THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT

A NOVEL

BY

BASIL KING

AUTHOR OFTHE INNER SHRINE, THE WILD OLIVE, ETC. 

ILLUSTRATED BYORSON LOWELL

NEW YORKGROSSET & DUNLAPPUBLISHERS

Published by Arrangement with Harper & Brothers

1911, 1912. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAPUBLISHED MAY, 1912

 "_By the Street Called Straight we come to the House called Beautiful_"

 --New England Saying

THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT

I

As a matter of fact, Davenant was under no illusions concerning thequality of the welcome his hostess was according him, though he found acertain pleasure in being once more in her company. It was not a keenpleasure, but neither was it an embarrassing one; it was exactly what hesupposed it would be in case they ever met again--a blending on his partof curiosity, admiration, and reminiscent suffering out of which timeand experience had taken the sting. He retained the memory of a minuteof intense astonishment once upon a time, followed by some weeks, somemonths perhaps, of angry humiliation; but the years between twenty-fourand thirty-three are long and varied, generating in healthy naturesplenty of saving common sense. Work, travel, and a widened knowledge ofmen and manners had so ripened Davenant's mind that he was able to seehis proposal now as Miss Guion must have seen it then, as something soincongruous and absurd as not only to need no consideration, but to callfor no reply. Nevertheless, it was the refusal on her part of a reply, of the mere laconic No which was all that, in his heart of hearts, hehad ever expected, that rankled in him longest; but even thatmortification had passed, as far as he knew, into the limbo of extinctregrets. For her present superb air of having no recollection of hisblunder he had nothing but commendation. It was as becoming to thespirited grace of its wearer as a royal mantle to a queen. Carrying itas she did, with an easy, preoccupied affability that enabled her tolook round him and over him and through him, to greet him and conversewith him, without seeming positively to take in the fact of hisexistence, he was permitted to suppose the incident of their previousacquaintance, once so vital to himself, to have been forgotten. If thiswere so, it would be nothing very strange, since a woman oftwenty-seven, who has had much social experience, may be permitted tolose sight of the more negligible of the conquests she has made as agirl of eighteen. She had asked him to dinner, and placed him honorablyat her right; but words could not have made it plainer than it was thathe was but an accident to the occasion. 

He was there, in short, because he was staying with Mr. And Mrs. Temple. After a two years' absence from New England he had arrived in Wavertonthat day, "Oh, bother! bring him along, " had been the formula in whichMiss Guion had conveyed his invitation, the dinner being but aninformal, neighborly affair. Two or three wedding gifts having arrivedfrom various quarters of the world, it was natural that Miss Guionshould want to show them confidentially to her dear friend and distantrelative, Drusilla Fane. Mrs. Fane had every right to this privilegedinspection, since she had not only timed her yearly visit to herparents, Mr. And Mrs. Temple, so that it should synchronize with thewedding, but had introduced Olivia to Colonel Ashley, in the firstplace. Indeed, there had been a rumor at Southsea, right up to the timeof Miss Guion's visit to the pretty little house on the Marine Parade, that the colonel's calls and attentions there had been not unconnectedwith Mrs. Fane herself; but rumor in British naval and military stationsis notoriously overactive, especially in matters of the heart. Certainit is, however, that when the fashionable London papers announced that amarriage had been arranged, and would shortly take place, betweenLieutenant-Colonel Rupert Ashley, of the Sussex Rangers, and of HeneagePlace, Belvoir, Leicestershire, and Olivia Margaret, only child of HenryGuion, Esquire, of Tory Hill, Waverton, near Boston, Massachusetts, U. S. A. , no one offered warmer congratulations than the lady in whosehouse the interesting pair had met. There were people who ascribed thisattitude to the fact that, being constitutionally "game, " she refused tobetray her disappointment. She had been "awfully game, " they said, whenpoor Gerald Fane, also of the Sussex Rangers, was cut off with entericat Peshawur. But the general opinion was to the effect that, not wantingRupert Ashley (for some obscure, feminine reason) for herself, she hadmagnanimously bestowed him elsewhere. Around tea-tables, and at churchparade, it was said "Americans do that, " with some comment on themethods of the transfer. 

On every ground, then, Drusilla was entitled to this first look at thepresents, some of which had come from Ashley's brother officers, whowere consequently brother officers of the late Captain Fane; so thatwhen she telephoned saying she was afraid that they, her parents andherself, couldn't come to dinner that evening, because a former ward ofher father's--Olivia must remember Peter Davenant!--was arriving to staywith them for a week or two, Miss Guion had answered, "Oh, bother! bringhim along, " and the matter was arranged. It was doubtful, however, thatshe knew him in advance to be the Peter Davenant who nine years earlierhad had the presumption to fall in love with her; it was still moredoubtful, after she had actually shaken hands with him and called him byname, whether she paid him the tribute of any kind of recollection. Thefact that she had seated him at her right, in the place that wouldnaturally be accorded to Rodney Temple, the scholarly director of theDepartment of Ceramics in the Harvard Gallery of Fine Arts, made it lookas if she considered Davenant a total stranger. In the fewconventionally gracious words she addressed to him, her manner was thatof the hostess who receives a good many people in the course of a yeartoward the chance guest she had never seen before and expects never tosee again. 

"Twice round the world since you were last in Boston? How interesting!"Then, as if she had said enough for courtesy, she continued across thelights and flowers to Mrs. Fane: "Drusilla, did you know Colonel Ashleyhad declined that post at Gibraltar? I'm so glad. I should hate theGib. "

"The Gib wouldn't hate you, " Mrs. Fane assured her. "You'd have aheavenly time there. Rupert Ashley is deep in the graces of oldBannockburn, who's in command. He's not a bad old sort, old Ban isn't, though he's a bit of a martinet. Lady Ban is awful--a bounder inpetticoats. She looks like that. "

Drusilla pulled down the corners of a large, mobile mouth, so as tosimulate Lady Bannockburn's expression, in a way that drew a laugh fromevery one at the table but the host. Henry Guion remained serious, notfrom natural gravity, but from inattention. He was obviously not in amood for joking, nor apparently for eating, since he had scarcely tastedhis soup and was now only playing with the fish. As this corroboratedwhat Mrs. Temple had more than once asserted to her husband during thepast few weeks, that "Henry Guion had something on his mind, " sheendeavored to exchange a glance with him, but he was too franklyenjoying the exercise of his daughter's mimetic gift to be otherwiseobservant. 

"And what does Colonel Ashley look like, Drucie?" he asked, glancingslyly at Miss Guion. 

"Like that, " Mrs. Fane said, instantly. Straightening the corners ofher mouth and squaring her shoulders, she fixed her eyes into a stare ofseverity, and stroked horizontally an imaginary mustache, keeping theplay up till her lips quivered. 

"It is like him, " Miss Guion laughed. 

"Is he as stiff as all that?" the professor inquired. 

"Not stiff, " Miss Guion explained, "only dignified. "

"Dignified!" Drusilla cried. "I should think so. He's just like Oliviaherself. It's perfectly absurd that those two should marry. Apart, they're a pair of splendid specimens; united, they'll be too much of agood thing. They're both so well supplied with the same set of virtuesthat when they look at each other it'll be like seeing their own facesin a convex mirror. It'll be simply awful. "

Her voice had the luscious English intonation, in spite of its beingpitched a little too high. In speaking she displayed the superior, initiated manner apt to belong to women who bring the flavor of Englandinto colonial and Indian garrison towns--a manner Drusilla had acquirednotably well, considering that not ten years previous her life had beenbounded by American college class-days. Something of this latter factpersisted, notwithstanding her English articulation and style of doingher hair. Her marriage had been the accident of a winter spent with hermother in Bermuda, at a time when the Sussex Rangers were stationedthere. Her engagement to Captain Gerald Fane--son of the Very Reverendthe Dean of Silchester--was the result of a series of dances givenchiefly in the Hamilton hotels. Marriage brought the girl born and bredin a New England college town into a kind of life for which she had hadno preparation; but she adapted herself as readily as she would havedone had she married a Russian prince or a Spanish grandee. In theeffort she made there was a mingling of the matter-of-fact and the _tourde force_. Regimental life is not unlike that of a large family; it hasthe same sort of claims, intimacies, and quarrels, the same sort ofjealousies within, combined with solidarity against the outsider. Perceiving this quickly, Drusilla proceeded to disarm criticism by beingimpeccable in dress and negatively amiable in conduct. "With mytemperament, " she said to herself, "I can afford to wait. " Following herhusband to Barbados, the Cape, and India, she had just succeeded inpassing all the tests of the troop-ship and the married quarters when hedied. For a while her parents hoped she would make her widowed home inBoston; but her heart had been given irrevocably to the British army--toits distinguished correctness, to its sober glories, its world-wideroving, and its picturesque personal associations. Though she had seenlittle of England, except for occasional visits on leave, she had becomeEnglish in tastes and at heart. For a year after Gerald's death shelived with his family at Silchester, in preference to going to her own. After that she settled in the small house at Southsea, where from timeto time she had her girlhood's companion, Olivia Guion, as a guest. 

"Perhaps that'll do us good, " Miss Guion ventured, in reply toDrusilla's observations at her expense. "To see ourselves as others seeus must be much like looking at one's face in a spoon. "

"That doesn't do us any good, " Rodney Temple corrected, "because wealways blame the spoon. "

"Don't you mind them, dear, " Mrs. Temple cooed. She was a little, apple-faced woman, with a figure suggestive of a tea-cozy, and a voicewith a gurgle in it, like a dove's. A nervous, convulsive moment of herpursed-up little mouth made that organ an uncertain element in herphysiognomy, shifting as it did from one side of her face to the otherwith the rapidity of an aurora borealis. "Don't mind them, dear. A womancan never do more than reflect 'broken lights' of her husband, when shehas a good one. Don't you love that expression?--'broken lights'? 'Weare but broken lights of Thee!' Dear Tennyson! And no word yet fromMadame de Melcourt. "

"I don't expect any now, " Olivia explained. "If Aunt Vic had meant towrite she would have done it long ago. I'm afraid I've offended her pastforgiveness. "

She held her head slightly to one side, smiling with an air of mockpenitence. 

"Dear, dear!" Mrs. Temple murmured, sympathetically. "Just because youwouldn't marry a Frenchman!"

"And a little because I'm _going_ to marry an Englishman. To Aunt Vicall Englishmen are grocers. "

"Horrid old thing!" Drusilla said, indignantly. 

"It's because she doesn't know them, of course, " Olivia went on. "It'sone of the things I never can understand--how people can generalizeabout a whole nation because they happen to dislike one or twoindividuals. As a matter of fact, Aunt Vic has become so absorbed in herlittle circle of old French royalist noblesse that she can't seeanything to admire outside the rue de l'Université and château life inNormandy. She does admit that there's an element of homespun virtue inthe old families of Boston and Waverton; but that's only because shebelongs to them herself. "

"The capacity of the American woman for being domesticated in an alienenvironment, " observed Rodney Temple, "is only equaled by the dog's. "

"We're nomadic, father, " Drusilla asserted, "and migratory. We've alwaysbeen so. It's because we're Saxons and Angles and Celts and Normans, and--"

"Saxon and Norman and Dane are we, " Mrs. Temple quoted, gently. 

"They've always been fidgeting about the world, from one country toanother, " Drusilla continued, "and we've inherited the taste. If wehadn't, our ancestors would never have crossed the Atlantic, in thefirst place. And now that we've got here, and can't go any farther inthis direction, we're on the jump to get back again. That's all there isto it. It's just in the blood. Isn't it, Peter? Isn't it, Cousin Henry?"

Drusilla had a way of appealing to whatever men were present, as thoughher statements lacked something till they had received masculinecorroboration. 

"All the same, I wish you could have managed the thing without givingoffence to Aunt Vic. "

The words were Henry Guion's first since sitting down to table. 

"I couldn't help it, papa. I didn't _give_ Aunt Vic offence; she tookit. "

"She's always been so fond of you--"

"I'm fond of _her_. She's an old darling. And yet I couldn't let hermarry me off to a Frenchman, in the French way, when I'd made up my mindto--to do something else. Could I, Cousin Cherry?"

Mrs. Temple plumed herself, pleased at being appealed to. "I don't seehow you could, dear. But I suppose your dear aunt--great-aunt, thatis--has become so foreign that she's forgotten our simple ways. So longas you follow your heart, dear--"

"I've done that, Cousin Cherry. "

The tone drew Davenant's eyes to her again, not in scrutiny, but for thepleasure it gave him to see her delicate features suffused with a glowof unexpected softness. It was unexpected, because her bearing hadalways conveyed to him, even in the days when he was in love with her, an impression of very refined, very subtle haughtiness. It seemed tomake her say, like Marie Antoinette to Madame Vigée-Lebrun: "They wouldcall me arrogant if I were not a queen. " The assumption of privilege andprerogative might be only the inborn consciousness of distinction, buthe fancied it might be more effective for being tempered. Not that itwas overdone. It was not done at all. If the inner impulse workingoutward poised a neat, classic head too loftily, or shot from gray eyes, limpid and lovely in themselves, a regard that was occasionally tooimperious, Olivia Guion was probably unaware of these effects. Withbeauty by inheritance, refinement by association, and taste and "finish"by instinct, it was possible for her to engage with life relatively freefrom the cumbrous impedimenta of self-consciousness. It was becauseDavenant was able to allow for this that his judgment on her pride ofmanner, exquisite though it was, had never been more severe; none theless, it threw a new light on his otherwise slight knowledge of hercharacter to note the faint blush, the touch of gentleness, with whichshe hinted her love for her future husband. He had scarcely believed hercapable of this kind of condescension. 

He called it condescension because he saw, or thought he saw, in herapproaching marriage, not so much the capture of her heart as thefulfilment of her ambitions. He admitted that, in her case, there was adegree to which the latter would imply the former, since she was thesort of woman who would give her love in the direction in which hernature found its fitting outlet. He judged something from what DrusillaFane had said, as they were driving toward Tory Hill that evening. 

"Olivia simply _must_ marry a man who'll give her something to dobesides sitting round and looking handsome. With Rupert Ashley she'llhave the duties of a public, or semi-public, position. He'll keep herbusy, if it's only opening bazars and presenting prizes at Bisley. TheAmerican men who've tried to marry her have wanted to be her servants, when all the while she's been waiting for a master. "

Davenant understood that, now that it was pointed out to him, though thethought would not have come to him spontaneously. She was the strongwoman who would yield only to a stronger man. Colonel Ashley might notbe stronger than she in intellect or character, but he had done somelarge things on a large field, and was counted an active force in acountry of forceful activities. There might be a question as to whetherhe would prove to be her master, but he would certainly never think ofbeing her slave. 

"What are _you_ going to do, Henry, when the gallant stranger carriesoff Olivia, a fortnight hence?"

Though she asked the question with the good intention of drawing herhost into the conversation, Mrs. Temple made it a point to notice theeffort with which he rallied himself to meet her words. 

"What am I going to do?" he repeated, absently. "Oh, my future willdepend very much on--Hobson's choice. "

"That's true, " Miss Guion agreed, hurriedly, as though to emphasize apoint. "It's all the choice I've left to him. I've arranged everythingfor papa--beautifully. He's to take in a partner perhaps two partners. You know, " she continued in explanation to Mrs. Fane--"you know that poorpapa has been the whole of Guion, Maxwell & Guion since Mr. Maxwelldied. Well, then, he's to take in a partner or two, and gradually shifthis business into their hands. That wouldn't take more than a couple ofyears at longest. Then he's going to retire, and come to live near me inEngland. Rupert says there's a small place close to Heneage that wouldjust suit him. Papa has always liked the English hunting country, andso--"

"And so everything will be for the best, " Rodney Temple finished. "There's nothing like a fresh young mind, like a young lady's, forsettling business affairs. It would have taken you or me a long time towork that plan out, wouldn't it, Henry? We should be worried over theeffect on our trusteeships and the big estates we've had the care of--"

"What about the big estates?"

Davenant noticed the tone in which Guion brought out this question, though it was an hour later before he understood its significance. Itwas a sharp tone, the tone of a man who catches an irritating word ortwo among remarks he has scarcely followed. Temple apparently had meantto call it forth, since he answered, with the slightest possible air ofintention:

"Oh, nothing--except what I hear. "

While Miss Guion and Mrs. Fane chatted of their own affairs Davenantremarked the way in which Henry Guion paused, his knife and fork fixedin the chicken wing on his plate, and gazed at his old friend. He bentslightly forward, too, looking, with his superb head and bust slightlyFrench in style, very handsome and imposing. 

"Then you've been--hearing--things?"

Rodney Temple lowered his eyes in a way that confirmed Davenant--whoknew his former guardian's tricks of manner--in his suppositions. Hewas so open in countenance that anything momentarily veiled on his part, either in speech or in address, could reasonably be attributed to stressof circumstances. The broad forehead, straight-forward eyes, and largemouth imperfectly hidden by a shaggy beard and mustache, were of thekind that lend themselves to lucidity and candor. Externally he was thescholar, as distinct from the professional man or the "divine. " Hisfigure--tall, large-boned, and loose-jointed--had the slight stooptraditionally associated with study, while the profile was thrustforward as though he were peering at something just out of sight. Acourtly touch in his style was probably a matter of inheritance, as wasalso his capacity for looking suitably attired while obviouslyneglectful of appearances. His thick, lank, sandy hair, fading to white, and long, narrow, stringy beard of the same transitional hue were notwell cared for; and yet they helped to give him a little of the air of aTitian or Velasquez nobleman. In answer to Guion now, he spoke withoutlifting his eyes from his plate. 

"Have I been hearing things? N-no; only that the care of big estates isa matter of great responsibility--and anxiety. "

"That's what I tell papa, " Miss Guion said, warmly, catching theconcluding words. "It's a great responsibility and anxiety. He ought tobe free from it. I tell him my marriage is a providential hint to him togive up work. "

"Perhaps I sha'n't get the chance. Work may give up--me. "

"I wish it would, papa. Then everything would be settled. "

"Some things would be settled. Others might be opened--for discussion. "

If Rodney Temple had not lifted his eyes in another significant looktoward Guion, Davenant would have let these sentences pass unheeded. Asit was, his attention was directed to possible things, or impossiblethings, left unsaid. For a second or two he was aware of an oddsuspicion, but he brushed it away as absurd, in view of theself-assurance with which Guion roused himself at last to enter into theconversation, which began immediately to turn on persons of whomDavenant had no knowledge. 

The inability to follow closely gave him time to make a few superficialobservations regarding his host. In spite of the fact that Guion hadbeen a familiar figure to him ever since his boyhood, he now saw him atreally close range for the first time in years. 

What struck him most was the degree to which Guion conserved his qualityof Adonis. Long ago renowned, in that section of American society thatclings to the cities and seaboard between Maine and Maryland, as a finespecimen of manhood, he was perhaps handsomer now, with his noble, regular features, his well-trimmed, iron-gray beard, and his splendidhead of iron-gray hair, than he had been in his youth. Reckoningroughly, Davenant judged him to be sixty. He had been a personageprominently in view in the group of cities formed by Boston, Cambridge, and Waverton, ever since Davenant could remember him. Nature havingcreated Guion an ornament to his kind, fate had been equally beneficentin ordaining that he should have nothing to do, on leaving theuniversity, but walk into the excellent legal practice his grandfatherhad founded, and his father had brought to a high degree of honor aswell as to a reasonable pitch of prosperity. It was, from the youngerGuion's point of view, an agreeable practice, concerned chiefly with thecare of trust funds, in which a gentleman could engage without anyrough-and-tumble loss of gentility. It required little or nothing in theway of pleadings in the courts or disputing in the market-place, and--especially during the lifetime of the elder partners--left himleisure for cultivating that graceful relationship to life for which hepossessed aptitudes. It was a high form of gracefulness, making it amatter of course that he should figure on the Boards of Galleries ofFine Arts and Colleges of Music, and other institutions meant tominister to his country's good through the elevation of its taste. 

"It's the sort of thing he was cut out for, " Davenant commented tohimself, as his eye traveled from the high-bred face, where refinementblended with authority, to the essentially gentlemanly figure, on whichthe delicately tied cravat sat with the elegance of an orchid, while thewhite waistcoat, of the latest and most youthful cut, was as neatlyadjusted to the person as the calyx to a bud. The mere sight of so muchease and distinction made Davenant himself feel like a rustic in hisSunday clothes, though he seized the opportunity of being in suchcompany to enlarge his perception of the fine points of bearing. It wasan improving experience of a kind which he only occasionally got. 

He had an equal sense of the educational value of the conversation, towhich, as it skipped from country to country and from one important nameto another, it was a privilege to be a listener. His own career--exceptfor his two excursions round the world, conscientiously undertaken inpursuit of knowledge--had been so somberly financial that he wasfrankly, and somewhat naïvely, curious concerning the people who "didthings" bearing little or no relation to business, and who permittedthemselves sensations merely for the sake of having them. Olivia Guion'sfriends, and Drusilla Fane's--admirals, generals, colonels, ambassadors, and secretaries of embassy they apparently were, for the most part--hadwhat seemed to him an unwonted freedom of dramatic action. Merely tohear them talked about gave him glimpses of a world varied andpicturesque, from the human point of view, beyond his dreams. In theexchange of scraps of gossip and latest London anecdotes between MissGuion and Drusilla Fane, on which Henry Guion commented, Davenant felthimself to be looking at a vivid but fitfully working cinematograph, ofwhich the scenes were snatched at random from life as lived anywherebetween Washington and Simla, or Inverness and Rome. The effect was bothinstructive and entertaining. It was also in its way enlightening, sinceit showed him the true standing in the world of this woman whom he hadonce, for a few wild minutes, hoped to make his wife. 

The dinner was half over before he began clearly to detach Miss Guionfrom that environment which he would have called "the best Bostonsociety. " Placing her there, he would have said before this evening thathe placed her as high as the reasonable human being could aspire to beset. For any one whose roots were in Waverton, "the best Boston society"would in general be taken as the state of blossoming. It came to him asa discovery, made there and then, that Olivia Guion had seized thiselect state with one of her earliest tendrils, and, climbing on by wayof New York and Washington, had chosen to do her actual flowering in acosmopolitan air. 

He had none of the resentment the home-bred American business manhabitually feels for this kind of eccentricity. Now that he had caughtthe idea, he could see at a glance, as his mind changed his metaphor, how admirably she was suited to the tapestried European setting. He wasconscious even of something akin to pride in the triumphs she wascapable of achieving on that richly decorated world-stage, much asthough she were some compatriot prima-donna. He could see already howwell, as the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Ashley, she would fillthe part. It had been written for her. Its strong points and itssubtleties were alike of the sort wherein she would shine. 

This perception of his own inward applause explained something in regardto himself about which he had been wondering ever since the beginningof dinner--the absence of any pang, of any shade of envy, to see anotherman win where he had been so ignominiously defeated. He saw now that itwas a field on which he never _could_ have won. Within "the best Bostonsociety" he might have had a chance, though even there it must have beena poor one; but out here in the open, so to speak, where the prowess andchivalry of Christendom furnished his competitors, he had been as littlein the running as a mortal at a contest of the gods. That he was nolonger in love with her he had known years ago; but it palliatedsomewhat his old humiliation, it made the word failure easier to swallowdown, to perceive that his love, when it existed, had been doomed, fromthe nature of things and in advance, to end in nothing, like that of thenightingale for the moon. 

 * * * * *

By dwelling too pensively on these thoughts he found he had missed someof the turns of the talk, his attention awakening to hear Henry Guionsay:

"That's all very fine, but a man doesn't risk everything he holds dearin the world to go cheating at cards just for the fun of it. You maydepend upon it he had a reason. "

"Oh, he had a reason, " Mrs. Fane agreed--"the reason of being hard up. The trouble lay in its not being good enough. "

"I imagine it was good enough for him, poor devil. "

"But not for any one else. He was drummed out. There wasn't a soul inthe regiment to speak to him. We heard that he took another name andwent abroad. Anyhow, he disappeared. It was all he could do. He waslucky to get off with that; wasn't he, Peter? wasn't he, father?"

"What he got off with, " said Guion, "was a quality of tragic interestwhich never pertains to the people who stick to the Street calledStraight. "

"Oh, certainly, " Mrs. Fane assented, dryly. "He did acquire that. ButI'm surprised to hear you commend it; aren't you, father? aren't you, Peter?"

"I'm not commending it, " Guion asserted; "I only feel its force. I've agreat deal of sympathy with any poor beggar in his--downfall. "

"Since when?"

The look with which Rodney Temple accompanied the question once moreaffected Davenant oddly. It probably made the same impression on Guion, since he replied with a calmness that seemed studied: "Since--lately. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, for no reason. It only strikes me as curious that your sympathyshould take that turn. "

"Precisely, " Miss Guion chimed in. "It's not a bit like you, papa. Youused to be harder on dishonorable things than any one. "

"Well, I'm not now. "

It was clear to Davenant by this time that in these words Guion was notso much making a statement as flinging a challenge. He made that evidentby the way in which he sat upright, squared his shoulders, and rested alarge, white fist clenched upon the table. His eyes, too, shone, glittered rather, with a light quite other than that which a hostusually turns upon his guests. To Davenant, as to Mrs. Temple, it seemedas if he had "something on his mind"--something of which he had apersistent desire to talk covertly, in the way in which an undetectedfelon will risk discovery to talk about the crime. 

No one else apparently at the table shared this impression. RodneyTemple, with eyes pensively downcast, toyed with the seeds of a pear, while Miss Guion and Mrs. Fane began speaking of some other incident ofwhat to them was above everything else, "the Service. " A minute or twolater Olivia rose. 

"Come, Cousin Cherry. Come, Drusilla, " she said, with her easy, authoritative manner. Then, apparently with an attempt to make up forher neglect of Davenant, she said, as she held the door open for theladies to pass: "Don't let them keep you here forever. We shall beterribly dull till you join us. "

He was not too dense to comprehend that the words were conventional, asthe smile she flung him was perfunctory. Nevertheless, the littleattention pleased him. 

II

The three men being left together, Davenant's conviction of innerexcitement on the part of his host was deepened. It was as if, on thewithdrawal of the ladies, Guion had less intention of concealing it. Notthat at first he said anything directly or acted otherwise than as a manwith guests to entertain. It was only that he threw into the task ofoffering liqueurs and passing cigars a something febrile that caused histwo companions to watch him quietly. Once or twice Davenant caughtTemple's eye; but with a common impulse each hastily looked elsewhere. 

"So, Mr. Davenant, you've come back to us. Got here only this afternoon, didn't you? I wonder why you came. Having got out of a dull place likeWaverton, why should you return to it?"

Looking the more debonair because of the flush in his face and the gleamin his eye, Guion seated himself in the place his daughter had leftvacant between his two guests. Both his movements and his manner ofspeech were marked by a quick jerkiness, which, however, was not withouta certain masculine grace. 

"I don't know that I've any better reason, " Davenant laughed, snippingoff the end of his cigar, "than that which leads the ox to hisstall--because he knows the way. "

"Good!" Guion laughed, rather loudly. Then, stopping abruptly, hecontinued, "I fancy you know your way pretty well in any direction youwant to go, don't you?"

"I can find it--if I know where I'm going. I came back to Boston chieflybecause that was just what I didn't know. "

"He means, " Rodney Temple explained, "that he'd got out of his beat; andso, like a wise man, he returns to his starting-point. "

"I'd got out of something more than my beat; I'd got out of my element. I found that the life of elegant leisure on which I'd embarked wasn'twhat I'd been cut out for. "

"That's interesting--very, " Guion said. "How did you make thediscovery?"

"By being bored to death. "

"Bored?--with all your money?"

"The money isn't much; but, even if it were, it couldn't go on buying mea good time. "

"That, of course, depends on what your idea of a good time may be;doesn't it, Rodney?"

"It depends somewhat, " Rodney replied, "on the purchasing power ofmoney. There are things not to be had for cash. "

"I'm afraid my conception of a good time, " Davenant smiled, "might bemore feasible without the cash than with it. After all, money would be adoubtful blessing to a bee if it took away the task of going out togather honey. "

"A bee, " Guion observed, "isn't the product of a high and complexcivilization--"

"Neither am I, " Davenant declared, with a big laugh. "I spring from theprimitive stratum of people born to work, who expect to work, and who, when they don't work, have no particular object in living on. "

"And so you've come back to Boston to work?"

"To work--or something. "

"You leave yourself, I see, the latitude of--something. "

"Only because it's better than nothing. It's been nothing for so longnow that I'm willing to make it anything. "

"Make what--anything?"

"My excuse for remaining on earth. If I'm to go on doing that, I've gotto have something more to justify it than the mere ability to pay myhotel bill. "

"You're luckier than you know to be able to do that much, " Guion said, with one of his abrupt, nervous changes of position. "But you've beenuncommonly lucky, anyhow, haven't you? Made some money out of that minebusiness, didn't you? Or was it in sugar?"

Davenant laughed. "A little, " he admitted. "But, to any one like you, sir, it would seem a trifle. "

"To any one like me! Listen. " He leaned forward, with feverish eyes, andspoke slowly, tapping on the table-cloth as he did so. "For half amillion dollars I'd sell my soul. "

Davenant resisted the impulse to glance at Temple, who spoke promptly, while Guion swallowed thirstily a glass of cognac. 

"That's a good deal for a soul, Henry. It's a large amount of the sureand tangible for a very uncertain quantity of the impalpable andproblematical. "

Davenant laughed at this more boisterously than the degree of humorwarranted. He began definitely to feel that sense of discomfort which inthe last half-hour he had been only afraid of. It was not thecommonplace fact that Guion might be short of money that he dreaded; itwas the possibility of getting a glimpse of another man's inner secretself. He had been in this position more than once before--when menwanted to tell him things he didn't want to know--when, whipped byconscience or crazed by misfortune or hysterical from drink, they triedto rend with their own hands the veil that only the lost or thedesperate suffer to be torn. He had noted before that it was generallymen like Guion of a high strung temperament, perhaps with a femininestreak in it, who reached this pass, and because of his own reserve--hisrather cowardly reserve, he called it--he was always impelled to runaway from them. As there was no possibility of running away now, hecould only dodge, by pretending to misunderstand, what he feared Guionwas trying to say. 

"So everything you undertook you pulled off successfully?" his hostquestioned, abruptly. 

"Not everything; some things. I lost money--often; but on the whole Imade it. "

"Good! With me it was always the other way. "

The pause that followed was an uneasy one, otherwise Temple would nothave seized on the first topic that came to hand to fill it up. 

"You'll miss Olivia when she's gone, Henry. "

"Y-yes; if she goes. "

The implied doubt startled Davenant, but Temple continued to smokepensively. "I've thought, " he said, after a puff or two at his cigar, "I've thought you seemed to be anticipating something in the way ofa--hitch. "

Guion held his cigar with some deliberation over an ash-tray, knockingoff the ash with his little finger as though it were a task demandingprecision. 

"You'll know all about it to-morrow, perhaps--or in a few days atlatest. It can't be kept quiet much longer. I got the impression atdinner that you'd heard something already. "

"Nothing but gossip, Henry. "

Guion smiled, but with a wince. "I've noticed, " he said, "that there's acertain kind of gossip that rarely gets about unless there's some causefor it--on the principle of no smoke without fire. If you've heardanything, it's probably true. "

"I was afraid it might be. But in that case I wonder you allowed Oliviato go ahead. "

"I had to let fate take charge of that. When a man gets himself soentangled in a coil of barbed wire that he trips whichever way he turns, his only resource is to stand still. That's my case. " He poured himselfout another glass of cognac, and tasted it before continuing. "Oliviagoes over to England, and gets herself engaged to a man I never heardof. Good! She fixes her wedding-day without consulting me andirrespective of my affairs. Good again! She's old enough to do it, andquite competent. Meanwhile I lose control of the machine, so to speak. Isee myself racing on to something, and can't stop. I can only lie backand watch, to see what happens. I've got to leave that to fate, or God, or whatever it is that directs our affairs when we can no longer managethem ourselves. " He took another sip of cognac, and pulled for a minutenervously at his cigar. "I thought at first that Olivia might be marriedand get, off before anything happened. Now, it looks to me as if therewas going to be a smash. Rupert Ashley arrives in three or four days'time, and then--"

"You don't think he'd want to back out, do you?"

"I haven't the remotest idea. From Olivia's description he seems like adecent sort; and yet--"

Davenant got to, his feet. "Shouldn't you like me to go back to theladies? You want to talk to the professor--"

"No, no, " Guion said, easily, pushing Davenant into his seat again. "There's no reason why you shouldn't hear anything I have to say. Thewhole town will know it soon. You can't conceal a burning house; andTory Hill is on fire. I may be spending my last night under its roof. "

"They'll not rush things like that, " Temple said, tying to speakreassuringly. 

"They haven't rushed things as it is. I've come to the end of a verylong tether. I only want you to know that by this time to-morrow nightI may have taken Kipling's Strange Ride with Morrowby Jukes to the Landof the Living Dead. If I do, I sha'n't come back--accept bail, or thatsort of thing. I can't imagine anything more ghastly than for a man tobe hanging around among his old friends, waiting for a--for a"--hebalked at the word--"for a trial, " he said at last, "that can have onlyone ending. No! I'm ready to ride away when they call for me--but theywon't find me pining for freedom. "

"Can't anything be done?"

"Not for me, Rodney. If Rupert Ashley will only look after Olivia, Ishan't mind what happens next. Men have been broken on the wheel beforenow. I think I can go through it as well as another. But if Ashleyshould fail us--and of course that's possible--well, you see why I feelas I do about her falling out with the old Marquise. Aunt Vic has alwaysmade much of her--and she's very well off--"

"Is there nothing to be expected in that quarter for yourself?"

Guion shook his head. "I couldn't ask her--not at the worst. In thenatural course of things Olivia and I would be her heirs--that is, ifshe didn't do something else with her money--but she's still in theearly seventies, and may easily go on for a long time yet. Any helpthere is very far in the future, so that--"

"Ashley, I take it, is a man of some means?"

"Of comfortable means--no more. He has an entailed property in theMidlands and his pay. As he has a mother and two sisters to pensionoff, Olivia begged to have no settlements made upon herself. He wantedto do it, after the English fashion, but I think she showed good feelingin declining it. Naturally, I approved of her doing it, knowing how manychances there were that I mightn't be able to--to play up--myself. "

After this conversation Davenant could not but marvel at the ease withwhich their host passed the cigars again and urged him personally tohave another glass of Chartreuse. "Then suppose we join the ladies, " headded, when further hospitality was declined. 

Guion took the time to fleck a few specks of cigar-ash from hisshirt-bosom and waistcoat, thus allowing Rodney Temple to pass outfirst. When alone with Davenant he laid his hand upon the younger man'sarm, detaining him. 

"It was hardly fair to ask you to dinner, " he said, still forcing anunsteady smile, "and let you in for this. I thought at first of puttingyou off; but in the end I decided to let you come. To me it's been asort of dress-rehearsal--a foretaste of what it'll be in public. Thetruth is, I'm a little jumpy. The rôle's so new to me that it meanssomething to get an idea of how to play it on nerve. I recall you as alittle chap, " he added, in another tone, "when Tom Davenant and his wifefirst took you. Got you out of an orphanage, didn't they, or somethinglike that? If I remember rightly, your name was Hall or Hale--"

"It was Hallett--Peter Hallett. "

"Hallett, was it? Well, it will do no harm for a young Cæsar of financelike you to see what you may come to if you're not careful. Morituri tesalutamus, as the gladiators used to say. Only I wish it was to be thearena and the sword instead of the court-room and the Ride with MorrowbyJukes. "

Davenant said nothing, not because he had nothing to say, but becausehis thoughts were incoherent. Perhaps what was most in the nature of ashock to him was the sight of a man whom he both admired for hispersonality and honored as a pillar of Boston life falling so tragicallyinto ruin. While it was true that to his financially gifted mind anymisuse of trust funds had the special heinousness that horse-lifting hasto a rancher, yet as he stood with Guion's hand on his shoulder he knewthat something in the depths of his being was stirred, and stirredviolently, that had rarely been affected before. He had once, as a boy, saved a woman from drowning; he had once seen a man at an upper windowof a burning house turn back into the fire while the bystandersrestrained him, Davenant, from attempting an impossible rescue. Something of the same unreasoning impulse rose up within him now--theimpulse to save--the kind of impulse that takes no account of the meritof the person in peril, seeing only the danger. 

But these promptings were dumb in him for the moment from lack ofco-ordination. The two or three things he might have said seemed tostrangle each other in the attempt to get right of way. In response toGuion's confidences he could only mumble something incoherent and passon to the drawing-room door. It was a wide opening, hung with portieres, through which he could see Olivia Guion standing by the crackling woodfire, a foot on the low fender. One hand rested lightly on themantelpiece, while the other drew back her skirt of shimmering blackfrom the blaze. Drusilla Fane, at the piano, was strumming one ofChopin's more familiar nocturnes. 

He was still thinking of this glimpse when, a half-hour later, he saidto Rodney Temple, as they walked homeward in the moonlight: "I haven'tyet told you what I came back for. "

"Well, what is it?"

"I thought--that is, I hoped--that if I did the way might open up for meto do what might be called--well, a little good. "

"What put that into your head?" was the old man's response to thisstammering confession. 

"I suppose the thought occurred to me on general principles. I've alwaysunderstood it was the right thing to attempt. "

"Oh, right. That's another matter. Doing right is as easy as drawingbreath. It's a habit, like any other. To start out to do good is muchlike saying you'll add a cubit to your stature. But you can always doright. Do right, and the good'll take care of itself. "

Davenant reflected on this in silence as they tramped onward. By thistime they had descended Tory Hill, and were on the dike that outlinesthe shores of the Charles. 

By a common impulse both Temple and Davenant kept silent concerningGuion. On leaving Tory Hill they had elected to walk homeward, theladies taking the carriage. The radiant moonlight and the clear, crispOctober air helped to restore Davenant's faculties to a normal wakingcondition after the nightmare of Guion's hints. Fitting what he supposedmust be the facts into the perspective of common life, to which thewide, out-of-door prospect offered some analogy, they were, if not lessappalling, at least less overwhelming. Without seeing what was to bedone much more clearly than he had seen an hour ago, he had a freerconsciousness of power--something like the matter-of-course assumptionthat any given situation could be met with which he ordinarily faced theworld. That he lacked authority in the case was a thought that did notoccur to him--no more than it occurred to him on the day when he rescuedthe woman from drowning, or on the night when he had dashed into thefire to save a man. 

It was not till they had descended the straggling, tree-shadedstreet--along which the infrequent street-lamps threw little more lightthat that which came from the windows shining placidly out on lawns--andhad emerged on the embankment bordering the Charles, that the events ofthe evening began for Davenant to weave themselves in with thatindefinable desire that had led him back to Boston. He could not havesaid in what way they belonged together; and yet he could perceive thatbetween them there was some such dim interpenetration as the distantlamps of the city made through the silvery mist lying on the river andits adjacent marshes like some efflorescence of the moonlight. 

"The difficulty is, " he said, after a long silence, "that it's often sohard to know what _is_ right. "

"No, it isn't. "

The flat contradiction brought a smile to the young man's lips as theytrudged onward. 

"A good many people say so. "

"A good many people say foolish things. It's hard to know what's rightchiefly when you're not in a hurry to do it. "

"Aren't there exceptions to that rule?"

"I allowed for the exceptions. I said _chiefly_. "

"But when you _do_ want to do it?"

"You'll know what it is. There'll be something to tell you. "

"And this something to tell you? What do you call it?"

"Some call it conscience. Some call it God. Some call it neither. "

Davenant reflected again. 

"And you? What do you call it?"

"I can't see that anything would be gained by telling you. That sort ofknowledge isn't of much use till it's worked out for oneself. At least, it wouldn't be of much use to you. "

"Why not to me?"

"Because you've started out on your own voyage of discovery. You'llbring back more treasures from that adventure than any one can giveyou. "

These things were said crustily, as though dragged from a man thinkingof other matters and unwilling to talk. More minutes went by beforeDavenant spoke again. 

"But doesn't it happen that what you call the 'something-to-tell-you'tells you now and then to do things that most people would call ratherwild--or crazy?"

"I dare say. "

"So what then?"

"Then you do them. "

"Oh, but--"

"If there's an 'Oh, but', you don't. That's all. You belong to the manycalled, but not to the few chosen. "

"But if things _are_ wild--I'm thinking of something in particular--"

"Then you'd better leave it alone, unless you're prepared to beconsidered a wild man. What Paul did was wild--and Peter--and Joan ofArc--and Columbus--and a good many others. True they were well punishedfor their folly. Most of them were put in irons, and some of them gotdeath. "

"I shouldn't dream of classing myself in their company. "

"Every one's in their company who feels a big impulse and has thecourage of it. The trouble with most of us is that we can do the feelingall right; but when it comes to the execution--well, we like to keep onthe safe side, among the sane. "

"So that, " Davenant began, stammeringly, "if a fellow got something intohis head--something that couldn't be wrong, you know--something thatwould be right--awfully right in its way, but in a way that most peoplewould consider all wrong--or wild, as I said before--you'd advisehim--?"

"I shouldn't advise him at all. Some things must be spontaneous, orthey're of little use. If a good seed in good ground won't germinate ofits own accord, words of counsel can't help it. But here we are at home. You won't come in just yet? Very well; you've got your latch-key. "

"Good-night, sir. I hope you're not going to think me--well, altogetheran idiot. "

"Very likely I shall; but it'll be nothing if I do. If you can't stand alittle thing like that you'd better not have come back with the ideasthat have brought you. "

III

Davenant turned away into the moonlit mist. Through it the electriclamps of Boston, curving in crescent lines by the water's edge, orsprinkled at random over the hill which the city climbs, shone for himwith the steadiness and quiet comfort inherent in the familiar and thesure after his long roaming. Lighting a cigarette, he strode along thecement pavement beside the iron railing below which the river ranswiftly and soundlessly. At this late hour of the evening he had theembankment to himself, save for an occasional pair of lovers or a groupof sauntering students. Lights from the dignified old houses--amongwhich was Rodney Temple's--overlooking the embankment and the Charlesthrew out a pleasant glow of friendliness. Beyond the river a giantshadow looming through the mist reminded him of the Roman Colisseum seenin a like aspect, the resemblance being accentuated in his imaginationby the Stadium's vast silence, by its rows upon rows of ghostly graysedilia looking down on a haunted, empty ring. His thoughts strayed toRome, to Cairo, to Calcutta, to Singapore, to the stages of those twopatient journeys round the world, made from a sense of duty, in searchof a widening of that sheerly human knowledge which life had hithertodenied him. Having started from London and got back to London again, hesaw how imperfectly he had profited by his opportunities, how much hehad missed. It was characteristic of him to begin all over again, andmore thoroughly, conscientiously revisiting the Pyramids, the Parthenon, and the Taj Mahal, endeavoring to capture some of that true spirit ofappreciation of which he read in books. 

In his way he was not wholly unsuccessful, since by dint of steadygazing he heightened his perceptive powers, whether it were for NotreDame, the Sistine Madonna, or the Alps, each of which he took with thesame seriousness. What eluded him was precisely that human element whichwas the primary object of his quest. He learned to recognize the beautyof a picture or a mountain more or less at sight; but the soul of thesethings, of which he thought more than of their outward aspects, the soulthat looks through the eyes and speaks with the tongues of peoples, remained inaccessible to his yearnings. He was always outside--nevermore than a tourist. He made acquaintances by the wayside easily enough, but only of the rootless variety, beginning without an introduction andending without a farewell. There was nothing that "belonged" to him, nothing to which he himself "belonged. "

It was the persistency of the defect that had marked most of his life, even that portion of it spent in Boston and Waverton--the places hecalled "home. " He was their citizen only by adoption, as only byadoption he was the son of Tom and Sarah Davenant. That intimateclaim--the claim on the family, the claim on the soil--which springs ofbirth and antedates it was not his, and something had always beenlacking to his life because of the deficiency. Too healthily genial tofeel this want more than obscurely, he nevertheless had tried to remedyit by resorting to the obvious means. He had tried to fall in love, witha view to marriage and a family. Once, perhaps twice, he might have beensuccessful had it not been for the intrusive recollection of a moment, years before, when a girl whom he knew to be proud without suspectinghow proud she was had in answer to the first passionate words he everuttered started to her feet, and, fanning herself languidly, walkedaway. The memory of that instant froze on his tongue words that mighthave made him happy, sending him back into his solitary ways. They wereways, as he saw plainly enough, that led no whither; for which reason hehad endeavored, as soon as he was financially justified, to get out ofthem by taking a long holiday and traveling round the world. 

He was approaching the end of his second journey when the realizationcame to him that as far as his great object was concerned theundertaking had been a failure. He was as much outside the broadercurrent of human sympathies as ever. Then, all at once, he began to seethe reason why. 

The first promptings to this discovery came to him one spring evening ashe stood on the deck of the steam-launch he had hired at Shanghai to goup and down the Yangste-Kiang. Born in China, the son of a medicalmissionary, he had taken a notion to visit his birthplace at Hankow. Itwas a pilgrimage he had shirked on his first trip to that country, aneglect for which he afterward reproached himself. All thingsconsidered, to make it was as little as he could do in memory of thebrave man and woman to whom he owed his existence. 

Before this visit it must be admitted, Rufus and Corinna Hallett, hisparents according to the flesh, had been as remote and mythical to themind of Peter Davenant as the Dragon's Teeth to their progeny, theSpartans. Merely in the most commonplace kind of data he was but poorlysupplied concerning them. He knew his father had once been a zealousyoung doctor in Graylands, Illinois, and had later become one of thepioneers of medical enterprise in the mission field; he knew, too, thathe had already worked for some years at Hankow before he met and marriedMiss Corinna Meecham, formerly of Drayton, Georgia, but at that time ateacher in a Chinese school supported by one of the great Americanchurches. Events after that seemed to have followed rapidly. Within afew years the babe who was to become Peter Davenant had seen the light, the mother had died, and the father had perished as the victim of arising in the interior of Hupeh. The child, being taken to America, andunclaimed by relatives, was brought up in the institution maintained forsuch cases by the Missionary Board of the church to which his father andmother had given their services. He had lived there till, when he wasseven years old, Tom and Sarah Davenant, childless and yet longing fora child, had adopted him. 

These short and simple annals furnished all that Davenant knew of hisown origin; but after the visit to Hankow the personality of his parentsat least became more vivid. He met old people who could vaguely recallthem. He saw entries in the hospital records made by his father's hand. He stood by his mother's grave. As for his father's grave, if he hadone, it was like that of Moses, on some lonely Nebo in Hupeh known toGod alone. In the compound Davenant saw the spot on which his father'ssimple house had stood--the house in which he himself was born--though awing of the modern hospital now covered it. It was a relief to him tofind that, except for the proximity of the lepers' ward and the opiumrefuge, the place, with its trim lawns, its roses, its clematis, itsazaleas, its wistaria, had the sweetness of an English rectory garden. He liked to think that Corinna Meecham had been able to escape from herduties in the crowded, fetid, multi-colored city right outside the gatesto something like peace and decency within these quiet walls. 

He was not a born traveler; still less was he an explorer. At the end ofthree days he was glad to take leave of his hosts at the hospital, andturn his launch down the river toward the civilization of Shanghai. Butit was on the very afternoon of his departure that the ideas came to himwhich ultimately took him back to Boston, and of which he was nowthinking as he strolled through the silvery mist beside the Charles. 

He had been standing then on the deck of his steam-launch gazing beyondthe river, with its crowding, outlandish junks, beyond the towns andvillages huddled along the banks, beyond walls gay with wistaria, beyondgreen rice-fields stretching into the horizon, to where a flaming sunsetcovered half the sky--a sunset which itself seemed hostile, mysterious, alien, Mongolian. He was thinking that it was on just this scene thathis father and mother had looked year upon year before his birth. Hewondered how it was that it had had no prenatal influence on himself. Hewondered how it was that all their devotion had ended with themselves, that their altruism had died when Corinna Meecham's soul had passed-awayand Rufus Hallett, like another Stephen, had fallen on his knees beneaththe missiles of the villagers to whom he was coming with relief. Theyhad spent their lives in the service of others; he had spent his in hisown. It was curious. If there was anything in heredity, he ought to havefelt at least some faint impulse from their zeal; but he never had. Hecould not remember that he had ever done anything for any one. He couldnot remember that he had ever seen the need of it. It was curious. Hemused on it--mused on the odd differences between one generation andanother, and on the queer way in which what is light to the father willsometimes become darkness in the son. 

It was then that he found the question raising itself within him, "Isthat what's wrong with me?"

The query took him by surprise. It was so out of keeping with hisparticular kind of self-respect that he found it almost droll. If hehad never _given_ himself to others, as his parents had, he hadcertainly paid the world all he owed it. He had nothing wherewith toreproach himself on that score. It had been a matter of satisfactionamounting to pride that he had made his bit of money without resortingin any single instance to methods that could be considered shady. Ifcomplaint or criticism could not reach him here, it could not reach himanywhere. Therefore the question as to whether there was anything wrongin his attitude toward others was so patently absurd that it couldeasily be dismissed. 

He dismissed it promptly, but it came again. It came repeatedly duringthat spring and summer. It forced itself on his attention. It became, inits way, the recurrent companion of his journey. It turned upunexpectedly at all sorts of times and in all sorts of places, and oneach occasion with an increased comprehension on his side of itspertinence. He could look back now and trace the stages by which hisunderstanding of it had progressed. There was a certain small happeningin a restaurant at Yokohama; there was an accident on the dock atVancouver; there was a conversation on a moonlight evening up at Banff;there was an incident during a drive in the Yosemite; these weremile-stones on the road by which his mind had traveled on to seize thefact that the want of touch between him and his fellow-men might be dueto the suppression of some essentially human force within himself. Itcame to him that something might, after all, have been transmitted fromHupeh and Hankow of which he had never hitherto suspected the existence. 

It cannot be said that his self-questioning had produced any answer moredefinite than that before he found himself journeying back towardBoston. The final impulse had been given him while he was stillloitering aimlessly in Chicago by a letter from Mrs. Temple. 

"If you have nothing better to do, dear Peter, " she wrote, "we shall bedelighted if you can come to us for a week or two. Dear Drusilla is withus once again, and you can imagine our joy at having her. It would seemlike old times if you were here to complete the little circle. The roomyou used to have in your college vacations--after dear Tom and Sarahwere taken from us--is all ready for you; and Drusilla would like toknow you were here to occupy it just as much as we. "

In accepting this invitation Davenant knew himself to be drawn by avariety of strands of motive, no one of which had much force in itself, but which when woven together lent one another strength. Now that he hadcome, he was glad to have done it, since in the combination ofcircumstances he felt there must be an acknowledged need of a young man, a strong man, a man capable of shouldering responsibilities. He wouldhave been astonished to think that that could be gainsaid. 

The feeling was confirmed in him after he had watched the tip of hissmoked-out cigarette drop, like a tiny star, into the current of theCharles, and had re-entered Rodney Temple's house. 

"Here's Peter!"

It was Drusilla's voice, with a sob in it. She was sitting on thestairs, three steps from the top, huddled into a voluminousmauve-and-white dressing-gown. In the one dim light burning in the hallher big black eyes gleamed tragically, as those of certain animals gleamin dusk. 

"Oh, Peter, dear, I'm so glad you've come! The most awful thing hashappened. "

That was Mrs. Temple who, wrapped in something fleecy in texture andpink in hue, was crouched on the lowest step, looking more than everlike a tea-cozy dropped by accident. 

"What's the matter?" Davenant asked, too deeply astonished even to takeoff his hat. "Is it burglars? Where's the professor?"

"He's gone to bed. It isn't burglars. I wish it was. It's something far, far worse. Collins told Drusilla. Oh, I know it's true--though Rodneywouldn't say so. I simply . .. _know_ . .. It's . .. _true_. "

"Oh, it's true, " Drusilla corroborated. "I knew that the minute Collinsbegan to speak. It explains everything--all the little queernesses I'venoticed ever since I came home--and everything. "

"What is it?" Peter asked again. "Who's Collins? And what has he said?"

"It isn't a he; it's a she, " Drusilla explained. "She's my maid. I knewthe minute I came into the room that she'd got something on her mind--Iknew it by the way she took my wrapper from the wardrobe and laid it onthe bed. It was too awful!"

"What was too awful? The way she laid your wrapper on the bed?"

"No; what she told me. And I _know_ it's true. "

"Well, for the Lord's sake, Drusilla, what is it?"

Drusilla began to narrate. She had forborne, she said, to put anyquestions till she was being "undone"; but in that attitude, favorablefor confidence, she had asked Collins over her shoulder if anythingtroubled her, and Collins had told her tale. Briefly, it was to theeffect that some of the most distinguished kitchens in Boston andWaverton had been divided into two factions, one pro and the othercontra, ever since the day, now three weeks ago, when Miss MaggieMurphy, whose position of honorable service at Lawyer Benn's enabled herto profit by the hints dropped at that eminent man's table, hadannounced, in the servant's dining-room of Tory Hill itself, that HenryGuion was "going to be put in jail. " He had stolen Mrs. Clay's money, and Mrs. Rodman's money, "and a lot of other payple's money, too, " MissMurphy was able to affirm--clients for whom Guion, Maxwell & Guion hadlong acted as trustees--and was now to be tried and sentenced, LawyerBenn himself being put in charge of the affair by the parties wronged. Drusilla described the sinking of her own heart as these bits ofinformation were given her, though she had not failed to reprimandCollins for the repetition of foolish gossip. This, it seemed, had putCollins on her mettle in defense of her own order, and she had repliedthat, if it came to that, m'm, the contents of the waste-paper basketsat Tory Hill, though slightly damaged, had borne ample testimony to thetruth of the tale as Miss Maggie Murphy told it. If Mrs. Fane requireddocumentary evidence, Collins herself was in a position to supply it, through the kindness of her colleagues in Henry Guion's employ. 

Davenant listened in silence. "So the thing is out?" was his onlycomment. 

"It's out--and all over the place, " Drusilla answered, tearfully. "We'rethe only people who haven't known it--but it's always that way withthose who are most concerned. "

"And over three hundred guests invited to Olivia's wedding next Thursdayfortnight! And the British Military Attaché coming from Washington! AndLord Woolwich from Ottawa! What's to happen _I_ don't know. "

Mrs. Temple raised her hands and let them drop heavily. 

"Oh, Peter, can't you do anything?"

"What can he do, child? If Henry's been making away with all that moneyit would take a fortune to--"

"Oh, men can do things--in business, " Drusilla asserted. "I know theycan. Banks lend them money, _don't_ they, Peter? Banks are alwayslending money to tide people over. I've often heard of it. Oh, Peter, _do_ something. I'm so glad you're here. It seems like a providence. "

"Colonel Ashley will be here next week, too, " Mrs. Temple groaned, asthough the fact brought comfort. 

"Oh, mother dear, don't _speak_ of him!" Drusilla put up her two hands, palms outward, before her averted face, as though to banish thesuggestion. "If you'd ever known him you'd see how impossible--how_impossible_--this kind of situation is for a man like him. Poor, poorOlivia! It's impossible for her, too, I know; but then weAmericans--well, we're more used to things. But one thing is certain, anyhow, " she continued, rising in her place on the stairs and stretchingout her hand oratorically: "If this happens I shall never go back toSouthsea--never, never!--no, nor to Silchester. With my temperament Icouldn't face it. My career will be over. There'll be nothing left for_me_, mother dear, but to stay at home with father and you. "

Mrs. Temple rose, sighing heavily. "Well, I suppose we must go to bed, though I must say it seems harder to do that than almost anything. Noneof us'll sleep. "

"Oh, Peter, _won't_ you do something?"

Drusilla's hands were clasped beneath an imploring face, slightly tiltedto one side. Her black hair had begun to tumble to her shoulders. 

"I'll--I'll think it over, " was all he could find to answer. 

"Oh, _thank_ you, Peter! I must say it seems like a providence--yourbeing here. With my temperament I always feel that there's nothing likea big strong man to lean on. "

The ladies retired, leaving him to put out the light. For a long time hestood, as he had entered, just inside the front door leaning on hisstick and wearing his hat and overcoat. He was musing rather thanthinking, musing on the odd way in which he seemed almost to have beenwaited for. Then, irrelevantly perhaps, there shot across his memory thephrases used by Rodney Temple less than an hour ago:

"Some call it conscience. Some call it God. Some call it neither. But, "he added, slowly, "some _do_ call it God. "

IV

Closing the door behind his departing guests, Guion stood for a minute, with his hand still on the knob, pressing his forehead against thewoodwork. He listened to the sound of the carriage-wheels die away andto the crunching tread of the two men down the avenue. 

"The last Guion has received the last guest at Tory Hill, " he said tohimself. "That's all over--all over and done with. Now!"

It was the hour to which he had been looking forward, first as animpossibility, then as a danger, and at last as an expectation, eversince the day, now some years ago, when he began to fear that he mightnot be able to restore all the money he had "borrowed" from theproperties in his trust. Having descried it from a long way off, he knewthat with reasonable luck it could not overtake him soon. There weremany chances, indeed, that it might never overtake him at all. Timesmight change; business might improve; he might come in for the money heexpected from his old Aunt de Melcourt; he might die. If none of thesethings happened, there were still ways and means by which he might makemoney in big strokes and "square himself" without any one ever beingthe wiser. He had known of cases, or, at least, he had suspected them, in which men in precisely his position had averted by daring play thedeadliest peril and gone down into honored graves. Fortune had generallyfavored him hitherto, and probably would favor him again. 

So after the first dreadful days of seeing his "mistakes, " and, in hisrecoil, calling himself by opprobrious names, he began to get used tohis situation and boldly to meet its requirements. That he would proveequal to them he had scarcely any doubt. It was, in fact, next toinconceivable that a man of his antecedents and advantages should beunable to cope with conditions that, after all, were not whollyexceptional in the sordid history of business. 

He admitted that the affair was sordid, while finding an excuse for hisown connection with it in the involuntary defilement that comes fromtouching pitch. It was impossible, he said, for a man of business not totouch pitch, and he was not a man of business of his own accord. Thestate of life had been forced on him. He was a trustee of other people'sproperty by inheritance, just as a man becomes a tsar. As a career itwas one of the last he would have chosen. Had he received from hisfather an ample personal fortune instead of a mere lucrative practice hewould have been a country gentleman, in the English style, with, ofcourse, a house in town. Born with a princely aptitude for spending hisown money, he felt it hard that he should have been compelled to make ithis life's work to husband that of others. The fact that he had always, to some extent been a square man in a round hole seemed to entitle himto a large share of moral allowance, especially in his judgment onhimself. He emphasized the last consideration, since it enabled him, inhis moments of solitude, to look himself more straightly in the face. Ithelped him to buttress up his sense of honor, and so his sense ofenergy, to be able to say, "I am still a gentleman. "

He came in time to express it otherwise, and to say, "I must still playthe gentleman. " He came to define also what he meant by the word_still_. The future presented itself as a succession of stages, in whichthis could not happen till that had happened, nor the final disasterarrive till all the intervening phases of the situation had been passed. He had passed them. Of late he had seen that the flames of hell wouldget hold upon him at that exact instant when, the last defense havingbeen broken down and the last shift resorted to, he should turn the keyon all outside hope, and be alone with himself and the knowledge that hecould do no more. Till then he could ward them off, and he had beenfighting them to the latest second. But on coming home from his officein Boston that afternoon he had told himself that the game was up. Nothing as far as he could see would give him the respite of anotherfour and twenty hours. The minutes between him and the finalpreparations could be counted with the finger on the clock. 

In the matter of preparation the most important detail would be to tellOlivia. Hoping against hope that this would never become necessary, hehad put off the evil moment till the postponement had become cruel. Buthe had lived through it so often in thought, he had so acutely sufferedwith her in imagination the staggering humiliation of it all, that now, when the time had come, his feelings were benumbed. As he turned intohis own grounds that day it seemed to him that his deadness of emotionwas such that he could carry the thing through mechanically, as askilled surgeon uses a knife. If he found her at tea in the drawing-roomhe might tell her then. 

He found her at tea, but there were people with her. He was almostsorry; and yet it keyed him up to see that there was some necessity "tostill play the gentleman. " He played it, and played it well--with muchof his old-time ease. The feat was so extraordinary as to call out around of mental applause for himself; and, after all, he reflected, there would be time enough in the evening. 

But tea being over, Miss Guion announced that Mr. And Mrs. Temple andDrusilla Fane were coming informally to dinner, bringing with them aguest of theirs, "some one of the name of Davenant. " For an instant hefelt that he must ask her to telephone and put them off, but on secondthoughts it seemed better to let them come. It would be in the nature ofa reprieve, not so much for himself as for Olivia. It would give her onemore cheerful evening, the last, perhaps, in her life. Besides--thesuggestion was a vague one, sprung doubtless of the hysterical elementin his suppressed excitement--he might test his avowals on Temple andDavenant, getting a foretaste of what it would be to face the world. Heformed no precise intention of doing that; he only allowed his mind tolinger on the luxury of trying it. He had suspected lately that RodneyTemple knew more of his situation than he had ever told him, so that theway to speak out would be cleared in advance; and as for the man of thename of Davenant--probably Tom Davenant's adopted son, who was said tohave pulled off some good things a few years ago--there would be, inhumbling himself before one so successful, a morbid joy of the kind thedevotee may get in being crushed by an idol. 

In this he was not mistaken. While they were there he was able to drawfrom his own speeches, covert or open, the relief that comes to a man inpain from moaning. Now that they were gone, however, the last extraneousincident that could possibly stand between him and the beginning of theend had passed. The moment he had foreseen, as one foresees death, wason him; so, raising his head from the woodwork of the doorway, he bracedhimself, and said, "Now!"

At almost the same instant he heard the rustle of his daughter's skirtsas she came from the drawing-room on her way up-stairs. She advancedslowly down the broad hail, the lights striking iridescent rays from thetrimmings of her dress. The long train, adding to her height, enhancedher gracefulness. Only that curious deadness of sensation of which hehad been aware all day--the inability to feel any more that comes fromtoo much suffering--enabled him to keep his ground before her. He didkeep it, advancing from the doorway two or three steps toward her, tillthey met at the foot of the stairway. 

"Have you enjoyed your evening?" were the words he found himself saying, though they were far from those he had at heart. He felt that his smilewas ghastly; but, as she seemed not to perceive it, he drew theconclusion that the ghastliness was within. 

She answered languidly. "Yes, so so. It might have been pleasanter if ithadn't been for that awful man. "

"Who? Young Davenant? I don't see anything awful about him. "

"I dare say there isn't, really--in his place. He may be only prosy. However, " she added, more brightly, "it doesn't matter for once. Goodnight, papa dear. You look tired. You ought to go to bed. I've seen tothe windows in the drawing-room, but I haven't put out the lights. "

Having kissed him and patted him on the cheek, she turned to go up thestairway. He allowed her to ascend a step or two. It was the minute tospeak. 

"I'm sorry you feel that way about young Davenant. I rather like him. "

He had not chosen the words. They came out automatically. To discussDavenant offered an excuse for detaining her, while postponing the blowfor a few minutes more. 

"Oh, men would, " she said, indifferently, without turning round. "He'stheir style. "

"Which is to his discredit?"

"Not to his discredit, but to his disadvantage. I've noticed that whatthey call a man's man is generally something of a bore. "

"Davenant isn't a bore. "

"Isn't he? Well, I really didn't notice in particular. I only rememberthat he used to be about here years ago--and I didn't like him. Isuppose Drusilla has to be civil to him because he was Cousin Rodney'sward. "

She had paused on the landing at the angle of the staircase. 

"He's good-looking, " Guion said, in continued effort to interpose thetrivial between himself and what he had still to tell her. 

"Oh, that sort of Saxon giant type is always good-looking. Of course. And dull too. "

"I dare say he isn't as dull as you think. "

"He might be that, and still remain pretty dull, after the allowanceshad been made. I know the type. It's awful--especially in the form ofthe American man of business. "

"I'm an American man of business myself. "

"Yes; by misadventure. You're the business man made, but not born. Bynature you're a boulevardier, or what the newspapers call a 'clubman. ' Iadmire you more than I can say--everybody admires you--for making such asuccess of a work that must always have been uncongenial at the least. "

The opening was obvious. Nothing could have been more opportune. Two orthree beginnings presented themselves, and as he hesitated, choosingbetween them, he moistened his lips and wiped the cold perspirationfrom his brow. After all, the blessed apathy within him was giving wayand going to play him false! He had a minute of feeling as the condemnedman must feel when he catches sight of the guillotine. 

Before his parched tongue could formulate syllables she mounted anotherstep or two of the staircase, and turned again, leaning on the banisterand looking over. He noticed--by a common trick of the perceptive powersat crises of anguish--how the slender white pilasters, carved andtwisted in sets of four, in the fashion of Georgian houses like ToryHill, made quaint, graceful lines up and down the front of her blackgown. 

"It's really true--what I say about business, papa, " she pursued. "I'mvery much in earnest, and so is Rupert. I do wish you'd think of thatplace near Heneage. It will be so lovely for me to feel you're there;and there can't be any reason for your going on working any longer. "

"No; there's no reason for that, " he managed to say. 

"Well then?" she demanded, with an air of triumph. "It's just as I said. You owe it to every one, you owe it to me, you owe it to yourself aboveall, to give up. It might have been better if you'd done it long ago. "

"I couldn't, " he declared, in a tone that sounded to his own ears as acry. "I tried to, . .. But things were so involved . .. Almost from thefirst. .. . "

"Well, as long as they're not involved now there's no reason why itshouldn't be better late than never. "

"But they _are_ involved now, " he said, with an intensity so poignantthat he was surprised she didn't notice it. 

"Then straighten them out. Isn't that what we've been saying all along, Cousin Rodney and I? Take a partner; take two partners. Cousin Rodneysays you should have done it when Mr. Maxwell died, or before--"

"I couldn't. .. . Things weren't shipshape enough . .. Not even then. "

"I'm sure it could be managed, " she asserted, confidently; "and if youdon't do it now, papa, when I'm being married and going away for good, you'll never do it at all. That's my fear. I don't want to live overthere without you, papa; and I'm afraid that's what you're going to letme in for. " She moved from the banister, and continued her way upward, speaking over her shoulder as she ascended. "In the mean time, youreally _must_ go to bed. You look tired and rather pale--just as I doafter a dull party. Good night; and _don't_ stay up. "

She reached the floor above, and went toward her room. He feltstrangled, speechless. There was a sense of terror too in the thoughtthat his nerve, the nerve on which he had counted so much, was going tofail him. 

"Olivia!"

His voice was so sharp that she hurried back to the top of the stairs. 

"What is it, papa? Aren't you well?"

It was the sight of her face, anxious and suddenly white, peering downthrough the half-light of the hall that finally unmanned him. With aheart-sick feeling he turned away from the stairway. 

"Yes; I'm all right. I only wanted you to know that . .. That . .. I shallbe working rather late. You mustn't be disturbed . .. If you hear memoving about. "

He would have upbraided himself more bitterly for his cowardice had henot found an excuse in the thought that, after all, there would be timein the morning. It was best that she should have the refreshment of thenight. The one thing important was that she should not have the shock oflearning from others on the morrow that he was not coming back--that hewas going to Singville. Should he go there at all, he was determined tostay. Since he had no fight to put up, it was better that his goingshould be once for all. The thought of weeks, of months, perhaps, ofquasi-freedom, during which he should be parading himself "on bail, " wasfar more terrible to him than that of prison. He must prepare her forthe beginning of his doom at all costs to himself; but, he reasoned, shewould be more capable of taking the information calmly in the daylightof the morning than now, at a few minutes of midnight. 

It was another short reprieve, enabling him to give all his attention tothe tasks before him. If he was not to come back to Tory Hill he mustleave his private papers there, his more intimate treasures, in goodorder. Certain things would have to be put away, others rearranged, others destroyed. For the most part they were in the library, the roomhe specially claimed as his own. Before setting himself to the workthere he walked through some of the other rooms, turning out the lights. 

In doing so he was consciously taking a farewell. He had been born inthis house; in it he had spent his boyhood; to it he had come back as ayoung married man. He had lived in it till his wife and he had set uptheir more ambitious establishment in Boston, an extravagance fromwhich, perhaps, all the subsequent misfortunes could be dated. He hadknown at the time that his father, had he lived, would have condemnedthe step; but he himself was a believer in fortunate chances. Besides, it was preposterous for a young couple of fashion to continue living ina rambling old house that belonged to neither town nor country, at atime when the whole trend of life was cityward. They had discussed themove, with its large increase of expenditure, from every point of view, and found it one from which, in their social position, there was noescape. It was a matter about which they had hardly any choice. 

So, too, a few years later, with the taking of the cottage at Newport. It was forced on them. When all their friends were doing something ofthe sort it seemed absurd to hesitate because of a mere matter ofmeans--especially when by hook or by crook the means could be procured. Similar reasoning had attended their various residences abroad--inLondon, Paris, Rome. Country-houses in England or villas on the Rivierabecame matters of necessity, according to the demands of Olivia's entryinto the world of fashion or Mrs. Guion's health. 

It was not till the death of the latter, some seven years ago, thatGuion, obliged to pause, was able to take cognizance of the degree towhich he had imperiled himself in the years of effort to maintain theirway of life. It could not be said that at the time he regretted what hehad done, but he allowed it to frighten him into some ineffectualeconomies. He exchanged the cottage at Newport for one at Lenox, and, giving up the house in Boston, withdrew to Tory Hill. Ceasing himself togo into society, he sent his daughter abroad for a large portion of hertime, either in the care of Madame de Melcourt or, in London, under thewing of some of the American ladies prominent in English life. 

Having taken these steps, with no small pride in his capacity forsacrifice, Guion set himself seriously to reconstruct his own fortuneand to repair the inroads he had made on those in his trust. It was amatter in which he had but few misgivings as to his capacity. The makingof money, he often said, was an easy thing, as could be proved by theintellectual grade of the men who made it. One had only to look aboutone to see that they were men in whom the average of ability was by nomeans high, men who achieved their successes largely by a kind of ruleof thumb. They got the knack of investment--and they invested. Hepreferred the word investment to another which might have challengedcomment. They bought in a low market and sold in a high one--and thetrick was done. Some instinct--a _flair_, he called it--was required inorder to recognize, more or less at sight, those properties which wouldquickly and surely appreciate in value; and he believed he possessed it. Given the control of a few thousands as a point of departure, and thefinancial ebb and flow, a man must be a born fool, he said, not to beable to make a reasonable fortune with reasonable speed. 

Within the office of Guion, Maxwell & Guion circumstances favored theaccession to power of the younger partner, who had hitherto played anacquiescent rather than an active part. Mr. Maxwell was old and ailing, though neither so ailing nor so old as to be blind to the need of newblood, new money, and new influence in the fine old firm. His weaknesswas that he hated beginning all over again with new men; so that whenSmith and Jones were proposed as possible partners he easily admittedwhatever objections Guion raised to them, and the matter was postponed. It was postponed again. It slipped into a chronic condition ofpostponement; and Mr. Maxwell died. 

The situation calling then for adroitness on Guion's part, the fact thathe was able to meet it to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned, increased his confidence in his own astuteness. True, it required somemanipulation, some throwing of dust into people's eyes, some making ofexplanations to one person that could not be reconciled with those madeto another; but here again the circumstances helped him. His clientswere for the most part widows and old maids, many of them residentabroad, for whom Guion, Maxwell & Guion had so long stood, in the matterof income, for the embodiment of paternal care that they were ready tobelieve anything and say anything and sign anything they were told to. With the legal authorities to whom he owed account he had the advantageof the house's high repute, making it possible to cover with formalitiesanything that might, strictly speaking, have called for investigation. Whatever had to be considered shifty he excused to himself on the groundof its being temporary; while it was clearly, in his opinion, to theultimate advantage of the Clay heirs and the Rodman heirs and theCompton heirs and all the other heirs for whom Guion, Maxwell & Guionwere _in loco parentis_, that he should have a free hand. 

The sequel astonished rather than disillusioned him. It wrought in himdisappointment with the human race, especially as represented by theStock Exchange, without diminishing his confidence in his own judgment. Through all his wild efforts not to sink he was upborne by the knowledgethat it was not his calculations that were wrong, but the workings of asystem more obscure than that of chance and more capricious than theweather. He grew to consider it the fault of the blind forces that makeup the social, financial, and commercial worlds, and not his own, whenhe was reduced to a frantic flinging of good money after bad as offeringthe sole chance of working out his redemption. 

And, now that it was all over, he was glad his wife had not lived to seethe end. That, at least, had been spared him. He stood before herportrait in the drawing-room--the much-admired portrait by CarolusDuran--and told her so. She was so living as she looked down on him--asuggestion of refined irony about the lips and eyes giving personalityto the delicate oval of the face--that he felt himself talking to her asthey had been wont to talk together ever since their youth. In his wayhe had stood in awe of her. The assumption of prerogative--an endowmentof manner or of temperament, he was never quite sure which--inherited byOlivia in turn, had been the dominating influence in their domesticlife. He had not been ruled by her--the term would have beengrotesque--he had only made it his pleasure to carry out her wishes. That her wishes led him on to spending money not his own was due to thefact, ever to be regretted, that his father had not bequeathed him moneyso much as the means of earning it. She could not be held responsiblefor that, while she was the type of woman to whom it was something likean outrage not to offer the things befitting to her station. There wasno reproach in the look he lifted on her now--nothing but a kind ofdogged, perverse thankfulness that she should have had the way of lifeshe craved, without ever knowing the price he was about to pay for it. 

In withdrawing his glance from hers he turned it about on the variousobjects in the room. Many of them had stood in their places since beforehe was born; others he had acquired at occasional sales of Guionproperty, so that, as the different branches of the family becameextinct or disappeared, whatever could be called "ancestral" might havea place at Tory Hill; others he had collected abroad. All of them, inthese moments of anguish--the five K'ang-hsi vases on the mantelpiece, brought home by some seafaring Guion of Colonial days, the armorial"Lowestoft" in the cabinets, the Copley portraits of remote connectionson the walls, the bits of Chippendale and Hepplewhite that had belongedto the grandfather who built Tory Hill--all of them took on now a kindof personality, as with living look and utterance. He had loved them andbeen proud of them; and as he turned out the lights, leaving them todarkness, eyes could not have been more appealing nor lips more eloquentthan they in their mute farewell. 

Returning to the library, he busied himself with his main undertaking. He was anxious that nothing should be left behind that could give Oliviaadditional pain, while whatever she might care to have, her mother'sletters to himself or other family documents, might be ready to herhand. It was the kind of detail to which he could easily give hisattention. He worked methodically and phlegmatically, steeling himselfto a grim suppression of regret. He was almost sorry to finish the task, since it forced his mind to come again face to face with facts. Theclock struck two as he closed the last drawer and knew that that part ofhis preparation was completed. 

In reading the old letters with their echoes of old incidents, old joys, old jokes, old days in Paris, Rome, or England, he had been so waftedback to another time that on pushing in the drawer, which closed with acertain click of finality, the realization of the present rolled backon his soul with a curious effect of amazement. For a few minutes it wasas if he had never understood it, never thought of it, before. They weregoing to make him, Henry Guion, a prisoner, a criminal, a convict! Theywere going to clip his hair, and shave his beard, and dress him in ahideous garb, and shut him in a cell! They were going to give himdegrading work to do and degrading rules to keep, and degradingassociates to live with, as far as such existence could be called livingwith any one at all. They were going to do this for year upon year, allthe rest of his life, since he never could survive it. He was to havenothing any more to come in between him and his own thoughts--histhoughts of Olivia brought to disgrace, of the Clay heirs brought towant, of the Rodman heirs and the Compton heirs deprived of half theirlivelihood! He had called it that evening the Strange Ride with MorrowbyJukes to the Land of the Living Dead, but it was to be worse than that. It was to be worse than Macbeth with his visions of remorse; it was tobe worse than Vathek with the flame burning in his heart; it was to beworse than Judas--who at least could hang himself. 

He got up and went to a mirror in the corner of the room. The mere sightof himself made the impossible seem more impossible. He was so fine aspecimen--he could not but know it!--so much the free man, the honorableman, the man of the world! He tried to see himself with his hair clippedand his beard shaven and the white cravat and waistcoat replaced by theharlequin costume of the jailbird. He tried to see himself making hisown bed, and scrubbing his own floor, and standing at his cell door witha tin pot in his hand, waiting for his skilly. It was so absurd, so outof the question, that he nearly laughed outright. He was in a dream--ina nightmare! He shook himself, he pinched himself, in order to wake up. He was ready in sudden rage to curse the handsome, familiar room for thepersistence of its reality, because the rows of books and the Baxterprints and the desks and chairs and electric lights refused to melt awaylike things in a troubled sleep. 

It was then that for the first time he began to taste the real measureof his impotence. He was in the hand of the law. He was in the grip ofthe sternest avenging forces human society could set in motion againsthim; and, quibbles, shifts, and subterfuges swept aside, no one knewbetter than himself that his punishment would be just. 

It was a strange feeling, the feeling of having put himself outside thescope of mercy. But there he was! There could never be a word spoken inhis defense, nor in any one's heart a throb of sympathy toward him. Hehad forfeited everything. He could expect nothing from any man, and fromhis daughter least of all. The utmost he could ask for her was that sheshould marry, go away, and school herself as nearly as might be torenounce him. That she should do it utterly would not be possible; butsomething would be accomplished if pride or humiliation or resentmentgave her the spirit to carry her head high and ignore his existence. 

It was incredible to think that at that very instant she was sleepingquietly, without a suspicion of what was awaiting her. Everything wasincredible--incredible and impossible. As he looked around the room, inwhich every book, every photograph, every pen and pencil, was a part ofhim, he found himself once more straining for a hope, catching atstraws. He took a sheet of paper, and sitting down at his desk beganagain, for the ten thousandth time, to balance feverishly his meagreassets against his overwhelming liabilities. He added and subtracted andmultiplied and divided with a sort of frenzy, as though by dint of sheerforcing the figures he could make them respond to his will. 

Suddenly, with a gesture of mingled anger and hopelessness, he swept thescribbled sheets and all the writing paraphernalia with a crash to thefloor, and, burying his face in his hands, gave utterance to a smotheredgroan. It was a cry, not of surrender, but of protest--of infinite, exasperated protest, of protest against fate and law and judgment andthe eternal principles of right and wrong, and against himself most ofall. With his head pressed down on the bare polished wood of his desk, he hurled himself mentally at an earth of adamant and a heaven of brass, hurled himself ferociously, repeatedly, with a kind of doggedness, asthough he would either break them down or dash his own soul to pieces. 

"O God! O God!"

It was an involuntary moan, stifled in his fear of becoming hysterical, but its syllables arrested his attention. They were the syllables ofprimal articulation, of primal need, condensing the appeal and theaspiration of the world. He repeated them:

"O God! O God!"

He repeated them again. He raised his head, as if listening to a voice. 

"O God! O God!"

He continued to sit thus, as if listening. 

It was a strange, an astounding thought to him that he might pray. Though the earth of adamant were unyielding, the heaven of brass mightgive way!

He dragged himself to his feet. 

He believed in God--vaguely. That is, it had always been a matter ofgood form with him to go to church and to call for the offices ofreligion on occasions of death or marriage. He had assisted at thesaying of prayers and assented to their contents. He had even joined inthem himself, since a liturgical service was a principle in the churchto which he "belonged. " All this, however, had seemed remote from hispersonal affairs, his life-and-death struggles--till now. Now, all atonce, queerly, it offered him something--he knew not what. It might benothing better than any of the straws he had been clutching at. It mightbe no more than the effort he had just been making to compel two tobalance ten. 

He stood in the middle of the room under the cluster of electric lightsand tried to recollect what he knew, what he had heard, of this Powerthat could still act when human strength had reached its limitations. It was nothing very definite. It consisted chiefly of great phrases, imperfectly understood: "Father Almighty, " "Saviour of the World, ""Divine Compassion" and such like. He did not reason about them, or tryto formulate what he actually believed. It was instinctively, almostunconsciously, that he began to speak; it was brokenly and with a kindof inward, spiritual hoarseness. He scarcely knew what he was doing whenhe found himself saying, mentally:

"Save me!. .. I'm helpless!. .. I'm desperate!. .. Save me!. .. Work amiracle!. .. Father!. .. Christ! Christ! Save my daughter!. .. We have noone--but--but You!. .. Work a miracle! Work a miracle!. .. I'm a thief anda liar and a traitor--but save me! I might do something yet--somethingthat might render me--worth salvation--but then--I might not. .. . Anyhow, save me!. .. O God! Father Almighty!. .. Almighty! That means that You cando anything!. .. Even now--You can do--anything!. .. Save us!. .. Save usall!. .. Christ! Christ! Christ!"

 * * * * *

He knew neither when nor how he ceased, any more than when or how hebegan. His most clearly defined impression was that of his spirit comingback from a long way off to take perception of the fact that he wasstill standing under the cluster of electric lights and the clock wasstriking three. He was breathless, exhausted. His most urgent physicneed was that of air. He strode to the window-door leading out to theterraced lawn, and, throwing it open, passed out into the darkness. 

There was no mist at this height above the Charles. The night was still, and the moon westering. The light had a glimmering, metallic essence, asfrom a cosmic mirror in the firmament. Long shadows of trees andshrubbery lay across the grass. Clear in the moonlit foreground stood anelm, the pride of Tory Hill--springing as a single shaft for twice themeasure of a man--springing and spreading there into four giantbranches, each of which sprang and spread higher into eight--sospringing and spreading, springing and spreading still--rounded, symmetrical, superb--till the long outermost shoots fell pendulous, likespray from a fountain of verdure. The silence held the suggestion ofmighty spiritual things astir. At least the heaven was not of brass, ifthe earth continued to be of adamant. On the contrary, the sky was high, soft, dim, star-bestrewn, ineffable. It was spacious; it was free; itwas the home of glorious things; it was the medium of the eternal. 

He was not reassured; he was not even comforted; what relief he got cameonly from a feeling--a fancy, perhaps--that the weight had been eased, that he was freed for a minute from the crushing pressure of theinevitable. It would return again and break him down, but for the momentit was lifted, giving him room and power to breathe. He didbreathe--long deep draughts of the cool night air that broughtrefreshment and something like strength to struggle on. 

He came back into the room. His pens and papers were scattered on thefloor, and ink from the overturned inkstand was running out on theOriental rug. It was the kind of detail that before this evening wouldhave shocked him; but nothing mattered now. He was too indifferent tolift his hand and put the inkstand back into its place. Instead, hethrew himself on a couch, turning his face to the still open window anddrinking in with thirsty gasps the blessed, revivifying air. 

V

Guion awoke in a chill, gray light, to find himself covered with a rug, and his daughter, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, bending above him. Over her shoulder peered the scared face of a maid. His first sensationwas that he was cold, his first act to pull the rug more closely abouthim. His struggle back to waking consciousness was the more confusedbecause of the familiar surroundings of the library. 

"Oh, papa, what's the matter?"

He threw the coverlet from him and dragged himself to a sitting posture. 

"What time is it?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "I must have dropped offto sleep. Is dinner ready?"

"It's half-past six in the morning, papa dear. Katie found you here whenshe came in to dust the room. The window was wide open and all thesethings strewn about the floor. She put the rug on you and came to wakeme. What is it? What's happened? Let me send for the doctor. "

With his elbow on his knee, he rested his forehead on his hand. Theincidents of the night came back to him. Olivia seated herself on thecouch beside him, an arm across his shoulder. 

"I'm cold, " was all he said. 

"Katie, go and mix something hot--some whisky or brandy and hotwater--anything! And you, papa dear, go to bed. I'll call Reynolds andhe'll help you. "

"I'm cold, " he said again. 

Rising, he crawled to the mirror into which he had looked last night, shuddering at sight of his own face. The mere fact that he was still inhis evening clothes, the white waistcoat wrinkled and the cravat awry, shocked him inexpressibly. 

"I'm cold, " he said for the third time. 

But when he had bathed, dressed, and begun his breakfast, the chill lefthim. He regained the mastery of his thoughts and the understanding ofhis position. A certain exaltation of suffering which had upheld himduring the previous night failed him, however, now, leaving nothing buta sense of flat, commonplace misery. Thrown into relief by the daylight, the facts were more relentless--not easier of acceptance. 

As he drank his coffee and tried to eat he could feel his daughterwatching him from the other end of the table. Now and then he screenedhimself from her gaze by pretending to skim the morning paper. Once hewas startled. Reflected in the glass of a picture hanging on theopposite wall he caught the image of a man in a blue uniform, whomounted the steps and rang the door-bell. 

"Who's that?" he asked, sharply. He dared not turn round to see. 

"It's only the postman, papa darling. Who else should it be?"

"Yes; of course. " He breathed again. "You mustn't mind me, dear. I'mnervous. I'm--I'm not very well. "

"I see you're not, papa. I saw it last night. I knew something waswrong. "

"There's something--very wrong. "

"What is it? Tell me. "

Leaning on the table, with clasped hands uplifted, the loose white lacesleeves falling away from her slender wrists, she looked at himpleadingly. 

"We've--that is, I've--lost a great deal of money. "

"Oh!" The sound was just above her breath. Then, after long silence, sheasked: "Is it much?"

He waited before replying, seeking, for the last time, some mitigationof what he had to tell her. 

"It's all we have. "

"Oh!" It was the same sound as before, just audible--a sound with alittle surprise in it, a hint of something awed, but without dismay. 

He forced himself to take a few sips of coffee and crumble a bit oftoast. 

"I don't mind, papa. If that's what's troubling you so much, don't letit any longer. Worse things have happened than that. " He gulped downmore coffee, not because he wanted it, but to counteract the rising inhis throat. "Shall we have to lose Tory Hill?" she asked, after anothersilence. 

He nodded an affirmative, with his head down. 

"Then you mean me to understand what you said just now--quite literally. We've lost all we have. "

"When everything is settled, " he explained, with an effort, "we shallhave nothing at all. It will be worse than that, since I sha'n't beable to pay all I owe. "

"Yes; that _is_ worse, " she assented, quietly. 

Another silence was broken by his saying, hoarsely:

"You'll get married--"

"That will have to be reconsidered. "

"Do you mean--on your part?"

"I suppose I mean--on everybody's part?"

"Do you think he would want to--you must excuse the crudity of thequestion--do you think he would want to back out?"

"I don't know that I could answer that. It isn't quite to the point. Backing out, as you call it, wouldn't be the process--whateverhappened. "

He interrupted her nervously. "If this should fall through, dear, youmust write to your Aunt Vic. You must eat humble pie. You were tootoplofty with her as it was. She'll take you. "

"Take me, papa? Why shouldn't I stay with you? I'd much rather. "

He tried to explain. It was clearly the moment at which to do it. 

"I don't think you understand, dear, how entirely everything has gone tosmash. I shall probably--I may say, certainly--I shall have to--to go--"

"I do understand that. But it often happens--especially in thiscountry--that things go to smash, and then the people begin again. Therewas Lulu Sentner's father. They lost everything they had--and she andher sisters did dressmaking. But he borrowed money, and started in fromthe beginning, and now they're very well off once more. It's the kindof thing one hears of constantly--in this country. "

"You couldn't hear of it in my case, dear, because--well, because I'vedone all that. I've begun again, and begun again. I've used up all mycredit--all my chances. The things I counted on didn't come off. Youknow that that happens sometimes, don't you?--without any one being toblame at all?"

She nodded. "I think I've heard so. "

"And now, " he went on, eager that she should begin to see what he wasleading her up to--"and now I couldn't borrow a thousand dollars in allBoston, unless it was from some one who gave it to me as a charity. I'veborrowed from every one--every penny for which I could offersecurity--and I owe--I owe hundreds of thousands. Do you see now how badit is?"

"I do see how bad it is, papa. I admit it's worse than I thought. Butall the same I know that when people have high reputations other peopletrust them and help them through. Banks do it, don't they? Isn't thatpartly what they're for? It was Pierpoint & Hargous who helped LuluSentner's father. They stood behind him. She told me so. I'm positivethat with your name they'd do as much for you. You take a gloomy outlookbecause you're ill. But there's no one in Boston--no one in NewEngland--more esteemed or trusted. When one can say, 'All is lost savehonor, ' then, relatively speaking, there's very little lost at all. "

He got up from the table and went to his room. After these words it wasphysically impossible for him to tell her anything more. He had thoughtof a means which might bring the fact home to her through the day by aprocess of suggestion. Packing a small bag with toilet articles andother necessaries, he left it in a conspicuous place. 

"I want Reynolds to give it to my messenger in case I send for it, " heexplained to her, when he had descended to the dining-room again. 

She was still sitting where he left her, at the head of the table, pale, pensive, but not otherwise disturbed. 

"Does that mean that you're not coming home to-night?"

"I--I don't know. Things may happen to--to prevent me. "

"Where should you go?--to New York?"

"No; not to New York. "

He half hoped she would press the question, but when she spoke it wasonly to say:

"I hope you'll try to come home, because I'm sure you're not well. Ofcourse I understand it, now I know you've had so much to upset you. ButI wish you'd see Dr. Scott. And, papa, " she added, rising, "don't haveme on your mind--please don't. I'm quite capable of facing the worldwithout money. You mayn't believe it, but I am. I could do it--somehow. I'm like you. I've a great deal of self-reliance, and a great deal ofsomething else--I don't quite know what--that has never been taxed orcalled on. It may be pride, but it isn't only pride. Whatever it is, I'm strong enough to bear a lot of trouble. I don't want you to think ofme at all in any way that will worry you. "

She was making it so hard for him that he kissed her hastily and wentaway. Her further enlightenment was one more detail that he must leave, as he had left so much else, to fate or God to take care of. For thepresent he himself had all he could attend to. 

Half-way to the gate he turned to take what might prove his last look atthe old house. It stood on the summit of a low, rounded hill, on thesite made historic as the country residence of Governor Rodney. GovernorRodney's "Mansion" having been sacked in the Revolution by hisfellow-townsmen, the neighborhood fell for a time into disrepute underthe contemptuous nickname of Tory Hill. On the restoration of order theproperty, passed by purchase to the Guions, in whose hands, with acontinuity not customary in America, it had remained. The present house, built by Andrew Guion, on the foundations of the Rodney Mansion, in theearly nineteenth century, was old enough according to New Englandstandards to be venerable; and, though most of the ground originallyabout it had long ago been sold off in building-lots, enough remained togive an impression of ample outdoor space. Against the blue of theOctober morning sky the house, with its dignified Georgian lines, wasnot without a certain stateliness--rectangular, three-storied, mellow, with buff walls, buff chimneys, white doorways, white casements, whiteverandas, a white balustrade around the top, and a white urn at each ofthe four corners. Where, as over the verandas, there was a bit ofinclined roof, russet-red tiles gave a warmer touch of color. From theborders of the lawn, edged with a line of shrubs, the town of Waverton, merging into Cambridge, just now a stretch of crimson-and-orangewoodland, where gables, spires, and towers peeped above the trees, sloped gently to the ribbon of the Charles. Far away, and dim in themorning haze, the roofed and steepled crest of Beacon Hill rose insuccessive ridges, to cast up from its highest point the gilded dome ofthe State House as culmination to the sky-line. Guion looked long andhard, first at the house, then at the prospect. He walked on only whenhe remembered that he must reserve his forces for the day'spossibilities, that he must not drain himself of emotion in advance. Ifwhat he expected were to come to pass, the first essential to hisplaying the man at all would lie in his keeping cool. 

So, on reaching his office, he brought all his knowledge of the worldinto play, to appear without undue self-consciousness before hisstenographer, his bookkeeper, and his clerks. The ordeal was the moresevere because of his belief that they were conversant with the state ofhis affairs. At least they knew enough to be sorry for him--of that hewas sure; though there was nothing on this particular morning to displaythe sympathy, unless it was the stenographer's smile as he passed her inthe anteroom, and the three small yellow chrysanthemums she had placedin a glass on his desk. In the nods of greeting between him and the menthere was, or there seemed to be, a studied effort to show nothing atall. 

Once safely in his own office, he shut the door with a sense of reliefin the seclusion. It crossed his mind that he should feel something ofthe same sort when locked in the privacy of his cell after the hideouspublicity of the trial. From habit as well as from anxiety he wentstraight to a mirror and surveyed himself again. Decidedly he hadchanged since yesterday. It was not so much that he was older or morecare-worn--he was different. Perhaps he was ill. He felt well enough, except for being tired, desperately tired; but that could be accountedfor by the way in which he had spent the night. He noticed chiefly theashy tint of his skin, the dullness of his eyes, and--notwithstandingthe fact that his clothes were of his usual fastidiousness--a curiouseffect of being badly dressed more startling to him than pain. He wascareful to brush his beard and twist his long mustache into its usualupward, French-looking curve, so as to regain as much as possible theair of his old self, before seating himself at his desk to look over hiscorrespondence. There was a pile of letters, of which he read theaddresses slowly without opening any of them. 

What was the use? He could do nothing. He had come to the end. He hadexhausted all the possibilities of the situation. Besides, his spiritwas broken. He could feel it. Something snapped last night within himthat would never be whole, never even be mended, again. It was not onlythe material resources under his control that he had overtaxed, but thespring of energy within himself, leaving him no more power ofresilience. 

An hour may have passed in this condition of dull suspense, when he wasstartled by the tinkle of his desk telephone. It was with some effortthat he leaned forward to answer the call. Not that he was afraid--now;he only shrank from the necessity of doing anything. 

"Mr. Davenant would like to see you, " came the voice of the stenographerfrom the anteroom. 

There was nothing to reply but, "Ask Mr. Davenant to come in. " Heuttered the words mechanically. He had not thought of Davenant since hetalked with Olivia on the stairs--a conversation that now seemed acuriously long time ago. 

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr. Guion, " the visitor said, apologetically, with a glance at the letters on the desk. 

"Not at all, my dear fellow, " Guion said, cordially, from force ofhabit, offering his hand without rising from the revolving chair. "Sitdown. Have a cigar. It's rather a sharp morning for the time of year. "

The use of the conventional phrases of welcome helped him to emergesomewhat from his state of apathy. Davenant declined the cigar, butseated himself near the desk, in one of the round-backed office chairs. Not being a man easily embarrassed by silences, he did not begin tospeak at once, and during the minute his hesitation lasted Guionbethought him of Olivia's remark, "That sort of Saxon-giant type isalways good-looking. " Davenant _was_ good-looking, in a clear-skinned, clear-eyed way. Everything about him spoke of straight-forwardness andstrength, tempered perhaps by the boyish quality inseparable from fairhair, a clean, healthily ruddy complexion, and a direct blue glance thatrested on men and things with a kind of pensive wondering. All the same, the heavy-browed face on a big, tense neck had a frowning, perhaps alowering expression that reminded Guion of a young bull before he beginsto charge. The lips beneath the fair mustache might be too tightly andtoo severely compressed, but the smile into which they broke overregular white teeth was the franker and the more engaging because of theunexpected light. If there was any physical awkwardness about him, itwas in the management of his long legs; but that difficulty was overcomeby his simplicity. It was characteristic of Guion to notice, even atsuch a time as this, that Davenant was carefully and correctly dressed, like a man respectful of social usages. 

"I came in to see you, Mr. Guion, " he began, apparently with somehesitation, "about what we were talking of last night. "

Guion pulled himself together. His handsome eyebrows arched themselves, and he half smiled. 

"Last night? What _were_ we talking of?"

"We weren't talking of it, exactly. You only told us. "

"Only told you--what?" The necessity to do a little fencing broughtsome of his old powers into play. 

"That you wanted to borrow half a million dollars. I've come in to--tolend you that sum--if you'll take it. "

For a few seconds Guion sat rigidly still, looking at this man. Theimport and bearing of the words were too much for him to grasp at once. All his mind was prepared to deal with on the spur of the moment was thefact of this offer, ignoring its application and its consequences asthings which for the moment lay outside his range of thought. 

As far as he was able to reflect, it was to assume that there was morehere than met the eye. Davenant was too practised as a player of "thegame" to pay a big price for a broken potsherd, unless he was tolerablysure in advance that within the potsherd or under it there lay more thanits value. It was not easy to surmise the form of the treasure nor thespot where it was hidden, but that it was there--in kind satisfactory toDavenant himself--Guion had no doubt. It was his part, therefore, to beastute and wary, not to lose the chance of selling, and yet not to allowhimself to be overreached. If Davenant was playing a deep game, he mustplay a deeper. He was sorry his head ached and that he felt in such poortrim for making the effort. "I must look sharp, " he said to himself;"and yet I must be square and courteous. That's the line for me totake. " He tried to get some inspiration for the spurt in telling himselfthat in spite of everything he was still a man of business. When at lasthe began to speak, it was with something of the feeling of thebroken-down prize-fighter dragging himself bleeding and breathless intothe ring for the last round with a young and still unspent opponent. 

"I didn't suppose you were in--in a position--to do that. "

"I am. " Davenant nodded with some emphasis. 

"Did you think that that was what I meant when I--I opened my heart toyou last night?"

"No. I know it wasn't. My offer is inspired by nothing but what I feel. "

"Good!" It was some minutes before Guion spoke again. "If I rememberrightly, " he observed then, "I said I would sell my soul for half amillion dollars. I didn't say I wanted to borrow that amount. "

"You may put it in any way you like, " Davenant smiled. "I've come withthe offer of the money. I want you to have it. The terms on which you'dtake it don't matter to me. "

"But they do to me. Don't you see? I'd borrow the money if I could. Icouldn't accept it in any other way. And I can't borrow it. I couldn'tpay the interest on it if I did. But I've exhausted my credit. I can'tborrow any more. "

"You can borrow what I'm willing to lend, can't you?"

"No; because Tory Hill is mortgaged for all it will stand. I've nothingelse to offer as collateral--"

"I'm not asking for collateral. I'm ready to hand you over the money onany terms you like or on no terms at all. "

"Do you mean that you'd be willing to--to--to _give_ it to me?"

"I mean, sir, " he explained, reddening a little, "that I want you tohave the money to _use_--now. We could talk about the conditionsafterward and call them what you please. If I understood you correctlylast night, you're in a tight place--a confoundedly tight place--"

"I am; but--don't be offended!--it seems to me you'd put me in atighter. "

"How's that?"

[Illustration: "I'VE DONE WRONG, BUT I'M WILLING TO PAY THE PENALTY"]

"It's a little difficult to explain. " He leaned forward, with one of hisnervous, jerky movements, and fingered the glass containing the threechrysanthemums, but without taking his eyes from Davenant. So far he wasquite satisfied with himself. "You see, it's this way. I've donewrong--very wrong. We needn't go into that, because you know it as wellas I. But I'm willing to pay the penalty. That is, I'm _ready_ to paythe penalty. I've made up my mind to it. I've had to--of course. But ifI accepted your offer, you'd be paying it, not I. "

"Well, why shouldn't I? I've paid other people's debts before now--onceor twice--when I didn't want to. Why shouldn't I pay yours, when Ishould like the job?"

Davenant attempted, by taking something like a jovial tone, to carry thething off lightly. 

"There's no reason why you shouldn't do it; there's only a reason why Ishouldn't let you. "

"I don't see why you shouldn't let me. It mayn't be just what you'dlike, but it's surely better than--than what you wouldn't like at all. "

Taking in the significance of these words, Guion colored, not with thehealthy young flush that came so readily to Davenant's face, but indabbled, hectic spots. His hand trembled, too, so that some of the waterfrom the vase he was holding spilled over on the desk. It was probablythis small accident, making him forget the importance of his rôle, thatcaused him to jump up nervously and begin pacing about the room. 

Davenant noticed then what he had not yet had time for--the change thathad taken place in Guion in less than twenty hours. It could not bedefined as looking older or haggard or ill. It could hardly be said tobe a difference in complexion or feature or anything outward. As far asDavenant was able to judge, it was probably due, not to the loss ofself-respect, but to the loss of the pretense at self-respect; it wasdue to that desolation of the personality that comes when the soul hasno more reason to keep up its defenses against the world outside it, when the Beautiful Gate is battered down and the Veil of the Templerent, while the Holy of Holies lies open for any eye to rifle. It wasprobably because this was so that Guion, on coming back to his seat, began at once to be more explanatory than there was any need for. 

"I haven't tried to thank you for your kind suggestion, but we'll cometo that when I see more clearly just what you want. "

"I've told you that. I'm not asking for anything else. "

"So far you haven't asked for anything at all; but I don't imagineyou'll be content with that. In any case, " he hurried on, as Davenantseemed about to speak, "I don't want you to be under any misapprehensionabout the affair. There's nothing extenuating in it whatever--that is, nothing but the intention to 'put it back' that goes with practicallyevery instance of"--he hesitated long--"every instance of embezzlement, "he finished, bravely. "It began this way--"

"I don't want to know how it began, " Davenant said, hastily. "I'msatisfied with knowing the situation as it is. "

"But I want to tell you. In proportion as I'm open with you I shallexpect you to be frank with me. "

"I don't promise to be frank with you. "

"Anyhow, I mean to set you the example. "

He went on to speak rapidly, feverishly, with that half-hystericalimpulse toward confession from the signs of which Davenant had shrunk onthe previous evening. As Guion himself had forewarned, there was nothingnew or unusual in the tale. The situations were entirely theconventional ones in the drama of this kind of unfaithfulness. The onlyelement to make it appealing, an element forcibly present to Davenant'sprotective instincts, was the contrast between what Guion had been andwhat he was to-day. 

"And so, " Guion concluded, "I don't see how I could accept this moneyfrom you. Any honorable man--that is, " he corrected, in some confusion, "any _sane_ man--would tell you as much. "

"I've already considered what the sane man and the honorable man wouldtell me. I guess I can let them stick to their opinion so long as I havemy own. "

"And what _is_ your opinion? Do you mind telling me? You understand thatwhat you're proposing is immoral, don't you?"

"Yes--in a way. "

Guion frowned. He had hoped for some pretense at contradiction. 

"I didn't know whether you'd thought of that. "

"Oh yes, I've thought of it. That is, I see what you mean. "

"It's compounding a felony and outwitting the ends of justice and--"

"I guess I'll do it just the same. It doesn't seem to be my special jobto look after the ends of justice; and as for compounding afelony--well, it'll be something new. "

Guion made a show of looking at him sharply. The effort, or thepretended effort, to see through Davenant's game disguised for themoment his sense of humiliation at this prompt acceptance of his ownstatement of the case. 

"All the same, " he observed, trying to take a detached, judicial tone, "your offer is so amazing that I presume you wouldn't make it unless youhad some unusual reason. "

"I don't know that I have. In fact, I know I haven't. "

"Well, whatever its nature, I should like to know what it is. "

"Is that necessary?"

"Doesn't it strike you that it would be--in order? If I were to let youdo this for me you'd be rendering me an extraordinary service. We'reboth men of business, men of the world; and we know that something fornothing is not according to Hoyle. "

Davenant looked at him pensively. "That is, you want to know what Ishould be pulling off for myself?"

"That's about it. "

"I don't see why that should worry you. If you get the money--"

"If I get the money I put myself in your power. "

"What of that? Isn't it just as well to be in my power as in the powerof other people?"

Again Guion winced inwardly, but kept his self-control. He was not yetaccustomed to doing without the formulas of respect from those whom heconsidered his inferiors. 

"Possibly, " he said, not caring to conceal a certain irritation; "buteven so I should like to know in case I _were_ in your power what you'dexpect of me. "

"I can answer that question right away. I shouldn't expect anything atall. "

"Then you leave me more in the dark than ever. "

Davenant still eyed him pensively. "Do I understand you to be suspiciousof my motives?"

"Suspicious might not be the right word. Suppose we said curious. "

Davenant reflected. Perhaps it was his mastery of the situation thatgave him unconsciously a rock-like air of nonchalance. When he spoke itwas with a little smile, which Guion took to be one of condescension. Condescension in the circumstances was synonymous with insolence. 

"Well, sir, suppose I allowed you to remain curious? What then?"

They were the wrong words. It was the wrong manner. Guion looked up witha start. His next words were uttered in the blind instinct of thehaughty-headed gentleman who thinks highly of himself to save themoment's dignity. 

"In that case I think we must call the bargain off. "

Davenant shot out of his seat. He, too, was not without a current of hotblood. 

"All right, sir. It's for you to decide. Only, I'm sorry. Good-by!" Heheld out his hand, which Guion, who was now leaning forward, toying withthe pens and pencils on the desk, affected not to see. A certain lack ofease that often came over Davenant at moments of leave-taking orgreeting kept him on the spot. "I hoped, " he stammered, "that I mighthave been of some use to you, and that Miss Guion--"

Guion looked up sharply. "Has _she_ got anything to do with it?"

"Nothing, " Davenant said, quickly, "nothing whatever. "

"I didn't see how she _could_ have--" Guion was going on, when Davenantinterrupted. 

"She has nothing to do with it whatever, " he repeated. "I was only goingto say that I hoped she might have got through her wedding withouthearing anything about--all this--all this fuss. "

In uttering the last words he had moved toward the door. His hand was onthe knob and he was about to make some repetition of his farewells whenGuion spoke again. He was leaning once more over the desk, his fingersplaying nervously with the pens and pencils. He made no further effortto keep up his rôle of keen-sighted man of business. His head was bent, so that Davenant could scarcely see his face, and when he spoke hiswords were muffled and sullen. 

"Half a million would be too much. Four hundred and fifty thousand wouldcover everything. "

"That would be all the same to me, " Davenant said, in a matter-of-facttone. 

But he went back to the desk and took his seat again. 

VI

Having watched through the window her father pass down the avenue on hisway to town, Miss Guion reseated herself mechanically in her place atthe breakfast-table in order to think. Not that her thought could beactive or coherent as yet; but a certain absorption of the facts waspossible by the simple process of sitting still and letting them sinkin. As the minutes went by, it became with her a matter of sensationrather than of mental effort--of odd, dream-like sensation, in which allthe protecting walls and clearly defined boundary-lines of life andconduct appeared to be melting away, leaving an immeasurable outlook onvacancy. To pass abruptly from the command of means, dignity, andconsideration out into a state in which she could claim nothing at allwas not unlike what she had often supposed it might be to go from thepomp and circumstance of earth as a disembodied spirit into space. Theanalogy was rendered the more exact by her sense, stunned and yetconscious, of the survival of her own personality amid what seemed auniversal wreckage. This persistence of the ego in conditions so vastand vague and empty as to be almost no conditions at all was the onepoint on which she could concentrate her faculties. 

It was, too, the one point on which she could form an articulatedthought. She was Olivia Guion still! In this slipping of the world frombeneath her feet she got a certain assurance from the affirmation of heridentity. She was still that character, compounded of many elements, which recognized as its most active energies insistence of will andtenacity of pride. She could still call these resources to her aid torender her indestructible. Sitting slightly crouched, her hands claspedbetween her knees, her face drawn and momentarily older, her lips set, her eyes tracing absently the arabesques chased on the coffee-urn, shewas inwardly urging her spirit to the buoyancy that cannot sink, to thevitality that rides on chaos. She was not actively or consciously doingthis; in the strictest sense she was not doing it at all; it was doingitself, obscurely and spontaneously, by the operation of subliminalforces of which she knew almost nothing, and to which her personalitybore no more than the relation of a mountain range to unrecordablevolcanic fusions deep down in the earth. 

When, after long withdrawal within herself, she changed her position, sighed, and glanced about her, she had a curious feeling of havingtraveled far, of looking back on the old familiar things from a long wayoff. The richly wrought silver, the cheerful Minton, the splendidlytoned mahogany, the Goya etchings on the walls, things of no greatvalue, but long ago acquired, treasured, loved, had suddenly becomeuseless and irrelevant. She had not lost Tory Hill so much as passedbeyond it--out into a condition where nothing that preceded it couldcount, and in which, so far as she was concerned, existence would haveto be a new creation, called afresh out of that which was without formand void. 

She experienced the same sensation, if it _was_ a sensation, when, ahalf-hour later, she found herself roaming dreamily rather thanrestlessly about the house. She was not anticipating her farewell of it;it had only ceased to be a background, to have a meaning; it was likethe scenery, painted and set, after the play is done. She herself hadbeen removed elsewhere, projected into a sphere where the signs andseasons were so different from anything she had ever known as to affordno indications--where day did not necessarily induce light, nor nightdarkness, nor past experience knowledge. In the confounding of theperceptive powers and the reeling of the judgment which the newcircumstances produced, she clung to her capacity to survive anddominate like a staggered man to a stanchion. 

In the mean time she was not positively suffering from either shock orsorrow. From her personal point of view the loss of money was not ofitself an overpowering calamity. It might entail the disruption oflifelong habits, but she was young enough not to be afraid of that. Inspite of a way of living that might be said to have given her the bestof everything, she had always known that her father's income was a smallone for his position in the world. As a family they had been in thehabit of associating on both sides of the Atlantic, with people whoserevenues were twice and thrice and ten times their own. The obligationto keep the pace set by their equals had been recognized as a domestichardship ever since she could remember, though it was a mitigatingcircumstance that in one way or another the money had always been found. Guion, Maxwell & Guion was a well which, while often threatening to rundry, had never failed to respond to a sufficiently energetic pumping. She had known the thought, however--fugitive, speculatory, not dweltupon as a real possibility--that a day might come when it would do so nomore. 

It was a thought that went as quickly as it came, its only importancebeing that it never caused her a shudder. If it sometimes brought matterfor reflection, it was in showing her to herself in a light in which, she was tolerably sure, she never appeared to anybody else--as the truechild of the line of frugal forebears, of sea-scouring men andcheese-paring women, who, during nearly two hundred years of thrift, hadput penny to penny to save the Guion competence. Standing in thecheerful "Colonial" hall which their stinting of themselves had made itpossible to build, and which was still furnished chiefly with theobjects--a settle, a pair of cupboards, a Copley portrait, a few chairs, some old decorative pottery--they had lived with, it afforded one moresteadying element for her bewilderment to grasp at, to feel herselftheir daughter. 

There was, indeed, in the very type of her beauty a hint of a carefullycalculated, unwasteful adaptation of means to ends quite in the spiritof their sparing ways. It was a beauty achieved by nature apparentlywith the surest, and yet with the slightest, expenditure of energy--abeauty of poise, of line, of delicacy, of reserve--with nothing of thesuperfluous, and little even of color, beyond a gleam of chrysoprase infine, gray eyes and a coppery, metallic luster in hair that otherwisewould have passed as chestnut brown. It was a beauty that came as muchfrom repose in inaction as from grace in movement, but of which anoticeable trait was that it required no more to produce it in the wayof effort than in that of artifice. Through the transparent whiteness ofthe skin the blue of each clearly articulated vein and the rose of eachhurrying flush counted for its utmost in the general economy of values. 

It was in keeping with this restraint that in all her ways, her manners, her dress, her speech, her pride, there should be a meticuloussimplicity. It was not the simplicity of the hedge-row any more than ofthe hothouse; it was rather that of some classic flower, lavender orcrown-imperial, growing from an ancient stock in some dignified, long-tended garden. It was thus a simplicity closely allied tosturdiness--the inner sturdiness not inconsistent with an outwardsemblance of fragility--the tenacity of strength by which the lavenderscents the summer and the crown-imperial adorns the spring, after theseverest snows. 

It was doubtless, this vitality, drawn from deep down in her nativesoil, that braced her now, to simply holding fast intuitively andalmost blindly till the first force of the shock should have so spentitself that the normal working of the faculties might begin again. Itwas the something of which she had just spoken to her father--thesomething that might be pride but that was not wholly pride, which hadnever been taxed nor called on. She could not have defined it in a morepositive degree; but even now, when all was confusion anddisintegration, she was conscious of its being there, an untouchedtreasure of resources. 

In what it supplied her with, however, there was no answer to thequestion that had been silently making itself urgent from the first wordof her father's revelations: What was to happen with regard to herwedding? It took the practical form of dealing with the mere outwardparaphernalia--the service, the bridesmaids, the guests, the feast. Would it be reasonable, would it be decent, to carry out rich andelaborate plans in a ruined house? Further than that she dared notinquire, though she knew very well there was still a greater question tobe met. When, during the course of the morning, Drusilla Fane came tosee her, Olivia broached it timidly, though the conversation brought herlittle in the way of help. 

Knowing all she knew through the gossip of servants, Drusilla felt thenecessity of being on her guard. She accepted Olivia's information thather father had met with losses as so much news, and gave utterance tosentiments of sympathy and encouragement. Beyond that she could not go. She was obliged to cast her condolences in the form of baldgeneralities, since she could make but a limited use of the name ofRupert Ashley as a source of comfort. More clearly than any one in theirlittle group she could see what marriage with Olivia in her newconditions--the horrible, tragic conditions that would arise if Petercould do nothing--would mean for him. She weighed her words, therefore, with an exactness such as she had not displayed since her early daysamong the Sussex Rangers, measuring the little more and the little lessas in an apothecary's balances. 

"You see, " Olivia said, trying to sound her friend's ideas, "from onepoint of view I scarcely know him. "

"You know him well enough to be in love with him. " Drusilla felt thatthat committed her to nothing. 

"That doesn't imply much--not necessarily, that is. You can be in lovewith people and scarcely know them at all. And it often happens that ifyou knew them better you wouldn't be in love with them. "

"And you know him well enough to be sure that he'll want to doeverything right. "

"Oh yes; I'm quite sure of that. I'm only uncertain that--everythingright--would satisfy me. "

Drusilla reflected. "I see what you mean. And, of course, you want todo--everything right--yourself. "

Olivia glanced up obliquely under her lashes. 

"I see what _you_ mean, too. "

"You mustn't see too much. " Drusilla spoke hastily. She waited in someanxiety to see just what significance Olivia had taken from her words;but when the latter spoke it was to pass on to another point. 

"You see, he didn't want to marry an American, in the first place. "

"Well, no one forced him into that. That's one thing he did with hiseyes open, at any rate. "

"His doing it was a sort of--concession. "

Drusilla looked at her with big, indignant eyes. 

"Concession to what, for pity's sake?"

"Concession to his own heart, I suppose. " Olivia smiled, faintly. "Yousee, all other things being equal, he would have preferred to marry oneof his own countrywomen. "

"It's six of one and half a dozen of the other. If he'd married one ofhis own countrywomen, the other things wouldn't have been equal. Sothere you are. "

"But the other things aren't equal now. Don't you see? They're changed. "

"_You're_ not changed. " Drusilla felt these words to be dangerous. Itwas a relief to her that Olivia should contradict them promptly. 

"Oh yes, I am. I'm changed--in value. With papa's troubles there's adepreciation in everything we are. "

Drusilla repeated these words to her father and mother at table when shewent home to luncheon. "If she feels like that now, " she commented, "what _will_ she say when she knows all?--if she ever has to know it. "

"But she hasn't changed, " Mrs. Temple argued. 

"It doesn't make any difference in _her_. "

Drusilla shook her head. "Yes, it does, mother dear. You don't knowanything about it. "

"I know enough about it, " Mrs. Temple declared, with some asperity, "tosee that she will be the same Olivia Guion after her father has gone toprison as she was in the days of her happiness. If there's any change, it will be to make her a better and nobler character. She's just thetype to be--to be perfected through suffering. "

"Y-y-es, " Drusilla admitted, her head inclined to one side. "That mightbe quite true in one way; but it wouldn't help Rupert Ashley to keep hisplace in the Sussex Rangers. "

"Do you mean to say they'd make him give it up?"

"They wouldn't make him, mother dear. He'd only have to. "

"Well, I never did! If that's the British army--"

"The British army is a very complicated institution. It fills a lot ofdifferent functions, and it's a lot of different things. It's one thingfrom the point of view of the regiment, and another from that of the WarOffice. It's one thing on the official side, and another on themilitary, and another on the social. You can't decide anything about itin an abstract, offhand way. Rupert Ashley might be a capital officer, and every one might say he'd done the honorable thing in standing byOlivia; and yet he'd find it impossible to go on as colonel of theRangers when his father-in-law was in penal servitude. There it is in anutshell. You can't argue about it, because that's the way it is. "

Rodney Temple said nothing; but he probably had these words in his mindwhen he, too, early in the afternoon, made his way to Tory Hill. Oliviaspoke to him of her father's losses, though her allusions to ColonelAshley were necessarily more veiled than they had been with Mrs. Fane. 

"The future may be quite different from what I expected. I can't tellyet for sure. I must see how things--work out. "

"That's a very good way, my dear, " the old man commended. "It's a largepart of knowledge to know how to leave well enough alone. Nine times outof ten life works out better by itself than we can make it. "

"I know I've got to feel my way, " she said, meaning to agree with him. 

"I don't see why. "

She raised her eyebrows in some surprise. "You don't see--?"

"No, I don't. Why should you feel your way? You're not blind. "

"I feel my way because I don't see it. "

"Oh yes, you do--all you need to see. "

"But I don't see any. I assure you it's all confusion. "

"Not a bit, my dear. It's as plain as a pikestaff--for the next step. "

"I don't know what you mean by the next step. "

"I suppose the next step would be--well, let us say what you've got todo to-day. That's about as much ground as any one can cover with astride. You see that, don't you? You've got to eat your dinner, and goto bed. That's all you've got to settle for the moment. "

Her lips relaxed in a pale smile. "I'm afraid I must look a littlefarther ahead than that. "

"What for? What good will it do? You won't see anything straight. It'sno use trying to see daylight two hours before dawn. People are foolishenough sometimes to make the attempt, but they only strain theireyesight. For every step you've got to take there'll be something toshow you the line to follow. "

"What?" She asked the question chiefly for the sake of humoring him. Shewas not susceptible to this kind of comfort, nor did she feel the needof it. 

"W-well, " the old man answered, slowly, "it isn't easy to tell you inany language you'd understand. "

"I can understand plain English, if that would do. "

"You can make it do, but it doesn't do very well. It's really one ofthose things that require what the primitive Christians called anunknown tongue. Since we haven't got that as a means of communication--"He broke off, stroking his long beard with a big handsome hand, butpresently began again. 

"Some people call it a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire bynight. Some people have described it by other figures of speech. Thedescription isn't of importance--it's the _Thing_. "

She waited a minute, before saying in a tone that had some awe in it, aswell as some impatience: "Oh, but I've never seen anything like that. Inever expect to. "

"That's a pity; because it's there. "

"There? Where?"

"Just where one would look for it--if one looked at all. When it moves, "he went on, his hand suiting the action to the word, on a level with hiseyes, "when it moves, you follow it, and when it rests, you wait. It'spossible--I don't know--I merely throw out the suggestion--no one canreally _know_ but yourself, because no one but yourself can see it--butit's possible that at this moment--for you--it's standing still. "

"I don't know what I gain either by its moving or its standing still, solong as I don't see it. "

"No, neither do I, " he assented, promptly. 

"Well, then?" she questioned. 

"Shall I tell you a little story?" He smiled at her behind his stringy, sandy beard, while his kind old eyes blinked wistfully. 

"If you like. I shall be happy to hear it. " She was not enthusiastic. She was too deeply engrossed with pressing, practical questions to findhis mysticism greatly to the point. 

He took a turn around the drawing-room before beginning, stopping tocaress the glaze of one of the K'ang-hsi vases on the mantelpiece, whilehe arranged his thoughts. 

"There was once a little people, " he began, turning round to where shesat in the corner of a sofa, her hands clasped in her lap--"there wasonce a little people--a mere handful, who afterward became a race--whosaw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, andfollowed it. That is to say, some of them certainly saw it, enough ofthem to lead the others on. For a generation or two they were littlemore than a band of nomads; but at last they came to a land where theyfought and conquered and settled down. "

"Yes? I seem to have heard of them. Please go on. "

"It was a little land, rather curiously situated between the Orient andthe West, between the desert and the sea. It had great advantages bothfor seclusion within itself and communication with the world outside. Ifa divine power had wanted to nourish a tender shoot, till it grew strongenough to ripen seed that would blow readily into every corner of theglobe, it probably couldn't have done better than to have planted itjust there. "

She nodded, to show that she followed him. 

"But this little land had also the dangers attendant on its advantages. To the north of it there developed a great power; to the south of itanother. Each turned greedy eyes on the little buffer state. And thelittle buffer state began to be very wise and politic and energetic. Itsaid, 'If we don't begin to take active measures, the Assyrian, or theEgyptian, whoever gets here first, will eat us up. But if we buy off theone, he will protect us against the other. '"

"That seems reasonable. "

"Yes; quite reasonable: too reasonable. They forgot that a power thatcould lead them by fire and cloud could protect them even againstconscript troops and modern methods of fighting. They forgot that if somuch trouble had been taken to put them where they were, it was notthat--assuming that they behaved themselves--it was not that they mightbe easily rooted out. Instead of having confidence within they lookedfor an ally from without, and chose Egypt. Very clever; very diplomatic. There was only one criticism to be made on the course taken--that it wasall wrong. There was a man on the spot to tell them so--one of thosefellows whom we should call pessimists if we hadn't been taught to speakof them as prophets. 'You are carrying your riches, ' he cried to them, 'on the shoulders of young asses, and your treasures on the bunches ofcamels, to a people that shall not profit you. For the Egyptians shallhelp in vain, and to no purpose. Your strength is--_to sit still_!'" Ashe stood looking down at her his kindly eyes blinked for a minutelonger, before he added, "Do you see the point?"

She smiled and nodded. "Yes. It isn't very obscure. Otherwise expressedit might be, When in doubt, do nothing. "

"Exactly; do nothing--till the pillar of cloud begins to move. "

Out of the old man's parable she extracted just one hint that sheconsidered useful. In the letter which she proceeded to write RupertAshley as soon as she was alone, a letter that would meet him on hisarrival in New York, she gave a statement of such facts as had come toher knowledge, but abstained from comments of her own, and fromsuggestions. She had intended to make both. She had thought it at firsther duty to take the initiative in pointing out the gulf of difficultiesthat had suddenly opened up between her lover and herself. It occurredto her now that she might possibly discern the leading of the pillar ofcloud from self-betrayal on his part. She would note carefully his acts, his words, the expressions of his face. She had little doubt of beingable to read in them some indication of her duty. This in itself was arelief. It was like being able to learn a language instead of having toinvent one. Nevertheless, as she finished her letter she was impelled toadd:

"We have asked some three hundred people to the church for the 28th. Many of them will not be in town, as the season is still so early; but Ithink it wisest to withdraw all invitations without consulting youfurther. This will leave us free to do as we think best after youarrive. We can then talk over everything from the beginning. "

With the hint thus conveyed she felt her letter to be discreetly worded. By the time she had slipped down the driveway to the box at the gate andposted it with her own hands her father had returned. 

She had ordered tea in the little oval sitting-room they used when quitealone, and told the maid to say she was not receiving if anybody called. She knew her father would be tired, but she hoped that if they wereundisturbed he would talk to her of his affairs. There was so much inthem that was mysterious to her. Notwithstanding her partial recoveryfrom the shock of the morning, she still felt herself transported to aworld in which the needs were new to her, and the chain of cause andeffect had a bewildering inconsequence. For this reason it seemed to herquite in the order of things--the curiously inverted order nowestablished, in which one thing was as likely as another--that herfather should stretch himself in a comfortable arm-chair and say nothingat all till after he had finished his second cup of tea. Even then hemight not have spoken if her own patience had held out. 

"So you didn't go away, after all, " she felt it safe to observe. 

"No, I didn't. "

"Sha'n't you _have_ to go?"

There was an instant's hesitation. 

"Perhaps not. In fact--I may almost definitely say--_not_. I should likeanother cup of tea. "

"That makes three, papa. Won't it keep you awake?"

"Nothing will keep me awake to-night. "

The tone caused her to look at him more closely as she took the cup hehanded back to her. She noticed that his eyes glittered and that ineither cheek, above the line of the beard, there was a hectic spot. Sheadjusted the spirit-lamp, and, lifting the cover of the kettle, lookedinside. 

"Has anything happened?" she asked, doing her best to give the questiona casual intonation. 

"A great deal has happened. " He allowed that statement to sink inbefore continuing. "I think"--he paused long--"I think I'm going to getthe money. "

She held herself well in hand, though at the words the old familiarlandmarks of her former world seemed to rise again, rosily, mistily, like the walls of Troy to the sound of Apollo's lute. She looked intothe kettle again to see if the water was yet boiling, taking longer thannecessary to peer into the quiet depth. 

"I'm so glad. " She spoke as if he had told her he had shaken hands withan old friend. "I thought you would. "

"Ah, but you never thought of anything like this. "

"I knew it would be something pretty good. With your name, there wasn'tthe slightest doubt of it. "

Had he been a wise man he would have let it go at that. He was not, however, a wise man. The shallow, brimming reservoir of his nature wasof the kind that spills over at a splash. 

"The most extraordinary thing has happened, " he went on. "A man came tomy office to-day and offered to lend me--no, not to lend--practically to_give_ me--enough money to pull me through. "

She held a lump of sugar poised above his cup with the sugar-tongs. Herastonishment was so great that she kept it there. The walls of the citywhich just now had seemed to be rising magically faded away again, leaving the same unbounded vacancy into which she had been looking outall day. 

"What do you mean by--practically to give you?"

"The man said lend. But my name is good for even more than you supposed, since he knows, and I know, that I can offer him no security. "

"How can he tell, then, that you'll ever pay it back?"

"He can't tell. That's just it. "

"And can you tell?" She let the lump of sugar fall with a circle of tinyeddies into the cup of tea. 

"I can tell--up to a point. " His tone indicated some abatement ofenthusiasm. 

"Up to what point?"

"Up to the point that I'll pay it back--if I can. That's all he asks. Asa matter of fact, he doesn't seem to care. "

She handed him his cup. "Isn't that a very queer way to lend money?"

"Of course it's queer. That's why I'm telling you. That's what makes itso remarkable--such a--tribute--to me, I dare say that sounds fatuous, but--"

"It doesn't sound fatuous so much as--"

"So much as what?"

The distress gathering in her eyes prepared him for her next wordsbefore she uttered them. 

"Papa, I shouldn't think you'd take it. "

He stared at her dully. Her perspicacity disconcerted him. He hadexpected to bolster up the ruins of his honor by her delightedacquiescence. He had not known till now how much he had been counting onthe justification of her relief. It was a proof, however, of the degreeto which his own initiative had failed him that he cowered before herjudgment, with little or no protest. 

"I haven't said I'd take it--positively. "

"Naturally. Of course you haven't. "

He dabbled the spoon uneasily in his tea, looking downcast. "I don'tquite see that, " he objected, trying to rally his pluck, "why it shouldbe--naturally. "

"Oh, don't you? To me it's self-evident. We may have lost money, butwe're still not--recipients of alms. "

"This wasn't alms. It was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. "

She was plainly awe-struck. "That's a great deal; but I supposed itwould be something large. And yet the magnitude of the sum only makes itthe more impossible to accept. "

"Y-es; of course--if you look at it in that way. " He put back his cup onthe table untasted. 

"Surely it's the only way to look at it? Aren't you going to drink yourtea?"

"No, I think not. I've had enough. I've--I've had enough--ofeverything. "

He sank back wearily into the depths of his arm-chair. The glitter hadpassed from his eyes; he looked ill. He had clearly not enough courageto make a stand for what he wanted. She could see how cruelly he wasdisappointed. After all, he might have accepted the money and told hernothing about it! He had taken her into his confidence because of thatneed of expansion that had often led him to "give away" what a morecrafty man would have kept to himself. She was profiting by hisindiscretion to make what was already so hard for him still harder. Sipping her tea slowly, she turned the subject over and over in hermind, seeking some ground on which to agree with him. 

She did this the more conscientiously, since she had often reproachedherself with a fixity of principle that might with some show of reasonbe called too inflexible. Between right and wrong other people, especially the people of her "world, " were able to see an infinitude ofshadings she had never been able to distinguish. She half accepted thecriticism often made of her in Paris and London that her Puritaninheritance had given an inartistic rigidity to her moral prospect. Itinclined her to see the paths of life as ruled and numbered like thechecker-board plan of an American city, instead of twisting and winding, quaintly and picturesquely, with round-about evasions and astonishingshort-cuts, amusing to explore, whether for the finding or the losing ofthe way, as in any of the capitals long trodden by the feet of men. Between the straight, broad avenues of conduct, well lighted and welldefined, there lay apparently whole regions of byways, in which thosewho could not easily do right could wander vaguely, without preciselydoing wrong, following a line that might be termed permissible. Intothis tortuous maze her spirit now tried to penetrate, as occasionally, to visit some historic monument, she had plunged into the slums of amedieval town. 

It was an exercise that brought her nothing but a feeling ofbewilderment. Having no sense of locality for this kind of labyrinth, she could only turn round and round confusedly. All she could do, whenfrom the drooping of her father's lids she feared he was falling off tosleep, leaving the question unsettled, was to say, helplessly:

"I suppose you'll be sorry now for having told me. "

He lifted his long lashes, that were like a girl's, and looked at her. The minutes that had passed had altered his expression. There was againa sparkle of resolve, perhaps of relief, in his glance. Without changinghis position, he spoke drowsily, and yet reassuringly, like a man with alarge and easy grasp of the situation. She was not sure whether it was arenewal of confidence on his part or a bit of acting. 

"No, dear, no. I wanted to get your point of view. It's alwaysinteresting to me. I see your objections--of course. I may say that Ieven shared some of them--till--"

She allowed him a minute in which to resume, but, as he kept silence, she ventured to ask:

"Does that mean that you don't share them now?"

"I see what there is to be said--all round. It isn't to be expected, dear, that you, as a woman, not used to business--"

"Oh, but I didn't understand that this _was_ business. That's just thepoint. To borrow money might be business--to borrow it on security, youknow, or whatever else is the usual way--but not to take it as apresent. "

He jerked himself up into a forward posture. When he replied to her, itwas with didactic, explanatory irritation. 

"When I said that, I was legitimately using language that might becalled exaggerated. Hyperbole is, I believe, the term grammarians usefor it. I didn't expect you, dear, to take me up so literally. It isn'tlike you. You generally have more imagination. As a matter of fact, Davenant's offer was that of a loan--"

"Oh! So it was--that man?"

"Yes; it was he. He expressly spoke of it as _a loan_. I myselfinterpreted it as a gift simply to emphasize its extraordinarygenerosity. I thought you'd appreciate that. Do you see?"

"Perfectly, papa; and it's the extraordinary generosity that seems to mejust what makes it impossible. Why should Mr. Davenant be generous tous? What does he expect to gain?"

"I had that out with him. He said he didn't expect to gain anything. "

"And you believed him?"

"Partly; though I suppose he has something up his sleeve. It wasn't mypolicy to question him too closely about that. It's not altogether myfirst concern. I need the money. "

"But you don't need the money--in that way, papa?"

"I need it in any way. If Davenant will let me have it--especially onsuch terms--I've no choice but to take it. "

"Oh, don't, papa. I'm sure it isn't right. I--I don't like him. "

"Pff! What's that got to do with it? This is business. "

"No, papa. It's not business. It's a great deal more--or a great dealless--I don't know which. "

"You don't know anything about it at all, dear. You may take that fromme. This is a man's affair. You really _must_ leave it to me to dealwith it. " Once more he fell back into the depth of his arm-chair andclosed his eyes. "If you don't mind, I think I should like a little nap. What have you got so especially against Davenant, anyhow?"

"I've nothing against him--except that I've never liked him. "

"What do you know about him? When did you ever see him?"

"I _haven't_ seen him for years--not since Drusilla used to bring him todances, when we were young girls. She didn't like it particularly, butshe had to do it because he was her father's ward and had gone to livewith them. He was uncouth--aggressive. Wasn't he a foundling, or astreet Arab, or something like that? He certainly seemed so. He wasn't abit--civilized. And once he--he said something--he almost insulted me. You wouldn't take his money now, papa?"

There was no answer. He breathed gently. She spoke more forcibly. 

"Papa, you wouldn't let a stranger pay your debts?"

He continued to breathe gently, his eyes closed, the long black lashescurling on his cheek. 

"Papa, darling, " she cried, "I'll help you. I'll take everything onmyself. I'll find a way--somehow. Only, _don't_ do this. "

He stirred, and murmured sleepily. 

"You attend to your wedding, dear. That'll be quite enough for you tolook after. "

"But I can't have a wedding if Mr. Davenant has to pay for it. Don't yousee? I can't be married at all. "

When he made no response to this shot, she understood finally that hemeant to let the subject drop. 

VII

It was in the nature of a relief to Olivia Guion when, on the followingday, her father was too ill to go to his office. A cold, caused by theexposure of two nights previous, and accompanied by a risingtemperature, kept him confined to his room, though not to bed. Theoccurrence, by maintaining the situation where it was, rendered itimpossible to take any irretrievable step that day. This was so muchgain. 

She had slept little; she had passed most of the night in active and, asit seemed to her, lucid thinking. Among the points clearest to her wasthe degree to which she herself was involved in the present business. Ina measure, the transfer of a large sum of money from Peter Davenant toher father would be an incident more vital to her than to any one else, since she more than any one else must inherit its moral effects. Whileshe was at a loss to see what the man could claim from them in returnfor his generosity, she was convinced that his exactions would be notunconnected with herself. If, on the other hand, he demanded nothing, then the lifelong obligation in the way of gratitude that must thus beimposed on her would be the most intolerable thing of all. Better anyprivation than the incurring of such a debt--a debt that would covereverything she was or could become. Its magnitude would fill herhorizon; she must live henceforth in the world it made, her verypersonality would turn into a thing of confused origin, sprung, it wastrue, from Henry and Carlotta Guion in the first place, but taking asecond lease of life from the man whose beneficence started her afresh. She would date back to him, as barbarous women date to their marriage orMohammedans to the Flight. It was a relation she could not have enduredtoward a man even if she loved him; still less was it sufferable withone whom she had always regarded with an indefinable disdain, when shehad not ignored him. The very possibility that he might purchase a holdon her inspired a frantic feeling, like that of the ermine at pollution. 

Throughout the morning she was obliged to conceal from her father thisintense opposition--or, at least to refrain from speaking of it. Whenshe made the attempt he grew so feverish that the doctor advised thepostponement of distressing topics till he should be better able todiscuss them. She could only make him as comfortable as might be, pondering while she covered him up in the chaise-longue, putting hisbooks and his cigars within easy reach, how she could best convert himto her point of view. It was inconceivable to her that he would persistin the scheme when he realized how it would affect her. 

She had gone down to the small oval sitting-room commanding thedriveway, thinking it probable that Drusilla Fane might come to see her. Watching for her approach, she threw open the French window set in therounded end of the room and leading out to the Corinthian-columnedportico that adorned what had once been the garden side of the house. There was no garden now, only a stretch of elm-shaded lawn, with a fewdahlias and zinnias making gorgeous clusters against the alreadygorgeous autumn-tinted shrubbery. On the wall of a neighboring brickhouse, Virginia creeper and ampelopsis added fuel to the fire ofsurrounding color, while a maple in the middle distance blazed with allthe hues that might have flamed in Moses's burning bush. It was one ofthose days of the American autumn when the air is shot with gold, whenthere is gold in the light, gold on the foliage, gold on the grass, goldon all surfaces, gold in all shadows, and a gold sheen in the skyitself. Red gold like a rich lacquer overlay the trunks of theoccasional pines, and pale-yellow gold, beaten and thin, shimmered alongthe pendulous garlands of the American elms, where they caught the sun. It was a windless morning and a silent one; the sound of a hammer or ofa motorist's horn, coming up from the slope of splendid woodland thatwas really the town, accentuated rather than disturbed the immediatestillness. 

To Olivia Guion this quiet ecstasy of nature was uplifting. Its rich, rejoicing quality restored as by a tonic her habitual confidence in herability to carry the strongholds of life with a high and graceful hand. Difficulties that had been paramount, overpowering, fell all at onceinto perspective, becoming heights to be scaled rather than barriersdefying passage. For the first time in the twenty-four hours since theprevious morning's revelations, she thought of her lover as bringingcomfort rather than as creating complications. 

Up to this minute he had seemed to withdraw from her, to elude her. As amatter of fact, though she spoke of him rarely and always with apurposely prosaic touch, he was so romantic a figure in her dreams thatthe approach of the sordid and the ugly had dispelled his image. It wasquite true, as she had said to Drusilla Fane, that from one point ofview she didn't know him very well. She might have said that she didn'tknow him at all on any of those planes where rents and the price of beefare factors. He had come into her life with much the same sort of appealas the wandering knight of the days of chivalry made to the damsel inthe family fortress. Up to his appearing she had thought herself toosophisticated and too old to be caught by this kind of fancy, especiallyas it was not the first time she had been exposed to it. In the personof Rupert Ashley, however, it presented itself with the requisitelimitations and accompaniments. He was neither so young nor so rich norof such high rank as to bring a disproportionate element into theirromance, while at the same time he had all the endowments of looks, birth, and legendary courage that the heroine craves in the hero. Whenhe was not actually under her eyes, her imagination embodied him mosteasily in the _svelte_ elegance of the King Arthur beside Maximilian'stomb at Innspruck. 

Their acquaintance had been brief, but illuminating--one of thosefriendships that can afford to transcend the knowledge of mere outwardpersonal facts to leap to the things of the heart and the spirit. It wasone of the commonplaces of their intimate speech together that they"seemed to have known each other always"; but now that it was necessaryfor her to possess some practical measure of his character, she saw, with a sinking of the heart, that they had never passed beyond the stageof the poetic and pictorial. 

Speculating as to what he would say when he received her letter tellingof her father's misfortunes, she was obliged to confess that she "hadnot the remotest idea. " Matters of this sort belonged to a world onwhich they had deliberately turned their backs. That is to say, she hadturned her back on it deliberately, though by training knowing itsimportance, fearing that to him it would seem mundane, inappropriate, American. This course had been well enough during the period of ahigh-bred courtship, almost too fastidiously disdainful of thecommonplace; but now that the Fairy Princess had become a beggar-maid, while Prince Charming was Prince Charming still, it was natural that theformer should recognize its insufficiency. She had recognized it fullyyesterday; but this morning, in the optimistic brightness of the goldenatmosphere, romance came suddenly to life again and confidence grewstrong. Drusilla had said that she, Olivia, knew him well enough to besure that he would want to do--everything right. They would doeverything right--together. They would save her father whom she loved sotenderly, from making rash mistakes, and--who knew?--find a way, perhaps, to rescue him in his troubles and shelter his old age. 

She was so sure of herself to-day, and so nearly sure of Ashley, thateven the shock of seeing Peter Davenant coming up the driveway, betweenthe clumps of shrubbery, brought her no dismay. She was quick in readingthe situation. It was after eleven o'clock; he had had time to go toBoston, and, learning that her father was not at his office, had come toseek him at home. 

She made her arrangements promptly. Withdrawing from the window beforehe could see her, she bade the maid say that, Mr. Guion being ill, MissGuion would be glad to see Mr. Davenant, if he would have the kindnessto come in. To give an air of greater naturalness to the_mise-en-scène_, she took a bit of embroidery from her work-basket, andbegan to stitch at it, seating herself near the open window. She was notwithout a slight, half-amused sense of lying in ambush, as if someBiblical voice were saying to her, "Up! for the Lord hath deliveredthine enemy into thine hand. "

 * * * * *

"My father isn't well, " she explained to Davenant, when she had shakenhands with him and begged him to sit down. "I dare say he may not beable to go out for two or three days to come. "

"So they told me at his office. I was sorry to hear it. "

"You've been to his office, then? He told me you were there yesterday. That's partly the reason why I've ventured to ask you to come in. "

She went on with her stitching, turning the canvas first on one side andthen on the other, sticking the needle in with very precise care. Hefancied she was waiting for him to "give himself away" by sayingsomething, no matter what. Having, however, a talent for silence withoutembarrassment, he made use of it, knowing that by means of it he couldforce her to resume. 

He was not at ease; he was not without misgiving. It had been far fromhis expectation to see her on this errand, or, for the matter of that, on any errand at all. It had never occurred to him that Guion couldspeak to her of a transaction so private, so secret, as that proposedbetween them. Since, then, his partner in the undertaking had beenfoolish, Davenant felt the necessity on his side of being doublydiscreet. Moreover, he was intuitive enough to feel her antipathy towardhim on purely general grounds. "I'm not her sort, " was the summing-up ofher sentiments he made for himself. He could not wholly see why heexcited her dislike since, beyond a moment of idiotic presumption longago, he had never done her any harm. 

He fancied that his personal appearance, as much as anything, wasdispleasing to her fastidiousness. He was so big, so awkward; his handsand feet were so clumsy. A little more and he would have been ungainly;perhaps she considered him ungainly as it was. He had tried to negativehis defects by spending a great deal of money on his clothes and beingas particular as a girl about his nails; but he felt that with all hisefforts he was but a bumpkin compared with certain other men--RodneyTemple, for example--who never took any pains at all. Looking at hernow, her pure, exquisite profile bent over her piece of work, while thesun struck coppery gleams from her masses of brown hair, he felt as hehad often felt in rooms filled with fragile specimens ofart--flower-like cups of ancient glass, dainty groups in Meissen, mysticlovelinesses wrought in amber, ivory, or jade--as if his big, grosspersonality ought to shrink into itself and he should walk on tiptoe. 

"I understand from my father, " she said, when she found herself obligedto break the silence, "that you've offered to help him in hisdifficulties. I couldn't let the occasion pass without telling you howmuch I appreciate your generosity. "

She spoke without looking up; words and tone were gently courteous, butthey affected him like an April zephyr, that ought to bring the balm ofspring, and yet has the chill of ice in it. 

"Haven't you noticed, " he said, slowly, choosing his words with care, "that generosity consists largely in the point of view of the otherparty? You may give away an old cloak, for the sake of getting rid ofit; but the person who receives it thinks you kind. "

"I see that, " she admitted, going on with her work, "and yet there arepeople to whom I shouldn't offer an old cloak, even if I had one to giveaway. "

He colored promptly. "You mean that if they needed anything you'd offerthem the best you had. "

"I wonder if you'd understand that I'm not speaking ungraciously if Isaid that--I shouldn't offer them anything at all?"

He put up his hand and stroked his long, fair mustache. It was the sortof rebuke to which he was sensitive. It seemed to relegate him toanother land, another world, another species of being from those towhich she belonged. It was a second or two before he could decide whatto say. "No, Miss Guion, " he answered then; "I don't understand thatpoint of view. "

"I'm sorry. I hoped you would. "

"Why?"

She lifted her clear gray eyes on him for the briefest possible look. "Need I explain?"

The question gave him an advantage he was quick to seize. "Not at all, Miss Guion. You've a right to your own judgments. I don't ask to knowthem. "

"But I think you ought. When you enter into what is distinctly ourprivate family affair, I've a right to give my opinion. "

"You don't think I question that?"

"I'm afraid I do. I imagine you're capable of carrying your point, regardless of what I feel. "

"But I've no point to carry. I find Mr. Guion wanting to borrow a sum ofmoney that I'm prepared to lend. It's a common situation in business. "

"Ah, but this is not business. It's charity. "

"Did Mr. Guion tell you so?"

"He did. He told me all about it. My father has no secrets from me. "

"Did he use the word--charity?"

"Almost. He said you offered him a loan, but that it really was a gift. "

His first impulse was to repudiate this point of view, but a minute'sreflection decided him in favor of plain speaking. "Well, " he said, slowly, "suppose it _was_ a gift. Would there be any harm in it?"

"There wouldn't be any harm, perhaps; there would only bean--impossibility. " She worked very busily, and spoke in a low voice, without looking up. "A gift implies two conditions--on the one side theright to offer, and on the other the freedom to take. "

"But I should say that those conditions existed--between Mr. Guion andme. "

"But not between you and me. Don't you see? That's the point. To anysuch transaction as this I have to be, in many ways, the most importantparty. "

Again he was tempted to reject this interpretation; but, once more, onsecond thought, he allowed it to go uncontested. When he spoke it was topass to another order of question. 

"I wonder how much you know?"

"About my father's affairs? I know everything. "

"Everything?"

"Yes; everything. He told me yesterday. I didn't expect him to come homelast night at all; but he came--and told me what you had proposed. "

"You understood, then, " Davenant stammered, "that he might haveto--to--go away?"

"Oh, perfectly. "

"And aren't you very much appalled?"

The question was wrung from him by sheer astonishment. That she shouldsit calmly embroidering a sofa-cushion, with this knowledge in herheart, with this possibility hanging over her, seemed to him to pass thelimits of the human. He knew there were heroic women; but he had notsupposed that with all their heroism they carried themselves with suchsang-froid. Before replying she took time to search in her work-basketfor another skein of silk. 

"Appalled is scarcely the word. Of course, it was a blow to me; but Ihope I know how to take a blow without flinching. "

"Oh, but one like this--"

"We're able to bear it. What makes you think we can't? If we didn't try, we should probably involve ourselves in worse. "

"But how could there be worse?"

"That's what I don't know. You see, when my father told me of your kindoffer, he didn't tell me what you wanted. "

"Did he say I wanted anything?"

"He said you hadn't asked for anything. That's what leaves us so much inthe dark. "

"Isn't it conceivable--" he began, with a slightly puzzled air. 

"Not that it matters, " she interrupted, hurriedly. "Of course, if we hadanything with which to compensate you--anything adequate, that is--Idon't say that we shouldn't consider seriously the suggestion you weregood enough to make. But we haven't. As I understand it, we haven'tanything at all. That settles the question definitely. I hope you see. "

"Isn't it conceivable, " he persisted, "that a man might like to do athing, once in a way, without--"

"Without asking for an equivalent in return? Possibly. But in this caseit would only make it harder for me. "

"How so?"

"By putting me under an overwhelming obligation to a total stranger--anobligation that I couldn't bear, while still less could I do away withit. "

"I don't see, " he reasoned, "that you'd be under a greater obligation tome in that case than you are to others already. "

"At present, " she corrected, "we're not under an obligation to any one. My father and I are contending with circumstances; we're not askingfavors of individuals. I know we owe money--a great deal of money--to agood many people--"

"Who are total strangers, just like me. "

"Not total strangers just like you--but total strangers whom I don'tknow, and don't know anything about, and who become impersonal fromtheir very numbers. "

"But you know Mrs. Rodman and Mrs. Clay. They're not impersonal. "

All he saw for the instant was that she arrested her needle half-waythrough the stitch. She sat perfectly still, her head bent, her fingersrigid, as she might have sat in trying to catch some sudden, distantsound. It was only in thinking it over afterward that he realized whatshe must have lived through in the seconds before she spoke. 

"Does my father owe money to _them_?"

The hint of dismay was so faint that it might have eluded any ear butone rendered sharp by suspicion. Davenant felt the blood rushing to histemples and a singing in his head. "My God, she didn't know!" he cried, inwardly. The urgency of retrieving his mistake kept him calm and cool, prompting him to reply with assumed indifference. 

"I really can't say anything about it. I suppose they would be among thecreditors--as a matter of course. "

For the first time she let her clear, grave eyes rest fully on him. Theywere quiet eyes, with exquisitely finished lids and lashes. In hisimagination their depth of what seemed like devotional reveriecontributed more than anything else to her air of separation andremoteness. 

"Isn't it very serious--when there's anything wrong with estates?"

He answered readily, still forcing a tone of careless matter-of-fact. 

"Of course it's serious. Everything is serious in business. Yourfather's affairs are just where they can be settled--now. But if we putit off any longer it might not be so easy. Men often have to take chargeof one another's affairs--and straighten them out--and advance oneanother money--and all that--in business. "

She looked away from him again, absently. She appeared not to belistening. There was something in her manner that advised him of theuselessness of saying anything more in that vein. After a while shefolded her work, smoothing it carefully across her knee. The only signshe gave of being unusually moved was in rising from her chair and goingto the open window, where she stood with her back to him, apparentlywatching the dartings from point to point of a sharp-eyed gray squirrel. 

Rising as she did, he stood waiting for her to turn and say somethingelse. Now that the truth was dawning on her, it seemed to him as well toallow it to grow clear. It would show her the futility of furtheropposition. He would have been glad to keep her ignorant; he regrettedthe error into which she herself unwittingly had led him; but, since ithad been committed, it would not be wholly a disaster if it summoned herto yield. 

Having come to this conclusion, he had time to make another observationwhile she still stood with her back to him. It was to consider himselffortunate in having ceased to be in love with her. In view of all thecircumstances, it was a great thing to have passed through that phaseand come out of it. He had read somewhere that a man is never twice inlove with the same person. If that were so, he could fairly believehimself immune, as after a certain kind of malady. If it were not forthis he would have found in her hostility to his efforts and herrepugnance to his person a temptation--a temptation to which he wasspecially liable in regard to living things--to feel that it was hisright to curb the spirit and tame the rebellion of whatever was restiveto his control. There was something in this haughty, high-strungcreature, poising herself in silence to stand upright in the face offate, that would have called forth his impulse to dominate her will, tosubdue her lips to his own, if he had really cared. Fortunately, hedidn't care, and so could seek her welfare with detachment. 

Turning slowly, she stood grasping the back of the chair from which shehad risen. He always remembered afterward that it was a chair of whichthe flowing curves and rich interlacings of design contrasted with hersubtly emphasized simplicity. He had once had the morbid curiosity towatch, in an English law-court, the face and attitude of a woman--asurgeon's wife--standing in the dock to be sentenced to death. It seemedto him now that Olivia Guion stood like her--with the same resoluteness, not so much desperate as slightly dazed. 

"Wasn't it for something of that kind--something wrong withestates--that Jack Berrington was sent to prison?"

The question took him unawares. "I--I don't remember. "

"I do. I should think you would. The trial was in all the papers. It wasthe Gray estate. He was Mrs. Gray's trustee. He ruined the whole Grayfamily. "

"Possibly. " He did his best to speak airily. "In the matter of estatesthere are all sorts of hitches that can happen. Some are worse thanothers, of course--"

"I've seen his wife, Ada Berrington, once or twice, when I've been inParis. She lives there, waiting for him to come out of Singville. Sheavoids her old friends when she can--but I've seen her. "

"I think I remember hearing about them, " he said, for the sake of sayingsomething; "but--"

"I should like to go and talk with my father. Would you mind waiting?"

She made as though she would pass him, but he managed to bar her way. 

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Miss Guion. If he's not well it'llonly upset him. Why not let everything be just as it is? You won'tregret it a year hence--believe me. In nine things out of ten you'd knowbetter than I; but this is the tenth thing, in which I know better thanyou. Why not trust me--and let me have a free hand?"

"I'm afraid I must go to my father. If you'll be kind enough to wait, I'll come back and tell you what he says. Then we shall know. Will youplease let me pass?"

He moved to one side. He thought again of the woman in the Englishlaw-court. It was like this that she walked from the dock--erect, unflinching, graceful, with eyes fixed straight before her, as thoughshe saw something in the air. 

He watched her cross the hall to the foot of the staircase. There shepaused pensively. In a minute or two she came back to the sitting-roomdoor. 

"If it should be like--like Jack Berrington, " she said, from thethreshold, with a kind of concentrated quiet in her manner, "then--whatyou suggested--would be more out of the question than ever. "

"I don't see that, " he returned, adopting her own tone. "I should thinkit would be just the other way. "

She shook her head. 

"There are a lot of points of view that you haven't seen yet, " hepersisted. "I could put some of them before you if you'd give me time. "

"It would be no use doing that. I should never believe anything but thatwe, my father and I, should bear the responsibilities of our own acts. "

"You'll think differently, " he began, "when you've looked at the thingall round; and then--"

But before he could complete his sentence she had gone. 

 * * * * *

Having seen her go up-stairs, he waited in some uncertainty. Whenfifteen or twenty minutes had gone by and she did not return, he decidedto wait no longer. Picking up his hat and stick from the chair on whichhe had laid them, he went out by the French window, making his way tothe gate across the lawn. 

VIII

Finding the door of her father's room ajar, Miss Guion pushed it openand went in. 

Wearing a richly quilted dressing-gown, with cuffs and rolled collar oflavender silk, he lay asleep in the chaise-longue, a tan-colored rugacross his feet. On a table at his left stood a silver box containingcigars, a silver ash-tray, a silver match-box, and a small silver lampburning with a tiny flame. Each piece was engraved with his initials anda coat-of-arms. On his right there was an adjustable reading-stand, holding an open copy of a recent English review. One hand, adorned withan elaborately emblazoned seal-ring, hung heavily toward the floor; acigar that had gone out was still between the fingers. His head, restingon a cushion of violet brocade, had fallen slightly to one side. 

She sat down beside him, to wait till he woke up. It was a large room, with white doors and wainscoting. Above the woodwork it was papered inpale yellow. On the walls there were water-colors, prints, photographs, and painted porcelain plaques. Over the bed, for decorative rather thandevotional purposes, hung an old French ivory crucifix, while lowerdown was a silver holy-water stoup of Venetian make, that was oftenestused for matches. It had been the late Mrs. Guion's room, and expressedher taste. It contained too many ornaments, too many knickknacks, toomany mirrors, too many wardrobes, too many easy-chairs, too muchembossed silver on the dressing-table, too much old porcelain, whereverthere was a place for it. Everything was costly, from the lace coverleton the bed to the Persian rugs on the floor. 

Olivia looked vaguely about the room, as on an apartment she had neverbefore seen. She found herself speculating as to the amount theseelaborate furnishings would fetch if sold. She recalled the fact, forgotten till now, that when the Berringtons' belongings, purchasedwith reckless extravagance, passed under the hammer, they had gone for asong. She made the same forecast regarding the contents of Tory Hill. Much money had been spent on them, but, with the exception perhaps ofsome of the old portraits, there was little of real intrinsic value. Shemade the reflection coldly, drearily, as bearing on things that had noconnection with herself. 

Her eyes traveled back to her father. With the muscles of the facerelaxed in sleep, he looked old and jaded. The mustache, which had notbeen waxed or curled that day, sagged at the corners, the mouth saggingunder it. Above the line of the beard the skin was mottled and puffy. The lashes rested on his cheeks with the luxuriance of a girl's, and thesplendid eyebrows had all their fullness; but the lids twitched andquivered like those of a child that has fallen asleep during a fit ofweeping. 

It was this twitching that softened her, that compelled her to judge himfrom the most merciful point of view. There was something piteous abouthim, something that silenced reproaches, that disarmed severity. She hadcome up-stairs staggered, incredulous--incredulous and yetconvinced--outraged, terrified; but now the appeal of that fagged faceand those quivering lids was too strong for her. It wrought in her notso much sympathy as comprehension, an understanding of him such as shehad never before arrived at. In his capacity of father she had loved himunrestrainedly, but admired him with reserves. It was impossible not tolove a parent so handsome, so genial, so kind, so generally admired; itwas equally impossible not to criticize, however gently, a man with sucha love of luxury, of unwarranted princeliness, and of florid display. She was indulgent to his tastes in the degree to which a new andenlightened generation can be tolerant of the errors of that precedingit, but she could not ignore the fact that the value he set onthings--in morals, society, or art--depended on their power to strikethe eye. She had smiled at that, as at something which, after all, washarmless. She had smiled, too, when he offered to himself--and to heralso, it had to be admitted--the best of whatever could be had, since, presumably, he could afford it; though, as far as she was concerned, shewould have been happier with simpler standards and a less ambitious modeof life. In following the path her parents had marked out for her, andto some extent beaten in advance, she had acquiesced in their plansrather than developed wishes of her own. Having grown tired of herannual round of American and English country-houses, with interludes forParis, Biarritz, or Cannes, she had gone on chiefly because, as far asshe could see, there was nothing else to do. 

Looking at him now, it came over her for the first time that she must bea disappointment to him. He had never given her reason to suspect it, and yet it must be so. First among the aims for which he had beenstriving, and to attain to which he had hazarded so much, there musthave been the hope that she should make a brilliant match. That, andthat alone, would have given them as a family the sure internationalposition he had coveted, and which plenty of other Americans weresuccessful in securing. 

It was only of late years, with the growth of her own independent socialjudgment, that she could look back over the past and see the Guions asin the van of that movement of the New World back upon the Old of whichthe force was forever augmenting. As Drusilla Fane was fond of saying, it was a manifestation of the nomadic, or perhaps the predatory, spiritcharacteristic of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It was part of that impulseto expand, annex, appropriate, which had urged the Angles to descend onthe shores of Kent and the Normans to cross from Dives to Hastings. Later, it had driven their descendants over the Atlantic, asindividuals, as households, or as "churches"; and now, from their rich, comfortable, commonplace homes in New England, Illinois, or California, it bade later descendants still lift up their eyes and see how muchthere was to be desired in the lands their ancestors had leftbehind--fair parks, stately manors, picturesque châteaux, sonoroustitles, and varied, dignified ways of living. 

To a people with the habit of compassing sea and land to get whateverwas good to have the voyage back was nothing, especially in the days ofeasy money and steam. The Guions had been among the first to make it. They had been among the first Americans to descend on the shores ofEurope with the intention--more or less obscure, more or lessacknowledged, as the case might be--of acquiring and enjoying thetreasures of tradition by association or alliance or any other meansthat might present themselves. Richard Guion, grandfather of HenryGuion, found the way to cut a dash in the Paris of the early SecondEmpire and to marry his daughter, Victoria Guion, to the Marquis deMelcourt. From the simple American point of view of that day and date itwas a dazzling match, long talked of by the naïve press of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. 

By the more ambitious members of the Guion house it was considered asthe beginning of a glorious epoch; but, looking back now, Olivia couldsee how meager the results had been. Since those days a brilliantAmerican society had sprung up on the English stem, like a mistletoe onan oak; but, while Henry and Charlotta Guion would gladly have strucktheir roots into that sturdy trunk, they lacked the money essential toparasitic growth. As for Victoria Guion, French life, especially the oldroyalist phase of it, which offers no crevices on its creaseless bark inwhich a foreign seed can germinate, absorbed her within its tough oldblossom as a pitcher-plant sucks in a fly. Henceforth the utmost shecould do for her kith and kin was to force open the trap from time totime, so that Olivia, if she liked, could be swallowed, too. In thattask the old lady was not only industrious but generous, offering tosubscribe handsomely toward the _dot_, as well as giving it to beunderstood that the bride-elect would figure in the end as her residuarylegatee. Owing to this prospect Olivia had been compelled to decline acomte and a vicomte of crusading ancestry, procured at some pains byMadame de Melcourt; but when she also refused the eminently eligible Ducde Berteuil, whose terms in the way of dowry were reasonable, while heoffered her a splendidly historic name and background, the Marquise notunnaturally lost her temper and declared that she washed her hands ofher grandniece once for all. 

Not till this minute had Olivia ever considered that this reluctance onher part to be "well established" must have been something like a griefto her father, for he had never betrayed a sign of it. On the contrary, he had seemed to approve her decisions, and had even agreed with her inpreferring the mistletoe to the pitcher-plant. He welcomed her back toTory Hill, where her residences were longer, now that she ceased to bemuch with Madame de Melcourt, and yet was always ready with money andhis consent when she had invitations from her friends abroad. On herengagement to Rupert Ashley he expressed complete satisfaction, and saidin so many words that it was a more appropriate match for her than anyFrench alliance, however distinguished. His tenderness in this respectcame over her now as peculiarly touching, unsealing the fount of filialpity at a moment when other motives might have made for indignation andrevolt. 

He opened his eyes without giving any other sign of waking. 

"Hallo! What are you looking at me for?"

The tone was not impatient, but she heard in it an implication of fear. 

"Papa, are your troubles anything like Jack Berrington's?"

He gazed at her without moving a muscle or changing a shade. She onlyfancied that in the long look with which he regarded her there was areceding, sinking, dying light, as though the soul within him waswithdrawing. 

"What makes you ask that?"

The intonation was expressionless, and yet, it seemed to her, a littlewary. 

"I ask chiefly because--well, because I think they are. "

He looked at her for a minute more, perhaps for longer. 

"Well, then--you're right. "

Again she had the sensation, familiar to her since yesterday, of theworld reeling to pieces around her while her own personality survived. When she spoke, her voice sounded as if it came out of the wildness ofa surging wreck. 

"Then that's what you meant in saying yesterday that when everything wassettled you still wouldn't be able to pay all you owed. "

"That's what I meant--exactly. "

He lay perfectly still, except that he raised his hand and puffed at hisextinct cigar. She looked down at the pattern on the Persian rug besidehis couch--a symmetrical scroll of old rose, on a black ground sown withmulticolored flowerets. 

"I suppose it's the Clay heirs and the Rodman heirs you owe the moneyto?"

"And the Compton heirs, and old Miss Burnaby, and the two Misses Brown, and--"

"Haven't they anything left?"

"Oh yes. It isn't all gone, by any means. " Then he added, as if to makea clean breast of the affair and be done with it: "The personalproperty--what you may call the cash--is mostly gone! Those that haveowned real estate--like the Rodmans and Fanny Burnaby--well, they've gotthat still. "

"I see. " She continued to sit looking meditatively down at the rug. "Isuppose, " she ventured, after long thinking, "that that's the moneywe've been living on all these years?"

"Yes; in the main. " He felt it useless to quibble or to try to extenuatethe facts. 

"How many years would that be?"

"I'm not very sure; on and off, it's about ten since I began using someof their money to--help out my income. Latterly--you may as well knowit--I haven't had any real income of my own at all. "

"So that their money has been paying for--for all this. "

Her hands made a confused little gesture, indicating the luxury of hispersonal appointments and of the room. 

He shrugged his shoulders and arched his eyebrows in a kind of protest, which was nevertheless not denial. "W-well! If you choose to put it so!"

"And for me, too, " she went on, looking at him now with a bewilderedopening of her large gray eyes--"for my visits, my clothes, mymaid--everything!"

"I don't see any need, " he said, with a touch of peevishness, "for goingso terribly into detail. "

"I don't see how it can be helped. It's so queer--and startling--tothink I've had so much that wasn't mine. "

"You mustn't think it was deliberately planned--" he began, weakly. 

"And now the suggestion is, " she interrupted, "that Mr. Davenant shouldpay for it. That seems to me to make it even worse than--than before. "

"I confess I don't follow you there, " he complained. "If hedoesn't--then I go to Singville. "

"Wouldn't you rather?"

He raised himself stiffly into a sitting posture. "Would _you_?"

She did not hesitate in her reply. "Yes, papa. I _would_ rather--if Iwere you. "

"But since you're not me--since you are yourself--would you still ratherthat I went to Singville?"

There was a little lift to her chin, a faint color in her face as shereplied: "I'd rather pay--however I did it. I'd rather pay--in anyway--than ask some one else to do it. "

He fell back on the cushion of violet brocade. "So would I--if I hadonly myself to think of. We're alike in that. "

"Do you mean that you'd rather do it if it wasn't for me?"

"I've got to take everything into consideration. It's no use for me tomake bad worse by refusing a good offer. I must try to make the best ofa bad business for every one's sake. I don't want to take Davenant'smoney. It's about as pleasant for me as swallowing a knife. But I'dswallow a knife if we could only hush the thing up long enough for youto be married--and for me to settle some other things. I shouldn't carewhat happened after that. They might take me and chuck me into any holethey pleased. "

"But I couldn't be married in that way, papa dear. I couldn't be marriedat all to--to one man--when another man had a claim on me. "

"Had a claim on you? How do you mean?"

"He'll have that--if he pays for everything--pays for everything foryears and years back. Don't you see?"

"A claim on you for what, pray?"

"That's what I don't know. But whatever it is, I shall feel that I'm inhis debt. "

"Nonsense, dear. I call that morbid. It _is_ morbid. "

"But don't you think it's what he's working for? I can't see anythingelse that--that could tempt him; and the minute we make a bargain withhim we agree to his terms. "

There was a long silence before he said, wearily:

"If we call the deal off we must do it with our eyes open to theconsequences. Ashley would almost certainly throw you over--"

"No; because that possibility couldn't arise. "

"And you'll have to be prepared for the disgrace--"

"I shall not look on it as disgrace so much as--paying. It will bepaying for what we've had--if not in one sort of coin, then in another. But whatever it is, we shall be paying the debt ourselves; we sha'n't befoisting it off on some one else. "

"Why do you say we?"

"Well, won't it be we? I shall have my part in it, sha'n't I? Youwouldn't shut me out from that? I've had my share of the--of the wrong, so I ought to take my share in the reparation. My whole point is that weshould be acting together. "

"They can't put _you_ in Singville. "

"No; but they can't keep me from sitting outside the walls. I shall wantto do that, papa, if you're within. I'm not going to separate myselffrom you--or from anything you're responsible for. I couldn't if Iwanted to; but as it happens I shouldn't try. I should get a kind ofsatisfaction out of it, shouldn't you?--the satisfaction of knowing thatevery day we suffered, and every night we slept through or weptthrough, and every bit of humiliation and dishonor, was so muchcontributed to the great work of--paying up. Isn't that the way you'dtake it?"

"That's all very fine now, dear, when you're--what shall I say?--alittle bit _exaltée_; but how do you think you'll feel when they've--whenthey've"--he continued to speak with his eyes shut convulsively--"whenthey've arrested me and tried me and sentenced me and locked me up forten or fifteen years?"

"I shall feel as if the bitterness of death were past. But I should feelworse than that--I should feel as if the bitterness of both death andhell were still to come if we didn't make an effort to shoulder our ownresponsibilities. "

There was more in the same vein. He listened for the greater part of thetime with his eyes closed. He was too unutterably tired to argue or tocontest her point of view. Beyond suggesting that there were sides tothe question she hadn't yet considered, he felt helpless. He wasrestrained, too, from setting them forth by a certain hesitation indemanding from her anything she did not concede of her own accord. Thatshe would ultimately see for herself he had little doubt. In any case hewas more or less indifferent from sheer spiritual exhaustion. He hadceased to direct, or try to direct, his own affairs or those of any oneelse. In his present condition he could only lie still and let come whatmight. Fate or God would arrange things either in the way of adjustmentor of fatal ruin without interference on his part. 

So as he lay and listened to his daughter he uttered some bit of reasonor some feeble protest only now and then. When, occasionally, he lookedat her, it was to see her--somewhat deliriously--white, slim, ethereal, inexorable, like the law of right. He was feverish; his head throbbed;whenever he opened his eyes the objects in the room seemed to whirlabout, while she sat tense, low-voiced, gentle, a spirit of expiation. 

Among the various ways in which he had thought she might take his dreadannouncement this one had never occurred to him; and yet, now that hesaw it, he recognized it as just what he might have expected from thealmost too rigid rectitude and decidedly too uncompromising pride thatmade up her character. It was the way, too, he admitted, most worthy ofa Guion. It was the way he would have chosen for himself if he hadnothing to consider but his own tastes. He himself was as eager in hisway to make satisfaction as she; he was only deterred by considerationsof common sense. From the point of view of a man of business it was morethan a little mad to refuse the money that would pay his creditors, hushup a scandal, and keep the course of daily life running in somethinglike its accustomed channel, merely because for the rest of his days hemust be placed in a humiliating moral situation. He wouldn't like that, of course; and yet everything else was so much worse for his clients, even more than for himself. This was something she did not see. In spiteof the measure in which he had agreed with her heroic views of"paying, " he returned to that thought after she had kissed him and goneaway. 

During the conversation with him Olivia had so completely forgottenDavenant that when she descended to the oval sitting-room she wasscarcely surprised to find that he had left and that Drusilla Fane waswaiting in his place. 

"You see, Olivia, " Mrs. Fane reasoned, in her sympathetic, practicalway, "that if you're not going to have your wedding on the 28th, you'vegot to do something about it now. "

"What would you do?"

Olivia brought her mind back with some effort from the consideration ofthe greater issues to fix it on the smaller ones. In its way Drusilla'sinterference was a welcome diversion, since the point she raised wasimportant enough to distract Olivia's attention from decisions toopoignant to dwell on long. 

"I've thought that over, " Drusilla explained--"mother and I together. Ifwe were you we'd simply scribble a few lines on your card and send itround by post. "

"Yes? And what would you scribble?"

"We'd say--you see, it wouldn't commit you to anything too pointed--we'dsay, simply, 'Miss Guion's marriage to Colonel Ashley will not takeplace on October 28th. ' There you'd have nothing but the statement, andthey could make of it what they liked. "

"Which would be a good deal, wouldn't it?"

"Human nature being human nature, Olivia, you can hardly expect peoplenot to talk. But you're in for that, you know, whatever happens now. "

"Oh, of course. "

"So that the thing to do is to keep them from going to the church nextThursday fortnight, and from pestering you with presents in the meanwhile. When you've headed them off on that you'll feel more free to--togive your mind to other things. "

The suggestion was so sensible that Olivia fell in with it at once. Sheaccepted, too, Drusilla's friendly offer to help in the writing of thecards, of which it would be necessary to send out some two hundred. There being no time to lose, they set themselves immediately to thetask, Drusilla at the desk, and Olivia writing on a blotting-pad at atable. They worked for twenty minutes or half an hour in silence. 

"Miss Guion's marriage to Colonel Ashley will not take place on October28th. "

"Miss Guion's marriage to Colonel Ashley will not take place on October28th. "

"Miss Guion's marriage to Colonel Ashley will not take place on October28th. "

The words, which to Olivia had at first sounded something like a knell, presently became, from the monotony of repetition, nothing but asing-song. She went on writing them mechanically, but her thoughts beganto busy themselves otherwise. 

"Drusilla, do you remember Jack Berrington?"

The question slipped out before she saw its significance. She might nothave perceived it so quickly even then had it not been for the secondof hesitation before Drusilla answered and the quaver in her voice whenshe did. 

"Y-es. "

The amount of information contained in the embarrassment with which thismonosyllable was uttered caused Olivia to feel faint. It implied thatDrusilla had been better posted than herself; and if Drusilla, why notothers?

"Do you know what makes me think of him?"

Again there was a second of hesitation. Without relaxing the speed withwhich she went on scribbling the same oft-repeated sentence, Olivia knewthat her companion stayed her pen and half turned round. 

"I can guess. "

Olivia kept on writing. "How long have you known?"

Drusilla threw back the answer while blotting with unnecessary force thecard she had just written: "A couple of days. "

"Has it got about--generally?"

"Generally might be too much to say. Some people have got wind of it;and, of course, a thing of that kind spreads. "

"Of course. "

After all, she reflected, perhaps it was just as well that the storyshould have come out. It was no more possible to keep it quiet than tocalm an earthquake. She had said just now to her father that she wouldregard publicity less as disgrace than as part of the process of payingup. Very well! If they were a mark for idle tongues, then so much thebetter, since in that way they were already contributing some few pencetoward quenching the debt. 

"I should feel worse about it, " Drusilla explained, after a silence ofsome minutes, "if I didn't think that Peter Davenant was trying to dosomething to--to help Cousin Henry out. "

Olivia wrote energetically. "What's he doing?"

"Oh, the kind of thing men do. They seem to have wonderful ways ofraising money. "

"How do you know he's trying it?"

"I don't know for certain; I've only an idea. I rather gather it by thequeer way he comes and goes. The minute a thing is in Peter's hands--"

"Have you such a lot of confidence in him?"

"For this sort of thing--yes. He's terribly able, so they say, financially. For the matter of that, you can see it by the way he's madeall that money. Bought mines, or something, and sold them again. Bought'em for nothing, and sold 'em for thousands and thousands. "

"Did I ever tell you that he once asked me to marry him?"

Drusilla wheeled round in her chair and stared, open-mouthed, at herfriend's back. 

"_No_!"

"Oh, it was years ago. I dare say he's forgotten it. "

"I'll bet you ten to one he hasn't. "

Olivia took another card and wrote rapidly. "Do you suppose, " she said, trying to speak casually, "that his wanting to help papa out hasanything to do with that?"

"I shouldn't wonder. I shouldn't wonder at all. "

"What _could_ it have?"

"Oh, don't ask me! How should I know? Men are so queer. He's gettingsome sort of satisfaction out of it, you may depend. "

Drusilla answered as she would have liked to be answered were she in asimilar position. That an old admirer should come to her aid like a godfrom the machine would have struck her as the most touching thing in theworld. As she wheeled round again to her task it was not without a pangof wholly impersonal envy at so beautiful a tribute. She had written twoor three cards before she let fall the remark:

"And now poor, dear old mother is manoeuvering to have _me_ marryhim. "

The idea was not new to Olivia, so she said, simply, "And are you goingto?"

"Oh, I don't know. " Drusilla sighed wearily, then added: "I sha'n't if Ican help it. "

"Does that mean that you'll take him if you can't do better?"

"It means that I don't know what I shall do at all. I'm rather sick ofeverything--and so I might do anything. I don't want to come back tolive in America, and yet I feel an alien over there, now that I haven'tGerald to give me a _raison d'être_. They're awfully nice to me--atSouthsea--at Silchester--everywhere--and yet they really don't want me. I can see that as plainly as I can see your name on this card. But Ican't keep away from them. I've no pride. At least, I've got the pride, but there's something in me stronger than pride that makes me a kind ofcraven. I'm like a dog that doesn't mind being kicked so long as he canhang about under the dining-room table to sniff up crumbs. With mytemperament it's perfectly humiliating, but I can't help it. I've gotthe taste for that English life as a Frenchman gets a taste forabsinthe--knows that it'll be the ruin of him, and yet goes ondrinking. "

"I suppose you're not in love with any one over there?"

There was no curiosity in this question. Olivia asked it--she couldscarcely tell why. She noticed that Drusilla stopped writing again andonce more half turned round, though it was not till long afterward thatshe attached significance to the fact. 

"Who on earth should I be in love with? What put that into your head?"

"Oh, I don't know. Stranger things have happened. You see a great manymen--"

So they went skimming over the surface of confidence, knowing thatbeneath what they said there were depths below depths that they darednot disturb. All the same, it was some relief to both when the maid cameto the door to summon them to luncheon. 

IX

During the next day and the next Guion continued ill, so ill that hisdaughter had all she could attend to in the small tasks of nursing. Thelull in events, however, gave her the more time for thinking, and in herthoughts two things struck her as specially strange. Of these, the firstand more remarkable was the degree to which she identified herself withher father's wrong-doing. The knowledge that she had for so many yearsbeen profiting by his misdeeds produced in her a curious sense of havingshared them. Though she took pains to remind herself that she wasmorally guiltless, there was something within her--an imaginativequality perhaps that rejected the acquittal. Pity, too, counted in hermental condition, as did also that yearning instinct called maternal, which keeps women faithful to the weak and the fallen among those theylove. To have washed her own hands and said, "See here! I am innocent!"would have seemed to her much like desertion of a broken old man who hadno one but her to stand by him. Even while she made attempts to reasonherself out of it, the promptings to the vicarious acceptance of guilt, more or less native to the exceptionally strong and loyal, was sopotent in her that she found herself saying, in substance if not inwords, "Inasmuch as he did it, I did it, too. " It was not a purposelyadopted stand on her part; it was not even clear to her why she wasimpelled to take it; she took it only because, obeying the dictates ofher nature; she could do nothing else. 

Nevertheless, it occasioned her some surprise, whenever she had time tothink of it, to note the speed with which she had adapted herself to thefacts. Once revealed, she seemed to have always known them--to haveshared that first embarrassment for ready money that had induced herfather to borrow from funds so temptingly under his control, and to havegone on with him, step by step, through the subsequent years of struggleand disaster. They were years over which the sun was already darkenedand the moon turned into blood, so that, looking back on them, it wasalmost impossible to recapture the memory of the light-heartedness withwhich she had lived through them. It was incredible to her now that theyhad been years of traveling and visiting and dancing and hunting andmotoring and yachting, of following fashion and seeking pleasure inwhatever might have been the vogue of the minute. Some other self, somepale, secondary, astral self, must have crossed and recrossed theAtlantic and been a guest in great houses and become a favorite inLondon, Paris, Biarritz, Florida, Scotland, Rome! Some other self musthave been sought out for her society, admired for her style, andprivileged to refuse eligible suitors! Some other self must have metRupert Ashley in the little house at Southsea and promised to become hiswife! From the standpoint of the present it seemed to her as if anunreal life had ended in an unreal romance that was bringing to her, within a day or two, an unreal hero. She was forced again face to facewith that fact that the man who was coming to marry her was, for allpractical knowledge that she had of him, a stranger. In proportion ascalamity encompassed her he receded, taking his place once more in thatdim world she should never have frequented and in which she had nolonger lot nor part. 

She should never have frequented it for the simple reason that for allshe had brought to it or got from it some one else had to pay. Theknowledge induced a sense of shame which no consciousness of committedcrime could have exceeded. She would have been less humiliated had sheplotted and schemed to win flattery and homage for herself than she wasin discovering that people had been tricked into giving themspontaneously. To drop the mask, to tear asunder the robe of pretense, to cry the truth from the housetops, and, like some Scriptural womantaken in adultery, lie down, groaning and stunned, under the pelting ofthe stones of those who had not sinned, became to her, as the hoursdragged on, an atonement more and more imperative. 

But the second odd fact she had to contemplate was the difficulty ofgetting a new mode of life into operation. Notwithstanding all hereagerness to pay, the days were still passing in gentle routinesomewhat quietly because of her father's indisposition, but with theusual household dignity. There was a clock-work smoothness about life atTory Hill, due to the most competent service secured at the greatestexpense. Old servants, and plenty of them, kept the wheels goingnoiselessly even while they followed with passionate interest the dramabeing played in the other part of the house. To break in on the courseof their duties, to disturb them, or put a stop to them, was to Olivialike an attempt to counteract the laws that regulate the sunrise. Sheknew neither how to set about it nor where to begin. There was somethingpoignant in the irony of these unobtrusive services from the minute whenher maid woke her in the morning till she helped her to change her dressfor dinner, and yet there was nothing for it but to go through thecustomary daily round. When it became necessary to tell the women thatthe preparations for the wedding must be stopped and that theinvitations to the two big dinners that were to be given in honor ofColonel Ashley had been withdrawn she gathered from small signs--thefeigned stolidity of some of them and the overacted astonishment ofothers--that they had probably been even better informed than DrusillaFane. After that the food they brought her choked her and the maid'stouch on her person was like fire, while she still found herself obligedto submit to these long-established attentions. 

She was reduced to drawing patience from what Guion told her as to hisillness checking temporarily the course of legal action. Most of themen with whom it lay to set the law in motion, notably Dixon, theDistrict-Attorney, were old friends of his, who would hesitate to draghim from a sick-room to face indictment. He had had long interviews withDixon about the case already, and knew how reluctant that official wasto move in the matter, anyhow; but as soon as he, Guion, was out andabout again, all kindly scruples would have to yield. "You'll find, " heexplained to her, "that the question as to breaking-camp will settleitself then. And besides, " he added, "it'll be better to wait tillAshley comes and you know what he's likely to do for you. "

With the last consideration she could not but agree, though she shrankfrom his way of putting it. It was some satisfaction at least to knowthat, since the two hundred cards she had sent out had reached theirrecipients, the process of public penance must in some measure have beenstarted. She had seen no one who could tell her what the effect hadbeen; her bridesmaids evidently knew enough to consider silence thebetter part of sympathy; not even Drusilla Fane had looked in or calledher on the telephone during the last day or two; but she could imaginepretty well the course that comment and speculation must be takingthrough the town. There would be plenty of blame, some jubilation, and, she felt sure, not a little sympathy withal. There was among heracquaintance a local American pride that had always been jealous of herEuropean preferences and which would take the opportunity to get in itsbit of revenge, but in general opinion would be kindly. There came anafternoon when she felt the desire to go forth to face it, to take herfirst impressions of the world in her new relationship toward it. Shehad not been beyond their own gate since the altered conditions hadbegun to obtain. She had need of the fresh air; she had need to find herbearings; she had need of a few minutes' intercourse with some onebesides her father, so as not to imperil her judgment by dwelling tooincessantly on an _idée fixe_. Rupert Ashley would land that night orthe next morning. In forty-eight hours he would probably be in Boston. It was prudent, she reflected, to be as well poised and as sure ofherself as possible before his arrival on the scene. 

Her father was slightly better. He could leave his bed, and, wrapped inhis violet dressing-gown, could lie on the chaise-longue, surrounded bythe luxurious comforts that were a matter of course to him. As she madehim snug he observed with a grim smile that his recovery was a pity. Hecould almost hear, so he said, Dixon and Johnstone and Hecksher andothers of his cronies making the remark that his death would be a luckyway out of the scrape. 

She had come, dressed for the street, to tell him she was walking downto the Temples', to see what had become of Drusilla Fane. She thought itneedless to add that she was inventing the errand in order to go out andtake notes on the new aspect the world must henceforth present to her. 

He looked at her with an approval that gradually merged into a sense ofcomfort. She had chosen the simplest dress and hat in her wardrobe, assignificant of a chastened soul; but simplicity more than anything elseemphasized her distinction. "She'll be all right, " he said, consolingly, to himself. "Whatever happens she's the kind to come out on top. RupertAshley would be a fool to throw over a superb, high-spirited creaturelike that. He'll not do it. Of that I feel sure. "

The conviction helped him to settle more luxuriously into the depths ofhis couch and to relish the flavor of his cigar. He was quite sincere inthe feeling that if she were but safe he should be more or lessindifferent to the deluge overwhelming himself. 

"Papa, " she ventured at last, watching carefully the action of thelittle silver button-hook, as she buttoned her gloves, "if that Mr. Davenant came while I'm gone, you wouldn't change your mind, would you?"

"I don't think he's in the least likely to turn up. "

"But if he did?"

"Well, I suppose you'll be back before long. We couldn't settle anythingwithout talking it over, in any case. "

Forced to be content with that, she kissed him and turned away. 

[Illustration: SHE FOUND COMFORT IN GETTING INTO THE OPEN AIR]

She found a comfort in getting into the open air, into the friendlystreets, under the shade of the familiar trees, that surprised her. Theabsence of pose characteristic of the average American town struck herfor the first time as soothing. With none of the effort to make lifeconform to a rigid standard of propriety, which in an English communitywould be the first thing to notice, there was an implied invitation tothe spirit to relax. In the slap-dash, go-as-you-please methods ofbuilding, paving, and cleaning she saw a tacit assumption that, perfection being not of this world, one is permitted to rub alongwithout it. Rodney Lane, which in Colonial days had led to GovernorRodney's "Mansion, " had long ago been baptized Algonquin Avenue by civicauthorities with a love of the sonorous, but it still retained thecharacteristics of a New England village street. Elms arched over itwith the regularity of a Gothic vaulting, and it straggled at its will. Its houses, set in open lawns, illustrated all the phases of thenational taste in architecture as manifested throughout the nineteenthcentury, from the wooden Greek temple with a pillared façade of theearly decades to the bizarre compositions, painted generally in dark redand yellow, with many gables and long sweeps of slanting roof, whichmarked that era's close. In most cases additions had been thrown outfrom time to time, ells trailing at the back, or excrescences bulging atthe sides, that were not grotesque only because there had been little inthe first effect to spoil. In more than one instance the original fabricwas altered beyond recognition; here and there a house she couldremember had altogether disappeared; a new one had replaced it thatbefore long might be replaced by a newer still. To Olivia the consolingthought was precisely in this state of transition, to which rapidvicissitude, for better or for worse, was something like a law. It madethe downfall of her own family less exceptional, less bitter, whenviewed as part of a huge impermanency, shifting from phase to phase, with no rule to govern it but the necessities of its own development. 

Until this minute it was the very element in American life she had foundmost distasteful. Her inclinations, carefully fostered by her parents, had always been for the solid, the well-ordered, the assured, evolvedfrom precedent to precedent till its conventions were fixed and itsdoings regulated as by a code of etiquette. Now, all of a sudden, sheperceived that life in shirt-sleeves possessed certain advantages over awell-bred existence in full dress. It allowed the strictly humanqualities an easier sort of play. Where there was no pretense at turningto the world a smooth, impeccable social front, toil and suffering, misfortune and disgrace, became things to be less ashamed of. Practically every one in these unpretentious, tree-shaded houses knewwhat it was to struggle upward, with many a slip backward in the processand sometimes a crashing fall from the top. These accidents wereunderstood. The result was the creation of a living atmosphere, notperhaps highly civilized, but highly sympathetic, charged with thecomprehension of human frailty, into which one could carry one'sdishonor, not wholly with equanimity, but at least with the knowledgethat such burdens were not objects for astonishment. As she descendedthe hill, therefore, she felt, as she had never felt before, thecomforting assurance of being among brethren, before whom she should nothave the wearisome task of "keeping up appearances, " and by whom shewould be supported, even at the worst, through a fellow-feeling with hercares. 

This consciousness helped her to be firm when, a few minutes later, having reached the dike by the border of the Charles, she came face toface with Peter Davenant. She saw him from a long way off, but withoutrecognition. She noticed him only as an unusually tall figure, in asummery gray suit and a gray felt hat. He was sauntering in a leisurelyway toward her, stopping now and then to admire some beautiful dogsniffing the scent of water-rats in the weeds, or a group of babiestumbling on the sand, or a half-naked undergraduate sculling along theserpentine reaches of the river, or a college crew cleaving the waterswith the precision of an arrow, to a long, rhythmic swing of eight slimbodies and a low, brief grunt of command. The rich October lightstriking silvery gleams from the walls of the Stadium and burnished goldfrom the far-off dome of the State House brought all the hues of firefrom the rim of autumnal hills on the western horizon. It touched upwith soft dove-gray, in which were shades of green and purple, the rowof unpainted, ramshackle wooden cabins--hovels of a colony of"squatters" that no zeal for civic improvement had ever been able todislodge--lined along a part of the embankment, and wrought indefinableglories in the unkempt marshes, stretching away into shimmeringdistances, where factory windows blazed as if from inner conflagrationand steam and smoke became roseate or iridescent. 

The tall stranger, so much better dressed than the men who usuallystrolled on the embankment at this hour of a week-day afternoon, fixedher attention to such a degree as to make her forget that she herselfwas probably a subject of curiosity and speculation among thepassers-by. It was with a little disappointment that as she came nearershe said to herself, "It's only--that man. " Common fairness, however, obliged her to add that he seemed "more like a gentleman" than she hadsupposed. That he was good-looking, in a big, blond, Scotch orScandinavian way, she had acknowledged from the first. On recognizingDavenant her impulse was to pass him with the slightest recognition, buton second thoughts it seemed best to her to end the affair impendingbetween them once for all. 

"I'm sorry you didn't wait for me to come downstairs the other day, " shesaid, after they had exchanged greetings, "because I could have told youthat my father agreed with me--that it wouldn't be possible for us toaccept your kind help. "

"I hope he's better, " was Davenant's only answer. 

"Much better, thank you. When he's able to see you, I know he will wantto express his gratitude more fully than I can. "

"I hoped he'd be able to see me to-day. I was on my way to Tory Hill. "

She was annoyed both by his persistency and by the coolness of hismanner, as, leaning on his stick, he stood looking down at her. Helooked down in a way that obliged her to look up. She had not realizedtill now how big and tall he was. She noticed, too, the squareness ofhis jaw, the force of his chin, and the compression of his straight, thin lips beneath the long curve of his mustache. In spite of his air ofgranite imperturbability, she saw that his fair skin was subject tolittle flushes of embarrassment or shyness, like a girl's. As she was ina mood to criticize, she called this absurd and said of his blue eyes, resting on her with a pensive directness, as though he were studying herfrom a long way off, that they were hard. Deep-set and caverned underheavy, overhanging brows, they more than any other feature imparted tohis face the frowning and _farouche_ effect by which she judged him. Hadit not been for that, her hostility to everything he said and did mightnot have been so prompt. That he was working to get her into his powerbecame more than ever a conviction the minute she looked into what shecalled that lowering gaze. 

All the same, the moment was one for diplomatic action rather than forforce. She allowed a half-smile to come to her lips, and her voice totake a tone in which there was frank request, as she said: "I wish youwouldn't go. "

"I shouldn't if it wasn't important. I don't want to annoy you more thanI can help. "

"I don't see how anything can be important when--when there's nothing tobe done. "

"There's a good deal to be done if we choose to do it; but we mustchoose at once. The Benn crowd is getting restive. "

"That doesn't make any difference to us. My father has decided to takethe consequences of his acts. "

"You say that so serenely that I guess you don't understand yet justwhat they'd be. "

"I do--I do, perfectly. My father and I have talked it all over. We knowit will be terrible; and yet it would be more terrible still to let someone else pay our debts. I dare say you think me monstrous, but--"

"I think you mistaken. I don't want to say more than that. If I find Mr. Guion of the same opinion--"

"I see. You don't consider my word sufficient. "

"Your word is all right, Miss Guion, " he tried to laugh. "What you lackis authority. My dealings are with your father. I can't settle anythingwith--a substitute. "

She colored swiftly. "I don't presume to settle anything. I only thoughtI might give you some necessary information. I hoped, too, to save you alittle trouble in sparing you the walk to Tory Hill. "

He looked away from her, his eyes wandering up the reach of the river, over which the long, thin, many-oared college craft shot like insectsacross a pool. 

"Why should you be so bent on seeing your father follow Jack Berrington, when it could be avoided?"

"Why should you care? What difference does it make to you? If you'd onlyexplain that--"

"It explains itself. If I saw a woman leap into the river there I shouldpull her out. The more she insisted on being drowned, the more I shouldtry to save her. "

"But, you see, I'm not leaping into a river. On the contrary, I'mgetting out of one. It seems to me that you'd be only forcing me backand making my last state worse than the first. "

It took him a minute to grasp the force of this. "That would depend, ofcourse, on the point of view. As a matter of fact, it's something withwhich I've nothing to do. It concerns you, and it concerns Mr. Guion, but it doesn't concern me. For me the whole thing is very simple. I'veoffered to lend Mr. Guion a sum of money. It's for him to take or toleave. If he refuses it, I sha'n't be offended; and if he doesn't refuseit--"

"You'd let him have it, just the same?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"In spite of all I've said as to what I should feel?"

"But I'm not supposed to know anything about that, you know. I repeatthat it isn't my affair. If Mr. Guion should accept my loan against yourwishes--well, that's something you'd have to fix up with him. "

She was some minutes silent, her eyes ranging over the river and themarshes, like his own. 

"If you urged it on him, " she said at last, "I think he'd take it. "

"Then so much the better, from my point of view. "

"Precisely; but then your point of view is a mystery. Not that it makesany difference, " she hastened to add. "If my father accepts your loan, it will be for me to pay it back, in one way or another--if I ever can. "

"We could talk of that, " he smiled, trying to be reassuring, "after moreimportant things had been settled. "

"There wouldn't be anything more important--for me. "

"Oh, you wouldn't find me an importunate creditor. "

"That wouldn't help matters--so long as I owed the debt. After all, webelong to that old-fashioned, rather narrow-minded class of New Englandpeople to whom debt of any kind is the source of something like anguish. At least, " she corrected herself, "I belong to that class. "

It was on his lips to remind her that in her case there could be nopresent release from indebtedness, there could only be a change ofcreditors; but he decided to express himself more gracefully. 

"Wouldn't it be possible, " he asked, "to put the boot on the other foot, and to consider me as the person to whom the favor is shown in beingallowed to do something useful?"

She lifted her chin scornfully. "That would be childish. It would be amere quibbling with words. "

"But it would be true. It's the way I should take it. "

She confronted him with one of her imperious looks. "Why?"

In the monosyllable there was a demand for complete explanation, but hemet it with one of his frank smiles. 

"Couldn't you let me keep that as my secret?"

"So that you would be acting in the daylight and we in the dark. "

"You might be in the dark, and still have nothing to be afraid of. "

She shook her head. "I _should_ be afraid. It was in the dark, accordingto the old story, that the antelope escaped a lion by falling into ahunter's trap. "

"Do I look like that kind of a hunter?" He smiled again at the absurdityof her comparison. 

"You can't tell anything from looks--with men. With men a woman has onlyone principle to guide her--to keep on the safe side. "

"I hope you won't think me uncivil, Miss Guion, if I point out that, atpresent, you haven't got a safe side to keep on. That's what I want tooffer you. "

"I might ask you why again, only that we should be going round in acircle. Since you don't mean to tell me, I must go without knowing; butI'm sure you can understand that to some natures the lion is less to befeared than the hunter. "

"_He_ doesn't feel so. " He nodded his head in the direction of ToryHill. 

"_He_ feels so. He's only a little--wavering. "

"And I guess you're a little wavering, too, Miss Guion, if you'd onlyown up to it. "

He watched her straighten her slight figure while her delicate featureshardened to an expression of severity. "I'm not wavering on theprinciple, nor because of anything I should have to face myself. If Ihave any hesitation, it's only because of what it would mean for papa. "

He allowed an instant to pass while he looked down at her gravely. "Andhe's not the only one, you know, " he said, with all the significance hecould put into his tone. 

His hint, however, was thrown away, since she was intent on her own lineof thought. With a slight nod of the head, dignified rather thandiscourteous, she departed, leaving him, to the great interest of thepassers-by, leaning on his stick and staring after her. 

X

As Olivia continued on her way toward Rodney Temple's she was able tomake it clear to herself that a chief reason for her dislike of Davenantsprang from his immovability. There was something about him like a giantrock. She got the impression that one might dash against him forever andhurt no one but oneself. It was a trait new to her among American men, whom she generally found too yielding where women were concerned. Thisman had an aloofness, too, that was curiously disconcerting. He made noapproaches; he took no liberties. If he showed anything that resembled apersonal sentiment toward her, it was dislike. Making that reflectionand using that word, she was almost startled. A woman had sometimesdisliked her; she knew that; but a man--never! And yet it was difficultto interpret Davenant's bearing toward her in any other way. It was abearing in which there were no concessions to her whatever, while therewas in it--it was only too plain!--a distinct intention to ignore her. For the time being this personal element in the situation loomed largerthan any other. It challenged her; it even annoyed her. At the same timeit gave Davenant an importance in her eyes which she was far fromwilling to concede. 

Rodney Temple's house, which was really within the borders of Cambridge, built about 1840 by some Harvard professor in easy circumstances, hadoriginally resembled a square brick box. In the course of seventy yearsit had passed through the hands of several owners, each of whom hadbuilt on an additional box according to his needs. To the north arectangular wing of one story had been thrown out as a drawing-room; tothe south a similar projection formed the library and study. A smallersquare crowned the edifice as a cupola, while cubes of varyingdimensions were half visible at the back. Against the warm, red brick aWren portico in white-painted wood, together with the white facings ofthe windows, produced an effect of vivid spotlessness, tempered by thevariegated foliage of climbing vines. The limitations of the open lawnwere marked by nothing but a line of shrubs. 

Having arrived at the door, it was a relief to Olivia, rather than thecontrary, to learn that the ladies were not at home, but that Mr. Templehimself would be glad to see her if she would come in. He had, in fact, espied her approach from his study window and had come out into the hallto insist on her staying. Within a minute or two she found herselfsitting in one of his big, shabby arm-chairs saying things preliminaryto confidence. 

It was a large room, with windows on three sides, through which thelight poured in to find itself refracted by a hundred lustrous surfaces. The first impression received on entering what Rodney Temple called hiswork-room was that of color--color unlike that of pictures, flowers, gems, or sunsets, and yet of extraordinary richness and variety. Lowbookcases, running round the room, offered on the broad shelf formingthe top space for many specimens of that potter's art on which the oldman had made himself an authority. Jars and vases stood on tables, plaques and platters hung on the walls, each notable for some excellencein shape, glaze, or decoration. Of Americans of his generation RodneyTemple had been among the first to respond to an appeal that came fromages immeasurably far back in the history of man. His imagination hadbeen stirred in boyhood by watching a common country potter turn offbowls and flowerpots that sprang from the wheel in exquisite, concentricforms or like opening lilies of red earth. Here, he had said to himself, is the beginning of everything we call art--here must have been thefirst intimation to man that beauty could be an element in the work ofhis own fingers. 

In a handicraft that took the dust of the earth to minister to man'shumblest needs, and yet contrived thereby to enrich his aesthetic life, young Rodney Temple, as he was then, found much that was congenial tohis own mystical aspirations. During his early travels abroad thefactories of Meissen and Sèvres interested him more than the Zwinger andthe Louvre. 

He frequented the booths and quays and dingy streets of the olderEuropean cities, bringing out from some lost hiding-place now an Arabictile in which the green of the oasis intensified the blue of the desertsky; now a Persian bowl of hues that changed with a turn of the head ora quiver of the lids; now a Spanish plaque gleaming with metallic, opalescent colors, too indefinable to name, too fugitive for the eye totransmit to memory. Later he picked up strange examples which, likemeteoric stones from another sphere, had found their mysterious way fromChinese palaces to his grimy haunts in London, Amsterdam, or Florence, as the case might be--a blue-and-white jar of Chia-ching, or a Hanceremonial vessel in emerald green, incrusted from long burial, or aceladon bowl that resembled a cup of jade, or some gorgeously decoratedbit of Famille Verte. He knew at first little or nothing of the natureand history of these precious "finds. " He saw only that they were rareand lovely and that through beauty as a means of grace he entered intocommunion with men who had neither epoch nor ideals in common withhimself. 

In the end he became an authority on ceramic art by the simple processof knowing more about it than anybody else. When the trustees of theHarvard Gallery of Fine Arts awoke to that fact, he was an assistantprofessor of Greek in the University. Under his care, in the newposition they offered him, a collection was formed of great celebrityand value; but nothing in it was ever quite so dear to him as the modesttreasures he had acquired for himself in the days of his youngenthusiasm, when his fellow-countrymen as yet cared for none of thesethings. As Olivia sat and talked her eye traveled absently from barbaricRouen cornucopias and cockatoos to the incrusted snails and serpents ofBernard Palissy, resting long on a flowered jardinière by Veuve Perrin, of Marseilles. She had little technical knowledge of the objectssurrounding her, but she submitted to the strange and soothing charmthey never failed to work on her--the charm of stillness, of peace, asof things which, made for common homely uses, had passed beyond thatstage into an existence of serenity and loveliness. 

"When you spoke the other day, " she said, after the conversation hadturned directly on her father's affairs--"when you spoke the other dayabout a pillar of cloud, I suppose you meant what one might call--anoverruling sense of right. "

"That might do as one definition. "

"Because in that case you may like to know that I think I've seen it. "

"I thought you would if you looked for it. "

"I didn't look for it. It was just--there!"

"It's always there; only, as in the case of the two disciples on theEmmaus road, our eyes are holden so that we don't see it. "

"I should have seen it easily enough; but if you hadn't told me, Ishouldn't have known what it was. I didn't suppose that we got that kindof guidance nowadays. "

"The light is always shining in darkness, dearie; only the darknesscomprehendeth it not. That's all there is to it. "

He sat at his desk, overlooking the embankment and the curves of theCharles. It was a wide desk littered with papers, but with space, too, for some of the favorite small possessions that served him aspaper-weights--a Chinese dragon in blue-green enamel, a quaintlydecorated cow in polychrome Delft, a dancing satyr in biscuit de Sèvres. On the side remote from where he sat was a life-size bust of Christ infifteenth-century Italian terra-cotta--the face noble, dignified, strongly sympathetic--once painted, but now worn to its natural tint, except where gleams of scarlet or azure showed in the folds of thevesture. While the old man talked, and chiefly while he listened, thefingers of his large, delicately articulated hand stroked mechanicallythe surfaces of a grotesque Chinese figure carved in apple-green jade. It was some minutes before Olivia made any response to his last words. "Things _are_ very dark to me, " she confessed, "and yet this light seemsto me absolutely positive. I've had to make a decision that would be toofrightful if something didn't seem to be leading me into the Streetcalled Straight, as papa says. Did you know Mr. Davenant had offered topay our debts?"

He shook his head. 

"Of course I couldn't let him do it. "

"Couldn't you?"

"Do you think I could?"

"Not if you think differently. You're the only judge. "

"But if I don't, you know, papa will have to go--" She hesitated. "Youknow what would happen, don't you?"

"I suppose I do. "

"And I could prevent it, you see, if I let papa take this money. I haveto assume the responsibility of its refusal. It puts me in a positionthat I'm beginning to feel--well, rather terrible. "

"Does it?"

"You don't seem very much interested, Cousin Rodney. I hoped you'd giveme some advice. "

"Oh, I never give advice. Besides, if you've got into the Street calledStraight, I don't see why you need advice from any one. "

"I do. The Street called Straight is all very well, but--"

"Then you're not so sure, after all. "

"I'm sure in a way. If it weren't for papa I shouldn't have any doubtwhatever. But it seems so awful for me to drive him into what I don'tthink he'd do of his own accord. " She went on to explain Davenant'soffer in detail. "So you see, " she concluded, "that papa's state of mindis peculiar. He agrees with me that the higher thing would be not totake the money; and yet if I gave him the slightest encouragement hewould. "

"And you're not going to?"

"How could I, Cousin Rodney? How could I put myself under such anobligation to a man I hardly know?"

"He could probably afford it. "

"Is he so very rich?" There was a hint of curiosity in the tone. 

Rodney Temple shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, rich enough. It would prettywell clean him out; but, then, that would do him good. "

"Do him good--how?"

"He's spoiling for work, that fellow is. Since he's had all that moneyhe's been of no use to himself or to anybody else. He's like goodcapital tied up in a stocking instead of being profitably invested. "

"And yet we could hardly put ourselves in a humiliating situation justto furnish Mr. Davenant with an incentive for occupation, could we, Cousin Rodney?"

"I dare say not. "

"And he isn't offering us the money merely for the sake of getting ridof it, do you think?"

"Then what _is_ he offering it to you for?"

"That's exactly what I want to know. Haven't you any idea?"

"Haven't you?"

She waited a minute before deciding to speak openly. "I suppose younever heard that he once asked me to marry him?"

He betrayed his surprise by the way in which he put down the littleChinese figure and wheeled round more directly toward her. 

"Who? Peter?"

She nodded. 

"What the dickens made him do that?"

She opened her eyes innocently. "I'm sure I can't imagine. "

"It isn't a bit like him. You must have led him on. "

"I didn't, " she declared, indignantly. "I never took any notice of himat all. Nothing could have astonished me more than his--hispresumption. "

"And what did you say to him? Did you box his ears?"

"I was very rude, and that's partly the trouble now. I feel as if he'dbeen nursing a grudge against me all these years--and was paying it. "

"In that case he's got you on the hip, hasn't he? It's a lovely turningof the tables. "

"You see that, Cousin Rodney, don't you? I _couldn't_ let a man likethat get the upper hand of me. "

"Of course you couldn't, dear. I'd sit on him if I were you, and sit onhim hard. I'd knock him flat--and let Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay goto the deuce. "

She looked at him wonderingly. "Let--who--go to the deuce?"

"I said Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay. I might have included FannyBurnaby and the Brown girls. I meant them, of course. I suppose you'vebeen doing a lot of worrying on their account. "

"I--I haven't, " she stammered. "I haven't thought of them at all. "

"Then I wouldn't. They've got no legal claim on you whatever. When theyput their money into your father's hands--or when other people put itthere for them--they took their chances. Life is full of risks likethat. You're not responsible for them, not any more than you are for thefortunes of war. If they've had bad luck, then that's their own lookout. Oh, I shouldn't have them on my mind for a minute. "

She was too startled to suspect him of ruse or strategy. 

"I haven't had them on my mind. It seems queer--and yet I haven't. Nowthat you speak of them, of course I see--" She passed her hand across herbrow. There was a long, meditative silence before she resumed. "I don'tknow what I've been dreaming of that it didn't occur to me before. Papaand Mr. Davenant both said that I hadn't considered all the sides to thequestion; and I suppose that's what they were thinking of. It seems soobvious--now. "

She adjusted her veil and picked up her parasol as though about to takeleave; but when she rose it was only to examine, without seeing it, aplaque hanging on the wall. 

"If papa were to take Mr. Davenant's money, " she said, after longsilence, without turning round, "then his clients would be as well offas before, wouldn't they?"

"I presume they would. "

"And now, I suppose, they're very poor. "

"I don't know much about that. None of them were great heiresses, as itwas. Miss Prince, who keeps the school, told your cousin Cherryyesterday that the Rodman girls had written her from Florence, asking ifshe could give them a job to teach Italian. They'll have to teach awaylike blazes now--anything and everything they know. "

She turned round toward him, her eyes misty with distress. 

"See this bit of jade?" he continued, getting up from his chair. "Realjade that is. Cosway, of the Gallery, brought it to me when he came homefrom Peking. That's not real jade you've got at Tory Hill. It'sjadeite. "

"Is it?" She took the little mandarin in her hand, but without examininghim. "I've no doubt you've been dreadfully worried about them--papa'sclients, I mean. "

"W-well--a little--or, rather, not at all. That is, I should have beenworried if it hadn't been for the conviction that something would lookout for them. Something always does, you know. "

The faint smile that seemed to have got frozen on her lips quiveredpiteously. "I wish you could have that comfortable feeling about me. "

"Oh, I have. That'll be all right. You'll be taken care of from start tofinish. Don't have a qualm of doubt about it. There's a whole host ofministering spirits--angels some people call them--I don't say I shouldmyself--but there are legions of mighty influences appointed to wait onjust such brave steps as you're about to take. "

"That is, if I take them!"

"Oh, you'll take 'em all right, dearie. You'll not be able to help itwhen you see just what they ought to be. In a certain sense they'll takeyou. You'll be passed along from point to point as safely as that bit ofjade"--he took the carving from between her fingers and held it up--"assafely as that bit of jade has been transmitted from the quarries ofTibet to brighten my old eyes. It's run no end of risks, but the Angelof Beauty has watched over all its journeys. It's been in every sort ofqueer, mysterious place; it's passed through the hands of mandarins, merchants, and slaves; it's probably stood in palaces and been exposedin shops; it's certainly come over mountains and down rivers and acrossseas; and yet here it is, as perfect as when some sallow-faced dwarf ofa craftsman gave it the last touch of the tool a hundred years ago. Andthat's the way it'll be with you, dearie. You may go through somedifficult places, but you'll come out as unscathed as my littleChinaman. The Street called Straight is often a crooked one; and yetit's the surest and safest route we can take from point to point. "

 * * * * *

As, a few minutes later, she hurried homeward, this mystical optimismwas to her something like a rose to a sick man--beautiful tocontemplate, but of little practical application in alleviating pain. Her mind turned away from it. It turned away, too, from the pillar ofcloud, of which the symbolism began to seem deceptive. Under the stressof the moment the only vision to which she could attain was that of theMisses Rodman begging for the pitiful job of teaching Italian in a youngladies' school. She remembered them vaguely--tall, scraggy, permanentlygirlish in dress and manner, and looking their true fifty only about theneck and eyes. With their mother they lived in a pretty villa on thePoggio Imperiale, and had called on her occasionally when she passedthrough Florence. The knowledge of being indebted to them, of havinglived on their modest substance and reduced them to poverty, brought herto the point of shame in which it would have been a comfort to have themountains fall on her and the rocks cover her from the gaze of men. Sheupbraided herself for her blindness to the most obviously importantaspect of the situation. Now that she saw it, her zeal to "pay, " bydoing penance in public, became tragic and farcical at once. Theabsurdity of making satisfaction to Mrs. Rodman and Mrs. Clay, to FannyBurnaby and the Brown girls, by calling in the law, when lesssuffering--to her father at least--would give them actual cash, was notthe least element in her humiliation. 

She walked swiftly, seeing nothing of the cheerful stir around her, lashed along by the fear that Peter Davenant might have left Tory Hill. She was too intent on her purpose to perceive any change in her mentalattitude toward him. She was aware of saying to herself that everythingconcerning him must be postponed; but beyond that she scarcely thoughtof him at all. Once the interests of the poor women who had trusted toher father had been secured, she would have time to face the claims ofthis new creditor; but nothing could be attempted till the oneimperative duty was performed. 

Going up the stairs toward her father's room, the sound of voicesreassured her. Davenant was there still. That was so much relief. Shewas able to collect herself, to put on something like her habitual airof quiet dignity, before she pushed open the door and entered. 

Guion was lying on the couch with the rug thrown over him. Davenantstood by the fireplace, endangering with his elbow a dainty Chelseashepherdess on the mantelpiece. He was smoking one of Guion's cigars, which he threw into an ash-tray as Olivia came in. 

Conversation stopped abruptly on her appearance. She herself walkedstraight to the round table in the middle of the room, and for a secondor two, which seemed much longer in space of time, stood silent, thetips of her fingers just touching a packet of papers strapped withrubber bands, which she guessed that Davenant must have brought. Throughher downcast lashes she could see, thrown carelessly on the table, threeor four strips, tinted blue or green or yellow, which she recognized aschecks. 

"I only want to say, " she began, with a kind of panting in herbreath--"I only want to say, papa, that if . .. Mr. Davenant will . .. Lend you the money . .. I shall be . .. I shall be . .. Very glad. "

Guion said nothing. His eyes, regarding her aslant, had in them thecurious receding light she had noticed once before. With a convulsiveclutching of the fingers he pulled the rug up about his chin. Davenantstood as he had been standing when she came in, his arm resting on themantelpiece. When she looked at him with one hasty glance, she noticedthat he reddened hotly. 

"I've changed my mind, " she went on, impelled by the silence of theother two to say something more. "I've changed my mind. It's because ofpapa's clients--the Miss Rodmans and the others--that I've done it. Icouldn't help it. I never thought of them till this afternoon. I don'tknow why. I've been very dense. I've been cruel. I've considered onlyhow we--papa and I--could exonerate ourselves, if you can call itexoneration. I'm sorry. "

"You couldn't be expected to think of everything at once, Miss Guion, "Davenant said, clumsily. 

"I might have been expected to think of this; but I didn't. I supposeit's what you meant when you said that there were sides to the questionthat I didn't see. You said it, too, papa. I wish you had spoken moreplainly. "

"We talked it over, Miss Guion. We didn't want to seem to force you. It's the kind of thing that's better done when it's done of one's ownimpulse. We were sure you'd come to it. All the same, if you hadn't doneit to-day, we'd made up our minds to--to suggest it. That's why I tookthe liberty of bringing these things. Those are bonds that you've gotyour hand on--and the checks make up the sum total. "

By an instinctive movement she snatched her fingers away; but, recovering herself, she took the package deliberately into her hands andstood holding it. 

"I've been explaining to Davenant, " Guion said, in a muffled voice, "that things aren't quite so hopeless as they seem. If we ever come intoAunt Vic's money--"

"But there's no certainty of that, papa. "

"No certainty, but a good deal of probability. She's always given us tounderstand that the money wouldn't go out of her own family; and there'spractically no one left now but you and me. And if it _should_ come tous, there'd be more than enough to--to square everything. You'd do it, dear, wouldn't you, if Aunt Vic were to leave the whole thing to you? Ithink she's as likely to do that as not. "

"Mr. Davenant must know already that I shall give my whole life totrying to pay our debt. If there's anything I could sign at once--"

Davenant moved from the fireside. "There's nothing to sign, Miss Guion, "he said, briefly. "The matter is ended as far as I'm concerned. Mr. Guion has got the money, and is relieved from his most pressingembarrassments. That's all I care about. There's no reason why we shouldever speak of it again. If you'll excuse me now--"

He turned toward the couch with his hand outstretched, but during theminute or two in which Olivia and he had been facing each other Guionhad drawn the rug over his face. Beneath it there was a convulsiveshaking, from which the younger man turned away. With a nod ofcomprehension to Olivia he tiptoed softly from the room. As he did so hecould see her kneel beside the couch and kiss the hand that lay outsidethe coverlet. 

She overtook him, however, when he was downstairs picking up his hat andstick from the hall table. 

She stood on the lowest step of the stairs, leaning on the low, whitepillar that finished the balustrade. He was obliged to pass her on hisway to the door. The minute was the more awkward for him owing to thefact that she did not take the initiative in carrying it off. On thecontrary, she made it harder by looking at him gravely without speaking. 

"It's relief, " he said, nodding with understanding toward the roomup-stairs. "I've seen men do that before--after they'd been facing somedanger or other with tremendous pluck. "

He spoke for the sake of saying something, standing before her with hishat and stick in his hand, not seeing precisely how he was to get away. 

"It's a relief to me, too, " she said, simply. "You can't imagine whatit's been the last few days--seeing things go to pieces like that. Now, I suppose, they'll hold together somehow, though it can't be very well. I dare say you think me all wrong--"

He shook his head. 

"I couldn't see any other way. When you've done wrong as we've done it, you'd rather be punished. You don't want to go scot-free. It's somethinglike the kind of impulse that made the hermits and ascetics submit toscourging. But it's quite possible that I shouldn't have had the courageto go through with it--especially if papa had broken down. As you saidfrom the first, I didn't see what was truly vital. "

"I shouldn't blame myself too much for that, Miss Guion. It oftenhappens that one only finds the right way by making two or three plungesinto wrong ones. "

"Do you think I've found it now?"

There was something wistful in the question, and not a little humble, that induced him to say with fervor, "I'm very sure of it. "

"And you?" she asked. "Is it the right way for you?"

"Yes; and it's the first time I've ever struck it. "

She shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I'm a little bewildered. Thismorning everything seemed so clear, and now--I understand, " she went on, "that we shall be taking all you have. "

"Who told you that?" he asked, sharply. 

"It doesn't matter who told me; but it's very important if we are. _Are_we?"

He threw his head back in a way that, notwithstanding her preoccupation, she could not but admire. "No; because I've still got my credit. When aman has that--"

"But you'll have to begin all over again, sha'n't you?"

"Only as a man who has won one battle begins all over again when hefights another. It's nothing but fun when you're fond of war. "

"Didn't I do something very rude to you--once--a long time ago?"

The question took him so entirely unawares that, in the slight, involuntary movement he made, he seemed to himself to stagger backward. He was aware of looking blank, while unable to control his features to anon-committal expression. He had the feeling that minutes had gone bybefore he was able to say:

"It was really of no consequence--"

"Don't say that. It was of great consequence. Any one can see that--now. I was insolent. I knew I _had_ been. You must have been perfectly awareof it all these years; and--I _will_ say it!--I _must_ say it!--you'retaking your revenge--very nobly. "

He was about to utter something in protest, but she turned away abruptlyand sped up the stairs. On the first landing she paused for the briefestinstant and looked down. 

"Good-by, " she faltered. "I must go back to papa. He'll need me. I can'ttalk any more just now. I'm too bewildered--about everything. ColonelAshley will arrive in a day or two, and after I've seen him I shall be alittle clearer as to what I think; and--and then--I shall see youagain. "

He continued to stand gazing up the stairway long after he had heard herclose the door of Guion's room behind her. 

XI

It was not difficult for Davenant to ascribe his lightness of heart, onleaving Tory Hill, to satisfaction in getting rid of his superfluousmoney, since he had some reason to fear that the possession of it was nogreat blessing. To a man with little instinct for luxury and no spendingtastes, twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year was an income faroutstripping his needs. It was not, however, in excess of his desires, for he would gladly have set up an establishment and cut a dash if hehad known how. He admired the grand style in living, not so much as amatter of display, because presumably it stood for all sorts ofmysterious refinements for which he possessed the yearning without theinitiation. The highest flight he could take by his own unaided effortswas in engaging the best suite of rooms in the best hotel, when he wasquite content with his dingy old lodgings; in driving in taxicabs, whenthe tram-car would have suited him just as well, and ordering champagne, when he would have preferred some commoner beverage. Fully aware of theinsufficiency of this method of reaching a higher standard, he practisedit only because it offered the readiest means he could find ofstraining upward. He was sure that with a wife who knew the arts ofelegance to lead the way his scent for following would be keen enough;but between him and the acquisition of this treasure there lay thememory of the haughty young creature who had, in the metaphor with whichhe was most familiar, "turned him down. "

But it was not the fact that he had more money than he needed of whichhe was afraid; it was rather the perception that the possibility ofindulging himself--coupled with what he conceived to be a kind of dutyin doing it--was sapping his vigor. All through the second year of hisholiday he had noticed in himself the tendency of the big, strong-fibered animal to be indolent and overfed. On the principle laiddown by Emerson that every man is as lazy as he dares to be he got intothe way of sleeping late, of lounging in the public places of hotels, and smoking too many cigars. With a little encouragement he could havecontracted the incessant cocktail and Scotch-and-soda habits of some ofhis traveling compatriots. 

He excused these weaknesses on the ground that when he had returned toBoston, and got back to his ordinary round of work and exercise, theywould vanish, without having to be overcome; and yet the nearer he drewto his old home, the less impulse he felt for exertion. He found himselfasking the question, "Why should I try to make more money when I've gotenough already?" to which the only reply was in that vague hope of"doing a little good, " inspired by his visit to the scene of hisparents' work at Hankow. In this direction, however, his aptitudes wereno more spontaneous than they were for the life of cultivated taste. Henry Guion's need struck him, therefore, as an opportunity. If he tookother views of it besides, if it made to him an appeal totally differentfrom the altruistic, he was able to conceal the fact--from himself, atany rate--in the depths of a soul where much that was vital to the manwas always held in subliminal darkness. It disturbed him, then, to haveDrusilla Fane rifle this sanctuary with irreverent persistency, draggingto light what he had kept scrupulously hidden away. 

Having found her alone in the drawing-room drinking her tea, he told herat once what he had accomplished in the way of averting the worst phaseof the danger hanging over the master of Tory Hill. He told her, too, with some amount of elation, which he explained as his glee in gettinghimself down to "hard-pan. " Drusilla allowed the explanation to passtill she had thanked him ecstatically for what he had done. 

"Really, Peter, men are fine! The minute I heard Cousin Henry's wretchedstory I knew the worst couldn't come to the worst, with you here. I onlywish you could realize what it means to have a big, strong man like youto lean on. "

Davenant looked pleased; he was in the mood to be pleased with anything. He had had so little of women's appreciation in his life that Drusilla'senthusiasm was not only agreeable but new. He noticed, too, that inspeaking Drusilla herself was at her best. She had never been pretty. Her mouth was too large, her cheek-bones too high, and her skin toosallow for that; but she had the charm of frankness and intelligence. 

Davenant said what was necessary in depreciation of his act, going on toexplain the benefit he would reap by being obliged to go to work again. He enlarged on his plans for taking his old rooms and his old office, and informed her that he knew a fellow, an old pal, who had already lethim into a good thing in the way of a copper-mine in the region of LakeSuperior. Drusilla listened with interest till she found an opportunityto say:

"I'm so glad that _is_ your reason for helping Cousin Henry, Peter;because I was afraid there might be--another. "

He stopped abruptly, looking dashed. Unaccustomed to light methods ofattack and defense, it took him a few seconds to see Drusilla's move. 

"You thought I might be--in love?"

She nodded. 

"That's queer, " he went on, "because I'd got the same impression aboutyou. "

It was Drusilla's turn to be aghast. She was a little surprised at notbeing offended, too. 

"What made you think that?" she managed to ask, after getting command ofherself. 

"What makes one think anything? However, " he conceded, "I dare say I'mwrong. "

"That's a very good conclusion to come to. I advise you to keep to it. "

"I will if you'll do the same about me. "

She seized the opening to carry the attack back in his direction. 

"I can't make a bargain of that kind, Peter. The scientific mind basesits conclusions on--observed phenomena. "

"Which I guess is the reason why the scientific mind is so often wrong. I've had a good deal to do with it in the copper-mine business. It'salways barking up the wrong tree. I've often heard it said that theclever scientist is generally a poor reasoner. "

"Well, perhaps he is. But I wasn't reasoning. I was merely going byinstinct when I thought you might have a special motive for helpingCousin Henry. If you had, you know, it wouldn't be any harm. "

"It mightn't be any harm; but would it be any good?"

"Well, that might depend a good deal--on you. "

"On me? How so? I don't know what you're driving at. "

"I'm not driving at anything. I'm only speculating. I'm wondering what Ishould do if I were in your place--with all your advantages. "

"Rot, Drusilla!"

"If I were a man and had a rival, " Drusilla persisted, "I should beawfully honorable in the stand I'd take toward him--just like you. Butif anything miscarried--"

"You don't _expect_ anything to miscarry?"

She shook her head. "No; I don't expect it. But it might be a fortunatething if it did. "

"You don't mean to infer that this man Ashley mightn't come up to thescratch?"

"Colonel Ashley has come up to a good many scratches in his time. He'snot likely to fail in this one. "

"Well, then, what more is there to it?"

"There's a good deal more. There are things I can't explain, and whichyou wouldn't understand if I did. Coming up to the scratch isn'teverything. Charles the First came up to the scratch when he walked upand had his head cut off; but there was more to be said. "

"And you mean that your Colonel Ashley would be brave enough to walk upand have _his_ head cut off?"

"I know he'd be brave enough. It's no question of courage. He had theVictoria Cross before he was thirty. But it's a noble head; and it mightbe a pity it should have to fall. "

"But I don't understand why it should. "

"No, you wouldn't unless you'd lived among them. They'd all admit he haddone the right thing. They'd say that, having come out here to marryher, he could do no less than go through with it. That part of it wouldbe all right. Even in the Rangers it might make comparatively littledifference--except that now and then Olivia would feel uncomfortable. Only when he was mentioned at the Horse Guards for some importantcommand they'd remember that there was something queer--somethingshady--about his wife's family, and his name would be passed over. "

He nodded thoughtfully. "I see. "

"Oh no, you don't. It's much too intricate for you to see. You couldn'tbegin to understand how poignant it might become, especially for her, without knowing their ways and traditions--"

He jumped to his feet. "Their ways and traditions be--!"

"Yes; that's all very fine. But they're very good ways, Peter. They'vegot to keep the honor of the Service up to a very high standard. Theirways are all right. But that doesn't keep them from being terribleforces to come up against, especially for a proud thing like her. Andnow that the postponing of the wedding has got into the papers--"

"Yes; I've seen 'em. Got it pretty straight, too, all thingsconsidered. "

"And that sort of thing simply flies. It will be in the New York papersto-morrow, and in the London ones the day after. We always get thosethings cabled over there. We know about the elopements and the queerthings that happen in America when we don't hear of anything else. Within forty-eight hours they'll be talking of it at the Rangers' dépôtin Sussex--and at Heneage--and all through his county--and at the HorseGuards. You see if they aren't! You've no idea how people have their eyeon him. And when they hear the wedding has been put off for a scandalthey'll have at their heels all the men who've hated him--and all thewomen who've envied her--"

He leaned his shoulders against the mantelpiece, his hands behind hisback. "Pooh! That sort of dog can only bark. "

"No; that's where you're wrong, Peter. In England it can bite. It canraise a to-do around their name that will put a dead stop to hispromotion--that is, the best kind of promotion, such as he's on the wayto. "

"The deuce take his promotion! Let's think of--_her_. "

"That's just what I thought you'd do, Peter; and with all youradvantages--"

"Drop that, Drusilla, " he commanded. "You know you don't mean it. Youknow as well as I do that I haven't a chance--even if I wantedone--which I don't. You're not thinking of me--or of her. You'rethinking of him--and how to get him out of a match that won't tend tohis advancement. "

"I'm thinking of every one, Peter--of every one but myself, that is. I'mthinking of him, and her, and you--"

"Then you'll do me a favor if you leave me out. "

She sprang to her feet, her little figure looking slim and girlish. 

"I can't leave you out, Peter, when you're the Hamlet of the piece. That's nonsense. I'm not plotting or planning on any one's behalf. Itisn't my temperament. I only say that if this--this affair--didn't comeoff--though I suppose it will--I feel sure it will--yet if itdidn't--then, with all your advantages--and after what you've done forher--"

He strode forward, almost upsetting the tea-table beside which shestood. "Look here, Drusilla. You may as well understand me once for all. I wouldn't marry a girl who took me because of what I'd done for her, not if she was the last woman in the world. "

"But you would if she was the first, Peter. And I'm convinced that foryou she _is_ the first--"

"Now, now!" he warned her, "that'll do! I've been generous enough notto say anything as to who's first with you, though you don't take muchpains to hide it. Why not--?"

"You're all first with me, " she protested. "I don't know which of youI'm the most sorry for. "

"Don't waste your pity on me. I'm perfectly happy. There's only one ofthe lot who needs any consideration whatever. And, by God! if he's nottrue to her, I'll--"

"Your intervention won't be called for, Peter, " she assured him, makingher way toward the door. "You're greatly mistaken if you think I'veasked for it. "

"Then for Heaven's sake what _have_ you asked for? _I_ don't see. "

She was in the hall, but she turned and spoke through the doorway. "I'veonly asked you not to be an idiot. I merely beg, for all our sakes, thatif something precious is flung down at your feet you'll have the commonsense to stoop and pick it up. "

"I'll consider that, " he called after her, as she sped up the stairs, "when I see it lying there. "

XII

It may be admitted at once that, on arriving at Tory Hill and hearingfrom Olivia's lips the tale of her father's downfall, Colonel RupertAshley received the first perceptible check in a very distinguishedcareer. Up to this point the sobriquet of "Lucky Ashley, " by which hewas often spoken of in the Rangers, had been justified by more than onespectacular success. He had fulfilled so many special missions touncivilized and half-civilized and queerly civilized tribes that he hadcome to feel as if he habitually went on his way with the might of theBritish Empire to back him. It was he who in South Africa brought theM'popos to order without shedding a drop of blood; it was he who in theeastern Soudan induced the followers of the Black Prophet to throw intheir lot with the English, securing by this move the safety of UpperEgypt; it was he who in the Malay Peninsula intimidated the Sultan ofSurak into accepting the British protectorate, thus removing a menace tothe peace of the Straits Settlements. Even if he had had no otherexploits to his credit, these alone would have assured his favor withthe home authorities. It had become something like a habit, at theColonial Office or the War Officer or the Foreign Office, as the casemight be, whenever there was trouble on one of the Empire's vague outerfrontiers, to ask, "Where's Ashley?" Wherever he was, at Gibraltar orSimla or Cairo or at the Rangers' dépôt in Sussex, he was sent for andconsulted. Once having gained a reputation for skill in handlingbarbaric potentates, he knew how to make the most of it, both abroad andin Whitehall. On rejoining his regiment, too, after some of histriumphant expeditions, he was careful to bear himself with a modestythat took the point from detraction, assuring, as it did, hisbrother-officers that they would have done as well as he, had theyenjoyed the same chances. 

He was not without a policy in this, since from the day of receiving hiscommission he had combined a genuine love of his profession with a quitelaudable intention to "get on. " He cherished this ambition morenaturally, perhaps, than most of his comrades, who took the professionof arms lightly, for the reason that the instinct for it might be saidto be in his blood. The Ashleys were not an old county family. Indeed, it was only a generation or so since they had achieved county rank. Itwas a fact not generally remembered at the present day that thegrandfather of the colonel of the Sussex Rangers had been a successfuland estimable manufacturer of brushes. In the early days of QueenVictoria he owned a much-frequented emporium in Regent Street, at whichyou could get anything in the line from a tooth-brush to a currycomb. Retiring from business in the fifties, with a considerable fortune forthe time, this Mr. Ashley had purchased Heneage from the impoverishedrepresentatives of the Umfravilles. As luck would have it, the newowners found a not unattractive Miss Umfraville almost going with theplace, since she lived in select but inexpensive lodgings in thevillage. Her manners being as gentle as her blood, and her face evengentler than either, if such a thing could be, it was in keeping withthe spirit that had borne the Ashleys along to look upon her as anopportunity. Young Mr. Ashley, to whom his father had been able to givethe advantages of Oxford, knew at a glance that with this lady at hisside recognition by the county would be assured. Being indifferent torecognition by the county except in so far as it expressed a phase ofadvancement, and superior to calculation as a motive for the matrimonialstate, young Ashley proceeded with all due formality to fall in love;and it was from the passion incidental to this episode that Lucky Ashleywas born. 

All this had happened so long ago, according to modern methods ofreckoning, that the county had already forgotten what it was theoriginal Ashley had manufactured, or that he had manufactured anythingat all. By the younger generation it was assumed that Heneage had passedto the Ashley family through intermarriage with the Umfravilles. Certainit was that the Ashleys maintained the Umfraville tradition and used theUmfraville arms. What chiefly survived of the spirit that had made themanufacture of brushes so lucrative a trade was the intention youngRupert Ashley took with him into the army--to get on. 

He had got on. Every one spoke of him nowadays as a coming man. It wasconceded that when generals like Lord Englemere or Lord Bannockburnpassed away, it would be to such men as Rupert Ashley--the number ofthem could be counted on the fingers of your two hands!--that thecountry would look for its defenders. They were young men, comparatively, as yet; but they were waiting and in training. It was anational asset to know that they were there. 

It was natural, then, that Ashley's eyes should be turning in thedirection of the great appointments. He had won so much distinction inthe Jakh War and the Dargal War that there was nothing to which, withtime, he could not aspire. True, he had rivals; true, there were men whocould supplant him without putting any great strain upon their powers;true, there were others with more family influence, especially of thatpetticoat influence which had been known to carry so much weight in highand authoritative quarters; but he had confidence in himself, in hisability, his star--the last named of which had the merit of alwaysseeming to move forward. 

Everything began to point, therefore, to his marrying. In a measure itwas part of his qualification for high command. He had reached thatstage in his development, both private and professional, at which theco-operation of a good and graceful wife would double his capacity forpublic service, besides giving him that domestic consolation of whichhe began to feel the need. There were posts he could think of--poststhat would naturally be vacant before many years were past--in which thefact of his being unmarried would be a serious drawback if his name wereto come up. Better to be unmarried than to be saddled with a wife whofrom any deficiency of birth or manner was below the level of herstation! Of course! He had seen more than one man, splendidly qualifiedotherwise, passed over because of that mischance. But with a wife who inher way was equal to him in his they would both go far. Who couldventure to say how far?

In this respect he was fortunate in knowing exactly what he wanted. Thatis, he had seen enough of the duties of high position to be critical ofthe ladies who performed them. Experience enabled him to create hisideal by a process of elimination. Many a time, as he watched some greatgeneral's wife--Lady Englemere, let us say, or Lady Bannockburn--receiveher guests, he said to himself, "That is exactly what my wife shall notbe. " She should not be a military intrigante like the one, nor a femalemartinet like the other, nor a gambler like a third, nor a snob like afourth, nor a fool about young men like several he could think of. Bydint of fastidious observation and careful rejection of the qualities ofwhich he disapproved, a vision rose before him of the woman who would bethe complement of himself. He saw her clever, spirited, high-bred--awoman of the world, familiar with literature and arts, and speaking atleast one language besides her mother-tongue. In dress she should beexquisite, in conversation tactful, in manner sympathetic. As mistressof the house she should be thorough; as a hostess, full of charm; as amother--but his imagination hardly went into that. That she should be aperfect mother he took for granted, just as he took it for granted thatshe should be beautiful. A woman who had the qualifications he desiredcould not be less than beautiful from the sheer operation of the soul. 

Considering how definite his ideas were--and moderate, on the whole--itsurprised him to find no one to embody them. It sometimes seemed to himthat the traditional race of Englishwomen had become extinct. Those hemet were either brilliant and hard, or handsome and horsey, or athleticand weedy, or smart and selfish, or pretty and silly, or sweet andprovincial, or good and grotesque. With the best will in the world tofall in love, he found little or no temptation. Indeed, he had begun tothink that the type of woman on whom he had set his heart was, like somearticle of an antiquated fashion, no longer produced when unexpectedlyhe saw her. 

He saw her unexpectedly, because it was at church; and whatever hismotives on that bright Sunday morning in May in attending the oldgarrison chapel in Southsea, the hope of seeing his vision realized wasnot one. If, apart from the reasons for which people are supposed to goto church, he had any special thought, it was that of meeting Mrs. Fane. It had happened two or three times already that, having perceived her atthe service, he had joined her on the Common afterward, and she hadasked him home to lunch. They had been pleasant little luncheons--sopleasant that he almost regretted the fact that she was an American. Hehad nothing against Americans in themselves. He knew a number of theirwomen who had married into one arm or another of the Service withconspicuous advantage to their husbands. That, in fact, was part of thetrouble. There were so many of them nowadays that he had begun to feelvaguely that where there was question of high position--and he hopedmodestly that in his case there was distinctly question of that--it wastime the principle was being established of England for the English. Nevertheless, he had got so far in his consideration of Drusilla Fane asto ask himself whether she was not, as the widow of a British officer, an Englishwoman to all intents and purposes as well as in the strictletter of the law. He could not say that he was in love with her; butneither could he say that one of these days he might not be. If he everwere it would certainly be on the principle of _faute de mieux_; butmany a man has chosen his wife on no better ground than that. 

Such criticism as he had to make to her disadvantage he could form thereand then in the chapel while they were reading the lessons or chantingthe psalms. She sat two or three rows in front of him, on the other sideof the aisle. There was something about Drusilla in church thatsuggested a fish out of water. He had noticed it before. She wasrestless, inattentive; she kept turning her head to see who was behindher or at the other end of the pew; she rarely found the places in theprayer-book or knew just when to kneel down; when she did kneel down shesank into an awkward little bunch; every now and then she stifled, ordid not stifle, a yawn. 

Ashley had a theory that manner in church is the supreme test of theproprieties. He knew plenty of women who could charm at a dinner ordazzle at a dance, but who displayed their weaknesses at prayer. Allunwitting to herself, poor Drusilla was inviting his final--or almostfinal--judgment on her future, so far at least as he was concerned, forthe simple reason that she twitched and sighed and forgot to say theAmens. 

And just then his eyes traveled to her neighbor--a tall young lady, dressed in white, with no color in her costume but a sash of huestrembling between sea-green and lilac. She was slender and graceful, with that air at once exquisite and unassuming that he had seen in theEnglishwoman of his dreams. Though he could get no more than a sideglimpse of her face, he divined that it was pure and that it must bethrown into relief by the heavy coil of coppery-brown hair. But what henoticed in her first was that which he thought of concerning other womenlast--a something holy and withdrawn, a quality of devotion withoutwhich he had no conception of real womanhood. It seemed to be a matterof high courtesy with her not to perceive that the choir-boys sang outof tune or that the sermon was prosy. In the matter of kneeling he hadseen only one woman in his life--and she the highest in the land--whodid it with this marvelous grace at once dignified and humble. "It takesold England, " he said to himself, gloatingly, "to make 'em likethat--simple and--_stunning_. "

But on the Common after service, and at luncheon after that, and duringthe three or four weeks that ensued, he had much to do in reforming hisopinions. There were several facts about Olivia Guion that disorientatedhis points of view and set him looking for new ones. Though he was notwholly successful in finding them, he managed, nevertheless, to justifyhimself for falling in love in violation of his principles. He admittedthat he would have preferred to marry a compatriot of his own, and someone above the rank of a solicitor's daughter; but, since he haddiscovered the loveliest and noblest creature in the world, it was idleto cavil because one land or one situation in life rather than anotherhad produced her. As well complain of the rubies and pearls that deckthe English crown because some were found in Tibetan mountains andothers in Indian seas. There are treasures, he argued, so precious as totranscend all merely national limitations, making them petty andirrelevant. The one thing to the point was that in Olivia Guion he hadwon the human counterpart of himself, who could reflect his qualitiesand complete them. 

 * * * * *

He had been so proud that the blow on receiving Olivia's letter in NewYork was a cruel one. Though it told him nothing but that her father hadlost all his money and that the invitations to the wedding had beenwithdrawn, this in itself was immeasurably distressing to a man with ataste for calling public attention to his movements and who liked to seewhat concerned him march with a certain pomp. His marriage being anevent worthy to take place in sight of the world, he had not only foundways of making it a topic of interest before leaving England, but he hadsummoned to it such friends of distinction as he possessed on theAmerican side of the water. Though he had not succeeded in getting theBritish Ambassador, Benyon, the military attaché at Washington, was tocome with his wife, and Lord Woolwich, who was aide-de-camp at Ottawa, had promised to act as best man. His humiliation on speculating as towhat they must have said when they received Olivia's card announcingthat the marriage was not to take place on the 28th was such that hefell to wondering whether it wouldn't have been better to bluff the lossof money. They might have carried out their plans in spite of it. Indeedhe felt the feasibility of this course the more strongly after he hadactually seen Olivia and she had given him the outlines of her tale. 

Watching his countenance closely, she saw that he blanched. Otherwise hebetrayed no sign of flinching. His manner of sitting rigid and uprightin his corner of the rustic seat was a perfectly natural way oflistening to a story that affected him so closely. What distressed herchiefly was the incongruity between his personality and the sordid dramain which she was inviting him to take part. He was even moredistinguished-looking than he appeared in the photographs she cherishedor in the vision she had retained in her memory. Without being above themedium male height, he was admirably shaped by war, sport, and exercise. His neat head, with its thick, crispy hair, in which there was already astreak of gray, was set on his shoulders at just the right poise forcommand. The high-bridged nose, inherited from the Umfravilles, was ofthe kind commonly considered to show "race. " The eyes had the sharpness, and the thin-lipped mouth the inflexibility, that go with a capacity forquick decisions. While he was not so imposing in mufti as in hisuniform, the trim traveling-suit of russet brown went well with thebronze tint of the complexion. It was so healthy a bronze, as a usualthing, that his present pallor was the more ashen from contrast. 

Knowing from his telegram the hour at which to expect him, she had gonedown the driveway to meet him when she saw him dismiss his taxicab atthe gate. She chose to do this in order that their first encounter mighttake place out-of-doors. With the windows of the neighboring houses openand people sitting on verandas or passing up and down the road, theycould exchange no more than some conventional greeting. She would assumenothing on the ground of their past standing toward each other. Heseemed to acquiesce in this, since he showed no impatience at beingrestricted to the formality of shaking hands. 

Happily for both, commonplace words were given them--questions andanswers as to his voyage, his landing, his hotel. He came to her relief, too, as they sauntered toward the house, by commenting on its dignityand Georgian air, as well as by turning once or twice to look at theview. Nearing the steps she swerved from the graveled driveway and beganto cross the lawn. 

"We won't go in just yet, " she explained. "Papa is there. He felt heought to dress and come downstairs to receive you. He's very far fromwell. I hope you'll do your best not to--to think of him too harshly. "

"I shouldn't think harshly of any one simply because he'd had businessbad luck. "

"He _has_ had business bad luck--but that isn't all. We'll sit here. "

Taking one corner of a long garden-seat that stood in the shade of anelm, she signed to him to take the other. On the left they had theCorinthian-columned portico of the garden front of the house; in thedistance, the multicolored slopes of the town. Olivia, at least, feltthe stimulating effect of the, golden forenoon sunshine. 

As for Ashley, in spite of his outward self-possession, he was toobewildered to feel anything at all. Having rushed on from New York bynight, he was now getting his first daylight glimpse of America; and, though, owing to more urgent subjects for, thought, he was notconsciously giving his attention to things outward, he had an oppressivesense of immensity and strangeness. The arch of the sky was so sweeping, the prospect before them so gorgeous, the sunlight so hard, and thedistances so clear! For the first time in his life a new continentaroused in him an odd sense of antagonism. He had never had it in Africaor Asia or in the isles of the Southern Sea. There he had always gonewith a sense of power, with the instinct of the conqueror; whilehere. .. . But Olivia was speaking, saying things too appalling forimmediate comprehension. 

Her voice was gentle and even; she spoke with a certain kind of ease. She appeared to rehearse something already learned by heart. 

"So, you see, he didn't merely lose his own money; he lost theirs--themoney of his clients--which was in his trust. I hadn't heard of it whenI wrote you in New York, otherwise I should have told you. But now thatyou know it--"

He looked mystified. "He's jolly lucky not to be in England, " he said, trying not to seem as stunned as he felt. "There that sort of thing is avery serious--"

"Offence, " she hastened to say. "Oh, so it is here. I must tell youquite plainly that if the money hadn't come papa would have had to goto--"

"But the money did come?"

She made a point of finishing her sentence. "If the money hadn't comepapa would have had to go to prison. Yes, the money did come. A friendof--of papa's--and Drusilla's--advanced it. It's been paid over to thepeople who were going to law. "

"So that part of it is settled?"

"That part of it is settled to the extent that no action will be takenagainst papa. "

She continued to talk on gently, evenly, giving him the factsunsparingly. It was the only way. Her very statements, so it seemed toher, implied that as marriage between them was no longer possible theirengagement was at an end. 

She was not surprised that he scarcely noticed when, having said all shehad to say, she ceased speaking. Taking it for granted that he wasthinking out the most merciful way of putting his verdict into words, she, too, remained silent. She was not impatient, nor uneasy, noralarmed. The fact that the business of telling him was no longer aheadof her, that she had got it over, brought so much relief that she feltable to await his pleasure. 

She mistook, however, the nature of his thoughts. Once he had graspedthe gist of her information, he paid little attention to its details. The important thing was his own conduct. Amid circumstancesoverwhelmingly difficult he must act so that every one, friend or rival, relative, county magnate or brother officer, the man in his regiment orthe member of his club, the critic in England or the onlooker inAmerica, should say he had done precisely the right thing. 

He used the words "precisely the right thing" because they formed aruling phrase in his career. For twenty-odd years they had been writtenon the tablets of his heart and worn as frontlets between his brows. They had first been used in connection with him by a great dowagercountess now deceased. She had said to his mother, apropos of someforgotten bit of courtliness on his part, "You can always be sure thatRupert will do precisely the right thing. " Though he was but a lad atEton at the time, he had been so proud of this opinion, expressed withall a dowager countess's authority, that from the moment it was repeatedto him by his mother he made it a device. It had kept him out of morescrapes than he could reckon up, and had even inspired the act thatwould make his name glorious as long as there were annals of theVictoria Cross. 

He had long been persuaded that had the dowager countess not thus giventhe note to his character his record would never have been written onthat roll of heroes. "I should have funked it, " was his way of puttingit, by which he meant that he would have funked it through sheerignorance of himself and of his aptitude for the high and noble. It wasan aptitude that flourished best under an appreciative eye--of thedowager countess looking down from heaven--or of the discerning here onearth--as an actor is encouraged by a sympathetic public to his highesthistrionic efforts. If there was anything histrionic in Ashley himself, it was only in the sense that he was at his finest when, actually orpotentially, there was some one there to see. He had powers then ofdoing precisely the right thing which in solitude might have beendormant from lack of motive. 

It was undoubtedly because he felt the long-sighted eyes of England onhim that he had done precisely the right thing in winning the VictoriaCross. He confessed this--to himself. He confessed it often--every time, in fact, when he came to a difficult passage in his life. It was hisstrength, his inspiration. He confessed it now. If he sat silent whileOlivia Guion waited till it seemed good to him to speak, it was onlythat he might remind himself of the advantages of doing the right thing, however hard. He had tested those advantages time and time again. Thevery memories they raised were a rebuke to weakness and hesitation. Ifhe ever had duties he was inclined to shirk, he thought of thathalf-hour which had forever set the seal upon his reputation as aBritish soldier. 

He thought of it now. He saw himself again looking up at the bristlingcliffs that were to be rushed, whence the Afridis were pouring theirdeadly fire. He saw himself measuring with his eye the saddle ofprecipitous slope that had to be crossed, devoid of cover and strewnwith the bodies of dead Ghurkas. Of the actual crossing, with sixtyRangers behind him, he had little or no recollection. He had passedunder the hail of bullets as through perils in a dream. As in a dream, too, he remembered seeing his men, when he turned to cheer them on, godown like nine-pins--throwing up their arms and staggering, or twistingthemselves up like convulsive cats. It was grotesque rather thanhorrible; he felt himself grinning inwardly, as at something hellishlycomic, when he reached the group of Ghurkas huddled under the cavernousshelter of the cliff. Then, just as he threw himself on the ground, panting like a spent dog and feeling his body all over to know whetheror not he had been wounded, he saw poor Private Vickerson out in theopen, thirty yards from the protection of the wall of rock. While theother Rangers to a man were lying still, on the back with the kneesdrawn up, or face downward, with the arms outstretched, or rolled on theside as though they were in bed, Vickerson was rising on his hands anddragging himself forward. It was one of Ashley's most vividrecollections that Vickerson's movements were like a seal's. They hadthe drollery of a bit of infernal mimicry. It was also a vividrecollection that when he ran out to the soldier's aid he had his firstsensation of fear. The bullets whizzed so thick about him that he ranback again. It was an involuntary running back, as involuntary assnatching his fingers out of a fire. He could remember standing underthe rock, and, as Vickerson did not move, half hoping he were dead. Thatwould put an end to any further attempts to save him. But the soldierstirred again, propping himself with both hands and pulling his bodyonward for a few inches more. Again Ashley ran out into a tempest ofiron and fire and over ground slippery with blood. He could still feelhimself hopping back, as a barefooted boy who has ventured into asnow-storm hops back into the house. A third time he ran out, and afourth. At the fourth he distinctly worded the thought which had been atthe back of his mind from the beginning, "I shall get the V. C. Forthis. " He tried to banish the unworthy suggestion, but it was too strongfor him. Over the cliffs, and out of the clouds, and from beyond thehorizon, he felt the unseen eyes of England upon him, inciting him tosuch a valor that at the fifth attempt he dragged in his man. 

He came out of this reverie, which, after all, was brief, to find thegentle tones in which Olivia had made her astounding revelations stillin his ears; while she herself sat expectant, and resigned. He knew shewas expectant and resigned and that she had braced her courage for theworst. With many men, with most men, to do so would have been needful. In the confusion of his rapid summaries and calculations it was apleasurable thought that she should learn from him, and through him andin him, that it was not so with all. The silence which at first wasinadvertent now became deliberate as--while he noted with satisfactionthat he had not overstated to himself the exquisite, restrained beautyof her features, her eyes, her hair, her hands, and of the very textureand fashion of her clothing--he prolonged the suspense which was to bethe prelude to his justifying once again the dowager countess's goodopinion. It was to his credit as a brave man that he could nerve himselffor this with his eyes wide open--wider open than even Mrs. Fane's--toto the consequences that might be in store for him. 

XIII

Ashley had the tact, sprung of his English instinct for moderation, notto express his good intentions too directly. He preferred to let themfilter out through a seemingly casual manner of taking them for granted. Neither did he attempt to disguise the fact that the strangenessincidental to meeting again, in trying conditions and under another sky, created between himself and Olivia a kind of moral distance across whichthey could draw together only by degrees. It was a comfort to her thathe did not try to bridge it by anything in the way of forced tenderness. He was willing to talk over the situation simply and quietly until, inthe course of an hour or two, the sense of separation began to wearaway. 

The necessity on her part of presenting Ashley to her father andoffering him lunch brought into play those social resources that were assecond nature to all three. It was difficult to think the bottom couldbe out of life while going through a carefully chosen menu and drinkingan excellent vin de Graves at a table meticulously well appointed. Toescape the irony of this situation they took refuge in the topics thatcame readiest, the novelty to Ashley of the outward aspect of Americanthings keeping them on safe ground till the meal was done. It was arelief to both men that Guion could make his indisposition an excuse forretiring again to his room. 

It was a relief to Olivia, too. For the first time in her life she hadto recognize her father as insupportable to any one but herself andPeter Davenant. Ashley did his best to conceal his repulsion; she wassure of that; he only betrayed it negatively in a tendency to ignorehim. He neither spoke nor listened to him any more than he could help. By keeping his eyes on Olivia he avoided looking toward him. The factthat Guion took this aversion humbly, his head hanging and his attentiongiven to his plate, did not make it the less poignant. 

All the same, as soon as they were alone in the dining-room the oldsense of intimacy, of belonging to each other, suddenly returned. Itreturned apropos of nothing and with the exchange of a glance. There wasa flash in his eyes, a look of wonder in hers--and he had taken her, orshe had slipped, into his arms. 

And yet when a little later he reverted to the topic of the morning andsaid, "As things are now, I really don't see why we shouldn't be marriedon the 28th--privately, you know, " her answer was, "What did you thinkof papa?"

Though he raised his eyebrows in surprise that she should introduce thesubject, he managed to say, "He seems pretty game. "

"He does; but I dare say he isn't as game as he looks. There's a gooddeal before him still. "

"If we're married on the 28th he'd have one care the less. "

"Because I should be taken off his hands. I'm afraid that's not the wayto look at it. The real fact is that he'd have nobody to help him. "

"I've two months' leave. You could do a lot for him in that time. "

She bent over her piece of work. It was the sofa-cushion she had laidaside on the day when she learned from Davenant that her father'stroubles were like Jack Berrington's. They had come back for coffee tothe rustic seat on the lawn. For the cups and coffee service a smalltable had been brought out beside which she sat. Ashley had so farrecovered his sang-froid as to be able to enjoy a cigar. 

"Would you be very much hurt, " she asked, without raising her head, "ifI begged you to go back to England without our being married at all?"

"Oh, but I say!"

The protest was not over-strong. He was neither shocked nor surprised. Awell-bred woman, finding herself in such trouble as hers, wouldnaturally offer him some way of escape from it. 

"You see, " she went on, "things are so complicated already that if wegot married we should complicate them more. There's so much to bedone--as to papa--and this house--and the future--of the kind of thingyou don't know anything about. They're sordid things, too, that you'd bewasted on if you tried to learn them. "

He smiled indulgently. "And so you're asking me--a soldier!--to runaway. "

"No, to let me do it. It's so--so impossible that I can't face it. "

"Oh, nonsense!" He spoke with kindly impatience. "Don't you love me? Yousaid just now--in the dining-room--when--"

"Yes, I know; I did say that. But, you see--we _must_ consider it--lovecan't be the most important thing in the world for either you or me. "

"I understand. You mean to say it's duty. Very good. In that case, myduty is as plain as a pikestaff. "

"Your duty to stand by me?"

"I should be a hound if I didn't do it. "

"And I should feel myself a common adventuress if I were to let you. "

"Oh--I say!"

His protest this time was more emphatic. There was even a pleading notein it. In the course of two or three hours he had got back much of thefeeling he had had in England that she was more than an exquisite lady, that she was the other part of himself. It seemed superfluous on herpart to fling open the way of retreat for him too wide. 

She smiled at his exclamation. "Yes, I dare say that's how it strikesyou. But it's very serious to me. Isn't it serious to you, too, to feelthat you must be true to me--and marry me--after all that's come topass?"

"One doesn't think that way--or speak that way--of marrying the womanone--adores. "

"Men have been known to marry the women they adored, and still regretthe consequences they had to meet. "

"She's right, " he said to himself. "It _is_ serious. "

There could be no question as to her wisdom in asking him to pause. Athis age and in his position, and with his merely normal capacity forpassion, it would be absurd to call the world well lost for love. Notwithstanding his zeal to do the right thing, there was something dueto himself, and it was imperative that he should consider it. Droppingthe stump of his cigar into his empty coffee-cup, he got up and strodeaway. The emotion of the minute, far in excess of the restrained phrasesconvention taught them to use, offered an excuse for hisunceremoniousness. 

He walked to the other side of the lawn, then down to the gate, thenround to the front of the house. To a chance passer-by he was merelyinspecting the premises. What he saw, however, was not the spectacularfoliage, nor the mellow Georgian dwelling, but himself going on hisfamiliar victorious way, freed from a clogging scandal that would makethe wheels of his triumphal car drive heavily. He saw himself advancing, as he had advanced hitherto, from promotion to promotion, from commandto command. He saw himself first alone, and then with a wife--a wife whowas not Olivia Guion. Then suddenly the vision changed into somethingmisty and undefined; the road became dark, the triumphal car jolted andfell to pieces; there was reproach in the air and discomfort in hissensations. He recognized the familiar warnings that he was not doingprecisely the right thing. He saw Olivia Guion sitting as he had lefther four or five minutes before, her head bent over her stitching. Hesaw her there, deserted, alone. He saw the eyes of England on him, as hedrove away in his triumphal car, leaving her to her fate. Hiscompunction was intense, his pity overwhelming. Merely at turning hisback on her to stroll around the lawn he felt guilty of a cowardlyabandonment. And he felt something else--he felt the clinging of herarms around his neck; he felt the throb of her bosom against his own asshe let herself break down just for a second--just for a sob. It seemedto him that he should feel that throb forever. 

He hurried back to where he had left her. "It's no use, " he said tohimself; "I'm in for it, by Jove. I simply can't leave her in thelurch. "

There was no formal correctness about Ashley's habitual speech. He kept, as a rule, to the idiom of the mess, giving it distinction by his crisp, agreeable enunciation. 

Olivia had let the bit of embroidery rest idly in her lap. She looked upat his approach. He stood before her. 

"Do I understand, " he asked, with a roughness assumed to conceal hisagitation, "that you're offering me my liberty?"

"No; that I'm asking you for mine. "

"On what grounds?"

She arched her eyebrows, looking round about her comprehensively. "Ishould think that was clear. On the grounds of--of everything. "

"That's not enough. So long as you can't say that you don't--don't careabout me any more--"

There was that possibility. It was very faint, but if she made use of ithe should consider it decisive. Doing precisely the right thing wouldbecome quite another course of action if her heart rejected him. But shespoke promptly. 

"I can't say that; but I can say something more important. "

He nodded firmly. "That settles it, by Jove. I sha'n't give you up. There's no reason for it. So long as we love each other--"

"Our loving each other wouldn't make your refusal any the less hard forme. As your wife I should be trying to fill a position for which I'm nolonger qualified and in which I should be a failure. "

"As my wife, " he said, slowly, with significant deliberation, "we couldmake the position anything you felt able to fill. "

She considered this. "That is, you could send in your papers and retireinto private life. "

"If we liked. "

"So that you'd be choosing between your career--and me. "

"I object to the way of putting it. If my career, as you call it, didn'tmake you happy, you should have whatever would do the trick. "

"I'm afraid you'll think me captious if I say that nothing _could do_it. If you weren't happy, I couldn't be; and you'd never be happy exceptas a soldier. "

"That trade would be open to me whatever happened. "

"In theory, yes; but in practice, if you had a wife who was under acloud you'd have to go under it, too. That's what it would come to inthe working-out. "

She stood up from sheer inability to continue sitting still. The pieceof embroidery fell on the grass. Ashley smiled at her--a smile that wasnot wholly forced, because of the thoughts with which she inspired him. Her poise, her courage, the something in her that would have been prideif it had not been nearer to meekness and which he had scarcely calledmeekness before he felt it to be fortitude, gave him confidence in thefuture. "She's stunning--by Jove!" It seemed to him that he saw her forthe first time. For the first time since he had known her he was lessthe ambitious military officer seeking a wife who would grace a highposition than he was a man in love with a woman. Separating these twoelements within himself, he was able to value her qualities, not asadornments to some Home or Colonial Headquarters House, but as ofsupreme worth for their own sake. "People have only got to see her, " hesaid, inwardly, to which he added aloud:

"I dare say the cloud may not be so threatening, after all; and even ifit is, I should go under it with the pluckiest woman in the world. "

She acknowledged this with a scarcely visible smile and a slightinclination of the head. "Thank you; I'm foolish enough to like to hearyou say it. I think I _am_ plucky--alone. But I shouldn't be if Iinvolved anybody else. "

"But if it was some one who could help you?"

"That might be different, but I don't know of any one who could. _You_couldn't. If you tried you'd only injure yourself without doing me anygood. "

"At the least, I could take you away from--from all this. "

"No, because it's the sort of thing one can never leave behind. It'sgone ahead of us. It will meet us at every turn. You and I--andpapa--are probably by to-day a subject for gossip in half the clubs inNew York. To-morrow it will be the same thing in London--at the club youcall the Rag--and the Naval and Military--and your different Serviceclubs--"

To hide the renewal of his dismay he pooh-poohed this possibility. "As amere nine days' wonder. "

"Which isn't forgotten when the nine days are past. Long after they'veceased speaking of it they'll remember--"

"They'll remember, " he interrupted, fiercely, "that I jilted you. "

She colored hotly. "That you--what?"

He colored, too. The words were as much a surprise to him as to her. Hehad never thought of this view of the case till she herself summoned upthe vision of his friends and enemies discussing the affair in bigleather arm-chairs in big, ponderous rooms in Piccadilly or St. James'sSquare. It was what they would say, of course. It was what he himselfwould have said of any one else. He had a renewed feeling that retreatwas cut off. 

"If we're not married--if I go home without you--it's what'll be oneverybody's lips. "

"But it won't be true, " she said, with a little gasp. 

He laughed. "That won't matter. It's how it'll look. "

"Oh, looks!"

"It's what we're talking about, isn't it? It's what makes thedifference. I shall figure as a cad. "

He spoke as one who makes an astounding discovery. She was inexpressiblyshocked. 

"Oh, but you couldn't, " was all she could find to say, but she said itwith conviction. 

[Illustration: "THERE'S NO ONE WHO WON'T BELIEVE BUT THAT I--THREW YOUOVER. "]

He laughed again. "You'll see. There's no one--not my best friends--notmy mother--not my sisters--who won't believe--whatever you and I may sayto the contrary--who won't believe but that I--threw you over. "

A toss of his hand, a snap of his fingers, suited the action to theword. 

Her color came and went in little shifting flashes. She moved a pace ortwo aimlessly, restively. Her head went high, her chin tilted. When shespoke her voice trembled with indignation, but she only said:

"They couldn't believe it long. "

"Oh, couldn't they! The story would follow me to my grave. Things likethat are never forgotten among fellows so intimate as soldiers. Therewas a chap in our regiment who jilted a nice girl at the Cape--sailedfor home secretly only a week before the wedding. " He paused to let hertake in the dastardly nature of the flight. "Well, he rejoined at thedépôt. He stayed--but he didn't stay long. The Rangers got too hot forhim--or too cold. The last I ever heard of him he was giving Englishlessons at Boulogne. "

The flagrancy of the case gave her an advantage. "It's idle to thinkthat that kind of fate could overtake you. "

"The fate that can overtake me easily enough is that as long as I livethey'll say I chucked a girl because she'd had bad luck. "

She was about to reply when the click of the latch of the gate divertedher attention. Drusilla Fane, attended by Davenant, was coming up thehill. Seeing Olivia and Ashley at the end of the lawn, Drusilladeflected her course across the grass, Davenant in her wake. Her wide, frank smile was visible from a long way off. 

"This is not indiscretion, " she laughed, as she advanced; "neither is itvulgar curiosity to see the lion. I shouldn't have come at all if motherhadn't sent me with a message. "

Wearing a large hat _à la_ Princesse de Lamballe and carrying along-handled sunshade which she held daintily, like a Watteaushepherdess holding a crook, Drusilla had an air of refined, eighteenth-century dash. Knowing the probability that she disturbed somepoignant bit of conversation, she proceeded to take command, stepping upto Olivia with a hasty kiss. "Hello, you dear thing!" Turning to Ashley, she surveyed him an instant before offering her hand. "So you've gothere! How fit you look! What sort of trip did you have, and how did youleave your people? And, oh, by the way, this is Mr. Davenant. "

Davenant, who had been paying his respects to Miss Guion, chargedforward, with hand outstretched and hearty: "Happy to meet you, Colonel. Glad to welcome you to our country. "

"Oh!"

Ashley snapped out the monosyllable in a dry, metallic voice pitchedhigher than his usual key. The English softening of the vowel sound, sodroll to the American ear, was also more pronounced than was customaryin his speech, so that the exclamation became a sharp "A-ow!"

Feeling his greeting to have been insufficient, Davenant continued, pumping up a forced rough-and-ready cordiality. "Heard so much aboutyou, Colonel, that you seem like an old friend. Hope you'll like us. Hope you'll enjoy your stay. "

"Oh, indeed? I don't know, I'm sure. "

Ashley's glance shifted from Drusilla to Olivia as though asking in somealarm who was this exuberant bumpkin in his Sunday clothes who haddropped from nowhere. Davenant drew back; his face fell. He looked likea big, sensitive dog hurt by a rebuff. It was Mrs. Fane who came to therescue. 

"Peter's come to see Cousin Henry. They've got business to talk over. And mother wants to know if you and Colonel Ashley won't come to dinnerto-morrow evening. That's my errand. Just ourselves, you know. It'll bevery quiet. "

Olivia recovered somewhat from the agitation of the previous half-houras well as from the movement of sudden, inexplicable anger whichAshley's reception of Davenant had produced in her. Even so she couldspeak but coldly, and, as it were, from a long way off. 

"You'll go, " she said, turning to Ashley, "and I'll come if I can leavepapa. I'll run up flow and see how he is and take Mr. Davenant with me. "

XIV

There was dignity in the way in which Davenant both withdrew and stoodhis ground. He was near the Corinthian portico of the house as Oliviaapproached him. Leaning on his stick, he looked loweringly back atAshley, who talked to Drusilla without noticing him further. Oliviaguessed that in Davenant's heart there was envy tinged with resentment, antipathy, not tempered by a certain unwilling admiration. She wonderedwhat it was that made the difference between the two men, that gaveAshley his very patent air of superiority. It was a superiority not inlooks, since Davenant was the taller and the handsomer; nor in clothes, since Davenant was the better dressed; nor in the moral make-up, sinceDavenant had given proofs of unlimited generosity. But there it was, atradition of self-assurance, a habit of command which in any companythat knew nothing about either would have made the Englishman easilystand first. 

Her flash of anger against the one in defense of the other passed away, its place being taken by a feeling that astonished her quite as much. She tried to think it no more than a pang of jealousy at seeing her owncountryman snubbed by a foreigner. She was familiar with the sensationfrom her European, and especially her English, experiences. At anunfriendly criticism it could be roused on behalf of a chance strangerfrom Colorado or California, and was generally quite impersonal. Shetold herself that it was impersonal now, that she would have had thesame impulse of protection, of championship, for any one. 

Nevertheless, there was a tone in her voice as she joined him thatstruck a new note in their acquaintanceship. 

"I'm glad you came when you did. I wanted you to meet Colonel Ashley. You'll like him when you know him better. Just at first he was a littleembarrassed. We'd been talking of things--"

"I didn't notice anything--that is, anything different from any otherEnglishman. "

"Yes; that's it, isn't it? Meeting an Englishman is often like the firstplunge into a cold bath--chilling at first, but delightful afterward. "

He stopped under the portico, to say with a laugh that was not quitespontaneous: "Yes; I dare say. But my experience is limited. I've nevergot to the--afterward. "

"Oh, well, you will, " she said, encouragingly, "now that you knowColonel Ashley. "

"I've heard of men plunging into a cold bath and finding it so icy thatthey've popped out again. "

"Yes; thin-blooded men, who are sensitive to chills. Not men like you. "

They entered the house, lingering in the oval sitting-room throughwhich they had to pass. 

"Fortunately, " he tried to say, lightly, "it doesn't matter in this casewhether I'm sensitive to chills or not. "

"Oh, but it does. I want you two to be friends. "

"What for?" The question was so point-blank as to be a little scornful, but she ignored that. 

"On Colonel Ashley's side, for what he'll gain in knowing you; onyours--for something more. "

He stopped again, at the foot of the staircase in the hall. "May Iask--just what you mean by that?"

She hesitated. "It's something that a tactful person wouldn't tell. If Ido, it's only because I want you to consider me as--your friend. I knowyou haven't hitherto, " she hurried on, as he flushed and tried to speak. "I haven't deserved it. But after what's happened--and after all you'vedone for us--"

"I could consider you my friend without asking Colonel Ashley to thinkof me as his. "

"Hardly--if I marry him; and besides--when you know him--You see, " shebegan again, "what I have in mind depends upon your knowing him--ratherwell. "

"Then, Miss Guion, " he laughed, "you can drop it. I've sized him up witha look. I've seen others like him--at Gibraltar and Malta and Aden andHongkong and Cairo, and wherever their old flag floats. They're a finelot. He's all right for you--all right in his place. Only, the placeisn't--mine. "

"Still, " she persisted, "if I marry him you'd be sometimes in England;and you'd come to visit us, wouldn't you?"

"Come and--what?" His astonishment made him speak slowly. 

She took a step or two up the stairway, leaning on the banister in a wayto prevent his advancing. She was now looking down at him, instead oflooking up. 

"Isn't it true--?" she said, with hesitation--"at least I've ratherguessed it--and I've gathered it from things Drusilla has said aboutyou--You see, " she began once more, "if we're to be friends you mustn'tmind my speaking frankly and saying things that other people couldn'tsay. You've intervened so much in my life that I feel you've given me aright to--intervene--in yours. "

"Oh, intervene as much as you like, Miss Guion, " he said, honestly. 

"Well, then, isn't it true that there are things you've wanted--wantedvery much--and never had? If so--and I marry Colonel Ashley--"

"Hold on! Let's see what you mean by--things. If it's visiting round inhigh society--"

He tried to render as scorn his dismay at this touching on his weakness. 

"I don't mean anything so crude. Visiting round in high society, as youcall it, would at best be only the outward and visible sign of aninward--and, perhaps, spiritual--experience of the world. Isn't thatwhat you've wanted? You see, if I do marry Colonel Ashley, Icould--don't be offended!--I could open a door to you that you've neverbeen able to force for yourself. "

"You mean get me into society. "

"You needn't be so disdainful. I didn't mean that--exactly. But thereare people in the world different from those you meet in business--andin their way more interesting--certainly more picturesque. They'd likeyou if they knew you--and I had an idea that you--rather craved--Afterall, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's only making the world biggerfor oneself, and--"

Backing away from the stairway, he stood on a rug in the middle of thehall, his head hung like a young bull about to charge. 

"What made you think of it?"

"Isn't that obvious? After you've done so much for me--"

"I haven't done anything for you, Miss Guion. I've said so a good manytimes. It wouldn't be right for me to take payment for what you don'towe me. Besides, there's nothing I want. "

"That is to say, " she returned, coldly, "you prefer the rôle ofbenefactor. You refuse to accept the little I might be able to do. Iadmit that it isn't much--but it's _something_--something within mypower, and which I thought you might like. But since you don't--"

"It's no question of liking; it's one of admitting a principle. If youoffer me a penny it's in part payment for a pound, while I say, and sayagain, that you don't owe me anything. If there's a debt at all it'syour father's--and it's not transferable. "

"Whether it's transferable or not is a matter that rests between myfather and me--and, of course, Colonel Ashley, if I marry him. "

He looked at her with sudden curiosity. "Why do you always say thatwith--an 'if'?"

She reflected an instant. "Because, " she said, slowly, "I can't say itin any other way. "

He straightened himself; he advanced again to the foot of the stairway. 

"Is that because of any reason of--_his?_"

"It's because of a number of reasons, one of which is mine. It'sthis--that I find it difficult to go away with one man--when I have toturn my back upon the overwhelming debt I owe another. I do owe it--I_do_. The more I try to ignore it, the more it comes in between meand--"

He pressed forward, raising himself on the first step of the stairs, till his face was on a level with hers. He grew red and stammered:

"But, Miss Guion, you're--you're--in love with him?--the man you'd begoing away with?"

She nodded. "Yes; but that wouldn't help me to feel justified withregard to the--the duty--I was leaving behind. "

He dropped again to the level of the hall. "I don't understand. Do youmean to say that what I've done for Mr. Guion would keep you fromgetting married?"

"I'm not prepared to say that. Colonel Ashley is so--so splendid in theway he takes everything that--But I'll say this much, " she began again, "that you've made it _hard_ for me to be married. "

"How so? I thought it would be all the other way. "

"If you'll put yourself in my place--or in Colonel Ashley'splace--you'll see. Try to think what it means for two people like us togo away--and be happy--and live in a great, fashionable world--and bepeople of some importance--knowing that some one else--who was nothingto us, as we were nothing to him--had to deprive himself of practicallyeverything he had in the world to enable us to do it. "

"But if it was a satisfaction to him--"

"That wouldn't make any difference to us. The facts would be the same. "

"Then, as far as I see, I've done more harm than good. "

"You've helped papa. "

"But I haven't helped you. "

"As I understand it, you didn't want to. "

"I didn't want to--to do the reverse. "

"Perhaps it wouldn't be the reverse if you could condescend to let me dosomething for you. It would be the fair exchange which is no robbery. That's why I suggest that if I'm to have that--that life over there--youshould profit by its advantages. "

He shook his head violently. "No, Miss Guion. Please don't think of it. It's out of the question. I wish you'd let me say once for all that youowe me nothing. I shall never accept anything from you--never!"

"Oh!" It was the protest of one who has been hurt. 

"I'll take that back, " he said, instantly. "There _is_ something youcan do for me and that I should like. Marry your Englishman, Miss Guion, and do what you said just now--go away and be happy. If you want to giveme a reward, I'll take that. "

She surveyed him a minute in astonishment. "You're perfectlyextraordinary, " she said at last, in a tone of exasperation, "and"--shethrew at him a second later--"and impossible!"

Before he could reply she went grandly up the stairway, so that he wasobliged to follow her. In the hall above she turned on him again. Had henot known that he had given her no cause for offence he would have saidthat her eyes filled with tears. 

"Things are very hard as it is, " she said, reproachfully. "You needn'tgo out of your way to make them gratuitously cruel. "

"But, Miss Guion--" he began to protest. 

"Please go in, " she commanded, throwing open, as she spoke, the door ofher father's room. 

XV

Meanwhile, down on the lawn, Drusilla and Ashley were talking thingsover from their own points of view. There had been a second ofembarrassment when they were first left alone, which Drusilla got overby pointing with her parasol to an indistinguishable spot in the stretchof tree-tops, spires, and gables sloping from the gate, saying:

"That's our house--the one with the little white cupola. "

He made no pretense to listen or to look. "She says she doesn't want tomarry me. "

He made the statement dispassionately, as though laying down a subjectfor academic discussion. 

It was some little time before she could think what to say. 

"Well, that doesn't surprise me, " she risked at last. 

"Doesn't surprise you?"

She shook her head. "On the contrary, I should be very much astonishedif she did--now. I should be astonished at any woman in her positionwanting to marry a man in yours. "

"I don't care a hang for my position. "

"Oh yes, you do. And even if you didn't, it wouldn't matter. It'snaturally a case in which you and she have to see from different angles. With you it's a point of honor to stand by her; with her it's the samething not to let you. "

"In honor it's the positive, not the negative, that takes precedence, and the positive happens to be mine. "

"I don't think you can argue that way, you know. What takes precedenceof everything else is--common sense. "

"And do you mean to say that common sense requires that she shall giveme up?"

"I shouldn't go so far as to assert that. But I shouldn't mind sayingthat if she did give you up there'd be a lot of common sense in herdoing it. "

"On whose account? Mine?"

"Yes; and hers. Perhaps chiefly on hers. You can hardly realize thenumber of things she has to take care of--and you'd be one more. "

"I confess I don't seize your drift. "

"It's not very abstruse, however. Just think. It isn't as if CousinHenry had fallen ill, or had died, or had gone to pieces in any of theordinary ways. Except for his own discomfort, he might just as well havebeen tried and sentenced and sent to prison. He's been as good as there. Every one knows it's only a special providence that he didn't go. But ifhe's escaped that by the skin of his teeth, he hasn't escaped a lot ofother things. He hasn't escaped being without a penny in the world. Hehasn't escaped having his house sold over his head and being turned outinto the streets. He hasn't escaped reaching a perfectly impotent oldage, with not a soul on this earth to turn to but Olivia. "

"What about me?"

"Would _you_ take him?"

"I shouldn't _take_ him exactly. If he was my father-in-law"--he made alittle grimace--"I suppose I could pension him off somewhere, or boardhim out, like an old horse. One couldn't have him round. "

"H'm! I dare say that would do--but I doubt it. If you'd ever been adaughter you might feel that you couldn't dispose of a poor, old, broken-down father quite so easily. After all, he's not a horse. Youmight more or less forsake him when all was going well, and yet want tostick to him through thick and thin if he came a cropper. Look at me! Igo off and leave my poor old dad for a year and more at a time--becausehe's a saint; but if he wasn't--especially if he'd got into any suchscrape as Cousin Henry's--which isn't thinkable--but if he did--I'dnever leave him again. That's my temperament. It's every girl'stemperament. It's Olivia's. But all that is neither here nor there. Ifshe married you, her whole life would be given up to trying to make youblend with a set of circumstances you couldn't possibly blend with. Itwould be worse than singing one tune to an orchestra playing another. She'd go mad with the attempt. "

"Possibly; except for one factor which you've overlooked. "

"Oh, love! Yes, yes. I thought you'd say that. " Drusilla tossed herhands impatiently. "Love will do a lot, but it won't do everything. Youcan't count on it to work miracles in a sophisticated company like theSussex Rangers. They've passed the age of faith for that sort of thing. "

"I don't see, " he said, speaking very slowly, "that the Rangers need bealtogether taken into consideration. "

She looked at him fixedly. "Do you mean that you'd--send in yourpapers?"

"Only in the sense that if my wife wasn't happy in the Service we couldget out of it. "

"Then you're really so much in love that you'd be willing to throw upeverything on account of it?" There was some incredulity in her tone, towhich, however, he offered no objection. 

"Willing or unwilling isn't to the point. Surely you see that as far aspublic opinion goes I'm dished either way. The more I think of it theplainer it becomes. If I marry Olivia I let myself in for connectionwith a low-down scandal; if I don't, then they'll say I left her in thelurch. As for the effect on any possible promotion there might be instore for me, it would be six of one and half a dozen of the other. If Imarried her, and there was something good to be had, and oldBannockburn, let us say, was at the Horse Guards, then Lady Ban wouldn'thave Olivia; and if I didn't marry her, and there was the same situationwith old Englemere in command, then he wouldn't have me. There it is ina nutshell--simply nothing to choose. "

They proceeded to stroll aimlessly up and down the lawn. 

"I can quite see how it looks from your point of view--" she began. 

"No, you can't, " he interrupted, sharply, "because you leave out thefact that I am--I don't mind saying it--that is, to you--you've beensuch a good pal to me!--I shall never forget it!--but I _am_--head overheels--desperately--in love. "

Having already heard this confession in what now seemed the far-off daysin Southsea, she could hear it again with no more than a sense ofoppression about the heart. 

"Yes, " she smiled, bravely. "I know you are. And between two ills youchoose the one that has some compensation attached to it. "

"Between two ills, " he corrected, "I'm choosing the only course open toa man of honor. Isn't that it?"

There was a wistful inflection on the query. It put forth at one and thesame time a request for corroboration and a challenge to a contraryopinion. If there could be no contrary opinion, he would have been gladof some sign of approval or applause. He wanted to be modest; and yet itwas a stimulus to doing precisely the right thing to get a little praisefor it, especially from a woman like Drusilla. 

In this for once she disappointed him. "Of course you are, " sheassented, even too promptly. 

"And yet you're advising me, " he said, returning to the charge, "to makea bolt for it--and leave Olivia to shift for herself. "

"If I remember rightly, the question you raised was not about you, butabout her. It wasn't as to whether you should marry her, but as towhether she should marry you. I'm not disputing your point of view; I'monly defending Olivia's. I can see three good reasons why you shouldkeep your word to her--"

"Indeed? And what are they?"

She told them off on her fingers. "First, as you can't do anything else. Second--"

"Your first reason, " he interrupted, hastily, as though he feared shesuspected him of not being convinced of it, "covers the whole ground. Wedon't need the rest. "

"Still, " she insisted, "we might as well have them. Second, it's themore prudent of two rather disadvantageous courses. Third--to quote yourown words--you're head over heels in love with her. It's easy to seethat now, and now another of these reasons is uppermost in your mind;but it's also easy to see that none of them makes a conclusive appeal toOlivia Guion. That's the point. "

"The point is that I'm in love with her, and--if it's not claiming toomuch--she with me. We've nothing else to consider. "

"You haven't. She has. She has all the things I've just hinted at--andever so many more; besides which, " she added, taking a detached, casualtone, "I suppose she has to make up her mind one way or another as towhat she's going to do about Peter Davenant. "

The crow's-foot wrinkles about his eyes deepened to a frown of inquiry. "About Peter--who?"

Drusilla still affected a casual tone. "Oh? Hasn't she told you about_him?_"

"Not a word. Who is he?"

She nodded in the direction of the house. "He's up-stairs with CousinHenry. "

"The big fellow who was here just now? That--lumpkin?"

"Yes, " she said, dryly, "that--lumpkin. It was he who gave Cousin Henrythe money to meet his liabilities. "

"So he's the Fairy Prince? He certainly doesn't look it. "

"No; he doesn't look it; but he's as much of a problem to Olivia as ifhe did. "

"Why? What has he to do with her?"

"Nothing, except that I suppose she must feel very grateful. "

They reached the edge of the lawn where a hedge of dahlias separatedthem from the neighboring garden. 

"When you say that, " he asked, "do you mean anything in particular?"

"I suppose I mean everything in particular. The situation is one inwhich all the details count. "

"And the bearing of this special detail--"

"Oh, don't try to make me explain that. In the first place, I don'tknow; and in the second, I shouldn't tell you if I did. I'm merelygiving you the facts. I think you're entitled to know _them_. "

"So I should have said. Are there many more? I've had a lot since Ilanded. I thought I must have heard pretty well all there was--"

"Probably you had, except just that. I imagine Olivia found itdifficult to speak of, and so I'm doing it for her. "

"Why should she find it difficult to speak of? It's a mere matter ofbusiness, I suppose. "

"If it's business to give Cousin Henry what would be nearly a hundredthousand pounds in English money, with no prospect that any one can seeof his ever getting it back--that is, not unless old Madame deMelcourt--"

"Oh, I say! Then he's one of your beastly millionaires, by Jove!--grindthe noses off the poor, and that sort of thing, to playHaroun-al-Raschid with the cash. "

"Not in the least. He never ground the nose off any one; and as forbeing a millionaire, father says that what he's done for Cousin Henrywill pretty well clean him out. "

"All the same, he's probably done it with a jolly sharp eye to the mainchance. "

"Oh, I dare say his motives weren't altogether altruistic. Only it's alittle difficult to see where the main chance comes in. "

"Then what the deuce is he up to?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. I repeat that I'm only giving you thefacts. You must interpret them for yourself. "

He looked thoughtful. Drusilla plucked a scarlet dahlia and fastened itin her dress, after which they strolled back slowly to the middle of thelawn. Here Ashley said:

"Has all this got anything to do with Olivia? I wish you wouldn't makemysteries. "

"I'm not making mysteries. I'm telling you what's happened just as itoccurred. He advanced the money to Cousin Henry, and that's all I knowabout it. If I draw any inferences--"

"Well?"

"I'm just as likely to be wrong as right. "

"Then you _have_ drawn inferences?"

"Who wouldn't? I should think you'd be drawing them yourself. "

They wandered on a few yards, when he stopped again. "Look here, " hesaid, with a sort of appealing roughness, "you're quite straight withme, aren't you?"

The rich, surging color came swiftly into her face, as wine seen throughsomething dark and transparent. Her black eyes shone like jet. She wouldhave looked tragic had it not been for her fixed, steady smile. 

"Have I ever been anything else with you?"

"No. You've been straight as a die. I'll say that for you. You've been agood pal--a devilish good pal! But over here--in America--everythingseems to go by enigmas--and puzzles--and surprises--"

"I'll explain what I can to you, " she said, with a heightened color, "but it won't be so very easy. There are lots of people who, feeling asI do--toward Olivia--and--and toward you--would want to beat about thebush. But when all these things began to happen--and you were already onthe way--I turned everything over in my mind and decided to speakexactly as I think. "

"Good!"

"But it isn't so very easy, " she repeated, pretending to rearrange thedahlia in her laces, so as to find a pretext for not looking him in theeyes. "It isn't so very easy; and if--later on--in after yearsperhaps--when everything is long over--it ever strikes you that I didn'tplay fair--it'll be because I played _so_ fair that I laid myself opento that imputation. One can, you know. I only ask you to remember it. That's all. "

Ashley was bewildered. He could follow little more than half of what shesaid. "More mysteries, " he was sighing to himself as she spoke. "Andsuch a color! That's her strong point. Pity it only comes by fits andflashes. But, good Lord, what a country! Always something queer andnew. "

"Good-by, " she said, offering her hand before he had time to emerge fromhis meditations. "We shall see you to-morrow evening. And, by the way, we dine at half-past seven. We're country people here, and primitive. No; don't come to the gate. Olivia must be wondering where you are. "

He looked after her as she tripped over the lawn toward the roadway, still holding her long-handled, beribboned, eighteenth-century sunshadewith the daintiness of a Watteau shepherdess holding a crook. 

"She's a good 'un, " he said to himself. "Straight as a die, she is--andtrue as steel. "

None the less he was glad when she left him. 

XVI

Ashley wanted to be alone. He needed solitude in order to face thestupendous bit of information Mrs. Fane had given him. Everything elsehe had heard during the past twenty-four hours he had felt himself moreor less competent to meet. True, his meeting it would be at a sacrificeand the probable loss of some of the best things he had hoped and workedfor; but he should have the satisfaction that comes to every man ofhonor when he has done a brave thing well. There would be something, too, in giving the lie to people who accused him of having no thoughtbut for his own advancement. He had been sensitive to that charge, because of the strain of truth in it, and yet had seen no means ofcounteracting it. Very well; he should counteract it now. 

Since there was no way out of the situation he had found inAmerica--that is, no way consistent with self-respect--it wascharacteristic of him, both as diplomatist and master of tactics, toreview what was still in his favor. He called himself to witness that hehad wasted no time in repining. He had risen to the circumstances asfast as nature would permit, and adapted himself right on the spur ofthe moment to an entirely new outlook on the future. Moreover, he hadbeen able to detach Olivia herself from the degrading facts surroundingher, seeing her, as he had seen her from the first, holy and stainless, untouched by conditions through which few women could pass without somepersonal deterioration. In his admiration and loyalty he had not waveredfor a second. On the contrary, he was sure that he should love her themore intensely, in spite of, and perhaps because of, her misfortunes. 

He felt free, therefore, to resent this new revelation so fantasticallyout of proportion to the harmony of life. It was the most staggeringthing he had ever heard of. An act such as that with which Drusillacredited Davenant brought into daily existence a feature too prodigiousto find room there. Or, rather, having found the room through sheerforce of its own bulk, it dwarfed everything else into insignificance. It hid all objects and blocked all ways. You could get neither round itnor over it nor through it. You could not even turn back and ignore it. You could only stand and stare at it helplessly, giving it the fulltribute of awe. 

Ashley gave it. He gave it while lighting mechanically a cigar which hedid not smoke and standing motionless in the middle of the lawn, heedless of the glances--furtive, discreet, sympathetic, admiring--castat him from the windows and balconies of the surrounding houses. Hisquick eye, trained to notice everything within its ken, saw them plainlyenough. The houses were not so distant nor the foliage so dense but thatkindly, neighborly interest could follow the whole drama taking placeat Tory Hill. Ashley could guess with tolerable accuracy that the ladieswhom he saw ostensibly reading or sewing on verandas had been invited tothe wedding, and were consequently now in the position of spectators ata play. The mere detail of this American way of living, with unwalledproperties merging into one another, and doors and windows flung wide toevery passing glance, gave him an odd sense of conducting his affairs inthe market-place or on the stage. If he did not object to it, it wasbecause of the incitement to keep up to the level of his best which healways drew from the knowledge that other people's eyes were upon him. 

He felt this stimulus when Olivia came out to the Corinthian portico, seating herself in a wicker chair, with an obvious invitation to him tojoin her. "Drusilla Fane has been telling me about your--your friend. "

She knew he meant the last two words to be provocative. She knew it byslight signs of nervousness in his way of standing before her, one footon the grass and the other on the first step of the portico. He betrayedhimself, too, in an unsuccessful attempt to make his intonation casual, as well as by puffing at his cigar without noticing that it had goneout. An instant's reflection decided her to accept his challenge. As thesubject had to be met, the sooner it came up the better. 

She looked at him mildly. "What did she say about him?"

"Only that he was the man who put up the money. "

"Yes; he was. "

"Why didn't you tell me that this morning?"

"I suppose because there was so much else to say. We should have comeround to it in time. I did tell you everything but his name. "

"And the circumstances. "

"How do you mean--the circumstances?"

"I got the impression from you this morning that it was some millionaireJohnny who'd come to your father's aid by advancing the sum in theordinary way of business. I didn't understand that it was acomparatively poor chap who was cleaning himself out to come to yours. "

In wording his phrase he purposely went beyond the warrant, in order torouse her to denial, or perhaps to indignation. But she said only:

"Did Drusilla say it was to come to my aid?"

"She didn't say it--exactly. I gathered that it was what she thought. "

She astonished him by saying, simply: "I think so, too. "

"Extraordinary! Do you mean to say he dropped out of a clear sky?"

"I must answer that by both a yes and a no. He did drop out of a clearsky just lately; but I'd known him before. "

"Ah!" His tone was that of a cross-examiner dragging the truth from anunwilling witness. He put his questions rapidly and sharply, as thoughat a Court-martial. "So you'd known him before! Did you know him_well?_"

"_I_ didn't think it was well; but apparently he did, because he askedme to marry him. "

Ashley bounded. "Who? That--that cowboy!"

"Yes; if he _is_ a cowboy. "

"And you took money from him?"

Her elbows rested on the arm of her chair; the tip of her chin on theback of her bent fingers. Without taking her eyes from his she inclinedher head slowly in assent. 

"That is, " he hastened to say, in some compunction, "your father tookit. We must keep the distinction--"

"No; I took it. Papa was all ready to decline it. He had made up hismind--"

"Do you mean that the decision to accept it rested with you?"

"Practically. "

"You didn't--" He hesitated, stammered, and grew red. "You didn't--" hebegan again. "You'll have to excuse the question. .. . I simply _must_know, by Jove!. .. You didn't _ask_ him for it?"

She rose with dignity. "If you'll come in I'll tell you about it. Wecan't talk out here. "

He came up the portico steps to the level on which she was standing. "Tell me that first, " he begged. 

"You _didn't_ ask him for it? Did you?"

In the French window, as she was about to enter the room, she halfturned round. "I don't think it would bear that construction; but itmight. I'd rather you judged for yourself. I declined it at first--andthen I said I'd take it. I don't know whether you'd call that asking. But please come in. "

He followed her into the oval room, where they were screened fromneighborly observation, while, with the French window open, they had theadvantage of the air and the rich, westering sunshine. Birds hoppedabout in the trees, and now and then a gray squirrel darted across thegrass. 

"I should think, " he said, nervously, before she had time to begin herexplanation, "that a fellow who had done that for you would occupy yourmind to the exclusion of everybody else. "

Guessing that he hoped for a disclaimer on her part, she was sorry to beunable to make it. 

"Not to their exclusion--but perhaps--a little to their subordination. "

He pretended to laugh. "What a pretty distinction!"

"You see, I haven't been able to help it. He's loomed up so tremendouslyabove everything--"

"And every one. "

"Yes, " she admitted, with apologetic frankness, "and every one--that is, in the past few days--that it's as if I couldn't see anything but him. "

"Oh, I'm not jealous, " he exclaimed, pacing up and down the length ofthe room. 

"Of course not, " she agreed, seating herself in one of thestraight-backed chairs. Her clasped hands rested on the small roundtable in the center of the room, while she looked out across the lawn tothe dahlias and zinnias on its farther edge. 

Ashley, who had flung his panama on a sofa, continued to pace up anddown the room, his head bent and his fingers clasped tightly under hisjacket behind his back. He moved jerkily, like a man preserving outwardself-control in spite of extreme nervous tension. 

He listened almost without interruption while she gave him a preciseaccount of Davenant's intervention in her father's troubles. She sparedno detail of her own opposition and eventual capitulation. She spokesimply and easily, as though repeating something learned by heart, justas she had narrated the story of Guion's defaulting in the morning. Apart from the fact that she toyed with a paper-knife lying on thetable, she sat rigidly still, her eyes never wandering from the line ofautumn flowers on the far side of the lawn. 

"So you see, " she concluded, in her quiet voice, "I came to understandthat it was a choice between taking it from him and taking it from thepoor women papa had ruined; and I thought that as he was young--andstrong--and a man--he'd be better able to bear it. That was the reason. "

He came to a standstill on the other side of the table, where he couldsee her in profile. 

"You're extraordinary, by Jove!" he muttered. "You're not a bit likewhat you look. You look so fragile and tender; and yet you could havelet that old man--"

"I could only have done it if it was right. Nothing that's right is veryhard, you know. "

"And what about the suffering?"

She half smiled, faintly shrugging her shoulders. "Don't you think wemake more of suffering than there's any need for? Suffering is nothingmuch--except, I suppose, the suffering that comes from want. That'stragic. But physical pain--and the things we call trials--are nothing soterrible if you know the right way to bear them. "

The abstract question didn't interest him. He resumed his restlesspacing. 

"So, " he began again, in his tone of conducting a court-martial--"so yourefused the money in the first place, because you thought the fellow wastrying to get you into his power. Have you had any reason to change youropinion since?"

"None, except that he makes no effort to do it. "

He stopped again beside the table. "And do you suppose he would? Whenyou've prepared your ambush cleverly enough you don't have to go out anddrag your victim into it. You've only to lie still and he'll walk in ofhis own accord. "

"Of course I see that. "

"Well, what then?"

She threw him a glance over her shoulder. To do so it was necessary forher to turn her head both sidewise and upward, so that he got theexquisite lines of the neck and profile, the mysterious gray-green tintof the eyes, and the coppery gleam of her hair. The appeal to his sensesand to something beyond his senses made him gasp. It made him tremble. "My God, what a wife for _me_!" he was saying to himself. "She's got thepluck of a Jeanne d'Arc and the nerve of a Christian martyr. "

"Well, then, " she said, in answer to his words--"then I don't have towalk into the ambush--unless I want to. "

"Does that mean that there are conceivable conditions in which you mightwant to?"

She turned completely round in her chair. Both hands, with fingersinterlaced, rested on the table as she looked up at him. 

"I shall have to let you find your own reply to that. "

"But you know he's in love with you. "

"I know he was in love with me once. I've no absolute reason to thinkthat he is so still. "

"But supposing he was? Would it make any difference to you?"

"Would it make any difference to _you?_"

"It would make the difference--"

He stopped in confusion. While he was not clear as to what he was goingto say, he was startled by the possibilities before him. The one thingplain was that her question, simple as it seemed, gave an entirely newturn to the conversation. It called on him to take the lead, and puthim, neatly and skilfully, in the one place of all others which--had hedescried it in advance--he would have been eager to avoid. Would it makeany difference to him? What difference _could_ it make? What difference_must_ it make?

It was one of those moments which occur from time to time when a man ofhonor must speak first and reflect afterward--just as at the heights ofDargal he had had to risk his life for Private Vickerson's, withoutdebating as to which of them, in the general economy of lives, could themore easily be spared. 

"It would make the difference--"

He stopped again. It was a great deal to say. Once he had said it therecould be no reconsideration. Reconsideration would be worse than notsaying it at all, on the principle that not to stand by one's guns mightbe a greater cowardice than not to mount them. Fear, destruction, andthe pit might come upon him; the service, the country, Heneage, home, honors, ambitions, promotions, high posts of command, all might be sweptinto the abyss, and yet one imperative duty would survive the wreck, theduty to be Rupert Ashley at his finest. The eyes of England were on him. There was always that conviction, that incentive. Let his heroism benever so secret, sooner or later those eyes would find him out. 

He was silent so long that she asked, not impatiently: "It would makewhat difference, Rupert?"

It was clear that she had no idea as to what was passing in his mind. There had been an instant--just an instant--no more--when he had almostdoubted her, when her strategy in putting him where he was had seemedtoo deft to be the result of chance. But, with her pure face turnedupward and her honest eyes on his, that suspicion couldn't last. 

"It would make the difference--"

If he paused again, it was only because his throat swelled with achoking sensation that made it difficult to speak; he felt, too, thathis face was congested. Nevertheless the space, which was not longerthan a few seconds by the clock, gave him time to remember that as hismother's and his sisters' incomes were inalienable he was by so muchthe more free. He was by so much the more free to do the mad, romantic, quixotic thing, which might seem to be a contradiction of his past, butwas not so much a contradiction of _himself_ as people who knew himimperfectly might suppose. He was taken to be ambitious, calculating, shrewd; when all the while he knew himself to be--as most Englishmen areat heart--quixotic, romantic, and even a little mad, when madness can besublime. 

He was able at last to get his sentence out. 

"It would make the difference that . .. Before we are married . .. Orafter . .. Probably after . .. I should have to square him. "

"Square him?" She echoed the words as though she had no idea what theymeant. 

"I'm worth . .. I _must_ be worth . .. A hundred thousand pounds . .. Perhaps more. "

"Oh, you mean, square him in that way. "

"I must be a man of honor before everything, by Jove!"

"You couldn't be anything else. You don't need to go to extremes likethat to prove it. "

Her lack of emotion, of glad enthusiasm, chilled him. She even ceased tolook at him, turning her profile toward him and gazing againabstractedly across the lawn. A sudden fear took hold of him, the fearthat his hesitations, his evident difficulty in getting the thing out, had enabled her to follow the processes by which he whipped himself upto an act that should have been spontaneous. He had a suspicion, too, that in this respect he had fallen short of the American--the cowboy, as he had called him. "I must do better than him, " he said, in hisEnglish idiom. The thought that he might not have done as well wasrather sickening. If he had so failed it was through inadvertence, butthe effect on Olivia would be as great as if it was from fear. Tocounteract it he felt the need of being more emphatic. His emphasis tookthe form of simple common sense. 

"It isn't going to extremes to take up one's own responsibilities. Ican't let a fellow like that do things for your father any more than formine, by Jove! It's not only doing things for my father, but for--mywife. "

Drawing up a small chair, he sat down on the other side of the table. Hesat down with the air of a man who means to stay and take possession. 

"Oh, but I'm not your wife, Rupert. "

"You're my wife already, " he declared, "to all intents and purposes. We've published our intention to become man and wife to the world. Neither of us can go back on that. The mere fact that certain wordshaven't been mumbled over us is secondary. For everything thatconstitutes duty I'm your husband now. "

"Oh no, you're not. You're the noblest man in the world, Rupert. I neverdreamed that there could be any one like you. But I couldn't let you--Icouldn't--"

He crushed her hands in both of his own, leaning toward her across thetable. "Oh, my darling, if you only knew how easy it is--"

"No, it isn't easy. It can't be easy. I couldn't let you do it for me--"

"But what about _him?_ You let--_him!_"

"Oh, but that's different. "

"How is it different?"

"I don't know, Rupert; but it is. Or rather, " she went on, rapidly, "Ido know, but I can't explain. If you were an American you'd understandit. "

"Oh, American--be blowed!" The accent was all tenderness, the protestall beseeching. 

"I can't explain it, " she hurried on, "because you don't understand us. It's one of the ways in which an Englishman never _can_ understand us. But the truth is that money doesn't mean as much to us as it does toyou. I know you think the contrary, but that's where you make yourprimary mistake. It's light come and light go with most of us, for thesimple reason that money is outside our real life; whereas with youEnglish it's the warp and woof of it. "

"Oh, bosh, darling!"

"No, it isn't bosh. In your civilization it's as the blood; in ours it'sonly as the clothing. That's something like the difference. In acceptingit from Peter Davenant--which is hard enough!--I take only what he cando without; whereas--"

"I can do without it, too. "

"Whereas, " she persisted, "if I were to let you do this I should berobbing you of the essence of what you are. "

He drew back slightly. "You mean that your Yankee is a strong man, whileI'm--"

"I don't mean anything invidious or unkind. But isn't it self-evident, or nearly, that we're individuals, while you're parts of an intricatesocial system? The minute you fall out of your place in the system youcome to grief; but vicissitudes don't affect us much more than a changeof coats. "

"I don't care a button for my place in the system. "

"But I do. I care for it _for_ you. I should have married you and sharedit if I could. But I'd rather not marry you than that you should loseit. "

"That is, " he said, coldly, "you'd rather use _his_ money than--"

She withdrew her hands, her brows contracting and her eyes clouding inher effort to make him understand the position from her point of view. "You see, it's this way. For one thing, we've taken the money already. That's past. We may have taken it temporarily, or for good and all, asthings turn out; but in any case it's done. And yet even if it weren'tdone it would be easier for us to draw on him rather than on you, because he's one of ourselves. "

"One of yourselves? I thought that's just what he wasn't. I thought hewas a jolly outsider. "

"You mean socially. But that again hasn't much significance in a countrywhere socially we're all of one class. Where there's only one classthere can't be any outsiders. "

"Oh, that's all very fine. But look at you with your extremes of richand poor!"

"That's the most superficial difference among us. It's the easiestpossible thing to transcend. I'm transcending it now in feeling thatI've a right--yes, a kind of right--to take Peter Davenant's money, because as Americans we've a claim on each other. "

He threw himself against the straight back of the chair, his arms flungout with a gesture that brought his hands nearly to the floor. "You'rethe last people in the world to feel anything of the kind. Every oneknows that you're a set of ruthless, predatory--"

"I know that's the way it seems; and I'm not defending anything that maybe wrong. And yet, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, we_have_ a sense of brotherhood--I don't know any other name for it--amongourselves which isn't to be found anywhere else in the world. YouEnglish haven't got it. That's why the thing I'm saying seems meresentiment to you, and even mawkish. You're so afraid of sentiment. Butit's true. It may be only a rudimentary sense of brotherhood; and it'scertainly not universal, as it ought to be, because we feel it onlyamong ourselves. We don't really include the foreigner--not at leasttill he becomes one of us. I'm an instance of that limitation myself, because I can't feel it toward you, and I do--"

"You do feel it toward the big chap, " he said, scornfully. 

She made a renewed effort to explain herself. "You see, it's somethinglike this. If my aunt de Melcourt, who's very well off, were to comeforward and help us, I'd let her do it without scruple. Not that there'sany particular reason why she should! But if she did--well, you can seefor yourself that it wouldn't be as if she were a stranger. "

"Of course! She's one of your own people--and all that. "

"Well, he's one of our own people--Mr. Davenant. Not to the degree thatshe is--but the same sort of thing--even if more distant. It's verydistant, I admit--"

His lip curled. "So distant as to be out of sight. "

"No; not for him--or for me. "

He sprang to his feet. "Look here, Olivia, " he cried, nervously, holdinghis chair by the back, "what does it all mean? What are you leading upto?"

"I'm telling you as plainly as I can. "

"What you aren't telling me as plainly as you can is which of us you'rein love with. "

She colored. It was one of those blushes that spread up the temples andover the brows and along the line of the hair with the splendor of astormy dawn. 

"I didn't know the question had been raised, " she said, "but sinceapparently it has--"

It might have been contrition for a foolish speech, or fear of what shewas going to say, that prompted him to interrupt her hurriedly:

"I beg your pardon. It was idiotic of me to say that. I didn't mean it. As a matter of fact, I'm jumpy. I'm not master of myself. So much hasbeen happening--"

He came round the table, and, snatching one of her hands, he kissed itagain and again. He even sank on one knee beside her, holding her closeto him. With the hand that remained free she stroked his crisp, wavy, iron-gray hair as a sign of pardon. 

"You're quite wrong about me, " he persisted. 

"Even if you're right about other Englishmen--which I don'tadmit--you're wrong about me, by Jove! If I had to give up everything Ihad in the world I should have all the compensation a man could desireif I got you. "

She leaned over him, pressing his head against her breast, as shewhispered:

"You couldn't get me that way. You must understand--I must make it asplain to you as I can--that I couldn't go to you except as an equal. Icouldn't go to any man--"

He sprang to his feet. "But you _came_ to me as an equal, " he cried, intones of exasperation. "That's all over and done with. It's too late toreconsider the step we've taken--too late for me--much too late!--andequally too late for you. "

"I can't admit that, Rupert. I've still the right to draw back. "

"The legal right--yes; whether or not you've the moral right woulddepend on your sense of honor. "

"Of honor?"

"Certainly. There's an honor for you as well as for me. When I'm so trueto you it wouldn't be the square thing to play me false. "

She rose without haste. "Do you call that a fair way of putting it--tosay that I play you false because I refuse to involve you in our familydisasters? I don't think any one could blame me for that. "

"What they could blame you for is this--for backing out of what ispractically a marriage, and for deserting me in a way that will make itseem as if I had deserted you. Quite apart from the fact that life won'tbe worth anything to me without you, it will mean ruin as a man of honorif I go home alone. Every one will say--_every one_--that I funked thething because your father--"

She hastened to speak. "That's a very urgent reason. I admit itsforce--"

She paused because there was a sound of voices overhead. Footsteps camealong the upper hall and began to descend the stairs. Presently Davenantcould be heard saying:

"Then I shall tell Harrington that they may as well foreclose at onetime as another. "

"Just as well. " Guion's reply came from the direction of his bedroomdoor. "I see nothing to be gained by waiting. The sooner it's over thesooner to sleep, what?"

"They're talking about the mortgage on the property, " she explained, asDavenant continued to descend. "This house is to be sold--and everythingin it--"

"Which is one more reason why we should be married without delay. Isay, " he added, in another tone, "let's have him in. "

"Oh no! What for?"

Before she could object further, Ashley had slipped out into the hall. 

"I say! Come along in. "

His attitude as he stood with hands thrust into his jacket pockets andshoulders squared bespoke conscious superiority to the man whom he wasaddressing. Though Davenant was not in her line of vision she coulddivine his astonishment at this easy, English unceremoniousness, as wellas his resentment to the tone of command. She heard him muttering anexcuse which Ashley interrupted with his offhand "Oh, come in. MissGuion would like to see you. "

She felt it her duty to go forward and second this invitation. Davenant, who was standing at the foot of the staircase, murmured something abouttown and business. 

"It's too late for town and business at this hour, " Ashley objected. "Come in. "

He withdrew toward the room where Olivia was standing between theportières of the doorway. Davenant yielded, partly because of hisignorance of the small arts of graceful refusal, but more because of hiscuriosity concerning the man Olivia Guion was to marry. He had someinterest, too, in observing one who was chosen where he himself had beenrejected. It would afford an answer to the question, "What lack I yet?"with which he was tormented at all times. That it could not be aflattering answer was plain to him from the careless, indefinable gracesof Ashley's style. It was a style that Davenant would have scorned toimitate, but which nevertheless he envied. In contrast with itsunstudied ease he could feel his own social methods to be labored andapologetic. Where he was watchful to do the right thing, what Ashleysaid or did became the right thing because he said or did it. With theecho of soft English vowels and clear, crisp consonants in his ears, hisown pronunciations, too, were rough with the harshness transmitted froman ancestry to whom the melody of speech had been of no more practicalconcern than the music of the spheres. 

Something of all this Olivia guessed. She guessed it with a feeling ofbeing on his side--on the American side--which a month ago would haveastonished her. She guessed, too, on Davenant's part, that feeling ofirritation which the calm assumptions of the Old World are likely tocreate when in contact with the aggressive unpretentiousness of the New, and if need were she was ready to stand by him. All she could say, however, for the moment was:

"Won't you sit down? Perhaps I ought to ring for tea. "

She made the latter remark from habit. It was what she was accustomed tothink of when on an autumn day the sun went behind the distant rim ofBrookline hills and dusk began to gather in the oval room, as it wasgathering now. If she did not ring, it was because of her sense of theirony of offering hospitality in a house where not even a cup of tea waspaid for. 

She seated herself beside the round table in the chair she had occupieda half-hour earlier, facing inward to the room instead of outward to theportico. Ashley backed to the curving wall of the room, while Davenantscarcely advanced beyond the doorway. In his slow, careful approach thelatter reminded her somewhat of a big St. Bernard dog responding to thesummons of a leopard. 

"Been up to see--?" Ashley nodded in the direction of what he took to beGuion's room. 

Davenant, too, nodded, but said nothing. 

"How did you find papa to-day?"

"Pretty fair, Miss Guion; only, perhaps, a little more down on his luckthan usual. "

"The excitement kept him up at first. Now that that's over--"

Ashley interrupted her, addressing himself to Davenant. "I understandthat it's to you we owe Mr. Guion's relief from the most pressing partof his cares. "

Davenant's face clouded. It was the thing he was afraid of--Ashley'sintrusion into the little domain of helpfulness which for a few days hehad made his own. He answered warily:

"My business with Mr. Guion, Colonel, has been private. I hope you won'tmind if we leave it so. "

Ashley's manner took on the diplomatic persuasiveness he used towardrestive barbaric potentates. 

"Not a bit, my dear fellow. Of course it's private--only not as regardsMiss Guion and me. You simply _must_ allow us to say how grateful we arefor your help, even though it need be no more than temporary. "

The word produced its effect. Davenant looked from Ashley to Oliviawhile he echoed it. "Temporary?"

Ashley nodded again. "You have no objection, I presume, to that?"

"If Mr. Guion is ever in a position to pay me back, " Davenant said, slowly, in some bewilderment, "of course I'll take it. "

"Quite so; and I think I may say that with a little time--let us say ayear--we shall be able to meet--"

"It's a good bit of money, " Davenant warned him. 

"I know that; but if you'll give us a little leeway--as I know youwill--"

"He means, " Olivia spoke up, "that he'll sell his property--and whateverelse he has--and pay you. "

"I don't want that, " Davenant said, hastily. 

"But I do. It's a point of honor with me not to let another manshoulder--"

"And it's a point of honor with me, Rupert--"

"To stand by me, " he broke in, quickly. 

"I can't see it that way. What you propose is entirely against myjudgment. It's fantastic; it's unreal. I want you to understand that ifyou attempted to carry it out I shouldn't marry you. Whatever theconsequences either to you or to me--_I shouldn't marry you_. "

"And if I didn't attempt it? Would you marry me then?"

She looked up, then down, then at Davenant, then away from him. Finallyshe fixed her gaze on Ashley. 

"Yes, " she said at last. "If you'll promise to let this wild projectdrop, I'll marry you whenever you like. I'll waive all the otherdifficulties--"

Davenant came forward, his hand outstretched. "I think I must saygood-by now, Miss Guion--"

"No; wait, " Ashley commanded. "This matter concerns you, by Jove!"

Olivia sprang to her feet. "No; it doesn't, Rupert, " she said, hastily. 

"No; it doesn't, " Davenant repeated after her. "It's not my affair. Idecline to be brought into it. I think I must say good-by now, MissGuion--"

"Listen, will you!" Ashley said, impatiently. "I'm not going to sayanything either of you need be afraid of. I'm only asking you to do methe justice of trying to see things from my point of view. You may thinkit forced or artificial or anything you please; but unfortunately, as anofficer and a gentleman, I've got to take it. The position you'd put mein would be this--of playing a game--and a jolly important game atthat--in which the loser loses to me on purpose. "

Ashley found much satisfaction in this way of putting it. Withoutexposing him to the necessity of giving details, it made clear hisperception of what was going on. Moreover, it secured him _le beaurôle_, which for a few minutes he feared he might have compromised. Inthe look he caught, as it flashed between Olivia and Davenant, he sawthe signs of that appreciation he found it so hard to do without--theappreciation of Rupert Ashley as the chivalrous Christian gentleman, atonce punctilious and daring, who would count all things as loss in orderto achieve the highest type of manhood. If in the back of his mind hehad the conviction, hardly venturing to make itself a thought, "In thelong run it pays, " it was but little to his discredit, since he couldscarcely have descended from a line of shrewd, far-sighted Anglo-Saxonforefathers without making some such computation. 

"If we're going to play a game, " he continued, addressing Davenant, before the latter had time to speak, "for Heaven's sake let us play itstraight--like men. Let the winner win and the loser lose--"

"I've no objection to that, Colonel, when I _do_ play--but at present--"

"Look here, " Ashley said, with a new inspiration; "I put it to you--Iput it to you as a man--simply as a _man_--without any highfalutinprinciples whatever. Suppose I'd done what you've done--and given mybottom dollar--"

"But I haven't. "

"Well, no matter! Suppose I had done what you've done--and you were inmy place--would you, as a man--simply as a _man_, mind you--be willingto go off with the lady whom I had freed from great anxiety--to say theleast--and be happy forever after--and so forth--with nothing but aThank-you-sir? Come now! Would you?"

It was evident that Davenant was shy of accepting this challenge. Hecolored and looked uneasy--all the more so because Olivia lifted hereyes to him appealingly, as though begging him to come to her support. It was perhaps in the belief that he would do so that she said, earnestly, leaning forward a little:

"Tell him, Mr. Davenant, tell him. "

"I don't see what it's got to do with me--" Davenant began to protest. 

"It's got everything to do with you, " Ashley broke in. "Since you'vecreated the situation you can't shirk its responsibilities. "

"Tell him, Mr. Davenant, tell him, " Olivia repeated. "Would you, orwould you not?"

He looked helplessly from one to the other. "Well, then--I wouldn't, " hesaid, simply. 

"There you are!" Ashley cried, triumphantly, moving away from the walland turning toward Olivia. 

She was plainly disappointed. Davenant could so easily have said, "Iwould. " Nevertheless, she answered quietly, picking up the paper-knifethat lay on the table and turning it this way and that as thoughstudying the tints of the mother-of-pearl in the dying light:

"It doesn't matter to me, Rupert, what other people would do or wouldnot do. If you persist in this attempt--this mad attempt--I shall notmarry you. "

He strode to the table, looking down at her averted face and bent head. 

"Then we're at a deadlock. "

She gave him a quick glance. "No; it isn't a deadlock, because--becausethere's still a way out. "

He leaned above her, supporting himself with his hand on the table. "Andit's a way I shall never take so long as you can't say--what youadmitted a little while ago that you couldn't say--"

"I can't say it, " she murmured, her face still further averted; "but allthe same it's cruel of you to make it a condition. "

He bent lower till his lips almost touched her hair. "It's cruel ofyou, " he whispered, "to put me in the position where I must. "

The room and the hall behind it were now so dim that Davenant had nodifficulty in slipping between the portières and getting away. 

XVII

"He's going to squeeze me out. "

This was Davenant's reflection as he walked back, along the Embankment, to Rodney Temple's house. He made it bitterly, in the light of clarifiedviews, as to the ethics of giving and taking benefits. Up to within thelast few days the subject had seemed to him a relatively simple one. Ifyou had money, and wished to give it away, you gave it. If you neededit, and were so lucky as to have it offered you, you took it. That wasall. That such natural proceedings should create complicated relationsand searchings of heart never entered his mind. 

He could see that they might, however, now that the knowledge was forcedupon him. Enlightenment came by the easy process of putting himself inAshley's place. "I wouldn't take my wife as a kind of free gift fromanother fellow--I'll be hanged if I would! I'd marry her on my own ornot at all. "

And unless Ashley assumed the responsibilities of his future wife'sposition, he couldn't marry her "on his own. " That much was clear. Itwas also the most proper thing in the world. It was a right--aprivilege. He looked upon it chiefly as a privilege. Ashley would sellhis estate, and, having paid him, Davenant, the money he had advanced, would send him about his business. There would be nothing left for himbut to disappear. The minute there was no need for him there would be noplace for him. He had been no more than the man who holds a horse tillthe owner comes and rides away. 

Worse than that reflection was the fear that his intervention had beenuncalled for in the first place. The belief that it was imperative hadbeen his sole excuse for forcing himself on people who fought againsthis aid and professed themselves able to get along without it. But theevent seemed to show that if he had let things alone, Rupert Ashleywould have come and taken the burden on himself. As he was apparentlyable to shoulder it, it would have been better to let him do it. In thatcase he, Peter Davenant, would not have found himself in a position fromwhich he could not withdraw, while it was a humiliation to be dislodgedfrom it. 

But, on the other hand, he would have missed his most wonderfulexperience. There was that side to it, too. He would not have had thesemoments face to face with Olivia Guion which were to be as food for hissustenance all the rest of his life. During these days of discussion, ofargument, of conflict between his will and hers, he had the entirelyconscious sense that he was laying up the treasure on which his heartwould live as long as it continued to beat. The fact that she foundintercourse with him more or less distasteful became a secondary matter. To be in her presence was the thing essential, whatever the grounds onwhich he was admitted there. In this way he could store up her looks, her words, her gestures, against the time when the memory of them wouldbe all he should have. As for her proposals of friendship made to himthat day--her suggestions of visits to be paid to Ashley and herself, with introductions to a greater world--he swept them aside. He quiteunderstood that she was offering him the two mites that make a farthingout of the penury of her resources, and, while he was touched by theattempt to pay him, he didn't want them. 

He had said, and said again, that he didn't want anything at all. Neither did he. It would have been enough for him to go on as he wasgoing now--to fetch and carry, to meet lawyers and pacify creditors, toprotect her father because he _was_ her father, and get a glimpse of heror a word from her when he came on his errands to Tory Hill. There wereanalogies between his devotion and the adoration of a mortal for agoddess beyond the stars. Like Hippolytus, he would have been contentthat his Artemis should never step down from her shrine so long as hewas permitted to lay his gifts on her altar. 

At least, he had felt so till to-day. He had begun the adventure in thestrength of the desire born of his visit to the scene of his father'swork at Hankow to do a little good. True, it was an impulse of which hewas more than half ashamed. Its mere formulation in words rendered itbumptious and presumptuous. Beyond the confession made to Rodney Templeon the night of his arrival no force could have induced him to avow it. Better any imputation of craft than the suspicion of wanting to conferbenefits on his fellow-men. It was a satisfaction to him to be able tosay, even in his own inner consciousness, that the desperate state ofGuion's affairs forced his hand and compelled him to a quixotic coursewhich he would not otherwise have taken. 

The first glimpse of Ashley brought this verbal shelter to the dust. Solong as the accepted lover had been but an abstract conception Davenanthad been able to think of him with toleration. But in presence of theactual man the feeling of antagonism was instinctive, animal, instantaneous. Though he pumped up his phrases of welcome to aheartiness he did not feel, he was already saying to himself that hisbrief day of romance was done. "He's going to squeeze me out. " With thisalert and capable soldier on the spot, there would be no need for aclumsy interloper any longer. They could do without him, and would beglad to see him go. 

The upshot of it all was that he must retire. It was not only the partof tact, but a gentleman could do no less. Ashley had all the rights andpowers. The effort to withstand him would be worse than ineffectual, itwould be graceless. In Miss Guion's eyes it would be a blunder even moreunpardonable than that for which her punishment had been in some waysthe ruling factor in his life. He was sure she would not so punish himagain, but her disdain would not be needed. Merely to be _de trop_ inher sight, merely to be troublesome, would be a chastisement from whichhe should suffer all the stings of shame. If he was to go on serving herwith the disinterestedness of which, to himself at any rate, he had madea boast, if he was to keep the kindly feeling she had perhaps begun toentertain for him, he must resign his provisional authority intoAshley's hands and efface himself. 

To do that would be easy. He had only to advance by a few weeks hisdeparture for Stoughton, Michigan, where he meant to return in any case. It was the familiar field of those opportunities in copper which hehoped to profit by again. Once he was on that ground, Olivia Guion andher concerns would be as much a part of a magic past as the woods andmountains of a holiday are to a man nailed down at an office desk. Witha very little explanation to Ashley he could turn his back on the wholebusiness and give himself up to his own affairs. 

He made an effort to recapture his zest in the old game, but after thepassionate interest he had put into the past week the fun was out of it. Stoughton, Michigan, presented itself as a ramshackled, filthy woodentown of bar-rooms, eating-rooms, pool-rooms, and unspeakable hotels. Thejoys and excitements he had known over such deals as the buying andselling of the Catapult, the Peppermint, and the Etna mines were as flatnow as the lees of yesternight's feast. "I'm not in love with her, " hekept saying, doggedly, to himself; and yet the thought of leaving OliviaGuion and her interests to this intrusive stranger, merely because hewas supposed to have a prior claim, was sickening. It was moresickening still that the Englishman should not only be disposed to takeup all the responsibilities Davenant would be laying down, but seemedcompetent to do it. 

On the embankment he met Rodney Temple, taking the air after his day inthe Gallery of Fine Arts. He walked slowly, with a stoop, his handsbehind him. Now and then he paused to enjoy the last tints of pink andpurple and dusky saffron mirrored in the reaches of the river or towatch the swing of some college crew and the swan-like movement of theirlong, frail shell. 

"Hello! Where are you off to? Home?"

Davenant had not yet raised this question with himself, but now that itwas before him he saw it was worth considering. Home, for the present, meant Drusilla and Mrs. Temple, with their intuitions and speculations, their hints and sympathies. He scarcely knew which he dreaded most, theold lady's inquisitive tenderness or Drusilla's unsparing perspicacity. 

"Not home just yet, sir, " he had the wit to say. "In fact, I'm walkingin to Boston, and may not be home to dinner. Perhaps you'll tell Mrs. Temple so when you go in. Then I sha'n't have to 'phone her. "

Temple let that pass. "Been up to look at the great man?"

Peter nodded. "Just come from there. "

"And what do you make of him?"

"Oh, he's a decent sort. "

"Not going to back out, eh?"

"Not at all; just the other way: he wants to step in and take everythingoff--off our hands. "

"You don't say so. Then he's what you say--a decent sort. "

"He's more than that, " Davenant heard himself saying, to his ownsurprise. "He's a fine specimen of his type, and the type itself--"

"Is superb, " the old man concluded. "That's about what I supposed he'dbe. You could hardly imagine Olivia Guion picking out any otherkind--especially as it's a kind that's as thick as blackberries in theirarmy. "

Davenant corroborated this by a brief account of what Ashley proposed todo. Light gleamed in the old man's eyes and a smile broke the shaggycrevice between his beard and mustache as he listened. 

"Splendid! Splendid!" he commented, now at one point and now at anotherof the information Peter was imparting. "Sell his estate and pay up?That's downright sporting, isn't it?"

"Oh, he's sporting enough. "

"And what a grand thing for you to get your money back. I thought youwould some day--if Vic de Melcourt ever came to hear of what you'd done;but I didn't expect it so soon. "

Davenant turned away. "I wasn't in a hurry. "

"No; but he is. That's the point. That's where the beauty of it comes infor Olivia and you. "

Peter looked blank. "Olivia and--_me_?"

"He's doing right, " the old man explained, taking hold of the lapel ofDavenant's coat, "or what he conceives to be right; and no one man cando that without putting us into a better position all round. Doingright, " he continued, emphasizing his words by shaking the lapel andhammering on Peter's breast--"doing right is the solution of all thedifficulties into which we get ourselves tied up by shilly-shallying anddoing wrong. If Ashley were to hang fire you wouldn't know where thedevil you were. But now that he's going straight, it leaves you free todo the same. "

"It leaves me free to cut and run. " He made little effort to conceal hisbitterness. 

"Then cut and run, if that's what you feel impelled to do. You won't runfar before you see you're running to a purpose. I'll cut and run, too, "he added, cheerfully. "I'll be off to see Olivia, and tell her she'smade a catch. "

Davenant was glad to be able to resume his tramp. "Poor old chap, " hesaid to himself; "a lot he knows about it! It's damned easy to do rightwhen you've got everything your own way. "

Having everything his own way was the happy position in which he placedRupert Ashley, seeing he was able to marry Olivia Guion by the simpleprocess of selling an estate. There was no more to that in Davenant'sestimation than to his own light parting with his stocks and bonds. Whatever sacrifice the act might entail would have ample compensation, since the giving up of the temporal and non-essential would securesupreme and everlasting bliss. He would gladly have spared a hand or aneye for a mere chance at the same reward. 

Arrived in Boston there was nothing for him to do but to eat anexpensive dinner at a restaurant and go back again. He did not return onfoot. He had had enough of his own thoughts. They led him round andround in a circle without end. He was ashamed, too, to perceive thatthey concerned themselves chiefly, not with his love for Olivia Guion, but with his enmity to Rupert Ashley. It was the first time in his lifethat he was ever possessed by the fury to kill a man. He wouldn't havebeen satisfied to be rid of Ashley; he wanted to leap on him, to strikehim, to choke him, to beat him to death. Sitting with his eyes fixed onthe table-cloth, from which the waiter had removed everything but thefinger-bowl and the bill, and allowing the cigar that protruded betweenhis knuckles to burn uselessly, he had already indulged in theseimaginary exercises, not a little to his relief, before he shook himselfand muttered: "I'm a damned fool. "

The repetition of this statement, together with the dull belief thatrepetition engenders, braced him at last to paying his bill and takingthe tram-car to Waverton. He had formed a resolution. It was stillearly, scarcely later than the hour at which he usually dined. He had along evening before him. He would put it to use by packing hisbelongings. Then he would disappear. He might go at once to Stoughton, or he might travel no farther than the rooms he had engaged, and whichhe had occupied in former years, on the less attractive slope of BeaconHill. It would be all the same. He would be out of the circle ofinterests that centered round Olivia Guion, and so free to come back tohis senses. 

He got so much elation out of this resolve that from the electric car toRodney Temple's house he walked with a swinging stride, whistlingtunelessly beneath his breath. He tried to think he was delivered froman extraordinary obsession and restored to health and sanity. He plannedto initiate Ashley as the new _chargé d'affaires_ without the necessityon his part of seeing Miss Guion again. 

And yet, when he opened the door with his latch-key and saw a note lyingon the table in the hail, his heart bounded as though it meant to stopbeating. It was sheer premonition that made him think the letter was forhim. He stooped and read the address before he had taken off his hat andwhile he was still tugging at his gloves:

Peter Davenant, Esq. , 31 Charlesbank. 

It was premonition again that told him the contents before he had read aline:

 DEAR MR. DAVENANT, --If you are quite free this evening, could you look in on me again? Don't come unless you have really nothing else to do. Yours sincerely, OLIVIA GUION. 

He looked at his watch. It was only half-past eight. "I've no excuse fornot going, " he said to himself. He made it clear to his heart that heregretted the necessity. After the brave decisions to which he hadcome, decisions which he might have put into execution, it was a callbackward, a retrogression. He began already to be afraid that he mightnot be so resolute a second time. But he had no excuse for not going. That fact took the matter out of his hands. There was nothing to do butto crumple the letter into his pocket, take down his evening overcoatfrom its peg, and leave the house before any one knew he had entered. 

The night was mild. It was so soft and scented that it might have beenin June. From the stars and the street-lamps and the line of electricsalong the water's edge there was just light enough to show the surfaceof the river, dim and metallic, and the wisps of vapor hovering abovethe marshes. In the east, toward Cambridge and beyond Boston, the skywas bright with the simulation of the dawn that precedes the moonrise. 

His heart was curiously heavy. If he walked rapidly it was none the lessreluctantly. For the first time since he had taken part and lot in thematter in hand he had no confidence in himself. He had ceased to be ableto say, "I'm not in love with her, " while he had no other strengtheningformula to put in its place. 

Algonquin Avenue, which older residents still called Rodney Lane, was asstill and deserted as a country road. The entry gate to Tory Hillclicked behind him with curious, lonely loudness. The gravel crunched inthe same way beneath his tread. Looking up at the house, he saw neitherlight nor sign of living. There was something stricken and sinisterabout the place. 

He was half-way toward the front door when a white figure came forwardbeneath the Corinthian portico. If it had not been so white he couldn'thave seen it. 

"I'm here, Mr. Davenant. "

The voice, too, sounded lonely, like a voice in a vast, empty house. Hecrossed the lawn to the portico. Olivia had already reseated herself inthe wicker chair from which she had risen at his approach. 

"Aren't you afraid of taking cold?" She had not offered him her hand;both hands were hidden in the folds of her voluminous wrap. He said thesimplest thing he could think of. 

"No. I'm wearing a very warm fur-lined cloak. It's very long, too. Icouldn't stay indoors. The house seemed so--so dead. "

"Is there nobody with you?"

"Colonel Ashley went back to town before dinner. Papa wasn't quite sowell. He's trying to sleep. Will you sit down on the step, or go in andbring out a chair? But perhaps you'll find it chilly. If so, we'll goin. "

She half rose, but he checked her. "Not at all. I like it here. It's oneof our wonderful, old-fashioned Octobers, isn't it? Besides, I've got anovercoat. "

He threw the coat over his shoulders, seating himself on the floor, withhis feet on the steps below him and his back to one of the flutedCorinthian pilasters. The shadow was so deep on this side of thehouse--the side remote from the approaching moonrise--that they couldsee each other but dimly. Of the two she was the more visible, not onlybecause she was in white, but because of the light coming through theopen sitting-room behind her from the hail in the middle of the house. In this faint glimmer he could see the pose of her figure in the deepwicker arm-chair and the set of her neat head with its heavy coil ofhair. 

"I asked you to come, " she said, simply, "because I feel so helpless. "

"That's a very good reason, " he responded, guardedly. "I'm glad youthought of me, rather than of any one else. "

He was pleased to note that even to his own ears his accent was polite, but no more. At the same minute he found the useful formula he had beenin search of--"I mustn't let her know I'm in love with her. "

"There's no one else for me to think of, " she explained, in self-excuse. "If there were, I shouldn't bother you. "

"That's not so kind, " he said, keeping to the tone of conventionalgallantry. 

"I don't mean that I haven't plenty of friends. I know lots ofpeople--naturally; but I don't know them in a way to appeal to them likethis. "

"Then so much the better for me. "

"That's not a reason for my imposing on your kindness; and yet I'mafraid I must go on doing it. I feel like a person in such desperatestraits for ready money that he's reckless of the rate of interest. Notthat it's a question of money now--exactly. "

"It doesn't matter what it's a case of. I'm at your service, MissGuion--"

"I know. That's why I asked you to come. I want you to keep ColonelAshley from doing what he proposed this afternoon. "

She spoke more abruptly, more nervously, than was her habit. 

"I would if I could; but I don't know that I've any way of dissuadinghim. "

"You needn't dissuade him. You've simply to refuse to take his money. "

"It's not quite so easy as that, because there's no direct businessbetween him and me. If Mr. Guion wanted to pay me what I've lent him, Icouldn't decline to accept it. Do you see?"

In the dim light he noticed her head nodding slowly. "Oh, so that's theway it is? It would have to be done through papa?"

"It would have to be done through him. And if he preferred to useColonel Ashley's money rather than mine, I should have nothing at all tosay. "

"I see; I see, " she commented, thoughtfully. "And I don't know how papawould feel about it, or how far I could count on him. "

For a few minutes Davenant said nothing. When he spoke it was with someamazement at his own temerity. "I thought you didn't want my help, ifyou could possibly get any other?"

The words took her by surprise. He could see her draw her cloak moretightly about her, her hands still within its folds. 

"I felt that way at first. I don't now. Perhaps I understand you alittle better. But, in any case, I couldn't take his. "

He pushed the liberty a little further. "But if you're going to marryhim--"

"That's just it. I wonder if you've the faintest idea of what it meansto a woman to marry a man by making herself a burden to him inadvance--and such a burden!"

"It wouldn't be a burden to any one who--who--"

"I know what you're going to say. Love does make a difference. Ofcourse. But it acts one way on the man and another way on the woman. Inproportion as it urges him to make the sacrifice, it impels her toprevent it. "

He grew still bolder. The cover of the night and the intimacy of thesituation made him venturesome. "Then why don't you break off yourengagement?"

It was a long while before she answered. "He won't let me, " she saidthen. "And, besides, " she added, after slight hesitation, "it'sdifficult not to be true to a man who's showing himself so noble. "

"Is that your only reason?"

She raised her head slightly and turned toward him. He expectedsomething cutting, but she only said: "What makes you ask that?"

He was a little frightened. He backed down, and yet not altogether. "Oh, nothing. I only--wondered. "

"If you think I don't care for him--"

"Oh no. Not that--not that at all. "

"Well, if you _were_ to think it, it would probably be because I've beenthrough so much--I'm _going_ through so much--that that sort of thinghas become secondary. "

"I didn't know that--that sort of thing--was ever secondary. "

"Because you've never had the experience. If you had--"

The freedom of speech she seemed to be according him led him on to say:

"I've had experience enough--as you may know--to be sure it wouldn't besecondary with me. "

She seemed willing to discuss the point. "When I say secondary I meanthat I'm in a position in which I find it isn't the most important thingin the world to me to marry the man I--I care for. "

"Then, what _is_ the most important thing?"

She stirred impatiently. "Oh, it's no use going into that; I suppose itwould be--to be free--not to owe you anything--or anybody anything--tobe out of this big, useless house--away from these unpaidservants--and--and free! I'm not a dependent person. I dare say you'venoticed that. I shouldn't mind having no money. I know a way by which Icould support myself--and papa. I've thought that out. I shouldn't mindbeing alone in the world, either--if I could only burst the coil that'sbeen wound about me. "

"But since you can't, " he said, rather cruelly, "wouldn't the next bestthing be--to marry the man you care for?"

Her response was to say, irrelevantly, somewhat quaveringly, in a voiceas near to tears as he could fancy her coming: "I wish I hadn't fallenout with Aunt Vic. "

"Why? Would she help you?"

"She's very good and kind--in her way. "

"Why don't you write to her?"

"Writing wouldn't be any good now. It's too late. "

Another long silence fell between them. The darkened windows of thehouse on the other side of the lawn began to reflect a pallid gleam asthe moon rose. Shadows of trees and of clumps of shrubbery becamefaintly visible on the grass. The great rounded elm in the foregrounddetached itself against the shimmering, illuminated sky like an openfan. Davenant found something ecstatic in the half-light, the peace, andthe extraordinary privilege of being alone with her. It would be onemore memory to treasure up. Silence, too, was a form of communion moresatisfactory to him than speech. It was so full of unutterable thingsthat he wondered at her allowing it to last. 

Nevertheless, it was he who broke it. The evening grew chilly at last. Somewhere in the town a clock struck ten. He felt it would be indiscreetto stay longer. 

"I'll make a try for it, Miss Guion, " he said, when he had got on hisfeet to go away. "Since you want me to see Colonel Ashley, I will. "

"They always say that one man has such influence on another, " she said, rising, too--"and you see things so clearly and have such a lot ofcommon sense. .. . I'll walk down to the gate with you. .. . I'm tired withsitting still. "

He offered his hand to help her in descending the portico steps. Thoughthere was no need for her to take it, she did so. The white cloak, loosely gathered in one hand in front, trailed behind her. He thoughther very spirit-like and ethereal. 

At the foot of the steps his heart gave a great bound; he went hot andcold. It seemed to him--he was sure--he could have sworn--that her handrested in his a perceptible instant longer than there was any need for. 

A moment later he was scoffing at the miracle. It was a mistake on hispart, or an accident on hers. It was the mocking of his own desire, theillusion of his feverish, overstrained senses. It was a restorative tosay to himself: "Don't be a damned fool. "

And yet they walked to the gate almost in silence. It was a silencewithout embarrassment, like that which had preceded it. It had some ofthe qualities of the silence which goes with long-establishedcompanionships. He spoke but once, to remind her, protectingly, that thegrass was damp, and to draw her--almost tactually--to the graveled path. 

They came to the gate, but he did not immediately say good night. 

"I wish you could throw the burden of the whole thing on me, MissGuion, " he ventured, wistfully, "and just take it easy. "

She looked away from him, over the sprinkling of lights that showed thetown. "If I could do it with any one, it would be with you--now. "

There was an inflection on the _now_ which again gave him strange andsudden thrills, as though some extraordinary chemical agent had beeninfused into his blood. All kinds of capitulations were implied init--changes of heart and mind and attitude--changes that had come aboutimperceptibly, and for reasons which he, and perhaps she, could not havefollowed. He felt the upleaping of great joy. It was joy so intense thatit made him tactful, temperate. It also made him want to rush away andbe alone. 

"I'll make that do for the present, " he said, smiling down at herthrough the darkness. "Thank you for letting me come. Good night. "

"Good night. "

There was again that barely noticeable lingering of her hand in his. Therepetition rather disappointed him. "It's just her way of shakinghands, " was the explanation he gave of it. 

When he had passed out of the gate he pretended to take his way downAlgonquin Avenue, but he only crossed the Street to the shelter of afriendly elm. There he could watch her tall, white figure as it wentslowly up the driveway. Except for a dim light in the fan-shaped windowover the front door the house was dark. The white figure moved with anair of dragging itself along. 

"It isn't the most important thing in the world for her, " he whisperedto himself, "to marry--_the man she cares for_. "

There was a renewal of his blind fury against Ashley, while at the sametime he found himself groaning, inwardly: "I wish to God the man shecares for wasn't such a--such a--trump!"

XVIII

When the colonel of the Sussex Rangers woke on the following morning theUmfraville element in him, fatigued doubtless with the demands of theprevious day, still slept on. That strain in him which had made hismaternal ancestors gentlemen-adventurers in Tudor times, and cavaliersin the days of Charles the First, and Jacobites with James the Second, and roysterers with George the Fourth--loyal, swashbuckling, andimpractical, daring, dashing, lovable, absurd, bound to come to griefone day or another, as they had come--that strain lying dormant, Ashleywas free to wake in the spirit of the manufacturer of brushes. In otherwords he woke in alarm. It was very real alarm. It was alarm not unlikethat of the gambler who realizes in the cold stare of morning that for anight's excitement he has thrown away a fortune. 

The feeling was so dreadful that, as he lay for a few minutes with hiseyes closed, he could say without exaggeration that he had never feltanything so sickening in his life. It was worse than the blue funk thatattended the reveille for his first battle--worse than the bluer remorsethat had come with the dawn after some of his more youthful sprees. Theonly parallel to it he could find was in the desolation of poorcreatures he had seen, chiefly in India, reduced suddenly by fire, flood, or earthquake to the skin they stood in and a lodging on theground. His swaggering promises of yesterday had brought him as near aspossible to that. 

Fortunately, when he had sprung out of bed the feeling became lesspoignant. By the time he had had his bath and his breakfast it had gotitself within the limits of what could be expressed in the statement:"I've been a jolly ass. "

Though there was no denying this fact, he could nevertheless use thereproach in its precise signification. He was not a jolly ass because hehad remained true to Olivia Guion, but because of the extravagantmethods of his faithfulness. No one but an Umfraville, he declared, would have hesitated to accept the _status quo_. Considering that inspite of everything he was still eager to give Olivia the shelter of hisname and the advantages of his position, his insistence on doing morefell short of the grotesque. 

Nevertheless he had insisted on it, and it was too late to shrink frommaking good his offer. No doubt, if he did so shrink, Olivia wouldcommend him; but it would be a commendation not inconsistent with a fallin her esteem. His nerves still tingled with the joy of hearing her say, as she had said yesterday: "You're the noblest man in the world; I neverdreamed there could be any one like you. " She was so sparing with herwords that these meant more from her than from another. If she usedthem, it was because she thought he _was_ the noblest man in the worldand because he _did_ surpass her dreams. This was setting up thestandard in a way that permitted no falling short of it. He must beRupert Ashley at his best even if the world went to pieces while he madethe attempt. Moreover, if he failed, there was always Peter Davenantready to loom up above him. "I must keep higher than him, " he said tohimself, "whatever it costs me. " So, little by little, the Umfraville inhim also woke, with its daredevil chivalry. It might be said to haveurged him on, while the Ashley prudence held him back, when from hisroom in the hotel he communicated by telephone with Olivia, begging herto arrange an interview between Guion and himself about eleven o'clock. 

 * * * * *

On taking the message to her father Olivia found him awake, but still inbed. Since his downfall had become generally known, she had noticed areluctance on his part to get up. It was true he was not well; but hisshrinking from activity was beyond what his degree of illness warranted. It was a day or two before she learned to view this seeming indolence asnothing but the desire to creep, for as many hours as possible out ofthe twenty-four, into the only refuge left to him. In his bed he wascomparatively safe, not from the law, which he no longer had to fear, but from intrusion and inspection, and, above all, from sympathy. 

It was between nine and ten o'clock. The blinds were up, the windowsopen, and the sunshine was streaming in. A tray with his scarcelytasted breakfast on it stood beside the bed. Guion lay on his back, hishead sunk deep into the pillows. Though his face was turned from thedoor and his eyes closed, Olivia knew he was not sleeping. Afterperforming small tasks in the room, carrying the breakfast tray into thehall, and lowering the blinds, she sat down at the bedside. 

"Papa, darling. "

As he turned his head slowly she thought his eyes had the look of mortalennui that Rembrandt depicts in those of Lazarus rising from the tomband coming back to life. 

She delivered her message, to which he replied, "He can come. "

"I think I ought to tell you, " she continued, "what he's coming for. "

She gave him the gist of her conversation with Ashley on the previousday and the one great decision to which they had led him up. It wouldhave gratified Ashley, could he have overheard, to note the skill withwhich she conveyed precisely that quality of noble precipitancy in hiswords and resolutions which he himself feared they had lacked. If aslight suspicion could have risen in his mind, it would have been thatof a certain haste on her part to forestall any possible questioning ofhis eagerness such as he had occasion to observe in himself. That mighthave wounded him. 

"So he wants to go ahead, " Guion said, when she had finished. 

"Apparently. "

"Can't he do that and still leave things as they are?"

"He seems to think he can't. "

"I don't see why. If I have to owe the money to any one, I'd rather oweit to Davenant. "

"So should I. "

"Do you really want to marry him?"

The question startled her. "Marry him? Who?"

There was a look almost of humor in Guion's forlorn eyes. "Well, Ididn't mean Davenant. I didn't suppose there was any--"

"Papa, darling, " she hastened to say, "as things are at present I'drather not marry any one at all. There's so much for me to do in gettinglife on another footing for us both that marriage seems to belong toanother kind of world. "

He raised himself on his elbow, turning toward her. "Then why don't youtell him so?"

"I have; but he won't take that as a reason. And, besides, I've said I_would_ marry him if he'd give up this wild project--"

"But you're in love with him, aren't you? You may as well tell me, " hecontinued, as she colored. "I must have _some_ data to go on. "

"I--I _was_ in love with him, " she faltered. "I suppose I am still. Butwhile everything is as it is, I--I--can't tell; I--I don't know. I'm--I'm feeling so many other things that I don't know whether Ifeel--feel love--or not. I dare say I do. But it's like asking a man ifhe's fond of playing a certain game when he thinks he's going to die. "

He slipped down into bed again, pulling the coverlet about his chin andturning his face away. As he said nothing more, she rose to go. "Abouteleven, then, papa dear. "

She could hear a muffled assent as she left the room. She was afraid hewas crying. 

Nevertheless, when she had gone Guion rang for Reynolds and made hisusual careful toilet with uncommon elaboration. By the time his guestarrived he was brushed and curled and stretched on the couch. If he hadin the back of his mind a hope of impressing Ashley and showing him thatif he, Guion, had fallen, it was from a height, he couldn't help it. Tobe impressive was the habit of his life--a habit it was too late now toovercome. Had he taken the Strange Ride with Morrowby Jukes, he wouldhave been impressive among the living dead. Curiously enough, too, nowthat that possibility was past, he wondered if he didn't regret it. Heconfessed as much to Ashley. 

"I know what you've come for, " he said, when Ashley, who had declined acigar, seated himself beside the couch. 

"That means, I suppose, that Olivia has got ahead of me. "

"She told me what you've proposed. It's very fine--very sporting. "

"I haven't proposed it because it's either sporting or fine. It seems tome the only thing to do. "

"Y-es; I can understand that you should feel so about it. I shouldmyself if I were in your place and had a right to be generous. Thetrouble is--that it wouldn't work. "

Ashley would have given much not to feel this sudden exhilaration ofrelief. It was so glowing that, in spite of his repugnance, he couldhave leaned forward and wrung Guion's hand. He contrived, however, tothrow a tone of objection into his voice as he said: "Wouldn't work? Whynot?"

Guion raised himself on his elbow. "It's no use going over the argumentsas to the effect on your position. You've considered all that, no doubt, and feel that you can meet it. Whether you could or not when it came tothe point is another question. But no matter. There are one or twothings you haven't considered. I hate to put them before you, because--well, because you're a fine fellow--and it's too bad that youshould be in this fix. It's part of my--my--my chastisement--to have putyou there; but it'll be something to me--some alleviation; if you canunderstand--to help to get you out. "

Ashley was dumb. He was also uncomfortable. He hated this sort of thing. 

Guion continued. "Suppose I were to let you go ahead on this--let youraise the money--and take it from you--and pay Davenant--and allthat--then you might marry my daughter, and get life on some sort oftolerable working basis. I dare say. " He pulled himself forward on thecouch. Ashley noticed the blazing of his eyes and hectic color in hischeeks. "You might even be happy, in a way, " he went on, "if you didn'thave--_me_. "

"Didn't have--you? I don't understand--"

"And you'd _have_ me. You couldn't get out of it. I'm done for--I'm nogood to any one any more--but I'm not going to die. That's my point. That's my punishment, too. Can't you imagine what it means to a man likeme--who used to think well of himself--who's been well thought of--can'tyou imagine what it is to have to inspire every one who belongs to himwith loathing? That's what I've got to do for the rest of my life--andI'm going to _live_. "

"Oh, I say!"

"You mayn't believe it, Ashley, but I'd rather have been--shut up--putaway--where people couldn't see me--where I didn't have to see them. Youknow Olivia and I were facing that. I expect she's told you. And 'pon mysoul there are many ways in which it would have been easier than--thanthis. But that's not what I'm coming to. The great fact is that afteryou'd counted your cost and done your utmost you still have _me_--like adead rat strung round your neck--"

"Oh, I say, by Jove!"

"Olivia, poor child, has to bear it. She can, too. That's a remarkablething about us New England people--our grit in the face of disgrace. Ifancy there are many of our women who'd be as plucky as she--and I knowone man. I don't know any others. "

Ashley felt sick. He had never in his life felt such repulsion as towardwhat seemed to him this facile, theatrical remorse. If Guion was reallycontrite, if he really wanted to relieve the world of his presence, hecould blow his brains out. Ashley had known, or known of, so many whohad resorted to this ready remedy for a desperate plight that it seemedsimple. His thoughts were too complex, however, for immediateexpression, and, before he could decide what to respond, Guion said:

"Why don't you give him a chance?"

Ashley was startled. "Chance? What chance? Who?"

"Davenant. "

Ashley grasped the back of his chair as though about to spring up. "What's he want a chance for? Chance for what?"

"I might have said: 'Why don't you give _her_ a chance?' She's half inlove with him--as it is. "

"That's a lie. That's an infernal lie. "

Ashley was on his feet. He pushed the chair from him, though he stillgrasped it. He seemed to need it for support. Guion showed noresentment, continuing to speak with feverish quiet. 

"I think you'll find that the whole thing is predestined, Ashley. Davenant's coming to my aid is what you might call a miracle. I don'tlike to use the expression--it sounds idiotic--and canting--and allthat--but, as a matter of fact, he came--as an answer to prayer. "

Ashley gave a snort of impatience. Guion warmed to his subject, dragginghimself farther up on the couch and throwing the coverlet from hisknees. 

"Yes, of course; you'd feel that way about it--naturally. So should I ifanybody else were to tell me. But this is how it happened. One night, not long ago, while you were on the water, I was so hard hit thatI--well, I actually--_prayed_. I don't know that I ever did before--thatis, not really--_pray_. But I did then; and I didn't beat about thebush, either. I didn't stop at half measures; I asked for a miracleright out and out--and I got it. The next morning Davenant came with hisoffer of the money. You may make what you like out of that; but Imake--"

"I make this, by Jove; that you and he entered into a bargain that heshould supply the cash, and you should--"

"Wrong!" With his arm stretched to its full length he pointed hisforefinger up into Ashley's face. "Wrong!" he cried, again. "I asked himif she had anything to do with it, and he said she hadn't. "

"Pff! Would you expect him to acknowledge it? He might deny it till hedamned his soul with lies; but that wouldn't keep you and him from--"

"Before God, Ashley, I never thought of it till later. I know it looksthat way--the way you put it--but I never thought of it till later. Idragged it out of him that he'd once been in love with her and had askedher to marry him. That was a regular knock-down surprise to me. I'd hadno idea of anything of the kind. But he said he wasn't in love with herany longer. I dare say he thinks he isn't; but--"

"Suppose he is; that needn't affect _her_--except as an impertinence. Awoman can defend herself against that sort of thing, by Jove!"

"It needn't affect her--only--only as a matter of fact--it does. Itappeals to her imagination. The big scale of the thing would impressalmost any woman. Look here, Ashley, " he cried, with a touch ofhysteria; "it'll be better for us all in the long run if you'll give hima chance. It'll be better for you than for any one else. You'll be wellout of it--any impartial person would tell you that. You must see ityourself. You _do_ see it yourself. We're not your sort--"

But Ashley could stand it no longer. With a smothered, inarticulateoath, he turned abruptly, and marched out of the room. 

XIX

Fortunately there was no one in the upper hall, nor on the stairs, norin the lower hall, nor in the oval room into which Ashley stumbled hisway. The house was all sunshine and silence. He dropped into the nearestarm-chair. "It's a lie, " he kept repeating to himself. "It's a lie. It'sa damned, infernal lie. It's a put-up job between them--between the oldscoundrel and that--that oaf. "

The reflection brought him comfort. By degrees it brought him a greatdeal of comfort. That was the explanation, of course! There was no needof his being panic-stricken. To frighten him off was part of their plan. Had he not challenged her two or three times to say she didn't care forhim? If she had any doubt on the subject he had given her ampleopportunity to declare it. But she had not done so. On the contrary, shehad made him both positive and negative statements of her love. Whatmore could he ask?

He breathed again. The longer he thought of it the better his situationseemed to grow. He had done all that an honorable man could think of. Hehad been chivalrous to a quixotic degree. If they had not accepted hisgenerous proposals, then so much the worse for them. They--Guion andDavenant--were pursuing obstructionist tactics, so as to put him in aplace where he could do nothing but retreat. Very well; he would showthem! There were points beyond which even chivalry could not go; and ifthey found themselves tangled in their own barbed wire they themselveswould be to blame. 

So, as the minute of foolish, jealous terror passed away, he began toenjoy the mellow peace of the old house. It was the first thing he hadenjoyed since landing in America. His pleasure was largely in theanticipation of soon leaving that country with all the honors and OliviaGuion besides. 

It was a gratification to the Ashley spirit, too, to note how promptlythe right thing had paid. It was really something to take to heart. Themoral to be drawn from his experiences at the heights of Dargal had beenillustrated over and over again in his career; and this was once more. If he had funked the sacrifice it would have been on his conscience allthe rest of his life. As it was, he had made it, or practically made it, and so could take his reward without scruple. 

He put this plainly before Olivia when at last she appeared. She cameslowly through the hail from the direction of the dining-room, ablank-book and a pencil in her hand. 

"I'm making an inventory, " she explained. "You know that everything willhave to be sold?"

He ignored this to hurry to his account of the interview with Guion. Ithad been brief, he said, and in a certain sense unsatisfactory. He laidstress on his regret that her father should have seen fit to decline hisoffer--that's what it amounted to--but he pointed out to her that thatbounder Davenant, who had doubtless counseled this refusal, would now bethe victim of his own wiles. He had overreached himself. He had takenone of those desperate risks to which the American speculative spirit isso often tempted--and he had pushed it too far. He would lose everythingnow, and serve him right!

"I've made my offer, " he went on, in an injured tone, "and they'vethrown it out. I really can't do more, now, can I?"

"You know already how I feel about that. "

They were still standing. He had been too eager to begin his report tooffer her a chair or to take one himself. 

"They can't expect me to repeat it, now, can they?" he hurried on. "There are limits, by Jove! I can't go begging to them--"

"I don't think they expect it. "

"And yet, if I don't, you know--he's dished. He loses his money--andeverything else. "

In putting a slight emphasis on the concluding words he watched herclosely. She betrayed herself to the extent of throwing back her headwith a little tilt to the chin. 

"I don't believe he'd consider that being dished. He's the sort of manwho loses only when he--flings away. "

"He's the sort of man who's a beastly cad. "

He regretted these words as soon as they were uttered, but she had stunghim to the quick. Her next words did so again. 

"Then, if so, I hope you won't find it necessary to repeat theinformation. I mistook him for something very high--very high and noble;and, if you don't mind, I'd rather go on doing it. "

She swept him with a look such as he knew she must be capable of giving, though he had never before seen it. The next second she had slippedbetween the portières into the hail. He heard her pause there. 

It was inevitable that Guion's words should return to him: "Half in lovewith him--as it is. "

"That's rot, " he assured himself. He had only to call up the image ofDavenant's hulking figure and heavy ways to see what rot it was. Hehimself was not vain of his appearance; he had too much to his credit tobe obliged to descend to that; but he knew he was a distinguished man, and that he looked it. The woman who could choose between him andDavenant would practically have no choice at all. That seemed to himconclusive. 

Nevertheless, it was with a view to settling this question beyondresurrection that he followed her into the hall. He found her standingwith the note-book still in her hand. 

He came softly behind her and looked over her shoulder, his face closeto hers. She could feel his breath on her cheek, but she tried to write. 

"I'm sorry I said what I did, " he whispered. 

She stayed her pencil long enough to say: "I hope you're still sorrierfor having thought it. "

"I'm sorry you _know_ I think it. Since it affects you so deeply--"

"It affects me deeply to see you can be unjust. "

"I'm more than unjust. I'm--well you can fancy what I am, when I saythat I know some one who thinks you're more than half in love with thisfellow--as it is. "

"Is that papa?"

"I don't see that it matters who it is. The only thing of importance iswhether you are or not. "

"If you mean that as a question, I shall have to let you answer ityourself. "

"Would you tell me if--if you were?"

"What would be the use of telling you a thing that would make youunhappy and that I couldn't help?"

"Am I to understand, then, that you _are_ half in love with him?"

She continued the effort to write. 

"I think I've a right to press that question, " he resumed. "Am I, or amI not, to understand--"

She turned slowly. Her face was flushed, her eyes were misty. 

"You may understand this, " she said, keeping her voice as much undercontrol as possible, "you may understand this, that I don't know whomI'm in love with, or whether or not I'm in love with any one. That's thebest I can say. I'm sorry, Rupert--but I don't think it's altogether myfault. Papa's troubles seem to have transported me into a world wherethey neither marry nor are given in marriage--where the whole subject isalien to--"

"But you said, " he protested, bitterly, "no longer ago than yesterdaythat you--_loved_ me. "

"And I suppose I do. I did in Southsea. I did--right up to the minutewhen I learned what papa--and I--had been doing all these years--andthat if the law had been put in force--You see, that's made me feel asif I were benumbed--as if I were frozen--or dead. You mustn't blame metoo much--"

"My darling, I'm not blaming you. I'm not such a duffer but that I canunderstand how you feel. It'll be all right. You'll come round. This islike an illness, by Jove!--that's what it's like. But you'll get better, dear. After we're married--if you'll _only_ marry me--"

"I said I'd do that, Rupert--I said it yesterday--if you'd give up--whatI understand you _have_ given up--"

He was on his guard against admitting this. "I haven't given it up. They've made it impossible for me to do it; that's all. It's theiraction, not mine. "

"It comes to the same thing. I'm ready to keep my promise. "

"You don't say it with much enthusiasm. "

"Perhaps I say it with something better. I think I do. At the same timeI wish--"

"You wish what?"

"I wish I had attached another condition to it. "

"It mayn't be too late for that even now. Let's have it. "

"If I had thought of it, " she said, with a faint, uncertain smile, "Ishould have exacted a promise that you and he should be--friends. "

He spoke sharply. "Who? Me? That's a good 'un, by Jove! You may as wellunderstand me, dear, once and for all. I don't make friends ofcow-punchers of that sort. "

"I do, " she said, coldly, turning again to her note-book. 

 * * * * *

It was not strange that Ashley should pass the remainder of the day in astate of irritation against what he called "this American way of doingthings. " Neither was it strange that when, after dinner in the evening, Davenant kept close to him as they were leaving Rodney Temple's house, the act should have struck the Englishman as a bit of odiouspresumption. Having tried vainly to shake his companion off, he wasobliged to submit to walking along the Embankment with him, side byside. 

He had not found the dinner an entertaining event. Drusilla talked agreat deal, but was uneasy and distraite. Rodney Temple seemed to him "aqueer old cove, " while Mrs. Temple made no impression on him at all. Olivia had urged her inability to leave her father as an excuse for notcoming. Davenant said little beyond giving the information that he wastaking leave of his host and hostess to sleep that night in his oldquarters in Boston and proceed next day to Stoughton, Michigan. Thisfact gave him a pretext for saying good night when Ashley did andleaving the house in his company. 

"We're going the same way, aren't we?" he asked, as soon as they wereoutside. 

"No, " Ashley said, promptly; "you're taking the tram, and I shall walk. "

"I should like to walk, too, Colonel, if you don't mind. "

Since silence raised the most telling objection, Ashley made no reply. Taking out his cigarette-case, he lit a cigarette, without offering oneto his companion. The discourtesy was significant, but Davenant ignoredit, commenting on the extraordinary mildness of the October night andgiving items of information as to the normal behavior of American autumnweather. As Ashley expressed no appreciation of these data, the subjectwas dropped. There was a long silence before Davenant nerved himself tobegin on the topic he had sought this opportunity to broach. 

"You said yesterday, Colonel, that you'd like to pay me back the moneyI've advanced to Mr. Guion. I'd just as soon you wouldn't, you know. "

Ashley deigned no answer. The tramp went on in silence broken only bydistant voices or a snatch of song from a students' club-house near theriver. Somewhere in the direction of Brookline a locomotive kept up apuffing like the beating of a pulse. 

"I don't need that money, " Davenant began again. "There's more where itcame from. I shall be out after it--from to-morrow on. "

Ashley's silence was less from rudeness than from self-restraint. Allhis nerves were taut with the need to visit his troubles on some one'shead. A soldiering life had not accustomed him to indefinite repressionof his irritable impulses, and now after two or three days of it he wasat the limit of his powers. It was partly because he knew his patienceto be nearly at an end that he wanted to be alone. It was also becausehe was afraid of the blind fury with which Davenant's mere presenceinspired him. While he expressed this fury to himself in epithets ofscorn, he was aware, too, that there were shades of animosity in it forwhich he had no ready supply of terms. Such exclamatory fragments asforced themselves up through the troubled incoherence of his thoughtswere of the nature of "damned American, " "vulgar Yankee, " "insolentbounder, " rendering but inadequately the sentiments of a certain kind ofEnglishman toward his fancied typical American, a crafty Colossus whoaccomplishes everything by money and brutal strength. Had there beennothing whatever to create a special antagonism between them, Ashley'sfeeling toward Davenant would still have been that of a civilizedJack-the-Giant-Killer toward a stupendous, uncouth foe. It would havehad elements in it of fear, jealousy, even of admiration, making at itsbest for suspicion and neutrality, and at its worst for. .. . But Davenantspoke again. 

"I'd a great deal rather, Colonel, that--"

The very sound of his voice, with its harsh consonants and its absurdrepetitions of the military title, grated insufferably on Ashley's ear. He was beyond himself although he seemed cool. 

"My good fellow, I don't care a hang what you'd a great deal rather. "

Ashley lit a fresh cigarette with the end of the old one, throwing thestump into the river almost across Davenant's face, as the latter walkedthe nearer to the railing. 

The American turned slightly and looked down. The action, taken inconjunction with his height and size and his refusal to be moved, intensified Ashley's rage, which began now to round on himself. Even themonotonous tramp-tramp of their footsteps, as the Embankment became moredeserted, got on his nerves. It was long before Davenant made a newattempt to fulfil his mission. 

"In saying what I said just now, " he began, in what he tried to make areasonable tone, "I've no ax to grind for myself. If Miss Guion--"

"We'll leave that name out, " Ashley cried, sharply. "Only a damned cadwould introduce it. "

Though the movement with which Davenant swung his left arm through thedarkness and with the back of his left hand struck Ashley on the mouthwas so sudden as to surprise no one more than himself, it came with allthe cumulative effect of twenty-four hours' brooding. The same might besaid of the spring with which Ashley bounded on his adversary. It hadthe agility and strength of a leopard's. Before Davenant had time torealize what he had done he found himself staggering--hurled against theiron railing, which threatened to give way beneath his weight. He hadnot taken breath when he was flung again. In the dim light of theelectrics he could see the glare in Ashley's eyes and hear him panting. Davenant, too, panted, but his wrath that had flared up like a rockethad already come down like a stick. 

"Look here, " he stammered; "we--we--c-can't do this sort of thing. "

Ashley fell back. He, too, seemed to realize quickly the folly of thesituation. When he spoke it was less in anger than in protest. 

"By God, you struck me!"

"I didn't know it, Colonel. If I did, we're quits onit--because--because you insulted me. Perhaps you didn't know _that_. I'm willing to think you didn't--if you'll only believe that the wholething has been a mistake--a damned, idiotic, tom-fool mistake. "

The words had their effect. Ashley fell back still farther. There was asinking of his head and a shrinking of his figure that told of reactionfrom the moment of physical excess. 

A roadside bench was visible beneath an arc-lamp but a few yards away. "Come and sit down, " Davenant said, hoarsely. He found it difficult tospeak. 

Ashley stumbled along. He sat down heavily, like a man spent withfatigue or drink. With his elbows on his knees, he hid his face in hishands, while his body rocked. 

Davenant turned away, walking down the Embankment. He walked on forfifty or sixty yards. He himself felt a curious sense of being batteredand used up. His heart pounded and the perspiration stood on his brow. Putting his hand to his collar, he found his evening cravat awry andhis waistcoat pulled out of shape. 

He grasped the rail, as if for support, looking off with unseeing eyesinto the night. Lights along the river-side were reflected in the water;here and there a bridge made a long low arch of lamps; more lightssprinkled the suburban hills, making a fringe to the pall of stars. Theygrew pale, even while he looked at them, as before a brighter radiance, and he knew that behind him the moon was coming up. He thought of themoonrise of the previous evening, when Olivia Guion had walked with himto the gate and let her hand rest in his. He recalled her words, as hehad recalled them a hundred times that day, "_The man I care for_. " Hewent back over each phase of their conversation, as though it wassomething he was trying to learn by heart. He remembered her longing forher aunt de Melcourt. 

All at once he struck the railing with the energy of a man who has a newinspiration. "By George!" he said, half aloud, "that's an idea--that'scertainly an idea! I wonder if. .. . The _Indiana_ sailed last week . .. Itought to be the turn of the _Louisiana_ the day after to-morrow. ByGeorge, I believe I could make it if . .. "

He hurried back to the bench where Ashley was still sitting. The latterwas upright now, his arm stretched along the back. He had lit acigarette. 

Davenant approached to within a few feet. "Look here, Colonel, " he said, gently, "we've got to forget this evening. "

It was a minute or two before Ashley said: "What's the good offorgetting one thing when there are so many others to remember?"

"Perhaps we can forget them, too--one by one. I guess you haven'tunderstood me. I dare say I haven't understood you, either, though Ithink I could if you'd give me a chance. But all I want to say is this, that I'm--off--"

Ashley turned quickly. "Off? Where?"

"Where we're not likely to meet--for some little time--again. "

"Oh, but I say! You can't--"

"Can't what, Colonel?"

"Can't drop--drop out of the running--damn it all, man! you can't--youcan't--let it be a walk-over for _me_--after all that's--"

"That's where you've made your mistake, Colonel, I guess. You thoughtthere was--was a--a race, so to speak--and that I was in it. Well, Iwasn't?"

"But what the deuce--?"

"I not only wasn't in it--but there was no race. There never was. It wasa walk-over for--for some one--from the start. Now I guess I'll say goodnight. "

He turned away abruptly, but, having taken a few steps, came back again. 

"Look here! Let's have a cigarette. "

Ashley fumbled for his case, opened it, and held it up. "I say, take twoor three. "

As Ashley lifted the one he was smoking to serve as a light Davenantnoticed that the hand trembled, and steadied it in the grasp of his own. 

"Thanks; and good night again, " he said, briefly, as he strode finallyaway into the darkness. 

XX

It was not till the motor had actually got out of Havre and was wellalong the dusty white road to the château that Davenant began to havemisgivings. Up to that point the landmarks--and and the sea-marks--hadbeen familiar. On board the _Louisiana_, in London, in Paris, even inHavre, he had felt himself on his accustomed beat. On steamers or trainsand in hotels he had that kind of confidence in himself which, failinghim somewhat whenever he entered the precincts of domestic life, wassure to desert him altogether now, as he approached the strange andimposing. 

"Madame est à la campagne. "

A black-eyed old woman had told him so on the previous day. For theinstant he was relieved, since it put off the moment of confronting thegreat lady a little longer. 

He had, in fact, rung the bell at the frowning portal in the rue del'Université with some trepidation. Suggestions of grandeur and mysterybeyond anything he was prepared to meet lay within these seeminglyfortified walls. At the same time it gave glory to the glamour in whichthe image of Olivia Guion always appeared to him to think she hadpassed and repassed these solemn gates at will, and that the statelyLouis Quinze _hôtel_, of which the concierge allowed him a glimpseacross the courtyard, had, on and off, been her home for years. It wasone more detail that removed her beyond his sphere and made herinaccessible to his yearnings. 

From the obliging post-office clerk at the bank on which he drew--agentleman posted in the movements of all distinguished Americans on thecontinent of Europe--he learned that "la campagne" for the Marquise deMelcourt meant the château of Melcourt-le-Danois in the neighborhood ofHarfleur. He was informed, moreover, that by taking the two-o'clocktrain to Havre he could sleep that night at the Hôtel Frascati, andmotor out to Melcourt easily within an hour in the morning. It beganthen to occur to him that what had presented itself at first as aprosaic journey from Boston to Paris and back was becoming an adventure, with a background of castles and noble dames. 

Nevertheless, he took heart for the run to Havre, and except for feelingat twilight the wistfulness that comes out of the Norman landscape--themelancholy of things forgotten but not gone, dead but still broodingwraith-like over the valley of the Seine, haunting the hoary churches, and the turreted châteaux, and the windings of the river, and the longlines of poplar, and the villages and forests and orchards andcorn-fields--except for this, his spirits were good. If now and then hewas appalled at what he, a shy fellow with no antecedents to recommendhim and no persuasive powers, had undertaken, he thought of OliviaGuion. The thing he was attempting became trivial when compared with thepossible benefits to her. 

That reflections too, enabled him to come victoriously out of three longhours of inward wrestling--three long hours spent on the jetty whichthrust itself into the sea just outside his hotel at Havre. He supposedhe had already fought the battle with himself and won it. Its renewal onthe part of powers within his soul took him by surprise. 

He had strolled out after dinner to the Chaussée des États-Unis to whileaway the time before going to bed. Ships and sailors, with the lightsand sights and sounds of a busy port, had for him the fascination theyexert over most men who lead rather sedentary lives. At that time in theevening the Chaussée des États-Unis was naturally gay with thelandsman's welcome to the sailor on shore. The cafés were crowded bothinside and out. Singing came from one and the twang of an instrumentfrom another, all along the quay. Soldiers mingled fraternally withsailors, and pretty young women, mostly bareheaded and neatly dressed inblack, mingled with both. It was what a fastidious observer of lifemight call "low, " but Davenant's judgments had no severity of that kind. He looked at the merry groups, composed for the most part of chanceacquaintances, here to-day and gone to-morrow, swift and light of love, with a curious craving for fellowship. From the gatherings of friends hefelt himself invariably the one shut out. 

It was this sense of exclusion that finally sent him away from thecheerful quay to wander down the jetty which marks the line where theHarbor of Grace, with its intricate series of basins and docks, becomesthe sea. It was a mild night, though the waves beat noisily enoughagainst the bastions of the pier. At intervals he was swept by a scud ofspray. All sorts of acrid odors were in the wind--smells of tar and saltand hemp and smoke and oil--the perfumes of sea-hazard and romance. 

Pulling his cap over his brows and the collar of his ulster about hisears, he sat down on the stone coping. His shoulders were hunched; hishands hung between his knees. He did not care to smoke. For a fewminutes he was sufficiently occupied in tracing the lines and thegroupings of lights. He had been in Havre more than once before, andknew the quai de Londres from the quai de New York, and both from thequai du Chili. Across the mouth of the Seine he could distinguish themisty radiance which must be Trouville from that which must be Honfleur. Directly under his eyes in the Avant Port the dim hulls of steamers andwar-ships, fishing-boats and tugs, lay like monsters asleep. 

There was no reason why all this should make him feel outside[Transcriber's Note: Original reads 'outide'] the warm glow and life ofthings; but it did. It did worse in that it inspired a longing for whathe knew positively to be unattainable. It stirred a new impulse to fightfor what he had definitely given up. It raised again questions he thoughthe had answered and revived hopes he had never had to quench, since fromthe beginning they were vain. 

_Were_ they vain? In taking this form the query became moreinsidious--more difficult to debate and settle once for all. To everyargument there was a perpetually recurring, "Yes, but--" with the memoryof the instants when her hand rested in his longer than there was anyneed for, of certain looks and lights in her eyes, of certain tones andhalf-tones in her voice. Other men would have made these things abeginning, whereas he had taken them as the end. He had taken them asthe end by a foregone conclusion. They had meant so much to him that hecouldn't conceive of asking more, when perhaps they were nothing but thefirst fruits. 

The wind increased in violence; the spray was salt on his mustache, andclung to the nap of his clothing. The radiance that marked Trouville andHonfleur grew dim almost to extinction. Along the quay the cafés beganto diminish the number of their lights. The cheerful groups broke up, strolling home to the mansard or to the fo'castle, with bursts ofdrunken or drowsy song. Davenant continued to sit crouched, huddled, bowed. He ceased to argue, or to follow the conflict betweenself-interest and duty, or to put up a fight of any kind. He was contentto sit still and suffer. In its own way suffering was a relief. It wasthe first time he had given it a chance since he had brought himself tofacing squarely the fact of his useless, pointless love. He had alwaysdodged it by finding something to be done, or choked it down by sheerforce of will. Now he let it rush in on him, all through him, all overhim, flooding his mind and spirit, making his heart swell and his bloodsurge and his nerves ache and his limbs throb and quiver. If he couldhave formed a thought it would have been that of the Hebrew Psalmistwhen he felt himself poured out like water. He had neither shame for hismanhood nor alarm for his pride till he heard himself panting, pantingraucously, with a sound that was neither a moan nor a sob, but whichracked him convulsively, while there was a hot smarting in his eyes. 

But in the end he found relief and worked his way out to a sort ofvictory. That is to say, he came back to see, as he had seen all along, that there was one clear duty to be done. If he loved Olivia Guion witha love that was worthy to win, it must also be with a love that couldlose courageously. This was no new discovery. It was only a fact whichloneliness and the craving to be something to her, as she was everythingto him, had caused him for the moment to lose sight of. But he came backto it with conviction. It was conviction that gave him confidence, thatcalmed him, enabling him, as a clock somewhere struck eleven, to get up, shake the sea-spray from his person, and return to his hotel. 

It was while he was going to bed that Rodney Temple's words came back tohim, as they did from time to time: "Some call it God. "

"I wonder if it is--God, " he questioned. 

 * * * * *

But the misgiving that beset him, as he motored out of Havre in themorning, was of another kind. It was that which attaches to the unlikelyand the queer. Once having plunged into a country road, away fromrailways and hotels, he felt himself starting on a wild-goose chase. Hisassurance waned in proportion as conditions grew stranger. In vain anobliging chauffeur, accustomed to enlighten tourists as to the merits ofthis highway, pointed out the fact that the dusty road along which theysped had once--and not so many years ago--been the border of the bed ofthe Seine, that the white cliffs towering above them on the left, andedged along the top with verdure, marked the natural brink of the river, and that the church so admirably placed on a hillside was the shrine ofa martyred maiden saint, whose body had come ashore here at Graville, having been flung into the water at Harfleur. Davenant was deaf to theseinteresting bits of information. He was blind, too. He was blind to thenoble sweep of the Seine between soft green hills. He was blind to thecraft on its bosom--steamers laden with the produce of orchard and thefarm for England; Norwegian brigantines, weird as _The Flying Dutchman_in their black and white paint, carrying ice or lumber to Rouen;fishing-boats with red or umber sails. He was blind to the villages, clambering over cliffs to a casino, a _plage_, and a Hôtel des Bains, ornestling on the uplands round a spire. He was blind to the picturesquewooded gorges, through which little tributaries of the great river hadonce run violently down from the table-land of the Pays de Caux. He wasblind to the charms of Harfleur, famous and somnolent, on the banks of astill more somnolent stream. He resumed the working of his facultiesonly when the chauffeur turned and said:

"Voilà, monsieur--voilà le château de madame la marquise. "

If it was possible for Davenant's heart to leap and sink in the sameinstant, it did it then. It leaped at the sight of this white and rosecastle, with its towers and donjon and keep; it sank at the thought thathe, poor old unpretentious Peter Davenant, with no social or personalpassports of any kind, must force his way over drawbridge and beneathportcullis--or whatever else might be the method of entering a feudalpile--into the presence of the châtelaine whose abode here must be thatof some legendary princess, and bend her to his will. Stray memoriescame to him of Siegfrieds and Prince Charmings, with a natural gift forthis sort of thing, but only to make his own appearance in the rôle themore absurd. 

Melcourt-le-Danois had that characteristic which goes with all fine andfitting architecture of springing naturally out of the soil. It seemedas if it must always have been there. It was as difficult to imagine theplateau on which it stood without it as to see Mont Saint Michel merelyas a rocky islet. The plateau crowned a white bluff running out like theprow of a Viking ship into a bend of the Seine, commanding the river inboth directions. It was clear at a glance that when Roger the Dane laidhere the first stone of his pirates' stronghold, to protect his port ofHarfleur, the salt water must have dashed right up against the chalkycliff; but the centuries during which the silt of the Vosges had beencarried down the river and piled up against the rocks at its mouth, haddriven the castle inland for an eighth of a mile. Melcourt-le-Danoiswhich had once looked down into the very waves now dominated in thefirst place a strip of gardens, and orchards of small fruit, throughwhich the, road from Harfleur to the village of Melcourt, half a milefarther up the Seine, ran like a bit of white braid. 

Viewed from the summit of the cliff on which Davenant's motor hadstopped, the château was composed of two ancient towers guarding thelong, and relatively low, relatively modern, brick mansion of the epochof Louis Treize. The brick, once red, had toned down now to a soft oldrose; the towers, once white, were splashed above the line to which theivy climbed with rose and orange. Over the tip of the bluff and down itsside of southern exposure, toward the village of Melcourt, ran a park ofoak and chestnut, in all the October hues of yellow and olive-brown. 

But ten minutes later, when the motor had made a detour round cliffs andlittle inlets and arrived at the main entrance to the château, Davenantfound the aspect of things less intimidating. Through a highwrought-iron grille, surmounted by the head of an armorial beast, he hadthe view of a Lenôtre garden, all scrolls and arabesques. The towers, which at a distance had seemed part of a continuous whole, now detachedthemselves. The actual residence was no more imposing than anygood-sized house in America. Davenant understood the chauffeur to saythat "Madame la marquise l'avait modernisé jusqu'au bout des ongles. "

Having summoned up courage to ring the bell, he found it answered by amiddle-aged woman with a face worn by time and weather to the polishedgrooves and creases to which water wears a rock. 

"On ne visite pas le château. "

She made the statement with the stony, impersonal air of one who has tosay the same thing a good many times a year. Davenant pressed close tothe grille, murmuring something of which she caught the word "Madame. "

"Madame la marquise n'est pas visible. "

The quick Norman eye had, however, noticed the movement of Davenant'shand, detecting there something more than a card. In speaking she edgednearer the grille. Thrusting his fingers between the curves of the ironarabesques, he said, in his best French: "_Prenez_. "

Measuring time by the pounding of his heart rather than the ticking ofhis watch, it seemed to him he had a long time to wait before the womanreappeared, handing him back his card through the openwork of thegrille, saying briefly: "Madame la marquise ne reçoit pas. " Perhaps itwas the crestfallen look in the blond giant's face that tempted her toadd: "Je le regrette, monsieur. "

In the compassionate tone he read a hint that all was not lost. Scribbling under his name the words: "Boston, Mass. Very urgent, " heonce more passed the card through the grille, accompanied by the manualact that had won the woman's sympathy in the first place. 

"_Allez_, please, " he said, earnestly, "and--_vite_. "

He found his penciled words effective, for presently the woman cameback. "Venez, monsieur, " she said, as she unlocked the grille with alarge key carried beneath her apron. Her stony official manner hadreturned. 

As he drew near the house a young man sketching or writing under ayew-tree looked up curiously. A few steps farther on a pretty girl, in aLeghorn hat, clipping roses into a basket, glanced at him with shy, startled eyes. In the hall, where he was left standing, a young officerin sky-blue tunic and red breeches, who had been strumming at a piano inan adjoining room, strolled to the door and stared at him. A thin, black-eyed, sharp-visaged, middle-aged lady, dressed in black andwearing a knitted shawl--perhaps the mother of the three young people hehad just seen--came half-way down the strip of red carpet on the stairs, inspected him, and went up again. It was all more disconcerting than hehad expected. 

The great hall, of which the chief beauty was in the magnificent sweepof the monumental stairway, with its elaborate wrought-iron balustrade, struck him as a forbidding entry to a home. A man-servant came at lastto deliver him from the soft, wondering eyes of the young officer, andlead him into a room which he had already recognized as a librarythrough the half-open door. 

Here he had just time to get a blurred impression of portraits, busts, Bull surfaces, and rich or ancient bindings--with views through the longwindows of the traffic on the Seine--when a little old lady appeared ina doorway at the farther end of the room. He knew she was a little oldlady from all sorts of indefinable evidence, in spite of her own effortsto be young. He knew it in spite of fluffy golden hair and a filmy, youthful morning robe that displayed the daintiness of her figure aswell as the expensiveness of her taste. 

She tripped rapidly down the long room, with quick little steps and aquick little swinging of the arms that made the loose gossamer sleevesblow outward from the wrists. He recognized her instantly as theMarquise de Melcourt from her resemblance, in all those outlines whichpoudre de riz and cherry paste could not destroy, to the Guion type. Theface would have still possessed the Guion beauty, had she given it achance. Looking at it as she came nearer, Davenant was reminded ofthings he had read of those Mongolian tribes who are said to put onmasks to hide their fear and go resolutely forth to battle. Havingalways considered this a lofty form of courage, he was inconsistent infinding its reflection here--the fear of time beneath these paintedcheeks and fluffy locks, and the fight against it carried on by theMarquise's whole brave bearing--rather pitifully comic. 

Madame herself had no such feeling. She wore her mask with absolutenonchalance, beginning to speak while still some yards away. 

"Eh, bien, monsieur?"

Davenant doubled himself up into a deep bow, but before he had time tostammer out some apologetic self-introduction, she continued:

"You've come from Davis and Stern, I suppose, on business. I always tellthem not to send me people, but to cable. Why didn't they cable? Theyknow I don't like Americans coming here. I'm pestered to death withthem--that is, I used to be--and I should be still, if I didn't put 'emdown. "

The voice was high and chattering, with a tendency to crack. It had theAmerican quality with a French intonation. In speaking, the Marquisemade little nervous dashes, now to the right, now to the left, as thoughendeavoring to get by some one who blocked her way. 

"I haven't come on business, my--my lady. "

He used this term of respect partly from a frightened desire topropitiate a great personage and partly because he couldn't think of anyother. 

"Then what _have_ you come on? If it's to see the château you may aswell go away. It's never shown. Those are positive orders. I make noexceptions. They must have told you so at the gate. But you Americanswill dare anything. Mon Dieu, quel tas de barbares!"

The gesture of her hands in uttering the exclamation was altogetherFrench, but she betrayed her oneness with the people she reviled bysaying: "Quel tah de bah-bah!"

"I haven't come to see the château either, my lady--"

"You can call me madame, " she interrupted, not without a kindlierinflection on the hint. 

He began again. "I haven't come to see the château, either--madame. I'vecome to see _you_. "

She made one of her little plunges. "Oh, indeed! _Have_ you? I thoughtyou'd learned better than that--over there. You used to come inship-loads, but--"

He began to feel more sure of himself. "When I say I came to see you, madame, I mean, I came to--to tell you something. "

"Then, so long as it's not on business, I don't want to hear it. Isuppose you're one of Walter Davenant's boys? I don't consider him anyrelation to me at all. It's too distant. If I acknowledged all thecousins forced on me from over there I might as well include Abraham andAdam. Are you the first or the second wife's son?"

He explained his connection with the Davenant name. "But that isn't whatI came to talk about, madame--not about myself. I wanted to tell youof--of your nephew--Mr. Henry Guion. "

She turned with a movement like that of a fleeing nymph, her handstretched behind her. "Don't. I don't want to hear about him. Nor aboutmy niece. They're strangers to me. I don't know them. "

"You'd like to know them now, madame--because they're in great trouble. "

She took refuge behind a big English arm-chair, leaning on the back. 

"I dare say. It's what they were likely to come to. I told my niece so, the last time she allowed me the privilege of her conversation. But Itold her, too, that in the day of her calamity she wasn't to look tome. "

"She isn't looking to you, madame. _I_ am. I'm looking to you because Iimagine you can help her. There's no one else--"

"And has she sent you as her messenger? Why can't she come herself, ifit's so bad as all that--or write? I thought she was married--to someEnglishman. "

"They're not married yet, madame; and unless you help her I don't seehow they're going to be--the way things stand. "

"Unless I help her! My good fellow, you don't know what you're saying. Do you know that she refused--refused violently--to help _me_?"

He shook his head, his blue eyes betraying some incredulity. 

"Well, then, I'll tell you. It'll show you. You'll be able to go awayagain with a clear conscience, knowing you've done your best and failed. Sit down. "

As she showed no intention of taking a seat herself, he remainedstanding. 

"She refused the Duc de Berteuil. " She made the statement with headerect and hands flung apart. "I suppose you have no idea of what thatmeant to me?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. "

"Of course you haven't. I don't know an American who _would_ have. You're so engrossed in your own small concerns. None of you have anyconception of the things that really matter--the higher things. Well, then, let me tell you. The Duc de Berteuil is--or rather _was_--thegreatest parti in France. He isn't any more, because they've married himto a rich girl from South America or one of those places--brown as aberry--with a bust--" She rounded her arms to give an idea of the bust. "Mais, n'importe. My niece refused him. That meant--I've never confessedit to any one before--I've been too proud--but I want you tounderstand--it meant my defeat--my final defeat. I hadn't the courage tobegin again. C'était le désastre. C'était Sedan. "

"Oh, madame!"

It seemed to him that her mouth worked with an odd piteousness; andbefore going on she put up a crooked little jeweled hand and dashed awaya tear. 

"It would have been everything to me. It would have put me where Ibelong, in the place I've been trying to reach all these years. The lifeof an American woman in Europe, monsieur, can be very cruel. We'venothing to back us up, and everything to fight against in front. It'sall push, and little headway. They don't want us. That's the plainEnglish of it. They can't imagine why we leave our own country and comeover here. They're so narrow. They're selfish, too. Everything they'vegot they want to keep for themselves. They marry us--the Lord only knowswhy!--and nine times out of ten all we get for it is the knowledge thatwe've been bamboozled out of our own _dots_. There was René deLonchartres who married that goose Annie Armstrong. They ridiculed herwhen she came over here, and at the same time clapped him on the backfor having got her. That's as true as you live. It's their way. Theywould have ridiculed me, too, if I hadn't been determined years ago tobeat them on their own ground. I could have done it, too, if--"

"If it had been worth while, " he ventured. 

"You know nothing about it. I could have done it if my niece had put outjust one little finger--when I'd got everything ready for her to do it. Yes, I'd got everything ready--and yet she refused him. She refused himafter I'd seen them all--his mother, his sisters, his two uncles--one ofthem in waiting on the Duc d'Orléans--Philippe V. , as we call him--allof them the purest old noblesse d'epée in Normandy. "

Her agitation expressed itself again in little dartings to and fro. "Iwent begging to them, as you might say. I took all their snubs--and oh!so fine some of them were!--more delicate than the point of a needle! Itook them because I could see just how I should pay them back. I needn'texplain to you how that would be, because you couldn't understand. Itwould be out of the question for an American. "

"I don't think we _are_ good at returning snubs, madame. That's a fact. "

"You're not good at anything but making money; and you make thatblatantly, as if you were the first people in the world to do it. Why, France and England could buy and sell you, and most of you don't knowit. Mais, n'importe. I went begging to them, as I've told you. At firstthey wouldn't hear of her at any price--didn't want an American. Thatwas bluff, to get a bigger _dot_. I had counted on it in advance. I knewwell enough that they'd take a Hottentot if there was money enough. Forthe matter of that, Hottentot and American are much the same to them. But I made it bluff for bluff. Oh, I'm sharp. I manage all my ownaffairs in America--with advice. I've speculated a little in yourmarkets quite successfully. I know how I stand to within a few thousanddollars of your money. I offered half a million of francs. They laughedat it. I knew they would, but it's as much as they'd get with a Frenchgirl. I went to a million--to a million and a half--to two millions. Attwo millions--that would be--let me see--five into twenty makesfour--about four hundred thousand dollars of your money--they gave in. Yes, they gave in. I expected them to hold out for it, and they did. Butat that figure they made all the concessions and gave in. "

"And did he give in?" Davenant asked, with naïve curiosity. 

"Oh, I'd made sure of him beforehand. He and I understood each otherperfectly. He would have let it go at a million and a half. He was nextdoor to being in love with her besides. All he wanted was to be wellestablished, poor boy! But I meant to go up to two millions, anyhow. Icould afford it. "

"Four hundred thousand dollars, " Davenant said, with an idea that hemight convey a hint to her, "would be practically the sum--"

"I could afford it, " she went on, "because of those ridiculouscopper-mines--the Hamlet and Tecla. I wasn't rich before that. My _dot_was small. No Guion I ever heard of was able to save money. My fatherwas no exception. "

"You are in the Hamlet and Tecla!" Davenant's blue eyes were wide open. He was on his own ground. The history of the Hamlet and Tecla Mines hadbeen in his own lifetime a fairy-tale come true. 

Madame de Melcourt nodded proudly. "My father had bought nearly twothousand shares when they were down to next to nothing. They came to mewhen he died. It was mere waste paper for years and years. Then all of asudden--pouff!--they began to go up and up--and I sold them when theywere near a thousand. I could have afforded the two millions offrancs--and I promised to settle Melcourt-le-Danois on them into thebargain, when I--if I ever should--But my niece wouldn't takehim--simply--would--not. Ah, " she cried, in a strangled voice, "c'étaittrop fort!"

"But did she know you were--what shall I say?--negotiating?"

"She was in that stupid England. It wasn't a thing I could write to herabout. I meant it as a surprise. When all was settled I sent forher--and told her. Oh, monsieur, vous n'avez pas d'idée! Queue scène!Queue scène! J'ai failli en mourir. " She wrung her clasped hands at therecollection. 

"That girl has an anger like a storm. Avec tous ses airs de reine et desainte--she was terrible. Never shall I forget it--jamais! jam-ais! augrand jamais! Et puis, " she added, with a fatalistic toss of her hands, "c'était fini. It was all over. Since then--nothing!"

She made a little dash as if to leave him, returning to utter whatseemed like an afterthought. "It would have made her. It would have made_me_. We could have dictated to the Faubourg. We could have humiliatedthem--like that. " She stamped her foot. "It would have been a greatalliance--what I've been so much in need of. The Melcourt--well, they'reall very well--old noblesse de la Normandie, and all that--butpoor!--mais pauvres!--and as provincial as a curé de campagne. When Imarried my poor husband--but we won't go into that--I've been a widowsince I was so high--ever since 1870--with my own way to make. If myniece hadn't deserted me I could have made it. Now all that ispast--fini-ni-ni! The clan Berteuil has set the Faubourg against me. They've the power, too. It's all so intricate, so silent, such wheelswithin wheels--but it's done. They've never wanted me. They don't wantany of us--not for ourselves. It's the sou!--the sou!--the everlastingsou! Noble or peasant--it makes no difference. But if my niece hadn'tabandoned me--"

"Why shouldn't you come home, madame?" Davenant suggested, touched by somuch that was tragic. "You wouldn't find any one after the sou there. "

"They're all about me, " she whispered--"the Melcourt. They're all overthe house. They come and settle on me, and I can't shake them off. Theysuffocate me--waiting for the moment when--But I've made my will, andsome'll be disappointed. Oh, I shall leave them Melcourt-le-Danois. It'smine. I bought it with my own money, after my husband's death, andrestored it when the Hamlet and Tecla paid so well. It shall not go outof their family--for my husband's sake. But, " she added, fiercely, "neither shall the money go out of mine. They shall know I have afamily. It's the only way by which I can force the knowledge on them. They think I sprang out of the earth like a mushroom. You may tell myniece as much as that--and let her get all the comfort from it she can. That's all I have to say, monsieur. Good morning. "

The dash she made from him seeming no more final than those which hadpreceded it, he went on speaking. 

"I'm afraid, madame, that help is too far in the future to be of muchassistance now. Besides, I'm not sure it's what they want. We've managedto keep Mr. Henry Guion out of prison. That danger is over. Our presentconcern is for Miss Olivia Guion's happiness. "

As he expected, the shock calmed her. Notwithstanding her mask, she grewsuddenly haggard, though her eyes, which--since she had never been ableto put poudre de riz or cherry paste in them--were almost as fine asever, instantly flashed out the signal of the Guion pride. Her fluffyhead went up, and her little figure stiffened as she entrenched herselfagain behind the arm-chair. Her only hint of flinching came from aslackening in the flow of speech and a higher, thinner quality in thevoice. 

"Has my nephew, Henry Guion, been doing things--that--that would sendhim--to prison?"

In spite of herself the final words came out with a gasp. 

"It's a long story, madame--or, at least, a complicated one. I couldexplain it, if you'd give me the time. "

"Sit down. "

They took seats at last. Owing to the old lady's possession of what sheherself called a business mind he found the tale easy in the telling. Her wits being quick and her questions pertinent, she was soon incommand of the facts. She was soon, too, in command of herself. Thefirst shock having passed, she was able to go into complete explanationswith courage. 

"So that, " he concluded, "now that Mr. Guion is safe, if Miss Guioncould only marry--the man--the man she cares for--everything would beput as nearly right as we can make it. "

"And at present they are at a deadlock. She won't marry him if he has tosell his property, and so forth; and he can't marry her, and live indebt to you. Is that it?"

"That's it, madame, exactly. You've put it in a nutshell. "

She looked at him hardly. "And what has it all got to do with me?"

He looked at her steadily in his turn. "I thought perhaps you wouldn'tcare to live in debt to me, either. "

She was startled. "Who? I? En voilà une idée!"

"I thought, " he went on, "that possibly the Guion sense of familyhonor--"

"Fiddle-faddle! There's no sense of family honor among Americans. Therecan't be. You can only have family honor where, as with us, the familyis the unit; whereas, with you, the unit is the individual. The Americanindividual may have a sense of honor; but the American family is only adisintegrated mush. What you really thought was that you might get yourmoney back. "

"If you like, madame. That's another way of putting it. If the familypaid me, Miss Guion would feel quite differently--and so would ColonelAshley. "

"When you say the family, " she sniffed, "you mean me. "

"In the sense that I naturally think first of its most distinguishedmember. And, of course, the greater the distinction the greater mustbe--shall I call it the indignity?--of living under an obligation--"

"Am I to understand that you put up this money--that's your Americanterm, isn't it?--that you put up this money in the expectation that Iwould pay you back?"

"Not exactly. I put up the money, in the first place, to save the creditof the Guion name, and with the intention, if you didn't pay me back, todo without it. "

"And you risked being considered over-officious. "

"There wasn't much risk about that, " he smiled. "They did think meso--and do. "

"And you got every one into a fix. "

"Into a fix, but out of prison. "

"Hm!"

She grew restless, uncomfortable, fidgeting with her rings andbracelets. 

"And pray, what sort of a person is this Englishman to whom my niece hasgot herself engaged?"

"One of their very finest, " he said, promptly. "As a soldier, so theysay, he'll catch up one day with men like Roberts and Kitchener; and asfor his private character--well, you can judge of it from the fact thathe wants to strip himself of all he has so that the Guion name shall owenothing to any one outside--"

"Then he's a fool. "

"From that point of view--yes. There _are_ fools of that sort, madame. But there's something more to him. "

He found himself reciting glibly Ashley's claims as a suitor in the wayof family, position, and fortune. 

"So that it would be what some people might call a good match. "

"The best sort of match. It's the kind of thing she's made for--thatshe'd be happy in--regiments, and uniforms, and glory, and presentingprizes, and all that. "

"Hm. I shall have nothing to do with it. " She rose with dignity. "If myniece had only held out a little finger--"

"It was a case, madame, " he argued, rising, too--"it was a case in whichshe couldn't hold out a little finger without offering her whole hand. "

"You know nothing about it. I'm wrong to discuss it with you at all. I'msure I don't know why I do, except that--"

"Except that I'm an American, " he suggested--"one of your own. "

"One of my own! Quelle idée! Do you like him--this Englishman?"

He hedged. "Miss Guion likes him. "

"But you don't. "

"I haven't said so. I might like him well enough if--"

"If you got your money back. "

He smiled and nodded. 

"Is she in love with him?"

"Oh--deep!"

"How do _you_ know? Has she told you so?"

"Y-es; I think I may say--she has. "

"Did you ask her?"

He colored. "I had to--about something. "

"You weren't proposing to her yourself, were you?"

He tried to take this humorously. "Oh no, madame--"

"You can't be in love with her, or you wouldn't be trying so hard tomarry her to some one else--not unless you're a bigger fool than youlook. "

"I hope I'm not that, " he laughed. 

"Well, I shall have nothing to do with it--nothing. Between my niece andme--tout est fini. " She darted from him, swerving again like a bird onthe wing. "I don't know you. You come here with what may be no more thana cock-and-bull story, to get inside the château. "

"I shouldn't expect you to do anything, madame, without verifying allI've told you. For the matter of that, it'll be easy enough. You've onlyto write to your men of business, or--which would be better still--takea trip to America for yourself. "

She threw out her arms with a tragic gesture. "My good man, I haven'tbeen in America for forty years. I nearly died of it then. What it mustbe like now--"

"It wouldn't be so fine as this, madame, nor so picturesque. But itwould be full of people who'd be fond of you, not for the sou--but foryourself. "

She did her best to be offended. "You're taking liberties, monsieur. C'est bien américan, céla. "

"Excuse me, madame, " he said, humbly. "I only mean that they _are_ fondof you--at least, I I know Miss Guion is. Two nights before I sailed Iheard her almost crying for you--yes, almost crying. That's why I came. I thought I'd come and tell you. I should think it might mean somethingto you--over here so long--all alone--to have some one like that--sucha--such a--such a wonderful young lady wanting you--in her trouble--"

"And such a wonderful young man wanting his money back. Oh, I'm notblind, monsieur. I see a great deal more than you think. I see throughand through you. You fancy you're throwing dust in my eyes, and youhaven't thrown a grain. Pouff! Oh, la, la! Mais, c'est fini. As for myniece--le bon Dieu l' a bien punie. For me to step in now would be tointerfere with the chastisement of Providence. Le bon Dieu is alwaysright. I'll say that for Him. Good morning. " She touched a bell. "Theman will show you to the door. If you like to stroll about thegrounds--now that you've got in--well, you can. "

With sleeves blowing she sped down the room as if on pinions. Theman-servant waited respectfully. Davenant stood his ground, hoping forsome sign of her relenting. It was almost over her shoulder that shecalled back:

"Where are you staying?"

He told her. 

"Stupid place. You'll find the Chariot d'Or at Melcourt a great dealnicer. Simple, but clean. An old chef of mine keeps it. Tell him I sentyou. And ask for his poularde au riz. "

XXI

"What do you think of him?"

Ashley's tone indicated some uncertainty as to what he thought himself. Indeed, uncertainty was indicated elsewhere than in his tone. It seemedto hang about him, to look from his eyes, to take form in his person. Perhaps this was the one change wrought in him by a month's residence inAmerica. When he arrived everything had bespoken him a man aggressivelypositive with the habit of being sure. His very attitude, now, as he satin Rodney Temple's office in the Harvard Gallery of Fine Arts, his handsthrust into his pockets, his legs stretched apart, his hat on the backof his head, suggested one who feels the foundations of the earth tohave shifted. 

Rodney Temple, making his arrangements for leaving for the day, met onequestion with another. "What do _you?_"

"You know him, " Ashley urged, "and I don't. "

"I thought you did. I thought you'd read him right off--as acow-puncher. "

"He looks like one, by Jove! and he speaks like one, too. You wouldn'tcall him a gentleman? What?"

"If you mean by a gentleman one who's always been able to take the bestin the world for granted, perhaps he isn't. But that isn't ourtest--over here. "

"Then, what is?"

"I'm not sure that I could tell you so that you'd understand--at anyrate, not unless you start out with the fact that the English gentlemanand the American differ not only in species, but in genus. I'd go so faras to say that they've got to be recognized by different sets offaculties. You get at your man by the eye and the ear; we have to use asubtler apparatus. If we didn't we should let a good many go uncounted. Some of our finest are even more uncouth with their consonants than goodfriend Davenant. They'd drop right out of your list, but they take ahigh place in ours. To try to discern one by the methods created for theother is like what George Eliot says of putting on spectacles to detectodors. Ignorance of this basic social fact on both sides has given riseto much international misjudgment. See?"

"Can't say that I do. "

"No, you wouldn't. But until you do you won't understand a big simpletype--"

"I don't care a hang about his big simple type. What I want to know ishow to take him. Is he a confounded sentimentalist?--or is he stillputting up a bluff?"

"What difference does it make to you?"

"If he's putting up a bluff, he's waiting out there at Michigan for meto call it. If he's working the sentimental racket, then I've got to bethe beneficiary of his beastly good-will. "

"If he's putting up a bluff, you can fix him by not calling it at all;and as for his beastly good-will, well, he's a beneficiary of it, too. "

"How so?"

"Because beastly good-will is a thing that cuts both ways. He'll get asmuch out of it as you. "

"That's all very fine--"

"It's very fine, indeed, for him. We've an old saying in these parts: Bythe Street called Straight we come to the House called Beautiful. It'sone of those fanciful saws of which the only justification is that itworks. Any one can test the truth of it by taking the highway. Well, friend Davenant is taking it. He'll reach the House called Beautiful asstraight as a die. Don't you fret about that. You'll owe him nothing inthe long run, because he'll get all the reward he's entitled to. When'sthe wedding? Fixed the date yet?"

"Not going to fix one, " Ashley explained, moodily. "One of these days, when everything is settled at Tory Hill and the sale is over, we shallwalk off to the church and get married. That seems to be the best way, as matters stand. "

"It's a very sensible way at all times. And I hear you're carrying Henryoff with you to England. "

Ashley shrugged his shoulders. "Going the whole hog. What? Had to makethe offer. Olivia couldn't leave him behind. Anything that will make herhappy--"

"Will make you happy. "

"That's about the size of it. "

Having locked the last drawer and put out the desk light, Temple led hisguest down the long gallery and across the Yard to the house onCharlesbank. Here Ashley pursued kindred themes in the company of Mrs. Fane, finding himself alone with her at tea. He was often alone with herat tea, her father having no taste for this form of refreshment, whileher mother found reasons for being absent. 

"Queer old cove, your governor, " Ashley observed, stretching himselfcomfortably before the fire. The blaze of logs alone lit up the room. 

"Is that why you seem to have taken a fancy to him?"

"I like to hear him gassing. Little bit like the Bible, don't you know. "

"He's very fond of the Bible. "

"Seems to think a lot of that chap--your governor. "

A nod supposed to indicate the direction of the State of Michiganenabled her to follow his line of thought. 

"He does. There's something rather colossal about the way he's droppedout--"

"A jolly sight too colossal. Makes him more important than if he'dstayed on the spot and fought the thing to a finish. "

"Fought what thing to a finish?"

He was sorry to have used the expression. "Oh, there's still a jolly lotto settle up, you know. "

"But I thought everything was arranged--that you'd accepted thesituation. "

He stretched himself more comfortably before the fire. "We'd a row, " hesaid, suddenly. 

"A row? What kind of a row?"

"A street row--just like two hooligans. He struck me. "

"Rupert!" She half sprang up. "He--"

Ashley swung round in his chair. He was smiling. 

"Oh, I _beg_ your pardon, " she cried, in confusion. "I can't think whatmade me call you that. I never _do_--never. It was the surprise--and theshock--"

"That's all right, " he assured her. "I often call you Drusilla when I'mtalking to Olivia. I don't see why we shouldn't--we've always been suchpals--and we're going to be a kind of cousins--"

"Tell me about Peter. "

"Oh, there's nothing much that stands telling. We were two idiots--twosilly asses. I insulted him--and he struck out. I called him a cad--Ibelieve I called him a damned cad. "

"To his _face_?"

"To his _nose_. "

"Oh, you shouldn't have done that. "

"And he got mad, by Jove! Oh, it didn't last. We pulled off in a secondor two. We saw we were two idiots--two kids. It wasn't worth getting onone's high horse about--or attempting to follow it up--it was toobeastly silly for heroics--except that--that he--"

"Except that he--what?"

"Except that he--got the better of me. He has the better of me still. And I can't allow that, by Jove! Do you see?"

"I don't see very clearly. In what way did he get the better of you?"

"In the whole thing--the way he carried it off--the whole sillybusiness. "

"Then I don't see what's to be done about it _now_. "

"Something's got to be done, by Jove! I can't let it go at that. "

"Well, what do you propose?"

"I don't propose anything. But I can't go through life letting thatfellow stay on top. Why, considering everything--all he's done forOlivia and her father--and now this other thing--and his beastlymagnanimity besides--he's frightfully on top. It won't do, you know. ButI say, you'll not tell Olivia, will you? She'd hate it--about the row, Imean. I don't mind your knowing. You're always such a good pal to me--"

It was impossible to go on, because Mrs. Temple bustled in from the taskof helping Olivia with the packing and sacking at Tory Hill. Havinggreeted Ashley with the unceremoniousness permissible with one who wasbecoming an intimate figure at the fireside, she settled to her tea. 

"Oh, so sad!" she reflected, her little pursed-up mouth twitchingnervously. "The dear old house all dismantled! Everything to go! I'veasked Henry to come and stay here. It's too uncomfortable for him, withall the moving and packing going on around him. It'll be easier for dearOlivia, too. So hard for her to take care of him, with all the otherthings she has on her hands. There's Peter's room. Henry may as wellhave it. I don't suppose we shall see anything more of Peter for ages tocome. But I do wish he'd write. Don't you, Colonel Ashley? I've writtento him three times now--and not a line from him! I suppose they must beable to get letters out there, at Stoughton, Michigan. It can't be sofar beyond civilization as all that. And Olivia would like it. She'sworried about him--about his not writing--and everything. Don't youthink, Colonel Ashley?"

Ashley looked blank. "I haven't noticed it--"

"Oh, I have. A woman's eye sees those little things, don't you think?Men have so much on their hands--the great things of the world--but thelittle things, they often count, don't you think? But I tell dear Olivianot to worry. Everything will come right. Things do come right--veryoften. I'm more pessimistic than Rodney--that I must say. But still Ithink things have a way of coming right when we least expect it. I telldear Olivia that Peter will send a line just when we're not looking forit. It's the watched pot that never boils, you know, and so I tell herto stop watching for the postman. That's fatal to getting aletter--watching for the postman. How snug you two look here together!Well, I'll run up and take off my things. No; no more tea, dear. I won'tsay good-by, Colonel Ashley, because you'll be here when I come down. "

Mrs. Temple was a good woman who would have been astonished to hearherself accused of falsehood but, as a matter of fact, her account ofthe conversation with Olivia bore little relation to the conversationitself. What she had actually said was:

"Poor Peter! I suppose he doesn't write because he's trying to forget. "

The challenge here being so direct, Olivia felt it her duty to take itup. The ladies were engaged in sorting the linen in preparation for thesale. 

"Forget what?"

"Forget Drusilla, I suppose. Hasn't it struck you--how much he was inlove with her?"

Olivia held a table-cloth carefully to the light. "Is this Irish linenor German? I know mamma did get some at Dresden--"

Mrs. Temple pointed out the characteristic of the Belfast weave andpressed her question. "Haven't you noticed it--about Peter?"

Olivia tried to keep her voice steady as she said: "I've no doubt Ishould have seen it if I hadn't been so preoccupied. "

"Some people think--Rodney, for instance--that he'd lost his head aboutyou, dear; but we mothers have an insight--"

"Of course! There seems to be one missing from the dozen of thispattern. "

"Oh, it'll turn up. It's probably in the pile over there. I thought I'dspeak about it, dear, " she went on, "because it must be a relief to younot to have that complication. Things are so complicated already, don'tyou think? But if you haven't Peter on your mind, why, that's one thingthe less to worry about. If you thought he was in love with you, dear--in your situation--going to be married to some one else--But youneedn't be afraid of that at all. I never saw a young man more in lovewith any one than he is with Drusilla--and I think she must have refusedhim. If she hadn't he would never have shot off in that way, like a boltfrom the blue--But what's the matter, dear? You look white. You're notill?"

"It's the smell of lavender, " Olivia gasped, weakly. "I never couldendure it. I'll just run into the air a minute--"

This was all that passed between Olivia and Mrs. Temple on the subject. If the latter reported it with suppressions and amplifications it wasdoubtless due to her knowledge of what could be omitted as well as ofwhat would have been said had the topic been pursued. In any case itcaused her to sigh and mumble as she went on with her task of foldingand unfolding and of examining textures and designs:

"Oh, how mixy! Such sixes and sevens! Everything the wrong way round! Mypoor Drusilla!--my poor little girlie! And such a good position! Justwhat she's capable of filling!--as well as Olivia--better, with all herexperience of their army. ''Tis better to have loved and lost, ' dearTennyson says; but I don't know. Besides, she's done that already--withpoor Gerald--and now, to have to face it all a second time--my poorlittle girlie!"

As for Olivia, she felt an overpowering desire to flee away. Speedingthrough the house, where workmen were nailing up cases or sacking rugs, she felt that she was fleeing--fleeing anywhere--anywhere--to hideherself. As a matter of fact, the flight was inward, for there wasnowhere to go but to her room. Her way was down the short staircase fromthe attic and along a hall; but it seemed to her that she lived througha succession of emotional stages in the two or three minutes it took tocover it. Her first wild cry "It isn't true! It isn't true!" wasfollowed by the question "Why shouldn't it be true?" to end with herasking herself: "What difference does it make to me?"

"What difference _can_ it make to me?"

She had reached that form of the query by the time she took up herstation at the window of her room, to stare blankly at the Novemberlandscape. She saw herself face to face now with the question which, during the past month, ever since Davenant's sudden disappearance, shehad used all her resources to evade. That it would one day force itselfupon her she knew well enough; but she hoped, too, that before there wastime for that she would have pronounced her marriage vows, and so burnedher bridges behind her. Amid the requirements of duty, which seemed toshift from week to week, the one thing stable was the necessity on herpart to keep her promise to the man who had stood by her so nobly. Ifonce it had seemed to her that Davenant's demands--whatever they mightprove to be--would override all others, it was now quite clear thatAshley's claim on her stood first of all. He had been so loyal, so true, so indifferent to his own interests! Besides, he loved her. It was nowquite another love from that of the romantic knight who had wooed agracious lady in the little house at Southsea. That tapestry-tale hadended on the day of his arrival at Tory Hill. In its place there hadrisen the tested devotion of a man for a woman in great trouble, compelled to deal with the most sordid things in life. He had refused tobe spared any of the details she would have saved him from or to turnaway from any of the problems she was obliged to face. His very revoltagainst it, that repugnance to the necessity for doing it which he wasnot at all times able to conceal, made his self-command in bringinghimself to it the more worthy of her esteem. He had the defects of hisqualities and the prejudices of his class and profession; but over andabove these pardonable failings he had the marks of a hero. 

And now there was this thing!

She had descried it from afar. She had had a suspicion of it beforeDavenant went away. It had not created a fear; it was too strange andimprobable for that; but it had brought with it a sense of wonder. Sheremembered the first time she had felt it, this sense of wonder, thissense of something enchanted, outside life and the earth's atmosphere. It was at that moment on the lawn when, after the unsuccessful meetingbetween Ashley and Davenant, she had turned with the latter to go intothe house. That there was a protective, intimate element in her feelingshe had known on the instant; but what she hadn't known on the instant, but was perfectly aware of now, was that her whole subconscious being, had been crying out even then: "My own! My own!"

With the exaggeration of this thought she was able to get herself inhand. She was able to debate so absurd a suggestion, to argue it down, and turn it into ridicule. But she yielded again as the Voice thattalked with her urged the plea: "I didn't say you knew it consciously. You couldn't cry 'My own! My own!' to a man whom up to that point youhad treated with disdain. But your subliminal being had begun to knowhim, to recognize him as--"

To elude this fancy she set herself to recapitulating his weak points. She could see why Ashley should thrust him aside as being "not agentleman. " He fell short, in two or three points, of the Englishstandard. That he had little experience of life as it is lived, of itsbalance and proportion and perspective, was clear from the way in whichhe had flung himself and his money into the midst of the Guiondisasters. No man of the world could possibly have done that. The veryfact of his doing it made him lawfully a subject for some of theepithets Ashley applied to him. Almost any one would apply them whowanted to take him from a hostile point of view. 

She forgot herself so far as to smile faintly. It was just the sort ofdeficiency which she had it in her power to make up. The reflection sether to dreaming when she wanted to be doing something else. She couldhave brought him the dower of all the things he didn't know, while hecould give her. .. . But she caught herself again. 

"What kind of a woman am I?"

She began to be afraid. She began to see in herself the type she mostdetested--the woman who could deliberately marry a man and not be loyalto him. She was on the threshold of marriage with Ashley, and she wasthinking of the marvel of life with some one else. When one of the innerVoices denied this charge, another pressed it home by nailing theprecise incident on which her heart had been dwelling. "You werethinking of this--of that--of the time on the stairs when, with his faceclose to yours, he asked you if you loved the man you'd be going awaywith--of the evening at the gate when your hand was in his and it was sohard to take it away. He has no position to offer you. There's nothingremarkable about him beyond a capacity for making money. He's beneathyou from every point of view except that of his mere manhood, and yetyou feel that you could let yourself slip into that--into the strengthand peace of it--"

She caught herself again--impatiently. It was no use! There wassomething wilful within her, something that could be called by even astronger name, that worked back to the point from which she tried toflee, whatever means she took to get away from it. 

She returned to her work, persuading Cousin Cherry to go home to tea andleave her to finish the task alone. Even while she did so one of theinner Voices taunted her by saying: "That'll leave you all the more freeto dream of--_him_. "

 * * * * *

Some days passed before she felt equal to talking about Davenant again. This time it was to the tinkling silver, as she and Drusilla Fane sortedspoons and forks at the sideboard in the dismantled dining-room. Oliviawas moved to speak in the desperate hope that one stab fromDrusilla--who might be in a position to deliver it--would free her fromthe obsession haunting her. 

There had been a long silence, sufficiently occupied, it seemed, inlaying out the different sorts and sizes of spoons in rows of a dozen, while Mrs. Fane did the same with the forks. 

"Drusilla, did Mr. Davenant ever say anything to you about me?"

She was vexed with herself for the form of her question. It was notDavenant's feeling toward _her_, but toward Drusilla, that she wanted toknow. She was drawing the fire in the wrong place. Mrs. Fane counted herdozen forks to the end before saying:

"Why, yes. We've spoken of you. "

Having begun with a mistake, Olivia went on with it. "Did hesay--anything in particular?"

"He said a good many things, on and off. "

"Some of which might have been--in particular?"

"All of them, if it comes to that. "

"Why did you never tell me?"

"For one reason, because you never asked me. "

"Have you any idea why I'm asking you now?"

"Not the faintest. I dare say we sha'n't see anything more of him foryears to come. "

"Did you--did you--refuse him? Did you send him away?"

"Well, that's one thing I didn't have to do, thank the Lord. There wasno necessity. I was afraid at one time that mother might make himpropose to me--she's terribly subtle in that way, though you mightn'tthink it--but she didn't. No; if Peter's in love with any one, it's notwith me. "

Olivia braced herself to say, "And I hope it's not with me. "

Drusilla went on counting. 

"Did he ever say anything about that?" Olivia persisted. 

Drusilla went on counting. "Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. That's allof that set. What a lot of silver you've got! And some of it must havebeen in the family for thousands of years. Yes, " she added, in anothertone, "yes, he did. He said he wasn't. "

Olivia laid down the ladle she was holding with infinite precaution. Shehad got the stab she was looking for. It seemed for a minute as if shewas free--gloatingly free. He hadn't cared anything about her after all, and had said so! She steadied herself by holding to the edge of thesideboard. 

Drusilla stooped to the basket of silver standing on the floor, in aseemingly passionate desire for more forks. By the time she hadstraightened herself again, Olivia was able to say: "I'm so glad ofthat. You know what his kindness in helping papa has made people think, don't you?"

But Mrs. Fane astonished her by throwing down her handful of silver withunnecessary violence of clang and saying: "Look here, Olivia, I'd rathernot talk about it any more. I've reasons. I can't take a hand in youraffairs without being afraid that perhaps--perhaps--I--I--sha'n't playthe game. "

Olivia was silent, but she had much to think of. 

It was a few days later still that she found herself in Rodney Temple'slittle office in the Gallery of Fine Arts. She had come ostensibly totell him that everything had been arranged for the sale. 

"Lemon and Company think that early in December would be the best time, as people are beginning then to spend money for Christmas. Mr. Lemonseems to think we've got a good many things the smaller connoisseurswill want. The servants are to go next Tuesday, so that if you andCousin Cherry could take papa then--I'm to stay with Lulu Sentner; and Ishall go from her house to be married--some day, when everything else issettled. Did you know that before Mr. Davenant went away he left a smallbank account for papa?--two or three thousand dollars--so that we havemoney to go on with. Rupert wants to spend a week or two in New York andWashington, after which we shall come back here and pick up papa. He'snot very keen on coming with us, but I simply couldn't--"

He nodded at the various points in her recital, blinking at hersearchingly out of his kind old eyes. 

"You look pale, " he said, "and old. You look forty. "

She surprised him by saying, with a sudden outburst: "Cousin Rodney, doyou think it's any harm for a woman to marry one man when she's in lovewith another?" Before he had time to recover himself, she followed thisquestion with a second. "Do you think it's possible for a person to bein love with two people at the same time?"

He understood now the real motive of her visit. 

"I'm not a very good judge of love affairs, " he said, after a minute'sreflection. "But one thing I know, and it's this--that when we do ourduty we don't have to bother with the question as to whether it's anyharm or not. "

"We may do our duty, and still make people unhappy. "

"No; not unless we do it in the wrong way. "

"So that if I feel that to go on and keep my word is the right thing--orrather the only thing--?"

"That settles it, dearie. The right thing _is_ the only thing--and itmakes for everybody's happiness. "

"Even if it seems that it--it _couldn't_?"

"I'm only uttering platitudes, dearie, when I say that happiness is theflower of right. No other plant can grow it; and that plant can't growany other flower. When you've done the thing you feel you're called todo--the thing you couldn't refuse while still keeping yourself-respect--well, then, you needn't be afraid that any one will sufferin the long run--and yourself least of all. "

"In the long run! That means--"

"Oh, there may be a short run. I'm not denying that. But no one worthhis salt would be afraid of it. And that, dearie, " he added, blinking, "is all I know about love affairs. "

There being no one in the gallery on which the office opened, shekissed him as she thanked him and went away. She walked homeward, takingthe more retired streets through Cambridge and into Waverton, so as tobe the more free for thinking. It was a relief to her to have spokenout. Oddly enough, she felt her heart lighter toward Davenant from themere fact of having told some one, or having partially told some one, that she loved him. 

When, on turning in at the gate of Tory Hill, she saw a taxicab standingbelow the steps of the main entrance, she was not surprised, sinceAshley occasionally took one to run out from town. But when a littlelady in furs and an extravagant hat stepped out to pay the chauffeurOlivia stopped to get her breath. If it hadn't been impossible she wouldhave said--

But the taxicab whizzed away, and the little lady tripped up the steps. 

Olivia felt herself unable to move. The motor throbbed past her, and outthe gate, but she still stood incapable of going farther. It seemed longbefore the pent-up emotions of the last month or two, controlled, repressed, unacknowledged, as they had been, found utterance in one loudcry: "Aunt Vic!"

Not till that minute had she guessed her need of a woman, a Guion, oneof her very own, a mother, on whose breast to lay her head and weep hercares out. 

 * * * * *

The first tears since the beginning of her trials came to Olivia Guion, as, with arms clasped round her aunt and forehead pressed into thelittle old lady's furs, she sat beside her on a packing-case in thehail. She cried then as she never knew before she was capable of crying. She cried for the joy of the present, for the trouble of the past, andfor the relief of clinging to some one to whom she had a right. Madamede Melcourt would have cried with her, had it not been for the effect oftears on cosmetics. 

"There, there, my pet, " she murmured, soothingly. "Didn't you know yourold auntie would come to you? Why didn't you cable? Didn't you know Iwas right at the end of the wire. There now, cry all you want to. It'lldo you good. Your old auntie has come to take all your troubles away, and see you happily married to your Englishman. She's brought your _dot_in her pocket--same old _dot!_--and everything. There now, cry. There'snothing like it. "

XXII

Madame de Melcourt the chief novelty of American life, for the first fewdays at least, lay in the absence of any necessity for striving. To wakeup in the morning into a society not keeping its heart hermetically shutagainst her was distinctly a new thing. Not to have to plan or push orstruggle, to take snubs or repay them, to wriggle in where she was notwanted, or to keep people out where she had wriggled in, was reallyamusing. In the wide friendliness by which she found herself surroundedshe had a droll sense of having reached some scholastic paradise paintedby Puvis de Chavannes. She was even seated on a kind of throne, likeJustitia or Sapientia, with all kinds of flattering, welcomingattentions both from old friends who could remember her when she hadlived as a girl among them and new ones who were eager to take her intohospitable arms. It was decidedly funny. It was like getting into asphere where all the wishes were gratified and there were no more worldsto conquer. It would pall in the end; in the end she would come to feellike a gourmet in a heaven where there is no eating, or an Englishman insome Blessed Isle where there is no sport; but for the moment itoffered that refreshing change which strengthens the spirit for takingup the more serious things of life again. In any case, it put her into agood-humor of which the residents at Tory Hill were the first to feelthe effect. 

"Il est très bien, ton Anglais. "

Olivia acknowledged this approval with a smile and a blush, as she wentabout the drawing-room trying to give it something of its former air. With the new turn of events it had become necessary to restore the houseto a condition fit for occupancy. Madame de Melcourt had moved into itwith her maid and her man, announcing her intention to remain till shegot ready to depart. Her bearing was that of Napoleon making a temporarystay in some German or Italian palace for the purposes of nationalreorganization and public weal. At the present instant she was enthronedamid cushions in a corner of the sofa, watching Olivia dispose of suchbric-à-brac as had not been too remotely packed away. 

"I always say, " the old lady declared, "that when an Englishman is chiche's very chic, and your Ashley is no exception. I don't wonder you'rein love with him. "

When seated the Marquise accompanied her words with little jerkings andperkings of her fluffy head, with wavings of the hands and rollings ofthe eyes--the corelatives of her dartings and dashings while on herfeet. 

It was easy for Olivia to keep her back turned, while she managed tosay: "He thinks you don't like him. "

Madame shrugged her shoulders. "I like him as well as I could like anyEnglishman. He's very smart. You can see at a glance he's some one. Fromwhat I'd heard of him--his standing by you and all that--I was afraid hemight be an eccentric. "

"Whom did you hear it from?"

"Oh, I heard it. There's nothing wonderful in that. A thing that's beenthe talk of Boston and New York, and telegraphed to the Londonpapers--you don't suppose I shouldn't hear of it some time. And I cameright over--just as soon as I was convinced you needed me. "

Olivia looked round with misty eyes. "I shall never forget it, Aunt Vic, dear--nor your kindness to papa. He feels it more than he can possiblyexpress to you--your taking what he did so--so gently. "

"Ma foi! The Guions must have money. When it comes to spending they'renot morally responsible. I'm the only one among them who ever had abusiness head; and even with me, if it hadn't been for my wonderfulHamlet and Tecla--But you can see what I am at heart--throwing twomillion francs into your lap as if it were a box of bonbons. "

"I'm not sure that you ought, you know. "

"And what about the Guion family honor and all that? Who's to take careof it if I don't? The minute I heard what had happened I held up my headand said, Everything may go so long as the credit of the Guion name issaved. N'est-ce pas? We can't live in debt to the old man who advancedyour papa the money. "

"He isn't an old man at all, " Olivia explained, quickly. 

"Ça ne fait rien. His age isn't the question. I suppose he lent themoney expecting us to pay him back at a handsome rate of interest. "

"No, he didn't. That's just it. He lent it to us--out of--out of--"

"Yes; out of what?"

"Out of pure goodness, " she said, firmly. 

"Fiddle-faddle! People don't do things out of pure goodness. The man whoseems to is either a sentimentalist or a knave. If he's asentimentalist, he does it for effect; if he's a knave, because it helpsroguery. There's always some ax to grind. "

"I think you'd have to make an exception of Mr. Davenant. "

"Davenant? Is that his name? Yes, I believe your papa did tell meso--the boy Tom Davenant fished out of the slums. "

With some indignation Olivia told the story of Davenant's birth andadoption. "So you see, " she went on, "he has goodness in his blood. There's no reason why that shouldn't be inherited as much as--asinsanity--or a taste for alcohol. "

"Stuff, dear! The man or the boy, or whatever he is, calculated ongetting something better than he gave. We must simply pay him off andget rid of him. Noblesse oblige. "

"We may get rid of him, Aunt Vic, but we can never pay him off. "

"He'll be paid off, won't he, if we return his loan at an interest offive--I'm willing to say six--per cent. ?"

Olivia came forward, looking distressed. "Oh, I hope you won't, dearAunt Vic. I mean about the five or six per cent. Give him back his moneyif you will, only give it back in the--in the princely way in which helet us have it. "

"Well, I call that princely--six per cent. "

"Oh, please, Aunt Vic! You'd offend him. You'd hurt him. He's just thesort of big, sensitive creature that's most easily wounded, and--"

"Tiens! You interest me. Stop fidgeting round the room and come and tellme about him. Sit down, " she commanded, pointing to the other corner ofthe sofa. "There must be a lot I haven't heard. "

If Olivia hesitated, it was chiefly because of her own eagerness to talkof him, to sing his praises. Since, however, she must sooner or laterlearn to do this with self-possession, she fortified herself to begin. With occasional interruptions from her aunt she told the tale as sheunderstood it, taking as point of departure the evening when Davenantcame to dine at Tory Hill, on his return from his travels round theworld. 

"So there was a time when you didn't like him, " was Madame de Melcourt'sfirst comment. 

"There was a time when I didn't understand him. "

"But when you did understand him you changed your mind. "

"I couldn't help it. "

"And did you change anything more than your--mind?"

There was so much insinuation in the cracked voice that Olivia colored, in spite of the degree in which she thought herself armed against allsurprises. It was a minute or more before she was prepared with ananswer. 

"I changed my attitude toward him. Before that I'd been hostile andinsolent, and then--and then--I grew humble. Yes, Aunt Vic--humble. Igrew more than humble. I came to feel--well, as you might feel if you'dstruck a great St. Bernard dog who'd been rescuing you in the snow. There's something about him that makes you think of a St. Bernard--sobig and true and loyal--"

"Did you ever think he might be in love with you?"

She was ready for this question, and had made up her mind to answer itfrankly. "Yes. I was afraid he was advancing the money on that account. I felt so right up to--to a few days ago. "

"And what happened then?"

"Drusilla told me he'd said he--wasn't. "

Madame de Melcourt let that pass. "Did you think he'd fallen in lovewith you all of a sudden when he came that night to dinner?"

She resolved to tell the whole truth. "I'd known him before. He asked meto marry him years ago. And something happened. I hardly know how totell you. I didn't answer him. "

"Didn't answer him?"

"I got up and walked away, right in the middle of--of what he was tryingto tell me. "

"Ti-ens! And you had to take his money after all?"

Olivia bowed her head. 

"Ça c'est trop fort, " the old lady went on. "You're quite right thenwhen you say you'll never be able to pay him off, even if you get rid ofhim. But he's paid _you_ off, hasn't he? It's a more beautiful situationthan I fancied. He didn't tell me that. "

Olivia looked up. "He didn't tell you? Who?"

"Your papa, " the old lady said, promptly. "It's perfectly lovely, isn'tit? I should think when you meet him you must feel frightfully ashamed. Don't you?"

"I should if there wasn't something about him that--"

"And you'll never get over it, " the old lady went on, pitilessly, "noteven after you've married the other man. The humiliation will hauntyou--toujours--toujours! N'est-ce pas? If it were I, I should want tomarry a man I'd done a thing like that to--just to carry it off. But_you_ can't, can you? You've _got_ to marry the other man. Even if youweren't so horribly in love with him, you'd have to marry him, when he'sstood by you like that. I should be ashamed of you if you didn't. "

"Of course, Aunt Vic. "

"If he were to back out that would be another thing. But as it is you'vegot to swallow your humiliation, with regard to this Davenant. Or, rather, you can't swallow it. You've simply got to live on it, so tospeak. You'll never be able to forget for an hour of the day that youtreated a man like that--and then took his money, will you? It isn'texactly like striking a St. Bernard who's rescuing you in the snow. It's like beating him first and then having him come and save youafterward. Oh, la la! Quelle drôle de chose que la vie! Well, it's agood thing we can return his money, at the least. "

"You're so good about that, dear Aunt Vic. I didn't understand I was tohave it when I couldn't see my way to--to--"

"To marry Berteuil. That's all over and done with. I see you weren'tmade for life in the real world. Anyhow, " she added, taking a virtuousair, "when my word was passed it was passed. Not that your _dot_ will doyou much good. It'll all have to go to settle the claims of this Mr. --Bythe way, where is he? Why doesn't he come and be paid?"

"He's out in Michigan, at a little place called Stoughton. "

"Then send for him. "

"I'm not sure we can get him. Cousin Cherry has written to him threetimes since he went away, and he doesn't answer. "

"Cousin Cherry! What a goose! Who'd ever think she was the prettyCharlotte Hawke that Rodney Temple fell in love with. What's the matterwith you, over here, that you all grow old at a minute's notice, so tospeak? I never saw such a lot of frumps as the women who used to be myown contemporaries. Rodney and I were very good friends once. If I couldonly have settled down in humdrum old Waverton--but we'll let bygones bebygones, and send for your man. "

"I'll ask Cousin Cherry to write to him again. "

"Stuff, dear. That won't do any good. Wire him yourself, and tell himI'm here. "

"Oh, but, Aunt Vic, dear. "

With little perkings of the head and much rolling of the eyes theMarquise watched the warm color rise in Olivia's cheek and surge slowlyupward to the temples. Madame de Melcourt made signs of trying to lookanywhere and everywhere, up to the ceiling and down at the floor, ratherthan be a witness of so much embarrassment. She emphasized herdiscretion, too, by making a great show of seeing nothing in particular, toying with her rings and bracelets till Olivia had sufficientlyrecovered to be again commanded to send for Davenant. 

"Tell him I'm here and that I want to have a look at him. Use my name sothat he'll see it's urgent. Then you can sign the telegram with yourown. Cousin Cherry! Stuff!"

 * * * * *

Later that day Madame de Melcourt was making a confession to RodneyTemple. 

"Oui, mon bon Rodney. It was love at first sight. The thing hadn'thappened to me for years. "

"Had it been in the habit of happening?"

"In the habit of happening--that's too much to say. I may have had alittle toquade from time to time--I don't say no--of an innocence!--ornearly of an innocence!--Mais que voulez-vous?--a woman in myposition!--a widow since I was so high!--and exposed to the mostflattering attentions. You know nothing about it over here. L'amour estl'enfant de Bohème, as the song says, and, whatever you can say forWaverton and Cambridge and Boston, you'll admit--"

He leaned back in his rocking-chair with a laugh. "One does the best onecan, Vic. We're children of opportunity as well as enfants de Bohème. Ifyour chances have been more generous, and I presume more tempting, thanours, it isn't kind of you to come back and taunt us. "

"Don't talk about tempting, Rodney. You can't imagine how tiresome thosemen become--always on the hunt for money--always trying to find a wifewho'll support them without their having to work. I speak of the goodpeople, of course. With the bourgeoisie it's different. They work andtake care of their families like other people. Only they don't count. IfI hadn't money--they'd slam the door on me like that. " She indicated theviolence of the act by gesture. "As it is, they smother me. There arethree of them at Melcourt-le-Danois at this present moment--Anne Mariede Melcourt's two boys and one girl. They're all waiting for me tosupply the funds with which they're to make rich marriages. Is it anywonder that I look upon what's done for my own niece as so much saved?Henry's getting into such a hole seemed to me providential--gives me thechance to snatch something away from them before they--and when it's togo ultimately to _him_--"

"The young fellow you've taken such a fancy to?"

"You'd have taken a fancy to him, too, if you'd known only men who makeit a trade to ask all and give next to nothing in return. You'd besmitten to the core by a man who asks nothing and offers all, if he wereas ugly as a gargoyle. But when he takes the form of a blond Hercules, with eyes blue as the myosotis, and a mustache--mais une moustache!--andwith no idea whatever of the bigness of the thing he's doing! It was thethunderbolt, Rodney--le coup de foudre--and no wonder!"

"I hope you told him so. "

"I was very stiff with him. I sent him about his business just likethat. " She snapped her fingers. "But I only meant it with reserves. Ilet him see how I had been wronged--how cruelly Olivia had misunderstoodme--but I showed him, too, how I could forgive. " She tore at her breastas though to lay bare her heart. "Oh, I impressed him--not all at onceperhaps--but little by little--"

"As he came to know you. "

"I wouldn't let him go away. He stayed at the inn in the village twoweeks and more. It's an old chef of mine who keeps it. And I learned allhis secrets. He thought he was throwing dust in my eyes, but he didn'tthrow a grain. As if I couldn't see who was in love with who--after allmy experience! Ah, mon bon Rodney, if I'd been fifty years younger! Andyet if I'd been fifty years younger, I shouldn't have judged him at hisworth. He's the type to which you can do justice only when you've astandard of comparison, n'est-ce pas? It's in putting him beside othermen--the best--even Ashley over there--that you see how big he is. "

She tossed her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, sitting bythe tea-table at the other end of the room. Mrs. Temple had again founderrands of mercy to insure her absence. 

"Il est très bien, cet Ashley, " the Marquise continued, "chic--distinguished--no more like a wooden man than any otherEnglishman. Il est très bien--but what a difference!--two natures--theone a mountain pool, fierce, deep, hemmed in all round--the other thegreat sea. Voilà--Ashley et mon Davenant. And he helped me. He gave mecourage to stand up against the Melcourt--to run away from them. Oh yes, we ran away--almost. I made a pretext for going to Paris--the oldpretext, the dentist. They didn't suspect at my age--how shouldthey?--or they wouldn't have let me come alone. Helie or Paul or AnneMarie would have come with me. Oh, they smother me! But we ran away. Wetook the train to Cherbourg, just like two eloping lovers--and thebateau de luxe, the _Louisiana_ to New York. Mais hélas!--"

She paused to laugh, and at the same time to dash away a tear. "At NewYork we parted, never to meet again--so he thinks. His work was done! Hewent straight to that funny place in Michigan to join his pal. He'sthere now--waiting to hear that Olivia has married her Englishman, asyou might wait to hear that sentence of death on some one you were fondof had been carried out. Ah, mon Dieu, quel brave homme! I'm proud tobelong to the people who produced him. I don't know that I ever wasbefore. "

"Oh, the world is full of brave fellows, when the moment comes to trythem. "

"Perhaps. I'm not convinced. What about _him_?" She flicked her handagain toward Ashley. "Would he stand a big test?"

"He's stood a good many of them, I understand. He's certainly been equalto his duty here. "

"He's done what a gentleman couldn't help doing. That's something, butit's possible to ask more. "

"I hope you're not going to ask it, " he began, in some anxiety. 

"He strikes me as a man who would grant what was wrung from him, whilethe other--my blond Hercules--gives royally, like a king. "

"There's a soul that climbs as by a ladder, and there's a soul thatsoars naturally as a lark. I don't know that it matters which they do, so long as they both mount upward. "

"We shall see. "

"What shall we see? I hope you're not up to anything, Vic?"

With another jerk of her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, she said, "That's the match that should have--"

But the old man was out of his seat. "You must excuse me now, Vic. I'vesome work to do. "

"Yes, be off. Only--"

She put her forefinger on her lips, rolling her eyes under the brim ofher extravagant hat with an expression intended to exclude from theirpact of confidence not only the other two occupants of the room, butevery one else. 

Olivia received the reply to her telegram: "Shall arrive in BostonWednesday night. "

Considering it time to bring the purely financial side of the situationunder discussion, Madame de Melcourt explained to her niece that she, the Marquise, had nothing to do, in her own person, with theextraordinary person who was about to arrive. Her part would beaccomplished when once she had handed over the _dot_ either to Olivia orto her trustees. As the passing of this sum through Miss Guion's handswas to be no more than a formality, the question of trustees was notworth taking up. With the transfer of securities for the amount agreedupon from the one name to the other--a piece of business which would becarried out by Davis & Stern--the Marquise considered that she wouldhave done all for which she could be called upon. Everything elseconcerned Olivia and her father and Davenant. Her own interest in theyoung man would be satisfied with a glance of curiosity. 

The brief conversation to this effect having taken place beforeluncheon, Madame de Melcourt pursued other aspects of the subject withColonel Ashley when that repast was ended and coffee was being served tothem in the library. Olivia having withdrawn to wait on her father, Madame de Melcourt bade him light his cigar while she herself puffeddaintily at a cigarette. If she was a little grotesque in doing it, hehad seen more than one elderly Englishwoman who, in the same pastime, was even more so. 

Taking one thing with another, he liked his future great-aunt bymarriage. That is, he liked a connection that would bring him into touchwith such things in the world as he held to be important. While he hadthe scorn natural to the Englishman of the Service class for anythingout of England that pretended to be an aristocracy, he admitted that theold French royalist cause had claims to distinction. The atmosphere ofit clinging to one who was presumably in the heart of its counselsrestored him to that view of his marriage as an alliance between highcontracting powers which events in Boston had made so lamentablyuntenable. If he was disconcerted, it was by her odd way of keeping himat arm's-length. 

"She doesn't like me, what?" he had more than once said to Olivia, andwith some misgiving. 

Olivia could only answer: "I think she must. She's said a good manytimes that you were chic and distinguished. That's a great deal for anyEnglishman from her. "

"She acts as if she had something up her sleeve. "

That had become something like a conviction with him; but to-day heflattered himself that he had made some progress in her graces. His ownspirits, too, were so high that he could be affable to Guion, whoappeared at table for the only time since the day of their firstmeeting. Hollow-checked, hollow-eyed, his figure shrunken, and hishandsome hand grown so thin that the ring kept slipping from his finger, Guion essayed, in view of his powerful relative's vindication--for so heliked to think of it--to recapture some of his old elegance as a host. To this Ashley lent himself with entire good-will, taking Guion's timidclaim for recognition as part of the new heaven and the new earth underprocess of construction. In this greatly improved universe Olivia, too, acquired in her lover's eyes a charm, a dignity, a softened grace beyondanything he had dreamed of. If she seemed older, graver, sadder perhaps, the change was natural to one who had passed through trials so sordidand so searching. A month of marriage, a month of England, would restoreall her youth and freshness. 

Nevertheless he was glad to be alone with Madame de Melcourt. It was themoment he had waited for, the moment of paying some fitting tribute toher generosity. He had said little of it hitherto, not wanting, as heput it, "to drag it in by the hair of its head. " He knew an opportunitywould arise; and it had arisen. 

It was the sort of thing he could have done better had he not beenhaunted by the Englishman's fear of being over-demonstrative. He waseasily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear oftransgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyedturning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out afew inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "soawfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness. " This beingmasculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an amusedsmile on the Marquise's lips. He could have sworn that she felt thespeech inadequate to the occasion. She would probably have liked itbetter had it been garnished with American flourishes or Frenchornamentation. "She's taking me for a jolly ass, " he said to himself, and reddened hotly. 

In contrast to his deliberate insufficiency the old lady's thin voicewas silvery and precise. Out of some bit of obscure wilfulness, rousedby his being an Englishman, she accentuated her Parisian affectations. 

"I'm very much delighted, Col-on-el, " she said, giving the militarytitle its three distinct French syllables, "but you must not think mebetter than I am. I'm very fond of my niece--and of her father. Afterall, they stand nearer to me than any one else in the world. They're allI've got of my very own. In any case, they should have had the moneysome day--when I--that is, I'd made my will n'est-ce pas? But whatmatters a little sooner or a little later? And I want my niece to behappy. I want a great many things; but when I've sifted them all, Ithink I want that more than anything else. "

Ashley bowed. "We shall always feel greatly indebted--" he began, endeavoring to be more elegant than in his words of a few minutesearlier. 

"I want her to be happy, Col-on-el. She deserves it. She's a noblecreature, with a heart of gold and a spirit of iron. And she loves me, Ithink. "

"I know she does, by Jove!"

"And I can't think of any one else who does love me for myself. " Shegave a thin, cackling laugh. "They love my money. Le bon Dieu hascounted me worthy of having a good deal during these later years. Andthey're all very fond of it. But she's fond of _me_. I was very angrywith her once; but now I want her to be happy with the man--with the manshe's in love with. So when Mr. Davenant came and told me of your noblecharacter--"

"The devil he did!"

Ashley sprang out of his chair. The cigar dropped from his limp fingers. In stooping to pick it up he caught the echo of his own exclamation. "Ibeg your pardon--" he began, when he had raised himself. He grew redderthan ever; his eyes danced. 

"Ça ne fait rien, Col-on-el. It's an expression of which I myself oftenuse the equivalent--in French. But I don't wonder you're pleased. Yourfriend Mr. Davenant made the journey to Europe purposely to tell me howhighly you were qualified as a suitor for my niece's hand. When one hasa friend like that--"

"But he's not my friend. "

"You surprise me, Col-on-el. He spoke of you with so much praise--somuch affection, I might say. He said no one could be so worthy to marrymy niece--no one could make her so happy--no one could give her such adistinguished position in the world--no one was so fine a fellow in hisown person--"

He looked mystified. "But he's out there in Michigan--"

She puffed delicately at her cigarette. "He stayed with me two weeks atMelcourt-le-Danois. That is, he stayed at the inn in the village. It wasthe same thing. I was very angry with my niece before that. It was hewho made me see differently. If it were not for him I shouldn't behere. He traveled to France expressly to beg my help--how shall Isay?--on your behalf--in simplifying things--so that you and Oliviamight be free from your sense of obligation to him--and might marry--"

"Did he say he was in love with her himself?"

She ignored the hoarse suffering in his voice to take another puff ortwo at her cigarette. "Ma foi, Col-on-el, he didn't have to. "

"Did he say--" He swallowed hard, and began again, more hoarsely: "Didhe say she was--in love with--with _him_?"

There was a hint of rebuke in her tone. "He's a very loyal gentleman. Hedidn't. "

"Did he make you think--?"

"What he made me think, Col-on-el, is my own affair. "

He jumped to his feet, throwing his cigar violently into the fire. For aminute or two he stood glaring at the embers. When he turned on her itwas savagely. 

"May I ask your motive in springing this on me, Marquise?"

"Mon Dieu, Col-on-el, I thought you'd like to know what a friend youhave. "

"Damn his friendship. That's not the reason. You've something up yoursleeve. "

She looked up at him innocently. "Have I? Then I must leave it to you totell me what it is. But when you do, " she added, smiling, "I hope you'lltake another tone. In France men are gallant with women--"

"And in England women are straight with men. What they have to say theysay. They don't lay snares, or lie in ambush. "

She laughed. "Quant à cela, Col-on-el, il y en a pour tous les goûts, même en Angleterre. "

"I'll bid you good-by, madame. "

He bowed stiffly, and went out into the hail. She continued to smokedaintily, pensively, while she listened to him noisily pulling on hisovercoat and taking his stick from the stand. As he passed the librarydoor he stopped on the threshold. 

"By Gad, she's _mine_!" he said, fiercely. 

She got up and went to him, taking him by the lapel of the coat. Therewas something like pity in her eyes as she said: "My poor fellow, nobodyhas raised that question. What's more, nobody _will_ raise it--unlessyou do yourself. "

XXIII

Ashley's craving was for space and air. He felt choked, strangled. Therewas a high wind blowing, carrying a sleety rain. It was a physicalcomfort to turn into the teeth of it. 

He took a road straggling out of the town toward the remoter suburbs, and so into the country. He marched on, his eyes unseeing, his mouth setgrimly--goaded by a kind of frenzy to run away from that which he knewhe could not leave behind. It was like fleeing from somethingomnipresent. Though he should turn his back on it never so sternly andtravel never so fast, it would be with him. It had already entered intohis life as a constituent element; he could no more get rid of it thanof his breath or his blood. 

And yet the thing itself eluded him. In the very attempt to apprehend itby sight or name, he found it mysteriously beyond his grasp. It was likean enemy in the air, deadly but out of reach. It had struck him, thoughhe could not as yet tell where. He could only stride onward through thewind and rain, as a man who has been shot can ride on till he falls. 

So he tramped for an hour or more, finding himself at last amid bleak, dreary marshes, over which the November twilight was coming down. Hefelt lonely, desolate, far from his familiar things, far from home. Hisfamiliar things were his ambitions, as home was that life ofwell-ordered English dignity, in which to-morrow will bear some relationto to-day. 

He felt used up by the succession of American shocks, of Americanviolences. They had reduced him to a condition of bewilderment. For fouror five weeks he had scarcely known from minute to minute where hestood. He had maintained his ground as best he was able, holding out forthe moment when he could marry his wife and go his way; and now, whenostensibly the hour had come in which to do it, it was only that hemight see confusion worse confounded. 

He turned back toward the town. He did so with a feeling of futility inthe act. Where should he go? What should he do? How was he to deal withthis new, extraordinary feature in the case? It was impossible to returnto Tory Hill, as if the Marquise had told him nothing, and equallyimpossible to make what she had said a point of departure for anythingelse. If he made it a point of departure for anything at all, it couldonly be for a step which his whole being rebelled against taking. 

It was a solution of the instant's difficulties to avoid the turning toTory Hill and go on to Drusilla Fane's. In the wind and rain andgathering darkness the thought of her fireside was cheering. She wouldunderstand him, too. She had always understood him. It was her knowledgeof the English point of view that made her such an efficient pal. During all the trying four or five weeks through which he had passed shehad been able to give him sympathetic support just where and when heneeded it. It was something to know she would give it to him again. 

As he told her of Davenant's journey to France he could see her eyesgrow bigger and blacker than ever in the flickering firelight. She keptthem on him all the while he talked. She kept them on him as from timeto time she lifted her cup and sipped her tea. 

"Then that's why he didn't answer mother's letters, " she said, absently, when he had finished. "He wasn't there. "

"He wasn't there, by Jove! And don't you see what a fix he's put me in?"

She replied, still absently: "I'm not sure that I do. "

"He's given away the whole show to me. The question is now whether I cantake it, what?"

"He hasn't given away anything you didn't have before. "

"He's given away something he might perhaps have had himself. "

She drew back into the shadow so that he might not see her coloring. Shehad only voice enough to say: "What makes you think so?"

"Don't _you_ think so?"

"That's not a fair question. "

"It's a vital one. "

"To you--yes. But--"

"But not to you. Oh, I understand that well enough. But you've beensuch a good pal that I thought you might help me to see--"

"I'm afraid I can't help you to see anything. If I were to try I mightmislead you. "

"But you must _know_, by Jove! Two women can't be such pals as Oliviaand you--"

"If I did know I shouldn't tell you. It's something you should find outfor yourself. "

"Find out! I've _asked_ her. "

"Well, if she's told you, isn't that enough?"

"It would be enough in England. But here, where words don't seem to havethe same meaning as they do anywhere else--and surprises are sprung onyou--and people have queer, complicated motives--and do preposterous, unexpected things--"

"Peter's going to see old Cousin Vic might be unexpected; but I don'tthink you can call it preposterous. "

"It's preposterous to have another man racing about the world trying todo you good, by Jove!"

"He wasn't trying to do you good so much as not to do you harm. Hethought he'd done that, apparently, by interfering with Cousin Henry'saffairs in the first place. His asking the old Marquise to come to therescue was only an attempt to make things easier for you. "

He sprang to his feet. "And he's got me where I must either call hisbluff or--or--or accept his beastly sacrifice. "

He tugged fiercely, first at one end, then at the other, of thebristling, horizontal mustache. Drusilla tried to speak calmly. 

"He's not making a sacrifice if there was nothing for him to give up. "

"That's what I must find out. "

She considered it only loyal to say: "It's well to remember that inmaking the attempt you may do more harm than good. 'Where the applereddens, never pry, lest we lose our Edens'--You know the warning. "

"Yes, I know. That's Browning. In other words, it means, let well enoughalone. "

"Which isn't bad advice, you know. "

"Which isn't bad advice--except in love. Love won't put up withreserves. It must have all--or it will take nothing. "

He dropped into a low chair at the corner of the hearth. Wielding thepoker in both hands, he knocked sparks idly from a smoldering log. Itwas some minutes before she ventured to say:

"And suppose you discovered that you couldn't _get_ all?"

"I've thought that out. I should go home, and ask to be allowed to jointhe first punitive expedition sent out--one of those jolly littleparties from which they don't expect more than half the number to comeback. There's one just starting now--against the Carrals--up on theTibet frontier. I dare say I could catch it. "

Again some minutes went by before she said: "Is it as bad as all that?"

"It's as bad as all that. "

She got up because she could no longer sit still. His pain was almostmore than she could bear. At the moment she would have given life justto be allowed to lay her hand soothingly on his shoulder or to strokehis bowed head. As it was, she could barely give herself the privilegeof taking one step toward him, and even in doing this she was compelledto keep behind him, lest she should betray herself in the approach. 

"Couldn't I--?"

The offer of help was in the tone, in its timid beseeching. 

He understood it, and shook his head without looking up. 

"No, " he said, briefly. "No. No one can. "

She remained standing behind him, because she hadn't the strength to goaway. He continued to knock sparks from the log. Repulsed from thesphere of his suffering, she was thrown back on her own. She wonderedhow long she should stand there, how long he would sit, bending likethat, over the dying fire. It was the most intolerable minute of herlife, and yet he didn't know it. Just for the instant she resentedthat--that while he could get the relief of openness and speech, shemust be condemned forever to shame and silence. If she could have thrownherself on her knees beside him and flung her arms about his neck, crying, "I love you; I love you! Whoever doesn't--_I_ do!--_I_ do!" shewould have felt that life had reached fruition. 

The minutes became more unendurable. In sheer self-defense she wasobliged to move, to say something, to break the tensity of the strain. One step--the single step by which she had dared to draw nearer him, stretching out yearning hands toward him--one step sufficed to take herback to the world of conventionalities and commonplaces, where theheart's aching is taboo. 

She must say something, no matter what, and the words that came were:"Won't you have another cup of tea?"

He shook his head, still without looking up. "Thanks; no. "

But she was back again on her own ground, back from the land ofenchantment and anguish. It was like returning to an empty home after ajourney of poignant romance. She was mistress of herself again, mistressof her secret and her loneliness. She could command her voice, too. Shecould hear herself saying, as if some one else were speaking from theother side of the room:

"It seems to me you take it too tragically to begin with--"

"It isn't to begin with. I saw there was a screw loose from the first. And since then some one has told me that she was--half in love with him, by Jove!--as it was. "

She remained standing beside the tea-table. "That must have been CousinHenry. He'd have a motive in thinking so--not so much to deceive you asto deceive himself. But if it's any comfort to you to know it, I'vetalked to them both. I suppose they spoke to me confidentially, and Ihaven't felt justified in betraying them. But rather than see yousuffer--"

He put the poker in its place among the fire-irons and swung round inhis chair toward her. "Oh, I say! It isn't suffering, you know. That is, it isn't--"

She smiled feebly. "Oh, I know what it is. You don't have to explain. But I'll tell you. I asked Peter--or practically asked him--some timeago--if he was in love with her--and he said he wasn't. "

His face brightened. "Did he, by Jove?"

"And when I told her that--the other day--she said--"

"Yes? Yes? She said--?"

"She didn't put it in so many words--but she gave me to understand--or_tried_ to give me to understand--that it was a relief to her--because, in that case, she wasn't obliged to have him on her mind. A woman _has_those things on her mind, you know, about one man when she lovesanother. "

He jumped up. "I say! You're a good pal. I shall never forget it. "

He came toward her, but she stepped back at his approach. She was moresure of herself in the shadow. 

"Oh, it's nothing--"

"You see, " he tried to explain, "it's this way with me. I've made it arule in my life to do--well, a little more than the right thing--to dothe high thing, if you understand--and that fellow has a way of gettingso damnably on top. I can't allow it, you know. I told you so the otherday. "

"You mean, if he does something fine, you must do something finer. "

He winced at this. "I can't go on swallowing his beastly favors, don'tyou see? And hang it all! if he is--if he _is_ my--my rival--he musthave a show. "

"And how are you going to give him a show if he won't take it?"

He started to pace up and down the room. "That's your beastly America, where everything goes by freaks--where everything is queer andinconsequent and tortuous, and you can't pin any one down. "

"It seems to me, on the contrary, that you have every one pinned down. You've got everything your own way, and yet you aren't satisfied. Peterhas taken himself off; old Cousin Vic has paid the debts; and Olivia isready to go to church and marry you on the first convenient day. Whatmore can you ask?"

"That's what _she_ said, by Jove!--the old Marquise. She said thequestion would never be raised unless I raised it. "

Drusilla tried to laugh. "Eh, bien? as she'd say herself. "

He paused in front of her. "Eh, bien, there is something else; and, " headded, tapping his forehead sharply, "I'll be hanged if I know what itis. "

She was about to say something more when the sound of the shutting ofthe street door stopped her. There was much puffing and stamping, withshouts for Jane to come and take an umbrella. 

"I say, that's your governor. I'll go and talk to him. "

He went without another look at her. She steadied herself with the tipsof her fingers on the tea-table, in order not to swoon. She knew shewouldn't swoon; she only felt like it, or like dying. But all she coulddo was limply to pour herself out an extra cup of tea and drink it. 

 * * * * *

In the library Ashley was taking heart of grace. He had come to askadvice, but he was really pointing out the things that were in hisfavor. He repeated Drusilla's summing-up of them almost word for word. 

"You see, as far as that goes, I've everything my own way. No questionwill be raised unless I raise it. The fellow has taken himself off; theMarquise has most generally assumed the family liabilities; and Oliviais ready to come to church with me and be married on the firstconvenient day. I should be satisfied with that, now shouldn't I?"

The old man nodded. "Your difficulties do seem to have been smoothedout. "

He sat, fitting the tips of his fingers together and swinging his leg, in his desk-chair. The light of the green-shaded desk-lamp alone lit upthe room. In the semi-obscurity porcelains and potteries gleamed likecrystals in a cave. Ashley paced the floor, emerging from minute tominute out of the gloom into the radiance of the lamp. 

"I'm not called on to go poking behind things to see what's there, nowam I?"

"Not in the least. "

"I'm willing to consider every one, and I think I do. But there arelimits, by Jove! Now, really?"

"The minute we recognize limits it's our duty not to go beyond them. It's thus far and no farther--for the man who knows the stretch of histether, at any rate. The trouble with Peter is that his tether iselastic. It'll spin out as far as he sees the need to go. For the restof us there are limits, as you say; but about him there'ssomething--something you might call limitless. "

Ashley rounded sharply. "You mean he's so big that no one can bebigger. "

"Not exactly. I mean that very few of us _need_ to be as big as that. It's all very well for him; but most of us have to keep within themeasure of our own capacity. "

"And sit down under him, while he looms up into God knows where?"

"Well, wouldn't that be your idea?"

"Can't say that it is. My idea is that when I take my rights and keepthem, I'm as big as any one. "

"Quite so; as big as any one--who takes his rights and keeps them. That's very true. "

Ashley stopped, one hand behind him, the other supporting him as heleaned on the desk. "And that's what I propose to do, " he said, aggressively. 

"It's a very high ideal. "

"I propose to accept the status quo without asking any more questions. "

"I should think that would be a very good plan. A wise man--one of thewisest--wrote, apropos of well-disposed people who were seeking astandard of conduct: 'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in thatthing which he alloweth. ' I should think you'd have every reason forthat kind of self-approval. "

"Do you mean that, sir? or are you--trying it on?"

"I'm certainly not trying it on. The man who takes his rights and keepsthem can be amply justified. If there's a counsel of perfection thatgoes beyond that standard--well, it isn't given to all men to receiveit. "

"Then you think it isn't given to me. You'd put me down as a good sortof chap who comes in second best. "

"What makes you think I should do that?"

"Because--because--hang it all! If I let this fellow keep ahead ofme--why, I _should_ come in second best. "

"You say _keep_ ahead of me. Do you think he's ahead of you now?"

Ashley straightened himself. He looked uncomfortable. "He's got a pull, by Jove! He made that journey to France--and cracked me up to theMarquise--and wheedled her round--when all the while he must have knownthat he was hammering nails into his own coffin. He did it, too, afterI'd insulted him and we'd had a row. "

"Oh, that's nothing. To a fellow like him that sort of thing comeseasy. "

"It wouldn't come easy to me, by Jove!"

"Then it would be all the more to your credit, if you ever did anythingof the kind. "

The Englishman bounded away. Once more he began to pace the floorrestlessly. The old man took his pipe from a tray, and histobacco-pouch from a drawer. Having filled the bowl, with meditativeleisure he looked round for a match. "Got a light?"

Ashley struck a vesta on the edge of his match-box and applied it to theold man's pipe. 

"Should you say, " he asked, while doing it, "that I ought to attemptanything in that line?"

"Certainly not--unless you want to--to get ahead. "

"I don't want to stay behind. "

"Then, it's for you to judge, my son. "

There was something like an affectionate stress on the two concludingmonosyllables. Ashley backed off, out of the lamplight. 

"It's this way, " he explained, stammeringly; "I'm a British officer andgentleman. I'm a little more than that--since I'm a V. C. Man--and afellow--dash it all, I might as well say it!--I'm a fellow they've gottheir eye on--in the line of high office, don't you know? And I can't--Isimply _can't_--let a chap like that make me a present of all hischances--"

"Did he have any?"

Ashley hesitated. "Before God, sir, I don't know--but I'm inclined tothink--he had. If so, I suppose they're of as much value to him as mineto me. "

"But not of any more. "

He hesitated again. "I don't know about that. Perhaps they are. The Lordknows I don't say that lightly, for mine are--Well, we needn't go intothat. But I've got a good deal in my life, and I don't imagine that he, poor devil--"

"Oh, don't worry. A rich soil is never barren. When nothing is plantedin it, Nature uses it for flowers. "

Ashley answered restively. "I see, sir, your sympathies are all on hisside. "

"Not at all. Quite the contrary. My certainties are on his side. Mysympathies are on yours. "

"Because you think I need them. "

"Because I think you may. "

"In case I--"

"In case you should condemn yourself in the thing you're going toallow. "

"But what's it to be?"

"That's for you to settle with yourself. "

He was silent a minute. When he spoke it was with some conviction. "Ishould like to do the right thing, by Jove!--the straight thing--if Ionly knew what it was. "

"Oh, there'll be no trouble about that. In the Street called Straight, my son, there are lights to show the way. "

 * * * * *

"Rum old cove, " was Ashley's comment to himself as he went back toBoston. "Got an answer to everything. "

From the hotel he telephoned an excuse to Olivia for his unceremoniousdeparture from Tory Hill. "Had an upset, " was the phrase by which heconveyed his apologies, leaving it to her to guess the nature of hismischance. As she showed no curiosity on the point, he merelypromised to come to luncheon in the morning. 

During his dinner he set himself to think, though, amid thekaleidoscopic movement of the hotel dining-room, he got little beyondthe stage of "mulling. " Such symptoms of decision as showed themselvesthrough the evening lay in his looking up the dates of sailing of themore important liners, and the situation of the Carral country on themap. He missed, however, the support of his principle to be RupertAshley at his best. That guiding motto seemed to have lost its forceowing to the eccentricities of American methods of procedure. If he wasstill Rupert Ashley, he was Rupert Ashley sadly knocked about, buffeted, puzzled, grown incapable of the swift judgment and prompt action whichhad hitherto been his leading characteristics. 

He was still beset by uncertainties when he went out to Waverton nextmorning. Impatient for some form of action, he made an early start. Onthe way he considered Rodney Temple's words of the previous afternoon, saying to himself: "In the Street called Straight there are lights toshow the way, by Jove! Gad! I should like to know where they are. "

[Illustration: ASHLEY GOT THE IMPRESSION THAT THEIR CONVERSATION WASEARNEST, CONFIDENTIAL. ]

Nevertheless, it had a clarifying effect on his vision to find, onwalking into the drawing-room at Tory Hill, Miss Guion seated inconversation with Peter Davenant. As he had the advantage of seeing thema second before they noticed him, he got the impression that theirconversation was earnest, confidential. Olivia was seated in a corner ofthe sofa, Davenant in a low chair that gave him the appearance of beingat her feet. 

It was exactly the stimulus Ashley needed to bring his faculties intoaction. He was at once in possession of all his powers. The feelinginspired by the sight of them together transformed him on the instantinto the quick, shrewd, diplomatic officer in whom he recognizedhimself. It was a feeling too complicated to be called jealousy, thoughjealousy might have been in it as an ingredient pang. If so, it wasentirely subordinate to his new sense--or rather his old sense--of beingequal to the occasion. As he crossed the room he felt no misgiving, nohesitation. Neither did he need to forecast, however rapidly, his planof speech or action, since he knew that in urgent cases it was alwaysgiven him. If he had to define this sudden confidence he might have saidthat Rupert Ashley at his best had been restored to life again, but eventhat would not have expressed the fullness of his consciousness ofpower. 

He nodded to Davenant before shaking hands with Miss Guion. "Hello! Backagain?"

Davenant got up from his low chair with some embarrassment. Ashley bowedover Olivia's hand with unusual courtliness. He seated himself in theother corner of the sofa, as one who had a right to the place. 

"I had to come East on business, " Davenant explained, at once. 

Olivia hastened to corroborate this statement. "Aunt Vic wanted Mr. Davenant to come--to settle up all the things--"

"And I had another reason, " Davenant interrupted, nervously. "I was justbeginning to tell Miss Guion about it when you came in. I've a job outthere--in my work--that would suit Mr. Guion. It would be quite in hisline--legal adviser to a company--and would give him occupation. He'd beearning money, and wouldn't feel laid aside; and if he was ill I couldlook after him as well as any one. I--I'd like it. "

Olivia looked inquiringly at Ashley. Her eyes were misty. 

"Hadn't you better talk to _him_ about it?" Ashley said. 

"I thought I'd better speak to you and Miss Guion first. I understandyou've offered to--to take him--"

"I shouldn't interfere with what suited him better, in any case. By theway, how did you like the _Louisiana_?"

Davenant's jaw dropped. His blue eyes were wide with amazement. It wasOlivia who undertook to speak, with a little air of surprise that Ashleyshould make such an odd mistake. 

"Mr. Davenant wasn't on the _Louisiana_. It was Aunt Vic. Mr. Davenanthas just come from the West. You do that by train. "

"Of course he was on the _Louisiana_. Landed on the--let me see!--shesailed again yesterday!--landed on the 20th, didn't you?"

"No, no, " Olivia corrected again, smiling. "That was the day Aunt Viclanded. You're getting every one mixed. "

"But they came together, " Ashley persisted. "He brought her. Didn'tyou?"

The look on Olivia's face frightened Davenant. He got up and stoodapologetically behind his chair. "You'll have to forgive me, MissGuion, " he stammered. "I--I deceived you. I couldn't think of anythingelse to do. "

She leaned forward, looking up at him. "But I don't know what you did, as it is. I can't understand--what--what any one is saying. "

"Then I'll tell you, by Jove! All the time you thought he was out thereat Michigan he was over in France, following up the Marquise. Trackedher like a bloodhound, what? Told her the whole story--how we'd got to adeadlock--and everything. Made her think that unless she came and bailedus out we'd be caught there for the rest of our lives. "

Olivia's eyes were still lifted to Davenant's. "Is that true?"

"It's true, by Jove!--true as you live. What's more, he cracked me up asthough I was the only man alive--said that when it came to a question ofwho was worthy--worthy to marry you--he wasn't fit to black my boots. "

"No, " Davenant cried, fiercely. "There was no question of me. "

"Bosh! Bosh, my good fellow! When a man does what you've done there's noquestion of any one but him. "

The color was hot in Davenant's cheeks, but he himself could not havetold whether it came from astonishment or anger. "Since Colonel Ashleyknows so well what happened, I shall leave him to tell it. "

He was about to make his escape, when Olivia stopped him. "No, no. Wait--please wait. Tell me why you did it. "

"I'll tell you, " Ashley broke in. He spoke with a kind of nervousjauntiness. "I'll tell you, by Jove! We had a row. I called him a cad. Icalled him a damned cad. There _was_ a damned cad present on thatoccasion--only--I didn't hit the right nail on the head. But that's notwhat I'm coming to. He struck me. He struck me right in the teeth, byJove! And when a man strikes you, it's an insult that can only be wipedout by blood. Very well; he's offered it--his blood. He didn't wait forme to draw it. I suppose he thought I wouldn't go in for the heroic. Soof his own accord he went over there to France and shed his heart'sblood, in the hope that I might overlook his offence. All right, oldchap; I overlook it. "

With a laugh Ashley held his hand up toward Davenant, who ignored it. 

"Miss Guion, " Davenant said, huskily, "Colonel Ashley is pleased to puthis own interpretation on what was in itself a very simple thing. Youmayn't think it a very creditable thing, but I'll tell you just whathappened, and you can draw your own conclusions. I went over to France, and saw your aunt, the Marquise, and asked her to let me have my moneyback. That's the plain truth of it. She'll tell you so herself. I'dheard she was very fond of you--devoted to you--and that she was veryrich and generous--and so I thought, if I told her exactly how mattersstood, it would be a good chance to--to--recoup myself for--the loan. "

Ashley sprang up with another laugh. "He does that well, doesn't he?" hesaid to Olivia. "Come along, old boy, " he added, slipping his armthrough Davenant's. "If I let you stay here you'll perjure your verysoul. "

Davenant allowed himself to be escorted to the door. Over his shoulderAshley called back to Olivia: "Fellows are never good friends till afterthey've had a fight. "

XXIV

When Ashley, after pushing Davenant gently out into the hall, returnedto Olivia, she was standing by the mantelpiece, where the five K'ang-hsivases had been restored to their place in honor of the Marquise. 

"Rum chap, isn't he?" Ashley observed. "So awfully queer and American. No Englishman would ever have taken a jaunt like that--after the oldlady--on another chap's behalf. It wouldn't go down, you know. "

Olivia, leaning on the mantelpiece, with face partially turned from him, made no reply. 

He allowed some minutes to pass before saying: "When I asked him how heliked the _Louisiana_ I wanted to know. I'm thinking of taking her onher next trip home. "

She turned slightly, lifting her eyes. There was a wonderful light inthem, and yet a light that seemed to shine from afar. "Wouldn't that berather soon?"

"It would give me time for all I want. Now that I'm here I'd better takea look at New York and Washington, and perhaps get a glimpse of yourSouth. I could do that in three weeks. "

She seemed to have some difficulty in getting her mind to follow hiswords. "I don't think I understand you. "

There was a smile on his lips as he said: "Don't you infer anything?"

"If I _inferred_ anything, it would be that you think of goinghome--alone. "

"Well, that's it. "

She turned fully round. For a long minute they stood staring at eachother. Time and experience seemed both to pass over them before sheuttered the one word: "Why?"

"Isn't it pretty nearly--self-evident?"

She shook her head. "Not to me. "

"I'm surprised at that. I thought you would have seen how well we'dplayed our game, and that it's--up. "

"I don't see--not unless you're trying to tell me that you've--that yourfeelings have undergone a--"

He was still smiling rather mechanically, though he tugged nervously atthe end of his horizontal mustache. "Wouldn't it be possible--now thateverything has turned out so--so beautifully--wouldn't it be possible tolet the rest go without--without superfluous explanations?"

"I'm ready to do everything you like; but I can't help being surprised. "

"That must be because I've been more successful than I thought I was. Ifancied that--when I saw how things were with you--you saw how they werewith me--and that--"

"Saw how they were with you? Do you mean?--No, you can't mean!--itisn't--Drusilla?"

Since Drusilla would do as well as another, he still stood smiling. Sheclasped her hands. Her face was all aglow. 

"Oh, I should be so glad! It's only within a few days that I'veseen--how it was--with--"

He hastened to interrupt her, though he had no idea of what she wasgoing to say. "Then so long as you do see--"

"Oh yes; I--I begin to see. I'm afraid I've been very stupid. You'vebeen so kind--so noble--when all the while--"

"We won't discuss that, what? We won't discuss each other at all. Evenif you go your way and I go mine, we shall still be--"

He didn't finish, because she dropped again to the sofa, burying herface in the cushions. It was the first time he had ever seen her giveway to deep emotion. If he had not felt so strong to carry the thingthrough to the end, he would have been unnerved. As it was, he sat downbeside her, bending over her bowed head. He made no attempt to touchher. 

"I can't bear it, " he could hear her panting. "I can't bear it. "

"What is it that you can't bear? The pain?" She nodded without raisingher head. 

"Or the happiness?" he asked, gently. She nodded again. 

"That is, " he went on, "pain for me--and happiness about--about--theother chap. "

She made the same mute sign of affirmation. 

"Then, perhaps, that's just as it should be. "

 * * * * *

When Ashley got out to the road Davenant was still standing by the gate, uncertain whether to turn back to the house or go away. Ashley continuedto smile jauntily. If he was white about the temples and sallow in thecheeks there was no one to notice it. 

"Miss Guion wants to see you, " he announced to Davenant. "It's aboutthat matter of her father. I dare say you'll pull it off. No, not justnow, " he added, as Davenant started to go up the driveway. "She--she'sbusy. Later will do. Say this afternoon. Come along with me. I've gotsomething to tell you. I'm on my way to the Temples'. "

Once more Ashley slipped his arm through Davenant's, but they walked onin silence. The silence continued till they were on the Embankment, whenAshley said: "On second thoughts, I sha'n't tell you what I was going tojust now. "

"That's all right, " Davenant rejoined; and no more was said till theyreached Rodney Temple's door. 

"Good-by. " Ashley offered his hand. "Good-by. You're a first-rate sort. You deserve everything you're--you're coming in for. "

Davenant could only wring the proffered hand wonderingly and continue onhis way. 

Inside the house Ashley asked only for Drusilla. When she came to thedrawing-room he refused to sit down. He explained his hurry, on theground that he was on his way to Boston to take the earliest possibletrain for New York. 

"Oh yes. That's it, " he said, in answer to her dumb looks of inquiry. "It couldn't go on, you see. You must have known it--in spite of whatyou told me last night. You've been an out-and-out good pal. You'vecheered me up more than a bit all the time I've been here. If it hadn'tbeen for you--Oh yes, I'm hit; but not hit so hard that I can't still goon fighting--"

"Not in the Carral country, I hope. "

"N-no. On second thoughts that would be only running away. I'm not goingto run away. Wounds as bad as mine have healed with a bit of nursing, and--Well, good-by. Say good-by to your father and mother for me, willyou?--especially to your governor. Rum old chap, but sound--sound as--asShakespeare and the Bible. Good-by once more. Meet again some time. "

It was at the door, to which she accompanied him, that he said: "By theway, when are you coming home?"

She called all her dignity to her aid in order to reply lightly: "Oh, Idon't know. Not for ages and ages. Perhaps not at all. I may staypermanently over here. I don't know. "

"Oh, I say--"

"In any case I'm here for the winter. "

"Oh, but I say, by Jove! That's forever. You'll be back before spring?"

She weakened in spite of herself. "I couldn't possibly leave till afterChristmas. "

"Christmas! It's the end of November now. Well, that's not so bad. Expect to be in Southsea some time early in the new year. See you then. "

He had gone down the steps when he turned again. Drusilla was stillstanding in the open doorway. 

"It's awfully queer, but I feel as if--you'll laugh, I know--but I feelas if I'd been kept from the commission of a crime. Funny, isn't it?Well, I'll be off. See you in Southsea not later than the middle ofJanuary. Good-by again; and don't forget my message to your governor. "

XXV

It was late in the afternoon when Davenant reappeared at Tory Hill, having tramped the streets during most of the time since leaving Ashleyin the morning. He was nervous. He was even alarmed. He had little clueto Olivia's judgment on his visit to the Marquise, and he found Ashley'shints mysterious. 

It was reassuring, therefore, to have her welcome him with gentlecordiality into the little oval sitting-room, where he found her at herdesk. She made him take the most comfortable seat, while she herselfturned partially round, her arm stretched along the back of her chair. Though the room was growing dim, there was still a crimson light fromthe sunset. 

He plunged at once into the subject that had brought him, explaining thenature of the work her father would be called upon to do. It would beeasy work, though real work, just what would be within his powers. Therewould be difficulties, some arising from the relationship of theMassachusetts bar to that of Michigan, and others on which he touchedmore lightly; but he thought they could all be overcome. Even if thatproved to be impossible, there were other things he knew of that Mr. Guion could do--things quite in keeping with his dignity. 

"I've already talked to papa about it, " she said. "He's verygrateful--very much touched. "

"There's no reason for that. I should like his company. I'm--I'm fond ofhim. "

For a few minutes she seemed to be pondering, absently. "There'ssomething I should like to ask you, " she said, at last. 

"Yes, Miss Guion? What is it?"

"When people have done so much harm as--as we've done, do you think it'sright that they should get off scot-free--without punishment?"

"I don't know anything about that, Miss Guion. It seems to me I'm notcalled upon to know. Where we see things going crooked we must butt inand help to straighten them. Even when we've done that to the best ofour powers, I guess there'll still be punishment enough to go round. Outside the law-courts, that's something we don't have to look after. "

Again she sat silent, watching the shifting splendor of the sunset. Hecould see her profile set against the deep-red glow like an intaglio onsard. 

"I wonder, " she said, "if you have any idea of the many things you'vetaught me?"

"I?" He almost jumped from his seat. "You're laughing at me. "

"You've taught me, " she went on, quietly, "how hard and narrow mycharacter has been. You've taught me how foolish a thing pride can be, and how unlovely we can make even that noble thing we call a spirit ofindependence. You've taught me how big human nature is--how vast anddeep and--and _good_. I don't think I believed in it before. I know Ididn't. I thought it was the right thing, the clever thing, to distrustit, to discredit it. I did that. It was because, until I knew you--thatis, until I knew you as you _are_--I had no conception of it--not anymore than a peasant who's always starved on barren, inland hills has aconception of the sea. "

He was uncomfortable. He was afraid. If she continued to speak like thathe might say something difficult to withdraw. He fell back awkwardly onthe subject of her father and the job at Stoughton. 

"And you won't have to worry about him, Miss Guion, when you're overthere in England, " he said, earnestly, as he summed up the advantages hehad to offer, "because if he's ill, I'll look after him, and if he's_very_ ill, I'll cable. I promise you I will--on my solemn word. "

"You won't have to do that, " she said, simply, "because I'm going, too. "

Again he almost jumped from his chair. "Going, too? Going where?"

"Going to Stoughton with papa. "

"But--but--Miss Guion--"

"I'm not going to be married, " she continued, in the same even tone. "Ithought perhaps Colonel Ashley might have told you. That's all over. "

"All over--how?"

"He's been so magnificent--so wonderful. He stood by me during all mytrouble, never letting me know that he'd changed in any way--"

"Oh, he's changed, has he?"

Because he sat slightly behind her, she missed the thunderous gloom inhis face, while she was too intent on what she was saying to note thesignificance in his tone. 

"Perhaps he hasn't changed so much, after all. As I think it over I'minclined to believe that he was in love with Drusilla from thefirst-only my coming to Southsea brought in a disturbing--"

"Then he's a hound! I'd begun to think better of him--I did think betterof him--but now, by God, I'll--"

With a backward gesture of the hand, without looking at him, she madehim resume the seat from which he was again about to spring. 

"No, no. You don't understand. He's been superb. He's still superb. Hewould never have told me at all if he hadn't seen--"

She stopped with a little gasp. 

"Yes? If he hadn't seen--what?"

"That I--that I--I care--for some one else. "

"Oh! Well, of course, that does make a difference. "

He fell back into the depths of his chair, his fingers drumming on thetable beside which he sat. Minutes passed before he spoke again. He gotthe words out jerkily, huskily, with dry throat. 

"Some one--in England?"

"No--here. "

During the next few minutes of silence he pulled himself imperceptiblyforward, till his elbows rested on his knees, while he peered up intothe face of which he could still see nothing but the profile. 

"Is he--is he--coming to Stoughton?"

"He's _going_ to Stoughton. He's been there--already. "

If there was silence again it was because he dared not frame the wordsthat were on his tongue. 

"It isn't--it can't be--?"

Without moving otherwise, she turned her head so that her eyes lookedinto his obliquely. She nodded. She could utter no more than thebriefest syllables. "Yes. It is. "

His lips were parched, but he still forced himself to speak. "Is thattrue?--or are you saying it because--because I put up the money?"

She gathered all her strength together. "If you hadn't put up the money, I might never have known that it was true; but it _is_ true. I think itwas true before that--long ago--when you offered me so much--so_much!_--that I didn't know how to take it--and I didn't answer you. Ican't tell. I can't tell when it began--but it seems to me very farback--"

Still bending forward, he covered his eyes with his left hand, raisinghis right in a blind, groping movement in her direction. She took it inboth her own, clasping it to her breast, as she went on:

"I see now--yes, I think I see quite clearly--that that's why Istruggled against your help, in the first place. .. . If it had beenanybody else I should probably have taken it at once. .. . You must havethought me very foolish. .. . I suppose I was. .. . My only excuse is thatit was something like--like revolt--first against the wrong we had beendoing, and then against the great, sublime thing that was coming up outof the darkness to conquer me. .. . That's the way I felt. .. . I wasafraid. .. . I wanted something smaller--something more conventional--suchas I'd been trained for. .. . It was only by degrees that I came to seethat there were big things to live for--as well as little. .. . It's allso wonderful!--so mysterious! I can't tell!. .. I only know that now--"

He withdrew his hand, looking troubled. 

"Are you--are you--_sure?_"

She reflected a minute. "I know what makes you ask that. You think I'vechanged too suddenly. If so, I can explain it. "

The silence in which he waited for her to continue assented in some sortto this reading of his thoughts. 

"It isn't that I've changed, " she said, at last, speaking thoughtfully, "so much as that I've wakened to a sense of what's real for me asdistinguished from what's been forced and artificial. You may understandme better if I say that in leading my life up to--up to recently, I'vebeen like a person at a play--a play in which the situations areinteresting and the characters sympathetic, but which becomes like adream the minute you leave the theater and go home. I feel that--thatwith you--I've--I've got home. "

He would have said something, but she hurried on. 

"I've not changed toward the play, except to recognize the fact that it_was_ a play--for me. I knew it the instant I began to learn aboutpapa's troubles. That was like a summons to me, like a call. When itcame, everything else--the things I'd been taught to strive for and thepeople whom I had supposed to be the only ones worth living with, grewdistant and shadowy, as though they belonged to a picture or a book. Itseemed to me that I woke then for the first time to a realization of thelife going on about me here in my own country, and to a sense of myshare in it. If I hadn't involved myself so much--and involved some oneelse with me--my duty would have been clearer from the start. ButColonel Ashley's been so noble!--he's understood me so well!--he'shelped me so much to understand myself!--that I can't help honoring him, honoring him with my whole heart, even if I see now that I don't--that Inever did--care for him in the way--"

She pressed her handkerchief to her lips to keep back what might havebecome a sob. 

"Did you know I--I loved you?" he asked, still speaking hoarsely. 

"I thought you must, " she said, simply. "I used to say I hoped youdidn't--but deep down in my heart--"

He got up and strode to the window, where, with his back to her, hestared awhile at the last cold glimmer of the sun set. His big frame andbroad shoulders shut out the light to such an extent that when he turnedit was toward a darkened room. He could barely see her, as she satsidewise to the desk, an arm along the back of her chair. His attitudebespoke a doubt in his mind that still kept him at a distance. 

"You're not--you're _not_--saying all this, " he pleaded, "because youthink I've done anything that calls for a reward? I said once that Ishould never take anything from you, and I never shall--unless it'ssomething you give only because you can't help it. "

Her answer was quite prompt. "I'm not giving anything--or doinganything. What has happened seems to me to have come about simply andnaturally, like the sunrise or the seasons, because it's the fullness oftime and what God means. I can't say more about it than that. If itdepended on my own volition I shouldn't be able to speak of it sofrankly. But now--if you want me--as you wanted me once--"

She rose and stood by her chair, holding herself proudly and yet with acertain meekness. With his hands clasped behind him, as though even yethe dared not touch her, he crossed the twilit room toward her. 

 * * * * *

Late that night Henry Guion stood on the terrace below theCorinthian-columned portico. There was no moon, but the stars hadthe gold fire with which they shine when the sky is violet. Abovethe horizon a shimmering halo marked the cluster of cities and towns. In the immediate foreground the great elm was leafless now, but forthat reason more clearly etched against the starlight--line on line, curve on curve, sweeping, drooping, interlaced. Guion stood with headup and figure erect, as if from strength given back to him. Eventhrough the darkness he displayed some of the self-assurance andstoutness of heart of the man with whom things are going well. He wasremembering--questioning--doubting. 

"I had come to the end of the end . .. And I prayed . .. Yes, I_prayed_. .. . I asked for a miracle . .. And the next day it seemed tohave been worked. .. . Was it the prayer that did it?. .. Was it any one'sprayer?. .. Was it any one's faith?. .. Was it--God?. .. Had faith andprayer and God anything to do with it?. .. Do things happen bycoincidence and chance?. .. Or is there a Mind that directs them?. .. Iwonder!. .. I wonder!. .. "

THE END