ONE MAN IN HIS TIME

by

ELLEN GLASGOW

1922

"One man in his time plays many parts. "

NOTE

No character in this book was drawn from any actual person past orpresent. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. THE SHADOW

 II. GIDEON VETCH

 III. CORINNA OF THE OLD PRINT SHOP

 IV. THE TRIBAL INSTINCT

 V. MARGARET

 VI. MAGIC

 VII. CORINNA GOES TO WAR

 VIII. THE WORLD AND PATTY

 IX. SEPTEMBER ROSES

 X. PATTY AND CORINNA

 XI. THE OLD WALLS AND THE RISING TIDE

 XII. A JOURNEY INTO MEAN STREETS

 XIII. CORINNA WONDERS

 XIV. A LITTLE LIGHT ON HUMAN NATURE

 XV. CORINNA OBSERVES

 XVI. THE FEAR OF LIFE

 XVII. MRS. GREEN

 XVIII. MYSTIFICATION

 XIX. THE SIXTH SENSE

 XX. CORINNA FACES LIFE

 XXI. DANCE MUSIC

 XXII. THE NIGHT

 XXIII. THE DAWN

 XXIV. THE VICTORY OF GIDEON VETCH

CHAPTER I

THE SHADOW

The winter's twilight, as thick as blown smoke, was drifting through theCapitol Square. Already the snow covered walks and the frozen fountainswere in shadow; but beyond the irregular black boughs of the trees thesky was still suffused with the burning light of the sunset. Over thehead of the great bronze Washington a single last gleam of sunshine shotsuddenly before it vanished amid the spires and chimneys of the city, which looked as visionary and insubstantial as the glowing horizon. 

Stopping midway of the road, Stephen Culpeper glanced back over thevague streets and the clearer distance, where the approaching dusk spunmauve and silver cobwebs of air. From that city, it seemed to him, a newand inscrutable force--the force of an idea--had risen within the lastfew months to engulf the Square and all that the Square had ever meantin his life. Though he was only twenty-six, he felt that he had watchedthe decay and dissolution of a hundred years. Nothing of the pastremained untouched. Not the old buildings, not the old trees, not eventhe old memories. Clustering traditions had fled in the white blaze ofelectricity; the quaint brick walks, with their rich colour in thesunlight, were beginning to disappear beneath the expressionless mask ofconcrete. It was all changed since his father's or his grandfather'sday; it was all obvious and cheap, he thought; it was all ugly and nakedand undistinguished--yet the tide of the new ideas was still rising. Democracy, relentless, disorderly, and strewn with the wreckage of finerthings, had overwhelmed the world of established customs in which helived. 

As he lifted his face to the sky, his grave young features revealed asubtle kinship to the statues beneath the mounted Washington in thedrive, as if both flesh and bronze had been moulded by the dominantspirit of race. Like the heroes of the Revolution, he appeared astranger in an age which had degraded manners and enthroned commerce;and like them also he seemed to survey the present from someinaccessible height of the past. Dignity he had in abundance, and acertain mellow, old-fashioned quality; yet, in spite of hiswell-favoured youth, he was singularly lacking in sympathetic appeal. Already people were beginning to say that they "admired Culpeper; but hewas a bit of a prig, and they couldn't get really in touch with him. "His attitude of mind, which was passive but critical, had developed thefaculties of observation rather than the habits of action. As a memberof the community he was indifferent and amiable, gay and ironic. Onlythe few who had seen his reserve break down before the rush of anuncontrollable impulse suspected that there were rich veins of feelingburied beneath his conventional surface, and that he cherished aninarticulate longing for heroic and splendid deeds. The war had lefthim with a nervous malady which he had never entirely overcome; and thisincreased both his romantic dissatisfaction with his life and hisinability to make a sustained effort to change it. 

The sky had faded swiftly to pale orange; the distant buildings appearedto swim toward him in the silver air; and the naked trees barred thewhite slopes with violet shadows. In the topmost branches of an oldsycamore the thinnest fragment of a new moon hung trembling like aluminous thread. The twilight was intensely still, and the noises of thecity fell with a metallic sound on his ears, as if a multitude of bellswere ringing about him. While he walked on past the bald outline of therestored and enlarged Capitol, this imaginary concert grew graduallyfainter, until he heard above it presently the sudden closing of awindow in the Governor's mansion--as the old gray house was called. 

Pausing abruptly, the young man frowned as his eyes fell on the charmingGeorgian front, which presided like a serene and spacious memory overthe modern utilitarian purpose that was devastating the Square. Alone inits separate plot, broad, low, and hospitable, the house stood theredivided and withdrawn from the restless progress and the age ofconcrete--a modest reminder of the centuries when men had built wellbecause they had time, before they built, to stop and think andremember. The arrested dignity of the past seemed to the young man tohover above the old mansion within its setting of box hedges andleafless lilac shrubs and snow-laden magnolia trees. He saw the housecontrasted against the crude surroundings of the improved and disfiguredSquare, and against the house, attended by all its stately traditions, he saw the threatening figure of Gideon Vetch. "So it has come to this, "he thought resentfully, with his gaze on the doorway where a roundyellow globe was shining. Ragged frost-coated branches framed thesloping roof, and the white columns of the square side porches emergedfrom the black crags of magnolia trees. In the centre of the circulardrive, invaded by concrete, a white heron poured a stream of melting icefrom a distorted throat. 

The shutters were not closed at the lower windows, and the firelightflickered between the short curtains of some brownish muslin. As Stephenpassed the gate on his way down the hill, a figure crossed one of thewindows, and his frown deepened as he recognized, or imagined that herecognized, the shadow of Gideon Vetch. 

"Gideon Vetch!" At the sound of the name the young man threw back hishead and laughed softly. A Gideon Vetch was Governor of Virginia! Herealso, he told himself, half humorously, half bitterly, democracy hadwon. Here also the destroying idea had triumphed. In sight of the bronzeWashington, this Gideon Vetch, one of "the poor white trash, " born in acircus tent, so people said, the demagogue of demagogues in Stephen'sopinion--this Gideon Vetch had become Governor of Virginia! Yet theplacid course of Stephen's life flowed on precisely as it had flowedever since he could remember, and the dramatic hand of Washington hadnot fallen. It was still so recent; it had come about so unexpectedly, that people--at least the people the young man knew and esteemed--werestill trying to explain how it had happened. The old party had beensleeping, of course; it had grown too confident, some said toocorpulent; and it had slept on peacefully, in spite of the stirringstrength of the labour leaders, in spite of the threatening coalition ofthe new factions, in spite even of the swift revolt against the stubbornforces of habit, of tradition, of overweening authority. His mother, heknew, held the world war responsible; but then his mother was soconstituted that she was obliged to blame somebody or something forwhatever happened. Yet others, he admitted, as well as his mother, heldthe war responsible for Gideon Vetch--as if the great struggle had casthim out in some gigantic cataclysm, as if it had broken through the oncesolid ground of established order, and had released into the world allthe explosive gases of disintegration, of destruction. 

For himself, the young man reflected now, he had always thoughtotherwise. It was a period, he felt, of humbug radicalism, of windbageloquence; yet he possessed both wit and discernment enough to see that, though ideas might explode in empty talk, still it took ideas to makethe sort of explosion that was deafening one's ears. All the flatformula of the centuries could not produce a single Gideon Vetch. Suchmen were part of the changing world; they answered not to reasonedargument, but to the loud crash of breaking idols. Stephen hated Vetchwith all his heart, but he acknowledged him. He did not try to evade theman's tremendous veracity, his integrity of being, his inevitableness. An inherent intellectual honesty compelled Stephen to admit that, "thedemagogue", as he called him, had his appropriate place in the age thatproduced him--that he existed rather as an outlet for politicaltendencies than as the product of international violence. He was morethan a theatrical attitude--a torrent of words. Even a free country--andStephen thought sentimentally of America as "a free country"--must haveits tyrannies of opinion, and consequently its rebels against currentconvictions. In the older countries he had imagined that it might bepossible to hold with the hare and run with the hounds; but in the landof opportunity for all there was less reason to be astonished when thehunted turned at last into the hunter. Where every boy was taught thathe might some day be President, why should one stand amazed when theambitious son of a circus rider became Governor of Virginia? After all, a fair field and no favours was the best that the most conservative ofpoliticians--the best that even John Benham could ask. 

Yes, there was a cause, there was a reason for the miracle of disorder, or it would not have happened. The hour had called forth the man; butthe man had been there awaiting the strokes, listening, listening, withhis ear to the wind. It had been a triumph of personality, one of thoserare dramatic occasions when the right man and the appointed time cometogether. This the young man admitted candidly in the very moment whenhe told himself that he detested the demagogue and all his works. A manwho consistently made his bid for the support of the radical element!Who stirred up the forces of discontent because he could harness themto his chariot! A man who was born in a circus tent, and who stillperformed in public the tricks of a mountebank! That this man had power, Stephen granted ungrudgingly; but it was power over the undisciplined, the half-educated, the mentally untrained. It was power, as John Benhamhad once remarked with a touch of hyperbole, over empty stomachs. 

There were persons in Stephen's intimate circle (there are such personseven in the most conservative communities) who contended that Vetch wasin his way a rude genius. Judge Horatio Lancaster Page, for instance, insisted that the Governor had a charm of his own, that, "he wasn't halfbad to look at if you caught him smiling, " that he could even reason"like one of us, " if you granted him his premise. After the open debatebetween Vetch and Benham--the great John Benham, hero of war and peace, and tireless labourer in the vineyard of public service--after thismemorable discussion, Judge Horatio Lancaster Page had remarked, in hismild, unpolemical tone, that "though John had undoubtedly carried offthe flowers of rhetoric, there was a good deal of wholesome green stuffabout that fellow Vetch. " But everybody knew that a man with a comicalhabit of mind could not be right. 

Again the figure crossed the firelight between the muslin curtains, andto Stephen Culpeper, standing alone in the snow outside, that largeimpending presence embodied all that he and his kind had hated andfeared for generations. It embodied among other disturbances the law ofchange; and to Stephen and his race of pleasant livers the two sinisterforces in the universe were change and death. After all, they had madethe world, these pleasant livers; and what were those other people--thepeople represented by that ominous shadow--except the ragged prophets ofdisorder and destruction?

Turning away, Stephen descended the wide brick walk which fellgradually, past the steps of the library and the gaunt railing round amotionless fountain, to the broad white slope of the Square with itssmoky veil of twilight. Farther away he saw the high iron fence andheard the clanging of passing street cars. On his left the ugly shapeof the library resembled some crude architectural design sketched onparchment. 

As he approached the fountain, a small figure in a red cape detacheditself suddenly from the mesh of shadows, and he recognized Patty Vetch, the irrepressible young daughter of the Governor. He had seen her theevening before at a charity ball, where she had been politely snubbed bywhat he thought of complacently as "our set. " From the moment when hehad first looked at her across the whirling tulle and satin skirts inthe ballroom, he had decided that she embodied as obviously as herfather, though in a different fashion, the qualities which were mostoffensive both to his personal preferences and his inherited standardsof taste. The girl in her scarlet dress, with her dark bobbed haircurling in on her neck, her candid ivory forehead, her provoking bluntnose, her bright red lips, and the inquiring arch of her black eyebrowsover her gray-green eyes, had appeared to him absurdly like a picture onthe cover of some cheap magazine. He had heartily disapproved of her, but he couldn't help looking at her. If she had been on the cover of amagazine, he had told himself sternly, he should never have bought it. He had correct ideas of what a lady should be (they were inherited fromthe early eighties and his mother had implanted them), and he wouldhave known anywhere that Patty Vetch was not exactly a lady. Though hewas broad enough in his views to realize that types repeat themselvesonly in variations, and that girls of to-day are not all that they werein the happy eighties--that one might make up flashily like GeraldineSt. John, or dance outrageously like Bertha Underwood, and yet remainin all essential social values "a lady"--still he was aware that theexternal decorations of a chorus girl could not turn the shiningdaughter of the St. Johns for an imitation of paste, and, though thenimble Bertha could perform every Jazz motion ever invented, one wouldnever dream of associating her with a circus ring. It was not the thingsone did that made one appear unrefined, he had concluded at last, butthe way that one did them; and Patty Vetch's way was not the prescribedway of his world. Small as she was there was too much of her. Shecontrived always to be where one was looking. She was too loud, toovivid, too highly charged with vitality; she was too obviouslydifferent. If a redbird had flown into the heated glare of the ballroomStephen's gaze would have followed it with the same startled andfascinated attention. 

As the girl approached him now on the snow-covered slope, he wasconscious again of that swift recoil from chill disapproval to reluctantattraction. Though she was not beautiful, though she was not even prettyaccording to the standards with which he was familiar, she possessedwhat he felt to be a dangerous allurement. He had never imagined thatanything so small could be so much alive. The electric light under whichshe passed revealed the few golden freckles over her childish nose, thegray-green colour of her eyes beneath the black eyelashes, and thesensitive red mouth which looked as soft and sweet as a carnation. Itrevealed also the absurd shoes of gray suede, with French toes and highand narrow heels, in which she flitted, regardless alike of danger andof common sense, over the slippery ground. The son of a strong-mindedthough purely feminine mother, he had been trained to esteem discretionin dress almost as highly as rectitude of character in a woman; and byno charitable stretch of the imagination could he endow his firstimpression of Patty Vetch with either of these attributes. 

"It would serve her right if she fell and broke her leg, " he thoughtseverely; and the idea of such merited punishment was still in his mindwhen he heard a sharp gasp of surprise, and saw the girl slip, with afrantic clutch at the air, and fall at full length on the shiningground. When he sprang forward and bent over her, she rose quickly toher knees and held out what he thought at first was some queer smallmuff of feathers. 

"Please hold this pigeon, " she said, "I saw it this afternoon, and Icame out to look for it. Somebody has broken its wings. "

"If you came out to walk on ice, " he replied with a smile, "why, inHeaven's name, didn't you wear skates or rubbers?"

She gave a short little laugh which was entirely without merriment. "Idon't skate, and I never wear rubbers. "

He glanced down at her feet in candid disapproval. "Then you mustn't besurprised if you get a sprained ankle. "

"I am not surprised, " she retorted calmly. "Nothing surprises me. Onlymy ankle isn't sprained. I am just getting my breath. "

She had rested her knee on a bench, and she looked up at him now withbright, enigmatical eyes. "You don't mind waiting a moment, do you?"she asked. To his secret resentment she appeared to be deliberatelyappraising either his abilities or his attractions--he wasn't sure whichengaged her bold and perfectly unembarrassed regard. 

"No, I don't mind in the least, " he replied, "but I'd like to get youhome if you have really hurt yourself. Of course it was your own faultthat you fell, " he added truthfully but indiscreetly. 

For an instant she seemed to be holding her breath, while he stood therein what he felt to be a foolish attitude, with the pigeon (for allsymbolical purposes it might as well have been a dove) clasped to hisbreast. 

"Oh, I know, " she responded presently in a voice which was full ofsuppressed anger. "Everything is my fault--even the fact that I wasborn!"

Shocked out of his conventional manner, he stared at her in silence, andthe pigeon, feeling the strain of his grasp, fluttered softly againsthis overcoat. What was there indeed for him to do except stare at a lackof reticence, of good-breeding, which he felt to be deplorable? His fineyoung face, with its characteristic note of reserve, hardened intosternness as he remembered having heard somewhere that the girl's motherhad been killed or injured when she was performing some dangerous act ata country fair. Well, one might expect anything, he supposed, from suchan inheritance. 

"May I help you?" he asked with distant and chilly politeness. 

"Oh, can't you wait a minute?" She impatiently thrust aside his offer. "I _must_ get my breath again. "

It was plain that she was very angry, that she was in the clutch of asmothered yet violent resentment, which, he inferred with reason, wasdirected less against himself than against some abstract and impersonallaw of life. Her rage was not merely temper against a single humanbeing; it was, he realized, a passionate rebellion against Fate orNature, or whatever she personified as the instrument of the injusticefrom which she suffered. Her eyes were gleaming through the web of lightand shadow; her mouth was trembling; and there was the moisture oftears--or was it only the glitter of ice?--on her round young cheek. Andwhile he looked, chilled, disapproving, unsympathetic, at the vividflower-like bloom of her face, there seemed to flow from her and envelophim the spirit of youth itself--of youth adventurous, intrepid, anddefiant; of youth rejecting the expedient and demanding the impossible;of youth eternally desirable, enchanting, and elusive. It was as if hisorderly, complacent, and tranquil soul had plunged suddenly into a bathof golden air. Vaguely disturbed, he drew back and tried to appeardignified in spite of the fluttering pigeon. He had no inclination fora flirtation with the Governor's daughter--intuitively he felt that suchan adventure would not be a safe one; but if a flirtation were what shewanted, he told himself, with a sense of impending doom, "there might betrouble. " He didn't know what she meant, but whatever it was, sheevidently meant it with determination. Already she had impressed himwith the quality which, for want of a better word, he thought of as"wildness. " It was a quality which he had found strangely, if secretly, alluring, and he acknowledged now that this note of "wildness, " ofunexpectedness, of "something different" in her personality, had heldhis gaze chained to the airy flutter of her scarlet skirt. He feltvaguely troubled. Something as intricate and bewildering as impulse waswinding through the smoothly beaten road of his habit of thought. Thenoises of the city came to him as if they floated over an immeasurabledistance of empty space. Through the spectral boughs of the sycamoresthe golden sky had faded to the colour of ashes. And both the emptyspace and the ashen sky seemed to be not outside of himself, but a partof the hidden country within his mind. 

"You were at the ball, " she burst out suddenly, as if she had beenholding back the charge from the beginning. 

"At the ball?" he repeated, and the words were spoken with his lipsmerely in that objective world of routine and habit. "Yes, I was there. It was a dull business. "

She laughed again with the lack of merriment he had noticed before. Though her face was made for laughter, there was an oddly conflictingnote of tragedy in her voice. "Was it dull? I didn't notice. "

"Then you must have enjoyed it?"

"But you were there. You saw what happened. Every one must have seen. "Her savage candour brushed away the flimsy amenities. He knew now thatshe would say whatever she pleased, and, with the pigeon clasped tightlyin his arms, he waited for anything that might come. 

"You pretend that you don't know, that you didn't see!" she askedindignantly. 

As she looked at him he thought--or it may have been the effect of theshifting light--that her eyes diffused soft green rays beneath her blackeyelashes. Was there really the mist of tears in her sparkling glance?

"I am sorry, " he said simply, being a young man of few words when theneed of speech was obvious. The last thing he wanted, he told himself, was to receive the confidences of the Governor's daughter. 

At this declaration, so characteristic of his amiable temperament, heranger flashed over him. "You were not sorry. You know you were not, oryou would have made them kinder!"

"Kinder? But how could I?" He felt that her rage was making herunreasonable. "I didn't know you. I hadn't even been introduced to you. "It was on the tip of his tongue to add, "and I haven't been yet--" buthe checked himself in fear of unchaining the lightning. It was allperfectly true. He had not even been introduced to the girl, and hereshe was, as crude as life and as intemperate, accusing him ofindifference and falsehood. And after all, what had they done to her? Noone had been openly rude. Nothing had been said, he was sure, absolutelynothing. It had been a "charity entertainment, " and the young people ofhis set had merely left her alone, that was all. The affair had been farfrom exclusive--for the enterprising ladies of the Beech Tree DayNursery had prudently preferred a long subscription list to a limitedsocial circle--and in a gathering so obscurely "mixed" there were, without doubt, a number of Gideon Vetch's admirers. Was it maliciouslyarranged by Fate that Patty Vetch's social success should depend uponthe people who had elected her father to office?

"As if that mattered!"

Her scorn of his subterfuge, her mocking defiance of the sacred formulato which he deferred, awoke in him an unfamiliar and pleasantly piquantsensation. Through it all he was conscious of the inner prick and stingof his disapprobation, as if the swift attraction had passed into amental aversion. 

"As if that mattered!" he echoed gaily, "as if that mattered at all!"

Her face changed in the twilight, and it seemed to him that he saw herfor the first time with the peculiar vividness that came only in dreamsor in the hidden country within his mind. The sombre arch of the sky, the glimmer of lights far away, the clustering shadows against the whitefield of snow, the vague ghostly shapes of the sycamores--all thesethings endowed her with the potency of romantic adventure. In the winternight she seemed to him to exhale the roving sweetness of spring. Thenshe spoke, and the sharp brightness of his vision was clouded by the oldsense of unreality. 

"They treated me as if I were a piece of bunting or a flower in a pot, "she said. "They left me alone in the dressing-room. No one spoke to me, though they must have known who I was. They know, all of them, that I amthe Governor's daughter. "

With a start he brought himself back from the secret places. "But Ithought you carried your head very high, " he answered, "and you did notappear to lack partners. " Some small ironic demon that seemed to dwellin his brain and yet to have no part in his real thought, moved him toadd indiscreetly: "I thought you danced every dance with Julius Gershom. That's the name of that dark fellow who's a politician of doubtful cast, isn't it?"

She made a petulant gesture, and the red wings in her hat vibrated likethe wings of a bird in flight. There flashed though his mind while hewatched her the memory of a cardinal he had seen in a cedar tree againstthe snow-covered landscape. Strange that he could never get away fromthe thought of a bird when he looked at her. 

"Oh, Julius Gershom! I despise him!"

She shivered, and he asked with a sympathy he had not displayed formental discomforts: "Aren't you dreadfully chilled? This kind of thingis a risk, you know. You might catch influenza--or anything. "

"Yes, I might, if there is any about, " she replied tartly, and he sawwith relief that her petulance had faded to dull indifference. "I wasobliged to dance with somebody, " she resumed after a minute, "I couldn'tsit against the wall the whole evening, could I? And nobody else askedme, --but I don't like him any the better for that. "

"And your father? Does he dislike him also?" he asked. 

"How can one tell? He says he is useful. " There was a playful tendernessin her voice. 

"Useful? You mean in politics?"

She laughed. "How else in the world can any one be useful to Father? Itmust be freezing. "

"No, it is melting; but it is too cold to play about out of doors. "

"Your teeth are chattering!" she rejoined with scornful merriment. 

"They are not, " he retorted indignantly. "I am as comfortable as youare. "

"Well, I'm not comfortable at all. Something--I don't know what itwas--happened to my ankle. I think I twisted it when I fell. "

"And all this time you haven't said a word. We've talked about nothingwhile you must have been in pain. "

She shook her head as if his new solicitude irritated her, and a quiverof pain--or was it amusement?--crossed her lips. "It isn't the firsttime I've had to grit my teeth and bear things--but it's getting worseinstead of better all the time, and I'm afraid I shall have to ask youto help me up the hill. I was waiting until I thought I could manage itby myself. "

So that was why she had kept him! She had hoped all the time that shecould go on presently without his aid, and she realized now that it wasimpossible. Insensibly his judgment of her softened, as if his romanticimagination had spun iridescent cobwebs about her. By Jove, what pluckshe had shown, what endurance! There came to him suddenly therealization that if she had learned to treat a sprained ankle solightly, it could mean only that her short life had been full ofmisadventures beside which a sprained ankle appeared trivial. She could"play the game" so perfectly, he grasped, because she had been obligedeither to play it or go under ever since she had been big enough to readthe cards in her hand. To be "a good sport" was perhaps the best lessonthat the world had yet taught her. Though she could not be, he decided, more than eighteen, she had acquired already the gay bravado of theexperienced gambler with life. 

"Let me help you, " he said eagerly, "I am sure that I can carry you, youare so small. If you will only let me throw away this confounded bird, Ican manage it easily. "

"No, give it to me. It would die of cold if we left it. " She stretchedout her hand, and in silence he gave her the wounded pigeon. Hertenderness for the bird, conflicting as it did with his earlierimpression of her, both amused and perplexed him. He couldn't reconcileher quick compassion with her resentful and mocking attitude towardhimself. 

At his impulsive offer of help the quiver shook her lips again, andstooping over she did something which appeared to him quite unnecessaryto one gray suede shoe. "No, it isn't as bad as that. I don't need to becarried, " she said. "That sort of thing went out of fashion ages ago. Ifyou'll just let me lean on you until I get up the hill. "

She put her hand through his arm; and while he walked slowly up thehill, he decided that, taken all in all, the present moment was the mostembarrassing one through which he had ever lived. The fugitive gleam, the romantic glamour, had vanished now. He wondered what it was abouther that he had at first found attractive. It was the spirit of theplace, he decided, nothing more. With every step of the way there closedover him again his natural reserve, his unconquerable diffidence, hisinstinctive recoil from the eccentric in behaviour. Conventions were thebreath of his young nostrils, and yet he was passing through anatmosphere, without, thank Heaven, his connivance or inclination, whereit seemed to him the hardiest convention could not possibly survive. When the lights of the mansion shone nearer through the bared boughs, heheaved a sigh of relief. 

"Have I tired you?" asked the girl in response, and the curious liltingnote in her voice made him turn his head and glance at her in suddensuspicion. Had she really hurt herself, or was she merely indulging somehereditary streak of buffoonery at his expense? It struck him that shewould be capable of such a performance, or of anything else that invitedher amazing vivacity. His one hope was that he might leave her in someobscure corner of the house, and slip away before anybody capable ofmaking a club joke had discovered his presence. The hidden country waslost now, and with it the perilous thrill of enchantment. 

He rang the bell, and the door was opened by an old coloured butler whohad been one of the family servants of the Culpepers. How on earth, Stephen wondered, could the Governor tolerate the venerable Abijah, thechosen companion of Culpeper children for two generations? While hewondered he recalled something his mother had said a few weeks ago aboutAbijah's having been lured away by the offer of absurd wages. "Youneedn't worry, " she had added shrewdly, "he will return as soon as hegets tired of working. "

"I hurt my ankle, Abijah, " said the girl. 

"You ain't, is you, Miss Patty?" replied Abijah, in an indulgent tonewhich conveyed to Stephen's delicate ears every shade of differencebetween the Vetchs' and the Culpepers' social standing. 

"How are you, Abijah?" remarked the young man with the air of lordlypleasantry he used to all servants who were not white. Beyond the fineold hall he saw the formal drawing-room and the modern octagonaldining-room at the back of the house. 

"Howdy, Marse Stephen, " responded the negro, "I seed yo' ma yestiddy enshe sutney wuz lookin well an' peart. "

He opened the door of the library, and while Stephen entered the roomwith the girl's hand on his arm, a man rose from a chair by the fire andcame forward. 

"Father, this is Mr. Culpeper, " remarked Patty calmly, as she sank on asofa and stretched out her frivolous shoes. 

In the midst of his embarrassment Stephen wondered resentfully how shehad discovered his name. 

CHAPTER II

GIDEON VETCH

"Your daughter slipped on the ice, " explained the young man, while thethought flashed through his mind that Patty's father was accepting itall, with ironical humour, as some queer masquerade. 

It was the first time that Stephen had come within range of theGovernor's personal influence, and he found himself waiting curiouslyfor the response of his sympathies or his nerves. Once or twice he hadheard Vetch speak--a storm of words which had played freely from thelightning flash of humorous invective to the rolling thunder ofpassionate denunciation. Such sound and fury had left Stephen the oneunmoved man in the audience. He had been brought up on the sonorousrhetoric and the gorgeous purple periods of the classic orations; andthe mere undraped sincerity--the raw head and bloody bones eloquence, ashe put it, of Vetch's speech had been as offensive to his taste as ithad been unconvincing to his intelligence. The man was a mountebank, nothing more, Stephen had decided, and his strange power was simply thereaction of mob hysteria to the stage tricks of the political clown. 

Yes, the man was a mountebank--but was he nothing more than amountebank? Like most men of his age, Stephen Culpeper was inclined toswift impressions rather than hasty judgments of people; and he wasconscious, while he listened in silence to the murmuring explanationsof the girl, that the immediate effect was a sensation, not an idea. Atfirst sight, the Governor appeared merely ordinary--a tall, ruggedfigure, built of good bone and muscle and sound to the core, with thelook of arrested energy which was doubtless an inheritance from thecircus ring. There was nothing impressive about him; nothing that wouldcause one to turn and look back in a crowd. What struck one most was hisair of extraordinary freshness and health, of sanguine vitality. Hisface was well-coloured and irregular in outline, with a high bulgingforehead and thick sandy hair which was already gray on the temples. Inthe shadow his eyes did not appear remarkably fine; they seemed at thefirst glance to be of an indeterminate colour--was it blue or gray?--andthere was nothing striking in their deep setting under the beetlingsandy eyebrows. All this was true; and yet while Stephen looked intothem over the Governor's outstretched hand, he told himself that theywere the most human eyes he had ever seen. Afterward, when he gropedthrough his vocabulary for a more accurate description, he could notfind one. There was shrewdness in Gideon Vetch's eyes; there wasfriendliness; there was the blue sparkle of contagious humour--a rippleof light that was like visible laughter--but above all there washumanity. Though Stephen did not try to grasp the vivid impressions thatpassed through his mind, he felt intuitively that he had learned to knowGideon Vetch through his look and manner as well as he should have knownanother man after weeks or months of daily intercourse. Whatever theman's private life, whatever his political faults may have been, therewas magic in the clasp of his hand and the cordial glow of his smile. He was always responsive; he stood always on the same level, high orlow, with his companion of the moment: he was as incapable of looking upas he was of looking down; he was equally without reverence and withoutcondescension. It was the law of his nature that he should give himselfemphatically to the just and the unjust alike. 

"He came home with me because I hurt my foot, " Patty was saying. 

Had she forgotten already, Stephen asked himself cynically, that it wasnot her foot but her ankle? His suspicions returned while he looked ather blooming face, and he hoped earnestly that she would not feelimpelled to relate any irrelevant details of the adventure. Like GideonVetch on the platform she seemed incapable of withholding the smallestfragment of a fact; and the young man wondered if it were characteristiceither of "the plain people, " as he called them, or of circus riders asa class, that their minds should go habitually unclothed yet unashamed. 

"Thank you, sir, " said the Governor without effusion; and he asked: "Didyou hurt yourself, Patty?" while he bent over and laid his hand on herankle. 

A note of tenderness passed into his voice as he turned to the girl; andwhen she answered after a minute, Stephen recognized the same tone ofaffectionate playfulness that she used when she spoke of him. 

"Not much, " she replied carelessly. Then she held out the droopingpigeon. "I found this bird. Is there anything we can do for it?"

The Governor took the bird from her, and examined it under the lightwith the manner of brisk confidence which directed his slightest action. The man, for all his restless activity, appeared to be without excess orexaggeration when it was a matter of practical detail. He apparentlyemployed his whole efficient and enterprising mind on the incident ofthe bird. 

"The wings aren't broken, " he said presently, lifting his head, "but itis weak from hunger and exhaustion, " and he rang the bell for Abijah. "Rice and water and a warm basket, " he ordered when the old negroappeared. "You had better keep it in the house until it recovers. " Thendismissing the subject, he turned back to Stephen. 

"Well, I am glad to see you, Mr. Culpeper, " he said. "You had a hardbeginning, but, as they used to tell me when I was a kid, a hardbeginning makes a good ending. "

For the first time a smile softened his face, and the roving blue gleamdanced blithely in his eyes. A moment before the young man had thoughtthe Governor's face harsh and ugly. Now he remembered that the Judge hadsaid "the man was not half bad to look at if you caught him smiling. "Yes, he had a charm of his own, and that charm had swept him forwardover every obstacle to the place he had reached. A single gift, indefinable yet unerring--the ability to make men believe absurdities, as John Benham had once said--and the material disadvantages of povertyand ignorance were brushed aside like trivial impediments. A strangepower, and a dangerous one in unscrupulous hands, the young manreflected. 

"I remember your face, " pursued the Governor, while his smile faded--wasbrevity, after all, the secret of its magic? "You were at one of myspeeches last autumn, and you sat in the front row, I think. I recallyou because you were the only person in the audience who looked bored. "

"I was. " Frankness called for frankness. "I am not keen about speeches. "

"Not even when Benham speaks?" The voice was gay, but through it allthere rang the unmistakable tone of authority, of conscious power. Therewas one person, Stephen inferred, who had never from the beginningdisparaged or ridiculed Gideon Vetch, and that person was Gideon Vetchhimself. John Benham had once said that the man was a mere posturer--butJohn Benham was wrong. 

"Oh, well, you see, Benham is different, " replied the young man asdelicately as he could. "He is apt to say only what I think, you know. "

So far there had been no breach of good taste in the Governor's manner, no warning reminder of an origin that was certainly obscure andpresumably low, no stale, dust-laden odours of the circus ring. He hadlooked and spoken as any man of Stephen's acquaintance might have done, facetiously, it is true, but without ostentation or vulgarity. When thebreak came, therefore, it was the more shocking to the younger manbecause he had been so imperfectly prepared for it. 

"And because he is different, of course you think he'd make a betterGovernor than I shall, " said Gideon Vetch abruptly. "That is the waywith you fellows who have ossified in the old political parties. Younever see a change in time to make ready for it. You wait until itknocks you in the head, and then you wake up and grumble. Now, I've beenon the way for the last thirty years or so, but you never once so muchas got wind of me. You think I've just happened because of too muchelectricity in the air, like a thunderbolt or something; but you haven'teven looked back to find out whether you are right or wrong. Talk aboutpublic spirit! Why, there isn't an ounce of live public spirit leftamong you, in spite of all the moonshine your man Benham talks about thehealing virtues of tradition and the sacred taboo of your politicalPharisees. There wasn't one of you that didn't hate like the devil tosee me Governor of Virginia--and yet how many of you took the trouble tofind out what I am made of, or to understand what I mean? Did you eventake the trouble to go to the polls and vote against me?"

Though Stephen flushed scarlet, he held his ground bravely. It was truethat he had not voted--he hated the whole sordid business ofpolitics--but then, who had ever suspected for a minute that GideonVetch would be elected? His brief liking for the man had changedsuddenly to exasperation. It seemed incredible to him that any Governorof Virginia should display so open a disregard of the ordinary rules ofcourtesy and hospitality. To drag in their political differences at sucha time, when he had come beneath the other's roof merely to render himan unavoidable service! To stoop to the pettifogging sophistry of theagitator simply because his opponent had reluctantly yielded him anopportunity!

"Well, I heard you speak, but that didn't change me!" he retorted with asmile. 

The Governor laughed, and the sincerity of his amusement was evidenteven to Stephen. "Could anything short of a blasting operation changeyou traditional Virginians?" he inquired. 

His face was turned to the fire, and the young man felt while hewatched him that a piercing light was shed on his character. It was asif Stephen saw his opponent from an entirely fresh point of view, as ifhe beheld him for the first time with the sharp clearness which theflash of his anger produced. The very absence of all sense of dignityimpressed him suddenly as the most tremendous dignity a human beingcould attain--the unconscious dignity of natural forces--of storms andfire and war and pestilence. Because the man never thought of how heappeared, he appeared always impregnable. 

"I shall not argue, " said the young man, with a smile which heendeavoured to make easy and natural. "The time for argument is over. You played trumps. "

Vetch laughed. "And it wasn't my last card, " he answered bluntly. 

"The game isn't finished. " Though Stephen's voice was light it held aquiver of irritation. "He laughs best who laughs last. " The other hadstarted the row, and, by Jove, he would give him as much as he wanted!He recalled suddenly the charges that there was more than the customarypolitical log-rolling--that there were mysterious "discreditabledealings" in the Governor's election to office. 

But it appeared in a minute that Gideon Vetch was adequate to any demandwhich the occasion might develop. Already Stephen was beginning toregard him less as a man than as an energetic idea, as activityincarnate. 

"If you mean to imply that the laugh may be on me at the last, " hereturned, while the points of blue light seemed to pierce Stephen likearrows--no, like gimlets, "well, you're wrong about one part of it--forif that ever happens, I'll laugh with you because of the sheer rottenirony. "

For the first time the other noticed how the Governor was dressed--in asuit of some heavy brown stuff which looked as if it had been sprinkledand needed pressing. He wore a green tie and a striped shirt of theconspicuous kind that Stephen hated. Though the younger man was keenlycritical of clothes, and perseveringly informed himself regarding thesmallest details of fashion, he acknowledged now that he had at last meta man who appeared to wear his errors of dress as naturally as he worehis errors of opinion. The fuzzy brown stuff, the green tie with redspots, the striped shirt--was it blue or purple?--all became as much apart of Gideon Vetch as the storm-ruffled plumage was part of an eagle. If the misguided man had attired himself in a toga, he would havecarried the Mantle without dignity perhaps, but certainly withpicturesqueness. 

"I'll hold you to your promise--or threat, " said Stephen lightly, as heturned from the Governor to his daughter. Why, in thunder, he askedhimself, had he stayed so long? What was there about the fellow thatheld one in spite of oneself? "I hope you will be all right again in afew days, " he said formally as his eyes met Patty's upraised glance. Inthe warm room all the glamour of the twilight--and of that hiddencountry within his mind--had faded from her. She looked fresh andblooming and merely commonplace, he thought. A brief half hour ago hehad felt that he was in danger of losing his head; now his rational partwas in the ascendant, and his future appeared pleasantly tranquil. Thenthe girl smiled that faint inscrutable smile of hers, and thedisturbing green rays shot from her eyes. A thrill of interest stirredhis pulses while something held him there against his will and hisbetter judgment, as if he were caught fast in the steel spring of atrap. 

"Oh, that's nothing, " replied Patty, with her air of mockery. "If therewere no worse things than that!"

He did not hold out his hand, though there was a flutter toward him ofher fingers--pretty fingers they were for a girl with no blood that onecould mention in public. There was a faint hope in his mind that hemight still vanish unthanked and undetained. The one quality in fatherand daughter which had arrested his favourable attention--the quality of"a good sport"--would probably aid in his escape. 

"Drop in some evening, and we'll have a talk, " said the Governor in hisslightly theatrical but extremely confident manner, "there are thingsI'd like to say to you. You are a lawyer, if I remember, in JudgeHoratio Page's firm, and you were in the war from the beginning. "

Stephen smiled. "Not quite. " They were at the front door, and all hopeof escaping into the desirable obscurity from which he had sprung fledfrom his mind. 

"He is a great old boy, the Judge, " resumed Gideon Vetch blandly, "I hada talk with him one day before the elections, when you other fellowswere sitting back like a lot of lunatics and waiting for the Democraticprimaries to put things over. He is the only one in the whole bunch ofyou who stopped shouting long enough to hear what I had to say. I likehim, sir, and if there is one thing you will never find me doing it isliking the wrong man. I may not know Greek, but I can read men. "

The front door was open, and the blast of cold air dispersed all thefoolish fancies that had gathered in Stephen's brain. Beyond thefountain and the gate he could see the broad road through the Square andthe dark majestic figure of Washington on horseback. The electric signswere blazing on the roofs of the shops and hotels which had driven theoriginal dwelling houses out of the neighbouring streets. 

Turning as he was descending the steps, the young man looked into theGovernor's face. "Are you sure that you read Julius Gershom correctly?"he inquired. 

For a minute--it could not have been longer--the Governor did not reply. Was he surprised for once into open discomfiture, or was his nimble witengaged in framing a plausible answer? Within the house, where so muchwas disappointing and incongruous, Stephen had not felt the lack ofharmony between Gideon Vetch and his surroundings; but against the fineproportions and the serene stateliness of the exterior, the Governor'sfigure appeared aggressively modern. 

"Julius Gershom!" repeated Vetch. "Well, yes, I think I know my Julius. May I ask if you do?" The ironical humour which flashed like a sharplight over his countenance played with the idea. 

"Not by choice. " Stephen looked back laughing. There was one thing to besaid in the Governor's favour--he invited honesty and he knew how toreceive it. "But I read of him in the newspapers when I cannot avoid it. He does some dirty work, doesn't he?"

Again the Governor paused before replying. There was a curious gravityabout his consideration of Gershom in spite of the satirical tone of hisresponses. Was it possible that he was the one man in town who did nottreat the fellow as a ridiculous farce?

"If by dirty work you mean the clearing away of obstacles--well, somebody has to do it, hasn't he?" asked Gideon Vetch. "If you want aclean street to walk on, you must hire somebody to shovel away theslush. It is true that we put Gershom to shovelling slush--and youcomplain of his methods! Well, I admit that he may have been a trifletoo zealous about it; he may have spattered things a bit more than wasnecessary, but after all, he got some of the mud out of the way, didn'the? There are people, " he added, "who believe that the wind he raisedswept me into office. "

"I object to his methods, " insisted Stephen, "because they seem to medishonest. "

"Perhaps. " The blue eyes--how could he have thought them gray?--hadgrown quizzical. "But he wasn't moving in the best company, you know. Hewho sups with the Devil must fish with a long spoon. "

"You mean that you defend that sort of thing--that you openly stand forit?"

"I stand for nothing, sir, " replied Gideon Vetch sharply, "exceptjustice. I stand for a square deal all round, and I stand against theexploitation or oppression of any class. This is what I stand for, and Ihave stood for it ever since I was a small, gray, scared rabbit of acreature dodging under hedgerows. "

It was the bombastic sophistry again, Stephen told himself, but he metit without subterfuge or evasion. "And you believe that such people asGershom can serve the cause of justice through dishonest means?" hedemanded. 

"I'll answer that some day; but it's a long answer, and I can't speak itout here in the cold, " responded the Governor, while his blusteringmanner grew sober. "Gershom is a politician, you see, and I am not. Youmay laugh, but it is the Gospel truth. I am a reformer, and all I careabout is pushing on the idea. I use any tools that I find; and one ofthe greatest of reformers has said that he was sometimes obliged to usebad ones. If I find good ones, so much the better; if bad--well, it isall in the day's job. But the cause is what matters--the thing you aremaking, not the implements with which it is made. You dislike my methodsof work, but you must admit that by the only test that counts, the testof achievement, they have proved to be sound. I have got somewhere; notall the way; but still somewhere. Without advertisement, withoutpatronage, without a cent I could call my own, I put my wares on themarket. I became Governor of Virginia in spite of everything you did, ordid not do, to prevent it. " There was a strange effectiveness in thesimplicity of the man's speech. It was natural; it was racy; it was likenothing that Stephen had ever heard before. He wondered if it could betraced back to the phraseology of the circus? "Of course you think I aman extremist, " concluded Gideon Vetch abruptly, "but before you are asold as I am you will have learned that the only way to get half a loafis to ask for a whole one. Come again, and I'll talk to you. "

"Yes, I'll come again, " Stephen answered, and he knew that he should. Whether he willed it or not he would be drawn back by the Governor'sirresistible influence. The man had aroused in him an intense, adevouring curiosity. He wanted to know his thoughts and his life, themystery of his birth, of his upbringing, of his privations and denials. Above all he wanted to know why he had succeeded, what peculiar gift hadbrought him out of obscurity, and had given him the ability to use menand circumstances as if they were tools in his hands. 

When the young man ran down the steps there was a pleasant excitementtingling in his veins, as if he were feeling the glow of forbidden wine. Turning beside the fountain, he glanced back as the Governor was closingthe door, and in his vision of the lighted interior he saw Patty Vetchdarting airily across the hall. So it was nothing more than a hoax! Shehadn't hurt herself in the least. She had merely made a laughing-stockof him for the amusement doubtless of her obscure acquaintances! For aninstant anger held him motionless; then turning quickly he walkedrapidly past the fountain to the open gate. 

The snow was dimly lighted on the long slope to the library; andstraight ahead, in the circle beneath the statue of Washington, thebronze silhouette of a great Virginian stood sharply cut against theluminous haze of the street. From the chimney-stack of a factory nearthe river a wreath of gray smoke was flung over the tree-tops, where itbroke and drifted in feathery garlands. Across the road a group of threetrees was delicately etched, with each separate branch and twig, on theslate-coloured evening sky. 

He had passed through the gate when a voice speaking suddenly at hisside caused him to start and stop short in his walk. A moment before hehad fancied himself alone; he had heard no footsteps; and the placefrom where the words came was a mere vague blur in the shadows. Therewas something uncanny in the muffled approach, and the sensation itproduced on his nerves was like the shock he used to feel as a childwhen his hand was unexpectedly touched in the dark. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said to the vague shape at the foot of a tree. "Did you speak to me?"

The shadows divided, and what seemed to him the edge of darkness movedforward into the dimly lighted space at his side. He saw now that it wasthe figure of a woman in a long black cloak, with the dilapidatedremains of a mourning veil hanging from her small bonnet. As she cametoward him he was stirred first by an impulse of pity and immediatelyafterward by a violent repulsion. In her whole figure there were thetragic signs of poverty and desperation; but it was the horror of hereyes, he told himself, that he should never forget. They were eyes thatwould haunt his sleep that night like the face of the drowned man in thenursery rhyme. 

"Will you tell me, " asked the woman hurriedly, "who lives in thishouse?"

It was a queer question, he thought, for any one to ask in the Square;but she was probably a stranger. 

"This is the Governor's house, " he answered courteously. "I suppose youare a stranger in town. "

"I got here a few hours ago, and I came out for a breath of air. I wasfour days and nights on the way. "

To this he made no reply, and he was about to pass on again, when hervoice arrested him. 

"You wouldn't mind telling me, would you, the Governor's name?"

"Not in the least. His name is Gideon Vetch. "

"Gideon Vetch?" She repeated the name slowly, as if she were impressingit on her memory. "That's a queer name for a Governor. Was he born inthis town?"

"I think not. "

"And who lives with him? I saw a girl come out awhile ago. Is she hisdaughter, perhaps--or his wife--though she looked young for that. "

"It must have been his daughter. His wife is not living. "

"Is she his only child? Or has he others?" There was a quiver ofsuspense in her voice, and turning he looked at her more closely. Was itpossible that she had known Gideon Vetch in his obscure past?

"She is his only child, " he replied. 

"Well, that's nice for her. Is she pretty?" An odd question if it hadbeen put by a man; but he had been trained to accept the fact that womenare different. 

"Yes, you would call her pretty. " As he spoke the words there flashedthrough his mind the picture of Patty Vetch as he had seen her thatafternoon, in her red cape and her small hat with the red wings, againstthe snowy hill under the overhanging bough of the sycamore. Was shereally pretty, or was it only the witchery of her surroundings? Now thathe was out of her presence the attraction had faded. He was stillsmarting from the memory of that dancing figure. 

"Well, it's a fine house, " said the woman, "and it looks large for justtwo people. I thank you for telling me. "

The pathos of her words appealed to the generous chivalry of his nature. He felt sorry for her and wondered if he might offer her money. 

"I hope you found lodgings, " he said. 

"Yes, I've found a room near here--on Governor Street, I think they callit. "

"And you are not in want? You do not need any help?"

She shook her head while the rusty mourning veil shrouded her features. "Not yet, " she answered. "I'm not a beggar yet. " Though her tone was notwell-bred, he realized that she was neither as uneducated nor asdegraded as he had at first believed. 

"I am glad of that, " he responded; and then lifting his hat again, hehurried quickly away from her up the road beneath the few old lindentrees that were left of an avenue. Glancing back as he reached theCapitol building, he saw her black figure moving cautiously over thesnow toward one of the gates of the Square. 

"That was a nightmare, " he thought, "and now for the pleasant dream. I'll go to the old print shop and see my Cousin Corinna. "

CHAPTER III

CORINNA OF THE OLD PRINT SHOP

As Stephan left the Square there floated before him a picture of the oldprint shop in Franklin Street, where Corinna Page (still looking atforty-eight as if she had stepped out of a portrait by Romney) sat amidthe rare prints which she never expected to sell. After an unfortunateearly marriage, her husband had been Kent Page, her first cousin, shehad accepted her recent widowhood, if not with relief, well, obviouslywith resignation. For years she had wandered about the world with herfather, Judge Horatio Lancaster Page, who had once been Ambassador toGreat Britain. Now, having recently returned from France, she hadsettled in a charming country house on the Three Chopt Road, and hadopened the ridiculous old print shop, a shop that never sold anengraving, in a quaint place in Franklin Street. She had rented out theupper floors to a half-dozen tenants, had built a couple of rooms besidethe kitchen for the caretaker, and had planted two pyramidal cedars anda hedge of box in the short front yard. "A shop is the only place whereyou may have calls from people who haven't been introduced to you, " shehad said; and of course as long as she had money to throw away, what didit matter, Stephen reflected, whether she ever sold a picture or not? Atforty-eight she was lovelier, he thought, than ever; she would always belovelier than any one else if she lived to be ninety. There wasn't agirl in his set who could compare with her, who had the glow and charm, the flame-like inner radiance; there wasn't one who had the singingheart of Corinna. Yes, that was the phrase he had been trying toremember, trite as it was--the singing heart--that was Corinna. She hadhad a hard life, he knew, in spite of her beauty and her wealth; yet shehad never lost the quality of youth, the very essence of gaiety andadventure. When he thought of her, Patty Vetch appeared merely cheap andcommon, though he felt instinctively that Corinna would have liked Pattyif she had seen her in the Square with the pigeon. It was a part ofCorinna's charm perhaps, certainly a part of her enjoyment of life thatshe liked almost every one--every one, that is, except Rose Stribling, whom she quite frankly hated. But, then, people said that RoseStribling, twelve years younger than Corinna and as handsome as a RedCross poster, had run too often across Kent Page in the first year ofthe war. Kent Page had died in Prance of Spanish influenza before heever saw a trench or a battlefield; and Rose Stribling, all blue eyesand white linen, had nursed him at the last. At that time Corinna was inAmerica, and she hadn't so much as looked at Kent for years; but a womanhas a long memory for emotions, and she is capable of resenting the lossof a husband who is no longer hers. Rumour, of course, nothing more; yetthe fact remained that Corinna, who liked all the world, hated RoseStribling. It was the one flaw in Corinna's perfection; it was the blackpatch on the stainless cheek, which had always made her adorable toStephen. Like the snow-white lock waving back from her forehead, itintensified the youth in her face. He had often wondered if she couldhave been half so lovely when she was a girl, before the faint shadowsand the tender little lines lent depth and mystery to her eyes, and thesingle white lock swept back amid the powdered dusk of her hair. 

While the young man walked rapidly up Franklin Street, he saw before himthe long delightful room beyond the pyramidal cedars and the hedge ofbox. He saw the ruddy glow of the fire mingling with the paler light ofamber lamps, and this mingled radiance shining on the rich rugs, the fewold brocades, and the rare English prints which covered the walls. Hesaw wide-open creamy roses in alabaster bowls which were scatteredeverywhere, on tables, on stools, on window-seats, and on the richcarving of the Spanish desk in one corner. Against the curtains of goldsilk there was the bough of twisted pine he had broken, and against thepine branch stood the figure of Corinna in her gown of soft red, whichmelted like a spray of autumn foliage into the colours of the room. Shewas a tall woman, with a glorious head and eyes that reminded Stephen ofa forest pool in autumn. Who had first said of her, he wondered, thatshe looked like an October morning?

As he approached the shop the glow shone out on him through the dullgold curtains, and he traced the crooked pine bough sweeping across thethin silk background like the bold free sketch of a Japanese print. Whenhe rang the bell a minute later, the door was opened by Corinna, who washolding a basket of marigolds. 

"We were just going, " she said, "as soon as I had put these flowers inwater. "

She drew back into the room, bending over the low brown bowl that shewas filling, while Stephen went over to the fire, and greeted the twoold men who were sitting in deep arm chairs on either side of thehearth. It was like stepping into another world, he thought, as heinhaled a full breath of the warmth and the fragrance of roses; it wasas if a door into a dream had suddenly opened, and he had passed out ofthe night and the cold into a place where all was colour and fragranceand pleasant magic. The other was real life--life for all but the happyfew, he found himself thinking--this was merely the enchanted fairy-ringwhere children played at making believe. 

"I hoped I'd catch you, " he said, stretching out his hands to the logfire. "I felt somehow that you hadn't gone, late as it is. " While hespoke he was thinking, not of Corinna, but of the strange woman he hadleft in the Square. Queer how that incident had bitten into his mind. Try as he might he couldn't shake himself free from it. 

"Father is going to some dreadful public dinner, " answered Corinna. "Istayed with him here so he wouldn't have to wait at the club. It won'tmatter about me. The car is coming for me, and I don't dine until eight. Stay awhile and we'll talk, " she added with her cheerful smile. "Ihaven't seen you for ages, and you look as if you had something to tellme. "

"I have, " he said; and then he turned from her to the two old men whowere talking drowsily in voices that sounded as far off to Stephen asthe murmuring of bees in summer meadows. He knew that it was real, thatit was the life he had always lived, and yet he couldn't get rid of thefeeling that Corinna and the two old men and the charming surroundingswere all part of a play, and that in a little while he should go out ofthe theatre and step back among the sordid actualities. 

"The General and I are having our little chat before dinner, " said JudgePage, a sufficiently ornamental old gentleman to have decorated anyworld or any fireside--imposing and distinguished as a portrait by SirThomas Lawrence, with a crown of silvery hair and the shining dark eyesof his daughter. He still carried himself, for all his ironical comment, like an ambassador of the romantic school. "It is a sad day for yourfighting man, " he concluded gaily, "when the only stimulant he can getis the conversation of an old fogy like me. "

"Your fighting man, " old General Powhatan Plummer, who hadn't smeltpowder for more than half a century, chuckled as he always did at theshrewd and friendly pleasantries of the Judge. He was a jocular, tiresome, gregarious soul, habitually untidy, creased and rumpled, whowas always thirsty, but who, as the Judge was accustomed to reply whenCorinna remonstrated, "would divide his last julep with a friend. " Themen had been companions from boyhood, and were still inseparable. Forthe same delusion makes strange friendships, and the General, in spiteof his appearance of damaged reality, also inhabited that enchantedfairy-ring where no fact ever entered. 

With the bowl of marigolds in her hands, Corinna came over to thetea-table and stood smiling dreamily at Stephen. The firelight dancingover her made a riot of colour, and she looked the image of happiness, though the young man knew that the ephemeral illusion was created by thered of her gown and the burnished gold of the flowers. 

"John Benham sent them to me because I praised his speech, " she said. "Wasn't it nice of him?"

"He always does nice things when one doesn't expect them, " he answered. 

Corinna laughed. "Is it because they are nice that he does them?" sheinquired with a touch of malice. "Or because they are not expected?"

"I didn't mean that. " There was a shade of confusion in Stephen's tone. "Benham is my friend--my best friend almost though he is so much older. There isn't a man living whom I admire more. "

"Yes, I know, " replied Corinna; and then--was it in innocence or inmalice?--she asked sweetly: "Have you seen Alice Rokeby this winter?"

For an instant Stephen gazed at her in silence. Was it possible that shehad not heard the gossip about Benham and Mrs. Rokeby? Was she trying tomislead him by an appearance of flippancy? Or was there some deeperpurpose, some serious attempt to learn the truth beneath her casualquestion?

"Only once or twice, " he answered at last. "She is looking badly sinceher divorce. Freedom has not agreed with her. "

Corinna smiled; but the transient illumination veiled rather thanrevealed her obscure motives. 

"Perhaps, like our Allies, she was making the future safe for furtherentanglements, " she observed. "I always thought--everybody thought thatshe got her divorce in order to marry John Benham. "

Frankly perplexed, he gazed wonderingly into her eyes. He knew that shesaw a great deal of Benham; he believed that their friendship haddeveloped into a deeper emotion on Benham's side at least; and itseemed to him unlike Corinna, who was, as he told himself, the mostloyal soul on earth, to turn such an association into a cynical jest. 

"I heard that too, " he replied guardedly, "but of course nobody knows. "

There was really nothing else that he could answer. Though he coulddiscuss Alice Rokeby, one of those vague, sweet women who seem designedby Nature to develop the sentiment of chivalry in the breast of man, hefelt that it would be disloyal to speak lightly of his hero, JohnBenham. "You could never guess where I've been, " he said with reliefbecause he had got rid of the subject. "I might as well tell you in thebeginning that I have just left the Governor. "

"Gideon Vetch!" exclaimed Corinna, as she dropped into a chair at hisside. "Why, I thought you were as far apart as the poles!"

"So we were until ten minutes--no, until exactly an hour ago. "

"It makes my blood boil when I think of that circus rider in theGovernor's mansion, " said the General indignantly. "Do you know what myfather would have called that fellow? He would have called him a commonscalawag--a common scalawag, sir!"

The Judge laughed softly. There was nothing, as he sometimes observed, that flavoured life so deliciously as a keen appreciation of comedy. "Now, I should call him a decidedly uncommon one, " he remarked. "Thetrouble with you, my dear Powhatan, is that you are still in the villagestage of the social instinct. In your proper period, when we Virginianswere merely one of the several tribes in these United States, you mayhave served an excellent purpose; but the tribal instinct is dying outwith the village stage. If we are going to exist at all outside of thearchaeological department of a museum, we must learn to accept--. Wemust let in new blood. "

"Do you mean to tell me, Horatio, " blustered the General, "that I've gotto let in the blood of a circus rider, sir?"

"Well, that depends. I haven't made up my mind about Vetch. He may beonly froth, or he may be the vital element that we need. I haven't madeup my mind, but I've met him and I like him. Indeed, I think I may saythat Gideon and I are friends. We have come to the same point of view, it appears, by travelling on opposite roads. I had a long talk with himthe other day, and I found that we think alike about a number ofthings. "

"Think alike about fiddlesticks!" spluttered the General, while hespilled over his waistcoat the water Corinna had given him. "Why, thefellow ain't even in your class, sir!"

"I said we had thoughts, not habits, in common, Powhatan, " rejoined theJudge blandly. "The same habits make a class, but the same thoughts makea friendship. "

"He told me he had talked to you, " said Stephen eagerly, "and I wantedto know what your impression was. He called you a great old boy, by theway. "

The Judge, who could wear at will the face either of Brutus or ofAntony, became at once the genial friend of humanity. "That pleases memore than you realize, " he said. "I have a suspicion that Gideon knowshuman nature about as thoroughly as our General here knows the battlesof the Confederacy. "

"I confess the man rather gripped me, " rejoined Stephen. "There'ssomething about him, personality or mere play-acting, that catches onein spite of oneself. "

The Judge appeared to acquiesce. "I am inclined to think, " he observedpresently, "that the quality you feel in Vetch is simply a violentcandour. Most people give you truth in small quantities; but Vetch poursit out in a torrent. He offers it to you as Powhatan used to take hisBourbon in the good old days before the Eighteenth Amendment--straightand strong. I used to tell Powhatan that he'd get the name of a drunkardsimply because he could stand what the rest of the world couldn't--andI'll say as much for our friend Gideon. "

"Do you mean, my dear, " inquired Corinna placidly, "that the Governor ishonestly dishonest?"

The Judge's suavity clothed him like velvet. "I know nothing about hishonesty. I doubt if any one does. He may be a liar and yet speak thetruth, I suppose, from unscrupulous motives. But I am not maintainingthat he is entirely right, you understand--merely that like the rest ofus he is not entirely wrong. I am not taking sides, you know. I am tooold to fight anybody's battles--even distressed Virtue's. "

"Then you think--you really think that he is sincere?" asked Stephen. 

"Sincere? Well, yes, in a measure. Nothing advertises one so widely as areputation for sincerity; and the man has a positive genius forself-advertisement. He has found that it pays in politics to speak thetruth, and so he speaks it at the top of his voice. It takes courage, ofcourse, and I am ready to admit that he is a little more courageousthan the rest of us. To that extent, I should say that he has theadvantage of us. "

"Do you mean to imply, " demanded the General wrathfully, "that a commoncircus rider like that, a rascally revolutionist into the bargain, isbetter than this lady and myself, sir?"

"Well, hardly better than Corinna, " replied the Judge. "Indeed, I wasabout to add that the two most candid persons I know are Corinna andVetch. There is a good deal about Vetch, by the way, that reminds me ofCorinna. "

"Father!" gasped Corinna. "Stephen, do you think he has gone out of hismind?"

"That is the first sign that wisdom has broken its cage, " commented herfather. "No, my dear, I did not mean that you look like him; you are farhandsomer. I meant simply that you both habitually speak the truth, andbecause you speak the truth the world mistakes you for a successfulcomedian and Vetch for a kind of political Robin Hood. "

"Well, he is trying to hold us up in highwayman fashion, isn't he?"asked Corinna. 

"Does it look that way?" inquired the Judge, with his beaming smilewhich cast an edge of genial irony on everything that he said. "On thecontrary, it seems to me that Vetch is telling us the things we haveknown about ourselves for a very long time. He says the world might be abetter place if we would only take the trouble to make it so; if wewould only try to live up to our epitaphs, I believe he once remarked. He says also, I understand, that he is trying to climb to the top oversomebody else; and when I say 'he' I mean, of course, his order or hisclass, whatever the fashionable phrase is. Now, unfortunately, thereappears to be but one way of reaching the top of the world, doesn'tthere?--and that is by climbing up on something or somebody. Even you, my dear Stephen, who occupy that high place, merely inherited the seatfrom somebody who scrambled up there a few centuries ago. Somebody elseprobably got broken shoulders before your nimble progenitor tookpossession. Of course I am willing to admit that time does create in usthe sense of a divine right in anything that we have owned for a numberof years, as if our inheritance were the crown of some archaic king. Imyself feel that strongly. If it came to the point, though I have saidthat I am too old to fight for distressed Virtue, I should very likelydie in the last ditch for every inch of land and every worthless objectI ever owned. When Vetch talks about taxing property more heavily I amutterly and openly against him because it is my instinct to be. I refuseto give up my superfluous luxuries in the cause of equal justice forall, and I shall fight against it as long as there is a particle offight left in my bones. But because I am against him there is no reason, I take it, why I shouldn't enjoy the pleasure of perceiving his point ofview. It is an interesting point of view, perhaps the more interestingbecause we think it is a dangerous one. To approach it is like roundinga sharp curve at high speed. "

As he rose to his feet and reached for his walking stick, Stephenremembered that in England the Judge was supposed to have the finepresence and the flashing eagle eyes of Gladstone. Were they alike also, he wondered, in their fantastic mental processes?

"It's time for me to go, Corinna, " said the old man, stooping to kisshis daughter, "so I shan't see you until to-morrow. " Then turning toStephen, he added with a whimsical smile, "If you are so much afraid ofVetch, why don't you fight him with his own weapons? What were youdoing, you and John, when the people voted for him?"

"To tell the truth nobody ever dreamed that he would be elected, "replied Stephen, flushing. "Who would have thought that an independentcandidate could win over both parties?"

The Judge had moved to the door, and he looked back, as Stephenfinished, with a dramatic flourish of his long white hand. "Well, remember next time, my dear young sir, " he answered, "that in politicsit is always the impossible that happens. " The long white hand fellcaressingly on the shoulders of old Powhatan Plummer, and the two menpassed out of the door together. 

When Stephen turned to Corinna, she was resting languidly against thetapestry-covered back of her chair, while the firelight flickering inher eyes changed them to the deep bronze of the marigolds on the table. With her slenderness, her grace, her brilliant darkness, she seemed tohim to belong in one of the English mezzotints on the wall. 

"Did you buy that print because it is so much like you?" he asked, pointing to an engraving after Hoppner's portrait of the Duchess ofBedford. 

She laughed frankly. "Every one asks me that. I suppose it was one of myreasons. "

As he sat down again in front of the fire, his eyes travelled slowlyover the walls; over the stipple engravings of Bartolozzi, over the richmezzotints of Valentine Green and John Raphael Smith, over thebewitching face of Lady Hamilton as it shone back at him from the printsof John Jones, of Cheesman, of Henry Meyer. Was not Corinna's placeamong those vanished beauties of a richer age, rather than among thesour-faced reformers and the Gideon Vetches of to-day? The wonderfultone of the old prints, the silvery dusk, or the softly glowing coloursthat were like the sunset of another century; the warmth and splendourof the few brocades she had picked up in Italy; the suave religiousfeeling of the worn red velvet from some church in Florence; the candlesin wrought-iron sconces, the shimmering firelight and the dreamyfragrance of tea roses--all these things together made him thinksuddenly of sunshine over the Campagna and English gardens in the monthof May and the burning reds and blues and golden greens of the MiddleAges. Corinna with her unfading youth became a part of all theloveliness that he had ever seen--of all beauty everywhere. 

"I haven't had a chance to tell you, " she said, "that I am going to meetthe Governor. "

"Where? At the Berkeleys'?"

"Yes, at the Berkeleys' dinner on Thursday. Are you going?"

He laughed. "Mrs. Berkeley called me up this morning and asked me if Iwould take somebody's place. She didn't say whose place it was, but shedid divulge the fact that the dinner is given to Vetch. I told her I'dcome--that I was so used to taking other people's places I could fillsix at the same time. But a dinner to Vetch! I wonder why she is doingit?"

"That's easy. Mr. Berkeley wants something from the Governor. I don'tknow what he wants, but I do know that whatever it is he wants it verybadly. "

"And he thinks he'll get it by asking him to dinner? There seems to mean obvious flaw in Berkeley's reasoning. I doubt if Vetch is the kind ofman who follows when you hold out an apple. He appears to be exactly theopposite, and I think he's more likely to dash off than to come when heis called. I wonder, by the way, if they are going to have Mrs. Stribling?"

"Rose Stribling?" A gleam of anger shone in Corinna's eyes. "Why shouldthat interest you?"

"Oh, they say--at least Mrs. Berkeley says, and if there is anymisinformation abroad she ought to be aware of it--that Mrs. Stribling'slatest attachment to her train is the Governor himself. "

He had expected his gossip to arouse Corinna, and in this he was notmistaken. Springing up from her relaxed position, she sat straight andunbending, with her indignant eyes on his face. "Why, I thought the warhad cured her. "

"The war was not a cure; it was merely a temporary drug for our vanity, "he rejoined gaily. "It didn't cure me, so you could hardly regard it asa remedy for Mrs. Stribling's complaint. I imagine coquetry is a moreobstinate malady even than priggishness, and, Heaven knows, I tried hardenough to get rid of that. "

"I hoped you would, " admitted Corinna. "But, dear boy, the way to makeyou human--and you've never been really human all through, you know--wasnot with a uniform and glory. " She was talking flippantly, for theymade a pretence now of alluding lightly to his years in France--he hadgone into the war before his country--and to the nervous malady, thedisabled will, he had brought back. "What you need is not to win moreesteem, but to lose some that you've got. Your salvation lies in theopposite direction from where flags are waving. If you could onlydeliberately arrange to do something that would lower your reputation inthe eyes of gouty old gentlemen or mothers with marriageable daughters!If you could manage to get your nose broken, or elope with a chorusgirl, or commit an unromantic murder, I should begin to have hopes ofyou. "

"I may do something as bad some day and surprise you. "

"It would surprise me. But I'm not sure, after all, that I don't likeyou better as you are, with your fine air of superiority. It makes onebelieve, somehow, in human perfectibility. Now, I can never believe inthat when I realize how I feel about Rose Stribling. There is nothingperfectible in such emotions. "

"Rose Stribling! Beside you she is like a pumpkin in the basket with apomegranate!"

Corinna laughed with frank pleasure. "There are a million who wouldprefer the pumpkin to the pomegranate, " she answered. "Rose Stribling, you must admit, is the type that has been the desire of the world sinceVenus first rose from the foam. "

"Can you imagine Mrs. Stribling rising from foam?" Stephen retortedimpertinently. 

"No, Venus has grown fatter through the ages, " assented Corinna, "butthe type is unchanged. Now, among all the compliments that have beenpaid me in my life, no one has ever compared me to the Goddess of Love. I have been painted with the bow of Diana, but never with the doves ofVenus. "

Because he felt that her gaiety rippled over an undercurrent of pain, Stephen bent forward and touched her hand with an impulse of tenderness. 

"You are more beautiful than you ever were in your life, " he said. "There isn't a woman in the world who can compare with you. " Then helaughed merrily. "I shall watch you two to-morrow evening, you and RoseStribling. "

"I am sorry, " replied Corinna in a troubled voice. "I may tell you thetruth since Father says it is the last thing any one ever believes--andthe truth is that she makes me savage--yes, I mean it--she makes mesavage. "

"I know what the Judge means when he says you are like Vetch, " returnedStephen abruptly. Then, without waiting for her reply, he added in animpulsive tone: "Triumph over her to-morrow night, Corinna. Go out tofight with all your weapons and seize the trophies from Mrs. Stribling. "

"You funny boy!" exclaimed Corinna, but the sadness had left her voiceand her eyes were shining. "Why, I am twelve years older than RoseStribling, and those twelve years are everything. "

"Those twelve years are nothing unless you imagine that you are in anovel. It is only in books that there is a chronology of the emotions. "

"She is a fat blonde without a heart, " insisted Corinna, "and they areinvulnerable. "

"Well, snatch Vetch away from her. He deserves something better thanthat combination. "

"Oh, she can't hurt him very much, even though she no longer has ahusband to get in her way. Have you ever wondered how George Striblingstood her? It must have been a relief to find himself safely dead. "

"He stood her as one stands sultry weather probably, but with less hopeof a change. He had that slow and heavy philosophy that wears well. Ithink it even dawned upon him now and then that there was somethingfunny about it. "

"Of course he knew that she married him for his money, " said Corinna, "but that is the last thing the natural man appears to resent. "

Stephen rose and bent over her. "Promise me that you will save Vetch, "he implored mockingly. 

"Why this sudden interest in Vetch?" Corinna rose also and reached forher fur coat. "It makes me curious to meet him. Yes, I promise you thatI will go to-morrow night attired as for a carnival in all the mysteryof a velvet mask. I may not save Vetch, but I think at least that I caneclipse Rose Stribling. My motive may not be admirable, but it is asfeminine as a string of beads. "

He kissed her hand. "Bless your heart because you are both human and mycousin. " For an instant he hesitated, and then as they reached the doortogether, he turned with his hand on the knob, and looked into her eyes. "The Governor has a daughter. Did you know it?" he asked. 

"Why, of course I know it. Isn't Patty Vetch as well advertised as thenewest illustrated weekly?"

"I was wondering, " again he hesitated over the words, "if you had seenher and what you think of her?"

"I have seen her twice. She was in here the other day to look at myprints, and, " her brilliant eyes grew soft, "well, I feel sorry forher. "

"Sorry? But do you like her?"

"Haven't you always told me that I like everybody?"

He laughed. "With one exception!"

"With one particular exception!"

"But honestly, Corinna. " His tone was insistent. "Do you like PattyVetch?"

"Honestly, my dear Stephen, I do. There is something--well, somethingalmost pathetic about the girl; and I think she is genuine. One day lastweek she came here and made me tell her everything I could about myprints. I don't mean really that she made me, you know. There wasn'tanything forward about her then, though I hear there is sometimes. Sheseemed to me a restless, lonely, misdirected intelligence hungry to knowthings. That is the only way I can describe her, but you willunderstand. She has had absolutely no advantages; she doesn't even knowwhat culture means, or social instinct, or any of the qualities you wereborn with, my dear boy; but she feels vaguely that she has missedsomething, and she is reaching out gropingly and trying to find it. Ilike the spirit. It strikes me as American in the best sense--that younglonging to make up in some way for her deficiencies and lack ofopportunities, that gallant determination to get the better of herupbringing and her surroundings. A fight always appeals to me, you know. I like the courage that is in the girl--I am sure it is courage--and herstraightforward effort to get the best out of life, to learn the thingsshe was never taught, to make herself over if need be. "

"Is this Patty Vetch, Corinna, or your own dramatic instinct?"

"Oh, it's Patty Vetch! I had no interest in her whatever. Why should Ihave had? But I liked the way she went straight as a dart at the thingshe wanted. There was no affectation about her, no pretence of beingwhat she was not. She asked about prints because she saw the name andshe didn't know what it meant. She would have asked about Browning, orSwinburne, or Meredith in exactly the same way if this had been abook-shop. She wanted to know the difference between a mezzotint and astipple print. She wanted to know all about the portraits too, and thenames of the painters and who Lady Hamilton was and the Duchess ofBedford and the Ladies Waldegrave and 'Serena, ' and if Morland'sCottagers were really as happy as they were painted? She asked as manyquestions as Socrates, and I fear got as inadequately answered. "

"Well, she didn't strike me as in the least like that; but you can be agreat help to her if she is really in earnest. "

"She didn't strike you like that, my dear, simply because you are a man, and some girls are never really themselves with men; they are for everacting a part; a vulgar part, I admit, but one they have learned beforethey were born, the instinctive quarry eluding the instinctive hunter. The girl is naturally shy; I could tell that, and she covers it with akind of boldness that isn't--well, particularly attractive to one ofyour fastidious mind. Yet there is something rather taking about her. She reminds me of a small, bright tropical bird. "

"Of a Virginia redbird, you mean. "

"A redbird? Then you have seen her?"

"Yes, I've seen her--only twice--but the last time she indulged hersense of humour in a practical joke about a sprained ankle. "

"I suppose she would joke like that. Even the modern girl that we knowisn't in the best possible taste. And you must remember that Patty Vetchis something very different from the girls that you admire. I hopeshe'll let me help her, but I doubt it. She is the sort that wouldn'tcome if you tried to call and coax her. You said her father was likethat, didn't you? Well, with that kind of wildness, or shyness, onecan't put out a cage, you know. The only way is to scatter crumbs on thewindow-sill and then stand and wait. Will you let me take you home?"

They had crossed the pavement to her car, and she waited now with hersmile of whimsical gaiety. 

"If you will. It is only a few blocks, but I want to hear about the gownyou will wear for your triumph. "

It seemed to him that there was the chime of silver bells in herlaughter. "Oh, my dear, must every victory of my life end in a forlornhope!"

CHAPTER IV

THE TRIBAL INSTINCT

The spirit of the age, the worship of the many-headed god of magnitude, was holding carnival in the town. Faster and faster buildings wererising; the higher and more flimsily built, the better it seemed, for itis easier to demolish walls that have been lightly erected. Everywherepeople were pushing one another into the slums or the country. Everywhere the past was going out with the times and the future wascoming on in a torrent. Two opposing principles, the conservative andthe progressive, had struggled for victory, and the progressiveprinciple had won. To add more and more numbers; to build higher andhigher; to push harder and harder; and particularly to improve what hadbeen already added or built or pushed--these impulses had united at lastinto a frenzied activity. And while the building and the pushing and theimproving went on, the village grew into the town, the town grew intothe city, and the city grew out into the country. Beneath it all, informing the apparent confusion, there was some crude belief that thesymbol of material success is size, and that size in itself, regardlessof quality or condition, is civilization. For the many-headed god is agod of sacrifice. He makes a wilderness of beauty and calls it progress. 

Long ago the village had disappeared. Long ago the spacious southernhomes, with their walled gardens of box and roses and aromatic shrubs inspring, had receded into the shadowy memories of those whom the moderncity pointed out, with playful solicitude, as "the oldest inhabitants. "None except the very oldest inhabitants could remember those friendlyand picturesque streets, deeply shaded by elms and sycamores; thosehospitable houses of gray stucco or red brick which time had subdued toa delicate rust-colour; those imposing Doric columns, or quaint Georgiandoorways; those grass-grown brick pavements, where old ladies inperpetual mourning gathered for leisurely gossip; those wrought-irongates that never closed; those unshuttered windows, with small gleamingpanes, which welcomed the passer-by in winter; or those gardens, steepedin the fragrance of mint and old-fashioned flowers, which allured thethirsty visitor in summer. These things had vanished years ago; yetbeneath the noisy commercial city the friendly village remained. Therewere hours in the lavender-tinted twilights of spring, or on autumnafternoons, while the shadows quivered beneath the burnished leaves andthe sunset glowed with the colour of apricots, when the watcher mightcatch a fleeting glimpse of the past. It may have been the drop of duskin the arched recess of a Colonial doorway; it may have been the faintsunshine on the ivy-grown corner of an old brick wall; it may have beenthe plaintive melody of a negro market-man in the street; or it may havebeen the first view of the Culpeper's gray and white mansion; but, inone or all of these things, there were moments when the ghost of theburied village stirred and looked out, and a fragrance that was like thememory of box and mint and blush roses stole into the senses. It wasthen that one turned to the Doric columns of the Culpeper house, standing firmly established in its grassy lawn above the street and theage, and reflected that the defeated spirit of tradition had entrencheditself well at the last. Time had been powerless against that fortressof prejudice; against that cheerful and inaccessible prison of thetribal instinct. Poverty, the one indiscriminate leveller of men andprinciples, had never attacked it, for in the lean years ofReconstruction, when to look well fed was little short of a disgrace inVirginia, an English cousin, remote but clannish, had died at anopportune moment and left Mr. Randolph Byrd Culpeper a moderate fortune. Thanks to this event, which Mrs. Culpeper gratefully classified as the"intervention of Providence, " the family had scarcely altered its mannerof living in the last two hundred years. To be sure there were moderndiscomforts which related to the abolition of slavery and theprohibition of whiskey; but since the Culpepers had been indulgentmasters and light drinkers, they had come to regard these deprivationsas in the nature of blessings. Solid, imposing, and as richly endowed asan institution of learning, the Culpeper generations had weathered boththe restraints and the assaults of the centuries. The need to make aliving, that grim necessity which is the mother of democracy, hadbrushed them as lightly as the theory of evolution. Saturated withtradition as with an odour, and fortified by the ponderous moral purposeof the Victorian age, they had never doubted anything that was old andnever discovered anything that was new. About them as about the hiddenvillage, there was the charm of mellowness, of unruffled serenity. Someineradicable belief in things as they have always been had preservedthem from the aesthetic derangement of the Mid-Victorian taste; and instanding for what was old, they had stood, inadvertently butcourageously, for what was excellent. Security, permanence, possession--all the instincts which blend to make the tribe and thecommunity, all the agencies which work for organized society and againstthe wayward experiment in human destiny--these were the stubborn forcesembodied in the Culpeper stock. 

The present head of the family, that Randolph Byrd Culpeper who had beenonly ten years old when Providence intervened, was now a fine-looking, heavily built man of sixty-five, with prominent dark eyes under sleepylids, abundant iron-gray hair which was brushed until it shone, and adrooping moustache that was still as brown as it had been in his youth. He had an impressive though stolid bearing, an amiable expression, anengaging smile, and the manner of a weary monarch. It was his boast thathe had never done anything for the first time without ascertainingprecisely how it had been done by the highest authority before him. Devoid of even the rudiments of an imagination, he had never beenvisited in a nightmare by the suspicion that the name of Culpeper wasnot the best result of the best of all possible worlds. As long as hisprejudices were not offended his generosity was inexhaustible. For therest, he bore his social position as reverently as if it were a plate inchurch, had never spoken a profane word or recognized a joke in hislife, and still dined at two o'clock in the afternoon because hisgrandfather, who was dyspeptic by constitution, had been unable todigest a late dinner. At the time of his marriage, an unusually happyone, he was regarded as "the handsomest man of his day"; and he wasstill yearned over from a distance by elderly ladies of suppressedromantic temperaments. 

Mrs. Culpeper, a small imperious woman of distinguished lineage anduncertain temper, had gone through an entire life seeing only one thingat a time, and never seeing that one thing as it really was. If herhusband embodied the moral purpose, she herself was an incarnation ofthe evasive idealism of the nineteenth century. Her universe wascomprised in her family circle; her horizon ended with the old brickwall between the alley and the Culpepers' garden. All that related toher husband, her eight children and her six grandchildren, was not onlyof supreme importance and intense interest to her, but of unsurpassedbeauty and excellence. It was intolerable to her exclusive maternalinstinct that either virtue or happiness should exist in any degree, except a lesser measure, outside of her own household; and praise ofanother woman's children conveyed to her a secret disparagement of herown. Having naturally a kind heart she could forgive any sin in herneighbours except prosperity--though as Corinna had once observed, withcharacteristic flippancy, "Continual affliction was a high price to payfor Aunt Harriet's favour. " In her girlhood she had been a famousbeauty; and she was still as fine and delicately tinted as a carving inold ivory, with a skin like a faded microphylla rose-leaf, and stiffyellowish white hair, worn à la Pompadour. Her mind was thin but firm, and having received a backward twist in its youth, it had remainedinflexibly bent for more than sixty years. Unlike her husband she wasgifted with an active, though perfectly concrete imagination--a kind ofsuperior magic lantern that shot out images in black and white on asheet--and a sense of humour which, in spite of the fact that it lostits edge when it was pointed at the family, was not without practicalvalue in a crisis. 

On the evening of Stephen's adventure in the Square, the Culpeper familyhad gathered in the front drawing-room, to await the arrival of a youngcousin, whom, they devoutly hoped, Stephen would one day perceive thewisdom of marrying. The four daughters--Victoria, the eldest, who hadnursed in France during the war; Hatty, who ought to have been pretty, and was not; Janet, who was candidly plain; and Mary Byrd, who wouldhave been a beauty in any circle--were talking eagerly, with theinnumerable little gestures which they had inherited from Mrs. Culpeper's side of the house. They adored one another; they adored theirfather and mother; they adored their three brothers and their marriedsister, whose name was Julia; and they adored every nephew and niece inthe connection. Though they often quarrelled, being young and human, these quarrels rippled as lightly as summer storms over profound depthsof devotion. 

"Oh, I do wish, " said Mary Byrd, who had "come out" triumphantly thewinter before, "that Stephen would marry Margaret. " She was a slendergraceful girl, with red-gold hair, which had a lustrous sheen and anatural wave in it, and the brown ox-like eyes of her father. There wasa great deal of what Peyton, the second son, who lived at home, and wasthe most modern of the family, called "dash" about her. 

"It was the war that spoiled it, " said Janet, the plain one, whopossessed what her mother fondly described as "a charm that was all herown. " "I sometimes think the war spoiled everything. "

At this Victoria, the eldest, demurred mildly. Ever since she had nursedin France, she had assumed a slightly possessive manner toward the war, as if she had in some mysterious way brought it into the world and wasresponsible for its reputation. She was tall and very thin, with aperfect complexion, a long nose, and a short upper lip which showed herteeth too much when she laughed. Her hair was fair and fluffy; and Mrs. Culpeper, who could not praise her beauty, was very proud of her"aristocratic appearance. "

"Why, he never even mentions the war, " she protested. 

"I don't care. I believe he thinks about it, " insisted Janet, who wouldnever surrender a point after she had once made it. 

"He's different, anyhow, " said Hatty, the one who had everything, as hermother asserted, to make her pretty, and yet wasn't. "He isn't nearly sonormal. Is he, Mother?"

Mrs. Culpeper raised troubled eyes from the skirt of her pale gray silkgown which she was scrutinizing dejectedly. "How on earth could I havegot that spot there?" she remarked in her brisk yet soft voice. "I amafraid you are right, dear, about Stephen. He certainly hasn't been likehimself for some time. I have felt really anxious, I suppose it was thewar. "

While the war had lasted she had seen it, according to her habit ofvision, with peculiar intentness, and she had seen nothing else; butfrom the beginning to the end, it had appeared to her mainly as aninternational disturbance which had upset the serene and regular courseof her family affairs. For the past two years she had refused to thinkof it except under pressure; and then she recalled it only as theoccasion when Victoria and Stephen had been in France, and poor Peytonin a training camp. Her feeling had been violent, but entirely personal, while Mr. Culpeper, who possessed the martial patriotism characteristicof Virginians of his class and generation, had been animated by thesacrificial spirit of a hero. 

"Oh, Stephen is all right, " declared Peyton, who felt impelled to takethe side of his brother in a family discussion. He was an incurious andgay young man, of active sporting interests and immaculate appearance, with so few of the moral attributes of the Culpepers that his mothersometimes wondered how he could possibly be the son of his father. Indeed there were times when this wonder extended to Mary Byrd, for itseemed incredible that anything so "advanced" as the outlook of thesetwo should have been a legitimate offspring of either the Culpeper orthe Warwick point of view. 

"He would be all right, " maintained Janet, "if he would only marryMargaret. I am sure she likes him. "

"Oh, I don't know. There's that young clergyman, " rejoined Hatty, "andMargaret is so pious. I suppose that's why she has never been popularwith men. "

"My dear child, " breathed Mrs. Culpeper in remonstrance, and she addedemphatically, as if the doubt were a disparagement of Stephen'sattractions, "Of course she likes him. Why, it would be a perfectlysplendid marriage for Margaret Blair. "

"It isn't possible, " asked Mary Byrd, for if her manners were modern, her prejudices were old-fashioned, "that Stephen could have met any oneelse over there?" She was wearing an elaborate, very short and very lowgown of pink velvet, not one of the simple blue or gray silk dresses, with modest round necks, in which her sisters attired themselves in theevening. A little later she and Peyton would go on to a dance; for hermother's consternation when the frock had been unpacked from its Pariswrappings had been temporarily mitigated by the assertion that unlessone danced in gowns like that, one simply couldn't be expected to danceat all. "Of course, if you wish me to be a wall-flower like MargaretBlair, " Mary Byrd had protested with wounded dignity; and since Mrs. Culpeper wished nothing on earth so little as that, her only responsehad been, "Well, I hope to heaven that you won't let your father seeit!"

Now, as her husband was heard descending the stairs, she said hurriedly:"Mary Byrd, if you won't put a scarf over your knees, I wish you wouldwear one around your neck. "

"Oh, Father won't mind, " retorted Mary Byrd flippantly. "He is a realsport, and he knows that you have to play the game well if you play itat all. " Then turning with her liveliest air, she remarked as Mr. Culpeper entered: "Father, darling, I've just said that you were asport. "

Mr. Culpeper surveyed her with portentous disapproval. He adored her, and she knew it, but because it was impossible for his features to wearany expression lightly, the natural gravity of his look deepened to athundercloud. 

"Is Mary Byrd going in swimming?" he demanded not of his daughter, butof the family. 

"No, you precious, only in dancing, " replied Mary Byrd, as she roseairily and placed a kiss above the thundercloud on his forehead. 

"Will you go looking like this?"

"Not if I can possibly look any worse. " She swayed like a golden lilybefore his astonished gaze. "Can you suggest any way that I might?"

"I cannot. " His face cleared under the kiss, and he held her at arm'slength while paternal pride softened his look. "Do you really mean thatyou won't shock the young men away from you?" It was as near a jest ashe had ever come, and a ripple of amusement passed over the room. 

"I may shock them, but not away. " The girl was really a wonder. How inthe world, he asked himself, did she happen to be his daughter?

"Do you mean that all the other girls dress like this?" It was his finalappeal to an arbitrary but acknowledged authority. 

"All the popular ones. You can't wish me to dress like the unpopularones, can you?"

His appeal had failed, and he accepted defeat with the sober courage hisfather had displayed in a greater surrender. 

"Well, I suppose if everybody does it, it is all right, " he conceded;and though he was not aware of it, he had compressed into thisconvenient axiom his whole philosophy of conduct. 

As he crossed the room to the glowing fire and the black marblemantelpiece, which had supplanted the delicate Adam one of a lessresplendent period, he wore an air that was at once gentle andhaughty--the expression of a man who hopes that he is a Christian andknows that his blood is blue. 

"Hasn't Stephen come in yet?" he inquired of his wife. "I thought Iheard him upstairs. "

She shook her head helplessly. "No, and I told him Margaret was coming. That is her ring now. "

Mr. Culpeper looked at Mary Byrd. "I am sure that Margaret would clotheherself more discreetly, " he remarked in a voice which sounded huskybecause he tried to make it facetious. "When I was a young man it wasthe fashion to compare women to flowers, and in these unromantic days Ishould call Margaret our last violet--"

A peal of laughter fell from the bright red lips of Mary Byrd. "Itsounds as depressing as the last rose of summer, " she cried, "and it'sjust as certain to be left on the stem--" Then she broke off, stillpulsing with merriment, for the door opened slowly, and the last violetentered the room. 

CHAPTER V

MARGARET

As he inserted his latch-key in the old-fashioned lock, Stephenremembered that his mother had instructed him not to be late becauseMargaret Blair was coming to spend the evening. "It takes you so long tochange that I believe you begin to dream as soon as you go to yourroom, " she had added; and while he made his way hurriedly and softly upthe stairs, he wondered how he could have so completely forgotten thegirl whom he had always thought of vaguely as the one who would someday--some remote day probably--become his wife. He was not in love withMargaret, and he believed, though one could never be sure, that she wasnot in love with him--that her fancy, if a preference so modest could becalled by so capricious a name, was for the handsome young clergyman whoread Browning with her every Tuesday afternoon. But he was aware alsothat she would marry him if he asked her; he knew that the hearts offour formidable parents were set on the match; and in his pastexperience his mother's heart had invariably triumphed over his lessintrepid resolves. When Janet had said that the war had "spoiled" thiscarefully nurtured sentiment, she had described the failure with herusual accuracy. If he had never gone to France, he would certainly havemarried Margaret in his twenty-fourth year, and by this time they wouldhave begun to rear a promising family. For he was the offspring oftradition; and the seeds of that strange flower, which some adventurousancestor had strewn in his soul, could not have broken through thecompact soil in which he had grown. If he had never felt the charm ofthe unknown, he would have remained satisfied to accept convention forromance; if he had never caught a glimpse of wider horizons, he wouldhave restricted his vision contentedly to the tranquil current of JamesRiver. But the harm had been done, as Janet said, the exotic flower hadsprung up, and he had learned that the family formula for happinesscould not suffice for his needs. He craved something larger, somethingwider, something deeper, than the world in which his fathers had lived. In that first year after his return he had felt that antiquatedtraditions were closing about him and shutting out the air, just as hehad felt at times that the fine old walls of the house were pressingtogether over his head. At such moments the sense of suffocation, ofsmothering for lack of space in which to breathe, had driven him like ahunted creature out into the streets. It was not long before hediscovered that certain persons brought this feeling of oppression morequickly than others, that the presence of Margaret or of his parentsstifled him, while Corinna made him feel as if a window had beensuddenly flung open. The doctors, of course, had talked in scientificterms of diseased nerves and a specialist whom his mother had called inon one occasion had tried first to probe into the secrets of his infancyand afterward to analyse his symptoms away. But the war, among otherlessons, had taught him that one must not take either one's sensationsor scientific opinion too seriously, and he had contrived at last toturn the whole thing into the kind of family joke that his father couldunderstand. Outwardly he took up his life as before; if the penalty ofdepression was psychoanalysis, it was worth while to pretend at least tobe gay. Yet beneath the surface there was, he told himself, a profoundrevulsion from everything that he had once enjoyed and loved--an apathyof soul which made him a moving shadow in a universe of starkunrealities. He knew that he was sinking deeper and deeper into thismorass of indifference; he realized, at times vividly, that his onlyhope was in change, in a complete break with the past and a completeplunge into the future. His reason told him this, and yet, though helonged passionately to let himself go--to make the wild dash forfreedom--his disabled will, the nervous indecision from which hesuffered, prevented both his liberation and his recovery. There werehours of grayness when he told himself that he had neither the fortitudeto endure the old nor the energy to embrace the new. In his nature, asin his environment, two opposing spirits were struggling: the realisticspirit which saw things as they were and the romantic spirit which sawthings as they ought to be. It was the immemorial battle, brought bycircumstances to a crisis, between the race and the individual, betweentradition and adventure, between philosophy and experience, between ageand youth. 

Yes, it was "something different" that he craved. He had known Margarettoo long; there was no surprise for him in any gesture that she made, inany word that she uttered. They had drunk too deeply of the same springsto offer each other the attraction of mystery, the charm of theunusual. He was familiar with every opinion she had inherited andpreserved, with every dress she had worn, with every book she had read. As a whole she embodied his ideal of feminine perfection. She wasgentle, lovely and unselfish; she never asked unnecessary questions, never exacted more of one's time than one cared to give, neverinterfered with more important, if not more admirable, pursuits. Thatwas the rarest of combinations, he knew--the delightful mingling ofevery virtue he held desirable in woman--and yet, rare and delightful ashe acknowledged it to be, he was obliged to confess that it awakened notthe faintest quiver of his pulses. Margaret aroused in him everysentiment except the one of interest; and he had begun to realize thatat the moments when he admired her most, it was often impossible for himto make conversation. It had never occurred to him to wonder if theirassociation had become emotionally unprofitable to her also, for inaccordance with the system under which he lived, he had assumed thatwoman's part in love was as heroically passive as it had been inreligion. What he had asked himself again and again was why, since shewas so perfectly desirable in every way, he had never fallen in lovewith her? Until this evening he had always told himself that it wouldcome right in the end, that he was in his own phrase simply "playing fortime. " Margaret was handsomer, if less piquant, than Patty Vetch. Shepossessed every quality he had found lacking in poor Patty; yet headmitted ruefully that he felt the vague sense of disappointment whichfollows when one is offered a dish of one's choice and finds that theexpected flavour is missing. 

There was a peremptory knock at his door, and his mother looked inreproachfully. "You must hurry, Stephen, or everything will be burned toa cinder. "

"I am sorry, " he replied with compunction, "I didn't realize that I waslate. "

Her expression was stern but kind. "If you could only learn to bepunctual, dear. Of course while we felt that you were not quiteyourself, we tried not to worry about it. But you have been home so longnow that you ought to be able to drop back into your old habits. "

She was right, he knew; the exasperating thing about her was that shewas always right. It was reasonable, it was logical, that after twoyears he should be able to drop back into his old habits of life; andyet he realized, with the intensity of revolt, that these habitsrepresented for him the form of bondage from which he desiredpassionately to escape. He could not oppose his mother, and theknowledge that he could not oppose her increased his annoyance. As farback as he could remember she had governed her household as a benevolentdespot; and the fact that she lived entirely for others appeared to himto have endowed her with some unfair advantage. Her very unselfishnesshad developed into an unscrupulous power to ruin their lives. How was itpossible to weigh one's personal preferences against an irresistibleforce which was actuated simply and solely by the desire for one's good?Who could withstand a virtue which had encased itself in the firstprinciple of religion--which gave all things and demanded nothing exceptthe sacrifice of one's immortal soul?

"I am ready now, " he said; and then as they went downstairs together, headded contritely: "After this I'll try to remember. "

"I hope you will, my dear. It vexes your father. " Even in his childhoodStephen had understood that his father's "vexation" existed only as aninstrument of correction in the hands of his mother. Though he haddiscovered by the time he was three years old that the image was nothingmore than a nursery bugaboo, there were occasions still when the figurewas solemnly dressed up and paraded before his eyes. 

"So it's the Dad, bless him!" he exclaimed, for if he loved his motherin spite of her virtues, he joined heartily in the family worship of thehead of the house. "Well, he has had a word with Margaret anyway, and heought to thank me for that. "

"Dear Margaret, " murmured Mrs. Culpeper, "she is looking so sweetto-night. "

That Margaret was looking very sweet indeed, Stephen acknowledged assoon as he entered the room, where the firelight suffused the Persianrugs (which had replaced the earlier Brussels carpet woven in a mammothfloral design), the elaborately carved and twisted rosewood chairs andsofas, upholstered in ruby-coloured brocade, the few fine old pieces ofChippendale or Heppelwhite, the massive crystal chandelier, and theprecise copies of Italian paintings in gorgeous Florentine frames. Hereand there hung a family portrait, one of Amanda Culpeper, a famousEnglish beauty, with a long nose and a short upper lip, not unlikeVictoria's. This painting, which was supposed to be by Sir JoshuaReynolds, was a source of unfailing consolation to Victoria, thoughStephen preferred the Sully painting of his grandmother, JudithRandolph, who reminded him in some subtle way of Margaret Blair. In hischildhood he had believed this drawing-room to be the most beautifulplace on earth, and he never entered it now without a feeling of regretfor a shattered illusion. 

As he took Margaret's hand her expression of intelligent sympathy wentstraight to his heart; and he told himself emphatically that after allthe familiar graces in women were the most lovable. She was a smallfragile girl, with a lovely oval face, nut-brown hair that grew in a"widow's peak" on her forehead, and the prettiest dark blue eyes in theworld. Her figure drooped slightly in the shoulders, and was, as MaryByrd pointed out in her dashing way, "without the faintest pretence tostyle. " But if Margaret lacked "style, " she possessed an unconsciousgrace which seemed to Stephen far more attractive. It was delightful towatch the flowing lines of her clothes, as if, he used to imagine in afanciful strain, she were poured out of some slender porcelain vase. Herdress to-night, of delicate blue crêpe, began slightly below the throatand reached almost to her ankles. It was a fashion which he had alwaysadmired; but he realized that it gave Margaret, who was only twenty-two, a quaint air of maturity. 

"I am so sorry I am late, " he said, "but I had to go back to the officefor a paper I'd forgotten. " It was the truth as far as it went; and yetbecause it was not the whole truth, because his delay was due, not tohis return for the paper, but to his meeting with Patty Vetch in theSquare, his conscience pricked him uncomfortably. When deceit was soeasy it ceased to be a temptation. 

She looked at him with an expression of guileless sympathy. "Afterworking all day I should think you would be tired, " she murmured. Thatwas the way she would always cover up his errors, large or small, heknew, with a trusting sweetness which made him feel there was dishonourin the merest tinge of dissimulation. 

Mary Byrd was talking as usual in high fluting notes which drowned thegentle ripple of Margaret's voice. 

"I was just telling Margaret about the charity ball, " she said, "and theway the girls snubbed Patty Vetch in the dressing-room. "

"And it was a very good account of young barbarians at play, " commentedMr. Culpeper, who was a romantic soul and still read his Byron. 

"Patty Vetch? Why, isn't that the daughter of the Governor?" asked Mrs. Culpeper, without a trace of her husband's sympathy for the victim ofthe "snubbing. " A moment later, in accordance with her mental attitudeof evasive idealism, she added briskly: "I try not to think of that manas Governor of Virginia. "

Of course the subject had come up. Wherever Stephen had been in the pastfew weeks he had found that the conversation turned to the Governor; andit struck him, while he followed the line of girls headed by hismother's erect figure into the dining-room, that, for good or bad, theinfluence of Gideon Vetch was as prevalent as an epidemic. All throughthe long and elaborate meal, in which the viands that his ancestors hadpreferred were served ceremoniously by slow-moving coloured servants, helistened again to the familiar discussion and analysis of the demagogue, as he still called him. How little, after all, did any one know ofGideon Vetch? Since he had been in office what had they learned exceptthat he was approachable in human relations and unapproachable inpolitical ones?

"I wonder if Stephen noticed the girl at the ball?" said Mrs. Culpepersuddenly, looking tenderly at her son across the lovely George IIcandlesticks and the dish of expensive fruit, for she could neverreconcile with her ideas of economy the spending of a penny ondecorations so ephemeral as flowers. 

"Oh, he couldn't have helped it, " responded Mary Byrd. "Every one sawher. She was dressed very conspicuously. "

"Do you imply that you were not?" inquired her father, without facetiousintention. 

Mary Byrd beamed indulgently in his direction. "Oh, you don't know whatit is to be conspicuous, dear, " she answered. "What did you think of herdress, Stephen?"

He met her question with a blush. Was he really so modest after the warand France and everything?--Victoria wondered in silence. 

"It was something red, wasn't it?" he rejoined vaguely. 

"It was scarlet tulle. " Mary Byrd, as her mother had once observed, "hadn't an indefinite bone in her body. " Then she imparted an additionalincident. "She got it badly torn. I saw her pinning it up in thedressing-room. "

"I should have been sorry for her, " said Margaret simply; and he feltthat he had never in his life been so nearly in love with her. 

"Is she pretty?" asked Mrs. Culpeper, appealing directly to Stephen asa man and an authority. It was the question the strange woman had put tohim in the Square, and ironical mirth seized the young man as heremembered. 

"Do you think her pretty, Stephen?" repeated Margaret, and waited, withan expression of impartial interest, for his reply. 

For an instant he hesitated. Did he think Patty Vetch pretty or not? "Ihardly know, " he answered. "I suppose it depends upon whether you likethat kind of thing or not. Why don't you ask Peyton?" At the time hecouldn't have told himself whether he admired Patty or not. Shesurprised him, she struck a new note, the note of the unexpected, butwhether he liked or disliked it, he could not tell. "There is somethingunusual about her, " he concluded hurriedly, feeling that he had not beenquite fair. 

"Well, I think she's good looking enough, " Peyton, the incurious youngman of "advanced" tastes, was replying. "She seems to have a kind offascination. I don't know what it is, but I dare say she inherited itfrom her father. The Governor may be unsound in his views and uncertainin his methods, but I've yet to see any one who could resist his smile. "

"The Judge admires him, " remarked Stephen, with the air of a man whotosses a bomb into a legislative assembly. 

"Oh, Stephen, " protested Victoria on a high note of interrogation, "howcan he?"

"The Judge likes to keep up well with the times, " observed Mr. Culpeper, whose final argument against any innovation was the inquiry, "What doyou suppose General Lee would have thought of it?" Pausing an instantwhile the family hung breathlessly on his words, he continuedheroically: "Now, it doesn't bother me to be called an old fogy. "

"There's no use trying to hide the fact that the Judge isn't quite whathe used to be, " said Mrs. Culpeper in an unusually tolerant tone. "Hehas let his habit of joking grow on him until you never know whether heis serious or simply poking fun at you. "

"The next thing we hear, " suggested Peyton, who was quite dreadful attimes, "will be that the old gentleman admires the daughter also. "

"He doesn't like conspicuous women, " rejoined Victoria. "He told me soonly the other day when Mrs. Bradford announced that she was going torun for the legislature. "

"That's the kind of conspicuousness we all object to, " commented Peyton;"Patty Vetch isn't that sort. "

Janet was more merciful. "Well, you are obliged to be conspicuous to-dayif you want anybody to notice you, " she said. "Look at Mary Byrd. "

Mary Byrd tossed her bright head as gaily as if a compliment had beenintended. "Oh, you needn't think I like to dress this way, " sheretorted, "or that I don't sometimes get tired of keeping up withthings. Why, there are hours and hours when I simply feel as if I shoulddrop. "

"Well, as long as you look like that you needn't hope for a change, "remarked Stephen admiringly. Then, turning his gaze away from her tooobvious brightness, he looked into the tranquil depths of Margaret'sblue eyes, and thought how much more restful the old-fashioned type ofwoman must have been. Men didn't need to bestir themselves and sharpentheir wits with women like that; they were accepted, with theirinherent virtues or vices, as philosophically as one accepted theseasons. 

It was a dull supper, he thought, because his mind was distracted; but alittle later, when they had returned to the drawing-room, and the familyhad drifted away in separate directions--Mary Byrd and Peyton to adance, his father to his library, and his mother and the three othergirls to a game of bridge in the next room, he received an amazingrevelation of Margaret's point of view. His sentiment for the girl hadalways suffered, he was aware, from too many opportunities. He hadsometimes wished that an obstacle might arise, that the formidableparents would try for once to tear them apart instead of thrust themtogether, but, in spite of the changeless familiarity of theirassociation, he was presently to discover how little he had known of thereal Margaret beneath the flowing grace and the nut-brown hair and theeyes like blue larkspur. Though the tribal customs had shaped her bodyand formed her manners, a rare essence of personality escaped like aperfume from the hereditary mould of the race. 

As he looked at her now, sitting gracefully on the ruby brocade of oneof the rosewood chairs, with her lovely head framed by the band ofintricate carving, he was aware that the delicate subtleties andshadings of her feminine charm made an entirely fresh appeal to hisperceptions, if not to his senses. He had never admired her appearancemore than he did at that instant; and yet his gaze was as dispassionateas the one he bestowed on the Sully portrait of which she reminded him. Her eyes were very soft; there was a faint smile on her thin pink lipswhich gave the look of coldness, of reticence to her face. With her headbent and her hands folded in her lap, she sat there waitingpensively--for what? It occurred to him suddenly with a shock that shewas deeper, far deeper than he had ever suspected. 

"You are so different from the other girls, Margaret, " he said at last, oppressed by the old difficulty of making conversation. "You don'tbelong to the same world with Mary Byrd and--" He was going to add"Patty Vetch, " but he checked himself before the name escaped him. 

She seemed to melt rather than break from her attitude of waiting, sogently did her movements sink into the shadowy glow of the firelight. 

"No, I don't, " she replied, with a touch of sadness. "I sometimes wishthat I did. "

"You wish that you did!" Here was surprise at last. "But, why, inHeaven's name, should you wish that when you are everything that theyought to be?"

"As if that mattered!" There was a tone in her voice that was new tohim. "It's gone out of fashion to be superior. Nobody even cares anylonger about your being what you ought to be. I've been trained to bethe kind of girl that doesn't get on to-day, full of all sorts offorgotten virtues and refinements. Nobody looks at me because everybodyis staring so hard at the girls who are improperly dressed. There isonly one place where I can be sure of having attention, and that is inan Old Ladies' Home. Old ladies admire me. "

For the second time that day he found himself startled by theeccentricities of the feminine mind; but in Margaret's passiveresignation there was none of Patty's rebellion against the cruelty andinjustice of life. Generations of acquiescence were in the slenderfigure before him; and he realized that the completeness of hersurrender to Fate must have softened her destiny. Both girls werevictims of the changing fashion in women, of an age that moved not in astream, but in a whirlpool. 

"I admire you, " he said in a caressing voice, "more than I admire anyone else in the world. "

She had been gazing into the fire, and as she turned slowly in answer tohis words, it seemed to him that the blue of a summer sky shone on himfrom beneath the tremulous shadow of her eyelashes. 

"The trouble, " she replied, with an appealing glance, "is that I don'tknow how to be common. There isn't any hope of a girl's being popular ifshe doesn't know how to be common. I would be if I could, " she confessedplaintively, "but I haven't the faintest idea how to begin. "

"I hope you'll never learn, " he insisted. In awakening his sympathy shehad awakened also a deep-rooted protective instinct. He felt that helonged to guard and defend her, as a brother of course, and if thisnewer and tenderer sentiment was the result of feminine calculation, hewas too chivalrous or too inexperienced to perceive it. What heperceived was simply that this lovely girl, whom he had known frominfancy, had opened her heart and taken him into her confidence. Toadmit that she was not a success in her small social world, proved her, he felt, to be both frank and courageous. 

"Of course they don't call their way common, " she pursued, with whatseemed to him the most touching candour. "Their word for it is 'pep'. "She pronounced the vulgar syllable as if she abhorred it. "That is whatI haven't got, and that's why I have never been a real success inanything except church work. Even in the Red Cross it was 'pep' thatcounted most, and that was the reason they never sent me to Europe. Mother tried to make me into the kind of girl that men admired when shewas young; but the type has gone out of fashion to-day just as much ascrinolines or a small waist. If I were clever I suppose I could makemyself over and begin to jump about and imitate the sort of animation Inever had; but I'm not really clever, for I've tried and I can't do it. It only makes me feel silly to pretend to be what I am not. "

Her confession struck him, while he listened to it, as the sweetest andmost womanly one he had ever heard. 

"I cannot imagine your pretending, " he answered, and felt that theremark was as inane as if he had quoted it from a play. After a moment, as she seemed to be waiting for something, he continued with greaterassurance, "I dare say they have a quality that the older generationmissed. It isn't just commonness. The modern spirit means, I suppose, abreathless vitality. We are more intensely alive than our ancestors, perhaps, more restless, more inclined to take risks. "

The phrases he had used made him think suddenly of Gideon Vetch. Wasthat the secret of the Governor's irresistible magnetism, of hismeteoric rise into power? He embodied the modern fetish--success; hewas, in the lively idiom of the younger set, --personified "pep. " Afterall, if the old order crumbled, was it not because of its own weakness?Was not the fact of its decay the sign of some secret disintegration, of rottenness at the core? And if the new spirit could destroy, perhapsit could build as well. There might be more in it, he was beginning todiscern, than mere lack of control, than vulgar hysteria andundisciplined violence. The quality expressed by that dreadful word wasthe sparkle on the edge of the tempest, the lightning flash thatrevealed the presence of electricity in the air. After all, the god ofthe future was riding the whirlwind. 

"I wonder if we can be wrong, you and I?" he went on presently, forgetting the intensely personal nature of Margaret's disclosures, while he followed the abstract trend of his reflections. "Isn't itconceivable that we are standing, not for what is necessarily better, but simply for what is old? Isn't the conservative merely the creatureof habit? I suppose the older generation always looks disapprovingly atthe younger, and, in spite of our youth, we really belong to the pastgeneration. We see things through the eyes of our parents. We arementally middle-aged--for middle age is a state of mind, after all. Youand I were broken in by tradition--at least I know I was, and even thewar couldn't free me. It only made me restless and dissatisfied. Itdestroyed my belief in the past without giving me faith in the future. It left me eager to go somewhere; but it failed to offer me anydirection. It put me to sea without a compass. "

Clasping his hands behind his head, he leaned back against the carvingof his chair, and fixed his gaze on the portrait of the Englishancestress over the mantelpiece. The firelight flickered over his firm, clear-cut features, over the sleek dark hair, which was brushedstraight back from his forehead, and over his sombre smoke-colouredeyes in which a dusky glow came and went. Margaret, watching him withher pensive smile, thought that she had never seen him look so"interesting. "

"We used to talk in those first days about the 'spiritual effect' of thewar, " he resumed dreamily, speaking more to himself than to hiscompanion. "As if organized violence could have a steadyingeffect--could have any results that are not the offspring of violence. It is hard for me to talk about it. I've never even tried before to putit into words; but we are both suffering from the same cause, I think. Iknow it has played the very deuce with my life. It has made mediscontented with what I have; but it hasn't shown me anything else thatwas worth striving for. I seem to have lost the power of wanting becauseI've discovered that nothing is worth having after you get it. Everyapple has turned into Dead Sea fruit. "

He had never before spoken so freely, and when he had finished he feltawkward and half resentful. Margaret's extraordinary frankness hadstarted him, he supposed, on a similar strain; but he wished that he hadkept back all that sentimental nonsense about what his mother calleddisapprovingly, his "frame of mind. " Any frame of mind except thepermanently settled appeared unsafe to Mrs. Culpeper; and her son feltat the moment that her opinion was justified. Somehow the whole thingseemed to have resulted from his meeting with Gideon Vetch. It was Vetchwho had "unsettled" him, who had taken the wind out of the stiff sailsof his prejudices. Had the war awakened in him, he wondered, the need ofcrude emotional stimulants, the dangerous allurement of the unfamiliar, the exotic? Would it ever pass, and would life become again normal andplacid without losing its zest and its interest? For it was the zest oflife, he realized, that he had encountered in Gideon Vetch. 

"But you are a man, " Margaret was saying plaintively. "Everything iseasier for a man. You can go out and do things. "

"So can women now. You can even go into politics. "

She made a pretty gesture of aversion. "Oh, I've been too well broughtup! There isn't any hope for a girl who is well brought up except thechurch, and even there she can't do anything but sit and listen tosermons. Mother's consolation, " she added with a soft little laugh, "isthat I should have been a belle and beauty in the days when Madison wasPresident. "

Then putting the subject aside as if she had finished with it for ever, she began talking to him about the books she was reading. Of all thegirls he knew she was the only one who ever opened a book except onethat had been forbidden. 

An hour later, when Margaret went home with her father, Stephen turnedback, after putting her into the car, with a warmer emotion in his heartthan he had ever felt for her before. She was not only lovely andgentle; she had revealed unexpected qualities of mind which mightdevelop later into an attraction that he had never dreamed she couldpossess. Never, he felt, had the outlook appeared so desirable. He wasin that particular dreaminess of mood when one is easily borne off onwaves of sentiment or imagination; and it is possible that, if hismother had been able to refrain from improving perfection, he mighthave found himself sufficiently in love with Margaret for all practicalpurposes. But Mrs. Culpeper, who had no need of dissimulation since shehad always got things by showing that she wanted them entirely for thegood of others, was incapable of leaving her son to work out his ownfuture. When he entered the house again he found her awaiting him at thefoot of the staircase. 

"I hope you had a pleasant evening, Stephen. "

"Yes, Mother, very pleasant. "

"Margaret is a dear girl, and so well brought up. Her mother has a greatdeal for which to be thankful. "

"A great deal, I am sure. " A sharp sense of irritation had dispelled thedreamy sentiment with which he had parted from Margaret. To his mother, he knew, the evening appeared only as one more carefully planned andcarelessly neglected opportunity; and the knowledge of this exasperatedhim in a measure that was absurdly disproportionate to the cause. 

"She is so refreshing after the things you hear about other girls, "pursued Mrs. Culpeper. "Poor Mrs. St. John was obliged to go to a restcure, they say, because of the worry she has had over Geraldine; and theother girls are almost as troublesome, I suppose. That is why I am sothankful that you should have taken a fancy to Margaret. She is just thekind of girl I should like to have for a daughter-in-law. "

"You'll have a long time to wait, Mother. I don't want to marry anybodyuntil I need a nurse in my old age. "

He spoke jestingly, but his mother, with her usual tenacity, held fastto the subject. Under the flickering gas light in the hall (they werestill suspicious of the effect of electricity on Mr. Culpeper's eyes)her face looked grimly determined, as if an indomitable purpose hadmoulded every feature and traced every line in some thin plasticsubstance. 

"I have set my heart on this, Stephen. "

At this he laughed aloud with an indecorous mirth. In spite of herinstincts and traditions how lacking in feminine finesse, how utterlywithout subtlety of method she was! She had stood always for theunconquerable will in the fragile body, and she had used to the utmosther two strong weapons of obstinacy and weakness. He did not knowwhether the dread of being nagged or the fear of hurting her hadinfluenced him most; and when he looked back he could recall only aseries of ineffectual efforts at evasion or denial. It is true that hehad once adored her--that he still loved her--but it was a love, likehis father's, which was forbearing but never free, which was alwaysfurtive and a little ashamed of its own weakness. Ever since he couldremember she had triumphed over their inclinations, their convictions, and even their appetites, for they had eaten only what she thought goodfor them. She had invariably gained her point; and she had gained itwith few words, without temper or agitation, by sheer force ofcharacter. If she had been a moral principle she could not have movedmore relentlessly. 

"Mrs. Blair and I used to talk it over when you and Margaret werechildren, " she continued, in the inflexible tone with which she wasaccustomed to carry her point. "Even then you were fond of her. "

He looked at her with a gleam of the tolerant amusement he had caughtfrom his father's expression. "Can you imagine anything more certain toturn a man against a marriage than the thought that it was arranged forhim in his infancy?" he objected. 

"Not if he knew that his mother had set her heart on it?" She lookedhurt but resolute. 

"Don't set your heart on it, Mother. Let me dree my own weird. "

"My dear boy, it is for your own good. I am sure that you know I am notthinking of myself. I may say with truth that I never think of myself. "

It was true. She never thought of herself; but he had sometimes wonderedwhat worse things could have happened if she had occasionally done so. 

"I know that, Mother, " he answered simply. 

"I have but one wish in life and that is to see my children happy, " shesaid, with an air of injured dignity which made him feel curiouslyguilty. 

It was the old infallible method, he knew. She would never yield herpoint; she would never relax her pressure; she would never admit defeatuntil he married another woman. 

"I want nobody else in your place, Mother. Goodnight, and try to setyour heart on something else. "

As he undressed a little later he was thinking of Margaret--of her lowwhite brow under the "widow's peak, " of her soft blue eyes, of hergoodness and gentleness, and of the thrill in her voice when she hadmade that touching confession. Margaret's voice was the last thing hethought of before falling asleep; but hours afterward, when the dawn wasbeginning to break, he dreamed of Patty Vetch in her red cape and ofthat hidden country of the endless roads and the far horizons. 

CHAPTER VI

MAGIC

The next day after luncheon, as Stephen walked from his club to hisoffice, he lived over again his evening with Margaret. "If she cared forme it might be different, " he mused; and then, through some perversityof memory, Margaret's pensive smile became suddenly charged withemotion, and he asked himself if he had not misinterpreted her innocentfrankness? Even if she cared, he knew that she would die rather thanbetray her preference by a word or a look. "Whether she cares or not, and it is just possible that she does care in her heart, she will marryme if I ask her, " he thought; and decided immediately that there was nonecessity to act impulsively in the matter. "If I ask her she willpersuade herself that she loves me. She will marry me just as hundredsof women have married men in the past; and we should probably live aslong and as happily as all the others. " That was the way his father andmother had married; and why were he and Margaret different from thegenerations before them? What variable strain in their natures impelledthem to lead their own separate lives instead of the collective life ofthe family? "I suppose Mother is right as far as she sees, " he admitted. "To marry Margaret and settle down would be the best thing that couldhappen to me. " Yet he had no sooner put the thought into words than theold feeling of suffocation rushed over him as if his hopes weresmothered in ashes. 

Yes, he would settle down, of course, but not now. Next year perhaps, orthe year after, he would sincerely fall in love with Margaret, and theneverything would be different. 

He was passing through the Square at the moment; and while he playedwith the idea of his marriage with Margaret, he found himself glancingexpectantly at the car which was waiting in front of the Governor'sdoor. "I wonder if she is going out, " he thought, while a superficialinterest brightened the dull hours before him. "It would be no more thanshe deserved if I were to go in and ask after her ankle. " In obedienceto the mocking impulse, he entered the gate and reached the steps justas Patty came out on the porch. She was walking with ease, he noticed atonce, and she wore again the red cape and the little hat with red wings. 

"Oh, " she exclaimed, "it is you!"

"I stopped to ask after your ankle, " he retorted with ironic gaiety. "Iam glad it doesn't keep you from walking. "

"That's the new way of treating a sprain, " she replied calmly. "Haven'tyou heard of it?"

"Yes, I've heard of it. " He glanced down at her stocking of thin graysilk. "But I thought even then there were bandages. "

She smiled archly--he felt that he wanted to slap her--and glanced up athim with playful concern. The gray-green rays were brighter in thedaylight than he had remembered them and her mocking lips were thecolour of cherries. He thought of the thin pink curve of Margaret'smouth and wondered if the war had corrupted his taste. 

Yes, Margaret was womanly; she was well bred; she possessed everyattribute that in theory he admired; yet she had never awakened thissparkling interest, this attraction which was pungently flavoured withsurprise that he could be so strangely attracted. He could gaze unmovedby the hour on Margaret's smooth loveliness; but the tantalizing visionof this other girl's face, of her cloudy black hair and her clear skinand her changeable eyes, with their misty gleam like a firefly lost in aspring marsh--all these things were a part not of the tedious actuality, but of that hidden country of romance and adventure. For the first timesince his return from France, he was carried far outside of himself onthe wave of an impulse; he was interested and excited. Not for aninstant did he imagine that he was falling in love. His thoughts did notleave the immediate present when he was with her; and a part of theadventure was the feeling that each vivid moment he spent with her mightbe the last. It was, he would have said had he undertaken to analyse thesituation, merely an incident; but it was an incident that delightedhim. He knew nothing of Patty Vetch except that she charmed him againsthis will; and, for the moment at least, this was sufficient. 

"Oh, there are sprains and sprains, " she answered, with the quiver ofher lip he remembered so disturbingly. "Didn't you learn that in thetrenches?" Was she really pretty, or was it only the provocative appealto his imagination, the dangerous sense that you never knew what shewould dare to say next?

"I didn't go there to learn about sprains, " he responded gravely. 

"Nor about maneuvers apparently?" She hesitated over the word as if itwere unfamiliar. 

At her charge the light of battle leaped to his eyes. "Then it was amaneuver? I suspected as much. "

The audacity of her! The unparalleled audacity! "But I am not so muchinterested in maneuvers, " he added merrily, "as I am in the strategybehind them. "

She looked puzzled, though her manner was still mocking. "Is therealways strategy, " she pronounced the word with care, "behind them?"

"Always in the art of warfare. "

"But can't there be a maneuver without warfare?" He could see that shewas venturing beyond her depths; but he realized that a confession ofignorance was the last thing he must ever expect from her. Whatever thechallenge she would meet it with her natural wit and her brightderision. 

"Never, " he rejoined emphatically. "A campaign goes either before orafterward. "

A thoughtful frown knit her forehead. "Well, one didn't go before, didit?" she inquired with an innocent air. "So I suppose--"

He ended her sentence on a note of merriment. "Then I must be preparedfor the one that will follow!"

She threw out her hand with a gesture of mock despair. "Oh, you may havebeen mistaken, you know!"

"Mistaken? About the campaign?"

"No, about the maneuver. Perhaps there wasn't any such thing, afterall. "

"Perhaps. " Though his voice was stern, his eyes were laughing. "I am notso easily fooled as that. "

"I doubt if you could be fooled at all. " It was the first bit offlattery she had tossed him, and he found it strangely agreeable. 

"I am not sure of that, " he answered, "but the thing that perplexesme--the only thing--is why you should have thought it worth while. "

Her eyes grew luminous with laughter, and the little red wings quiveredas if they were about to take flight over her arching brows. "How do youknow that I thought about it at all? Sometimes things just happen. "

"But not in this case. You had arranged the whole incident for thestage. "

"Do you mean that I fell down on purpose?"

"I mean that you were laughing up your sleeve all the time. You weren'thurt and you knew it. "

Her expression was enigmatical. "You think then that I arranged to falldown and risk breaking my bones for the sake of having you pick me up?"she asked demurely. 

Put so plainly the fact sounded embarrassing, if not incredible. "Ithink you fell for the fun of it. I think also that you didn't for asecond risk breaking your bones. You are too nimble for that. "

"I ought to be, " she retorted daringly, "since I was born in a circus. "

Surprised into silence, he studied her with a regard in which admirationfor her courage was mingled with blank wonder at her recklessness. Ifshe had inherited her father's gift of expression, she appeared topossess also his dauntless humour. For an instant Stephen felt that hergaiety had entered into his spirit; and while his impression of herdanced like wine in his head, he answered her in her own tone of mockingdefiance. 

"Well, everything that is born in a circus isn't a clown. "

Her eyes widened. "Is that meant for a compliment?"

"No, merely for a reminder. But if you were born in a circus, I assumethat you didn't perform in one. "

She shook her head. "No, they took me away when I was a baby--just afterMother died. I never lived with the circus people, and Father didn'teither except when he was a child. Not that I should have been ashamedof it, " she hastened to explain. "They are very interesting people. "

"I am sure of it, " he answered gravely, and he was very sure of it now. 

"When I was a child, " she went on in a matter-of-fact tone, "I used tomake Father tell me all he could remember about the 'freaks, ' as theycalled them. The fat woman--her name was really Mrs. Coventry--was verykind to him when he was little, and he never forgot it. He never forgetsanybody who has ever been kind to him, " she concluded with simpledignity. 

An emotion which he could not define held Stephen speechless; and beforehe could command his words, she began again in the same cool and quietvoice. "His mother ran away to marry his father. She came of a very goodfamily in Fredericksburg, and her people never forgave her or spoke toher afterward. But she was happy, and she never regretted it as long asshe lived. It was love at first sight. Grandfather was Irish and hewas--was--" she hesitated for a word, and at last with evident careselected, "magnificent. " "He was magnificent, " she repeatedemphatically, "and she saw him first on horseback when she was outriding. Her horse became frightened by one of the animals in the circus, and he caught it and stopped it. It began that way, and then one nightshe stole out of the house after her family had gone to bed, and theyran away and were married. I think she was right, " she addedthoughtfully, "but then I reckon--I mean I suppose it is in my blood totake risks. "

She looked up at him and he responded. "But where did you learn to seethings like this, and to put them into words? Not in a circus?"

"I told you I couldn't remember the circus. Mother was in one, andthough Father never told me how he fell in love with her--he never talksof her--I think it must have been when he went back to see the people. He always took an interest in them and tried to help them. He doesstill. Even now, if anybody belonging to a circus asks him forsomething, he never refuses him. When he was twelve years old somebodytook him away and sent him to school, but he always says he neverlearned anything at school except misinformation about life. No books, he says, ever taught him the truth except the Bible and 'RobinsonCrusoe. ' He used to read me chapters of those every day--and he doesstill when he has the time. "

What a strange world it was! How full of colour and incident, howdrenched with the quality of the unusual!

"And what did you learn?" he asked. 

"I?" She was speaking earnestly. "Oh, I learned a great many--no, amultitude of things about life. "

At this he broke into a laugh of pure delight. "With a special course ofinstruction in maneuvers, " he rejoined. 

Though her smile showed perplexity she tossed back his innuendo withdefiance. "And by the time we meet again I shall have learnedabout--strategy. "

How ready she was to fence, and how quick with her attack! It was easyto believe that there was Irish blood in her veins and an Irish sparklein her wit. 

"Oh, then you will out-general me entirely! Isn't it enough to force meto acknowledge your superior tactics?"

She appeared to scrutinize each separate letter. "Tactics? Have I beenusing superior tactics without knowing it?"

"That I can't answer. Is there anything that has escaped yourinstinctive understanding?"

She laughed softly. "Well, there's one thing you may be sure of. I'llknow a great deal more about some things by the time I see you again. "Then, with one of her darting bird-like movements, she ran down thesteps and into the car. "I wish Father were here, " she said, looking outat him. "He wants to talk to you. "

"I should like to talk to him. I shall come again, if I may. "

"Oh, of course, and next time we may both be at home. " As the carstarted she called out teasingly. "My next maneuver may be moresuccessful, you know!"

How provoking she was, and how inspiriting! Was she as shrewd, assophisticated, as she tried to appear, or was he merely, he askedhimself, the victim of her irrepressible humour, of a prodigious displayof the modern spirit? At least she was a part of her time--not, likeMargaret and himself, a discordant note, a divergent atom, in thegeneral march toward recklessness and unrestraint. Young as she was, hefelt that she had already solved the problems which he had evaded orpushed aside. She had learned the secret of transition--a perpetualmotion that went in circles and was never still. Here, he realized, waswhere he had lost connection, where he had failed to hold his place inthe turmoil. He had tried to stand off and reach a point of view, tobecome a spectator, while the only way to fit into the century wassimply to keep moving in whirls of unintelligent unison; never tomeditate, never to reason upon one's course; but to sweep onward, somewhere, anywhere as long as it was in a new direction. Elasticity, variability--were not these the indispensable qualities of the modernmind? The power to make quick decisions and the inability to cling toconvictions; the nervous high pitch and the failure to sustain thetriumphant note; energy without direction; success without stability;martyrdom without faith. And around, above, beneath, the pervadingmediocrity, the apotheosis of the average. Was this the best thatdemocracy had to offer mankind? Was there no depth below the shallows?Was it impossible, even by the most patient search, to discover somejustification of the formlessness of the age, of the crazy instinct forugliness? He could forgive it all, he might eventually bring his mind tobelieve in it, if there were only some logical design informing thedisorder. If he could find that it contained a single redeemingprinciple that was superior to the old order, he felt that he should beable to surrender his disbelief. 

He was leaving the gate when a woman, walking slowly in front of thehouse, spoke to him abruptly. 

"If I wait here shall I see the Governor come out?"

With the feeling that he was passing again through a familiar nightmare, he turned quickly and looked down on the pathetic figure he had seen theevening before. In the daylight she seemed more pitiable and lessrepellent than she had appeared in the darkness. The hollowness of herfeatures gave a certain dignity to her expression--the look of one whois returning from the shadows of death. Years ago, before illness ordissipation had wrecked her health and her appearance, she may have beenattractive, he surmised, in a common and obvious fashion. Her black eyeswere still striking, and the sunlight revealed a quantity of coarseblack hair on which he detected the claret tinge of fading dye. 

"I am sorry, " she added as she recognized him. "I did not know it wasyou. " As soon as she had spoken she became confused and tried to passon; but he made a movement to detain her. 

"Have you any particular reason for wishing to see the Governor?"

"Oh, no, I am a stranger here. " Her accents were ordinary, yet there wasa note of the unusual in her appearance and manner. Whatever she was, she was not commonplace. 

"But you were waiting to see him?" he said. 

Her gaze left his face and travelled uncertainly over the mansion. "Oh, yes, I thought I might see him. I've never seen a Governor. "

"You do not wish to speak to him?"

"No; why should I wish to speak to him? I'm a stranger, that's all. Ilike to see whatever is going on. Was that his daughter who went outjust now?"

"Yes, that was his daughter. "

"Then she is pretty--almost as pretty as--Thank you, sir. I will goalong now. I'm staying not far from here, and I come out when I get thechance to watch the squirrels in the Square. "

The explanation sounded simple enough; yet he suspected, though he couldnot have defined his reason, that she was not telling the truth. Againhe asked himself if she could have known Gideon Vetch in the past? Itwas possible; it was not even improbable. Once, even ten or fifteenyears ago, she may have been handsome in her coarse and showy style; andhe had no proof, except Patty, that the Governor had ever possessed afastidious taste. 

The woman had turned with furtive haste in the direction of the outergate; and when Stephen started on again toward the library, he crossed aman who was rapidly ascending the brick walk from the fountain at thefoot of the hill. By his jaunty stride and his air of excessivejoviality--the mark of the successful local politician--Stephenrecognized Julius Gershom, the campaign-maker, as people called him, whohad stood behind Gideon Vetch from the beginning of his career. "What anunconscionable bounder the fellow is, " thought Stephen as he passed him. What an abundance of self-assertiveness he had contrived to express inhis thin spruce figure, his tightly curling black hair, which grew toolow on his forehead, and his short black moustache with pointed endswhich curved up like polished metal from his full red lips. 

"I suppose he is on his way to the Governor, " mused the young man idly. "How on earth does Vetch stand him?"

But to his surprise, when he glanced back again, he saw that Gershom hadpassed the mansion, and was hurrying down the walk which the strangewoman had followed a moment before. Stephen could still see her figureapproaching a distant gate; and he observed presently that Gershom wasnot far behind her, and that he appeared to be speaking her name. Shestarted and turned quickly with a movement of alarm; and then, asGershom joined her, she went on again in the direction she had firsttaken. A few minutes later their rapidly moving figures left the Squareand passed down the street beyond the high iron fence. 

"I wonder what it means?" thought Stephen indifferently. "I wonder whatthe deuce Gershom has got up his sleeve?"

By the time he reached his office the wonder had vanished; but itreturned to him on his way home that afternoon when he dropped into theold print shop for a word with Corinna. 

"I passed that fellow Gershom in the Square to-day, " he said. "Do youknow him by sight?"

She shook her head. "What is he like? Patty tells me that he has becomea nuisance. "

"Ah, then you have seen Patty?"

A smile turned her eyes to the colour of November leaves. "She was herefor an hour this morning. I have great hopes of her. I think she isgoing to supply me with an interest in life. "

"Then she still amuses you?"

"Amuses me? My dear, she enchants me. She stands for the suppressedaudacities of my past. "

He looked at her thoughtfully. "I wonder how much of her is real?"

"Probably half. She is real, I think, in her courage, but not in herconventions. "

"Well, I confess that she puzzles me. I can't see just what she means. "

"I doubt if she means anything. She is a vital spirit; she chafes atchains; and she is smarting from a sense of inferiority. There is athirst for power in her little body that may make her either an actressor a politician. "

"Now, it seems to me that if she has any sense it is one of superiority. She treated me like a brick under her feet. "

For a minute Corinna was silent. The smile on her lips had growntenderly humorous; and there was a softness in her eyes which made himsorry that he had not known her when he was a child. "Do you know whatshe told me to-day?" she said. "She studies a page of the dictionaryevery morning, and she tries to remember and practise all day the newwords that she learns. She is now in the letter M. "

A peal of merriment interrupted her. "That explains it!" exclaimedStephen with unaffected delight, "maneuver--misinformation--multitude--"

"So she has practised on you too?"

"Oh, they all practise on me, " he retorted. "It is what I was made for. "

"Well, as long as it is only words, you are safe, I suppose. "

He denied this with a gesture. "It is everything you can possiblypractise with--from puddings to pigeons. "

"My poor dear, so you have been eating Margaret's puddings. Weren't theygood ones?"

"Oh, perfection! But I wasn't thinking of Margaret. "

"I know you weren't. For your mother's sake I wish that you were. "

His face looked suddenly tired. "Margaret is perfection, I know; but Ifeel sometimes that only perfect people can endure perfection. "

"Yes, I know. " Her smile had faded now. "I admire Margaret tremendously, but I feel closer to Patty. "

"Perhaps. I am not sure. Somehow I have been sure of nothing since Icame out of the trenches--least of all of myself. I am trying to findout now what I am in reality. "

As he rose to go she held out her hand. "I think, --I am not certain, butI think, " she responded gaily, "that Patty's dictionary may give you thedefinition. "

CHAPTER VII

CORINNA GOES TO WAR

"Yes, I've had a mean life, " thought Corinna, while she stood before hermirror carefully placing a patch on her cheek. In her narrow gown ofblack velvet, with the silver heels of her slippers shining beneath thetransparent draperies, she had more than ever the look of festival, ofOctober splendour. If her beauty had lost in roundness and softness, ithad gained immeasurably in authority, in that air of having been a partof great events, of historic moments which clung to her like a legend. Romance and mystery were in her smile; and yet what had life held forher, she mused now, except the frustrated hope, the blighted fruit, thepainted lily? Her beauty had brought her nothing that was not tawdry, nothing that was not a gaudy imitation of happiness. She had givenherself for what? For the shadow of reality, for the tinted shreds of adamaged illusion. The past, in spite of her many triumphs, had beenworse than tragic; it had been comic--since it had left her beggared. Looking back upon it now she saw that it had lacked even the mournfuldignity of a broken heart. 

"I have had a mean life; but it isn't over yet, and I may make somethingbetter of the rest of it, " she thought. "At least I have fighting bloodin my veins, and I will never give up. After all, even if my life hasbeen mean, I haven't been--and that is what really counts in the end. If I haven't been happy, I have tried to be gallant--and it takescourage to be gallant with an aching heart--"

As she fastened the long string of pearls--one of Kent Page's earlygifts--she drew back from the mirror, with the light of philosophy, ifnot of happiness, overflowing her eyes. With her grace and her radianceshe stood for the flower of the Virginian aristocratic tradition; withher sincerity and her fearlessness she embodied the American democraticideal. Her forefathers had brought representative government to the NewWorld. They had sat in the first General Assembly ever summoned inAmerica; and through the generations they had fought always on the sideof liberty tempered by discipline, of democracy exalted by patriotism. They had stood from the beginning for dignity, for manners, for theessence of social culture which places art at the service of life. Always they had sought to preserve the finer lessons of the past; alwaysthey had struggled against the tyranny of mediocrity, the increasingcult of the second best. From this source, from the inherited instinctfor selection, for elimination, from the inbred tendency toward orderand suavity of living, Corinna had derived her clear-eyed acceptance oflife, her nobility of mind, her loveliness and grace of body. She hadbeen prepared and nurtured for beauty, only to bloom in an age whenbeauty had been bartered for usefulness. Would the delicatediscriminations in which she had been trained, the lights and shadows ofher soul, become submerged in the modern effort to reduce alldistinctions to a level, all diversities to an average?

Turning away from the mirror, Corinna glanced over the charming room, with the wood fire, the white bearskin rug, the ivory bed draped in bluesilk, the long windows opening on the garden terrace and the starlitdarkness. There had been luxury always. Money she had had in abundance;yet there had been no hour in the last twenty years when she would nothave exchanged it all--everything that money could bring her--for thedinner of herbs where love was. She had possessed everything except theone thing she had wanted. She had served the tin gods in temples of goldand jade. With the deep instinct for perfection in her blood, she hadspent her life in an endless compromise with the inferior. 

"Was there something lacking in me?" she asked now of her glowingreflection. "Was there some vital spark left out when I was born? Andto-night? Why should I care how it goes? What is Rose Stribling to me orI to her?" Why should she still cherish that dull resentment, thatsmothered sense of injury in her heart? Was it the burden of herinheritance, the weakness of the older races, that she could notforget? She had loved a man who was unworthy; she had loved him for nobetter reason, she understood now, than a superficial charm, a romanticappeal. The fault was in the man, she knew, yet she had forgiven theman long ago, while she still hated Rose Stribling. Perversity, inconsistency--but it was her nature, and she could not overcome it. "Ifshe had ever loved him, I might have forgiven her, " she thought, "butshe cared for him as little as she cares for Gideon Vetch to-day. It wasvanity then, and it is vanity now. You cannot hurt her heart--only herpride--"

Her father called from the stairs; and with a last swift glance at herimage, she caught up a fan of ostrich plumes and a wrap of peacock-bluevelvet. She had never looked more brilliant in her life, not even onthat June morning twenty-five years ago, when, coloured like a rose, shehad been married to Kent Page beneath a bower of roses. She had lostmuch since then, freshness, innocence, the trusting heart and thetransparent gaze, but she had lost neither charm nor radiance. 

"So we are invited to meet Gideon Vetch, " remarked the Judge as theywent down the steps; and from the whimsical sound of his voice, she knewthat there was a smile on his face. The house, with its picturesqueEnglish front half hidden by Virginia creeper, stood at the end of along avenue, in the centre of a broad lawn planted in fine old elms. 

"Yes, there must be some reason for the dinner, but Sarah Berkeley didnot tell me. "

"Well, I'll be glad to see the Governor again, " said the Judge, leaningcomfortably back as the car rolled down the avenue to the road, "but youwill have a dreary evening, I fear, unless John should be there. "

Corinna smiled in the darkness. So even her father, who so rarelynoticed anything, had observed her growing interest in John Benham. After all, might this be--this sudden revival of an old sentiment inJohn's heart--"the something different, " the ultimate perfection forwhich she had sought all her life? "He is beginning to mean more to methan any one else, " she thought. "If only I had never heard that oldgossip about Alice Rokeby. "

Leaning over, she patted the Judge's hand. "Don't have me on your mind, Father darling. Go ahead and enjoy the Governor as much as you can. I ameasy to amuse, you know, and besides, I have my own particular iron inthe fire to-night. "

"You are never without expedients, my child, but I hope this one has nobearing on Vetch. "

"Oh, but it has. Like Esther, the queen, I have put on royal apparel foran ulterior object. Did you notice that I had made myself as terrible asan army with banners?"

"I thought you were looking unusually lovely, " replied the Judgegracefully. "But you are always so handsome that I suspected no guile. "

Corinna laughed merrily. "But I am full of guile, dear innocent! I goforth to conquer. "

"Not the Governor, I hope?"

"Oh, no, the Governor is nothing--a prize, nothing more. My antagonistis Mrs. Stribling. "

"Rose Stribling?" The Judge was mildly astonished. "Why, I remember heras a little girl in white dresses. "

Corinna's smile became scornful. "Well, she isn't a little girl anylonger, and she oughtn't to be in white dresses. "

"Dear me, dear me, " rejoined the old gentleman. "I am aware that youhave a dramatic temperament, but it is scarcely possible that you arejealous of little Rose. She is a good deal younger than you, if I am notmistaken--but my memory is not all that it once was. "

"She is twelve years younger and at least twenty years more malicious, "retorted Corinna lightly. "But those twelve years aren't as long as theywere in your youth, my dear. A generation ago they would have spelt anend of my conquests; to-day they mean only new worlds to conquer. "

The Judge looked perplexed. "Am I to infer from this that you havedesigns on the Governor? And may I inquire what use you intend to makeof him after you have captured him from the enemy?"

Corinna shrugged her shoulders. "I hadn't thought of that. Release him, probably. But, whatever happens, I shall have saved him from a worsefate. For that he ought to thank me, and he will if he is reasonable. "

"Few men are reasonable in captivity. Do you think, by the way, thatMrs. Stribling would like another husband, and such a husband as ourfriend the demagogue?"

"I think she would like a political career, and of course her only wayof obtaining a career of any kind is to marry one. Though she isn'tdiscerning, she has sense enough to perceive that. They tell me that theGovernor is starting straight for the Senate, and the wife of asenator--of any senator--might have a very good time in Washington. Besides, there is always the chance of course that the winds of publicfolly may blow him into the White House. "

"If what you say is true it would be a hard fate for an honest rogue, "admitted the Judge. "In your hands he would at least go unharmed. "

"Oh, unharmed certainly. Perhaps helped. "

"Then it is better so. But the thing that interests me in Vetch, is nothis value as a matrimonial or romantic prize; I am concerned solely andsimply with his opinions. "

"Well, you will have the advantage of Mrs. Stribling and me, for weshall probably find the cigars an impediment to our attack. At any rate, we ought to have a less tedious evening than you expect. "

A little later, when she entered the long drawing-room where the otherguests were already assembled, Corinna threw an inquiring glance in thedirection of Mrs. Stribling. Could the shallow pink and white lovelinessof that other woman, the historic type of the World's Desire, bearcomparison with her own starry beauty? It was a petty rivalry. She hadentered into it half in jest, half in irritation, yet some sportsmanlikeinstinct prompted her to play the game to the end. She would prove toRose Stribling that those twelve years of knowledge and suffering hadtaught her not to surrender, but to conquer. 

The Berkeleys were what was still known in their small social world as"quiet people. " They entertained little, and always with a definiteobject which they were not afraid to disclose. Their house, anincongruous example of Mid-Victorian architecture, was still suffusedfor them with the sentimental glamour of their wedding day. The walls, untouched for years, were covered with embossed paper and panelled inyellow oak. The furniture, protected for five months of the year bycovers of striped linen, was stiffly upholstered in pea-green brocade;and the pictures, hanging very high, were large but inferior oilpaintings in heavily gilded frames that represented preposterous sheavesof wheat or garlands of roses. Forty years ago the house reproducedwithin and without "the best taste" of the period, and was as bad as theBerkeleys could afford to make it. Since then fashions had come andgone; yet the hospitable home remained as unchanged as the politics ofthe host or the figure of the hostess. The Berkeleys were still contentto be "old-fashioned people, " with the fine feeling and theindiscriminate taste of an era which had flowered not in architecturebut in character, when the standard of living was high and the style infurniture correspondingly low. To-night the ten guests (the Berkeleysnever gave large dinners) had been carefully chosen, and the eveningwould probably be distinguished by good talk and good wine. Though theywere law-abiding persons to the core, the bitterness of the EighteenthAmendment had not penetrated to the subterranean darkness where Mr. Berkeley's treasures were stored. 

Mrs. Berkeley, a brisk, compact little woman, with a pretty florid faceand the prominent bosom and tapering waist of forty years ago, turnedfrom the Governor as Corinna and the Judge entered, and hurried forwardin her animated way, which reminded one of the manner of a child that istrying to make a success of a dolls' party. Beyond Mr. Berkeley, ashort, neutral-tinted man without emphasis of personality, Corinna sawMrs. Stribling's tall, full figure draped in a gown of jade-colouredvelvet, with a daringly short skirt from which a narrow, sharply pointedtrain wound like a serpent. Her heavy hair, of an unusual shade of palegold, had the smooth, polished look of metal which had been moulded inwaves close to her head. In spite of her active life and her disastrousaffairs, she presented an unblemished complexion, as if her hard rosysurface were protected by some indestructible glaze. Beside her opulentattractions the frail prettiness of Alice Rokeby, who was dining out forthe first time this winter, looked wistful and pathetic. Every one, except Corinna, who had been abroad at the time, knew of the old affairbetween Alice Rokeby and John Benham; and every one who knew of it hadthought that they would be married as soon as she got her divorce. Buttime had dragged on; Corinna had come home again; and Alice Rokeby'sviolet eyes had grown deeper and more wistful, with a haunted look inthem as if they were denying a hungry heart. She had never dressed well;she had never, as Mrs. Stribling remarked, known how to bring out herbest points; and to-night she had been even less successful than usual. Both Corinna and Mrs. Stribling could have told her that she should haveavoided violent shades; and yet she was wearing now a dress of vividpurple which made her pale rose-leaf complexion look almost sallow. Though she could exercise when she chose a strangely passive attraction, her charm usually failed in the end for lack of intelligent guidance. 

A little beyond Alice Rokeby, where her eyes could follow his gestures, John Benham was talking in his pleasant subdued voice to Patty Vetch, who looked, in her frock of scarlet tulle, as if she had just alightedfrom the chorus of a musical comedy. Her boyish dark head was bent overa fan of scarlet feathers, a toy which appeared ridiculously largebeside her small figure. It was evident that the girl was trying tocover an uncomfortable shyness with an air of mocking effrontery; and amoment later, when Corinna joined them, Benham glanced up with a flashof satirical amusement in his eyes. He was a tall thin man of middleage, with a striking appearance and the straight composed features of anearly American portrait. His dark hair, brushed back from his forehead, had the shining gloss that comes of good living and careful grooming, and this gloss was reflected in his smiling gray eyes and in the healthyred of his well-cut though not quite generous mouth. He was a charmingguest, an impressive speaker, a sympathetic listener; yet there hadalways seemed to Corinna to be a subtle deficiency in his character. Itwas only of late, since their friendship had turned into a warmerfeeling, that she had been able to overcome that sense of somethingwanting which had troubled her when she was with him. She could defineno quality that was absent; but the impression he still gave her attimes was one of a man tremendously gifted and yet curiously inadequate. A mental thinness perhaps? An emotional dryness? Or was it merely thathere also she felt, rather than perceived, the intrinsic weakness of theold order?

Beyond Benham, Gideon Vetch, rugged, sanguine, and wearing the wrong tiewith his evening clothes as valiantly as he had worn the rumpled brownsuit in which Stephen had last seen him, was talking in a loud voice toMiss Maria Berkeley--one of those serene single women arrayed indove-colour who belong as appropriately as crewel work or antimacassarsto another century. If Patty was shy and self-conscious, it was evidentthat her state of mind was not shared by her father. He was interestedbecause he was expressing a cherished opinion, and he was talking in anemphatic tone because he hoped that he might be overheard. When Mrs. Berkeley drew him away in order to introduce him to Corinna, he resumedhis theme immediately, as if he were addressing a public meeting and hadscarcely noticed that there had been a change in his audience. "MissBerkeley was asking me what I thought of the effects of prohibition, "he explained presently with his smile of unguarded friendliness. Howwas it possible to arrest the attention of a man who insisted on talkingof prohibition?

At the table a little later Corinna asked herself the question again, while she made light conversation for the retired general who had takenher in--an anecdotal, bewhiskered presence, with the husky voice and theglazed eyes of successful pomposity. Glancing occasionally at Vetch whosat on her left, she found that he was describing to Mrs. Berkeley thebest protection against forest fires. As far as Corinna was concerned, she felt that she might as well have been a view from the window, or theportrait of Mr. Berkeley's great aunt that hung over the mantelpiece. Hehad probably, she reflected, classified her lightly as "anothergray-haired woman, " and passed on to Rose Stribling, who bloomedtriumphantly between John Benham and Stephen Culpeper. Vetch was sodifferent from what Corinna had expected to find him that, in some vagueway, she felt disappointed and absurdly resentful. Had her imagination, she wondered, prepared her to meet one of the picturesque radicals offiction? Had she looked for a middle-aged Felix Holt; and was this whythe Governor's prosaic figure, his fresh-coloured, undistinguished faceand his vehement, spectacular gestures, dispelled immediately theinterest she had felt in the meeting? There were no salient points inhis appearance, nothing that she could detach from the rest in hermental image of him. There was no single characteristic of which shecould say: "He may be common; he may be vulgar; but he strikes the noteof greatness here--and here--and here. " With such a man, she felt, thedirect and obvious appeal of Rose Stribling would be victorious. Hecould discern pink and white and blue and gold; but the indeterminateshades, the subtleties and mysteries of charm were enigmatical to him. His emotions would be as literal as his convictions or his oratory. Yetthere must be some faculty in him which did not appear on the surface, some primitive grasp of realities in his understanding of men. Whyshould the influence of this sanguine, loud-talking demagogue, she askedherself the next minute, be greater than the influence of John Benham, who possessed every admirable trait except the ability to make peoplefollow him? What was this fundamental difference in material orstructure which divided them so completely? When she had traced it toits source would she discover the secret of Vetch's conqueringpersonality?

Looking away from the General, her eyes rested for a moment on StephenCulpeper, who was listening with his reserved impersonal attention tothe amusing prattle of Patty Vetch. Obeying an imperative rule, Mrs. Berkeley had placed her youngest guests together; and yet, if Stephenhad been seventy-five instead of twenty-six, he could sparcely have hadless in common with the Governor's daughter. With her small glossy head, and her scarlet cheeks and lips above the fan of ostrich feathers, thegirl reminded Corinna of a spray of Christmas holly, all dark and brightand shining. Ever since Patty's first visit to the print shop Corinnahad felt a genuine liking for her. The girl had something deeper thancharm, reflected the older woman; she had determination and endurance, the essentials of character. Of course she was crude, she was ignorant;but these are never insurmountable obstacles except to the dull. Withintelligence and resourcefulness all things are possible--even themetamorphosis of a circus rider's daughter into a woman of the world. 

Becoming suddenly aware that Vetch was silent, and that Mrs. Berkeleyhad turned to Judge Page on her left, Corinna looked for the first timeinto the frank blue eyes of the Governor. Strange eyes they were, shethought, the one striking feature in a face that was ordinary. It waslike looking down into the very fountain of life--no, of humanity. 

"I have been watching your daughter, " she began casually. "She is verypretty. "

"Yes, she is pretty enough"--his tone was playful--"but I don't likethis craze for short hair. "

She looked him over calmly. Indirect methods would be wasted on such anopponent. "You must admire Mrs. Stribling's. "

"I do. Don't you?" His glance roved to the ample beauty beside JohnBenham. "It looks exactly like a rope of flax. "

"A rope suggests a hanging to me, " she rejoined grimly. 

He laughed, and she noticed that his eyes were brimming over withhumour. Yes, they were extraordinary eyes, and they made one feelsympathetic and friendly. The man had a quality, she couldn't deny it. 

"We don't hang any longer, " he replied. 

"Oh, yes, we do sometimes--without the law. "

The blue sparkles in his eyes contracted to points of light. She had atlast, by arresting his wandering attention, succeeded in making him lookat her. 

"I wonder what you mean, " he mused aloud, and added frankly, "I've neverseen you before, have I?"

"Have I?" she mimicked gaily. "Wouldn't you remember me? Or are allgray-haired women alike to you?"

His gaze travelled to her hair. "I didn't mean it that way. Of course Ishould have remembered. " He spoiled this by adding: "I never forget aface, " and continued before she could answer, "I don't know whether yourhair is gray or only powdered a little; but you are as young as--assummer. "

"Or as your political party. "

"That's good. I like a nimble wit. " He was plainly amused. "But my partyisn't young, you know. It is as old as Esau and Jacob. Oh, yes, I'veread my Bible. I was brought up on it. "

"That is why your speech is so direct, " she said when he paused, concluding slowly after a minute, "and so sincere. "

"You feel that I am sincere?"

She met his eyes gravely. "Doesn't every one?"

He laughed shortly. "Ah, you know better than that!"

"Well, my father does. He says that it is your sincerity that makes youresemble me. "

To her surprise he did not laugh at this. "Do I resemble you?" he askedsimply. 

"Father thinks so. He says that people won't take us seriously becausewe tell them the truth. "

An impression drifted like smoke across the blue of his eyes. Who wasit, she wondered, who had said that his eyes were gray? "Don't they takeyou seriously?" he asked. 

"As a woman, yes. As a human being, no. "

He smiled. "You are too deep. I can't follow. I understand only theplain bright ideas of the half educated, you know. "

Her brilliant glance shone on him steadily. "I shan't try to explain. What one doesn't understand without an explanation isn't worth knowing. But somebody must take you seriously, or you wouldn't be where you are. "

"Do you know where I am?" he demanded impulsively. 

"I know that you are Governor of Virginia. "

"Oh, that! I thought you meant something more than that, " he returnedwith a note of disappointment in his voice. 

"What could I mean more than that? Isn't it the first step upward in apolitical career?"

"Perhaps. But I was thinking of something else. The chief thing seems tome to be to work a way out of the muddle. Anybody may be Governor oreven President if he tries hard enough--but it is a different matter tobring some kind of order out of this confusion. I've got an idea thatI've been hammering at for the last twenty years. Not a great one, perhaps, though I think it is; and I'd like to get a chance to put itinto practice before I die. I want to wake up people and tell them thetruth. "

Was he, for all his matter-of-fact appearance, simply another politicaldreamer, another visionary without a definite vision?

"And will they listen when you tell them?" she asked. 

He laughed. "Who knows what may happen? When I was a kid in thecircus--you have heard, of course, that I spent my childhood in atravelling circus"--how simply he brought this out!--"the fat woman, wecalled her 'the fat lady' in those days, had a favourite proverb: 'Whenthe skies fall we shall catch larks'. I reckon when the skies fall thepeople will learn wisdom. "

"But you have caught your larks, haven't you?"

"No, I used to set snares by the hundred, but I never caught anythingbetter than a sparrow. "

A wistful look crossed her face, and for an instant the youth seemed todroop and fade in her eyes. "Isn't that life?--sparrows for larksalways?"

His sanguine spirit rejected this as she had known that it would. "Lifeis all right, " he replied, "as long as there's a fighting chance left toyou. That is the only thing that makes it worth while, fighting to win. "

She gazed meditatively at the points of flame on the white candles. "Isuppose it would be so with you; for you fit into the age. You are apart of this variable uncertain quantity called democracy, which some ofus old-fashioned folk look upon as a boomerang. "

"Yes, I am a part of it, " he answered slowly. "I see it as it is, Ithink. It is pure buncombe, of course, to say that it hasn't its uglyside; but I believe, if I have a chance, that I can make something ofit. " He paused a moment while he hesitated over the silver beside hisplate; but there was no uncertainty in his voice when he went on again, after deliberately picking up the fork he preferred. It was a littlething to remember a man by--the merest trifle--but she never forgot it. Only a big man could be as natural as that, she reflected. "I reasonedit all out before I went into politics, " he was saying. "I didn't get itout of books either--unless you count the Bible and 'Robinson Crusoe, 'which are the only two I ever read as a boy. But the way I worked it outat last was that democracy, like life, isn't anything that's alreadyfinished. It is raw stuff. We are making it every minute of the time;and it depends on us whether we put it through as a straight job or afailure. Democracy, as I see it, isn't a word or a phrase out of a book, or a formula, or anything that has frozen into a fixed shape or pattern. It is warm and fluid, and it is teeming with living forms. It is as muchalive as the earth or air or water, and it can be used to develop asmany varying energies. That is why it is all so amazingly interesting. As long as you don't fall away from that thought you have your feetplanted on solid ground--you can face things squarely--"

"You preach a kind of political pragmatism, " she said as he paused. 

"Pragmatism? That's a muscular word, but I don't know it. I wonder ifRobinson Crusoe discovered it. "

"If Robinson Crusoe didn't discover it, he lived it, " she rejoinedgaily; and then, as the voice of Mrs. Berkeley was heard purring softlyon Vetch's other side, Corinna turned to the bewhiskered General, whoseonly sense, she had already ascertained, was the historic sense. 

While she leaned back, with her head bent in the direction of his huskyvoice, she was visited by a piercing realization of the emptiness, theartificiality of her life. Futility--weariness--disenchantment--a graylane without a turning that stretched on into nothingness! Many thoughtswere blown through her mind like leaves in a high wind. She saw herselffrom the beginning--striving without rest--searching--searching--forwhat? For happiness--for perfection--for the starry flower that she hadnever found. All was tawdry, all was tarnished, all was unreal. Inlooking back she saw that the festival of her life was an affair oftinselled splendour and glittering dust. Was this only the impression ofVetch on her mood? Did he possess some magic gift of personality whichcaused the artificial, the counterfeit, to wither in his presence?

Conversation was not animated; and while she listened with a smile todreary anecdotes of the War Between the States, she allowed her gaze towander slowly down the table to where Alice Rokeby sat, with her largesoft eyes, so vague and wistful, asking of life, "Why have you passed meby?" Now and then these eyes, which reminded Corinna of the eyes in adream, would turn timidly to John Benham, and then there would stealinto them that strange look of hunger, of desperation. What did it mean?Corinna wondered. Surely there was no truth in the old gossip that shehad heard long ago and forgotten?

John Benham had put a question to the Governor across the table; and hesat now, leaning a little forward, while he waited for an answer. Thelight from the tall white candles, in branched candelabra of the QueenAnne pattern, fell directly on his handsome austere face, so full ofdelicate reserves and fine intentions; and all the disturbing questionsfled from Corinna's mind while she looked at him. Surely, she repeatedto herself, with a triumphant emphasis, surely there was no truth inthat old ugly gossip! The backward sweep of his iron-gray hairaccentuated the height of his forehead, and produced at first sight animpression of intellectual superiority. His nose was long and slightlyaquiline; his mouth firm and clear-cut, with thin lips that closedtightly; his chin jutted a little forward, giving a hatchet-likeseverity to his profile. It was the face of a fair fighter, of a man whocould be trusted absolutely beyond personal limitations, of a man whowould always keep the vision of the end through any enterprise, whowould always put the curb of expediency on emotional impulses, who wouldinvariably judge a theory not by its underlying principle, but by itspractical application. A charming face, too, complex and imaginative, aface which made the rugged and open countenance of the Governor appearprimitive and undeveloped. Corinna admired Benham; she respected him;she liked--was it even possible, she asked herself, that she loved him?Yet here again she was conscious of that baffled feeling of inadequacy, of something wanting, as if an essential faculty of soul had been eitherleft out by Nature, or refined away by the subtle impersonal processesof his mind. 

Clearly there had been an error of judgment in placing him beside Mrs. Stribling. His taste was too fastidious to respond to her palpableallurements. She would have had a better chance with Vetch, for theflippant pleasantry with which Benham responded to the beamingenchantress was clothed in the very tone and look he had used with PattyVetch in the drawing-room. Yes, it was futile to stray too far fromone's type. Rose Stribling had failed to interest Benham, mused Corinna, for the same reason that she herself had been unable to arouse theadmiration of Gideon Vetch. The lesson it taught, she repeatedcynically, was simply that it was futile to stray too far from one'stype. Vetch had talked to her as he might have talked to her father orto the husky warrior on her right; but he had never once looked at her. His attention would be arrested by large, sudden, bright things like therosy curve of Mrs. Stribling's shoulders or the shining ropes of herhair. 

"How absurd it was to imagine that I could compare with that!" thoughtCorinna with amusement. Her sense of defeat was humorous rather thanresentful; yet she realized that it contained a disagreeable sting. Washer long day over at last? Had the sun set on her conquests? Had heradventurous return to power been merely a prelude to the ultimateWaterloo? Lifting her eyes suddenly from her plate she met the deepmeditative gaze of John Benham across the marigolds on the table; andthe faint flush that kindled her face made her eyes glow like embers. Had he read the thought in her mind? Was the tenderness in his glanceonly an ironical comment on the ignominious end of her Hundred Days?

She glanced away quickly, and as she did so she looked straight into theeyes of Alice Rokeby--those eyes that asked perpetually of life, "Whyhave you passed me by?"

CHAPTER VIII

THE WORLD AND PATTY

On the way home, leaning against her father who had not spoken since thecar started, Patty shut her eyes and went over, one by one, theincidents of the dinner. What had she done that was right? What had shedone that was wrong? Was her dress just what it ought to have been? Hadshe talked to Stephen Culpeper about the things people are supposed todiscuss at a dinner? Had he seen how embarrassed she was beneath herpretence of gaiety? Would she be better looking if she were to let herhair grow long again? What had Mrs. Page, who looked as if she hadstepped down from one of those old prints, thought of her?

Beneath the hard brightness of her manner there was a passionate gropingtoward some dimly seen but intensely felt ideal. She longed to learn ifshe could only learn without confessing her ignorance. Her pride was theobstinate, unreasonable pride of a child. 

"If I could only find out things without asking!" The image of Stephenrose in her mind, which worked by flashes of insight rather than orderlyprocesses. She saw his earnest young face, with the sleek dark hair, which swept in a point back from his forehead, his sombre smoke-colouredeyes, and the firm, slightly priggish line of his mouth. He seemed milesaway from her, separated by some imponderable yet impassable barrier. The first time her gaze had rested on him at the charity ball she hadthought impetuously, "Any girl could fall in love with a man like that!"and she had carelessly asked his name of the assiduous Gershom, whoappeared to her to exist in innumerable reflections of himself. The nextday when she had seen Stephen approaching her in the Square, she hadobeyed the same erratic impulse, half in jest and half from thegambler's instinct to grasp at reluctant opportunity. After all, had notexperience taught her that one must venture in order to win, thatnothing came to those who dared not stake the whole of life on the nextturn of fortune? She had been startled out of her composure by the sightof Stephen at the dinner; and yet she had not been conscious of anyparticular wish to see him again, or to sit at his side through twohours of embarrassment and uncertainty. Now, on the way home, she wassuffering acutely from the burden of failure, from the smartingrealization of her own ignorance and awkwardness. Her one bitter-sweetconsolation was the knowledge that she had been "a good loser, " that shehad carried off her humiliation with a scornful pride which must haveblighted like frost any tenderly budding shoots of compassion. "I'llshow them that they mustn't pity me!" she thought, while her eyes blazedin the darkness. "I'll prove to them that I think myself every bit asgood as they are!" She knew that her manner had been ungracious; but sheknew also that something stronger than her will, some instinct which wasrooted deep in the secret places of her nature, had made it impossiblefor her to appear otherwise. Impassioned, undisciplined, and capable offierce imaginative loyalties and aversions, the strongest force in hercharacter was this bitter ineradicable pride. To accept no benefits thatshe could not return; to fall under no obligation that would involve afeeling of gratitude; to pay the piper to the utmost penny whenever shecalled the tune--these were the only laws that she acknowledged. Thoughshe longed ardently for the admiration of Stephen Culpeper, she wouldhave died rather than relinquish the elfin mockery of her challenge. 

"Well, did you enjoy it, Patty?" Her father turned to her with suddentenderness, though the frown produced by some engrossing train ofthought still gathered his heavy brows. 

She caught his hand while her small face relaxed from its expression ofrigid disdain. "I had simply the time of my life, " she responded withconvincing animation. "That Mrs. Page is the most beautiful woman I eversaw--but she can't be very young. I wonder what she was like when shewas my age?"

Vetch laughed. "Not like a short-haired imp with green eyes anyway, " hereplied. "Mrs. Stribling looked very handsome, too, I thought. "

"Oh, she's handsome enough, " admitted Patty. "But she hasn't any sense. I listened to what she was saying, and she just asked questions all thetime. Mrs. Page is different. You can tell that she has been all overthe world. She knows things. "

"Yes, I suppose she does, " said Vetch. "What did you think of Benham?"

"He is good looking, " answered the girl deliberately, "but I don't likehim. He is making fun of you. "

"Is he?" returned Vetch curiously. "Now, I wonder if you're right aboutthat. At any rate he asked me a question to-night that I should like achance to answer on the platform. "

"He was in the army, " said Patty, "and every one says he was a hero. Thewomen were talking about him while you were smoking. They all admire himso. It seems that he went into an officer's training camp as soon as warwas declared though he was over age; and then just recently he has donesomething that every one thinks splendid. He refused a tremendous feefrom some corporation--what did they mean by a corporation?--because hethought the money was made dishonestly. Mrs. Page says he has as manypublic virtues as a civic forum. What is a forum, Father?"

Vetch laughed without replying directly to her question. "Did she saythat?" he responded. "And what did she mean by it, I wonder?"

"It sounded clever, " said Patty, "but I didn't understand. What is aforum, Father?"

Vetch thought a moment. "Mrs. Page would probably tell you, " he replied, "that it is the temple of the improbable. "

Patty stirred impatiently. "Now you are trying to talk like Mrs. Page, "she rejoined. "I wish I knew what things meant. "

"When you find out what they mean, Patty, they will cease to interestyou. "

"Well, I'd rather be less interested and more comfortable, " said Patty, with a trace of exasperation in her voice. "To-night, for instance, Ihadn't the faintest idea how to behave. Look at all those books I'veread, too, when I might just as well have been enjoying myself. I'vefound out to-night, Father, that books can't tell you everything--noteven books on etiquette. "

Vetch broke into a laugh of boisterous amusement. "So that is how youhave been spending your time!" he exclaimed. "You'd better trust to yourcommon sense, my dear; it will carry you straighter. "

"Oh, no, it doesn't. It doesn't carry me anywhere except into trouble. When I think of all the pains I've taken to learn how to talk like thedictionary! Why, nobody talks like the dictionary any longer! They alltalk slang, every one of them--only they don't talk the kind that JuliusGershom and all these politicians do. If you could have seen Mrs. Berkeley's face when I told her I'd had a 'grand' time to-night--shelooked exactly like a frozen fish--though just the moment before Mr. Culpeper had called somebody a 'rotter'. I heard him. "

The Governor dismissed it all with a wave of his hand. "Trifles, trifles, " was his only comment. 

The car had entered the Square, and in a moment it was passing theWashington statue and the Capitol building. Until it stopped before thesteps of the mansion, Patty did not reply; then springing up with aflutter of her scarlet skirt, she exclaimed airily, "But I am a trifle, too, Father!"

As he held out his hand from the ground, Vetch looked at her with anexpression in which pride and pity were strangely mingled. "Then you areone of the trifles that make life worth living, " he replied. 

He had taken out his latch-key and was about to insert it in the lock, when the door opened and Gershom stood before them. 

"I waited for you, " he said to Vetch. "There's a matter I must see youabout to-night. " His ruddy face was tinged with purple, and he had thelook of a man who has just been aroused from a nap. 

"Well, I'm sleepy, and I'm going to bed, " retorted Patty in reply to hisglance rather than his words, and her tone was bitterly hostile. 

"Then I'll see you to-morrow. " He had followed her into the wide hallwhile the Governor closed the door and stopped to take off his overcoat. "Did you have a good time?"

She responded with a disdainful movement of her shoulders which mighthave been a shrug if she had had French instead of Irish blood in herveins. In her evening cloak of green velvet trimmed with gray fox shehad the look of a small wild creature of the forest. Beneath her thickeyelashes her eyes shone through a greenish mist; and at the momentthere was something frightened and furtive in their brightness. 

"Of course, " she replied defiantly, moving away from him in thedirection of the staircase. "I had a wonderful time--perfectlywonderful. The people were all so interesting. " Her pronunciation was asdeliberately correct as if she were reading from a dictionary. It wasthe air of superiority that she always assumed with Gershom, for in noother way, she had learned from experience, could she irritate him sointensely. 

His jovial manner gave place to a crestfallen look. "Who was there? Ireckon I know the names anyway. "

He affected a true republican scorn of appearances; and standing there, in his dishevelled business clothes beside Patty's ethereal youth, helooked as hopelessly battered by reality as a political theory, or asold General Powhatan Plummer of aristocratic descent. 

Patty had often wondered what it was about the man that aroused in herso unconquerable an aversion. He was not ugly compared to many of themen her father had brought to the house; and ten years ago, when shefirst met him in the little country town where they were living, hiscurling black hair and sharp black eyes had seemed to her ratherattractive than otherwise. If he had been merely untidy and unashamed indress, she might have tolerated the failing as the outward sign of adistinguished social philosophy; but, even in those early days, hisJeffersonian simplicity had yielded to an outbreak of vanity. Though hisclothes were unbrushed and his boots were unpolished, he wore asparkling pin in his tie and several sparkling rings on his fingers. There was something else, too, some easy tone of patronage, somefamiliar inflexion, which as a child she had hated. Now, after theevening with Stephen Culpeper, she shrank from him with a disgust whichwas made all the keener by contrast. A pitiless light had fallen overGershom while he stood there beside her, as if his bad taste and hispathetic ambition to appear something that he was not, had becomeexaggerated into positive vices. She was too young to perceive theessential pathos of all wasted effort, of all misdirected attempts toovercome the disadvantages of ignorance; and while she looked at himnow, she saw only the vulgarity. Like all those who have suffered frominsufficient opportunities and wounded pride, Patty Vetch was withoutmercy for the very weaknesses that she had risen above. After theevening at the Berkeleys' she felt that she should be less ashamed of adrunkard than of a man who wore diamonds because he thought that it wasthe correct thing to do. She remembered suddenly that on her fourteenthbirthday she had bought a pair of paste earrings with ten dollars herfather had given her; and for the sting of this reminder she knew thatshe should never forgive Gershom. Oh, she had no patience with a man whocouldn't find out things and learn without asking questions! Hadn't shetried and tried, and made mistakes and tried again, and still gone ontrying by hook or by crook; as her father would say, to find out thethousand and one things she oughtn't to do? If she, even as a child, hadstruggled so hard to improve herself and change in the right way, notthe wrong way--then why shouldn't he? Her father, of course, wasn'tpolished, but he was as unlike Gershom as if they had been born as farapart as the poles. Even to her untrained eyes it was evident that Vetchpossessed the authority of personality--a sanction that was not socialbut moral. Some inherent dislike for anything that was not solid, thatwas not genuine, had served Vetch as a kind of aesthetic discrimination. 

"I know Benham, " Gershom was saying eagerly. "I've worked with him. Smart chap, don't you think? Ever heard him speak?"

"No, I hate speeches. "

"Did he and the Governor have any words?"

"Of course they didn't--not at dinner, " she replied with a crushingmanner. "Father is waiting for you. "

"Then you'll see me to-morrow? I've got a lot I want to say to you. AndI'll tell you this right now, Patty, my dear, you may run round withthese high-faluting chaps like Culpeper as much as you please; but howmany dinner parties do you think you'd be invited to if I hadn't put theold man where he is?"

At this she turned on him furiously, her eyes blazing through theirgreenish mist. "I don't owe you anything, and you know it!" she retorteddefiantly. Then before he could detain her she broke away from him andran up the stairs. How dared he pretend that he had placed her under anobligation! As if it made any difference to her whether her father wereGovernor or not!

As she fled upward she heard Gershom follow Vetch into the library, andshe knew that they would sit talking there until long after midnight. These discussions had become frequent of late; and she surmised vaguely, though Vetch never mentioned Gershom's name to her, that the two menwere no longer upon the friendly terms of the old days. Ever sinceVetch's election, it had seemed to her that the pack of hungrypoliticians had closed in about him; and only the day before, when shehad gone over to the Governor's office in the Capitol building, she hadrun away from what she merrily described as "the famished wolves"waiting outside his door. It was clear even to her that the politicalleaders who had supported Vetch were beginning already to distrust him. They had sought, she realized, to use his popularity, his eloquence, hisearnestness, for their own ends; and they were making the historicdiscovery that the man who possesses these affirmative qualities isseldom without the will to preserve them. In their superficial ploughingof the soil, Vetch's adherents had at last struck against the rock ofresistance. A man of ambition, or a man of prejudice, they might havecontrolled; but, as Patty had learned long ago, Vetch was that mostdifficult of political problems--the man of an idea. 

Sitting before her dressing-table she glanced over the room, which washung with the gaily decorated chintz she had bought after months ofsecret longing for roses and hollyhocks in her bedroom. Now she feltthat it looked cheap and flimsy because she had sacrificed material tocolour. She wanted something different to-night; she wanted somethingbetter. Turning to the mirror she gazed back at her vivid face, with thelarge deep eyes, so full of poignant expectancy, and the soft dimpledchin. From her expression she might have been dreaming of happiness; butthe thought in her mind was simply, "The powder I use is too white. Those women to-night used powder that did not show. I must get someto-morrow. " She was pretty, --even Stephen thought she was pretty. Shecould see it in his eyes when he looked at her; but her prettiness wasmerely the bloom of youth, nothing more. It was not that changelessbeauty of structure--that beauty, as she recognized, of the very bone, which made Mrs. Page perennially lovely. "In ten, fifteen, at the mostin twenty years, I shall have lost it all, " she thought. "Then I shallget fat and common looking; and everything will be over for me because alittle youthful colour and sparkle was all that I had. I have nothing tohold on to--nothing that will last. I don't know anything--and yet howcould I be expected to know anything after the dull life I've had? In mywhole life I've never known a woman that could help me. I've had to findout everything for myself--"

With her gaze still on the mirror, she laid the brush on its back ofpink celluloid--how much she had admired it when she bought it!--andleaned forward with her hands clasped on the cover of thedressing-table. Her hair still flying out from the strokes of the brushsurrounded her small eager face like a cloud. From the open neck of herkimono, embroidered in a pattern of cranes and wistaria, the thingirlish lines of her throat rose with an appealing fragility, like thestem of some delicate flower. 

"I wonder if Mother could have helped me if she had lived?" she askedpresently of her reflection. "I wonder if she was different from all theother women I've known?" Through her mind there passed swiftly a hundredmemories of her childhood. First there came the one vivid recollectionof her mother, a flashing, graceful figure, as light as thistle-down, ina skirt of spangled tulle that stood out from her knees. The face Pattycould not remember, but the spangles were indelibly impressed on hermind, the spangles and a short silver wand, with a star on the end ofit, which that fairy-like figure had held over her cradle. Of her motherthis was all she had left, just this one unforgettable picture, and thena long terrible night when she had not seen her, but had heard hersobbing, sobbing, sobbing, somewhere in the darkness. The next day, whenshe cried for her, they had said that she was gone, and the child hadnever seen her again. In the place of her pretty mother there had been abig, rugged man, whom she had never seen before, and when she cried thisman had taken her in his arms, and tried to quiet her. Afterward, whenshe grew bigger and asked questions, one of the neighbours had told herthat her mother had lost her mind from a fall in the circus, that theyhad taken her away to an asylum, and that now she was dead. 

"And wherever she is, she ought to go down on her knees and thankGideon Vetch for the way he's looked after you, " said the woman. 

"But didn't he look after her too?" asked the child. 

At this the woman laughed shrilly, lifting the soaking clothes with hercapable red hands, and then plunging them down into the soapsuds. "Well, I reckon that's more than the Lord Almighty would expect of him!"she replied emphatically but ambiguously. 

"I wonder why Father never took me to see her. I'm sure I'd haveremembered it. "

The woman looked at her darkly. "There are some places that childrendon't go to. "

"How long ago did she die?"

Patty waited patiently for an answer; but when at last the neighbourraised her head again from the tub, it appeared that her reticence hadextended from her speech to her expression which looked as if it hadclosed over something. "You'll have to ask your father that, " shereturned in a phrase as cryptic as the preceding one. "I ain't here totell you things. "

After this the child set her lips firmly together, and asked no morequestions. Her father had become not one parent, but both to her; and itseemed that whereever she looked he was always there, overshadowing likea mountain everything else on her horizon. In the beginning they hadbeen very poor; but he had never let her suffer for things, although forweeks at a time she knew that he had gone without his tobacco in orderto buy her toys. Until she went to the little village school, she hadalways had an old woman to look after her, and later on, when theircircumstances appeared miraculously to improve, he employed the slim, gray, uninteresting spinster who slept now a few doors away from her. There were hours when it seemed to her that she had never learned themeaning of tediousness until the plain but hopeful Miss Spencer came tolive with her. 

Rising from her chair, she moved away from the mirror, and wanderedrestlessly to the pile of fashion magazines and festively decorated"books on etiquette" that littered the table beside the chintz-coveredcouch. "They don't know everything!" she thought contemptuously. Howhard she had tried to learn, and yet how confused, how hopeless, it allseemed to her to-night! All the hours that she had spent in futile studyappeared to her wasted! At her first dinner she had felt as bewilderedand unhappy as if she had never opened one of those thick gaudy volumesthat had cost so much--as much as a box of chocolates every day for aweek. "I don't care, " she said aloud, with sullen resolution. "I amgoing to let them see that I don't want any favours. "

The next afternoon she went out early in order to escape Gershom; butwhen she came in, after a restless wandering in shops and a short drive, she met him just as he was turning away from the door. 

"Something told me I'd find you at this hour, " he remarked withunfailing good humour. "Come out and walk about in the Square. It willdo you good. "

She shook her head impatiently. "I'm tired. I don't like walking. "

"Well, I reckon it's easier to sit anyway. We'll go inside. "

"No, if I've got to talk to you I'd rather do it out of doors, " shereplied, turning back toward the gate. 

"That's right. The air's fine. I shouldn't wonder if the bad weatherain't all over. "

"I don't mind the bad weather, " she retorted pettishly because it wasthe only remark she could think of that sounded disagreeable. 

They passed through the gate, and walked rapidly in the direction of theWashington monument, which lifted a splendid silhouette against a deepblue background of sky. It was one of those soft, opal-tinted Februarydays which fall like a lyric interlude in the gray procession of winter. The sunshine lay like flowing gold on the pavement; and the breeze thatstirred now and then in the leafless boughs of the trees was as rovingand provocative as the air of spring. In the winding brick walks of theSquare children were at play with the squirrels and pigeons; and oldmen, with gnarled hands and patient hopeless faces, sat warmingthemselves in the sunshine on the benches. "Life!" she thought. "That'slife. You can't get away from it. " Then one of the old men broke into acackle of cheerful laughter, and she added: "After all nobody is everpathetic to himself. "

"I believe I'll go in, " she said, turning to Gershom. "I want to takeoff my hat. "

He laughed. "Your hat's all right, ain't it? It looks pretty good tome. "

A shiver of aversion ran through her. If only he wouldn't try to befunny! If only he had been born without that dreadful sense of humour, she felt that she might have been able to tolerate him. 

"Please don't, " she replied fretfully. 

"Well, I won't, if you'll walk a little slower. I told you I hadsomething to say to you. "

"I don't want to hear it. There's no use talking about it. I'll say thesame thing if you ask me for a hundred years. "

A chuckle broke from him while he stood jauntily fingering the diamondin his tie, as if it were some talisman which imparted fresh confidence. Oh, it was useless to try to put a man like that in his place--for hisplace seemed to be everywhere!

"Well, it won't do any harm, " he said at last. "As long as I like tolisten to it. "

"I wish you would leave me alone. "

"But suppose I can't?" He was still chaffing. He would continue tochaff, she was convinced, if he were dying. "Suppose I ain't made thatway?"

"I don't care how you're made. You may talk to Father if you like; butI'm going upstairs to take off my hat. "

His chuckle swelled into a roar of laughter. "Talk to Father! Haven't Ibeen talking to Father over at the Capitol for the last three hours?"

They had reached the gate beyond the monument, and swinging suddenlyround, she started back toward the house. As she passed him he touchedthe end of her fur stole with a gesture that was almost imperative. Hiseyes had dropped their veil of pleasantry, and she was aware, with atroubled mind, that he was holding back something as a last resource ifshe continued to prove intractable. Again and again she had this feelingwhen she was with him--an uneasy intuition that his good humour was notentirely unassumed, that he was concealing a dangerous weapon beneathhis offensive familiarity. 

"After all I may be going to surprise you, " he said lightly enough, yetwith this disturbing implication of some meaning that she could notdiscern. "What if I tell you that I've no intention of making love toyou?"

"You mean there is something else you want to see me about?" Shebreathed a sigh of relief, and her light steps fell gradually into themeasure of his. Her conscience pricked her unpleasantly when sheremembered that there had been a time when she would have spoken lesscurtly. Well, what of that? It was characteristic of her energetic mindthat past mistakes were dismissed as soon as they were discovered. Whenone started out in life knowing nothing, one had to learn as best onecould, that was all! Every day was a new one, so why bother aboutyesterday? There was trouble enough in the world as it was, withoutdragging back what was over. 

"Please tell me what it is, " she said impatiently. 

He looked at her with curious intentness. "It is about an aunt ofyours--Mrs. Green. I met her when I was in California. "

Her surprise was so complete that he must have been gratified. 

"An aunt of mine? I haven't any aunt. "

For a minute he hesitated. Now that he had come to practical matters hiscareless jocularity had given place to a manner of serious deliberation. "Then your father hasn't told you?" he asked. 

"Is she his sister?" Her distrust of Gershom was so strong that shecould not bring herself to a direct reply. 

"So he hasn't?" After all she might as well have answered his question. "No, she isn't his sister. " His smile was full of meaning. 

"Then she must be"--there was a change in her voice which he was quickto detect--"she must be the sister of my mother. "

"Didn't you know that she had one?" he enquired. "Don't you rememberseeing her when you were a child?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't remember her, and Father has neverspoken of her. "

At this he glanced at her sharply, and then looked away over the tops ofthe trees to the political mausoleum of the City Hall. "We take that asa sort of joke now, " he remarked irrelevantly, "but the time was--andnot so long ago either--when we boasted of it more than of the Leemonument. Cost a lot too, they say! Queer, ain't it, the way we spend amillion dollars or more on a thing one year, and the next want to kickit out on the junk heap? I reckon it's the same way about behaviour too. It ain't so much what you do as the time you do it in that seems to makethe difference. " As she showed no inclination to follow this train ofmoralizing, he asked suddenly, "Do you remember your mother?"

"Only once. I remember seeing her once. " He had not imagined that hervoice could become so gentle. 

"Did they ever tell you what became of her?"

"Yes, I know that. She lost her mind. They told me that she died in theasylum. "

He was still watching her closely, as if he were observing the effect onher nerves of each word he uttered. "Did they tell you the cause of it?"

She shook her head. "That was all they ever told me. "

"You mean your father never mentioned it to you? Are you sure he neverspoke of Mrs. Green?"

"I shouldn't have forgotten. But, if she is my mother's sister, why hasshe never written to me?"

"Ah, that's just it! She was afraid your father wouldn't like it. Therewas a difference of some kind. I don't know what it was about--but theydidn't get on--and--and--"

"I am sure Father was right. He is always right, " she said loyally. 

"Well, he may have been. I'm not denying that; but it's an old storynow, and I wouldn't bring it up again, if I were you. He has enoughthings to carry without that. "

She hesitated a moment before replying. "Yes, I suppose it's better notto speak of it. He has too many worries. "

"I knew you'd see it that way; you're a girl of sense. And if Mrs. Greenshould ever come here, must I tell her that you would like to see her?"

"Does she think of coming here? California is so far away. "

"Well, people do come, don't they? And I know she'd like to see you. Shewas very fond of your mother. I used to know both of 'em in the old dayswhen I was a boy. "

"Of course I'd like to see her if she could tell me about my mother. Iwant to ask questions about her--only it makes Father so unhappy when Ibring up the past. "

"It would, I reckon. Things like that are better forgotten. " Then, dismissing the subject abruptly, he remarked in the old tone offacetious familiarity, "I never saw you looking better. What have youdone to yourself? You are always imitating some new person every time Isee you. "

"I am not!" Her temper flashed out. "I never imitate anybody. " Yet, evenas she passionately denied the charge, she knew that it was true. For aweek, ever since her first visit to the old print shop, she had tried tocopy Corinna's voice, the carriage of her head, her smile, her gestures. 

"Well, you needn't, " he assured her with admiring pleasantry. "As far aslooks go--and that's a long way--I haven't seen any one that was betterthan you!"

CHAPTER IX

SEPTEMBER ROSES

The afternoon sunshine streamed through the dull gold curtains into theold print shop where Corinna sat in her tapestry-covered chair betweenthe tea-table and the log fire. She was alone for the moment; and lyingback in the warmth and fragrance of the room, she let her gaze restlovingly on one of the English mezzotints over which a stray sunbeamquivered. The flames made a pleasant whispering sound over the cedarlogs; her favourite wide-open creamy roses with golden hearts scentedthe air; and the delicate China tea in her cup was drawn to perfection. As she lay back in the big chair but one thing disturbed herserenity--and that one thing was within. She had everything that shewanted, and for the hour, at least, she was tired of it all. The moodwas transient, she knew. It would pass because it was alien to the clearbracing air of her mind; but while it lasted she told herself that thepresent had palled on her because she had looked beneath the vividsurface of illusion to the bare structure of life. Men had ceased tointerest her because she knew them too well. She knew by heart the verymachinery of their existence, the secret mental springs which moved themso mechanically; and she felt to-day that if they had been watches, shecould have taken them apart and put them together again withoutsuspending for a minute the monotonous regularity of their works. EvenGideon Vetch, who might have held a surprise for her, had differed fromthe rest in one thing only: he had not seen that she was beautiful! Andit wasn't that she was breaking. To-day because of her mood ofdepression, she appeared drooping and faded; but that night, a week ago, in her velvet gown and her pearls, she had looked as handsome as ever. The truth was simply that Vetch had glanced at her without seeing her, as he might have glanced at the gilded sheaves of wheat on a pictureframe. He had been so profoundly absorbed in his own ideas that she hadbeen nothing more individual than one of an audience. If he were to meether in the street he would probably not recognize her. And this was aman who had never before seen a woman whose beauty had passed intohistory, a man who had risen to his place through what the Judge haddescribed with charitable euphemism, as "unusual methods. " "The odd partabout Vetch, " the Judge had added meditatively on the drive home, "isthat he doesn't attempt to disguise the kind of thing that we of the oldschool would call--well, to say the least--extraordinary. He is asoutspoken as Mirabeau. I can't make it out. It may be, of course, thathe has a better reading of human nature than we have, and that he knowssuch gestures catch the eye, like long hair or a red necktie. It is verymuch as if he said--'Yes, I'll steal if I'm driven to it, but--confoundit!--I won't lie!'"

After all, the sting to her vanity had been too slight to leave animpression. There must be another cause for the shadow that had fallenover her spirits. Even a reigning beauty of thirty years could scarcelyexpect to be invincible; and she had known too much homage in the pastto resent what was obviously a lack of discrimination. Herdisappointment went deeper than this, for it had its source in thestories she had heard of Vetch that sounded original and dramatic. Shehad imagined a personality that was striking, spectacular, or at leastinteresting; and the actual Gideon Vetch had seemed to her merelyunimpressive and ordinary. Beside John Benham (as the thought of Benhamreturned to her, her spirit rose on wings out of the shadow), besideJohn Benham, in the drawing-room after dinner, Vetch had appeared at adisadvantage that was almost ridiculous; and, as Stephen Culpeper hadhastened to point out, this was merely a striking illustration of thedamning contrast between the Governor's chequered political career andBenham's stainless record of service. 

A smile curved her lips as she gazed at the quivering sunbeams. Was thatdeep instinct for perfection, the romantic vision of things as theyought to be, awaking again? Did the starry flower bloom not in thedream, but in reality? The passion to create beauty, to bring happiness, which had been extinguished for years, burned afresh in her heart. Yes, as long as there was beauty, as long as there was nobility of spirit, she could fight on as one who believed in the future. 

A shadow darkened the window, and a moment afterward there was a fall ofthe old silver knocker on her door. She thought at first--the shadow hadseemed so young--that it was Stephen; but when she opened the door, shesaw, with a lovely flush, that it was John Benham. 

"You expected me?" he asked, raising her hand to his lips. 

"Yes, I knew that you would come, " she answered, and the flush diedaway slowly as she turned back to the fire. In the moment of recognitionall the despondency had vanished so utterly that it had not left even amemory. He had brought not only peace, but youth and happiness back toher eyes. 

He came in as impressively as he presented himself to an audience; andwith the glow of pleasure still in her heart, she found her keen andobservant mind watching him almost as if he were a stranger. This hadbeen her misfortune always, the ardent heart joined to the criticaljudgment, the spectator chained eternally to the protagonist. Shereceived a swift impression that he had prepared his words and even hisgestures, the kiss on her fingers. Yet, in spite of this suggestion ofthe actor, or because of it, he possessed, she felt, great distinction. The straight backward sweep of his hair; the sharp clearness of hisprofile; the steady serenity of his gray eyes; the ease and supplenessand indolent strength of his tall thin figure--all these physicaldetails expressed the reserves and inhibitions of generations. The onlyflaw that she could detect was that dryness of soul that she had noticedbefore, as of soil that has been too heavily drained. She knew that heexcelled in all the virtues that are monumental and public, that he wasan honourable opponent, a scrupulous defender of established rules andprecedents. He would always reach the goal, but his race would nevercarry him beyond the end of the course; he would always fulfil the law, but he would never give more than the exact measure; he would alwaysfight for the risen Christ, but he would never have followed the humblebearer of the Cross. His strength and weakness were the kind which hadprofoundly influenced her life. He represented in her world theconservative principle, the accepted standard, the acknowledgedauthority, custom, stability, reason, and moderation. 

As he sat down in front of the fire, he looked at her with a gentlepossessive gaze. 

"Of course you have never sold a print, " he remarked in a laughing tone, and she responded as flippantly. 

"Of course!"

"Why didn't you call it a collection?"

"Because people wouldn't come. "

"Then why didn't you keep them at home where you have so much that isfine?"

She laughed. "Because people couldn't come. I mean the people I don'tknow. I have a fancy for the people I have never met. "

"On the principle that the unknown is the desirable. "

She nodded. "And that the desirable is the unattainable. "

His gray eyes were warmed by a fugitive glow. "I shouldn't have put itthat way in your case. You appear to have everything. "

"Do I? Well, that twists the sentence backward. Shall we say that theattainable is the undesirable?"

"Surely not. Can you have ceased already to desire these lovely things?Could that piece of tapestry lose its charm for you, or that Spanishdesk, or those English prints, or the old morocco of that binding? Doyou feel that the colours in that brocade at your back could ever becomemeaningless?"

"I am not sure. Wouldn't it be possible to look at it while you wereseeing something else, something so drab that it would take the colourout of all beauty?" She was looking at him over the tea-table, and whileshe asked the question she raised a lump of sugar in the quaint oldsugar tongs she had brought home from Florence. 

He shook his head. "I am denied sugar. Has it ever occurred to you thatmiddle age ought to be called the age of denial?" Then his tone changed. "But I wonder if you begin to realize how fortunate you are? You havethe collector's instinct and the means to gratify it. To discover withyou is to possess--don't you understand the blessing of that? You lovebeauty as a favoured daughter, not as one of the disinherited who canonly peer through the windows of her palace. "

"But you also--you love beauty as I do. "

"But I can't own it--not as you do. " He was speaking frankly. "I haven'tthe means. At least what I have I have made myself, and therefore Iguard it more carefully. It is only those who have once been poor whoare really under the curse of money, for that curse is the inability tounderstand that money is less valuable than anything else on earth thatyou happen to need or desire. Now to me the most terrible thing on earthis not to be without beauty, but to be without money--"

She smiled. "You are talking like Gideon Vetch. "

He caught at the name quickly. "Like Gideon Vetch? You mean that I soundignoble?"

The laughter in his eyes made him look almost boyish, and she felt thatshe had come suddenly close to him. After all he was very attractive. 

"Is he ignoble?" she asked. "I have seen him only once, and that was atthe dinner a week ago. "

He looked at her intently. "I should like to know what you think. "

"I hardly know--but--well, I must confess that I was disappointed. "

"You expected something better?"

She hesitated over her answer. "I expected something different. Isuppose I looked for the dash of purple--or at least of red--in hisappearance. "

"And he seemed ordinary?"

"In a way--yes. His features are not striking, and yet when he talks toyou and gets interested in his own ideas, he sheds a kind of warmth thatis like magnetism. I couldn't analyse it, but it is there. "

"That, I suppose, is the charm of which they talk. Warmth, or perhapsheat, is a better word for it. Fortunately I'm proof against it becauseof what you might call an asbestos temperament; but I've seen it catchfire in a crowd, and it sweeps over an audience like a blaze over aprairie. It is a cheap kind of oratory; yet it is a power inunscrupulous hands--and Vetch is unscrupulous. "

"You believe that?"

"I know it. It has been proved again and again that he will stoop to anymeans in order to advance his ideas, which mean of course his ambition. Oh, I'm not denying that in the main he is sincere, that he believes inhis phrases. As a matter of fact one has only to look at hisappointments, those that he is able to make by his own authority! Thereisn't a doubt in the world that he deliberately sold his office inexchange for his election--"

So this was one honest man's view of Gideon Vetch! John Benham believedthis accusation, for some infallible intuition told her that Benhamwould never have repeated it, even as a rumour, if he had not believedit. Her father's genial defence of the Governor; his ironicaristocratic sympathy with the radical point of view appearedsuperficial and unconvincing beside Benham's moral repudiation. And yetwhat after all was the simple truth about Gideon Vetch? What was thetrue colour of that variable personality, which appeared to shift andalter according to the temperament or the convictions of each observer?She had never known two men who agreed about Vetch, except perhapsBenham and his disciple, Stephen Culpeper. Each man saw Vetchdifferently, and was this because each man saw in the great demagogueonly the particular virtue or vice for which he was looking, thereflection of personal preferences or aversions? It seemed to hersuddenly that the Governor, whom she had thought commonplace, towered animmense vague figure in a cloud of misinterpretation andmisunderstanding. His followers believed in him; his opponentsdistrusted him; but was this not true of every political leader sincethe beginning of politics? The power to inspire equally devotion andhatred had been throughout history the authentic sign of the saviour andof the destroyer. Her curiosity, which had waned, flared up morestrongly than ever. 

"I should like to know, " she said aloud, "what he is truthfully?"

Benham laughed as he rose to go. "Do you think he can be anythingtruthfully?"

"Oh, yes, even if it is only a demagogue. "

"Only a demagogue! My dear Corinna, the demagogue is the one everlastingand unalterable American institution. He is the idol of the Senatechamber; the power behind the Constitution. "

"But what does he really stand for--Vetch, I mean?"

"Ask him. He would enjoy telling you. "

"Would he enjoy telling me the truth?"

With the laughter still in his eyes Benham drew nearer and stood lookingdown on her. "Oh, I don't mean that he is pure humbug. I haven't adoubt, as I told you, that he believes, sufficiently at least forelection purposes, in the fallacies that he advocates, even in the oldage pension, the minimum, or more accurately, the maximum wage, and ofcourse in what doesn't sound so Utopian since we have experimented withit, that favourite dogma of the near-Socialists, the Governmentownership of railroads. His main theory, however, appears to be somefar-fetched abstraction which he calls the humanizing ofindustry--you've heard that before! Mere bombast, you see, but the kindof thing that is dangerous in a crowd. It is the catchpenny politicsthat has been the curse of our country. "

"And of course he is not a gentleman. " Corinna's voice was regretful. "Imay be old-fashioned, but I can't help feeling that the Governor oughtto be a gentleman. That sounds like General Plummer, I know, " sheconcluded apologetically. 

"The archaic cult of the gentleman? Well, I like to think that inVirginia it still has a few obscure followers. It is a prejudice that Idare to admit only when I am not on the platform, for the belief in thegentleman has become a kind of underground religion, like the worship inthe Catacombs. "

Her eyes had grown wistful when she answered: "It is the price we payfor democracy. "

"The price we pay is the reign of social justice in theory, and inpractice the rule of the Gideon Vetches of history. Oh, I admit that itmay all work out in the end! That is my political creed, you know--thateverything and anything may work out in the end. If I stood simply fortradition without progress, I should long ago have been driven to thewall. "

"I feel as you do, " she said after a moment, "and yet I am curious tosee what will become of our experimental Governor. "

"And I also. The man may have executive ability, and it is possible thathe may give us an efficient administration. But, of course, it is merelya stepping-stone for his inordinate greed for power. His vanity has beeninflamed by success, and he sees the Senate, it may be even thePresidency, ahead of him. "

Though she smiled there was a note of earnestness in her voice. "Well, why not? There was once a rail splitter--"

"Oh, I know. But the rail splitter was born a president; and it is a farcry to a circus rider who was not born even a gentleman. "

"Perhaps. Yet, right or wrong, hasn't the war stretched a little thesafety net of our democracy? Isn't it just possible to-day that we mightfind a circus rider who was born a president too?" Then before he couldtoss back her questions she asked quickly, "After all, he didn'tactually ride, did he?"

Benham shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he had acquired in France. "I've heard so, but I don't know. They tell queer tales of his earlyyears. That was before the golden age of the movies, you see; and Isuspect that the movies rather than the war introduced the mock heroicinto politics. "

He was still standing at her side, looking down into her upraised eyes, which made him think of brown velvet. For a long pause after speaking heremained silent, drinking in the fragrance of the room, the whisperingof the flames, and the dreamy loveliness of Corinna's expression. Achange had come over her face. In the flushed light she looked young andelusive; and it seemed to him that, beneath the glowing tissue of flesh, he gazed upon an indestructible beauty of spirit. 

"Do you know what I was thinking?" he asked presently. "I was thinkingthat I'd known all this before--that I'd been waiting for it always--thefirelight on these splendid colours, the smell of the roses, the soundof the flames, and the way you looked up at me with that memory in youreyes. 'I have been here before'. "

A quiver as faint as the shadow of a flower crossed her face. "Yes, Iremember. It is an odd feeling. I suppose every one has felt it attimes--only each one of us likes to think that he is the particularinstance. "

"It is trite, I know, " he said with a smile, "but feeling is never veryoriginal, is it? Only thought is new. "

"But I would rather have feeling, wouldn't you?" she asked in a lowvoice, and sat waiting in a lovely attitude, prepared without andwithin, for the moment that was approaching. There was no excitement insuch things now, she had had too much experience; but there was anunending interest. 

"Then it isn't too late?" he asked quickly; and again after a pause inwhich she did not answer: "Corinna, is it too late?"

For a minute longer she looked up at him in silence. The glow was stillin her eyes; the smile was still on her lips; and it seemed to him thatshe was wrapped in some enchantment which wrought not in actual life butin allegory--that the light in which she moved belonged less to earththan to Botticelli's springtime. Was romance, after all, he thoughtsharply, the only reality? Could one never escape it?

While he looked down on her she had stirred, as if she were awaking froma dream, or a memory, and stretched out her hand. 

"Is it ever too late, " she responded, "as long as there is any happinessleft in the world?"

She smiled as she answered him; but suddenly her smile faded and thatfaint shadow passed again over her face. In the very moment when he hadbent toward her, there had drifted before her gaze the soft anxious eyesof Alice Rokeby, and the look in them as they followed John Benham thatevening a week ago. 

"Oh, my dear, " said Benham softly. Then his voice broke and he drew backhurriedly, for a figure had darkened the low window, and a minuteafterward the door opened and Patty Vetch entered the room. 

"The latch was not fastened, so I came in, " she began, and stopped asher look fell on Benham. "I--I hope you don't mind, " she added inconfusion. 

CHAPTER X

PATTY AND CORINNA

Patty had come straight to Corinna after a conversation with Stephen. She needed sympathy, and she had meant to be frank and confiding; butwhen Benham left them alone in the lovely room, which made her feel asif she had stepped into one of the stained glass windows in the oldchurch she attended, her courage failed, and she forgot all theimpulsive words she had learned by heart in the street. 

"I am so glad, " said Corinna sweetly. "I went to see you after luncheonto-day, and I was very much disappointed not to find you at home. "

"That was why I came, " answered Patty. "Your card was there when I gotin, and I couldn't bear missing you. "

"That was right, dear. It was what I hoped you would do. "

Turning back to the fire, Corinna stooped and flung a fresh log on theFlorentine andirons. Then, without glancing at the girl, she sat down inone of the deep chairs by the hearth, and motioned invitingly to a placeat her side. She was determined to win Patty's heart, and she wanted tobe near enough to reach out her hand when the right moment came. Thatmoment had not come yet, and she knew it, for she was wise fromexperience. There was time enough, and she felt no impulse to hastendevelopments. She was strongly attracted, and since her sympathy waseasily stirred, she wished, without any great desire, to help the girlif she could. The only way, she realized, was to watch and hope, to playthe waiting game as far as this was possible to her active nature. For, above all things, Corinna hated to wait; and this potent energy of soul, this vital flame, had given the look of winged radiance to her eyes. 

"You are always so happy, " said Patty breathlessly, as she leanedforward and held out her hands to Corinna as if she were the fire. "Everything about you seems to give out joy every minute. "

"You dear!" murmured Corinna softly, for admiration was to her naturewhat sunshine is to a flower. "I am happy to-day--happy as I thought Ishould never be again. I am so happy that I should like to take thewhole world to my heart and heal its misery. " Then she added hastilybefore the girl could reply: "You came just at the right moment. I havewanted a talk with you, and there couldn't be a better opportunity thanthis. The other night I tried to join you after dinner; but Mrs. Berkeley got all the women together, and I didn't have a chance to speaka word to you alone. You looked charming in that scarlet dress. Yourhead is shaped so prettily that I think you are wise to cut your hair. It makes you look like a page of the Italian Renaissance. "

"Do you really like it?" asked Patty, and her voice trembled withpleasure. "Father hates it, but men never know. "

Corinna laughed. "Not much more about fashions than they know aboutwomen. "

"And that isn't anything, is it?"

"Well, perhaps they'll learn some day--by the time I am dead and you areold. You look so young, you can't be over eighteen. "

"I'll be nineteen next summer--at least I think I shall, for nobodyknows exactly when my birthday comes. "

"Not even your father?"

"No, he guesses it's in June, but he isn't perfectly sure, and he hasn'tany idea what day of the month it is. He gives me a birthday giftwhenever he happens to think of it. "

For a minute Corinna gazed thoughtfully into the fire. "It is queer thethings men can't remember, " she said at last. "Now, my father alwaysforgets, or pretends to, that I've ever been married. "

"Then I needn't be so surprised, " rejoined Patty brightly, "when mineforgets that I ever was born!"

"Oh, he doesn't forget it really, my dear. He adores you. "

"He is an angel to me, " answered the girl with passionate loyalty. "I'venever had any one else, you know, and he has been simply everything. Only I do wish he wouldn't have that tiresome Miss Spencer to live withus. "

"But you ought to have some one with you. "

"Not some one like that. She doesn't know as much as I do; but Fatherthinks she is all right because she lets her hair turn gray and wearslong dresses. "

Corinna's laugh was like music. "It takes more than that to make avirtuous mind!" she exclaimed, but she was not thinking of Miss Spencer. 

"Do you know, " said Patty, leaning forward and speaking with theearnestness of a child, "I doubt if Father ever looked at a well-dressedwoman until he met you. "

Was it natural ingenuousness, or did the girl have a deeper motive? Foran instant Corinna wondered; then she returned merrily: "Certainly hewouldn't look at me when Mrs. Stribling is near. "

"Yes, he admires Mrs. Stribling very much, " replied Patty gravely, "butI don't. She isn't a bit real. "

Corinna's gaze softened until it swept the girl's face like a caress. "Ihope you won't mind my calling you Patty, " she responded irrelevantly. "It is so hard to say Miss Vetch, for I can see that we are going to befriends. "

"Oh, if you will!" cried Patty breathlessly, and she added eagerly, "Ihave never had a real friend, you know, and you are so beautiful. Youare more beautiful than anybody I ever saw on the stage. "

"Or in the movies?" Corinna's voice was mirthful, but there was a deeptenderness in her eyes. Was the girl as shallow as she appeared, or wasthere, beneath her vivid enamel-like surface, some rich plasticsubstance of character? Was she worth helping, worth the generousfriendship that Corinna could give, or was she merely a bit of humandriftwood that would burn out presently in the thin flame of sometransient passion? "I'll take the risk, " thought Corinna. "A risk isworth taking, " for there was sporting blood in her veins. While she satthere in silence, listening to the artless unfolding of the girl'sthoughts, she appeared to be searching for the hidden possibilities inthat crude young spirit. So often in the past the older woman had givenherself abundantly only to meet disappointment and ingratitude. Whyshould it be different now? What was there in this unformed child thatappealed so strongly to her sympathy and tenderness? Not beauty surely, for Patty was merely pretty. Charm she had unmistakably; but it was acharm that men would feel rather than women; and of all the femininevarieties that Corinna had known in the past, she disliked most heartily"the man's woman. " Was her impulse to help only the need of a freshinterest, the craving for a new amusement? The heart of life she hadnever reached. Something was missing--the unfading light, the starryflower that she had never found in her search. Now at last, in a goldenmiddle age, she told herself that she would build her happiness not onperfection, but on the second best of experience. She would accept themilder joys, the daily miracles, the fulfilled adventures. And so, partly because she liked the girl, and partly because of a generouswhim, she said presently:

"You shall have a friend--a real friend--from this day. "

Patty who had been gazing into the fire turned on her a face that was assparkling as a sunbeam. "I would rather have you for a friend thananybody in the world, " she responded in a voice so caressing thatStephen would not have believed it belonged to her. 

"I am sure that I can be useful to you, " said Corinna, for the gratitudein the girl's voice touched and embarrassed her, "and I know that youcan be to me. How would you like to come every morning and help me foran hour or two in my shop? There isn't anything to do, but we may get toknow each other better. " After all, she might as well show a fightingspirit and see the adventure through to the end. 

Patty's eyes shone, but all she said was, "Oh, I'd love to! It is sobeautiful here. "

"Do you like it?" asked Corinna, and wondered how much the girl reallysaw. Did she have the eyes and the soul to see and feel beauty? "I havesome good things at home. You must come out there. "

"If you'll only let me sit and watch you!" exclaimed Patty fervently. 

"As long as you like. " A smile crossed Corinna's lips, as she imaginedthose large bright eyes, like stars in a spring twilight, shining on herhour after hour. How could she possibly endure their unfalteringcandour? How could she adjust her life to their adoring regard? "Howlong has your mother been dead, Patty?" she asked suddenly. "Do youknow--of course you don't--scarcely anybody has ever heard it--that Ihad a child once, a little girl, and she lived only one day. "

"And she might have been like you, " was all Patty said, but Corinnaunderstood. 

"Do you remember your mother, dear?"

"Only a little, " answered Patty, and then she told of the spangled skirtand the silver wand with the star on the end of it. "That is all I canremember. "

She rose with a shy movement and held out her hand. "Then I may cometo-morrow?"

"Every day if you will, and most of all on the days when you need afriend. " Bending her head, she kissed the girl lightly on the cheek. "Doyou like my cousin Stephen?" she asked suddenly. 

A look of scorn came into Patty's eyes. "He is so superior, " sheanswered, with a gesture of complete indifference. "I don't likesuperior persons. "

"Ah, " thought Corinna, watching her closely, "she is really interested, poor child!"

After this the girl went out into a changed world--into a world whichhad become, as if by a miracle, less impersonal and unfriendly. Theamber light of the sunset seemed to envelop her softly as if she weresurrounded by happiness. It was like first love without its troubledsuspense, this new wonderful feeling! It was like a religious awakeningwithout the sense of sin that she associated with her early conversion. Nothing, she felt, could ever be so beautiful again! Nothing could evermean so much to her in the rest of life! In one moment, almost by magic, she had learned her first lesson in discrimination, in the relativevalues of experience; she had attained her first clear perception of thedifference between the things that mattered a little and the things thatmattered profoundly. 

The every-day world had faded from her so completely that it seemed anatural incident--it caused her scarcely a start of surprise--when shemet Stephen Culpeper under the Washington monument. He had evidentlyjust left his office, for there was a bulky package of papers in hishand; and he greeted her as if it were the merest accident that hadtaken him through the Square. As a matter of fact it was less of anaccident than he made it appear, for he had declined to go home in theJudge's car because of some vague hope that by walking he might meeteither Patty or Gideon Vetch. Since the evening of the Berkeleys' dinnerthe young man's interest had shifted inexplicably from Patty to herfather. 

"You looked so much like Mr. Benham a little way off, " said Patty, ashe turned to walk back with her, "that I might have mistaken you forhim. "

"If you only knew it, " he replied, laughing, "you have paid me thehighest compliment of my life. "

She blushed. "I didn't mean it as a compliment. "

"That makes it all the better. But don't you like Benham?"

Patty pondered the question. "I can't get near enough to him either tolike or dislike him. He is very good looking. "

"He is more than good looking. He is magnificent. "

"You think a great deal of him?"

"I couldn't think more, " he responded with young enthusiasm. "Every onefeels that way about him. He stands for--well, for everything that onewould like to be. "

"I've heard of him, of course, " said the girl slowly. "Father has beenfighting him ever since he went into politics; but I never saw Mr. Benhem close enough to speak to him until the other evening. " She raisedher black lashes and looked straight at Stephen with her challengingglance. "All the men seemed so serious, except you. "

He laughed and flushed slightly. "And I did not?"

Though her manner could not have been more indifferent, there was anundercurrent of feeling in her voice, as if she meant something morethan she had put into words. He might take it as he chose, lightly orseriously, her look implied--and it was, he admitted, a thrilling lookfrom such eyes as hers. 

"You are nearer my age, " she rejoined, "though you do seem so oldsometimes. "

A depressing dampness fell on his mood. "Do I seem old to you? I am onlytwenty-six. "

Her inquiring eyebrows were raised in mockery. "That is too old to play, isn't it?"

"Well, I might try, " he answered, and added curiously, "I wonder whomyou find to play with? Not your father?"

"Oh, no, not Father. He is as serious as Mr. Benham, only he laughs agreat deal more. Father jokes all the time, but there is somethingunderneath that isn't a joke at all. "

"I should like to talk to your father. I want to find out, if I can, what he really believes. "

"You won't find out that, " said Patty, "by talking to him. "

"You mean he will not tell me?"

"Oh, he may tell you; but you won't know it. Half the time when he istelling the truth, it sounds like a joke, and that keeps people frombelieving him. He says the best way to keep a secret is to shout it fromthe housetops; and I've heard him say things straight out that soundedso far fetched nobody would think he was in earnest. I was the onlyperson who knew that he was speaking the truth. They call that a'method', the politicians. They used to like it before he was elected;but now it makes them restless. They complain that they can't doanything with him. "

"That, " remarked Stephen, as she paused, "appears to be the chroniccomplaint of politicians. "

"Does it? Well, Mr. Gershom is always saying now that Father can't bedepended on. It was much more peaceable, " she concluded with artlessconfidence, "when he let them manage him. Now there are discussions anddisagreements all the time. It all seems to be about what they thinkpeople want. Have you any idea what they want?"

"Does anybody know what they want--except when they want money?"

"Well, some of them would like Father to go to the Senate, " she returnednaïvely, "and some of them wouldn't. Do you think that Mr. Benham wouldbe better in the Senate?"

"I think so, of course. But you mustn't judge, you know, by what mythoughts happen to be. "

"I'm not judging. I hate politics. I always have. I want to get as faraway from them as I can. "

He looked at her intently. "And where would you like to go?"

"Into the movies. " Her eyes sparkled at the thought. "At least I wantedto go into the movies until I saw Mrs. Page this afternoon. "

"Mrs. Kent Page?" he asked in astonishment. "My Cousin Corinna?"

"Yes, in the old print shop. Isn't she adorable?"

He smiled at her fervour. "I have always found her so. But what has sheto do with your change of ambition?"

"Oh, nothing, except that she is lovelier than any actress I ever saw. "

They had reached the house, and while they ascended the steps, the soundof the Governor's voice, raised in vehement protest, floated to themthrough the half-open door. 

"He must be talking to Julius Gershom, " whispered Patty. "It is alwayslike that. "

"I don't care a damn for the whole bunch of you, " said Vetch suddenly. "You can go and tell that to the crowd!"

"Well, I'll come back again after I've told them, " Gershom replied in aninsolent tone; and the next moment the door swung back and he appearedon the threshold. 

At sight of Patty and Stephen he attempted to cover his embarrassmentwith a jest. "Your father and I were having one of our little argumentsabout a Ladies' Aid Society, " he said. "He is beginning to kick againsttoo much ice cream. "

"Well, if you argue as loud as that, " replied the girl withimperturbable coolness, "it won't be necessary to go and tell it to thecrowd. "

In an instant she had changed from the sparkling elusive creatureStephen had known into a woman of authority and composure. What aneternal enigma was the feminine mind! He had flattered himself that hehad reached the end of her superficial attractions; and in a minute, bysome startling metamorphosis, she was changed from a being oftransparent shallows into the immemorial riddle of sex. She might beanything, or everything, except the ingenuous girl of the moment before. 

"We must learn to lower our voices, " said the Governor in a laughingtone. His anger, if it were anger, had blown over him like a summerstorm, and the clear blue of his glance was as winning as ever. "I'vebeen looking into the matter of that appointment Judge Page asked meabout, " he added, "and I think I may see my way to oblige him. "

"If you are free for half an hour I'd like to have the talk we spoke ofthe other day, " answered Stephen. 

"Oh, I'm free except for Darrow. You won't mind Darrow. "

He turned toward the library on the left of the hall; and as Stephenentered the room, after a gay and friendly smile in Patty's direction, he told himself that the man promised to be more interesting than anygirl he had ever known. 

CHAPTER XI

THE OLD WALLS AND THE RISING TIDE

A tall old man was standing by the window in the library, and as heturned his face away from the light of the sunset, Stephen had a vagueimpression that he had seen him before--not in actual life but in somehalf-forgotten picture or statue. The Governor's visitor was evidently acarpenter, with a tall erect figure and a face which had in it a dignitythat belonged less to an individual than to an era. Beneath his abundantwhite hair, his large brown eyes still shone with the ardour of aconvert or a disciple, and his blanched, strongly marked features hadthe aristocratic distinction and serenity that are found in the faces ofthe old who have lived in communion either with profound ideas or withthe simple elemental forces of sky and sea. In spite of his gnarledhands and the sawdust that had lodged in the frayed creases of hisclothes, he was in his way, Stephen realized, as great a gentleman andas typical a Virginian as Judge Horatio Lancaster Page. Both men werethe descendants of a privileged order; both were inheritors of a formaland authentic tradition. 

"This is Mr. Darrow, " said Vetch in a voice which contained a note ofaffectionate deference. "I think he knew your father, Culpeper. Didn'tyou tell me, Darrow, that you had known this young man's father?"

"No, sir, I only said I'd worked for him, " replied Darrow, with an airof genial irony which brought the Judge to Stephen's mind again. "That'sa big difference, I reckon. I did some repairs a few years ago on a rowof houses that belonged to Mr. Culpeper; but the business was allarranged by the agent. "

"That was part of the estate, I suppose, " explained Stephen. "My fatherleaves all that to his agent. "

"Yes, I thought as much, " replied Darrow simply; and after shaking handswith his rough, strong clasp, he sat down in a chair by the window. "They've made a lot of changes inside this house, " he remarked. "Beforethey added on that part at the back the dining-room used to be in thebasement. I remember doing some work down there when I was a young manand there was going to be a wedding. "

"Well, that long room is very little use to me, " returned Vetch. "As faras I am concerned they might have left the house as it was built. " Thenturning abruptly to Stephen, he said sharply: "You heard Gershom'sparting shot at me, didn't you?" There was a gleam of quizzical humourin his eyes, and Stephen found himself asking, as so many others hadasked before him, "Is the man serious, or is he making a joke? Does hewish me to receive this as a confidence or with pretended hilarity?"

"Something about telling the crowd?" he answered. "Yes, I heard it. "

"We were having a tussle, " continued Vetch lightly. "The fat's in thefire at last. "

Stephen laughed drily. "Then I hope you will keep it there. "

"You mean you would like an explosion?"

"I mean that anything that could clear up the situation would bewelcome. "

At this Vetch turned to Darrow and observed whimsically: "He doesn'tseem to fancy our friend Gershom. "

Darrow looked round with a smile from the window. "Well, there are timeswhen I don't myself, " he confessed in his deliberate way. "Of allbullies, your political bully is the worst. But he is not bad, he isjust foolish. His heart is set on this general strike, and he can't sethis heart on anything without losing his head. " As the old man turnedhis face back to the sunset, the strong bold lines of his profilereminded Stephen of the impassive features of an Egyptian carving. Wasthis the vague resemblance that had baffled him ever since he hadentered the room?

"To tell the truth, " said Stephen frankly, "the fellow strikes me asparticularly obnoxious; but I may be prejudiced. "

"I think you are, " responded Vetch. "I owe Gershom a great deal. He wasuseful to me once, and I recognize my debt; but the fact remains, that Idon't owe him or any other man the shirt on my back!" As he metStephen's glance he lowered his voice, and added in a tone of boyishcandour that was very winning in spite of his colloquial speech: "I likeyour face, and I'm going to talk frankly to you. "

"You may, " replied the young man impulsively. It was impossible toresist the human quality, the confiding friendliness, of the Governor'smanner. The chances were, he said to himself, that the whole thing wasmere burlesque, one of the successful sleight-of-hand tricks of thecharlatan. In theory he was still sceptical of Gideon Vetch, yet he hadalready surrendered every faculty except that impish heretical spectatorthat dwelt apart in his brain. 

"You want something of course, every last one of you, even Darrow, "resumed Vetch, with his charming smile. "I can safely assume that if youdidn't want something, you wouldn't be here. Good Lord, if a man so muchas bows to me in the street without asking a favour, I begin to thinkthat he is either a half-wit or a ne'er-do-well. "

"At least I want nothing for myself, " laughed Stephen, a trifle sharply. 

"Nor does Darrow, God bless him!--nor, for the matter of that, doesJudge Page. I've got nothing to give you that you would take, and so youare wishing Berkeley on me for the penitentiary board. " The gleam ofhumour was still in his eyes and the drollery in his expressive voice. 

"We are seeking this for the penitentiary, not for Mr. Berkeley. He isthe man you need. "

"For a hobby, yes. That's all right, of course, but, my dear young sir, you can't run the business of a state as a hobby any more than you canadminister it as a philanthropy. "

"Perhaps. But can you administer it successfully without philanthropy?"

At this Darrow turned with a smile. "Can't you see that he is foolingwith you?" he said. "Prison reform is one of his fads--that and therights of the indigent aged and orphans and animals and any other mortalthing that has to live on what he calls the stones of charity. He knowswhy you came, and he likes you the better because of it. "

"Gershom and I have had a word or two about that board, " resumed Vetch;and as he stopped to strike a match, Stephen noticed that the cigar heheld was of a cheap and strong brand. "Between the Legislature on oneside and that bunch of indefatigable lobbyists on the other, I shan't bepermitted presently to appoint the darkey who waits on my table. " Thecigar was lighted now, and to Stephen's sensitive nostrils the air wasrapidly becoming too heavy. Oddly enough, he reflected, nothing had"placed" Vetch so forcibly as the brand of that cigar. 

"That, " observed the young man briefly, "is the penalty of politicaloffice. "

"So long as I was merely a dark horse, " said Vetch, "I was afraid topull on the curb; but now that I've won the race, they'll find that I'mmy own master. Won't you smoke?"

Stephen shook his head. "Not now. There is always the next race to beconsidered, I suppose. "

The Governor's rugged, rather heavy features hardened suddenly untilthey looked as if they were formed of some more durable substance thanflesh. Under the thick sandy hair his eyes lost their blueness andappeared as gray as Stephen had once thought them. "Have you everheard, " he asked with biting sarcasm, "that I was easy to manage andthat that was why certain people put me in office?"

"Yes, I've heard that. " As the young man replied, Darrow turned from thewindow and looked at him attentively. 

"And may I ask what else you have heard?" inquired Vetch. 

Stephen laughed and coloured. "I've heard that it was becoming difficultto do anything with you. "

"Because I have the people behind me?"

"Well, because you think you have the people behind you. "

Vetch leaned forward with a confiding movement, and flicked the ashesof his objectionable cigar on the immaculate sleeve of Stephen's coat. Yet, even in the careless gesture, a breath of freshness and health, ofmental and physical cleanliness, seemed to emanate like an invigoratingbreeze from his robust spirit. "Of course I admit, " he saidthoughtfully, "that we are obliged to have some kind of partyorganization to begin with. There must be method and policy and allsorts of team-pulling and log-rolling until you get started. That kindof thing is useful just as far as it helps and not a step farther. I wonmy fight as an Independent--and, by George, I'll remain an Independent!I've got the upper hand now. I am strong enough to stand alone. If anyparty on earth thinks it can manage me--well, I'll show it that I can bemy own party!"

Was it true, what they said of him, --that success had already gone tohis head, that the best way to get rid of him was to give him apolitical rope with which he might hang himself? Or was there some solidfoundation of fact in his blustering assumption of power? Was heactually a force that would have to be reckoned with in the future? Froma mass of confused impressions Stephen could gather nothing clearlyexcept his inability to form a definite opinion of the man. On the oneside was the weight of prejudice, of preconceived judgment; and on theother he could place only the effect of a personal magnetism which wasas real and as intangible as light or colour. 

"Do you think that is possible?" he asked sceptically. "In a democracylike ours is any man so strong that he can stand alone?"

"Well, of course he is not alone as long as he has the support of themajority. "

"You may have this support--I neither affirm nor deny it--but upon whatdoes it rest? What do you offer the people that is better than theprinciples or the promises of the old parties? I heard you speak once, but you did not answer this question--to my mind the only question thatis vital. You talked a great deal about humanizing industry--a vaguephrase which might mean anything or nothing, since humanity covers allthe vices as well as all the virtues of the race. Benham could use thatphrase as oratorically as you do, for it rolls easily off the tongue andcommits one to nothing. "

Vetch's face lost suddenly its rigid gravity, as if he had suffered arush of energy to the brain. His eyes became blue again, and as keen asthe blade of a knife. 

"I believe, and the people who are with me believe, that I can makesomething out of the muddle if I am given a chance, " he replied. "Oh, Iknow that the reactionaries are in the saddle now--that they have beenever since they had the war as an excuse to mount! But I know also thatyou can no more drive out by law the spirit of liberalism from theAmerican mind than you can drive out nature with a pitchfork. For alittle while you may think you have got the better of it; but it willcrop out in spite of you. Now, I am a part of returning nature, of theinevitable rebound toward the spirit of liberalism. In the thought ofthe people who voted for me, I stand for the indestructible common senseof the American mind. I am one of the first signs of the new times. "

"And you believe that you prove this, " asked Stephen frankly, "byturning over your power of appointment to a group of self-interestedpoliticians? You show your ability to govern by evading the firstrequirement of good government--that there should be honest and able menin control of public offices?"

A flicker came and went in the blue eyes. "I told you the other day, "answered Vetch in a low voice, "that I used the tools at my command, andI tell you now that I am sometimes forced to use rotten ones. People saythat I am an opportunist; but who has ever discovered any other policythat deals with life so completely? They say also that I am withoutpublic conscience--another name for opinions that have crystallized intoprejudices. The truth is that the end for which I work seems to mevastly more important than the methods I use or the instruments that Iemploy. "

It was the familiar chicanery of the popular leader, the justificationof expediency, that Stephen had always found most repugnant as apolitical theory; and while he drew back, repelled and disgusted, heasked himself if the national conscience, the moral integrity of therace, was in the keeping of demagogues?

"I am curious to know, " he remarked after a moment, "how you are able tojustify the sacrifice of what I regard as common honesty in publicaffairs?"

To his surprise, instead of answering directly, Vetch put a personalquestion. "Then you think I am not honest? Darrow wouldn't agree withyou. "

At this Darrow turned from the window. "Perhaps he doesn't mean what wedo, " he said quietly. "I've seen honest men that I knew ought to havebeen in prison. "

"I am speaking of course of the doctrines you advocate, " answeredStephen. "That seems to me to be, in the jargon of the reformer, somewhat unethical. Can you, I question, achieve anything importantenough to compensate for what you sacrifice?"

Darrow turned again with his dry laugh. "You speak as if public honesty, by which I reckon you mean clean elections and unsold offices, weresomething we had actually possessed, " he said. 

"Oh, I know the old proceedings were bad enough, " replied Stephen, "butI am trying to find out how the Governor expects to make them better. You understand that I am trying merely to see your point of view--to getat the roots of your theory of government. What you tell me will neverfind its way to the public. "

"I realize that, " said Vetch gravely, and he added with a quick glanceat Darrow: "Do you think if I were not honest that I'd talk to you sofrankly?"

Stephen smiled. "It might be. The political coat has many colours. Idon't mean to be rude, you know, but one good turn in frankness deservesanother. "

"I like you the better for that. " A cluster of fine lines appeared atthe corners of the Governor's laughing eyes. "But, once for all, youmust get rid of your false impressions of me, and see me as a fact, notas a kind of social scarecrow. First of all, you think I am anextremist--well, I am not. I am merely a man of facts. I see the worldas it is and you see it as you wish it to be--that is the differencebetween us. I have lived with realities; I know actual conditions--andyou know only what you have been told or imagined. Oh, I admit that yousaw an edge of reality in the trenches; but, after all, life in thetrenches was as abnormal as life in the movies. Each represents anextreme. What you know of average human life, of hunger and pain andlabour, could be learned in an academy for young ladies. Yet you imaginethat it is experience! You have lived so long in your lily-pond, withthe rushes hemming you in, that when you hear all the frogs croaking onthe same note, you think complacently, 'that is the voice of thepeople'. Why, I tell you, man, you are so ignorant of the conditions inthis very town, that Darrow could take you out and show you things thatwould make you feel like Robinson Crusoe!"

Stephen turned eagerly to the old man at the window. "I am ready foryou, Mr. Darrow. "

Darrow nodded with a reluctant assent. "I've got my Ford around thecorner, " he answered. "If you would like to go up town with me I canshow you a thing or two that might interest you. "

"You mean the conditions in this city?"

"The conditions in all cities. They differ only in the name of thetown. "

"He will show you a little--just a little--of what getting back to peacemeans, " said Vetch earnestly. "By next winter it will be worse, ofcourse, but it has already begun. The rate of wages is falling--forwages always fall first--and the cost of living is still as high as inwar times. Rents are going up every day, Darrow can tell you more aboutthe speculation in rents than I can, and the housing of theworking-classes, both white and coloured, is growing worse. We shallsoon be facing the most serious problem of the system under which welive, the problem of the unemployed. Already it is beginning. Darrow wastelling me just before you came in of a man in one of the houses wherehe has been working--a returned soldier too--who has walked the streetsfor weeks in search of work. He has been unable to pay his rent, so ofcourse he is obliged to move somewhere, if he can find a place to moveinto. Oh, I realize perfectly what you are going to say! The briefprosperity of the war still envelops the labouring man in your mind; andyou are preparing to remind me of the lace curtains and victrolas ofyesterday. Yes, I admit that lace curtains and victrolas are notnecessities. It was a case where nature cropped out in the wrong spot. Even the working-man may have suppressed desires, you see, and lacecurtains and victrolas may stand not only for the improvidence of thepoor, but for the neurasthenic yearnings of the rich. Talk about theeconomy of Nature! Why, nothing in the universe, not even thecivilization of man, has ever equalled her indecent prodigality!"

As the man's words poured out in his rich, deep voice, Stephen stared athim in a silence which reminded him humorously of the pause in churchbefore the sermon began. Was this the reason of Vetch's influence andauthority--this flow of ideas, as from a horn of plenty, that left thelistener both charmed and bewildered?

"I admit it all, " rejoined the young man, "except that you havediscovered the remedy. "

The Governor laughed and settled back in his big leather-covered chair. "You think that I blow my own horn too loudly, " he continued, "but, after all, who knows how to blow it half so well as I do? For the samereason some over-sensitive nerve of yours may wince at my behaviour attimes, my lack of dignity or reserve; but have I ever lost a vote--I putit to you plainly--or the shadow of a vote by an occasional resort tospectacular advertising? It pays to advertise in politics, we all knowthat!--but it was honest advertising since I never failed to deliver thegoods. I started out to prove my strength and to flay my opponents, andyou tell me, you group of black-coated conservatives, that I make myselfridiculous because I strike an attitude. The people laughed--but, byGeorge, they laughed with me! Oh, I know you think that I am wanderingfrom my point; but I haven't forgotten your question, and I am going toanswer it, if you will give me time. You ask me what I believe--"

"If you could tell me in few words and plainly. "

"Well, first of all, I make no pretence. I do not promise to workmiracles. I do not, like your conventional candidates, talk inplatitudes. I do not undertake to achieve a regeneration of politics outof unregenerate human nature. As long as we have cherries we shall haveblackbirds; as long as we have politics we shall have politicians. Iacknowledge the good and the bad, and all that I promise is to get asgood results as I can out of the mixture. Definitely I stand for aprogressive reorganization of society--for a fairer social order and apractical system of cooperative industry, the only logical method ofincreasing production without reducing the labourer to the olddisorganized slavery. I believe in the trite formula we workerspreach--in the eight-hour day, the old age pension, which is only theinevitable step from the mother's pension, the gradual nationalizationof mines and railroads. I believe in these things which are thecommonplace of to-morrow; but it is not because of my beliefs that thepeople follow me. It is something bigger than all this that catches thecrowd. What the people see in me is not the man who believes, but theman who acts. I stand to them not for words--though you and Benham thinkI've made my way by a gift of tongue--but for deeds--for thingsperformed as well as planned. Other men can tell them what they want. Myhold over them is that they feel I can get them what they want--a verybig difference! Oh, I use words, I know, like the rest. I have read afew books, and I can talk as well as any political parrot of the lotwhen I get started. But the words I use are living words, if you noticethem. I talk always about the things that I can do, never about thethings that I think. Well, that is my secret--my pose, if you prefer--topresent my argument to the crowd as an act, not as an idea. There areplenty of imposing statues standing around. What they see in me is ahuman being like themselves, one who wants what they want, and who willfight to the last ditch to get it for them. "

It was plausible; it sounded convincing and logical; and yet, even whileStephen responded to the Governor's personal touch, some obstinate fibreof race or inflexible bent of judgment, refused to surrender. Vetch wasprobably sincere--it was fairer to give him the benefit of thedoubt--but on the surface at least he was parading a spectacular pose. The rôle of the Friend of the People has seldom been absent from thedrama of history. 

With a glance at the window, where twilight was falling, Stephen rose, and held out his hand. "I shall remember your frankness, " he said, "thenext time I hear you speak. That, I hope, will be soon. "

"And you will wait until then to be converted?"

"I shall wait until then to be wholly convinced. "

"Well, Darrow may have better results. You go with Darrow?"

"If he will take me?" The deference with which the old man had inspiredthe Governor showed in Stephen's manner. "I shall be grateful for a lifton the way home. "

Darrow had risen also; and after shaking hands with Vetch, he lookedback at the younger man from the doorway. "I'll have my Ford round herein five minutes. Meet me at the nearest gate. "

He went out hurriedly; and as Stephen followed him, after the delay of afew minutes, he found himself face to face with Patty, who was comingfrom "the blue room" on the opposite side of the hall. 

"I hope you got what you came for, " she said gaily. 

"I came for nothing, " he retorted lightly, "and I'm sure I got it. "

"Well, that won't matter so much since it wasn't for yourself, " shemocked. "Nobody ever wants anything for himself in politics. Fathercould tell you that. "

"He told me a good many things--but not that. "

"Did he tell you, " she inquired daringly, "why he is falling out withJulius Gershom?"

"Is he falling out with him?"

"Didn't you see it--and hear it--when you came in?"

"I suspected as much; but after all it was none of my business. "

"And you confine your curiosity to your own business?"

"Not entirely, " he answered, and wondered if she were experimentingwith the letter "C". "For instance I am curious about you. "

Her eyes challenged him with their old defiance. "And I am certainly notyour business. "

"I admit that you are not--but that does not decrease my curiosity. "

For a moment her smile grew wistful. "And what, I wonder, " she asked, with the faintest quiver of her cherry-coloured lips, "would you like toknow?"

"Oh, everything!" he replied unhesitatingly. There was no longer in hismind the slightest wish to avoid the approaching flirtation. On thecontrary, he felt he should welcome it, if she would only continue tolook like this. She was not beautiful--yet he realized that she did notneed beauty when she could play so easily with a look or a smile on theheartstrings. A rush of tenderness overwhelmed his reserve at the veryinstant when her lashes trembled and drooped, and she murmured in awhisper that enchanted him: "Oh, but everything is too little. " Thoughit was only the old lure of youth and sex, he felt that it was asdivinely fresh and wonderful as first love. 

"Is it too little?" he asked, and his voice sounded so far off that itwas faint in his ears. 

She raised her lashes and gave him a glance charged with meaning. "Thatdepends, " she answered, and suddenly, without warning, she passed to thelightest and gayest of tones. "Everything depends on something else, doesn't it? Now Father is coming out, and I must run upstairs anddress. "

It was a dismissal, he knew, and yet he hesitated. "May I come againsoon?" he asked, and held out his hand. 

To his surprise Patty greeted his question with a laugh. "Do you reallylike politics so much?" she retorted; and fled lightly toward thestaircase beyond the library. 

CHAPTER XII

A JOURNEY INTO MEAN STREETS

Darrow's little car was waiting before the entrance; and as soon asStephen had taken his place by the old man's side, they shot forwardinto the smoky twilight. A policeman, standing in the circle ofelectric light at the corner, held up a warning hand; and then, as herecognized Darrow, he nodded with a smile, and there stole into his facethe look of deference which Stephen had seen in the Governor's eyes. Glancing up at the sombre ruggedness of the profile beside him, theyounger man asked himself curiously from what source of character orCircumstance this old man had derived his strange impressiveness and hisAuthority over men. With his gaunt length, his wide curving nostrils, his thick majestic lips, he looked, as Stephen had first seen him, arock-hewn Pharaoh of a man. An unusual type to survive in modernAmerica--republican and imperial! Did he represent, this carpenter whowas also a politician, the political despotism of the worker--the crookand scourge of the labourer's power?

Suddenly, while he wondered, Darrow turned toward him. "What do youthink of the Governor?"

"I hardly know, " answered Stephen thoughtfully. "It is too soon to ask;but I think he is honest. "

"He is more than honest, " rejoined the other quietly. "He is human. Heunderstands. He belongs to us. "

"Belongs?" Stephen repeated the word with a note of interrogation. 

Very slowly the old man answered. "I mean that he is more than anythingthat he says or thinks. He is bigger than his message. "

"I suppose he stands for a great deal?"

"A man stands only for what he is, not for an inch more, not for an inchless. The trouble with all the leaders we've had in the past was thattheir thought outstripped their characters. They believed more than theywere and they broke down under it. I'm an old man now. I've watched themcome and go. "

"You think that Vetch is a great leader?"

"I think he is a great leader, but I don't mean that I think he willever lead us anywhere. "

"You feel that he is losing his grip on the crowd?"

Up from Main Street the workers were pouring out of the factories; andwhile they moved in a dark stream through the light and shadow on thepavement, the faces flowed past Stephen with a pallid intensity whichmade him think of dead flowers drifting on a river. In all those faceshow little life there seemed, how little individuality and animation!

"When I was a small kid I used to live by the seashore, " said the oldman presently in his dry, emphatic tones. "Many is the time I've stoodand watched the tide coming in, and I never once saw it come in that itdidn't go out again. "

"Then you believe that the tide is turning against Vetch?"

For a minute, while they sped on in the obscurity of a side street, Darrow meditated. 

"No, sir, I ain't saying that much--not yet. But the way I calculate issomething like this. Vetch came in on a wave of popular emotion, and awave of popular emotion is just about like the tide of the sea. It mayrise a certain distance, but it can't stand still, and it can't go anyfarther. It's obliged to turn; and when it turns, it's pretty sure tobring back a good deal that it carried with it. A crowd impulse--as theycall it in the pulpit and on the platform--is a dangerous thing. It'sdangerous because you can't count on it. "

"It looks to me as if Vetch counted upon it a little too much. "

"That's his nature. He was born on the sunny side of the street. Hethinks because he sees the way to help people that they want to behelped. I've been mixed up in politics now for fifty years, and in thelabour movement, as they say, ever since it began to move in theSouth--and I've found out that people don't really want to behelped--they want to be fooled. Vetch offers 'em facts, and all the timeit ain't facts they're wanting, but names. "

"I see, " assented Stephen. "Names that they can repeat over and overuntil they get at last to believe that they are things. Longreverberating names like Democratic or Republican--"

Darrow laughed grimly. "That's right, sir, that's the way I've worked itout in my mind. The crowd will come a little way after a fact; but inthe end it gets tired because the fact won't work magic, like thatconjure-stuff of the darkeys, and then it turns and goes back to the oldnames that mean nothing. Only when a crowd moves all together it'sdangerous because it's like the flood-tide and ebb-tide of the sea. "

"And the most irritating part of it, " said Stephen, with an insightwhich had sometimes visited him in the trenches, "is that it gets whatit deserves because it can always have whatever it wants--even the truthand honest government. "

They were passing rows of narrow old-fashioned tenement-houses, standing, like crumbling walls of red brick, behind sagging woodenfences; and suddenly, while Stephen's eyes were on the lights that cameand went so fitfully in the basement dining-rooms, Darrow stopped thecar in the gutter of cobblestones, and motioned in silence toward thepavement. As Stephen got out, he glanced vaguely round him at thestrange neighbourhood. 

"Where are we?"

"North of Marshall Street. A quarter which was once very prosperous; butthat was before your day. This is one of several rows of old houses, well-built in their time, better built, indeed, than any houses we'reputting up now; but their day is over. The cost of repairing them wouldbe so great that the agent is deliberately letting the property run downin the hope that this part of the street will soon be turned over tonegroes. The negroes are so crowded in their quarter that they areobliged to expand, and when they do, this investment will yield a stillhigher interest. Coloured tenants stand crowding better than white ones, and they will pay a better rent for worse housing. As it is the rent ofthese houses has doubled since the beginning of the war. "

"Good God!" said Stephen. "Do we stop here?"

"I want you to see Canning, the man the Governor told you about. Hecan't pay his rent, which was raised last Saturday, and the family ismoving to-morrow. "

"He ought to be paid for living here. Where will he go?"

"Oh, people can always find a worse place, if they look long enough. Canning was in the war, by the way. He's got some nervous trouble--notcrazy enough to be taken care of--just on edge and unstrung. The warused him up, I reckon, and anxiety and undernourishment used up his wifeand children. It all seems to have come out in the baby--queerest littlekid you ever saw--born about a year ago. Mighty funny--ain't it?--theway we let children just a few squares away from us grow up pinched, half-starved, undersized, uneducated, and as little moral as the gutterscan make 'em, and all the time we're parading and begging and evencollecting the pennies out of orphan asylums, for the sake of thechildren on the other side of the world. But it's a queer thing, charity, however you happen to look at it. My father used to say--and hehad as much sense as any man I ever met--that charity is the greatesttraveller under the sun; and even if it begins at home it ain't evercontent to stop there over night. "

Standing there in the dim street, before the silent rows of bleak houseswith their tattered window-shades and their fitful lights, Stephenstared wonderingly at the gaunt shape of the man before him. For thefirst time he was brought face to face with the other half of his world, with the half of the world where poverty and toil are stark realities. This was the way men like Darrow were thinking, men perhaps like GideonVetch! These men saw poverty not as a sentimental term, but as a humanexperience. They knew, while he and his kind only imagined. With asensation as acute as physical nausea, a sensation that the thought ofthe Germans used to bring when he was in the trenches, there swept overhim a memory of the social hysteria which had followed, like a mentalpestilence or famine, in the track of the war. The moral platitudes, thesentimental philanthropy, and the hypocritical command of conscience toput all the world, except our own cellars, in order, where were theseimpulses now in a time which had gone mad with the hatred of work andthe craving for pleasure? Yet he had once thought that he was returningto a world which could be rebuilt on a foundation of justice, and it wasthis lost belief, he knew, which had made him bitter in spirit andunfair in judgment. 

The gate swung back with a grating noise, and they entered the yard, andwalked over scattered papers and empty bottles to the narrow flight ofbrick steps, which led from the ground to the area in front of thebasement dining-room. As Stephen descended by the light from thedust-laden window, a chill dampness rose like a fog from the earth belowand filled his nostrils and mouth and throat--a dampness which chokedhim like the effluvium of poverty. Glancing in from the area a momentlater, he saw a scantily furnished room, heated by an open stove andlighted by a single jet of gas, which flickered in a thin greenishflame. In the centre of the room a pine table, without a cloth, was laidfor supper, and three small children, in chairs drawn close together, were impatiently drumming with tin spoons on the wood. A haggard woman, in a soiled blue gingham dress, was bringing a pot of coffee from theadjoining room; and in one corner, on a sofa from which the stuffingsagged in bunches, a man sat staring vacantly at a hole in the ragcarpet. Tied in a high chair, which stood apart as if it were thepedestal of an idol, a baby, with the smooth unlined face not of aninfant, but of a philosopher, was mutely surveying the scene. 

More than anything else in the room, more even than the soddenhopelessness of the man's expression, the hopelessness of neurasthenia, this baby, tied with a strip of gingham in his high chair, arrested andheld Stephen's attention. Very pallid, with the pallor not of flesh butof an ivory image, with hair as thin and white as the hair of an oldman, and eyes that were as opaque as blue marbles, the baby sat there, with its look of stoical philosophy and superhuman experience. And thislook said as plainly as if the tiny mute lips had opened and spokenaloud: "I am tired before I begin. I am old before I begin. I am endingbefore I begin. "

Darrow knocked at the door, and the woman opened it with the coffee-potstill in her hand. 

"So you've come back, " she said in a voice that was without surprise andwithout gratitude. 

"I came back to ask what you've done about a place. This gentleman iswith me. You don't mind his stepping inside a minute?"

"Oh, no, I don't mind. I don't mind anything. " She drew back as sheanswered, and the two men entered the room and stood gazing at the stovewith the look of embarrassment which the sight of poverty brings to thefaces of the well-to-do. 

"When are you moving?" asked Darrow, withdrawing his gaze from theglimmer of the embers in the stove, and fixing it on the steam thatissued from the coffee-pot. 

"In the morning. We've found a cheaper place, though with rent going upevery week, it looks as if we'd soon have nowhere worse to move to, unless it's gaol alley. " Her tone dripped bitterness, and the lines ofher pale lips settled into an expression of scornful resignation. 

Without replying to her words, Darrow nodded in the direction of theyoung man, who had never looked up, but sat in the same rigid attitude, with his vacant eyes staring at the hole in the carpet. 

"Any better?"

"How can he be better, " returned the woman grimly, "when all he does isto walk the streets until he's fit to drop, and then drag himself homeand sit there like that for hours, too worn out even to lift his eyesfrom the floor. This is the last coffee I've got. I've been saving itsince Christmas, but I made it for him because he seems more down thanusual to-night. " Then a nervous spasm shook her thin figure, and sheadded in a fierce whisper: "He's sick, that's the matter with him. Heain't sick enough to be in a government hospital, but he'd be better offif he was. Even when he gets work he ain't able to stick to it. Thefolks that hire him don't have any patience. As long as he was overyonder in France it looked as if every woman in America was knitting forhim; and now since he's back here he can't get a job to keep him and thechildren alive. "

"How have you fed the children?"

"On what I could get cheapest. You see how sickly and peaked they look, and it's been awful damp in these rooms sometimes. The doctor says heain't sick; it ain't his body, it's his mind. He says he's had a kindof horror inside of him ever since he came home. He's turned againsteverything he used to do, and even everything he used to believe in. "

"That's hell!" exclaimed Stephen suddenly; and at her surprised glance, he added, "I've been there and I know. Nerves, they say, but just asreal as your skin. " He looked away from her to the man on the sofa. "Tohave _that_, and be in poverty!" Turning away from the father, hisglance met the calm eyes of the baby fixed on him with that gaze whichwas as old and as pitiless as philosophy. 

"Ma, may I help myself?" screamed one of the children, drumming loudlyon the table. "I'd rather have bread and molasses!" cried another; and"Oh, Ma, when we move to-morrow will you let me take the kitten Ifound?"

"Well, I've talked to the Governor, " said Darrow, in his level voicewhich sounded to Stephen so unemotional, "and I think we can find a jobfor your husband. "

Suddenly the man on the sofa looked up. "I voted against him, " hewhispered angrily. 

Darrow laughed shortly. "You don't know the Governor if you think he'dhold that against you, " he replied. "But for that little weakness of hishe might not be a political problem. "

"That's the way he goes on, " remarked the woman despairingly. "Alwayssaying things straight out that other people would keep back. He don'tcare what happens, that's the whole truth of it. He don't care aboutanything on earth, not even his tobacco. "

"Life!" thought Stephen, with a dull pain in his heart. "That's whatlife is!" And the old familiar feeling of suffocation, of distaste foreverything that he had ever felt or thought or believed, smothered himwith the dryness of dust. Going quickly over to the sofa, he laid hishand on the man's shoulder, and spoke in a high ringing voice which hetried to make cheerful. "It will pass, old fellow, " he said, and couldhave laughed aloud at the insincerity of his tone. "I know because I'vebeen there. " And he added cynically, as a kind of sacrifice on the altarof truth: "Everything will pass if you only wait long enough. "

The man started and looked up. With an air of surprise he glanced roundthe dingy room, at his wife, at the whimpering children, at thedispassionate baby enthroned in his high chair, and at the majesticprofile of Darrow. "It's the rottenness of the whole blooming show, " hesaid doggedly. "It ain't just the hole I'm in. I could put up with thatif it wasn't for the rottenness of it all. "

"I know, " replied Stephen quietly. "There are times when the show doeslook rotten, but we're all in it together. "

Then, because he felt that he could stand it no longer, he turnedabruptly, and went out into the dusk of the area. In a few minutesDarrow joined him, and in silence the two men felt their way up thebrick steps to the bare ground of the front yard. 

"I don't know what I ought to do, but I've got to do something, " saidStephen, when he had opened the gate and passed through to the pavementwhere the car waited. Lifting his sensitive young face, he stared up atthe row of decaying tenements. "What places for homes!"

For a moment Darrow looked at him without speaking; and then heanswered in a voice which sounded as impersonal as the distant rumble ofstreet cars. "I thought you might be interested because these houses, these and the other rows on the next block or two, are part of theCulpeper estate. "

"The Culpeper estate?" repeated Stephen in an expressionless tone; andraising his eyes again he looked up at the bleak houses. In thatinstant, it seemed to him that he was seeing, not the sharp projectionof the roofs against the ashen sky, but a long line of pleasant andprosperous generations. Beyond him stood his father, beyond his fatherstood his grandfather, beyond the tranquil succession of hisgrandfathers stood--what? Civilization? Humanity?

"Do you mean, " he asked quietly, "that we--our family--own thesehouses?"

"The whole block, and the next, and the next. It is the Culpeper estate. You've never seen 'em before, I reckon. I doubt even if your father hasever seen 'em. The agent attends to all this, and if the agent didn'tsee that the rents were as high as people would pay, or were paying inthe next places, he would be soon out of a job. I'm not blaming him, youknow. I've got a son-in-law who is a real estate agent. It's just one ofthe cases where it's nobody's fault, and everybody's. "

Without replying, Stephen turned away and got into the car. He feltbruised and sick, and he wanted to be alone, to think things out byhimself in the darkness. "This is only one instance, " he thought, asthey started down the dim street toward the white blaze of the businessquarter in the distance. "Only one out of millions! In every city. Allover the world it is the same. Wherever there is wealth it casts itsshadow of poverty. "

"I used to bother about it too when I was young, " said the old man athis side. "I used to feel, I reckon, pretty near as bad as you arefeeling now, but it don't last. When you get on a bit you'll sort ofsettle down and begin to work it out. That's life. Yes, but it ain't thewhole of life. It ain't even the biggest part. Those folks we've been tosee have had their good times like the rest of us, only we saw 'em justnow when they were in the midst of a bad time. Life ain't confined to aditch any more than it is to what Gideon calls a lily-pond. Keep yourbalance, that's the main thing. Whatever else you lose, you must be sureto keep your balance, or you'll be in danger of going overboard. "

"Do you mean that there is no remedy for conditions like this?"

The old man pondered his answer so long that Stephen thought he hadeither given up or forgotten the question. 

"The only remedy I have ever been able to see is to work not onconditions, but on human nature, " he replied. "Improve human nature, andthen you will improve the conditions in which it lives. Improve the richas well as the poor. Teach 'em to be human beings, not machines, to oneanother--that's Gideon's idea, you know, --humanize--Christianize, if youlike it better--civilize. It's a pretty hopeless problem--the individualcase--charity is all rotten from root to branch. If you could see theharm that's been done by mistaken charity! Why, look at my friend, Mrs. Page, now. She tried to work it out that way, and what came of itexcept more rottenness? And yet until the State looks after theunemployed, there is obliged to be charity. "

"Do you mean Mrs. Kent Page?" asked Stephen in surprise, and rememberedthat his mother had once accused Corinna of trying to "underminesociety. "

"She is one of my best friends, " answered the old man, with mingledpride and affection. "I go to see her in her shop every now and then, and I reckon she values my advice about her affairs as much asanybody's. Well, when she came home from Europe she found that sheowned a row of tenements like this one, and her agent was profiteeringin rents like most of the others. I wish you could have seen her whenshe discovered it. Splendid? Well, I reckon she's the most splendidthing this old world has ever had on top of it! She went straight towork and had those houses made into modern apartments--bathrooms, steamheat, and back yards full of trees and grass and flowers, just likeMonroe Park, only better. The rent wasn't raised either! She put thatback just where it was before the war; and then she let the whole row tothe tenants for two years. You never saw anything like the interest shetook in that speculation--you'd have thought to hear her that she wassetting out to bring what the preachers call the social millennium. "

"She never mentioned it to me, " said Stephen, with interest. "How did itturn out?"

Darrow threw back his great head with a laugh. "I don't reckon she didmention it, bless her! It don't bear mentioning even now. Why, when shewent back last fall to see those houses, she found that the tenants hadall moved into dirty little places in the alley, and were letting outthe apartments, at five times the rent they paid, to other tenants. They were doing a little special profiteering of their own--and, blessyour life, there wasn't so much as a blade of grass left in the yards, even the trees had been cut down and sold for wood. And you say shenever mentioned it?"

"How could she? But, after all, I suppose the question goes deeper thanthat?"

"The question, " replied Darrow, with an energy that shook the littlecar, "goes as deep as hell!"

They were driving rapidly up Grace Street; and as they shot past theclub on the corner, Stephen noticed the serene aristocratic profile ofPeyton at one of the brilliantly lighted windows. A little farther on, when they turned into Franklin Street, he saw that the old print shopwas in darkness, except for the lights in the rooms of the caretakerand the lodgers in the upper storey. Corinna had gone home, he supposed, and he wondered idly if she were with Benham? As they went on theypassed the house of the Blairs, where he caught a glimpse of Margaret onthe porch, parting from the handsome young clergyman. The sight stirredhim strangely, as if the memory of his dead life had been awakened by ascent or a faded flower in a book. How different he was from the boyMargaret had known in that primitive period which people defined as"before the war"! It was as if he had belonged then to some primaryemotional stratum of life. All the complex forces, the play andinterplay of desire and repulsion, of energy and lassitude, haddeveloped in the last two or three years. 

On either side, softly shaded lights were shining from the windows, andwomen, in rich furs, were getting out of luxurious cars. It was theworld that Stephen knew; life moulded in sculptural forms and encrustedwith the delicate patina of tradition. Here was all that he had onceloved; yet he realized suddenly, with a sensation of loneliness, thathere, not in the mean streets, he felt, as Vetch would have said, "stranger than Robinson Crusoe. " Something was missing. Something waslost that he could never recover. Was it Vetch, after all, who had shownhim the way out, who had knocked a hole in the wall?

When Darrow stopped the car before the Culpeper gate, Stephen turned andheld out his hand. "Thank you, " he said simply. "I shall see you again. "

Crossing the pavement with a rapid step, he entered the gate and ran upthe steps to the porch between the white columns. As he passed into therichly tempered glow of the hall, it seemed to him that an invisibleforce, an aroma of the past, drifted out of the old house and envelopedhim like the sweetness of flowers. He was caught again, he wassubmerged, in the spirit of race. 

A little later, when he was passing his mother's door, he glanced in andsaw her standing before the mirror in her evening gown of gray silk, with the foam-like ruffles of rose-point on her bosom and at her elbows, which were still round and young looking. 

Catching his reflection in the glass, she called out in her crisp tones, "My dear boy, where on earth have you been? You know we promised to dinewith Julia, and then to go to those tableaux for the benefit of thechildren in Vienna. She has worked so hard to make them a success thatshe would never forgive us if we stayed away. "

"Yes, I know. I had forgotten, " he replied. Why was he alwaysforgetting? Then he asked impulsively, while pity burned at white heatwithin him, "Is Father here? I want to speak to him before we go out. "

"He came in an hour ago, " said Mrs. Culpeper; and as she spoke the mildleonine countenance of Mr. Culpeper, vaguely resembling some playful anddomesticated king of beasts, appeared at the door of his dressing-room. 

"Do you wish to see me, my boy?" he asked affectionately. "We were justwondering if you had forgotten and stayed at the club. "

"No, I wasn't at the club. I've been looking over the Culpeper estate--apart of it. " Stephen's voice trembled in spite of the effort he made tokeep it impersonal and indifferent. "Father, do you know anything aboutthose old houses beyond Marshall Street?"

It was the peculiar distinction of Mr. Culpeper that, in a communitywhere everybody talked all the time, he had been able to form the habitof silence. While his acquaintances continually vociferated opinions, scandals, experiences, or anecdotes, he remained imperturbably reticentand subdued. All that he responded now to Stephen's outburst was, "Hasanybody offered to buy them?"

"Why, what in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Culpeper, who was neitherreticent nor subdued. From the depths of the mirror her bright browneyes gazed back at her husband, while she fastened a cameo pin, containing the head of Minerva framed in pearls, in the rose-point onher bosom. 

"To buy them?" repeated Stephen. "Why, they are horrors, Father, to livein--crumbling, insanitary horrors! And yet the rent has been doubled inthe last two or three years. "

From the mirror his mother's face looked back at him, so small andclear and delicately tinted that it seemed to him merely an exaggeratedcopy of the cameo on her bosom, "I hope that means we shall have alittle more to live on next year, " she said reflectively, while theexpression that Mary Byrd impertinently called her "economic look"appeared in her eyes. "What with the high cost of everything, and thelow interest on Liberty Bonds, and the innumerable relief organizationsto which one is simply forced to contribute, it has been almostimpossible to make two ends meet. Poor Mary Byrd hasn't been able togive a single party this winter. "

Before Stephen's gaze there passed a vision of the dingy basement room, the embittered face of the woman, the sickly tow-headed children, theman who could not lift his eyes from the hole in the carpet, and thebaby with that look of having been born not young, but old, the look ofpre-natal experience and disillusionment. And he heard Darrow's dryvoice complaining because the well-to-do classes still gave to starvingorphans across the world. After all, what was there to choose betweenthe near-sighted and the far-sighted social vision? How narrow they bothappeared and how crooked! Darrow would let all the children of Europestarve as long as their crying did not interfere with the aims of hisFederation of Labour; Stephen's sister Julia, with her instinct forimitation and her remote sense of responsibility, would step over thepoverty at her door, while she held out her hands, in the latestfashionable gesture of philanthropy, to the orphans in France or Vienna. And beside them both his mother, who because of her constitutionalinability to see anything beyond the family, perceived merely the factthat her own child would be disappointed if the tableaux for the benefitof starving children somewhere did not go off well. The question, herealized, was not which one of the three points of view was the mostadmirable, but simply which one served best the ultimate purpose of therace. Selfishness seemed to have as little as altruism to do with theproblem. Was Corinna, who had failed in philanthropy and chosen beauty, the only wise one among them?

"But children are living in these houses, " he said, "and not onlyliving--they are forced to move out because the rent has become so highthat they must find a worse place. I've just seen it with my own eyes. Three sickly little children and a dreadful baby--a baby that knowseverything already. "

A quiver of pain crossed Mr. Culpeper's handsome features; but he saidonly, "I will speak to the agent. "

"Won't you look into it yourself?" asked Stephen hopelessly. "The agentis only the agent--but the responsibility is yours--ours. Of course theagent doesn't want to make expensive repairs when he can get as highrent without doing so. He knows that people are obliged to have a roofover them; and if the roofs are too bad for white people, he can alwaysfind negroes to pay anything that he asks. Can't you see what it is inreality--that we are preying on the helpless?"

Turning suddenly from the mirror, Mrs. Culpeper crossed the floorhastily and put her arms about her son's shoulders. Her face was verymotherly and there was a compassionate light in her eyes, "My dear, dearboy, " she murmured in the soothing tone that one uses to the ill or thementally unbalanced. "My dear boy, you must really go and dress. Juliawill never forgive us. " In her heart she was sincerely grieved by whathe had told her. She would have helped cheerfully if it had beenpossible to her nature; but stronger than compassion, stronger even thanreason, was the instinct of evasive idealism which the generations hadbred. He understood, while he looked down on her white hair and unlinedface, that even if he took her with him to that basement room, she wouldsee it not as it actually was, but as she wished it to be. Herromanticism was invulnerable because it had no contact, even throughimagination, with the edge of reality. 

And he knew also, while she held him in her motherly arms, thatsomething had broken down within his soul--some barrier between himselfand humanity. The wall of tradition and sentiment no longer divided himfrom Darrow, or Gideon Vetch, or the man who could not look at anythingbut the hole in the carpet. Never again could he take his inheritedplace in the world of which he had once been a part. For an instant anervous impulse to protest, to startle by some violent gesture that lookof gentle self-esteem from the faces before him, jerked over him like aspasm. Then the last habit that he would ever break in his life, thevery law of his being, which was the law of order, of manners, ofself-control, the inbred horror, older than himself or his parents, ofgiving himself away, of making a scene of his own emotions, thisancestral custom of good breeding closed over him like the lid of acoffin. 

With a smile he looked into the anxious face of his father. "Isn't theresome way out of it, Dad?"

The muscles about Mr. Culpeper's mouth contracted as if he were goingto cry; but when he spoke his voice was completely under control. "Ican't interfere, son, with the way the agent manages the property, " heanswered, "but, of course, if you have discovered a peculiarlydistressing case--if it is an object of charity--"

He paused abruptly in amazement, for Stephen was laughing, laughing in away, as Mrs. Culpeper remarked afterward, that nobody had ever eventhought of laughing before the whole world had become demoralized. 

"Damn charity!" he exclaimed hilariously. "I beg your pardon, Mother, but if you only knew how inexpressibly funny it is!" Then the laughterstopped, and a wistful look came into his eyes, for beyond the brokenwalls he saw Patty Vetch in her red cape, and around her stretched thewind-swept roads of that hidden country. 

A minute later, as he left the room, his mother's eyes followed himanxiously. "Poor boy, we must bear with him, " she said in meltingmaternal accents. 

CHAPTER XIII

CORINNA WONDERS

After a winter of Italian skies spring had come in a night. It was amorning in April, blue and soft as a cloud, with a roving fragrance oflilacs and hyacinths in the air. Already the early bloom of the orchardhad dropped, and the freshly ploughed fields, with splashes of henna inthe dun-coloured soil, were surrounded by the budding green of thewoods. 

As Mrs. Culpeper knocked at the door of Corinna's shop, she noticed thatthe pine bough in the window had been replaced by bowls of growingnarcissi. For a moment her stern expression relaxed, and her face, framed in a bonnet of black straw with velvet strings, became soft andanxious. Beneath the veil of white illusion which reached only to thetip of her small sharp nose, her eyes were suddenly touched with spring. 

"How delicious the flowers smell, " she remarked when Corinna opened thedoor; and then, as she entered the room and glanced curiously round her, she asked incredulously, "Do people really pay money for these oldillustrations, Corinna?"

"Not here, Cousin Harriet. I bought these in London. "

"And they cost you something?"

"Some of these, of course, cost more than others. That, " Corinna pointedto a mezzotint of the Ladies Waldegrave by Valentine Green, "cost alittle less than ten thousand dollars. "

"Ten thousand dollars!" Mrs. Culpeper gazed at the print asdisapprovingly as if it were an open violation of the EighteenthAmendment. "We didn't pay anything like that for our largest copy of aMurillo. Well, I may not be artistic, but, for my part, I could neverunderstand why any one should want an old book or an old picture. "Sitting rigidly upright in one of the tapestry-covered chairs, she addedcondescendingly: "Stephen admires this room very much. "

"Stephen, " remarked Corinna pleasantly, "is a dear boy. "

"Just now, " returned Stephen's mother, with her accustomed air of dutyunflinchingly performed, "he is giving us a great deal of anxiety. Neverbefore, not even when he was in the war, have I spent so many sleeplessnights over him. "

"I am sorry. Poor Stephen, what has he done?"

"I have always hoped, " observed Mrs. Culpeper firmly, "that Stephenwould marry Margaret. "

"I am aware of that. " A flicker of amusement brightened Corinna's eyes. "So, I think, is Stephen. "

"I have tried to be honest. It seems to me that a mother's wish shouldcarry a great deal of weight in such matters. "

"It ought to, " assented Corinna, "but I've never heard of its doing so. "

"Everything would have been satisfactory if he had not allowed himselfto be carried away by a foolish fancy. "

"I cannot imagine, " said Corinna primly, "that Stephen could ever befoolish. It gives me hope of him. "

Impaling her, as if she had been a butterfly, with a glance as sharp asa needle, Mrs. Culpeper demanded sternly, "How much do you know of thisaffair, my dear?"

In spite of her natural courage Corinna was seized with a shiver ofapprehension. "Do you think it is an affair?" she asked. 

"I think it is worse. I think it is an infatuation. "

"What, Stephen? Not really?" Corinna's voice was mirthfully incredulous. 

"I have seen the girl once or twice, " resumed Mrs. Culpeper, "and sheseems to me objectionable from every point of view. "

"Only from the Culpeper one, " protested Corinna. "I find her veryattractive. "

"Well, I do not. " Mrs. Culpeper had relapsed into her tone of habitualmartyrdom. "If Stephen chooses to kill me, " she added, "he may do it. "

Corinna leaned toward her ingratiatingly. "Don't you admit, CousinHarriet, that I have improved Patty tremendously?"

"I see no difference. "

"Oh, but there is one--a great difference! If you had come to one of theGovernor's receptions last winter, you couldn't have told that shewasn't--well, one of us. She has been so quick to pick up things that itis amazing. "

Mrs. Culpeper lifted the transparent mesh from the point of her nose. "Do you know, " she demanded, "that the girl was born in a circus tent?"

"So I have heard. It was a romantic beginning. "

Foiled but undaunted, the older woman fixed on Corinna the stare withwhich she would have attempted the conversion of an undraped pagan ifshe had ever encountered one. Though she was unconscious of the fact asshe sat there, suffering yet unbending, in the Florentine chair, sherepresented the logical result of the conservative principle in nature, of the spirit that forgets nothing and learns nothing, of the instinctof the type to reproduce itself, without variation or development, untilthe pattern is worn too thin to endure. That Stephen had inherited thispassive force, Corinna knew, but she knew also, that it was threatenedby his incurable romanticism, by that inarticulate longing for heroicadventures. 

Suddenly, as if moved by a steel spring, Mrs. Culpeper rose. "I know youhave a great deal of influence over Stephen, " she said, "and I hopedthat, instead of encouraging him in his folly, you would sympathize withme. "

"I do sympathize with you, Cousin Harriet--only I have learned that itis sometimes very difficult to decide what is folly and what is wisdomin a man's life. "

"There can scarcely be a doubt, I think, about this. Surely you cannotimagine that there would be happiness for my son in a marriage with thedaughter of Gideon Vetch?"

There was a dreamy sweetness in Corinna's eyes. "I can't answer that, Cousin Harriet, because I don't know. But are you sure it has gone asfar as that? Has Stephen really thought of marriage?"

"I don't know. He tells me nothing, " replied Mrs. Culpeper hopelessly, and she added after a pause: "But I can't help having eyes. It is eitherthat--or he is going into politics. " Her tone was as despairing as ifshe had said, "he is coming down with fever. "

For a minute Corinna hesitated; then she responded cheerfully, "If itis any comfort to you, Cousin Harriet, I feel that you are making amountain out of a mole hill. When it comes to the point, I believe thatStephen will revert to type like the rest of us. "

Mrs. Culpeper clutched desperately at the straw that was offered her. "You think he won't ask her to marry him?"

"If he does, " said Corinna firmly, "I shall be more surprised than Ihave ever been in my life. "

The look of martyrdom faded slowly from her visitor's features. "You saythis because you know Stephen?"

"Because I know Stephen--and men, " answered Corinna, while she thoughtof John Benham. "Frankly, I think it would be a splendid thing forStephen to do. It would prove, you know, that he cared enough to make asacrifice. I think it would be splendid; but I think also that we are ofthe breed that looks too long before it leaps. Our great adventures takeplace in dreams or in talk. We like to play with forlorn hopes; but theonly forlorn hope we have actually embraced is the conservativeprinciple; and we couldn't let that go, even if we tried, because it isbred in our bone. So I believe that the ^hereditary habit will dragStephen safely back before he rushes into danger. He may play with thethought of Patty, but he will probably marry Margaret. "

If Mrs. Culpeper's too refined features could have expressed passion, itwould have been the passion of thankfulness. "It was worth coming, " shesaid, "to hear you say that of Stephen. "

When at last she had gone, primly grateful for the scrap of comfort, Corinna stood for a minute with her eyes on the sunbeams at the window. Outside there were the roving winds and the restless spirit of April;and feeling suddenly that she could stand the close walls and thefamiliar objects no longer, she put on her hat and gloves and went outinto the street. Scarcely knowing why, with some vague thought that shemight go to see Patty, she turned in the direction of the CapitolSquare, walking with her buoyant grace which seemed a part of thefugitive beauty of April. The air was so fragrant, the sunshine sosoftly burning, that it was as if summer were advancing, not gradually, but in a single miracle of florescence. It was one of those days whichrelease all the secret inexpressible dreams of the heart. Every facethat she passed was touched with the wistful longing which is the veryessence of spring. She saw it in the faces of the women who hurried, warm, flushed, and impatient, from the shops or the markets; she saw itin the faces of the men returning from work and thinking of freedom; andshe saw it again in the long sad faces of the dray-horses standinghitched to a city cart at the corner. 

In the Square the sunlight lay in splinters over the young grass, whichwas dotted with buttercups, and overhead the long black boughs of thetrees were sprinkled with pale green leaves. Back and forth from thegrassy slopes to the winding brick walks, squirrels darted, busy andjoyous; and a few old men, never absent from the benches, were smilingvaguely at the passers-by. 

When she reached the gate of the Governor's house, her wish to see Pattyhad vanished, and she decided that she would go on to the library andask for a book that she had recently heard John Benham discussing. Howmuch of her life now, in spite of its active impersonal interests, wasbeginning to centre in John Benham! They were planning to be married inJune, and beyond that month of roses, which was once so saturated withmemories of her early romance, she saw ahead of her long years oftranquil happiness. Well, she could not complain. After all, was nottranquil happiness the best that life had to offer?

She had ascended the steps of the library, and was about to enter theswinging doors, when she turned and glanced back at the dappled boughsof an old sycamore, outlined so softly, with its budding leaves, againstthe green hill and the changeable blue of the sky. The long walk wasalmost deserted. A fountain played gently at the end of the slope; a fewcoloured nurses were dozing on a bench, while their be-ribboned chargesscattered peanuts before a fluttering crowd of sparrows, pigeons, andsquirrels; and, leaning on a rude crutch, a lame old negro woman wasdragging a basket of brushwood to the brow of the hill. The scene wasvery peaceful, wrapped in that languorous stillness which is thepervading charm of the South; and beyond the high spikes of the ironfence, the noise of passing street cars sounded far off and unreal. 

She was still standing there, with her dreamy eyes on the old negresstoiling up the hill with her basket of brushwood, when a man passed thefountain hurriedly, and came with a brisk, springy stride up the brickwalk below the library. As she watched him, at first withoutrecognition, she thought vaguely that his rugged figure made a pictureof embodied activity, of physical energy and enjoyment. The next minutehe reached the old negress, glanced at her casually in passing, andturning abruptly round, lifted the basket, and carried it to the top ofthe hill. Then, as he looked back at the old woman, who limped afterhim, he laughed with boyish merriment, and Corinna saw in amazement thatthe man was Gideon Vetch. 

"He is obliged to be theatrical, " remarked a voice behind her, andglancing over her shoulder she saw that she had been joined by asevere-looking young woman with several books under her arm. 

"Is it that?" asked Corinna doubtfully, and she added to herself after amoment, "I wonder?"

A little later, as she was leaving the Square, Stephen overtook her, andshe told him of the incident. "The Governor is always breaking out likean epidemic where you least expect him, " she concluded with a smile. 

"I know. I've caught him. " Though the young man's eyes reflected hersmile, his tone was serious. "I can't rid myself of the fellow. "

"Have you been to see him this morning?"

He laughed. "I should say not! But I've been in a worse fix. I've justwalked up the street with--well, imagine it!--that bounder Gershom. "

"So you both haunt the Square?"

At the question Stephen turned and faced her frankly. "How, in Heaven'sname, does she stand him?"

"That's a riddle. To me he is impossible. "

"He is more than that. He is unspeakable. " As he looked into her eyes adeep anxiety or disturbance appeared beneath the superficial gaiety ofhis smile. "The fellow had evidently had a quarrel, perhaps a permanentbreak, with Vetch. He was in a kind of cold rage; and do you know whathe said to me? He told me, --not openly, but in pretended secrecy, --thatVetch had never married Patty's mother--"

For an instant Corinna gazed at him in silence. Then her words came in agasp of indignation. "Of course there isn't a word of truth in it!"

"So I said to him. He insists that he has the proofs. You know what itmeans?"

"Oh, I know--poor Patty! You understand why he told you?"

"I couldn't at first see the reason; but afterward it came to me. "

"The reason is as clear as daylight. He is infatuated, and he imaginesthat you stand in his way. "

"Not only that. I think he has some idea of using whatever proofs he hasto bend Vetch to his will. He was sharp enough not to say so, for heknew that would be pure blackmail. The ground he took was one ofnauseating morality, but I inferred that he is trying to force Vetch toagree to this general strike, and that he is prepared to threaten himwith some kind of exposure if he doesn't. This, however, was meresurmise on my part. The fellow is as shrewd as he is unprincipled. "

When Corinna believed it was in full measure and overflowing. "It's nottrue. I know it's not true. "

"Has Patty told you anything?"

"Nobody has told me anything. One doesn't have to have a reason forknowing things--at least one doesn't unless one is a man. I know itbecause I know it. " Then, without waiting for his reply, she continuedwith cheerful firmness: "The best way to treat scandal is to forget it. Don't you think that Patty improves every day?"

He reddened and looked away from her. "Yes, she grows more attractive, I--" While she still waited for him to complete his sentence, he shotout in an embarrassed tone: "Corinna, do you believe in Gideon Vetch?"

For an instant Corinna hesitated. "I believe that he is--well, justGideon Vetch, " she answered enigmatically. 

"Just a professional politician?"

"Not at all. He is a great deal more than that, but what that great dealis I cannot pretend to say. "

"Do you ever see him away from Patty?"

"Now and then. He has been to the shop. "

"And you like him?"

Again she hesitated. "Yes, I like him. " Turning her head, she lookedstraight at him with a glow in her eyes. "That is, " she correctedsoftly, "I should like him if it were not for John. "

"You compare him with John?"

"Don't you?"

"Naturally. Of course the Governor loses by that. "

"Who wouldn't?"

Her face flushed at the thought, and as Stephen watched her, he asked ina gentler voice, "Are you really to be married in June?"

She smiled an assent, with her dreaming gaze on the young leaves and theblue sky. 

"Are you happy?" he persisted. 

Her smile answered him again. "One dreads the lonely fireside as onegrows older. " Then suddenly, as if the shadow of a cloud had driftedover the bright sky, he saw the smile fade from her lips and the glowfrom her upraised eyes. Somewhere within her brain a voice as hollow asan echo was repeating, "_Isn't that life--sparrows for larks always?_"

"Well, you know what I feel about you, and what I think about Benham, "replied Stephen. "You two together stand for all that I admire. " As ifashamed of the tone of sentiment, he continued carelessly after amoment: "Vetch is very far from being a Benham, and yet there issomething about the man that holds one's attention. People are for everdiscussing him. A little while ago we were talking about his personalpeculiarities and his political offences. Now we are wondering how hewill handle this strike if it comes off; and what effect it will have onhis career? Benham, of course, thinks that he is an instrument in thehands of a political group; that his office was the price they paid himnot to interfere in the strike. As for me I have no opinion. I amwaiting to see what will happen. "

They had reached the old print shop; and, as they paused beneath thecedars in the front yard, Stephen glanced up at the window under thequaint shingled roof. The upper storey, he knew, was rented to a coupleof tenants, and he was not surprised when he saw the curtains of dottedswiss pushed aside and a woman's face look down on him over the redgeranium on the window-sill. The face was familiar; but, while he staredback at it, searching his memory for a resemblance, the white curtainsdropped together again, veiling the features. Where had he seen thatwoman before? What association of ideas did the sight of her recall? Ina flash, while he still groped through mental obscurity, light broke onhim. 

"Who is that woman, Corinna?" he asked. "What do you know of her?"

"That woman?" Corinna repeated; then, as he lifted his eyes to thewindow, she added, "Oh, that's Mrs. Green. A pathetic face, isn't it? Iknow nothing about her except that she came in a few weeks ago, and thecaretaker tells me that she is leaving to-morrow. "

"Do you know where she came from?"

"My dear Stephen! Why, what in the world?" A laugh broke from Corinna'slips. "Did you ever see her before?"

"Twice, and both times in the Capitol Square. I thought her dreadful tolook at. "

"I've only glanced at her, but she appeared to me more pathetic thandreadful. She has been ill, I imagine, and she looks terribly poor. I'mafraid the rent is too high, but I can't do anything, for she rented herroom from the tenants. I suppose, poor thing, that she is merely a sadadventuress, and it is not the sad adventuresses, but the glad ones, whousually enlist a young man's sympathy. By the way, I am lunching withthe Governor to-morrow. "

"Is it a party?"

"No, just the family. That shows how intimate I have become with theVetches. Don't tell Cousin Harriet, or she would think I was beginningto corrupt your politics. But I may use my influence to find out whatthe Governor intends to do about the strike, and a cousin with apolitical secret is worth having. "

With a laugh Stephen went on his way, wondering vaguely what there wasabout the woman at the window, Mrs. Green Corinna had called her, thatmade it impossible for him to rid his mind of her? Glancing back fromthe end of the block, he saw that Corinna had entered the shop and thatthe curtains at the upper window had been pushed back again while thedim face of Mrs. Green looked down into the street. Was she watching forsome one? Or was she merely relieving the monotony of life indoors bygazing down into Franklin Street at an hour when it was almost deserted?

CHAPTER XIV

A LITTLE LIGHT ON HUMAN NATURE

Corinna had not expected to see the Governor until luncheon next day;but, to her surprise, he came to the shop just as she was about to lockthe door and go home for the afternoon. At first she thought that thevisit was merely a casual one--it was not unusual for him to drop in ashe was going by--but he had no sooner glanced about the room to see ifthey were alone than he broke out with his characteristic directness. 

"There is something I want to ask you. Will you answer me frankly?"

"That depends. Tell me what it is and then I will answer your question. "

"It is about Patty. You've seen a great deal of her, haven't you?"

"A great deal. I am very fond of her. "

"Then perhaps you can tell me if she is interested in this youngCulpeper?"

For a minute Corinna struggled against a burst of hysterical laughter. Oh, if Cousin Harriet had only met him here, she thought, what a comedythey would have made!

"Surely if any one has an opinion about that, it must be you, " sherejoined as gravely as she could. 

"I haven't; not the shadow of one. " He was plainly puzzled. "I thoughtyou might help me. You have a way of seeing things. "

"Have I?" The spontaneous tribute touched her. "I wish I could seethis, but I can't. Frankly, since you ask me, I may say that I have beentroubled about it. There are things that Patty hides, even from me, andI think I have her confidence. "

"I dare say you wonder why I have come to you to-day, " he said. "I canhandle most situations; but I have never had to handle the love affairsof a girl, and I'm perfectly capable of making a mess of them. Thingslike that are outside of my job. "

He seemed to her a pathetic figure as he stood there, in his boyishembarrassment and his redundant vitality, confessing an inability tosurmount the obstacle in his way. She had never known any one, man orwoman, who was so obviously lacking in subtlety of perception, in allthose delicate intuitions on which she relied more completely than onjudgment for an accurate impression of life. Was he, with his bigness, his earnestness, his luminous candour, only an overgrown child? Even hisphysical magnetism, and she felt this in the very moment when she wastrying to analyse it, even his physical magnetism might be nothing morethan the spell exercised by primitive impulse over the too complexproblems of civilization. She had heard that he was unscrupulous--vaguecharges that he had never been able to repel--yet she was conscious nowof a secret wish to protect him from the consequences of his duplicity, as she might have wished to protect an irresponsible child. Somemysterious sense perception made her aware that beneath what appeared tobe discreditable public actions there was the simple bed-rock ofhonesty. For the quality she felt in Vetch was a profound moralintegrity, an integrity which was bred by nature in the innermost fibreof the man. 

"If you will tell me--" she began, and checked herself with a sensationof helplessness. After all, what could he tell her that she did notknow?

"I want to do what is right for her, " he said abruptly. "I should hatefor her to be hurt. "

While he talked it seemed to Corinna that she was living in some absurdcomedy, which mimicked life but was only acting, not reality. In herworld of reserves and implications no man would have dared to makehimself ridiculous by a visit like this. 

"Do you believe that she cares for Stephen?" she asked bluntly. 

"It didn't start with me. Miss Spencer, that's the lady who lives withus you know, is afraid that Patty sees too much of him. He is at thehouse every day--"

"Well?" Corinna waited patiently. She was not in the least afraid ofwhat Stephen might do. She knew that she could trust him to be agentleman; but being a gentleman, she reflected, did not necessarilykeep one from breaking a woman's heart. And Patty had a wild, free heartthat might be broken. 

"I don't know what to do about it, " Vetch was saying while she ponderedthe problem. "As I told you a minute ago this is all outside my job. "

"Have you spoken to Patty?"

"I started to, but she made fun of the idea--you know the way she has. She asked me if I had ever heard of any one falling in love with aplaster saint?"

Corinna smiled. "So she called Stephen a plaster saint?"

"She was chaffing, of course. "

"Well, I don't see that there is anything you can do unless you sendPatty away. "

"She wouldn't go, " he responded simply; then after a moment ofembarrassed hesitation, he blurted out nervously, "Is this youngCulpeper what you would call a marrying man?"

This time it was impossible for Corinna to suppress her amusement, andit broke out in a laugh that was like the chiming of silver bells. Oh, if only Cousin Harriet could hear him! Then observing the gravity ofVetch's expression, she checked her untimely mirth with an effort. 

"That depends, I suppose. At his age how can any one tell?" In her heartshe did not believe that Stephen would marry Patty; she was not sureeven that she, Corinna, should wish him to do so. There was too much atstake, and though her philosophy was fearless, her conduct had neverbeen anything but conventional. While in theory she despised discretion, she realized that the virtue she despised, not the theory she admired, had dominated her life. The great trouble with acts of reckless nobilitywas that the recklessness was only for a moment, but the nobility wasobliged to last a lifetime. It was not difficult, she knew, for personslike Stephen or herself to be heroic in appropriate circumstances; thedifficulty began when one was compelled to sustain the heroic rôle longafter the appropriate circumstances had passed away. Yet, in spite ofthe cynical lucidity of her judgment, the romantic in her heart longedto have Stephen, by one generous act of devotion, prove her theoryfallacious. Her strongest impulse, the impulse to create happiness, torepair, as her father had once described it, crippled destinies; thisimpulse urged her now to help Patty's pathetic romance in every way inher power. It would be very fine if Stephen cared enough to forget whathe was losing. It would be magnificent, she felt, but it would not bemasculine. For she had had great experience; and though men might varyin a multitude of particulars, she had found that the solidarity of sexwas preserved in some general code of emotional expediency. 

"Do you think, " Vetch was making another attempt to explain his meaning, "that he is seriously interested?"

"I am perfectly sure, " she replied, "that he is more than half in lovewith her. "

"Is he the kind, then, to let himself go the rest of the way?"

She shook her head. "That I cannot answer. From my knowledge of therestraining force of the Culpeper fibre, I should say that he is not. "

"You mean he wouldn't think it a suitable marriage?"

She blushed for his crudeness. "I mean his mother wouldn't think it asuitable marriage. Patty is very attractive, but they know nothing abouther except that. You see they have had the disadvantage of knowingeverything about every one who has married, or who has even wished tomarry, into the family for the last two hundred years. It is adisadvantage, as I've said, for the strain is so highly bred that eachgeneration becomes mentally more and more like the fish in caves thathave lost their eyes because they stopped trying to see. Stephen isdifferent in a way--and yet not different enough. It would be hissalvation if he could care enough for Patty to take a risk for her sake;but his mother, of course, would fight against it with every particleof her influence, and her influence is enormous. " Then she met his eyesboldly: "Wouldn't you fight against it in her place?" she asked. 

"I? Oh, I shouldn't care a hang what anybody thought if I liked thegirl, " he retorted. His smile shone out warmly. "Would you?" he demandedin his turn. 

For an instant his blunt question disconcerted her, and while shehesitated she felt his blue eyes on her downcast face. "You can't judgeby me, " she answered presently. "Only those who have been in chains knowthe meaning of freedom. "

"Are you free now?"

"Not entirely. Who is?"

He was looking at her more closely; and when at last she raised hereyelashes and met his gaze, the lovely glow which gave her beauty itslook of October splendour suffused her features. Anger seized her in thevery moment that the colour rushed to her cheeks. Why should she blushlike a schoolgirl because of the way this man--or any man--looked ather?

"Are you going to marry Benham?" he asked; and there was a note in hisvoice which disturbed her in spite of herself. Though she deniedpassionately his right to question her, she answered simply enough:"Yes, I am going to marry him. "

"Do you care for him?"

With an effort she turned her eyes away and looked beyond the greenstems and the white flowers of the narcissi in the window to the streetoutside, where the shadows of the young leaves lay like gauze over thebrick pavement. 

"If I didn't care do you think that I would marry him?" she asked in alow voice. Through the open window a breeze came, honey-sweet with thescent of narcissi, and she realized, with a start, that this earlyspring was poignantly lovely and sad. 

"Well, I wish I'd known you twenty years ago, " said Vetch presently. "IfI'd had a woman like you to help me, I might have been almost anything. Nobody knows better than I how much help a woman can be when she's theright sort. "

She tore her gaze from the sunshine beyond, from the beauty and thewistfulness of April. What was there in this man that convinced her inspite of everything that Benham had told her?

"Your wife has been dead a long time?" She spoke gently, for his tonemore than his words had touched her sympathy. 

As soon as she asked the question, she realized that it was a mistake. An expressionless mask closed over his face, and she received theimpression that he had withdrawn to a distance. 

"A long time, " was all he answered. His voice had become so impersonalthat it was toneless. 

"Well, it hasn't kept you back--not having help, " she hastened to replyas naturally as she could. "You are almost everything you wished to bein the world, aren't you?" It was a foolish speech, she felt, but thechange in his manner had surprised and bewildered her. 

He laughed shortly without merriment. "I?" he replied, and she noticedfor the first time that he looked tired and worried beneath hisexuberant optimism. "I am the loneliest man on earth. The loneliest manon earth is the one who stands between two extremes. " As she made noreply, he continued after a moment, "You think, of course, that I standwith one extreme, not in the centre, but you are mistaken. I am in themiddle. When I try to bring the two millstones together they will grindme to powder. "

She had never heard him speak despondently before; and while shelistened to the sound of his expressive voice, so full, for the hour atleast, of discouragement, she felt drawn to him in a new and personalway. It was as if, by showing her a side of his nature the public hadnever seen, he had taken her into his confidence. 

"But surely your influence is as great as ever, " she said presently. Atrite remark, but the only one that occurred to her. 

"I brought the crowd with me as far as I thought safe, " he answered, "and now it is beginning to turn against me because I won't lead it overthe precipice into the sea. That's the way it always is, I reckon. That's the way it's been, anyhow, ever since Moses tried to lead theChildren of Israel out of bondage. Take these strikers, for instance. Ibelieve in the right to strike. I believe that they ought to have everypossible protection. I believe that their families ought to be providedfor in order to take the weapon of starvation out of the hands of thecapitalists. I'd give them as fair a field as it is in my power toprovide, and anybody would think that they would be satisfied withsimple fairness. But, no, what they are trying to do is not to strike_for_ themselves, but to strike _at_ somebody else. They are notsatisfied with protection from starvation unless that protectioninvolves the right to starve somebody else. They want to tie up themarkets and stop the dairy trains, and they won't wink an eyelash if allthe babies that don't belong to them are without milk. That's war, theytell me; and I answer that I'd treat war just as I'd treat a strike, ifI had the power. As soon as an army began to prey on the helpless, I'draise a bigger army if I could and throw the first one out into thejungle where it belonged. But people don't see things like that now, though they may in the next five hundred years. The trouble is that allhuman nature, including capitalist and labourer, is tarred with the samebrush and tarred with selfishness. What the oppressed want is notfreedom from oppression, but the opportunity to become oppressors. "

Was this only a mood, she wondered, or was it the expression of aprofound disappointment? Sympathy such as John Benham had never awakenedoverflowed from her heart, and she was conscious suddenly of some deepintuitive understanding of Vetch's nature. All that had been alien orambiguous became as close and true and simple as the thoughts in her ownmind. What she saw in Vetch, she perceived now, was that resemblance toherself which the Judge had once turned into a jest. She discerned hispoint of view not by looking outside of herself, but by looking within. 

"I know, " she responded in her rich voice. "I think I know. "

He gazed at her with a smile which had grown as tired as the rest ofhim. "Then if you know why don't you help--you others?" he asked. "Don'tyou see that by standing aside, by keeping apart, you are doing all theharm that you can? If democracy doesn't seem good enough for you, thenget down into the midst of it and make it better. That's the onlyway--the only way on earth to make a better democracy--by putting thebest we've got into it. You can't make bread rise from the outside. You've got to mix the yeast with the dough, if you want it to leaven thewhole lump. "

She had been standing with her hands clasped before her and her eyes onthe sky beyond the window; and when he paused, with a husky tone in hisvoice, she spoke almost as if she were in a dream. "I believe in you, "she said, and then again, as he did not speak she repeated very slowly:"I believe in you. "

"That helps, " he answered gravely. "I don't suppose you will everrealize how much that will help me. " As he finished he turned toward thedoor; and a minute afterward, without another word or look, he went outinto the street, and she saw his figure cross the flowers and thesunlight in the window. 

When he had gone Corinna opened the door and stood watching the longblack shadows of the cedars creep over the walk of broken flagstones. Always when she was alone her thoughts would return like homing birds toJohn Benham; but this afternoon, though she spoke his name in herreflections, she was conscious of an inner detachment from the vitalinterests of her personal life. For a little while, so strong was themental impression Vetch had made on her, she saw his image even whileshe thought the name of John Benham. Then, with an effort of will, sheput the Governor and all that he had said out of her mind. After all, how little would she ever see of him now--how seldom would their pathscross in the future! A strange and interesting man, a man who had, inone instant of mental sympathy, stirred something within her heart thatno one, not even Kent Page, had ever awakened before. For that oneinstant a ripple, nothing more, had moved on the face of the deep--ofthe deep which was so ancient that it was older even than the blood ofher race. Then the ripple passed and the sunny stillness settled againon her spirit. 

She thought of John Benham easily now; and while she stood there a quiethappiness shone in her eyes. After the storm and stress of twenty years, life in this Indian summer of the emotions was like an enclosed gardenof sweetness and bloom. She had had enough of hunger and rapture anddisappointment. Never again would she take up the old search forperfection, for the starry flower of the heights. Something that shecould worship! So often in the past it had seemed to her that she missedit by the turn of a corner, the stop on the roadside, by the choice of apath that led down into the valley instead of up into the hills. Sooften her god had revealed the feet of clay just as she was preparing toscatter marigolds on his altar. It appeared to her as she looked back onthe past, that life had been merely a succession of great opportunitiesthat one did not grasp, of high adventures that one never followed. 

The sound of a motor horn interrupted her reverie, and she saw that abig open car, with a green body, had turned the corner and was about tostop at her door. An instant later anger burned in her heart, for shesaw that the car was driven by Rose Stribling. Even a glimpse of thatflaunting pink hollyhock of a woman was sufficient to ruffle the placidcurrent of Corinna's thoughts. Could she never forget? Must she, whohad long ago ceased to love the man, still be enslaved to resentmentagainst the woman?

With an ample grace, Mrs. Stribling descended from the car, and crossedthe pavement to the flagged walk which led to the white door of the oldprint shop. In her trimly fitting dress of blue serge, with her smallstraw hat ornamented by stiff black quills, she looked fresher, harder, more durably glazed than ever. A slight excess, too deep a carmine inher smooth cheeks, too high a polish on her pale gold hair, too thick adusk on her lashes; this was the only flaw that one could detect in herappearance. If men liked that sort of thing, and they apparently did, Corinna reflected, then they could scarcely complain of an emphasis onperfection. 

"I've just got back, " began Rose Stribling in a tone as soft as hermetallic voice could produce. "It's been an age since I've seen you--notsince the night of that stupid dinner at the Berkeleys', and I'm so muchinterested in the news I have heard. "

For a minute Corinna stared at her. "Yes, my shop has been verysuccessful, " she answered, after a pause in which she tried and failedto think of a reply that would sound more disdainful. "If you arelooking for prints, I can show you some very good ones. "

"Oh, I don't mean that. " Mrs. Stribling appeared genuinely amused by themistake. "I am not looking for prints--to tell the truth I shouldn'tknow one if I saw it. I mean your engagement, of course. There isn'tanybody in the world who admires John Benham more than I do. I alwayssay of him that he is the only man I know who will sacrifice himselffor a principle. All his splendid record in the army--when he was overage too--and then the way he behaved about that corporation! I neverunderstood just why he did it--I'm sure I could never bring myself torefuse so much money, --but that doesn't keep me from admiring him. " Fora minute she looked at Corinna with a smile which seemed as permanent asthe rest of her surface, while she discreetly sharpened her wits for thestab which was about to be dealt. "I can't tell you how surprised I wasto hear you had announced your engagement. You know we were so sure thathe was going to marry Alice Rokeby after she got her divorce. Of coursenobody knew. It was just gossip, and you and I both know how absurdgossip can be. "

So this was why she had stopped! Corinna flinched from the thrust evenwhile she told herself that there was no shadow of truth in the oldrumour, that malice alone had prompted Rose Stribling to repeat it. In awoman like that, an incorrigible coquette, every relation with her ownsex would be edged with malice. 

"Well, I just stopped to wish you happiness. I must go now, but I'llcome again, when I have time, and look at your shop. Such a funnyidea--a shop, with all the money you've got! But no idea seems too funnyfor people to-day. And that reminds me of the Governor. Have you seenthe Governor again since the evening we dined with him?"

Her turn had come, and Corinna, for she was very human, planted thesting without mercy. "Oh, very often. He was here a few minutes ago. "

"Then it's true? Somebody told me he admired you so much. "

Corinna smiled blandly. "I hope he does. We are great friends. " Wouldthere always be women like that in the world, she asked herself--womenwhose horizon ended with the beginning of sex? It was a feminine typethat seemed to her as archaic as some reptilian bird of the primevalforests. How long would it be, she wondered, before it would surviveonly in the dry bones of genealogical scandals? As she looked after RoseStribling's bright green car, darting like some gigantic dragon-fly upthe street, her lips quivered with scorn and disgust. "I wonder if shethought I believed her?" she said to herself in a whisper. "I wonder ifshe thought she could hurt me?"

The sunshine was in her eyes, and she was about to turn and go back intothe shop, when she saw that Alice Rokeby was coming toward her with aslow dragging step, as if she were mentally and bodily tired. Thelace-work of shadows fell over her like a veil; and high above her headthe early buds of a tulip tree made a mosaic of green and yellow lotuscups against the Egyptian blue of the sky. Framed in the vivid coloursof spring she had the look of a flower that has been blighted by frost. 

"How ill, how very ill she looks, " thought Corinna, with an impulse ofsympathy. "I wish she would come in and rest. I wish she would let mehelp her. "

For an instant the violet eyes, with their vague wistfulness, their muteappeal, looked straight into Corinna's; and in that instant aninscrutable expression quivered in Alice Rokeby's face, as if a wanlight had flickered up and died down in an empty room. 

"The heat is too much for you, " said Corinna gently. "It is likesummer. "

"Yes, I have never known so early a spring. It has come and gone in aweek. "

"You look tired, and your furs are too heavy. Won't you come in and restuntil my car comes?"

The other woman shook her head. She was still pretty, for hers was aface to which pallor lent the delicate sweetness of a white rose-leaf. 

"It is only a block or two farther. I am going home, " she answered in alow voice. 

"Won't you come to my shop sometimes? I have missed seeing you thiswinter. " The words were spoken sincerely, for Corinna's heart was opento all the world but Rose Stribling. 

"Thank you. How lovely your cedars are!" The wan light shone again inAlice Rokeby's face. Then she threw her fur stole from her shoulders asif she were fainting under the weight of it, and passed on, with herdragging step, through the lengthening shadows on the pavement. 

CHAPTER XV

CORINNA OBSERVES

Yes, Patty was in love, this Corinna decided after a single glance. Thegirl appeared to have changed miraculously over-night, for her hardbrightness had melted in the warmth of some glowing flame that burned ather heart. Never had she looked so Ariel-like and elusive; never had shebrought so hauntingly to Corinna's memory the loveliness of youth andspring that is vivid and fleeting. 

"Can it be that Stephen is really in earnest?" asked the older woman ofher disturbed heart; and the next instant, shaking her wise head, sheadded, "Poor little redbird! What does she know of life outside of acedar tree?"

At luncheon the Governor, in an effort to hide some perfectly evidentanxiety, over-shot the mark as usual, Corinna reflected. It was his way, she had observed, to cover a mental disturbance with pretended hilarity. There was, as always when he was unnatural and ill at ease, a touch ofcoarseness in his humour, a grotesque exaggeration of his rhetoricalstyle. With his mind obviously distracted he told several anecdotes ofdubious wit; and while he related them Miss Spencer sat primly silentwith her gaze on her plate. Only Corinna laughed, as she laughed at anyhonest jest however out of place. After all, if you began to judge menby the quality of their jokes where would it lead you?

Patty, with her eyes drooping beneath her black lashes, sat lost in aday dream. She dressed now, by Corinna's advice, in straight slim gownsof serge or velvet; and to-day she was wearing a scant little frock ofblue serge, with a wide white collar that gave her the look of adelicate boy. There were wonderful possibilities in the girl, Corinnamused, looking her over. She had not a single beautiful feature, excepther remarkable eyes; and yet the softness and vagueness of her face lenta poetic and impressionistic charm to her appearance. "In that dress shelooks as if she had stepped out of the Middle Ages, and might step backagain at any minute, " thought Corinna. "I wonder if I can be mistaken inStephen, and if he is seriously in love with her?"

"Patty is grooming me for the White House, " remarked Vetch, with hishearty laugh which sounded a trifle strained and affected to-day. "Shethinks it probable that I shall be President. "

"Why not, Father?" asked Patty loyally. "They couldn't find a betterone. "

"Do you hear that?" demanded the Governor in delight. "That is what onecoming voter thinks of me. "

"And a good many others, I haven't a doubt, " replied Corinna, with hercheerful friendliness. Through the windows of the dining-room she couldsee the long grape arbour and the gray boughs of the crepe myrtle treesin the garden. 

She had dressed herself carefully for the occasion in a black gown thatfollowed closely the lines of her figure. Her beauty, which a painter inEurope had once compared to a lamp, was still so radiant that it seemedto drain the colour and light from her surroundings. Even Patty, withher fresh youth, lost a little of her vividness beside the glowingmaturity of the other woman. When Corinna had accepted the girl'sinvitation, she had resolved that she would do her best; that, howevertiresome it was, she would "carry it off. " Always a match for anysituation that did not include Kent Page or a dangerous emotion, shefelt entirely competent to "manage, " as Mrs. Culpeper would have said, the most radical of Governors. She liked the man in spite of his errors;she was sincerely attached to Patty; and their artless respect for heropinion gave her a sense of power which she told herself merrily was"almost political. " Though the Governor might be without the rectitudewhich both Benham and Stephen regarded as fundamental, she perceivedclearly that, even if Vetch were lacking in the particular principleinvolved, he was not devoid of some moral excellence which filled notignobly the place where principle should have been. She was prepared toconcede that the Governor was a man of many defects and a single virtue;but this single virtue impressed her as more tremendous than anycombination of qualities that she had ever encountered. She admittedthat, from Benham's point of view, Vetch was probably not to be trusted;yet she felt instinctively that she could trust him. The two men, shetold herself tolerantly, were as far apart as the poles. That thecardinal virtue Vetch possessed in abundance was the one in which Benhamwas inadequate had not occurred to her; for, at the moment, she couldnot bring herself to acknowledge that any admirable trait was absentfrom the man whom she intended to marry. 

"You would make a splendid president, Father, " Patty was insisting. 

"Well, I'm inclined to think that you're right, " Vetch respondedwhimsically, "but you'll have to convince a few others of that, Ireckon, before we begin to plan for the White House. First of all, you'll have to convince the folks that started the boom to make meGovernor. It looks as if some of them were already thinking that they'dmade a mistake. "

"Oh, that horrid Julius, " said Patty lightly. "He doesn't matter a bit, does he, Mrs. Page?"

"Not to me, " laughed Corinna, "but I'm not a politician. Politicianshave queer preferences. "

"Or queer needs, " suggested Vetch. "You don't like Gershom, I infer; butwhen you are ready to sweep, remember you mustn't be over-squeamishabout your broom. "

"I have heard, " rejoined Corinna, still laughing, "that a new broomsweeps clean. Why not try a new one next time?"

"You mean when I run for the Presidency?" Was he joking, or was there anundercurrent of seriousness in his words?

They had risen from the table; and as they passed through the longreception-room, which stretched between the dining-room and the widefront hall, Abijah brought the information that Mr. Gershom awaited theGovernor in the library. 

"I shall probably be kept there most of the afternoon, " said Vetch, andshe could see that his regret was not assumed. "The next time you come Ihope I shall have better luck. " Then he hurried off to his appointment, while Corinna stopped at the foot of the staircase and followed withher gaze the slender balustrade of mahogany. "If they had only lefteverything as it was!" she thought; and then she said aloud: "It is solovely out of doors. Get your hat and we'll walk awhile in the Square. Ican talk to you better there, and I want to talk to you seriously. "

After the girl had disappeared up the quaint flight of stairs, Corinnastood gazing meditatively at the bar of sunlight over the front door. She was thinking of what she should say to Patty--how could she possiblywarn the girl without wounding her?--and it was very gradually that shebecame aware of raised voices in the library and the hard, short soundof words that beat like hail into her consciousness. 

"I tell you we can put it over all right if you will only have the senseto keep your hands off!" stormed Gershom in a tone that he was trying invain to subdue. 

"Are you sure they will strike?"

"Dead sure. You may bet your bottom dollar on that. We can tie up everyroad in this state within twenty-four hours after the order goes out--"

Arousing herself with a start, Corinna opened the door and went out. Shecould not have helped hearing what Gershom had said; and after all thiswas nothing more than a repetition of the plain facts that Vetch hadalready confided to her. But why, she wondered, did they persist inholding their conferences at the top of their voices?

In a few minutes Patty came down, wearing a sailor hat which made herlook more than ever like an attractive boy; and they descended the stepstogether, and strolled past the fountain of the white heron to the gatein front of the house. Turning to the left as they entered the Square, they walked slowly down the wide brick pavement, which trailed by thelibrary and a larger fountain, to the dingy business street beyond theiron fence at the foot of the hill. As they went by, a woman, who wasfeeding the squirrels from one of the benches, lifted her face to stareat them curiously, and something vaguely familiar in her features causedCorinna to pause and glance back. Where had she seen her before? And howill, how hopelessly stricken, the haggard face looked under the thickmass of badly dyed hair. The next minute she remembered that the womanhad lodged for a week or two above the old print shop, and that onlyyesterday Stephen had asked about her. Poor creature, what a life shemust have had to have wrecked her so utterly. 

In the golden-green light of afternoon the Square was looking peacefuland lovely. For the hour a magic veil had dropped over the nakedness ofits outlines, and the bare buildings and bare walks were touched withthe glamour of spring. Soft, pale shadows of waving branches moved backand forth, like the ghosts of dreams, over the grassy hill and the brickpavements. 

Turning to the girl beside her, Corinna looked thoughtfully at the freshyoung face above the white collar which framed the lovely line of thethroat. Under the brim of the sailor hat Patty's eyes were dewy withhappiness. 

"Are you happy, Patty?"

"Oh, yes, " rejoined Patty fervently, "so much happier than I ever was inmy life!"

"I am glad, " said the older woman tenderly. Then taking the girl's handin hers she added earnestly: "But, my dear, we must be careful, you andI, not to let our happiness depend too much upon one thing. We mustscatter it as much as we can. "

"I can't do that, " answered Patty simply. "I am not made that way. Ipour everything into one thought. "

"I know, " responded Corinna sadly, and she did. She had lived through itall long ago in what seemed to her now another life. 

For a moment she was silent; and when she spoke again there was ananxious sound in her voice and an anxious look in the eyes she lifted tothe arching boughs of the sycamore. "Do you like Stephen very much, Patty?" she asked. 

Though Corinna did not see it, a glow that was like the flush of dawnbroke over the girl's sensitive face. "He is so superior, " she began asif she were repeating a phrase she had learned to speak; then in a lowvoice she added impulsively, "Oh, very much!"

"He is a dear boy, " returned Corinna, really troubled. "Do you see himoften?" Now, since she felt she had won the girl's confidence, herpurpose appeared more difficult than ever. 

"Very often, " replied Patty in a thrilling tone. "He comes every day. "The luminous candour, the fearless sincerity of Gideon Vetch, seemed toenvelop her as she answered. 

"Do you think he cares for you, dear?" asked Corinna softly. 

"Oh, yes. " The response was unhesitating. "I know it. "

How naive, how touchingly ingenuous, the girl was in spite of herexperience of life and of the uglier side of politicians. No girl inCorinna's circle would ever have appeared so confiding, so innocent, socompletely beneath the spell of a sentimental illusion. The girls thatCorinna knew might be unguarded about everything else on earth; but eventhe most artless one of them, even Margaret Blair, would have learned byinstinct to guard the secret of her emotions. 

"Has he asked you to marry him?" Corinna's voice wavered over thequestion, which seemed to her cruel; but Patty met it with transparentsimplicity. 

"Not yet, " she answered, lifting her shining eyes to the sky, "but hewill. How can he help it when he cares for me so much?"

"If he hasn't yet, my dear"--while the words dropped from her reluctantlips, Corinna felt as if she were inflicting a physical stab, --"how canyou tell that he cares so much for you?"

"I wasn't sure until yesterday, " replied Patty, with beaming lucidity, "but I knew yesterday because--because he showed it so plainly. "

With a lovely protective movement the older woman put her arm about thegirl's shoulders. "You may be right--but, oh, don't trust too much, Patty, " she pleaded, with the wisdom that the years bring and take away. "Life is so uncertain--fine impulses--even love--yes, love most ofall--is so uncertain--"

"Of course you feel that way, " responded the girl, sympathetic butincredulous. "How could you help it?"

After this what could Corinna answer? She knew Stephen, she toldherself, and she knew that she could trust him. She believed that liewas capable of generous impulses; but she doubted if an impulse, howevergenerous, could sweep away the inherited sentiments which encrusted hisoutlook on life. In spite of his youth, he was in reality so old. He wasas old as that indestructible entity, the spirit of race--as thatimpalpable strain which had existed in every Culpeper, and in all theCulpepers together, from the beginning. It was not, she realizedplainly, such an anachronism as a survival of the aristocratictradition. Deeper than this, it had its roots not in belief but ininstinct--in the bone and fibre of Stephen's character. It was a part ofthat motive power which impelled him in the direction of the beatenroad, of the established custom, of things as they have always been inthe past. 

Her kind heart was troubled; yet before the happiness in the girl's facewhat could she say except that she hoped Stephen was as fine as Pattybelieved him to be? "You may be right. I hope so with all my heart; but, oh, my dear, try not to care too much. It never does any good to caretoo much. " She stooped and kissed the girl's cheek. "There, my car is atthe door, and I must hurry back to the shop. I'll do anything in theworld that I can for you, Patty, anything in the world. "

As the car rolled through the gate and down the wide drive to theWashington monument, Patty stood gazing after it, with a burningmoisture in her eyes and a lump in her throat. Terror had seized her inan instant, terror of unhappiness, of missing the one thing in life onwhich she had passionately set her heart. What had Mrs. Page meant byher questions? Had she intended them as a warning? And why should shehave thought it necessary to warn her against caring too much forStephen?

The girl had started to enter the house when, remembering suddenly thatGershom was still there, she turned hurriedly away from the door, andwalked back down the brick pavement to the fountain beyond the library. The squirrels still scampered over the walk; the thirsty sparrows werestill drinking; the few loungers on the benches still stared at her withdull and incurious eyes. Not a cloud stained the intense blue of thesky; and over the bright grass on the hillside the sunshine quiveredlike an immense swarm of bees. 

As she approached the fountain where she had first met Stephen, itseemed to her that a romantic light, a visionary enchantment, fell overthis one spot of ground, and divided it by some magic circle from everyother place in the world. The crude iron railing, the bare gravel, theugly spouting fountain which was stripped of every leaf or blade ofgrass--these things appeared to her through an indescribable glamour, asif they stood there as the visible gateway to some invisible garden ofdreams. Whenever she looked at this ordinary spot of earth a breathlessrealization of the wonder and delight of life rushed over her. She knewnothing of the mental processes by which these external objects wereassociated with the deepest emotions of the heart. Only when she visitedthis place that wave of happiness swept over her; and she lived again asvividly as she lived in the moments when Stephen was with her and shewas looking into his eyes. 

His voice called her while she stood there; and turning quickly, she sawthat he was coming toward her down the walk. Immediately the loungers onthe benches vanished by magic; the murmur of the fountain became likethe music of harps; and the sunshine on the grassy hill was alive withthe quiver of wings. As she went toward him she was aware of the bluesky, of the golden green of the trees, of the happy sounds of the birds, and over all, as if it were outside of herself, of the rapturous beatingof her own heart. 

"I was looking for you, " he said when he reached her. 

"And you found me at last. " Her eyes were like wells of joy. 

"I'd never have given up until I found you. " The words were trivial; butit was the things he said without words that really mattered. Alreadythey had established a communion that was independent of speech. He hadnever told her that he loved her; yet she saw it in every glance of hiseyes and heard it in every tone of his voice. 

While they walked slowly up the hill she wondered trustingly why, whenhe had told her so plainly in every other way that he loved her, heshould never have put it into words. There could not be any doubt of it;perhaps this was the reason he hesitated. The present was so perfectthat it was like the most exquisite hour of a spring afternoon. Onelonged to hold it back even though one knew that it led to somethingmore lovely still. 

"Are you happy?" she asked, and wondered if he would kiss her again whenthey parted as he had kissed her yesterday in the dusk of the hall?

"Yes, and no. " He drew nearer to her. "I am happy now like this--herewith you--but at other times I am troubled. I can't see my way clearly. "

"But why should you? Why should any one be troubled when it is so easyto be happy?"

"Easy?" He laughed. "If life were only as simple as that!"

"It is if one knows what one wants. "

"Well, one may know what one wants, and yet not know if one is wise inwanting it. "

"Oh, wise!" She shook her head with an impatient movement. "Isn't theonly wisdom to be happy and kind?"

He looked at her thoughtfully, while a frown drew his straight darkeyebrows together. "If you wanted a thing with all your heart, and yetwere not sure--"

Her impatience answered him. "I couldn't want it with all my heartwithout being sure. "

"Sure I mean that it is best--best for every one--not just foroneself--"

Her laugh was like a song. "Do you suppose there has ever been anythingsince the world began that was best for every one? If I knew what Iwanted I shouldn't ask anything more. I would spread my wings and fly toit. "

He smiled. "You are so much like your father at times--even in thethings that you say. Yes, I suppose you would fly to it because you havebeen trained that way--to be direct and daring. But I am madedifferently. Life has taught me; it is in my blood and bone to stop andquestion, to look so long that at last I lose the will to choose, or toleap. There are some of us like that, you know. "

"Perhaps, " she smiled. "I don't know. It seems to me a very silly way tobe. " The song had gone out of her voice, and a heaviness, an impalpablefear, had descended again on her heart. Why did one's path lead alwaysthrough mazes of uncertainty and disappointment instead of straightonward toward one's desire? A passionate impulse seized her to fight forwhat she wanted, to grasp the fragile opportunity before it eluded her. Yet she knew that fighting would not do any good. She could do nothingwhile her happiness hung on a thread. She could do nothing but fold herhands and wait, though her heart burned hot with the injustice of it, and she longed to speak aloud all the words that were rising to hertightly closed lips. 

"Oh, don't you see--can't you see?" she asked brokenly, baring her heartwith a desperate impulse. Her eyes were drawing him toward the future;and, in the deep stillness of her look, it seemed to him that she wasputting forth all her power to charm; that her youth and bloom shed asweetness that was like the fragrance of a flower. 

For an instant every thought, every feeling, surrendered to her appeal. Then his face changed as abruptly as if he had put a mask over hisfeatures; and glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that his motherand Margaret Blair were walking along the concrete pavement under thefew old linden trees. As they approached it seemed to the girl thatStephen turned slowly from a man of flesh and blood into a figure ofgranite. In one instant he was petrified by the force of tradition. 

"It is my mother, " he said in a low voice. "She has not been in theSquare for years. I was telling her yesterday how pretty it looks in thespring. " He went forward with an embarrassed air, and Mrs. Culpeper laida firm, possessive touch on his arm. 

"I thought a little stroll might do me good, " she explained. "The car iswaiting across the street at Doctor Bradley's. " Then she held out herfree hand to Patty, with a smile which, the girl said afterward toCorinna, looked as if it had frozen on her lips. "Stephen speaks of youvery often, Miss Vetch, " she said. "He talks a great deal about hisfriends, doesn't he, Margaret?"

Margaret assented with a charming manner; and the two girls stoodlooking guardedly into each other's eyes. "She is attractive, " thoughtMargaret, not unkindly, for she was never unkind, "but I can'tunderstand just what he sees in her. " And at the same moment Patty wassaying to herself, "Oh, she is everything that he admires and nothingthat he enjoys. "

Aloud the elder girl said casually, "It is so quaint living down here inthe Square, isn't it?"

"But it is too far away from everything, " replied Stephen hurriedly. "Itmust be very different from what it was when you came to balls here, Mother. "

"Very, " answered Mrs. Culpeper stiffly because the cold hard smile wasstill on her lips. 

"It doesn't seem far away when you are used to it, " remarked Patty in aspiritless tone. The vague heaviness, like a black cloud covered herheart again. She was jealous of Margaret, jealous of her sweet, paleface, of her trusting blue eyes, of the delicate distinction that showedin the turn of her head, in her fragile hands, in the lovely liquidsound of her voice. 

"Cousin Corinna has promised to bring me to see you, " said Margaret inher kind and gentle way. 

"I hope you'll come, " replied Patty politely; but in her thoughts sheadded, "I hope you won't. I hope I'll never see you again. " She couldn'tbe natural; she couldn't be anything but stiff and awkward; and she wasaware all the time that Stephen was as embarrassed as she was. All thethings that she must fight against, that she must triumph over, wereembodied in that small black figure with the ivory face, so inelastic, so unbending, so secure in its inherited authority. There was warbetween her and Stephen's mother; and she stood alone, with only herundaunted spirit to support her, while on the opposite side wereentrenched all the immovable dead ranks of the generations. "I shallfight it out, " thought the girl bitterly. "I don't care what she thinksof me. I shall fight it out to the end. "

With her hand on Stephen's arm, Mrs. Culpeper turned slowly away. "Ifeel a little tired, " she explained politely to Patty, "so I am surethat you won't mind yielding to an infirm old woman, and will let my sonhelp me back to the car. "

"Oh, I don't mind, " replied Patty, with gay indifference. 

"I'll see you very soon, " said Stephen; and it seemed to the girl as shewatched him walking toward the Washington monument that he looked as oldand as tired as his mother. 

Of course he was obliged to go. There wasn't anything else that he coulddo, and yet--and yet--as Patty gazed after the three slowly movingfigures, she felt that a cold hand had reached out of the sunshine andclutched her heart. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE FEAR OF LIFE

Stephen had intended to go back as soon as he had put his mother intothe car; but she clung so tightly to his arm, and there was something soappealing in her fragile dependence, that, almost without realizing it, he found that he was sitting in front of her, and that she was takinghim down to his office. 

"We will leave you and go back, Stephen, " she said, while a look offaintness spread over her features. "I feel as if one of my heartattacks might be coming on. "

"Wouldn't you rather I went home with you?" he inquired solicitously. 

His mother shook her head and reached feebly for Margaret's hand. "Margaret will take care of me, " she replied in the weak voice beforewhich her husband and her children had learned to tremble. 

As he sat there uneasily in the stuffy car, which smelt of camphor andreminded him of a hearse, he was threatened by that familiar sensationof oppression, of closing walls. Would he ever again be free from thisimpalpable terror, from this dread of being shut within a space so smallthat he must smother if he did not escape? And not only places butpersons, as he had found long ago, persons with closed souls, withnarrow minds, produced in him this feeling of physical suffocation. Margaret, with her serenity, her changeless sweetness, affected himprecisely as he was affected by the stained glass windows of a church. He felt that he should stifle unless he could break away into a placewhere there were winds and blown shadows and pure sunshine. He admiredher; he might have loved her; but she smothered him like that rich andheavy wave of the past from which he was still struggling to freehimself. For he knew now that it was not the past he wanted; it was thefuture. Above all things he needed release, he needed deliverance; andyet he knew, more surely at this moment than ever before, that he wasnot free, that he was still in chains, still the servant, not themaster, of tradition. He lacked the courage of life, the will to feeland to live. Only through emotion, only through some courageousadventure of the spirit, only through daring to be human, could he reachliberation; and yet he could not dare; he could not let himself go; hecould not lose his life in order that he might find it. Corinna wasright, he felt, when she called him a prig. She was right though hehated priggishness, though he longed to be natural and human, to lethimself be swept away on the tide of some irresistible impulse. Helonged to dare, and yet he had never dared. He longed to take risks, andyet he studied every step of the road. He longed to be unconventional, and yet he would have died rather than wear a red flower in hisbuttonhole. The thought of Patty rushed over him like the wind at dawnor the light of the sunrise. There was deliverance; there was freedom ofspirit! She was the impulse he dared not follow, the risk he dared nottake, the red flower he dared not wear. 

"What lovely eyes Miss Vetch has, " Margaret was saying. "Don't you thinkso, Cousin Harriet?"

Mrs. Culpeper sniffed at her bottle of smelling-salts. "She seemed tome very ordinary, " she answered stiffly. "How could Gideon Vetch'sdaughter be anything else?"

"Yes, it's a pity about her father, " admitted Margaret placidly. "Ifwhat Mr. Benham thinks is true, I suppose the Governor has agreed not tointerfere in this dreadful strike. "

Again Mrs. Culpeper sniffed. "Every one knows he is merely a tool in thehands of those people, " she said. 

In the weeks that followed Stephen heard his mother's opinion repeatedwherever he went. Everywhere the strike was discussed, and everywhere, in the Culpeper's circle, Gideon Vetch and his policies were repudiated. It was generally believed that the strike would be called, and that theGovernor had been, as old General Plummer neatly put it, "bought off bythe riff-raff. " There were those, and the General was among them, whothought that Vetch had been definitely threatened by the labour leaders. There were open charges of "shady dealings" in the newspapers; hintsthat he had got the office of Governor "by striking a bargain" with thefaction whose tool he had become. "Don't tell me, sir, that they didn'tput him there because they knew they could count on him!" roared oldPowhatan, with the accumulated truculence of eighty quarrelsome years. Of course the General was intemperate; but, as the Judge observedfacetiously, "it was refreshing, in these days when there was nothingfor decent people to drink, to find that intemperance was stillpossible. With the General fuming over corruption and Benham preachingmorality, there is no need, " he added, "for us to despair of virtue. "

For the people who condemned Vetch were quite as emphatic in praise ofJohn Benham; and in these weeks of unrest and anxiety, Corinna's facewas glowing with pride and pleasure. That Benham, in his unselfishservice, was leading the way, no one doubted. Tireless, unrewarded, --forit was admitted by those who esteemed him most that he was never reallyin touch with the crowd, that his zeal awakened no human response, --hehad sacrificed his private practice in order to devote himself day andnight to averting the strike. Stephen, inspired to hero worship, askedhimself again what the difference was, beyond simple personal rectitude, between Vetch and Benham? Vetch, lacking, so far as the young man knew, every public virtue except the human touch which enkindles either thesouls or the imaginations of men, could overturn Benham's argument witha dramatic gesture, an emotional phrase. Why was it that Benham, possessing both the character of the patriot and the graces of theorator, should fall short in the one indefinable attribute which makes aman the natural leader of men?

"People admire him, but they won't follow him, " Stephen thought inperplexity. "Vetch has something that Benham lacks; and it is thissomething that makes people believe in him in spite of themselves. "

This idea was in his mind when he met Benham one day on the steps of hisclub, and stopped to congratulate him on the great speech he had madethe evening before. 

"By Jove, it makes me want to throw my hat into the ring!" he exclaimed, half in jest, half in earnest. 

"I wish you would, " replied the other gravely. "We need young men. It isyouth that turns the world. "

Never, Stephen thought, had Benham, appeared more impressive, moreperfectly finished and turned out; never had he appeared so near to histailor and so far from his audience. He was a handsome man in his rathercolourless fashion, a man who would look any part with distinction frompoliceman to President. His sleek iron-gray hair had as usual the richsheen of velvet; his thin, sharp profile was like the face on a Romancoin. A man of power, of intellect, of character; and yet a man who hadmissed, in some inexplicable way, greatness, achievement. On the wholeStephen was glad that Corinna had announced her engagement. She andBenham seemed so perfectly suited to each other--and, of course, therewas nothing in that old story about Alice Rokeby. A friendship, nothingmore! Only the other day Benham had spoken casually of his "friendship"for Mrs. Rokeby; he always called her "Mrs. Rokeby"; and Stephen hadaccepted the phrase as a satisfactory explanation of their pastassociation. 

"I'd like to go into some public work, " said the young man. "To tell thetruth I can't settle down. "

"I know, " Benham responded sympathetically. "I went through it allmyself; but there is nothing like throwing oneself into some outsidework. I wish you would come into this fight. If we can avert this strikeit will be worth any sacrifice. "

That Benham was making tremendous personal sacrifices, Stephen knew, andthe young man's voice was tinged with emotion as he answered, "I'mafraid I'm not much of a speaker. "

"Oh, you would be, if you would only let yourself go. " There it wasagain! Even Benham recognized his weakness; even Benham knew that he wasafraid of life. 

"Besides we need men of every type, " Benham was saying smoothly. "Weneed especially good organizers. The fight won't be over to-morrow. Evenif we win this time, we must organize against Vetch and defeat him onceand for all in the next elections. "

"Then you think he is really as dangerous as the papers are trying tomake him appear?"

"I think, " Benham replied shortly, "that he is in it for what he can getout of it. "

"Well, call on me when I can help you, " said Stephen, as they parted;and a minute later when he reached the pavement, he found occasion torepeat his impulsive offer to Judge Horatio Lancaster Page. 

"I've promised Benham that I'll do all I can to help him defeat Vetch. "

"You're right, " returned the Judge, with his smile of discerning irony. "I suppose we're obliged to fight him. "

"If we don't what will happen?"

"That's what I'd like to see, my boy. I'd give ten years full measureand running over to see exactly what would happen. "

"Benham is afraid his crowd may send him to the Senate. "

"Perhaps, but there is always a chance of their sending him to Jerichoinstead. "

Stephen nodded. "Yes, there's trouble already, I believe, over thisstrike. "

The Judge laughed with a note of cynical humour. "I can understand whyhe should feel that the chief obstacle to loving humanity is humannature. "

"He's dead right, too. It is so easy to be a philosopher--or aphilanthropist--in a desert. I've felt like that ever since I camehome. "

But the Judge had grown serious, and there was no merriment in his voicewhen he answered: "I may be wrong, of course, and, thank God, my mindhasn't yet got too stiff with age to change; but I've a reluctant beliefdeep down in me that this fellow Vetch has got hold of something that isgoing to count. I don't pretend to know what it is; an idea, a feeling, merely an undeveloped instinct for truth, or expediency, if you like itbetter. Of course it is all crude and raw. It needs cultivation anddirection; but it's there--the vital principle, even if we don'trecognize it when we see it. All the same, " he concluded in a lightertone, "I'm glad you are going into the fight. We can't hurt a principleby fighting it, you know. "

Then he passed on his way; and the transient enthusiasm which hadilluminated Stephen's mind drifted away like clouds of blown smoke. Howcould he fight with any heart when there seemed to him nothing on eitherside that was worth fighting for--nothing except the unselfishpatriotism of John Benham? He remembered the fervour, the exaltationwith which he had gone to France that first year of the war. The beliefin a righteous cause which would bring peace on earth and good willtoward men; the belief in a human fellowship which would grow out ofsacrifice; the belief in a fairer social order which would flower fromthe bloodstained memories of the battlefields, --what was there left ofthese romantic illusions to-day? Was it true, as Vetch had once said, that organized killing, even in a just cause, must bring its spiritualpunishment? Could the lust of blood be changed by a document into thelove of one's brother? "I gave my youth in that war, " he thought, "andI won from it--what? Disillusionment. " With the reflection he felt againthe exhaustion of the nerves, the infirmity of purpose against which hehad struggled ever since his return. "If there were only something worthfighting for, worth believing in! If I could only believe earnestly, ordesire passionately--anything!"

Just as Corinna had longed for perfection, for something to worship, hefound himself longing now for a cause, for any cause, even a lost one, to which he could give himself. He wanted facts, deeds, certainties. Hewas suffocated by shams and insincerities--and phrases. 

Then suddenly, this was one of the symptoms of his nervous malady, thereaction swept over him in a wave of energy which receded almostimmediately. If he could only find deliverance from himself and his ownsubjective processes! If he could only be borne away by the passion hefelt and yet could not feel completely! He wanted Patty, he knew, butdid he want her enough to justify the effort that he must make to winher? Would she be worth to him the break with his mother, with histraditions, with his inherited ideals? He saw her small, slight figurein the dappled sunlight under the budding trees. He saw her vividflower-like face, her romantic eyes, and the arch and charming smilewith which she watched his approach. Yes, he wanted her, he wanted her, and she was the only thing on God's earth, he told himself rhetorically, that he did want with the whole of his nature!

Quickening his steps, he turned in the direction of the Capitol Square, which stretched, like the painted curtain of a theatre, across the endof the street. A singular intuition, a presentiment, had come to himthat if he could sustain this impulse, this tide of energy until he sawPatty, he should be cured--he should find freedom of spirit. Onlythrough love, he had discovered, could there be resurrection from thisspiritual death of the last two or three years. Only through sometremendous rush of desire could he overcome the partial paralysis of hiswill. His instinct, he knew, was right, but would his resolution lastuntil he had found Patty?

It was early afternoon, and the faintly tinted shadows, as smooth assilk, were falling straight across the bright green grass on thehillside. The Square was almost deserted at this hour, except for theold men on the benches and the squirrels that were preparing to returnto their nests in the trees. The breath of spring was over all, roving, fragrant, provocative. 

He shrank from going straight to the house; but Patty was not in thewalks, and he realized that if he found her at all it would be withindoors. Perhaps it was better so. After all, he must become accustomed tothe mansion and all that it contained, including Gideon Vetch, if hereally loved Patty! And did he really love her? Oh, was it all to beginover again after the days and nights when he had threshed it out alonein desperation of mind? Had he lost not only all that was vital, but allthat was stable, that was positive and affirmative in his life?

He stood for a moment with his eyes on the fresh young leaves whichstirred softly. Then, as if hope and courage had passed into him withthe air of spring, he turned away and walked rapidly to the gate of theGovernor's house. His hand was on the iron fence, and he was about toenter the yard, when the door opened and Patty came out on the porchwith Julius Gershom. Stepping quickly back under the trees, Stephenwatched the girl descend the steps, pass the fountain, and go swiftlyout of the gate into the broad drive of the Square. She was talkingeagerly to her companion; and, though she had told him that she dislikedthe man, she was smiling up at him while she talked. Her face was like apink flower under the dark brim of her sailor hat, and in her eyes, beneath the inquiring eyebrows, there was the expression of charmingarchness that he had imagined so vividly. If she saw him, she made nosign; and for a moment after she had gone by, he stood vaguely wonderingif she had seen him and if she had chosen this way to punish him for hisneglect of the past two or three weeks? But even then, accepting thatcharitable interpretation, what explained the objectionable presence ofGershom? Was there anything that could explain or excuse the presence ofGershom?

The fire in his heart died down to cinders, while the light faded notonly from that hidden country of the endless roads, but from the greenhill and the blue sky and the little shining leaves of the branchesoverhead. 

In the distance, he could see the two figures moving onward toward thegate of the Square; and beyond them there was only the long straightstreet filled with gray dust and the empty shadows of human beings. 

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. GREEN

As Patty went by so quickly, she saw Stephen without appearing to glancein his direction. For the last few weeks a flame had run over herwhenever she remembered, and there was scarcely a moment when it was outof her mind, that she had shown her heart so openly and that, as sheexpressed it bitterly, "he had hidden behind his mother. " "If he comesback again, " she told herself recklessly, and she felt scorched when shethought that he might never come back, "I'll let him see that I cantrifle as well as, or better, than he can. I'll let him see that two canplay at that kind of game. " A hundred times Corinna's warning returnedto her. The words, which had made so slight an impression when she heardthem, were burned now into her memory. Oh, Mrs. Page had known all alongwhat it meant! She had understood from the beginning; and she had tried, without hurting her, to make her see the blind folly of such aninfatuation. As she thought of this to-day, Patty's heart ached withinjured pride and resentment, not only against Stephen, but against theunfairness of life. Why was it that men and circumstances would neverlet one be natural and generous? Was there a conspiracy of events, asMrs. Page had once said, to prevent the finest impulses from coming toflower? "I'd have done anything on earth for him, " thought the girl withpassionate indignation. "I'd have made any sacrifice. I could have beenanything that he wanted. " And she felt bitterly that the best in hersoul, the sacred places of her life had been invaded and destroyed. Theblighted sensation which accompanies the recoil of an emotion seemed tosuspend not only the energy of her spirit, but the very breath in herbody. A change had passed over her heart and the world around her andthe persons and events which had so recently composed her universe. Shefelt now that she cared for none of them, that, one and all, they hadceased to interest her; and that the things which filled their liveswere all vacant and meaningless forms. It was as if the vitality ofexistence had been drained away, leaving an empty shell. Nothing wasreal, nothing was alive but the aching core of her own wounded heart. 

"I don't care. I won't let it spoil my life, " she resolved while she bitback a sob. "Whatever happens, I am not going to let my life be ruined. "She had repeated this so often that it had begun to drone in her mindlike a line out of a hymn-book; and she was still repeating it when sheswept by Stephen without so much as a word or a look. A dangerous moodwas upon her. Nothing mattered, she felt, if she could only prove to himthat she also had been trifling; that his kiss had meant as little toher as to him; that from the beginning to the end she had been asindifferent as he was. 

Her step quickened into a run; and Gershom, striding, in order to keepup with her, looked at her with the jovial laugh that she hated. "You'rein a powerful hurry to-day, ain't you?" he remarked. 

"I'm always in a hurry. You have to hurry to get anything out of life. "As she glanced up into his admiring eyes, she found herself wonderingwhat Stephen had thought while he watched her? She wished that it hadbeen anybody but Gershom. He seemed an unworthy instrument of revenge, though, she reflected, with a touch of her father's sagacity, onecouldn't always choose the tools one would like best. Most people wouldadmit that he was good-looking in a common way, she supposed; and it wasonly of late that she had realized how essentially vulgar he was. 

"I'm sorry you haven't time to listen, " he said. "I have news for you. "Then, as she fell into a slower step, he added, with an abrupt change toa slightly hectoring tone: "We passed that young Culpeper just now. Didyou see him?"

She shook her head disdainfully. "I wasn't looking at him. "

"He may have been on his way to the mansion. " There was a taunting notein his voice, as if he were trying deliberately to work her into atemper. 

"It doesn't matter. " She spoke flippantly. "I don't care whether he wasor not. "

Gershom laughed. "That sounds good to me even if I take it with a grainof salt. I was beginning to be afraid that you liked him. "

She turned on him angrily. "What business is that of yours?"

His amiability, as soon as he had struck fire, became imperturbable. "Well, I've known you a long time, Patty, and I take an interest in you, you see. Now, I don't fancy this young Culpeper. He is a conceited sortof ass like his father before him, the sort that thinks all clover ishis fodder. "

Though Gershom would have scorned philosophy had he ever heard of it, he was well grounded in that practical knowledge of human perversityfrom which all philosophers and most philosophic systems have sprung. Had his next words been barbed with steel they could not have piercedPatty's girlish pride more sharply. "I reckon he imagines all he's gotto do is to look sweet at a girl, and she'll fall at his feet. "

Patty's eyes flashed with anger. "He is not unusual in that, is he?" sheasked mockingly. 

"Well, you can't accuse me of that, Patty, " said Gershom, with asincerity which made him appear less offensively oily. "I never lookedlong at but one girl in my life, not since I first saw you, anyway--andI don't seem ever to have had an idea that she would fall at my feet. But I didn't bring you out here to begin kidding. I want to talk to youabout the Governor, and I was afraid he would catch on to something ifwe stayed indoors. "

"About Father?" She looked at him in alarm. "Is there anything thematter with Father?"

Without turning his head, he glanced at her keenly out of the corner ofhis eye. It was a trick of his which always irritated her because itreminded her of the sly and furtive side of his character. 

"You've a pretty good opinion of the old man, haven't you, Patty?"

"I think he is the greatest man in the world. "

"And you wouldn't like him to run against a snag, would you?"

"What do you mean? Has anything happened to worry him?"

He had stopped just beyond the nearest side entrance to the Square, andhe stood now, with his eyes on the automobiles before the City Hall, while he fingered thoughtfully the ornamental scarf-pin in his green andpurple tie. "There's always more or less to worry him, ain't there?"

She frowned impatiently. "Not Father. He is hardly ever anything butcheerful. Please tell me what you are hinting. "

"I wasn't hinting. But, if you don't mind talking to me a minute, suppose we get away from these confounded cars. "

He turned east, following the iron fence of the Square until theyreached the high grass bank and the old box hedge which surrounded thegarden at the back of the Governor's house. At the corner of the street, which sank far below the garden terrace, he stopped again and laid arestraining hand on her arm. 

"He thinks a great deal of you too. "

She shook his hand from her sleeve. "Why shouldn't he? I am his onlychild. " Then her voice hardened, and she glanced at him suspiciously. "Iwish for once you would try to be honest. "

"Honest?" His amusement was perfectly sincere. "I am as honest as theday, and I've always been. That's why I'm in politics. "

"Then tell me what you are trying to say about Father. If there'sanything wrong, I'd rather be told at once. "

They were still standing on the deserted corner below the garden, andwhile she waited for his answer, she glanced away from him up the sidestreet, which rose in a steep ascent from the business quarter of thetown. The sun was still high over the distant housetops and the lightturned the brick pavement to a rich red and shot the clouds of gray dustwith silver. The neighbourhood was one which had seen better days, andsome well-built old houses, with red walls and white porches, lent anair of hospitality and comfortable living to the numerous cheap boardingplaces that filled the street. Crowds of children were playing games orskating on roller skates over the sidewalk; and on the porches a fewlistless women gossiped idly; or gazed out over newspapers which theydid not read. 

"Well, there ain't anything wrong exactly--yet, " replied Gershom. 

"But there may be, you think?"

"That depends upon him. If he keeps headed the way he's going, and he'sas stubborn as a mule, there'll be trouble as sure as my name isJulius. "

"Is that what you've quarrelled about of late--the way he's going?"

"Bless your heart, honey, we ain't quarrelled! Has it sounded like thatto you? I've just been trying to make him see reason, that's all. Heain't got a right, you know, to turn against his best friends the wayhe's doing. Friends are friends whether you are in office or out, andthere's a lot that a man owes to the folks that have stood by him. Itell you I know politics from the bottom up, and there ain't no room in'em for the man--I don't give a darn who he is--that don't stand by hisfriends. If he's the President of the United States, he'll find that hecan't afford not to stand by the people who put him there!"

So this was the trouble! He had let out his grievance at last, and fromthe smouldering resentment in his eyes, she understood that some realor imaginary injustice had put him, for the moment at least, in an uglytemper. If he had not met her when he left the house, if he had waitedto grow cool, to reflect, he would probably never have taken her intohis confidence. Chance again, she thought, not without bitterness. Howmuch of the happiness or unhappiness of life depended upon chance!

"I don't believe it, " she returned emphatically. "He always stands bypeople. "

"He used to, " he replied sullenly, "but that was in the old days when heneeded 'em. The truth is he's got his head turned by his election. Hethinks he's so strong that he can go on alone and keep the crowd at hisback; but he'll find he's mistaken, and that the crowd, when it ain'tworked right from the inside, is a poor thing to depend on. The crowddoes the shouting, but it's a man's friends that start the tune. "

"Are you talking about the strike?" she asked. "I thought he was insympathy with the strikers. "

"Oh, he says he is, but he won't prove it. "

She faced him squarely, with her head held high and her eyes cold anddetermined. "What do you want me to do? Please don't beat about the bushany longer. "

He hesitated a moment, and she inferred that he was trying to decide howfar he might venture with safety. "Well, I thought you might speak aword to him, " he said. "He sets such store by what you would like. Ithought you might drop a hint that he ought to stand by his friends. "

"To stand by his friends--that means you, " she rejoined. 

"Oh, he'll know quick enough what it means! You must be smart about it, of course, but I don't mind his knowing that I've been speaking to you. It's for his own good that I'm talking--for the very minute that thefellows find out he ain't been on the square with 'em, it will be'nothing doing' for the Governor. "

"It is a threat, then?" she asked sharply. 

"I'd call it something else if I were you. Look here, " he continuedbriskly. "You'd like to see the old man go to the Senate, and maybehigher up, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, of course. What has that to do with it?"

He winked and laughed knowingly. "Well, you just take my advice and dropa hint to him about this business. Then, perhaps, you'll see. "

"If he doesn't take the hint, what will you do?"

"Ask me that in the sweet bye and bye, honey!" His tone had becomeoffensively familiar. "It's for his good, you know. If it's the lastword I ever speak I'm trying to save him from the biggest snag he evermet in his life. "

She had drawn disdainfully away from him; but at his last words she camea step nearer. "I'll tell him exactly what you say, " she answered; andthen she asked suddenly in a firmer tone: "Have you heard anything moreof my aunt?"

He looked at her intently. "Why, yes. You hadn't mentioned her again, soI thought you'd ceased to be interested. Would you like to see her?" hedemanded abruptly after a pause. 

"How can I? I don't know where she is. "

For a minute or two before replying he studied her closely. "I wish youwould let your hair grow out, Patty, " he remarked at the end of hisexamination, and there was a note of genuine feeling in his bantering. "I remember how pretty you used to look as a little girl, with your hairflying behind you like the mane of a pony. "

"Let my hair alone. Do you know where my aunt is?"

He appeared to yield reluctantly to her insistence. "If you're so benton knowing--and, mind you, I tell you only because you make me--sheain't so very far from where we are standing. I could take you to her inten minutes. "

She looked at him as if she scarcely believed his words. "You mean thatshe is in town?"

"Haven't you known me long enough to find out that I always mean what Isay?"

"Then you can take me to her now?"

He laughed shortly, and dug the end of his walking stick between thepavement and the edge of the curbstone. "What do you reckon the Governorwould say to it?"

"I needn't tell him--not just yet, anyhow. But are you really and trulysure that she is my mother's sister?"

"Well, they had the same parents, and I reckon that makes 'em sisters ifanything does. I knew 'em both out yonder in California, and I neverheard anybody suggest they weren't related. "

"Why did she come here? Was it to see me?"

"Partly that, and partly--well, she's been pretty sick. I reckon she'slikely to go off at any time, and she wanted to be back where she wasborn. She had pneumonia two years ago, and then again last winter. Herlungs are about used up. "

"Then, if I went to see her, I'd better go now, hadn't I?"

"It would be surer. Something may happen almost any day. That's why Ispoke to you. "

"I am glad you did. If it isn't far, will you take me now?"

But instead of walking on with her, he dug the end of his stick morefirmly between the pavement and the curbstone. "I don't want to do youany harm, Patty, " he said gently at last. "It may give you a shock tosee her, you know. She's been through some hard times, and she's aboutcome to the end of her rope. Good Lord, the way life is! When I firstsaw her out in California she was one of the prettiest pieces of flesh Iever laid eyes on. She had something of your look, too, though youwouldn't believe it now. "

But the girl had already started to cross the street. "Don't let's wasteany time talking. Which way do we go?"

At her decision his hesitation vanished, and he joined her with a laughand a flourish of the diamond ring on the little finger of his lefthand. "Well, you are a sport, Patty! You always were, even when youweren't much more than knee high to a duck. If you've made up your mindto go, you won't be blaming me afterward?"

"Oh, I shan't blame you, of course. Do we turn up this street?"

"Yes, go ahead. It ain't far--just a little way up Leigh Street. "

They walked on rapidly, and presently, so swift and determined wasPatty's step, Gershom ceased to speak, and only glanced at her now andthen in a furtive and anxious way. There was a look of tragic resolutionon her small face--oh, she was meeting life in earnest, shereflected--and even to the coarse mind and the dull imagination of theman beside her, she assumed gradually the appearance of some etherealmessenger. At the moment she was thinking of Stephen, but this he didnot suspect. He saw only that there was something almost unearthly inher expression; and he felt the kind of awe that came over him on Sundaywhen he entered a church. He wouldn't hurt the girl, he told himself, with a twinge, for a pocketful of money. 

They had turned into Leigh Street, and had walked some distance insilence, when Patty asked suddenly without looking round, "Then shedoesn't know I am coming?"

"I told her I'd bring you whenever I could; but she ain't looking foryou this evening. There, that's the house--the one in the middle, withthat wooden swing and all those kids in the yard. "

He pointed to what had once been a fine old house of stuccoed brick, with a square front porch and green shutters which were sagging onloosened hinges. On the walls where the stucco had peeled away, the redbrick showed in splotches, and the pillars of the porch, which had beenwhite, were now speckled with yellow stains. Over the whole place, withits air of fallen respectability, there hung the depressing smell ofmingled dust, stale cooking, and bad tobacco. A number of imposing andwell-preserved houses stood on the block, for of the wholeneighbourhood, it appeared to the girl, they had chosen the mostdilapidated dwelling and the one which was most crowded with children. 

"We're here all right. Don't go so fast, " remarked Gershom, as theyascended the steps. "It ain't going to run away from you. " Bending downhe picked up a crying urchin from the steps. "Lost your ball, have you?Well, I expect if you dig deep enough in my pocket, you can find itagain. Hello! You've got a punch, ain't you, sonny? A regular John L. , Ireckon. " Putting the child down, he continued sheepishly to Patty: "Ialways had a soft spot for the kids. Never could pass one in the streetwithout stopping. "

On the porch, beside a broken perambulator, which contained a black-eyedbaby with a bottle of milk, a stout man sat reading the afternoon paper, while with one hand he patiently pushed the rickety carriage back andforth. As they reached the porch, he laid aside his paper, and rose withhis hand still on the perambulator. 

"Oh, it's you, " he said, "Mr. Gershom. "

"I've brought this lady to see Mrs. Green, " returned Gershom. "How isshe?"

The stout man shook his head and surveyed Patty curiously but notdiscourteously. He had a kindly, humorous look, and she felt at oncethat she preferred his blunt frankness to Gershom's facetiousinsincerity. There was something in his face that suggested theblack-eyed baby sucking placidly at the rubber nipple on the bottle ofmilk. 

"She's worse if anything. The doctor came this morning. " The baby, having dropped the bottle, lifted a despairing wail, and the father bentover and replaced the nipple gently between the quivering lips. "Therent was due yesterday, " he added, "I understood that there was to be notrouble about it. "

"Oh, there's no trouble about that. I'm responsible, " replied Gershomquickly. He was about to pass on; but changing his mind, he stopped anddrew out his pocket book. "I'll settle it now. Are there any extras?"

"Yes, she's had to have eggs and milk, and there have been medicines. Itcomes to twelve dollars in all. I'll show you the account. "

"Very well. Get anything that she needs. " Then, as Gershom followedPatty into the hall, he pointed to the fine old staircase. "It's theback room. Go straight up. You ain't timid, are you?"

"Timid? Oh, no. " Running lightly up the stairs, the girl hesitated amoment before the half-open door of the room at the back of the house. Then, in obedience to a gesture from Gershom as he pushed the doorwider, she crossed the threshold, and went rapidly toward a couch infront of the window. As she went forward there floated to her a heavy, sweetish scent which seemed to her to be the very breath of despair. Herfirst thought was that the sun had gone under a cloud; the next instantshe perceived that the window was shaded by a ragged ailantus tree andthat beyond the tree there was a high brick wall which shut out thedaylight. Then she looked at the woman lying under a ragged blanket onthe couch; and she felt vaguely that the haggard features framed incoarse black hair awakened a troubled sense of familiarity orrecognition. The next instant there returned to her the memory of herwalk in the Square with Corinna a few weeks before, and of the strangewoman who had looked at them so curiously. 

"I have come to see you, " she began gently, "Mr. Gershom brought me. "

Raising her head, the woman stared at her without replying. Her eyeswere dull and heavy, with drooping lids beneath which a sombre glowflickered and died down. There was a wan yellow tinge over her face; andyet now that the approach of death had refined and purified herfeatures, she was not without a gravity of expression which made herstrangely impressive, like some wax mask of an avenging Fate. With asensation of relief, Patty's eyes wandered from the haggard face to acalla lily in a pot on the window-sill, and she noticed that it bore asingle perfect blossom. While she waited, overcome by a dumbness whichseemed to invade her from head to foot, her eyes clung to that callalily as if it were her one connection with reality. All the rest, theclose, dingy room, with the ailantus tree and the high wall beyond, thesickening sweetish odour with which she was unfamiliar, the waxen maskand the blank, drooping eyes of the woman; all these things seemed toexist not in her actual surroundings, but in some hideous dream fromwhich she was struggling to awake. Somewhere long ago, in a dreadfulnightmare, she had smelled that cloying scent and seen those half-shuteyes looking back at her. Somewhere--and yet it was impossible. Shecould only have imagined it all. 

Suddenly the woman spoke in a thick voice. "You are the Governor'sdaughter? Gideon Vetch's daughter?"

"Yes. Mr. Gershom told me you wanted to see me. "

"Mr. Gershom?" The woman's eyelids flickered and then fell heavily overher expressionless eyes. "Oh, you mean Julius. Yes, I told him I wantedto see you. " A quiver of animation passed like a spasm over herfeatures, and she inquired eagerly, "Where is he? Did he come?"

"I'm here all right, " said Gershom, stepping briskly into the range ofher vision. 

She gazed up at him as he approached her with the look of a famishedanimal, a look so little human and so full of physical hunger that Pattyturned her eyes again to the calla lily on the window-sill, and then tothe young green on the ailantus tree and the brick wall beyond. To thegirl it seemed that minutes must have gone by before the next wordscame. "You brought the medicine?"

"Yes, I brought it. The doctor gave it to me; but it is hard to get, andhe said you were to have it only on condition that you do everythingthat we tell you. "

"Oh, I will, I will. " She reached out her hand eagerly for the packagehe had taken from his coat pocket; and when Patty looked at her again acurious change had passed over her face, revivifying it with the colourof happiness. "I have been in such pain--such pain, " she whispered. "Iwas afraid it would come back before you came. Oh, I was so afraid. "Then she added hurriedly: "Is that all? Did you bring nothing else?"

Though a look of embarrassment crossed his face, he carried off thedifficult situation with his characteristic assurance. "The doctor sentyou a little stimulant. Perhaps I'd better give you a dose now. Itmight pick you up. " Taking a bottle from his pocket, he poured somewhiskey into a glass and added a little water from a pitcher on thetable. "There, now, " he remarked, with genuine sympathy as he held theglass to her lips. "You'll begin to feel better in a minute. This younglady can't stay but a little while, so you'd better try to buck up. "

"I'll try, " answered the woman obediently. "I'll try--but it isn't easyto come back out of hell. " Lifting her head from the pillow, as if itwere a dead weight that did not belong to her, she stared at Patty whileher tormented mind made an effort to remember. In a minute her mouthworked pathetically, and she burst into tears. "I can't come back now, Ican't come back now, " she repeated in a whimpering tone. "But I'll bebetter before long, and then I want to see you. There are things I wantto tell you when I get the strength. I can't think of them now, but theyare things about Gideon Vetch. "

"About Father?" asked the girl, and her voice trembled. 

The woman stopped crying, and looked up appealingly, while she wiped hereyes on the ragged edge of the blanket. "Yes, about Gideon Vetch. That'shis name, ain't it?"

"I wouldn't talk any more now, if I were you, " said Gershom, putting hishand gently on her pillow. "We'll come again when you're feelingspryer. "

The woman nodded. "Yes, come again. Bring her again. "

"I'll come whenever you send for me, " said Patty reassuringly; butinstead of looking at the woman, she stooped over and touched the callalily with her lips, as if it were human and could respond to her. "Iwant you to tell me about my mother--everything. I remember her justonce, the night before they took her to the asylum. She was in spangledskirts that stood out like a ballet dancer's, and there was a crown ofstars on her hair and a star on the end of the wand she carried. Iremember it all just as plainly as if it were yesterday--though theytell me I was too little--"

She broke off because the woman was gazing at her so strangely. "Youwere too little, " she cried, and burst into hysterical weeping. "I can'tstand it, " she said wildly. "I never had a chance, and I can't standit. "

"I think we'd better go, " said Gershom. It amazed Patty to find howgentle he could be when his sympathy was touched. "I oughtn't to havebrought you to-day. " Turning away, he left the room hurriedly, as if thescene were too much for him. 

At this the woman controlled herself with a convulsive effort. "No, Iwanted to see you, " she said. "You are pretty, but you aren't prettierthan your mother was at your age. "

For a moment the girl looked pityingly down on her. "I hope you willsoon be better, " she responded in a tone which she tried to makesympathetic in spite of the physical shrinking she felt. "Let me knowwhen you wish to see me, and I will come back. "

The woman shivered. "Do you mean that?" she asked. "Will you come when Isend for you? I want to see you again--once--before I die. "

"I promise you that I will come. I'll send you something, too, and sowill Father. "

"Gideon Vetch, " said the woman very slowly, as if she were trying tohold the name in her consciousness before it slipped away from her. "Gideon Vetch. "

As the girl broke away and ran out of the room that expressionlessrepetition followed her into the hall and down the staircase, growingfainter and fainter like the voice of one who is falling asleep:"_Gideon Vetch. Gideon Vetch. _"

On the porch, where the stout man had returned to his newspaper, Pattyfound Gershom standing beside the perambulator, with the black-eyed babyin his arms. He was gazing gravely over the round bald head, and hisface wore a funereal expression which contrasted ludicrously with theclucking sounds he was making to the attentive and interested baby. WhenPatty joined him he put the child back into the carriage, carefullytucking the crocheted robe about the tiny shoulders. "I kind of thoughtthe little one might like a chance to get out of that buggy, " heobserved, while he straightened himself briskly, and adjusted his tie. 

"She must be very ill, " said the girl, as they went out of the gate andturned down the street. 

"A sure thing, " replied Gershom concisely. Then he whistled sharply, andadded, "Rotten, that's what I call it. "

"She said she'd never had a chance, " remarked Patty thoughtfully, "Iwonder what she meant. "

The funereal expression spread like a pall over Gershom's features, buthis intermittent whistle sounded as sprightly as ever. "Well, how manyfolks in this world have ever had what you might call a decent chance?"he asked. 

"I don't know. I hadn't thought. " The girl looked depressed andpuzzled. "It's a dreadful thing to think that nobody cares when you'redying. " Then her tone grew more hopeful. "Do you suppose anybody thinksthat Father never had a chance?" she asked. 

Gershom broke into a laugh. "Well, if he had it, you may be pretty surethat he made it himself, " he retorted. 

"Then I wish he could make some for other people. "

"He says he's trying to, doesn't he? But between us, Patty, my child, you won't forget what you have to say to the old man, will you?"

"What have I to say? Oh, you mean about standing by his friends?"

"That's just it. You tell him from yours truly that the best thing hecan do all round is to stick fast to his friends. "

"And that means the strikers?"

"It means what I tell you. "

"Well, I'll repeat exactly what you say; it won't make any difference ifhis mind is made up. "

"Maybe so. Are you going to tell him where you've been?"

"I don't know. I hate to worry him; but that poor woman must need help. "

"Oh, she needs it. We all need it, " remarked Gershom flippantly. Then, as they reached the entrance to the Square, he held out his hand. "Well, I'm off now, and I hope you aren't feeling any worse because of yourvisit. The world ain't made of honeycomb, you know, and there's no usepretending it is. But you're a darn good sport, Patty. You're as good asport as I ever struck up with in this little affair of life. "

CHAPTER XVIII

MYSTIFICATION

Walking slowly home across the Square, Patty told herself that thefuture had been taken out of her hands. She seemed to have been movedmentally, if not bodily, into another world, into a world where thesleepy old Square, wrapped in a soft afternoon haze, still existed, butfrom which Stephen Culpeper had vanished in a rosy cloud. She did notknow why she had relinquished the thought of Stephen since her visit tothe house in East Leigh Street; but some deep instinct warned her thatshe had widened the gulf between them by her excursion with Gershom. "Ican't help it, " she thought sensibly enough. "There wasn't anything init before that, and I might as well go ahead and stop thinking aboutit. " Her anger at Stephen's neglect had melted into a vague andimpersonal resentment, a resentment, rather for the dying woman than forherself, against all the needless cruelties of life. Even Gershom, eventhe unspeakable Gershom, had had discernment enough to see thatsomething good in that poor woman had been blighted and crushed. Was ittrue that no one was ever given the chance to be one's best? Was thistrue, not only of that dying woman, but of her father and Stephen andCorinna and herself and all human beings everywhere?

Lingering a moment near the Washington monument, she stood watching thestraggling groups that were crossing the Square. Bit by bit, snatchesof conversation drifted into her mind and then blew out again, leavingscarcely the shadow of an impression. "They tell me it's going up. Idon't know, but I'll find out to-morrow. " "I wouldn't wear one of thosethings for a million dollars, and he says--" "Yes, I've arranged to gounless the strike should be called next week. "

The strike? Oh, she had almost forgotten it! She had almost forgottenthe message she had promised to deliver to her father. With a gesturethat appeared to sweep her last remaining illusion behind her, shestarted resolutely up the drive to the house. After all, whatever came, she would not let them think that she was either afraid of life ordisappointed in love. She would not mope, and she would not show thewhite feather. On one point she was passionately determined--no man, byany method known to the drama of sex, was going to break her heart!

She had quickened her steps while she made her resolve; and, a minutelater, she broke into a run when she saw that Corinna's car stood at thedoor and that Corinna waited for her in the hall. Had the girl onlyrealized it, Corinna's heart also was troubled; and the visit was oneresult of the discouraging talk she had had recently with Stephen. 

"I had to go down town, so I stopped on the way back to speak to you. "Though she said no word of her anxiety, Patty could hear it in everynote of her expressive voice and feel it in the protective pressure ofher arm. "I want you to go with me to the Harrisons' dance Wednesdaynight, and I want you to look your very prettiest. "

"But I'm not even asked. "

"Oh, you are. Mrs. Harrison has just told me she was sending yourinvitation with a number that had not gone out. " How like Corinna it wasto put it that way! "They are giving it for that English girl who isstaying with them. She is pretty, but you must look ever so muchprettier. I want you to wear that green and silver dress that makes youlook like a mermaid. " The kind voice, so full of sympathy, so forgetfulof self, flooded Patty's heart like sunshine after darkness. 

"I will go, if you wish me to, " she answered, raising Corinna's hand toher cheek. And the thought flashed through her mind, "Stephen will bethere. Even if everything is over, I'd like him to see me. "

"I'll come for you a little before ten, " said Corinna; and then, as thedoor of the library opened and Vetch came out, she added hurriedly: "Imust go now. Remember to look your prettiest. "

"No, don't go, " begged Patty. "Father will be so disappointed. " She hadremembered the message, and she felt that Corinna, whose wisdom wasinfallible, might help her to understand it. Though it had sounded socasual on the surface, her natural sagacity detected both a warning anda menace; and the very touch of Corinna's hand, in her long white glove, was reassuring and helpful. 

Whatever may have threatened Vetch, he seemed oblivious of it as he cameforward with his hearty greeting. "It's queer, " he said, "but somethingtold me you were here. I looked out to make sure. " His simple pleasuretouched Corinna like the artless joy of a child. It was impossible toresist his magnetism, she thought, as she looked up into his sanguineface, for what was it, after all, except an unaffected enjoyment oflittle things, an unconquerable belief in life?

"I stopped to ask Patty about a dance, " she explained. "I must go onimmediately. "

He glanced at the girl a little anxiously. "Is she going to a party withyou? I am glad. "

In spite of his buoyant manner, there was an abstracted look in hiseyes, as if his mind were working at a distance while he talked. Afterthe first minute or two Patty observed this and it helped her to makeher decision. "Are you busy, Father?" she asked. "I promised Mr. Gershomthat I would give you a message--such a silly message it is too. "

"Gershom?" He repeated, and his face darkened. "What did he say to you?No, don't go, Mrs. Page. Come into the library, and let us have themessage. "

Corinna glanced uncertainly over her shoulder. "I really must be going, "she murmured, and then yielding suddenly either to inclination or to thepressure of Patty's hand, she crossed the threshold of the library andwalked over to the front window. Outside, beyond the yard and thegrotesque fountain, she saw the splendid outline of Washington, andbeyond this the faint afternoon haze above the spires and chimneys ofthe city. "The sun will go down soon. I must hurry, " she thought; yetshe stood there, without moving, looking out on the monument and thesky. For a moment she gazed in silence; then turning quickly, sheglanced with smiling eyes about the small, stiffly furnished room, withthe leather chairs and couch and the business looking writing-table inthe centre of the floor. 

"How comfortable you look here, " she observed lightly, "and howbusiness-like. "

"Yes, I work here a good deal in the evenings. " He turned a chair towardthe window, and when she sat down, he remained for a minute stillstanding, with his hand on the back of the chair, smiling thoughtfullynot at her, but at the disarray on his desk. The glow of pleasure whichthe sight of her had brought was still in his face; and she thought thatshe had never seen him so nearly good-looking. It occurred to her now, as it had done so often before, that in the hour of trouble he would belike a rock to lean on. However else he might fail, she surmised that inhuman relations he would be for ever dependable. And what was life, after all, except a complex and intricate blend of human relations? Shedecided suddenly and positively that she had always liked Gideon Vetch. She liked the way his broad bulging forehead swept back into his sandyhair, which was quite gray on the temples; she liked the contrastbetween the quizzical humour in his eyes and the earnest expression ofhis generous mouth with its deep corners. He stood in her mind for thestraight and simple things of life, and she had lost her way so oftenamong the bewildering ramification of human motives. He had no trivialwords, she knew. He was incapable of "making conversation"; and she, whohad been bred in a community of ceaseless chatter, was mentallyrefreshed by the sincerity of his interest. It was as restful, she saidto herself now, as a visit to the country. 

"So Gershom asked you to give me a message?" remarked Vetch abruptly toPatty. "Where did you see him?"

"He joined me when I went out, " replied Patty, speaking slowly andcarefully with her eyes on Corinna. "I tried to slip away, but hewouldn't let me. He asked me to speak to you about something that wasworrying him, and a great many others, he said. He didn't put it intowords, but I think he meant the strike--"

Vetch looked up quickly. "Oh, that is worrying him, is it?"

"What is it all about, Father? Why are they going to strike?"

"Can you answer that, Mrs. Page?" The Governor turned to Corinna with asportive gesture, as if he were casting upon her the burden of a reply. His smile was sketched so faintly about his mouth that it seemed merelyto emphasize the gravity of his expression. 

"I?" Corinna looked round with a start of surprise. "Why, what should Iknow of it?"

"Then they don't talk about it where you are?"

"Oh, yes, they talk about it a great deal. " She appeared to hesitate, and then added with deliberate audacity, "but they think that you knowmore about it than any one else. "

He did not smile as he answered her. "Do they expect the men to strike?"

Though she made a graceful gesture of evasion, she met his questionfrankly. "They expect them to, I gather--unless you prevent it. "

A shade of irritation crossed his features. "How can I prevent it? Theyhave a right to stop work. "

"They seem to think, the people I know, that it depends upon how safethe leaders think it will be. "

"How safe? I can't tie their hands, can I?"

"Of course I am only repeating what I hear. " She gazed at him withfriendly eyes. "No one could know less about it than I do. "

"People are saying, I suppose, " he continued in a tone of exasperation, "that these men had an understanding with me before I came into office. They seem to think that I can make the strike a success by standingaside and holding my hands. That, of course, is pure nonsense. If themen want to stop work, nobody has a right to interfere with them. Certainly I haven't. But have they the right--the question hangs on thispoint--to interfere with the farmers who want to get their crops tomarket as badly as the strikers want to quit work? The kind of generalstrike these people have in mind bears less relation to industry than itdoes to war; and you know what I think about war and the rights ofnon-combatants. They want to tie up the whole system of transportationuntil they starve their opponents into submission. The old damnablePrussian theory again, you see, that crops up wherever men take thestand, which they do everywhere they have the power, that might is a lawunto itself. Now, I am with these men exactly half way, and no further. As long as their method of striking doesn't interfere with the rights ofthe public, they seem to me fair enough. But when it comes to raisingthe price of food still higher and cutting off the city milksupply--well, when they talk of that, then I begin to think of the humanside of it. " He broke off abruptly, and concluded in a less serioustone, "that's the only thing in the whole business I care about--thehuman side of it all--"

A phrase of Benham's floated suddenly into her mind, and she foundherself repeating it aloud: "There are no human rights where a principleis involved. "

Vetch laughed. "That's not you; it's Benham. I recognize it. He's thesort that would believe that, I suppose--the sort that would write apolitical document in blood if he didn't have ink. "

"Oh, don't!" she protested. There was a grain of truth in the epigram, but she resented it the more keenly for this. 

"Well, I may have intended it as a compliment, " rejoined Vetch gaily. "He would take it that way, I reckon. And, anyhow, you have heard himmake worse flings at me. "

She coloured, admitting and denying at the same time, the truth of hiswords. "You could never understand each other. You are so different. "

He looked at her gravely; but even gravity could not wholly drive thegleam of humour from his eyes. "At any rate I admire Benham. I have theadvantage of him there. " The quickness of his wit made her smile. "But, as you say, we are different, " he added after a moment. "I reckon I'veturned my hand at times to jobs of which Benham would disapprove; butI'd be hanged before I'd write the greatest document ever pennedin--well, in the blood of one of those squirrels out yonder in theSquare!"

As he finished he turned his face toward the window, and following hisgaze, she saw the sunlight sparkling like amber wine on the rich grassand the delicate green of the trees. As she looked back at him, shewondered what his past could have been--how deep, how complex, howvaried was his experience of life? She was aware again of that curiouslyprimitive attraction which she had felt the other afternoon in theshop. It was as if he appealed, not to the beliefs and sentiments withwhich life had obscured and muffled her nature, but to some buried selfbeneath the self that she and the world knew, to some ancient instinctwhich was as deep as the oldest forests of earth. After all, was there ahidden self, a buried forest within her soul which she had neverdiscovered?

"But Patty has not given you her message!" she exclaimed, startled andconfused by the strangeness of the sensation. 

"Oh, there isn't much to tell, " answered Patty, wondering if she couldever learn, even if she practised every day, to speak and move likeCorinna. "It was only that you ought to stand by your friends. "

"To stand by my friends, " repeated Vetch; then he drew in his breathwith a whistling sound. "Well, I like his impudence!" he exclaimed. 

Corinna rose with a laugh. "So do I, " she observed, "and he seems topossess it in abundance. " Then she folded Patty in a light and fragrantembrace. "You must be the belle of the ball, " she said. "I have a geniusfor being a chaperon. "

When she had gone, and they watched her car pass the monument, the girlturned back into the hall, with her hand clinging tightly to Vetch'sarm. 

"Father, what do you suppose that message meant?"

"Is it obliged to mean anything?"

"Things generally do, don't they?"

Vetch smiled as he looked down at her; but his smile conveyed anxietyrather than amusement to her observant eyes. "Oh, if things are said byGershom, they generally mean hell, " he responded. "Perhaps I'll findout Thursday night; there's to be a meeting then, and it looks as ifsomebody might make trouble. " Then he patted her shoulder. "Don't worryabout Gershom, honey, " he added in the way he used to speak when shefell and hurt herself as a child. "Don't worry your mind about Gershom. I'll take care of him. "

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she was not worryingabout Gershom, but about the woman dying all alone in that dark room inLeigh Street. If he had only looked less disturbed she might have doneso; and when she thought of it afterward, she understood that franknesswould have been by far the wiser course. However, while she wonderedwhat she ought to say, the opportunity slipped by, and the ringing ofthe telephone on his desk called him away from her. 

Corinna, meanwhile, was rolling down the drive over the slanting shadowsof the linden trees. She looked thoughtful, for she was trying to decidewhat it was about Vetch that made her believe in him so profoundly whenshe was with him and yet begin to distrust him as soon as she got farenough away to gain a perspective? Gossip probably, she reflected. Whenshe was with him her confidence was the natural response of her ownunbiassed perceptions; when she left him she passed immediately into anatmosphere that was charged with the suspicions of other people. Sheremembered the stories, true or false, which had been hinted andwhispered before the last election. Malicious gossip that, and asunfounded no doubt as the rest. She recalled the muttered insinuationsof fraudulent political stratagems, of what Benham had called theGovernor's weathercock principles. In Vetch's presence, she realizedthat she invariably lost sight of these structural or surface blemishes, and judged him by some standard which was different from the one she hadinherited with the shape of her nose and the colour of her eyes. Whattroubled her was not so much the riddle of Vetch's personality as thefact that there was another mental world beyond the one she had alwaysinhabited, and that this other world was filled, like her own, withobscure moral and spiritual images. 

As she approached the club at the corner she saw Benham come out of thedoor; and stopping the car she waited, smiling, until he joined her. While she watched him cross the pavement, she rejoiced in thethoroughbred fineness and thinness of his appearance--in his clear-cutRoman features and in the impenetrable reticence of his expression. Yes, she loved him as well as she could love any man; and that, she toldherself, with a touch of cynical amusement, was just so much and nomore, just enough to bring happiness, but not enough to bring pain. 

"I'll take you home, " she said, as he reached her, and there seemed toher something delightful and romantic in this accidental meeting. 

"What luck!" The severity melted from his features while he took hisplace beside her. "I was thinking only this morning that I owe asacrifice to the god of chance. May I tell the man to drop me at myrooms?"

She nodded, watching him contentedly while he spoke to the chauffeur andthen turned to look at her with his level impersonal gaze. Happiness hadbrought the youth back to her face. Her hair swept like burnished wingsunder her small close hat, and the eyes that she raised to his were darkand splendid. There was about her always in moments of happiness thelook of a beauty too bright to last or to grow old; and now, in thislast romance of her life, she appeared to be drenched in autumnsunshine. 

"One does want to make sacrifices, " she answered. "That is the penaltyof joy. One can scarcely believe in it before it goes. "

"Well, I believe in this. You are very lovely. Where have you been?"

"To the Governor's. I wanted to speak to Patty. I feel sorry for Pattyto-day. I feel sorry for almost every one, " she added, with anenchanting smile, "except myself. "

"And me. Surely you don't waste your pity on me? But what of Miss Vetch?Hasn't she her own particular happiness?"

"I wonder--" Then, without finishing her sentence, she left the subjectof Patty because she surmised from Benham's tone that he would not besympathetic. "I had a long talk with the Governor. John, what do youthink will come of the strike?"

He answered her question with another. "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing except that the men have a right to strike if they wish to. "

He laughed. "Well, that's safe enough. But don't talk of Vetch. Idislike him so heartily that I have a sneaking feeling I may be unjustto him. "

It was so like him, that fine impersonal sense of fairness, that hereyes warmed with admiration. "That is splendid, " she responded. "It isjust the kind of thing that Vetch could never feel. " Suddenly she knewthat she was ashamed of having believed in Vetch when she contrasted himwith John Benham. How could she have imagined for an instant that theGovernor could stand a comparison like this?

He pressed her hand as the car stopped before the apartment house wherehe lived. "In a few hours I shall see you again, " he said; and hisvoice, in its eagerness, reminded her of the voice of Kent Page when hehad made love to her in her girlhood. Ah, she had learned wisdom sincethen! Just so much and no more, that was the secret of happiness. Givewith the mind and the heart; but keep always one inviolable sanctity ofthe spirit--of the buried self beneath the self. 

The streets were almost deserted; and as the car went on, Corinnathought that she had never seen the city look so fresh and charming. Through the long green vista of the trees, there was a shimmer of silverair, and wrapped in this sparkling veil, she saw the bronze statues andthe ardent glow of the sunset. Everything at which she looked wassteeped in a wonderful golden light; and this light seemed to come, notfrom the burning horizon, but from the happiness that flooded herthoughts. She saw the world again as she had seen it in her first youth, suffused with joy that was like the vivid freshness of dawn. The longwhite road, the arching trees, the glittering dust, the spring flowersblooming in gardens along the roadside, the very faces of the people whopassed her; all these things at which she looked were illuminated bythis radiance which seemed, in some strange way, to shine not withoutbut within her heart. "It is too beautiful to last, " she said toherself in a whisper. "It is youth, more beautiful even than thereality, come back again for an hour--for one little hour before it goesout for ever. "

Then, because it seemed safer as well as wiser to be practical, todiscourage wild dreaming, she tried to direct her thoughts toinsignificant details. Yet even here that rare golden light penetratedto the innermost recesses of her mind; and each drab uninteresting factglittered with a fresh interest and charm. "I forgot to order thatcretonne for the porch, " she thought disconnectedly, in an endeavour toconciliate the Fates by pretending that life was as commonplace as ithad always been. "That black background with the blue larkspur ispretty--and I must have the porch furniture repainted the blue-greenthat they do so well in Italy. That reminds me that Patty must be thebelle of the dance in her green dress. I shall see that she has no lackof partners--at least I can manage that;--if I cannot make her happy. Iam sorry for the child--if only Stephen--but, no--I left the book I wasreading in the shop. What was the name of it? Silly and sentimental! Whywill people always write things they don't mean and know are not trueabout love? Yes, the black background with the blue larkspur was thebest that I saw. I wonder what I did with the sample. Oh, why can'teverybody be happy?"

The car turned out of the road into the avenue of elms, which led to theGeorgian house of red brick, with its quaint hooded doorway. In front ofthe door there was a flagged walk edged with box; and after the car hadgone, Corinna followed this walk to the back of the house, where rows ofwhite and purple iris were blooming on the garden terrace. For a momentshe looked on the garden as one who loved it; then turning reluctantly, she ascended the steps, and entered the door which a coloured servantheld open. 

"A lady's in there waiting for you, " said the man, who having lost thedialect, still retained the dramatic gestures of his race. "She wouldwait, and she says she can't go without seeing you. "

With a faintness of the heart rather than the mind, Corinna lookedthrough the doorway, and saw the face of Alice Rokeby glimmeringnarcissus white in the dusk of the drawing-room. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE SIXTH SENSE

As Corinna went forward, with that strange premonitory chill at herheart, it seemed to her that all the fragrance of the garden floatedtoward her with a piercing sweetness that was the very essence of youthand spring. Through the wide-open French windows she could see thegarden terrace, the pale rows of iris, and the straight black cedarsrising against the pomegranate-coloured light of the afterglow. A fewtall white candles were shining in old silver candlesticks; but it wasby the vivid tint in the sky that she saw the large, frightened eyes ofthe woman who was waiting for her. 

"If I had only known you were here, I should have hurried home, " beganCorinna cordially. Drawing a chair close to her visitor, she sat downwith a movement that was protecting and reassuring. Her quick sympathieswere already aroused. She surmised that Alice Rokeby had come to herbecause she was in trouble; and it was not in Corinna's nature to refuseto hear or to help any one who appealed to her. 

Alice threw back her lace veil as if she were stifled by the transparentmesh. "In the shop there are so many interruptions, " she answered. "Iwanted to see you--" Breaking off hurriedly, she hesitated an instant, and then repeated nervously, "I wanted to see you--"

Corinna smiled at her. "Would you like to go out into the garden? Mayis so lovely there. "

"No, it is very pleasant here. " Alice made a vague, helpless gesturewith her small hands, and said for the third time, "I wanted to seeyou--"

"I am afraid you are not well. " Corinna spoke very gently. "Perhaps itis not too late for tea, or may I get you a glass of wine? All winterI've intended to go and inquire because I heard you'd been ill. It hasbeen so long since we really saw anything of each other; but I rememberyou quite well as a little girl--such a pretty little girl you were too. You are ever so much younger, at least ten years younger, than I am. "

As she rippled on, trying to give the other time to recover herself, shethought how lovely Alice had once been, and how terribly she had brokensince her divorce and her illness. She would always be appealing--thekind of woman with whom men easily fell in love--but one so soon reachedthe end of mere softness and prettiness. 

"Yes, you were one of the older girls, " answered Alice, "and I admiredyou so much. I used to sit on the front porch for hours to watch you goby. "

"And then I went abroad, and we lost sight of each other. "

"We both married, and I got a divorce last year. "

"I heard that you did. " It seemed futile to offer sympathy. 

"My marriage was a mistake. I was very unhappy. I have had a hard life, "said Alice, and her lower lip, as soft as a baby's, trembled nervously. How little character there was in her face, how little of anythingexcept that indefinable allurement of sex!

"I know, " responded Corinna consolingly. She felt so strong beside thishelpless, frightened woman that the old ache to comfort, to heal pain, was like a pang in her heart. 

"Everything has failed me, " murmured Alice, with the restless volubilityof a weak nature. "I thought there was something that would make up forwhat I had missed--something that would help me to live--but that hasfailed me like everything else--"

"Things will fail, " assented Corinna, with sympathy, "if we lean toohard on them. "

A delicate flush had come into Alice's face, bringing back for a momenther old flower-like loveliness. Her fine brown hair drooped in a wave onher forehead, and beneath it her violet eyes were deep and wistful. 

"What a beautiful room!" she said in a quivering voice. "And the gardenis like one in an old English song. "

"Yes, I hardly know which I love best--my garden or my shop. "

The words were so far from Corinna's thoughts that they seemed to driftto her from some distant point in space, out of the world beyond thegarden and the black brows of the cedars. They were as meaningless asthe wind that brought them, or the whirring of the white moth at thewindow. Beneath her vacant words and expressionless gestures, which werelike the words and gestures of an automaton, she was conscious of aprofound current of feeling which flowed steadily between Alice Rokebyand herself; and on this current there was borne all the inarticulateburden of womanhood. "Poor thing, she wants me to help her, " shethought; but aloud she said only: "The roses are doing so well thisyear. They will be the finest I have ever had. "

Suddenly Alice lowered her veil and rose. "I must go. It is late, " shesaid, and held out her hand. Then, while she stood there, with her handstill outstretched, all that she had left unspoken appeared to rush overher in a torrent, and she asked rapidly, while her lips jerked like thelips of a hurt child, "Is it true, Corinna, that you are going to marryJohn Benham?"

For an instant Corinna looked at her without speaking. The sympathy inher heart ceased as quickly as a fountain that is stopped; and she wasconscious only of that lifeless chill with which she had entered theroom. Now that the question had come, she knew that she had dreaded itfrom the first moment her eyes had rested on the face of her visitor, that she had expected it from the instant when she had heard that awoman awaited her in the house. It was something of which she had beenaware, and yet of which she had been scarcely conscious--as if theknowledge had never penetrated below the surface of her perceptions. Andit would be so easy, she knew, to evade it now as she had evaded it fromthe beginning, to push to-day into to-morrow for the rest of her life. Nothing stood in her way; nothing but that deep instinct for truth onwhich, it seemed to her now, most of her associations with men had beenwrecked. Then, because she was obliged to obey the law of her nature, she answered simply, "Yes, we expect to be married. "

A strangled sound broke from Alice's lips, but she bit it back before ithad formed into a word. The hand that she had thrown out blindly fell onthe fringe of her gown, and she began knitting it together withtrembling fingers. "Has he--does he care for you?" she asked presentlyin that hurried voice. 

For the second time Corinna hesitated; and in that instant ofhesitation, she broke irrevocably with the past and with the iron ruleof tradition. She knew how her mother, how her grandmother, how all thestrong and quiet women of her race would have borne themselves in acrisis like this--the implications and evasions which would have walledthem within the garden that was their world. Her mother, she realized, would have been as incapable of facing the situation as she would havebeen of creating it. 

"Yes, he cares for me, " she answered frankly; and then, before theterror that leaped into the eyes of the other woman, as if she longed toturn and run out of the house, Corinna touched her gently on theshoulder. "Don't look like that!" It was unendurable to hercompassionate heart that she should have brought that look into the eyesof any living creature. 

She led Alice back to the chairs they had left; and when the servantcame in to turn on the softly shaded lamps, they sat there, facing eachother, in a silence which seemed to Corinna to be louder than any sound. There was the noise of wonder in it, and tragedy, and something vaguelymenacing to which she could not give a name. It was fear, and yet it wasnot fear because it was so much worse. Only the blank terror in Alice'sface, the terror of the woman who has lost hope, could express what itmeant. And this terror translated into sound asked presently:

"Are--are you sure?"

A wave of pity surged through Corinna's heart. Her strength became toher something on which she could rest--which would not fail her; andshe understood why she had had to meet so many disappointments in life, why she had had to bear so much that was almost unbearable. It wasbecause, however strong emotion was in her nature, there was alwayssomething deep down in her that was stronger than any emotion. She hadbeen ruled not by passion but by law, by some clear moral discernment ofthings as they ought to be; and this was why weak persons, or those whowere the prey to their own natures, leaned on her with all their weight. In that instant of self-realization she knew that the refuge of the weakwould be for ever denied her, that she should always be alone becauseshe was strong enough to rely on her own spirit. 

"Before I answer your question, " she said, "I must know if you have theright to ask it. "

The wistful eyes grew bright again. How graceful she was, thoughtCorinna as she watched her; and she knew that this woman, with herclinging sweetness, like the sweetness of honeysuckle, and her shallowviolence of mood, could win the kind of love that had been denied to herown royal beauty. This other woman was the ephemeral incarnate, thething for which men gave their lives. She was nothing; and thereforeevery man would see in her the reflection of what he desired. 

"I have the right, " she answered desperately, without pride and withoutshame. "I had the right before I got my divorce--"

"I understand, " said Corinna, and her voice was scarcely more than abreath. Though she did not withdraw the hand that the other had taken, she looked away from her through the French window, into the gardenwhere the twilight was like the bloom on a grape. The fragrance becamesuddenly intolerable. It seemed to her to be the scent not only ofspring, but of death also, the ghost of all the sweetness that she hadmissed. "I shall never be able to bear the smell of spring again in mylife, " she thought. She had made no movement of surprise or resentment, for there was neither surprise nor resentment in her heart. There waspain, which was less pain than a great sadness; and there was thethought that she was very lonely; that she must always be lonely. Manythoughts passed through her mind; but beyond them, stretching far awayinto the future, she saw her own life like a deserted road filled withdead leaves and the sound of distant voices that went by. She couldnever find rest, she knew. Rest was the one thing that had been deniedher--rest and love. Her destiny was the destiny of the strong who mustgive until they have nothing left, until their souls are stripped bare. "He must have cared for you, " she said at last. Oh, how empty wordswere! How empty and futile!

"He could never care again like that for any one else, " replied Alice, reaching out her hand as if she were pushing away an object she feared. "Whatever he thinks now, he could never care that much again. "

Whatever he thinks now! A smile tinged with bitter knowledge flickeredon Corinna's lips for an instant. After all, how little, how very littleshe knew of John Benham. She had seen the face he turned to the world;she had seen the crude outside armour of his public conscience. A laughbroke from her at the phrase because she remembered that Vetch had firstused it. This other woman had entered into the secret chamber, thehidden places, of John Benham's life; she had been a part of the lightand darkness of his soul. To Corinna, remembering his reserve, hisdignity, his moderation in thought and feeling, there was a shock in thediscovery that the perfect balance, the equilibrium of his temperament, had been overthrown. Certainly in their serene and sentimentalassociation she had stumbled on no hidden fires, no reddening embers ofthat earlier passion. Yet she understood that even in her girlhood, evenin the April freshness of her beauty, she had never touched the depthsof his nature. It was Alice Rokeby--frightened, shallow, desperate, deserted, whom he had loved. 

"What do you want?" she asked quietly. "What do you wish me to do?"

"Oh, I don't know!" replied Alice. "I don't know. I haven't thought--butthere ought to be something. There ought to be something more permanentthan love for one to live by. "

In her anguish she had wrung a profound truth from experience; and assoon as she had uttered it, she lifted her pale face and stared withthat mournful interrogation into the twilight. Something permanent tolive by! In the mute desperation of her look she appeared to besearching the garden, the world, and the immense darkness of the sky, for an answer. The afterglow had faded slowly into the blue dusk ofnight; only a faint thread of gold still lingered beyond the cedars onthe western horizon. Something permanent and indestructible! Was thiswhat humanity had struggled for--had lived and fought and diedfor--since man first came up out of the primeval jungle? Where could onefind unalterable peace if it were not high above the ebb and flow ofdesire? She herself might break away from codes and customs; but shecould not break away from the strain of honour, of simple rectitude, which was in her blood and had made her what she was. 

"Yes, there ought to be something. There is something, " she said slowly. Though her hand still clasped Alice Rokeby's, she was gazing beyond heracross the terrace into the garden. She thought of many things while shesat there, with that look of clairvoyance, of radiant vision, in hereyes. Of Alice Rokeby as a little girl in a white dress, with a bluehair ribbon that would never stay tied; of John Benham when she hadplayed ball with him in her childhood; of Kent Page and that young love, so poignant while it lasted, so utterly dead when it was over; of herlong, long search for perfection, for something that would not passaway; of the brief pleasures and the vain expectations of life; of thegray deserted road filled with dead leaves and the sound of voices faroff--Nothing but dead leaves and distant voices that went by! In spiteof her beauty, her brilliance, her gallant heart, this was what life hadbrought to her at the end. Only loneliness and the courage of those whohave given always and never received. 

"There is something else, " she said again. "There is courage. " Then, asthe other woman made no reply, she went on more rapidly: "I will do whatI can. It is very little. I cannot change him. I cannot make him feelagain. But you can trust me. You are safe with me. "

"I know that, " answered Alice in a voice that sounded muffled and husky. "I have always known that. " She rose and readjusted her veil. "Thatmeans a great deal, " she added. "Oh, I think it means that the worldhas grown better!"

Corinna stooped and kissed her. "No, it only means that some of us havelearned to live without happiness. "

She went with Alice to the door, and then stood watching her descend thesteps and enter the small closed car in the drive. There was a touchinggrace in the slight, shrinking figure, as if it embodied in a singleimage all the women in the world who had lost hope. "Yet it is the weak, the passive, who get what they want in the end, " thought Corinna, asdispassionately as if she were merely a spectator. "I suppose it isbecause they need it more. They have never learned to do without. Theydo not know how to carry a broken heart. " Then she smiled as she turnedback into the house. "It is very late, and the only certain rules arethat one must dine and one must dress for dinner. "

A little later, when John Benham was announced and she came down to thedrawing-room, her first glance at his face told her that she must belooking her best. She was wearing black, and beneath the white lock inher dark hair, her face was flushed with the colour of happiness. Onlyher eyes, velvet soft and as deep as a forest pool, had a haunted look. 

"I have never, " he said, "seen you look better. "

She laughed. After all, one might permit a touch of coquetry in thefinal renouncement! "Perhaps you have never really seen me before. "

Though he looked puzzled, he responded gaily: "On the contrary, I haveseen little else for the last two or three months. "

There was an edge of irony to her smile. "Were you looking at me or myshadow?"

He shook his head. "Are shadows ever as brilliant as that?"

Then before she could answer the Judge came in with his cordialoutstretched hand and his air of humorous urbanity, as if he were toomuch interested in the world to censure it, and yet too littleinterested to take it seriously. His face, with its thin austerefeatures and its kindly expression, showed the dryness that comes lessfrom age than from quality. Benham, looking at him closely, thought, "Hemust be well over eighty, but he hasn't changed so much as a hair of hishead in the last twenty years. "

At dinner Corinna was very gay; and her father, whose habit it was notto inquire too deeply, observed only that she was looking remarkablywell. The dining-room was lighted by candles which flickered gently inthe breeze that rose and fell on the terrace. In this waveringillumination innumerable little shadows, like ghosts of butterflies, played over the faces of the two men, whose features were so much alikeand whose expressions differed so perversely. In both Nature had bred atype; custom and tradition had moulded the plastic substance and refinedthe edges; but, stronger than either custom or tradition, the individualtemperament, the inner spirit of each man, had cast the transformingflame and shadow over the outward form. And now they were alike only intheir long, graceful figures, in their thin Roman features, in theirgeneral air of urbane distinction. 

"We were talking at the club of the strike, " said the Judge, who hadfinished his soup with a manner of detachment, and sat now gazingthoughtfully at his glass of sherry. "The opinion seems to be that itdepends upon Vetch. "

Benham's voice sounded slightly sardonical. "How can anything dependupon a weathercock?"

"Well, there's a chance, isn't there, that the weather may decide it?"

"Perhaps. In the way that the Governor will find to his advantage. "Benham had leaned slightly forward, and his face looked very attractiveby the shimmering flame of the candles. 

"Isn't that the way most of us decide things, " asked Corinna, "if weknow what is really to our advantage?"

As Benham looked up he met her eyes. "In this case, " he answered, with anote of austerity, as if he were impatient of contradiction, "theadvantage to the public would seem to be the only one worthconsidering. "

For an instant a wild impulse, born of suffering nerves, passed throughCorinna's mind. She longed to cry out in the tone of Julius Gershom, "Oh, damn the public!"--but instead she remarked in the formal accentsher grandmother had employed to smooth over awkward impulses, "Isn't itridiculous that we can never get away from Gideon Vetch?"

The Judge laughed softly. "He has a pushing manner, " he returned; andthen, still curiously pursuing the subject: "Perhaps, he may get hisrevenge at the meeting Thursday night. "

"Is there to be a meeting?" retorted Corinna indifferently. She wasthinking, "When John is eighty he will look like Father. I shall beseventy-eight when he is eighty. All those years to live, and nothingin them but little pleasures, little kindnesses, little plans andambitions. Charity boards and committee meetings and bridge. That iswhat life is--just pretending that little things are important. "

"That's the strikers' meeting, " the Judge was saying over his glass ofsherry. "The next one is John's idea. We hope to arbitrate. If we canget Vetch interested there may be a settlement of some sort. "

"So it's Vetch again! Oh, I am getting so tired of the name of GideonVetch!" laughed Corinna. And she thought, "If only I didn't have to playon the flute all my life. If I could only stop playing dance music for alittle while, and break out into a funeral march!"

"He has already agreed to come, " said Benham, "but I expect nothing fromhim. I have formed the habit of expecting nothing from Vetch. "

"Well, I don't know, " replied the Judge. "We may persuade him to standfirm, if there hasn't been an understanding between him and thosepeople. " The old gentleman always used the expression "those people" forpersons of whose opinions he disapproved. 

"You know what I think of Vetch, " rejoined Benham, with a shrug. 

It seemed to Corinna, watching Benham with her thoughtful gaze, that the subject would never change, that they would argue allnight over their foolish strike and their tiresome meeting, andover what this Gideon Vetch might or might not do in some problematicsituation. What sentimentalists men were! They couldn't understand, after the experience of a million years, that the only thingsthat really counted in life were human relations. They were obligedto go on playing a game of bluff with their consecratedsuperstitions--playing--playing--playing--and yet hiding behind somegraven image of authority which they had built out of stone. Sentimental, yes, and pathetic too, when one thought of it withpatience. 

When dinner was over, and the Judge had gone to a concert in town, Corinna's mockery fell from her, and she sat in a long silence watchingBenham's enjoyment of his cigar. It occurred to her that if he werestripped of everything else, of love, of power, of ambition, he couldstill find satisfaction in the masculine habit of living--in the simplepleasures of which nothing except physical infirmity or extreme povertycan ever deprive one. Moderate in all things, he was capable of taking aserious pleasure in his meals, in his cigar, in a dip in a swimmingpool, or a game of cards at the club. Whatever happened, he would havethese things to fall back upon; and they would mean to him, she knew, far more than they could ever, even in direst necessity, mean to awoman. 

The long drawing-room, lighted with an amber glow and drenched with thesweetness of honeysuckle, had grown very still. Outside in the gardenthe twilight was powdered with silver, and above the tops of the cedarsa few stars were shining. A breeze came in softly, touching her cheeklike the wing of a moth and stirring the iris in a bowl by the window. The flowers in the room were all white and purple, she observed with atremulous smile, as if the vivid colours had been drained from both herlife and her surroundings. "What a foolish fancy, " she added, with anervous force that sent a current of energy through her veins. "Myheart isn't broken, and it will never be until I am dead!"

And then, with that natural aptitude for facing facts, for looking atlife steadily and fearlessly, which had been born in a recoil from thesentimental habit of mind, she said quietly, "John, Alice Rokeby came tosee me this afternoon. "

He started, and the ashes dropped from his cigar; but there was noembarrassment in the level glance he raised to her eyes. Surprise therewas, and a puzzled interrogation, but of confusion or disquietude shecould find no trace. 

"Well?" he responded inquiringly, and that was all. 

"You used to care for her a great deal--once?"

He appeared to ponder the question. "We were great friends, " heanswered. 

Friends! The single word seemed to her to express not only his attitudeto Alice Rokeby, but his temperamental inability to call things by theirright names, to face facts, to follow a straight line of thought. Herewas the epitome of that evasive idealism which preferred shams torealities. 

"Are you still friends?"

He shook his head. "No, we've drifted apart in the last year or so. Iused, " he said slowly, "to go there a great deal; but I've had so manyresponsibilities of late that I've fallen into the habit of lettingother interests go in a measure. "

It was harder even than she had imagined it would be--harder because sherealized now that they did not speak the same language. She felt thatshe had struck against something as dry and cold and impersonal as anabstract principle. A ludicrous premonition assailed her that in alittle while he would begin to talk about his public duty. This lack ofgenuine emotion, which had at first appeared to contradict hissentimental point of view, was revealed to her suddenly as its supremejustification. Because he felt nothing deeply he could afford to playbrilliantly with the names of emotions; because he had never sufferedhis duty would always lie, as Gideon Vetch had once said of him, "in thedirection of things he could not hurt. "

"It is a pity, " she said gently, "for she still cares for you. "

The hand that held his cigar trembled. She had penetrated his reserve atlast, and she saw a shadow which was not the shadow of the wind-blownflowers, cross his features. 

"Did she tell you that?" he asked as gently as she had spoken. 

"There was no need to tell me. I saw it as soon as I looked at her. "

For a moment he was silent; then he said very quietly, as one whosecontrolling motive was a hatred of excess, of unnecessary fussiness orfrankness: "I am sorry. "

"Have you stopped caring for her?"

The shadow on his face changed into a look of perplexity. When he spoke, she realized that he had mistaken her meaning; and for an instant herheart beat wildly with resentment or apprehension. 

"I am fond of her. I shall always be fond of her, " he said. "Does itmake any difference to you, my dear?"

Yes, he had mistaken her meaning. He was judging her in the dim light ofan immemorial tradition; and he had seen in her anxious probing fortruth merely a personal jealousy. Women were like that, he would havesaid, applying, in accordance with his mental custom, the general law tothe particular instance. After all, where could they meet? They were asfar divided in their outlook on life as if they had inhabited differentspiritual hemispheres. A curiosity seized her to know what was in hismind, to sound the depths of that unfathomable reserve. 

"That is over so completely that I thought it would make no differenceto you, " he added almost reproachfully, as if she, not he, were to beblamed for dragging a disagreeable subject into the light. 

Fear stabbed Corinna's heart like a knife. "But she still loves you!"she cried sharply. 

He flinched from the sharpness of her tone. "I am sorry, " he said again;but the words glided, with a perfunctory grace, on the surface ofemotion. Suppose that what he said was true, she told herself; supposethat it was really "over"; suppose that she also recognized only theegoist's view of duty--of the paramount duty to one's own inclinations;suppose--"Oh, am I so different from him?" she thought, "why cannot Ialso mistake the urging of desire for the command of conscience--or atleast call it that in my mind?" For a minute she struggled desperatelywith the temptation; and in that minute it seemed to her that the faceof Alice Rokeby, with its look of wistful expectancy, of hungryyearning, drifted past her in the twilight. 

"But is it obliged to be over?" she asked aloud. "I could never care asshe does. I have always been like that, and I can't change. I havealways been able to feel just so much and no more--to give just so muchand no more. "

He looked at her attentively, a little troubled, she could see, but notdeeply hurt, not hurt enough to break down the wall which protected thesecret--or was it the emptiness?--of his nature. 

"Has the knowledge of my--my old friendship for Mrs. Rokeby come betweenus?" he asked slowly and earnestly. 

While he spoke it seemed to her that all that had been obscure in herview of him rolled away like the mist in the garden, leaving thestructure of his being bare and stark to her critical gaze. Nothingconfused her now; nothing perplexed her in her knowledge of him. The oldsense of incompleteness, of inadequacy, returned; but she understood thecause of it now; she saw with perfect clearness the defect from which ithad arisen. He had missed the best because, with every virtue of themind, he lacked the single one of the heart. Possessing every grace ofcharacter except humanity, he had failed in life because this one giftwas absent. 

"All my life, " she said brokenly, "I have tried to find something that Icould believe in--that I could keep faith with to the end. But what canone build a world on except human relations--except relations betweenmen and women?"

"You mean, " he responded gravely, "that you think I have not kept faithwith Mrs. Rokeby?"

"Oh, can't you see? If you would only try, you must surely see!" shepleaded, with outstretched hands. 

He shook his head not in denial, but in bewilderment. "I realized that Ihad made a mistake, " he said slowly, "but I believed that I had put itout of my life--that we had both put it out of our lives. There were somany more important things--the war and coming face to face with deathin so many forms. Oh, I confess that what is important to you, appearsto me to be merely on the surface of life. I have been trying to fulfilother responsibilities--to live up to the demands on me--I had got downto realities--"

A laugh broke from her lips, which had grown so stiff that they hurt herwhen she tried to smile. "Realities!" she exclaimed, "and yet you musthave seen her face as I saw it to-day. "

For the third time, in that expressionless tone which covered a nervousirritation, he repeated gravely, "I am sorry. "

"There is nothing more real, " she went on presently, "there is nothingmore real than that look in the face of a living thing. "

For the first time her words seemed to reach him. He was trying with allhis might, she perceived, he was spiritually fumbling over the effort tofeel and to think what she expected of him. With his natural fairness hewas honestly struggling to see her point of view. 

"If it is really like that, " he said, "What can I do?"

All her life, it seemed to Corinna, she had been adjusting thedifficulties and smoothing out the destinies of other persons. All herlife she had been arranging some happiness that was not hers. To-nightit was the happiness of Alice Rokeby, an acquaintance merely, a woman towhom she was profoundly indifferent, which lay in her hands. 

"There is something that you can do, " she said lightly, obeying now thatinstinct for things as they ought to be, for surface pleasantness, whichwarred in her mind with her passion for truth. "You can go to see heragain. "

CHAPTER XX

CORINNA FACES LIFE

AT nine o'clock the next morning Corinna came through the sunshine onthe flagged walk and got into her car. She was wearing her smartestdress of blue serge and her gayest hat of a deep old red. Never had shelooked more radiant; never had she carried her glorious head with a moretriumphant air. 

"Stop first at Mrs. Rokeby's, William, " she said to the chauffeur, "andwhile I am there you may take this list to market. "

As the car rolled off, her eyes turned back lovingly to the serenebrightness of the garden into which she had infused her passion forbeauty and order and gracious living. Rain had fallen in the night, andthe glowing borders beyond the house shone like jewels in a casket. Beneath the silvery blue of the sky each separate blade of grassglistened as if an enchanter's wand had turned it to crystal. The birdswere busily searching for worms on the lawn; as the car passed a flashof scarlet darted across the road; and above a clear shining puddleclouds of yellow butterflies drifted like blown rose-leaves. 

"How beautiful everything is, " thought Corinna. "Why isn't beautyenough? Why does beauty without love turn to sadness?" Her head, whichhad drooped for a moment, was lifted gallantly. "It ought to be enoughjust to be alive and not hungry on a morning like this. "

The house in which Mrs. Rokeby lived appeared to Corinna, as sheentered it presently, to have given up hope as utterly as its mistresshad done. Though it was nearly ten o'clock, the front pavement had notbeen swept, the hall was still dark, and a surprised coloured maid, in asoiled apron, answered the doorbell. 

"Poor thing, " thought, Corinna. "I always heard that she was a goodhousekeeper. It is queer how soon one's state of mind passes into one'ssurroundings. I wonder if unhappiness could ever make me so indifferentto appearances?" To the maid, who knew her, she said, "I think Mrs. Rokeby will see me if she is awake. It is only for a minute or two. "

Then she went into the drawing-room, where the shades were still down, and stood looking at the furniture and the curtains which were powderedwith dust. On the table, where the books and photographs weredisarranged and a fancy box of chocolates lay with the top off, therewas a crystal vase of flowers; but the flowers were withered, and thewater smelt as if it had not been changed for a week. Over themantelpiece the long gilt-framed mirror reflected, through a gray film, the darkened room with its forlorn disarrangement. The whole place hadthe vague depressing smell of closed rooms, or of dead flowers, the veryodour of unhappiness. 

"Poor thing!" thought Corinna again. "That a man should have the powerto make anybody suffer like this!" And beneath her sense of fruitlessendeavour and wasted romance, there awoke and stirred in her thedominant instinct of her nature, the instinct to bring order out ofconfusion, to make the crooked straight, to change discord intoharmony, that irresistible instinct for things as they ought to be. Shelonged to fling up the shades, to let in the sunshine, to drive out thedust and cobwebs, to put fresh flowers in the place of the dead ones. She longed, as she said to herself with a smile, "to get her hands onthe room. " If she could only change all this hopelessness intohappiness! If she could only restore pleasure here, or at least thesemblance of peace! "It is just as well that all of us can't feel thingsthis much, " she reflected. 

"Mrs. Rokeby ain't dressed, but she says would you mind coming up?" Themaid, having attired herself in a clean apron and a crooked cap, stoodin the doorway. As Corinna followed her, she led the way up the narrowstairs into the bedroom where Alice was waiting. 

"I thought you wouldn't be dressed, " began Corinna cheerfully, "but it'sthe only time I have free, and I wanted to see you this morning. "

"It is so good of you, " responded Alice, putting out her hand. "Everything looks dreadful, I know; but I haven't been well, and one ofthe servants has gone to a funeral in the country. "

"It doesn't matter, " Corinna hesitated an instant, "only I wish youwould make some one throw out those dead flowers downstairs. "

"I haven't been in the room for a week, " replied Alice, dropping back onthe couch as if her strength had failed her. "I don't seem to care aboutthe house or anything else. "

As soon as her surprise at Corinna's visit had faded, she sank againinto a listless attitude. Her figure grew relaxed; the faint animationdied in her face; and she gazed at her visitor with a look of passivetragedy, which made Corinna, who was never passive, feel that she shouldlike to shake her. Her soft brown hair, as fine as spun silk, was tuckedunder a cap of old lace, and beneath the drooping frill her melancholyfeatures reminded Corinna of a Byzantine saint. Over her nightgown, shehad thrown on a Japanese kimono of ashen blue, embroidered in plumblossoms which looked wilted. Everything about her, Corinna thought, looked wilted, as if each inanimate object that surrounded her had beenstricken by the hopelessness of her spirit. To Corinna's energetictemperament, there was something positively immoral in this languidresignation. "Un-happiness like this is contagious, " she thought. "Andall because one man has ceased to love her! What utter folly!" Aloud shesaid only, "I came to ask you to go with me to the Harrisons' dance. "

"To-morrow? Oh, Corinna, I couldn't!"

"Do you remember that blue dress--the one that is the colour of wildhyacinths?"

"Yes, but I couldn't wear it again, and I haven't anything else. "

"Well, I like you in that, but wear whatever you please as long as it isbecoming. You must look ethereal, and you must look happy. Men hate asad face because it seems to reproach them, and, even if they murderyou, they resent your reproaching them. "

There was a deliberate purpose in her levity, for an intuition to whichshe trusted was warning her that there are times when the only way totreat refractory circumstances is to bully them into submission. "If youonce let life get the better of you, you are lost, " she said to herself. 

"You can't understand, " Alice was murmuring while she wiped her eyes. "You have always had what you wanted. "

Corinna laughed. "I am glad you see it that way, " she rejoined, "but youwould be nearer the truth if you had said I'd always wanted what I had. "

"It seems to me that you've had everything. "

"Very likely. The lot of another person is one of the mountains to whichdistance lends enchantment. "

"You mean that you haven't been happy?"

"Oh, yes, I've been happy. If I hadn't been, with all I've had, I shouldbe ashamed to admit it. "

But Alice was in a mood of mournful condolence. She had pitied herselfso overwhelmingly that some of the sentiment had splashed over on thelives of others. It was her habit to sit still under affliction, andwhen one sits still, one has a long time in which to remember andregret. 

"Your marriage must have been a disappointment to you, " she said, "butyou were so brave, poor dear, that nobody suspected it until you wereseparated. "

"I am not a poor dear, " retorted Corinna, "and there were a great manythings in life for me besides marriage. "

"There wouldn't have been in my place, " insisted Alice, with asubmissive manner but a stubborn mind. 

Corinna gazed at her speculatively for a moment; and in her speculationthere was the faintest tinge of contempt, the contempt which, in spiteof her pity, she felt for all weakness. "I shouldn't have got into yourplace, " she responded presently, "and if I ever found myself there bymistake, I'd make haste to get out of it. "

"But suppose you had been like me, Corinna?" The words were a wail ofdespair. 

A laugh rippled like music from Corinna's lips. It was cruel to laugh, she knew, but it was all so preposterous! It was turning things upsidedown with vehemence when one tried to live by feeling in a world whichwas manifestly designed for the service of facts. "You ought to havegone on the stage, Alice, " she said. "Painted scenery is the onlybackground that is appropriate to you. "

Alice sighed. She looked very pretty in her shallow fashion, or Corinnafelt that she couldn't have borne it. "You are awfully kind, Corinna, "she returned, "but you have so little sentiment. "

"I know, my dear, but I have some common sense which has served me verywell in its place. " As Corinna spoke she got up and roamed restlesslyabout the room, because the sight of that passive figure, wrapped inwilted plum blossoms, made her feel as if she wanted to scream. "Youcan't help being a fool, Alice, " she said sternly, "and as long as youare a pretty one, I suppose men won't mind. But you must continue to bea pretty one, or it is all over with you. "

The face that Alice turned on her showed a curious mixture of humilityover the criticism and satisfaction over the compliment. "I know I'velost my looks dreadfully, " she replied, grasping the most importantpoint first, "and, of course, I have been a fool about John. If I hadn'tcared so much, things might have been different. "

Corinna stopped her impatient moving about and looked down on her. "Ididn't mean that kind of fool, " she retorted; but just what kind of foolshe had meant, she thought it indiscreet to explain. 

Suddenly, with a dash of nervous energy which appeared to run like astimulant through her veins, Alice straightened herself and lifted herhead. "It is easy for you to say that, " she rejoined, "but you havenever been loved to desperation and then deserted. "

"No, " responded Corinna, with the ripe judgment that is the fruit ofbitter experience, "but, if I were ever loved to desperation, I shouldexpect to be. Desperation does things like that. "

"You couldn't bear it any better than I can. No woman could. "

"Perhaps not. " Though Corinna's voice was flippant, there was a sternexpression on her beautiful face--the expression that Artemis might haveworn when she surveyed Aphrodite. "But I should never have beendeserted. I should have taken good care to prevent it. "

"I took care too, " retorted Alice, with passion, "but I couldn't preventit. "

"Your measures were wrong. It is always safer to be on the side of theactive rather than the passive verb. "

With a careless movement, Corinna picked up her beaded bag, which shehad laid on the table, and turned to adjust her veil before the mirror. "If you will let me manage your life for a little while, " she observed, with an appreciative glance at the daring angle of the red hat, "I maybe able to do something with it, for I am a practical person as well asa capable manager. Father calls me, you know, the repairer ofdestinies. "

"If I thought it would do any good, I'd go to the ball with you, " saidAlice eagerly, while a delicate colour stained the wan pallor of herface. 

"Do you really think, " asked Corinna brightly, "that John, ablepolitician though he is, is worth all that trouble?"

"Oh, it isn't just John, " moaned Alice; "it is everything. "

"Well, if I am going to repair your destiny, I must do it in my ownpractical way. For a time at least we will let sentiment go and get downto facts. As long as you haven't much sense, it is necessary for you tomake yourself as pretty as possible, for only intelligent women canafford to take liberties with their appearances. The first step must beto buy a hat that is full of hope as soon as you can. Oh, I don't meananything jaunty or frivolous; but it must be a hat that can look theworld in the face. "

A keen interest awoke in Alice's eyes, and she looked immediatelyyounger. "If I can find one, I'll buy it, " she answered. "I'll getdressed in a little while and go out. "

"And remember the hyacinth-blue dress. Have it made fresh forto-morrow. " Turning in the doorway, Corinna continued with humorousvivacity, "There is only one little thing we must forget, and that islove. The less said about it the better; but you may take it on myauthority that love can always be revived by heroic treatment. If Johnever really loved you, and you follow my advice, he will love youagain. "

With a little song on her lips, and her gallant head in the red hatraised to the sunlight, she went out of the house and down the stepsinto her car. "Fools are very exhausting, " she thought, as she bowed toa passing acquaintance, "but I think that she will be cured. " Then, atthe sight of Stephen leaving the Culpeper house, she leaned out andwaved to him to join her. 

"My dear boy, how late you are!" she exclaimed, when the car had stoppedand he got in beside her. 

"Yes, I am late. " He looked tired and thoughtful. "I stopped to have atalk with Mother, and she kept me longer than I realized. "

"Is anything wrong?"

He set his lips tightly. "No, nothing more than usual. "

Corinna gazed up at the blue sky and the sunlight. Why wouldn't peoplebe happy? Why were they obliged to cause so much unnecessary discomfort?Why did they persist in creating confusion?

"Well, I hope you are coming to the dance to-morrow night, " she saidcheerfully. 

"Yes. Mother has asked me to take Margaret Blair. "

"I am glad. Margaret is a nice girl. I am going to take Patty Vetch. "

He started, and though she was not looking at him, she knew that hisface grew pale. "Don't you think she will look lovely, just like amermaid, in green and silver?" she asked lightly. 

"I don't know, " he answered stiffly. "I am trying not to think abouther. "

Corinna laughed. "Oh, my dear, just wait until you see her in thatsea-green gown!"

That he was caught fast in the web of the tribal instinct, Corinnarealized as perfectly as if she had seen the net closing visibly roundhim. Though she was unaware of the blow Patty had dealt him, she felthis inner struggle through that magical sixth sense which is the giftof the understanding heart, of the heart that has outgrown the shell ofthe personal point of view. If he would only for once break free fromartificial restraints! If he would only let himself be swept intosomething that was larger than his own limitations!

"I am very fond of Patty, " she said. "The more I see of her, the finer Ithink she is. "

His lips did not relax. "There is a great deal of talk at the club aboutthe Governor. "

"Oh, this strike of course! What do they say?"

"A dozen different things. Nobody knows exactly how to take him. "

"I wonder if we have ever understood him, " said Corinna, a little sadly. "I sometimes think--" Then she broke off hurriedly. "No, don't get out, I'll take you down to your office. I sometimes think, " she resumed, "that none of us see him as he really is because we see him through aveil of prejudice, or if you like it better, of sentiment--"

Stephen laughed without mirth. "I don't like it better. I'd like to getinto a world--or at least I feel this morning that I'd like to get intoa world where one was obliged to face nothing softer than a fact--"

Corinna looked at him tenderly. She had a sincere, though not a verydeep affection, for Stephen, and she felt that she should like to helphim, as long as helping him did not necessitate any emotional effort. "Has it ever occurred to you, " she asked gently, "that the trouble withyou, after all, is simply lack of courage?" At the start he gave, shecontinued hastily, "Oh, I don't mean physical courage of course. I donot doubt that you were as brave as a lion when it came to meeting theGermans. But there are times when life is more terrible than theGermans! And yet the only courage we have ever glorified is brutecourage--the courage of the lion. I know that you could face machineguns and bayonets and all the horrors of war; but it seems to me thatyou have never had really the courage of living--that you have alwaysbeen a little afraid of life. "

For a long while he did not answer. His eyes were on the sky; and shewatched the expression of irritation, amazement, dread, perplexity, andshocked comprehension, pass slowly over his features. "By Jove, I've gota feeling that you may be right, " he said at last. "You probed thewound, and it hurt for a minute; but it may heal all the quicker forthat. You've put the whole rotten business into a nutshell. I'm a cowardat bottom, that's the trouble with me. Oh, like you, of course, I'm nottalking about actual dangers. They are easy enough, for one can see themcoming. It's not fear of the Germans. It's fear of something that onecan't touch or feel--that doesn't even exist--the fear of one'simagination. But the truth is that I've funked things for the last yearor so. I've been in a chronic blue funk about living. "

She smiled at him brightly. "It is like a bit of thistle-down. Bring itout into the air and sunlight, and it will blow away. "

"I wonder if you're right. Already I feel better because I've told you;and yet I've gone in terror lest my mother should discover it. "

When she spoke again she changed the subject as lightly as if they hadbeen discussing the weather. "You used to be interested in publicmatters. Do you remember how you talked to me in your college daysabout outstripping John in the race? You were full of ideas then, andfull of ambition too. " She was touching a string that had never failedher yet, and she waited, with an inscrutable smile, for the response. 

"I know, " he answered, "but that was in another life--that was beforethe war. "

"Do those ideas never come back to you? Have you lost your ambition?"

"I can't tell. I sometimes think that it died in France. I got to feelover there that these political issues were merely local and temporary. Often, the greater part of the time, I suppose, I feel like that now. Then suddenly all my old ambition comes back in a spurt, and for alittle while I think I am cured. While that lasts I am as eager, as fullof interest, as I used to be. But it dies down as suddenly as it sprangup, and the reaction is only indifference and lassitude. I seem to havelost the power to keep a single state of mind, or even an interest. "

"But do you ever think seriously of the part you might take in thistown?"

The look of immobility passed from his face; his eyes grew warmer, andit seemed to her that he became more alive and more human. "Oh, I thinka great deal. My ideas have changed too. " He was talking rapidly andwithout connection. "I am not the same man that I was a few years ago. Imay be wrong, but I feel that I've got down to a firmer basis--a basisof facts. " Then he turned to her impulsively, "I wouldn't say this toany one else, Corinna, because no one else would understand what Imean--but I've learned a good deal from Gideon Vetch. "

"Ah!" Her eyes were smiling. "I think I know what you mean. "

"Of course you know. But imagine Father! He would think, if I told him, that it was a symptom of mental derangement--that some German shell hadleft a permanent dent in my brain. "

"Perhaps. Yet I am not sure that you understand your father. I think heis more like you than you fancy; that if you once pierced his reserve, you would find him a sentimentalist at heart. There is your office, " sheadded, "but you must not get out now. We will turn back for a quarter ofan hour. " She spoke to the chauffeur, and then said to Stephen, with asensation of unutterable relief, "a quarter of an hour won't make anydifference at the office to-day. "

"Perhaps not when I've lost three hours already. I sometimes think theywould never notice it if I stayed away all the time. But what I meanabout Vetch is simply that he has set me thinking. He does that, youknow. Oh, I admit that he is mistaken--or downright wrong--in a numberof ways! He is too sensational for our taste--too flamboyant; but onecan't get away from him. He has shaken the dust from us; he has joltedus into movement. I have a feeling somehow that his personality isspread all over the place--that we are smeared with Gideon Vetch, as thedarkeys would say. "

He was already a different Stephen from the one who had got into her caran hour ago, and she breathed a secret prayer of thanksgiving. 

"I think even John feels that now and then, " she said, and a momentafterward, "Is it possible, do you suppose, that we shall find when itis too late that this Gideon Vetch is the stone that the buildersrejected? A ridiculous fancy, and yet who knows, it might turn out to betrue. Stranger things have happened than that!"

"It may be. One never can tell. " Then he laughed with tolerantaffection. "I've found out the trouble with John. "

"The trouble with John?" Her voice trembled. 

"Yes, the trouble with John is that he lacks blood at the brain. He istrying to make a living organism out of a skeleton--to build the worldover on a skull and cross-bones--and it can't be done. I admire John asmuch as I ever did. He is as logical as a problem in geometry. But Vetchis nearer to the truth of things. Vetch has the one attribute that Johnneeds to make him complete. "

She nodded. "I know. You mean feeling?"

"Human sympathy--the sympathy that means imagination and insight. Thatis the only power that Vetch has, but, by Jove, it is the greatest ofall! It is the spirit that comprehends, that reconciles, and recreates. Both Vetch and John have failed, I think; Vetch for want of education, system, method, and John because, having all this essential framework, he still lacked the blood and fibre of humanity. In its essence, Isuppose it is a difference of principle, the old familiar strugglebetween the romantic and the realistic temperament, which divides inpolitics into the progressive and the conservative forces. There isnothing in history, I learned that at college, except the war betweenthese two irreconcilable spirits. Irreconcilable, they call them, andyet I wonder, I wonder more and more, if this is not a misinterpretationof history? It seems to me that the leader of the future, even in sosmall a community as this one, must be big enough to combine oppositeelements; that he must take the good where he finds it; that he mustvitalize tradition and discipline progress--"

"You mean that he must accept both the past and the future?" While herheart craved the substance of truth, she dispensed platitudes with abenevolent air. 

"How can it be otherwise? That, it seems to me, is the only logical wayout of the muddle. The difficulty, of course, is to remainpractical--not to let the vision run away with one. It will requiremoderation, which Vetch has not, and adaptability, which John has neverlearned. "

"And never will learn, " rejoined Corinna. "He is made of the mettle thatbreaks but does not bend. "

"Like my father; like all those who have petrified in the shape of aconvention. And yet the new stuff--the ideas that haven't turned tostone--are full of froth--they splash over. Take Vetch and this strike, for instance. I myself believe that he wants to do the right thing, toprotect the public at any cost; but he has gone too far; he has splashedover the dividing line between principle and expediency. Will he be ableto stand firm at the last?"

"Father says there is to be a meeting Thursday night. "

"Yes, and he'll be obliged to come to some decision then, or at least todrop a hint as to the line he intends to pursue. I am afraid there willbe trouble either way. "

"The Governor shows the strain, " said Corinna. "I saw him yesterday. "

"How can he help it? He has got himself into a tight place. Oh, thereare times when temporizing is more dangerous than action! It's hard tosee how he'll get out of it unless he cuts a way, and if he does that, he'll probably lose the strongest support he has ever had. "

Stephen's face was transfigured now. It had lost the look of dryness, ofapathy; and she watched the glow of health shine again in his eyes as itused to shine when he was at college. So it was not emotion that was torestore him! It was the ancient masculine delusion, as invulnerable astruth, that the impersonal interests are the significant ones. Well, shewas not quarrelling with delusions as long as they were beneficent! Andsince it was impossible for her fervent soul to care greatly for generalprinciples, or to dwell long among impersonal forms of thought, shefound herself regarding this public crisis, less as a warfare ofpolitical theories, than as a possible cure for Stephen's condition. Forthe rest, except for their results, beneficial or otherwise, to theindividual citizen, problems of government interested her not at all. The whole trouble with life seemed to her to rise, not from mistakentheory, but from the lack of consideration with which human beingstreated one another. Happiness, after all, depended so little uponopinions and so much upon manners. 

"Throw yourself into this work, Stephen, " she urged. "It is a splendidopportunity. "

He smiled at her in the old boyish way. "An opportunity for what?"

"For--" It was on the tip of her tongue to say "for health"; but shechecked herself, remembering the incurable distaste men have forcalling things by their right names, and replied instead, "anopportunity for usefulness. "

His smile faded, and he turned on her eyes that were almost melancholy, though the fire of animation still warmed them. "I am interested now. Icare a great deal--but will it last? Haven't I felt this way a hundredtimes in the last six months, only to grow indifferent and even boredwithin the next few hours?"

She looked at him closely. "Isn't there any feeling--any interest thatlasts with you?"

He hesitated, while a burning colour, like the flush of fever, swept upto his forehead. "Only one, and I am trying to get over that, " heanswered after a moment. 

"If it is a genuine feeling, are you wise to get over it?" she asked. "Genuine feeling is so rare. I think if I could feel an overwhelmingemotion, I should hug it to my heart as the most precious of gifts. "

"Even if everything were against it?"

Her head went up with a dauntless gesture. "Oh, my dear, what iseverything?" It was a changed voice from the one in which she hadlectured Alice Rokeby an hour ago. "Feeling is everything. "

"It is real, " he replied, looking away from her eyes. "I am sure of thatbecause I have struggled against it. I can't explain what it is; I don'tknow what it was that made me care in the beginning. All I know about itis that it seems to give me back myself. It is only when I let myself goin the thought of it that I become really free. Can you understand whatI mean?"

"I can, " assented Corinna softly; and though she smiled there was a mistover her eyes which made the world appear iridescent. "Oh, my dear, itis the only way. Throw away everything else--every cause, everyconviction, every interest--but keep that one open door into reality. "

The car stopped before his office, and she held out her hand. "I shallsee you to-morrow night?"

He glanced back merrily from the pavement. "Do you think I shall let youescape me?" Then he turned away and went, with a firm and energeticstep, into the building, while Corinna took out her shopping list andstudied it thoughtfully. 

"Back to the shop, " she said at last. "I have had enough for onemorning. " As the car started up the street, a smile stirred her lips, "Ishall have three unhappy lovers on my hands for the dance to-morrow. "Then she laughed softly, with a very real sense of humour, "If I amgoing to sacrifice myself, I may as well do it in the grand manner, " shethought, for Corinna had a royal soul. 

CHAPTER XXI

DANCE MUSIC

At breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Culpeper observed, with maternalsolicitude, that Stephen was looking more cheerful. While she poured hiscoffee, with one eye on the fine old coffee pot and one on the animatedface of her son, she reflected that he appeared to have come at last tohis senses. "If he would only stop all this folly and settle down, " shethought. "Surely it is quite time now for him to become normal again. "As she looked at him her expression softened, in spite of her generalattitude of disapprobation, and the sharp brightness of her eyes gaveplace to humid tenderness. Of all her children he had long been herfavourite, for the reason, perhaps, that he was the only one who hadever caused her any anxiety; and though she would have gone to the stakecheerfully for all and each of them, there would have been a keener edgeto the martyrdom she suffered in Stephen's behalf. 

"Be sure and make a good breakfast, Mr. Culpeper, " she urged, glancingdown the table to where her husband was dividing his attention betweenthe morning paper and his oatmeal. "My poor father used to say that ifhe didn't make a good breakfast he felt it all day long. "

"He was right, my dear. I have no doubt that he was right, " replied Mr. Culpeper, in the tone of solemn sentiment which he reserved fordeceased parents. Though he was dyspeptic by constitution, and inclinedto gout and other bodily infirmities, he applied himself philosophicallyto a heavy breakfast such as his wife's father had enjoyed. 

"Stephen is looking so well this morning, " remarked Mrs. Culpeper in asprightly voice. "He has quite a colour. "

Mr. Culpeper rolled his large brown eyes, as handsome and as opaque aschestnuts, in the direction of his son. Though he would never haveobserved the improvement unless his wife had called his attention to it, his kind heart was honestly relieved to discover that Stephen lookedbetter. He had worried a good deal in his sluggish way over what hethought of as "the effect of the war" on his son. With the strongpaternal instinct which beheld every child as a branch on a genealogicaltree, he had been as much disturbed as his wife by the gossip which hadreached him about the daughter of Gideon Vetch. 

"Feeling all right, my boy?" he inquired now, in the tone of indulgentanxiety which, from the first day of his return, had exasperated Stephenso profoundly. 

"Oh, first rate, " responded the young man lightly. "Is there anythingyou would like me to help you about?"

"No, there's nothing I can't attend to myself--" Mr. Culpeper had begunto reply, when catching sight of his wife's frowning face, he continuedhurriedly: "Unless you would care to glance over that deed about thoselots of your mother's?"

Stephen smiled, for he had seen the warning change in his mother'sexpression, and he was thinking that she was still a remarkably prettywoman. "With pleasure, " he returned. "I shall be busy all day, but I'lllook it over to-morrow. To-night I am going to the Harrisons' dance. "

"Oh, you're going!" exclaimed Mary Byrd, who had come in late and wasjust taking her seat. "I suppose Mother is making you take MargaretBlair?"

Again Mrs. Culpeper made a vague frowning movement of her eyebrows andgently shook her head; but the gesture of disapproval to which herhusband had responded obediently was entirely wasted upon her youngestdaughter. "You needn't shake your head at me, Mother, " she remarkedlightly. "Of course I know you are making him take her when he wouldrather a hundred times go with Patty Vetch. "

The frown on Mrs. Culpeper's face turned to a look of panic. "Mary Byrd, you are impossible, " she said sternly. 

"I saw Cousin Corinna yesterday, " observed Victoria indiscreetly. "Sheis going to take Patty Vetch. "

Mrs. Culpeper said nothing, but her fine black brows drew ominouslytogether. She had worked so busily over the coffee urn and the sugarbowl that she had not had time to eat her breakfast, and the oatmeal inthe plate before her had grown stiff and cold before she tasted it. WhenStephen stooped to kiss her cheek before going out, she looked up at himwith a proud and admiring glance. "I hope you remembered to orderflowers for Margaret?"

He laughed. It was so characteristic of her to feel that even his loveaffairs must be managed! "Yes, I ordered gardenias. Is that right?"

When she nodded amiably, he turned away and went out into the hall, where he found his father waiting. "I wanted to see you a minute withoutyour mother, " explained Mr. Culpeper, in a voice which sounded huskybecause he tried to subdue it to a whisper. "It's just as well, I think, that your mother shouldn't know that I'm having those houses you lookedat attended to. "

"Oh, you are!" returned Stephen, with a curious mixture of thankfulnessand humility. So the old chap was the best sport of them all! In hisslow way he had accomplished what Stephen had merely talked about. Forthe first time it occurred to the young man that his father was not byany means so obvious or so simple as he had believed him to be. HadCorinna spoken the truth when she called him a sentimentalist at heart?

"It's better not to mention it before your mother, " Mr. Culpeper wassaying huskily, while Stephen wondered. "She's the kindest heart in theworld. There isn't a better woman on earth; but she'd always think themoney ought to go to one of the married children. She couldn'tunderstand that it's good business to keep up the property. Women havequeer ideas about business. "

"Well, you're a brick, Father!" exclaimed the young man, and he meant itfrom his heart. His voice trembled, and he put his hand on his father'sarm for a minute as he used to do when he was a child. Words wouldn'tcome to him; but he was deeply touched, and it seemed to him that thebarrier which had divided him from his family had suddenly fallen. Neversince his return from France had he felt so near to his father as hefelt at that moment. 

"Well, well, I thought you'd like to know, " rejoined Mr. Culpeper, andhis voice also shook a little. "I must be getting down town now. May Itake you in my car?"

"No, I rather like the walk, sir. It does me good. " Then, without a wordmore, but with a smile of sympathy and understanding, they parted, andStephen went out of the house and descended the steps to the street. 

It was true, as his mother had observed, that he was happier to-day thanhe had been for weeks; but this happiness was founded upon what Mrs. Culpeper would have regarded as the most reprehensible of deceptions. Hewas happier simply because, in spite of everything he had done toprevent it, Fate had decreed that he was soon to see Patty again. Thelonging of the past few weeks was to be appeased, if only for an hour, and he was to see her again! He did not look beyond the coming night. Hedid not attempt to analyse either his motive or his emotions. The futurewas still obscure; life was still evolving its inscrutable problem; butit was enough for him, at the moment, to know that he should see heragain. And this certainty, coming after the hungry pain of the lastthree weeks, brought a glow to his eyes and that haunting smile, likethe smile of memory, to his lips. 

The light that Corinna had kindled illumined not a political career, butthe small vivid image of Patty. Wherever he looked he saw her flittingahead of him, a figure painted on sunlight. He had never found her sodesirable as in those few days since he had irrevocably given her up. His self-denial, his vain endeavours to avoid her and forget her, seemedmerely to have poured themselves into the deep rebellious longing of hisheart. He lived always now in that hidden country of the mind, wherethe winds blew free and strong and the sun never set on the endlessroads and the far horizon. 

And yet, so inexplicable are the laws of the mind, this escape from thetyranny of convention, from the irksome round of practical details, recoiled perversely into an increased joy of living. Because he couldescape at will from the routine, he no longer dreaded to return to it. The light which irradiated the image of Patty transfigured the eventsand circumstances amid which he moved. It shed its glory over externalincidents as well as into the loneliest vacancy, the deserted places, ofhis being. Everything around and within him, the very youth in his soul, became more intense in the hours when he allowed this emotion to assumecontrol of his thoughts. Just to be alive, that was enough! Just to befree again from the sensation of stifling in trivial things, ofsuffocating in the monotony which rushed over one like a torrent ofashes. Just to escape with Patty into that wild kingdom of the mindwhere the sun never set!

When he returned home that evening, his mother met him as he entered thehall, and followed him upstairs. 

"It is a beautiful evening for the dance, dear. They are having thegarden illuminated. "

Though he smiled back at her, his smile had that dreamy remoteness, thatlook of meaning more than it revealed, which was bewildering to an acuteand practical intelligence. From long and intimate association with herhusband, Mrs. Culpeper was accustomed to dealing with ponderous barriersto knowledge; but this plastic and variable substance of Stephen'sresistance, gave her an uncomfortable feeling of helplessness. Even whenher son acquiesced, as he did usually in her demands, she suspected thathis acquiescence was merely on the surface, that in the depths of hismind he was, as she said to herself resentfully, "holding somethingback. "

"Margaret is looking so sweet, " she began in her smoothest tone. "Ofcourse she isn't the beauty that Mary Byrd is, but, in her quiet way, she is very handsome. "

"No, she isn't the beauty that Mary Byrd is, " conceded Stephen, sopleasantly that she realized he was repeating parrot-like the phrase shehad uttered. His thoughts were somewhere else, she observed bitterly; itwas perfectly evident that he was not paying the slightest attention toanything that she said. 

"You must use your father's car, " she remarked, as amiably as before. "It is better to have a chauffeur, and Mary Byrd is going with WillyTarleton. "

"And the other girls?" he asked, for her words appeared at last to havepenetrated the haze that enveloped his mind. 

"Harriet is spending the night with Lily Whittle, and she will go fromthere. Of course Victoria has given up dancing since she came home fromFrance, and poor Janet stopped going to parties the year she came out. "

This pitiless maternal classification of Janet aroused his amusement. "Well, I'd be glad to take Janet anywhere, even if her nose is a littlelonger than Mary Byrd's, " he retorted. "She's the jolliest of the lot, and she seems to me very well contented as she is. "

"Oh, she is, " assented his mother eagerly. "I always tell her that herdisposition is worth a fortune; and she has a very good figure too. But, of course, a pretty face is the most important thing before marriage andthe least important thing afterward, " she added shrewdly, as she lefthim at his door. 

In a dream he dressed himself and went down to the dining-room; in adream he sat through the slow ceremonious supper; in a dream he got intohis father's car; and in a dream he stopped for Margaret and drove onagain with her fragrant presence beside him. When he entered theglaring, profusely decorated house of the Harrisons, he felt that he wasstill only half awake to the actuality. 

The May night was as warm as summer, and swinging garlands of ferns andpeonies concealed electric fans which were suspended from the ceiling. In the midst of the strong wind of the whirring fans, the dancers in thetwo long drawing-rooms appeared to be blown violently in circles andeddies, like coloured leaves in a high wind. For a few minutes afterStephen had entered, the rooms seemed to him merely a brilliant haze, where the revolving figures appeared and vanished like the colours of akaleidoscope. Near the door he became aware of the resplendent form ofhis hostess, stationed appropriately against a background of peonies;and after she had greeted him with absent-minded cordiality, he passedwith Margaret in the direction of the thundering sounds which came fromthe bank of ferns behind which the musicians were hidden. 

"Shall we try this?" he shouted into Margaret's ear. 

She shook her head. "It's one of those horrid new things. " Her high, clear tones pierced the din like the music of a flute. "Let's wait untilthey play something nice. I hate jazz. "

She was looking very pretty in a dress like a white cloud, with garlandsof tiny rosebuds on the skirt; and he thought, as he looked at her, thatif she had only been a trifle less fastidious and refined, she mighteasily have won the reputation of a beauty. Nothing but a delicatesuperiority to the age in which she had been born, stood in the way ofher success. Sixty years ago, in modest crinolines, she might have madehistory; and duels would probably have been fought for her favour. Butother times, other tastes, he reflected. 

For the rest of the dance, they sat sedately between two bay-trees ingreen tubs that occupied a corner of the room. Then "something nicer"started, --a concession to Mrs. Harrison's mother, who shared Margaret'sdisapproval of jazz, --and Stephen and Margaret drifted slowly out amongthe revolving couples. After the third dance, relief appeared in theperson of the young clergyman, who had come to look on; and leavingMargaret with him between the bay-trees, Stephen started eagerly tosearch for Patty where the dancers were thickest. 

Across the room, he had already caught a glimpse of Corinna, in aqueenly gown of white and silver brocade. She had stopped dancing now;and standing between Alice Rokeby and John Benham, she was glancingbrightly about her, while she waved slowly a fan of white ostrichplumes. Among all these fresh young girls, she could easily hold herown, not because of her beauty, but because of that deeper fascinationwhich she shed like a light or a perfume. She had the something morethan beauty which these girls lacked and could never acquire--alegendary enchantment, the air of romance. Was this the result, hewondered now, of what she had missed in life rather than of what she hadattained? Was it because she had never lived completely, because she hadpreferred the dream to the event, because she had desired and refrained, because she had missed both enchantment and disenchantment--was itbecause of the profound inadequacy of experience, that she had been ableto keep undimmed the glow of her loveliness? It was not that she lookedyoung, he realized while he watched her, but that she looked ageless andimmortal, a creature of the spirit. While he gazed at her across theviolent whirl of colours in the ballroom, he remembered the evening starshining silver white in the afterglow. Perhaps, who could tell, she mayhave had the best that life had to give?

Making his way, with difficulty, through the throng, he followedCorinna's protecting gaze, until he saw that it rested on Alice Rokeby, who was wearing a dress that reminded him of wild hyacinths. For amoment, the sight of this other woman's face, with its soft, hungryeyes, and its expression of passive and unresisting sweetness, gave hima start of surprise; and he found himself knocking awkwardly against oneof the dancers. Something had happened to her! Something had restored, if only for an evening, the peculiar grace, the appealing prettiness, too trivial and indefinite for beauty, which he recalled vividly now, though for the last year or two he had almost forgotten that she everpossessed it. Yes, something had changed her. She looked to-night as sheused to look before he went away, with a faint flush over her wholeface and those soft flower-like eyes, lifted admiringly to some man, toany man except Herbert Rokeby. Then, as he disentangled himself from thewhirl, and went toward Corinna, she came a step or two forward, and leftJohn Benham and Alice Rokeby together. 

"Everything is going well, " she said; and he noticed, for the firsttime, that her charming smile was tinged with irony, as if the humour ofthe show, not the drama, were holding her attention. "I am having abeautiful time. "

He glanced over her shoulder. "What have you done to Mrs. Rokeby?"

She shook her head, with a laugh which, he surmised sympathetically, wasless merry than it sounded. "That is my secret. I have a magic youknow--but she looks well, doesn't she? I did her hair myself. If youcould have seen the way she had it arranged! That dress is verybecoming, I think, it makes her eyes look like frosted violets. Herappearance is a success--but 'More brain, O Lord, more brain'!"

"Do you suppose that type will ever pass?" he asked. 

She met his inquiring look with eyes that were golden in the colouredlight. "Do you suppose that women will ever mean more to men than pegson which to hang their sentiments? Alice and her kind will always beconvenient substitutes for a man's admiration of himself. "

"Which he calls love, you think?"

"Which he probably calls by the most romantic name that occurs to him. Have you seen Patty?"

Before he could reply, she turned away to speak to some one who wasapproaching on her other side; and a minute later, with a joyous smileat Stephen, she floated off in the dance. Was she really as happy as shelooked, or was it only a gallant pretence, nothing more?

He had not found Patty yet; and while he stood there, with his eyeseagerly searching the revolving throng for her face, he had a singularvisitation, a poignant sense that some rare and beautiful event waseluding him in its flight, a feeling that the wings of the moment hadbrushed him like feathers as it sped by into experience. Once or twicein his life before he had received this impression; first in his boyhoodwhen he rose one morning at sunrise to go hunting, and again in Franceafter he had come out of the trenches. Now it was so vivid that itbrought with it a sensation of fear, as if happiness itself wereescaping his pursuit. He felt that his heart was burning withimpatience, and there was a persistent hammering in his ears as if hehad been running. What finding her would mean, what the future wouldbring, he did not know, he did not even seek to discover. All heunderstood was that the old indifference, the old apathy, the oldsubjective, tormenting egoism, had given place to a consuming interest, an impassioned delight. He felt only that he was thirsty for life, andthat he must drink deep to be satisfied. 

Then, suddenly, it seemed to him that the music grew softer and slower, and the wind-blown throng faded from him into a rosy haze. From thecentre of the room, borne round and round like a flower on a stream, hesaw her face and her romantic eyes looking at him with a deep expectancythat brought a pang to his heart. Her head was thrown back; the shortblack hair blew about her like mist; and her cheeks and lips wereglowing with geranium red. At that instant she was not only the girl heloved--she was youth and spring and adventure. 

The impatience had died now; the burning of his heart was cooled; andlife had grown miraculously simple and easy. He knew at last what hewanted. His strength of purpose, his will to live had returned to him;and he felt that he was cured; that he was completely himself for thefirst time since his return. The dark depression, the shadows of theprison, were behind him now. Straight ahead were the roads of thathidden country, and for the first time he saw them flushed with an Aprilbloom. 

Then the music stopped; the throng scattered; and she came toward himwith a tall young man, very slim and nimble, whose name was WillyTarleton. In her dress of green and silver, with a wreath of leaves inher hair, she reminded him again of a flower, but of a flower of foam. As he held out his hand the dance began again; Willy Tarleton vanishedinto air; and Patty stood looking at him in silence. After the tumult ofhis impatience, it seemed to him that when they met, they must speakwords of profound significance; but all he said was, "It is so warm in here. Will you come out on the porch?"

She shook her head. "I thought you were with Miss Blair?"

"I am--I was--but I must speak to you before I go back. Come on theporch where it is so much quieter. "

The deep expectancy was still in her eyes. "I have promised every dance. Mrs. Page saw that my card was filled in the beginning. Why don't youask some of the girls who haven't any partners? It is so dreadful forthem. If men only knew!"

"I don't know, and I don't care. I want you. If you will come on theporch for just three minutes--"

"Yes, it is quieter, " she assented, and passed, with a dancing step, through the French window out on the long porch which was hung withChinese lanterns. Beyond was the wide lawn, suffused with a light thatwas the colour of amethyst, and beyond the lawn there was a narrow viewof Franklin Street, where the flashing lamps of motor cars went by, orshadowy figures moved for a little space in obscurity. From this otherworld, now and then, the sharp sound of a motor horn punctuated themonotonous rhythm of the music within the house; while under the Chineselanterns, where the shadows of the poplar leaves trembled like flowers, the struggle in Stephen's heart came to an end--the struggle betweentradition and life, between the knowledge of things as they are and thevision of things as they ought to be, between the conservative and theprogressive principle in nature. After the long insensibility, springwas having her way with him, as she was having it with the grass and theflowers and the bloom on the trees. It was one of those moments ofawakening, of ecstatic vision, which come only to introspective andimaginative minds--to minds that have known darkness as well as light. In that instant of realization, he knew, beyond all doubt, that he stoodnot for the past, but for the future, that he stood not for philosophy, but for adventure--for the will to be and to dare. He would choose, oncefor all, to take the risk of happiness; to conquer inch by inch a littlemore of the romantic wilderness of wonder and delight. While he stoodthere, looking down into her eyes, these impressions came to him lessin words than in a glorious sense of youth, of power, of security ofspirit. 

"I looked for you so long, " he said, and then breathlessly, as if hefeared lest she might escape him, "Oh, Patty, I love you!"

Before she could reply, before he could repeat the words that drummed inhis brain, the door into the present swung open, and the dream world, with its flower-like shadows and its violet dusk, vanished. 

"Patty!" called Corinna's voice. "Patty, dear, I am looking for you. "Corinna, in her rustling white and silver brocade, stepped from theFrench window out on the porch. "Some one has sent for you--your aunt, Ithink they said, who is dying--"

The girl started and drew back. Her face changed, while the light fadedfrom her eyes until they became wells of darkness. "I know, " sheanswered. "I must go. I promised that I would go. "

"My car is waiting. I will take you, " said Corinna. 

She turned to enter the house, and Patty, without so much as a look atStephen's face, went slowly after her. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE NIGHT

As the car passed through the deserted streets, Corinna placed her handon Patty's with a reassuring pressure. Without appearing to do so, shewas studying the girl's soft profile, now flashing out in a sudden sharplight, now melting back again into the vagueness of the shadows. Whatwas there about this girl, Corinna asked herself, which appealed sostrongly to the protective impulse in her heart? Was it because thisundisciplined child, with that curious sporting instinct which suppliedthe place of Victorian morality, represented for her, as well as forStephen, some inarticulate longing for the unknown, for the adventurous?Did Patty's charm for them both lie in her unlikeness to everything theyhad known in the past? In Corinna, as in Stephen, two opposing spiritshad battled unceasingly, the realistic spirit which accepted life as itwas, and the romantic spirit which struggled toward some unattainableperfection, which endeavoured to change and decorate the actuality. Morethan Stephen, perhaps, she had faced life; but she had not accepted itwithout rebellion. She had learned from disappointment to see things asthey are; but deep in her heart some unspent fire of romance, someimprisoned esthetic impulse, sought continually to gild and enrich theexperience of the moment. And this girl, so young, so ingenuous, sogallant and so appealing, stood in Corinna's mind for the poeticwildness of her spirit, for all that she had seen in a vision and hadmissed in reality. 

When the car reached the Square, it turned sharply north. Sometimes itpassed through lighted spaces and sometimes through pools of darkness;and as it went on rapidly, it seemed to Corinna that it was the onesolid fact in a night that she imagined. Patty was very still; butCorinna felt the warm clasp of her hand, and heard her soft breathing, which became a part of the muffled undercurrent of the sleeping city. Inall those closely packed houses, where the obscurity was broken here andthere by a lighted window, other human beings were breathing, sleeping, dreaming, like Patty and herself, of some impractical and visionaryto-morrow. Of something which had never been, but still might be! Ofsomething which they had just missed, but might find when the sun roseagain! Of a miracle that might occur at any moment and make everythingdifferent! It was after midnight; and to Corinna it seemed that thedarkness had released the collective spirit of the city, which wouldretreat again into itself with the breaking of dawn. Once a cry soundedfar off and was hushed almost immediately; once a light flashed and wentout in the window beneath a roof; but as the car sped on by rows ofdarkened tenements, the mysterious penumbra of the night appeared todraw closer and closer, as if that also were a phantom of theencompassing obscurity. 

"Is this the aunt you told me of, Patty?" asked Corinna abruptly. 

"Yes, I went to see her once--not long ago. I promised her that I'd comeback when she sent for me. She wanted to tell me something, but she wasso ill that she couldn't remember what it was. It was about Father, shesaid. "

"Stephen will come for us after he has taken Margaret home. I gave himthe number. "

Patty turned and gave her a long look. They were passing under anelectric light at the time, and Corinna thought, as she looked into thegirl's face, that all the wistful yearning of the night was reflected inher eyes. What had happened, she wondered, to change their sparklingbrightness into this brooding expectancy. 

The car stopped before the house to which Patty had come with Gershom;and as they got out, they saw that it was entirely dark except for thedim flicker of a jet of gas in the hall. By the pavement a car wasstanding, and from somewhere at the back there came the sound of a babycrying inconsolably in the darkness. While they entered the hall, andwent up the broad old-fashioned flight of stairs, that plaintive wailfollowed them, growing gradually fainter as they ascended, but neverfading utterly into silence. When they reached the second storey, andturned toward the back of the house, a door at the end of the passageopened, and an old woman, with a hunch back, and a piece of knitting inher gnarled hands, came slowly to meet them. Standing there under thejet of gas, which flickered with a hissing noise, she looked at themwith glassy impersonal eyes and a face that was as austere as Destiny. Afterward, when Corinna thought over the impressions of that tragicnight, she felt that they were condensed into the symbol of the oldwoman with the crooked back, and the thin crying of the baby whichfloated up from the darkness below. 

"We came to see Mrs. Green, " explained Corinna. 

The old woman nodded, and as she turned to limp down the passage, herball of gray yarn slipped from her grasp and rolled after her untilCorinna recovered it. In silence the cripple led the way, and in silencethey followed her, until she opened the closed door at the end of thehall, and they entered the room, with the sickening sweetish smell andthe window which gave on the black hulk of the ailantus tree. Frombehind a screen, which was covered with faded wall paper, the figure ofthe doctor emerged while they waited, an ample middle-aged man, with theair of having got into his clothes in a hurry and the face of apragmatic philosopher. He motioned commandingly for them to approach;and going to the other side of the screen, they found the dying womangazing at them with eager eyes. 

"She is doing nicely, " remarked the doctor, with the cheerful alacrityof one in whom familiarity has bred contempt of death. "Keep her quiet. One can never tell about these cases. "

He made an explanatory gesture in the direction of his pocket. "I'll godown on the porch and smoke a cigar, and then if she hasn't had arelapse, I think it will be safe for me to go home. You can telephone ifyou need me. I am only a few blocks away. " He went out with a brisk, elastic step, while his hand began to feel for the end of the cigar inhis pocket. 

"She's bad now, " said the old woman. "It's the medicine, but she'll cometo in a minute. " She brought two wooden chairs with broken legs to thefoot of the bed. "You'd better sit down. It may be a long waiting. "

"I hope she'll know me, " returned Patty. "She must have wanted to seeme, or she wouldn't have sent. " Her eyes left the stricken face andclung to the calla lily on the window-sill, as they had done thatafternoon when she came here with Gershom. The single blossom on thelily had not faded; it was still as perfect as it had been then--onlytwo days ago!--and not one of the closed buds had begun to open besideit. 

"Oh, she wanted to see you, " answered the old woman, in a croaking voicewhich seemed to Corinna to contain a sinister note. "As long as she wasable to keep on her feet she used to go and sit in the Square just towatch you come out--"

"Do you mean that she cared for me like that?" asked the girl, in ahushed incredulous tone. "Was she really fond of me?"

The cripple turned her glassy eyes on the fresh young face. "Well, Idon't know that she was fond, " she responded bleakly, "but when you'reas bad off as that, there ain't many things that you can think of. "

A murmur fell from the lips of the dying woman, while she rolled herhead slowly from side to side, as if she were seeking ease less fromphysical pain than from the thought in her mind. Her thick black hair, matted and damp where it had been brushed back from her forehead, spreadlike a veil over the pillow; and this sombre background lent a gravenmajesty to her features. At the moment her head appeared asexpressionless as a mask; but in a few minutes, while they waited forreturning consciousness, a change passed slowly over the waxen face, andthe full colourless lips began to move rapidly and to form broken anddisconnected sentences. For a time they could not understand; then thewords came in a long sobbing breath. "It has been too long. It has beentoo long. "

"That goes on all the time, " said the old woman. "I've been up with herfor three nights, and she rambles almost every minute. But sick folksare like that, " she concluded philosophically. She had not laid down herknitting for an instant; and standing now beside the bed, she jerked thegray yarn automatically through her twisted fingers. The clicking of thelong wooden needles formed an accompaniment to the dry, hard sound ofher words. 

"Why doesn't some one hush that child?" asked Corinna impatiently. Through the open window a breeze entered, bringing the thin restlesswail of the baby. 

"The mother tries, but she can't do anything. She thinks the milk wentwrong and gave it colic. "

The woman on the bed spoke suddenly in a clear voice. "Why doesn't hecome?" she demanded. Raising her heavy lids she looked straight intoCorinna's eyes, with a lucid and comprehending expression, as if she hadjust awakened from sleep. 

Holding her knitting away from the bed with one hand, and bending over, until her deformed shape made a hill against the bedpost, the old womanscreamed into the ear on the pillow, as if the hearer were either deafor at a great distance. Though her manner was not heartless, it was asimpassive as philosophy. 

"He is coming, " she shrieked. 

"Is he bringing the child?"

"She is already here. Can't you see her there at the foot of the bed?"

The large black eyes, drained of any human expression, turned slowlytoward the figure of Patty. 

"But she is a little thing, " said the woman doubtfully. "She is notthree years old yet. What has he done with her? He told me that he wouldtake care of her as if she belonged to him. "

The old hunchback, bending her inscrutable face, screamed again into theear on the pillow. 

"That was near sixteen years ago, Maggie, " she said. "Have youforgotten?"

The woman closed her eyes wearily. "Yes, I had forgotten, " she answered. "Time goes so. "

But it appeared to Corinna, sitting there, with her eyes on the strip ofsky which was visible through the window, that time would never go on. Apitiless fact was breaking into her understanding, shattering wall afterwall of incredulity, of conviction that such a thing was too terrible tobe true. She longed to get Patty away; but when she urged her in awhisper to go downstairs, the girl only shook her head, without movingher eyes from the haggard face on the pillow. The minutes dragged bylike hours while they waited there, in hushed suspense, for theyscarcely knew what. Outside in the backyard, the flowering ailantus treeshed a disagreeable odour; downstairs the feeble crying, which hadstopped for a little while, was beginning again. While she remainedmotionless at the foot of the bed, wild and rebellious thoughts flockedthrough Corinna's mind. If she had only held back that message! If shehad only kept Patty away until it was too late! She thought of the girla few hours ago, flushed with happiness, dancing under the swinginggarlands of flowers, to the sound of that thunderous music. Dancingthere, with the restless pleasure of youth, while in another street, sofar away that it might have been in a distant city, in a differentworld even, this woman, with the face of tragedy, lay dying with thatfretful wail in her ears. A different world it might have been, and yetwhat divided her from this other woman except the blind decision ofchance, the difference between beauty and ugliness, nothing more. Inthis dingy room, smelling of dust and drugs and the heavy odour of theailantus tree, she felt a presence more profoundly real, more poignantlysignificant, than any material forms--the presence of those elementalforces which connect time with eternity. This little room, within itspartial shadow, like the shadow of time itself, was touched with thesolemnity of a cathedral. It seemed to Corinna, with her imaginativelove of life, that a window into experience had opened sharply, a wallhad crumbled. For the first time she understood that the innumerable andintricate divisions of human fate are woven into a single tremendousdesign. 

While they waited there in silence the hours dragged on like years. Atlast the woman appeared to sleep, and when she opened her eyes again, her gaze had become clear and lucid. 

"Have you sent for them?" she asked. 

"Yes, I sent for them, " answered the old woman, lowering her voice to anatural pitch. "The girl is here. "

"Patty? Where is she?"

Drawing her hand from Corinna's clasp, Patty moved slowly to the head ofthe bed, and standing there beside the deformed old woman, she lookeddown on the upturned face. 

"I came as I promised. Can I help you?" she asked; and her voice was soquiet, so repressed, that Corinna looked at her anxiously. How much hadthe girl understood? And, if she understood, what difference would itmake in her life--and in Stephen's life?

"I couldn't tell you the other day because of Julius, " said the woman, in a strangled tone. "I couldn't say things before Julius. " Then, glancing toward the door, she asked breathlessly, "Didn't Gideon Vetchcome with you?"

"Father?" responded Patty, wonderingly. "Do you want Father to come?"

A smile crossed the woman's face, and she made a movement as if shewanted to raise her head. "Do you call him Father?" she returned in apleased voice. 

At the question, Corinna sprang up and made an impulsive step forward. "Oh, don't!" she cried out pleadingly. "Don't tell her!"

"But he is my father, " Patty's tone was stern and accusing. "He is myfather. "

The smile was still on the woman's face; but while Corinna watched it, she realized that it was unlike any smile she had ever seen before inher life--a smile of satisfaction that was at the same time one ofrelinquishment. 

"They thought I was married to him, " she said slowly. "Julius thought, or pretended to think, that he could harm him by making me swear that Iwas married to him. They gave me drugs. I would have done anything fordrugs--and I did that! But the old woman there knows better. She's got apaper. I made her keep it--about Patty--"

"Don't!" cried Corinna again in a sharper tone. "Oh, can't you see thatyou must not tell her!"

For the first time the woman turned her eyes away from the girl. "It isbecause of Gideon Vetch, " she answered slowly. "I may get well again, and then I'll be sorry. "

"But he would rather you wouldn't. " Corinna's voice was full of pain. "You know--you must know, if you know him at all, that he would ratheryou spared her--"

"Know him?" repeated the woman, and she laughed with a dry, rattlingsound. "I don't know him. I never saw him but once in my life. "

"You never saw him but once. " The words came so slowly from Patty's lipsthat she seemed to choke over them. "But you said that you knew mymother?"

Again the woman made that dry, rattling sound in her chest. "Your mothernever saw him but once, " she answered grimly. "She never saw him butonce, and that was for a quarter of an hour on the night they weretaking her to prison. I would never have told but for Julius, " sheadded. "I would never have told if they hadn't tried to make out that Iknew him, and that he was really your father. It would ruin him, theysaid, and that was what they wanted. But when they bring it out, withthe paper they got me to sign, I want you to know that it is a lie--thatI did it because I'd have died if I hadn't got hold of the drugs--"

"But he is my father, " repeated Patty quite steadily--so steadily thather voice was without colour or feeling. 

The only reply that came was a gasping sound, which grew louder andlouder, with the woman's struggle for breath, until it seemed to fillthe room and the night outside and even the desolate sky. As she layback, with the arm of the old cripple under her head and her streaminghair, the spasm passed like a stain over her face, changing its waxenpallor to the colour of ashes, while a dull purplish shadow encircledher mouth. For a few minutes, so violent was the struggle for air, itappeared to Corinna that nothing except death could ever quiet thatagonized gasping; but while she waited for the end, the sound becamegradually fainter, and the woman spoke quite plainly, though with aneffort that racked not only her strangled chest, but her entire body. Each syllable came so slowly, and now and then so faintly, that therewere moments when it seemed that the breath in that tormented body wouldnot last until the words had been spoken. 

"You were going on three years old when he first saw you. They weretaking me away to prison--that's over now, and it don't matter--but Ihadn't any chance--" The panting began again; but by force of will, thewoman controlled it after a minute, and went on, as if she weremeasuring her breath inch by inch, almost as if it were a materialsubstance which she was holding in reserve for the end. "Your fatherdied the first year I married him, and things went from bad toworse--there's no use going over that, no use--They were taking me toprison from the circus, and I had you in my arms, when Gideon Vetch cameby and saw me--" Again there was a pause and a desperate battle for air;and again, after it was over, she went on in that strangled whisper, while her eyes, like the eyes of a drowning animal, clung neither toPatty nor Corinna, but to the austere face of the old hunchback. "'Whatam I to do with the child?' I asked, and he stepped right out of thecircus crowd, and answered 'Give me the child. I like children'--" Aninarticulate moan followed, and then she repeated clearly and slowly. "Just like that--nothing more--'Give me the child. I like children. 'That was the first time I ever saw him. He had come to see some of thepeople in the circus, and I've never seen him since then except in theSquare. The trial went against me, but that's all over. Oh, I'm tirednow. It hurts me. I can't talk--"

She broke into terrible coughing; and the old woman, dropping herknitting for the first time since they had entered the room, seized atowel from a chair by the bed. "Talking was too much for her, " she said. "I thought she'd pull through. She was so much better--but talking wastoo much. "

"She is so ill that she doesn't know what she is saying, " murmuredCorinna in the girl's ear. "She is out of her mind. "

"No, she isn't out of her mind, " replied Patty quietly. "She isn't outof her mind. " In her ball gown of green and silver, like the colours ofsunlit foam, with a wreath of artificial leaves in her hair, herloveliness was unearthly. "It is every bit true. I know it, " shereiterated. 

"She's bleeding again, " muttered the old woman. "You'd better find thedoctor. I ain't used to stopping hemorrhages. " Then, as Corinna went outof the room, she added querulously to Patty: "She didn't have nobusiness trying to talk; but she would do it. She said she'd do it if itkilled her--and I reckon she don't mind much if it does--She'd havekilled herself sooner than this if I'd let her alone. " From the streetbelow there came the sound of a motor horn; then the noise of a carrunning against the curbstone; and then the opening and shutting of adoor, followed by rapid footsteps on the stairs. 

"That's the doctor now, I reckon, " remarked the old woman; but the wordshad scarcely left her lips when the door opened, and Corinna came backinto the room with Gideon Vetch. 

"Where is Patty?" he asked anxiously. "She oughtn't to be here. "

"Yes, I ought to be here, " answered Patty. As she turned toward GideonVetch, she swayed as if she were going to fall, and he caught her in hisarms. "Go home, daughter, " he said almost sternly. "You oughtn't to behere. Mrs. Page, can't you make her go home?"

"I have tried, " responded Corinna; then a moan from the bed reached her, and she turned toward the woman who lay there. To die like that withnobody caring, with nobody even observing it! Exhausted by the loss ofblood, the woman had fallen back into unconsciousness, and the towel theold cripple held to her lips was stained scarlet. 

"The doctor had gone to bed. He will come as soon as he gets dressed, "said Corinna. "He warned us to keep her quiet. "

"If he don't hurry, she'll be gone before he gets here, " replied the oldwoman, looking round over her twisted shoulder. 

"Oh, Father, Father!" cried Patty, flinging her arms about his neck; andthen over again like a frightened child, "Father, Father!"

He patted her head with a large consoling hand. "There, there, daughter, " he returned gently. "A little thing like that won't comebetween you and me. "

With his arm still about her, he drew her slowly to the bedside, andstood looking down on the dying woman and the old cripple, who hoveredover her with the stained towel in her hand. 

"I don't even know her name, " he said, and immediately afterward, "Shemust have had a hell of a life!" Though there was a wholesome pity inhis voice, it was without the weakness of sentimentality. He had donewhat he could, and he was not the kind to worry over events which hecould not change. For a few minutes he stood there in silence; then, because it was impossible for his energetic nature to remain inactive inan emergency, he exclaimed suddenly, "The doctor ought to be here!" andturning away from the bed, went rapidly across the room and through thehalf open door into the hall. 

Outside the darkness was dissolving in a drab light which crept slowlyup above the roofs of the houses; and while they waited this lightfilled the yard and the room and the passage beyond the door whichGideon Vetch had not closed. Far away, through the heavy boughs of theailantus tree, day was breaking in a glimmer of purple-few birds weretwittering among the leaves. Along the high brick wall a starved graycat was stealing like a shadow. Drawing her evening wrap closer abouther bare shoulders, Corinna realized that it was already day in thestreet. 

"She's gone, " said the old hunchback, in a crooning whisper. Her twistedhand was on the arm of the dead woman, which stretched as pallid andmotionless as an arm of wax over the figured quilt. "She's gone, and shenever knew that he had come. " With a gesture that appeared as natural asthe dropping of a leaf, she pressed down the eyelids over theexpressionless eyes. "Well, that's the way life is, I reckon, " sheremarked, as an epitaph over the obscure destiny of Mrs. Green. 

"Yes, that's the way life is, " repeated Corinna under her breath. Already the old cripple had started about her inevitable ministrations:but when Corinna tried to make Patty move away from the bedside, thegirl shook her head in a stubborn refusal. 

"I am trying to believe it, " she said. "I am trying to believe it, and Ican't. " Then she looked at them calmly and steadily. "I want to think itout by myself, " she added. "Would you mind leaving me alone in here forjust a few minutes?"

Though there was no grief in her voice--how could there be any grief, Corinna asked herself?--there was an accent of profound surprise andincredulity, as of one who has looked for the first time on death. Standing there in her spring-like dress beside the dead woman who hadbeen her mother, Corinna felt intuitively that Patty had left hergirlhood behind her. The child had lived in one night through an innercrisis, through a period of spiritual growth, which could not bemeasured by years. Whatever she became in the future, she would never beagain the Patty Vetch that Corinna and Stephen had known. 

Yes, she had a right to be alone. Beckoning to the old woman to followher, Corinna went out softly, closing the door after her. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DAWN

Outside in the narrow passage, smelling of dust and yesterday's cooking, the pallid light filtered in through the closed window; and it seemed toCorinna that this light pervaded her own thoughts until the images inher mind moved in a procession of stark outlines against a colourlesshorizon. In this unreal world, which she knew was merely a distortedimpression of the external world about her, she saw the figure of thedead woman, still and straight as the effigy of a saint, the twistedshape of the old hunchback, and after these the shadow of the starvedcat stealing along the top of the high brick wall. What was the meaningin these things? Where was the beauty? What inscrutable purpose, whatsardonic humour, joined together beauty and ugliness, harmony anddiscord, her own golden heritage with the drab destinies of that deadwoman and this work-worn cripple?

"I can't stand it any longer, " she thought. "I must breathe the openair, or I shall die. "

Then, just as she was about to hurry toward the stairs, she checkedherself and stood still because she realized that the old woman hadfollowed her and was droning into her ear. 

"Yes, ma'am, that's the way life is, " the impersonal voice wasmuttering, "but it ain't the only way that it is, I reckon. I sees somany sick and dying folks that you'd think I was obliged to look atthings unnatural-like. But I don't, not me, ma'am. It ain't all thatway, with nothing but waiting and wanting, and then disappointment. EvenMaggie had her good times somewhere in the past. You can't expect to bealways dressed in spangles and riding bareback, that's what I used tosay to her. You've got to take your share of bad times, same as the restof us. And look at me now. I've done sick nursing for more'n fiftyyears--as far back as I like to look--but it ain't all been sicknursing. There's been a deal in it besides. 

"Naw'm, I've got a lot to be thankful for when I begin to take stock. "Her wrinkled face caught the first gleam of sunlight that fell throughthe unwashed window panes. "I've done sick nursing ever since I was achild almost; but I've managed mighty well all things considering, andI've saved up enough to keep me out of the poor house when I get too oldto go on. When I give up I won't have to depend on charity, and the citywon't have to bury me either when I'm dead. And I've got a heap ofsatisfaction out of my red geraniums too. I don't reckon you ever sawfiner blooms--not even in a greenhouse. Naw'm, I ain't been thecomplaining sort. I've got a lot to be thankful for, and I know it. "

Her old eyes shone; her sunken mouth was trembling, not with self-pity, Corinna realized, with a pang that was strangely like terror, but withthe courage of living. The pathos of it appeared intolerable for amoment; and gathering her cloak about her, Corinna felt that she mustcover her eyes and fly before she broke out into hysterical screaming. Then the terror passed; and she saw, in a single piercing flash ofinsight, that what she had mistaken for ugliness was simply animpalpable manifestation of beauty. Beauty! Why it was everywhere! Itwas with her now in this squalid house, in the presence of this crippledold woman, unmoved by death, inured to poverty, screwing, grinding, pinching, like flint to the crying baby, and yet cherishing the bloomsof her red geranium, her passionate horror of the poor house, and herdream of six feet of free earth not paid for by charity at the end. Yes, that was the way of life. Blind as a mole to the universe, and yetvisited by flashes of unearthly light. 

"Thank you, " said Corinna hurriedly. "I must go down. I must get abreath of air, but I will come back in a little while. " Then she startedat a run down the stairs, while the old woman gazed after her, as if theflying figure, in the cloak of peacock-blue satin and white fur, wasthat of a demented creature. "Air!" she repeated, with scornfulindependence. "Air!", and turning away in disgust, she limped painfullyback to wait outside of the closed door. Here, when she had seatedherself in a sagging chair, she lifted her bleak eyes to thesmoke-stained ceiling, and repeated for the third time in a tone ofprofound contempt: "Air!"

At the foot of the stairs, Corinna ran against Gideon Vetch. "She diedsoon after you went out, " she said, "but Patty is still there. "

"I'll go up to her, " he answered; and then as he placed his foot on thebottom step, he looked back at her, and added, "I tried to spare herthis. "

She assented almost mechanically. Fatigue had swept over her from headto foot like some sinister drug and she felt incapable of giving outanything, even sympathy, even the appearance of compassion. "Then it isall true?" she asked. "Patty is not your child?"

A shadow crossed his face, but he did not hesitate in his reply. "Inever had a child. I was never married. "

"You took her like that--because the mother was going to prison?"

He nodded. "She was a child. What difference did it make whether she wasmine or not? She was the nicest little thing you ever saw. She isstill. "

"Yes, she is still. But you never knew what became of the mother?"

"I didn't know her real name. I didn't want to. The circus people calledher Queenie, that was all I knew. She'd stuck a knife into a man in ajealous rage, and he happened to die. They said the trial would beobliged to go against her. I was leaving California that night, and Ibrought the child with me. I have never been back--" He spread out hisbroad hand with a gesture that was strangely human. "You would have doneit in my place?"

She shook her head. "No, I should have wanted to, but I couldn't. I amnot big enough for that. "

He was already ascending the stairs, but at her words, he turned andsmiled down on her. "It was nothing to make a fuss about, " he said. "Anybody would have done it. "

Then he mounted the stairs lightly for his great height, taking twosteps at a time, while she passed out on the porch where Stephen waswaiting for her. As he rose wearily from the wicker rocking chair besidethe empty perambulator, she felt as if he were a stranger. In that onenight she seemed to have put the whole universe between her and the oldorder that he represented. 

"I kept my car waiting for you, " he began. "It was better to let yourman go home. "

She smiled at him in the pale light, and he broke out nervously: "Youlook as if you would drop. What have they done to you?" Though she worethe cloak of peacock-blue over her evening gown, the pointed train woundon the floor behind her, and the fan of white ostrich plumes, which shehad forgotten to leave in the car, was still in her hand. Her face waswan and drawn; there were violet circles under her eyes; and she lookedas if she had grown ten years older since the evening before. It was theoutward impression of the night, he knew. In this house one passed backagain into the power of time; youth could not be prolonged here for asingle night. 

"I don't know what it means, " he said, with a mixture of exasperationand curiosity. "I wish you would tell me what it means. "

"I feel, " she answered, in an expressionless tone, as if theinsensibility of her nerves had passed into her voice, "that I havefaced life for the first time. "

"Tell me what it means, " he reiterated impatiently. 

Dropping into the chair from which he had risen, she drew her trainaside while the doctor passed them hurriedly, with a muttered apology, and went into the house. Then, leaning forward, with the fan clasped inher hands, and her eyes on the straight deserted street, which endedabruptly on the brow of a hill, she repeated word for word all that thedying woman had said. The sun had not yet risen, but a faint opalescentglow suffused the sky in the east, and flushed with a delicate colourthe round cobblestones in the street and the herring-bone pattern of thepavement, where blades of grass sprouted among the bricks. Though shedid not look up at Stephen's face, she was aware while she talked ofsome subtle emanation of thought outside of herself, as if the strugglein his mind had overflowed mechanical processes and physical boundaries, and was escaping into the empty street and the city beyond. And thissilent struggle, so charged with intensity that it produced the effectof a cry, became for her merely a part, a single voice, in that greaterstruggle for victory over circumstances which went on ceaselessly dayand night in the surrounding houses. Everywhere about her there was thevague groping toward some idea of freedom, toward independence ofspirit; everywhere there was this perpetual striving toward a universethat was larger. The dwellers in this crowded house, with their visionof space and sunlight; the village with its vision of a city; the citywith its vision of a country; the country with its vision of a republicof the world--all these universal struggles were condensed now into thelittle space of a man's consciousness. To Corinna, in whose veins flowedthe blood of Malvern Hill and Cold Harbor, it seemed that the greatervictory must lie with those who charged from out the cover of philosophyinto the mystery of the unknown. If she had been in Stephen's place, sheknew that she should have taken the risk, that she should have flungherself into the enterprise of life as into a voyage of discovery. Yet, at the moment, appreciating all that it meant to him, she asked herselfif she had been wise to let him see the thought in her mind. For aninstant, after telling him, she hesitated, and in this instant Stephenspoke. 

"So he isn't her father?"

"No, he isn't her father. He had never seen her mother; he did not evenknow her name, for he met the woman by accident when she was arrested inthe circus. Patty was over two years old then--about two and a half, Ithink. Gideon Vetch took the child because of an impulse--a very humanimpulse of pity--but he knew nothing of her parentage. He knows nothingnow, not even her real name. It is much worse than we ever imagined. Tryto understand it. Try to take it in clearly before you act rashly. Thereis still time to weigh things--to stop and reflect. Nothing whatever isknown of Patty's birth, except that her father, so the woman said, diedin the first year of their marriage, before the child was born, and lessthan two years later the mother was sent to prison for killing anotherman--"

She broke off hurriedly, wiping her lips as if the mere recital of thesordid facts had stained them with blood. It all sounded so horrible asshe repeated it--so incredibly evil!

"Oh, my dear boy, try to take it in however much it may hurt you, " shepleaded, turning a coward not on her own account, not even on his, butfor the sake of something deeper and more sacred which belonged to themboth and to the tradition for which they stood. A passionate longingseized her now to protect Stephen from the risk that she had urged himto take. 

"I understand. It is terrible for her, " he answered. 

"I hate you to see Patty. Poor child, she looks seared. " Then a possibleway occurred to her, even though she hated herself while she suggestedit. "I am not sure that it is wise for you to wait. There are so manythings you must think of. There is first of all your family--"

He laughed shortly. "It is late in the day to remember that. "

"I know. " A look of compunction crossed her face. "Forgive me. "

"Of course I think of them, " he said presently. "Poor Dad. He is thebest of us all, I believe. " Though there was an expression of pain inhis eyes, she noticed that the unnatural lethargy, the nervousirritation, had disappeared. He looked as if a load had dropped from hisshoulders. 

As with many women who have reconciled themselves to the weakness of aman, the first sign of his strength was more than a surprise, it wasalmost a shock to her. She had believed that her knowledge of him wasperfect; yet she saw now that there had been a single flaw in heranalysis, and that this flaw was the result of a fundamentalmisconception of his character. For she had forgotten that, conservativeand apparently priggish as he was, he was before all things a romanticin temperament; and the true romantic will shrink from the ordinary riskwhile he accepts the extraordinary one. She had forgotten that men ofStephen's nature are incapable of small sacrifices, and yet at the sametime capable of large ones; that, though they may not endure pettydiscomforts with fortitude, they are able, in moments of vividexperience, to perform acts of conspicuous and splendid nobility. Forthe old order was not merely the outward form of the conservativeprinciple, it was also the fruit of heroic tradition. 

"You must think it over, Stephen, " she pleaded. "Go away now, and tryto realize all that it will mean to you. "

"Thinking doesn't get me anywhere, " he replied. His face was pale andthoughtful; and Corinna knew, while she watched him, that he had foundfreedom at last; that he had come into his manhood. "I've made mychoice, and I'll stand by it to-day even if I regret it to-morrow. You've got to take chances; to leave the safe road and strike out intoopen country. That's living. Otherwise you might as well be dead. Ican't just cling like moss to institutions that other people have made;to the things that have always been. I've got to take chances--and I'menough of a sport not to whine if the game goes against me--"

The part of Corinna's nature that was not cautious, but reckless, thepart in her whose source was imagination and impulse, thrilled insympathy with his resolve. Though she gazed down the straight desertedstreet, her eyes were looking beyond the sprouting weeds and thecobblestones to some starry flower which bloomed only in an invisibleworld. 

"I understand, dear, " she answered softly. "I can't tell whether or notit is the safe way; but I know it is the gallant way. "

"It is the only way, " he responded steadily. "If I am ever to makeanything of my life, this is the test. I see that I've got to meet it. Ishall probably have to meet it every day of my life--but, by Jove, I'llmeet it! Patty isn't just Patty to me. She is strength and courage. Sheis the risk of the future. I suppose she is the pioneer in my blood, ormy mind. I can't help what she came from, nor can she. I've got to takethat as I take everything else, with the belief that it is worth all thecost. The thing I feel now is that she has given me back myself. She hasgiven me a free outlook on life--"

He stopped abruptly, for there was the sound of footsteps in the house, and after a minute or two, Patty and Gideon Vetch came out on the porch. The girl looked, except for the red of her mouth, as if the blood hadbeen drawn from her veins, and her eyes were like dark pansies. All thelight had faded from them, changing even their colour. 

"Patty, " said Stephen; and he made a step toward her, with his handsoutstretched as if he would gather her to him. Then he stopped and fellback, for the girl was shrinking away from him with a look of fear. 

"I can't talk now, " she answered, smiling with hard lips. "I am tired. Ican't talk now. " Running ahead she went down the steps, through thegate, and into Vetch's car which was standing beside the curbstone. 

"She's worn out, " explained Vetch. "I'll take her home, and you'd bettertry to get some sleep, Mrs. Page. You look as tired as Patty. "

"Let me go with you, " returned Corinna. "Your car is closed, and Pattyand I are both bareheaded. " For a moment she turned back to put her handon Stephen's arm. "I must sleep, " she said. "I shan't go to the shopto-day. "

Vetch was waiting at the door of the car, and when she stumbled over hertrain, she fell slightly against him. "How exhausted you are, " heobserved gently, "and what a rock you are to lean on!"

She looked at him with a smile. "Those are the very words I've usedabout you. "

He laughed and reddened, and she saw the glow of pleasure kindle in hisunclouded blue eyes. "Even rocks crumble when we put too much weight onthem, " he responded, "but since you have done so much for us, perhapsyou may be able to convince Patty that nothing can make any differencebetween her and me. Won't you try to see that, daughter?"

"Oh, Father!" exclaimed Patty with a sob, "it makes all the differencein the world!"

"There it is, " said Vetch with anxious weariness. "That is all I can getout of her. "

"She is so tired, " replied Corinna. "Let her rest. " Though her gaze wason the street, she saw still the dusk beyond the ailantus tree and theold woman, with the crooked back, pressing down the eyelids over thosestaring eyes. 

They did not speak again through the short drive; and when they reachedthe house and entered the hall, Patty turned for the first time toCorinna. "I can never tell you, " she began, "I can never tellyou--" Then, with a strangled sob, she broke away and ran to thestaircase beyond the library. 

"Let her rest, " said Corinna, as Vetch came with her on the porch. "Leave her to herself. She needs sleep, but she is very young--and foryouth there is no despair that does not pass. "

"You are as tired as she is, " he returned. 

She nodded. "I am going home to sleep, but the look of that childworries me. "

"I kept it from her for sixteen years, " he said slowly, "and she foundout by an accident. "

"I never suspected, or I might have prevented it. "

"No, I trusted too much to chance. I have always trusted to chance. "

"I think, " she said, "that you have trusted most to your goodinstincts. "

He smiled, and she saw that he was deeply touched. "Well, I'm trustingto them now, " he responded. "They have led me between two extremes, andit looks as if they had led me into a nest of hornets. I've got them allagainst me, but it isn't over yet, by Jove! It is a long road that hasno turning--"

They had descended the steps together, and walking a little way beyondthe drive, they stood in the bright green grass looking up at the cleargold of the sunrise. 

"There is a meeting to-night, " she said. 

"Of the strikers--yes, I may win them. I can generally win people ifthey let me talk--but the trouble goes deeper than that. It isn't that Ican't carry them with me for an hour. It is simply that I can't make anyof them see where we are going. It is a question not of loyalty, but ofunderstanding. They can't understand anything except what they want. "

"Whether you win or not, " she answered, "I am glad that at last I am onyour side. "

His face lighted. "On my side? Even if it means failure?"

As she looked up at him the sunrise was in her face. The sky was turningslowly to flame-colour, and each dark pointed leaf of the magnolia treestood out illuminated against a background of fire. "It may be failure, but it is magnificent, " she said. 

He was smiling down on her from his great height; and while she stoodthere in that clear golden air, she felt again, as she had felt twicebefore when she was with him, that beneath the depth of her personallife, in that buried consciousness which belonged to the ages of being, something more real than any actual experience she had ever known wasresponding to the look in his eyes and the sound of his voice. All thatshe had missed in life--completeness, perfection--seemed to shine abouther for an instant before it passed on into the sunlight. A fancy, nothing more! A fading gleam of some lost wildness of youth! For if shehad spoken the thought in her mind while she stood there, she would havesaid, "Give me what I have never had. Make me what I have never been. "But she did not speak it; the serene friendliness of her look did notalter; and the impulse vanished as swiftly as the shadow of a bird inflight. 

"I thank you, " he answered in a low voice. "I shall remember that. "

The moment had passed, and she held out her hand with a smile. "I shallcome to stay with Patty while you are at the meeting to-night, " shesaid; and then, as she turned away to the car, he walked beside her insilence. 

A little later, when she looked back from the gate, she saw him standingin the bright grass with the sunrise above his head. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE VICTORY OF GIDEON VETCH

That evening, when Corinna got out of her car before the Governor'shouse, Stephen Culpeper opened the door, and came down the steps. 

"I waited for you, " he said; and then as the car moved away, he took herhand and turned back to the porch. 

"I couldn't come before, " explained Corinna. "I had a headache all day, and it kept me in bed. Have you seen Patty?"

"I have seen her, but that is all. I can do nothing with her. "

"But she cares for you. "

"She doesn't deny it. That's not the trouble. Something about Vetchstands in the way. I can't make out what she means. "

"Let me talk to her, " responded Corinna reassuringly. "Is the Governorhere?"

"No, he has gone to the strikers' meeting. They must reach some decisionto-night it appears. I have talked with him, and I believe he will standfirm whatever happens. It means, I think, that his career is over. "

"It is too late for him to win over the conservative forces?"

"It was always too late. In a battle of extremes the most dangerousposition is in the centre. "

"He told me something like that once. The trouble with him is that hehasn't a point of view, but a vision. He sees the whole, and politics isonly a little part of it. "

"Yes, he sees a human fight, while they are trying to make a politicalsquabble. He may win them over to-night, but this is only the beginning. The real fight is against individual self-interest. " He laughed in anundertone. "I remember he told me once that the only trouble withChristianity was the Christians. 'You can't have Christianity', he said, 'until Christians are different'. That's just as true, of course, ofpolitics. The only trouble with politics is the politicians. "

"Well, it's a muddle, " she responded impatiently. "However you look atit. Come back in an hour or two, and I may be able to help you. " Hercheerful smile shone on him for an instant; then she entered the houseand closed the door after her. 

In one of the worn leather chairs in the library, Patty was sittingperfectly still, with her eyes fixed on the orderly row of papers on theGovernor's desk. She wore a white dress with a black ribbon at herwaist, and in the dim light, with her pale face and her cloudy hair, shehad a ghostly look as if she would turn to mist at a touch. When Corinnaentered, she rose and held out her hands. "You are so good, " she said. "I never dreamed that any body could be so good and so beautiful too!"

"My dear, " began Corinna brightly, and while she spoke she drew the girlto the leather-covered couch by the window, and sat down still holdingthe cold hands in her warm ones. "So you are going to marry Stephen. "

"I can't, " replied Patty, and she turned her face slightly away as ifshe shrank from meeting Corinna's eyes. "I can't after what I know. Ican't do it because of Father. "

"Because of your father?" repeated Corinna. "But surely your fatherwishes you to be happy?"

"Oh, I know he does. It isn't that. But this will all come out. That iswhat Julius Gershom meant when he threatened. They are trying to do himsome harm--Father, I mean--"

"I understand that, but still how in the world--"

Before she could finish her sentence Patty interrupted in an hystericalvoice--the voice of youth that is always dramatic: "Nobody will evermean as much to me as Father does, " she cried. "I know that now. I'veknown it ever since I found out that he began it just out ofkindness--that I had no claim on him of any kind--"

"That is natural, dear, but still I don't understand. "

Rising from the couch, Patty moved to a chair in front of Corinna, andsinking into it, began nervously plaiting and unplaiting a fold of herwhite dress. "I can do anything with Julius Gershom if I am nice tohim, " she murmured. "If he stands by Father most of the others willalso. "

With a gasp Corinna sat up very straight and tried to see Patty's eyesin the obscurity. What sordid horror was the child facing now? Whatunspeakable degradation? "You can't think of marrying Gershom, Patty!"she exclaimed, with a gesture of loathing. "You must be out of your mindeven to dream of it!"

"I can make him do anything I want if I will promise to marry him, " sheanswered in a steady voice, though a shiver of aversion passed over her. 

Corinna drew her breath sharply, restraining at the same time an impulseto laugh. Oh, the mock heroics of youth! Of youth with its fantasticheroism and its dauntless inexperience! "If you only knew, " she breathedindignantly, "if you only knew what marriage means!"

Patty turned and gave her a long look. "I could do more than that forFather, " she answered. 

So this was the other side of Gideon Vetch--of that man of ignoblecircumstances and infinite magnanimity! How could any one understandhim? How, above all, could any one judge him? How could one fathom hispower for good or for evil? She beheld him suddenly as a man who wasinspired by an exalted illusion--the illusion of human perfectibility. In the changing world about her, the breaking up and the renewing, thedissolution and readjustment of ideals; in the modern conflict betweenthe spirit that accepts and the spirit that rejects; in this age ofdestiny--was not an unconquerable optimism, an invincible belief inlife, the one secure hope for the future? It is the human touch thatcreates hope, she thought; and the power of Gideon Vetch was revealed toher as simply the human touch magnified into a force. 

She became aware after a minute that Patty was speaking. "I can nevertell you--I can never tell any one what he used to be to me when I was alittle girl, and he was very poor. Sometimes--for a long time--Icouldn't have a nurse, and he would dress and undress me, and leave mewith the neighbours when he went away to work. I can see him now heatingmilk for me over an old oil lamp. Once when I was ill he sat up nightafter night with me. Oh, I don't mean that he was perfect, but that hewas kind--always. I know the quarrels he had--that he has still with thepeople who won't go his way. The one thing he can't forgive in people isthat they never forget themselves, that they never think of anythingexcept what they want. That angers him, and he flies out. I know that. But there's no use trying I can't make anybody, I can't make even you, know all that he did for me--" The words ended in tears; and she satthere, lost in memory, while the dim light seemed to absorb her whitedress and her pale features and the small hand that lay on the fringe ofher black sash. 

"My dear, my dear, " murmured Corinna because she could think of no wordsthat sounded less ineffectual. 

There was a ring at the doorbell while she spoke and after a pausewhich appeared to her interminable, she heard the shuffling tread of oldAbijah, and then the clear tone of Stephen's voice, followed immediatelyby another speaker who sounded vaguely familiar, though she could notrecall now where she had listened to him before. It was not JuliusGershom, she knew, though it might be some man that she had heard at ameeting. 

"Let me speak to Mrs. Page first, " said Stephen. "Ask her if she willcome into the drawing-room. "

For an instant Corinna hung back, with the chill of dread at her heart;and in that instant Patty flew past her like a startled spirit, whilethe ends of her black sash streamed behind her. With the penetratinginsight of love the girl had surmised, had seen, had understood, beforea word of explanation had reached her, before even the door had swungopen, and she had met the blanched faces of the men in the hall. "It isFather, " she said quietly. "They have hurt him. Oh, I knew all the timethat they were going to hurt him!"

Corinna, standing close at her side without touching her, for someintuition told her that the girl did not wish any support, was aware ofthe faces of these men, flickering slowly, like glimmering ashen lights, out of the shadows in the hall--first Stephen's face, with its shockedcompassionate eyes; then the face of old Darrow, rock-hewn, relentless;then the face of her father, which even tragedy could not startle out ofits ceremonious reserve; and beyond these familiar faces, it seemed toher that the collective face of the crowd gazed back at her with anexpression which was one neither of surprise nor terror, but of thestony fortitude of the ages. Beyond this there was the open door and theglamour of the spring night, and in the night another group with itsdark burden. 

"I met them just outside, and they told me, " said Stephen. "Gershomthinks it was an accident, but we shall never know probably. Twoopposing sides were fighting it out. A question had come up--nobody canremember what it was--nothing important, I think--but two men came toblows and he got in between them--he stood in the way--and somebody shothim--"

He was talking, Corinna realized, in an effort to hold Patty's gaze, todivert her eyes by the force of his look from the burden which the menwere bringing slowly up the steps outside and into the hall. 

"Nobody meant to harm him, " said Gershom suddenly, speaking from theedge of the group. "The pistol went off by mistake. He got in the waybefore any one saw him--" But from his look, Corinna knew that it wasnot an accident, that they had shot him because he came between them andthe thing that they wanted. 

The slow steps crossed the hall into the library, and above the measuredbeat and pause of the sound, Corinna heard the voice of Vetch asdistinctly as if he were standing there before her in the centre of thegroup. "The loneliest man on earth is the one who stands between twoextremes. " Yes, at the end as well as at the beginning, he had stoodbetween two extremes! Then Patty's cry of anguish floated to her fromthe room across the hall into which they had taken him. "Father!Father!" Only that one word over and over again. "Father! Father!" Onlythat one word uttered steadily and softly in a tone of imploringhelplessness like the wail of a frightened child. It never ceased, thispiteous sobbing, until at last the doctor went out, and left Corinnaalone with the girl and Gideon Vetch. Then Patty fell on her kneesbeside the couch where he lay, and a silence that was almost suffocatingclosed over the room. 

The house had become very still. While Corinna waited there at Patty'sside, the only noise came from the restless movement of the city, whichsounded far off and vaguely ominous, like the disturbance in a nightmarefrom which one has just awakened. She had turned off the unshadedelectric light; and for a few minutes Patty knelt alone in a mercifuldimness, which left her white dress and the composed features of thedead man the only luminous spots in the room. It was as if these twopallid spaces were living things in the midst of inanimate darkness. Fora moment only this impression lasted, for overcome by the pathos of it, Corinna crossed the room with noiseless footsteps and lighted the waxcandles on the mantelpiece. 

Death had come so suddenly that, lying there in the trembling light ofthe candles, Vetch appeared to be merely resting a moment in hisenergetic career. His rugged features still wore their look of exuberantvitality, of triumphant faith. There was about him even in death theradiance of his indestructible illusion. As Corinna looked down on him, it seemed incredible to her that he should not stretch himself in amoment, and rise and go out again into the struggle of living. It seemedincredible that his work should be finished for ever when he was stillso unspent, so full of tireless activity. Was death always like this--avictory of material and mechanical forces? An accident, an automaticgesture, and the complex power which stood for the soul of Gideon Vetchwas dissolved--or released. The crumbling of a rock, the falling of aleaf! Her eyes left the face of the dead man, left Patty's bowed head ather side, and travelled beyond the open window into the glamour andmystery of the night, and beyond the night into the sky--

There was a knock at the door, and she turned away and went out to jointhe men in the hall. What had it meant to them, she wondered. How muchhad they understood? How much had they ever understood of that symbol ofa changing world which they had loved and hated under the name of GideonVetch?

"Give her a few minutes more, " she said. "Leave her alone with him. "

There were four men waiting--her father, Stephen, old Darrow, andJulius Gershom--and these four, she felt, were the men who had knownVetch best, and who, with the exception of Darrow, had perhapsunderstood least what he meant. No one had understood him, least of all, she saw now, had she herself understood him--

Gershom spoke first. "He was the biggest man we've ever had, " he said, "and we never doubted it--" Yet he had never for an instant, Corinnaknew, seen Vetch as he really was, or recognized the end for which hewas fighting. 

"He was the only one who could have held us together, " sighed oldDarrow, and his face looked as if a searing iron had passed over it. "This will put us back at least fifty years--"

The Judge was gazing through the open door out into the night, wherelamps shone in the Square and a luminous cloud hung over the city, thatcity which was outgrowing its youth, outgrowing the barriers oftradition, outgrowing alike the forces of reaction and the forces ofprogress. 

"A few months, " he said slowly, "and nothing accomplished that one canpoint out and say that we owe directly to him. Yet I doubt if a singleone of us will ever forget him. I doubt if a single one of us will everbe exactly, in every little way, just what we should have been if we hadnever known Vetch, or spoken to him. The merest ripple of change, perhaps, but it counts--it counts because in touching him we touched ahumanity that is as rare as genius itself. " Yet they had killed him, Corinna knew, because they could not understand him!

For a moment there was silence, and then Stephen spoke in a whisper:"There are some things that you can't see until you stand far enoughaway from them. I doubt if any of us really saw him until to-night. To-morrow he will begin to live. " As he lifted his eyes to Corinna'sface, she saw in them a fidelity that pledged itself to the future. 

"Go to Patty, " she whispered. "Go to her and repeat what you have saidto us. " Putting her hand on his arm, she led him into the room where thegirl was kneeling, and then drew back while he went quickly forward. Watching from the threshold, she saw Patty look up uncertainly, and riseslowly from the floor where she had been kneeling; she saw Stephen putout his arms with a movement of love and pity; and she saw the girlhesitate for an instant, and then turn to his clasp as a hurt childturns for comfort. That was youth, that was the future, thought Corinna, and closing the door softly, she left them together. Yes, youth was forthe future, and for herself, _she_ realized with a pang, were the thingsthat she had never had in the past. Only the things that she had neverhad were really hers! Only the unfulfilled, she saw in that moment ofilluminating insight, is the permanent. 

Passing the group in the hall, she went out on the porch, and lookedwith swimming eyes over the fountain into the Square. Beyond the whitestreams of electricity and the black patterns of the shadows, she sawthe sharp outlines of the city, and beyond that the immense blue fieldof the sky sown thickly with stars. Life was there--life that embracedsuccess and failure, illusion and disillusion, birth and death. In themorning she would go back to it--she would begin again--in the morningshe would will herself to pick up the threads of middle age as lightlyas Stephen and Patty would pick up the threads of youth. To-morrow shewould start living again--but to-night for a few hours she would restfrom life; she would look back now, as she had looked back that morning, to where a man was standing in the bright grass with the sunrise abovehis head. 

BOOKS BY ELLEN GLASGOW

 LIFE AND GABRIELLA

 ONE MAN IN HIS TIME

 PHASES OF AN INFERIOR PLANET

 THE ANCIENT LAW

 THE BATTLE-GROUND

 THE BUILDERS

 THE DELIVERANCE

 THE DESCENDANT

 THE FREEMAN AND OTHER POEMS

 THE MILLER OF OLD CHURCH

 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN

 THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

 THE WHEEL OF LIFE

 VIRGINIA