite of what had gone before, she still
addressed him in a friendly way, and seemed not to wish to avoid him,
but rather to be in his vicinity at all times.

A smug, dressy, crafty Jew of almost minute dimensions arrived on the
scene and took quarters somewhere in the building, coming and going and
seeming never to know Mrs. Skelton or her friends, and yet one day,
idling across some sand dunes which skirted an adjacent inlet, he saw
them, Imogene and the ant-like Jew, walking along together. He was so
astounded that he stopped in amazement. His first thought was to draw
a little nearer and to make very sure, but realizing, as they walked
slowly in his direction, that he could not be mistaken, he beat a hasty
retreat. That evening Blount was taken in on the mystery, and at dinner
time, seeing the Hebrew enter and seat himself in state at a distant
table, he asked casually, “A newcomer, isn’t he?”

Mrs. Skelton, Imogene, and the one broker present, surveyed the
stranger with curious but unacquainted indifference.

“Haven’t the slightest idea,” answered the broker. “Never saw him
before. Cloaks and suits, I’ll lay a thousand.”

“He looks as though he might be rich, whoever he is,” innocently
commented Imogene.

“I think he came Thursday. He doesn’t seem to be any one in particular,
that’s sure,” added Mrs. Skelton distantly, and the subject was dropped.

Gregory was tempted to accuse the young woman and her friends then
and there of falsehood, but he decided to wait and study her. This
was certainly becoming interesting. If they could lie like that, then
something was surely in the air. So she was a trickster, after all, and
she was so charming. His interest in her and Mrs. Skelton and their
friends grew apace.

And then came the matter of the mysterious blue racer, or “trailer,”
as Gregory afterward came to call it, a great hulking brute of a car,
beautifully, even showily, made, and with an engine that talked like
no other. There was a metallic ring about it which seemed to carry a
long way through the clear air and over the sands which adjoined the
sea. It was the possession, so he learned later through Mrs. Skelton,
of one of four fortunate youths who were summering at the next hotel
west, about a mile away. The owner, one Castleman by name, the son and
heir to a very wealthy family, was a friend of hers whom she had first
met in a commercial way in the city. They came over after Imogene’s
arrival, she explained, to help entertain, and they invariably came in
this car. Castleman and his friends, smart, showy youths all, played
tennis and bridge, and knew all the latest shows and dances and drinks.
They were very gay looking, at least three of them, and were inclined
to make much of Imogene, though, as Mrs. Skelton cautiously confided
to Gregory after a time, she did not propose to allow it. Imogene’s
parents might not like it. On the other hand, Gregory and Blount, being
sober men both and of excellent discretion, were much more welcome!

Almost every day thereafter Mrs. Skelton would go for a ride in her own
car or that of Castleman, taking Gregory if he would, and Imogene for
companions. Blount, however, as he explicitly made clear at the very
beginning, was opposed to this.

“Don’t ever be alone with her, I tell you, or just in the company of
her and her friends anywhere except on this veranda. They’re after
you, and they’re not finding it easy, and they’re beginning to work
hard. They’ll give themselves away in some way pretty soon, just as
sure as you’re sitting there. They want to cut me out, but don’t let
them do it--or if you do, get some one in my place. You don’t know
where they’ll take you. That’s the way people are framed. Take me, or
get them to use my machine and you take some other man. Then you can
regulate the conditions partially, anyhow.”

Gregory insisted that he had no desire to make any other arrangements,
and so, thereafter, whenever an invitation was extended to him, Blount
was always somehow included, although, as he could see, they did not
like it. Not that Imogene seemed to mind, but Mrs. Skelton always
complained, “Must we wait for him?” or “Isn’t it possible, ever, to go
anywhere without him?”

Gregory explained how it was. Blount was an old and dear friend of his.
They were practically spending the summer together. Blount had nothing
to do just now.... They seemed to take it all in the best part, and
thereafter Blount was always ready, and even willing to suggest that
they come along with him in his car.

But the more these accidental prearrangements occurred, the more
innocently perverse was Mrs. Skelton in proposing occasional trips of
her own. There was an interesting walk through the pines and across the
dunes to a neighboring hotel which had a delightful pavilion, and this
she was always willing to essay with just Gregory. Only, whenever he
agreed to this, and they were about to set out, Imogene would always
appear and would have to be included. Then Mrs. Skelton would remember
that she had forgotten her parasol or purse or handkerchief, and would
return for it, leaving Imogene and Gregory to stroll on together. But
Gregory would always wait until Mrs. Skelton returned. He was not to be
entrapped like this.

By now he and Imogene, in spite of this atmosphere of suspicion and
uncertainty, had become very friendly. She liked him, he could see
that. She looked at him with a slight widening of the eyes and a faint
distention of the nostrils at times, which spelled--what? And when
seated with him in the car, or anywhere else, she drew near him in a
gently inclusive and sympathetic and coaxing way. She had been trying
to teach him to dance of late, and scolding him in almost endearing
phrases such as “Now, you bad boy,” or “Oh, butterfingers!” (when once
he had dropped something), or “Big, clumsy one--how big and strong you
really are. I can scarcely guide you.”

And to him, in spite of all her dark chicane, she was really beautiful,
and so graceful! What a complexion, he said to himself on more than
one occasion. How light and silken her hair! And her eyes, hard and
gray-brown, and yet soft, too--to him. Her nose was so small and
straight, and her lip line so wavily cut, like an Englishwoman’s, full
and drooping in the center of the upper lip. And she looked at him so
when they were alone! It was disturbing.

But as to the Blue Trailer on these careening nights. Chancing one
night to be invited by Mrs. Skelton for a twenty-five-mile run to
Bayside, Blount accompanying them, they had not gone ten miles, it
seemed to him, when the hum of a peculiarly and powerfully built motor
came to him. It was like a distant bee buzzing, or a hornet caught
under a glass. There was something fierce about it, savage. On the
instant he recalled it now, recognized it as the great blue machine
belonging to young Castleman. Why should he be always hearing it, he
asked, when they were out? And then quite thoughtlessly he observed to
Imogene:

“That sounds like Castleman’s car, doesn’t it?”

“It does, doesn’t it?” she innocently replied. “I wonder if it could
be.”

Nothing caused him to think any more about it just then, but another
time when he was passing along a distant road he heard its motor
nearby on another road, and then it passed them. Again, it brought its
customary group to the same inn in which he and Blount and Imogene and
Mrs. Skelton were.

Suddenly it came to him just what it meant. The last time he had heard
it, and every time before that, he now remembered, its sound had been
followed by its appearance at some roadside inn or hotel whenever he,
Imogene and Blount happened to be in the same party; and it always
brought with it this self-same group of young men (“joy riders,” they
called themselves), accidentally happening in on them, as they said.
And now he remembered (and this fact was corroborated by the watchful
Blount) that if the car had not been heard, and they had not appeared,
either Mrs. Skelton or Imogene invariably sought the ladies’ retiring
room once they had reached their destination, if they had one, when
later the car would be heard tearing along in the distance and the “joy
riders” would arrive. But what for? How to compromise him exactly, if
at all?

One night after Mrs. Skelton had left them in one of these inns, but
before the joy riders had arrived, Gregory was sitting at the edge of a
balcony overlooking a silent grove of pines when suddenly it seemed to
him that he heard it coming in the distance, this great rumbling brute,
baying afar off, like a bloodhound on the scent. There was something
so eerie, uncanny about it or about the night, which made it so. And
then a few moments later it appeared, and the four cronies strolled in,
smart and summery in their appearance, seemingly surprised to find them
all there. Gregory felt a bit cold and chill at the subtlety of it all.
How horrible it was, trailing a man in this way! How tremendous the
depths of politics, how important the control of all the great seething
cities’ millions, to these men--Tilney and his friends,--if they could
find it important to plot against one lone investigating man like this!
Their crimes! Their financial robberies! How well he knew some of
them--and how near he was to being able to prove some of them and drive
them out, away from the public treasury and the emoluments and honors
of office!

That was why he was so important to them now--he a self-established
newspaperman with a self-established investigating bureau. Actually,
it was villainous, so dark and crafty. What were they planning, these
two smiling women at his side and these four smart rounders, with their
pink cheeks and affable manners? What could they want of him really?
How would it all end?

As Mrs. Skelton, Imogene, Blount and himself were preparing to return,
and Castleman and his friends were entering their own car, a third
party hitherto unknown to Blount or Gregory appeared and engaged the
two women in conversation, finally persuading them to return with them
in their car. Mrs. Skelton thereupon apologized and explained that
they were old friends whom she had not seen for a long time, and that
they would all meet at the hotel later for a game of bridge. Blount
and Gregory, left thus to themselves, decided to take a short cut to
a nearby turnpike so as to beat them home. The move interested them,
although they could not explain it at the time. It was while they were
following this road, however, through a section heavily shaded with
trees, that they were suddenly confronted by the blazing lights of
another machine descending upon them at full speed from the opposite
direction, and even though Blount by the most amazing dexterity managed
to throw his car into the adjacent fence and wood, still it came so
close and was traveling at such terrific speed that it clipped their
left rear wheel as he did so.

“Castleman’s car!” Blount said softly after it had passed. “I saw him.
They missed us by an inch!”

“What do you think of that!” exclaimed Gregory cynically. “I wonder if
they’ll come back to see the result of their work?”

Even as they were talking, however, they heard the big car returning.

“Say, this looks serious! I don’t like the looks of it!” whispered
Blount. “That car would have torn us to bits and never been scratched.
And here they are now. Better look out for them. It’s just as well that
we’re armed. You have your gun, haven’t you?”

The other group approached most brazenly.

“Hello! Any trouble?” they called from a distance. “So sorry,” and then
as though they had just discovered it, “--well, if it isn’t Gregory and
Blount! Well, well, fellows, so sorry! It was an accident, I assure
you. Our steering gear is out of order.”

Gregory and Blount had previously agreed to stand their ground, and
if any further treachery were intended it was to be frustrated with
bullets. The situation was partially saved or cleared up by the arrival
of a third car containing a party of four middle-aged men who, seeing
them in the wood and the other car standing by, stopped to investigate.
It was Gregory’s presence of mind which kept them there.

“Do you mind staying by, Mister, until that other car leaves?” he
whispered to one of the newcomers who was helping to extricate Blount’s
machine. “I think they purposely tried to wreck us, but I’m not sure;
anyway, we don’t want to be left alone with them.”

Finding themselves thus replaced and the others determined to stay,
Castleman and his followers were most apologetic and helpful. They had
forgotten something back at the inn, they explained, and were returning
for it. As they had reached this particular spot and had seen the
lights of Blount’s car, they had tried to stop, but something had gone
wrong with the steering gear. They had tried to turn, but couldn’t,
and had almost wrecked their own car. Was there any damage? They would
gladly pay. Blount assured them there was not, the while he and Gregory
accepted their apologies in seeming good part, insisting, however, that
they needed no help. After they had gone Blount and Gregory, with the
strangers as guards, made their way to the hotel, only to find it dark
and deserted.

What an amazing thing it all was, Gregory said to himself over
and over, the great metropolis threaded with plots like this for
spoil--cold blooded murder attempted, and that by a young girl and
these young men scarcely in their middle twenties, and yet there was
no way to fix it on them. Here he was, fairly convinced that on two
occasions murder had been planned or attempted, and still he could
prove nothing, not a word, did not even dare to accuse any one! And
Imogene, this girl of beauty and gayety, pretending an affection for
him--and he half believing it--and at the same time convinced that she
was in on the plot in some way. Had he lost his senses?

He was for getting out now posthaste, feeling as he did that he was
dealing with a band of murderers who were plotting his death by
“accident” in case they failed to discredit him by some trick or plot,
but Blount was of another mind. He could not feel that this was a
good time to quit. After all, everything had been in their favor so
far. In addition, Blount had come to the conclusion that the girl was
a very weak tool of these other people, not a clever plotter herself.
He argued this, he said, from certain things which he had been able
thus far to find out about her. She had once been, he said, the
private secretary or personal assistant to a well known banker whose
institution had been connected with the Tilney interests in Penyank,
and whose career had ended in his indictment and flight. Perhaps there
had been some papers which she had signed as the ostensible secretary
or treasurer, which might make her the victim of Tilney or of some of
his political friends. Besides, by now he was willing to help raise
money to carry Gregory’s work on in case he needed any. The city should
be protected from such people. But Blount considered Imogene a little
soft or easy, and thought that Gregory could influence her to help him
if he tried.

“Stick it out,” he insisted. “Stick it out. It looks pretty serious,
I know, but you want to remember that you won’t be any better off
anywhere else, and here we at least know what we’re up against. They
know by now that we’re getting on to them. They must. They’re getting
anxious, that’s all, and the time is getting short. You might send for
your wife, but that wouldn’t help any. Besides, if you play your cards
right with this girl you might get her to come over to your side. In
spite of what she’s doing, I think she likes you.” Gregory snorted. “Or
you might make her like you, and then you could get the whole scheme
out of her. See how she looks at you all the time! And don’t forget
that every day you string this thing along without letting them bring
it to a disastrous finish, the nearer you are to the election. If this
goes on much longer without their accomplishing anything, Tilney won’t
have a chance to frame up anything new before the election will be upon
him, and then it will be too late. Don’t you see?”

On the strength of this, Gregory agreed to linger a little while
longer, but he felt that it was telling on his nerves. He was becoming
irritable and savage, and the more he thought about it the worse he
felt. To think of having to be pleasant to people who were murderers at
heart and trying to destroy you!

The next morning, however, he saw Imogene at breakfast, fresh and
pleasant, and with that look of friendly interest in her eyes which
more and more of late she seemed to wear and in spite of himself he was
drawn to her, although he did his best to conceal it.

“Why didn’t you come back last night to play cards with us?” she asked.
“We waited and waited for you.”

“Oh, haven’t you heard about the latest ‘accident’?” he asked, with
a peculiar emphasis on the word, and looking at her with a cynical
mocking light in his eyes.

“No. What accident?” She seemed thoroughly unaware that anything had
happened.

“You didn’t know, of course, that Castleman’s car almost ran us down
after you left us last night?”

“No!” she exclaimed with genuine surprise. “Where?”

“Well, just after you left us, in the wood beyond Bellepoint. It was so
fortunate of you two to have left just when you did.” And he smiled and
explained briefly and with some cynical comments as to the steering
gear that wouldn’t work.

As he did so, he examined her sharply and she looked at him with what
he thought might be pain or fear or horror in her glance. Certainly
it was not a look disguising a sympathetic interest in the plans of
her friends or employers, if they were such. Her astonishment was so
obviously sincere, confusing, revealing, in a way that it all but won
him. He could not make himself believe that she had had a hand in that
anyhow. It must be as Blount said, that she was more of a tool herself
than anything else. She probably couldn’t help herself very well or
didn’t know the lengths to which her pretended “friends” were prepared
to go. Her eyes seemed troubled, sad. She seemed weaker, more futile,
than at any time since he had known her, and this, while it did not
add particularly to his respect, softened his personal animosity. He
felt that under the circumstances he might come to like her. He also
thought that she might be made to like him enough to help him. He had
the emotional mastery of her, he thought, and that was something. He
had described the incident with all the vividness of detail that he
could, showing how he and Blount had escaped death by a hair’s breadth.
She seemed a little sick, and shortly after left the table. Gregory had
taken good care to make it plain that the strangers in the other car
had been informed as to the exact details of the case, and had offered
their services as witnesses in case they were wanted.

“But we don’t propose to do anything about it,” he said genially, “not
now, anyhow,” and it was then that she seemed to become a little sick
or faint, and left him.

Whether owing to this conversation or the accident itself, or to
circumstances concerning which he knew nothing, there now seemed to
come a temporary lull in the activities of this group. The Blue Trailer
disappeared as an active daily fact in their lives. Mrs. Skelton
was called to the city on business for a few days, as well as Mr.
Diamondberg, the “cloak and suit man,” as Blount always called him,
who in all the time he had been there had never publicly joined them.
Mrs. Skelton came back later as cheerful and optimistic as ever, but in
the meanwhile there had been an approach on the part of Imogene toward
himself which seemed to promise a new order of things. She was freer,
more natural and more genial than she had been hitherto. She was with
him more, smiling, playful, and yet concerned, he thought. Because of
their conversation the morning after the accident, he felt easier in
her presence, more confidential, as though he might be able to talk to
her about all this soon and get her to help him.

They had two hours together on the second afternoon of the absence of
the others which brought them within sight of each other’s point of
view. It began after lunch, because Gregory had some reports to examine
and was staying here to do it. She came over and stood beside him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m looking up some facts,” he replied enigmatically, smiling up
at her. “Sit down.”

They fell into conversation first about a tennis match which was being
held here, and then about his work, which he described in part after
observing that she knew all about it, or ought to.

“Why do you always talk to me that way about everything in connection
with you?” she asked after a moment’s pause. “You have such a queer way
of speaking, as though I knew something I ought not to know about your
affairs.”

“Well, you do, don’t you?” he questioned grimly, staring at her.

“Now, there it is again! What do you mean by that?”

“Do you really need to have me explain to you?” he went on in a hard
cynical manner. “As though you didn’t know! I don’t suppose you ever
heard of the Union Bank of Penyank, for instance? Or Mr. Swayne, its
president? Or Mr. Riley, or Mr. Mears, the cashier?”

At the mention of these, as at the mention of the automobile accident,
there was something which seemed to click like a camera shutter in her
eyes, only this time there was no sign of pain, none even of confusion.
She seemed, except for a faint trace of color, to be fairly calm and
poised. She opened her mouth slightly, but more in an attempted smile
of tolerance than anything else.

“The Union Bank? Mr. Swayne? Mr. Tilney? What are you talking about?”
she persisted. “Who is Mr. Swayne, and where is the Union Bank?”

“Really, now, Miss Carle,” he said with a kind of dogmatic fury, “if
you want me to have any regard of any kind for you in the future, quit
lying about this. You know well enough what I mean. You know who Mr.
Swayne is, all right, and why he left Eastridge. You also know Mr.
Diamondberg, although I heard you say you didn’t, and that right after
I had seen you walking with him out here on the dunes three weeks ago.
You don’t remember that, I suppose?” this as she fluttered slightly.

She stared, completely shaken out of her composure, and a real flush
spread over her cheeks and neck. For the moment her expression hardened
the least bit, then gave way to one of mingled weakness and confusion.
She looked more or less guilty and genuinely distrait.

“Why, Mr. Gregory,” she pleaded weakly, “how you talk! Positively, I
haven’t the slightest idea of what you mean, and I wish you wouldn’t be
so rough. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, or if you
do you certainly don’t know anything about me. You must have me mixed
up with some one else, or with something that I don’t know anything
about.” She moved as if to leave.

“Now listen to me a minute,” he said sharply, “and don’t be so ready
to leave. You know who I am, and just what I’m doing. I’m running an
investigation bureau on my own account with which I mean to break up
the present city political ring, and I have a lot of evidence which
might cause Mr. Tilney and the mayor and some others a lot of trouble
this fall, and they know it, and that’s why you’re out here. Mr. Tilney
is connected with the mayor, and he used to be a bosom friend of your
friend, Jack Swayne. And Diamondberg and Mrs. Skelton are in his employ
right now, and so are you. You think I don’t know that Castleman and
his friends were working with you and Mrs. Skelton, and Diamondberg
and these ‘brokers’ also, and that Castleman tried to run into us the
other night and kill me, and that I’m being watched here all the time
and spied on, but I am, and I know it, and I’m not in the dark as to
anything--not one thing--not even you,” and he leered at her angrily.

“Now wait a moment,” he went on quickly as she opened her mouth and
started to say something. “You don’t look to me to be so crafty and
devilish as all this seems, or I wouldn’t be talking to you at all,
and your manner all along has been so different--you’ve appeared so
friendly and sympathetic, that I’ve thought at times that maybe you
didn’t know exactly what was going on. Now, however, I see that you do.
Your manner the other morning at breakfast made me think that possibly
you were not so bad as you seemed. But now I see that you’ve been lying
to me all along about all this, just as I thought, only I must say that
up to now I haven’t been willing to believe it. This isn’t the first
time an attempt has been made to get people in this way, though. It’s
an old political trick, only you’re trying to work it once more, and I
don’t propose that you shall work it on me if I can help it. Plainly,
you people wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, any more than Tilney hesitated
to ruin Crothers three years ago, or than he would hesitate to ruin
me or any other man or woman who got in his path, but he hasn’t got
me yet, and he’s not going to, and you can tell him that for me. He’s
a crook. He controls a bunch of crooks--the mayor and all the people
working with him--and if you’re in with them, as I know you are, and
know what you’re doing, you’re a crook too.”

“Oh, oh, oh! Don’t!” she exclaimed. “Please don’t! This is too
terrible! To think that you should talk to me in this way!” but she
made no attempt to leave.

“Now I want to tell you something more, Miss Carle--if that’s your real
name--” Gregory went on as she was putting her hands to her temples and
exclaiming, and she winced again. “As I said before, you don’t look to
me to be as bad as you seem, and for that reason I’m talking to you
now. But just see how it is: Here I am, a young man just starting out
in the world really, and here you are trying to ruin me. I was living
here with my wife and my little two-year-old baby peacefully enough
until she had to go to the mountains because our little boy was taken
sick, and then you and Mrs. Skelton and Diamondberg and Castleman and
the ‘brokers’ and all the rest of the crowd that are and have been
around here watching and spying, came and began to cause me trouble.
Now I’m not helpless. And you needn’t think I wasn’t warned before you
came, because I was. There are just as many influential men on my side
of the fence right now as there are on Tilney’s--will be--and he isn’t
going to get away with this thing as easily as he thinks. But just
think of your part in all this! Why should you want to ruin me or help
these people? What have I ever done to you? I can understand Tilney’s
wanting to do it. He thinks that I have facts which will injure him,
and I have, and that because I haven’t made any public statement the
evidence is still in my hands, and that if I am put out of the way or
discredited the whole thing will blow over and nothing will happen to
him--but it won’t. Not now any more. It can’t. This thing will go
on just the same, whether I am here or not. But that isn’t the point
either. I was told two months ago that you would come, not by Mrs.
Skelton, but by friends of mine, and that an attempt would be made on
my life,” and at that she opened her eyes wide and sat there apparently
amazed, “and here you are on schedule time and doing just as you were
told, and apparently you aren’t the least bit ashamed to do it. But
don’t you think it’s a pretty shabby game for you to play?” He stared
at her wearily and she at him, but now for the moment she said nothing,
just sat there.

“That big blue machine that was to have killed me the other night,” he
went on, stretching matters a little in so far as his own knowledge
was concerned, “was all arranged for long before you came down here.
I haven’t the slightest idea why you work for Tilney, but I know now
that that’s what you’re doing, and I’m sick of you and the whole thing.
You’re just a plain little crook, that’s all, and I’m through with you
and this whole thing, and I don’t want you to talk to me any more.
What’s more, I’m not going to leave this hotel, either, and you can
take that news to Tilney if you want to, or Mrs. Skelton or whoever
else is managing things here for him. I’ve kept a day-to-day record
of everything that’s happened so far, and I have witnesses, and if
anything more happens to me here I’m going to the newspapers and expose
the whole thing. If you had any sense of decency left you wouldn’t be
in on anything like this, but you haven’t--you’re just a shabby little
trickster, and that lets you out, and that’s all I have to say.”

He stood up and made as if to walk off, while Miss Carle sat there,
seemingly dazed, then jumped up and called after him:

“Mr. Gregory! Please! Please! Mr. Gregory, I want to tell you
something!”

He stopped and turned. She came hurriedly up to him.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, “not just yet. Wait a minute. Please come
back. I want to talk to you.” And though he looked at her rather
determinedly, he followed her.

“Well?” he asked.

“You don’t understand how it is,” she pleaded, with a look of real
concern in her eyes. “And I can’t tell you either, just now, but I
will some time if you will let me. But I like you, and I really don’t
want to do you any harm. Really, I don’t. I don’t know anything about
these automobile things you’re telling about--truly I don’t. They’re
all terrible and horrible to me, and if they are trying to do anything
like that, I don’t know it, and I won’t have anything more to do with
it--really I won’t. Oh, it’s terrible!” and she clenched her hands.
“I do know Mr. Diamondberg now, I admit that, but I didn’t before I
came down here, and Mr. Swayne and Mr. Tilney. I did come here to see
if I could get you interested in me, but they didn’t tell me just
why. They told me--Mrs. Skelton did--that you, or some people whom
you represented, were trying to get evidence against some friends of
theirs--Mr. Tilney’s, I believe--who were absolutely innocent, that you
weren’t happy with your wife, and that if some one, any one, were able
to make you fall in love with her or just become very good friends,
she might be able to persuade you not to do it, you see. There wasn’t
any plan, so far as I know, to injure you bodily in any way. They
didn’t tell me that they wanted to injure you physically--really they
didn’t. That’s all news to me, and dreadful. All they said was that
they wanted to get some one to get you to stop--make it worth your
while in a money way, if I could. I didn’t think there was anything so
very wrong in that, seeing all they have done for me in the past--Mr.
Tilney, Mrs. Skelton and some others. But after I saw you a little
while I----” she paused and looked at him, then away, “I didn’t think
you were that kind of a man, you see, and so--well, it’s different
now. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. Really I don’t. I
couldn’t--now.”

“So you admit now that you do know Mr. Tilney,” he commented sourly,
but not without a sense of triumph behind it all.

“I just told you that,” she said.

She stopped, and Gregory stared at her suspiciously. That she liked him
was plain, and in a sense it was different from that of a mere passing
flirtation, and as for himself--well, he couldn’t help liking her in
a genial way. He was free to admit that to himself, in spite of her
trickery, and that she was attractive, and as yet she personally had
not done anything to him, certainly nothing that he could prove. She
seemed even now so young, although so sophisticated and wise, and much
about her face, its smoothness, the delicate tracery of hair about her
forehead, the drooping pout of the upper lip, sharpened his interest
and caused him to meditate.

“Well?” he inquired after a time.

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t turn on me so and leave me,” she pleaded. “I
haven’t done anything to you, have I? Not yet, anyhow.”

“That’s just the point--not yet. There’s the whole story in a nutshell.”

“Yes, but I promise you faithfully that I won’t, that I don’t intend
to. Really I don’t. You won’t believe me, but that’s true. And I won’t,
I give you my word,--truly. Why won’t you still be friends with me?
I can’t tell you any more about myself now than I have--not now--but
I will some time, and I wish you would still be friends with me. I
promise not to do anything to cause you trouble. I haven’t really, have
I? Have I?”

“How should I know?” he answered testily and roughly, the while
believing that this was a deliberate attempt on her part to interest
him in spite of himself, to get him not to leave yet. “It seems to me
you’ve done enough, being with these people. You’ve led me into going
about with them, for one thing. I would never have gone with them on
most of these trips except for you. Isn’t that enough? What more do you
want? And why can’t you tell me now,” he demanded, feeling in a way
the authority of a victor, “who these people are and all about them?
I’d like to know. It might be a help to me, if you really wanted to do
something for me. What are their plans, their game?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you any more than I have, truly I can’t. If
I find out, maybe I will some time. I promise to. But not now. I can’t,
now. Can’t you trust me that much? Can’t you see that I like you, when
I tell you so much? I haven’t any plan to injure you personally,
truly I haven’t. I’m obliged to these people in one way and another,
but nothing that would make me go that far. Won’t you believe me?” She
opened her eyes very wide in injury. There was something new in her
expression, a luring, coaxing something.

“I haven’t any one who is really close to me any more,” she went on,
“not anybody I like. I suppose it’s all my own fault, but--” her voice
became very sweet.

In spite of his precautions and the knowledge that his wife was the
best and most suitable companion for him in the world, and that he was
permanently fixed through his affection for his child and the helpful,
hopeful mother of it, nevertheless he was moved by some peculiarity of
this girl’s temperament. What power had Tilney over her, that he could
use her in this way? Think of it--a beautiful girl like this!

“What about Mrs. Skelton?” he demanded. “Who is she, anyhow? And these
three gardeners around here? What is it they want?” (There were three
gardeners of the grounds who whenever he and Imogene had been alone
together anywhere managed somehow to be working near the scene--an
arrival which caused him always instanter to depart.) “And Diamondberg?”

She insisted that in so far as the gardeners were concerned she knew
absolutely nothing about them. If they were employed by Mrs. Skelton
or any one, it was without her knowledge. As for Diamondberg, she
explained that she had only met him since she had come here, but that
she really did not like him. For some reason Mrs. Skelton had asked her
to appear not to know him. Mrs. Skelton, she persisted, had known her
years before in Cincinnati, as she had said, but more recently in the
city. She had helped her to get various positions, twice on the stage.
Once she had worked for Mr. Swayne, yes, for a year, but only as a
clerk. She had never known anything about him or his plans or schemes,
never. When Gregory wanted to know how it was that he was to be trapped
by her, if at all, she insisted that she did not believe that he was to
be trapped. It was all to have been as she said.

Gregory could not quite make out whether she was telling him the exact
truth, but it was near enough, and it seemed to him that she could not
be wholly lying. She seemed too frank and wishful. There was something
sensuously affectionate in her point of view and her manner. He would
know everything in the future, she insisted, if he wanted to, but only
not now--please not now. Then she asked about his wife, where she was,
when she was coming back.

“Do you love her very much?” she finally asked naïvely.

“Certainly I love her. Why do you ask? I’ve a two-year-old boy that I’m
crazy about.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, a little puzzled or uncertain, he
thought.

They agreed to be friends after a fashion before they were through. He
confessed that he liked her, but still that he did not trust her--not
yet. They were to go on as before, but only on condition that nothing
further happened to him which could be traced to her. She frankly told
him that she could not control the actions of the others. They were
their own masters, and, after a fashion, hers, but in so far as she
could she would protect him. She did not believe that they intended to
try much longer. In so far as she was concerned, he might go away if
he chose. She could see him anywhere, if he would. She was not sure if
that would make any difference in their plans or not. Anyhow, she would
not follow him if he did go unless he wished it, but she would prefer
that he did. Perhaps nothing more would happen here. If she heard of
anything she would tell him, or try to, in time. But she could not say
more than that now. After a while, maybe, as soon as she could get out
of here ... there were certain things over which she had no control.
She was very enigmatic and secretive, and he took it to mean that she
was involved in some difficult situation and could not easily extricate
herself.

“I wouldn’t take too much stock in her, at that,” Blount reflected
when Gregory had told him about it. “Just keep your eyes open, that’s
all. Don’t have anything to do with her in a compromising way. She may
be lying to you again. Once a crook, always a crook.” Such was his
philosophy.

Mrs. Skelton returned on the third day after his long conversation
with Imogene, and in spite of the fact that they had seemed to come
closer together than ever before, to have established a friendly
semi-defensive pact, still he sensed treachery. He could not make out
what it was. She seemed to be friendly, simple, gay, direct, even
wooing--and yet--what? He thought at one time that she might be the
unconscious psychologic victim of Mrs. Skelton or of some one else; at
other times, an absolutely unprincipled political philanderer. While
pretending to be “on the level,” as he phrased it, with him, she was
crossing his path in such odd ways, making him uncertain as to whether,
in spite of all she had said and was saying, she was still engaged
in trying to compromise him. The whole thing began to take on the
fascination of a game with the unconquerable lure of sex at the bottom
of it--steeled as he was against compromising himself in any way.

Thus once, after a late card game, when he stepped out on a small
veranda or balcony which graced the end of the hall nearest which his
room was situated, and which commanded a splendid view of the sea, he
found her just outside his door, alone, diaphanously attired, and very
sympathetic and genial. Now that they were friends and had had this
talk, there was something in her manner which always seemed to invite
him on to a closer life with her without danger to himself, as she
seemed to say. She would shield him against all, at her own expense. At
the same time he was far--very far--from yielding. More than once he
had insisted that he did not want to have anything to do with her in an
affectional way, and yet here she was on this occasion, and although
there might or there might not have been anything very alarming in
that, he argued with himself afterward, yet since he had told her,
this could be made to look as though she were trying to overpersuade
him, to take him off his guard. Any guest of the hotel might have done
as much (her room was somewhere near there), but Rule One, as laid
down by Blount, and as hitherto practised by him, was never, under any
circumstances which might be misinterpreted, to be alone with her. And
besides, when he withdrew, as he did at once, excusing himself lightly
and laughingly, he saw two men turning in at a cross corridor just
beyond, and one, seeing him turn back, said to the other, “It must be
on the other side, Jim.” Well, there might not have been anything very
significant in that, either. Any two men might accidentally turn into a
hall on an end balcony of which a maiden was sitting in very diaphanous
array, but still----

It was the same whenever he walked along the outer or sea wall at
night, listening to the thunder of the water against the rapp which
sustained the walk, and meditating on the night and the beauty of the
hotel and the shabbiness of politics. Imogene was always about him
when she might be with safety, as he saw it, but never under such
circumstances as could be made to seem that they were alone together.
Bullen, one of the two brokers, who seemed not a bad sort after his
kind, came out there one night with Mrs. Skelton and Imogene, and
seeing Gregory, engaged him in conversation and then left Imogene to
his care. Gregory, hating to appear asininely suspicious under such
circumstances, was genuinely troubled as to what to do in such cases
as these. Always now he was drawn to her, painfully so, and yet---- He
had told her more than once that he did not wish to be alone with her
in this way, and yet here she was, and she was always insisting that
she did not wish him to be with her if he objected to it, and yet look
at this! Her excuse always was that she could not help it, that it
was purely accidental or planned by them without her knowledge. She
could not avoid all accidents. When he demanded to know why she did
not leave, clear out of all of this, she explained that without great
injury to herself and Mrs. Skelton she could not, and that besides he
was safer with her there.

“What is this?” he asked on this occasion. “Another plan?” Feeling her
stop and pull back a little, he felt ashamed of himself. “Well, you
know what I’ve been telling you all along,” he added gruffly.

“Please don’t be so suspicious, Ed. Why do you always act so? Can’t I
even walk out here? I couldn’t avoid this to-night, truly I couldn’t.
Don’t you suppose I have to play a part too--for a time, anyhow? What
do you expect me to do--leave at once? I can’t, I tell you. Won’t you
believe me? Won’t you have a little faith in me?”

“Well, come on,” he returned crossly, as much irritated with himself
as any one. “Give me your arm. Give a dog a bad name, you know,” and
he walked her courteously but firmly in the direction of the principal
veranda, trying to be nice to her at the same time.

“I tell you, Imogene, I can’t and I won’t do this. You must find ways
of avoiding these things. If not, I’m not going to have anything to
do with you at all. You say you want me to be friends with you, if
no more. Very well. But how are we going to do it?” and after more
arguments of this kind they parted with considerable feeling, but not
altogether antagonistic, at that.

Yet by reason of all this finally, and very much to his personal
dissatisfaction, he found himself limited as to his walks and lounging
places almost as much as if he had been in prison. There was a little
pergola at one end of the lawn with benches and flowering vines
which had taken his fancy when he first came, and which he had been
accustomed to frequent as a splendid place to walk and smoke, but not
any more. He was too certain of being picked up there, or of being
joined by Mrs. Skelton and Imogene, only to be left with Imogene, with
possibly the three gardeners or a broker as witnesses. He could not
help thinking how ridiculous it all was.

He even took Imogene, he and Blount, in Blount’s car, and Mrs. Skelton
with them or not, as the case might be--it was all well enough so
long as Blount was along--to one place or another in the immediate
vicinity--never far, and always the two of them armed and ready for any
emergency or fray, as they said. It seemed a risky thing to do, still
they felt a little emboldened by their success so far, and besides,
Imogene was decidedly attractive to both of them. Now that she had
confessed her affection for Gregory she was most alluring with him, and
genial to Blount, teasing and petting him and calling him the watchdog.
Blount was always crowing over how well he and Gregory were managing
the affair. More than once he had pointed out, even in her presence,
that there was an element of sport or fascinating drama in it, that
she “couldn’t fool them,” all of which was helping mightily to pass
the time, even though his own and Gregory’s life, or at least their
reputation, might be at stake.

“Go on, go on, is my advice,” Blount kept saying now that he was being
amused. “Let her fall in love with you. Make her testify on your
behalf. Get a confession in black and white, if you can. It would be a
great thing in the campaign, if you were compelled to use it.” He was
a most practical and political soul, for all his geniality.

Gregory could not quite see himself doing that, however. He was too
fond of her. She was never quite so yielding, so close to him, as now.
When he and Blount were out with her, now, the two of them ventured to
rag her as to her part in all this, asking her whether the other car
were handy, whether the gardeners had been properly lined up, and as to
who was behind this tree or that house. “There’d be no use in going if
everything wasn’t just right,” they said. She took it all in good part,
even laughing and mocking them.

“Better look out! Here comes a spy now,” she would sometimes exclaim
at sight of a huckster driving a wagon or a farm-hand pushing a
wheelbarrow.

To both Blount and Gregory it was becoming a farce, and yet between
themselves they agreed that it had its charm. They were probably tiring
her backers and they would all quit soon. They hoped so, anyhow.

But then one night, just as they had concluded that there might not
be so very much to this plot after all, that it was about all over,
and Mrs. Gregory was writing that she would soon be able to return,
the unexpected happened. They were returning from one of those shorter
outings which had succeeded the longer ones of an earlier day, Blount
and Gregory and Imogene, and true to his idea of avoiding any routine
procedure which might be seized upon by the enemy as something to
expect and therefore to be used, Blount passed the main entrance and
drove instead around to a side path which led to a sunk-in porch
flanked on either side by high box hedges and sheltered furry pines.
True also to their agreed plan of never being separated on occasions
like this, they both walked to the door with Imogene, Blount locking
his car so that it could not be moved during his absence. On the steps
of this side porch they chaffered a little, bantering Imogene about
another safe night, and how hard it was on the gardeners to keep them
up so late and moving about in the dark in this fashion, when Imogene
said she was tired and would have to go. She laughed at them for their
brashness.

“You two think you’re very smart, don’t you?” she smiled a little
wearily. “It would serve you right if something did happen to both of
you one of these days--you know so much.”

“Is that so?” chuckled Blount. “Well, don’t hold any midnight
conferences as to this. You’ll lose your beauty sleep if you do.”

To which Gregory added, “Yes, with all this hard work ahead of you
every day, Imogene, I should think you’d have to be careful.”

“Oh, hush, and go on,” she laughed, moving toward the door.

But they had not gone more than a hundred and fifty feet down the
shadowy side path before she came running after them, quite out of
breath.

“Oh dear!” she called sweetly as she neared them, and they having heard
her footsteps had turned. “I’m so sorry to trouble you, but some one
has locked that side door, and I can’t open it or make them hear. Won’t
one of you come and help me?” Then, as the two of them turned, “That’s
right. I forgot. You always work in pairs, don’t you?”

Blount chortled. Gregory smiled also. They couldn’t help it. It was so
ridiculous at times--on occasions like this, for instance.

“Well, you see how it is,” Gregory teased, “the door may be very
tightly closed, and it might take the two of us to get it open.”

Seeing that Blount was really coming, he changed his mind. “I guess I
can get it open for her. Don’t bother this time. I’ll have to be going
in, anyhow,” he added. The thought came to him that he would like to be
with Imogene a little while--just a few moments.

Blount left them after a cautioning look and a cheery good night. In
all the time they had been together they had not done this, but this
time it seemed all right. Gregory had never felt quite so close to
Imogene as he did this evening. She had seemed so warm, laughing, gay.
The night had been sultry, but mellow. They had tittered and jested
over such trifling things, and now he felt that he would like to be
with her a while longer. She had become more or less a part of his
life, or seemingly so, such a genial companion. He took her arm and
tucked it under his own.

“It was nice over there at the Berkeley,” he commented, thinking of
an inn they had just left. “Beautiful grounds--and that music! It was
delightful, wasn’t it?” They had been dancing together.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed, “the summer will soon be over, and then I’ll
have to be going back, I suppose. I wish it would never end. I wish I
could stay here forever, just like this, if you were here.” She stopped
and looked at the treetops, taking a full breath and stretching out
her arms. “And do look at those fire-flies,” she added, “aren’t they
wonderful?” She hung back, watching the flashing fire-flies under the
trees.

“Why not sit down here a little while?” he proposed as they neared the
steps. “It isn’t late yet.”

“Do you really mean it?” she asked warmly.

“You see, I’m beginning to be so foolish as to want to trust you. Isn’t
that idiotic? Yes, I’m even going to risk fifteen minutes with you.”

“I wish you two would quit your teasing, just once,” she pleaded. “I
wish you would learn to trust me and leave Blount behind just once in a
while, seeing that I’ve told you so often that I mean to do nothing to
hurt you without telling you beforehand.”

Gregory looked at her, pleased. He was moved, a little sorry for her,
and a little sorrier for himself.

In spite of himself, his wife and baby, as he now saw, he had come
along a path he should not have, and with one whom he could not
conscientiously respect or revere. There was no future for them
together, as he well knew, now or at any other time. Still he lingered.

“Well, here we are,” he said, “alone at last. Now you can do your
worst, and I have no one to protect me.”

“It would serve you right if I did, Mr. Smarty. But if I had suggested
that we sit down for a minute you would have believed that the wood
was full of spies. It’s too funny for words, the way you carry on. But
you’ll have to let me go upstairs to change my shoes, just the same.
They’ve been hurting me dreadfully, and I can’t stand them another
minute. If you want to, you can come up to the other balcony, or I’ll
come back here. I won’t be a minute. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he assented, thinking that the other balcony would not be
as open as this, much too private for him and her. “Certainly not. Run
along. But I’d rather you came back here. I want to smoke, anyhow,” and
he drew out his cigar and was about to make himself comfortable when
she came back.

“But you’ll have to get this door open for me,” she said. “I forgot
about that.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.”

He approached it, looking first for the large key which always hung on
one side at this hour of the night, but not seeing it, looked at the
lock. The key was in it.

“I was trying before. I put it there,” she explained.

He laid hold of it, and to his surprise it came open without any effort
whatsoever, a thing which caused him to turn and look at her.

“I thought you said it wouldn’t open,” he said.

“Well, it wouldn’t before. I don’t know what makes it work now, but it
wouldn’t then. Perhaps some one has come out this way since. Anyhow,
I’ll run up and be down right away.” She hurried up the broad flight of
stairs which ascended leisurely from this entrance.

Gregory returned to his chair, amused but not conscious of anything
odd or out of the way about the matter. It might well have been as she
said. Doors were contrary at times, or some one might have come down
and pushed it open. Why always keep doubting? Perhaps she really was
in love with him, as she seemed to indicate, or mightily infatuated,
and would not permit any one to injure him through her. It would seem
so, really. After all, he kept saying to himself, she was different
now to what he had originally thought, and what she had originally
been, caught in a tangle of her own emotions and compelled by him to
do differently from what she had previously planned. If he were not
married as happily as he was, might not something come of this? He
wondered.

The black-green wall of the trees just beyond where he was sitting,
the yellow light filtering from the one bowl lamp which ornamented
the ceiling, the fireflies and the sawing katydids, all soothed and
entertained him. He was beginning to think that politics was not such
a bad business after all, his end of it at least, or being pursued
even. His work thus far had yielded him a fair salary, furnishing
as it had excellent copy for some of the newspapers and political
organizations--the best was being reserved for the last--and was
leading him into more interesting ways than the old newspaper days had,
and the future, outside of what had happened in the last few weeks,
looked promising enough. Soon he would be able to deal the current
administration a body blow. This might raise him to a high position
locally. He had not been so easily frustrated as they had hoped, and
this very attractive girl had fallen in love with him.

For a while he stared down the black-green path up which they had come,
and then fixed his eyes in lazy contemplation on one of the groups of
stars showing above the treetops. Suddenly--or was it suddenly?--more
a whisper or an idea--he seemed to become aware of something that
sounded, as he listened more keenly, like a light footfall in the
garden beyond the hedge. It was so very light, a mere tickle of the
grass or stirring of a twig. He pricked up his ears and on the instant
strained every muscle and braced himself, not that he imagined anything
very dreadful was going to happen, but--were they up to their old
tricks again? Was this the wonderful gardeners again? Would they never
stop? Removing the cigar from his mouth and stilling the rocker in
which he had been slowly moving to and fro, he decided not to stir, not
even to move his hands, so well concealed was he from the bushes on
either side by the arrangement of the posts, one of which was to the
left of him. In this position he might see and not be seen. Did they
know he was there? How had they found out? Were they always watching
yet? Was she a part of it? He decided to get up and leave, but a moment
later thought it better to linger just a little, to wait and see. If
he left and she came back and did not find him there--could it be that
there was some new trick on foot?

While he was thus swiftly meditating, he was using his ears to their
utmost. Certainly there was a light footfall approaching along the
other side of the hedge to the left, two in fact, for no sooner was
one seemingly still, near at hand, than another was heard coming from
the same direction, as light and delicate as that of a cat--spies,
trappers, murderers, even, as he well knew. It was so amazing, this
prowling and stalking, so desperate and cruel, that it made him a
little sick. Perhaps, after all, he had better have kept Blount with
him--not have lingered in this fashion. He was about to leave, a
nervous thrill chasing up and down his spine, when he heard what he
took to be Imogene’s step on the stair. Then she was coming back,
after all, as she had said. She was not a part of this as he had
feared--or was she? Who could tell? But it would be foolish to leave
now. She would see that he was wholly suspicious again, and that stage
had somehow seemed to be passing between them. She had promised on
more than one occasion to protect him against these others, let alone
herself. Anyhow he could speak of these newcomers and then leave. He
would let her know that they were hanging about as usual, always ready
to take advantage of his good nature.

But now, her step having reached the bottom of the stair and ceased,
she did not come out. Instead, a light that was beside the door, but
out at this hour, was turned on, and glancing back he could see her
shadow, or thought he could, on the wall opposite, to the right. She
was doing something--what? There was a mirror below the light. She
might be giving her hair a last pat. She had probably arrayed herself
slightly differently for him to see. He waited. Still she did not
come. Then swiftly, a sense of something treacherous came over him,
a creeping sensation of being victimized and defeated. He felt, over
his taut nerves, this thrilling fear which seemed to almost convey the
words: Move! Hurry! Run! He could not sit still a moment longer, but,
as if under a great compulsion, leaped to his feet and sprang to the
door just as he thought he heard additional movements and even whispers
in the dark outside. What was it? Who? Now he would see!

Inside he looked for her, and there she was, but how different!
When she had gone upstairs she had been arrayed in a light summery
dress, very smart and out-door-ish, but here she was clothed in a soft
clinging housedress such as one would never wear outside the hotel. And
instead of being adjusted with her customary care, it was decidedly
awry, as though she might have been in some disturbing and unhappy
contest. The collar was slightly torn and pulled open, a sleeve ripped
at the shoulder and wrist, the hang of the skirt over the hips awry,
and the skirt itself torn, a ragged slit over the knee. Her face had
been powdered to a dead white, or she herself was overcome with fear
and distress, and the hair above it was disarranged, as though it had
been shaken or pulled to one side. Her whole appearance was that of one
who had been assailed in some evil manner and who had come out of the
contest disarranged as to her clothes and shaken as to her nerves.

Brief as his glance was, Gregory was amazed at the transformation.
He was so taken aback that he could not say anything, but just what
it all meant came to him in an intuitive flash. To fly was his one
thought, to get out of the vicinity of this, not to be seen or taken
near it. With one bound he was away and up the easy stair three at a
time, not pausing to so much as look back at her, meeting her first
wide half-frightened stare with one of astonishment, anger and fear.
Nor did he pause until he had reached his own door, through which he
fairly jumped, locking himself in as he did so. Once inside, he stood
there white and shaking, waiting for any sound which might follow, any
pursuit, but hearing none, going to his mirror and mocking at himself
for being such a fool as to be so easily outwitted, taken in, after
all his caution and sophisticated talk. Lord! he sighed. Lord!

And after all her protests and promises, this very evening, too, he
thought. What a revelation of the unreliability and treachery of human
nature! So she had been lying to him all the time, leading him on
in the face of his almost boastful precautions and suspicions, and
to-night, almost at the close of the season, had all but succeeded in
trapping him! Then Tilney was not so easily to be fooled, after all. He
commanded greater loyalty and cunning in his employees than he had ever
dreamed. But what could he say to her, now that he knew what she really
was, if ever he saw her again? She would just laugh at him, think him a
fool, even though he had managed to escape. Would he ever want to see
her again? Never, he thought. But to think that any one so young, so
smooth, so seemingly affectionate, could be so ruthless, so devilishly
clever and cruel! She was much more astute than either he or Blount had
given her credit for.

After moving the bureau and chairs in front of the door, he called up
Blount and sat waiting for him to come.

Actually, as he saw it now, she had meant to stage a seeming assault
in which he would have been accused as the criminal and if they had
sufficient witnesses he might have had a hard time proving otherwise.
After all, he had been going about with her a great deal, he and
Blount, and after he had told himself that he would not.

Her witnesses were there, close upon him, in the dark. Even though he
might be able to prove his previous good character, still, considering
the suspicious fact that he had trifled with her and this treacherous
situation so long, would a jury or the public believe him? A moment or
two more, and she would have screamed out that he was attacking her,
and the whole hotel would have been aroused. Her secret friends would
have rushed forward and beaten him. Who knows?--they might even have
killed him! And their excuse would have been that they were justified.
Unquestionably she and her friends would have produced a cloud of
witnesses. But she hadn’t screamed--there was a curious point as to
that, even though she had had ample time (and she had had) and it was
expected of her and intended that she should! Why hadn’t she? What had
prevented her? A strange, disturbing exculpating thought began to take
root in his mind, but on the instant also he did his best to crush it.

“No, no! I have had enough now,” he said to himself. “She did intend to
compromise me and that is all there is to it. And in what a fashion.
Horrible. No, this is the end. I will get out now to-morrow, that is
one thing certain, go to my wife in the mountains, or bring her home.”
Meanwhile, he sat there trembling, revolver in hand, wiping the sweat
from his face, for he did not know but that even yet they might follow
him here and attempt the charge of assault anyhow. Would they--could
they? Just then some one knocked on his door, and Gregory, after
demanding to know who it was, opened it to Blount. He quickly told him
of his evening’s experience.

“Well,” said Blount, heavily and yet amusedly, “she certainly is the
limit. That was a clever ruse, say what you will, a wonder. And the
coolness of her! Why, she joked with us about it! I thought you were
taking a chance, but not a great one. I was coming around to thinking
she might be all right, and now think of this! I agree with you that
it is time for you to leave. I don’t think you’ll ever get her over to
your side. She’s too crafty.”

The next morning Gregory was up early and on the veranda smoking and
meditating as to his exact course. He would go now, of course, and
probably never see this girl with her fiend’s heart again. What a
revelation! To think that there were such clever, ruthless, beautiful
sirens about in the same world with such women as his wife! Contrast
them--his wife, faithful, self-sacrificing, patient, her one object
the welfare of those whom she truly loved, and then put on the other
side of the scale this girl--tricky, shameless, an actress, one without
scruples or morals, her sole object in life, apparently, to advance
herself in any way that she might, and that at the expense of everybody
and everything!

He wanted to leave without seeing her, but in spite of himself he sat
on, telling himself that it would do no harm to have just one last talk
with her in order to clear up whether she had really intended to scream
or no--whether she was as evil as he really thought now, confront her
with her enormous treachery and denounce her for the villainess she
was. What new lie would she have on her tongue now, he wondered? Would
she be able to face him at all? Would she explain? Could she? He would
like to take one more look at her, or see if she would try to avoid him
completely. This morning she must be meditating on how unfortunately
she had failed, missed out, and only last night she had taken his hand
and smoothed it and whispered that she was not so bad, so mean, as he
thought her to be, and that some day he would find it out. And now see!

He waited a considerable time, and then sent up word that he wanted to
see her. He did not want to see this thing closed in this fashion with
no chance to at least berate her, to see what new lie she would tell.
After a while she came down, pale and seemingly exhausted, a weary look
about her eyes as though she had not slept. To his astonishment she
came over quite simply to where he was sitting, and when he stood up at
her approach as if to ward her off, stood before him, seemingly weaker
and more hopeless than ever. What an excellent actress, he thought! He
had never seen her so downcast, so completely overcome, so wilted.

“Well,” he began as she stood there, “what new lie have you fixed up to
tell me this morning?”

“No lie,” she replied softly.

“What! Not a single lie? Anyhow, you’ll begin by shamming contrition,
won’t you? You’re doing that already. Your friends made you do it, of
course, didn’t they? Tilney was right there--and Mrs. Skelton! They
were all waiting for you when you went up, and told you just what to do
and how it had to be done, wasn’t that it? And you had to do it, too,
didn’t you?” he sneered cynically.

“I told you I didn’t have anything to say,” she answered. “I didn’t do
anything--I mean I didn’t intend to--except to signal you to run, but
when you burst in on me that way----” He waved an impatient hand. “Oh,
all right,” she went on sadly. “I can’t help it if you won’t believe
me. But it’s true just the same. Everything you think, all except that
automobile plot, and this is true, but I’m not asking you to believe
me any more. I can’t help it if you won’t. It’s too late. But I had to
go through my part anyhow. Please don’t look at me that way, Ed--not
so hard. You don’t know how really weak I am, or what it is that makes
me do these things. But I didn’t want to do anything to hurt you last
night, not when I left you. And I didn’t. I hadn’t the slightest
intention, really I hadn’t. Oh, well, sneer if you want to! I couldn’t
help myself, though, just the same--believe it or not. Nothing was
farther from my mind when I came in, only--oh, what a state my life has
come to, anyhow!” she suddenly exclaimed. “You don’t know. Your life’s
not a mess, like mine. People have never had you in any position where
they could make you do things. That’s just the trouble--men never know
women really.” (“I should say not!” he interpolated.) “But I have had
to do so many things I didn’t want to do--but I’m not pleading with
you, Ed, really I’m not. I know it’s all over between us and no use,
only I wish I could make you believe that as bad as I am I’ve never
wanted to be as bad to you as I’ve seemed. Really, I haven’t. Oh,
honestly----”

“Oh, cut that stuff, please!” he said viciously. “I’m sick of it. It
wasn’t to hear anything like that that I sent for you. The reason I
asked you to come down here was merely to see how far you would face
it out, whether you would have the nerve to come, really, that was
all--oh, just to see whether you would have a new lie to spring, and I
see you have. You’re a wonder, you are! But I’d like to ask you just
one favor: Won’t you please let me alone in the future? I’m tired, and
I can’t stand it any longer. I’m going away now. This fellow Tilney you
are working for is very clever, but it’s all over. It really is. You’ll
never get another chance at me if I know myself.” He started to walk
off.

“Ed! Ed!” she called. “Please--just a minute--don’t go yet, Ed,” she
begged. “There’s something I want to say to you first. I know all you
say is true. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t said to myself
a thousand times. But you don’t understand what my life has been like,
what I’ve suffered, how I’ve been pushed around, and I can’t tell
you now, either--not now. Our family wasn’t ever in society, as Mrs.
Skelton pretended--you knew that, of course, though--and I haven’t
been much of anything except a slave, and I’ve had a hard time, too,
terrible,” and she began dabbing her eyes. “I know I’m no good. Last
night proved it to me, that’s a fact. But I hadn’t meant to do you any
harm even when I came alone that way--really I didn’t. I pretended to
be willing, that was all. Hear me out, Ed, anyhow. Please don’t go yet.
I thought I could signal you to run without them seeing me--really I
did. When I first left you the door was locked, and I came back for
that sole reason. I suppose they did something to it so I couldn’t open
it. There were others up there; they made me go back--I can’t tell you
how or why or who--but they were all about me--they always are. They’re
determined to get you, Ed, in one way or another, even if I don’t help
them, and I’m telling you you’d better look out for yourself. Please
do. Go away from here. Don’t have anything more to do with me. Don’t
have anything more to do with any of these people. I can’t help myself,
honestly I can’t. I didn’t want to, but--oh----” she wrung her hands
and sat down wearily, “you don’t know how I’m placed with them, what it
is----”

“Yes? Well, I’m tired of that stuff,” Gregory now added grimly and
unbelievingly. “I suppose they told you to run back and tell me this
so as to win my sympathy again? Oh, you little liar! You make me sick.
What a sneak and a crook you really are!”

“Ed! Ed!” she now sobbed. “Please! Please! Won’t you understand how
it is? They have watched every entrance every time we’ve gone out
since I came here. It doesn’t make any difference which door you come
through. They have men at every end. I didn’t know anything about it
until I went upstairs. Really, I didn’t. Oh, I wish I could get out of
all this! I’m so sick of it all. I told you that I’m fond of you, and
I am. Oh, I’m almost crazy! I wish sometimes that I could die, I’m so
sick of everything. My life’s a shabby mess, and now you’ll hate me all
the time,” and she rocked to and fro in a kind of misery, and cried
silently as she did so.

Gregory stared at her, amazed but unbelieving.

“Yes,” he insisted, “I know. The same old stuff, but I don’t believe
it. You’re lying now, just as you have been all along. You think by
crying and pretending to feel sad that you might get another chance
to trick me, but you won’t. I’m out of this to-day, once and for all,
and I’m through with you. There’s no use in my appealing to the police
under this administration, or I’d do that. But I want to tell you
this. If you follow me any longer, or any of this bunch around here,
I’m going to the newspapers. There’ll be some way of getting this
before the courts somewhere, and I’ll try it. And if you really were on
the level and wanted to do anything, there’s a way, all right, but you
wouldn’t do it if you had a chance, never, not in a million years. I
know you wouldn’t.”

“Oh, Ed! Ed! You don’t know me, or how I feel, or what I’ll do,” she
whimpered. “You haven’t given me a chance. Why don’t you suggest
something, if you don’t believe me, and see?”

“Well, I can do that easily enough,” he replied sternly. “I can call
that bluff here and now. Write me out a confession of all that’s been
going on here. Let me hear you dictate it to a stenographer, and then
come with me to a notary public or the district attorney, and swear to
it. Now we’ll see just how much there is to this talk about caring for
me,” and he watched her closely, the while she looked at him, her eyes
drying and her sobs ceasing. She seemed to pause emotionally and stare
at the floor in a speculative, ruminative mood. “Yes? Well, that’s
different, isn’t it? I see how it is now. You didn’t think I’d have
just the thing to call your bluff with, did you? And just as I thought,
you won’t do it. Well, I’m onto you now, so good-day. I have your
measure at last. Good-by!” and he started off.

“Ed!” she called, jumping up suddenly and starting after him. “Ed!
Wait--don’t go! I’ll do what you say. I’ll do anything you want. You
don’t believe I will, but I will. I’m sick of this life, I really am.
I don’t care what they do to me now afterwards, but just the same I’ll
come. Please don’t be so hard on me, Ed. Can’t you see--can’t you
see--Ed--how I feel about you? I’m crazy about you, I really am. I’m
not all bad, Ed, really I’m not--can’t you see that? Only--only----”
and by now he had come back and was looking at her in an incredulous
way. “I wish you cared for me a little, Ed. Do you, Ed, just a little?
Can’t you, if I do this?”

He looked at her with mingled astonishment, doubt, contempt, pity, and
even affection, after its kind. Would she really do it? And if she did
what could he offer her in the way of that affection which she craved?
Nothing, he knew that. She could never extricate herself from this
awful group by which she was surrounded, her past, the memory of the
things she had tried to do to him, and he--he was married. He was happy
with his wife really, and could make no return. There was his career,
his future, his present position. But that past of hers--what was it?
How could it be that people could control another person in this way
she claimed, especially scoundrels like these, and why wouldn’t she
tell him about it? What had she done that was so terrible as to give
them this power? Even if he did care for her what chance would he have,
presuming her faithfulness itself, to either confront or escape the
horde of secret enemies that was besetting him and her just now? They
would be discovered and paraded forth at their worst, all the details.
That would make it impossible for him to come forth personally and make
the charge which would constitute him champion of the people. No, no,
no! But why, considering all her efforts against him, should she come
to his rescue now, or by doing so expect him to do anything for her by
way of return? He smiled at her dourly, a little sadly.

“Yes. Well, Imogene, I can’t talk to you about that now, not for the
present, anyhow. You’re either one of the greatest actresses and
crooks that ever lived, or you’re a little light in the upper story.
At any rate, I should think that you might see that you could scarcely
expect me to like you, let alone to love you, all things considered,
and particularly since this other thing has not been straightened out.
You may be lying right now, for all I know--acting, as usual. But even
so--let’s first see what you do about this other, and then talk.”

He looked at her, then away over the sea to where some boats were
coming towards them.

“Oh, Ed,” she said sadly, observing his distracted gaze, “you’ll never
know how much I do care for you, although you know I must care a lot
for you, to do this. It’s the very worst thing I can do for me--the
end, maybe, for me. But I wish you would try and like me a little, even
if it were only for a little while.”

“Well, Imogene, let’s not talk about that now,” he replied skeptically.
“Not until we’ve attended to this other, anyhow. Certainly you owe me
that much. You don’t know what my life’s been, either--one long up-hill
fight. But you’d better come along with me just as you are, if you’re
coming. Don’t go upstairs to get any hat--or to change your shoes. I’ll
get a car here and you can come with me just as you are.”

She looked at him simply, directly, beatenly.

“All right, Ed, but I wish I knew how this is going to end. I can’t
come back here after this, you know, if they find it out. I know I owe
this to you, but, oh dear, I’m such a fool! Women always are where love
is concerned, and I told myself I’d never let myself get in love any
more, and now look at me!”

They went off to the city together, to his office, to a notary, to the
district attorney’s office--a great triumph. She confessed all, or
nearly so, how she had formerly been employed by Mr. Swayne; how she
had met Mr. Tilney there; how, later, after Swayne had fled, Tilney had
employed her in various capacities, secretary, amanuensis, how she had
come to look upon him as her protector; where and how she had met Mrs.
Skelton, and how the latter, at Mr. Tilney’s request (she was not sure,
only it was an order, she said) had engaged--commanded, rather--her
to do this work, though what the compulsion was she refused to say,
reserving it for a later date. She was afraid, she said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Once he had this document in his possession, Gregory was overjoyed, and
still he was doubtful of her. She asked him what now, what more, and he
requested her to leave him at once and to remain away for a time until
he had time to think and decide what else he wished to do. There could
be nothing between them, not even friendship, he reassured her, unless
he was fully convinced at some time or other that no harm could come to
him--his wife, his campaign, or anything else. Time was to be the great
factor.

And yet two weeks later, due to a telephone message from her to his
office for just one word, a few minutes, anywhere that he would
suggest, they met again, this time merely for a moment, as he told
himself and her. It was foolish, he shouldn’t do it, but still---- At
this interview, somehow, Imogene managed to establish a claim on his
emotions which it was not easy to overcome. It was in one of the small
side booths in the rather out-of-the-way Grill Parzan Restaurant in
the great financial district. Protesting that it was only because she
wished to see him just once more that she had done this, she had come
here, she said, after having dropped instantly and completely out of
the life at Triton Hall, not returning even for her wardrobe, as he
understood it, and hiding away in an unpretentious quarter of the city
until she could make up her mind what to do. She seemed, and said she
was, much alone, distrait. She did not know what was to become of her
now, what might befall her. Still, she was not so unhappy if only he
would not think badly of her any more. He had to smile at her seemingly
pathetic faith in what love might do for her. To think that love should
turn a woman about like this! It was fascinating, and so sad. He was
fond of her in a platonic way, he now told himself, quite sincerely
so. Her interest in him was pleasing, even moving, “But what is it
you expect of me?” he kept saying over and over. “You know we can’t
go on with this. There’s ‘the girl’ and the kid. I won’t do anything
to harm them, and besides, the campaign is just beginning. Even this
is ridiculously foolish of me. I’m taking my career in my hands. This
lunch will have to be the last, I tell you.”

“Well, Ed,” she agreed wistfully, looking at him at the very close of
the meal, “you have made up your mind, haven’t you? Then you’re not
going to see me any more? You seem so distant, now that we’re back in
town. Do you feel so badly toward me, Ed? Am I really so bad?”

“Well, Imogene, you see for yourself how it is, don’t you?” he went on.
“It can’t be. You are more or less identified with that old crowd, even
though you don’t want to be. They know things about you, you say, and
they certainly wouldn’t be slow to use them if they had any reason for
so doing. Of course they don’t know anything yet about this confession,
unless you’ve told them, and I don’t propose that they shall so long as
I don’t have to use it. As for me, I have to think of my wife and kid,
and I don’t want to do anything to hurt them. If ever Emily found this
out it would break her all up, and I don’t want to do that. She’s been
too square, and we’ve gone through too much together. I’ve thought it
all over, and I’m convinced that what I’m going to do is for the best.
We have to separate, and I came here to-day to tell you that I can’t
see you any more. It can’t be, Imogene, can’t you see that?”

“Not even for a little while?”

“Not even for a day. It just can’t be. I’m fond of you, and you’ve been
a brick to pull me out of this, but don’t you see that it can’t be?
Don’t you really see how it is?”

She looked at him, then at the table for a moment, and then out over
the buildings of the great city.

“Oh, Ed,” she reflected sadly, “I’ve been such a fool. I don’t mean
about the confession--I’m glad I did that--but just in regard to
everything I’ve done. But you’re right, Ed. I’ve felt all along that
it would have to end this way, even the morning I agreed to make the
confession. But I’ve been making myself hope against hope, just
because from the very first day I saw you out there I thought I
wouldn’t be able to hold out against you, and now you see I haven’t.
Well, all right, Ed. Let’s say good-bye. Love’s a sad old thing, isn’t
it?” and she began to put on her things.

He helped her, wondering over the strange whirl of circumstances which
had brought them together and was now spinning them apart.

“I wish I could do something more for you, Imogene, I really do,” he
said. “I wish I could say something that would make it a little easier
for you--for us both--but what would be the use? It wouldn’t really,
now would it?”

“No,” she replied brokenly.

He took her to the elevator and down to the sidewalk, and there they
stopped for a moment.

“Well, Imogene,” he began, and paused. “It’s not just the way I’d like
it to be, but--well----” he extended his hand “----here’s luck and
good-by, then.” He turned to go.

She looked up at him pleadingly.

“Ed,” she said, “Ed--wait! Aren’t you--don’t you want to----?” she put
up her lips, her eyes seemingly misty with emotion.

He came back and putting his arm about her, drew her upturned lips to
his. As he did so she clung to him, seeming to vent a world of feeling
in this their first and last kiss, and then turned and left him, never
stopping to look back, and being quickly lost in the immense mass which
was swirling by. As he turned to go though he observed two separate
moving-picture men with cameras taking the scene from different
angles. He could scarcely believe his senses. As he gazed they stopped
their work, clapped their tripods together and made for a waiting car.
Before he could really collect his thoughts they were gone--and then----

“As I live!” he exclaimed. “She did do this to me after all, or did
she? And after all my feeling for her!--and all her protestations! The
little crook! And now they have that picture of me kissing her! Stung,
by George! and by the same girl, or by them, and after all the other
things I’ve avoided! That’s intended to make that confession worthless!
She did that because she’s changed her mind about me! Or, she never did
care for me.” Grim, reducing thought! “Did she--could she--know--do a
thing like that?” he wondered. “Is it she and Tilney, or just Tilney
alone, who has been following me all this time?” He turned solemnly and
helplessly away.

Now after all his career was in danger. His wife had returned and all
was seemingly well, but if he proceeded with his exposures as he must,
then what? This picture would be produced! He would be disgraced! Or
nearly so. Then what? He might charge fraud, a concocted picture,
produce the confession. But could he? Her arms had been about his neck!
He had put his about her! Two different camera men had taken them from
different angles! Could he explain that? Could he find Imogene again?
Was it wise? Would she testify in his behalf? If so what good would it
do? Would any one, in politics at least, believe a morally victimized
man? He doubted it. The laughter! The jesting! The contempt! No one
except his wife, and she could not help him here.

Sick at heart and defeated he trudged on now clearly convinced that
because of this one silly act of kindness all his work of months had
been undone and that now, never, so shy were the opposing political
forces, might he ever hope to enter the promised land of his better
future--not here, at least--that future to which he had looked forward
with so much hope--neither he nor his wife, nor child.

“Fool! Fool!” he exclaimed to himself heavily and then--“fool! fool!”
Why had he been so ridiculously sympathetic and gullible? Why so unduly
interested? but finding no answer and no clear way of escape save in
denial and counter charges he made his way slowly on toward that now
dreary office where so long he had worked, but where now, because of
this he might possibly not be able to work, at least with any great
profit to himself.

“Tilney! Imogene! The Triton!” he thought--what clever scoundrels those
two were--or Tilney anyhow--he could not be sure of Imogene, even now,
and so thinking, he left the great crowd at his own door, that crowd,
witless, vast, which Tilney and the mayor and all the politicians were
daily and hourly using--the same crowd which he had wished to help and
against whom, as well as himself, this little plot had been hatched,
and so easily and finally so successfully worked.




THE CRUISE OF THE “IDLEWILD”


It would be difficult to say just how the trouble aboard the _Idlewild_
began, or how we managed to sail without things going to smash every
fifteen minutes; but these same constitute the business of this
narrative. It was at Spike, and the weather was blistering hot. Some of
us, one in particular, were mortal tired of the life we were leading.
It was a dingy old shop inside, loaded with machines and blacksmithing
apparatus and all the paraphernalia that go to make up the little
depots and furniture that railways use, and the labor of making them
was intrusted to about a hundred men all told--carpenters, millwrights,
wood-turners, tinsmiths, painters, blacksmiths, an engineer, and a yard
foreman handling a score of “guineas,” all of whom were too dull to
interest the three or four wits who congregated in the engine room.

Old John, the engineer, was one of these--a big, roly-poly sort of
fellow, five foot eleven, if he was an inch, with layers of flesh
showing through his thin shirt and tight trousers, and his face and
neck constantly standing in beads of sweat. Then there was the smith,
a small, wiry man of thirty-five, with arms like a Titan and a face
that was expressive of a goodly humor, whether it was very brilliant
or not--the village smith, as we used to call him. Then there was Ike,
little Ike, the blacksmith’s helper, who was about as queer a little
cabin boy as ever did service on an ocean-going steamer or in a
blacksmith’s shop--a small misshapen, dirty-faced lad, whose coat was
three, and his trousers four, times too large for him--hand-me-downs
from some mysterious source; immensely larger members of his family,
I presume. He had a battered face, such as you sometimes see given to
satyrs humorously represented in bronze, and his ears were excessively
large. He had a big mouthful of dirty yellow teeth, two or three
missing in front. His eyes were small and his hands large, but a
sweeter soul never crept into a smaller or more misshapen body. Poor
little Ike. To think how near he came to being driven from his job by
our tomfoolishness!

I should say here that the _Idlewild_ was not a boat at all, but an
idea. She evolved out of our position on Long’s Point, where the Harlem
joins the Hudson, and where stood the shop in which we all worked,
water to the south of us, water to the west of us, water to the north
of us, and the railroad behind us landward, just like the four--or was
it the six? hundred--at Balaklava. Anyhow, we got our idea from the
shop and the water all around, and we said, after much chaffering about
one thing and another, that we were aboard the _Idlewild_, and that the
men were the crew, and that the engineer was the captain, and I was the
mate, just as if everything were ship-shape, and this were a really and
truly ocean-going vessel.

As I have said before, I do not know exactly how the idea started,
except that it did. Old John was always admiring the beautiful yachts
that passed up and down the roadstead of the Hudson outside, and this
may have had something to do with it. Anyhow, he would stand in the
doorway of his engine room and watch everything in the shape of a
craft that went up and down the stream. He didn’t know much about
boats, but he loved to comment on their charms, just the same.

“That there now must be Morgan’s yacht,” he used to say of a fine
black-bodied craft that had a piano-body finish to it, an’ “That
there’s the _Waterfowl_, Governor Morton’s yacht. Wouldn’ ja think,
now, them fellers ’d feel comfortable a-settin’ back there on the poop
deck an’ smokin’ them dollar cigars on a day like this? Aw, haw!”

It would usually be blistering hot and the water a flashing blue when
he became excited over the yacht question.

“Right-o,” I once commented enviously.

“Aw, haw! Them’s the boys as knows how to live. I wouldn’ like nothin’
better on a day like this than to set out there in one o’ them easy
chairs an’ do up about a pound o’ tobacco. Come now, wouldn’t that be
the ideal life for your Uncle Dudley?”

“It truly would,” I replied sadly but with an inherent desire to tease,
“only I don’t think my Uncle Dudley is doing so very badly under the
circumstances. I notice he isn’t losing any flesh.”

“Well, I dunno. I’m a little stout, I’ll admit. Still, them conditions
would be more congenial-like. I ain’t as active as I used to be. A nice
yacht an’ some good old fifty-cent cigars an’ a cool breeze ’d just
about do for me.”

“You’re too modest, John. You want too little. You ought to ask for
something more suited to your Lucullian instincts. What do you say to a
house in Fifth Avenue, a country place at Newport, and the friendship
of a few dukes and earls?”

“Well, I’m not backward,” he replied. “If them things was to come my
way I guess I could live up to ’em. Aw, haw!”

“Truly, truly, John, you’re quite right, but you might throw in a few
shovelfuls of shavings just to show that there are no hard feelings
between you and the company while you’re waiting for all this. I notice
your steam is getting low, eh? What?”

“Hang the steam! If the road was decent they’d give a man coal to burn.
It takes a hundred tons of shavin’s a day to keep this blinged old
cormorant goin’. Think of me havin’ to stand here all day an’ shovelin’
in shavin’s! Seems to me all I do here is shovel. I’m an engineer, not
a fireman. They ought to gimme a man for that, by rights.”

“Quite so! Quite so! We’ll see about that later--only, for the present,
the shavings for yours. Back to the shovel, John!” The tone was heavily
bantering.

“Well, the steam was gettin’ a little low,” John would cheerfully
acknowledge, once he was able to resume his position in the doorway. It
was these painful interruptions which piqued him so.

Out of such chaffering and bickering as this it was that the spirit
of the _Idlewild_ finally took its rise. It came up from the sea of
thought, I presume.

“What’s the matter with us having a boat of our own, John?” I said to
him one day. “Here we are, out here on the bounding main, or mighty
near it. This is as good as any craft, this old shop. Ease the thing
around and hoist the Jolly Roger, and I’ll sail you up to White Plains.
What’s the matter with calling her the _Idlewild_? The men will
furnish the idle, and the bosses will furnish the wild, eh? How’s that
for an appropriate title?”

“Haw! Haw!” exclaimed stout John. “Bully! We’ll fix ’er up to-day. You
be the captain an’ I’ll be the mate an’----”

“Far be it from me, John,” I replied humbly and generously, seeing that
he had the one point of vantage in this whole institution which would
serve admirably as a captain’s cabin--with his consent, of course.
It was more or less like a captain’s cabin on a tug-boat, at that,
picturesque and with a sea view, as it were. “You be the captain and
I’ll be the mate. Far be it from me to infringe on a good old sea dog’s
rights. You’re the captain, all right, and this is a plenty good enough
cabin. I’m content to be mate. Open up steam, Cap, and we’ll run the
boat up and down the yard a few times. Look out the window and see how
she blows. It’s ho! for a life on the bounding main, and a jolly old
crew are we!”

“Right-o, my hearty!” he now agreed, slapping me on the back at
the same time that he reached for the steamcock and let off a few
preliminary blasts of steam--by way of showing that we were moving, as
it were. The idea that we were aboard a real yacht and about to cruise
forth actually seized upon my fancy in a most erratic and delightsome
way. It did on John’s, too. Plainly we needed some such idyllic dream.
Outside was the blue water of the river. Far up and down were many
craft sailing like ourselves, I said.

Inside of fifteen minutes we had appointed the smith, bos’n, and little
Ike, the smith’s helper, the bos’n’s mate. And we had said that the
carpenters and turners and millwrights were the crew and that the
“guineas” were the scullions. Mentally, we turned the engine-room into
the captain’s cabin, and here now was nothing but “Heave ho-s” and
“How does she blow thar, Bill-s?” and “Shiver my timbers-s” and “Blast
my top-lights-s” for days to come. We “heaved ho” at seven o’clock in
the morning when the engine started, “lay to and dropped anchor” at
noon when the engine stopped, “hoisted and set sail” again at one, for
heaven knows what port, and “sighted Spike” and “put hard to port” at
six. Sometimes during the day when it was hot and we were very tired
we took ideal runs to Coney and Manhattan Beach and Newport, where the
best of breezes are, in imagination, anyhow, and we found it equally
easy to sail to all points of the compass in all sorts of weather. Many
was the time we visited Paris and London and Rome and Constantinople,
all in the same hour, regardless, and our calls upon the nobility of
these places were always a matter of light comment. At night we always
managed to promptly haul up at Spike, which was another subject of
constant congratulation between the captain and the mate. For if we had
missed our trains and gotten home late!--Regardess of the fact that we
were seafaring men, we wanted our day to end promptly, I noticed.

During the days which followed we elaborated our idea, and the
_Idlewild_ became more of a reality than is to be easily understood
by those who have not indulged in a similar fancy. We looked upon the
shop as a trusty ship with a wheel at the stern, where the millwright,
an Irishman by the name of Cullen, ran the giant plane, and an anchor
at the prow, where the engine-room was. And there was a light in the
captain’s eye at times which, to me at least, betokened a real belief.
It is so easy to enter upon a fancy, especially when it is pleasing.
He would stand in the doorway of his small, hot engine-room, or lean
out of the window which commanded the beautiful sweep of water so
close to our door, and at times I verily believe he thought we were
under way, so great is the power of self-hypnotism. The river was so
blue and smooth these summer days, the passing boats so numerous. We
could see the waters race to and fro as the tides changed. It was such
a relief from the dull wearisome grind of shoveling in shavings and
carrying out ashes or loading cars, as I was occasionally compelled to
do--for my health, in my own case, I should explain. I am sure that,
as an ordinary fifteen-cent-an-hour-shaving-carrier, I valued my title
of mate as much as I ever valued anything, and the smith, “the village
smith,” was smilingly proud to be hailed as “Bos’n.” Little Ike being
of an order of mind that fancied the world ended somewhere abruptly in
the Rocky Mountains, and that you really could shoot buffaloes after
you left Buffalo, New York, did not grasp the meaning of it all at
once, but at last it dawned upon him. When he got the idea that we
really considered this a ship and that he was the bos’n’s mate with the
privilege of lowering the boats in case of a wreck or other disaster,
he was beside himself.

“Hully chee!” he exclaimed, “me a bos’n’s mate! Dat’s de real t’ing,
ain’t it! Heave ho, dere!” And he fell back on the captain’s locker and
kicked his heels in the air.

“You want to remember, though, Ike,” I said, once in an evil
moment--what small things regulate the good and evil fortunes of all
things!--“that this is the captain’s cabin and bos’n’s mates are not
much shucks on a vessel such as the _Idlewild_. If you want to retain
your position you want to be respectful, and above all, obedient. For
instance, if the captain should choose to have you act as stoker for
a few minutes now and then, it would be your place to rejoice at the
request. You get that, do you?”

“Not on yer life,” replied Ike irritably, who understood well enough
that this meant more work.

“That’s right, though,” chimed in big John, pleased beyond measure at
this latest development. “I’m captain here now, an’ you don’t want to
forget that. No back lip from any bos’n’s mate. What the mate says
goes. The shovel for yours, bos’n, on orders from the captain. Now
jist to show that the boat’s in runnin’ order you can chuck in a few
shovelfuls right now.”

“Na! I will not!”

“Come, Ike,” I said, “no insubordination. You can’t go back on the
captain like that. We have the irons for recalcitrants,” and I eyed
a pile of old rusty chains lying outside the door. “We might have
to truss him up, Cap, and lay him down below,” and to prove the
significance of my thought I picked up one end of a chain and rattled
it solemnly. The captain half choked with fat laughter.

“That’s right. Git the shovel there, Ike.”

Ike looked as if he doubted the regularity of this, as if life on
the briny deep might not be all that it was cracked up to be, but
for the sake of regularity and in order not to be reduced to the
shameful condition of a scullion, or worse, “irons,” which was
the only alternative offered, he complied. After he had thrown in
eight scoopfuls we both agreed that this was true order and that the
organization and dignity of the _Idlewild_ might well be looked upon
now as established.

Things went from good to better. We persuaded Joe, who was the
millwright’s assistant, back at the “wheel,” that his dignity would be
greatly enhanced in this matter if he were to accept the position of
day watch, particularly since his labors in that capacity would accord
with his bounden duties as a hireling of the road; for, if he were
stationed in the rear (front room, actually) anyhow, and compelled,
owing to the need of receiving and taking away various planks and
boards as they came out of the planes and molding machines, to walk to
and fro, it would be an easy matter to notice any suspicious lights on
the horizon forward and to come aft at once, or at least at such times
as the boss was not looking, or when he came to heat his coffee or get
a drink, and report.

Amiable Joe! I can see him yet, tall, ungainly, stoop-shouldered, a
slight cast in one eye, his head bobbing like a duck’s as he walked--a
most agreeable and pathetic person. His dreams were so simple, his
wants so few. He lived with his sister somewhere in Eleventh Avenue
down-town in a tenement, and carried home bundles of firewood to
her at night all this great distance, to help out. He received (not
earned--he did much more than that) seventeen and a half cents an hour,
and dreamed of what? I could never quite make out. Marriage? A little
cheap flat somewhere? Life is so pathetic at times.

“Light on the starboard bow,” or “Light on the port bow,” were the
chosen phrases which we told him he was in duty bound to use, adding
always “Sir,” as respectful subordinates should. Also we insisted on
his instantly making known to us at such times as we twain happened
to be in the engine-room together, all bell buoys, whistle buoys,
lighthouses, passing vessels and most of all the monthly pay car as
it rounded the curve half a mile up the track about the fifteenth of
every month. The matter of reporting the approach of the pay car was
absolutely without exception. If he failed to do that we would be
compelled, sad as it might be and excellent as his other services had
been, to put him in irons. Here we showed him the irons also.

Joe cheerfully accepted. For days thereafter he would come back
regularly when the need of heating his coffee or securing a drink
necessitated, and lifting a straight forefinger to his forehead, would
report, “Light on the port bow, Sir. I think it’s in the steel works
jist up the track here,” or “Light on the starboard, Sir. It’s the fast
mail, maybe, for Chicago, jist passin’ Kingsbridge.”

“No thinks, Joseph,” I used to reprimand. “You are not supposed to give
your thinks. If the captain wishes to know what it is, he will ask.
Back to the molding machine for yours, Joseph.”

Joseph, shock-headed, with dusty hair, weak eyes and a weaker smile,
would retire, and then we would look at each other, the captain and I,
and grin, and he would exclaim:

“Pretty fair discipline, mate.”

“Oh, I think we’ve got ’em going, Captain.”

“Nothin’ like order, mate.”

“You’re right, Cap.”

“I don’t suppose the mate’d ever condescend to take orders like that,
eh, mate?”

“Well, hardly, Cap.”

“Still, you don’t want to forget that I’m captain, mate.”

“And you don’t want to forget that I’m mate, Captain.”

Thus we would badger one another until one of the scullion crew
arrived, when without loss of dignity on either side we could easily
turn our attention to him.

  And these scullions! What a dull crew! Gnarled, often
non-English-speaking foreigners against or in front of whom we could
jest to our hearts’ content. They could not even guess the amazing
things we were ordering them to do on penalty of this, that, and the
other.

Things went from better to best. We reached the place where the fact
of the shop’s being a ship, and the engineer the captain, and I the
mate, and the smith the bos’n, _ad infinitum_, came to be a matter of
general knowledge, and we were admired and congratulated and laughed
with until nearly all the workers of the shop, with some trifling
and unimportant exceptions, the foreman for one, began to share our
illusion--carpenters, cabinet-makers, joiners, all. The one exception,
as I say, was the foreman, only he was a host in himself, a mean,
ill-dispositioned creature, of course, who looked upon all such ideas
as fol-de-rol, and in a way subversive of order and good work. He
was red-headed, big-handed, big-footed, dull. He had no imagination
beyond lumber and furniture, no poetry in his soul. But the crew, the
hundred-headed crew, accepted it as a relief. They liked to think they
were not really working, but out upon a blue and dancing sea, and came
back one by one, the carpenters, the tinsmiths, the millwrights, one
and all, with cheerful grins to do us honor.

“So you’re the captain, eh?” lazy old Jack, the partner of car-loading
Carder, asked of the engineer, and John looked his full dignity at once.

“That I am, Jack,” he replied, “only able seamen ain’t supposed to ask
too many familiar questions. Are they, mate?”

“Well, I should say not,” I replied, arriving with a basket of
shavings. “Able seamen should always salute the captain before
addressing him, anyhow, and never fail to say _Sir_. Still, our crew
is new. It’s not very _able_ and the seamen end of it is a little _on
the fritz_, I’m thinking. But, all things considered, we can afford
to overlook a few errors until we get everything well in hand. Eh,
Captain?”

“Right, mate,” returned the captain genially. “You’re always
right--nearly.”

Before I could start an argument on this score, one of the able seamen,
one who was thus discourteously commented on, observed, “I don’t know
about that. Seems to me the mate of this here ship ain’t any too much
shucks, or the captain either.”

The captain and I were a little dismayed by this. What to do with an
able seaman who was too strong and too dull to take the whole thing
in the proper spirit? It threatened smooth sailing! This particular
person was old Stephen Bowers, the carpenter from the second floor who
never to us seemed to have quite the right lightness of spirit to make
a go of all this. He was too likely to turn rough but well-meant humor
into a personal affront to himself.

“Well, Captain, there you are,” I said cautiously, with a desire to
maintain order and yet peace. “Mutiny, you see.”

“It does look that way, don’t it?” big John replied, eyeing the
newcomer with a quizzical expression, half humorous, half severe.
“What’ll we do, mate, under such circumstances?”

“Lower a boat, Captain, and set him adrift,” I suggested, “or put him
on bread and water, along with the foreman and the superintendent.
They’re the two worst disturbers aboard the boat. We can’t have these
insubordinates breaking up our discipline.”

This last, deftly calculated to flatter, was taken in good part, and
bridged over the difficulty for the time being. Nothing was taken so
much in good part or seemed to soothe the feelings of the rebellious as
to include them with their superiors in an order of punishment which on
the very first day of the cruise it had been decided was necessary to
lay upon all the guiding officers of the plant. We could not hope to
control them, so ostensibly we placed them in irons, or lowered them in
boats, classifying them as mutineers and the foreman’s office as the
lock-up. It went well.

“Oh no, oh no, I don’t want to be put in that class,” old Bowers
replied, the flattering unction having smoothed his ruffled soul. “I’m
not so bad as all that.”

“Very well, then,” I replied briskly. “What do you think, Captain?”

The latter looked at me and smiled.

“Do you think we kin let him go this wunst?” he inquired of me.

“Sure, sure,” I replied. “If he’s certain he doesn’t want to join the
superintendent and the foreman.”

Old Bowers went away smiling, seemingly convinced that we were going
to run the boat in ship-shape fashion, and before long most of the
good-natured members of the crew consented to have themselves called
able seamen.

For nearly a month thereafter, during all the finest summer weather,
there existed the most charming life aboard this ideal vessel. We
used the shop and all its details for the idlest purposes of our
fancy. Hammers became belaying pins, the machines of the shop ship’s
ballast, the logs in the yard floating debris. When the yard became too
cluttered, as it did once, we pretended we were in Sargasso and had to
cut our way out--a process that took quite a few days. We were about
all day commenting on the weather in nautical phrases, sighting strange
vessels, reporting disorders or mutiny on the part of the officers in
irons, or the men, or announcing the various “bells,” lighthouses, etc.

In an evil hour, however, we lit upon the wretched habit of pitching
upon little Ike, the butt of a thousand quips. Being incapable of
grasping the true edge of our humor, he was the one soul who was yet
genial enough to take it and not complain. We called upon him to shovel
ashes, to split the wood, to run aft, that was, to the back gate, and
see how the water stood. More than once he was threatened with those
same “irons” previously mentioned, and on one occasion we actually
dragged in a length, pretending to bind him with it and fasten him to
the anvil (with the bos’n’s consent, of course), which resulted in a
hearty struggle, almost a row. We told him we would put him in an old
desk crate we had, a prison, no less, and once or twice, in a spirit
of deviltry, John tried to carry out his threat, nailing him in, much
against his will. Finally we went to the length of attempting to
physically enforce our commands when he did not obey, which of course
ended in disaster.

It was this way. Ike was in the habit of sweeping up his room--the
smith’s shop--at three o’clock in the afternoon, which was really not
reasonable considering that there were three hours of work ahead of all
of us, and that he was inclined to resent having his fine floor mussed
up thereafter. On the other hand I had to carry shavings through there
all this time, and it was a sore temptation to drop a few now and then
just for the devil’s sake. After due consultation with the captain,
I once requested him to order that the bos’n’s mate leave the floor
untouched until half past four, at least, which was early enough. The
bos’n’s mate replied with the very cheering news that the captain could
“go to the devil.” He wasn’t going to kill himself for anybody, and
besides, the foreman had once told him he might do this if he chose,
heaven only knows why. What did the captain think that he (the bos’n’s
mate) was, anyhow?

Here at last was a stiff problem. Mutiny! Mutiny! Mutiny! What was to
be done? Plainly this was inconveniencing the mate and besides, it was
mutiny. And in addition it so lacerated our sense of dignity and order
that we decided it could not be. Only, how to arrange it. We had been
putting so much upon the bos’n’s mate of late that he was becoming a
little rebellious, and justly so, I think. He was always doing a dozen
things he need not have done. Still, unless we could command him,
the whole official management of this craft would go by the board,
or so we thought. Finally we decided to act, but how? Direct orders,
somehow, were somewhat difficult to enforce. After due meditation we
took the bos’n, a most approving officer and one who loved to tease Ike
(largely because he wanted to feel superior himself, I think), into
our confidence and one late afternoon just after Ike had, figuratively
speaking, swabbed up the deck, the latter sent him to some other part
of the shop, or vessel, rather, while we strewed shavings over his
newly cleaned floor with a shameless and lavish hand. It was intensely
delicious, causing gales of laughter at the time--but--. Ike came back
and cleaned this up--not without a growl, however. He did not take it
in the cheerful spirit in which we hoped he would. In fact he was very
morose about it, calling us names and threatening to go to the foreman
[in the lock-up] if we did it again. However, in spite of all, and
largely because of the humorous spectacle he in his rage presented we
did it not once, but three or four times and that after he had most
laboriously cleaned his room. A last assault one afternoon, however,
resulted in a dash on his part to the foreman’s office.

“I’m not goin’ to stand it,” he is declared to have said by one who
was by at the time when he appeared in front of that official. “They’re
strewin’ up my floor with shavin’s two an’ three times every day after
I’ve cleaned it up for the day. I’ll quit first.”

The foreman, that raw, non-humorous person previously described, who
evidently sympathized with Ike and who, in addition, from various
sources, had long since learned what was going on, came down in a
trice. He had decided to stop this nonsense.

“I want you fellows to cut that out now,” he declared vigorously on
seeing us. “It’s all right, but it won’t do. Don’t rub it in. Let him
alone. I’ve heard of this ship stuff. It’s all damn nonsense.”

The captain and mate gazed at each other in sad solemnity. Could it
be that Ike had turned traitor? This was anarchy. He had not only
complained of us but of the ship!--the _Idlewild_! What snakiness
of soul! We retired to a corner of our now storm-tossed vessel and
consulted in whispers. What would we do? Would we let her sink or try
to save her? Perhaps it was advisable for the present to cease pushing
the joke too far in that quarter, anyhow. Ike might cause the whole
ship to be destroyed.

Nevertheless, even yet there were ways and ways of keeping her afloat
and punishing an insubordinate even when no official authority existed.
Ike had loved the engine-room, or rather, the captain’s office, above
all other parts of the vessel because it was so comfortable. Here
between tedious moments of pounding iron for the smith or blowing
the bellows or polishing various tools that had been sharpened, he
could retire on occasion, when the boss was not about and the work
not pressing (it was the very next room to his) and gaze from the
captain’s door or window out on the blue waters of the Hudson where lay
the yachts, and up the same stream where stood the majestic palisades.
At noon or a little before he could bring his cold coffee, sealed in
a tin can, to the captain’s engine and warm it. Again, the captain’s
comfortable locker held his coat and hat, the captain’s wash bowl--a
large wooden tub to one side of the engine into which comforting warm
water could be drawn--served as an ideal means of washing up. Since
the bos’n’s mate had become friendly with the captain, he too had
all these privileges. But now, in view of his insubordination, all
this was changed. Why should a rebellious bos’n’s mate be allowed to
obtain favors of the captain? More in jest than in earnest one day
it was announced that unless the bos’n’s mate would forego his angry
opposition to a less early scrubbed deck----

“Well, mate,” the captain observed to the latter in the presence of the
bos’n’s mate, with a lusty wink and a leer, “you know how it goes with
these here insubordinates, don’t you? No more hot coffee at noon time,
unless there’s more order here. No more cleanin’ up in the captain’s
tub. No more settin’ in the captain’s window takin’ in the cool mornin’
breeze, as well as them yachts. What say? Eh? We know what to do with
these here now insubordinates, don’t we, mate, eh?” This last with a
very huge wink.

“You’re right, Captain. Very right,” the mate replied. “You’re on the
right track now. No more favors--unless---- Order must be maintained,
you know.”

“Oh, all right,” replied little Ike now, fully in earnest and thinking
we were. “If I can’t, I can’t. Jist the same I don’t pick up no
shavin’s after four,” and off he strolled.

Think of it, final and complete mutiny, and there was nothing more
really to be done.

All we could do now was to watch him as he idled by himself at odd free
moments down by the waterside in an odd corner of the point, a lonely
figure, his trousers and coat too large, his hands and feet too big,
his yellow teeth protruding. No one of the other workingmen ever seemed
to be very enthusiastic over Ike, he was so small, so queer; no one,
really, but the captain and the mate, and now they had deserted him.

It was tough.

Yet still another ill descended on us before we came to the final loss,
let us say, of the good craft _Idlewild_. In another evil hour the
captain and the mate themselves fell upon the question of priority, a
matter which, so long as they had had Ike to trifle with, had never
troubled them. Now as mate and the originator of this sea-going
enterprise, I began to question the authority of the captain himself
occasionally, and to insist on sharing as my undeniable privilege all
the dignities and emoluments of the office--to wit: the best seat in
the window where the wind blew, the morning paper when the boss was
not about, the right to stand in the doorway, use the locker, etc.
The captain objected, solely on the ground of priority, mind you, and
still we fell a-quarreling. The mate in a stormy, unhappy hour was
reduced by the captain to the position of mere scullion, and ordered,
upon pain of personal assault, to vacate the captain’s cabin. The mate
reduced the captain to the position of stoker and stood in the doorway
in great glee while the latter, perforce, owing to the exigencies of
his position, was compelled to stoke whether he wanted to or no. It
could not be avoided. The engine had to be kept going. In addition,
the mate had brought many morning papers, an occasional cigar for the
captain, etc. There was much rancor and discord and finally the whole
affair, ship, captain, mate and all, was declared by the mate to be a
creation of his brain, a phantom, no less, and that by his mere act of
ignoring it the whole ship--officers, men, masts, boats, sails--could
be extinguished, scuttled, sent down without a ripple to that limbo of
seafaring men, the redoubtable Davy Jones’s locker.

The captain was not inclined to believe this at first. On the contrary,
like a good skipper, he attempted to sail the craft alone. Only, unlike
the mate, he lacked the curious faculty of turning jest and fancy into
seeming fact. There was a something missing which made the whole thing
seem unreal. Like two rival generals, we now called upon a single army
to follow us individually, but the crew, seeing that there was war
in the cabin, stood off in doubt and, I fancy, indifference. It was
not important enough in their hardworking lives to go to the length
of risking the personal ill-will of either of us, and so for want of
agreement, the ship finally disappeared.

Yes, she went down. The _Idlewild_ was gone, and with her, all her fine
seas, winds, distant cities, fogs, storms.

For a time indeed, we went charily by each other.

Still it behooved us, seeing how, in spite of ourselves, we had to work
in the same room and there was no way of getting rid of each other’s
obnoxious presence, to find a common ground on which we could work
and talk. There had never been any real bitterness between us--just
jest, you know, but serious jest, a kind of silent sorrow for many fine
things gone. Yet still that had been enough to keep everything out
of order. Now from time to time each of us thought of restoring the
old life in some form, however weak it might be. Without some form of
humor the shop was a bore to the mate and the captain, anyhow. Finally
the captain sobering to his old state, and the routine work becoming
dreadfully monotonous, both mate and captain began to think of some way
in which they, at least, could agree.

“Remember the _Idlewild_, Henry?” asked the ex-captain one day
genially, long after time and fair weather had glossed over the
wretched memory of previous quarrels and dissensions.

“That I do, John,” I replied pleasantly.

“Great old boat she was, wasn’t she, Henry?”

“She was, John.”

“An’ the bos’n’s mate, he wasn’t such a bad old scout, was he, Henry,
even if he wouldn’t quit sweepin’ up the shavin’s?”

“He certainly wasn’t, John. He was a fine little fellow. Remember the
chains, John?”

“Haw! Haw!” echoed that worthy, and then, “Do you think the old
_Idlewild_ could ever be found where she’s lyin’ down there on the
bottom, mate?”

“Well, she might, Captain, only she’d hardly be the same old boat that
she was now that she’s been down there so long, would she--all these
dissensions and so on? Wouldn’t it be easier to build a new one--don’t
you think?”

“I don’t know but what you’re right, mate. What’d we call her if we
did?”

“Well, how about the _Harmony_, Captain? That sounds rather
appropriate, doesn’t it?”

“The _Harmony_, mate? You’re right--the _Harmony_. Shall we? Put ’er
there!”

“Put her there,” replied the mate with a will. “We’ll organize a new
crew right away, Captain--eh, don’t you think?”

“Right! Wait, we’ll call the bos’n an’ see what he says.”

Just then the bos’n appeared, smiling goodnaturedly.

“Well, what’s up?” he inquired, noting our unusually cheerful faces, I
presume. “You ain’t made it up, have you, you two?” he exclaimed.

“That’s what we have, bos’n, an’ what’s more, we’re thinkin’ of raisin’
the old _Idlewild_ an’ re-namin’ her the _Harmony_, or, rather,
buildin’ a new one. What say?” It was the captain talking.

“Well, I’m mighty glad to hear it, only I don’t think you can have your
old bos’n’s mate any longer, boys. He’s gonna quit.”

“Gonna quit!” we both exclaimed at once, and sadly, and John added
seriously and looking really distressed, “What’s the trouble there?
Who’s been doin’ anything to him now?” We both felt guilty because of
our part in his pains.

“Well, Ike kind o’ feels that the shop’s been rubbin’ it into him of
late for some reason,” observed the bos’n heavily. “I don’t know why.
He thinks you two have been tryin’ to freeze him out, I guess. Says he
can’t do anything any more, that everybody makes fun of him and shuts
him out.”

We stared at each other in wise illumination, the new captain and the
new mate. After all, we were plainly the cause of poor little Ike’s
depression, and we were the ones who could restore him to favor if
we chose. It was the captain’s cabin he sighed for--his old pleasant
prerogatives.

“Oh, we can’t lose Ike, Captain,” I said. “What good would the
_Harmony_ be without him? We surely can’t let anything like that
happen, can we? Not now, anyhow.”

“You’re right, mate,” he replied. “There never was a better bos’n’s
mate, never. The _Harmony’s_ got to have ’im. Let’s talk reason to him,
if we can.”

In company then we three went to him, this time not to torment or
chastise, but to coax and plead with him not to forsake the shop,
or the ship, now that everything was going to be as before--only
better--and----

Well, we did.




MARRIED


In connection with their social adjustment, one to the other, during
the few months they had been together, there had occurred a number
of things which made clearer to Duer and Marjorie the problematic
relationship which existed between them, though it must be confessed
it was clearer chiefly to him. The one thing which had been troubling
Duer was not whether he would fit agreeably into her social dreams--he
knew he would, so great was her love for him--but whether she would fit
herself into his. Of all his former friends, he could think of only
a few who would be interested in Marjorie, or she in them. She cared
nothing for the studio life, except as it concerned him, and he knew no
other.

Because of his volatile, enthusiastic temperament, it was easy to see,
now that she was with him constantly, that he could easily be led into
one relationship and another which concerned her not at all. He was for
running here, there, and everywhere, just as he had before marriage,
and it was very hard for him to see that Marjorie should always be with
him. As a matter of fact, it occurred to him as strange that she should
want to be. She would not be interested in all the people he knew,
he thought. Now that he was living with her and observing her more
closely, he was quite sure that most of the people he had known in the
past, even in an indifferent way, would not appeal to her at all.

Take Cassandra Draper, for instance, or Neva Badger, or Edna
Bainbridge, with her budding theatrical talent, or Cornelia Skiff, or
Volida Blackstone--any of these women of the musical art-studio world
with their radical ideas, their indifference to appearances, their
semisecret immorality. And yet any of these women would be glad to see
him socially, unaccompanied by his wife, and he would be glad to see
them. He liked them. Most of them had not seen Marjorie, but, if they
had, he fancied that they would feel about her much as he did--that
is, that she did not like them, really did not fit with their world.
She could not understand their point of view, he saw that. She was for
one life, one love. All this excitement about entertainment, their
gathering in this studio and that, this meeting of radicals and models
and budding theatrical stars which she had heard him and others talking
about--she suspected of it no good results. It was too feverish,
too far removed from the commonplace of living to which she had been
accustomed. She had been raised on a farm where, if she was not
actually a farmer’s daughter, she had witnessed what a real struggle
for existence meant.

Out in Iowa, in the neighborhood of Avondale, there were no artists,
no models, no budding actresses, no incipient playwrights, such as
Marjorie found here about her. There, people worked, and worked hard.
Her father was engaged at this minute in breaking the soil of his
fields for the spring planting--an old man with a white beard, an
honest, kindly eye, a broad, kindly charity, a sense of duty. Her
mother was bending daily over a cook-stove, preparing meals, washing
dishes, sewing clothes, mending socks, doing the thousand and one
chores which fall to the lot of every good housewife and mother. Her
sister Cecily, for all her gaiety and beauty, was helping her mother,
teaching school, going to church, and taking the commonplace facts of
mid-Western life in a simple, good-natured unambitious way. And there
was none of that toplofty sense of superiority which marked the manner
of these Eastern upstarts.

Duer had suggested that they give a tea, and decided that they should
invite Charlotte Russell and Mildred Ayres, who were both still
conventionally moral in their liberalism; Francis Hatton, a young
sculptor, and Miss Ollie Stearns, the latter because she had a charming
contralto voice and could help them entertain. Marjorie was willing to
invite both Miss Russell and Miss Ayres, not because she really wanted
to know either of them but because she did not wish to appear arbitrary
and especially contrary. In her estimation, Duer liked these people too
much. They were friends of too long standing. She reluctantly wrote
them to come, and because they liked Duer and because they wished to
see the kind of wife he had, they came.

There was no real friendship to be established between Marjorie and
Miss Ayres, however, for their outlook on life was radically different,
though Miss Ayres was as conservative as Marjorie in her attitude, and
as set in her convictions. But the latter had decided, partly because
Duer had neglected her, partly because Marjorie was the victor in this
contest, that he had made a mistake; she was convinced that Marjorie
had not sufficient artistic apprehension, sufficient breadth of
outlook, to make a good wife for him. She was charming enough to look
at, of course, she had discovered that in her first visit; but there
was really not enough in her socially, she was not sufficiently trained
in the ways of the world, not sufficiently wise and interesting to
make him an ideal companion. In addition she insisted on thinking this
vigorously and, smile as she might and be as gracious as she might, it
showed in her manner. Marjorie noticed it. Duer did, too. He did not
dare intimate to either what he thought, but he felt that there would
be no peace. It worried him, for he liked Mildred very much; but, alas!
Marjorie had no good to say of her.

As for Charlotte Russell, he was grateful to her for the pleasant
manner in which she steered between Scylla and Charybdis. She saw at
once what Marjorie’s trouble was, and did her best to allay suspicions
by treating Duer formally in her presence. It was “Mr. Wilde” here and
“Mr. Wilde” there, with most of her remarks addressed to Marjorie; but
she did not find it easy sailing, after all. Marjorie was suspicious.
There was none of the old freedom any more which had existed between
Charlotte and Duer. He saw, by Marjorie’s manner, the moment he became
the least exuberant and free that it would not do. That evening he
said, forgetting himself:

“Hey, Charlotte, you skate! Come over here. I want to show you
something.”

He forgot all about it afterward, but Marjorie reminded him.

“Honey,” she began, when she was in his arms before the fire, and he
was least expecting it, “what makes you be so free with people when
they call here? You’re not the kind of man that can really afford to
be free with any one. Don’t you know you can’t? You’re too big; you’re
too great. You just belittle yourself when you do it, and it makes them
think that they are your equal when they are not.”

“Who has been acting free now?” he asked sourly, on the instant,
and yet with a certain make-believe of manner, dreading the storm
of feeling, the atmosphere of censure and control which this remark
forboded.

“Why, you have!” she persisted correctively, and yet apparently mildly
and innocently. “You always do. You don’t exercise enough dignity,
dearie. It isn’t that you haven’t it naturally--you just don’t exercise
it. I know how it is; you forget.”

Duer stirred with opposition at this, for she was striking him on
his tenderest spot--his pride. It was true that he did lack dignity
at times. He knew it. Because of his affection for the beautiful
or interesting things--women, men, dramatic situations, songs,
anything--he sometimes became very gay and free, talking loudly,
using slang expressions, laughing boisterously. It was a failing with
him, he knew. He carried it to excess at times. His friends, his most
intimate ones in the musical profession had noted it before this. In
his own heart he regretted these things afterward, but he couldn’t help
them, apparently. He liked excitement, freedom, gaiety--naturalness,
as he called it--it helped him in his musical work, but it hurt him
tremendously if he thought that any one else noticed it as out of the
ordinary. He was exceedingly sensitive, and this developing line of
criticism of Marjorie’s was something new to him. He had never noticed
anything of that in her before marriage.

Up to the time of the ceremony, and for a little while afterward, it
had appeared to him as if he were lord and master. She had always
seemed so dependent on him, so anxious that he should take her. Why,
her very life had been in his hands, as it were, or so he had thought!
And now--he tried to think back over the evening and see what it was he
had done or said, but he couldn’t remember anything. Everything seemed
innocent enough. He couldn’t recall a single thing, and yet----

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied sourly,
withdrawing into himself. “I haven’t noticed that I lack dignity so
much. I have a right to be cheerful, haven’t I? You seem to be finding
a lot that’s wrong with me.”

“Now please don’t get angry, Duer,” she persisted, anxious to apply the
corrective measure of her criticism, but willing, at the same time, to
use the quickness of his sympathy for her obvious weakness and apparent
helplessness to shield herself from him. “I can’t ever tell you
anything if you’re going to be angry. You don’t lack dignity generally,
honey-bun! You only forget at times. Don’t you know how it is?”

She was cuddling up to him, her voice quavering, her hand stroking his
cheek, in a curious effort to combine affection and punishment at the
same time. Duer felt nothing but wrath, resentment, discouragement,
failure.

“No, I don’t,” he replied crossly. “What did I do? I don’t recall doing
anything that was so very much out of the way.”

“It wasn’t that it was so very much, honey; it was just the way you did
it. You forget, I know. But it doesn’t look right. It belittles you.”

“What did I do?” he insisted impatiently.

“Why, it wasn’t anything so very much. It was just when you had the
pictures of those new sculptures which Mr. Hatton lent you, and
you were showing them to Miss Russell. Don’t you remember what you
said--how you called her over to you?”

“No,” he answered, having by now completely forgotten. He was thinking
that accidentally he might have slipped his arm about Charlotte, or
that he might have said something out of the way jestingly about the
pictures; but Marjorie could not have heard. He was so careful these
days, anyway.

“Why, you said: ‘Hey, Charlotte, you skate! Come over here.’ Now, what
a thing to say to a girl! Don’t you see how ugly it sounds, how vulgar?
She can’t enjoy that sort of remark, particularly in my presence, do
you think? She must know that I can’t like it, that I’d rather you
wouldn’t talk that way, particularly here. And if she were the right
sort of girl she wouldn’t want you to talk to her at all that way.
Don’t you know she wouldn’t? She couldn’t. Now, really, no good woman
would, would she?”

Duer flushed angrily. Good heaven! Were such innocent, simple things
as this to be made the subject of comment and criticism! Was his
life, because of his sudden, infatuated marriage, to be pulled down
to a level he had never previously even contemplated? Why--why--This
catechising, so new to his life, so different to anything he had ever
endured in his youth or since, was certain to irritate him greatly, to
be a constant thorn in his flesh. It cut him to the core. He got up,
putting Marjorie away from him, for they were sitting in a big chair
before the fire, and walked to the window.

“I don’t see that at all,” he said stubbornly. “I don’t see anything in
that remark to raise a row about. Why, for goodness’ sake! I have known
Charlotte Russell--for years and years, it seems, although it has only
been a little while at that. She’s like a sister to me. I like her. She
doesn’t mind what I say. I’d stake my life she never thought anything
about it. No one would who likes me as well as she does. Why do you
pitch on that to make a fuss about, for heaven’s sake?”

“Please don’t swear, Duer,” exclaimed Marjorie anxiously, using this
expression for criticising him further. “It isn’t nice in you, and
it doesn’t sound right toward me. I’m your wife. It doesn’t make any
difference how long you’ve known her; I don’t think it’s nice to talk
to her in that way, particularly in my presence. You say you’ve known
her so well and you like her so much. Very well. But don’t you think
you ought to consider me a little, now that I’m your wife? Don’t you
think that you oughtn’t to want to do anything like that any more, even
if you have known her so well--don’t you think? You’re married now, and
it doesn’t look right to others, whatever you think of me. It can’t
look right to her, if she’s as nice as you say she is.”

Duer listened to this semipleading, semichastising harangue with
disturbed, opposed, and irritated ears. Certainly, there was some truth
in what she said; but wasn’t it an awfully small thing to raise a row
about? Why should she quarrel with him for that? Couldn’t he ever be
lightsome in his form of address any more? It was true that it did
sound a little rough, now that he thought of it. Perhaps it wasn’t
exactly the thing to say in her presence, but Charlotte didn’t mind.
They had known each other much too long. She hadn’t noticed it one way
or the other; and here was Marjorie charging him with being vulgar and
inconsiderate, and Charlotte with being not the right sort of girl, and
practically vulgar, also, on account of it. It was too much. It was too
narrow, too conventional. He wasn’t going to tolerate anything like
that permanently.

He was about to say something mean in reply, make some cutting
commentary, when Marjorie came over to him. She saw that she had lashed
him and Charlotte and his generally easy attitude pretty thoroughly,
and that he was becoming angry. Perhaps, because of his sensitiveness,
he would avoid this sort of thing in the future. Anyhow, now that
she had lived with him four months, she was beginning to understand
him better, to see the quality of his moods, the strength of his
passions, the nature of his weaknesses, how quickly he responded to the
blandishments of pretended sorrow, joy, affection, or distress. She
thought she could reform him at her leisure. She saw that he looked
upon her in his superior way as a little girl--largely because of the
size of her body. He seemed to think that, because she was little, she
must be weak, whereas she knew that she had the use and the advantage
of a wisdom, a tactfulness and a subtlety of which he did not even
dream. Compared to her, he was not nearly as wise as he thought, at
least in matters relating to the affections. Hence, any appeal to his
sympathies, his strength, almost invariably produced a reaction from
any antagonistic mood in which she might have placed him. She saw him
now as a mother might see a great, overgrown, sulking boy, needing only
to be coaxed to be brought out of a very unsatisfactory condition, and
she decided to bring him out of it. For a short period in her life she
had taught children in school, and knew the incipient moods of the race
very well.

“Now, Duer,” she coaxed, “you’re not really going to be angry with
me, are you? You’re not going to be ‘mad to me’?” (imitating childish
language).

“Oh, don’t bother, Marjorie,” he replied distantly. “It’s all right.
No; I’m not angry. Only let’s not talk about it any more.”

“You are angry, though, Duer,” she wheedled, slipping her arm around
him. “Please don’t be mad to me. I’m sorry now. I talk too much. I get
mad. I know I oughtn’t. Please don’t be mad at me, honey-bun. I’ll get
over this after a while. I’ll do better. Please, I will. Please don’t
be mad, will you?”

He could not stand this coaxing very long. Just as she thought, he did
look upon her as a child, and this pathetic baby-talk was irresistible.
He smiled grimly after a while. She was so little. He ought to endure
her idiosyncrasies of temperament. Besides, he had never treated her
right. He had not been faithful to his engagement-vows. If she only
knew how bad he really was!

Marjorie slipped her arm through his and stood leaning against him. She
loved this tall, slender distinguished-looking youth, and she wanted
to take care of him. She thought that she was doing this now, when she
called attention to his faults. Some day, by her persistent efforts
maybe, he would overcome these silly, disagreeable, offensive traits.
He would overcome being undignified; he would see that he needed to
show her more consideration than he now seemed to think he did. He
would learn that he was married. He would become a quiet, reserved,
forceful man, weary of the silly women who were buzzing round him
solely because he was a musician and talented and good-looking, and
then he would be truly great. She knew what they wanted, these nasty
women--they would like to have him for themselves. Well, they wouldn’t
get him. And they needn’t think they would. She had him. He had married
her. And she was going to keep him. They could just buzz all they
pleased, but they wouldn’t get him. So there!

There had been other spats following this--one relating to Duer
not having told his friends of his marriage for some little time
afterward, an oversight which in his easy going bohemian brain augured
no deep planted seed of disloyalty, but just a careless, indifferent
way of doing things, whereas in hers it flowered as one of the most
unpardonable things imaginable! Imagine any one in the Middle West
doing anything like that--any one with a sound, sane conception of the
responsibilities and duties of marriage, its inviolable character! For
Marjorie, having come to this estate by means of a hardly won victory,
was anxious lest any germ of inattentiveness, lack of consideration,
alien interest, or affection flourish and become a raging disease
which would imperil or destroy the conditions on which her happiness
was based. After every encounter with Miss Ayres, for instance, whom
she suspected of being one of his former flames, a girl who might
have become his wife, there were fresh charges to be made. She didn’t
invite Marjorie to sit down sufficiently quickly when she called at her
studio, was one complaint; she didn’t offer her a cup of tea at the
hour she called another afternoon, though it was quite time for it. She
didn’t invite her to sing or play on another occasion, though there
were others there who were invited.

“I gave her one good shot, though,” said Marjorie, one day, to Duer,
in narrating her troubles. “She’s always talking about her artistic
friends. I as good as asked her why she didn’t marry, if she is so much
sought after.”

Duer did not understand the mental sword-thrusts involved in these
feminine bickerings. He was likely to be deceived by the airy geniality
which sometimes accompanied the bitterest feeling. He could stand
by listening to a conversation between Marjorie and Miss Ayres, or
Marjorie and any one else whom she did not like, and miss all the
subtle stabs and cutting insinuations which were exchanged, and of
which Marjorie was so thoroughly capable. He did not blame her for
fighting for herself if she thought she was being injured, but he did
object to her creating fresh occasions, and this, he saw, she was quite
capable of doing. She was constantly looking for new opportunities
to fight with Mildred Ayres and Miss Russell or any one else whom
she thought he truly liked, whereas with those in whom he could not
possibly be interested she was genial (and even affectionate) enough.
But Duer also thought that Mildred might be better engaged than in
creating fresh difficulties. Truly, he had thought better of her. It
seemed a sad commentary on the nature of friendship between men and
women, and he was sorry.

But, nevertheless, Marjorie found a few people whom she felt to be of
her own kind. M. Bland, who had sponsored Duer’s first piano recital
a few months before, invited Duer and Marjorie to a--for them--quite
sumptuous dinner at the Plaza, where they met Sydney Borg, the
musical critic of an evening paper; Melville Ogden Morris, curator
of the Museum of Fine Arts, and his wife; Joseph Newcorn, one of the
wealthy sponsors of the opera and its geniuses, and Mrs. Newcorn.
Neither Duer nor Marjorie had ever seen a private dining-room set
in so scintillating a manner. It fairly glittered with Sèvres and
Venetian tinted glass. The wine-goblets were seven in number, set in an
ascending row. The order of food was complete from Russian caviare to
dessert, black coffee, nuts, liqueurs, and cigars.

The conversation wandered its intense intellectual way from American
musicians and singers, European painters and sculptors, discoveries
of ancient pottery in the isles of the Ægean, to the manufacture of
fine glass on Long Island, the character of certain collectors and
collections of paintings in America, and the present state of the
Fine Arts Museum. Duer listened eagerly, for, as yet, he was a little
uncertain of himself, his position in the art world. He did not quite
know how to take these fine and able personages who seemed so powerful
in the world’s affairs. Joseph Newcorn, as M. Bland calmly indicated
to him, must be worth in the neighborhood of fifteen million dollars.
He thought nothing, so he said, of paying ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty
thousand dollars for a picture if it appealed to him. Mr. Morris was
a graduate of Harvard, formerly curator of a Western museum, the
leader of one of the excavating expeditions to Melos in the Grecian
Archipelago. Sydney Borg was a student of musical history, who appeared
to have a wide knowledge of art tendencies here and abroad, but who,
nevertheless, wrote musical criticisms for a living. He was a little
man of Norse extraction on his father’s side, but, as he laughingly
admitted, born and raised in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He liked Duer
for his simple acknowledgment of the fact that he came from a small
town in the Middle West, and a drug business out in Illinois.

“It’s curious how our nation brings able men from the ranks,” he said
to Duer. “It’s one of the great, joyous, hopeful facts about this
country.”

“Yes,” said Duer; “that’s why I like it so much.”

Duer thought, as he dined here, how strange America was, with its
mixture of races, its unexpected sources of talent, its tremendous
wealth and confidence. His own beginning, so very humble at first,
so very promising now--one of the most talked of pianists of his
day--was in its way an illustration of its resources in so far as
talent was concerned. Mr. Newcorn, who had once been a tailor, so he
was told, and his wife was another case in point. They were such solid,
unemotional, practical-looking people, and yet he could see that this
solid looking man whom some musicians might possibly have sneered at
for his self-complacency and curiously accented English, was as wise
and sane and keen and kindly as any one present, perhaps more so, and
as wise in matters musical. The only difference between him and the
average American was that he was exceptionally practical and not given
to nervous enthusiasm. Marjorie liked him, too.

It was at this particular dinner that the thought occurred to Marjorie
that the real merit of the art and musical world was not so much in
the noisy studio palaver which she heard at so many places frequented
by Duer, in times past at least--Charlotte Russell’s, Mildred Ayres’s
and elsewhere--but in the solid commercial achievements of such men
as Joseph Newcorn, Georges Bland, Melville Ogden Morris, and Sydney
Borg. She liked the laconic “Yes, yes,” of Mr. Newcorn, when anything
was said that suited him particularly well, and his “I haf seen dat
bardicular berformance” with which he interrupted several times when
Grand Opera and its stars were up for consideration. She was thinking
if only a man like that would take an interest in Duer, how much better
it would be for him than all the enthusiasm of these silly noisy studio
personalities. She was glad to see also that, intellectually, Duer
could hold his own with any and all of these people. He was as much at
ease here with Mr. Morris, talking about Greek excavations, as he was
with Mr. Borg, discussing American musical conditions. She could not
make out much what it was all about, but, of course, it must be very
important if these men discussed it. Duer was not sure as yet whether
any one knew much more about life than he did. He suspected not, but it
might be that some of these eminent curators, art critics, bankers,
and managers like M. Bland, had a much wider insight into practical
affairs. Practical affairs--he thought. If he only knew something about
money! Somehow, though, his mind could not grasp how money was made. It
seemed so easy for some people, but for him a grim, dark mystery.

After this dinner it was that Marjorie began to feel that Duer ought
to be especially careful with whom he associated. She had talked with
Mrs. Newcorn and Mrs. Morris, and found them simple, natural people
like herself. They were not puffed up with vanity and self-esteem, as
were those other men and women to whom Duer had thus far introduced
her. As compared to Charlotte Russell and Mildred Ayres or her own
mother and sisters and her Western friends, they were more like the
latter. Mrs. Newcorn, wealthy as she was, spoke of her two sons and
three daughters as any good-natured, solicitous mother would. One of
her sons was at Harvard, the other at Yale. She asked Marjorie to
come and see her some time, and gave her her address. Mrs. Morris was
more cultured apparently, more given to books and art; but even she
was interested in what, to Marjorie, were the more important or, at
least, more necessary things, the things on which all art and culture
primarily based themselves--the commonplace and necessary details of
the home. Cooking, housekeeping, shopping, sewing, were not beneath
her consideration, as indeed they were not below Mrs. Newcorn’s. The
former spoke of having to go and look for a new spring bonnet in the
morning, and how difficult it was to find the time. Once when the men
were getting especially excited about European and American artistic
standards, Marjorie asked:

“Are you very much interested in art, Mrs. Morris?”

“Not so very much, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Wilde. Oh, I like some
pictures, and I hear most of the important recitals each season, but,
as I often tell my husband, when you have one baby two years old and
another of five and another of seven, it takes considerable time to
attend to the art of raising them. I let him do the art for the family,
and I take care of the home.”

This was sincere consolation for Marjorie. Up to this time she appeared
to be in danger of being swamped by this artistic storm which she had
encountered. Her arts of cooking, sewing, housekeeping, appeared as
nothing in this vast palaver about music, painting, sculpture, books
and the like. She knew nothing, as she had most painfully discovered
recently, of Strauss, Dvorák, Debussy, almost as little of Cézanne,
Gauguin, Matisse, Van Gogh, Rodin, Ibsen, Shaw and Maeterlinck, with
whom the studios were apparently greatly concerned. And when people
talked of singers, musicians, artists, sculptors, and playwrights,
often she was compelled to keep silent, whereas Duer could stand with
his elbow on some mantel or piano and discuss by the half hour or hour
individuals of whom she had never heard--Verlaine, Tchaikowsky,
Tolstoy, Turgenieff, Tagore, Dostoyevsky, Whistler, Velasquez--anybody
and everybody who appeared to interest the studio element. It was
positively frightening.

A phase of this truth was that because of his desire to talk,
his pleasure in meeting people, his joy in hearing of new things,
his sense of the dramatic, Duer could catch quickly and retain
vigorously anything which related to social, artistic, or intellectual
development. He had no idea of what a full-orbed, radiant, receptive
thing his mind was. He only knew that life, things, intellect--anything
and everything--gave him joy when he was privileged to look into them,
whereas Marjorie was not so keenly minded artistically, and he gave
as freely as he received. In this whirl of discussion, this lofty
transcendentalism, Marjorie was all but lost; but she clung tenaciously
to the hope that, somehow, affection, regard for the material needs of
her husband, the care of his clothes, the preparation of his meals,
the serving of him quite as would a faithful slave, would bind him
to her. At once and quickly, she hated and feared these artistically
arrayed, artistically minded, vampirish-looking maidens and women
who appeared from this quarter and that to talk to Duer, all of whom
apparently had known him quite well in the past--since he had come to
New York. When she would see him standing or leaning somewhere, intent
on the rendering of a song, the narration of some dramatic incident,
the description of some book or picture, or personage, by this or that
delicately chiseled Lorelei of the art or music or dramatic world, her
heart contracted ominously and a nameless dread seized her. Somehow,
these creatures, however intent they might be on their work, or however
indifferent actually to the artistic charms of her husband, seemed to
be intent on taking him from her. She saw how easily and naturally
he smiled, how very much at home he seemed to be in their company,
how surely he gravitated to the type of girl who was beautifully
and artistically dressed, who had ravishing eyes, fascinating hair,
a sylphlike figure, and vivacity of manner--or how naturally they
gravitated to him. In the rush of conversation and the exchange of
greetings he was apt to forget her, to stroll about by himself engaging
in conversation first with one and then another, while she stood or sat
somewhere gazing nervously or regretfully on, unable to hold her own in
the cross-fire of conversation, unable to retain the interest of most
of the selfish, lovesick, sensation-seeking girls and men.

They always began talking about the opera, or the play, or the latest
sensation in society, or some new singer or dancer or poet, and
Marjorie, being new to this atmosphere and knowing so little of it,
was compelled to confess that she did not know. It chagrined, dazed,
and frightened her for a time. She longed to be able to grasp quickly
and learn what this was all about. She wondered where she had been
living--how--to have missed all this. Why, goodness gracious, these
things were enough to wreck her married life! Duer would think so
poorly of her--how could he help it? She watched these girls and women
talking to him, and by turns, while imitating them as best she could,
became envious, fearful, regretful, angry; charging, first, herself
with unfitness; next, Duer with neglect; next, these people with
insincerity, immorality, vanity; and lastly, the whole world and life
with a conspiracy to cheat her out of what was rightfully her own. Why
wouldn’t these people be nice to her? Why didn’t they give of their
time and patience to make her comfortable and at home--as freely, say,
as they did to him? Wasn’t she his wife, now? Why did Duer neglect
her? Why did they hang on his words in their eager, seductive, alluring
way? She hated them and, at moments, she hated him, only to be struck
by a terrifying wave of remorse and fear a moment later. What if he
should grow tired of her? What if his love should change? He had seemed
so enamored of her only a little while before they were married,
so taken by what he called her naturalness, grace, simplicity and
emotional pull.

On one of these occasions, or rather after it, when they had returned
from an evening at Francis Hatton’s at which she felt that she had
been neglected, she threw herself disconsolately into Duer’s arms and
exclaimed:

  “What’s the matter with me, Duer? Why am I so dull--so
uninteresting--so worthless?”

The sound of her voice was pathetic, helpless, vibrant with the quality
of an unuttered sob, a quality which had appealed to him intensely long
before they were married, and now he stirred nervously.

  “Why, what’s the matter with you now, Margie?” he asked
sympathetically, sure that a new storm of some sort was coming. “What’s
come over you? There’s nothing the matter with you. Why do you ask?
Who’s been saying there is?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing--nobody! Everybody! Everything!” exclaimed
Marjorie dramatically, and bursting into tears. “I see how it is. I see
what is the matter with me. Oh! Oh! It’s because I don’t know anything,
I suppose. It’s because I’m not fit to associate with you. It’s because
I haven’t had the training that some people have had. It’s because I’m
dull! Oh! Oh!” and a torrent of heart-breaking sobs which shook her
frame from head to toe followed the outburst and declamation.

Duer, always moved by her innate emotional force and charm, whatever
other lack he had reason to bewail, gazed before him in startled
sympathy, astonishment, pain, wonder, for he was seeing very clearly
and keenly in these echoing sounds what the trouble was. She was
feeling neglected, outclassed, unconsidered, helpless; and because it
was more or less true it was frightening and wounding her. She was,
for the first time no doubt, beginning to feel the tragedy of life,
its uncertainty, its pathos and injury, as he so often had. Hitherto
her home, her relatives and friends had more or less protected her
from that, for she had come from a happy home, but now she was out and
away from all that and had only him. Of course she had been neglected.
He remembered that now. It was partly his fault, partly the fault of
surrounding conditions. But what could he do about it? What say? People
had conditions fixed for them in this world by their own ability.
Perhaps he should not have married her at all, but how should he
comfort her in this crisis? How say something that would ease her soul?

“Why, Margie,” he said seriously, “you know that’s not true! You know
you’re not dull. Your manners and your taste and your style are as good
as those of anybody. Who has hinted that they aren’t? What has come
over you? Who has been saying anything to you? Have I done anything?
If so, I’m sorry!” He had a guilty consciousness of misrepresenting
himself and his point of view even while saying this, but kindness,
generosity, affection, her legal right to his affection, as he now
thought, demanded it.

“No! No!” she exclaimed brokenly and without ceasing her tears. “It
isn’t you. It isn’t anybody. It’s me--just me! That’s what’s the matter
with me. I’m dull; I’m not stylish; I’m not attractive. I don’t know
anything about music or books or people or anything. I sit and listen,
but I don’t know what to say. People talk to you--they hang on your
words--but they haven’t anything to say to me. They can’t talk to me,
and I can’t talk to them. It’s because I don’t know anything--because
I haven’t anything to say! Oh dear! Oh dear!” and she beat her thin,
artistic little hands on the shoulders of his coat.

Duer could not endure this storm without an upwelling of pity for her.
He cuddled her close in his arms, extremely sad that she should be
compelled to suffer so. What should he do? What could he do? He could
see how it was. She was hurt; she was neglected. He neglected her when
among others. These smart women whom he knew and liked to talk with
neglected her. They couldn’t see in her what he could. Wasn’t life
pathetic? They didn’t know how sweet she was, how faithful, how glad
she was to work for him. That really didn’t make any difference in
the art world, he knew, but still it almost seemed as if it ought to.
There one must be clever, he knew that--everybody knew it. And Marjorie
was not clever--at least, not in their way. She couldn’t play or sing
or paint or talk brilliantly, as they could. She did not really know
what the world of music, art, and literature was doing. She was only
good, faithful, excellent as a housewife, a fine mender of clothes, a
careful buyer, saving, considerate, dependable, but----

As he thought of this and then of this upwelling depth of emotion of
hers, a thing quite moving to him always, he realized, or thought he
did, that no woman that he had ever known had anything quite like this.
He had known many women intimately. He had associated with Charlotte
and Mildred and Neva Badger and Volida Blackstone, and quite a number
of interesting, attractive young women whom he had met here and there
since, but outside of the stage--that art of Sarah Bernhardt and
Clara Morris and some of the more talented English actresses of these
later days--he persuaded himself that he had never seen any one quite
like Marjorie. This powerful upwelling of emotion which she was now
exhibiting and which was so distinctive of her, was not to be found
elsewhere, he thought. He had felt it keenly the first days he had
visited her at her father’s home in Avondale. Oh, those days with her
in Avondale! How wonderful they were! Those delicious nights! Flowers,
moonlight, odors, came back--the green fields, the open sky. Yes; she
was powerful emotionally. She was compounded of many and all of these
things.

It was true she knew nothing of art, nothing of music--the great, new
music--nothing of books in the eclectic sense, but she had real, sweet,
deep, sad, stirring emotion, the most appealing thing he knew. It might
not be as great as that exhibited by some of the masters of the stage,
or the great composers--he was not quite sure, so critical is life--but
nevertheless it was effective, dramatic, powerful. Where did she get
it? No really common soul could have it. Here must be something of the
loneliness of the prairies, the sad patience of the rocks and fields,
the lonesomeness of the hush of the countryside at night, the aimless,
monotonous, pathetic chirping of the crickets. Her father following
down a furrow in the twilight behind straining, toil-worn horses; her
brothers binding wheat in the July sun; the sadness of furrow scents
and field fragrances in the twilight--there was something of all these
things in her sobs.

It appealed to him, as it might well have to any artist. In his way
Duer understood this, felt it keenly.

“Why, Margie,” he insisted, “you mustn’t talk like that! You’re better
than you say you are. You say you don’t know anything about books or
art or music. Why, that isn’t all. There are things, many things, which
are deeper than those things. Emotion is a great thing in itself,
dearest, if you only knew. You have that. Sarah Bernhardt had it;
Clara Morris had it, but who else? In ‘La Dame aux Camelias,’ ‘Sapho,’
‘Carmen,’ ‘Mademoiselle de Maupin,’ it is written about, but it is
never commonplace. It’s great. I’d rather have your deep upwelling of
emotion than all those cheap pictures, songs, and talk put together.
For, sweet, don’t you know”--and he cuddled her more closely--“great
art is based on great emotion. There is really no great art without it.
I know that best of all, being a musician. You may not have the power
to express yourself in music or books or pictures--you play charmingly
enough for me--but you have the thing on which these things are based;
you have the power to feel them. Don’t worry over yourself, dear. I see
that, and I know what you are, whether any one else does or not. Don’t
worry over me. I have to be nice to these people. I like them in their
way, but I love you. I married you--isn’t that proof enough? What more
do you want? Don’t you understand, little Margie? Don’t you see? Now
aren’t you going to cheer up and be happy? You have me. Ain’t I enough,
sweetie? Can’t you be happy with just me? What more do you want? Just
tell me.”

“Nothing more, honey-bun!” she went on sobbing and cuddling close;
“nothing more, if I can have you. Just you! That’s all I want--you,
you, you!”

She hugged him tight. Duer sighed secretly. He really did not believe
all he said, but what of it? What else could he do, say, he asked
himself? He was married to her. In his way, he loved her--or at least
sympathized with her intensely.

“And am I emotionally great?” she cuddled and cooed, after she had held
him tight for a few moments. “Doesn’t it make any difference whether I
know anything much about music or books or art? I do know something,
don’t I, honey? I’m not wholly ignorant, am I?”

“No, no, sweetie; how you talk!”

“And will you always love me whether I know anything or not,
honey-bun?” she went on. “And won’t it make any difference whether I
can just cook and sew and do the marketing and keep house for you? And
will you like me because I’m just pretty and not smart? I am a little
pretty, ain’t I, dear?”

“You’re lovely,” whispered Duer soothingly. “You’re beautiful. Listen
to me, sweet. I want to tell you something. Stop crying now, and dry
your eyes, and I’ll tell you something nice. Do you remember how we
stood, one night, at the end of your father’s field there near the
barn-gate and saw him coming down the path, singing to himself,
driving that team of big gray horses, his big straw hat on the back of
his head and his sleeves rolled up above his elbows?”

“Yes,” said Marjorie.

“Do you remember how the air smelled of roses and honeysuckle and cut
hay--and oh, all those lovely scents of evening that we have out there
in the country?”

“Yes,” replied Marjorie interestedly.

“And do you remember how lovely I said the cow-bells sounded tinkling
in the pasture where the little river ran?”

“Yes.”

“And the fireflies beginning to flash in the trees?”

“Yes.”

“And that sad, deep red in the West, where the sun had gone down?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Marjorie, crushing her cheek to his neck.

“Now listen to me, honey: That water running over the bright stones in
that little river; the grass spreading out, soft and green, over the
slope; the cow-bells tinkling; the smoke curling up from your mother’s
chimney; your father looking like a patriarch out of Bible days coming
home--all the soft sounds, all the sweet odors, all the carolling of
birds--where do you suppose all that is now?”

“I don’t know,” replied Marjorie, anticipating something complimentary.

“It’s here,” he replied easily, drawing her close and petting her.
“It’s done up in one little body here in my arms. Your voice, your
hair, your eyes, your pretty body, your emotional moods--where do you
suppose they come from? Nature has a chemistry all her own. She’s like
a druggist sometimes, compounding things. She takes a little of the
beauty of the sunset, of the sky, of the fields, of the water, of the
flowers, of dreams and aspirations and simplicity and patience, and she
makes a girl. And some parents somewhere have her, and then they name
her ‘Marjorie’ and then they raise her nicely and innocently, and then
a bold, bad man like Duer comes along and takes her, and then she cries
because she thinks he doesn’t see anything in her. Now, isn’t that
funny?”

“O-oh!” exclaimed Marjorie, melted by the fire of his feeling for
beauty, the quaintness and sweetness of his diction, the subtlety of
his compliment, the manner in which he coaxed her patiently out of
herself.

“Oh, I love you, Duer dear! I love you, love you, love you! Oh, you’re
wonderful! You won’t ever stop loving me, will you, dearest? You’ll
always be true to me, won’t you, Duer? You’ll never leave me, will you?
I’ll always be your little Margie, won’t I? Oh, dear, I’m so happy!”
and she hugged him closer and closer.

“No, no,” and “Yes, yes,” assured Duer, as the occasion demanded, as
he stared patiently into the fire. This was not real passion to him,
not real love in any sense, or at least he did not feel that it was.
He was too skeptical of himself, his life and love, however much he
might sympathize with and be drawn to her. He was questioning himself
at this very time as to what it was that caused him to talk so. Was
it sympathy, love of beauty, power of poetic expression, delicacy of
sentiment?--certainly nothing more. Wasn’t it this that was already
causing him to be hailed as a great musician? He believed so. Could he
honestly say that he loved Marjorie? No, he was sure that he couldn’t,
now that he had her and realized her defects, as well as his own--his
own principally. No; he liked her, sympathized with her, felt sorry
for her. That ability of his to paint a picture in notes and musical
phrases, to extract the last ringing delicacy out of the keys of a
piano, was at the bottom of this last description. To Marjorie, for
the moment, it might seem real enough, but he--he was thinking of the
truth of the picture she had painted of herself. It was all so--every
word she said. She was not really suited to these people. She did not
understand them; she never would. He would always be soothing and
coaxing, and she would always be crying and worrying.




WHEN THE OLD CENTURY WAS NEW


When William Walton, of Colonial prestige, left his father’s house,
St. George’s Square, New York, in the spring of 1801, it was to
spend a day of social activity, which, in the light of his ordinary
commercial duties, might be termed idleness. There were, among other
things, a luncheon at the Livingstone Kortright’s, a stroll with one
Mlle. Cruger to the Lispenard Meadows, and a visit in the evening to
the only recently inaugurated Apollo Theater, where were organized the
first permanent company of players ever transported to America. Under
the circumstances, he had no time for counting-house duties, and had
accordingly decided to make a day of it, putting the whole matter of
commerce over until such time as he could labor uninterrupted, which
was to-morrow.

As he came out of the door over which was a diamond-pane lunette
for a transom, he was a striking example of the new order of
things which had come with the Declaration of Independence and the
victory of the colonies over the British. Long trousers of light
twilled cloth encased his legs, and were fastened under his shoes
by straps. A flower-ornamented pink waistcoat and light blue dress
coat of broadcloth, shared with brass buttons, yellow gloves, and an
exceedingly narrow-brimmed silk hat, in giving his appearance that
touch of completeness which the fashion of the day demanded. In the
face of those of the older order, who still maintained the custom of
wearing knee breeches and solemn, black waistcoats, he was a little apt
to appear the exaggerated dandy; but, nevertheless, it was good form.
My Madame Kortright would expect it at any luncheon of hers, and the
common people knew it to be the all-desirable whenever wealth permitted.

In lower Pearl Street, below Wall, which direction he took to reach
the Bowling Green and the waterfront, he encountered a number of the
fashionable, so far as the commercial world was concerned, who were
anything but idle like himself.

“Why, Master Walton, are you neglecting business so early in the
morning?” inquired Robert Goelet, whose iron-mongering business was
then the most important in the city.

“For this day only,” returned Walton, smiling agreeably at the thought
of a pleasant day to come. “Several engagements make it unavoidable.”

“You are going to the Collect, then, possibly?” returned Goelet,
looking in the direction of the old water reservoir, where all of the
city’s drinking supply was stored.

“No,” said the other, “I had not thought of it. What is there?”

“Some one, I understand, who has a boat he wishes to try. It is said to
go without sail. I should think one with as many ships upon the water
as you have would have heard of any such invention as that.”

“Ah, yes,” answered young Walton, “I have heard of men who are going to
sail in the air, also. I will believe that a vessel can go without sail
when I see it.”

“Well,” said the other, “I do not know. These inventors are strange
adventurers, at best, but there might be no harm in looking at it. I
think I shall go myself later.”

“Oh, I should also like to see it,” said the other, “providing I have
time. When is it to sail, do you know?”

“About eleven,” answered Goelet. “The _Post_ tells of it.”

“Many thanks for the information,” returned the other, and, with a few
commonplaces as to ships expected and the news from France, they betook
their separate ways.

In one of the many fine yards which spread before the old mansions
below Wall Street, he beheld John Adams, the newly-elected President of
the States, busy among his flowers. The elder statesman bowed gravely
to the younger gentleman and returned to his work.

“A fine gentleman,” thought the latter, “and well worthy to be the
chief of this good government.”

As he neared the Bowling Green, he observed that there was no one of
the many residents about taking advantage of the pleasant sunlight to
enjoy an hour at that favorite pastime, and so continued his way to
the Astor docks adjoining the Whitehall slip, where never yet had the
commercial New Yorker, interested in the matter of shipping, failed to
find a crowd. Messrs. John Jacob Astor and William Van Rensalaer were
already upon the ground, as he could see at a distance, the distinct
high hat of the one and the portly figure of the other standing out in
clear relief against the green waters of the bay. Elder Johannis Coop
was there, he of the vast ship chandlery business, and Opdyke Stewart,
importer of the finest stuffs woven in Holland. Old Jacob Cruger and
Mortimer Morris, the lean Van Tassel and Julius van Brunt, merchants
all and famous men of the city, chatted, smiled, and laughed together
as they discussed the probabilities of trade and the arrival of the
_Silver Spray_ and the _Laughing Mary_, both in the service between
New York and Liverpool. Almost every worthy present was armed with his
spy-glass, as the three-foot telescopes were then called, and now and
then one would take a look down the bay and through the distant narrows
to see if any sign of a familiar sail were present.

“And how is Master Walton?” asked the elder Astor, recognizing the
scion of the one exceedingly wealthy family of the community.

“Very well, thank you,” returned the other, surveying the company,
whose knee breeches and black coats presented a striking contrast to
his modern trousers and fancy jacket.

“These modern fashions,” exclaimed Cruger, the elder, coming forward,
“make us old fellows seem entirely out of date. They are a wretched
contrivance to hide the legs. If I were a young woman I would have no
man whose form I could not judge by his clothes.”

“And if I were a young man,” put in the jovial John Jacob, “I would put
on no clothes which a young woman did not approve of.”

“Ah, well,” said the other, smiling, “these fashions are strange
contrivances. Not ten years since a man would have been drummed out of
New York had he appeared in such finery as this, and now, by heaven,
it is we old fellows who are like to be shown the door for dressing as
our fathers taught us.”

“Not so bad as that, surely,” said Walton. “Full dress commands the old
style yet at evening. This is but daylight custom. But how about the
Bowling Green; is no one to play there this morning?”

“Not when two ships like the _Silver Spray_ and the _Laughing Mary_
are like to show their noses at any moment,” observed Cruger stoutly.
“I have fifty barrels of good India ale on the _Silver Spray_. Astor,
here, has most of the hold of the _Laughing Mary_ filled with his dress
goods. No bowling when stocks must be unpacked quickly.”

“It is a weary watch, this, for these dogged vessels,” added Astor
reflectively. “There is no good counting wind or wave. The Spaniard,
too, is not dead yet, worse luck to him.”

“I saw that about the _Polly_,” said young Walton interestedly.
“Perhaps the government will wake up now to our situation. The Spaniard
can wipe our vessels off the seas and hide behind the piracy idea. We
need more war vessels and that quickly, I think.”

“And I, too,” said Astor. “But we are like to have them now. Only
to-day Congress voted to buy more land across the East River there,”
and he waved his spy-glass in the direction of the green outlines of
Long Island.

“And that reminds me,” said Walton, pulling out his timepiece by the
fob attached to it; “I but now met Goelet, who says there is to be a
boat tried at the Collect which goes without sail. It is to be run by
steam.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Cruger, “I have no time for such nonsense.”

“I heard of it,” remarked Astor. “Possibly there is something to it.
There could be no harm in going to see.

“I am going” said Walton, “and by-the-bye, it is high time I was on my
way.”

“And if you have no objection I go with you,” said Astor, who was
seriously interested to know if there was anything to this idea or not.
Others hearing this joined them.

Having thus secured companionship, young Walton proceeded up the
Whitehall slip to the Bowling Green, whence, with his friends, he now
turned into the Broadway, and so out past the fine residences and
occasional stores of that new thoroughfare to the old White residence,
where later was to be White Street, and thence eastward, across the
open common, to the Collect, where is now the Tombs. Quite a formidable
company of sightseers had gathered, the aristocracy, gentry, and common
rabble forming in separate groups. A very plain and homely looking
individual of the older school, clad in swallowtail and knee breeches,
was there with a contrivance large enough to sustain his own weight
in the water, which he was endeavoring with a wrench, a hammer, and
an oil can to put in final shape for the very important experiment of
traveling without sail. Naturally he had the undivided and even pushing
and prying attention of all present.

While the citizens thus gazed, awaiting in comfortable idleness for
something of the marvelous to happen, there came a clattering sound
along the east road toward the city, where suddenly appeared the
outlines of Van Huicken’s water wagon, a great hogshead on wheels,
which, by its rumbling haste, suggested fire. Close after followed the
Almerich, another vehicle of the same kind, which secured its name from
its owner. Both drivers hailed the crowd while yet a distance off with
shouts of “Fire!” and then from distant Fulton Street were heard the
sounds of a bell tolling out the same intelligence.

Everybody now wavered uncertainly between the possibility of witnessing
a marvelous invention and the certainty of seeing a splendid
conflagration, with the result that certainty triumphed. Instantly upon
learning the nature of the fire, both commonry and gentry departed,
leaving Astor and Walton, with their associates, gazing at the
tinkering wonder-worker alone.

“That must be near the President’s house,” observed Walton, who was
looking toward the city. “It may spread.”

“This fellow will get nothing out of his machine to-day, I fear,”
returned Astor, moved by the thought of a dangerous and yet interesting
fire as he gazed rather unfavorably upon the quiet inventor, who had
not remained unaware of this public defection. “Let us go back.”

With somewhat more of eagerness than was conformable with their general
stately bearing, this rather important local company now took up the
trail of the water wagons and returned.

In William Street, just off the Old Boston Road and near the
newly-named Liberty Street, were many signs of public excitement. The
fine residence of the Athorps, recently leased by the French minister,
had taken fire, and was rapidly burning. Although nine of the fourteen
water-pumps of the city were upon the scene of action, and eight
men were toiling at each handle, little progress was making. Bucket
brigades were also in operation, the volunteer citizens drawing upon
every well in the neighborhood for blocks about; but to small result.
The flames gained apace. Men ran looking for Goiter’s water conveyance,
which had not yet been pressed into action, and Huicken’s Broadway
sprinkler, which, however, had already been sent to the Collect for
more water. There was a deal of clatter and confusion, coupled with the
absolute certainty of destruction, for no pumping could throw the water
beyond the second story. More than once the tank supply, as rattled
forward from the Collect and the East River, was totally suspended,
while the flames gained new ground. This latter was due to the badness
of the roads and the inadequacy of the help at the supply end, where,
since all thought to gaze upon the fire, none were remaining to help
the lone Huicken or the energetic Goiter.

When this last company of volunteer fire fighters arrived, with their
buckets and other contrivances for fighting a blaze, the flames had
gained such headway that there was little to be done. Walton wasted
half an hour discussing fire protection, and then bethought himself of
his luncheon engagement.

“I must be out of this,” he said to Astor, as they stood gazing upon
the flames and the surging throng. “I am late as it is.”

The genial forefather scarcely heard him at all. So interested was he
that his own luncheon mattered not at all. Quietly Walton withdrew
then, and getting back into Boston Road and the Broadway, betook
himself toward the Bowling Green and Madame Kortright’s.

That lady’s mansion was to the west of the old playground, looking out
over lawn and lane to some space of water to be seen in the East River
and a boat or two at anchor in the bay. As he tapped upon the broad
door with its brazen knocker, a liveried servant opened to him, bowing
profoundly in greeting.

“Will Master Walton give me his hat and gloves?”

“Ah, Master Walton,” remarked the hostess, who now entered smiling. “I
had almost doubted your punctuality, though you have good reason. Whose
house is it burning?”

“Count Rennay’s,” answered Walton, mentioning the French representative
to our government.

“I have sent a servant to discover it for me, but he has not yet
returned. It must have fascinated him also. We must sit to lunch at
once, sir.”

As the hostess said this, she turned about in her great hoops, now but
recently, like long trousers, come into fashion, and led the way. Her
hair was done in the curls of the post-revolution period, three at
each side, about the ears, and a tall chignon that was almost a curl
in itself. With stately grace she led the way to the dining chamber
and bowed him to his place. Eulalia, a daughter, and Sophia, a friend,
entered almost at the same moment with them through another door.

At the head of the long, oaken table there were already standing the
two black table servants of this dignified household, splendid imported
Africans, trained in Virginia. My lady’s table was a-gleam with much of
the richest plate and old Holland china in the city. An immense silver
candelabra graced the center, and at every corner were separate graven
gold sticks making a splendid show.

“I have the greatest terror of fire anywhere in our city,” began
the hostess, even as young Walton was bowing. “We have so little
protection. I have urged upon our selectmen the necessity of providing
something better than we have--a water tower or something of the sort
but so far nothing has come of it.”

“You were at the fire, Master Walton?” inquired the handsome Eulalie
archly.

“I came that way with several friends from the Collect,” he answered.

“Why the Collect?” asked the hostess, who was now seated with the two
blacks towering above her.

“There is a man there who has a boat which is to go without sail, as I
understand it, providing his idea is correct. It is to go by steam, I
believe, only he did not succeed in making it so do to-day, at least
not while I was there. It may have gone, though. I could not wait to
see.”

“Oh marvelous,” exclaimed Eulalie, putting up a pair of pretty hands,
“and really is it a boat that will travel so?”

“I cannot vouch for that,” returned the youth gravely. “It was not
going when we visited it. The fire and my engagement took the entire
audience of the inventor away,” and he smiled.

“I shall have no faith in any such trap as that until I see it,”
observed Madame Kortright. “Fancy being on the water and no sail to
waft you. Mercy!”

“I fancy it will be some time before men will venture afar on any such
craft,” returned the youth; “but it is a bit curious.”

“Dangerous, I should say,” suggested Mistress Sophia.

“No,” said Walton, “not that, I think. My father has often told me that
Master Franklin predicted to him that men should harness the lightning
before many years. That is even more strange than this.”

“That may all be true,” said Madame Kortright, “but it has not come to
pass yet. It will never be in our time, I fear. But did you hear of the
case of jewels at Maton’s?”

“Has he imported something new?” inquired Eulalie smartly.

“The last ship brought a case of gems for him, I hear,” continued the
hostess. “That should be of interest to you, Master Walton.”

The youth flushed slightly at the implication involved. His attentions
to Mistress Beppie Cruger were becoming a subject of pleasing social
comment.

“So it is,” he said gaily, as he recovered his composure. “I shall look
in upon Maton this very afternoon.”

“And I should like to see what is new in France,” said the ruddy Sophia
seriously. “I have not an earring or a pin in my collection that is not
as old as the hills----”

“Nor any the less valuable, I venture,” answered Walton, with an
impressive air.

“I would give them for new ones, believe me,” returned the girl
quaintly.

Upon this gossiping company the two blacks waited with almost noiseless
accuracy, one serving at each side in answer to silent looks and nods
from the hostess. Walton watched them out of the corner of his eye,
gossiping the while. In his new home, he thought, whenever the fair
lady consented, there should be two such lackeys gracing her more
tender beauty. He could not help thinking how much more effective they
would appear behind her than his present hostess, who, however, was
attractive enough. It made him restless to depart, for certainly this
afternoon he should definitely, if he could, learn his fate. The jewels
would be one excuse. He would take her to look at the jewels before the
evening called them to the theater, and then he would see.

Once he was free of the entertainment provided, he hurried away into
Wall Street, the spire of Trinity already beginning to cast a short
eastward shadow. About the building occupied as the new National
Capitol a few dignitaries from the colonies were to be seen. The new
mixture of stores among the residences was beginning to make lovely
Wall Street less conservative. A bank had opened just below the
Capitol, its entrance reaching out to the very sidewalk and hedging in
the view of the gardens beyond. Soon, if the city kept on growing, all
the fine old gardens would have to go.

He pondered, as he walked, until he came to a certain gateway below
William Street, where he entered. From a window looking out upon a
small balcony above a face disappeared, and now he was greeted by
another pompous servant at the door.

“My compliments,” he said, “to Mistress Cruger, if she pleases, and I
am waiting.”

The servant bowed and retired. In a few moments more there fluttered
down into the large reception room from above the loveliest embodiment
of the new order of finery that he had ever seen. Such daintiness in
curls and laces, such lightness in silken flounces displayed upon
spreading hoops, he felt to be without equal. With a graceful courtesy
she received his almost ponderous bow.

“Mother gives you her greeting, and she cannot come with us to-day,”
she said. “She has a very severe headache.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” he replied sympathetically, “but you
will come? The weather has favored us, and I fancy the meadows will be
beautiful to see.”

“Oh, yes, I will come,” she returned smiling. “It is not quite three,
however,” she added. “You are early.”

“I know,” he answered, “but we may talk until then. Besides there is
something I wish you to see before theater time--no, I will tell you of
it later. Henry will be on time.”

They seated themselves very respectfully distant and took up the
morning’s commonplaces. Had he heard of the fire and where the French
minister was now being entertained? Cards had but this morning come
from the Jacob Van Dams for a reception at their new house in Broome
Street. The Goelets were to build farther out in Pearl Street.

“I think it is a shame,” she said, “the way they are deserting us in
this street. We shall have to go also very shortly, and I like Wall
Street.”

“When your turn comes perhaps you will not mind it so much,” he
returned, thinking of the proposal he hoped to find the courage to
make. “Broome Street is certainly pleasing after the new style.”

She thought of all the fine residences being erected in that new
residence section, and for some, to him, inexplicable reason, smiled.
Outside, through the vine-festooned window, she could see a broad, open
barouche turning.

“Here is the carriage,” she said.

As they came out of the quiet chamber into the open sunlight, part
of their stilted reserve vanished. Once in the carriage beside him,
she smiled happily. As they rolled into William Street and up the Old
Boston Road into the green shaded Bowery, she laughed for the very joy
of laughing.

“It is good to feel spring again,” she said, “the cold days are so
many.”

As they traveled, an occasional citizen before his doorway, or pleasure
seeker upon horseback, greeted them. The distinguished Aaron Burr was
here prancing gaily countryward. Old Peter Stuyvesant’s mansion was
kept as rich in flowers as when he had been alive to care for it.

“Are not the fields beautiful about here?” he observed, after they had
passed the region of the Collect.

“Lovely,” she returned. “I never see them but I think of dancing, they
are so soft.”

“Let us get out and walk upon them, anyhow,” he answered. “Henry can
wait for us at the turn yonder.”

He was pointing to a far point, where, through a clump of trees, the
winding footpath, leading out from here, joined Broadway, now a lane
through the woods and fields.

Gaily she acquiesced, and he helped her down. When the servant was out
of hearing, he reached for a dandelion, and pressing his lips to it
said, “Here is a token.”

“Of what?” she said shyly.

“What should it be?” he asked wistfully.

“Spring, probably.”

“And nothing else?”

“Youth,” she answered, laughing.

“And nothing else?” he questioned, drawing close with a tenderness in
his voice.

“How should I know?” she said, laughing and casting it down, because of
her fear of the usual significance of the situation.

“You mustn’t throw it away,” he said stooping. “Keep it. I’ll tell you
what it means. I--I----”

“See the wild roses!” she exclaimed, suddenly increasing her pace. “I
should rather have some of those for a token, if you please.”

He relaxed his tension, and hastened for that which she desired. When
he returned to hand them to her, she was laughing at something.

“Ah, you laugh,” he said sadly. “I think I know why.”

“It is because of the day,” she answered.

Somehow he could make no progress with his declaration until it was too
late. Already they were near the carriage, and south along the road a
quarter of a mile was the Lispenard country house. Her relatives, the
Lispenards, were there as owners. He scarcely had time for what he
wished to say.

“Shall we stop there?” he asked in a subdued murmur, as in driving
again they neared the long piazza where guests were seated enjoying the
prospect of the meadows beyond. “It is four now, and the play begins at
six. There are some new jewels from France at Maton’s, which I thought
you might like to see before then.”

“Jewels from France! Oh, yes, I should like to see those. Let us go
there,” she answered. “But I must have time to dress, too, you know.”

To the guests then, bowing as they passed, they returned a smiling nod,
and meeting others in carriages and chairs, extended this same courtesy
as they went along. Walton brooded in a mock-dreary manner, but finding
that it availed nothing thought to tempt her considerateness with
jewels.

“What trinkets are these you have from France of which I hear?” he
inquired of Maton as they entered that sturdy jeweler’s shop in Maiden
Lane.

“On the very last packet,” explained the latter, spreading the best of
his importations upon a black velvet cloth before them. “You will not
see the like of these six diamonds in New York again for many years, I
warrant you. Look at this.”

He held up an exquisitely wrought ring of French workmanship, in which
a fine stone was gleaming, and smiled upon it approvingly.

“Look,” he said, “it is very large. It is cut by Toussard. Did you ever
see such workmanship?” He turned it over and over, and then held it
lovingly up. “The band itself is so small,” he added, “that I believe
it would fit the lady’s finger--let us see.”

Coquettishly she put out her hand, and then seeing that it marvelously
slipped on and fitted, opened her eyes wide.

“Now, is not that beautiful!” exclaimed the jeweler. “What a gem! The
finest of any that I have imported yet, and it fits as though it had
been ordered for her.” He cast a persuasive smile upon Walton whose
interest in the fair Beppie he well knew. The latter pretended not the
slightest understanding.

“It is well cut,” she said.

“And the loveliest you have ever worn,” added Walton hopefully.

By her side, in front of the counter and between their bodies, he was
endeavoring to take her free hand.

“Let it stay,” he said gently, when he had secured it, and was
signalling the significance of the ring to her fingers.

“Oh,” she said, smiling as if she were only jesting, “you are too
daring. I might!”

“Do,” he answered.

“Such a ring!” said the jeweler.

“I will then,” said she.

“Then, Master Maton,” said Walton, “you need only send the bill to me,”
and he laughed as he pushed the remaining display away.

As they came out, after having vaguely picked over the others, the
young lover was all elation. Upon the narrow side-path a servant
wheeling a trunk to the Liverpool dock upon a barrow brushed him
rudely, but he did not notice. Only a newsboy crying out the _Gazette_,
the blast of the bugle of the incoming stage coach from Boston, the
dust of the side-path, where the helper of the Apollo was sweeping
the lobby preparatory to the performance of the night, attracted and
pleased him. He helped his fiancée gaily into the carriage and half
bounded with joy to the seat beside her, where he smiled and smiled.

“I may not wear it, though,” said his betrothed, now that the
remarkable episode was over, and she held up a dainty finger; “because,
as you know, you have not spoken to my father as yet.”

“Keep it, nevertheless,” he answered. “I will speak to him fast enough.”

“I give you good-day, Master Walton,” said the distinguished Jefferson
as they passed from William into Wall Street, near where that statesman
made temporary stopping-place when in the city.

“Master Jefferson, William,” cried his fiancée softly, using for the
first time his given name. “Master Jefferson has bid you good-day.”

“Good evening!” cried Walton, all deference in a moment because of the
error which his excitement had occasioned, “good evening to you, sir!”
and he bowed, and bowed very gracefully again.

“How can I be so mindful, though, of all these formalities,” he said
explanatorily as he turned once more to his fair intended, “when I have
you? It is not to be expected.”

“But necessary, just the same,” she said. “And if you are to begin thus
quickly neglecting your duties, what am I to think?”

For answer he took her hand. Elatedly then they made their way to the
old homestead again, and there being compelled to leave her while
she dressed for the theater, he made his way toward the broad and
tree-shaded Bowery, where was the only true and idyllic walk for a
lover. The older houses nearest the city, redolent in their Dutch
architecture of an older and even quainter period; the wide paths and
broad doorways, rich in both vines and flowers; the rapidly decreasing
evidences of population as one’s steps led northward--all combined
to soothe and set dreaming the poetic mind. Here young Walton, as so
many before him, strolled and hummed, thinking of all that life and
the young city held for him. Now, indeed, was his fortune truly made.
Love was his, the lovely Beppie, no less. Here then he decided to build
that mansion of his own--far out, indeed, above Broome Street, but in
this self-same thoroughfare where all was so suggestive of flowers and
romance. He had no inkling, as he pondered, of what a century might
bring forth. The crush and stress and wretchedness fast treading upon
this path of loveliness he could not see.




Transcriber’s Note:

  Minor errors and omissions in punctuation and spelling have been
    fixed.
  In this plain text version, small capitals have been changed to
    to be in all uppercase. In cases where words were in uppercase
    in the original text, this has also been maintained.
  Page 31: “never any flare” changed to “never any flair”
  Page 42: “eying him sympathetically” changed to “eyeing him
    sympathetically”.
  Page 50: “sometimes thought, cold, lips were now parted in” was
    transposed with “a faint, gracious smile, or trace of one. He had”.
    This has been corrected.
  Page 67: “Larvæ and chrysalis” changed to "Larvæ and chrysalises".
  Page 72: “jaws in his neck” changed to "neck in his jaws".
  Page 202: “the rout of street cars” changed to “the route of street
    cars”.
  Page 205: “Dontcha like me?” changed to “Don’tcha like me?”.
  Page 256: “influence her help” changed to “influence her to help”.
  Page 263: “that’s you real” changed to “that’s your real”.
  Page 332: “Just as he thought” changed to “Just as she thought”.
  Page 339: “Cézanne, Goguin, Matisse,” changed to “Cézanne, Gauguin,
    Matisse,”.



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