WHO CARES?

A STORY OF ADOLESCENCE

by

COSMO HAMILTON

TO

MY YOUNG BROTHER

ARTHUR

WHO PLAYS THE GAME

"Another new novel?"

"Well, --another novel. "

"What's it about?"

"A boy and a girl. "

"A love story?"

"Well, --it's about a boy and a girl. "

"Do they marry?"

"I said it was about a boy and a girl. "

"And are they happy?"

"Well, --it's a love story. "

"But all love stories aren't happy!"

"Yes they are, --if it's love. "

CONTENTS

PART ONE

SPRING IN THE WORLD

PART TWO

THE ROUND-ABOUT

PART THREE

THE GREAT EMOTION

PART FOUR

THE PAYMENT

PART ONE

SPRING IN THE WORLD AND ALL THINGS FOR THE YOUNG

I

Birds called. Breezes played among branches just bursting into green. Daffodils, proud and erect, stood in clumps about the dazzling lawn. Young, pulsing, eager things elbowed their way through last year'sleaves to taste the morning sun; the wide-eyed celandine, yellower thanbutter; the little violet, hugging the earth for fear of being seen;the sturdy bourgeois daisy; the pale-faced anemone, earliest to wakeand earliest to sleep; the blue bird's-eye in small family groups; theblatant dandelion already a head and shoulders taller than anyneighbor. Every twig in the old garden bore its new load of buds thatwere soft as kittens' paws; and up the wrinkled trunks of ancient treesyoung ivy leaves chased each other like school-boys. 

Spring had come again, and its eternal spirit spread the message ofnew-born hope, stirred the sap of awakening life, warmed the bosom of awintry earth and put into the hearts of birds the old desire to mate. But the lonely girl turned a deaf ear to the call, and rounded hershoulders over the elderly desk with tears blistering her letter. 

"I'm miserable, miserable, " she wrote. "There doesn't seem to beanything to live for. I suppose it's selfish and horrid to grumblebecause Mother has married again, but why did she choose the verymoment when she was to take me into life? Oh, Alice, what am I to do? Ifeel like a rabbit with its foot in a trap, listening to the traffic onthe main road--like a newly fledged bird brought down with a brokenwing among the dead leaves of Rip Van Winkle's sleeping-place. You'lllaugh when you read this, and say that I'm dramatizing my feelings andwriting for effect; but if you've got any heart at all, you'd cry ifyou saw me (me of all girls!) buried alive out here without a singlesoul to speak to who's as young as I am--hushed if I laugh by mistake, scowled at if I let myself move quickly, catching old age every hour Istay here. "

"Why, Alice, just think of it! There's not a person or a thing in andout of this house that's not old. I don't mean old as we thought of itat school, thirty and thirty-five, but really and awfully old. Thehouse is the oldest for miles round. My grandfather is seventy-two, andmy grandmother's seventy. The servants are old, the trees are old, thehorses are old; and even the dogs lie about with dim eyes waiting fordeath. "

"When Mother was here, it was bearable. We escaped as often as wecould, and rode and drove and made secret visits to the city and sawthe plays at matinees. There's nothing old about Mother. I supposethat's why she married again. But now that I'm left alone in this houseof decay, where everybody and everything belongs to the past, I'mfrightened of being so young, and catch looks that make me feel that Iought to be ashamed of myself. It's so long since I quarreled with agirl or flirted with a boy that I can't remember it. I'm forgetting howto laugh. I'm beginning not to care about clothes or whether I looknice. "

"One day is exactly like another. I wander about aimlessly with nothingto do, nowhere to go, no one to speak to. I've even begun to give upreading novels, because they make me so jealous. It's all wrong, Alice. It's bad and unhealthy. It puts mutinous thoughts into my head. Honestly, the only way in which I can get the sort of thrill that Iought to have now, if ever I am to thrill at all, is in making wildplans of escape, so wild and so naughty that I don't think I'd betterwrite about them, even to you, dear. "

"Mother's on her honeymoon. She went away a week ago in a state ofself-conscious happiness that left Grandfather and Grandmother snappyand disagreeable. She will be away four months, and every weekly letterthat comes from her will make this place more and more unbearable andme more restless and dangerous. I could get myself invited away. Enidwould have me and give me a wonderful time. She has four brothers. Fanny has begged me to stay with her in Boston for the whole of thespring and see and do everything, which would be absolutely heaven. Andyou know everybody in New York and could make life worth living. "

"But Grandfather won't let me go. He likes to see me about the house, he says, and I read the papers to him morning and evening. It does megood, he considers, to 'make a sacrifice and pay deference to thosewhose time is almost up. ' So here I am, tied to the shadows, a prisonertill Mother comes back--a woman of eighteen forced to behave like agood little girl treated as if I were still content to amuse myselfwith dolls and picture books! But the fire is smolderin Alice, and onefine day it will burst into flame. "

A shaft of sunlight found its way through the branches of a chestnuttree and danced suddenly upon the envelope into which Joan had sealedup this little portion of her overcharged vitality. Through the openwindows of her more than ample room with its Colonial four-post bed, dignified tallboys, stiff chairs and anemic engravings ofearly-Victorianism, all the stir and murmur of the year's youth came toJoan. 

If her eyes had not been turned inward and her ears had not been tunedonly to catch her own natural complaints, this chatter of young thingswould have called her out to laugh and tingle and dance in the hauntedwood and cry out little incoherent welcomes to the children of theearth. Something of the joy and emotion of that mother-month must havestirred her imagination and set her blood racing through her youngbody. She felt the call of youth and the urge to play. She sensed themagnetic pull of the voice of spring, but when, with her long brownlashes wet with impatient tears, she went to the window and looked outat the green spread of lawn and the yellow-headed daffodils, it seemedmore than ever to her that she was peering through iron bars into theplayground of a school to which she didn't belong. She wasJoan-all-alone, she told herself, and added, with that touch ofpicturesque phrasing inherited from her well-read mother, that she wasmore like a racing motorboat tied to a crumbling wharf in a desertedharbor than anything else in the world. 

There was a knock on her door and the sound of a bronchial cough. "Comein, " she said and darted an anxious look at the blond fat face of theclock on the mantelshelf. She had forgotten all about the time. 

It was Gleave who opened the door, Gleave the bald-headed manservantwho had grown old along with his master with the sameresentfulness--the ex-prizefighter, sailor, lumberman and adventurerwho had thrown in his lot with Cumberland Ludlow, the sportsman, whenboth were in the full flush of middle age. His limp, the result of anepoch-making fight in an Australian mining camp, was emphasized bysevere rheumatism, and the fretfulness of old age was heightened by hisshortness of breath. 

He got no further than: "Your grandfather--"

"I know, " said Joan. "I'm late again. And there'll be a row, I suppose. Well, that will break the monotony, at any rate. " Seizing the momentwhen Gleave was wrestling with his cough, she slipped her letter intoher desk, rubbed her face vigorously with her handkerchief and made adart at the door. Grandfather Ludlow demanded strict punctuality andmade the house shake if it failed him. What he would have said if hecould have seen this eager, brown-haired, vivid girl, built on the slimlines of a wood nymph, swing herself on to the banisters and slide thewhole way down the wide stairway would have been fit only for theappreciative ears of his faithful man. As it was, Mrs. Nye, thehousekeeper, was passing through the hall, and her gasp at thisexhibition of unbecoming athletics was the least that could be expectedfrom one who still thought in the terms of the crinoline and had neverrecovered from the habit of regarding life through the early-Victorianend of the telescope. 

Joan slipped into Mr. Cumberland Ludlow's own room, shut the doorquickly and picked her way over the great skins that were scatteredabout the polished floor. 

"Good morning, Grandfather, " she said, and stood waiting for the stormto break. She knew by heart the indignant remarks about the sloppinessof the younger generation, the dire results of modern anarchy and theuniversal disrespect that stamped the twentieth century, and set herquick mind to work to frame his opening sentence. 

But the old man, whose sense of humor was as keen as ever, saw in thegirl's half-rebellious, half-deferential attitude an impatientexpectation of his usual irritation, and so he merely pointed a shakingfinger at the clock. His silence was far more eloquent and effectivethan his old-fashioned platitudes. He smiled as he saw her surprise, indicated a chair and gave her the morning paper. "Go ahead, my dear, "he said. 

Sitting bolt upright, with her back to the shaded light, her charmingprofile with its little blunt nose and rounded chin thrown up againstthe dark glistening oak of an old armoire, Joan began to read. Herclear, high voice seemed to startle the dead beasts whose heads hungthickly around the room and bring into their wide, fixed eyes a look ofuneasiness. 

Several logs were burning sulkily in the great open fireplace, throwingout a pungent, juicy smell. The aggressive tick of an old and pompousclock endeavored to talk down the gay chatter of the birds beyond theclosed windows. The wheeze of a veteran Airedale with its chin on thehead of a lion came intermittently. 

They made a picture, these two, that fitted with peculiar rightnessinto the mood of Nature at that moment. Youth was king, and with allhis followers had clambered over winter and seized the earth. The redremainders of autumn were almost over-powered. Standing with his handsbehind him and his back to the fire, the old sportsman listened, with aqueer, distrait expression, to the girl's reading. That he was stillputting up a hard fight against relentless Time was proved by hisclothes, which were those of a country-lover who dressed the part withcare. A tweed shooting-coat hung from his broad, gaunt shoulders. Well-cut riding breeches, skin tight below his knees, ran into a pairof brown top-boots that shone like glass. A head and shoulders tallerthan the average tall man, his back was bent and his chest hollow. Histhin hair, white as cotton wool, was touched with brilliantine, and hishandsome face, deeply lined and wrinkled, was as closely shaved as anactor's after three o'clock. His sunken eyes, overshadowed by bushybrows, had lost their fire. He could no longer see to read. He tooheard the call without, and when he looked at the young, sweet thingupon whom he was dependent for the news, and glanced about the room sofull of memories of his own departed youth, he said to himself withmore bitterness than usual: "I'm old; I'm very old, and helpless; lifehas no use for me, and it's an infernal shame. "

Joan read on patiently, glancing from time to time at the man whoseemed to her to be older than the hills, startlingly, terribly old, and stopped only when, having lowered himself into his arm-chair, heseemed to have fallen asleep. Then, as usual, she laid the paper aside, eager to be up and doing, but sat on, fearful of moving. Hergrandfather had a way of looking as though he would never wake upagain, and of being as ready as a tiger to pounce upon her if she triedto slip away. She would never forget some of the sarcastic things hehad said at these times, never! He seemed to take an unexplainabledelight in making her feel that she had no right to be so young. He hadnever confided to her the tragedy of having a young mind and an oldbody, young desires and winter in his blood. He had never opened thedoor in his fourth wall and let her see how bitterly he resented havingbeen forced out of life and the great chase, to creep like an old houndthe ancient dogs among. He had never let her suspect that the tragedyof old age had hit him hard, filling his long hours with regret forwhat he might have done or done better. Perhaps he was ashamed toconfess these things that were so futile and so foolish. Perhaps he wasafraid to earn a young incredulous laugh at the pathetic picture ofhimself playing Canute with the on-coming tide of years. He was notunderstood by this girl, because he had never allowed her to get aglimpse into his heart; and so she failed to know that he insisted uponkeeping her in his house, even to the point of extreme selfishness, because he lived his youth over again in the constant sight of her. What a long and exquisite string of pearls there could be made of ourunspoken words!

The logs glowed red; the hard tick of the pompous clock marked off theprecious moments; and outside, spring had come. But Joan sat on withmutinous thoughts, and the man who not so long ago had stalked thebeasts whose heads and skins were silent reminders of his strength, layback in his chair with nodding head. 

"He's old, " she said to herself, "dreadfully, awfully old, and he'spunishing me for being young. Oh! It's wicked, it's wicked. If only Ihad a father to spoil me and let me live! If only Mother hadn'tforgotten all about me in her own happiness! If only I had money of myown and could run away and join the throng!"

She heard a sigh that was almost a groan, turned quickly and saw twoslow tears running down her grandfather's face. He had been kickingagainst the pricks again and had hurt his foot. 

With all the elaborate care of a Deerslayer, Joan got up, gave theboards that creaked a wide berth--she knew them all--and tiptoed to thedoor. The fact that she, at eighteen years of age, a full-grown womanin her own estimation, should be obliged to resort to such methods madeher angry and humiliated. She was, however, rejoicing at one thing. Hergrandfather had fallen asleep several pages of the paper earlier thanusual, and she was to be spared from the utter boredom of wadingthrough the leading articles which dealt with subways and Tammany andforeign politics and other matters for which she had a lofty contempt. She was never required to read the notices of new plays and operas andthe doings of society, which alone were interesting to her and made hermouth water. 

Just as she had maneuvered her way across the wide, long room and waswithin reach of the door, it opened and her grandmother hobbled in, leaning on her stick. There was a chuckle from the other end of theroom. The blood flew to the girl's face. She knew without turning tolook that the old man had been watching her careful escape and wasenjoying the sight of her, caught at the moment when freedom was athand. 

Mrs. Ludlow was one of those busy little women who are thorns in theflesh of servants. Her eyes had always been like those of an inspectinggeneral. No detail, however small, went unnoticed and unrectified. 

She had been called by an uncountable number of housemaids and footmen"the little Madam"--the most sarcastic term of opprobrium contained intheir dictionary. A leader of New York society, she had run charitableinstitutions and new movements with the same precision and efficiencythat she had used in her houses. Every hour of her day had been filled. Not one moment had been wasted or frittered away. Her dinner partieshad been famous, and she had had a spoke in the wheels of politics. Herwitty sayings had been passed from mouth to mouth. Her littleflirtations with prominent men and the ambitious tyros who had beendrawn to her salon had given rise to much gossip. Not by any means abeauty, her pretty face and tiptilted nose, her perennial cheerfulness, birdlike vivacity and gift of repartee had made her the center ofattraction for years. 

But she, like Cumberland Ludlow, had refused to grow old gracefully andwith resignation. She had put up an equally determined fight againstage, and it was only when the remorseless calendar proved her to besixty-five that she resigned from the struggle, washed the dye out ofher hair and the make-up from her face and retired to that old house. Not even then, however, did she resign from all activity and remaincontented to sit with her hands in her lap and prepare herself for thenext world. This one still held a certain amount of joy, and sheconcentrated all the vitality that remained with her to the perfectrunning of her house. At eleven o'clock every morning the tap of herstick on the polished floors was the signal of her arrival, and ifevery man and woman of the menage was not actively at work, she knewthe reason why. Her tongue was still as sharp as the blade of a razor, and for sloppiness she had no mercy. Careless maids trembled before hertirades, and strong men shook in their shoes under her biting phrases. At seventy, with her snowy hair, little face that had gone into as manylines as a dried pippin, bent, fragile body and tiny hands twisted byrheumatism, she looked like one of the old women in a Grimm's fairytale who frightened children and scared animals and turned giants intocowards. 

She drew up in front of the frustrated girl, stretched out her whitehand lined with blue veins and began to tap her on theshoulder--announcing in that irritating manner that she had a complaintto make. 

"My dear, " she said, "when you write letters to your little friends oryour sentimental mother, bear in mind that the place for ink is on thenote paper and not on the carpet. "

"Yes, Grandmother. "

"Try to remember also that if you put your hand behind a candle you canblow it out without scattering hot grease on the wall paper. "

"Yes, Grandmother"

"There is one other thing, if I may have your patience. You are notrequired to be a Columbus to discover that there is a basket for soiledlinen in your bedroom. It is a large one and eager to fulfill itsfunction. The floor of your clothes closet is intended for your shoesonly. Will you be so good as to make a note of these things?"

"Yes, Grandmother. "

Ink, candle grease, wash basket--what did they matter in the scheme oflife, with spring tapping at the window? With a huge effort Joan forcedback a wild burst of insurrection, and remained standing in what shehoped was the correct attitude of a properly repentant child. "How longcan I stand it?" she cried inwardly. "How long before I smash thingsand make a dash for freedom?"

"Now go back and finish reading to your grand father. "

And once more, trembling with anger and mortification, the girl pickedher way over the limp and indifferent skins, took up the paper and satdown. Once more her clear, fresh voice, this time with a little quiverin it, fitted in to the regular tick of the querulous clock, thenear-by chatter of birds' tongues and the hiss of burning logs. 

The prim old lady, who had in her time borne a wonderful resemblance tothe girl whom she watched so closely, --even to the chestnut-brown hairand the tip-tilted nose, the full lips, the round chin and the spiritthat at any moment might urge her to break away fromdiscipline, --retired to carry on her daily tour of inspection; and theold man stood again with his back to the fire to listen impatiently andwith a futile jealousy to the deeds and misdeeds of an ever-young andever-active world. 

II

Joan was thankful when lunch was over, and murmured "Amen" to gracewith a fervor that would have surprised an unimaginative andunobservant person. Like all the meals in that pompous dining-room, itwas a form of torture to a young thing bubbling with health and highspirits, who was not supposed to speak unless directly addressed andwas obliged to hold herself in check while her grandparents progressedslowly and deliberately through a menu of medically thought-out dishes. Both the old people were on a rigid diet, and mostly the conversationbetween them consisted of grumbles at having to dally with baby-foodand reminiscences of the admirable dinners of the past. An aged butlerand a footman in the sere and yellow only added to the general Rip vanWinklism, and the presence of two very old dogs, one the grandfather'sAiredale and the other Mrs. Ludlow's Irish terrier, with a white noseand rusty gray coat, did nothing to dispel the depression. The sixfull-length portraits in oils that hung on the walls represented menand women whose years, if added together, would have made a staggeringgrand total. Even the furniture was Colonial. 

But when Joan had put on her hat, sweater and a pair of thick-soledcountry boots, and having taken care to see that no one was about, sliddown the banisters into the hall on her way out for her usual lonelywalk, she slipped into the garden with a queer sense of excitement, anodd and unaccountable premonition that something was going to happen. This queer thing had come to her in the middle of lunch and had madeher heart suddenly begin to race. If she had been given to selfanalysis, which she was not, she might have told herself that she hadreceived a wireless message from some one as lonely as herself, who hadsent out the S. O. S. Call in the hope of its being picked up andanswered. As it was, it stirred her blood and made her restless andintensely eager to get into the open, to feel the sun and smell thesweetness in the air and listen to the cheery note of the birds. 

It was with something of the excited interest which must have stirredRobinson Crusoe on seeing the foot-prints on the sand of what he hadconceived to be a desert island that she ran up the hill, through theawakened woods whose thick carpet of brown leaves was alight with thegreen heads of young ferns, and out to the clearing from which she hadso often gazed wist fully in the direction of the great city away inthe distance. 

She was surprised to find that she was alone as usual, bitterlydisappointed to see no other sign of life than her friends the rabbitsand the squirrels--the latter of which ambled toward her in theexpectation of peanuts. She had no sort of concrete idea of what shehad expected to find: nor had she any kind of explanation of the waveof sympathy that had come to her as clearly as though it had been sentover an electric wire. All she knew was that she was out of breath forno apparent reason, and on the verge of tears at seeing no one there tomeet her. Once before, on her sixth birth day, the same call had beensent to her when she was playing alone with her dolls in thesemitropical garden of a hired house in Florida, and she had started upand toddled round to the front and found a large-eyed little girlpeering through the gate. It was the beginning of a close and blessedfriendship. 

This time, it seemed, the call had been meant for some other lonelysoul, and so she stood and looked with blurred eyes over the widevalley that lay unrolled at her feet and, asked herself what she hadever done to deserve to be left out of all the joy of life. Fromsomewhere near by the baying of hounds came, and from a farm to herleft the crowing of a cock; and then a twig snapped behind her, and sheturned eagerly. 

"Oh, hello, " said the boy. 

"Oh, hello, " she said. 

He was not the hero of her dreams, by a long way. His hair didn't curl;his nose was not particularly straight; nor were his eyes large andmagnetic. He was not something over six feet two; nor was he dressed inwonderful clothes into which he might have been poured in liquid form. He was a cheery, square-shouldered, good-natured looking fellow withlaughter in his gray eyes and a little quizzical smile playing round agood firm mouth. He looked like a man who ought to have been in thenavy and who, instead, gave the impression of having been born amonghorses. His small, dark head was bare; his skin had already caught thesun, and as he stood in his brown sweater with his hands thrust intothe pockets of his riding breeches, he seemed to her to be just exactlylike the brother that she ought to have had if she had had any luck atall, and she held out a friendly hand with a comfortable feeling ofabsolute security. 

With some self-consciousness he took it and bowed with a nice touch ofdeference. He tried to hide the catch in his breath and the admirationin his eyes. "I'm glad it's spring, " he said, not knowing quite what hewas saying. 

"So am I, " said Joan. "Just look at those violets and the way theleaves are bursting. "

"I know. Great, isn't it? Are you going anywhere?"

"No. I've nowhere to go. "

"Same here. Let's go together. "

And they both laughed, and the squirrel that had come to meet Joandarted off with a sour look. He had anticipated a fat meal of peanuts. He was out of it now, he saw, and muttered whatever was the squirrelequivalent for a swear-word. 

The boy and girl took the path that ran round the outskirts of thewood, swung into step and chimed into the cantata of spring with talkand laughter. 

There had been rather a long silence. 

Joan was sitting with her back against the trunk of a fallen tree, withher hands clasped round her knees. She had tossed her hat aside, andthe sunlight made her thick brown hair gleam like copper. They had comeout at another aerie on the hill, from which a great stretch of opencountry could be seen. Her eyes were turned as usual in the directionof New York, but there was an expression of contentment in them thatwould have startled all the old people and things at home. 

Martin Gray was lying full stretch on the turf with his elbows up andhis chin on his left fist. He had eyes for nothing but the vivid girlwhom he had found so unexpectedly and who was the most alive thing thathe had ever seen. 

During this walk their chatter had been of everything under the sunexcept themselves. Both were so frankly and unaffectedly glad to beable to talk at all that they broke into each other's laughing andchildish comments on obvious things and forgot themselves in thepleasure of meeting. But now the time had come for mutual confidences, and both, in the inevitable young way, felt the desire to paint thepicture of their own particular grievance against life which shouldmake them out to be the two genuine martyrs of the century. It was nowa question of which of them got the first look-in. The silence wasdeliberate and came out of the fine sense of sportsmanship thatbelonged to each. Although bursting to pour out her troubles, Joanwanted to be fair and give Martin the first turn, and Martin, equallykeen to prove himself the champion of badly treated men, held himselfin, in order that Joan, being a woman, should step into the limelight. It was, of course, the male member of the duet who began. A man's egois naturally more aggressive than a woman's. 

"Do you know, " said Martin, arranging himself in a more comfortableattitude, "that it's over two months since I spoke to any one of aboutmy own age?"

Joan settled herself to listen. With the uncanny intuition that makeswomen so disconcerting, she realized that she had missed her chance andmust let the boy have his head. 

Not until he had unburdened his soul would she be able, she knew, tofocus his complete attention upon herself. 

"Tell me about it, " she said. 

He gave her a grateful look. "You know the house with the kennels overthere--the hounds don't let you miss it. I've been wandering about theplace without seeing anybody since Father died. "

"Oh, then, you're Martin Gray!"

"Yes. "

"I was awfully sorry about your father. "

"Thanks. " The boy's mouth trembled a little, and he worked his thumbinto the soft earth. "He was one of the very best, and it was notright. He was too young and too much missed. I don't understand it. Hehad twenty-five years to his credit, and I wanted to show him what Iwas going to do. It's all a puzzle to me. There's something frightfullywrong about it all, and it's been worrying me awfully. "

Joan couldn't find anything to say. Years before, when she was fouryears old, Death had come to her house and taken her own father away, and she had a dim remembrance of dark rooms and of her mother crying asthough she had been very badly hurt. It was a vague figure now, and theboy's queer way of talking about it so personally made the conventionalexpressions that she had heard seem out of place. It was the littleshake in his voice that touched her. 

"He had just bought a couple of new hunters and was going to run thehunt this fall. I wanted him to live forever. He died in New York, andI came here to try and get used to being without him. I thought Ishould stay all alone for the rest of my life, but--this morning when Iwas moping about, everything looked so young and busy that I got a sortof longing to be young and busy again myself. I don't know how toexplain it, but everything shouted at me to get up and shake myselftogether, and on the almanac in Father's room I read a thing thatseemed to be a sort of message from him. "

"Did you? What was it?"

"'We count it death to falter, not to die. ' It was under to-day's date, and it was the first thing I saw when I went to the desk where Fatherused to sit, and it was his voice that read it to me. It was verywonderful and queer. It sort of made me ashamed of the way I was takingit, and I went out to begin again, --that's how it seemed to me, --and Iwoke everybody up and set things going and saw that the horses were allright, and then I climbed over the wall, and as I walked away, outagain for the first time after all those bad weeks, I wanted to findsome one young to talk to. I don't know how it was, but I went straightup the hill and wasn't a bit surprised when I saw you standing there. "

"That's funny, " said Joan. 

"Funny--how?"

"I don't know. But if you hadn't found me after the feeling that cameto me at lunch--"

"Well?"

"Well, I'm sure I should have turned bitter and never believed any morein fairies and all that. I don't think I mean fairies, and I can'texplain what 'all that' stands for, but I know I should have beenwarped if I hadn't turned round and seen you. "

And she laughed and set him laughing, and the reason of their havingmet was waved aside. The fact remained that there they were--youth withyouth, and that was good enough. 

III

There was a touch of idealism hidden away somewhere in Martin'scharacter. A more than usually keen-eyed boy had once called him "thepoet" at school. In order that this dubious nickname should bestrangled at birth, there had been an epoch-making fight. Both ladscame out of it in a more or less unrecognizable condition, but Martinreestablished his reputation and presently entered Yale free from thesuspicion of being anything but a first-rate sportsman and anindisputable man. 

There Martin had played football with all the desired bullishness. Hehad hammered ragtime on the piano like the best ordinary man in theUniversity. With his father he rode to hounds hell for leather, and hewrote comic stuff in a Yale magazine which made him admiringly regardedas a sort of junior George Ade. It was only in secret, and then with asneaking sense of shame, that he allowed his idealistic side to feed onBrowning and Ruskin, Maeterlinck and Barrie, and only when alone onvacation that he bathed in the beauty of French cathedrals, satthrilled and stirred by the waves of melody of the great composers, drew up curiously touched and awed at the sight of the places in thefamous cities of Europe that echoed with the footsteps of history. 

If the ideality of that boy had been seized upon and developed by asympathetic hand, if his lively imagination and passion for thebeautiful had been put through a proper educational course, he mighthave used the latent creative power with which nature had endowed himand taken a high place among artists, writers or composers. As it was, his machinelike, matter-of-fact training and his own self-consciousanxiety not to be different from the average good sportsman had madehim conform admirably to type. He was a fine specimen of the eager, naive, quick-witted, clean-minded young American, free from "side, "devoid of mannerisms, determined to make the utmost of life and itspossibilities. 

It is true that when death seized upon the man who was brother and palas well as father to Martin, all the stucco beneath which he had socarefully hidden his spiritual and imaginative side cracked and broke. Under the indescribable shock of what seemed to him to be wanton andmeaningless cruelty, the boy gave way to a grief that was angry andagonized by turns. He had left a fit, high-spirited father to drive toa golf shop to buy a new mashie, returned to take him out to SleepyHollow for a couple of rounds--and found him stretched out on the floorof the library, dead. Was it any wonder that he tortured himself withunanswerable questions, sat for hours in the dark trying with the mostpitiful futility to fathom the riddle of life, or that he wanderedaimlessly about the place, which was stamped with his father's fine andkindly personality, --like a stick suddenly swept out of the current ofthe main stream into a tideless backwater, untouched by the sun? Andwhen finally, still deaf to the call of spring, his father's message ofcourage, "We count it death to falter, not to die, " rang out andstraightened him up and set him on the rails of action once again, itwas not quite the same Martin Gray who uttered the silent cry forcompanionship that found an answer in Joan's lonely and rebelliousheart. Sorrow had strengthened him. Out of the silent manliness ofgrief he went out again on the great main road with a wistful desire tolove and be loved, to find some one with whom to link an arm in anempty world all crowded with strangers--and there stood Joan. 

It was natural that he should believe, under those circumstances, thathe and she did not meet by mere accident, that they had been broughttogether by design--all the more natural when he listened to her storyof mental and physical imprisonment and came to see, during their dailystolen meetings, that he was as necessary to her as she was to him. Every time he left her and watched her run back to that old house ofold people, it was borne in upon him more definitely that he wasappointed in the cosmic scheme to rescue Joan from her peculiar cageand help her to try her wings. All about that young fresh, eagercreature whose eyes were always turned so ardently toward the city, hisimagination and superstition built a bower of love. 

He had never met a girl in any way like her--one who wanted so much andwould give so little in return for it, who had an eel-like way ofdodging hard-and-fast facts and who had made up her mind with all thezest and thoughtlessness of youth to mold life, when finally she couldprove how much alive she was, into no other shape than the one whichmost appealed to her. She surprised and delighted him with her quickmental turns and twists, and although she sometimes made him catch hisbreath at her astoundingly frank expression of individualism, he toldhimself that she was still in the chrysalis stage and could only get atrue and normal hang of things after rubbing shoulders with what shecalled life with a capital L. 

Two weeks slipped away more quickly than these two young things hadever known them to go, and the daily meetings, utterly guileless andfree from flirtation, were the best part of the day; but there was anew note in Joan's laugh as she swung out of the wood and went towardMartin one afternoon. 

He caught it and looked anxiously at her. "Is anything wrong?"

"There will be, " she said. "I just caught sight of Gleave among thetrees. He was spying!"

"Why do you think so?"

"Oh, he never walks a yard unless he has to. I thought I saw him eyingme rather queerly at lunch. I've been looking happy lately, and that'smade him suspicious. "

"But what can he do?"

"What can't he do! Grandmother's one of the old-fashioned sort whothinks that a girl must never speak to a man without a chaperon. Theymust have been a lively lot of young women in her time! Gleave willtell her that I've been coming here to meet you, and then there'll be apretty considerable row. "

Martin was incredulous. He was in America in the twentieth century. Young people did as they liked, and parents hardly ventured toremonstrate. He showed his teeth in the silent laugh that wascharacteristic of him. "Oh, no! I'll be all right. Your grandfatherknew my father. "

"That won't make any difference. I believe that in a sort of way he'sjealous of my having a good time. Queer, isn't it? Are all old peoplelike that? And as to Grandmother, this will give her one of the finestchances to let herself go that she's had since I set a curtain on firewith a candle; and when she does that, well, things fly, I assure you. "

"Are you worried about it?"

Joan gave a gesture of the most eloquent impatience. "I have to be, "she said. "You can't understand it, but I'm treated just as if I were alittle girl in short frocks. It's simply appalling. Everything I sayand do and look is criticized from the point of view of 1850. Can't youimagine what will be thought of my sneaking out every afternoon to talkto a dangerous young man who has only just left Yale and lives amonghorses?"

That was too much for Martin. His laugh echoed among the trees. 

But Joan didn't make it a duet. "It wouldn't be so funny to you if youstood in my shoes, Martin, " she said. "If I had gone to Grandmother andasked her if I might meet you, --and just think of my having to dothat, --she would have been utterly scandalized. Now, having done thisperfectly dreadful thing without permission, I shall be hauled up ontwo charges, --deceit and unbecoming behavior, --and I shall be punished. "

The boy wheeled around in amazement. "You don't mean that?"

"Of course I mean it. Haven't I told you over and over again that thesetwo dear but irritating old people look down at me from their awfulpile of years and only see me as a child?"

"But what will they do to you?"

Joan shrugged her shoulders. "Anything they like. I'm completely attheir mercy. For Mother's sake I try to be patient and put up with itall. It's the only home I've got, and when you're dependent and haven'ta cent to bless yourself with, you can't pack up and telephone for acab and get out, can you? But it can't go on forever. Some day I shallanswer back, and sparks will fly, and I shall borrow money from thecoachman, who's my only friend, and go to Alice Palgrave and ask her toput me up until Mother comes back. I'm a queer case, Martin--that's thetruth of it. In a book the other day I came across an exact descriptionof myself. I could have laughed if it hadn't hit me so hard. It said:'She was a super-modern in an early-Victorian frame, a pint ofchampagne in a little old cut-glass bottle, a gnome engine attached toa coach and pair. '" She picked up a stone and flung it down the hill. 

One eager wild thought rushed through Martin's brain. It had made hisblood race several times before, but he had thrown it aside because, during all their talks and walks, Joan had never once looked at himwith anything but the eyes of a sister. As his wife he could free her, lift her out of her anomalous atmosphere and take her to the city towhich her face was always turned. But he lacked the courage to speakand continued to hope that some day, by some miracle, she might becomeless superlatively neutral, less almost boyish in her way of treatinghim. He threw it aside again, tempted as he was to take advantage of achance to bribe her into becoming his wife with an offer of life. Thentoo, she was only eighteen, and although he was twenty-four and in thehabit of thinking of himself as a man of ripe years, he had to confessthat the mere idea of marriage made him feel awfully young and scared. And so he said nothing and went on hoping. 

Joan broke the silence. "Everything will be different when Mother comesback, " she said. "I shall live with her then, and I give you my wordI'll make up for lost time. So who cares? There are three good hoursbefore I face Grandmother. Let's enjoy ourselves. "

IV

Martin couldn't settle down after his solitary dinner that night. Several times he had jumped out of his father's reading chair and stoodlistening at the window. It seemed to him that some one had called hisname. But the only sounds that broke the exquisite quietude of thenight were the distant barking of a dog, the whirl of an automobile onthe road or the pompous crowing of a master of a barnyard, taken up andanswered by others near and far. 

Each time the boy had stood at the open window and peered out eagerlyand wistfully, but nothing had moved across the moon-bathed lawn ordisturbed the sleeping flowers. Under the cold light of the stars theearth appeared to be more than usually peaceful and drowsy. All waswell. 

But the boy's blood tingled, and he was filled with an unexplainablesense of excitement. Some one needed him, and he wanted urgently to beneeded. He turned from the window and ran his eyes over the long, wide, low-ceilinged masculine room, every single thing in which spelledFather to him; then he went back to the chair the right to sit in whichhad been given to him by death, persuaded that over the unseen wiresthat stretch from heart to heart a signal had been sent, certain thathe was to hold himself in readiness to do something for Joan. 

He had written out the words, "We count it death to falter, not to die"on a long strip of card in big bold letters. They faced him as he satand read over and over again what he regarded as his father's message. It was a call to service, an inspiration to activity, and it hadalready filled him with the determination to fall into step with themovement of the world, to put the money of which he was now the mostreluctant owner to some use as soon as the necessary legal steps ofproving his father's Will had been taken. He had made up his mind toleave the countryside at the end of the week and meet his father'slawyers and take advice as to how he could hitch himself to somevigorous and operative pursuit. He was going, please God, to build up aworkmanlike monument to the memory of his father. 

Ten o'clock struck, and uninterested in his book, he would have gone tobed but for the growing feeling that he was not his own master, that hemight be required at any moment. The feeling became so strong thatfinally he got up and went into the hall. He couldn't wait any longer. He must go out, slip into the garden of the Ludlow house and search thewindows for a sight of Joan. 

He unbolted the front door, gave a little gasp and found himself faceto face with the girl who was in his thoughts. 

There was a ripple of excited laughter; a bag was thrust into his hand, and like a bird escaped from a cage, Joan darted past him into the hall. 

"I've done it, " she cried, "I've done it!" And she broke into a dance. 

Martin shut the door, put the bulging suit-case on a chair and watchedthe girl as she whirled about the hall, as graceful as a water sprite, with eyes alight with mischief and animation. The sight of her was sobewitching, the fact that she had come to him for help so good, thathis curiosity to know what it was that she had done fell away. 

Suddenly she came to a breathless stop and caught hold of his arm. "Bolt the door, Marty, " she said, "quickly, quickly! They may sendafter me when they find I've got away. I'll never go back, never, never!"

All the spirit of romance in the boy's nature flamed. This was a greatadventure. He had become a knight errant, the rescuer of a damsel indistress. He shot the bolts back, turned out the lights, took Joan'shand and led her into his father's room. 

"Turn these lights out too, " she said. "Make it look as if everybodyhad gone to bed. "

He did so, with a sort of solemn sense of responsibility; and it was ina room lighted only by a shaft of pale moonlight that fell in a poolupon the polished floor that these two utterly inexperienced childrensat knee to knee, the one to pour out her story, the other to listenand hold his breath. 

"I was right about Gleave. He was spying. It turns out that he's beenwatching us for two or three days. When I went back this afternoon, Igot a look from Mrs. Nye that told me there was a row in the air. I waslater than usual and rushed up to my room to change for dinner. Thewhole house seemed awfully quiet and ominous, like the air before athunderstorm. I expected to be sent for at once to stand like acriminal before Grandfather and Grandmother--but nothing happened. Allthrough dinner, while Gleave tottered about, they sat facing each otherat the long table, conducting, --that's the only word to describe it, --apolite conversation. Neither of them took any notice of me or even oncelooked my way. Even Gleave put things in front of me as though hedidn't see me, and when I caught the watery eyes of the old dogs, theyboth seemed to make faces and go 'Yah!'"

"It was weird, and would have been frightfully funny if I hadn't knownthat sooner or later I should have to stand up and take my dose. Phew, it was a ghastly meal. I'm certain I shall dream it all over againevery time I eat something that doesn't agree with me! It was a greatrelief when at last Grandmother turned at the door and looking at myfeet as though they were curiosities, said: 'Joan, you will follow usto the drawing-room. ' Her voice was cold enough to freeze the sea. "

"Then she went out, her stick rapping the floor, Grandfather after herwith his shoulders bent and a piece of bread on the back of his dinnerjacket. The two dogs followed, and I made up the tail of that queerprocession. I hate that stiff, cheerless drawing room anyhow, with allits shiny cases of china and a collection of all the uncomfortablechairs ever designed since Adam. I wanted to laugh and cry, and when Isaw myself in the glass, I couldn't believe that I wasn't a littleshivering girl with a ribbon in my hair and white socks. "

Some one whistled outside. The girl seized the boy's arm in a suddenpanic of fright. 

"It's all right, " he said. "It's only the gardener going to hiscottage. "

Joan laughed, and her grip relaxed. "I'm jumpy, " she said. "My nervesare all over the place. Do you wonder?"

"No, tell me the rest. "

Joan's voice took on a little deeper note like that of a child who hascome to the really creepy bit of his story. "Marty, " she went on, "Iwish you could have heard the way in which Grandmother let herself go!She held me by the scruff of my neck and hit me right and left with thesort of sarcasm that made me crinkle. According to her, I was on thedownward path. I had done something quite hopeless and unforgivable. She didn't know how she could bring herself to report the affair--thinkof calling it an affair, Marty!--to my poor mother. Mother, who'd neversay a word to me, whatever I did! She might have out-of-date views, shesaid, of how young girls should behave, but they were the right views, and so long as I was under her roof and in her care, she would see thatI conformed to them. She went on making a mountain out of our littlemolehill, till even Grandfather broke in with a word; and then shesnapped at him, got into her second wind and went off again. I didn'tlisten half the time. I just stood and watched her as you'd watch oneof those weird old women in one of Dickens' books come to life. What Iremember of it all is that I am deceitful and fast, ungrateful, irresponsible, with no sense of decency, and when at last shepronounced sentence, what do you think it was? Confinement to the housefor a week and if after that, I ever meet you again, to be packed offto a finishing-school in Massachusetts. She rapped her stick on thefloor by way of a full stop, and waved her hand toward the door. Inever said a word, not a single one. What was the use? I gave her alittle bow and went. Just as I was going to rush upstairs and thinkover what I could do, Grandfather came out and told me to go to hisroom to read something to him. And there, for the first time, he let mesee what a fine old fellow he really is. He agreed with Grandmotherthat I ought not to have met you on the sly. It was dangerous, he said, though perfectly natural. He was afraid I found it very trying to liveamong a lot of old grouches with their best feet in the grave, but hebegged me to put up with it because he would miss me so. He likedhaving me about, not only to read to him but to look at. I reminded himof Grandmother when she was young, and life was worth living. 

"I cried then. I couldn't help it--more for his sake than mine. Hespoke with such a funny sort of sadness. 'Be patient, my dear, ' hesaid. 'Treat us both with a little kindness. You're top dog. You haveall your life before you. Make allowances for two old people enteringsecond childhood. You'll be old some day, you know. ' And he said thiswith such a twisted sort of smile that I felt awfully sorry for him, and he saw it and opened out and told me how appalling it was to becomefeeble when the heart is as young as ever. I had no idea he felt likethat. "

"When I left him I tried hard to be as patient as he asked me to be andwait till Mother comes back and make the allowances he spoke about andgive up seeing you and all that. But when I got up to my room with theecho of Grandmother's rasping voice in my ears, the thought of beingshut up in the house for a week and treated like a lunatic was too muchfor me. What had I done that every other healthy girl doesn't do everyday without a question? How COULD I go on living there, watched andsuspected? How could I put up any longer with the tyranny of an oldlady who made me feel artificial and foolish and humiliated--a kind ofdoll stuffed with saw dust?

"Marty, I couldn't do it. I simply couldn't. Something went snap, and Ijust flung a few things into a suit-case, dropped it out the window, climbed down the creeper and made a dash for freedom. Nothing on earthwill ever take me back to that house again, nothing, nothing!"

All this had been said with a mixture of humor and emotion that carriedthe boy before it. He saw and heard everything as she described it. Hisown relations with his father, which had been so free and friendly, made Joan's with those two old people seem fantastic and impossible. All his sympathy went out to her. To help her to get away appealed tohim as being as humane as releasing a squirrel from a trap. No thoughtof the fact that she was a girl who had rushed impulsively into a mostawkward position struck him. Into his healthy mind no sex questionthrust itself. She was his friend, and as such, her claim upon him wasoverwhelming and unarguable. 

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Have you thought of anything?"

"Of course I have. In the morning, early, before they find out thatI've bolted, you must drive me to New York and take me to AlicePalgrave. She'll put me up, and I can telegraph to Mother for money tobuy clothes with. Does it occur to you, Marty, that you're the cause ofall this? If I hadn't turned and found you that afternoon, I shouldstill be eating my soul away and having my young life crushed. As itis, you've forced my hand. So you're going to take me to the magiccity, and if you want to see how a country cousin makes up for losttime and sets things humming, watch me!"

So they talked and talked, sitting in that room which was made the verysanctum of romance by young blood and moonlight. Eleven o'clock slippedby, and twelve and one; and while the earth slept, watched by a millionglistening eyes, and nature moved imperceptibly one step nearer tomaturity, this boy and girl made plans for the discovery of a world outof which so many similar explorers have crept with wounds andbitterness. 

They were wonderful and memorable hours, not ever to be lived again. They were the hours that all youth enjoys and delights in once--when, like gold-diggers arrived in sight of El Dorado, they halt and peer atthe chimera that lies at their feet--

"I'm going to make my mark, " Martin said. "I'm going to make somethingthat will last. My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'll make it MEANsome thing out there for his sake. "

"And I, " said Joan, springing to her feet and throwing up her chin, "will go joy-riding in the huge round-about. I've seen what it is to beold and useless, and so I shall make the most of every day and hourwhile I'm young. I can live only once, and so I shall make life spinwhatever way I want it to go. If I can get anybody to pay my whack, good. If not, I'll pay it myself--whatever it costs. My motto's goingto be a good time as long as I can get it, and who cares for the price?"

The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon themboth. "Yes, " he said, "you'll get a bill, all right. How did you knowthat?"

"I haven't lived with all those old people so long for nothing, " sheanswered. "But you won't catch me grumbling if I get half as much asI'm going out for. Listen to my creed, Martin, and take notes, if youwant to keep up with me. "

"Go ahead, " he said, watching the sparkle in her eyes. 

She squared her shoulders and folded her arms in a half-defiant way. "Ishall open the door of every known Blue Room--hurrying out again ifthere are ugly things inside, staying to enjoy them if they're good tolook at. I shall taste a little of every known bottle, feel everythingthere is to feel except the thing that hurts, laugh with any one whoselaugh is catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth inthe big Bazaar; and when I'm tired out and there's nothing left, Ishall slip out of the endless procession with a thousand things storedaway in my memory. Isn't that the way to live?"

From the superior height of twenty-four, Martin looked down on Joanindulgently. He didn't take her frank and unblushing individualismseriously. She was just a kid, he told himself. She was a girl who hadbeen caged up and held in. It was natural for her to say all those wildthings. She would alter her point of view as soon as the first surpriseof being free had worn off--and then he would speak; then he would askher to throw in her lot with his and walk in step with him along thestreet of adventure. 

"I sha'n't see the sun rise on this great day, " she said, letting ayawn have full play. "I'm sleepy, Marty. I must lie down this veryinstant, even if the floor's the only place you can offer me. Quick!What else is there?" Before he could answer, she had caught sight of alow, long, enticing divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure, she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little handunder her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort anddeliberately went to sleep. It was masterly. 

Martin, not believing that she could turn off so suddenly at a completetangent, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than along, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make outher outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to thehall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laidit gently and tenderly over the unconscious girl. 

He didn't intend to let sleep rob him of the first sight of a day thatwas to mean so much to him, and he went over to the open window, caughtthe scent of lilac and listened, with all his imagination and sense ofbeauty stirred, to the deep breathing of the night. .. . Yes, he had cutthrough the bars which had kept this girl from taking her place amongthe crowd. He was responsible for the fact that she was about to playher part in the comedy of life. He was glad to be responsible. He hadpassionately desired a cause to which to attach himself; and was there, in all the world, a better than Joan?

Spring had come again, and all things were young, and the call to materang in his ears and set his heart beating and his thoughts racingahead. He loved her, this girl that he had come upon standing out inall her freshness against a blue sky. He would serve her as the greatlovers had served, and please God, she would some day return his love. They would build up a home and bring up a family and go together up theinevitable hill. 

And as he stood sentinel, in a waking dream, waiting for the finger ofdawn to rub the night away, sleep tapped him on the shoulder, and heturned and went to the divan and sat down with his back to it, touchedone of Joan's placid hands with his lips and drifted into furtherdreams with a smile around his mouth. 

V

It was ten o'clock in the morning when Martin brought his car to a stopand looked up at the heavy Gothic decorations of a pompous house inEast Fifty-fifth Street. "Is this it?"

"Yes, " said Joan, getting out of the leather-lined coat that he hadwrapped her in. "It really is a house, isn't it; and luckily, all thegargoyles are on the outside. " She held out her hand and gave Martinthe sort of smile for which any genuine man would sell his soul. "Marty, " she added, "you've been far more than a brother to me. You'vebeen a cousin. I shall never be able to thank you. And I adored thedrive with our noses turned to the city. I shan't be able to be seen onthe streets until I've got some frocks, so please come and see me everyday. As soon as Alice has got over her shock at the sight of me, I'mgoing to compose an historical letter to Grandmother. "

"Let her down lightly, " said Martin, climbing out with the suit-case. "You've won. "

"Yes, that's true; but I shouldn't be a woman if I didn't get in thelast word. "

"You're not a woman, " said Martin. "You're a kid, and you're in NewYork, and you're light-headed; so look out. "

Joan laughed at his sudden gravity and ran up the wide steps and puther finger on the bell. "I've written down your telephone number, " shesaid, "and memorized your address. I'll call you up at three o'clockthis afternoon, and if you've nothing else to do, you may take me for awalk in the Park. "

"I sha'n't have anything else to do. "

The door was opened. The footman was obviously English, with the art offootmanism in his blood. 

"Is Mrs. Gilbert Palgrave at home?" asked Joan as if the question wereentirely superfluous. 

"No, miss. "

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, miss. Mrs. Palgrave left for Boston yesterday on accountof hillness in the family, miss. "

There was an awkward and appalled silence. Little did the man suspectthe kind of blow that his statement contained. 

Joan darted an agonized look at Martin. 

"But Mr. Palgrave is at 'ome, miss. "

And that galvanized the boy into action. He had met Gilbert Palgraveout hunting. He had seen the impertinent, cocksure way in which he ranhis eyes over women. He clutched the handle of the case and said:"That's all right, thanks. Miss Ludlow will write to Mrs. Palgrave. "Then he turned and went down the steps to the car. 

Trying to look unconcerned, Joan followed. 

"Get in, quick, " said Martin. "We'll talk as we go. "

"But why? If I don't stay here, where am I to stay?"

"I don't know. Please get in. "

Joan stood firm. The color had come back to her face, and a look ofsomething like anger had taken the place of fright. "I didn't tell youto march off like that. Gilbert's here. "

"That's why we're going, " Said Martin. 

"I don't understand. " Her eyes were blazing. 

"I know you don't. You can't stay in that house. It isn't done. "

"I can do it, and I must do it. Do you suppose I'm going back with mytail between my legs?"

"If we argue here, we shall collect a crowd. " He got into the car andheld out his hand. 

Joan ignored it but followed him in. She was angry, puzzled, disappointed, nonplussed. Alice had no right to be away on such anoccasion. Everything had looked so easy and smooth-sailing. Even Martinhad changed into a different man, and was ordering her about. If hethought he could drive her back to that prison again, he wasconsiderably wrong. She would never go back, never. 

The car was running slowly. "Have you any other friends in town?" askedMartin, who seemed to be trying to hide an odd kind of excitement. 

"No, " said Joan. "Alice is my only friend here. Drive to some placewhere I can call up Gilbert Palgrave and explain the whole thing. Whatdoes it matter about my being alone? If I don't mind, who should?Please do as I say. There's no other place for me to go to, and wildhorses sha'n't drag me back. "

"You sha'n't go back, " said Martin. He turned the car up Madison Avenueand drove without another word to East Sixty-seventh Street and stoppedin front of a small house that was sandwiched between a mansion and atwelve-story apartment-house. "This is mine, " he said simply. "Will youcome in?"

A smile of huge relief came into Joan's eyes. "Why worry?" she said. "How foolish of us not to have thought of this before!"

But there was no smile on Martin's face. His eyes were amazingly brightand his mouth set firmly. His chin looked squarer than ever. Once morehe carried out the suit-case, put a latchkey into the lock and threwback the door. Joan went in and stood looking about the cheery hallwith its old oak, and sporting prints, white wood and red carpet. "Oh, but this is perfectly charming, Marty, " she cried out. "Why did webother our heads about Alice when there is this haven of refuge?"

Martin marched up to her and stood eye to eye. "Because I'm alone, " hesaid, "and you're a girl. That's why. "

Joan made a face. "I see. The conventions again. Isn't there any sortof woman here?"

"Yes, the cook. "

She laughed. There was a comic side to this tragedy, after all, itseemed. "Well, perhaps she'll give us some scrambled eggs and coffee. Icould eat a horse. "

Martin opened the door of the sitting room. Like the one in which shehad slept so soundly the previous night, it was stamped with thecharacter and personality of the other Martin Gray. Books, warm andfriendly, lined the walls. Mounted on wood, fish of different sizes andbreeds hung above the cases, and over the fireplace there was afull-length oil painting of a man in a red coat and riding breeches. His kind eyes greeted Joan. 

For several minutes she stood beneath it, smiling back. Then she turnedand put her hand involuntarily on the boy's shoulder. "Oh, Marty!" shesaid. "I AM sorry. "

The boy gave one quick upward glance, and cleared his throat. "I toldyou that this house is mine. It isn't. It's yours. It's the only way, if you're to remain in the city. Is it good enough? Do you want to stayas much as all that?"

The puzzled look came back. For a moment Joan was silent, worrying outthe meaning of Martin's abrupt and rather cryptic words. There seemedto be a tremendous amount of fuss because she happened to be a girl. 

Martin spoke again before she had emerged from the thicket of inwardquestions. She was only eighteen, after all. 

"I mean, you can marry me if you like. " he said, "and then no one cantake you back. " He was amazed at his courage and hideously afraid thatshe would laugh at him. He had never dared to say how much he loved her. 

She did laugh, but with a ring of so much pleasure and relief that theblood flew to his head. "Why, Marty, what a brain! What organization!Of course I'll marry you. Why ever didn't we think of that last night?"

But before he could pull himself together a man-servant entered with anair of extreme surprise. "I didn't know you'd come home, sir, " he said, "until I saw the suit-case. " He saw Joan, and his eyes rounded. 

"I was just going to ring, " said Martin. "We want some breakfast. Willyou see to it, please?" Alone again, Martin held out his hand to Joan, in an odd, boyish way. And she took it, boyishly too. "Thank you, Marty, dear, " she said. "You've found the magic carpet. My troubles areover; and oh, what a pretty little bomb I shall have for Grandmamma!And now let's explore my house. If it's all like this, I shall simplylove it!" And away she darted into the hall. 

"And now, " said Joan, "being duly married, --and you certainly do makethings move when you start, Marty, --to send a telegram to Grandmother!Lead me to the nearest place. "

Certain that every person in that crowded street saw in them a newlymarried couple, Martin tried to hide his joy under a mask of extremecallousness and universal indifference. With the challenging antagonismof an English husband, --whose national habit it is invariably to stalkahead of his women-kind while they scramble along at his heels, --he ledthe way well in advance of his unblushing bride. But his eyes wereblack with emotion. He saw rainbows all over the sky, and rings ofbright light round the square heads of all the buildings which competedin an endeavor to touch the clouds; and there was a song in his heart. 

They sat down side by side in a Western Union office, dallied for amoment or two with the tied pencils the points of which are alwaysblunt, and to the incessant longs and shorts of a dozen telegraphinstruments they put their epoch-making news on the neat blanks. Martindid not intend to be left out of it. His best pal was off the map, andso he chose a second-best friend and wrote triumphantly: "Have beenmarried to-day. Staying in New York for honeymoon. How are you?" He wassorry that he couldn't remember the addresses of a hundred other men. He felt in the mood to pelt the earth with such telegrams as that. 

"Listen, " said Joan, her eyes dancing with mischief. "I think this is apretty good effort: 'Blessings and congratulations on her marriageto-day may be sent to Mrs. Martin Gray, at 26 East Sixty-seventhStreet, New York. --Joan. ' How's that?"

It was the first time the boy had seen that name, and he blinked andsmiled and got very red. "Terse and literary, " he said, dying to puthis arms round her and kiss her before all mankind. "They'll havesomething to talk about at dinner to-night. A nice whack in the eye forGleave. "

He managed to achieve a supremely blase air while the words were beingcounted, but it crumbled instantly when the telegraphist shot a quicklook at Joan and gave Martin a grin of cordial congratulation. 

As soon as he saw a taxi, Martin hailed it and told the chauffeur todrive to the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. "We'llwalk from there, " he said to Joan, "--if you'd like to, that is. "

"I would like to. I want to peer into the shop windows and look at hatsand dresses. I've got absolutely nothing to wear. Marty, tell me, arewe well off?"

Martin laughed. She reminded him of a youngster going for a picnic andpooling pocket money. "Yes, " he said, "--quite. "

She sat back with her hands crossed in her lap. "I'm so glad. Itsimplifies everything to have plenty to spend. " But for her exquisiteslightness and freshness, no one would have imagined that she was anonly just-fledged bird, flying for the first time. Her equability andpoise were those of a completely sophisticated woman. Nothing seemed tosurprise her. Whatever happened was all part and parcel of the greatadventure. Yesterday she was an overwatched girl, looking yearningly ata city that appeared to be unattainable. To-day she was a married womanwho, a moment ago, had been standing before a minister, binding herselffor good or ill to a man who was delightfully a boy and of whom sheknew next to nothing. What did it matter--what did anything matter--solong as she achieved her long-dreamed-of ambition to live and see life?

"Then I can go ahead, " she added, "and dress as becomes the wife of aman of one of our best families. I've never been able to dress before. Trust me to make an excellent beginning. " There was a twinkle of humorin her eyes as she said these things, and excitement too. "Tell methis, Marty: is it as easy to get unmarried as it is to get married?"

"You're not thinking about that already, surely!"

"Oh, no. But information is always useful, isn't it?"

Just for a moment the boy's heart went down into his boots. She didn'tlove him yet; he knew that He intended to earn her love as an honestman earns his living. What hurt was the note of flippancy in her voicein talking of an event that was to him so momentous and wonderful. Itseemed to mean no more to her to have entered into a lifelong tie thanthe buying of a mere hat--not so much, not nearly so much, as to havefound a way of not going back to those two old people in the country. She was young, awfully young, he told himself again. Presently her feetwould touch the earth, and she would understand. 

As they walked up Fifth Avenue and with little gurgles of enthusiasmJoan halted at every other shop to look at hats that appealed to Martinas absurdly, willfully freakish, and evening dresses which seemeddeliberately to have been handed over to a cat to be torn to ribbons, it came back to him that one just such soft spring evening, the yearbefore, he had walked home from the Grand Central Station and beenseized suddenly with an almost painful longing to be asked by someprecious person who belonged wholly to him to share her delight in allthe things which then stood for nothing in his life. Then and there hefulfilled an ambition long cherished and hidden away; he touched Joanon the arm and opened the elaborate door of a famous jeweler. He wasknown to the shop from the fact that he and his father had always dealtthere for wedding and Christmas presents. He was welcomed by a man inthe clothes of a concert singer and with the bedside manner of a familydoctor. 

He was desperately self-conscious, and his collar felt two sizes toosmall, but he managed to get into his voice a tone that wassufficiently matter-of-fact to blunt the edge of the man's ratherroguish smile. "Let me see your latest gold-mesh bags, " he said asordinary, everyday people ask to see collar studs. 

"Marty!" whispered Joan. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, that's all right, " said Martin. "You can't get along without abag, you see. "

Half a dozen yellow, insinuating things were laid out on the shiningglass, and with a wonderful smile that was worth all the gold the earthcontained to Martin, Joan made a choice--but not hastily, and notbefore she had inspected every other gold bag in the shop. Even ateighteen she was woman enough to want to be quite certain that shepossessed herself of the very best thing of its kind and would neverhave, in future, to feel jealous of one that might lie alluringly inthe window. 

"This one, " she said finally. "I'm quite sure. "

Martin didn't ask the price. It was for his bride. He picked it up andhung it over her wrist, said "The old address, " nodded to the man, --whowas just about to call attention to a tray of diamond brooches, --andled the way out, feeling at least six feet two. 

And as Joan regained the street, she passed another milestone in herlife. To be the proprietor of precisely just such a gold bag had beenone of her steady dreams. 

"Marty, " she said, "what a darling you are!"

The boy's eyes filled with tears. 

VI

It was an evening Martin would never forget. 

His suggestion that they should dine at Delmonico's and go to theEmpire to see Ethel Barrymore, accepted with avidity, had stirred Joanto immediate action. She had hailed a taxi, said, "You'll see me in anhour, Marty, " and disappeared with a quick injunction to have whatevershe bought sent home C. O. D. 

It was actually two hours before he saw her again. He thanked his starsthat he had enough money in the bank to meet the checks that he wasrequired to make out in quick succession. Joan had not wasted time, andas she got into the car to drive away from that sandwich house ofexcited servants, two other milestones had been left behind. She was ina real evening frock, and all the other things she had bought were silk. 

They drove straight home from the theater. Joan was tired. The day hadbeen long and filled with amazements. She was out in the world at last. Realization had exceeded expectation for the first time in history. 

The sand-man had been busy with Martin's eyes too, but he led the wayinto the dining room with shoulders square and chin high and spring inhis blood. This was home indeed. 

"What a tempting little supper!" said Joan. "And just look at all theseflowers. "

They were everywhere, lilacs and narcissi, daffodils, violets andhothouse roses. Hours ago he had sent out the almost unbelievingfootman for them. Joan and flowers--they were synonymous. 

She put her pretty face into a great bowl of violets. "You rememberedall my little friends, Marty, " she said. 

They sat opposite each other at the long table. Martin's father lookeddown at Martin's wife, and his mother at the boy from whom she had beentaken when his eager eyes came up to the level of her pillow. And therewas much tenderness on both their faces. 

Martin caught the manservant's eyes. "Don't wait, " he said. "We'll lookafter ourselves. "

Presently Joan gave a little laugh. "Please have something yourself. You're better than a footman. You're a butler. "

His smile as he took his place would have lighted up a tunnel. 

"I like Delmonico's, " said Joan. "We'll often dine there. And the playwas perfectly splendid. What a lot of others there are to see! I don'tthink we'll let the grass grow under our feet, Marty. And presentlywe'll have some very proper little dinner parties in this room, won'twe? Interesting, vital people, who must all be good-looking and young. It will be a long time before I shall want to see anyone old again. Think what Alice Palgrave will say when she comes back! She'llunderline every word if she can find any words. She wasn't married tillshe was twenty. "

And presently, having pecked at an admirable fruit salad, just sipped aglass of wine and made close-fitting plans that covered at least amonth, Joan rose. "I shall go up now, Marty, " she said. "It's twelveo'clock. "

He watched her go upstairs with his heart in his throat. Surely thiswas all a dream, and in a moment he would find himself rudely andcoldly awake, standing in the middle of a crowded, lonely world? Butshe stopped on the landing, turned, smiled at him and waved her hand. He drew in a deep breath, went back into the dining room, put his lipsto the violets that had been touched by her face, and switched off thelights. The scent of spring was in the air. 

"Come in, " she said, when presently, after a long pause, he knocked ather door. 

She was sitting at a gleaming dressing table in something white andclinging, doing her hair that was so soft and brown and electrical. 

He dared not trust himself to speak. He sat down on the edge of a sofaat the foot of the bed and watched her. 

She went on brushing but with her unoccupied hand gathered her gownabout her. "What is it, Marty?" she asked quietly. 

"Nothing, " he said, finding something that sounded curiously unlike hisvoice. 

She could see his young, eager face and broad shoulders in thelooking-glass. His hands were clasped tightly round one knee. 

"I've been listening to the sound of traffic, " she said. "That's thesort of music that appeals to me. It seems a year since I did my hairin that great, prim room and heard the owls cry and watched myself growold. Just think! It's really only a few hours ago that I dropped mysuit-case out of a window and climbed down the creeper. We said we'dmake things move, didn't we?"

"I shall write to your grandfather in the morning, " said Martin, withalmost comical gravity and an unconscious touch of patronage. Howchildlike the old are to the very young!

"That will be nice of you, " answered Joan. "We'll be very kind to him, won't we? There'll be no one to read the papers to him now. "

"He was a great chap once, " said Martin. "My father liked him awfully. "

She swung her hair free and turned her chair a little. "You must tellme what he said about him, in the morning. Heigh-ho, I'm so sleepy. "

Martin got up and went to see if the windows were all open. "They'llcall us at eight, " he said, "unless you'd like it to be later. "

Joan went to the door and opened it and held out her hand. "Eight'sgood, " she said. "Good night, Marty. "

The boy looked at the little open hand with its long fingers, and athis wife, who seemed so cool and sweet and friendly. What did she mean?

He asked her, with an odd catch in his voice. 

And she gave him the smile of a tired child. "Just that, old boy. Goodnight. "

"But--but we're married, " he said with a little stammer. 

"Do you think I can forget that, in this room, with that sound in thestreet?"

"Well, then, why say good night to me like this?"

"How else, Marty dear?"

An icy chill ran over Martin and struck at his heart. Was it reallytrue that she could stand there and hold out her hand and with thebeginning of impatience expect him to leave a room the right to whichhad been made over to him by law and agreement?

He asked her that, as well as he could, in steadier, kinder words thanhe need have used. 

And she dropped her hand and sighed a little. "Don't spoil everythingby arguing with me, Marty. I really am only a kid, you know. Be goodand run along now. Look--it's almost one. "

The blood rushed to his head, and he held out his hands to her. "But Ilove you. I love you, Joany. You can't--you CAN'T tell me to go. " Itwas a boy's cry, a boy profoundly, terribly hurt and puzzled. 

"Well, if we've got to go into all this now I may as well sit down, "she said, and did. "That air's rather chilly, too. " She folded her armsover her breast. 

It was enough. All the chivalry in Martin came up and choked his angerand bitterness and untranslatable disappointment. He went out and shutthe door and stumbled downstairs into the dark sitting room and stoodthere for a long time all among chaos and ruin. He loved her toadoration, and the spring was in his blood; and if she was young, shewas not so young as all that; and where was her side of the bargain?And at last, through the riot and jumble of his thoughts, her creed oflife came back to him, word for word: she took all she could get andgave nothing in return; and "Who cares?" was her motto. 

And after that he stood like a man balanced on the edge of a precipice. In cold blood he could go back and like a brute demand his price. Andif he went forward and let her off because he loved her so and was agentleman, down he must go, like a stone. 

He was very white, and his lips were set when he went up to his room. With curious deliberation he got back into his clothes and saw that hehad money, returned to the hall, put on his coat and hat, shut the doorbehind him and walked out under the stars. 

"All right, then, who cares?" he said, facing toward the "Great WhiteWay. " "Who the devil cares?"

And up in her room, with her hand under her cheek like a child, Joanhad left the world with sleep. 

PART TWO

THE ROUND-ABOUT

I

Alice Palgrave's partner had dealt, and having gone three in "notrumps" and found seven to the ace, king, queen in hearts lying beforeher in dummy, she wore a smile of beatific satisfaction. So also didAlice--for two reasons. The deal obviously spelled money, and VereMillet could be trusted to get every trick out of it. There were fourbridge tables fully occupied in the charming drawing-room, and as shecaught the hostess' eye and smiled, she felt just a little bit like afairy godmother in having surrounded Joan with so many of the smartestmembers of the younger set barely three weeks after her astonishingarrival in a city in which she had only one friend. 

Alice didn't blind herself to the fact that in order to gamble, most ofthe girls in the room would go, without the smallest discrimination, toanybody's house; but there were others, --notably Mrs. Alan Hosack, Mrs. Cooper Jekyll and Enid Ouchterlony, --whose pride it was to draw a hard, relentless line between themselves and every one, however wealthy, whodid not belong to families of the same, or almost the same, unquestionable standing as their own. Their presence in the littlehouse in East Sixty-seventh Street gave it, they were well aware, amost enviable cachet and placed Joan safely within the inner circle ofNew York society--the democratic royal inclosure. It was something tohave achieved so soon--little as Joan appeared, in her astonishingcoolness, to appreciate it. The Ludlows, as Joan had told Alice withone of her frequent laughs, might have come over in the only stateroomson the ship which towed the heavily laden Mayflower, but that didn'talter the fact that the Hosacks, the Jekylls and the Ouchterlonys werethe three most consistently exclusive and difficult families in thecountry, to know whom all social climbers would joyously mortgage theirchances of eternity. Alice placed a feather in her cap accordingly. 

Joan's table was the first to break up. She was a loser to the tune ofseventy dollars, and while she wrote her check to Marie Littlejohn, atiny blond exotic not much older than herself, --who laid down the lawwith the ripe authority of a Cabinet Minister and kept to a dailytime-table with the unalterable effrontery of a fashionabledoctor, --talked over her shoulder to Christine Hurley. 

"Alice tells me that your brother has gone to France with the CanadianFlying Corps. Aren't you proud of him?"

"I suppose so, but it isn't our war, and they're awfully annoyed aboutit at Piping Rock. He was the crack man of the polo team, you know. Idon't see that there was any need of his butting into this Europeanfracas. "

"I quite agree with you, " said Miss Littlejohn, with her eyes on theclock. "I broke my engagement to Metcalfe Hussey because he insisted ongoing over to join the English regiment his grandfather used to belongto. I've no patience with sentimentality. " She took the check andscrewed it into a small gold case. "I'm dining with my bandage-rollingaunt and going on to the opera. Thank goodness, the music will drownher war talk. Good-by. " She nodded here and there and left, to bedriven home with her adipose chow in a Rolls-Royce. 

Christine Hurley touched a photograph that stood on Joan's desk. "Who'sthis good-looking person?" she asked. 

"My husband, " said Joan. 

"Oh, really! When are we to see something of him?"

"Oh, I don't know, " said Joan. "He's about somewhere. "

Miss Hurley laughed. "It's like that already, is it? Haven't you onlyjust been married?"

"Yes, " said Joan lightly, "but we've begun where most people leave off. It's a great saving of time and temper!"

The sophisticated Christine, no longer in the first flush of giddyyouth, still unmarried after four enterprising years, was surprisedinto looking with very real interest at the girl who had been untilthat moment merely a hostess. Her extreme finish, her unself-consciousconfidence and intrepidity, her unassumed lightness of temper were notoften found in one so young and apparently virginal. She dismissed asunbelievable the story that this girl had been brought up in thecountry in an atmosphere of early Victorianism. She had obviously justcome from one of those elaborate finishing schools in which thedaughters of rich people are turned into hothouse plants by sycophantsand parasites and sent out into the world the most perfect specimens ofsuperautocracy, to patronize their parents, scoff at discipline, ignoreduty and demand the sort of luxury that brought Rome to its fall. Withadmiration and amusement she watched her say good-by to one woman afteranother as the various tables broke up. It really gave her quite amoment to see the way in which Joan gave as careless and unawed a handto Mrs. Alan Hosack and Mrs. Cooper Jekyll as to the Countess Palotta, who had nothing but pride to rattle in her little bag; and when finallyshe too drove away, it was with the uneasy sense of dissatisfactionthat goes with the dramatic critic from a production in which he hashonestly to confess that there is something new--and arresting. 

Alice Palgrave stayed behind. She felt a natural proprietary interestin the success of the afternoon. "My dear, " she said emotionally, "you're perfectly wonderful!"

"I am? Why?"

"To any other just-married girl this would have been an ordeal, anerve-wrecking event. But you've been as cool as a fish--I've beenwatching you. You might have been brought up in a vice-regal lodge andhobnobbed all your life with ambassadors. How do you do it?"

Joan laughed and threw out her arms. "Oh, I don't know, " she said, withher eyes dancing and her nostrils extended. "I don't stop to think howto do things. I just do them. These people are young and alive, andit's good to be among them. I work off some of my own vitality on themand get recharged at the sound of their chatter. People, people--giveme people and the clash of tongues and the sense of movement. I don'tmuch care who they are. I shall pick up all the little snobbish stuffsooner or later, of course, and talk about the right set and all that, as you do. I'm bound to. At present everything's new and exciting, andI'm whipping it up. You wait a little. I'll cut out some of the dulland pompous when I've got things going, and limit myself to red-bloodedspeed-breakers. Give me time, Alice. "

She sat down at the piano and crashed out a fox-trot that was all overtown. No one would have imagined from her freshness and vivacity thatshe had been dancing until daylight every night that week. 

"Well, " said Alice when she could be heard, "I see you making history, my dear; there's no doubt about that. "

"None whatever, " answered Joan. "I'm outside the walls at last, andI'll go the pace until the ambulance comes. "

"With or without Martin Gray?"

"With, if he's quick enough--without, if not. "

"Be careful, " said Alice. 

"Not I, my dear. I left care away back in the country with my littleold frocks. "

Alice held out her hand. "You bewilder me a little, " she said. "Youmake me feel as if I were in a high wind. You did when we were atschool, I remember. Well, don't bother to thank me for having got upthis party. " She added this a little dryly. 

With a most winning smile Joan kissed her. "You're a good pal, Alice, "she said, "and I'm very grateful. "

Alice was compensated, although her shrewd knowledge of character toldher how easily her friend won her points. "And I hope you're dulygrateful to Martin Gray?"

"To dear old Marty? Rather! He and I are great pals. "

But that was all Alice got. Her burning curiosity to know precisely howthis young couple stood must go unsatisfied for the time being. She hadonly caught a few fleeting glimpses of the man who had given Joan thekey to life, and every time had wondered, from something in his eyes, whether he found things wholly good. She was just a little suspiciousof romances. Her own had worn thin so quickly. "Good-by, my dear, " shesaid. "Don't forget you're dining with me to-morrow. "

"Not likely. "

"What are you doing to-night?"

"Going to bed at nine o'clock to sleep the clock round. I'm awfullytired. "

She stood quite still for many minutes after Alice had gone, and shuther eyes. In a quick series of moving pictures she saw thousands oflittle lights and swaying people and clashing colors, and caughtsnatches of lilting music and laughter. She was tired, and somethingthat seemed like a hand pressed her forehead tightly, but the near-bysound of incessant traffic sent her blood spinning, and she opened hereyes and gave a little laugh and went out. 

Martin was on his way downstairs. He drew up abruptly. "Oh, hello!" hesaid. 

"Oh, hello!" said Joan. 

He was in evening clothes. His face had lost its tan and his eyes theirclear country early-to-bed look. "You've had a tea-fight, I see. Ipeered into the drawing-room an hour ago and backed out, quick. "

"Why? They were all consumed with curiosity about you. Alice hasadvertised our romantic story, you see. " She clasped her hands togetherand adopted a pose in caricature of the play heroine in an ecstasy ofegomania. 

But Martin's laugh was short and hollow. He wasn't amused. "How did youget on?" he asked. 

"Lost seventy dollars--that's all. Three-handed bridge with Grandfatherand Grandmother was not a good apprenticeship. I must have a fewlessons. D'you like my frock? Come up. You can't see it from there. "

And he came up and looked at her as she turned this way and that. Howslim she was, and alluring! The fire in him flamed up, and his eyesflickered. "Awful nice!" he said. 

"You really like it?"

"Yes, really. You look beyond criticism in anything, always. "

Joan stretched out her hand. "Thank you, Marty, " she said. "You say anddo the most charming things that have ever been said and done. "

He bent over the long-fingered hand. His pride begged him not to lether see the hunger and pain that were in his eyes. 

"Going out?" she asked. 

Martin gave a careless glance at one of B. C. Koekkoek's inimitableDutch interiors that hung between two pieces of Flemish tapestry. Hisvoice showed some of his eagerness, though. "I was going to have dinnerwith some men at the University Club, but I can chuck that and take youto the Biltmore or somewhere else if you like. "

Joan shook her head. "Not to-night, Marty. I'm going to bed early, fora change. "

"Aren't you going to give me one evening, then?" His question wasapparently as casual as his attitude. He stood with his hands in hispockets and his legs wide apart and his teeth showing. He might havebeen talking to a sister. 

"Oh, lots, presently. I'm so tired to-night, old boy. "

He would have given Parnassus for a different answer. "All right then, "he said. "So long. "

"So long, Marty! Don't be too late. " She nodded and smiled and wentupstairs. 

And he nodded and smiled and went down--to the mental depths. "What amI to do?" he asked himself. "What am I to do?" And he put his arms intothe coat that was held out and took his hat. In the street the softApril light was fading, and the scent of spring was blown to him fromthe Park. He turned into Fifth Avenue in company with a horde ofquestions that he couldn't shake off. He couldn't believe that any ofall this was true. Was there no one in all this world of people whowould help him and give him a few words of advice? "Oh, Father, " hesaid from the bottom of his heart, "dear old Father, where are you?"

The telephone bell was ringing as Joan went into her room. GilbertPalgrave spoke--lightly and fluently and with easy words of flattery. 

She laughed and sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs and putthe instrument on her knee. "You read all that in a book, " she said. "I'm tired. Yesterday and the night before. .. No. .. No. .. All right, then. Fetch me in an hour. " She put the receiver back. 

"Why not?" she said to herself, ringing for her maid. "Bed's for oldpeople. Thank God, I sha'n't be old for a century. "

She presented her back to the deft-fingered girl and yawned. But thenear-by clatter of traffic sounded in her ears. 

II

Gilbert Palgrave turned back to his dressing table. An hour gave himample time to get ready. 

"Don't let that bath get cold, " he said. "And look here. You may takethose links out. I'll wear the pearls instead. "

The small, eel-like Japanese murmured sibilantly and disappeared intothe bathroom. 

This virginal girl, who imagined herself able to play with fire withoutburning her fingers, was providing him with most welcome amusement. Andhe needed it. He had been considerably bored of late--always adangerous mood for him to fall into. He was thirty-one. For ten yearshe had paid far more than there had been any necessity to keepconstantly amused, constantly interested. Thanks to a shrewd ancestorwho had bought large tracts of land in a part of Manhattan which hadthen been untouched by bricks and mortar, and to others, equallyshrewd, who had held on and watched a city spreading up the Island likea mustard plant, he could afford whatever price he was asked to pay. Whole blocks were his where once the sheep had grazed. 

Ingenuity to spend his income was required of Palgrave. He possessedthat gift to an expert degree. But he was no easy mark, no meredegenerate who hacked off great chunks of a splendid fortune for thesake of violent exercise. He was too indolent for violence, tooinherently fastidious for degeneracy. And deep down somewhere in anature that had had no incentive to develop, there was the fag end ofthat family shrewdness which had made the early Palgraves envied andmaligned. Tall and well built, with a handsome Anglo-Saxon type offace, small, soft, fair mustache, large, rather bovine gray eyes, and adeep cleft in his chin, he gave at first sight an impression ofstrength--which left him, however, when he spoke to pretty women. Itwas not so much the things he said, --light, jesting, personalthings, --as the indications they gave of the overweening vanity of thespoiled boy and of a brain which occupied itself merely with the fluffand thistledown of life. He was, and he knew it and made no effort todisguise the fact, a typical specimen of the very small class ofindolent bystanders made rich by the energy of other men who are to befound in every country. He was, in fact, the peculiar type ofaristocrat only to be found in a democracy--the aristocrat not of bloodand breeding or intellect, but of wealth. He was utterly without anyambition to shine either in social life or politics, or to achieveadvertisement by the affectation of a half-genuine interest in anycause. On the contrary, he reveled in being idle and indifferent, andunlike the aristocrats of Europe he refused to catch that archaichabit, encouraged at Eton and Oxford, of relating everything in theuniverse to the standards and prejudices of a single class. 

Palgrave was triumphantly one-eyed and selfish; but he waited, with asort of satirical wistfulness, for the time when some one person shouldcause him to stand eager and startled in a chaos of individualism andindolence and shake him into a Great Emotion. He had looked for her atall times and places, though without any troublesome optimism orpersonal energy, and had almost come to believe that she was to himwhat the end of the rainbow is to the idealist. In marrying Alice hehad followed the path of least resistance. She was young, pretty andcharming, and had been very much in love with him. Also it pleased hismother, and she had been worth pleasing. He gave his wife all that shecould possibly need, except very much of himself. She was a perfectlydear little soul. 

Joan only kept him waiting about fifteen minutes. With perfect patiencehe stood in front of an Italian mirror in the drawing-room, smoking acigarette through a long tortoise-shell holder. He regarded himselfwith keen and friendly interest, not in the least surprised that hiswife's little friend from the country so evidently liked him. He foundthat he looked up to his best form, murmured a word of praise for themanner in which his evening coat was cut and smiled once or twice inorder to have the satisfaction of getting a glimpse of his peculiarlygood teeth. Then he laughed, called himself a conceited ass and wentover to examine a rather virile sketch of a muscular, deep-chestedyoung man in rowing costume which occupied an inconspicuous place amongmany well-chosen pictures. He recognized Martin, whom he had seenseveral times following the hounds, and tried to remember if Alice hadtold him whether Joan had run away with this strenuous young fellow orbeen run away with by him. There was much difference between the twomethods. 

He heard nothing, but caught the scent of Peau d'Espagne. It carriedhis mind back to a charming little suite in the Hotel de Crillon inParis. He turned and found Joan standing in the doorway, watching him. 

"Did you ever row?" she asked. 

"No, " he said, "never. Too much fag. I played squash and roulette. Youlook like a newly risen moon in her first quarter. Where would you liketo go?"

"I don't know, " said Joan. "Let's break away from the conventionalplaces. I rather want to see queer people and taste different food. Butdon't let's discuss it. I leave it to you. " She went downstairs. Shemight have been living in that house for years. 

He followed, admiring the way her small, patrician head was set on hershoulders, and the rich brown note of her hair. Extraordinary littleperson, this! He told his chauffeur to drive to the Brevoort, and gotinto the car. It was possible at that hour to deal with the Avenue as astreet and not as a rest-cure interrupted by short spurts. 

"Would you rather the windows were up, Gehane?" he asked, looking ather through his long lashes. 

"No. The air's full of new ferns. But why Gehane?"

"You remind me of her, and I'm pretty certain that you also could doyour hair in the same two long braids. Given the chance, I can see youdeveloping into some-thing like medievalism and joining the ranks ofwomen who loved greatly. "

They passed the Plaza with all its windows gleaming, like a giant'shouse in a fairy tale. 

Joan shook her head. "No, " she said. "No. I'm just the last word ofthis very minute. Everybody in America for a hundred and fifty yearshas worked to make me. I'm the reward of mighty effort. I'm thedream-child of the pioneers, as far removed from them as the chimney ofthe highest building from the rock on which it's rooted. "

Palgrave laughed a little. "It appears that you did some thinking outthere in your country cage. "

"Thinking! That's all I had to do! I spent a lifetime standing on thehill with the woods behind me trying to catch the music of this street, the sound of this very car, and I thought it all out, every bit of it. "

"Every bit of what?"

"Life and death and the great hereafter, " she said, "principally life. That's why I'm going out to dinner with you instead of going early tobed. "

The glare of a lamp silvered her profile and the young curve of herbosom. Somewhere, at some time, Palgrave had knelt humbly, with strangeanguish and hunger, at the feet of a girl with just that young proudface and those unawakened eyes. The memory of it was like an echo of anecho. 

"Why, " said Joan, halting for a moment on her way to the steps of theold hotel, "this looks like a picture postcard of a bit of Paris. "

"Yes, on the other side of the Seine, near the Odeon. Our grandfathersimagined that they were very smart when they stayed here. It's one ofthe few places in town that has atmosphere. "

"I like it, " said Joan. 

The hall was alive with people, laughing and talking, and the wallswith the rather bold designs of the posters. A band, which made up invim and go what it lacked in numbers, was playing a selection from "TheChocolate Soldier. " The place was full of the smell of garlic andcigarette smoke and coffee. There was a certain dramatic animationamong the waiters, characteristically Latin. Few of the diners woreevening clothes. The walls were refreshingly free from the hideous golddecorations of the average hotel. 

Men stared at Joan with undisguised interest and approbation. Hervirginity was like the breath of spring in the room. Women looked afterPalgrave in the same way. Into that semi-Bohemianism he struck a rathersurprising note, like the sudden advent of caviar and champagne upon atable of beer and pickles. 

They were given a table near the wall by the window, far too close toother tables for complete comfort. Waiters were required to be gymnaststo slide between them and avoid an accident. Palgrave ordered withoutany hesitation, like a newspaper man finding his way through a dailypaper. 

"How do you like it?" he said. 

Joan looked about her. Mostly the tables were occupied by a man and awoman, but at a few were four and six of both in equal numbers, andhere and there parties of men. At one or two, women with eccentricheads sat together in curious garments which had the appearance ofbeing made at home on the spur of the moment. They smoked betweenmouthfuls and laughed without restraint. Some of the men wore longishhair and the double tie of those who wish to be mistaken fordramatists. Others affected a poetic disarrangement of collar, andfantastic beards. There were others who had wandered over the border ofmiddle age and who were bald and strangely adipose, with mackerel eyesand unpleasant mouths. They were with young girls, gaudily but shabbilydressed, shopgirls perhaps, or artists' models or stenographers, who indull and sordid lives grappled any chance to obtain a square meal, evenif it had to be accessory to such companionship. The minority of menpresent was made up of honest, clean, commonplace citizens who werethere for a good dinner in surroundings that offered a certain stimulusto the imagination. 

"Who are they all?" asked Joan, beating time with a finger to thelilting tune which the little band had just begun, with obviousenjoyment. "Adventurers, mostly, I imagine, " replied Palgrave, notunpleased to play Baedeker to a girl who was becoming more and moreattractive to him. "I mean people who live by their wits--writers, illustrators, actors, newspaper men, with a smattering of Wall Streetbrokers seeking a little mild diversion as we are, and foreigners towhom this place has a sentimental interest because it reminds them ofhome. Sophisticated children, most of them, optimists with moments ofhideous pessimism, enthusiasts at various stages of Parnassus, the peakof which is lighted with a huge dollar sign. A friendly, kindly lot, hard-working and temperamental, with some brilliance and a rather highlevel of cleverness--slaves of the magazine, probably, and thereforenot able to throw stones farther into the future than the end of themonth. This is not a country in which literature and art can ever growbig; the cost of living is too high. The modern Chatterton detestsgarrets and must drive something with an engine in it, whatever thename it goes by. "

There was one electrical moment during the next hour which shook thecomplacency of every one in the larger room and forced the thoughts, even of those who deliberately turned their backs to the drama ofEurope, out across the waters which they fondly and fatuously hoped cutoff the United States from ever being singed by the blaze. The littleband was playing one of those rather feeble descriptive pieces whichbegin with soft, peaceful music with the suggestion of the life of afarmyard, and the sound of church bells, swing into the approach ofarmed men with shrill bugle calls, become chaotic with the rush offearful women and children, and the commencement of heavy artillery, and wind up with the broad triumphant strains of a national anthem. Ithappened, naturally enough, that the particular national anthem chosenby the energetic and patriotic man who led the band at the piano was"The Marseillaise. "

The incessant chatter and laughter went on as usual. The music had nomore effect upon the closely filled room than a hackneyed ragtime. Suddenly, as the first few notes of that immortal air rang out, alittle old white-haired man, dining in a corner with a much-bosomed, elderly woman, sprang to his feet and in a voice vibrating with thefervor of emotion screamed "Vive la France--vive la patrie!" again andagain. 

Instantly, from here and there, other men, stout and middle-aged, lifted out of their chairs by this intense and beautiful burst offeeling, joined in that old heart-cry, and for two or three shatteringminutes the air was rent with hoarse shouts of "Vive Joffre, " "Vive laFrance, " "Vive la patrie, " to the louder and louder undercurrent ofmusic. Indifference, complacency, neutrality, gave way. There was ageneral uprising and uproar; and America, as represented by that ollapodrida of the professions, including the one which is the oldest inthe world, paid homage and tribute and yelled sympathy to those fewFrenchmen among them whose passionate love of country found almosthysterical vent at the sound of the hymn which had stirred all Franceto a height of bravery and sacrifice never before reached in thehistory of nations. 

There were one or two hisses and several scoffing laughs, but thesewere instantly drowned by vigorous hand-clapping. The next moment theroom resumed its normal appearance. 

When Palgrave, who had been surprised to find himself on his feet, satdown again, he saw that Joan's lips were trembling and that there weretears in her eyes. He gave a little laugh, but before he could say anything, her hand was on his arm. "No, don't, " she said. "Let it gowithout a single word. It was too good for sarcasm. "

"Oddly enough, I had no sarcasm ready, " replied Palgrave. "When ourtime comes, I wonder whether we shall have an eightieth part of thatenthusiasm for our little old tune. What do you think?"

"Our time? What time?"

"The time when we have to get into this melee or become the pariah dogamong countries. I don't profess to any knowledge of internationalaffairs, but any fool can see that our sham neutrality will be the mostcostly piece of political blundering ever perpetrated in history. Herewe are in 1915. The war's nine months old. For every day we stand asidewe shall eventually pay a year's bill. "

"That's all too deep for me, " said Joan. "And anyway, I shan't be askedto pay anything. What shall we do now?"

"What would you like to do? Go on to the Ritz and dance?" He had asudden desire to hold this girl in his arms. 

"Why not? I'm on the verge of getting fed up with this place. Let'sgive civilization a turn. "

"I think so. " He beckoned to his waiter. "The check, " he said. "Sharp'sthe word, please. "

The Crystal Room was not content with one band. Even musicians mustsometimes pause for breath, and anything like a break in the jangle andnoise might bring depression to the diners who had crowded in to dance. As soon, therefore, as the left band was exhausted, the one on theright sprang in with renewed and feverish energy. Whatever melody theremight have been in the incessant ragtime and fox trots was lost beneaththe bang and clang of drum and cymbals, to which had been added othermore ingenious ear tortures in the shape of rattles and whistles. Broken-collared men and faded women struggled for elbow room like amass of flies caught on sticky paper. There was something bothheathenish and pathetic in the whole thing. The place was reekingly hot. 

"Come on, " said Joan, her blood stirred by the movement and sound. 

Palgrave held her close and edged his way into the crowd betweenpointed bare elbows and tightly clasped hands. 

"They call this dancing!" he said. 

"What do you call it?"

"A bullfight in Hades. " And he laughed and put his cheek against herhair and held her young slim body against his own. What did he carewhat it was or where they were? He had all the excuse that he needed toget the sense and scent of her. His utter distaste of being bruised andbumped, and of adding himself to a heterogeneous collection of peoplewith no more individuality than sheep, who followed each other fromplace to place in flocks after the manner of sheep, left him. This girlwas something more than a young, naive creature from the country, childishly keen to do everything and go everywhere at feverheat--something more than the very epitome of triumphant youth as cleanand sweet as apple blossoms, with whom to flirt and pose as being theblase man of the world, the Mr. Know-All of civilization, a wild flowerin a hot house. Attracted at once by her exquisite coloring anddelicious profile, and amused by her imperative manner and intolerantpoint of view, he had now begun to be piqued and intrigued by herinsurgent way of treating marriage and of ignoring her husband--by herassumption of sexlessness and the fact that she was unmoved by hiscompliments and looked at him with eyes in which there was no remotesuggestion of physical interest. 

And it was this attitude, new to him hitherto on his easy way, thatbegan to challenge him, to stir in him a desire to bring her down tohis own level, to make her fall in love and become what he calledhuman. He had given her several evenings, and had put himself out tocater to her eager demand to see life and burn the night away in crowdsand noise. He had treated her, this young, new thing, as he was in thehabit of treating any beautiful woman with whom he was on the verge ofan affair and who realized the art of give and take. But more than evershe conveyed the impression of sex detachment to which he was whollyunaccustomed. He might have been any inarticulate lad of her own age, useful as a companion, to be ordered to fetch and carry, dance or walk, go or come. At that moment there was no woman in the city for whom hewould undergo the boredom and the bruising and the dementia of such aplace as the one to which she had drawn him. He was not a provincialwho imagined that it was the smart thing to attend this dull orgy andstruggle on a polished floor packed as in a sardine tin. Years ago hehad outgrown cabaret mania and recovered from the fascination ofsyncopation. And yet here he was, once more, against all hisfastidiousness, playing the out-of-town lad to a girl who tookeverything and gave nothing in return. It was absurd, fantastic. He wasGilbert Palgrave, the man who picked and chose, for whose attentionsmany women would give their ears, who stood in satirical aloofness fromthe general ruck; and as he held Joan in his arms and made sporadicefforts to dance whenever there was a few inches of room in which to doso, using all his ingenuity to dodge the menace of the elbows and feetof people who pushed and forced as though they were in a subway crush, he told himself that he would make it his business from that momentonward to lay siege to Joan, apply to her all his well-proved gifts ofattraction and eventually make her pay his price for services rendered. 

He had just arrived at this cold-blooded determination when, to hiscomplete astonishment and annoyance, a strong, muscular form thrustitself roughly between himself and Joan and swept her away. 

III

"Marty!" cried Joan. 

There was a curious glint in Martin's gray eyes, like the flash ofsteel in front of a window. His jaw was set, and his face strangelywhite. 

"You said you were going to bed. "

"I was going to bed, Marty dear. "

"What are you doing here, then?"

"I changed my mind, old boy, and went out to dinner. "

"Chucked me in favor of Palgrave. "

"No, I didn't. "

"What then?"

"He rang up after you'd gone; and going to bed like an old crock seemedsilly and feeble, and so I dressed and went out. "

"Why with that rotter Palgrave?"

"Why not? And why rotter?"

"You don't answer my question!"

"Have I got to answer your question?"

"You're my wife, although you don't seem to know it; and I object toPargrave. "

"I can't help that, Marty. I like him, you see, and humble littleperson as I am, I can't be expected to turn my back on every one exceptthe men you choose for me. "

"I don't choose any men for you. I want you for myself. "

"Dear old Marty, but you've got me forever!"

"No, I haven't. You're less mine now than you were when I only saw youin dreams. But all the same you're my wife, and I tell you now, yousha'n't be handled by a man like Palgrave. "

They were in the middle of the floor. There were people all round them, thickly. They were obliged to keep going in that lunatic movement or berun down. What a way and in what a place to bare a bleeding heart!

For the first time since he had answered to her call and found herstanding clean-cut against the sky, Martin held Joan in his arms. Hisjoy in doing so was mixed with rage and jealousy. It had been worsethan a blow in the mouth suddenly to see her, of whom he had thought asfast asleep in what was only the mere husk of home, dancing with a manlike Palgrave. 

And her nearness maddened him. All the starved and pent-up passion thatwas in him flamed and blazed. It blinded him and buzzed in his ears. Heheld her so tight and so hungrily that she could hardly breathe. Shewas his, this girl. She had called him, and he had answered, and shewas his wife. He had the right to her by law and nature. He adored herand had let her off and tried to be patient and win his way to her bylove and gentleness. But with his lips within an inch of her sweet, impertinent face, and the scent of her hair in his brain, and the woundthat she had opened again sapping his blood, he held her to his heartand charged the crowd to the beat of the music, like a man intoxicated, like a man heedless of his surroundings. He didn't give a curse whooverheard what he said, or saw the look in his eyes. She had turned himdown, this half-wife, on the plea of weariness; and as soon as he hadleft the house to go and eat his heart out in the hub of that swarminglonely city, she had darted out with this doll-man whom he wouldn'thave her touch with the end of a pole. There was a limit to all things, and he had come to it. 

"You're coming home, " he said. 

"Marty, but I can't. Gilbert Palgrave--"

"Gilbert Palgrave be damned. You're coming home, I tell you, if I haveto carry you out. "

She laughed. This was a new Marty, a high-handed, fiery Marty--one whomust not be encouraged. "Are you often like this?" she asked. 

"Be careful. I've had enough, and if you don't want me to smash thisplace up and cause a riot, you'll do what I tell you. "

Her eyes flashed back at him, and two angry spots of color came intoher cheeks. He was out of control. She realized that. She had never inher life seen any one so out of control--unaccountable as she found it. That he would smash up the place and cause a riot she knewinstinctively. She put up no further opposition. If anything were to beavoided, it was a scene, and in her mind's eye she could see herselfbeing carried out by this plunging boy, with a yard of stocking showingand the laughter of every one ringing in her ears. No, no, not that!She began to look for Palgrave, with her mind all alert and full of amischievous desire to turn the tables on Martin. He must be shownquickly that if any one gave orders, she did. 

He danced her to the edge of the floor, led her panting through thetables to the foot of the stairs and with his hand grasping her armlike a vice, guided her up to the place where ladies left their wraps. 

"We're going home, " he said, "to have things out. I'll wait here. " Thenhe called a boy and told him to get his hat and coat and gave him hischeck. 

Five minutes later, in pulsating silence, both of them angry andinarticulate, they stood in the street waiting for a taxi. The soft airtouched their hot faces with a refreshing finger. Hardly any one whosaw that slip of a girl and that square-shouldered boy with his unlinedface would have imagined that they could be anything but brother andsister. The marriage of babies! Was there no single apostle of commonsense in all the country--a country so gloriously free that it grantedlicenses to every foolishness without a qualm?

Palgrave was standing on the curb, scowling. His car moved up, and theporter went forward to open the door. As quick as lightning, Joan sawher chance to put Martin into his place and evade an argument. Wasn'tshe out of that old country cage at last? Couldn't she revel in freeflight without being called to order and treated like a school-girl, atlast? What fun to use Palgrave to show Martin her spirit!

She touched him on the arm and looked up at him with dancing eyes and ateasing smile. "Not this time, Marty, " she said, and was across thesidewalk in a bound. "Quick, " she said to Palgrave. "Quick!" And he, catching the idea with something more than amusement, sprang into thecar after her, and away they went. 

A duet of laughter hung briefly in the air. 

With all the blood in his head, Martin, coming out of utter surprise, made a dash for the retreating car, collided with the porter and stoodruefully and self-consciously over the burly figure that had gone downwith a crash upon the pavement. 

It was no use. Joan had been one too many for him. What, in any case, was the good of trying to follow? She preferred Palgrave. She had nouse, at that moment, for home. She was bored at the mere idea oftalking things over. She was not serious. She refused to be faced upwith seriousness. She was like a precocious child who snapped herfingers at authority and pursued the policy of the eel at the approachof discipline. What had she cried out that night in the dark with herchin tilted up and her arms thrown out? "I shall go joy-riding in thathuge round-about. If I can get anybody to pay my score, good. If not, I'll pay it myself, whatever it costs. My motto's going to be 'A goodtime as long as I can get it, and who cares for the price!'"

Martin helped the porter to his feet, stanched his flow of County Kerryreproaches with a ten-dollar bill and went back into the Crystal Room. He had gone there half an hour ago with a party of young people to killloneliness and forget a bad hour of despair. His friend, HowardOldershaw, who had breezed him out of the reading room of the YaleClub, was one of the party. He was in the first flush of speed-breakingand knew the town and its midnight haunts. He had offered to showMartin the way to get rid of depression. Right! He should be put to thetest. Two could play the "Who cares?" game; and Martin, cut to thequick, angry and resisted, would enter his name. Not again would he puthimself in the way of being laughed at and ridiculed and turned down, teased and tantalized and made a fool of. 

Patience and gentleness--to what end? He loved a will-o'-the-wisp; hehad married a butterfly. Why continue to play the martyr and follow thefruitless path of rectitude? Hadn't she said, "I can only live once, and so I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go?" He couldonly live once, and if life was not to spin with her, let it spinwithout her. "Who cares?" he said to himself. "Who the devil cares?" Hegave up his coat and hat, and went back into that room of false joy andsyncopation. 

It was one o'clock when he stood in the street once more, hot and winedand careless. "Let's hit it up, " he said to Oldershaw as the car movedaway with the sisters and cousins of the other two men. "I haven'tstarted yet. "

The red-haired, roistering Oldershaw, newly injected with the virus ofthe Great White Way, clapped him on the back. "Bully for you, old son, "he said. "I'm in the mood to paint the little old town. I left my carround the corner in charge of a down-at-heel night-bird. Come on. Let'sgo and see if he's pinched it. "

It was one of those Italian semi-racing cars with a body which gave itthe naked appearance of a muscular Russian dancer dressed in a skin anda pair of bangles. The night-bird, one of the large army of citygypsies who hang on to life by the skin of their teeth, was sitting onthe running board with his arms folded across his shirtless chest, smoking a salvaged cigar, dreaming, probably, of hot sausages andcoffee. He afforded a striking illustration of the under dog cringingcontentedly at the knees of wealth. 

"Good man, " said Oldershaw, paying him generously. "Slip aboard, Martin, and I'll introduce you to one of the choicest dives I know. "

But the introduction was not to be effected that night, at any rate. Driving the car as though it were a monoplane in a clear sky, with anopen throttle that awoke the echoes, Oldershaw charged into FifthAvenue and caught the bonnet of a taxicab that was going uptown. Therewas a crash, a scream, a rending of metal. And when Martin pickedhimself up with a bruised elbow and a curious sensation of havingstopped a punching bag with his face, he saw Oldershaw bending over thecrumpled body of the taxi driver and heard a girl with red lips and asmall white hat calling on Heaven for retribution. 

"Some men oughtn't to be trusted with machinery, " said Oldershaw withhis inevitable grin. "If I can yank my little pet out of thisbuckled-up lump of stuff, I'll drive that poor chap to the nearesthospital. Look after the angel, Martin, and give my name and address tothe policeman. As this is my third attempt to kill myself this month, things ought to settle down into humdrum monotony for a bit now. "

Martin went over to the girl. "I hope you're not hurt?" he asked. 

"Hurt?" she cried out hysterically, feeling herself all over. "Ofcourse I'm hurt. I'm crippled for life. My backbone's broken; I shallhave water on both knees, a glass eye and a mouth full of store teeth. But you don't care, you Hun. You like it. "

And on she went, at the top of her voice, in an endless flow of farceand tragedy, crying and laughing, examining herself with eager hands, disbelieving more and more in the fact that she was still in the onlyworld that mattered to her. 

Having succeeded in backing his dented car out of the debris, Oldershawleaped out. His face had been cut by the glass of the brokenwindshield. Blood was trickling down his fat, good-natured face. Hishat was smashed and looked like that of the tramp cyclist of thevaudeville stage. "All my fault, old man, " he said in his bestirrepressible manner, as a policeman bore down upon him. "Help me tohike our prostrate friend into my car, and I'll whip him off to ahospital. He's only had the stuffing knocked out of him. It's no worsethan that. .. . That's fine. Big chap, isn't he--weighs a ton. I'll getoff right away, and my friend there will give you all you want to know. So long. " And off he went, one of his front wheels wabbling foolishly. 

The policeman was not Irish or German-American. He was thereforeneither loud nor browbeating. He was dry, quiet and accurate, and itseemed to Martin that either he didn't enjoy being dressed in a littlebrief authority or was a misanthrope, eager to return to his noiselessand solitary tramp under the April stars. Martin gave him Oldershaw'sfull name and address and his own; and the girl, still shrill andshattered, gave hers, after protesting that all automobiles ought to beput in a gigantic pile and scrapped, that all harum-scarum young menshould be clapped in bed at ten o'clock and that all policemen shouldbe locked up in their stations to play dominoes. "If it'll do you anygood to know it, " she said finally, "it's Susie Capper, commonly called'Tootles. ' And I tell you what it is. If you come snooping round myplace to get me before the beak, I'll scream and kick, so help me Bob, I will. " There was an English cockney twang in her voice. 

The policeman left her in the middle of a paean, with the wounded taxiand Martin, and the light of a lamp-post throwing up the unnatural redof her lips on a pretty little white face. He had probably gone to callup the taxicab company. 

Then she turned to Martin. "The decent thing for you to do, Mr. Nut, isto see me home, " she said. "I'm blowed if I'm going to face any moreattempts at murder alone. My word, what a life!"

"Come along, then, " said Martin, and he put his hand under her elbow. That amazing avenue, which had the appearance of a great, deep cut downthe middle of an uneven mountain, was almost deserted. From the longline of street lamps intermittent patches of light were reflected asthough in glass. The night and the absence of thickly crawling motorsand swarming crowds gave it dignity. A strange, incongruous Orientalnote was struck by the deep red of velvet hangings thrown up by thelights in a furniture dealer's shop on the second floor of a whitebuilding. 

"Look for a row of women's ugly wooden heads painted by some onesuffering from delirium tremens, " said Miss Susie Capper as they turneddown West Forty-sixth Street. "It's a dressmaker's, although you mightthink it was an asylum for dope fiends. I've got a bedroom, sitter andbath on the top floor. The house is a rabbit warren of bedrooms, sitters and baths, and in every one of them there's some poor deviltrying to squeeze a little kindness out of fate. That wretched taxidriver! He may have a wife waiting for him. Do you think thatred-haired feller's got to the hospital yet? He had a nice cut on hisown silly face--and serve him right! I hope it'll teach him that hehasn't bought the blooming world--but of course it won't. He's the sortthat never gets taught anything, worse luck! Nobody spanked him when hewas young and soft. Come on up, and you shall taste my scrambled eggs. I'll show you what a forgiving little soul I am. "

She laughed, ran her eyes quickly over Martin, and opened the door witha latchkey. Half a dozen small letter boxes were fastened to the wall, with cards in their slots. 

"Who the devil cares?" said Martin to himself, and he followed the girlup the narrow, ill-lighted staircase covered with shabby carpet. Two orthree inches of white stockings gleamed above the drab uppers of herhigh-heeled boots. Outside the open door of a room on the first floorthere was a line of milk bottles, and Martin sighted a man in shirtsleeves, cooking sausages on a small gas jet in a cubby-hole. He lookedup, and a cheery smile broke out on his clean-shaven face. There wasbrown grease paint on his collar. "Hello, Tootles, " he called out. 

"Hello, Laddy, " she said. "How'd it go to-night?"

"Fine. Best second night in the history of the theater. Come in andhave a bite. "

"Can't. Got company. "

And up they went, the aroma following. 

A young woman in a sky-blue peignoir scuttled across the next landing, carrying a bottle of beer in each hand. There was a smell of onions andhot cheese. "What ho, Tootles, " she said. 

"What ho, Irene. Is it true they've put your notice up?"

"Yep, the dirty dogs! Twelve weeks' rehearsals and eight nights'playing! Me for the novelties at Gimbel's, if this goes on. "

A phonograph in another room ground out an air from "Boheme. "

They mounted again. "Here's me, " said Miss Capper, waving her hand to aman in a dirty dressing gown who was standing on the threshold of thefront apartment, probably to achieve air. The room behind him was foggywith tobacco smoke which rose from four men playing cards. He himselfwas conspicuously drunk and would have spoken if he had been able. Asit was, he nodded owlishly and waggled his fingers. 

The girl threw open her door and turned up the light. "England, Homeand Beauty, " she said. "Excuse me while I dress the ship. "

Seizing a pair of corsets that sprawled loosely on the center table, she rammed them under a not very pristine cushion on the sofa. 

Martin burst out laughing. The Crystal Room wine was still in his head. "Very nippy!" he said. 

"Have to be nippy in this life, believe me. Give me a minute to powdermy nose and murmur a prayer of thanksgivin', and then I'll set thefestive board and show you how we used to scramble eggs in ShaftesburyAvenue. "

"Right, " said Martin, getting out of his overcoat. How about it? Wasthis one way of making the little old earth spin?

Susie Capper went into a bedroom even smaller than the sitting room, turned up the light over her dressing table and took off her littlewhite hat. From where Martin stood, he could see in the looking-glassthe girl's golden bobbed hair, pretty oval face with too red lips andround white neck. There, it was obvious, stood a little person femininefrom the curls around her ears to the hole in one of her stockings, andas highly and gladly sexed as a purring cat. 

"Buck up, Tootles, " cried Martin. "Where do you keep the frying pan?"

She turned and gave him another searching look, this time of markedapproval. "My word, what a kid you look in the light!" she said. "Noone would take you for a blooming road-hog. Well, who knows? You and Imay have been brought together like this to work out one of Fate'slittle games. This may be the beginning of a side-street romance, eh?"

And she chuckled at the word and turned her nose into a smallsnow-capped hill. 

IV

Pagliacci was to be followed as usual by "Cavalleria. " It was the swansong of the opera season. 

In a part that he acted as well as he sang, Caruso had been permittedfinally to retire, wringing wet, to his dressing room. With all thedignity of a man of genuine feeling and sensitiveness he had taken callafter call on the fall of the curtain and stood bent almost doublebefore the increasing breakers of applause. Once more he had done hisbest in a role which demanded everything that he had of voice andpassion, comedy and tragedy. Once more, although his soul was with hiscomrades in battle, he had played the fool and broken his heart for thebenefit of his good friends in front. 

In her box on the first tier Mrs. Cooper Jekyll, in a dressimaginatively designed to display a considerable quantity of herfigure, was surrounded by a party which attracted many glasses. AlicePalgrave was there, pretty and scrupulously neat, even perhaps a littleprim, her pearls as big as marbles. Mrs. Alan Hosack made a mosteffective picture with her black hair and white skin in ageranium-colored frock--a Van Beers study to the life. Mrs. Noel d'Oylylent an air of opulence to the box, being one of those lovely but alltoo ample women who, while compelling admiration, dispel intimacy. Joan, a young daffodil, sat bolt upright among them, with diamondsglistening in her hair like dew. Of the four men, Gilbert Palgrave, standing where he could be seen, might have been an illustration by DuMaurier of one of Ouida's impossible guardsmen. He made the otherthree, all of the extraordinary ordinary type, appear fifty per cent, more manly than they really were--the young old Hosack with hisgroomlike face and immaculate clothes, the burly Howard Cannon, whoretained a walrus mustache in the face of persistent chaff, and Noeld'Oyly, who when seen with his Junoesque wife made the gravestnaturalists laugh at the thought of the love manners of the male andfemale spider. 

Turning her chair round, Alice touched Joan's arm. "Will you dosomething for me?" she asked. 

Joan looked at her with a smile of disturbing frankness. "It alldepends whether it will upset any of my plans, " she said. 

"I wouldn't have asked you if I had thought that. "

Joan laughed. "You've been studying my character, Alice. "

"I did that at school, my dear. " Mrs. Palgrave spoke lightly, but itwas plain to see that there was something on her mind. "Don't go out tosupper with Howard Cannon. Come back with me. I want to talk to you. Will you?"

Joan had recently danced in Cannon's huge studio-apartment and beenoppressed by its Gulliveresque atmosphere, and she had just come fromthe Fifth Avenue house of the Hosack family, where a characteristicallydignified dinner had got on her nerves. Gilbert, she knew, was engagedto play roulette at the club, and none of her other new men friends wasavailable for dancing. She hadn't seen anything of Martin for severaldays. She could easily oblige Alice under the circumstances. 

So she said: "Yes, of course I will--just to prove how very little youreally know about me. "

"Thank you, " said Alice. "I'll say that I have a headache and thatyou're coming home with me. Don't be talked out of it. "

A puzzled expression came into Joan's eyes, and she turned her shoulderto Palgrave, who was giving her his most amorous glances. "It doesn'tmatter, " she said, "but I notice that you are all beginning to treat melike a sort of moral weathercock. I wonder why?" She gave no morethought to the matter which just for the most fleeting moment hadrather piqued her, but sat drinking in the music of Mascagni's immortalopera entirely ignoring the fact that Palgrave's face was within aninch of her shoulder and that Alan Hosack, on her other side, waswhispering heavy compliments. 

Alice sat back and looked anxiously from the face of the girl who hadbeen her closest friend at school to that of the man to whom she hadgiven all her heart. In spite of the fact that she had been married ayear and had taken her place in the comparatively small set which madeup New York society, Mrs. Palgrave was an optimist. As a fiction-fedgirl she had expected, with a thrill of excitement, that after marriageshe would find herself in a whirlpool of careless and extravagantpeople who made their own elastic code of morals and played ducks anddrakes with the Commandments. She had accepted as a fact thenovelist-playwright contention that society was synonymous withflippancy, selfishness and unchastity, and that the possession of moneyand leisure necessarily undermined all that was excellent in humannature. Perhaps a little to her disappointment, she had soon discoveredhow grotesque and ignorant this play-and-book idea was. She hadreturned from her honeymoon in November of the first year of the warand had been astonished to find that nearly all the well-known womenwhose names, in the public imagination, were associated with decadenceand irresponsibility, were as a matter of fact devoted to Red Crosswork and allied war charities; that the majority of the men who werepopularly supposed to be killing time with ingenious wickedness workedas hard as the average downtown merchant, and that even the debutantesnewly burst upon the world had, for the most part, banded themselvestogether as a junior war-relief society and were turning out weekly animmense number of bandages for the wounded soldiers of France andEngland. Young men of high and gallant spirit, who bore the old namesof New York, had disappeared without a line of publicity--to be heardof later as members of the already famous Escadrille or as ambulanceworkers on the Western front. Beautiful girls had slipped quietly awayfrom their usual haunts, touched by a deep and rare emotion, to work inAllied hospitals three thousand miles and more away--if not asfull-blown nurses, then as scullery maids or motor drivers. 

There were, of course, the Oldershaws and the Marie Littlejohns and theChristine Hurleys and the rest. Alice had met and watched them throwingthemselves against any bright light like all silly moths. And therewere the girls like Joan, newly released from the exotic atmosphere ofthose fashionable finishing schools which no sane country shouldpermit. But even these wild and unbroken colts and fillies, shebelieved, had excuses. They were the natural results of a complete lackof parental discipline and school training. They ran amuck, advertisedby the press and applauded by the hawks who pounced upon their wallets. They were more to be pitied than condemned, far more foolish andridiculous than decadent. They were not unique, either, or peculiar totheir own country. Every nation possessed its "smart set, " its littlegroup of men and women who were ripe for the lunatic asylum, and eventhe war and its iron tonic had failed to shock them into sanity. In herparticularly sane way of looking at things, Alice saw all this, wasproud to know that the majority of the people who formed Americansociety were fine and sound and generous, and kept as much as possibleout of the way of those others whose one object in life was to outragethe conventions. It was only when people began to tell her of seeingher husband and her friend about together night after night that shefound herself wondering, with jealousy in her heart, how long heroptimism would endure, because Gilbert had already shown her a foot ofclay, and Joan was deliberately flying wild. 

It was, at any rate, all to the good that Joan kept her promise andutterly refused to be turned by the pleadings and blandishments ofCannon and Hosack. They drove together to Palgrave's elaborate house, afaithful replica of one of the famous Paris mansions in the AvenueWagram and sat down to a little supper in Alice's boudoir. 

They made a curious picture, these two children, one just over twenty, the other under nineteen; and as they sat in that lofty room hung withFrench tapestries and furnished with the spindle-legged gilt chairs andtables of Louis XIV, they might have been playing, with all the gravityand imitative genius of little girls in a nursery, at being grown up. 

While the servants moved discreetly about, Joan kept up a rattle ofimpersonalities, laughing at Cannon's amazing mustache and Gargantuanfurniture, enthusing wildly over Caruso's once-in-a-century voice, throwing satire at Mrs. Cooper Jekyll's confirmed belief in her divineright to queen it, and saying things that made Alice chuckle about thed'Oylys--that apparently ill-matched pair. She drank a glass ofchampagne with the air of a connoisseur and finally, having displayedan excellent appetite, mounted a cigarette into a long thinmother-of-pearl holder, lighted it and sank with a sigh into the room'sone comfortable chair. 

"Gilbert gave me a cigarette holder like that, " said Alice. 

"Yes? I think this comes from him, " said Joan. "A thoughtful person!"

That Joan was not quite sure from whom she received it annoyed Alicefar more than if she had boasted of it as one of Gilbert's numerousgifts. She needed no screwing up now to say what she had rather timidlybrought this cool young slip of a thing there to discuss. 

"Will you tell me about yourself and Gilbert?" she asked quietly. Therewas no need for Joan to act complete composure. She felt it. "What isthere to tell, my dear?"

"I hope there isn't anything--I mean anything that matters. But perhapsyou don't know that people have begun to talk about you, and I thinkyou owe it to me to be perfectly frank. "

Even then it didn't occur to Joan that there was anything serious inthe business. "I'll be as frank as the front page of The Times--'Allthe news that's fit to print, '" she said. "What do you want to know?"

Alice proved her courage. She drew up a chair, bent forward and camestraight to the point. "Be honest with me, Joan, even if you have tohurt me. Gilbert is very handsome, and women throw themselves at him. Idid, I suppose; but having won him and being still in my first year ofmarriage, I'm naturally jealous when he lets himself be drawn off bythem. The women who have tried to take Gilbert away from me I didn'tknow, and they owed me no friendship. But you're different, and I can'tbelieve that you--"

Joan broke in with a peal of laughter. "Can't you? Why not? I haven'tgot wings on my shoulders. Isn't everything fair in love and war?"

Alice drew back. She had many times been called prim and old-fashioned, especially at school, by Joan and others when men were talked about, and the glittering life that lay beyond the walls. Sophistication, toput it mildly, had been the order of the day in that temporary home ofthe young idea. But this calm declaration of disloyalty took her coloraway, and her breath. Here was honesty with a vengeance!

"Joan!" she cried. "Joan!" And she put up her hand as though to wardoff an unbelievable thought. 

In an instant Joan was on her feet with her arms around the shouldersof the best friend she had, whose face had gone as white as stone. "Oh, my dear, " she said, "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I didn't mean that in theleast, not in the very least. It was only one of my cheap flippancies, said just to amuse myself and shock you. Don't you believe me?"

Tears came to Alice. She had had at least one utterly sleepless nightand several days of mental anguish. She was one of the women who lovetoo well. She confessed to these things, brokenly, and it came as akind of shock to Joan to find some one taking things seriously andallowing herself to suffer. 

"Why, Alice, " she said, "Gilbert means nothing to me. He's a dear oldthing; he's awfully nice to look at; he sums things up in a way thatmakes me laugh; and he dances like a streak. But as to flirting withhim or anything of that sort--why, my dear, he looks on me as a littleboob from the country, and in my eyes he's simply a man who carries alatchkey to amusement and can give me a good time. That's true. I swearit. "

It was true, and Alice realized it, with immense relief. She dried hereyes and held Joan away from her at arm's length and looked at heryoung, frank, intrepid face with puzzled admiration. It didn't go withher determined trifling. "I shall always believe what you tell me, Joan, " she said. "You've taken a bigger load than you imagine off myheart--which is Gilbert's. And now sit down again and be comfortableand let's do what we used to do at school at night and talk aboutourselves. We've both changed since those days, haven't we?"

"Have we? I don't think I have. " Joan took another cigarette and wentback to her chair. Her small round shoulders looked very white againstthe black of a velvet cushion. If there was nothing boyish orunfeminine about her, there was certainly an indefinable appearance ofbeing untouched, unawakened. She was the same girl who had been foundby Martin that afternoon clean-cut against the sky--the determinedindividualist. 

Alice sat in front of her on a low stool with her hands clasped round aknee. "What a queer mixture you are of--of town and country, Joany. You're like a piece of honeysuckle playing at being an orchid. "

"That's because I'm a kid, " said Joan. "The horrible hour will comewhen I shall be an orchid and try and palm myself off as honeysuckle, never fear. "

"Don't you think marriage has changed you a little?" asked Alice. "Itusually does. It changed me from an empty-headed little fool to a womanwith oh, such a tremendous desire to be worthy of it. "

"Yes, but then you married for love. "

"Didn't you, Joany?"

"I? Marry for love?" Joan waved her arm for joy at the idea. 

Alice knew the story of the escape from old age. She also knew from theway in which Martin looked at Joan why he had given her his name andhouse. Here was her chance to get to the bottom of a constant puzzle. "You may not have married for love, " she said, "but of course you'refond of Martin. "

Joan considered the matter. It might be a good thing to go into it nowthat there was an unexpected lull in the wild rush that she had made toget into life. There had been something rather erratic about Martin'scomings and goings during the last week. She hadn't spoken to him sincethe night at the Ritz. 

"Yes, I am fond of him, " she said. "That's the word. As fond as I mightbe of a very nice, sound boy whom I'd known all my life. "

"Is that all?"

Joan made a series of smoke rings and watched them curl into the air. "Yes, that's all, " she said. 

Alice became even more interested and curious and puzzled. She heldvery serious views about marriage. "And are you happy with him?"

"I don't know that I can be said to be happy with him, " said Joan. "I'mperfectly happy as things are. "

"Tell me how they are. " There was obviously something here that was farfrom right. 

Joan was amused at her friend's gravity. She had always been aresponsible little person with very definite and old-fashioned views. "Well, " she said, "it's a charming little story, really. I was themaiden who had to be rescued from the ugly castle, and Martin was theknight who performed the deed. And being a knight with a tremendoussense of convention and a castle of his own full of well-trainedservants, it didn't seem to him that he could give me the run of hishouse in the Paul and Virginia manner, which isn't being done now; andso, like a little gentleman, he married me, or as I suppose you wouldput it, went through the form of marriage. It's all part of theadventure that we started one afternoon on the edge of the woods. Icall it the cool and common-sense romance of two very modern andcivilized people. "

"I don't think there's any place in romance for such things as coolnessand common sense, " said Alice warmly. "And as to there being two verymodern and civilized people in your adventure, as you call it, that Idoubt. "

Joan's large brown eyes grew a little larger, and she looked at theenthusiastic girl in front of her with more interest. "Do you?" sheasked. "Why?"

Alice got up. She was disturbed and worried. She had a great affectionfor Joan, and that boy was indeed a knight. "I saw Martin walking awayfrom your house the night you dined with Gilbert at the Brevoort--I wastold about that!--and there was something in his eyes that wasn't theleast bit cool. Also I rode in the Park with him one morning a weekago, and I thought he looked ill and haggard and--if you mustknow--starved. No one would say that you aren't modern andcivilized, --and those are tame words, --but if Martin were to come innow and make a clean breast of it, you'd be surprised to find howlittle he is of either of those things, if I know anything about him. "

"Then, my dear, " replied Joan, making a very special ring of smoke, "you know more about him than I do. "

Alice began to walk about. A form of marriage--that was the phrase thatstuck in her mind. And here was a girl who was without a genuine friendin all that heartless town except herself, and a fine boy who neededone, she began to see, very badly. She, at any rate, and she thankedGod for it, was properly married, and she owed it to friendship to makea try to put things right with these two. 

"Joan, I believe I do, " she said. "I really believe I do, although I'veonly had one real talk with him. You're terribly and awfully young, Iknow. You had a bad year with your grandfather and grandmother, and thereaction has made you wild and careless. But you're not a girl who hasbeen brought up behind a screen in a room lighted with one candle. Youknow what marriage means. There isn't a book you haven't read or athing you haven't talked over. And if you imagine that Martin iscontent to play Paul to your imitation Virginia, you're wrong. Oh, Joan, you're dangerously wrong. "

Settling into her chair and working her shoulders more comfortably intothe cushion, Joan crossed one leg over the other and lighted anothercigarette. "Go on, " she said with a tantalizing smile. "I love to hearyou talk. It's far more interesting than listening to Howard Cannon'sdark prophecies about the day after to-morrow and his gloomy rumblingsabout the writing on the wall. You stand for the unemancipated marriedwoman. Don't you?"

"Yes, I do, " said Alice quickly, her eyes gleaming. "I consider that agirl who lets a man marry her under false pretenses is a cheat. "

"A strong word, my dear!"

"But not too strong. "

"Wait a minute. Suppose she doesn't love him. What then?"

"Then she oughtn't to have married him. "

"Yes, but it may have suited her to marry him. "

"Then she should fulfill the bargain honestly and play the gameaccording to the rules. However modern and civilized people are, theydo that. "

Joan shrugged her round white shoulders and flicked her cigarette ashexpertly into the china tray on the spindle-legged table at her elbow. She was quite unmoved. Alice had always taken it upon herself tolecture her about individualism--the enthusiastic little thing. "Dearold girl, " she said, "don't you remember that I always make my ownrules?"

"I know you do, but you can't tell me that Martin wants to go bythem--or that he'll be able to remain a knight long, while you're goingby one set and he's keen to go by another? Where will it end?"

"End? But why drag in the end when Martin and I are only at thebeginning?"

Alice sat down again and bent forward and caught up Joan's unoccupiedhand. "Listen, dear, " she said with more than characteristicearnestness. "Last night I went with the Merrills to the ZiegfeldFollies, and I saw Martin there with a little white-faced girl with redlips and the golden hair that comes out of a bottle. "

"Good old Martin!" said Joan. "The devil you did!"

"Doesn't that give you a jar?"

"Good heavens, no! If you'd peeked into the One-o'clock Club thismorning at half past two, you would have seen me with a white-faced manwith a red mustache and a kink in his hair that comes from a hot iron. Martin and I are young and giddy, and we're on the round-about, andwe're hitting it up. Who cares?"

There was a little silence--and then Alice drew back, shaking herpretty neat head. "It won't do, Joany, " she said, "it won't do. I'veheard you say 'Who cares?' loads of times and never seen anybody takeyou by the shoulders and shake you into caring. That's why you go onsaying it. But somebody always cares, Joany dear, and there's not onething that any of us can say or do that doesn't react on some one else, either to hurt or bless. Martin Gray's your knight. You said so. Don'tyou be the one to turn his gleaming armor into commonbroadcloth--please, please don't. "

Joan gave a little laugh and a little yawn and stretched herself like aboy and got up. "Who'd have thought it? It's half-past twelve, andwe're both losing our much needed beauty sleep. I must really tearmyself away. " She put her arm around Alice and kissed her. "The samedear little wise, responsible Alice who would like to put the earthinto woolens with a mustard plaster on its chest. But it takes allsorts to make up a world, you know, and it would be rather drab withouta few butterflies. Don't throw bricks at me until I've fluttered a bitmore, Ally. My colors won't last long, and I know what old age means, better than most. If I were in love as you are, my man's rules would bethe ones I'd go by all the time; but I'm not in love, and I don't wantto be--yet; and I'm only a kid, and I think I have the right to myfling. This marriage of mine is just a part of the adventure thatMartin and I plunged into as a great joke, and he knows it and he's oneof the best, and I'm grateful to him, believe me. Good night. God blessyou!"

She stood for a moment on the top step to taste the air that was filledwith the essence of youth. Across a sky as clear as crystal a series ofyoung clouds were chasing each other, putting out the stars for amoment as they scurried playfully along. It was a joy to be alive andfit and careless. Summer was lying in wait for spring, and autumn wouldlay a withering hand upon summer, and winter with its crooked limbs andlack-luster eyes was waiting its inevitable turn. 

"A short life and a merry one!" whispered Joan to the moon, throwing ita kiss. 

A footman, sullen for want of sleep, opened the door of the limousine. Some one was sitting in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest. 

"Marty! Is that you?"

"It's all right, " said Gilbert Palgrave. "I've been playing patiencefor half an hour. I'm going to see you home. "

V

"You are going home?"

"Yes, " said Joan, "without the shadow of a doubt. "

"Which means that I'd better tell the chauffeur to drive round to theOne-o'clock, eh?"

"I'll drop you there if you like. I'm really truly going home. "

"All right. "

Joan began to sing as the car bowled up Fifth Avenue. Movement alwaysmade her sing, and the effect of things slipping behind her. But shestopped suddenly as an expression of Alice's flicked across her memory. "You'll catch Alice up, if you go straight back, " she said. 

"Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire! I wonder why it is the really good woman isnever appreciated by a man until he's obliged to sit on the other sideof the fireplace? I wish we were driving away out into the country. Ihave an unusual hankering to stand on the bank of a huge lake and watchthe moonlight on the water. "

Joan was singing again. The trees in the Park were bespattered withyoung leaves. 

Palgrave controlled an ardent desire to touch with his lips that coolwhite shoulder from which the cloak had slipped. It was extraordinaryhow this mere girl inflamed him. Alice--Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire! Sheseemed oddly like some other man's wife, these days. 

"Suppose I tell your man to drive out of the city beyond this rabble ofbricks and mortar?"

But Joan went on singing. Spring was in her blood. How fast the car wasmoving, and those young clouds. 

Palgrave helped her out with a hot hand. 

She opened the door with her latch-key. "Thank you, Gilbert, " she said. "Good night. "

But Palgrave followed her in. "Don't you think I've earned the right toone cigarette?" He threw his coat into a chair in the hall and hung hishat on the longest point of an antler. It was a new thing for this muchflattered man to ask for favors. This young thing's exultant youth madehim feel old and rather humble. 

"There are sandwiches in the dining room and various things to drink, "said Joan, waving her hand toward it. 

"No, no. Let's go up to the drawing-room--that is, unless you--"

But Joan was already on the stairs, with the chorus of her song. Shedidn't feel in the least like sleep with its escape from life. It wasso good to be awake, to be vital, to be tingling with the current ofelectricity like a telegraph wire. She flung back the curtains, raisedall the windows, opened her arms to the air, spilled her cloak on thefloor, sat at the piano and ragged "The Spring Song. "

"I am a kid, " she said, speaking above the sound, and going on with herargument to Alice. "I am and I will be, I will be. And I'll play thefool and revel in it as long as I can--so there!"

Palgrave had picked up the cloak and was holding it unconsciouslyagainst his immaculate shirt. It was the sentimental act of a virtuosoin the art of pleasing women--who are so easily pleased. At the momenthe had achieved forgetfulness of boudoir trickery and so retainedalmost all his usual assumption of dignity. Even Joan, with her quickeye for the ridiculous, failed to detect the bathos of his attitude, and merely thought that he was trying to be funny and not succeeding. 

It so happened that over Palgrave's shoulder she could see the boldcrayon drawing of Martin, brown and healthy and muscular, without anounce of affectation, an unmistakable man with his nice irregularfeatures and clean, merry eyes. There was strength and capabilitystamped all over him, and there was, as well, a pleasing sense ofreliability which gained immediate confidence. With the sort of shockone gets on going into the fresh air from a steam-heated room, sherealized the contrast between these two. 

There is always something as unreal about handsome men as there isabout Japanese gardens. Palgrave's hair was so scrupulously sleek andwiglike, his features so well-balanced and well-chosen, his wide-seteyes so large and long-lashed, and his fair, soft mustache somiraculously precise. His clothes, too, were a degree more thanperfect. They were so right as to be a little freakish because theyattracted as much attention as if they were badly cut. He was born fortea fights and winter resorts, to listen with a distrait half-smile tothe gushing adulation of the oh-my-dear type of women. 

He attracted Joan. She admired his assurance and polish and manners. With these three things even a man with a broken nose and a head baldas an egg can carry a beautiful woman to the altar. He was somethingnew to her, too, and she found much to amuse her in his way ofexpressing himself. He observed, and sometimes crystallized hisobservations with a certain neatness. Also, and she made no bones aboutowning to it, his obvious attention flattered her. All the same, shewas in the mood just then for Martin. He went better with the time ofyear, and there was something awfully companionable about his suddenlaugh. She would have hailed his appearance at that moment with anoutdoor cry. 

It was bad luck for Palgrave, because he now knew definitely that inJoan he had found the girl who was to give him the great emotion. 

She broke away from "The Spring Song" and swung into "D'ye Ken JohnPeel with His Coat So Gay?" It was Martin's favorite air. How often shehad heard him shout it among the trees on his way to meet her out thereon the edge of the woods where they had found each other. It wascurious how her thoughts turned to Martin that night. 

She left the piano in the middle of a bar. "One cigarette, " she said, and held out a silver box. 

Palgrave's hand closed tightly over her slim white arm. In his throathis heart was pumping. He spoke incoherently, like a man. "God, " hesaid, "you--you take my breath away. You make my brain whirl. Whydidn't you come out of your garden a year ago?"

He was acting, she thought, and she laughed. "My arm, I think, " shesaid. 

"No, mine. It's got to be mine. What's the good of beating about thebush?" He spoke with a queer hoarseness, and his hand shook. 

She laughed again. He was trying his parlor tricks, as Hosack hadcalled them one night at the Crystal Room, watching him greet a womanwith both hands. What a joke to see what he would do if she pretendedto be carried away. He might as well be made to pay for keeping her up. "Oh, Gilbert, " she said, "what are you saying!" Her shyness and frightwere admirable. 

They added fuel to his fire. "What I've been waiting to say for yearsand never thought I should. I love you. You've just got me. "

How often had he said those very words to other women! He did itsurpassingly well. She continued to act. "Oh, Gilbert, " she said in alow voice, "you mustn't. There's Alice. " Two could play at his pet game. 

"Yes, there is Alice. But what does that matter? I don't care, and youdon't. Your motto is not to care. You're always saying so. I'm no moremarried to Alice than you are to Gray. They're accidents, both of them. I love you, I tell you. " And he ran his hand up to her shoulder andbore down upon her. Where were his manners and polish and assurance? Itwas amazing to see the change in the man. 

But she dodged away and took up a stand behind the piano and laughed athim. "You're an artist, Gilbert, " she said. "It's all very well for youto practice on women of your own age, but I'm an unsophisticated girl. You might turn my head, you know. "

Her sarcasm threw him up short. She was mocking. He was profoundlyhurt. "But you've chosen me. You've picked me out. You've used me totake you to places night after night! Don't fool with me, Joan. I'm indead earnest. "

And she saw with astonishment that he was. His face was white, and hestood in a curious attitude of supplication, with his hands out. Shewas amazed, and for a moment thrilled. Gilbert Palgrave, the woman'sman, in love with her. Think of it!

"But Gilbert, " she said, "there's Alice. She's my friend. " That seemedto matter more than the fact that she was his wife. 

"That hasn't mattered to you all along. Why drag it in now? Night afternight you've danced with me; I've been at your beck and call; you usedme to rescue you from Gray that time. What are you? What are you madeof? Unsophisticated! You!" He wasn't angry. He was fumbling at reasonsin order to try and get at her point of view. "You know well enoughthat a man doesn't put himself out to that extent for nothing. Whatbecomes of give and take? Do you conceive that you are going to sailthrough life taking everything and giving nothing?"

Martin had asked her this, and Alice, and now here was Gilbert Palgraveputting it to her as though it were an indictment! "But I'm a kid, " shecried out. "What do you all mean? Can't I be allowed to have any funwithout paying for it? I'm only just out of the shell. I've only beenliving for a few weeks. Can't you see that I'm a kid? I have the rightto take all I can get for nothing, --the right of youth. What do youmean--all of you?"

She came out from behind the piano and stood in front of him, as erectas a silver birch, and as slim and young. There was a great indignationall about her. 

His eager hands went out, and fell. He was not a brute. It would becowardly to touch this amazing child. She was armed with fearlessnessand virginity--and he had mistaken these things for callousness. 

"I don't know what to say, " he said. "You stagger me. How long are yougoing to hide behind this youthfulness? When are you going to be oldenough to be honest? Men have patience only up to a point. At any rate, you didn't claim youth when Gray asked you to marry him--though you mayhave done so afterward. Did you?"

She kept silent. But her eyes ran over him with contempt. According toher, she had given him no right to put such questions. 

He ignored it. It was undeserved. It was she who deserved contempt, nothe. And he threw it back at her in a strange incoherent outburst inwhich, all the same, there was a vibrating note of gladness and relief. And all the while, unmoved by the passion into which he broke, shestood watching with a curious gravity his no longer immobile face. Shewas thinking about Martin. She was redeveloping Martin's expressionwhen she had opened the door of her bedroom the night of her marriageand let him out. What about her creed, then? Was she hiding behindyouthfulness? Were there, after all, certain things that must be paidfor? Was she already old enough to be what Alice and this man calledhonest? Was every man made of the stuff that only gave for what hehoped to get in return?

His words trailed off. He was wasting them, he saw. She was lookingthrough his head. But he rejoiced as to one thing like a potter whoopens the door of his oven and finds his masterpiece unbroken. Andsilence fell upon them, interrupted only by the intermittent humming ofpassing cars. 

Finally Palgrave took the cigarette box out of Joan's hand and put itdown on a little table and stood looking more of a man than might havebeen expected. 

"I've always hoped that one day I should meet you--just you, " he saidquietly; "and when I did, I knew that it would be to love. Well, I'vetold you. Do what you can for me until you decide that you're grown up. I'll wait. "

And he turned and went away, and presently she heard a door shut andecho, and slow footsteps in the street below. 

Where was Martin?

VI

She wanted Martin. Everything that had happened that night made herwant Martin. He knew that she was a kid, and treated her as such. Hedidn't stand up and try and force her forward into being awoman--although, of all men, he had the right. He was big and generousand had given her his name and house and the run of the world, but notfrom his lips ever came the hard words that she had heard that night. How extraordinary that they should have come from Alice as well as fromGilbert. 

She wanted Martin. Where was Martin? She felt more like a bird, at thatmoment, than a butterfly--like a bird that had flown too far from itsnest and couldn't find its way back. She had been honest with Martin, all along. Why, the night before they had started on the street ofadventure, she had told him her creed, in that dark, quiet room withthe moonlight on the floor in a little pool, and had frankly cried out, "Who cares?" for the first time. And later, upstairs in her room, inhis house, she had asked him to leave her; and he had gone, because heunderstood that she wanted to remain irresponsible for a time and mustnot be taken by the shoulders and shaken into caring until she had hadher fling. He understood everything--especially as to what she meant bysaying that she would go joy-riding, that she would make life spinwhichever way she wanted it to go. It was the right of youth, and whatwas she but just a kid? He had never stood over her and demandedpayment, and yet he had given her everything. He understood that shewas new to the careless and carefree, and had never flung the wordhonest at her head, because, being so young, she considered that shecould be let off from making payments for a time. 

She wanted Martin. She wanted the comforting sight of his clean eyesand deep chest and square shoulders. She wanted to sit down knee toknee with him as they had done so often on the edge of the woods, andtalk and talk. She wanted to hear his man's voice and see thelaughter-lines come and go round his eyes. He was her pal and was asreliable as the calendar. He would wipe out the effect of thereproaches that she had been made to listen to by Alice and Gilbert. They might be justified; they were justified; but they showed a lack ofunderstanding of her present mood that was to her inconceivable. Shewas a kid. Couldn't they see that she was a kid? Why should they boththrow bricks at her as though she were a hawk and not a mere butterfly?

Where was Martin? Why hadn't she seen him for several days? Why had hestayed away from home without saying where he was and what he wasdoing? And what was all this about a girl with a white face and redlips? Martin must have friends, of course. She had hers--Gilbert andHosack and the others, if they could be called friends. But why a girlwith a white face and red lips and hair that came out of a bottle? Thatdidn't sound much like Martin. 

All these thoughts ran through Joan's mind as she walked about thedrawing-room with its open windows, in the first hour of the morning, sending out an S. O. S. To Martin. She ought to be in bed andasleep--not thinking and going over everything as if she were a woman. She wasn't a woman yet, and could only be a kid once. It was too bad ofAlice to try and force her to take things seriously so soon. Seriousness was for older people, and even then something to avoid ifpossible. And as for Gilbert--well, she didn't for one instant deny thefact that it was rather exciting and exhilarating for him to be in lovewith her, although she was awfully sorry for Alice. She had donenothing to encourage him, and it was really a matter of absoluteindifference to her whether he loved her or not, so long as he was athand to take her about. And she didn't intend to encourage him, either. Love meant ties and responsibility--Alice proved that clearly enough. There was plenty of time for love. Let her flit first. Let her remainyoung as long as she could, careless and care-free. The fact that shewas married was just an accident, an item in her adventure. It didn'tmake her less young to be married, and she didn't see why it should. Martin understood, and that was why it was so far-fetched of Alice tosuggest that her attitude could turn Martin's armor into broadcloth, and hint at his having ceased to be a knight because he had been seenwith a girl--never mind whether her face was white and her lips red, and her hair too golden. 

"I'm a kid, I tell you, " she said aloud, throwing out her justificationto the whole world. "I am and I will be, I will be. I'll play the fooland revel in it as long as I can--so there. Who cares?" And she laughedonce more, and ran her hand over her hair as though waving all thesethoughts away, and shut the windows and turned out the lights and wentupstairs to her bedroom. "I'm a selfish, self-willed little devil, crazy about myself, thinking of nothing but having a good time, " sheadded inwardly. "I know it, all of you, as well as you do, but give metime. Give me my head for a bit. When I must begin to pay, I'll paywith all I've got. "

But presently, all ready for bed, she put on a dressing gown and lefther room and padded along the passage in heelless slippers to Martin'sroom. He might have been asleep all this time. How silly not to havethought of that! She would wake him for one of their talks. It seemedan age since they had sat on the hill together among the young buds, and she had conjured up the high-reaching buildings of New York againstthe blue sky, like a mirage. 

She had begun to think again. Alice and Gilbert between them had sether brain working--and she couldn't stop it. What if the time had comealready when she must pull herself together and face facts and playwhat everybody called the game? Well, if it had, and she simplycouldn't hide behind youthfulness any longer, as Gilbert had said, shewould show that she could change her tune of "Who cares?" to "I care"with the best of them! "I'm only a little over eighteen. I don't knowquite what it is, but I'm something more than pretty. I'm still notmuch more than a flapper--an irritating, empty-headed, fashionable-school-fed, undisciplined, sophisticated kid. I know allabout that as well as they do. I'm making no pretense to be anythingdifferent. Heaven knows, I'm frank enough about it--even to myself. Butit's only a phase. Why not let me get over it and live it down? Ifthere's anything good in me, and there is, it will come out sooner orlater. Why not let me go through it my own way? A few months to playthe fool in--it isn't much to ask, and don't I know what it means to beold?"

She hadn't been along that passage before. It was Martin's side of thehouse. She hadn't given much thought to Martin's side of anything. Shetried a door and opened it, fumbled for the button that would turn thelight on and found it. It was a large and usefully fitted dressing roomwith a hanging cupboard that ran all along one wall, with severaldoors. Two old shiny-faced English tallboys were separated by a bootrack. Between the two windows was a shaving glass over a basin. Therewas a bookcase on each side of the fire-place and a table convenientlynear a deep armchair with a tobacco jar, pipes and a box of cigarettes. Every available space of wall was crammed with framed photographs ofcollege groups, some showing men with the whiskered faces and thestrange garments of the early Victorian period, others of theclean-shaven men of the day, but all of them fit and eager andcare-free, caught in their happiest hours. It was a man's room, arranged by one, now used by another. 

Joan went through into the bedroom. The light followed her. There wasno Martin. It was all strangely tidy. Its owner might have been awayfor weeks. 

With a sense of chill and a feeling of queer loneliness, she went backto the dressing room. She wanted Martin. If Martin had been there, shewould have had it all out with him, freely and frankly. Somehow shecouldn't wave away the idea any longer that the time had come for herto cross another bridge. Thank God she would still be young, but thekid of her would be left on the other side. If Martin had been there, she would have told him some of the things that Alice had said aboutbeing honest and paying up, and left it to him to say whether thegirlhood which she had wanted to spin out was over and must be put awayamong her toys. 

Alice and Gilbert Palgrave, --curious that it should have been thosetwo, --had shaken her individualism, as well as something else, vagueand untranslatable, that she couldn't quite grasp, that eluded herhand. She sat down in the deep chair and with a little smile took upone of Martin's pipes and looked at it. The good tobaccoey scent of ittook her back to the hill on the edge of the woods, and in her mind'seye there was a picture of two clean eyes with laughter-lines comingand going, a strong young face that had already caught the sun, squareshoulders and a broad chest, and a pair of reliable hands withspatulate fingers clasped round a knee. She could hear birds calling. Spring was in the air. 

Where was Martin?

VII

It was the first dress rehearsal of "The Ukelele Girl, " to be produced"under the personal direction of Stanwood Mosely. " The piece had beenin rehearsal for eleven weeks. 

The curtain had been up on the second act for an hour. Scene designers, scene painters and scene shifters were standing about with a stagedirector, whose raucous voice cut the fuggy atmosphere incessantly inwhat was intended to represent the exterior of a hotel at Monte Carlo. It more nearly resembled the materialization of a dope fiend's dream ofan opium factory. What might have been a bank building in Utopia, anold Spanish galleon in drydock, or the exterior of a German beer gardenaccording to the cover of Vogue occupied the center of the scene. Thebricks were violet and old gold, sprayed with tomato juice and markedby the indeterminate silver tracks of snails. Pillars, modeled on thesugar-stick posts that advertise barber's shops, ran up and lostthemselves among the flies. A number of wide stairs, all over winestains, wandered aimlessly about, coming to a conclusion betweengigantic urns filled with unnatural flowers of all the colors of adiseased rainbow. Jotted about here and there on the stage wereoctopus-limbed trees with magenta leaves growing in flower pots allcovered with bilious blobs. Stan Mosely didn't profess to understandit, but having been assured by the designer that it was art nouveau, which also he didn't understand, he was wholly satisfied. 

Not so the stage director, whose language in describing the effect ithad upon him would have done credit to a gunman under the influence ofcheap brandy and fright. The rehearsal, which had commenced at eighto'clock, had been hung up for a time considerable enough to allow himto give vent to his sentiments. The pause enabled Mosely, squattingfrog-wise in the middle of the orchestra stalls, to surround himselfwith several women whose gigantic proportions were horribly exposed tothe eye. The rumble of his voice and the high squeals of their laughterclashed with the sounds of the vitriolic argument on the stage, and thenoises of a bored band, in which an oboe was giving a remarkableimitation of a gobbling turkey cock, and a cornet of a man blowing hisnose. The leader of the band was pacing up and down the musicians'room, saying to himself: "Zis is ze last timer. Zis is ze last timer, "well knowing that it wasn't. The poor devil had a wife and children tofeed. 

Bevies of weary and spirit-broken chorus girls in costume weresprawling on the chairs in the lower boxes, some sleeping, some tootired to sleep, and some eating ravenously from paper bags. Chorus menand costumers, wig makers and lyric writers, authors and friends of thecompany, sat about singly and in pairs in the orchestra seats. Theywere mostly bored so far beyond mere impatience by all thissuper-inefficiency and chaos as to have arrived at a state ofintellectual coma. The various men out of whose brains had originallycome the book and lyrics no longer hated each other and themselves;they lusted for the blood of the stage director or saw gorgeous mentalpictures of a little fat oozy corpse surrounded by the gleeful faces ofthe army of people who had been impotent to protest against the lash ofhis whip, the impertinence of his tongue or the gross dishonesty of hismethods. 

One other man in addition to the raucous, self-advertising stagedirector, Jackrack, commonly called "Jack-in-office, " showed distinctsigns of life--a short, overdressed, perky person with piano fingersand baldish head much too big for his body, who flitted about among thechorus girls, followed by a pale, drab woman with pins, and touchedtheir dresses and sniggered and made remarks with a certain touch ofliterary excellence in a slightly guttural voice. This was PoppyShemalitz, the frock expert, the man milliner of the firm, who wasrequired to make bricks out of straw, or as he frequently said to thefriends of his "bosom, " "make fifteen dollars look like fifty. "Self-preservation and a sense of humor encouraged him through theabusive days of a dog's life. 

Sitting in the last row of the orchestra, wearing the expression ofinterest and astonishment of a man who had fallen suddenly into anotherworld, was Martin. He had been there since eight o'clock. For over sixhours he had watched banality emerge from chaos and had listened to theblasphemy and insults of Jackrack. He would have continued to watch andlisten until daylight peered upbraidingly through the chinks in theexit doors but for the sudden appearance of Susie Capper, dressed forthe street. 

"Hello, Tootles! But you're not through, are you?"

"Absobloominlootely, " she said emphatically. 

"I thought you said your best bit was in the second act?"

"'Was' is right. Come on outer here. I can't stand the place a minutelonger. It'll give me apoplexy. "

Martin followed her into the foyer. The tragic rage on the girl'slittle, pretty, usually good-natured face worried him. He knew that shehad looked forward to this production to make her name on Broadway. 

"My dear Tootles, what's happened?"

She turned to him and clutched his arm. Tears welled up into her eyes, and her red lips began to tremble. "What did I look like?" she demanded. 

"Splendid!"

"Didn't I get every ounce of comedy out of my two scenes in Act One?"

"Every ounce. "

"I know I did. Even the stage hands laughed, and if you can do thatthere's no argument. And didn't my number go over fine? Wasn't it thebest thing in the act? I don't care what you say. I know it was. Eventhe orchestra wanted it over again. "

"But it was, " said Martin, "and I heard one of the authors say that itwould be the hit of the piece. "

"Oh, Martin, I've been sweating blood for this chance for five years, and I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to get it. I wish I wasdead. " She put her arms against the wall and her face down on her armsand burst into an agony of tears. 

Martin was moved. This plucky, struggling, hardworking atom of aremorseless world deserved a little luck for a change. Hitherto it hadeluded her eager hands, although she had paid for it in advance withsomething more than blood and energy. "Dear old Tootles, " he said, "what's happened? Try and tell me what's happened? I don't understand. "

"You don't understand, because you don't know the tricks of this rottentheater. For eleven weeks I've been rehearsing. For eleven weeks--timeenough to produce a couple of Shakespeare's bally plays in Latin, --I'veput up with the brow-beating of that mad dog Jackrack. For elevenweeks, without touching one dirty little Mosely cent, I've worked at mypart and numbers, morning, noon and night; and now, on the edge ofproduction, he cuts me out and puts in a simpering cow with afifteen-thousand-dollar necklace and a snapping little Pekinese tooblige one of his angels, and I'm reduced to the chorus. I wish I wasdead, I tell you--I wish I was dead and buried and at peace. I wish Icould creep home and get into bed and never see another day of thiscruel life. Oh, I'm just whipped and broke and out. Take me away, takeme away, Martin. I'm through. "

Martin put his arm round the slight, shaking form, led her to one ofthe doors and out into a narrow passage that ran up into the desertedstreet. To have gone down into the stalls and hit that oily martinet inthe mouth would have been to lay himself open to a charge of cruelty toanimals. He was so puny and fat and soft. Poor little Tootles, who hadhad a tardy and elusive recognition torn from her grasp! It was atragedy. 

It was not much more than a stone's-throw from the theater to therabbit warren in West Forty-sixth Street, but Martin gave a shout at aprowling taxi. Not even policemen and newspaper boys and streetcleaners must see this girl as she was then, in a collapse of smashedhopes, sobbing dreadfully, completely broken down. It wasn't fair. Inall that city of courageous under-dogs and fate-fighters, there was notone who pretended to careless contentment with a chin so high asTootles. He half carried her into the cab, trying with a queerblundering sympathy to soothe and quiet her. And he had almostsucceeded by the time they reached the brownstone house of sitters, bedrooms and baths, gas stoves, cubby-holes, the persistent reek ofonions, cigarettes and hot cheese. The hysteria of the artistictemperament, or the natural exaggeration of an artificial life, hadworn itself out for the time being. Rather pathetic little sobs hadtaken its place, it was with a face streaked with the black stuff fromher eyelashes that Tootles turned quickly to Martin at the foot of thenarrow, dirty staircase. 

"Let's go up quiet, " she said. "If any of the others are about, I don'twant 'em to know tonight. See?"

"I see, " said Martin. 

And it was good to watch the way in which she took hold of herself witha grip of iron, scrubbed her face with his handkerchief, dabbed itthickly with powder from a small silver box, threw back her head andwent up two stairs at a time. On the second floor there was a cackle oflaughter, but doors were shut. On the third all was quiet. But on thefourth the tall, thin, Raphael-headed man was drunk again, arguingthickly in the usual cloud of smoke, which drifted sullenly into thepassage through the open door. 

With deft fingers Tootles used her latchkey, and they slipped into theapartment like thieves. And then Martin took the pins out of her littleonce-white hat, drew her coat off, picked her up as if she were a childand put her on the sofa. 

"There you are, Tootles, " he said, without aggressive cheerfulness, butstill cheerful. "You lie there, young 'un, and I'll get you somethingto eat. It's nearly a day since you saw food. "

And after a little while, humanized by the honest kindness of thisobvious man, she sat up and leaned on an elbow and watched him throughthe gap in the curtains that hid her domestic arrangements. He wasscrambling some eggs. He had made a pile of chicken sandwiches and laidthe table. He had put some flowers that he had brought for her earlierin the evening in the middle of it, stuck into an empty milk bottle. Inher excitement and joy about the play, she had forgotten to put them inwater. They were distinctly sad. 

"Me word!" she said to herself, through the aftermath of her emotion. "That's some boy. Gee, that's some good boy. " Even her thoughts wereconducted in a mixture of Brixton and Broadway. 

"Now, then, " he said, "all ready, marm, " and put his handiwork in whathe hoped was an appetizing manner on the table. The hot eggs were on acold plate, but did that really matter?

Not to Tootles, who was glad to get anything, anyhow. That room was theRitz Hotel in comparison with the slatterly tenement in which she hadwon through the first unsoaped years of a sordid life. AndMartin--well, Martin was something out of a fairy tale. 

Between them they made a clean sweep of everything, falling backfinally on a huge round box of candies contributed the previous day byMartin. 

They made short work of several bottles of beer, also contributed byMartin. He knew that Tootles was not paid a penny during rehearsals. She laughed several times and cracked one or two feeble jokes--poorlittle soul with the swollen eyes and powder-dabbed face! Her bobbedhair glistened under the light like the dome of the Palace of CoochBehar under the Indian sun. 

"Boy, " she said presently, putting her hand on his knees and closingher tired eyes, "where's that magic carpet? If I could sit on it withyou and be taken to where the air's clean and the trees are whisperin'and all the young things hoppin' about--I'd give twenty-five years ofme life, s'elp me Bob, I would. "

"Would you, Tootles?" A sudden thought struck Martin. Make use of thathouse in the country, make use of it, lying idle and neglected!

"Oh, " she said, "to get away from all this for a bit--to shake Broadwayand grease paint and slang and electric light, if only for a week. I'mfed up, boy. I'm all out, like an empty gasoline tin. I want to seesomething clean and sweet. "

Martin had made up his mind. Look at that poor little bruised soul, asmuch in need of water as those sad flowers in the milk bottle. "Tootles, " he said, "pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, and beready for me in the morning. "

"What d'yer mean, boy?"

"What I say. At eleven o'clock to-morrow--to-day, I'll have a car hereand drive you away to woods and birds and all clean things. I'll giveyou a holiday in a big cathedral, and you shall lie and listen to God'sown choir. "

"Go on--ye're pullin' me leg!"

She waved her hand to stop him. It was all too good to joke about. 

"No, I'm not. I've got a house away in the country. It was my father's. We shall both be proud to welcome you there, Tootles. "

She sprang up, put her hands on his face and tilted it back and lookedinto his eyes. It was true! It was true! She saw it there. And shekissed him and gave a great sobbing sigh and went into her bedroom andbegan to undress. Was there anything like life, after all?

Martin cleared the table and drew the curtains over the domesticarrangements. He didn't like domestic arrangements. Then he sat downand lighted a cigarette. His head was all blurred with sleep. 

And presently a tired voice, called "Boy!" and he went in. Theall-too-golden head was deep into the pillow and long lashes made fanson that powdered face. 

"Where did you pinch the magic carpet?" she asked, and smiled, and fellinto sleep as a stone disappears into water. 

As Martin drew the clothes over her thinly clad shoulder, somethingtouched him. It was like a tap on the heart. Before he knew what he wasdoing, he had turned out the light, gone into the sitting room, thepassage, down the stairs and into the silent street. At top speed heran into Sixth Avenue, yelled to a cab that was slipping along thetrolley lines and told the driver to go to East Sixty-seventh Streetfor all that he was worth. 

Joan wanted him. 

Joan!

Joan heard the cab drive up and stop, heard Martin sing out "That's allright, " open and shut the front door and mount the stairs; heard him goquickly to her room and knock. 

She went out and called "Marty, Marty, " and stood on the threshold ofhis dressing room, smiling a welcome. She was glad, beyond words glad, and surprised. There had seemed to be no chance of seeing him thatmorning. 

Martin came along the passage with his characteristic light tread anddrew up short. He looked anxious. 

"You wanted me?" he said. 

And Joan held out her hand. "I did and do, Marty. But how did youguess?"

"I didn't guess; I knew. " And he held her hand nervously. 

She looked younger and sweeter than ever in her blue silk dressing gownand shorter in her heelless slippers. What a kid she was, after all, hethought. 

"How amazing!" she said. "I wonder how?"

He shook his head. "I dunno--just as I did the first time, when I torethrough the woods and found you on the hill. "

"Isn't that wonderful! Do you suppose I shall always be able to get youwhen I want you very much?"

"Yes, always. "

"Why?"

She had gone back into the dressing room. The light was on her face. Her usual expression of elfish impertinence was not there. She was thegirl of the stolen meetings once more, the girl whose eyes reflectedthe open beauty of what Martin had called the big cathedral. For allthat, she was the girl who had hurt him to the soul, shown him herdoor, played that trick upon him at the Ritz and sent him adrift fullof the spirit of "Who cares?" which was her fetish. It was in his heartto say: "Because I adore you! Because I am so much yours that you haveonly to think my name for me to hear it across the world as if you hadshouted it through a giant megaphone! Because whatever I do andwhatever you do, I shall love you!" But she had hurt him twice. She hadcut him to the very core. He couldn't forget. He was too proud to layhimself open to yet another of her laughing snubs. 

So he shook his head again. "I dunno, " he said. "It's like that. It'ssomething that can't be explained. "

She sat on the arm of the chair with her hands round a knee. A littleof her pink ankle showed. The pipe that she had dropped when his voicehad come up from the street lay on the floor. 

His answer had disappointed her; she didn't quite know why. The oldMarty would have been franker and more spontaneous. The old Marty mighthave made her laugh with his boyish ingenuousness, but he would havewarmed her and made her feel delightfully vain. Could it be that shewas responsible for this new Marty? Was Alice too terribly right whenshe had talked about armor turning into broadcloth because of herselfish desire to remain a kid a little longer? She was afraid to askhim where he was when he had felt that she wanted him, and she hatedherself for that. 

There was a short silence. 

These two young things had lost the complete confidence that had beentheirs before they had come to that great town. What a pity!

"Well, " he asked, standing straight like a man ready to take orders, "why did you call?"

And then an overwhelming shyness seized her. It had seemed easy enoughin thought to tell Martin that she was ready to cross the bridge andbe, as Alice had called it, honest, and as Gilbert had said, to playthe game. But it was far from easy when he stood in the middle of theroom in the glare of the light, with something all about him that frozeher words and made her self-conscious and timid. And yet a clear, unmistakable voice urged her to have courage and make her confession, say that she was sorry for having been a feather-brained little fooland ask him to forgive--to win him back, if--if she hadn't already losthim. 

But she blundered into an answer and spoke flippantly from nervousness. "Because it's rather soon to become a grass widow, and I want you to beseen with me somewhere to-morrow. "

That was all, then. She was only amusing herself. It was a case of"Horse, horse, play with me!"--the other horses being otherwiseoccupied. She wasn't serious. He needn't have come. "I can't, " he said. "I'm sorry, but I'm going out of town. "

She saw him look at the clock on the mantelshelf and crinkle up hisforehead. Day must be stretching itself somewhere. She got up, quickly. How could she say it? She was losing him. 

"Are you angry with me, Marty?" she asked, trying to fumble her way tohonesty. 

"No, Joan. But it's very late. You ought to be in bed. "

"Didn't you think that I should miss you while you've been away?"

"No, Joan. Look. It's half-past two. A kid like you ought to have beenasleep hours ago. " He went over to the door. 

"I'm not a kid--I'm not" she burst out. 

He was too tired to be surprised. He had not forgotten how she hadhidden behind her youth. He couldn't understand her mood. "I must getto bed, " he said, "if you don't mind. I must be up pretty early. Runalong, Joany. "

He couldn't have hurt her more awfully whatever he had said. To betreated like a naughty girl! But it served her right, and she knew it. Her plea had come back like a boomerang. 

"Well, have a good time, " she said, with her chin high. "I shall seeyou again some day, I suppose, " and she went out. 

It was no use. She had lost him--she had lost him, just as she haddiscovered that she wanted him. There was a girl with a white face andred lips and hair that came out of a bottle. Martin watched her go andshut the door, and stood with his hands over his face. 

VIII

Mr. And Mrs. George Harley had made an appointment to meet at half-pasteleven sharp on the doorstep of the little house in Sixty-seventhStreet. Business had interrupted their honeymoon and brought themunexpectedly to New York. Harley had come by subway from Wall Street tothe Grand Central and taken a taxicab. It was twelve o'clock before hearrived. Nevertheless he wore a smile of placid ease of mind. Hislittle wife had only to walk from the Plaza, it was true, but he knew, although a newly married man, that to be half an hour late was to beten minutes early. 

At exactly five minutes past twelve he saw her turn off the Avenue, andas he strolled along to meet her, charmed and delighted by herdaintiness, proud and happy at his possession of her, he did a thingthat all wise and tactful husbands do--he forced back an irresistibledesire to be humorous at her expense and so won an entry of approvalfrom the Recording Angel. 

If they had both been punctual they would have seen Martin go off inhis car to drive the girl who had had no luck to the trees and the wildflowers and the good green earth. 

Joan's mother, all agog to see the young couple who had taken life intotheir own hands with the sublime faith of youth, had made it her firstduty to call, however awkward and unusual the hour. Her choice of hatsin which to do so had been a matter of the utmost importance. 

They were told that Mr. Gray had gone out of town, that Mrs. Gray wasnot yet awake and followed the butler upstairs to the drawing-room witha distinct sense of disappointment. The room still quivered under theemotion of Gilbert Palgrave. 

Rather awkwardly they waited to be alone. Butlers always appear toresent the untimely visitation of relations. Sunlight poured in throughthe windows. It was a gorgeous morning. 

"Well, " said George Harley, "I've seen my brokers and can do nothingmore to-day. Let the child have her sleep out. I'm just as happy to behere with you, Lil, as anywhere else. " And he bent over his wife as ifhe were her lover, as indeed he was, and kissed her pretty ear. Hisclothes were very new and his collar the shade of an inch too high forcomfort and his patent leather shoes something on the tight side, butthe spirits of the great lovers had welcomed him and were unafraid. 

He won a most affectionate and grateful smile from the neat little ladywhose brown hair was honestly tinged with white, and whose unlined facewas innocent of make-up. Mrs. Harley had not yet recovered from herastonishment at having been swept to the altar after fifteen years ofwidowhood by this most simple and admirable man. Even then she was notquite sure that she was not dreaming all this. She patted his big handand would have put her head against his chest if the brim of her hathad permitted her to do so. 

"That's very sweet of you, Geordie, " she said. "How good you are to me. "

He echoed the word "Good!" and laughed and waved his hands. It was thegesture of a man whose choice of ready words was not large enough todescribe all that he longed and tried to be to her. And then he stoodback with his long legs wide apart and his large hands thrust into hispockets and his rather untidy gray head stuck on one side and studiedher as if she were a picture in a gallery. He looked like a great bigfaithful St. Bernard dog. 

Mrs. Harley didn't think so. He seemed to her to be the boy of whom shehad dreamed in her first half-budding dreams and who had gone wanderingand come under the hand of Time, but remained a boy in his heart. Shewas glad that she had made him change his tie. She loved those deepcuts in his face. 

"Very well, then, " she said. "Although it is twelve o'clock I'll lether sleep another half an hour. " And then she stopped with a little cryof dismay, "Let her! . .. I'm forgetting that it's no longer in my powerto say what she's to do or not to do!"

"How's that?"

"She's no longer the young, big-eyed, watchful child who startled us bysaying uncanny things. She's no longer the slip of a thing that I leftwith her grandparents, with her wistful eyes on the horizon. She's amarried woman, Geordie, with a house of her own, and it isn't for me to'let' her do anything or tell her or even ask her. She can do what shelikes now. I've lost her, Geordie. "

"Why, how's that, Lil?" There was surprise as well as sympathy inHarley's voice. He had only known other people's children. 

She went on quickly, with a queer touch of emotion. "The inevitablechange has come before I've had time to realize it. It's a shock. Ittakes my breath away. I feel as if I had been set adrift from ananchor. Instead of being my little girl she's my daughter now. I'm nolonger 'mammy. ' I'm mother. Isn't it, --isn't it wonderful? It's likestanding under a mountain that's always seemed to be a little hillmiles and miles away. From now on I shall be the one to be told to dothings, I shall be the child to be kept in order. It's a queer momentin the life of a mother, Geordie. "

She laughed, but she didn't catch her tears before they were halfwaydown her cheeks. "I'm an old lady, my dear. "

Harley gave one of his hearty, incredulous laughs. "You, old. You'reone of the everlasting young ones, you are, Lil, " and he stood andbeamed with love and admiration. 

"But I've got you, Geordie, " she added, and her surprised heart thathad suddenly felt so empty warmed again and was soothed when he tookher hand eagerly and pressed it to his lips. 

Grandfather and Grandmother Ludlow, Joan and many others who had formedthe habit of believing that Christopher Ludlow's widow would remaintrue to his memory, failed utterly to understand the reason for hersudden breakaway from a settled and steady routine, to plunge intobelated matrimony with a self-made man of fifty-five who seemed to themto be not only devoid of all attractiveness but bourgeois and ratherridiculous. But why? A little sympathy, a little knowledge of humannature, --that's all that was necessary to make this romanceunderstandable. Because it was romance, in the best sense of that muchabused word. It was not the romance defined in the dictionary as anaction or adventure of an unusual or wonderful character, soaringbeyond the limits of fact and real life and often of probability, butthe result of loneliness and middle age, and of two hearts starving forlove and the expression of love, for sympathy, companionship and thenatural desire for something that would feed vanity, which, if it ispermitted to die, is replaced by bitterness and a very warped point ofview. 

Christopher Ludlow, a wild, harum-scarum fellow who had risked his lifemany times during his hunting trips, came to his death in a prosaicstreet accident. For fifteen years his widow, then twenty-five, livedin the country with his parents and his little daughter. She was attheir mercy, because Christopher had left no money. He had beendependent on an allowance from his father. Either she lived with themand bore cheerfully and tactfully with their increasing crotchetinessand impatience of old age, or left them to eke out a purposely smallincome in a second-rate hotel or a six by six apartment barely on theedge of the map. A timid woman, all for peace, without the grit andcourage that goes with self-direction, she pursued the easy policy ofleast resistance, sacrificed her youth on the altar of Comfort anddwindled with only a few secret pangs into middle age. From time totime, with Joan, she left the safe waters of Lethe and put an almostfrightened foot into the swift main stream. As time went on and Springwent out of her and Summer ripened to maturity, she was more and moreglad to return from these brief excursions to the quiet country and thesafe monotonous round. Then the day came when her no longer little girlcame finally out of school, urgent and rebellious, kicking against thepricks, electrically alive and eager, autocrat and individualist rolledinto one. Catching something of this youthfulness and shocked to waketo a realization of her lost years, she made a frantic and despairingeffort to grasp at the tail-end of Summer and with a daughter far moreworldly than herself escaped as frequently as possible into town totaste the pleasures that she had almost forgotten, and revive under theinfluence of the theater and the roar of life. It was during one ofthese excursions, while Joan was lunching with Alice Palgrave, that shecaught an arrow shot at random by that mischievous little devil Cupid, which landed plum in the middle of a heart that had been placid solong. In getting out of a taxicab she had slipped and fallen, wasraised deferentially to her feet, and looked up to catch the lonely andbewildered eyes of George Harley. They were outside their mutual hotel. What more natural and courteous than that he should escort her into thehotel with many expressions of anxious regret, ascend with her in theelevator to their mutual floor, linger with her for a polite fewminutes in the sunlight that poured through the passage windows andleave her to hurry finally to her room thrilling under the recollectionof two admiring eyes and a lingering handshake? She, even she, then, ather time of life, plump and partridge-like as she was, could inspirethe interest and approval of a man. It was wonderful. It was absurd. Itwas . .. Altogether too good to be true! Later, after she had spent ahalf-amused, half-wistful quarter of an hour in front of her glass, seeing inescapable white hairs and an irremediable double chin, she hadgone down to the dining room for lunch. All the tables being occupied, what more natural or disconcerting than for this modern Raleigh to riseand rather clumsily and eagerly beg that she would share the one justallotted to himself. 

To the elderly man, whose nose had been too close to the grindstone topermit of dalliance, and who now, monied and retired, found himselfterribly alone in the pale sun of St. Martin's Summer, and to thelittle charming woman of forty, led back to life by an ardent andimpetuous girl, this quite ordinary everyday incident, which seemed tothem to be touched by romance, came at a moment when both werepathetically receptive. They arranged to meet again, they met again, and one fine afternoon while Joan was at a theater with Alice, he spokeand she listened. It was in the more than usually hotel-likedrawing-room of their mutual hotel. People were having tea, and theband was playing. There was a jangle of voices, the jingle of a musicalcomedy, the movement of waiters. Under the leaves of a tame palm whichonce had known the gorgeous freedom of a semi-tropical forest hestumbled over a proposal, the honest, fearful, pulsating proposal of aman who conceived that he was trying hopelessly to hitch his wagon to astar, and she, tremulous, amazed, and on the verge of tears, acceptedhim. Hers presumably the dreadful ordeal of facing an incredulousdaughter and two sarcastic parents-in-law and his of standing forjudgment before them, --argument, discussion, satire, irony, abuseeven, --a quiet and determined marriage and a new and beautiful life. 

"What a delightful room, " said Mrs. Harley. "It looks so comfortablefor a drawing-room that it must have been furnished by a man. "

"We'll have a house in town by October, around here, and I'll bet itwon't be uncomfortable when you've finished with it. "

The raucous shouts of men crying an "extra" took Harley quickly to theopen window. He watched one scare-monger edge his way up one side ofthe street and another, whose voice was like the jagged edge of a rustysaw, bandy leg his way up the other side. "Sounds like big sea battle, "he said, after listening carefully. "Six German warships sunk, fiveBritish. Horrible loss of life. But I may be wrong. These men do theirbest not to be quite understood. Only six German ships! I wish thewhole fleet of those dirty dogs could be sunk to the bottom. "

There was nothing neutral or blind-eyed about George Harley. He hadfollowed all the moves that had forced the war upon the nations whosespineless and inefficient governments had so long been playing thepolicy of the ostrich. He had nothing but detestation for the vile andruthless methods of the German war party and nation and nothing butcontempt for the allied politicians who had made such methods possible. He had followed the course of the war with pain, anguish and batedbreath, thrilling at the supreme bravery of the Belgians and theFrench, and the First Hundred Thousand, thanking God for the miraclethat saved Paris from desecration, and paying honest tribute to thegiant effort of the British to wipe out the stain of a scandalous andcriminal unpreparedness. He had squirmed with humiliation at theattempts of the little, dreadful clever people of his owncountry, --professors, parsons, pacifists and pro-Germans, --to provethat it was the duty of the United States to stand aloof and unmoved inthe face of a menace which affected herself in no less a degree than itaffected the nations then fighting for their lives, and had watchedwith increasing alarm the fatuous complacency of Congress whichcontinued to deceive itself into believing that a great stretch of merewater rendered the country immune from taking its honest part in itsown war. "Oh, my God, " he had said in his heart, as all clear-sightedAmericans had been saying, "has commercialism eaten into our veryvitals? Has the good red blood of the early pioneers turned to water?Are we without the nerve any longer to read the writing on the wall?"And the only times that his national pride had been able to raise itshead beneath the weight of shame and foreboding were those when hepassed the windows of Red Cross Depots and caught sight of a roomful ofgood and noble women feverishly at work on bandages; when he read ofthe keen and splendid training voluntarily undergone by the far-sightedmen who were making Plattsburg the nucleus of an officers' trainingcorps, when he was told how many of his young and red-bloodedfellow-countrymen had taken up arms with the Canadian contingents orhad slipped over to France as ambulance men. What would he not havegiven to be young again!

He heaved a great sigh and turned back to the precious little woman whohad placed her life into his hands for love. The hoarse alarming voicesreceded into the distance, leaving their curious echo behind. 

"What were we talking about?" he asked. "Oh, ah, yes. The house. Lil, during the few days that I have to be in the city, let's find thehouse, let's nose around and choose the roof under which you and I willspend all the rest of our honeymoon. What do you say, dear?"

"I'd love it, Geordie; I'd just love it. A little house, smaller thanthis, with windows that catch the sun, quite near the Park, so that wecan toddle across and watch the children playing. Wouldn't that benice? And now I think I'll ring for some one to show me Joan's room andcreep in and suggest that she gets up. "

But there was no need. The door opened, and Joan came in, with eyeslike stars. 

IX

Three o'clock that afternoon found the Harleys still in Martin's house, with Mrs. Harley fidgetting to get George out for a walk in order thatshe might enjoy an intimate, mother-talk with Joan, and Joandeliberately using all her gifts to keep him there in order to avoid it. 

Lunch had been a simple enough affair as lunches go, lifted above theordinary ruck of such meals by the 1906 Chateau Latour and theCourvoisier Cognac from the cellar carefully stocked by Martin'sfather. From the psychological side of it, however, nothing could wellhave been more complicated. George had not forgotten his reception bythe Ludlows that day of his ever-to-be-remembered visit ofinspection--the cold, satirical eyes of Grandmother, the freezingcourtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of thegirl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person whomade life worth living in intermittent spots. He was nervous andoveranxious to appear to advantage. The young thoroughbred at the headof the table who had given him a swift all-embracing look, anenigmatical smile and a light laughing question as to whether he wouldlike to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed him. Hecouldn't help feeling like a clumsy piece of modern pottery in thepresence of an exquisite specimen of porcelain. His hands and feetmultiplied themselves, and his vocabulary seemed to contain no morethan a dozen slang phrases. He was conscious of the fact that hiscollar was too high and his clothes a little too bold in pattern, andhe was definitely certain for the first time in his life, that he hadnot yet discovered a barber who knew how to cut hair. 

Overeager to emphasize her realization of the change in herrelationship to Joan, overanxious to let it be seen at once that shewas merely an affectionate and interested visitor and not a mother witha budget of suggestions and corrections and rearrangements, Mrs. Harleyadded to the complication. Usually the most natural woman in the worldwith a soft infectious laugh, a rather shrewd humor and a neat gift ofcomment, she assumed a metallic artificiality that distressed herselfand surprised Joan. She babbled about absolutely nothing by the yard, talked over George's halting but gallant attempts to make things easylike any Clubwoman, and in an ultra-scrupulous endeavor to treat Joanas if she were a woman of the world, long emancipated from maternalapron strings, said things to her, inane, insincere things, that shewould not have said to a complete stranger on the veranda of a summerhotel or the sun deck of a transatlantic liner. She hated herself andwas terrified. 

For two reasons this unexpected lunch was an ordeal so far as Joan wasconcerned. She remembered how antagonistic she had been to Harley underthe first rough shock of her mother's startling and what then hadappeared to be disloyal aberration, and wanted to make up for it to thebig, simple, uncomfortable man who was so obviously in love. Also shewas still all alone in the mental chaos into which everything that hadhappened last night had conspired to plunge her and was trying, withevery atom of courage that she possessed, to hide the fact from hermother's quick solicitous eyes. SHE of all people must not know thatMartin had gone away or find the loose end of her married life!

It was one of those painful hours that crop up from time to time inlife and seem to leave a little scratch upon the soul. 

But when quarter past three came Mrs. Harley pulled herself together. She had already dropped hints of every known and well-recognized kindto George, without success. She had even invented appointments for himat the dentist's and the tailor's. But George was basking in Joan'sfavor and was too dazzled to be able to catch and concentrate upon hiswife's insinuations as to things and people that didn't exist. And Joanheld him with her smile and led him from one anecdote to another. Finally, with no one realized how supreme an effort, Mrs. Harley cameto the point. As a rule she never came to points. 

"Geordie, " she said, seizing a pause, "you may run along now, dear, andtake a walk. It will do you good to get a little exercise beforedinner. I want to be alone with Joan for a while. "

And before Joan could swing the conversation off at a tangent thefaithful and obedient St. Bernard was on his feet, ready and willing toramble whichever way he was told to go. With unconscious dignity and aguilelessness utterly unknown to drawing-rooms he bent over Joan'sreluctant hand and said, "Thank you for being so kind to me, " laid ahearty kiss on his wife's cheek and went. 

"And now, darling, " said Mrs. Harley, settling into her chair with anair of natural triumph, "tell me where Martin is and how long he'sgoing to be away and all about everything. "

These were precisely the questions that Joan had worked so hard andskilfully to dodge. "Well, first of all, Mummy, " she said, with filialartfulness, "you must come and see the house. "

And Mrs. Harley, who had been consumed with the usual femininecuriosity to examine every corner and cranny of it, rose with alacrity. "What I've already seen is all charming, " she said. "I knew Martin'sfather, you know. He spent a great deal of time at his house near yourgrandfather's, and was nearly always in the saddle. He was not a bitlike one's idea of a horsey man. He was, in fact, a gentleman who wasfond of horses. There is a world of difference. He had a mostdelightful smile and was the only man I ever met, except yourgrandfather, who could drink too much wine without showing it. Who'sthis good-looking boy with the trustworthy eyes?"

"Martin, " said Joan. "Martin, " she added inwardly, "who treated me likea kid last night. "

Mrs. Harley looked up at the portrait. An involuntary smiled playedround her mouth. "Yes, of course. I remember him. What a dear boy! Nowonder you fell in love with him, darling. You must be very happy. "

Joan followed her mother out of the room. She was glad of the chance tocontrol her expression. She went upstairs with a curious lack of thespirit of proprietorship. It hurt her to feel as if she were showing ahouse taken furnished for the season in which she had no rights, nopride and no personal interest. Martin had treated her like a kid lastnight and gone away in the morning without a word. Alice and Gilberthad taunted her with not being a wife. She wasn't, and this wasMartin's house, not hers and Martin's . .. It hurt. 

"Ah, " said Mrs. Harley softly as she went into Joan's bedroom. "Ah. Very nice. You both have room to move here. " But the mass of littlefilet lace pillows puzzled her, and she darted a quick look at the tallyoung thing with the inscrutable face who had ceased to be her littlegirl and had become her daughter. 

"The sun pours in, " said Joan, turning away. 

Mrs. Harley noticed a door and brightened up. 

"Martin's dressing room?" she asked. "No. My maid's room!" Joan said. 

Mrs. Harley shook her head ever so little. She was not in sympathy withwhat she called new-fashioned ideas. It was on the tip of her tongue tosay so and to forget, just this once, the inevitable change in theirrelationship and speak like mammy once more. But she was a timid, sensitive little woman, and the indefinable barrier that had suddenlysprung up held her back. Joan made no attempt to meet her halfway. Themoment passed. 

They went along the passage. "There are Martin's rooms, " said Joan. 

Mrs. Harley went halfway in. "Like a bachelor's rooms, aren't they?"she said, without guile. And while she glanced at the pictures and thecrowded bootrack and the old tallboys, Joan's sudden color went awayagain. .. . He was a bachelor. He had left her on the other side of thebridge. He had hurt her last night. How awfully she must have hurt him!

"When will Martin be back?"

"I don't know, " said Joan. "Probably to-morrow. I'm not sure. " Shestumbled a little, realized that she was giving herself away, --becauseif a bride is not to know her husband's movements, who is?--and made adesperate effort to recover her position. "It all depends on how longhe's kept. But he needed exercise, and golf's such a good game, isn'tit? I sha'n't hurry him back. "

She looked straight into her mother's anxious eyes, saw them clear, sawa smile come--and took a deep breath of relief. If there was one thingthat she had to put up the most strenuous fight to avoid, in herpresent chaotic state of mind, it was a direct question as to her lifewith Martin. Of all people, her mother must be left in the belief thatshe was happy. Pride demanded that, even to the extent of lying. It washard luck to be caught by her mother, at the very moment when she wasstanding among all the debris of her kid's ideas, among all the brokenbeams of carelessness, and the shattered panes of high spirits. 

She was thankful that her mother was not one of those aggressive, close-questioning women, utterly devoid of sensitiveness and delicacywho are not satisfied until they have forced open all the secretdrawers of the mind and stuck the contents on a bill file, --one ofthose hard-bosomed women who stump into church as they stump into adepartment store with an air of "Now then, what can you show me that'snew, " who go about with a metaphorical set of burglar's tools in alarge bag with which to break open confidences and who have no faith inhuman nature. 

And with a sudden sense of gratitude she turned to the woman whom shehad always accepted as a fact, an institution, and looked at her withnew eyes, a new estimate and a new emotion. The little, loving, gentle, anxious woman with the capacity of receiving impressions from externalobjects that amounted to a gift but with a reticence of so fine andtender a quality that she seemed always to stand on tiptoes on thedelicate ground of people's feelings, was HERS, was her mother. Theword burst into a new meaning, blossomed into a new truth. She had beenaccepted all these years, --loved, in a sort of way; obeyed, perhaps, expected to do things and provide things and make things easy, and hereshe stood more needed, at the moment when she imagined that the need ofher had passed, than at any other time of her motherhood. 

In a flash Joan understood all this and its paradox, looked all the wayback along the faithful, unappreciated years, and being no longer achild was stirred with a strange maternal fellow feeling that startedher tears. Nature is merciless. Everything is sacrificed to youth. Birds build their nests and rear their young and are left as soon aswings are ready. Women marry and bear children and bring them up withlove and sacrifice, only to be relegated to a second place at the firstmoment of independence. Joan saw this then. Her mother's alteredattitude, and her own feeling of having grown out of maternalpossession brought it before her. She saw the underlying drama of thissmall inevitable scene in the divine comedy of life and was touched bya great sympathy and made sorry and ashamed. 

But pride came between her and a desire to go down on her knees at hermother's side, make a clean breast of everything and beg for advice andhelp. 

And so these two, between whom there should have been completeconfidence, were like people speaking to each other from opposite banksof a stream, conscious of being overheard. 

X

Day after day went by with not a word from Martin. April was slippingoff the calendar. A consistent blue sky hung over a teeming city thatgrew warm and dry beneath a radiant sun. Winter forgotten, spring anovergrown boy, the whole town underwent a subtle change. Its rathersullen winter expression melted into a smile, and all its foreigncharacteristics and color broke out once more under the influence ofsun and blue sky. Alone among the great cities of the world stands NewYork for contrariety and contrast. Its architecture is as various asits citizenship, its manners are as dissimilar as its accents, itsmoods as diverse as its climate. Awnings appeared, straw hats pepperedthe streets like daisies in long fields, shadows moved, dayslengthened, and the call of the country fell on city ears like the thinwistful notes of the pipes of Pan. 

Brought up against a black wall Joan left the Roundabout, desisted fromjoy-riding, and, spending most of her time with her mother, triedsecretly and without any outward sign, to regain her equilibrium. Shesaw nothing of Alice and the set, now beginning to scatter, in whichAlice had placed her. She was consistently out to Gilbert Palgrave andthe other men who had been gathering hotly at her heels. Her policy of"who cares?" had received a shock and left her reluctantly andimpatiently serious. She had withdrawn temporarily into a backwater inorder to think things over and wait for Martin to reappear. It seemedto her that her future way of life was in his hands. If Martin cameback soon and caught her in her present mood she would play the gameaccording to the rules. If he stayed away or, coming back, persisted inconsidering her as a kid and treating her as such, away would goseriousness, life being short, and youth but a small part of it, andback she would go to the Merry-go-round, and once more, at twice thepace, with twice the carelessness, the joy-ride would continue. It wasall up to Martin, little as he knew it. 

And where was Martin?

There was no letter, no message, no sign as day followed day. Withoutallowing herself to send out an S. O. S. To him, which she well knewthat she had the power to do, she waited, as one waits at crossroads, to go either one way or the other. Although tempted many times to tapthe invisible wire which stretched between them, and to put an end to astate of uncertainty which was indescribably irksome to her impulsiveand imperative nature, she held her hand. Pride steeled her, and vanitygave her temporary patience. She even went so far as to think of himunder another name so that no influence of hers might bring him back. She wanted him to return naturally, on his own account, because he wasunable to keep away. She wanted him, wherever he was and whatever hewas doing, to want her, not to come in cold blood from a sense of duty, in the spirit of martyrdom. She wanted him, for her pride's sake, to beagain the old eager Marty, the burning-eyed, inarticulate Marty, whohad brought her to his house and laid it at her feet with all that washis. In no other way was she prepared to cross what she thought of asthe bridge. 

And so, seeing only her mother and George Harley, she waited, saying toherself confidently "If he doesn't come to-day, he will come to-morrow. I told him that I was a kid, and he understood. I've hurt him awfully, but he loves me. He will come to-morrow. "

But to-morrow came and where was Martin?

It was a curious time for this girl-woman to go through alone, hidingher crisis from her mother behind smiling eyes, disguising her anxietyunder a cloak of high spirits, herself hurt but realizing that she hadcommitted a hurt. It made her feel like an aeroplane voluntarily landedin perfect condition at the start of a race, waiting for the pilot toget aboard. That he would return at any moment and take her up againshe never doubted. Why should she? She knew Martin. His eyes wonconfidence, and there was a heart of gold behind his smile. She didn'tbelieve that she could have lost him so soon. He would come backbecause he loved her. Hadn't he agreed that she was a kid? And when hedid come back she would take her courage in both hands and tell himthat she wanted to play the game. And then, having been honest, shewould hitch on to life again with a light heart, and neither Alice norGilbert could stand up and flick her conscience. Martin would be happy. 

To-morrow and to-morrow, and no Martin. 

At the end of a week a letter was received by her mother fromGrandmother Ludlow, in which, with a tinge of sarcasm, she asked thatshe might be honored by a visit of a few days, always supposing thattrains still ran between New York and Peapack and gasolene could stillbe procured for privately owned cars. And there was a postscript inthese words. "Perhaps you have the necessary eloquence to induce theathletic Mrs. Martin Gray to join you. "

The letter was handed to Joan across the luncheon table at the Plaza. She read the characteristic effusion with keen amusement. She couldhear the old lady's incisive voice in every word and the tap of herstick across the hall as she laid the letter in the box. How good tosee the country again and go through the woods to the old high placewhere she had turned and found Martin. How good to go back to that oldprison house as an independent person, with the right to respect andeven consideration. It would serve Martin right to find her away whenhe came back. She would leave a little note on his dressing table. 

"No wonder the old lady asks if the trains have broken down, " said Mrs. Harley. "Of course, we ought to have gone out to see her, Geordie. "

"Of course, " said George, "of course"--but he darted a glance at Joanwhich very plainly conveyed the hope that she would find some reasonwhy the visit should not be made. Would he ever forget standing in thatstiff drawing-room before that contemptuous old dame, feeling exactlylike a very small worm?

The strain of waiting for Martin day after day had told on Joan. Shelonged for a change of atmosphere, a change of scene. And what a jokeit would be to be able to face her grandfather and grandmother withoutshaking in her shoes! "Of course, " said Joan. "Let's drive out to-dayin time for dinner, and send a telegram at once. Nothing like strikingwhile the iron's hot. Papa Geordie, tell the waiter to bring a blank, and we'll concoct a message between us. Is that all right for you, Mother?"

Mrs. Harley looked rather like a woman being asked to run a quarter ofa mile to catch a train, but she gave a little laugh and said, "Yes, dear. I think so, although, perhaps, to-morrow--"

"To-day is a much better word, " said Joan. She was sick of to-morrowand to-morrow. "Packing won't take any time. I'll go home directlyafter lunch and set things moving and be here in the car at threethirty. We can see the trees and smell the ferns and watch the sun setbefore we have to change for dinner. I'm dying to do that. "

No arguments or objections were put forward. 

This impetuous young thing must have her way. 

And when the car drove away from the Plaza a few minutes after theappointed time Joan was as excited as a child, Mrs. Harley quitecertain that she had forgotten her sponge bag and her bedroom slippers, and George Harley betting on a time that would put more lines on hisface. 

There was certainly more than a touch of irony in Joan's gladness to goback so soon to the cage from which she had escaped with such eagerness. 

There had been no word and no sign of Martin. 

But as Joan had run upstairs Gilbert Palgrave had come out from thedrawing-room and put himself deliberately in her way. 

"I can't stay now, Gilbert, " she had said. "I'm going into the country, and I haven't half a second to spare. I'm so sorry. "

He had held his place. "You've got to give me five minutes. You've gotto, " and something in his eyes had made her take hold of her impatience. 

"You don't know what you're doing to me, " he had said, with no sign ofhis usual style and self-consciousness, but simply, like a man who hadsat in the dark and suffered. "Or if you do know your cruelty isinhuman. I've tried to see you every day--not to talk about myself orbore you with my love, but just to look at you. You've had me turnedaway as if I were a poor relation. You've sent your maid to lie to meover the telephone as if I were a West Point cadet in a primitive stateof sloppy sentiment. Don't do it. It isn't fair. I hauled down myfourth wall to you, and however much you may scorn what you saw thereyou must respect it. Love must always be respected. It's the rarestthing on earth. I'm here to tell you that you must let me see you, justsee you. I've waited for many years for this. I'm all upheaved. You'veexploded me. I'm different. I'm remade. I'm beginning again. I shallask for nothing but kindness until I've made you love me, and then Ishall not have to ask. You will come to me. I can wait. That's all Iwant you to know. When you come back ring me up. I'll be patient. "

With that he had stood aside with a curious humbleness, had gripped thehand that she had given him and had gone downstairs and away. 

The country round Peapack was in its first glorious flush of youngbeauty. The green of everything dazzled under the sun. The woods werefull of the echo of fairy laughter. Wild flowers ran riot among thefields. Delicate-footed May was following on the heels of April withits slight fingers full of added glory for the earth. 

There was something soft and English in the look of the trees andfields as they came nearer to the old house. They might have beendriving through the kind garden of Kent. 

Framed in the fine Colonial doorway stood the tall old man with hiswhite head and fireless eyes, the little distinguished woman stillcharged with electricity and the two veteran dogs with their hollowbarks. 

"Not one blushing bride, but two, " said Grandmother Ludlow. "Howromantic. " She presented her cheek to the nervous Mrs. Harley. "Youlook years younger, my dear. Quite fluttery and foolish. How do you do, Mr. Harley? You are very welcome, Sir. " She passed them both on to theold man and turned to Joan with the kind of smile that one sees on thefaces of Chinese gods. "And here is our little girl in whose marvelloushappiness we have all rejoiced. "

Joan stood up bravely to the little old lady whose sarcasm went homelike the sharp point of a rapier. 

"How do you do, dear Grandmamma, " she said. 

"No better than can be expected, my love, but no worse. " The queersmile broadened. "But surely you haven't torn yourself away from theyoung husband from whom, I hear, you have never been parted for amoment? That I can't believe. People tell me that there has never beensuch a devoted and love-sick couple. Martin Gray is driving anothercar, of course. "

Joan never flicked an eyelash. She would rather die than let thiscunning old lady have the satisfaction of seeing that she had drawnblood. "No, Grandmamma, " she said. "Martin needed exercise and isplaying golf at Shinnecock. He rang me up this morning and asked me tosay how sorry he was not to have the pleasure of seeing you this time. "She went over to her grandfather and held up a marvellously equableface. 

The old dame watched her with reluctant admiration. The child had allthe thoroughbred points of a Ludlow. All the same she should be shownthat, even in the twentieth century, young girls could not break awayfrom discipline and flout authority without punishment. The smilebecame almost gleeful at the thought of the little surprise that was instore for her. 

The old sportsman took Joan in his arms and held her tight for amoment. "I've missed you, my dear, " he said. "The house has been like amausoleum without you. But I've no reproaches. Youth to youth, --it'sright and proper. " And he led her into the lofty hall with his armround her shoulder. 

There was a sinister grin on Gleave's poacher-like face when Joan gavehim a friendly nod. And it was with a momentary spasm of uneasinessthat she asked herself what he and her grandmother knew. It was evidentthat they had something up their sleeves. But when, after a tea duringwhich she continued to fence and play the part of happy bride, she wentout into the scented garden that was like an old and loving friend, this premonition of something evil left her. With every step she feltherself greeted and welcomed. Young flowers as guileless as childrenwaved their green hands. Heads nodded as she passed. The old trees thathad watched her grow up rustled their leaves in affectionateexcitement. She had not understood until that very moment how many truefriends she had or how warm a place in her heart that old house hadtaken. It was with a curious maternal emotion that clouded her eyeswith tears that she stood for a moment and kissed her hands to theright and left like a young queen to her subjects. Then she ran alongthe familiar path through the woods to the spot where she had beenfound by Martin and stood once more facing the sweep of open countryand the distant horizon beyond which lay the Eldorado of her girl'sdreams. She was still a girl, but she had come back hurt and sorry andashamed. Martin might have lost his faith in her. He had gone awaywithout a word or sign. Gilbert Palgrave held her in such small respectthat he waited with patience for her to come, although married, intohis arms. And there was not a man or a woman on the Round-about, exceptAlice, who really cared whether she ever went back again. The greedysquirrel peeked at her from behind a fern, recognized his old playmate, and came forward in a series of runs and leaps. With a little cry Joanbent down and held out her hand. And away in the distance there was thebaying of Martin's hounds. But where was Martin?

XI

"Rather beg than work, wouldn't he? I call him Micawber because he'salways waiting for something to turn up. "

Joan wheeled round. To hear a stranger's voice in a place that waspeculiarly hers and Martin's amazed and offended her. It wasunbelievable. 

A girl was sitting in the long grass, hatless, with her hands claspedround her knees. The sun lit up her bobbed hair that shone like brassand had touched her white skin with a warm finger. Wistful and elfish, sitting like Puck on a toadstool, she might have slipped out of somemossy corner of the woods to taste the breeze and speculate about life. She wore a butter-colored sport shirt wide open at the neck and browncord riding breeches and puttees. Slight and small boned and ratherthin she could easily have passed for a delicate boy or, except forsomething at the back of her eyes that showed that she had not alwayslived among trees, for Peter Pan's brother of whom the world had neverheard. 

Few people would have recognized in this spring maid the Tootles ofBroadway and that rabbit warren in West Forty-sixth Street. The dew ofthe country had washed her face and lips, and the choir voices ofMartin's big cathedral had put peace and gentleness into her expression. 

She ran her eyes with frank admiration over the unself-consciouslypatrician Joan in her immaculate town clothes and let them rest finallyon a face that seemed to her to be the most attractive that she hadever seen, for all that its expression made her want to scramble to herfeet and take to her heels. But she controlled herself and sat tight, summoned her native impertinence to the rescue and gave a friendly nod. After all, it was a free country. There were no princesses knockingabout. 

"You don't look as if you were a pal of squirrels, " she said. 

Joan's resentment at the unexpected presence of this interloper onlylasted a moment. It gave way almost immediately before interest andcuriosity and liking, --even, for a vague reason, sympathy. 

"I've known this one all his life, " she said. "His father and motherwere among my most intimate friends and, what's more, his grandfatherand grandmother relied on me to help them out in bad times. "

The duet of laughter echoed among the trees. 

With a total lack of dignity the squirrel retired and stood, with erecttail, behind a tuft of coarse grass, wondering what had happened. 

"It's a gift to be country and look town, " said Tootles, withunconcealed flattery. "It's having as many ancestors as the squirrels, I suppose. According to the rules I ought to feel awkward, oughtn't I?"

"Why?"

"Well, I'm trespassing. I saw it in your eyes. 'Pon my soul it neveroccurred to me before. Shall I try and make a conventional exit or mayI stay if I promise not to pinch the hill? This view is better thanface massage. It rubs out all the lines. My word, but it's good to bealive up here!"

The mixture of cool cheek and ecstasy, given forth in the patois of theLondon suburbs, amused Joan. Here was a funny, whimsical, pathetic, pretty little thing, she thought--queerly wise, too, and with all abouther a curious appeal for friendship and kindness. "Stay, of course, "she said. "I'm very glad you like my hill. Use it as often as you can. "She sat down on the flat-topped piece of rock that she had so oftenshared with Martin. There was a sense of humanity about this girl thathad the effect of a magnet. She inspired confidence, as Martin did. 

"Thanks most awfully, " said Tootles. "You're kinder than you think tolet me stay here. And I'm glad you're going to sit down for a bit. Ilike you, and I don't mind who knows it. "

"And I like you, " said Joan. 

And they both laughed again, feeling like children. It was acharacteristic trick of Fate's to bring about this meeting. 

"I don't mind telling you now, " went on Tootles, all barriers down, "that I've come up here every evening for a week. It's a thousand yearssince I've seen the sun go to bed and watched the angels light thestars. It's making me religious. The Broadway electrics have alwaysbeen between me and the sky. .. . Gee, but it's goin' to be great thisevening. " She settled herself more comfortably, leaned back against thestump of a tree and began to smile like a child at the Hippodrome inexpectation of one of the "colossal effects. "

Joan's curiosity was more and more piqued, but it was rather to knowwhat than who this amazingly natural little person was. For all heryouth there were lines round her mouth that were eloquent of a storybegun early. Somehow, with Martin away and giving no sign, Joan wasglad, and in a way comforted, to have stumbled on some one, young likeherself, who had obviously faced uncertainty and stood at thecrossroads. "I'd like to ask you hundreds of questions, " she saidimpulsively. "Do you mind?"

"No, dearie. Fire away. I shan't have to tell you any fables to keepyou interested. I broke through the paper hoop into the big ring when Iwas ten. Look! See those ducks flyin' home? The first time I saw them Ithought it was a V-shaped bit of smoke running away from one of thefactories round Newark. "

She had told Martin that. His laugh seemed still to be in the air. 

"Are you married?" asked Joan suddenly. 

"Not exactly, dearie, " replied Tootles, without choosing her words. Buta look at the young, eager, sweet face bent towards her made her decideto use camouflage. "What I mean is, no, I'm not. Men don't marry mewhen it isn't absolutely necessary. I'm a small part chorus lady, ifyou get my point. "

Joan was not quite sure that she did. Her sophistication had not gonefarther up than Sixty-seventh Street or farther down than Sherry's, andit was bounded by Park Avenue on the one side and Fifth Avenue on theother. "But would you like to have been married?" All her thoughts justthen were about marriage and Marty. 

Tootles shook her head and gave a downward gesture with an open handthat hardly needed to be amplified. "No, not up to a few weeks ago. I've lived by the stage, you see, and that means that the men I've comeacross have not been men but theatricals. Very different. You may takemy word. When I met my first man I didn't believe it. I thought he wasthe same kind of fake. But when I knew that he was a manalright, --well, I wanted to be married as much as a battered fishingsmack wants to get into harbor. " She was thinking of Marty too, although not of marriage any more. 

"And are you going to be?"

"No, dearie. He's got a wife, it turns out. It was a bit o' cheek everto dream of hitting a streak of such luck as that. All the same, I'vewon something that I shall treasure all the days of my life. .. . Look. Here come some of the mourners. " She pointed to three crows thatflapped across a sky all hung with red and gold. 

Joan was puzzled. "Mourners?"

"Why, yes. Isn't this the death bed of a day?"

"I never thought of it in that way, " said Joan. 

"No, " said Tootles, running her eyes again over Joan's well-groomedyoung body. "That's easy to see. You will, though, if ever you wantevery day to last a year. You're married, anyway. "

"Not exactly, " said Joan, unconsciously repeating the other girl'sexpression. 

Tootles looked at Martin's ring. "What about that, then?"

Joan looked at it too, with a curious gravity. It stood for so muchmore than she had ever supposed that it would. "But I don't knowwhether it's going to bind us, or not. "

"And you so awfully young!"

"I was, " said Joan. 

The girl who had never had any luck darted a keen, examining glance atthe girl who had all the appearance of having been born lucky. Married, as pretty as a picture, everything out of the smartest shops, theowner, probably, of this hill and those woods, and the old house thatshe had peeped at all among that lovely garden--she couldn't have comeup against life's sharp elbow, surely? She hoped not, most awfully shehoped not. 

Joan caught the look and smiled back. There was kindness here, andcomradeship. "I've nothing to tell, " she said, "yet. I'm just beginningto think, that's the truth, only just. I've been very young andthoughtless, but I'm better now and I'm waiting to make up for it. I'mnot unhappy, only a little anxious. Everything will come right though, because my man's a man, too. "

Tootles made a long arm and put her hand on Joan's. "In that case, makeup for it bigly, dearie, " she said earnestly. "Don't be afraid to give. There are precious few real men about and lots of women to make asnatch at them. It isn't being young that matters. Most troubles arebrought about, at your time of life, by not knowing when to stop beingyoung. Good luck, Lady-bird. I hope you never have anything to tell. Oh, just look, just look!"

Joan followed the pointing finger, but held the kind hand. And they satin silence watching "the fair frail palaces, the fading Alps andarchipelagoes, and great cloud-continents of sunset seas. " And as shesat, enthralled, the whole earth hushed and still, shadows lurkingtowards the east, the evening air holding its breath, the night readybehind the horizon for its allotted work, God's hand on everything, itwas of Marty that Joan thought, Marty whom she must have hurt so deeplyand who had gone away without a word or a sign, believing that she wasstill a kid. Yes, she WOULD make up for it, bigly, bigly, and he shouldbe happy, this boy-man who was a knight. 

And it was of Martin that Tootles, poor, little, unlucky Tootles, thought also. All her life she would have something to which to lookback, something precious and beautiful, and his name, stamped upon herheart, would go down with her to the grave. 

And they stayed there, in silence, holding hands, until the last touchof color had gone out of the sky and the evening air sighed and movedon and the night climbed slowly over the dim horizon. They might havebeen sisters. 

And then Joan rose in a sort of panic. "I must go, " she said nervously, forgetting that she had grown up. "Good night, Fairy. "

Tootles stood up too. "Good night, Lady-bird. Make everything comeright, " and held out her hand. 

Joan took it again and went forward and kissed the odd little girl whowas her friend. 

And a moment later Tootles saw her disappearing into the wood, like aspirit. When she looked up at the watching star and waved her hand, itseemed all misty. 

XII

"And now, Mr. Harley, " said Grandmother Ludlow, lashing theseptuagenarian footman with one sharp look because he had spilt two orthree drops of Veuve Cliquot on the tablecloth, "tell me about thepresent state of the money market. "

Under his hostess's consistent courtesy and marked attentions GeorgeHarley had been squirming during the first half of dinner. He had ledher into the fine old dining room with all the style that he couldmuster and been placed, to his utter dismay, on her right. He wouldinfinitely rather have been commanded to dine with the Empress ofChina, which he had been told was the last word in mental and physicaltorture. Remembering vividly the cold and satirical scorn to which hehad been treated during his former brief and nightmare visit the oldlady's change of attitude to extreme politeness and even deference madehim feel that he was having his leg pulled. In a brand new dinnerjacket with a black tie poked under the long points of a turned-downcollar, which, in his innocence, he had accepted as the mode ofgentlemen and not, as he rightly supposed of waiters, he had done hisbest to give coherent answers to a rapid fire of difficult questions. The most uneasy man on earth, he had committed himself to statementsthat he knew to be unsound, had seen his untouched plate whisked awaywhile he was floundering among words, and started a high temperaturebeneath what he was perfectly certain was lurking mockery behindapparently interested attention. 

If any banker at that moment had overheard him describing the state ofthe money market he would have won for himself a commission in theearth's large army of unconfined lunatics. 

The old sportsman, sitting with Joan on his right and hisdaughter-in-law on his left, was more nearly merry and bright than anyone had seen him since the two great changes in his household. Hisdelight in having Joan near him again was pathetic. He had shaved forthe second time that day, a most unusual occurrence. His white hairglistened with brilliantine, and there was a gardenia in hisbuttonhole. Some of the old fire had returned to his eyes, and histongue had regained its once invariable knack of paying charmingcompliments. In his excitement and delight he departed from his rigiddiet, and, his wife's attention being focussed upon George Harley, punished the champagne with something of his old vigor, and revived asa natural result many of the stories which Joan and her mother had beentold ad nauseam over any number of years with so much freshness as tomake them seem almost new. 

Mrs. Harley, wearing a steady smile, was performing the painful feat oflistening with one ear to the old gentleman and with the other to theold lady. All her sympathy was with her unfortunate and uneasy husbandwho looked exactly like a great nervous St. Bernard being teased by aPekinese. 

Joan missed none of the underlying humor of the whole thing. It wasamusing and satisfactory to be treated as the guest of honor in a housein which she had always been regarded as the naughty and rebelliouschild. She was happy in being able to put her usually morosegrandfather into such high spirits and moved to a mixture of mirth andpity at the sight of George Harley's plucky efforts. Also she hadbrought away with her from the girl she called the fairy a strengtheneddesire to play the game and a good feeling that Marty was nearer to herthan he had been for a long and trying week. It's true that from timeto time she caught in her grandmother's eyes that queer look oftriumphant glee that had disturbed her when they met and the sameexpression of malicious spite at the corner of Gleave's sunken mouthwhich had made her wonder what he knew, but these things she wavedaside. Instinct, and her complete knowledge of Mrs. Cumberland Ludlow'stemperament, made her realize that if the old lady could find a way toget even with her for having run off she would leave no stone unturned, and that she would not hesitate to use the cunning ex-fighting man tohelp her. But, after all, what could they do? It would be foolish toworry. 

Far from foolish, if she had had an inkling of the trap that had beenlaid for her and into which she was presently going to fall withoutsuspicion. 

The facts were that Gleave had seen Martin drive up to his house withTootles, had watched them riding and walking together throughout theweek, had reported what he had seen to Mrs. Ludlow and left it to herfertile imagination to make use of what was to him an ugly business. And the old lady, grasping her chance, had written that letter to Mrs. Harley and having achieved her point of getting Joan into her hands, had discovered that she did not know where Martin was and had made upher mind to show her. Revenge is sweet, saith the phrasemonger, and tothe old lady whose discipline had been flouted and whose amour proprehad been rudely shaken it was very sweet indeed. Her diabolical scheme, conceived in the mischievous spirit of second childhood, was to leadJoan on to a desire to show off her country house to her relations atthe moment when the man she had married and the girl with whom he wasamusing himself on the sly were together. "How dramatic, " she chuckled, in concocting the plan. "How delightfully dramatic. " And she might haveadded, "How hideously cruel. "

But it was not until some little time after they had all adjourned tothe drawing-room, and Joan had played the whole range of her old piecesfor the edification of her grandfather, that she set her trap. 

"If I had my time over again, " she said, looking the epitome ofbenevolence, "I would never spend spring in the city. "

"Wouldn't you, dear?" prompted Mrs. Harley, eager to make theconversation general and so give poor George a rest. 

"No, my love. I would make my winter season begin in November and endin February--four good months for the Opera, the theatres, entertainingand so forth. Then on the first of March, the kind-hearted month thatnurses April's violets, I would leave town for my country place and, asthe poets have it watch the changing skies and the hazel blooms peepthrough the swelling buds and hear the trees begin to whisper and thethrostles break into song. One loses these things by remaining amongbricks and mortar till the end of April. Joan, my dear, give this yourconsideration next year. If your good husband is anything like hisfather, whom we knew very slightly and admired, he is a lover of thecountry and should be considered. "

"Yes, Grandmamma, " said Joan, wondering if Marty had come back andfound her note on his dressing-table. 

"Always supposing, of course, that next year finds you both as much inlove as you are to-day, --the most devoted pair of turtle doves, as I amtold. " She laughed a little roguishly to disguise the sting. 

"They will be, " said Mrs. Harley quickly. "There is no doubt aboutthat. "

"None, " said Joan, looking full at the old lady with a confident smileand a high chin. Would her grandmother never forget that escape fromthe window?

"Why suggest the possibility of a break?" asked Mr. Ludlow, with atouch of anger. "Really, my dear. "

"A little joke, Cumberland, merely a little joke. Joan understands me, I know. "

"I think so, " said Joan, smiling back. Not on her, whatever happened, would she see the white feather. Some one had told the tale of herkid's rush into the heart of things and her many evenings with Palgraveand the others, when "Who cares?" was her motto. 

The old lady went on, with infinite artfulness. "During the comingsummer, my love, you should look out for a pleasant little house insome charming part of the country, furnish it, put men to work on thegarden, and have it all ready for the following spring. "

"I know just the place, " put in George. "Near a fine golf course andcountry club with a view across the Hudson that takes your breath away. "

"That might necessitate the constant attendance of a doctor, " said Mrs. Ludlow drily, "which would add considerably to the expenses. I wouldadvise the Shinnecock Hills, for instance, which are swept by seabreezes and so reminiscent of Scotland. Martin would be within astone's throw of his favorite course, there, wouldn't he, Joan?"

"Yes, Grandmamma, " said Joan, still with a high head and a placidsmile, although it came to her in a flash that her statement as towhere Martin was had not been believed. What if Grandmother knew whereMartin had gone? How absurd. How could she?

And then Mr. Ludlow broke in again, impatiently. The effect of thechampagne was wearing off. He hated feminine conversation indrawing-rooms, anyhow. "Why go searching about for a house for thechild when she's got one already. "

"Why, so I have, " cried Joan. "Here. I'd forgotten all about it!"

Nothing could have suited the old lady so well. Her husband could nothave said anything more right if he had been prompted. "Of course youhave, " she said, with a cackle of laughter. "I had forgotten it too. Mr. Harley, can you believe our overlooking the fact that there is amost excellent house in the family a gunshot from where we are allsitting? It's natural enough for me, who have never met Joan's younghusband. But for you, my love, who spent such a romantic night there!Where are your wits?"

Joan's laugh rang out. "Goodness knows, but I really had forgotten allabout it. And although I've only been in it once I've known it by sightall my life. Martin's father had it built, Papa George, and it'sawfully nice and sporting, with kennels, and tennis courts, andeverything. "

"Yes, and beautifully furnished, I remember. I dined there severaltimes, years ago before Mr. Gray had--" Mrs. Harley drew up short. 

Mrs. Ludlow finished the sentence. "A little quarrel with me, " shesaid. "I objected to his hounds scrambling over this property and wrotepithily to that effect. We never spoke again. My dear, while we are alltogether, why not personally conduct us over this country house ofyours and give us an unaccustomed thrill of excitement. "

"Yes, do, darling, " said Mrs. Harley. "George would love to see it. "

"I will, " said Joan. "I'd adore to. I don't know a bit what it's like, except the hall and the library. It will come as a perfect surprise tome. "

"A very perfect surprise, " said Mrs. Ludlow. 

Joan sprang to her feet. "Let's go now. No time like the present. "

"Well, " said Mrs. Harley cautiously, though equally keen. 

"No, no, not to-night. Bear with your aged grandparents. Besides, thehousekeeper and the other servants will probably be in bed. To-morrownow, early--"

"All right, " said Joan. "To-morrow then, directly after breakfast. Fancy forgetting that one possessed a country house. It's almostalarming. " And she put her hands on her grandfather's shoulders, andbent down and kissed him. She was excited and thrilled. It was herhouse because it was Martin's, and soon she would be Martin's too. Andthey would spend a real honeymoon in the place in which they had sattogether in the dark and laid their whispered plans for the greatadventure. How good that would be!

And when she went back to the piano and rattled off a fox trot, Grandmother Ludlow got up and hobbled out of the room, on her tappingstick, to hide her glee. 

XIII

It was ten o'clock when Joan stood once more in the old, familiarbedroom in which she had slept all through her childhood andadolescence. 

Nothing had been altered since the night from which she dated thebeginning of her life. Her books were in the same places. Letters fromher school friends were in the same neat pile on her desk. The thingsthat she had been obliged to leave on her dressing-table had not beentouched. A framed photograph of her mother, with her hands placed inthe incredible way that is so dear to the photographer's heart, stillhung crooked over a colonial chest of drawers. Her blue and white bathwrap was in its place over the back of a chair, with her slippersbeneath it. 

She opened the door of the hospitable closet. There were all theclothes and shoes and hats that she had left. She drew out a drawer inthe chest. Nothing had been disturbed. .. . It was uncanny. She seemed tohave been away for years. And yet, as she looked about and got thefamiliar scent of the funny little lavender sachets made by Mrs. Nye, she found it hard to believe that Marty and Gilbert Palgrave, the housein New York, all the kaleidoscope of Crystal rooms and restaurants, allthe murmur of voices and music and traffic were not the elusivememories of last night's dream. But for the longing for Marty thatamounted to an absorbing, ever-present homesickness, it was difficultto accept the fact that she was not still the same early-to-bed, early-to-rise country girl, kicking against the pricks, rebellingagainst the humdrum daily routine, spoiling to try her wings. 

"Dear old room, " she whispered, suddenly stretching out her arms to it. "My dear old room. I didn't think I'd miss you a little bit. But Ihave. I didn't think I should be glad to get back to you. But I am. What are you doing to me to make me feel a tiny pain in my heart?You're crowding all the things I did here and all the things I thoughtabout like a thousand white pigeons round my head. All my impatientsighs, and big ambitions, and silly young hopes and fears are coming tomeet me and make me want to laugh and cry. But it isn't the same methat you see; it isn't. You haven't changed, dear old room, but I have. I'm different. I'm older. I'm not a kid any more. I'm grown up. Oh, mydear, dear old room, be kind to me, be gentle with me. I haven't playedthe game since I went away or been honest. I've been thoughtless, selfish and untamed. I've done all the wrong things. I've attracted allthe wrong people. I've sent Marty away, Marty--my knight--and I wanthim back. I want to make up to him bigly, bigly for what I ought tohave done. Be kind to me, be kind to me. "

And she closed her arms as if in an embrace and put her head down asthough on the warm breast of an old friend and the good tears ran downher cheeks. 

All the windows were open. The air was warm and scented. There was nosound. The silent voices of the stars sang their nightly anthem. Theearth was white with magic moonshine. Joan looked out. The old creeperdown which she had climbed to go to Martin that night which seemed sofar away was all in leaf. With what exhilaration she had dropped herbag out. Had ever a girl been so utterly careless of consequences thenas she? How wonderfully and splendidly Martinish Martin had been whenshe plunged in upon him, and how jolly and homelike the hall of hishouse--her house--had seemed to be. To-morrow she would explore it alland show it off to her family. To-morrow. .. . Yes, but to-night? Shouldshe allow herself to be carried away by a sudden longing to follow herflying footsteps through the woods, pretend that Martin was waiting forher and take a look at the outside of the house alone? Why not? No oneneed know, and she had a sort of aching to see the place again that wasso essentially a part of Martin. Martin--Martin--he obsessed her, bodyand brain. If only she could find Martin. 

With hasty fingers she struggled with the intricate hooks of herevening frock. Out of it finally, and slipping off her silk stockingsand thin shoes she went quickly to the big clothes closet, chose ashort country skirt, a pair of golf stockings, thick shoes and atam-o'-shanter, made for the drawer in which were her sport shirts andsweaters and before the old round-faced clock on the mantelpiece couldrecover from his astonishment became once more the Joan-all-alone forwhom he had ticked away the hours. Then to the window, and hand overhand down the creeper again and away across the sleeping garden to thewoods. 

The fairies were out. Their laughter was blown to her like thistledown. But she was a woman now and only Martin called her--Martin who hadmarried her for love but was not her husband yet. Oh, where was Martin?

And as she went quickly along the winding path through the trees themoon dropped pools of light in her way, the scrub oaks threw out theirarms to hold her back and hosts of little shadows seemed to run out tocatch at her frock. But on went Joan, just to get a sight of the housethat was Martin's and hers and to cast her spirit forward to the timewhen he and she would live there as they had not lived in the city. 

She marvelled and rejoiced at the change that had come overher, --gradually, underminingly, --a change, the seeds of which had beenthrown by Alice, watered by Palgrave and forced by the disappearance ofMartin, and brought to bloom in the silent hours of wakeful nights whenthe thought of all the diffidence and deference of Martin won hergratitude and respect. In the strong, frank and rather harsh light thathad been flung on her way of life it was Martin, Martin, who stood outclean and tender and lenient--Martin, who had developed from the Paulof the woods, the boy chum, her fellow adventurer, her sexless Knight, into the man who had won her love and whom she needed and ached for andlonged to find. She had been brought up with a round turn, foundherself face to face with the truth of things and, deaf to theincessant jangle of the Merry-go-round, had discovered that Martin wasnot merely the gallant and obliging boy, playing a game, trifling onthe edge of reality, but the man with the other blade of the penknifewho, like his prototype in the fairy tale, had the ordained right toher as she had to him. 

And as she went on through the silvered trees, with a sort of dignity, her chin high, her eyes sparkling like stars, her mouth soft and sweet, it was to see the roof under which she would begin her married lifeagain, rightly, honestly and as a woman, crossing the bridge betweenthoughtlessness and responsibility with a true sense of itsmeaning, --not in cold blood. 

She came out to the road, dry and white, bordered by coarse grasses andwild flowers all asleep, with their petals closed over their eyes, opened the gate that led into the long avenue, splashed through thepatches of moonlight on the driveway and came finally to the door underwhich she had stood that other time with dancing eyes and racing bloodand "Who cares?" ringing in her head. 

There was no light to be seen in any of the front windows. The houseseemed to be fast asleep. How warm and friendly and unpretentious itlooked, and there was all about it the same sense of strength thatthere was about Martin. In which window had they stood in the dark, looking out on to a world that they were going to brave together? Wasit in the right wing? Yes. She remembered that tree whose branchesturned over like a waterfall and something that looked like a littleold woman in a shawl bending to pick up sticks but which was an oldstump covered with creepers. 

She went round, her heart fluttering like a bird, all her femininitystirred at the thought of what this house must mean and shelter--anddrew up short with a quick intake of breath. A wide streak of yellowlight fell through open French windows across the veranda and on to thegrass, all dew-covered. Some one was there . .. A woman's voice, notmerry, and with a break in it. .. . When the cat's away, the mice, in theshape of one of the servants. .. 

Joan went on again. What a joke to peep in! She wouldn't frighten thegirl or walk in and ask questions. It was, as yet, too much Marty'shouse for that--and, after all, what harm was she doing by sitting upon such a lovely night? The only thing was it was Martin's very ownroom filled with his intimate things and with his father's messagewritten largely on a card over the fireplace--"We count it death tofalter, not to die. "

But she went on, unsuspecting, her hand unconsciously clasped in thestern relentless hand of Fate, who never forgets to punish. .. . A shadowcrossed the yellow patch. There was the sound of a pipe being knockedout on one of the firedogs. A man was there, then. Should she take onelook, or go back? She would go back. It was none of her business, unfortunately. But she was drawn on and on, until she could see intothe long, low, masculine room. 

A man was sitting on the arm of a sofa, a man with square shoulders anda deep chest, a man with his strong young face turned to the light, smiling--

"Marty, " cried Joan. "Marty!" and went up and across the veranda andinto the room. "Why, Marty, " and held out her hand, all glad andtremulous. 

And Martin got on his feet and stood in amazement, wide-eyed, andsuddenly white. 

"You here!" cried Joan. "I've been waiting and wondering, but I didn'tcall because I wanted you to come back for yourself and not for me. It's been a long week, Marty, and in every hour of it I've grown. Can'tyou see the change?"

And Martin looked at her, and his heart leaped, and the blood blazed inhis veins and he was about to go forward and catch her in his arms witha great cry. .. 

"Oh, hello, Lady-bird; who'd have expected to see you!"

Joan wheeled to the left. 

Lying full stretched on the settee, her settee, was a girl with herhands under her bobbed hair, a blue dress caught up under one knee, herbare arms agleam, her elfin face all white and a smile round her toored lips. 

("White face and red lips and hair that came out of a bottle. ")

Martin said something, inarticulately, and moved a chair forward. Thegirl spoke again, cheerily, in the spirit of good-fellowship, astonished a little, but too comfortable to move. 

But a cold hand was laid on Joan's heart, and all that rang in herbrain were the words that Alice had used, --"white face and red lips andhair that came out of a bottle. .. . Don't YOU be the one to turn hisarmor into common broadcloth. "

And for a moment she stood, looking from Marty to the girl and back toMarty, like one struck dumb, like one who draws up at the very lip of achasm. .. . And in that cruel and terrible minute her heart seemed tobreak and die. Marty, Marty in broadcloth, and she had put it in hishands. She had turned him away from her room and lost him. There's notone thing that any of us can do or say that doesn't react on some oneelse to hurt or bless. 

With a little gasp, the sense of all this going home to her, Tootlesscrambled awkwardly off the settee, dropping a book and a handkerchief. This, then, this beautiful girl who belonged to a quarter of life ofwhich she had sometimes met the men but never the women, was Martin'swife--the wife of the man whom she loved to adoration. 

"Why, then, you're--you're Mrs. Gray, " she stammered, her impertinencegone, her hail-fellow-well-met manner blown like a bubble. 

Catching sight of the message, "We count it death to falter not todie, " Joan summoned her pride, put up her chin and gave a curiouslittle bow. "Forgive me, " she said, "I'm trespassing, " and not daringto look at Marty, turned and went out. She heard him call her name, sawhis sturdy shadow fall across the yellow patch, choked back a sob, started running, and stumbled away and away, with the blood from herheart bespattering the grasses and the wild flowers, and the fairieswhimpering at her heels, --and, at last, climbing back into the roomthat knew and loved and understood, threw herself down on its bosom ina great agony of grief. 

"Be kind to me, old room, be kind to me. It's Joan-all-alone, --allalone. "

PART THREE

THE GREAT EMOTION

I

Mrs. Alan Hosack, bearing a more than ever remarkable resemblance tothose ship's figureheads that are still to be seen in the corners ofold lumber yards, led the way out to the sun porch. Her lavish charms, her beaming manner, her clear blue eye, milky complexion, reddish hair, and the large bobbles and beads with which she insisted upon decoratingherself made Howard Cannon's nickname of Cornucopia exquisitely right. She was followed by Mrs. Cooper Jekyll and a man servant, whose armswere full of dogs and books and newspapers. 

"The dogs on the ground, Barrett, " she said, "the books and papers onthe table there, my chair on the right-hand side of it and bring thatchair forward for Mrs. Jekyll. We will have the lemonade at once. TellLestocq that I shall not want the car before lunch, ask Miss Disberryto telephone to Mrs. John Ward Harrison and say that I will have teawith her this afternoon with pleasure, and when those two good littleSisters of Mercy finally arrive, --I could see them, all sandy, struggling along the road from my room, Augusta; dear me, what alife, --they are to be given luncheon as usual and the envelope that ison the hall table. That will do, I think. "

The man servant was entirely convinced that it would. 

"And now, make yourself comfortable, dear Augusta, and tell meeverything. So very kind of you to drive over like this on such a sunnymorning. Yes, that's right. Take off that lugubrious Harem veil, --themark of a Southampton woman, --and let me see your beautiful face. Before I try to give you a chance to speak I must tell you, and I'msure you won't mind with your keen sense of humor, how that nice boy, Harry Oldershaw, describes those things. No, after all, perhaps I don'tthink I'd better. For one reason, it was a little bit undergraduate, and for another, I forget. " She chuckled and sat down, wabbling for amoment like an opulent blancmange. 

Minus the strange dark blue thing which had hidden her ears and noseand mouth and which suggested nothing but leprosy, Mrs. Jekyll becamehuman, recognizable and extremely good to look at. She wore hertight-fitting suit of white flannel like a girl and even in that cleardetective light she did not look a day over thirty. She painted withall the delicacy of an artist. She was there, as a close friend ofAlice Palgrave, to discover why Gilbert had not gone with her to theMaine coast. 

"I haven't heard from you since we left town, " she said, beating aboutthe bush, "and being in the neighborhood I thought it would bedelightful to catch a glimpse of you and hear your news. I have none, except that I have just lost the butler who has been with me for solong, and Edmond is having his portrait painted again for some club orinstitution. It's the ninth time, I believe. He likes it. It's a sortof rest cure. "

"And how did you lose that very admirable butler? Illness orindiscretion?"

"Neither. Commerce, I suppose one might call it. It appears that one ofthese get-rich-quick munition men offered him double his wages to leaveme, and Derbyshire couldn't resist it. He came to me with tears in hiseyes and told me that he had to make the sacrifice owing to theincreased cost of living. He has a family, you know. He said that thecomic atmosphere of his new place might bring on neuritis, but he musteducate his three boys. Really, there is a great deal of unsung heroismin the world, isn't there? In the meantime, I am trying to getaccustomed to a Swiss, who's probably a German spy and who will set upa wireless installation on the roof. " Then she dropped her baited hook. "You have a large house party, I suppose. "

"Yes, " said Mrs. Hosack, swinging her foot to keep the flies away. Thewind was off the land. 

"Primrose is so depressed if the house isn't full. And so the d'Oylysare here, --Nina more Junoesque than ever and really quite like anAmazon in bathing clothes; Enid Ouchterlony, a little bitter, I'mafraid, at not being engaged to any one yet, --men are horribly scaredof an intelligent girl and, after all, they don't marry forintelligence, do they?--Harry Oldershaw, Frank Milwood and CourtneyMillet, all nice boys, and I almost forgot to add, Joan Gray, thatcharming girl. My good man is following at her heels like a bob-tailedsheep dog. Poor old dear! He's arrived at that pathetic period of aman's life when almost any really blond girl still in her teensswitches him into a second state of adolescence and makes him a mostridiculous object--what the novelists call the 'Forty-nine feeling, ' Ibelieve. "

Bennett brought the lemonade and hurried away before his memory couldbe put to a further strain. "Tell me about Joan Gray, " said Mrs. Jekyll, letting out her line. "There's probably no truth in it, but Ihear that she and Martin have agreed to differ. How quickly theseromantic love matches burn themselves out. I always say that a marriagemade in Heaven breaks up far sooner than one made on earth. It has somuch farther to fall. Whose fault is it, hers or his?"

Mrs. Hosack bent forward and endeavored to lower her voice. She was akind-hearted woman who delighted to see every one happy and normal. "I'm very worried about those two, my dear, " she answered. "There areall sorts of stories afloat, --one to the effect that Martin has goneoff with a chorus girl, another that Joan only married him to get awayfrom her grandparents and a third that they quarreled violently on theway home from church and have not been on speaking terms since. Idaresay there are many others, but whatever did happen, and somethingevidently did, Joan is happy enough, and every man in the house issentimental about her. Look out there, for instance. "

Mrs. Jekyll followed her glance and saw a girl in bathing clothessitting on the beach under a red and blue striped umbrella encircled bythe outstretched forms of half a dozen men. Beyond, on the fringe of asea alive with bursting breakers, several girls were bathing alone. 

"H'm, " said Mrs. Jekyll. "I should think that the second story is thetrue one. A tip-tilted nose, chestnut hair and brown eyes are better toflirt with than marry. Well, I must run away if I'm to be back tolunch. I wish I could stay, but Edmond and his artist may kill my newbutler unless I intervene. They are both hotly pro-Ally. By the way, Ihear that Alice Palgrave has gone to the Maine coast with her mother, who is ill again; I wonder where Gilbert is going?"

"Well, I had a very charming letter from him two days ago, asking me ifhe could come and stay with us. He loves this house and the beach, andI always cheer him up, he said, and he is very lonely without Alice. Ofcourse I said yes, and he will be here this afternoon. "

Whereupon, having landed her fish, Mrs. Jekyll rose to go. GilbertPalgrave and Joan Gray, --there was truth in that story, as she hadthought. She had heard of his having been seen everywhere with Joannight after night, and her sister-in-law, who lived opposite to thelittle house in East Sixty-seventh Street, had seen him leaving in theearly hours of the morning more than once. A lucky strike, indeed. Intuition was a wonderful gift. She was highly pleased with herself. 

"Good-by, my dear, " she said. "I will drive over again one day thisweek and see how you are all getting on in this beautiful corner of theworld. My love to Prim, please, and do remember me to the little siren. "

And away she went, leaving Mrs. Hosack to wonder what was the meaningof her rather curious smile. Only a hidebound prejudice on the part ofthe Ministries of all the nations has precluded women from theDiplomatic Service. 

II

"Ah, here you are, " said Hosack, scrambling a little stiffly out of ahammock. "Well, have you had a good ride?"

Joan came up the steps with Harry Oldershaw, the nice boy. She was inwhite linen riding kit, with breeches and brown top boots. A man'sstraw hat sat squarely on her little head and there was a brown andwhite spotted tie under her white silk collar. Color danced on hercheeks, health sparkled in her eyes and there was a laugh of sheer highspirits floating behind her like the blown petals of a daisy. 

"Perfectly wonderful, " she said. "I love the country about here, withthe little oaks and sturdy ferns. It's so springy. And aren't thechestnut trees in the village a sight for the blind? I don't wonder youbuilt a house in Easthampton, Mr. Hosack. Are we too late for tea?"

Hosack ran his eyes over her and blinked a little as though he hadlooked at the sun. "Too late by an hour, " he said, with a sulky glanceat young Oldershaw. "I thought you were never coming back. " Hisresentment of middle age and jealousy of the towering youth of thesun-tanned lad who had been Joan's companion were a little pitiful. 

Harry caught his look and laughed with the sublime audacity of one whobelieves that he ranks among the Immortals. To him forty-nine seemed tobe a colossal sum of years, almost beyond belief. It was pathetic ofthis old fellow to imagine that he had any right to the company of agirl so springlike as Joan. "If we hadn't worn the horses to afrazzle, " he said, "we shouldn't have been back till dark. Have adrink, Joan?"

"Yes, water. Buckets of it. Hurry up, Harry. "

The boy, triumphant at being in favor, swung away, and Joan flung hercrop on to a cane sofa. "Where's everybody?" she asked. 

"What's it matter, " said Hosack. "Sit here and talk to me for a change. I've hardly had a word with you all day. " He caught her hand and drewher into the swinging hammock. "What a pretty thing you are, " he added, with a catch in his breath. "I know, " said Joan. "Otherwise, probably, I shouldn't be here, should I?" She forgot all about him, and anirresistible desire to tease, at the sight of the sea which, a stone'sthrow from the house, pounded on the yellow sweep of sand and swoopedup in large half circles of glistening water. "I've a jolly good mindto have another dip before changing. What do you say?"

"No, don't, " said Hosack, a martyr to the Forty-nine-feeling. "Concentrate on me for ten minutes, if only because, damn it, I'm yourhost. "

Joan pushed his hand away. "I've given up concentrating, " she said. "Igave it a turn a little while ago, but it led nowhere, so why worry?I'm on the good old Merry-go-round again, and if it doesn't whack up tothe limit of its speed I'll know the reason why. There's a dance at theClub to-night, isn't there?"

"Yes, but we don't go. "

She was incredulous. "Don't go, --to a dance? Why?"

"It's rather a mixed business, " he said. "The hotel pours its crowdout. It isn't amusing. We can dance here if you want to. "

But her attention was caught by young Oldershaw who came out carrying aglass and a jug of iced water. She sprang up and went to meet him, thedance forgotten, Hosack forgotten. Her mood was that of a bird, irresponsible, restless. "Good for you, " she said, and drank like athirsty plant. "Nothing like water, is there?" She smiled up at him. 

He was as pleased with himself as though he owned the reservoir. "Haveanother?"

"I should think so. " And she drank again, put the glass down on thefirst place that came to hand, relieved him of the jug, put it next tothe glass, caught hold of his muscular arm, ran him down the steps, andalong the board path to the beach. "I'll race you to the sea, " shecried, and was off like a mountain goat. He was too young to let herbeat him and waited for her with the foam frothing round his ankles anda broad grin on his attractive face. 

He was about to cheek her when she held up a finger and with a littleexclamation of delight pointed to the sky behind the house. The sun wassetting among a mass of royal clouds. A golden wand had touched thedunes and the tips of the scrub and all over the green of the golfcourse, still dotted with scattered figures, waves of reflected lustersplayed. To the left of the great red ball one clear star sparkled likean eye. Just for a moment her lips trembled and her young breasts roseand fell, and then she threw her head up and wheeled round and went offat a run. Not for her to think back, or remember similar sights behindthe woods near Marty's place. Life was too short for pain. "Who Cares?"was her motto once more, and this time joy-riding must live up to itsname. 

Harry Oldershaw followed, much puzzled at Joan's many quick changes ofmood. Several times during their irresponsible chatter on the beachbetween dips her laughter had fallen suddenly, like a dead bird, andshe had sat for several minutes as far away from himself and the othermen as though they were cut off by a thick wall. Yesterday, in theevening after dinner, during which her high spirits had infected thewhole table, he had walked up and down the board path with her underthe vivid white light of a full moon, and she had whipped out one ortwo such savage things about life that he had been startled. Duringtheir ride that afternoon, too, her bubbling chatter of light stuffabout people and things had several times shifted into comments as tothe conventions that were so careless as to make him ask himselfwhether they could really have come from lips so fresh and young. Andwhy had that queer look of almost childlike grief come into her eyes amoment ago at the sight of ah everyday sunset? He was mightilyintrigued. She was a queer kid, he told himself, as changeable anddifficult to follow as some of the music by men with such weird namesas Rachmaninoff and Tschaikowsky that his sister was so precious fondof playing. But she was unattached and frightfully pretty and alwaysready for any fun that was going, and she liked him more than theothers, and he liked being liked, and although not hopelessly in lovewas ready and willing and even anxious to be walked on if she wouldacknowledge his existence in no other way. It was none of his business, he told himself, to speculate as to what she was trying to hide away inthe back of her mind, from herself as well as from everybody else. Thiswas his last vacation as a Yale man, and he was all out to make themost of it. 

As soon as he was at her side she ran her hand through his arm and fellinto step. The shadow had passed, and her eyes were dancing again. "Itappears that the Hosacks turn up their exclusive noses at the clubdances, " she said. "What are we going to do about it?"

"There's one to-night, isn't there? Do you want to go?"

"Of course I do. I haven't danced since away back before the greatwind. Let's sneak off after dinner for an hour without a word to a souland get our fill of it. There's to be a special Jazz band to-night, Ihear, and I simply can't keep away. Are you game, Harry?"

"All the way, " said young Oldershaw, "and it will be the first time inthe history of the Hosacks that any members of their house parties haveput in an appearance at the club at night. No wonder Easthampton hasnicknamed the place St. James's Palace, eh?"

Joan shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, my dear boy, " she said, "life's tooshort for all that stuff, and there's no hobby so painful as cuttingoff one's nose to spite one's face. And, after all, what's the matterwith Easthampton people? I'd go to a chauffeurs' ball if the band wasthe right thing. Wouldn't you?"

"With you, " said Harry. "Democracy forever!"

"Oh, I'm not worrying about democracy. I'm out for a good time underany conditions. That's the only thing that matters. Now let's go backand change. It's too late to bathe. I'll wear a new frock to-night, made for fox-trotting, and if Mrs. Hosack wants to know where we'vebeen when we come back as innocent as spring lambs, leave it to me. Mencan't lie as well as women can. "

"It won't be Mrs. Hosack who'll ask, " said Harry. "Bridge will do itsbest to rivet her ubiquitous mind. It's the old man who'll be peeved. He's crazy about you, you know. "

Joan laughed. "He's very nice and means awfully well and all that, " shesaid, "but of course he isn't to be taken seriously. No men of middleage ought to be. They all say the same things with the same expressionsas though they got them from the same books, and their gambolling makestheir joints creak. It's all like playing with a fire of damp logs. Ilike something that can blaze and scorch. The game counts then. "

"Then you ought to like me, " said Harry, doing his best to look thevery devil of a fellow. Even he had to join in Joan's huge burst ofmerriment. He had humor as well as a sense of the ridiculous, and thefirst made it possible for him to laugh at himself, --a rare anddisconcerting gift which would utterly prevent his ever entering theSenate. 

"You might grow a moustache and wax the tips, Harry, " she said, whenshe had recovered sufficiently well to be able to speak. "Curl yourhair with tongs and take dancing lessons from a tango lizard or go infor a course of sotto voce sayings from a French portrait painter, butyou'd still remain the Nice Boy. That's why I like you. You're asrefreshing and innocuous as a lettuce salad, and you may glare as muchas you like. I hope you'll never be spoilt. Come on. We shall be latefor dinner. " And she made him quicken his step through the dry sand. 

Being very young he was not quite sure that he appreciated that type ofapproval. He had liked to imagine that he was distinctly one of thebold bad boys, a regular dog and all that. He had often talked thatsort of thing in the rooms of his best chums whose mantelpieces werecovered with the photographs of little ladies, and he hoarded in hismemory two episodes at least of jealous looks from engaged men. But, after all, with Joan, who was married, although it was difficult tobelieve it, it wouldn't be wise to exert the whole force of the dangerthat was in him. He would let her down lightly, he told himself, andgrinned as he said it. She was right. He was only a nice boy, and thatwas because he had had the inestimable luck to possess a mother who wasone in a million. 

The rather pretentious but extremely civilized house that stood alonein all its glory between the sea and the sixth hole was blazing withlights as they returned to it. The color had gone out of the sky andother twinkling eyes had appeared, and the breeze, now off the sea, hada sting to it. Toad soloists were trying their voices for their eveningconcert in near-by water and crickets were at work with all theirwell-known enthusiasm. Bennett, with a sunburned nose, was tidying upthe veranda, and some one with a nice light touch was playing therhythmic jingles of Jerome Kern on the piano in the drawing-room. 

Still with her hand on Harry Oldershaw's arm, Joan made her way acrossthe lofty hall, caught sight of Gilbert Palgrave coming eagerly to meether, and waved her hand. 

"Oh, hello, Gilbert, " she cried out. "Welcome to Easthampton, " and ranupstairs. 

With a strange contraction of the heart, Palgrave watched her out ofsight. She was his dream come to life. All that he was and hoped to behe had placed forever at her feet. Dignity, individualism, egoism, --allhad fallen before this young thing. She was water in the desert, thenorth star to a man without a compass. He had seen her and come intobeing. 

Good God, it was wonderful and awful!

But who was that cursed boy?

III

Six weeks had dropped off the calendar since the night at Martin'shouse. 

Facing Grandmother Ludlow in the morning with her last handful ofcourage Joan had told her that she had been called back to town. Shehad left immediately after breakfast in spite of the protests andentreaties of every one, including her grandfather, down whose wrinkledcheeks the tears had fallen unashamed. With a high head and her bestwilful manner she had presented to them all in that old house the bluffof easy-mindedness only to burst like a bubble as soon as the car hadturned the corner into the main road. She had gone to the little housein New York, and with a numbed heart and a constant pain in her soul, had packed some warm-weather clothes and, leaving her maid behind, hidden herself away in the cottage, on the outskirts of Greenwich, ofan old woman who had been in the service of her school. As along-legged girl of twelve she had stayed there once with her motherfor several days before going home for the holidays. She felt like awounded animal, and her one desire was to drag herself into a quietplace to die. 

It seemed to her then, under the first stupendous shock of finding thatMarty was with that girl, that death was the next certain thing. Dayafter day and night after night, cut to the quick, she waited for it tolay its cold hand upon her and snuff her out like a tired candle, whoselittle light was meaningless in a brutal world. Marty, even Marty, wasno longer a knight, and she had put him into broadcloth. 

Not in the sun, but in the shadow of a chestnut all big with bloom, herdays had passed in lonely suffering. Death was in the village, that wascertain. She had seen a little procession winding along the road to thecemetery the morning after her arrival. She was ready. Nothing matterednow that Marty, even Marty, had done this thing while she had beenwaiting for him to come and take her across the bridge, anxious to playthe game to the very full, eager to prove to him that she was no longerthe kid that he thought her who had coolly shown him her door. "I amhere, Death, " she whispered, "and I want you. Come for me. "

All her first feelings were that she ought to die, that she had failedand that her disillusion as to Marty had been directly brought about byherself. She saw it all honestly and made no attempt to hedge. By day, she sat quietly, big-eyed, amazingly childlike, waiting for herpunishment, watched by the practical old woman, every moment of whosetime was filled, with growing uneasiness and amazement. By night shelay awake as long as she could, listening for the soft footstep of theone who would take her away. At meals, the old woman bullied for shewas of the school that hold firmly to the belief that unless the peoplewho partake of food do not do so to utter repletion a personal insultis intended. At other times she went out into the orchard and sat withJoan and, burning with a desire to cheer her up, gave her, in thegreatest detail, the story of all the deaths, diseases and quarrelsthat had ever been known to the village. And every day the good sunwarmed and encouraged the earth, drew forth the timid heads of plantsand flowers, gave beauty even to the odd corners once more and did hisallotted task with a generosity difficult to praise too highly. AndDeath paid visits here and there but passed the cottage by. At thebeginning of the second week, Nature, who has no patience with anyattempt to refute her laws, especially on the part of those who areyoung and vigorous, took Joan in hand. "What is all this, my girl?" shesaid, "sitting here with your hands in your lap while everybody andeverything is working and making and preparing. Stir yourself, bustleup, get busy, there's lots to be done in the springtime if the autumnis to bear fruit. You're sound and whole for all that you've been hurt. If you were not, Death would be here without your calling him. Up youget, now. " And, with good-natured roughness, she laid her hand underJoan's elbow, gave a hoist and put her on her feet. 

Whereupon, in the natural order of things, Joan turned from self-blameto find a victim who should be held responsible for the pain that shehad suffered, and found the girl with the red lips and the white faceand the hair that came out of a bottle. Ah, yes! It was she who hadcaught Marty when he was hurt and disappointed. It was she who hadtaken advantage of his loneliness and dragged him clown to her ownlevel, this girl whom she had called Fairy and who had had theeffrontery to go up to the place on the edge of the woods that was thespecial property of Marty and herself. And for the rest of the week, with the sap running eagerly in her veins once more, she movedrestlessly about the orchard and the garden, heaping coals of fire onto the all too golden head of Tootles. 

Then came the feeling of wounded pride, the last step towardsconvalescence. Marty had chosen between herself and this girl. Withoutgiving her a real chance to put things right he had slipped awaysilently and taken Tootles with him. Not she, but the girl with the redlips and the pale face and the hair that came out of a bottle hadstripped Marty of his armor, and the truth of it was that Marty, yes, even Marty, was not really a knight but a very ordinary man. 

Out of the orchard and the garden she went, once she had arrived atthis stage, and tramped the countryside with her ears tuned to catchthe alluring strains of the mechanical music of the Round-about. Shehad not only been making a fool of herself but had been made to look afool, she thought. Her pain and suffering and disillusion had beenwasted. All these dull and lonely days had been wasted and thrown away. Death must have laughed to see her sitting in the shadow of the appletrees waiting for a visit that was undeserved. Marty could live andenjoy himself without her. That was evident. Very well, then, she couldlive and enjoy herself without Marty. The earth was large enough forthem both, and if he could find love in the person of that small girlshe could surely find it in one or other of the men who had whisperedin her ear. Also there was Gilbert Palgrave, who had gone down upon hisknees. 

And that was the end of her isolation, her voluntary retirement. Backshe went to the City of Dreadful Nonsense, bought clothes and shoes andhats, found an invitation to join a house party at Southampton, made noeffort to see or hear from Marty, and sprang back into her seat in theMerry-go-round. "Who Cares?" she cried again. "Nobody, " she answered. "What I do with my life matters to no one but myself. Set the pace, mydear, laugh and flirt and play with fire and have a good time. A shortlife and a merry one. "

And then she joined the Hosacks, drank deep of the wine of adulation, and when, at odd times, the sound of Marty's voice echoed in hermemory, she forced it out and laughed it away. "Who Cares?" was hismotto too, --red lips and white face and hair that came out of a bottle!

And now here was Gilbert Palgrave with the fire of love in his eyes. 

IV

When Mrs. Hosack rose from the dinner table and sailed Olympically intothe drawing-room, surrounded by graceful light craft in the persons ofPrimrose and her girl friends, the men, as usual, followed immediately. The house was bridge mad, and the tables called every one except Joan, the nice boy, and Gilbert Palgrave. 

During the preliminaries of an evening which would inevitably run intothe small hours, Joan went over to the piano and, with what was a quiteunconscious touch of irony, played one of Heller's inimitable"Sleepless Nights, " with the soft pedal down. The large imposing room, a chaotic mixture of French and Italian furniture with Flemishtapestries and Persian rugs, which accurately typified the ubiquitousmind of the hostess, was discreetly lighted. The numerous screenedwindows were open and the soft warm air came in tinged with the salt ofthe sea. 

Palgrave, refusing to cut in, stood about like a disembodied spirit, with his eyes on Joan, from whom, since his arrival, he had receivedonly a few fleeting glances. He watched the cursed boy, as he hadlabelled him, slip over to her, lean across the piano and talk eagerly. He went nearer and caught, "the car in half an hour, " and "not a wordto a soul. " After which, with jealousy gnawing at his vitals, he sawHarry Oldershaw moon about for a few minutes and then make a fishlikedart out of the room. He had been prepared to find Joan amorouslysurrounded by the men of the party but not on terms of sentimentalintimacy with a smooth-faced lad. In town she had shown preference forsophistication. He went across to the piano and waited impatiently forJoan to finish the piece which somehow fitted into his mood. "Comeout, " he said, then, "I want to speak to you. "

But Joan let her fingers wander into a waltz and raised her eyebrows. "Do I look so much like Alice that you can order me about?" she asked. 

He turned on his heel with the look of a dog at which a stone had beenflung by a friend, and disappeared. 

Two minutes later there was a light touch on his arm, and Joan stood athis side on the veranda. "Well, Gilbert, " she said, "it's good to seeyou again. "

"So good that I might be a man touting for an encyclopedia, " heanswered angrily. 

She sat upon the rough stone wall and crossed her little feet. Her newfrock was white and soft and very perfectly simple. It demanded theyoung body of a nymph, --and was satisfied. The magic of the moon was onher. She might have been Spring resting after a dancing day. 

"If you were, " she said, taking a delight in unspoiling this immaculateman, "I'm afraid you'd never get an order from me. Of all things theencyclopedia must be accompanied by a winning smile and irresistiblemanners. I suppose you've done lots of amusing things since I saw youlast. "

He went nearer so that her knees almost touched him. "No, " he said. "Only one, and that was far from amusing. It has marked me like a blow. I've been waiting for you. Where have you been, and why haven't youtaken the trouble to write me a single letter?"

"I've been ill, " she said. "Yes, I have. Quite ill. I deliberately setout to hurt myself and succeeded. It was an experiment that I sha'n'trepeat. I don't regret it. It taught me something that I shall neverforget. Never too young to learn, eh? Isn't it lovely here? Just smellthe sea, and look at those lights bobbing up and down out there. Inever feel any interest in ships in the daytime, but at night, whenthey lie at anchor, and I can see nothing but their lonely eyes, Iwould give anything to be able to fly round them like a gull and peepinto their cabins. Do they affect you like that?"

Palgrave wasn't listening to her. It was enough to look at her andrefresh his memory. She had been more than ever in his blood all theseweeks. She was like water in a desert or sunlight to a man who comes upfrom a mine. He had found her again and he thanked whatever god herecognized for that, but he was forced to realize from herimperturbable coolness and unaffected ease that she was farther awayfrom him than ever. To one of his temperament and schooling this washard to bear with any sort of self-control. The fact that he wanted herof all the creatures on earth, that she, alone among women, had touchedthe fuse of his desire, and that, knowing this, she could sit there afew inches from his lips and put a hundred miles between them, maddenedhim, from whom nothing hitherto had been impossible. 

"Have I got to begin all over again?" he asked, with a sort ofpetulance. 

"Begin what, Gilbert?" There was great satisfaction in playing with onewho thought that he had only to touch a bell to bring the moon and thesun and the stars to his bidding. 

"Good God, " he cried out. "You're like wet sand on which a man expectsto find yesterday's footmarks. Hasn't anything of me and the thingsI've said to you remained in your memory?"

"Of course, " she said. "I shall never forget the night you took me tothe Brevoort, for instance, and supplied the key to all the people withunkempt hair and comic ties. "

Some one on the beach below shot out a low whistle. 

A little thrill ran through Joan. In ten minutes, perhaps less, shewould be dancing once more to the lunatic medley of a Jazz band, dancing with a boy who gave her all that she needed of him and askedabsolutely nothing of her; dancing among people who were less than thedust in the scheme of things, so far as she was concerned, except togive movement and animation to the room and to be steered through. Thatwas the right attitude towards life and its millions, she told herself. As salt was to an egg so was the element of false romance to this GolfClub dance. In a minute she would get rid of Palgrave, yes, even thefastidious Gilbert Palgrave, who had never been able quite to disguisethe fact that his love for her was something of a condescension; shewould fly in the face of the unwritten law of the pompous house on thedunes and mingle with what Hosack had called the crowd from the hotel. It was all laughable and petty, but it was what she wanted to do. Itwas all in the spirit of "Who Cares?" that she had caught at again. Whyworry as to what Mrs. Hosack might say or Palgrave might feel? Wasn'tshe as free as the air to follow her whims without a soul to make aclaim upon her or to hold out a hand to stop?

Through these racing thoughts she heard Palgrave talking and cricketsrasping and frogs croaking and a sudden burst of laughter and talk inthe drawing-room, --and the whistle come again. 

"Yes, " she said, because yes was as good as any other word. "Well, Gilbert, dear, if you're not an early bird you will see me againlater, "--and jumped down from the wall. 

"Where are you going?"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes, it does. I want you here. I've been waiting all these weeks. "

She laughed. "It's a free country, " she said, "and you have the rightto indulge in any hobby that amuses you. Au revoir, old thing. " And shespread out her arms like wings and flew to the steps and down to thebeach and away with some one who had sent out a signal. 

"That boy, " said Palgrave. "I'm to be turned down for a cursed boy! ByGod, we'll know about that. "

And he followed, seeing red. 

He saw them get into a low-lying two-seater built on racing lines, heard a laugh flutter into the air, watched the tail light sweep roundthe drive and become smaller and smaller along the road. 

So that was it, was it? He had been relegated to the hangers-on, reduced to the ranks, put into the position of any one of the number ofextraneous men who hung round this girl-child for a smile and a word!That was the way he was to be treated, he, Gilbert Palgrave, theconnoisseur, the decorative and hitherto indifferent man who hadrefused to be subjected to any form of discipline, who had never, untilJoan had come into his life, allowed any one to put him a single inchout of his way, who had been triumphantly one-eyed and selfish, --thatwas the way he was to be treated by the very girl who had fulfilled hisonce wistful hope of making him stand, eager and startled and love-sickamong the chaos of individualism and indolence, who had shaken him intothe Great Emotion! Yes, by God, he'd know about that. 

Bare-headed and surging with untranslatable anger he started walking. He was in no mood to go into the drawing-room and cut into a game ofbridge and show his teeth and talk the pleasant inanities of politesociety. All the stucco of civilization fell about him in slabs as hemade his way with long strides out of the Hosacks' place, across thesandy road and on to the springy turf of the golf links. It didn'tmatter where he went so long as he got elbow room for his indignation, breathing space for his rage and a wide loneliness for his blasphemy. .. . 

He had stood humble and patient before this virginal girl. He hadconfessed himself to her with the tremendous honesty of a man madesimple by an overwhelming love. She was married. So was he. But whatdid that matter to either of them whose only laws were self-made? Theman to whom she was not even tied meant as little to her as the girl hehad foolishly married meant or would ever mean to him. He had placedhimself at her beck and call. In order to give her amusement he hadtaken her to places in which he wouldn't have been seen dead, haddanced his good hours of sleep away for the pleasure of seeing herpleased, had revolutionized his methods with women and paid her tributeby the most scrupulous behavior and, finally, instead of setting out toturn her head with pearls and diamonds and carry her by storm while shewas under the hypnotic influence of priceless glittering things forbodily adornment, which render so many women easy to take, he hadrecognized her as intelligent and paid her the compliment of treatingher as such, had stated his case and waited for the time when the blazeof love would set her alight and bring her to his arms. 

There was something more than mere egotism in all this, --the naturalegotism of a man of great wealth and good looks, who had walked throughlife on a metaphorical red carpet pelted with flowers by adoring womento whom even virtue was well lost in return for his attention. Joan, like the spirit of spring, had come upon Palgrave at that time of hislife when youth had left him and he had stood at the great crossroads, one leading down through a morass of self-indulgence to a hideoussenility, the other leading up over the stones of sacrifice and serviceto a dignified usefulness. Her fresh young beauty and enthusiasm, hergolden virginity and unself-consciousness, her unaffected joy in beingalive, her superb health and vitality had shattered his conceit andself-obsession, broken down his aloofness and lack of scruple andfilled the empty frame that he had hung in his best thoughts with herface and form. 

There was something of the great lover about Palgrave in his new andchanged condition. He had laid everything unconditionally at the feetof this young thing. He had shown a certain touch of bigness, ofnobility, he of all men, when, after his outburst in the littledrawing-room that night, he had stood back to wait until Joan had grownup. He had waited for six weeks, going through tortures ofJoan-sickness that were agonizing. He had asked her to do what shecould for him in the way of a little kindness, but had not received onesingle line. He was prepared to continue to wait because he knew hislove to be so great that it must eventually catch hold of her like thelicking flame of a prairie fire. It staggered him to arrive at theHosacks' place and find her fooling with a smooth-faced lad. Itoutraged him to be left cold, as though he were a mere member of thehouse party and watch her to whom he had thrown open his soul gojoy-riding with a cursed boy. It was, in a sort of way, heresy. Itproved an almost unbelievable inability to realize the great thing thatthis was. Such love as his was not an everyday affair, to be treatedlightly and carelessly. It was, on the contrary, rare and wonderful andas such to be, at any rate, respected. That's how it seemed to him, andby God he would see about it. 

He drew up short, at last, on his strange walk across the undulatingcourse. The light from the Country Club streamed across his feet, andthe jangle of the Jazz band broke into his thoughts. From where hestood, surprised to find himself in civilization, he could see thecrowd of dancers through the open windows of what resembled a hugebungalow, at one side of which a hundred motor cars were parked. Hewent nearer, drawn forward against his will. He was in no mood to watcha summer dance of the younger set. He made his way to the wide verandaand stood behind the rocking chairs of parents and friends. But not formore than fifty seconds. There was Joan, with her lovely laughing facealight with the joy of movement, held in the arms of the cursed boy. Between two chairs he went, into and across the room in which he was atrespasser, tapped young Oldershaw sharply on the arm, cut into thedance, and before the boy could recover from his surprise, was out ofreach with Joan against his heart. 

"Oh, well done, Gilbert, " said Joan, a little breathlessly. "When Martydid that to you at the Crystal Room. .. "

She stopped, and a shadow fell on her face and a little tremble ranacross her lips. 

Smoking a cigarette on the veranda young Oldershaw waited for the danceto end. It was encored several times but being a sportsman and havingachieved a monopoly of Joan during all the previous dances, he let thisman enjoy his turn. He was a great friend of hers, she had said on theway to the club, and was, without doubt, a very perfect person with hiswide-set eyes and well-groomed head, his smooth moustache and the clefton his chin. He didn't like him. He had decided that at a first glance. He was too supercilious and self-assured and had a way of looking cleanthrough men's heads. He conveyed the impression of having bought theearth, --and Joan. A pity he was too old for a year or two of Yale. Thatwould make him a bit more of a man. 

When presently the Jazzers paused in order to recuperate, --every one ofthem deserving first aid for the wounded, --and Joan came out for alittle air with Palgrave, Harry strolled up. This was his evening, andin a perfectly nice way he conveyed that impression by his manner. Hewas, moreover, quite determined to give nothing more away. He conveyedthat, also. 

"Shall we sit on the other side?" he asked. "The breeze off the seakeeps the mosquitoes away a bit. "

Refusing to acknowledge his existence Palgrave guided Joan towards avacant chair. He went on with what he had been saying and swung thechair round. 

Joan was smiling again. 

Oldershaw squared his jaw. "I advise against this side, Joan, " he said. "Let me take you round. "

He earned a quick amused look and a half shrug of white shoulders fromJoan. Palgrave continued to talk in a low confidential voice. Heregarded Oldershaw's remarks as no more of an interruption than thechorus of the frogs. Oldershaw's blood began to boil, and he had aqueer prickly sensation at the back of his neck. Whoo, but there'd haveto be a pretty good shine in a minute, he said to himself. This manPalgrave must be taught. 

He marched up to Joan and held out his arm. "We may as well get back, "he said. "The band's going to begin again. "

But Joan sat down, looking from one man to the other. All the woman inher revelled in this rivalry, --all that made her long-dead sisterscrowd to the arenas, wave to armored knights in deadly combat, leanforward in grand stands to watch the Titanic struggles of Army andNavy, Yale and Harvard on the football field. Her eyes danced, her lipswere parted a little, her young bosom rose and fell. 

"And so you see, " said Palgrave, putting his hand on the back of herchair, "I can stay as long as the Hosacks will have me, and one dayI'll drive you over to my bachelor cottage on the dune. It willinterest you. "

"The only thing that has any interest at the moment is dancing, " saidOldershaw loudly. "By the way, you don't happen to be a member of theclub, do you, Mr. Palgrave?"

With consummate impudence Palgrave caught his eye and made a sort ofpoliceman gesture. "Run away, my lad, " he said, "run away and amuseyourself. " He almost asked for death. 

With a thick mutter that sounded like "My God, " Oldershaw balancedhimself to hit, his face the color of a beet-root, --and instantly Joanwas on her feet between them with a hand on the boy's chest. 

"No murder here, " she said, "please!"

"Murder!" echoed Palgrave, scoffing. 

"Yes, murder. Can't you see that this boy could take you and break youlike a dry twig? Let's go back, all three of us. We don't want tobecome the center of a sight-seeing crowd. " And she took an arm of eachshaking man and went across the drive to where the car was parked. 

And so the danger moment was evaded, --young Oldershaw warm with pride, Palgrave sullen and angry. They made a trio which had its prototypesall the way back to the beginning of the world. 

It did Palgrave no good to crouch ignominiously on the step of the carwhich Oldershaw drove back hell for leather. 

The bridge tables were still occupied. The white lane was still acrossthe sea. Frogs and crickets still continued their noisy rivalry, but itwas a different climate out there on the dunes from that of the villagewith its cloying warmth. 

Palgrave went into the house at once with a brief "Thank you. " Joanwaited while Harry put the car into a garage. Bed made no appeal. Bridge bored, --it required concentration. She would play the game ofsex with Gilbert if he were to be found. So the boy had to be disposedof. 

"Harry, " she said, when he joined her, chuckling at having come top dogout of the recent blaze, "you'd better go straight to bed now. We'regoing to be up early in the morning, you know. "

"Just what I was thinking, " he answered. "By Jove, you've given me acorking good evening. The best of my young life. You . .. You certainlyare, --well, I don't know how to do you justice. I'd have to be a poet. "He fumbled for her hand and kissed it a little sheepishly. 

They went in. "You're a nice boy, Harry, " she said. There was somethingin his charming simplicity and muscular strength that reminded herof, --but she refused to let the name enter her mind. 

"I could have broken that chap like a dry twig, too, easy. Who does hethink he is?" He would have pawned his life at that moment for thetaste of her lips. 

She stood at the bottom of the stairs and held out her hand. "Goodnight, old boy, " she said. 

And he took it and hurt it. "Good night, Joany, " he answered. 

That pet name hurt her more than his eager grasp. It was Marty's ownword--Marty, who--who--

She threw up her head and stamped her foot, and slammed the door of herthoughts. "Who cares?" she said to herself, challenging life and fate. "Come on. Make things move. "

She saw Palgrave standing alone in the library looking at the sea. "Youmight be Canute, " she said lightly. 

His face was curiously white. "I'm off in the morning, " he said. "Wemay as well say good-by now. "

"Good-by, then, " she answered. 

"I can't stay in this cursed place and let you play the fool with me. "

"Why should you?"

"There'll be Hosack and the others as well as your new pet. "

"That's true. "

He caught her suddenly by the arms. "Damn you, " he said. "I wish to GodI'd never seen you. "

She laughed. "Cave man stuff, eh?"

He let her go. She had the most perfect way of reducing him to ridicule. 

"I love you, " he said. "I love you. Aren't you going to try, even totry, to love me back?"

"No. "

"Not ever?"

"Never. " She went up to him and stood straight and slim and bewitching, eye to eye. "If you want me to love you, make me. Work for it, moveHeaven and earth. You can't leave it to me. I don't want to love you. I'm perfectly happy as I am. If you want me, win me, carry me off myfeet and then you shall see what it is to be loved. It's entirely up toyou, understand that. I shall fight against it tooth and nail, but Igive you leave to do your best. Do you accept the challenge?"

"Yes, " he said, and his face cleared, and his eyes blazed. 

V

At the moment when the Nice Boy, as brown as the proverbial berry, wasplaying a round of golf with Joan within sound of the sea, HowardOldershaw, his cousin, drove up to the little house in East Sixty-fifthStreet to see Martin. 

He, too, had caught the sun, and his round fat face was rounder andfatter than ever. He, too, had the epitome of health, good nature, andmisdirected energy. He performed a brief but very perfect doubleshuffle on the top step while waiting for the door to open, and thenbarged past the constitutionally unsurprised man servant, sang out aloud woo-hoo and blew into the library like an equinoctial gale. 

Pipe in mouth, and wearing a thin silk dressing gown, Martin wasstanding under the portrait of his father. He slipped something quicklyinto his pocket and turned about. It was a photograph of Joan. 

"Well, you Jack-o'-Lantern, " he said. "It's better late than never, Isuppose. "

Howard sent his straw hat spinning across the room. It landed expertlyin a chair. "My dear chap, your note's been lying in my apartment for aweek, snowed under my bills. I drove back this morning, washed thebricks out of my eyes and came right around. What are you grumblingabout?"

"I'm not grumbling. When you didn't show up in answer to my note Itelephoned, and they told me you were away. Where've you been?"

"Putting in a week at the Field Club at Greenwich, " replied Howard, filling a large cigarette case from the nearest box, as was his mostfriendly habit. "Two sweaters, tennis morning, noon and night, nosugar, no beer, no butter, no bread, gallons of hot water--and look atme! Martin, it's a tragedy. If I go on like this, it's me for Barnum'sCircus as the world's prize pig. What's the trouble?"

There was not the usual number of laughter lines round Martin's eyes, but one or two came back at the sight and sound of his exuberantfriend. "No trouble, " he said, lying bravely. "I got here the day youleft and tried to find you. That's all. I wanted you to come down toShinnecock and play golf. Everybody else seems to be at Plattsburg, andI was at a loose end. "

"Golf's no good to me. It wouldn't reduce me any more than playing thepiano with somebody dying in the next room. Been here all the week?"

"Yes, " said Martin. 

"What? In this fug hole, with the sun shining? Out with it, Martin. Getit off your chest, old son. "

Just for an instant Martin was hugely tempted to make a clean breast ofeverything to this good-hearted, tempestuous person, under whose tightskin there was an uncommon amount of shrewdness. But it meant draggingJoan into open discussion, and that was all against his creed. He hadinherited from his father and his father's father an absoluteincapability of saying anything to anybody about his wife. And so heslammed the door of his soul and presented an enigmatical front. 

"There's nothing on my chest, " he said. "Business downtown has kept mehere, --legal stuff and that sort of thing. But I'm free now. Got anysuggestions?"

Howard accepted this. If a pal was determined not to confide and getinvaluable advice, what was the use of going for him with a can opener?But one good look at the face whose every expression he knew so wellconvinced him that something was very much the matter. "Why, goodLord, " he said to himself, "the old thing looks as if he'd been workingnight and day for an examination and had been plucked. I wonder whichof the two girls is at the back of all this, --the wife or the other?"Rumors had reached his way about both. 

"What do you want to do?" he asked. 

"I don't care, " said Martin. "Any damn thing so long as it's somethingwith somebody. What's it matter?"

He didn't quite manage to hide the little quiver in his voice, and itcame to Howard Oldershaw for the first time how young they both were tobe floundering on the main road, himself with several entanglements andmoney worries, his friend married and with another complication. Theywere both making a pretty fine hash of things, it seemed, and just fora moment, with something of boyishness that still remained behind hissophistication, he wished that they were both back at Yale, unhamperedand unencumbered, their days filled with nothing but honest sport andgood lectures and the whole joy of life. 

"It's like this with me, Martin, " he said, with a rather rueful grin. "I'm out of favor at home just now and broke to the wide. There are oneor two reasons why I should lie low for a while, too. How about goingout to your place in the country? I'll hit the wily ball with you andexercise your horses, lead the simple life and, please God, lose someflesh, and guarantee to keep you merry and bright in my well-known, resilient way. What do you say, old son?"

Martin heartily appreciated Howard's sound method of swingingeverything round to himself and trying to make out that it was all onhis side to go out to the house in which Joan ought to be. He was not ahorseman or a golfer, and the simple life had few attractions for him. Well, that was friendship. 

"Thanks, old man, " he said. "That's you to the life, but I vote we geta change from golf and riding. Come down to Devon with me, and let's dosome sailing. You remember Gilmore? I had a letter from him thismorning, asking if I'd like to take his cottage and yawl. Does thatsound good?"

"Great, " cried Howard. "Sailing--that's the game, and by gum, swimming's the best of all ways of dropping adipose deposit. WireGilmore and fix it. I'll drive you out to-morrow. By the way, I found aletter from my cousin Harry among the others. He's in that part of theworld. He's frightfully gone on your wife, it appears. "

Martin looked up quickly. "Where is she?" he asked. 

"Why, they're both staying at the Hosacks' place at Easthampton. Didn'tyou know that?" He was incredulous. 

"No, " said Martin. 

Howard metaphorically clapped his hand over his mouth. Questions wereon the tip of his tongue. If Martin were not in the mood to take himinto his confidence, however, there must be a good reason for it, but, --not to know where his wife was! What on earth was at the bottomof all this? "All right, " he said. "I've one or two things I must do, and I'll be round in the morning, or is that too soon?"

"The sooner the better, " said Martin. "I'll send the cook and Judsondown by the early train. They'll have things in shape by the time weshow up. I'm fed up with New York and can smell the water already. Willyou dine with me to-night and see a show?"

"I can't, " said Howard, and laughed. 

"I see. To-morrow, then. "

"Right. Great work. So long, old son. Get busy and do what you have todo to-day, then we can leave this frying pan to-morrow with nothing onour minds. "

"I haven't anything to do, " said Martin. 

Howard picked up his hat and caught it with his head in the manner of avaudeville artist. But he didn't go. He stood waiting, keyed to a greatsympathy. There was something in Martin's voice and at the back of hiseyes which made him see him plainly and suddenly as a man standing allalone and wounded. But he waited in vain. There was a curioussilence, --a rather painful and embarrassing silence, during which thesetwo lads, who had been pretending to be men, dodged each other's eyes. 

And then Howard, with an uncharacteristic awkwardness, and looking veryyoung, made a quick step forward, and with a sort of gentle roughnessgrasped Martin by the arm. "But you've got something to say, " he said. "Good God, man, have we been pals for nothing? I hide nothing from you. I can help. "

But Martin shook his head. He tried to speak and failed. There wassomething hard in his throat. But he put his hand very warmly on hisfriend's shoulder for a moment and turned away abruptly. "Joan, Joan, "he cried in his heart, "what are you doing, what are we both doing? Whyare we killing the days that can never come back?"

He heard Howard go out. He heard the front door close and the honk ofthe horn. And for a long time he stood beneath the portrait of the manwho had gone so far away and who alone could have helped him. 

The telephone bell rang. 

Martin was spoken to by the girl that lived in the rabbit warren inWest Forty-sixth Street in the rooms below those of Tootles. "Can youcome round at once?" she asked. "It's about Tootles--urgent. "

And Martin answered, "Yes, now, at once. "

After all, then, there might be something to do. 

VI

Master of all the sky, the sun fell warmly on the city, makingdelicious shadows, gliding giant buildings, streaming across the park, chasing the endless traffic along the Avenue, and catching at points ofcolor. It was one of those splendid mornings of full-blown Tune, wheneven New York, --that paradox of cities, --had beauty. It was too earlyin the year for the trees to have grown blowsy and the grass worn andburnt. The humidity of midsummer was held back by the energy of a merrybreeze which teased the flags and sent them spinning against theoriental blue of the spotless sky. 

Martin walked to West Forty-sixth Street. There was an air of half-timeabout the Avenue. The ever-increasingly pompous and elaborate shops, whose window contents never seem to vary, wore a listless, uninterestedexpression like that of a bookmaker during the luncheon hour at theraces. Their glittering smile, their enticement and solicitation, theirtempting eye-play were relaxed. The cocottes of Monte Carlo at the endof the season could not have assumed a greater indifference. But therewere the same old diamonds and pearls, the same old canvases, the sameold photographs, the same old antiques, the same old frocks and shoesand men's shirtings, the same old Persian rugs and Japanese ware, thesame cold, hard plates and china, the very same old hats and dinks anddressing-gowns and cut flowers and clubs, and all the same doormen inthe uniforms that are a cross between those of admirals and generals, the men whose only exercise during the whole of the year is obtained bycutting ice and sweeping snow from just their particular patch ofpavement. In all the twists and changes, revolutions and crosscurrents, upheavals and in-fallings that affect this world, there isone great street which, except for a new building here and there, resolutely maintains its persistent sameness. Its face is like that ofa large, heavily made-up and not unbeautiful woman, veil-less and withsome dignity but only two expressions, enticement and indifference. Aman may be lost at the North Pole, left to die on the west coast ofAfrica, married in London, or forcibly detained in Siberia, but, lethim return to life and New York, and he will find that whateverelsewhere Anno Domini may have defaced and civilization made different, next to nothing has happened to Fifth Avenue. 

Martin had told Howard of the way he had found Joan on the hill, howshe had climbed out of window that night and come to him to be rescuedand how he had brought her to town to find Alice Palgrave away andmarried her. All that, but not one word of his having been shown thedoor on the night of the wedding, of her preference for Palgrave, herplunge into night life, or his own odd hut human adventure with SusieCapper as a result of the accident. But for the fact that it wasn't hisway to speak about his wife whatever she did or left undone, Martinwould have been thankful to have made a clean breast of everything. Confession is good for the soul, and Martin's young soul needed to berelieved of many bewilderments and pains and questionings. He wishedthat he could have continued the story to Howard of the kid's way Joanhad treated him, --a way which had left him stultified, --of how, touchedby the tragedy that had reduced the poor little waif of the chorus toutter grief and despair, he had taken her out to the country to gethealing in God's roofless cathedral, and of how, treating her, becauseof his love and admiration of Joan, with all the respect and tendernessthat he would have shown a sister, it had given him the keenestpleasure and delight to help her back to optimism and sanity. He wouldlike to have told Howard all the simple and charming details of thatgood week, giving him a sympathetic picture of the elfish Tootlesenjoying her brief holiday out in the open, and of her recovery underthe inspiration of trees and flowers and brotherliness, to all of whichshe was so pathetically unaccustomed. He wouldn't have told of the manyefforts made by Tootles to pay him back in the only way that seemed toher to be possible, even if he had known of them, --he had not been onthe lookout for anything of that sort. Nor would he, of course, havegone into the fact that Tootles loved him quite as much as he lovedJoan, --he knew nothing of that. But he would have said much of the joythat turned cold at the sight of Joan's face when she saw Tootles lyingon the sofa in his den, of her rush to get away, of the short, sharpscene which followed her unexpected visit, and of his having drivenTootles back to town the following morning at her urgent request, --acurious, quiet Tootles with the marks of a sleepless night on her face. Also he would have said something of his wild despair at having beenjust ten minutes too late to find Joan at the house in East Sixty-fifthStreet, of his futile attempts to discover where she had gone, and ofthe ghastly, mystifying days back in the country, waiting and wonderingand writing letters that he never posted, --utterly unaware of theemotion which had prompted Joan to walk into his den that night, butquite certain of the impression that she had taken away with her. 

It was with a sense of extraordinary isolation that Martin walked downFifth Avenue. Two good things had, however, come out of his talk withHoward Oldershaw. One was the certainty of this man's friendship. Theother the knowledge of the place at which Joan was staying. This lastfact made him all the more anxious to get down to the cottage. Devonwas only a short drive from Easthampton, and that meant the possibilityof seeing and speaking to Joan. Good God, if only she could understanda little of what she meant to him, and how he craved and pined for her. 

The dressmaker on the street floor of the rabbit warren had gone out ofbusiness. Failed probably, poor thing. Tootles had once said that theonly people she ever saw in the shop were pressing creditors. A coloredwoman of bulbous proportions and stertorous breathing was giving acatlick to the dirty stairway. A smell of garlic and onions met Martinon his way to the rooms of Tootles' friend, and on the first landing hedrew back to let two men pass down who looked like movie actors. Theywore violet ties and tight-fitting jackets with trench belts and shorttrousers that should have been worn by their younger brothers. Theactor on the next floor, unshaven and obviously just out of bed, wascooking breakfast in his cubby-hole. He wore the upper part of hispajamas and a pair of incredibly dirty flannel trousers. The marks oflast night's grease paint were on his temples and eyebrows. He hummed alittle song to the accompaniment of sizzling bacon. 

When Martin knocked on the door of the apartment of the girl to whom hehad never spoken except over the telephone and whose name he rememberedto be Irene Stanton, a high-pitched, nasal voice cried out. 

"Come right in. " He went right in and was charged at by a half-bredChow whose bark was like a gunman's laugh, and a tiny pink beast whichworked itself into a state of hysterical rage. But when a high-heeledshoe was flung at them from the bedroom, followed by a volley offruit-carrier words of the latest brand, they retired, awed andhorror-stricken, to cover. 

Martin found himself in a small, square living room with two windowslooking over the intimate backs of other similar houses. Under the bestof conditions it was not a room of very comfortable possibilities. Inthe hands of its present occupant, it was, to Martin's eyes, the mostdepressing and chaotic place he had ever seen. The cheap furniture andthe cheaper wall paper went well with a long-unwhite-washed ceiling andsmudged white paint. A line of empty beer bottles which stood on amantelpiece littered with unframed photographs and dog-eared Christmascards struck a note so blase that it might almost have been committedfor a reason. On the square mission table in the center there was alamp with a belaced pink shade at a cock-eyed angle which resembled thebonnet of a streetwalker in the early hours of the morning. An electriciron stood coldly beneath it with its wire attached to a fixture in thewall. Various garments littered the chairs and sofa, and jagged piecesof newspaper which had been worried by the dogs covered the floor. 

But the young woman who shortly made her appearance was very differentfrom the room. Her frock was neat and clean, her face most carefullymade up, her shoes smart. She had a wide and winning grin, teeth thatshould have advertised a toothpaste, and a pair of dimples which oughtto have been a valuable asset to any chorus. "Why, but you HAVE done ahustle, " she said. "I haven't even had time to tidy up a bit. " Shecleared a chair and shook a finger at the dogs, who, sneaking out fromunder the sofa, were eyeing her with apprehensive affection. The Chow'smother had evidently lost her heart to a bulldog. "Excuse the look ofthis back attic, " she added. "I've got to move, and I'm in the middleof packing. "

"Of course, " said Martin, eager to know why he had been sent for. "It'sabout Tootles, you said. "

"Very much so. " She sat on the edge of the table, crossed her arms, anddeliberately looked Martin over with expert eyes. Knowing as much aboutmen as a mechanic of a main-road motor-repairing shop knows aboutengines, her examination was acute and thorough. 

Martin waited quietly, amused at her coolness, but impatient to come tocues. She was a good sort, he knew. Tootles had told him so, and he wascertain that she had asked to see him out of friendship for the girlupstairs. 

Her first question was almost as disconcerting and abrupt as a Zeppelinbomb. "What did you do to Tootles?"

Martin held her examining gaze. "Nothing, except give her a bit of aholiday, " he said. 

"I saw you go off with her that morning. " She smiled and her eyesbecame a little more friendly. "She wrote me a letter from your placeand said she'd found out what song writers meant by the word heaven. "

"Did she?" said Martin. "I'm glad. "

It came to her in a flash that her little pal had fallen in love withthis boy and instantly she understood the mystery of Tootles' change ofmethod and point of view--her moping, her relaxed grip on life. Shemeant almost nothing to the boy and knew it. 

"But don't you think you might have been to see her since you broughther back?" she asked. 

"I've been very worried, " said Martin simply. 

"Is that so?" and then, after another pause, this girl said a secondastonishing thing. "I wish I didn't see in you a man who tells thetruth. I wish you were just one of the ordinary sort that comes ourway. I should know how to deal with you better. "

"Tell me what you mean, " said Martin. 

"Shall I? All right, I will. " She stood up with her hands on her hips. "If you'd played the usual game with little Tootles and dropped hercold, I wouldn't let you get out of this room without coming up toscratch. I'd make you cough up a good-sized check. There's such a thingas playing the game even by us strap-hangers, you know. As it is, I cansee that you were on the square, that you're a bit of a poet orsomething and did Tootles a good turn for nothing, and honestly, Idon't know the next move. You don't owe her anything, you see. "

"Is money the trouble?" asked Martin. 

Irene Stanton shot out an odd, short laugh. "Let me tell yousomething, " she said. "You know what happened at the dress rehearsal of'The Ukelele Girl'? Well, the word's gone around about her chucking theshow at the last minute, and it's thumbs down for Tootles. She hadn't anickel when she came back from your place, and since then she's pawnedherself right down to the bone to pay her rent and get a few eats. Shewouldn't take nothing from me because I'm out too, and this is a badtime to get into anything new. Only two things can stop her from beingput out at the end of the week. One's going across the passage to thedrunken fellow that writes music, and the other's telling the tale toyou. She won't do either. I've never seen her the way she is now. Shesits around, staring at the wall, and when I try to put some of herusual pep into her she won't listen. She's all changed since that tasteof the country, and I figure she won't get on her feet again without abig yank up. She keeps on saying to herself, like a sort of song, 'Oh, Gawd, for a sight of the trees, ' and I've known girls end it quick whenthey get that way. "

Martin got up. "Where do you keep your pen and ink?" he asked. Poor oldTootles. There certainly was something to do. 

Irene bent forward eagerly. "Are you going to see her through thissnag?"

"Of course I am. "

"Ah, that's the talk. But wait a second. We got to be tricky aboutthis. " She was excited and tremendously in earnest. "If she gets toknow I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time. Give methe money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about how it came tome, --the will of a rich uncle in Wisconsin or something, you know, --andask her to come and help me blow it in somewhere on the coast, see? Shegave me three weeks' holiday once. It's my turn now, me being inluck. .. . But perhaps you don't trust me?"

"You trust me, " said Martin, and gave her one of his honest smiles. 

He caught sight of a bottle of ink on the window sill. There was a penof sorts there also. He brought them to the table and made out a checkin the name of his fellow conspirator. He was just as anxious as shewas to put "a bit of pep" into the little waif who had sat beneath theportrait of his father. There was no blotting paper, so he waved it inthe air before handing it over. 

A rush of tears came to Irene's eyes when she saw what he had written. She held out her hand, utterly giving up an attempt to find words. 

"Thank you for calling up, " said Martin, doing his best to be perfectlynatural and ordinary. "I wish you'd done so sooner. Poor old Tootles. Write to the Devon Yacht Club, Long Island, and let me know how you geton. We've all three been up against some rotten bad luck, haven't we?Good-by, then. I'll go up to Tootles now. "

"No, no, " she said, "don't. That'd bring my old uncle to life rightaway. She'd guess you was in on this, all right. Slip off and let mehave a chance with my movie stuff. " With a mixture of emotion andhilarity she suddenly waved the check above her head. "Can you imaginethe fit the receiving teller at my little old bank'll throw when I slipthis across as if it meant nothing to me?"

And then she caught up one of Martin's hands and did the mostdisconcerting thing of all. She pressed it to her lips and kissed it. 

Martin got as red as a beet. "Well, then, good-by, " he said, making forthe door. "Good luck. "

"Good-by and good luck to you. My word, but you've made optimism sproutall over my garden, and I thought the very roots of it were dead. "

For a few minutes after Martin was gone, she danced about her appallingroom, and laughed and cried and said the most extraordinary things toher dogs. The little pink beast became hysterical again, and the Chowleaped into a bundle of under-clothing and worried the life out of it. Finally, having hidden the check in a safe place, the girl ran upstairsto break the good news of her uncle's death to Tootles. Why, they coulddo the thing like ladies, the pair of them. It was immense, marvellous, almost beyond belief! That old man of Wisconsin deserved a place inHeaven. .. . Heaven--Devon. 

It was an inspiration. "Gee, but that's the idea!" she said to herself. "Devon--and the sight of that boy. That'll put the pep back, unless I'mthe original nut. And if he doesn't care about her now, he maypresently. Others have. "

And when she went in, there was Tootles staring at the wall, andthrough it and away beyond at the place Martin had called theCathedral, and at Martin, with his face dead-white because Joan hadturned and gone. 

VII

It was a different Tootles who, ten days later, sat on a bank of dryferns that overlooked a superb stretch of water and watched the sun godown. The little half-plucked bird of the Forty-sixth Street garretwith the pale thin face and the large tired eyes had almost become thefairy of Joan's hill once more, the sun-tanned little brother of PeterPan again. A whole week of the air of Devon and the smell of its pines, of the good wholesome food provided by the family with whom she andIrene were lodging, of long rambles through the woods, of bathing andsleeping, and the joy of finding herself among trees had performed that"yank" of which her fellow chorus lady had spoken. 

Tootles was on her feet again. Her old zest to live had been given backto her by the wonder and the beauty of sky and water and trees. A childof nature, hitherto forced to struggle for her bread in cities, she wasrevived and renewed and refreshed by the sweet breath and the warmwelcome of that simple corner of God's earth to which Irene had socunningly brought her. Her starved, city-ridden spirit had blossomedand become healthy out there in the country like a root of CreepingJenny taken from a pot on the window-sill of a slum house and put backinto good brown earth. 

The rough and ready family with whom they were lodging kept a duckfarm, and it was to this white army of restless, greedy things thatTootles owed her first laugh. Tired and smut-bespattered after atedious railway journey she had eagerly and with childish joy gone atonce to see them fed, the old and knowing, the young and optimistic, and all the yellow babies with uncertain feet and tiny noises. Afterthat, a setting sun which set fire to the sky and water and trees, melting and mingling them together, and Tootles turned the corner. Themotherless waif slept that night on Nature's maternal breast and wascomforted. 

The warm-hearted Irene was proud of herself. Devon--Heaven--it wasindeed an inspiration. The only fly in her amber came from the factthat Martin was away. But when she discovered that he and his friendhad merely gone for a short trip on the yawl she waited with greatcontent for their return, setting the seeds in Tootles' mind, withinfinite diplomacy and feminine cunning, of a determination to use allher wiles to win even a little bit of love from Martin as soon as shesaw him again. 

Playing the part of one who had unexpectedly benefited from the will ofan almost-forgotten relative she never, of course, said a word of whyshe had chosen Devon for this gorgeous holiday. Temporarily wealthy itwas not necessary to look cannily at every nickel. Before leaving NewYork she had bought herself and Tootles some very necessary clothes andsaw to it that they lived on as much of the fat of the land as could beobtained in the honest and humble house in which she had found a largetwo-bedded room. Her cigarettes were Egyptian now and on the train shehad bought half a dozen new novels at which she looked with pride. Hitherto she had been obliged to read only those much-handledblase-looking books which went the round of the chorus. Conceive whatthat meant! Also she had brought with her a bottle of the scent thatwas only, so far as she knew, within reach of leading ladies. Like thecigarettes and the books, this was really for Tootles to use, but sheborrowed a little from time to time. 

As for Irene Stanton, then, she was having, and said so, the time ofher young life. She richly deserved it, and if her kindness andthoughtfulness, patience and sympathy had not been entered in the bigvolume of the Recording Angel that everlasting young woman must haveneglected her pleasant job for several weeks. 

And, as for Tootles, it is true that her bobbed hair still owed itsgolden brilliance to a bottle, but the white stuff on her face had beenreplaced by sunburn, and her lips were red all by themselves. 

She was watching the last of the great red globe when her friend joinedher. There had been a race of sloops that afternoon, and there wasunusual animation on the quay and at the little club house. A smallpower boat, on which were the starter and judges and others, had justput in with a good deal of splutter and fuss. On the stoop of the cluba small band was playing, and a bevy of young people were dancing. Following in the wake of the last sloop a yawl with a dingey in tow wascoming towards the quay. 

Seeing that Tootles was in one of her ecstatic moods and was deaf toremarks, Irene saved her words to cool her porridge and watched theincoming yawl. She did so at first without much interest. It was merelya sailboat to her city eyes, and her good lines and good managementmeant nothing. But as she came nearer something familiar in the cut ofthe man at her helm caught her attention. Surely those broad shouldersand that deep chest and small head could belong only to Martin Gray?They did, they did. It was that boy at last, that boy about whomTootles had gone dippy, that boy whose generosity had made theirholiday possible, that boy the first sight of whom would put the lasttouch to Tootles' recovery--that boy who, if her friend set her mindand feminine charm to work, might, it seemed to the practical Irene, make her future safe. Strap-hangers had very few such chances. 

With a tremendous effort she sat wordless and waited, knowing thatMartin must come that way to his cottage. With all her sense of thedramatic stirred she watched the business of coming to anchor with someimpatience and when finally the dingey was hauled in and the two mengot aboard, loosed off and rowed to shore, excitement sent the bloodtingling through her veins. She heard them laugh and look up towardsthe club, now almost deserted; cars were being driven inland in quicksuccession. She watched them, hatless and sun-tanned, come nearer andnearer. She got up as if to go, hesitated, caught Martin's eye, gave anexclamation of well-acted amazement and waved her hand. "Well, " shecried out, "for Heaven's sake! I never thought you meant this littleold Devon!"

Howard had long ago caught sight of the two girls and wondered if theywere pretty, hoping they would remain until he could decide the pointfor himself. They were, both of them, and Martin knew them. Goodenough. He stood by while Martin greeted the one who spoke and then sawthe other wake suddenly at the sound of his friend's voice, stumble toher feet and go forward with a little cry. 

"Why, Tootles, " said Martin warmly. "I never thought of seeing youhere. How well you look. "

It was like dreaming true. Tootles could only smile and cling to hishand. 

"By Jove, the other girl, " thought Howard, with what, after all, wasonly an easy touch of intuition. The girl's face told her story. "Whatwill this mean?" Then there were introductions, questions and answers, laughter, jokes, a quick exchange of glances between Martin and Irene, in which he received and acknowledged her warning, and a little silence. 

"Come up to the cottage and have dinner with us, " said Martin, breakingit rather nervously. "Can you?"

Tootles nodded. Devon--Heaven. How perfectly the words rhymed. 

"You couldn't keep us away with a stick, " said Irene. This was the waythings should go. Also, the jovial, fat person with the roving eyesmight brighten things considerably for her. 

"Great work!" Said Howard. 

And then, taking Tootle's arm and breaking into enthusiastic details ofthe sailing trip, Martin led the way up to the cottage among the firs. It was good to have been able to put little Tootles into spirits again. 

Howard followed with Irene. "Gee whiz!" he said to himself, "somedimples!"

A few miles away as the crow flies Gilbert Palgrave In his bedroom inSt. James's Palace cursed himself and life because Joan was still asdifficult to win as sunshine was to bottle. 

And up in the sky that hung above them all the angels were lighting thestars. 

VIII

Martin was not given to suspicion. He accepted people at their facevalue and believed in human nature. It never occurred to him, then, that the apparently ingenuous and disarming Irene, with her straightglance and wide smile, had brought Tootles to Devon except by accidentor for anything but health and peace. He was awfully glad to see them. They added to the excellent effect upon his spirits which had beenworked by the constant companionship of the irrepressible Howard, before whose habitual breeziness depression could stand little chance. 

Also he had youth and health and plenty to do in gorgeous weather, andso his case, which he had been examining rather morbidly, assumed aless painful aspect. His love and need of Joan remained just as strong, but the sense of martyrdom brought about by loneliness andself-analysis left him. Once more he assured himself that Joan was akid and must have her head until she became a woman and faced facts. Over and over again he repeated to himself the creed that she had flunginto the teeth of fate, and in this he found more excuse than shedeserved for the way in which she had used him to suit her purpose andput him into the position of a big elder brother whose duty it was tosupport her, in loco parentis, and not interfere with her pastimes. However much she fooled and flirted, he had an unshakable faith in hercleanness and sweetness, and if he continued to let her alone, to getfed up with what she called the Merry-go-round, she would one day comehome and begin all over again. She was a kid, just a kid as she hadsaid, and why, after all, should she be bullied and bully-ragged beforeshe had had time to work it off? That's how he argued. 

Meanwhile, he was, thankfully enough, no longer alone. Here were Howardand the two girls and the yawl and the sun, and he would keep merry andbright until Joan came back. He was too proud and sensitive to go toJoan and have it all out with her and thus dispel what had developedinto a double misunderstanding, and too loyal to go to Joan's motherand tell his story and beg for help. Like Joan and Howard, and whoknows how many other young things in the world, he was paying theinevitable penalty for believing that he could face the problems oflife unassisted, unadvised and was making a dreadful hash of it inconsequence. He little knew that his kindness to Tootles had made Joanbelieve that he had exchanged his armor for broadcloth and put her in a"who cares?" mood far more dangerous than the one which had sent herinto the night life of New York, or that, owing to Tootles, she was, atthat very moment, for the fun of the thing, driving Gilbert Palgrave toa state of anger and desperation which might lead to tragedy. Pooryoung things, misguided and falsely proud and at a loose end! What awaste of youth and spring which a few wise words of counsel wouldretrieve and render blessed. 

And as for Tootles, with her once white face and red lips and hair thatcame out of a bottle, Martin was to her what Joan was to Palgrave andfor the same reason. Irene's hints and innuendos had taken root. Caringnothing for the practical side of her friend's point of view, --theassured future business, --all her energies were bent to attract Martin, all that was feminine in her was making a huge effort to win, by hookor crook, somehow soon, an answer, however temporary, to her love. Never mind what happened after these summer weeks were over. Whatmatter if she went mad so that she had her day? She had never comeacross any man like this young Martin, with his clean eyes andsensitive soul and honest hands, his, to her, inconceivable capacity of"being brother, " his puzzling aloofness from the lure of sex. Shedidn't understand what it meant to a boy of Martin's type to cherishideals and struggle to live up to a standard that had been set for himby his father. In her daily fight for mere self-preservation, in whichjoy came by accident, any such thing as principle seemed crazy. Herstreet--Arab interpretation of the law of life was to snatch ateverything that she could reach because there was so much that wasbeyond her grasp. Her love for Martin was the one passion of her sordidlittle life, and she would be thankful and contented to carry memoriesback to her garret which no future rough-and-tumble could ever takeaway or blot out. 

For several days after the first of many dinners with the boys, Tootlesplayed her cards with the utmost care. The foursome became inseparable, bathing, sailing and motoring from morning to night. If there was anytruth in the power of propinquity, it must have been discovered then. Howard attached himself to Irene whom he found something more thanmerry and amusing, --a girl of indomitable courage and optimism, infact. He liked her immensely. And so Tootles paired off with Martin andhad innumerable opportunities of putting forward the challenge of sex. She took them all, but with the most carefully considered subtlety. Shedescended to nothing obvious, as was to be expected from one of hertype, which was not famous for such a thing as self-restraint. She paidgreat attention to her appearance and kept a close watch on her tongue. She played what she imagined was the part of a little lady, toned downher usual exuberance, her too loud laugh and her characteristic habitof giving quick and smart back answers. But in all her long talks withMartin she hinted ever so lightly that she and he had not been throwntogether from opposite poles without a reason. She tried to touch hismind with the thought that it was to become what she said it might thenight of the accident, --a romance, a perfectly private little affair oftheir own, stolen from their particular routine, which could be endedat a moment's notice. She tried to wrap the episode up in a page ofpoetry which might have been torn from a little book by Francois Villonand give it a wistfulness and charm that she thought would appeal tohim. But it was not until one more than usually exquisite night, whenthe spirit of July lingered in the air and the warmth of the sun stilllay among the stars, that she made her first step towards her goal. Howard and Irene had wandered down to the water, and she was left withMartin sitting elfishly among the ferns on the bank below the cottageand above the silver lapping water. Martin, very much alive to themagic spell of the night, with the young sap stirring in his veins, layat her feet, and she put her hand caressingly on his head and began totalk in a half whisper. 

"Boy, oh, boy, " she said, "what shall I do without you when this dreamcomes to an end?"

"Dream again, " said Martin. 

"Down there in the city, so far away from trees?"

"Why not? We can take our dreams with us wherever we go. But it isn'tcoming to an end yet. "

"How long will it last?"

"Until the sun gets cold, " said Martin, catching her mood, "and there'sa chill in the air. "

She slipped down a little so that he should see the light in her eyes. There was hardly an inch between their lips, and the only sound was thebeating of her heart. Youth and July and the scent of honeysuckle. 

"I thought I was dead when you helped me out of that wreck, " she wenton in a quivering voice, and her long-fingered hand on his face. "Ithink I must be really dead to-night. Surely this is too sweet to belife. "

"Dear little Tootles, " said Martin softly. She was so close that hecould feel the rise and fall of her breasts. "Don't let's talk ofdeath. We're too young. "

The sap was stirring in his veins. She was like a fairy, this girl, whoought never to have wandered into a city. 

"Martin, " she said, "when the sun gets cold and there's a chill in theair will you ever come back to this hour in a dream?"

"Often, Tootles, my dear. "

"And will you see the light in my eyes and feel my hands on your faceand my lips on your lips?"

She bent forward and put them there and drew back with a shaking soband scrambled up and fled. 

She had seen the others coming, but that was not why she had tornherself away. One flash of sex was enough that night. The next time hemust do the kissing. 

Eve and July and the scent of honeysuckle!

 Breakfast was on the table. To Irene, who came down in her dressinggown with her hair just bundled up and her face coated with powder, eight o'clock was an unearthly hour at which to begin the day. In NewYork she slept until eleven, read the paper until twelve, cooked anddisposed of a combined breakfast-lunch at one, and if it was a matineeday, rushed round to the theater, and if it wasn't, killed time untilher work called her in the evening. A boob's life, as she called it, was a trying business, but the tyranny of the bustling woman with whomshe lodged was such that if breakfast was not eaten at eight o'clock itwas not there to eat. Like an English undergraduate who scrambles outof bed to attend Chapel simply to avoid a fine, this product ofBroadway theaterdom conformed to the rule of Mrs. Burrell's energetichouse because the good air of Devon gave her a voracious appetite. Then, too, even if she missed breakfast, she had to pay for it, "sothere you are, old dear. "

Tootles, up with the lark as usual, was down among the ducks, givingFarmer Burrell a useful hand. She delighted in doing so. From a countrygrandfather she had inherited a love of animals and of the earlyfreshness of the morning that found eager expression, now that she hadthe chance of giving it full rein. Then, too, all that was maternal inher nature warmed at the sight and sound of all those new, soft, yellowthings that waddled closely behind the wagging tails of their mothers, and it gave her a sort of sweet comfort to go down on her knees andhold one of these frightened babies against her cheek. 

Crying out, "Oo-oo, Tootles, " from halfway down the cinder path, Irene, stimulated by the aroma of hot coffee and toast, and eggs and bacon, returned to the living room and fell to humming, "You're here and I'mhere. "

Tootles joined her immediately, a very different looking little personfrom the tired-eyed, yawning girl of the city rabbit warren. Health wasin her eyes and a little smile at the corners of her mouth. Quick workwas made of the meal to the intermittent duck talk of Mrs. Burrell whocame in and out of the kitchen through a creaking door, --a normal, noisy soul, to whom life was a succession of laborious days spentbetween the cooking stove and the washtub with a regular Saturdaynight, in her best clothes, at the motion-picture theater at Sag Harborto gape at the abnormality of Theda Bara and scream with uncontrolledmirth at the ingenious antics of Charlie Chaplin. An ancient Ford madepossible this weekly dip into these intense excitements. 

And then the two girls left the living room with its inevitable rockingchairs and framed texts and old heating stove with a funnel through thewall and went out into the sun. 

"Well, dearie, " said Irene, sitting on the edge of the stoop, withinsound of the squeaking of a many-armed clothes drier, teased by a nicesailing wind. "Us for the yawl to-day. "

"You for the yawl, " said Tootles. "I'm staying here to help old manBurrell. It's his busy day. "

Irene looked up quickly. "What's the idea?"

"Just that, --and something else. I don't want to see Martin till thisevening. I moved things last night, and I want him to miss me a bit. "

"Ah, " said Irene. "I guessed it meant something when you made thatquick exit when we moved up. Have you got him, dearie?"

Tootles shot out a queer little sigh and nodded. 

"That's fine. He's not like the others, is he? But you've played himgreat. Oh, I've seen it all, never you fear. Subtle, old dear, verysubtle. Shouldn't have had the patience myself. Go in and win. He'sworth it. " Tootles put her hands over her face and a great sob shookher. 

In an instant, Irene had her in her arms. "Dear old Tootles, " she said, "it means an awful lot to you, don't it? Don't give way, girlie. You'vedone mighty well so far. Now follow it up, hot and fast. That boy's gota big heart and he's generous and kind, and he won't forget. I broughtyou here for this, such a chance as it was, and if I can see youproperly fixed up and happy, my old uncle's little bit of velvet willhave come in mighty useful, eh? Got a plan for to-night?"

Tootles nodded again. "If I don't win to-night, " she said, "it's allover. I shall have to own that he cares for me less than the dust. Ishall have to throw up my hands and creep away and hide. Oh, my God, amI such a rotten little freak as all that, Irene? Tell me, go on, tellme. "

"Freak? You! For Heaven's sake. Don't the two front rows give nobodybut you the supper signal whenever the chorus is on?"

"But they're not like Martin. He's, --well, I dunno just what he is. Forone thing there's that butterfly he's married to. He's never said asmuch as half a word about her to me, but the look that came into hiseyes when he saw her the night I told you about, --I'd be run over by atrain for it any time. He's a man alright and wants love as bad as Ido. I know that, but sometimes, when I watch his face, when neither ofus is talking, there's a queer smile on it, like a man who's looking upat somebody, and he sets his jaw and squares his shoulders just as ifhe had heard a voice telling him to play straight. Many times I've seenit, Irene, and after that I have to begin all over again. I respect himfor it, and it makes me love him more and more. I've never had the luckto meet a man like him. The world would be a bit less rotten for thelikes of you and me if there were more of him about, I tell you. But ithurts me like the devil because it makes me feel no better than a shoewith the buttons off and the heel all worn down, and I ask myselfwhat's the blooming use. But last night I kissed him, and I saw hiseyes glint for the first time and to-night, --to-night, Irene, I'm goingto play my last card. Yes, that's what I'm going to do, play the lastcard in the pack. "

"How?" asked Irene eagerly, sympathy and curiosity bubbling to the top. 

Tootles shook her head. "It isn't lucky to go talking about it. " shesaid, with a most wistful smile. "You'll know whether it's the heightsor the depths for me when you see me in the morning. "

"In the morning? Shan't you be. .. "

"Don't ask. Just wish me luck and go and have a good day with the boys. I shall be waiting for you at the cottage. And now I'm off down to theducks. Say I've got a headache and don't let 'em come round and try tofetch me. So long, Irene; you've been some pal to me through this and Ishall never forget. "

Whereupon Tootles went off to lend the unloquacious Burrell a helpinghand, and Irene ran up to the bedroom to dress. 

From the pompous veranda of the Hosack place Gilbert Palgrave, sickwith jealousy, watched Joan swimming out to the barrels with thatcursed boy in tow. And he, too, had made up his mind to play his lastcard that night. 

Man and woman and love, --the old, inevitable story. 

IX

The personnel of the Hosacks' house party had changed. 

Mrs. Noel d'Oyly had led her little husband away to Newport to staywith Mrs. Henry Vanderdyke, where were Beatrix and Pelham Franklin, with a bouncing baby boy, the apple of Mr. Vanderdyke's eye. EnidOuchterlony had left for Gloucester, Massachusetts, where her aunt, Mrs. Horace Pallant, entertained in an almost royal fashion and waseager to set her match-making arts to work on behalf of her onlyunmarried niece. Enid had gone to the very edge of well-bred lengths toland Courtney Millet, but Scots ancestry and an incurable habit oftalking sensibly and rather well had handicapped her efforts. She hadconfided to Primrose with a sudden burst of uncharacteristic incautionthat she seemed doomed to become an old man's darling. Her last wordsto the sympathetic Primrose were, "Oh, Prim, Prim, pray that you maynever become intellectual. It will kill all your chances. " Miss Hosackwas, however, perfectly safe. 

Milwood, fired by a speech at the Harvard Club by Major General LeonardWood, had scratched all his pleasant engagements for the summer, andwas at Plattsburg learning for the first time, at the camp which willsome day occupy an inspiring chapter in the history of the UnitedStates, the full meaning of the words "duty" and "discipline. " Theirplaces had been taken by Major and Mrs. Barnet Thatcher and dog, ReginaWaterhouse and Vincent Barclay, a young English officer invalided outof the Royal Flying Corps after bringing down eight German machines. Acork leg provided him with constant amusement. He had a good deal ofproperty in Canada and was making his way to Toronto by easy stages. Acheery fellow, cut off from all his cherished sports but free from eventhe suggestion of grousing. Of his own individual stunts, as he calledthem, he gave no details and made no mention of the fact that hecarried the D. S. O. And the Croix de Guerre in his bag. He had met theHosacks at the American Embassy in London in 1913. He was rather sweeton Primrose. 

The fact that Joan was still there was easily accounted for. She likedthe place, and her other invitations were not interesting. Hosackdidn't want her to go either, but of course that had nothing to do withit, and so far as Mrs. Hosack was concerned, let the bedroom beoccupied by some one of her set and she was happy enough. Indeed, itsaved her the brain fag of inviting some one else, "always difficultwith so many large houses to fill and so few people to go round, mydear. "

Harry Oldershaw was such a nice boy that he did just as he liked. If itsuited him he could keep his room until the end of the season. The caseof Gilbert Palgrave was entirely different. A privileged, spoiledperson, who made no effort to be generally agreeable and play up, hewas rather by way of falling into the same somewhat difficult categoryas a minor member of the British Royalty. His presence was an honoralthough his absence would have been a relief. He chose to prolong hisvisit indefinitely and there was an end of it. 

Every day at Easthampton had, however, been a nightmare to Palgrave. Refusing to take him seriously, Joan had played with him as a cat playswith a mouse. Kind to him one minute she had snubbed him the next. Thevery instant that he had congratulated himself on making headway hishopes had been scattered to the four winds by some scathing remarks andher disappearance for hours with Harry Oldershaw. She had taken amischievous delight in leading him on with winning smiles and charmingand appealing ways only to burst out laughing at his blazingprotestations of love and leave him inarticulate with anger and woundedvanity. "If you want me to love you, make me, " she had said. "I shallfight against it tooth and nail, but I give you leave to do your best. "He had done his best. With a totally uncharacteristic humbleness, forgetting the whole record of his former easy conquests, and with thisyoung slim thing so painfully in his blood that there were times whenhe had the greatest difficulty to retain his self-control, he hadconcentrated upon the challenge that she had flung at him and sethimself to teach her how to love with all the thirsty eagerness of aman searching for water. People who had watched him in his too wealthyadolescence and afterwards buying his way through life and achievingtriumphs on the strength of his, handsome face and unique positionwould have stared in incredulous amazement at the sight of thislove-sick man in his intense pursuit of a girl who was able to twisthim around her little finger and make him follow her about as if hewere a green and callow youth. Palgrave, the lady-killer; Palgrave, theegoist; Palgrave, the superlative person, who, with nonchalantimpertinence, had picked and chosen. Was it possible?

Everything is possible when a man is whirled off his feet by the GreatEmotion. History reeks with the stories of men whose natures werechanged, whose careers were blasted, whose honor and loyalty and commonsense were sacrificed, whose pride and sense of the fitness of thingswere utterly and absolutely forgotten under the stress of the sex stormthat hits us all and renders us fools or heroes, breaking or making asluck will have it and, in either case, bringing us to the common levelof primevality for the love of a woman. Nature, however refined andcultivated the man, or rarified his atmosphere, sees to this. Herselffeminine, she has no consideration for persons. To her a man is merelya man, a creature with the same heart and the same senses, working tothe same end from the same beginning. Let him struggle and cry"Excelsior!" and fix his eyes upon the heights, let him devote himselfto prayer or go grimly on his way with averted eyes, let him becomecynic or misogynist, what's it matter? Sooner or later she lays handsupon him and claims him as her child. Man, woman and love. It is theoldest and the newest story in the world, and in spite of the sneers ofthin-blooded intellectuals who think that it is clever to speak of loveas the particular pastime of the Bolsheviki and the literary parasiteswho regard themselves as critics and dismiss love as "mere sex stuff, "it is the everlasting Story of Everyman. 

Young and new and careless, obsessed only with the one idea of having agood time, --never mind who paid for it, --Joan knew nothing of thedanger of trifling with the feelings of a high-strung man who had neverbeen denied, a man over-civilized to the point of moral decay. If shehad paused in her determined pursuit of amusement and distraction toanalyze her true state of mind she might have discovered an angrydesire to pay Fate out for the way in which he had made things go withMartin by falling really and truly in love with Gilbert. As it was, sherecognized his attraction and in the few serious moments that forcedthemselves upon her when she was alone she realized that he could giveher everything that would make life easy and pleasant. She liked hiscalm sophistication, she was impressed, being young, by his utterdisregard of laws and conventions, and she was flattered at theunmistakable proofs of his passionate devotion. But she would have beensurprised to find beneath her careless way of treating herself andeverybody round her an unsuspected root of loyalty towards Alice andMartin that put up a hedge between herself and Gilbert. There was alsosomething in the fine basic qualities of her undeveloped character thatunconsciously made her resent this spoiled man's assumption of the factthat, married or not, she must sooner or later fall in with his wishes. She was in no mood for self-analysis, however, because that meant therenewal of the pain and deep disappointment as to Martin which was herone object to hide and to forget. So she kept Gilbert in tow, andsupplied her days with the excitement for which she craved by leadinghim on and laughing him off. It is true that once or twice she hadcaught in his eyes a look of madness that caused her immediately tocall the nice boy to her support and make a mental note of the factthat it would be wise never to trust herself quite alone with him, butwith a shrug of the shoulders she continued alternately to tease andcharm, according to her mood. 

She did both these things once again when she came up from the sea tofinish the remainder of the morning in the sun. Seeing Gilbert pacingthe veranda like a bear with a sore ear, she told Harry Oldershaw toleave her to her sun bath and signalled to Gilbert to come down to theedge of the beach. The others were still in the sea. He joined her witha sort of reluctance, with a look of gall and ire in his eyes that wasbecoming characteristic. There was all about him the air of a man whohad been sleeping badly. His face was white and drawn, and his fingerswere never still. He twisted a signet ring round and round at onemoment and worried at a button on his coat the next. His nerves seemedto be outside his skin. He stood in front of Joan antagonistically andran his eyes over her slim young form in its wet bathing suit withgrudging admiration. He was too desperately in love to be able to applyto himself any of the small sense of humor that was his in normal timesand hide his feelings behind it. He was very far from being the GilbertPalgrave of the early spring, --the cool, satirical, complete man of theworld. 

"Well?" he asked. 

Joan pretended to be surprised. "Well what, Gilbert dear? I wanted tohave a nice little talk before lunch, that's all, and so I ventured todisturb you. "

"Ventured to disturb me! You're brighter than usual this morning. "

"Ah I? Is that possible? How sweet of you to say so. Do sit down andlook a little less like an avenging angel. The sand's quite warm anddry. "

He kicked a little shower of it into the air. "I don't want to sitdown, " he said. "You bore me. I'm fed up with this place and sick totears of you. "

"Sick to tears of me? Why, what in the world have I done?"

"Every conceivable and ingenious thing that I might have expected ofyou. Loyalty was entirely left out of your character, it appears. YoungOldershaw and the doddering Hosack measure up to your standard. I can'tcompete. "

Joan allowed almost a minute to go by in silence. She felt at the verytip-top of health, having ridden for some hours and gone hot into thesea. To be mischievous was natural enough. This man took himself soseriously, too. She would have been made of different stuff or haveacquired a greater knowledge of Palgrave's curious temperament to havebeen able to resist the temptation to tantalize. 

"Aren't you, by any chance, a little on the rude side this morning, Gilbert?"

"If you call the truth rude, " he said, "yes. "

"I do. Very. The rudest thing I know. "

He looked down at her. She was leaning against the narrow wooden backof a beach chair. Her hands were clasped round her white knees. Shewore little thin black shoes and no stockings. A tight rubber bathingcap which came low down on her forehead gave her a most attractivelyboyish look. She might have been a young French Pierrot in a picture bySem or Van Beers. He almost hated her at that moment, sitting there inall the triumph of youth, untouched by his ardor, unaffected by hispassion. 

"You needn't worry, " he said. "You won't get any more of it from me. Sothat you may continue to amuse yourself undisturbed I withdraw from thebaby hunt. I'm off this afternoon. "

He had cried "Wolf!" so many times that Joan didn't believe him. 

"I daresay a change of air will do you good, " she said. "Where are yougoing?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "What's it matter? Probably to that cottageof mine to play hermit and scourge myself for having allowed you tomortify me and hold me up to the ridicule of your fulsome court ofadmirers. "

"Yes, that cottage of yours. You've forgotten your promise to drive meover to see it, haven't you?"

Palgrave wheeled round. This was too much of a good thing. "Be careful, or my rudeness will become more truthful than even you will be able toswallow. Twice last week you arranged for me to take you over and bothtimes you turned me down and went off with young Oldershaw. "

"What IS happening to my memory?" asked Joan. 

"It must be the sea air. "

He turned on his heel and walked away. 

In an instant she was up and after him, with her hand on his arm. 

"I'm awfully sorry, Gilbert, " she said. "Do forgive me. "

"I'd forgive you if you were sorry, but you're not. "

"Yes, I am. "

He drew his arm away. "No. You're not really anything; in fact you'renot real. You're only a sort of mermaid, half fish, half girl. Nothingcomes of knowing you. It's a waste of time. You're not for men. You'refor lanky youths with whom you can talk nonsense, and laugh at sillyjokes. You belong to the type known in England as the flapper--thatweird, paradoxical thing with the appearance of flagrant innocence andthe mind of an errand boy. Your unholy form of enjoyment is to put meninto false positions and play baby when they lay hands on you. Yourhourly delight is to stir passion and then run into a nursery and slamthe door. You dangle your sex in the eyes of men and as soon as you'vegot them crazy, claim chastity and make them ashamed. One of these daysyou'll drive a man into the sort of mad passion that will make him giveyou a sound thrashing or seduce you. I don't want to be that man. Oldershaw is too young for you to hurt and Hosack too old, andapparently Martin Gray has chucked you and found some human realperson. As for me, I've had enough. Good morning. "

And once more, having delivered himself coldly and clearly of thisbrutally frank indictment he went up the steps to the veranda and intothe house. 

There was not even the tail of a smile on Joan's face as she watchedhim go. 

Lunch was not quite the usual pleasant, happy-go-lucky affair that day. The gallant little Major, recently married to the fluffy-minded Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves and her peevish little dog, sat on the right of theoverwhelmingly complacent Cornucopia. With the hope of renderinghimself more youthful for this belated adventure with the babblingwidow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, asusual, farcically pathetic. His nice white hair which had given him acharming benignity and cleanness had been turned into a dead and mustyblack which made him look unearthly and unreal. His smart and carefullycherished moustache which once had laid upon his upper lip like cottonwool had been treated with the same ink-colored mixture. His clothes, once so perfectly suitable, were now those built for a man of HarryOldershaw's youthful lines and gave him the appearance of one who hadforced himself into a suit made for his son. It was of a very blueflannel with white lines, --always a trying combination. His tie andsocks were en suite and his gouty feet were martyrized to this schemeof camouflage by being pressed into a pair of tight brown and whiteshoes. Having been deprived of his swim for fear that his youthfulnessmight come off in the water and with the rather cruel badinage of hisold friend Hosack still rankling in his soul, the poor little oldgentleman was not in the best of tempers. Also he had spent most of themorning exercising Pinkie-Winkie while his wife had been writingletters, and his nerves were distinctly jaded. The pampered animalwhich had taken almost as solemn a part of his marriage vows as thebride herself had insisted upon making a series of strategic attacksagainst Mrs. Hosack's large, yellow-eyed, resentful Persian Tom, andhis endeavors to read the morning paper and rescue Pinkie from certainwreckage had made life a bitter and a restless business. He was unableto prevent himself from casting his mind back to those good bachelordays of the previous summer when he had taken his swim with the youngpeople, enjoyed his sunbath at the feet of slim and beautiful girls, and looked forward to a stiff cocktail in his bathhouse like a naturaland irresponsible old buck. 

Gilbert Palgrave faced him, an almost silent man who, to Cornucopia'sgreat and continually voiced distress, allowed her handsomely paidcook's efforts to go by contemptuously untouched. It rendered her ownenthusiastic appetite all the more conspicuous. 

For two reasons Hosack was far from happy. One was because Mrs. BarnetThatcher was seated on his right pelting him with brightness and theother because Joan, on his left, looked clean through his head wheneverhe tried to engage her in sentimental sotto voce. 

Gaiety was left to Prim and the wounded Englishman and to youngOldershaw and the towering Regina who continually threw back her headto emit howls of laughter at Barclay's drolleries while she displayedthe large red cavern of her mouth and all her wonderful teeth. Afterevery one of these exhausting paroxysms she said, with hercharacteristic exuberance of sociability, "Isn't he the best thing?"

"Don't you think he's the most fascinating creature?" to any one whoseeye she caught, --a nice, big, beautiful, insincere girl who had beentaught at her fashionable school that in order to succeed in Societyand help things along she must rave about everything in extravagantlanguage and make as much noise as her lungs would permit. 

Joan's unusual lack of spirits was noticed by every one and especially, with grim satisfaction, by Gilbert Palgrave. With a return of optimismhe told himself that his rudeness expressed so pungently had had itseffect. He congratulated himself upon having, at last, been able toshow Joan the sort of foolish figure that she cut in his sight and evenwent so far as to persuade himself that, after all, she must dosomething more than like him to be so silent and depressed. 

His deductions were, however, as hopelessly wrong as usual. His drasticcriticism had been like water on a duck's back. It inspired amusementand nothing else. It was his remark that Martin Gray had chucked herand found some human real person that had stuck, and this, with theefficiency of a surgeon's knife, had cut her sham complacence andopened up the old wound from which she had tried so hard to persuadeherself that she had recovered. Martin-Martin-what was he doing? Wherewas he, and where was that girl with the white face and the red lipsand the hair that came out of a bottle?

The old overwhelming desire to see Martin again had been unconsciouslyset blazing by this tactless and provoked man. It was so passionate andirresistible that she could hardly remain at the table until thereplete Cornucopia rose, rattling with beads. And when, after whatseemed to be an interminable time, this happened and the partyadjourned to the shaded veranda to smoke and catch the faint breezefrom the sea, she instantly beckoned to Harry and made for thedrawing-room. 

In this furniture be-clogged room all the windows were open, but theblazing sun of the morning had left it hot and stuffy. A hideoussquatting Chinese goddess, whose tongue, by a mechanical appliance, lolled from side to side, appeared to be panting for breath, and thecut flowers in numerous pompous vases hung their limp heads. It was agorgeously hot day. 

Young Oldershaw bounded in, the picture of unrealized health. His tanwas almost black, and his teeth and the whites of, his eyes positivelygleamed. He might have been a Cuban. 

"Didn't I hear you tell Prim last night that you'd had a letter fromyour cousin?"

"Old Howard? Yes. " He was sorry that she had. 

"Is Martin with him?" It was an inspiration, an uncanny piece offeminine intuition. 

Young Oldershaw was honest. "He's staying with Gray, " he saidreluctantly. 

"Where?"

"At Devon. "

"Devon? Isn't that the place we drove to the other day--with a littleclub and a sort of pier and sailboats gliding about?"

"Yes. They've got one. "

Ah, that was why she had had a queer feeling of Martinism while she hadsat there having tea, watching the white sails against the sky. On oneof those boats bending gracefully to the wind Martin must have been. 

"Where are they living?"

"In a cottage that belongs to a pal of Gray's, so far as I couldgather. "

In a cottage, together! Then the girl whom she had called "Fairy, "--thegirl who was human and real, according to Gilbert, couldn't be, surelycouldn't be, with them. 

"Will you drive me over?" she asked. 

"When?"

"Now. "

"Why, of course, Joan, if I--must, " he said. It somehow seemed to himto be wrong and incredible that she had a husband, --this girl, so freeand young and at the very beginning of things, like himself, and whomhe had grown into the habit of regarding as his special--hardlyproperty, but certainly companion and playmate. 

"If you're not keen about it, Harry, I'll ask Mr. Hosack or achauffeur. Pray don't let me take you an inch out of your way. "

In an instant he was off his stilts and on his marrow bones. "Pleasedon't look like that and say those things. You've only got to tell mewhat you want and I'll get it. You know that. "

"Thank you, Harry, the sooner the better, then, " she said, with a smilethat lit up her face like a sunbeam. She must see Martin, she must, shemust! The old longing had come back. It was like a pain. And being withHoward Oldershaw in that cottage he was alone, and being alone he hadgot back into his armor. SHE had a clean slate. 

"Hurry, hurry, " she said. 

And when Harry hurried, as he did then, though with a curiousmisgiving, there were immediate results. Before Joan had chosen a hat, and for once it was difficult to make a choice, she heard his whistleand from the window of her bedroom saw him seated, hatless and sunburntto the roots of his fair hair, in his low-lying two-seater. 

It was, at his pace, a short run eastward over sandy roads, lined withstunted oaks and thick undergrowth of poison ivy, scrub and ferns;characteristic Long Island country with here a group of small untidyshacks and there a farm and outhouses with stone walls and scrap heaps, clothes drying on a line, chickens on the ceaseless hunt and a line ofgeese prowling aimlessly, easily set acackle, --a primitiveend-of-everywhere sort of country just there, with sometimes a mile ofhalf burned trees, whether done for a purpose or by accident it wouldbe difficult to say. At any rate, no one seemed to care. It all had thelook of No Man's Land, --unreclaimed and unreclaimable. 

For a little while nothing was said. Out of a clear sky the sun beatdown upon the car and the brown sand of the narrow road. Many times theboy shot sidelong glances at the silent girl beside him, burning to askquestions about this husband who was never mentioned and who appearedto him to be something of a myth and a mystery. He didn't love Joan, because it had been mutually agreed that he shouldn't. But he held herin the sort of devoted affection which, when it exists between a boyand a girl, is very good and rare and even beautiful and puts themclose to the angels. 

Presently, catching one of these deeply concerned glances, she put herlittle shoulder against his shoulder in a sisterly way. "Go on, then, Harry, " she said. "Ask me about it. I know you want to know. "

And he did. Somehow he felt that he ought to know, that he had theright. After all he had stopped himself from loving her at her urgentrequest, and their friendship was the best thing that he had everknown. And he began with, "When did you do it?"

"Away back in history, " she said, "or so it seems. It's really only afew months. "

"A few months! But you can hardly have been with him any time. "

"I have never really been with him, " she said. She wanted him to knoweverything. Now that the wound was open again and Martin in possessionof her once more, she felt that she must talk about it all to some one, and who could be better than Harry, who was so like a brother?

The boy couldn't believe that she meant what she implied but would havebitten off his tongue rather than put a direct question. "Is he such arotter?" he asked instead. 

"He's not a rotter. He's just Martin--generous, sensitive, deadstraight and as reliable as a liner. You and he were made in twinmolds. "

He flushed with pleasure--but it was like meeting a new Joan, aserious, laughterless Joan, with an odd little quiver in her voice andtears behind her eyes. He felt a new sense of responsibility by beingconfided in. Older, too. It was queer--this sudden switch fromthoughtless gaiety to something which was like illness in a house andwhich made Joan almost unrecognizable. 

He began again. "But then--" and stopped. 

"I'm the rotter, " she said. "It's because of me that he's in Devon andI'm at Easthampton, that he's sailing with your cousin, and I'm playingthe fool with Gilbert. I was a kid, Harry, and thought I might go onbeing a kid for a bit, and everything has gone wrong and all the blameis mine. "

"You're only a kid now, " said Harry, trying to find excuses for her. Heresented her taking all the blame. 

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. I'm only pretending to be. I came toEasthampton to pretend to be. All the time you've known me I've beenpretending, --pretending to pretend. I ceased to be a kid before thespring was over, --when I came face to face with something I had drivenMartin to do and it broke me. I've been bluffing since then, --bluffingmyself that I didn't care and that it wasn't my fault. I might havekept it up a bit longer, --even to the end of the summer, but Gilbertsaid something this morning that took the lynch pin out of the sham andbrought it all about my ears. "

And there was another short silence, --if it could be called silencewith the whirring of the engine and the boy driving with the throttleout. 

"You care for him, then?" he asked finally, looking at her. 

She nodded and the tears came. 

It was a great shock to him, somehow; he couldn't quite say why. Thisgirl had, as she had said, played the fool with Gilbert, --led the manon and teased him into desperation. He loathed the supercilious fellowand didn't give a hang how much he suffered. Anyway, he was married andought to have known better. But what hit was the fact that all thewhile she had loved this Martin of hers, --she, by whom he dated things, who had given him a new point of view about girls and who was his ownvery best pal. That was not up to her form and somehow hurt. 

And she saw that it did and was deeply sorry and ashamed. Was she tohave a bad effect on every man she met? "I won't make excuses, Harry, "she said. "They're so hopeless. But I want you to know that I spranginto marriage before I'd given a thought to what it all meant, and Itook it as a lark, a chapter in my adventure, something that I couldeasily stop and look at after I'd seen and done everything and was alittle breathless. I thought that Martin had gone into it in the samespirit and that for the joke of the thing we were just going to play atkeeping house, as we might have played at being Indians away in thewoods. It was the easiest way out of a hole I was in and made itpossible for me not to creep back to my grandmother and take a whippinglike a dog. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded. He had seen her do things and heard her say things onthe spur of the moment that were almost as unbelievable. 

His sympathy and quick perception were like water to her. And it wasindescribably good to be believed without incredulous side-looks andsuspicions, half-smiles such as Hosack would have given, --and some ofthe others who had lost their fineness in the world. 

"And when Martin, --who was to me then just what you are, Harrydear, --came up to my room in his own particular natural way, I thoughtit was hard luck to be taken so literally and not be left alone to findmy wings for a little. I had just escaped from a long term ofsubjection, and I wanted to have the joy of being free--quiteabsolutely free. Still not thinking, I sent him away and like a brickhe went, and I didn't suppose it really mattered to him, any more thanit did to me, and honestly if it had mattered it wouldn't have made anydifference because I had promised myself to hit it up and work off themarks of my shackles and I was full of the 'Who Cares?' feeling. Andthen Gilbert Palgrave came along and helped to turn my head. Oh, what aperfect little fool I was, what a precocious, shallow, selfish littlefool. And while I was having what I imagined was a good time and seeinglife, Martin was wandering about alone, suffering from two things thataren't good for boys, --injustice and ingratitude. And then of course Iwoke up and saw things straight and knew his value, and when I went toget him and begin all over again he wasn't mine. I'd lost him. "

The boy's eyebrows contracted sharply. "What a beastly shame, " he said, "I mean for both of you. " He included Martin because he liked him now, reading between the lines. He must be an awfully decent chap who hadhad a pretty bad time. 

"Yes, " said Joan, "it is, for both of us. " And she was grateful to himfor such complete understanding, --grateful for Martin, too. They mighthave been brothers, these boys. "But for you, Easthampton would havebeen impossible, " she added. "I don't mean the house or the place orthe sea, which is glorious. I mean from what I have forced myself todo. I came down labelled 'Who Cares?' caring all the time, and just toshare my hurt with some one I've made Gilbert care too. He's in an uglymood. I feel that he'll make me pay some day--in full. But I'm notafraid to be alone now and drop my bluff because I believe Martin iswaiting for me and is back in armor again with your cousin. And Ibelieve the old look will come into his eyes when he sees me, and he'llhear me ask him to forgive and we'll go back and play at keeping housein earnest. Harry, I believe that. Little as I deserve it I'm going tohave another chance given to me, --every mile we go I feel that! Afterall, I'm awfully young and I've kept my slate clean and I ought to begiven another chance, oughtn't I?"

Harry nodded and presently brought the car to a stop under the shadowof the little clubhouse. Half a dozen other cars were parked there, anda colored chauffeur was sitting on the steps of the back entrance, fastasleep with his chin on his chest. The small but vigorous orchestra wasplaying a fox-trot on the far veranda, and the sound of shuffling feetresembled that of a man cleaning something with sandpaper. There was anarmy of flies on the screen door of the kitchen and on severalgalvanized iron bins stuffed with ginger-ale bottles and orange peel. 

"We'll leave the car here, " said Harry, "and go and have a look for thecottage. It'll be easy to find. There aren't many of 'em, if I rememberright. "

Joan took his arm. She had begun to tremble. "Let's go this way first, "she said, going the right way by instinct. 

"If they're in, " said Harry, "and I should guess they are. --there's nowind, --I'll draw old Howard off for an hour or so. "

"Yes, please do, Harry. "

And they went up the sandy incline, over the thick undergrowth, and thesun blazed down on the shining water, and half a dozen canvas-coveredcatboats near the little pier. Several people were sitting on it inbathing clothes, and some one was teaching a little girl to swim. Theecho of her gurgling laughter and little cries came to them clearly. The sound of music and shuffling feet grew fainter and fainter. Gardiner's Island lay up against the horizon like a long inflated sandbag. There were crickets everywhere. Three or four large butterfliesgamboled in the shimmering air. 

Away out, heading homewards, Martin's yawl, with Irene lying fullstretch on the roof of the cabin, and Howard whistling for a wind, crept through the water, inch by inch. 

With the tiller under one arm and a pipe in his mouth, long empty, satMartin, thinking about Joan. Hearing voices, Tootles looked up from abook that she was trying to read. She had been lying in the hammock onthe stoop of Martin's cottage for an hour, waiting for Martin. It hadtaken her a long time to do her hair and immense pains to satisfyherself that she looked nice, --for Martin. Her plan was cut and driedin her mind, and she had been killing time with all the impatience andthrobbing of nerves of one who had brought herself up to a crisis whichmeant either success and joy, or failure and a drab world. She couldn'tbear to go through another day without bringing about a decision. Shefelt that she had to jog Fate's elbow, whatever was to be the insult. She had discovered from a casual remark of Howard's that Martin, thosehot nights, had taken to sleeping on the boat. Her plan, deliberatelyconceived as a follow-up to what had happened out under the stars thenight before, was to swim out to it and wait for him in the cabin. Sheknew, no one so well, that it was in the nature of a forlorn hope, butshe was desperate. She loved him intransitively, to the utterextinction of the little light of modesty which her hand-to-mouthexistence had left burning. She wanted love or death, and she was goingto put up this last fight for love with all the unscrupulousness of alovesick woman. 

She saw two people coming towards the cottage, a tall, fair, sun-tannedyouth, hatless and frank-eyed like Martin, and--

She got up. A cold hand seemed suddenly to have been placed on herheart. Joan, --it was Joan, the girl who, once before, at Martin'shouse, had sent the earth spinning from under her feet and put Martinsuddenly behind barbed wire. What hideous trick was this of Fate's? Whywas this moment the one chosen for the appearance of this girl, --hiswife? This moment, --her moment?

Fight? With tooth and nail, with all the cunning and ingenuity of amember of the female species to protect what she regarded as her own. She and her plan against the world, --that was what it was. Thank God, Martin was not in sight. She had a free hand. 

She had not been seen. A thick honeysuckle growing up the pillar hadhidden her. She slipped into the house quickly, her heart beating inher throat. "I'll try this, " said Harry. "Wait here. " He left Joanwithin a few feet of the stoop, went up the two steps, and not findinga bell, knocked on the screen door. In less than an instant he saw thegirl with bobbed hair come forward. "I'm sorry to trouble you, " hesaid, with a little bow, "I thought Mr. Gray might live here, " andturned to go. Obviously it was the wrong house. 

Very clearly and distinctly Tootles spoke. "Mr. Gray does live here. I'm Mrs. Gray. Will you leave a message?"

Harry wheeled round. He felt that the bullet which had gone through hisback had lodged in Joan's heart. He opened his mouth to speak but noword came. And Tootles spoke again, even more clearly and distinctly. She intended that her voice should travel. 

"My husband won't be back for several days, " she said, "but I shall bevery glad to tell him that you called if you will leave your name. "

"It--it doesn't matter, " said Harry, stammering. After an irresolute, unhappy pause, he turned to go--

He went straight to Joan. She was standing with her eyes shut and bothhands on her heart, as white as a white rose. She looked like a youngslim tree that had been struck by lightning. 

"Joan, " he said, "Joan, " and touched her arm. There was no answer. 

"Joan, " he said, "Joany. "

And with a little sob she tottered forward. 

He caught her, blazing with anger that she had been so hurt, inarticulate with indignation and a huge sympathy, and with the onestrong desire to get her away from that place, picked her up in hisarms, --a dead delicious weight, --and carried her down the incline ofsand and undergrowth to his car, put her in ever so gently, got inhimself, backed the machine out, turned it and drove away. 

And Tootles, breathing hard and shaking, stood on the edge of thestoop, and with tears streaming down her face, watched the car become aspeck and disappear. 

XI

The sun had gone down, and the last of its lingering glory had diedbefore the yawl managed to cajole her way back to her mooring. 

Dinner was ready by the time the hungry threesome, laughing andtalking, arrived at the cottage. Howard, spoiling for a cocktail, madefor the small square dining-room, and Irene, waving her hand toTootles, cried out, "Cheero, dearie, you missed a speedy trip, I don'tthink, " and took her into the house to tidy up in the one bathroom. Martin drew up short on the edge of the stoop, listened and lookedabout, holding his breath. It was most odd, but--there was something inthe still air that had the sense of Joan in it. 

After a moment, during which his very soul asked for a sight of her, hestumped into the living room and rang the bell impatiently. 

The imperturbable Judson appeared at once, his eyebrows slightly raised. 

"Has any one been here while I've been away?" asked Martin. 

"No, sir. No one except Miss Capper, who's been reading on the stoop. "

"You're quite sure?"

"You never can be quite sure about anything in this life, sir, but Isaw no one. "

"Oh, " said Martin. "All right, then. " But when he was alone, he stoodagain, listening and looking. There was nothing of Joan in the room. Amixture of honeysuckle and tobacco and the aroma of cooking that hadslipped through the swing door into the the kitchen. That was all. AndMartin sighed deeply and said to himself "Not yet. I must go onwaiting, " and went upstairs to his bedroom. He could hear Irene's voiceabove the rush of water in the bathroom and Howard's, outside, raisedin song. In the trees outside his window a bird was piping to its mate, and in the damp places here and there the frogs had already begun totry their voices for their community chorus. It was a peaceful earth, thereabouts falsely peaceful. An acute ear could easily have detectedan angry roar of guns that came ever nearer and nearer, and caught thewhisper of a Voice calling and calling. 

When Martin returned to the wood-lined sitting room with its largebrick chimney, its undergraduate chairs and plain oak furniture, itsround thick blue and white mats and disorderly bookcase, Tootles wasthere, a Tootles with a high chin, a half defiant smile, andhoneysuckle at her belt. 

"Tootles. "

"Yes?"

"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"

"Yes. " (Fight? Tooth and nail. ) "Except for the flies. .. . Why, boy?"

"Oh, nothing. I thought--I mean, I wondered--but it doesn't matter. Bygum, you have made the room look smart, haven't you? Good old Tootles. Even a man's room can be made to look like something when a girl takesan interest in it. "

If she had been a dog she would have wagged her tail and crinkled upher nose and jumped up to put her nozzle against his hand. As it wasshe flushed with pleasure and gave a little laugh. She was athousandfold repaid for all her pains. But, during the first half of ameal made riotous by the invincible Howard and the animated Irene, Tootles sat very quiet and thoughtful and even a little awed. How couldMartin have sensed the fact that she had been there?. .. Couldshe, --could she possibly, even with the ever-ready help ofnature, --hope to win against such a handicap? She would see. She wouldsee. It was her last card. But during all the rest of the meal she sawthe picture of a muscular sun-tanned youth carrying that prettyunconscious thing down the incline to a car, and, all against her will, she was sorry. That girl, pampered as she was, outside the big ring ofhard daily effort and sordid struggle as she always had had the luck tobe, loved, too. Gee, it was a queer world. 

The stoop called them when they left the boxlike dining room. It wasstill hot and airless. But the mosquitoes were out with voraciousappetite and discretion held them to the living room. 

Irene flung herself on the bumpy sofa with a cigarette between her lipsand a box near to her elbow. "This's the life, " she said. "I shallnever be able to go back to lil' old Broadway and grease paint and adog kennel in Chorusland. "

"Sufficient for the day, " said Howard, loosening his belt. "If amiracle man blew in here right now with a million dollars in each handand said: 'Howard Guthrie Oldershaw, '--he'd be sure to know about theGuthrie, --'this is all yours if you'll come to the city, ' I'd. .. "

Irene leaned forward with her mouth open and her round eyes as big asheadlights. "Well?"

"Take it and come right back. "

"You disappoint me, Funny-face. Go to the piano and hit the notes. That's all you're fit for. "

It was a baby grand, much out of tune, but Howard, bulging over thestool, made it sound like an orchestra, --a cabaret orchestra, and ranfrom Grieg to Jerome Kern and back to Gounod, syncopating everythingwith the gusto and the sense of time that is almost peculiar to acolored professional. Then he suddenly burst into song and sang about ababy in the soft round high baritone of all men who run to fat and withthe same quite charming sympathy. A useful, excellent fellow, amazinglyunself-conscious and gifted. 

Martin was infinitely content to listen and lie back in a deep strawchair with a pipe between his teeth, the memories of good evenings atYale curling up in his smoke. And Tootles, thinking and thinking, sat, Puck-like, at his feet, with her warm shoulders against his knees. Notin her memory could she delve for pleasant things, not yet. Eh, butsome day she might be among the lucky ones, if--if her plan wentthrough--

Howard lit another cigarette at the end of the song, but before hecould get his hands on the notes again Irene bounded to her feet andwent over to the piano. "Say, can you play 'Love's Epitome'?" shepronounced it "Eppy-tomy. "

"Can a duck swim?" asked Howard, resisting a temptation to emit a howlof mirth. She was too good a sort to chaff about her frequentmaltreatment of the language. 

"Go ahead, then, and I'll give you all a treat. " He played thesentimental prelude of this characteristic product of the vaudevillestage, every note of which was plagiarized from a thousand plagiarismsand which imagined that eternity rhymed with serenity and mother withweather. With gestures that could belong to no other school than thatof the twice-dailies and the shrill nasal voice that inevitably goeswith them, Irene, with the utmost solemnity, went solidly through thewhole appalling thing, making the frequent yous "yee-ooo" in the true"vawdville" manner. 

To Tootles it was very moving, and she was proud of her friend. Martinalmost died of it, and Howard was weak from suppressed laughter. It wasthe first time that Irene had shown the boys what she could do, and shewas delighted at their enthusiastic applause. She would have renderedanother of the same sort gladly enough, --she knew dozens of them, ifTootles had not given her a quick look and risen to her feet. 

"Us for the downey, " she said, and put the palm of her hand on Martin'slips. He kissed it. 

"Not yet, " said Howard. "It's early. "

"Late enough for those who get up at dawn, old dear. Come on, Irene. "

And Irene, remembering what her friend had said that morning, playedthe game loyally, although most reluctant to leave that pleasantatmosphere, and said "Good night. " And she was in such good voice andHoward played her accompaniment like a streak. Well, well. 

Tootles took her hand away gently, gave Martin a little disturbingsmile, put her arm round the robust shoulders of her chum, opened thescreen door and was gone. 

Howard immediately left the piano. He had only played to keep thingsmerry and bright. "Me for a drink, " he said. "And I think I've earnedit. "

Martin's teeth gleamed as he gave one of his silent laughs. 

"How well you know me, old son, " he said. 

"Of course. But--why?"

"I like Tootles awfully. She's one in a million. But somehow it's--oh, I dunno, --mighty difficult to talk to her. "

"Poor little devil, " said Howard involuntarily. 

"But she's having a real good time--isn't she?"

"Is she?" He helped himself to a mild highball in reluctant deferenceto his weight. 

"I've never seen her look so well, " said Martin. 

Wondering whether to tell the truth about her state of mind, which hisquick sophisticated eyes had very quickly mastered, Howard drank, anddecided that he wouldn't. It would only make things uncomfortable forMartin and be of no service to Tootles. If she loved him, poor littlesoul, and he was not made of the stuff to take advantage of it, well, there it was. He, himself, was different, but then he had no Joan as asilent third. No, he would let things alone. Poor old Tootles. 

"Great weather, " he said, wrenching the conversation into a harmlessgenerality. "Are you sleeping on the yawl to-night?"

"Yes, " replied Martin. "It's wonderful on the water. So still. I canhear the stars whisper. "

"Most of the stars I know get precious noisy at night, " said Howard, characteristically unable to let such a chance go by. Then he grewsuddenly grave and sat down. "Martin, I'm getting frightfully fed upwith messing about in town. I'm going to turn a mental and physicalsomersault and get a bit of self-respect. "

"Oh? How's that, old man. "

"It's this damn war, I think. I've been reading a book in bed by a mancalled Philip Gibbs. Martin, I'm going to Plattsburg this August to seeif they can make something of me. "

Martin got up. "I'm with you, " he said. "If ever we get into thisbusiness I'm going to be among the first bunch to go. So we may as wellknow something. Well, how about turning in now? There'll be a windto-morrow. Hear the trees?" He filled his pocket with cigarettes andslung a white sweater over his shoulder. 

"All right, " said Howard. "I shall read down here a bit. I won't forgetto turn out and lock up. " He had forgotten one night and Judson hadreported him. 

"Good night, old son. "

"Good night, old man. "

XII

He was not given much to reading, but when Martin left the cottage andstood out in the liquid silver of the moon under the vast dome whichdazzled with stars, and he caught the flash of fireflies among theundergrowth that were like the lanterns of the fairies a line came intohis mind that he liked and repeated several times, rather whimsicallypleased with himself for having found it at exactly the right moment. It was "the witching hour of night. "

He remained on top of the incline for a little while, moved to thatspirit of the realization of God which touches the souls of sensitivemen when they are awed by the wonder and the beauty of the earth. Hestood quite still, disembodied for the moment, uplifted, stirred, withall the scents and all the whisperings about him, humble, childlike, able, in that brief flight of ecstasy, to understand the language ofanother world. 

And then the stillness was suddenly cut by a scream of vacuouslaughter, probably that of an exuberant Irish maid-servant, to whomsilences are made to break, carrying on, most likely, a roughflirtation with a chauffeur. 

It brought Martin back to earth like the stick of a rocket. But hedidn't go down immediately to the water. He sat there and nursed hisknees and began to think. Whether it was Howard's unexpected talk ofPlattsburg and of being made something of or not he didn't know. Whathe did know was that he was suddenly filled with a sort of fright. .. . "Good God, " he said to himself, "time's rushing away, and I'm nearlytwenty-six. I'm as old as some men who have done things and made thingsand are planted on their feet. What have I done? What am I fit to do?Nearly twenty-six and I'm still playing games like a schoolboy!. .. What's my father saying? 'We count it death to falter not to die' . .. I've been faltering--and before I know anything about it I shall bethirty--half-time. .. . This can't go on. This waiting for Joan isfaltering. If she's not coming to me I must go to her. If it's notcoming right it must end and I must get mended and begin again. I can'tstand in father's shoes with all he worked to make in my hands likeripe plums. It isn't fair, or straight. I must push up a rung and carrythings on for him. Could I look him in the face having slacked? My God, I wish I'd watched the time rush by! I'm nearly twenty-six . .. Joan--to-morrow. That's the thing to do. " He got up and strode quicklydown to the water. "If she's going to be my wife, that's a good stepon. And she can help me like no one but my father. And then I'll makesomething of myself. If not . .. If not, --no faltering, Gray, --then I'lldo it alone for both their sakes. "

He chucked his sweater into the dingey, shoved it off the beach andsprang in and rowed strongly towards the yawl. Somehow he felt broaderof back and harder of muscle for this summing up of things, this auditof his account. He was nearly twenty-six and nothing was done. That wasthe report he had to make to his conscience, that was what he had tosay to the man who smiled down upon him from his place in the New Yorkhouse. .. . Good Lord, it was about time that he pulled himself together. 

The yawl was lying alone, aloof from the other small craft anchorednear the pier. Her mast seemed taller and her lines more gracefulsilhouetted against the sky, silvered by the moon. It was indeed thewitching hour of night. 

He got aboard and tied up the dingey, cast a look round to see thateverything was shipshape, took in a deep breath and went into thecabin. He was not tired and never felt less like sleep. His brain wasclear as though a fog had risen from it, and energy beat in him like arunning engine. He would light the lamp, get into his pajamas and thinkabout to-morrow and Joan. He was mighty glad to have come to a decision. 

Stooping, he lit the lamp, turned and gave a gasp of surprise. 

There, curled up like a water sprite on the unmade bunk lay Tootles inbathing clothes, holding a rubber cap in her hand, her head, with itsgolden bobbed hair, dented into a cushion. 

For a moment she pretended to be asleep, but anxiety to see how Martinwas looking was too much for her. Also her clothes were wet and notvery comfortable. She opened her eyes and sat up. 

"My dear Tootles!" said Martin, "what's the idea? You said you weregoing home to bed. " She would rather that he had been angry thanamused. "It was the night, " she said, "and something in the air. I justhad to bathe and swam out here. I didn't think you'd be coming yet. Isuppose you think I'm bug-house. "

"No, I don't. If I hadn't taken my bathing suit to the cottage to bemended I'd have a dip myself. Cigarette?" He held one out. 

But she shook her head. How frightfully natural and brotherly this boywas, she thought. Was her last desperate card to be as useless as allthe rest of the pack? How could it be! They might as well be on adesert island out there on the water and she the only woman on it. 

"Feel a bit chilly? You'd better put on this sweater. "

She took it from him but laid it aside. "No. The air's too warm, " shesaid. "Oh, ho, I'm so sleepy, " and she stretched herself out again withher hands under her head. 

"I'm not, " said Martin. "I'm tremendously awake. Let's talk if you'renot in a hurry to get back. "

"I'm very happy here, " she answered. "But must we have that lamp? Itglares and makes the cabin hot. "

"The moon's better than all the lamps, " said Martin, and put it out. Hesat on his bunk and the gleam of his cigarette came and went. It waslike a big firefly in the half dark cabin. "To-morrow, " he said tohimself, with a tingle running through his blood, "to-morrow--and Joan. "

Tootles waited for him to speak. She might as well have been miles awayfor all that she affected him. He seemed to have forgotten that she wasalive. 

He had. And there was a long silence. 

"To-morrow, --and Joan. That's it. I'll go over to Easthampton and takeher away from that house and talk to her. This time I'll breakeverything down and tell her what she means to me. I've never told herthat. "

"He doesn't care, " thought Tootles. "I'm no more than an old shoe tohim. "

"If I'd told her it might have made a difference. Even if she hadlaughed at me she would have had something to catch hold of if shewanted it. By Jove, I wish I'd had the pluck to tell her. "

"He even looks at me and doesn't see me, " she went on thinking, herhopes withering like cut flowers, her eagerness petering out and agreat humiliation creeping over her. "What's the matter with me? Somepeople think I'm pretty. Irene does . .. And last night, when I kissedhim there was an answer. .. . Has that girl come between us again?"

And so they went on, these two, divided by a thousand miles, eachabsorbed in individual thought, and there was a long queer silence. 

But she was there to fight, and having learned one side of men duringher sordid pilgrimage and having an ally in Nature, she got up and satdown on the bunk at his side, snuggling close. 

"You are cold, Tootles, " he said, and put his arm round her. 

And hope revived, like a dying fire licked by a sudden breeze, and sheput her bobbed head on his broad shoulder. 

But he was away again, miles and miles away, thinking back, unfoldingall the moments of his first companionship with Joan and looking atthem wistfully to try and find some tenderness; thinking forward, withthe picture of Joan's face before him and wondering what would comeinto her eyes when he laid his heart bare for her gaze. 

Waiting and waiting, on the steady rise and fall of his chest, --poorlittle starved Tootles, poor little devil, --tears began to gather, tears as hot as blood, and at last they broke and burst in an awfultorrent, and she flung herself face down upon the other bunk, cryingincoherently to God to let her die. 

And once more the boy's spirit, wandering high in pure air, fell likethe stick of a rocket, and he sprang up and bent over the pitifullittle form, --not understanding because Joan held his heart and kept itclean. 

"Tootles, " he cried out. "Dear old Tootles. What is it? What'shappened?"

But there was only brotherliness in his kind touch, only the samesolicitude that he had shown her all along. Nothing else. Not a thing. And she knew it, at last, definitely. This boy was too different, toomuch the other girl's--curse her for having all the luck. 

For an instant, for one final desperate instant, she was urged to tryagain, to fling aside control and restraint and with her trembling bodypressed close and her eager arms clasped about his neck, pour out herlove and make a passionate stammering plea for something, --justsomething to put into her memory, her empty loveless memory, --butsuddenly, like the gleam of a lamp in a tunnel, her pride lit up, thelittle streak of pride which had taken her unprofaned through all hersordid life, and she sat up, choked back her sobs, and dried her facewith the skirt of her bathing dress. 

"Don't mind me, " she said. "It's the night or something. It got on mynerves, I suppose, like--like the throb of an organ. I dunno. I'm allright now, anyway. " And she stood in front of him bravely, with herchin up, but her heart breaking, and her attempt to make a laugh mustsurely have been entered in the book of human courage. 

But before Martin could say anything, she slipped into the cockpit, balanced herself on the ledge of the cabin house, said "Good night, olddear, " and waved her hand, dived into the silver water and swamstrongly towards the beach. 

XIII

It began to dawn upon Hosack that Joan had slipped away with HarryOldershaw from the fact that Palgrave first became restless andirritable, then had a short sharp spat with Barclay about the length ofthe line on the Western front that was held by the British and finallygot up and went into the house and almost immediately prowled out alonefor a sulky walk along the beach. 

Chortling as he watched him, although annoyed that he, himself, was notgoing to have an opportunity of saying soft things to Joan for somehours, Hosack made himself comfortable, lit another cigar and ponderedsleepily about what he called "the infatuation of Gilbert the precious. "

"I can sympathize with the feller's being gone on the girl, " he said tohimself, undisturbed by Regina's frequent bursts of loud laughter atyoung Barclay's quiet but persistent banter, "but dammit, why make aconspicuous ass of himself? Why make the whole blessed house party, including his hostess, pay for his being turned down in favor of youngHarry? Bad form, I call it. Any one would imagine that he was engagedto be married to Joan and therefore had some right to a monopoly by theway he goes on, snarling at everybody and showing the whites of hiseyes like a jealous collie. Everybody's talking, of course, and makingjokes about him, especially as it's perfectly obvious that the harderhe hunts her the more she dodges him. .. . Curious chap, Gilbert. He goesthrough life like the ewe lamb of an over-indulgent mother and when hetakes a fancy to a thing he can't conceive why everybody doesn't rushto give it him, whatever the cost or sacrifice. .. . If young Harryhadn't been here to keep her amused and on the move I wonder if Joanwould have been a bit kinder to our friend G. P. ? She's been in a weirdmood, as perverse as April. I don't mind her treating me as if I was adoddering old gentleman so long as she keeps Gilbert off. .. . Acharming, pretty, heart-turning thing. I'd give something to know thereal reason why that husband of hers lets her run loose this way. Andwhere's her mother, and why don't those old people step in?--such achild as she is. Well, it's a pretty striking commentary on the way ouryoung people are brought up, there's no doubt about it. If she was mydaughter, now--but I suppose she'd tell me to go and hang myself if Itried to butt in. Divorce and a general mess-up-the usual end, I takeit. "

He shook his head, and his ash dropped all over his clothes and hebegan to nod. He would have given a great deal to put his feet on achair and a handkerchief over his face and sink into a blissful nap. The young people had gone off somewhere, and there were only his wife, the Major, and the bride on the veranda. And, after all, why shouldn'the? Cornucopia could always be relied upon to play up--herconversational well was inexhaustible, and as for Mrs. Thatcher--nothing natural ever stopped the incessant wagging of hertongue. 

But it was not to be. He heard a new voice, the squeak of a cane chairsuddenly pushed back, looked up to see the Major in an attitude offalse delight and out came Mrs. Cooper Jekyll followed, --as he inwardlyexclaimed, --"by the gentle Alice Palgrave, by all that's complicating!Well, I'm jiggered. "

"Well, " cried Cornucopia, extending her ample hand. "This IS asurprise. "

"Yes, I intended it to be, " said Mrs. Jekyll, more than everSouthampton in her plague veil and single eyeglass, "just to break thealoofness of your beach life. "

"And dear Alice, too, --neater than ever. How very nice to see you, mydear, and how's your poor mother?"

Her little hand disappearing between Mrs. Hosack's two podgy memberslike the contents of a club sandwich, Alice allowed herself to bekissed on both cheeks, murmured an appropriate response, greeted theThatchers, waved to Hosack who came forward as quickly as he could withpins and needles in one leg and threw a searching glance about forGilbert. 

Every one caught it and gathered instinctively that Mrs. Jekyll hadbeen making mischief. She had certainly succeeded in her desire tobreak the aloofness. The presence of Alice at that moment, with Gilbertbehaving like a madman, was calculated to set every imagination jumping. 

"Um, this won't make G. P. Any better tempered, " thought Hosack, notwithout a certain sense of glee. 

Mrs. Jekyll disclosed her nose and mouth, which, it seemed, were boththere and in perfect condition. "I was in town yesterday interviewingbutlers, --that Swiss I told you about refused to be glared at by Edmondand left us on the verge of a dinner party, summing us all up in aburst of pure German, --and there was Alice having a lonely lunch at theRitz, just back from her mother's convalescent chair. I persuaded herto come to me for a few days and what more natural than that she shouldwant to see what this wonderful air has done for Gilbert--who hasevidently become one of the permanent decorative objects of yourbeautiful house. "

"Cat, " thought Mrs. Thatcher. 

"And also for the pleasure of seeing so many old friends, " said Alice. "What a gorgeous stretch of sea!" She bent forward and whisperedcongratulations to the Major's bride. Her quiet courage in the face ofwhat she knew perfectly well was a universal knowledge of the truestate of Gilbert's infatuation was good to watch. With his one briefcold letter in her pocket and Mrs. Jekyll's innuendoes, --"all in thefriendliest spirit, "--raking her heart, her self-control deserved allthe admiration that it won from the members of the house party. Tothink that Joan, her friend and schoolfellow in whose loyalty she hadhad implicit faith should be the one to take Gilbert away from her. 

With shrewd eyes, long accustomed to look below the surface of the thinveneer of civilization that lay upon his not very numerous set, Hosackobserved and listened for the next half an hour, expecting at anymoment to see Joan burst upon the group or Gilbert make his appearance, sour, immaculate and with raised eyebrows. He studied Mrs. Jekyll, withher brilliantly made-up face, her apparent lack of guile, and herever-watchful eye. He paid tribute to his copious wife for herdetermined babble of generalities, well-knowing that she was burstingwith suppressed excitement under the knowledge that Alice had come totry and patch up a lost cause. He chuckled at the feline manners of thelittle lady whom they had all known so long as Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves, her purring voice, her frequent over-emphasis of exuberant adjectives, her accidental choice of the sort of verb that had the effect ofsmashed crockery, her receptiveness to the underlying drama of thesituation and the cunning with which she managed to hide her anxiety tobe "on" in the scene which must inevitably come. He examined his oldfriend, Thatcher, under whose perfect drawing-room manners, felicitousquips and ready laughter there was an almost feminine curiosity as toscandal and the inadvertent display of the family wash. And, having acertain amount of humor, he even turned an introspective eye inwardsand owned up to more than a little excitement as to what was going tohappen when Gilbert realized that Mrs. Jekyll had brought his wife overto rescue him. Conceive Gilbert being rescued! "All of us as near theprimeval as most of us are to lunacy, " he told himself. "Education, wealth, leisure and all the shibboleths of caste and culture, --howeasily they crack and gape before a touch of nature. Brooks Brothersand Lucile do their derndest to disguise us, but we're still Adam andEve in a Turkish bath. .. . Somehow I feel, --I can't quite say why, --thatthis comedy of youth in which the elements of tragedy have been draggedin by Gilbert, is coming to a head, and unless things run off at asudden tangent I don't see how the curtain can fall on a happy endingfor Joan and the husband who never shows himself and the gentle Alice. Spring has its storms and youth its penalties. I'm beginning to believethat safety is only to be found in the dull harbor of middle-age, curseit, and only then with a good stout anchor. "

It was at the exact moment that Joan and Harry went together up theincline towards Martin's cottage at Devon, eyed by Tootles through thescreen door, that Gilbert came back to the veranda and drew up short atthe sight of his wife. 

XIV

It was when Gilbert, after a most affectionate greeting and ten minutesof easy small talk, led her away from the disappointed group, thatAlice made her first mistake. 

"You don't look at all well, Gilbert, " she said anxiously. 

The very fact that he knew himself to be not at all well made him hateto be told so. An irritable line ran across his forehead. "Oh, yes, I'mwell, " he said, "never better. Come along to the summer house and let'sput a dune between us and those vultures. "

He led her down a flight of stone steps and over a stretch ofundulating dry sand to the place where Hosack invariably read themorning paper and to which his servants led their village beaux whenthe moon was up, there to give far too faithful imitations of thehyena. And there he sat her down and stood in front of her, enigmatically, wondering how much she knew. "If it comes to that, " hesaid, "you look far from well yourself, Alice. "

And she turned her pretty, prim face up to him with a sudden tremblingof the lips. "What do you expect, " she asked, quite simply, "when I'veonly had one short letter from you all the time I've been away. "

"I never write letters, " he said. "You know that. How's your mother?"

"But I wrote every day, and if you read them you'd know. "

He shifted one shoulder. These gentle creatures could be horriblydisconcerting and direct. As a matter of fact he had failed to openmore than two of the collection. They were too full of the vibration ofa love that had never stirred him. "Yes, I'm glad she's better. I'mafraid you've been rather bored. Illness is always boring. "

"I can only have one mother, " said Alice. 

Palgrave felt the need of a cigarette. Alice, admirable as she was, hada fatal habit, he thought, of uttering bromides. 

And she instantly regretted the remark. She knew that way of his ofsnapping his cigarette case. Was that heavily be-flowered church adream and that great house in New York only part of a mirage? He seemedto be the husband of some other girl, barely able to tolerate thisinterruption. She had come determined to get the truth, howeverterrible it might be. But it was very difficult, and he was obviouslynot going to help her, and now that she saw him again, curiously wornand nervous and petulant, she dreaded to ask for facts under which herlove was to be laid in waste. 

"No wonder you like this place, " she said, beating about the bush. 

"I don't. I loathe it. The everlasting drumming of the sea puts me onedge. It's as bad as living within sound of the elevated railway. Andat night the frogs on the land side of the house add to the racket andmake a row like a factory in full blast. I'd rather be condemned to ahospital for incurables than live on a dune. " He said all this with thesort of hysteria that she had never noticed in him before. He wasindeed far from well. Hardly, in fact, recognizable. The suave, imperturbable Gilbert, with the quiet air of patronage and the coolirony of the polished man of the world, --what had become of him? Was itpossible that Joan had resisted him? She couldn't believe such a thing. 

"Then why have you stayed so long?" she asked, with this new point ofview stirring hope. 

"There was nowhere else to go to, " he answered, refusing to meet hereyes. 

This was too absurd to let pass. "But nothing has happened to the houseat Newport, and the yacht's been lying in the East River since thefirst of June and you said in your only letter that the two Japaneseservants have been at the cottage near Devon for weeks!"

"I'm sick of Newport with all its tuft-hunting women, and the yachtdoesn't call me. As for the cottage, I'm going there to-morrow, possibly to-night. "

Alice got up quickly and stood in front of him. There was a spot ofcolor on both her cheeks, and her hands were clasped together. "Gilbert, let's both go there. Let's get away from all these people fora time. I won't ask you any questions or try and pry into what'shappened to you. I'll be very quiet and help you to find yourselfagain. "

She had made another mistake. His sensitiveness gave him as many quillsas a porcupine. "Find myself, " he said, quoting her unfortunate wordswith sarcasm. "What on earth do you mean by that, my good child?"

She forced back her rising tears. Had she utterly lost her rights as awife? He was speaking to her in the tone that a man uses to aninterfering sister. "What's to become of me?" she asked. 

"Newport, of course. Why not? Fill the house up. I give you a freehand. "

"And will you join me there, Gilbert?"

"No. I'm not in the mood. "

He turned on his heel and went to the other side of the summer house, and flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the scrub below. A frog tooka leap. When he spoke again it was with his back to her. "Don't youthink you'd better rejoin Mrs. Jekyll? She may be impatient to get off. "

But Alice took her courage in both hands. If this was to be the end shemust know it. Uncertainty was not to be endured any longer. All hersleepless nights and fluctuations of hope and despair had marked her, perhaps for life. Hers was not the easily blown away infatuation of adebutante, the mere summer love of a young girl. It was the steady anddevoted love of a wife, ready to make sacrifices, to forgiveinconstancies, to make allowances for temporary aberrations and, whennecessary, to nurse back to sanity, without one word or look ofreproach, the husband who had slipped into delinquency. Not only herfuture and his were at stake, but there were the children for whom sheprayed. They must be considered. 

And so, holding back her emotion, she followed him across the pompoussummer house in which, with a shudder, she recognized a horribleresemblance to a mausoleum, and laid her little hand upon his arm. 

"Gilbert, " she said, "tell me the truth. Be frank with me. Let me helpyou, dear. "

Poor little wife. For the third time she had said the wrong thing. "Help"--the word angered him. Did she imagine that he was a callowyouth crossed in love?

He drew his arm away sharply. There was something too domestic in allthis to be borne with patience. Humiliating, also, he had to confess. 

"When did I ever give you the right to delve into my private affairs?"he asked, with amazing cruelty. "We're married, --isn't that enough?I've given you everything I have except my independence. You can't askfor more than that, --from me. "

He added "from me" because the expression of pain on her pretty facemade him out to be a brute, and he was not that. He tried to hedge bythe use of those two small words and put it to her, withoutexplanation, that he was different from most men, --more careless andcallous to the old-fashioned vows of marriage, if she liked, butdifferent. That might be due to character or upbringing or the times towhich he belonged. He wasn't going to argue about it. The factremained. "I'll take you back, " he added. 

But she blocked the way. "I only want your love, " she said. "If you'vetaken that away from me, nothing else counts. "

He gave a sort of groan. Her persistence was appalling, her courage anindescribable reproach. For a moment he remained silent, with a drawnface and twitching fingers, strangely white and wasted, like a man whohad been through an illness, --a caricature of the once easy-goingGilbert Palgrave, the captain of his fate and the master of his soul. 

"All right then, " he said, "if you must know, you shall, but do me thecredit to remember that I did my best to leave things vague andblurred. " He took her by the elbow and put her into a chair. With atouch of his old thoughtfulness and rather studied politeness he choseone that was untouched by the sun that came low over the dune. Then hesat down and bent forward and looked her full in the eyes. 

"This is going to hurt you, " he said, "but you've asked for the truth, and as everything seems to be coming to a head, you'd better have it, naked and undisguised. In any case, you're one of the women who alwaysgets hurt and always thrives on it. You're too earnest and sincere tobe able to apply eye-wash to the damn thing we call life, aren't you?"

"Yes, Gilbert, " she answered, with the look of one who had been placedin front of a firing squad, without a bandage over her eyes. 

There was a brief pause, filled by what he had called the everlastingdrumming of the sea. 

"One night, in Paris, when I was towering on the false confidence oftwenty-one, "--curious how, even at that moment, he spoke with a certainself-consciousness, --"I came out of the Moulin Rouge alone and walkedback to the Maurice. It was the first time I'd ever been on the otherside, and I was doing it all in the usual way of the precociousundergraduate. But the 'gay Paree' stuff that was speciallymanufactured to catch the superfluous francs of the pornographictourist and isn't really in the least French, bored me, almost at once. And that night, going slowly to the hotel, sickened by painted women, chypre and raw champagne I turned a mental somersault and built up apicture of what I hoped I should find in life. It contained a woman, ofcourse--a girl, very young, the very spirit of spring, whose laughwould turn my heart and who, like an elusive wood nymph, would lead mepanting and hungry through a maze of trees. I called it the GreatEmotion and from that night on I tried to find the original of thatboyish picture, looking everywhere with no success. At twenty-nine, coming out of what seemed to be the glamor of the impossible, I marriedyou to oblige my mother, --you asked for this, --and imagined that I hadsettled into a conventional rut. Do you want me to go on with it?"

"Please, Gilbert, " said Alice. 

He shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, "Well, if you enjoy theChristian martyr business it's entirely your lookout. "

But he dropped his characteristic habit of phrase making and becamemore jerky and real. "I respected you, Alice, " he went on. "I didn'tlove you but I hoped I might, and I played the game. I liked to see youin my house. You fitted in and made it more of a home than that barrackhad ever been. I began to collect prints and first editions, adjustmyself to respectability and even to look forward with pride to a youngGilbert. "

Alice gave a little cry and put her hand up to her breast. But he wastoo much obsessed by his own pain to notice hers. 

"And then, --it's always the way, --I saw the girl. Yes, by God, I sawthe girl, and the Great Emotion blew me out of domestic content and thepleasant sense of responsibility and turned me into the panting hungryyouth that I had always wanted to be. " He stopped and got up and walkedup and down that mausoleum, with his eyes burning and the color back inhis face. 

"And the girl is Joan?" asked Alice in a voice that had an oddly sharpnote for once. 

"Yes, " he said. "Joan. .. . She's done it, " he added, no longer choosinghis words. "She's got me. She's in my blood. I'm insane about her. Ifollow her like a dog, leaping up at a kind word, slinking away with mytail between my legs when she orders me to heel. My God, it's hell! I'mas near madness as a poor devil of a dope fiend out of reach of hisjoy. I wish I'd never seen her. She's made me loathe myself. She's putme through every stage of humiliation. I'd rather be dead than endurethis craving that's worse than a disease. You were right when you saidthat I'm ill. I am ill. I'm horribly ill. I'm . .. I'm. .. "

He stammered and his voice broke, and he covered his face with hishands. 

And instantly, with the maternal spirit that goes with all true womanlylove ablaze in her heart, Alice went to him and put her arms about hisneck and drew his head down on her shoulder. 

And he left it there, with tears. 

A little later they sat down again side by side, holding hands. 

As Hosack had told himself, and Gilbert had just said, things seemed tobe coming to a head. At that moment Tootles was strung up to play herlast card, Joan was being driven back by Harry from the cottage of"Mrs. Gray" and Martin, becalmed on the water, with an empty pipebetween his teeth, was thinking about Joan. 

Palgrave was comforted. The making of his confession was like having anabscess lanced. In his weakness, in his complete abandonment ofaffectation, he had never been so much of a man. 

There was not to Alice, who had vision and sympathy, anything eitherstrange or perverse in the fact that Gilbert had told his story and wasnot ashamed. Love had been and would remain the one big thing in herown life, the only thing that mattered, and so she could understand, even as she suffered, what this Great Emotion meant to Gilbert. Sheadopted his words in thinking it all over. They appealed to her asbeing exactly right. 

She too was comforted, because she saw a chance that Gilbert, with theaid of the utmost tact and the most tender affection, might be drawnback to her and mended. She almost used Hosack's caustic expression"rescued. " The word came into her mind but was instantly discardedbecause it was obvious that Joan, however impishly she had played withGilbert, was unaffected. Angry as it made her to know that any girlcould see in Gilbert merely a man with whom to fool she was supremelythankful that the complication was not as tragic as it might have been. So long as Joan held out, the ruin of her marriage was incomplete. Hope, therefore, gleamed like a distant light. Gilbert had gone back toyouth. It seemed to her that she had better treat him as though he werevery young and hurt. 

"Dearest, " she said, "I'm going to take you away. "

"Are you, Alice?"

"Yes. We will go on the yacht, and you shall read and sleep and getyour strength back. "

He gave a queer laugh. "You talk like a mother, " he said, with a catchin his voice. 

She went forward and kissed him passionately. 

"I love you like a mother as well as a wife, my man, " she whispered. "Never forget that. "

"You're, --you're a good woman, Alice; I'm not worthy of you, my dear. "

It pained her exquisitely to see him so humble. .. . Wait until she metJoan. She should be made to pay the price for this! "Who cares?" hadbeen her cry. How many others had she made to care?

"I'll go back to Mrs. Jekyll now, " she went on, almost afraid thatthings were running too well to be true, "and stay at Southamptonto-night. To-morrow I'll return to New York and have everything packedand ready by the time you join me there. And I'll send a telegram toCaptain Stewart to expect us on Friday. Then we'll go to sea and bealone and get refreshment from the wide spaces and the clean air. "

"Just as you say, " he said, patting her hand. He was terribly like aboy who had slipped and fallen. 

Then she got up, nearer to a breakdown than ever before. It was such aqueer reversal of their old positions. And in order that he shouldn'trise she put her hands on his shoulders and stood close to him so thathis head was against her breast. 

"God bless you, dearest boy, " she said softly. "Trust in me. Give allyour troubles to me. I'm your wife, and I need them. They belong to me. They're mine. I took them all over when you gave me my ring. " Shelifted his face that was worn as from a consuming fire and kissed hisunresponsive lips. "Stay here, " she added, "and I'll go back. To-morrowthen, in New York. "

He echoed her. "To-morrow then, in New York, " and held her hand againsthis forehead. 

Just once she looked back, saw him bent double and stopped. A propheticfeeling that she was never to hear his voice again seized her in a coldgrip, --but she shook it off and put a smile on her face with which tostand before the scandal-mongers. 

And there stood Joan, looking as though she had seen a ghost. 

XV

Alice marched up to her, blazing with anger and indignation. She wasnot, at that moment, the gentle Alice, as everybody called her, Alice-sit-by-the-fire, equable and pacific, believing the best ofpeople. She was the mother-woman eager to revenge the hurt that hadbeen done to one who had all her love. 

"Ah, " she said, "you're just in time for me to tell you what I think ofyou. "

"Whatever you may think of me, " replied Joan, "is nothing to what Ithink of myself. "

But Alice was not to be diverted by that characteristic way of evadinghard words, as she thought it. She had seen Joan dodge the issues likethat before, many times, at school. They were still screened from theveranda by a scrub-supported dune. She could let herself go. 

"You're a thief, " she blurted out, trembling and out of all control foronce. "Not a full-blown thief because you don't steal to keep. But akleptomaniac who can't resist laying hands on other women's men. Youought not to be allowed about loose. You're a danger, a trap. You haveno respect for yourself and none for friendship. Loyalty? You don'tknow the meaning of the word. You're not to be trusted out of sight. Idespise you and never want to see you again. "

Could this be Alice, --this little fury, white and tense, with clenchedhands and glinting eyes, animal-like in her fierce protectiveness?

Joan looked at her in amazement. Hadn't she already been hit hardenough? But before she could speak Alice was in breath again. "Youcan't answer me back, --even you, clever as you are. You've nothing tosay. That night at my house, when we had it out before, you said thatyou were not interested in Gilbert. If that wasn't a cold-blooded liewhat was it? Your interest has been so great that you've never let himalone since. You may not have called him deliberately, but when he cameyou flaunted your sex in his face and teased him just to see himsuffer. You were flattered, of course, and your vanity swelled to seehim dogging your heels. There's a pretty expressive word for you andyour type, and you know it as well as I do. Let me pass, please. "

Joan moved off the narrow board-walk without a word. 

And Alice passed, but piqued by this unexpected silence, turned andwent for her once most intimate friend again. If she was callous andstill in her "Who Cares?" mood words should be said that could never beforgotten. 

"I am Mrs. Gray. My husband won't be back for several days, " These werethe only words that rang in Joan's ears now. Alice might as well havebeen talking to a stone. 

"Things are coming to a head, " Alice went on, unconsciously usingGilbert's expression and Hosack's. 

"And all the seeds that you've carelessly sown have grown into greatrank weeds. Ask Mrs. Jekyll what you've driven Martin into doing ifyou're curious to know. She can tell you. Many people have seen. But ifyou still don't care, don't trouble, because it's too late. Go a fewyards down there and look at that man bent double in the summer house. If you do that and can still cry out 'Who Cares?' go on to the hourwhen everything will combine to make you care. It can't be far away. "

"I'm Mrs. Gray. My husband won't be back for several days. " Like thesong of death the refrain of that line rose above the sound of the seaand of Alice's voice. Joan could listen to nothing else. 

And Alice caught the wounded look in the eyes of the girl in whom shehad once had faith and was recompensed. And having said all that shehad had in her mind and more than she had meant to say, she turned onher heel, forced herself back into control and went smiling towards thegroup on the veranda. And there Joan remained standing looking asthough she had seen a ghost, --the ghost of happiness. 

"Mrs. Gray, --and her husband Martin. .. . But what have I got to say, --I, who refused to be his wife? It only seemed half true when I found themtogether before, although that was bad enough. But this time, now thatmy love for Martin has broken through all those days of pretending topretend and that girl is openly in that cottage, nothing could betruer. It isn't Martin who has taken off his armor. It's I who have cutthe straps and made it fall from his shoulders Oh, my God, if only Ihadn't wanted to finish being a kid. "

She moved away, at last, from the place where Alice had left her andwithout looking to the right or left walked slowly down to the edge ofthe sea. Vaguely, as though it was something that had happened in aformer life, she remembered the angry but neat figure of Alice and afew of the fierce words that had got through to her. "Rank weeds . .. Driven Martin . .. Too late. .. . Who Cares?" Only these had stuck. Butwhy should Alice have said them? It was all unnecessary. She knew them. She had said them all on the way back from Devon, all and many more, seated beside that nice boy, Harry, in his car. .. . She had died a fewfeet from the stoop of the cottage, in the scent of honeysuckle andCome back to something that wasn't life to be tortured with regrets. All the way back she had said things to herself that Alice, angry andbitter as she had seemed to be, never could have invented. But they toowere unnecessary. Saying things now was of no more use than throwingstones into the sea at any time. Rank weeds . .. Driven Martin . .. Toolate . .. Who cares--only who cares should have come first becauseeverything else was the result. 

And for a little while, with the feeling that she was on an island, deserted and forgotten, she stood on the edge of the sea, looking at ahorizon that was utterly blank. What was she to do? Where was she togo? . .. Not yet a woman, and all the future lay about her in chaos. .. . Once more she went back in spirit to that room of Martin's which hadbeen made the very sanctum of Romance by young blood and moonlight andlistened to the plans they had made together for the discovery of aworld out of which so many similar explorers had crept with wounds andbitterness. 

"I'm going to make my mark, " she heard Martin cry. "I'm going to makesomething that will last. My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'llmake it mean something out here for his sake. "

"And I, " she heard herself say, "will go joy-riding on that hugeRound-about. I've seen what it is to be old and useless, and so I shallmake the most of every day and hour while I'm young. I can live onlyonce, and I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go. If Ican get anybody to pay my whack, good. If not, I'll pay itmyself, --whatever it costs. My motto's going to be a good time as longas I can get it and who cares for the price!"

Young fool, you young fool!

The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon themboth. 

"Yes, you'll get a bill all right. How did you know that?"

And once more she heard her answer. "I haven't lived with all those oldpeople so long for nothing. But you won't catch me grumbling if I gethalf as much as I'm going out for. Listen to my creed, Martin, and takenotes if you want to keep up with me. .. . I shall open the door of everyknown Blue Room, hurrying out if there are ugly things inside. I shalltaste a little of every known bottle, feel everything there is to feelexcept the thing that hurts, laugh with everybody whose laugh iscatching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth in the bigBazaar, and when I'm tired and there's nothing left, slip out of theendless procession with a thousand things stored in my memory. Isn'tthat the way to live?"

"Young fool, you young fool, " she cried, with the feeling of beingforgotten and deserted, with not one speck on the blank horizon. "You've failed--failed in everything. You haven't even carried out yourprogram. Others have paid, --Martin and Gilbert and Alice, but the bigbill has come in to you . .. Who cares? You do, you do, you young fool, and you must creep out of the procession with only one thing stored inyour memory, --the loss of Martin, Martin. "

It was a bad hour for this girl-child who had tried her wings too young. 

And when Gilbert straightened up and gave thanks to God for the womanwho had never stirred him, but whose courage and tenderness had addedto his respect, he too turned towards the sea with its blankhorizon, --the sea upon which he was to be taken by his good wife forrest and sleep, and there was Joan . .. Young, and slight and alluring, with her back to him and her hands behind her back, and the mere sightof her churned his blood again, and set his dull fire into flames. Oncemore the old craving returned, the old madness revived, as it alwayswould when the sight and sound of her caught him, and all the commonsense and uncommon goodness of the little woman who had given himcomfort rose like smoke and was blown away. .. . To win this girl hewould sacrifice Alice and barter his soul. She was in his blood. Shewas the living picture of his youthful vision. She only could satisfythe Great Emotion. .. . There was the plan that he had forgotten, --thelunatic plan from which, even in his most desperate moment, he haddrawn back, afraid, --to cajole her to the cottage away from which hewould send his servants; make, with doors and windows locked, one lastpassionate appeal, and then, if mocked and held away, to take her withhim into death and hold her spirit in his arms. 

To own himself beaten by this slip of a girl, to pack his traps andleave her the field and sneak off like a beardless boy, --was that thesort of way he did things who had had merely to raise his voice to hearthe approach of obsequious feet? . .. Alice and the yacht and nothingbut sea to a blank horizon? He laughed to think of it. It was, in fact, unthinkable. 

He would put it to Joan in a different way this time. He would hide hisfire and be more like that cursed boy. That would be a new way. Sheliked new things. 

He left the summer house, only the roof of which was touched by thelast golden rays of the sun, and with curious cunning adopted a sort ofcaricature of his old light manner. There was a queer jauntiness in hiswalk as he made his way over the sand, carrying his hat, and a flippantnote in his voice when he arrived at her side. 

"Waiting for your ship to come home?" he asked. 

"It's come, " she said. 

"You have all the luck, don't you?"

She choked back a sob. 

He saw the new look on her face. Something, --perhaps boredom, --perhapsthe constant companionship of that cursed boy, --had brought her downfrom her high horse. This was his chance! . .. 

"You thought I had gone, I suppose?"

"Yes, " she said. 

"To-morrow suits me best. I'm off to-morrow, --I've not decided where. Along journey, it may be. If you're fed up with these people what do yousay to my driving you somewhere for dinner? A last little dinner toremind us of the spring in New York?"

"Would you like me to very much?"

He steadied his voice. "We might be amused, I think. "

"That doesn't answer my question, " she said. 

"I'd love you to, " he answered. "It would be fair, too. I've not seenmuch of you here. "

Yes, it would be fair. Let her try, even at that late stage of thegame, to make things a little even. This man had paid enough. 

"Very well, " she said. "Let's go. " It would be good to get away fromprying eyes and the dull ache of pain for a few hours. 

He could hardly believe his ears. Joan, --to give him something! It wasalmost incredible. 

She turned and led the way up. The sun had almost gone. "I'll get myhat at once, " she said, "I'll be ready in ten minutes. "

His heart was thumping. "I'll telephone to a place I know, and bewaiting in the car. "

"Let me go in alone, " she said. "We don't want to be held up to explainand argue. You're sure you want me to come?" She drew up and looked athim. 

He bowed to hide his face. "Of all things on earth, " he said. 

She ran on ahead, slipped into the house and up to her room. 

Exultant and full of hope, Gilbert waited for a moment before followingher in. Going straight to the telephone room he shut the door, askedfor the number of his cottage and drummed the instrument with hisfingers. 

At last!

"Is that you, Itrangi? . .. Lay some sort of dinner for two, --coldthings with wine. It doesn't matter what, but at once. I shall be overin about an hour. Then get out, with the cook. I want the place tomyself to-night. Put the door key on the earth at the left-hand cornerof the bottom step. Telephone for a car and go to the hotel at SagHarbor. Be back in the morning about nine. Do these things withoutfail. I rely upon you. "

He hardly waited for the sibilant assurance before putting back thereceiver. He went round to the garage himself. This was the first timehe had driven Joan in his car. It might be the last. 

Harry was at the bottom of the stairs as Joan came down. 

"You're not going out?" he asked. She was still in day clothes, wearinga hat. 

"Yes, I am, Harry. "

"Where? Why?"

She laid her hand on his arm. "Don't grudge Gilbert one evening, --hislast. I've been perfectly rotten to him all along. "

"Palgrave? Are you going out with Palgrave?"

"Yes, to dine somewhere. I want to, Harry, oh, for lots of reasons. Youknow one. Don't stop me. " Her voice broke a little. 

"But not with Palgrave. "

"Why?"

"I saw him dodge out of the telephone room a minute ago. Helooked--queer. Don't go, Joan. "

"I must, " she said and went to the door. He was after her and caughthold of her arm. 

"Joan, don't go. I don't want you to. "

"I must, " she said again. "Surely you can understand? I have to getaway from myself. "

"But won't I do?"

"It's Gilbert's turn, " she said. "Let go, Harry dear. " It was good toknow that she hadn't hurt this boy. 

"I don't like it. Please stay, " but he let her go, and watched her downthe steps and into the car, with unaccountable misgiving. He had seenGilbert's face. 

And he saw it again under the strong light of the entrance--triumphant. 

For minutes after the car had gone, with a wave from Joan, he stoodstill, with an icy hand on his heart. 

"I don't like it, " he repeated. "I wish to God I'd had the right tostop her. "

She thought that he didn't love her, and he had done his best to obey. But he did love her, more than Martin, it seemed, more than Gilbert, hethought, and by this time she was well on her way to--what?

PART FOUR

THE PAYMENT

I

It was one of those golden evenings that sometimes follows a hot clearday--one of those rare evenings which linger in the memory when summerhas slipped away and which come back into the mind like a smile, anendearment or a broad sweet melody, renewing optimism and replenishingfaith. The sun had gone, but its warm glow lingered in a sky that wasutterly unspotted. The quiet unruffled trees in all the rich green ofearly maturity stood out against it almost as though they were paintedon canvas. The light was so true that distances were brought up to theeye. Far-away sounds came closely to the ear. The murmur from the earthgathered like that of a multitude of voices responding to prayers. 

Palgrave drove slowly. The God-given peace and beauty that lay overeverything quieted the stress and storm of his mind. Somehow, too, withJoan at his side on the road to the cottage in which he was to play outthe second or the last act of the drama of his Great Emotion, life anddeath caught something of the truth and dignity of that memorableevening--the sounds of life and the distance of death. If he was not tolive with Joan he would die with her. There was, to him, in the stateof mind into which this absorbing passion had worked him, noalternative. Love, that he had made his lodestar in early youth andsought in vain, had come at last. Marriage, convention, obligations, responsibility, balance and even sanity mattered nothing. They wereswept like chaff before this sex-storm. Ten years of dreams wereepitomized in Joan. She was the ideal that he had placed on the secretaltar of his soul. She struck, all vibrant with youth, the one poeticnote that was hidden in his character behind vanity and sloth, cynicismand the ingrained belief that whatever he desired he must have. And ashe drove away from Easthampton and the Hosack house he left behind himAlice and all that she was and meant. She receded from his mind likethe white cliffs of a shore to which he never intended to return. Hewas happier than he had ever been. In his curious exaltation, life, with its tips and downs, its pettiness, its monotony, lay far belowhim, as the moving panorama of land does to a flying man. His head wasclear, his plan definite. He felt years younger--almost boyish. Laughter came easy--the sort of reasonless laughter that comes to tiredmen as they start out on a holiday. He saw the strangeness of it allwith some wonder and much triumph. The Gilbert Palgrave who had beenmolded by money and inertia and autocracy was discarded, and the manwith Joan at his side was the young Gilbert whom he had caught sight ofthat night in Paris, when, on his way home under the stars, Joan, withher brown hair and laughing eyes, tip-tilted nose and the spirit ofspring in her breath, had come out of his inner consciousness andestablished herself like a shape in a dream. 

His heart turned when he looked at Joan's face. Was its unusual gravitydue to the fact that she had come to the end of fooling--that she, too, had sensed the finality or the beginning? He thought so. He believedso. She looked younger than ever, but sweeter, less flippant, lesstriumphantly irresponsible. She sat, like a child, with her hands inher lap, her mouth soft, an odd wistfulness in her eyes with their longcurling lashes. A black straight-brimmed straw hat sat well down on hersmall head and put a shadow on her face. The slim roundness of her armsshowed through the white silk shirt, and her low collar proved all thebeauty of her throat and neck. She looked more than ever unplucked, untouched, like a rosebud. 

On the tip of his tongue there were words of adoration, not fastidiousand carefully chosen, but simple, elemental words such as a farmhandmight blunder out in the deep shadow of a lane, after dark. But he heldthem back. He would wait until after they had dined together and allround them there were silence and solitude. He drove still more slowlyin order to give the two Japanese servants time to carry out hisinstructions and remove themselves. That cottage, which he had boughton the spur of the moment, fitted out with elaborate care and used onlytwice, for two weeks since, was to justify itself, after all. Whoknows? He might have bought it two years before under an inspiration. Even then, months and months before he met Joan or knew of herexistence, this very evening might have been mapped out He was afatalist, and it fell into his creed to think so. 

He didn't wonder why Joan was silent or ask himself jealously of whatshe was thinking. He chose to believe that she had arrived at the endof impishness, had grown weary of Harry Oldershaw and his cubbish waysand had turned to himself naturally and with relief, choosing hermoment with the uncanny intuition that is the gift of women. She wasonly just in time. To-morrow would have found him following thefaithful Alice on her forlorn hope--the incurable man. 

It was only when they turned into the narrow sandy road that was withina quarter of a mile of the club at Devon that Joan came out of thenumbness that had settled upon her and recognized things that werestamped with the marks of an afternoon that was never to be forgotten. Martin--Martin--and it was all her fault. 

"But why are you coming this way?" she asked, drawing back into herseat. 

"Because my cottage is just here, " said Gilbert. 

"At Devon?"

"Yes. Why not? I had a fancy for playing hermit from time to time. Isaw the sun set behind the water, --a Byron sunset, --and in the hope ofseeing just such another I bought this shack. I did those things oncefor want of something better. Look at it, " he said, and turned the carthrough a rustic gate, alive with honeysuckle. 

It was a bungalow, put up on a space cleared among a wood of youngtrees that was carpeted with ferns. It might have been built for a poetor a novelist or just an ordinary muscular man who loved the water andthe silences and the sense of being on the edge of the world. It was abungalow of logs, roughly constructed and saved from utter banality bybeing almost completely clothed in wisteria. It was admirably suited totwo men who found amusement in being primitive or to a romantichoneymoon couple who wanted to fancy themselves on a desert island. Better still, it might have been built for just that night, forPalgrave and the girl who had taken shape in his one good dream. 

Joan got out of the opulent car and watched Gilbert run it round to theside of the house. There was no garage and not even a shed to give itcover. Gilbert left it in the open, where it remained sulky andsupercilious, like a grand piano in an empty kitchen. 

Joan had noticed this place twice that day--on the way out to findMartin, and again on the way back from having heard the voice of thegirl with the white face and the red lips and the hair that came out ofa bottle. Martin--Martin--and it was all her fault. 

She wondered for a moment why no one came to open the door. Some onewas there because smoke was coming out of a chimney. But she refused tobe impatient. She had decided to give Gilbert one evening--to be niceto him for one evening. He was terribly humble. Fate had dealt her asmashing blow on the heart, and she had returned to consciousnesswistfully eager to make up at least to this man as well as she couldfor the pain that she had caused. There was only this one evening inwhich to do so because to-morrow she was going back to the old house, the old people, the old servants and the old days, a failure, havingfallen off the Round-about, of which she had spoken so much. She wasgoing back a sort of cripple to the place from which she had escaped toput the key into life; once more to read to her grandfather, to obeythe orders of her grandmother, to sleep in the warm kind arms of herold bedroom, to go among the flowers and trees among which she hadgrown up, herself old and tired and ashamed and broken-hearted, withher gold ring burning into her finger and the constant vision ofMartin's shining armor lying bent and rusty before her eyes. What anend to her great adventure!

Gilbert came up. He walked without his usual affectation of neverpermitting anything to hurry him. All about him there was still a sortof exaltation. His eyes were amazingly bright. His face had lost itscynicism. Ten years seemed to have fallen from his shoulders like apack. He was a youth again, like Martin and Harry and Howard. Joannoticed all this and was vaguely surprised--and glad, because obviouslyshe was giving him pleasure. He deserved it after her impish treatmentof him. What a fool she had been. 

He said, bending down, "We keep the key here, " and picked it up, unlocked the door and stood back for her to pass. 

"Oh, isn't this nice!" said Joan. 

"Do you like it? It amused me to make it comfortable. "

"Comfortable! But it's like a picture. "

Gilbert laughed boyishly. Her enthusiasm delighted him. To make thelong low living room with its big brick chimney and open fireplaceabsolutely right had dispelled his boredom--little as he had intendedto use it. The whole thing was carried out on the lines of the mainroom in an English shooting box. The walls were matchboarded andstained an oak color, and the floor was polished and covered withskins. Old pewter plates and mugs, and queer ugly delightful bits ofpottery were everywhere--on shelves, on the wide mantelpiece, andhanging from the beams. Colored sporting prints covered the walls, among stuffed fish and heads of deer with royal antlers and beady eyeswith a fixed stare. The furniture was Jacobean--the chairs with ladderbacks and cane seats; a wide dresser, lined with colored plates; a longnarrow table with rails and bulging legs. Two old oak church pews wereset on each side of the fireplace filled with cushions covered with amerry chintz. There were flowers everywhere in big bowls--red ramblerroses, primula, sweet williams, Shasta daisies, and scarlet poppies. All the windows were open, and there was nothing damp or musty in thesmell of the room. On the contrary, the companionable aroma of tobaccosmoke hung in the air mixed with the sweet faint scent of flowers. Theplace seemed "lived-in"--as well it might. The two Japs had playedgentlemen there for some weeks. The table was laid for two, andappetizing dishes of cold food, salad and fruit were spread out on thedresser and sideboard, with iced champagne and claret cup. 

"The outside of the cottage didn't suggest all this comfort, " said Joan. 

"Comfort's the easiest thing in the world when you can pay for it. There's one bedroom half the size of this and two small ones. Abathroom and kitchen beyond. There's water, of course, and electriclight, and there's a telephone. I loathe the telephone, the destroyerof aloofness, the missionary that breaks into privacy. " He switched onthe lights in several old lanterns as he spoke. The day had almostdisappeared. 

He went over to her and stood smiling. 

"Well, isn't this better than a road-house reeking of food and fliesand made hideous by a Jazz band?"

"Much better, " she said. 

The delightful silence was broken by the crickets. 

"Martin--Martin, " she thought, "and it was all my fault. "

A sort of tremble ran over Gilbert as he looked at her. Agony and joyclashed in his heart. He had suffered, gone sleepless, worn himself outby hard, grim exercise in order, who knew how many times, to master hisalmost unendurable passion. He had killed long nights, the very thoughtof which made him shudder, by reading books of which he never took in aword. He had stood up in the dark, unmanned, and cursed himself and herand life. He had denounced her to himself and once to her as a flapper, a fool-girl, an empty-minded frivolous thing encased in a body asbeautiful as spring. He had thrown himself on his knees and wept like ayoung boy who had been hurt to the very quick by a great injustice. Hehad faced himself up, and with the sort of fear that comes to men inmoments of physical danger, recognized madness in his eyes. But notuntil that instant, as she stood before him unguarded in his lonelycottage, so slight and sweet and unexpectedly gentle, her eyes aslimpid as the water of a brook, her lips soft and kind and unkissed, her whole young body radiating virginity, did he really know howamazingly and frighteningly he loved her. But once again he held back arush of adoring words and a desire to touch and hold and claim. Thetime had not come yet. Let her warm to him. Let him live down theugliness of the mood that she had recently put him into, do away withthe impression he must have given her of jealousy and petulance andscorn. Let her get used to him as a man who had it in him to be asnatural and impersonal, and even as cubbish, as some of the boys sheknew. Later, when night had laid its magic on the earth, he would makehis last bid for her kisses--or take her with him across the horizon. 

"How do you like that?" he asked, and pointed to a charmingly grotesquepiece of old Staffordshire pottery which made St. George a stuntedchurchwarden with the legs of a child, his horse the kind of animalthat would be used in a green grocer's cart and the dragon a crossbetween a leopard and a half-bred bulldog. 

"Very amusing, " she said, going over to it. 

And the instant her back was turned, he opened a drawer in a sideboardand satisfied himself that the thing which might have to put them intoEternity together lay there, loaded. 

II

"And now, " he said gayly, "let's dine and, if you don't mind, I willbuttle. I hate servants in a place like this. " He went to the head ofthe table and drew back a chair. 

Joan sat down, thanking him with a smile. It was hard to believe that, with the words of that girl still ringing in her ears and the debris ofher hopes lying in a heap about her feet, she was going through theprocess of being nice to this man who had his claims. It was unreal, fantastic. It wasn't really happening. She must be lying face down onsome quiet corner of Mother Earth and watering its bosom with tears ofblood. Martin--Martin! It was all her fault. 

Tomorrow she would be back again in the old house, with the old peopleand the old dogs and the old trees and follow her old routine--old, old. That was the price she must pay for being a kid when she shouldhave been a woman. 

Palgrave stood at the sideboard and carved a cold chicken decoratedwith slips of parsley. "Have you ever gone into a room in which you'venever been before and recognized everything in it or done some thingfor the first time that you suddenly realize isn't new to you?"

"Yes, often, " replied Joan. "Why?"

"You've never sat in that chair until this minute and this chicken wasprobably killed this morning. But I've seen you sitting in just thatattitude at that table and cut the wing of this very bird and watchedthat identical smile round your lips when I put the plate in front ofyou. " He put it in front of her and the scent of her hair made himcatch his breath. "Oh, my God!" he said to himself. "This girl--thisbeautiful, cool, bewitching thing--the dew of youth upon her, as chasteas unsunned snow--Oh, my God. .. . "

But Joan had caught the scent of honeysuckle, and back into her braincame that cottage splashed with sun, the lithe figure of HarryOldershaw with his face tanned the color of mahogany and the clearvoice of "Mrs. Gray. "

Gilbert filled her glass with champagne cup, carved for himself and satat the foot of the table. "The man from whom I bought this place, " hesaid, saying anything to make conversation and keep himself rig idlylight and, as he hoped, like Oldershaw, "owns a huge ready-made clothesstore on Broadway--appalling things with comic belts and weird pockets. "

"Oh!" said Joan. Always, for ever, the scent of honeysuckle would bringthat picture back. Martin--Martin. 

"He makes any amount of money by dressing that portion of young Americawhich sells motors and vacuum cleaners and gramaphone records and hangsabout stage doors smoking cheap cigarettes. "

"Yes?" Joan listened but heard nothing except that high clear voicecoming through the screen door. 

"He built this cottage as an antidote and spent his week-ends hereentirely alone with the trees and crickets, trying to write poetry. Hewas very pleased with it and believed that this atmosphere was going tomake him immortal. "

"I see, "--but all she saw was a porch covered with honeysuckle, ahammock with an open book face downwards in it and the long shadow ofHarry Oldershaw flung across the white steps. 

Gilbert went on--pathetically unable to catch the unaffected youngstuff of the nice boy and his kind. He had never been young. 

"He had had no time during his hard struggle to read the masters, andwhen, without malice, I quoted a chunk of Grey's 'Elegy' to him, thepoor devil's jaw fell, he withdrew his blank refusal to sell the placeto me, pocketed my cheque, packed his grip, and slouched off then andthere, looking as if a charge of dynamite had blown his chest away. Hisgarments, I notice, are as comic as ever, and I suppose he is nowliving in a turretted house with stucco walls and stone lions at NewRochelle, wedded to Commerce and a buxom girl who talks too much andrag-times through her days. "

Joan joined in his laugh. She was there to make up for her unkindness. She would do her best under the circumstances. She hoped he would telllots of long stories to cover her wordlessness. 

Gilbert emptied his glass and filled it again. He was half conscious ofdramatizing the episode as it unrolled itself and thrilled to thinkthat this might be the last time that he would eat and drink in theonly life that he knew. Death, upon which he had looked hitherto withhorror, didn't scare him if he went into it hand in hand with Joan. With Alice trying, in her persistently gentle way, to cure him, lifewas unthinkable. Life with Joan--there was that to achieve. Let the lawunravel the knots while he and she wandered in France and Italy, shetriumphantly young, and he a youth again, his dream come true. .. . Wouldshe have come with him to-night if she hadn't grown weary of playingflapper? She knew what she meant to him. He had told her often enough. Too often, perhaps. He had taken the surprise of it away, discountedthe romance. . 

He got up and gave her some salad and stood by her for a moment. He waslike a moth hovering about a lamp. 

She smiled up at him again--homesick for the old bedroom and the oldtrees, eager to sit in her grand father's room and read the paper tohim. He was old and out of life and so was she. Oh, Martin, Martin. Whycouldn't he have waited a little while longer?

The shock of touching her fingers as she took the salad plate sent theblood to Gilbert's brain. But he reined himself in. He was afraid tocome to the point yet. Life was too good like this. The abyss yawned attheir feet. He would turn his back to it and see only the outstretchedlandscape of hope. 

They ate very little, and Joan ignored her glass. Gilbert frequentlyfilled his own, but he might just as well have been drinking water. Hewas already drunk with love. 

Finally, after a long silence, Joan pushed her chair back and got up. 

Instantly he was in front of her, with his back to the door. "Joan, " hesaid, and held out his hands in supplication. 

"Don't you think we ought to drive home now?" she asked. 

"Home?"

"Yes. It must be getting late. "

"Not yet, " he said, steadying his voice. "Time is ours. Don't hurry. "

He went down suddenly on to his knees and kissed her feet. 

At any other time, in any other mood, the action would have stirred hersense of the ridiculous. She would have laughed and whipped him withsarcasm. He had done exuberant things before and left her unmovedexcept to mirth. But this time she raised him up without a word, and heanswered her touch with curious unresistance, like a man hypnotized andstood speechless, but with eyes that were filled with eloquence. 

"Be good to-night, Gilbert, " she said. "I've . .. I've been awfully hurtto-day and I feel tired and worn--not up to fencing with you. "

The word "fencing" didn't strike home at first, nor did he gather atonce from her simple appeal that she had not come in the mood that hehad persuaded himself was hers. 

"This is the first time that you've given me even an hour since youdrew me to the Hosacks, " he said. "Be generous. Don't do things byhalves. "

She could say nothing to that. She was there only because of a desireto make up ever so little for having teased him. He had beenconsistently generous to her. She had hoped, from his manner, that hewas simply going to be nice and kind and not indulge in romantics. Shewas wrong, evidently. It was no new thing, though. She was wellaccustomed to his being dramatic and almost foreign. He had said manyamazing things but always remained the civilized man, and neverattempted to make a scene. She liked him for that, and she had triedhim pretty high, she knew. She did wish that he would be good thatnight, but there was nothing to say in reply to his appeal. And so shewent over to one of the pews and sat down among the cushions. 

"I'll give you another hour, then, " she said. 

But the word had begun to rankle. "Fencing!--Fencing! . .. "

He repeated it several times. 

She watched him wander oddly about the room, thinking aloud rather thanspeaking to her. How different he had become. For the first time itdawned upon her that the whole look of the man had undergone a change. He held himself with less affectation. His petulance had gone. He waslike a Gilbert Palgrave who had been ill and had come out of it withnone of his old arrogance. 

He took up a cigarette and began wandering again, muttering herunfortunate word. She was sorry to have hurt his feelings. It was thevery last thing that she had wanted to do. "Aren't there any matches?"she asked. "Ring for some. "

She was impatient of indecision. 

He drew up and looked at her. "Ring? Why? No one will come. "

"Are we the only people in the house, then?"

"Yes, " he said. "That's part of my plan. "

"Plan?" She was on her feet. "What do you mean? Have you thought allthis out and made a scheme of it?"

"Yes; all out, " he said. "The moment has come, Joan. "

No longer did the scent of honeysuckle take Joan back to the sun-bathedcottage and the voice behind the door. No longer did she feel that allthis wasn't really happening, that it was fantastic. Stark realityforced itself upon her and brought her into the present as though someone had turned up all the lights in a dark room. She was alone with theman whom she had driven to the limit of his patience. No one knew thatshe was there. It was a trick into which she had fallen out of a newwish to be kind. A sense of self-preservation scattered the direeffects of everything that had happened during the afternoon. She mustget out, quickly. She made for the door. 

But Gilbert was there first. He locked it, drew out the key, put it inhis pocket and before she could turn towards the door leading to theother rooms, he was there. He repeated the process with peculiardeftness and when he saw her dart a look at the windows, he shook hishead. 

"You can't jump through those screens, " he said. 

"It isn't fair, " she cried. 

"Have you been fair?"

"I shall shout for help. "

"The nearest cottage is too far away for any one to hear you. "

"What are you going to do?"

He went back to her. He was far too quiet and dignified and unlikehimself. She could have managed the old vain Gilbert. A scoffing laugh, and he would have withered. But this new Gilbert, who looked at herwith such a curious, exalted expression--what was she to do with him?

"Joan, " he said, "listen. This is the end or the beginning. I haven'tlocked the doors and sent the servants away to get you into a vulgartrap. I might have done it a few weeks ago, but not as I am now. Thisis my night, my beautiful Joan. You have given it to me. After all thisfencing, as you call it, you are here with me alone, as far away fromthe old foolishness as if you were out at sea. What I have to say is somuch a private thing, and what I may have to do so much a matter to betreated with the profoundest solemnity that we must run no risk ofdisturbance. Do you begin to understand, little Joan?"

"No, " she said. 

"I will explain it to you, then. You are very young and have been verythoughtless. You haven't stopped to think that you have been playingwith a soul as well as a heart. I have brought you here to-night toface things up simply and quietly and finally, and leave it to you tomake a choice. "

"A choice?"

"Yes, between life with me or death in my arms. "

III

All that was healthy and normal in Joan broke into revolt. There wassomething erotic, uncanny about all this. Life or death? What was hetalking about? Her pride, too, which had never been put to such a test, was up in arms against the unfairness and cunning of the way in whichshe had been taken advantage of. She had meant to be kind and paysomething of her debt to this man, and it was a vulgar trap, whateverhe said in excuse. Let him dare to touch her. Let him dare. She wouldshow him how strong she was and put up such a fight as would amaze him. Just now she had placed herself among those old people and old trees, because she had suffered. But she was young, tingling with youth, andher slate was clean, notwithstanding the fool game that she had played, and she would keep it clean, if she had to fight her way out. 

She took up her stand behind the table, alert and watchful. 

"I don't get you when you go in for melodrama, " she said. "I muchprefer your usual way of talking. Translate for me. " She spokescornfully because hitherto she had been able to turn him off by scorn. 

But it didn't work this time. It was not anger that came into his eyes, only an unexpected and disconcerting reproach. He made no attempt to gonear her. He looked extraordinarily patient and gentle. She had neverseen him like this before. "Don't stand there, " he said. "Come and sitdown and let's go into this sensibly, like people who have emerged fromstupidity. In any case you are not going back to Easthampton to-night. "

She began to be frightened. "Not going back to Easthampton?"

"No, my dear. "

She left her place behind the table and went up to him. Had all theworld gone wrong? Had her foolishness been so colossal that she was tobe broken twice on the same day? "Gilbert, " she said. "What is it? Whatdo you mean? Why do you say these odd things in this queer way?You're--you're frightening me, Gilbert. "

Young? She was a child as she stood there with her lovely faceupturned. It was torture to keep his hands off her and not take herlips. But he did nothing. He stood steady and waited for his brain toclear. "Odd things in a queer way? Is that how I strike you?"

"Yes. I've never seen you in this mood before. If you've brought mehere to make me say I'm sorry, I will, because I am sorry. I'd doanything to have all these days over again--every one since I climbedout of my old bedroom window. If you said hard things to me all night Ishould deserve them all and I'll pay you what I can of my debt, butdon't ask me to pay too much. I trusted you by coming here alone. Don'tgo back on me, Gilbert. "

He touched her cheek and drew his hand away. 

"But I haven't brought you here to make you humble yourself, " he said. "There's nothing small in this. What you've done to me has left itsmarks, of course, deep marks. I don't think you ever really understoodthe sort of love mine is. But the hour has gone by for apologies andarguments and regrets. I'm standing on the very edge of things. I'mjust keeping my balance on the lip of eternity. It's for you to draw meback or go tumbling over with me. That's why you're here. I told youthat. Are you really so young that you don't understand?"

"I'm a kid, I'm a kid, " she cried out, going back to her old excuse. "That's the trouble. "

"Then I'll put it into plain words, " he said, with the same appallingcomposure. "I've had these things in my mind to say to you for hours. Ican repeat them like a parrot. If the sort of unimaginative people whomeasure everybody by themselves were to hear what I'm going to say, Isuppose they would think I'm insane. But you won't. You haveimagination. You've seen me in every stage of what I call the GreatEmotion. But you've not treated me well, Joan, or taken me seriously, and this is the one serious thing of my life. "

He was still under control, although his voice had begun to shake andhis hands to tremble. She could do nothing but wait for him to go on. The crickets and the frogs filled in the short silence. 

"And now it's come to this. I can be played with no longer. I can'twait for you any more. Either you love me, or you don't. If you do, youmust be as serious as I am, tear up your roots such as they are andcome away with me. Your husband, who counts for as little as my wife, will set the law in action. So will Alice. We will wander among anyplaces that take your fancy until we can be married and then if youwant to come back, we will. But if you don't and won't love me, I can'tlive and see you love any other man. I look upon you as mine. I createdyou for myself ten years ago. Not being able to live without you, I amnot made of the stuff to leave you behind me. I shall take you and ifthere's another life on the other side, live it with you. If not, thenwe'll snuff out together. Like all great lovers, I'm selfish, you see. That's what I meant when I talked just now about choice. "

He moved away, quietly, and piled several cushions into a corner of oneof the pews. The look of exaltation was on his face again. 

"Sit here, my dream girl, " he added, with the most wonderfultenderness, "and think it over. Don't hurry. The night belongs to us. "He found a match and lit a cigarette and stood at one of the windowslooking out at the stars. 

But Joan was unable to move. Her blood was as cold as ice. As though asearchlight had suddenly been thrown on to Gilbert, she saw him as hewas. "Unimaginative people will think I'm insane. " . .. SHE didn't thinkhe was insane, imaginative as he said she was. She KNEW it. If she hadbeen able to think of one thing but Martin and that girl and her ownchaos, she must have guessed it at Easthampton from the look in hiseyes when he helped her into his car. .. . He had lost his balance, goneover the dividing hue between soundness and unsoundness. And it was herfault for having fooled with his feelings. Everything was her fault, everything. And now she stood on what Gilbert had called the lip ofEternity. "Who Cares?" had come back at her like a boomerang. And as toa choice between giving herself to Gilbert or to death, what was thegood of thinking that over? She didn't love this man and never could. She loved Martin, Martin. She had always loved Martin from the momentthat she had turned and found him on the hill. She had lost him, thatwas true, He had been unable to wait. He had gone to the girl with thewhite face and the red lips and the hair that came out of a bottle. Shehad sent him to her, fool that she had been. Already she had decided tocreep back to the old prison house and thus to leave life. WithoutMartin nothing mattered. Why put up a fight for something that didn'tcount? Why continue mechanically to live when living meant waiting fordeath? Why not grasp this opportunity of leaving it actually, at once, and urge Gilbert on to stop the beating of her wounded and contriteheart? . .. Death, the great consoler. Sleep, endless sleep and peace. 

But as she stood there, tempted, with the weight of Martin's discardedarmor on her shoulders and the sense of failure hanging like amillstone round her neck, she saw the creeper bursting into buds on thewall beneath the window of her old room, caught the merry glint ofyoung green on the trees below her hill, heard the piping of birds totheir nesting mates, the eager breeze singing among the waving grassesand the low sweet crooning of baby voices--felt a tiny greedy hand uponher breast, was bewildered with a sudden overwhelming rush ofmother-longing . .. Young, young? Oh, God, she was young, and in thespringtime with its stirring sap, its call to life and action, its urgeto create, to build, its ringing cry to be up and doing, serving, sowing, tending--the pains of winter forgotten, hope in the warming sun. 

She must live. Even without Martin she must live. She was too young fordeath and sleep and peace. Life called and claimed and demanded. It hadneed of the young for a good spring, a ripe summer, a golden autumn. She must live and work and justify. 

But how?

There was Gilbert watching the stars with a smile, calmly and quietlyand horribly waiting for her to make a choice, having slipped over onthe other side of the dividing line. A scream of fear and terror roseto her throat. This quiet, exalted man, so gentle and determined, withthe look in his eyes of one who intended to own one way or theother--Live? How was she to live? He had given her a choice betweensomething that was impossible and something that all Nature held herback from. She was locked into a lonely house as far away from help asthough they were out at sea. 

"We hold it death to falter not to die. " The words seemed suddenly tostand out in blazing letters over the mantelpiece, as they did inMartin's room--Martin, Martin. .. . With a mighty effort she wound thereins round her hands and pulled herself up. In this erotic andterrible position she must not falter or show fear or exaggerate thisman's sudden derangement by cries or struggles. He must be humored, kept gentle and quiet, and she must pray for help. God loved youngthings, and if she had forgotten Him until the very moment of greatdanger, He might forgive. She must, with courage and practicality, gaintime so that some one might be sent. The servants might return. HarryOldershaw might have followed them. He hadn't liked the look ofGilbert. He had said so. But if that was too good, there was Martin, Martin. .. 

She saw herself sitting in a dressing gown on the arm of a chair inMartin's room in the little New York house. She heard Martin come alongthe passage with his characteristic light tread and saw him draw upshort. He looked anxious. "You wanted me?" she heard him say. 

"I did and do, Marty. But how did you guess?"

"I didn't guess. I knew. "

"Isn't that wonderful? Do you suppose I shall always be able to get youwhen I want you very much?"

"Yes, always. "

"Why?"

"I dunno. It's like that. It's something that can't be explained. .. . "

Gilbert turned and smiled at her. She smiled back. Martin was not faraway, Martin. "How quiet the night is, " she said, and went over to awindow. Hope gleamed like a star. And then, with all her strength andurgency she gave a silent cry. "Martin, Martin. I want you, so much, oh, so much. Come to me, quickly, quickly. Martin, Martin. "

IV

The crickets and the frogs vied with each other to fill the silencewith sound. The moon was up and had laid a silver carpet under thetrees. Fireflies flashed their little lights among the undergrowth likefairies signalling. 

Joan had sent her S. O. S. Into the air and with supreme confidencethat it would reach Martin wherever he might be, left the window, wentto the pew in which Gilbert had arranged the cushions and sat down. .. Martin had grown tired of waiting for her. She had lost him. But twicebefore he had answered her call, and he would come. She knew it. Martinwas like that. He was reliable. And even if he held her in contemptnow, he had loved her once. Oh, what it must have cost him to leave herroom that night--it seemed so long ago--she had clung to being a kidand had conceived it to be her right to stay on the girlhood side ofthe bridge. To be able to live those days over again--how different shewould be. 

Without permitting Gilbert to guess what she was doing, she must humorhim and gain time. She gave thanks to God that he was in this gentle, exalted mood, and was treating her with a sort of reverence. Behind thedanger and the terror of it all she recognized the wonder of his love. 

"Gilbert, " she said softly. 

"Well, my little spring girl?"

"Come and sit here, where I can see you. "

"You have only to tell me what I'm to do, " he said and obeyed at once. 

How different from the old affected Gilbert--this quiet man with theburning eyes who sat with his elbows on his knees and his back benttowards her and the light of one of the lanterns on his handsome face. She had played with a soul as well as with a heart, and also, itappeared, with a brain. How fatal had been her effect upon men--Martinout of armor and Gilbert on the wrong side of the thin dividing line. Men's love--it was too big and good a thing to have played with, if shehad only stopped to think, or some one had been wise and kind enough totell her. Who cares? These two men cared and so did she, bitterly, terribly, everlastingly. 

Would Martin hear--oh, would he hear? Martin, Martin!

There was a long, strange silence. 

"Well, my little Joan?"

"Well, Gilbert?"

He picked up her hand and put his lips to it. "Still thinking?" heasked, with a curious catch in his voice. 

"Yes, Gilbert, give me time. "

He gave back her hand. "The night is ours, " he said, but there was painin his eyes. 

And there they sat, these two, within an arm's reach, on the edge ofthe abyss. And for a little while there was silence--broken only by thecrickets and the frogs and the turning of many leaves by the puffs of asudden breeze. 

Was she never going to hear the breaking of twigs and the light treadoutside the window? Martin, Martin. 

And then Gilbert began to speak. "I can see a long way to-night, Joan, "he said, in a low voice. "I can see all the way back to the days when Iwas a small boy--years away. It's a long stretch. "

"Yes, Gilbert, " said Joan. (Martin, Martin, did you hear?)

"It's not good for a boy to have no father, my sweet. No discipline, nostrong hand, no man to imitate, no inspiration, no one to try and keepstep with. I see that now. I suffered from all that. "

"Did you, Gilbert?" Oh, when would the twigs break and the light stepcome? Martin, Martin. 

"A spoilt boy, a mother's darling, unthrashed, unled. What a cub atschool with too much money! What a conceited ass at college, buyingdeference and friends. I see myself with amazement taking to life withan air of having done it all, phrase-making and paying deference tonothing but my excellent profile. God, to have those years over again!We'd both do things differently given another chance, eh, Joan?"

"Yes, Gilbert. " He wasn't coming. He wasn't coming. Martin, Martin. 

She strained her ears to catch the sound of breaking twigs. Thecrickets and the frogs had the silence to themselves. She got up andwent to the window, with Gilbert at her elbow. She felt that he wasinstantly on his feet. Martin's face was not pressed against thescreen. He had heard. She knew that he had heard, because she wasalways able to make him hear. But he didn't care. When he had comebefore it was for nothing. She had lost him. She was un-Martined. Shewas utterly without help. She must give up. What was the good of makinga fight for it now that Martin cared so little as to turn a deaf ear toher call? He had even forgotten that he had loved her once. Death waswelcome then. Yes, welcome. But there was one way to make some sort ofretribution--just one. She would remain true to Martin. 

Gilbert touched her on the arm. "Come, Joan, " he said. "The night'srunning away. Is it so hard to decide?"

But against her will Nature, to whom life is so precious, put wordsinto her mouth. "I want you to try and understand something more aboutme, " she said eagerly. 

"The time has gone for arguing, " he replied, stiffening a little. 

"I'm not going to argue, " she went on quickly, surprised at herself, deserted as she was. "I only want you to think a little more deeplyabout all this. "

He drew his hand across his forehead. "Think? I've thought until mybrain's hot, like an overheated engine. "

She leaned forward. Spring was fighting her battle. "I'm not worth alove like yours, " she said. "I'm too young, too unserious. I'm not halfthe woman that Alice is. "

"You came to me in spirit that night in Paris. I placed yuu in myheart. I've waited all these years. "

"Yes, but there's Alice--no, don't turn away. Let me say what's in mymind. This is a matter of life or death, you said. "

He nodded. "Yes, life or death, together. "

"Alice doesn't disappoint, " she went on, the words put upon her lips. "I may, I shall. I already have, remember. This is your night, Gilbert, not mine, and whichever step we decide to take matters more to you thanto me. Let it be the right one. Let it be the best for you. "

But he made a wild sweeping gesture. His patience was running out. "Nothing is best for me if you're not in it. I tell you you've got me, whatever you are. You have your choice. Make it, make it. The nightwon't last for ever. "

Once more she listened for the breaking twig and the light step. Therewas nothing but the sound of the crickets and the frogs. Martin hadforgotten. He had heard, she was sure of that, but he didn't care. Nature had its hand upon her arm, but she pushed it away. Her choicewas easy, because she wouldn't forget. She would be true to Martin. 

"I've made my choice, " she said. 

"Joan, Joan--what is it?"

"I don't love you. "

He went up to her, with his old note of supplication. "But I can teachyou, Joan, I can teach you, my dear. "

"No. Never. I love Martin. I always have and always shall. "

"Oh, my God, " he said. 

"That's the truth. .. . Please be quick. I'm very tired!" She drewherself up like a young lily. 

For a moment he stood irresolute, swaying. Everything seemed to berunning past him. He was spinning like a top. He had hoped againsthope, during her silence and her argument. But now to be told not onlythat she would never love him but that she loved another man. .. . 

He staggered across the room to the sideboard, opened the drawer, andthe thing glistened in his hand. 

Joan was as cold as ice. "I will be true, " she whispered to herself. "Iwill be true. Martin, oh, Martin. "

With a superhuman effort Gilbert caught hold of himself. The cold thingin his hand helped him to this. His mouth became firm again and hisface gentle and tender. And he stood up with renewed dignity and theold strange look of exaltation. "I claim you then, " he said. "I claimyou, Joan. Here, on this earth, we have both made mistakes. I withAlice. You with Martin Gray. In the next life, whatever it may be, wewill begin again together. I will teach you from the beginning. Deathand the Great Emotion. It will be very beautiful. Shut your eyes, mysweet, and we will take the little step together. " The thing glistenedin his grasp. 

And Joan shut her eyes with her hands to her breast. "I love you, Martin, " she whispered. "I love you. I will wait until you come. "

And Gilbert cried out, in a loud ringing voice, "Eternity, oh, God!"and raised his hand. 

There was a crash, a ripping of window screen. Coatless, hatless, hisshirt gaping at the neck, his deep chest heaving, Martin swept into theroom like a storm, flung himself in front of Joan, staggered as thebullet hit him, cried out her name, crumpled into a heap at her feet. 

And an instant later lay beneath the sweet burden of the girl whosecall he had answered once again and to whom life broke like a glassball at the sight of him and let her through into space. 

V

"You may go in, " said the doctor. 

And Joan, whiter than a lily, rose from the corner in which she hadbeen crouching through all the hours of the night and went to thedoorway of the room to which Martin had been carried by the Nice Boyand Gilbert, the man who had been shocked back to sanity. 

On a narrow bed, near a window through which a flood of sunlightpoured, lay Martin from whom Death had turned away, --honest, normal, muscular, reliable Martin, the bullet no longer in his shoulder. Hiseyes, eager and wistful, lit up as he saw her standing there and thebrown hand that was outside the covers opened with a sort of quiver. 

With a rush Joan went forward, slipped down on her knees at the side ofthe bed, broke into a passion of weeping and pressed her lips to thatoutstretched hand. 

Making no bones about it, being very young and very badly hurt, Martincried too, and their tears washed the bridge away and the barriers andmisunderstandings and criss-crosses that had sprung up between themduring all those adolescent months. 

"Martin, Martin, it was all my fault. "

"No, it wasn't, Joany. It was mine. I wasn't merely your pal, ever. Iloved and adored you from the very second that I found you out on thehill. You thought it was a game, but it wasn't. It was the real thing, and I was afraid to say so. "

She crept a little nearer and put her head on his chest. "I was allwrong, Marty, from the start. I was a fool and a cheat, and you andGilbert and Alice have paid my bill. I've sent Gilbert back to Alice, and they'll forget, but it will take me all my life to earn my way backto you. " She flung her arm across his body, and her tears fell on hisface. 

"Oh, God, " he cried out, "don't you understand that I love you, Joany?Send all your bills to me. They're mine, because I'm yours, my baby, just all yours. You were so young and you had to work it off. I knewall that and waited. Didn't you know me well enough to be dead surethat I would wait?"

The burden on her shoulders fell with a crash, and with a great cry ofpent-up gratitude and joy her lips went down to his lips. 

But the doctor was not so old that he had forgotten love and youth, andhe left those two young clinging things alone again and went back intothe sun.