A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES By William Dean Howells BIBLIOGRAPHICAL The following story was the first fruit of my New York life when I beganto live it after my quarter of a century in Cambridge and Boston, endingin 1889; and I used my own transition to the commercial metropolis inframing the experience which was wholly that of my supposititiousliterary adventurer. He was a character whom, with his wife, I haveemployed in some six or eight other stories, and whom I made as much thehero and heroine of 'Their Wedding Journey' as the slight fable wouldbear. In venturing out of my adoptive New England, where I had foundmyself at home with many imaginary friends, I found it natural to ask thecompany of these familiar acquaintances, but their company was not to behad at once for the asking. When I began speaking of them as Basil andIsabel, in the fashion of 'Their Wedding Journey, ' they would not respondwith the effect of early middle age which I desired in them. Theyremained wilfully, not to say woodenly, the young bridal pair of thatromance, without the promise of novel functioning. It was not till Itried addressing them as March and Mrs. March that they stirred under myhand with fresh impulse, and set about the work assigned them as peoplein something more than their second youth. The scene into which I had invited them to figure filled the largestcanvas I had yet allowed myself; and, though 'A Hazard of New Fortuneswas not the first story I had written with the printer at my heels, itwas the first which took its own time to prescribe its own dimensions. Ihad the general design well in mind when I began to write it, but as itadvanced it compelled into its course incidents, interests, individualities, which I had not known lay near, and it specialized andamplified at points which I had not always meant to touch, though Ishould not like to intimate anything mystical in the fact. It became, tomy thinking, the most vital of my fictions, through my quickened interestin the life about me, at a moment of great psychological import. We hadpassed through a period of strong emotioning in the direction of thehumaner economics, if I may phrase it so; the rich seemed not so much todespise the poor, the poor did not so hopelessly repine. The solution ofthe riddle of the painful earth through the dreams of Henry George, through the dreams of Edward Bellamy, through the dreams of all thegenerous visionaries of the past, seemed not impossibly far off. Thatshedding of blood which is for the remission of sins had been symbolizedby the bombs and scaffolds of Chicago, and the hearts of those who feltthe wrongs bound up with our rights, the slavery implicated in ourliberty, were thrilling with griefs and hopes hitherto strange to theaverage American breast. Opportunely for me there was a great street-carstrike in New York, and the story began to find its way to issues noblerand larger than those of the love-affairs common to fiction. I was in myfifty-second year when I took it up, and in the prime, such as it was, ofmy powers. The scene which I had chosen appealed prodigiously to me, andthe action passed as nearly without my conscious agency as I ever allowmyself to think such things happen. The opening chapters were written in a fine, old fashioned apartmenthouse which had once been a family house, and in an uppermost room ofwhich I could look from my work across the trees of the little park inStuyvesant Square to the towers of St. George's Church. Then later in thespring of 1889 the unfinished novel was carried to a country house on theBelmont border of Cambridge. There I must have written very rapidly tohave pressed it to conclusion before the summer ended. It came, indeed, so easily from the pen that I had the misgiving which I always have ofthings which do not cost me great trouble. There is nothing in the book with which I amused myself more than thehouse-hunting of the Marches when they were placing themselves in NewYork; and if the contemporary reader should turn for instruction to thepages in which their experience is detailed I assure him that he maytrust their fidelity and accuracy in the article of New York housing asit was early in the last decade of the last century: I mean, the housingof people of such moderate means as the Marches. In my zeal for truth Idid not distinguish between reality and actuality in this or othermatters--that is, one was as precious to me as the other. But the typeshere portrayed are as true as ever they were, though the world in whichthey were finding their habitat is wonderfully, almost incrediblydifferent. Yet it is not wholly different, for a young literary pair nowadventuring in New York might easily parallel the experience of theMarches with their own, if not for so little money; many phases of NewYork housing are better, but all are dearer. Other aspects of thematerial city have undergone a transformation much more wonderful. I findthat in my book its population is once modestly spoken of as twomillions, but now in twenty years it is twice as great, and the grandeuras well as grandiosity of its forms is doubly apparent. The transitionalpublic that then moped about in mildly tinkling horse-cars is now hurriedback and forth in clanging trolleys, in honking and whirring motors; theElevated road which was the last word of speed is undermined by theSubway, shooting its swift shuttles through the subterranean woof of thecity's haste. From these feet let the witness infer our whole massiveHercules, a bulk that sprawls and stretches beyond the rivers through thetunnels piercing their beds and that towers into the skies withinnumerable tops--a Hercules blent of Briareus and Cerberus, but not sobad a monster as it seemed then to threaten becoming. Certain hopes of truer and better conditions on which my heart was fixedtwenty years ago are not less dear, and they are by no means touched withdespair, though they have not yet found the fulfilment which I would thenhave prophesied for them. Events have not wholly played them false;events have not halted, though they have marched with a slowness thatmight affect a younger observer as marking time. They who were thenmindful of the poor have not forgotten them, and what is better the poorhave not often forgotten themselves in violences such as offered me thematerial of tragedy and pathos in my story. In my quality of artist Icould not regret these, and I gratefully realize that they offered me theopportunity of a more strenuous action, a more impressive catastrophethan I could have achieved without them. They tended to give the wholefable dignity and doubtless made for its success as a book. As a serialit had crept a sluggish course before a public apparently so unmindful ofit that no rumor of its acceptance or rejection reached the writer duringthe half year of its publication; but it rose in book form from thatfailure and stood upon its feet and went its way to greater favor thanany book of his had yet enjoyed. I hope that my recognition of the factwill not seem like boasting, but that the reader will regard it as aspecial confidence from the author and will let it go no farther. KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909. PART FIRST A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNESI. "Now, you think this thing over, March, and let me know the last of nextweek, " said Fulkerson. He got up from the chair which he had been sittingastride, with his face to its back, and tilting toward March on itshind-legs, and came and rapped upon his table with his thin bamboo stick. "What you want to do is to get out of the insurance business, anyway. Youacknowledge that yourself. You never liked it, and now it makes you sick;in other words, it's killing you. You ain't an insurance man by nature. You're a natural-born literary man, and you've been going against thegrain. Now, I offer you a chance to go with the grain. I don't say you'regoing to make your everlasting fortune, but I'll give you a livingsalary, and if the thing succeeds you'll share in its success. We'll allshare in its success. That's the beauty of it. I tell you, March, this isthe greatest idea that has been struck since"--Fulkerson stopped andsearched his mind for a fit image--"since the creation of man. " He put his leg up over the corner of March's table and gave himself asharp cut on the thigh, and leaned forward to get the full effect of hiswords upon his listener. March had his hands clasped together behind his head, and he took one ofthem down long enough to put his inkstand and mucilage-bottle out ofFulkerson's way. After many years' experiment of a mustache and whiskers, he now wore his grizzled beard full, but cropped close; it gave him acertain grimness, corrected by the gentleness of his eyes. "Some people don't think much of the creation of man nowadays. Why stopat that? Why not say since the morning stars sang together?" "No, sir; no, sir! I don't want to claim too much, and I draw the line atthe creation of man. I'm satisfied with that. But if you want to ring themorning stars into the prospectus all right; I won't go back on you. " "But I don't understand why you've set your mind on me, " March said. "Ihaven't had, any magazine experience, you know that; and I haven'tseriously attempted to do anything in literature since I was married. Igave up smoking and the Muse together. I suppose I could still manage acigar, but I don't believe I could--" "Muse worth a cent. " Fulkerson took the thought out of his mouth and putit into his own words. "I know. Well, I don't want you to. I don't careif you never write a line for the thing, though you needn't rejectanything of yours, if it happens to be good, on that account. And I don'twant much experience in my editor; rather not have it. You told me, didn't you, that you used to do some newspaper work before you settleddown?" "Yes; I thought my lines were permanently cast in those places once. Itwas more an accident than anything else that I got into the insurancebusiness. I suppose I secretly hoped that if I made my living bysomething utterly different, I could come more freshly to literatureproper in my leisure. " "I see; and you found the insurance business too many, for you. Well, anyway, you've always had a hankering for the inkpots; and the fact thatyou first gave me the idea of this thing shows that you've done more orless thinking about magazines. " "Yes--less. " "Well, all right. Now don't you be troubled. I know what I want, generally, speaking, and in this particular instance I want you. I mightget a man of more experience, but I should probably get a man of moreprejudice and self-conceit along with him, and a man with a following ofthe literary hangers-on that are sure to get round an editor sooner orlater. I want to start fair, and I've found out in the syndicate businessall the men that are worth having. But they know me, and they don't knowyou, and that's where we shall have the pull on them. They won't be ableto work the thing. Don't you be anxious about the experience. I've gotexperience enough of my own to run a dozen editors. What I want is aneditor who has taste, and you've got it; and conscience, and you've gotit; and horse sense, and you've got that. And I like you because you're aWestern man, and I'm another. I do cotton to a Western man when I findhim off East here, holding his own with the best of 'em, and showing 'emthat he's just as much civilized as they are. We both know what it is tohave our bright home in the setting sun; heigh?" "I think we Western men who've come East are apt to take ourselves alittle too objectively and to feel ourselves rather more representativethan we need, " March remarked. Fulkerson was delighted. "You've hit it! We do! We are!" "And as for holding my own, I'm not very proud of what I've done in thatway; it's been very little to hold. But I know what you mean, Fulkerson, and I've felt the same thing myself; it warmed me toward you when wefirst met. I can't help suffusing a little to any man when I hear that hewas born on the other side of the Alleghanies. It's perfectly stupid. Idespise the same thing when I see it in Boston people. " Fulkerson pulled first one of his blond whiskers and then the other, andtwisted the end of each into a point, which he left to untwine itself. Hefixed March with his little eyes, which had a curious innocence in theircunning, and tapped the desk immediately in front of him. "What I likeabout you is that you're broad in your sympathies. The first time I sawyou, that night on the Quebec boat, I said to myself: 'There's a man Iwant to know. There's a human being. ' I was a little afraid of Mrs. Marchand the children, but I felt at home with you--thoroughlydomesticated--before I passed a word with you; and when you spoke first, and opened up with a joke over that fellow's tableful of light literatureand Indian moccasins and birch-bark toy canoes and stereoscopic views, Iknew that we were brothers-spiritual twins. I recognized the Westernstyle of fun, and I thought, when you said you were from Boston, that itwas some of the same. But I see now that its being a cold fact, as far asthe last fifteen or twenty years count, is just so much gain. You knowboth sections, and you can make this thing go, from ocean to ocean. " "We might ring that into the prospectus, too, " March suggested, with asmile. "You might call the thing 'From Sea to Sea. ' By-the-way, what areyou going to call it?" "I haven't decided yet; that's one of the things I wanted to talk withyou about. I had thought of 'The Syndicate'; but it sounds kind of dry, and doesn't seem to cover the ground exactly. I should like somethingthat would express the co-operative character of the thing, but I don'tknow as I can get it. " "Might call it 'The Mutual'. " "They'd think it was an insurance paper. No, that won't do. But Mutualcomes pretty near the idea. If we could get something like that, it wouldpique curiosity; and then if we could get paragraphs afloat explainingthat the contributors were to be paid according to the sales, it would bea first-rate ad. " He bent a wide, anxious, inquiring smile upon March, who suggested, lazily: "You might call it 'The Round-Robin'. That would express thecentral idea of irresponsibility. As I understand, everybody is to sharethe profits and be exempt from the losses. Or, if I'm wrong, and thereverse is true, you might call it 'The Army of Martyrs'. Come, thatsounds attractive, Fulkerson! Or what do you think of 'The Fifth Wheel'?That would forestall the criticism that there are too many literaryperiodicals already. Or, if you want to put forward the idea of completeindependence, you could call it 'The Free Lance'; or--" "Or 'The Hog on Ice'--either stand up or fall down, you know, " Fulkersonbroke in coarsely. "But we'll leave the name of the magazine till we getthe editor. I see the poison's beginning to work in you, March; and if Ihad time I'd leave the result to time. But I haven't. I've got to knowinside of the next week. To come down to business with you, March, Isha'n't start this thing unless I can get you to take hold of it. " He seemed to expect some acknowledgment, and March said, "Well, that'svery nice of you, Fulkerson. " "No, sir; no, sir! I've always liked you and wanted you ever since we metthat first night. I had this thing inchoately in my mind then, when I wastelling you about the newspaper syndicate business--beautiful vision of alot of literary fellows breaking loose from the bondage of publishers andplaying it alone--" "You might call it 'The Lone Hand'; that would be attractive, " Marchinterrupted. "The whole West would know what you meant. " Fulkerson was talking seriously, and March was listening seriously; butthey both broke off and laughed. Fulkerson got down off the table andmade some turns about the room. It was growing late; the October sun hadleft the top of the tall windows; it was still clear day, but it wouldsoon be twilight; they had been talking a long time. Fulkerson came andstood with his little feet wide apart, and bent his little lean, squareface on March. "See here! How much do you get out of this thing here, anyway?" "The insurance business?" March hesitated a moment and then said, with acertain effort of reserve, "At present about three thousand. " He lookedup at Fulkerson with a glance, as if he had a mind to enlarge upon thefact, and then dropped his eyes without saying more. Whether Fulkerson had not thought it so much or not, he said: "Well, I'llgive you thirty-five hundred. Come! And your chances in the success. " "We won't count the chances in the success. And I don't believethirty-five hundred would go any further in New York than three thousandin Boston. " "But you don't live on three thousand here?" "No; my wife has a little property. " "Well, she won't lose the income if you go to New York. I suppose you payten or twelve hundred a year for your house here. You can get plenty offlats in New York for the same money; and I understand you can get allsorts of provisions for less than you pay now--three or four cents on thepound. Come!" This was by no means the first talk they had had about the matter; everythree or four months during the past two years the syndicate man haddropped in upon March to air the scheme and to get his impressions of it. This had happened so often that it had come to be a sort of joke betweenthem. But now Fulkerson clearly meant business, and March had a struggleto maintain himself in a firm poise of refusal. "I dare say it wouldn't--or it needn't-cost so very much more, but Idon't want to go to New York; or my wife doesn't. It's the same thing. " "A good deal samer, " Fulkerson admitted. March did not quite like his candor, and he went on with dignity. "It'svery natural she shouldn't. She has always lived in Boston; she'sattached to the place. Now, if you were going to start 'The Fifth Wheel'in Boston--" Fulkerson slowly and sadly shook his head, but decidedly. "Wouldn't do. You might as well say St. Louis or Cincinnati. There's only one city thatbelongs to the whole country, and that's New York. " "Yes, I know, " sighed March; "and Boston belongs to the Bostonians, butthey like you to make yourself at home while you're visiting. " "If you'll agree to make phrases like that, right along, and get theminto 'The Round-Robin' somehow, I'll say four thousand, " said Fulkerson. "You think it over now, March. You talk it over with Mrs. March; I knowyou will, anyway; and I might as well make a virtue of advising you to doit. Tell her I advised you to do it, and you let me know before nextSaturday what you've decided. " March shut down the rolling top of his desk in the corner of the room, and walked Fulkerson out before him. It was so late that the last of thechore-women who washed down the marble halls and stairs of the greatbuilding had wrung out her floor-cloth and departed, leaving spotlessstone and a clean, damp smell in the darkening corridors behind her. "Couldn't offer you such swell quarters in New York, March, " Fulkersonsaid, as he went tack-tacking down the steps with his small boot-heels. "But I've got my eye on a little house round in West Eleventh Street thatI'm going to fit up for my bachelor's hall in the third story, and adaptfor 'The Lone Hand' in the first and second, if this thing goes through;and I guess we'll be pretty comfortable. It's right on the Sand Strip--nomalaria of any kind. " "I don't know that I'm going to share its salubrity with you yet, " Marchsighed, in an obvious travail which gave Fulkerson hopes. "Oh yes, you are, " he coaxed. "Now, you talk it over with your wife. Yougive her a fair, unprejudiced chance at the thing on its merits, and I'mvery much mistaken in Mrs. March if she doesn't tell you to go in andwin. We're bound to win!" They stood on the outside steps of the vast edifice beetling like agranite crag above them, with the stone groups of an allegory oflife-insurance foreshortened in the bas-relief overhead. March absentlylifted his eyes to it. It was suddenly strange after so many years'familiarity, and so was the well-known street in its Saturday-eveningsolitude. He asked himself, with prophetic homesickness, if it were anomen of what was to be. But he only said, musingly: "A fortnightly. Youknow that didn't work in England. The fortnightly is published once amonth now. " "It works in France, " Fulkerson retorted. "The 'Revue des Deux Mondes' isstill published twice a month. I guess we can make it work inAmerica--with illustrations. " "Going to have illustrations?" "My dear boy! What are you giving me? Do I look like the sort of lunaticwho would start a thing in the twilight of the nineteenth century withoutillustrations? Come off!" "Ah, that complicates it! I don't know anything about art. " March's lookof discouragement confessed the hold the scheme had taken upon him. "I don't want you to!" Fulkerson retorted. "Don't you suppose I shallhave an art man?" "And will they--the artists--work at a reduced rate, too, like thewriters, with the hopes of a share in the success?" "Of course they will! And if I want any particular man, for a card, I'llpay him big money besides. But I can get plenty of first-rate sketches onmy own terms. You'll see! They'll pour in!" "Look here, Fulkerson, " said March, "you'd better call this fortnightlyof yours 'The Madness o f the Half-Moon'; or 'Bedlam Broke Loose'wouldn't be bad! Why do you throw away all your hard earnings on such acrazy venture? Don't do it!" The kindness which March had always felt, inspite of his wife's first misgivings and reservations, for the merry, hopeful, slangy, energetic little creature trembled in his voice. Theyhad both formed a friendship for Fulkerson during the week they weretogether in Quebec. When he was not working the newspapers there, he wentabout with them over the familiar ground they were showing theirchildren, and was simply grateful for the chance, as well as veryentertaining about it all. The children liked him, too; when they got theclew to his intention, and found that he was not quite serious in many ofthe things he said, they thought he was great fun. They were always gladwhen their father brought him home on the occasion of Fulkerson's visitsto Boston; and Mrs. March, though of a charier hospitality, welcomedFulkerson with a grateful sense of his admiration for her husband. He hada way of treating March with deference, as an older and abler man, and ofqualifying the freedom he used toward every one with an implication thatMarch tolerated it voluntarily, which she thought very sweet and evenrefined. "Ah, now you're talking like a man and a brother, " said Fulkerson. "Why, March, old man, do you suppose I'd come on here and try to talk you intothis thing if I wasn't morally, if I wasn't perfectly, sure of success?There isn't any if or and about it. I know my ground, every inch; and Idon't stand alone on it, " he added, with a significance which did notescape March. "When you've made up your mind I can give you the proof;but I'm not at liberty now to say anything more. I tell you it's going tobe a triumphal march from the word go, with coffee and lemonade for theprocession along the whole line. All you've got to do is to fall in. " Hestretched out his hand to March. "You let me know as soon as you can. " March deferred taking his hand till he could ask, "Where are you going?" "Parker House. Take the eleven for New York to-night. " "I thought I might walk your way. " March looked at his watch. "But Ishouldn't have time. Goodbye!" He now let Fulkerson have his hand, and they exchanged a cordialpressure. Fulkerson started away at a quick, light pace. Half a block offhe stopped, turned round, and, seeing March still standing where he hadleft him, he called back, joyously, "I've got the name!" "What?" "Every Other Week. " "It isn't bad. " "Ta-ta!" II. All the way up to the South End March mentally prolonged his talk withFulkerson, and at his door in Nankeen Square he closed the parley with aplump refusal to go to New York on any terms. His daughter Bella waslying in wait for him in the hall, and she threw her arms round his neckwith the exuberance of her fourteen years and with something of thehistrionic intention of her sex. He pressed on, with her clinging abouthim, to the library, and, in the glow of his decision against Fulkerson, kissed his wife, where she sat by the study lamp reading the Transcriptthrough her first pair of eye-glasses: it was agreed in the family thatshe looked distinguished in them, or, at any rate, cultivated. She tookthem off to give him a glance of question, and their son Tom looked upfrom his book for a moment; he was in his last year at the high school, and was preparing for Harvard. "I didn't get away from the office till half-past five, " March explainedto his wife's glance, "and then I walked. I suppose dinner's waiting. I'msorry, but I won't do it any more. " At table he tried to be gay with Bella, who babbled at him with a volublepertness which her brother had often advised her parents to check in her, unless they wanted her to be universally despised. "Papa!" she shouted at last, "you're not listening!" As soon as possiblehis wife told the children they might be excused. Then she asked, "Whatis it, Basil?" "What is what?" he retorted, with a specious brightness that did notavail. "What is on your mind?" "How do you know there's anything?" "Your kissing me so when you came in, for one thing. " "Don't I always kiss you when I come in?" "Not now. I suppose it isn't necessary any more. 'Cela va sans baiser. '" "Yes, I guess it's so; we get along without the symbolism now. " Hestopped, but she knew that he had not finished. "Is it about your business? Have they done anything more?" "No; I'm still in the dark. I don't know whether they mean to supplantme, or whether they ever did. But I wasn't thinking about that. Fulkersonhas been to see me again. " "Fulkerson?" She brightened at the name, and March smiled, too. "Whydidn't you bring him to dinner?" "I wanted to talk with you. Then you do like him?" "What has that got to do with it, Basil?" "Nothing! nothing! That is, he was boring away about that scheme of hisagain. He's got it into definite shape at last. " "What shape?" March outlined it for her, and his wife seized its main features with theintuitive sense of affairs which makes women such good business-men whenthey will let it. "It sounds perfectly crazy, " she said, finally. "But it mayn't be. Theonly thing I didn't like about Mr. Fulkerson was his always wanting tochance things. But what have you got to do with it?" "What have I got to do with it?" March toyed with the delay the questiongave him; then he said, with a sort of deprecatory laugh: "It seems thatFulkerson has had his eye on me ever since we met that night on theQuebec boat. I opened up pretty freely to him, as you do to a man younever expect to see again, and when I found he was in that newspapersyndicate business I told him about my early literary ambitions--" "You can't say that I ever discouraged them, Basil, " his wife put in. "Ishould have been willing, any time, to give up everything for them. " "Well, he says that I first suggested this brilliant idea to him. PerhapsI did; I don't remember. When he told me about his supplying literatureto newspapers for simultaneous publication, he says I asked: 'Why notapply the principle of co-operation to a magazine, and run it in theinterest of the contributors?' and that set him to thinking, and hethought out his plan of a periodical which should pay authors and artistsa low price outright for their work and give them a chance of the profitsin the way of a percentage. After all, it isn't so very different fromthe chances an author takes when he publishes a book. And Fulkersonthinks that the novelty of the thing would pique public curiosity, if itdidn't arouse public sympathy. And the long and short of it is, Isabel, that he wants me to help edit it. " "To edit it?" His wife caught her breath, and she took a little time torealize the fact, while she stared hard at her husband to make sure hewas not joking. "Yes. He says he owes it all to me; that I invented the idea--thegerm--the microbe. " His wife had now realized the fact, at least in a degree that excludedtrifling with it. "That is very honorable of Mr. Fulkerson; and if heowes it to you, it was the least he could do. " Having recognized herhusband's claim to the honor done him, she began to kindle with a senseof the honor itself and the value of the opportunity. "It's a very highcompliment to you, Basil--a very high compliment. And you could give upthis wretched insurance business that you've always hated so, and that'smaking you so unhappy now that you think they're going to take it fromyou. Give it up and take Mr. Fulkerson's offer! It's a perfectinterposition, coming just at this time! Why, do it! Mercy!" she suddenlyarrested herself, "he wouldn't expect you to get along on the possibleprofits?" Her face expressed the awfulness of the notion. March smiled reassuringly, and waited to give himself the pleasure of thesensation he meant to give her. "If I'll make striking phrases for it andedit it, too, he'll give me four thousand dollars. " He leaned back in his chair, and stuck his hands deep into his pockets, and watched his wife's face, luminous with the emotions that flashedthrough her mind-doubt, joy, anxiety. "Basil! You don't mean it! Why, take it! Take it instantly! Oh, what athing to happen! Oh, what luck! But you deserve it, if you firstsuggested it. What an escape, what a triumph over all those hatefulinsurance people! Oh, Basil, I'm afraid he'll change his mind! You oughtto have accepted on the spot. You might have known I would approve, andyou could so easily have taken it back if I didn't. Telegraph him now!Run right out with the despatch--Or we can send Tom!" In these imperatives of Mrs. March's there was always much of theconditional. She meant that he should do what she said, if it wereentirely right; and she never meant to be considered as having urged him. "And suppose his enterprise went wrong?" her husband suggested. "It won't go wrong. Hasn't he made a success of his syndicate?" "He says so--yes. " "Very well, then, it stands to reason that he'll succeed in this, too. Hewouldn't undertake it if he didn't know it would succeed; he must havecapital. " "It will take a great deal to get such a thing going; and even if he'sgot an Angel behind him--" She caught at the word--"An Angel?" "It's what the theatrical people call a financial backer. He dropped ahint of something of that kind. " "Of course, he's got an Angel, " said his wife, promptly adopting theword. "And even if he hadn't, still, Basil, I should be willing to haveyou risk it. The risk isn't so great, is it? We shouldn't be ruined if itfailed altogether. With our stocks we have two thousand a year, anyway, and we could pinch through on that till you got into some other businessafterward, especially if we'd saved something out of your salary while itlasted. Basil, I want you to try it! I know it will give you a new leaseof life to have a congenial occupation. " March laughed, but his wifepersisted. "I'm all for your trying it, Basil; indeed I am. If it's anexperiment, you can give it up. " "It can give me up, too. " "Oh, nonsense! I guess there's not much fear of that. Now, I want you totelegraph Mr. Fulkerson, so that he'll find the despatch waiting for himwhen he gets to New York. I'll take the whole responsibility, Basil, andI'll risk all the consequences. " III. March's face had sobered more and more as she followed one hopeful burstwith another, and now it expressed a positive pain. But he forced a smileand said: "There's a little condition attached. Where did you suppose itwas to be published?" "Why, in Boston, of course. Where else should it be published?" She looked at him for the intention of his question so searchingly thathe quite gave up the attempt to be gay about it. "No, " he said, gravely, "it's to be published in New York. " She fell back in her chair. "In New York?" She leaned forward over thetable toward him, as if to make sure that she heard aright, and said, with all the keen reproach that he could have expected: "In New York, Basil! Oh, how could you have let me go on?" He had a sufficiently rueful face in owning: "I oughtn't to have done it, but I got started wrong. I couldn't help putting the best foot, forwardat first--or as long as the whole thing was in the air. I didn't knowthat you would take so much to the general enterprise, or else I shouldhave mentioned the New York condition at once; but, of course, that putsan end to it. " "Oh, of course, " she assented, sadly. "We COULDN'T go to New York. " "No, I know that, " he said; and with this a perverse desire to tempt herto the impossibility awoke in him, though he was really quite cold aboutthe affair himself now. "Fulkerson thought we could get a nice flat inNew York for about what the interest and taxes came to here, andprovisions are cheaper. But I should rather not experiment at my time oflife. If I could have been caught younger, I might have been inured toNew York, but I don't believe I could stand it now. " "How I hate to have you talk that way, Basil! You are young enough to tryanything--anywhere; but you know I don't like New York. I don't approveof it. It's so big, and so hideous! Of course I shouldn't mind that; butI've always lived in Boston, and the children were born and have alltheir friendships and associations here. " She added, with thehelplessness that discredited her good sense and did her injustice, "Ihave just got them both into the Friday afternoon class at Papanti's, andyou know how difficult that is. " March could not fail to take advantage of an occasion like this. "Well, that alone ought to settle it. Under the circumstances, it would beflying in the face of Providence to leave Boston. The mere fact of abrilliant opening like that offered me on 'The Microbe, ' and the halcyonfuture which Fulkerson promises if we'll come to New York, is as dust inthe balance against the advantages of the Friday afternoon class. " "Basil, " she appealed, solemnly, "have I ever interfered with yourcareer?" "I never had any for you to interfere with, my dear. " "Basil! Haven't I always had faith in you? And don't you suppose that ifI thought it would really be for your advancement I would go to New Yorkor anywhere with you?" "No, my dear, I don't, " he teased. "If it would be for my salvation, yes, perhaps; but not short of that; and I should have to prove by a cloud ofwitnesses that it would. I don't blame you. I wasn't born in Boston, butI understand how you feel. And really, my dear, " he added, without irony, "I never seriously thought of asking you to go to New York. I was dazzledby Fulkerson's offer, I'll own that; but his choice of me as editorsapped my confidence in him. " "I don't like to hear you say that, Basil, " she entreated. "Well, of course there were mitigating circumstances. I could see thatFulkerson meant to keep the whip-hand himself, and that was reassuring. And, besides, if the Reciprocity Life should happen not to want myservices any longer, it wouldn't be quite like giving up a certainty;though, as a matter of business, I let Fulkerson get that impression; Ifelt rather sneaking to do it. But if the worst comes to the worst, I canlook about for something to do in Boston; and, anyhow, people don'tstarve on two thousand a year, though it's convenient to have five. Thefact is, I'm too old to change so radically. If you don't like my sayingthat, then you are, Isabel, and so are the children. I've no right totake them from the home we've made, and to change the whole course oftheir lives, unless I can assure them of something, and I can't assurethem of anything. Boston is big enough for us, and it's certainlyprettier than New York. I always feel a little proud of hailing fromBoston; my pleasure in the place mounts the farther I get away from it. But I do appreciate it, my dear; I've no more desire to leave it than youhave. You may be sure that if you don't want to take the children out ofthe Friday afternoon class, I don't want to leave my library here, andall the ways I've got set in. We'll keep on. Very likely the companywon't supplant me, and if it does, and Watkins gets the place, he'll giveme a subordinate position of some sort. Cheer up, Isabel! I have putSatan and his angel, Fulkerson, behind me, and it's all right. Let's goin to the children. " He came round the table to Isabel, where she sat in a growingdistraction, and lifted her by the waist from her chair. She sighed deeply. "Shall we tell the children about it?" "No. What's the use, now?" "There wouldn't be any, " she assented. When they entered the family room, where the boy and girl sat on either side of the lamp working out thelessons for Monday which they had left over from the day before, sheasked, "Children, how would you like to live in New York?" Bella made haste to get in her word first. "And give up the Fridayafternoon class?" she wailed. Tom growled from his book, without lifting his eyes: "I shouldn't want togo to Columbia. They haven't got any dormitories, and you have to boardround anywhere. Are you going to New York?" He now deigned to look up athis father. "No, Tom. You and Bella have decided me against it. Your perspectiveshows the affair in its true proportions. I had an offer to go to NewYork, but I've refused it. " IV March's irony fell harmless from the children's preoccupation with theirown affairs, but he knew that his wife felt it, and this added to thebitterness which prompted it. He blamed her for letting her provincialnarrowness prevent his accepting Fulkerson's offer quite as much as if hehad otherwise entirely wished to accept it. His world, like most worlds, had been superficially a disappointment. He was no richer than at thebeginning, though in marrying he had given up some tastes, somepreferences, some aspirations, in the hope of indulging them later, withlarger means and larger leisure. His wife had not urged him to do it; infact, her pride, as she said, was in his fitness for the life he hadrenounced; but she had acquiesced, and they had been very happy together. That is to say, they made up their quarrels or ignored them. They often accused each other of being selfish and indifferent, but sheknew that he would always sacrifice himself for her and the children; andhe, on his part, with many gibes and mockeries, wholly trusted in her. They had grown practically tolerant of each other's disagreeable traits;and the danger that really threatened them was that they should grow toowell satisfied with themselves, if not with each other. They were notsentimental, they were rather matter-of-fact in their motives; but theyhad both a sort of humorous fondness for sentimentality. They liked toplay with the romantic, from the safe vantage-ground of their realpracticality, and to divine the poetry of the commonplace. Their peculiarpoint of view separated them from most other people, with whom theirmeans of self-comparison were not so good since their marriage as before. Then they had travelled and seen much of the world, and they had formedtastes which they had not always been able to indulge, but of which theyfelt that the possession reflected distinction on them. It enabled themto look down upon those who were without such tastes; but they were notill-natured, and so they did not look down so much with contempt as withamusement. In their unfashionable neighborhood they had the fame of beingnot exclusive precisely, but very much wrapped up in themselves and theirchildren. Mrs. March was reputed to be very cultivated, and Mr. March even more so, among the simpler folk around them. Their house had some good pictures, which her aunt had brought home from Europe in more affluent days, and itabounded in books on which he spent more than he ought. They hadbeautified it in every way, and had unconsciously taken credit to themselves for it. They felt, with a glow almost of virtue, how perfectly itfitted their lives and their children's, and they believed that somehowit expressed their characters--that it was like them. They went out verylittle; she remained shut up in its refinement, working the good of herown; and he went to his business, and hurried back to forget it, anddream his dream of intellectual achievement in the flattering atmosphereof her sympathy. He could not conceal from himself that his divided lifewas somewhat like Charles Lamb's, and there were times when, as he hadexpressed to Fulkerson, he believed that its division was favorable tothe freshness of his interest in literature. It certainly kept it a highprivilege, a sacred refuge. Now and then he wrote something, and got itprinted after long delays, and when they met on the St. LawrenceFulkerson had some of March's verses in his pocket-book, which he had cutout of astray newspaper and carried about for years, because they pleasedhis fancy so much; they formed an immediate bond of union between the menwhen their authorship was traced and owned, and this gave a pretty colorof romance to their acquaintance. But, for the most part, March wassatisfied to read. He was proud of reading critically, and he kept in thecurrent of literary interests and controversies. It all seemed to him, and to his wife at second-hand, very meritorious; he could not helpcontrasting his life and its inner elegance with that of other men whohad no such resources. He thought that he was not arrogant about it, because he did full justice to the good qualities of those other people;he congratulated himself upon the democratic instincts which enabled himto do this; and neither he nor his wife supposed that they were selfishpersons. On the contrary, they were very sympathetic; there was no goodcause that they did not wish well; they had a generous scorn of all kindsof narrow-heartedness; if it had ever come into their way to sacrificethemselves for others, they thought they would have done so, but theynever asked why it had not come in their way. They were very gentle andkind, even when most elusive; and they taught their children to loatheall manner of social cruelty. March was of so watchful a conscience insome respects that he denied himself the pensive pleasure of lapsing intothe melancholy of unfulfilled aspirations; but he did not see that, if hehad abandoned them, it had been for what he held dearer; generally hefelt as if he had turned from them with a high, altruistic aim. Thepractical expression of his life was that it was enough to provide wellfor his family; to have cultivated tastes, and to gratify them to theextent of his means; to be rather distinguished, even in thesimplification of his desires. He believed, and his wife believed, thatif the time ever came when he really wished to make a sacrifice to thefulfilment of the aspirations so long postponed, she would be ready tojoin with heart and hand. When he went to her room from his library, where she left him the wholeevening with the children, he found her before the glass thoughtfullyremoving the first dismantling pin from her back hair. "I can't help feeling, " she grieved into the mirror, "that it's I whokeep you from accepting that offer. I know it is! I could go West withyou, or into a new country--anywhere; but New York terrifies me. I don'tlike New York, I never did; it disheartens and distracts me; I can't findmyself in it; I shouldn't know how to shop. I know I'm foolish and narrowand provincial, " she went on, "but I could never have any inner quiet inNew York; I couldn't live in the spirit there. I suppose people do. Itcan't be that all these millions--' "Oh, not so bad as that!" March interposed, laughing. "There aren't quitetwo. " "I thought there were four or five. Well, no matter. You see what I am, Basil. I'm terribly limited. I couldn't make my sympathies go round twomillion people; I should be wretched. I suppose I'm standing in the wayof your highest interest, but I can't help it. We took each other forbetter or worse, and you must try to bear with me--" She broke off andbegan to cry. "Stop it!" shouted March. "I tell you I never cared anything forFulkerson's scheme or entertained it seriously, and I shouldn't if he'dproposed to carry it out in Boston. " This was not quite true, but in theretrospect it seemed sufficiently so for the purposes of argument. "Don'tsay another word about it. The thing's over now, and I don't want tothink of it any more. We couldn't change its nature if we talked allnight. But I want you to understand that it isn't your limitations thatare in the way. It's mine. I shouldn't have the courage to take such aplace; I don't think I'm fit for it, and that's the long and short ofit. " "Oh, you don't know how it hurts me to have you say that, Basil. " The next morning, as they sat together at breakfast, without thechildren, whom they let lie late on Sunday, Mrs. March said to herhusband, silent over his fish-balls and baked beans: "We will go to NewYork. I've decided it. " "Well, it takes two to decide that, " March retorted. "We are not going toNew York. " "Yes, we are. I've thought it out. Now, listen. " "Oh, I'm willing to listen, " he consented, airily. "You've always wanted to get out of the insurance business, and now withthat fear of being turned out which you have you mustn't neglect thisoffer. I suppose it has its risks, but it's a risk keeping on as we are;and perhaps you will make a great success of it. I do want you to try, Basil. If I could once feel that you had fairly seen what you could do inliterature, I should die happy. " "Not immediately after, I hope, " he suggested, taking the second cup ofcoffee she had been pouring out for him. "And Boston?" "We needn't make a complete break. We can keep this place for thepresent, anyway; we could let it for the winter, and come back in thesummer next year. It would be change enough from New York. " "Fulkerson and I hadn't got as far as to talk of a vacation. " "No matter. The children and I could come. And if you didn't like NewYork, or the enterprise failed, you could get into something in Bostonagain; and we have enough to live on till you did. Yes, Basil, I'mgoing. " "I can see by the way your chin trembles that nothing could stop you. Youmay go to New York if you wish, Isabel, but I shall stay here. " "Be serious, Basil. I'm in earnest. " "Serious? If I were any more serious I should shed tears. Come, my dear, I know what you mean, and if I had my heart set on this thing--Fulkersonalways calls it 'this thing' I would cheerfully accept any sacrifice youcould make to it. But I'd rather not offer you up on a shrine I don'tfeel any particular faith in. I'm very comfortable where I am; that is, Iknow just where the pinch comes, and if it comes harder, why, I've gotused to bearing that kind of pinch. I'm too old to change pinches. " "Now, that does decide me. " "It decides me, too. " "I will take all the responsibility, Basil, " she pleaded. "Oh yes; but you'll hand it back to me as soon as you've carried yourpoint with it. There's nothing mean about you, Isabel, whereresponsibility is concerned. No; if I do this thing--Fulkerson again? Ican't get away from 'this thing'; it's ominous--I must do it because Iwant to do it, and not because you wish that you wanted me to do it. Iunderstand your position, Isabel, and that you're really acting from agenerous impulse, but there's nothing so precarious at our time of lifeas a generous impulse. When we were younger we could stand it; we couldgive way to it and take the consequences. But now we can't bear it. Wemust act from cold reason even in the ardor of self-sacrifice. " "Oh, as if you did that!" his wife retorted. "Is that any cause why you shouldn't?" She could not say that it was, andhe went on triumphantly: "No, I won't take you away from the only safe place on the planet andplunge you into the most perilous, and then have you say in yourrevulsion of feeling that you were all against it from the first, and yougave way because you saw I had my heart set on it. " He supposed he wastreating the matter humorously, but in this sort of banter betweenhusband and wife there is always much more than the joking. March hadseen some pretty feminine inconsistencies and trepidations which oncecharmed him in his wife hardening into traits of middle-age which werevery like those of less interesting older women. The sight moved him witha kind of pathos, but he felt the result hindering and vexatious. She now retorted that if he did not choose to take her at her word beneed not, but that whatever he did she should have nothing to reproachherself with; and, at least, he could not say that she had trapped himinto anything. "What do you mean by trapping?" he demanded. "I don't know what you call it, " she answered; "but when you get me tocommit myself to a thing by leaving out the most essential point, I callit trapping. " "I wonder you stop at trapping, if you think I got you to favorFulkerson's scheme and then sprung New York on you. I don't suppose youdo, though. But I guess we won't talk about it any more. " He went out for a long walk, and she went to her room. They lunchedsilently together in the presence of their children, who knew that theyhad been quarrelling, but were easily indifferent to the fact, aschildren get to be in such cases; nature defends their youth, and theunhappiness which they behold does not infect them. In the evening, afterthe boy and girl had gone to bed, the father and mother resumed theirtalk. He would have liked to take it up at the point from which itwandered into hostilities, for he felt it lamentable that a matter whichso seriously concerned them should be confused in the fumes of senselessanger; and he was willing to make a tacit acknowledgment of his own errorby recurring to the question, but she would not be content with this, andhe had to concede explicitly to her weakness that she really meant itwhen she had asked him to accept Fulkerson's offer. He said he knew that;and he began soberly to talk over their prospects in the event of theirgoing to New York. "Oh, I see you are going!" she twitted. "I'm going to stay, " he answered, "and let them turn me out of my agencyhere, " and in this bitterness their talk ended. V. His wife made no attempt to renew their talk before March went to hisbusiness in the morning, and they parted in dry offence. Their experiencewas that these things always came right of themselves at last, and theyusually let them. He knew that she had really tried to consent to a thingthat was repugnant to her, and in his heart he gave her more credit forthe effort than he had allowed her openly. She knew that she had made itwith the reservation he accused her of, and that he had a right to feelsore at what she could not help. But he left her to brood over hisingratitude, and she suffered him to go heavy and unfriended to meet thechances of the day. He said to himself that if she had assented cordiallyto the conditions of Fulkerson's offer, he would have had the courage totake all the other risks himself, and would have had the satisfaction ofresigning his place. As it was, he must wait till he was removed; and hefigured with bitter pleasure the pain she would feel when he came homesome day and told her he had been supplanted, after it was too late toclose with Fulkerson. He found a letter on his desk from the secretary, "Dictated, " intypewriting, which briefly informed him that Mr. Hubbell, the Inspectorof Agencies, would be in Boston on Wednesday, and would call at hisoffice during the forenoon. The letter was not different in tone frommany that he had formerly received; but the visit announced was out ofthe usual order, and March believed he read his fate in it. During theeighteen years of his connection with it--first as a subordinate in theBoston office, and finally as its general agent there--he had seen a goodmany changes in the Reciprocity; presidents, vice-presidents, actuaries, and general agents had come and gone, but there had always seemed to be arecognition of his efficiency, or at least sufficiency, and there hadnever been any manner of trouble, no question of accounts, no apparentdissatisfaction with his management, until latterly, when there had begunto come from headquarters some suggestions of enterprise in certain ways, which gave him his first suspicions of his clerk Watkins's willingness tosucceed him; they embodied some of Watkins's ideas. The things proposedseemed to March undignified, and even vulgar; he had never thoughthimself wanting in energy, though probably he had left the business totake its own course in the old lines more than he realized. Things hadalways gone so smoothly that he had sometimes fancied a peculiar regardfor him in the management, which he had the weakness to attribute to anappreciation of what he occasionally did in literature, though in sanermoments he felt how impossible this was. Beyond a reference from Mr. Hubbell to some piece of March's which had happened to meet his eye, noone in the management ever gave a sign of consciousness that theirservice was adorned by an obscure literary man; and Mr. Hubbell himselfhad the effect of regarding the excursions of March's pen as a sort ofjoke, and of winking at them; as he might have winked if once in a way hehad found him a little the gayer for dining. March wore through the day gloomily, but he had it on his conscience notto show any resentment toward Watkins, whom he suspected of wishing tosupplant him, and even of working to do so. Through this self-denial hereached a better mind concerning his wife. He determined not to make hersuffer needlessly, if the worst came to the worst; she would sufferenough, at the best, and till the worst came he would spare her, and notsay anything about the letter he had got. But when they met, her first glance divined that something had happened, and her first question frustrated his generous intention. He had to tellher about the letter. She would not allow that it had any significance, but she wished him to make an end of his anxieties and forestall whateverit might portend by resigning his place at once. She said she was quiteready to go to New York; she had been thinking it all over, and now shereally wanted to go. He answered, soberly, that he had thought it over, too; and he did not wish to leave Boston, where he had lived so long, ortry a new way of life if he could help it. He insisted that he was quiteselfish in this; in their concessions their quarrel vanished; they agreedthat whatever happened would be for the best; and the next day he went tohis office fortified for any event. His destiny, if tragical, presented itself with an aspect which he mighthave found comic if it had been another's destiny. Mr. Hubbell broughtMarch's removal, softened in the guise of a promotion. The management atNew York, it appeared, had acted upon a suggestion of Mr. Hubbell's, andnow authorized him to offer March the editorship of the monthly paperpublished in the interest of the company; his office would include theauthorship of circulars and leaflets in behalf of life-insurance, andwould give play to the literary talent which Mr. Hubbell had brought tothe attention of the management; his salary would be nearly as much as atpresent, but the work would not take his whole time, and in a place likeNew York he could get a great deal of outside writing, which they wouldnot object to his doing. Mr. Hubbell seemed so sure of his acceptance of a place in every waycongenial to a man of literary tastes that March was afterward sorry hedismissed the proposition with obvious irony, and had needlessly hurtHubbell's feelings; but Mrs. March had no such regrets. She was onlyafraid that he had not made his rejection contemptuous enough. "And now, "she said, "telegraph Mr. Fulkerson, and we will go at once. " "I suppose I could still get Watkins's former place, " March suggested. "Never!" she retorted. "Telegraph instantly!" They were only afraid now that Fulkerson might have changed his mind, andthey had a wretched day in which they heard nothing from him. It endedwith his answering March's telegram in person. They were so glad of hiscoming, and so touched by his satisfaction with his bargain, that theylaid all the facts of the case before him. He entered fully into March'ssense of the joke latent in Mr. Hubbell's proposition, and he tried tomake Mrs. March believe that he shared her resentment of the indignityoffered her husband. March made a show of willingness to release him in view of the changedsituation, saying that he held him to nothing. Fulkerson laughed, andasked him how soon he thought he could come on to New York. He refused toreopen the question of March's fitness with him; he said they, had goneinto that thoroughly, but he recurred to it with Mrs. March, andconfirmed her belief in his good sense on all points. She had been fromthe first moment defiantly confident of her husband's ability, but tillshe had talked the matter over with Fulkerson she was secretly not sureof it; or, at least, she was not sure that March was not right indistrusting himself. When she clearly understood, now, what Fulkersonintended, she had no longer a doubt. He explained how the enterprisediffered from others, and how he needed for its direction a man whocombined general business experience and business ideas with a love forthe thing and a natural aptness for it. He did not want a young man, andyet he wanted youth--its freshness, its zest--such as March would feel ina thing he could put his whole heart into. He would not run in ruts, likean old fellow who had got hackneyed; he would not have any hobbies; hewould not have any friends or any enemies. Besides, he would have to meetpeople, and March was a man that people took to; she knew that herself;he had a kind of charm. The editorial management was going to be kept inthe background, as far as the public was concerned; the public was tosuppose that the thing ran itself. Fulkerson did not care for a greatliterary reputation in his editor--he implied that March had a verypretty little one. At the same time the relations between thecontributors and the management were to be much more, intimate thanusual. Fulkerson felt his personal disqualification for working the thingsocially, and he counted upon Mr. March for that; that was to say, hecounted upon Mrs. March. She protested he must not count upon her; but it by no means disabledFulkerson's judgment in her view that March really seemed more thananything else a fancy of his. He had been a fancy of hers; and the sortof affectionate respect with which Fulkerson spoke of him laid foreversome doubt she had of the fineness of Fulkerson's manners and reconciledher to the graphic slanginess of his speech. The affair was now irretrievable, but she gave her approval to it assuperbly as if it were submitted in its inception. Only, Mr. Fulkersonmust not suppose she should ever like New York. She would not deceive himon that point. She never should like it. She did not conceal, either, that she did not like taking the children out of the Friday afternoonclass; and she did not believe that Tom would ever be reconciled to goingto Columbia. She took courage from Fulkerson's suggestion that it waspossible for Tom to come to Harvard even from New York; and she heapedhim with questions concerning the domiciliation of the family in thatcity. He tried to know something about the matter, and he succeeded inseeming interested in points necessarily indifferent to him. VI. In the uprooting and transplanting of their home that followed, Mrs. March often trembled before distant problems and possible contingencies, but she was never troubled by present difficulties. She kept up withtireless energy; and in the moments of dejection and misgiving whichharassed her husband she remained dauntless, and put heart into him whenhe had lost it altogether. She arranged to leave the children in the house with the servants, whileshe went on with March to look up a dwelling of some sort in New York. Itmade him sick to think of it; and, when it came to the point, he wouldrather have given up the whole enterprise. She had to nerve him to it, torepresent more than once that now they had no choice but to make thisexperiment. Every detail of parting was anguish to him. He gotconsolation out of the notion of letting the house furnished for thewinter; that implied their return to it, but it cost him pangs of thekeenest misery to advertise it; and, when a tenant was actually found, itwas all he could do to give him the lease. He tried his wife's love andpatience as a man must to whom the future is easy in the mass butterrible as it translates itself piecemeal into the present. Heexperienced remorse in the presence of inanimate things he was going toleave as if they had sensibly reproached him, and an anticipativehomesickness that seemed to stop his heart. Again and again his wife hadto make him reflect that his depression was not prophetic. She convincedhim of what he already knew, and persuaded him against his knowledge thathe could be keeping an eye out for something to take hold of in Boston ifthey could not stand New York. She ended by telling him that it was toobad to make her comfort him in a trial that was really so much more atrial to her. She had to support him in a last access of despair on theirway to the Albany depot the morning they started to New York; but whenthe final details had been dealt with, the tickets bought, the trunkschecked, and the handbags hung up in their car, and the future had masseditself again at a safe distance and was seven hours and two hundred milesaway, his spirits began to rise and hers to sink. He would have beenwilling to celebrate the taste, the domestic refinement, of the ladies'waiting-room in the depot, where they had spent a quarter of an hourbefore the train started. He said he did not believe there was anotherstation in the world where mahogany rocking-chairs were provided; thatthe dull-red warmth of the walls was as cozy as an evening lamp, and thathe always hoped to see a fire kindled on that vast hearth and under thataesthetic mantel, but he supposed now he never should. He said it was allvery different from that tunnel, the old Albany depot, where they hadwaited the morning they went to New York when they were starting on theirwedding journey. "The morning, Basil!" cried his wife. "We went at night; and we weregoing to take the boat, but it stormed so!" She gave him a glance of suchreproach that he could not answer anything, and now she asked him whetherhe supposed their cook and second girl would be contented with one ofthose dark holes where they put girls to sleep in New York flats, andwhat she should do if Margaret, especially, left her. He ventured tosuggest that Margaret would probably like the city; but, if she left, there were plenty of other girls to be had in New York. She replied thatthere were none she could trust, and that she knew Margaret would notstay. He asked her why she took her, then--why she did not give her up atonce; and she answered that it would be inhuman to give her up just inthe edge of the winter. She had promised to keep her; and Margaret waspleased with the notion of going to New York, where she had a cousin. "Then perhaps she'll be pleased with the notion of staying, " he said. "Oh, much you know about it!" she retorted; and, in view of thehypothetical difficulty and his want of sympathy, she fell into a gloom, from which she roused herself at last by declaring that, if there wasnothing else in the flat they took, there should be a light kitchen and abright, sunny bedroom for Margaret. He expressed the belief that theycould easily find such a flat as that, and she denounced his fataloptimism, which buoyed him up in the absence of an undertaking and lethim drop into the depths of despair in its presence. He owned this defect of temperament, but he said that it compensated theopposite in her character. "I suppose that's one of the chief uses ofmarriage; people supplement one another, and form a pretty fair sort ofhuman being together. The only drawback to the theory is that unmarriedpeople seem each as complete and whole as a married pair. " She refused to be amused; she turned her face to the window and put herhandkerchief up under her veil. It was not till the dining-car was attached to their train that they wereboth able to escape for an hour into the care-free mood of their earliertravels, when they were so easily taken out of themselves. The time hadbeen when they could have found enough in the conjectural fortunes andcharacters of their fellow-passengers to occupy them. This phase of theiryouth had lasted long, and the world was still full of novelty andinterest for them; but it required all the charm of the dining-car now tolay the anxieties that beset them. It was so potent for the moment, however, that they could take an objective view at their sitting cozilydown there together, as if they had only themselves in the world. Theywondered what the children were doing, the children who possessed them sointensely when present, and now, by a fantastic operation of absence, seemed almost non-existents. They tried to be homesick for them, butfailed; they recognized with comfortable self-abhorrence that this wasterrible, but owned a fascination in being alone; at the same time, theycould not imagine how people felt who never had any children. Theycontrasted the luxury of dining that way, with every advantage except aband of music, and the old way of rushing out to snatch a fearful joy atthe lunch-counters of the Worcesier and Springfield and New Havenstations. They had not gone often to New York since their weddingjourney, but they had gone often enough to have noted the change from thelunch-counter to the lunch-basket brought in the train, from which youcould subsist with more ease and dignity, but seemed destined to asuperabundance of pickles, whatever you ordered. They thought well of themselves now that they could be both critical andtolerant of flavors not very sharply distinguished from one another intheir dinner, and they lingered over their coffee and watched the autumnlandscape through the windows. "Not quite so loud a pattern of calico this year, " he said, withpatronizing forbearance toward the painted woodlands whirling by. "Do yousee how the foreground next the train rushes from us and the backgroundkeeps ahead of us, while the middle distance seems stationary? I don'tthink I ever noticed that effect before. There ought to be somethingliterary in it: retreating past and advancing future and deceitfullypermanent present--something like that?" His wife brushed some crumbs from her lap before rising. "Yes. Youmustn't waste any of these ideas now. " "Oh no; it would be money out of Fulkerson's pocket. " VII. They went to a quiet hotel far down-town, and took a small apartmentwhich they thought they could easily afford for the day or two they needspend in looking up a furnished flat. They were used to staying at thishotel when they came on for a little outing in New York, after some rigidwinter in Boston, at the time of the spring exhibitions. They wereremembered there from year to year; the colored call-boys, who neverseemed to get any older, smiled upon them, and the clerk called March byname even before he registered. He asked if Mrs. March were with him, andsaid then he supposed they would want their usual quarters; and in amoment they were domesticated in a far interior that seemed to have beenwaiting for them in a clean, quiet, patient disoccupation ever since theyleft it two years before. The little parlor, with its gilt paper andebonized furniture, was the lightest of the rooms, but it was not verylight at noonday without the gas, which the bell-boy now flared up forthem. The uproar of the city came to it in a soothing murmur, and theytook possession of its peace and comfort with open celebration. Afterall, they agreed, there was no place in the world so delightful as ahotel apartment like that; the boasted charms of home were nothing to it;and then the magic of its being always there, ready for any one, everyone, just as if it were for some one alone: it was like the experience ofan Arabian Nights hero come true for all the race. "Oh, why can't we always stay here, just we two!" Mrs. March sighed toher husband, as he came out of his room rubbing his face red with thetowel, while she studied a new arrangement of her bonnet and handbag onthe mantel. "And ignore the past? I'm willing. I've no doubt that the children couldget on perfectly well without us, and could find some lot in the schemeof Providence that would really be just as well for them. " "Yes; or could contrive somehow never to have existed. I should insistupon that. If they are, don't you see that we couldn't wish them not tobe?" "Oh yes; I see your point; it's simply incontrovertible. " She laughed and said: "Well, at any rate, if we can't find a flat to suitus we can all crowd into these three rooms somehow, for the winter, andthen browse about for meals. By the week we could get them much cheaper;and we could save on the eating, as they do in Europe. Or on somethingelse. " "Something else, probably, " said March. "But we won't take this apartmenttill the ideal furnished flat winks out altogether. We shall not have anytrouble. We can easily find some one who is going South for the winterand will be glad to give up their flat 'to the right party' at a nominalrent. That's my notion. That's what the Evanses did one winter when theycame on here in February. All but the nominality of the rent. " "Yes, and we could pay a very good rent and still save something onletting our house. You can settle yourselves in a hundred different waysin New York, that is one merit of the place. But if everything elsefails, we can come back to this. I want you to take the refusal of it, Basil. And we'll commence looking this very evening as soon as we've haddinner. I cut a lot of things out of the Herald as we came on. See here!" She took a long strip of paper out of her hand-bag with minuteadvertisements pinned transversely upon it, and forming the effect ofsome glittering nondescript vertebrate. "Looks something like the sea-serpent, " said March, drying his hands onthe towel, while he glanced up and down the list. "But we sha'n't haveany trouble. I've no doubt there are half a dozen things there that willdo. You haven't gone up-town? Because we must be near the 'Every OtherWeek' office. " "No; but I wish Mr. Fulkerson hadn't called it that! It always makes onethink of 'jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam to-day, ' in'Through the Looking-Glass. ' They're all in this region. " They were still at their table, beside a low window, where some sort ofnever-blooming shrub symmetrically balanced itself in a large pot, with aleaf to the right and a leaf to the left and a spear up the middle, whenFulkerson came stepping square-footedly over the thick dining-roomcarpet. He wagged in the air a gay hand of salutation at sight of them, and of repression when they offered to rise to meet him; then, with anapparent simultaneity of action he gave a hand to each, pulled up a chairfrom the next table, put his hat and stick on the floor beside it, andseated himself. "Well, you've burned your ships behind you, sure enough, " he said, beaming his satisfaction upon them from eyes and teeth. "The ships are burned, " said March, "though I'm not sure we alone did it. But here we are, looking for shelter, and a little anxious about thedisposition of the natives. " "Oh, they're an awful peaceable lot, " said Fulkerson. "I've been roundamong the caciques a little, and I think I've got two or three placesthat will just suit you, Mrs. March. How did you leave the children?" "Oh, how kind of you! Very well, and very proud to be left in charge ofthe smoking wrecks. " Fulkerson naturally paid no attention to what she said, being butsecondarily interested in the children at the best. "Here are some thingsright in this neighborhood, within gunshot of the office, and if you wantyou can go and look at them to-night; the agents gave me houses where thepeople would be in. " "We will go and look at them instantly, " said Mrs. March. "Or, as soon asyou've had coffee with us. " "Never do, " Fulkerson replied. He gathered up his hat and stick. "Justrushed in to say Hello, and got to run right away again. I tell you, March, things are humming. I'm after those fellows with a sharp stick allthe while to keep them from loafing on my house, and at the same time I'mjust bubbling over with ideas about 'The Lone Hand--wish we could call itthat!--that I want to talk up with you. " "Well, come to breakfast, " said Mrs. March, cordially. "No; the ideas will keep till you've secured your lodge in this vastwilderness. Good-bye. " "You're as nice as you can be, Mr. Fulkerson, " she said, "to keep us inmind when you have so much to occupy you. " "I wouldn't have anything to occupy me if I hadn't kept you in mind, Mrs. March, " said Fulkerson, going off upon as good a speech as he couldapparently hope to make. "Why, Basil, " said Mrs. March, when he was gone, "he's charming! But nowwe mustn't lose an instant. Let's see where the places are. " She ran overthe half-dozen agents' permits. "Capital-first-rate-the very thing-everyone. Well, I consider ourselves settled! We can go back to the childrento-morrow if we like, though I rather think I should like to stay overanother day and get a little rested for the final pulling up that's gotto come. But this simplifies everything enormously, and Mr. Fulkerson isas thoughtful and as sweet as he can be. I know you will get on well withhim. He has such a good heart. And his attitude toward you, Basil, isbeautiful always--so respectful; or not that so much as appreciative. Yes, appreciative--that's the word; I must always keep that in mind. " "It's quite important to do so, " said March. "Yes, " she assented, seriously, "and we must not forget just what kind offlat we are going to look for. The 'sine qua nons' are an elevator andsteam heat, not above the third floor, to begin with. Then we must eachhave a room, and you must have your study and I must have my parlor; andthe two girls must each have a room. With the kitchen and dining room, how many does that make?" "Ten. " "I thought eight. Well, no matter. You can work in the parlor, and runinto your bedroom when anybody comes; and I can sit in mine, and thegirls must put up with one, if it's large and sunny, though I've alwaysgiven them two at home. And the kitchen must be sunny, so they can sit init. And the rooms must all have outside light. And the rent must not beover eight hundred for the winter. We only get a thousand for our wholehouse, and we must save something out of that, so as to cover theexpenses of moving. Now, do you think you can remember all that?" "Not the half of it, " said March. "But you can; or if you forget a thirdof it, I can come in with my partial half and more than make it up. " She had brought her bonnet and sacque down-stairs with her, and wastransferring them from the hatrack to her person while she talked. Thefriendly door-boy let them into the street, and the clear October eveningair brightened her so that as she tucked her hand under her husband's armand began to pull him along she said, "If we find something rightaway--and we're just as likely to get the right flat soon as late; it'sall a lottery--well go to the theatre somewhere. " She had a moment's panic about having left the agents' permits on thetable, and after remembering that she had put them into her littleshopping-bag, where she kept her money (each note crushed into a roundwad), and had heft it on the hat-rack, where it would certainly bestolen, she found it on her wrist. She did not think that very funny; butafter a first impulse to inculpate her husband, she let him laugh, whilethey stopped under a lamp and she held the permits half a yard away toread the numbers on them. "Where are your glasses, Isabel?" "On the mantel in our room, of course. " "Then you ought to have brought a pair of tongs. " "I wouldn't get off second-hand jokes, Basil, " she said; and "Why, here!"she cried, whirling round to the door before which they had halted, "thisis the very number. Well, I do believe it's a sign!" One of those colored men who soften the trade of janitor in many of thesmaller apartment-houses in New York by the sweetness of their race letthe Marches in, or, rather, welcomed them to the possession of thepremises by the bow with which he acknowledged their permit. It was alarge, old mansion cut up into five or six dwellings, but it had keptsome traits of its former dignity, which pleased people of theirsympathetic tastes. The dark-mahogany trim, of sufficiently ugly design, gave a rich gloom to the hallway, which was wide and paved with marble;the carpeted stairs curved aloft through a generous space. "There is no elevator?" Mrs. March asked of the janitor. He answered, "No, ma'am; only two flights up, " so winningly that shesaid, "Oh!" in courteous apology, and whispered to her husband, as she followedlightly up, "We'll take it, Basil, if it's like the rest. " "If it's like him, you mean. " "I don't wonder they wanted to own them, " she hurriedly philosophized. "If I had such a creature, nothing but death should part us, and I shouldno more think of giving him his freedom!" "No; we couldn't afford it, " returned her husband. The apartment which the janitor unlocked for them, and lit up from thosechandeliers and brackets of gilt brass in the form of vine bunches, leaves, and tendrils in which the early gas-fitter realized most of hisconceptions of beauty, had rather more of the ugliness than the dignityof the hall. But the rooms were large, and they grouped themselves in areminiscence of the time when they were part of a dwelling that had itscharm, its pathos, its impressiveness. Where they were cut up intosmaller spaces, it had been done with the frankness with which a proudold family of fallen fortunes practises its economies. The roughpine-floors showed a black border of tack-heads where carpets had beenlifted and put down for generations; the white paint was yellow with age;the apartment had light at the front and at the back, and two or threerooms had glimpses of the day through small windows let into theircorners; another one seemed lifting an appealing eye to heaven through aglass circle in its ceiling; the rest must darkle in perpetual twilight. Yet something pleased in it all, and Mrs. March had gone far to adapt thedifferent rooms to the members of her family, when she suddenly thought(and for her to think was to say), "Why, but there's no steam heat!" "No, ma'am, " the janitor admitted; "but dere's grates in most o' derooms, and dere's furnace heat in de halls. " "That's true, " she admitted, and, having placed her family in theapartments, it was hard to get them out again. "Could we manage?" shereferred to her husband. "Why, I shouldn't care for the steam heat if--What is the rent?" he brokeoff to ask the janitor. "Nine hundred, sir. " March concluded to his wife, "If it were furnished. " "Why, of course! What could I have been thinking of? We're looking for afurnished flat, " she explained to the janitor, "and this was so pleasantand homelike that I never thought whether it was furnished or not. " She smiled upon the janitor, and he entered into the joke and chuckled soamiably at her flattering oversight on the way down-stairs that she said, as she pinched her husband's arm, "Now, if you don't give him a quarterI'll never speak to you again, Basil!" "I would have given half a dollar willingly to get you beyond hisglamour, " said March, when they were safely on the pavement outside. "If it hadn't been for my strength of character, you'd have taken anunfurnished flat without heat and with no elevator, at nine hundred ayear, when you had just sworn me to steam heat, an elevator, furniture, and eight hundred. " "Yes! How could I have lost my head so completely?" she said, with alenient amusement in her aberration which she was not always able to feelin her husband's. "The next time a colored janitor opens the door to us, I'll tell him theapartment doesn't suit at the threshold. It's the only way to manage you, Isabel. " "It's true. I am in love with the whole race. I never saw one of themthat didn't have perfectly angelic manners. I think we shall all be blackin heaven--that is, black-souled. " "That isn't the usual theory, " said March. "Well, perhaps not, " she assented. "Where are we going now? Oh yes, tothe Xenophon!" She pulled him gayly along again, and after they had walked a block downand half a block over they stood before the apartment-house of that name, which was cut on the gas-lamps on either side of the heavily spiked, aesthetic-hinged black door. The titter of an electric-bell brought alarge, fat Buttons, with a stage effect of being dressed to look small, who said he would call the janitor, and they waited in the dimlysplendid, copper-colored interior, admiring the whorls and waves intowhich the wallpaint was combed, till the janitor came in his gold-bandedcap, like a Continental porker. When they said they would like to seeMrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment, he owned his inability to cope with theaffair, and said he must send for the superintendent; he was either inthe Herodotus or the Thucydides, and would be there in a minute. TheButtons brought him--a Yankee of browbeating presence in plainclothes--almost before they had time to exchange a frightened whisper inrecognition of the fact that there could be no doubt of the steam heatand elevator in this case. Half stifled in the one, they mounted in theother eight stories, while they tried to keep their self-respect underthe gaze of the superintendent, which they felt was classing andassessing them with unfriendly accuracy. They could not, and theyfaltered abashed at the threshold of Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment, while the superintendent lit the gas in the gangway that he called aprivate hall, and in the drawing-room and the succession of chambersstretching rearward to the kitchen. Everything had, been done by thearchitect to save space, and everything, to waste it by Mrs. GrosvenorGreen. She had conformed to a law for the necessity of turning round ineach room, and had folding-beds in the chambers, but there hersubordination had ended, and wherever you might have turned round she hadput a gimcrack so that you would knock it over if you did turn. The placewas rather pretty and even imposing at first glance, and it took severaljoint ballots for March and his wife to make sure that with the kitchenthere were only six rooms. At every door hung a portiere from large ringson a brass rod; every shelf and dressing-case and mantel was litteredwith gimcracks, and the corners of the tiny rooms were curtained off, andbehind these portieres swarmed more gimcracks. The front of the uprightpiano had what March called a short-skirted portiere on it, and the topwas covered with vases, with dragon candlesticks and with Jap fans, whichalso expanded themselves bat wise on the walls between the etchings andthe water colors. The floors were covered with filling, and then rugs andthen skins; the easy-chairs all had tidies, Armenian and Turkish andPersian; the lounges and sofas had embroidered cushions hidden undertidies. The radiator was concealed by a Jap screen, and over the top of this someArab scarfs were flung. There was a superabundance of clocks. China pugsguarded the hearth; a brass sunflower smiled from the top of eitherandiron, and a brass peacock spread its tail before them inside a highfiligree fender; on one side was a coalhod in 'repousse' brass, and onthe other a wrought iron wood-basket. Some red Japanese bird-kites werestuck about in the necks of spelter vases, a crimson Jap umbrella hungopened beneath the chandelier, and each globe had a shade of yellow silk. March, when he had recovered his self-command a little in the presence ofthe agglomeration, comforted himself by calling the bric-a-bracJamescracks, as if this was their full name. The disrespect he was able to show the whole apartment by means of thisjoke strengthened him to say boldly to the superintendent that it wasaltogether too small; then he asked carelessly what the rent was. "Two hundred and fifty. " The Marches gave a start, and looked at each other. "Don't you think we could make it do?" she asked him, and he could seethat she had mentally saved five hundred dollars as the differencebetween the rent of their house and that of this flat. "It has some verypretty features, and we could manage to squeeze in, couldn't we?" "You won't find another furnished flat like it for no two-fifty a monthin the whole city, " the superintendent put in. They exchanged glances again, and March said, carelessly, "It's toosmall. " "There's a vacant flat in the Herodotus for eighteen hundred a year, andone in the Thucydides for fifteen, " the superintendent suggested, clicking his keys together as they sank down in the elevator; "sevenrooms and bath. " "Thank you, " said March; "we're looking for a furnished flat. " They felt that the superintendent parted from them with repressedsarcasm. "Oh, Basil, do you think we really made him think it was the smallnessand not the dearness?" "No, but we saved our self-respect in the attempt; and that's a greatdeal. " "Of course, I wouldn't have taken it, anyway, with only six rooms, and sohigh up. But what prices! Now, we must be very circumspect about the nextplace. " It was a janitress, large, fat, with her arms wound up in her apron, whoreceived them there. Mrs. March gave her a succinct but perfect statementof their needs. She failed to grasp the nature of them, or feigned to doso. She shook her head, and said that her son would show them the flat. There was a radiator visible in the narrow hall, and Isabel tacitlycompromised on steam heat without an elevator, as the flat was only oneflight up. When the son appeared from below with a small kerosenehand-lamp, it appeared that the flat was unfurnished, but there was nostopping him till he had shown it in all its impossibility. When they gotsafely away from it and into the street March said: "Well, have you hadenough for to-night, Isabel? Shall we go to the theatre now?" "Not on any account. I want to see the whole list of flats that Mr. Fulkerson thought would be the very thing for us. " She laughed, but witha certain bitterness. "You'll be calling him my Mr. Fulkerson next, Isabel. " "Oh no!" The fourth address was a furnished flat without a kitchen, in a housewith a general restaurant. The fifth was a furnished house. At the sixtha pathetic widow and her pretty daughter wanted to take a family toboard, and would give them a private table at a rate which the Marcheswould have thought low in Boston. Mrs. March came away tingling with compassion for their evident anxiety, and this pity naturally soured into a sense of injury. "Well, I must sayI have completely lost confidence in Mr. Fulkerson's judgment. Anythingmore utterly different from what I told him we wanted I couldn't imagine. If he doesn't manage any better about his business than he has done aboutthis, it will be a perfect failure. " "Well, well, let's hope he'll be more circumspect about that, " herhusband returned, with ironical propitiation. "But I don't think it'sFulkerson's fault altogether. Perhaps it's the house-agents'. They're avery illusory generation. There seems to be something in the humanhabitation that corrupts the natures of those who deal in it, to buy orsell it, to hire or let it. You go to an agent and tell him what kind ofa house you want. He has no such house, and he sends you to look atsomething altogether different, upon the well-ascertained principle thatif you can't get what you want you will take what you can get. You don'tsuppose the 'party' that took our house in Boston was looking for anysuch house? He was looking for a totally different kind of house inanother part of the town. " "I don't believe that!" his wife broke in. "Well, no matter. But see what a scandalous rent you asked for it. " "We didn't get much more than half; and, besides, the agent told me toask fourteen hundred. " "Oh, I'm not blaming you, Isabel. I'm only analyzing the house-agent andexonerating Fulkerson. " "Well, I don't believe he told them just what we wanted; and, at anyrate, I'm done with agents. Tomorrow I'm going entirely byadvertisements. " VIII. Mrs. March took the vertebrate with her to the Vienna Coffee-House, wherethey went to breakfast next morning. She made March buy her the Heraldand the World, and she added to its spiny convolutions from them. Sheread the new advertisements aloud with ardor and with faith to believethat the apartments described in them were every one truthfullyrepresented, and that any one of them was richly responsive to theirneeds. "Elegant, light, large, single and outside flats" were offeredwith "all improvements--bath, ice-box, etc. "--for twenty-five to thirtydollars a month. The cheapness was amazing. The Wagram, the Esmeralda, the Jacinth, advertised them for forty dollars and sixty dollars, "withsteam heat and elevator, " rent free till November. Others, attractivefrom their air of conscientious scruple, announced "first-class flats;good order; reasonable rents. " The Helena asked the reader if she hadseen the "cabinet finish, hard-wood floors, and frescoed ceilings" of itsfifty-dollar flats; the Asteroid affirmed that such apartments, with "sixlight rooms and bath, porcelain wash-tubs, electric bells, and hall-boy, "as it offered for seventy-five dollars were unapproached by competition. There was a sameness in the jargon which tended to confusion. Mrs. Marchgot several flats on her list which promised neither steam heat norelevators; she forgot herself so far as to include two or three as remotefrom the down-town region of her choice as Harlem. But after she hadrejected these the nondescript vertebrate was still voluminous enough tosustain her buoyant hopes. The waiter, who remembered them from year to year, had put them at awindow giving a pretty good section of Broadway, and before they set outon their search they had a moment of reminiscence. They recalled theBroadway of five, of ten, of twenty years ago, swelling and roaring witha tide of gayly painted omnibuses and of picturesque traffic that thehorsecars have now banished from it. The grind of their wheels and theclash of their harsh bells imperfectly fill the silence that theomnibuses have left, and the eye misses the tumultuous perspective offormer times. They went out and stood for a moment before Grace Church, and looked downthe stately thoroughfare, and found it no longer impressive, no longercharacteristic. It is still Broadway in name, but now it is like anyother street. You do not now take your life in your hand when you attemptto cross it; the Broadway policeman who supported the elbow of timorousbeauty in the hollow of his cotton-gloved palm and guided its littlefearful boots over the crossing, while he arrested the billowy omnibuseson either side with an imperious glance, is gone, and all that certainprocessional, barbaric gayety of the place is gone. "Palmyra, Baalbec, Timour of the Desert, " said March, voicing theircommon feeling of the change. They turned and went into the beautiful church, and found themselves intime for the matin service. Rapt far from New York, if not from earth, inthe dim richness of the painted light, the hallowed music took them withsolemn ecstasy; the aerial, aspiring Gothic forms seemed to lift themheavenward. They came out, reluctant, into the dazzle and bustle of thestreet, with a feeling that they were too good for it, which theyconfessed to each other with whimsical consciousness. "But no matter how consecrated we feel now, " he said, "we mustn't forgetthat we went into the church for precisely the same reason that we wentto the Vienna Cafe for breakfast--to gratify an aesthetic sense, to renewthe faded pleasure of travel for a moment, to get back into the Europe ofour youth. It was a purely Pagan impulse, Isabel, and we'd better ownit. " "I don't know, " she returned. "I think we reduce ourselves to the barebones too much. I wish we didn't always recognize the facts as we do. Sometimes I should like to blink them. I should like to think I wasdevouter than I am, and younger and prettier. " "Better not; you couldn't keep it up. Honesty is the best policy even insuch things. " "No; I don't like it, Basil. I should rather wait till the last day forsome of my motives to come to the top. I know they're always mixed, butdo let me give them the benefit of a doubt sometimes. " "Well, well, have it your own way, my dear. But I prefer not to lay up somany disagreeable surprises for myself at that time. " She would not consent. "I know I am a good deal younger than I was. Ifeel quite in the mood of that morning when we walked down Broadway onour wedding journey. Don't you?" "Oh yes. But I know I'm not younger; I'm only prettier. " She laughed for pleasure in his joke, and also for unconscious joy in thegay New York weather, in which there was no 'arriere pensee' of the eastwind. They had crossed Broadway, and were walking over to WashingtonSquare, in the region of which they now hoped to place themselves. The'primo tenore' statue of Garibaldi had already taken possession of theplace in the name of Latin progress, and they met Italian faces, Frenchfaces, Spanish faces, as they strolled over the asphalt walks, under thethinning shadows of the autumn-stricken sycamores. They met the familiarpicturesque raggedness of Southern Europe with the old kindly illusionthat somehow it existed for their appreciation, and that it foundadequate compensation for poverty in this. March thought he sufficientlyexpressed his tacit sympathy in sitting down on one of the iron bencheswith his wife and letting a little Neapolitan put a superfluous shine onhis boots, while their desultory comment wandered with equal esteem tothe old-fashioned American respectability which keeps the north side ofthe square in vast mansions of red brick, and the internationalshabbiness which has invaded the southern border, and broken it up intolodging-houses, shops, beer-gardens, and studios. They noticed the sign of an apartment to let on the north side, and assoon as the little bootblack could be bought off they went over to lookat it. The janitor met them at the door and examined them. Then he said, as if still in doubt, "It has ten rooms, and the rent is twenty-eighthundred dollars. " "It wouldn't do, then, " March replied, and left him to divide theresponsibility between the paucity of the rooms and the enormity of therent as he best might. But their self-love had received a wound, and theyquestioned each other what it was in their appearance made him doubttheir ability to pay so much. "Of course, we don't look like New-Yorkers, " sighed Mrs. March, "andwe've walked through the Square. That might be as if we had walked alongthe Park Street mall in the Common before we came out on Beacon. Do yousuppose he could have seen you getting your boots blacked in that way?" "It's useless to ask, " said March. "But I never can recover from thisblow. " "Oh, pshaw! You know you hate such things as badly as I do. It was veryimpertinent of him. " "Let us go back and 'ecraser l'infame' by paying him a year's rent inadvance and taking immediate possession. Nothing else can soothe mywounded feelings. You were not having your boots blacked: why shouldn'the have supposed you were a New-Yorker, and I a country cousin?" "They always know. Don't you remember Mrs. Williams's going to a FifthAvenue milliner in a Worth dress, and the woman's asking her instantlywhat hotel she should send her hat to?" "Yes; these things drive one to despair. I don't wonder the bodies of somany genteel strangers are found in the waters around New York. Shall wetry the south side, my dear? or had we better go back to our rooms andrest awhile?" Mrs. March had out the vertebrate, and was consulting one of itsglittering ribs and glancing up from it at a house before which theystood. "Yes, it's the number; but do they call this being ready Octoberfirst?" The little area in front of the basement was heaped with amixture of mortar, bricks, laths, and shavings from the interior; thebrownstone steps to the front door were similarly bestrewn; the doorwayshowed the half-open, rough pine carpenter's sketch of an unfinishedhouse; the sashless windows of every story showed the activity of workmenwithin; the clatter of hammers and the hiss of saws came out to them fromevery opening. "They may call it October first, " said March, "because it's too late tocontradict them. But they'd better not call it December first in mypresence; I'll let them say January first, at a pinch. " "We will go in and look at it, anyway, " said his wife; and he admiredhow, when she was once within, she began provisionally to settle thefamily in each of the several floors with the female instinct fordomiciliation which never failed her. She had the help of the landlord, who was present to urge forward the workmen apparently; he lent a hopefulfancy to the solution of all her questions. To get her from under hisinfluence March had to represent that the place was damp from undriedplastering, and that if she stayed she would probably be down with thatNew York pneumonia which visiting Bostonians are always dying of. Oncesafely on the pavement outside, she realized that the apartment was notonly unfinished, but unfurnished, and had neither steam heat norelevator. "But I thought we had better look at everything, " sheexplained. "Yes, but not take everything. If I hadn't pulled you away from there bymain force you'd have not only died of New York pneumonia on the spot, but you'd have had us all settled there before we knew what we wereabout. " "Well, that's what I can't help, Basil. It's the only way I can realizewhether it will do for us. I have to dramatize the whole thing. " She got a deal of pleasure as well as excitement out of this, and he hadto own that the process of setting up housekeeping in so many differentplaces was not only entertaining, but tended, through association withtheir first beginnings in housekeeping, to restore the image of theirearly married days and to make them young again. It went on all day, and continued far into the night, until it was toolate to go to the theatre, too late to do anything but tumble into bedand simultaneously fall asleep. They groaned over their reiterateddisappointments, but they could not deny that the interest was unfailing, and that they got a great deal of fun out of it all. Nothing could abateMrs. March's faith in her advertisements. One of them sent her to a flatof ten rooms which promised to be the solution of all their difficulties;it proved to be over a livery-stable, a liquor store, and a milliner'sshop, none of the first fashion. Another led them far into old GreenwichVillage to an apartment-house, which she refused to enter behind a smallgirl with a loaf of bread under one arm and a quart can of milk under theother. In their search they were obliged, as March complained, to theacquisition of useless information in a degree unequalled in theirexperience. They came to excel in the sad knowledge of the line at whichrespectability distinguishes itself from shabbiness. Flatteringadvertisements took them to numbers of huge apartment-houses chieflydistinguishable from tenement-houses by the absence of fire-escapes ontheir facades, till Mrs. March refused to stop at any door where therewere more than six bell-ratchets and speaking-tubes on either hand. Before the middle of the afternoon she decided against ratchetsaltogether, and confined herself to knobs, neatly set in the door-trim. Her husband was still sunk in the superstition that you can live anywhereyou like in New York, and he would have paused at some places where herquicker eye caught the fatal sign of "Modes" in the ground-floor windows. She found that there was an east and west line beyond which they couldnot go if they wished to keep their self-respect, and that within theregion to which they had restricted themselves there was a choice ofstreets. At first all the New York streets looked to them ill-paved, dirty, and repulsive; the general infamy imparted itself in their casualimpression to streets in no wise guilty. But they began to notice thatsome streets were quiet and clean, and, though never so quiet and cleanas Boston streets, that they wore an air of encouraging reform, andsuggested a future of greater and greater domesticity. Whole blocks ofthese downtown cross-streets seemed to have been redeemed from decay, andeven in the midst of squalor a dwelling here and there had been seized, painted a dull red as to its brick-work, and a glossy black as to itswood-work, and with a bright brass bell-pull and door-knob and a largebrass plate for its key-hole escutcheon, had been endowed with an effectof purity and pride which removed its shabby neighborhood far from it. Some of these houses were quite small, and imaginably within their means;but, as March said, some body seemed always to be living there himself, and the fact that none of them was to rent kept Mrs. March true to herideal of a fiat. Nothing prevented its realization so much as itsdifference from the New York ideal of a flat, which was inflexibly sevenrooms and a bath. One or two rooms might be at the front, the restcrooked and cornered backward through in creasing and then decreasingdarkness till they reached a light bedroom or kitchen at the rear. Itmight be the one or the other, but it was always the seventh room withthe bath; or if, as sometimes happened, it was the eighth, it was soafter having counted the bath as one; in this case the janitor said youalways counted the bath as one. If the flats were advertised as having"all light rooms, " he explained that any room with a window giving intothe open air of a court or shaft was counted a light room. The Marches tried to make out why it was that these flats were go muchmore repulsive than the apartments which everyone lived in abroad; butthey could only do so upon the supposition that in their European daysthey were too young, too happy, too full of the future, to notice whetherrooms were inside or outside, light or dark, big or little, high or low. "Now we're imprisoned in the present, " he said, "and we have to make theworst of it. " In their despair he had an inspiration, which she declared worthy of him:it was to take two small flats, of four or five rooms and a bath, andlive in both. They tried this in a great many places, but they nevercould get two flats of the kind on the same floor where there was steamheat and an elevator. At one place they almost did it. They had resignedthemselves to the humility of the neighborhood, to the prevalence ofmodistes and livery-stablemen (they seem to consort much in New York), tothe garbage in the gutters and the litter of paper in the streets, to thefaltering slats in the surrounding window-shutters and the crumbledbrownstone steps and sills, when it turned out that one of the apartmentshad been taken between two visits they made. Then the only combinationleft open to them was of a ground-floor flat to the right and athird-floor flat to the left. Still they kept this inspiration in reserve for use at the firstopportunity. In the mean time there were several flats which they thoughtthey could almost make do: notably one where they could get an extraservant's room in the basement four flights down, and another where theycould get it in the roof five flights up. At the first the janitor wasrespectful and enthusiastic; at the second he had an effect of ironicalpessimism. When they trembled on the verge of taking his apartment, hepointed out a spot in the kalsomining of the parlor ceiling, andgratuitously said, Now such a thing as that he should not agree to put inshape unless they took the apartment for a term of years. The apartmentwas unfurnished, and they recurred to the fact that they wanted afurnished apartment, and made their escape. This saved them in severalother extremities; but short of extremity they could not keep theirdifferent requirements in mind, and were always about to decide withoutregard to some one of them. They went to several places twice without intending: once to thatold-fashioned house with the pleasant colored janitor, and wandered allover the apartment again with a haunting sense of familiarity, and thenrecognized the janitor and laughed; and to that house with the patheticwidow and the pretty daughter who wished to take them to board. Theystayed to excuse their blunder, and easily came by the fact that themother had taken the house that the girl might have a home while she wasin New York studying art, and they hoped to pay their way by takingboarders. Her daughter was at her class now, the mother concluded; andthey encouraged her to believe that it could only be a few days till therest of her scheme was realized. "I dare say we could be perfectly comfortable there, " March suggestedwhen they had got away. "Now if we were truly humane we would modify ourdesires to meet their needs and end this sickening search, wouldn't we?" "Yes, but we're not truly humane, " his wife answered, "or at least not inthat sense. You know you hate boarding; and if we went there I shouldhave them on my sympathies the whole time. " "I see. And then you would take it out of me. " "Then I should take it out of you. And if you are going to be so weak, Basil, and let every little thing work upon you in that way, you'd betternot come to New York. You'll see enough misery here. " "Well, don't take that superior tone with me, as if I were a child thathad its mind set on an undesirable toy, Isabel. " "Ah, don't you suppose it's because you are such a child in some respectsthat I like you, dear?" she demanded, without relenting. "But I don't find so much misery in New York. I don't suppose there's anymore suffering here to the population than there is in the country. Andthey're so gay about it all. I think the outward aspect of the place andthe hilarity of the sky and air must get into the people's blood. Theweather is simply unapproachable; and I don't care if it is the ugliestplace in the world, as you say. I suppose it is. It shrieks and yellswith ugliness here and there but it never loses its spirits. That widowis from the country. When she's been a year in New York she'll be asgay--as gay as an L road. " He celebrated a satisfaction they both had inthe L roads. "They kill the streets and avenues, but at least theypartially hide them, and that is some comfort; and they do triumph overtheir prostrate forms with a savage exultation that is intoxicating. Those bends in the L that you get in the corner of Washington Square, orjust below the Cooper Institute--they're the gayest things in the world. Perfectly atrocious, of course, but incomparably picturesque! And thewhole city is so, " said March, "or else the L would never have got builthere. New York may be splendidly gay or squalidly gay; but, prince orpauper, it's gay always. " "Yes, gay is the word, " she admitted, with a sigh. "But frantic. I can'tget used to it. They forget death, Basil; they forget death in New York. " "Well, I don't know that I've ever found much advantage in rememberingit. " "Don't say such a thing, dearest. " He could see that she had got to the end of her nervous strength for thepresent, and he proposed that they should take the Elevated road as faras it would carry them into the country, and shake off their nightmare offlat-hunting for an hour or two; but her conscience would not let her. She convicted him of levity equal to that of the New-Yorkers in proposingsuch a thing; and they dragged through the day. She was too tired to carefor dinner, and in the night she had a dream from which she woke herselfwith a cry that roused him, too. It was something about the children atfirst, whom they had talked of wistfully before falling asleep, and thenit was of a hideous thing with two square eyes and a series of sectionsgrowing darker and then lighter, till the tail of the monstrousarticulate was quite luminous again. She shuddered at the vaguedescription she was able to give; but he asked, "Did it offer to biteyou?" "No. That was the most frightful thing about it; it had no mouth. " March laughed. "Why, my dear, it was nothing but a harmless New Yorkflat--seven rooms and a bath. " "I really believe it was, " she consented, recognizing an architecturalresemblance, and she fell asleep again, and woke renewed for the workbefore them. IX. Their house-hunting no longer had novelty, but it still had interest; andthey varied their day by taking a coupe, by renouncing advertisements, and by reverting to agents. Some of these induced them to consider theidea of furnished houses; and Mrs. March learned tolerance for Fulkersonby accepting permits to visit flats and houses which had none of thequalifications she desired in either, and were as far beyond her means asthey were out of the region to which she had geographically restrictedherself. They looked at three-thousand and four-thousand dollarapartments, and rejected them for one reason or another which had nothingto do with the rent; the higher the rent was, the more critical they wereof the slippery inlaid floors and the arrangement of the richly decoratedrooms. They never knew whether they had deceived the janitor or not; asthey came in a coupe, they hoped they had. They drove accidentally through one street that seemed gayer in theperspective than an L road. The fire-escapes, with their light ironbalconies and ladders of iron, decorated the lofty house fronts; theroadway and sidewalks and door-steps swarmed with children; women's headsseemed to show at every window. In the basements, over which flights ofhigh stone steps led to the tenements, were green-grocers' shopsabounding in cabbages, and provision stores running chiefly to bacon andsausages, and cobblers' and tinners' shops, and the like, in proportionto the small needs of a poor neighborhood. Ash barrels lined thesidewalks, and garbage heaps filled the gutters; teams of all tradesstood idly about; a peddler of cheap fruit urged his cart through thestreet, and mixed his cry with the joyous screams and shouts of thechildren and the scolding and gossiping voices of the women; the burlyblue bulk of a policeman defined itself at the corner; a drunkardzigzagged down the sidewalk toward him. It was not the abode of theextremest poverty, but of a poverty as hopeless as any in the world, transmitting itself from generation to generation, and establishingconditions of permanency to which human life adjusts itself as it does tothose of some incurable disease, like leprosy. The time had been when the Marches would have taken a purely aestheticview of the facts as they glimpsed them in this street oftenement-houses; when they would have contented themselves with sayingthat it was as picturesque as a street in Naples or Florence, and withwondering why nobody came to paint it; they would have thought they weresufficiently serious about it in blaming the artists for their failure toappreciate it, and going abroad for the picturesque when they had it hereunder their noses. It was to the nose that the street made one of itsstrongest appeals, and Mrs. March pulled up her window of the coupe. "Whydoes he take us through such a disgusting street?" she demanded, with anexasperation of which her husband divined the origin. "This driver may be a philanthropist in disguise, " he answered, withdreamy irony, "and may want us to think about the people who are notmerely carried through this street in a coupe, but have to spend theirwhole lives in it, winter and summer, with no hopes of driving out of it, except in a hearse. I must say they don't seem to mind it. I haven't seena jollier crowd anywhere in New York. They seem to have forgotten death alittle more completely than any of their fellow-citizens, Isabel. And Iwonder what they think of us, making this gorgeous progress through theirmidst. I suppose they think we're rich, and hate us--if they hate richpeople; they don't look as if they hated anybody. Should we be as patientas they are with their discomfort? I don't believe there's steam heat oran elevator in the whole block. Seven rooms and a bath would be more thanthe largest and genteelest family would know what to do with. Theywouldn't know what to do with the bath, anyway. " His monologue seemed to interest his wife apart from the satirical pointit had for themselves. "You ought to get Mr. Fulkerson to let you worksome of these New York sights up for Every Other Week, Basil; you coulddo them very nicely. " "Yes; I've thought of that. But don't let's leave the personal ground. Doesn't it make you feel rather small and otherwise unworthy when you seethe kind of street these fellow-beings of yours live in, and then thinkhow particular you are about locality and the number of bellpulls? Idon't see even ratchets and speaking-tubes at these doors. " He craned hisneck out of the window for a better look, and the children of discomfortcheered him, out of sheer good feeling and high spirits. "I didn't know Iwas so popular. Perhaps it's a recognition of my humane sentiments. " "Oh, it's very easy to have humane sentiments, and to satirize ourselvesfor wanting eight rooms and a bath in a good neighborhood, when we seehow these wretched creatures live, " said his wife. "But if we shared allwe have with them, and then settled down among them, what good would itdo?" "Not the least in the world. It might help us for the moment, but itwouldn't keep the wolf from their doors for a week; and then they wouldgo on just as before, only they wouldn't be on such good terms with thewolf. The only way for them is to keep up an unbroken intimacy with thewolf; then they can manage him somehow. I don't know how, and I'm afraidI don't want to. Wouldn't you like to have this fellow drive us roundamong the halls of pride somewhere for a little while? Fifth Avenue orMadison, up-town?" "No; we've no time to waste. I've got a place near Third Avenue, on anice cross street, and I want him to take us there. " It proved that shehad several addresses near together, and it seemed best to dismiss theircoupe and do the rest of their afternoon's work on foot. It came tonothing; she was not humbled in the least by what she had seen in thetenement-house street; she yielded no point in her ideal of a flat, andthe flats persistently refused to lend themselves to it. She lost allpatience with them. "Oh, I don't say the flats are in the right of it, " said her husband, when she denounced their stupid inadequacy to the purposes of a Christianhome. "But I'm not so sure that we are, either. I've been thinking aboutthat home business ever since my sensibilities were dragged--in acoupe--through that tenement-house street. Of course, no child born andbrought up in such a place as that could have any conception of home. Butthat's because those poor people can't give character to theirhabitations. They have to take what they can get. But people likeus--that is, of our means--do give character to the average flat. It'smade to meet their tastes, or their supposed tastes; and so it's made forsocial show, not for family life at all. Think of a baby in a flat! It'sa contradiction in terms; the flat is the negation of motherhood. Theflat means society life; that is, the pretence of social life. It's madeto give artificial people a society basis on a little money--too muchmoney, of course, for what they get. So the cost of the building is putinto marble halls and idiotic decoration of all kinds. I don't object tothe conveniences, but none of these flats has a living-room. They havedrawing-rooms to foster social pretence, and they have dining-rooms andbedrooms; but they have no room where the family can all come togetherand feel the sweetness of being a family. The bedrooms are black-holesmostly, with a sinful waste of space in each. If it were not for themarble halls, and the decorations, and the foolishly expensive finish, the houses could be built round a court, and the flats could be shapedsomething like a Pompeiian house, with small sleeping-closets--only litfrom the outside--and the rest of the floor thrown into two or threelarge cheerful halls, where all the family life could go on, and societycould be transacted unpretentiously. Why, those tenements are better andhumaner than those flats! There the whole family lives in the kitchen, and has its consciousness of being; but the flat abolishes the familyconsciousness. It's confinement without coziness; it's cluttered withoutbeing snug. You couldn't keep a self-respecting cat in a flat; youcouldn't go down cellar to get cider. No! the Anglo-Saxon home, as weknow it in the Anglo-Saxon house, is simply impossible in theFranco-American flat, not because it's humble, but because it's false. " "Well, then, " said Mrs. March, "let's look at houses. " He had been denouncing the flat in the abstract, and he had not expectedthis concrete result. But he said, "We will look at houses, then. " X. Nothing mystifies a man more than a woman's aberrations from some pointat which he, supposes her fixed as a star. In these unfurnished houses, without steam or elevator, March followed his wife about with patientwonder. She rather liked the worst of them best: but she made him go downinto the cellars and look at the furnaces; she exacted from him a rigidinquest of the plumbing. She followed him into one of the cellars by thefitful glare of successively lighted matches, and they enjoyed a momentin which the anomaly of their presence there on that errand, so remotefrom all the facts of their long-established life in Boston, realizeditself for them. "Think how easily we might have been murdered and nobody been any thewiser!" she said when they were comfortably outdoors again. "Yes, or made way with ourselves in an access of emotional insanity, supposed to have been induced by unavailing flat-hunting, " he suggested. She fell in with the notion. "I'm beginning to feel crazy. But I don'twant you to lose your head, Basil. And I don't want you to sentimentalizeany of the things you see in New York. I think you were disposed to do itin that street we drove through. I don't believe there's any realsuffering--not real suffering--among those people; that is, it would besuffering from our point of view, but they've been used to it all theirlives, and they don't feel their' discomfort so much. " "Of course, I understand that, and I don't propose to sentimentalizethem. I think when people get used to a bad state of things they hadbetter stick to it; in fact, they don't usually like a better state sowell, and I shall keep that firmly in mind. " She laughed with him, and they walked along the L bestridden avenue, exhilarated by their escape from murder and suicide in that cellar, toward the nearest cross town track, which they meant to take home totheir hotel. "Now to-night we will go to the theatre, " she said, "and getthis whole house business out of our minds, and be perfectly fresh for anew start in the morning. " Suddenly she clutched his arm. "Why, did yousee that man?" and she signed with her head toward a decently dressedperson who walked beside them, next the gutter, stooping over as if toexamine it, and half halting at times. "No. What?" "Why, I saw him pick up a dirty bit of cracker from the pavement and cramit into his mouth and eat it down as if he were famished. And look! he'sactually hunting for more in those garbage heaps!" This was what the decent-looking man with the hard hands and broken nailsof a workman was doing-like a hungry dog. They kept up with him, in thefascination of the sight, to the next corner, where he turned down theside street still searching the gutter. They walked on a few paces. Then March said, "I must go after him, " andleft his wife standing. "Are you in want--hungry?" he asked the man. The man said he could not speak English, Monsieur. March asked his question in French. The man shrugged a pitiful, desperate shrug, "Mais, Monsieur--" March put a coin in his hand, and then suddenly the man's face twistedup; he caught the hand of this alms-giver in both of his and clung to it. "Monsieur! Monsieur!" he gasped, and the tears rained down his face. His benefactor pulled himself away, shocked and ashamed, as one is bysuch a chance, and got back to his wife, and the man lapsed back into themystery of misery out of which he had emerged. March felt it laid upon him to console his wife for what had happened. "Of course, we might live here for years and not see another case likethat; and, of course, there are twenty places where he could have gonefor help if he had known where to find them. " "Ah, but it's the possibility of his needing the help so badly as that, "she answered. "That's what I can't bear, and I shall not come to a placewhere such things are possible, and we may as well stop our house-huntinghere at once. " "Yes? And what part of Christendom will you live in? Such things arepossible everywhere in our conditions. " "Then we must change the conditions--" "Oh no; we must go to the theatre and forget them. We can stop atBrentano's for our tickets as we pass through Union Square. " "I am not going to the theatre, Basil. I am going home to Bostonto-night. You can stay and find a flat. " He convinced her of the absurdity of her position, and even of itsselfishness; but she said that her mind was quite made up irrespective ofwhat had happened, that she had been away from the children long enough;that she ought to be at home to finish up the work of leaving it. Theword brought a sigh. "Ah, I don't know why we should see nothing but sadand ugly things now. When we were young--" "Younger, " he put in. "We're still young. " "That's what we pretend, but we know better. But I was thinking howpretty and pleasant things used to be turning up all the time on ourtravels in the old days. Why, when we were in New York here on ourwedding journey the place didn't seem half so dirty as it does now, andnone of these dismal things happened. " "It was a good deal dirtier, " he answered; "and I fancy worse in everyway-hungrier, raggeder, more wretchedly housed. But that wasn't theperiod of life for us to notice it. Don't you remember, when we startedto Niagara the last time, how everybody seemed middle-aged andcommonplace; and when we got there there were no evident brides; nothingbut elderly married people?" "At least they weren't starving, " she rebelled. "No, you don't starve in parlor-cars and first-class hotels; but if youstep out of them you run your chance of seeing those who do, if you'regetting on pretty well in the forties. If it's the unhappy who seeunhappiness, think what misery must be revealed to people who pass theirlives in the really squalid tenement-house streets--I don't meanpicturesque avenues like that we passed through. " "But we are not unhappy, " she protested, bringing the talk back to thepersonal base again, as women must to get any good out of talk. "We'rereally no unhappier than we were when we were young. " "We're more serious. " "Well, I hate it; and I wish you wouldn't be so serious, if that's whatit brings us to. " "I will be trivial from this on, " said March. "Shall we go to the Hole inthe Ground to-night?" "I am going to Boston. " "It's much the same thing. How do you like that for triviality? It's alittle blasphemous, I'll allow. " "It's very silly, " she said. At the hotel they found a letter from the agent who had sent them thepermit to see Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment. He wrote that she hadheard they were pleased with her apartment, and that she thought shecould make the terms to suit. She had taken her passage for Europe, andwas very anxious to let the flat before she sailed. She would call thatevening at seven. "Mrs. Grosvenor Green!" said Mrs. March. "Which of the ten thousand flatsis it, Basil?" "The gimcrackery, " he answered. "In the Xenophon, you know. " "Well, she may save herself the trouble. I shall not see her. Or yes--Imust. I couldn't go away without seeing what sort of creature could haveplanned that fly-away flat. She must be a perfect--" "Parachute, " March suggested. "No! anybody so light as that couldn't come down. " "Well, toy balloon. " "Toy balloon will do for the present, " Mrs. March admitted. "But I feelthat naught but herself can be her parallel for volatility. " When Mrs. Grosvenor-Green's card came up they both descended to the hotelparlor, which March said looked like the saloon of a Moorish day-boat;not that he knew of any such craft, but the decorations were so Saracenicand the architecture so Hudson Riverish. They found there on the grandcentral divan a large lady whose vast smoothness, placidity, andplumpness set at defiance all their preconceptions of Mrs. GrosvenorGreen, so that Mrs. March distinctly paused with her card in her handbefore venturing even tentatively to address her. Then she was astonishedat the low, calm voice in which Mrs. Green acknowledged herself, andslowly proceeded to apologize for calling. It was not quite true that shehad taken her passage for Europe, but she hoped soon to do so, and sheconfessed that in the mean time she was anxious to let her flat. She wasa little worn out with the care of housekeeping--Mrs. March breathed, "Ohyes!" in the sigh with which ladies recognize one another'smartyrdom--and Mrs. Green had business abroad, and she was going topursue her art studies in Paris; she drew in Mr. Ilcomb's class now, butthe instruction was so much better in Paris; and as the superintendentseemed to think the price was the only objection, she had ventured tocall. "Then we didn't deceive him in the least, " thought Mrs. March, while sheanswered, sweetly: "No; we were only afraid that it would be too smallfor our family. We require a good many rooms. " She could not forego theopportunity of saying, "My husband is coming to New York to take chargeof a literary periodical, and he will have to have a room to write in, "which made Mrs. Green bow to March, and made March look sheepish. "But wedid think the apartment very charming", (It was architecturally charming, she protested to her conscience), "and we should have been so glad if wecould have got into it. " She followed this with some account of theirhouse-hunting, amid soft murmurs of sympathy from Mrs. Green, who saidthat she had been through all that, and that if she could have shown herapartment to them she felt sure that she could have explained it so thatthey would have seen its capabilities better, Mrs. March assented tothis, and Mrs. Green added that if they found nothing exactly suitableshe would be glad to have them look at it again; and then Mrs. March saidthat she was going back to Boston herself, but she was leaving Mr. Marchto continue the search; and she had no doubt he would be only too glad tosee the apartment by daylight. "But if you take it, Basil, " she warnedhim, when they were alone, "I shall simply renounce you. I wouldn't livein that junk-shop if you gave it to me. But who would have thought shewas that kind of looking person? Though of course I might have known if Ihad stopped to think once. It's because the place doesn't express her atall that it's so unlike her. It couldn't be like anybody, or anythingthat flies in the air, or creeps upon the earth, or swims in the watersunder the earth. I wonder where in the world she's from; she's noNew-Yorker; even we can see that; and she's not quite a country person, either; she seems like a person from some large town, where she's been anaesthetic authority. And she can't find good enough art instruction inNew York, and has to go to Paris for it! Well, it's pathetic, after all, Basil. I can't help feeling sorry for a person who mistakes herself tothat extent. " "I can't help feeling sorry for the husband of a person who mistakesherself to that extent. What is Mr. Grosvenor Green going to do in Pariswhile she's working her way into the Salon?" "Well, you keep away from her apartment, Basil; that's all I've got tosay to you. And yet I do like some things about her. " "I like everything about her but her apartment, " said March. "I like her going to be out of the country, " said his wife. "We shouldn'tbe overlooked. And the place was prettily shaped, you can't deny it. Andthere was an elevator and steam heat. And the location is veryconvenient. And there was a hall-boy to bring up cards. The halls andstairs were kept very clean and nice. But it wouldn't do. I could put youa folding bed in the room where you wrote, and we could even have one inthe parlor. " "Behind a portiere? I couldn't stand any more portieres!" "And we could squeeze the two girls into one room, or perhaps only bringMargaret, and put out the whole of the wash. Basil!" she almost shrieked, "it isn't to be thought of!" He retorted, "I'm not thinking of it, my dear. " Fulkerson came in just before they started for Mrs. March's train, tofind out what had become of them, he said, and to see whether they hadgot anything to live in yet. "Not a thing, " she said. "And I'm just going back to Boston, and leavingMr. March here to do anything he pleases about it. He has 'carteblanche. '" "But freedom brings responsibility, you know, Fulkerson, and it's thesame as if I'd no choice. I'm staying behind because I'm left, notbecause I expect to do anything. " "Is that so?" asked Fulkerson. "Well, we must see what can be done. Isupposed you would be all settled by this time, or I should have humpedmyself to find you something. None of those places I gave you amounts toanything?" "As much as forty thousand others we've looked at, " said Mrs. March. "Yes, one of them does amount to something. It comes so near being whatwe want that I've given Mr. March particular instructions not to go nearit. " She told him about Mrs. Grosvenor Green and her flats, and at the end hesaid: "Well, well, we must look out for that. I'll keep an eye on him, Mrs. March, and see that he doesn't do anything rash, and I won't leave himtill he's found just the right thing. It exists, of course; it must in acity of eighteen hundred thousand people, and the only question is whereto find it. You leave him to me, Mrs. March; I'll watch out for him. " Fulkerson showed some signs of going to the station when he found theywere not driving, but she bade him a peremptory good-bye at the hoteldoor. "He's very nice, Basil, and his way with you is perfectly charming. It'svery sweet to see how really fond of you he is. But I didn't want himstringing along with us up to Forty-second Street and spoiling our lastmoments together. " At Third Avenue they took the Elevated for which she confessed aninfatuation. She declared it the most ideal way of getting about in theworld, and was not ashamed when he reminded her of how she used to saythat nothing under the sun could induce her to travel on it. She now saidthat the night transit was even more interesting than the day, and thatthe fleeing intimacy you formed with people in second and third floorinteriors, while all the usual street life went on underneath, had adomestic intensity mixed with a perfect repose that was the last effectof good society with all its security and exclusiveness. He said it wasbetter than the theatre, of which it reminded him, to see those peoplethrough their windows: a family party of work-folk at a late tea, some ofthe men in their shirt-sleeves; a woman sewing by a lamp; a mother layingher child in its cradle; a man with his head fallen on his hands upon atable; a girl and her lover leaning over the window-sill together. Whatsuggestion! what drama? what infinite interest! At the Forty-secondStreet station they stopped a minute on the bridge that crosses the trackto the branch road for the Central Depot, and looked up and down the longstretch of the Elevated to north and south. The track that found and lostitself a thousand times in the flare and tremor of the innumerablelights; the moony sheen of the electrics mixing with the reddish pointsand blots of gas far and near; the architectural shapes of houses andchurches and towers, rescued by the obscurity from all that was ignoblein them, and the coming and going of the trains marking the stations withvivider or fainter plumes of flame-shot steam-formed an incomparableperspective. They often talked afterward of the superb spectacle, whichin a city full of painters nightly works its unrecorded miracles; andthey were just to the Arachne roof spun in iron over the cross street onwhich they ran to the depot; but for the present they were mostlyinarticulate before it. They had another moment of rich silence when theypaused in the gallery that leads from the Elevated station to thewaiting-rooms in the Central Depot and looked down upon the great nighttrains lying on the tracks dim under the rain of gas-lights that starredwithout dispersing the vast darkness of the place. What forces, whatfates, slept in these bulks which would soon be hurling themselves northand south and west through the night! Now they waited there like fabledmonsters of Arab story ready for the magician's touch, tractable, reckless, will-less--organized lifelessness full of a strange semblanceof life. The Marches admired the impressive sight with a thrill of patriotic pridein the fact that the whole world perhaps could not afford just the like. Then they hurried down to the ticket-offices, and he got her a lowerberth in the Boston sleeper, and went with her to the car. They made themost of the fact that her berth was in the very middle of the car; andshe promised to write as soon as she reached home. She promised alsothat, having seen the limitations of New York in respect to flats, shewould not be hard on him if he took something not quite ideal. Only hemust remember that it was not to be above Twentieth Street nor belowWashington Square; it must not be higher than the third floor; it musthave an elevator, steam heat, hail-boys, and a pleasant janitor. Thesewere essentials; if he could not get them, then they must do without. Buthe must get them. XI. Mrs. March was one of those wives who exact a more rigid adherence totheir ideals from their husbands than from themselves. Early in theirmarried life she had taken charge of him in all matters which sheconsidered practical. She did not include the business of bread-winningin these; that was an affair that might safely be left to hisabsent-minded, dreamy inefficiency, and she did not interfere with himthere. But in such things as rehanging the pictures, deciding on a summerboarding-place, taking a seaside cottage, repapering rooms, choosingseats at the theatre, seeing what the children ate when she was not attable, shutting the cat out at night, keeping run of calls andinvitations, and seeing if the furnace was dampered, he had failed her sooften that she felt she could not leave him the slightest discretion inregard to a flat. Her total distrust of his judgment in the matters citedand others like them consisted with the greatest admiration of his mindand respect for his character. She often said that if he would only bringthese to bear in such exigencies he would be simply perfect; but she hadlong given up his ever doing so. She subjected him, therefore, to an ironcode, but after proclaiming it she was apt to abandon him to the nativelawlessness of his temperament. She expected him in this event to do ashe pleased, and she resigned herself to it with considerable comfort inholding him accountable. He learned to expect this, and after sufferingkeenly from her disappointment with whatever he did he waited patientlytill she forgot her grievance and began to extract what consolation lurksin the irreparable. She would almost admit at moments that what he haddone was a very good thing, but she reserved the right to return in fullforce to her original condemnation of it; and she accumulated each act ofindependent volition in witness and warning against him. Their massoppressed but never deterred him. He expected to do the wrong thing whenleft to his own devices, and he did it without any apparent recollectionof his former misdeeds and their consequences. There was a good deal ofcomedy in it all, and some tragedy. He now experienced a certain expansion, such as husbands of his kind willimagine, on going back to his hotel alone. It was, perhaps, a revulsionfrom the pain of parting; and he toyed with the idea of Mrs. GrosvenorGreen's apartment, which, in its preposterous unsuitability, had astrange attraction. He felt that he could take it with less risk thananything else they had seen, but he said he would look at all the otherplaces in town first. He really spent the greater part of the next day inhunting up the owner of an apartment that had neither steam heat nor anelevator, but was otherwise perfect, and trying to get him to take lessthan the agent asked. By a curious psychical operation he was able, inthe transaction, to work himself into quite a passionate desire for theapartment, while he held the Grosvenor Green apartment in the backgroundof his mind as something that he could return to as altogether moresuitable. He conducted some simultaneous negotiation for a furnishedhouse, which enhanced still more the desirability of the Grosvenor Greenapartment. Toward evening he went off at a tangent far up-town, so as tobe able to tell his wife how utterly preposterous the best there would beas compared even with this ridiculous Grosvenor Green gimcrackery. It ishard to report the processes of his sophistication; perhaps this, again, may best be left to the marital imagination. He rang at the last of these up-town apartments as it was falling dusk, and it was long before the janitor appeared. Then the man was very surly, and said if he looked at the flat now he would say it was too dark, likeall the rest. His reluctance irritated March in proportion to hisinsincerity in proposing to look at it at all. He knew he did not mean totake it under any circumstances; that he was going to use his inspectionof it in dishonest justification of his disobedience to his wife; but heput on an air of offended dignity. "If you don't wish to show theapartment, " he said, "I don't care to see it. " The man groaned, for he was heavy, and no doubt dreaded the stairs. Hescratched a match on his thigh, and led the way up. March was sorry forhim, and he put his fingers on a quarter in his waistcoat-pocket to givehim at parting. At the same time, he had to trump up an objection to theflat. This was easy, for it was advertised as containing ten rooms, andhe found the number eked out with the bath-room and two large closets. "It's light enough, " said March, "but I don't see how you make out tenrooms. " "There's ten rooms, " said the man, deigning no proof. March took his fingers off the quarter, and went down-stairs and out ofthe door without another word. It would be wrong, it would be impossible, to give the man anything after such insolence. He reflected, with shame, that it was also cheaper to punish than forgive him. He returned to his hotel prepared for any desperate measure, andconvinced now that the Grosvenor Green apartment was not merely the onlything left for him, but was, on its own merits, the best thing in NewYork. Fulkerson was waiting for him in the reading-room, and it gave March thecurious thrill with which a man closes with temptation when he said:"Look here! Why don't you take that woman's flat in the Xenophon? She'sbeen at the agents again, and they've been at me. She likes your look--orMrs. March's--and I guess you can have it at a pretty heavy discount fromthe original price. I'm authorized to say you can have it for oneseventy-five a month, and I don't believe it would be safe for you tooffer one fifty. " March shook his head, and dropped a mask of virtuous rejection over hiscorrupt acquiescence. "It's too small for us--we couldn't squeeze intoit. " "Why, look here!" Fulkerson persisted. "How many rooms do you peoplewant?" "I've got to have a place to work--" "Of course! And you've got to have it at the Fifth Wheel office. " "I hadn't thought of that, " March began. "I suppose I could do my work atthe office, as there's not much writing--" "Why, of course you can't do your work at home. You just come round withme now, and look at that again. " "No; I can't do it. " "Why?" "I--I've got to dine. " "All right, " said Fulkerson. "Dine with me. I want to take you round to alittle Italian place that I know. " One may trace the successive steps of March's descent in this simplematter with the same edification that would attend the study of theself-delusions and obfuscations of a man tempted to crime. The process isprobably not at all different, and to the philosophical mind the kind ofresult is unimportant; the process is everything. Fulkerson led him down one block and half across another to the steps ofa small dwelling-house, transformed, like many others, into a restaurantof the Latin ideal, with little or no structural change from the patternof the lower middle-class New York home. There were the corrodedbrownstone steps, the mean little front door, and the cramped entry withits narrow stairs by which ladies could go up to a dining-room appointedfor them on the second floor; the parlors on the first were set aboutwith tables, where men smoked cigarettes between the courses, and asingle waiter ran swiftly to and fro with plates and dishes, and, exchanged unintelligible outcries with a cook beyond a slide in the backparlor. He rushed at the new-comers, brushed the soiled table-clothbefore them with a towel on his arm, covered its worst stains with anapkin, and brought them, in their order, the vermicelli soup, the friedfish, the cheese-strewn spaghetti, the veal cutlets, the tepid roast fowland salad, and the wizened pear and coffee which form the dinner at suchplaces. "Ah, this is nice!" said Fulkerson, after the laying of the charitablenapkin, and he began to recognize acquaintances, some of whom hedescribed to March as young literary men and artists with whom theyshould probably have to do; others were simply frequenters of the place, and were of all nationalities and religions apparently--at least, severalwere Hebrews and Cubans. "You get a pretty good slice of New York here, "he said, "all except the frosting on top. That you won't find much atMaroni's, though you will occasionally. I don't mean the ladies ever, ofcourse. " The ladies present seemed harmless and reputable-looking peopleenough, but certainly they were not of the first fashion, and, except ina few instances, not Americans. "It's like cutting straight down througha fruitcake, " Fulkerson went on, "or a mince-pie, when you don't know whomade the pie; you get a little of everything. " He ordered a small flaskof Chianti with the dinner, and it came in its pretty wicker jacket. March smiled upon it with tender reminiscence, and Fulkerson laughed. "Lights you up a little. I brought old Dryfoos here one day, and hethought it was sweet-oil; that's the kind of bottle they used to have itin at the country drug-stores. " "Yes, I remember now; but I'd totally forgotten it, " said March. "How farback that goes! Who's Dryfoos?" "Dryfoos?" Fulkerson, still smiling, tore off a piece of the half-yard ofFrench loaf which had been supplied them, with two pale, thin disks ofbutter, and fed it into himself. "Old Dryfoos? Well, of course! I callhim old, but he ain't so very. About fifty, or along there. " "No, " said March, "that isn't very old--or not so old as it used to be. " "Well, I suppose you've got to know about him, anyway, " said Fulkerson, thoughtfully. "And I've been wondering just how I should tell you. Can'talways make out exactly how much of a Bostonian you really are! Ever beenout in the natural-gas country?" "No, " said March. "I've had a good deal of curiosity about it, but I'venever been able to get away except in summer, and then we alwayspreferred to go over the old ground, out to Niagara and back throughCanada, the route we took on our wedding journey. The children like it asmuch as we do. " "Yes, yes, " said Fulkerson. "Well, the natural-gas country is worthseeing. I don't mean the Pittsburg gas-fields, but out in Northern Ohioand Indiana around Moffitt--that's the place in the heart of the gasregion that they've been booming so. Yes, you ought to see that country. If you haven't been West for a good many years, you haven't got any ideahow old the country looks. You remember how the fields used to be allfull of stumps?" "I should think so. " "Well, you won't see any stumps now. All that country out around Moffittis just as smooth as a checker-board, and looks as old as England. Youknow how we used to burn the stumps out; and then somebody invented astump-extractor, and we pulled them out with a yoke of oxen. Now theyjust touch 'em off with a little dynamite, and they've got a cellar dugand filled up with kindling ready for housekeeping whenever you want it. Only they haven't got any use for kindling in that country--all gas. Irode along on the cars through those level black fields at corn-plantingtime, and every once in a while I'd come to a place with a piece ofragged old stove-pipe stickin' up out of the ground, and blazing awaylike forty, and a fellow ploughing all round it and not minding it anymore than if it was spring violets. Horses didn't notice it, either. Well, they've always known about the gas out there; they say there areplaces in the woods where it's been burning ever since the country wassettled. "But when you come in sight of Moffitt--my, oh, my! Well, you come insmell of it about as soon. That gas out there ain't odorless, like thePittsburg gas, and so it's perfectly safe; but the smell isn't bad--aboutas bad as the finest kind of benzine. Well, the first thing that strikesyou when you come to Moffitt is the notion that there has been a goodwarm, growing rain, and the town's come up overnight. That's in thesuburbs, the annexes, and additions. But it ain't shabby--no shanty-farmbusiness; nice brick and frame houses, some of 'em Queen Anne style, andall of 'em looking as if they had come to stay. And when you drive upfrom the depot you think everybody's moving. Everything seems to be piledinto the street; old houses made over, and new ones going up everywhere. You know the kind of street Main Street always used to be in oursection--half plank-road and turnpike, and the rest mud-hole, and a lotof stores and doggeries strung along with false fronts a story higherthan the back, and here and there a decent building with the gable end tothe public; and a court-house and jail and two taverns and three or fourchurches. Well, they're all there in Moffitt yet, but architecture hasstruck it hard, and they've got a lot of new buildings that needn't beashamed of themselves anywhere; the new court-house is as big as St. Peter's, and the Grand Opera-house is in the highest style of the art. You can't buy a lot on that street for much less than you can buy a lotin New York--or you couldn't when the boom was on; I saw the place justwhen the boom was in its prime. I went out there to work the newspapersin the syndicate business, and I got one of their men to write me a realbright, snappy account of the gas; and they just took me in their armsand showed me everything. Well, it was wonderful, and it was beautiful, too! To see a whole community stirred up like that was--just like a bigboy, all hope and high spirits, and no discount on the remotest future;nothing but perpetual boom to the end of time--I tell you it warmed yourblood. Why, there were some things about it that made you think what anice kind of world this would be if people ever took hold together, instead of each fellow fighting it out on his own hook, and devil takethe hindmost. They made up their minds at Moffitt that if they wantedtheir town to grow they'd got to keep their gas public property. So theyextended their corporation line so as to take in pretty much the wholegas region round there; and then the city took possession of every wellthat was put down, and held it for the common good. Anybody that's a mindto come to Moffitt and start any kind of manufacture can have all the gashe wants free; and for fifteen dollars a year you can have all the gasyou want to heat and light your private house. The people hold on to itfor themselves, and, as I say, it's a grand sight to see a wholecommunity hanging together and working for the good of all, instead ofsplitting up into as many different cut-throats as there are able-bodiedcitizens. See that fellow?" Fulkerson broke off, and indicated with atwirl of his head a short, dark, foreign-looking man going out of thedoor. "They say that fellow's a Socialist. I think it's a shame they'reallowed to come here. If they don't like the way we manage our affairslet 'em stay at home, " Fulkerson continued. "They do a lot of mischief, shooting off their mouths round here. I believe in free speech and allthat; but I'd like to see these fellows shut up in jail and left to jawone another to death. We don't want any of their poison. " March did not notice the vanishing Socialist. He was watching, with ateasing sense of familiarity, a tall, shabbily dressed, elderly man, whohad just come in. He had the aquiline profile uncommon among Germans, andyet March recognized him at once as German. His long, soft beard andmustache had once been fair, and they kept some tone of their yellow inthe gray to which they had turned. His eyes were full, and his lips andchin shaped the beard to the noble outline which shows in the beards theItalian masters liked to paint for their Last Suppers. His carriage waserect and soldierly, and March presently saw that he had lost his lefthand. He took his place at a table where the overworked waiter found timeto cut up his meat and put everything in easy reach of his right hand. "Well, " Fulkerson resumed, "they took me round everywhere in Moffitt, andshowed me their big wells--lit 'em up for a private view, and let me hearthem purr with the soft accents of a mass-meeting of locomotives. Why, when they let one of these wells loose in a meadow that they'd piped itinto temporarily, it drove the flame away forty feet from the mouth ofthe pipe and blew it over half an acre of ground. They say when they letone of their big wells burn away all winter before they had learned howto control it, that well kept up a little summer all around it; the grassstayed green, and the flowers bloomed all through the winter. I don'tknow whether it's so or not. But I can believe anything of natural gas. My! but it was beautiful when they turned on the full force of that welland shot a roman candle into the gas--that's the way they light it--and aplume of fire about twenty feet wide and seventy-five feet high, all redand yellow and violet, jumped into the sky, and that big roar shook theground under your feet! You felt like saying: "'Don't trouble yourself; I'm perfectly convinced. I believe in Moffitt. 'We-e-e-ll!" drawled Fulkerson, with a long breath, "that's where I metold Dryfoos. " "Oh yes!--Dryfoos, " said March. He observed that the waiter had broughtthe old one-handed German a towering glass of beer. "Yes, " Fulkerson laughed. "We've got round to Dryfoos again. I thought Icould cut a long story short, but I seem to be cutting a short storylong. If you're not in a hurry, though--" "Not in the least. Go on as long as you like. " "I met him there in the office of a real-estate man--speculator, ofcourse; everybody was, in Moffitt; but a first-rate fellow, andpublic-spirited as all get-out; and when Dryfoos left he told me abouthim. Dryfoos was an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, about three or fourmiles out of Moffitt, and he'd lived there pretty much all his life;father was one of the first settlers. Everybody knew he had the rightstuff in him, but he was slower than molasses in January, like thosePennsylvania Dutch. He'd got together the largest and handsomest farmanywhere around there; and he was making money on it, just like he was insome business somewhere; he was a very intelligent man; he took thepapers and kept himself posted; but he was awfully old-fashioned in hisideas. He hung on to the doctrines as well as the dollars of the dads; itwas a real thing with him. Well, when the boom began to come he hated itawfully, and he fought it. He used to write communications to the weeklynewspaper in Moffitt--they've got three dailies there now--and throw coldwater on the boom. He couldn't catch on no way. It made him sick to hearthe clack that went on about the gas the whole while, and that stirred upthe neighborhood and got into his family. Whenever he'd hear of a manthat had been offered a big price for his land and was going to sell outand move into town, he'd go and labor with him and try to talk him out ofit, and tell him how long his fifteen or twenty thousand would last himto live on, and shake the Standard Oil Company before him, and try tomake him believe it wouldn't be five years before the Standard owned thewhole region. "Of course, he couldn't do anything with them. When a man's offered a bigprice for his farm, he don't care whether it's by a secret emissary fromthe Standard Oil or not; he's going to sell and get the better of theother fellow if he can. Dryfoos couldn't keep the boom out of has ownfamily even. His wife was with him. She thought whatever he said and didwas just as right as if it had been thundered down from Sinai. But theyoung folks were sceptical, especially the girls that had been away toschool. The boy that had been kept at home because he couldn't be sparedfrom helping his father manage the farm was more like him, but theycontrived to stir the boy up--with the hot end of the boom, too. So whena fellow came along one day and offered old Dryfoos a cool hundredthousand for his farm, it was all up with Dryfoos. He'd 'a' liked to 'a'kept the offer to himself and not done anything about it, but his vanitywouldn't let him do that; and when he let it out in his family the girlsoutvoted him. They just made him sell. "He wouldn't sell all. He kept about eighty acres that was off in somepiece by itself, but the three hundred that had the old brick house onit, and the big barn--that went, and Dryfoos bought him a place inMoffitt and moved into town to live on the interest of his money. JustWhat he had scolded and ridiculed everybody else for doing. Well, theysay that at first he seemed like he would go crazy. He hadn't anything todo. He took a fancy to that land-agent, and he used to go and set in hisoffice and ask him what he should do. 'I hain't got any horses, I hain'tgot any cows, I hain't got any pigs, I hain't got any chickens. I hain'tgot anything to do from sun-up to sun-down. ' The fellow said the tearsused to run down the old fellow's cheeks, and if he hadn't been so busyhimself he believed he should 'a' cried, too. But most o' people thoughtold Dryfoos was down in the mouth because he hadn't asked more for hisfarm, when he wanted to buy it back and found they held it at a hundredand fifty thousand. People couldn't believe he was just homesick andheartsick for the old place. Well, perhaps he was sorry he hadn't askedmore; that's human nature, too. "After a while something happened. That land-agent used to tell Dryfoosto get out to Europe with his money and see life a little, or go and livein Washington, where he could be somebody; but Dryfoos wouldn't, and hekept listening to the talk there, and all of a sudden he caught on. Hecame into that fellow's one day with a plan for cutting up the eightyacres he'd kept into town lots; and he'd got it all plotted out so-well, and had so many practical ideas about it, that the fellow was astonished. He went right in with him, as far as Dryfoos would let him, and glad ofthe chance; and they were working the thing for all it was worth when Istruck Moffitt. Old Dryfoos wanted me to go out and see the Dryfoos &Hendry Addition--guess he thought maybe I'd write it up; and he drove meout there himself. Well, it was funny to see a town made: streets driventhrough; two rows of shadetrees, hard and soft, planted; cellars dug andhouses put up-regular Queen Anne style, too, with stained glass-all atonce. Dryfoos apologized for the streets because they were hand-made;said they expected their street-making machine Tuesday, and then theyintended to push things. " Fulkerson enjoyed the effect of his picture on March for a moment, andthen went on: "He was mighty intelligent, too, and he questioned me upabout my business as sharp as I ever was questioned; seemed to kind ofstrike his fancy; I guess he wanted to find out if there was any money init. He was making money, hand over hand, then; and he never stoppedspeculating and improving till he'd scraped together three or fourhundred thousand dollars, they said a million, but they like roundnumbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a million would lay over itcomfortably and leave a few thousands to spare, probably. Then he came onto New York. " Fulkerson struck a match against the ribbed side of the porcelain cupthat held the matches in the centre of the table, and lit a cigarette, which he began to smoke, throwing his head back with a leisurely effect, as if he had got to the end of at least as much of his story as he meantto tell without prompting. March asked him the desired question. "What in the world for?" Fulkerson took out his cigarette and said, with a smile: "To spend hismoney, and get his daughters into the old Knickerbocker society. Maybe hethought they were all the same kind of Dutch. " "And has he succeeded?" "Well, they're not social leaders yet. But it's only a question oftime--generation or two--especially if time's money, and if Every OtherWeek is the success it's bound to be. " "You don't mean to say, Fulkerson, " said March, with a half-doubting, half-daunted laugh, "that he's your Angel?" "That's what I mean to say, " returned Fulkerson. "I ran onto him inBroadway one day last summer. If you ever saw anybody in your life;you're sure to meet him in Broadway again, sooner or later. That's thephilosophy of the bunco business; country people from the sameneighborhood are sure to run up against each other the first time theycome to New York. I put out my hand, and I said, 'Isn't this Mr. Dryfoosfrom Moffitt?' He didn't seem to have any use for my hand; he let me keepit, and he squared those old lips of his till his imperial stuck straightout. Ever see Bernhardt in 'L'Etrangere'? Well, the American husband isold Dryfoos all over; no mustache; and hay-colored chin-whiskers cutslanting froze the corners of his mouth. He cocked his little gray eyesat me, and says he: 'Yes, young man; my name is Dryfoos, and I'm fromMoffitt. But I don't want no present of Longfellow's Works, illustrated;and I don't want to taste no fine teas; but I know a policeman that does;and if you're the son of my old friend Squire Strohfeldt, you'd betterget out. ' 'Well, then, ' said I, 'how would you like to go into thenewspaper syndicate business?' He gave another look at me, and then heburst out laughing, and he grabbed my hand, and he just froze to it. Inever saw anybody so glad. "Well, the long and the short of it was that I asked him round here toMaroni's to dinner; and before we broke up for the night we had settledthe financial side of the plan that's brought you to New York. " "I can see, " said Fulkerson, who had kept his eyes fast on March's face, "that you don't more than half like the idea of Dryfoos. It ought to giveyou more confidence in the thing than you ever had. You needn't beafraid, " he added, with some feeling, "that I talked Dryfoos into thething for my own advantage. " "Oh, my dear Fulkerson!" March protested, all the more fervently becausehe was really a little guilty. "Well, of course not! I didn't mean you were. But I just happened to tellhim what I wanted to go into when I could see my way to it, and he caughton of his own accord. The fact is, " said Fulkerson, "I guess I'd bettermake a clean breast of it, now I'm at it, Dryfoos wanted to get somethingfor that boy of his to do. He's in railroads himself, and he's in minesand other things, and he keeps busy, and he can't bear to have his boyhanging round the house doing nothing, like as if he was a girl. I toldhim that the great object of a rich man was to get his son into just thatfix, but he couldn't seem to see it, and the boy hated it himself. He'sgot a good head, and he wanted to study for the ministry when they wereall living together out on the farm; but his father had the old-fashionedideas about that. You know they used to think that any sort of stuff wasgood enough to make a preacher out of; but they wanted the good timberfor business; and so the old man wouldn't let him. You'll see the fellow;you'll like him; he's no fool, I can tell you; and he's going to be ourpublisher, nominally at first and actually when I've taught him the ropesa little. " XII. Fulkerson stopped and looked at March, whom he saw lapsing into a serioussilence. Doubtless he divined his uneasiness with the facts that had beengiven him to digest. He pulled out his watch and glanced at it. "Seehere, how would you like to go up to Forty-sixth street with me, and dropin on old Dryfoos? Now's your chance. He's going West tomorrow, and won'tbe back for a month or so. They'll all be glad to see you, and you'llunderstand things better when you've seen him and his family. I can'texplain. " March reflected a moment. Then he said, with a wisdom that surprised him, for he would have liked to yield to the impulse of his curiosity:"Perhaps we'd better wait till Mrs. March comes down, and let things takethe usual course. The Dryfoos ladies will want to call on her as thelast-comer, and if I treated myself 'en garcon' now, and paid the firstvisit, it might complicate matters. " "Well, perhaps you're right, " said Fulkerson. "I don't know much aboutthese things, and I don't believe Ma Dryfoos does, either. " He was on hislegs lighting another cigarette. "I suppose the girls are gettingthemselves up in etiquette, though. Well, then, let's have a look at the'Every Other Week' building, and then, if you like your quarters there, you can go round and close for Mrs. Green's flat. " March's dormant allegiance to his wife's wishes had been roused by hisdecision in favor of good social usage. "I don't think I shall take theflat, " he said. "Well, don't reject it without giving it another look, anyway. Come on!" He helped March on with his light overcoat, and the little stir they madefor their departure caught the notice of the old German; he looked upfrom his beer at them. March was more than ever impressed with somethingfamiliar in his face. In compensation for his prudence in regard to theDryfooses he now indulged an impulse. He stepped across to where the oldman sat, with his bald head shining like ivory under the gas-jet, and hisfine patriarchal length of bearded mask taking picturesque lights andshadows, and put out his hand to him. "Lindau! Isn't this Mr. Lindau?" The old man lifted himself slowly to his feet with mechanical politeness, and cautiously took March's hand. "Yes, my name is Lindau, " he said, slowly, while he scanned March's face. Then he broke into a long cry. "Ah-h-h-h-h, my dear poy! my gong friendt! my-my--Idt is Passil Marge, not zo? Ah, ha, ha, ha! How gladt I am to zee you! Why, I am gladt! Andyou rememberdt me? You remember Schiller, and Goethe, and Uhland? AndIndianapolis? You still lif in Indianapolis? It sheers my hardt to zeeyou. But you are lidtle oldt, too? Tventy-five years makes a difference. Ah, I am gladt! Dell me, idt is Passil Marge, not zo?" He looked anxiously into March's face, with a gentle smile of mixed hopeand doubt, and March said: "As sure as it's Berthold Lindau, and I guessit's you. And you remember the old times? You were as much of a boy as Iwas, Lindau. Are you living in New York? Do you recollect how you triedto teach me to fence? I don't know how to this day, Lindau. How good youwere, and how patient! Do you remember how we used to sit up in thelittle parlor back of your printing-office, and read Die Rauber and DieTheilung der Erde and Die Glocke? And Mrs. Lindau? Is she with--" "Deadt--deadt long ago. Right after I got home from the war--tventy yearsago. But tell me, you are married? Children? Yes! Goodt! And how oldt areyou now?" "It makes me seventeen to see you, Lindau, but I've got a son nearly asold. " "Ah, ha, ha! Goodt! And where do you lif?" "Well, I'm just coming to live in New York, " March said, looking over atFulkerson, who had been watching his interview with the perfunctory smileof sympathy that people put on at the meeting of old friends. "I want tointroduce you to my friend Mr. Fulkerson. He and I are going into aliterary enterprise here. " "Ah! zo?" said the old man, with polite interest. He took Fulkerson'sproffered hand, and they all stood talking a few moments together. Then Fulkerson said, with another look at his watch, "Well, March, we'rekeeping Mr. Lindau from his dinner. " "Dinner!" cried the old man. "Idt's better than breadt and meadt to seeMr. Marge!" "I must be going, anyway, " said March. "But I must see you again soon, Lindau. Where do you live? I want a long talk. " "And I. You will find me here at dinner-time. " said the old man. "It isthe best place"; and March fancied him reluctant to give another address. To cover his consciousness he answered, gayly: "Then, it's 'aufwiedersehen' with us. Well!" "Also!" The old man took his hand, and made a mechanical movement withhis mutilated arm, as if he would have taken it in a double clasp. Helaughed at himself. "I wanted to gif you the other handt, too, but I gafeit to your gountry a goodt while ago. " "To my country?" asked March, with a sense of pain, and yet lightly, asif it were a joke of the old man's. "Your country, too, Lindau?" The old man turned very grave, and said, almost coldly, "What gountryhass a poor man got, Mr. Marge?" "Well, you ought to have a share in the one you helped to save for usrich men, Lindau, " March returned, still humoring the joke. The old man smiled sadly, but made no answer as he sat down again. "Seems to be a little soured, " said Fulkerson, as they went down thesteps. He was one of those Americans whose habitual conception of life isunalloyed prosperity. When any experience or observation of his wentcounter to it he suffered--something like physical pain. He eagerlyshrugged away the impression left upon his buoyancy by Lindau, and addedto March's continued silence, "What did I tell you about meeting everyman in New York that you ever knew before?" "I never expected to meat Lindau in the world again, " said March, more tohimself than to Fulkerson. "I had an impression that he had been killedin the war. I almost wish he had been. " "Oh, hello, now!" cried Fulkerson. March laughed, but went on soberly: "He was a man predestined toadversity, though. When I first knew him out in Indianapolis he wasstarving along with a sick wife and a sick newspaper. It was before theGermans had come over to the Republicans generally, but Lindau wasfighting the anti-slavery battle just as naturally at Indianapolis in1858 as he fought behind the barricades at Berlin in 1848. And yet he wasalways such a gentle soul! And so generous! He taught me German for thelove of it; he wouldn't spoil his pleasure by taking a cent from me; heseemed to get enough out of my being young and enthusiastic, and out ofprophesying great things for me. I wonder what the poor old fellow isdoing here, with that one hand of his?" "Not amassing a very 'handsome pittance, ' I guess, as Artemus Ward wouldsay, " said Fulkerson, getting back some of his lightness. "There are lotsof two-handed fellows in New York that are not doing much better, Iguess. Maybe he gets some writing on the German papers. " "I hope so. He's one of the most accomplished men! He used to be asplendid musician--pianist--and knows eight or ten languages. " "Well, it's astonishing, " said Fulkerson, "how much lumber those Germanscan carry around in their heads all their lives, and never work it upinto anything. It's a pity they couldn't do the acquiring, and let outthe use of their learning to a few bright Americans. We could make thingshum, if we could arrange 'em that way. " He talked on, unheeded by March, who went along half-consciouslytormented by his lightness in the pensive memories the meeting withLindau had called up. Was this all that sweet, unselfish nature couldcome to? What a homeless old age at that meagre Italian table d'hote, with that tall glass of beer for a half-hour's oblivion! That shabbydress, that pathetic mutilation! He must have a pension, twelve dollars amonth, or eighteen, from a grateful country. But what else did he eke outwith? "Well, here we are, " said Fulkerson, cheerily. He ran up the steps beforeMarch, and opened the carpenter's temporary valve in the door frame, andled the way into a darkness smelling sweetly of unpainted wood-work andnewly dried plaster; their feat slipped on shavings and grated on sand. He scratched a match, and found a candle, and then walked about up anddown stairs, and lectured on the advantages of the place. He had fittedup bachelor apartments for himself in the house, and said that he wasgoing to have a flat to let on the top floor. "I didn't offer it to youbecause I supposed you'd be too proud to live over your shop; and it'stoo small, anyway; only five rooms. " "Yes, that's too small, " said March, shirking the other point. "Well, then, here's the room I intend for your office, " said Fulkerson, showing him into a large back parlor one flight up. "You'll have it quietfrom the street noises here, and you can be at home or not, as youplease. There'll be a boy on the stairs to find out. Now, you see, thismakes the Grosvenor Green flat practicable, if you want it. " March felt the forces of fate closing about him and pushing him to adecision. He feebly fought them off till he could have another look atthe flat. Then, baked and subdued still more by the unexpected presenceof Mrs. Grosvenor Green herself, who was occupying it so as to be able toshow it effectively, he took it. He was aware more than ever of itsabsurdities; he knew that his wife would never cease to hate it; but hehad suffered one of those eclipses of the imagination to which men of histemperament are subject, and into which he could see no future for hisdesires. He felt a comfort in irretrievably committing himself, andexchanging the burden of indecision for the burden of responsibility. "I don't know, " said Fulkerson, as they walked back to his hoteltogether, "but you might fix it up with that lone widow and her prettydaughter to take part of their house here. " He seemed to be reminded ofit by the fact of passing the house, and March looked up at its darkfront. He could not have told exactly why he felt a pang of remorse atthe sight, and doubtless it was more regret for having taken theGrosvenor Green flat than for not having taken the widow's rooms. Still, he could not forget her wistfulness when his wife and he were looking atthem, and her disappointment when they decided against them. He hadtoyed, in, his after-talk to Mrs. March, with a sort of hypotheticalobligation they had to modify their plans so as to meet the widow's wantof just such a family as theirs; they had both said what a blessing itwould be to her, and what a pity they could not do it; but they haddecided very distinctly that they could not. Now it seemed to him thatthey might; and he asked himself whether he had not actually departed asmuch from their ideal as if he had taken board with the widow. Suddenlyit seemed to him that his wife asked him this, too. "I reckon, " said Fulkerson, "that she could have arranged to give youyour meals in your rooms, and it would have come to about the same thingas housekeeping. " "No sort of boarding can be the same as house-keeping, " said March. "Iwant my little girl to have the run of a kitchen, and I want the wholefamily to have the moral effect of housekeeping. It's demoralizing toboard, in every way; it isn't a home, if anybody else takes the care ofit off your hands. " "Well, I suppose so, " Fulkerson assented; but March's words had a hollowring to himself, and in his own mind he began to retaliate hisdissatisfaction upon Fulkerson. He parted from him on the usual terms outwardly, but he felt obscurelyabused by Fulkerson in regard to the Dryfooses, father and son. He didnot know but Fulkerson had taken an advantage of him in allowing him tocommit himself to their enterprise with out fully and frankly telling himwho and what his backer was; he perceived that with young Dryfoos as thepublisher and Fulkerson as the general director of the paper there mightbe very little play for his own ideas of its conduct. Perhaps it was thehurt to his vanity involved by the recognition of this fact that made himforget how little choice he really had in the matter, and how, since hehad not accepted the offer to edit the insurance paper, nothing remainedfor him but to close with Fulkerson. In this moment of suspicion andresentment he accused Fulkerson of hastening his decision in regard tothe Grosvenor Green apartment; he now refused to consider it a decision, and said to himself that if he felt disposed to do so he would send Mrs. Green a note reversing it in the morning. But he put it all off tillmorning with his clothes, when he went to bed, he put off even thinkingwhat his wife would say; he cast Fulkerson and his constructive treacheryout of his mind, too, and invited into it some pensive reveries of thepast, when he still stood at the parting of the ways, and could take thispath or that. In his middle life this was not possible; he must followthe path chosen long, ago, wherever, it led. He was not master ofhimself, as he once seemed, but the servant of those he loved; if hecould do what he liked, perhaps he might renounce this whole New Yorkenterprise, and go off somewhere out of the reach of care; but he couldnot do what he liked, that was very clear. In the pathos of thisconviction he dwelt compassionately upon the thought of poor old Lindau;he resolved to make him accept a handsome sum of money--more than hecould spare, something that he would feel the loss of--in payment of thelessons in German and fencing given so long ago. At the usual rate forsuch lessons, his debt, with interest for twenty-odd years, would runvery far into the hundreds. Too far, he perceived, for his wife's joyousapproval; he determined not to add the interest; or he believed thatLindau would refuse the interest; he put a fine speech in his mouth, making him do so; and after that he got Lindau employment on 'Every OtherWeek, ' and took care of him till he died. Through all his melancholy and munificence he was aware of sordidanxieties for having taken the Grosvenor Green apartment. These began toassume visible, tangible shapes as he drowsed, and to became personalentities, from which he woke, with little starts, to a realization oftheir true nature, and then suddenly fell fast asleep. In the accomplishment of the events which his reverie played with, therewas much that retroactively stamped it with prophecy, but much also thatwas better than he forboded. He found that with regard to the GrosvenorGreen apartment he had not allowed for his wife's willingness to get anysort of roof over her head again after the removal from their old home, or for the alleviations that grow up through mere custom. The practicalworkings of the apartment were not so bad; it had its good points, andafter the first sensation of oppression in it they began to feel theconvenience of its arrangement. They were at that time of life whenpeople first turn to their children's opinion with deference, and, in theloss of keenness in their own likes and dislikes, consult the youngpreferences which are still so sensitive. It went far to reconcile Mrs. March to the apartment that her children were pleased with its novelty;when this wore off for them, she had herself begun to find it much moreeasily manageable than a house. After she had put away several barrels ofgimcracks, and folded up screens and rugs and skins, and carried them alloff to the little dark store-room which the flat developed, she perceivedat once a roominess and coziness in it unsuspected before. Then, whenpeople began to call, she had a pleasure, a superiority, in saying thatit was a furnished apartment, and in disclaiming all responsibility forthe upholstery and decoration. If March was by, she always explained thatit was Mr. March's fancy, and amiably laughed it off with her callers asa mannish eccentricity. Nobody really seemed to think it otherwise thanpretty; and this again was a triumph for Mrs. March, because it showedhow inferior the New York taste was to the Boston taste in such matters. March submitted silently to his punishment, and laughed with her beforecompany at his own eccentricity. She had been so preoccupied with theadjustment of the family to its new quarters and circumstances that thetime passed for laying his misgivings, if they were misgivings, aboutFulkerson before her, and when an occasion came for expressing them theyhad themselves passed in the anxieties of getting forward the firstnumber of 'Every Other Week. ' He kept these from her, too, and thebusiness that brought them to New York had apparently dropped intoabeyance before the questions of domestic economy that presented andabsented themselves. March knew his wife to be a woman of good mind andin perfect sympathy with him, but he understood the limitations of herperspective; and if he was not too wise, he was too experienced tointrude upon it any affairs of his till her own were reduced to the rightorder and proportion. It would have been folly to talk to her ofFulkerson's conjecturable uncandor while she was in doubt whether hercook would like the kitchen, or her two servants would consent to roomtogether; and till it was decided what school Tom should go to, andwhether Bella should have lessons at home or not, the relation whichMarch was to bear to the Dryfooses, as owner and publisher, was not to bediscussed with his wife. He might drag it in, but he was aware that withher mind distracted by more immediate interests he could not get from herthat judgment, that reasoned divination, which he relied upon so much. She would try, she would do her best, but the result would be a viewclouded and discolored by the effort she must make. He put the whole matter by, and gave himself to the details of the workbefore him. In this he found not only escape, but reassurance, for itbecame more and more apparent that whatever was nominally the structureof the business, a man of his qualifications and his instincts could nothave an insignificant place in it. He had also the consolation of likinghis work, and of getting an instant grasp of it that grew constantlyfirmer and closer. The joy of knowing that he had not made a mistake wasgreat. In giving rein to ambitions long forborne he seemed to get back tothe youth when he had indulged them first; and after half a lifetimepassed in pursuits alien to his nature, he was feeling the serenehappiness of being mated through his work to his early love. From theoutside the spectacle might have had its pathos, and it is not easy tojustify such an experiment as he had made at his time of life, exceptupon the ground where he rested from its consideration--the ground ofnecessity. His work was more in his thoughts than himself, however; and as the timefor the publication of the first number of his periodical came nearer, his cares all centred upon it. Without fixing any date, Fulkerson hadannounced it, and pushed his announcements with the shameless vigor of aborn advertiser. He worked his interest with the press to the utmost, andparagraphs of a variety that did credit to his ingenuity were afloateverywhere. Some of them were speciously unfavorable in tone; theycriticised and even ridiculed the principles on which the new departurein literary journalism was based. Others defended it; others yet deniedthat this rumored principle was really the principle. All contributed tomake talk. All proceeded from the same fertile invention. March observed with a degree of mortification that the talk was verylittle of it in the New York press; there the references to the novelenterprise were slight and cold. But Fulkerson said: "Don't mind that, old man. It's the whole country that makes or breaks a thing like this;New York has very little to do with it. Now if it were a play, it wouldbe different. New York does make or break a play; but it doesn't make orbreak a book; it doesn't make or break a magazine. The great mass of thereaders are outside of New York, and the rural districts are what we havegot to go for. They don't read much in New York; they write, and talkabout what they've written. Don't you worry. " The rumor of Fulkerson's connection with the enterprise accompanied manyof the paragraphs, and he was able to stay March's thirst for employmentby turning over to him from day to day heaps of the manuscripts whichbegan to pour in from his old syndicate writers, as well as fromadventurous volunteers all over the country. With these in hand Marchbegan practically to plan the first number, and to concrete a generalscheme from the material and the experience they furnished. They hadintended to issue the first number with the new year, and if it had beenan affair of literature alone, it would have been very easy; but it wasthe art leg they limped on, as Fulkerson phrased it. They had not merelyto deal with the question of specific illustrations for this article orthat, but to decide the whole character of their illustrations, and firstof all to get a design for a cover which should both ensnare the heedlessand captivate the fastidious. These things did not come properly withinMarch's province--that had been clearly understood--and for a whileFulkerson tried to run the art leg himself. The phrase was again his, butit was simpler to make the phrase than to run the leg. The difficultgeneration, at once stiff-backed and slippery, with which he had to do inthis endeavor, reduced even so buoyant an optimist to despair, and afterwasting some valuable weeks in trying to work the artists himself, hedetermined to get an artist to work them. But what artist? It could notbe a man with fixed reputation and a following: he would be too costly, and would have too many enemies among his brethren, even if he wouldconsent to undertake the job. Fulkerson had a man in mind, an artist, too, who would have been the very thing if he had been the thing at all. He had talent enough, and his sort of talent would reach round the wholesituation, but, as Fulkerson said, he was as many kinds of an ass as hewas kinds of an artist. PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: Anticipative homesickness Any sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher out of Appearance made him doubt their ability to pay so much As much of his story as he meant to tell without prompting Considerable comfort in holding him accountable Extract what consolation lurks in the irreparable Flavors not very sharply distinguished from one another Handsome pittance He expected to do the wrong thing when left to his own devices Hypothetical difficulty Never-blooming shrub Poverty as hopeless as any in the world Seeming interested in points necessarily indifferent to him Servant of those he loved Sigh with which ladies recognize one another's martyrdom Sorry he hadn't asked more; that's human nature That isn't very old--or not so old as it used to be Tried to be homesick for them, but failed Turn to their children's opinion with deference Wish we didn't always recognize the facts as we do A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES By William Dean Howells PART SECOND I. The evening when March closed with Mrs. Green's reduced offer, anddecided to take her apartment, the widow whose lodgings he had rejectedsat with her daughter in an upper room at the back of her house. In theshaded glow of the drop-light she was sewing, and the girl was drawing atthe same table. From time to time, as they talked, the girl lifted herhead and tilted it a little on one side so as to get some desired effectof her work. "It's a mercy the cold weather holds off, " said the mother. "We shouldhave to light the furnace, unless we wanted to scare everybody away witha cold house; and I don't know who would take care of it, or what wouldbecome of us, every way. " "They seem to have been scared away from a house that wasn't cold, " saidthe girl. "Perhaps they might like a cold one. But it's too early forcold yet. It's only just in the beginning of November. " "The Messenger says they've had a sprinkling of snow. " "Oh yes, at St. Barnaby! I don't know when they don't have sprinklings ofsnow there. I'm awfully glad we haven't got that winter before us. " The widow sighed as mothers do who feel the contrast their experienceopposes to the hopeful recklessness of such talk as this. "We may have aworse winter here, " she said, darkly. "Then I couldn't stand it, " said the girl, "and I should go in forlighting out to Florida double-quick. " "And how would you get to Florida?" demanded her mother, severely. "Oh, by the usual conveyance Pullman vestibuled train, I suppose. Whatmakes you so blue, mamma?" The girl was all the time sketching away, rubbing out, lifting her head for the effect, and then bending it overher work again without looking at her mother. "I am not blue, Alma. But I cannot endure this--this hopefulness ofyours. " "Why? What harm does it do?" "Harm?" echoed the mother. Pending the effort she must make in saying, the girl cut in: "Yes, harm. You've kept your despair dusted off and ready for use at an instant'snotice ever since we came, and what good has it done? I'm going to keepon hoping to the bitter end. That's what papa did. " It was what the Rev. Archibald Leighton had done with all theconsumptive's buoyancy. The morning he died he told them that now he hadturned the point and was really going to get well. The cheerfulness wasnot only in his disease, but in his temperament. Its excess was always alittle against him in his church work, and Mrs. Leighton was right enoughin feeling that if it had not been for the ballast of her instinctivedespondency he would have made shipwreck of such small chances ofprosperity as befell him in life. It was not from him that his daughtergot her talent, though he had left her his temperament intact of hiswidow's legal thirds. He was one of those men of whom the country peoplesay when he is gone that the woman gets along better without him. Mrs. Leighton had long eked out their income by taking a summer boarder ortwo, as a great favor, into her family; and when the greater need came, she frankly gave up her house to the summer-folks (as they call them inthe country), and managed it for their comfort from the small quarter ofit in which she shut herself up with her daughter. The notion of shutting up is an exigency of the rounded period. The factis, of course, that Alma Leighton was not shut up in any sense whatever. She was the pervading light, if not force, of the house. She was a goodcook, and she managed the kitchen with the help of an Irish girl, whileher mother looked after the rest of the housekeeping. But she was notsystematic; she had inspiration but not discipline, and her mothermourned more over the days when Alma left the whole dinner to the Irishgirl than she rejoiced in those when one of Alma's great thoughts tookform in a chicken-pie of incomparable savor or in a matchless pudding. The off-days came when her artistic nature was expressing itself incharcoal, for she drew to the admiration of all among the lady boarderswho could not draw. The others had their reserves; they readily concededthat Alma had genius, but they were sure she needed instruction. On theother hand, they were not so radical as to agree with the old painter whocame every summer to paint the elms of the St. Barnaby meadows. Hecontended that she needed to be a man in order to amount to anything; butin this theory he was opposed by an authority, of his own sex, whom thelady sketchers believed to speak with more impartiality in a matterconcerning them as much as Alma Leighton. He said that instruction woulddo, and he was not only, younger and handsomer, but he was fresher fromthe schools than old Harrington, who, even the lady sketchers could see, painted in an obsolescent manner. His name was Beaton--Angus Beaton; buthe was not Scotch, or not more Scotch than Mary Queen of Scots was. Hisfather was a Scotchman, but Beaton was born in Syracuse, New York, and ithad taken only three years in Paris to obliterate many traces of nativeand ancestral manner in him. He wore his black beard cut shorter than hismustache, and a little pointed; he stood with his shoulders well thrownback and with a lateral curve of his person when he talked about art, which would alone have carried conviction even if he had not had a thick, dark bang coming almost to the brows of his mobile gray eyes, and had notspoken English with quick, staccato impulses, so as to give it the effectof epigrammatic and sententious French. One of the ladies said that youalways thought of him as having spoken French after it was over, andaccused herself of wrong in not being able to feel afraid of him. None ofthe ladies was afraid of him, though they could not believe that he wasreally so deferential to their work as he seemed; and they knew, when hewould not criticise Mr. Harrington's work, that he was just acting fromprinciple. They may or may not have known the deference with which he treated Alma'swork; but the girl herself felt that his abrupt, impersonal commentrecognized her as a real sister in art. He told her she ought to come toNew York, and draw in the League, or get into some painter's privateclass; and it was the sense of duty thus appealed to which finallyresulted in the hazardous experiment she and her mother were now making. There were no logical breaks in the chain of their reasoning from pastsuccess with boarders in St. Barnaby to future success with boarders inNew York. Of course the outlay was much greater. The rent of thefurnished house they had taken was such that if they failed theirexperiment would be little less than ruinous. But they were not going to fail; that was what Alma contended, with ahardy courage that her mother sometimes felt almost invited failure, ifit did not deserve it. She was one of those people who believe that ifyou dread harm enough it is less likely to happen. She acted on thissuperstition as if it were a religion. "If it had not been for my despair, as you call it, Alma, " she answered, "I don't know where we should have been now. " "I suppose we should have been in St. Barnaby, " said the girl. "And ifit's worse to be in New York, you see what your despair's done, mamma. But what's the use? You meant well, and I don't blame you. You can'texpect even despair to come out always just the way you want it. Perhapsyou've used too much of it. " The girl laughed, and Mrs. Leighton laughed, too. Like every one else, she was not merely a prevailing mood, as peopleare apt to be in books, but was an irregularly spheroidal character, withsurfaces that caught the different lights of circumstance and reflectedthem. Alma got up and took a pose before the mirror, which she thentransferred to her sketch. The room was pinned about with other sketches, which showed with fantastic indistinctness in the shaded gaslight. Almaheld up the drawing. "How do you like it?" Mrs. Leighton bent forward over her sewing to look at it. "You've got theman's face rather weak. " "Yes, that's so. Either I see all the hidden weakness that's in men'snatures, and bring it to the surface in their figures, or else I put myown weakness into them. Either way, it's a drawback to their presenting atruly manly appearance. As long as I have one of the miserable objectsbefore me, I can draw him; but as soon as his back's turned I get toputting ladies into men's clothes. I should think you'd be scandalized, mamma, if you were a really feminine person. It must be your despair thathelps you to bear up. But what's the matter with the young lady in younglady's clothes? Any dust on her?" "What expressions!" said Mrs. Leighton. "Really, Alma, for a refined girlyou are the most unrefined!" "Go on--about the girl in the picture!" said Alma, slightly knocking hermother on the shoulder, as she stood over her. "I don't see anything to her. What's she doing?" "Oh, just being made love to, I suppose. " "She's perfectly insipid!" "You're awfully articulate, mamma! Now, if Mr. Wetmore were to criticisethat picture he'd draw a circle round it in the air, and look at itthrough that, and tilt his head first on one side and then on the other, and then look at you, as if you were a figure in it, and then collapseawhile, and moan a little and gasp, 'Isn't your young lady a littletoo-too--' and then he'd try to get the word out of you, and groan andsuffer some more; and you'd say, 'She is, rather, ' and that would givehim courage, and he'd say, 'I don't mean that she's so very--' 'Of coursenot. ' 'You understand?' 'Perfectly. I see it myself, now. ' 'Well, then'---and he'd take your pencil and begin to draw--'I should give her alittle more--Ah?' 'Yes, I see the difference. '--'You see the difference?'And he'd go off to some one else, and you'd know that you'd been doingthe wishy-washiest thing in the world, though he hadn't spoken a word ofcriticism, and couldn't. But he wouldn't have noticed the expression atall; he'd have shown you where your drawing was bad. He doesn't care forwhat he calls the literature of a thing; he says that will take care ofitself if the drawing's good. He doesn't like my doing these chic things;but I'm going to keep it up, for I think it's the nearest way toillustrating. " She took her sketch and pinned it up on the door. "And has Mr. Beaton been about, yet?" asked her mother. "No, " said the girl, with her back still turned; and she added, "Ibelieve he's in New York; Mr. Wetmore's seen him. " "It's a little strange he doesn't call. " "It would be if he were not an artist. But artists never do anything likeother people. He was on his good behavior while he was with us, and he'sa great deal more conventional than most of them; but even he can't keepit up. That's what makes me really think that women can never amount toanything in art. They keep all their appointments, and fulfil all theirduties just as if they didn't know anything about art. Well, most of themdon't. We've got that new model to-day. " "What new model?" "The one Mr. Wetmore was telling us about the old German; he's splendid. He's got the most beautiful head; just like the old masters' things. Heused to be Humphrey Williams's model for his Biblical-pieces; but sincehe's dead, the old man hardly gets anything to do. Mr. Wetmore says thereisn't anybody in the Bible that Williams didn't paint him as. He's theLaw and the Prophets in all his Old Testament pictures, and he's Joseph, Peter, Judas Iscariot, and the Scribes and Pharisees in the New. " "It's a good thing people don't know how artists work, or some of themost sacred pictures would have no influence, " said Mrs. Leighton. "Why, of course not!" cried the girl. "And the influence is the lastthing a painter thinks of--or supposes he thinks of. What he knows he'sanxious about is the drawing and the color. But people will neverunderstand how simple artists are. When I reflect what a complex andsophisticated being I am, I'm afraid I can never come to anything in art. Or I should be if I hadn't genius. " "Do you think Mr. Beaton is very simple?" asked Mrs. Leighton. "Mr. Wetmore doesn't think he's very much of an artist. He thinks hetalks too well. They believe that if a man can express himself clearly hecan't paint. " "And what do you believe?" "Oh, I can express myself, too. " The mother seemed to be satisfied with this evasion. After a while shesaid, "I presume he will call when he gets settled. " The girl made no answer to this. "One of the girls says that old model isan educated man. He was in the war, and lost a hand. Doesn't it seem apity for such a man to have to sit to a class of affected geese like usas a model? I declare it makes me sick. And we shall keep him a week, andpay him six or seven dollars for the use of his grand old head, and thenwhat will he do? The last time he was regularly employed was when Mr. Mace was working at his Damascus Massacre. Then he wanted so many Arabsheiks and Christian elders that he kept old Mr. Lindau steadily employedfor six months. Now he has to pick up odd jobs where he can. " "I suppose he has his pension, " said Mrs. Leighton. "No; one of the girls"--that was the way Alma always described herfellow-students--"says he has no pension. He didn't apply for it for along time, and then there was a hitch about it, and it wassomethinged--vetoed, I believe she said. " "Who vetoed it?" asked Mrs. Leighton, with some curiosity about theprocess, which she held in reserve. "I don't know-whoever vetoes things. I wonder what Mr. Wetmore does thinkof us--his class. We must seem perfectly crazy. There isn't one of usreally knows what she's doing it for, or what she expects to happen whenshe's done it. I suppose every one thinks she has genius. I know theNebraska widow does, for she says that unless you have genius it isn'tthe least use. Everybody's puzzled to know what she does with her babywhen she's at work--whether she gives it soothing syrup. I wonder how Mr. Wetmore can keep from laughing in our faces. I know he does behind ourbacks. " Mrs. Leighton's mind wandered back to another point. "Then if he says Mr. Beaton can't paint, I presume he doesn't respect him very much. " "Oh, he never said he couldn't paint. But I know he thinks so. He sayshe's an excellent critic. " "Alma, " her mother said, with the effect of breaking off, "what do yousuppose is the reason he hasn't been near us?" "Why, I don't know, mamma, except that it would have been natural foranother person to come, and he's an artist at least, artist enough forthat. " "That doesn't account for it altogether. He was very nice at St. Barnaby, and seemed so interested in you--your work. " "Plenty of people were nice at St. Barnaby. That rich Mrs. Horn couldn'tcontain her joy when she heard we were coming to New York, but she hasn'tpoured in upon us a great deal since we got here. " "But that's different. She's very fashionable, and she's taken up withher own set. But Mr. Beaton's one of our kind. " "Thank you. Papa wasn't quite a tombstone-cutter, mamma. " "That makes it all the harder to bear. He can't be ashamed of us. Perhapshe doesn't know where we are. " "Do you wish to send him your card, mamma?" The girl flushed and toweredin scorn of the idea. "Why, no, Alma, " returned her mother. "Well, then, " said Alma. But Mrs. Leighton was not so easily quelled. She had got her mind on Mr. Beaton, and she could not detach it at once. Besides, she was one ofthose women (they are commoner than the same sort of men) whom it doesnot pain to take out their most intimate thoughts and examine them in thelight of other people's opinions. "But I don't see how he can behave so. He must know that--" "That what, mamma?" demanded the girl. "That he influenced us a great deal in coming--" "He didn't. If he dared to presume to think such a thing--" "Now, Alma, " said her mother, with the clinging persistence of suchnatures, "you know he did. And it's no use for you to pretend that wedidn't count upon him in--in every way. You may not have noticed hisattentions, and I don't say you did, but others certainly did; and I mustsay that I didn't expect he would drop us so. " "Drop us!" cried Alma, in a fury. "Oh!" "Yes, drop us, Alma. He must know where we are. Of course, Mr. Wetmore'sspoken to him about you, and it's a shame that he hasn't been near us. Ishould have thought common gratitude, common decency, would have broughthim after--after all we did for him. " "We did nothing for him--nothing! He paid his board, and that ended it. " "No, it didn't, Alma. You know what he used to say--about its being likehome, and all that; and I must say that after his attentions to you, andall the things you told me he said, I expected something very dif--" A sharp peal of the door-bell thrilled through the house, and as if thepull of the bell-wire had twitched her to her feet, Mrs. Leighton sprangup and grappled with her daughter in their common terror. They both glared at the clock and made sure that it was five minutesafter nine. Then they abandoned themselves some moments to theunrestricted play of their apprehensions. II. "Why, Alma, " whispered the mother, "who in the world can it be at thistime of night? You don't suppose he--" "Well, I'm not going to the door, anyhow, mother, I don't care who it is;and, of course, he wouldn't be such a goose as to come at this hour. " Sheput on a look of miserable trepidation, and shrank back from the door, while the hum of the bell died away, in the hall. "What shall we do?" asked Mrs. Leighton, helplessly. "Let him go away--whoever they are, " said Alma. Another and more peremptory ring forbade them refuge in this simpleexpedient. "Oh, dear! what shall we do? Perhaps it's a despatch. " The conjecture moved Alma to no more than a rigid stare. "I shall notgo, " she said. A third ring more insistent than the others followed, andshe said: "You go ahead, mamma, and I'll come behind to scream if it'sanybody. We can look through the side-lights at the door first. " Mrs. Leighton fearfully led the way from the back chamber where they badbeen sitting, and slowly descended the stairs. Alma came behind andturned up the hall gas-jet with a sudden flash that made them both jump alittle. The gas inside rendered it more difficult to tell who was on thethreshold, but Mrs. Leighton decided from a timorous peep through thescrims that it was a lady and gentleman. Something in this distributionof sex emboldened her; she took her life in her hand, and opened thedoor. The lady spoke. "Does Mrs. Leighton live heah?" she said, in a rich, throaty voice; and she feigned a reference to the agent's permit she heldin her hand. "Yes, " said Mrs. Leighton; she mechanically occupied the doorway, whileAlma already quivered behind her with impatience of her impoliteness. "Oh, " said the lady, who began to appear more and more a young lady, "Ahdidn't know but Ah had mistaken the hoase. Ah suppose it's rather late tosee the apawtments, and Ah most ask you to pawdon us. " She put thistentatively, with a delicately growing recognition of Mrs. Leighton asthe lady of the house, and a humorous intelligence of the situation inthe glance she threw Alma over her mother's shoulder. "Ah'm afraid wemost have frightened you. " "Oh, not at all, " said Alma; and at the same time her mother said, "Willyou walk in, please?" The gentleman promptly removed his hat and made the Leightons aninclusive bow. "You awe very kind, madam, and I am sorry for the troublewe awe giving you. " He was tall and severe-looking, with a gray, trooperish mustache and iron-gray hair, and, as Alma decided, iron-grayeyes. His daughter was short, plump, and fresh-colored, with an effect ofliveliness that did not all express itself in her broad-vowelled, ratherformal speech, with its odd valuations of some of the auxiliary verbs, and its total elision of the canine letter. "We awe from the Soath, " she said, "and we arrived this mawning, but wegot this cyahd from the brokah just befo' dinnah, and so we awe rathahlate. " "Not at all; it's only nine o'clock, " said Mrs. Leighton. She looked upfrom the card the young lady had given her, and explained, "We haven'tgot in our servants yet, and we had to answer the bell ourselves, and--" "You were frightened, of coase, " said the young lady, caressingly. The gentleman said they ought not to have come so late, and he offeredsome formal apologies. "We should have been just as much scared any time after five o'clock, "Alma said to the sympathetic intelligence in the girl's face. She laughed out. "Of coase! Ah would have my hawt in my moath all daylong, too, if Ah was living in a big hoase alone. " A moment of stiffness followed; Mrs. Leighton would have liked towithdraw from the intimacy of the situation, but she did not know how. Itwas very well for these people to assume to be what they pretended; but, she reflected too late, she had no proof of it except the agent's permit. They were all standing in the hall together, and she prolonged theawkward pause while she examined the permit. "You are Mr. Woodburn?" sheasked, in a way that Alma felt implied he might not be. "Yes, madam; from Charlottesboag, Virginia, " he answered, with the slightumbrage a man shows when the strange cashier turns his check over andquestions him before cashing it. Alma writhed internally, but outwardly remained subordinate; she examinedthe other girl's dress, and decided in a superficial consciousness thatshe had made her own bonnet. "I shall be glad to show you my rooms, " said Mrs. Leighton, with anirrelevant sigh. "You must excuse their being not just as I should wishthem. We're hardly settled yet. " "Don't speak of it, madam, " said the gentleman, "if you can overlook thetrouble we awe giving you at such an unseasonable houah. " "Ah'm a hoasekeepah mahself, " Miss Woodburn joined in, "and Ah know ho'to accyoant fo' everything. " Mrs. Leighton led the way up-stairs, and the young lady decided upon thelarge front room and small side room on the third story. She said shecould take the small one, and the other was so large that her fathercould both sleep and work in it. She seemed not ashamed to ask if Mrs. Leighton's price was inflexible, but gave way laughing when her fatherrefused to have any bargaining, with a haughty self-respect which hesoftened to deference for Mrs. Leighton. His impulsiveness opened the wayfor some confidence from her, and before the affair was arranged she wasenjoying in her quality of clerical widow the balm of the Virginians'reverent sympathy. They said they were church people themselves. "Ah don't know what yo' mothah means by yo' hoase not being in oddah, "the young lady said to Alma as they went down-stairs together. "Ah'm agreat hoasekeepah mahself, and Ah mean what Ah say. " They had all turned mechanically into the room where the Leightons weresitting when the Woodburns rang: Mr. Woodburn consented to sit down, andhe remained listening to Mrs. Leighton while his daughter bustled up tothe sketches pinned round the room and questioned Alma about them. "Ah suppose you awe going to be a great awtust?" she said, in friendlybanter, when Alma owned to having done the things. "Ah've a great notionto take a few lessons mahself. Who's yo' teachah?" Alma said she was drawing in Mr. Wetmore's class, and Miss Woodburn said:"Well, it's just beautiful, Miss Leighton; it's grand. Ah suppose it'sraght expensive, now? Mah goodness! we have to cyoant the coast so muchnowadays; it seems to me we do nothing but cyoant it. Ah'd like to hahsomething once without askin' the price. " "Well, if you didn't ask it, " said Alma, "I don't believe Mr. Wetmorewould ever know what the price of his lessons was. He has to think, whenyou ask him. " "Why, he most be chomming, " said Miss Woodburn. "Perhaps Ah maght get thelessons for nothing from him. Well, Ah believe in my soul Ah'll trah. Nowho' did you begin? and ho' do you expect to get anything oat of it?" Sheturned on Alma eyes brimming with a shrewd mixture of fun and earnest, and Alma made note of the fact that she had an early nineteenth-centuryface, round, arch, a little coquettish, but extremely sensible andunspoiled-looking, such as used to be painted a good deal in miniature atthat period; a tendency of her brown hair to twine and twist at thetemples helped the effect; a high comb would have completed it, Almafelt, if she had her bonnet off. It was almost a Yankee country-girltype; but perhaps it appeared so to Alma because it was, like that, pureAnglo-Saxon. Alma herself, with her dull, dark skin, slender in figure, slow in speech, with aristocratic forms in her long hands, and the ovalof her fine face pointed to a long chin, felt herself much more Southernin style than this blooming, bubbling, bustling Virginian. "I don't know, " she answered, slowly. "Going to take po'traits, " suggested Miss Woodburn, "or just paint theahdeal?" A demure burlesque lurked in her tone. "I suppose I don't expect to paint at all, " said Alma. "I'm going toillustrate books--if anybody will let me. " "Ah should think they'd just joamp at you, " said Miss Woodburn. "Ah'lltell you what let's do, Miss Leighton: you make some pictures, and Ah'llwrahte a book fo' them. Ah've got to do something. Ali maght as wellwrahte a book. You know we Southerners have all had to go to woak. But Ahdon't mand it. I tell papa I shouldn't ca' fo' the disgrace of bein' poo'if it wasn't fo' the inconvenience. " "Yes, it's inconvenient, " said Alma; "but you forget it when you're atwork, don't you think?" "Mah, yes! Perhaps that's one reason why poo' people have to woak sohawd-to keep their wands off their poverty. " The girls both tittered, and turned from talking in a low tone with theirbacks toward their elders, and faced them. "Well, Madison, " said Mr. Woodburn, "it is time we should go. I bid yougood-night, madam, " he bowed to Mrs. Leighton. "Good-night, " he bowedagain to Alma. His daughter took leave of them in formal phrase, but with a jollycordiality of manner that deformalized it. "We shall be roand raght soonin the mawning, then, " she threatened at the door. "We shall be all ready for you, " Alma called after her down the steps. "Well, Alma?" her mother asked, when the door closed upon them. "She doesn't know any more about art, " said Alma, "than--nothing at all. But she's jolly and good-hearted. She praised everything that was bad inmy sketches, and said she was going to take lessons herself. When aperson talks about taking lessons, as if they could learn it, you knowwhere they belong artistically. " Mrs. Leighton shook her head with a sigh. "I wish I knew where theybelonged financially. We shall have to get in two girls at once. I shallhave to go out the first thing in the morning, and then our troubles willbegin. " "Well, didn't you want them to begin? I will stay home and help you getready. Our prosperity couldn't begin without the troubles, if you meanboarders, and boarders mean servants. I shall be very glad to beafflicted with a cook for a while myself. " "Yes; but we don't know anything about these people, or whether they willbe able to pay us. Did she talk as if they were well off?" "She talked as if they were poor; poo' she called it. " "Yes, how queerly she pronounced, " said Mrs. Leighton. "Well, I ought tohave told them that I required the first week in advance. " "Mamma! If that's the way you're going to act!" "Oh, of course, I couldn't, after he wouldn't let her bargain for therooms. I didn't like that. " "I did. And you can see that they were perfect ladies; or at least one ofthem. " Alma laughed at herself, but her mother did not notice. "Their being ladies won't help if they've got no money. It 'll make itall the worse. " "Very well, then; we have no money, either. We're a match for them anyday there. We can show them that two can play at that game. " III. Arnus Beaton's studio looked at first glance like many other painters'studios. A gray wall quadrangularly vaulted to a large north light; castsof feet, hands, faces hung to nails about; prints, sketches in oil andwater-color stuck here and there lower down; a rickety table, with paintand palettes and bottles of varnish and siccative tossed comfortlessly onit; an easel, with a strip of some faded mediaeval silk trailing from it;a lay figure simpering in incomplete nakedness, with its head on oneside, and a stocking on one leg, and a Japanese dress dropped before it;dusty rugs and skins kicking over the varnished floor; canvases faced tothe mop-board; an open trunk overflowing with costumes: these featuresone might notice anywhere. But, besides, there was a bookcase with anunusual number of books in it, and there was an open colonialwriting-desk, claw-footed, brass-handled, and scutcheoned, with foreignperiodicals--French and English--littering its leaf, and some pages ofmanuscript scattered among them. Above all, there was a sculptor'srevolving stand, supporting a bust which Beaton was modelling, with aneye fixed as simultaneously as possible on the clay and on the head ofthe old man who sat on the platform beside it. Few men have been able to get through the world with several gifts toadvantage in all; and most men seem handicapped for the race if they havemore than one. But they are apparently immensely interested as well asdistracted by them. When Beaton was writing, he would have agreed, up toa certain point, with any one who said literature was his properexpression; but, then, when he was painting, up to a certain point, hewould have maintained against the world that he was a colorist, andsupremely a colorist. At the certain point in either art he was apt tobreak away in a frenzy of disgust and wreak himself upon some other. Inthese moods he sometimes designed elevations of buildings, very striking, very original, very chic, very everything but habitable. It was in thisway that he had tried his hand on sculpture, which he had at firstapproached rather slightingly as a mere decorative accessory ofarchitecture. But it had grown in his respect till he maintained that theaccessory business ought to be all the other way: that temples should beraised to enshrine statues, not statues made to ornament temples; thatwas putting the cart before the horse with a vengeance. This was when hehad carried a plastic study so far that the sculptors who saw it saidthat Beaton might have been an architect, but would certainly never be asculptor. At the same time he did some hurried, nervous things that had apopular charm, and that sold in plaster reproductions, to the profit ofanother. Beaton justly despised the popular charm in these, as well as inthe paintings he sold from time to time; he said it was flat burglary tohave taken money for them, and he would have been living almost whollyupon the bounty of the old tombstone-cutter in Syracuse if it had notbeen for the syndicate letters which he supplied to Fulkerson for tendollars a week. They were very well done, but he hated doing them after the first two orthree, and had to be punched up for them by Fulkerson, who did not ceaseto prize them, and who never failed to punch him up. Beaton being what hewas, Fulkerson was his creditor as well as patron; and Fulkerson beingwhat he was, had an enthusiastic patience with the elusive, facile, adaptable, unpractical nature of Beaton. He was very proud of hisart-letters, as he called them; but then Fulkerson was proud ofeverything he secured for his syndicate. The fact that he had secured itgave it value; he felt as if he had written it himself. One art trod upon another's heels with Beaton. The day before he hadrushed upon canvas the conception of a picture which he said to himselfwas glorious, and to others (at the table d'hote of Maroni) was not bad. He had worked at it in a fury till the light failed him, and he execratedthe dying day. But he lit his lamp and transferred the process of histhinking from the canvas to the opening of the syndicate letter which heknew Fulkerson would be coming for in the morning. He remained talking solong after dinner in the same strain as he had painted and written inthat he could not finish his letter that night. The next morning, whilehe was making his tea for breakfast, the postman brought him a letterfrom his father enclosing a little check, and begging him with tender, almost deferential, urgence to come as lightly upon him as possible, forjust now his expenses were very heavy. It brought tears of shame intoBeaton's eyes--the fine, smouldering, floating eyes that many ladiesadmired, under the thick bang--and he said to himself that if he werehalf a man he would go home and go to work cutting gravestones in hisfather's shop. But he would wait, at least, to finish his picture; and asa sop to his conscience, to stay its immediate ravening, he resolved tofinish that syndicate letter first, and borrow enough money fromFulkerson to be able to send his father's check back; or, if not that, then to return the sum of it partly in Fulkerson's check. While he stillteemed with both of these good intentions the old man from whom he wasmodelling his head of Judas came, and Beaton saw that he must get throughwith him before he finished either the picture or the letter; he wouldhave to pay him for the time, anyway. He utilized the remorse with whichhe was tingling to give his Judas an expression which he found novel inthe treatment of that character--a look of such touching, appealingself-abhorrence that Beaton's artistic joy in it amounted to rapture;between the breathless moments when he worked in dead silence for aneffect that was trying to escape him, he sang and whistled fragments ofcomic opera. In one of the hushes there came a blow on the outside of the door thatmade Beaton jump, and swear with a modified profanity that merged itselfin apostrophic prayer. He knew it must be Fulkerson, and after roaring"Come in!" he said to the model, "That 'll do this morning, Lindau. " Fulkerson squared his feet in front of the bust and compared it byfleeting glances with the old man as he got stiffly up and sufferedBeaton to help him on with his thin, shabby overcoat. "Can you come to-morrow, Lindau?" "No, not to-morrow, Mr. Peaton. I haf to zit for the young ladties. " "Oh!" said Beaton. "Wet-more's class? Is Miss Leighton doing you?" "I don't know their namess, " Lindau began, when Fulkerson said: "Hope you haven't forgotten mine, Mr. Lindau? I met you with Mr. March atMaroni's one night. " Fulkerson offered him a universally shakable hand. "Oh yes! I am gladt to zee you again, Mr. Vulkerson. And Mr. Marge--hedon't zeem to gome any more?" "Up to his eyes in work. Been moving on from Boston and getting settled, and starting in on our enterprise. Beaton here hasn't got a veryflattering likeness of you, hey? Well, good-morning, " he said, for Lindauappeared not to have heard him and was escaping with a bow through thedoor. Beaton lit a cigarette which he pinched nervously between his lips beforehe spoke. "You've come for that letter, I suppose, Fulkerson? It isn'tdone. " Fulkerson turned from staring at the bust to which he had mounted. "Whatyou fretting about that letter for? I don't want your letter. " Beaton stopped biting his cigarette and looked at him. "Don't want myletter? Oh, very good!" he bristled up. He took his cigarette from hislips, and blew the smoke through his nostrils, and then looked atFulkerson. "No; I don't want your letter; I want you. " Beacon disdained to ask an explanation, but he internally lowered hiscrest, while he continued to look at Fulkerson without changing hisdefiant countenance. This suited Fulkerson well enough, and he went onwith relish, "I'm going out of the syndicate business, old man, and I'mon a new thing. " He put his leg over the back of a chair and rested hisfoot on its seat, and, with one hand in his pocket, he laid the scheme of'Every Other Week' before Beaton with the help of the other. The artistwent about the room, meanwhile, with an effect of indifference which byno means offended Fulkerson. He took some water into his mouth from atumbler, which he blew in a fine mist over the head of Judas beforeswathing it in a dirty cotton cloth; he washed his brushes and set hispalette; he put up on his easel the picture he had blocked on the daybefore, and stared at it with a gloomy face; then he gathered the sheetsof his unfinished letter together and slid them into a drawer of hiswriting-desk. By the time he had finished and turned again to Fulkerson, Fulkerson was saying: "I did think we could have the first number out byNew-Year's; but it will take longer than that--a month longer; but I'mnot sorry, for the holidays kill everything; and by February, or themiddle of February, people will get their breath again and begin to lookround and ask what's new. Then we'll reply in the language of Shakespeareand Milton, 'Every Other Week; and don't you forget it. '" He took downhis leg and asked, "Got a pipe of 'baccy anywhere?" Beaton nodded at a clay stem sticking out of a Japanese vase of bronze onhis mantel. "There's yours, " he said; and Fulkerson said, "Thanks, " andfilled the pipe and sat down and began to smoke tranquilly. Beaton saw that he would have to speak now. "And what do you want withme?" "You? Oh yes, " Fulkerson humorously dramatized a return to himself from apensive absence. "Want you for the art department. " Beaton shook his head. "I'm not your man, Fulkerson, " he said, compassionately. "You want a more practical hand, one that's in touchwith what's going. I'm getting further and further away from this centuryand its claptrap. I don't believe in your enterprise; I don't respect it, and I won't have anything to do with it. It would-choke me, that kind ofthing. " "That's all right, " said Fulkerson. He esteemed a man who was not goingto let himself go cheap. "Or if it isn't, we can make it. You and Marchwill pull together first-rate. I don't care how much ideal you put intothe thing; the more the better. I can look after the other end of theschooner myself. " "You don't understand me, " said Beaton. "I'm not trying to get a rise outof you. I'm in earnest. What you want is some man who can have patiencewith mediocrity putting on the style of genius, and with genius turningmediocrity on his hands. I haven't any luck with men; I don't get on withthem; I'm not popular. " Beaton recognized the fact with the satisfactionwhich it somehow always brings to human pride. "So much the better!" Fulkerson was ready for him at this point. "I don'twant you to work the old-established racket the reputations. When I wantthem I'll go to them with a pocketful of rocks--knock-down argument. Butmy idea is to deal with the volunteer material. Look at the way theperiodicals are carried on now! Names! names! names! In a country that'sjust boiling over with literary and artistic ability of every kind thenew fellows have no chance. The editors all engage their material. Idon't believe there are fifty volunteer contributions printed in a yearin all the New York magazines. It's all wrong; it's suicidal. 'EveryOther Week' is going back to the good old anonymous system, the only fairsystem. It's worked well in literature, and it will work well in art. " "It won't work well in art, " said Beaton. "There you have a totallydifferent set of conditions. What you'll get by inviting volunteerillustrations will be a lot of amateur trash. And how are you going tosubmit your literature for illustration? It can't be done. At any rate, Iwon't undertake to do it. " "We'll get up a School of Illustration, " said Fulkerson, with cynicalsecurity. "You can read the things and explain 'em, and your pupils canmake their sketches under your eye. They wouldn't be much further outthan most illustrations are if they never knew what they wereillustrating. You might select from what comes in and make up a sort ofpictorial variations to the literature without any particular referenceto it. Well, I understand you to accept?" "No, you don't. " "That is, to consent to help us with your advice and criticism. That'sall I want. It won't commit you to anything; and you can be as anonymousas anybody. " At the door Fulkerson added: "By-the-way, the new man--thefellow that's taken my old syndicate business--will want you to keep on;but I guess he's going to try to beat you down on the price of theletters. He's going in for retrenchment. I brought along a check for thisone; I'm to pay for that. " He offered Beaton an envelope. "I can't take it, Fulkerson. The letter's paid for already. " Fulkersonstepped forward and laid the envelope on the table among the tubes ofpaint. "It isn't the letter merely. I thought you wouldn't object to a littleadvance on your 'Every Other Week' work till you kind of got started. " Beaton remained inflexible. "It can't be done, Fulkerson. Don't I tellyou I can't sell myself out to a thing I don't believe in? Can't youunderstand that?" "Oh yes; I can understand that first-rate. I don't want to buy you; Iwant to borrow you. It's all right. See? Come round when you can; I'dlike to introduce you to old March. That's going to be our address. " Heput a card on the table beside the envelope, and Beaton allowed him to gowithout making him take the check back. He had remembered his father'splea; that unnerved him, and he promised himself again to return hisfather's poor little check and to work on that picture and give it toFulkerson for the check he had left and for his back debts. He resolvedto go to work on the picture at once; he had set his palette for it; butfirst he looked at Fulkerson's check. It was for only fifty dollars, andthe canny Scotch blood in Beaton rebelled; he could not let this picturego for any such money; he felt a little like a man whose generosity hasbeen trifled with. The conflict of emotions broke him up, and he couldnot work. IV The day wasted away in Beaton's hands; at half-past four o'clock he wentout to tea at the house of a lady who was At Home that afternoon fromfour till seven. By this time Beaton was in possession of one of thoseother selves of which we each have several about us, and was again thelaconic, staccato, rather worldlified young artist whose moments of acontrolled utterance and a certain distinction of manner had commendedhim to Mrs. Horn's fancy in the summer at St. Barnaby. Mrs. Horn's rooms were large, and they never seemed very full, thoughthis perhaps was because people were always so quiet. The ladies, whooutnumbered the men ten to one, as they always do at a New York tea, weredressed in sympathy with the low tone every one spoke in, and with thesubdued light which gave a crepuscular uncertainty to the few objects, the dim pictures, the unexcited upholstery, of the rooms. One breathedfree of bric-a-brac there, and the new-comer breathed softly as one doeson going into church after service has begun. This might be a suggestionfrom the voiceless behavior of the man-servant who let you in, but it wasalso because Mrs. Horn's At Home was a ceremony, a decorum, and notfestival. At far greater houses there was more gayety, at richer housesthere was more freedom; the suppression at Mrs. Horn's was a personal, not a social, effect; it was an efflux of her character, demure, silentious, vague, but very correct. Beaton easily found his way to her around the grouped skirts and amongthe detached figures, and received a pressure of welcome from the handwhich she momentarily relaxed from the tea-pot. She sat behind a tableput crosswise of a remote corner, and offered tea to people whom a nieceof hers received provisionally or sped finally in the outer room. Theydid not usually take tea, and when they did they did not usually drinkit; but Beaton was, feverishly glad of his cup; he took rum and lemon init, and stood talking at Mrs. Horn's side till the next arrival shoulddisplace him: he talked in his French manner. "I have been hoping to see you, " she said. "I wanted to ask you about theLeightons. Did they really come?" "I believe so. They are in town--yes. I haven't seen them. " "Then you don't know how they're getting on--that pretty creature, withher cleverness, and poor Mrs. Leighton? I was afraid they were venturingon a rash experiment. Do you know where they are?" "In West Eleventh Street somewhere. Miss Leighton is in Mr. Wetmore'sclass. " "I must look them up. Do you know their number?" "Not at the moment. I can find out. " "Do, " said Mrs. Horn. "What courage they must have, to plunge into NewYork as they've done! I really didn't think they would. I wonder ifthey've succeeded in getting anybody into their house yet?" "I don't know, " said Beaton. "I discouraged their coming all I could, " she sighed, "and I suppose youdid, too. But it's quite useless trying to make people in a place likeSt. Barnaby understand how it is in town. " "Yes, " said Beaton. He stirred his tea, while inwardly he tried tobelieve that he had really discouraged the Leightons from coming to NewYork. Perhaps the vexation of his failure made him call Mrs. Horn in hisheart a fraud. "Yes, " she went on, "it is very, very hard. And when they won'tunderstand, and rush on their doom, you feel that they are going to holdyou respons--" Mrs. Horn's eyes wandered from Beaton; her voice faltered in the fadedinterest of her remark, and then rose with renewed vigor in greeting alady who came up and stretched her glove across the tea-cups. Beaton got himself away and out of the house with a much briefer adieu tothe niece than he had meant to make. The patronizing compassion of Mrs. Horn for the Leightons filled him with indignation toward her, towardhimself. There was no reason why he should not have ignored them as hehad done; but there was a feeling. It was his nature to be careless, andhe had been spoiled into recklessness; he neglected everybody, and onlyremembered them when it suited his whim or his convenience; but hefiercely resented the inattentions of others toward himself. He had noscruple about breaking an engagement or failing to keep an appointment;he made promises without thinking of their fulfilment, and not because hewas a faithless person, but because he was imaginative, and expected atthe time to do what he said, but was fickle, and so did not. As most ofhis shortcomings were of a society sort, no great harm was done toanybody else. He had contracted somewhat the circle of his acquaintanceby what some people called his rudeness, but most people treated it ashis oddity, and were patient with it. One lady said she valued his comingwhen he said he would come because it had the charm of the unexpected. "Only it shows that it isn't always the unexpected that happens, " sheexplained. It did not occur to him that his behavior was immoral; he did not realizethat it was creating a reputation if not a character for him. While weare still young we do not realize that our actions have this effect. Itseems to us that people will judge us from what we think and feel. Laterwe find out that this is impossible; perhaps we find it out too late;some of us never find it out at all. In spite of his shame about the Leightons, Beaton had no presentintention of looking them up or sending Mrs. Horn their address. As amatter of fact, he never did send it; but he happened to meet Mr. Wetmoreand his wife at the restaurant where he dined, and he got it of thepainter for himself. He did not ask him how Miss Leighton was getting on;but Wetmore launched out, with Alma for a tacit text, on the futility ofwomen generally going in for art. "Even when they have talent they've gottoo much against them. Where a girl doesn't seem very strong, like MissLeighton, no amount of chic is going to help. " His wife disputed him on behalf of her sex, as women always do. "No, Dolly, " he persisted; "she'd better be home milking the cows andleading the horse to water. " "Do you think she'd better be up till two in the morning at balls andgoing all day to receptions and luncheons?" "Oh, guess it isn't a question of that, even if she weren't drawing. Youknew them at home, " he said to Beaton. "Yes. " "I remember. Her mother said you suggested me. Well, the girl has somenotion of it; there's no doubt about that. But--she's a woman. Thetrouble with these talented girls is that they're all woman. If theyweren't, there wouldn't be much chance for the men, Beaton. But we've gotProvidence on our own side from the start. I'm able to watch all theirinspirations with perfect composure. I know just how soon it's going toend in nervous breakdown. Somebody ought to marry them all and put themout of their misery. " "And what will you do with your students who are married already?" hiswife said. She felt that she had let him go on long enough. "Oh, they ought to get divorced. " "You ought to be ashamed to take their money if that's what you think ofthem. " "My dear, I have a wife to support. " Beaton intervened with a question. "Do you mean that Miss Leighton isn'tstanding it very well?" "How do I know? She isn't the kind that bends; she's the kind thatbreaks. " After a little silence Mrs. Wetmore asked, "Won't you come home with us, Mr. Beaton?" "Thank you; no. I have an engagement. " "I don't see why that should prevent you, " said Wetmore. "But you alwayswere a punctilious cuss. Well!" Beaton lingered over his cigar; but no one else whom he knew came in, andhe yielded to the threefold impulse of conscience, of curiosity, ofinclination, in going to call at the Leightons'. He asked for the ladies, and the maid showed him into the parlor, where he found Mrs. Leighton andMiss Woodburn. The widow met him with a welcome neatly marked by resentment; she meanthim to feel that his not coming sooner had been noticed. Miss Woodburnbubbled and gurgled on, and did what she could to mitigate hispunishment, but she did not feel authorized to stay it, till Mrs. Leighton, by studied avoidance of her daughter's name, obliged Beaton toask for her. Then Miss Woodburn caught up her work, and said, "Ah'll goand tell her, Mrs. Leighton. " At the top of the stairs she found Alma, and Alma tried to make it seem as if she had not been standing there. "Mah goodness, chald! there's the handsomest young man asking for youdown there you evah saw. Alh told you' mothah Ah would come up fo' you. " "What--who is it?" "Don't you know? But bo' could you? He's got the most beautiful eyes, and he wea's his hai' in a bang, and he talks English like it wassomething else, and his name's Mr. Beaton. " "Did he-ask for me?" said Alma, with a dreamy tone. She put her hand onthe stairs rail, and a little shiver ran over her. "Didn't I tell you? Of coase he did! And you ought to go raght down ifyou want to save the poo' fellah's lahfe; you' mothah's just freezin' himto death. " V. "She is?" cried Alma. "Tchk!" She flew downstairs, and flitted swiftlyinto the room, and fluttered up to Beaton, and gave him a crushinghand-shake. "How very kind, of you to come and see us, Mr. Beaton! When did you cometo New York? Don't you find it warm here? We've only just lighted thefurnace, but with this mild weather it seems too early. Mamma does keepit so hot!" She rushed about opening doors and shutting registers, andthen came back and sat facing him from the sofa with a mask of radiantcordiality. "How have you been since we saw you?" "Very well, " said Beaton. "I hope you're well, Miss Leighton?" "Oh, perfectly! I think New York agrees with us both wonderfully. I neverknew such air. And to think of our not having snow yet! I should thinkeverybody would want to come here! Why don't you come, Mr. Beaton?" Beaton lifted his eyes and looked at her. "I--I live in New York, " hefaltered. "In New York City!" she exclaimed. "Surely, Alma, " said her mother, "you remember Mr. Beaton's telling us helived in New York. " "But I thought you came from Rochester; or was it Syracuse? I always getthose places mixed up. " "Probably I told you my father lived at Syracuse. I've been in New Yorkever since I came home from Paris, " said Beaton, with the confusion of aman who feels himself played upon by a woman. "From Paris!" Alma echoed, leaning forward, with her smiling mask tighton. "Wasn't it Munich where you studied?" "I was at Munich, too. I met Wetmore there. " "Oh, do you know Mr. Wetmore?" "Why, Alma, " her mother interposed again, "it was Mr. Beaton who told youof Mr. Wetmore. " "Was it? Why, yes, to be sure. It was Mrs. Horn who suggested Mr. Ilcomb. I remember now. I can't thank you enough for having sent me to Mr. Wetmore, Mr. Beaton. Isn't he delightful? Oh yes, I'm a perfectWetmorian, I can assure you. The whole class is the same way. " "I just met him and Mrs. Wetmore at dinner, " said Beaton, attempting therecovery of something that he had lost through the girl's shining easeand steely sprightliness. She seemed to him so smooth and hard, with arepellent elasticity from which he was flung off. "I hope you're notworking too hard, Miss Leighton?" "Oh no! I enjoy every minute of it, and grow stronger on it. Do I lookvery much wasted away?" She looked him full in the face, brilliantlysmiling, and intentionally beautiful. "No, " he said, with a slow sadness; "I never saw you looking better. " "Poor Mr. Beaton!" she said, in recognition of his doleful tune. "Itseems to be quite a blow. " "Oh no--" "I remember all the good advice you used to give me about not working toohard, and probably it's that that's saved my life--that and thehouse-hunting. Has mamma told you of our adventures in getting settled? "Some time we must. It was such fun! And didn't you think we werefortunate to get such a pretty house? You must see both our parlors. " Shejumped up, and her mother followed her with a bewildered look as she raninto the back parlor and flashed up the gas. "Come in here, Mr. Beaton. I want to show you the great feature of thehouse. " She opened the low windows that gave upon a glazed verandastretching across the end of the room. "Just think of this in New York!You can't see it very well at night, but when the southern sun pours inhere all the afternoon--" "Yes, I can imagine it, " he said. He glanced up at the bird-cage hangingfrom the roof. "I suppose Gypsy enjoys it. " "You remember Gypsy?" she said; and she made a cooing, kissing littlenoise up at the bird, who responded drowsily. "Poor old Gypsum! Well, hesha'n't be disturbed. Yes, it's Gyp's delight, and Colonel Woodburn likesto write here in the morning. Think of us having a real live author inthe house! And Miss Woodburn: I'm so glad you've seen her! They'reSouthern people. " "Yes, that was obvious in her case. " "From her accent? Isn't it fascinating? I didn't believe I could everendure Southerners, but we're like one family with the Woodburns. Ishould think you'd want to paint Miss Woodburn. Don't you think hercoloring is delicious? And such a quaint kind of eighteenth-century typeof beauty! But she's perfectly lovely every way, and everything she saysis so funny. The Southerners seem to be such great talkers; better thanwe are, don't you think?" "I don't know, " said Beaton, in pensive discouragement. He was sensibleof being manipulated, operated, but he was helpless to escape from theperformer or to fathom her motives. His pensiveness passed into gloom, and was degenerating into sulky resentment when he went away, afterseveral failures to get back to the old ground he had held in relation toAlma. He retrieved something of it with Mrs. Leighton; but Alma glitteredupon him to the last with a keen impenetrable candor, a child-likesingleness of glance, covering unfathomable reserve. "Well, Alma, " said her mother, when the door had closed upon him. "Well, mother. " Then, after a moment, she said, with a rush: "Did youthink I was going to let him suppose we were piqued at his not coming?Did you suppose I was going to let him patronize us, or think that wewere in the least dependent on his favor or friendship?" Her mother did not attempt to answer her. She merely said, "I shouldn'tthink he would come any more. " "Well, we have got on so far without him; perhaps we can live through therest of the winter. " "I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He was quite stupefied. I couldsee that he didn't know what to make of you. " "He's not required to make anything of me, " said Alma. "Do you think he really believed you had forgotten all those things?" "Impossible to say, mamma. " "Well, I don't think it was quite right, Alma. " "I'll leave him to you the next time. Miss Woodburn said you werefreezing him to death when I came down. " "That was quite different. But, there won't be any next time, I'mafraid, " sighed Mrs. Leighton. Beaton went home feeling sure there would not. He tried to read when hegot to his room; but Alma's looks, tones, gestures, whirred through andthrough the woof of the story like shuttles; he could not keep them out, and he fell asleep at last, not because he forgot them, but because heforgave them. He was able to say to himself that he had been justly cutoff from kindness which he knew how to value in losing it. He did notexpect ever to right himself in Alma's esteem, but he hoped some day tolet her know that he had understood. It seemed to him that it would be agood thing if she should find it out after his death. He imagined herbeing touched by it under those circumstances. VI. In the morning it seemed to Beaton that he had done himself injustice. When he uncovered his Judas and looked at it, he could not believe thatthe man who was capable of such work deserved the punishment MissLeighton had inflicted upon him. He still forgave her, but in thepresence of a thing like that he could not help respecting himself; hebelieved that if she could see it she would be sorry that she had cutherself off from his acquaintance. He carried this strain of convictionall through his syndicate letter, which he now took out of his desk andfinished, with an increasing security of his opinions and a mountingseverity in his judgments. He retaliated upon the general condition ofart among us the pangs of wounded vanity, which Alma had made him feel, and he folded up his manuscript and put it in his pocket, almost healedof his humiliation. He had been able to escape from its sting so entirelywhile he was writing that the notion of making his life more and moreliterary commended itself to him. As it was now evident that the futurewas to be one of renunciation, of self-forgetting, an oblivion tingedwith bitterness, he formlessly reasoned in favor of reconsidering hisresolution against Fulkerson's offer. One must call it reasoning, but itwas rather that swift internal dramatization which constantly goes on inpersons of excitable sensibilities, and which now seemed to sweep Beatonphysically along toward the 'Every Other Week' office, and carried hismind with lightning celerity on to a time when he should have given thatjournal such quality and authority in matters of art as had never beenenjoyed by any in America before. With the prosperity which he madeattend his work he changed the character of the enterprise, and withFulkerson's enthusiastic support he gave the public an art journal of ashigh grade as 'Les Lettres et les Arts', and very much that sort ofthing. All this involved now the unavailing regret of Alma Leighton, andnow his reconciliation with her they were married in Grace Church, because Beaton had once seen a marriage there, and had intended to painta picture of it some time. Nothing in these fervid fantasies prevented his responding with duedryness to Fulkerson's cheery "Hello, old man!" when he found himself inthe building fitted up for the 'Every Other Week' office. Fulkerson'sroom was back of the smaller one occupied by the bookkeeper; they hadbeen respectively the reception-room and dining-room of the little placein its dwelling-house days, and they had been simply and tastefullytreated in their transformation into business purposes. The narrow oldtrim of the doors and windows had been kept, and the quaintly ugly marblemantels. The architect had said, Better let them stay they expressedepoch, if not character. "Well, have you come round to go to work? Just hang up your coat on thefloor anywhere, " Fulkerson went on. "I've come to bring you that letter, " said Beaton, all the more haughtilybecause he found that Fulkerson was not alone when he welcomed him inthese free and easy terms. There was a quiet-looking man, rather stout, and a little above the middle height, with a full, close-croppediron-gray beard, seated beyond the table where Fulkerson tilted himselfback, with his knees set against it; and leaning against the mantel therewas a young man with a singularly gentle face, in which the look ofgoodness qualified and transfigured a certain simplicity. His large blueeyes were somewhat prominent; and his rather narrow face was drawnforward in a nose a little too long perhaps, if it had not been for thefull chin deeply cut below the lip, and jutting firmly forward. "Introduce you to Mr. March, our editor, Mr. Beaton, " Fulkerson said, rolling his head in the direction of the elder man; and then nodding ittoward the younger, he said, "Mr. Dryfoos, Mr. Beaton. " Beaton shookhands with March, and then with Mr. Dryfoos, and Fulkerson went on, gayly: "We were just talking of you, Beaton--well, you know the oldsaying. Mr. March, as I told you, is our editor, and Mr. Dryfoos hascharge of the publishing department--he's the counting-room incarnate, the source of power, the fountain of corruption, the element thatprevents journalism being the high and holy thing that it would be ifthere were no money in it. " Mr. Dryfoos turned his large, mild eyes uponBeaton, and laughed with the uneasy concession which people make to acharacter when they do not quite approve of the character's language. "What Mr. March and I are trying to do is to carry on this thing so thatthere won't be any money in it--or very little; and we're planning togive the public a better article for the price than it's ever had before. Now here's a dummy we've had made up for 'Every Other Week', and as we'vedecided to adopt it, we would naturally like your opinion of it, so's toknow what opinion to have of you. " He reached forward and pushed towardBeaton a volume a little above the size of the ordinary duodecimo book;its ivory-white pebbled paper cover was prettily illustrated with awater-colored design irregularly washed over the greater part of itssurface: quite across the page at top, and narrowing from right to leftas it descended. In the triangular space left blank the title of theperiodical and the publisher's imprint were tastefully lettered so as tobe partly covered by the background of color. "It's like some of those Tartarin books of Daudet's, " said Beacon, looking at it with more interest than he suffered to be seen. "But it's abook, not a magazine. " He opened its pages of thick, mellow white paper, with uncut leaves, the first few pages experimentally printed in the typeintended to be used, and illustrated with some sketches drawn into andover the text, for the sake of the effect. "A Daniel--a Daniel come to judgment! Sit down, Dan'el, and take iteasy. " Fulkerson pushed a chair toward Beaton, who dropped into it. "You're right, Dan'el; it's a book, to all practical intents andpurposes. And what we propose to do with the American public is to giveit twenty-four books like this a year--a complete library--for the absurdsum of six dollars. We don't intend to sell 'em--it's no name for thetransaction--but to give 'em. And what we want to get out of you--beg, borrow, buy, or steal from you is an opinion whether we shall make theAmerican public this princely present in paper covers like this, or insome sort of flexible boards, so they can set them on the shelf and sayno more about it. Now, Dan'el, come to judgment, as our respected friendShylock remarked. " Beacon had got done looking at the dummy, and he dropped it on the tablebefore Fulkerson, who pushed it away, apparently to free himself frompartiality. "I don't know anything about the business side, and I can'ttell about the effect of either style on the sales; but you'll spoil thewhole character of the cover if you use anything thicker than thatthickish paper. " "All right; very good; first-rate. The ayes have it. Paper it is. I don'tmind telling you that we had decided for that paper before you came in. Mr. March wanted it, because he felt in his bones just the way you doabout it, and Mr. Dryfoos wanted it, because he's the counting-roomincarnate, and it's cheaper; and I 'wanted it, because I always like togo with the majority. Now what do you think of that little designitself?" "The sketch?" Beaton pulled the book toward him again and looked at itagain. "Rather decorative. Drawing's not remarkable. Graceful; rathernice. " He pushed the book away again, and Fulkerson pulled it to his aideof the table. "Well, that's a piece of that amateur trash you despise so much. I wentto a painter I know-by-the-way, he was guilty of suggesting you for thisthing, but I told him I was ahead of him--and I got him to submit my ideato one of his class, and that's the result. Well, now, there ain'tanything in this world that sells a book like a pretty cover, and we'regoing to have a pretty cover for 'Every Other Week' every time. We've cutloose from the old traditional quarto literary newspaper size, and we'vecut loose from the old two-column big page magazine size; we're going tohave a duodecimo page, clear black print, and paper that 'll make yourmouth water; and we're going to have a fresh illustration for the coverof each number, and we ain't agoing to give the public any rest at all. Sometimes we're going to have a delicate little landscape like this, andsometimes we're going to have an indelicate little figure, or as much soas the law will allow. " The young man leaning against the mantelpiece blushed a sort of protest. March smiled and said, dryly, "Those are the numbers that Mr. Fulkersonis going to edit himself. " "Exactly. And Mr. Beaton, here, is going to supply the floating females, gracefully airing themselves against a sunset or something of that kind. "Beaton frowned in embarrassment, while Fulkerson went on philosophically;"It's astonishing how you fellows can keep it up at this stage of theproceedings; you can paint things that your harshest critic would beashamed to describe accurately; you're as free as the theatre. But that'sneither here nor there. What I'm after is the fact that we're going tohave variety in our title-pages, and we are going to have novelty in theillustrations of the body of the book. March, here, if he had his ownway, wouldn't have any illustrations at all. " "Not because I don't like them, Mr. Beacon, " March interposed, "butbecause I like them too much. I find that I look at the pictures in anillustrated article, but I don't read the article very much, and I fancythat's the case with most other people. You've got to doing them soprettily that you take our eyes off the literature, if you don't take ourminds off. " "Like the society beauties on the stage: people go in for the beauty somuch that they don't know what the play is. But the box-office gets thereall the same, and that's what Mr. Dryfoos wants. " Fulkerson looked upgayly at Mr. Dryfoos, who smiled deprecatingly. "It was different, " March went on, "when the illustrations used to bebad. Then the text had some chance. " "Old legitimate drama days, when ugliness and genius combined to stormthe galleries, " said Fulkerson. "We can still make them bad enough, " said Beaton, ignoring Fulkerson inhis remark to March. Fulkerson took the reply upon himself. "Well, you needn't make 'em so badas the old-style cuts; but you can make them unobtrusive, modestlyretiring. We've got hold of a process something like that those Frenchfellows gave Daudet thirty-five thousand dollars to write a novel to usewith; kind of thing that begins at one side; or one corner, and spreadsin a sort of dim religious style over the print till you can't tell whichis which. Then we've got a notion that where the pictures don't behavequite so sociably, they can be dropped into the text, like a littlecasual remark, don't you know, or a comment that has some connection, ormaybe none at all, with what's going on in the story. Something likethis. " Fulkerson took away one knee from the table long enough to openthe drawer, and pull from it a book that he shoved toward Beacon. "That'sa Spanish book I happened to see at Brentano's, and I froze to it onaccount of the pictures. I guess they're pretty good. " "Do you expect to get such drawings in this country?" asked Beaton, aftera glance at the book. "Such character--such drama? You won't. " "Well, I'm not so sure, " said Fulkerson, "come to get our amateurs warmedup to the work. But what I want is to get the physical effect, so tospeak-get that sized picture into our page, and set the fashion of it. Ishouldn't care if the illustration was sometimes confined to an initialletter and a tail-piece. " "Couldn't be done here. We haven't the touch. We're good in some things, but this isn't in our way, " said Beaton, stubbornly. "I can't think of aman who could do it; that is, among those that would. " "Well, think of some woman, then, " said Fulkerson, easily. "I've got anotion that the women could help us out on this thing, come to get 'eminterested. There ain't anything so popular as female fiction; why nottry female art?" "The females themselves have been supposed to have been trying it for agood while, " March suggested; and Mr. Dryfoos laughed nervously; Beatonremained solemnly silent. "Yes, I know, " Fulkerson assented. "But I don't mean that kind exactly. What we want to do is to work the 'ewig Weibliche' in this concern. Wewant to make a magazine that will go for the women's fancy every time. Idon't mean with recipes for cooking and fashions and personal gossipabout authors and society, but real high-tone literature that will showwomen triumphing in all the stories, or else suffering tremendously. We've got to recognize that women form three-fourths of the readingpublic in this country, and go for their tastes and their sensibilitiesand their sex-piety along the whole line. They do like to think thatwomen can do things better than men; and if we can let it leak out andget around in the papers that the managers of 'Every Other Week' couldn'tstir a peg in the line of the illustrations they wanted till they got alot of God-gifted girls to help them, it 'll make the fortune of thething. See?" He looked sunnily round at the other men, and March said: "You ought tobe in charge of a Siamese white elephant, Fulkerson. It's a disgrace tobe connected with you. " "It seems to me, " said Becton, "that you'd better get a God-gifted girlfor your art editor. " Fulkerson leaned alertly forward, and touched him on the shoulder, with acompassionate smile. "My dear boy, they haven't got the genius oforganization. It takes a very masculine man for that--a man who combinesthe most subtle and refined sympathies with the most forceful purposesand the most ferruginous will-power. Which his name is Angus Beaton, andhere he sets!" The others laughed with Fulkerson at his gross burlesque of flattery, andBecton frowned sheepishly. "I suppose you understand this man's style, "he growled toward March. "He does, my son, " said Fulkerson. "He knows that I cannot tell a lie. "He pulled out his watch, and then got suddenly upon his feet. "It's quarter of twelve, and I've got an appointment. " Beaton rose too, and Fulkerson put the two books in his lax hands. "Take these along, Michelangelo Da Vinci, my friend, and put your multitudinous mind on themfor about an hour, and let us hear from you to-morrow. We hang upon yourdecision. " "There's no deciding to be done, " said Beaton. "You can't combine the twostyles. They'd kill each other. " "A Dan'el, a Dan'el come to judgment! I knew you could help us out! Take'em along, and tell us which will go the furthest with the 'ewigWeibliche. ' Dryfoos, I want a word with you. " He led the way into thefront room, flirting an airy farewell to Beaton with his hand as he went. VII. March and Beaton remained alone together for a moment, and March said: "Ihope you will think it worth while to take hold with us, Mr. Beaton. Mr. Fulkerson puts it in his own way, of course; but we really want to make anice thing of the magazine. " He had that timidity of the elder in thepresence of the younger man which the younger, preoccupied with his owntimidity in the presence of the elder, cannot imagine. Besides, March wasaware of the gulf that divided him as a literary man from Beaton as anartist, and he only ventured to feel his way toward sympathy with him. "We want to make it good; we want to make it high. Fulkerson is rightabout aiming to please the women, but of course he caricatures the way ofgoing about it. " For answer, Beaton flung out, "I can't go in for a thing I don'tunderstand the plan of. " March took it for granted that he had wounded some exposed sensibility, of Beaton's. He continued still more deferentially: "Mr. Fulkerson'snotion--I must say the notion is his, evolved from his syndicateexperience--is that we shall do best in fiction to confine our selves toshort stories, and make each number complete in itself. He found that themost successful things he could furnish his newspapers were shortstories; we Americans are supposed to excel in writing them; and mostpeople begin with them in fiction; and it's Mr. Fulkerson's idea to workunknown talent, as he says, and so he thinks he can not only get themeasily, but can gradually form a school of short-story writers. I can'tsay I follow him altogether, but I respect his experience. We shall notdespise translations of short stories, but otherwise the matter will allbe original, and, of course, it won't all be short stories. We shall usesketches of travel, and essays, and little dramatic studies, and bits ofbiography and history; but all very light, and always short enough to becompleted in a single number. Mr. Fulkerson believes in pictures, andmost of the things would be capable of illustration. " "I see, " said Beaton. "I don't know but this is the whole affair, " said March, beginning tostiffen a little at the young man's reticence. "I understand. Thank you for taking the trouble to explain. Good-morning. " Beaton bowed himself off, without offering to shake hands. Fulkerson came in after a while from the outer office, and Mr. Dryfoosfollowed him. "Well, what do you think of our art editor?" "Is he our art editor?" asked March. "I wasn't quite certain when heleft. " "Did he take the books?" "Yes, he took the books. " "I guess he's all right, then. " Fulkerson added, in concession to theumbrage he detected in March. "Beaton has his times of being the greatest ass in the solar system, buthe usually takes it out in personal conduct. When it comes to work, he'sa regular horse. " "He appears to have compromised for the present by being a perfect mule, "said March. "Well, he's in a transition state, " Fulkerson allowed. "He's the man forus. He really understands what we want. You'll see; he'll catch on. Thatlurid glare of his will wear off in the course of time. He's really agood fellow when you take him off his guard; and he's full of ideas. He'sspread out over a good deal of ground at present, and so he's prettythin; but come to gather him up into a lump, there's a good deal ofsubstance to him. Yes, there is. He's a first-rate critic, and he's anice fellow with the other artists. They laugh at his universality, butthey all like him. He's the best kind of a teacher when he condescends toit; and he's just the man to deal with our volunteer work. Yes, sir, he'sa prize. Well, I must go now. " Fulkerson went out of the street door, and then came quickly back. "By-the-bye, March, I saw that old dynamiter of yours round at Beaton'sroom yesterday. " "What old dynamiter of mine?" "That old one-handed Dutchman--friend of your youth--the one we saw atMaroni's--" "Oh-Lindau!" said March, with a vague pang of self reproach for havingthought of Lindau so little after the first flood of his tender feelingtoward him was past. "Yes, our versatile friend was modelling him as Judas Iscariot. Lindaumakes a first-rate Judas, and Beaton has got a big thing in that head ifhe works the religious people right. But what I was thinking of wasthis--it struck me just as I was going out of the door: Didn't you tellme Lindau knew forty or fifty, different languages?" "Four or five, yes. " "Well, we won't quarrel about the number. The question is, Why not workhim in the field of foreign literature? You can't go over all theirreviews and magazines, and he could do the smelling for you, if you couldtrust his nose. Would he know a good thing?" "I think he would, " said March, on whom the scope of Fulkerson'ssuggestion gradually opened. "He used to have good taste, and he mustknow the ground. Why, it's a capital idea, Fulkerson! Lindau wrote veryfair English, and he could translate, with a little revision. " "And he would probably work cheap. Well, hadn't you better see him aboutit? I guess it 'll be quite a windfall for him. " "Yes, it will. I'll look him up. Thank you for the suggestion, Fulkerson. " "Oh, don't mention it! I don't mind doing 'Every Other Week' a good turnnow and then when it comes in my way. " Fulkerson went out again, and thistime March was finally left with Mr. Dryfoos. "Mrs. March was very sorry not to be at home when your sisters called theother day. She wished me to ask if they had any afternoon in particular. There was none on your mother's card. " "No, sir, " said the young man, with a flush of embarrassment that seemedhabitual with him. "She has no day. She's at home almost every day. Shehardly ever goes out. " "Might we come some evening?" March asked. "We should be very glad to dothat, if she would excuse the informality. Then I could come with Mrs. March. " "Mother isn't very formal, " said the young man. "She would be very gladto see you. " "Then we'll come some night this week, if you will let us. When do youexpect your father back?" "Not much before Christmas. He's trying to settle up some things atMoffitt. " "And what do you think of our art editor?" asked March, with a smile, forthe change of subject. "Oh, I don't know much about such things, " said the young man, withanother of his embarrassed flushes. "Mr. Fulkerson seems to feel surethat he is the one for us. " "Mr. Fulkerson seemed to think that I was the one for you, too, " saidMarch; and he laughed. "That's what makes me doubt his infallibility. Buthe couldn't do worse with Mr. Beaton. " Mr. Dryfoos reddened and looked down, as if unable or unwilling to copewith the difficulty of making a polite protest against March'sself-depreciation. He said, after a moment: "It's new business to all ofus except Mr. Fulkerson. But I think it will succeed. I think we can dosome good in it. " March asked rather absently, "Some good?" Then he added: "Oh yes; I thinkwe can. What do you mean by good? Improve the public taste? Elevate thestandard of literature? Give young authors and artists a chance?" This was the only good that had ever been in March's mind, except thegood that was to come in a material way from his success, to himself andto his family. "I don't know, " said the young man; and he looked down in a shamefacedfashion. He lifted his head and looked into March's face. "I suppose Iwas thinking that some time we might help along. If we were to have thosesketches of yours about life in every part of New York--" March's authorial vanity was tickled. "Fulkerson has been talking to youabout them? He seemed to think they would be a card. He believes thatthere's no subject so fascinating to the general average of peoplethroughout the country as life in New York City; and he liked my notionof doing these things. " March hoped that Dryfoos would answer thatFulkerson was perfectly enthusiastic about his notion; but he did notneed this stimulus, and, at any rate, he went on without it. "The factis, it's something that struck my fancy the moment I came here; I foundmyself intensely interested in the place, and I began to make notes, consciously and unconsciously, at once. Yes, I believe I can getsomething quite attractive out of it. I don't in the least know what itwill be yet, except that it will be very desultory; and I couldn't at allsay when I can get at it. If we postpone the first number till February Imight get a little paper into that. Yes, I think it might be a good thingfor us, " March said, with modest self-appreciation. "If you can make the comfortable people understand how the uncomfortablepeople live, it will be a very good thing, Mr. March. Sometimes it seemsto me that the only trouble is that we don't know one another wellenough; and that the first thing is to do this. " The young fellow spokewith the seriousness in which the beauty of his face resided. Whenever helaughed his face looked weak, even silly. It seemed to be a sense of thisthat made him hang his head or turn it away at such times. "That's true, " said March, from the surface only. "And then, those phasesof low life are immensely picturesque. Of course, we must try to get thecontrasts of luxury for the sake of the full effect. That won't be soeasy. You can't penetrate to the dinner-party of a millionaire under thewing of a detective as you could to a carouse in Mulberry Street, or tohis children's nursery with a philanthropist as you can to a street-boy'slodging-house. " March laughed, and again the young man turned his headaway. "Still, something can be done in that way by tact and patience. " VII. That evening March went with his wife to return the call of the Dryfoosladies. On their way up-town in the Elevated he told her of his talk withyoung Dryfoos. "I confess I was a little ashamed before him afterward forhaving looked at the matter so entirely from the aesthetic point of view. But of course, you know, if I went to work at those things with anethical intention explicitly in mind, I should spoil them. " "Of course, " said his wife. She had always heard him say something ofthis kind about such things. He went on: "But I suppose that's just the point that such a nature asyoung Dryfoos's can't get hold of, or keep hold of. We're a queer lot, down there, Isabel--perfect menagerie. If it hadn't been that Fulkersongot us together, and really seems to know what he did it for, I shouldsay he was the oddest stick among us. But when I think of myself and myown crankiness for the literary department; and young Dryfoos, who oughtreally to be in the pulpit, or a monastery, or something, for publisher;and that young Beaton, who probably hasn't a moral fibre in hiscomposition, for the art man, I don't know but we could give Fulkersonodds and still beat him in oddity. " His wife heaved a deep sigh of apprehension, of renunciation, ofmonition. "Well, I'm glad you can feel so light about it, Basil. " "Light? I feel gay! With Fulkerson at the helm, I tell you the rocks andthe lee shore had better keep out of the way. " He laughed with pleasurein his metaphor. "Just when you think Fulkerson has taken leave of hissenses he says or does something that shows he is on the most intimateand inalienable terms with them all the time. You know how I've beenworrying over those foreign periodicals, and trying to get sometranslations from them for the first number? Well, Fulkerson has broughthis centipedal mind to bear on the subject, and he's suggested that oldGerman friend of mine I was telling you of--the one I met in therestaurant--the friend of my youth. " "Do you think he could do it?" asked Mrs. March, sceptically. "He's a perfect Babel of strange tongues; and he's the very man for thework, and I was ashamed I hadn't thought of him myself, for I suspect heneeds the work. " "Well, be careful how you get mixed up with him, then, Basil, " said hiswife, who had the natural misgiving concerning the friends of herhusband's youth that all wives have. "You know the Germans are sounscrupulously dependent. You don't know anything about him now. " "I'm not afraid of Lindau, " said March. "He was the best and kindest manI ever saw, the most high-minded, the most generous. He lost a hand inthe war that helped to save us and keep us possible, and that stump ofhis is character enough for me. " "Oh, you don't think I could have meant anything against him!" said Mrs. March, with the tender fervor that every woman who lived in the time ofthe war must feel for those who suffered in it. "All that I meant wasthat I hoped you would not get mixed up with him too much. You're so aptto be carried away by your impulses. " "They didn't carry me very far away in the direction of poor old Lindau, I'm ashamed to think, " said March. "I meant all sorts of fine things byhim after I met him; and then I forgot him, and I had to be reminded ofhim by Fulkerson. " She did not answer him, and he fell into a remorseful reverie, in whichhe rehabilitated Lindau anew, and provided handsomely for his old age. Hegot him buried with military honors, and had a shaft raised over him, with a medallion likeness by Beaton and an epitaph by himself, by thetime they reached Forty-second Street; there was no time to writeLindau's life, however briefly, before the train stopped. They had to walk up four blocks and then half a block across before theycame to the indistinctive brownstone house where the Dryfooses lived. Itwas larger than some in the same block, but the next neighborhood of ahuge apartment-house dwarfed it again. March thought he recognized thevery flat in which he had disciplined the surly janitor, but he did nottell his wife; he made her notice the transition character of the street, which had been mostly built up in apartment-houses, with here and there asingle dwelling dropped far down beneath and beside them, to thatjag-toothed effect on the sky-line so often observable in such New Yorkstreets. "I don't know exactly what the old gentleman bought here for, "he said, as they waited on the steps after ringing, "unless he expects toturn it into flats by-and-by. Otherwise, I don't believe he'll get hismoney back. " An Irish serving-man, with a certain surprise that delayed him, said theladies were at home, and let the Marches in, and then carried their cardsup-stairs. The drawing-room, where he said they could sit down while hewent on this errand, was delicately, decorated in white and gold, andfurnished with a sort of extravagant good taste; there was nothing toobject to in the satin furniture, the pale, soft, rich carpet, thepictures, and the bronze and china bric-a-brac, except that theircostliness was too evident; everything in the room meant money tooplainly, and too much of it. The Marches recognized this in the hoarsewhispers which people cannot get their voices above when they try to talkaway the interval of waiting in such circumstances; they conjectured fromwhat they had heard of the Dryfooses that this tasteful luxury in no wiseexpressed their civilization. "Though when you come to that, " said March, "I don't know that Mrs. Green's gimcrackery expresses ours. " "Well, Basil, I didn't take the gimcrackery. That was your--" The rustle of skirts on the stairs without arrested Mrs. March in thewell-merited punishment which she never failed to inflict upon herhusband when the question of the gimcrackery--they always called itthat--came up. She rose at the entrance of a bright-looking, pretty-looking, mature, youngish lady, in black silk of a neutralimplication, who put out her hand to her, and said, with a very cheery, very ladylike accent, "Mrs. March?" and then added to both of them, whileshe shook hands with March, and before they could get the name out oftheir months: "No, not Miss Dryfoos! Neither of them; nor Mrs. Dryfoos. Mrs. Mandel. The ladies will be down in a moment. Won't you throw offyour sacque, Mrs. March? I'm afraid it's rather warm here, coming fromthe outside. " "I will throw it back, if you'll allow me, " said Mrs. March, with a sortof provisionality, as if, pending some uncertainty as to Mrs. Mandel'squality and authority, she did not feel herself justified in goingfurther. But if she did not know about Mrs. Mandel, Mrs. Mandel seemed to knowabout her. "Oh, well, do!" she said, with a sort of recognition of thepropriety of her caution. "I hope you are feeling a little at home in NewYork. We heard so much of your trouble in getting a flat, from Mr. Fulkerson. " "Well, a true Bostonian doesn't give up quite so soon, " said Mrs. March. "But I will say New York doesn't seem so far away, now we're here. " "I'm sure you'll like it. Every one does. " Mrs. Mandel added to March, "It's very sharp out, isn't it?" "Rather sharp. But after our Boston winters I don't know but I ought torepudiate the word. " "Ah, wait till you have been here through March!" said Mrs. Mandel. Shebegan with him, but skillfully transferred the close of her remark, andthe little smile of menace that went with it, to his wife. "Yes, " said Mrs. March, "or April, either: Talk about our east winds!" "Oh, I'm sure they can't be worse than our winds, " Mrs. Mandel returned, caressingly. "If we escape New York pneumonia, " March laughed, "it will only be tofall a prey to New York malaria as soon as the frost is out of theground. " "Oh, but you know, " said Mrs. Mandel, "I think our malaria has reallybeen slandered a little. It's more a matter of drainage--of plumbing. Idon't believe it would be possible for malaria to get into this house, we've had it gone over so thoroughly. " Mrs. March said, while she tried to divine Mrs. Mandel's position fromthis statement, "It's certainly the first duty. " "If Mrs. March could have had her way, we should have had the drainage ofour whole ward put in order, " said her husband, "before we ventured totake a furnished apartment for the winter. " Mrs. Mandel looked discreetly at Mrs. March for permission to laugh atthis, but at the same moment both ladies became preoccupied with a secondrustling on the stairs. Two tall, well-dressed young girls came in, and Mrs. Mandel introduced, "Miss Dryfoos, Mrs. March; and Miss Mela Dryfoos, Mr. March, " she added, and the girls shook hands in their several ways with the Marches. Miss Dryfoos had keen black eyes, and her hair was intensely black. Herface, but for the slight inward curve of the nose, was regular, and thesmallness of her nose and of her mouth did not weaken her face, but gaveit a curious effect of fierceness, of challenge. She had a large blackfan in her hand, which she waved in talking, with a slow, watchfulnervousness. Her sister was blonde, and had a profile like her brother's;but her chin was not so salient, and the weak look of the mouth was notcorrected by the spirituality or the fervor of his eyes, though hers wereof the same mottled blue. She dropped into the low seat beside Mrs. Mandel, and intertwined her fingers with those of the hand which Mrs. Mandel let her have. She smiled upon the Marches, while Miss Dryfooswatched them intensely, with her eyes first on one and then on the other, as if she did not mean to let any expression of theirs escape her. "My mother will be down in a minute, " she said to Mrs. March. "I hope we're not disturbing her. It is so good of you to let us come inthe evening, " Mrs. March replied. "Oh, not at all, " said the girl. "We receive in the evening. " "When we do receive, " Miss Mela put in. "We don't always get the chanceto. " She began a laugh, which she checked at a smile from Mrs. Mandel, which no one could have seen to be reproving. Miss Dryfoos looked down at her fan, and looked up defiantly at Mrs. March. "I suppose you have hardly got settled. We were afraid we woulddisturb you when we called. " "Oh no! We were very sorry to miss your visit. We are quite settled inour new quarters. Of course, it's all very different from Boston. " "I hope it's more of a sociable place there, " Miss Mela broke in again. "I never saw such an unsociable place as New York. We've been in thishouse three months, and I don't believe that if we stayed three years anyof the neighbors would call. " "I fancy proximity doesn't count for much in New York, " March suggested. Mrs. Mandel said: "That's what I tell Miss Mela. But she is a very socialnature, and can't reconcile herself to the fact. " "No, I can't, " the girl pouted. "I think it was twice as much fun inMoffitt. I wish I was there now. " "Yes, " said March, "I think there's a great deal more enjoyment in thosesmaller places. There's not so much going on in the way of publicamusements, and so people make more of one another. There are not so manyconcerts, theatres, operas--" "Oh, they've got a splendid opera-house in Moffitt. It's just grand, "said Miss Mela. "Have you been to the opera here, this winter?" Mrs. March asked of theelder girl. She was glaring with a frown at her sister, and detached her eyes fromher with an effort. "What did you say?" she demanded, with an absentbluntness. "Oh yes. Yes! We went once. Father took a box at theMetropolitan. " "Then you got a good dose of Wagner, I suppose?" said March. "What?" asked the girl. "I don't think Miss Dryfoos is very fond of Wagner's music, " Mrs. Mandelsaid. "I believe you are all great Wagnerites in Boston?" "I'm a very bad Bostonian, Mrs. Mandel. I suspect myself of preferringVerdi, " March answered. Miss Dryfoos looked down at her fan again, and said, "I like 'Trovatore'the best. " "It's an opera I never get tired of, " said March, and Mrs. March and Mrs. Mandel exchanged a smile of compassion for his simplicity. He detectedit, and added: "But I dare say I shall come down with the Wagner fever intime. I've been exposed to some malignant cases of it. " "That night we were there, " said Miss Mela, "they had to turn the gasdown all through one part of it, and the papers said the ladies wereawful mad because they couldn't show their diamonds. I don't wonder, ifthey all had to pay as much for their boxes as we did. We had to paysixty dollars. " She looked at the Marches for their sensation at thisexpense. March said: "Well, I think I shall take my box by the month, then. Itmust come cheaper, wholesale. " "Oh no, it don't, " said the girl, glad to inform him. "The people thatown their boxes, and that had to give fifteen or twenty thousand dollarsapiece for them, have to pay sixty dollars a night whenever there's aperformance, whether they go or not. " "Then I should go every night, " March said. "Most of the ladies were low neck--" March interposed, "Well, I shouldn't go low-neck. " The girl broke into a fondly approving laugh at his drolling. "Oh, Iguess you love to train! Us girls wanted to go low neck, too; but fathersaid we shouldn't, and mother said if we did she wouldn't come to thefront of the box once. Well, she didn't, anyway. We might just as well'a' gone low neck. She stayed back the whole time, and when they had thatdance--the ballet, you know--she just shut her eyes. Well, Conrad didn'tlike that part much, either; but us girls and Mrs. Mandel, we brazened itout right in the front of the box. We were about the only ones there thatwent high neck. Conrad had to wear a swallow-tail; but father hadn't any, and he had to patch out with a white cravat. You couldn't see what he hadon in the back o' the box, anyway. " Mrs. March looked at Miss Dryfoos, who was waving her fan more and moreslowly up and down, and who, when she felt herself looked at, returnedMrs. March's smile, which she meant to be ingratiating and perhapssympathetic, with a flash that made her start, and then ran her fierceeyes over March's face. "Here comes mother, " she said, with a sort ofbreathlessness, as if speaking her thought aloud, and through the opendoor the Marches could see the old lady on the stairs. She paused half-way down, and turning, called up: "Coonrod! Coonrod! Youbring my shawl down with you. " Her daughter Mela called out to her, "Now, mother, Christine 'll give itto you for not sending Mike. " "Well, I don't know where he is, Mely, child, " the mother answered back. "He ain't never around when he's wanted, and when he ain't, it seems likea body couldn't git shet of him, nohow. " "Well, you ought to ring for him!" cried Miss Mela, enjoying the joke. Her mother came in with a slow step; her head shook slightly as shelooked about the room, perhaps from nervousness, perhaps from a touch ofpalsy. In either case the fact had a pathos which Mrs. March confessed inthe affection with which she took her hard, dry, large, old hand when shewas introduced to her, and in the sincerity which she put into the hopethat she was well. "I'm just middlin', " Mrs. Dryfoos replied. "I ain't never so well, nowadays. I tell fawther I don't believe it agrees with me very wellhere, but he says I'll git used to it. He's away now, out at Moffitt, "she said to March, and wavered on foot a moment before she sank into achair. She was a tall woman, who had been a beautiful girl, and her grayhair had a memory of blondeness in it like Lindau's, March noticed. Shewore a simple silk gown, of a Quakerly gray, and she held a handkerchieffolded square, as it had come from the laundress. Something like theSabbath quiet of a little wooden meeting-house in thick Western woodsexpressed itself to him from her presence. "Laws, mother!" said Miss Mela; "what you got that old thing on for? IfI'd 'a' known you'd 'a' come down in that!" "Coonrod said it was all right, Mely, " said her mother. Miss Mela explained to the Marches: "Mother was raised among theDunkards, and she thinks it's wicked to wear anything but a gray silkeven for dress-up. " "You hain't never heared o' the Dunkards, I reckon, " the old woman saidto Mrs. March. "Some folks calls 'em the Beardy Men, because they don'tnever shave; and they wash feet like they do in the Testament. My unclewas one. He raised me. " "I guess pretty much everybody's a Beardy Man nowadays, if he ain't aDunkard!" Miss Mela looked round for applause of her sally, but March was saying tohis wife: "It's a Pennsylvania German sect, I believe--something like theQuakers. I used to see them when I was a boy. " "Aren't they something like the Mennists?" asked Mrs. Mandel. "They're good people, " said the old woman, "and the world 'd be a heapbetter off if there was more like 'em. " Her son came in and laid a soft shawl over her shoulders before he shookhands with the visitors. "I am glad you found your way here, " he said tothem. Christine, who had been bending forward over her fan, now lifted herselfup with a sigh and leaned back in her chair. "I'm sorry my father isn't here, " said the young man to Mrs. March. "He'snever met you yet?" "No; and I should like to see him. We hear a great deal about yourfather, you know, from Mr. Fulkerson. " "Oh, I hope you don't believe everything Mr. Fulkerson says aboutpeople, " Mela cried. "He's the greatest person for carrying on when hegets going I ever saw. It makes Christine just as mad when him and mothergets to talking about religion; she says she knows he don't care anythingmore about it than the man in the moon. I reckon he don't try it on muchwith father. " "Your fawther ain't ever been a perfessor, " her mother interposed; "buthe's always been a good church-goin' man. " "Not since we come to New York, " retorted the girl. "He's been all broke up since he come to New York, " said the old woman, with an aggrieved look. Mrs. Mandel attempted a diversion. "Have you heard any of our great NewYork preachers yet, Mrs. March?" "No, I haven't, " Mrs. March admitted; and she tried to imply by hercandid tone that she intended to begin hearing them the very next Sunday. "There are a great many things here, " said Conrad, "to take your thoughtsoff the preaching that you hear in most of the churches. I think the cityitself is preaching the best sermon all the time. " "I don't know that I understand you, " said March. Mela answered for him. "Oh, Conrad has got a lot of notions that nobodycan understand. You ought to see the church he goes to when he does go. I'd about as lief go to a Catholic church myself; I don't see a bit o'difference. He's the greatest crony with one of their preachers; hedresses just like a priest, and he says he is a priest. " She laughed forenjoyment of the fact, and her brother cast down his eyes. Mrs. March, in her turn, tried to take from it the personal tone whichthe talk was always assuming. "Have you been to the fall exhibition?" sheasked Christine; and the girl drew herself up out of the abstraction sheseemed sunk in. "The exhibition?" She looked at Mrs. Mandel. "The pictures of the Academy, you know, " Mrs. Mandel explained. "Where Iwanted you to go the day you had your dress tried on. " "No; we haven't been yet. Is it good?" She had turned to Mrs. Marchagain. "I believe the fall exhibitions are never so good as the spring ones. Butthere are some good pictures. " "I don't believe I care much about pictures, " said Christine. "I don'tunderstand them. " "Ah, that's no excuse for not caring about them, " said March, lightly. "The painters themselves don't, half the time. " The girl looked at him with that glance at once defiant and appealing, insolent and anxious, which he had noticed before, especially when shestole it toward himself and his wife during her sister's babble. In thelight of Fulkerson's history of the family, its origin and its ambition, he interpreted it to mean a sense of her sister's folly and an ignorantwill to override his opinion of anything incongruous in themselves andtheir surroundings. He said to himself that she was deathly proud--tooproud to try to palliate anything, but capable of anything that would putothers under her feet. Her eyes seemed hopelessly to question his wife'ssocial quality, and he fancied, with not unkindly interest, theinexperienced girl's doubt whether to treat them with much or littlerespect. He lost himself in fancies about her and her ideals, necessarilysordid, of her possibilities of suffering, of the triumphs anddisappointments before her. Her sister would accept both with a lightnessthat would keep no trace of either; but in her they would sink lastinglydeep. He came out of his reverie to find Mrs. Dryfoos saying to him, inher hoarse voice: "I think it's a shame, some of the pictur's a body sees in the winders. They say there's a law ag'inst them things; and if there is, I don'tunderstand why the police don't take up them that paints 'em. I hear 182tell, since I been here, that there's women that goes to have pictur'stook from them that way by men painters. " The point seemed aimed atMarch, as if he were personally responsible for the scandal, and it fellwith a silencing effect for the moment. Nobody seemed willing to take itup, and Mrs. Dryfoos went on, with an old woman's severity: "I say theyought to be all tarred and feathered and rode on a rail. They'd bedrummed out of town in Moffitt. " Miss Mela said, with a crowing laugh: "I should think they would! Andthey wouldn't anybody go low neck to the opera-house there, either--notlow neck the way they do here, anyway. " "And that pack of worthless hussies, " her mother resumed, "that come outon the stage, and begun to kick. " "Laws, mother!" the girl shouted, "I thought you said you had your eyesshut!" All but these two simpler creatures were abashed at the indecorum ofsuggesting in words the commonplaces of the theatre and of art. "Well, I did, Mely, as soon as I could believe my eyes. I don't know whatthey're doin' in all their churches, to let such things go on, " said theold woman. "It's a sin and a shame, I think. Don't you, Coonrod?" A ring at the door cut short whatever answer he was about to deliver. "If it's going to be company, Coonrod, " said his mother, making an effortto rise, "I reckon I better go up-stairs. " "It's Mr. Fulkerson, I guess, " said Conrad. "He thought he might come";and at the mention of this light spirit Mrs. Dryfoos sank contentedlyback in her chair, and a relaxation of their painful tension seemed topass through the whole company. Conrad went to the door himself (theserving-man tentatively, appeared some minutes later) and let inFulkerson's cheerful voice before his cheerful person. "Ah, how dye do, Conrad? Brought our friend, Mr. Beaton, with me, " thosewithin heard him say; and then, after a sound of putting off overcoats, they saw him fill the doorway, with his feet set square and his armsakimbo. IX. "Ah! hello! hello!" Fulkerson said, in recognition of the Marches. "Regular gathering of the clans. How are you, Mrs. Dryfoos? How do youdo, Mrs. Mandel, Miss Christine, Mela, Aunt Hitty, and all the folks? Howyou wuz?" He shook hands gayly all round, and took a chair next the oldlady, whose hand he kept in his own, and left Conrad to introduce Beaton. But he would not let the shadow of Beaton's solemnity fall upon thecompany. He began to joke with Mrs. Dryfoos, and to match rheumatismswith her, and he included all the ladies in the range of appropriatepleasantries. "I've brought Mr. Beaton along to-night, and I want you tomake him feel at home, like you do me, Mrs. Dryfoos. He hasn't got anyrheumatism to speak of; but his parents live in Syracuse, and he's a kindof an orphan, and we've just adopted him down at the office. When yougoing to bring the young ladies down there, Mrs. Mandel, for a champagnelunch? I will have some hydro-Mela, and Christine it, heigh? How's thatfor a little starter? We dropped in at your place a moment, Mrs. March, and gave the young folks a few pointers about their studies. My goodness!it does me good to see a boy like that of yours; business, from the wordgo; and your girl just scoops my youthful affections. She's a beauty, andI guess she's good, too. Well, well, what a world it is! Miss Christine, won't you show Mr. Beaton that seal ring of yours? He knows about suchthings, and I brought him here to see it as much as anything. It's anintaglio I brought from the other side, " he explained to Mrs. March, "andI guess you'll like to look at it. Tried to give it to the Dryfoosfamily, and when I couldn't, I sold it to 'em. Bound to see it on MissChristine's hand somehow! Hold on! Let him see it where it belongs, first!" He arrested the girl in the motion she made to take off the ring, and lether have the pleasure of showing her hand to the company with the ring onit. Then he left her to hear the painter's words about it, which hecontinued to deliver dissyllabically as he stood with her under agas-jet, twisting his elastic figure and bending his head over the ring. "Well, Mely, child, " Fulkerson went on, with an open travesty of hermother's habitual address, "and how are you getting along? Mrs. Mandelhold you up to the proprieties pretty strictly? Well, that's right. Youknow you'd be roaming all over the pasture if she didn't. " The girl gurgled out her pleasure in his funning, and everybody took him. On his own ground of privileged character. He brought them all togetherin their friendliness for himself, and before the evening was over he hadinspired Mrs. Mandel to have them served with coffee, and had made boththe girls feel that they had figured brilliantly in society, and that twoyoung men had been devoted to them. "Oh, I think he's just as lovely as he can live!" said Mela, as she stooda moment with her sister on the scene of her triumph, where the othershad left them after the departure of their guests. "Who?" asked Christine, deeply. As she glanced down at her ring, her eyesburned with a softened fire. She had allowed Beaton to change it himself from the finger where she hadworn it to the finger on which he said she ought to wear it. She did notknow whether it was right to let him, but she was glad she had done it. "Who? Mr. Fulkerson, goosie-poosie! Not that old stuckup Mr. Beaton ofyours!" "He is proud, " assented Christine, with a throb of exultation. Beaton and Fulkerson went to the Elevated station with the Marches; butthe painter said he was going to walk home, and Fulkerson let him goalone. "One way is enough for me, " he explained. "When I walk up, I don't walkdown. Bye-bye, my son!" He began talking about Beaton to the Marches asthey climbed the station stairs together. "That fellow puzzles me. Idon't know anybody that I have such a desire to kick, and at the sametime that I want to flatter up so much. Affect you that way?" he asked ofMarch. "Well, as far as the kicking goes, yes. " "And how is it with you, Mrs. March?" "Oh, I want to flatter him up. " "No; really? Why? Hold on! I've got the change. " Fulkerson pushed March away from the ticket-office window; and made themhis guests, with the inexorable American hospitality, for the ridedown-town. "Three!" he said to the ticket-seller; and, when he had walkedthem before him out on the platform and dropped his tickets into the urn, he persisted in his inquiry, "Why?" "Why, because you always want to flatter conceited people, don't you?"Mrs. March answered, with a laugh. "Do you? Yes, I guess you do. You think Beaton is conceited?" "Well, slightly, Mr. Fulkerson. " "I guess you're partly right, " said Fulkerson, with a sigh, sounaccountable in its connection that they all laughed. "An ideal 'busted'?" March suggested. "No, not that, exactly, " said Fulkerson. "But I had a notion maybe Beatonwasn't conceited all the time. " "Oh!" Mrs. March exulted, "nobody could be so conceited all the time asMr. Beaton is most of the time. He must have moments of the direstmodesty, when he'd be quite flattery-proof. " "Yes, that's what I mean. I guess that's what makes me want to kick him. He's left compliments on my hands that no decent man would. " "Oh! that's tragical, " said March. "Mr. Fulkerson, " Mrs. March began, with change of subject in her voice, "who is Mrs. Mandel?" "Who? What do you think of her?" he rejoined. "I'll tell you about herwhen we get in the cars. Look at that thing! Ain't it beautiful?" They leaned over the track and looked up at the next station, where thetrain, just starting, throbbed out the flame-shot steam into the whitemoonlight. "The most beautiful thing in New York--the one always and certainlybeautiful thing here, " said March; and his wife sighed, "Yes, yes. " Sheclung to him, and remained rapt by the sight till the train drew near, and then pulled him back in a panic. "Well, there ain't really much to tell about her, " Fulkerson resumed whenthey were seated in the car. "She's an invention of mine. " "Of yours?" cried Mrs. March. "Of course!" exclaimed her husband. "Yes--at least in her present capacity. She sent me a story for thesyndicate, back in July some time, along about the time I first met oldDryfoos here. It was a little too long for my purpose, and I thought Icould explain better how I wanted it cut in a call than I could in aletter. She gave a Brooklyn address, and I went to see her. I found her, "said Fulkerson, with a vague defiance, "a perfect lady. She was livingwith an aunt over there; and she had seen better days, when she was agirl, and worse ones afterward. I don't mean to say her husband was a badfellow; I guess he was pretty good; he was her music-teacher; she met himin Germany, and they got married there, and got through her propertybefore they came over here. Well, she didn't strike me like a person thatcould make much headway in literature. Her story was well enough, but ithadn't much sand in it; kind of-well, academic, you know. I told her so, and she understood, and cried a little; but she did the best she couldwith the thing, and I took it and syndicated it. She kind of stuck in mymind, and the first time I went to see the Dryfooses they were stoppingat a sort of family hotel then till they could find a house--" Fulkersonbroke off altogether, and said, "I don't know as I know just how theDryfooses struck you, Mrs. March?" "Can't you imagine?" she answered, with a kindly, smile. "Yes; but I don't believe I could guess how they would have struck youlast summer when I first saw them. My! oh my! there was the native earthfor you. Mely is a pretty wild colt now, but you ought to have seen herbefore she was broken to harness. "And Christine? Ever see that black leopard they got up there in theCentral Park? That was Christine. Well, I saw what they wanted. They allsaw it--nobody is a fool in all directions, and the Dryfooses are intheir right senses a good deal of the time. Well, to cut a long storyshort, I got Mrs. Mandel to take 'em in hand--the old lady as well as thegirls. She was a born lady, and always lived like one till she sawMandel; and that something academic that killed her for a writer was justthe very thing for them. She knows the world well enough to know just howmuch polish they can take on, and she don't try to put on a bit more. See?" "Yes, I can see, " said Mrs. March. "Well, she took hold at once, as ready as a hospital-trained nurse; andthere ain't anything readier on this planet. She runs the whole concern, socially and economically, takes all the care of housekeeping off the oldlady's hands, and goes round with the girls. By-the-bye, I'm going totake my meals at your widow's, March, and Conrad's going to have hislunch there. I'm sick of browsing about. " "Mr. March's widow?" said his wife, looking at him with provisionalseverity. "I have no widow, Isabel, " he said, "and never expect to have, till Ileave you in the enjoyment of my life-insurance. I suppose Fulkersonmeans the lady with the daughter who wanted to take us to board. " "Oh yes. How are they getting on, I do wonder?" Mrs. March asked ofFulkerson. "Well, they've got one family to board; but it's a small one. I guessthey'll pull through. They didn't want to take any day boarders at first, the widow said; I guess they have had to come to it. " "Poor things!" sighed Mrs. March. "I hope they'll go back to thecountry. " "Well, I don't know. When you've once tasted New York--You wouldn't goback to Boston, would you?" "Instantly. " Fulkerson laughed out a tolerant incredulity. X Beaton lit his pipe when he found himself in his room, and sat downbefore the dull fire in his grate to think. It struck him there was adull fire in his heart a great deal like it; and he worked out a fancifulanalogy with the coals, still alive, and the ashes creeping over them, and the dead clay and cinders. He felt sick of himself, sick of his lifeand of all his works. He was angry with Fulkerson for having got him intothat art department of his, for having bought him up; and he was bitterat fate because he had been obliged to use the money to pay some pressingdebts, and had not been able to return the check his father had sent him. He pitied his poor old father; he ached with compassion for him; and heset his teeth and snarled with contempt through them for his ownbaseness. This was the kind of world it was; but he washed his hands ofit. The fault was in human nature, and he reflected with pride that hehad at least not invented human nature; he had not sunk so low as thatyet. The notion amused him; he thought he might get a Satanic epigram outof it some way. But in the mean time that girl, that wild animal, shekept visibly, tangibly before him; if he put out his hand he might touchhers, he might pass his arm round her waist. In Paris, in a set he knewthere, what an effect she would be with that look of hers, and thatbeauty, all out of drawing! They would recognize the flame quality inher. He imagined a joke about her being a fiery spirit, or nymph, naiad, whatever, from one of her native gas-wells. He began to sketch on a bitof paper from the table at his elbow vague lines that veiled and revealeda level, dismal landscape, and a vast flame against an empty sky, and ashape out of the flame that took on a likeness and floated detached fromit. The sketch ran up the left side of the sheet and stretched across it. Beaton laughed out. Pretty good to let Fulkerson have that for the coverof his first number! In black and red it would be effective; it wouldcatch the eye from the news-stands. He made a motion to throw it on thefire, but held it back and slid it into the table-drawer, and smoked on. He saw the dummy with the other sketch in the open drawer which he hadbrought away from Fulkerson's in the morning and slipped in there, and hetook it out and looked at it. He made some criticisms in line with hispencil on it, correcting the drawing here and there, and then herespected it a little more, though he still smiled at the femininequality--a young lady quality. In spite of his experience the night he called upon the Leightons, Beatoncould not believe that Alma no longer cared for him. She played at havingforgotten him admirably, but he knew that a few months before she hadbeen very mindful of him. He knew he had neglected them since they cameto New York, where he had led them to expect interest, if not attention;but he was used to neglecting people, and he was somewhat less used tobeing punished for it--punished and forgiven. He felt that Alma hadpunished him so thoroughly that she ought to have been satisfied with herwork and to have forgiven him in her heart afterward. He bore noresentment after the first tingling moments were-past; he rather admiredher for it; and he would have been ready to go back half an hour laterand accept pardon and be on the footing of last summer again. Even now hedebated with himself whether it was too late to call; but, decidedly, aquarter to ten seemed late. The next day he determined never to call uponthe Leightons again; but he had no reason for this; it merely came into atransitory scheme of conduct, of retirement from the society of womenaltogether; and after dinner he went round to see them. He asked for the ladies, and they all three received him, Alma notwithout a surprise that intimated itself to him, and her mother with noappreciable relenting; Miss Woodburn, with the needlework which she foundeasier to be voluble over than a book, expressed in her welcome aneutrality both cordial to Beaton and loyal to Alma. "Is it snowing outdo's?" she asked, briskly, after the greetings weretransacted. "Mah goodness!" she said, in answer to his apparent surpriseat the question. "Ah mahght as well have stayed in the Soath, for all thewinter Ah have seen in New York yet. " "We don't often have snow much before New-Year's, " said Beaton. "Miss Woodburn is wild for a real Northern winter, " Mrs. Leightonexplained. "The othah naght Ah woke up and looked oat of the window and saw all theroofs covered with snow, and it turned oat to be nothing but moonlaght. Ah was never so disappointed in mah lahfe, " said Miss Woodburn. "If you'll come to St. Barnaby next summer, you shall have all the winteryou want, " said Alma. "I can't let you slander St. Barnaby in that way, " said Beaton, with theair of wishing to be understood as meaning more than he said. "Yes?" returned Alma, coolly. "I didn't know you were so fond of theclimate. " "I never think of it as a climate. It's a landscape. It doesn't matterwhether it's hot or cold. " "With the thermometer twenty below, you'd find that it mattered, " Almapersisted. "Is that the way you feel about St. Barnaby, too, Mrs. Leighton?" Beatonasked, with affected desolation. "I shall be glad enough to go back in the summer, " Mrs. Leightonconceded. "And I should be glad to go now, " said Beaton, looking at Alma. He hadthe dummy of 'Every Other Week' in his hand, and he saw Alma's eyeswandering toward it whenever he glanced at her. "I should be glad to goanywhere to get out of a job I've undertaken, " he continued, to Mrs. Leighton. "They're going to start some sort of a new illustratedmagazine, and they've got me in for their art department. I'm not fit forit; I'd like to run away. Don't you want to advise me a little, Mrs. Leighton? You know how much I value your taste, and I'd like to have youlook at the design for the cover of the first number: they're going tohave a different one for every number. I don't know whether you'll agreewith me, but I think this is rather nice. " He faced the dummy round, and then laid it on the table before Mrs. Leighton, pushing some of her work aside to make room for it and standingover her while she bent forward to look at it. Alma kept her place, away from the table. "Mah goodness! Ho' exciting!" said Miss Woodburn. "May anybody look?" "Everybody, " said Beaton. "Well, isn't it perfectly choming!" Miss Woodburn exclaimed. "Come andlook at this, Miss Leighton, " she called to Alma, who reluctantlyapproached. "What lines are these?" Mrs. Leighton asked, pointing to Beaton's pencilscratches. "They're suggestions of modifications, " he replied. "I don't think they improve it much. What do you think, Alma?" "Oh, I don't know, " said the girl, constraining her voice to an effect ofindifference and glancing carelessly down at the sketch. "The designmight be improved; but I don't think those suggestions would do it. " "They're mine, " said Beaton, fixing his eyes upon her with a beautifulsad dreaminess that he knew he could put into them; he spoke with adreamy remoteness of tone--his wind-harp stop, Wetmore called it. "I supposed so, " said Alma, calmly. "Oh, mah goodness!" cried Miss Woodburn. "Is that the way you awtuststalk to each othah? Well, Ah'm glad Ah'm not an awtust--unless I could doall the talking. " "Artists cannot tell a fib, " Alma said, "or even act one, " and shelaughed in Beaton's upturned face. He did not unbend his dreamy gaze. "You're quite right. The suggestionsare stupid. " Alma turned to Miss Woodburn: "You hear? Even when we speak of our ownwork. " "Ah nevah hoad anything lahke it!" "And the design itself?" Beaton persisted. "Oh, I'm not an art editor, " Alma answered, with a laugh of exultantevasion. A tall, dark, grave-looking man of fifty, with a swarthy face andiron-gray mustache and imperial and goatee, entered the room. Beaton knewthe type; he had been through Virginia sketching for one of theillustrated papers, and he had seen such men in Richmond. Miss Woodburnhardly needed to say, "May Ah introduce you to mah fathaw, Co'nelWoodburn, Mr. Beaton?" The men shook hands, and Colonel Woodburn said, in that soft, gentle, slow Southern voice without our Northern contractions: "I am very glad tomeet you, sir; happy to make yo' acquaintance. Do not move, madam, " hesaid to Mrs. Leighton, who made a deprecatory motion to let him pass tothe chair beyond her; "I can find my way. " He bowed a bulk that did notlend itself readily to the devotion, and picked up the ball of yarn shehad let drop out of her lap in half rising. "Yo' worsteds, madam. " "Yarn, yarn, Colonel Woodburn!" Alma shouted. "You're quite incorrigible. A spade is a spade!" "But sometimes it is a trump, my dear young lady, " said the Colonel, withunabated gallantry; "and when yo' mothah uses yarn, it is worsteds. But Irespect worsteds even under the name of yarn: our ladies--my own mothahand sistahs--had to knit the socks we wore--all we could get in the woe. " "Yes, and aftah the woe, " his daughter put in. "The knitting has notstopped yet in some places. Have you been much in the Soath, Mr. Beaton?" Beaton explained just how much. "Well, sir, " said the Colonel, "then you have seen a country makinggigantic struggles to retrieve its losses, sir. The South is advancingwith enormous strides, sir. " "Too fast for some of us to keep up, " said Miss Woodburn, in an audibleaside. "The pace in Charlottesboag is pofectly killing, and we had todrop oat into a slow place like New York. " "The progress in the South is material now, " said the Colonel; "and thoseof us whose interests are in another direction find ourselves--isolated--isolated, sir. The intellectual centres are still in the No'th, sir;the great cities draw the mental activity of the country to them, sir. Necessarily New York is the metropolis. " "Oh, everything comes here, " said Beaton, impatient of the elder'sponderosity. Another sort of man would have sympathized with theSoutherner's willingness to talk of himself, and led him on to speak ofhis plans and ideals. But the sort of man that Beaton was could not dothis; he put up the dummy into the wrapper he had let drop on the floorbeside him, and tied it round with string while Colonel Woodburn wastalking. He got to his feet with the words he spoke and offered Mrs. Leighton his hand. "Must you go?" she asked, in surprise. "I am on my way to a reception, " he said. She had noticed that he was inevening dress; and now she felt the vague hurt that people invitednowhere feel in the presence of those who are going somewhere. She didnot feel it for herself, but for her daughter; and she knew Alma wouldnot have let her feel it if she could have prevented it. But Alma hadleft the room for a moment, and she tacitly indulged this sense of injuryin her behalf. "Please say good-night to Miss Leighton for me, " Beaton continued. Hebowed to Miss Woodburn, "Goodnight, Miss Woodburn, " and to her father, bluntly, "Goodnight. " "Good-night, sir, " said the Colonel, with a sort of severe suavity. "Oh, isn't he choming!" Miss Woodburn whispered to Mrs. Leighton whenBeaton left the room. Alma spoke to him in the hall without. "You knew that was my design, Mr. Beaton. Why did you bring it?" "Why?" He looked at her in gloomy hesitation. Then he said: "You know why. I wished to talk it over with you, to serveyou, please you, get back your good opinion. But I've done neither theone nor the other; I've made a mess of the whole thing. " Alma interrupted him. "Has it been accepted?" "It will be accepted, if you will let it. " "Let it?" she laughed. "I shall be delighted. " She saw him swayed alittle toward her. "It's a matter of business, isn't it?" "Purely. Good-night. " When Alma returned to the room, Colonel Woodburn was saying to Mrs. Leighton: "I do not contend that it is impossible, madam, but it is verydifficult in a thoroughly commercialized society, like yours, to have thefeelings of a gentleman. How can a business man, whose prosperity, whoseearthly salvation, necessarily lies in the adversity of some one else, bedelicate and chivalrous, or even honest? If we could have had time toperfect our system at the South, to eliminate what was evil and developwhat was good in it, we should have had a perfect system. But the virusof commercialism was in us, too; it forbade us to make the best of adivine institution, and tempted us to make the worst. Now the curse is onthe whole country; the dollar is the measure of every value, the stamp ofevery success. What does not sell is a failure; and what sells succeeds. " "The hobby is oat, mah deah, " said Miss Woodburn, in an audible aside toAlma. "Were you speaking of me, Colonel Woodburn?" Alma asked. "Surely not, my dear young lady. " "But he's been saying that awtusts are just as greedy aboat money asanybody, " said his daughter. "The law of commercialism is on everything in a commercial society, " theColonel explained, softening the tone in which his convictions werepresented. "The final reward of art is money, and not the pleasure ofcreating. " "Perhaps they would be willing to take it all oat in that if othah peoplewould let them pay their bills in the pleasure of creating, " his daughterteased. "They are helpless, like all the rest, " said her father, with the samedeference to her as to other women. "I do not blame them. " "Oh, mah goodness! Didn't you say, sir, that Mr. Beaton had bad manners?" Alma relieved a confusion which he seemed to feel in reference to her. "Bad manners? He has no manners! That is, when he's himself. He haspretty good ones when he's somebody else. " Miss Woodburn began, "Oh, mah-" and then stopped herself. Alma's motherlooked at her with distressed question, but the girl seemed perfectlycool and contented; and she gave her mind provisionally to a pointsuggested by Colonel Woodburn's talk. "Still, I can't believe it was right to hold people in slavery, to whipthem and sell them. It never did seem right to me, " she added, in apologyfor her extreme sentiments to the gentleness of her adversary. "I quite agree with you, madam, " said the Colonel. "Those were the abusesof the institution. But if we had not been vitiated on the one hand andthreatened on the other by the spirit of commercialism from theNorth--and from Europe, too--those abuses could have been eliminated, andthe institution developed in the direction of the mild patriarchalism ofthe divine intention. " The Colonel hitched his chair, which figured ahobby careering upon its hind legs, a little toward Mrs. Leighton and thegirls approached their heads and began to whisper; they felldeferentially silent when the Colonel paused in his argument, and went onagain when he went on. At last they heard Mrs. Leighton saying, "And have you heard from thepublishers about your book yet?" Then Miss Woodburn cut in, before her father could answer: "The coase ofcommercialism is on that, too. They are trahing to fahnd oat whethah itwill pay. " "And they are right-quite right, " said the Colonel. "There is no longerany other criterion; and even a work that attacks the system must besubmitted to the tests of the system. " "The system won't accept destruction on any othah tomes, " said MissWoodburn, demurely. XI. At the reception, where two men in livery stood aside to let him pass upthe outside steps of the house, and two more helped him off with hisovercoat indoors, and a fifth miscalled his name into the drawing-room, the Syracuse stone-cutter's son met the niece of Mrs. Horn, and began atonce to tell her about his evening at the Dryfooses'. He was in very goodspirits, for so far as he could have been elated or depressed by hisparting with Alma Leighton he had been elated; she had not treated hisimpudence with the contempt that he felt it deserved; she must still befond of him; and the warm sense of this, by operation of an obscure butwell-recognized law of the masculine being, disposed him to be ratherfond of Miss Vance. She was a slender girl, whose semi-aesthetic dressflowed about her with an accentuation of her long forms, and redeemedthem from censure by the very frankness with which it confessed them;nobody could have said that Margaret Vance was too tall. Her prettylittle head, which she had an effect of choosing to have little in thesame spirit of judicious defiance, had a good deal of reading in it; shewas proud to know literary and artistic fashions as well as societyfashions. She liked being singled out by an exterior distinction soobvious as Beaton's, and she listened with sympathetic interest to hisaccount of those people. He gave their natural history reality by drawingupon his own; he reconstructed their plebeian past from the experiencesof his childhood and his youth of the pre-Parisian period; and he had apang of suicidal joy in insulting their ignorance of the world. "What different kinds of people you meet!" said the girl at last, with anenvious sigh. Her reading had enlarged the bounds of her imagination, ifnot her knowledge; the novels nowadays dealt so much with very commonpeople, and made them seem so very much more worth while than the peopleone met. She said something like this to Beaton. He answered: "You can meet thepeople I'm talking of very easily, if you want to take the trouble. It'swhat they came to New York for. I fancy it's the great ambition of theirlives to be met. " "Oh yes, " said Miss Vance, fashionably, and looked down; then she lookedup and said, intellectually: "Don't you think it's a great pity? How muchbetter for them to have stayed where they were and what they were!" "Then you could never have had any chance of meeting them, " said Beaton. "I don't suppose you intend to go out to the gas country?" "No, " said Miss Vance, amused. "Not that I shouldn't like to go. " "What a daring spirit! You ought to be on the staff of 'Every OtherWeek, '" said Beaton. "The staff-Every Other Week? What is it?" "The missing link; the long-felt want of a tie between the Arts and theDollars. " Beaton gave her a very picturesque, a very dramatic sketch ofthe theory, the purpose, and the personnel of the new enterprise. Miss Vance understood too little about business of any kind to know howit differed from other enterprises of its sort. She thought it wasdelightful; she thought Beaton must be glad to be part of it, though hehad represented himself so bored, so injured, by Fulkerson's insistingupon having him. "And is it a secret? Is it a thing not to be spoken of?" "'Tutt' altro'! Fulkerson will be enraptured to have it spoken of insociety. He would pay any reasonable bill for the advertisement. " "What a delightful creature! Tell him it shall all be spent in charity. " "He would like that. He would get two paragraphs out of the fact, andyour name would go into the 'Literary Notes' of all the newspapers. " "Oh, but I shouldn't want my name used!" cried the girl, half horrifiedinto fancying the situation real. "Then you'd better not say anything about 'Every Other Week'. Fulkersonis preternaturally unscrupulous. " March began to think so too, at times. He was perpetually suggestingchanges in the make-up of the first number, with a view to its greatervividness of effect. One day he came and said: "This thing isn't going tohave any sort of get up and howl about it, unless you have a paper in thefirst number going for Bevans's novels. Better get Maxwell to do it. " "Why, I thought you liked Bevans's novels?" "So I did; but where the good of 'Every Other Week' is concerned I am aRoman father. The popular gag is to abuse Bevans, and Maxwell is the manto do it. There hasn't been a new magazine started for the last threeyears that hasn't had an article from Maxwell in its first number cuttingBevans all to pieces. If people don't see it, they'll think 'Every OtherWeek' is some old thing. " March did not know whether Fulkerson was joking or not. He suggested, "Perhaps they'll think it's an old thing if they do see it. " "Well, get somebody else, then; or else get Maxwell to write under anassumed name. Or--I forgot! He'll be anonymous under our system, anyway. Now there ain't a more popular racket for us to work in that first numberthan a good, swinging attack on Bevans. People read his books and quarrelover 'em, and the critics are all against him, and a regular flaying, with salt and vinegar rubbed in afterward, will tell more with people wholike good old-fashioned fiction than anything else. I like Bevans'sthings, but, dad burn it! when it comes to that first number, I'd offerup anybody. " "What an immoral little wretch you are, Fulkerson!" said March, with alaugh. Fulkerson appeared not to be very strenuous about the attack on thenovelist. "Say!" he called out, gayly, "what should you think of a paperdefending the late lamented system of slavery'?" "What do you mean, Fulkerson?" asked March, with a puzzled smile. Fulkerson braced his knees against his desk, and pushed himself back, butkept his balance to the eye by canting his hat sharply forward. "There'san old cock over there at the widow's that's written a book to prove thatslavery was and is the only solution of the labor problem. He's aSoutherner. " "I should imagine, " March assented. "He's got it on the brain that if the South could have been let alone bythe commercial spirit and the pseudophilanthropy of the North, it wouldhave worked out slavery into a perfectly ideal condition for the laborer, in which he would have been insured against want, and protected in allhis personal rights by the state. He read the introduction to me lastnight. I didn't catch on to all the points--his daughter's an awfullypretty girl, and I was carrying that fact in my mind all the time, too, you know--but that's about the gist of it. " "Seems to regard it as a lost opportunity?" said March. "Exactly! What a mighty catchy title, Neigh? Look well on thetitle-page. " "Well written?" "I reckon so; I don't know. The Colonel read it mighty eloquently. " "It mightn't be such bad business, " said March, in a muse. "Could you getme a sight of it without committing yourself?" "If the Colonel hasn't sent it off to another publisher this morning. Hejust got it back with thanks yesterday. He likes to keep it travelling. " "Well, try it. I've a notion it might be a curious thing. " "Look here, March, " said Fulkerson, with the effect of taking a freshhold; "I wish you could let me have one of those New York things of yoursfor the first number. After all, that's going to be the great card. " "I couldn't, Fulkerson; I couldn't, really. I want to philosophize thematerial, and I'm too new to it all yet. I don't want to do merelysuperficial sketches. " "Of course! Of course! I understand that. Well, I don't want to hurryyou. Seen that old fellow of yours yet? I think we ought to have thattranslation in the first number; don't you? We want to give 'em a notionof what we're going to do in that line. " "Yes, " said March; "and I was going out to look up Lindau this morning. I've inquired at Maroni's, and he hasn't been there for several days. I've some idea perhaps he's sick. But they gave me his address, and I'mgoing to see. " "Well, that's right. We want the first number to be the keynote in everyway. " March shook his head. "You can't make it so. The first number is bound tobe a failure always, as far as the representative character goes. It'sinvariably the case. Look at the first numbers of all the things you'veseen started. They're experimental, almost amateurish, and necessarilyso, not only because the men that are making them up are comparativelyinexperienced like ourselves, but because the material sent them to dealwith is more or less consciously tentative. People send their adventurousthings to a new periodical because the whole thing is an adventure. I'venoticed that quality in all the volunteer contributions; it's in thearticles that have been done to order even. No; I've about made up mymind that if we can get one good striking paper into the first numberthat will take people's minds off the others, we shall be doing all wecan possible hope for. I should like, " March added, less seriously, "tomake up three numbers ahead, and publish the third one first. " Fulkerson dropped forward and struck his fist on the desk. "It's afirst-rate idea. Why not do it?" March laughed. "Fulkerson, I don't believe there's any quackish thing youwouldn't do in this cause. From time to time I'm thoroughly ashamed ofbeing connected with such a charlatan. " Fulkerson struck his hat sharply backward. "Ah, dad burn it! To give thatthing the right kind of start I'd walk up and down Broadway between twoboards, with the title-page of Every Other Week facsimiled on one and myname and address on the--" He jumped to his feet and shouted, "March, I'll do it!" "What?" "I'll hire a lot of fellows to make mud-turtles of themselves, and I'llhave a lot of big facsimiles of the title-page, and I'll paint the townred!" March looked aghast at him. "Oh, come, now, Fulkerson!" "I mean it. I was in London when a new man had taken hold of the oldCornhill, and they were trying to boom it, and they had a procession ofthese mudturtles that reached from Charing Cross to Temple Bar. CornhillMagazine. Sixpence. Not a dull page in it. ' I said to myself then that itwas the livest thing I ever saw. I respected the man that did that thingfrom the bottom of my heart. I wonder I ever forgot it. But it shows whata shaky thing the human mind is at its best. " "You infamous mountebank!", said March, with great amusement atFulkerson's access; "you call that congeries of advertising instinct ofyours the human mind at its best? Come, don't be so diffident, Fulkerson. Well, I'm off to find Lindau, and when I come back I hope Mr. Dryfooswill have you under control. I don't suppose you'll be quite sane againtill after the first number is out. Perhaps public opinion will sober youthen. " "Confound it, March! How do you think they will take it? I swear I'mgetting so nervous I don't know half the time which end of me is up. Ibelieve if we don't get that thing out by the first of February it 'll bethe death of me. " "Couldn't wait till Washington's Birthday? I was thinking it would givethe day a kind of distinction, and strike the public imagination, if--" "No, I'll be dogged if I could!" Fulkerson lapsed more and more into theparlance of his early life in this season of strong excitement. "Ibelieve if Beaton lags any on the art leg I'll kill him. " "Well, I shouldn't mind your killing Beaton, " said March, tranquilly, ashe went out. He went over to Third Avenue and took the Elevated down to ChathamSquare. He found the variety of people in the car as unfailinglyentertaining as ever. He rather preferred the East Side to the West Sidelines, because they offered more nationalities, conditions, andcharacters to his inspection. They draw not only from the up-townAmerican region, but from all the vast hive of populations swarmingbetween them and the East River. He had found that, according to thehour, American husbands going to and from business, and American wivesgoing to and from shopping, prevailed on the Sixth Avenue road, and thatthe most picturesque admixture to these familiar aspects of human naturewere the brilliant eyes and complexions of the American Hebrews, whootherwise contributed to the effect of well-clad comfort andcitizen-self-satisfaction of the crowd. Now and then he had found himselfin a car mostly filled with Neapolitans from the constructions far up theline, where he had read how they are worked and fed and housed likebeasts; and listening to the jargon of their unintelligible dialect, hehad occasion for pensive question within himself as to what notion thesepoor animals formed of a free republic from their experience of lifeunder its conditions; and whether they found them practically verydifferent from those of the immemorial brigandage and enforced complicitywith rapine under which they had been born. But, after all, this was aninfrequent effect, however massive, of travel on the West Side, whereasthe East offered him continual entertainment in like sort. The sort wasnever quite so squalid. For short distances the lowest poverty, thehardest pressed labor, must walk; but March never entered a car withoutencountering some interesting shape of shabby adversity, which was almostalways adversity of foreign birth. New York is still popularly supposedto be in the control of the Irish, but March noticed in these East Sidetravels of his what must strike every observer returning to the cityafter a prolonged absence: the numerical subordination of the dominantrace. If they do not outvote them, the people of Germanic, of Slavonic, of Pelasgic, of Mongolian stock outnumber the prepotent Celts; and Marchseldom found his speculation centred upon one of these. The small eyes, the high cheeks, the broad noses, the puff lips, the bare, cue-filletedskulls, of Russians, Poles, Czechs, Chinese; the furtive glitter ofItalians; the blonde dulness of Germans; the cold quiet ofScandinavians--fire under ice--were aspects that he identified, and thatgave him abundant suggestion for the personal histories he constructed, and for the more public-spirited reveries in which he dealt with thefuture economy of our heterogeneous commonwealth. It must be owned thathe did not take much trouble about this; what these poor people werethinking, hoping, fearing, enjoying, suffering; just where and how theylived; who and what they individually were--these were the matters of hiswaking dreams as he stared hard at them, while the train raced fartherinto the gay ugliness--the shapeless, graceful, reckless picturesquenessof the Bowery. There were certain signs, certain facades, certain audacities of theprevailing hideousness that always amused him in that uproar to the eyewhich the strident forms and colors made. He was interested in theinsolence with which the railway had drawn its erasing line across theCorinthian front of an old theatre, almost grazing its fluted pillars, and flouting its dishonored pediment. The colossal effigies of the fatwomen and the tuft-headed Circassian girls of cheap museums; the vistasof shabby cross streets; the survival of an old hip-roofed house here andthere at their angles; the Swiss chalet, histrionic decorativeness of thestations in prospect or retrospect; the vagaries of the lines thatnarrowed together or stretched apart according to the width of theavenue, but always in wanton disregard of the life that dwelt, and boughtand sold, and rejoiced or sorrowed, and clattered or crawled, around, below, above--were features of the frantic panorama that perpetuallytouched his sense of humor and moved his sympathy. Accident and thenexigency seemed the forces at work to this extraordinary effect; the playof energies as free and planless as those that force the forest from thesoil to the sky; and then the fierce struggle for survival, with thestronger life persisting over the deformity, the mutilation, thedestruction, the decay of the weaker. The whole at moments seemed to himlawless, godless; the absence of intelligent, comprehensive purpose inthe huge disorder, and the violent struggle to subordinate the result tothe greater good, penetrated with its dumb appeal the consciousness of aman who had always been too self-enwrapped to perceive the chaos to whichthe individual selfishness must always lead. But there was still nothing definite, nothing better than a vaguediscomfort, however poignant, in his half recognition of such facts; andhe descended the station stairs at Chatham Square with a sense of theneglected opportunities of painters in that locality. He said to himselfthat if one of those fellows were to see in Naples that turmoil of cars, trucks, and teams of every sort, intershot with foot-passengers going andcoming to and from the crowded pavements, under the web of the railroadtracks overhead, and amid the spectacular approach of the streets thatopen into the square, he would have it down in his sketch-book at once. He decided simultaneously that his own local studies must be illustrated, and that he must come with the artist and show him just which bits to do, not knowing that the two arts can never approach the same material fromthe same point. He thought he would particularly like his illustrator torender the Dickensy, cockneyish quality of the shabby-genteelballad-seller of whom he stopped to ask his way to the street whereLindau lived, and whom he instantly perceived to be, with his stock intrade, the sufficient object of an entire study by himself. He had hisballads strung singly upon a cord against the house wall, and held downin piles on the pavement with stones and blocks of wood. Their control inthis way intimated a volatility which was not perceptible in theirsentiment. They were mostly tragical or doleful: some of them dealt withthe wrongs of the working-man; others appealed to a gay experience of thehigh seas; but vastly the greater part to memories and associations of anIrish origin; some still uttered the poetry of plantation life in theartless accents of the end--man. Where they trusted themselves, withsyntax that yielded promptly to any exigency of rhythmic art, to theordinary American speech, it was to strike directly for the affections, to celebrate the domestic ties, and, above all, to embalm the memories ofangel and martyr mothers whose dissipated sons deplored their sufferingstoo late. March thought this not at all a bad thing in them; he smiled inpatronage of their simple pathos; he paid the tribute of a laugh when thepoet turned, as he sometimes did, from his conception of angel and martyrmotherhood, and portrayed the mother in her more familiar phases ofvirtue and duty, with the retributive shingle or slipper in her hand. Hebought a pocketful of this literature, popular in a sense which the mostsuccessful book can never be, and enlisted the ballad vendor so deeply inthe effort to direct him to Lindau's dwelling by the best way that heneglected another customer, till a sarcasm on his absent-mindedness stunghint to retort, "I'm a-trying to answer a gentleman a civil question;that's where the absent-minded comes in. " It seemed for some reason to be a day of leisure with the Chinesedwellers in Mott Street, which March had been advised to take first. Theystood about the tops of basement stairs, and walked two and two along thedirty pavement, with their little hands tucked into their sleeves acrosstheir breasts, aloof in immaculate cleanliness from the filth aroundthem, and scrutinizing the scene with that cynical sneer of faintsurprise to which all aspects of our civilization seem to move theirsuperiority. Their numbers gave character to the street, and rendered notthem, but what was foreign to them, strange there; so that March had asense of missionary quality in the old Catholic church, built long beforetheir incursion was dreamed of. It seemed to have come to them there, andhe fancied in the statued saint that looked down from its facadesomething not so much tolerant as tolerated, something propitiatory, almost deprecatory. It was a fancy, of course; the street wassufficiently peopled with Christian children, at any rate, swarming andshrieking at their games; and presently a Christian mother appeared, pushed along by two policemen on a handcart, with a gelatinous tremorover the paving and a gelatinous jouncing at the curbstones. She lay withher face to the sky, sending up an inarticulate lamentation; but theindifference of the officers forbade the notion of tragedy in her case. She was perhaps a local celebrity; the children left off their games, andran gayly trooping after her; even the young fellow and young girlexchanging playful blows in a robust flirtation at the corner of a liquorstore suspended their scuffle with a pleased interest as she passed. March understood the unwillingness of the poor to leave the worstconditions in the city for comfort and plenty in the country when hereflected upon this dramatic incident, one of many no doubt which dailyoccur to entertain them in such streets. A small town could rarely offeranything comparable to it, and the country never. He said that if lifeappeared so hopeless to him as it must to the dwellers in thatneighborhood he should not himself be willing to quit its distractions, its alleviations, for the vague promise of unknown good in the distancesomewhere. But what charm could such a man as Lindau find in such a place? It couldnot be that he lived there because he was too poor to live elsewhere:with a shutting of the heart, March refused to believe this as he lookedround on the abounding evidences of misery, and guiltily remembered hisneglect of his old friend. Lindau could probably find as cheap a lodgingin some decenter part of the town; and, in fact, there was someamelioration of the prevailing squalor in the quieter street which heturned into from Mott. A woman with a tied-up face of toothache opened the door for him when hepulled, with a shiver of foreboding, the bell-knob, from which a yard ofrusty crape dangled. But it was not Lindau who was dead, for the womansaid he was at home, and sent March stumbling up the four or five darkflights of stairs that led to his tenement. It was quite at the top ofthe house, and when March obeyed the German-English "Komm!" that followedhis knock, he found himself in a kitchen where a meagre breakfast wasscattered in stale fragments on the table before the stove. The place wasbare and cold; a half-empty beer bottle scarcely gave it a convivial air. On the left from this kitchen was a room with a bed in it, which seemedalso to be a cobbler's shop: on the right, through a door that stoodajar, came the German-English voice again, saying this time, "Hier!" XII. March pushed the door open into a room like that on the left, but with awriting-desk instead of a cobbler's bench, and a bed, where Lindau satpropped up; with a coat over his shoulders and a skull-cap on his head, reading a book, from which he lifted his eyes to stare blankly over hisspectacles at March. His hairy old breast showed through the night-shirt, which gaped apart; the stump of his left arm lay upon the book to keep itopen. "Ah, my tear yo'ng friendt! Passil! Marge! Iss it you?" he called out, joyously, the next moment. "Why, are you sick, Lindau?" March anxiously scanned his face in takinghis hand. Lindau laughed. "No; I'm all righdt. Only a lidtle lazy, and a lidtleeggonomigal. Idt's jeaper to stay in pedt sometimes as to geep a firea-goin' all the time. Don't wandt to gome too hardt on the 'brafer Mann', you know: "Braver Mann, er schafft mir zu essen. " You remember? Heine? You readt Heine still? Who is your favorite boetnow, Passil? You write some boetry yourself yet? No? Well, I am gladt tozee you. Brush those baperss off of that jair. Well, idt is goodt forzore eyess. How didt you findt where I lif? "They told me at Maroni's, " said March. He tried to keep his eyes onLindau's face, and not see the discomfort of the room, but he was awareof the shabby and frowsy bedding, the odor of stale smoke, and the pipesand tobacco shreds mixed with the books and manuscripts strewn over theleaf of the writing-desk. He laid down on the mass the pile of foreignmagazines he had brought under his arm. "They gave me another addressfirst. " "Yes. I have chust gome here, " said Lindau. "Idt is not very coy, Neigh?" "It might be gayer, " March admitted, with a smile. "Still, " he added, soberly, "a good many people seem to live in this part of the town. Apparently they die here, too, Lindau. There is crape on your outsidedoor. I didn't know but it was for you. " "Nodt this time, " said Lindau, in the same humor. "Berhaps some othertime. We geep the ondertakers bratty puzy down here. " "Well, " said March, "undertakers must live, even if the rest of us haveto die to let them. " Lindau laughed, and March went on: "But I'm glad itisn't your funeral, Lindau. And you say you're not sick, and so I don'tsee why we shouldn't come to business. " "Pusiness?" Lindau lifted his eyebrows. "You gome on pusiness?" "And pleasure combined, " said March, and he went on to explain theservice he desired at Lindau's hands. The old man listened with serious attention, and with assenting nods thatculminated in a spoken expression of his willingness to undertake thetranslations. March waited with a sort of mechanical expectation of hisgratitude for the work put in his way, but nothing of the kind came fromLindau, and March was left to say, "Well, everything is understood, then;and I don't know that I need add that if you ever want any little advanceon the work--" "I will ask you, " said Lindau, quietly, "and I thank you for that. But Ican wait; I ton't needt any money just at bresent. " As if he saw someappeal for greater frankness in, March's eye, he went on: "I tidn't gomehere begause I was too boor to lif anywhere else, and I ton't stay inpedt begause I couldn't haf a fire to geep warm if I wanted it. I'm nodtzo padt off as Marmontel when he went to Paris. I'm a lidtle loaxurious, that is all. If I stay in pedt it's zo I can fling money away onsomethings else. Heigh?" "But what are you living here for, Lindau?" March smiled at the ironylurking in Lindau's words. "Well, you zee, I foundt I was begoming a lidtle too moch of anaristograt. I hadt a room oap in Creenvidge Willage, among dose pig pugsover on the West Side, and I foundt"--Liudau's voice lost its jestingquality, and his face darkened--"that I was beginning to forget theboor!" "I should have thought, " said March, with impartial interest, "that youmight have seen poverty enough, now and then, in Greenwich Village toremind you of its existence. " "Nodt like here, " said Lindau. "Andt you must zee it all the dtime--zeeit, hear it, smell it, dtaste it--or you forget it. That is what I gomehere for. I was begoming a ploated aristograt. I thought I was nodt likethese beople down here, when I gome down once to look aroundt; I thoughtI must be somethings else, and zo I zaid I better take myself in time, and I gome here among my brothers--the becears and the thiefs!" A noisemade itself heard in the next room, as if the door were furtively opened, and a faint sound of tiptoeing and of hands clawing on a table. "Thiefs!" Lindau repeated, with a shout. "Lidtle thiefs, that gabtureyour breakfast. Ah! ha! ha!" A wild scurrying of feet, joyous cries andtittering, and a slamming door followed upon his explosion, and heresumed in the silence: "Idt is the children cot pack from school. Theygome and steal what I leaf there on my daple. Idt's one of our lidtlechokes; we onderstand one another; that's all righdt. Once the gobbler inthe other room there he used to chase 'em; he couldn't onderstand theirlidtle tricks. Now dot goppler's teadt, and he ton't chase 'em any more. He was a Bohemian. Gindt of grazy, I cuess. " "Well, it's a sociable existence, " March suggested. "But perhaps if youlet them have the things without stealing--" "Oh no, no! Most nodt mage them too gonceitedt. They mostn't go and feelthemselfs petter than those boor millionairss that hadt to steal theirmoney. " March smiled indulgently at his old friend's violence. "Oh, there arefagots and fagots, you know, Lindau; perhaps not all the millionaires areso guilty. " "Let us speak German!" cried Lindau, in his own tongue, pushing his bookaside, and thrusting his skullcap back from his forehead. "How much moneycan a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing some other man?" "Well, if you'll let me answer in English, " said March, "I should sayabout five thousand dollars a year. I name that figure because it's myexperience that I never could earn more; but the experience of other menmay be different, and if they tell me they can earn ten, or twenty, orfifty thousand a year, I'm not prepared to say they can't do it. " Lindau hardly waited for his answer. "Not the most gifted man that everlived, in the practice of any art or science, and paid at the highestrate that exceptional genius could justly demand from those who haveworked for their money, could ever earn a million dollars. It is thelandlords and the merchant princes, the railroad kings and the coalbarons (the oppressors to whom you instinctively give the titles oftyrants)--it is these that make the millions, but no man earns them. Whatartist, what physician, what scientist, what poet was ever amillionaire?" "I can only think of the poet Rogers, " said March, amused by Lindau'stirade. "But he was as exceptional as the other Rogers, the martyr, whodied with warm feet. " Lindau had apparently not understood his joke, andhe went on, with the American ease of mind about everything: "But youmust allow, Lindau, that some of those fellows don't do so badly withtheir guilty gains. Some of them give work to armies of poor people--" Lindau furiously interrupted: "Yes, when they have gathered theirmillions together from the hunger and cold and nakedness and ruin anddespair of hundreds of thousands of other men, they 'give work' to thepoor! They give work! They allow their helpless brothers to earn enoughto keep life in them! They give work! Who is it gives toil, and wherewill your rich men be when once the poor shall refuse to give toil'? Why, you have come to give me work!" March laughed outright. "Well, I'm not a millionaire, anyway, Lindau, andI hope you won't make an example of me by refusing to give toil. I daresay the millionaires deserve it, but I'd rather they wouldn't suffer inmy person. " "No, " returned the old man, mildly relaxing the fierce glare he had bentupon March. "No man deserves to sufer at the hands of another. I losemyself when I think of the injustice in the world. But I must not forgetthat I am like the worst of them. " "You might go up Fifth Avenue and live among the rich awhile, when you'rein danger of that, " suggested March. "At any rate, " he added, by animpulse which he knew he could not justify to his wife, "I wish you'dcome some day and lunch with their emissary. I've been telling Mrs. Marchabout you, and I want her and the children to see you. Come over withthese things and report. " He put his hand on the magazines as he rose. "I will come, " said Lindau, gently. "Shall I give you your book?" asked March. "No; I gidt oap bretty soon. " "And--and--can you dress yourself?" "I vhistle, 'and one of those lidtle fellowss comess. We haf to dake gareof one another in a blace like this. Idt iss nodt like the worldt, " saidLindau, gloomily. March thought he ought to cheer him up. "Oh, it isn't such a bad world, Lindau! After all, the average of millionaires is small in it. " He added, "And I don't believe there's an American living that could look at thatarm of yours and not wish to lend you a hand for the one you gave usall. " March felt this to be a fine turn, and his voice trembled slightlyin saying it. Lindau smiled grimly. "You think zo? I wouldn't moch like to drost 'em. I've driedt idt too often. " He began to speak German again fiercely:"Besides, they owe me nothing. Do you think I knowingly gave my hand tosave this oligarchy of traders and tricksters, this aristocracy ofrailroad wreckers and stock gamblers and mine-slave drivers and mill-serfowners? No; I gave it to the slave; the slave--ha! ha! ha!--whom I helpedto unshackle to the common liberty of hunger and cold. And you think Iwould be the beneficiary of such a state of things?" "I'm sorry to hear you talk so, Lindau, " said March; "very sorry. " Hestopped with a look of pain, and rose to go. Lindau suddenly broke into alaugh and into English. "Oh, well, it is only dalk, Passil, and it toes me goodt. My parg isworse than my pidte, I cuess. I pring these things roundt bretty soon. Good-bye, Passil, my tear poy. Auf wiedersehen!" XIII. March went away thinking of what Lindau had said, but not for theimpersonal significance of his words so much as for the light they castupon Lindau himself. He thought the words violent enough, but inconnection with what he remembered of the cheery, poetic, hopefulidealist, they were even more curious than lamentable. In his own life ofcomfortable reverie he had never heard any one talk so before, but he hadread something of the kind now and then in blatant labor newspapers whichhe had accidentally fallen in with, and once at a strikers' meeting hehad heard rich people denounced with the same frenzy. He had made his ownreflections upon the tastelessness of the rhetoric, and the obviousbuncombe of the motive, and he had not taken the matter seriously. He could not doubt Lindau's sincerity, and he wondered how he came tothat way of thinking. From his experience of himself he accounted for aprevailing literary quality in it; he decided it to be from Lindau'sreading and feeling rather than his reflection. That was the notion heformed of some things he had met with in Ruskin to much the same effect;he regarded them with amusement as the chimeras of a rhetorician run awaywith by his phrases. But as to Lindau, the chief thing in his mind was a conception of thedroll irony of a situation in which so fervid a hater of millionairesshould be working, indirectly at least, for the prosperity of a man likeDryfoos, who, as March understood, had got his money together out ofevery gambler's chance in speculation, and all a schemer's thrift fromthe error and need of others. The situation was not more incongruous, however, than all the rest of the 'Every Other Week' affair. It seemed tohim that there were no crazy fortuities that had not tended to itsexistence, and as time went on, and the day drew near for the issue ofthe first number, the sense of this intensified till the whole lost atmoments the quality of a waking fact, and came to be rather a fantasticfiction of sleep. Yet the heterogeneous forces did co-operate to a reality which Marchcould not deny, at least in their presence, and the first number wasrepresentative of all their nebulous intentions in a tangible form. As aresult, it was so respectable that March began to respect theseintentions, began to respect himself for combining and embodying them inthe volume which appealed to him with a novel fascination, when the firstadvance copy was laid upon his desk. Every detail of it was tiresomelyfamiliar already, but the whole had a fresh interest now. He now saw howextremely fit and effective Miss Leighton's decorative design for thecover was, printed in black and brick-red on the delicate gray tone ofthe paper. It was at once attractive and refined, and he credited Beatonwith quite all he merited in working it over to the actual shape. Thetouch and the taste of the art editor were present throughout the number. As Fulkerson said, Beaton had caught on with the delicacy of ahumming-bird and the tenacity of a bulldog to the virtues of theirillustrative process, and had worked it for all it was worth. There wereseven papers in the number, and a poem on the last page of the cover, andhe had found some graphic comment for each. It was a larger proportionthan would afterward be allowed, but for once in a way it was allowed. Fulkerson said they could not expect to get their money back on thatfirst number, anyway. Seven of the illustrations were Beaton's; two orthree he got from practised hands; the rest were the work of unknownpeople which he had suggested, and then related and adapted withunfailing ingenuity to the different papers. He handled the illustrationswith such sympathy as not to destroy their individual quality, and thatindefinable charm which comes from good amateur work in whatever art. Herescued them from their weaknesses and errors, while he left in them theevidence of the pleasure with which a clever young man, or a sensitivegirl, or a refined woman had done them. Inevitably from his manipulation, however, the art of the number acquired homogeneity, and there wasnothing casual in its appearance. The result, March eagerly owned, wasbetter than the literary result, and he foresaw that the number would besold and praised chiefly for its pictures. Yet he was not ashamed of theliterature, and he indulged his admiration of it the more freely becausehe had not only not written it, but in a way had not edited it. To besure, he had chosen all the material, but he had not voluntarily put itall together for that number; it had largely put itself together, asevery number of every magazine does, and as it seems more and more to do, in the experience of every editor. There had to be, of course, a story, and then a sketch of travel. There was a literary essay and a socialessay; there was a dramatic trifle, very gay, very light; there was adashing criticism on the new pictures, the new plays, the new books, thenew fashions; and then there was the translation of a bit of vividRussian realism, which the editor owed to Lindau's exploration of theforeign periodicals left with him; Lindau was himself a romanticist ofthe Victor Hugo sort, but he said this fragment of Dostoyevski was goodof its kind. The poem was a bit of society verse, with a backward lookinto simpler and wholesomer experiences. Fulkerson was extremely proud of the number; but he said it was toogood--too good from every point of view. The cover was too good, and thepaper was too good, and that device of rough edges, which got over theobjection to uncut leaves while it secured their aesthetic effect, was athing that he trembled for, though he rejoiced in it as a stroke of thehighest genius. It had come from Beaton at the last moment, as acompromise, when the problem of the vulgar croppiness of cut leaves andthe unpopularity of uncut leaves seemed to have no solution but suicide. Fulkerson was still morally crawling round on his hands and knees, as hesaid, in abject gratitude at Beaton's feet, though he had his qualms, hisquestions; and he declared that Beaton was the most inspired ass sinceBalaam's. "We're all asses, of course, " he admitted, in semi-apology toMarch; "but we're no such asses as Beaton. " He said that if the tastefuldecorativeness of the thing did not kill it with the public outright, itsliterary excellence would give it the finishing stroke. Perhaps thatmight be overlooked in the impression of novelty which a first numberwould give, but it must never happen again. He implored March to promisethat it should never happen again; he said their only hope was in theimmediate cheapening of the whole affair. It was bad enough to give thepublic too much quantity for their money, but to throw in such quality asthat was simply ruinous; it must be stopped. These were the expressionsof his intimate moods; every front that he presented to the public wore aglow of lofty, of devout exultation. His pride in the number gushed outin fresh bursts of rhetoric to every one whom he could get to talk withhim about it. He worked the personal kindliness of the press to theutmost. He did not mind making himself ridiculous or becoming a joke inthe good cause, as he called it. He joined in the applause when ahumorist at the club feigned to drop dead from his chair at Fulkerson'sintroduction of the topic, and he went on talking that first number intothe surviving spectators. He stood treat upon all occasions, and helunched attaches of the press at all hours. He especially befriended thecorrespondents of the newspapers of other cities, for, as he explained toMarch, those fellows could give him any amount of advertising simply asliterary gossip. Many of the fellows were ladies who could not be sosummarily asked out to lunch, but Fulkerson's ingenuity was equal toevery exigency, and he contrived somehow to make each of these feel thatshe had been possessed of exclusive information. There was a moment whenMarch conjectured a willingness in Fulkerson to work Mrs. March into theadvertising department, by means of a tea to these ladies and theirfriends which she should administer in his apartment, but he did notencourage Fulkerson to be explicit, and the moment passed. Afterward, when he told his wife about it, he was astonished to find that she wouldnot have minded doing it for Fulkerson, and he experienced another proofof the bluntness of the feminine instincts in some directions, and of thepersonal favor which Fulkerson seemed to enjoy with the whole sex. Thisalone was enough to account for the willingness of these correspondentsto write about the first number, but March accused him of sending it totheir addresses with boxes of Jacqueminot roses and Huyler candy. Fulkerson let him enjoy his joke. He said that he would do that oranything else for the good cause, short of marrying the whole circle offemale correspondents. March was inclined to hope that if the first number had been made toogood for the country at large, the more enlightened taste of metropolitanjournalism would invite a compensating favor for it in New York. Butfirst Fulkerson and then the event proved him wrong. In spite of thequality of the magazine, and in spite of the kindness which so manynewspaper men felt for Fulkerson, the notices in the New York papersseemed grudging and provisional to the ardor of the editor. A merit inthe work was acknowledged, and certain defects in it for which March hadtrembled were ignored; but the critics astonished him by selecting forcensure points which he was either proud of or had never noticed; whichbeing now brought to his notice he still could not feel were faults. Heowned to Fulkerson that if they had said so and so against it, he couldhave agreed with them, but that to say thus and so was preposterous; andthat if the advertising had not been adjusted with such generousrecognition of the claims of the different papers, he should have knownthe counting-room was at the bottom of it. As it was, he could onlyattribute it to perversity or stupidity. It was certainly stupid tocondemn a magazine novelty like 'Every Other Week' for being novel; andto augur that if it failed, it would fail through its departure from thelines on which all the other prosperous magazines had been built, was inthe last degree perverse, and it looked malicious. The fact that it wasneither exactly a book nor a magazine ought to be for it and not againstit, since it would invade no other field; it would prosper on no groundbut its own. XIV. The more March thought of the injustice of the New York press (which hadnot, however, attacked the literary quality of the number) the morebitterly he resented it; and his wife's indignation superheated his own. 'Every Other Week' had become a very personal affair with the wholefamily; the children shared their parents' disgust; Belle was outspokenin, her denunciations of a venal press. Mrs. March saw nothing but ruinahead, and began tacitly to plan a retreat to Boston, and anestablishment retrenched to the basis of two thousand a year. She shedsome secret tears in anticipation of the privations which this mustinvolve; but when Fulkerson came to see March rather late the night ofthe publication day, she nobly told him that if the worst came to theworst she could only have the kindliest feeling toward him, and shouldnot regard him as in the slightest degree responsible. "Oh, hold on, hold on!" he protested. "You don't think we've made afailure, do you?" "Why, of course, " she faltered, while March remained gloomily silent. "Well, I guess we'll wait for the official count, first. Even New Yorkhasn't gone against us, and I guess there's a majority coming down toHarlem River that could sweep everything before it, anyway. " "What do you mean, Fulkerson?" March demanded, sternly. "Oh, nothing! Only, the 'News Company' has ordered ten thousand now; andyou know we had to give them the first twenty on commission. " "What do you mean?" March repeated; his wife held her breath. "I mean that the first number is a booming success already, and that it'sgoing to a hundred thousand before it stops. That unanimity and varietyof censure in the morning papers, combined with the attractiveness of thething itself, has cleared every stand in the city, and now if the favorof the country press doesn't turn the tide against us, our fortune'smade. " The Marches remained dumb. "Why, look here! Didn't I tell youthose criticisms would be the making of us, when they first began to turnyou blue this morning, March?" "He came home to lunch perfectly sick, " said Mrs. Marcli; "and I wouldn'tlet him go back again. " "Didn't I tell you so?" Fulkerson persisted. March could not remember that he had, or that he had been anything butincoherently and hysterically jocose over the papers, but he said, "Yes, yes--I think so. " "I knew it from the start, " said Fulkerson. "The only other person whotook those criticisms in the right spirit was Mother Dryfoos--I've justbeen bolstering up the Dryfoos family. She had them read to her by Mrs. Mandel, and she understood them to be all the most flattering propheciesof success. Well, I didn't read between the lines to that extent, quite;but I saw that they were going to help us, if there was anything in us, more than anything that could have been done. And there was something inus! I tell you, March, that seven-shooting self-cocking donkey of aBeaton has given us the greatest start! He's caught on like a mouse. He'smade the thing awfully chic; it's jimmy; there's lots of dog about it. He's managed that process so that the illustrations look as expensive asfirst-class wood-cuts, and they're cheaper than chromos. He's put styleinto the whole thing. " "Oh yes, " said March, with eager meekness, "it's Beaton that's done it. " Fulkerson read jealousy of Beaton in Mrs. March's face. "Beaton has givenus the start because his work appeals to the eye. There's no denying thatthe pictures have sold this first number; but I expect the literature ofthis first number to sell the pictures of the second. I've been readingit all over, nearly, since I found how the cat was jumping; I was anxiousabout it, and I tell you, old man, it's good. Yes, sir! I was afraidmaybe you had got it too good, with that Boston refinement of yours; butI reckon you haven't. I'll risk it. I don't see how you got so muchvariety into so few things, and all of them palpitant, all of 'em on thekeen jump with actuality. " The mixture of American slang with the jargon of European criticism inFulkerson's talk made March smile, but his wife did not seem to notice itin her exultation. "That is just what I say, " she broke in. "It'sperfectly wonderful. I never was anxious about it a moment, except, asyou say, Mr. Fulkerson, I was afraid it might be too good. " They went on in an antiphony of praise till March said: "Really, I don'tsee what's left me but to strike for higher wages. I perceive that I'mindispensable. " "Why, old man, you're coming in on the divvy, you know, " said Fulkerson. They both laughed, and when Fulkerson was gone, Mrs. March asked herhusband what a divvy was. "It's a chicken before it's hatched. " "No! Truly?" He explained, and she began to spend the divvy. At Mrs. Leighton's Fulkerson gave Alma all the honor of the success; hetold her mother that the girl's design for the cover had sold everynumber, and Mrs. Leighton believed him. "Well, Ah think Ah maght have some of the glory, " Miss Woodburn pouted. "Where am Ah comin' in?" "You're coming in on the cover of the next number, " said Fulkerson. "We're going to have your face there; Miss Leighton's going to sketch itin. " He said this reckless of the fact that he had already shown them thedesign of the second number, which was Beaton's weird bit of gas-countrylandscape. "Ah don't see why you don't wrahte the fiction for your magazine, Mr. Fulkerson, " said the girl. This served to remind Fulkerson of something. He turned to her father. "I'll tell you what, Colonel Woodburn, I want Mr. March to see somechapters of that book of yours. I've been talking to him about it. " "I do not think it would add to the popularity of your periodical, sir, "said the Colonel, with a stately pleasure in being asked. "My views of acivilization based upon responsible slavery would hardly be acceptable toyour commercialized society. " "Well, not as a practical thing, of course, " Fulkerson admitted. "But assomething retrospective, speculative, I believe it would make a hit. There's so much going on now about social questions; I guess people wouldlike to read it. " "I do not know that my work is intended to amuse people, " said theColonel, with some state. "Mah goodness! Ah only wish it WAS, then, " said his daughter; and sheadded: "Yes, Mr. Fulkerson, the Colonel will be very glad to submitpo'tions of his woak to yo' edito'. We want to have some of the honaw. Perhaps we can say we helped to stop yo' magazine, if we didn't help tostawt it. " They all laughed at her boldness, and Fulkerson said: "It 'll take a gooddeal more than that to stop 'Every Other Week'. The Colonel's whole bookcouldn't do it. " Then he looked unhappy, for Colonel Woodburn did notseem to enjoy his reassuring words; but Miss Woodburn came to his rescue. "You maght illustrate it with the po'trait of the awthoris daughtaw, ifit's too late for the covah. " "Going to have that in every number, Miss Woodburn!" he cried. "Oh, mah goodness!" she said, with mock humility. Alma sat looking at her piquant head, black, unconsciously outlinedagainst the lamp, as she sat working by the table. "Just keep still amoment!" She got her sketch-block and pencils, and began to draw; Fulkerson tiltedhimself forward and looked over her shoulder; he smiled outwardly;inwardly he was divided between admiration of Miss Woodburn's arch beautyand appreciation of the skill which reproduced it; at the same time hewas trying to remember whether March had authorized him to go so far asto ask for a sight of Colonel Woodburn's manuscript. He felt that he hadtrenched upon March's province, and he framed one apology to the editorfor bringing him the manuscript, and another to the author for bringingit back. "Most Ah hold raght still like it was a photograph?" asked Miss Woodburn. "Can Ah toak?" "Talk all you want, " said Alma, squinting her eyes. "And you needn't beeither adamantine, nor yet--wooden. " "Oh, ho' very good of you! Well, if Ah can toak--go on, Mr. Fulkerson!" "Me talk? I can't breathe till this thing is done!" sighed Fulkerson; atthat point of his mental drama the Colonel was behaving rustily about thereturn of his manuscript, and he felt that he was looking his last onMiss Woodburn's profile. "Is she getting it raght?" asked the girl. "I don't know which is which, " said Fulkerson. "Oh, Ah hope Ah shall! Ah don't want to go round feelin' like a sheet ofpapah half the time. " "You could rattle on, just the same, " suggested Alma. "Oh, now! Jost listen to that, Mr. Fulkerson. Do you call that any way totoak to people?" "You might know which you were by the color, " Fulkerson began, and thenhe broke off from the personal consideration with a business inspiration, and smacked himself on the knee, "We could print it in color!" Mrs. Leighton gathered up her sewing and held it with both hands in herlap, while she came round, and looked critically at the sketch and themodel over her glasses. "It's very good, Alma, " she said. Colonel Woodburn remained restively on his side of the table. "Of course, Mr. Fulkerson, you were jesting, sir, when you spoke of printing a sketchof my daughter. " "Why, I don't know--If you object--? "I do, sir--decidedly, " said the Colonel. "Then that settles it, of course, --I only meant--" "Indeed it doesn't!" cried the girl. "Who's to know who it's from? Ah'mjost set on havin' it printed! Ah'm going to appear as the head ofSlavery--in opposition to the head of Liberty. " "There'll be a revolution inside of forty-eight hours, and we'll have theColonel's system going wherever a copy of 'Every Other Week' circulates, "said Fulkerson. "This sketch belongs to me, " Alma interposed. "I'm not going to let it beprinted. " "Oh, mah goodness!" said Miss Woodburn, laughing good-humoredly. "That'sbecose you were brought up to hate slavery. " "I should like Mr. Beaton to see it, " said Mrs. Leighton, in a sort ofabsent tone. She added, to Fulkerson: "I rather expected he might be into-night. " "Well, if he comes we'll leave it to Beaton, " Fulkerson said, with reliefin the solution, and an anxious glance at the Colonel, across the table, to see how he took that form of the joke. Miss Woodburn intercepted hisglance and laughed, and Fulkerson laughed, too, but rather forlornly. Alma set her lips primly and turned her head first on one side and thenon the other to look at the sketch. "I don't think we'll leave it to Mr. Beaton, even if he comes. " "We left the other design for the cover to Beaton, " Fulkerson insinuated. "I guess you needn't be afraid of him. " "Is it a question of my being afraid?" Alma asked; she seemed coollyintent on her drawing. "Miss Leighton thinks he ought to be afraid of her, " Miss Woodburnexplained. "It's a question of his courage, then?" said Alma. "Well, I don't think there are many young ladies that Beaton's afraidof, " said Fulkerson, giving himself the respite of this purely randomremark, while he interrogated the faces of Mrs. Leighton and ColonelWoodburn for some light upon the tendency of their daughters' words. He was not helped by Mrs. Leighton's saying, with a certain anxiety, "Idon't know what you mean, Mr. Fulkerson. " "Well, you're as much in the dark as I am myself, then, " said Fulkerson. "I suppose I meant that Beaton is rather--a--favorite, you know. Thewomen like him. " Mrs. Leighton sighed, and Colonel Woodburn rose and left the room. In the silence that followed, Fulkerson looked from one lady to the otherwith dismay. "I seem to have put my foot in it, somehow, " he suggested, and Miss Woodburn gave a cry of laughter. "Poo' Mr. Fulkerson! Poo' Mr. Fulkerson! Papa thoat you wanted him togo. " "Wanted him to go?" repeated Fulkerson. "We always mention Mr. Beaton when we want to get rid of papa. " "Well, it seems to me that I have noticed that he didn't take muchinterest in Beaton, as a general topic. But I don't know that I ever sawit drive him out of the room before!" "Well, he isn't always so bad, " said Miss Woodburn. "But it was a case ofhate at first sight, and it seems to be growin' on papa. " "Well, I can understand that, " said Fulkerson. "The impulse to destroyBeaton is something that everybody has to struggle against at the start. " "I must say, Mr. Fulkerson, " said Mrs. Leighton, in the tremor throughwhich she nerved herself to differ openly with any one she liked, "Inever had to struggle with anything of the kind, in regard to Mr. Beaton. He has always been most respectful and--and--considerate, with me, whatever he has been with others. " "Well, of course, Mrs. Leighton!" Fulkerson came back in a soothing tone. "But you see you're the rule that proves the exception. I was speaking ofthe way men felt about Beaton. It's different with ladies; I just saidso. " "Is it always different?" Alma asked, lifting her head and her hand fromher drawing, and staring at it absently. Fulkerson pushed both his hands through his whiskers. "Look here! Lookhere!" he said. "Won't somebody start some other subject? We haven't hadthe weather up yet, have we? Or the opera? What is the matter with a fewremarks about politics?" "Why, Ah thoat you lahked to toak about the staff of yo' magazine, " saidMiss Woodburn. "Oh, I do!" said Fulkerson. "But not always about the same member of it. He gets monotonous, when he doesn't get complicated. I've just come roundfrom the Marches', " he added, to Mrs. Leighton. "I suppose they've got thoroughly settled in their apartment by thistime. " Mrs. Leighton said something like this whenever the Marches werementioned. At the bottom of her heart she had not forgiven them for nottaking her rooms; she had liked their looks so much; and she was alwayshoping that they were uncomfortable or dissatisfied; she could not helpwanting them punished a little. "Well, yes; as much as they ever will be, " Fulkerson answered. "TheBoston style is pretty different, you know; and the Marches areold-fashioned folks, and I reckon they never went in much for bric-a-bracThey've put away nine or ten barrels of dragon candlesticks, but theykeep finding new ones. " "Their landlady has just joined our class, " said Alma. "Isn't her nameGreen? She happened to see my copy of 'Every Other Week', and said sheknew the editor; and told me. " "Well, it's a little world, " said Fulkerson. "You seem to be touchingelbows with everybody. Just think of your having had our head translatorfor a model. " "Ah think that your whole publication revolves aroand the Leightonfamily, " said Miss Woodburn. "That's pretty much so, " Fulkerson admitted. "Anyhow, the publisher seemsdisposed to do so. " "Are you the publisher? I thought it was Mr. Dryfoos, " said Alma. "It is. " "Oh!" The tone and the word gave Fulkerson a discomfort which he promptlyconfessed. "Missed again. " The girls laughed, and he regained something of his lost spirits, andsmiled upon their gayety, which lasted beyond any apparent reason for it. Miss Woodburn asked, "And is Mr. Dryfoos senio' anything like ouah Mr. Dryfoos?" "Not the least. " "But he's jost as exemplary?" "Yes; in his way. " "Well, Ah wish Ah could see all those pinks of puffection togethah, once. " "Why, look here! I've been thinking I'd celebrate a little, when the oldgentleman gets back. Have a little supper--something of that kind. Howwould you like to let me have your parlors for it, Mrs. Leighton? Youladies could stand on the stairs, and have a peep at us, in the bunch. " "Oh, mah! What a privilege! And will Miss Alma be there, with the othahcontributors? Ah shall jost expah of envy!" "She won't be there in person, " said Fulkerson, "but she'll berepresented by the head of the art department. " "Mah goodness! And who'll the head of the publishing departmentrepresent?" "He can represent you, " said Alma. "Well, Ah want to be represented, someho'. " "We'll have the banquet the night before you appear on the cover of ourfourth number, " said Fulkerson. "Ah thoat that was doubly fo'bidden, " said Miss Woodburn. "By the sternparent and the envious awtust. " "We'll get Beaton to get round them, somehow. I guess we can trust him tomanage that. " Mrs. Leighton sighed her resentment of the implication. "I always feel that Mr. Beaton doesn't do himself justice, " she began. Fulkerson could not forego the chance of a joke. "Well, maybe he wouldrather temper justice with mercy in a case like his. " This made both theyounger ladies laugh. "I judge this is my chance to get off with mylife, " he added, and he rose as he spoke. "Mrs. Leighton, I am about theonly man of my sex who doesn't thirst for Beaton's blood most of thetime. But I know him and I don't. He's more kinds of a good fellow thanpeople generally understand. He doesn't wear his heart upon hissleeve-not his ulster sleeve, anyway. You can always count me on yourside when it's a question of finding Beaton not guilty if he'll leave theState. " Alma set her drawing against the wall, in rising to say goodnight toFulkerson. He bent over on his stick to look at it. "Well, it'sbeautiful, " he sighed, with unconscious sincerity. Alma made him a courtesy of mock modesty. "Thanks to Miss Woodburn!" "Oh no! All she had to do was simply to stay put. " "Don't you think Ah might have improved it if Ah had, looked better?" thegirl asked, gravely. "Oh, you couldn't!" said Fulkerson, and he went off triumphant in theirapplause and their cries of "Which? which?" Mrs. Leighton sank deep into an accusing gloom when at last she foundherself alone with her daughter. "I don't know what you are thinkingabout, Alma Leighton. If you don't like Mr. Beaton--" "I don't. " "You don't? You know better than that. You know that, you did care forhim. " "Oh! that's a very different thing. That's a thing that can be got over. " "Got over!" repeated Mrs. Leighton, aghast. "Of course, it can! Don't be romantic, mamma. People get over dozens ofsuch fancies. They even marry for love two or three times. " "Never!" cried her mother, doing her best to feel shocked; and at lastlooking it. Her looking it had no effect upon Alma. "You can easily get over caringfor people; but you can't get over liking them--if you like them becausethey are sweet and good. That's what lasts. I was a simple goose, and heimposed upon me because he was a sophisticated goose. Now the case isreversed. " "He does care for you, now. You can see it. Why do you encourage him tocome here?" "I don't, " said Alma. "I will tell him to keep away if you like. Butwhether he comes or goes, it will be the same. " "Not to him, Alma! He is in love with you!" "He has never said so. " "And you would really let him say so, when you intend to refuse him?" "I can't very well refuse him till he does say so. " This was undeniable. Mrs. Leighton could only demand, in an awful tone, "May I ask why--if you cared for him; and I know you care for him stillyou will refuse him?" Alma laughed. "Because--because I'm wedded to my Art, and I'm not goingto commit bigamy, whatever I do. " "Alma!" "Well, then, because I don't like him--that is, I don't believe in him, and don't trust him. He's fascinating, but he's false and he's fickle. Hecan't help it, I dare say. " "And you are perfectly hard. Is it possible that you were actuallypleased to have Mr. Fulkerson tease you about Mr. Dryfoos?" "Oh, good-night, now, mamma! This is becoming personal" PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: Artists never do anything like other people Ballast of her instinctive despondency Clinging persistence of such natures Dividend: It's a chicken before it's hatched Gayety, which lasted beyond any apparent reason for it Hopeful recklessness How much can a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing I cannot endure this--this hopefulness of yours If you dread harm enough it is less likely to happen It must be your despair that helps you to bear up Marry for love two or three times No man deserves to sufer at the hands of another Patience with mediocrity putting on the style of genius Person talks about taking lessons, as if they could learn it Say when he is gone that the woman gets along better without him Shouldn't ca' fo' the disgrace of bein' poo'--its inconvenience Timidity of the elder in the presence of the younger man A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES By William Dean Howells PART THIRD I. The scheme of a banquet to celebrate the initial success of 'Every OtherWeek' expanded in Fulkerson's fancy into a series. Instead of thepublishing and editorial force, with certain of the more representativeartists and authors sitting down to a modest supper in Mrs. Leighton'sparlors, he conceived of a dinner at Delmonico's, with the principalliterary and artistic, people throughout the country as guests, and aninexhaustible hospitality to reporters and correspondents, from whomparagraphs, prophetic and historic, would flow weeks before and after thefirst of the series. He said the thing was a new departure in magazines;it amounted to something in literature as radical as the AmericanRevolution in politics: it was the idea of self government in the arts;and it was this idea that had never yet been fully developed in regard toit. That was what must be done in the speeches at the dinner, and thespeeches must be reported. Then it would go like wildfire. He asked Marchwhether he thought Mr. Depew could be got to come; Mark Twain, he wassure, would come; he was a literary man. They ought to invite Mr. Evarts, and the Cardinal and the leading Protestant divines. His ambition stoppedat nothing, nothing but the question of expense; there he had to wait thereturn of the elder Dryfoos from the West, and Dryfoos was still delayedat Moffitt, and Fulkerson openly confessed that he was afraid he wouldstay there till his own enthusiasm escaped in other activities, otherplans. Fulkerson was as little likely as possible to fall under a superstitioussubjection to another man; but March could not help seeing that in thispossible measure Dryfoos was Fulkerson's fetish. He did not revere him, March decided, because it was not in Fulkerson's nature to revereanything; he could like and dislike, but he could not respect. Apparently, however, Dryfoos daunted him somehow; and besides the homagewhich those who have not pay to those who have, Fulkerson renderedDryfoos the tribute of a feeling which March could only define as a sortof bewilderment. As well as March could make out, this feeling was evokedby the spectacle of Dryfoos's unfailing luck, which Fulkerson was fond ofdazzling himself with. It perfectly consisted with a keen sense ofwhatever was sordid and selfish in a man on whom his career must have hadits inevitable effect. He liked to philosophize the case with March, torecall Dryfoos as he was when he first met him still somewhat in the sap, at Moffitt, and to study the processes by which he imagined him to havedried into the hardened speculator, without even the pretence to anyadvantage but his own in his ventures. He was aware of painting thecharacter too vividly, and he warned March not to accept it exactly inthose tints, but to subdue them and shade it for himself. He said thatwhere his advantage was not concerned, there was ever so much good inDryfoos, and that if in some things he had grown inflexible, he hadexpanded in others to the full measure of the vast scale on which he didbusiness. It had seemed a little odd to March that a man should put moneyinto such an enterprise as 'Every Other Week' and go off about otheraffairs, not only without any sign of anxiety, but without any sort ofinterest. But Fulkerson said that was the splendid side of Dryfoos. Hehad a courage, a magnanimity, that was equal to the strain of any suchuncertainty. He had faced the music once for all, when he asked Fulkersonwhat the thing would cost in the different degrees of potential failure;and then he had gone off, leaving everything to Fulkerson and the youngerDryfoos, with the instruction simply to go ahead and not bother him aboutit. Fulkerson called that pretty tall for an old fellow who used tobewail the want of pigs and chickens to occupy his mind. He alleged it asanother proof of the versatility of the American mind, and of thegrandeur of institutions and opportunities that let every man grow to hisfull size, so that any man in America could run the concern if necessary. He believed that old Dryfoos could step into Bismarck's shoes and run theGerman Empire at ten days' notice, or about as long as it would take himto go from New York to Berlin. But Bismarck would not know anything aboutDryfoos's plans till Dryfoos got ready to show his hand. Fulkersonhimself did not pretend to say what the old man had been up to since hewent West. He was at Moffitt first, and then he was at Chicago, and thenhe had gone out to Denver to look after some mines he had out there, anda railroad or two; and now he was at Moffitt again. He was supposed to beclosing up his affairs there, but nobody could say. Fulkerson told March the morning after Dryfoos returned that he had notonly not pulled out at Moffitt, but had gone in deeper, ten times deeperthan ever. He was in a royal good-humor, Fulkerson reported, and wasgoing to drop into the office on his way up from the Street (Marchunderstood Wall Street) that afternoon. He was tickled to death with'Every Other Week' so far as it had gone, and was anxious to pay hisrespects to the editor. March accounted for some rhetoric in this, but let it flatter him, andprepared himself for a meeting about which he could see that Fulkersonwas only less nervous than he had shown himself about the publicreception of the first number. It gave March a disagreeable feeling ofbeing owned and of being about to be inspected by his proprietor; but hefell back upon such independence as he could find in the thought of thosetwo thousand dollars of income beyond the caprice of his owner, andmaintained an outward serenity. He was a little ashamed afterward of the resolution it had cost him to doso. It was not a question of Dryfoos's physical presence: that was rathereffective than otherwise, and carried a suggestion of moneyedindifference to convention in the gray business suit of provincial cut, and the low, wide-brimmed hat of flexible black felt. He had a stick withan old-fashioned top of buckhorn worn smooth and bright by the palm ofhis hand, which had not lost its character in fat, and which had ahistory of former work in its enlarged knuckles, though it was now assoft as March's, and must once have been small even for a man of Mr. Dryfoos's stature; he was below the average size. But what struck Marchwas the fact that Dryfoos seemed furtively conscious of being a countryperson, and of being aware that in their meeting he was to be tried byother tests than those which would have availed him as a shrewdspeculator. He evidently had some curiosity about March, as the first ofhis kind whom he had encountered; some such curiosity as the countryschool trustee feels and tries to hide in the presence of the newschoolmaster. But the whole affair was, of course, on a higher plane; onone side Dryfoos was much more a man of the world than March was, and heprobably divined this at once, and rested himself upon the fact in ameasure. It seemed to be his preference that his son should introducethem, for he came upstairs with Conrad, and they had fairly madeacquaintance before Fulkerson joined them. Conrad offered to leave them at once, but his father made him stay. "Ireckon Mr. March and I haven't got anything so private to talk about thatwe want to keep it from the other partners. Well, Mr. March, are yougetting used to New York yet? It takes a little time. " "Oh yes. But not so much time as most places. Everybody belongs more orless in New York; nobody has to belong here altogether. " "Yes, that is so. You can try it, and go away if you don't like it a gooddeal easier than you could from a smaller place. Wouldn't make so muchtalk, would it?" He glanced at March with a jocose light in his shrewdeyes. "That is the way I feel about it all the time: just visiting. Now, it wouldn't be that way in Boston, I reckon?" "You couldn't keep on visiting there your whole life, " said March. Dryfoos laughed, showing his lower teeth in a way that was at once simpleand fierce. "Mr. Fulkerson didn't hardly know as he could get you toleave. I suppose you got used to it there. I never been in your city. " "I had got used to it; but it was hardly my city, except by marriage. Mywife's a Bostonian. " "She's been a little homesick here, then, " said Dryfoos, with a smile ofthe same quality as his laugh. "Less than I expected, " said March. "Of course, she was very muchattached to our old home. " "I guess my wife won't ever get used to New York, " said Dryfoos, and hedrew in his lower lip with a sharp sigh. "But my girls like it; they'reyoung. You never been out our way yet, Mr. March? Out West?" "Well, only for the purpose of being born, and brought up. I used to livein Crawfordsville, and then Indianapolis. " "Indianapolis is bound to be a great place, " said Dryfoos. "I remembernow, Mr. Fulkerson told me you was from our State. " He went on to brag ofthe West, as if March were an Easterner and had to be convinced. "Youought to see all that country. It's a great country. " "Oh yes, " said March, "I understand that. " He expected the praise of thegreat West to lead up to some comment on 'Every Other Week'; and therewas abundant suggestion of that topic in the manuscripts, proofs ofletter-press and illustrations, with advance copies of the latest numberstrewn over his table. But Dryfoos apparently kept himself from looking at these things. Herolled his head about on his shoulders to take in the character of theroom, and said to his son, "You didn't change the woodwork, after all. " "No; the architect thought we had better let it be, unless we meant tochange the whole place. He liked its being old-fashioned. " "I hope you feel comfortable here, Mr. March, " the old man said, bringinghis eyes to bear upon him again after their tour of inspection. "Too comfortable for a working-man, " said March, and he thought that thisremark must bring them to some talk about his work, but the proprietoronly smiled again. "I guess I sha'n't lose much on this house, " he returned, as if musingaloud. "This down-town property is coming up. Business is getting in onall these side streets. I thought I paid a pretty good price for it, too. " He went on to talk of real estate, and March began to feel acertain resentment at his continued avoidance of the only topic in whichthey could really have a common interest. "You live down this waysomewhere, don't you?" the old man concluded. "Yes. I wished to be near my work. " March was vexed with himself forhaving recurred to it; but afterward he was not sure but Dryfoos sharedhis own diffidence in the matter, and was waiting for him to bring itopenly into the talk. At times he seemed wary and masterful, and thenMarch felt that he was being examined and tested; at others so simplethat March might well have fancied that he needed encouragement, anddesired it. He talked of his wife and daughters in a way that invitedMarch to say friendly things of his family, which appeared to give theold man first an undue pleasure and then a final distrust. At moments heturned, with an effect of finding relief in it, to his son and spoke tohim across March of matters which he was unacquainted with; he did notseem aware that this was rude, but the young man must have felt it so; healways brought the conversation back, and once at some cost to himselfwhen his father made it personal. "I want to make a regular New York business man out of that fellow, " hesaid to March, pointing at Conrad with his stick. "You s'pose I'm evergoing to do it?" "Well, I don't know, " said March, trying to fall in with the joke. "Doyou mean nothing but a business man?" The old man laughed at whatever latent meaning he fancied in this, andsaid: "You think he would be a little too much for me there? Well, I'veseen enough of 'em to know it don't always take a large pattern of a manto do a large business. But I want him to get the business training, andthen if he wants to go into something else he knows what the world is, anyway. Heigh?" "Oh yes!" March assented, with some compassion for the young manreddening patiently under his father's comment. Dryfoos went on as if his son were not in hearing. "Now that boy wantedto be a preacher. What does a preacher know about the world he preachesagainst when he's been brought up a preacher? He don't know so much as abad little boy in his Sunday-school; he knows about as much as a girl. Ialways told him, You be a man first, and then you be a preacher, if youwant to. Heigh?" "Precisely. " March began to feel some compassion for himself in beingwitness of the young fellow's discomfort under his father's homily. "When we first come to New York, I told him, Now here's your chance tosee the world on a big scale. You know already what work and saving andsteady habits and sense will bring a man, to; you don't want to go roundamong the rich; you want to go among the poor, and see what laziness anddrink and dishonesty and foolishness will bring men to. And I guess heknows, about as well as anybody; and if he ever goes to preaching he'llknow what he's preaching about. " The old man smiled his fierce, simplesmile, and in his sharp eyes March fancied contempt of the ambition hehad balked in his son. The present scene must have been one of manybetween them, ending in meek submission on the part of the young man, whom his father, perhaps without realizing his cruelty, treated as achild. March took it hard that he should be made to suffer in thepresence of a co-ordinate power like himself, and began to dislike theold man out of proportion to his offence, which might have been mere wantof taste, or an effect of mere embarrassment before him. But evidently, whatever rebellion his daughters had carried through against him, he hadkept his dominion over this gentle spirit unbroken. March did not chooseto make any response, but to let him continue, if he would, entirely uponhis own impulse. II. A silence followed, of rather painful length. It was broken by the cheeryvoice of Fulkerson, sent before him to herald Fulkerson's cheery person. "Well, I suppose you've got the glorious success of 'Every Other Week'down pretty cold in your talk by this time. I should have been up soonerto join you, but I was nipping a man for the last page of the cover. Iguess we'll have to let the Muse have that for an advertisement insteadof a poem the next time, March. Well, the old gentleman given you boysyour scolding?" The person of Fulkerson had got into the room long beforehe reached this question, and had planted itself astride a chair. Fulkerson looked over the chairback, now at March, and now at the elderDryfoos as he spoke. March answered him. "I guess we must have been waiting for you, Fulkerson. At any rate, we hadn't got to the scolding yet. " "Why, I didn't suppose Mr. Dryfoos could 'a' held in so long. Iunderstood he was awful mad at the way the thing started off, and wantedto give you a piece of his mind, when he got at you. I inferred as muchfrom a remark that he made. " March and Dryfoos looked foolish, as men dowhen made the subject of this sort of merry misrepresentation. "I reckon my scolding will keep awhile yet, " said the old man, dryly. "Well, then, I guess it's a good chance to give Mr. Dryfoos an idea ofwhat we've really done--just while we're resting, as Artemus Ward says. Heigh, March?" "I will let you blow the trumpet, Fulkerson. I think it belongs strictlyto the advertising department, " said March. He now distinctly resentedthe old man's failure to say anything to him of the magazine; he made hisinference that it was from a suspicion of his readiness to presume upon arecognition of his share in the success, and he was determined to secondno sort of appeal for it. "The advertising department is the heart and soul of every business, "said Fulkerson, hardily, "and I like to keep my hand in with a littlepractise on the trumpet in private. I don't believe Mr. Dryfoos has gotany idea of the extent of this thing. He's been out among thoseRackensackens, where we were all born, and he's read the notices in theirseven by nine dailies, and he's seen the thing selling on the cars, andhe thinks he appreciates what's been done. But I should just like to takehim round in this little old metropolis awhile, and show him 'Every OtherWeek' on the centre tables of the millionaires--the Vanderbilts and theAstors--and in the homes of culture and refinement everywhere, and lethim judge for himself. It's the talk of the clubs and the dinner-tables;children cry for it; it's the Castoria of literature and the Pearline ofart, the 'Won't-be-happy-till-he-gets-it of every en lightened man, woman, and child in this vast city. I knew we could capture the country;but, my goodness! I didn't expect to have New York fall into our hands ata blow. But that's just exactly what New York has done. Every Other Weeksupplies the long-felt want that's been grinding round in New York andkeeping it awake nights ever since the war. It's the culmination of allthe high and ennobling ideals of the past. " "How much, " asked Dryfoos, "do you expect to get out of it the firstyear, if it keeps the start it's got?" "Comes right down to business, every time!" said Fulkerson, referring thecharacteristic to March with a delighted glance. "Well, sir, ifeverything works right, and we get rain enough to fill up the springs, and it isn't a grasshopper year, I expect to clear above all expensessomething in the neighborhood of twenty-five thousand dollars. " "Humph! And you are all going to work a year--editor, manager, publisher, artists, writers, printers, and the rest of 'em--to clear twenty-fivethousand dollars?--I made that much in half a day in Moffitt once. I seeit made in half a minute in Wall Street, sometimes. " The old manpresented this aspect of the case with a good-natured contempt, whichincluded Fulkerson and his enthusiasm in an obvious liking. His son suggested, "But when we make that money here, no one loses it. " "Can you prove that?" His father turned sharply upon him. "Whatever iswon is lost. It's all a game; it don't make any difference what you beton. Business is business, and a business man takes his risks with hiseyes open. " "Ah, but the glory!" Fulkerson insinuated with impudent persiflage. "Ihadn't got to the glory yet, because it's hard to estimate it; but putthe glory at the lowest figure, Mr. Dryfoos, and add it to thetwenty-five thousand, and you've got an annual income from 'Every OtherWeek' of dollars enough to construct a silver railroad, double-track, from this office to the moon. I don't mention any of the sister planetsbecause I like to keep within bounds. " Dryfoos showed his lower teeth for pleasure in Fulkerson's fooling, andsaid, "That's what I like about you, Mr. Fulkerson--you always keepwithin bounds. " "Well, I ain't a shrinking Boston violet, like March, here. Moresunflower in my style of diffidence; but I am modest, I don't deny it, "said Fulkerson. "And I do hate to have a thing overstated. " "And the glory--you do really think there's something in the glory thatpays?" "Not a doubt of it! I shouldn't care for the paltry return in money, "said Fulkerson, with a burlesque of generous disdain, "if it wasn't forthe glory along with it. " "And how should you feel about the glory, if there was no money alongwith it?" "Well, sir, I'm happy to say we haven't come to that yet. " "Now, Conrad, here, " said the old man, with a sort of pathetic rancor, "would rather have the glory alone. I believe he don't even care much foryour kind of glory, either, Mr. Fulkerson. " Fulkerson ran his little eyes curiously over Conrad's face and thenMarch's, as if searching for a trace there of something gone before whichwould enable him to reach Dryfoos's whole meaning. He apparently resolvedto launch himself upon conjecture. "Oh, well, we know how Conrad feelsabout the things of this world, anyway. I should like to take 'em on theplane of another sphere, too, sometimes; but I noticed a good while agothat this was the world I was born into, and so I made up my mind that Iwould do pretty much what I saw the rest of the folks doing here below. And I can't see but what Conrad runs the thing on business principles inhis department, and I guess you'll find it so if you look into it. Iconsider that we're a whole team and big dog under the wagon with you todraw on for supplies, and March, here, at the head of the literarybusiness, and Conrad in the counting-room, and me to do the heavy lyingin the advertising part. Oh, and Beaton, of course, in the art. I 'mostforgot Beaton--Hamlet with Hamlet left out. " Dryfoos looked across at his son. "Wasn't that the fellow's name that wasthere last night?" "Yes, " said Conrad. The old man rose. "Well, I reckon I got to be going. You ready to goup-town, Conrad?" "Well, not quite yet, father. " The old man shook hands with March, and went downstairs, followed by hisson. Fulkerson remained. "He didn't jump at the chance you gave him to compliment us all round, Fulkerson, " said March, with a smile not wholly of pleasure. Fulkerson asked, with as little joy in the grin he had on, "Didn't he sayanything to you before I came in?" "Not a word. " "Dogged if I know what to make of it, " sighed Fulkerson, "but I guesshe's been having a talk with Conrad that's soured on him. I reckon maybehe came back expecting to find that boy reconciled to the glory of thisworld, and Conrad's showed himself just as set against it as ever. " "It might have been that, " March admitted, pensively. "I fanciedsomething of the kind myself from words the old man let drop. " Fulkerson made him explain, and then he said: "That's it, then; and it's all right. Conrad 'll come round in time; andall we've got to do is to have patience with the old man till he does. Iknow he likes you. " Fulkerson affirmed this only interrogatively, andlooked so anxiously to March for corroboration that March laughed. "He dissembled his love, " he said; but afterward, in describing to hiswife his interview with Mr. Dryfoos, he was less amused with this fact. When she saw that he was a little cast down by it, she began to encouragehim. "He's just a common, ignorant man, and probably didn't know how toexpress himself. You may be perfectly sure that he's delighted with thesuccess of the magazine, and that he understands as well as you do thathe owes it all to you. " "Ah, I'm not so sure. I don't believe a man's any better for having mademoney so easily and rapidly as Dryfoos has done, and I doubt if he's anywiser. I don't know just the point he's reached in his evolution fromgrub to beetle, but I do know that so far as it's gone the process musthave involved a bewildering change of ideals and criterions. I guess he'scome to despise a great many things that he once respected, and thatintellectual ability is among them--what we call intellectual ability. Hemust have undergone a moral deterioration, an atrophy of the generousinstincts, and I don't see why it shouldn't have reached his mentalmake-up. He has sharpened, but he has narrowed; his sagacity has turnedinto suspicion, his caution to meanness, his courage to ferocity. That'sthe way I philosophize a man of Dryfoos's experience, and I am not veryproud when I realize that such a man and his experience are the ideal andambition of most Americans. I rather think they came pretty near beingmine, once. " "No, dear, they never did, " his wife protested. "Well, they're not likely to be in the future. The Dryfoos feature of'Every Other Week' is thoroughly distasteful to me. " "Why, but he hasn't really got anything to do with it, has he, beyondfurnishing the money?" "That's the impression that Fulkerson has allowed us to get. But the manthat holds the purse holds the reins. He may let us guide the horse, butwhen he likes he can drive. If we don't like his driving, then we can getdown. " Mrs. March was less interested in this figure of speech than in thepersonal aspects involved. "Then you think Mr. Fulkerson has deceivedyou?" "Oh no!" said her husband, laughing. "But I think he has deceivedhimself, perhaps. " "How?" she pursued. "He may have thought he was using Dryfoos, when Dryfoos was using him, and he may have supposed he was not afraid of him when he was very muchso. His courage hadn't been put to the test, and courage is a matter ofproof, like proficiency on the fiddle, you know: you can't tell whetheryou've got it till you try. " "Nonsense! Do you mean that he would ever sacrifice you to Mr. Dryfoos?" "I hope he may not be tempted. But I'd rather be taking the chances withFulkerson alone than with Fulkerson and Dryfoos to back him. Dryfoosseems, somehow, to take the poetry and the pleasure out of the thing. " Mrs. March was a long time silent. Then she began, "Well, my dear, Inever wanted to come to New York--" "Neither did I, " March promptly put in. "But now that we're here, " she went on, "I'm not going to have youletting every little thing discourage you. I don't see what there was inMr. Dryfoos's manner to give you any anxiety. He's just a common, stupid, inarticulate country person, and he didn't know how to express himself, as I said in the beginning, and that's the reason he didn't sayanything. " "Well, I don't deny you're right about it. " "It's dreadful, " his wife continued, "to be mixed up with such a man andhis family, but I don't believe he'll ever meddle with your management, and, till he does, all you need do is to have as little to do with him aspossible, and go quietly on your own way. " "Oh, I shall go on quietly enough, " said March. "I hope I sha'n't begingoing stealthily. " "Well, my dear, " said Mrs. March, "just let me know when you're temptedto do that. If ever you sacrifice the smallest grain of your honesty oryour self-respect to Mr. Dryfoos, or anybody else, I will simply renounceyou. " "In view of that I'm rather glad the management of 'Every Other Week'involves tastes and not convictions, " said March. III. That night Dryfoos was wakened from his after-dinner nap by the sound ofgay talk and nervous giggling in the drawing-room. The talk, which wasChristine's, and the giggling, which was Mela's, were intershot with theheavier tones of a man's voice; and Dryfoos lay awhile on the leathernlounge in his library, trying to make out whether he knew the voice. Hiswife sat in a deep chair before the fire, with her eyes on his face, waiting for him to wake. "Who is that out there?" he asked, without opening his eyes. "Indeed, indeed, I don't know, Jacob, " his wife answered. "I reckon it'sjust some visitor of the girls'. " "Was I snoring?" "Not a bit. You was sleeping as quiet! I did hate to have 'em wake you, and I was just goin' out to shoo them. They've been playin' something, and that made them laugh. " "I didn't know but I had snored, " said the old man, sitting up. "No, " said his wife. Then she asked, wistfully, "Was you out at the oldplace, Jacob?" "Yes. " "Did it look natural?" "Yes; mostly. They're sinking the wells down in the woods pasture. " "And--the children's graves?" "They haven't touched that part. But I reckon we got to have 'em moved tothe cemetery. I bought a lot. " The old woman began softly to weep. "It does seem too hard that theycan't be let to rest in peace, pore little things. I wanted you and me tolay there, too, when our time come, Jacob. Just there, back o' thebeehives and under them shoomakes--my, I can see the very place! And Idon't believe I'll ever feel at home anywheres else. I woon't know whereI am when the trumpet sounds. I have to think before I can tell where theeast is in New York; and what if I should git faced the wrong way when Iraise? Jacob, I wonder you could sell it!" Her head shook, and thefirelight shone on her tears as she searched the folds of her dress forher pocket. A peal of laughter came from the drawing-room, and then the sound ofchords struck on the piano. "Hush! Don't you cry, 'Liz'beth!" said Dryfoos. "Here; take myhandkerchief. I've got a nice lot in the cemetery, and I'm goin' to havea monument, with two lambs on it--like the one you always liked so much. It ain't the fashion, any more, to have family buryin' grounds; they'recollectin' 'em into the cemeteries, all round. " "I reckon I got to bear it, " said his wife, muffling her face in hishandkerchief. "And I suppose the Lord kin find me, wherever I am. But Ialways did want to lay just there. You mind how we used to go out and setthere, after milkin', and watch the sun go down, and talk about wheretheir angels was, and try to figger it out?" "I remember, 'Liz'beth. " The man's voice in the drawing-room sang a snatch of French song, insolent, mocking, salient; and then Christine's attempted the samestrain, and another cry of laughter from Mela followed. "Well, I always did expect to lay there. But I reckon it's all right. Itwon't be a great while, now, anyway. Jacob, I don't believe I'm a-goin'to live very long. I know it don't agree with me here. " "Oh, I guess it does, 'Liz'beth. You're just a little pulled down withthe weather. It's coming spring, and you feel it; but the doctor saysyou're all right. I stopped in, on the way up, and he says so. " "I reckon he don't know everything, " the old woman persisted: "I've beenrunnin' down ever since we left Moffitt, and I didn't feel any too wellthere, even. It's a very strange thing, Jacob, that the richer you git, the less you ain't able to stay where you want to, dead or alive. " "It's for the children we do it, " said Dryfoos. "We got to give themtheir chance in the world. " "Oh, the world! They ought to bear the yoke in their youth, like we done. I know it's what Coonrod would like to do. " Dryfoos got upon his feet. "If Coonrod 'll mind his own business, and dowhat I want him to, he'll have yoke enough to bear. " He moved from hiswife, without further effort to comfort her, and pottered heavily outinto the dining-room. Beyond its obscurity stretched the glitter of thedeep drawing-room. His feet, in their broad; flat slippers, made no soundon the dense carpet, and he came unseen upon the little group there nearthe piano. Mela perched upon the stool with her back to the keys, andBeaton bent over Christine, who sat with a banjo in her lap, letting himtake her hands and put them in the right place on the instrument. Herface was radiant with happiness, and Mela was watching her with foolish, unselfish pleasure in her bliss. There was nothing wrong in the affair to a man of Dryfoos's traditionsand perceptions, and if it had been at home in the farm sitting-room, oreven in his parlor at Moffitt, he would not have minded a young man'splacing his daughter's hands on a banjo, or even holding them there; itwould have seemed a proper, attention from him if he was courting her. But here, in such a house as this, with the daughter of a man who hadmade as much money as he had, he did not know but it was a liberty. Hefelt the angry doubt of it which beset him in regard to so manyexperiences of his changed life; he wanted to show his sense of it, if itwas a liberty, but he did not know how, and he did not know that it wasso. Besides, he could not help a touch of the pleasure in Christine'shappiness which Mela showed; and he would have gone back to the library, if he could, without being discovered. But Beaton had seen him, and Dryfoos, with a nonchalant nod to the youngman, came forward. "What you got there, Christine?" "A banjo, " said the girl, blushing in her father's presence. Mela gurgled. "Mr. Beaton is learnun' her the first position. " Beaton was not embarrassed. He was in evening dress, and his face, pointed with its brown beard, showed extremely handsome above the expanseof his broad, white shirt-front. He gave back as nonchalant a nod as hehad got, and, without further greeting to Dryfoos, he said to Christine:"No, no. You must keep your hand and arm so. " He held them in position. "There! Now strike with your right hand. See?" "I don't believe I can ever learn, " said the girl, with a fond upwardlook at him. "Oh yes, you can, " said Beaton. They both ignored Dryfoos in the little play of protests which followed, and he said, half jocosely, half suspiciously, "And is the banjo thefashion, now?" He remembered it as the emblem of low-down show business, and associated it with end-men and blackened faces and grotesqueshirt-collars. "It's all the rage, " Mela shouted, in answer for all. "Everybody playsit. Mr. Beaton borrowed this from a lady friend of his. " "Humph! Pity I got you a piano, then, " said Dryfoos. "A banjo would havebeen cheaper. " Beaton so far admitted him to the conversation as to seem reminded of thepiano by his mentioning it. He said to Mela, "Oh, won't you just strikethose chords?" and as Mela wheeled about and beat the keys he took thebanjo from Christine and sat down with it. "This way!" He strummed it, and murmured the tune Dryfoos had heard him singing from the library, while he kept his beautiful eyes floating on Christine's. "You try that, now; it's very simple. " "Where is Mrs. Mandel?" Dryfoos demanded, trying to assert himself. Neither of the girls seemed to have heard him at first in the chatterthey broke into over what Beaton proposed. Then Mela said, absently, "Oh, she had to go out to see one of her friends that's sick, " and she struckthe piano keys. "Come; try it, Chris!" Dryfoos turned about unheeded and went back to the library. He would haveliked to put Beaton out of his house, and in his heart he burned againsthim as a contumacious hand; he would have liked to discharge him from theart department of 'Every Other Week' at once. But he was aware of nothaving treated Beaton with much ceremony, and if the young man hadreturned his behavior in kind, with an electrical response to his ownfeeling, had he any right to complain? After all, there was no harm inhis teaching Christine the banjo. His wife still sat looking into the fire. "I can't see, " she said, "aswe've got a bit more comfort of our lives, Jacob, because we've got suchpiles and piles of money. I wisht to gracious we was back on the farmthis minute. I wisht you had held out ag'inst the childern about sellin'it; 'twould 'a' bin the best thing fur 'em, I say. I believe in my soulthey'll git spoiled here in New York. I kin see a change in 'ema'ready--in the girls. " Dryfoos stretched himself on the lounge again. "I can't see as Coonrod ismuch comfort, either. Why ain't he here with his sisters? What does allthat work of his on the East Side amount to? It seems as if he done it tocross me, as much as anything. " Dryfoos complained to his wife on thebasis of mere affectional habit, which in married life often survives thesense of intellectual equality. He did not expect her to reason with him, but there was help in her listening, and though she could only soothe hisfretfulness with soft answers which were often wide of the purpose, hestill went to her for solace. "Here, I've gone into this newspaperbusiness, or whatever it is, on his account, and he don't seem any moresatisfied than ever. I can see he hain't got his heart in it. " "The pore boy tries; I know he does, Jacob; and he wants to please you. But he give up a good deal when he give up bein' a preacher; I s'pose weought to remember that. " "A preacher!" sneered Dryfoos. "I reckon bein' a preacher wouldn'tsatisfy him now. He had the impudence to tell me this afternoon that hewould like to be a priest; and he threw it up to me that he never couldbe because I'd kept him from studyin'. " "He don't mean a Catholic priest--not a Roman one, Jacob, " the old womanexplained, wistfully. "He's told me all about it. They ain't the kind o'Catholics we been used to; some sort of 'Piscopalians; and they do a heapo' good amongst the poor folks over there. He says we ain't got any ideahow folks lives in them tenement houses, hundreds of 'em in one house, and whole families in a room; and it burns in his heart to help 'em likethem Fathers, as he calls 'em, that gives their lives to it. He can't bea Father, he says, because he can't git the eddication now; but he can bea Brother; and I can't find a word to say ag'inst it, when it gits totalkin', Jacob. " "I ain't saying anything against his priests, 'Liz'beth, " said Dryfoos. "They're all well enough in their way; they've given up their lives toit, and it's a matter of business with them, like any other. But what I'mtalking about now is Coonrod. I don't object to his doin' all the charityhe wants to, and the Lord knows I've never been stingy with him about it. He might have all the money he wants, to give round any way he pleases. " "That's what I told him once, but he says money ain't the thing--or notthe only thing you got to give to them poor folks. You got to give yourtime and your knowledge and your love--I don't know what all you got togive yourself, if you expect to help 'em. That's what Coonrod says. " "Well, I can tell him that charity begins at home, " said Dryfoos, sittingup in his impatience. "And he'd better give himself to us a little--tohis old father and mother. And his sisters. What's he doin' goin' offthere to his meetings, and I don't know what all, an' leavin' them herealone?" "Why, ain't Mr. Beaton with 'em?" asked the old woman. "I thought Iheared his voice. " "Mr. Beaton! Of course he is! And who's Mr. Beaton, anyway?" "Why, ain't he one of the men in Coonrod's office? I thought I heared--" "Yes, he is! But who is he? What's he doing round here? Is he makin' upto Christine?" "I reckon he is. From Mely's talk, she's about crazy over the fellow. Don't you like him, Jacob?" "I don't know him, or what he is. He hasn't got any manners. Who broughthim here? How'd he come to come, in the first place?" "Mr. Fulkerson brung him, I believe, " said the old woman, patiently. "Fulkerson!" Dryfoos snorted. "Where's Mrs. Mandel, I should like toknow? He brought her, too. Does she go traipsin' off this way everyevening?" "No, she seems to be here pretty regular most o' the time. I don't knowhow we could ever git along without her, Jacob; she seems to know justwhat to do, and the girls would be ten times as outbreakin' without her. I hope you ain't thinkin' o' turnin' her off, Jacob?" Dryfoos did not think it necessary to answer such a question. "It's allFulkerson, Fulkerson, Fulkerson. It seems to me that Fulkerson about runsthis family. He brought Mrs. Mandel, and he brought that Beaton, and hebrought that Boston fellow! I guess I give him a dose, though; and I'lllearn Fulkerson that he can't have everything his own way. I don't wantanybody to help me spend my money. I made it, and I can manage it. Iguess Mr. Fulkerson can bear a little watching now. He's been travellingpretty free, and he's got the notion he's driving, maybe. I'm a-going tolook after that book a little myself. " "You'll kill yourself, Jacob, " said his wife, "tryin' to do so manythings. And what is it all fur? I don't see as we're better off, any, forall the money. It's just as much care as it used to be when we was allthere on the farm together. I wisht we could go back, Ja--" "We can't go back!" shouted the old man, fiercely. "There's no farm anymore to go back to. The fields is full of gas-wells and oil-wells andhell-holes generally; the house is tore down, and the barn's goin'--" "The barn!" gasped the old woman. "Oh, my!" "If I was to give all I'm worth this minute, we couldn't go back to thefarm, any more than them girls in there could go back and be littlechildren. I don't say we're any better off, for the money. I've got moreof it now than I ever had; and there's no end to the luck; it pours in. But I feel like I was tied hand and foot. I don't know which way to move;I don't know what's best to do about anything. The money don't seem tobuy anything but more and more care and trouble. We got a big house thatwe ain't at home in; and we got a lot of hired girls round under our feetthat hinder and don't help. Our children don't mind us, and we got nofriends or neighbors. But it had to be. I couldn't help but sell thefarm, and we can't go back to it, for it ain't there. So don't you sayanything more about it, 'Liz'beth. " "Pore Jacob!" said his wife. "Well, I woon't, dear. " IV It was clear to Beaton that Dryfoos distrusted him; and the factheightened his pleasure in Christine's liking for him. He was as sure ofthis as he was of the other, though he was not so sure of any reason forhis pleasure in it. She had her charm; the charm of wildness to which acertain wildness in himself responded; and there were times when hisfancy contrived a common future for them, which would have a prosperityforced from the old fellow's love of the girl. Beaton liked the idea ofthis compulsion better than he liked the idea of the money; there wassomething a little repulsive in that; he imagined himself rejecting it;he almost wished he was enough in love with the girl to marry her withoutit; that would be fine. He was taken with her in a certain' measure, in acertain way; the question was in what measure, in what way. It was partly to escape from this question that he hurried down-town, anddecided to spend with the Leightons the hour remaining on his handsbefore it was time to go to the reception for which he was dressed. Itseemed to him important that he should see Alma Leighton. After all, itwas her charm that was most abiding with him; perhaps it was to be final. He found himself very happy in his present relations with her. She haddropped that barrier of pretences and ironical surprise. It seemed to himthat they had gone back to the old ground of common artistic interestwhich he had found so pleasant the summer before. Apparently she and hermother had both forgiven his neglect of them in the first months of theirstay in New York; he was sure that Mrs. Leighton liked him as well asever, and, if there was still something a little provisional in Alma'smanner at times, it was something that piqued more than it discouraged;it made him curious, not anxious. He found the young ladies with Fulkerson when he rang. He seemed to beamusing them both, and they were both amused beyond the merit of so smalla pleasantry, Beaton thought, when Fulkerson said: "Introduce myself, Mr. Beaton: Mr. Fulkerson of 'Every Other Week. ' Think I've met you at ourplace. " The girls laughed, and Alma explained that her mother was notvery well, and would be sorry not to see him. Then she turned, as hefelt, perversely, and went on talking with Fulkerson and left him to MissWoodburn. She finally recognized his disappointment: "Ah don't often get a chanceat you, Mr. Beaton, and Ah'm just goin' to toak yo' to death. Yo' havebeen Soath yo'self, and yo' know ho' we do toak. " "I've survived to say yes, " Beaton admitted. "Oh, now, do you think we toak so much mo' than you do in the No'th?" theyoung lady deprecated. "I don't know. I only know you can't talk too much for me. I should liketo hear you say Soath and house and about for the rest of my life. " "That's what Ah call raght personal, Mr. Beaton. Now Ah'm goin' to bepersonal, too. " Miss Woodburn flung out over her lap the square of clothshe was embroidering, and asked him: "Don't you think that's beautiful?Now, as an awtust--a great awtust?" "As a great awtust, yes, " said Beaton, mimicking her accent. "If I wereless than great I might have something to say about the arrangement ofcolors. You're as bold and original as Nature. " "Really? Oh, now, do tell me yo' favo'ite colo', Mr. Beaton. " "My favorite color? Bless my soul, why should I prefer any? Is blue good, or red wicked? Do people have favorite colors?" Beaton found himselfsuddenly interested. "Of co'se they do, " answered the girl. "Don't awtusts?" "I never heard of one that had--consciously. " "Is it possible? I supposed they all had. Now mah favo'ite colo' isgawnet. Don't you think it's a pretty colo'?" "It depends upon how it's used. Do you mean in neckties?" Beaton stole aglance at the one Fulkerson was wearing. Miss Woodburn laughed with her face bowed upon her wrist. "Ah do thinkyou gentlemen in the No'th awe ten tahms as lahvely as the ladies. " "Strange, " said Beaton. "In the South--Soath, excuse me! I made theobservation that the ladies were ten times as lively as the gentlemen. What is that you're working?" "This?" Miss Woodburn gave it another flirt, and looked at it with aglance of dawning recognition. "Oh, this is a table-covah. Wouldn't youlahke to see where it's to go?" "Why, certainly. " "Well, if you'll be raght good I'll let yo' give me some professionaladvass about putting something in the co'ners or not, when you have seenit on the table. " She rose and led the way into the other room. Beaton knew she wanted totalk with him about something else; but he waited patiently to let herplay her comedy out. She spread the cover on the table, and he advisedher, as he saw she wished, against putting anything in the corners; justrun a line of her stitch around the edge, he said. "Mr. Fulkerson and Ah, why, we've been having a regular faght aboat it, "she commented. "But we both agreed, fahnally, to leave it to you; Mr. Fulkerson said you'd be sure to be raght. Ah'm so glad you took mahsahde. But he's a great admahrer of yours, Mr. Beaton, " she concluded, demurely, suggestively. "Is he? Well, I'm a great admirer of Fulkerson, " said Beaton, with acapricious willingness to humor her wish to talk about Fulkerson. "He's acapital fellow; generous, magnanimous, with quite an ideal of friendshipand an eye single to the main chance all the time. He would advertise'Every Other Week' on his family vault. " Miss Woodburn laughed, and said she should tell him what Beaton had said. "Do. But he's used to defamation from me, and he'll think you're joking. " "Ah suppose, " said Miss Woodburn, "that he's quahte the tahpe of a NewYork business man. " She added, as if it followed logically, "He's sodifferent from what I thought a New York business man would be. " "It's your Virginia tradition to despise business, " said Beaton, rudely. Miss Woodburn laughed again. "Despahse it? Mah goodness! we want to getinto it and woak it fo' all it's wo'th, ' as Mr. Fulkerson says. Thattradition is all past. You don't know what the Soath is now. Ah supposemah fathaw despahses business, but he's a tradition himself, as Ah tellhim. " Beaton would have enjoyed joining the young lady in anything shemight be going to say in derogation of her father, but he restrainedhimself, and she went on more and more as if she wished to account forher father's habitual hauteur with Beaton, if not to excuse it. "Ah tellhim he don't understand the rising generation. He was brought up in theold school, and he thinks we're all just lahke he was when he was young, with all those ahdeals of chivalry and family; but, mah goodness! it'smoney that cyoants no'adays in the Soath, just lahke it does everywhereelse. Ah suppose, if we could have slavery back in the fawm mah fathawthinks it could have been brought up to, when the commercial spiritwouldn't let it alone, it would be the best thing; but we can't have itback, and Ah tell him we had better have the commercial spirit as thenext best thing. " Miss Woodburn went on, with sufficient loyalty and piety, to expose thedifference of her own and her father's ideals, but with what Beatonthought less reference to his own unsympathetic attention than to aknowledge finally of the personnel and materiel of 'Every Other Week. 'and Mr. Fulkerson's relation to the enterprise. "You most excuse myasking so many questions, Mr. Beaton. You know it's all mah doing that weawe heah in New York. Ah just told mah fathaw that if he was evah goin'to do anything with his wrahtings, he had got to come No'th, and Ah madehim come. Ah believe he'd have stayed in the Soath all his lahfe. And nowMr. Fulkerson wants him to let his editor see some of his wrahtings, andAh wanted to know something aboat the magazine. We awe a great dealexcited aboat it in this hoase, you know, Mr. Beaton, " she concluded, with a look that now transferred the interest from Fulkerson to Alma. Sheled the way back to the room where they were sitting, and went up totriumph over Fulkerson with Beaton's decision about the table-cover. Alma was left with Beaton near the piano, and he began to talk about theDryfooses as he sat down on the piano-stool. He said he had been givingMiss Dryfoos a lesson on the banjo; he had borrowed the banjo of MissVance. Then he struck the chord he had been trying to teach Christine, and played over the air he had sung. "How do you like that?" he asked, whirling round. "It seems rather a disrespectful little tune, somehow, " said Alma, placidly. Beaton rested his elbow on the corner of the piano and gazed dreamily ather. "Your perceptions are wonderful. It is disrespectful. I played it, up there, because I felt disrespectful to them. " "Do you claim that as a merit?" "No, I state it as a fact. How can you respect such people?" "You might respect yourself, then, " said the girl. "Or perhaps thatwouldn't be so easy, either. " "No, it wouldn't. I like to have you say these things to me, " saidBeaton, impartially. "Well, I like to say them, " Alma returned. "They do me good. " "Oh, I don't know that that was my motive. " "There is no one like you--no one, " said Beaton, as if apostrophizing herin her absence. "To come from that house, with its assertions ofmoney--you can hear it chink; you can smell the foul old banknotes; itstifles you--into an atmosphere like this, is like coming into anotherworld. " "Thank you, " said Alma. "I'm glad there isn't that unpleasant odor here;but I wish there was a little more of the chinking. " "No, no! Don't say that!" he implored. "I like to think that there is onesoul uncontaminated by the sense of money in this big, brutal, sordidcity. " "You mean two, " said Alma, with modesty. "But if you stifle at theDryfooses', why do you go there?" "Why do I go?" he mused. "Don't you believe in knowing all the natures, the types, you can? Those girls are a strange study: the young one is asimple, earthly creature, as common as an oat-field and the other a sortof sylvan life: fierce, flashing, feline--" Alma burst out into a laugh. "What apt alliteration! And do they likebeing studied? I should think the sylvan life might--scratch. " "No, " said Beaton, with melancholy absence, "it only-purrs. " The girl felt a rising indignation. "Well, then, Mr. Beaton, I shouldhope it would scratch, and bite, too. I think you've no business to goabout studying people, as you do. It's abominable. " "Go on, " said the young man. "That Puritan conscience of yours! Itappeals to the old Covenanter strain in me--like a voice ofpre-existence. Go on--" "Oh, if I went on I should merely say it was not only abominable, butcontemptible. " "You could be my guardian angel, Alma, " said the young man, making hiseyes more and more slumbrous and dreamy. "Stuff! I hope I have a soul above buttons!" He smiled, as she rose, and followed her across the room. "Good-night;Mr. Beaton, " she said. Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson came in from the other room. "What! You'renot going, Beaton?" "Yes; I'm going to a reception. I stopped in on my way. " "To kill time, " Alma explained. "Well, " said Fulkerson, gallantly, "this is the last place I should liketo do it. But I guess I'd better be going, too. It has sometimes occurredto me that there is such a thing as staying too late. But with BrotherBeaton, here, just starting in for an evening's amusement, it does seem alittle early yet. Can't you urge me to stay, somebody?" The two girls laughed, and Miss Woodburn said: "Mr. Beaton is such a butterfly of fashion! Ah wish Ah was on mah way toa pawty. Ah feel quahte envious. " "But he didn't say it to make you, " Alma explained, with meek softness. "Well, we can't all be swells. Where is your party, anyway, Beaton?"asked Fulkerson. "How do you manage to get your invitations to thosethings? I suppose a fellow has to keep hinting round pretty lively, Neigh?" Beaton took these mockeries serenely, and shook hands with Miss Woodburn, with the effect of having already shaken hands with Alma. She stood withhers clasped behind her. V. Beaton went away with the smile on his face which he had kept inlistening to Fulkerson, and carried it with him to the reception. Hebelieved that Alma was vexed with him for more personal reasons than shehad implied; it flattered him that she should have resented what he toldher of the Dryfooses. She had scolded him in their behalf apparently; butreally because he had made her jealous by his interest, of whatever kind, in some one else. What followed, had followed naturally. Unless she hadbeen quite a simpleton she could not have met his provisional love-makingon any other terms; and the reason why Beaton chiefly liked Alma Leightonwas that she was not a simpleton. Even up in the country, when she wasoverawed by his acquaintance, at first, she was not very deeply overawed, and at times she was not overawed at all. At such times she astonishedhim by taking his most solemn histrionics with flippant incredulity, andeven burlesquing them. But he could see, all the same, that he had caughther fancy, and he admired the skill with which she punished his neglectwhen they met in New York. He had really come very near forgetting theLeightons; the intangible obligations of mutual kindness which hold somemen so fast, hung loosely upon him; it would not have hurt him to breakfrom them altogether; but when he recognized them at last, he found thatit strengthened them indefinitely to have Alma ignore them so completely. If she had been sentimental, or softly reproachful, that would have beenthe end; he could not have stood it; he would have had to drop her. Butwhen she met him on his own ground, and obliged him to be sentimental, the game was in her hands. Beaton laughed, now, when he thought of that, and he said to himself that the girl had grown immensely since she hadcome to New York; nothing seemed to have been lost upon her; she musthave kept her eyes uncommonly wide open. He noticed that especially intheir talks over her work; she had profited by everything she had seenand heard; she had all of Wetmore's ideas pat; it amused Beaton to seehow she seized every useful word that he dropped, too, and turned him totechnical account whenever she could. He liked that; she had a great dealof talent; there was no question of that; if she were a man there couldbe no question of her future. He began to construct a future for her; itincluded provision for himself, too; it was a common future, in whichtheir lives and work were united. He was full of the glow of its prosperity when he met Margaret Vance atthe reception. The house was one where people might chat a long time together withoutpublicly committing themselves to an interest in each other except such agrew out of each other's ideas. Miss Vance was there because she unitedin her catholic sympathies or ambitions the objects of the fashionablepeople and of the aesthetic people who met there on common ground. It wasalmost the only house in New York where this happened often, and it didnot happen very often there. It was a literary house, primarily, withartistic qualifications, and the frequenters of it were mostly authorsand artists; Wetmore, who was always trying to fit everything with aphrase, said it was the unfrequenters who were fashionable. There wasgreat ease there, and simplicity; and if there was not distinction, itwas not for want of distinguished people, but because there seems to besome solvent in New York life that reduces all men to a common level, that touches everybody with its potent magic and brings to the surfacethe deeply underlying nobody. The effect for some temperaments, forconsciousness, for egotism, is admirable; for curiosity, for heroworship, it is rather baffling. It is the spirit of the streettransferred to the drawing-room; indiscriminating, levelling, butdoubtless finally wholesome, and witnessing the immensity of the place, if not consenting to the grandeur of reputations or presences. Beaton now denied that this house represented a salon at all, in the oldsense; and he held that the salon was impossible, even undesirable, withus, when Miss Vance sighed for it. At any rate, he said that this turmoilof coming and going, this bubble and babble, this cackling and hissing ofconversation was not the expression of any such civilization as hadcreated the salon. Here, he owned, were the elements of intellectualdelightfulness, but he said their assemblage in such quantity alonedenied the salon; there was too much of a good thing. The French wordimplied a long evening of general talk among the guests, crowned with alittle chicken at supper, ending at cock-crow. Here was tea, with milk orwith lemon-baths of it and claret-cup for the hardier spirits throughoutthe evening. It was very nice, very pleasant, but it was not the littlechicken--not the salon. In fact, he affirmed, the salon descended fromabove, out of the great world, and included the aesthetic world in it. But our great world--the rich people, were stupid, with no wish to beotherwise; they were not even curious about authors and artists. Beatonfancied himself speaking impartially, and so he allowed himself to speakbitterly; he said that in no other city in the world, except Vienna, perhaps, were such people so little a part of society. "It isn't altogether the rich people's fault, " said Margaret; and shespoke impartially, too. "I don't believe that the literary men and theartists would like a salon that descended to them. Madame Geoffrin, youknow, was very plebeian; her husband was a business man of some sort. " "He would have been a howling swell in New York, " said Beaton, stillimpartially. Wetmore came up to their corner, with a scroll of bread and butter in onehand and a cup of tea in the other. Large and fat, and clean-shaven, helooked like a monk in evening dress. "We were talking about salons, " said Margaret. "Why don't you open a salon yourself?" asked Wetmore, breathing thicklyfrom the anxiety of getting through the crowd without spilling his tea. "Like poor Lady Barberina Lemon?" said the girl, with a laugh. "What agood story! That idea of a woman who couldn't be interested in any of thearts because she was socially and traditionally the material of them! Wecan, never reach that height of nonchalance in this country. " "Not if we tried seriously?" suggested the painter. "I've an idea that ifthe Americans ever gave their minds to that sort of thing, they couldtake the palm--or the cake, as Beaton here would say--just as they do ineverything else. When we do have an aristocracy, it will be anaristocracy that will go ahead of anything the world has ever seen. Whydon't somebody make a beginning, and go in openly for an ancestry, and alower middle class, and an hereditary legislature, and all the rest?We've got liveries, and crests, and palaces, and caste feeling. We're allright as far as we've gone, and we've got the money to go any length. " "Like your natural-gas man, Mr. Beaton, " said the girl, with a smilingglance round at him. "Ah!" said Wetmore, stirring his tea, "has Beaton got a natural-gas man?" "My natural-gas man, " said Beaton, ignoring Wetmore's question, "doesn'tknow how to live in his palace yet, and I doubt if he has any castefeeling. I fancy his family believe themselves victims of it. Theysay--one of the young ladies does--that she never saw such an unsociableplace as New York; nobody calls. " "That's good!" said Wetmore. "I suppose they're all ready for company, too: good cook, furniture, servants, carriages?" "Galore, " said Beaton. "Well, that's too bad. There's a chance for you, Miss Vance. Doesn't yourphilanthropy embrace the socially destitute as well as the financially?Just think of a family like that, without a friend, in a great city! Ishould think common charity had a duty there--not to mention theuncommon. " He distinguished that kind as Margaret's by a glance of ironicaldeference. She had a repute for good works which was out of proportion tothe works, as it always is, but she was really active in that way, underthe vague obligation, which we now all feel, to be helpful. She was ofthe church which seems to have found a reversion to the imposing ritualof the past the way back to the early ideals of Christian brotherhood. "Oh, they seem to have Mr. Beaton, " Margaret answered, and Beaton feltobscurely flattered by her reference to his patronage of the Dryfooses. He explained to Wetmore: "They have me because they partly own me. Dryfoos is Fulkerson's financial backer in 'Every Other Week'. " "Is that so? Well, that's interesting, too. Aren't you rather astonished, Miss Vance, to see what a petty thing Beaton is making of that magazineof his?" "Oh, " said Margaret, "it's so very nice, every way; it makes you feel asif you did have a country, after all. It's as chic--that detestablelittle word!--as those new French books. " "Beaton modelled it on them. But you mustn't suppose he does everythingabout 'Every Other Week'; he'd like you to. Beaton, you haven't come upto that cover of your first number, since. That was the design of one ofmy pupils, Miss Vance--a little girl that Beaton discovered down in NewHampshire last summer. " "Oh yes. And have you great hopes of her, Mr. Wetmore?" "She seems to have more love of it and knack for it than any one of hersex I've seen yet. It really looks like a case of art for art's sake, attimes. But you can't tell. They're liable to get married at any moment, you know. Look here, Beaton, when your natural-gas man gets to thepicture-buying stage in his development, just remember your old friends, will you? You know, Miss Vance, those new fellows have their regularstages. They never know what to do with their money, but they find outthat people buy pictures, at one point. They shut your things up in theirhouses where nobody comes, and after a while they overeatthemselves--they don't know what, else to do--and die of apoplexy, andleave your pictures to a gallery, and then they see the light. It's slow, but it's pretty sure. Well, I see Beaton isn't going to move on, as heought to do; and so I must. He always was an unconventional creature. " Wetmore went away, but Beaton remained, and he outstayed several otherpeople who came up to speak to Miss Vance. She was interested ineverybody, and she liked the talk of these clever literary, artistic, clerical, even theatrical people, and she liked the sort of court withwhich they recognized her fashion as well as her cleverness; it was verypleasant to be treated intellectually as if she were one of themselves, and socially as if she was not habitually the same, but a sort of guestin Bohemia, a distinguished stranger. If it was Arcadia rather thanBohemia, still she felt her quality of distinguished stranger. Theflattery of it touched her fancy, and not her vanity; she had very littlevanity. Beaton's devotion made the same sort of appeal; it was not somuch that she liked him as she liked being the object of his admiration. She was a girl of genuine sympathies, intellectual rather thansentimental. In fact, she was an intellectual person, whom qualities ofthe heart saved from being disagreeable, as they saved her on the otherhand from being worldly or cruel in her fashionableness. She had read agreat many books, and had ideas about them, quite courageous and originalideas; she knew about pictures--she had been in Wetmore's class; she wasfond of music; she was willing to understand even politics; in Boston shemight have been agnostic, but in New York she was sincerely religious;she was very accomplished; and perhaps it was her goodness that preventedher feeling what was not best in Beaton. "Do you think, " she said, after the retreat of one of the comers andgoers left her alone with him again, "that those young ladies would likeme to call on them?" "Those young ladies?" Beaton echoed. "Miss Leighton and--" "No; I have been there with my aunt's cards already. " "Oh yes, " said Beaton, as if he had known of it; he admired the pluck andpride with which Alma had refrained from ever mentioning the fact to him, and had kept her mother from mentioning it, which must have beendifficult. "I mean the Miss Dryfooses. It seems really barbarous, if nobody goesnear them. We do all kinds of things, and help all kinds of people insome ways, but we let strangers remain strangers unless they know how tomake their way among us. " "The Dryfooses certainly wouldn't know how to make their way among you, "said Beaton, with a sort of dreamy absence in his tone. Miss Vance went on, speaking out the process of reasoning in her mind, rather than any conclusions she had reached. "We defend ourselves bytrying to believe that they must have friends of their own, or that theywould think us patronizing, and wouldn't like being made the objects ofsocial charity; but they needn't really suppose anything of the kind. " "I don't imagine they would, " said Beaton. "I think they'd be only toohappy to have you come. But you wouldn't know what to do with each other, indeed, Miss Vance. " "Perhaps we shall like each other, " said the girl, bravely, "and then weshall know. What Church are they of?" "I don't believe they're of any, " said Beaton. "The mother was brought upa Dunkard. " "A Dunkard?" Beaton told what he knew of the primitive sect, with its early Christianpolity, its literal interpretation of Christ's ethics, and its quaintceremonial of foot-washing; he made something picturesque of that. "Thefather is a Mammon-worshipper, pure and simple. I suppose the youngladies go to church, but I don't know where. They haven't tried toconvert me. " "I'll tell them not to despair--after I've converted them, " said MissVance. "Will you let me use you as a 'point d'appui', Mr. Beaton?" "Any way you like. If you're really going to see them, perhaps I'd bettermake a confession. I left your banjo with them, after I got it put inorder. " "How very nice! Then we have a common interest already. " "Do you mean the banjo, or--" "The banjo, decidedly. Which of them plays?" "Neither. But the eldest heard that the banjo was 'all the rage, ' as theyoungest says. Perhaps you can persuade them that good works are therage, too. " Beaton had no very lively belief that Margaret would go to see theDryfooses; he did so few of the things he proposed that he went upon thetheory that others must be as faithless. Still, he had a cruel amusementin figuring the possible encounter between Margaret Vance, with herintellectual elegance, her eager sympathies and generous ideals, andthose girls with their rude past, their false and distorted perspective, their sordid and hungry selfishness, and their faith in the omnipotenceof their father's wealth wounded by their experience of its presentsocial impotence. At the bottom of his heart he sympathized with themrather than with her; he was more like them. People had ceased coming, and some of them were going. Miss Vance saidshe must go, too, and she was about to rise, when the host came up withMarch; Beaton turned away. "Miss Vance, I want to introduce Mr. March, the editor of 'Every OtherWeek. ' You oughtn't to be restricted to the art department. We literaryfellows think that arm of the service gets too much of the glorynowadays. " His banter was for Beaton, but he was already beyond ear-shot, and the host went on: "Mr. March can talk with you about your favorite Boston. He's just turnedhis back on it. " "Oh, I hope not!" said Miss Vance. "I can't imagine anybody voluntarilyleaving Boston. " "I don't say he's so bad as that, " said the host, committing March toher. "He came to New York because he couldn't help it--like the rest ofus. I never know whether that's a compliment to New York or not. " They talked Boston a little while, without finding that they had commonacquaintance there; Miss Vance must have concluded that society was muchlarger in Boston than she had supposed from her visits there, or elsethat March did not know many people in it. But she was not a girl to caremuch for the inferences that might be drawn from such conclusions; sherather prided herself upon despising them; and she gave herself to thepleasure of being talked to as if she were of March's own age. In theglow of her sympathetic beauty and elegance he talked his best, and triedto amuse her with his jokes, which he had the art of tingeing with alittle seriousness on one side. He made her laugh; and he flattered herby making her think; in her turn she charmed him so much by enjoying whathe said that he began to brag of his wife, as a good husband always doeswhen another woman charms him; and she asked, Oh was Mrs. March there;and would he introduce her? She asked Mrs. March for her address, and whether she had a day; and shesaid she would come to see her, if she would let her. Mrs. March couldnot be so enthusiastic about her as March was, but as they walked hometogether they talked the girl over, and agreed about her beauty and heramiability. Mrs. March said she seemed very unspoiled for a person whomust have been so much spoiled. They tried to analyze her charm, and theysucceeded in formulating it as a combination of intellectualfashionableness and worldly innocence. "I think, " said Mrs. March, "thatcity girls, brought up as she must have been, are often the most innocentof all. They never imagine the wickedness of the world, and if they marryhappily they go through life as innocent as children. Everything combinesto keep them so; the very hollowness of society shields them. They arethe loveliest of the human race. But perhaps the rest have to pay toomuch for them. " "For such an exquisite creature as Miss Vance, " said March, "we couldn'tpay too much. " A wild laughing cry suddenly broke upon the air at the street-crossing infront of them. A girl's voice called out: "Run, run, Jen! The copper isafter you. " A woman's figure rushed stumbling across the way and into theshadow of the houses, pursued by a burly policeman. "Ah, but if that's part of the price?" They went along fallen from the gay spirit of their talk into a silencewhich he broke with a sigh. "Can that poor wretch and the radiant girl weleft yonder really belong to the same system of things? How impossibleeach makes the other seem!" VI. Mrs. Horn believed in the world and in society and its unwrittenconstitution devoutly, and she tolerated her niece's benevolentactivities as she tolerated her aesthetic sympathies because thesethings, however oddly, were tolerated--even encouraged--by society; andthey gave Margaret a charm. They made her originality interesting. Mrs. Horn did not intend that they should ever go so far as to make hertroublesome; and it was with a sense of this abeyant authority of heraunt's that the girl asked her approval of her proposed call upon theDryfooses. She explained as well as she could the social destitution ofthese opulent people, and she had of course to name Beaton as the sourceof her knowledge concerning them. "Did Mr. Beaton suggest your calling on them?" "No; he rather discouraged it. " "And why do you think you ought to go in this particular instance? NewYork is full of people who don't know anybody. " Margaret laughed. "I suppose it's like any other charity: you reach thecases you know of. The others you say you can't help, and you try toignore them. " "It's very romantic, " said Mrs. Horn. "I hope you've counted the cost;all the possible consequences. " Margaret knew that her aunt had in mind their common experience with theLeightons, whom, to give their common conscience peace, she had calledupon with her aunt's cards and excuses, and an invitation for herThursdays, somewhat too late to make the visit seem a welcome to NewYork. She was so coldly received, not so much for herself as in herquality of envoy, that her aunt experienced all the comfort whichvicarious penance brings. She did not perhaps consider sufficiently herniece's guiltlessness in the expiation. Margaret was not with her at St. Barnaby in the fatal fortnight she passed there, and never saw theLeightons till she went to call upon them. She never complained: thestrain of asceticism, which mysteriously exists in us all, and makes usput peas, boiled or unboiled, in our shoes, gave her patience with thesnub which the Leightons presented her for her aunt. But now she said, with this in mind: "Nothing seems simpler than to get rid of people ifyou don't want them. You merely have to let them alone. " "It isn't so pleasant, letting them alone, " said Mrs. Horn. "Or having them let you alone, " said Margaret; for neither Mrs. Leightonnor Alma had ever come to enjoy the belated hospitality of Mrs. Horn'sThursdays. "Yes, or having them let you alone, " Mrs. Horn courageously consented. "And all that I ask you, Margaret, is to be sure that you really want toknow these people. " "I don't, " said the girl, seriously, "in the usual way. " "Then the question is whether you do in the un usual way. They will builda great deal upon you, " said Mrs. Horn, realizing how much the Leightonsmust have built upon her, and how much out of proportion to her desertthey must now dislike her; for she seemed to have had them on her mindfrom the time they came, and had always meant to recognize any reasonableclaim they had upon her. "It seems very odd, very sad, " Margaret returned, "that you never couldact unselfishly in society affairs. If I wished to go and see those girlsjust to do them a pleasure, and perhaps because if they're strange andlonely, I might do them good, even--it would be impossible. " "Quite, " said her aunt. "Such a thing would be quixotic. Society doesn'trest upon any such basis. It can't; it would go to pieces, if peopleacted from unselfish motives. " "Then it's a painted savage!" said the girl. "All its favors are reallybargains. It's gifts are for gifts back again. " "Yes, that is true, " said Mrs. Horn, with no more sense of wrong in thefact than the political economist has in the fact that wages are themeasure of necessity and not of merit. "You get what you pay for. It's amatter of business. " She satisfied herself with this formula, which shedid not invent, as fully as if it were a reason; but she did not dislikeher niece's revolt against it. That was part of Margaret's originality, which pleased her aunt in proportion to her own conventionality; she wasreally a timid person, and she liked the show of courage which Margaret'smagnanimity often reflected upon her. She had through her a repute, withpeople who did not know her well, for intellectual and moral qualities;she was supposed to be literary and charitable; she almost had opinionsand ideals, but really fell short of their possession. She thought thatshe set bounds to the girl's originality because she recognized them. Margaret understood this better than her aunt, and knew that she hadconsulted her about going to see the Dryfooses out of deference, and withno expectation of luminous instruction. She was used to being a law toherself, but she knew what she might and might not do, so that she wasrather a by-law. She was the kind of girl that might have fancies forartists and poets, but might end by marrying a prosperous broker, andleavening a vast lump of moneyed and fashionable life with her culture, generosity, and good-will. The intellectual interests were first withher, but she might be equal to sacrificing them; she had the best heart, but she might know how to harden it; if she was eccentric, her socialorbit was defined; comets themselves traverse space on fixed lines. Shewas like every one else, a congeries of contradictions andinconsistencies, but obedient to the general expectation of what a girlof her position must and must not finally be. Provisionally, she was verymuch what she liked to be. VII Margaret Vance tried to give herself some reason for going to call uponthe Dryfooses, but she could find none better than the wish to do a kindthing. This seemed queerer and less and less sufficient as she examinedit, and she even admitted a little curiosity as a harmless element in hermotive, without being very well satisfied with it. She tried to add aslight sense of social duty, and then she decided to have no motive atall, but simply to pay her visit as she would to any other eligiblestrangers she saw fit to call upon. She perceived that she must be verycareful not to let them see that any other impulse had governed her; shedetermined, if possible, to let them patronize her; to be very modest andsincere and diffident, and, above all, not to play a part. This was easy, compared with the choice of a manner that should convey to them the factthat she was not playing a part. When the hesitating Irish serving-manhad acknowledged that the ladies were at home, and had taken her card tothem, she sat waiting for them in the drawing-room. Her study of itsappointments, with their impersonal costliness, gave her no suggestionhow to proceed; the two sisters were upon her before she had reallydecided, and she rose to meet them with the conviction that she was goingto play a part for want of some chosen means of not doing so. She foundherself, before she knew it, making her banjo a property in the littlecomedy, and professing so much pleasure in the fact that Miss Dryfoos wastaking it up; she had herself been so much interested by it. Anything, she said, was a relief from the piano; and then, between the guitar andthe banjo, one must really choose the banjo, unless one wanted to devoteone's whole natural life to the violin. Of course, there was themandolin; but Margaret asked if they did not feel that the bit of shellyou struck it with interposed a distance between you and the real soul ofthe instrument; and then it did have such a faint, mosquitoy little tone!She made much of the question, which they left her to debate alone whilethey gazed solemnly at her till she characterized the tone of themandolin, when Mela broke into a large, coarse laugh. "Well, that's just what it does sound like, " she explained defiantly toher sister. "I always feel like it was going to settle somewhere, and Iwant to hit myself a slap before it begins to bite. I don't see what everbrought such a thing into fashion. " Margaret had not expected to be so powerfully seconded, and she asked, after gathering herself together, "And you are both learning the banjo?""My, no!" said Mela, "I've gone through enough with the piano. Christineis learnun' it. " "I'm so glad you are making my banjo useful at the outset, Miss Dryfoos. "Both girls stared at her, but found it hard to cope with the fact thatthis was the lady friend whose banjo Beaton had lent them. "Mr. Beatonmentioned that he had left it here. I hope you'll keep it as long as youfind it useful. " At this amiable speech even Christine could not help thanking her. "Ofcourse, " she said, "I expect to get another, right off. Mr. Beaton isgoing to choose it for me. " "You are very fortunate. If you haven't a teacher yet I should so like torecommend mine. " Mela broke out in her laugh again. "Oh, I guess Christine's pretty wellsuited with the one she's got, " she said, with insinuation. Her sistergave her a frowning glance, and Margaret did not tempt her to explain. "Then that's much better, " she said. "I have a kind of superstition insuch matters; I don't like to make a second choice. In a shop I like totake the first thing of the kind I'm looking for, and even if I choosefurther I come back to the original. " "How funny!" said Mela. "Well, now, I'm just the other way. I always takethe last thing, after I've picked over all the rest. My luck always seemsto be at the bottom of the heap. Now, Christine, she's more like you. Ibelieve she could walk right up blindfolded and put her hand on the thingshe wants every time. " "I'm like father, " said Christine, softened a little by the celebrationof her peculiarity. "He says the reason so many people don't get whatthey want is that they don't want it bad enough. Now, when I want athing, it seems to me that I want it all through. " "Well, that's just like father, too, " said Mela. "That's the way he donewhen he got that eighty-acre piece next to Moffitt that he kept when hesold the farm, and that's got some of the best gas-wells on it now thatthere is anywhere. " She addressed the explanation to her sister, to theexclusion of Margaret, who, nevertheless, listened with a smiling faceand a resolutely polite air of being a party to the conversation. Melarewarded her amiability by saying to her, finally, "You've never been inthe natural-gas country, have you?" "Oh no! And I should so much like to see it!" said Margaret, with afervor that was partly, voluntary. "Would you? Well, we're kind of sick of it, but I suppose it would strikea stranger. " "I never got tired of looking at the big wells when they lit them up, "said Christine. "It seems as if the world was on fire. " "Yes, and when you see the surface-gas burnun' down in the woods, like itused to by our spring-house-so still, and never spreadun' any, just likea bed of some kind of wild flowers when you ketch sight of it a pieceoff. " They began to tell of the wonders of their strange land in an antiphonyof reminiscences and descriptions; they unconsciously imputed a merit tothemselves from the number and violence of the wells on their father'sproperty; they bragged of the high civilization of Moffitt, which theycompared to its advantage with that of New York. They became excited byMargaret's interest in natural gas, and forgot to be suspicious andenvious. She said, as she rose, "Oh, how much I should like to see it all!" Thenshe made a little pause, and added: "I'm so sorry my aunt's Thursdays are over; she never has them afterLent, but we're to have some people Tuesday evening at a little concertwhich a musical friend is going to give with some other artists. Therewon't be any banjos, I'm afraid, but there'll be some very good singing, and my aunt would be so glad if you could come with your mother. " She put down her aunt's card on the table near her, while Mela gurgled, as if it were the best joke: "Oh, my! Mother never goes anywhere; youcouldn't get her out for love or money. " But she was herself overwhelmedwith a simple joy at Margaret's politeness, and showed it in a sensuousway, like a child, as if she had been tickled. She came closer toMargaret and seemed about to fawn physically upon her. "Ain't she just as lovely as she can live?" she demanded of her sisterwhen Margaret was gone. "I don't know, " said Christine. "I guess she wanted to know who Mr. Beaton had been lending her banjo to. " "Pshaw! Do you suppose she's in love with him?" asked Mela, and then shebroke into her hoarse laugh at the look her sister gave her. "Well, don'teat me, Christine! I wonder who she is, anyway? I'm goun' to git it outof Mr. Beaton the next time he calls. I guess she's somebody. Mrs. Mandelcan tell. I wish that old friend of hers would hurry up and git well--orsomething. But I guess we appeared about as well as she did. I could seeshe was afraid of you, Christine. I reckon it's gittun' around a littleabout father; and when it does I don't believe we shall want for callers. Say, are you goun'? To that concert of theirs?" "I don't know. Not till I know who they are first. " "Well, we've got to hump ourselves if we're goun' to find out beforeTuesday. " As she went home Margaret felt wrought in her that most incredible of themiracles, which, nevertheless, any one may make his experience. She feltkindly to these girls because she had tried to make them happy, and shehoped that in the interest she had shown there had been none of thepoison of flattery. She was aware that this was a risk she ran in such anattempt to do good. If she had escaped this effect she was willing toleave the rest with Providence. VIII. The notion that a girl of Margaret Vance's traditions would naturallyform of girls like Christine and Mela Dryfoos would be that they wereabashed in the presence of the new conditions of their lives, and thatthey must receive the advance she had made them with a certain gratefulhumility. However they received it, she had made it upon principle, froma romantic conception of duty; but this was the way she imagined theywould receive it, because she thought that she would have done so if shehad been as ignorant and unbred as they. Her error was in arguing theirattitude from her own temperament, and endowing them, for the purposes ofargument, with her perspective. They had not the means, intellectual ormoral, of feeling as she fancied. If they had remained at home on thefarm where they were born, Christine would have grown up that embodimentof impassioned suspicion which we find oftenest in the narrowest spheres, and Mela would always have been a good-natured simpleton; but they wouldnever have doubted their equality with the wisest and the finest. As itwas, they had not learned enough at school to doubt it, and the splendorof their father's success in making money had blinded them forever to anypossible difference against them. They had no question of themselves inthe social abeyance to which they had been left in New York. They hadbeen surprised, mystified; it was not what they had expected; there mustbe some mistake. They were the victims of an accident, which would be repaired as soon asthe fact of their father's wealth had got around. They had been steadfastin their faith, through all their disappointment, that they were not onlybetter than most people by virtue of his money, but as good as any; andthey took Margaret's visit, so far as they, investigated its motive, fora sign that at last it was beginning to get around; of course, a thingcould not get around in New York so quick as it could in a small place. They were confirmed in their belief by the sensation of Mrs. Mandel whenshe returned to duty that afternoon, and they consulted her about goingto Mrs. Horn's musicale. If she had felt any doubt at the name for therewere Horns and Horns--the address on the card put the matter beyondquestion; and she tried to make her charges understand what a preciouschance had befallen them. She did not succeed; they had not the premises, the experience, for a sufficient impression; and she undid her work inpart by the effort to explain that Mrs. Horn's standing was independentof money; that though she was positively rich, she was comparativelypoor. Christine inferred that Miss Vance had called because she wished tobe the first to get in with them since it had begun to get around. Thisview commended itself to Mela, too, but without warping her from heropinion that Miss Vance was all the same too sweet for anything. She hadnot so vivid a consciousness of her father's money as Christine had; butshe reposed perhaps all the more confidently upon its power. She was farfrom thinking meanly of any one who thought highly of her for it; thatseemed so natural a result as to be amiable, even admirable; she waswilling that any such person should get all the good there was in such anattitude toward her. They discussed the matter that night at dinner before their father andmother, who mostly sat silent at their meals; the father frowningabsently over his plate, with his head close to it, and making play intohis mouth with the back of his knife (he had got so far toward the use ofhis fork as to despise those who still ate from the edge of theirknives), and the mother partly missing hers at times in the nervoustremor that shook her face from side to side. After a while the subject of Mela's hoarse babble and of Christine'shigh-pitched, thin, sharp forays of assertion and denial in the fieldwhich her sister's voice seemed to cover, made its way into the old man'sconsciousness, and he perceived that they were talking with Mrs. Mandelabout it, and that his wife was from time to time offering an irrelevantand mistaken comment. He agreed with Christine, and silently took herview of the affair some time before he made any sign of having listened. There had been a time in his life when other things besides his moneyseemed admirable to him. He had once respected himself for thehard-headed, practical common sense which first gave him standing amonghis country neighbors; which made him supervisor, school trustee, justiceof the peace, county commissioner, secretary of the Moffitt CountyAgricultural Society. In those days he had served the public withdisinterested zeal and proud ability; he used to write to the Lake ShoreFarmer on agricultural topics; he took part in opposing, through theMoffitt papers, the legislative waste of the people's money; on thequestion of selling a local canal to the railroad company, which killedthat fine old State work, and let the dry ditch grow up to grass, hemight have gone to the Legislature, but he contented himself withdefeating the Moffitt member who had voted for the job. If he opposedsome measures for the general good, like high schools and schoollibraries, it was because he lacked perspective, in his intenseindividualism, and suspected all expense of being spendthrift. Hebelieved in good district schools, and he had a fondness, crude butgenuine, for some kinds of reading--history, and forensics of anelementary sort. With his good head for figures he doubted doctors and despised preachers;he thought lawyers were all rascals, but he respected them for theirability; he was not himself litigious, but he enjoyed the intellectualencounters of a difficult lawsuit, and he often attended a sitting of thefall term of court, when he went to town, for the pleasure of hearing thespeeches. He was a good citizen, and a good husband. As a good father, hewas rather severe with his children, and used to whip them, especiallythe gentle Conrad, who somehow crossed him most, till the twins died. After that he never struck any of them; and from the sight of a blowdealt a horse he turned as if sick. It was a long time before he liftedhimself up from his sorrow, and then the will of the man seemed to havebeen breached through his affections. He let the girls do as theypleased--the twins had been girls; he let them go away to school, and gotthem a piano. It was they who made him sell the farm. If Conrad had onlyhad their spirit he could have made him keep it, he felt; and he resentedthe want of support he might have found in a less yielding spirit thanhis son's. His moral decay began with his perception of the opportunity of makingmoney quickly and abundantly, which offered itself to him after he soldhis farm. He awoke to it slowly, from a desolation in which he tasted thelast bitter of homesickness, the utter misery of idleness andlistlessness. When he broke down and cried for the hard-working, wholesome life he had lost, he was near the end of this season ofdespair, but he was also near the end of what was best in himself. Hedevolved upon a meaner ideal than that of conservative good citizenship, which had been his chief moral experience: the money he had already madewithout effort and without merit bred its unholy self-love in him; hebegan to honor money, especially money that had been won suddenly and inlarge sums; for money that had been earned painfully, slowly, and inlittle amounts, he had only pity and contempt. The poison of thatambition to go somewhere and be somebody which the local speculators hadinstilled into him began to work in the vanity which had succeeded hissomewhat scornful self-respect; he rejected Europe as the proper fieldfor his expansion; he rejected Washington; he preferred New York, whitherthe men who have made money and do not yet know that money has made them, all instinctively turn. He came where he could watch his money breed moremoney, and bring greater increase of its kind in an hour of luck than thetoil of hundreds of men could earn in a year. He called it speculation, stocks, the Street; and his pride, his faith in himself, mounted with hisluck. He expected, when he had sated his greed, to begin to spend, and hehad formulated an intention to build a great house, to add another to thepalaces of the country-bred millionaires who have come to adorn the greatcity. In the mean time he made little account of the things that occupiedhis children, except to fret at the ungrateful indifference of his son tothe interests that could alone make a man of him. He did not know whetherhis daughters were in society or not; with people coming and going in thehouse he would have supposed they must be so, no matter who the peoplewere; in some vague way he felt that he had hired society in Mrs. Mandel, at so much a year. He never met a superior himself except now and then aman of twenty or thirty millions to his one or two, and then he felt hissoul creep within him, without a sense of social inferiority; it was aquestion of financial inferiority; and though Dryfoos's soul bowed itselfand crawled, it was with a gambler's admiration of wonderful luck. Othermen said these many-millioned millionaires were smart, and got theirmoney by sharp practices to which lesser men could not attain; butDryfoos believed that he could compass the same ends, by the same means, with the same chances; he respected their money, not them. When he now heard Mrs. Mandel and his daughters talking of that person, whoever she was, that Mrs. Mandel seemed to think had honored his girlsby coming to see them, his curiosity was pricked as much as his pride wasgalled. "Well, anyway, " said Mela, "I don't care whether Christine's goon' ornot; I am. And you got to go with me, Mrs. Mandel. " "Well, there's a little difficulty, " said Mrs. Mandel, with her unfailingdignity and politeness. "I haven't been asked, you know. " "Then what are we goun' to do?" demanded Mela, almost crossly. She wasphysically too amiable, she felt too well corporeally, ever to be quitecross. "She might 'a' knowed--well known--we couldn't 'a' come alone, inNew York. I don't see why, we couldn't. I don't call it much of aninvitation. " "I suppose she thought you could come with your mother, " Mrs. Mandelsuggested. "She didn't say anything about mother: Did she, Christine? Or, yes, shedid, too. And I told her she couldn't git mother out. Don't youremember?" "I didn't pay much attention, " said Christine. "I wasn't certain wewanted to go. " "I reckon you wasn't goun' to let her see that we cared much, " said Mela, half reproachful, half proud of this attitude of Christine. "Well, Idon't see but what we got to stay at home. " She laughed at this lameconclusion of the matter. "Perhaps Mr. Conrad--you could very properly take him without an expressinvitation--" Mrs. Mandel began. Conrad looked up in alarm and protest. "I--I don't think I could go thatevening--" "What's the reason?" his father broke in, harshly. "You're not such asheep that you're afraid to go into company with your sisters? Or are youtoo good to go with them?" "If it's to be anything like that night when them hussies come out anddanced that way, " said Mrs. Dryfoos, "I don't blame Coonrod for notwantun' to go. I never saw the beat of it. " Mela sent a yelling laugh across the table to her mother. "Well, I wishMiss Vance could 'a' heard that! Why, mother, did you think it like theballet?" "Well, I didn't know, Mely, child, " said the old woman. "I didn't knowwhat it was like. I hain't never been to one, and you can't be tookeerful where you go, in a place like New York. " "What's the reason you can't go?" Dryfoos ignored the passage between hiswife and daughter in making this demand of his son, with a sour face. "I have an engagement that night--it's one of our meetings. " "I reckon you can let your meeting go for one night, " said Dryfoos. "Itcan't be so important as all that, that you must disappoint yoursisters. " "I don't like to disappoint those poor creatures. They depend so muchupon the meetings--" "I reckon they can stand it for one night, " said the old man. He added, "The poor ye have with you always. " "That's so, Coonrod, " said his mother. "It's the Saviour's own words. " "Yes, mother. But they're not meant just as father used them. " "How do you know how they were meant? Or how I used them?" cried thefather. "Now you just make your plans to go with the girls, Tuesdaynight. They can't go alone, and Mrs. Mandel can't go with them. " "Pshaw!" said Mela. "We don't want to take Conrad away from his meetun', do we, Chris?" "I don't know, " said Christine, in her high, fine voice. "They could getalong without him for one night, as father says. " "Well, I'm not a-goun' to take him, " said Mela. "Now, Mrs. Mandel, justthink out some other way. Say! What's the reason we couldn't get somebodyelse to take us just as well? Ain't that rulable?" "It would be allowable--" "Allowable, I mean, " Mela corrected herself. "But it might look a little significant, unless it was some old familyfriend. " "Well, let's get Mr. Fulkerson to take us. He's the oldest family friendwe got. " "I won't go with Mr. Fulkerson, " said Christine, serenely. "Why, I'm sure, Christine, " her mother pleaded, "Mr. Fulkerson is a verygood young man, and very nice appearun'. " Mela shouted, "He's ten times as pleasant as that old Mr. Beaton ofChristine's!" Christine made no effort to break the constraint that fell upon the tableat this sally, but her father said: "Christine is right, Mela. Itwouldn't do for you to go with any other young man. Conrad will go withyou. " "I'm not certain I want to go, yet, " said Christine. "Well, settle that among yourselves. But if you want to go, your brotherwill go with you. " "Of course, Coonrod 'll go, if his sisters wants him to, " the old womanpleaded. "I reckon it ain't agoun' to be anything very bad; and if it is, Coonrod, why you can just git right up and come out. " "It will be all right, mother. And I will go, of course. " "There, now, I knowed you would, Coonrod. Now, fawther!" This appeal wasto make the old man say something in recognition of Conrad's sacrifice. "You'll always find, " he said, "that it's those of your own householdthat have the first claim on you. " "That's so, Coonrod, " urged his mother. "It's Bible truth. Your fawtherain't a perfesser, but he always did read his Bible. Search theScriptures. That's what it means. " "Laws!" cried Mely, "a body can see, easy enough from mother, whereConrad's wantun' to be a preacher comes from. I should 'a' thought she'd'a' wanted to been one herself. " "Let your women keep silence in the churches, " said the old woman, solemnly. "There you go again, mother! I guess if you was to say that to some ofthe lady ministers nowadays, you'd git yourself into trouble. " Melalooked round for approval, and gurgled out a hoarse laugh. IX. The Dryfooses went late to Mrs. Horn's musicale, in spite of Mrs. Mandel's advice. Christine made the delay, both because she wished toshow Miss Vance that she was (not) anxious, and because she had somevague notion of the distinction of arriving late at any sort ofentertainment. Mrs. Mandel insisted upon the difference between thismusicale and an ordinary reception; but Christine rather fancieddisturbing a company that had got seated, and perhaps making people riseand stand, while she found her way to her place, as she had seen them dofor a tardy comer at the theatre. Mela, whom she did not admit to her reasons or feelings always, followedher with the servile admiration she had for all that Christine did; andshe took on trust as somehow successful the result of Christine'sobstinacy, when they were allowed to stand against the wall at the backof the room through the whole of the long piece begun just before theycame in. There had been no one to receive them; a few people, in the rearrows of chairs near them, turned their heads to glance at them, and thenlooked away again. Mela had her misgivings; but at the end of the pieceMiss Vance came up to them at once, and then Mela knew that she had hereyes on them all the time, and that Christine must have been right. Christine said nothing about their coming late, and so Mela did not makeany excuse, and Miss Vance seemed to expect none. She glanced with a sortof surprise at Conrad, when Christine introduced him; Mela did not knowwhether she liked their bringing him, till she shook hands with him, andsaid: "Oh, I am very glad indeed! Mr. Dryfoos and I have met before. "Without explaining where or when, she led them to her aunt and presentedthem, and then said, "I'm going to put you with some friends of yours, "and quickly seated them next the Marches. Mela liked that well enough;she thought she might have some joking with Mr. March, for all his wifewas so stiff; but the look which Christine wore seemed to forbid, provisionally at least, any such recreation. On her part, Christine wascool with the Marches. It went through her mind that they must have toldMiss Vance they knew her; and perhaps they had boasted of her intimacy. She relaxed a little toward them when she saw Beaton leaning against thewall at the end of the row next Mrs. March. Then she conjectured that hemight have told Miss Vance of her acquaintance with the Marches, and shebent forward and nodded to Mrs. March across Conrad, Mela, and Mr. March. She conceived of him as a sort of hand of her father's, but she waswilling to take them at their apparent social valuation for the time. Sheleaned back in her chair, and did not look up at Beaton after the firstfurtive glance, though she felt his eyes on her. The music began again almost at once, before Mela had time to make Conradtell her where Miss Vance had met him before. She would not have mindedinterrupting the music; but every one else seemed so attentive, evenChristine, that she had not the courage. The concert went onto an endwithout realizing for her the ideal of pleasure which one ought to find. In society. She was not exacting, but it seemed to her there were veryfew young men, and when the music was over, and their opportunity came tobe sociable, they were not very sociable. They were not introduced, forone thing; but it appeared to Mela that they might have got introduced, if they had any sense; she saw them looking at her, and she was glad shehad dressed so much; she was dressed more than any other lady there, andeither because she was the most dressed of any person there, or becauseit had got around who her father was, she felt that she had made animpression on the young men. In her satisfaction with this, and from hergood nature, she was contented to be served with her refreshments afterthe concert by Mr. March, and to remain joking with him. She was at herease; she let her hoarse voice out in her largest laugh; she accused him, to the admiration of those near, of getting her into a perfect gale. Itappeared to her, in her own pleasure, her mission to illustrate to therather subdued people about her what a good time really was, so that theycould have it if they wanted it. Her joy was crowned when March modestlyprofessed himself unworthy to monopolize her, and explained how selfishhe felt in talking to a young lady when there were so many young mendying to do so. "Oh, pshaw, dyun', yes!" cried Mela, tasting the irony. "I guess I seethem!" He asked if he might really introduce a friend of his to her, and shesaid, Well, yes, if he thought he could live to get to her; and Marchbrought up a man whom he thought very young and Mela thought very old. Hewas a contributor to 'Every Other Week, ' and so March knew him; hebelieved himself a student of human nature in behalf of literature, andhe now set about studying Mela. He tempted her to express her opinion onall points, and he laughed so amiably at the boldness and humorous vigorof her ideas that she was delighted with him. She asked him if he was aNew-Yorker by birth; and she told him she pitied him, when he said he hadnever been West. She professed herself perfectly sick of New York, andurged him to go to Moffitt if he wanted to see a real live town. Hewondered if it would do to put her into literature just as she was, withall her slang and brag, but he decided that he would have to subdue her agreat deal: he did not see how he could reconcile the facts of herconversation with the facts of her appearance: her beauty, her splendorof dress, her apparent right to be where she was. These things perplexedhim; he was afraid the great American novel, if true, must be incredible. Mela said he ought to hear her sister go on about New York when theyfirst came; but she reckoned that Christine was getting so she could putup with it a little better, now. She looked significantly across the roomto the place where Christine was now talking with Beaton; and the studentof human nature asked, Was she here? and, Would she introduce him? Melasaid she would, the first chance she got; and she added, They would bemuch pleased to have him call. She felt herself to be having a beautifultime, and she got directly upon such intimate terms with the student ofhuman nature that she laughed with him about some peculiarities of his, such as his going so far about to ask things he wanted to know from her;she said she never did believe in beating about the bush much. She hadnoticed the same thing in Miss Vance when she came to call that day; andwhen the young man owned that he came rather a good deal to Mrs. Horn'shouse, she asked him, Well, what sort of a girl was Miss Vance, anyway, and where did he suppose she had met her brother? The student of humannature could not say as to this, and as to Miss Vance he judged it safestto treat of the non-society side of her character, her activity incharity, her special devotion to the work among the poor on the EastSide, which she personally engaged in. "Oh, that's where Conrad goes, too!" Mela interrupted. "I'll bet anythingthat's where she met him. I wisht I could tell Christine! But I supposeshe would want to kill me, if I was to speak to her now. " The student of human nature said, politely, "Oh, shall I take you toher?" Mela answered, "I guess you better not!" with a laugh so significant thathe could not help his inferences concerning both Christine's absorptionin the person she was talking with and the habitual violence of hertemper. He made note of how Mela helplessly spoke of all her family bytheir names, as if he were already intimate with them; he fancied that ifhe could get that in skillfully, it would be a valuable color in hisstudy; the English lord whom she should astonish with it began to formhimself out of the dramatic nebulosity in his mind, and to whirl on adefinite orbit in American society. But he was puzzled to decide whetherMela's willingness to take him into her confidence on short notice wastypical or personal: the trait of a daughter of the natural-gasmillionaire, or a foible of her own. Beaton talked with Christine the greater part of the evening that wasleft after the concert. He was very grave, and took the tone of afatherly friend; he spoke guardedly of the people present, and moderatedthe severity of some of Christine's judgments of their looks andcostumes. He did this out of a sort of unreasoned allegiance to Margaret, whom he was in the mood of wishing to please by being very kind and good, as she always was. He had the sense also of atoning by this behavior forsome reckless things he had said before that to Christine; he put on asad, reproving air with her, and gave her the feeling of being held incheck. She chafed at it, and said, glancing at Margaret in talk with herbrother, "I don't think Miss Vance is so very pretty, do you?" "I never think whether she's pretty or not, " said Becton, with dreamy, affectation. "She is merely perfect. Does she know your brother?" "So she says. I didn't suppose Conrad ever went anywhere, except totenement-houses. " "It might have been there, " Becton suggested. "She goes among friendlesspeople everywhere. " "Maybe that's the reason she came to see us!" said Christine. Becton looked at her with his smouldering eyes, and felt the wish to say, "Yes, it was exactly that, " but he only allowed himself to deny thepossibility of any such motive in that case. He added: "I am so glad youknow her, Miss Dryfoos. I never met Miss Vance without feeling myselfbetter and truer, somehow; or the wish to be so. " "And you think we might be improved, too?" Christine retorted. "Well, Imust say you're not very flattering, Mr. Becton, anyway. " Becton would have liked to answer her according to her cattishness, witha good clawing sarcasm that would leave its smart in her pride; but hewas being good, and he could not change all at once. Besides, the girl'sattitude under the social honor done her interested him. He was sure shehad never been in such good company before, but he could see that she wasnot in the least affected by the experience. He had told her who thisperson and that was; and he saw she had understood that the names were ofconsequence; but she seemed to feel her equality with them all. Herserenity was not obviously akin to the savage stoicism in which Beatonhid his own consciousness of social inferiority; but having won his wayin the world so far by his talent, his personal quality, he did notconceive the simple fact in her case. Christine was self-possessedbecause she felt that a knowledge of her father's fortune had got around, and she had the peace which money gives to ignorance; but Beatonattributed her poise to indifference to social values. This, while heinwardly sneered at it, avenged him upon his own too keen sense of them, and, together with his temporary allegiance to Margaret's goodness, kepthim from retaliating Christine's vulgarity. He said, "I don't see howthat could be, " and left the question of flattery to settle itself. The people began to go away, following each other up to take leave ofMrs. Horn. Christine watched them with unconcern, and either because shewould not be governed by the general movement, or because she liked beingwith Beaton, gave no sign of going. Mela was still talking to the studentof human nature, sending out her laugh in deep gurgles amid theunimaginable confidences she was making him about herself, her family, the staff of 'Every Other Week, ' Mrs. Mandel, and the kind of life theyhad all led before she came to them. He was not a blind devotee of artfor art's sake, and though he felt that if one could portray Mela just asshe was she would be the richest possible material, he was rather ashamedto know some of the things she told him; and he kept looking anxiouslyabout for a chance of escape. The company had reduced itself to theDryfoos groups and some friends of Mrs. Horn's who had the right tolinger, when Margaret crossed the room with Conrad to Christine andBeaton. "I'm so glad, Miss Dryfoos, to find that I was not quite a stranger toyou all when I ventured to call, the other day. Your brother and I arerather old acquaintances, though I never knew who he was before. I don'tknow just how to say we met where he is valued so much. I suppose Imustn't try to say how much, " she added, with a look of deep regard athim. Conrad blushed and stood folding his arms tight over his breast, whilehis sister received Margaret's confession with the suspicion which washer first feeling in regard to any new thing. What she concluded was thatthis girl was trying to get in with them, for reasons of her own. Shesaid: "Yes; it's the first I ever heard of his knowing you. He's so muchtaken up with his meetings, he didn't want to come to-night. " Margaret drew in her lip before she answered, without apparent resentmentof the awkwardness or ungraciousness, whichever she found it: "I don'twonder! You become so absorbed in such work that you think nothing elseis worth while. But I'm glad Mr. Dryfoos could come with you; I'm so gladyou could all come; I knew you would enjoy the music. Do sit down--" "No, " said Christine, bluntly; "we must be going. Mela!" she called out, "come!" The last group about Mrs. Horn looked round, but Christine advanced uponthem undismayed, and took the hand Mrs. Horn promptly gave her. "Well, Imust bid you good-night. " "Oh, good-night, " murmured the elder lady. "So very kind of you to come. " "I've had the best kind of a time, " said Mela, cordially. "I hain'tlaughed so much, I don't know when. " "Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it, " said Mrs. Horn, in the same polite murmurshe had used with Christine; but she said nothing to either sister aboutany future meeting. They were apparently not troubled. Mela said over her shoulder to thestudent of human nature, "The next time I see you I'll give it to you forwhat you said about Moffitt. " Margaret made some entreating paces after them, but she did not succeedin covering the retreat of the sisters against critical conjecture. Shecould only say to Conrad, as if recurring to the subject, "I hope we canget our friends to play for us some night. I know it isn't any real help, but such things take the poor creatures out of themselves for the timebeing, don't you think?" "Oh yes, " he answered. "They're good in that way. " He turned backhesitatingly to Mrs. Horn, and said, with a blush, "I thank you for ahappy evening. " "Oh, I am very glad, " she replied, in her murmur. One of the old friends of the house arched her eyebrows in sayinggood-night, and offered the two young men remaining seats home in hercarriage. Beaton gloomily refused, and she kept herself from asking thestudent of human nature, till she had got him into her carriage, "What isMoffitt, and what did you say about it?" "Now you see, Margaret, " said Mrs. Horn, with bated triumph, when thepeople were all gone. "Yes, I see, " the girl consented. "From one point of view, of course it'sbeen a failure. I don't think we've given Miss Dryfoos a pleasure, butperhaps nobody could. And at least we've given her the opportunity ofenjoying herself. " "Such people, " said Mrs. Horn, philosophically, "people with their money, must of course be received sooner or later. You can't keep them out. Only, I believe I would rather let some one else begin with them. TheLeightons didn't come?" "I sent them cards. I couldn't call again. " Mrs. Horn sighed a little. "I suppose Mr. Dryfoos is one of yourfellow-philanthropists?" "He's one of the workers, " said Margaret. "I met him several times at theHall, but I only knew his first name. I think he's a great friend ofFather Benedict; he seems devoted to the work. Don't you think he looksgood?" "Very, " said Mrs. Horn, with a color of censure in her assent. "Theyounger girl seemed more amiable than her sister. But what manners!" "Dreadful!" said Margaret, with knit brows, and a pursed mouth ofhumorous suffering. "But she appeared to feel very much at home. " "Oh, as to that, neither of them was much abashed. Do you suppose Mr. Beaton gave the other one some hints for that quaint dress of hers? Idon't imagine that black and lace is her own invention. She seems to havesome sort of strange fascination for him. " "She's very picturesque, " Margaret explained. "And artists see points inpeople that the rest of us don't. " "Could it be her money?" Mrs. Horn insinuated. "He must be very poor. " "But he isn't base, " retorted the girl, with a generous indignation thatmade her aunt smile. "Oh no; but if he fancies her so picturesque, it doesn't follow that hewould object to her being rich. " "It would with a man like Mr. Beaton!" "You are an idealist, Margaret. I suppose your Mr. March has somedisinterested motive in paying court to Miss Mela--Pamela, I suppose, isher name. He talked to her longer than her literature would have lasted. " "He seems a very kind person, " said Margaret. "And Mr. Dryfoos pays his salary?" "I don't know anything about that. But that wouldn't make any differencewith him. " Mrs. Horn laughed out at this security; but she was not displeased by thenobleness which it came from. She liked Margaret to be high-minded, andwas really not distressed by any good that was in her. The Marches walked home, both because it was not far, and because theymust spare in carriage hire at any rate. As soon as they were out of thehouse, she applied a point of conscience to him. "I don't see how you could talk to that girl so long, Basil, and make herlaugh so. " "Why, there seemed no one else to do it, till I thought of Kendricks. " "Yes, but I kept thinking, Now he's pleasant to her because he thinksit's to his interest. If she had no relation to 'Every Other Week, ' hewouldn't waste his time on her. " "Isabel, " March complained, "I wish you wouldn't think of me in he, him, and his; I never personalize you in my thoughts: you remain always avague unindividualized essence, not quite without form and void, butnounless and pronounless. I call that a much more beautiful mentalattitude toward the object of one's affections. But if you must he andhim and his me in your thoughts, I wish you'd have more kindly thoughtsof me. " "Do you deny that it's true, Basil?" "Do you believe that it's true, Isabel?" "No matter. But could you excuse it if it were?" "Ah, I see you'd have been capable of it in my place, and you'reashamed. " "Yes, " sighed the wife, "I'm afraid that I should. But tell me that youwouldn't, Basil!" "I can tell you that I wasn't. But I suppose that in a real exigency, Icould truckle to the proprietary Dryfooses as well as you. " "Oh no; you mustn't, dear! I'm a woman, and I'm dreadfully afraid. Butyou must always be a man, especially with that horrid old Mr. Dryfoos. Promise me that you'll never yield the least point to him in a matter ofright and wrong!" "Not if he's right and I'm wrong?" "Don't trifle, dear! You know what I mean. Will you promise?" "I'll promise to submit the point to you, and let you do the yielding. Asfor me, I shall be adamant. Nothing I like better. " "They're dreadful, even that poor, good young fellow, who's so differentfrom all the rest; he's awful, too, because you feel that he's a martyrto them. " "And I never did like martyrs a great deal, " March interposed. "I wonder how they came to be there, " Mrs. March pursued, unmindful ofhis joke. "That is exactly what seemed to be puzzling Miss Mela about us. Sheasked, and I explained as well as I could; and then she told me that MissVance had come to call on them and invited them; and first they didn'tknow how they could come till they thought of making Conrad bring them. But she didn't say why Miss Vance called on them. Mr. Dryfoos doesn'temploy her on 'Every Other Week. ' But I suppose she has her own vilelittle motive. " "It can't be their money; it can't be!" sighed Mrs. March. "Well, I don't know. We all respect money. " "Yes, but Miss Vance's position is so secure. She needn't pay court tothose stupid, vulgar people. " "Well, let's console ourselves with the belief that she would, if sheneeded. Such people as the Dryfooses are the raw material of goodsociety. It isn't made up of refined or meritorious people--professorsand litterateurs, ministers and musicians, and their families. All thefashionable people there to-night were like the Dryfooses a generation ortwo ago. I dare say the material works up faster now, and in a season ortwo you won't know the Dryfooses from the other plutocrats. THEY will--alittle better than they do now; they'll see a difference, but nothingradical, nothing painful. People who get up in the world by service toothers--through letters, or art, or science--may have their modest littlemisgivings as to their social value, but people that rise bymoney--especially if their gains are sudden--never have. And that's thekind of people that form our nobility; there's no use pretending that wehaven't a nobility; we might as well pretend we haven't first-class carsin the presence of a vestibuled Pullman. Those girls had no more doubt oftheir right to be there than if they had been duchesses: we thought itwas very nice of Miss Vance to come and ask us, but they didn't; theyweren't afraid, or the least embarrassed; they were perfectlynatural--like born aristocrats. And you may be sure that if theplutocracy that now owns the country ever sees fit to take on the outwardsigns of an aristocracy--titles, and arms, and ancestors--it won't falterfrom any inherent question of its worth. Money prizes and honors itself, and if there is anything it hasn't got, it believes it can buy it. " "Well, Basil, " said his wife, "I hope you won't get infected with Lindau'sideas of rich people. Some of them are very good and kind. " "Who denies that? Not even Lindau himself. It's all right. And the greatthing is that the evening's enjoyment is over. I've got my society smileoff, and I'm radiantly happy. Go on with your little pessimisticdiatribes, Isabel; you can't spoil my pleasure. " "I could see, " said Mela, as she and Christine drove home together, "thatshe was as jealous as she could be, all the time you was talkun' to Mr. Beaton. She pretended to be talkun' to Conrad, but she kep' her eye onyou pretty close, I can tell you. I bet she just got us there to see howhim and you would act together. And I reckon she was satisfied. He's deadgone on you, Chris. " Christine listened with a dreamy pleasure to the flatteries with whichMela plied her in the hope of some return in kind, and not at all becauseshe felt spitefully toward Miss Vance, or in anywise wished her ill. "Whowas that fellow with you so long?" asked Christine. "I suppose you turnedyourself inside out to him, like you always do. " Mela was transported by the cruel ingratitude. "It's a lie! I didn't tellhim a single thing. " Conrad walked home, choosing to do so because he did not wish to hear hissisters' talk of the evening, and because there was a tumult in hisspirit which he wished to let have its way. In his life with its singlepurpose, defeated by stronger wills than his own, and now strugglingpartially to fulfil itself in acts of devotion to others, the thought ofwomen had entered scarcely more than in that of a child. His ideals wereof a virginal vagueness; faces, voices, gestures had filled his fancy attimes, but almost passionately; and the sensation that he now indulgedwas a kind of worship, ardent, but reverent and exalted. The brutalexperiences of the world make us forget that there are such natures init, and that they seem to come up out of the lowly earth as well as downfrom the high heaven. In the heart of this man well on toward thirtythere had never been left the stain of a base thought; not thatsuggestion and conjecture had not visited him, but that he had notentertained them, or in any-wise made them his. In a Catholic age andcountry, he would have been one of those monks who are sainted afterdeath for the angelic purity of their lives, and whose names are invokedby believers in moments of trial, like San Luigi Gonzaga. As he nowwalked along thinking, with a lover's beatified smile on his face, of howMargaret Vance had spoken and looked, he dramatized scenes in which heapproved himself to her by acts of goodness and unselfishness, and diedto please her for the sake of others. He made her praise him for them, tohis face, when he disclaimed their merit, and after his death, when hecould not. All the time he was poignantly sensible of her grace, herelegance, her style; they seemed to intoxicate him; some tones of hervoice thrilled through his nerves, and some looks turned his brain with adelicious, swooning sense of her beauty; her refinement bewildered him. But all this did not admit the idea of possession, even of aspiration. Atthe most his worship only set her beyond the love of other men as far asbeyond his own. PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: Affectional habit Brag of his wife, as a good husband always does But when we make that money here, no one loses it Courage hadn't been put to the test Family buryin' grounds Homage which those who have not pay to those who have Hurry up and git well--or something Made money and do not yet know that money has made them Society: All its favors are really bargains Wages are the measure of necessity and not of merit Without realizing his cruelty, treated as a child A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES By William Dean Howells PART FOURTH I. Not long after Lent, Fulkerson set before Dryfoos one day his scheme fora dinner in celebration of the success of 'Every Other Week. ' Dryfoos hadnever meddled in any manner with the conduct of the periodical; butFulkerson easily saw that he was proud of his relation to it, and heproceeded upon the theory that he would be willing to have this relationknown: On the days when he had been lucky in stocks, he was apt to dropin at the office on Eleventh Street, on his way up-town, and listen toFulkerson's talk. He was on good enough terms with March, who revised hisfirst impressions of the man, but they had not much to say to each other, and it seemed to March that Dryfoos was even a little afraid of him, asof a piece of mechanism he had acquired, but did not quite understand; heleft the working of it to Fulkerson, who no doubt bragged of itsufficiently. The old man seemed to have as little to say to his son; heshut himself up with Fulkerson, where the others could hear the managerbegin and go on with an unstinted flow of talk about 'Every Other Week;'for Fulkerson never talked of anything else if he could help it, and wasalways bringing the conversation back to it if it strayed: The day he spoke of the dinner he rose and called from his door: "March, I say, come down here a minute, will you? Conrad, I want you, too. " The editor and the publisher found the manager and the proprietor seatedon opposite sides of the table. "It's about those funeral baked meats, you know, " Fulkerson explained, "and I was trying to give Mr. Dryfoossome idea of what we wanted to do. That is, what I wanted to do, " hecontinued, turning from March to Dryfoos. "March, here, is opposed to it, of course. He'd like to publish 'Every Other Week' on the sly; keep itout of the papers, and off the newsstands; he's a modest Boston petunia, and he shrinks from publicity; but I am not that kind of herb myself, andI want all the publicity we can get--beg, borrow, or steal--for thisthing. I say that you can't work the sacred rites of hospitality in abetter cause, and what I propose is a little dinner for the purpose ofrecognizing the hit we've made with this thing. My idea was to strike youfor the necessary funds, and do the thing on a handsome scale. The termlittle dinner is a mere figure of speech. A little dinner wouldn't make abig talk, and what we want is the big talk, at present, if we don't layup a cent. My notion was that pretty soon after Lent, now, when everybodyis feeling just right, we should begin to send out our paragraphs, affirmative, negative, and explanatory, and along about the first of Maywe should sit down about a hundred strong, the most distinguished peoplein the country, and solemnize our triumph. There it is in a nutshell. Imight expand and I might expound, but that's the sum and substance ofit. " Fulkerson stopped, and ran his eyes eagerly over the faces of his threelisteners, one after the other. March was a little surprised when Dryfoosturned to him, but that reference of the question seemed to giveFulkerson particular pleasure: "What do you think, Mr. March?" The editor leaned back in his chair. "I don't pretend to have Mr. Fulkerson's genius for advertising; but it seems to me a little earlyyet. We might celebrate later when we've got more to celebrate. Atpresent we're a pleasing novelty, rather than a fixed fact. " "Ah, you don't get the idea!" said Fulkerson. "What we want to do withthis dinner is to fix the fact. " "Am I going to come in anywhere?" the old man interrupted. "You're going to come in at the head of the procession! We are going tostrike everything that is imaginative and romantic in the newspaper soulwith you and your history and your fancy for going in for this thing. Ican start you in a paragraph that will travel through all the newspapers, from Maine to Texas and from Alaska to Florida. We have had all sorts ofrich men backing up literary enterprises, but the natural-gas man inliterature is a new thing, and the combination of your picturesque pastand your aesthetic present is something that will knock out thesympathies of the American public the first round. I feel, " saidFulkerson, with a tremor of pathos in his voice, "that 'Every Other Week'is at a disadvantage before the public as long as it's supposed to be myenterprise, my idea. As far as I'm known at all, I'm known simply as asyndicate man, and nobody in the press believes that I've got the moneyto run the thing on a grand scale; a suspicion of insolvency must attachto it sooner or later, and the fellows on the press will work up thatimpression, sooner or later, if we don't give them something else to workup. Now, as soon as I begin to give it away to the correspondents thatyou're in it, with your untold millions--that, in fact, it was your ideafrom the start, that you originated it to give full play to thehumanitarian tendencies of Conrad here, who's always had these theoriesof co-operation, and longed to realize them for the benefit of ourstruggling young writers and artists--" March had listened with growing amusement to the mingled burlesque andearnest of Fulkerson's self-sacrificing impudence, and with wonder as tohow far Dryfoos was consenting to his preposterous proposition, whenConrad broke out: "Mr. Fulkerson, I could not allow you to do that. Itwould not be true; I did not wish to be here; and--and what I think--whatI wish to do--that is something I will not let any one put me in a falseposition about. No!" The blood rushed into the young man's gentle face, and he met his father's glance with defiance. Dryfoos turned from him to Fulkerson without speaking, and Fulkersonsaid, caressingly: "Why, of course, Coonrod! I know how you feel, and Ishouldn't let anything of that sort go out uncontradicted afterward. Butthere isn't anything in these times that would give us better standingwith the public than some hint of the way you feel about such things. Thepublics expects to be interested, and nothing would interest it more thanto be told that the success of 'Every Other Week' sprang from the firstapplication of the principle of Live and let Live to a literaryenterprise. It would look particularly well, coming from you and yourfather, but if you object, we can leave that part out; though if youapprove of the principle I don't see why you need object. The main thingis to let the public know that it owes this thing to the liberal andenlightened spirit of one of the foremost capitalists of the country; andthat his purposes are not likely to be betrayed in the hands of his son, I should get a little cut made from a photograph of your father, andsupply it gratis with the paragraphs. " "I guess, " said the old man, "we will get along without the cut. " Fulkerson laughed. "Well, well! Have it your own way, But the sight ofyour face in the patent outsides of the country press would be worth halfa dozen subscribers in every school district throughout the length andbreadth of this fair land. " "There was a fellow, " Dryfoos explained, in an aside to March, "that wasgetting up a history of Moffitt, and he asked me to let him put a steelengraving of me in. He said a good many prominent citizens were going tohave theirs in, and his price was a hundred and fifty dollars. I told himI couldn't let mine go for less than two hundred, and when he said hecould give me a splendid plate for that money, I said I should want itcash, You never saw a fellow more astonished when he got it through him. That I expected him to pay the two hundred. " Fulkerson laughed in keen appreciation of the joke. "Well, sir, I guess'Every Other Week' will pay you that much. But if you won't sell at anyprice, all right; we must try to worry along without the light of yourcountenance on, the posters, but we got to have it for the banquet. " "I don't seem to feel very hungry, yet, " said they old man, dryly. "Oh, 'l'appeit vient en mangeant', as our French friends say. You'll behungry enough when you see the preliminary Little Neck clam. It's toolate for oysters. " "Doesn't that fact seem to point to a postponement till they get back, sometime in October, " March suggested. "No, no!" said Fulkerson, "you don't catch on to the business end of thisthing, my friends. You're proceeding on something like the old explodedidea that the demand creates the supply, when everybody knows, if he'swatched the course of modern events, that it's just as apt to be theother way. I contend that we've got a real substantial success tocelebrate now; but even if we hadn't, the celebration would do more thananything else to create the success, if we got it properly before thepublic. People will say: Those fellows are not fools; they wouldn't goand rejoice over their magazine unless they had got a big thing in it. And the state of feeling we should produce in the public mind would makea boom of perfectly unprecedented grandeur for E. O. W. Heigh?" He looked sunnily from one to the other in succession. The elder Dryfoossaid, with his chin on the top of his stick, "I reckon those Little Neckclams will keep. " "Well, just as you say, " Fulkerson cheerfully assented. "I understand youto agree to the general principle of a little dinner?" "The smaller the better, " said the old man. "Well, I say a little dinner because the idea of that seems to cover thecase, even if we vary the plan a little. I had thought of a reception, maybe, that would include the lady contributors and artists, and thewives and daughters of the other contributors. That would give us thechance to ring in a lot of society correspondents and get the thingwritten up in first-class shape. By-the-way!" cried Fulkerson, slappinghimself on the leg, "why not have the dinner and the reception both?" "I don't understand, " said Dryfoos. "Why, have a select little dinner for ten or twenty choice spirits of themale persuasion, and then, about ten o'clock, throw open your palatialdrawing-rooms and admit the females to champagne, salads, and ices. It isthe very thing! Come!" "What do you think of it, Mr. March?" asked Dryfoos, on whose socialinexperience Fulkerson's words projected no very intelligible image, andwho perhaps hoped for some more light. "It's a beautiful vision, " said March, "and if it will take more time torealize it I think I approve. I approve of anything that will delay Mr. Fulkerson's advertising orgie. " "Then, " Fulkerson pursued, "we could have the pleasure of Miss Christineand Miss Mela's company; and maybe Mrs. Dryfoos would look in on us inthe course of the evening. There's no hurry, as Mr. March suggests, if wecan give the thing this shape. I will cheerfully adopt the idea of myhonorable colleague. " March laughed at his impudence, but at heart he was ashamed of Fulkersonfor proposing to make use of Dryfoos and his house in that way. Hefancied something appealing in the look that the old man turned on him, and something indignant in Conrad's flush; but probably this was only hisfancy. He reflected that neither of them could feel it as people of moreworldly knowledge would, and he consoled himself with the fact thatFulkerson was really not such a charlatan as he seemed. But it wentthrough his mind that this was a strange end for all Dryfoos'smoney-making to come to; and he philosophically accepted the fact of hisown humble fortunes when he reflected how little his money could buy forsuch a man. It was an honorable use that Fulkerson was putting it to in'Every Other Week;' it might be far more creditably spent on such anenterprise than on horses, or wines, or women, the usual resources of thebrute rich; and if it were to be lost, it might better be lost that waythan in stocks. He kept a smiling face turned to Dryfoos while theseirreverent considerations occupied him, and hardened his heart againstfather and son and their possible emotions. The old man rose to put an end to the interview. He only repeated, "Iguess those clams will keep till fall. " But Fulkerson was apparently satisfied with the progress he had made; andwhen he joined March for the stroll homeward after office hours, he wasable to detach his mind from the subject, as if content to leave it. "This is about the best part of the year in New York, " he said; In someof the areas the grass had sprouted, and the tender young foliage hadloosened itself froze the buds on a sidewalk tree here and there; thesoft air was full of spring, and the delicate sky, far aloof, had thelook it never wears at any other season. "It ain't a time of year tocomplain much of, anywhere; but I don't want anything better than themonth of May in New York. Farther South it's too hot, and I've been inBoston in May when that east wind of yours made every nerve in my bodyget up and howl. I reckon the weather has a good deal to do with thelocal temperament. The reason a New York man takes life so easily withall his rush is that his climate don't worry him. But a Boston man mustbe rasped the whole while by the edge in his air. That accounts for hissharpness; and when he's lived through twenty-five or thirty Boston Mays, he gets to thinking that Providence has some particular use for him, orhe wouldn't have survived, and that makes him conceited. See?" "I see, " said March. "But I don't know how you're going to work that ideainto an advertisement, exactly. " "Oh, pahaw, now, March! You don't think I've got that on the brain allthe time?" "You were gradually leading up to 'Every Other Week', somehow. " "No, sir; I wasn't. I was just thinking what a different creature aMassachusetts man is from a Virginian, And yet I suppose they're both aspure English stock as you'll get anywhere in America. Marsh, I thinkColonel Woodburn's paper is going to make a hit. " "You've got there! When it knocks down the sale about one-half, I shallknow it's made a hit. " "I'm not afraid, " said Fulkerson. "That thing is going to attractattention. It's well written--you can take the pomposity out of it, hereand there and it's novel. Our people like a bold strike, and it's goingto shake them up tremendously to have serfdom advocated on high moralgrounds as the only solution of the labor problem. You see, in the firstplace, he goes for their sympathies by the way he portrays the actualrelations of capital and labor; he shows how things have got to go frombad to worse, and then he trots out his little old hobby, and proves thatif slavery had not been interfered with, it would have perfected itselfin the interest of humanity. He makes a pretty strong plea for it. " March threw back his head and laughed. "He's converted you! I swear, Fulkerson, if we had accepted and paid for an article advocatingcannibalism as the only resource for getting rid of the superfluous poor, you'd begin to believe in it. " Fulkerson smiled in approval of the joke, and only said: "I wish youcould meet the colonel in the privacy of the domestic circle, March. You'd like him. He's a splendid old fellow; regular type. Talk aboutspring! "You ought to see the widow's little back yard these days. You know thatglass gallery just beyond the dining-room? Those girls have got thepot-plants out of that, and a lot more, and they've turned the edges ofthat back yard, along the fence, into a regular bower; they've got sweetpeas planted, and nasturtiums, and we shall be in a blaze of glory aboutthe beginning of June. Fun to see 'em work in the garden, and the birdbossing the job in his cage under the cherry-tree. Have to keep themiddle of the yard for the clothesline, but six days in the week it's alawn, and I go over it with a mower myself. March, there ain't anythinglike a home, is there? Dear little cot of your own, heigh? I tell you, March, when I get to pushing that mower round, and the colonel is smokinghis cigar in the gallery, and those girls are pottering over the flowers, one of these soft evenings after dinner, I feel like a human being. Yes, I do. I struck it rich when I concluded to take my meals at the widow's. For eight dollars a week I get good board, refined society, and all theadvantages of a Christian home. By-the-way, you've never had much talkwith Miss Woodburn, have you, March?" "Not so much as with Miss Woodburn's father. " "Well, he is rather apt to scoop the conversation. I must draw his fire, sometime, when you and Mrs. March are around, and get you a chance withMiss Woodburn. " "I should like that better, I believe, " said March. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if you did. Curious, but Miss Woodburn isn't atall your idea of a Southern girl. She's got lots of go; she's never idlea minute; she keeps the old gentleman in first-class shape, and she don'tbelieve a bit in the slavery solution of the labor problem; says she'sglad it's gone, and if it's anything like the effects of it, she's gladit went before her time. No, sir, she's as full of snap as the liveliestkind of a Northern girl. None of that sunny Southern languor you readabout. " "I suppose the typical Southerner, like the typical anything else, ispretty difficult to find, " said March. "But perhaps Miss Woodburnrepresents the new South. The modern conditions must be producing amodern type. " "Well, that's what she and the colonel both say. They say there ain'tanything left of that Walter Scott dignity and chivalry in the risinggeneration; takes too much time. You ought to see her sketch theold-school, high-and-mighty manners, as they survive among some of theantiques in Charlottesburg. If that thing could be put upon the stage itwould be a killing success. Makes the old gentleman laugh in spite ofhimself. But he's as proud of her as Punch, anyway. Why don't you andMrs. March come round oftener? Look here! How would it do to have alittle excursion, somewhere, after the spring fairly gets in its work?" "Reporters present?" "No, no! Nothing of that kind; perfectly sincere and disinterestedenjoyment. " "Oh, a few handbills to be scattered around: 'Buy Every Other Week, ' 'Lookout for the next number of "Every Other Week, "' 'Every Other Week at allthe news-stands. ' Well, I'll talk it over with Mrs. March. I supposethere's no great hurry. " March told his wife of the idyllic mood in which he had left Fulkerson atthe widow's door, and she said he must be in love. "Why, of course! I wonder I didn't think of that. But Fulkerson is suchan impartial admirer of the whole sex that you can't think of his likingone more than another. I don't know that he showed any unjust partiality, though, in his talk of 'those girls, ' as he called them. And I alwaysrather fancied that Mrs. Mandel--he's done so much for her, you know; andshe is such a well-balanced, well-preserved person, and so lady-like andcorrect----" "Fulkerson had the word for her: academic. She's everything thatinstruction and discipline can make of a woman; but I shouldn't thinkthey could make enough of her to be in love with. " "Well, I don't know. The academic has its charm. There are moods in whichI could imagine myself in love with an academic person. That regularityof line; that reasoned strictness of contour; that neatness of pose; thatslightly conventional but harmonious grouping of the emotions andmorals--you can see how it would have its charm, the Wedgwood in humannature? I wonder where Mrs. Mandel keeps her urn and her willow. " "I should think she might have use for them in that family, poor thing!"said Mrs. March. "Ah, that reminds me, " said her husband, "that we had another talk withthe old gentleman, this afternoon, about Fulkerson's literary, artistic, and advertising orgie, and it's postponed till October. " "The later the better, I should think, " said Mrs. March, who did notreally think about it at all, but whom the date fixed for it caused tothink of the intervening time. "We have got to consider what we will doabout the summer, before long, Basil. " "Oh, not yet, not yet, " he pleaded; with that man's willingness to abidein the present, which is so trying to a woman. "It's only the end ofApril. " "It will be the end of June before we know. And these people wanting theBoston house another year complicates it. We can't spend the summerthere, as we planned. " "They oughtn't to have offered us an increased rent; they have taken anadvantage of us. " "I don't know that it matters, " said Mrs. March. "I had decided not to gothere. " "Had you? This is a surprise. " "Everything is a surprise to you, Basil, when it happens. " "True; I keep the world fresh, that way. " "It wouldn't have been any change to go from one city to another for thesummer. We might as well have stayed in New York. " "Yes, I wish we had stayed, " said March, idly humoring a conception ofthe accomplished fact. "Mrs. Green would have let us have the gimcrackeryvery cheap for the summer months; and we could have made all sorts ofnice little excursions and trips off and been twice as well as if we hadspent the summer away. " "Nonsense! You know we couldn't spend the summer in New York. " "I know I could. " "What stuff! You couldn't manage. " "Oh yes, I could. I could take my meals at Fulkerson's widow's; or atMaroni's, with poor old Lindau: he's got to dining there again. Or, Icould keep house, and he could dine with me here. " There was a teasing look in March's eyes, and he broke into a laugh, atthe firmness with which his wife said: "I think if there is to be anyhousekeeping, I will stay, too; and help to look after it. I would trynot intrude upon you and your guest. " "Oh, we should be only too glad to have you join us, " said March, playingwith fire. "Very well, then, I wish you would take him off to Maroni's, the nexttime he comes to dine here!" cried his wife. The experiment of making March's old friend free of his house had notgiven her all the pleasure that so kind a thing ought to have afforded sogood a woman. She received Lindau at first with robust benevolence, andthe high resolve not to let any of his little peculiarities alienate herfrom a sense of his claim upon her sympathy and gratitude, not only as aman who had been so generously fond of her husband in his youth, but ahero who had suffered for her country. Her theory was that his mutilationmust not be ignored, but must be kept in mind as a monument of hissacrifice, and she fortified Bella with this conception, so that thechild bravely sat next his maimed arm at table and helped him to disheshe could not reach, and cut up his meat for him. As for Mrs. Marchherself, the thought of his mutilation made her a little faint; she wasnot without a bewildered resentment of its presence as a sort ofoppression. She did not like his drinking so much of March's beer, either; it was no harm, but it was somehow unworthy, out of characterwith a hero of the war. But what she really could not reconcile herselfto was the violence of Lindau's sentiments concerning the whole politicaland social fabric. She did not feel sure that he should be allowed to saysuch things before the children, who had been nurtured in the faith ofBunker Hill and Appomattox, as the beginning and the end of all possibleprogress in human rights. As a woman she was naturally an aristocrat, butas an American she was theoretically a democrat; and it astounded, italarmed her, to hear American democracy denounced as a shuffling evasion. She had never cared much for the United States Senate, but she doubted ifshe ought to sit by when it was railed at as a rich man's club. Itshocked her to be told that the rich and poor were not equal before thelaw in a country where justice must be paid for at every step in fees andcosts, or where a poor man must go to war in his own person, and a richman might hire someone to go in his. Mrs. March felt that this rebelliousmind in Lindau really somehow outlawed him from sympathy, andretroactively undid his past suffering for the country: she had alwaysparticularly valued that provision of the law, because in forecasting allthe possible mischances that might befall her own son, she had beencomforted by the thought that if there ever was another war, and Tom weredrafted, his father could buy him a substitute. Compared with suchblasphemy as this, Lindau's declaration that there was not equality ofopportunity in America, and that fully one-half the people were debarredtheir right to the pursuit of happiness by the hopeless conditions oftheir lives, was flattering praise. She could not listen to such thingsin silence, though, and it did not help matters when Lindau met herarguments with facts and reasons which she felt she was merely notsufficiently instructed to combat, and he was not quite gentlemanly tourge. "I am afraid for the effect on the children, " she said to herhusband. "Such perfectly distorted ideas--Tom will be ruined by them. " "Oh, let Tom find out where they're false, " said March. "It will be goodexercise for his faculties of research. At any rate, those things aregetting said nowadays; he'll have to hear them sooner or later. " "Had he better hear them at home?" demanded his wife. "Why, you know, as you're here to refute them, Isabel, " he teased, "perhaps it's the best place. But don't mind poor old Lindau, my dear. Hesays himself that his parg is worse than his pidte, you know. " "Ah, it's too late now to mind him, " she sighed. In a moment of rash goodfeeling, or perhaps an exalted conception of duty, she had herselfproposed that Lindau should come every week and read German with Tom; andit had become a question first how they could get him to take pay for it, and then how they could get him to stop it. Mrs. March never ceased towonder at herself for having brought this about, for she had warned herhusband against making any engagement with Lindau which would bring himregularly to the house: the Germans stuck so, and were so unscrupulouslydependent. Yet, the deed being done, she would not ignore the duty ofhospitality, and it was always she who made the old man stay to theirSunday-evening tea when he lingered near the hour, reading Schiller andHeine and Uhland with the boy, in the clean shirt with which he observedthe day; Lindau's linen was not to be trusted during the week. She nowconcluded a season of mournful reflection by saying, "He will get youinto trouble, somehow, Basil. " "Well, I don't know how, exactly. I regard Lindau as a politicaleconomist of an unusual type; but I shall not let him array me againstthe constituted authorities. Short of that, I think I am safe. " "Well, be careful, Basil; be careful. You know you are so rash. " "I suppose I may continue to pity him? He is such a poor, lonely oldfellow. Are you really sorry he's come into our lives, my dear?" "No, no; not that. I feel as you do about it; but I wish I felt easierabout him--sure, that is, that we're not doing wrong to let him keep ontalking so. " "I suspect we couldn't help it, " March returned, lightly. "It's one ofwhat Lindau calls his 'brincibles' to say what he thinks. " II. The Marches had no longer the gross appetite for novelty which urgesyouth to a surfeit of strange scenes, experiences, ideas; and makestravel, with all its annoyances and fatigues, an inexhaustible delight. But there is no doubt that the chief pleasure of their life in New Yorkwas from its quality of foreignness: the flavor of olives, which, oncetasted, can never be forgotten. The olives may not be of the firstexcellence; they may be a little stale, and small and poor, to beginwith, but they are still olives, and the fond palate craves them. Thesort which grew in New York, on lower Sixth Avenue and in the region ofJefferson Market and on the soft exposures south of Washington Square, were none the less acceptable because they were of the commonest Italianvariety. The Marches spent a good deal of time and money in a grocery of thatnationality, where they found all the patriotic comestibles and potables, and renewed their faded Italian with the friendly family in charge. Italian table d'hotes formed the adventure of the week, on the day whenMrs. March let her domestics go out, and went herself to dine abroad withher husband and children; and they became adepts in the restaurants wherethey were served, and which they varied almost from dinner to dinner. Theperfect decorum of these places, and their immunity from offence in any, emboldened the Marches to experiment in Spanish restaurants, where redpepper and beans insisted in every dinner, and where once they chancedupon a night of 'olla podrida', with such appeals to March's memory of aboyish ambition to taste the dish that he became poetic and then pensiveover its cabbage and carrots, peas and bacon. For a rare combination ofinternational motives they prized most the table d'hote of a French lady, who had taken a Spanish husband in a second marriage, and had a Cubannegro for her cook, with a cross-eyed Alsation for waiter, and a slimyoung South-American for cashier. March held that some thing of thecatholic character of these relations expressed itself in the generousand tolerant variety of the dinner, which was singularly abundant forfifty cents, without wine. At one very neat French place he got a dinnerat the same price with wine, but it was not so abundant; and Marchinquired in fruitless speculation why the table d'hote of the Italians, anotoriously frugal and abstemious people, should be usually more than youwanted at seventy-five cents and a dollar, and that of the French ratherless at half a dollar. He could not see that the frequenters were greatlydifferent at the different places; they were mostly Americans, of subduedmanners and conjecturably subdued fortunes, with here and there a tablefull of foreigners. There was no noise and not much smoking anywhere;March liked going to that neat French place because there Madame satenthroned and high behind a 'comptoir' at one side of the room, and everybody saluted her in going out. It was there that a gentle-looking youngcouple used to dine, in whom the Marches became effectlessly interested, because they thought they looked like that when they were young. The wifehad an aesthetic dress, and defined her pretty head by wearing herback-hair pulled up very tight under her bonnet; the husband had dreamyeyes set wide apart under a pure forehead. "They are artists, August, Ithink, " March suggested to the waiter, when he had vainly asked aboutthem. "Oh, hartis, cedenly, " August consented; but Heaven knows whetherthey were, or what they were: March never learned. This immunity from acquaintance, this touch-and go quality in their NewYork sojourn, this almost loss of individuality at times, after theintense identification of their Boston life, was a relief, though Mrs. March had her misgivings, and questioned whether it were not perhaps toorelaxing to the moral fibre. March refused to explore his conscience; heallowed that it might be so; but he said he liked now and then to feelhis personality in that state of solution. They went and sat a good dealin the softening evenings among the infants and dotards of Latinextraction in Washington Square, safe from all who ever knew them, andenjoyed the advancing season, which thickened the foliage of the treesand flattered out of sight the church warden's Gothic of the UniversityBuilding. The infants were sometimes cross, and cried in their wearymothers' or little sisters' arms; but they did not disturb the dotards, who slept, some with their heads fallen forward, and some with theirheads fallen back; March arbitrarily distinguished those with thedrooping faces as tipsy and ashamed to confront the public. The smallItalian children raced up and down the asphalt paths, playing Americangames of tag and hide and-whoop; larger boys passed ball, in training forpotential championships. The Marches sat and mused, or quarrelledfitfully about where they should spend the summer, like sparrows, he oncesaid, till the electric lights began to show distinctly among the leaves, and they looked round and found the infants and dotards gone and thebenches filled with lovers. That was the signal for the Marches to gohome. He said that the spectacle of so much courtship as the eye mighttake in there at a glance was not, perhaps, oppressive, but the thoughtthat at the same hour the same thing was going on all over the country, wherever two young fools could get together, was more than he could bear;he did not deny that it was natural, and, in a measureuthorized, buthe declared that it was hackneyed; and the fact that it must go onforever, as long as the race lasted, made him tired. At home, generally, they found that the children had not missed them, andwere perfectly safe. It was one of the advantages of a flat that theycould leave the children there whenever they liked without anxiety. Theyliked better staying there than wandering about in the evening with theirparents, whose excursions seemed to them somewhat aimless, and theirpleasures insipid. They studied, or read, or looked out of the window atthe street sights; and their mother always came back to them with a pangfor their lonesomeness. Bella knew some little girls in the house, but ina ceremonious way; Tom had formed no friendships among the boys at schoolsuch as he had left in Boston; as nearly as he could explain, the NewYork fellows carried canes at an age when they would have had them brokenfor them by the other boys at Boston; and they were both sissyish andfast. It was probably prejudice; he never could say exactly what theirdemerits were, and neither he nor Bella was apparently so homesick asthey pretended, though they answered inquirers, the one that New York wasa hole, and the other that it was horrid, and that all they lived for wasto get back to Boston. In the mean time they were thrown much upon eachother for society, which March said was well for both of them; he did notmind their cultivating a little gloom and the sense of a common wrong; itmade them better comrades, and it was providing them with amusingreminiscences for the future. They really enjoyed Bohemianizing in thatharmless way: though Tom had his doubts of its respectability; he wasvery punctilious about his sister, and went round from his own schoolevery day to fetch her home from hers. The whole family went to thetheatre a good deal, and enjoyed themselves together in their desultoryexplorations of the city. They lived near Greenwich Village, and March liked strolling through itsquaintness toward the waterside on a Sunday, when a hereditarySabbatarianism kept his wife at home; he made her observe that it evenkept her at home from church. He found a lingering quality of pureAmericanism in the region, and he said the very bells called to worshipin a nasal tone. He liked the streets of small brick houses, with hereand there one painted red, and the mortar lines picked out in white, andwith now and then a fine wooden portal of fluted pillars and a bowedtransom. The rear of the tenement-houses showed him the picturesquenessof clothes-lines fluttering far aloft, as in Florence; and the newapartment-houses, breaking the old sky-line with their towering stories, implied a life as alien to the American manner as anything in continentalEurope. In fact, foreign faces and foreign tongues prevailed in GreenwichVillage, but no longer German or even Irish tongues or faces. The eyesand earrings of Italians twinkled in and out of the alleyways andbasements, and they seemed to abound even in the streets, where longranks of trucks drawn up in Sunday rest along the curbstones suggestedthe presence of a race of sturdier strength than theirs. March liked theswarthy, strange visages; he found nothing menacing for the future inthem; for wickedness he had to satisfy himself as he could with thesneering, insolent, clean-shaven mug of some rare American of the b'hoytype, now almost as extinct in New York as the dodo or the volunteerfireman. When he had found his way, among the ash-barrels and the groupsof decently dressed church-goers, to the docks, he experienced asufficient excitement in the recent arrival of a French steamer, whosesheds were thronged with hacks and express-wagons, and in a tacit inquiryinto the emotions of the passengers, fresh from the cleanliness of Paris, and now driving up through the filth of those streets. Some of the streets were filthier than others; there was at least achoice; there were boxes and barrels of kitchen offal on all thesidewalks, but not everywhere manure-heaps, and in some places the stenchwas mixed with the more savory smell of cooking. One Sunday morning, before the winter was quite gone, the sight of the frozen refuse meltingin heaps, and particularly the loathsome edges of the rotting ice nearthe gutters, with the strata of waste-paper and straw litter, andegg-shells and orange peel, potato-skins and cigar-stumps, made himunhappy. He gave a whimsical shrug for the squalor of the neighboringhouses, and said to himself rather than the boy who was with him: "It'scurious, isn't it, how fond the poor people are of these unpleasantthoroughfares? You always find them living in the worst streets. " "The burden of all the wrong in the world comes on the poor, " said theboy. "Every sort of fraud and swindling hurts them the worst. The citywastes the money it's paid to clean the streets with, and the poor haveto suffer, for they can't afford to pay twice, like the rich. " March stopped short. "Hallo, Tom! Is that your wisdom?" "It's what Mr. Lindau says, " answered the boy, doggedly, as if notpleased to have his ideas mocked at, even if they were second-hand. "And you didn't tell him that the poor lived in dirty streets becausethey liked them, and were too lazy and worthless to have them cleaned?" "No; I didn't. " "I'm surprised. What do you think of Lindau, generally speaking, Tom?" "Well, sir, I don't like the way he talks about some things. I don'tsuppose this country is perfect, but I think it's about the best thereis, and it don't do any good to look at its drawbacks all the time. " "Sound, my son, " said March, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder andbeginning to walk on. "Well?" "Well, then, he says that it isn't the public frauds only that the poorhave to pay for, but they have to pay for all the vices of the rich; thatwhen a speculator fails, or a bank cashier defaults, or a firm suspends, or hard times come, it's the poor who have to give up necessaries wherethe rich give up luxuries. " "Well, well! And then?" "Well, then I think the crank comes in, in Mr. Lindau. He says there's noneed of failures or frauds or hard times. It's ridiculous. There alwayshave been and there always will be. But if you tell him that, it seems tomake him perfectly furious. " March repeated the substance of this talk to his wife. "I'm glad to knowthat Tom can see through such ravings. He has lots of good common sense. " It was the afternoon of the same Sunday, and they were sauntering upFifth Avenue, and admiring the wide old double houses at the lower end;at one corner they got a distinct pleasure out of the gnarled elbows thata pollarded wistaria leaned upon the top of a garden wall--for itsconvenience in looking into the street, he said. The line of thesecomfortable dwellings, once so fashionable, was continually broken by thefacades of shops; and March professed himself vulgarized by a want ofstyle in the people they met in their walk to Twenty-third Street. "Take me somewhere to meet my fellow-exclusives, Isabel, " he demanded. "Ipine for the society of my peers. " He hailed a passing omnibus, and made his wife get on the roof with him. "Think of our doing such a thing in Boston!" she sighed, with a littleshiver of satisfaction in her immunity from recognition and comment. "You wouldn't be afraid to do it in London or Paris?" "No; we should be strangers there--just as we are in New York. I wonderhow long one could be a stranger here. " "Oh, indefinitely, in our way of living. The place is really vast, somuch larger than it used to seem, and so heterogeneous. " When they got down very far up-town, and began to walk back by MadisonAvenue, they found themselves in a different population from that theydwelt among; not heterogeneous at all; very homogeneous, and almostpurely American; the only qualification was American Hebrew. Such awell-dressed, well-satisfied, well-fed looking crowd poured down thebroad sidewalks before the handsome, stupid houses that March couldeasily pretend he had got among his fellow-plutocrats at last. Still heexpressed his doubts whether this Sunday afternoon parade, which seemedto be a thing of custom, represented the best form among the young peopleof that region; he wished he knew; he blamed himself for becoming of afastidious conjecture; he could not deny the fashion and the richness andthe indigeneity of the spectacle; the promenaders looked New-Yorky; theywere the sort of people whom you would know for New-Yorkerselsewhere, --so well equipped and so perfectly kept at all points. Theirsilk hats shone, and their boots; their frocks had the right distensionbehind, and their bonnets perfect poise and distinction. The Marches talked of these and other facts of their appearance, andcuriously questioned whether this were the best that a great materialcivilization could come to; it looked a little dull. The men's faces wereshrewd and alert, and yet they looked dull; the women's were pretty andknowing, and yet dull. It was, probably, the holiday expression of thevast, prosperous commercial class, with unlimited money, and no idealsthat money could not realize; fashion and comfort were all that theydesired to compass, and the culture that furnishes showily, thatdecorates and that tells; the culture, say, of plays and operas, ratherthan books. Perhaps the observers did the promenaders injustice; they might not havebeen as common-minded as they looked. "But, " March said, "I understandnow why the poor people don't come up here and live in this clean, handsome, respectable quarter of the town; they would be bored to death. On the whole, I think I should prefer Mott Street myself. " In other walks the Marches tried to find some of the streets they hadwandered through the first day of their wedding journey in New York, solong ago. They could not make sure of them; but once they ran down to theBattery, and easily made sure of that, though not in its old aspect. Theyrecalled the hot morning, when they sauntered over the trodden weed thatcovered the sickly grass-plots there, and sentimentalized the swelteringpaupers who had crept out of the squalid tenements about for a breath ofair after a sleepless night. Now the paupers were gone, and where the oldmansions that had fallen to their use once stood, there towered aloft andabroad those heights and masses of many-storied brick-work for whicharchitecture has yet no proper form and aesthetics no name. The trees andshrubs, all in their young spring green, blew briskly over the guardedturf in the south wind that came up over the water; and in the well-pavedalleys the ghosts of eighteenth-century fashion might have met each otherin their old haunts, and exchanged stately congratulations upon itsvastly bettered condition, and perhaps puzzled a little over the colossallady on Bedloe's Island, with her lifted torch, and still more over thecurving tracks and chalet-stations of the Elevated road. It is an outlookof unrivalled beauty across the bay, that smokes and flashes with the innumerable stacks and sails of commerce, to the hills beyond, where themoving forest of masts halts at the shore, and roots itself in the grovesof the many villaged uplands. The Marches paid the charming prospects awilling duty, and rejoiced in it as generously as if it had been theirown. Perhaps it was, they decided. He said people owned more things incommon than they were apt to think; and they drew the consolations ofproprietorship from the excellent management of Castle Garden, which theypenetrated for a moment's glimpse of the huge rotunda, where theimmigrants first set foot on our continent. It warmed their hearts, soeasily moved to any cheap sympathy, to see the friendly care the nationtook of these humble guests; they found it even pathetic to hear theproper authority calling out the names of such as had kin or acquaintancewaiting there to meet them. No one appeared troubled or anxious; theofficials had a conscientious civility; the government seemed to managetheir welcome as well as a private company or corporation could havedone. In fact, it was after the simple strangers had left the governmentcare that March feared their woes might begin; and he would have likedthe government to follow each of them to his home, wherever he meant tofix it within our borders. He made note of the looks of the licensedrunners and touters waiting for the immigrants outside the governmentpremises; he intended to work them up into a dramatic effect in somesketch, but they remained mere material in his memorandum-book, togetherwith some quaint old houses on the Sixth Avenue road, which he hadnoticed on the way down. On the way up, these were superseded in hisregard by some hip-roof structures on the Ninth Avenue, which he thoughtmore Dutch-looking. The perspectives of the cross-streets toward theriver were very lively, with their turmoil of trucks and cars and cartsand hacks and foot passengers, ending in the chimneys and masts ofshipping, and final gleams of dancing water. At a very noisy corner, clangorous with some sort of ironworking, he made his wife enjoy with himthe quiet sarcasm of an inn that called itself the Home-like Hotel, andhe speculated at fantastic length on the gentle associations of one whoshould have passed his youth under its roof. III. First and last, the Marches did a good deal of travel on the Elevatedroads, which, he said, gave you such glimpses of material aspects in thecity as some violent invasion of others' lives might afford in humannature. Once, when the impulse of adventure was very strong in them, theywent quite the length of the West Side lines, and saw the city pushingits way by irregular advances into the country. Some spaces, probablyheld by the owners for that rise in value which the industry of othersprovidentially gives to the land of the wise and good, it left vacantcomparatively far down the road, and built up others at remoter points. It was a world of lofty apartment houses beyond the Park, springing up inisolated blocks, with stretches of invaded rusticity between, and hereand there an old country-seat standing dusty in its budding vines withthe ground before it in rocky upheaval for city foundations. But whereverit went or wherever it paused, New York gave its peculiar stamp; and theadventurers were amused to find One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Streetinchoately like Twenty-third Street and Fourteenth Street in its shopsand shoppers. The butchers' shops and milliners' shops on the avenuemight as well have been at Tenth as at One Hundredth Street. The adventurers were not often so adventurous. They recognized that intheir willingness to let their fancy range for them, and to letspeculation do the work of inquiry, they were no longer young. Theirpoint of view was singularly unchanged, and their impressions of New Yorkremained the same that they had been fifteen years before: huge, noisy, ugly, kindly, it seemed to them now as it seemed then. The maindifference was that they saw it more now as a life, and then they onlyregarded it as a spectacle; and March could not release himself from asense of complicity with it, no matter what whimsical, or alien, orcritical attitude he took. A sense of the striving and the sufferingdeeply possessed him; and this grew the more intense as he gained someknowledge of the forces at work-forces of pity, of destruction, ofperdition, of salvation. He wandered about on Sunday not only through thestreets, but into this tabernacle and that, as the spirit moved him, andlistened to those who dealt with Christianity as a system of economics aswell as a religion. He could not get his wife to go with him; shelistened to his report of what he heard, and trembled; it all seemedfantastic and menacing. She lamented the literary peace, the intellectualrefinement of the life they had left behind them; and he owned it wasvery pretty, but he said it was not life--it was death-in-life. She likedto hear him talk in that strain of virtuous self-denunciation, but sheasked him, "Which of your prophets are you going to follow?" and heanswered: "All-all! And a fresh one every Sunday. " And so they got theirlaugh out of it at last, but with some sadness at heart, and with a dimconsciousness that they had got their laugh out of too many things inlife. What really occupied and compassed his activities, in spite of hisstrenuous reveries of work beyond it, was his editorship. On its socialside it had not fulfilled all the expectations which Fulkerson's radiantsketch of its duties and relations had caused him to form of it. Most ofthe contributions came from a distance; even the articles written in NewYork reached him through the post, and so far from having his valuabletime, as they called it, consumed in interviews with his collaborators, he rarely saw any of them. The boy on the stairs, who was to fence himfrom importunate visitors, led a life of luxurious disoccupation, andwhistled almost uninterruptedly. When any one came, March found himselfembarrassed and a little anxious. The visitors were usually young men, terribly respectful, but cherishing, as he imagined, ideals and opinionschasmally different from his; and he felt in their presence somethinglike an anachronism, something like a fraud. He tried to freshen up hissympathies on them, to get at what they were really thinking and feeling, and it was some time before he could understand that they were not reallythinking and feeling anything of their own concerning their art, but werenecessarily, in their quality of young, inexperienced men, mereacceptants of older men's thoughts and feelings, whether they weretremendously conservative, as some were, or tremendously progressive, asothers were. Certain of them called themselves realists, certainromanticists; but none of them seemed to know what realism was, or whatromanticism; they apparently supposed the difference a difference ofmaterial. March had imagined himself taking home to lunch or dinner theaspirants for editorial favor whom he liked, whether he liked their workor not; but this was not an easy matter. Those who were at allinteresting seemed to have engagements and preoccupations; after two orthree experiments with the bashfuller sort--those who had come up to themetropolis with manuscripts in their hands, in the good old literarytradition--he wondered whether he was otherwise like them when he wasyoung like them. He could not flatter himself that he was not; and yet hehad a hope that the world had grown worse since his time, which his wifeencouraged: Mrs. March was not eager to pursue the hospitalities which she had atfirst imagined essential to the literary prosperity of 'Every OtherWeek'; her family sufficed her; she would willingly have seen no one outof it but the strangers at the weekly table-d'hote dinner, or theaudiences at the theatres. March's devotion to his work made himreluctant to delegate it to any one; and as the summer advanced, and thequestion of where to go grew more vexed, he showed a man's basewillingness to shirk it for himself by not going anywhere. He asked hiswife why she did not go somewhere with the children, and he joined her ina search for non-malarial regions on the map when she consented toentertain this notion. But when it came to the point she would not go; heoffered to go with her then, and then she would not let him. She said sheknew he would be anxious about his work; he protested that he could takeit with him to any distance within a few hours, but she would not bepersuaded. She would rather he stayed; the effect would be better withMr. Fulkerson; they could make excursions, and they could all get off aweek or two to the seashore near Boston--the only real seashore--inAugust. The excursions were practically confined to a single day at ConeyIsland; and once they got as far as Boston on the way to the seashorenear Boston; that is, Mrs. March and the children went; an editorialexigency kept March at the last moment. The Boston streets seemed veryqueer and clean and empty to the children, and the buildings little; inthe horse-cars the Boston faces seemed to arraign their mother with adown-drawn severity that made her feel very guilty. She knew that thiswas merely the Puritan mask, the cast of a dead civilization, whichpeople of very amiable and tolerant minds were doomed to wear, and shesighed to think that less than a year of the heterogeneous gayety of NewYork should have made her afraid of it. The sky seemed cold and gray; theeast wind, which she had always thought so delicious in summer, cut herto the heart. She took her children up to the South End, and in thepretty square where they used to live they stood before their alienatedhome, and looked up at its close-shuttered windows. The tenants must havebeen away, but Mrs. March had not the courage to ring and make sure, though she had always promised herself that she would go all over thehouse when she came back, and see how they had used it; she could pretenda desire for something she wished to take away. She knew she could notbear it now; and the children did not seem eager. She did not push on tothe seaside; it would be forlorn there without their father; she was gladto go back to him in the immense, friendly homelessness of New York, andhold him answerable for the change, in her heart or her mind, which madeits shapeless tumult a refuge and a consolation. She found that he had been giving the cook a holiday, and dining abouthither and thither with Fulkerson. Once he had dined with him at thewidow's (as they always called Mrs. Leighton), and then had spent theevening there, and smoked with Fulkerson and Colonel Woodburn on thegallery overlooking the back yard. They were all spending the summer inNew York. The widow had got so good an offer for her house at St. Barnabyfor the summer that she could not refuse it; and the Woodburns found NewYork a watering-place of exemplary coolness after the burning Augusts andSeptembers of Charlottesburg. "You can stand it well enough in our climate, sir, " the colonelexplained, "till you come to the September heat, that sometimes runs wellinto October; and then you begin to lose your temper, sir. It's neverquite so hot as it is in New York at times, but it's hot longer, sir. " Healleged, as if something of the sort were necessary, the example of afamous Southwestern editor who spent all his summers in a New York hotelas the most luxurious retreat on the continent, consulting the weatherforecasts, and running off on torrid days to the mountains or the sea, and then hurrying back at the promise of cooler weather. The colonel hadnot found it necessary to do this yet; and he had been reluctant to leavetown, where he was working up a branch of the inquiry which had so longoccupied him, in the libraries, and studying the great problem of laborand poverty as it continually presented itself to him in the streets. Hesaid that he talked with all sorts of people, whom he found monstrouslycivil, if you took them in the right way; and he went everywhere in thecity without fear and apparently without danger. March could not find outthat he had ridden his hobby into the homes of want which he visited, orhad proposed their enslavement to the inmates as a short and simplesolution of the great question of their lives; he appeared to havecontented himself with the collection of facts for the persuasion of thecultivated classes. It seemed to March a confirmation of this impressionthat the colonel should address his deductions from these facts sounsparingly to him; he listened with a respectful patience, for whichFulkerson afterward personally thanked him. Fulkerson said it was notoften the colonel found such a good listener; generally nobody listenedbut Mrs. Leighton, who thought his ideas were shocking, but honored himfor holding them so conscientiously. Fulkerson was glad that March, asthe literary department, had treated the old gentleman so well, becausethere was an open feud between him and the art department. Beaton wasoutrageously rude, Fulkerson must say; though as for that, the oldcolonel seemed quite able to take care of himself, and gave Beaton anunqualified contempt in return for his unmannerliness. The worst of itwas, it distressed the old lady so; she admired Beaton as much as sherespected the colonel, and she admired Beaton, Fulkerson thought, rathermore than Miss Leighton did; he asked March if he had noticed themtogether. March had noticed them, but without any very definiteimpression except that Beaton seemed to give the whole evening to thegirl. Afterward he recollected that he had fancied her rather harassed byhis devotion, and it was this point that he wished to present for hiswife's opinion. "Girls often put on that air, " she said. "It's one of their ways ofteasing. But then, if the man was really very much in love, and she wasonly enough in love to be uncertain of herself, she might very well seemtroubled. It would be a very serious question. Girls often don't knowwhat to do in such a case. " "Yes, " said March, "I've often been glad that I was not a girl, on thataccount. But I guess that on general principles Beaton is not more inlove than she is. I couldn't imagine that young man being more in lovewith anybody, unless it was himself. He might be more in love withhimself than any one else was. " "Well, he doesn't interest me a great deal, and I can't say Miss Leightondoes, either. I think she can take care of herself. She has herself verywell in hand. " "Why so censorious?" pleaded March. "I don't defend her for havingherself in hand; but is it a fault?" Mrs. March did not say. She asked, "And how does Mr. Fulkerson's affairget on?" "His affair? You really think it is one? Well, I've fancied so myself, and I've had an idea of some time asking him; Fulkerson strikes one astruly domesticable, conjugable at heart; but I've waited for him tospeak. " "I should think so. " "Yes. He's never opened on the subject yet. Do you know, I thinkFulkerson has his moments of delicacy. " "Moments! He's all delicacy in regard to women. " "Well, perhaps so. There is nothing in them to rouse his advertisinginstincts. " IV The Dryfoos family stayed in town till August. Then the father went Westagain to look after his interests; and Mrs. Mandel took the two girls toone of the great hotels in Saratoga. Fulkerson said that he had neverseen anything like Saratoga for fashion, and Mrs. Mandel remembered thatin her own young ladyhood this was so for at least some weeks of theyear. She had been too far withdrawn from fashion since her marriage toknow whether it was still so or not. In this, as in so many othermatters, the Dryfoos family helplessly relied upon Fulkerson, in spite ofDryfoos's angry determination that he should not run the family, and inspite of Christine's doubt of his omniscience; if he did not knoweverything, she was aware that he knew more than herself. She thoughtthat they had a right to have him go with them to Saratoga, or at leastgo up and engage their rooms beforehand; but Fulkerson did not offer todo either, and she did not quite see her way to commanding his services. The young ladies took what Mela called splendid dresses with them; theysat in the park of tall, slim trees which the hotel's quadrangleenclosed, and listened to the music in the morning, or on the long piazzain the afternoon and looked at the driving in the street, or in the vastparlors by night, where all the other ladies were, and they felt thatthey were of the best there. But they knew nobody, and Mrs. Mandel was soparticular that Mela was prevented from continuing the acquaintance evenof the few young men who danced with her at the Saturday-night hops. Theydrove about, but they went to places without knowing why, except that thecarriage man took them, and they had all the privileges of a proudexclusivism without desiring them. Once a motherly matron seemed toperceive their isolation, and made overtures to them, but then desisted, as if repelled by Christine's suspicion, or by Mela's too instant andhilarious good-fellowship, which expressed itself in hoarse laughter andin a flow of talk full of topical and syntactical freedom. From time totime she offered to bet Christine that if Mr. Fulkerson was only therethey would have a good time; she wondered what they were all doing in NewYork, where she wished herself; she rallied her sister about Beaton, andasked her why she did not write and tell him to come up there. Mela knew that Christine had expected Beaton to follow them. Some banterhad passed between them to this effect; he said he should take them in onhis way home to Syracuse. Christine would not have hesitated to write tohim and remind him of his promise; but she had learned to distrust herliterature with Beaton since he had laughed at the spelling in a scrap ofwriting which dropped out of her music-book one night. She believed thathe would not have laughed if he had known it was hers; but she felt thatshe could hide better the deficiencies which were not committed to paper;she could manage with him in talking; she was too ignorant of herignorance to recognize the mistakes she made then. Through her ownpassion she perceived that she had some kind of fascination for him; shewas graceful, and she thought it must be that; she did not understandthat there was a kind of beauty in her small, irregular features thatpiqued and haunted his artistic sense, and a look in her black eyesbeyond her intelligence and intention. Once he sketched her as they sattogether, and flattered the portrait without getting what he wanted init; he said he must try her some time in color; and he said things which, when she made Mela repeat them, could only mean that he admired her morethan anybody else. He came fitfully, but he came often, and she restedcontent in a girl's indefiniteness concerning the affair; if her thoughtwent beyond lovemaking to marriage, she believed that she could have himif she wanted him. Her father's money counted in this; she divined thatBeaton was poor; but that made no difference; she would have enough forboth; the money would have counted as an irresistible attraction if therehad been no other. The affair had gone on in spite of the sidelong looks of restless dislikewith which Dryfoos regarded it; but now when Beaton did not come toSaratoga it necessarily dropped, and Christine's content with it. Shebore the trial as long as she could; she used pride and resentmentagainst it; but at last she could not bear it, and with Mela's help shewrote a letter, bantering Beaton on his stay in New York, and playfullyboasting of Saratoga. It seemed to them both that it was a very brightletter, and would be sure to bring him; they would have had no scrupleabout sending it but for the doubt they had whether they had got some ofthe words right. Mela offered to bet Christine anything she dared thatthey were right, and she said, Send it anyway; it was no difference ifthey were wrong. But Christine could not endure to think of that laugh ofBeaton's, and there remained only Mrs. Mandel as authority on thespelling. Christine dreaded her authority on other points, but Mela saidshe knew she would not interfere, and she undertook to get round her. Mrs. Mandel pronounced the spelling bad, and the taste worse; she forbadethem to send the letter; and Mela failed to get round her, though shethreatened, if Mrs. Mandel would not tell her how to spell the wrongwords, that she would send the letter as it was; then Mrs. Mandel saidthat if Mr. Beaton appeared in Saratoga she would instantly take themboth home. When Mela reported this result, Christine accused her ofhaving mismanaged the whole business; she quarrelled with her, and theycalled each other names. Christine declared that she would not stay inSaratoga, and that if Mrs. Mandel did not go back to New York with hershe should go alone. They returned the first week in September; but bythat time Beaton had gone to see his people in Syracuse. Conrad Dryfoos remained at home with his mother after his father wentWest. He had already taken such a vacation as he had been willing toallow himself, and had spent it on a charity farm near the city, wherethe fathers with whom he worked among the poor on the East Side in thewinter had sent some of their wards for the summer. It was not possibleto keep his recreation a secret at the office, and Fulkerson found apleasure in figuring the jolly time Brother Conrad must have teachingfarm work among those paupers and potential reprobates. He inventeddetails of his experience among them, and March could not always helpjoining in the laugh at Conrad's humorless helplessness under Fulkerson'sburlesque denunciation of a summer outing spent in such dissipation. They had time for a great deal of joking at the office during the seasonof leisure which penetrates in August to the very heart of business, andthey all got on terms of greater intimacy if not greater friendlinessthan before. Fulkerson had not had so long to do with the advertisingside of human nature without developing a vein of cynicism, of no greatdepth, perhaps, but broad, and underlying his whole point of view; hemade light of Beaton's solemnity, as he made light of Conrad's humanity. The art editor, with abundant sarcasm, had no more humor than thepublisher, and was an easy prey in the manager's hands; but when he hadbeen led on by Fulkerson's flatteries to make some betrayal of egotism, he brooded over it till he had thought how to revenge himself inelaborate insult. For Beaton's talent Fulkerson never lost hisadmiration; but his joke was to encourage him to give himself airs ofbeing the sole source of the magazine's prosperity. No bait of this sortwas too obvious for Beaton to swallow; he could be caught with it asoften as Fulkerson chose; though he was ordinarily suspicious as to themotives of people in saying things. With March he got on no better thanat first. He seemed to be lying in wait for some encroachment of theliterary department on the art department, and he met it now and thenwith anticipative reprisal. After these rebuffs, the editor delivered himover to the manager, who could turn Beaton's contrary-mindedness toaccount by asking the reverse of what he really wanted done. This waswhat Fulkerson said; the fact was that he did get on with Beaton andMarch contented himself with musing upon the contradictions of acharacter at once so vain and so offensive, so fickle and so sullen, soconscious and so simple. After the first jarring contact with Dryfoos, the editor ceased to feelthe disagreeable fact of the old man's mastery of the financialsituation. None of the chances which might have made it painful occurred;the control of the whole affair remained in Fulkerson's hands; before hewent West again, Dryfoos had ceased to come about the office, as if, having once worn off the novelty of the sense of owning a literaryperiodical, he was no longer interested in it. Yet it was a relief, somehow, when he left town, which he did not dowithout coming to take a formal leave of the editor at his office. Heseemed willing to leave March with a better impression than he hadhitherto troubled himself to make; he even said some civil things aboutthe magazine, as if its success pleased him; and he spoke openly to Marchof his hope that his son would finally become interested in it to theexclusion of the hopes and purposes which divided them. It seemed toMarch that in the old man's warped and toughened heart he perceived adisappointed love for his son greater than for his other children; butthis might have been fancy. Lindau came in with some copy while Dryfooswas there, and March introduced them. When Lindau went out, Marchexplained to Dryfoos that he had lost his hand in the war; and he toldhim something of Lindau's career as he had known it. Dryfoos appearedgreatly pleased that 'Every Other Week' was giving Lindau work. He saidthat he had helped to enlist a good many fellows for the war, and hadpaid money to fill up the Moffitt County quota under the later calls fortroops. He had never been an Abolitionist, but he had joined theAnti-Nebraska party in '55, and he had voted for Fremont and for everyRepublican President since then. At his own house March saw more of Lindau than of any other contributor, but the old man seemed to think that he must transact all his businesswith March at his place of business. The transaction had somepeculiarities which perhaps made this necessary. Lindau always expectedto receive his money when he brought his copy, as an acknowledgment ofthe immediate right of the laborer to his hire; and he would not take itin a check because he did not approve of banks, and regarded the wholesystem of banking as the capitalistic manipulation of the people's money. He would receive his pay only from March's hand, because he wished to beunderstood as working for him, and honestly earning money honestlyearned; and sometimes March inwardly winced a little at letting the oldman share the increase of capital won by such speculation as Dryfoos's, but he shook off the feeling. As the summer advanced, and the artists andclasses that employed Lindau as a model left town one after another, hegave largely of his increasing leisure to the people in the office of'Every Other Week. ' It was pleasant for March to see the respect withwhich Conrad Dryfoos always used him, for the sake of his hurt and hisgray beard. There was something delicate and fine in it, and there wasnothing unkindly on Fulkerson's part in the hostilities which usuallypassed between himself and Lindau. Fulkerson bore himself reverently attimes, too, but it was not in him to keep that up, especially when Lindauappeared with more beer aboard than, as Fulkerson said, he could manageshipshape. On these occasions Fulkerson always tried to start him on thetheme of the unduly rich; he made himself the champion of monopolies, andenjoyed the invectives which Lindau heaped upon him as a slave ofcapital; he said that it did him good. One day, with the usual show of writhing under Lindau's scorn, he said, "Well, I understand that although you despise me now, Lindau--" "I ton't desbise you, " the old man broke in, his nostrils swelling andhis eyes flaming with excitement, "I bity you. " "Well, it seems to come to the same thing in the end, " said Fulkerson. "What I understand is that you pity me now as the slave of capital, butyou would pity me a great deal more if I was the master of it. " "How you mean?" "If I was rich. " "That would tebendt, " said Lindau, trying to control himself. "If you hatinheritedt your money, you might pe innocent; but if you hat mate it, efery man that resbectedt himself would haf to ask how you mate it, andif you hat mate moch, he would know--" "Hold on; hold on, now, Lindau! Ain't that rather un-American doctrine?We're all brought up, ain't we, to honor the man that made his money, andlook down--or try to look down; sometimes it's difficult on the fellowthat his father left it to?" The old man rose and struck his breast. "On Amerigan!" he roared, and, ashe went on, his accent grew more and more uncertain. "What iss Amerigan?Dere iss no Ameriga any more! You start here free and brafe, and youglaim for efery man de right to life, liperty, and de bursuit ofhabbiness. And where haf you entedt? No man that vorks vith his handtsamong you has the liperty to bursue his habbiness. He iss the slafe ofsome richer man, some gompany, some gorporation, dat crindt him down tothe least he can lif on, and that rops him of the marchin of his earningsthat he knight pe habby on. Oh, you Amerigans, you haf cot it down goldt, as you say! You ton't puy foters; you puy lechislatures and goncressmen;you puy gourts; you puy gombetitors; you pay infentors not to infent; youatfertise, and the gounting-room sees dat de etitorial-room toesn'ttink. " "Yes, we've got a little arrangement of that sort with March here, " saidFulkerson. "Oh, I am sawry, " said the old man, contritely, "I meant noting bersonal. I ton't tink we are all cuilty or gorrubt, and efen among the rich thereare goodt men. But gabidal"--his passion rose again--"where you findgabidal, millions of money that a man hass cot togeder in fife, ten, twenty years, you findt the smell of tears and ploodt! Dat iss what Isay. And you cot to loog oudt for yourself when you meet a rich manwhether you meet an honest man. " "Well, " said Fulkerson, "I wish I was a subject of suspicion with you, Lindau. By-the-way, " he added, "I understand that you think capital wasat the bottom of the veto of that pension of yours. " "What bension? What feto?"--The old man flamed up again. "No bension ofmine was efer fetoedt. I renounce my bension, begause I would sgorn todake money from a gofernment that I ton't peliefe in any more. Where youhear that story?" "Well, I don't know, " said Fulkerson, rather embarrassed. "It's commontalk. " "It's a gommon lie, then! When the time gome dat dis iss a free gountryagain, then I dake a bension again for my woundts; but I would sdarfebefore I dake a bension now from a rebublic dat iss bought oap bymonobolies, and ron by drusts and gompines, and railroadts andt oilgompanies. " "Look out, Lindau, " said Fulkerson. "You bite yourself mit dat dog someday. " But when the old man, with a ferocious gesture of renunciation, whirled out of the place, he added: "I guess I went a little too far thattime. I touched him on a sore place; I didn't mean to; I heard some talkabout his pension being vetoed from Miss Leighton. " He addressed theseexculpations to March's grave face, and to the pitying deprecation in theeyes of Conrad Dryfoos, whom Lindau's roaring wrath had summoned to thedoor. "But I'll make it all right with him the next time he comes. Ididn't know he was loaded, or I wouldn't have monkeyed with him. " "Lindau does himself injustice when he gets to talking in that way, " saidMarch. "I hate to hear him. He's as good an American as any of us; andit's only because he has too high an ideal of us--" "Oh, go on! Rub it in--rub it in!" cried Fulkerson, clutching his hair insuffering, which was not altogether burlesque. "How did I know he hadrenounced his 'bension'? Why didn't you tell me?" "I didn't know it myself. I only knew that he had none, and I didn't ask, for I had a notion that it might be a painful subject. " Fulkerson tried to turn it off lightly. "Well, he's a noble old fellow;pity he drinks. " March would not smile, and Fulkerson broke out: "Dog onit! I'll make it up to the old fool the next time he comes. I don't likethat dynamite talk of his; but any man that's given his hand to thecountry has got mine in his grip for good. Why, March! You don't supposeI wanted to hurt his feelings, do you?" "Why, of course not, Fulkerson. " But they could not get away from a certain ruefulness for that time, andin the evening Fulkerson came round to March's to say that he had gotLindau's address from Conrad, and had looked him up at his lodgings. "Well, there isn't so much bric-a-brac there, quite, as Mrs. Green leftyou; but I've made it all right with Lindau, as far as I'm concerned. Itold him I didn't know when I spoke that way, and I honored him forsticking to his 'brinciples'; I don't believe in his 'brincibles'; and wewept on each other's necks--at least, he did. Dogged if he didn't kiss mebefore I knew what he was up to. He said I was his chenerous gongfriendt, and he begged my barton if he had said anything to wound me. Itell you it was an affecting scene, March; and rats enough round in thatold barracks where he lives to fit out a first-class case of deliriumtremens. What does he stay there for? He's not obliged to?" Lindau's reasons, as March repeated them, affected Fulkerson asdeliciously comical; but after that he confined his pleasantries at theoffice to Beaton and Conrad Dryfoos, or, as he said, he spent the rest ofthe summer in keeping Lindau smoothed up. It is doubtful if Lindau altogether liked this as well. Perhaps he missedthe occasions Fulkerson used to give him of bursting out against themillionaires; and he could not well go on denouncing as the slafe ofgabidal a man who had behaved to him as Fulkerson had done, thoughFulkerson's servile relations to capital had been in nowise changed byhis nople gonduct. Their relations continued to wear this irksome character of mutualforbearance; and when Dryfoos returned in October and Fulkerson revivedthe question of that dinner in celebration of the success of 'Every OtherWeek, ' he carried his complaisance to an extreme that alarmed March forthe consequences. V. "You see, " Fulkerson explained, "I find that the old man has got an ideaof his own about that banquet, and I guess there's some sense in it. Hewants to have a preliminary little dinner, where we can talk the thing upfirst-half a dozen of us; and he wants to give us the dinner at hishouse. Well, that's no harm. I don't believe the old man ever gave adinner, and he'd like to show off a little; there's a good deal of humannature in the old man, after all. He thought of you, of course, andColonel Woodburn, and Beaton, and me at the foot of the table; andConrad; and I suggested Kendricks: he's such a nice little chap; and theold man himself brought up the idea of Lindau. He said you told himsomething about him, and he asked why couldn't we have him, too; and Ijumped at it. " "Have Lindau to dinner?" asked March. "Certainly; why not? Father Dryfoos has a notion of paying the old fellowa compliment for what he done for the country. There won't be any troubleabout it. You can sit alongside of him, and cut up his meat for him, andhelp him to things--" "Yes, but it won't do, Fulkerson! I don't believe Lindau ever had on adress-coat in his life, and I don't believe his 'brincibles' would lethim wear one. " "Well, neither had Dryfoos, for the matter of that. He's ashigh-principled as old Pan-Electric himself, when it comes to adress-coat, " said Fulkerson. "We're all going to go in business dress;the old man stipulated for that. "It isn't the dress-coat alone, " March resumed. "Lindau and Dryfooswouldn't get on. You know they're opposite poles in everything. Youmustn't do it. Dryfoos will be sure to say something to outrage Lindau's'brincibles, ' and there'll be an explosion. It's all well enough forDryfoos to feel grateful to Lindau, and his wish to honor him does himcredit; but to have Lindau to dinner isn't the way. At the best, the oldfellow would be very unhappy in such a house; he would have a badconscience; and I should be sorry to have him feel that he'd beenrecreant to his 'brincibles'; they're about all he's got, and whatever wethink of them, we're bound to respect his fidelity to them. " March warmedtoward Lindau in taking this view of him. "I should feel ashamed if Ididn't protest against his being put in a false position. After all, he'smy old friend, and I shouldn't like to have him do himself injustice ifhe is a crank. " "Of course, " said Fulkerson, with some trouble in his face. "I appreciateyour feeling. But there ain't any danger, " he added, buoyantly. "Anyhow, you spoke too late, as the Irishman said to the chicken when he swallowedhim in a fresh egg. I've asked Lindau, and he's accepted with blayzure;that's what he says. " March made no other comment than a shrug. "You'll see, " Fulkerson continued, "it 'll go off all right. I'll engageto make it, and I won't hold anybody else responsible. " In the course of his married life March had learned not to censure theirretrievable; but this was just what his wife had not learned; and shepoured out so much astonishment at what Fulkerson had done, and so muchdisapproval, that March began to palliate the situation a little. "After all, it isn't a question of life and death; and, if it were, Idon't see how it's to be helped now. " "Oh, it's not to be helped now. But I am surprised at Mr. Fulkerson. " "Well, Fulkerson has his moments of being merely human, too. " Mrs. March would not deign a direct defence of her favorite. "Well, I'mglad there are not to be ladies. " "I don't know. Dryfoos thought of having ladies, but it seems yourinfallible Fulkerson overruled him. Their presence might have kept Lindauand our host in bounds. " It had become part of the Marches' conjugal joke for him to pretend thatshe could allow nothing wrong in Fulkerson, and he now laughed with amocking air of having expected it when she said: "Well, then, if Mr. Fulkerson says he will see that it all comes out right, I suppose youmust trust his tact. I wouldn't trust yours, Basil. The first wrong stepwas taken when Mr. Lindau was asked to help on the magazine. " "Well, it was your infallible Fulkerson that took the step, or at leastsuggested it. I'm happy to say I had totally forgotten my early friend. " Mrs. March was daunted and silenced for a moment. Then she said: "Oh, pshaw! You know well enough he did it to please you. " "I'm very glad he didn't do it to please you, Isabel, " said her husband, with affected seriousness. "Though perhaps he did. " He began to look at the humorous aspect of the affair, which it certainlyhad, and to comment on the singular incongruities which 'Every OtherWeek' was destined to involve at every moment of its career. "I wonder ifI'm mistaken in supposing that no other periodical was ever like it. Perhaps all periodicals are like it. But I don't believe there's anotherpublication in New York that could bring together, in honor of itself, afraternity and equality crank like poor old Lindau, and a belatedsociological crank like Woodburn, and a truculent speculator like oldDryfoos, and a humanitarian dreamer like young Dryfoos, and asentimentalist like me, and a nondescript like Beaton, and a pureadvertising essence like Fulkerson, and a society spirit like Kendricks. If we could only allow one another to talk uninterruptedly all the time, the dinner would be the greatest success in the world, and we should comehome full of the highest mutual respect. But I suspect we can't managethat--even your infallible Fulkerson couldn't work it--and I'm afraidthat there'll be some listening that 'll spoil the pleasure of the time. " March was so well pleased with this view of the case that he suggestedthe idea involved to Fulkerson. Fulkerson was too good a fellow not tolaugh at another man's joke, but he laughed a little ruefully, and heseemed worn with more than one kind of care in the interval that passedbetween the present time and the night of the dinner. Dryfoos necessarily depended upon him for advice concerning the scope andnature of the dinner, but he received the advice suspiciously, andcontested points of obvious propriety with pertinacious stupidity. Fulkerson said that when it came to the point he would rather have hadthe thing, as he called it, at Delmonico's or some other restaurant; butwhen he found that Dryfoos's pride was bound up in having it at his ownhouse, he gave way to him. Dryfoos also wanted his woman-cook to preparethe dinner, but Fulkerson persuaded him that this would not do; he musthave it from a caterer. Then Dryfoos wanted his maids to wait at table, but Fulkerson convinced him that this would be incongruous at a man'sdinner. It was decided that the dinner should be sent in fromFrescobaldi's, and Dryfoos went with Fulkerson to discuss it with thecaterer. He insisted upon having everything explained to him, and thereason for having it, and not something else in its place; and he treatedFulkerson and Frescobaldi as if they were in league to impose upon him. There were moments when Fulkerson saw the varnish of professionalpoliteness cracking on the Neapolitan's volcanic surface, and caught aglimpse of the lava fires of the cook's nature beneath; he trembled forDryfoos, who was walking rough-shod over him in the security of anAmerican who had known how to make his money, and must know how to spendit; but he got him safely away at last, and gave Frescobaldi a wink ofsympathy for his shrug of exhaustion as they turned to leave him. It was at first a relief and then an anxiety with Fulkerson that Lindaudid not come about after accepting the invitation to dinner, until heappeared at Dryfoos's house, prompt to the hour. There was, to be sure, nothing to bring him; but Fulkerson was uneasily aware that Dryfoosexpected to meet him at the office, and perhaps receive some verbalacknowledgment of the honor done him. Dryfoos, he could see, thought hewas doing all his invited guests a favor; and while he stood in a certainawe of them as people of much greater social experience than himself, regarded them with a kind of contempt, as people who were going to have abetter dinner at his house than they could ever afford to have at theirown. He had finally not spared expense upon it; after pushing Frescobaldito the point of eruption with his misgivings and suspicions at the firstinterview, he had gone to him a second time alone, and told him not tolet the money stand between him and anything he would like to do. In theabsence of Frescobaldi's fellow-conspirator he restored himself in thecaterer's esteem by adding whatever he suggested; and Fulkerson, aftertrembling for the old man's niggardliness, was now afraid of a fantasticprofusion in the feast. Dryfoos had reduced the scale of the banquet asregarded the number of guests, but a confusing remembrance of whatFulkerson had wished to do remained with him in part, and up to the dayof the dinner he dropped in at Frescobaldi's and ordered more dishes andmore of them. He impressed the Italian as an American original of a novelkind; and when he asked Fulkerson how Dryfoos had made his money, andlearned that it was primarily in natural gas, he made note of some of hiseccentric tastes as peculiarities that were to be caressed in any futurenatural-gas millionaire who might fall into his hands. He did notbegrudge the time he had to give in explaining to Dryfoos the relation ofthe different wines to the different dishes; Dryfoos was apt tosubstitute a costlier wine where he could for a cheaper one, and he gaveFrescobaldi carte blanche for the decoration of the table with pieces ofartistic confectionery. Among these the caterer designed one for asurprise to his patron and a delicate recognition of the source of hiswealth, which he found Dryfoos very willing to talk about, when heintimated that he knew what it was. Dryfoos left it to Fulkerson to invite the guests, and he found readyacceptance of his politeness from Kendricks, who rightly regarded thedinner as a part of the 'Every Other Week' business, and was too sweetand kind-hearted, anyway, not to seem very glad to come. March was amatter of course; but in Colonel Woodburn, Fulkerson encountered areluctance which embarrassed him the more because he was conscious ofhaving, for motives of his own, rather strained a point in suggesting thecolonel to Dryfoos as a fit subject for invitation. There had been onlyone of the colonel's articles printed as yet, and though it had made asensation in its way, and started the talk about that number, still itdid not fairly constitute him a member of the staff, or even entitle himto recognition as a regular contributor. Fulkerson felt so sure ofpleasing him with Dryfoos's message that he delivered it in full familycouncil at the widow's. His daughter received it with all the enthusiasmthat Fulkerson had hoped for, but the colonel said, stiffly, "I have notthe pleasure of knowing Mr. Dryfoos. " Miss Woodburn appeared ready tofall upon him at this, but controlled herself, as if aware that filialauthority had its limits, and pressed her lips together without sayinganything. "Yes, I know, " Fulkerson admitted. "But it isn't a usual case. Mr. Dryfoos don't go in much for the conventionalities; I reckon he don'tknow much about 'em, come to boil it down; and he hoped"--here Fulkersonfelt the necessity of inventing a little--"that you would excuse any wantof ceremony; it's to be such an informal affair, anyway; we're all goingin business dress, and there ain't going to be any ladies. He'd have comehimself to ask you, but he's a kind of a bashful old fellow. It's allright, Colonel Woodburn. " "I take it that it is, sir, " said the colonel, courteously, but withunabated state, "coming from you. But in these matters we have no rightto burden our friends with our decisions. " "Of course, of course, " said Fulkerson, feeling that he had beendelicately told to mind his own business. "I understand, " the colonel went on, "the relation that Mr. Dryfoos bearsto the periodical in which you have done me the honor to print my papah, but this is a question of passing the bounds of a purely businessconnection, and of eating the salt of a man whom you do not definitelyknow to be a gentleman. " "Mah goodness!" his daughter broke in. "If you bah your own salt with hismoney--" "It is supposed that I earn his money before I buy my salt with it, "returned her father, severely. "And in these times, when money is got inheaps, through the natural decay of our nefarious commercialism, itbehooves a gentleman to be scrupulous that the hospitality offered him isnot the profusion of a thief with his booty. I don't say that Mr. Dryfoos's good-fortune is not honest. I simply say that I know nothingabout it, and that I should prefer to know something before I sat down athis board. " "You're all right, colonel, " said Fulkerson, "and so is Mr. Dryfoos. Igive you my word that there are no flies on his personal integrity, ifthat's what you mean. He's hard, and he'd push an advantage, but I don'tbelieve he would take an unfair one. He's speculated and made money everytime, but I never heard of his wrecking a railroad or belonging to anyswindling company or any grinding monopoly. He does chance it in stocks, but he's always played on the square, if you call stocks gambling. " "May I, think this over till morning?" asked the colonel. "Oh, certainly, certainly, " said Fulkerson, eagerly. "I don't know asthere's any hurry. " Miss Woodburn found a chance to murmur to him before he went: "He'llcome. And Ah'm so much oblahged, Mr. Fulkerson. Ah jost know it's allyou' doing, and it will give papa a chance to toak to some new people, and get away from us evahlastin' women for once. " "I don't see why any one should want to do that, " said Fulkerson, withgrateful gallantry. "But I'll be dogged, " he said to March when he toldhim about this odd experience, "if I ever expected to find ColonelWoodburn on old Lindau's ground. He did come round handsomely thismorning at breakfast and apologized for taking time to think theinvitation over before he accepted. 'You understand, ' he says, 'that ifit had been to the table of some friend not so prosperous as Mr. Dryfoos--your friend Mr. March, for instance--it would have beensufficient to know that he was your friend. But in these days it is aduty that a gentleman owes himself to consider whether he wishes to knowa rich man or not. The chances of making money disreputably are so greatthat the chances are against a man who has made money if he's made agreat deal of it. '" March listened with a face of ironical insinuation. "That was very good;and he seems to have had a good deal of confidence in your patience andin your sense of his importance to the occasion--" "No, no, " Fulkerson protested, "there's none of that kind of thing aboutthe colonel. I told him to take time to think it over; he's thesimplest-hearted old fellow in the world. " "I should say so. After all, he didn't give any reason he had foraccepting. But perhaps the young lady had the reason. " "Pshaw, March!" said Fulkerson. VI. So far as the Dryfoos family was concerned, the dinner might as well havebeen given at Frescobaldi's rooms. None of the ladies appeared. Mrs. Dryfoos was glad to escape to her own chamber, where she sat before anautumnal fire, shaking her head and talking to herself at times, with theforeboding of evil which old women like her make part of their religion. The girls stood just out of sight at the head of the stairs, and disputedwhich guest it was at each arrival; Mrs. Mandel had gone to her room towrite letters, after beseeching them not to stand there. When Kendrickscame, Christine gave Mela a little pinch, equivalent to a little mockingshriek; for, on the ground of his long talk with Mela at Mrs. Horn's, inthe absence of any other admirer, they based a superstition of hisinterest in her; when Beaton came, Mela returned the pinch, butawkwardly, so that it hurt, and then Christine involuntarily struck her. Frescobaldi's men were in possession everywhere they had turned the cookout of her kitchen and the waitress out of her pantry; the reluctantIrishman at the door was supplemented by a vivid Italian, who spokeFrench with the guests, and said, "Bien, Monsieur, " and "toute suite, "and "Merci!" to all, as he took their hats and coats, and effused ahospitality that needed no language but the gleam of his eyes and teethand the play of his eloquent hands. From his professional dress-coat, lustrous with the grease spotted on it at former dinners and parties, they passed to the frocks of the elder and younger Dryfoos in thedrawing-room, which assumed informality for the affair, but did not puttheir wearers wholly at their ease. The father's coat was of blackbroadcloth, and he wore it unbuttoned; the skirts were long, and thesleeves came down to his knuckles; he shook hands with his guests, andthe same dryness seemed to be in his palm and throat, as he huskily askedeach to take a chair. Conrad's coat was of modern texture and cut, andwas buttoned about him as if it concealed a bad conscience within itslapels; he met March with his entreating smile, and he seemed no morecapable of coping with the situation than his father. They both waitedfor Fulkerson, who went about and did his best to keep life in the partyduring the half-hour that passed before they sat down at dinner. Beatonstood gloomily aloof, as if waiting to be approached on the right basisbefore yielding an inch of his ground; Colonel Woodburn, awaiting themoment when he could sally out on his hobby, kept himself intrenchedwithin the dignity of a gentleman, and examined askance the figure of oldLindau as he stared about the room, with his fine head up, and his emptysleeve dangling over his wrist. March felt obliged to him for wearing anew coat in the midst of that hostile luxury, and he was glad to seeDryfoos make up to him and begin to talk with him, as if he wished toshow him particular respect, though it might have been because he wasless afraid of him than of the others. He heard Lindau saying, "Boat, thename is Choarman?" and Dryfoos beginning to explain his PennsylvaniaDutch origin, and he suffered himself, with a sigh of relief, to fallinto talk with Kendricks, who was always pleasant; he was willing to talkabout something besides himself, and had no opinions that he was notready to hold in abeyance for the time being out of kindness to others. In that group of impassioned individualities, March felt him a refuge andcomfort--with his harmless dilettante intention of some day writing anovel, and his belief that he was meantime collecting material for it. Fulkerson, while breaking the ice for the whole company, was mainlyengaged in keeping Colonel Woodburn thawed out. He took Kendricks awayfrom March and presented him to the colonel as a person who, likehimself, was looking into social conditions; he put one hand onKendricks's shoulder, and one on the colonel's, and made some flatteringjoke, apparently at the expense of the young fellow, and then left them. March heard Kendricks protest in vain, and the colonel say, gravely: "Ido not wonder, sir, that these things interest you. They constitute aproblem which society must solve or which will dissolve society, " and heknew from that formula, which the colonel had, once used with him, thathe was laying out a road for the exhibition of the hobby's paces later. Fulkerson came back to March, who had turned toward Conrad Dryfoos, andsaid, "If we don't get this thing going pretty soon, it 'll be the deathof me, " and just then Frescobaldi's butler came in and announced toDryfoos that dinner was served. The old man looked toward Fulkerson witha troubled glance, as if he did not know what to do; he made a gesture totouch Lindau's elbow. Fulkerson called out, "Here's Colonel Woodburn, Mr. Dryfoos, " as if Dryfoos were looking for him; and he set the example ofwhat he was to do by taking Lindau's arm himself. "Mr. Lindau is going tosit at my end of the table, alongside of March. Stand not upon the orderof your going, gentlemen, but fall in at once. " He contrived to getDryfoos and the colonel before him, and he let March follow withKendricks. Conrad came last with Beaton, who had been turning over themusic at the piano, and chafing inwardly at the whole affair. At thetable Colonel Woodburn was placed on Dryfoos's right, and March on hisleft. March sat on Fulkerson's right, with Lindau next him; and the youngmen occupied the other seats. "Put you next to March, Mr. Lindau, " said Fulkerson, "so you can begin toput Apollinaris in his champagne-glass at the right moment; you know hislittle weakness of old; sorry to say it's grown on him. " March laughed with kindly acquiescence in Fulkerson's wish to start thegayety, and Lindau patted him on the shoulder. "I know hiss veakness. Ifhe liges a class of vine, it iss begause his loaf ingludes efen hissenemy, as Shakespeare galled it. " "Ah, but Shakespeare couldn't have been thinking of champagne, " saidKendricks. "I suppose, sir, " Colonel Woodburn interposed, with lofty courtesy, "champagne could hardly have been known in his day. " "I suppose not, colonel, " returned the younger man, deferentially. "Heseemed to think that sack and sugar might be a fault; but he didn'tmention champagne. " "Perhaps he felt there was no question about that, " suggested Beaton, whothen felt that he had not done himself justice in the sally. "I wonder just when champagne did come in, " said March. "I know when it ought to come in, " said Fulkerson. "Before the soup!" They all laughed, and gave themselves the air of drinking champagne outof tumblers every day, as men like to do. Dryfoos listened uneasily; hedid not quite understand the allusions, though he knew what Shakespearewas, well enough; Conrad's face expressed a gentle deprecation of jokingon such a subject, but he said nothing. The talk ran on briskly through the dinner. The young men tossed the ballback and forth; they made some wild shots, but they kept it going, andthey laughed when they were hit. The wine loosed Colonel Woodburn'stongue; he became very companionable with the young fellows; with thefeeling that a literary dinner ought to have a didactic scope, he praisedScott and Addison as the only authors fit to form the minds of gentlemen. Kendricks agreed with him, but wished to add the name of Flaubert as amaster of style. "Style, you know, " he added, "is the man. " "Very true, sir; you are quite right, sir, " the colonel assented; hewondered who Flaubert was. Beaton praised Baudelaire and Maupassant; he said these were the masters. He recited some lurid verses from Baudelaire; Lindau pronounced them adisgrace to human nature, and gave a passage from Victor Hugo on LouisNapoleon, with his heavy German accent, and then he quoted Schiller. "Ach, boat that is a peaudifool! Not zo?" he demanded of March. "Yes, beautiful; but, of course, you know I think there's nobody likeHeine!" Lindau threw back his great old head and laughed, showing a want of teethunder his mustache. He put his hand on March's back. "This poy--he was apoy den--wars so gracy to pekin reading Heine that he gommence with thetictionary bevore he knows any Grammar, and ve bick it out vort by vorttogeder. " "He was a pretty cay poy in those days, heigh, Lindau?" asked Fulkerson, burlesquing the old man's accent, with an impudent wink that made Lindauhimself laugh. "But in the dark ages, I mean, there in Indianapolis. Justhow long ago did you old codgers meet there, anyway?" Fulkerson saw therestiveness in Dryfoos's eye at the purely literary course the talk hadtaken; he had intended it to lead up that way to business, to 'EveryOther Week;' but he saw that it was leaving Dryfoos too far out, and hewished to get it on the personal ground, where everybody is at home. "Ledt me zee, " mused Lindau. "Wass it in fifty-nine or zixty, Passil? Idtwass a year or dwo pefore the war proke oudt, anyway. " "Those were exciting times, " said Dryfoos, making his first entry intothe general talk. "I went down to Indianapolis with the first companyfrom our place, and I saw the red-shirts pouring in everywhere. They hada song, "Oh, never mind the weather, but git over double trouble, For we're bound for the land of Canaan. " The fellows locked arms and went singin' it up and down four or fiveabreast in the moonlight; crowded everybody' else off the sidewalk. " "I remember, I remember, " said Lindau, nodding his head slowly up anddown. "A coodt many off them nefer gome pack from that landt of Ganaan, Mr. Dryfoos?" "You're right, Mr. Lindau. But I reckon it was worth it--the countrywe've got now. Here, young man!" He caught the arm of the waiter who wasgoing round with the champagne bottle. "Fill up Mr. Lindau's glass, there. I want to drink the health of those old times with him. Here's toyour empty sleeve, Mr. Lindau. God bless it! No offence to you, ColonelWoodburn, " said Dryfoos, turning to him before he drank. "Not at all, sir, not at all, " said the colonel. "I will drink with you, if you will permit me. " "We'll all drink--standing!" cried Fulkerson. "Help March to get up, somebody! Fill high the bowl with Samian Apollinaris for Coonrod! Now, then, hurrah for Lindau!" They cheered, and hammered on the table with the butts of theirknife-handles. Lindau remained seated. The tears came into his eyes; hesaid, "I thank you, chendlemen, " and hiccoughed. "I'd 'a' went into the war myself, " said Dryfoos, "but I was raisin' afamily of young children, and I didn't see how I could leave my farm. ButI helped to fill up the quota at every call, and when the volunteeringstopped I went round with the subscription paper myself; and we offeredas good bounties as any in the State. My substitute was killed in one ofthe last skirmishes--in fact, after Lee's surrender--and I've took careof his family, more or less, ever since. " "By-the-way, March, " said Fulkerson, "what sort of an idea would it be tohave a good war story--might be a serial--in the magazine? The war hasnever fully panned out in fiction yet. It was used a good deal just afterit was over, and then it was dropped. I think it's time to take it upagain. I believe it would be a card. " It was running in March's mind that Dryfoos had an old rankling shame inhis heart for not having gone into the war, and that he had often madethat explanation of his course without having ever been satisfied withit. He felt sorry for him; the fact seemed pathetic; it suggested adormant nobleness in the man. Beaton was saying to Fulkerson: "You might get a series of sketches bysubstitutes; the substitutes haven't been much heard from in the warliterature. How would 'The Autobiography of a Substitute' do? You mightfollow him up to the moment he was killed in the other man's place, andinquire whether he had any right to the feelings of a hero when he wasonly hired in the place of one. Might call it 'The Career of a DeputyHero. '" "I fancy, " said March, "that there was a great deal of mixed motive inthe men who went into the war as well as in those who kept out of it. Wecanonized all that died or suffered in it, but some of them must havebeen self-seeking and low-minded, like men in other vocations. " He foundhimself saying this in Dryfoos's behalf; the old man looked at himgratefully at first, he thought, and then suspiciously. Lindau turned his head toward him and said: "You are righdt, Passil; youare righdt. I haf zeen on the fieldt of pattle the voarst eggsipitions ofhuman paseness--chelousy, fanity, ecodistic bridte. I haf zeen men in theface off death itself gofferned by motifes as low as--as pusinessmotifes. " "Well, " said Fulkerson, "it would be a grand thing for 'Every Other Week'if we could get some of those ideas worked up into a series. It wouldmake a lot of talk. " Colonel Woodburn ignored him in saying, "I think, Major Lindau--" "High brifate; prefet gorporal, " the old man interrupted, in rejection ofthe title. Hendricks laughed and said, with a glance of appreciation at Lindau, "Brevet corporal is good. " Colonel Woodburn frowned a little, and passed over the joke. "I think Mr. Lindau is right. Such exhibitions were common to both sides, though ifyou gentlemen will pardon me for saying so, I think they were lessfrequent on ours. We were fighting more immediately for existence. Wewere fewer than you were, and we knew it; we felt more intensely that ifeach were not for all, then none was for any. " The colonel's words made their impression. Dryfoos said, with authority, "That is so. " "Colonel Woodburn, " Fulkerson called out, "if you'll work up those ideasinto a short paper--say, three thousand words--I'll engage to make Marchtake it. " The colonel went on without replying: "But Mr. Lindau is right incharacterizing some of the motives that led men to the cannon's mouth asno higher than business motives, and his comparison is the most forciblethat he could have used. I was very much struck by it. " The hobby was out, the colonel was in the saddle with so firm a seat thatno effort sufficed to dislodge him. The dinner went on from course tocourse with barbaric profusion, and from time to time Fulkerson tried tobring the talk back to 'Every Other Week. ' But perhaps because that wasonly the ostensible and not the real object of the dinner, which was tobring a number of men together under Dryfoos's roof, and make them thewitnesses of his splendor, make them feel the power of his wealth, Fulkerson's attempts failed. The colonel showed how commercialism was thepoison at the heart of our national life; how we began as a simple, agricultural people, who had fled to these shores with the instinct, divinely implanted, of building a state such as the sun never shone uponbefore; how we had conquered the wilderness and the savage; how we hadflung off, in our struggle with the mother-country, the trammels oftradition and precedent, and had settled down, a free nation, to thepractice of the arts of peace; how the spirit of commercialism had stoleninsidiously upon us, and the infernal impulse of competition hadembroiled us in a perpetual warfare of interests, developing the worstpassions of our nature, and teaching us to trick and betray and destroyone another in the strife for money, till now that impulse had exhausteditself, and we found competition gone and the whole economic problem inthe hands of monopolies--the Standard Oil Company, the Sugar Trust, theRubber Trust, and what not. And now what was the next thing? Affairscould not remain as they were; it was impossible; and what was the nextthing? The company listened for the main part silently. Dryfoos tried to graspthe idea of commercialism as the colonel seemed to hold it; he conceivedof it as something like the dry-goods business on a vast scale, and heknew he had never been in that. He did not like to hear competitioncalled infernal; he had always supposed it was something sacred; but heapproved of what Colonel Woodburn said of the Standard Oil Company; itwas all true; the Standard Oil has squeezed Dryfoos once, and made himsell it a lot of oil-wells by putting down the price of oil so low inthat region that he lost money on every barrel he pumped. All the rest listened silently, except Lindau; at every point the colonelmade against the present condition of things he said more and morefiercely, "You are righdt, you are righdt. " His eyes glowed, his handplayed with his knife-hilt. When the colonel demanded, "And what is thenext thing?" he threw himself forward, and repeated: "Yes, sir! What isthe next thing?" "Natural gas, by thunder!" shouted Fulkerson. One of the waiters had profited by Lindau's posture to lean over him andput down in the middle of the table a structure in white sugar. Itexpressed Frescobaldi's conception of a derrick, and a touch of naturehad been added in the flame of brandy, which burned luridly up from asmall pit in the centre of the base, and represented the gas incombustion as it issued from the ground. Fulkerson burst into a roar oflaughter with the words that recognized Frescobaldi's personal tribute toDryfoos. Everybody rose and peered over at the thing, while he explainedthe work of sinking a gas-well, as he had already explained it toFrescobaldi. In the midst of his lecture he caught sight of the catererhimself, where he stood in the pantry doorway, smiling with an artist'sanxiety for the effect of his masterpiece. "Come in, come in, Frescobaldi! We want to congratulate you, " Fulkersoncalled to him. "Here, gentlemen! Here's Frescobaldi's health. " They all drank; and Frescobaldi, smiling brilliantly and rubbing hishands as he bowed right and left, permitted himself to say to Dryfoos:"You are please; no? You like?" "First-rate, first-rate!" said the old man; but when the Italian hadbowed himself out and his guests had sunk into their seats again, he saiddryly to Fulkerson, "I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well, orthe derrick wouldn't look quite so nice and clean. " "Yes, " Fulkerson answered, "and that ain't quite the style--that littlewiggly-waggly blue flame--that the gas acts when you touch off a goodvein of it. This might do for weak gas"; and he went on to explain: "They call it weak gas when they tap it two or three hundred feet down;and anybody can sink a well in his back yard and get enough gas to lightand heat his house. I remember one fellow that had it blazing up from apipe through a flower-bed, just like a jet of water from a fountain. My, my, my! You fel--you gentlemen--ought to go out and see that country, allof you. Wish we could torpedo this well, Mr. Dryfoos, and let 'em see howit works! Mind that one you torpedoed for me? You know, when they sink awell, " he went on to the company, "they can't always most generallysometimes tell whether they're goin' to get gas or oil or salt water. Why, when they first began to bore for salt water out on the Kanawha, back about the beginning of the century, they used to get gas now andthen, and then they considered it a failure; they called a gas-well ablower, and give it up in disgust; the time wasn't ripe for gas yet. Nowthey bore away sometimes till they get half-way to China, and don't seemto strike anything worth speaking of. Then they put a dynamite torpedodown in the well and explode it. They have a little bar of iron that theycall a Go-devil, and they just drop it down on the business end of thetorpedo, and then stand from under, if you please! You hear a noise, andin about half a minute you begin to see one, and it begins to rain oiland mud and salt water and rocks and pitchforks and adoptive citizens;and when it clears up the derrick's painted--got a coat on that 'll wearin any climate. That's what our honored host meant. Generally get somevisiting lady, when there's one round, to drop the Go-devil. But that daywe had to put up with Conrad here. They offered to let me drop it, but Ideclined. I told 'em I hadn't much practice with Go-devils in thenewspaper syndicate business, and I wasn't very well myself, anyway. Astonishing, " Fulkerson continued, with the air of relieving hisexplanation by an anecdote, "how reckless they get using dynamite whenthey're torpedoing wells. We stopped at one place where a fellow washandling the cartridges pretty freely, and Mr. Dryfoos happened tocaution him a little, and that ass came up with one of 'em in his hand, and began to pound it on the buggy-wheel to show us how safe it was. Iturned green, I was so scared; but Mr. Dryfoos kept his color, and kindof coaxed the fellow till he quit. You could see he was the fool kind, that if you tried to stop him he'd keep on hammering that cartridge, justto show that it wouldn't explode, till he blew you into Kingdom Come. When we got him to go away, Mr. Dryfoos drove up to his foreman. 'PaySheney off, and discharge him on the spot, ' says he. 'He's too safe a manto have round; he knows too much about dynamite. ' I never saw anybody socool. " Dryfoos modestly dropped his head under Fulkerson's flattery and, withoutlifting it, turned his eyes toward Colonel Woodburn. "I had all sorts ofmen to deal with in developing my property out there, but I had verylittle trouble with them, generally speaking. " "Ah, ah! you foundt the laboring-man reasonable--dractable--tocile?"Lindau put in. "Yes, generally speaking, " Dryfoos answered. "They mostly knew which sideof their bread was buttered. I did have one little difficulty at onetime. It happened to be when Mr. Fulkerson was out there. Some of the mentried to form a union--" "No, no!" cried Fulkerson. "Let me tell that! I know you wouldn't doyourself justice, Mr. Dryfoos, and I want 'em to know how a strike can bemanaged, if you take it in time. You see, some of those fellows got anotion that there ought to be a union among the working-men to keep upwages, and dictate to the employers, and Mr. Dryfoos's foreman was theringleader in the business. They understood pretty well that as soon ashe found it out that foreman would walk the plank, and so they watchedout till they thought they had Mr. Dryfoos just where they wantedhim--everything on the keen jump, and every man worth his weight indiamonds--and then they came to him, and--told him to sign a promise tokeep that foreman to the end of the season, or till he was through withthe work on the Dryfoos and Hendry Addition, under penalty of having themall knock off. Mr. Dryfoos smelled a mouse, but he couldn't tell wherethe mouse was; he saw that they did have him, and he signed, of course. There wasn't anything really against the fellow, anyway; he was afirst-rate man, and he did his duty every time; only he'd got some ofthose ideas into his head, and they turned it. Mr. Dryfoos signed, andthen he laid low. " March saw Lindau listening with a mounting intensity, and heard himmurmur in German, "Shameful! shameful!" Fulkerson went on: "Well, it wasn't long before they began to show theirhand, but Mr. Dryfoos kept dark. He agreed to everything; there never wassuch an obliging capitalist before; there wasn't a thing they asked ofhim that he didn't do, with the greatest of pleasure, and all went merryas a marriage-bell till one morning a whole gang of fresh men marchedinto the Dryfoos and Hendry Addition, under the escort of a dozenPinkertons with repeating rifles at half-cock, and about fifty fellowsfound themselves out of a job. You never saw such a mad set. " "Pretty neat, " said Kendricks, who looked at the affair purely from anaesthetic point of view. "Such a coup as that would tell tremendously ina play. " "That was vile treason, " said Lindau in German to March. "He's aninfamous traitor! I cannot stay here. I must go. " He struggled to rise, while March held him by the coat, and implored himunder his voice: "For Heaven's sake, don't, Lindau! You owe it toyourself not to make a scene, if you come here. " Something in it allaffected him comically; he could not help laughing. The others were discussing the matter, and seemed not to have noticedLindau, who controlled himself and sighed: "You are right. I must havepatience. " Beaton was saying to Dryfoos, "Pity your Pinkertons couldn't have giventhem a few shots before they left. " "No, that wasn't necessary, " said Dryfoos. "I succeeded in breaking upthe union. I entered into an agreement with other parties not to employany man who would not swear that he was non-union. If they had attemptedviolence, of course they could have been shot. But there was no fear ofthat. Those fellows can always be depended upon to cut one another'sthroats in the long run. " "But sometimes, " said Colonel Woodburn, who had been watching throughout. For a chance to mount his hobby again, "they make a good deal of troublefirst. How was it in the great railroad strike of '77?" "Well, I guess there was a little trouble that time, colonel, " saidFulkerson. "But the men that undertake to override the laws and paralyzethe industries of a country like this generally get left in the end. " "Yes, sir, generally; and up to a certain point, always. But it's theexceptional that is apt to happen, as well as the unexpected. And alittle reflection will convince any gentleman here that there is always adanger of the exceptional in your system. The fact is, those fellows havethe game in their own hands already. A strike of the whole body of theBrotherhood of Engineers alone would starve out the entire Atlanticseaboard in a week; labor insurrection could make head at a dozen givenpoints, and your government couldn't move a man over the roads withoutthe help of the engineers. " "That is so, " said Kendrick, struck by the dramatic character of theconjecture. He imagined a fiction dealing with the situation as somethingalready accomplished. "Why don't some fellow do the Battle of Dorking act with that thing?"said Fulkerson. "It would be a card. " "Exactly what I was thinking, Mr. Fulkerson, " said Kendricks. Fulkerson laughed. "Telepathy--clear case of mind transference. Bettersee March, here, about it. I'd like to have it in 'Every Other Week. ' Itwould make talk. " "Perhaps it might set your people to thinking as well as talking, " saidthe colonel. "Well, sir, " said Dryfoos, setting his lips so tightly together that hisimperial stuck straight outward, "if I had my way, there wouldn't be anyBrotherhood of Engineers, nor any other kind of labor union in the wholecountry. " "What!" shouted Lindau. "You would sobbress the unionss of thevoarking-men?" "Yes, I would. " "And what would you do with the unionss of the gabidalists--thedrosts--and gompines, and boolss? Would you dake the righdt from one andgif it to the odder?" "Yes, sir, I would, " said Dryfoos, with a wicked look at him. Lindau was about to roar back at him with some furious protest, but Marchput his hand on his shoulder imploringly, and Lindau turned to him to sayin German: "But it is infamous--infamous! What kind of man is this? Whois he? He has the heart of a tyrant. " Colonel Woodburn cut in. "You couldn't do that, Mr. Dryfoos, under yoursystem. And if you attempted it, with your conspiracy laws, and that kindof thing, it might bring the climax sooner than you expected. Yourcommercialized society has built its house on the sands. It will have togo. But I should be sorry if it went before its time. " "You are righdt, sir, " said Lindau. "It would be a bity. I hobe it willlast till it feelss its rottenness, like Herodt. Boat, when its hourgomes, when it trope to bieces with the veight off its owngorrubtion--what then?" "It's not to be supposed that a system of things like this can drop topieces of its own accord, like the old Republic of Venice, " said thecolonel. "But when the last vestige of commercial society is gone, thenwe can begin to build anew; and we shall build upon the central idea, not of the false liberty you now worship, but of responsibility--responsibility. The enlightened, the moneyed, the cultivated class shallbe responsible to the central authority--emperor, duke, president; thename does not matter--for the national expense and the national defence, and it shall be responsible to the working-classes of all kinds for homesand lands and implements, and the opportunity to labor at all times. "The working-classes shall be responsible to the leisure class for thesupport of its dignity in peace, and shall be subject to its command inwar. The rich shall warrant the poor against planless production and theruin that now follows, against danger from without and famine fromwithin, and the poor--" "No, no, no!" shouted Lindau. "The State shall do that--the whole beople. The men who voark shall have and shall eat; and the men that will notvoark, they shall sdarfe. But no man need sdarfe. He will go to theState, and the State will see that he haf voark, and that he haf foodt. All the roadts and mills and mines and landts shall be the beople's andbe ron by the beople for the beople. There shall be no rich and no boor;and there shall not be war any more, for what bower wouldt dare to addacka beople bound togeder in a broderhood like that?" "Lion and lamb act, " said Fulkerson, not well knowing, after so muchchampagne, what words he was using. No one noticed him, and Colonel Woodburn said coldly to Lindau, "You aretalking paternalism, sir. " "And you are dalking feutalism!" retorted the old man. The colonel did not reply. A silence ensued, which no one broke tillFulkerson said: "Well, now, look here. If either one of these millenniumswas brought about, by force of arms, or otherwise, what would become of'Every Other Week'? Who would want March for an editor? How would Beatonsell his pictures? Who would print Mr. Kendricks's little society versesand short stories? What would become of Conrad and his good works?" Thosenamed grinned in support of Fulkerson's diversion, but Lindau and thecolonel did not speak; Dryfoos looked down at his plate, frowning. A waiter came round with cigars, and Fulkerson took one. "Ah, " he said, as he bit off the end, and leaned over to the emblematic masterpiece, where the brandy was still feebly flickering, "I wonder if there's enoughnatural gas left to light my cigar. " His effort put the flame out andknocked the derrick over; it broke in fragments on the table. Fulkersoncackled over the ruin: "I wonder if all Moffitt will look that way afterlabor and capital have fought it out together. I hope this ain't ominousof anything personal, Dryfoos?" "I'll take the risk of it, " said the old man, harshly. He rose mechanically, and Fulkerson said to Frescobaldi's man, "You canbring us the coffee in the library. " The talk did not recover itself there. Landau would not sit down; herefused coffee, and dismissed himself with a haughty bow to the company;Colonel Woodburn shook hands elaborately all round, when he had smokedhis cigar; the others followed him. It seemed to March that his owngood-night from Dryfoos was dry and cold. VII. March met Fulkerson on the steps of the office next morning, when hearrived rather later than his wont. Fulkerson did not show any of thesigns of suffering from the last night's pleasure which paintedthemselves in March's face. He flirted his hand gayly in the air, andsaid, "How's your poor head?" and broke into a knowing laugh. "You don'tseem to have got up with the lark this morning. The old gentleman is inthere with Conrad, as bright as a biscuit; he's beat you down. Well, wedid have a good time, didn't we? And old Lindau and the colonel, didn'tthey have a good time? I don't suppose they ever had a chance before togive their theories quite so much air. Oh, my! how they did ride over us!I'm just going down to see Beaton about the cover of the Christmasnumber. I think we ought to try it in three or four colors, if we aregoing to observe the day at all. " He was off before March could pullhimself together to ask what Dryfoos wanted at the office at that hour ofthe morning; he always came in the afternoon on his way up-town. The fact of his presence renewed the sinister misgivings with which Marchhad parted from him the night before, but Fulkerson's cheerfulness seemedto gainsay them; afterward March did not know whether to attribute thismood to the slipperiness that he was aware of at times in Fulkerson, orto a cynical amusement he might have felt at leaving him alone to the oldman, who mounted to his room shortly after March had reached it. A sort of dumb anger showed itself in his face; his jaw was set so firmlythat he did not seem able at once to open it. He asked, without theceremonies of greeting, "What does that one-armed Dutchman do on thisbook?" "What does he do?" March echoed, as people are apt to do with a questionthat is mandatory and offensive. "Yes, sir, what does he do? Does he write for it?" "I suppose you mean Lindau, " said March. He saw no reason for refusing toanswer Dryfoos's demand, and he decided to ignore its terms. "No, hedoesn't write for it in the usual way. He translates for it; he examinesthe foreign magazines, and draws my attention to anything he thinks ofinterest. But I told you about this before--" "I know what you told me, well enough. And I know what he is. He is ared-mouthed labor agitator. He's one of those foreigners that come herefrom places where they've never had a decent meal's victuals in theirlives, and as soon as they get their stomachs full, they begin to maketrouble between our people and their hands. There's where the strikescome from, and the unions and the secret societies. They come here andbreak our Sabbath, and teach their atheism. They ought to be hung! Let'em go back if they don't like it over here. They want to ruin thecountry. " March could not help smiling a little at the words, which came fastenough now in the hoarse staccato of Dryfoos's passion. "I don't knowwhom you mean by they, generally speaking; but I had the impression thatpoor old Lindau had once done his best to save the country. I don'talways like his way of talking, but I know that he is one of the truestand kindest souls in the world; and he is no more an atheist than I am. He is my friend, and I can't allow him to be misunderstood. " "I don't care what he is, " Dryfoos broke out, "I won't have him round. Hecan't have any more work from this office. I want you to stop it. I wantyou to turn him off. " March was standing at his desk, as he had risen to receive Dryfoos whenhe entered. He now sat down, and began to open his letters. "Do you hear?" the old man roared at him. "I want you to turn him off. " "Excuse me, Mr. Dryfoos, " said March, succeeding in an effort to speakcalmly, "I don't know you, in such a matter as this. My arrangements aseditor of 'Every Other Week' were made with Mr. Fulkerson. I have alwayslistened to any suggestion he has had to make. " "I don't care for Mr. Fulkerson? He has nothing to do with it, " retortedDryfoos; but he seemed a little daunted by March's position. "He has everything to do with it as far as I am concerned, " Marchanswered, with a steadiness that he did not feel. "I know that you arethe owner of the periodical, but I can't receive any suggestion from you, for the reason that I have given. Nobody but Mr. Fulkerson has any rightto talk with me about its management. " Dryfoos glared at him for a moment, and demanded, threateningly: "Thenyou say you won't turn that old loafer off? You say that I have got tokeep on paying my money out to buy beer for a man that would cut mythroat if he got the chance?" "I say nothing at all, Mr. Dryfoos, " March answered. The blood came intohis face, and he added: "But I will say that if you speak again of Mr. Lindau in those terms, one of us must leave this room. I will not hearyou. " Dryfoos looked at him with astonishment; then he struck his hat down onhis head, and stamped out of the room and down the stairs; and a vaguepity came into March's heart that was not altogether for himself. Hemight be the greater sufferer in the end, but he was sorry to have gotthe better of that old man for the moment; and he felt ashamed of theanger into which Dryfoos's anger had surprised him. He knew he could notsay too much in defence of Lindau's generosity and unselfishness, and hehad not attempted to defend him as a political economist. He could nothave taken any ground in relation to Dryfoos but that which he held, andhe felt satisfied that he was right in refusing to receive instructionsor commands from him. Yet somehow he was not satisfied with the wholeaffair, and not merely because his present triumph threatened his finaladvantage, but because he felt that in his heat he had hardly donejustice to Dryfoos's rights in the matter; it did not quite console himto reflect that Dryfoos had himself made it impossible. He was tempted togo home and tell his wife what had happened, and begin his preparationsfor the future at once. But he resisted this weakness and keptmechanically about his work, opening the letters and the manuscriptsbefore him with that curious double action of the mind common in men ofvivid imaginations. It was a relief when Conrad Dryfoos, havingapparently waited to make sure that his father would not return, came upfrom the counting-room and looked in on March with a troubled face. "Mr. March, " he began, "I hope father hasn't been saying anything to youthat you can't overlook. I know he was very much excited, and when he isexcited he is apt to say things that he is sorry for. " The apologetic attitude taken for Dryfoos, so different from any attitudethe peremptory old man would have conceivably taken for himself, madeMarch smile. "Oh no. I fancy the boot is on the other leg. I suspect I'vesaid some things your father can't overlook, Conrad. " He called the youngman by his Christian name partly to distinguish him from his father, partly from the infection of Fulkerson's habit, and partly from akindness for him that seemed naturally to express itself in that way. "I know he didn't sleep last night, after you all went away, " Conradpursued, "and of course that made him more irritable; and he was tried agood deal by some of the things that Mr. Lindau said. " "I was tried a good deal myself, " said March. "Lindau ought never to havebeen there. " "No. " Conrad seemed only partially to assent. "I told Mr. Fulkerson so. I warned him that Lindau would be apt to breakout in some way. It wasn't just to him, and it wasn't just to yourfather, to ask him. " "Mr. Fulkerson had a good motive, " Conrad gently urged. "He did itbecause he hurt his feelings that day about the pension. " "Yes, but it was a mistake. He knew that Lindau was inflexible about hisprinciples, as he calls them, and that one of his first principles is todenounce the rich in season and out of season. I don't remember just whathe said last night; and I really thought I'd kept him from breaking outin the most offensive way. But your father seems very much incensed. " "Yes, I know, " said Conrad. "Of course, I don't agree with Lindau. I think there are as many good, kind, just people among the rich as there are among the poor, and thatthey are as generous and helpful. But Lindau has got hold of one of thosepartial truths that hurt worse than the whole truth, and--" "Partial truth!" the young man interrupted. "Didn't the Saviour himselfsay, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom ofGod?'" "Why, bless my soul!" cried March. "Do you agree with Lindau?" "I agree with the Lord Jesus Christ, " said the young man, solemnly, and astrange light of fanaticism, of exaltation, came into his wide blue eyes. "And I believe He meant the kingdom of heaven upon this earth, as well asin the skies. " March threw himself back in his chair and looked at him with a kind ofstupefaction, in which his eye wandered to the doorway, where he sawFulkerson standing, it seemed to him a long time, before he heard himsaying: "Hello, hello! What's the row? Conrad pitching into you on oldLindau's account, too?" The young man turned, and, after a glance at Fulkerson's light, smilingface, went out, as if in his present mood he could not bear the contactof that persiflant spirit. March felt himself getting provisionally very angry again. "Excuse me, Fulkerson, but did you know when you went out what Mr. Dryfoos wanted tosee me for?" "Well, no, I didn't exactly, " said Fulkerson, taking his usual seat on achair and looking over the back of it at March. "I saw he was on his carabout something, and I thought I'd better not monkey with him much. Isupposed he was going to bring you to book about old Lindau, somehow. "Fulkerson broke into a laugh. March remained serious. "Mr. Dryfoos, " he said, willing to let the simplestatement have its own weight with Fulkerson, and nothing more, "came inhere and ordered me to discharge Lindau from his employment on themagazine--to turn him off, as he put it. " "Did he?" asked Fulkerson, with unbroken cheerfulness. "The old man isbusiness, every time. Well, I suppose you can easily get somebody else todo Lindau's work for you. This town is just running over withhalf-starved linguists. What did you say?" "What did I say?" March echoed. "Look here, Fulkerson; you may regardthis as a joke, but I don't. I'm not used to being spoken to as if I werethe foreman of a shop, and told to discharge a sensitive and cultivatedman like Lindau, as if he were a drunken mechanic; and if that's youridea of me--" "Oh, hello, now, March! You mustn't mind the old man's way. He don't meananything by it--he don't know any better, if you come to that. " "Then I know better, " said March. "I refused to receive any instructionsfrom Mr. Dryfoos, whom I don't know in my relations with 'Every OtherWeek, ' and I referred him to you. " "You did?" Fulkerson whistled. "He owns the thing!" "I don't care who owns the thing, " said March. "My negotiations were withyou alone from the beginning, and I leave this matter with you. What doyou wish done about Lindau?" "Oh, better let the old fool drop, " said Fulkerson. "He'll light on hisfeet somehow, and it will save a lot of rumpus. " "And if I decline to let him drop?" "Oh, come, now, March; don't do that, " Fulkerson began. "If I decline to let him drop, " March repeated, "what will you do?" "I'll be dogged if I know what I'll do, " said Fulkerson. "I hope youwon't take that stand. If the old man went so far as to speak to youabout it, his mind is made up, and we might as well knock under first aslast. " "And do you mean to say that you would not stand by me in what Iconsidered my duty-in a matter of principle?" "Why, of course, March, " said Fulkerson, coaxingly, "I mean to do theright thing. But Dryfoos owns the magazine--" "He doesn't own me, " said March, rising. "He has made the little mistakeof speaking to me as if he did; and when"--March put on his hat and tookhis overcoat down from its nail--"when you bring me his apologies, orcome to say that, having failed to make him understand they werenecessary, you are prepared to stand by me, I will come back to thisdesk. Otherwise my resignation is at your service. " He started toward the door, and Fulkerson intercepted him. "Ah, now, lookhere, March! Don't do that! Hang it all, don't you see where it leavesme? Now, you just sit down a minute and talk it over. I can make yousee--I can show you--Why, confound the old Dutch beer-buzzer! Twenty ofhim wouldn't be worth the trouble he's makin'. Let him go, and the oldman 'll come round in time. " "I don't think we've understood each other exactly, Mr. Fulkerson, " saidMarch, very haughtily. "Perhaps we never can; but I'll leave you to thinkit out. " He pushed on, and Fulkerson stood aside to let him pass, with a dazedlook and a mechanical movement. There was something comic in his ruefulbewilderment to March, who was tempted to smile, but he said to himselfthat he had as much reason to be unhappy as Fulkerson, and he did notsmile. His indignation kept him hot in his purpose to suffer anyconsequence rather than submit to the dictation of a man like Dryfoos; hefelt keenly the degradation of his connection with him, and all hisresentment of Fulkerson's original uncandor returned; at the same timehis heart ached with foreboding. It was not merely the work in which hehad constantly grown happier that he saw taken from him; but he felt themisery of the man who stakes the security and plenty and peace of homeupon some cast, and knows that losing will sweep from him most that mostmen find sweet and pleasant in life. He faced the fact, which no good mancan front without terror, that he was risking the support of his family, and for a point of pride, of honor, which perhaps he had no right toconsider in view of the possible adversity. He realized, as everyhireling must, no matter how skillfully or gracefully the tie iscontrived for his wearing, that he belongs to another, whose will is hislaw. His indignation was shot with abject impulses to go back and tellFulkerson that it was all right, and that he gave up. To end the anguishof his struggle he quickened his steps, so that he found he was reachinghome almost at a run. VIII. He must have made more clatter than he supposed with his key at theapartment door, for his wife had come to let him in when he flung itopen. "Why, Basil, " she said, "what's brought you back? Are you sick?You're all pale. Well, no wonder! This is the last of Mr. Fulkerson'sdinners you shall go to. You're not strong enough for it, and yourstomach will be all out of order for a week. How hot you are! and in adrip of perspiration! Now you'll be sick. " She took his hat away, whichhung dangling in his hand, and pushed him into a chair with tenderimpatience. "What is the matter? Has anything happened?" "Everything has happened, " he said, getting his voice after one or twohusky endeavors for it; and then he poured out a confused and huddledstatement of the case, from which she only got at the situation byprolonged cross-questioning. At the end she said, "I knew Lindau would get you into trouble. " This cut March to the heart. "Isabel!" he cried, reproachfully. "Oh, I know, " she retorted, and the tears began to come. "I don't wonderyou didn't want to say much to me about that dinner at breakfast. Inoticed it; but I thought you were just dull, and so I didn't insist. Iwish I had, now. If you had told me what Lindau had said, I should haveknown what would have come of it, and I could have advised you--" "Would you have advised me, " March demanded, curiously, "to submit tobullying like that, and meekly consent to commit an act of crueltyagainst a man who had once been such a friend to me?" "It was an unlucky day when you met him. I suppose we shall have to go. And just when we bad got used to New York, and begun to like it. I don'tknow where we shall go now; Boston isn't like home any more; and wecouldn't live on two thousand there; I should be ashamed to try. I'm sureI don't know where we can live on it. I suppose in some country village, where there are no schools, or anything for the children. I don't knowwhat they'll say when we tell them, poor things. " Every word was a stab in March's heart, so weakly tender to his own; hiswife's tears, after so much experience of the comparative lightness ofthe griefs that weep themselves out in women, always seemed wrung fromhis own soul; if his children suffered in the least through him, he feltlike a murderer. It was far worse than he could have imagined, the wayhis wife took the affair, though he had imagined certain words, orperhaps only looks, from her that were bad enough. He had allowed fortrouble, but trouble on his account: a svmpathy that might burden andembarrass him; but he had not dreamed of this merely domestic, thispetty, this sordid view of their potential calamity, which left himwholly out of the question, and embraced only what was most crushing anddesolating in the prospect. He could not bear it. He caught up his hatagain, and, with some hope that his wife would try to keep him, rushedout of the house. He wandered aimlessly about, thinking the sameexhausting thoughts over and over, till he found himself horribly hungry;then he went into a restaurant for his lunch, and when he paid he triedto imagine how he should feel if that were really his last dollar. He went home toward the middle of the afternoon, basely hoping thatFulkerson had sent him some conciliatory message, or perhaps was waitingthere for him to talk it over; March was quite willing to talk it overnow. But it was his wife who again met him at the door, though it seemedanother woman than the one he had left weeping in the morning. "I told the children, " she said, in smiling explanation of his absencefrom lunch, "that perhaps you were detained by business. I didn't knowbut you had gone back to the office. " "Did you think I would go back there, Isabel?" asked March, with ahaggard look. "Well, if you say so, I will go back, and do what Dryfoosordered me to do. I'm sufficiently cowed between him and you, I canassure you. " "Nonsense, " she said. "I approve of everything you did. But sit down, now, and don't keep walking that way, and let me see if I understand itperfectly. Of course, I had to have my say out. " She made him go all over his talk with Dryfoos again, and report his ownlanguage precisely. From time to time, as she got his points, she said, "That was splendid, " "Good enough for him!" and "Oh, I'm so glad you saidthat to him!" At the end she said: "Well, now, let's look at it from his point of view. Let's be perfectlyjust to him before we take another step forward. " "Or backward, " March suggested, ruefully. "The case is simply this: heowns the magazine. " "Of course. " "And he has a right to expect that I will consider his pecuniaryinterests--" "Oh, those detestable pecuniary interests! Don't you wish there wasn'tany money in the world?" "Yes; or else that there was a great deal more of it. And I was perfectlywilling to do that. I have always kept that in mind as one of my dutiesto him, ever since I understood what his relation to the magazine was. " "Yes, I can bear witness to that in any court of justice. You've done ita great deal more than I could, Basil. And it was just the same way withthose horrible insurance people. " "I know, " March went on, trying to be proof against her flatteries, or atleast to look as if he did not deserve praise; "I know that what Lindausaid was offensive to him, and I can understand how he felt that he had aright to punish it. All I say is that he had no right to punish itthrough me. " "Yes, " said Mrs. March, askingly. "If it had been a question of making 'Every Other Week' the vehicle ofLindau's peculiar opinions--though they're not so very peculiar; he mighthave got the most of them out of Ruskin--I shouldn't have had any groundto stand on, or at least then I should have had to ask myself whether hisopinions would be injurious to the magazine or not. " "I don't see, " Mrs. March interpolated, "how they could hurt it muchworse than Colonel Woodburn's article crying up slavery. " "Well, " said March, impartially, "we could print a dozen articlespraising the slavery it's impossible to have back, and it wouldn't hurtus. But if we printed one paper against the slavery which Lindau claimsstill exists, some people would call us bad names, and the counting-roomwould begin to feel it. But that isn't the point. Lindau's connectionwith 'Every Other Week' is almost purely mechanical; he's merely atranslator of such stories and sketches as he first submits to me, and itisn't at all a question of his opinions hurting us, but of my becoming anagent to punish him for his opinions. That is what I wouldn't do; that'swhat I never will do. " "If you did, " said his wife, "I should perfectly despise you. I didn'tunderstand how it was before. I thought you were just holding out againstDryfoos because he took a dictatorial tone with you, and because youwouldn't recognize his authority. But now I'm with you, Basil, everytime, as that horrid little Fulkerson says. But who would ever havesupposed he would be so base as to side against you?" "I don't know, " said March, thoughtfully, "that we had a right to expectanything else. Fulkerson's standards are low; they're merely businessstandards, and the good that's in him is incidental and something quiteapart from his morals and methods. He's naturally a generous andright-minded creature, but life has taught him to truckle and trick, likethe rest of us. " "It hasn't taught you that, Basil. " "Don't be so sure. Perhaps it's only that I'm a poor scholar. But I don'tknow, really, that I despise Fulkerson so much for his course thismorning as for his gross and fulsome flatteries of Dryfoos last night. Icould hardly stomach it. " His wife made him tell her what they were, and then she said, "Yes, thatwas loathsome; I couldn't have believed it of Mr. Fulkerson. " "Perhaps he only did it to keep the talk going, and to give the old man achance to say something, " March leniently suggested. "It was a worseeffect because he didn't or couldn't follow up Fulkerson's lead. " "It was loathsome, all the same, " his wife insisted. "It's the end of Mr. Fulkerson, as far as I'm concerned. " "I didn't tell you before, " March resumed, after a moment, "of my littleinterview with Conrad Dryfoos after his father left, " and now he went onto repeat what had passed between him and the young man. "I suspect that he and his father had been having some words before theold man came up to talk with me, and that it was that made him sofurious. " "Yes, but what a strange position for the son of such a man to take! Doyou suppose he says such things to his father?" "I don't know; but I suspect that in his meek way Conrad would say whathe believed to anybody. I suppose we must regard him as a kind of crank. " "Poor young fellow! He always makes me feel sad, somehow. He has such apathetic face. I don't believe I ever saw him look quite happy, exceptthat night at Mrs. Horn's, when he was talking with Miss Vance; and thenhe made me feel sadder than ever. " "I don't envy him the life he leads at home, with those convictions ofhis. I don't see why it wouldn't be as tolerable there for old Lindauhimself. " "Well, now, " said Mrs. March, "let us put them all out of our minds andsee what we are going to do ourselves. " They began to consider their ways and means, and how and where theyshould live, in view of March's severance of his relations with 'EveryOther Week. ' They had not saved anything from the first year's salary;they had only prepared to save; and they had nothing solid but their twothousand to count upon. But they built a future in which they easilylived on that and on what March earned with his pen. He became a freelance, and fought in whatever cause he thought just; he had no ties, nochains. They went back to Boston with the heroic will to do what was mostdistasteful; they would have returned to their own house if they had notrented it again; but, any rate, Mrs. March helped out by taking boarders, or perhaps only letting rooms to lodgers. They had some hard struggles, but they succeeded. "The great thing, " she said, "is to be right. I'm ten times as happy asif you had come home and told me that you had consented to do whatDryfoos asked and he had doubled your salary. " "I don't think that would have happened in any event, " said March, dryly. "Well, no matter. I just used it for an example. " They both experienced a buoyant relief, such as seems to come to peoplewho begin life anew on whatever terms. "I hope we are young enough yet, Basil, " she said, and she would not have it when he said they had oncebeen younger. They heard the children's knock on the door; they knocked when they camehome from school so that their mother might let them in. "Shall we tellthem at once?" she asked, and ran to open for them before March couldanswer. They were not alone. Fulkerson, smiling from ear to ear, was with them. "Is March in?" he asked. "Mr. March is at home, yes, " she said very haughtily. "He's in hisstudy, " and she led the way there, while the children went to theirrooms. "Well, March, " Fulkerson called out at sight of him, "it's all right! Theold man has come down. " "I suppose if you gentlemen are going to talk business--" Mrs. Marchbegan. "Oh, we don't want you to go away, " said Fulkerson. "I reckon March hastold you, anyway. " "Yes, I've told her, " said March. "Don't go, Isabel. What do you mean, Fulkerson?" "He's just gone on up home, and he sent me round with his apologies. Hesees now that he had no business to speak to you as he did, and hewithdraws everything. He'd 'a' come round himself if I'd said so, but Itold him I could make it all right. " Fulkerson looked so happy in having the whole affair put right, and theMarches knew him to be so kindly affected toward them, that they couldnot refuse for the moment to share his mood. They felt themselvesslipping down from the moral height which they had gained, and March madea clutch to stay himself with the question, "And Lindau?" "Well, " said Fulkerson, "he's going to leave Lindau to me. You won't haveanything to do with it. I'll let the old fellow down easy. " "Do you mean, " asked March, "that Mr. Dryfoos insists on his beingdismissed?" "Why, there isn't any dismissing about it, " Fulkerson argued. "If youdon't send him any more work, he won't do any more, that's all. Or if hecomes round, you can--He's to be referred to me. " March shook his head, and his wife, with a sigh, felt herself plucked upfrom the soft circumstance of their lives, which she had sunk back intoso quickly, and set beside him on that cold peak of principle again. "Itwon't do, Fulkerson. It's very good of you, and all that, but it comes tothe same thing in the end. I could have gone on without any apology fromMr. Dryfoos; he transcended his authority, but that's a minor matter. Icould have excused it to his ignorance of life among gentlemen; but Ican't consent to Lindau's dismissal--it comes to that, whether you do itor I do it, and whether it's a positive or a negative thing--because heholds this opinion or that. " "But don't you see, " said Fulkerson, "that it's just Lindau's opinionsthe old man can't stand? He hasn't got anything against him personally. Idon't suppose there's anybody that appreciates Lindau in some ways morethan the old man does. " "I understand. He wants to punish him for his opinions. Well, I can'tconsent to that, directly or indirectly. We don't print his opinions, andhe has a perfect right to hold them, whether Mr. Dryfoos agrees with themor not. " Mrs. March had judged it decorous for her to say nothing, but she nowwent and sat down in the chair next her husband. "Ah, dog on it!" cried Fulkerson, rumpling his hair with both his hands. "What am I to do? The old man says he's got to go. " "And I don't consent to his going, " said March. "And you won't stay if he goes. " Fulkerson rose. "Well, well! I've got to see about it. I'm afraid the oldman won't stand it, March; I am, indeed. I wish you'd reconsider. I--I'dtake it as a personal favor if you would. It leaves me in a fix. You seeI've got to side with one or the other. " March made no reply to this, except to say, "Yes, you must stand by him, or you must stand by me. " "Well, well! Hold on awhile! I'll see you in the morning. Don't take anysteps--" "Oh, there are no steps to take, " said March, with a melancholy smile. "The steps are stopped; that's all. " He sank back into his chair whenFulkerson was gone and drew a long breath. "This is pretty rough. Ithought we had got through it. " "No, " said his wife. "It seems as if I had to make the fight all overagain. " "Well, it's a good thing it's a holy war. " "I can't bear the suspense. Why didn't you tell him outright you wouldn'tgo back on any terms?" "I might as well, and got the glory. He'll never move Dryfoos. I supposewe both would like to go back, if we could. " "Oh, I suppose so. " They could not regain their lost exaltation, their lost dignity. Atdinner Mrs. March asked the children how they would like to go back toBoston to live. "Why, we're not going, are we?" asked Tom, without enthusiasm. "I was just wondering how you felt about it, now, " she said, with anunderlook at her husband. "Well, if we go back, " said Bella, "I want to live on the Back Bay. It'sawfully Micky at the South End. " "I suppose I should go to Harvard, " said Tom, "and I'd room out atCambridge. It would be easier to get at you on the Back Bay. " The parents smiled ruefully at each other, and, in view of these grandexpectations of his children, March resolved to go as far as he could inmeeting Dryfoos's wishes. He proposed the theatre as a distraction fromthe anxieties that he knew were pressing equally on his wife. "We mightgo to the 'Old Homestead, '" he suggested, with a sad irony, which onlyhis wife felt. "Oh yes, let's!" cried Bella. While they were getting ready, some one rang, and Bella went to the door, and then came to tell her father that it was Mr. Lindau. "He says hewants to see you just a moment. He's in the parlor, and he won't sitdown, or anything. " "What can he want?" groaned Mrs. March, from their common dismay. March apprehended a storm in the old man's face. But he only stood in themiddle of the room, looking very sad and grave. "You are Going oudt, " hesaid. "I won't geep you long. I haf gome to pring pack dose macassinesand dis mawney. I can't do any more voark for you; and I can't geep themawney you haf baid me a'ready. It iss not hawnest mawney--that hass beenoarned py voark; it iss mawney that hass peen mate py sbeculation, andthe obbression off lapor, and the necessity of the boor, py a man--Hereit is, efery tollar, efery zent. Dake it; I feel as if dere vas ploodt onit. " "Why, Lindau, " March began, but the old man interrupted him. "Ton't dalk to me, Passil! I could not haf believedt it of you. When youknow how I feel about dose tings, why tidn't you dell me whose mawney youbay oudt to me? Ach, I ton't plame you--I ton't rebroach you. You hafnefer thought of it; boat I have thought, and I should be Guilty, I mustshare that man's Guilt, if I gept hiss mawney. If you hat toldt me at thepeginning--if you hat peen frank with meboat it iss all righdt; you cango on; you ton't see dese tings as I see them; and you haf cot a family, and I am a free man. I voark to myself, and when I ton't voark, I sdarfeto myself. But I geep my handts glean, voark or sdarfe. Gif him hissmawney pack! I am sawry for him; I would not hoart hiss feelings, boat Icould not pear to douch him, and hiss mawney iss like boison!" March tried to reason with Lindau, to show him the folly, the injustice, the absurdity of his course; it ended in their both getting angry, and inLindau's going away in a whirl of German that included Basil in the guiltof the man whom Lindau called his master. "Well, " said Mrs. March. "He is a crank, and I think you're well rid ofhim. Now you have no quarrel with that horrid old Dryfoos, and you cankeep right on. " "Yes, " said March, "I wish it didn't make me feel so sneaking. What along day it's been! It seems like a century since I got up. " "Yes, a thousand years. Is there anything else left to happen?" "I hope not. I'd like to go to bed. " "Why, aren't you going to the theatre?" wailed Bella, coming in upon herfather's desperate expression. "The theatre? Oh yes, certainly! I meant after we got home, " and Marchamused himself at the puzzled countenance of the child. "Come on! Is Tomready?" IX. Fulkerson parted with the Marches in such trouble of mind that he did notfeel able to meet that night the people whom he usually kept so gay atMrs. Leighton's table. He went to Maroni's for his dinner, for thisreason and for others more obscure. He could not expect to do anythingmore with Dryfoos at once; he knew that Dryfoos must feel that he hadalready made an extreme concession to March, and he believed that if hewas to get anything more from him it must be after Dryfoos had dined. Buthe was not without the hope, vague and indefinite as it might be, that heshould find Lindau at Maroni's, and perhaps should get some concessionfrom him, some word of regret or apology which he could report toDryfoos, and at lest make the means of reopening the affair with him;perhaps Lindau, when he knew how matters stood, would back downaltogether, and for March's sake would withdraw from all connection with'Every Other Week' himself, and so leave everything serene. Fulkersonfelt capable, in his desperation, of delicately suggesting such a courseto Lindau, or even of plainly advising it: he did not care for Lindau agreat deal, and he did care a great deal for the magazine. But he did not find Lindau at Maroni's; he only found Beaton. He satlooking at the doorway as Fulkerson entered, and Fulkerson naturally cameand took a place at his table. Something in Beaton's large-eyed solemnityof aspect invited Fulkerson to confidence, and he said, as he pulled hisnapkin open and strung it, still a little damp (as the scanty, often-washed linen at Maroni's was apt to be), across his knees, "I waslooking for you this morning, to talk with you about the Christmasnumber, and I was a good deal worked up because I couldn't find you; butI guess I might as well have spared myself my emotions. " "Why?" asked Beaton, briefly. "Well, I don't know as there's going to be any Christmas number. " "Why?" Beaton asked again. "Row between the financial angel and the literary editor about the chieftranslator and polyglot smeller. " "Lindau?" "Lindau is his name. " "What does the literary editor expect after Lindau's expression of hisviews last night?" "I don't know what he expected, but the ground he took with the old manwas that, as Lindau's opinions didn't characterize his work on themagazine, he would not be made the instrument of punishing him for themthe old man wanted him turned off, as he calls it. " "Seems to be pretty good ground, " said Beaton, impartially, while hespeculated, with a dull trouble at heart, on the effect the row wouldhave on his own fortunes. His late visit home had made him feel that theclaim of his family upon him for some repayment of help given could notbe much longer delayed; with his mother sick and his father growing old, he must begin to do something for them, but up to this time he had spenthis salary even faster than he had earned it. When Fulkerson came in hewas wondering whether he could get him to increase it, if he threatenedto give up his work, and he wished that he was enough in love withMargaret Vance, or even Christine Dryfoos, to marry her, only to end inthe sorrowful conviction that he was really in love with Alma Leighton, who had no money, and who had apparently no wish to be married for love, even. "And what are you going to do about it?" he asked, listlessly. "Be dogged if I know what I'm going to do about it, " said Fulkerson. "I've been round all day, trying to pick up the pieces--row began rightafter breakfast this morning--and one time I thought I'd got the thingall put together again. I got the old man to say that he had spoken toMarch a little too authoritatively about Lindau; that, in fact, he oughtto have communicated his wishes through me; and that he was willing tohave me get rid of Lindau, and March needn't have anything to do with it. I thought that was pretty white, but March says the apologies and regretsare all well enough in their way, but they leave the main question wherethey found it. " "What is the main question?" Beaton asked, pouring himself out someChianti. As he set the flask down he made the reflection that if he woulddrink water instead of Chianti he could send his father three dollars aweek, on his back debts, and he resolved to do it. "The main question, as March looks at it, is the question of punishingLindau for his private opinions; he says that if he consents to mybouncing the old fellow it's the same as if he bounced him. " "It might have that complexion in some lights, " said Beaton. He drank offhis Chianti, and thought he would have it twice a week, or make Maronikeep the half-bottles over for him, and send his father two dollars. "Andwhat are you going to do now?" "That's what I don't know, " said Fulkerson, ruefully. After a moment hesaid, desperately, "Beaton, you've got a pretty good head; why don't yousuggest something?" "Why don't you let March go?" Beaton suggested. "Ah, I couldn't, " said Fulkerson. "I got him to break up in Boston andcome here; I like him; nobody else could get the hang of the thing likehe has; he's--a friend. " Fulkerson said this with the nearest approach hecould make to seriousness, which was a kind of unhappiness. Beaton shrugged. "Oh, if you can afford to have ideals, I congratulateyou. They're too expensive for me. Then, suppose you get rid of Dryfoos?" Fulkerson laughed forlornly. "Go on, Bildad. Like to sprinkle a few ashesover my boils? Don't mind me!" They both sat silent a little while, and then Beaton said, "I suppose youhaven't seen Dryfoos the second time?" "No. I came in here to gird up my loins with a little dinner before Itackled him. But something seems to be the matter with Maroni's cook. Idon't want anything to eat. " "The cooking's about as bad as usual, " said Beaton. After a moment headded, ironically, for he found Fulkerson's misery a kind of relief fromhis own, and was willing to protract it as long as it was amusing, "Whynot try an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary?" "What do you mean?" "Get that other old fool to go to Dryfoos for you!" "Which other old fool? The old fools seem to be as thick as flies. " "That Southern one. " "Colonel Woodburn?" "Mmmmm. " "He did seem to rather take to the colonel!" Fulkerson mused aloud. "Of course he did. Woodburn, with his idiotic talk about patriarchalslavery, is the man on horseback to Dryfoos's muddy imagination. He'dlisten to him abjectly, and he'd do whatever Woodburn told him to do. "Beaton smiled cynically. Fulkerson got up and reached for his coat and hat. "You've struck it, oldman. " The waiter came up to help him on with his coat; Fulkerson slippeda dollar in his hand. "Never mind the coat; you can give the rest of mydinner to the poor, Paolo. Beaton, shake! You've saved my life, littleboy, though I don't think you meant it. " He took Beaton's hand andsolemnly pressed it, and then almost ran out of the door. They had just reached coffee at Mrs. Leighton's when he arrived and satdown with them and began to put some of the life of his new hope intothem. His appetite revived, and, after protesting that he would not takeanything but coffee, he went back and ate some of the earlier courses. But with the pressure of his purpose driving him forward, he did notconceal from Miss Woodburn, at least, that he was eager to get her apartfrom the rest for some reason. When he accomplished this, it seemed as ifhe had contrived it all himself, but perhaps he had not wholly contrivedit. "I'm so glad to get a chance to speak to you alone, " he said at once; andwhile she waited for the next word he made a pause, and then said, desperately, "I want you to help me; and if you can't help me, there's nohelp for me. " "Mah goodness, " she said, "is the case so bad as that? What in the woaldis the trouble?" "Yes, it's a bad case, " said Fulkerson. "I want your father to help me. " "Oh, I thoat you said me!" "Yes; I want you to help me with your father. I suppose I ought to go tohim at once, but I'm a little afraid of him. " "And you awe not afraid of me? I don't think that's very flattering, Mr. Fulkerson. You ought to think Ah'm twahce as awful as papa. " "Oh, I do! You see, I'm quite paralyzed before you, and so I don't feelanything. " "Well, it's a pretty lahvely kyand of paralysis. But--go on. " "I will--I will. If I can only begin. " "Pohaps Ah maght begin fo' you. " "No, you can't. Lord knows, I'd like to let you. Well, it's like this. " Fulkerson made a clutch at his hair, and then, after another hesitation, he abruptly laid the whole affair before her. He did not think itnecessary to state the exact nature of the offence Lindau had givenDryfoos, for he doubted if she could grasp it, and he was profuse of hisexcuses for troubling her with the matter, and of wonder at himself forhaving done so. In the rapture of his concern at having perhaps made afool of himself, he forgot why he had told her; but she seemed to likehaving been confided in, and she said, "Well, Ah don't see what you cando with you' ahdeals of friendship except stand bah Mr. Mawch. " "My ideals of friendship? What do you mean?" "Oh, don't you suppose we know? Mr. Beaton said you we' a pofect Bahyardin friendship, and you would sacrifice anything to it. " "Is that so?" said Fulkerson, thinking how easily he could sacrificeLindau in this case. He had never supposed before that he was chivalrousin such matters, but he now began to see it in that light, and hewondered that he could ever have entertained for a moment the idea ofthrowing March over. "But Ah most say, " Miss Woodburn went on, "Ah don't envy you you' nextinterview with Mr. Dryfoos. Ah suppose you'll have to see him at onceaboat it. " The conjecture recalled Fulkerson to the object of his confidences. "Ah, there's where your help comes in. I've exhausted all the influence I havewith Dryfoos--" "Good gracious, you don't expect Ah could have any!" They both laughed at the comic dismay with which she conveyed thepreposterous notion; and Fulkerson said, "If I judged from myself, Ishould expect you to bring him round instantly. " "Oh, thank you, Mr. Fulkerson, " she said, with mock meekness. "Not at all. But it isn't Dryfoos I want you to help me with; it's yourfather. I want your father to interview Dryfoos for me, and I-I'm afraidto ask him. " "Poo' Mr. Fulkerson!" she said, and she insinuated something through herburlesque compassion that lifted him to the skies. He swore in his heartthat the woman never lived who was so witty, so wise, so beautiful, andso good. "Come raght with me this minute, if the cyoast's clea'. " Shewent to the door of the diningroom and looked in across its gloom to thelittle gallery where her father sat beside a lamp reading his eveningpaper; Mrs. Leighton could be heard in colloquy with the cook below, andAlma had gone to her room. She beckoned Fulkerson with the handoutstretched behind her, and said, "Go and ask him. " "Alone!" he palpitated. "Oh, what a cyowahd!" she cried, and went with him. "Ah suppose you'llwant me to tell him aboat it. " "Well, I wish you'd begin, Miss Woodburn, " he said. "The fact is, youknow, I've been over it so much I'm kind of sick of the thing. " Miss Woodburn advanced and put her hand on her father's shoulder. "Lookheah, papa! Mr. Fulkerson wants to ask you something, and he wants me todo it fo' him. " The colonel looked up through his glasses with the sort of ferocityelderly men sometimes have to put on in order to keep their glasses fromfalling off. His daughter continued: "He's got into an awful difficultywith his edito' and his proprieto', and he wants you to pacify them. " "I do not know whethah I understand the case exactly, " said the colonel, "but Mr. Fulkerson may command me to the extent of my ability. " "You don't understand it aftah what Ah've said?" cried the girl. "Then Ahdon't see but what you'll have to explain it you'self, Mr. Fulkerson. " "Well, Miss Woodburn has been so luminous about it, colonel, " saidFulkerson, glad of the joking shape she had given the affair, "that I canonly throw in a little side-light here and there. " The colonel listened as Fulkerson went on, with a grave diplomaticsatisfaction. He felt gratified, honored, even, he said, by Mr. Fulkerson's appeal to him; and probably it gave him something of the highjoy that an affair of honor would have brought him in the days when hehad arranged for meetings between gentlemen. Next to bearing a challenge, this work of composing a difficulty must have been grateful. But he gaveno outward sign of his satisfaction in making a resume of the case so asto get the points clearly in his mind. "I was afraid, sir, " he said, with the state due to the serious nature ofthe facts, "that Mr. Lindau had given Mr. Dryfoos offence by some of hisquestions at the dinner-table last night. " "Perfect red rag to a bull, " Fulkerson put in; and then he wanted towithdraw his words at the colonel's look of displeasure. "I have no reflections to make upon Mr. Landau, " Colonel Woodburncontinued, and Fulkerson felt grateful to him for going on; "I do notagree with Mr. Lindau; I totally disagree with him on sociologicalpoints; but the course of the conversation had invited him to theexpression of his convictions, and he had a right to express them, so faras they had no personal bearing. " "Of course, " said Fulkerson, while Miss Woodburn perched on the arm ofher father's chair. "At the same time, sir, I think that if Mr. Dryfoos felt a personalcensure in Mr. Lindau's questions concerning his suppression of thestrike among his workmen, he had a right to resent it. " "Exactly, " Fulkerson assented. "But it must be evident to you, sir, that a high-spirited gentleman likeMr. March--I confess that my feelings are with him very warmly in thematter--could not submit to dictation of the nature you describe. " "Yes, I see, " said Fulkerson; and, with that strange duplex action of thehuman mind, he wished that it was his hair, and not her father's, thatMiss Woodburn was poking apart with the corner of her fan. "Mr. Lindau, " the colonel concluded, "was right from his point of view, and Mr. Dryfoos was equally right. The position of Mr. March is perfectlycorrect--" His daughter dropped to her feet from his chair-arm. "Mah goodness! Ifnobody's in the wrong, ho' awe you evah going to get the mattahstraight?" "Yes, you see, " Fulkerson added, "nobody can give in. " "Pardon me, " said the colonel, "the case is one in which all can givein. " "I don't know which 'll begin, " said Fulkerson. The colonel rose. "Mr. Lindau must begin, sir. We must begin by seeingMr. Lindau, and securing from him the assurance that in the expression ofhis peculiar views he had no intention of offering any personal offenceto Mr. Dryfoos. If I have formed a correct estimate of Mr. Lindau, thiswill be perfectly simple. " Fulkerson shook his head. "But it wouldn't help. Dryfoos don't care a rapwhether Lindau meant any personal offence or not. As far as that isconcerned, he's got a hide like a hippopotamus. But what he hates isLindau's opinions, and what he says is that no man who holds suchopinions shall have any work from him. And what March says is that no manshall be punished through him for his opinions, he don't care what theyare. " The colonel stood a moment in silence. "And what do you expect me to dounder the circumstances?" "I came to you for advice--I thought you might suggest----?" "Do you wish me to see Mr. Dryfoos?" "Well, that's about the size of it, " Fulkerson admitted. "You see, colonel, " he hastened on, "I know that you have a great deal of influencewith him; that article of yours is about the only thing he's ever read in'Every Other Week, ' and he's proud of your acquaintance. Well, youknow"--and here Fulkerson brought in the figure that struck him so muchin Beaton's phrase and had been on his tongue ever since--"you're theman on horseback to him; and he'd be more apt to do what you say than ifanybody else said it. " "You are very good, sir, " said the colonel, trying to be proof againstthe flattery, "but I am afraid you overrate my influence. " Fulkerson lethim ponder it silently, and his daughter governed her impatience byholding her fan against her lips. Whatever the process was in thecolonel's mind, he said at last: "I see no good reason for declining toact for you, Mr. Fulkerson, and I shall be very happy if I can be ofservice to you. But"--he stopped Fulkerson from cutting in withprecipitate thanks--"I think I have a right, sir, to ask what your coursewill be in the event of failure?" "Failure?" Fulkerson repeated, in dismay. "Yes, sir. I will not conceal from you that this mission is one notwholly agreeable to my feelings. " "Oh, I understand that, colonel, and I assure you that I appreciate, I--" "There is no use trying to blink the fact, sir, that there are certainaspects of Mr. Dryfoos's character in which he is not a gentleman. Wehave alluded to this fact before, and I need not dwell upon it now: I maysay, however, that my misgivings were not wholly removed last night. " "No, " Fulkerson assented; though in his heart he thought the old man hadbehaved very well. "What I wish to say now is that I cannot consent to act for you, in thismatter, merely as an intermediary whose failure would leave the affair instate quo. " "I see, " said Fulkerson. "And I should like some intimation, some assurance, as to which partyyour own feelings are with in the difference. " The colonel bent his eyes sharply on Fulkerson; Miss Woodburn let hersfall; Fulkerson felt that he was being tested, and he said, to gain time, "As between Lindau and Dryfoos?" though he knew this was not the point. "As between Mr. Dryfoos and Mr. March, " said the colonel. Fulkerson drew a long breath and took his courage in both hands. "Therecan't be any choice for me in such a case. I'm for March, every time. " The colonel seized his hand, and Miss Woodburn said, "If there had beenany choice fo' you in such a case, I should never have let papa stir astep with you. " "Why, in regard to that, " said the colonel, with a literal applicationof the idea, "was it your intention that we should both go?" "Well, I don't know; I suppose it was. " "I think it will be better for me to go alone, " said the colonel; and, with a color from his experience in affairs of honor, he added: "In thesematters a principal cannot appear without compromising his dignity. Ibelieve I have all the points clearly in mind, and I think I should actmore freely in meeting Mr. Dryfoos alone. " Fulkerson tried to hide the eagerness with which he met these agreeableviews. He felt himself exalted in some sort to the level of the colonel'ssentiments, though it would not be easy to say whether this was throughthe desperation bred of having committed himself to March's side, orthrough the buoyant hope he had that the colonel would succeed in hismission. "I'm not afraid to talk with Dryfoos about it, " he said. "There is no question of courage, " said the colonel. "It is a question ofdignity--of personal dignity. " "Well, don't let that delay you, papa, " said his daughter, following himto the door, where she found him his hat, and Fulkerson helped him onwith his overcoat. "Ah shall be jost wald to know ho' it's toned oat. " "Won't you let me go up to the house with you?" Fulkerson began. "Ineedn't go in--" "I prefer to go alone, " said the colonel. "I wish to turn the points overin my mind, and I am afraid you would find me rather dull company. " He went out, and Fulkerson returned with Miss Woodburn to thedrawing-room, where she said the Leightons were. They, were not there, but she did not seem disappointed. "Well, Mr. Fulkerson, " she said, "you have got an ahdeal of friendship, sure enough. " "Me?" said Fulkerson. "Oh, my Lord! Don't you see I couldn't do anythingelse? And I'm scared half to death, anyway. If the colonel don't bringthe old man round, I reckon it's all up with me. But he'll fetch him. AndI'm just prostrated with gratitude to you, Miss Woodburn. " She waved his thanks aside with her fan. "What do you mean by its beingall up with you?" "Why, if the old man sticks to his position, and I stick to March, we'veboth got to go overboard together. Dryfoos owns the magazine; he can stopit, or he can stop us, which amounts to the same thing, as far as we'reconcerned. " "And then what?" the girl pursued. "And then, nothing--till we pick ourselves up. " "Do you mean that Mr. Dryfoos will put you both oat of your places?" "He may. " "And Mr. Mawch takes the risk of that jost fo' a principle?" "I reckon. " "And you do it jost fo' an ahdeal?" "It won't do to own it. I must have my little axe to grind, somewhere. " "Well, men awe splendid, " sighed the girl. "Ah will say it. " "Oh, they're not so much better than women, " said Fulkerson, with anervous jocosity. "I guess March would have backed down if it hadn't beenfor his wife. She was as hot as pepper about it, and you could see thatshe would have sacrificed all her husband's relations sooner than let himback down an inch from the stand he had taken. It's pretty easy for a manto stick to a principle if he has a woman to stand by him. But when youcome to play it alone--" "Mr. Fulkerson, " said the girl, solemnly, "Ah will stand bah you in this, if all the woald tones against you. " The tears came into her eyes, andshe put out her hand to him. "You will?" he shouted, in a rapture. "In every way--and always--as longas you live? Do you mean it?" He had caught her hand to his breast andwas grappling it tight there and drawing her to him. The changing emotions chased one another through her heart and over herface: dismay, shame, pride, tenderness. "You don't believe, " she said, hoarsely, "that Ah meant that?" "No, but I hope you do mean it; for if you don't, nothing else meansanything. " There was no space, there was only a point of wavering. "Ah do mean it. " When they lifted their eyes from each other again it was half-past ten. "No' you most go, " she said. "But the colonel--our fate?" "The co'nel is often oat late, and Ah'm not afraid of ouah fate, no' thatwe've taken it into ouah own hands. " She looked at him with dewy eyes oftrust, of inspiration. "Oh, it's going to come out all right, " he said. "It can't come out wrongnow, no matter what happens. But who'd have thought it, when I came intothis house, in such a state of sin and misery, half an hour ago--" "Three houahs and a half ago!" she said. "No! you most jost go. Ah'mtahed to death. Good-night. You can come in the mawning to see-papa. " Sheopened the door and pushed him out with enrapturing violence, and he ranlaughing down the steps into her father's arms. "Why, colonel! I was just going up to meet you. " He had really thought hewould walk off his exultation in that direction. "I am very sorry to say, Mr. Fulkerson, " the colonel began, gravely, "that Mr. Dryfoos adheres to his position. " "Oh, all right, " said Fulkerson, with unabated joy. "It's what Iexpected. Well, my course is clear; I shall stand by March, and I guessthe world won't come to an end if he bounces us both. But I'meverlastingly obliged to you, Colonel Woodburn, and I don't know what tosay to you. I--I won't detain you now; it's so late. I'll see you in themorning. Good-ni--" Fulkerson did not realize that it takes two to part. The colonel laidhold of his arm and turned away with him. "I will walk toward your placewith you. I can understand why you should be anxious to know theparticulars of my interview with Mr. Dryfoos"; and in the statement whichfollowed he did not spare him the smallest. It outlasted their walk anddetained them long on the steps of the 'Every Other Week' building. Butat the end Fulkerson let himself in with his key as light of heart as ifhe had been listening to the gayest promises that fortune could make. By the time he met March at the office next morning, a little, but only avery little, misgiving saddened his golden heaven. He took March's handwith high courage, and said, "Well, the old man sticks to his point, March. " He added, with the sense of saying it before Miss Woodburn: "AndI stick by you. I've thought it all over, and I'd rather be right withyou than wrong with him. " "Well, I appreciate your motive, Fulkerson, " said March. "Butperhaps--perhaps we can save over our heroics for another occasion. Lindau seems to have got in with his, for the present. " He told him of Lindau's last visit, and they stood a moment looking ateach other rather queerly. Fulkerson was the first to recover hisspirits. "Well, " he said, cheerily, "that let's us out. " "Does it? I'm not sure it lets me out, " said March; but he said this intribute to his crippled self-respect rather than as a forecast of anyaction in the matter. "Why, what are you going to do?" Fulkerson asked. "If Lindau won't workfor Dryfoos, you can't make him. " March sighed. "What are you going to do with this money?" He glanced atthe heap of bills he had flung on the table between them. Fulkerson scratched his head. "Ah, dogged if I know: Can't we give it tothe deserving poor, somehow, if we can find 'em?" "I suppose we've no right to use it in any way. You must give it toDryfoos. " "To the deserving rich? Well, you can always find them. I reckon youdon't want to appear in the transaction! I don't, either; but I guess Imust. " Fulkerson gathered up the money and carried it to Conrad. Hedirected him to account for it in his books as conscience-money, and heenjoyed the joke more than Conrad seemed to do when he was told where itcame from. Fulkerson was able to wear off the disagreeable impression the affairleft during the course of the fore-noon, and he met Miss Woodburn withall a lover's buoyancy when he went to lunch. She was as happy as he whenhe told her how fortunately the whole thing had ended, and he took herview that it was a reward of his courage in having dared the worst. Theyboth felt, as the newly plighted always do, that they were in the bestrelations with the beneficent powers, and that their felicity had beenespecially looked to in the disposition of events. They were in a glow ofrapturous content with themselves and radiant worship of each other; shewas sure that he merited the bright future opening to them both, as muchas if he owed it directly to some noble action of his own; he felt thathe was indebted for the favor of Heaven entirely to the still incredibleaccident of her preference of him over other men. Colonel Woodburn, who was not yet in the secret of their love, perhapsfailed for this reason to share their satisfaction with a result sounexpectedly brought about. The blessing on their hopes seemed to hisignorance to involve certain sacrifices of personal feeling at which hehinted in suggesting that Dryfoos should now be asked to make someabstract concessions and acknowledgments; his daughter hastened to denythat these were at all necessary; and Fulkerson easily explained why. Thething was over; what was the use of opening it up again? "Perhaps none, " the colonel admitted. But he added, "I should like theopportunity of taking Mr. Lindau's hand in the presence of Mr. Dryfoosand assuring him that I considered him a man of principle and a man ofhonor--a gentleman, sir, whom I was proud and happy to have known. " "Well, Ah've no doabt, " said his daughter, demurely, "that you'll havethe chance some day; and we would all lahke to join you. But at the sametahme, Ah think Mr. Fulkerson is well oat of it fo' the present. " PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: Anticipative reprisal Buttoned about him as if it concealed a bad conscience Courtship Got their laugh out of too many things in life Had learned not to censure the irretrievable Had no opinions that he was not ready to hold in abeyance Ignorant of her ignorance It don't do any good to look at its drawbacks all the time Justice must be paid for at every step in fees and costs Life has taught him to truckle and trick Man's willingness to abide in the present No longer the gross appetite for novelty No right to burden our friends with our decisions Travel, with all its annoyances and fatigues Typical anything else, is pretty difficult to find A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES By William Dean Howells PART FIFTH I. Superficially, the affairs of 'Every Other Week' settled into theirwonted form again, and for Fulkerson they seemed thoroughly reinstated. But March had a feeling of impermanency from what had happened, mixedwith a fantastic sense of shame toward Lindau. He did not sympathize withLindau's opinions; he thought his remedy for existing evils as wildlyimpracticable as Colonel Woodburn's. But while he thought this, and whilehe could justly blame Fulkerson for Lindau's presence at Dryfoos'sdinner, which his zeal had brought about in spite of March's protests, still he could not rid himself of the reproach of uncandor with Lindau. He ought to have told him frankly about the ownership of the magazine, and what manner of man the man was whose money he was taking. But he saidthat he never could have imagined that he was serious in his preposterousattitude in regard to a class of men who embody half the prosperity ofthe country; and he had moments of revolt against his own humiliationbefore Lindau, in which he found it monstrous that he should returnDryfoos's money as if it had been the spoil of a robber. His wife agreedwith him in these moments, and said it was a great relief not to havethat tiresome old German coming about. They had to account for hisabsence evasively to the children, whom they could not very well tellthat their father was living on money that Lindau disdained to take, eventhough Lindau was wrong and their father was right. This heightened Mrs. March's resentment toward both Lindau and Dryfoos, who between them hadplaced her husband in a false position. If anything, she resentedDryfoos's conduct more than Lindau's. He had never spoken to March aboutthe affair since Lindau had renounced his work, or added to theapologetic messages he had sent by Fulkerson. So far as March knew, Dryfoos had been left to suppose that Lindau had simply stopped for somereason that did not personally affect him. They never spoke of him, andMarch was too proud to ask either Fulkerson or Conrad whether the old manknew that Lindau had returned his money. He avoided talking to Conrad, from a feeling that if he did he should involuntarily lead him on tospeak of his differences with his father. Between himself and Fulkerson, even, he was uneasily aware of a want of their old perfect friendliness. Fulkerson had finally behaved with honor and courage; but his provisionalreluctance had given March the measure of Fulkerson's character in onedirection, and he could not ignore the fact that it was smaller than hecould have wished. He could not make out whether Fulkerson shared his discomfort or not. Itcertainly wore away, even with March, as time passed, and with Fulkerson, in the bliss of his fortunate love, it was probably far more transient, if it existed at all. He advanced into the winter as radiantly as if tomeet the spring, and he said that if there were any pleasanter month ofthe year than November, it was December, especially when the weather wasgood and wet and muddy most of the time, so that you had to keep indoorsa long while after you called anywhere. Colonel Woodburn had the anxiety, in view of his daughter's engagement, when she asked his consent to it, that such a dreamer must have in regardto any reality that threatens to affect the course of his reveries. Hehad not perhaps taken her marriage into account, except as a remotecontingency; and certainly Fulkerson was not the kind of son-in-law thathe had imagined in dealing with that abstraction. But because he hadnothing of the sort definitely in mind, he could not oppose the selectionof Fulkerson with success; he really knew nothing against him, and heknew, many things in his favor; Fulkerson inspired him with the likingthat every one felt for him in a measure; he amused him, he cheered him;and the colonel had been so much used to leaving action of all kinds tohis daughter that when he came to close quarters with the question of ason-in-law he felt helpless to decide it, and he let her decide it, as ifit were still to be decided when it was submitted to him. She wascompetent to treat it in all its phases: not merely those of personalinterest, but those of duty to the broken Southern past, sentimentallydear to him, and practically absurd to her. No such South as heremembered had ever existed to her knowledge, and no such civilization ashe imagined would ever exist, to her belief, anywhere. She took the worldas she found it, and made the best of it. She trusted in Fulkerson; shehad proved his magnanimity in a serious emergency; and in small thingsshe was willing fearlessly to chance it with him. She was not asentimentalist, and there was nothing fantastic in her expectations; shewas a girl of good sense and right mind, and she liked the immediatepracticality as well as the final honor of Fulkerson. She did notidealize him, but in the highest effect she realized him; she did himjustice, and she would not have believed that she did him more thanjustice if she had sometimes known him to do himself less. Their engagement was a fact to which the Leighton household adjusteditself almost as simply as the lovers themselves; Miss Woodburn told theladies at once, and it was not a thing that Fulkerson could keep fromMarch very long. He sent word of it to Mrs. March by her husband; and hisengagement perhaps did more than anything else to confirm the confidencein him which had been shaken by his early behavior in the Lindau episode, and not wholly restored by his tardy fidelity to March. But now she feltthat a man who wished to get married so obviously and entirely for lovewas full of all kinds of the best instincts, and only needed the guidanceof a wife, to become very noble. She interested herself intensely inbalancing the respective merits of the engaged couple, and after her callupon Miss Woodburn in her new character she prided herself uponrecognizing the worth of some strictly Southern qualities in her, whilemaintaining the general average of New England superiority. She could notreconcile herself to the Virginian custom illustrated in her having beenchristened with the surname of Madison; and she said that its pet form ofMad, which Fulkerson promptly invented, only made it more ridiculous. Fulkerson was slower in telling Beaton. He was afraid, somehow, ofBeaton's taking the matter in the cynical way; Miss Woodburn said shewould break off the engagement if Beaton was left to guess it or find itout by accident, and then Fulkerson plucked up his courage. Beatonreceived the news with gravity, and with a sort of melancholy meeknessthat strongly moved Fulkerson's sympathy, and made him wish that Beatonwas engaged, too. It made Beaton feel very old; it somehow left him behind and forgotten;in a manner, it made him feel trifled with. Something of theunfriendliness of fate seemed to overcast his resentment, and he allowedthe sadness of his conviction that he had not the means to marry on totinge his recognition of the fact that Alma Leighton would not havewanted him to marry her if he had. He was now often in that martyr moodin which he wished to help his father; not only to deny himself Chianti, but to forego a fur-lined overcoat which he intended to get for thewinter, He postponed the moment of actual sacrifice as regarded theChianti, and he bought the overcoat in an anguish of self-reproach. Hewore it the first evening after he got it in going to call upon theLeightons, and it seemed to him a piece of ghastly irony when Almacomplimented his picturesqueness in it and asked him to let her sketchhim. "Oh, you can sketch me, " he said, with so much gloom that it made herlaugh. "If you think it's so serious, I'd rather not. " "No, no! Go ahead! How do you want me?" "Oh, fling yourself down on a chair in one of your attitudes of studiednegligence; and twist one corner of your mustache with affected absenceof mind. " "And you think I'm always studied, always affected?" "I didn't say so. " "I didn't ask you what you said. " "And I won't tell you what I think. " "Ah, I know what you think. " "What made you ask, then?" The girl laughed again with the satisfactionof her sex in cornering a man. Beaton made a show of not deigning to reply, and put himself in the poseshe suggested, frowning. "Ah, that's it. But a little more animation-- "'As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek. '" She put her forehead down on the back of her hand and laughed again. "Youought to be photographed. You look as if you were sitting for it. " Beaton said: "That's because I know I am being photographed, in one way. I don't think you ought to call me affected. I never am so with you; Iknow it wouldn't be of any use. " "Oh, Mr. Beaton, you flatter. " "No, I never flatter you. " "I meant you flattered yourself. " "How?" "Oh, I don't know. Imagine. " "I know what you mean. You think I can't be sincere with anybody. " "Oh no, I don't. " "What do you think?" "That you can't--try. " Alma gave another victorious laugh. Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson would once have both feigned a great interestin Alma's sketching Beaton, and made it the subject of talk, in whichthey approached as nearly as possible the real interest of their lives. Now they frankly remained away in the dining-room, which was very cozyafter the dinner had disappeared; the colonel sat with his lamp and paperin the gallery beyond; Mrs. Leighton was about her housekeeping affairs, in the content she always felt when Alma was with Beaton. "They seem to be having a pretty good time in there, " said Fulkerson, detaching himself from his own absolute good time as well as he could. "At least Alma does, " said Miss Woodburn. "Do you think she cares for him?" "Quahte as moch as he desoves. " "What makes you all down on Beaton around here? He's not such a badfellow. " "We awe not all doan on him. Mrs. Leighton isn't doan on him. " "Oh, I guess if it was the old lady, there wouldn't be much questionabout it. " They both laughed, and Alma said, "They seem to be greatly amused withsomething in there. " "Me, probably, " said Beaton. "I seem to amuse everybody to-night. " "Don't you always?" "I always amuse you, I'm afraid, Alma. " She looked at him as if she were going to snub him openly for using hername; but apparently she decided to do it covertly. "You didn't at first. I really used to believe you could be serious, once. " "Couldn't you believe it again? Now?" "Not when you put on that wind-harp stop. " "Wetmore has been talking to you about me. He would sacrifice his bestfriend to a phrase. He spends his time making them. " "He's made some very pretty ones about you. " "Like the one you just quoted?" "No, not exactly. He admires you ever so much. He says" She stopped, teasingly. "What?" "He says you could be almost anything you wished, if you didn't wish tobe everything. " "That sounds more like the school of Wetmore. That's what you say, Alma. Well, if there were something you wished me to be, I could be it. " "We might adapt Kingsley: 'Be good, sweet man, and let who will beclever. '" He could not help laughing. She went on: "I always thought thatwas the most patronizing and exasperating thing ever addressed to a humangirl; and we've had to stand a good deal in our time. I should like tohave it applied to the other 'sect' a while. As if any girl that was agirl would be good if she had the remotest chance of being clever. " "Then you wouldn't wish me to be good?" Beaton asked. "Not if you were a girl. " "You want to shock me. Well, I suppose I deserve it. But if I wereone-tenth part as good as you are, Alma, I should have a lighter heartthan I have now. I know that I'm fickle, but I'm not false, as you thinkI am. " "Who said I thought you were false?" "No one, " said Beaton. "It isn't necessary, when you look it--live it. " "Oh, dear! I didn't know I devoted my whole time to the subject. " "I know I'm despicable. I could tell you something--the history of thisday, even--that would make you despise me. " Beaton had in mind hispurchase of the overcoat, which Alma was getting in so effectively, withthe money he ought to have sent his father. "But, " he went on, darkly, with a sense that what he was that moment suffering for his selfishnessmust somehow be a kind of atonement, which would finally leave him to theguiltless enjoyment of the overcoat, "you wouldn't believe the depths ofbaseness I could descend to. " "I would try, " said Alma, rapidly shading the collar, "if you'd give mesome hint. " Beaton had a sudden wish to pour out his remorse to her, but he wasafraid of her laughing at him. He said to himself that this was a verywholesome fear, and that if he could always have her at hand he shouldnot make a fool of himself so often. A man conceives of such an office asthe very noblest for a woman; he worships her for it if he ismagnanimous. But Beaton was silent, and Alma put back her head for theright distance on her sketch. "Mr. Fulkerson thinks you are the sublimestof human beings for advising him to get Colonel Woodburn to interview Mr. Dryfoos about Lindau. What have you ever done with your Judas?" "I haven't done anything with it. Nadel thought he would take hold of itat one time, but he dropped it again. After all, I don't suppose it couldbe popularized. Fulkerson wanted to offer it as a premium to subscribersfor 'Every Other Week, ' but I sat down on that. " Alma could not feel the absurdity of this, and she merely said, "'EveryOther Week' seems to be going on just the same as ever. " "Yes, the trouble has all blown over, I believe. Fulkerson, " said Beaton, with a return to what they were saying, "has managed the whole businessvery well. But he exaggerates the value of my advice. " "Very likely, " Alma suggested, vaguely. "Or, no! Excuse me! He couldn't, he couldn't!" She laughed delightedly at Beaton's foolish look ofembarrassment. He tried to recover his dignity in saying, "He's 'a very good fellow, andhe deserves his happiness. " "Oh, indeed!" said Alma, perversely. "Does any one deserve happiness?" "I know I don't, " sighed Beaton. "You mean you don't get it. " "I certainly don't get it. " "Ah, but that isn't the reason. " "What is?" "That's the secret of the universe, " She bit in her lower lip, and lookedat him with eyes, of gleaming fun. "Are you never serious?" he asked. "With serious people always. " "I am serious; and you have the secret of my happiness--" He threwhimself impulsively forward in his chair. "Oh, pose, pose!" she cried. "I won't pose, " he answered, "and you have got to listen to me. You knowI'm in love with you; and I know that once you cared for me. Can't thattime--won't it--come back again? Try to think so, Alma!" "No, " she said, briefly and seriously enough. "But that seems impossible. What is it I've done what have you againstme?" "Nothing. But that time is past. I couldn't recall it if I wished. Whydid you bring it up? You've broken your word. You know I wouldn't havelet you keep coming here if you hadn't promised never to refer to it. " "How could I help it? With that happiness near us--Fulkerson--" "Oh, it's that? I might have known it!" "No, it isn't that--it's something far deeper. But if it's nothing youhave against me, what is it, Alma, that keeps you from caring for me nowas you did then? I haven't changed. " "But I have. I shall never care for you again, Mr. Beaton; you might aswell understand it once for all. Don't think it's anything in yourself, or that I think you unworthy of me. I'm not so self-satisfied as that; Iknow very well that I'm not a perfect character, and that I've no claimon perfection in anybody else. I think women who want that are fools;they won't get it, and they don't deserve it. But I've learned a good. Deal more about myself than I knew in St. Barnaby, and a life of work, ofart, and of art alone that's what I've made up my mind to. " "A woman that's made up her mind to that has no heart to hinder her!" "Would a man have that had done so?" "But I don't believe you, Alma. You're merely laughing at me. And, besides, with me you needn't give up art. We could work together. Youknow how much I admire your talent. I believe I could help it--serve it;I would be its willing slave, and yours, Heaven knows!" "I don't want any slave--nor any slavery. I want to be free always. Nowdo you see? I don't care for you, and I never could in the old way; but Ishould have to care for some one more than I believe I ever shall to giveup my work. Shall we go on?" She looked at her sketch. "No, we shall not go on, " he said, gloomily, as he rose. "I suppose you blame me, " she said, rising too. "Oh no! I blame no one--or only myself. I threw my chance away. " "I'm glad you see that; and I'm glad you did it. You don't believe me, ofcourse. Why do men think life can be only the one thing to women? And ifyou come to the selfish view, who are the happy women? I'm sure that ifwork doesn't fail me, health won't, and happiness won't. " "But you could work on with me--" "Second fiddle. Do you suppose I shouldn't be woman enough to wish mywork always less and lower than yours? At least I've heart enough forthat!" "You've heart enough for anything, Alma. I was a fool to say you hadn't. " "I think the women who keep their hearts have an even chance, at least, of having heart--" "Ah, there's where you're wrong!" "But mine isn't mine to give you, anyhow. And now I don't want you everto speak to me about this again. " "Oh, there's no danger!" he cried, bitterly. "I shall never willingly seeyou again. " "That's as you like, Mr. Beaton. We've had to be very frank, but I don'tsee why we shouldn't be friends. Still, we needn't, if you don't like. " "And I may come--I may come here--as--as usual?" "Why, if you can consistently, " she said, with a smile, and she held outher hand to him. He went home dazed, and feeling as if it were a bad joke that had beenput upon him. At least the affair went so deep that it estranged theaspect of his familiar studio. Some of the things in it were not veryfamiliar; he had spent lately a great deal on rugs, on stuffs, onJapanese bric-a-brac. When he saw these things in the shops he had feltthat he must have them; that they were necessary to him; and he waspartly in debt for them, still without having sent any of his earnings topay his father. As he looked at them now he liked to fancy somethingweird and conscious in them as the silent witnesses of a broken life. Hefelt about among some of the smaller objects on the mantel for his pipe. Before he slept he was aware, in the luxury of his despair, of a remoterelief, an escape; and, after all, the understanding he had come to withAlma was only the explicit formulation of terms long tacit between them. Beaton would have been puzzled more than he knew if she had taken himseriously. It was inevitable that he should declare himself in love withher; but he was not disappointed at her rejection of his love; perhapsnot so much as he would have been at its acceptance, though he tried tothink otherwise, and to give himself airs of tragedy. He did not reallyfeel that the result was worse than what had gone before, and it left himfree. But he did not go to the Leightons again for so long a time that Mrs. Leighton asked Alma what had happened. Alma told her. "And he won't come any more?" her mother sighed, with reserved censure. "Oh, I think he will. He couldn't very well come the next night. But hehas the habit of coming, and with Mr. Beaton habit is everything--eventhe habit of thinking he's in love with some one. " "Alma, " said her mother, "I don't think it's very nice for a girl to leta young man keep coming to see her after she's refused him. " "Why not, if it amuses him and doesn't hurt the girl?" "But it does hurt her, Alma. It--it's indelicate. It isn't fair to him;it gives him hopes. " "Well, mamma, it hasn't happened in the given case yet. If Mr. Beatoncomes again, I won't see him, and you can forbid him the house. " "If I could only feel sure, Alma, " said her mother, taking up anotherbranch of the inquiry, "that you really knew your own mind, I should beeasier about it. " "Then you can rest perfectly quiet, mamma. I do know my own mind; and, what's worse, I know Mr. Beaton's mind. " "What do you mean?" "I mean that he spoke to me the other night simply because Mr. Fulkerson's engagement had broken him all up. " "What expressions!" Mrs. Leighton lamented. "He let it out himself, " Alma went on. "And you wouldn't have thought itwas very flattering yourself. When I'm made love to, after this, I preferto be made love to in an off-year, when there isn't another engagedcouple anywhere about. " "Did you tell him that, Alma?" "Tell him that! What do you mean, mamma? I may be indelicate, but I'm notquite so indelicate as that. " "I didn't mean you were indelicate, really, Alma, but I wanted to warnyou. I think Mr. Beaton was very much in earnest. " "Oh, so did he!" "And you didn't?" "Oh yes, for the time being. I suppose he's very much in earnest withMiss Vance at times, and with Miss Dryfoos at others. Sometimes he's apainter, and sometimes he's an architect, and sometimes he's a sculptor. He has too many gifts--too many tastes. " "And if Miss Vance and Miss Dryfoos--" "Oh, do say Sculpture and Architecture, mamma! It's getting so dreadfullypersonal!" "Alma, you know that I only wish to get at your real feeling in thematter. " "And you know that I don't want to let you--especially when I haven't gotany real feeling in the matter. But I should think--speaking in theabstract entirely--that if either of those arts was ever going to be inearnest about him, it would want his exclusive devotion for a week atleast. " "I didn't know, " said Mrs. Leighton, "that he was doing anything now atthe others. I thought he was entirely taken up with his work on 'EveryOther Week. '" "Oh, he is! he is!" "And you certainly can't say, my dear, that he hasn't been verykind--very useful to you, in that matter. " "And so I ought to have said yes out of gratitude? Thank you, mamma! Ididn't know you held me so cheap. " "You know whether I hold you cheap or not, Alma. I don't want you tocheapen yourself. I don't want you to trifle with any one. I want you tobe honest with yourself. " "Well, come now, mamma! Suppose you begin. I've been perfectly honestwith myself, and I've been honest with Mr. Beaton. I don't care for him, and I've told him I didn't; so he may be supposed to know it. If he comeshere after this, he'll come as a plain, unostentatious friend of thefamily, and it's for you to say whether he shall come in that capacity ornot. I hope you won't trifle with him, and let him get the notion thathe's coming on any other basis. " Mrs. Leighton felt the comfort of the critical attitude far too keenly toabandon it for anything constructive. She only said, "You know very well, Alma, that's a matter I can have nothing to do with. " "Then you leave him entirely to me?" "I hope you will regard his right to candid and open treatment. " "He's had nothing but the most open and candid treatment from me, mamma. It's you that wants to play fast and loose with him. And, to tell you thetruth, I believe he would like that a good deal better; I believe that, if there's anything he hates, it's openness and candor. " Alma laughed, and put her arms round her mother, who could not help laughing a little, too. II. The winter did not renew for Christine and Mela the social opportunitywhich the spring had offered. After the musicale at Mrs. Horn's, theyboth made their party-call, as Mela said, in due season; but they did notfind Mrs. Horn at home, and neither she nor Miss Vance came to see themafter people returned to town in the fall. They tried to believe for atime that Mrs. Horn had not got their cards; this pretence failed them, and they fell back upon their pride, or rather Christine's pride. Melahad little but her good-nature to avail her in any exigency, and if Mrs. Horn or Miss Vance had come to call after a year of neglect, she wouldhave received them as amiably as if they had not lost a day in coming. But Christine had drawn a line beyond which they would not have beenforgiven; and she had planned the words and the behavior with which shewould have punished them if they had appeared then. Neither sisterimagined herself in anywise inferior to them; but Christine wassuspicious, at least, and it was Mela who invented the hypothesis of thelost cards. As nothing happened to prove or to disprove the fact, shesaid, "I move we put Coonrod up to gittun' it out of Miss Vance, at someof their meetun's. " "If you do, " said Christine, "I'll kill you. " Christine, however, had the visits of Beaton to console her, and, ifthese seemed to have no definite aim, she was willing to rest in thepleasure they gave her vanity; but Mela had nothing. Sometimes she evenwished they were all back on the farm. "It would be the best thing for both of you, " said Mrs. Dryfoos, inanswer to such a burst of desperation. "I don't think New York is anyplace for girls. " "Well, what I hate, mother, " said Mela, "is, it don't seem to be anyplace for young men, either. " She found this so good when she had said itthat she laughed over it till Christine was angry. "A body would think there had never been any joke before. " "I don't see as it's a joke, " said Mrs. Dryfoos. "It's the plain truth. " "Oh, don't mind her, mother, " said Mela. "She's put out because her oldMr. Beaton ha'r't been round for a couple o' weeks. If you don't watchout, that fellow 'll give you the slip yit, Christine, after all yourpains. " "Well, there ain't anybody to give you the slip, Mela, " Christine clawedback. "No; I ha'n't ever set my traps for anybody. " This was what Mela said forwant of a better retort; but it was not quite true. When Kendricks camewith Beaton to call after her father's dinner, she used all her cunningto ensnare him, and she had him to herself as long as Beaton stayed;Dryfoos sent down word that he was not very well and had gone to bed. Thenovelty of Mela had worn off for Kendricks, and she found him, as shefrankly told him, not half as entertaining as he was at Mrs. Horn's; butshe did her best with him as the only flirtable material which had yetcome to her hand. It would have been her ideal to have the young men staytill past midnight, and her father come down-stairs in his stocking-feetand tell them it was time to go. But they made a visit of decorousbrevity, and Kendricks did not come again. She met him afterward, once, as she was crossing the pavement in Union Square to get into her coupe, and made the most of him; but it was necessarily very little, and so hepassed out of her life without having left any trace in her heart, thoughMela had a heart that she would have put at the disposition of almost anyyoung man that wanted it. Kendricks himself, Manhattan cockney as he was, with scarcely more out look into the average American nature than if hehad been kept a prisoner in New York society all his days, perceived aproperty in her which forbade him as a man of conscience to trifle withher; something earthly good and kind, if it was simple and vulgar. Inrevising his impressions of her, it seemed to him that she would comeeven to better literary effect if this were recognized in her; and itmade her sacred, in spite of her willingness to fool and to be fooled, inher merely human quality. After all, he saw that she wished honestly tolove and to be loved, and the lures she threw out to that end seemed tohim pathetic rather than ridiculous; he could not join Beaton in laughingat her; and he did not like Beaton's laughing at the other girl, either. It seemed to Kendricks, with the code of honor which he mostly kept tohimself because he was a little ashamed to find there were so few otherslike it, that if Beaton cared nothing for the other girl--and Christineappeared simply detestable to Kendricks--he had better keep away fromher, and not give her the impression he was in love with her. He ratherfancied that this was the part of a gentleman, and he could not havepenetrated to that aesthetic and moral complexity which formed theconsciousness of a nature like Beaton's and was chiefly a torment toitself; he could not have conceived of the wayward impulses indulged atevery moment in little things till the straight highway was traversed andwell-nigh lost under their tangle. To do whatever one likes is finally todo nothing that one likes, even though one continues to do what one will;but Kendricks, though a sage of twenty-seven, was still too young tounderstand this. Beaton scarcely understood it himself, perhaps because he was not yettwenty-seven. He only knew that his will was somehow sick; that it spentitself in caprices, and brought him no happiness from the fulfilment ofthe most vehement wish. But he was aware that his wishes grew less andless vehement; he began to have a fear that some time he might have noneat all. It seemed to him that if he could once do something that wasthoroughly distasteful to himself, he might make a beginning in the rightdirection; but when he tried this on a small scale, it failed, and itseemed stupid. Some sort of expiation was the thing he needed, he wassure; but he could not think of anything in particular to expiate; a mancould not expiate his temperament, and his temperament was what Beatondecided to be at fault. He perceived that it went deeper than even fatewould have gone; he could have fulfilled an evil destiny and had donewith it, however terrible. His trouble was that he could not escape fromhimself; and, for the most part, he justified himself in refusing to try. After he had come to that distinct understanding with Alma Leighton, andexperienced the relief it really gave him, he thought for a while that ifit had fallen out otherwise, and she had put him in charge of herdestiny, he might have been better able to manage his own. But as it was, he could only drift, and let all other things take their course. It wasnecessary that he should go to see her afterward, to show her that he wasequal to the event; but he did not go so often, and he went ratheroftener to the Dryfooses; it was not easy to see Margaret Vance, excepton the society terms. With much sneering and scorning, he fulfilled theduties to Mrs. Horn without which he knew he should be dropped from herlist; but one might go to many of her Thursdays without getting manywords with her niece. Beaton hardly knew whether he wanted many; the girlkept the charm of her innocent stylishness; but latterly she wanted totalk more about social questions than about the psychical problems thatyoung people usually debate so personally. Son of the working-people ashe was, Beaton had never cared anything about such matters; he did notknow about them or wish to know; he was perhaps too near them. Besides, there was an embarrassment, at least on her part, concerning theDryfooses. She was too high-minded to blame him for having tempted her toher failure with them by his talk about them; but she was conscious ofavoiding them in her talk. She had decided not to renew the effort shehad made in the spring; because she could not do them good asfellow-creatures needing food and warmth and work, and she would not tryto befriend them socially; she had a horror of any such futilesentimentality. She would have liked to account to Beaton in this way fora course which she suspected he must have heard their comments upon, butshe did not quite know how to do it; she could not be sure how much orhow little he cared for them. Some tentative approaches which she madetoward explanation were met with such eager disclaim of personal interestthat she knew less than before what to think; and she turned the talkfrom the sisters to the brother, whom it seemed she still continued tomeet in their common work among the poor. "He seems very different, " she ventured. "Oh, quite, " said Beaton. "He's the kind of person that you might supposegave the Catholics a hint for the cloistral life; he's a cloisterednature--the nature that atones and suffers for. But he's awfully dullcompany, don't you think? I never can get anything out of him. " "He's very much in earnest. " "Remorselessly. We've got a profane and mundane creature there at theoffice who runs us all, and it's shocking merely to see the contact ofthe tyro natures. When Fulkerson gets to joking Dryfoos--he likes to puthis joke in the form of a pretence that Dryfoos is actuated by a selfishmotive, that he has an eye to office, and is working up a politicalinterest for himself on the East Side--it's something inexpressible. " "I should think so, " said Miss Vance, with such lofty disapproval thatBeaton felt himself included in it for having merely told what caused it. He could not help saying, in natural rebellion, "Well, the man of oneidea is always a little ridiculous. " "When his idea is right?" she demanded. "A right idea can't beridiculous. " "Oh, I only said the man that held it was. He's flat; he has no relief, no projection. " She seemed unable to answer, and he perceived that he had silenced her tohis own, disadvantage. It appeared to Beaton that she was becoming alittle too exacting for comfort in her idealism. He put down the cup oftea he had been tasting, and said, in his solemn staccato: "I must go. Good-bye!" and got instantly away from her, with an effect he had ofhaving suddenly thought of something imperative. He went up to Mrs. Horn for a moment's hail and farewell, and felthimself subtly detained by her through fugitive passages of conversationwith half a dozen other people. He fancied that at crises of this strangeinterview Mrs. Horn was about to become confidential with him, andconfidential, of all things, about her niece. She ended by not havingpalpably been so. In fact, the concern in her mind would have beendifficult to impart to a young man, and after several experiments Mrs. Horn found it impossible to say that she wished Margaret could somehow beinterested in lower things than those which occupied her. She had watchedwith growing anxiety the girl's tendency to various kinds ofself-devotion. She had dark hours in which she even feared her entirewithdrawal from the world in a life of good works. Before now, girls hadentered the Protestant sisterhoods, which appeal so potently to the youngand generous imagination, and Margaret was of just the temperament to beinfluenced by them. During the past summer she had been unhappy at herseparation from the cares that had engrossed her more and more as theirstay in the city drew to an end in the spring, and she had hurried heraunt back to town earlier in the fall than she would have chosen to come. Margaret had her correspondents among the working-women whom shebefriended. Mrs. Horn was at one time alarmed to find that Margaret wasactually promoting a strike of the button-hole workers. This, of course, had its ludicrous side, in connection with a young lady in good society, and a person of even so little humor as Mrs. Horn could not help seeingit. At the same time, she could not help foreboding the worst from it;she was afraid that Margaret's health would give way under the strain, and that if she did not go into a sisterhood she would at least go into adecline. She began the winter with all such counteractive measures as shecould employ. At an age when such things weary, she threw herself intothe pleasures of society with the hope of dragging Margaret after her;and a sympathetic witness must have followed with compassion her coursefrom ball to ball, from reception to reception, from parlor-reading toparlor-reading, from musicale to musicale, from play to play, from operato opera. She tasted, after she had practically renounced them, thebitter and the insipid flavors of fashionable amusement, in the hope thatMargaret might find them sweet, and now at the end she had to own toherself that she had failed. It was coming Lent again, and the girl hadonly grown thinner and more serious with the diversions that did notdivert her from the baleful works of beneficence on which Mrs. Horn feltthat she was throwing her youth away. Margaret could have borne eitheralone, but together they were wearing her out. She felt it a duty toundergo the pleasures her aunt appointed for her, but she could notforego the other duties in which she found her only pleasure. She kept up her music still because she could employ it at the meetingsfor the entertainment, and, as she hoped, the elevation of herworking-women; but she neglected the other aesthetic interests which onceoccupied her; and, at sight of Beaton talking with her, Mrs. Horn caughtat the hope that he might somehow be turned to account in revivingMargaret's former interest in art. She asked him if Mr. Wetmore had hisclasses that winter as usual; and she said she wished Margaret could beinduced to go again: Mr. Wetmore always said that she did not draw verywell, but that she had a great deal of feeling for it, and her work wasinteresting. She asked, were the Leightons in town again; and shemurmured a regret that she had not been able to see anything of them, without explaining why; she said she had a fancy that if Margaret knewMiss Leighton, and what she was doing, it might stimulate her, perhaps. She supposed Miss Leighton was still going on with her art? Beaton said, Oh yes, he believed so. But his manner did not encourage Mrs. Horn to pursue her aims in thatdirection, and she said, with a sigh, she wished he still had a class;she always fancied that Margaret got more good from his instruction thanfrom any one else's. He said that she was very good; but there was really nobody who knew halfas much as Wetmore, or could make any one understand half as much. Mrs. Horn was afraid, she said, that Mr. Wetmore's terrible sinceritydiscouraged Margaret; he would not let her have any illusions about theoutcome of what she was doing; and did not Mr. Beaton think that someillusion was necessary with young people? Of course, it was very nice ofMr. Wetmore to be so honest, but it did not always seem to be the wisestthing. She begged Mr. Beaton to try to think of some one who would be alittle less severe. Her tone assumed a deeper interest in the people whowere coming up and going away, and Beaton perceived that he wasdismissed. He went away with vanity flattered by the sense of having been appealedto concerning Margaret, and then he began to chafe at what she had saidof Wetmore's honesty, apropos of her wish that he still had a classhimself. Did she mean, confound her? that he was insincere, and would letMiss Vance suppose she had more talent than she really had? The moreBeaton thought of this, the more furious he became, and the more he wasconvinced that something like it had been unconsciously if notconsciously in her mind. He framed some keen retorts, to the generaleffect that with the atmosphere of illusion preserved so completely athome, Miss Vance hardly needed it in her art studies. Having justdetermined never to go near Mrs. Horn's Thursdays again, he decided to goonce more, in order to plant this sting in her capacious but somewhatcallous bosom; and he planned how he would lead the talk up to the pointfrom which he should launch it. In the mean time he felt the need of some present solace, such as onlyunqualified worship could give him; a cruel wish to feel his power insome direction where, even if it were resisted, it could not be overcome, drove him on. That a woman who was to Beaton the embodiment ofartificiality should intimate, however innocently--the innocence made itall the worse--that he was less honest than Wetmore, whom he knew to beso much more honest, was something that must be retaliated somewherebefore his self-respect could be restored. It was only five o'clock, andhe went on up-town to the Dryfooses', though he had been there only thenight before last. He asked for the ladies, and Mrs. Mandel received him. "The young ladies are down-town shopping, " she said, "but I am very gladof the opportunity of seeing you alone, Mr. Beaton. You know I livedseveral years in Europe. " "Yes, " said Beaton, wondering what that could have to do with herpleasure in seeing him alone. "I believe so?" He involuntarily gave hiswords the questioning inflection. "You have lived abroad, too, and so you won't find what I am going to askso strange. Mr. Beaton, why do you come so much to this house?" Mrs. Mandel bent forward with an aspect of ladylike interest and smiled. Beaton frowned. "Why do I come so much?" "Yes. " "Why do I--Excuse me, Mrs. Mandel, but will you allow me to ask why youask?" "Oh, certainly. There's no reason why I shouldn't say, for I wish you tobe very frank with me. I ask because there are two young ladies in thishouse; and, in a certain way, I have to take the place of a mother tothem. I needn't explain why; you know all the people here, and youunderstand. I have nothing to say about them, but I should not bespeaking to you now if they were not all rather helpless people. They donot know the world they have come to live in here, and they cannot helpthemselves or one another. But you do know it, Mr. Beaton, and I am sureyou know just how much or how little you mean by coming here. You areeither interested in one of these young girls or you are not. If you are, I have nothing more to say. If you are not--" Mrs. Mandel continued tosmile, but the smile had grown more perfunctory, and it had an icy gleam. Beaton looked at her with surprise that he gravely kept to himself. Hehad always regarded her as a social nullity, with a kind of pity, to besure, as a civilized person living among such people as the Dryfooses, but not without a humorous contempt; he had thought of her as Mandel, andsometimes as Old Mandel, though she was not half a score of years hissenior, and was still well on the sunny side of forty. He reddened, andthen turned an angry pallor. "Excuse me again, Mrs. Mandel. Do you askthis from the young ladies?" "Certainly not, " she said, with the best temper, and with something inher tone that convicted Beaton of vulgarity, in putting his question ofher authority in the form of a sneer. "As I have suggested, they wouldhardly know how to help themselves at all in such a matter. I have noobjection to saying that I ask it from the father of the young ladies. Ofcourse, in and for myself I should have no right to know anything aboutyour affairs. I assure you the duty of knowing isn't very pleasant. " Thelittle tremor in her clear voice struck Beaton as something rather nice. "I can very well believe that, Mrs. Mandel, " he said, with a dreamysadness in his own. He lifted his eyes and looked into hers. "If I toldyou that I cared nothing about them in the way you intimate?" "Then I should prefer to let you characterize your own conduct incontinuing to come here for the year past, as you have done, and tacitlyleading them on to infer differently. " They both mechanically kept up thefiction of plurality in speaking of Christine, but there was no doubt inthe mind of either which of the young ladies the other meant. A good manythoughts went through Beaton's mind, and none of them were flattering. Hehad not been unconscious that the part he had played toward this girl wasignoble, and that it had grown meaner as the fancy which her beauty hadat first kindled in him had grown cooler. He was aware that of late hehad been amusing himself with her passion in a way that was not less thancruel, not because he wished to do so, but because he was listless andwished nothing. He rose in saying: "I might be a little more lenient thanyou think, Mrs. Mandel; but I won't trouble you with any palliatingtheory. I will not come any more. " He bowed, and Mrs. Mandel said, "Of course, it's only your action that Iam concerned with. " She seemed to him merely triumphant, and he could not conceive what ithad cost her to nerve herself up to her too easy victory. He left Mrs. Mandel to a far harder lot than had fallen to him, and he went awayhating her as an enemy who had humiliated him at a moment when heparticularly needed exalting. It was really very simple for him to stopgoing to see Christine Dryfoos, but it was not at all simple for Mrs. Mandel to deal with the consequences of his not coming. He only thoughthow lightly she had stopped him, and the poor woman whom he had lefttrembling for what she had been obliged to do embodied for him theconscience that accused him of unpleasant things. "By heavens! this is piling it up, " he said to himself through his setteeth, realizing how it had happened right on top of that stupid insultfrom Mrs. Horn. Now he should have to give up his place on 'Every OtherWeek; he could not keep that, under the circumstances, even if somepretence were not made to get rid of him; he must hurry and anticipateany such pretence; he must see Fulkerson at once; he wondered where heshould find him at that hour. He thought, with bitterness so real that itgave him a kind of tragical satisfaction, how certainly he could find hima little later at Mrs. Leighton's; and Fulkerson's happiness became anadded injury. The thing had, of course, come about just at the wrong time. There neverhad been a time when Beaton needed money more, when he had spent what hehad and what he expected to have so recklessly. He was in debt toFulkerson personally and officially for advance payments of salary. Thethought of sending money home made him break into a scoffing laugh, whichhe turned into a cough in order to deceive the passers. What sort of faceshould he go with to Fulkerson and tell him that he renounced hisemployment on 'Every Other Week;' and what should he do when he hadrenounced it? Take pupils, perhaps; open a class? A lurid conception of aclass conducted on those principles of shameless flattery at which Mrs. Horn had hinted--he believed now she had meant to insult him--presenteditself. Why should not he act upon the suggestion? He thought withloathing for the whole race of women--dabblers in art. How easy the thingwould be: as easy as to turn back now and tell that old fool's girl thathe loved her, and rake in half his millions. Why should not he do that?No one else cared for him; and at a year's end, probably, one woman wouldbe like another as far as the love was concerned, and probably he shouldnot be more tired if the woman were Christine Dryfoos than if she wereMargaret Vance. He kept Alma Leighton out of the question, because at thebottom of his heart he believed that she must be forever unlike everyother woman to him. The tide of his confused and aimless reverie had carried him fardown-town, he thought; but when he looked up from it to see where he washe found himself on Sixth Avenue, only a little below Thirty-ninthStreet, very hot and blown; that idiotic fur overcoat was stifling. Hecould not possibly walk down to Eleventh; he did not want to walk even tothe Elevated station at Thirty-fourth; he stopped at the corner to waitfor a surface-car, and fell again into his bitter fancies. After a whilehe roused himself and looked up the track, but there was no car coming. He found himself beside a policeman, who was lazily swinging his club byits thong from his wrist. "When do you suppose a car will be along?" he asked, rather in a generalsarcasm of the absence of the cars than in any special belief that thepoliceman could tell him. The policeman waited to discharge his tobacco-juice into the gutter. "Inabout a week, " he said, nonchalantly. "What's the matter?" asked Beaton, wondering what the joke could be. "Strike, " said the policeman. His interest in Beaton's ignorance seemedto overcome his contempt of it. "Knocked off everywhere this morningexcept Third Avenue and one or two cross-town lines. " He spat again andkept his bulk at its incline over the gutter to glance at a group of menon the corner below: They were neatly dressed, and looked like somethingbetter than workingmen, and they had a holiday air of being in their bestclothes. "Some of the strikers?" asked Beaton. The policeman nodded. "Any trouble yet?" "There won't be any trouble till we begin to move the cars, " said thepoliceman. Beaton felt a sudden turn of his rage toward the men whose action wouldnow force him to walk five blocks and mount the stairs of the Elevatedstation. "If you'd take out eight or ten of those fellows, " he said, ferociously, "and set them up against a wall and shoot them, you'd save agreat deal of bother. " "I guess we sha'n't have to shoot much, " said the policeman, stillswinging his locust. "Anyway, we shant begin it. If it comes to a fight, though, " he said, with a look at the men under the scooping rim of hishelmet, "we can drive the whole six thousand of 'em into the East Riverwithout pullin' a trigger. " "Are there six thousand in it?" "About. " "What do the infernal fools expect to live on?" "The interest of their money, I suppose, " said the officer, with a grinof satisfaction in his irony. "It's got to run its course. Then they'llcome back with their heads tied up and their tails between their legs, and plead to be taken on again. " "If I was a manager of the roads, " said Beaton, thinking of how much hewas already inconvenienced by the strike, and obscurely connecting it asone of the series with the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of Mrs. Horn and Mrs. Mandel, "I would see them starve before I'd take themback--every one of them. " "Well, " said the policeman, impartially, as a man might whom thecompanies allowed to ride free, but who had made friends with a good manydrivers and conductors in the course of his free riding, "I guess that'swhat the roads would like to do if they could; but the men are too manyfor them, and there ain't enough other men to take their places. " "No matter, " said Beaton, severely. "They can bring in men from otherplaces. " "Oh, they'll do that fast enough, " said the policeman. A man came out of the saloon on the corner where the strikers werestanding, noisy drunk, and they began, as they would have said, to havesome fun with him. The policeman left Beaton, and sauntered slowly downtoward the group as if in the natural course of an afternoon ramble. Onthe other side of the street Beaton could see another officer saunteringup from the block below. Looking up and down the avenue, so silent of itshorse-car bells, he saw a policeman at every corner. It was ratherimpressive. III. The strike made a good deal of talk in it he office of 'Every Other Week'that is, it made Fulkerson talk a good deal. He congratulated himselfthat he was not personally incommoded by it, like some of the fellows wholived uptown, and had not everything under one roof, as it were. Heenjoyed the excitement of it, and he kept the office boy running out tobuy the extras which the newsmen came crying through the street almostevery hour with a lamentable, unintelligible noise. He read not only thelatest intelligence of the strike, but the editorial comments on it, which praised the firm attitude of both parties, and the admirablemeasures taken by the police to preserve order. Fulkerson enjoyed theinterviews with the police captains and the leaders of the strike; heequally enjoyed the attempts of the reporters to interview the roadmanagers, which were so graphically detailed, and with such a finefeeling for the right use of scare-heads as to have almost the value ofdirect expression from them, though it seemed that they had resolutelyrefused to speak. He said, at second-hand from the papers, that if themen behaved themselves and respected the rights of property, they wouldhave public sympathy with them every time; but just as soon as they beganto interfere with the roads' right to manage their own affairs in theirown way, they must be put down with an iron hand; the phrase "iron hand"did Fulkerson almost as much good as if it had never been used before. News began to come of fighting between the police and the strikers whenthe roads tried to move their cars with men imported from Philadelphia, and then Fulkerson rejoiced at the splendid courage of the police. At thesame time, he believed what the strikers said, and that the trouble wasnot made by them, but by gangs of roughs acting without their approval. In this juncture he was relieved by the arrival of the State Board ofArbitration, which took up its quarters, with a great many scare-heads, at one of the principal hotels, and invited the roads and the strikers tolay the matter in dispute before them; he said that now we should see theworking of the greatest piece of social machinery in modern times. But itappeared to work only in the alacrity of the strikers to submit theirgrievance. The road; were as one road in declaring that there was nothingto arbitrate, and that they were merely asserting their right to managetheir own affairs in their own way. One of the presidents was reported tohave told a member of the Board, who personally summoned him, to get outand to go about his business. Then, to Fulkerson's extremedisappointment, the august tribunal, acting on behalf of the sovereignpeople in the interest of peace, declared itself powerless, and got out, and would, no doubt, have gone about its business if it had had any. Fulkerson did not know what to say, perhaps because the extras did not;but March laughed at this result. "It's a good deal like the military manoeuvre of the King of France andhis forty thousand men. I suppose somebody told him at the top of thehill that there was nothing to arbitrate, and to get out and go about hisbusiness, and that was the reason he marched down after he had marched upwith all that ceremony. What amuses me is to find that in an affair ofthis kind the roads have rights and the strikers have rights, but thepublic has no rights at all. The roads and the strikers are allowed tofight out a private war in our midst as thoroughly and precisely aprivate war as any we despise the Middle Ages for having tolerated--asany street war in Florence or Verona--and to fight it out at our painsand expense, and we stand by like sheep and wait till they get tired. It's a funny attitude for a city of fifteen hundred thousandinhabitants. " "What would you do?" asked Fulkerson, a good deal daunted by this view ofthe case. "Do? Nothing. Hasn't the State Board of Arbitration declared itselfpowerless? We have no hold upon the strikers; and we're so used to beingsnubbed and disobliged by common carriers that we have forgotten our holdon the roads and always allow them to manage their own affairs in theirown way, quite as if we had nothing to do with them and they owed us noservices in return for their privileges. " "That's a good deal so, " said Fulkerson, disordering his hair. "Well, it's nuts for the colonel nowadays. He says if he was boss of this townhe would seize the roads on behalf of the people, and man 'em withpolicemen, and run 'em till the managers had come to terms with thestrikers; and he'd do that every time there was a strike. " "Doesn't that rather savor of the paternalism he condemned in Lindau?"asked March. "I don't know. It savors of horse sense. " "You are pretty far gone, Fulkerson. I thought you were the most engagedman I ever saw; but I guess you're more father-in-lawed. And beforeyou're married, too. " "Well, the colonel's a glorious old fellow, March. I wish he had thepower to do that thing, just for the fun of looking on while he waltzedin. He's on the keen jump from morning till night, and he's up late andearly to see the row. I'm afraid he'll get shot at some of the fights; hesees them all; I can't get any show at them: haven't seen a brickbatshied or a club swung yet. Have you?" "No, I find I can philosophize the situation about as well from thepapers, and that's what I really want to do, I suppose. Besides, I'msolemnly pledged by Mrs. March not to go near any sort of crowd, underpenalty of having her bring the children and go with me. Her theory isthat we must all die together; the children haven't been at school sincethe strike began. There's no precaution that Mrs. March hasn't used. Shewatches me whenever I go out, and sees that I start straight for thisoffice. " Fulkerson laughed and said: "Well, it's probably the only thing that'ssaved your life. Have you seen anything of Beaton lately?" "No. You don't mean to say he's killed!" "Not if he knows it. But I don't know--What do you say, March? What's thereason you couldn't get us up a paper on the strike?" "I knew it would fetch round to 'Every Other Week, ' somehow. " "No, but seriously. There 'll be plenty of news paper accounts. But youcould treat it in the historical spirit--like something that happenedseveral centuries ago; De Foe's Plague of London style. Heigh? What mademe think of it was Beaton. If I could get hold of him, you two could goround together and take down its aesthetic aspects. It's a big thing, March, this strike is. I tell you it's imposing to have a private war, asyou say, fought out this way, in the heart of New York, and New York notminding, it a bit. See? Might take that view of it. With yourdescriptions and Beaton's sketches--well, it would just be the greatestcard! Come! What do you say?" "Will you undertake to make it right with Mrs. March if I'm killed andshe and the children are not killed with me?" "Well, it would be difficult. I wonder how it would do to get Kendricksto do the literary part?" "I've no doubt he'd jump at the chance. I've yet to see the form ofliterature that Kendricks wouldn't lay down his life for. " "Say!" March perceived that Fulkerson was about to vent anotherinspiration, and smiled patiently. "Look here! What's the reason wecouldn't get one of the strikers to write it up for us?" "Might have a symposium of strikers and presidents, " March suggested. "No; I'm in earnest. They say some of those fellows-especially theforeigners--are educated men. I know one fellow--a Bohemian--that used toedit a Bohemian newspaper here. He could write it out in his kind ofDutch, and we could get Lindau to translate it. " "I guess not, " said March, dryly. "Why not? He'd do it for the cause, wouldn't he? Suppose you put it up onhim the next time you see him. " "I don't see Lindau any more, " said March. He added, "I guess he'srenounced me along with Mr. Dryfoos's money. " "Pshaw! You don't mean he hasn't been round since?" "He came for a while, but he's left off coming now. I don't feelparticularly gay about it, " March said, with some resentment ofFulkerson's grin. "He's left me in debt to him for lessons to thechildren. " Fulkerson laughed out. "Well, he is the greatest old fool! Who'd 'a'thought he'd 'a' been in earnest with those 'brincibles' of his? But Isuppose there have to be just such cranks; it takes all kinds to make aworld. " "There has to be one such crank, it seems, " March partially assented. "One's enough for me. " "I reckon this thing is nuts for Lindau, too, " said Fulkerson. "Why, itmust act like a schooner of beer on him all the while, to see 'gabidal'embarrassed like it is by this strike. It must make old Lindau feel likehe was back behind those barricades at Berlin. Well, he's a splendid oldfellow; pity he drinks, as I remarked once before. " When March left the office he did not go home so directly as he came, perhaps because Mrs. March's eye was not on him. He was very curiousabout some aspects of the strike, whose importance, as a great socialconvulsion, he felt people did not recognize; and, with his temperance ineverything, he found its negative expressions as significant as its moreviolent phases. He had promised his wife solemnly that he would keep awayfrom these, and he had a natural inclination to keep his promise; he hadno wish to be that peaceful spectator who always gets shot when there isany firing on a mob. He interested himself in the apparent indifferenceof the mighty city, which kept on about its business as tranquilly as ifthe private war being fought out in its midst were a vague rumor ofIndian troubles on the frontier; and he realized how there might oncehave been a street feud of forty years in Florence without interferingmaterially with the industry and prosperity of the city. On Broadwaythere was a silence where a jangle and clatter of horse-car bells andhoofs had been, but it was not very noticeable; and on the avenues, roofed by the elevated roads, this silence of the surface tracks was notnoticeable at all in the roar of the trains overhead. Some of thecross-town cars were beginning to run again, with a policeman on the rearof each; on the Third Avenge line, operated by non-union men, who had notstruck, there were two policemen beside the driver of every car, and twobeside the conductor, to protect them from the strikers. But there wereno strikers in sight, and on Second Avenue they stood quietly about ingroups on the corners. While March watched them at a safe distance, a carladen with policemen came down the track, but none of the strikersoffered to molest it. In their simple Sunday best, March thought themvery quiet, decent-looking people, and he could well believe that theyhad nothing to do with the riotous outbreaks in other parts of the city. He could hardly believe that there were any such outbreaks; he began moreand more to think them mere newspaper exaggerations in the absence of anydisturbance, or the disposition to it, that he could see. He walked on tothe East River. Avenues A, B, and C presented the same quiet aspect as Second Avenue;groups of men stood on the corners, and now and then a police-laden carwas brought unmolested down the tracks before them; they looked at it andtalked together, and some laughed, but there was no trouble. March got a cross-town car, and came back to the West Side. A policeman, looking very sleepy and tired, lounged on the platform. "I suppose you'll be glad when this cruel war is over, " March suggested, as he got in. The officer gave him a surly glance and made him no answer. His behavior, from a man born to the joking give and take of our life, impressed March. It gave him a fine sense of the ferocity which he hadread of the French troops putting on toward the populace just before thecoup d'etat; he began to feel like the populace; but he struggled withhimself and regained his character of philosophical observer. In thischaracter he remained in the car and let it carry him by the corner wherehe ought to have got out and gone home, and let it keep on with him toone of the farthermost tracks westward, where so much of the fighting wasreported to have taken place. But everything on the way was as quiet ason the East Side. Suddenly the car stopped with so quick a turn of the brake that he washalf thrown from his seat, and the policeman jumped down from theplatform and ran forward. IV Dryfoos sat at breakfast that morning with Mrs. Mandel as usual to pourout his coffee. Conrad had gone down-town; the two girls lay abed muchlater than their father breakfasted, and their mother had gradually growntoo feeble to come down till lunch. Suddenly Christine appeared at thedoor. Her face was white to the edges of her lips, and her eyes wereblazing. "Look here, father! Have you been saying anything to Mr. Beaton?" The old man looked up at her across his coffee-cup through his frowningbrows. "No. " Mrs. Mandel dropped her eyes, and the spoon shook in her hand. "Then what's the reason he don't come here any more?" demanded the girl;and her glance darted from her father to Mrs. Mandel. "Oh, it's you, isit? I'd like to know who told you to meddle in other people's business?" "I did, " said Dryfoos, savagely. "I told her to ask him what he wantedhere, and he said he didn't want anything, and he stopped coming. That'sall. I did it myself. " "Oh, you did, did you?" said the girl, scarcely less insolently than shehad spoken to Mrs. Mandel. "I should like to know what you did it for?I'd like to know what made you think I wasn't able to take care ofmyself. I just knew somebody had been meddling, but I didn't suppose itwas you. I can manage my own affairs in my own way, if you please, andI'll thank you after this to leave me to myself in what don't concernyou. " "Don't concern me? You impudent jade!" her father began. Christine advanced from the doorway toward the table; she had her handsclosed upon what seemed trinkets, some of which glittered and dangledfrom them. She said, "Will you go to him and tell him that thismeddlesome minx, here, had no business to say anything about me to him, and you take it all back?" "No!" shouted the old man. "And if--" "That's all I want of you!" the girl shouted in her turn. "Here are yourpresents. " With both hands she flung the jewels-pins and rings andearrings and bracelets--among the breakfast-dishes, from which some ofthem sprang to the floor. She stood a moment to pull the intaglio ringfrom the finger where Beaton put it a year ago, and dashed that at herfather's plate. Then she whirled out of the room, and they heard herrunning up-stairs. The old man made a start toward her, but he fell back in his chair beforeshe was gone, and, with a fierce, grinding movement of his jaws, controlled himself. "Take-take those things up, " he gasped to Mrs. Mandel. He seemed unable to rise again from his chair; but when she askedhim if he were unwell, he said no, with an air of offence, and gotquickly to his feet. He mechanically picked up the intaglio ring from thetable while he stood there, and put it on his little finger; his hand wasnot much bigger than Christine's. "How do you suppose she found it out?"he asked, after a moment. "She seems to have merely suspected it, " said Mrs. Mandel, in a tremor, and with the fright in her eyes which Christine's violence had broughtthere. "Well, it don't make any difference. She had to know, somehow, and nowshe knows. " He started toward the door of the library, as if to go intothe hall, where his hat and coat hung. "Mr. Dryfoos, " palpitated Mrs. Mandel, "I can't remain here, after thelanguage your daughter has used to me--I can't let you leave me--I--I'mafraid of her--" "Lock yourself up, then, " said the old man, rudely. He added, from thehall before he went out, "I reckon she'll quiet down now. " He took the Elevated road. The strike seemed a vary far-off thing, thoughthe paper he bought to look up the stockmarket was full of noisytypography about yesterday's troubles on the surface lines. Among themillions in Wall Street there was some joking and some swearing, but notmuch thinking, about the six thousand men who had taken such chances intheir attempt to better their condition. Dryfoos heard nothing of thestrike in the lobby of the Stock Exchange, where he spent two or threehours watching a favorite stock of his go up and go down under thebetting. By the time the Exchange closed it had risen eight points, andon this and some other investments he was five thousand dollars richerthan he had been in the morning. But he had expected to be richer still, and he was by no means satisfied with his luck. All through theexcitement of his winning and losing had played the dull, murderous ragehe felt toward they child who had defied him, and when the game was overand he started home his rage mounted into a sort of frenzy; he wouldteach her, he would break her. He walked a long way without thinking, andthen waited for a car. None came, and he hailed a passing coupe. "What has got all the cars?" he demanded of the driver, who jumped downfrom his box to open the door for him and get his direction. "Been away?" asked the driver. "Hasn't been any car along for a week. Strike. " "Oh yes, " said Dryfoos. He felt suddenly giddy, and he remained staringat the driver after he had taken his seat. The man asked, "Where to?" Dryfoos could not think of his street or number, and he said, withuncontrollable fury: "I told you once! Go up to West Eleventh, and drivealong slow on the south side; I'll show you the place. " He could not remember the number of 'Every Other Week' office, where hesuddenly decided to stop before he went home. He wished to see Fulkerson, and ask him something about Beaton: whether he had been about lately, andwhether he had dropped any hint of what had happened concerningChristine; Dryfoos believed that Fulkerson was in the fellow'sconfidence. There was nobody but Conrad in the counting-room, whither Dryfoosreturned after glancing into Fulkerson's empty office. "Where'sFulkerson?" he asked, sitting down with his hat on. "He went out a few moments ago, " said Conrad, glancing at the clock. "I'mafraid he isn't coming back again today, if you wanted to see him. " Dryfoos twisted his head sidewise and upward to indicate March's room. "That other fellow out, too?" "He went just before Mr. Fulkerson, " answered Conrad. "Do you generally knock off here in the middle of the afternoon?" askedthe old man. "No, " said Conrad, as patiently as if his father had not been there ascore of times and found the whole staff of "Every Other Week" at workbetween four and five. "Mr. March, you know, always takes a good deal ofhis work home with him, and I suppose Mr. Fulkerson went out so earlybecause there isn't much doing to-day. Perhaps it's the strike that makesit dull. " "The strike-yes! It's a pretty piece of business to have everythingthrown out because a parcel of lazy hounds want a chance to lay off andget drunk. " Dryfoos seemed to think Conrad would make some answer tothis, but the young man's mild face merely saddened, and he said nothing. "I've got a coupe out there now that I had to take because I couldn't geta car. If I had my way I'd have a lot of those vagabonds hung. They'rewaiting to get the city into a snarl, and then rob the houses--pack ofdirty, worthless whelps. They ought to call out the militia, and fireinto 'em. Clubbing is too good for them. " Conrad was still silent, andhis father sneered, "But I reckon you don't think so. " "I think the strike is useless, " said Conrad. "Oh, you do, do you? Comin' to your senses a little. Gettin' tiredwalkin' so much. I should like to know what your gentlemen over there onthe East Side think about the strike, anyway. " The young fellow dropped his eyes. "I am not authorized to speak forthem. " "Oh, indeed! And perhaps you're not authorized to speak for yourself?" "Father, you know we don't agree about these things. I'd rather nottalk--" "But I'm goin' to make you talk this time!" cried Dryfoos, striking thearm of the chair he sat in with the side of his fist. A maddening thoughtof Christine came over him. "As long as you eat my bread, you have got todo as I say. I won't have my children telling me what I shall do andsha'n't do, or take on airs of being holier than me. Now, you just speakup! Do you think those loafers are right, or don't you? Come!" Conrad apparently judged it best to speak. "I think they were veryfoolish to strike--at this time, when the Elevated roads can do thework. " "Oh, at this time, heigh! And I suppose they think over there on the EastSide that it 'd been wise to strike before we got the Elevated. " Conradagain refused to answer, and his father roared, "What do you think?" "I think a strike is always bad business. It's war; but sometimes theredon't seem any other way for the workingmen to get justice. They say thatsometimes strikes do raise the wages, after a while. " "Those lazy devils were paid enough already, " shrieked the old man. "They got two dollars a day. How much do you think they ought to 'a' got?Twenty?" Conrad hesitated, with a beseeching look at his father. But he decided toanswer. "The men say that with partial work, and fines, and other things, they get sometimes a dollar, and sometimes ninety cents a day. " "They lie, and you know they lie, " said his father, rising and comingtoward him. "And what do you think the upshot of it all will be, afterthey've ruined business for another week, and made people hire hacks, andstolen the money of honest men? How is it going to end?" "They will have to give in. " "Oh, give in, heigh! And what will you say then, I should like to know?How will you feel about it then? Speak!" "I shall feel as I do now. I know you don't think that way, and I don'tblame you--or anybody. But if I have got to say how I shall feel, why, Ishall feel sorry they didn't succeed, for I believe they have a righteouscause, though they go the wrong way to help themselves. " His father came close to him, his eyes blazing, his teeth set. "Do youdare so say that to me?" "Yes. I can't help it. I pity them; my whole heart is with those poormen. " "You impudent puppy!" shouted the old man. He lifted his hand and struckhis son in the face. Conrad caught his hand with his own left, and, whilethe blood began to trickle from a wound that Christine's intaglio ringhad made in his temple, he looked at him with a kind of grieving wonder, and said, "Father!" The old man wrenched his fist away and ran out of the house. Heremembered his address now, and he gave it as he plunged into the coupe. He trembled with his evil passion, and glared out of the windows at thepassers as he drove home; he only saw Conrad's mild, grieving, wonderingeyes, and the blood slowly trickling from the wound in his temple. Conrad went to the neat-set bowl in Fulkerson's comfortable room andwashed the blood away, and kept bathing the wound with the cold watertill it stopped bleeding. The cut was not deep, and he thought he wouldnot put anything on it. After a while he locked up the office and startedout, he hardly knew where. But he walked on, in the direction he hadtaken, till he found himself in Union Square, on the pavement in front ofBrentano's. It seemed to him that he heard some one calling gently tohim, "Mr. Dryfoos!" V. Conrad looked confusedly around, and the same voice said again, "Mr. Dryfoos!" and he saw that it was a lady speaking to him from a coupebeside the curbing, and then he saw that it was Miss Vance. She smiled when, he gave signs of having discovered her, and came up tothe door of her carriage. "I am so glad to meet you. I have been longingto talk to somebody; nobody seems to feel about it as I do. Oh, isn't ithorrible? Must they fail? I saw cars running on all the lines as I cameacross; it made me sick at heart. Must those brave fellows give in? Andeverybody seems to hate them so--I can't bear it. " Her face was estrangedwith excitement, and there were traces of tears on it. "You must think mealmost crazy to stop you in the street this way; but when I caught sightof you I had to speak. I knew you would sympathize--I knew you would feelas I do. Oh, how can anybody help honoring those poor men for standing byone another as they do? They are risking all they have in the world forthe sake of justice! Oh, they are true heroes! They are staking the breadof their wives and children on the dreadful chance they've taken! But noone seems to understand it. No one seems to see that they are willing tosuffer more now that other poor men may suffer less hereafter. And thosewretched creatures that are coming in to take their places--thosetraitors--" "We can't blame them for wanting to earn a living, Miss Vance, " saidConrad. "No, no! I don't blame them. Who am I, to do such a thing? It'swe--people like me, of my class--who make the poor betray one another. But this dreadful fighting--this hideous paper is full of it!" She heldup an extra, crumpled with her nervous reading. "Can't something be doneto stop it? Don't you think that if some one went among them, and triedto make them see how perfectly hopeless it was to resist the companiesand drive off the new men, he might do some good? I have wanted to go andtry; but I am a woman, and I mustn't! I shouldn't be afraid of thestrikers, but I'm afraid of what people would say!" Conrad kept pressinghis handkerchief to the cut in his temple, which he thought might bebleeding, and now she noticed this. "Are you hurt, Mr. Dryfoos? You lookso pale. " "No, it's nothing--a little scratch I've got. " "Indeed, you look pale. Have you a carriage? How will you get home? Willyou get in here with me and let me drive you?" "No, no, " said Conrad, smiling at her excitement. "I'm perfectly well--" "And you don't think I'm foolish and wicked for stopping you here andtalking in this way? But I know you feel as I do!" "Yes, I feel as you do. You are right--right in every way--I mustn't keepyou--Good-bye. " He stepped back to bow, but she put her beautiful handout of the window, and when he took it she wrung his hand hard. "Thank you, thank you! You are good and you are just! But no one can doanything. It's useless!" The type of irreproachable coachman on the box whose respectability hadsuffered through the strange behavior of his mistress in this interviewdrove quickly off at her signal, and Conrad stood a moment looking afterthe carriage. His heart was full of joy; it leaped; he thought it wouldburst. As he turned to walk away it seemed to him as if he mounted uponthe air. The trust she had shown him, the praise she had given him, thatcrush of the hand: he hoped nothing, he formed no idea from it, but itall filled him with love that cast out the pain and shame he had beensuffering. He believed that he could never be unhappy any more; thehardness that was in his mind toward his father went out of it; he sawhow sorely he had tried him; he grieved that he had done it, but themeans, the difference of his feeling about the cause of their quarrel, hewas solemnly glad of that since she shared it. He was only sorry for hisfather. "Poor father!" he said under his breath as he went along. Heexplained to her about his father in his reverie, and she pitied hisfather, too. He was walking over toward the West Side, aimlessly at first, and then attimes with the longing to do something to save those mistaken men fromthemselves forming itself into a purpose. Was not that what she meantwhen she bewailed her woman's helplessness? She must have wished him totry if he, being a man, could not do something; or if she did not, stillhe would try, and if she heard of it she would recall what she had saidand would be glad he had understood her so. Thinking of her pleasure inwhat he was going to do, he forgot almost what it was; but when he cameto a street-car track he remembered it, and looked up and down to see ifthere were any turbulent gathering of men whom he might mingle with andhelp to keep from violence. He saw none anywhere; and then suddenly, asif at the same moment, for in his exalted mood all events had adream-like simultaneity, he stood at the corner of an avenue, and in themiddle of it, a little way off, was a street-car, and around the car atumult of shouting, cursing, struggling men. The driver was lashing hishorses forward, and a policeman was at their heads, with the conductor, pulling them; stones, clubs, brickbats hailed upon the car, the horses, the men trying to move them. The mob closed upon them in a body, and thena patrol-wagon whirled up from the other side, and a squad of policemenleaped out and began to club the rioters. Conrad could see how theystruck them under the rims of their hats; the blows on their skullssounded as if they had fallen on stone; the rioters ran in alldirections. One of the officers rushed up toward the corner where Conrad stood, andthen he saw at his side a tall, old man, with a long, white beard, whowas calling out at the policemen: "Ah, yes! Glup the strikerss--gif it tothem! Why don't you co and glup the bresidents that insoalt your lawss, and gick your Boart of Arpidration out-of-toors? Glup the strikerss--theycot no friendts! They cot no money to pribe you, to dreat you!" The officer lifted his club, and the old man threw his left arm up toshield his head. Conrad recognized Zindau, and now he saw the emptysleeve dangle in the air over the stump of his wrist. He heard a shot inthat turmoil beside the car, and something seemed to strike him in thebreast. He was going to say to the policeman: "Don't strike him! He's anold soldier! You see he has no hand!" but he could not speak, he couldnot move his tongue. The policeman stood there; he saw his face: it wasnot bad, not cruel; it was like the face of a statue, fixed, perdurable--a mere image of irresponsible and involuntary authority. ThenConrad fell forward, pierced through the heart by that shot fired fromthe car. March heard the shot as he scrambled out of his car, and at the samemoment he saw Lindau drop under the club of the policeman, who left himwhere he fell and joined the rest of the squad in pursuing the rioters. The fighting round the car in the avenue ceased; the driver whipped hishorses into a gallop, and the place was left empty. March would have liked to run; he thought how his wife had implored himto keep away from the rioting; but he could not have left Lindau lyingthere if he would. Something stronger than his will drew him to the spot, and there he saw Conrad, dead beside the old man. VI. In the cares which Mrs. March shared with her husband that night she wassupported partly by principle, but mainly by the potent excitement whichbewildered Conrad's family and took all reality from what had happened. It was nearly midnight when the Marches left them and walked away towardthe Elevated station with Fulkerson. Everything had been done, by thattime, that could be done; and Fulkerson was not without that satisfactionin the business-like despatch of all the details which attends each stepin such an affair and helps to make death tolerable even to the mostsorely stricken. We are creatures of the moment; we live from one littlespace to another; and only one interest at a time fills these. Fulkersonwas cheerful when they got into the street, almost gay; and Mrs. Marchexperienced a rebound from her depression which she felt that she oughtnot to have experienced. But she condoned the offence a little inherself, because her husband remained so constant in his gravity; and, pending the final accounting he must make her for having been where hecould be of so much use from the first instant of the calamity, she wastenderly, gratefully proud of all the use he had been to Conrad's family, and especially his miserable old father. To her mind, March was theprincipal actor in the whole affair, and much more important in havingseen it than those who had suffered in it. In fact, he had sufferedincomparably. "Well, well, " said Fulkerson. "They'll get along now. We've done all wecould, and there's nothing left but for them to bear it. Of course it'sawful, but I guess it 'll come out all right. I mean, " he added, "they'llpull through now. " "I suppose, " said March, "that nothing is put on us that we can't bear. But I should think, " he went on, musingly, "that when God sees what wepoor finite creatures can bear, hemmed round with this eternal darknessof death, He must respect us. " "Basil!" said his wife. But in her heart she drew nearer to him for thewords she thought she ought to rebuke him for. "Oh, I know, " he said, "we school ourselves to despise human nature. ButGod did not make us despicable, and I say, whatever end He meant us for, He must have some such thrill of joy in our adequacy to fate as a fatherfeels when his son shows himself a man. When I think what we can be if wemust, I can't believe the least of us shall finally perish. " "Oh, I reckon the Almighty won't scoop any of us, " said Fulkerson, with apiety of his own. "That poor boy's father!" sighed Mrs. March. "I can't get his face out ofmy sight. He looked so much worse than death. " "Oh, death doesn't look bad, " said March. "It's life that looks so in itspresence. Death is peace and pardon. I only wish poor old Lindau was aswell out of it as Conrad there. " "Ah, Lindau! He has done harm enough, " said Mrs. March. "I hope he willbe careful after this. " March did not try to defend Lindau against her theory of the case, whichinexorably held him responsible for Conrad's death. "Lindau's going to come out all right, I guess, " said Fulkerson. "He wasfirst-rate when I saw him at the hospital to-night. " He whispered inMarch's ear, at a chance he got in mounting the station stairs: "I didn'tlike to tell you there at the house, but I guess you'd better know. Theyhad to take Lindau's arm off near the shoulder. Smashed all to pieces bythe clubbing. " In the house, vainly rich and foolishly unfit for them, the bereavedfamily whom the Marches had just left lingered together, and tried to getstrength to part for the night. They were all spent with the fatigue thatcomes from heaven to such misery as theirs, and they sat in a torpor inwhich each waited for the other to move, to speak. Christine moved, and Mela spoke. Christine rose and went out of the roomwithout saying a word, and they heard her going up-stairs. Then Melasaid: "I reckon the rest of us better be goun' too, father. Here, let's gitmother started. " She put her arm round her mother, to lift her from her chair, but the oldman did not stir, and Mela called Mrs. Mandel from the next room. Betweenthem they raised her to her feet. "Ain't there anybody agoin' to set up with it?" she asked, in her hoarsepipe. "It appears like folks hain't got any feelin's in New York. Woon'tsome o' the neighbors come and offer to set up, without waitin' to beasked?" "Oh, that's all right, mother. The men 'll attend to that. Don't youbother any, " Mela coaxed, and she kept her arm round her mother, withtender patience. "Why, Mely, child! I can't feel right to have it left to hirelin's so. But there ain't anybody any more to see things done as they ought. IfCoonrod was on'y here--" "Well, mother, you are pretty mixed!" said Mela, with a strong tendencyto break into her large guffaw. But she checked herself and said: "I knowjust how you feel, though. It keeps acomun' and agoun'; and it's so andit ain't so, all at once; that's the plague of it. Well, father! Ain'tyou goun' to come?" "I'm goin' to stay, Mela, " said the old man, gently, without moving. "Getyour mother to bed, that's a good girl. " "You goin' to set up with him, Jacob?" asked the old woman. "Yes, 'Liz'beth, I'll set up. You go to bed. " "Well, I will, Jacob. And I believe it 'll do you good to set up. Iwished I could set up with you; but I don't seem to have the stren'th Idid when the twins died. I must git my sleep, so's to--I don't like verywell to have you broke of your rest, Jacob, but there don't appear to beanybody else. You wouldn't have to do it if Coonrod was here. There I goag'in! Mercy! mercy!" "Well, do come along, then, mother, " said Mela; and she got her out ofthe room, with Mrs. Mandel's help, and up the stairs. From the top the old woman called down, "You tell Coonrod--" She stopped, and he heard her groan out, "My Lord! my Lord!" He sat, one silence in the dining-room, where they had all lingeredtogether, and in the library beyond the hireling watcher sat, anothersilence. The time passed, but neither moved, and the last noise in thehouse ceased, so that they heard each other breathe, and the vague, remote rumor of the city invaded the inner stillness. It grew loudertoward morning, and then Dryfoos knew from the watcher's deeper breathingthat he had fallen into a doze. He crept by him to the drawing-room, where his son was; the place wasfull of the awful sweetness of the flowers that Fulkerson had brought, and that lay above the pulseless breast. The old man turned up a burnerin the chandelier, and stood looking on the majestic serenity of the deadface. He could not move when he saw his wife coming down the stairway in thehall. She was in her long, white flannel bed gown, and the candle shecarried shook with her nervous tremor. He thought she might be walking inher sleep, but she said, quite simply, "I woke up, and I couldn't git tosleep ag'in without comin' to have a look. " She stood beside their deadson with him, "well, he's beautiful, Jacob. He was the prettiest baby!And he was always good, Coonrod was; I'll say that for him. I don'tbelieve he ever give me a minute's care in his whole life. I reckon Iliked him about the best of all the children; but I don't know as I everdone much to show it. But you was always good to him, Jacob; you alwaysdone the best for him, ever since he was a little feller. I used to beafraid you'd spoil him sometimes in them days; but I guess you're gladnow for every time you didn't cross him. I don't suppose since the twinsdied you ever hit him a lick. " She stooped and peered closer at the face. "Why, Jacob, what's that there by his pore eye?" Dryfoos saw it, too, thewound that he had feared to look for, and that now seemed to redden onhis sight. He broke into a low, wavering cry, like a child's in despair, like an animal's in terror, like a soul's in the anguish of remorse. VII. The evening after the funeral, while the Marches sat together talking itover, and making approaches, through its shadow, to the question of theirown future, which it involved, they were startled by the twitter of theelectric bell at their apartment door. It was really not so late as thechildren's having gone to bed made it seem; but at nine o'clock it wastoo late for any probable visitor except Fulkerson. It might be he, andMarch was glad to postpone the impending question to his curiosityconcerning the immediate business Fulkerson might have with him. He wenthimself to the door, and confronted there a lady deeply veiled in blackand attended by a very decorous serving-woman. "Are you alone, Mr. March--you and Mrs. March?" asked the lady, behindher veil; and, as he hesitated, she said: "You don't know me! MissVance"; and she threw back her veil, showing her face wan and agitated inthe dark folds. "I am very anxious to see you--to speak with you both. May I come in?" "Why, certainly, Miss Vance, " he answered, still too much stupefied byher presence to realize it. She promptly entered, and saying, with a glance at the hall chair by thedoor, "My maid can sit here?" followed him to the room where he had lefthis wife. Mrs. March showed herself more capable of coping with the fact. Shewelcomed Miss Vance with the liking they both felt for the girl, and withthe sympathy which her troubled face inspired. "I won't tire you with excuses for coming, Mrs. March, " she said, "for itwas the only thing left for me to do; and I come at my aunt'ssuggestion. " She added this as if it would help to account for her moreon the conventional plane, and she had the instinctive good taste toaddress herself throughout to Mrs. March as much as possible, though whatshe had to say was mainly for March. "I don't know how to begin--I don'tknow how to speak of this terrible affair. But you know what I mean. Ifeel as if I had lived a whole lifetime since it happened. I don't wantyou to pity me for it, " she said, forestalling a politeness from Mrs. March. "I'm the last one to be thought of, and you mustn't mind me if Itry to make you. I came to find out all of the truth that I can, and whenI know just what that is I shall know what to do. I have read theinquest; it's all burned into my brain. But I don't care for that--formyself: you must let me say such things without minding me. I know thatyour husband--that Mr. March was there; I read his testimony; and Iwished to ask him--to ask him--" She stopped and looked distractedlyabout. "But what folly! He must have said everything he knew--he had to. "Her eyes wandered to him from his wife, on whom she had kept them withinstinctive tact. "I said everything--yes, " he replied. "But if you would like to know--" "Perhaps I had better tell you something first. I had just parted withhim--it couldn't have been more than half an hour--in front ofBrentano's; he must have gone straight to his death. We were talking, andI--I said, Why didn't some one go among the strikers and plead with themto be peaceable, and keep them from attacking the new men. I knew that hefelt as I did about the strikers: that he was their friend. Did yousee--do you know anything that makes you think he had been trying to dothat?" "I am sorry, " March began, "I didn't see him at all till--till I saw himlying dead. " "My husband was there purely by accident, " Mrs. March put in. "I hadbegged and entreated him not to go near the striking anywhere. And he hadjust got out of the car, and saw the policeman strike that wretchedLindau--he's been such an anxiety to me ever since we have had anythingto do with him here; my husband knew him when he was a boy in the West. Mr. March came home from it all perfectly prostrated; it made us allsick! Nothing so horrible ever came into our lives before. I assure youit was the most shocking experience. " Miss Vance listened to her with that look of patience which those whohave seen much of the real suffering of the world--the daily portion ofthe poor--have for the nervous woes of comfortable people. March hung hishead; he knew it would be useless to protest that his share of thecalamity was, by comparison, infinitesimally small. After she had heard Mrs. March to the end even of her repetitions, MissVance said, as if it were a mere matter of course that she should havelooked the affair up, "Yes, I have seen Mr. Lindau at the hospital--" "My husband goes every day to see him, " Mrs. March interrupted, to give. A final touch to the conception of March's magnanimity throughout. "The poor man seems to have been in the wrong at the time, " said MissVance. "I could almost say he had earned the right to be wrong. He's a man ofthe most generous instincts, and a high ideal of justice, of equity--toohigh to be considered by a policeman with a club in his hand, " saidMarch, with a bold defiance of his wife's different opinion of Lindau. "It's the policeman's business, I suppose, to club the ideal when hefinds it inciting a riot. " "Oh, I don't blame Mr. Lindau; I don't blame the policeman; he was asmuch a mere instrument as his club was. I am only trying to find out howmuch I am to blame myself. I had no thought of Mr. Dryfoos's goingthere--of his attempting to talk with the strikers and keep them quiet; Iwas only thinking, as women do, of what I should try to do if I were aman. "But perhaps he understood me to ask him to go--perhaps my words sent himto his death. " She had a sort of calm in her courage to know the worst truth as to herresponsibility that forbade any wish to flatter her out of it. "I'mafraid, " said March, "that is what can never be known now. " After amoment he added: "But why should you wish to know? If he went there as apeacemaker, he died in a good cause, in such a way as he would wish todie, I believe. " "Yes, " said the girl; "I have thought of that. But death is awful; wemust not think patiently, forgivingly of sending any one to their deathin the best cause. "--"I fancy life was an awful thing to Conrad Dryfoos, "March replied. "He was thwarted and disappointed, without even pleasingthe ambition that thwarted and disappointed him. That poor old man, hisfather, warped him from his simple, lifelong wish to be a minister, andwas trying to make a business man of him. If it will be any consolationto you to know it, Miss Vance, I can assure you that he was very unhappy, and I don't see how he could ever have been happy here. " "It won't, " said the girl, steadily. "If people are born into this world, it's because they were meant to live in it. It isn't a question of beinghappy here; no one is happy, in that old, selfish way, or can be; but hecould have been of great use. " "Perhaps he was of use in dying. Who knows? He may have been trying tosilence Lindau. " "Oh, Lindau wasn't worth it!" cried Mrs. March. Miss Vance looked at her as if she did not quite understand. Then sheturned to March. "He might have been unhappy, as we all are; but I knowthat his life here would have had a higher happiness than we wish for oraim for. " The tears began to run silently down her cheeks. "He looked strangely happy that day when he left me. He had hurt himselfsomehow, and his face was bleeding from a scratch; he kept hishandkerchief up; he was pale, but such a light came into his face when heshook hands--ah, I know he went to try and do what I said!" They were allsilent, while she dried her eyes and then put her handkerchief back intothe pocket from which she had suddenly pulled it, with a series of vivid, young-ladyish gestures, which struck March by their incongruity with theoccasion of their talk, and yet by their harmony with the rest of herelegance. "I am sorry, Miss Vance, " he began, "that I can't really tellyou anything more--" "You are very kind, " she said, controlling herself and rising quickly. "Ithank you--thank you both very much. " She turned to Mrs. March and shookhands with her and then with him. "I might have known--I did know thatthere wasn't anything more for you to tell. But at least I've found outfrom you that there was nothing, and now I can begin to bear what I must. How are those poor creatures--his mother and father, his sisters? Someday, I hope, I shall be ashamed to have postponed them to the thought ofmyself; but I can't pretend to be yet. I could not come to the funeral; Iwanted to. " She addressed her question to Mrs. March, who answered: "I canunderstand. But they were pleased with the flowers you sent; people are, at such times, and they haven't many friends. " "Would you go to see them?" asked the girl. "Would you tell them whatI've told you?" Mrs. March looked at her husband. "I don't see what good it would do. They wouldn't understand. But if itwould relieve you--" "I'll wait till it isn't a question of self-relief, " said the girl. "Good-bye!" She left them to long debate of the event. At the end Mrs. March said, "She is a strange being; such a mixture of the society girl and thesaint. " Her husband answered: "She's the potentiality of several kinds offanatic. She's very unhappy, and I don't see how she's to be happierabout that poor fellow. I shouldn't be surprised if she did inspire himto attempt something of that kind. " "Well, you got out of it very well, Basil. I admired the way you managed. I was afraid you'd say something awkward. " "Oh, with a plain line of truth before me, as the only possible thing, Ican get on pretty well. When it comes to anything decorative, I'd ratherleave it to you, Isabel. " She seemed insensible of his jest. "Of course, he was in love with her. That was the light that came into his face when he was going to do whathe thought she wanted him to do. " "And she--do you think that she was--" "What an idea! It would have been perfectly grotesque!" VIII. Their affliction brought the Dryfooses into humaner relations with theMarches, who had hitherto regarded them as a necessary evil, as theodious means of their own prosperity. Mrs. March found that the women ofthe family seemed glad of her coming, and in the sense of her usefulnessto them all she began to feel a kindness even for Christine. But shecould not help seeing that between the girl and her father there was anunsettled account, somehow, and that it was Christine and not the old manwho was holding out. She thought that their sorrow had tended to refinethe others. Mela was much more subdued, and, except when she abandonedherself to a childish interest in her mourning, she did nothing to shockMrs. March's taste or to seem unworthy of her grief. She was very good toher mother, whom the blow had left unchanged, and to her father, whom ithad apparently fallen upon with crushing weight. Once, after visitingtheir house, Mrs. March described to March a little scene between Dryfoosand Mela, when he came home from Wall Street, and the girl met him at thedoor with a kind of country simpleness, and took his hat and stick, andbrought him into the room where Mrs. March sat, looking tired and broken. She found this look of Dryfoos's pathetic, and dwelt on the sort ofstupefaction there was in it; he must have loved his son more than theyever realized. "Yes, " said March, "I suspect he did. He's never beenabout the place since that day; he was always dropping in before, on hisway up-town. He seems to go down to Wall Street every day, just asbefore, but I suppose that's mechanical; he wouldn't know what else todo; I dare say it's best for him. The sanguine Fulkerson is getting alittle anxious about the future of 'Every Other Week. ' Now Conrad's gone, he isn't sure the old man will want to keep on with it, or whether he'llhave to look up another Angel. He wants to get married, I imagine, and hecan't venture till this point is settled. " "It's a very material point to us too, Basil, " said Mrs. March. "Well, of course. I hadn't overlooked that, you may be sure. One of thethings that Fulkerson and I have discussed is a scheme for buying themagazine. Its success is pretty well assured now, and I shouldn't beafraid to put money into it--if I had the money. " "I couldn't let you sell the house in Boston, Basil!" "And I don't want to. I wish we could go back and live in it and get therent, too! It would be quite a support. But I suppose if Dryfoos won'tkeep on, it must come to another Angel. I hope it won't be a literaryone, with a fancy for running my department. " "Oh, I guess whoever takes the magazine will be glad enough to keep you!" "Do you think so? Well, perhaps. But I don't believe Fulkerson would letme stand long between him and an Angel of the right description. " "Well, then, I believe he would. And you've never seen anything, Basil, to make you really think that Mr. Fulkerson didn't appreciate you to theutmost. " "I think I came pretty near an undervaluation in that Lindau trouble. Ishall always wonder what put a backbone into Fulkerson just at thatcrisis. Fulkerson doesn't strike me as the stuff of a moral hero. " "At any rate, he was one, " said Mrs. March, "and that's quite enough forme. " March did not answer. "What a noble thing life is, anyway! Here I am, well on the way to fifty, after twenty-five years of hard work, lookingforward to the potential poor-house as confidently as I did in youth. Wemight have saved a little more than we have saved; but the little morewouldn't avail if I were turned out of my place now; and we should havelived sordidly to no purpose. Some one always has you by the throat, unless you have some one else in your grip. I wonder if that's theattitude the Almighty intended His respectable creatures to take towardone another! I wonder if He meant our civilization, the battle we fightin, the game we trick in! I wonder if He considers it final, and if thekingdom of heaven on earth, which we pray for--" "Have you seen Lindau to-day?" Mrs. March asked. "You inferred it from the quality of my piety?" March laughed, and thensuddenly sobered. "Yes, I saw him. It's going rather hard with him, I'mafraid. The amputation doesn't heal very well; the shock was very great, and he's old. It 'll take time. There's so much pain that they have tokeep him under opiates, and I don't think he fully knew me. At any rate, I didn't get my piety from him to-day. " "It's horrible! Horrible!" said Mrs. March. "I can't get over it! Afterlosing his hand in the war, to lose his whole arm now in this way! Itdoes seem too cruel! Of course he oughtn't to have been there; we can saythat. But you oughtn't to have been there, either, Basil. " "Well, I wasn't exactly advising the police to go and club the railroadpresidents. " "Neither was poor Conrad Dryfoos. " "I don't deny it. All that was distinctly the chance of life and death. That belonged to God; and no doubt it was law, though it seems chance. But what I object to is this economic chance-world in which we live, andwhich we men seem to have created. It ought to be law as inflexible inhuman affairs as the order of day and night in the physical world that ifa man will work he shall both rest and eat, and shall not be harassedwith any question as to how his repose and his provision shall come. Nothing less ideal than this satisfies the reason. But in our state ofthings no one is secure of this. No one is sure of finding work; no oneis sure of not losing it. I may have my work taken away from me at anymoment by the caprice, the mood, the indigestion of a man who has not thequalification for knowing whether I do it well, or ill. At my time oflife--at every time of life--a man ought to feel that if he will keep ondoing his duty he shall not suffer in himself or in those who are dear tohim, except through natural causes. But no man can feel this as thingsare now; and so we go on, pushing and pulling, climbing and crawling, thrusting aside and trampling underfoot; lying, cheating, stealing; andthen we get to the end, covered with blood and dirt and sin and shame, and look back over the way we've come to a palace of our own, or thepoor-house, which is about the only possession we can claim in commonwith our brother-men, I don't think the retrospect can be pleasing. " "I know, I know!" said his wife. "I think of those things, too, Basil. Life isn't what it seems when you look forward to it. But I think peoplewould suffer less, and wouldn't have to work so hard, and could make allreasonable provision for the future, if they were not so greedy and sofoolish. " "Oh, without doubt! We can't put it all on the conditions; we must putsome of the blame on character. But conditions make character; and peopleare greedy and foolish, and wish to have and to shine, because having andshining are held up to them by civilization as the chief good of life. Weall know they are not the chief good, perhaps not good at all; but ifsome one ventures to say so, all the rest of us call him a fraud and acrank, and go moiling and toiling on to the palace or the poor-house. Wecan't help it. If one were less greedy or less foolish, some one elsewould have and would shine at his expense. We don't moil and toil toourselves alone; the palace or the poor-house is not merely forourselves, but for our children, whom we've brought up in thesuperstition that having and shining is the chief good. We dare not teachthem otherwise, for fear they may falter in the fight when it comes theirturn, and the children of others will crowd them out of the palace intothe poor-house. If we felt sure that honest work shared by all wouldbring them honest food shared by all, some heroic few of us, who did notwish our children to rise above their fellows--though we could not bearto have them fall below--might trust them with the truth. But we have nosuch assurance, and so we go on trembling before Dryfooses and living ingimcrackeries. " "Basil, Basil! I was always willing to live more simply than you. Youknow I was!" "I know you always said so, my dear. But how many bell-ratchets andspeaking-tubes would you be willing to have at the street door below? Iremember that when we were looking for a flat you rejected every buildingthat had a bell-ratchet or a speaking-tube, and would have nothing to dowith any that had more than an electric button; you wanted a hall-boy, with electric buttons all over him. I don't blame you. I find such thingsquite as necessary as you do. " "And do you mean to say, Basil, " she asked, abandoning this unprofitablebranch of the inquiry, "that you are really uneasy about your place? thatyou are afraid Mr. Dryfoos may give up being an Angel, and Mr. Fulkersonmay play you false?" "Play me false? Oh, it wouldn't be playing me false. It would be merelylooking out for himself, if the new Angel had editorial tastes and wantedmy place. It's what any one would do. " "You wouldn't do it, Basil!" "Wouldn't I? Well, if any one offered me more salary than 'Every OtherWeek' pays--say, twice as much--what do you think my duty to my sufferingfamily would be? It's give and take in the business world, Isabel;especially take. But as to being uneasy, I'm not, in the least. I've thespirit of a lion, when it comes to such a chance as that. When I see howreadily the sensibilities of the passing stranger can be worked in NewYork, I think of taking up the role of that desperate man on Third Avenuewho went along looking for garbage in the gutter to eat. I think I couldpick up at least twenty or thirty cents a day by that little game, andmaintain my family in the affluence it's been accustomed to. " "Basil!" cried his wife. "You don't mean to say that man was an impostor!And I've gone about, ever since, feeling that one such case in a million, the bare possibility of it, was enough to justify all that Lindau saidabout the rich and the poor!" March laughed teasingly. "Oh, I don't say he was an impostor. Perhaps hereally was hungry; but, if he wasn't, what do you think of a civilizationthat makes the opportunity of such a fraud? that gives us all such a badconscience for the need which is that we weaken to the need that isn't?Suppose that poor fellow wasn't personally founded on fact: nevertheless, he represented the truth; he was the ideal of the suffering which wouldbe less effective if realistically treated. That man is a great comfortto me. He probably rioted for days on that quarter I gave him; made adinner very likely, or a champagne supper; and if 'Every Other Week'wants to get rid of me, I intend to work that racket. You can hang roundthe corner with Bella, and Tom can come up to me in tears, at statedintervals, and ask me if I've found anything yet. To be sure, we might bearrested and sent up somewhere. But even in that extreme case we shouldbe provided for. Oh no, I'm not afraid of losing my place! I've merely asort of psychological curiosity to know how men like Dryfoos andFulkerson will work out the problem before them. " IX. It was a curiosity which Fulkerson himself shared, at least concerningDryfoos. "I don't know what the old man's going to do, " he said to Marchthe day after the Marches had talked their future over. "Said anything toyou yet?" "No, not a word. " "You're anxious, I suppose, same as I am. Fact is, " said Fulkerson, blushing a little, "I can't ask to have a day named till I know where Iam in connection with the old man. I can't tell whether I've got to lookout for something else or somebody else. Of course, it's full soon yet. " "Yes, " March said, "much sooner than it seems to us. We're so anxiousabout the future that we don't remember how very recent the past is. " "That's something so. The old man's hardly had time yet to pull himselftogether. Well, I'm glad you feel that way about it, March. I guess it'smore of a blow to him than we realize. He was a good deal bound up inCoonrod, though he didn't always use him very well. Well, I reckon it'sapt to happen so oftentimes; curious how cruel love can be. Heigh? We'rean awful mixture, March!" "Yes, that's the marvel and the curse, as Browning says. " "Why, that poor boy himself, " pursued Fulkerson, "had streaks of the mulein him that could give odds to Beaton, and he must have tried the old manby the way he would give in to his will and hold out against hisjudgment. I don't believe he ever budged a hairs-breadth from hisoriginal position about wanting to be a preacher and not wanting to be abusiness man. Well, of course! I don't think business is all in all; butit must have made the old man mad to find that without saying anything, or doing anything to show it, and after seeming to come over to hisground, and really coming, practically, Coonrod was just exactly where hefirst planted himself, every time. " "Yes, people that have convictions are difficult. Fortunately, they'rerare. " "Do you think so? It seems to me that everybody's got convictions. Beatonhimself, who hasn't a principle to throw at a dog, has got convictionsthe size of a barn. They ain't always the same ones, I know, but they'realways to the same effect, as far as Beaton's being Number One isconcerned. The old man's got convictions or did have, unless this thinglately has shaken him all up--and he believes that money will doeverything. Colonel Woodburn's got convictions that he wouldn't part withfor untold millions. Why, March, you got convictions yourself!" "Have I?" said March. "I don't know what they are. " "Well, neither do I; but I know you were ready to kick the trough overfor them when the old man wanted us to bounce Lindau that time. " "Oh yes, " said March; he remembered the fact; but he was still uncertainjust what the convictions were that he had been so stanch for. "I suppose we could have got along without you, " Fulkerson mused aloud. "It's astonishing how you always can get along in this world without theman that is simply indispensable. Makes a fellow realize that he couldtake a day off now and then without deranging the solar system a greatdeal. Now here's Coonrod--or, rather, he isn't. But that boy managed hispart of the schooner so well that I used to tremble when I thought of hisgetting the better of the old man and going into a convent or somethingof that kind; and now here he is, snuffed out in half a second, and Idon't believe but what we shall be sailing along just as chipper as usualinside of thirty days. I reckon it will bring the old man to the pointwhen I come to talk with him about who's to be put in Coonrod's place. Idon't like very well to start the subject with him; but it's got to bedone some time. " "Yes, " March admitted. "It's terrible to think how unnecessary even thebest and wisest of us is to the purposes of Providence. When I looked atthat poor young fellow's face sometimes--so gentle and true and pure--Iused to think the world was appreciably richer for his being in it. Butare we appreciably poorer for his being out of it now?" "No, I don't reckon we are, " said Fulkerson. "And what a lot of the rawmaterial of all kinds the Almighty must have, to waste us the way Heseems to do. Think of throwing away a precious creature like CoonrodDryfoos on one chance in a thousand of getting that old fool of a Lindauout of the way of being clubbed! For I suppose that was what Coonrod wasup to. Say! Have you been round to see Lindau to-day?" Something in the tone or the manner of Fulkerson startled March. "No! Ihaven't seen him since yesterday. " "Well, I don't know, " said Fulkerson. "I guess I saw him a little whileafter you did, and that young doctor there seemed to feel kind of worriedabout him. "Or not worried, exactly; they can't afford to let such things worrythem, I suppose; but--" "He's worse?" asked March. "Oh, he didn't say so. But I just wondered if you'd seen him to-day. " "I think I'll go now, " said March, with a pang at heart. He had goneevery day to see Lindau, but this day he had thought he would not go, andthat was why his heart smote him. He knew that if he were in Lindau'splace Lindau would never have left his side if he could have helped it. March tried to believe that the case was the same, as it stood now; itseemed to him that he was always going to or from the hospital; he saidto himself that it must do Lindau harm to be visited so much. But he knewthat this was not true when he was met at the door of the ward whereLindau lay by the young doctor, who had come to feel a personal interestin March's interest in Lindau. He smiled without gayety, and said, "He's just going. " "What! Discharged?" "Oh no. He has been failing very fast since you saw him yesterday, andnow--" They had been walking softly and talking softly down the aislebetween the long rows of beds. "Would you care to see him?" The doctor made a slight gesture toward the white canvas screen which insuch places forms the death-chamber of the poor and friendless. "Comeround this way--he won't know you! I've got rather fond of the poor oldfellow. He wouldn't have a clergyman--sort of agnostic, isn't he? A goodmany of these Germans are--but the young lady who's been coming to seehim--" They both stopped. Lindau's grand, patriarchal head, foreshortened totheir view, lay white upon the pillow, and his broad, white beard flowedupon the sheet, which heaved with those long last breaths. Beside his bedMargaret Vance was kneeling; her veil was thrown back, and her face waslifted; she held clasped between her hands the hand of the dying man; shemoved her lips inaudibly. X. In spite of the experience of the whole race from time immemorial, whendeath comes to any one we know we helplessly regard it as an incident oflife, which will presently go on as before. Perhaps this is aninstinctive perception of the truth that it does go on somewhere; but wehave a sense of death as absolutely the end even for earth only if itrelates to some one remote or indifferent to us. March tried to projectLindau to the necessary distance from himself in order to realize thefact in his case, but he could not, though the man with whom his youthhad been associated in a poetic friendship had not actually reentered theregion of his affection to the same degree, or in any like degree. Thechanged conditions forbade that. He had a soreness of heart concerninghim; but he could not make sure whether this soreness was grief for hisdeath, or remorse for his own uncandor with him about Dryfoos, or aforeboding of that accounting with his conscience which he knew his wifewould now exact of him down to the last minutest particular of theirjoint and several behavior toward Lindau ever since they had met him inNew York. He felt something knock against his shoulder, and he looked up to havehis hat struck from his head by a horse's nose. He saw the horse put hisfoot on the hat, and he reflected, "Now it will always look like anaccordion, " and he heard the horse's driver address him some sarcasmsbefore he could fully awaken to the situation. He was standing bareheadedin the middle of Fifth Avenue and blocking the tide of carriages flowingin either direction. Among the faces put out of the carriage windows hesaw that of Dryfoos looking from a coupe. The old man knew him, and said, "Jump in here, Mr. March"; and March, who had mechanically picked up hishat, and was thinking, "Now I shall have to tell Isabel about this atonce, and she will never trust me on the street again without her, "mechanically obeyed. Her confidence in him had been undermined by hisbeing so near Conrad when he was shot; and it went through his mind thathe would get Dryfoos to drive him to a hatter's, where he could buy a newhat, and not be obliged to confess his narrow escape to his wife till theincident was some days old and she could bear it better. It quite droveLindau's death out of his mind for the moment; and when Dryfoos said ifhe was going home he would drive up to the first cross-street and turnback with him, March said he would be glad if he would take him to ahat-store. The old man put his head out again and told the driver to takethem to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. "There's a hat-store around theresomewhere, seems to me, " he said; and they talked of March's accident aswell as they could in the rattle and clatter of the street till theyreached the place. March got his hat, passing a joke with the hatterabout the impossibility of pressing his old hat over again, and came outto thank Dryfoos and take leave of him. "If you ain't in any great hurry, " the old man said, "I wish you'd get inhere a minute. I'd like to have a little talk with you. " "Oh, certainly, " said March, and he thought: "It's coming now about whathe intends to do with 'Every Other Week. ' Well, I might as well have allthe misery at once and have it over. " Dryfoos called up to his driver, who bent his head down sidewise tolisten: "Go over there on Madison Avenue, onto that asphalt, and keepdrivin' up and down till I stop you. I can't hear myself think on thesepavements, " he said to March. But after they got upon the asphalt, andbegan smoothly rolling over it, he seemed in no haste to begin. At lasthe said, "I wanted to talk with you about that--that Dutchman that was atmy dinner--Lindau, " and March's heart gave a jump with wonder whether hecould already have heard of Lindau's death; but in an instant heperceived that this was impossible. "I been talkin' with Fulkerson abouthim, and he says they had to take the balance of his arm off. " March nodded; it seemed to him he could not speak. He could not make outfrom the close face of the old man anything of his motive. It was set, but set as a piece of broken mechanism is when it has lost the power torelax itself. There was no other history in it of what the man had passedthrough in his son's death. "I don't know, " Dryfoos resumed, looking aside at the cloth window-strap, which he kept fingering, "as you quite understood what made me themaddest. I didn't tell him I could talk Dutch, because I can't keep it upwith a regular German; but my father was Pennsylvany Dutch, and I couldunderstand what he was saying to you about me. I know I had no businessto understood it, after I let him think I couldn't but I did, and Ididn't like very well to have a man callin' me a traitor and a tyrant atmy own table. Well, I look at it differently now, and I reckon I hadbetter have tried to put up with it; and I would, if I could haveknown--" He stopped with a quivering lip, and then went on: "Then, again, I didn't like his talkin' that paternalism of his. I always heard it wasthe worst kind of thing for the country; I was brought up to think thebest government was the one that governs the least; and I didn't want tohear that kind of talk from a man that was livin' on my money. I couldn'tbear it from him. Or I thought I couldn't before--before--" He stoppedagain, and gulped. "I reckon now there ain't anything I couldn't bear. "March was moved by the blunt words and the mute stare forward with whichthey ended. "Mr. Dryfoos, I didn't know that you understood Lindau'sGerman, or I shouldn't have allowed him he wouldn't have allowedhimself--to go on. He wouldn't have knowingly abused his position ofguest to censure you, no matter how much he condemned you. " "I don't carefor it now, " said Dryfoos. "It's all past and gone, as far as I'mconcerned; but I wanted you to see that I wasn't tryin' to punish him forhis opinions, as you said. " "No; I see now, " March assented, though he thought, his position stilljustified. "I wish--" "I don't know as I understand much about his opinions, anyway; but Iain't ready to say I want the men dependent on me to manage my businessfor me. I always tried to do the square thing by my hands; and in thatparticular case out there I took on all the old hands just as fast asthey left their Union. As for the game I came on them, it was dog eatdog, anyway. " March could have laughed to think how far this old man was from evenconceiving of Lindau's point'of view, and how he was saying the worst ofhimself that Lindau could have said of him. No one could havecharacterized the kind of thing he had done more severely than he when hecalled it dog eat dog. "There's a great deal to be said on both sides, " March began, hoping tolead up through this generality to the fact of Lindau's death; but theold man went on: "Well, all I wanted him to know is that I wasn't trying to punish him forwhat he said about things in general. You naturally got that idea, Ireckon; but I always went in for lettin' people say what they please andthink what they please; it's the only way in a free country. " "I'm afraid, Mr. Dryfoos, that it would make little difference to Lindaunow--" "I don't suppose he bears malice for it, " said Dryfoos, "but what I wantto do is to have him told so. He could understand just why I didn't wantto be called hard names, and yet I didn't object to his thinkin' whateverhe pleased. I'd like him to know--" "No one can speak to him, no one can tell him, " March began again, butagain Dryfoos prevented him from going on. "I understand it's a delicate thing; and I'm not askin' you to do it. What I would really like to do--if you think he could be prepared for it, some way, and could stand it--would be to go to him myself, and tell himjust what the trouble was. I'm in hopes, if I done that, he could see howI felt about it. " A picture of Dryfoos going to the dead Lindau with his vain regretspresented itself to March, and he tried once more to make the old manunderstand. "Mr. Dryfoos, " he said, "Lindau is past all that forever, "and he felt the ghastly comedy of it when Dryfoos continued, withoutheeding him. "I got a particular reason why I want him to believe it wasn't his ideasI objected to--them ideas of his about the government carryin' everythingon and givin' work. I don't understand 'em exactly, but I found awritin'--among--my son's-things" (he seemed to force the words throughhis teeth), "and I reckon he--thought--that way. Kind of a diary--wherehe--put down--his thoughts. My son and me--we differed about a good-manythings. " His chin shook, and from time to time he stopped. "I wasn't verygood to him, I reckon; I crossed him where I guess I got no business tocross him; but I thought everything of--Coonrod. He was the best boy, from a baby, that ever was; just so patient and mild, and done whateverhe was told. I ought to 'a' let him been a preacher! Oh, my son! my son!"The sobs could not be kept back any longer; they shook the old man with aviolence that made March afraid for him; but he controlled himself atlast with a series of hoarse sounds like barks. "Well, it's all past andgone! But as I understand you from what you saw, when Coonrodwas--killed, he was tryin' to save that old man from trouble?" "Yes, yes! It seemed so to me. " "That 'll do, then! I want you to have him come back and write for thebook when he gets well. I want you to find out and let me know if there'sanything I can do for him. I'll feel as if I done it--for my--son. I'lltake him into my own house, and do for him there, if you say so, when hegets so he can be moved. I'll wait on him myself. It's what Coonrod 'ddo, if he was here. I don't feel any hardness to him because it was himthat got Coonrod killed, as you might say, in one sense of the term; butI've tried to think it out, and I feel like I was all the more beholdento him because my son died tryin' to save him. Whatever I do, I'll bedoin' it for Coonrod, and that's enough for me. " He seemed to havefinished, and he turned to March as if to hear what he had to say. March hesitated. "I'm afraid, Mr. Dryfoos--Didn't Fulkerson tell you thatLindau was very sick?" "Yes, of course. But he's all right, he said. " Now it had to come, though the fact had been latterly playing fast andloose with March's consciousness. Something almost made him smile; thewillingness he had once felt to give this old man pain; then he consoledhimself by thinking that at least he was not obliged to meet Dryfoos'swish to make atonement with the fact that Lindau had renounced him, andwould on no terms work for such a man as he, or suffer any kindness fromhim. In this light Lindau seemed the harder of the two, and March had themomentary force to say-- "Mr. Dryfoos--it can't be. Lindau--I have just come from him--is dead. " XI. "How did he take it? How could he bear it? Oh, Basil! I wonder you couldhave the heart to say it to him. It was cruel!" "Yes, cruel enough, my dear, " March owned to his wife, when they talkedthe matter over on his return home. He could not wait till the childrenwere out of the way, and afterward neither he nor his wife was sorry thathe had spoken of it before them. The girl cried plentifully for her oldfriend who was dead, and said she hated Mr. Dryfoos, and then was sorryfor him, too; and the boy listened to all, and spoke with a serious sensethat pleased his father. "But as to how he took it, " March went on toanswer his wife's question about Dryfoos--"how do any of us take a thingthat hurts? Some of us cry out, and some of us don't. Dryfoos drew a kindof long, quivering breath, as a child does when it grieves--there'ssomething curiously simple and primitive about him--and didn't sayanything. After a while he asked me how he could see the people at thehospital about the remains; I gave him my card to the young doctor therethat had charge of Lindau. I suppose he was still carrying forward hisplan of reparation in his mind--to the dead for the dead. But howuseless! If he could have taken the living Lindau home with him, andcared for him all his days, what would it have profited the gentlecreature whose life his worldly ambition vexed and thwarted here? Hemight as well offer a sacrifice at Conrad's grave. Children, " said March, turning to them, "death is an exile that no remorse and no love canreach. Remember that, and be good to every one here on earth, for yourlonging to retrieve any harshness or unkindness to the dead will be thevery ecstasy of anguish to you. I wonder, " he mused, "if one of thereasons why we're shut up to our ignorance of what is to be hereafterisn't because if we were sure of another world we might be still morebrutal to one another here, in the hope of making reparation somewhereelse. Perhaps, if we ever come to obey the law of love on earth, themystery of death will be taken away. " "Well"--the ancestral Puritanism spoke in Mrs. March--"these two old menhave been terribly punished. They have both been violent and wilful, andthey have both been punished. No one need ever tell me there is not amoral government of the universe!" March always disliked to hear her talk in this way, which did both herhead and heart injustice. "And Conrad, " he said, "what was he punishedfor?" "He?"--she answered, in an exaltation--"he suffered for the sins ofothers. " "Ah, well, if you put it in that way, yes. That goes on continually. That's another mystery. " He fell to brooding on it, and presently he heard his son saying, "Isuppose, papa, that Mr. Lindau died in a bad cause?" March was startled. He had always been so sorry for Lindau, and admiredhis courage and generosity so much, that he had never fairly consideredthis question. "Why, yes, " he answered; "he died in the cause ofdisorder; he was trying to obstruct the law. No doubt there was a wrongthere, an inconsistency and an injustice that he felt keenly; but itcould not be reached in his way without greater wrong. " "Yes; that's what I thought, " said the boy. "And what's the use of ourever fighting about anything in America? I always thought we could voteanything we wanted. " "We can, if we're honest, and don't buy and sell one another's votes, "said his father. "And men like Lindau, who renounce the American means ashopeless, and let their love of justice hurry them into sympathy withviolence--yes, they are wrong; and poor Lindau did die in a bad cause, asyou say, Tom. " "I think Conrad had no business there, or you, either, Basil, " said hiswife. "Oh, I don't defend myself, " said March. "I was there in the cause ofliterary curiosity and of conjugal disobedience. But Conrad--yes, he hadsome business there: it was his business to suffer there for the sins ofothers. Isabel, we can't throw aside that old doctrine of the Atonementyet. The life of Christ, it wasn't only in healing the sick and goingabout to do good; it was suffering for the sins of others. That's asgreat a mystery as the mystery of death. Why should there be such aprinciple in the world? But it's been felt, and more or less dumbly, blindly recognized ever since Calvary. If we love mankind, pity them, weeven wish to suffer for them. That's what has created the religiousorders in all times--the brotherhoods and sisterhoods that belong to ourday as much as to the mediaeval past. That's what is driving a girl likeMargaret Vance, who has everything that the world can offer her youngbeauty, on to the work of a Sister of Charity among the poor and thedying. " "Yes, yes!" cried Mrs. March. "How--how did she look there, Basil?" Shehad her feminine misgivings; she was not sure but the girl was somethingof a poseuse, and enjoyed the picturesqueness, as well as the pain; andshe wished to be convinced that it was not so. "Well, " she said, when March had told again the little there was to tell, "I suppose it must be a great trial to a woman like Mrs. Horn to have herniece going that way. " "The way of Christ?" asked March, with a smile. "Oh, Christ came into the world to teach us how to live rightly in it, too. If we were all to spend our time in hospitals, it would be ratherdismal for the homes. But perhaps you don't think the homes are worthminding?" she suggested, with a certain note in her voice that he knew. He got up and kissed her. "I think the gimcrackeries are. " He took thehat he had set down on the parlor table on coming in, and started to putit in the hall, and that made her notice it. "You've been getting a new hat!" "Yes, " he hesitated; "the old one had got--was decidedly shabby. " "Well, that's right. I don't like you to wear them too long. Did youleave the old one to be pressed?" "Well, the hatter seemed to think it was hardly worth pressing, " saidMarch. He decided that for the present his wife's nerves had quite allthey could bear. XII. It was in a manner grotesque, but to March it was all the more naturalfor that reason, that Dryfoos should have Lindau's funeral from hishouse. He knew the old man to be darkly groping, through the payment ofthese vain honors to the dead, for some atonement to his son, and heimagined him finding in them such comfort as comes from doing all onecan, even when all is useless. No one knew what Lindau's religion was, and in default they had had theAnglican burial service read over him; it seems so often the refuge ofthe homeless dead. Mrs. Dryfoos came down for the ceremony. Sheunderstood that it was for Coonrod's sake that his father wished thefuneral to be there; and she confided to Mrs. March that she believedCoonrod would have been pleased. "Coonrod was a member of the 'PiscopalChurch; and fawther's doin' the whole thing for Coonrod as much as foranybody. He thought the world of Coonrod, fawther did. Mela, she kind ofthought it would look queer to have two funerals from the same house, hand-runnin', as you might call it, and one of 'em no relation, either;but when she saw how fawther was bent on it, she give in. Seems as if shewas tryin' to make up to fawther for Coonrod as much as she could. Melaalways was a good child, but nobody can ever come up to Coonrod. " March felt all the grotesqueness, the hopeless absurdity of Dryfoos'sendeavor at atonement in these vain obsequies to the man for whom hebelieved his son to have died; but the effort had its magnanimity, itspathos, and there was a poetry that appealed to him in the reconciliationthrough death of men, of ideas, of conditions, that could only have gonewarring on in life. He thought, as the priest went on with the solemnliturgy, how all the world must come together in that peace which, struggle and strive as we may, shall claim us at last. He looked atDryfoos, and wondered whether he would consider these rites a sufficienttribute, or whether there was enough in him to make him realize theirfutility, except as a mere sign of his wish to retrieve the past. Hethought how we never can atone for the wrong we do; the heart we havegrieved and wounded cannot kindle with pity for us when once it isstilled; and yet we can put our evil from us with penitence, and somehow, somewhere, the order of loving kindness, which our passion or ourwilfulness has disturbed, will be restored. Dryfoos, through Fulkerson, had asked all the more intimate contributorsof 'Every Other Week' to come. Beaton was absent, but Fulkerson hadbrought Miss Woodburn, with her father, and Mrs. Leighton and Alma, tofill up, as he said. Mela was much present, and was official with thearrangement of the flowers and the welcome of the guests. She impartedthis impersonality to her reception of Kendricks, whom Fulkerson met inthe outer hall with his party, and whom he presented in whisper to themall. Kendricks smiled under his breath, as it were, and was then mutelyand seriously polite to the Leightons. Alma brought a little bunch offlowers, which were lost in those which Dryfoos had ordered to beunsparingly provided. It was a kind of satisfaction to Mela to have Miss Vance come, andreassuring as to how it would look to have the funeral there; Miss Vancewould certainly not have come unless it had been all right; she had come, and had sent some Easter lilies. "Ain't Christine coming down?" Fulkerson asked Mela. "No, she ain't a bit well, and she ain't been, ever since Coonrod died. Idon't know, what's got over her, " said Mela. She added, "Well, I should'a' thought Mr. Beaton would 'a' made out to 'a' come!" "Beaton's peculiar, " said Fulkerson. "If he thinks you want him he takesa pleasure in not letting you have him. " "Well, goodness knows, I don't want him, " said the girl. Christine kept her room, and for the most part kept her bed; but thereseemed nothing definitely the matter with her, and she would not let themcall a doctor. Her mother said she reckoned she was beginning to feel thespring weather, that always perfectly pulled a body down in New York; andMela said if being as cross as two sticks was any sign of spring-fever, Christine had it bad. She was faithfully kind to her, and submitted toall her humors, but she recompensed herself by the freest criticism ofChristine when not in actual attendance on her. Christine would notsuffer Mrs. Mandel to approach her, and she had with her father a sullensubmission which was not resignation. For her, apparently, Conrad had notdied, or had died in vain. "Pshaw!" said Mela, one morning when she came to breakfast, "I reckon ifwe was to send up an old card of Mr. Beaton's she'd rattle down-stairsfast enough. If she's sick, she's love-sick. It makes me sick to seeher. " Mela was talking to Mrs. Mandel, but her father looked up from his plateand listened. Mela went on: "I don't know what's made the fellow quitcomun'. But he was an aggravatun' thing, and no more dependable thanwater. It's just like Air. Fulkerson said, if he thinks you want himhe'll take a pleasure in not lettun' you have him. I reckon that's what'sthe matter with Christine. I believe in my heart the girl 'll die if shedon't git him. " Mela went on to eat her breakfast with her own good appetite. She nowalways came down to keep her father company, as she said, and she did herbest to cheer and comfort him. At least she kept the talk going, and shehad it nearly all to herself, for Mrs. Mandel was now merely staying onprovisionally, and, in the absence of any regrets or excuses fromChristine, was looking ruefully forward to the moment when she must leaveeven this ungentle home for the chances of the ruder world outside. The old man said nothing at table, but, when Mela went up to see if shecould do anything for Christine, he asked Mrs. Mandel again about all thefacts of her last interview with Beaton. She gave them as fully as she could remember them, and the old man madeno comment on them. But he went out directly after, and at the 'EveryOther Week' office he climbed the stairs to Fulkerson's room and askedfor Beaton's address. No one yet had taken charge of Conrad's work, andFulkerson was running the thing himself, as he said, till he could talkwith Dryfoos about it. The old man would not look into the empty roomwhere he had last seen his son alive; he turned his face away and hurriedby the door. XIII. The course of public events carried Beaton's private affairs beyond thereach of his simple first intention to renounce his connection with'Every Other Week. ' In fact, this was not perhaps so simple as it seemed, and long before it could be put in effect it appeared still simpler to donothing about the matter--to remain passive and leave the initiative toDryfoos, to maintain the dignity of unconsciousness and let recognitionof any change in the situation come from those who had caused the change. After all, it was rather absurd to propose making a purely personalquestion the pivot on which his relations with 'Every Other Week' turned. He took a hint from March's position and decided that he did not knowDryfoos in these relations; he knew only Fulkerson, who had certainly hadnothing to do with Mrs. Mandel's asking his intentions. As he reflectedupon this he became less eager to look Fulkerson up and make the magazinea partner of his own sufferings. This was the soberer mood to whichBeaton trusted that night even before he slept, and he awoke fullyconfirmed in it. As he examined the offence done him in the cold light ofday, he perceived that it had not come either from Mrs. Mandel, who wasvisibly the faltering and unwilling instrument of it, or from Christine, who was altogether ignorant of it, but from Dryfoos, whom he could nothurt by giving up his place. He could only punish Fulkerson by that, andFulkerson was innocent. Justice and interest alike dictated the passivecourse to which Beaton inclined; and he reflected that he might safelyleave the punishment of Dryfoos to Christine, who would find out what hadhappened, and would be able to take care of herself in any encounter oftempers with her father. Beaton did not go to the office during the week that followed upon thisconclusion; but they were used there to these sudden absences of his, and, as his work for the time was in train, nothing was made of hisstaying away, except the sarcastic comment which the thought of him wasapt to excite in the literary department. He no longer came so much tothe Leightons, and Fulkerson was in no state of mind to miss any onethere except Miss Woodburn, whom he never missed. Beaton was left, then, unmolestedly awaiting the course of destiny, when he read in the morningpaper, over his coffee at Maroni's, the deeply scare-headed story ofConrad's death and the clubbing of Lindau. He probably cared as littlefor either of them as any man that ever saw them; but he felt a shock, ifnot a pang, at Conrad's fate, so out of keeping with his life andcharacter. He did not know what to do; and he did nothing. He was notasked to the funeral, but he had not expected that, and, when Fulkersonbrought him notice that Lindau was also to be buried from Dryfoos'shouse, it was without his usual sullen vindictiveness that he kept away. In his sort, and as much as a man could who was necessarily so much takenup with himself, he was sorry for Conrad's father; Beaton had a peculiartenderness for his own father, and he imagined how his father would feelif it were he who had been killed in Conrad's place, as it might verywell have been; he sympathized with himself in view of the possibility;and for once they were mistaken who thought him indifferent and merelybrutal in his failure to appear at Lindau's obsequies. He would really have gone if he had known how to reconcile his presencein that house with the terms of his effective banishment from it; and hewas rather forgivingly finding himself wronged in the situation, whenDryfoos knocked at the studio door the morning after Lindau's funeral. Beaton roared out, "Come in!" as he always did to a knock if he had not amodel; if he had a model he set the door slightly ajar, and with hispalette on his thumb frowned at his visitor and told him he could notcome in. Dryfoos fumbled about for the knob in the dim passagewayoutside, and Beaton, who had experience of people's difficulties with it, suddenly jerked the door open. The two men stood confronted, and at firstsight of each other their quiescent dislike revived. Each would have beenwilling to turn away from the other, but that was not possible. Beatonsnorted some sort of inarticulate salutation, which Dryfoos did not tryto return; he asked if he could see him alone for a minute or two, andBeaton bade him come in, and swept some paint-blotched rags from thechair which he told him to take. He noticed, as the old man sanktremulously into it, that his movement was like that of his own father, and also that he looked very much like Christine. Dryfoos folded hishands tremulously on the top of his horn-handled stick, and he was ratherfinely haggard, with the dark hollows round his black eyes and the fallof the muscles on either side of his chin. He had forgotten to take hissoft, wide-brimmed hat off; and Beaton felt a desire to sketch him justas he sat. Dryfoos suddenly pulled himself together from the dreary absence intowhich he fell at first. "Young man, " he began, "maybe I've come here on afool's errand, " and Beaton rather fancied that beginning. But it embarrassed him a little, and he said, with a shy glance aside, "Idon't know what you mean. " "I reckon, " Dryfoos answered, quietly, "yougot your notion, though. I set that woman on to speak to you the way shedone. But if there was anything wrong in the way she spoke, or if youdidn't feel like she had any right to question you up as if we suspectedyou of anything mean, I want you to say so. " Beaton said nothing, and the old man went on. "I ain't very well up in the ways of the world, and I don't pretend tobe. All I want is to be fair and square with everybody. I've mademistakes, though, in my time--" He stopped, and Beaton was not proofagainst the misery of his face, which was twisted as with some strongphysical ache. "I don't know as I want to make any more, if I can helpit. I don't know but what you had a right to keep on comin', and if youhad I want you to say so. Don't you be afraid but what I'll take it inthe right way. I don't want to take advantage of anybody, and I don't askyou to say any more than that. " Beaton did not find the humiliation of the man who had humiliated him sosweet as he could have fancied it might be. He knew how it had comeabout, and that it was an effect of love for his child; it did not matterby what ungracious means she had brought him to know that he loved herbetter than his own will, that his wish for her happiness was strongerthan his pride; it was enough that he was now somehow brought to giveproof of it. Beaton could not be aware of all that dark coil ofcircumstance through which Dryfoos's present action evolved itself; theworst of this was buried in the secret of the old man's heart, a worm ofperpetual torment. What was apparent to another was that he was broken bythe sorrow that had fallen upon him, and it was this that Beatonrespected and pitied in his impulse to be frank and kind in his answer. "No, I had no right to keep coming to your house in the way I did, unless--unless I meant more than I ever said. " Beaton added: "I don't saythat what you did was usual--in this country, at any rate; but I can'tsay you were wrong. Since you speak to me about the matter, it's onlyfair to myself to say that a good deal goes on in life without muchthinking of consequences. That's the way I excuse myself. " "And you say Mrs. Mandel done right?" asked Dryfoos, as if he wishedsimply to be assured of a point of etiquette. "Yes, she did right. I've nothing to complain of. " "That's all I wanted to know, " said Dryfoos; but apparently he had notfinished, and he did not go, though the silence that Beaton now kept gavehim a chance to do so. He began a series of questions which had norelation to the matter in hand, though they were strictly personal toBeaton. "What countryman are you?" he asked, after a moment. "What countryman?" Beaton frowned back at him. "Yes, are you an American by birth?" "Yes; I was born in Syracuse. " "Protestant?" "My father is a Scotch Seceder. " "What business is your father in?" Beaton faltered and blushed; then he answered: "He's in the monument business, as he calls it. He's a tombstone cutter. "Now that he was launched, Beaton saw no reason for not declaring, "Myfather's always been a poor man, and worked with his own hands for hisliving. " He had too slight esteem socially for Dryfoos to conceal a factfrom him that he might have wished to blink with others. "Well, that's right, " said Dryfoos. "I used to farm it myself. I've got agood pile of money together, now. At first it didn't come easy; but nowit's got started it pours in and pours in; it seems like there was no endto it. I've got well on to three million; but it couldn't keep me fromlosin' my son. It can't buy me back a minute of his life; not all themoney in the world can do it!" He grieved this out as if to himself rather than to Beaton, who, scarcelyventured to say, "I know--I am very sorry--" "How did you come, " Dryfoos interrupted, "to take up paintin'?" "Well, I don't know, " said Beaton, a little scornfully. "You don't takea thing of that kind up, I fancy. I always wanted to paint. " "Father try to stop you?" "No. It wouldn't have been of any use. Why--" "My son, he wanted to be a preacher, and I did stop him or I thought Idid. But I reckon he was a preacher, all the same, every minute of hislife. As you say, it ain't any use to try to stop a thing like that. Ireckon if a child has got any particular bent, it was given to it; andit's goin' against the grain, it's goin' against the law, to try to bendit some other way. There's lots of good business men, Mr. Beaton, twentyof 'em to every good preacher?" "I imagine more than twenty, " said Beaton, amused and touched through hiscuriosity as to what the old man was driving at by the quaint simplicityof his speculations. "Father ever come to the city?" "No; he never has the time; and my mother's an invalid. " "Oh! Brothers and sisters?" "Yes; we're a large family. " "I lost two little fellers--twins, " said Dryfoos, sadly. "But we hain'tever had but just the five. Ever take portraits?" "Yes, " said Beaton, meeting this zigzag in the queries as seriously asthe rest. "I don't think I am good at it. " Dryfoos got to his feet. "I wish you'd paint a likeness of my son. You'veseen him plenty of times. We won't fight about the price, don't you beafraid of that. " Beaton was astonished, and in a mistaken way he was disgusted. He sawthat Dryfoos was trying to undo Mrs. Mandel's work practically, and gethim to come again to his house; that he now conceived of the offencegiven him as condoned, and wished to restore the former situation. Heknew that he was attempting this for Christine's sake, but he was not theman to imagine that Dryfoos was trying not only to tolerate him, but tolike him; and, in fact, Dryfoos was not wholly conscious himself of thisend. What they both understood was that Dryfoos was endeavoring to get atBeaton through Conrad's memory; but with one this was its dedication to apurpose of self sacrifice, and with the other a vulgar and shameless useof it. "I couldn't do it, " said Beaton. "I couldn't think of attempting it. " "Why not?" Dryfoos persisted. "We got some photographs of him; he didn'tlike to sit very well; but his mother got him to; and you know how helooked. " "I couldn't do it--I couldn't. I can't even consider it. I'm very sorry. I would, if it were possible. But it isn't possible. " "I reckon if you see the photographs once" "It isn't that, Mr. Dryfoos. But I'm not in the way of that kind of thingany more. " "I'd give any price you've a mind to name--" "Oh, it isn't the money!" cried Beaton, beginning to lose control ofhimself. The old man did not notice him. He sat with his head fallen forward, andhis chin resting on his folded hands. Thinking of the portrait, he sawConrad's face before him, reproachful, astonished, but all gentle as itlooked when Conrad caught his hand that day after he struck him; he heardhim say, "Father!" and the sweat gathered on his forehead. "Oh, my God!"he groaned. "No; there ain't anything I can do now. " Beaton did not know whether Dryfoos was speaking to him or not. Hestarted toward him. "Are you ill?" "No, there ain't anything the matter, " said the old man. "But I guessI'll lay down on your settee a minute. " He tottered with Beaton's help tothe aesthetic couch covered with a tiger-skin, on which Beaton had oncethought of painting a Cleopatra; but he could never get the right model. As the old man stretched himself out on it, pale and suffering, he didnot look much like a Cleopatra, but Beaton was struck with hiseffectiveness, and the likeness between him and his daughter; she wouldmake a very good Cleopatra in some ways. All the time, while thesethoughts passed through his mind, he was afraid Dryfoos would die. Theold man fetched his breath in gasps, which presently smoothed andlengthened into his normal breathing. Beaton got him a glass of wine, andafter tasting it he sat up. "You've got to excuse me, " he said, getting back to his characteristicgrimness with surprising suddenness, when once he began to recoverhimself. "I've been through a good deal lately; and sometimes it ketchesme round the heart like a pain. " In his life of selfish immunity from grief, Beaton could not understandthis experience that poignant sorrow brings; he said to himself thatDryfoos was going the way of angina pectoris; as he began shuffling offthe tiger-skin he said: "Had you better get up? Wouldn't you like me tocall a doctor?" "I'm all right, young man. " Dryfoos took his hat and stick from him, buthe made for the door so uncertainly that Beaton put his hand under hiselbow and helped him out, and down the stairs, to his coupe. "Hadn't you better let me drive home with you?" he asked. "What?" said Dryfoos, suspiciously. Beaton repeated his question. "I guess I'm able to go home alone, " said Dryfoos, in a surly tone, andhe put his head out of the window and called up "Home!" to the driver, who immediately started off and left Beaton standing beside thecurbstone. XIV. Beaton wasted the rest of the day in the emotions and speculations whichDryfoos's call inspired. It was not that they continuously occupied him, but they broke up the train of other thoughts, and spoiled him for work;a very little spoiled Beaton for work; he required just the right moodfor work. He comprehended perfectly well that Dryfoos had made him thatextraordinary embassy because he wished him to renew his visits, and heeasily imagined the means that had brought him to this pass. From what heknew of that girl he did not envy her father his meeting with her when hemust tell her his mission had failed. But had it failed? When Beaton cameto ask himself this question, he could only perceive that he and Dryfooshad failed to find any ground of sympathy, and had parted in the samedislike with which they had met. But as to any other failure, it wascertainly tacit, and it still rested with him to give it effect. He couldgo back to Dryfoos's house, as freely as before, and it was clear that hewas very much desired to come back. But if he went back it was also clearthat he must go back with intentions more explicit than before, and nowhe had to ask himself just how much or how little he had meant by goingthere. His liking for Christine had certainly not increased, but thecharm, on the other hand, of holding a leopardess in leash had not yetpalled upon him. In his life of inconstancies, it was a pleasure to restupon something fixed, and the man who had no control over himself likedlogically enough to feel his control of some one else. The fact cannotother wise be put in terms, and the attraction which Christine Dryfooshad for him, apart from this, escapes from all terms, as anything purelyand merely passional must. He had seen from the first that she was a cat, and so far as youth forecasts such things, he felt that she would be ashrew. But he had a perverse sense of her beauty, and he knew a sort oflife in which her power to molest him with her temper could be reduced tothe smallest proportions, and even broken to pieces. Then theconsciousness of her money entered. It was evident that the old man hadmentioned his millions in the way of a hint to him of what he mightreasonably expect if he would turn and be his son-in-law. Beaton did notput it to himself in those words; and in fact his cogitations were not inwords at all. It was the play of cognitions, of sensations, formlesslytending to the effect which can only be very clumsily interpreted inlanguage. But when he got to this point in them, Beaton rose tomagnanimity and in a flash of dramatic reverie disposed of a part ofDryfoos's riches in placing his father and mother, and his brothers andsisters, beyond all pecuniary anxiety forever. He had no shame, noscruple in this, for he had been a pensioner upon others ever since aSyracusan amateur of the arts had detected his talent and given him themoney to go and study abroad. Beaton had always considered the money aloan, to be repaid out of his future success; but he now never dreamt ofrepaying it; as the man was rich, he had even a contempt for the notionof repaying him; but this did not prevent him from feeling very keenlythe hardships he put his father to in borrowing money from him, though henever repaid his father, either. In this reverie he saw himselfsacrificed in marriage with Christine Dryfoos, in a kind of admiringself-pity, and he was melted by the spectacle of the dignity with whichhe suffered all the lifelong trials ensuing from his unselfishness. Thefancy that Alma Leighton came bitterly to regret him, contributed tosoothe and flatter him, and he was not sure that Margaret. Vance did notsuffer a like loss in him. There had been times when, as he believed, that beautiful girl's highthoughts had tended toward him; there had been looks, gestures, evenwords, that had this effect to him, or that seemed to have had it; andBeaton saw that he might easily construe Mrs. Horn's confidential appealto him to get Margaret interested in art again as something by no meansnecessarily offensive, even though it had been made to him as to a masterof illusion. If Mrs. Horn had to choose between him and the life of goodworks to which her niece was visibly abandoning herself, Beaton could notdoubt which she would choose; the only question was how real the dangerof a life of good works was. As he thought of these two girls, one so charming and the other sodivine, it became indefinitely difficult to renounce them for ChristineDryfoos, with her sultry temper and her earthbound ideals. Life had beenso flattering to Beaton hitherto that he could not believe them bothfinally indifferent; and if they were not indifferent, perhaps he did notwish either of them to be very definite. What he really longed for wastheir sympathy; for a man who is able to walk round quite ruthlessly onthe feelings of others often has very tender feelings of his own, easilylacerated, and eagerly responsive to the caresses of compassion. In thisframe Beaton determined to go that afternoon, though it was not Mrs. Horn's day, and call upon her in the hope of possibly seeing Miss Vancealone. As he continued in it, he took this for a sign and actually went. It did not fall out at once as he wished, but he got Mrs. Horn to talkingagain about her niece, and Mrs. Horn again regretted that nothing couldbe done by the fine arts to reclaim Margaret from good works. "Is she at home? Will you let me see her?" asked Beacon, with somethingof the scientific interest of a physician inquiring for a patient whosesymptoms have been rehearsed to him. He had not asked for her before. "Yes, certainly, " said Mrs. Horn, and she went herself to call Margaret, and she did not return with her. The girl entered with the gentle gracepeculiar to her; and Beaton, bent as he was on his own consolation, couldnot help being struck with the spiritual exaltation of her look. At sightof her, the vague hope he had never quite relinquished, that they mightbe something more than aesthetic friends, died in his heart. She woreblack, as she often did; but in spite of its fashion her dress received anun-like effect from the pensive absence of her face. "Decidedly, "thought Beaton, "she is far gone in good works. " But he rose, all the same, to meet her on the old level, and he began atonce to talk to her of the subject he had been discussing with her aunt. He said frankly that they both felt she had unjustifiably turned her backupon possibilities which she ought not to neglect. "You know very well, " she answered, "that I couldn't do anything in thatway worth the time I should waste on it. Don't talk of it, please. Isuppose my aunt has been asking you to say this, but it's no use. I'msorry it's no use, she wishes it so much; but I'm not sorry otherwise. You can find the pleasure at least of doing good work in it; but Icouldn't find anything in it but a barren amusement. Mr. Wetmore isright; for me, it's like enjoying an opera, or a ball. " "That's one of Wetmore's phrases. He'd sacrifice anything to them. " She put aside the whole subject with a look. "You were not at Mr. Dryfoos's the other day. Have you seen them, any of them, lately?" "I haven't been there for some time, no, " said Beaton, evasively. But hethought if he was to get on to anything, he had better be candid. "Mr. Dryfoos was at my studio this morning. He's got a queer notion. He wantsme to paint his son's portrait. " She started. "And will you--" "No, I couldn't do such a thing. It isn't in my way. I told him so. Hisson had a beautiful face an antique profile; a sort of early Christiantype; but I'm too much of a pagan for that sort of thing. " "Yes. " "Yes, " Beaton continued, not quite liking her assent after he had invitedit. He had his pride in being a pagan, a Greek, but it failed him in herpresence, now; and he wished that she had protested he was none. "He wasa singular creature; a kind of survival; an exile in our time and place. I don't know: we don't quite expect a saint to be rustic; but with allhis goodness Conrad Dryfoos was a country person. If he were not dyingfor a cause you could imagine him milking. " Beaton intended a contemptthat came from the bitterness of having himself once milked the familycow. His contempt did not reach Miss Vance. "He died for a cause, " she said. "The holiest. " "Of labor?" "Of peace. He was there to persuade the strikers to be quiet and gohome. " "I haven't been quite sure, " said Beaton. "But in any case he had nobusiness there. The police were on hand to do the persuading. " "I can't let you talk so!" cried the girl. "It's shocking! Oh, I knowit's the way people talk, and the worst is that in the sight of the worldit's the right way. But the blessing on the peacemakers is not for thepolicemen with their clubs. " Beaton saw that she was nervous; he made his reflection that she wasaltogether too far gone in good works for the fine arts to reach her; hebegan to think how he could turn her primitive Christianity to theaccount of his modern heathenism. He had no deeper design than to getflattered back into his own favor far enough to find courage for somesort of decisive step. In his heart he was trying to will whether heshould or should not go back to Dryfoos's house. It could not be from thecaprice that had formerly taken him; it must be from a definite purpose;again he realized this. "Of course; you are right, " he said. "I wish Icould have answered that old man differently. I fancy he was bound up inhis son, though he quarrelled with him, and crossed him. But I couldn'tdo it; it wasn't possible. " He said to himself that if she said "No, "now, he would be ruled by her agreement with him; and if she disagreedwith him, he would be ruled still by the chance, and would go no more tothe Dryfooses'. He found himself embarrassed to the point of blushingwhen she said nothing, and left him, as it were, on his own hands. "Ishould like to have given him that comfort; I fancy he hasn't muchcomfort in life; but there seems no comfort in me. " He dropped his head in a fit attitude for compassion; but she poured nopity upon it. "There is no comfort for us in ourselves, " she said. "It's hard to getoutside; but there's only despair within. When we think we have donesomething for others, by some great effort, we find it's all for our ownvanity. " "Yes, " said Beaton. "If I could paint pictures for righteousness' sake, Ishould have been glad to do Conrad Dryfoos for his father. I felt sorryfor him. Did the rest seem very much broken up? You saw them all?" "Not all. Miss Dryfoos was ill, her sister said. It's hard to tell howmuch people suffer. His mother seemed bewildered. The younger sister is asimple creature; she looks like him; I think she must have something ofhis spirit. " "Not much spirit of any kind, I imagine, " said Beaton. "But she's amiablymaterial. Did they say Miss Dryfoos was seriously ill?" "No. I supposed she might be prostrated by her brother's death. " "Does she seem that kind of person to you, Miss Vance?" asked Beaton. "I don't know. I haven't tried to see so much of them as I might, thepast winter. I was not sure about her when I met her; I've never seenmuch of people, except in my own set, and the--very poor. I have beenafraid I didn't understand her. She may have a kind of pride that wouldnot let her do herself justice. " Beaton felt the unconscious dislike in the endeavor of praise. "Then sheseems to you like a person whose life--its trials, its chances--wouldmake more of than she is now?" "I didn't say that. I can't judge of her at all; but where we don't know, don't you think we ought to imagine the best?" "Oh yes, " said Beaton. "I didn't know but what I once said of them mighthave prejudiced you against them. I have accused myself of it. " He alwaystook a tone of conscientiousness, of self-censure, in talking with MissVance; he could not help it. "Oh no. And I never allowed myself to form any judgment of her. She isvery pretty, don't you think, in a kind of way?" "Very. " "She has a beautiful brunette coloring: that floury white and thedelicate pink in it. Her eyes are beautiful. " "She's graceful, too, " said Beaton. "I've tried her in color; but Ididn't make it out. " "I've wondered sometimes, " said Miss Vance, "whether that elusive qualityyou find in some people you try to paint doesn't characterize them allthrough. Miss Dryfoos might be ever so much finer and better than wewould find out in the society way that seems the only way. " "Perhaps, " said Beaton, gloomily; and he went away profoundly discouragedby this last analysis of Christine's character. The angelicimperviousness of Miss Vance to properties of which his own wickednesswas so keenly aware in Christine might have made him laugh, if it had notbeen such a serious affair with him. As it was, he smiled to think howvery differently Alma Leighton would have judged her from Miss Vance'spremises. He liked that clear vision of Alma's even when it pierced hisown disguises. Yes, that was the light he had let die out, and it mighthave shone upon his path through life. Beaton never felt so poignantlythe disadvantage of having on any given occasion been wanting to his owninterests through his self-love as in this. He had no one to blame buthimself for what had happened, but he blamed Alma for what might happenin the future because she shut out the way of retrieval and return. Whenbe thought of the attitude she had taken toward him, it seemedincredible, and he was always longing to give her a final chance toreverse her final judgment. It appeared to him that the time had come forthis now, if ever. XV. While we are still young we feel a kind of pride, a sort of fiercepleasure, in any important experience, such as we have read of or heardof in the lives of others, no matter how painful. It was this pride, thispleasure, which Beaton now felt in realizing that the toils of fate wereabout him, that between him and a future of which Christine Dryfoos mustbe the genius there was nothing but the will, the mood, the fancy of agirl who had not given him the hope that either could ever again be inhis favor. He had nothing to trust to, in fact, but his knowledge that hehad once had them all; she did not deny that; but neither did she concealthat he had flung away his power over them, and she had told him thatthey never could be his again. A man knows that he can love and whollycease to love, not once merely, but several times; he recognizes the factin regard to himself, both theoretically and practically; but in regardto women he cherishes the superstition of the romances that love is oncefor all, and forever. It was because Beaton would not believe that AlmaLeighton, being a woman, could put him out of her heart after sufferinghim to steal into it, that he now hoped anything from her, and she hadbeen so explicit when they last spoke of that affair that he did not hopemuch. He said to himself that he was going to cast himself on her mercy, to take whatever chance of life, love, and work there was in her havingthe smallest pity on him. If she would have none, then there was but onething he could do: marry Christine and go abroad. He did not see how hecould bring this alternative to bear upon Alma; even if she knew what hewould do in case of a final rejection, he had grounds for fearing shewould not care; but he brought it to bear upon himself, and it nerved himto a desperate courage. He could hardly wait for evening to come, beforehe went to see her; when it came, it seemed to have come too soon. He hadwrought himself thoroughly into the conviction that he was in earnest, and that everything depended upon her answer to him, but it was not tillhe found himself in her presence, and alone with her, that he realizedthe truth of his conviction. Then the influences of her grace, hergayety, her arch beauty, above all, her good sense, penetrated his soullike a subtle intoxication, and he said to himself that he was right; hecould not live without her; these attributes of hers were what he neededto win him, to cheer him, to charm him, to guide him. He longed so toplease her, to ingratiate himself with her, that he attempted to be lightlike her in his talk, but lapsed into abysmal absences and gloomyrecesses of introspection. "What are you laughing at?" he asked, suddenly starting from one ofthese. "What you are thinking of. " "It's nothing to laugh at. Do you know what I'm thinking of?" "Don't tell, if it's dreadful. " "Oh, I dare say you wouldn't think it's dreadful, " he said, withbitterness. "It's simply the case of a man who has made a fool of himselfand sees no help of retrieval in himself. " "Can any one else help a man unmake a fool of himself?" she asked, with asmile. "Yes. In a case like this. " "Dear me! This is very interesting. " She did not ask him what the case was, but he was launched now, and hepressed on. "I am the man who has made a fool of himself--" "Oh!" "And you can help me out if you will. Alma, I wish you could see me as Ireally am. " "Do you, Mr. Beacon? Perhaps I do. " "No; you don't. You formulated me in a certain way, and you won't allowfor the change that takes place in every one. You have changed; whyshouldn't I?" "Has this to do with your having made a fool of yourself?" "Yes. " "Oh! Then I don't see how you have changed. " She laughed, and he too, ruefully. "You're cruel. Not but what I deserveyour mockery. But the change was not from the capacity of making a foolof myself. I suppose I shall always do that more or less--unless you helpme. Alma! Why can't you have a little compassion? You know that I mustalways love you. " "Nothing makes me doubt that like your saying it, Mr. Beaton. But nowyou've broken your word--" "You are to blame for that. You knew I couldn't keep it!" "Yes, I'm to blame. I was wrong to let you come--after that. And so Iforgive you for speaking to me in that way again. But it's perfectlyimpossible and perfectly useless for me to hear you any more on thatsubject; and so-good-bye!" She rose, and he perforce with her. "And do you mean it?" he asked. "Forever?" "Forever. This is truly the last time I will ever see you if I can helpit. Oh, I feel sorry enough for you!" she said, with a glance at hisface. "I do believe you are in earnest. But it's too late now. Don't letus talk about it any more! But we shall, if we meet, and so, --" "And so good-bye! Well, I've nothing more to say, and I might as well saythat. I think you've been very good to me. It seems to me as if you hadbeen--shall I say it?--trying to give me a chance. Is that so?" Shedropped her eyes and did not answer. "You found it was no use! Well, I thank you for trying. It's curious tothink that I once had your trust, your regard, and now I haven't it. Youdon't mind my remembering that I had? It'll be some little consolation, and I believe it will be some help. I know I can't retrieve the past now. It is too late. It seems too preposterous--perfectly lurid--that I couldhave been going to tell you what a tangle I'd got myself in, and to askyou to help untangle me. I must choke in the infernal coil, but I'd liketo have the sweetness of your pity in it--whatever it is. " She put out her hand. "Whatever it is, I do pity you; I said that. " "Thank you. " He kissed the band she gave him and went. He had gone on some such terms before; was it now for the last time? Shebelieved it was. She felt in herself a satiety, a fatigue, in which hisgood looks, his invented airs and poses, his real trouble, were all alikerepulsive. She did not acquit herself of the wrong of having let himthink she might yet have liked him as she once did; but she had beenhonestly willing to see whether she could. It had mystified her to findthat when they first met in New York, after their summer in St. Barnaby, she cared nothing for him; she had expected to punish him for hisneglect, and then fancy him as before, but she did not. More and more shesaw him selfish and mean, weak-willed, narrow-minded, and hard-hearted;and aimless, with all his talent. She admired his talent in proportion asshe learned more of artists, and perceived how uncommon it was; but shesaid to herself that if she were going to devote herself to art, shewould do it at first-hand. She was perfectly serene and happy in herfinal rejection of Beaton; he had worn out not only her fancy, but hersympathy, too. This was what her mother would not believe when Alma reported theinterview to her; she would not believe it was the last time they shouldmeet; death itself can hardly convince us that it is the last time ofanything, of everything between ourselves and the dead. "Well, Alma, " shesaid, "I hope you'll never regret what you've done. " "You may be sure I shall not regret it. If ever I'm low-spirited aboutanything, I'll think of giving Mr. Beaton his freedom, and that willcheer me up. " "And don't you expect to get married? Do you intend to be an old maid?"demanded her mother, in the bonds of the superstition women have so longbeen under to the effect that every woman must wish to get married, iffor no other purpose than to avoid being an old maid. "Well, mamma, " said Alma, "I intend being a young one for a few yearsyet; and then I'll see. If I meet the right person, all well and good; ifnot, not. But I shall pick and choose, as a man does; I won't merely bepicked and chosen. " "You can't help yourself; you may be very glad if you are picked andchosen. " "What nonsense, mamma! A girl can get any man she wants, if she goesabout it the right way. And when my 'fated fairy prince' comes along, Ishall just simply make furious love to him and grab him. Of course, Ishall make a decent pretence of talking in my sleep. I believe it's donethat way more than half the time. The fated fairy prince wouldn't see theprincess in nine cases out of ten if she didn't say something; he wouldgo mooning along after the maids of honor. " Mrs. Leighton tried to look unspeakable horror; but she broke down andlaughed. "Well, you are a strange girl, Alma. " "I don't know about that. But one thing I do know, mamma, and that isthat Prince Beaton isn't the F. F. P. For me. How strange you are, mamma!Don't you think it would be perfectly disgusting to accept a person youdidn't care for, and let him go on and love you and marry you? It'ssickening. " "Why, certainly, Alma. It's only because I know you did care for himonce--" "And now I don't. And he didn't care for me once, and now he does. And sowe're quits. " "If I could believe--" "You had better brace up and try, mamma; for as Mr. Fulkerson says, it'sas sure as guns. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he'sloathsome to me; and he keeps getting loathsomer. Ugh! Goodnight!" XVI. "Well, I guess she's given him the grand bounce at last, " said Fulkersonto March in one of their moments of confidence at the office. "That'sMad's inference from appearances--and disappearances; and some littlehints from Alma Leighton. " "Well, I don't know that I have any criticisms to offer, " said March. "Itmay be bad for Beaton, but it's a very good thing for Miss Leighton. Uponthe whole, I believe I congratulate her. " "Well, I don't know. I always kind of hoped it would turn out the otherway. You know I always had a sneaking fondness for the fellow. " "Miss Leighton seems not to have had. " "It's a pity she hadn't. I tell you, March, it ain't so easy for a girlto get married, here in the East, that she can afford to despise anychance. " "Isn't that rather a low view of it?" "It's a common-sense view. Beaton has the making of a first-rate fellowin him. He's the raw material of a great artist and a good citizen. Allhe wants is somebody to take him in hand and keep him from makin' an assof himself and kickin' over the traces generally, and ridin' two or threehorses bareback at once. " "It seems a simple problem, though the metaphor is rather complicated, "said March. "But talk to Miss Leighton about it. I haven't given Beatonthe grand bounce. " He began to turn over the manuscripts on his table, and Fulkerson wentaway. But March found himself thinking of the matter from time to timeduring the day, and he spoke to his wife about it when he went home. Shesurprised him by taking Fulkerson's view of it. "Yes, it's a pity she couldn't have made up her mind to have him. It'sbetter for a woman to be married. " "I thought Paul only went so far as to say it was well. But what wouldbecome of Miss Leighton's artistic career if she married?" "Oh, her artistic career!" said Mrs. March, with matronly contempt of it. "But look here!" cried her husband. "Suppose she doesn't like him?" "How can a girl of that age tell whether she likes any one or not?" "It seems to me you were able to tell at that age, Isabel. But let'sexamine this thing. (This thing! I believe Fulkerson is characterizing mywhole parlance, as well as your morals. ) Why shouldn't we rejoice as muchat a non-marriage as a marriage? When we consider the enormous riskspeople take in linking their lives together, after not half so muchthought as goes to an ordinary horse trade, I think we ought to be gladwhenever they don't do it. I believe that this popular demand for thematrimony of others comes from our novel-reading. We get to thinking thatthere is no other happiness or good-fortune in life except marriage; andit's offered in fiction as the highest premium for virtue, courage, beauty, learning, and saving human life. We all know it isn't. We knowthat in reality marriage is dog cheap, and anybody can have it for theasking--if he keeps asking enough people. By-and-by some fellow will wakeup and see that a first-class story can be written from the anti-marriagepoint of view; and he'll begin with an engaged couple, and devote hisnovel to disengaging them and rendering them separately happy ever afterin the denouement. It will make his everlasting fortune. " "Why don't you write it, Basil?" she asked. "It's a delightful idea. Youcould do it splendidly. " He became fascinated with the notion. He developed it in detail; but atthe end he sighed and said: "With this 'Every Other Week' work on myhands, of course I can't attempt a novel. But perhaps I sha'n't have itlong. " She was instantly anxious to know what he meant, and the novel and MissLeighton's affair were both dropped out of their thoughts. "What do youmean? Has Mr. Fulkerson said anything yet?" "Not a word. He knows no more about it than I do. Dryfoos hasn't spoken, and we're both afraid to ask him. Of course, I couldn't ask him. " "No. " "But it's pretty uncomfortable, to be kept hanging by the gills so, asFulkerson says. " "Yes, we don't know what to do. " March and Fulkerson said the same to each other; and Fulkerson said thatif the old man pulled out, he did not know what would happen. He had nocapital to carry the thing on, and the very fact that the old man hadpulled out would damage it so that it would be hard to get anybody elseto put it. In the mean time Fulkerson was running Conrad's office-work, when he ought to be looking after the outside interests of the thing; andhe could not see the day when he could get married. "I don't know which it's worse for, March: you or me. I don't know, underthe circumstances, whether it's worse to have a family or to want to haveone. Of course--of course! We can't hurry the old man up. It wouldn't bedecent, and it would be dangerous. We got to wait. " He almost decided to draw upon Dryfoos for some money; he did not needany, but, he said maybe the demand would act as a hint upon him. One day, about a week after Alma's final rejection of Beaton, Dryfoos came intoMarch's office. Fulkerson was out, but the old man seemed not to havetried to see him. He put his hat on the floor by his chair, after he sat down, and lookedat March awhile with his old eyes, which had the vitreous glitter of old. Eyes stimulated to sleeplessness. Then he said, abruptly, "Mr. March, howwould you like to take this thing off my hands?" "I don't understand, exactly, " March began; but of course he understoodthat Dryfoos was offering to let him have 'Every Other Week' on someterms or other, and his heart leaped with hope. The old man knew he understood, and so he did not explain. He said: "I amgoing to Europe, to take my family there. The doctor thinks it might domy wife some good; and I ain't very well myself, and my girls both wantto go; and so we're goin'. If you want to take this thing off my hands, Ireckon I can let you have it in 'most any shape you say. You're allsettled here in New York, and I don't suppose you want to break up, much, at your time of life, and I've been thinkin' whether you wouldn't like totake the thing. " The word, which Dryfoos had now used three times, made March at lastthink of Fulkerson; he had been filled too full of himself to think ofany one else till he had mastered the notion of such wonderful goodfortune as seemed about falling to him. But now he did think ofFulkerson, and with some shame and confusion; for he remembered how, whenDryfoos had last approached him there on the business of his connectionwith 'Every Other Week, ' he had been very haughty with him, and told himthat he did not know him in this connection. He blushed to find how farhis thoughts had now run without encountering this obstacle of etiquette. "Have you spoken to Mr. Fulkerson?" he asked. "No, I hain't. It ain't a question of management. It's a question ofbuying and selling. I offer the thing to you first. I reckon Fulkersoncouldn't get on very well without you. " March saw the real difference in the two cases, and he was glad to seeit, because he could act more decisively if not hampered by an obligationto consistency. "I am gratified, of course, Mr. Dryfoos; extremelygratified; and it's no use pretending that I shouldn't be happy beyondbounds to get possession of 'Every Other Week. ' But I don't feel quitefree to talk about it apart from Mr. Fulkerson. " "Oh, all right!" said the old man, with quick offence. March hastened to say: "I feel bound to Mr. Fulkerson in every way. Hegot me to come here, and I couldn't even seem to act without him. " He put it questioningly, and the old man answered: "Yes, I can see that. When 'll he be in? I can wait. " But he lookedimpatient. "Very soon, now, " said March, looking at his watch. "He was only to begone a moment, " and while he went on to talk with Dryfoos, he wonderedwhy the old man should have come first to speak with him, and whether itwas from some obscure wish to make him reparation for displeasures in thepast, or from a distrust or dislike of Fulkerson. Whichever light helooked at it in, it was flattering. "Do you think of going abroad soon?" he asked. "What? Yes--I don't know--I reckon. We got our passage engaged. It's onone of them French boats. We're goin' to Paris. " "Oh! That will be interesting to the young ladies. " "Yes. I reckon we're goin' for them. 'Tain't likely my wife and me wouldwant to pull up stakes at our age, " said the old man, sorrowfully. "But you may find it do you good, Mr. Dryfoos, " said March, with akindness that was real, mixed as it was with the selfish interest he nowhad in the intended voyage. "Well, maybe, maybe, " sighed the old man; and he dropped his headforward. "It don't make a great deal of difference what we do or we don'tdo, for the few years left. " "I hope Mrs. Dryfoos is as well as usual, " said March, finding the grounddelicate and difficult. "Middlin', middlin', " said the old man. "My daughter Christine, she ain'tvery well. " "Oh, " said March. It was quite impossible for him to affect a moreexplicit interest in the fact. He and Dryfoos sat silent for a fewmoments, and he was vainly casting about in his thought for somethingelse which would tide them over the interval till Fulkerson came, when heheard his step on the stairs. "Hello, hello!" he said. "Meeting of the clans!" It was always a meetingof the clans, with Fulkerson, or a field day, or an extra session, or aregular conclave, whenever he saw people of any common interest together. "Hain't seen you here for a good while, Mr. Dryfoos. Did think some ofrunning away with 'Every Other Week' one while, but couldn't seem to workMarch up to the point. " He gave Dryfoos his hand, and pushed aside the papers on the corner ofMarch's desk, and sat down there, and went on briskly with the nonsensehe could always talk while he was waiting for another to develop anymatter of business; he told March afterward that he scented business inthe air as soon as he came into the room where he and Dryfoos weresitting. Dryfoos seemed determined to leave the word to March, who said, after aninquiring look at him, "Mr. Dryfoos has been proposing to let us have'Every Other Week, ' Fulkerson. " "Well, that's good; that suits yours truly; March & Fulkerson, publishersand proprietors, won't pretend it don't, if the terms are all right. " "The terms, " said the old man, "are whatever you want 'em. I haven't gotany more use for the concern--" He gulped, and stopped; they knew what hewas thinking of, and they looked down in pity. He went on: "I won't putany more money in it; but what I've put in a'ready can stay; and you canpay me four per cent. " He got upon his feet; and March and Fulkerson stood, too. "Well, I call that pretty white, " said Fulkerson. "It's a bargain as faras I'm concerned. I suppose you'll want to talk it over with your wife, March?" "Yes; I shall, " said March. "I can see that it's a great chance; but Iwant to talk it over with my wife. " "Well, that's right, " said the old man. "Let me hear from you tomorrow. " He went out, and Fulkerson began to dance round the room. He caught Marchabout his stalwart girth and tried to make him waltz; the office-boy cameto the door and looked on with approval. "Come, come, you idiot!" said March, rooting himself to the carpet. "It's just throwing the thing into our mouths, " said Fulkerson. "Thewedding will be this day week. No cards! Teedle-lumpty-diddle!Teedle-lumpty-dee! What do you suppose he means by it, March?" he asked, bringing himself soberly up, of a sudden. "What is his little game? Or ishe crazy? It don't seem like the Dryfoos of my previous acquaintance. " "I suppose, " March suggested, "that he's got money enough, so that hedon't care for this--" "Pshaw! You're a poet! Don't you know that the more money that kind ofman has got, the more he cares for money? It's some fancy of his--likehaving Lindau's funeral at his house--By Jings, March, I believe you'rehis fancy!" "Oh, now! Don't you be a poet, Fulkerson!" "I do! He seemed to take a kind of shine to you from the day you wouldn'tturn off old Lindau; he did, indeed. It kind of shook him up. It made himthink you had something in you. He was deceived by appearances. Lookhere! I'm going round to see Mrs. March with you, and explain the thingto her. I know Mrs. March! She wouldn't believe you knew what you weregoing in for. She has a great respect for your mind, but she don't thinkyou've got any sense. Heigh?" "All right, " said March, glad of the notion; and it was really a comfortto have Fulkerson with him to develop all the points; and it wasdelightful to see how clearly and quickly she seized them; it made Marchproud of her. She was only angry that they had lost any time in coming tosubmit so plain a case to her. Mr. Dryfoos might change his mind in the night, and then everything wouldbe lost. They must go to him instantly, and tell him that they accepted;they must telegraph him. "Might as well send a district messenger; he'd get there next week, " saidFulkerson. "No, no! It 'll all keep till to-morrow, and be the better forit. If he's got this fancy for March, as I say, he ain't agoing to changeit in a single night. People don't change their fancies for March in alifetime. Heigh?" When Fulkerson turned up very early at the office next morning, as Marchdid, he was less strenuous about Dryfoos's fancy for March. It was as ifMiss Woodburn might have blown cold upon that theory, as something unjustto his own merit, for which she would naturally be more jealous than he. March told him what he had forgotten to tell him the day before, thoughhe had been trying, all through their excited talk, to get it in, thatthe Dryfooses were going abroad. "Oh, ho!" cried Fulkerson. "That's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? Well, I thought there must be something. " But this fact had not changed Mrs. March at all in her conviction that itwas Mr. Dryfoos's fancy for her husband which had moved him to make himthis extraordinary offer, and she reminded him that it had first beenmade to him, without regard to Fulkerson. "And perhaps, " she went on, "Mr. Dryfoos has been changed---softened; and doesn't find money all inall any more. He's had enough to change him, poor old man!" "Does anything from without change us?" her husband mused aloud. "We'rebrought up to think so by the novelists, who really have the charge ofpeople's thinking, nowadays. But I doubt it, especially if the thingoutside is some great event, something cataclysmal, like this tremendoussorrow of Dryfoos's. " "Then what is it that changes us?" demanded his wife, almost angry withhim for his heresy. "Well, it won't do to say, the Holy Spirit indwelling. That would soundlike cant at this day. But the old fellows that used to say that had someglimpses of the truth. They knew that it is the still, small voice thatthe soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom. I suppose I should haveto say that we didn't change at all. We develop. There's the making ofseveral characters in each of us; we are each several characters, andsometimes this character has the lead in us, and sometimes that. Fromwhat Fulkerson has told me of Dryfoos, I should say he had always had thepotentiality of better things in him than he has ever been yet; andperhaps the time has come for the good to have its chance. The growth inone direction has stopped; it's begun in another; that's all. The manhasn't been changed by his son's death; it stunned, it benumbed him; butit couldn't change him. It was an event, like any other, and it had tohappen as much as his being born. It was forecast from the beginning oftime, and was as entirely an effect of his coming into the world--" "Basil! Basil!" cried his wife. "This is fatalism!" "Then you think, " he said, "that a sparrow falls to the ground withoutthe will of God?" and he laughed provokingly. But he went on moresoberly: "I don't know what it all means Isabel though I believe it meansgood. What did Christ himself say? That if one rose from the dead itwould not avail. And yet we are always looking for the miraculous! Ibelieve that unhappy old man truly grieves for his son, whom he treatedcruelly without the final intention of cruelty, for he loved him andwished to be proud of him; but I don't think his death has changed him, any more than the smallest event in the chain of events remotely workingthrough his nature from the beginning. But why do you think he's changedat all? Because he offers to sell me Every Other Week on easy terms? Hesays himself that he has no further use for the thing; and he knowsperfectly well that he couldn't get his money out of it now, without anenormous shrinkage. He couldn't appear at this late day as the owner, andsell it to anybody but Fulkerson and me for a fifth of what it's costhim. He can sell it to us for all it's cost him; and four per cent. Is nobad interest on his money till we can pay it back. It's a good thing forus; but we have to ask whether Dryfoos has done us the good, or whetherit's the blessing of Heaven. If it's merely the blessing of Heaven, Idon't propose being grateful for it. " March laughed again, and his wife said, "It's disgusting. " "It's business, " he assented. "Business is business; but I don't say itisn't disgusting. Lindau had a low opinion of it. " "I think that with all his faults Mr. Dryfoos is a better man thanLindau, " she proclaimed. "Well, he's certainly able to offer us a better thing in 'Every OtherWeek, '" said March. She knew he was enamoured of the literary finish of his cynicism, andthat at heart he was as humbly and truly grateful as she was for thegood-fortune opening to them. XVII. Beaton was at his best when he parted for the last time with AlmaLeighton, for he saw then that what had happened to him was the necessaryconsequence of what he had been, if not what he had done. Afterward helost this clear vision; he began to deny the fact; he drew upon hisknowledge of life, and in arguing himself into a different frame of mindhe alleged the case of different people who had done and been much worsethings than he, and yet no such disagreeable consequence had befallenthem. Then he saw that it was all the work of blind chance, and he saidto himself that it was this that made him desperate, and willing to callevil his good, and to take his own wherever he could find it. There was agreat deal that was literary and factitious and tawdry in the mood inwhich he went to see Christine Dryfoos, the night when the Marches sattalking their prospects over; and nothing that was decided in hispurpose. He knew what the drift of his mind was, but he had alwayspreferred to let chance determine his events, and now since chance hadplayed him such an ill turn with Alma, he left it the wholeresponsibility. Not in terms, but in effect, this was his thought as hewalked on up-town to pay the first of the visits which Dryfoos hadpractically invited him to resume. He had an insolent satisfaction inhaving delayed it so long; if he was going back he was going back on hisown conditions, and these were to be as hard and humiliating as he couldmake them. But this intention again was inchoate, floating, the stuff ofan intention, rather than intention; an expression of temperamentchiefly. He had been expected before that. Christine had got out of Mela that herfather had been at Beaton's studio; and then she had gone at the old manand got from him every smallest fact of the interview there. She hadflung back in his teeth the good-will toward herself with which he hadgone to Beaton. She was furious with shame and resentment; she told himhe had made bad worse, that he had made a fool of himself to no end; shespared neither his age nor his grief-broken spirit, in which his willcould not rise against hers. She filled the house with her rage, screaming it out upon him; but when her fury was once spent, she began tohave some hopes from what her father had done. She no longer kept herbed; every evening she dressed herself in the dress Beaton admired themost, and sat up till a certain hour to receive him. She had fixed a dayin her own mind before which, if he came, she would forgive him all hehad made her suffer: the mortification, the suspense, the despair. Beyondthis, she had the purpose of making her father go to Europe; she feltthat she could no longer live in America, with the double disgrace thathad been put upon her. Beaton rang, and while the servant was coming the insolent caprice seizedhim to ask for the young ladies instead of the old man, as he hadsupposed of course he should do. The maid who answered the bell, in theplace of the reluctant Irishman of other days, had all his hesitation inadmitting that the young ladies were at home. He found Mela in the drawing-room. At sight of him she looked scared; butshe seemed to be reassured by his calm. He asked if he was not to havethe pleasure of seeing Miss Dryfoos, too; and Mela said she reckoned thegirl had gone up-stairs to tell her. Mela was in black, and Beaton notedhow well the solid sable became her rich red-blonde beauty; he wonderedwhat the effect would be with Christine. But she, when she appeared, was not in mourning. He fancied that she worethe lustrous black silk, with the breadths of white Venetian lace aboutthe neck which he had praised, because he praised it. Her cheeks burnedwith a Jacqueminot crimson; what should be white in her face was chalkywhite. She carried a plumed ostrich fan, black and soft, and after givinghim her hand, sat down and waved it to and fro slowly, as he rememberedher doing the night they first met. She had no ideas, except such asrelated intimately to herself, and she had no gabble, like Mela; and shelet him talk. It was past the day when she promised herself she wouldforgive him; but as he talked on she felt all her passion for him revive, and the conflict of desires, the desire to hate, the desire to love, madea dizzying whirl in her brain. She looked at him, half doubting whetherhe was really there or not. He had never looked so handsome, with hisdreamy eyes floating under his heavy overhanging hair, and his pointedbrown beard defined against his lustrous shirtfront. His mellowlymodulated, mysterious voice lulled her; when Mela made an errand out ofthe room, and Beaton crossed to her and sat down by her, she shivered. "Are you cold?" he asked, and she felt the cruel mockery and exultantconsciousness of power in his tone, as perhaps a wild thing feelscaptivity in the voice of its keeper. But now, she said she would stillforgive him if he asked her. Mela came back, and the talk fell again to the former level; but Beatonhad not said anything that really meant what she wished, and she saw thathe intended to say nothing. Her heart began to burn like a fire in herbreast. "You been tellun' him about our goun' to Europe?" Mela asked. "No, " said Christine, briefly, and looking at the fan spread out on herlap. Beaton asked when; and then he rose, and said if it was so soon, hesupposed he should not see them again, unless he saw them in Paris; hemight very likely run over during the summer. He said to himself that hehad given it a fair trial with Christine, and he could not make it go. Christine rose, with a kind of gasp; and mechanically followed him to thedoor of the drawing-room; Mela came, too; and while he was putting on hisovercoat, she gurgled and bubbled in good-humor with all the world. Christine stood looking at him, and thinking how still handsomer he wasin his overcoat; and that fire burned fiercer in her. She felt him morethan life to her and knew him lost, and the frenzy, that makes a womankill the man she loves, or fling vitriol to destroy the beauty she cannothave for all hers, possessed her lawless soul. He gave his hand to Mela, and said, in his wind-harp stop, "Good-bye. " As he put out his hand to Christine, she pushed it aside with a scream ofrage; she flashed at him, and with both hands made a feline pass at theface he bent toward her. He sprang back, and after an instant ofstupefaction he pulled open the door behind him and ran out into thestreet. "Well, Christine Dryfoos!" said Mela, "Sprang at him like a wild-cat!" "I, don't care, " Christine shrieked. "I'll tear his eyes out!" She flewup-stairs to her own room, and left the burden of the explanation toMela, who did it justice. Beaton found himself, he did not know how, in his studio, reeking withperspiration and breathless. He must almost have run. He struck a matchwith a shaking hand, and looked at his face in the glass. He expected tosee the bleeding marks of her nails on his cheeks, but he could seenothing. He grovelled inwardly; it was all so low and coarse and vulgar;it was all so just and apt to his deserts. There was a pistol among the dusty bric-a-brac on the mantel which he hadkept loaded to fire at a cat in the area. He took it and sat looking intothe muzzle, wishing it might go off by accident and kill him. It slippedthrough his hand and struck the floor, and there was a report; he spranginto the air, feeling that he had been shot. But he found himself stillalive, with only a burning line along his cheek, such as one ofChristine's finger-nails might have left. He laughed with cynical recognition of the fact that he had got hispunishment in the right way, and that his case was not to be dignifiedinto tragedy. XVIII. The Marches, with Fulkerson, went to see the Dryfooses off on the Frenchsteamer. There was no longer any business obligation on them to be civil, and there was greater kindness for that reason in the attention theyoffered. 'Every Other Week' had been made over to the joint ownership ofMarch and Fulkerson, and the details arranged with a hardness onDryfoos's side which certainly left Mrs. March with a sense of hisincomplete regeneration. Yet when she saw him there on the steamer, shepitied him; he looked wearied and bewildered; even his wife, with hertwitching head, and her prophecies of evil, croaked hoarsely out, whileshe clung to Mrs. March's hand where they sat together till theleave-takers were ordered ashore, was less pathetic. Mela was lookingafter both of them, and trying to cheer them in a joyful excitement. "Itell 'em it's goun' to add ten years to both their lives, " she said. "Thevoyage 'll do their healths good; and then, we're gittun' away from thatmiser'ble pack o' servants that was eatun' us up, there in New York. Ihate the place!" she said, as if they had already left it. "Yes, Mrs. Mandel's goun', too, " she added, following the direction of Mrs. March'seyes where they noted Mrs. Mandel, speaking to Christine on the otherside of the cabin. "Her and Christine had a kind of a spat, and she wasgoun' to leave, but here only the other day, Christine offered to make itup with her, and now they're as thick as thieves. Well, I reckon wecouldn't very well 'a' got along without her. She's about the only onethat speaks French in this family. " Mrs. March's eyes still dwelt upon Christine's face; it was full of afurtive wildness. She seemed to be keeping a watch to prevent herselffrom looking as if she were looking for some one. "Do you know, " Mrs. March said to her husband as they jingled along homeward in theChristopher Street bob-tail car, "I thought she was in love with thatdetestable Mr. Beaton of yours at one time; and that he was amusinghimself with her. " "I can bear a good deal, Isabel, " said March, "but I wish you wouldn'tattribute Beaton to me. He's the invention of that Mr. Fulkerson ofyours. " "Well, at any rate, I hope, now, you'll both get rid of him, in thereforms you're going to carry out. " These reforms were for a greater economy in the management of 'EveryOther Week;' but in their very nature they could not include thesuppression of Beaton. He had always shown himself capable and loyal tothe interests of the magazine, and both the new owners were glad to keephim. He was glad to stay, though he made a gruff pretence ofindifference, when they came to look over the new arrangement with him. In his heart he knew that he was a fraud; but at least he could say tohimself with truth that he had not now the shame of taking Dryfoos'smoney. March and Fulkerson retrenched at several points where it had seemedindispensable to spend, as long as they were not spending their own: thatwas only human. Fulkerson absorbed Conrad's department into his, andMarch found that he could dispense with Kendricks in the place ofassistant which he had lately filled since Fulkerson had decided thatMarch was overworked. They reduced the number of illustrated articles, and they systematized the payment of contributors strictly according tothe sales of each number, on their original plan of co-operation: theyhad got to paying rather lavishly for material without reference to thesales. Fulkerson took a little time to get married, and went on his weddingjourney out to Niagara, and down the St. Lawrence to Quebec over the lineof travel that the Marches had taken on their wedding journey. He had thepleasure of going from Montreal to Quebec on the same boat on which hefirst met March. They have continued very good friends, and their wives are almost withoutthe rivalry that usually embitters the wives of partners. At first Mrs. March did not like Mrs. Fulkerson's speaking of her husband as the Ownah, and March as the Edito'; but it appeared that this was only a convenientmethod of recognizing the predominant quality in each, and was meantneither to affirm nor to deny anything. Colonel Woodburn offered as hiscontribution to the celebration of the copartnership, which Fulkersoncould not be prevented from dedicating with a little dinner, the story ofFulkerson's magnanimous behavior in regard to Dryfoos at that crucialmoment when it was a question whether he should give up Dryfoos or giveup March. Fulkerson winced at it; but Mrs. March told her husband thatnow, whatever happened, she should never have any misgivings of Fulkersonagain; and she asked him if he did not think he ought to apologize to himfor the doubts with which he had once inspired her. March said that hedid not think so. The Fulkersons spent the summer at a seaside hotel in easy reach of thecity; but they returned early to Mrs. Leighton's, with whom they are toboard till spring, when they are going to fit up Fulkerson's bachelorapartment for housekeeping. Mrs. March, with her Boston scruple, thinksit will be odd, living over the 'Every Other Week' offices; but therewill be a separate street entrance to the apartment; and besides, in NewYork you may do anything. The future of the Leightons promises no immediate change. Kendricks goesthere a good deal to see the Fulkersons, and Mrs. Fulkerson says he comesto see Alma. He has seemed taken with her ever since he first met her atDryfoos's, the day of Lindau's funeral, and though Fulkerson objects todating a fancy of that kind from an occasion of that kind, he justlyargues with March that there can be no harm in it, and that we are liableto be struck by lightning any time. In the mean while there is no proofthat Alma returns Kendricks's interest, if he feels any. She has got alittle bit of color into the fall exhibition; but the fall exhibition isnever so good as the spring exhibition. Wetmore is rather sorry she hassucceeded in this, though he promoted her success. He says her real hopeis in black and white, and it is a pity for her to lose sight of heroriginal aim of drawing for illustration. News has come from Paris of the engagement of Christine Dryfoos. Therethe Dryfooses met with the success denied them in New York; many Americanplutocrats must await their apotheosis in Europe, where society has them, as it were, in a translation. Shortly after their arrival they werecelebrated in the news papers as the first millionaire American family ofnatural-gas extraction who had arrived in the capital of civilization;and at a French watering-place Christine encountered her fate--a noblemanfull of present debts and of duels in the past. Fulkerson says the oldman can manage the debtor, and Christine can look out for the duellist. "They say those fellows generally whip their wives. He'd better not tryit with Christine, I reckon, unless he's practised with a panther. " One day, shortly after their return to town in the autumn from the briefsummer outing they permitted themselves, the Marches met Margaret Vance. At first they did not know her in the dress of the sisterhood which shewore; but she smiled joyfully, almost gayly, on seeing them, and thoughshe hurried by with the sister who accompanied her, and did not stay tospeak, they felt that the peace that passeth understanding had looked atthem from her eyes. "Well, she is at rest, there can't be any doubt of that, " he said, as heglanced round at the drifting black robe which followed her free, nun-like walk. "Yes, now she can do all the good she likes, " sighed his wife. "Iwonder--I wonder if she ever told his father about her talk with poorConrad that day he was shot?" "I don't know. I don't care. In any event, it would be right. She didnothing wrong. If she unwittingly sent him to his death, she sent him todie for God's sake, for man's sake. " "Yes--yes. But still--" "Well, we must trust that look of hers. " PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: Affected absence of mind Be good, sweet man, and let who will be clever Comfort of the critical attitude Conscience weakens to the need that isn't Death is an exile that no remorse and no love can reach Death is peace and pardon Did not idealize him, but in the highest effect she realized him Does any one deserve happiness Does anything from without change us? Europe, where society has them, as it were, in a translation Favorite stock of his go up and go down under the betting Hemmed round with this eternal darkness of death Indispensable Love of justice hurry them into sympathy with violence Married for no other purpose than to avoid being an old maid Nervous woes of comfortable people Novelists, who really have the charge of people's thinking People that have convictions are difficult Rejoice as much at a non-marriage as a marriage Respect for your mind, but she don't think you've got any sense Superstition of the romances that love is once for all Superstition that having and shining is the chief good To do whatever one likes is finally to do nothing that one likes Took the world as she found it, and made the best of it What we can be if we must When you look it--live it Would sacrifice his best friend to a phrase