THE HAPPY END

BY JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

BOOKS BY JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

 THE HAPPY END JAVA HEAD GOLD AND IRON THE THREE BLACK PENNYS MOUNTAIN BLOOD THE LAY ANTHONY

THE HAPPY END

DEDICATION

These stories have but one purpose--to give pleasure; and they havebeen made into a book at the requests of those I have fortunatelypleased. It is, therefore, to such friends of my writing that they areaddressed and dedicated. However, this is not an effort to avoid myresponsibility: but to whom? Not to critics, not middlemen, nor theAcademies of which I am so reprehensibly ignorant; not, certainly, tomy neighbor. They brought me, in times of varying difficulty, food; andfor that excellent reason I am forced to conclude that, then as now, Iam responsible to my grocer. 

CONTENTS

 Lonely Valleys The Egyptian Chariot The Flower of Spain Tol'able David Bread Rosemary Roselle The Thrush in the Hedge

LONELY VALLEYS

The maid, smartly capped in starched ruffled muslin and black, whoadmitted them to the somber luxury of the rectory, hesitated inunconcealed sulky disfavor. 

"Doctor Goodlowe has hardly started dinner, " she asserted. 

"Just ask him to come out for a little, " the man repeated. 

He was past middle age, awkward in harsh ill-fitting and formal clothesand with a gaunt high-boned countenance and clear blue eyes. 

His companion, a wistfully pale girl under an absurd and expensive hat, laid her hand in an embroidered white silk glove on his arm and said ina low tone: "We won't bother him, Calvin. There are plenty of ministersin Washington; or we could come back later. "

"There are, and we could, " he agreed; "but we won't. I'm not going towait a minute more for you, Lucy. Not now that you are willing. Why, Ihave been waiting half my life already. "

I

A gaunt young man with clear blue eyes sat on the bank of a mountainroad and gazed at the newly-built house opposite. It was the onlydwelling visible. Behind, the range rose in a dark wall against theevening sky; on either hand the small green valley was lost in a bluehaze of serried peaks. The house was not imposing; in reality small, but a story and a half, it had a length of three rooms with a kitchenforming an angle, invisible from where Calvin Stammark sat; an outsidechimney at each end, and a narrow covered portico over the front door. 

An expiring clatter of hoofs marked the departure of the neighbor whohad helped Calvin set the last flanged course. It seemed incrediblethat it was finished, ready--when the furniture and bright rag carpethad been placed--for Hannah. "The truck patch will go in there on theright, " he told himself; "and gradually I'll get the slope cleared out, corn and buckwheat planted. "

He twisted about, facing the valley. It was deep in grass, watered withstreams like twisting shining ribbons, and held a sleek slow-grazingherd of cattle. 

The care of the latter, a part of Senator Alderwith's wide possessions, was to form Calvin's main occupation--for the present anyhow. CalvinStammark had larger plans for his future with Hannah. Some day he wouldown the Alderwith pastures at his back and be grazing his own steers. 

His thoughts returned to Hannah, and he rose and proceeded to where asaddled horse was tied beside the road. He ought to go back toGreenstream and fix up before seeing her; but with their home allbuilt, his impatience to be with her was greater than his sense ofpropriety, and he put his horse at a sharp canter to the left. 

Calvin continued down the valley until the road turned toward the rangeand an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower riftbeyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until hereached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at thehouse, directly against the base of the mountain; and withoutdecreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by thetriangular sheep washing and shearing pen, to the stabling shed. 

Hannah's mother was bending fretfully over the kitchen stove, andRichmond, her father, was drawing off sodden leather boots. He was aman tall and bowed, stiff but still powerful, with a face masked in anunkempt tangle of beard. 

"H'y, Calvin, " he cried; "you're just here for spoon licking! Lucy waslooking for company. " Mrs. Braley's comment was below her breath, butit was plainly no corroboration of her husband's assurance. "You'llfind Hannah in the front of the house, " Richmond added. Hannah wassitting on the stone steps at the side entrance to the parlor. As usualshe had a bright bow in the hair streaming over her back, and her feetwere graceful in slippers with thin black stockings. She kissed himwillingly and studied him with wide-opened hazel-brown eyes. Therewasn't another girl in Greenstream, in Virginia, with Hannah's fetchingappearance, he decided with a glow of adoration. She had a--a sort ofbeauty entirely her own; it was not exactly prettiness, but a qualityfar more disturbing, something a man could never forget. 

"She's done, " he told her abruptly. 

"What?" Hannah gazed up at him with a dim sweetness in the gatheringdusk. 

"What!" he mocked her. "You ought to be ashamed to ask. Why, the house--our home. We could move in by a week if we were called to. We can getmarried any time. "

She now looked away from him, her face still and dreaming. 

"You don't seem overly anxious, " Calvin declared. 

"It's just the idea, " she replied. "I never thought of it like thisbefore--right on a person. " She sighed. "Of course it will be nice, Calvin. "

He sat below her with an arm across her slim knees. "I'm going to digright into the truck patch; there's a parcel of poles cut for thebeans. It won't be much the first year; but wait and we'll show peoplehow to live. " He repeated his vision in connection with the presentAlderwith holdings. 

"I wonder will we ever be rich like the senator?"

"Certainly, " he answered with calm conviction. "A man couldn't beshiftless with you to do for, Hannah. He'd be obliged to haveeverything the best. "

"It'll take a long while though, " she continued. 

"We will have to put in some hard licks, " he admitted. "But we areyoung; we've got a life to do it in. "

"A man has, but I don't know about girls. It seems like they get oldfaster; and then things--silk dresses don't do them any good. How wouldma look in fashionable clothes!"

"You won't have to wait that long, " he assured her. "Your father hasnever hurt himself about the place, there's no money in sheep; and asfor Hosmer--you know well as me that he is nothing outside of the bankand his own comfort. Store clothes is Hosmer all through. "

"I wish you were a little like him there, " Hannah returned. 

He admitted that this evening he was more untidy than need be. "I justcouldn't wait to see you, " he declared; "with our place and--and all sosafe and happy. "

II

The Braley table, spread after the Greenstream custom in the kitchen, was surrounded by Richmond and Calvin--Hosmer had stayed late at thebank--Hannah and Susan, the eldest of the children, prematurely agedand wasted by a perpetual cough, while Lucy Braley moved carelesslybetween the stove and the table. At rare intervals she was assisted byHannah, who bore the heavy dishes in a silent but perceptible air ofprotest. 

Calvin Stammark liked this; it was a part of her superiority to theother girls of the locality. He made up his mind that she should neverlose her present gentility. Whenever he could afford it Hannah musthave help in the house. No greater elegance was imaginable. SenatorAlderwith, at his dwelling with its broad porch, had two servants--twoservants and a bathtub with hot water running right out of a tap. Andhe Calvin Stammark, would have the same, before Hannah and he were tooold to enjoy it. 

He had eleven hundred dollars now, after buying the land about hishouse. When the right time came he would invest it in more property--grazing, a few herd of cattle and maybe in timber. Calvin hadinnumerable schemes for their betterment and success. To all this thesheer fact of Hannah was like the haunting refrain of a song. She wasnever really out of his planning. He might be sitting on his rooftreesquaring the shingling; bargaining with Eli Goss, the stone-cutter;renewing the rock salt for Alderwith's steers; but running throughevery occupation was the memory of Hannah's pale distracting face, thescarlet thread of the lips she was continually biting, her slendersolid body. 

He had heard that her mother was like that when she was young; butlooking at Mrs. Braley's spent being, hearing her thin complainingvoice, it seemed impossible. People who had known her in her youthasserted that it was so. Phebe too, they said, was the same--Phebe whohad left Greenstream nine years ago, when she was seventeen, to becomean actress in the great cities beyond the mountains. This might ormight not be a fact. Calvin always doubted that any one else could haveHannah's charm. 

However, he had never seen Phebe; he had moved from a distant part ofthe county to the principal Greenstream settlement after she had gone. But the legend of Phebe's beauty and talent was a part of the Braleyhousehold. Mrs. Braley told it as a distinguished trait that Phebewould never set her hand in hot dishwater. Calvin noted that Hannah wasoften blamed for domestic negligence, but this and far more advancedconduct in Phebe was surrounded by a halo of superiority. 

After supper, in view of the fact of their courtship, Calvin and Hannahwere permitted to sit undisturbed in the formality of the parlor. Therest of the family congregated with complete normality in the kitchen. The parlor was an uncomfortable chamber with uncomfortable elaboratechairs in orange plush upholstery, a narrow sofa, an organ of highlyvarnished lightwood ornamented with scrolled fretwork, and a cannonstove with polished brass spires. 

Calvin sat on the sofa with an arm about Hannah's waist, while shetwisted round her finger the ring he had given her, a ring of warrantedgold clasping a large red stone. Her throat was circled by a silverchain supporting a mounted polished Scotch pebble, his gift as well. Their position was conventional; Calvin's arm was cramped from itsunusual position, he had to brace his feet to keep firm on the slipperyplush, but he was dazed with delight. His heart throbs were evident inhis wrists and throat, while a tenderness of pity actually wet hiseyes. At times he spoke in a hushed voice, phrases meaningless in wordbut charged with inarticulate emotion; Hannah replied more coherently;but for the most they were silent. She accepted the situation withevident calm as an inevitable part of life. Drawn against him sherested her head lightly on his shoulder, her gaze speculative andundisturbed. 

Once he exclaimed: "I don't believe you love me! I don't believe you'reinterested in the things for the kitchen or the bedroom suite I saw ina catalogue at Priest's store!"

"Don't be silly!" she murmured. "Why shouldn't I be when it's my own, when it's all I'm going to have. "

He cried bravely. "It's only the beginning! Wait till you see ourcattle herded over the mountain to the railroad; wait till you see aspur come up the Sugarloaf and haul away our hardwood. Just you wait----"

There was the clip-clip of a horse outside, and the creaking of wheels. 

"I believe that's Hosmer. " Hannah rose. "It's funny, too, because hesaid he'd have to stay at the hotel to-night, there was so muchsettling up at the bank. "

It was, however, Hosmer Braley. He paused at the parlor door, a man inthe vicinity of thirty, fat in body and carefully clad, with a whitestarched collar and figured satin tie. 

"I didn't want to drive out, " he said, at once bland and aggrieved;"but it couldn't be helped. Here's a piece of news for all of you--Phebe is coming home to visit She wrote me to say so, and I only gotthe letter this evening. Whatever do you suppose took her?"

Hannah at once flushed with excitement--like, Calvin Stammark thought, the parlor lamp with the pink shade, turned up suddenly. An instantvague depression settled over him; Hannah, only the minute before inhis arms, seemed to draw away from him, remote and unconcerned byanything but Phebe's extraordinary return. Hosmer made it clear thatthe event promised nothing but annoyance for him. 

"She's coming by to-morrow's stage, " he went on, untouched by thesensation his information had wrought in the kitchen; "and it's certainI can't meet her. The bank's sending me into West Virginia about somesecurities. "

Richmond Braley, it developed further, was bound to a day's work on thepublic roads. They turned to Calvin. 

"Take my buggy, " Hosmer offered; "I'll have to go from Durban by rail. "

There was no reason why he shouldn't meet Phebe Braley, Calvinrealized. He lingered, gazing with silent longing at Hannah, but it wasevident that she had no intention of returning to the parlor. 

III

Waiting in Hosmer's buggy for the arrival of the Greenstream stage andPhebe Braley, Calvin was conscious of the persistence of the depressionthat had invaded him at the announcement of her visit. He resented, too, the new element thrust into the Braley household, disrupting thefamiliar course of his love. Hannah had been unreasonably distracted bythe actuality of Phebe's return--the Phebe who had gone away from themountains and become an actress. 

The buggy was drawn to one side of the principal Greenstream road, atthe post-office. Before him the way crossed the valley and liftedabruptly to the slope of the eastern range. At his back the village--the brick Methodist church and the white painted Presbyterian church, the courthouse with its dignified columns, the stores at the corners ofthe single crossroads, and varied dwellings--was settling into theelusive May twilight. The highest peaks in the east were capped withdissolving rose by the lowering sun, and the sky was a dusty blue. 

Calvin Stammark heard the approaching stage before he saw it; then thelong rigid surrey with its spare horses rapidly rolled up over the openroad to the post-office. He got down and moved diffidently forward, seeing and recognizing Phebe immediately. This was made possible by herresemblance to Hannah; and yet, Calvin added, no two women could bemore utterly different. 

Phebe Braley had a full figure--she was almost stout--a body of thefrankest emphasized curves in a long purple coat with a collar ofsoiled white fur. A straw hat with the brim caught by a short purple-dyed ostrich feather was pinned to a dead-looking crinkled mass ofgreenish-gold hair, and her face--the memorable features of Hannah--wasloaded with pink powder. 

Calvin said: "You must be Phebe Braley. Well, I'm Calvin Stammark. Yourfather or Hosmer couldn't meet the stage and so they had to let me getyou. Where's your bag?"

She adopted at once an air of comfortable familiarity. "I don'tremember your name, " she said, settling beside him in the buggy. 

He told her that he had come to this vicinity after she had gone andthat he was about to marry her sister. 

"The hell you say!" she replied with cheerful surprise. "Who'd thoughtHannah was old enough to have a fellow!"

They were out of the village now and she produced a paper pack ofcigarettes from a leather hand bag with a florid gilt top. Flooding herbeing with smoke she gazed with a shudder at the mountain wall oneither hand, the unbroken greenery sweeping to the sky. 

"It's worse than I remembered, " she confided, resting against him. "Aperson with any life to them would go dippy here. Say, it's fierce! Andyet, inside of me, I'm kind of glad to see it. I used to dream aboutthe mountains, and this is like riding in the dream. I'm glad you camefor me and let me down easy into things. I suppose they live in thekitchen home and pa'd lose a currycomb in his beard. Does Hosmer stillbeller if he gets the chicken neck?

"Do you sit in the holy parlor for your courting, and ain't that plushsofa a God-forsaken perch for two little love birds? It's funny how Iremember this and that. I reckon ma's temper don't improve with age. They kid me something dreadful about saying 'reckon, ' in the talent. But it's all good and a dam' sight better than 'I guess. ' That's allthey get off me. "

Calvin Stammark's vague uneasiness changed to an acute dislike, even afear of Phebe. Her freedom of discourse and person, the powdered hardfare close to his, the reek of scent--all rasped the delicacy of hislove for Hannah. The sisters were utterly different, and yet he wouldhave realized instantly their relationship. Phebe, too, had thedisturbing quality that made Hannah so appealing. In the former it wascoarsened, almost lost; almost but not quite. 

"I'll bet, " she continued, "that I'm the only female prodigal on thebills. Not that I've been feeding on husks. Not me. Milwaukee lager andraw beef sandwiches. I have a passion for them after the show. We dotwo a day and I want solid refreshment. I wonder if you ever saw me. Ofcourse you didn't, but you might have. Ned Higmann's Parisian Dainties. Rose Rayner's what I go by. That's French, but spelled different, andmeans brightness. And I'm bright, Casper. 

"My, what are you so glum about--the dump you live in or matrimony?There was a gentleman in an orchestra in Harrisburg wanted to marry me--he played the oboe--but I declined. Too Bohemian.... This is where weturn, " she cried instinctively, and they swung into the valley wherethe Braleys had their clearing. 

Phebe crushed the cigarette in her fingers. Suddenly she was nervous. 

"It's natural I have changed a lot, " she said. "If you hear me sayinganything rough pinch me. "

Richmond Braley was standing beside his house in the muddy clothes inwhich he had labored on the roads, and Mrs. Braley and Hannah cameeagerly forward. Behind them sounded Susan's racking cough. Sentimentaltears rolled dustily over Phebe's cheeks as she kissed and embraced hermother and sisters. 

"H'y, " Richmond Braley awkwardly saluted her; and "H'y, " she answeredin the local manner. 

"Well, " he commented, "you hain't forgotten that anyway. "

Calvin was asked to stay for the supper that had been delayed forPhebe's return, but when he declined uncertainly he wasn't pressed. Putting up Hosmer's rig and saddling his own horse he rode slowly anddejectedly on. 

Instead of going directly back to Greenstream he followed the way thatled to his new house. The evening was silvery with a full brilliantmoon, and the fresh paint and bright woodwork were striking against thedark elevated background of trees. The truck patch would be dug on theright, the clearing widen rod by rod. From Alderwith's meadows came thesoft blowing of a steer's nostrils, while the persistent piping of thefrogs in the hollows fluctuated in his depressed consciousness. 

Calvin had drawn rein and sat on his horse in the road. He was tryingto picture Hannah standing in the door waiting for him, to hear hercalling him from work; but always Phebe intervened with her travesty ofHannah's clear loveliness. 

IV

Again at the Braleys' he found the family--in the kitchen--listeningwith absorbed interest to Phebe's stories of life and the stage. Richmond Braley sat with an undisguised wonderment and frequentexclamations; there was a faint flush in Mrs. Braley's dun cheeks;Susan tried without success to strangle her coughing. Only Hosmer wasunmoved; at times he nodded in recognition of the realities of Phebe'snarratives; his attitude was one of complacent understanding. 

Calvin, at last succeeding in catching Hannah's attention, made asuggestive gesture toward the front of the house, but she ignored hisdesire. She, more than any of the others, was intent upon Phebe. And herealized that Phebe paid her a special attention. 

"My, " she exclaimed, "the healthy life has put you in the front row. Ned Higmann would rave about your shape and airs. It's too bad to burythem here in the mountains. I reckon you love me for that"--she turnedcheerfully to Calvin--"but it's the truth. If you could do anything atall, Hannah, you'd lead a chorus and go in the olio. And you would drawat the stage door better than you would on the front. Young and freshas a daisy spells champagne and diamond garters. I don't believe they'dlet you stay in burlesque but sign you for comic opera. "

The blood beat angrily in Calvin Stammark's head. Whatever did Phebemean by talking like that to Hannah just when she was to marry him! Hecursed silently at Richmond Braley's fatuous face, at Mrs. Braley'sendorsement of all that her eldest daughter related, at Hosmer'sassumption of worldly experience. But Hannah's manner filled him withapprehension. 

"It's according to how you feel, " Phebe continued; "some like to get upof a black winter morning and fight the kitchen fire. I don't. Somewomen are happy handing plates to their husband while he puts down asquare feed. Not in mine. "

"The loneliness is what I hate, " Hannah added. 

"It's hell, " the other agreed. "Excuse me, ma. "

Hannah went on: "And you get old without ever seeing things. There isall that you tell about going on--those crowds and the jewels anddresses, the parties and elegant times; but there is never a whisper ofit in Greenstream; nothing but the frogs that I could fairly scream at--and maybe a church social. " As she talked Hannah avoided CelvinStammark's gaze. 

"Me and you'll have a conversation, " Phebe promised her recklessly. 

Choking with rage Calvin rose. "I might as well move along, " heasserted. 

"Don't get heated, " Phebe advised him. "I wouldn't break up your happyhome, only I want Hannah to have an idea of what's what. I don't doubtyou'll get her for a wife. "

"There's nothing but slaving for a woman round here, " Mrs. Braley putin. "I'm right glad Phebe had so much spirit. "

Richmond Braley evidently thought it was time for certain reservations. "You mustn't come down so hard on Calvin and me, " he said practically. "We're both likely young fellows. "

"I'll be here evening after to-morrow, " Calvin told Hannah in a lowvoice. 

She nodded without interest. They must be married at once, he decided, his wise horse following unerringly the rocky road, stepping throughsplashing dark fords. If there was a repetition of the past visit hewould have something to say. Hannah was his, she was promised to him. He felt the coolness of her cheeks, her bright mouth against his. Atyranny of misery and desire flooded him at the sudden danger--it wasas much as that--threatening his happiness and life. 

It was a danger founded on his entire ignorance of what he must combat. He couldn't visualize it, but it never occurred to him that Hannahwould actually go away--leave him and Greenstream. No, it was a qualityin Hannah herself, a thing that had always lurked below the surface, beyond his knowledge until now. Yet he realized that it formed a partof her appeal, a part of her distinction over the other girls of thecounty. 

Maybe it was because he was never in his heart absolutely certain ofher--even when she was closest to him she seemed to slip away beyondhis power to follow. His love, he acknowledged for the first time, hadnever been easy or contented or happy. It had been obscure, like thenight about him now; it resembled a fire that he held in his barehands. Hannah's particularity, too, was allied to this strange newly-awakened peril. In a manner it was that which had carried Phebe out ofthe mountains. Now the resemblance between them was far stronger thantheir difference. 

There was more than a touch of all this in the girls' mother, in herbitterness and discontent. He felt that he hated the elder as much ashe did Phebe. If the latter were a man----

He dressed with the greatest care for his next evening with Hannah. Hosmer wore no stiffer nor whiter collar, and Calvin's necktie was apure gay silk. He arrived just as the moon detached itself from thefringe of mountain peaks and the frogs started insistently. His heartwas heavy but his manner calm, determined, as he entered the Braleykitchen. No one was there but Susan; soon however, Phebe entered in anamazing slovenly wrapper with a lace edge turned back from her amplethroat; and Hannah followed. 

Phebe made a mocking reference to the sofa in the parlor, and Hannah'sexpression was distasteful; but she slowly followed Calvin into theconventional chamber. 

He made no attempt to embrace her, but said instead: "I came to fix theday for our wedding. "

"Phebe wants me to go with her for a little first, " she repliedindirectly. "She says I can come back whenever I like. "

"Your Phebe has no say in it. " He spoke harshly. "We're honestlypromised to each other and don't need outside advice or interference. "

"Don't you go to call Phebe 'outside, '" she retorted. "She's my sister. Perhaps it's a good thing she came when she did, and saved me frombeing buried. Perhaps I'm not aiming to be married right off. "

V

Hannah was standing, a hand on the table that held the pink-shadedlamp, and the light showed her petulant and antagonistic. A flare ofanger threatened to shut all else from Calvin's thoughts; but suddenlyhe was conscious of the necessity for care--care and patience. Heforced back his justified sense of wrong. 

"I wasn't referring direct to Phebe, " he told her. "I meant thatbetween us nobody else matters, no one in the world is of anyimportance to me but you. It's all I think about. When I was buildingthe house, our house, I hammered you into it with every nail. It issort of made out of you, " he foundered; "like--like I am. "

He could see her relenting in the loss of the rigidity of her pose. Hannah's head drooped and her fingers tapped faintly on the table. Hemoved closer, urging his advantage. 

"We're all but married, Hannah; our carpet is being wove and that suiteof furniture ordered through Priest. You've been upset by this talk oftheaters and such. You'd get tired of them and that fly-by-night lifein a month. "

"Phebe hasn't. "

"What suits one doesn't suit all, " he said concisely. 

"It would suit more girls than you know for, " she informed him. "Takeit round here, there's nothing to do but get married, and all thechange is from one kitchen to another. You don't even have a way tomatch up fellows. Soon as you're out of short skirts one of them visitswith you and the rest stay away like you had the smallpox. Our courtinglasted a week and you were here four times. "

"We haven't much time, Hannah, " he reminded her. "It was right hard forme to see you that often. There was a smart of things you were doing, too. "

"The more fool!" she exclaimed. 

Again his resentment promised to leap beyond control. He clenched hishands and stared with contracted eyes at the floor. 

"Well, " he articulated finally, "we're promised anyhow; that can't bedenied. I have your word. "

"Yes, " she admitted, "but chance that I went with Phebe doesn't meanI'd never come back. "

"It would mean that you'd never come back, " he paraphrased her. 

"Maybe I would know better, " she answered quickly. "I'm sorry, Calvin. I didn't go to be so sharp. Only I don't know what's right, " she wenton unhappily. 

"It isn't what's right, " he corrected her, "but what you want. I wishPhebe had stayed away a little longer. "

"There you go again at Phebe!" she protested. 

He replied grimly; "Not half what I feel. "

In a dangerously calm voice she inquired, "What's the rest then?"

"She's a trouble-maker, " he asserted in a shaking tone over which heseemed to have no command; "she came back to Greenstream and for noreason but her own slinked into our happiness. Your whole family--evenHosmer, pretending to be so wise--are blind as bats. You can't even seethat Phebe's hair is as dyed as her stories. She says she is on thestage, but it's a pretty stage! I've been to Stanwick and seen thoseParisian Dainties and burlesque shows. They're nothing but a lot ofhalf-naked women cavorting and singing fast songs. And the show onlybegins--with most of them--when the curtain drops. If I even try tothink of you in that I get sick. "

"Go on, " Hannah stammered, scarcely above her breath. 

"It's bad, " Calvin Stammark went on. "The women are bad; and a badwoman is something awful. I know about that too. I've been to the cityas well as Phebe. Oh, Hannah, " he cried, "can't you see, can't you!"With a violent effort he regained the greater part of his composure. "But it won't touch you, " he added; "we're going to be married rightaway. "

"We are?" Hannah echoed him thinly, in bitter mockery. "I wouldn't haveyou now if you were the last man on earth with the way you talkedabout Phebe! I don't see how you can stand there and look at me. If Itold pa or Hosmer they would shoot you. You might as well know this aswell--I'm going back with her; it'll be some gayer than these lonelyold valleys or your house stuck away all by itself with nothing to seebut Senator Alderwith's steers. "

There flashed into Calvin Stammark's mind the memory of how he hadplanned to possess just such cattle for Hannah and himself; he saw inthe elusive lamplight the house he had built for Hannah. His feeling, that a second before had been so acute, was numb. This, he thought, wasstrange; a voice within echoed that he was going to lose her, to loseHannah; but he had no faculty capable of understanding such a calamity. 

"Why, Hannah, " he said impotently--"Hannah--" His vision blurred sothat he couldn't see her clearly; it was as if, indistinct before him, she were already fading from his life. "I never went to hurt you, " hecontinued in a curious detachment from his suffering. "You wereeverything I had. "

Calvin grew awkward, confused in his mind and gestures. At the sametime Hannah's desirability increased immeasurably. Never in Greenstreamor any place else had he seen another like her; and he was about tolose her, lose Hannah. 

Automatically he repeated, "If Phebe were a man----"

He was powerless not only against exterior circumstance but to combatwhat lay with Hannah. Phebe would never set her hands in hot dishwater. He recalled their mother, fretful and impatient. He shook his head asif to free his mind from so many vain thoughts. She stood, hard andunrelenting. 

He tried to mutter a phrase about being here if she should return, butit perished in the conviction of its uselessness. Calvin saw her withgreen-yellow hair, a cigarette in painted lips; he heard the blurredapplause of men at the spectacle of Hannah on the stage, dressed likethe women he had seen there. Then pride stiffened him into a semblanceof her own remoteness. 

"It's in you, " he said; "and it will have to come out. I'm what I amtoo, and that doesn't make it any easier. Kind of a fool about you. Another girl won't do. I'll say good night. "

He turned and abruptly quitted the room and all his hope. 

VI

When the furniture Calvin had ordered through the catalogue at Priest'sstore arrived by mountain wagon he placed it in the room beside thekitchen that was to have been Hannah's and his. Hannah had gone threeweeks before with Phebe. This done he sat for a long while on theportico of his house, facing the rich bottom pasturage and high verdantrange beyond. It was late afternoon and the rift was filling with agolden haze from a sun veiled in watery late-spring vapors. An oldapple tree by the road was flushed with pink blossoms and a mockingbird was whistling with piercing sweetness. 

Soon it would be evening and the frogs would begin again, the frogs andwhippoorwills. The valley, just as Hannah had said, was lonely. Hestirred and later found himself some supper--in the kitchen whereeverything was new. 

On the following morning he left the Greenstream settlement; it wasFriday, and Monday he returned with Ettie, his sister. She wasremarkably like him--tall and angular, with a gaunt face and steadyblue eyes. Older than Calvin, she had settled into a completeacquiescence with whatever life brought; no more for her than thekeeping of her brother's house. Calvin, noting the efficient manner inwhich she ordered their material affairs, wondered at the fact that shehad not been married. Men were unaccountable, but none more thanhimself, with his unquenchable longing for Hannah. 

This retreated to the back of his being. He never spoke of her. Indeedhe tried to put her from his thoughts, and with a measure of success. But it never occurred to him to consider any other girl; thatpossibility was closed. Those he saw--and they were uniformly kind, even inviting--were dull after Hannah. 

Instead he devoted himself to the equivalent, in his undertakings, ofEttie's quiet capability. The following year a small number of thesteers grazing beyond the road were his; in two years more SenatorAlderwith died, and there was a division of his estate, in which Calvinassumed large liabilities, paying them as he had contracted. The timberin Sugarloaf Valley drew speculators--he sold options and bought aplace in the logging development. 

It seemed to him that he grew older, in appearance anyhow, withexceptional rapidity; his face grew leaner and his beard, which hecontinued to shave, was soiled with gray hair. 

He avoided the Braleys and their clearing; and when circumstance drewhim into conversation with Richmond or Hosmer he studiously spoke ofindifferent things. He heard nothing of Hannah. Yet he learned in thevarious channels of communication common to remote localities thatRichmond Braley was doing badly. Hosmer went to bank in one of thenewly prosperous towns of West Virginia and apparently left all familyobligations behind; Susan died of lung fever; and then, at the post-office, Calvin was told that Richmond himself was dangerously sick. 

He left the mail with Ettie at his door and rode on, turning for thefirst time in nine years into the narrow valley of the Braleys' home. The place had been neglected until it was hardly distinguishable fromthe surrounding tangled wild. Such sheep as he saw were in wretchedcondition, wild and massed with filth and burrs. 

Mrs. Braley was filling a large glass flask with hot water for herhusband; and to Calvin's surprise a child with a quantity of straightpale-brown hair and wide-opened hazel-brown eyes was seated in thekitchen watching her. 

"How is Richmond?" he asked, his gaze straying involuntarily to thegirl. 

"Kingdom Come's how he is, " Lucy Braley replied. "Yes, and thepoorhouse will end us unless Hosmer has a spark of good feeling. I senthim a postal card to come a long while back, but he hasn't so much asanswered. Here, Lucy"--she turned to the child--"run up with this. "

"Lucy?" Calvin Stammark asked when they were alone. 

"Been here two weeks, " Mrs. Braley told him. "What will become of her'sbeyond me. She is Hannah's daughter, and Hannah is dead. "

There was a sharp constriction of Calvin's heart. Hannah's daughter, and Hannah was dead!

"As far as I know, " the other continued in a strained metallic voice, "the child's got no father you could fix. Her mother wrote the name wasLucy Vibard, and she'd called her after me. But when I asked her shedidn't seem to know anything about it. 

"Hannah was alone and dog poor when she died, that's certain. Likeeverything else I can lay mind on she came to a bad end--Lord reckonswhere Phebe is. I always thought you were weak fingered to let Hannahgo--with that house built and all. I suppose maybe you weren't, though;well out of a slack bargain. "

Calvin Stammark scarcely heard her; his being was possessed by thepitiable image of Hannah dying alone and dog poor. He had alwayspictured her--except in the fleet vision of debasement--as young andgraceful and disturbing. Without further speech he left the kitchen andcrossed the house to the shut parlor. It was screened against the day, dim and musty and damp. The orange plush of the chairs and the narrowuncomfortable sofa, carefully dusted, was as bright as it had been whenhe had last seen it--was it ten years ago?

Here she had stood, her fingers tapping on the table, when he had madethe unfortunate remark about Phebe; the lamplight had illuminated herright cheek. Here she had proclaimed her impatience with Greenstream, with its loneliness, her hunger for life. Here he had lost her. Asudden need to see Hannah's daughter invaded him and he returned to thekitchen. 

The child was present, silent; she had Hannah's eyes, Hannah's hair. Seated by Richmond Braley's bed he realized instantly that the old manwas dying; and mentally he composed the urgent message to be sent toHosmer. But that failed to settle the problem of Lucy's safety--Hannah's Lucy, who might have been his too. The solution of thatdifficulty slowly took form in his thoughts. There was no need todiscuss it with Ettie--his duty, yes, and his desire was clear. 

He took her home directly after Richmond's funeral, an erratic windblowing her soft loose hair against his face as he drove. 

VII

There had been additions to Calvin Stammark's house--the half storyraised, and the length increased by a room. This was now furnished asthe parlor and had an entrance from the porch extended across the faceof the dwelling; the middle lower room was his; the chamber designedfor his married life was a seldom used dining room; while Ettie andLucy were above. A number of sheds for stabling and implements, chickencoops and pig pen had accumulated at the back; the corn and buckwheatclimbed the mountain; and the truck patch was wide and luxuriant. 

A narrow strip, bright, in season, with the petunias and cinnamon pinkswhich Ettie tended, separated the dwelling from the public road; andthe flowers more than anything else attracted Hannah's daughter. Calvintalked with her infrequently, but a great deal of his silent attentionwas directed at the child. 

Already Lucy had a quality of appeal to which he watched Ettie respond. The latter took a special pride in making Lucy as pretty as possible;in the afternoon she would dress her in sheer white with a ribbon inher hair. She spared Lucy many of the details of housework in which thelatter could have easily assisted her; and when Calvin protested shereplied that she was so accustomed to doing that it was easier for herto go ahead. 

Calvin's feelings were mixed. At first he had told himself that Lucywould be, in a way, his daughter; he would bring her up as his own; andin the end what he had would be hers, just as it should have beenHannah's. However, his attitude was never any that might be recognizedas that of parenthood. He never grew completely accustomed to herpresence, she was always a subject of interest and speculation. Hecontinued to get pleasure from her slender graceful being and thelittle airs of delicacy she assumed. 

He was conscious, certainly, that Lucy was growing older--yet not sofast as he--but he had a shock of surprise when she informed him thatshe was fifteen. Calvin pinched her cheek, and, sitting on the porch, heard her within issuing a peremptory direction to Ettie. The eldermade no reply and, he knew, did as Lucy wished. This disturbed him. There wasn't a finer woman living than Ettie Stammark, and he didn'tpurpose to have Lucy impudent to her. Lucy, he decided, was getting alittle beyond them. She was quick at her lessons, the Greenstreamteacher said. Lucy would have considerable property when he died; he'dlike her to have all the advantages possible; and--very suddenly--Calvin decided to send her away to school, to Stanwick, the small cityto and from which the Greenstream stage drove. 

She returned from her first term at Christmas, full of her experienceswith teachers and friends, to which Ettie and he listened with absorbedattention. Now she seemed farther from him than before; and he saw thata likeness to Hannah was increasing; not in appearance--though that wasnot dissimilar--but in the quality that had established Hannah'sdifference from other girls, the quality for which he had never found aname. The assumptions of Lucy's childhood had become strongly markedpreferences for the flowers of existence, the ease of the porticorather than the homely labor of the back of the house. 

Neither his sister nor he resented this or felt that Lucy was evadingher just duties; rather they enjoyed its difference from their ownpractical beings and affairs. They could afford to have her in freshlaundered frills and they secretly enjoyed the manner in which sheinstructed them in social conventions. 

At her home-coming for the summer she brought to an end the meals inthe kitchen; but when she left once more for Stanwick and school Ettieand Calvin without remark drifted back to the comfortable convenienceof the table near the cooking stove. 

This period of Lucy's experience at an end she arrived in Greenstreamon a hot still June evening. Neither Calvin nor his sister had beenable to go to Stanwick for the school commencement, and Calvin had beentoo late to meet the stage. After the refreshing cold water in thebright tin basin by the kitchen door he went to his room for apresentable necktie and handkerchief--Lucy was very severe about thelatter--and then walked into the dining room. 

The lamp was not yet lit, the light was elusive, tender, and his heartcontracted violently at the youthful yet mature back toward him. Sheturned slowly, a hand resting on the table, and Calvin Stammark'ssenses swam. An inner confusion invaded him, pierced by a sharpunutterable longing. 

"Hannah, " he whispered. 

She smiled and advanced; but, his heart pounding, Calvin retreated. Hemust say something reasonable, tell her that they were glad to have herback--mustn't leave them again. She kissed him, and, his eyes shut, thetouch of her lips re-created about him the parlor of the Braleys, --thestiffly arranged furniture with its gay plush, the varnished fretworkof the organ, the pink glow of the lamp. 

She was Hannah! The resemblance was so perfect--her cheek's turn, hervoice, sweet with a trace of petulance, her fingers--that it wassustained in a flooding illumination through the commonplace revealingact of supper. It was as if the eighteen years since Hannah, hisHannah, was a reality were but momentary, the passage of the valley. His love for her was unchanged--no, here at least, was a difference; itwas greater, keener; exactly as if during the progress of theirintimacy he had been obliged to go away from her for a while. 

She accompanied Ettie to the kitchen and Calvin sat on the porch in agathering darkness throbbing with frogs and perfumed with driftinglocust blooms. Constellation by constellation the stars glimmered intobeing. Hannah, Lucy! They mingled and in his fiber were forever one. Hegave himself up to the beauty of his passion, purified and intense fromlong patience and wanting, amazed at the miracle that had brought backeverything infinitely desirable. 

He forgot his age, and, preparing for the night, saw with a sense ofpersonal outrage his seamed countenance reflected in the mirror of thebureau. Yet in reality he wasn't old--forty-something--still, notfifty. He was as hard and nearly as springy as a hickory sapling. Therewas a saying in which he found vast comfort--the prime, the very primeof life. 

VIII

His enormous difficulty would be to bring Lucy to the understanding ofhis new--but it was the old--attitude toward her. If she had neverbecome completely familiar to him association had made him a solidrecognized part of her existence; if not exactly a father, an uncle atthe very least. Calvin realized that she would be profoundly shocked byany abrupt revelation of his feeling. Yet he was for the time in nohurry to bring about the desired change in their relationship. His lifehad been so long empty that it was enough to dwell on the greathappiness of his repossession. 

This, he knew, could not continue, but at present, today, it was almostenough. Before he was aware, the summer had gone, the mountains weresheeted in gold; and he was still dreaming, putting off the actualitybefore them. 

The logging in Sugarloaf Valley had grown to an operation ofimportance, and a great deal of his time was spent watching the spur ofrailroad creep forward and the clearing of new sections; sawmills andcamps were in course of erection; and what had been a still green cleftin the mountains was filled with human activity. He had secured anadvantageous position for a young man from the part of the countyinhabited by the Stammark family, Wilmer Deakon, and consulted with himfrequently in connection with his interests. 

Wilmer was to the last degree dependable; a large grave individual whotook a serious interest in the welfare of his fellows and supportedestablished customs and institutions. He sang in a resounding barytonewith the Methodist Church choir; his dignified bearing gave weight tothe school board; and he accumulated a steadily growing capital at theGreenstream bank. An admirable individual, Calvin thought, and extendedto him the wide hospitality of his house. 

Lucy apparently had little to say to Wilmer Deakon; indeed, when he wasnot present, to their great amusement she imitated his deliberatebalanced speech. She said that he was too solemn--an opinion with whichCalvin privately agreed--and made an irreverent play on his name andthe place he should occupy in the church. It seemed that she found aspecial pleasure in annoying him; and on an occasion when Calvin haddetermined to reprove her for this he was surprised by Winner's requestto speak to him outside. 

Wilmer Deakon said abruptly: "Lucy and I are promised to each other. "

Calvin stood gazing at him in a lowering complete surprise, at a lossfor words, when the other continued with an intimation of his peculiarqualifications for matrimony, the incontrovertible fact that he couldand would take care of Lucy. He stopped at the appropriate moment andwaited confidently for Calvin Stammark's approval. 

The latter, out of a gathering immeasurable rage, almost shouted: "Youget to hell off my place!"

Wilmer Deakon was astounded but otherwise unshaken. "That's no way toanswer a decent man and a proper question, " he replied. "Lucy and Iwant to be married. There's nothing wrong with that. But you look as ifI had offered to disgrace her. Why, Mr. Stammark, you can't keep herforever. I reckon it'll be hard on you to have her go, but you mustmake up your mind to it some day. She's willing, and you know all aboutme. Then Lucy won't be far away from you all. I've cleared the brush upand right now the bottom of our house is laid in Sugarloaf. "

Calvin's anger sank before a sense of helplessness at this latter fact. Wilmer was building a house for her just as he had built one forHannah. He remembered his delight and pride as it had approachedcompletion; he remembered the evening, nearly twenty years ago, when hehad sat on the bank across the road and seen it finished. Then he hadridden, without waiting to fix up, to the Braleys'; Hannah had scoldedhim as they sat in the parlor. 

"I must talk to Lucy, " he said in a different weary tone. Bareheaded hewalked over into the pasture, now his. The cattle moved vaguely in thegloom, with softly blowing nostrils, and the streams were like smoothdark ribbons. When he returned to his house the lights were out, WilmerDeakon was gone and Lucy was in bed. 

He again examined his countenance in the mirror, but now he wassurprised that it was not haggard with age. It seemed that twenty moreyears had been added to him since supper. He wondered whether there hadever been another man who had lost his love twice and saw that he hadbeen a blind fool for not speaking in the June dusk when Lucy had comeback from school. 

Lucy, it developed, had spoken to Ettie, and there was a generaldiscussion of her affair at breakfast. 

Calvin carried away from it a persistent feeling of dissatisfaction, but for this he could find no tangible reason. Of course, he silentlyargued, the girl could not be expected to show her love for Wilmerpublicly; it was enough that he had been assured of its strength; thefact of her agreement to marry him was final. 

He went about his daily activities with a heavy absent-mindedness, witha dragging spirit. A man was coming from Washington to see him in theinterest of a new practically permanent fencing, and he met him at thepost-office, listened to a loud cheerful greeting with markedinattention. 

The salesman was named Martin Eckles, and he was fashionably dressed ina suit of shepherd's check bound with braid, and had a flashing ring--abroad gold band set with a mystic symbol in rubies and diamonds. Afterhis supper at the hotel he walked, following Calvin's direction, theshort distance to the latter's house, where Calvin and Ettie Stammarkand Lucy were seated on the porch. 

Martin Eckles, it developed, was a fluent and persuasive talker, a manof the broadest worldly experiences and wit. He was younger thanCalvin, but older than Wilmer Deakon, and a little fat. He had a smallmustache cut above his lip, and closely shaved ruddy cheeks with atinge of purple about his ears. Drawing out his monologueentertainingly he gazed repeatedly at Lucy. Calvin lost the sense ofmost that the other said; he was immersed in the past that had beenmade the present and then denied to him--it was all before him in thepresence of Lucy, of Hannah come back with the unforgetable and magicdanger of her appeal. 

IX

In the extension of his commercial activity Martin Eckles kept his roomat the Greenstream hotel and employed a horse and buggy for hisexcursions throughout the county. It had become his habit to sitthrough the evenings with the Stammarks where his flood of conversationnever lessened. Lucy scarcely added a phrase to the sum of talk. Sherocked in her chair with a slight endless motion, her dreaming gazefixed on the dim valley. 

Wilmer Deakon, on the occasion of his first encounter with Eckles atthe Stammarks', acknowledged the other's phrase and stood waiting forLucy to proceed with him to the parlor. But Lucy was apparently unawareof this; she sat calm and remote in her crisp white skirts, whileWilmer fidgeted at the door. 

Soon, however, she said: "For goodness' sake, Wilmer, whatever's thematter with you? Can't you find a chair that suits you? You make aperson nervous. "

At the same time she rose ungraciously and followed him into the house. 

Wilmer came out, Calvin thought, in an astonishingly short time. Courting was nothing like it had been in his day. The young manmuttered an unintelligible sentence that, from its connection, might beinterpreted as a good night, and strode back to the barn and his horse. 

Martin Eckles smiled: "The love birds must have been a little ruffled. "

And Calvin, with a strong impression of having heard such a thingbefore, was vaguely uneasy. Eckles sat for a long space; Lucy didn'tappear, and at last the visitor rose reluctantly. But Lucy had not goneto bed; she came out on the porch and dropped with a flounce into achair beside Calvin. 

"Wilmer's pestering me to get married right away, " she told him;"before ever the house is built. He seems to think I ought to be justcrazy to take him and go to that lonely Sugarloaf place. "

"It's what you promised for, " Calvin reminded her; "nothing's turned upyou didn't know about. "

"If I did!" she exclaimed irritably. "What else is a girl to do, I'dlike to ask? It's just going from one stove to another, here. Onlyit'll be worse in my case--you and Aunt Ettie have been lovely to me. Ihate to cook!" she cried. "And it makes me sick to put my hands ingreasy dishwater! I suppose that's wicked but I can't help it. When Itold Wilmer that to-night he acted like I'd denied communion. I can'thelp it if the whippoorwills make me shiver, can I? Or if I want to seea person go by once in a while. I--I don't want to be bad--or to hurtyou or Wilmer. Oh, I'll settle down, there's nothing else to do; I'llmarry him and get old before my time, like the others. "

Calvin Stammark leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and stared ather in shocked amazement--Hannah in every accent and feeling. The oldsense of danger and helplessness flooded him. He thought of Phebe withher dyed hair and cigarette-stained lips, her stories of the stage andlife; he thought of Hannah dying alone and dog poor. Now Lucy----

"Do you remember anything about your mother, " he asked, "and before youcame here?"

"Only that we were dreadfully unhappy, " she replied. "There was aboarding house with actresses washing their stockings in the rooms anda landlady they were all afraid of. There was beer in the wash-standpitcher. But that wouldn't happen to me, " she asserted; "I'd bedifferent. I might be an actress, but in dramas where my hair would bedown and everybody love me. "

"You're going to marry Wilmer Deakon and be a proper happy wife!" hedeclared, bringing his fist down on a hard palm. "Get this othernonsense out of your head!"

Suddenly he was trembling at the old catastrophe reopened by Lucy. Hislove for her, and his dread, choked him. She added nothing more, butsat rigid and pale and rebellious. Before long she went in, but Calvinstayed facing the darkness, the menace of the lonely valley. Except forthe lumbermen it would be worse in the Sugarloaf cutting. 

Damn the frogs!

Martin Eckles appeared in the buggy the following evening and offeredto carry Lucy for a short drive to a near-by farm; with an air ofindifference she accepted. Wilmer didn't call, and Calvin sat in silentperplexity with Ettie. The buggy returned later than they had allowed, and Lucy went up to bed without stopping on the porch. 

The next morning Ettie, with something in her hand, came out to Calvinat the stable shed. 

"I found this in Lucy's room, " she said simply. 

It was Martin Eckles' gold ring, set with the insignia in rubies, suspended in a loop of ribbon. 

A cold angry certitude formed in his being. What a criminal fool he hadbeen! What a blind booby! His only remark, however, brought a puzzledexpression to Ettie's troubled countenance. Calvin Stammark exclaimed, "Phebe Braley. " He was silent for a little, his frowning gaze fixedbeyond any visible object, then he added: "Put that back where youfound it and forget everything. "

Ettie laid a hand on his sleeve. "Now, Calvin, " she begged, her voicelow and strained, "promise me----"

"Forget everything!" he repeated harshly. 

His face was dark, forbidding, the lines deeply bitten about a sombermouth, his eyes were like blue ice. He walked into Greenstream, wherehe saw the proprietor of the small single hotel; then, back in hisroom, he unwrapped from oiled leather a heavy blued revolver; and soonafter he saddled his horse and was clattering in a sharp trot in theopposite direction from the village. 

It was dark when, having returned, he dismounted and swung the saddlefrom the horse to its tree. Familiar details kept him a long while, hishands were steady but slow, automatic in movement. He went in throughthe kitchen past Ettie to his room, and after a little he re-wrappedthe revolver and laid it back in its accustomed place. Supper, in spiteof Lucy's sharp comment, was set by the stove, and Ettie was solicitousof his every possible need. He ate methodically what was offered, andafterward filled and lit his pipe. It soon went out. Once, on theporch, he leaned toward Lucy and awkwardly touched her shoulder. 

X

Wilmer came. He was late, and Lucy said wearily, "I've got a headacheto-night. Do you mind if we stay out here in the cool?"

He didn't, and his confident familiar planning took the place of MartinEckles' more exciting narratives. 

The next day, past noon, the proprietor of the Greenstream hotel leftan excited group of men to stop Calvin as he drove in from SugarloafValley. 

He cried: "Eckles has been shot and killed. First they found the horseand buggy by the road, and then Martin Eckles. He had fallen out. Onebullet did it. "

"That's too bad, " Calvin replied evenly. "Lawlessness ought to be putdown. " He had known Solon Entreken all his life. The level gaze of twomen encountered and held. 

Then: "I'll never say anything against that, " the other pronounced. "It's mighty strange who could have shot Eckles and got clear away. That's what he did, in spite of hell and the sheriff. "

Turning, after inevitable exclamations, toward home, Calvin found Lucysitting moodily on the porch. 

"I've got a right ugly piece of news, " he told her, masking the painfulinterest with which he followed her expression. "Martin Eckles waskilled yesterday; shot out of the buggy. "

She grew pale, her breast rose in a sudden gasp and her hands wereclenched. 

"Oh!" she whispered, horrified. 

But there was nothing in her manner beyond the natural detestation ofsuch brutality; nothing, he saw, hidden. 

"He wanted me to go away with him, " she swept on; "and get married inStanwick. Martin wanted me to see the world. He said I ought to, andnot stay here all my life. "

The misery that settled over her, the hopelessness dulling her youthfilled him with a passionate resentment at the fate that made her whatshe was and seemingly condemned her to eternal denial. His love forher--Lucy, Hannah, Hannah, Lucy--was intolerably keen. He went to her, bending with a riven hand on the arm of her chair. 

"Do you want Wilmer?" he demanded. "Do you love him truly? Is heenough?"

"I don't know. " Slow tears wet her cheeks. "I can't say. I ought to;he's good and faithful, and with some of me that's enough. But there'sanother part; I can't explain it except to say it's a kind ofexcitement for the life Mr. Eckles told us about, all those lights andrestaurants and theaters. Sometimes I think I'll die, I want it somuch; then it comes over me how ungrateful I am to you and Aunt Ettie, and I hate myself for the way I treat Wilmer. " "Do you love him?" heinsisted. 

"Perhaps not like you mean. "

All that had been so long obscured in his mind and heart slowly clearedto understanding--Lucy Braley, Richmond's wife; Phebe; Hannah; andagain Lucy, Lucy Vibard had this common hunger for life, forbrightness; they were as helpless in its grasp as he had been to holdHannah. Phebe's return, Martin Eckles--were only incidents in a greatinner need. In itself it wasn't wicked; circumstance had made it seemwrong; Phebe's greenish hair, the mark of so much spoiled, Hannah'sunhappy death--were the result of aspirations; they fretted andbruised, even killed themselves, like gay young animals, innocentanimals, in a dark lonely enclosure. 

They were really finer than the satisfied women who faded to uglinessin the solitary homes of the Greenstream mountains; not better, forexample, than Ettie--it might be that they weren't so good, not so highin heaven; but they were finer in the manner of blooded horsesrebelling against the plow traces. They were more elegant, slimmer, with a greater fire. That too was the secret of their memorable powerover him; he wanted a companion different from a kitchen drudge; whenhe returned home at evening, he wanted a wife cool and sweet in crispwhite with a yellow ribbon about her waist, and store slippers. Heloved Lucy's superiority--it was above ordinary things. "Like a star, "Calvin Stammark told himself. 

He, with everything else that had combated their desire, depriving themof the very necessities for his adoration, had been to blame. 

"Lucy, " he said, bending over her and speaking rapidly, "let's you andme go and learn all this life together. Let's run away fromGreenstream and Wilmer Deakon and even Ettie, what we ought to holdby, and see every theater in the country. I've got enough money----"

The radiance of the gesture by which she interrupted his speech filledhim with pounding joy. 

"Oh, shall we!" she cried; and then hugged him wildly, her warm youngarms about his neck. 

"Of course we will, " he reassured her; "and right away, to-morrow. Youand me. "

He felt her lips against his, and then more cautiously she took up theimmediate planning of their purpose. It would be ridiculously easy;they would drive to Stanwick in the buggy. 

"The hotels and all, " she continued with shining eyes; "and nobody willthink it's queer. I'll be your daughter, like always. "

Calvin turned abruptly from her and faced the valley saturated withslumberous sunlight. Lucy hesitated for a moment and then fled lightlyinto the house. After a little he heard her singing on the upper floor. People wouldn't think it was queer because she would be his daughter, "like always. "

Yet he wasn't old beyond hope, past love--as strong and nearly asspringy as a hickory sapling. He had waited half his life for this. Calvin slowly smiled in bitterness and self-contempt; a pretty figurefor a young girl to admire, he thought, losing the sense of merephysical fitness. Anyhow Lucy was supremely happy and safe, and he hadaccomplished it. He was glad that he had been so industrious andsuccessful. Lucy could have almost anything she wanted--pretty clothesand rings with real jewels, necklaces hung with better than Scotchpebbles. 

Perhaps when she had seen the world--its bigness and noise andconfusion--after her longing was answered, she would turn back to him. Already he was oppressed by a feeling of strangeness, of loss atleaving the high valleys of home. 

THE EGYPTIAN CHARIOT

Lemuel Doret walked slowly home from the prayer meeting with his beingvibrating to the triumphant beat of the last hymn. It was a good hymn, filled with promised joy for every one who conquered sin. The longtwilight of early summer showed the surrounding fields still brightgreen, but the more distant hills were vague, the sky was remote andfaintly blue, and shadows thickened under the heavy maples that coveredthe single street of Nantbrook. The small frame dwellings of thevillage were higher than the precarious sidewalk; flights of stepsmounted to the narrow porches; and though Lemuel Doret realized thathis neighbors were sitting outside he did not look up, and no voicescalled down arresting his deliberate progress. 

An instant bitterness, tightening his thin metallic lips and narrowinga cold fixed gaze, destroyed the harmony of the assured salvation. Lemuel Doret silently cursed the pinched stupidity of the countryclods. The slow helpless fools! If instead of muttering in groups oneof the men would face him with the local hypocrisy he'd sink a heel inhis jaw. The bitterness expanded into a hatred like the gleam on aknife blade; his hands, spare and hard, grew rigid with the desire tochoke a thick throat. 

Then the rage sank before a swift self-horror, an overwhelmingconviction of his relapse into unutterable sin. He stopped and in aspiritual agony, forgetful of his surroundings, half lifted quiveringarms to the dim sky: "O Christ, lean down from the throne and hold mesteady. "

He stood for a moment while a monotonous chatter on a porch abovedropped to a curious stillness. It seemed to him that his whisper washeard and immediately answered; anyhow peace slowly enveloped him oncemore, the melody of hope was again uppermost in his mind. He wentforward, procuring a cigarette from a mended ragged pocket. 

His house, reached by a short steep path and sagging steps, was dark;at first he saw no one, then the creak of a rocking-chair in the opendoorway indicated Bella, his wife. 

"Give me a cigarette, " she demanded, her penetrating voicedissatisfied. 

"You know I don't want you to smoke anywhere you can be seen, " heanswered. "Since we've come here to live we have to mind the customs. The women'll never take to you smoking cigarettes. "

"Ah, hell, what do I care! We came here, but it ain't living. It makesme sick, and you make me sick I Can't you sing and pray in the city aswell as among these hicks?"

"I'm afraid of it, " he said, brief and somber. "And I don't wantFlavilla brought up with any of the gang we knew. Where is she?"

"I sent her to bed. She fussed round till she got me nervous. "

"Did she feel good?"

"If she didn't a smack would have cured her. "

He passed Bella, rocking sharply, into the dank interior. 

On the right was the bare room where he had his dilapidated barber'schair and shelf with a few mugs, brushes and other scant necessities. There had been no customers to-day nor yesterday; still, it was themiddle of the week and what trade there was generally concentrated onSaturday. Beyond he went upstairs to Flavilla's bed. She was awake, twisting about in a fragmentary nightgown, dark against the disorderedsheet. 

"It's dreadful hot, " she complained shortly; "my head's hot too. Thewindow won't go up. "

Lemuel Doret crossed the narrow bare floor and dragged the sash open;then he moved his daughter while he smoothed the bed and freshened aharsh pillow. She whimpered. 

"You're too big to cry without any reason, " he informed her, leaving tofetch a glass of water from the tap in the kitchen. 

Usually she responded to his intimations of her increasing age andwisdom, but to-night she was listless. She turned away from him, herarms flung above her head and wispy hair veiling her damp cheek. 

"Keep still, can't you?" and he gathered her hair into a clumsy plait. 

The darkness about him seeped within, into his hope and courage andresolution; all that he had determined to do seemed impossibly removed. The whole world resembled Nantbrook--a place of universal condemnation, forgiving nothing. He felt a certainty that even the few dollars he hadhonestly earned would now be stopped. 

The air grew clearer and deeper in color, and stars brightened. LemuelDoret wondered about God. There was no doubt of His power and glory orof the final triumph of heaven established and earth, sin, destroyed. His mind was secure in these truths; his comprehension of the paths ofwickedness was equally plain; it was the ways of the righteous thatbewildered him--the conduct of the righteous and, in the face of hissupreme recognition, the extreme difficulty of providing life forFlavilla--and Bella. 

He consciously added his wife's name. Somehow his daughter was the soleobjective measure of his determination to build up, however late, ahome here and in eternity. 

It was not unreasonable, in view of the past, to suppose that he had nochance of succeeding. Yet religion was explicit upon that particular;it was founded on the very hopes of sinners, on redemption. But hecould do nothing without an opportunity to make the small living theyrequired; if the men of Nantbrook, of the world, wouldn't come to himto be barbered, and if he had no money to go anywhere else to beginagain, he was helpless. Everything was conspiring to thrust him backinto the city, of which he had confessed his fear, back----

He rose and stood above the child's thin exposed body--suddenly frozeninto a deathlike sleep--chilled with a vision, a premonition, theinsidious possibility of surrender. He saw, too, that it was a solitarystruggle; even his devotion to Flavilla, shut in the single space ofhis own heart, helped to isolate him in what resembled a surroundingblackness rent with blinding flashes of lightning. 

The morning sun showed him spare, with a curious appearance of beingboth wasted and grimly strong; he moved with an alert, a watchful ease, catlike and silent; and his face was pallid with gray shadows. He stoodin trousers and undershirt, suspenders hanging down, before the smalldim mirror in the room where he had the barber chair, pasting his hairdown with an odorous brilliantine. This was his intention, but he sawwith sharp discomfort that bristling strands defied his every effort. The hot edge of anger cut at him, but, singing, he dissipated it:

 "_Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows fall? Why should my heart be lonely, And long for heaven_----"

He broke off at the thought of Flavilla, still in bed, her head, ifanything, hotter than last night. Lemuel Doret wished again that he hadnot allowed Bella to call their child by that unsanctified name. Beforethe birth they had seen a vaudeville, and Bella, fascinated by agolden-and-white creature playing a white accordion that bore her namein ornamental letters, had insisted on calling her daughter, too, Flavilla. In spite of the hymn, dejection fastened on him as heremembered this and a great deal more about his wife. 

If she could only be brought to see the light their marriage and lifemight still be crowned with triumph. But Bella, pointing out theresulting poverty of his own conviction and struggle, said freely thatshe had no confidence in promises; she demanded fulfillment now. Sheregarded him as more than a little affected in the brain. Yet there hadbeen no deep change in him--from the very first he had felt a growinguneasiness at the spectacle of the world and the flesh. The throb ofthe Salvation Army drum at the end of an alley, the echo of the ferventexhortations and holy songs, had always filled him with a surgingemotion like homesickness. 

Two impulses, he recognized, held a relentless warfare within him; hepictured them as Christ and Satan; but the first would overthrow allelse. "Glory!" he cried mechanically aloud. He put down the hairbrushand inspected the razors on their shelf. The bright morning lightflashed along the rubbed fine blades; they were beautiful, flawless, without a trace of defilement. He felt the satin smoothness of thesteel with an actual thrill of pleasure; his eyes narrowed until theywere like the glittering points of knives; he held the razor firmly andeasily, with a sinewy poised wrist. 

Finally, his suspenders in position over a collarless striped shirt, hemoved out to the bare sharp descent before his house and poured wateronto the roots of a struggling lilac bush. Its leaves were now coatedwith dust; but the week before it had borne an actual cluster ofscented blossom; and he was still in the wonder of the lavenderfragrance on the meager starved stem. 

The beat of hoofs approached, and he turned, seeing Doctor Frazee inhis yellow cart. 

"Oh, doctor!" he called instinctively. 

The other stopped, a man with a lean face, heavy curved nose andpenetrating gaze behind large spectacles. He was in reality aveterinary, but Lemuel Doret, out of a profound caution, had discoveredhim to be above the narrow scope of local prejudice. 

"I wish you'd look at Flavilla, " Doret continued. 

The doctor hesitated, and then turned shortly in at the sidewalk. "Itwill hurt no one if I do that. " Above Flavilla's flushed face, atentative finger on her wrist, Frazee's expression grew serious. "I'lltell you this, " he asserted; "she's sick. You had better call Markleyto-day. And until he comes don't give her any solids. You can see she'sin a fever. "

"Can't you tend her? I'd put more on you than any fresh young hospitalstiff. "

"Certainly not, " he responded. 

When the latter had gone Lemuel Doret found his wife in the kitchen. She wore a pale-blue wrapper with a soiled scrap of coarse lace at herfull throat, her hair was gathered into a disorderly knot, and alreadythere was a dab of paint on either cheek. She had been pretty when hemarried her, pretty and full of an engaging sparkle, a ready wit; butthe charm had gone, the wit had hardened into a habit of sarcasm. Theyhad been married twelve years, and in itself, everything considered, that was remarkable and held a great deal in her favor. She had beenfaithful. It was only lately, in Nantbrook, that her dissatisfactionhad materialized in vague restless hints. 

"Frazee says Flavilla is sick, " he told her. "He thinks we ought to getMarkley. "

She made a gesture of skepticism. "All those doctors send you to eachother, " she proclaimed. "Like as not he'll get half for doing it. "

"She don't look right. "

Bella's voice and attitude grew exasperated. "Of course you know allabout children; you've been where you could study on them. And ofcourse I have no sense; a woman's not the person to say when her childis sick or well. Have a doctor if you can pay one, and buy a lot ofmedicine too. There's some calomel upstairs, but that's no good. I'dlike to know where you have all the money! God knows I need a little, to put inside me and out. "

"It's right scarce, " he admitted, resolutely ignoring her tone. "Perhaps Flavilla will be better later in the day; I'll wait. "

He spoke without conviction, denying the impulse to have her cared forat once, in an effort to content and still Bella. However, he failed inboth of these aims. Her voice swept into a shrill complaint and abuseof Nantbrook--a place, she asserted, of one dead street, without even apassing trolley car to watch. She had no intention of being buried herefor the rest of her life. Turning to a cigarette and yesterday's papershe drooped into a sulky shape of fat and slovenly blue wrapper besidethe neglected dishes of their insufficient breakfast. 

He went through the empty house to the front again, where at least thesun was warm and bright. The air held a faint dry fragrance that camefrom the haymaking of the deep country in which Nantbrook lay. LemuelDoret could see the hotel at a crossing on the left, a small gray blockof stone with a flat portico, a heavy gilt beer sign and whitewashedsheds beyond. The barkeeper stood at a door, a huge girth circled by asoiled apron; nearer a bundle of brooms and glittering stacked paintcans marked the local store. It was, he was forced to admit, far fromgay; but he found a great contentment in the sunny peace, in thelimitless space of the unenclosed sky; the air, the fields, the birdsin the trees were free. 

As he stood frowning in thought he saw the figure of a strange manwalking over the road; Lemuel knew that he was strange by the formalityof the clothes. He wore a hard straw hat, collar and diamond-pinnedtie, and a suit with a waistcoat. At first Doret's interest wasperfunctory, but as the other drew nearer his inspection changed to apainful absorption. Suddenly his attitude grew tense; he had theappearance of a man gazing at an enthralling but dangerous spectacle, such--for example--as a wall that might topple over, crushing anythinghuman within its sweep. 

The object of this scrutiny had a pale countenance with a carefullyclipped mustache, baggy eyes and a blue-shaved heavy jaw. Anindefinable suggestion of haste sat on a progress not unduly hurried. But as he caught sight of Lemuel Doret he walked more and more slowly, returning his fixed attention. When the two men were opposite eachother, only a few feet apart, he almost stopped. For a moment theirsharpened visions met, parried, and then the stranger moved on. He madea few steps, hesitated, then directly returned. 

"Come inside, " he said in a slightly hoarse voice. 

"It suits me here, " Doret replied. 

The other regarded him steadily. "I've made no mistake, " he asserted. "I could almost say how long you were up for, and a few other littlethings too. I don't know what you're doing in this dump, but here weboth are. "

He waited for nothing more, ascending quickly to the hall. The two madetheir way into the improvised barber shop. 

"You've got me wrong, " Doret still insisted. 

"Who is it, Lem?" Bella demanded at the door. 

As she spoke an expression of geniality overspread her face, daubedwith paint and discontent. 

"Why, I'll tell you--I'm June Bowman. "

"That don't mean anything to us, " Lemuel continued. "The best thing youcan do is keep right on going. "

"Not that Fourth Ward stew?" Bella asked eagerly. 

He nodded. 

"Lem's kind of died on his feet, " she explained in a palpable excuse ofher husband's ignorance; "he don't read the papers nor nothing. But ofcourse I've heard of you, Mr. Bowman. We're glad to see you. "

"Keep right along, " Lemuel Doret repeated. His face was dark and hismouth hardly more than a pinched line. 

"Now, who are you?" Bowman inquired. 

"I'll tell you, " Bella put in, "since his manners have gone witheverything else. This is Snow Doret. If you know the live men that namewill be familiar to you. "

"I seem to remember it, " he admitted. 

"If Snow went in the city it's Lemuel here, " Doret told him. His angerseethed like a kettle beginning to boil. 

"Well, if Snow ever went I guess I'm in right. The truth is I got tolay off for a little, and this seems first-rate. I can explain it in acouple of words: Things went bad----"

"Wasn't it the election?" Bella asked politely. 

"In a way, " he answered with a bow. "You're all right. A certain party, you see, was making some funny cracks--a reform dope; and he got inother certain parties' light, see? Word was sent round, and when afriend and me come on him some talk was passed and this public nuisancegot something. It was all regular and paid for----"

"I read about it, " Bella interrupted. "He died in the ambulance. "

"Then I was slipped the news that they were going to elect me thepretty boy, and I had to make a break. Only temporary, till things arefixed. Thus you see me scattered with hayseed. I was walking throughfor a lift to Lancaster, where there are some good fellows; but when Isaw Snow here taking the air I knew there was one nearer. "

"Lemuel; and I'm no good fellow. "

"That's the truth, " his wife added thinly. "Here is the only one inthis house. " She touched her abundant self. 

"Then I can put up?"

"No, " Lemuel Doret told him. "This is a house of God's. "

Bella laughed in a rising hysterical key. 

"Listen to him, " she gasped; "listen to Snow Doret. It's no wonder youmight have forgotten him, " she proclaimed; "he's been in the pen forten and a half years with a bunch off for good conduct. But fifteenyears ago--say! He went in for knifing a drug store keeper who held outon a 'coke' deal. If this here's a house of God's I'd like to know whathe called the one he had then. I couldn't tell you half of what wenton, not half, with fixing drinks and frame-ups and skirts. Why, he runa hop joint with the Chinese and took a noseful of snow at every otherbreath. That was after his gambling room broke up--it got too raw evenfor the police. It was brandy with him, too, and there ain't a gutterin his district he didn't lay in. The drug store man wasn't the firsthe cut neither. "

She stopped from sheer lack of breath. 

Curiously all that filled Lemuel Doret's mind was the thought of theglory of God. Everything Bella said was true; but in the might of theSavior it was less than nothing. He had descended into the pit andbrought him, Snow, up, filling his ears with the sweet hymns ofredemption, the promise of Paradise for the thieves and murderers whoacknowledged His splendor and fought His fight. This marvelous charity, the cleansing hope for his blackened soul, swept over him in a warmrush of humble praise and unutterable gratitude. Nothing of the Lord'swas lost: "His eye is on the sparrow. "

"Certainly, lay off your coat, " Bella was urging; "it's fierce hot. Lemcan rush a can of beer from the hotel. Even he wouldn't go to turn outone of the crowd in a hard fix. I'm awful glad you saw him. "

With June Bowman in his house, engaged in verbal agreements with Bellaand spreading comfortably on a chair, Lemuel was powerless. AH hisinstinct pressed him to send the other on, to refuse--in the commonestself-preservation--shelter. But both the laws of his old life and thecommands of the new were against this act of simple precaution. Bowmaneyed him with a shrewd appraisement. 

"A clever fellow, " he said, nodding; "admire you for coming out herefor a while. Well, how about the suds?"

He produced a thick roll of yellow-backed currency and detached a smallbill. "I'll finance this campaign. "

Lemuel Doret was confused by the rapidity with which the discreditedpast was re-created by Bowman's mere presence. He was at the point ofrefusing to fetch the beer when he saw that there was no explanationpossible; they would regard him as merely crabbed, and Bella wouldindulge her habit of shrill abuse. It wasn't the drink itself thatdisturbed him but the old position of "rushing the can"--a symbol of somuch that he had left forever. Forever; he repeated the word with asilent bitter force. The feel of the kettle in his hand, the thin odorof the beer and slopping foam, seemed to him evidences of acutedegeneration; he was oppressed by a mounting dejection. God seemed veryfar away. 

His wife was talking while Bowman listened with an air of sympatheticwisdom. 

"It wasn't so bad then, " she said; "I was kind of glad to get away, andLem was certain everything would open right out. But he's awful hard todo with; he wouldn't take a dollar from parties who had every right tostake him good, and borrowed five from no more than a stranger to buythat secondhand barber chair. What he needed was chloroform to separatethese farmers from their dimes and whiskers. " Bowman laughed loudly, and a corresponding color invaded Bella. "Of course no one knew Lem haddone time, then. They wouldn't have either, but for the Law and Order. Oh, dear me, no, your child ain't none of your own; they lend it to youlike and then sneak up whenever the idea takes them, to see if it'sgetting a Turkish bath. I guess the people on the street wondered whowas our swell automobile friend till they found out. "

"I suppose, " Bowman put in, "they all came round and offered you thehelping hand, wanted to see you happy and successful. "

She laughed. "Them?" she demanded. "Them? The man that owns this housesaid that if he'd known, Lem would never had it; they don't wantconvicts in this town. This is a moral burg. That's more than the womensaid to me though--the starved buzzards; if they've spoke a word to mesince I never heard it. " Her voice rose in sharp mimicry: "You, Katie, come right up on the porch, child! Don't you know--! See, I'm goingby. "

"I could have warned you of all that, " June Bowman asserted; "for thereason they're narrow, don't know anything about living or affairs;hypocritical too; long on churchgoing----"

Doret regarded him solemnly. How blind he was, a mound of corruptibleflesh! He put the beer down and turned abruptly away, going up toFlavilla. She seemed better; her face was white but most of the feverhad gone. He listened to her harsh breathing with the conviction thatshe had caught a cold; and immediately after he was back from the storewith a bottle of cherry pectoral. She liked the sweet taste of thethick bright-pink sirup and was soon quiet. Lemuel sniffed the mouth ofthe bottle suspiciously. It was doped, he finally decided, but notenough to hurt her; tasting it, a momentary desire for stinging liquorran like fire through his nerves. He laughed at it, crushing andthrowing aside the longing with a sense of contempt and triumph. 

He could hear occasionally Bowman's smooth periods and his wife's eagerenjoyment of the discourse. His sense of worldly loneliness deepened;Flavilla seemed far away. All life was inexplicable--yes, andprofitless, ending in weariness and death. The hunger for perfection, for God, that had been a constant part of his existence, the longingfor peace and security, were almost unbearable. He had had a longstruggle; the devil was deeply rooted in him. He could laugh at thebroken tyranny of drugs and drink, but the passion for fine steelcutting edges was different, and twisted into every fiber. The ragethat even yet threatened to flood him, sweeping away his painfullyerected integrity, was different too. These things had made him amurderer. 

"... Not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. "

He had a sudden muddled vision of another world, a world where sturdymen gave him their hands and in reality fulfilled June Bowman's mockingwords. There the houses, the streets of his youth would have beenimpossible. Ah, he was thinking of another kind of heaven; it was a hopdream. 

There was a stir below and he heard the clatter of plates. Dinner wasin preparation. "Lem!" his wife called. "Mr. Bowman wants you to go tothe butcher's. "

"Call me June, " he put in; adding: "Sure, Lem; the butcher's; we want atenderloin, cut thick. You can't get any pep on greens; we ain'tcattle. "

Doret felt that he would have been infinitely happier with his own thinfare. In a manner he got comfort from a pinch of hunger; somehow thephysical deprivation gave him a sense of purification. The other man, purple with the meat and beer, shook out a cigarette from a paper pack. 

"Always smoke caporal halves, " he proclaimed. 

The blue vapor from the three burning cigarettes rose and mingled. Bella was quiet, reflective; Bowman sat with half-shut speculativeeyes; Lemuel Doret was again lost in visions. 

"How long are you taking the milk cure?" Bowman asked. 

Lemuel made no reply, but his wife smiled bitterly. 

"I had an idea, " the other continued; "but it's a little soon to springanything. And I don't know but you might prefer it here. "

"Try me, " Bella proclaimed; "that's all I want!"

Doret still said nothing of his determination to conquer life inNantbrook. A swift impulse seized him to take June Bowman by the collarand fling him into the street. 

"Just try me!" Bella repeated. 

He would be helpless in his, Doret's, hands. It was hard enough to beupright without an insinuating crook in the place. There was a heavymovement of feet in the front of the house, and he went out to meet acustomer. 

Sliding the sensitive razor blade over a young tanned cheek he ponderedmoodily on the undesirable fact of June Bowman. 

Returning from this exercise of his trade he saw Bella descending thestair with a plate. 

"With all your going on over Flavilla, " she told him, "it never came toyou that she'd like a piece of steak. "

"But Doctor Frazee told us nothing solid. I took her up two eggs in themorning. "

"Yes, and you'd had two dollars to pay as well if I hadn't showed youdifferent. Flavilla's probably as well as any of us. I wish you wouldfix yourself a little, Lem. I'm tired of having you about the house inyour suspenders. "

He viewed her silently. Bella had on a dress he had never seen before, thin red-spotted yellow silk drawn tightly over a pronounced figure, ared girdle, and high-heeled patent-leather slippers. 

"If you're going to look like this, " he admitted, "I'll have to get amove on. "

When they were first in Nantbrook she had worn a denim apron, and that, too, with all the other differences had seemed to express their newlife; but now in yellow silk she was back in the old. Lemuel Doretstudied his wife with secret doubt; more than the dress had changed. She seemed younger; rather she was adopting a younger manner. In thepresence of June Bowman it intensified. 

"That idea I spoke about, " the latter advanced: "I've been sizing youup, the both of you, and you look good. Well, I've got hold of aconcession on the Atlantic Boardwalk and the necessary cash is insight. " He turned to Lemuel. "How would you like to run a bowling game?It's on the square and would give you a lead into something bigger. You're wise; why, you might turn into a shore magnate, with Bella heredressed up in stones. "

Doret shook his head. "Treasure on earth, " he thought; "moth and rust. "But it would be hopeless to attempt any explanation. "No, " he said;"we'll play it out here. "

"We will?" Bella echoed him. "Indeed! We will?" Now the emphasis wassharply on the first word. "What's going to keep me?"

"You're my wife, " he replied simply; "we have a child. "

"Times have changed, Snow, " Bowman interrupted. "You ought to read thepapers. This is ladies' day. The old harem stuff don't go no longer. They are emancipated. "

"Lemuel, " Doret insisted, a narrowed hard gaze on the other man;"Lemuel Doret. "

"He thinks nobody'll remember, " his wife explained. "Lem's redeemed. "

"Your name's what you say, " Bowman agreed, "but remember this--youcan't throw any scare into me. I'm no Fauntleroy, neither. Behave. "

The anger seethed again beneath Lemuel's restraint. It began to beparticular, personal, focused on Bowman; and joined to it was a pettydislike for the details of the man's appearance, the jaunty bearing andconspicuous necktie, the gloss of youth over the unmistakable signs ofdegeneration, the fatty pouches of his eyes and loose throat. 

"I wouldn't bother with scaring you, " he told him. "Why should I?You've got no kick. I took you in, didn't I? And all I said was myname. Snow Doret's dead; he died in prison; and this Lemuel's alldifferent----"

"I've heard about that too, " Bowman returned; "but somehow I don't takestock in these miracles. "

"If you ever see me looking like I might be Snow, go quiet, " Lemueladvised. "That's all. "

With clenched hands he abruptly departed. The cords of his neck wereswollen and rigid; there was a haze before his eyes. He went up to therefuge of his daughter's room. She was lying still, breathing thickly, with a finger print of scarlet on each cheek. 

She was so thin, so wasted, the bed and room so stripped of everycomfort, that he dropped forward on his knees, his arms outflung acrossher body in an inarticulate prayer for faith, for strength andpatience. 

It was not much he wanted--only food for one child and help for awoman, and a grip on the devil tearing at him in the form of hatred. 

He got only a temporary relief, for when he went down Bella and JuneBowman were whispering together; he passed the door with his silenttread and saw their heads close. Bella was actually pretty. 

An astonishing possibility occurred to him--perhaps Bella would go awaywith Bowman. An unbidden deep relief at such a prospect invaded him;how happy he could be with Flavilla. They would get a smaller house, which Flavilla would soon learn to keep for him; they would go tochurch and prayer meeting together, her soprano voice and his bassjoined in the praise of the Lord, of the Almighty who raised the deadand his Son, who took the thief to glory. 

This speculation was overcome by a troubled mind; both his innate pridein his wife as an institution of his honor, the feeling that he woulduphold it at any cost, and his Christianity interrupted the vision ofrelease. He must not let her stumble, and he would see that June Bowmandidn't interfere in his home. More beer made its appearance, and theother man grew louder, boastful. He exhibited the roll of money--thatwas nothing, four times that much could be had from the same source. Hewas a spender, too, and treated all his friends liberally. Lemuel wasto see if there was any wine in the damned jumping-off place; and whenwould they all go to Atlantic?

"Never, " Doret repeated. 

Bowman laughed skeptically. 

The rage stirred and increased, blinding Lemuel Doret's heart, stinginghis eyes. Bella, watching him, became quieter, and she gave June--shecalled him June--a warning pressure of her fingers. Her husband saw itwith indifference; everything small was lost in the hot tide envelopinghim. His hands twitched, but there was no other outward sign of histumult. He smoked his cigarettes with extreme deliberation. 

It was evening again, and they were sitting on the narrow porch. Thewest was a serene lake of fading light against which the trees madedark blots of foliage. Nantbrook seemed unreal, a place of thin shadow, the future unsubstantial as well; only the past was actual in LemuelDoret's mind--the gray cold prison, the city at night, locked roomsfilled with smoke and lurid lights, avaricious voices in the mechanicalsentences of gambling, agonized tones begging for a shot, just a shot, of an addicted drug, a girl crying. 

He tried to sing a measure of praise beneath his breath but the tuneand words evaded him. He glanced furtively at Bowman's complacent bulk, the flushed face turned fatuously to Bella. Under the other's left armhis coat was drawn smoothly on a cushion of fat. 

Later Lemuel stopped at Flavilla's bed, and though she was composed hewas vaguely alarmed at what seemed to him an unreal rigidity. She wasnot asleep, but sunk in a stupor with a glimmer of vision and anelusive pulse. He should not have listened to Bella but had a doctor asFrazee had advised. It appeared now that--with all Flavilla held forhim--he had been strangely neglectful. At the same time he wasconscious of the steady increase of his hatred for Bowman. This wasnatural, he told himself; Bowman in a way was the past--all that he, Doret, had put out of his life. At least he had believed thataccomplished, yet here it was back again, alive and threatening;drinking beer in his rooms, whispering to his wife, putting the thoughtof Flavilla from his head. 

In the morning even Bella admitted that Flavilla might be sick and adoctor necessary. He took one look at his daughter's burning face, heard the shrill labor of her breathing, and hurried downstairs with aset face. He was standing with Bella in the hall when June Bowmandescended. 

"Flavilla ain't right, " she told him. 

The latter promptly exhibited the wad of money. "Whatever you need, " hesaid. 

"Put it away, " Lemuel replied shortly. "I don't want any of that forFlavilla. "

Bowman studied him. Doret made no effort to mask his bitterness, andthe other whistled faintly. Bella laughed, turning from her husband. 

"He's cracked, " she declared; "you'll get no decency off him. A bodywould think I had been in jail and him looking out for her all thoseten years and more. I can say thank you, though; we'll need your help, and glad. "

"Put it away, " Lemuel Doret repeated. He was more than ever catlike, alert, bent slightly forward with tense fingers. 

Bowman was unperturbed. "I told you about this flash stuff, " heobserved. "Nobody's forcing money on you. Get the bend out of you andgive me a shave. That'll start you on the pills. "

Lemuel Doret mechanically followed him into the rude barber shop; hewas fascinated by the idea of laying the razor across Bowman's throat. The latter extended himself in the chair and Doret slowly, thoroughly, covered his lower face with lather, through which the blade drew with aclean smooth rip. A fever burned in the standing man's brain, he foughtconstantly against a stiffening of his employed fingers--a swift turn, a cutting twist. Subconsciously he called noiselessly upon the God thathad sustained him and, divided between apprehension and the increasinglust to kill, his lips held the form in which they had pronounced thatimpressive name. He had the sensation of battling against a terrificwind, a remorseless force beating him to submission. His body achedfrom the violence of the struggle to keep his hand steadily, evenly, busied, following in a delicate sweep the cords of June Bowman's neck, the jugulars. 

The other looked up at him and grinned confidently. "Little children, "he said, "love one another. "

Lemuel stopped, the razor suspended in air; there was a din in hisears, his vision blurred, his grip tightened on the bone handle. Asweat started out on his brow and he found himself dabbing JuneBowman's face with a wet cold towel. 

"Witch hazel?" he asked mechanically. 

Suddenly he was so tired that his legs seemed incapable of support. Hewiped the razor blade and put it away with a lax nerveless hand. Herealized that he had been again at the point of murder. He had beensaved by the narrowest margin in the world. For a moment the fact thathe had been saved absorbed him, and then the imminent danger of hisposition, his weakness, filled him with the sense of failure, a heavyfeeling of hopelessness. His prayers and singing, his plans forredemption, for a godly life, had threatened to end at the firstassault of evil. 

He temporarily overcame his dejection at the memory of Flavilla. DoctorMarkley lived in a larger town than Nantbrook, a dozen miles beyond thefields and green hills, and he must get him by telephone. Then therewas the problem of payment. The doctor, he knew, would expect his fee, two dollars, immediately from such an applicant as himself; and he hadless than a dollar. He explained something of this over the wire, adding that if Markley would see Flavilla at the end of the day themoney would be forthcoming. That, the crisp, disembodied tone replied, was impossible; he must call in the middle of the morning, but nodifficulty would be made about his bill; Doret could send the amount tohim promptly. 

He hurried back to the house with this information, and found Bellaseated in the kitchen, the inevitable cigarette throwing up its ribbonof smoke from her fingers, and June Bowman at her shoulder. Lemuelignored the latter. 

"The doctor'll be here at about eleven, " he announced. "Mind you listento all he says and get Flavilla into a clean nightgown and sheets. "

"What's the matter with your tending to her?" Bella demanded. 

"I won't be here; not till night. I'm going to put up hay with one ofthe farmers. I hear they're in a hurry and offering good money. "

Bella's expression was strange. She laughed in a forced way. 

"We got to hand it to you, " Bowman admitted genially; "you're there. Iguess I'd starve before ever it would come to me to fork hay. "

Lemuel's wife added nothing; her lips twisted into a fixed smile atonce defiant and almost tremulous. Well, he was late now; he couldn'tlinger to inquire into Bella's moods. Yet at the door he hesitatedagain to impress on her the importance of attending the doctor's everyword. 

It seemed to him an hour later that he was burning up in a dryintolerable haze of sun and hay. He awkwardly balanced heavy raggedforkfuls, heaving them onto the mounting stack of the wagon in a pasteof sweat and dust. His eyes were filmed and his throat dry. Hestruggled on in the soft unaccustomed tyranny of the grass, the glareof sun, with his mind set on the close of day. He thought of coolshadows, of city streets wet at night, and a swift plunge into a riverwhere it swept about the thrust of a wharf. He wondered what DoctorMarkley would say about Flavilla; probably the child wasn't seriouslysick. 

The day drew apparently into a tormenting eternity; the physical efforthe welcomed; it seemed to exhaust that devil in him which had so nearlybetrayed and ruined him forever in the morning; but the shiftingslippery hay, the fiery dust, the incandescent blaze created an infernoin the midst of which his mind whirled with monotonous giddy images andhalf-meaningless phrases spoken and re-spoken. Yet the sun was not, ashe had begun to suppose, still in the sky; it sank toward the horizon, the violet shadows slipped out from the western hills, and Lemuelfinished his toil in a swimming gold mist. It was two miles toNantbrook, and disregarding his aching muscles he hurried over the grayundulating road. The people of the village were gathered on theircommanding porches, the barkeeper at the hotel bulked in his doorway. The lower part of Lemuel's own house was closed; no one appeared as hemounted the insecure steps. 

"Bella!" he cried in an overwhelming anxiety before he reached thehall. 

There was no reply. He paused inside and called again. His voice echoedabout the bare walls; he heard a dripping from the kitchen sink;nothing more. 

"I'd better go up, " he said aloud with a curious tightening of histhroat. He progressed evenly up the stairs; suddenly a great weightseemed to bow his shoulders; the illusion was so vivid that he actuallystaggered; he was incapable of breaking from his measured progress. Heturned directly into Flavilla's room. She was there--he saw her atonce. But Bella hadn't put a fresh nightgown on her, and the sheetswere disordered and unchanged. 

Lemuel took a step forward; then he stopped. "The fever's gone, " hevainly told the dread freezing about his heart at a stilled white face. 

"Yes, " he repeated with numb lips; "it's gone. "

He approached the bed and standing over it and the meager body hecursed softly and wonderingly. The light was failing and it veiled thesharp lines of the dead child's countenance. For a moment his gazestrayed about the room and he felt a swift sorrow at its ugliness. Hehad wanted pretty things, pictures and a bright carpet and ribbons, forFlavilla. Then he was conscious of a tearing rage, but now he wasunmindful of it, impervious to its assault in the fixed necessity ofthe present. 

Later----

He was sitting again on his porch, after the momentary morbid stir ofcuriosity and small funeral, when the unrestrained sweep of his ownemotion overcame him. His appearance had not changed; it was impossiblefor his expression to become bleaker; but there was a tremendous changewithin. Yet it was not strange; rather he had the sensation ofreturning to an old familiar condition. There he was at ease; he movedswiftly, surely forward in the realization of what lay ahead. 

Bella and June Bowman had left the house almost directly after him, andMarkley, finding it empty, with no response to his repeated knocking, had turned away, being as usual both impatient and hurried. Yes, Bellahad gone and left Flavilla without even a glass of water. But Belladidn't matter. He couldn't understand this--except where he saw at lastthat she never had mattered; yet it was so. June Bowman was different. 

There was no rush about the latter--to-morrow, next week would doequally. There was no doubt either. Lemuel Doret gave a passingthought, like a half-contemptuous gesture of final dismissal, to somuch that had lately occupied him. The shadow of a smile disfigured hismetallic lips. 

The following noon he shut the door of his house with a sharp impactand made his way over the single street of Nantbrook toward the city. His fear of it had vanished; and when he reached the steel-boundtowering masonry, the pouring crowds, he moved directly to a theaterfrom which an audience composed entirely of men was passing out by theposters of a hectic burlesque. 

"Clegett?" he asked at the grille of the box office. 

A small man with a tilted black derby came from the darkenedauditorium. 

"Where have you been?" he demanded as he caught sight of Lemuel Doret. "I asked two or three but you might have been dead for all of them. "

"That's just about what I have, " Doret answered. "Mr. Clegett, I'd likea little money. "

"How little?"

"A hundred would be plenty. "

The other without hesitation produced a fold of currency, from which hetransferred an amount to Lemuel Doret. It went into his pocket withouta glance. He hesitated a moment, then added: "This will be all. "

Clegett nodded. "It might, and it might not, " he asserted; "but youcan't jam me. You're welcome to that, anyhow. It was coming to you. Iwondered when you'd be round. "

It was not far from the theater to a glittering hardware store, a placethat specialized in sporting goods. There were cases of fishing reels, brilliant tied flies and varnished, gayly wrapped cane rods, gaffs andcoiled wire leaders, and an impressive assortment of modern pistols, rifles and shotguns. 

"Something small and neat, " Doret told the man in charge of theweapons. 

He examined a compact automatic pistol, a blunted shape no larger thanhis palm. It was a beautiful mechanism, and as with his silken razors, merely to hold it, to test the smooth action, gave him a sense ofpleasure. 

Later, seated in a quiet cafe, an adjunct of the saloon below, he couldnot resist the temptation of taking the pistol in its rubber holsterfrom his pocket, merely to finger the delicate trigger. There was nohurry. He knew his world thoroughly: it was a small land in which theinhabitants had constant knowledge of each other. A question in theright place would bring all the information he needed. Lemuel wasabsolutely composed, actually he was a little sleepy; longing and innerstrife, dreams, were at an end; only an old familiar state, athoroughly comprehensible purpose remained. 

A girl--she could have been no more than fourteen--was hurriedlyslipping a paper of white crystalline powder into a glass ofsarsaparilla. She smiled at him as she saw his indifferentinterrogation. 

"It's better rolled with a pencil first, " he said, and then returned tothe contemplation of his own affair. 

The result of this was that, soon after, he was seated in the smokingcar of an electric train that, hurtling across a sedgy green expanse ofsalt meadow, deposited him in a colorful thronging city built on sandand the rim of the sea. It was best to avoid if possible even a casualinquiry, and Bowman had spoken of Atlantic City. The afternoon was hotand bright, the beach was still dotted with groups of bathers; andLemuel Doret found an inconspicuous place in a row of swing chairsprotected by an awning ... Where he waited for evening. Below him ayoung woman lay contentedly with her head in a youth's lap; a child ina red scrap of bathing suit dug sturdily with an ineffectual tin spade. 

The day declined, the water darkened and the groups vanished from thebeach. An attendant was stacking the swing chairs, and Lemuel Doretleft his place. The boardwalk, elevated above him, was filled with agay multitude, subdued by the early twilight and the brightening lemon-yellow radiance of the strung globes. Drifting, with only his gazealert, in the scented mob, he stopped at an unremarkable lunch room forcoffee, and afterward turned down a side avenue to where someautomobiles waited at the curb. A driver moved from his seat as Lemuelapproached, but after a closer inspection the former's interest died. 

Doret lighted a cigarette. "How are they hitting you?" he askednegligently. 

"Bad; but the season ain't opened up right yet. It'll have to soon, though, if they want me; gas has gone to where it's like shovingchampagne into your car. "

"The cafés doing anything?"

"None except the Torquay; but the cabaret they got takes all theprofits. That's on the front. Then there's the World, back of the town. It's colored, but white go. Quite a place--I saw a sailor come out lastnight hashed with a knife. "

He found the Torquay, a place of brilliant illumination and color, packed with tables about a dancing floor, and small insistentorchestra. He sat against the wall by the entrance, apparently sunk inapathy, but his vision searched the crowd like the cutting bar of lightthrown on the intermittent singers. He renewed his order. Towardmidnight a fresh influx of people swept in; his search was unsatisfied. 

The cigarette girl, pinkly pretty with an exaggerated figure, carryinga wooden tray with her wares, stopped at his gesture. 

"Why don't you hang that about your neck with something?" he inquired. 

"And get round shouldered!" she demanded. Her manner becameconfidential. "I do get fierce tired, " she admitted; "nine till two-thirty. "

He asked for a particular brand of cigarette. 

"We haven't got them. " She studied him with a memorizing frown. "Theyare hardly ever asked for; and now--yes, there was a man, last night, Ithink----"

"He must have made an impression. "

"Another move and I'd slapped him if I lost my job. They got to be somefresh when they disturb me, too. "

"Alone, then?"

"That's right. Wanted me to meet him, and showed me a roll of money. Me!" her contempt sharpened. 

"He was young?"

"Young nothing, with gray in his shoebrush mustache. "

By such small things, Lemuel Doret reflected, the freshness that hadfixed June Bowman in the girl's memory, men were marked and followed. 

"I told him, " she volunteered further, "he didn't belong on theboardwalk but in the rough joints past the avenue. "

Paying for his drink Doret left the Torquay; and following the slightpressure of two suggestions and a faint possibility he found himself ina sodden dark district where a red-glass electric sign proclaimed theentrance to the World. An automobile stopped and a chattering group ofyoung colored girls in sheer white with vivid ribbons, accompanied bysultry silent negroes, preceded him into the café. He was met by abrassy racket and a curiously musty heavy air. 

The room was long and narrow, and on one wall a narrow long platformwas built above the floor for the cabaret. There was a ledge about theother walls the width of one table, and below that the space wascrowded by a singular assembly. There were women faintly bisque inshade, with beautiful regular features, and absolute blacks withflattened noses and glistening eyes in burning red and green muslins. Among them were white girls with untidy bright-gold hair, veiled gazeand sullen painted lips; white men sat scattered through the darkerthrong, men like Lemuel Doret, quiet and watchful, others laughingcarelessly, belligerent, and still more sunk in a stupor of drink. 

Perhaps ten performers occupied the stage, and at one end was thehysterical scraping on strings, the muffled hammered drums, thatfurnished the rhythm for a slow intense waltz. 

Yet in no detail was the place so marked as by an indefinableoppressive atmosphere. The strong musk and edged perfumes, the races, distinct and subtly antagonistic or mingled and spoiled, the raspinginstruments, combined in an unnatural irritating pressure; theyproduced an actual sensation of cold and staleness like that from theair of a vault. 

Doret ordered beer in a bottle, and watched the negro waitress snap offthe cap. He had never seen a café such as this before, and he wasengaged, slightly; its character he expressed comprehensively in theword "bad. "

A wonderfully agile dancer caught the attention of the room. Themusicians added their voices to the jangle, and the minor half-inarticulate wail, the dull regular thudding of the bass drum weresavage. The song fluctuated and died; the dancer dropped exhausted intoher chair. 

Then Lemuel saw June Bowman. He was only a short distance away, and--without Bella--seated alone but talking to the occupants of the nexttable. Lemuel Doret was composed. In his pocket he removed theautomatic pistol from its rubber case. Still there was no hurry--Bowmanwas half turned from him, absolutely at his command. The other twistedabout, his glance swept the room, and he recognized Doret. He half rosefrom his chair, made a gesture of acknowledgment that died beforeLemuel's stony face, and sank back into his place. Lemuel saw Bowman'shand slip under his coat, but it came out immediately; the fingersdrummed on the table. 

The careless fool--he was unarmed. 

There was no hurry; he could make one, two steps at Bowman's slightestmovement.... Lemuel thought of Flavilla deserted, dying alone with aparched mouth, of all that had gone to wreck in the evil that hadovertaken him--the past that could not, it appeared, be killed. Yetwhere Bowman was the past, it was nearly over. He'd finish the beerbefore him, that would leave some in the bottle, and then end it. Withthe glass poised in his hand he heard an absurd unexpected sound. Looking up he saw that it came from the platform, from a black woman inpale-blue silk, a short ruffled skirt and silver-paper ornaments in hertightly crinkled hair. She was singing, barely audibly:

 _"Oh, children ... Lost in Egypt See that chariot.... ... Good tidings!"_

Even from his table across the room he realized that she was sunk in anabstraction; her eyes were shut and her body rocking in beat to theline. 

"Good tidings, " she sang. 

A negro close beside Doret looked up suddenly, and his voice joined ina humming undertone, "See that chariot, oh, good tidings ... ThatEgyptian chariot. "

A vague emotion stirred within Lemuel Doret, the singing annoyed him, troubled him with memories of perishing things. Another joined, and thespiritual swelled slightly, haltingly above the clatter of glasses andlaughter. The woman who had begun it was swept to her feet; she stoodwith her tinsel gayety of apparel making her tragic ebony faceinfinitely grotesque and tormented while her tone rose in a clearemotional soprano:

 _"Children of Israel, unhappy slaves, Good tidings, good tidings, For that chariot's coming, God's chariot's coming, ... Coming, ........... Chariot out of Egypt. "_

The magic of her feeling swept like a flame over the room; shrillmirth, mocking calls, curses were bound in a louder and louder volumeof hope and praise. The negroes were on their feet, swaying in thehysterical contagion of melody, the unutterable longing of their alienisolation. 

"God's chariot's coming. " The song filled the roof, hung with brightstrips of paper, it boomed through the windows and doors. Sobbing criescut through it, profound invocations, beautiful shadowy voices chimedabove the weight of sound. 

It beat like a hammer on Lemuel Doret's brain and heart. Suddenly hecouldn't breathe, and he rose with a gasp, facing the miracle that hadovertaken the place he called bad. God's chariot--was there! He heardGod's very tone directed at him. Borne upward on the flood ofexaltation he seemed to leave the earth far, far away. Something hard, frozen, in him burst, and tears ran over his face; he was torn by fearand terrible joy. His Lord.... 

He fell forward on his knees, an arm overturning the bottle of beer;and, his sleeve dabbled in it, he pressed his head against the coldedge of the table, praying wordlessly for faith, incoherently ravishedby the marvel of salvation, the knowledge of God here, everywhere. 

The harmony wavered and sank, and out of the shuddering silence thatfollowed Lemuel Doret turned again from the city. 

THE FLOWER OF SPAIN

I

From the window of the drawing-room Lavinia Sanviano could see, on theleft, the Statue of Garibaldi, where the Corso Regina Maria cut intothe Lungarno; on the right, and farther along, the gray-green foliageof the Cascine. Before her the Arno flowed away, sluggish and without awrinkle or reflection on its turbid surface, into Tuscany. It was pastthe middle of afternoon, and a steady procession of carriages andmounted officers in pale blue tunics moved below toward the shade ofthe Cascine. 

Lavinia could not see this gay progress very well, for the window--ithad only a narrow ledge guarded by an iron grille--was practicallyfilled by her sister, Gheta, and Anna Mantegazza. Occasionally sheleaned forward, pressed upon Gheta's shoulder, for a hastyunsatisfactory glimpse. 

"You are crushing my sleeves!" Gheta finally and sharply complained. "Do go somewhere else. Anna and I want to talk without your young earseternally about. When do you return to the convent?"

Lavinia drew back. However, she didn't leave. She was accustomed to hersister's complaining, and--unless the other went to their father--sheignored her hints. Lavinia's curiosity in worldly scenes and topics wasalmost as full as her imagination thereof. She was sixteen, and wouldhave to endure another year of obscurity before her marriage could bethought of, or she take any part in the social life where Gheta movedwith such marked success. 

But, Lavinia realized with a sigh, she couldn't expect to be pursuedlike Gheta, who was very beautiful. Gheta was so exceptional that shehad been introduced to the Florentine polite world without thecustomary preliminary of marriage. She could, almost every one agreed, marry very nearly whomever and whenever she willed. Even now, after thenumber of years she had been going about with practically all herfriends wedded, no one seriously criticized the Sanvianos for notinsisting on a match with one of the several eligibles who hadunquestionably presented themselves. 

Gheta was slender and round; her complexion had the flawless pallidbloom of a gardenia; her eyes and hair were dark, and her lips anenticing scarlet thread. Perhaps her chin was a trifle lacking indefinition, her voice a little devoid of warmth; but those were minordefects in a person so precisely radiant. Her dress was alwaysnoticeably lovely; at present she wore pink tulle over lustrous gray, with a high silver girdle, a narrow black velvet band and diamond claspabout her delicate full throat. 

Anna Mantegazza was more elaborately gowned, in white embroidery, witha little French hat; but Anna Mantegazza was an American with millions, and elaboration was a commonplace with her. Lavinia wore only a simplewhite slip, confined about her flexible waist with a yellow ribbon; andshe was painfully conscious of the contrast she presented to the twowomen seated in the front of the window. 

The fact was that a whole fifth of the Sanvianos' income was spent onGheta's clothes; and this left only the most meager provision forLavinia. But this, the latter felt, was just--still in the convent, sherequired comparatively little personal adornment; while the other'sbeauty demanded a worthy emphasis. Later Lavinia would have tulle andsilver lace. She wished, however, that Gheta would get married; forLavinia knew that even if she came home she would be held back untilthe older sister was settled. It was her opinion that Gheta was verysilly to show such indifference to Cesare Orsi.... Suddenly she longedto have men--not fat and good-natured like the Neapolitan banker, butaustere and romantic--in love with her. She clasped her hands to herfine young breast and a delicate color stained her cheeks. She stoodvery straight and her breathing quickened through parted lips. 

She was disturbed by the echo of a voice from the cool depths of thehouse, and turned at approaching footfalls. The room was so high andlarge that its stiff gilt and brocade furnishing appearedinsignificant. Three long windows faced the Lungarno, but two werescreened with green slatted blinds and heavily draped, and the lightwithin was silvery and illusive. A small man in correct Englishclothes, with a pointed bald head and a heavy nose, enteredimpulsively. 

"It's Bembo, " Lavinia announced flatly. 

"Of course it's Bembo, " he echoed vivaciously. "Who's more faithful tothe Casa Sanviano----"

"At tea time, " Lavinia interrupted. 

"Lavinia, " her sister said sharply, "don't be impertinent. There are somany strangers driving, " she continued, to the man; "do stand and tellus who they are. You know every second person in Europe. "

He pressed eagerly forward, and Anna Mantegazza turned and patted hishand. 

"I wish you were so attentive to Pier and myself, " she remarked, bothlight and serious. "I'd like to buy you--you're indispensable inFlorence. "

"Contessa!" he protested. "Delighted! At once. "

"Bembo, " Gheta demanded, "duty--who's that in the little carriage withthe bells bowed over the horses?"

He leaned out over the grille, his beady alert gaze sweeping the waybelow. 

"Litolff, " he pronounced without a moment's hesitation--"a Russianswell. The girl with him is----" He stopped with a side glance atLavinia, a slight shrug. 

"Positively, Lavinia, " Gheta insisted again, more crossly, "you're anuisance! When do you go back to school?"

"In a week, " Lavinia answered serenely. 

With Bembo added to the others, she could see almost nothing of thescene below. Across the river the declining sun cast a rosy light onthe great glossy hedges and clipped foliage of the Boboli Gardens; farto the left the paved height of the Piazzale Michelangelo rose abovethe somber sweep of roofs and bridges; an aged bell rang harshly andmingled with the inconsequential clatter on the Lungarno. Anoverwhelming sense of the mystery of being stabbed, sharp as a knife, at her heart; a choking longing possessed her to experience all--allthe wonders of life, but principally love. 

"Look, Bembo!" Anna Mantegazza suddenly exclaimed. "No; there--approaching! Who's that singular person in the hired carriage?"

Her interest was so roused that Lavinia, once more forgetful of Gheta'ssleeves, leaned over her sister's shoulder, and immediatelydistinguished the object of their curiosity. 

An open cab was moving slowly, almost directly under the window, with asingle patron--a slender man, sitting rigidly erect, in a short, blackshell jacket, open upon white linen, a long black tie, and a softnarrow scarlet sash. He wore a wide-brimmed stiff felt hat slanted overa thin countenance burned by the sun as dark as green bronze; his facewas as immobile as metal, too; it bore, as if permanently molded, anexpression of excessive contemptuous pride. 

Bembo's voice rose in a babble of excited information. 

"'Singular?' Why, that's one of the most interesting men alive. It'sAbrego y Mochales, the greatest bullfighter in existence, the Flower ofSpain. I've seen him in the ring and at San Sebastian with the King;and I can assure you that one was hardly more important than the other. He's idolized by every one in Spain and South America; women of allclasses fall over each other with declarations and gifts. "

As if he had heard the pronouncement of his name the man in the cabturned sharply and looked up. Gheta was leaning out, and his gazefastened upon her with a sudden and extraordinary intensity. Laviniasaw that her sister, without dissembling her interest, sat forward, statuesque and lovely. It seemed to the former that the cab was anintolerable time passing; she wished to draw Gheta back, to cover herindiscretion from Anna Mantegazza's prying sight. She sighed withinexplicable relief when she saw that the man had driven beyond themand that he did not turn. 

A bull-fighter! A blurred picture formed in Lavinia's mind from thevarious details she had read and heard of the cruelty of the Spanishnational sport--torn horses, stiff on blood-soaked sand; a frenzied andsavage populace; and charging bulls, drenched with red froth. Sheshuddered. 

"What a brute!" she spoke aloud unintentionally. 

Gheta glanced at her out of a cool superiority, but Anna Mantegazzanodded vigorously. 

"He would be a horrid person!" she affirmed. 

"How silly!" Gheta responded. "It's an art, like the opera; he's anartist in courage. Personally I find it rather fascinating. Most menare so--so mild. "

Lavinia knew that the other was thinking of Cesare Orsi, and she agreedwith her sister that Orsi was far too mild. Without the Orsi fortune--he had much more even than Anna Mantegazza--Cesare would simply getnowhere. The Spaniard--Lavinia could not recall his name, although ithung elusively among her thoughts--was different; women of all classes, Bembo had said, pursued him with favors. He could be cruel, shedecided, and shivered a little vicariously. She half heard Bembo'srapid high-pitched excitement over trifles. 

"You are going to the Guarinis' sale to-morrow afternoon? But, ofcourse, every one is. Well, if I come across Abrego y Mochales beforethen, and I'm almost certain to, and he'll come, I'll bring him. He'sas proud as the devil--duchesses, you see--so no airs with him. TheFlower of Spain. A king of sport sits high at the table--" He went on, apparently interminable; but Lavinia turned away to where tea was beinglaid in a far angle. 

Others approached over the tiled hall and the Marchese Sanviano enteredwith Cesare Orsi. The window was deserted, and the women trailedgracefully toward the bubbling minor note of the alcohol lamp. BothSanviano and Orsi were big men--the former, like Bembo, wore Englishclothes; but Orsi's ungainly body had been tightly garbed by a Southernmilitary tailor, making him--Lavinia thought--appear absolutelyridiculous. His collar was both too tight and too high, althoughperspiration promised relief from the latter. 

A general and unremarkable conversation mingled with the faint rattleof passing cups and low directions to a servant. Lavinia was seatednext to Cesare Orsi, but she was entirely oblivious of his heavy kindlyface and almost anxiously benevolent gaze. He spoke to her, and becauseshe had comprehended nothing of his speech she smiled at him with anabsent and illuminating charm. He smiled back, happy in her apparentpleasure; and his good-nature was so insistent that she was impelled toreward it with a remark. 

She thought, she said, that Gheta was particularly lovely thisafternoon. He agreed eagerly; and Lavinia wondered whether she had beenclumsy. She simply couldn't imagine marrying Cesare Orsi, but she knewthat such a match for Gheta was freely discussed, and she hoped thather sister would not make difficulties. She wouldn't have dresses sofussy as Gheta's--in figure, anyhow, she was perhaps her sister'ssuperior--fine materials, simply cut, with a ruffle at the throat andhem, a satin wrap pointed at the back, with a soft tassel.... 

Orsi was talking to Gheta, and she was answering him with a brevitythat had cast a shade of annoyance over the Marchese Sanviano's largefeatures. Lavinia agreed with her father that Gheta was a fool. Shemust be thirty, the younger suddenly realized. Bembo was growinghysterical from the tea and his own shrill anecdotes. He resembled agrotesque performing bird with a large beak. Lavinia's mind returned tothe silent dark man who had passed in a cab. She wished, now, that shehad been sitting at the front of the window--the object of hisunsparing intense gaze. She realized that he was extremely handsome, and contrasted his erect slim carriage with Orsi's thick slouchedshoulders. The latter interrupted her look, misinterpreted it, and saidsomething about candy from Giacosa's. 

Lavinia thanked him and rose; the discussion about the tea table becameunbearably stupid, no better than the flat chatter of the nuns atschool. 

Her room was small and barely furnished, with a thin rug over the stonefloor, and opened upon the court about which the house was built. TheSanvianos occupied the second floor. Below, the _piano nobile_ wasrented by the proprietor of a great wine industry. It was evident thathe was going out to dinner, for his dark blue brougham was waiting atthe inner entrance. The horse, a fine sleek animal, was stampingimpatiently, with ringing shoes, on the paved court. A floweringmagnolia tree against one corner filled the thickening dusk with aheavy palpitating sweetness. 

Lavinia stayed for a long while at the ledge of her window. Her hair, which she wore braided in a smooth heavy rope, slid out and hung free. The brougham left, with a clatter of hoofs and a final clang of thegreat iron-bound door on the street; above, white stars grew visible ina blue dust. She dressed slowly, changing from one plain gown toanother hardly less simple. Before the mirror, in an unsatisfactorylamplight, she studied her appearance in comparison with Gheta's. 

She lacked the latter's lustrous pallor, the petal-like richness ofGheta's skin. Lavinia's cheeks bore a perceptible flush, which shedetested and tried vainly to mask with powder. Her eyes, a clear bluishgray, inherited from the Lombard strain in her mother, were not so muchfancied as her sister's brown; but at least they were more uncommon andcontrasted nicely with her straight dark bang. Her shoulders and armsshe surveyed with frank healthy approbation. Now her hair annoyed her, swinging childishly about her waist, and she secured it in aninstinctively effective coil on the top of her head. She decided toleave it there for dinner. Her mother was away for the night; and sheknew that Gheta's sarcasm would only stir their father to a teasingmirth. 

Later, Gheta departed for a ball, together with the Marchese Sanviano--to be dropped at his club--and Lavinia was left alone. The scene in thecourt was repeated, but with less flourish than earlier in the evening. Gheta would be nominally in the charge of Anna Mantegazza; but Laviniaknew how laxly the American would hold her responsibility. She wished, moving disconsolately under high painted ceilings through the semi-gloom of still formal chambers, that she was a recognized beauty--free, like Gheta. 

The drawing-room, from which they had watched the afternoon procession, was in complete darkness, save for the luminous rectangle of the windowthey had occupied. Its drapery was still disarranged. Lavinia crossedthe room and stood at the grille. The lights strung along the river, curving away like uniform pale bubbles, cast a thin illumination overthe Lungarno, through which a solitary vehicle moved. Lavinia idlywatched it approach, but her interest increased as it halted directlyopposite where she stood. A man got quickly out--a lithe figure with abroad-brimmed hat slanted across his eyes. It was, she realized with aninvoluntary quickening of her blood, Abrego y Mochales. A second manfollowed, tendered him a curiously shaped object, and stood by thewaiting cab while the bull-fighter walked deliberately forward. Hestopped under the window and shifted the thing in his hands. 

A rich chord of strings vibrated through the night, another followed, and then a brief pattern of sound was woven from the serious notes of aguitar. Lavinia shrank back within the room--it was, incredibly, aserenade on the stolid Lungarno. It was for Gheta! The romance of thesouth of Spain had come to life under their window. A voice joined theinstrument, melodious and melancholy, singing an air with littlevariation, but with an insistent burden of desire. The voice and theguitar mingled and fluctuated, drifting up from the pavement exotic andmoving. Lavinia could comprehend but little of the Spanish:

 _"I followed through the acacias, But it was only the wind. .... Looked for you beyond the limes----"_

The thrill at her heart deepened until tears wet her cheeks. It was forGheta, but it overwhelmed Lavinia with a formless and aching emotion;it was for Gheta, but her response was instant and uncontrollable. Itseemed to Lavinia that the sheer beauty of life, which had moved her sosharply, had been magnified unbearably; she had never dreamed of thepossibilities of such ecstasy or such delectable grief. 

The song ended abruptly, with a sharp jarring note. The man by thecarriage moved deferentially forward and took the guitar. She could seethe minute pulsating sparks of cigarettes; heard a direction to thedriver. Abrego y Mochales and the other got into the cab and it turnedand shambled away. Lavinia Sanviano moved forward mechanically, gazingafter the dark vanishing shape on the road. She was shaken, almostappalled, by the feeling that stirred her. A momentary terror of livingswept over her; the thrills persisted; her hands were icy cold. She hadbeen safely a child until now, when she had lost that small security, and gained--what?

She studied herself, clad in her coarse nightgown with narrow lace, inher inadequate mirror. The color had left her cheeks and her eyes shonedarkly from shadows. "Lavinia Sanviano!" she spoke aloud, with theextraordinary sensation of addressing, in her reflection, a stranger. She could never, never wear her hair down again, she thought with anodd pang. 

II

Gheta invariably took breakfast in her room. It was a larger chamber byfar than Lavinia's, toward the Via Garibaldi. A thick white bearskinwas spread by the canopied bed, an elaborate dressing table stoodbetween long windows drawn with ruffled pink silk, while the ceilingbore a scaling ottocento frescoing of garlanded cupids. She was sittingin bed, the chocolate pot on a painted table at her side, when Laviniaentered. 

A maid was putting soft paper in the sleeves of Gheta's ball dress, andLavinia, finding an unexpected reluctance to proceed with what she hadcome to say, watched the servant's deft care. 

"Mochales was here last night, " Lavinia finally remarked abruptly--"that is he stood on the street and serenaded you. "

Gheta put her cup down with a clatter. 

"How charming!" she exclaimed. "And I missed it for an insufferableaffair. He stood under the window--"

"With a guitar, " Lavinia proceeded evenly. "It was very beautiful. "

"Heavens! Bembo's going to fetch him to the Guarinis' sale, and Iforgot and promised Anna Mantegazza to drive out to Arcetri! But Annawon't miss this. It was really a very pretty compliment. "

She spoke with a trivial satisfaction that jarred painfully onLavinia's memory of the past night. Gheta calmly accepted the serenadeas another tribute to her beauty; Lavinia could imagine what AnnaMantegazza and her sister would say, and they both seemed commonplace--even a little vulgar--to her acutely sensitive being. She suddenly losther desire to resemble Gheta; her sister diminished in her estimation. The elder, Lavinia realized with an unsparing detachment, was envelopedin a petty vanity acquired in an atmosphere of continuous flattery; ithad chilled her heart. 

The Guarinis, who had been overtaken by misfortune, and whose householdgoods were, being disposed of at public sale, occupied a large gloomyfloor on the Via Cavour. The rooms were crowded by their friends andthe merely curious; the carpets were protected by a temporary covering;and all the furnishings, the chairs and piano, pictures, glass andbijoux, bore gummed and numbered labels. 

The sale was progressing in one of the larger salons, but the crowdcirculated in a slow solid undulation through every room. Gheta andAnna Mantegazza had sought the familiar comfortable corner of anentresol, and were seated. Lavinia was standing tensely, with alaboring breast, when Bembo suddenly appeared with the man whom he hadcalled the Flower of Spain. 

"The Contessa Mantegazza, " Bembo said suavely, "Signorina Sanviano, this is Abrego y Mochales. "

The bull-fighter bowed with magnificent flexibility. A hot resentmentpossessed Lavinia at Bembo's apparent ignoring of her; but he had notseen her at first and hastened to repair his omission. Lavinia inclinedher head stiffly. An increasing confusion enveloped her, but she forcedherself to gaze directly into Mochales' still black eyes. His face, shesaw, was gaunt, the ridges of his skull apparent under the bronzedskin. His hair, worn in a queue, was pinned in a flat disk on his head, and small gold loops had been riveted in his ears; but thesepeculiarities of garb were lost in the man's intense virility, hispatent brute force. His fine perfumed linen, the touch of scarlet athis waist, his extremely high-heeled patent-leather boots under softuncreased trousers, served only to emphasize his resolute metal--theyresembled an embroidered and tasseled scabbard that held a keen, thinand dangerous blade. 

Anna Mantegazza extended her hand in the American fashion, and Ghetasmiled from--Lavinia saw--her best facial angle. The Spaniard regardedGheta Sanviano so fixedly that after a moment she turned, in a speciesof constraint, to Anna. The latter spoke with her customary facilityand the man responded gravely. 

They stood a little aside from Lavinia; she only partly heard theirremarks, but she saw that Abrego y Mochales' attention never strayedfrom her sister. Vicariously it made her giddy. The man absolutelysummed up all that Lavinia had dreamed of a romantic and masterfulpersonage. She felt convinced that he had destroyed her life'shappiness--no other man could ever appeal to her now; none other couldsatisfy the tumult he had aroused in her. This, she told herself, desperately miserable, was love. 

Gheta spoke of her, for the three turned to regard her. She met theirscrutiny with a doubtful half smile, which vanished as Anna Mantegazzamade a light comment upon her hair being so newly up. Lavinia detestedthe latter with a sudden and absurd intensity. She saw Anna, with aveiled glance at Gheta, make an apology and leave to join an eddy offamiliars that had formed in the human stream sweeping by. Mochalesstood very close to her sister, speaking seriously, while Ghetanervously fingered the short veil hanging from her gay straw hat. 

A familiar kindly voice sounded suddenly in Lavinia's ears, and CesareOrsi joined her. He was about to move forward toward Gheta; but, beforehe could attract her attention, she disappeared in the crowd with theSpaniard. 

"Who was it?" he inquired. "He resembles a juggler. "

Lavinia elaborately masked her hot resentment at this fresh stupidity. She must not, she felt, allow Orsi to discover her feeling for Abrego yMochales; that was a secret she must keep forever from the profaneworld. She would die, perhaps at a terribly advanced age, with itlocked in her heart. But if Gheta married him she would go into aconvent. 

"A bull-fighter, I believe, " she said carelessly. 

"In other words, a brute, " Orsi continued. "Such men are not fit forthe society of--of your sister. One would think his mere presence wouldmake her ill.... Yet she seemed quite pleased. "

"Strange!" Lavinia spoke with innocent eyes. 

It was like turning a knife in her wound to agree apparently withCesare Orsi--rather, she wanted to laugh at him coldly and leave himstanding alone; but she must cultivate her defenses. There was, too, asort of negative pleasure in misleading the banker, a sort of tormentnot unlike that enjoyed by the early martyrs. 

Cesare Orsi regarded her with new interest and approbation. 

"You're a sensible girl, " he proclaimed; "and extremely pretty in thebargain. " He added this in an accent of profound surprise, as if shehad suddenly grown presentable under his eyes. "In some ways, " he wenton, gathering conviction, "you are as handsome as Gheta. "

"Thank you, Signor Orsi, " Lavinia responded with every indication of amodesty, which, in fact, was the indifference of a supreme contempt. 

"I have been blind, " he asseverated, vivaciously gesticulating with histhick hands. 

Lavinia studied him with a remote young brutality, from his fluffydisarranged hair, adhering to his wet brow, to his extravagantlypointed shoes. The ridiculous coral charm hanging from his heavy watchchain, a violent green handkerchief, an insufferable cameo pin--allcontributed pleasurably to the lowering of her opinion of him. 

"I must find Gheta, " she pronounced, suddenly aware of her isolationwith Cesare Orsi in the crowd, and of curious glances. Orsi immediatelytook her arm, but she eluded him. "Go first, please; we can get throughsooner that way. "

They progressed from room to room, thoroughly exploring the densethrong about the auctioneer, but without finding either Gheta, AnnaMantegazza or the bull-fighter. 

"I can't think how she could have forgotten me!" Lavinia declared withincreasing annoyance. "It's clear that they have all gone. "

"Don't agitate yourself, " Cesare Orsi begged. "Sanviano will beabsolutely contented to have you in my care. I am delighted. You shallgo home directly in my carriage. " He conducted her, with a show of formthat in any one else or at another time she would have enjoyed hugely, to the street, where he handed her into an immaculately glossy andcorded victoria, drawn by a big stamping bay, and stood with his hatoff until she had rolled away. 

It was comfortable in the luxuriously upholstered seat and, in spite ofherself, Lavinia sank back with a contented sigh. There was in its casea gilt hand mirror, into which she peered, and a ledge that pulled out, with a crystal box for cigarettes and a spirit lighter. The Sanvianoshad only a landaulet, no longer in its first condition; and Laviniawondered why Gheta, who adored ease, had been so long in securing forherself such comforts as Orsi's victoria. 

They swept smoothly on rubber tires into the Lungarno and rapidlyapproached her home. The carriage stopped before the familiar whitefaçade, built of marble in the pseudo-severity of the early nineteenthcentury, and the porter swung open the great iron gate to thecourtyard. Lavinia mounted the square white shaft of the stairs to theSanvianos' floor with a deepening sense of injury. She would make itplain to Gheta that she was no longer a child to be casuallyoverlooked. 

A small room, used in connection with the dining room for coffee andsmoking, gave directly on the hall; there she saw her father sitting, with his hat still on, his face stamped with an almost comical dismay, and holding an unlighted cigar. 

"Gheta left me at the Guarinis', " Lavinia halted impetuously. "If ithadn't been for Signor Orsi I shouldn't be here yet; I was completelyignored. "

"Heavens!" her father exclaimed, waving her away. "Another femininecatastrophe! Go to your sister and mother. My head is in a whirl. "

Her mother, then, had returned. She went forward and was suddenlystartled by hearing Gheta's voice rise in a wail of despairing misery. She hurried forward to her sister's room. Gheta, fully dressed, wasprostrate, face down, upon her bed, shaken by a strangled sobbing thatat intervals rose to a thin hysterical scream. The Marchesa Sanviano, still in her traveling suit and close-fitting black hat, sat by herelder daughter's side, trying vainly to calm the tumult. In thebackground the maid, her face streaming with sympathetic tears, washovering distractedly with a jar of volatile salts. 

"Mamma, " Lavinia demanded, torn by extravagant fears, "what hashappened?"

The marchesa momentarily turned a concerned countenance. 

"Your sister, " she said seriously, "has found some wrinkles on herforehead. "

Lavinia with difficulty restrained a sharp giggle. Gheta's grief andtheir mother's anxiety at first seemed so foolishly disproportionate totheir cause. Then a realization of what such an occurrence meant toGheta dawned upon her. To an acknowledged beauty like Gheta Sanvianothe marks of Time were an absolute tragedy; they threatened her onevery plane of her being. 

"But when--" Lavinia began. 

"They--Anna Mantegazza and she--went to the dressing room at theGuarinis', where, it seems, Anna discovered them--sympathetically, ofcourse. "

Gheta's sobbing slowly subsided under the marchesa's urgent plea thatunrestrained emotion would only deepen her trouble. She did not appearat dinner; and afterward the marchese, his wife and Lavinia sat wrappedin a gloomy silence. The marchesa was still handsome, in spite ofincreasing weight. The gray gaze inherited by Lavinia had escaped theparent; her eyes were soft and dense, like brown velvet. She was awoman of decision and now she brought her hands smartly together. 

"We have waited too long with Gheta; we should not have counted soconfidently on her beauty; time flies so treacherously. She must marryas soon as possible. "

"Thank God, there's Cesare Orsi!" her husband responded. 

Lavinia was gazing inward at the secretly enshrined image of the Flowerof Spain. 

III

Gheta Sanviano often passed a night at the Mantegazzas' villa on theHeight of Castena, a long mile from the city. 

Lavinia, too, knew the dwelling well, for Sanviano and Pier Mantegazzahad been intimate from their similar beginnings, and she had playedthere as a child. However, she had never been regularly asked withGheta; and when that occurred--Gheta indifferently delivered AnnaMantegazza's message--and her mother acquiesced, Lavinia had a renewedsense of her growing importance. 

She went out early, in the heat of midday, a time that fitted best withthe involved schedule of the Sanvianos' single equipage--Anna wouldtake her sister directly from a luncheon at the Ginoris'. Lavinialooked with mingled anticipation and relief at the approaching gracefulfaçade added scarcely a hundred and fifty years before to the otherwisesomber abode of the Mantegazzas, first established in the twelfthcentury. 

The villa stood on an eminence, circled by austere pines, and terracedwith innumerable vegetable gardens and frugally planted olives. Theroad mounted abruptly, turned under a frowning wall incongruouslytopped with delicately painted urns, and doubled across the massiveiron-bound door that closed the arched entrance. Within, an immenselyhigh timbered hall was pleasantly cool and dark after the white blazewithout. It was bare of furnishing except for a number of rude oaksettles against the naked stone walls. It had been a place of fear toLavinia when a child; and even now she left it with a sense of relieffor the modernized interior beyond. 

Pier Mantegazza was standing before a high inclined table, which bore anumber of blackened and shapeless medallions. He was a famousnumismatic--a tall stooping man, slightly lame, and enveloped in apremature gray ill health that resembled clinging cobwebs. He bent andbrushed Lavinia's forehead with his crisp mustache, and then returnedto the delicate manipulation of a magnifying glass and a small bluebottle of acid. She left him for a deep chair and a surprising Frenchromance by Remy de Gourmont. At a long philosophical dialogue the bookdrooped, and she thought of Anna Mantegazza and her husband. 

She wondered whether they were happy. But she decided, measuring thatcondition solely by her own requirement, that such a state wasimpossible for them. It had certainly been a marriage for money andposition; prior to the ceremony the Casa Mantegazza had been closed foryears, and Pier Mantegazza occupied a small establishment near theMilitary Hospital, on the Via San Gallo. Anna Cane had arrived in Rome, without family or credentials, and unknown to the American Embassyother than by amazing deposits at the best banks. But she did have, inaddition to this, a pungent charm and undeniable force and good taste. It was said that the moment she had seen Mantegazza's villa she haddecided to possess it, even at the price of its sere withdrawn holder. 

She had gone at once into the best Florentine and Roman society. Thatwas ten years before, but Lavinia realized that she had neversuccessfully assimilated the Italian social formula. She mixed the mostdiverse elements of their world willfully and found enjoyment inbringing about amusing situations. She seemed devoid of the foundationsof proper caution; in fact, she mocked at them openly. And if she hadnot been a model Catholic, and herself above the slightest moralquestion, even Mantegazza could not have carried her among his owncircles. As it was, people flocked to her elaborate parties, tornbetween the hope of being amazed and the fear that they should furnishthe hub of the occasion. 

Gheta and her hostess arrived later. The former, it appeared toLavinia, looked disconcerted; and it was evident that she had beenremonstrating with Anna Mantegazza. The other laughed provokingly. 

"Nonsense!" she declared. "It was too good to miss; besides, you're anold campaigner. "

A stair of flagging, turning sharply round a stone pillar, ledincongruously from the light French furnishings to the chamber whereLavinia was to sleep. A Renaissance bed, made of thick quiltingdirectly upon the floor, was covered with gilt ecclesiasticalembroidery; and a movable tub stood in a stone corner. The narrow deepwindows overlooked Florence, a somber expanse of roofing; and, comingrapidly toward the villa, Lavinia could see a tall dogcart, with agroom and two passengers. They were men; and, as they drew nearer, Lavinia--with a sudden pounding of her heart--realized the cause of theslight friction between the two women. The cart bore Cesare Orsi, andMochales the bull-fighter, the Flower of Spain. It was a part of AnnaMantegazza's humor that the men, so essentially antagonistic, shouldarrive together clinging precariously on the high insecure trap. 

Tea was served at five on the terrace, and Lavinia dressed with minutecare. Gheta, she knew, had brought a new lavender lawn with little goldvelvet buttons and lace; while she had nothing but the familiar coarsewhite mull. But she had fresh ribbons and she gazed with satisfactionat her firm, faintly rosy countenance. She would have no wrinkles foryears to come. However, she thought, with a return to her sense oftragic gloom, such considerations were of little moment, as Abrego yMochales would scarcely be aware of her existence; he would neverknow.... Perhaps, years after--

She purposely delayed her appearance on the terrace until the othershad assembled, and then quietly took possession of a chair. Cesare Orsigreeted her with effusive warmth, the Spaniard bowed ceremoniously. Awide prospect of countryside flowed away in innumerable hills andvalleys, clothed in the silvery smoke of olives and in green-blackpines; below, a bank of cherry trees were in bloom. The air was sweetand still and full of a warm radiance. 

Lavinia luxuriated in her unhappiness. Mochales, she decided, must bethe handsomest man in existence. His unchanging gravity fascinated her--the man's face, his voice, his dignified gestures, were all steeped ina splendid melancholy. 

"I am a peasant, " he said, apparently addressing them all, but with hiseyes upon Gheta, "from Estremadura, in the mountains. The life therewas very hard, and that was fortunate for me; the food was scarce, andthat was good too. If I ate like the grandees a bull would end me inthe hot sun of the first _fiesta_; I'd double up like a pancake. Imust work all the time--run for miles and play _pelota_. "

Lavinia was possessed by a new contempt for her kind, which shecentered upon Orsi, clumsy and stupidly smiling. It was clear that hecouldn't run a mile; in fact, he admitted that he detested allexercise. How absurd he looked in his tight plaited jacket! It appearedthat he was always perspiring; a crime, she felt sure--with entiredisregard of its fatal consequences--that Mochales never committed. 

"A friend of ours--it was Bembo--said that he saw you at San Sebastianwith your King, " Anna Mantegazza put in. 

"Why not? But Alphonso is a fine boy; he understands the business ofroyalty. Every year I dedicate a magnificent bull to the King on hisname day. "

"Will you dedicate one to me?" Gheta asked carelessly. 

"The best in Andalusia, " he responded with fire. 

Cesare Orsi made a slight sharp exclamation, and Lavinia's heart beatpainfully. The former turned to her with sudden determination. 

"Were you comfortable in my carriage, " he demanded, "and fetched homeat a smart pace?" Lavinia thanked him. 

"You are always so quiet, " he complained. "I'm certain there's a greatdeal in that wise young head worth hearing. "

"Lavinia is still in the schoolroom, " Gheta explained brutally. "Yesterday she put up her hair, to-day Anna Mantegazza invites her, andwe have an effect. "

Anna Mantegazza turned to the younger with a new veiled scrutiny. Hergaze rested for an instant on Orsi and then moved contemplatively toGheta and Abrego y Mochales. It was evident that her thoughts were verybusy; a faint sparkle appeared in her eyes, a fresh vivacity animatedher manner. Suddenly she included Lavinia in her remarks; she putqueries to the girl patently intended to draw her out. Gheta grewuneasy and then cross. 

"I'm sick of sitting here, " she declared; "let's walk about. It'scooler, and Pier Mantegazza's place is always worth investigation. " Sherose and waited for Cesare Orsi, then led the small procession fromunder the striped tea kiosk down the terrace. The way grew steep andshe rested a hand on Orsi's arm. Anna, Lavinia and the Flower of Spainfollowed together, until the first moved forward to join the leaders. Lavinia's gaze was obscured by a sort of warm mist; she clasped herhands to keep them from trembling. In a narrow flagged turn Mochalesbrushed her shoulder. He scarcely moved his eyes from Gheta's back. Once he gazed somberly at the girl beside him and she responded with apale questioning smile. "I have had a great misfortune, " he told her. 

"Oh, I'm terribly, terribly sorry!"

"I've lost a blessed coin that interceded for me since the first day Iwent in the bull ring. I'd give a thousand wax candles for its return. Now--when I need everything, " he continued as if to himself. "Yoursister is beautiful, " he added abruptly. "Everybody thinks so, " Laviniareplied in a voice she endeavored to make enthusiastic. "She has hadtens of admirers here and at Rome and Lucca. " There she knew she shouldstop; but she continued: "Cesare Orsi is very persistent and tremendouslyrich. "

Mochales made a short unintelligible remark in Spanish. He twisted acigarette with lightning-like rapidity and only one hand. Together theylooked at Orsi's broad ungainly back, and the bull-fighter's lipstightened, exposing a glimmer of his immaculate teeth. They passed aneat whitewashed cottage, where an old couple stood bowing abjectly, and came on a series of long pale-brown buildings and walls. 

"The stables and barn, " Lavinia explained. 

Anna Mantegazza turned. "You may see something of interest here, " shecalled to Mochales. 

A series of steps, made by projecting stones, rose to the top of aneight-foot wall, up which Anna unexpectedly led the way. The wall wasbroad, afforded a comfortable footing, and enclosed a straw-litteredyard. A number of doors led into a barn, and into one some men wereurging refractory cattle. In a corner a small compact bull, with therapierlike horns of the mountain breeds, was secured by a nose ring anda short chain; and to the latter the men turned when the other animalshad been confined. Two threatened the animal with long poles, while athird unfastened the chain from the wall; and then all endeavored todrive him within. Abrego y Mochales stood easily above, watching theseclumsy efforts. 

Suddenly the bull stopped, plunged his front hoofs into the soft moldof the stable yard and swept his head from side to side with a brokenhoarse bellow. The men prodded him with urgent cries; but the bullsuddenly whirled, snapping the poles, and there was an immediatescattering. 

The sight of the retreating forms apparently enraged the animal, for hecharged with astonishing speed and barely missed horning the last manto fall over the barricade of a half door. Mochales smiled; he calledfamiliarly to the bull. Then he stooped and vaulted lightly down intothe yard. Lavinia gave a short exclamation; she was cold with fear. Orsi looked on without any emotion visible on his heavy face. AnnaMantegazza leaned forward, tense with interest. "_Bravo!_" shecalled. 

Gheta Sanviano smiled. 

The bull did not see Mochales at first, then the man cried tauntingly. The bull turned and stood with a lowered slowly-moving head, an uneasytail. The Spaniard found a small milking stool and, carrying it to themiddle of the yard, sat and comfortably rolled another cigarette. Hewas searching for a match when the bull moved forward a pace; he hadfound and was striking it when the bull increased his pace; he wasguarding the flame about the cigarette's end when the animal broke intoa charging run. 

The Flower of Spain inhaled a deep breath of smoke, which he expelledin deliberate globes. 

"Oh, don't! Oh----" Lavinia exclaimed, an arm before her eyes. 

Mochales shifted easily from his seat and apparently in the sameinstant the bull crushed the stool to splinters. 

"_Bravo! Bravo!_" Anna Mantegazza called again, and the man boweduntil his extended hat rested on the ground. 

He straightened slowly; the bull whirled about and flung himselfforward. Abrego y Mochales now had one of the discarded poles; and, waiting until the horns had almost encircled him, he vaulted lightlyand beautifully over the running animal's shoulder. He waited again, avoiding the infuriated charge by a scant step; and, when the bullstopped he had Mochales' hat placed squarely upon his horns. Laviniawatched now in fascinated terror; she could not remove her gaze fromthe slim figure in the short black jacket and narrow crimson sash. Atthe moment when her tension relaxed, Mochales, with a short runningstep, vaulted cleanly to the top of the wall. His cigarette was stillburning. She wanted desperately to add her praise to Anna Mantegazza'senthusiastic plaudits, Gheta's subtle smile; but only the utmostbanalities occurred to her. 

They descended the stone steps and slowly mounted toward the house. Cesare Orsi resolutely dropped back beside Lavinia. 

"You are really superb!" he told her in his highly colored Neapolitanmanner. "Most women--Anna Mantegazza for example--are like childrenbefore such a show as that back there. Your sister, too, was pleased;it appealed to her vanity, as the fellow intended it should. But youonly disliked it.... I could see that in your attitude. It was thecircus--that's all. "

Lavinia gazed at him out of an unfathomable contempt. She thought: Whata fool he is! It wasn't Abrego y Mochales' courage that appealed to hermost, although that had afforded her an exquisite thrill, but hispowerful grace, his absolute physical perfection. Orsi was heated againand his tie had slipped up over the back of his collar. 

She recalled the first talk she had had with him about Mochales and themanner in which she had masked her true feeling for the latter. 

How easy Orsi had been to mislead! Now she was seized by the desire toshow him the actual state of her mind; she wanted, in bitter sentences, to tell him how infinitely superior the Spaniard was to such fat easygrubs as himself. She longed to make clear to him exactly what it wasthat women admired in men--romance and daring and splendid strength. Itmight suit Gheta, who had wrinkles, to encourage such men as CesareOrsi; their wealth might appeal to cold and material minds, but theycould never hope to inspire passion; no one would ever cherish for thema hopeless lifelong love. 

"Do you know, " Orsi declared with firm conviction, "you are evenhandsomer than your sister!"

"Fool! fool! fool!" But she could not, of course, say a word of whatwas in her thoughts. She met his admiring gaze with a blank face, conscious of how utterly her exterior belied and hid the actual LaviniaSanviano. She felt wearily old, sophisticated. In her room, dressingfor the evening, she made up her mind that she must have a black dinnergown--later she would wear no other shade. 

IV

Anna Mantegazza knocked and entered just as Lavinia had finished withher hair and was slipping into the familiar white dress. There hadbeen, within the last few hours, a perceptible change in the former'sattitude toward her. Lavinia realized that Anna Mantegazza regarded herwith a new interest, a greater and more personal friendliness. 

"My dear Lavinia!" she exclaimed, critically overlooking the other'spreparations. "You look very appealing--like a snowdrop; exactly. Ishould say the toilet for Sunday at the convent; but no longerappropriate outside. Really, I must speak to the marchesa--parents areso slow to see the differences in their own family. Gheta has been alittle overemphasized. 

"I wonder, " she continued with glowing vivacity, "if you would allowme--I assure you it would give me the greatest pleasure in theworld.... Your figure is a thousand times better than mine; but, thankheaven, I'm still slender.... A little evening dress from Vienna! Itshould really do you very well. Will you accept it from me? I'd like togive you something, Lavinia; and it has never been out of its box. "

She turned and was out of the room before Lavinia could reply. Therewas no reason why she shouldn't take a present from Anna--PierMantegazza and her father had been lifelong friends, and his wife wasan intimate of the Sanvianos. It would not, probably, be black. Itwasn't. Anna returned, followed by her maid, who bore carefully overher arm a shimmering mass of glowing pink. 

"Now!" Anna Mantegazza cried. "Your hair is very pretty, very original--but hardly for a dress by Verlat. Sara!"

The maid moved quietly forward and directed an appraising gaze atLavinia. She was a flat-hipped Englishwoman, with a cleft chin andenigmatic greenish eyes. "I see exactly, madame, " she assured Anna; andwith her deft dry hands she took down Lavinia's laboriously arrangedhair. 

She drew it back from the brow apparently as simply as before, twistedit into a low knot slightly eccentric in shape, and recut a bang. Lavinia's eyes seemed bluer, her delicate flush more elusive; the shapeof her face appeared changed, it was more pointed and had a new willfulcharm. 

"The stockings, " Anna commanded. 

Dressed, Lavinia Sanviano stood curiously before the long mirror; shesaw a fresh Lavinia that was yet the old; and she was absorbing herfirst great lesson in the magic of clothes. Verlat, a celebrateddressmaker, was typical of the Viennese spirit--the gown Lavinia woreresembled, in all its implications, an orchid. There was a whisper hereof satin, a pale note of green, a promise of chiffon. Her crisp roundshoulders were bare; her finely molded arms were clouded, as it were, with a pink mist; the skirt was full, incredibly airy; yet everymovement was draped by a suave flowing and swaying. 

Lavinia recognized that she had been immensely enriched in effect; itwas not a question of mere beauty--beauty here gave way to a moresubtle and potent consideration. It was a potency which sheinstinctively shrank from probing. For a moment she experienced, curiously enough, a gust of passionate resentment, followed by aquickly passing melancholy, a faint regret. 

Anna Mantegazza and the maid radiated with satisfaction at the resultof their efforts. The former murmured a phrase that bore Gheta's name, but Lavinia caught nothing else. The maid said:

"Without a doubt, madame. "

Lavinia lingered in her room, strangely reluctant to go down and seeher sister. She was embarrassed by her unusual appearance and dreadedthe prominence of the inevitable exclamations. At last she was obligedto proceed. The rest stood by the entrance of the dining room. AnnaMantegazza was laughing at a puzzled expression on the good-naturedcountenance of Cesare Orsi; Gheta was slowly waving a fan of gildedfeathers; Abrego y Mochales was standing rigid and somberly handsome;and, as usual, Pier Mantegazza was late. 

Gheta Sanviano turned and saw Lavinia approaching, and the elder'sface, always pale, grew suddenly chalky; it was drawn, and thewrinkles, carefully treated with paste, became visible about her eyes. Her hands shook a little as she took a step forward. 

"What does this mean, Lavinia?" she demanded. "Why did I know nothingabout that dress?"

"I knew nothing myself until a little bit ago, " Lavinia explainedapologetically, filled with a formless pity for Gheta. "Isn't itpretty? Anna Mantegazza gave it to me. "

She could see, over Gheta's shoulder, Cesare Orsi staring at her inidiotic surprise. 

"Don't you like it, Gheta?" Anna asked. 

Gheta Sanviano didn't answer, but closed her eyes for a moment in aneffort to control the anger that shone in them. The silence deepened toconstraint, and then she laughed lightly. 

"Quite a woman of fashion!" she observed of Lavinia. "Fancy! It's apity that she must go back to the convent so soon. "

Her eyes while she was speaking were directed toward Anna Mantegazzaand the resentment changed to hatred. The other shrugged her shouldersindifferently and moved toward the dining room, catching Lavinia's armin her own. 

Mantegazza entered at the soup and was seated on Gheta's right; CesareOrsi was on Anna's left; and Lavinia sat between the two men, withMochales opposite. Whatever change had taken place in her looks madeabsolutely no impression upon the latter; it was clear that he saw noone besides Gheta Sanviano. 

In the candlelight his face more than ever resembled bronze; his hairwas dead-black; above the white linen his head was like a superb effigyof an earlier and different race from the others. It was almost savagein its still austerity. Cesare Orsi, too, said little, which wasextraordinary for him. If Lavinia had made small mark on Mochales, atleast she had overpowered the other to a ludicrous degree. It seemedthat he had never before half observed her; he even muttered to himselfand smiled uncertainly when she chanced to gaze at him. 

But what the others lacked conversationally Anna Mantegazza more thansupplied; she was at her best, and that was very sparkling, touchedwith malice and understanding, and absolute independence. She insistedon including Lavinia in every issue. At first Lavinia was only confusedby the attention pressed on her; she retreated, growing moreinarticulate at every sally. Then she became easier; spurred partly byGheta's direct unpleasantness and partly by the consciousness of herbecoming appearance, she retorted with spirit; engaged Pier Mantegazzain a duet of verbal confetti. She gazed challengingly at Abrego yMochales, but got no other answer than a grave perfunctory inclination. 

She thought of an alternative to the black gowns and unrelievedmelancholy--she might become the gayest member of the gay Roman world, be known throughout Italy for her reckless exploits, her affairs andVienna gowns, all the while hiding her passion for the Flower of Spain. It would be a vain search for forgetfulness, with an early death in anatmosphere of roses and champagne. Gheta was gazing at her so crosslythat she took a sip of Mantegazza's brandy; it burned her throatcruelly, but she concealed the choking with a smile of high bravado. 

After dinner they progressed to a drawing-room that filled an entireend of the villa; it lay three steps below the hall, the imposing wallsand floor covered with tapestries and richly dark rugs. Lavinia morethan ever resembled an orchid, here in a gloom of towering treescuriously suggested by the draperies and space. She went forward withAnna Mantegazza to an amber blur of lamplight, the others followingirregularly. 

Cesare Orsi sat at Lavinia's side, quickly finishing one long blackcigar and lighting another; Pier Mantegazza and Mochales smokedcigarettes. Anna was smoking, but Gheta had refused. Lavinia's feelingfor her sister had changed from pity to total indifference. The elderhad been an overbearing and thoughtless superior; and now, when Laviniafelt in some subtle inexplicable manner that Gheta was losing rank, herstore of sympathy was small. Lavinia hoped that she would marry Orsiimmediately and leave the field free for herself. She wondered whetherher father would buy her a dress by Verlat. 

"Honestly, " Orsi murmured, "more beautiful than your--"

She stopped him with an impatient gesture, wondering what Mochales wassaying to Gheta. A possibility suddenly filled her with dread--it wasevident that the Spaniard was growing hourly more absorbed in Gheta, and the latter might----Lavinia could not support the possibility ofAbrego y Mochales married to her sister. But, she reassured herself, there was little danger of that--Gheta would never make a sacrifice foremotion; she would be sure of the comfortable material thing, and nowmore than ever. 

Anna Mantegazza moved to a piano, which, in the obscurity, she began toplay. The notes rose deliberate and melodious. Gheta Sanviano toldOrsi:

"That's Iris. Do you remember, we heard it at the Pergola in thewinter?"

"Do go over to her, " Lavinia whispered. 

He rose heavily and went to Gheta's side, and Lavinia waitedexpectantly for Mochales to change too. The Spaniard shifted, but itwas toward the piano, where he stood with the rosy reflection of hiscigarette on a moody countenance. It was Pier Mantegazza who sat besideher, with a quizzical expression on his long gray visage. He saidsomething to her in Latin, which she only partly understood, but whichalluded to the changing of water into wine. 

"I am a subject of jest, " he continued in Italian, "because I preferwater. "

She smiled with polite vacuity, wondering what he meant. 

"You always satisfied me, Lavinia, with your dark smooth plait andwhite simplicity; you were cool and refreshing. Now they have made youonly disturbing. I suppose it was inevitable, and with you the changewill be temporary. "

"I'll never let my hair down again, " she retorted. "I've settled thatwith Gheta. Mother didn't care, really. "

She was annoyed by the implied criticism, his entire lack of responseto her new being. He had grown blind staring at his stupid old coins. 

A step sounded behind her; she turned hopefully, but it was only CesareOrsi. 

"The others have gone outside, " he told her, and she noticed that thepiano had stopped. 

Mantegazza rose and bowed in mock serious formality, at which Laviniashrugged an impatient shoulder and walked with Orsi across the room andout upon the terrace. 

Florence had sunk into a dark chasm of night, except for the curvingdouble row of lights that marked the Lungarno and the indifferentillumination of a few principal squares. The stars seemed big and nearin deep blue space. Orsi was standing very close to her, and she movedaway; but he followed. 

"Lavinia, " he muttered, and suddenly his arm was about her waist. 

She leaned back, pushing with both hands against his chest; but heswept her irresistibly up to him and kissed her clumsily. A cold ragepossessed her. She stopped struggling; yet there was no need tocontinue--he released her immediately and opened a stammering apology. 

"I am a madman, " he admitted abjectly--"a little animal that ought tobe shot. I don't know what came over me; my head was in a carnival. Youmust forgive or I shall be a maniac, I----"

She turned and walked swiftly into the house and mounted to her room. All the pleasure she had had in the evening, the Viennese gown, evaporated, left her possessed by an utter loathing of self. Now, inthe mirror, she seemed hateful, the clouded chiffon and airy clingingsatin unspeakable. Looking back out of the dim glass was a stranger whohad betrayed and cheapened her. Her pure serenity revolted against thecurrents of life sweeping down upon her, threatening to inundate her. 

She unhooked the Verlat gown with trembling fingers and--once more insimple white--dropped into a deep chair, where she cried with shortpainful inspirations, her face pressed against her arm. Her emotionsubsided, changed to a formless dread, and again to a black sense ofhelplessness. Suddenly she rose and mechanically shook loose her hair--footsteps were approaching. Her sister entered, pale and vindictive. 

"You are to be congratulated, " she proceeded thinly; "you made asuccess with everybody--that is, with all but Mochales. It was for him, wasn't it? You were very clever, but you failed ridiculously. "

Lavinia made no reply. 

"I hope Mochales excuses you because of your greenness. "

"Youth isn't any longer your crime, " Lavinia retorted at last. 

"That dress--it would suit Anna Mantegazza; but you looked onlyindecent. "

"Perhaps you're right, Gheta, " Lavinia said unexpectedly. "I'm going tobed now, please. "

Her balance, restored by sleep, was once more normal when she returnedto the Lungarno. It was again late afternoon, the daily procession wasreturning from the Cascine, and Gheta was at the window, looking coldlydown. The Marchesa Sanviano was knitting at prodigious speed ashapeless gray garment. They all turned when a servant entered:

Signer Orsi wished to see the marchese. 

This unusual formality on the part of Cesare Orsi could have but onepurpose, and Lavinia and their mother gazed significantly at the eldersister. 

"The marchese is dressing, " his wife directed. 

She drew a long breath of relief and nodded over her needles. Ghetaraised her chin; her lips bore the half-contemptuous expression thatlately had become habitual; her eyes were half closed. 

Lavinia sat with her hands loose in her lap. She was wondering whetheror not, should she make a vigorous protest, they would send her back tothe convent. The Verlat gown was carefully hung in her closet. Lastnight she had been idiotic. 

The Marchese Sanviano appeared hurriedly and alone; his tie was crookedand his expression very much disturbed. His wife looked up, startled. 

"What!" she demanded directly. "Didn't he----"

"Yes, " Sanviano replied, "he did! He wants to marry Lavinia. "

Lavinia half rose, with a horrified protest; Gheta seemed suddenlyturned to stone; the knitting fell unheeded from the marchesa's lap. Sanviano spread out his hands helplessly. 

"Well, " he demanded, "what could I do?... A man with Orsi's blamelesscharacter and the Orsi banks!"

V

The house to which Cesare Orsi took Lavinia was built over the rim of asmall steep island in the Bay of Naples, opposite Castellamare. Itfaced the city, rising in an amphitheater of bright stucco and almondblossoms, across an expanse of glassy and incredibly blue water. It wasevening, the color of sky and bay was darkening, intensified by avaporous rosy column where the ascending smoke of Vesuvius held thelast upflung glow of the vanished sun. Lavinia could see from herwindow the pale distant quiver of the electric lights springing upalong the Villa Nazionale. 

The dwelling itself drew a long irregular façade of white marble on itsabrupt verdant screen--a series of connected pavilions, galleries, pergolas, belvedere, flowering walls and airy chambers. There weretesselated remains from the time of the great pleasure-saturated Romanemperors, a later distinctly Moorish influence, quattrocento-paintedeaves, an eighteenth-century sodded court, and a smoking room with thestartling colored glass of the nineteenth. 

The windows of Lavinia's room had no sashes; they were composed of adouble marble arch, supported in the center by a slender twisted marblecolumn, with Venetian blinds. She stood in the opening, gazing fixedlyover the water turning into night. She could hear, from the roombeyond, her husband's heavy deliberate footfalls; and the sound filledher with a formless resentment. She wished to be justifiably annoyed bythem, or him; but there was absolutely no cause. Cesare Orsi'scharacter and disposition were alike beyond reproach--transparent andheroically optimistic. Since their marriage she had been insolent, shehad been both captious and continuously indifferent, without unsettlingthe determined eager good-nature with which he met her moods. 

During the week he went by launch into Naples in the interests of hisbanking, and did not return for luncheon; and she had longuninterrupted hours for the enjoyment of her pleasant domain. Altogether, his demands upon her were reasonable to the point of self-effacement. He laughed a great deal; this annoyed her youthful gravityand she remonstrated sharply more than once, but he only leaned backand laughed harder. Then she would either grow coldly disdainful orleave the room, followed by the echo of his merriment. There wassomething impervious, like armor, in his excellent humor. Apparentlyshe could not get through it to wound him as she would have liked; andshe secretly wondered. 

He was prodigal in his generosity--the stores of the Via Roma wereprepared to empty themselves at her desire. Cesare Orsi's wife was afigure of importance in Naples. She had been made welcome by theNeapolitan society--lawn fêtes had been given in villas under theburnished leaves of magnolias on the height of Vomero. The CavaliereNelli, Orsi's cousin and a retired colonel of Bersaglieri, entertainedlavishly at dinner on the terrace of Bertolini's; she went out to oldhouses looking through aged and riven pines at the sea. 

She would have enjoyed all this hugely if she had not been married toOrsi; but the continual reiteration of the fact that she was Orsi'swife filled her with an accumulating resentment. The implication thatshe had been exceedingly fortunate became more than she could bear. Theconsequence was that, as soon as it could be managed, she ceased goingabout. 

She was now at the window, immersed in a melancholy sense of totalisolation; the water stirring along the masonry below, a call from ashadowy fishing boat dropping down the bay, filled her with longing forthe cheerful existence of the Lungarno. She had had a letter from Ghetathat morning, the first from her sister since she had left Florence, brief but without any actual expression of ill will. After all wassaid, she had brought Gheta a great disappointment; if she had been inthe elder's place probably she would have behaved no better.... Itoccurred to her to ask Gheta to Naples. At least then she would havesome one with whom to recall the pleasant trifles of past years. Shewould have liked to ask Anna Mantegazza, too; but this she knew wasimpossible--Gheta had not forgiven Anna for her part on the night thathad resulted in Orsi's proposal for Lavinia. 

She wondered, more obscurely, whether Abrego y Mochales was still inFlorence. He loomed at the back of her thoughts, inscrutably dark andromantic. It piqued her that he had not made the slightest response toher palpable admiration. But he had been tremendously stirred by Gheta, who was never touched by such emotions. 

A desire to see Mochales grew insidiously out of her speculations; adesire to talk about him, hear his name. Lavinia deliberately shut hereyes to the fact that this last became her principal reason for wishingto see Gheta. 

She told Cesare, with a diffidence which she was unable to overcome, that she had written asking her sister for a visit. Seemingly he didn'thear her. They were at breakfast, on the wine-red tiling of a pergolaby the water, and he had shaken his fist, with a rueful curse, in thedirection of Naples. Before him lay an open letter with an engravedpage heading. 

"I said, " Lavinia repeated impatiently, "that Gheta will probably behere the last of the week. "

"The sacred camels!" Orsi exclaimed; then: "Oh, Gheta--good!" But hefell immediately into an angry reverie. "If I dared--" he muttered. 

"What has stirred you up so?"

"It's difficult to explain to any one not born in Naples. Here, yousee, all is not in order, like Florence; we have had a stormy timebetween brigands and secret factions and foreign rulers; and certainsocieties sprang up, necessary once, but now--when one still exists--asource of bribery and nuisance. This letter, for example, congratulatesme on the possession of a charming bride; it expresses the devotion ofa hidden organization, but points out that in order to guarantee yoursafety in a city where the guards are admittedly insufficient it willbe necessary for me to forward two thousand lire at once. "

"You will, of course, ignore it. "

"I will certainly send the money at once. "

"What a cowardly attitude!" Lavinia declared contemptuously. "You allowyourself to be blackmailed like a common criminal. "

Orsi laughed, his equilibrium quickly restored. 

"I warned you that a stranger could not understand, " he reminded her. "If the money weren't sent, in ten days or two weeks perhaps, therewould be a little accident on the Chiaja--your carriage would be runinto; you would be upset, confused, angry. There would be profuseapologies, investigation, perhaps arrests; but nothing would come ofit. If the money was still held back something a little more seriouswould occur. Nothing really dangerous, you understand; but finally thetwo thousand lire would be gladly paid over and the accidents wouldmysteriously cease. "

"An outrage!" Lavinia asserted, and Orsi nodded. 

"If you had an enemy, " he continued, "you could have her gown ruined inthe foyer of the San Carlos; if it were a man he would be caught at hisclub with an uncomfortable ace in his cuff. At least so I'm assured. Ihaven't had any reason to look the society up yet. " He laughedprodigiously. "Even murders are ascribed to it. Careful, Cesare, or anew valet will cut your throat some fine morning and your widow walkaway with a more graceful man!"

"Your jokes are so stupid. " Lavinia shrugged her shoulders. 

He laid the letter on the table's edge and a wandering air bore itslanting to the floor, but he promptly recovered it. 

"That must go in the safe, " he ended; "it is well to have a slightgrasp on those gentlemen. "

He rose; and a few minutes later Lavinia saw his trim brown launch, with its awning and steersman in gleaming white, rushing through thebay toward Naples. 

VI

The basin from which the launch plied lay inside a seawall inclosing asmall placid rectangle with a walk all about and iron benches. Steps atthe back, guarded by two great Pompeian sandstone urns, and pressed bya luxuriant growth, led up to the villa. Gheta looked curiously aboutas she stepped from the launch and went forward with her brother-in-law. Lavinia followed, with Gheta's maid and a porter in the rear. 

Lavinia realized that her sister looked badly; in the unsparing blazeof midday the wrinkles about her eyes were apparent, and they hadmultiplied. Although it was past the first of June, Gheta was wearing alinen suit of last year; and--as her maid unpacked--Lavinia saw thefamiliar pink tulle and the lavender gown with the gold velvet buttons. 

"Your dressmaker is very late, " she observed thoughtlessly. 

A slow flush spread over the other's countenance; she did not replyimmediately and Lavinia would have given a great deal to unsay herperiod. 

"It isn't that, " Gheta finally explained; "the family find that I amtoo expensive. You see, I haven't justified their hopes and they havebeen cutting down. "

Her voice was thin, metallic; her features had sharpened like foldedpaper creased between the fingers. 

"It's very good form here, " she went on, dancing about her room. It washardly more than a marble gallery, the peristyle choked with floweringbushes, camellias and althea and hibiscus, barely furnished, and filledwith drifting perfumes and the savor of the sea. "What a shame thatthese things must be got at a price!"

Lavinia glanced at her sharply; until the present moment that wouldhave expressed her own attitude, but said by Gheta it seemed a littlecrude. It was, anyhow, painfully obvious, and she had no intention ofshowing Gheta the true state of her being. 

"Isn't that so of everything--worth having?" she asked, adding thelatter purely as a counter. 

The elder drew up her fine shoulders. 

"That's very courageous of you, " she admitted--"especially sinceeverybody knew your opinion of Orsi. Heaven knows you made no effort todisguise your feeling to others. "

Lavinia smiled calmly; Cesare was really very thoughtful, and she saidso. Gheta replied at a sudden tangent:

"Mochales has been a great nuisance. "

Lavinia was gazing through an opening in the leaves at the sparklingblue plane of the bay. She made no movement, aware of her sister'sunsparing curiosity turned upon her, and only said:

"Really?"

"Spaniards are so tempestuous, " Gheta continued; "he's been whisperinga hundred mad schemes in my ear. He gave up an important engagement inMadrid rather than leave Florence. I have been almost stirred by him, he is so slender and handsome. 

"Simply every woman--except perhaps me--is in love with him. "

"There's no danger of your loving any one besides yourself. "

"I saw him the day before I left; told him where I was going. Then Ihad to beg him not to take the same train. He said he was going toNaples, anyhow, to sail from there for Spain. He will be at the GrandHotel and I gave him permission to see me here once. "

Lavinia revolved slowly. 

"Why not? He turned my head round at least twice. " She moved toward thedoor. "Ring whenever you like, " she said; "there are servants foreverything. "

In her room she wondered, with burning cheeks, when Abrego y Mochaleswould come. Her sentimental interest in him had waned a trifle duringthe past busy weeks; but, in spite of that, he was the great romanticattachment of her life. If he had returned her love no whispered schemewould have been too mad. What would he think of her now? But she knewinstinctively that there would be no change in Mochales' attitude. Hewas in love with Gheta; blind to the rest of the world. 

She sat lost in a day-dream--how different her life would have been, married to the bull-fighter! She would have become a part of the fierceSpanish crowds at the ring, traveled to South America, seen the peopleheap roses, jewels, upon her idol.... 

Cesare Orsi stood in the doorway, smiling with oppressive good-nature. 

"Lavinia, " he told her, "I've done something, and now I'm in the devilof a doubt. " He advanced, holding a small package, and sat on the edgeof a chair, mopping his brow. "You see, " he began diffidently, "thatis, as you must know, at first--you were at the convent--I thoughtsomething of proposing for your sister. Thank God, " he addedvigorously, "I waited! Well, I didn't; although, to be completelyhonest, I knew that it came to be expected. I could see the surprise inyour father's face. It occurred to me afterward that if I had broughtGheta any embarrassment I'd like to do something in a small way, a sortof acknowledgment. And to-day I saw this, " he held out the package; "itwas pretty and I bought it for her at once. But now, when the momentarrives, I hesitate to give it to her. Gheta has grown so--so formalthat I'm afraid of her, " he laughed. 

Lavinia unwrapped the paper covering from a green morocco box and, releasing the catch, saw a shimmering string of delicately pink pearls. 

"Cesare!" she exclaimed. "How gorgeous!" She lifted the necklace, letting it slide cool and fine through her fingers. "It's too good ofyou. This has cost hundreds and hundreds. I'll keep it myself. "

He laughed, shaking all over; then fell serious. 

"Everything I have--all, all--is yours, " he assured her. Lavinia turnedaway with an uncomfortable feeling of falseness. "What do you predict--will Gheta take it, understand, or will she play the frozen princess?"

"If I know Gheta, she'll take it, " Lavinia promptly replied. 

Orsi presented Gheta Sanviano with the necklace at dinner. She took itslowly from its box and glanced at the diamond clasp. 

"Thank you, Cesare, immensely! What a shame that pink pearls so closelyresemble coral! No one gives you credit for them. "

A feeling of shame for her sister's ungraciousness possessed Laviniaand mounted to angry resentment. She had no particular desire tochampion Cesare, but the simplicity and kindness of his thoughtdemanded more than a superficial admission. At the same time she hadno intention of permitting Gheta any display of superiority here. 

"You need only say they were from Cesare, " she observed coldly; "withhim, it is always pearls. "

Such a tide of pleasure swept over her husband's countenance thatLavinia bit her lip in annoyance. She had intended only to rebuke Ghetaand had not calculated the effect of her speech upon Cesare. She wasscrupulously careful not to mislead the latter with regard to herfeeling for him. She went to a rather needless extreme to demonstratethat she conducted herself from a sense of duty and propriety alone. 

Her married life, she assured herself, already resembled theMantegazzas', whose indifferent courtesy she had marked and wonderedat. Perhaps in time, like them, she would grow accustomed to it; butnow it took all her determination to maintain the smallest dailyamenities. It was not that her actual condition was unbearable, butonly that it was so tragically removed from what she had imagined; shehad dreamed of romance, it had been embodied for her eager gaze--andshe had married Cesare Orsi!

Gheta returned the necklace to its box and the dinner progressed insilence. The coffee was on when the elder sister said:

"I had a card from the Grand Hotel a while ago; Abrego y Mochales isthere. "

"And there, " Orsi put in promptly, "I hope he'll stay, or sail forSpain. I don't want the clown about here. "

Gheta turned. 

"But you will regret that, " she addressed Lavinia; "you always foundhim so fascinating. "

Lavinia's husband cleared his throat sharply; he was clearlyimpatiently annoyed. 

"What foolishness!" he cried. "From the first, Lavinia has beenscarcely conscious of his existence. "

Lavinia avoided her sister's mocking gaze, disturbed and angry. 

"Certainly Signore Mochales must be asked here, " she declared. 

"I suppose it can't be avoided, " Orsi muttered. 

It was arranged that the Spaniard should dine with them on thefollowing evening and Lavinia spent the intervening time in exploringher emotions. She recognized now that Gheta hated both Cesare andherself, and that she would miss no opportunity to force an awkward oreven dangerously unpleasant situation upon them. Gheta had sharpened inbeing as well as in countenance to such a degree that Lavinia lost whatnatural affection for her sister she had retained. 

This, in a way, allied her with Cesare. She was now able at least tosurvey him in a detached manner, with an impersonal comprehension ofhis good qualities and aesthetic shortcomings; and in pointing out toGheta the lavish beauty of her--Lavinia's--surroundings, she engenderedin herself a slight proprietary pride. She met Abrego y Mochales at thebasin with a direct bright smile, standing firmly upon her wall. 

Against the blue water shadowed by the promise of dusk he was a somberand splendid figure. Her heart undeniably beat faster and she was vexedwhen he turned immediately to Gheta. His greeting was intenselyserious, his gaze so hungry that Lavinia looked away. It was vulgar, she told herself. Cesare met them above and greeted Mochales with asuperficial heartiness. It was difficult for Cesare Orsi to conceal hisopinions and feelings. The other man's gravity was superb. 

At dinner conversation languished. Gheta, in a very low dress, had abright red scarf about her shoulders, and was painted. This was sounusual that it had almost the effect of a disguise; her eyes werestaring and brilliant, her fingers constantly fidgeting and creasingher napkin. Afterward she walked with Mochales to the corner of thebelvedere, where they had all been sitting, and from there drifted thelow continuous murmur of her voice, briefly punctuated by a deepmasculine note of interrogation. Below, the water was invisible in thewrap of night. Naples shone like a pale gold net drawn about the sweepof its hills. A glow like a thumb print hung over Vesuvius; the hiddencolumn of smoke smudged the stars. 

Lavinia grew restless and descended to her room, where she procured afan. Returning, she was partly startled by a pale still figure in thegloom of a passage. She saw that it was Gheta, and spoke; but the othermoved away without reply and quickly vanished. Above, Lavinia halted atthe strange spectacle--clearly drawn against the luminous depths ofspace--of Mochales and her husband rigidly facing each other. 

"I must admit, " Orsi said in an exasperated voice, "that I don'tunderstand. "

Lavinia saw that he was holding something in a half-extended hand. Moving closer, she identified the object as the necklace he had givenGheta. 

"What is it that you don't understand, Cesare?" she asked. 

"Some infernal joke or foolishness!"

"It is no joke, signore, " Mochales responded; "and it is better, --perhaps, for your wife to leave us. "

Orsi turned to Lavinia. 

"He gives me back this necklace of Gheta's, " he explained; "he saysthat he has every right. It appears that Gheta is going to marry him, and he already objects to presents from her brother-in-law. "

"But what stuff!" Lavinia pronounced. 

A swift surprise overtook her at Cesare's announcement--Gheta andMochales to marry! She was certain that the arrangement had not existedthat morning. A fleet inchoate sorrow numbed her heart and fled. 

"Orsi has been only truthful enough to suit his own purpose, " Mochalesstated, "Signora, please----" He indicated the descent from thebelvedere. 

She moved closer to him, smiling appealingly. 

"What is it all about?" she queried. 

"Forgive me; it is impossible to answer. "

"Cesare?" She addressed her husband. 

"Why, this--this donkey hints that there was something improper in mypresent. It seems that I have been annoying Gheta by my attentions, flattering her with pearls. "

"Did Gheta tell you that?" Lavinia demanded. A growing resentment tookpossession of her. "Because if she did, she lied!"

"Ah!" Mochales whispered sharply. 

"They're both mad, " Orsi told her, "and should be dipped in the bay. "

Never had Abrego y Mochales appeared handsomer; never more like finebronze. That latter fact struck her forcibly. His face was no moremutable than a mask of metal. Its stark rigidity sent a cold tremor toher heart. 

"And, " she went on impetuously, "since Gheta said that, I'll tell youreally about this necklace: Cesare gave it to her because he was sorryfor her; because he thought that perhaps he had misled her. He spoke ofit to me first. "

"No, signora, " the Spaniard responded deliberately; "it is not yoursister who lies. "

Cesare Orsi exclaimed angrily. He took a hasty step; but Lavinia, quicker, moved between the two men. 

"This is impossible, " she declared, "and must stop immediately! It ischildish!"

There was now a metallic ring in Mochales' voice that disturbed hereven more than his words. The bull-fighter, completely immobile, seemeda little inhuman; he was without a visible stir of emotion, but Orsilooked more puzzled and angry every moment. 

"This, " he ejaculated, "in my own house--infamous!"

"Signor Mochales, " Lavinia reiterated, "what I have told you isabsolutely so. "

"Your sister, signora, has said something different.... She did notwant to tell me, but I persisted--I saw that something was wrong--andforced it from her. "

"Enough!" Orsi commanded. "One can see plainly that you have beenduped; some things may be overlooked.... You have talked enough. "

Mochales moved easily forward. 

"You pudding!" he said in a low even voice. "Do you talk to me--Abregoy Mochales?"

A dark tide of passion, visible even in the night, flooded Orsi'scountenance. 

"Leave!" he insisted, "Or I'll have you flung into the bay. "

A deep silence followed, in which Lavinia could hear the stir of thewater against the walls below. A sharp fear entered her heart, a newdread of the Spaniard. He was completely outside the circle of impulseswhich she understood and to which she reacted. He was not a part of herworld; he coldly menaced the foundations of all right and security. Herworship of romance died miserably. In a way, she thought, she wasresponsible for the present horrible situation; it was the result ofthe feeling she had had for Mochales. Lavinia was certain that if Ghetahad not known of it the Spaniard would have been quickly dropped by theelder. She was suddenly conscious of the perfume he always bore; that, curiously, lent him a strange additional oppression. 

"Mochales, " he said in a species of strained wonderment, "threatened... Thrown into the bay! Mochales--the Flower of Spain! And by ahelpless mound of fat, a tub of entrails----"

"Cesare!" Lavinia cried in an energy of desperation. "Come! Don'tlisten to him. "

Orsi released her grasp. 

"I believe you are at the Grand Hotel?" he addressed the other man. 

"Until I hear from you. "

"To-morrow----"

All the heat had apparently evaporated from their words; they spokewith a perfunctory politeness. Cesare Orsi said:

"I will order the launch. "

In a few minutes the palpitations of the steam died in the direction ofNaples. 

VII

Lavinia followed her husband to their rooms, where he sat smoking oneof his long black cigars. He was pale; his brow was wet and his collarwilted. She stood beside him and he patted her arm. 

"Everything is in order, " he assured her. 

A species of blundering tenderness for him possessed her; an unexpectedthrob of her being startled and robbed her of words. He mistook hercontinued silence. 

"All I have is yours, " he explained; "it is your right. I can see nowthat--that my money was all I had to offer you. The only thing of valueI possess. I should have realized that a girl, charming like yourself, couldn't care for a mound of fat. " Her tenderness rose till it chokedin her throat, blurred what she had to say. 

"Cesare, " she told him, "Gheta was right; at one time I was in lovewith Mochales. " He turned with a startled exclamation; but she silencedhim. "He was, it seemed, all that a girl might admire--dark andmysterious and handsome. He was romantic. I demanded nothing else then;now something has happened that I don't altogether understand, but ithas changed everything for me. Cesare, your money never made anydifference in my feeling for you--it didn't before and it doesn't to-night--" She hesitated and blushed painfully, awkwardly. 

The cigar fell from his hand and he rose, eagerly facing her. 

"Lavinia, " he asked, "is it possible--do you mean that you care theleast about me?"

"It must be that, Cesare, because I am so terribly afraid. "

Later he admitted ruefully:

"But no man should resemble, as I do, a great oyster. I shall pay verydearly for my laziness. "

"You are not going to fight Mochales!" she protested. "It would beinsanity. "

"Insanity, " he agreed promptly. "Yet I can't permit myself to be thetarget for vile tongues. "

Lavinia abruptly left him and hurried to her sister's room. The doorwas locked; she knocked, but got no response. 

"Gheta, " she called, low and urgently, "open at once! Your plans havegone dreadfully wrong. Gheta!" she said more sharply into the answeringsilence. "Cesare has had a terrific argument with Mochales, and worsemay follow. Open!" There was still no answer, and suddenly she beatupon the door with her fists. "Liar!" she cried thinly through thewood. "Liar! You bitter old stick! I'll make you eat that necklace, pearl for pearl, sorrow for sorrow!"

A feeling of impotence overwhelmed her at the implacable stillness thatsucceeded her hysterical outburst. She stood with a pounding heart, andclasped straining fingers. 

Abrego y Mochales could kill Cesare without the slightest shadow of aquestion. There was, she recognized, something essentially feminine inthe saturnine bullfighter; his pride had been severely assaulted; andtherefore he would be--in his own, less subtle manner--as dangerous asGheta. Cesare's self-esteem, too, had been wounded in its mostvulnerable place--he had been insulted before her. But, even if thelatter refused to proceed, Mochales, she knew, would force an acuteconclusion. There was nothing to be got from her sister and she slowlyreturned to her chamber, from which she could hear Orsi's heavyfootfalls. 

She mechanically removed the square emerald that hung from a platinumthread about her neck, took off her rings, and proceeded to the smalliron safe where valuables were kept. As she swung open the door a sheetof paper slipped forward from an upper compartment. It bore a printedaddress ... In the Strada San Lucia. She saw that it was theblackmailing letter Cesare had received from the Neapolitan secretsociety, demanding two thousand lire. She recalled what he had said atthe time--if she had an enemy her gown could be spoiled in the foyer ofthe opera; a man ruined at his club.... Even murders were ascribed toit. 

She held the letter, gazing fixedly at the address, mentally repeatingagain and again the significance of its contents. She thought ofshowing it to Cesare, suggesting----But she realized that, bound by aconventional honor, he would absolutely refuse to listen to her. 

Almost subconsciously she folded the sheet and hid it in her dress. Kneeling before the safe she procured a long red envelope. It containedthe sum of money her father had given her at the wedding. It was herdot--a comparatively small amount, he had said at the time with anapologetic smile; but it was absolutely, unquestionably her own. This, when she locked the safe, remained outside. 

When she had hidden the letter and envelope in her dressing tableCesare stood in the doorway. He was still pale, but composed, and heldhimself with simple dignity. 

"Some men, " he said, "are not so happy, even for an hour. "

A sudden passionate necessity to save him swept over her. 

In the morning Orsi remained at the villa, but he sent the launch inearly with an urgent summons for the Cavaliere Nelli. Later, when heasked for Lavinia, he was told that she had gone to Naples; and whenthe boat returned, Nelli--a military figure, with hair and mustachelike yellowish white silk--assisted her to the wall. She was closelyveiled against the sparkling flood of light and bay, and hurrieddirectly to her room. 

There she knelt on a praying chair before a small alcoved altar withtall wax tapers, and remained a long while. She was disturbed by asudden ringing report below; it was Cesare practising with a duelingpistol. Lavinia remembered, from laughing comments in Florence, thather husband was an atrocious shot. The sound was repeated at irregularintervals through an unbearably long morning. 

Gheta, she learned, had refused the morning chocolate and, with hermaid, had collected and packed all her effects. Lavinia had no desireto see her. The situation now was past Gheta's mending. 

After luncheon Lavinia remained in her room, Nelli departed for Naplesand Cesare joined her. It was evident that he was greatly disturbed;but he spoke to her evenly. He was possessed by an impotent rage at hisunwieldy body and clumsy hand. This alternated with an evidentwonderment at the position in which he found himself and a greattenderness for Lavinia. 

At dusk they were in Lavinia's room waiting for a message from Naples. Lavinia was leaning across the marble ledge of her window, gazing overthe dim blue sweep of water to the distant flowering lights. She heardsudden footsteps and, half turning, saw her husband tearing open anenvelope. 

"Lavinia!" he cried. "There has been an accident in the elevator of theGrand Hotel, and Mochales--is dead!" She hung upon the ledge now forsupport. "The attendant, a new man, started the car too soon and caughtMochales----" She sank down upon her knees in an attitude of prayer, and Cesare Orsi stood reverently bowed. 

"The will of God!" he muttered. 

A long slow shiver passed over Lavinia, and he bent and lifted her inhis arms. 

TOL'ABLE DAVID

I

He was the younger of two brothers, in his sixteenth year; and he hadhis father's eyes--a tender and idyllic blue. There, however, theobvious resemblance ended. The elder's azure gaze was set in a facescarred and riven by hardship, debauch and disease; he had been--beforehe had inevitably returned to the mountains where he was born--abrakeman in the lowest stratum of the corruption of small cities on bigrailroads; and his thin stooped body, his gaunt head and uncertainhands, all bore the stamp of ruinous years. But in the midst of thishis eyes, like David's, retained their singularly tranquil color ofsweetness and innocence. 

David was the youngest, the freshest thing imaginable; he was overtalland gawky, his cheeks were as delicately rosy as apple blossoms, andhis smile was an epitome of ingenuous interest and frank wonder. It wasas if some quality of especial fineness, lingering unspotted in HunterKinemon, had found complete expression in his son David. A great dealof this certainly was due to his mother, a thick solid woman, whoretained more than a trace of girlish beauty when she stood back, flushed from the heat of cooking, or, her bright eyes snapping, trampedwith heavy pails from the milking shed on a winter morning. 

Both the Kinemon boys were engaging. Allen, almost twenty-one, was, ofcourse, the more conspicuous; he was called the strongest youth inGreenstream County. He had his mother's brown eyes; a deep bony box ofa chest; rippling shoulders; and a broad peaceful countenance. He drovethe Crabapple stage, between Crabapple, the village just over the backmountain, and Beaulings, in West Virginia. It was twenty-six miles frompoint to point, a way that crossed a towering range, hung above a farveil of unbroken spruce, forded swift glittering streams, and followeda road that passed rare isolated dwellings, dominating rocky andprecarious patches and hills of cultivation. One night Allen slept inBeaulings; the next he was home, rising at four o'clock in order totake his stage out of Crabapple at seven sharp. 

It was a splendid job, and brought them thirty-five dollars a month;not in mere trade at the store, but actual money. This, together withHunter Kinemon's position, tending the rich bottom farm of StateSenator Gait, gave them a position of ease and comfort in Greenstream. They were a very highly esteemed family. 

Gait's farm was in grazing; it extended in deep green pastures andsparkling water between two high mountainous walls drawn across eastand west. In the morning the rising sun cast long delicate shadows onone side; at evening the shadow troops lengthened across the emeraldvalley from the other. The farmhouse occupied a fenced clearing on theeastern rise, with a gray huddle of barn and sheds below, a gardenpatch of innumerable bean poles, and an incessant stir of snowychickens. Beyond, the cattle moved in sleek chestnut-brown and orangeherds; and farther out flocks of sheep shifted like gray-white cloudson a green-blue sky. 

It was, Mrs. Kinemon occasionally complained, powerful lonely, with thestore two miles up the road, Crabapple over a heft of a rise, and nopersonable neighbors; and she kept a loaded rifle in an angle of thekitchen when the men were all out in a distant pasturage. But Davidliked it extremely well; he liked riding an old horse after the steers, the all-night sap boilings in spring groves, the rough path across arib of the mountain to school. 

Nevertheless, he was glad when studying was over for the year. Itfinished early in May, on account of upland planting, and left Davidwith a great many weeks filled only with work that seem to himunadulterated play. Even that didn't last all the time; there werehours when he could fish for trout, plentiful in cool rocky pools; orshoot gray squirrels in the towering maples. Then, of evenings, hecould listen to Allen's thrilling tales of the road, of the gamblingand fighting among the lumbermen in Beaulings, or of strange peoplethat had taken passage in the Crabapple stage--drummers, for the mostpart, with impressive diamond rings and the doggonedest liesimaginable. But they couldn't fool Allen, however believing he mightseem.... The Kinemons were listening to such a recital by their eldestson now. 

They were gathered in a room of very general purpose. It had a roughboard floor and crumbling plaster walls, and held a large scarredcherry bed with high posts and a gayly quilted cover; a long couch, covered with yellow untanned sheepskins; a primitive telephone; somepainted wooden chairs; a wardrobe, lurching insecurely forward; and anempty iron stove with a pipe let into an original open hearth with awide rugged stone. Beyond, a door opened into the kitchen, and back ofthe bed a raw unguarded flight of steps led up to the peaked spacewhere Allen and David slept. 

Hunter Kinemon was extended on the couch, his home-knitted sockscomfortably free of shoes, smoking a sandstone pipe with a reed stem. Mrs. Kinemon was seated in a rocking-chair with a stained and torn redplush cushion, that moved with a thin complaint on a fixed base. Allenwas over against the stove, his corduroy trousers thrust into greasedlaced boots, and a black cotton shirt open on a chest and throat likepink marble. And David supported his lanky length, in a careless anddust-colored garb, with a capacious hand on the oak beam of the mantel. 

It was May, school had stopped, and a door was open on a warm stilldusk. Allen's tale had come to an end; he was pinching the ear of adiminutive dog--like a fat white sausage with wire-thin legs and a rattail--that never left him. The smoke from the elder Kinemon's pipe rosein a tranquil cloud. Mrs. Kinemon rocked vigorously, with a prolongedwail of the chair springs. "I got to put some tallow to that chair, "Kinemon proclaimed. 

"The house on Elbow Barren's took, " Allen told him suddenly--"the onejust off the road. I saw smoke in the chimney this evening. "

A revival of interest, a speculation, followed this announcement. 

"Any women'll get to the church, " Mr. Kinemon asserted. "I wonder? Dida person say who were they?"

"I asked; but they're strange to Crabapple. I heard this though: thereweren't any women to them--just men--father and sons like. I drew upright slow going by; but nobody passed out a word. It's a middling badfarm place--rocks and berry bushes. I wouldn't reckon much would becontent there. "

David walked out through the open doorway and stood on the smallcovered portico, that with a bench on each side, hung to the face ofthe dwelling. The stars were brightening in the sky above the confiningmountain walls; there was a tremendous shrilling of frogs; the faintclamor of a sheep bell. He was absolutely, irresponsibly happy. Hewished the time would hurry when he'd be big and strong like Allen, andget out into the absorbing stir of the world. 

II

He was dimly roused by Allen's departure in the beginning brightness ofthe following morning. The road over which the stage ran drew by therim of the farm; and later David saw the rigid three-seated surrey, theleather mail bags strapped in the rear, trotted by under the swingingwhip of his brother. He heard the faint sharp bark of Rocket, Allen'sdog, braced at his side. 

David spent the day with his father, repairing the fencing of themiddle field, swinging a mall and digging post holes; and at eveninghis arms ached. But he assured himself he was not tired; any brother ofAllen's couldn't give in before such insignificant effort. When HunterKinemon turned back toward house and supper David made a wide circle, ostensibly to see whether there was rock salt enough out for thecattle, but in reality to express his superabundant youth, stayingqualities and unquenchable vivid interest in every foot of the valley. 

He saw the meanest kind of old fox, and marked what he thought might beits hole; his flashing gaze caught the obscure distant retreat ofground hogs; he threw a contemptuous clod at the woolly-brained sheep;and with a bent willow shoot neatly looped a trout out upon the grassybank. As a consequence of all this he was late for supper, and sat atthe table with his mother, who never took her place until the men--yes, and boys of her family--had satisfied their appetites. The dark came onand she lighted a lamp swinging under a tin reflector from the ceiling. The kitchen was an addition, and had a sloping shed roof, board sides, a polished stove, and a long table with a red cloth. 

His father, David learned, attacking a plateful of brown chickenswimming with greens and gravy, was having another bad spell. He hadthe familiar sharp pain through his back and his arms hurt him. 

"He can't be drove to a doctor, " the woman told David, speaking, in herconcern, as if to an equal in age and comprehension. 

David had grown accustomed to the elder's periods of suffering; theycame, twisted his father's face into deep lines, departed, and thingswere exactly as before--or very nearly the same. The boy saw thatHunter Kinemon couldn't support labor that only two or three yearsbefore he would have finished without conscious effort. Davidresolutely ignored this; he felt that it must be a cause of shame, unhappiness, to his father; and he never mentioned it to Allen. Kinemonlay very still on the couch; his pipe, beside him on the floor, hadspilled its live core, burning into a length of rag carpet. His face, hung with shadows like the marks of a sooty finger, was glistening withfine sweat. Not a whisper of complaint passed his dry lips. When hiswife approached he attempted to smooth out his corrugated countenance. His eyes, as tenderly blue as flowers, gazed at her with a faintmasking of humor. 

"This is worse'n usual, " she said sharply. "And I ain't going to haveyou fill yourself with any more of that patent trash. You don't spareme by not letting on. I can tell as soon as you're miserable. David canfetch the doctor from Crabapple to-night if you don't look better. "

"But I am, " he assured her. "It's just a comeback of an old ache. Therewas a power of heavy work to that fence. "

"You'll have to get more to help you, " she continued. "That Galt'll letyou kill yourself and not turn a hand. He can afford a dozen. I don'tmind housing and cooking for them. David's only tol'able for lifting, too, while he's growing. "

"Why, " David protested, "it ain't just nothing what I do. I could dotwice as much. I don't believe Allen could helt more'n me when he wassixteen. It ain't just nothing at all. "

He was disturbed by this assault upon his manhood; if his muscles werestill a little stringy it was surprising what he could accomplish withthem. He would show her to-morrow. 

"And, " he added impetuously, "I can shoot better than Allen right now. You ask him if I can't. You ask him what I did with that cranky twenty-two last Sunday up on the mountain. "

His clear gaze sought her, his lean face quivered with anxiety toimpress, convince her of his virility, skill. His jaw was as sharp asthe blade of a hatchet. She studied him with a new surprised concern. 

"David!" she exclaimed. "For a minute you had the look of a man. A realsteady look, like your father. Don't you grow up too fast, David, " shedirected him, in an irrepressible maternal solicitude. "I want a boy--something young--round a while yet. "

Hunter Kinemon sat erect and reached for his pipe. The visible strainof his countenance had been largely relaxed. When his wife had left theroom for a moment he admitted to David:

"That was a hard one. I thought she had me that time. "

The elder's voice was light, steady. The boy gazed at him with intenseadmiration. He felt instinctively that nothing mortal could shake theother's courage. And, on top of his mother's complimentary surprise, his father had confided in him, made an admission that, David realized, must be kept from fretting women. He couldn't have revealed more toAllen himself. 

He pictured the latter swinging magnificently into Beaulings, crackingthe whip over the horses' ears, putting on the grinding brake beforethe post-office. No one, even in that town of reckless drinking, evertried to down Allen; he was as ready as he was strong. He had charge ofGovernment mail and of passengers; he carried a burnished revolver in aholster under the seat at his hand. Allen would kill anybody whointerfered with him. So would he--David--if a man edged up on him or onhis family; if any one hurt even a dog of his, his own dog, he'd shoothim. 

An inextinguishable hot pride, a deep sullen intolerance, rose in himat the thought of an assault on his personal liberty, his rights, or onhis connections and belongings. A deeper red burned in his fresh youngcheeks; his smiling lips were steady; his candid blue eyes, ineffablygentle, gazed widely against the candlelit gloom where he was makinghis simple preparations for bed. The last feeling of which he wasconscious was a wave of sharp admiration, of love, for everything andeverybody that constituted his home. 

III

Allen, on his return the following evening, immediately opened anexcited account of the new family, with no women, on the place by ElbowBarren. 

"I heard they were from down hellwards on the Clinch, " he repeated;"and then that they'd come from Kentucky. Anyway, they're bad. EdArbogast just stepped on their place for a pleasant howdy, and some oneon the stoop hollered for him to move. Ed, he saw the shine on a riflebarrel, and went right along up to the store. Then they hired Simmons--the one that ain't good in his head--to cut out bush; and Simmonstrailed home after a while with the side of his face all tore, wherehe'd been hit with a piece of board. Simmons' brother went and askedthem what was it about; and one of the Hatburns--that's their name--said he'd busted the loony just because!"

"What did Simmons answer back?" Hunter Kinemon demanded, his coffee cupsuspended. 

"Nothing much; he'd law them, or something like that. The Simmonses areright spindling; they don't belong in Greenstream either. " Davidcommented: "I wouldn't have et a thing till I'd got them!" In the ruddyreflection of the lamp his pink-and-blue charm, his shy lips, resembleda pastoral divinity of boyhood. Allen laughed. 

"That family, the Hatburns----" He paused. "Why, they'd just mow youdown with the field daisies. "

David flushed with annoyance. He saw his mother studying him with theattentive concern she had first shown the day before yesterday. 

"You have no call to mix in with them, " Kinemon told his elder son. "Drive stage and mind your business. I'd even step aside a little fromfolks like that. "

A sense of surprised disappointment invaded David at his father'sstatement. It seemed to him out of keeping with the elder's courage anddetermination. It, too, appeared almost spindling. Perhaps he had saidit because his wife, a mere woman, was there. He was certain that Allenwould not agree with such mildness. The latter, lounging back from thetable, narrowed his eyes; his fingers played with the ears of his dog, Rocket. Allen gave his father a cigar and lit one himself, a presentfrom a passenger on the stage. David could see a third in Allen's shirtpocket, and he longed passionately for the day when he would be oldenough to have a cigar offered him. He longed for the time when he, like Allen, would be swinging a whip over the horses of a stage, rambling down a steep mountain, or walking up at the team's head totake off some weight. 

Where the stage line stopped in Beaulings the railroad began. Allen, heknew, intended in the fall to give up the stage for the infinitelywider world of freight cars; and David wondered whether Priest, thestorekeeper in Crabapple who had charge of the awarding of theposition, could be brought to see that he was as able a driver, almost, as Allen. 

It was probable Priest would call him too young for the charge of theGovernment mail. But he wasn't; Allen had to admit that he, David, wasthe straighter shot. He wouldn't step aside for any Hatburn alive. And, he decided, he would smoke nothing but cigars. He considered whether hemight light his small clay pipe, concealed under the stoop, before thefamily; but reluctantly concluded that that day had not yet arrived. 

Allen passed driving the next morning as usual, leaving a gray wreathof dust to settle back into the tranquil yellow sunshine; the sun movedfrom the east barrier to the west; a cool purple dusk filled thevalley, and the shrilling of the frogs rose to meet the night. Thefollowing day was almost identical--the shadows swept out, shortenedunder the groves of trees and drew out again over the sheep on thewestern slope. Before Allen reached home he had to feed and bed hishorses, and walk back the two miles over the mountain from Crabapple;and a full hour before the time for his brother's arrival, David wassurprised to see the stage itself making its way over the precariousturf road that led up to the Kinemons' dwelling. He was standing by theportico, and immediately his mother moved out to his side, as ifsubconsciously disturbed by the unusual occurrence. David saw, whilethe stage was still diminutive against the rolling pasture, that Allenwas not driving; and there was an odd confusion of figures in a rearseat. Mrs. Kinemon said at once, in a shrill strange voice:

"Something has happened to Allen!" She pressed her hands against herlaboring breast; David ran forward and met the surrey as it camethrough the fence opening by the stable shed. Ed Arbogast was driving;and a stranger--a drummer evidently--in a white-and-black check suit, was holding Allen, crumpled in a dreadful bloody faint. 

"Where's Hunter?" Arbogast asked the boy. 

"There he comes now, " David replied, his heart pounding wildly anddread constricting his throat. 

Hunter Kinemon and his wife reached the stage at the same moment. Bothwere plaster-white; but the woman was shaking with frightened concern, while her husband was deliberate and still. 

"Help me carry him in to our bed, " he addressed Ed Arbogast. 

They lifted Allen out and bore him toward the house, his limp fingers, David saw, trailing through the grass. At first the latterinvoluntarily turned away; but, objurgating such cowardice, he forcedhimself to gaze at Allen. He recognized at once that his brother hadnot been shot; his hip was too smeared and muddy for that. It was, hedecided, an accident, as Arbogast and the drummer lead Hunter Kinemonaside. David Kinemon walked resolutely up to the little group. Hisfather gestured for him to go away, but he ignored the elder's command. He must know what had happened to Allen. The stranger in the checkedsuit was speaking excitedly, waving trembling hands--a sharp contrastto the grim immobility of the Greenstream men:

"He'd been talking about that family, driving out of Beaulings andsaying how they had done this and that; and when we came to where theylived he pointed out the house. A couple of dark-favored men wereworking in a patch by the road, and he waved his whip at them, in a wayof speaking; but they never made a sign. The horses were going slowthen; and, for some reason or other, his little dog jumped to the roadand ran in on the patch. Sirs, one of those men spit, stepped up to thedog, and kicked it into Kingdom Come. "

David's hands clenched; and he drew in a sharp sobbing breath. 

"This Allen, " the other continued, "pulled in the team and drawed a gunfrom under the seat before I could move a hand. You can hear me--Iwouldn't have kicked any dog of his for all the gold there is! He gotdown from the stage and started forward, and his face was black; thenhe stopped, undecided. He stood studying, with the two men watchinghim, one leaning careless on a grub hoe. Then, by heaven, he turned andrested the gun on the seat, and walked up to where laid the last of hisdog. He picked it up, and says he:

"'Hatburn, I got Government mail on that stage to get in undercontract, and there's a passenger too--paid to Crabapple; but when Iget them two things done I'm coming back to kill you two dead to hearthe last trumpet. '

"The one on the hoe laughed; but the other picked up a stone like mytwo fists and let Allen have it in the back. It surprised him like; hestumbled forward, and the other stepped out and laid the hoe over hishead. It missed him mostly, but enough landed to knock Allen over. Herolled into the ditch, like, by the road; and then Hatburn jumped downon him, deliberate, with lumbermen's irons in his shoes. "

David was conscious of an icy flood pouring through him; a revulsion ofgrief and fury that blinded him. Tears welled over his fresh cheeks inan audible crying. But he was silenced by the aspect of his father. Hunter Kinemon's tender blue eyes had changed apparently into bits ofpolished steel; his mouth was pinched until it was only a line amongthe other lines and seaming of his worn face. 

"I'd thank you to drive the stage into Crabapple, Ed, " he said; "and ifyou see the doctor coming over the mountain--he's been rung up for--askhim, please sir, will he hurry. " He turned and walked abruptly away, followed by David. 

Allen lay under the gay quilt in the Kinemons' big bed. His stainedclothes drooped from a chair where Mrs. Kinemon had flung them. Allen'sface was like white paper; suddenly it had grown as thin and sharp asan old man's. Only a slight quiver of his eyelids showed that he wasnot dead. 

Hunter Kinemon sat on the couch, obviously waiting for the doctor. He, too, looked queer, David thought. He wished his father would break thedreadful silence gathering over them; but the only sound was thestirring of the woman in the kitchen, boiling a pot of water. Allenmoved and cried out in a knifelike agony, and a flicker of sufferingpassed over his father's face. 

An intolerable hour dragged out before the doctor arrived; and thenDavid was driven from the room. He sat outside on the portico, listening to the passage of feet about Allen in a high shudderingprotest. David's hands and feet were still cold, but he was consciousof an increasing stillness within, an attitude not unlike his father's. He held out an arm and saw that it was as steady as a beam of the stooproof. He was without definite plan or knowledge of what must occur; buthe told himself that any decision of Hunter Kinemon's must not excludehim. 

There were four Hatburns; but two Kinemons were better; and he meanthis father and himself, for he knew instinctively that Allen was badlyhurt. Soon there would be no Hatburns at all. And then the law could doas it pleased. It seemed to David a long way from the valley, fromAllen broken in bed, to the next term of court--September--inCrabapple. The Kinemons could protect, revenge, their own. 

The doctor passed out, and David entered where his mother was bentabove her elder son. Hunter Kinemon, with a blackened rag, was wipingthe lock of an old but efficient repeating rifle. His motions wereunhurried, careful. Mrs. Kinemon gazed at him with blanching lips, butshe interposed no word. There was another rifle, David knew, in thelong cupboard by the hearth; and he was moving to secure it when hisfather's voice halted him in the middle of the floor. "You David, " hesaid, "I want you to stop along here with your mother. It ain't fit forher to be left alone with Allen, and there's a mess of little thingsfor doing. I want those cows milked dry, and catch in those littleDominicker chickens before that old gander eats them up. "

David was about to protest, to sob out a passionate refusal, when aglimpse of his father's expression silenced him. He realized that theslightest argument would be worse than futile. There wasn't a particleof familiar feeling in the elder's voice; suddenly David was afraid ofhim. Hunter Kinemon slipped a number of heavily greased cartridges intothe rifle's magazine. Then he rose and said:

"Well, Mattie?"

His wife laid her hand on his shoulder. 

"Hunter, " she told him, "you've been a mighty sweet and good husband. "He drew his hand slowly and lovingly across her cheek. 

"I'm sorry about this, Mattie, " he replied; "I've been powerful happyalong with you and all of us. David, be a likely boy. " He walked out ofthe room, across the grass to the stable shed. 

"He's going to drive to Elbow Barren, " David muttered; "and he hadn'tought to have left me to tend the cows and chickens. That's for a womanto do. I ought to be right along with him facing down those Hatburns. Ican shoot, and my hand is steady as his. "

He stood in the doorway, waiting for the reappearance of his fatherwith the roan horse to hitch to their old buggy. It didn't occur toDavid to wonder at the fact that the other was going alone to confrontfour men. The Kinemons had a mort of friends who would have gladlyaccompanied, assisted Hunter; but this, the boy told himself, was theirown affair--their own pride. 

From within came the sound of his mother, crying softly, and of Allenmurmuring in his pain. David was appalled by the swift change that hadfallen over them--the breaking up of his entire world, the shifting ofevery hope and plan. He was appalled and confused; the thoughtlessunquestioning security of his boyhood had been utterly destroyed. Helooked about dazed at the surrounding scene, callous in its totalcarelessness of Allen's injury, his haggard father with the rifle. Thevalley was serenely beautiful; doves were calling from the eaves of thebarn; a hen clucked excitedly. The western sky was a single expanse ofprimrose on which the mountains were jagged and blue. 

He had never known the elder to be so long getting the bridle on theroan; the buggy was drawn up outside. An uneasy tension increasedwithin him--a pressing necessity to see his father leading out theirhorse. He didn't come, and finally David was forced to walk over to theshed. 

The roan had been untied, and turned as the boy entered; but David, atfirst, failed to find Hunter Kinemon; then he almost stepped on hishand. His father lay across a corner of the earthen floor, with thebridle tangled in stiff fingers, and his blue eyes staring blankly up. 

David stifled an exclamation of dread, and forced himself to bendforward and touch the gray face. Only then he realized that he waslooking at death. The pain in his father's back had got him at last!The rifle had been carefully placed against the wall; and, withoutrealizing the significance of his act, David picked it up and laid thecold barrel against his rigid young body. 

IV

On the evening after Hunter Kinemon's burial in the rocky steepgraveyard above Crabapple, David and his mother sat, one on the couch, the other in her creaking rocking-chair, lost in heavy silence. Allenmoved in a perpetual uneasy pain on the bed, his face drawn andfretful, and shadowed by a soft young beard. The wardrobe doors stoodopen, revealing a stripped interior; wooden chairs were tied back toback; and two trunks--one of mottled paper, the other of ancientleather--stood by the side of a willow basket filled with a miscellanyof housekeeping objects. 

What were left of the Kinemons were moving into a small house on theedge of Crabapple; Senator Galt had already secured another tenant forthe care of his bottom acres and fat herds. The night swept into theroom, fragrant and blue, powdered with stars; the sheep bells soundedin a faintly distant clashing; a whippoorwill beat its throat outagainst the piny dark. 

An overpowering melancholy surged through David; though his youthresponded to the dramatic, the tragic change that had enveloped them, at the same time he was reluctant to leave the farm, the valley withits trout and ground hogs, its fox holes and sap boilings. Thesefeelings mingled in the back of his consciousness; his active thoughtswere all directed toward the time when, with the rifle, the obligationthat he had picked up practically from his dead father's hand, he wouldwalk up to the Hatburn place and take full payment for Allen's injuryand their paternal loss. 

He felt uneasily that he should have gone before this--at once; butthere had been a multitude of small duties connected with the funeral, intimate things that could not be turned over to the kindest neighbors;and the ceremony itself, it seemed to him, should be attended bydignity and repose. 

Now, however, it was over; and only his great duty remained, fillingthe entire threshold of his existence. He had no plan; only a necessityto perform. It was possible that he would fail--there were fourHatburns; and that chance depressed him. If he were killed there was noone else, for Allen could never take another step. That had beendisclosed by the most casual examination of his injury. Only himself, David, remained to uphold the pride of the Kinemons. 

He gazed covertly at his mother; she must not, certainly, be warned ofhis course; she was a woman, to be spared the responsibility borne bymen. A feeling of her being under his protection, even advice, hadgrown within him since he had discovered the death in the stable shed. This had not changed his aspect of blossoming youth, the intense bluecandor of his gaze; he sat with his knees bent boyishly, his immaturehands locked behind his head. 

An open wagon, piled with blankets, carried Allen to Crabapple, andMrs. Kinemon and David followed in the buggy, a great bundle, folded inthe bright quilt, roped behind. They soon crossed the range and droppedinto a broader valley. Crabapple lay on a road leading from mountainwall to wall, the houses quickly thinning out into meadow at each end. 

A cross-roads was occupied by three stores and the courthouse, a squarered-brick edifice with a classic white portico and high lantern; and itwas out from that, where the highway had degenerated into a sod-cuttrail, that the future home of the Kinemons lay. It was a small somberframe dwelling, immediately on the road, with a rain-washed patchrising abruptly at the back. A dilapidated shed on the left provided ameager shelter for the roan; and there was an aged and twisted appletree over the broken pump. 

"You'll have to get at that shed, David, " his mother told him; "thefirst rain would drown anything inside. "

She was settling Allen on the couch with the ragged sheepskin. So hewould; but there was something else to attend to first. He would walkover to Elbow Barren, to-morrow. He involuntarily laid his hand on thebarrel of the rifle, temporarily leaned against a table, when hismother spoke sharply from an inner doorway. 

"You David, " she said; "come right out into the kitchen. "

There he stood before her, with his gaze stubbornly fixed on the barefloor, his mouth tight shut. 

"David, " she continued, her voice now lowered, fluctuating withanxiety, "you weren't reckoning on paying off them Hatburns? Younever?" She halted, gazing at him intently. "Why, they'd shoot you upin no time! You are nothing but a--"

"You can call me a boy if you've a mind to, " he interrupted; "and maybethe Hatburns'll kill me--and maybe they won't. But there's no one canhurt Allen like that and go plumb, sniggering free; not while I canmove and hold a gun. "

"I saw a look to you that was right manlike a week or two back, " shereplied; "and I said to myself: 'There's David growing up overnight. ' Ifavored it, too, though I didn't want to lose you that way so soon. Andonly last night I said again: 'Thank God, David's a man in his heart, for all his pretty cheeks!' I thought I could build on you, with megetting old and Allen never taking a mortal step. Priest would give youa place, and glad, in the store--the Kinemons are mighty good people. Ihad it all fixed up like that, how we'd live here and pay regular. 

"Oh, I didn't say nothing to your father when he started out--he wastoo old to change; but I hoped you would be different. I hoped youwould forget your own feeling, and see Allen there on his back, and me... Getting along. You're all we got, David. It's no use, I reckon;you'll go like Allen and Hunter, full up with your own pride and never----" She broke off, gazing bitterly at her hands folded in her calicolap. 

A new trouble filled David's heart. Through the open doorway he couldsee Allen, twisting on the couch; his mother was older, more worn, thanhe had realized. She had failed a great deal in the past few days. Shewas suddenly stripped of her aspect of authority, force; suddenly sheappeared negative, dependent. A sharp pity for her arose through hisother contending emotions. 

"I don't know how you figure you will be helping Allen by stepping offto be shot instead of putting food in his mouth, " she spoke again. "He's got nobody at all but you, David. "

That was so; and yet--

"How can I let those skunks set their hell on us?" he demandedpassionately. "Why, all Greenstream will think I'm afraid, that I letthe Hatburns bust Allen and kill my father. I couldn't stand up inPriest's store; I couldn't bear to look at anybody. Don't youunderstand how men are about those things?"

She nodded. 

"I can see, right enough--with Hunter in the graveyard and Allen withboth hips broke. What I can't see is what we'll do next winter; howwe'll keep Allen warm and fed. I suppose we can go to the County Home. "

But that, David knew, was as disgraceful as the other--his own mother, Allen, objects of public charity! His face was clouded, his handsclenched. It was only a chance that he would be killed; there were fourHatburns though. His heart, he thought, would burst with misery; everyinstinct fought for the expression, the upholding of the familyprestige, honor. A hatred for the Hatburns was like a strangling handat his throat. 

"I got to!" he said; but his voice was wavering; the dull convictionseized him that his mother was right. 

All the mountains would think of him as a coward--that Kinemon whowouldn't stand up to the men who had destroyed Allen and his father!

A sob heaved in his chest; rebellious tears streamed over his thincheeks. He was crying like a baby. He threw an arm up across his eyesand stumbled from the room. 

V

However, he had no intention of clerking back of a counter, of gettingdown rolls of muslin, papers of buttons, for women, if it could beavoided. Priest's store was a long wooden structure with a paintedfaçade and a high platform before it where the mountain wagons unloadedtheir various merchandise teamed from the railroad, fifty milesdistant. The owner had a small glass-enclosed office on the left as youentered the store; and there David found him. He turned, gazing overhis glasses, as the other entered. 

"How's Allen?" he asked pleasantly. "I heard he was bad; but wecertainly look to have him back driving stage. "

"I came to see you about that, " David replied. "Allen can't never driveagain; but, Mr. Priest, sir, I can. Will you give me a try?"

The elder ignored the question in the concern he exhibited for Allen'sinjury. 

"It is a cursed outrage!" he declared. "Those Hatburns will be got up, or my name's not Priest! We'd have them now, but the jail wouldn't keepthem overnight, and court three months off. "

David preserved a stony silence--the only attitude possible, he haddecided, in the face of his patent dereliction. 

"Will you try me on the Beaulings stage?" he repeated. "I've been roundhorses all my life; and I can hold a gun straighter than Allen. "

Priest shook his head negatively. 

"You are too light--too young, " he explained; "you have to be above acertain age for the responsibility of the mail. There are some roughcustomers to handle. If you only had five years more now--We are havinga hard time finding a suitable man. A damned shame about Allen!Splendid man!"

"Can't you give it to me for a week, " David persisted, "and see how Ido?"

They would have awarded him the position immediately, he felt, if hehad properly attended to the Hatburns. He wanted desperately to explainhis failure to Priest, but a dogged pride prevented. The storekeeperwas tapping on an open ledger with a pen, gazing doubtfully at David. 

"You couldn't be worse than the drunken object we have now, " headmitted. "You couldn't hold the job permanent yet, but I might let youdrive extra--a day or so--till we find a man. I'd like to do what Icould for Mrs. Kinemon. Your father was a good man, a good customer.... Come and see me again--say, day after to-morrow. "

This half promise partly rehabilitated his fallen pride. There was nosign in the men he passed that they held him in contempt for neglectingto kill the Hatburns; and his mother wisely avoided the subject. Shewondered a little at Priest's considering him, even temporarily, forthe stage; but confined her wonder to a species of compliment. Davidsat beside Allen, while the latter, between silent spaces of suffering, advised him of the individual characters and attributes of the horsesthat might come under his guiding reins. 

It seemed incredible that he should actually be seated in the driver'splace on the stage, swinging the heavy whip out over a team trottingbriskly into the early morning; but there he was. There were nopassengers, and the stage rode roughly over a small bridge of looseboards beyond the village. He pulled the horses into a walk on themountain beyond, and was soon skirting the Gait farm, with its broadfields, where he had lived as a mere boy. 

David slipped his hand under the leather seat and felt the smoothhandle of the revolver. Then, on an even reach, he wrapped the reinsabout the whipstock and publicly filled and lighted his clay pipe. Thesmoke drifted back in a fragrant cloud; the stage moved forwardsteadily and easily; folded in momentary forgetfulness, lifted by afeeling of mature responsibility, he was almost happy. But he swungdown the mountain beyond his familiar valley, crossed a smaller ridge, and turned into a stony sweep rising on the left. 

It was Elbow Barren. In an instant a tide of bitterness, of passionateregret, swept over him. He saw the Hatburns' house, a rectangular bleakstructure crowning a gray prominence, with the tender green of youngpole beans on one hand and a disorderly barn on the other, and a blueplume of smoke rising from an unsteady stone chimney against an end ofthe dwelling. No one was visible. 

Hot tears filled his eyes as the stage rolled along past the moldyditch into which Allen had fallen. The mangy curs! His grip tightenedon the reins and the team broke into a clattering trot, speedilyleaving the Barren behind. But the day had been robbed of its sparkle, his position of its pleasurable pride. He saw again his father's bodyon the earthen floor of the stable, the bridle in his stiff fingers;Allen carried into the house. And he, David Kinemon, had had to stepback, like a coward or a woman, and let the Hatburns triumph. 

The stage drew up before the Beaulings post-office in the middle of theafternoon. David delivered the mail bags, and then led the team back toa stable on the grassy verge of the houses clustered at the end oftracks laid precariously over a green plain to a boxlike station. Beaulings had a short row of unpainted two-story structures, the singlestreet cut into deep muddy scars; stores with small dusty windows;eating houses elevated on piles; an insignificant mission chapel with atar-papered roof; and a number of obviously masked depots for theillicit sale of liquor. 

A hotel, neatly painted white and green, stood detached from the mainactivity. There, washing his face in a tin basin on a back porch, Davidhad his fried supper, sat for a while outside in the gathering dusk, gazing at the crude-oil flares, the passing dark figures beyond, thestill obscured immensity of mountain and forest. And then he went up toa pine sealed room, like the heated interior of a packing box, where hepartly undressed for bed. 

VI

The next mid-morning, descending the sharp grade toward Elbow Barren, there was no lessening of David's bitterness against the Hatburns. Theflavor of tobacco died in his mouth, he grew unconscious of thelurching heavy stage, the responsibility of the mail, all committed tohis care. A man was standing by the ditch on the reach of scrubby grassthat fell to the road; and David pulled his team into the slowest walkpossible. It was his first actual sight of a Hatburn. He saw a manmiddling tall, with narrow high shoulders, and a clay-yellowcountenance, extraordinarily pinched through the temples, with minuterestless black eyes. The latter were the only mobile feature of hisslouching indolent pose, his sullen regard. He might have been ascarecrow, David thought, but for that glittering gaze. 

The latter leaned forward, the stage barely moving, and lookedunwaveringly at the Hatburn beyond. He wondered whether the man knewhim--David Kinemon? But of course he did; all the small details ofmountain living circulated with the utmost rapidity from clearing toclearing. He was now directly opposite the other; he could take out therevolver and kill that Hatburn, where he stood, with one precise shot. His hand instinctively reached under the seat. Then he rememberedAllen, forever dependent on the couch; his mother, who had latelyseemed so old. The stage was passing the motionless figure. David drewa deep painful breath, and swung out his whip with a vicious sweep. 

His pride, however, returned when he drove into Crabapple, down thefamiliar street, past the familiar men and women turning to watch him, with a new automatic measure of attention, in his elevated position. Hewalked back to his dwelling with a slight swagger of hips andshoulders, and, with something of a flourish, laid down the two dollarshe had been paid for the trip to Beaulings. 

"I'm to drive again to-morrow, " he stated to his mother and Allen;"after that Priest has a regular man. I suppose, then, I'll have to gointo the store. "

The last seemed doubly difficult now, since he had driven stage. As hedisposed of supper, eating half a pie with his cracklings and greens, his mother moved from the stove to the table, refilled his plate, wavedthe paper streamers of the fly brush above his head, exactly as she hadfor his father. Already, he assured himself, he had become a man. 

The journey to Beaulings the following day was an unremarkable replicaof the one before. He saw no Hatburns; the sun wheeled from east towest at apparently the same speed as the stage; and Beaulings held itsinevitable surge of turbulent lumbermen, the oil flares made theirlurid note on the vast unbroken starry canopy of night. 

The morning of his return was heavy with a wet low vapor. The mailbags, as he strapped them to the rear rack, were slippery; the dawn wasa slow monotonous widening of dull light. There were no passengers forCrabapple, and David, with his coat collar turned up about his throat, urged the horses to a faster gait through the watery cold. 

The brake set up a shrill grinding, and then the stage passed ElbowBarren in a smart rattle and bumping. 

After that David slowed down to light his pipe. The horses willinglylingered, almost stopping; and, the memory of the slippery bags at theback of his head, David dismounted, walked to the rear of the stage. 

A chilling dread swept through him as he saw, realized, that one of theGovernment sacks was missing. The straps were loose about the remainingtwo; in a minute or more they would have gone. Panic seized him, uttermisery, at the thought of what Priest, Crabapple, would say. He wouldbe disgraced, contemptuously dismissed--a failure in the trust laid onhim. 

He collected his faculties by a violent effort; the bags, he was sure, had been safe coming down the last mountain; he had walked part of theway, and he was certain that he would have noticed anything wrong. Theroad was powerful bad through the Barren.... 

He got up into the stage, backed the team abruptly on its haunches, andslowly retraced his way to the foot of the descent. There was no maillying on the empty road. David turned again, his heart pounding againsthis ribs, tears of mortification, of apprehension, blurring his vision. The bag must have fallen here in Elbow Barren. Subconsciously hestopped the stage. On the right the dwelling of the Hatburns showedvaguely through the mist. No one else could have been on the road. Atroubled expression settled on his glowing countenance, a ponderingdoubt; then his mouth drew into a determined line. 

"I'll have to go right up and ask, " he said aloud. 

He jumped down to the road, led the horses to a convenient sapling, where he hitched them. Then he drew his belt tighter about his slenderwaist and took a step forward. A swift frown scarred his brow, and heturned and transferred the revolver to a pocket in his trousers. 

The approach to the house was rough with stones and muddy clumps ofgrass. A track, he saw, circled the dwelling to the back; but he walkedsteadily and directly up to the shallow portico between windows withhanging, partly slatted shutters. The house had been painted dark browna long while before; the paint had weathered and blistered into adepressing harmony with the broken and mossy shingles of the roof, therust-eaten and sagging gutters festooning the ragged eaves. 

David proceeded up the steps, hesitated, and then, his mouth firm andhand steady, knocked. He waited for an apparently interminable space, and then knocked again, more sharply. Now he heard voices within. Hewaited rigidly for steps to approach, the door to open; but in vain. They had heard, but chose to ignore his summons; and a swift cold angermounted in him. He could follow the path round to the back; but, hetold himself, he--David Kinemon--wouldn't walk to the Hatburns' kitchendoor. They should meet him at the front. He beat again on the scarredwood, waited; and then, in an irrepressible flare of temper, kicked thedoor open. 

He was conscious of a slight gasping surprise at the dark moldy-smelling hall open before him. A narrow bare stairway mounted above, with a passage at one side, and on each hand entrances were shut onfarther interiors. The scraping of a chair, talking came from the left;the door, he saw, was not latched. He pushed it open and entered. Therewas a movement in the room still beyond, and he walked evenly into whatevidently was a kitchen. 

The first thing he saw was the mail bag, lying intact on a table. Thenhe was meeting the concerted stare of four men. One of two, so similarthat he could not have distinguished between them, he had seen before, at the edge of the road. Another was very much older, taller, moresallow. The fourth was strangely fat, with a great red hanging mouth. The latter laughed uproariously, a jangling mirthless sound followed bya mumble of words without connective sense. David moved toward the mailbag:

"I'm driving stage and lost those letters. I'll take them right along. "

The oldest Hatburn, with a pail in his hand, was standing by anopening, obviously at the point of departure on a small errand. Helooked toward the two similar men, nearer David. 

"Boy, " he demanded, "did you kick in my front door?"

"I'm the Government's agent, " David replied. "I've got to have themail. I'm David Kinemon too; and I wouldn't step round to your backdoor, Hatburn--not if there was a boiling of you!"

"You'll learn you this, " one of the others broke in: "it will be thesweetest breath you ever draw'd when you get out that back door!"

The elder moved on to the pounded earth beyond. Here, in theirpresence, David felt the loathing for the Hatburns a snake inspires--dusty brown rattlers and silent cottonmouths. His hatred obliteratedevery other feeling but a dim consciousness of the necessity to recoverthe mail bag. He was filled with an overpowering longing to revengeAllen; to mark them with the payment of his father, dead in the stableshed. 

His objective senses were abnormally clear, cold: he saw every detailof the Hatburns' garb--the soiled shirts with buttoned pockets on theirleft breasts; the stained baggy breeches in heavy boots--such boots ashad stamped Allen into nothingness; dull yellow faces and beady eyes;the long black hair about their dark ears. 

The idiot thrust his fingers into his loose mouth, his shirt open on ahairy pendulous chest. The Hatburn who had not yet spoken showed a rowof tobacco-brown broken teeth. 

"He mightn't get a heave on that breath, " he asserted. 

The latter lounged over against a set of open shelves where, David saw, lay a heavy rusted revolver. Hatburn picked up the weapon and turned itslowly in his thin grasp. 

"I'm carrying the mail, " David repeated, his hand on the bag. "You'vegot no call on this or on me. "

He added the last with tremendous effort. It seemed unspeakable that heshould be there, the Hatburns before him, and merely depart. 

"What do you think of putting the stage under a soft little strawberrylike that?" the other inquired. 

For answer there was a stunning report, a stinging odor of saltpeter;and David felt a sharp burning on his shoulder, followed by a slowwarmish wet, spreading. 

"I didn't go to do just that there!" the Hatburn who had firedexplained. "I wanted to clip his ear, but he twitched like. "

David picked up the mail bag and took a step backward in the directionhe had come. The other moved between him and the door. 

"If you get out, " he said, "it'll be through the hog-wash. "

David placed the bag on the floor, stirred by a sudden realization--hehad charge of the stage, official responsibility for the mail. He wasno longer a private individual; what his mother had commanded, entreated, had no force here and now. The Hatburns were unlawfullydetaining him. 

As this swept over him, a smile lighted his fresh young cheeks, hisfrank mouth, his eyes like innocent flowers. Hatburn shot again; thistime the bullet flicked at David's old felt hat. With his smilelingering he smoothly leveled the revolver from his pocket and shot themocking figure in the exact center of the pocket patched on his leftbreast. 

David wheeled instantly, before the other Hatburn running for him, andstopped him with a bullet as remorselessly placed as the first. The twomen on the floor stiffened grotesquely and the idiot crouched in acorner, whimpering. 

David passed his hand across his brow; then he bent and grasped themail bag. He was still pausing when the remaining Hatburn strode intothe kitchen. The latter whispered a sharp oath. David shifted the bag;but the elder had him before he could bring the revolver up. Abattering blow fell, knocked the pistol clattering over the floor, andDavid instinctively clutched the other's wrist. 

The blows multiplied, beating David into a daze, through which a singlerealization persisted--he must not lose his grip upon the arm that wasswinging him about the room, knocking over chairs, crashing against thetable, even drawing him across the hot iron of the stove. He must holdon!

He saw the face above him dimly through the deepening mist; it seemeddemoniacal, inhuman, reaching up to the ceiling--a yellow giant bent onhis destruction.... 

His mother, years ago, lives away, had read to them--to his father andAllen and himself--about a giant, a giant and David; and in the end----

He lost all sense of the entity of the man striving to break himagainst the wooden angles of the room; he had been caught, wastwisting, in a great storm; a storm with thunder and cruel flashes oflightning; a storm hammering and hammering at him.... Must not lose hishold on--on life! He must stay fast against everything! It wasn't hishand gripping the destructive force towering above him, but a strangequality within him, at once within him and aside, burning in his heartand directing him from without. 

The storm subsided; out of it emerged the livid face of Hatburn; andthen, quite easily, he pitched David back across the floor. He laythere a moment and then stirred, partly rose, beside the mail bag. Hispistol was lying before him; he picked it up. 

The other was deliberately moving the dull barrel of a revolver up overhis body. A sharp sense of victory possessed David, and he whisperedhis brother's name. Hatburn fired--uselessly. The other's battered lipssmiled. 

Goliath, that was the giant's name. He shot easily, securely--once. 

Outside, the mail bag seemed weighted with lead. He swayed andstaggered over the rough declivity to the road. It required asuperhuman effort to heave the pack into the stage. The strap withwhich he had hitched the horses had turned into iron. At last it wasuntied. He clambered up to the enormous height of the driver's seat, unwrapped the reins from the whipstock, and the team started forward. 

He swung to the lurching of the stage like an inverted pendulum;darkness continually thickened before his vision; waves of sicknessswept up to his head. He must keep the horses on the road, forward theGovernment mail!

A grim struggle began between his beaten flesh, a terrible weariness, and that spirit which seemed to be at once a part of him and a voice. He wiped the blood from his young brow; from his eyes miraculously bluelike an ineffable May sky. 

"Just a tol'able David, " he muttered weakly--"only just tol'able!"

BREAD

I

The train rolling rapidly over the broad salt meadows thunderouslyentered the long shed of the terminal at the sea. August Turnbull rosefrom his seat in the Pullman smoking compartment and took down the coathanging beside him. It was gray flannel; in a waistcoat his shirtsleeves were a visible heavy mauve silk, and there was a complicationof gold chains about his lower pockets. Above the coat a finely wovenPanama hat with a narrow brim had rested, and with that now on his headhe moved arrogantly toward the door. 

He was a large man, past the zenith of life, but still vigorous infeatures and action. His face was full, and, wet from the heat, hemopped it with a heavy linen handkerchief. August Turnbull's gaze wassteady and light blue; his nose was so heavy that it appeared to droopa little from sheer weight, almost resting on the mustache brushed outin a horizontal line across prominent lips; while his neck swelled in aglowing congestion above a wilting collar. 

He nodded to several men in the narrow corridor of the car; men likehimself in luxurious summer clothes, but for the most part fatter; thenin the shed, looking about in vain for Bernard, his son-in-law, heproceeded to the street, where his automobile was waiting. It was aglittering landaulet, folded back and open. Thrusting a wadded eveningpaper into a crevice he sank in an upholstered corner while hischauffeur skillfully worked out through a small confusion of similarmotor activity. Before him a carved glass vase set in a bracket heldsmilax and yellow rosebuds, and he saw on the floor a fallen goldpowder box. 

Picking it up his face was suffused by a darker tide; this was theresult of stooping and the angry realization that in spite of hisprohibition Louise had been using the landaulet again. She must be madeto understand that he, her father, had an absolute authority over hisfamily and property. Marriage to Bernard Foster did not relieve herfrom obedience to the head of the house. Bernard had a car as well ashimself; yet August Turnbull knew that his son-in-law--at heart astingy man--encouraged her to burn the parental gasoline in place ofhis own. Turned against the public Bernard's special quality wasadmirable; he was indeed more successful, richer, than August had beenat the other's age; but Louise and her husband would have to recognizehis precedence. 

They were moving faster now on a broad paved avenue bound with steeltracks. A central business section was left for a more unpretentiousregion--small open fruit and fish stands, dingy lodging places, drabcorner saloons, with, at the intervals of the cross streets, fleetglimpses of an elevated boardwalk and the luminous space of the sea. Though the day was ending there was no thinning of the vaporous heat, and a sodden humanity, shapeless in bathing suits, was stillreluctantly moving away from the beach. 

Groups of women with their hair in trailing wet wisps and short unevenskirts dripping on the pavements, gaunt children in scant haphazardgarb surged across the broad avenue or with shrill admonishments stoodin isolated helpless patches amid the swift and shining procession ofautomobiles. 

August Turnbull was disturbed by the sudden arrest of his progress, andgazing out saw the insignificant cause of delay. He had again removedhis hat and a frown drew a visible heavy line between his eyes. 

"More police are needed for these crossings, " he complained to thechauffeur; "there is the same trouble every evening. The city shouldn'tencourage such rabbles; they give the place a black eye. "

All the immediate section, he silently continued, ought to be torn downand rebuilt in solid expensive structures. It made him hot anduncomfortable just to pass through the shabby quarter. The people in itwere there for the excellent reason that they lacked the ambition, theforce to demand better things. They got what they deserved. 

August Turnbull made an impatient movement of contempt; the world, success, was for the strong men, the men who knew what they wanted anddrove for it in a straight line. There was a great deal of foolishnessin the air at present--the war was largely responsible; though, on theother hand, the war would cure a lot of nonsense. But America inparticular was rotten with sentimentality; it was that mainly which hadinvolved them here in a purely European affair. Getting into it hadbeen bad business. 

Nowhere was the nation's failing more evident than in the attitudetoward women. It had always been maudlin; and now, long content to usetheir advantages in small ways, women would become a serious menace tothe country generally. He had admitted their economic value--theyfilled every possible place in the large establishment of the TurnbullBakery; rather, they performed all the light manual labor. There theywere more satisfactory than men, more easily controlled--yes, andcheaper. But in Congress, voting, women in communities reporting onfactory conditions were a dangerous nuisance. 

He had left the poorer part, and the suavity of the succeeding streetsrapidly increased to a soothing luxury. Wide cottages occupied velvet-green lawns, and the women he saw were of the sort he approved--closelyskirted creatures with smooth shoulders in transparent crêpe de Chine. They invited a contemplative eye, the thing for which they werecreated--a pleasure for men; that and maternity. 

The automobile turned toward the sea and stopped at his house midway inthe block. It was a square dwelling painted white with a roof oftapestry slate, and broad awning-covered veranda on the sea. Asprinkler was flashing on the lawn, dripping over the concrete pavementand filling the air with a damp coolness. No one was visible and, leaving his hat and coat on a chair in an airy hall furnished in blackwicker and flowery chintz hangings on buff walls, he descended to thebasement dressing rooms. 

In his bathing suit he presented a figure of vigorous glowing well-being. Only the silvering hair at his temples, the fatty bulge acrossthe back of his neck, and a considerable stomach indicated hismultiplying years. He left by a lower door, and immediately after wason the sand. The tide was out, the lowering sun obscured in a haze, andthe sea undulated with a sullen gleam. Two men were swimming, andfarther at the left a woman stood in the water with arms raised to herhead. It was cold, but August Turnbull marched out without hesitationand threw himself forward with an uncompromising solid splash. 

He swam adequately, but he had not progressed a dozen feet before hewas conscious of a strong current sweeping him up the beach, and heregained his feet with an angry flourish. The other men came nearer, and he recognized Bernard Foster, his son-in-law, and Frederick Rathe, whose cottage was directly across the street from the Turnbulls'. 

Like August they were big men, with light hair and eyes. They were verystrong and abrupt in their movements, they spoke in short harshperiods, and fingered mustaches waxed and rolled into severe points. 

"A gully has cut in above, " Bernard explained, indicating a point notfar beyond them; "it's over your head. Watch where you swim. " They weremoving away. 

"Are you coming over to dinner?" August Turnbull called to Bernard. 

"Can't, " the latter shouted; "Victorine is sick again. Too manychocolate sundaes. "

Left alone, August dived and floated until he was thoroughly cooled;then he turned toward the beach. The woman, whose existence he hadforgotten, was leaving at the same time. She approached at an angle, and he was admiring her slim figure when he realized that it was MissBeggs, his wife's companion. He had never seen her in a bathing suitbefore. August Turnbull delayed until she was at his side. 

"Good evening. " Her voice was low, and she scarcely lifted her gazefrom the sand. 

He wondered why--she had been in his house for a month--he had failedcompletely to notice her previously. He decided that it had beenbecause she was so pale and quiet. Ordinarily he didn't like whitecheeks; and then she had been deceptive; he had subconsciously thoughtof her as thin. 

She stopped and took off her rubber cap, performing that act slowly, while her body, in wet satin, turned like a faultless statue ofglistening black marble. 

"Do you enjoy bathing in the ocean?" he asked. 

A momentary veiled glance accompanied her reply. "Yes, " she said;"though I can't swim. I like to be beaten by the waves. I like to fightagainst them. "

She hesitated, then fell definitely back; and he was forced to walk onalone. 

His wife's companion! With the frown once more scoring the line betweenhis eyes he satirically contrasted Miss Beggs, a servant really, andEmmy. 

II

His room occupied the front corner on the sea, Emmy's was beyond; thedoor between was partly open and he could hear her moving about, butwith a cigarette and his hair-brushes he made no acknowledgment of herpresence. 

The sun was now no more than a diffused gray glow, the sea likeunstirred molten silver. The sound of the muffled gong that announceddinner floated up the stairs. 

Below, the damask was lit both by rose silk-shaded candles and by theradiance of a suspended alabaster bowl. August Turnbull sat at the headof a table laden with silver and crystal and flowers. There wereindividual pepper mills--he detested adulterated or stale spices--carved goblets for water, cocktail glasses with enameled roosters, rubygoblets like blown flowers and little gilt-speckled liqueur glasses;there were knives with steel blades, knives all of silver, and goldfruit knives; there were slim oyster forks, entrée forks of soliddesign, and forks of filigree; a bank of spoons by a plate that wouldbe presently removed, unused, for other filled plates. 

Opposite him Emmy's place was still empty, but his son, Morice, in theolive drab and bar of a first lieutenant, together with his wife, wasalready present. August was annoyed by any delay: one of the marks of aproperly controlled household, a house admirably conscious of theimportance of order--and obedience--was an utter promptness at thetable. Then, silent and unsubstantial as a shadow, Emmy Turnbullslipped into her seat. 

August gazed at her with the secret resentment more and more inspiredby her sickness. At first he had been merely dogmatic--she must recoverunder the superlative advice and attention he was able to summon forher. Then his impatience had swung about toward all doctors--they werea pack of incompetent fools, medicine was nothing more than anorganized swindle. They had tried baths, cures, innumerable infallibletreatments--to no purpose. Finally he had given up all effort, allhope; he had given her up. And since then it had been difficult to maskhis resentment. 

The butler, a white jacket taking the place of the conventional somberblack, poured four cocktails from a silver mixer and placed four dishesof shaved ice, lemon rosettes and minute pinkish clams before AugustTurnbull, Morice and his wife, and Miss Beggs, occupying in solitude aside of the table. Then he set at Mrs. Turnbull's hand a glass of milkthinned with limewater and an elaborate platter holding three smallpieces of zwieback. 

She could eat practically nothing. 

It was the particular character of her state that specially upsetAugust Turnbull. He was continually affronted by the spectacle of Emmyseated before him sipping her diluted milk, breaking her dry bread, inthe midst of the rich plenty he provided. Damn it, he admitted, it goton his nerves!

The sting of the cocktail whipped up his eagerness for the iced tenderclams. His narrowed gaze rested on Emmy; she was actually seven yearsolder than he, but from her appearance she might be a hundred, amillion. There was nothing but her painfully slow movements todistinguish her from a mummy. 

The plates were again removed and soup brought on, a clear steamingamber-green turtle, and with it crisp wheat rolls. Morice's wife gave asigh of satisfaction at the latter. 

"My, " she said, "they're elegant! I'm sick and tired of war bread. "

She was a pinkish young woman with regular features and abundantcoppery hair. Marriage had brought her into the Turnbull family fromthe chorus of a famous New York roof beauty show. August had been atfirst displeased, then a certain complacency had possessed him--Morice, who was practically thirty years old, had no source of income otherthan that volunteered by his father, and it pleased the latter to keepthem depending uncertainly on what he was willing to do. It insuredjust the attitude from Rosalie he most enjoyed, approved, in a youthfuland not unhandsome woman. He liked her soft scented weight hanging onhis arm and the perfumed kiss with which she greeted him in themorning. 

Nevertheless, at times there was a gleam in her eyes and an expressionat odds with the perfection of her submission; on several occasionsMorice had approached him armed with a determination that he, August, knew had been injected from without, undoubtedly by Rosalie. Whateverit had been he quickly disposed of it, but there was a possibility thatshe might some day undertake a rebellion; and there was added zest inthe thought of how he would totally subdue her. 

"It's a wonder something isn't said to you, " she continued. "They'reawfully strict about wheat now. "

"That, " August Turnbull instructed her heavily, "is a subject weneedn't pursue. "

The truth was that he would permit no interference with what so closelytouched his comfort. He was not a horse to eat bran. His bakery--underinspection--conformed rigidly with the Government requirements; but hehad no intention of spoiling his own dinners. Any necessaryconservation could be effected at the expense of the riffraff throughwhich he had driven coming from the station. Black bread was no newexperience to them. 

He saw that Miss Beggs' small white teeth were crushing salted cashewnuts. Noticing her in detail for the first time he realized that sheenormously appreciated good food. Why in thunder, since she ate soheartily, didn't she get fat and rosy! She was one of the thin kind--yet not thin, he corrected himself. Graceful. Why, she must weigh ahundred and twenty-five pounds; and she wasn't tall. 

The butler filled his ruby goblet from a narrow bottle of Rhine wine. It was exactly right, not sweet but full; and the man held for hischoice a great platter of beef, beautifully carved into thick crimsonslices; the bloodlike gravy had collected in its depression and hepoured it over his meat. 

"A piece of this, " he told Emmy discontentedly, "would set you rightup; put something in your veins besides limewater. "

She became painfully upset at once and fumbled in her lap, with herface averted, as the attention of the table was momentarily directed ather. There was an uncontrollable tremor of her loose colorless mouth. 

What a wife for him, August Turnbull! The stimulants and rich flavorsand roast filled him with a humming vitality; he could feel his heartbeat--as strong, he thought, as a bell. In a way Emmy had deceived him--she probably had always been fragile, but was careful to conceal itfrom him at their marriage. It was unjust to him. He wished that shewould take her farcical meals in her room, and not sit here--a skeletonat the feast. Positively it made him nervous to see her--spoiled hispleasure. 

It had become worse lately; he had difficulty in putting her from hismind; he imagined Emmy in conjunction with the bakery, of her slowlystarving and the thousands of loaves he produced in a day. There wassomething unnatural in such a situation; it was like a mockery at him. 

A vision of her came to him at the most inopportune moments, lingeringuntil it drove him into a hot rage and a pounding set up at the back ofhis neck. 

The meat was brought back, and he had more of a sweet boiledhuckleberry pudding. A salad followed, with a heavy Russian dressing. August Turnbull's breathing grew thicker, he was conscious of a familiaroppression. He assaulted it with fresh wine. 

"I saw Bernard on the beach" he related; "Victorine is sick once more. Chocolate sundaes, Bernard said. She is always stuffing herself atsoda-water counters or with candy. They oughtn't to allow it; the childshould be made to eat at the table. When she is here she touchesnothing but the dessert. When I was ten I ate everything or not at all. But there is no longer any discipline, not only with children buteverywhere. "

"There is a little freedom, though, " Rosalie suggested. 

His manner clearly showed displeasure, almost contempt, and he turnedto Miss Beggs. "What do you think?" he demanded. "I understand you havebeen a school-teacher. "

"Oh, you are quite right, " she responded; "at least about children, andit is clear from them that most parents are idiotically lax. " A blazeof discontent, loathing, surprisingly invaded her pallid face. 

"A rod of iron, " August recommended. 

The contrast between his wife and Miss Beggs recurred, intensified--onean absolute wreck and the other as solidly slender as a birch tree. Fate had played a disgusting trick on him. In the prime of his life hewas tied to a hopeless invalid. It put an unfair tension on him. Womenwere charming, gracious--or else they were nothing. If Emmy's money hadbeen an assistance at first he had speedily justified its absorption inthe business. She owed him, her husband, everything possible. Hesuddenly pictured mountains of bread, bread towering up into theclouds, fragrant and appetizing; and Emmy, a thing of bones, gazingwistfully at it. August Turnbull, with a feeling like panic, brushedthe picture from his mind. 

The dessert was apparently a bomb of frozen coffee, but the centerrevealed a delicious creamy substance flaked with pistache. The coldsweet was exactly what he craved, and he ate it rapidly in a curiousmounting excitement. With the coffee he fingered the diminutive glassof golden brandy and a long dark roll of oily tobacco. He lighted thiscarefully and flooded his head with the coiling bluish smoke. Rosaliewas smoking a cigarette--a habit in women which he noisily denounced. She extinguished it in an ash tray, but his anger lingered, anunreasoning exasperation that constricted his throat. Sharply aware ofthe sultriness of the evening he went hastily out to the veranda. 

Morice following him with the evening paper volunteered, "I see Germansubmarines are operating on the Atlantic coast. "

His father asserted: "This country is due for a lesson. It was anxiousenough to get into trouble, and now we'll find how it likes some severeinstruction. All the news here is bluff--the national asset. What Ihope is that business won't be entirely ruined later. "

"The Germans will get the lesson, " Rosalie unexpectedly declared at hisshoulder. 

"You don't know what you're talking about, " he replied decidedly. "TheGerman system is a marvel, one of the wonders of civilization. "

She turned away, lightly singing a line from one of her late numbers:"I've a Yankee boy bound for Berlin. "

Morice stirred uneasily. "They got a Danish tanker somewhere offNantucket, " he continued impotently. 

August Turnbull refused to be drawn into further speech; he inhaled hiscigar with a replete bodily contentment. The oppression of dinner wassubsiding. His private opinion of the war was that it would end withouta military decision--he regarded the German system as unsmashable--andthen, with France deleted and England swamped in internal politics, hesaw an alliance of common sense between Germany and the United States. The present hysteria, the sentimentality he condemned, could notcontinue to stand before the pressure of mercantile necessity. Afterall, the entire country was not made up of fools. 

Morice and his wife wandered off to the boardwalk, and he, August, musthave fallen asleep, for he suddenly sat up with a sensation ofstrangeness and dizzy vision. 

He rose and shook it off. It was still light, and he could see Bernardat his automobile, parked before the latter's cottage. 

The younger man caught sight of August at the same moment and called:"We are going to a cafe with the Rathes; will you come?"

He was still slightly confused, his head full, and the ride, the gayetyof the crowd, he thought, would do him good. 

"Be over for you, " the other added; and later he was crowded into arear seat between Louise, his daughter, and Caroline Rathe. 

Louise was wearing the necklace of platinum and diamonds Bernard Fosterhad given her last Christmas. It was, August admitted to himself, asplendid present, and must have cost eighteen or twenty thousanddollars. The Government had made platinum almost prohibitive. In thingsof this kind--the adornment of his wife, of, really, himself, theextension of his pride--Bernard was extremely generous. It was in thesmall affairs such as gasoline that he was prudent. 

Both Caroline Rathe and Louise were handsome women handsomely dressed;he was seated in a nest of soft tulle and ruffled embroidery, of pliantswaying bodies. Their satin-shod feet had high sharp insteps in filmsof black lace and their fingers glittered with prismatic stones. Bernard was in front with the chauffeur, and Frederick Rathe occupied asmall seat at the knees of the three others. He had not made his money, as had August and Bernard, but inherited it with a huge brewery. Frederick was younger than the other men too; but his manner was, ifanything, curter. He said things about the present war that made evenAugust Turnbull uneasy. 

He was an unusual youth, not devoted to sports and convivial pleasures--as any one might infer, viewing his heavy frame and wealth--butsomething of a reader. He quoted fragments from philosophical booksabout the will-to-power and the _Uebermensch_ that stuck likeburrs in August Turnbull's memory, furnishing him with labels, backing, for many of his personally evolved convictions and experience. 

They were soon descending the steps to the anteroom of the café, wherethe men left their hats and sticks. As they entered the brilliantlylighted space beyond a captain hurried forward. "Good evening, gentlemen, " he said servilely; "Mr. Turnbull----"

He ushered them to a table by the rope of an open floor for dancing andremoved a reserved card. There he stood attentively with a waiter athis shoulder. 

"What will you have?" Frederick Rathe asked generally. "For me nothingbut beer. Not the filthy American stuff. " He turned to the servants. "If you still have some of the other. You understand?"

"No beer for me!" Louise exclaimed. 

"Champagne, " the captain suggested. 

She agreed, but Caroline had a fancy for something else. AugustTurnbull preferred a Scotch whisky and soda. The café was crowded;everywhere drinking multiplied in an illuminated haze of cigarettes. Aslight girl in an airy slip and bare legs was executing a furious dancewith a powdered youth on the open space. The girl whirled about herpartner's head, a rigid shape in a flutter of white. 

They stood limply answering the rattle of applause that followed. Awoman in an extravagantly low-cut gown took their place, singing. Therewas no possibility of mistaking her allusions; August smiled broadly, but Louise and Caroline Rathe watched her with an unmoved sharpcuriosity. In the same manner they studied other women in the cafe;more than once August Turnbull hastily averted his gaze at thediscovery that his daughter and he were intent upon the sameindividual. 

"The U-boats are at it again, " Bernard commented in a lowered voice. 

"And, though it is war, " Frederick added, "every one here is squealinglike a mouse. 'Ye are not great enough to know of hatred and envy, '" hequoted. "'It is the good war which halloweth every cause. '"

"I wish you wouldn't say those things here, " his wife murmured. 

"'Thou goest to women?'" he lectured her with mock solemnity. "'Do notforget thy whip!'"

The whisky ran in a burning tide through August Turnbull's senses. Hissurroundings became a little blurred, out of focus; his voice soundedunfamiliar, as though it came from somewhere behind him. Fresh bucketsof wine were brought, fresh, polished glasses. His appetite revived, and he ordered caviar. Beyond, a girl in a snake-like dress wasbreaking a scarlet boiled lobster with a nut cracker; her cigarettesmoked on the table edge. Waiters passed bearing trays of steamingfood, pitchers of foaming beer, colorless drinks with bobbing slicedlimes, purplish sloe gin and sirupy cordials. Bernard's face was darkand there was a splash of champagne on his dinner shirt. Louise wasuncertainly humming a fragment of popular song. The table was litteredwith empty plates and glasses. Perversely it made August think of Emmy, his wife, and acute dread touched him at the mockery of her wastingdespair. 

III

The following morning, Thursday, August Turnbull was forced to go intothe city. He drove to the Turnbull Bakery in a taxi and dispatched hisresponsibilities in time for luncheon uptown and an early afternoontrain to the shore. The bakery was a consequential rectangle of brick, with the office across the front and a court resounding with theshattering din of ponderous delivery trucks. All the vehicles, Augustsaw, bore a new temporary label advertising still another war bread;there was, too, a subsidiary patriotic declaration: "Win the War WithWheat. "

He was, as always, fascinated by the mammoth trays of bread, theenormous flood of sustenance produced as the result of his energy andability. Each loaf was shut in a sanitary paper envelope; the popularsuperstition, sanitation, had contributed as much as anything to hismarked success. He liked to picture himself as a great force, a granaryon which the city depended for life; it pleased him to think ofthousands of people, men, women and children, waiting for his loaves orperhaps suffering through the inability to buy them. 

August left a direction for a barrel of superlative flower to be sentto his cottage, and then with a curious feeling of expectancy hedeparted. He was unable to grasp the cause of his sudden impatience tobe again at the sea. On the train, in the Pullman smoking compartment, his coat swinging on a hook beside him, the vague haste centeredsurprisingly about the person of Miss Beggs. At first he was annoyed bythe reality and persistence of her image; then he slipped into anunquestioning consideration of her. 

Never had he seen a more healthy being, and that alone, he toldhimself, was sufficient to account for his interest. He liked markedphysical well-being; particularly, he added, in women. A sick wife, forexample, was the most futile thing imaginable; a wife should exist forthe comfort and pleasure of her husband. What little Miss Beggs--hername, he now remembered from the checks made out for her, was MetaBeggs--had said was as vigorous as herself. He realized that she had astrong, even rebellious personality. That, in her, however, should notbe encouraged--an engaging submission was the becoming attitude for hersex. 

He proceeded immediately into the ocean, puffing strenuously and gazingabout. No women could be seen. They never had any regularity of habit, he complained silently. After dinner--a surfeit of tenderloinBordelaise--he walked up the short incline to the boardwalk, where onone of the benches overlooking the sparkling water he saw a slightfamiliar figure. It was Miss Beggs. Her eyes dwelt on him momentarilyand then returned to the horizon. 

"You are a great deal alone, " he commented on the far end of the bench. 

"It's because I choose to be, " she answered sharply. 

An expression of displeasure was audible in his reply, "You should haveno trouble. "

"I ought to explain, " she continued, her slim hands clasped on shapelyknees; "I mean that I can't get what I want"

"So you prefer nothing?"

She nodded. 

"That's different, " August Turnbull declared. "Anybody could see you'reparticular. Still, it's strange you haven't met--well, one that suitedyou. "

"What good would it do me--a school-teacher, and now a companion!"

"You might be admired for those very things. "

"Yes, by old ladies, male and female. Not men. There's just oneattraction for them. "

"Well----"

She turned now and faced him with a suppressed bitter energy. "Clothes, " she said. 

"That's nonsense!" he replied emphatically. "Dress is only incidental. "

"When did you first notice me?" she demanded. "In bathing. That bathingsuit cost more than any two of my dresses. It is absolutely right. "August was confused by the keenness of her perception. It wasn't properfor a woman to understand such facts. He was at a loss for a reply. "Seven men spoke to me in it on one afternoon. It is no good for you totry to reassure me with platitudes; I know better. I ought to, atleast. "

August Turnbull was startled by the fire of resentment smoldering underher still pale exterior. Why, she was like a charged battery. If hetouched her, he thought, sparks would fly. She was utterly differentfrom Emmy, as different as a live flame from ashes. 

It was evident that having at last spoken she intended to unburdenherself of long-accumulated passionate words. 

"All my life I've had to listen to and smile sweetly at ridiculoushypocrisies. I have had to teach them and live them too. But now I'm sosick of them I can't keep it up a month longer. I could kill some one, easily. In a world where salvation for a woman is in a pair of slippersI have to be damned. If I could have kept my hair smartly done up andworn sheer batiste do you suppose for a minute I'd be a companion toMrs. Turnbull? I could be going out to the cafes in a landaulet. "

"And looking a lot better than most that do, " he commented withoutpremeditation. 

She glanced at him again, and he saw that her eyes were gray, habitually half closed and inviting. 

"I've had frightfully bad luck, " she went on; "once or twice when itseemed that I was to have a chance, when it appeared brighter--everything went to pieces. "

"Perhaps you want too much, " he suggested. 

"Perhaps, " she agreed wearily; "ease and pretty clothes and--a man. "She added the latter with a more musical inflection than he had yetheard. 

"Of course, " he proceeded importantly, "there are not a great many men. At least I haven't found them. As you say, most people are incapable ofany power or decision. I always maintain it's something in the country. Now in----" He stopped, re-began: "In Europe they are different. Therea man is better understood, and women as well. "

"I have never been out of America, " Miss Beggs admitted. 

"But you might well have been, " he assured her; "you are moreContinental than any one else I can think of. "

He moved toward the middle of the bench and she said quickly: "You mustnot misunderstand. I am not cheap nor silly. It might have been betterfor me. " She addressed the fading light on the sea. "Silly women, too, do remarkably well. But I am not young enough to change now. " She rose, gracefully drawn against space; her firm chin was elevated and herhands clenched. "I won't grow old this way and shrivel like an apple, "she half cried. 

It would be a pity, he told himself, watching her erect figure diminishover the boardwalk. He had a feeling of having come in contact with anextraordinarily potent force. By heaven, she positively crackled! Hesmiled, thinking of the misguided people who had employed her, ignorantof all that underlay that severe prudent manner. At the same time hewas flattered that she had confided in him. It was clear she recognizedthat he, at least, was a man. He was really sorry for her--what aninvigorating influence she was!

She had spoken of being no longer young--something over thirty-five hejudged--and that brought the realization that he was getting on. A fewyears now, ten or twelve, and life would be behind him. It was a rareand uncomfortable thought. Usually he saw himself as at the mostdesirable age--a young spirit tempered by wisdom and experience. But ina flash he read that his prime must depart; every hour left waspriceless. 

The best part of this must be dedicated to a helpless invalid; a strongcurrent of self-pity set through him. But it was speedily lost in amore customary arrogance. August Turnbull repeated the favoriteaphorisms from Frederick Rathe about the higher man. If he believedthem at all, if they applied to life in general they were equally truein connection with his home; in short--his wife. Emmy Turnbull couldn'treally be called a wife. There should be a provision to release menfrom such bonds. 

It might be that the will-to-power would release itself. In theory thatwas well enough, but practically there were countless smalldifficulties. The strands of life were so tied in, one with another. Opinion was made up of an infinite number of stupid prejudices. Inshort, no way presented itself of getting rid of Emmy. 

His mind returned to Meta Beggs. What a woman she was! What a triumphto master her contemptuous stubborn being!

IV

At least, August reflected with a degree of comfort at breakfast, Emmydidn't come down in the morning; she hadn't enough strength. Headdressed himself to the demolishment of a ripe Cassaba melon. Itmelted in his mouth to the consistency of sugary water. His coffee cuphad a large flattened bowl, and pouring in the ropy cream with his freehand he lifted the silver cover of a dish set before him. It heldspitted chicken livers and bacon and gave out an irresistible odor. There were, too, potatoes chopped fine with peppers and browned; andhot delicately sweetened buns. He emptied two full spits, renewed hiscoffee and finished the potatoes. 

With a butter ball at the center of a bun he casually glanced at theday's paper. The submarines, he saw, were operating farther south. Asmall passenger steamer, the _Veronica_ had been torpedoed outsidethe Delaware Capes. 

A step sounded in the hall, and Louise entered the dining room, cladall in white with the exception of a closely fitting yellow hat. Aftera moment Victorine, a girl small for her age, with a petulant satiatedexpression, followed. 

"It's a shame, " Louise observed, "that with Morice and his wife in thecottage you have to breakfast alone. I suppose all those theatricalpeople get up at noon. "

"Not quite, " Rosalie told her from the doorway. 

Louise made no reply other than elevating her brows. Victorine lookedat the other with an exact mirroring of her mother's disdain. 

"Good morning, " Morice said indistinctly, hooking the collar of hisuniform. "It's a bloody nuisance, " he asserted. "Why can't they copythe English jacket?"

"It is much better looking, " Louise added. 

"Well, " Rosalie proclaimed, "I'm glad to see Morice in any; even if itmeans nothing more than a desk in the Quartermaster's Department. "

"That is very necessary, " August Turnbull spoke decidedly. 

"Perhaps, " she agreed. 

"I think it is bad taste to raise such insinuations. " Louise wassevere. 

"An army, " August put in, "travels on its stomach. As Louise suggests--we must ask you not to discuss the question in your present tone. "Morice's wife half-audibly spoke into her melon, and his face reddened. "What did I understand you to say?" he demanded. 

"Oh, 'Swat the fly!'" Rosalie answered hardily. 

"Not at all!" he almost shouted. "What you said was 'Swat the Kaiser!'"

"Well, swat him!"

"It was evident, also, that you did not refer to the Emperor ofGermany--but to me. "

"You said it, " she admitted vulgarly. "If any house ever had aHohenzollern this has. "

"Shut up, Rosalie!" her husband commanded, perturbed; "you'll spoileverything. "

"It might be better if she continued, " Louise Foster corrected him. "Perhaps then we'd learn something of this--this beauty. "

"I got good money for my face anyhow, " Rosalie asserted. "And no cashpremium went with it either. As for going on, I'll go. " She turned toAugust Turnbull: "I've been stalling round here for nearly a year withMorice scared to death trying to get a piece of change out of you. NowI'm through; I've worked hard for a season's pay, but this is slavery. What you want is an amalgamated lady bootblack and nautch dancer. You're a joke to a free white woman. I'm sorry for your wife. She oughtto slip you a bichloride tablet. If it was worth while I'd turn youover to the authorities for breaking the food regulations. "

She rose, unceremoniously shoving back her chair. "For a fact, I'mtired of watching you eat. You down as much as a company of good boyson the march. Don't get black in the face; I'd be afraid to if I wereyou. "

August Turnbull's rage beat like a hammer at the base of his head. He, too, rose, leaning forward with his napkin crumpled in a pounding fist. 

"Get out of my house!" he shouted. 

"That's all right enough, " she replied; "the question is--is Moricecoming with me? Is that khaki he has on or a Kate Greenaway suit?"

Morice looked from one to the other in obvious dismay. He had apleasant dull face and a minute spiked mustache on an irresolute mouth. 

"If you stay with me, " she warned him further, "I'll have you out ofthat grocery store and into a trench. "

"Pleasant for you, Morice, " Louise explained. 

"Things were so comfortable, Rosalie, " he protested despairingly. "Whatin the name of sense made you stir this all up? The governor won't do atap for us now. "

His wife stood by herself, facing the inimical Turnbull front, whileMorice wavered between. 

"If you'll get along, " the former told him, "I can make a living tillyou come back. We can do without any Trübner money. I'm not a lot atGerman, but I guess you can understand me, " she again addressed August. "Not that I blame you for the change, such as it is. "

"I'll have to go with her, " Morice unhappily declared. 

August Turnbull's face was stiff with congestion. The figures beforehim wavered in a sort of fog. He put out a hand, supporting himself onthe back of his chair. 

"Get out of my house, " he repeated in a hoarse whisper. 

Fortunately Morice's leave had come to an end, and Rosalie and hewithdrew in at least the semblance of a normal departure. August's ragechanged to an indignant surprise, and he established himself with arigid dignity on the veranda. There, happening on a cigar that burnedbadly, he was reduced to a state of further self-commiseration. Thatis, he dwelt on the general deterioration of the world about him. Therewas no discipline; there was no respect; authority was laughed at. Allthis was the result of laxness, of the sentimentality he condemned; afirmer hand was needed everywhere. 

He turned with relief to the contemplation of Meta Beggs; she wasenormously satisfactory to consider. August watched her now with thegreatest interest; he even sat in his wife's room while her companionmoved silently and gracefully about. Miss Beggs couldn't have noticedthis, for scarcely ever did her gaze meet his; she had a habit ofstanding lost in thought, her slimness a little drooping, as if shewere weary or depressed. She was in his mind continually--Miss Beggsand Emmy, his wife. 

The latter had a surprising power to disturb him; lately he had evendreamed of her starving to death in the presence of abundant food. Hebegan to be superstitious about it, to think of her in a ridiculousnervous manner as an evil design on his peace and security. She seemedunnatural with her shrunken face bowed opposite him at the table. Hisfeeling for her shifted subconsciously to hatred. It broke out publiclyin sardonic or angry periods under which she would shrink away, incredibly timid, from his scorn. This quality of utter helplessnessgave the menace he divined in her its illusive air of unreality. Sheseemed--she was--entirely helpless; a prematurely aged woman, of themildest instincts, dying of malnutrition. 

Miss Beggs now merged into all his daily life, his very fiber. Heregarded her in an attitude of admirable frankness. "Still it isextraordinary you haven't married. "

The tide was out, it was late afternoon, and they were walking over thehard exposed sand. Whenever she came on a shell she crushed it with asharp heel. 

"There were some, " she replied indifferently. 

He nodded gravely. "It would have to be a special kind of man, " heagreed. "An ordinary individual would be crushed by your personality. You'd need a firm hand. "

Her face was inscrutable. "I have always had the misfortune to be toolate, " she told him. 

"I wish I had known you sooner!" he exclaimed. 

Her arms, in transparent sleeves, were like marble. His wordscrystallized an overwhelming realization of how exactly she was suitedto him. The desire to shut her will in his hand increased athousandfold. 

"Yes, " she said, "I would have married you. But there's no gooddiscussing it. " She breathed deeply with a sinking forward of herrounded shoulders. All her vigor seemed to have left her. "I have beenworried about Mrs. Turnbull lately, " she went on. "Perhaps it's myimagination--does she look weaker to you?"

"I haven't noticed, " he answered brusquely. 

Curiously he had never thought of Emmy as dying; she appeared eternal, without the possibility of offering him the relief of such freedom asyet remained. Freedom for--for Meta Beggs. 

"The doctor was at the cottage again Thursday, " she informed him. "Ididn't hear what he said. "

"Humbugs, " August Turnbull pronounced. 

A sudden caution invaded him. It would be well not to implicate himselftoo far with his wife's companion. She was a far shrewder woman thanwas common; there was such a thing as blackmail. He studied herprivately. Damn it, what a pen he had been caught in! Her manner, too, changed immediately, as though she had read his feeling. 

"I shall have to go back. "

She spoke coldly. A moment before she had been close beside him, butnow she might as well have been miles away. 

V

The fuse of the electric light in the dining room burned out, anddinner proceeded with only the illumination of the silk-hooded candles. In the subdued glow Meta Beggs was infinitely attractive. His wife'splace was empty. Miss Beggs had brought apologetic word from Emmy thatshe felt too weak to leave her room. A greater degree of comfortpossessed August Turnbull than he had experienced for months. With noone at the table but the slim woman on the left and himself a positivegeniality radiated from him. He pressed her to have more champagne--hehad ordered that since she preferred it to Rhine wine--urged moreduckling, and ordered the butler to leave the brandy decanter beforethem. 

She laughed--a rare occurrence--and imitated, for his intenseamusement, Mrs. Frederick Rathe's extreme cutting social manner. Hedrank more than he intended, and when he rose his legs were insecure. He made his way toward Meta Beggs. She stood motionless, her thin lipslike a thread of blood on her tense face. 

"What a wife you'd make!" he muttered. 

There was a discreet cough at his back, and swinging about he saw amaid in a white starched cap and high cuffs. 

"Excuse me, sir, " she said; "Mrs. Turnbull wants to know would youplease come up to her room. "

He swayed slightly, glowering at her with a hot face in which a veinthrobbed persistently at his temple. Miss Beggs had disappeared. 

"Very well, " he agreed heavily. 

Mounting the stairs he fumbled for his cigar case, and entered thechamber beyond his, clipping the end from a superlative perfecto. 

Emmy was in bed, propped up on a bank of embroidered pillows. A lightfrom one side threw the shadow of her head on a wall in an animatedcaricature of life. 

"I didn't want to disturb you, August. "

Her voice was weak and apologetic. He stood irritably beside her. 

"It's hot in here. " His wife at once detected whatever assaulted hiscomplete comfort. She fell into a silence that strained his patience tothe utmost. 

When at last she spoke it was in a tone of voice he had never heardfrom her--impersonal, with at the same time a note of fear like theflutter of a bird's wing. 

"The doctor has been here two or three times lately. I didn't want tobother you, and he said----"

She broke off, and her hand raised from her side in a gesture ofseeking. He held it uncomfortably, wishing that the occasion wouldspeedily end. 

"August, I've--I've got to leave you. "

He did not comprehend her meaning, and stood stupidly looking down ather spent face. "I'm going to die, August, almost any time now. Iwanted to tell you first when we were quietly together; and then Louiseand Bernard must know. "

His sensations were so confused, the mere shock of such an announcementhad so confounded him that he was unable to penetrate the meaning ofthe sudden expansion of his blood. His attention strayed from theactuality of his wife to the immaterial shadow wavering on the wall. There Emmy's profile, grotesquely enlarged and sharpened, grimaced athim. August Turnbull's feelings disentangled and grew clearer, therewas a conventional memory of his wife as a young woman, the infinitelysharper realization that soon he must be free, a vision of Meta Beggsas she had been at dinner that night, and intense relief from namelessstrain. 

He moved through the atmosphere of suspense that followed the knowledgeof Emmy's condition with a feeling of being entirely apart from hisfamily. Out of the chaos of his emotions the sense of release was mostinsistent. Naturally he couldn't share it with any one else, not atpresent. He avoided thinking directly of Meta Beggs, partly from theshreds of the superstitious dread that had once colored his attitudetoward his wife and partly from the necessity to control what otherwisewould sweep him into a resistless torrent. However, most of hisimpatience had vanished--a little while now, and in a discreet mannerhe could grasp all that he had believed so hopelessly removed. 

Except for the occasions of Louise's informal presence he dined alonewith Miss Beggs. They were largely silent, attacking their plates withcomplete satisfaction. On the day of her monthly payment he drew thecheck for a thousand dollars in place of the stipulated hundred, andgave it to her without comment. She nodded, managing to convey entireunderstanding and acceptance of what it forecast. Once, at the table, he called her Meta. 

She deliberated a reply--he had asked her opinion about British bottledsauces--but when she answered she called him Mr. Turnbull. This, too, pleased him. She had an unerring judgment in the small affairs ofdeference. Dinner had been better than usual, and he realized he hadeaten too much. His throat felt constricted, he had difficulty inswallowing a final gulp of coffee; the heavy odors of the dining roomalmost sickened him. 

"We'll get out on the beach, " he said abruptly; "a little air. "

They proceeded past the unremitting sprinklers on the strip of lawn tothe wide gray sweep of sand. At that hour no one else was visible, anda new recklessness invaded his discomfort. "You see, " he told her, "that bad luck of yours isn't going to hold. "

"It seems incredible, " she murmured. She added without an appearance ofthe least ulterior thought: "Mrs. August Turnbull. "

"Exactly, " he asserted. 

A triumphant conviction of pleasure to come surged through him like asubtle exhilarating cordial. 

"I'll take no nonsensical airs from Louise or the Rathes, " heproclaimed. 

"Don't let that worry you, " she answered serenely. 

He saw that it need not, and looked forward appreciatively to a scenein which Meta would not come off second. 

Above them the long curve of the boardwalk was empty, with, behind it, the suave ornamental roofs of the cottages. A wind quartering from theshore had smoothed the ocean into the semblance of a limitless andplacid lake. Minute waves ruffled along the beach with a continuouswhispering, and the vault of the west, from which the sun had justwithdrawn, was filled with light the color of sauterne wine. 

It was inconceivable to August Turnbull that soon Emmy would be goneout of his life. He shook his thick shoulders as if by a gesture tounburden himself of her unpleasant responsibility. He smiled slightlyat the memory of how he had come to fear her. It had been the result ofthe strain he was under; once more the vision of mountainous bread andEmmy returned. The devil was in the woman!

"What are you smiling at?" Meta asked. 

"Perhaps it was because my luck, as well, has changed, " he admitted. 

She came close up to him, quivering with emotion. 

"I want everything!" she cried in a vibrant hunger; "everything! Do youunderstand? Are you willing? I'm starved as much as that woman up inher bed. Can you give me all the gayety, all the silks and emeraldsthere are in the world?"

He patted her shoulder. "You'll look like a Christmas tree. When thisdamned war is over we will go to Europe, to Berlin and Munich. Theyhave the finest streets and theaters and cafés in the world. Therethings are run by men for men. The food is the best of all--no Frenchfripperies, but solid rare cuts. Drinking is an art----"

"What is that out in the water?" she idly demanded. 

He gazed impatiently over the unscored tide and saw a darkinfinitesimal blot. 

"I have been watching it for a long while, " she continued. "It's comingcloser, I think. "

He again took up his planning. 

"We'll stay two or three years; till things get on their feet here. Turn the bakery into a company. No work, nothing but parties. "

"Do look!" she repeated. "It's coming in--a little boat. I suppose itis empty. "

The blot was now near enough for him to distinguish its outline. AsMeta said, no one was visible. It was drifting. Against his wish hisgaze fastened on the approaching boat. It hesitated, appeared to swingaway, and then resumed the progress inshore. 

"I believe it will float into that cut in the beach below, " he toldher. 

His attention was divided between the craft and the image of all thepleasures he would introduce to Meta--Turnbull. It was a luckycircumstance that he had plenty of money, for he realized that shewould not marry a poor man. This was not only natural but commendable. Poor men were fools, too weak for success; only the strong ate whitebread and had fine women, only the masterful conquered circumstance. 

"Come, " she said, catching his hand; "it's almost here. "

She half pulled him over the glistening wet sand to where the deeperwater thrust into the beach. Her interest was now fully communicated tohim. 

"We must drag it safely up, " he articulated, out of breath from hereagerness. The bow swept into the onward current, it moved moreswiftly, and then sluggishly settled against the bottom. Painted on itsblistering white side was a name, "_Veronica_, " and "Ten persons. "There was a slight movement at the rail, and a sharp unreasoning horrorgripped August Turnbull. 

"Something in it, " he muttered. He wanted to turn away, to run from thebeach; but a stronger curiosity dragged him forward. Not conscious ofstepping through shallow water he advanced. 

A hunger-ravished dead face was turned to him from the bottom, a huddleof bony joints, dried hands. There were others--all dead, starved. In ared glimmer he saw the incredible travesty of a child, a lead-coloredwoman, shriveled and ageless from agony. 

He fell back with a choking cry, "Emmy!"

There was a dull uproar in his head, and then a violent shock at theback of his brain. August Turnbull's body slid down into the tranquilripples that ran along the boat's side. 

ROSEMARY ROSELLE

It would be better for my purpose if you could hear the little cleararpeggios of an obsolete music box, the notes as sweet as barley sugar;for then the mood of Rosemary Roselle might steal imperceptibly intoyour heart. It is made of daguerreotypes blurring on their mistedsilver; tenebrous lithographs--solemn façades of brick with classicwhite lanterns lifted against the inky smoke of a burning city; thepages of a lady's book, elegant engravings of hooped and galloonedfemales; and the scent of crumbled flowers. 

Such intangible sources must of necessity be fragile--a perfume linkedto a thin chime, elusive faces on the shadowy mirror of the past, memories of things not seen but felt in poignant unfathomable emotions. This is a magic different from that of to-day; here perhaps are onlysome wistful ghosts brought back among contemptuous realities--a man ina faded blue uniform with a face drawn by suffering long ended, a girlwhose charm, like the flowers, is dust. 

It is all as remote as a smile remembered from youth. Such apparenttrifles often hold a steadfast loveliness more enduring than thegreatest tragedies and successes. They are irradiated by animperishable romance: this is my desire--to hold out an immaterialglamour, a vapor, delicately colored by old days in which you maydiscover the romantic and amiable shapes of secret dreams. 

I

It will serve us best to see Elim Meikeljohn first as he walked acrossWinthrop Common. It was very early in April and should have been cool, but it was warm--already there were some vermilion buds on the maples--and Elim's worn shad-belly coat was uncomfortably heavy. The coat wastoo big for him--his father had worn it for twenty years before he hadgiven it to Elim for college--and it hung in somber greenish foldsabout his tall spare body. He carried an equally oppressive black stiffhat in a bony hand and exposed a gaunt serious countenance. 

Other young men passing, vaulting lightly over the wooden rail thatenclosed the common, wore flowing whiskers, crisply black or brown likea tobacco leaf; their luxuriant waistcoats were draped with a profusionof chains and seals; but Elim's face was austerely shaved, he woreneither brocade nor gold, and he kept seriously to the path. 

He was, even more than usual, absorbed in a semi-gloom of thought. Itwas his birthday, he was twenty-six, and he had been married more thannine years. Already, with his inherited dark temperament, he wasmiddle-aged in situation and feeling. He had been assistant to theprofessor of philosophy and letters for three of those married years;yes--he had been graduated when he was twenty-three. He arrived at anentrance to the common that faced the row of houses where he had hisroom, and saw that something unusual was in progress. 

The front of his boarding house was literally covered with young men:they hung over the small portico from steps to ridge, they bulged fromevery window and sat astride of the dormer windows in the roof. Beforethem on the street a camera had been set up and was covered, all savethe snout, by a black rubber cloth, backward from which projected thebody and limbs of the photographer. 

The latter, Elim realized, was one of a traveling band that tookpictures of whatever, on their way, promised sufficient pecuniaryreturn. Here the operator had been in luck--he would sell at leastthirty photographs at perhaps fifty cents each. Harry Kaperton, a greatswell, was in his window with his setter, Spot; his legs, clad in bagswith tremendous checks and glossy boots, hung outward. On the verandawere Hinkle and Ben Willing, the latter in a stovepipe hat; others worestovepipes set at a rakish angle on one ear. They were allirrepressibly gay, calling from roof to ground, each begging thephotographer to focus on his own particular charm. 

Perhaps fifty cents--Elim Meikeljohn would have liked a place in thepicture; he would like to possess one, to keep it as a memento of theyouthful life that flowed constantly about him, but the probable costwas prohibitive. He even wished, as he paused before making his way upthe crowded veranda steps, that some one would ask him to stay and havehis picture taken with the rest. He delayed, hoping for the mereformality of this friendliness. But it was not forthcoming. He had feltthat it wouldn't be; he had divined the careless silence with which themen moved aside for him to mount. There was even a muttered allusion tohis famous Scotch thrift, contained in a sharper word. Elim didn'tmind--actively. He had been accustomed to the utmost monetary cautionsince the first dawn of his consciousness. He had come to regard thecareful weighing of pennies as an integral part of his being. It hadalways been necessary for the Meikeljohns, father and son, on theirrocky pastures. He didn't mind, but at the same time he bore a faintresentment at the injustice of the marked and perceptible disdain ofthe majority of his fellows. 

They didn't understand, he told himself, still ascending to his room inthe third floor back. Every cent that he could squeeze from his smallsalary must go back to the support of the invalid, his wife. He hadnever, of course, explained this to any one in Cambridge. They wouldn'tbe particularly interested and, in addition, his daily companionsseemed far too young for such serious confidences. In reality HarryKaperton was three years older than Elim; and Kaperton had beenpleasantly at college, racing horses, for seven years; many others wereElim's age, but the maturity of the latter's responsibility separatedthem. 

In his room he took off his formal coat and nankeen waistcoat and hungthem on a pegged board. The room was bare, with two uncurtained windowsthat afforded a glimpse of the shining river; it contained a small air-tight stove, now cold and black, and a wood box, a narrow bed, a dealtable with a row of worn text-books and neatly folded papers, a standfor water pitcher and basin, and two split-hickory Windsor chairs. Nowit was filled with an afternoon glow, like powdered gold, and thequerulously sweet piping of an early robin. 

He dipped his face and hands in cooling water and, at the table, withsquared elbows, addressed himself to a set task. 

II

Elim Meikeljohn laid before him a small docket of foolscap foldedlengthwise, each section separately indorsed in pale flowery ink, witha feminine name, a class number and date. They were the weekly themesof a polite Young Ladies' Academy in Richmond, sent regularly north forthe impressive opinion of a member of Elim's college faculty. Theprofessor of philosophy and letters had undertaken the task primarily;but, with the multiplication of his duties, he had turned the essaysover to Elim, whose careful judgments had been sufficiently imposing tosecure for him a slight additional income. 

He sat for a moment regarding the papers with a frown; then, with asudden movement, he went over the names that headed each paper. Two helaid aside. They bore above their dates in March, eighteen sixty-one, the name Rosemary Roselle. 

He picked one up tentatively. It was called A Letter. Elim opened itand regarded its tenuous violet script. Then, with an expression ofaugmented determination, he folded it again and placed it with itsfellow at the bottom of the heap. He firmly attacked the topmost theme. He read it slowly, made a penciled note in a small precise hand on itsmargin, folded it once more and marked it with a C minus. He wentcarefully through the pile, jotting occasional comments, judging theresults with A, B or C, plus or minus. Finally only the two he hadplaced at the bottom remained. 

Elim took one up again, gazing at it severely. He wondered whatRosemary Roselle had written about--in her absurd English--this time. As he looked at the theme's exterior, his attention shifted from thepaper to himself, his conscience towered darkly above him, demanding acondemnatory examination of his feelings and impulses. 

Had he not begun to look for, to desire, those essays from a doubtlesserroneous and light young woman? Had he not even, on a former likeoccasion, awarded her effort with a B minus, when it was questionableif she should have had a C plus? Had his conduct not been dishonest, frivolous and wholly reprehensible? To all these inexorable accusationshe was forced to confess himself guilty. He had undoubtedly, only a fewminutes before, looked almost impatiently for something from RosemaryRoselle. Beyond cavil she should have had an unadorned C last month. And these easily proved him a broken reed. 

He must at once take himself in hand, flames were reaching hungrily forhim from the pit of eternal torment. In a little more he would bedamned beyond any redemption. He was married ... Shame! His thoughtsturned to Hester, his wife for nine and more years. 

Her father's farm lay next to the Meikeljohns'; the two places formedpractically one convenient whole; and when Elim had been no more than achild, Meikeljohn Senior and Hester's parents had solemnly agreed upona mutually satisfactory marriage. Hester had always been a thin paleslip of a girl, locally famous for her memory and grasp of theScriptures; but it was only at her fourteenth year that her healthbegan perceptibly to fail, at the same time that a succession ofmaterial mischances overwhelmed her family. Finally, borne down toactual privation, her father decided to remove to another section andopportunity. He sold his place for a fraction more than the elderMeikeljohn could pay ... But there was Hester, now an invalid; andthere was the agreement that Meikeljohn had made when it had seemed tohis advantage. The latter was a rigidly upright man--he accepted forhis son the responsibility he himself had assumed, and Hester was leftbehind. Space in the Meikeljohn household was valuable, the invalidpresented many practical difficulties, and, with the solemn concurrenceof the elders of their church, Elim--something short of seventeen but agrave mature-seeming boy--and Hester were married. 

The winter of his marriage Elim departed for college--his father was ajust man, who had felt obscurely that some reparation was due Elim;education was the greatest privilege of which Meikeljohn couldconceive, so, at sacrifices that all grimly accepted, Elim was sent toCambridge. There, when he had been graduated, he remained--there werealready more at the Meikeljohn home than their labor warranted--assistant to the professor of philosophy and letters. 

Elim again opened the paper before him and spread it severely on thetable. The supposititious letter, "Two, Linden Row, " opened in properform and spelling, addressed to "Dearest Elizabeth. " Its progress, however, soon wabbled, its periods degenerated into a confusion. Itendeavored to be casual, easy, but he judged it merely trivial. At oneparagraph, despite his resolution of critical impersonality, hisinterest deepened:

"On Thursday we have to have ready a Theme to send off to Harvard. Ofcourse, every Thursday morning We, with one accord, begin to makeexcuses. Well, the Dread Day rolls around to-morrow, and consequently Iam deep in the Slough of Despond. My only consolation is that ourGeniuses can't write regularly, but then the mood to write neverpossesses me.... This week, in writing a comparison between Hamlet andAntonio, I did succeed in jotting down something, but unfortunately Ifound that I had said the same many times before, only about differentheroes. My tale of Woe----"

Elim once more took himself firmly in hand; he folded the paper andsharply indorsed it with a C minus. Afterward he felt decidedlyuncomfortable. He wondered if Rosemary Roselle would be made unhappy bythe low marking? Probably she wouldn't care; probably all that occupiedher mind were dress and company. Possibly she danced--light, godless. 

The haze within deepened; he could see through the window the tops ofthe maples--they held a green sheen as if in promise of the leaves tofollow. The robin whistled faint and clear. 

Possibly she danced. Carried away on the gracious flood of theafternoon, he wondered what Rosemary Roselle looked like. He wascertain that she was pretty--her writing had the unconscious assuranceof a personable being. Well, he would never know.... Rosemary Roselle--the name had a trick of hanging in the memory; it was astonishinglyeasy to repeat. He tried it aloud, speaking with a sudden emphasis thatstartled him. The name came back to him from the bare walls of his roomlike an appeal. Something within him stirred sharp as a knife. He rosewith a deep breath, confused, as if some one else, unseen, hadunexpectedly spoken. 

III

His conscience, stirring again, projected the image of Hester, with herpinched glistening countenance, on his conjecturing. He resolutelyaddressed himself to the judgment of Rosemary Roselle's second paper, his lighter thoughts drowned in the ascending dark tide of histemperament It was called Our Waitress, and an instant antagonism forthe entire South and its people swept over him. 

He saw that the essay's subject was a negro, a slave; and all hisimpassioned detestation of the latter term possessed him. The essenceof the Meikeljohns was a necessity for freedom, an almost bitter pridein the independence of their bodies. Their souls they held to be underthe domination of a relentless Omnipotence, evolved, it might havebeen, from the obdurate and resplendent granite masses of the highlandwhere they had first survived. These qualities gave to ElimMeikeljohn's political enmity for the South a fervor closely resemblingfanaticism. Even now when, following South Carolina, six other stateshad seceded, he did not believe that war would ensue; he believed thatslavery would be abolished at a lesser price; but he was a supporter ofdrastic means for its suppression. His Christianity, if it held a bookin one hand, grasped a sword in the other, a sword with a bright andunsparing blade for the wrong-doer. 

He consciously centered this antagonism on Rosemary Roselle; hevisualized her as a thoughtless and capricious female, idling in vainluxury, cutting with a hard voice at helpless and enslaved humanbeings. He condemned his former looseness of being, his playing withinsidious and destructive forces. A phrase, "Babylonish women, " creptinto his mind from some old yellow page. He read:

"Indy is a large light mulatto, very neat and very slow. She has notmuch Sense, but a great deal of Sensibility. Helping her proves Fatal. The more that is done for her the less well does she work.... Indy isvery unfortunate: going out with a present of money she lost everypenny. Of course she was incapable of work until the sum was replaced. "

Elim paused with an impatient snort at this exhibition ofshiftlessness. If the negroes were not soon freed they would be ruinedbeyond redemption. He read the remainder of the paper rigid andunapproving. It gave, he considered, such an excellent picture ofSouthern iniquities that he marked it B plus, the highest rating hisresponsibility had allowed Rosemary Roselle. Now he was certain thather very name held a dangerous potentiality--it came too easily to thetongue; it had a wanton sound like a silk skirt. 

The warm glow faded from the room; without, the tenuous and bare upperbranches of the maples wavered in the oncoming dusk. The river haddisappeared. Elim was acutely conscious of the approaching hour ofsupper; and in preparation to go out to it he donned again the nankeenwaistcoat and solemn garment that had served his father so long and sowell. 

IV

The following day was almost hot; at its decline coming across WinthropCommon Elim was oppressed and weary. Nothing unusual was happening atthe boarding house; a small customary group was seated on the verandasteps, and he joined it. The conversation hung exclusively to thegrowing tension between North and South, to the forming of aConfederate States of America in February, the scattered condition ofthe Union forces, the probable fate of the forts in Charleston harbor. 

The men spoke, according to their dispositions, with the fiery emphasisor gravity common to great crises. The air was charged with a sense ofimminence, the vague discomfort of pending catastrophe. Elim listenedwithout comment, his eyes narrowed, his long countenance severe. Mostof the men had gone into Boston, to the Parker House, where hourlybulletins were being posted. Those on the steps rose to follow, allexcept Elim Meikeljohn--in Boston he knew money would be spent. 

He went within, stopping to glance through a number of lately arrivedletters on a table and found one for himself, addressed in his father'spainstaking script. Alone, once more without his coat, he opened theletter. Its beginning was commonplace--"My dear son, Elim"--but whatfollowed confused him by the totally unexpected shock it contained:Hester, his wife, was dead. 

At first he was unable to comprehend the details of what had happenedto him; the fact itself was of such disturbing significance. He hadnever considered the possibility of Hester's dying; he had come tothink of her as a lifelong responsibility. She had seemed, in herinvalid's chair, withdrawn from the pressure of life as it bore uponothers, more enduring than his father's haggard concern over theincreasing difficulties of material existence and spiritual salvation, than his mother's flushed toiling. 

Elim had lived with no horizon wider than the impoverished dailynecessity; he had accepted this with mingled fatality and fortitude;any rebellion had been immediately suppressed as a wicked reflectionupon Deity. His life had been ordered in this course; he had acceptedit the more readily from his inherited distrust of worldly values andaspirations; it had, in short, been he, and now the foundations of hisentire existence had been overthrown. 

He read the letter more carefully, realizing the probable necessity ofhis immediate return home for the funeral. But that was dispelled--hisfather wrote that it had been necessary to bury Hester at once. Theelder Meikeljohn proceeded relentlessly to an exact exposition of whythis had been done. "A black swelling" was included in the details. Hefinished:

"And if it would be inconvenient for you to leave your work at thistime it is not necessary for you to come here. In some ways it would bebetter for you to stay. There is little enough for you to do and itwould stop your money at college.... The Lord is a swift and terribleBeing Who worketh His will in the night. "

Hester was dead. Elim involuntarily walked to a window, gazing withunseeing eyes at the familiar pleasant prospect. A realization flashedunbidden through his mind, a realization like a stab of lightning--hewas free. He overbore it immediately, but it left within him a strangetingling sensation. He directed his mind upon Hester and the profitablecontemplation of death; but rebellion sprang up within him, thoughtsbeyond control whirled in his brain. 

Free! A hundred impulses, desires, of which--suppressed by his rigidadherence to a code of duty--he had not been conscious, leaped intovitality. His vision of life swung from its focus upon outward andinvisible things to a new surprising regard of his own tangible self. He grew aware of himself as an entity, of the world as a broad andvarious field of exploit and discovery. 

There was, his father had bluntly indicated, no place for him at home;and suddenly he realized that his duties at college had been a tediousgrind for inconsiderable return. This admission brought to him therealization that he detested the whole thing--the hours in class; thedroning negligent recitations of the men; the professor of philosophyand letters' pedantic display; the cramped academic spirit of theinstitution. The vague resentment he had felt at the half-concealeddisdain of his fellows gave place to a fiery contempt for theirmajority; the covert humility he had been forced to assume--by thethought of Hester and the few miserable dollars of an inferiorposition--turned to a bitter freedom of opinion. 

The hour for supper approached and passed, but Elim did not leave hisroom. He walked from wall to wall, by turns arrogant and lost in hisnew situation. Of one thing he was certain--he would give up hisoccupation here. It might do for some sniveling sycophant of learningand money, but he was going forth to--what?

He heard footfalls in the bare hall below, and a sudden easy desire forcompanionship seized him; he drew on the sturdy Meikeljohn coat anddescended the stairs to the lower floor. Harry Kaperton's door was openand Elim saw the other moving within. He advanced, leaning in thedoorway. 

"Back early, " Elim remarked. "What's new at Parker's?"

Kaperton was unsuccessful in hiding his surprise at the other'sunexpected appearance and direct question. "Why--why, nothing when Ileft;" then more cordially: "Come in, find a chair. Bottle on thetable--oh, I didn't think. " He offered an implied apology to Elim'sscruples. 

But Elim advanced to the table, where, selecting a decanter at random, he poured out a considerable drink of pale spirits. Harry Kapertonlooked at him in foolish surprise. 

"Had no idea you indulged!" he ejaculated. "Always took you to be asevere Puritan duck. "

"Scotch, " Elim corrected him, "Presbyterian. "

He tilted the glass and the spirits sank smoothly from sight. Histhroat burned as if he had swallowed a mouthful of flame, but there wasa quality in the strong rum that accorded with his present mood: it wasfiery like his released sense of life. Kaperton poured himself a drink, elevated it with a friendly word and joined Elim. 

"I'm going home, " the former proceeded. "You see, I live in Maryland, and the situation there is getting pretty warm. We want to get ourwomen out of Baltimore, and our affairs conveniently shaped, before anypossible trouble. I had a message this evening to come at once. "

The two men presented the greatest possible contrast--Harry Kapertonhad elegantly flowing whiskers, a round young face that expressedfacile excitement at a possible disturbance, and sporting garb oftremendous emphasis. Elim's face, expressing little of the tumultwithin, harsh and dark and dogged, was entirely appropriate to hissomber greenish-black dress. Kaperton gestured toward the bottle, andthey took a second drink, then a third. 

Kaperton's face flushed, he grew increasingly voluble, but ElimMeikeljohn was silent; the liquor made no apparent impression upon him. He sat across the table from the other with his legs extended straightbefore him. They emptied the decanter of spirits and turned to sherry, anything that was left. Kaperton apologized profoundly for the depletedstate of his cellar--knowing that he was leaving, he had invited aparty of men to his room the night before. He was tremendously sorrythat Elim had been overlooked--the truth being that no one had knownwhat a good companion Elim was. 

It seemed to Elim Meikeljohn, drinking sherry, that the night before hehad not existed at all. He did not analyze his new being, hissurprising potations; he was proceeding without a cautious ordering ofhis steps. It was neither a celebration nor a protest, but instinctive, like the indiscriminate gulping of a man who has been swimming underthe water. 

"Why, " Kaperton gasped, "you've got a head like a cannon ball. "

He rose and wandered unsteadily about, but Elim sat motionless, silent, drinking. He was conscious now of a drumming in his ears like distantmartial music, a confused echo like the beat of countless feet. Hetilted his glass and was surprised to find it empty. 

"It's all gone, " Kaperton said dully. 

He was as limp as an empty doll, Elim thought contemptuously. He, Elim, felt like hickory, like iron; his mind was clear, vindicative. He rose, sweeping back the hair from his high austere brow. Kaperton had slidforward in his chair with hanging open hands and mouth. 

The drumming in Elim's ears grew louder, a hum of voices was added toit, and it grew nearer, actual. A crowd of men was entering theboarding house, carrying about them a pressure of excited exclamationsand a more subtle disturbance. Elim Meikeljohn left Kaperton and wentout into the hall. An ascending man met him. 

"War!" he cried. "The damned rebels have assaulted and taken Sumter!Lincoln has called for fifty thousand volunteers!" He hurried past andleft Elim grasping the handrail of the stair. 

War! The word carried an overwhelming significance to his minddominated by the intangible drumming, to his newly released freedom. War upon oppression, upon the criminal slaveholders of the South! Hedescended the stairs, pausing above the small agitated throng in thehall. 

A passionate elation swept over him. He held his long arms upward andout. 

"How many of the fifty thousand are here?" he asked. His ringing voicewas answered in an assent that rolled in a solid volume of sound up thestairs. Elim Meikeljohn's soul leaped in the supreme kinship that linkedhim, man to man, with all. 

V

It was again April, extremely early in the morning and month, andthickly cold, when Brevet-Major Elim Meikeljohn, burning with the feverof a re-opened old saber wound, strayed away from his command in thedirection of Richmond. His thoughts revolved with the rapidity of apinwheel, throwing off crackling ideas, illuminated with blindingspurts and exploding colors, in every direction. A vague persistentpressure sent him toward the city. It was being evacuated; the Unionforces, he knew, were to enter at dawn; but he had stumbled ahead, careless of consequences, oblivious of possible reprisal. 

He was, he recognized by the greater blackness ahead, near theoutskirts of the city--for Richmond was burning. The towering blackmass of smoke was growing more perceptible in the slowly lighteningdawn. Elim Meikeljohn could now hear the low sullen uprush of flames, the faint crackling of timbers, and a hot aromatic odor met him infaint waves. 

His scabbard beat awkwardly about his heels, and he impatientlyunhooked it and threw it into the gloom of the roadside. The servicerevolver was still in its holster; but he had forgotten its presenceand use. In the multicolored confusion of his mind but one consciousimpression remained; and, in its reiteration, he said aloud, over andover, in dull tones, "Two, Linden Row. "

The words held no concrete meaning, they constructed no vision, embodied no tangible desire; they were merely the mechanical expressionof an obscure and dominating impulse. He was hardly more sensate in hisprogress than a nail drawn irresistibly by a magnet. 

The gray mist dissolved, and his long haggard face grew visible; it hadnot aged in the past four years of struggle--almost from boyhood it hadbeen marked with somber longitudinal lines--but it had grown keener, more intense, with the expression of a man whose body had starvedthrough a great spiritual conflict. His uniform, creased and stained, and now silvery with dew, flapped about a gaunt ironlike frame; andfrom under the leather peak of his kepi, even in his fever, his eyesburned steady and compelling. 

Scattered houses, seemingly as unsubstantial as shadows, gathered abouthim; they grew more frequent, joined shoulder to shoulder, and he wasin a city street. On the left he caught a glimpse of the river, solidand smooth and unshining; a knot of men passed shouting hoarsely, and awave of heat swept over him like a choking cloth. Like the morning, hismind partially cleared, people and scenes grew coherent. The formerwere a disheveled and rioting rabble; the conflagration spread in luridwaves. 

The great stores of the tobacco warehouses had been set on fire, andthe spanning flames threatened the entire city. The rich odor of theburning tobacco leaves rolled over the streets in drifting showers ofruby sparks. The groups on the streets resolved into individuals. Elimsaw a hulking woman, with her waist torn from grimy shoulders, cursingthe retreating Confederate troops with uplifted quivering fists; he sawsoldiers in gray joined to shifty town characters furtively bearingaway swollen sacks; carriages with plunging frenzied horses, a man withwhite-faced and despairingly calm women. He stopped hurrying in theopposite direction and demanded:

"Two, Linden Row?"

The other waved a vague arm toward the right and broke away. 

The street mounted sharply and Elim passed an open space teeming withhurrying forms, shrill with cries lost in the drumming roar of theflames. Every third man was drunk. He passed fights, bestial grimaces, heard the fretful crack of revolvers. The great storehouses were nowbelow him, and he could see the shuddering inky masses of smokeblotting out quarter after quarter. He was on a more importantthoroughfare now, and inquired again:

"Two, Linden Row?"

This man ejaculated:

"The Yankees are here!" The fact seemed to stupefy him, and he stoodwith hanging hands and mouth. 

Elim Meikeljohn repeated his query and was answered by a negro who hadjoined them. 

"On ahead, capt'n, " he volunteered; "fourth turn past the capitol andfirst crossing. "

The other regained his speech and began to curse the negro and Elim, but the latter moved swiftly on. 

Above him, through the shifting tenebrous banks, he saw a classic whitebuilding on a patch of incredible greenery, infinitely remote; and thenfrom the center of the city came a deafening explosion, a great sullensheet of flame, followed by flashes like lightning in the settlingblackness. 

"The powder magazines, " Elim heard repeated from person to person. Anirregular file of Confederate soldiers galloped past him, and the echoof their hoofs had hardly died before a troop of mounted Union cavalry, with slanting carbines, rode at their heels. They belonged, Elimrecognized, to Kautz' command. 

He had now reached the fourth turn beyond the withdrawn vision of thecapitol, and he advanced through a black snowing of soot. Flames, fanlike and pallid, now flickered about his feet, streamed in thegutters and lapped the curbs. He saw heaps of broken bottles againstthe bricks, and the smell of fine spilled wines and liquors hung in hisnostrils. His reason again wavered--the tremendous spectacle of burningassumed an apocalyptic appearance, as if the city had burstspontaneously into flame from the passionate and evil spiritsengendered and liberated by war. 

He stopped at the first crossing and saw before him a row of tall brickhouses, built solidly and set behind small yards and a low ironfencing. They had shallow porticoes with iron grilling, and at this enda towering magnolia tree swept its new glossy greenery against thethird-story windows. 

"Linden Row, " he muttered. "Well--Number Two?"

He swung back a creaking gate and went up a flight of bricked steps tothe door. He had guessed right; above a brass knocker filmed with thefloating muck of the air he saw the numeral, Two, painted beneath thefanlight. The windows on the left were blank, curtained. The house rosesilent and without a mark of life above the obscene clamor of the city. He knocked sharply and waited; then he knocked again. Nothing broke thestillness of the façade, the interior. He tried the door, but it wassolidly barred. Then a second fact, a memory, joined the bare locationin his brain. It was a name--Rose--Rosemary Roselle. He beat with anemaciated fist on the paneling and called, "Roselle! Roselle!"

There was a faint answering stir within; he heard the rattle of achain; the door swung back upon an apparently empty and cavernous coolhall. 

VI

A colored woman, in a crisp white turban, with a strained face moregray than brown, suddenly advanced holding before her in both hands aheavy revolver of an outworn pattern. Elim Meikeljohn could see by herdrawn features that she was about to pull the trigger, and he saidfretfully:

"Don't! The thing will explode. One of us will get hurt. " She closedher eyes, Elim threw up his arm, and an amazingly loud report crashedthrough the entry. He stood swaying weakly, with hanging palms, whilethe woman dropped the revolver with a gasp. Elim Meikeljohn began tocry with short dry sobs.... It was incredible that any one shoulddischarge a big revolver directly at his head. He sank limply against achest at the wall. 

"Oh, Indy!" a shaken voice exclaimed. "Do you think he's dying?" Thecolored woman went reluctantly forward and peered at Elim. She touchedhim on a shoulder. 

"'Deed, Miss Rosemary, " she replied, relieved and angry, "that shotdidn't touch a hair. He's just crying like a big old nothing. " Shegrasped him more firmly, gave him a shake. "Dressed like a soldier, "she proceeded scornfully, "and scaring us out of our wits. What did youwant to come here for anyhow calling out names?"

Elim's head rolled forward and back. The hall seemed full of flamingarrows, and he collapsed slowly on the polished floor. He was moved; hewas half-conscious of his heels dragging upstairs, of frequent pauses, voices expostulating and directing thinly. Finally he sank into asublimated peace in, apparently, a floating white cloud. 

He awoke refreshed, mentally clear, but absurdly weak--he was lying inthe middle of a four-posted bed, a bed with posts so massive and tallthat they resembled smooth towering trees. Beyond them he could see amarble mantel; a grate filled with softly smoldering coals, and agleaming brass hod; a highboy with a dark lustrous surface; oval goldframes; and muslin curtains in an open window, stirring in an air thatmoved the fluted valance at the top of the bed. It was late afternoon, the light was fading, the interior wavering in a clear shadow filledwith the faint fat odor of the soft coal. 

The immaculate bed linen bore an elusive cool scent, into which herelapsed with profound delight. The personality of the room, somber andstill, flowed about him with a magical release from the inferno of thepast years, the last hours. He heard a movement at a door, and thecolored woman in the white turban moved to the side of the bed. 

"I told her, " she said in an aggrieved voice, "there wasn't nothing atall wrong with you. I reckon now you're all ready to fight again oreat. Why did you stir things all up in Richmond and kill good folks?"

"To set you free!" Elim Meikeljohn replied. 

She gazed at him thoughtfully. 

"Capt'n, " she asked finally, "are you free?"

"Why, certainly----" he began, and then stopped abruptly, lost in thememory of the dour past. He recalled his father, with a passion forlearning, imprisoned in the narrow poverty of his circumstances andsurroundings; he remembered Hester, with her wishful gaze in theconfines of her invalid chair; his own laborious lonely days. Freedom, a high and difficult term, he saw concerned regions of the spirit notliberated--solved--by a simple declaration on the body. The war hadbeen but the initial, most facile step. The woman had silenced hissounding assertion, humiliated him, by a word. He gazed at her with anew, less confident interest. The mental effort brought a momentaryrecurrence of fever; he flushed and muttered: "Freedom ... Spirit. "

"You're not as wholesome as you appeared, " the woman judged. "You can'thave nothing beside a glass of milk. " She crossed the room and, stirring the fire, put on fresh coal that ignited with an oily crackle. Again at the door she paused. "Don't you try to move about, " shedirected; "you stay right in this room. Mr. Roselle, he's downstairs, and Mr. McCall, and--" her voice took on a faint insistent note ofwarning. He paid little heed to her; he was lost in a wave ofweariness. 

The following morning, stronger, he rose and tentatively trying thedoor found it locked. The colored woman appeared soon after with a traywhich, when he had performed a meager toilet, he attacked with apleasant zest. 

"The city's just burning right up, " she informed him, standing in themiddle of the floor; "the boats on the river caught fire and theircamions banged into Canal Street. " She had a pale even color, astraight delicate nose and sensitive lips. 

"Are the Union troops in charge?" he asked. 

"Yes, sir. They got some of the fire out, I heard tell. But that's notthe worst now--a body can't set her foot in the street, it's so full ofdrunken roaring trash, black and white. It's good Mr. Roselle and Mr. McCall and Mr. John are here, " she declared again; "they could justfinish off anybody that offered to turn a bad hand. "

This, Elim felt, was incongruous with his reception yesterday. 

Still he made no inquiry. The breakfast finished, he relapsed once moreon his pillows and heard the key stealthily turn in the door from theoutside. 

He told himself, without conviction, that he must rise and join hiscommand. The war, he knew, was over; the courage that had sustained himduring the struggle died. The simple question of the colored woman hadlargely slain it. His own personality, the vision of his forthcominglife and necessity, rose to the surface of his consciousness. Elimrealized what had drawn, him to his present situation--it had, ofcourse, been the memory of Rosemary Roselle. The days when he--anassistant to a professor of philosophy and letters--had read and markedher essays seemed to lie in another existence, infinitely remote. Howwould he excuse his presence, the calling of her name before the house?This was an inopportune--a fatal--moment for a man in the blue of theNorth to make his bow to a Richmond girl, in the midst of her wastedand burning place of home. He decided reluctantly that it would be bestto say nothing of his connection with her academic labors, but todepart as soon as possible and without explanation of his firstsummons.... Rosemary Roselle--the name had clung persistently to hismemory. It was probable that he would see her--once. That alone wasextraordinary. He marveled at the grim humor of circumstance that hadgranted him such a wildly improbable wish, and at the same time made ithumanly impossible for him to benefit from it. 

VII

The leisurely progress of his thoughts was interrupted by hasty feetwithout; the bolt was shot back and his door flung open. It was thecolored woman--the Indy of the essay--quivering with anger and fear. 

"Capt'n, " she exclaimed, gasping with her rapid accent, "you come rightdown to the dining room, and bring that big pistol of yours. There'stwo, two----" Words failed her. "Anyhow you shoot them! It's some ofthat liberty you brought along, I reckon. You come down to MissRosemary!"

She stood tense and ashen, and Elim rose on one elbow. 

"Some of our liberty?" he queried. "Did Miss Roselle send for me?"

"No, sir, she didn't. Miss Rosemary she wouldn't send for you, not ifyou were the last man alive. I'm telling you to come down to the diningroom.... We've tended you and--"

"Well, " he demanded impatiently, "what do you want; whom shall Ishoot?"

"You'll see, quick enough. And I can't stand here talking either; I'vegot to go back. You get yourself right along down!"

With painful slowness Elim made his preparations to descend; hisfingers could hardly buckle the stiff strap of his revolver sling, butfinally he made his way downstairs through a deep narrow hall. Heturned from a blank wall to a darkened reception room, with polishedmahogany, somber books and engravings on the walls, and a rosy blur offire in the hearth. A more formal chamber lay at his right, empty, butthrough an opposite door he caught the faint clatter of a spoon. 

Rosemary Roselle was seated, rigid and white, at the end of a tablethat bore a scattered array of dishes. There were shadows beneath hereyes, and her hands, on the table, were clenched. On her left a man inan unmarked blue uniform sat, sagging heavily forward in his chair, breathing stertorously, with a dark flush over a pouched and flaccidcountenance. Opposite him, sitting formally upright, was a negro in acarefully brushed gray suit, with a crimson satin necktie surcharged byvivid green lightning. His bony face, the deep pits of his temples, were the dry spongy black of charcoal, and behind steel-rimmed glasseshis eyes rolled like yellow agates. He glanced about, furtive andstartled, when Elim Meikeljohn entered, but he was immediatelyreassured by Elim's disordered uniform. He made a solemn obeisance. 

"Colonel, " he said, "will you make one of a little informal repast? Weare, you see, at the lady's table. "

Overcome by a sharp weakness, Elim slipped into the chair at his sideand faced Rosemary Roselle. The latter gave no sign of his presence. She sat frozen into a species of statuesque rage. "Like you, " the negrocontinued pompously, "we invited ourselves. All things are free andeasy for all. The glorious principle of equality instituted lately hasswept away--swept away the inviderous distinctions of class and color. The millenium has come!" He made a grandiloquent gesture with a sootyhand. 

"'Ray!" the sodden individual opposite unexpectedly cried. 

"We came in, " the other continued, "to uphold our rights as theexponents of--of----"

"You sneaked in the kitchen, " the woman in the doorway interrupted;"and I found you rummaging in the press. "

"Silence!" the orator commanded. "Are you unaware of the dignity nowresting on your kinks--hair, hair. " He rose, facing Elim Meikeljohn. "Colonel, gentleman, in a conglomeration where we are all gloriouscohevals of--of--"

"Shut up!" said the apostrophized colonel, sudden and fretful. "Getout!"

The orator paused, disconcerted, in the midflow of his figures; andunaccustomed arrogance struggled with habitual servility. "Gentleman, "he repeated, "in a corposity of souls high above all narrowmalignations--"

Elim Meikeljohn took his revolver from its holster and laid it beforehim on the table. The weapon produced an electrical effect on thefigure nodding in a drunken stupor. He rose abruptly and uncertain. 

"I'm going, " he asserted; "come on, Spout. You can be free and equalbetter somewheres else. "

The negro hesitated; his hand, Elim saw, moved slightly toward a knifelying by his plate. Elim's fingers closed about the handle of hisrevolver; he gazed with a steady cold glitter, a thin mouth, at theblack masklike countenance above the hectic tie and neat gray suit. 

The latter backed slowly, instinctively, toward the rear door. Hiscompanion had already faded from view. The negro proclaimed:

"I go momentiously. There are others of us banded to obtain equalityirrespectable of color; we shall be back and things will godifferent.... They have gone different in other pridefuldomestications. "

Elim Meikeljohn raised the muzzle lying on the cloth, and the negrodisappeared. Rosemary Roselle did not move; her level gaze saw, apparently, nothing of her surroundings; her hands were still clenchedon the board. She was young, certainly not twenty, but her ovalcountenance was capable of a mature severity not to be ignored. He sawthat she had wide brown eyes the color of a fall willow leaf, a high-bridged nose and a mouth--at present--a marvel of contempt. Her slightfigure was in a black dress; she was without rings or ornamental gold. 

"That talking trash gave me a cold misery, " the colored woman admitted. She glanced at the girl and moved a bowl of salad nearer ElimMeikeljohn. "Miss Rosemary, " she begged, "take something, my heart. "

Rosemary Roselle answered with a slow shudder; she slipped forward, with her face buried in her arms on the table. Elim regarded her withprofound mingled emotions. In the fantastic past, when he had createdher from the studied essays, he had thought of her--censoriously--asgay. Perhaps she danced! He wondered momentarily where the men wereIndy had spoken of as present; then he realized that they had been buta precautionary figment of Indy's imagination; the girl, except for thewoman with the tender brown hand caressing her shoulder, was alone inthe house. 

He sat with chin on breast gazing with serious speculation at thecrumpled figure opposite him. Indy, corroborating his surmise, said tothe girl:

"I can't make out at all why your papa don't come back. He saidyesterday when he left he wouldn't be hardly an hour. "

"Something dreadful has happened, " Rosemary Roselle insisted, raising ahopeless face. "Indy, do you suppose he's dead like McCall and--and--"

"Mr. Roselle he ain't dead, " the woman responded stoutly; "he's justhad to keep low trash from stealing all his tobacco. "

"He could easily be found, " Elim put in; "I could have an orderlydetailed, word brought you in no time. " The girl paid not the slightestheed to his proposal. From the street came a hoarse drunken shouting, asmall inflamed rabble streamed by. It wouldn't be safe to leaveRosemary Roselle alone here with Indy. He recalled the threat of theblack pomposity he had driven from the house--it was possible thatthere were others, banded, and that they would return. It was clear tohim that he must stay until its head reappeared, order had beenreestablished--or, if he went out, take the girl with him. 

"You let the capt'n do what he says, " the woman urged. RosemaryRoselle's eyes turned toward Elim; it was, seemingly, the first timeshe had become aware of his presence. She said in a voice delicatelycolored by hate:

"Thank you, I couldn't think of taking the--the orderly from hisconquests. "

"Then I'll find your father myself, " Elim replied. "You will come withme, of course; show me where to go. It would be a good thing to startat once. I--we--might be of some assistance to him with his tobacco. "

Indy declared with an expression of instant determination:

"We'll go right along with you. " She silenced Rosemary's instinctiveprotest. "I'll get your hat and shawl, " she told the girl. 

And, before the latter could object, the colored woman hurried from theroom. 

Silence enveloped the two at the table. Elim replaced his revolver inits belt. He had never before studied a girl like Rosemary Roselle;fine white frills fell about her elbows from under the black shortsleeves. Her skin was incredibly smooth and white. It was evident thather hands had never done manual labor; their pointed little beautyfascinated him. He thought of the toil-hardened hands of the women ofhis home. This girl represented all that he had been taught to abjure, all that--by inheritance--he had in the abstract condemned. Sherepresented the vanities; she was vanity itself; and now he wasrecklessly, contumaciously, glad of it. Her sheer loveliness of beingintoxicated him; suddenly it seemed as absolutely necessary to life asthe virtues of moral rectitude and homely labor. Personally, hediscovered, he preferred such beauty to the latter adamantinequalities. He had a fleet moment of amazed self-consciousness: ElimMeikeljohn--his father an elder in the house of God--astray in thepaths of condemned worldly frivolities! Then he recalled a little bushof vivid red roses his mother carefully protected and cultivated; hesaw their bright fragrant patch on the rocky gray expanse of theutilitarian acres; and suddenly a light of new understanding envelopedhis mother's gaunt drearily-clad figure. He employed in this connectionthe surprising word "starved. " ... Rosemary Roselle was a flower. 

Indy returned with a small hat of honey-colored straw and a soft white-silk mantilla. The former she drew upon the girl's head and wrapped theshawl about the slim shoulders. 

"Now, " she pronounced decisively, "we're going to find your papa. " Sheled Rosemary Roselle toward the outer door. Elim found his cap in thehall and followed them down the bricked steps to the street. It was atpresent deserted, quiet; and they turned to the left, making their waytoward the river and warehouses. 

The fires had largely subsided; below them rose blackened bare walls ofbrick, sullen twisting flags of smoke; an air of sooty desolation hadsettled over the city. Houses were tightly shuttered; some with brokendoors had a trail of hastily discarded loot on the porticoes; stillothers were smoldering shells. 

A bugle call rose clear and triumphant from the capital; at one placethey passed Union soldiers, extinguishing flames. 

They descended the flagged street over which Elim had come, turned intoanother called--he saw--Cary, and finally halted before a long somberfaçade. Here, too, the fire had raged; the charred timbers of thefallen roof projected desolately into air. 

A small group at a main entrance faced them as they approached; acoatless man with haggard features, his clothes saturated with water, advanced quickly. 

"Miss Rosemary!" he ejaculated in palpable dismay. He drew ElimMeikeljohn aside. "Take her away, " he directed; "her father ... Killed, trying to save his papers. "

"Where?" Elim demanded. "Their house is empty. She can't stay inRichmond alone. "

"I'd forgotten that!" the other admitted. "McCall and John both gone, mother dead, and now--by heaven!" he exclaimed, low and distressed, "she has just no one. I'm without a place. Her friends have left. There's a distant connection at Bramant's Wharf, but that's almost atthe mouth of the James. "

Rosemary Roselle came up to them. 

"Mr. Jim Haxall, " she asked, direct and white, "is father dead?"

He studied her for a moment and then answered:

"Yes, Miss Rosemary. "

She swayed. Indy, at her side, enveloped her in a sustaining arm. 

"Indy, " the girl said, her face on the woman's breast, "he, too!"

"I'm sending a few bales of leaf down the river, " Haxall continued toElim; "the sloop'll pass Bramant's Wharf; but the crew will be justanybody. Miss Rosemary couldn't go with only her nigger--"

Elim Meikeljohn spoke mechanically:

"I'll be responsible for her. " The war was over; he had been orderedfrom the column when his wound had broken afresh, and in a maze offever he had been irresistibly impelled toward Linden Row. "I'll takeher to Bramant's Wharf. "

Haxall regarded suspiciously the disordered blue uniform; then his gazeshifted to Elim's somber lined countenance. 

"Miss Rosemary's rubies and gold--" he said finally. "But I believeyou're honest, I believe you're a good man. "

VIII

James Haxall explained this to Rosemary. Elim, standing aside, couldsee that the girl neither assented nor raised objection. She seemedutterly listless; a fleet emotion at the knowledge of her father'sdeath had, in that public place, been immediately repressed. The sloop, Elim learned, was ready to start at once. The afternoon was declining;to reach Bramant's Wharf would take them through the night and into themeridian of tomorrow. They had made no preparations for the trip, therewas neither bedding nor food; but Elim and Haxall agreed that it wasbest for Rosemary Roselle to leave the city at the price of any slightmomentary discomfort. 

Elim looked about for a place where he might purchase food. A near-byeating house had been completely wrecked, its floor a debris of brokencrockery. Beyond, a baker's shop had been deserted, its windowshattered but the interior intact. The shelves, however, had been sweptbare of loaves. Elim searched behind the counters--nothing remained. But in walking out his foot struck against a round object, wrapped inpaper, which on investigation proved to be a fruit cake of satisfactorysolidity and size. With this beneath his arm he returned to RosemaryRoselle, and they followed Haxall to the wharf where the sloop lay. 

The tiller was in charge of an old man with peering pale-blue eyes andtremulous siccated hands. Yet he had an astonishingly potent voice, andissued orders, in tones like the grating of metal edges, to a loutishyouth in a ragged shirt and bare legs. The cabin, partly covered, wasfilled with bagged bales; a small space had been left for thesteersman, and forward the deck was littered with untidy ropes andswab, windlass bar and other odds. 

Elim Meikeljohn moved forward to assist Rosemary on to the sloop, butshe evaded his hand and jumped lightly down upon the deck, Indy, grumbling and certain of catastrophe, was safely got aboard, and Elimhelped the youth to push the craft's bow out into the stream. The grimymainsail rose slowly, the jib was set, and they deliberately gatheredway, slipping silently between the timbered banks, emerging from thethin pungent influence of the smoking ruins. 

Behind them the sun transfused the veiled city into a coppery blur thatgradually sank into a tender-blue dusk. Indy had arranged a place withthe most obtainable comfort for Rosemary Roselle; she sat with her backagainst the mast, gazing toward the bank, stealing backward, at thedarkening trees moving in solemn procession. 

After the convulsed and burning city, the uproar of guns and clash ofconflict, the quiet progress of the sloop was incredibly peaceful andwithdrawn. Elim felt as if they had been detached from the familiarmaterial existence and had been set afloat in a stream of silkenshadows. The wind was behind them, the boom had been let far but, theold steersman drowsed at his post, and the youth had fallen instantlyasleep in a strange cramped attitude. 

Elim was standing at the stern--he had conceived it his duty to stay asfar away from Rosemary Roselle as her wish plainly indicated; but, inthis irrelated phase of living, he gradually lost his sense ofresponsibility and restrained conduct. He wanted extravagantly to benear Rosemary, to be where he could see her clearly. Perhaps, but thiswas unlikely, she would speak to him. His desire gradually flooded him;it induced a species of careless heroism, and he made his wayresolutely forward and sat on a heap of rope at a point where he couldstudy her with moderate propriety and success. She glanced at himmomentarily when he took his place--he saw that her under lip wascapable of an extremely human and annoying expression--and returned toher veiled scrutiny of the sliding banks. 

An unfamiliar emotion stirred at Elim's heart; and in his painstakingintrospective manner he exposed it. He found a happiness that, at thesame time, was a pain; he found an actual catch in his throat that wasa nebulous desire; he found an utter loneliness together with theconviction that this earth was a place of glorious possibilities ofaffinity. Principally he was conscious of an urging of his entire beingtoward the slight figure in black, staring with wide bereft eyes intothe gathering evening. On the other side of the mast, Indy was sleepingwith her head upon her breast. The feeling in Elim steadily increasedin poignancy--faint stars appearing above the indefinite foliagepierced him with their beauty, the ashen-blue sky vibrated in a singingchord, the river divided in whispering confidences on the bow of thesloop. 

Elim Meikeljohn debated the wisdom of a remark; his courage grewimmeasurably reckless. 

"The wind and river are shoving us along together. " Pronounced, thesentence seemed appallingly compromising; he had meant that the windand river together, not--

She made no reply; one hand, he saw, stirred slightly. 

Since he had not been blasted into nothingness, he continued:

"I'm glad the war's over. Why, " he exclaimed in genuine surprise, "youcan hear the birds again. " A sleepy twitter had floated out over thestream. Still no response. He should not, certainly, have mentioned thewar. He wondered desperately what a fine and delicate being likeRosemary Roselle talked about? It would be wise to avoid serious andimmediate considerations for commonplaces. 

"Ellik McCosh, " he said, "a girl in our village who went to Boston, learned to dance, and when she came back she taught two or three. Hercommunion medal was removed from her, " he added with complete veracity. "Perhaps, " he went on conversationally, "you don't have communionmedals in Richmond--it's a little lead piece you have when you are ingood standing at the Lord's table. Mine was taken away for three monthsfor whistling by the church door. A long while ago, " he ended in adifferent voice. He thought of the fruit cake, and breaking off a pieceoffered it to the silent girl. "It's like your own, " he told her, placing it on a piece of paper at her side; "it's from Richmond andwasn't even paid for with strange silver. "

At this last a sudden uneasiness possessed him, and he hurriedlysearched his pockets. He had exactly fifty cents. Until the present hehad totally overlooked the depleted state of his fortune. Elim had somearrears of pay, but now he seriously doubted whether they werecollectible. Nothing else. He had emerged from the war brevetted majorbut as penniless as the morning of his enlistment. He doubted whether, in the hurry of departure, Rosemary Roselle had remembered to bring anymoney. 

Still, she would be cared for, supplied with every necessity, atBramant's Wharf. There he would leave her ... His breathing stopped, for, incredibly, he saw that her hand was suspended over the piece ofcake. She took it up and ate it slowly, absently. This, he felt, hadcreated a bond between them; but it was a conviction in which, apparently, she had no share. She might have thanked him but shedidn't. 

An underhanded and indefensible expedient occurred to him, and he satfor a perceptible number of minutes concentrating his memory upon a dimand special object. Finally he raised his head. 

"Indy, " he quoted, "a large light mulatto, hasn't much sense but agreat deal of sensibility. That, " he added of himself, "is evidentlyvery well observed. " He saw that Rosemary turned her head with animpatient curiosity. "She is very unfortunate, " he continueduncertainly; "she lost a present of money and couldn't work till it wasgiven back. "

"But how, " demanded Rosemary Roselle, "did you know that?" Curiosityhad betrayed her. 

Elim Meikeljohn concealed a grin with difficulty. It was evident thatshe profoundly regretted the lapse, yet she would not permit herself toretreat from her position. She maintained a high intolerant aspect ofquery. 

"Have you forgotten, " he went on, "how the dread day rolled around?" Hepaused wickedly. "The slough of despond?" he added. 

"What silly stuff!" Rosemary pronounced. 

"It was, " he agreed, "mostly. But the paper about Indy was a superiorproduction. B plus, I think. "

A slow comprehension dawned on her face, blurred by the night. 

"So that's where they went, " she observed; "you marked them. " He wouldhave sworn that a smile hovered for the fraction of a moment on herpale lips. She drew up her shoulders slightly and turned away. 

His best, his only hope had flickered for a minute and died away. Hersilence was like impregnable armor. A puff of wind filled the sails, there was a straining of cordage, an augmented bubbling at the sloop'sbow, and then the stir subsided. He passed into a darkness of olddistresses, forebodings, grim recollections from his boyhood, inheritedbleak memories. Rosemary Roselle's upright figure gradually sank. Herealized that she was asleep on her arm. Elim bent forward shamelesslyand studied her worn countenance. There was a trace of tears on hercheek. She was as delicate, as helpless as a flower sleeping on itsstalk. 

An impulse to touch her hair was so compelling that he started back, shaken; a new discordant tumult rose within him, out of which emergedan aching hunger for Rosemary Roselle; he wanted her with a passioncold and numbing like ether. He wanted her without reason, and in thedesire lost his deep caution, his rectitude of conscience. He was tornfar beyond the emotional possibilities of weak men. The fact that, penniless and without a home, he had nothing to offer was lost in thebeat and surge of his feelings. He went with the smashing completenessof a heavy body, broken loose in an elemental turmoil. He wanted her;her fragrant spirit, the essence that was herself, Rosemary Roselle. Hecouldn't take it; such consummations, he realized, were beyond will andact, they responded from planes forever above human desire--there wasnot even a rift of hope. The banks had been long lost in the night; thefaint disembodied cry of an owl breathed across the invisible river. 

IX

She woke with a little confused cry, and sat gazing distractedly intothe dark, her hands pressed to her cheeks. 

"Don't you remember, " Elim Meikeljohn spoke, "Haxall and the sloop;your relatives at Bramant's Wharf?"

She returned to a full consciousness of her surroundings. 

"I was dreaming so differently, " she told him. It seemed to Elim thatthe antagonism had departed from her voice; he even had a feeling thatshe was glad of his presence. Indy, prostrate on the deck with her chinelevated to the stars, had not moved. 

The darkness increased, broken only by the colored glimmer of the portand starboard lights and a wan blur about the old man bent over thetiller. Once he woke the youth and sent him forward with a soundingpole, once the sloop scraped heavily over a mud bank, but that was all;their imperceptible progress was smooth, unmarked. 

Elim, recalling Joshua, wished that the sloop and night were anchored, stationary. Already he smelled the dawn in a newly stirring, cold air. The darkness thickened. Rosemary Roselle said:

"I'm dreadfully hungry. "

He immediately produced the fruit cake. 

"It's really quite satisfactory, " she continued, eating; "It's like therest of this--unreal.... What is your name?" she demanded unexpectedly. 

"Elim Meikeljohn. "

"That's a very Northern sort of name. "

"It would be hard to come by one more so, " he agreed. "It's from thehighlands of Scotland. "

"Then if you don't mind, I'll think of you as Scotch right now. "

He conveyed to her the fact that he didn't. 

"Look!" she exclaimed. "There's the morning!"

A thin gray streak widened across the east. Almost immediately thenight dissolved. They were sweeping down the middle of a river thatsurprised Elim with its width and majesty. The withdrawn banks boreclustered trees, undulating green reached inland, the shaded facades ofhouses sat back on lawns that dipped to the stream. 

Rosemary Roselle's face was pale with fatigue; her eyes appearedpreternaturally large; and this, for Elim, made her charm infinitelymore appealing. She smoothed her dress, touched her hair with lightfingers. The intimacy of it all thrilled him. A feeling of happyirresponsibility deepened. He lost sight of the probable unhappiness oftomorrow, the catastrophe that was yesterday; Elim was radiantlycontent with the present. 

"You look Northern too, " she went on; "you are so much more solemn thanthe Virginia men--I mean your face is. "

"I suppose I've had a solemn sort of existence, " he agreed. "Life's anawful serious thing where I was born. The days are not long enough, life's too short, to get your work done. It's a stony pasture, " headmitted. He described the Meikeljohn farm land, sloping steeply toswift rocky streams, the bare existence of the sheep, the bitterwinters. He touched briefly on Hester and his marriage. 

"It's no wonder, " she pronounced, "that you have shadows in your eyes. You can't imagine, " she continued, "how wonderful everything was inRichmond, before--I simply can't talk about it now. I suppose we areruined, but there isn't a man or woman who wouldn't do the same thingall over again. I'm almost glad that father isn't--isn't here; miseryof any kind made him so wretched ... Perfect memories. " She closed hereyes. 

Her under lip, he saw, projected slightly, her chin was fine butstubborn. These details renewed his delight; they lent a warm humanityto her charm. 

"Any one would know, " she said, regarding him, "that you are absolutelytrustworthy. It's a nice quality now, but I don't think I would havenoticed it even a month ago. You can see that I have grown frightfullyold in the littlest while. Yes, you are comfortable to be with, and Isuspect that counts for a great deal. It's quite sad, too, to grow old. Oh, look, we've changed! Where do you suppose he is going? This can'tnearly be Bramant's. "

The mainsail had been hauled in, and the course of the sloop changed, quartering in toward the shore. The youth, moving forward, stopped toenlighten them. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the old man. 

"He's got kin here at Jerico, " he explained; "and we're setting in tosee them. We won't stop long. "

The mainsail came smoothly down, the jib fluttered, and the sloop slidin beside a sturdy old wharf, projecting from a deep fringe of willows. No sign of life or habitation was visible. 

The youth made fast a hawser, the old man mounted painfully to thedock, and Indy stirred and rose. 

"I must have just winked asleep, " she declared in consternation. 

Rosemary Roselle lightly left the boat, and Elim followed. "If weexplored, " he proposed, "perhaps we could get you a cup of coffee. " Sheelected, however, to stay by the river, and Elim went inward alone. Beyond the willows was an empty marshland. The old man had disappeared, with no trace of his objective kin. A road, deep in yellow mire, mounted a rise beyond and vanished a hundred yards distant. Elim, unwilling to get too far away from the sloop, had turned and movedtoward the wharf, when he was halted by the sound of horses' hoofs. 

He saw approaching him over the road a light open carriage with afringed canopy and a pair of horses driven by a negro in a long whitedust coat. In the body of the carriage a diminutive bonneted head wasbarely visible above an enormous circumference of hoops. Elim sawbobbing gray curls, peering anxious eyes, and a fluttering hand in ablack silk-thread mit. 

"Gossard, " a feminine voice cried shrilly to the driver, at the sightof Elim on the roadside, "here's a Yankee army; lick up those horses!"

The negro swung a vicious whip, the horses started sharply forward, butthe carriage wheels, sinking in a deep slough, remained fixed; theharness creaked but held; the equipage remained stationary. The negrodismounted sulkily, and Elim crossed the road and put his shoulder to awheel. Together with the driver, he lifted the carriage on to a firmersurface. The old lady was seated with tightly shut eyes. 

"This here man ain't going to hurt you, " the driver exclaimedimpatiently. "This exdus is all nonsense anyways, " he grumbled. "I gota mind to stop--I'm free. "

She directed upon him a beady black gaze. 

"You get right into this carriage, " she commanded; "you'd be free tostarve. You are a fool!" The man reluctantly obeyed her. "I thank youfor your clemency, " she said to Elim. She fumbled among her flouncesand hoops and produced an object carefully wrapped and tied. "Here, "she proclaimed; "I can still pay for a service. Gossard--" the carriagemoved forward, was lost in the dip in the road. Elim opened the packagein his hand and regarded, with something like consternation, a bottleof champagne. 

Beyond the wharf the great yellow flood of the river gleamed in thesun; choirs of robins whistled in trees faintly green. Rosemary Rosellewas seated with her feet hanging over the water. 

"Champagne for breakfast, " she observed, shaking her head; "only themost habitual sports manage that. " He recounted the episode of the"Yankee army, " delighted by her less formal tone, then the old manreturned as enigmatically as he had disappeared. The ropes were castoff, the sloop swung out into the current, and their smooth progresswas resumed. 

A few more hours and they would be at Bramant's Wharf. There, Elimknew, he would be expected to leave Rosemary. There would be aperfunctory gratitude from her relatives, perhaps a warmer appreciationfrom herself--a moment--a momentary pressure of her hand--and then--where? He would never again come in contact with so exquisite a girl;they were, he realized, customarily held in a circle where men likehimself, outsiders, rarely penetrated; once more with her family and hewould be forgotten. Anyhow, he had nothing. 

But in spite of these heavy reflections his irresponsible happinessincreased. In this segment of existence no qualifications from theshore were valid. Time, himself, at the tiller, seemed drifting, unconcerned. Rosemary Roselle regarded Elim with a franker interest. She took off a small slipper and emptied some sand from the shore; thesimple act seemed to him burdened with gracious warmth. Now she wasinfinitely easier than any girl he had known before. Those about hishome met the younger masculine world either with a blunt sarcasm orwith an uneasy voiceless propriety. Rosemary, propped on an elbow, wasas unconcerned as a boy. This made her infinitely more difficult ofapproach. Her slight beautiful body, not hidden by clothes--as decencydemanded in the more primitive state--was delightfully marked, suggested. Here was beauty admitted, lauded, even studied, in place ofthe fierce masking and denouncement of his father and the fellowelders. 

He remembered, from collegiate hours, the passion of the Greeks forsheer earthly strength and loveliness--Helen and Menelaus, Sappho onthe green promontories of Lesbos. At the time of his reading he hadmaintained a wry brow ... Now Elim Meikeljohn could comprehend the siegeof Troy. 

He said aloud, without thinking and instantly aghast at his words:

"You are like a bodied song. " He was horrified; then his newer spiritutterly possessed him, he didn't care; he nodded his long solemn head. 

Rosemary Roselle turned toward him with a cool stare that was lost inirresistible ringing peals of laughter. 

"Oh!" she gasped; "what a face for a compliment. It was just likepouring sirup out of a vinegar cruet. "

He became annoyed and cleared his throat in an elder-like manner, buther amusement strung out in silvery chuckles. 

"It's the first I've said of the kind, " he admitted stiffly; "I've nodoubt it came awkward. "

She grew more serious, studied him with thoughtful eyes. "Do you know, "she said slowly, "I believe you. Compliments in Virginia are likecherries, the trees are full of them; they're nice but worth--so much. "She measured an infinitesimal degree with a rosy nail against a finger. "But I can see that yours are different. They almost hurt you, don'tthey?"

He made no reply, struggling weakly against what, he perceived, was tofollow. 

"You're like a song that to hear would draw a man about the world, "said Elim Meikeljohn, pagan. "He would leave his sheep and byre, he'ddrop his duty and desert his old, and follow. I'm lost, " he decided, ina last perishing flicker of early teaching; and then he smiledinexplicably at the wrath to come. 

Rosemary Roselle grew more serious. 

"But that's not a compliment at all, " she discovered; "it's more, andit makes me uncomfortable. Please stop!"

"About the world, " echoed Elim, "and everything else forgotten. "

"Please, " she repeated, holding up a prohibitory palm. 

"Rose petals, " he said, regarding it. His madness increased. Shewithdrew her hand and gazed at him with a small frown. She was sittingupright, propped on her arms. Her mouth, with its slightly full underlip, was elevated, and an outrageous desire possessed him. Hiscountenance slowly turned hotly red, and slowly a faint tide of colorstained Rosemary Roselle's cheeks. She looked away; Elim looked away. He proceeded aft and learned that Bramant's Wharf lay only a few milesahead. 

The old man cursed the wind in his stringent tones. Elim hadn't noticedanything reprehensible in the wind. It appeared that for a considerabletime there hadn't been any. A capful was stirring now, and humanity--ever discontented--silently cursed that. 

"We're nearly there, " he said, returning to Rosemary Roselle. 

He was unable to gather any intelligence from her expression. 

She rose, and stood with a hand on Indy's shoulder, murmuringaffectionately in the colored woman's ear. The sloop once more headedat a long angle for the shore. Bramant's Wharf grew visible, projectingsolidly from a verdant bank. They floated silently up to the dock, andthe youth held the sloop steady while Rosemary Roselle and Indy mountedfrom its deck. Elim followed, but suddenly he stopped, and his handwent into his pocket. A half dollar fell ringing into the boat. Elimindicated the youth; he was now penniless. 

X

"The house, " Rosemary explained, "is almost a mile in. There is acarriage at the wharf when they expect you. And usually there is someone about. "

Elim, carrying the cake and bottle, followed over a grassy road betweentangles of blackberry bushes. On either hand neglected fields held asparse tangle of last year's weeds; beyond, trees closed in theperspective. The sun had passed the zenith, and the shadows of walnuttrees fell across the road. Elim's face was grim, a dark tide roseabout him, enveloping his heart, bothering his vision. He wanted toaddress something final to the slim girl in black before him, somethingnow, before she was forever lost in the gabble of her relatives; but hecould think of nothing appropriate, expressive of the tumult withinhim. His misery deepened with every step, grew into a bitterness ofrebellion that almost forced an incoherent reckless speech. RosemaryRoselle didn't turn, she didn't linger, there were a great many thingsthat she might say. The colored woman was positively hurrying forward. A great loneliness swept over him. He had not, he thought drearily, been made for joy. 

"It's queer there's no one about, " Rosemary Roselle observed. Theyreached the imposing pillars of an entrance--the wooden gate waschained, and they were obliged to turn aside and search for an openingin a great mock-orange hedge. Before them a wide sweep of lawn led upto a formal dark façade; a tanbark path was washed, the grass raggedand uncut. Involuntarily they quickened their pace. 

Elim saw that towering brown pillars rose to the roof of the dwellingand that low wings extended on either hand. Before the portico astiffly formal garden lay in withered neglect. 

The flower beds, circled with masoned rims and built up like wiredbouquets, held only twisted and broken stems. 

A faint odor of wet plaster and dead vegetation rose to meet them. Onthe towering wall of the house every window was tightly shuttered. Theplace bore a silent and melancholy air of desertion. 

The girl gave a dismayed gasp. Elim hastily placed his load on thesteps and, mounting, beat upon the door. Only a dull echo answered. Dust fell from the paneling upon his head. 

"Maybe they have shut up the front for protection, " he suggested. Hemade his way to the rear; all was closed. Through the low limbs ofapple trees he could see a double file of small sad brick quarters forthe slaves. They, too, were empty. The place was without a livingbeing. He stood, undecided, when suddenly he heard Rosemary Rosellecalling with an acute note of fear. 

He ran through the binding grass back to the garden. 

"Elim Meikeljohn!" She stumbled forward to meet him. "Oh, Elim, " shecried; "there's no one in the world----" A sob choked her utterance. 

He fell on his knees before her:

"There's always me. "

She sank in a fragrant heap into his arms. 

Elim Meikeljohn laughed over her shoulder at his entire worldly goodson the steps--the fragmentary fruit cake and a bottle of champagne. 

Here they are lost on the dimming mirror of the past. 

THE THRUSH IN THE HEDGE

I

Harry Baggs came walking slowly over the hills in the blue May dusk. Hecould now see below him the clustered roofs and tall slim stack of atown. His instinct was to avoid it, but he had tramped all day, hisblurred energies were hardly capable of a detour, and he decided tosettle near by for the night. About him the country rose and fell, clothed in emerald wheat and pale young corn, while trees filled thehollows with the shadowy purple of their darkening boughs. A robinpiped a belated drowsy note; the air had the impalpable sweetness ofbeginning buds. 

A vague pleasant melancholy enveloped him; the countryside swamindistinctly in his vision--he surrendered himself to inwardsensations, drifting memories, unformulated regrets. He was twenty andhad a short powerful body; a broad dusty patient face. His eyes weresteady, light blue, and his jaw heavy but shapely. His dress--theforlorn trousers, the odd coat uncomfortably drawn across thickshoulders, and incongruous hat--held patently the stamp of his worldlyposition: he was a tramp. 

He stopped, looking about. The road, white and hard, dipped suddenlydown; on the right, windows glimmered, withdrawn behind shrubbery andorderly trees; on the left, a dark plowed field rose to a stiff companyof pines and the sky. Harry Baggs stood turned in the latter direction, for he caught the faint odor of wood smoke; behind the field, a newlyacquired instinct told him, a fire was burning in the open. This, now, probably meant that other wanderers--tramps--had found a place oftemporary rest. 

Without hesitation he climbed a low rail fence, found a narrow pathtrod in the soft loam and followed it over the brow into the hollowbeyond. His surmise was correct--a fire smoldered in a red blur on theground, a few relaxed forms gathered about the wavering smoke, and attheir back were grouped four or five small huts. 

Harry Baggs walked up to the fire, where, with a conventional sentence, he extended his legs to the low blaze. A man regarded him with apeering suspicious gaze; but any doubts were apparently laid, for theother silently resumed a somnolent indifference. His clothes were anamazing and unnecessary tangle of rags; his stubble of beard and brokenblack hat had an air of unreality, as though they were the stageproperties of a stupid and conventional parody of a tramp. 

Another, sitting with clasped knees beyond the fire, interrupted amonotonous whining recital to question Harry Baggs. "Where'd you comefrom?"

"Somewhere by Lancaster. "

"Ever been here before?" And, when Baggs had said no: "Thought I hadn'tseen you. Most of us here come back in the spring. It's a comfortabledump when it don't rain cold. " He was uncommonly communicative. "TheNursery's here for them that want work; and if not nobody's to ask youreasons. "

A third, in a grimy light overcoat, with a short bristling red mustacheand morose countenance, said harshly: "Got any money?"

"Maybe two bits. "

"Let's send him in for beer, " the other proposed; and a new animationstirred the dilapidated one and the talker. 

"You can go to hell!" Baggs responded without heat. 

"That ain't no nice way to talk, " the second proclaimed. "Peebles, here, meant that them who has divides with all that hasn't. "

Peebles directed a hard animosity at Harry Baggs. His gaze flickeredover the latter's heavy-set body and unmoved face. "Want your jawslapped crooked?" he demanded with a degree of reservation. 

"No, " the boy placidly replied. 

A stillness enveloped them, accentuated by the minute crackling of thedisintegrating wood. The dark increased and the stars came out; theclip-clip of a horse's hoofs passed in the distance and night. HarryBaggs became flooded with sleep. 

"I s'pose I can stay in one of these brownstones?" he queried, indicating the huts. 

No one answered and he stumbled toward a small shelter. He was forcedto bend, edge himself into the close damp interior, where he collapsedinto instant unconsciousness on a heap of bagging. In the night hecried out, in a young strangely distressed voice; and later a drift ofrain fell on the roof and ran in thin cold streams over his still body. 

II

He woke late the following morning and emerged sluggishly into asparkling rush of sunlight. The huts looked doubly mean in the pellucidday. They were built of discarded doors and variously painted fragmentsof lumber, with blistered and unpinned roofs of tin, in which rustedsmokepipes had been crazily wired; strips of moldy matting hung over anentrance or so, but the others gaped unprotected. The clay before themwas worn smooth and hard; a replenished fire smoked within blackenedbricks; a line, stretched from a dead stump to a loosely fixed post, supported some stained and meager red undergarb. 

Harry Baggs recognized Peebles and the loquacious tramp at the edge ofthe clearing. The latter, clad in a grotesquely large and sorry suit ofministerial black, was emaciated and had a pinched bluish countenance. When he saw Baggs he moved forward with a quick uneven step. 

"Say, " he proceeded, "can you let me have something to get a soda-caffeine at a drug store? This ain't a stall; I got a fierce headache. Come out with a dime, will you? My bean always hurts, but to-day I'mnear crazy. "

Harry Baggs surveyed him for a moment, and then, without comment, produced the sum in question. The other turned immediately and rapidlydisappeared toward the road. 

"He's crazy, all right, to fill himself with that dope, " Peeblesobserved; "it's turning him black. You look pretty healthy, " he added. "You can work, and they're taking all the men they can get at theNursery. "

The boy was sharply conscious of a crawling emptiness--hunger. He hadonly fifteen cents; when that was gone he would be without resources. "I don't mind, " he returned; "but I've got to eat first. "

"Can't you stick till night?" his companion urged. "There's only half aday left now. If you go later there'll be nothing doing till tomorrow. "

"All right, " Harry Baggs assented. 

The conviction seized him that this dull misery of hunger and dirt hadsettled upon him perpetually--there was no use in combating it; and, with an animal-like stoicism, he followed the other away from the road, out of the hollow, to where row upon row of young ornamental treesreached in mathematical perspective to broad sheds, glittering expansesof glass, a huddle of toolhouses, and office. 

His conductor halted at a shed entrance and indicated a weather-bronzedindividual. 

"Him, " he said. "And mind you come back when you're through; we alldish in together and live pretty good. "

Harry Baggs spent the long brilliant afternoon burning bunches ofcondemned peach shoots. The smoke rolled up in a thick ceaseless cloud;he bore countless loads and fed them to the flames. The hungry crawlingincreased, then changed to a leaden nausea; but, accepting it asinevitable, he toiled dully on until the end of day, when he was givena dollar and promise of work to-morrow. 

He saw, across a dingy street, a small grocery store, and purchasedthere coffee, bacon and a pound of dates. Then he returned across theNursery to the hollow and huts. More men had arrived through the day, other fires were burning, and an acrid odor of scorched fat and boilingcoffee rose in the delicate evening. A small group was passing about aflasklike bottle; a figure lay in a stupor on the clay; a mutter ofvoices, at once cautious and assertive, joined argument to complaint. 

"Over this way, " Peebles called as Harry Baggs approached. The formerinspected the purchased articles, then cursed. "Ain't you got a bottleon you?"

But when the bacon had been crisped and the coffee turned into asteaming thick liquid, he was amply appreciative of the sustenanceoffered. They were shortly joined by Runnel, the individual with thebluish poisoned countenance, and the elaborately ragged tramp. 

"Did you frighten any cooks out of their witses?" Peebles asked thelast contemptuously. The other retorted unintelligibly in hisappropriately hoarse voice. "Dake knocks on back doors, " Peeblesexplained to Harry Baggs, "and then fixes to scare a nickel or grubfrom the women who open. "

Quiet settled over the camp; the blue smoke of pipes and cigarettesmerged imperceptibly into the dusk of evening. Harry Baggs wasenveloped by a momentary contentment, born of the satisfaction of food, relaxation after toil; and, leaning his head back on clasped hands, hesang:

 _"I changed my name when I got free To Mister, like the res'. But now ... Ol' Master's voice I hears Across de river: 'Rome, You damn ol' nigger, come and bring Dat boat an' row me home!'"_

His voice rolled out without effort, continuous as a flowing stream, grave and round as the deep tone of a temple bell. It increased involume until the hollow vibrated; the sound, rather than coming from asingle throat, seemed to dwell in the air, to be the harmony of eveningmade audible. The simple melody rose and fell; the simple words becameportentous, burdened with the tragedy of vain longing, lost felicity. The dead past rose again like a colored mist over the sordid reality ofthe present; it drifted desirable and near across the hill; it soothedand mocked the heart--and dissolved. 

The silence that followed the song was sharply broken by a thinquerulous question; a tenuous bent figure stumbled across the open. 

"Who's singing?" he demanded. 

"That's French Janin, " Peebles told Harry Baggs; "he's blind. "

"I am, " the latter responded--"Harry Baggs. "

The man came closer, and Baggs saw that he was old and incredibly worn;his skin clung in dry yellow patches to his skull, the temples werebony caverns, and the pits of his eyes blank shadows. He felt forwardwith a siccated hand, on which veins were twisted like blue worstedover fleshless tendons, gripped Harry Baggs' shoulder, and loweredhimself to the ground. 

"Another song, " he insisted; "like the last. Don't try any cheap show. "

The boy responded immediately; his serious voice rolled out again in aspontaneous tide. 

"'Hard times, '" Harry Baggs sang; "'hard times, come again no more. '"

The old man said: "You think you have a great voice, eh? All you haveto do to take the great roles is open your mouth!"

"I hadn't thought of any of that, " Baggs responded. "I sing because--well, it's just natural; no one has said much about it. "

"You have had no teaching, that's plain. Your power leaks like an oldrain barrel. What are you doing here?"

"Tramping. "

Harry Baggs looked about, suddenly aware of the dark pit of being intowhich he had fallen. The fires died sullenly, deserted except for anoccasional recumbent figure. Peebles had disappeared; Dake lay in hisrags on the ground; Runnel rocked slowly, like a pendulum, in hisceaseless pain. 

"Tramping to the devil!" he added. 

"What started you?" French Janin asked. 

"Jail, " Harry Baggs answered. 

"Of course you didn't take it, " the blind man commented satirically;"or else you went in to cover some one else. "

"I took it, all right--eighteen dollars. " He was silent for a moment;then: "There was something I had to have and I didn't see any other wayof getting it. I had to have it. My stepfather had money that he putaway--didn't need. I wanted an accordion; I dreamed about it till I gotratty, lifted the money, and he put me in jail for a year. 

"I had the accordion hid. I didn't tell them where, and when I got outI went right to it. I played some sounds, and--after all I'd done--theyweren't any good. I broke it up--and left. "

"You were right, " Janin told him; "the accordion is an impossibleinstrument, a thing entirely vulgar. I know, for I am a musician, andplayed the violin at the Opéra Comique. You think I am lying; but youare young and life is strange. I can tell you this: I, Janin, once ledthe finale of Hamlet. I saw that the director was pale; I leanedforward and he gave me the baton. I knew music. There were five stavesto conduct--at the Opéra Comique. "

He turned his sightless face toward Harry Baggs. 

"That means little to you, " he spoke sharply; "you know nothing. Youhave never seen a gala audience on its feet; the roses--"

He broke off. His wasted palms rested on knees that resembled bonesdraped with maculate clothing; his sere head fell forward. Runnel pacedaway from the embers and returned. Harry Baggs looked, with doubt andwonderment, at the, ruined old man. 

The mere word musician called up in him an inchoate longing, a desirefor something far and undefined. He thought of great audiences, roses, the accompaniment of violins. Subconsciously he began to sing in awhisper that yet reached beyond the huts. He forgot his surroundings, the past without light, the future seemingly shorn of all prospect. 

French Janin moved; he fumbled in precarious pockets and at lastproduced a small bottle; he removed the cork and tapped out on his palma measure of white crystalline powder, which he gulped down. Then hestruggled to his feet and wavered away through the night toward ashelter. 

Harry Baggs imagined himself singing heroic measures; he finished, there was a tense pause, and then a thunderous acclamation. His spiritmounted up and up in a transport of emotional splendor; broken visionsthronged his mind of sacrifice, renouncement, death. The fire expiredand the night grew cold. His ecstasy sank; he became once more aware ofthe human wreckage about him, the detritus of which he was now a part. 

III

He spent the next day moving crated plants to delivery trucks, wherehis broad shoulders were most serviceable, and in the evening returnedto the camp, streaked with fine rich loam. French Janin was waiting forhim and consumed part of Harry Baggs' unskilfully cooked supper. Theold man was silent, though he seemed continually at the point ofbursting into eager speech. However, he remained uncommunicative andfollowed the boy's movements with a blank speculative countenance. Finally he said abruptly:

"Sing that song over--about the 'damn ol' nigger. '"

Harry Baggs responded; and, at the end, Janin nodded. 

"What I should have expected, " he pronounced. "When I first heard you Ithought: 'Here, perhaps, is a great voice, a voice for Paris;' but Iwas mistaken. You have some bigness--yes, good enough for streetballads, sentimental popularities; that is all. "

An overwhelming depression settled upon Harry Baggs, a sense ofirremediable loss. He had considered his voice a lever that might oneday raise him out of his misfortunes; he instinctively valued it to anextraordinary degree; it had resembled a precious bud, the possibleopening of which would flood his being with its fragrant flowering. Hegazed with a new dread at the temporary shelters and men about him, thehuts and men that resembled each other so closely in their patcheddecay. 

Until now, except in brief moments of depression, he had thought ofhimself as only a temporary part of this broken existence. But it wasprobable that he, too, was done--like Runnel, and Dake, who lived onthe fear of women. He recalled with an oath his reception in thevillage of his birth on his return from jail: the veiled or opendistrust of the adults; the sneering of the young; his barren searchfor employment. He had suffered inordinately in his narrow cell--fullypaid, it had seemed, the price of his fault. But apparently he waswrong; the thing was to follow him through life--and he would live along while--; condemning him, an outcast, to the company of hisfellows. 

His shoulders drooped, his face took on the relaxed sullenness of thoseabout him; curiously, in an instant he seemed more bedraggled, moredisreputable, hopeless. 

French Janin continued:

"Your voice is good enough for the people who know nothing. Perhaps itwill bring you money, singing at fairs in the street. I have a violin, a cheap thing without soul; but I can get a thin jingle out of it. Suppose we go out together, try our chance where there is a littlecrowd; it will be better than piggin' in the earth. "

It would, Baggs thought, be easier than carrying heavy crates; subtlythe idea of lessened labor appealed to him. He signified his assent androlled over on his side, staring into nothingness. 

French Janin went into the town the following day--he walked with asurprising facility and speed--to discover where they might find agathering for their purpose. Harry Baggs loafed about the camp untilthe other returned with the failing of light. 

"The sales about the country are all that get the people together now, "he reported; "the parks are empty till July. There's to be one tomorrowabout eight miles away; we'll try it. "

He went to the shelter, where he secured a scarred violin, with roughlyshaped pegs and lacking a string. He motioned Harry Baggs to follow himand proceeded to the brow of the field, where he settled down against afence, picking disconsolately at the burring strings and attempting totighten an ancient bow. Baggs dropped beside him. Below them nightflooded the winding road and deepened under the hedges; a window showedpalely alight; the stillness was intense. 

"Now!" French Janin said. 

The violin went home beneath his chin and he improvised a thin butadequate opening for Harry Baggs' song. The boy, for the first time inhis existence, sang indifferently; his voice, merely big, lackedresonance; the song was robbed of all power to move or suggest. 

Janin muttered unintelligibly; he was, Harry Baggs surmised, speakinghis native language, obscurely complaining, accusing. They tried asecond song: "Hard times, hard times, come again no more. " There wasnot an accent of longing nor regret. 

"That'll do, " French Janin told him; "good enough for cows andchickens. "

He rose and descended to the camp, a bowed unsubstantial figure in thegloom. 

IV

They started early to the sale. Janin, as always, walked swiftly, hisviolin wrapped in a cloth beneath his arm. Harry Baggs lounged sullenlyat his side. The day was filled with a warm silvery mist, through whichthe sun mounted rayless, crisp and round. Along the road plum treeswere in vivid pink bloom; the apple buds were opening, distillingpalpable clouds of fragrance. 

Baggs met the morning with a sullen lowered countenance, his gaze onthe monotonous road. He made no reply to the blind man's infrequentremarks, and the latter, except for an occasional murmur, fell silent. At last Harry Baggs saw a group of men about the fence that divided asmall lawn and neatly painted frame house from the public road. A porchwas filled with a confusion of furniture, china was stacked on thegrass, and a bed displayed at the side. 

The sale had not yet begun; A youth, with a pencil and paper, wasmoving distractedly about, noting items; a prosperous-appearingindividual, with a derby resting on the back of his neck, was arrangingan open space about a small table. Beyond, a number of horses attachedto dusty vehicles were hitched to the fence where they were constantlyaugmented by fresh arrivals. 

"Here we are!" Baggs informed his companion. He directed Janin forward, where the latter unwrapped his violin. A visible curiosity held theprospective buyers; they turned and faced the two dilapidated men onthe road. A joke ran from laughing mouth to mouth. Janin drew his bowacross the frayed strings; Harry Baggs cleared the mist from histhroat. As he sang, aware of an audience, a degree of feeling returnedto his tones; the song swept with a throb to its climax:

 "'_You damn ol' nigger, come and bring Dat boat an' row me home_!'"

There was scattered applause. 

"Take your hat round, " Janin whispered; and the boy opened the gate andmoved, with his battered hat extended, from man to man. 

Few gave; a careless quarter was added to a small number of pennies andnickels. Janin counted the sum with an unfamiliar oath. 

"That other, " he directed, and drew a second preliminary bar from hisuncertain instrument. 

"Here, you!" a strident voice called. "Shut your noise; the sale'sgoing to commence. "

French Janin lowered the violin. 

"We must wait, " he observed philosophically. "These things go on andon; people come and go. "

He found a bank, where he sat, after stumbling through a gutter ofstagnant water. Harry Baggs followed and filled a cheap ornate pipe. The voice of the auctioneer rose, tiresome and persistent, punctuatedby bids, haggling over minute sums for the absurd flotsam of a smallhouse keeping square of worn oilcloth, a miscellany of empty jars. Asurprisingly passionate argument arose between bidders; personalitiesand threats emerged. Janin said:

"Listen! That is the world into which musicians are born; it is againstsuch uproar we must oppose our delicate chords--on such hearts. " Hisspeech rambled into French and a melancholy silence. 

"It's stopped for a little, " Baggs reminded him. 

Janin rose stiffly and the other guided him to their former place. Thevoice and violin rose, dominated a brief period, and the boy went amongthe throng, seeking newcomers. The mist thickened, drops of water shoneon his ragged sleeves, and then a fine rain descended. The crowd filledthe porch and lower floor, bulged apparently from door and windows. Harry Baggs made a motion to follow with his companion, but no onemoved; there was no visible footing under cover. They stayed outstolidly in the wet, by an inadequate tree; and whenever chance offeredHarry Baggs repeated his limited songs. A string of the violin broke;the others grew soggy, limp; the pegs would tighten no more and Janinwas forced to give up his accompanying. 

The activities shifted to a shed and barn, where a horse and three sorrycows and farming implements were sold. Janin and Harry Baggs followed, but there was no opportunity for further melody; larger sums were hereinvolved; the concentration of the buyers grew painful. The boy'sthroat burned; it was strained, and his voice grew hoarse. Finally hedeclared shortly that he was going back to the shelter by the Nursery. 

As they tramped over the rutted and muddy road, through a steadilyincreasing downpour, Harry Baggs counted the sum they had collected. Itwas two dollars and some odd pennies. Janin was closely attentive asthe money passed through the other's fingers. He took it from Baggs'hand, re-counted it with an unfailing touch, and gave back a half. 

The return, even to the younger's tireless being, seemed interminable. Harry Baggs tramped doggedly, making no effort to avoid the deepeningpools. French Janin struggled at his heels, shifting the violin fromplace to place and muttering incoherently. 

It was dark when they arrived at the huts; the fires were sodden matsof black ash; no one was visible. They stumbled from shelter toshelter, but found them full. One at last was discovered unoccupied;but they had no sooner entered than the reason was sharply borne uponthem--the roof leaked to such an extent that the floor was an uneasysheet of mud. However, there was literally nowhere else for them to go. Janin found a broken chair on which he balanced his bowed and shrunkenform; Harry Baggs sat against the wall. 

He dozed uneasily, and, wakened by the old man's babbling, cursed himbitterly. At last he fell asleep; but, brought suddenly back toconsciousness by a hand gripping his shoulder, he started up in a blazeof wrath. 

He shook off the hand and heard French Janin slip and fall against aninsecure wall. The interior was absolutely black; Harry Baggs could seeno more than his blind companion. The latter fumbled, at last regaineda footing, and his voice fluctuated out of an apparent nothingness. 

"There is something important for you to know, " Janin proceeded. 

"I lied to you about your voice--I, once a musician of the orchestra atthe Opéra Comique. I meant to be cunning and take you round to thefairs, where we would make money; have you sing truck for people whoknow nothing. I let you sing to-day, in the rain, for a dollar--whileI, Janin, fiddled. 

"I am a _voyou_; there is nothing in English low enough. Thethought of it has been eating at me like a rat. " The disembodied wordsstopped, the old man strangled and coughed; then continued gasping:"Attention! You have a supreme barytone, a miracle! I heard all thegreat voices for twenty years, and know. 

"At times there is a voice with perfect pitch, a true art and range;not many--they are cold. At times there is a singer with great heart, sympathy ... Mostly too sweet. 

"But once, maybe, in fifty, sixty years, both are together. You arethat--I make you amends. "

The rain pounded fantastically on the roof a few inches above HarryBaggs' head and the water seeped coldly through his battered shoes;but, in the violent rebirth of the vague glow he had lost a short whilebefore, he gave no heed to his bodily discomfort. "A supreme barytone!"The walls of the hut, the hollow, dissolved before the sudden light ofhope that enveloped him; all the dim dreams, the unformulatedaspirations on which subconsciously his spirit had subsisted, returned. 

"Can you be sure?" he demanded uncertainly. 

"Absolutely! You are an artist, and life has wrung you out like acloth--jail, hungry, outcast; yes, and nights with stars, and watershining; men like old Janin, dead men, begging on the roads--they areall in your voice, jumbled--serious barytone----" The high thin recitalstopped, from exhaustion. 

Harry Baggs was warm to the ends of his fingers. He wiped his wet browwith a wetter hand. 

"That's fine, " he said impotently; "fine!"

He could hear French Janin breathing stertorously; and, suddenly awareof the other's age, the misery of their situation, he asked:

"Don't you feel good?"

"I've been worse and better, " he replied. "This is bad for your throat, after singing all day in the rain. _Voyou_!" he repeated ofhimself. 

Silence enveloped them, broken by the creaking of the blind man's chairand the decreasing patter of the rain. Soon it stopped and Harry Baggswent outside; stars glimmered at the edges of shifting clouds, a sweetodor rose from the earth, a trailing scent of blossoming treesexpanded. 

He sang in a vibrant undertone a stave without words. An uneasy formjoined him; it was Runnel. 

"I b'lieve my head'll burst!" he complained. 

"Leave that soda-caffeine be. "

He would never forget Runnel with his everlasting pain; or Dake, wholived by scaring women.... Great audiences and roses, and the roar ofapplause. He heard it now. 

V

Harry Baggs returned to the Nursery, where, with his visions, his senseof justification, he was happy among the fields of plants. There he wasgiven work of a more permanent kind; he was put under a watchful eye ina group transplanting berry bushes, definitely reassigned to that laborto-morrow. He returned to the camp with a roll of tar paper and, aftersupper, covered the leaking roof of the shelter. French Janin sat withhis blank face following the other's movements. Janin's countenanceresembled a walnut, brown and worn in innumerable furrows; his neck waslike a dry inadequate stem. As he glanced at him the old man produced afamiliar bottle and shook out what little powder, like finely groundglass, it contained. He greedily absorbed what there was and, petulantly exploring the empty container, flung it into the bushes. Anodding drowsiness overtook him, his head rolled forward, he sankslowly into a bowed amorphous heap. Harry Baggs roused him withdifficulty. 

"You don't want to sit like this, " he said; "come up by the field, where it's fresher. "

He lifted Janin to his feet, half carried him to the place under thefence. Harry Baggs was consumed by a desire to talk about the future--the future of his voice; he wanted to hear of the triumphs of othervoices, of the great stages that they finally dominated. He wanted toknow the most direct path there; he was willing that it should not beeasy. "I'm as strong as an ox, " he thought. 

But he was unable to move French Janin from his stupor; in reply to hisquestions the blind man only muttered, begged to be let alone. Life wasat such a low ebb in him that his breathing was imperceptible. HarryBaggs was afraid that he would die without a sound--leave him. He gaveup his questioning and sang. He was swept to his feet by a great waveof feeling; with his head back, he sent the resonant volume of histones toward the stars. Baggs stopped suddenly; stillness once moreflooded the plowed hill and he raised imploring arms to the sky in agust of longing. 

"I want to sing!" he cried. "That's all--to sing. "

Janin was brighter in the morning. 

"You must have some exercises, " he told the boy. "I'll get new stringsfor the violin; it'll do to give you the pitch. "

At the day's end they went again to the hilltop. French Janin tightenedand tuned his instrument. 

"Now!" he measured, with poised bow. "Ah!" Both his voice and violinwere tremulous, shrill; but they indicated the pitch of the desirednote. "Ah!" the old man quavered, higher. 

"Ah!" Harry Baggs boomed in his tremendous round tone. 

They repeated the exercises until a slip of a new moon, like a wistfulgirl, sank and darkness hid the countryside. A palpitating chorus offrogs rose from the invisible streams. Somnolence again overtook Janin;the violin slipped into the fragrant grass by the fence, but hisfingers still clutched the bow. 

Pity for the other stirred Baggs' heart. He wondered what had ruinedhim, brought him--a man who had played in an opera house--here. A bonyelbow showed bare through a torn sleeve--the blind man had no shirt;the soles of his shoes gaped, smelling evilly. Yet once he had playedin an orchestra; he was undoubtedly a musician. Life suddenly appearedgrim, a sleepless menace awaiting the first opportune weakness by whichto enter and destroy. 

It occurred to Harry Baggs for the first time that against such ahidden unsuspected blight his sheer strength would avail him little. Hehad stolen money; that in itself held danger to his future, his voice. He had paid for it; that score was clear, but he must guard againstsuch stupidities in the years to come. He had now a conscious singlepurpose--to sing. A new sense of security took the place of his doubts. He stirred Janin from his collapsed sleep, directed him toward theirhut. 

He returned eagerly in the evening to the vocal exercises. French Janinstruggled to perform his part, but mostly Harry Baggs boomed out hisAhs! undirected. The other had been without his white powder for threedays; his shredlike muscles twitched continually and at times he wasunable to hold the violin. Finally:

"Can you go in to the post-office and ask for a package for me atgeneral delivery?" he asked Harry Baggs. "I'm expecting medicine. "

"That medicine of yours is bad as Runnel's dope. I've a mind to let itstay. "

The other rose, stood swaying with pinching fingers, tremulous lips. 

"I'm afraid I can't make it, " he whimpered. 

"Sit down, " Harry Baggs told him abruptly; "I'll go. Too late now totry pulling you up. Whatever it is, it's got you. "

It was warm, almost hot. He walked slowly down the road toward thetown. On the left was a smooth lawn, with great stately trees, a longgray stone house beyond. A privet hedge, broken by a drive, closed inthe withdrawn orderly habitation. A young moon bathed the scene in adiffused silver light; low cultivated voices sounded from a porch. 

Harry Baggs stopped; he had never before seen such a concretelydesirable place; it filled him with a longing, sharp like pain. Beyondthe hedge lay a different world from this; he could not even guess itswide possession of ease, of knowledge, of facility for song. A voicelaughed, gay and untroubled as a bird's note. He wanted to stay, seatedobscurely on the bank, saturate himself with the still beauty; but thethought of French Janin waiting for the relief of his drug drove himon. 

The maple trees that lined the quiet streets of the town were in fullearly leaf. Groups paced tranquilly over the brick ways; the housesstood in secure rows. A longing for safety, recognition, choked atHarry Baggs' throat. He wanted to stop at the corner, talk, move hometo a shadowy cool porch. He hurried in his ragged clothes past thepools of light at the street crossings into the kinder gloom. At thatmoment he would have surrendered his voice for a place in the communalpeace about him. 

He reached the post-office and asked for a package addressed to Janin. The clerk delayed, regarded him with suspicion, but in the endsurrendered a small precisely wrapped box. As he returned his moodchanged; all he asked, he muttered bitterly, was a fair trial for hisvoice. He recognized obscurely that a singer's existence must bedifferent from the constricted life of a country town; here were nostage, no audience, for the great harmonies he had imagined himselfproducing. He had that in his heart which would make mere security, content, forever impossible. 

In the dilapidated camp French Janin eagerly clutched the box. Healmost filled his palm with the crystalline powder and gulped ithastily. Its effect was produced slowly.... Janin waited rigidly forthe release of the drug. 

The evening following, under the fence on the hill, the blind man dozedwhile Harry Baggs exercised his voice. 

"Good!" the former pronounced unexpectedly. "I know; heard all thegreat voices for twenty years; a violin in the Opera Comique. Once Iled the finale of Hamlet. I saw the Director stop.... He handed me thebaton. He died soon after, and that was the beginning of my bad luck. Ishould have been Director; but I was ignored, and came to America--Buenos Aires; then Washington, and--and morphia. "

There was a long silence and then he spoke again with a new energy:

"I'm done, but you haven't started. You're bigger than ever I was;you'll go on and on. I, Janin, will train you; when you sing the greatroles I'll sit in a box, wear diamond studs. Afterward, as we roll in acarriage down the Grandes Boulevards, the people in front of the caféswill applaud; the voice is appreciated in Paris. "

"I have a lot to learn first, " Baggs put in practically. 

The old man recovered his violin. "Ah!" He drew the note tenuous butcorrect from the uncertain strings. "Ah!" Harry Baggs vociferated tothe inattentive frogs, busy with their own chorus. 

VI

The practice proceeded with renewed vigor through the evenings thatfollowed; then French Janin sank back into a torpor, varied by acutedepression. 

"I haven't got the life in me to teach you, " he admitted to HarryBaggs. "I'll be dead before you get your chance; besides, you ought tobe practising all day, and not digging round plants and singing alittle in the evening. You've got the voice, but that's not enough;you've got to work at exercises all your life. "

"I'm strong, " Harry Baggs told him; "I can work more than most men. "

"No, that won't do alone; you've got to go at it right, from the start;the method's got to be good. I'll be dead in some hospital or fieldwhen you'll be hardly starting. But remember it was Janin who foundyou, who dug you out of a set of tramps, gave you your first lessons. "He changed. "Stay along with me, Harry, " he begged; "take me with you. You're strong and'll never notice an old man. You will be makingthousands some day. I will stop the morphia; perhaps I've got a goodbit in me yet. Attention!" He raised the bow. 

"No!" he cried, interrupting. "Breathe deep, below the chest. Control!Control! Hold the note steady, in the middle; don't force it into yourhead. "

His determination scion expired. Tears crept from under his sunkenlids. He reached furtively into his pocket, took morphia. Theconviction seized Harry Baggs that nothing could be accomplished here. The other's dejection was communicated to him. Where could he find themoney, the time for the necessary laborious years of preparation? Hewas without credentials, without clothes; there was no one to whom hecould go but the old spent man beside him. They were adrift togetheroutside life, as the huts they inhabited were outside the orderly townbeyond the hill. 

He rose, left Janin, and walked slowly along the fence to the road. Themoon had increased in size and brilliancy; the apple trees had bloomedand their fallen petals glimmered on the ground. He thought of thehouse on the smooth sward, with its hedge and old trees; a suddenlonging seized him to linger at its edge, absorb again the profoundpeaceful ease; and he quickened his pace until he was opposite the lowgray façade. 

He sat on the soft steep bank, turned on his elbow, gazing within. Thesame voices drifted from the porch, voices gay or placid, and containedlaughter. A chair scraped. It was all very close to Harry Baggs--and inanother world. There was a movement within the house; a window leapedinto lighted existence and then went out against the wall. Immediatelyafter, a faint pure harmony of strings drifted out to the hedge. It wasso unexpected, so lovely, that Harry Baggs sat with suspended breath. The strings made a pattern of simple harmony; and then, withoutwarning, a man's voice, almost like his own, began singing. The tonesrose fluid and perfect, and changed with feeling. It seemed at first tobe a man; and then, because of a diminuendo of the voice, a sense ofdistance not accounted for by his presence near the hedge, he knew thathe heard a record of the actual singing. 

The voice, except for its resemblance to his own, did not absorb hisattention; it was the song itself that thrilled and held him. He hadnever before heard music at once so clear and capable of such depths. He realized instinctively, with a tightening of his heart, that he waslistening to one of the great songs of which Janin had spoken. It hungfor a minute or more in his hearing, thrilling every nerve, and thendied away. It stopped actually, but its harmony rang in Harry Baggs'brain. Instantly it had become an essential, a permanent part of hisbeing. It filled him with a violent sense of triumph, a richness ofpossession that gave birth to a new unconquerable pride. 

He rose, waited for a short space; but nothing more followed. He wasglad of that; he had no wish to blur the impressions of the first. Harry Baggs hurried up the road and crossed the field to where he hadleft French Janin. The latter was still sleeping, crumpled against thevegetation. Baggs grasped the thin shoulder, shook him intoconsciousness. 

"I have just heard something, " he said. "Listen! What is it?"

He sang without further preliminary, substituting a blank phrasing foruncomprehended words; but the melody swept without faltering to itsconclusion. Janin answered irritably, disturbed by his rude awakening:

"The Serenade from Don Giovanni--Mozart. Well, what about it?"

"It's wonderful!" Harry Baggs declared. "Are there any more as great?"

"It is good, " Janin agreed, his interest stirred; "but there arebetter--the Dio Possente, the Brindisi from Hamlet. Once I led thefinale of Hamlet. I saw the Director----"

"I'll get every one, " the boy interrupted. 

"There are others now, newer--finer still, I'm told; but I don't know. "Janin rose and steadied himself against the fence. "Give me a start. I've been getting confused lately; I don't seem to keep a directionlike I could. From Don Giovanni: _'Deh vieni alla finestra_'--'Come to the window' 's about it. I'm glad you're not a tenor; they'redelicate and mean. But you are a fine boy, Harry; you'll take the oldman up along with you!"

He talked in a rapid faint voice, like his breathing. Harry Baggsgrasped his arm and led him down to their shanty. French Janin enteredfirst, and immediately the other heard a thin complaint from within:

"Somebody's got that nice bed you made me. "

Harry Baggs went into the hut and, stooping, shook a recumbent shape. 

"Get out of the old man's place!" he commanded. 

A string of muffled oaths responded. 

"There's no reserved rooms here. "

"Get out!" Baggs insisted. 

The shape heaved up obscurely and the boy sent him reeling through thedoor. French Janin sank with weary relief on the straw and bagging. Hegrasped the thick young arm above him. 

"We won't be long in this, " he declared; "diamond studs!"

He fell asleep instantly, with his fingers caught in Harry Baggs'sleeve. The latter, with the supreme egotism of youth, of a singleambition, loosened the hand and moved out of the narrow confinement ofthe shanty. He wanted space, the sky, into which to sing his imaginarytriumphant songs. 

VII

The next day moved toward its end without arresting incident. Janin andHarry Baggs had walked to the public road, where they stood leaningagainst the rail fence. The smoke from Baggs' pipe uprose in unbrokenspheres; the evening was definitely hot. French Janin said:

"In the town to-day I asked about that house here at the bend. It seemshe's got money; comes for a couple of months in the spring--just likeus--and then goes to Europe like as not. Perhaps he knows a voice. "

The blind man fell silent, contemplative. 

"Trouble is, " he broke out fretfully, "we've got nothing to sing. Thatabout the 'damn old nigger' won't do. You ought to know something likethe Serenade. 

"Well, " he added after a moment, "why not? I could teach you the words--it's Italian; you've nearly got the air. It's all wrong and backward;but this isn't the Conservatoire. You can forget it when you havestarted; sing exercises again. "

"When can we begin?" Harry Baggs asked. 

"We'll brush our clothes up best we can, " Janin proceeded, absorbed inhis planning, "and go up to the porch of an evening. 'Mr. Brinton'--that's his name--I'll say, 'I'm M. Janin, once of the orchestra at theOpera Comique, and I'd like you to listen to a pupil of mine. I'veheard them all and this boy is better----'" He stopped; took morphia. 

"Can't you stop that for a day?" Harry Baggs demanded desperately. "Can't you?"

He watched with bitter rebellion the inevitable slackening of theother's being, the obfuscation of his mind. Janin hung over the fence, with hardly more semblance of life than an incredibly tattered andempty garment. 

"Come on, you old fool!" Baggs exclaimed, burning with impatience, balked desire; he half carried him brusquely to his bed. 

Yet, under the old man's fluctuating tuition, he actually began theSerenade within twenty-four hours. "_Deh vieni alla finestra_, "French Janin pronounced. "_Deh vieni_----" Harry Baggs struggledafter him. His brow grew wet with the intensity of his effort; histongue, it seemed to him, would never accomplish the desired syllables. 

Janin made a determined effort to live without his drug; the abstinenceemphasized his fragility and he was cold, even in the heart of the longsunny day; but the effort stayed him with a flickering vitality, bredvisions, renewed hopes of the future. He repeated the names of places, opera houses--the San Carlo, in Naples; the Scala--unknown to HarryBaggs, but which came to him with a strange vividness. The learning ofthe Serenade progressed slowly; French Janin forgot whole phrases, someof which returned to memory; one entire line he was forced to supplyfrom imagination. 

At last the boy could sing it with a degree of intelligence; Janintranslated and reconstructed the scene, the characters. 

"You ought to have some good clothes, " he told Harry Baggs; he spokeagain of the necessity of a diamond stud. 

"Well, I haven't, " the other stated shortly. "They'll have to listen tome without looking. "

He borrowed a rusted razor and subjected himself to the pain of anawkward shaving; then inadequately washed his sole shirt and looped thefrayed collar with a nondescript tie. 

The night was immaculate; the moon, past the full, cast long segmentsof light and shadow across the countryside. Harry Baggs drew a deepbreath:

"We might as well go. "

French Janin objected; he wasn't ready; he wasn't quite sure of what hewas going to say. Then:

"I haven't anything to show. Perhaps they will laugh at me--at Janin, of the Opéra Comique. I couldn't allow that. "

"I'm going to sing, " the boy reminded him; "if it's any good they won'tlaugh. If what you say's right they'll have to believe you. "

"I feel bad to-night, too, in my legs. "

"Get your violin. "

A fresh difficulty arose: French Janin positively refused to play onhis present instrument before a critical audience. 

"It's as thin as a cat, " he protested. "Do you want me to make a showof myself?"

"All right; I'll sing alone. Come on!"

Janin's legs were uncertain; he stumbled over the path to the road andstopped at the fence. He expressed fresh doubts, the hesitation of oldage; but Harry Baggs silenced him, forced him on. A cold fear possessedthe boy, which he resolutely suppressed: if Janin were wrong, his voiceworthless, if they laughed, he was done. Opportunity, he felt, wouldnever return. With his voice scorned, no impetus remained; he had noother interest in life, no other power that could subdue the slightinward flaw. 

He saw this in a vivid flash of self-knowledge.... If he couldn't singhe would go down, lower than Janin; perhaps sink to the level of Dake. 

"Come on!" he repeated grimly, assisting his companion over theluminous white road. 

Janin got actually feebler as he progressed. He stopped, gasping, hissightless face congested. 

"I'll have to take a little, " he whispered, "just a taste. That putslife in me; it needs a good deal now to send me off. "

He produced the familiar bottle and absorbed some powder. Its effectwas unexpected--he straightened, walked with more ease; but it actedupon his mind with surprising force. 

"I want to stop just a little, " he proclaimed with such an air ofdecision that Harry Baggs followed him without protest to the fragrantbank. "You're a good fellow, " Janin went on, seated; "and you're goingto be a great artist. It'll take you among the best. But you will havea hard time for a while; you won't want anybody hanging on you. I'donly hurt your chances--a dirty old man, a drugtaker. I would go backto it, Harry; it's got me, like you said. People wouldn't have meround. I doubt if I'd be comfortable with them. They'd ask me why Iwasn't Director. "

"Come on, " Baggs repeated for the third time; "it's getting late. "

He lifted French Janin to his feet and forced him on. "You don't knowlife, " the other continued. "You would get sick of me; you might getinfluenced to put me in a Home. I couldn't get my breath right there. "

Harry Baggs forced him over the road, half conscious of the protestingwords. The fear within him increased. Perhaps they wouldn't even listento him; they might not be there. 

His grip tightened on French Janin; he knew that at the firstopportunity the old man would sink back into the oblivion of morphia. 

"I've done all I could for you, Harry"--the other whimpered. "I've beensome--good. Janin was the first to encourage you; don't expect toomuch. "

"If I get anywhere, you did it, " Harry Baggs told him. 

"I'd like to see it all, " French Janin said. "I know it so well. Who'dhave thought"--a dull amazement crept into his voice--"that old Janin, the sot, did it?... And you'll remember. "

They stopped opposite the entrance to the place they sought. HarryBaggs saw people on the porch; he recognized a man's voice that he hadheard there before. On the right of the drive a thick maple tree cast adeep shadow, but beyond it a pool of clear moonlight extended to thehouse. He started forward, but Janin dragged him into the gloom of themaple. 

"Sing here, " he whispered in the boy's ear; "see, the window--_Dehvieni alla finestra_. "

Harry Baggs stood at the edge of the shadow; his throat seemed tothicken, his voice expire. 

"No, " he protested weakly; "you must speak first. "

He felt the old man shaking under his hand and a sudden desperate calmovertook him. 

He moved forward a little and sang the first phrase of the Serenade. 

A murmur of attention, of surprised amusement, arose from the porch;then, as his voice gained in bigness, flowed rich and thrilling andwithout effort from his deep powerful lungs, the murmur died away. Thesong rose toward its end; Harry Baggs saw nothing but the window abovehim; he put all the accumulated feeling, the longing, of the pastmiserable years into his ending. 

A silence followed, in which Harry Baggs stood with drooping head. Thenan unrestrained patter of applause followed; figures advanced. FrenchJanin gave the boy a sharp unexpected shove into the radiance beyondthe tree. 

"Go on and on, " he breathed; "and never come back any more!"

He turned and shambled rapidly away into the shadows, the obscurity, that lined the road.