DAWN O'HARA

THE GIRL WHO LAUGHED

By Edna Ferber

 TO MY DEAR MOTHER WHO FREQUENTLY INTERRUPTS AND TO MY SISTER FANNIE WHO SAYS "SH-SH-SH!" OUTSIDE MY DOOR

CONTENTS

 I THE SMASH-UP II MOSTLY EGGS III GOOD As NEW IV DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH V THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS VI STEEPED IN GERMAN VII BLACKIE'S PHILOSOPHY VIII KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN IX THE LADY FROM VIENNA X A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS XI VON GERHARD SPEAKS XII BENNIE THE CONSOLER XIII THE TEST XIV BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD MAID XV FAREWELL TO KNAPFS' XVI JUNE MOONLIGHT, AND A NEW BOARDING HOUSE XVII THE SHADOW OF TERROR XVIII PETER ORME XIX A TURN OF THE WHEEL XX BLACKIE'S VACATION COMES XXI HAPPINESS

DAWN O'HARA

CHAPTER I. THE SMASH-UP

There are a number of things that are pleasanter than being sick in aNew York boarding-house when one's nearest dearest is a married sisterup in far-away Michigan. 

Some one must have been very kind, for there were doctors, and ablue-and-white striped nurse, and bottles and things. There was evena vase of perky carnations--scarlet ones. I discovered that they had atrick of nodding their heads, saucily. The discovery did not appear tosurprise me. 

"Howdy-do!" said I aloud to the fattest and reddest carnation thatovertopped all the rest. "How in the world did you get in here?"

The striped nurse (I hadn't noticed her before) rose from some cornerand came swiftly over to my bedside, taking my wrist between herfingers. 

"I'm very well, thank you, " she said, smiling, "and I came in at thedoor, of course. "

"I wasn't talking to you, " I snapped, crossly, "I was speaking to thecarnations; particularly to that elderly one at the top--the fat one whokeeps bowing and wagging his head at me. "

"Oh, yes, " answered the striped nurse, politely, "of course. That one isvery lively, isn't he? But suppose we take them out for a little whilenow. "

She picked up the vase and carried it into the corridor, and thecarnations nodded their heads more vigorously than ever over hershoulder. 

I heard her call softly to some one. The some one answered with a sharplittle cry that sounded like, "Conscious!"

The next moment my own sister Norah came quietly into the room, andknelt at the side of my bed and took me in her arms. It did not seemat all surprising that she should be there, patting me with reassuringlittle love pats, murmuring over me with her lips against my check, calling me a hundred half-forgotten pet names that I had not heard foryears. But then, nothing seemed to surprise me that surprising day. Noteven the sight of a great, red-haired, red-faced, scrubbed looking manwho strolled into the room just as Norah was in the midst of denouncingnewspapers in general, and my newspaper in particular, and calling thecity editor a slave-driver and a beast. The big, red-haired man stoodregarding us tolerantly. 

"Better, eh?" said he, not as one who asks a question, but as thoughin confirmation of a thought. Then he too took my wrist between hisfingers. His touch was very firm and cool. After that he pulled down myeyelids and said, "H'm. " Then he patted my cheek smartly once or twice. "You'll do, " he pronounced. He picked up a sheet of paper from the tableand looked it over, keen-eyed. There followed a clinking of bottles andglasses, a few low-spoken words to the nurse, and then, as she left theroom the big red-haired man seated himself heavily in the chair near thebedside and rested his great hands on his fat knees. He stared down atme in much the same way that a huge mastiff looks at a terrier. Finallyhis glance rested on my limp left hand. 

"Married, h'm?"

For a moment the word would not come. I could hear Norah catch herbreath quickly. Then--"Yes, " answered I. 

"Husband living?" I could see suspicion dawning in his cold gray eye. 

Again the catch in Norah's throat and a little half warning, halfsupplicating gesture. And again, "Yes, " said I. 

The dawn of suspicion burst into full glow. 

"Where is he?" growled the red-haired doctor. "At a time like this?"

I shut my eyes for a moment, too sick at heart to resent his manner. I could feel, more than see, that Sis was signaling him frantically. Imoistened my lips and answered him, bitterly. 

"He is in the Starkweather Hospital for the insane. "

When the red-haired man spoke again the growl was quite gone from hisvoice. 

"And your home is--where?"

"Nowhere, " I replied meekly, from my pillow. But at that Sis put herhand out quickly, as though she had been struck, and said:

"My home is her home. "

"Well then, take her there, " he ordered, frowning, "and keep her thereas long as you can. Newspaper reporting, h'm? In New York? That's adevil of a job for a woman. And a husband who. . . Well, you'll have totake a six months' course in loafing, young woman. And at the end ofthat time, if you are still determined to work, can't you pick outsomething easier--like taking in scrubbing, for instance?"

I managed a feeble smile, wishing that he would go away quickly, so thatI might sleep. He seemed to divine my thoughts, for he disappearedinto the corridor, taking Norah with him. Their voices, low-pitched andcarefully guarded, could be heard as they conversed outside my door. 

Norah was telling him the whole miserable business. I wished, savagely, that she would let me tell it, if it must be told. How could she paintthe fascination of the man who was my husband? She had never known thecharm of him as I had known it in those few brief months before ourmarriage. She had never felt the caress of his voice, or the magnetismof his strange, smoldering eyes glowing across the smoke-dimmed cityroom as I had felt them fixed on me. No one had ever known what hehad meant to the girl of twenty, with her brain full of unspokendreams--dreams which were all to become glorious realities in thatwonder-place, New York. 

How he had fired my country-girl imagination! He had been the mostbrilliant writer on the big, brilliant sheet--and the most dissolute. How my heart had pounded on that first lonely day when this Wonder-Beinglooked up from his desk, saw me, and strolled over to where I sat beforemy typewriter! He smiled down at me, companionably. I'm quite sure thatmy mouth must have been wide open with surprise. He had been smoking acigarette an expensive-looking, gold-tipped one. Now he removed it frombetween his lips with that hand that always shook a little, and droppedit to the floor, crushing it lightly with the toe of his boot. He threwback his handsome head and sent out the last mouthful of smoke in athin, lazy spiral. I remember thinking what a pity it was that he shouldhave crushed that costly-looking cigarette, just for me. 

"My name's Orme, " he said, gravely. "Peter Orme. And if yours isn'tShaughnessy or Burke at least, then I'm no judge of what black hair andgray eyes stand for. "

"Then you're not, " retorted I, laughing up at him, "for it happens to beO'Hara--Dawn O'Hara, if ye plaze. "

He picked up a trifle that lay on my desk--a pencil, perhaps, or a bitof paper--and toyed with it, absently, as though I had not spoken. I thought he had not heard, and I was conscious of feeling a bitembarrassed, and very young. Suddenly he raised his smoldering eyes tomine, and I saw that they had taken on a deeper glow. His white, eventeeth showed in a half smile. 

"Dawn O'Hara, " said he, slowly, and the name had never sounded in theleast like music before, "Dawn O'Hara. It sounds like a rose--a pinkblush rose that is deeper pink at its heart, and very sweet. "

He picked up the trifle with which he had been toying and eyed itintently for a moment, as though his whole mind were absorbed in it. Then he put it down, turned, and walked slowly away. I sat staring afterhim like a little simpleton, puzzled, bewildered, stunned. That had beenthe beginning of it all. 

He had what we Irish call "a way wid him. " I wonder now why I did not gomad with the joy, and the pain, and the uncertainty of it all. Never wasa girl so dazzled, so humbled, so worshiped, so neglected, so courted. He was a creature of a thousand moods to torture one. What guise wouldhe wear to-day? Would he be gay, or dour, or sullen, or teasing orpassionate, or cold, or tender or scintillating? I know that my handswere always cold, and my cheeks were always hot, those days. 

He wrote like a modern Demosthenes, with all political New York toquiver under his philippics. The managing editor used to send him outon wonderful assignments, and they used to hold the paper for his stuffwhen it was late. Sometimes he would be gone for days at a time, andwhen he returned the men would look at him with a sort of admiring awe. And the city editor would glance up from beneath his green eye-shade andcall out:

"Say, Orme, for a man who has just wired in about a million dollars'worth of stuff seems to me you don't look very crisp and jaunty. "

"Haven't slept for a week, " Peter Orme would growl, and then hewould brush past the men who were crowded around him, and turn inmy direction. And the old hot-and-cold, happy, frightened, laughing, sobbing sensation would have me by the throat again. 

Well, we were married. Love cast a glamour over his very vices. His loveof drink? A weakness which I would transform into strength. His whitehot flashes of uncontrollable temper? Surely they would die down atmy cool, tender touch. His fits of abstraction and irritability? Mereevidences of the genius within. Oh, my worshiping soul was always alertwith an excuse. 

And so we were married. He had quite tired of me in less than a year, and the hand that had always shaken a little shook a great deal now, and the fits of abstraction and temper could be counted upon to appearoftener than any other moods. I used to laugh, sometimes, when I wasalone, at the bitter humor of it all. It was like a Duchess novel cometo life. 

His work began to show slipshod in spots. They talked to him about itand he laughed at them. Then, one day, he left them in the ditch on thebig story of the McManus indictment, and the whole town scooped him, andthe managing editor told him that he must go. His lapses had become toofrequent. They would have to replace him with a man not so brilliant, perhaps, but more reliable. 

I daren't think of his face as it looked when he came home to the littleapartment and told me. The smoldering eyes were flaming now. His lipswere flecked with a sort of foam. I stared at him in horror. He strodeover to me, clasped his fingers about my throat and shook me as a dogshakes a mouse. 

"Why don't you cry, eh?" he snarled. "Why don't you cry!"

And then I did cry out at what I saw in his eyes. I wrenched myselffree, fled to my room, and locked the door and stood against it withmy hand pressed over my heart until I heard the outer door slam and theecho of his footsteps die away. 

Divorce! That was my only salvation. No, that would be cowardly now. Iwould wait until he was on his feet again, and then I would demand myold free life back once more. This existence that was dragging me intothe gutter--this was not life! Life was a glorious, beautiful thing, andI would have it yet. I laid my plans, feverishly, and waited. He didnot come back that night, or the next, or the next, or the next. Indesperation I went to see the men at the office. No, they had not seenhim. Was there anything that they could do? they asked. I smiled, andthanked them, and said, oh, Peter was so absent-minded! No doubt he hadmisdirected his letters, or something of the sort. And then I went backto the flat to resume the horrible waiting. 

One week later he turned up at the old office which had cast him off. Hesat down at his former desk and began to write, breathlessly, as heused to in the days when all the big stories fell to him. One of themen reporters strolled up to him and touched him on the shoulder, man-fashion. Peter Orme raised his head and stared at him, and the mansprang back in terror. The smoldering eyes had burned down to an ash. Peter Orme was quite bereft of all reason. They took him away thatnight, and I kept telling myself that it wasn't true; that it was alla nasty dream, and I would wake up pretty soon, and laugh about it, andtell it at the breakfast table. 

Well, one does not seek a divorce from a husband who is insane. The busymen on the great paper were very kind. They would take me back on thestaff. Did I think that I still could write those amusing little humaninterest stories? Funny ones, you know, with a punch in 'em. 

Oh, plenty of good stories left in me yet, I assured them. They mustremember that I was only twenty-one, after all, and at twenty-one onedoes not lose the sense of humor. 

And so I went back to my old desk, and wrote bright, chatty letters hometo Norah, and ground out very funny stories with a punch in 'em, thatthe husband in the insane asylum might be kept in comforts. With bothhands I hung on like grim death to that saving sense of humor, resolvedto make something of that miserable mess which was my life--to makesomething of it yet. And now--

At this point in my musings there was an end of the low-voicedconversation in the hall. Sis tiptoed in and looked her disapproval atfinding me sleepless. 

"Dawn, old girlie, this will never do. Shut your eyes now, like a goodchild, and go to sleep. Guess what that great brute of a doctor said!I may take you home with me next week! Dawn dear, you will come, won'tyou? You must! This is killing you. Don't make me go away leaving youhere. I couldn't stand it. "

She leaned over my pillow and closed my eyelids gently with her sweet, cool fingers. "You are coming home with me, and you shall sleep and eat, and sleep and eat, until you are as lively as the Widow Malone, ohone, and twice as fat. Home, Dawnie dear, where we'll forget all about NewYork. Home, with me. "

I reached up uncertainly, and brought her hand down to my lips and agreat peace descended upon my sick soul. "Home--with you, " I said, likea child, and fell asleep. 

CHAPTER II. MOSTLY EGGS

Oh, but it was clean, and sweet, and wonderfully still, thatrose-and-white room at Norah's! No street cars to tear at one's nerveswith grinding brakes and clanging bells; no tramping of restless feeton the concrete all through the long, noisy hours; no shrieking midnightjoy-riders; not one of the hundred sounds which make night hideousin the city. What bliss to lie there, hour after hour, in a delicioushalf-waking, half-sleeping, wholly exquisite stupor, only rousing myselfto swallow egg-nogg No. 426, and then to flop back again on the big, cool pillow!

New York, with its lights, its clangor, its millions, was only afar-away, jumbled nightmare. The office, with its clacking typewriters, its insistent, nerve-racking telephone bells, its systematic rush, itssmoke-dimmed city room, was but an ugly part of the dream. 

Back to that inferno of haste and scramble and clatter? Never! Never! Iresolved, drowsily. And dropped off to sleep again. 

And the sheets. Oh, those sheets of Norah's! Why, they were white, instead of gray! And they actually smelled of flowers. For that matter, there were rosebuds on the silken coverlet. It took me a week to getchummy with that rosebud-and-down quilt. I had to explain carefullyto Norah that after a half-dozen years of sleeping under doubtfulboarding-house blankets one does not so soon get rid of a shudderingdisgust for coverings which are haunted by the ghosts of a hundredunknown sleepers. Those years had taught me to draw up the sheetwith scrupulous care, to turn it down, and smooth it over, so that nocontaminating and woolly blanket should touch my skin. The habitstuck even after Norah had tucked me in between her fragrant sheets. Automatically my hands groped about, arranging the old protectingbarrier. 

"What's the matter, Fuss-fuss?" inquired Norah, looking on. "That downquilt won't bite you; what an old maid you are!"

"Don't like blankets next to my face, " I elucidated, sleepily, "nevercan tell who slept under 'em last--"

"You cat!" exclaimed Norah, making a little rush at me. "If you weren'tsupposed to be ill I'd shake you! Comparing my darling rosebud quilt toyour miserable gray blankets! Just for that I'll make you eat an extrapair of eggs. "

There never was a sister like Norah. But then, who ever heard of abrother-in-law like Max? No woman--not even a frazzled-out newspaperwoman--could receive the love and care that they gave me, and fail toflourish under it. They had been Dad and Mother to me since the day whenNorah had tucked me under her arm and carried me away from New York. Siswas an angel; a comforting, twentieth-century angel, with white apronstrings for wings, and a tempting tray in her hands in place of the hymnbooks and palm leaves that the picture-book angels carry. She coaxed theinevitable eggs and beef into more tempting forms than Mrs. Rorer everguessed at. She could disguise those two plain, nourishing articles ofdiet so effectually that neither hen nor cow would have suspected eitherof having once been part of her anatomy. Once I ate halfway through amelting, fluffy, peach-bedecked plate of something before I discoveredthat it was only another egg in disguise. 

"Feel like eating a great big dinner to-day, Kidlet?" Norah would ask inthe morning as she stood at my bedside (with a glass of egg-something inher hand, of course). 

"Eat!"--horror and disgust shuddering through my voice--"Eat! Ugh!Don't s-s-speak of it to me. And for pity's sake tell Frieda to shutthe kitchen door when you go down, will you? I can smell something likeugh!--like pot roast, with gravy!" And I would turn my face to the wall. 

Three hours later I would hear Sis coming softly up the stairs, accompanied by a tinkling of china and glass. I would face her, allprotest. 

"Didn't I tell you, Sis, that I couldn't eat a mouthful? Not amouthf--um-m-m-m! How perfectly scrumptious that looks! What's thataffair in the lettuce leaf? Oh, can't I begin on that divine-lookingpinky stuff in the tall glass? H'm? Oh, please!"

"I thought--" Norah would begin; and then she would snigger softly. 

"Oh, well, that was hours ago, " I would explain, loftily. "Perhaps Icould manage a bite or two now. "

Whereupon I would demolish everything except the china and doilies. 

It was at this point on the road to recovery, just halfway betweenillness and health, that Norah and Max brought the great andunsmiling Von Gerhard on the scene. It appeared that even New York wasrespectfully aware of Von Gerhard, the nerve specialist, in spite of thefact that he lived in Milwaukee. The idea of bringing him up to look atme occurred to Max quite suddenly. I think it was on the evening that Iburst into tears when Max entered the room wearing a squeaky shoe. TheWeeping Walrus was a self-contained and tranquil creature compared to meat that time. The sight of a fly on the wall was enough to make me burstinto a passion of sobs. 

"I know the boy to steady those shaky nerves of yours, Dawn, " said Max, after I had made a shamefaced apology for my hysterical weeping, "I'mgoing to have Von Gerhard up here to look at you. He can run up Sunday, eh, Norah?"

"Who's Von Gerhard?" I inquired, out of the depths of my ignorance. "Anyway, I won't have him. I'll bet he wears a Vandyke and spectacles. "

"Von Gerhard!" exclaimed Norah, indignantly. "You ought to be thankfulto have him look at you, even if he wears goggles and a flowing beard. Why, even that red-haired New York doctor of yours cringed and lookedimpressed when I told him that Von Gerhard was a friend of my husband's, and that they had been comrades at Heidelberg. I must have mentioned himdozens of times in my letters. "

"Never. "

"Queer, " commented Max, "he runs up here every now and then to spend aquiet Sunday with Norah and me and the Spalpeens. Says it rests him. Thekids swarm all over him, and tear him limb from limb. It doesn't lookrestful, but he says it's great. I think he came here from Berlin justafter you left for New York, Dawn. Milwaukee fits him as if it had beenmade for him. "

"But you're not going to drag this wonderful being up here just for me!"I protested, aghast. 

Max pointed an accusing finger at me from the doorway. "Aren't you whatthe bromides call a bundle of nerves? And isn't Von Gerhard's specialtyuntying just those knots? I'll write to him to-night. "

And he did. And Von Gerhard came. The Spalpeens watched for him, theirnoses flattened against the window-pane, for it was raining. As he cameup the path they burst out of the door to meet him. From my bedroomwindow I saw him come prancing up the walk like a boy, with the twochildren clinging to his coat-tails, all three quite unmindful of therain, and yelling like Comanches. 

Ten minutes later he had donned his professional dignity, enteredmy room, and beheld me in all my limp and pea-green beauty. I notedapprovingly that he had to stoop a bit as he entered the low doorway, and that the Vandyke of my prophecy was missing. 

He took my hand in his own steady, reassuring clasp. Then hebegan to talk. Half an hour sped away while we discussed NewYork--books--music--theatres--everything and anything but Dawn O'Hara. I learned later that as we chatted he was getting his story, bit by bit, from every twitch of the eyelids, from every gesture of the hands thathad grown too thin to wear the hateful ring; from every motion of thelips; from the color of my nails; from each convulsive muscle; fromevery shadow, and wrinkle and curve and line of my face. 

Suddenly he asked: "Are you making the proper effort to get well? Youtry to conquer those jumping nerfs, yes?"

I glared at him. "Try! I do everything. I'd eat woolly worms if Ithought they might benefit me. If ever a girl has minded her big sisterand her doctor, that girl is I. I've eaten everything from pate de foiegras to raw beef, and I've drunk everything from blood to champagne. "

"Eggs?" queried Von Gerhard, as though making a happy suggestion. 

"Eggs!" I snorted. "Eggs! Thousands of 'em! Eggs hard and soft boiled, poached and fried, scrambled and shirred, eggs in beer and egg-noggs, egg lemonades and egg orangeades, eggs in wine and eggs in milk, andeggs au naturel. I've lapped up iron-and-wine, and whole rivers of milk, and I've devoured rare porterhouse and roast beef day after day forweeks. So! Eggs!"

"Mein Himmel!" ejaculated he, fervently, "And you still live!" Asuspicion of a smile dawned in his eyes. I wondered if he ever laughed. I would experiment. 

"Don't breathe it to a soul, " I whispered, tragically, "but eggs, andeggs alone, are turning my love for my sister into bitterest hate. Shestalks me the whole day long, forcing egg mixtures down my unwillingthroat. She bullies me. I daren't put out my hand suddenly withoutknocking over liquid refreshment in some form, but certainly with an egglurking in its depths. I am so expert that I can tell an egg orangeadefrom an egg lemonade at a distance of twenty yards, with my left handtied behind me, and one eye shut, and my feet in a sack. "

"You can laugh, eh? Well, that iss good, " commented the grave andunsmiling one. 

"Sure, " answered I, made more flippant by his solemnity. "Surely I canlaugh. For what else was my father Irish? Dad used to say that a senseof humor was like a shillaly--an iligent thing to have around handy, especially when the joke's on you. "

The ghost of a twinkle appeared again in the corners of the German blueeyes. Some fiend of rudeness seized me. 

"Laugh!" I commanded. 

Dr. Ernst von Gerhard stiffened. "Pardon?" inquired he, as one who issure that he has misunderstood. 

"Laugh!" I snapped again. "I'll dare you to do it. I'll double dare you!You dassen't!"

But he did. After a moment's bewildered surprise he threw back hishandsome blond head and gave vent to a great, deep infectious roar ofmirth that brought the Spalpeens tumbling up the stairs in defiance oftheir mother's strict instructions. 

After that we got along beautifully. He turned out to be quite human, beneath the outer crust of reserve. He continued his examination onlyafter bribing the Spalpeens shamefully, so that even their rapaciousdemands were satisfied, and they trotted off contentedly. 

There followed a process which reduced me to a giggling heap but whichVon Gerhard carried out ceremoniously. It consisted of certain rapsat my knees, and shins, and elbows, and fingers, and certain commandsto--"look at my finger! Look at the wall! Look at my finger! Look at thewall!"

"So!" said Von Gerhard at last, in a tone of finality. I sank mybattered frame into the nearest chair. "This--this newspaper work--itmust cease. " He dismissed it with a wave of the hand. 

"Certainly, " I said, with elaborate sarcasm. "How should you advise meto earn my living in the future? In the stories they paint dinner cards, don't they? or bake angel cakes?"

"Are you then never serious?" asked Von Gerhard, in disapproval. 

"Never, " said I. "An old, worn-out, worked-out newspaper reporter, witha husband in the mad-house, can't afford to be serious for a minute, because if she were she'd go mad, too, with the hopelessness of it all. "And I buried my face in my hands. 

The room was very still for a moment. Then the great Von Gerhard cameover, and took my hands gently from my face. "I--I do beg your pardon, "he said. He looked strangely boyish and uncomfortable as he said it. "Iwas thinking only of your good. We do that, sometimes, forgetting thatcircumstances may make our wishes impossible of execution. So. You willforgive me?"

"Forgive you? Yes, indeed, " I assured him. And we shook hands, gravely. "But that doesn't help matters much, after all, does it?"

"Yes, it helps. For now we understand one another, is it not so? You sayyou can only write for a living. Then why not write here at home? Surelythese years of newspaper work have given you a great knowledge ofhuman nature. Then too, there is your gift of humor. Surely that is acombination which should make your work acceptable to the magazines. Never in my life have I seen so many magazines as here in the UnitedStates. But hundreds! Thousands!"

"Me!" I exploded--"A real writer lady! No more interviews withactresses! No more slushy Sunday specials! No more teary tales! Oh, my!When may I begin? To-morrow? You know I brought my typewriter with me. I've almost forgotten where the letters are on the keyboard. "

"Wait, wait; not so fast! In a month or two, perhaps. But first mustcome other things outdoor things. Also housework. "

"Housework!" I echoed, feebly. 

"Naturlich. A little dusting, a little scrubbing, a little sweeping, alittle cooking. The finest kind of indoor exercise. Later you may writea little--but very little. Run and play out of doors with the children. When I see you again you will have roses in your cheeks like the Germangirls, yes?"

"Yes, " I echoed, meekly, "I wonder how Frieda will like my elephantineefforts at assisting with the housework. If she gives notice, Norah willbe lost to you. "

But Frieda did not give notice. After I had helped her clean the kitchenand the pantry I noticed an expression of deepest pity overspreading herlumpy features. The expression became almost one of agony as she watchedme roll out some noodles for soup, and delve into the sticky mysteriesof a new kind of cake. 

Max says that for a poor working girl who hasn't had time to cultivatethe domestic graces, my cakes are a distinct triumph. Sis sniffs atthat, and mutters something about cups of raisins and nuts and citronhiding a multitude of batter sins. She never allows the Spalpeens toeat my cakes, and on my baking days they are usually sent from the tablehowling. Norah declares, severely, that she is going to hide the GreenCook Book. The Green Cook Book is a German one. Norah bought it indeference to Max's love of German cookery. It is called Aunt Julchen'scook book, and the author, between hints as to flour and butter, getsdelightfully chummy with her pupil. Her cakes are proud, rich cakes. Sheorders grandly:

"Now throw in the yolks of twelve eggs; one-fourth of a poundof almonds; two pounds of raisins; a pound of citron; a pound oforange-peel. "

As if that were not enough, there follow minor instructions as totrifles like ounces of walnut meats, pounds of confectioner's sugar, andpints of very rich cream. When cold, to be frosted with an icing made upof more eggs, more nuts, more cream, more everything. 

The children have appointed themselves official lickers and scrapers ofthe spoons and icing pans, also official guides on their auntie'swalks. They regard their Aunt Dawn as a quite ridiculous but altogetherdelightful old thing. 

And Norah--bless her! looks up when I come in from a romp with theSpalpeens and says: "Your cheeks are pink! Actually! And you're losinga puff there at the back of your ear, and your hat's on crooked. Oh, youare beginning to look your old self, Dawn dear!"

At which doubtful compliment I retort, recklessly: "Pooh! What's a puffmore or less, in a worthy cause? And if you think my cheeks are pinknow, just wait until your mighty Von Gerhard comes again. By that timethey shall be so red and bursting that Frieda's, on wash day, willlook anemic by comparison. Say, Norah, how red are German red cheeks, anyway?"

CHAPTER III. GOOD AS NEW

So Spring danced away, and Summer sauntered in. My pillows lookedless and less tempting. The wine of the northern air imparted a cockyassurance. One blue-and-gold day followed the other, and I spent hourstogether out of doors in the sunshine, lying full length on the warm, sweet ground, to the horror of the entire neighborhood. To be sure, Iwas sufficiently discreet to choose the lawn at the rear of the house. There I drank in the atmosphere, as per doctor's instructions, while thegenial sun warmed the watery blood in my veins and burned the skin offthe end of my nose. 

All my life I had envied the loungers in the parks--those silent, inertfigures that lie under the trees all the long summer day, their shabbyhats over their faces, their hands clasped above their heads, legssprawled in uncouth comfort, while the sun dapples down between theleaves and, like a good fairy godmother, touches their frayed andwrinkled garments with flickering figures of golden splendor, while theysleep. They always seemed so blissfully care-free and at ease--thosesprawling men figures--and I, to whom such simple joys were forbidden, being a woman, had envied them. 

Now I was reveling in that very joy, stretched prone upon the ground, blinking sleepily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my veryhair grow, and health returning in warm, electric waves. I even daredto cross one leg over the other and to swing the pendant member withnonchalant air, first taking a cautious survey of the neighboring backwindows to see if any one peeked. Doubtless they did, behind thoseruffled curtains, but I grew splendidly indifferent. 

Even the crawling things--and there were myriads of them--added tothe enjoyment of my ease. With my ear so close to the ground the grassseemed fairly to buzz with them. Everywhere there were crazily busyants, and I, patently a sluggard and therefore one of those for whom theancient warning was intended, considered them lazily. How they plungedabout, weaving in and out, rushing here and there, helter-skelter, likebargain-hunting women darting wildly from counter to counter!

"O, foolish, foolish antics!" I chided them, "stop wearing yourselvesout this way. Don't you know that the game isn't worth the candle, andthat you'll give yourselves nervous jim-jams and then you'll have to gohome to be patched up? Look at me! I'm a horrible example. "

But they only bustled on, heedless of my advice, and showed theircontempt by crawling over me as I lay there like a lady Gulliver. 

Oh, I played what they call a heavy thinking part. It was not only theants that came in for lectures. I preached sternly to myself. 

"Well, Dawn old girl, you've made a beautiful mess of it. A smashed-upwreck at twenty-eight! And what have you to show for it? Nothing! You'rea useless pulp, like a lemon that has been squeezed dry. Von Gerhard wasright. There must be no more newspaper work for you, me girl. Not if youcan keep away from the fascination of it, which I don't think you can. "

Then I would fall to thinking of those years of newspapering--of thethrills of them, and the ills of them. It had been exhilarating, andeducating, but scarcely remunerative. Mother had never approved. Dadhad chuckled and said that it was a curse descended upon me from theterrible old Kitty O'Hara, the only old maid in the history of theO'Haras, and famed in her day for a caustic tongue and a venomedpen. Dad and Mother--what a pair of children they had been! The verydissimilarity of their natures had been a bond between them. Dad, light-hearted, whimsical, care-free, improvident; Mother, gravely sweet, anxious-browed, trying to teach economy to the handsome Irish husbandwho, descendant of a long and royal line of spendthrift ancestors, wouldhave none of it. 

It was Dad who had insisted that they name me Dawn. Dawn O'Hara! Hissense of humor must have been sleeping. "You were such a rosy, pinky, soft baby thing, " Mother had once told me, "that you looked just likethe first flush of light at sunrise. That is why your father insisted oncalling you Dawn. "

Poor Dad! How could he know that at twenty-eight I would be a yellowwreck of a newspaper reporter--with a wrinkle between my eyes. If hecould see me now he would say:

"Sure, you look like the dawn yet, me girl but a Pittsburgh dawn. "

At that, Mother, if she were here, would pat my check where the hollowplace is, and murmur: "Never mind, Dawnie dearie, Mother thinks you arebeautiful just the same. " Of such blessed stuff are mothers made. 

At this stage of the memory game I would bury my face in the warm grassand thank my God for having taken Mother before Peter Orme came into mylife. And then I would fall asleep there on the soft, sweet grass, withmy head snuggled in my arms, and the ants wriggling, unchided, into myears. 

On the last of these sylvan occasions I awoke, not with a gracefulstart, like the story-book ladies, but with a grunt. Sis was diggingme in the ribs with her toe. I looked up to see her standing over me, a foaming tumbler of something in her hand. I felt that it was eggy andeyed it disgustedly. 

"Get up, " said she, "you lazy scribbler, and drink this. "

I sat up, eyeing her severely and picking grass and ants out of my hair. 

"D' you mean to tell me that you woke me out of that babe-like slumberto make me drink that goo? What is it, anyway? I'll bet it's anotheregg-nogg. "

"Egg-nogg it is; and swallow it right away, because there are guests tosee you. "

I emerged from the first dip into the yellow mixture and fixed on her asstern and terrible a look at any one can whose mouth is encircled by amustache of yellow foam. 

"Guests!" I roared, "not for me! Don't you dare to say that they came tosee me!"

"Did too, " insists Norah, with firmness, "they came especially to seeyou. Asked for you, right from the jump. "

I finished the egg-nogg in four gulps, returned the empty tumbler withan air of decision, and sank upon the grass. 

"Tell 'em I rave. Tell 'em that I'm unconscious, and that for weeks Ihave recognized no one, not even my dear sister. Say that in my presentnerve-shattered condition I--"

"That wouldn't satisfy them, " Norah calmly interrupts, "they knowyou're crazy because they saw you out here from their second story backwindows. That's why they came. So you may as well get up and face them. I promised them I'd bring you in. You can't go on forever refusing tosee people, and you know the Whalens are--"

"Whalens!" I gasped. "How many of them? Not--not the entire fiendishthree?"

"All three. I left them champing with impatience. "

The Whalens live just around the corner. The Whalens are omniscient. They have a system of news gathering which would make the efforts of aNew York daily appear antiquated. They know that Jenny Laffin feeds thefamily on soup meat and oat-meal when Mr. Laffin is on the road; theyknow that Mrs. Pearson only shakes out her rugs once in four weeks; theycan tell you the number of times a week that Sam Dempster comes homedrunk; they know that the Merkles never have cream with their coffeebecause little Lizzie Merkle goes to the creamery every day with justone pail and three cents; they gloat over the knowledge that ProfessorGrimes, who is a married man, is sweet on Gertie Ashe, who teachessecond reader in his school; they can tell you where Mrs. Black got herseal coat, and her husband only earning two thousand a year; they knowwho is going to run for mayor, and how long poor Angela Sims has tolive, and what Guy Donnelly said to Min when he asked her to marry him. 

The three Whalens--mother and daughters--hunt in a group. They sendmeaning glances to one another across the room, and at parties they gettogether and exchange bulletins in a corner. On passing the Whalen houseone is uncomfortably aware of shadowy forms lurking in the windows, andof parlor curtains that are agitated for no apparent cause. 

Therefore it was with a groan that I rose and prepared to follow Norahinto the house. Something in my eye caused her to turn at the very door. "Don't you dare!" she hissed; then, banishing the warning scowl fromher face, and assuming a near-smile, she entered the room and I followedmiserably at her heels. 

The Whalens rose and came forward effusively; Mrs. Whalen, plump, dark, voluble; Sally, lean, swarthy, vindictive; Flossie, pudgy, powdered, over-dressed. They eyed me hungrily. I felt that they were searching myfeatures for signs of incipient insanity. 

"Dear, DEAR girl!" bubbled the billowy Flossie, kissing the end of mynose and fastening her eye on my ringless left hand. 

Sally contented herself with a limp and fishy handshake. She and I weresworn enemies in our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurkedin Sally's eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that envelopedme in an atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfumery and friedlard. Mrs. Whalen is a famous cook. Said she:

"We've been thinking of calling ever since you were brought home, butdear me! you've been looking so poorly I just said to the girls, waittill the poor thing feels more like seeing her old friends. Tell me, howare you feeling now?"

The three sat forward in their chairs in attitudes of tense waiting. 

I resolved that if err I must it should be on the side of safety. Iturned to sister Norah. 

"How am I feeling anyway, Norah?" I guardedly inquired. 

Norah's face was a study. "Why Dawn dear, " she said, sugar-sweet, "nodoubt you know better than I. But I'm sure that you are wonderfullyimproved--almost your old self, in fact. Don't you think she lookssplendid, Mrs. Whalen?"

The three Whalens tore their gaze from my blank countenance to exchangea series of meaning looks. 

"I suppose, " purred Mrs. Whalen, "that your awful trouble was the realcause of your--a-a-a-sickness, worrying about it and grieving as youmust have. "

She pronounces it with a capital T, and I know she means Peter. I hateher for it. 

"Trouble!" I chirped. "Trouble never troubles me. I just worked toohard, that's all, and acquired an awful 'tired. ' All work and no playmakes Jill a nervous wreck, you know. "

At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a playful finger at me. "Oh, now, you can't make us believe that, just because we're from the country!We know all about you gay New Yorkers, with your Bohemian ways and yourmidnight studio suppers, and your cigarettes, and cocktails and highjinks!"

Memory painted a swift mental picture of Dawn O'Hara as she used totumble into bed after a whirlwind day at the office, too dog-tired togive her hair even one half of the prescribed one hundred strokes of thebrush. But in turn I shook a reproving forefinger at Flossie. 

"You've been reading some naughty society novel! One of thosemillionaire-divorce-actress-automobile novels. Dear, dear! Shall I, everforget the first New York actress I ever met; or what she said!"

I felt, more than saw, a warning movement from Sis. But the threeWhalens had hitched forward in their chairs. 

"What did she say?" gurgled Flossie. "Was it something real reezk?"

"Well, it was at a late supper--a studio supper given in her honor, " Iconfessed. 

"Yes-s-s-s, " hissed the Whalens. 

"And this actress--she was one of those musical comedy actresses, youknow; I remember her part called for a good deal of kicking about in ashort Dutch costume--came in rather late, after the performance. She waswearing a regal-looking fur-edged evening wrap, and she still wore allher make-up"--out of the corner of my eye I saw Sis sink back with anair of resignation--"and she threw open the door and said--

"Yes-s-s-s!" hissed the Whalens again, wetting their lips. 

"--said: 'Folks, I just had a wire from mother, up in Maine. The boy hasthe croup. I'm scared green. I hate to spoil the party, but don't ask meto stay. I want to go home to the flat and blubber. I didn't evenstop to take my make-up off. My God! If anything should happen to theboy!--Well, have a good time without me. Jim's waiting outside. '" Asilence. 

Then--"Who was Jim?" asked Flossie, hopefully. 

"Jim was her husband, of course. He was in the same company. "

Another silence. 

"Is that all?" demanded Sally from the corner in which she had beenglowering. 

"All! You unnatural girl! Isn't one husband enough?"

Mrs. Whalen smiled an uncertain, wavering smile. There passed among thethree a series of cabalistic signs. They rose simultaneously. 

"How quaint you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Whalen, "and so amusing! Comegirls, we mustn't tire Miss--ah--Mrs. --er--" with another meaning look atmy bare left hand. 

"My husband's name is still Orme, " I prompted, quite, quite pleasantly. 

"Oh, certainly. I'm so forgetful. And one reads such queer things inthe newspapers nowa-days. Divorces, and separations, and soul-mates andthings. " There was a note of gentle insinuation in her voice. 

Norah stepped firmly into the fray. "Yes, doesn't one? What a comfort itmust be to you to know that your dear girls are safe at home with you, and no doubt will be secure, for years to come, from the buffeting windsof matrimony. "

There was a tinge of purple in Mrs. Whalen's face as she moved towardthe door, gathering her brood about her. "Now that dear Dawn is almostnormal again I shall send my little girlies over real often. She mustfind it very dull here after her--ah--life in New York. "

"Not at all, " I said, hurriedly, "not at all. You see I'm--I'm writing abook. My entire day is occupied. "

"A book!" screeched the three. "How interesting! What is it? When willit be published?"

I avoided Norah's baleful eye as I answered their questions andperformed the final adieux. 

As the door closed, Norah and I faced each other, glaring. 

"Hussies!" hissed Norah. Whereupon it struck us funny and we fell, ashrieking heap, into the nearest chair. Finally Sis dabbed at her eyeswith her handkerchief, drew a long breath, and asked, with elaboratesarcasm, why I hadn't made it a play instead of a book, while I wasabout it. 

"But I mean it, " I declared. "I've had enough of loafing. Max mustunpack my typewriter to-night. I'm homesick for a look at the keys. Andto-morrow I'm to be installed in the cubbyhole off the dining-room and Idefy any one to enter it on peril of their lives. If you value the livesof your offspring, warn them away from that door. Von Gerhard said thatthere was writing in my system, and by the Great Horn Spoon and theBeard of the Prophet, I'll have it out! Besides, I need the money. Norahdear, how does one set about writing a book? It seems like such a largeorder. "

CHAPTER IV. DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH

It's hard trying to develop into a real Writer Lady in the bosom ofone's family, especially when the family refuses to take one seriously. Seven years of newspaper grind have taught me the fallacy of trying towrite by the inspiration method. But there is such a thing as a train ofthought, and mine is constantly being derailed, and wrecked and pitchedabout. 

Scarcely am I settled in my cubby-hole, typewriter before me, theworking plan of a story buzzing about in my brain, when I hear my namecalled in muffled tones, as though the speaker were laboring with amouthful of hairpins. I pay no attention. I have just given my heroinea pair of calm gray eyes, shaded with black lashes and hair to match. Avoice floats down from the upstairs regions. 

"Dawn! Oh, Dawn! Just run and rescue the cucumbers out of the top of theice-box, will you? The iceman's coming, and he'll squash 'em. "

A parting jab at my heroine's hair and eyes, and I'm off to save thecucumbers. 

Back at my typewriter once more. Shall I make my heroine petiteor grande? I decide that stateliness and Gibsonesque height shouldaccompany the calm gray eyes. I rattle away happily, the plot unfoldingitself in some mysterious way. Sis opens the door a little and peers in. She is dressed for the street. 

"Dawn dear, I'm going to the dressmaker's. Frieda's upstairs cleaningthe bathroom, so take a little squint at the roast now and then, willyou? See that it doesn't burn, and that there's plenty of gravy. Oh, andDawn--tell the milkman we want an extra half-pint of cream to-day. Thetickets are on the kitchen shelf, back of the clock. I'll be back in anhour. "

"Mhmph, " I reply. 

Sis shuts the door, but opens it again almost immediately. 

"Don't let the Infants bother you. But if Frieda's upstairs and theycome to you for something to eat, don't let them have any cookies beforedinner. If they're really hungry they'll eat bread and butter. "

I promise, dreamily, my last typewritten sentence still running throughmy head. The gravy seems to have got into the heroine's calm gray eyes. What heroine could remain calm-eyed when her creator's mind is filledwith roast beef? A half-hour elapses before I get back on the track. Then appears the hero--a tall blond youth, fair to behold. I make himtwo yards high, and endow him with a pair of clothing-advertisementshoulders. 

There assails my nostrils a fearful smell of scorching. The roast! Awild rush into the kitchen. I fling open the oven door. The roast ismahogany-colored, and gravyless. It takes fifteen minutes of the mostdesperate first-aid-to-the-injured measures before the roast is revived. 

Back to the writing. It has lost its charm. The gray-eyed heroine is astick; she moves like an Indian lady outside a cigar shop. The hero isa milk-and-water sissy, without a vital spark in him. What's the use oftrying to write, anyway? Nobody wants my stuff. Good for nothing exceptdubbing on a newspaper!

Rap! Rap! Rappity-rap-rap! Bing! Milk!

I dash into the kitchen. No milk! No milkman! I fly to the door. He isdisappearing around the corner of the house. 

"Hi! Mr. Milkman! Say, Mr. Milkman!" with frantic beckonings. 

He turns. He lifts up his voice. "The screen door was locked so I leftyouse yer milk on top of the ice-box on the back porch. Thought like thehired girl was upstairs an' I could git the tickets to-morra. "

I explain about the cream, adding that it is wanted for short-cake. Theexplanation does not seem to cheer him. He appears to be a very gloomyand reserved milkman. I fancy that he is in the habit of indulging in alittle airy persiflage with Frieda o' mornings, and he finds me a poorsubstitute for her red-cheeked comeliness. 

The milk safely stowed away in the ice-box, I have another look at theroast. I am dipping up spoonfuls of brown gravy and pouring them overthe surface of the roast in approved basting style, when there is arush, a scramble, and two hard bodies precipitate themselves upon mylegs so suddenly that for a moment my head pitches forward into theoven. I withdraw my head from the oven, hastily. The basting spoon isimmersed in the bottom of the pan. I turn, indignant. The Spalpeens lookup at me with innocent eyes. 

"You little divils, what do you mean by shoving your old aunt into theoven! It's cannibals you are!"

The idea pleases them. They release my legs and execute a savage wardance around me. The Spalpeens are firm in the belief that I was broughtto their home for their sole amusement, and they refuse to take meseriously. The Spalpeens themselves are two of the finest examplesof real humor that ever were perpetrated upon parents. Sheila is thefirst-born. Norah decided that she should be an Irish beauty, andbestowed upon her a name that reeks of the bogs. Whereupon Sheila, atthe age of six, is as flaxen-haired and blue-eyed and stolid a littleGerman madchen as ever fooled her parents, and she is a femininereproduction of her German Dad. Two years later came a sturdy boy, andthey named him Hans, in a flaunt of defiance. Hans is black-haired, gray-eyed and Irish as Killarny. 

"We're awful hungry, " announces Sheila. 

"Can't you wait until dinner time? Such a grand dinner!"

Sheila and Hans roll their eyes to convey to me that, were they to waituntil dinner for sustenance we should find but their lifeless forms. 

"Well then, Auntie will get a nice piece of bread and butter for each ofyou. "

"Don't want bread an' butty!" shrieks Hans. "Want tooky!"

"Cooky!" echoes Sheila, pounding on the kitchen table with the rescuedbasting spoon. 

"You can't have cookies before dinner. They're bad for your insides. "

"Can too, " disputes Hans. "Fwieda dives us tookies. Want tooky!"wailingly. 

"Please, ple-e-e-ease, Auntie Dawnie dearie, " wheedles Sheila, wrigglingher soft little fingers in my hand. 

"But Mother never lets you have cookies before dinner, " I retortseverely. "She knows they are bad for you. "

"Pooh, she does too! She always says, 'No, not a cooky!' And then we begand screech, and then she says, 'Oh, for pity's sake, Frieda, give 'ema cooky and send 'em out. One cooky can't kill 'em. '" Sheila's imitationis delicious. 

Hans catches the word screech and takes it as his cue. He begins aseries of ear-piercing wails. Sheila surveys him with pride and thentakes the wail up in a minor key. Their teamwork is marvelous. I flyto the cooky jar and extract two round and sugary confections. I thrustthem into the pink, eager palms. The wails cease. Solemnly they placeone cooky atop the other, measuring the circlets with grave eyes. 

"Mine's a weeny bit bigger'n yours this time, " decides Sheila, and holdsher cooky heroically while Hans takes a just and lawful bite out of hissister's larger share. 

"The blessed little angels!" I say to myself, melting. "The dear, unselfish little sweeties!" and give each of them another cooky. 

Back to my typewriter. But the words flatly refuse to come now. I makesix false starts, bite all my best finger-nails, screw my hair into awilderness of cork-screws and give it up. No doubt a real Lady Writercould write on, unruffled and unhearing, while the iceman squashed thecucumbers, and the roast burned to a frazzle, and the Spalpeens perishedof hunger. Possessed of the real spark of genius, trivialities likemilkmen and cucumbers could not dim its glow. Perhaps all successfulLady Writers with real live sparks have cooks and scullery maids, andneed not worry about basting, and gravy, and milkmen. 

This book writing is all very well for those who have a large faith inthe future and an equally large bank account. But my future will have tobe hand-carved, and my bank account has always been an all too small payenvelope at the end of each week. It will be months before the bookis shaped and finished. And my pocketbook is empty. Last week Max sentmoney for the care of Peter. He and Norah think that I do not know. 

Von Gerhard was here in August. I told him that all my firm resolutionsto forsake newspaperdom forever were slipping away, one by one. 

"I have heard of the fascination of the newspaper office, " he said, inhis understanding way. "I believe you have a heimweh for it, not?"

"Heimweh! That's the word, " I had agreed. "After you have been anewspaper writer for seven years--and loved it--you will be a newspaperwriter, at heart and by instinct at least, until you die. There's nogetting away from it. It's in the blood. Newspaper men have been knownto inherit fortunes, to enter politics, to write books and becomefamous, to degenerate into press agents and become infamous, to blossominto personages, to sink into nonentities, but their news-nose remaineda part of them, and the inky, smoky, stuffy smell of a newspaper officewas ever sweet in their nostrils. "

But, "Not yet, " Von Gerhard had said, "It unless you want to have againthis miserable business of the sick nerfs. Wait yet a few months. "

And so I have waited, saying nothing to Norah and Max. But I want to bein the midst of things. I miss the sensation of having my fingers at thepulse of the big old world. I'm lonely for the noise and the rush andthe hard work; for a glimpse of the busy local room just before presstime, when the lights are swimming in a smoky haze, and the big pressesdownstairs are thundering their warning to hurry, and the men arebreezing in from their runs with the grist of news that will be groundfiner and finer as it passes through the mill of copy-readers' andeditors' hands. I want to be there in the thick of the confusion thatis, after all, so orderly. I want to be there when the telephone bellsare zinging, and the typewriters are snapping, and the messenger boysare shuffling in and out, and the office kids are scuffling in a corner, and the big city editor, collar off, sleeves rolled up from his greatarms, hair bristling wildly above his green eye-shade, is swearinggently and smoking cigarette after cigarette, lighting each fresh one atthe dying glow of the last. I would give a year of my life to hear himsay:

"I don't mind tellin' you, Beatrice Fairfax, that that was a darn goodstory you got on the Millhaupt divorce. The other fellows haven't a wordthat isn't re-hash. "

All of which is most unwomanly; for is not marriage woman's highestaim, and home her true sphere? Haven't I tried both? I ought to know. Imerely have been miscast in this life's drama. My part should have beenthat of one who makes her way alone. Peter, with his thin, cruel lips, and his shaking hands, and his haggard face and his smoldering eyes, isa shadow forever blotting out the sunny places in my path. I was meantto be an old maid, like the terrible old Kitty O'Hara. Not one of thetatting-and-tea kind, but an impressive, bustling old girl, with adouble chin. The sharp-tongued Kitty O'Hara used to say that being anold maid was a great deal like death by drowning--a really delightfulsensation when you ceased struggling. 

Norah has pleaded with me to be more like other women of my age, andfor her sake I've tried. She has led me about to bridge parties and teafights, and I have tried to act as though I were enjoying it all, but Iknew that I wasn't getting on a bit. I have come to the conclusion thatone year of newspapering counts for two years of ordinary, existence, and that while I'm twenty-eight in the family Bible I'm fully fortyinside. When one day may bring under one's pen a priest, a pauper, a prostitute, a philanthropist, each with a story to tell, and eachrequiring to be bullied, or cajoled, or bribed, or threatened, ortricked into telling it; then the end of that day's work finds onelooking out at the world with eyes that are very tired and as old as theworld itself. 

I'm spoiled for sewing bees and church sociables and afternoon bridges. A hunger for the city is upon me. The long, lazy summer days haveslipped by. There is an autumn tang in the air. The breeze has a touchthat is sharp. 

Winter in a little northern town! I should go mad. But winter in thecity! The streets at dusk on a frosty evening; the shop windows arrangedby artist hands for the beauty-loving eyes of women; the rows of lightslike jewels strung on an invisible chain; the glitter of brassand enamel as the endless procession of motors flashes past; thesmartly-gowned women; the keen-eyed, nervous men; the shrill note of thecrossing policeman's whistle; every smoke-grimed wall and pillar takingon a mysterious shadowy beauty in the purple dusk, every unsightly blotobscured by the kindly night. But best of all, the fascination ofthe People I'd Like to Know. They pop up now and then in the shiftingcrowds, and are gone the next moment, leaving behind them a vagueregret. Sometimes I call them the People I'd Like to Know and sometimesI call them the People I Know I'd Like, but it means much the same. Their faces flash by in the crowd, and are gone, but I recognize theminstantly as belonging to my beloved circle of unknown friends. 

Once it was a girl opposite me in a car--a girl with a wide, humorousmouth, and tragic eyes, and a hole in her shoe. Once it was a big, homely, red-headed giant of a man with an engineering magazine stickingout of his coat pocket. He was standing at a book counter readingDickens like a schoolboy and laughing in all the right places, Iknow, because I peaked over his shoulder to see. Another time it wasa sprightly little, grizzled old woman, staring into a dazzling shopwindow in which was displayed a wonderful collection of fashionablyimpossible hats and gowns. She was dressed all in rusty black, was thelittle old lady, and she had a quaint cast in her left eye that gaveher the oddest, most sporting look. The cast was working overtime asshe gazed at the gowns, and the ridiculous old sprigs on her rusty blackbonnet trembled with her silent mirth. She looked like one of thoseclever, epigrammatic, dowdy old duchesses that one reads about inEnglish novels. I'm sure she had cardamon seeds in her shabby bag, anda carriage with a crest on it waiting for her just around the corner. Iached to slip my hand through her arm and ask her what she thought ofit all. I know that her reply would have been exquisitely witty andaudacious, and I did so long to hear her say it. 

No doubt some good angel tugs at my common sense, restraining me fromdoing these things that I am tempted to do. Of course it would bemadness for a woman to address unknown red-headed men with the look ofan engineer about them and a book of Dickens in their hands; or perkyold women with nutcracker faces; or girls with wide humorous mouths. Oh, it couldn't be done, I suppose. They would clap me in a padded cell inno time if I were to say:

"Mister Red-headed Man, I'm so glad your heart is young enough forDickens. I love him too--enough to read him standing at a book counterin a busy shop. And do you know, I like the squareness of your jaw, andthe way your eyes crinkle up when you laugh; and as for your being anengineer--why one of the very first men I ever loved was the engineer in'Soldiers of Fortune. '"

I wonder what the girl in the car would have said if I had crossed overto her, and put my hand on her arm and spoken, thus:

"Girl with the wide, humorous mouth, and the tragic eyes, and the holein your shoe, I think you must be an awfully good sort. I'll wager youpaint, or write, or act, or do something clever like that for a living. But from that hole in your shoe which you have inked so carefully, although it persists in showing white at the seams, I fancy you arestumbling over a rather stony bit of Life's road just now. And fromthe look in your eyes, girl, I'm afraid the stones have cut and bruisedrather cruelly. But when I look at your smiling, humorous mouth I knowthat you are trying to laugh at the hurts. I think that this morning, when you inked your shoe for the dozenth time, you hesitated betweentears and laughter, and the laugh won, thank God! Please keep righton laughing, and don't you dare stop for a minute! Because pretty soonyou'll come to a smooth easy place, and then won't you be glad that youdidn't give up to lie down by the roadside, weary of your hurts?"

Oh, it would never do. Never. And yet no charm possessed by the people Iknow and like can compare with the fascination of those People I'd Liketo Know, and Know I Would Like. 

Here at home with Norah there are no faces in the crowds. There are nocrowds. When you turn the corner at Main street you are quite sure thatyou will see the same people in the same places. You know that MamieHayes will be flapping her duster just outside the door of the jewelrystore where she clerks. She gazes up and down Main street as she flapsthe cloth, her bright eyes keeping a sharp watch for stray travelingmen that may chance to be passing. You know that there will be the samelounging group of white-faced, vacant-eyed youths outside the pool-room. Dr. Briggs's patient runabout will be standing at his office doorway. Outside his butcher shop Assemblyman Schenck will be holding forth onthe subject of county politics to a group of red-faced, badly dressed, prosperous looking farmers and townsmen, and as he talks the circleof brown tobacco juice which surrounds the group closes in upon them, nearer and nearer. And there, in a roomy chair in a corner of the publiclibrary reference room, facing the big front window, you will see OldMan Randall. His white hair forms a halo above his pitiful drink-marredface. He was to have been a great lawyer, was Old Man Randall. But onthe road to fame he met Drink, and she grasped his arm, and led him downby-ways, and into crooked lanes, and finally into ditches, and he neverarrived at his goal. There in that library window nook it is cool insummer, and warm in winter. So he sits and dreams, holding an openvolume, unread, on his knees. Some times he writes, hunched up in hiscorner, feverishly scribbling at ridiculous plays, short stories, andnovels which later he will insist on reading to the tittering schoolboysand girls who come into the library to do their courting and referencework. Presently, when it grows dusk, Old Man Randall will put away hisbook, throw his coat over his shoulders, sleeves dangling, flowing whitelocks sweeping the frayed velvet collar. He will march out with hissoldierly tread, humming a bit of a tune, down the street and intoVandermeister's saloon, where he will beg a drink and a lunch, and someman will give it to him for the sake of what Old Man Randall might havebeen. 

All these things you know. And knowing them, what is left for theimagination? How can one dream dreams about people when one knowshow much they pay their hired girl, and what they have for dinner onWednesdays?

CHAPTER V. THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS

I can understand the emotions of a broken-down war horse that is hitchedto a vegetable wagon. I am going to Milwaukee to work! It is a thing tomake the gods hold their sides and roll down from their mountain peakswith laughter. After New York--Milwaukee!

Of course Von Gerhard is to blame. But I think even he sees the humorof it. It happened in this way, on a day when I was indulging in aparticularly greenery-yallery fit of gloom. Norah rushed into my room. I think I was mooning over some old papers, or letters, or ribbons, orsome such truck in the charming, knife-turning way that women have whenthey are blue. 

"Out wid yez!" cried Norah. "On with your hat and coat! I've just hada wire from Ernst von Gerhard. He's coming, and you look like anunder-done dill pickle. You aren't half as blooming as when he was herein August, and this is October. Get out and walk until your cheeks areso red that Von Gerhard will refuse to believe that this fiery-facedpuffing, bouncing creature is the green and limp thing that huddled in achair a few months ago. Out ye go!"

And out I went. Hatless, I strode countrywards, leaving paved streetsand concrete walks far behind. There were drifts of fallen leaves allabout, and I scuffled through them drearily, trying to feel gloomy, andold, and useless, and failing because of the tang in the air, andthe red-and-gold wonder of the frost-kissed leaves, and the regularpump-pump of good red blood that was coursing through my body as perNorah's request. 

In a field at the edge of the town, just where city and country begin tohave a bowing acquaintance, the college boys were at football practice. Their scarlet sweaters made gay patches of color against the dullgray-brown of the autumn grass. 

"Seven-eighteen-two-four!" called a voice. There followed a scuffle, acreaking of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously, walking backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. Thatsame twist transformed my path into a real country road--a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its business, never once stopping to flirt with the blushing autumn woodland at itsleft, or to dally with the dimpling ravine at its right. 

"Now if that were an English country road, " thought I, "a sociablyinclined, happy-go-lucky, out-for-pleasure English country road, onemight expect something of it. On an English country road this wouldbe the psychological moment for the appearance of a blond god, in graytweed. What a delightful time of it Richard Le Gallienne's hero had onhis quest! He could not stroll down the most innocent looking lane, hemight not loiter along the most out-of-the-way path, he never ambledover the barest piece of country road, that he did not come face toface with some witty and lovely woman creature, also in search of thingsunconventional, and able to quote charming lines from Chaucer to him. "

Ah, but that was England, and this is America. I realize it sadly as Istep out of the road to allow a yellow milk wagon to rattle past. Thered letters on the yellow milk cart inform the reader that it isthe property of August Schimmelpfennig, of Hickory Grove. TheSchimmelpfennig eye may be seen staring down upon me from the bit ofglass in the rear as the cart rattles ahead, doubtless being suspiciousof hatless young women wandering along country roads at dusk, alone. There was that in the staring eye to which I took exception. It worean expression which made me feel sure that the mouth below it was alla-grin, if I could but have seen it. It was bad enough to be staredat by the fishy Schimmelpfennig eye, but to be grinned at by theSchimmelpfennig mouth!--I resented it. In order to show my resentment Iturned my back on the Schimmelpfennig cart and pretended to look up theroad which I had just traveled. 

I pretended to look up the road, and then I did look in earnest. No wonder the Schimmelpfennig eye and mouth had worn the leeringexpression. The blond god in gray tweed was swinging along toward me! Iknew that he was blond because he wore no hat and the last rays of theOctober sun were making a little halo effect about his head. I knewthat his-gray clothes were tweed because every well regulated hero on acountry road wears tweed. It's almost a religion with them. He was notnear enough to make a glance at his features possible. I turnedaround and continued my walk. The yellow cart, with its impudentSchimmelpfennig leer, was disappearing in a cloud of dust. Shades ofthe "Duchess" and Bertha M. Clay! How does one greet a blond god in graytweed on a country road, when one has him!

The blond god solved the problem for me. 

"Hi!" he called. I did not turn. There was a moment's silence. Thenthere came a shrill, insistent whistle, of the kind that is made byplacing four fingers between the teeth. It is a favorite with thegallery gods. I would not have believed that gray tweed gods stooped toit. 

"Hi!" called the voice again, very near now. "Lieber Gott! Never have Iseen so proud a young woman!"

I whirled about to face Von Gerhard; a strangely boyish andunprofessional looking Von Gerhard. 

"Young man, " I said severely, "have you been a-follerin' of me?"

"For miles, " groaned he, as we shook hands. "You walk like a grenadier. I am sent by the charming Norah to tell you that you are to come hometo mix the salad dressing, for there is company for supper. I am thecompany. "

I was still a bit dazed. "But how did you know which road to take? Andwhen--"

"Wunderbar, nicht wahr?" laughed Von Gerhard. "But really quite simple. I come in on an earlier train than I had expected, chat a moment withsister Norah, inquire after the health of my patient, and am told thatshe is running away from a horde of blue devils!--quote your charmingsister--that have swarmed about her all day. What direction did herflight take? I ask. Sister Norah shrugs her shoulders and presumes thatit is the road which shows the reddest and yellowest autumn colors. Thatroad will be your road. So!"

"Pooh! How simple! That is the second disappointment you have given meto-day. "

"But how is that possible? The first has not had time to happen. "

"The first was yourself, " I replied, rudely. 

"I had been longing for an adventure. And when I saw you 'way up theroad, such an unusual figure for our Michigan country roads, I forgotthat I was a disappointed old grass widder with a history, and I grewyoung again, and my heart jumped up into my throat, and I sez to mesilf, sez I: 'Enter the hero!' And it was only you. "

Von Gerhard stared a moment, a curious look on his face. Then helaughed one of those rare laughs of his, and I joined him because I wasstrangely young, light, and happy to be alive. 

"You walk and enjoy walking, yes?" asked Von Gerhard, scanning my face. "Your cheeks they are like--well, as unlike the cheeks of the Germangirls as Diana's are unlike a dairy maid's. And the nerfs? They nolonger jump, eh?"

"Oh, they jump, but not with weariness. They jump to get into actionagain. From a life of too much excitement I have gone to the otherextreme. I shall be dead of ennui in another six months. "

"Ennui?" mused he, "and you are--how is it?--twenty-eight years, yes?H'm!"

There was a world of exasperation in the last exclamation. 

"I am a thousand years old, " it made me exclaim, "a million!"

"I will prove to you that you are sixteen, " declared Von Gerhard, calmly. 

We had come to a fork in the road. At the right the narrower road ranbetween two rows of great maples that made an arch of golden splendor. The frost had kissed them into a gorgeous radiance. 

"Sunshine Avenue, " announced Von Gerhard. "It beckons us away from home, and supper and salad dressing and duty, but who knows what we shall findat the end of it!"

"Let's explore, " I suggested. "It is splendidly golden enough to beenchanted. "

We entered the yellow canopied pathway. 

"Let us pretend this is Germany, yes?" pleaded Von Gerhard. "This goldenpathway will end in a neat little glass-roofed restaurant, withtables and chairs outside, and comfortable German papas and mammas andpig-tailed children sitting at the tables, drinking coffee or beer. There will be stout waiters, and a red-faced host. And we will seatourselves at one of the tables, and I will wave my hand, and one of thestout waiters will come flying. 'Will you have coffee, _Fraulein_, orbeer?' It sounds prosaic, but it is very, very good, as you will see. Pathways in Germany always end in coffee and Kuchen and waiters in whiteaprons. "

But, "Oh, no!" I exclaimed, for his mood was infectious. "This isFrance. Please! The golden pathway will end in a picturesque littleFrench farm, with a dairy. And in the doorway of the farmhouse therewill be a red-skirted peasant woman, with a white cap! and a baby on herarm! and sabots! Oh, surely she will wear sabots!"

"Most certainly she will wear sabots, " Von Gerhard said, heatedly, "andblue knitted stockings. And the baby's name is Mimi!"

We had taken hands and were skipping down the pathway now, like twoexcited children. 

"Let's run, " I suggested. And run we did, like two mad creatures, untilwe rounded a gentle curve and brought up, panting, within a foot of adecrepit rail fence. The rail fence enclosed a stubbly, lumpy field. Thefield was inhabited by an inquiring cow. Von Gerhard and I stood quitestill, hand in hand, gazing at the cow. Then we turned slowly and lookedat each other. 

"This pathway of glorified maples ends in a cow, " I said, solemnly. Atwhich we both shrieked with mirth, leaning on the decrepit fence andmopping our eyes with our handkerchiefs. 

"Did I not say you were sixteen?" taunted Von Gerhard. We were gettingsurprisingly well acquainted. 

"Such a scolding as we shall get! It will be quite dark before we arehome. Norah will be tearing her hair. "

It was a true prophecy. As we stampeded up the steps the door was flungopen, disclosing a tragic figure. 

"Such a steak!" wailed Norah, "and it has been done for hours and hours, and now it looks like a piece of fried ear. Where have you two drivelingidiots been? And mushrooms too. "

"She means that the ruined steak was further enhanced by mushrooms, " Iexplained in response to Von Gerhard's bewildered look. We marched intothe house, trying not to appear like sneak thieves. Max, pipe in mouth, surveyed us blandly. 

"Fine color you've got, Dawn, " he remarked. 

"There is such a thing as overdoing this health business, " snappedNorah, with a great deal of acidity for her. "I didn't tell you to makethem purple, you know. "

Max turned to Von Gerhard. "Now what does she mean by that do yousuppose, eh Ernst?"

"Softly, brother, softly!" whispered Von Gerhard. "When women exchangeremarks that apparently are simple, and yet that you, a man, cannotunderstand, then know there is a woman's war going on, and step softly, and hold your peace. Aber ruhig!"

Calm was restored with the appearance of the steak, which was foundto have survived the period of waiting, and to be incredibly juicy andtender. Presently we were all settled once more in the great beamedliving room, Sis at the piano, the two men smoking their after-dinnercigars with that idiotic expression of contentment which always adornsthe masculine face on such occasions. 

I looked at them--at those three who had done so much for my happinessand well being, and something within me said: "Now! Speak now!" Norahwas playing very softly, so that the Spalpeens upstairs might not bedisturbed. I took a long breath and made the plunge. 

"Norah, if you'll continue the slow music, I'll be much obliged. 'Thetime has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. '"

"Don't be absurd, " said Norah, over her shoulder, and went on playing. 

"I never was more serious in my life, good folkses all. I've got to be. This butterfly existence has gone on long enough. Norah, and Max, andMr. Doctor Man, I am going away. "

Norah's hands crashed down on the piano keys with a jangling discord. She swung about to face me. 

"Not New York again, Dawn! Not New York!"

"I am afraid so, " I answered. 

Max--bless his great, brotherly heart--rose and came over to me and puta hand on my shoulder. 

"Don't you like it here, girlie? Want to be hauled home on a shutteragain, do you? You know that as long as we have a home, you have one. Weneed you here. "

But I shook my head. From his chair at the other side of the room Icould feel Von Gerhard's gaze fixed upon us. He had said nothing. 

"Need me! No one needs me. Don't worry; I'm not going to become maudlinabout it. But I don't belong here, and you know, it. I have my work todo. Norah is the best sister that a woman ever had. And Max, you'rean angel brother-in-law. But how can I stay on here and keep myself-respect?" I took Max's big hand in mine and gathered courage fromit. 

"But you have been working, " wailed Norah, "every morning. And I thoughtthe book was coming on beautifully. And I'm sure it will be a wonderfulbook, Dawn dear. You are so clever. "

"Oh, the book--it is too uncertain. Perhaps it will go, but perhaps itwon't. And then--what? It will be months before the book is properlypolished off. And then I may peddle it around for more months. No; Ican't afford to trifle with uncertainties. Every newspaper man or womanwrites a book. It's like having the measles. There is not a newspaperman living who does not believe, in his heart, that if he could onlytake a month or two away from the telegraph desk or the police run, hecould write the book of the year, not to speak of the great AmericanPlay. Why, just look at me! I've only been writing seriously for a fewweeks, and already the best magazines in the country are refusing mymanuscripts daily. "

"Don't joke, " said Norah, coming over to me, "I can't stand it. "

"Why not? Much better than weeping, isn't it? And anyway, I'm no subjectfor tears any more. Dr. Von Gerhard will tell you how well and strong Iam. Won't you, Herr Doktor?"

"Well, " said Von Gerhard, in his careful, deliberate English, "since youask me, I should say that you might last about one year, in New York. "

"There! What did I tell you!" cried Norah. 

"What utter blither!" I scoffed, turning to glare at Von Gerhard. 

"Gently, " warned Max. "Such disrespect to the man who pulled you backfrom the edge of the yawning grave only six months ago!"

"Yawning fiddlesticks!" snapped I, elegantly. "There was nothing wrongwith me except that I wanted to be fussed over. And I have been. AndI've loved it. But it must stop now. " I rose and walked over to thetable and faced Von Gerhard, sitting there in the depths of a greatchair. "You do not seem to realize that I am not free to come and go, and work and play, and laugh and live like other women. There is myliving to make. And there is--Peter Orme. Do you think that I could stayon here like this? Oh, I know that Max is not a poor man. But he isnot a rich man, either. And there are the children to be educated, andbesides, Max married Norah O'Hara, not the whole O'Hara tribe. I want togo to work. I am not a free woman, but when I am working, I forget, andam almost, happy. I tell you I must be well again! I will be well! I amwell!"

At the end of which dramatic period I spoiled the whole effect by bowingmy head on the table and giving way to a fit of weeping such as I hadnot had since the days of my illness. 

"Looks like it, " said Max, at which I decided to laugh, and thesituation was saved. 

It was then that Von Gerhard proposed the thing that set us staring athim in amused wonder. He came over and stood looking down at us, hishands outspread upon the big library table, his body bent forward in anattitude of eager intentness. I remember thinking what wonderful handsthey were, true indexes of the man's character; broad, white, surgeonlyhands; the fingers almost square at the tips. They were hands asdifferent from those slender, nervous, unsteady, womanly hands of PeterOrme as any hands could be, I thought. They were hands made for workthat called for delicate strength, if such a paradox could be; hands tocling to; to gain courage from; hands that spelled power and reserve. Ilooked at them, fascinated, as I often had done before, and thought thatI never had seen such SANE hands. 

"You have done me the honor to include me in this little familyconclave, " began Ernst von Gerhard. "I am going to take advantage ofyour trust. I shall give you some advice--a thing I usually keep forunpleasant professional occasions. Do not go back to New York. "

"But I know New York. And New York--the newspaper part of it--knows me. Where else can I go?"

"You have your book to finish. You could never finish it there, is itnot so?"

I'm afraid I shrugged my shoulders. It was all so much harder than I hadexpected. What did they want me to do? I asked myself, bitterly. 

Von Gerhard went on. "Why not go where the newspaper work will not be sonerve-racking? where you still might find time for this other work thatis dear to you, and that may bring its reward in time. " He reached outand took my hand, into his great, steady clasp. "Come to the happy, healthy, German town called Milwaukee, yes? Ach, you may laugh. Butnewspaper work is newspaper work the world over, because men and womenare just men and women the world over. But there you could live sanely, and work not too hard, and there would be spare hours for the book thatis near your heart. And I--I will speak of you to Norberg, of the Post. And on Sundays, if you are good, I may take you along the marvelous lakedrives in my little red runabout, yes? Aber wunderbar, those drives are!So. "

Then--"Milwaukee!" shrieked Max and Norah and I, together. "After NewYork--Milwaukee!"

"Laugh, " said Von Gerhard, quite composedly. "I give you until to-morrowmorning to stop laughing. At the end of that time it will not seem quiteso amusing. No joke is so funny after one has contemplated it for twelvehours. "

The voice of Norah, the temptress, sounded close to my ear. "Dawn dear, just think how many million miles nearer you would be to Max, and me, and home. "

"Oh, you have all gone mad! The thing is impossible. I shan't go back toa country sheet in my old age. I suppose that in two more years I shallbe editing a mothers' column on an agricultural weekly. "

"Norberg would be delighted to get you, " mused Von Gerhard, "and itwould be day work instead of night work. "

"And you would send me a weekly bulletin on Dawn's health, wouldn't you, Ernst?" pleaded Norah. "And you'd teach her to drink beer and she shallgrow so fat that the Spalpeens won't know their auntie. "

At last--"How much do they pay?" I asked, in desperation. And the thingthat had appeared so absurd at first began to take on the shape ofreality. 

Von Gerhard did speak to Norberg of the Post. And I am to go toMilwaukee next week. The skeleton of the book manuscript is stowedsafely away in the bottom of my trunk and Norah has filled in theremaining space with sundry flannels, and hot water bags and medicineflasks, so that I feel like a schoolgirl on her way to boarding-school, instead of like a seasoned old newspaper woman with a capital PAST and ashaky future. I wish that I were chummier with the Irish saints. I needthem now. 

CHAPTER VI. STEEPED IN GERMAN

I am living at a little private hotel just across from the court housesquare with its scarlet geraniums and its pretty fountain. The houseis filled with German civil engineers, mechanical engineers, andHerr Professors from the German academy. On Sunday mornings we havePfannkuchen with currant jelly, and the Herr Professors come down tobreakfast in fearful flappy German slippers. I'm the only creaturein the place that isn't just over from Germany. Even the dog is adachshund. It is so unbelievable that every day or two I go down toWisconsin Street and gaze at the stars and stripes floating from thegovernment building, in order to convince myself that this is America. It needs only a Kaiser or so, and a bit of Unter den Linden to be quitecomplete. 

The little private hotel is kept by Herr and Frau Knapf. After one hasseen them, one quite understands why the place is steeped in a Germanatmosphere up to its eyebrows. 

I never would have found it myself. It was Doctor von Gerhard who hadsuggested Knapf's, and who had paved the way for my coming here. 

"You will find it quite unlike anything you have ever tried before, "he warned me. "Very German it is, and very, very clean, and mostinexpensive. Also I think you will find material there--how is it youcall it?--copy, yes? Well, there should be copy in plenty; and types!But you shall see. "

From the moment I rang the Knapf doorbell I saw. The dapper, cheerfulHerr Knapf, wearing a disappointed Kaiser Wilhelm mustache, opened thedoor. I scarcely had begun to make my wishes known when he interruptedwith a large wave of the hand, and an elaborate German bow. 

"Ach yes! You would be the lady of whom the Herr Doktor has spoken. Gewiss! Frau Orme, not? But so a young lady I did not expect to see. Aroom we have saved for you--aber wunderhubsch! It makes me much pleasureto show. Folgen Sie mir, bitte. "

"You--you speak English?" I faltered, with visions of my evenings spentin expressing myself in the sign language. 

"Englisch? But yes. Here in Milwaukee it gives aber mostly German. Andthen too, I have been only twenty years in this country. And always inMilwaukee. Here is it gemutlich--and mostly it gives German. "

I tried not to look frightened, and followed him up to the "butwonderfully beautiful" room. To my joy I found it high-ceilinged, airy, and huge, with a great vault of a clothes closet bristling with hooks, and boasting an unbelievable number of shelves. My trunk was swallowedup in it. Never in all my boarding-house experience have I seen such aroom, or such a closet. The closet must have been built for a bride'strousseau in the days of hoop-skirts and scuttle bonnets. There was aseparate and distinct hook for each and every one of my most obscuregarments. I tried to spread them out. I used two hooks to everypetticoat, and three for my kimono, and when I had finished there wererows of hooks to spare. Tiers of shelves yawned for hat-boxes which Ipossessed not. Bluebeard's wives could have held a family reunionin that closet and invited all of Solomon's spouses. Finally, indesperation, I gathered all my poor garments together and hung them in asociable bunch on the hooks nearest the door. How I should have lovedto have shown that closet to a select circle of New York boarding-houselandladies!

After wrestling in vain with the forest of hooks, I turned my attentionto my room. I yanked a towel thing off the center table and replacedit with a scarf that Peter had picked up in the Orient. I set up mytypewriter in a corner near a window and dug a gay cushion or two and achafing-dish out of my trunk. I distributed photographs of Norah and Maxand the Spalpeens separately, in couples, and in groups. Then I bouncedup and down in a huge yellow brocade chair and found it unbelievablysoft and comfortable. Of course, I reflected, after the big veranda, and the apple tree at Norah's, and the leather-cushioned comfort of herlibrary, and the charming tones of her Oriental rugs and hangings--

"Oh, stop your carping, Dawn!" I told myself. "You can't expect charmingtones, and Oriental do-dads and apple trees in a German boarding-house. Anyhow there's running water in the room. For general utility purposesthat's better than a pink prayer rug. "

There was a time when I thought that it was the luxuries that made lifeworth living. That was in the old Bohemian days. 

"Necessities!" I used to laugh, "Pooh! Who cares about the necessities!What if the dishpan does leak? It is the luxuries that count. "

Bohemia and luxuries! Half a dozen lean boarding-house years havesteered me safely past that. After such a course in common sense youdon't stand back and examine the pictures of a pink Moses in a nest ofpurple bullrushes, or complain because the bureau does not harmonizewith the wall paper. Neither do you criticize the blue and saffron rosesthat form the rug pattern. 'Deedy not! Instead you warily punch themattress to see if it is rock-stuffed, and you snoop into the clothescloset; you inquire the distance to the nearest bath room, and whetherthe payments are weekly or monthly, and if there is a baby in the roomnext door. Oh, there's nothing like living in a boarding-house forcultivating the materialistic side. 

But I was to find that here at Knapf's things were quite different. Notonly was Ernst von Gerhard right in saying that it was "very German, and very, very clean;" he recognized good copy when he saw it. Types! Inever dreamed that such faces existed outside of the old German woodcutsthat one sees illustrating time-yellowed books. 

I had thought myself hardened to strange boarding-house dining rooms, with their batteries of cold, critical women's eyes. I had learnedto walk unruffled in the face of the most carping, suspicious and thefishiest of these batteries. Therefore on my first day at Knapf's Iwent down to dinner in the evening, quite composed and secure in theknowledge that my collar was clean and that there was no flaw to find inthe fit of my skirt in the back. 

As I opened the door of my room I heard sounds as of a violentaltercation in progress downstairs. I leaned over the balusters andlistened. The sounds rose and fell and swelled and boomed. They wereGerman sounds that started in the throat, gutturally, and splutteredtheir way up. They were sounds such as I had not heard since the nightI was sent to cover a Socialist meeting in New York. I tip-toed down thestairs, although I might have fallen down and landed with a thud withouthaving been heard. The din came from the direction of the dining room. Well, come what might, I would not falter. After all, it could notbe worse than that awful time when I had helped cover the teamsters'strike. I peered into the dining room. 

The thunder of conversation went on as before. But there was nobloodshed. Nothing but men and women sitting at small tables, eatingand talking. When I say eating and talking I do not mean that those actswere carried on separately. Not at all. The eating and the talking wenton simultaneously, neither interrupting the other. A fork full of foodand a mouthful of ten-syllabled German words met, wrestled, and passedone another, unscathed. I stood in the doorway, fascinated, untilHerr Knapf spied me, took a nimble skip in my direction, twisted thediscouraged mustaches into temporary sprightliness, and waved me towarda table in the center of the room. 

Then a frightful thing happened. When I think of it now I turn cold. The battery was not that of women's eyes, but of men's. And conversationceased! The uproar and the booming of vowels was hushed. The silence wasappalling. I looked up in horror to find that what seemed to be millionsof staring blue eyes were fixed on me. The stillness was so thick thatyou could cut it with a knife. Such men! Immediately I dubbed themthe aborigines, and prayed that I might find adjectives with which todescribe their foreheads. 

It appeared that the aborigines were especially favored in that theywere all placed at one long, untidy table at the head of the room. The rest of us sat at small tables. Later I learned that they wereall engineers. At meals they discuss engineering problems in the mostawe-inspiring German. After supper they smoke impossible German pipesand dozens of cigarettes. They have bulging, knobby foreheads andbristling pompadours, and some of the rawest of them wear wild-lookingbeards, and thick spectacles, and cravats and trousers that Lew Fieldsnever even dreamed of. They are all graduates of high-sounding foreignuniversities and are horribly learned and brilliant, but they are theworst mannered lot I ever saw. 

In the silence that followed my entrance a red-cheeked maid approachedme and asked what I would have for supper. Supper? I asked. Was notdinner served in the evening? The aborigines nudged each other andsniggered like fiendish little school-boys. 

The red-cheeked maid looked at me pityingly. Dinner was served in themiddle of the day, naturlich. For supper there was Wienerschnitzel, andkalter Aufschnitt, also Kartoffel Salat, and fresh Kaffeekuchen. 

The room hung breathless on my decision. I wrestled with a horribledesire to shriek and run. Instead I managed to mumble an order. Theaborigines turned to one another inquiringly. 

"Was hat sie gesagt?" they asked. "What did she say?" Whereupon theyfell to discussing my hair and teeth and eyes and complexion in Germanas crammed with adjectives as was the rye bread over which I was chokingwith caraway. The entire table watched me with wide-eyed, unabashedinterest while I ate, and I advanced by quick stages from red-facedconfusion to purple mirth. It appeared that my presence was theground for a heavy German joke in connection with the youngest of theaborigines. He was a very plump and greasy looking aborigine with adoll-like rosiness of cheek and a scared and bristling pompadour andvery small pig-eyes. The other aborigines clapped him on the back androared:

"Ai Fritz! Jetzt brauchst du nicht zu weinen! Deine Lena war aber nichtso huebsch, eh?"

Later I learned that Fritz was the newest arrival and that since comingto this country he had been rather low in spirits in consequence of acertain flaxen-haired Lena whom he had left behind in the fatherland. 

An examination of the dining room and its other occupants served to keepmy mind off the hateful long table. The dining room was a double one, the floor carpetless and clean. There was a little platform at oneend with hardy-looking plants in pots near the windows. The wall wasornamented with very German pictures of very plump, bare-armed Germangirls being chucked under the chin by very dashing, mustachioed Germanlieutenants. It was all very bare, and strange and foreign to my eyes, and yet there was something bright and comfortable about it. I feltthat I was going to like it, aborigines and all. The men drink beer withtheir supper and read the Staats-Zeitung and the Germania and foreignpapers that I never heard of. It is uncanny, in these United States. Butit is going to be bully for my German. 

After my first letter home Norah wrote frantically, demanding to knowif I was the only woman in the house. I calmed her fears by assuringher that, while the men were interesting and ugly with the fascinatingugliness of a bulldog, the women were crushed looking and uninterestingand wore hopeless hats. I have written Norah and Max reams about thishousehold, from the aborigines to Minna, who tidies my room and servesmy meals, and admires my clothes. Minna is related to Frau Knapf, whomI have never seen. Minna is inordinately fond of dress, and her remarksanent my own garments are apt to be a trifle disconcerting, especiallywhen she intersperses her recital of dinner dishes with admiringadjectives directed at my blouse or hat. Thus:

"Wir haben roast beef, und spareribs mit Sauerkraut, und schicken--ach, wie schon, Frau Orme! Aber ganz prachtvoll!" Her eyes and hands areraised toward heaven. 

"What's prachtful?" I ask, startled. "The chicken?"

"Nein; your waist. Selbst gemacht?"

I am even becoming hardened to the manners of the aborigines. It used tofuss me to death to meet one of them in the halls. They always stoppedshort, brought heels together with a click, bent stiffly from the waist, and thundered: "Nabben', Fraulein!"

I have learned to take the salutation quite calmly, and even thewildest, most spectacled and knobby-browed aborigine cannot startle me. Nonchalantly I reply, "Nabben', " and wish that Norah could but see me inthe act. 

When I told Ernst von Gerhard about them, he laughed a little andshrugged his shoulders and said:

"Na, you should not look so young, and so pretty, and so unmarried. InGermany a married woman brushes her hair quite smoothly back, and pinsit in a hard knob. And she knows nothing of such bewildering collarsand fluffy frilled things in the front of the blouse. How do you callthem--jabots?"

Von Gerhard has not behaved at all nicely. I did not see him until twoweeks after my arrival in Milwaukee, although he telephoned twice to askif there was anything that he could do to make me comfortable. 

"Yes, " I had answered the last time that I heard his voice over thetelephone. "It would be a whole heap of comfort to me just to see you. You are the nearest thing to Norah that there is in this whole Germantown, and goodness knows you're far from Irish. "

He came. The weather had turned suddenly cold and he was wearing afur-lined coat with a collar of fur. He looked most amazingly handsomeand blond and splendidly healthy. The clasp of his hands was just as bigand sure as ever. 

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you, " I told him. "If you had, you would have been here days ago. Aren't you rather ill-mannered andneglectful, considering that you are responsible for my being here?"

"I did not know whether you, a married woman, would care to have mehere, " he said, in his composed way. "In a place like this people arenot always kind enough to take the trouble to understand. And I wouldnot have them raise their eyebrows at you, not for--"

"Married!" I laughed, some imp of willfulness seizing me, "I'm notmarried. What mockery to say that I am married simply because I mustwrite madam before my name! I am not married, and I shall talk to whom Iplease. "

And then Von Gerhard did a surprising thing. He took two great stepsover to my chair, and grasped my hands and pulled me to my feet. Istared up at him like a silly creature. His face was suffused with adull red, and his eyes were unbelievably blue and bright. He had myhands in his great grip, but his voice was very quiet and contained. 

"You are married, " he said. "Never forget that for a moment. You arebound, hard and fast and tight. And you are for no man. You are marriedas much as though that poor creature in the mad house were here workingfor you, instead of the case being reversed as it is. So. "

"What do you mean!" I cried, wrenching myself away indignantly. "Whatright have you to talk to me like this? You know what my life has been, and how I have tried to smile with my lips and stay young in my heart! Ithought you understood. Norah thought so too, and Max--"

"I do understand. I understand so well that I would not have you talk asyou did a moment ago. And I said what I said not so much for your sake, as for mine. For see, I too must remember that you write madam beforeyour name. And sometimes it is hard for me to remember. "

"Oh, " I said, like a simpleton, and stood staring after him as hequietly gathered up his hat and gloves and left me standing there. 

CHAPTER VII. BLACKIE'S PHILOSOPHY

I did not write Norah about Von Gerhard. After all, I told myself, therewas nothing to write. And so I was the first to break the solemn pactthat we had made. 

"You will write everything, won't you, Dawn dear?" Norah had pleaded, with tears, in her pretty eyes. "Promise me. We've been nearer to eachother in these last few months than we have been since we were girls. And I've loved it so. Please don't do as you did during those miserableyears in New York, when you were fighting your troubles alone and weknew nothing of it. You wrote only the happy things. Promise me you'llwrite the unhappy ones too--though the saints forbid that there shouldbe any to write! And Dawn, don't you dare to forget your heavy underwearin November. Those lake breezes!--Well, some one has to tell you, and Ican't leave those to Von Gerhard. He has promised to act as monitor overyour health. "

And so I promised. I crammed my letters with descriptions of the Knapfhousehold. I assured her that I was putting on so much weight that theskirts which formerly hung about me in limp, dejected folds now refusedto meet in the back, and all the hooks and eyes were making faces ateach other. My cheeks, I told her, looked as if I were wearing plumpers, and I was beginning to waddle and puff as I walked. 

Norah made frantic answer:

"For mercy's sake child, be careful or you'll be FAT!"

To which I replied: "Don't care if I am. Rather be hunky and healthythan skinny and sick. Have tried both. "

It is impossible to avoid becoming round-cheeked when one is working ona paper that allows one to shut one's desk and amble comfortably homefor dinner at least five days in the week. Everybody is at least plumpin this comfortable, gemutlich town, where everybody placidly locks hisshop or office and goes home at noon to dine heavily on soup and meatand vegetables and pudding, washed down by the inevitable beer andfollowed by forty winks on the dining room sofa with the German Zeitungspread comfortably over the head as protection against the flies. 

There is a fascination about the bright little city. There is about itsomething quaint and foreign, as though a cross-section of the old worldhad been dumped bodily into the lap of Wisconsin. It does not seem atall strange to hear German spoken everywhere--in the streets, in theshops, in the theaters, in the street cars. One day I chanced upon asign hung above the doorway of a little German bakery over on the northside. There were Hornchen and Kaffeekuchen in the windows, and a broodof flaxen-haired and sticky children in the back of the shop. I stopped, open-mouthed, to stare at the worn sign tacked over the door. 

"Hier wird Englisch gesprochen, " it announced. 

I blinked. Then I read it again. I shut my eyes, and opened them againsuddenly. The fat German letters spoke their message as before--"Englishspoken here. "

On reaching the office I told Norberg, the city editor, about myfind. He was not impressed. Norberg never is impressed. He is the mostsoul-satisfying and theatrical city editor that I have ever met. Heis fat, and unbelievably nimble, and keen-eyed, and untiring. He says, "Hell!" when things go wrong; he smokes innumerable cigarettes, inhalingthe fumes and sending out the thin wraith of smoke with little explosivesounds between tongue and lips; he wears blue shirts, and no collar tospeak of, and his trousers are kept in place only by a miracle and aninefficient looking leather belt. 

When he refused to see the story in the little German bakery sign Ibegan to argue. 

"But man alive, this is America! I think I know a story when I see it. Suppose you were traveling in Germany, and should come across a signover a shop, saying: 'Hier wird Deutsch gesprochen. ' Wouldn't you thinkyou were dreaming?"

Norberg waved an explanatory hand. "This isn't America. This isMilwaukee. After you've lived here a year or so you'll understand whatI mean. If we should run a story of that sign, with a two-column cut, Milwaukee wouldn't even see the joke. "

But it was not necessary that I live in Milwaukee a year or so in orderto understand its peculiarities, for I had a personal conductor andefficient guide in the new friend that had come into my life with thefirst day of my work on the Post. Surely no woman ever had a strongerfriend than little "Blackie" Griffith, sporting editor of the MilwaukeePost. We became friends, not step by step, but in one gigantic leap suchas sometimes triumphs over the gap between acquaintance and liking. 

I never shall forget my first glimpse of him. He strolled into the cityroom from his little domicile across the hall. A shabby, disreputable, out-at-elbows office coat was worn over his ultra-smart street clothes, and he was puffing at a freakish little pipe in the shape of a miniatureautomobile. He eyed me a moment from the doorway, a fantastic, elfinlittle figure. I thought that I had never seen so strange and so ugly aface as that of this little brown Welshman with his lank, black hair andhis deep-set, uncanny black eyes. Suddenly he trotted over to me witha quick little step. In the doorway he had looked forty. Now a smileillumined the many lines of his dark countenance, and in some miraculousway he looked twenty. 

"Are you the New York importation?" he, asked, his great black eyessearching my face. 

"I'm what's left of it, " I replied, meekly. 

"I understand you've been in for repairs. Must of met up with somethin'on the road. They say the goin' is full of bumps in N' York. "

"Bumps!" I laughed, "it's uphill every bit of the road, and yet you'vegot to go full speed to get anywhere. But I'm running easily again, thank you. "

He waved away a cloud of pipe-smoke, and knowingly squinted through thehaze. "We don't speed up much here. And they ain't no hill climbin' t'speak of. But say, if you ever should hit a nasty place on the route, toot your siren for me and I'll come. I'm a regular little human garagewhen it comes to patchin' up those aggravatin' screws that need oilin'. And, say, don't let Norberg bully you. My name's Blackie. I'm goin' t'like you. Come on over t' my sanctum once in a while and I'll show youmy scrapbook and let you play with the office revolver. "

And so it happened that I had not been in Milwaukee a month beforeBlackie and I were friends. 

Norah was horrified. My letters were full of him. I told her that shemight get a more complete mental picture of him if she knew that hewore the pinkest shirts, and the purplest neckties, and the blackest andwhitest of black-and-white checked vests that ever aroused the envyof an office boy, and beneath them all, the gentlest of hearts. Andtherefore one loves him. There is a sort of spell about the illiteratelittle slangy, brown Welshman. He is the presiding genius of the place. The office boys adore him. The Old Man takes his advice in selectinga new motor car; the managing editor arranges his lunch hour to suitBlackie's and they go off to the Press club together, arm in arm. It isBlackie who lends a sympathetic ear to the society editor's tale ofwoe. He hires and fires the office boys; boldly he criticizes thenews editor's makeup; he receives delegations of tan-coated, red-facedprizefighting-looking persons; he gently explains to the photographerwhy that last batch of cuts make their subjects look as if afflictedwith the German measles; he arbitrates any row that the newspaper mayhave with such dignitaries as the mayor or the chief of police; hemanages boxing shows; he skims about in a smart little roadster; heedits the best sporting page in the city; and at four o'clock of anafternoon he likes to send around the corner for a chunk of devil's foodcake with butter filling from the Woman's Exchange. Blackie never wentto school to speak of. He doesn't know was from were. But he can "see"a story quicker, and farther and clearer than any newspaper man I everknew--excepting Peter Orme. 

There is a legend about to the effect that one day the managing editor, who is Scotch and without a sense of humor, ordered that Blackie shouldhenceforth be addressed by his surname of Griffith, as being a moredignified appellation for the use of fellow reporters, hangers-on, copykids, office boys and others about the big building. 

The day after the order was issued the managing editor summoned afreckled youth and thrust a sheaf of galley proofs into his hand. 

"Take those to Mr. Griffith, " he ordered without looking up. 

"T' who?"

"To Mr. Griffith, " said the managing editor, laboriously, and scowling abit. 

The boy took three unwilling steps toward the door. Then he turned apuzzled face toward the managing editor. 

"Say, honest, I ain't never heard of dat guy. He must be a new one. W'ere'll I find him?"

"Oh, damn! Take those proofs to Blackie!" roared the managing editor. And thus ended Blackie's enforced flight into the realms of dignity. 

All these things, and more, I wrote to the scandalized Norah. I informedher that he wore more diamond rings and scarf pins and watch fobs than arailroad conductor, and that his checked top-coat shrieked to Heaven. 

There came back a letter in which every third word was underlined, andwhich ended by asking what the morals of such a man could be. 

Then I tried to make Blackie more real to Norah who, in all hersheltered life, had never come in contact with a man like this. 

". . . As for his morals--or what you would consider his morals, Sis--theyprobably are a deep crimson; but I'll swear there is no yellow streak. I never have heard anything more pathetic than his story. Blackie soldpapers on a down-town corner when he was a baby six years old. Then hegot a job as office boy here, and he used to sharpen pencils, and runerrands, and carry copy. After office hours he took care of some horsesin an alley barn near by, and after that work was done he was employedabout the pressroom of one of the old German newspaper offices. Sometimes he would be too weary to crawl home after working half thenight, and so he would fall asleep, a worn, tragic little figure, on apile of old papers and sacks in a warm corner near the presses. He wasthe head of a household, and every penny counted. And all the time hewas watching things, and learning. Nothing escaped those keen blackeyes. He used to help the photographer when there was a pile of platesto develop, and presently he knew more about photography than the manhimself. So they made him staff photographer. In some marvelous wayhe knew more ball players, and fighters and horsemen than the sportingeditor. He had a nose for news that was nothing short of wonderful. Henever went out of the office without coming back with a story. They usedto use him in the sporting department when a rush was on. Then he becameone of the sporting staff; then assistant sporting editor; then sportingeditor. He knows this paper from the basement up. He could operate alinotype or act as managing editor with equal ease. 

"No, I'm afraid that Blackie hasn't had much time for morals. But, Norahdear, I wish that you could hear him when he talks about his mother. Hemay follow doubtful paths, and associate with questionable people, andwear restless clothes, but I wouldn't exchange his friendship for thatof a dozen of your ordinary so-called good men. All these years of workand suffering have made an old man of little Blackie, although he isyoung in years. But they haven't spoiled his heart any. He is able todistinguish between sham and truth because he has been obliged to doit ever since he was a child selling papers on the corner. But he stillclings to the office that gave him his start, although he makes moremoney in a single week outside the office than his salary would amountto in half a year. He says that this is a job that does not interferewith his work. "

Such is Blackie. Surely the oddest friend a woman ever had. He possessesa genius for friendship, and a wonderful understanding of suffering, born of those years of hardship and privation. Each learned the other'sstory, bit by bit, in a series of confidences exchanged during thatpeaceful, beatific period that follows just after the last edition hasgone down. Blackie's little cubby-hole of an office is always bluewith smoke, and cluttered with a thousand odds and ends--photographs, souvenirs, boxing-gloves, a litter of pipes and tobacco, a wardrobe ofdust-covered discarded coats and hats, and Blackie in the midst of itall, sunk in the depths of his swivel chair, and looking like an amiablebrown gnome, or a cheerful little joss-house god come to life. There isin him an uncanny wisdom which only the streets can teach. He is oneof those born newspaper men who could not live out of sight of theticker-tape, and the copy-hook and the proof-sheet. 

"Y' see, girl, it's like this here, " Blackie explained one day. "W'reall workin' for some good reason. A few of us are workin' for the gloryof it, and most of us are workin' t' eat, and lots of us are pluggin'an' savin' in the hopes that some day we'll have money enough to getback at some people we know; but there is some few workin' for the purelove of the work--and I guess I'm one of them fools. Y' see, I startedin at this game when I was such a little runt that now it's a ingrowinghabit, though it is comfortin' t' know you got a place where you c'nalways come in out of the rain, and where you c'n have your mail sent. "

"This newspaper work is a curse, " I remarked. "Show me a clevernewspaper man and I'll show you a failure. There is nothing in it butthe glory--and little of that. We contrive and scheme and run about allday getting a story. And then we write it at fever heat, searching oursouls for words that are cleancut and virile. And then we turn it in, and what is it? What have we to show for our day's work? An ephemeralthing, lacking the first breath of life; a thing that is dead beforeit is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were to put into some otherprofession the same amount of nerve, and tact, and ingenuity andfinesse, and stick-to-it-iveness that he expends in prying a singlestory out of some unwilling victim, could retire with a fortune in notime. "

Blackie blew down the stem of his pipe, preparatory to re-filling thebowl. There was a quizzical light in his black eyes. The little heap ofburned matches at his elbow was growing to kindling wood proportions. Itwas common knowledge that Blackie's trick of lighting pipe or cigaretteand then forgetting to puff at it caused his bill for matches to exceedhis tobacco expense account. 

"You talk, " chuckled Blackie, "like you meant it. But sa-a-ay, girl, it's a lonesome game, this retirin' with a fortune. I've noticed thatthem guys who retire with a barrel of money usually dies at the end ofthe first year, of a kind of a lingerin' homesickness. You c'n seetheir pictures in th' papers, with a pathetic story of how they wasjust beginnin' t' enjoy life when along comes the grim reaper an' claims'em. "

Blackie slid down in his chair and blew a column of smoke ceilingward. 

"I knew a guy once--newspaper man, too--who retired with a fortune. He used to do the city hall for us. Well, he got in soft with the newadministration before election, and made quite a pile in stocks that wastipped off to him by his political friends. His wife was crazy forhim to quit the newspaper game. He done it. An' say, that guy kept ongettin' richer and richer till even his wife was almost satisfied. Butsa-a-ay, girl, was that chap lonesome! One day he come up here lookinglike a dog that's run off with the steak. He was just dyin' for a kindword, an' he sniffed the smell of the ink and the hot metal like it wasJune roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk and slumps down inthe chair, and tips it back, and puts his feet on the desk, with his hattipped back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And along came a kid witha bunch of papers wet from the presses and sticks one in his hand, and--well, girl, that fellow, he just wriggled he was so happy. You knowas well as I do that every man on a morning paper spends his day offhanging around the office wishin' that a mob or a fire or somethin' bigwould tear lose so he could get back into the game. I guess I told youabout the time Von Gerhard sent me abroad, didn't I?"

"Von Gerhard!" I repeated, startled. "Do you know him?"

"Well, he ain't braggin' about it none, " Blackie admitted. "Von Gerhard, he told me I had about five years or so t' live, about two, three yearsago. He don't approve of me. Pried into my private life, old Von Gerharddid, somethin' scand'lous. I had sort of went to pieces about that time, and I went t' him to be patched up. He thumps me fore 'an' aft, firinga volley of questions, lookin' up the roof of m' mouth, and squintin'at m' finger nails an' teeth like I was a prize horse for sale. Then hesits still, lookin' at me for about half a minute, till I begin t' feeluncomfortable. Then he says, slow: 'Young man, how old are you?'

"'O, twenty-eight or so, ' I says, airy. 

"'My Gawd!' said he. 'You've crammed twice those years into your life, and you'll have to pay for it. Now you listen t' me. You got t' quitworkin', an' smokin', and get away from this. Take a ocean voyage, ' hesays, 'an' try to get four hours sleep a night, anyway. '

"Well say, mother she was scared green. So I tucked her under m' arm, and we hit it up across the ocean. Went t' Germany, knowin' that itwould feel homelike there, an' we took in all the swell baden, andchased up the Jungfrau--sa-a-ay, that's a classy little mountain, thatJungfrau. Mother, she had some swell time I guess. She never set downexcept for meals, and she wrote picture postals like mad. But sa-a-ay, girl, was I lonesome! Maybe that trip done me good. Anyway, I'm livin'yet. I stuck it out for four months, an' that ain't so rotten for a guywho just grew up on printer's ink ever since he was old enough to holda bunch of papers under his arm. Well, one day mother an' me was sittin'out on one of them veranda cafes they run to over there, w'en somebodyhits me a crack on the shoulder, an' there stands old Ryan who usedt' do A. P. Here. He was foreign correspondent for some big New Yorksyndicate papers over there. 

"'Well if it ain't Blackie!' he says. 'What in Sam Hill are you doingout of your own cell when Milwaukee's just got four more games t' winthe pennant?'

"Sa-a-a-ay, girl, w'en I got through huggin' him around the neck an'buyin' him drinks I knew it was me for the big ship. 'Mother, ' I says, 'if you got anybody on your mind that you neglected t' send picturepostals to, now's' your last chance. 'F I got to die I'm going out withm' scissors in one mitt, and m' trusty paste-pot by m' side!' An' wehits it up for old Milwaukee. I ain't been away since, except w'en Iwas out with the ball team, sending in sportin' extry dope for the pinksheet. The last time I was in at Baumbach's in comes Von Gerhard an'--"

"Who are Baumbach's?" I interrupted. 

Blackie regarded me pityingly. "You ain't never been to Baumbach's?Why girl, if you don't know Baumbach's, you ain't never been properlyintroduced to Milwaukee. No wonder you ain't hep to the ways of thislittle community. There ain't what the s'ciety editor would call theproper ontong cordyal between you and the natives if you haven't hadcoffee at Baumbach's. It ain't hardly legal t' live in Milwaukee allthis time without ever having been inside of B--"

"Stop! If you do not tell me at once just where this wonderful placemay be found, and what one does when one finds it, and how I happened tomiss it, and why it is so necessary to the proper understanding of thecity--"

"I'll tell you what I'll do, " said Blackie, grinning, "I'll romp youover there to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock. Ach Himmel! What willthat for a grand time be, no?"

"Blackie, you're a dear to be so polite to an old married cratur' likeme. Did you notice--that is, does Ernst von Gerhard drop in often atBaumbach's?"

CHAPTER VIII. KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN

I have visited Baumbach's. I have heard Milwaukee drinking its afternoonKaffee. 

O Baumbach's, with your deliciously crumbling butter cookies and yourkaffee kuchen, and your thick cream, and your thicker waitresses andyour cockroaches, and your dinginess and your dowdy German ladies andyour black, black Kaffee, where in this country is there another likeyou!

Blackie, true to his promise, had hailed me from the doorway on theafternoon of the following day. In the rush of the day's work I hadquite forgotten about Blackie and Baumbach's. 

"Come, Kindchen!" he called. "Get your bonnet on. We will by Baumbach'sgo, no?"

Ruefully I gazed at the grimy cuffs of my blouse, and felt of mydishevelled hair. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't go. I look so mussy. Haven'thad time to brush up. "

"Brush up!" scoffed Blackie, "the only thing about you that will needbrushin' up is your German. I was goin' t' warn you to rumple up yourhair a little so you wouldn't feel overdressed w'en you got there. Comeon, girl. "

And so I came. And oh, I'm so glad I came!

I must have passed it a dozen times without once noticing it--just adingy little black shop nestling between two taller buildings, almostwithin the shadow of the city hall. Over the sidewalk swung a shabbyblack sign with gilt letters that spelled, "Franz Baumbach. "

Blackie waved an introductory hand in the direction of the sign. "Therehe is. That's all you'll ever see of him. "

"Dead?" asked I, regretfully, as we entered the narrow doorway. 

"No; down in the basement baking Kaffeekuchen. "

Two tiny show-windows faced the street--such queer, old-fashionedwindows in these days of plate glass. At the back they were quiteopen to the shop, and in one of them reposed a huge, white, immovablestructure--a majestic, heavy, nutty, surely indigestible birthday cake. Around its edge were flutings and scrolls of white icing, and on itsbroad breast reposed cherries, and stout butterflies of jelly, andcunning traceries of colored sugar. It was quite the dressiest cake Ihad ever beheld. Surely no human hand could be wanton enough to guidea knife through all that magnificence. But in the center of allthis splendor was an inscription in heavy white letters of icing:"Charlottens Geburtstag. "

Reluctantly I tore my gaze from this imposing example of the Germanconfectioner's art, for Blackie was tugging impatiently at my sleeve. 

"But Blackie, " I marveled, "do you honestly suppose that that structureis intended for some Charlotte's birthday?"

"In Milwaukee, " explained Blackie, "w'en you got a birthday you got t'have a geburtstag cake, with your name on it, and all the cousins andaunts and members of the North Side Frauen Turner Verein Gesellchaft, infor the day. It ain't considered decent if you don't. Are you ready tofight your way into the main tent?"

It was holiday time, and the single narrow aisle of the front shop wascrowded. It was not easy to elbow one's way through the packed littlespace. Men and women were ordering recklessly of the cakes of everydescription that were heaped in cases and on shelves. 

Cakes! What a pale; dry name to apply to those crumbling, melting, indigestible German confections! Blackie grinned with enjoyment while Igazed. There were cakes the like of which I had never seen and of whichI did not even know the names. There were little round cup cakes made ofalmond paste that melts in the mouth; there were Schnecken glazed witha delicious candied brown sugar; there were Bismarcks composed of layerupon layer of flaky crust inlaid with an oozy custard that evades theeager consumer at the first bite, and that slides down one's collarwhen chased with a pursuing tongue. There were Pfeffernusse; there, were Lebkuchen; there were cheese-kuchen; plum-kuchen, peach-kuchen, Apfelkuchen, the juicy fruit stuck thickly into the crust, the wholedusted over with powdered sugar. There were Torten, and Hornchen, andbutter cookies. 

Blackie touched my arm, and I tore my gaze from a cherry-studdedSchaumtorte that was being reverently packed for delivery. 

"My, what a greedy girl! Now get your mind all made up. This is yourchance. You know you're supposed t' take a slant at th' things an' makeup your mind w'at you want before you go back w'ere th' tables are. Don't fumble this thing. When Olga or Minna comes waddlin' up t' youan' says: 'Nu, Fraulein?' you gotta tell her whether your heart saysplum-kuchen oder Nusstorte, or both, see? Just like that. Now make upyour mind. I'd hate t' have you blunder. Have you decided?"

"Decided! How can I?" I moaned, watching a black-haired, black-eyedAlsatian girl behind the counter as she rolled a piece of white paperinto a cone and dipped a spoonful of whipped cream from a great brownbowl heaped high with the snowy stuff. She filled the paper cone, inserted the point of it into one end of a hollow pastry horn, andgently squeezed. Presto! A cream-filled Hornchen!

"Oh, Blackie!" I gasped. "Come on. I want to go in and eat. "

As we elbowed our way to the rear room separated from the front shoponly by a flimsy wooden partition, I expected I know not what. 

But surely this was not Blackie's much-vaunted Baumbach's! This long, narrow, dingy room, with its bare floor and its iron-legged tables whosebare marble tops were yellow with age and use! I said nothing as weseated ourselves. Blackie was watching me out of the tail of his eye. My glance wandered about the shabby, smoke-filled room, and slowly andsurely the charm of that fusty, dingy little cafe came upon me. 

A huge stove glowed red in one corner. On the wall behind the stovewas suspended a wooden rack, black with age, its compartments holdingGerman, Austrian and Hungarian newspapers. Against the opposite wallstood an ancient walnut mirror, and above it hung a colored printof Bismarck, helmeted, uniformed, and fiercely mustached. The clumsyiron-legged tables stood in two solemn rows down the length of thenarrow room. Three or four stout, blond girls plodded back and forth, from tables to front shop, bearing trays of cakes and steaming cups ofcoffee. There was a rumble and clatter of German. Every one seemed toknow every one else. A game of chess was in progress at one table, andbetween moves each contestant would refresh himself with a long-drawn, sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was nothing about the place or itsoccupants to remind one of America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafewas Germany. 

"Time!" said Blackie. "Here comes Rosie to take our order. You can takeyour choice of coffee or chocolate. That's as fancy as they get here. "

An expansive blond girl paused at our table smiling a broad welcome atBlackie. 

"Wie geht's, Roschen?" he greeted her. Roschen's smile became still morepervasive, so that her blue eyes disappeared in creases of good humor. She wiped the marble table top with a large and careless gesture thatprecipitated stray crumbs into our laps. "Gut!" murmured she, coyly, andleaned one hand on a portly hip in an attitude of waiting. 

"Coffee?" asked Blackie, turning to me. I nodded. 

"Zweimal Kaffee?" beamed Roschen, grasping the idea. 

"Now's your time to speak up, " urged Blackie. "Go ahead an' order allthe cream gefillte things that looked good to you out in front. "

But I leaned forward, lowering my voice discreetly. "Blackie, before Iplunge in too recklessly, tell me, are their prices very--"

"Sa-a-ay, child, you just can't spend half a dollar here if you try. The flossiest kind of thing they got is only ten cents a order. They'llsmother you in whipped cream f'r a quarter. You c'n come in here an' eatan' eat an' put away piles of cakes till you feel like a combinationof Little Jack Horner an' old Doc Johnson. An' w'en you're all through, they hand yuh your check, an', say--it says forty-five cents. You can'tbeat it, so wade right in an' spoil your complexion. "

With enthusiasm I turned upon the patient Rosie. "O, bring me some ofthose cunning little round things with the cream on 'em, you know--twoof those, eh Blackie? And a couple of those with the flaky crust andthe custard between, and a slice of that fluffy-looking cake and some ofthose funny cocked-hat shaped cookies--"

But a pall of bewilderment was slowly settling over Rosie's erstwhilesmiling face. Her plump shoulders went up in a helpless shrug, and sheturned her round blue eyes appealingly to Blackie. 

"Was meint sie alles?" she asked. 

So I began all over again, with the assistance of Blackie. We wentinto minute detail. We made elaborate gestures. We drew pictures of ourdesired goodies on the marble-topped table, using a soft-lead pencil. Rosie's countenance wore a distracted look. In desperation I was aboutto accompany her to the crowded shop, there to point out my chosendainties when suddenly, as they would put it here, a light went herover. 

"Ach, yes-s-s-s! Sie wollten vielleicht abgeruhrter Gugelhopf haben, undauch Schaumtorte, und Bismarcks, und Hornchen mit cream gefullt, nicht?"

"Certainly, " I murmured, quite crushed. Roschen waddled merrily off tothe shop. 

Blackie was rolling a cigarette. He ran his funny little red tonguealong the edge of the paper and glanced up at me in glee. "Don'tbother about me, " he generously observed. "Just set still and let theatmosphere soak in. "

But already I was lost in contemplation of a red-faced, pompadouredGerman who was drinking coffee and reading the Fliegende Blatter at atable just across the way. There were counterparts of my aboriginesat Knapf's--thick spectacled engineers with high foreheads--actors andactresses from the German stock company--reporters from the Englishand German newspapers--business men with comfortable Germanconsciences--long-haired musicians--dapper young lawyers--a gigglinggroup of college girls and boys--a couple of smartly dressed womennibbling appreciatively at slices of Nusstorte--low-voiced lovers whosecoffee cups stood untouched at their elbows, while no fragrant cloud ofsteam rose to indicate that there was warmth within. Their glances growwarmer as the neglected Kaffee grows colder. The color comes and goes inthe girl's face and I watch it, a bit enviously, marveling that the oldstory still should be so new. 

At a large square table near the doorway a group of eight men wereabsorbed in an animated political discussion, accompanied by much wavingof arms, and thundering of gutturals. It appeared to be a table ofimportance, for the high-backed bench that ran along one side wasupholstered in worn red velvet, and every newcomer paused a moment tonod or to say a word in greeting. It was not of American politics thatthey talked, but of the politics of Austria and Hungary. Finally theargument resolved itself into a duel of words between a handsome, red-faced German whose rosy skin seemed to take on a deeper tone incontrast to the whiteness of his hair and mustache, and a swarthy youngfellow whose thick spectacles and heavy mane of black hair gave him thelook of a caricature out of an illustrated German weekly. The red-facedman argued loudly, with much rapping of bare knuckles on the tabletop. But the dark man spoke seldom, and softly, with a little twistedhalf-smile on his lips; and whenever he spoke the red-faced man grewredder, and there came a huge laugh from the others who sat listening. 

"Say, wouldn't it curdle your English?" Blackie laughed. 

Solemnly I turned to him. "Blackie Griffith, these people do not evenrealize that there is anything unusual about this. "

"Sure not; that's the beauty of it. They don't need to make noartificial atmosphere for this place; it just grows wild, likedandelions. Everybody comes here for their coffee because their auntsan' uncles and Grossmutters and Grosspapas used t' come, and comeyet, if they're livin'! An', after all, what is it but a little Germanbakery?"

"But O, wise Herr Baumbach down in the kitchen! O, subtle Frau Baumbachback of the desk!" said I. "Others may fit their shops with mirrors, and cut-glass chandeliers and Oriental rugs and mahogany, but you sitserenely by, and you smile, and you change nothing. You let the brownwalls grow dimmer with age; you see the marble-topped tables turningyellow; you leave bare your wooden floor, and you smile, and smile, andsmile. "

"Fine!" applauded Blackie. "You're on. And here comes Rosie. "

Rosie, the radiant, placed on the table cups and saucers of anunbelievable thickness. She set them down on the marble surface with acrash as one who knows well that no mere marble or granite could shatterthe solidity of those stout earthenware receptacles. Napkins there werenone. I was to learn that fingers were rid of any clinging remnants ofcream or crumb by the simple expedient of licking them. 

Blackie emptied his pitcher of cream into his cup of black, blackcoffee, sugared it, stirred, tasted, and then, with a wicked gleam inhis black eyes he lifted the heavy cup to his lips and took a long, gurgling mouthful. 

"Blackie, " I hissed, "if you do that again I shall refuse to speak toyou!"

"Do what?" demanded he, all injured innocence. 

"Snuffle up your coffee like that. "

"Why, girl, that's th' proper way t' drink coffee here. Listen t'everybody else. " And while I glared he wrapped his hand lovingly abouthis cup, holding the spoon imprisoned between first and second fingers, and took another sibilant mouthful. "Any more of your back talk and I'lldrink it out of m' saucer an' blow on it like the hefty party over therein the earrings is doin'. Calm yerself an' try a Bismarck. "

I picked up one of the flaky confections and eyed it in despair. Therewere no plates except that on which the cakes reposed. 

"How does one eat them?" I inquired. 

"Yuh don't really eat 'em. The motion is more like inhalin'. T' eat'em successful you really ought t' get into a bath-tub half-filled withwater, because as soon's you bite in at one end w'y the custard stuffslides out at the other, an' no human mouth c'n be two places at oncet. Shut your eyes girl, an' just wade in. "

I waded. In silence I took a deep delicious bite, nimbly chased the coyfilling around a corner with my tongue, devoured every bit down to thelast crumb and licked the stickiness off my fingers. Then I investigatedthe interior of the next cake. 

"I'm coming here every day, " I announced. 

"Better not. Ruin your complexion and turn all your lines into bumps. Look at the dame with the earrings. I've been keepin' count an' I'veseen her eat three Schnecken, two cream puffs, a Nusshornchen and aslice of Torte with two cups of coffee. Ain't she a horrible example!And yet she's got th' nerve t' wear a princess gown!"

"I don't care, " I replied, recklessly, my voice choked with whippedcream and butteriness. "I can just feel myself getting greasy. Haven't Idone beautifully for a new hand? Now tell me about some of these people. Who is the funny little man in the checked suit with the black braidtrimming, and the green cravat, and the white spats, and the tan hat andthe eyeglasses?"

"Ain't them th' dizzy habiliments?" A note of envy crept into Blackie'svoice. "His name is Hugo Luders. Used t' be a reporter on the Germania, but he's reformed and gone into advertisin', where there's real money. Some say he wears them clo'es on a bet, and some say his taste in dressis a curse descended upon him from Joseph, the guy with the fancy coat, but I think he wears'em because he fancies 'em. He's been coming hereever' afternoon for twelve years, has a cup of coffee, game of chess, and a pow-wow with a bunch of cronies. If Baumbach's ever decideto paint the front of their shop or put in cut glass fixtures andhandpainted china, Hugo Luders would serve an injunction on 'em. Next!"

"Who's the woman with the leathery complexion and the belt to match, andthe untidy hair and the big feet? I like her face. And why does she sitat a table with all those strange-looking men? And who are all the men?And who is the fur-lined grand opera tenor just coming in--Oh!"

Blackie glanced over his shoulder just as the tall man in the doorwayturned his face toward us. "That? Why, girl, that's Von Gerhard, the manwho gives me one more year t' live. Look at everybody kowtowing to him. He don't favor Baumbach's often. Too busy patching up the nervous wrecksthat are washed up on his shores. "

The tall figure in the doorway was glancing from table to table, noddinghere and there to an acquaintance. His eyes traveled the length of theroom. Now they were nearing us. I felt a sudden, inexplicable tighteningat heart and throat, as though fingers were clutching there. Thenhis eyes met mine, and I felt the blood rushing to my face as he cameswiftly over to our table and took my hand in his. 

"So you have discovered Baumbach's, " he said. "May I have my coffee andcigar here with you?"

"Blackie here is responsible for my being initiated into the stickymysteries of Baumbach's. I never should have discovered it if he had notoffered to act as personal conductor. You know one another, I believe?"

The two men shook hands across the table. There was something forcedand graceless about the act. Blackie eyed Von Gerhard through a mistycurtain of cigarette smoke. Von Gerhard gazed at Blackie throughnarrowed lids as he lighted his cigar. "I'm th' gink you killed off twoor three years back, " Blackie explained. 

"I remember you perfectly, " Von Gerhard returned, courteously. "Irejoice to see that I was mistaken. "

"Well, " drawled Blackie, a wicked gleam in his black eyes, "I'msome rejoiced m'self, old top. Angel wings and a white kimono, wornbare-footy, would go some rotten with my Spanish style of beauty, what?Didn't know that you and m'dame friend here was acquainted. Known eachother long?"

I felt myself flushing again. 

"I knew Dr. Von Gerhard back home. I've scarcely seen him since Ihave been here. Famous specialists can't be bothered with middle-agedrelatives of their college friends, can they, Herr Doktor?"

And now it was Von Gerhard's face that flushed a deep and painfulcrimson. He looked at me, in silence, and I felt very little, andinsignificant, and much like an impudent child who has stuck out itstongue at its elders. Silent men always affect talkative women in thatway. 

"You know that what you say is not true, " he said, slowly. 

"Well, we won't quibble. We--we were just about to leave, weren't weBlackie?"

"Just, " said Blackie, rising. "Sorry t' see you drinkin' Baumbach'scoffee, Doc. It ain't fair t' your patients. "

"Quite right, " replied Von Gerhard; and rose with us. "I shall not drinkit. I shall walk home with Mrs. Orme instead, if she will allow me. Thatwill be more stimulating than coffee, and twice as dangerous, perhaps, but--"

"You know how I hate that sort of thing, " I said, coldly, as we passedfrom the warmth of the little front shop where the plump girls werestill filling pasteboard boxes with holiday cakes, to the brisk chill ofthe winter street. The little black-and-gilt sign swung and creaked inthe wind. Whimsically, and with the memory of that last cream-filledcake fresh in my mind, I saluted the letters that spelled "FranzBaumbach. "

Blackie chuckled impishly. "Just the same, try a pinch of sodabicarb'nate when you get home, Dawn, " he advised. "Well, I'm off to thefactory again. Got t' make up for time wasted on m' lady friend. Aufwiedersehen!"

And the little figure in the checked top-coat trotted off. 

"But he called you--Dawn, " broke from Von Gerhard. 

"Mhum, " I agreed. "My name's Dawn. "

"Surely not to him. You have known him but a few weeks. I would not havepresumed--"

"Blackie never presumes, " I laughed. "Blackie's just--Blackie. Imaginetaking offense at him! He knows every one by their given name, from Jo, the boss of the pressroom, to the Chief, who imports his office coatsfrom London. Besides, Blackie and I are newspaper men. And people don'tscrape and bow in a newspaper office--especially when they're fond ofone another. You wouldn't understand. "

As I looked at Von Gerhard in the light of the street lamp I saw atense, drawn look about the little group of muscles which show when theteeth are set hard. When he spoke those muscles had relaxed but little. 

"One man does not talk ill of another. But this is different. I want toask you--do you know what manner of man this--this Blackie is? I askyou because I would have you safe and sheltered always from such ashe--because I--"

"Safe! From Blackie? Now listen. There never was a safer, saner, truer, more generous friend. Oh, I know what his life has been. But what elsecould it have been, beginning as he did? I have no wish to reform him. I tried my hand at reforming one man, and made a glorious mess of it. SoI'll just take Blackie as he is, if you please--slang, wickedness, pinkshirt, red necktie, diamond rings and all. If there's any bad in him, we all know it, for it's right down on the table, face up. You're justangry because he called you Doc. "

"Small one, " said Von Gerhard, in his quaint German idiom, "we will notquarrel, you and I. If I have been neglectful it was because edgedtools were never a chosen plaything of mine. Perhaps your little Blackierealizes that he need have no fear of such things, for the Great Fear isupon him. "

"The Great Fear! You mean!--"

"I mean that there are too many fine little lines radiating from thecorners of the sunken eyes, and that his hand-clasp leaves a moisturein the palm. Ach! you may laugh. Come, we will change the subject tosomething more cheerful, yes? Tell me, how grows the book?"

"By inches. After working all day on a bulletin paper whose city editoris constantly shouting: 'Boil it now, fellows! Keep it down! We'recrowded!' it is too much of a wrench to find myself seated calmly beforemy own typewriter at night, privileged to write one hundred thousandwords if I choose. I can't get over the habit of crowding the story allinto the first paragraph. Whenever I flower into a descriptive passageI glance nervously over my shoulder, expecting to find Norberg stationedbehind me, scissors and blue pencil in hand. Consequently the book, thus far, sounds very much like a police reporter's story of a fire fourminutes before the paper is due to go to press. "

Von Gerhard's face was unsmiling. "So, " he said, slowly. "You burn thecandle at both ends. All day you write, is it not so? And at night youcome home to write still more? Ach, Kindchen!--Na, we shall change allthat. We will be better comrades, we two, yes? You remember that gaylittle walk of last autumn, when we explored the Michigan country laneat dusk? I shall be your Sunday Schatz, and there shall be more rambleslike that one, to bring the roses into your cheeks. We shall begood Kameraden, as you and this little Griffith are--what is it theysay--good fellows? That is it--good fellows, yes? So, shall we shakehands on it?"

But I snatched my hand away. "I don't want to be a good fellow, " Icried. "I'm tired of being a good fellow. I've been a good fellow foryears and years, while every other married woman in the world has beenhappy in her own home, bringing up her babies. When I am old I want somesons to worry me, too, and to stay awake nights for, and some daughtersto keep me young, and to prevent me from doing my hair in a knob andwearing bonnets! I hate good-fellow women, and so do you, and so doesevery one else! I--I--"

"Dawn!" cried Von Gerhard. But I ran up the steps and into the house andslammed the door behind me, leaving him standing there. 

CHAPTER IX. THE LADY FROM VIENNA

Two more aborigines have appeared. One of them is a lady aborigine. Theymade their entrance at supper and I forgot to eat, watching them. Thenew-comers are from Vienna. He is an expert engineer and she is a womanof noble birth, with a history. Their combined appearance is calculatedto strike terror to the heart. He is daringly ugly, with a chin thatcurves in under his lip and then out in a peak, like pictures of Punch. She wore a gray gown of a style I never had seen before and never expectto see again. It was fastened with huge black buttons all the way downthe breathlessly tight front, and the upper part was composed of thatpre-historic garment known as a basque. She curved in where she shouldhave curved out, and she bulged where she should have had "lines. " Abouther neck was suspended a string of cannon-ball beads that clanked as shewalked. On her forehead rested a sparse fringe. 

"Mein Himmel!" thought I. "Am I dreaming? This isn't Wisconsin. This isNurnberg, or Strassburg, with a dash of Heidelberg and Berlin thrown in. Dawn, old girl, it's going to be more instructive than a Cook's tour. "

That turned out to be the truest prophecy I ever made. 

The first surprising thing that the new-comers did was to seatthemselves at the long table with the other aborigines, the ladyaborigine being the only woman among the twelve men. It was plain thatthey had known one another previous to this meeting, for they becamevery good friends at once, and the men grew heavily humorous about therebeing thirteen at table. 

At that the lady aborigine began to laugh. Straightway I forgot theoutlandish gown, forgot the cannon-ball beads, forgot the sparse fringe, forgave the absence of "lines. " Such a voice! A lilting, melodiousthing. She broke into a torrent of speech, with bewildering gestures, and I saw that her hands were exquisitely formed and as expressive asher voice. Her German was the musical tongue of the Viennese, possessingnone of the gutturals and sputterings. When she crowned it with the gaylittle trilling laugh my views on the language underwent a lightningchange. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to see her openthe flat, silver case that dangled at the end of the cannon-ball chain, take out a cigarette, light it, and smoke it there in that little Germandining room. She wore the most gracefully nonchalant air imaginable asshe blew little rings and wreaths, and laughed and chatted brightly withher husband and the other men. Occasionally she broke into French, heraccent as charmingly perfect as it had been in her native tongue. There was a moment of breathless staring on the part of the respectablemiddle-class Frauen at the other tables. Then they shrugged theirshoulders and plunged into their meal again. There was a certain littlehigh-born air of assurance about that cigarette-smoking that no amountof staring could ruffle. 

Watching the new aborigines grew to be a sort of game. The ladyaborigine of the golden voice, and the ugly husband of the peaked chinhad a strange fascination for me. I scrambled downstairs at meal time inorder not to miss them, and I dawdled over the meal so that I neednot leave before they. I discovered that when the lady aborigine wasanimated, her face was that of a young woman, possessing a certainhigh-bred charm, but that when in repose the face of the lady aboriginewas that of a very old and tired woman indeed. Also that her husbandbullied her, and that when he did that she looked at him worshipingly. 

Then one evening, a week or so after the appearance of the newaborigines, there came a clumping at my door. I was seated at mytypewriter and the book was balkier than usual, and I wished that theclumper at the door would go away. 

"Come!" I called, ungraciously enough. Then, on second thought:"Herein!"

The knob turned slowly, and the door opened just enough to admit the topof a head crowned with a tight, moist German knob of hair. I searched mymemory to recognize the knob, failed utterly and said again, this timewith mingled curiosity and hospitality:

"Won't you come in?"

The apparently bodiless head thrust itself forward a bit, disclosing anapologetically smiling face, with high check bones that glistened withfriendliness and scrubbing. 

"Nabben', Fraulein, " said the head. 

"Nabben', " I replied, more mystified than ever. "Howdy do! Is thereanything--"

The head thrust itself forward still more, showing a pair of plumpshoulders as its support. Then the plump shoulders heaved into the room, disclosing a stout, starched gingham body. 

"Ich bin Frau Knapf, " announced the beaming vision. 

Now up to this time Frau Knapf had maintained a Mrs. Harris-likemysteriousness. I had heard rumors of her, and I had partaken of certaincrispy dishes of German extraction, reported to have come from her defthands, but I had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts whisking arounda corner. 

Therefore: "Frau Knapf!" I repeated. "Nonsense! There ain't no sichperson--that is, I'm glad to see you. Won't you come in and sit down?"

"Ach, no!" smiled the substantial Frau Knapf, clinging tightly to thedoor knob. "I got no time. It gives much to do to-night yet. Kuchendough I must set, und ich weiss nicht was. I got no time. "

Bustling, red-cheeked Frau Knapf! This was why I had never had a glimpseof her. Always, she got no time. For while Herr Knapf, dapper andgenial, welcomed new-comers, chatted with the diners, poured a glass offoaming Doppel-brau for Herr Weber or, dexterously carved fowl forthe aborigines' table, Frau Knapf was making the wheels go round. I discovered that it was she who bakes the melting, golden GermanPfannkuchen on Sunday mornings; she it is who fries the crisp andhissing Wienerschnitzel; she it is who prepares the plump ducklings, andthe thick gravies, and the steaming lentil soup and the rosy sausagesnestling coyly in their bed of sauerkraut. All the week Frau Knapf bakesand broils and stews, her rosy cheeks taking on a twinkling crimson fromthe fire over which she bends. But on Sunday night Frau Knapf sheds herhuge apron and rolls down the sleeves from her plump arms. On Sundayevening she leaves pots and pans and cooking, and is a transformed FrauKnapf. Then does she don a bright blue silk waist and a velvet coatthat is dripping with jet, and a black bonnet on which are perchedpalpitating birds and weary-looking plumes. Then she and Herr Knapfwalk comfortably down to the Pabst theater to see the German play by theGerman stock company. They applaud their favorite stout, blond, Germancomedienne as she romps through the acts of a sprightly German comedy, and after the play they go to their favorite Wein-stube around thecorner. There they have sardellen and cheese sandwiches and a great dealof beer, and for one charmed evening Frau Knapf forgets all about theinsides of geese and the thickening for gravies, and is happy. 

Many of these things Frau Knapf herself told me, standing there by thedoor with the Kuchen heavy on her mind. Some of them I got from Ernstvon Gerhard when I told him about my visitor and her errand. The errandwas not disclosed until Frau Knapf had caught me casting a despairingglance at my last typewritten page. 

"Ach, see! you got no time for talking to, ain't it?" she apologized. 

"Heaps of time, " I politely assured her, "don't hurry. But why not havea chair and be comfortable?"

Frau Knapf was not to be deceived. "I go in a minute. But first it issomething I like to ask you. You know maybe Frau Nirlanger?"

I shook my head. 

"But sure you must know. From Vienna she is, with such a voice like abird. "

"And the beads, and the gray gown, and the fringe, and the cigarettes?"

"And the oogly husband, " finished Frau Knapf, nodding. 

"Oogly, " I agreed, "isn't the name for it. And so she is Frau Nirlanger?I thought there would be a Von at the very least. "

Whereupon my visitor deserted the doorknob, took half a dozen stealthysteps in my direction and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper ofconfidence. 

"It is more as a Von. I will tell you. Today comes Frau Nirlanger byme and she says: 'Frau Knapf, I wish to buy clothes, aber echtAmerikanische. Myself, I do not know what is modish, and I cannot goalone to buy. '"

"That's a grand idea, " said I, recalling the gray basque and thecannon-ball beads. 

"Ja, sure it is, " agreed Frau Knapf. "Soo-o-o, she asks me was it somelady who would come with her by the stores to help a hat and suit anddresses to buy. Stylish she likes they should be, and echt Amerikanisch. So-o-o-o, I say to her, I would go myself with you, only so awfulstylish I ain't, and anyway I got no time. But a lady I know who is gotsuch stylish clothes!" Frau Knapf raised admiring hands and eyes towardheaven. "Such a nice lady she is, and stylish, like anything! And hername is Frau Orme. "

"Oh, really, Frau Knapf--" I murmured in blushing confusion. 

"Sure, it is so, " insisted Frau Knapf, coming a step nearer, and sinkingher, voice one hiss lower. "You shouldn't say I said it, but FrauNirlanger likes she should look young for her husband. He is muchyounger as she is--aber much. Anyhow ten years. Frau Nirlanger does nottell me this, but from other people I have found out. " Frau Knapf shookher head mysteriously a great many times. "But maybe you ain't got suchan interest in Frau Nirlanger, yes?"

"Interest! I'm eaten up with curiosity. You shan't leave this room aliveuntil you've told me!"

Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. "Now you make jokings, ain't? Well, I tell you. In Vienna, Frau Nirlanger was a widow, from a family aberhoch edel--very high born. From the court her family is, and friendsfrom the Emperor, und alles. Sure! Frau Nirlanger, she is different fromthe rest. Books she likes, und meetings, und all such komisch things. And what you think!"

"I don't know, " I gasped, hanging on her words, "what DO I think?"

"She meets this here Konrad Nirlanger, and falls with him in love. Undher family is mad! But schrecklich mad! Forty years old she is, andfrom a noble family, and Konrad Nirlanger is only a student from auniversity, and he comes from the Volk. Sehr gebildet he is, but nothigh born. So-o-o-o-o, she runs with him away and is married. "

Shamelessly I drank it all in. "You don't mean it! Well, then whathappened? She ran away with him--with that chin! and then what?"

Frau Knapf was enjoying it as much as I. She drew a long breath, felt ofthe knob of hair, and plunged once more into the story. 

"Like a story-book it is, nicht? Well, Frau Nirlanger, she has already aboy who is ten years old, and a fine sum of money that her first husbandleft her. Aber when she runs with this poor kerl away from her family, and her first husband's family is so schrecklich mad that they try bylaw to take from her her boy and her money, because she has her highbornfamily disgraced, you see? For a year they fight in the courts, and thenit stands that her money Frau Nirlanger can keep, but her boy she cannothave. He will be taken by her highborn family and educated, and he mustforget all about his mamma. To cry it is, ain't it? Das arme Kind! Well, she can stand it no longer to live where her boy is, and not to see him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets a chance to come by Amerika wherethere is a big engineering plant here in Milwaukee, and she begs herhusband he should come, because this boy she loves very much--Oh, sheloves her young husband too, but different, yes?"

"Oh, yes, " I agreed, remembering the gay little trilling laugh, and theface that was so young when animated, and so old and worn in repose. "Oh, yes. Quite, quite different. "

Frau Knapf smoothed her spotless skirt and shook her head slowly andsadly. "So-o-o-o, by Amerika they come. And Konrad Nirlanger he is maybea little cross and so, because for a year they have been in the courts, and it might have been the money they would lose, and for money KonradNirlanger cares--well, you shall see. But Frau Nirlanger must not mournand cry. She must laugh and sing, and be gay for her husband. But FrauNirlanger has no grand clothes, for first she runs away with KonradNirlanger, and then her money is tied in the law. Now she has again hermoney, and she must be young--but young!"

With a gesture that expressed a world of pathos and futility Frau Knapfflung out her arms. "He must not see that she looks different as theladies in this country. So Frau Nirlanger wants she should buy here inthe stores new dresses--echt Amerikanische. All new and beautiful thingsshe would have, because she must look young, ain't it? And perhaps herboy will remember her when he is a fine young man, if she is yet youngwhen he grows up, you see? And too, there is the young husband. First, she gives up her old life, and her friends and her family for this man, and then she must do all things to keep him. Men, they are but children, after all, " spake the wise Frau Knapf in conclusion. "They war and cryand plead for that which they would have, and when they have won, thensee! They are amused for a moment, and the new toy is thrown aside. "

"Poor, plain, vivacious, fascinating little Frau Nirlanger!" I said. "Iwonder just how much of pain and heartache that little musical laugh ofhers conceals?"

"Ja, that is so, " mused Frau Knapf. "Her eyes look like eyes that havewept much, not? And so you will be so kind and go maybe to select the sobeautiful clothes?"

"Clothes?" I repeated, remembering the original errand. "But dear lady!How, does one select clothes for a woman of forty who would not wearyher husband? That is a task for a French modiste, a wizard, and a fairygodmother all rolled into one. "

"But you will do it, yes?" urged Frau Knapf. 

"I'll do it, " I agreed, a bit ruefully, "if only to see the face of theoogly husband when his bride is properly corseted and shod. "

Whereupon Frau Knapf, in a panic, remembered the unset Kuchen dough andrushed away, with her hand on her lips and her eyes big with secrecy. And I sat staring at the last typewritten page stuck in my typewriterand I found that the little letters on the white page were swimming in adim purple haze. 

CHAPTER X. A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS

From husbands in general, and from oogly German husbands in particularmay Hymen defend me! Never again will I attempt to select "echtAmerikanische" clothes for a woman who must not weary her young husband. But how was I to know that the harmless little shopping expeditionwould resolve itself into a domestic tragedy, with Herr Nirlanger as thevillain, Frau Nirlanger as the persecuted heroine, and I as--what is itin tragedy that corresponds to the innocent bystander in real life? Thatwould be my role. 

The purchasing of the clothes was a real joy. Next to buying prettythings for myself there is nothing I like better than choosing them forsome one else. And when that some one else happens to be a fascinatinglittle foreigner who coos over the silken stuffs in a delightful mixtureof German and English; and especially when that some one else must bemade to look so charming that she will astonish her oogly husband, thendoes the selecting of those pretty things cease to be a task, and becomean art. 

It was to be a complete surprise to Herr Nirlanger. He was to knownothing of it until everything was finished and Frau Nirlanger, dressedin the prettiest of the pretty Amerikanisch gowns, was ready to astoundhim when he should come home from the office of the vast plant where hesolved engineering problems. 

"From my own money I buy all this, " Frau Nirlanger confided to me, witha gay little laugh of excitement, as we started out. "From Vienna itcomes. Always I have given it at once to my husband, as a wife should. Yesterday it came, but I said nothing, and when my husband said to me, 'Anna, did not the money come as usual to-day? It is time, ' I told alittle lie--but a little one, is it not? Very amusing it was. Almost Idid laugh. Na, he will not be cross when he see how his wife like theAmerikanische ladies will look. He admires very much the ladies ofAmerika. Many times he has said so. "

("I'll wager he has--the great, ugly boor!" I thought, in parenthesis. )"We'll show him!" I said, aloud. "He won't know you. Such a lot ofbeautiful clothes as we can buy with all this money. Oh, dear FrauNirlanger, it's going to be slathers of fun! I feel as excited about itas though it were a trousseau we were buying. "

"So it is, " she replied, a little shadow of sadness falling acrossthe brightness of her face. "I had no proper clothes when we weremarried--but nothing! You know perhaps my story. In America, everyoneknows everything. It is wonderful. When I ran away to marry KonradNirlanger I had only the dress which I wore; even that I borrowed fromone of the upper servants, on a pretext, so that no one should recognizeme. Ach Gott! I need not have worried. So! You see, it will be after alla trousseau. "

Why, oh, why should a woman with her graceful carriage and prettyvivacity have been cursed with such an ill-assorted lot of features!Especially when certain boorish young husbands have expressed anadmiration for pink-and-white effects in femininity. 

"Never mind, Mr. Husband, I'll show yez!" I resolved as the elevatorleft us at the floor where waxen ladies in shining glass cases smiledamiably all the day. 

There must be no violent pinks or blues. Brown was too old. She was notyoung enough for black. Violet was too trying. And so the gowns began tostrew tables and chairs and racks, and still I shook my head, and FrauNirlanger looked despairing, and the be-puffed and real Irish-crochetedsaleswoman began to develop a baleful gleam about the eyes. 

And then we found it! It was a case of love at first sight. Theunimaginative would have called it gray. The thoughtless would havepronounced it pink. It was neither, and both; a soft, rosily-graymixture of the two, like the sky that one sometimes sees at wintertwilight, the pink of the sunset veiled by the gray of the snow clouds. It was of a supple, shining cloth, simple in cut, graceful in lines. 

"There! We've found it. Let's pray that it will not require too muchaltering. "

But when it had been slipped over her head we groaned at the inadequacyof her old-fashioned stays. There followed a flying visit to thedepartment where hips were whisked out of sight in a jiffy, and wherelines miraculously took the place of curves. Then came the gownonce more, over the new stays this time. The effect was magical. The Irish-crocheted saleswoman and I clasped hands and fell back inattitudes of admiration. Frau Nirlanger turned this way and that beforethe long mirror and chattered like a pleased child. Her adjectives grewinto words of six syllables. She cooed over the soft-shining stuff inlittle broken exclamations in French and German. 

Then came a straight and simple street suit of blue cloth, a lingeriegown of white, hats, shoes and even a couple of limp satin petticoats. The day was gone before we could finish. 

I bullied them into promising the pinky-gray gown for the nextafternoon. 

"Sooch funs!" giggled Frau Nirlanger, "and how it makes one tired. So kind you were, to take this trouble for me. Me, I could never havewarred with that Fraulein who served us--so haughty she was, nicht? Butit is good again pretty clothes to have. Pretty gowns I lofe--you also, not?"

"Indeed I do lofe 'em. But my money comes to me in a yellow payenvelope, and it is spent before it reaches me, as a rule. It doesn'tleave much of a margin for general recklessness. "

A tiny sigh came from Frau Nirlanger. "There will be little to give toKonrad this time. So much money they cost, those clothes! But Konrad, hewill not care when he sees the so beautiful dresses, is it not so?"

"Care!" I cried with a great deal of bravado, although a tiny innervoice spake in doubt. "Certainly not. How could he?"

Next day the boxes came, and we smuggled them into my room. Theunwrapping of the tissue paper folds was a ceremony. We reveled in thevery crackle of it. I had scuttled home from the office as early asdecency would permit, in order to have plenty of time for the dressing. It must be quite finished before Herr Nirlanger should arrive. FrauNirlanger had purchased three tickets for the German theater, also as asurprise, and I was to accompany the happily surprised husband and theproud little wife of the new Amerikanische clothes. 

I coaxed her to let me do things to her hair. Usually she wore a stiffand ugly coiffure that could only be described as a chignon. I do notrecollect ever having seen a chignon, but I know that it must look likethat. I was thankful for my Irish deftness of fingers as I stepped backto view the result of my labors. The new arrangement of the hair gaveher features a new softness and dignity. 

We came to the lacing of the stays, with their exaggerated length. "Aber!" exclaimed Frau Nirlanger, not daring to laugh because of thestrange snugness. "Ach!" and again, "Aber to laugh it is!"

We had decided the prettiest of the new gowns must do honor to theoccasion. "This shade is called ashes of roses, " I explained, as Islipped it over her head. 

"Ashes of roses!" she echoed. "How pretty, yes? But a little sad too, isit not so? Like rosy hopes that have been withered. Ach, what a foolishtalk! So, now you will fasten it please. A real trick it is to buttonsuch a dress--so sly they are, those fastenings. "

When all the sly fastenings were secure I stood at gaze. 

"Nose is shiny, " I announced, searching in a drawer for chamois andpowder. 

Frau Nirlanger raised an objecting hand. "But Konrad does not approve ofsuch things. He has said so. He has--"

"You tell your Konrad that a chamois skin isn't half as objectionableas a shiny one. Come here and let me dust this over your nose and chin, while I breathe a prayer of thanks that I have no overzealous husbandnear to forbid me the use of a bit of powder. There! If I sez it mesilfas shouldn't, yez ar-r-re a credit t' me, me darlint. "

"You are satisfied. There is not one small thing awry? Ach, how we shalllaugh at Konrad's face. "

"Satisfied! I'd kiss you if I weren't afraid that I should muss youup. You're not the same woman. You look like a girl! And so pretty!Now skedaddle into your own rooms, but don't you dare to sit down for amoment. I'm going down to get Frau Knapf before your husband arrives. "

"But is there then time?" inquired Frau Nirlanger. "He should be herenow. "

"I'll bring her up in a jiffy, just for one peep. She won't know you!Her face will be a treat! Don't touch your hair--it's quite perfect. Andf'r Jawn's sake! Don't twist around to look at yourself in the backor something will burst, I know it will. I'll be back in a minute. Nowrun!"

The slender, graceful figure disappeared with a gay little laugh, and Iflew downstairs for Frau Knapf. She was discovered with a spoon in onehand and a spluttering saucepan in the other. I detached her fromthem, clasped her big, capable red hands and dragged her up the stairs, explaining as I went. 

"Now don't fuss about that supper! Let 'em wait. You must see her beforeHerr Nirlanger comes home. He's due any minute. She looks like a girl. So young! And actually pretty! And her figure--divine! Funny what adifference a decent pair of corsets, and a gown, and some puffs willmake, h'm?"

Frau Knapf was panting as I pulled her after me in swift eagerness. Between puffs she brought out exclamations of surprise and unbelief suchas: "Unmoglich! (Puff! Puff!) Aber--wunderbar! (Puff! Puff!)"

We stopped before Frau Nirlanger's door. I struck a dramatic pose. "Prepare!" I cried grandly, and threw open the door with a bang. 

Crouched against the wall at a far corner of the room was FrauNirlanger. Her hands were clasped over her breast and her eyes weredilated as though she had been running. In the center of the room stoodKonrad Nirlanger, and on his oogly face was the very oogliest look thatI have ever seen on a man. He glanced at us as we stood transfixedin the doorway, and laughed a short, sneering laugh that was like astinging blow on the cheek. 

"So!" he said; and I would not have believed that men really said "So!"in that way outside of a melodrama. "So! You are in the little surprise, yes? You carry your meddling outside of your newspaper work, eh? I leavebehind me an old wife in the morning and in the evening, presto! I finda young bride. Wonderful!--but wonderful!" He laughed an unmusical andmirthless laugh. 

"But--don't you like it?" I asked, like a simpleton. 

Frau Nirlanger seemed to shrink before our very eyes, so that the prettygown hung in limp folds about her. 

I stared, fascinated, at Konrad Nirlanger's cruel face with its littleeyes that were too close together and its chin that curved in below themouth and out again so grotesquely. 

"Like it?" sneered Konrad Nirlanger. "For a young girl, yes. But howuseless, this belated trousseau. What a waste of good money! For see, a young wife I do not want. Young women one can have in plenty, always. But I have an old woman married, and for an old woman the gowns need befew--eh, Frau Orme? And you too, Frau Knapf?"

Frau Knapf, crimson and staring, was dumb. There came a little shiveringmoan from the figure crouched in the corner, and Frau Nirlanger, herface queerly withered and ashen, crumpled slowly in a little heap on thefloor and buried her shamed head in her arms. 

Konrad Nirlanger turned to his wife, the black look on his face growingblacker. 

"Come, get up Anna, " he ordered, in German. "These heroics become not awoman of your years. And too, you must not ruin the so costly gown thatwill be returned to-morrow. "

Frau Nirlanger's white face was lifted from the shelter of her arms. The stricken look was still upon it, but there was no cowering in herattitude now. Slowly she rose to her feet. I had not realized that shewas so tall. 

"The gown does not go back, " she said. 

"So?" he snarled, with a savage note in his voice. "Now hear me. Thereshall be no more buying of gowns and fripperies. You hear? It is forthe wife to come to the husband for the money; not for her to waste itwantonly on gowns, like a creature of the streets. You, " his voice wasan insult, "you, with your wrinkles and your faded eyes in a gown of--"he turned inquiringly toward me--"How does one call it, that color, FrauOrme?"

There came a blur of tears to my eyes. "It is called ashes of roses, " Ianswered. "Ashes of roses. "

Konrad Nirlanger threw back his head and laughed a laugh as stinging asa whip-lash. "Ashes of roses! So? It is well named. For my dear wifeit is poetically fit, is it not so? For see, her roses are but witheredashes, eh Anna?"

Deliberately and in silence Anna Nirlanger walked to the mirror andstood there, gazing at the woman in the glass. There was somethingdreadful and portentous about the calm and studied deliberation withwhich she critically viewed that reflection. She lifted her arms slowlyand patted into place the locks that had become disarranged, turning herhead from side to side to study the effect. Then she took from a drawerthe bit of chamois skin that I had given her, and passed it lightly overher eyelids and cheeks, humming softly to herself the while. No musicever sounded so uncanny to my ears. The woman before the mirror lookedat the woman in the mirror with a long, steady, measuring look. Then, slowly and deliberately, the long graceful folds of her lovely gowntrailing behind her, she walked over to where her frowning husbandstood. So might a queen have walked, head held high, gaze steady. Shestopped within half a foot of him, her eyes level with his. For a longhalf-minute they stood thus, the faded blue eyes of the wife gazing intothe sullen black eyes of the husband, and his were the first to drop, for all the noble blood in Anna Nirlanger's veins, and all her longline of gently bred ancestors were coming to her aid in dealing with hermiddle-class husband. 

"You forget, " she said, very slowly and distinctly. "If this wereAustria, instead of Amerika, you would not forget. In Austria people ofyour class do not speak in this manner to those of my caste. "

"Unsinn!" laughed Konrad Nirlanger. "This is Amerika. "

"Yes, " said Anna Nirlanger, "this is Amerika. And in Amerika all thingsare different. I see now that my people knew of what they spoke whenthey called me mad to think of wedding a clod of the people, such asyou. "

For a moment I thought that he was going to strike her. I think he wouldhave, if she had flinched. But she did not. Her head was held high, andher eyes did not waver. 

"I married you for love. It is most comical, is it not? With youI thought I should find peace, and happiness and a re-birth of theintellect that was being smothered in the splendor and artificialityand the restrictions of my life there. Well, I was wrong. But wrong. Now hear me!" Her voice was tense with passion. "There will be gowns--asmany and as rich as I choose. You have said many times that the ladiesof Amerika you admire. And see! I shall be also one of those so-admiredladies. My money shall go for gowns! For hats! For trifles of lace andvelvet and fur! You shall learn that it is not a peasant woman whom youhave married. This is Amerika, the land of the free, my husband. Andsee! Who is more of Amerika than I? Who?"

She laughed a high little laugh and came over to me, taking my hands inher own. 

"Dear girl, you must run quickly and dress. For this evening we go tothe theater. Oh, but you must. There shall be no unpleasantness, that Ipromise. My husband accompanies us--with joy. Is it not so, Konrad? Withjoy? So!"

Wildly I longed to decline, but I dared not. So I only nodded, for fearof the great lump in my throat, and taking Frau Knapf's hand I turnedand fled with her. Frau Knapf was muttering:

"Du Hund! Du unverschamter Hund du!" in good Billingsgate German, andwiping her eyes with her apron. And I dressed with trembling fingersbecause I dared not otherwise face the brave little Austrian, the pluckylittle aborigine who, with the donning of the new Amerikanische gown hadacquired some real Amerikanisch nerve. 

CHAPTER XI. VON GERHARD SPEAKS

Of Von Gerhard I had not had a glimpse since that evening of myhysterical outburst. On Christmas day there had come a box of roses sohuge that I could not find vases enough to hold its contents, althoughI pressed into service everything from Mason jars from the kitchen tohand-painted atrocities from the parlor. After I had given posies toFrau Nirlanger, and fastened a rose in Frau Knapf's hard knob of hair, where it bobbed in ludicrous discomfort, I still had enough to fill thewashbowl. My room looked like a grand opera star's boudoir when she isexpecting the newspaper reporters. I reveled in the glowing fragranceof the blossoms and felt very eastern and luxurious and popular. It hadbeen a busy, happy, work-filled week, in which I had had to snatch oddmoments for the selecting of certain wonderful toys for the Spalpeens. There had been dolls and doll-clothes and a marvelous miniature kitchenfor the practical and stolid Sheila, and ingenious bits of mechanismthat did unbelievable things when wound up, for the clever, imaginativeHans. I was not to have the joy of seeing their wide-eyed delight, butI knew that there would follow certain laboriously scrawled letters, filled with topsy-turvy capitals and crazily leaning words of thanks tothe doting old auntie who had been such good fun the summer before. 

Boarding-house Christmases had become an old story. I had learned toaccept them, even to those obscure and foreign parts of turkey whichare seen only on boarding-house plates, and which would be recognizednowhere else as belonging to that stately bird. 

Christmas at Knapf's had been a happy surprise; a day of hearty goodcheer and kindness. There had even been a Christmas tree, hung withstodgy German angels and Pfeffernuesse and pink-frosted cakes. I foundmyself the bewildered recipient of gifts from everyone--from the Knapfs, and the aborigines and even from one of the crushed-looking wives. The aborigine whom they called Fritz had presented me with a huge andimposing Lebkuchen, reposing in a box with frilled border, ornamentedwith quaint little red-and-green German figures in sugar, and labeledNurnberg in stout letters, for it had come all the way from thatkuchen-famous city. The Lebkuchen I placed on my mantel shelf asbefitted so magnificent a work of art. It was quite too elaborate andimposing to be sent the way of ordinary food, although it had a certaintantalizingly spicy scent that tempted one to break off a corner hereand there. 

On the afternoon of Christmas day I sat down to thank Dr. Von Gerhardfor the flowers as prettily as might be. Also I asked his pardon, athing not hard to do with the perfume of his roses filling the room. 

"For you, " I wrote, "who are so wise in the ways of those tricky thingscalled nerves, must know that it was only a mild hysteria that made mesay those most unladylike things. I have written Norah all about it. She has replied, advising me to stick to the good-fellow role but not todress the part. So when next you see me I shall be a perfectly safe andsane comrade in petticoats. And I promise you--no more outbursts. "

So it happened that on the afternoon of New Year's day Von Gerhard andI gravely wished one another many happy and impossible things for thecoming year, looking fairly and squarely into each other's eyes as wedid so. 

"So, " said Von Gerhard, as one who is satisfied. "The nerfs are steadyto-day. What do you say to a brisk walk along the lake shore to put usin a New Year frame of mind, and then a supper down-town somewhere, witha toast to Max and Norah?"

"You've saved my life! Sit down here in the parlor and gaze at thecrepe-paper oranges while I powder my nose and get into some streetclothes. I have such a story to tell you! It has made me quite contentedwith my lot. "

The story was that of the Nirlangers; and as we struggled against abrisk lake breeze I told it, and partly because of the breeze, andpartly because of the story, there were tears in my eyes when I hadfinished. Von Gerhard stared at me, aghast. 

"But you are--crying!" he marveled, watching a tear slide down my nose. 

"I'm not, " I retorted. "Anyway I know it. I think I may blubber if Ichoose to, mayn't I, as well as other women?"

"Blubber?" repeated Von Gerhard, he of the careful and cautious English. "But most certainly, if you wish. I had thought that newspaper women didnot indulge in the luxury of tears. "

"They don't--often. Haven't the time. If a woman reporter were to burstinto tears every time she saw something to weep over she'd be goingabout with a red nose and puffy eyelids half the time. Scarcely a daypasses that does not bring her face to face with human suffering in someform. Not only must she see these things, but she must write of themso that those who read can also see them. And just because she doesnot wail and tear her hair and faint she popularly is supposed to be aflinty, cigarette-smoking creature who rampages up and down the land, seeking whom she may rend with her pen and gazing, dry-eyed, upon scenesof horrid bloodshed. "

"And yet the little domestic tragedy of the Nirlangers can bring tearsto your eyes?"

"Oh, that was quite different. The case of the Nirlangers had nothing todo with Dawn O'Hara, newspaper reporter. It was just plain Dawn O'Hara, woman, who witnessed that little tragedy. Mein Himmel! Are all Germanhusbands like that?"

"Not all. I have a very good friend named Max--"

"O, Max! Max is an angel husband. Fancy Max and Norah waxing tragic onthe subject of a gown! Now you--"

"I? Come, you are sworn to good-fellowship. As one comrade to another, tell me, what sort of husband do you think I should make, eh? Theboorish Nirlanger sort, or the charming Max variety. Come, tell me--youwho always have seemed so--so damnably able to take care of yourself. "His eyes were twinkling in the maddening way they had. 

I looked out across the lake to where a line of white-caps was piling upformidably only to break in futile wrath against the solid wall of theshore. And there came over me an equally futile wrath; that savage, unreasoning instinct in women which prompts them to hurt those whom theylove. 

"Oh, you!" I began, with Von Gerhard's amused eyes laughing down uponme. "I should say that you would be more in the Nirlanger style, in yourlarge, immovable, Germansure way. Not that you would stoop to wrangleabout money or gowns, but that you would control those things. Yourwife will be a placid, blond, rather plump German Fraulein, of excellentfamily and no imagination. Men of your type always select negativewives. Twenty years ago she would have run to bring you your Zeitung andyour slippers. She would be that kind, if Zeitung-and-slipper husbandsstill were in existence. You will be fond of her, in a patronizing sortof way, and she will never know the difference between that and beingloved, not having a great deal of imagination, as I have said before. And you will go on becoming more and more famous, and she will growplumper and more placid, and less and less understanding of what thosekomisch medical journals have to say so often about her husband who isalways discovering things. And you will live happily ever after--"

A hand gripped my shoulder. I looked up, startled, into two blue eyesblazing down into mine. Von Gerhard's face was a painful red. I thinkthat the hand on my shoulder even shook me a little, there on that bleakand deserted lake drive. I tried to wrench my shoulder free with a jerk. 

"You are hurting me!" I cried. 

A quiver of pain passed over the face that I had thought so calmlyunemotional. "You talk of hurts! You, who set out deliberately andmaliciously to make me suffer! How dare you then talk to me like this!You stab with a hundred knives--you, who know how I--"

"I'm sorry, " I put in, contritely. "Please don't be so dreadful aboutit. After all, you asked me, didn't you? Perhaps I've hurt your vanity. There, I didn't mean that, either. Oh, dear, let's talk about somethingimpersonal. We get along wretchedly of late. "

The angry red ebbed away from Von Gerhard's face. The blaze of wrath inhis eyes gave way to a deeper, brighter light that held me fascinated, and there came to his lips a smile of rare sweetness. The hand that hadgrasped my shoulder slipped down, down, until it met my hand and grippedit. 

"Na, 's ist schon recht, Kindchen. Those that we most care for we wouldhurt always. When I have told you of my love for you, although alreadyyou know it, then you will tell me. Hush! Do not deny this thing. Thereshall be no more lies between us. There shall be only the truth, and nomore about plump, blonde German wives who run with Zeitung and slippers. After all, it is no secret. Three months ago I told Norah. It was notnews to her. But she trusted me. "

I felt my face to be as white and as tense as his own. "Norah--knows!"

"It is better to speak these things. Then there need be no shifting ofthe eyes, no evasive words, no tricks, no subterfuge. "

We had faced about and were retracing our steps, past the rows ofpeculiarly home-like houses that line Milwaukee's magnificent lakeshore. Windows were hung with holiday scarlet and holly, and here andthere a face was visible at a window, looking out at the man and womanwalking swiftly along the wind-swept heights that rose far above thelake. 

A wretched revolt seized me as I gazed at the substantial comfort ofthose normal, happy homes. 

"Why did you tell me! What good can that do? At least we weremake-believe friends before. Suppose I were to tell you that I care, then what. "

"I do not ask you to tell me, " Von Gerhard replied, quietly. 

"You need not. You know. You knew long, long ago. You know I love thebig quietness of you, and your sureness, and the German way you have oftwisting your sentences about, and the steady grip of your great firmhands, and the rareness of your laugh, and the simplicity of you. WhyI love the very cleanliness of your ruddy skin, and the way your hairgrows away from your forehead, and your walk, and your voice and--Oh, what is the use of it all?"

"Just this, Dawn. The light of day sweetens all things. We have draggedthis thing out into the sunlight, where, if it grows, it will growsanely and healthily. It was but an ugly, distorted, unsightly thing, sending out pale unhealthy shoots in the dark, unwholesome cellars ofour inner consciences. Norah's knowing was the cleanest, sweetest thingabout it. "

"How wonderfully you understand her, and how right you are! Her knowingseems to make it as it should be, doesn't it? I am braver already, forthe knowledge of it. It shall make no difference between us?"

"There is no difference, Dawn, " said he. 

"No. It is only in the story-books that they sigh, and groan and uttersilly nonsense. We are not like that. Perhaps, after a bit, you willmeet some one you care for greatly--not plump, or blond, or German, perhaps, but still--"

"Doch you are flippant?"

"I must say those things to keep the tears back. You would not have mewailing here in the street. Tell me just one thing, and there shall beno more fluttering breaths and languishing looks. Tell me, when did youbegin to care?"

We had reached Knapfs' door-step. The short winter day was alreadydrawing to its close. In the half-light Von Gerhard's eyes glowedluminous. 

"Since the day I first met you at Norah's, " he said, simply. 

I stared at him, aghast, my ever-present sense of humor struggling tothe surface. "Not--not on that day when you came into the room where Isat in the chair by the window, with a flowered quilt humped about myshoulders! And a fever-sore twisting my mouth! And my complexion thecolor of cheese, and my hair plastered back from my forehead, and myeyes like boiled onions!"

"Thank God for your gift of laughter, " Von Gerhard said, and took myhand in his for one brief moment before he turned and walked away. 

Quite prosaically I opened the big front door at Knapfs' to find HerrKnapf standing in the hallway with his:

"Nabben', Frau Orme. "

And there was the sane and soothing scent of Wienerschnitzel andspluttering things in the air. And I ran upstairs to my room and turnedon all the lights and looked at the starry-eyed creature in the mirror. Then I took the biggest, newest photograph of Norah from the mantel andlooked at her for a long, long minute, while she looked back at me inher brave true way. 

"Thank you, dear, " I said to her. "Thank you. Would you think me stageyand silly if I were to kiss you, just once, on your beautiful trustingeyes?"

A telephone bell tinkled downstairs and Herr Knapf stationed himself atthe foot of the stairs and roared my name. 

When I had picked up the receiver: "This is Ernst, " said the voice atthe other end of the wire. "I have just remembered that I had asked youdown-town for supper. "

"I would rather thank God fasting, " I replied, very softly, and hung thereceiver on its hook. 

CHAPTER XII. BENNIE THE CONSOLER

In a corner of Frau Nirlanger's bedroom, sheltered from draughts andglaring light, is a little wooden bed, painted blue and ornamented withstout red roses that are faded by time and much abuse. Every evening ateight o'clock three anxious-browed women hold low-spoken conclave aboutthe quaint old bed, while its occupant sleeps and smiles as he sleeps, and clasps to his breast a chewed-looking woolly dog. For a new joy hascome to the sad little Frau Nirlanger, and I, quite by accident, was thecause of bringing it to her. The queer little blue bed, with its fadedroses, was brought down from the attic by Frau Knapf, for she is one ofthe three foster mothers of the small occupant of the bed. The occupantof the bed is named Bennie, and a corporation formed for the purposeof bringing him up in the way he should go is composed of: DawnO'Hara Orme, President and Distracted Guardian; Mrs. Konrad Nirlanger, Cuddler-in-chief and Authority on the Subject of Bennie's Bed-time; Mr. Blackie Griffith, Good Angel, General Cut-up and Monitor off'n Bennie'sNeckties and Toys; Dr. Ernst von Gerhard, Chief Medical Adviser, andSweller of the Exchequer, with the Privilege of Selecting All Candies. Members of the corporation meet with great frequency evenings andSundays, much to the detriment of a certain Book-in-the-making withwhich Dawn O'Hara Orme was wont to struggle o' evenings. 

Bennie had been one of those little tragedies that find their way intojuvenile court. Bennie's story was common enough, but Bennie himself hadbeen different. Ten minutes after his first appearance in the court roomeveryone, from the big, bald judge to the newest probation officer, hadfallen in love with him. Somehow, you wanted to smooth the hair fromhis forehead, tip his pale little face upward, and very gently kiss hissmooth, white brow. Which alone was enough to distinguish Bennie, forJuvenile court children, as a rule, are distinctly not kissable. 

Bennie's mother was accused of being unfit to care for her boy, andBennie was temporarily installed in the Detention Home. There thesuperintendent and his plump and kindly wife had fallen head over heelsin love with him, and had dressed him in a smart little Norfolk suitand a frivolous plaid silk tie. There were delays in the case, andpostponement after postponement, so that Bennie appeared in the courtroom every Tuesday for four weeks. The reporters, and the probationofficers and policemen became very chummy with Bennie, and showered himwith bright new pennies and certain wonderful candies. SuperintendentArnett of the Detention Home was as proud of the boy as though he werehis own. And when Bennie would look shyly and questioningly intohis face for permission to accept the proffered offerings, the bigsuperintendent would chuckle delightedly. Bennie had a strangely mobileface for such a baby, and the whitest, smoothest brow I have ever seen. 

The comedy and tears and misery and laughter of the big, white-walledcourt room were too much for Bennie. He would gaze about with puzzledblue eyes; then, giving up the situation as something too vast for hiscomprehension, he would fall to drawing curly-cues on a bit of paperwith a great yellow pencil presented him by one of the newspaper men. 

Every Tuesday the rows of benches were packed with a motley crowd ofPoles, Russians, Slavs, Italians, Greeks, Lithuanians--a crowd madeup of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, and enemies of the boys and girls whose fate was in the handsof the big man seated in the revolving chair up in front. But Bennie'smother was not of this crowd; this pitiful, ludicrous crowd filling thegreat room with the stifling, rancid odor of the poor. Nor was Bennie. He sat, clear-eyed and unsmiling, in the depths of a great chair on thecourt side of the railing and gravely received the attentions of thelawyers, and reporters and court room attaches who had grown fond of thegrave little figure. 

Then, on the fifth Tuesday, Bennie's mother appeared. How she had cometo be that child's mother God only knows--or perhaps He had had nothingto do with it. She was terribly sober and frightened. Her facewas swollen and bruised, and beneath one eye there was a puffygreen-and-blue swelling. Her sordid story was common enough as theprobation officer told it. The woman had been living in one wretchedroom with the boy. Her husband had deserted her. There was no food, andlittle furniture. The queer feature of it, said the probation officer, was that the woman managed to keep the boy fairly neat and clean, regardless of her own condition, and he generally had food of some sort, although the mother sometimes went without food for days. Through thesqualor and misery and degradation of her own life Bennie had somehowbeen kept unsullied, a thing apart. 

"H'm!" said judge Wheeling, and looked at Bennie. Bennie was standingbeside his mother. He was very quiet, and his eyes were smiling up intothose of the battered creature who was fighting for him. "I guess we'llhave to take you out of this, " the judge decided, abruptly. "That boy istoo good to go to waste. "

The sodden, dazed woman before him did not immediately get the fullmeaning of his words. She still stood there, swaying a bit, and staringunintelligently at the judge. Then, quite suddenly, she realized it. She took a quick step forward. Her hand went up to her breast, to herthroat, to her lips, with an odd, stifled gesture. 

"You ain't going to take him away! From me! No, you wouldn't dothat, would you? Not for--not for always! You wouldn't do that--youwouldn't--"

Judge Wheeling waved her away. But the woman dropped to her knees. 

"Judge, give me a chance! I'll stop drinking. Only don't take him awayfrom me! Don't, judge, don't! He's all I've got in the world. Give me achance. Three months! Six months! A year!"

"Get up!" ordered judge Wheeling, gruffly, "and stop that! It won't doyou a bit of good. "

And then a wonderful thing happened. The woman rose to her feet. Anew and strange dignity had come into her battered face. The linesof suffering and vice were erased as by magic, and she seemed to growtaller, younger, almost beautiful. When she spoke again it was slowlyand distinctly, her words quite free from the blur of the barroom andstreet vernacular. 

"I tell you you must give me a chance. You cannot take a child from amother in this way. I tell you, if you will only help me I can crawlback up the road that I've traveled. I was not always like this. Therewas another life, before--before--Oh, since then there have been yearsof blackness, and hunger, and cold and--worse! But I never dragged theboy into it. Look at him!"

Our eyes traveled from the woman's transfigured face to that of the boy. We could trace a wonderful likeness where before we had seen none. Butthe woman went on in her steady, even tone. 

"I can't talk as I should, because my brain isn't clear. It's the drink. When you drink, you forget. But you must help me. I can't do it alone. I can remember how to live straight, just as I can remember how to talkstraight. Let me show you that I'm not all bad. Give me a chance. Take the boy and then give him back to me when you are satisfied. I'lltry--God only knows how I'll try. Only don't take him away forever, Judge! Don't do that!"

Judge Wheeling ran an uncomfortable finger around his collar's edge. 

"Any friends living here?"

"No! No!"

"Sure about that?"

"Quite sure. "

"Now see here; I'm going to give you your chance. I shall take this boyaway from you for a year. In that time you will stop drinking and becomea decent, self-supporting woman. You will be given in charge of one ofthese probation officers. She will find work for you, and a good home, and she'll stand by you, and you must report to her. If she is satisfiedwith you at the end of the year, the boy goes back to you. "

"She will be satisfied, " the woman said, simply. She stooped and takingBennie's face between her hands kissed him once. Then she stepped asideand stood quite still, looking after the little figure that passed outof the court room with his hand in that of a big, kindly police officer. She looked until the big door had opened and closed upon them. 

Then--well, it was just another newspaper story. It made a good one. That evening I told Frau Nirlanger about it, and she wept, softly, andmurmured: "Ach, das arme baby! Like my little Oscar he is, without amother. " I told Ernst about him too, and Blackie, because I could notget his grave little face out of my mind. I wondered if those who hadcharge of him now would take the time to bathe the little body, andbrush the soft hair until it shone, and tie the gay plaid silk tie aslovingly as "Daddy" Arnett of the Detention Home had done. 

Then it was that I, quite unwittingly, stepped into Bennie's life. 

There was an anniversary, or a change in the board of directors, or anew coat of paint or something of the kind in one of the orphan homes, and the story fell to me. I found the orphan home to be typical of itskind--a big, dreary, prison-like structure. The woman at the door didnot in the least care to let me in. She was a fish-mouthed woman witha hard eye, and as I told my errand her mouth grew fishier and theeye harder. Finally she led me down a long, dark, airless stretch ofcorridor and departed in search of the matron, leaving me seated inthe unfriendly reception room, with its straight-backed chairs placedstonily against the walls, beneath rows of red and blue and yellowreligious pictures. 

Just as I was wondering why it seemed impossible to be holy and cheerfulat the same time, there came a pad-padding down the corridor. The nextmoment the matron stood in the doorway. She was a mountainous, red-facedwoman, with warts on her nose. 

"Good-afternoon, " I said, sweetly. ("Ugh! What a brute!") I thought. Then I began to explain my errand once more. Criticism of the Home? Noindeed, I assured her. At last, convinced of my disinterestedness shereluctantly guided me about the big, gloomy building. There were endlessflights of shiny stairs, and endless stuffy, airless rooms, until wecame to a door which she flung open, disclosing the nursery. It seemedto me that there were a hundred babies--babies at every stage ofdevelopment, of all sizes, and ages and types. They glanced up at theopening of the door, and then a dreadful thing happened. 

Every child that was able to walk or creep scuttled into the farthestcorners and remained quite, quite still with a wide-eyed expression offear and apprehension on every face. 

For a moment my heart stood still. I turned to look at the woman by myside. Her thin lips were compressed into a straight, hard line. Shesaid a word to a nurse standing near, and began to walk about, eying thechildren sharply. She put out a hand to pat the head of one red-hairedmite in a soiled pinafore; but before her hand could descend I saw thechild dodge and the tiny hand flew up to the head, as though in defense. 

"They are afraid of her!" my sick heart told me. "Those babies areafraid of her! What does she do to them? I can't stand this. I'm going. "

I mumbled a hurried "Thank you, " to the fat matron as I turned to leavethe big, bare room. At the head of the stairs there was a great, blackdoor. I stopped before it--God knows why!--and pointed toward it. 

"What is in that room?" I asked. Since then I have wondered many timesat the unseen power that prompted me to put the question. 

The stout matron bustled on, rattling her keys as she walked. 

"That--oh, that's where we keep the incorrigibles. "

"May I see them?" I asked, again prompted by that inner voice. 

"There is only one. " She grudgingly unlocked the door, using one of thegreat keys that swung from her waist. The heavy, black door swung open. I stepped into the bare room, lighted dimly by one small window. In thefarthest corner crouched something that stirred and glanced up at ourentrance. It peered at us with an ugly look of terror and defiance, andI stared back at it, in the dim light. During one dreadful, breathlesssecond I remained staring, while my heart stood still. Then--"Bennie!" Icried. And stumbled toward him. "Bennie--boy!"

The little unkempt figure, in its soiled knickerbocker suit, the sunnyhair all uncared for, the gay plaid tie draggled and limp, rushed intomy arms with a crazy, inarticulate cry. 

Down on my knees on the bare floor I held him close--close! and his armswere about my neck as though they never should unclasp. 

"Take me away! Take me away!" His wet cheek was pressed against my ownstreaming one. "I want my mother! I want Daddy Arnett! Take me away!"

I wiped his cheeks with my notebook or something, picked him up in myarms, and started for the door. I had quite forgotten the fat matron. 

"What are you doing?" she asked, blocking the doorway with her hugebulk. 

"I'm going to take him back with me. Please let me! I'll take care ofhim until the year is up. He shan't bother you any more. "

"That is impossible, " she said, coldly. "He has been sent here by thecourt, for a year, and he must stay here. Besides, he is a stubborn, uncontrollable child. "

"Uncontrollable! He's nothing of the kind! Why don't you treat him as achild should be treated, instead of like a little animal? You don't knowhim! Why, he's the most lovable--I And he's only a baby! Can't you seethat? A baby!"

She only stared her dislike, her little pig eyes grown smaller and moreglittering. 

"You great--big--thing!" I shrieked at her, like an infuriated child. With the tears streaming down my cheeks I unclasped Bennie's cold handsfrom about my neck. He clung to me, frantically, until I had to push himaway and run. 

The woman swung the door shut, and locked it. But for all its thicknessI could hear Bennie's helpless fists pounding on its panels as Istumbled down the stairs, and Bennie's voice came faintly to my ears, muffled by the heavy door, as he shrieked to me to take him away to hismother, and to Daddy Arnett. 

I blubbered all the way back in the car, until everyone stared, but Ididn't care. When I reached the office I made straight for Blackie'ssmoke-filled sanctum. When my tale was ended he let me cry all overhis desk, with my head buried in a heap of galley-proofs and my tearswatering his paste-pot. He sat calmly by, smoking. Finally he begangently to philosophize. "Now girl, he's prob'ly better off there than heever was at home with his mother soused all the time. Maybe he give thatwarty matron friend of yours all kinds of trouble, yellin' for his ma. "

I raised my head from the desk. "Oh, you can talk! You didn't seehim. What do you care! But if you could have seen him, crouchedthere--alone--like a little animal! He was so sweet--andlovable--and--and--he hadn't been decently washed for weeks--and hisarms clung to me--I can feel his hands about my neck!--"

I buried my head in the papers again. Blackie went on smoking. There wasno sound in the little room except the purr-purring of Blackie's pipe. Then:

"I done a favor for Wheeling once, " mused he. 

I glanced up, quickly. "Oh, Blackie, do you think--"

"No, I don't. But then again, you can't never tell. That was four orfive years ago, and the mem'ry of past favors grows dim fast. Still, ifyou're through waterin' the top of my desk, why I'd like t' set down anddo a little real brisk talkin' over the phone. You're excused. "

Quite humbly I crept away, with hope in my heart. 

To this day I do not know what secret string the resourceful Blackiepulled. But the next afternoon I found a hastily scrawled note tuckedinto the roll of my typewriter. It sent me scuttling across the hall tothe sporting editor's smoke-filled room. And there on a chair beside thedesk, surrounded by scrap-books, lead pencils, paste-pot and odds andends of newspaper office paraphernalia, sat Bennie. His hair was partedvery smoothly on one side, and under his dimpled chin bristled a verynew and extremely lively green-and-red plaid silk tie. 

The next instant I had swept aside papers, brushes, pencils, books, andBennie was gathered close in my arms. Blackie, with a strange glow inhis deep-set black eyes regarded us with an assumed disgust. 

"Wimmin is all alike. Ain't it th' truth? I used t' think you wasdifferent. But shucks! It ain't so. Got t' turn on the weeps the minuteyou're tickled or mad. Why say, I ain't goin' t' have you comin' in herean' dampenin' up the whole place every little while! It's unhealthy forme, sittin' here in the wet. "

"Oh, shut up, Blackie, " I said, happily. "How in the world did you doit?"

"Never you mind. The question is, what you goin' t' do with him, nowyou've got him? Goin' t' have a French bunny for him, or fetch him upby hand? Wheeling appointed a probation skirt to look after the crowd ofus, and we got t' toe the mark. "

"Glory be!" I ejaculated. "I don't know what I shall do with him. Ishall have to bring him down with me every morning, and perhaps you canmake a sporting editor out of him. "

"Nix. Not with that forehead. He's a high-brow. We'll make him dramaticcritic. In the meantime, I'll be little fairy godmother, an' if you'llget on your bonnet I'll stake you and the young 'un to strawberryshortcake an' chocolate ice cream. "

So it happened that a wondering Frau Knapf and a sympathetic FrauNirlanger were called in for consultation an hour later. Bennie wasensconced in my room, very wide-eyed and wondering, but quite content. With the entrance of Frau Nirlanger the consultation was somewhatdisturbed. She made a quick rush at him and gathered him in her hungryarms. 

"Du baby du!" she cried. "Du Kleiner! And she was down on her knees, and somehow her figure had melted into delicious mother-curves, withBennie's head just fitting into that most gracious one between hershoulder and breast. She cooed to him in a babble of French and Germanand English, calling him her lee-tel Oscar. Bennie seemed miraculouslyto understand. Perhaps he was becoming accustomed to having strangeladies snatch him to their breasts. 

"So, " said Frau Nirlanger, looking up at us. "Is he not sweet? He shallbe my lee-tel boy, nicht? For one small year he shall be my own boy. Ach, I am but lonely all the long day here in this strange land. Youwill let me care for him, nicht? And Konrad, he will be very angry, butthat shall make no bit of difference. Eh, Oscar?"

And so the thing was settled, and an hour later three anxious-browedwomen were debating the weighty question of eggs or bread-and-milk forBennie's supper. Frau Nirlanger was for soft-boiled eggs as being nonetoo heavy after orphan asylum fare; I was for bread-and-milk, that beingthe prescribed supper dish for all the orphans and waifs that I had everread about, from "The Wide, Wide World" to "Helen's Babies, " and backagain. Frau Knapf was for both eggs and bread-and-milk with a dashof meat and potatoes thrown in for good measure, and a slice or so ofKuchen on the side. We compromised on one egg, one glass of milk, anda slice of lavishly buttered bread, and jelly. It was a clean, sweet, sleepy-eyed Bennie that we tucked between the sheets. We three womenstood looking down at him as he lay there in the quaint old blue-paintedbed that had once held the plump little Knapfs. 

"You think anyway he had enough supper? mused the anxious-browed FrauKnapf. 

"To school he will have to go, yes?" murmured Frau Nirlanger, regretfully. 

I tucked in the covers at one side of the bed, not that they neededtucking, but because it was such a comfortable, satisfying thing to do. 

"Just at this minute, " I said, as I tucked, "I'd rather be a newspaperreporter than anything else in the world. As a profession 'tis sobroadenin', an' at the same time, so chancey. "

CHAPTER XIII. THE TEST

Some day the marriageable age for women will be advanced from twenty tothirty, and the old maid line will be changed from thirty to forty. Whenthat time comes there will be surprisingly few divorces. The husband ofwhom we dream at twenty is not at all the type of man who attracts us atthirty. The man I married at twenty was a brilliant, morbid, handsome, abnormal creature with magnificent eyes and very white teeth and noparticular appetite at mealtime. The man whom I could care for at thirtywould be the normal, safe and substantial sort who would come in at sixo'clock, kiss me once, sniff the air twice and say: "Mm! What's thatsmells so good, old girl? I'm as hungry as a bear. Trot it out. Whereare the kids?"

These are dangerous things to think upon. So dangerous and disturbing tothe peace of mind that I have decided not to see Ernst von Gerhard for aweek or two. I find that seeing him is apt to make me forget Peter Orme;to forget that my duty begins with a capital D; to forget that I amdangerously near the thirty year old mark; to forget Norah, and Max, andthe Spalpeens, and the world, and everything but the happiness of beingnear him, watching his eyes say one thing while his lips say another. 

At such times I am apt to work myself up into rather a savage frame ofmind, and to shut myself in my room evenings, paying no heed to FrauNirlanger's timid knocking, or Bennie's good-night message. I uncover mytypewriter and set to work at the thing which may or may not be abook, and am extremely wretched and gloomy and pessimistic, after thisfashion:

"He probably wouldn't care anything about you if you were free. It isjust a case of the fruit that is out of reach being the most desirable. Men don't marry frumpy, snuffy old things of thirty, or thereabouts. Menaren't marrying now-a-days, anyway. Certainly not for love. They marryfor position, or power, or money, when they do marry. Think of allthe glorious creatures he meets every day--women whose hair, andfinger-nails and teeth and skin are a religion; women whose clothes area fine art; women who are free to care only for themselves; to rest, to enjoy, to hear delightful music, and read charming books, and eatdelicious food. He doesn't really care about you, with your rumpledblouses, and your shabby gloves and shoes, and your somewhat doubtfullinen collars. The last time you saw him you were just coming home fromthe office after a dickens of a day, and there was a smudge on the endof your nose, and he told you of it, laughing. But you didn't laugh. Yourubbed it off, furiously, and you wanted to cry. Cry! You, Dawn O'Hara!Begorra! 'Tis losin' your sense av humor you're after doin'! Get towork. "

After which I would fall upon the book in a furious, futile fashion, writing many incoherent, irrelevant paragraphs which I knew would becast aside as worthless on the sane and reasoning to-morrow. 

Oh, it had been easy enough to talk of love in a lofty, superiorimpersonal way that New Year's day. Just the luxury of speaking of it atall, after those weeks of repression, sufficed. But it is not so easy tobe impersonal and lofty when the touch of a coat sleeve against your armsends little prickling, tingling shivers racing madly through thousandsof too taut nerves. It is not so easy to force the mind and tongue intosafe, sane channels when they are forever threatening to rush togetherin an overwhelming torrent that will carry misery and destruction in itswake. Invariably we talk with feverish earnestness about the book; aboutmy work at the office; about Ernst's profession, with its wonderfulgrowth; about Norah, and Max and the Spalpeens, and the home; about thelatest news; about the weather; about Peter Orme--and then silence. 

At our last meeting things took a new and startling turn. So startling, so full of temptation and happiness-that-must-not-be, that I resolved toforbid myself the pain and joy of being, near him until I could be quitesure that my grip on Dawn O'Hara was firm, unshakable and lasting. 

Von Gerhard sports a motor-car, a rakish little craft, built long andlow, with racing lines, and a green complexion, and a nose that cutsthrough the air like the prow of a swift boat through water. Von Gerhardhad promised me a spin in it on the first mild day. Sunday turned out tobe unexpectedly lamblike, as only a March day can be, with real sunshinethat warmed the end of one's nose instead of laughing as it tweaked it, as the lying February sunshine had done. 

"But warmly you must dress yourself, " Von Gerhard warned me, "with nogauzy blouses or sleeveless gowns. The air cuts like a knife, but itfeels good against the face. And a little road-house I know, where oneis served great steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How will that be fora lark, yes?"

And so I had swathed myself in wrappings until I could scarcely clamberinto the panting little car, and we had darted off along the smooth lakedrives, while the wind whipped the scarlet into our cheeks, even whileit brought the tears to our eyes. There was no chance for conversation, even if Von Gerhard had been in talkative mood, which he was not. Heseemed more taciturn than usual, seated there at the wheel, lookingstraight ahead at the ribbon of road, his eyes narrowed down tomere keen blue slits. I realized, without alarm, that he was drivingfuriously and lawlessly, and I did not care. Von Gerhard was that sortof man. One could sit quite calmly beside him while he pulled at thereins of a pair of runaway horses, knowing that he would conquer them inthe end. 

Just when my face began to feel as stiff and glazed as a mummy's, weswung off the roadway and up to the entrance of the road-house that wasto revive us with things hot and soupy. 

"Another minute, " I said, through stiff lips, as I extricated myselffrom my swathings, "and I should have been what Mr. Mantalini describedas a demnition body. For pity's sake, tell 'em the soup can't be too hotnor too steaming for your lady friend. I've had enough fresh air to lastme the remainder of my life. May I timidly venture to suggest that acheese sandwich follow the oyster stew? I am famished, and this placelooks as though it might make a speciality of cheese sandwiches. "

"By all means a cheese sandwich. Und was noch? That fresh air it hasgiven you an appetite, nicht wahr?" But there was no sign of a smileon his face, nor was the kindly twinkle of amusement to be seen in hiseyes--that twinkle that I had learned to look for. 

"Smile for the lady, " I mockingly begged when we had been served. "You've been owlish all the afternoon. Here, try a cheese sandwich. Now, why do you suppose that this mustard tastes so much better than the kindone gets at home?"

Von Gerhard had been smoking a cigarette, the first that I had ever seenin his fingers. Now he tossed it into the fireplace that yawned blackand empty at one side of the room. He swept aside the plates and glassesthat stood before him, leaned his arms on the table and deliberatelystared at me. 

"I sail for Europe in June, to be gone a year--probably more, " he said. 

"Sail!" I echoed, idiotically; and began blindly to dab clots of mustardon that ridiculous sandwich. 

"I go to study and work with Gluck. It is the opportunity of a lifetime. Gluck is to the world of medicine what Edison is to the world ofelectricity. He is a wizard, a man inspired. You should see him--alittle, bent, grizzled, shabby old man who looks at you, and sees younot. It is a wonderful opportunity, a--"

The mustard and the sandwich and the table and Von Gerhard's face werevery indistinct and uncertain to my eyes, but I managed to say: "Soglad--congratulate you--very happy--no doubt fortunate--"

Two strong hands grasped my wrists. "Drop that absurd mustard spoonand sandwich. Na, I did not mean to frighten you, Dawn. How your handstremble. So, look at me. You would like Vienna, Kindchen. You wouldlike the gayety, and the brightness of it, and the music, and the prettywomen, and the incomparable gowns. Your sense of humor would discern thehollowness beneath all the pomp and ceremony and rigid lines of caste, and military glory; and your writer's instinct would revel in thesplendor, and color and romance and intrigue. "

I shrugged my shoulders in assumed indifference. "Can't you convey allthis to me without grasping my wrists like a villain in a melodrama?Besides, it isn't very generous or thoughtful of you to tell me allthis, knowing that it is not for me. Vienna for you, and Milwaukee andcheese sandwiches for me. Please pass the mustard. "

But the hold on my wrists grew firmer. Von Gerhard's eyes were steady asthey gazed into mine. "Dawn, Vienna, and the whole world is waiting foryou, if you will but take it. Vienna--and happiness--with me--"

I wrenched my wrists free with a dreadful effort and rose, sick, bewildered, stunned. My world--my refuge of truth, and honor, and safetyand sanity that had lain in Ernst von Gerhard's great, steady hands, wasslipping away from me. I think the horror that I felt within musthave leaped to my eyes, for in an instant Von Gerhard was beside me, steadying me with his clear blue eyes. He did not touch the tips of myfingers as he stood there very near me. From the look of pain on hisface I knew that I had misunderstood, somehow. 

"Kleine, I see that you know me not, " he said, in German, and the sayingit was as tender as is a mother when she reproves a child that sheloves. "This fight against the world, those years of unhappiness andmisery, they have made you suspicious and lacking in trust, is it notso? You do not yet know the perfect love that casts out all doubt. Dawn, I ask you in the name of all that is reasoning, and for the sake of yourhappiness and mine, to divorce this man Peter Orme--this man who foralmost ten years has not been your husband--who never can be yourhusband. I ask you to do something which will bring suffering to no one, and which will mean happiness to many. Let me make you happy--you wereborn to be happy--you who can laugh like a girl in spite of your woman'ssorrows--"

But I sank into a chair and hid my face in my hands so that I might bespared the beauty and the tenderness of his eyes. I tried to thinkof all the sane and commonplace things in life. Somewhere in my innerconsciousness a cool little voice was saying, over and over again:

"Now, Dawn, careful! You've come to the crossroads at last. Right orleft? Choose! Now, Dawn, careful!" and the rest of it all over again. 

When I lifted my face from my hands at last it was to meet thetenderness of Von Gerhard's gaze with scarcely a tremor. 

"You ought to know, " I said, very slowly and evenly, "that a divorce, under these circumstances, is almost impossible, even if I wished to dowhat you suggest. There are certain state laws--"

An exclamation of impatience broke from him. "Laws! In some states, yes. In others, no. It is a mere technicality--a trifle! There is about it abit of that which you call red tape. It amounts to nothing--to that!" Hesnapped his fingers. "A few months' residence in another state, perhaps. These American laws, they are made to break. "

"Yes; you are quite right, " I said, and I knew in my heart that thecool, insistent little voice within had not spoken in vain. "Butthere are other laws--laws of honor and decency, and right living andconscience--that cannot be broken with such ease. I cannot marry you. Ihave a husband. "

"You can call that unfortunate wretch your husband! He does not knowthat he has a wife. He will not know that he has lost a wife. Come, Dawn--small one--be not so foolish. You do not know how happy I willmake you. You have never seen me except when I was tortured with doubtsand fears. You do not know what our life will be together. There shallbe everything to make you forget--everything that thought and love andmoney can give you. The man there in the barred room--"

At that I took his dear hands in mine and held them close as I miserablytried to make him hear what that small, still voice had told me. 

"There! That is it! If he were free, if he were able to stand beforemen that his actions might be judged fairly and justly, I should nothesitate for one single, precious moment. If he could fight for hisrights, or relinquish them, as he saw fit, then this thing would notbe so monstrous. But, Ernst, can't you see? He is there, alone, in thatdreadful place, quite helpless, quite incapable, quite at our mercy. Ishould as soon think of hurting a little child, or snatching the penniesfrom a blind man's cup. The thing is inhuman! It is monstrous! No statelaws, no red tape can dissolve such a union. "

"You still care for him!"

"Ernst!"

His face was very white with the pallor of repressed emotion, and hiseyes were like the blue flame that one sees flashing above a bed ofwhite-hot coals. 

"You do care for him still. But yes! You can stand there, quitecool--but quite--and tell me that you would not hurt him, not for yourhappiness, not for mine. But me you can hurt again and again, withoutone twinge of regret. "

There was silence for a moment in the little bare dining-room--amiserable silence on my part, a bitter one for Ernst. Then Von Gerhardseated himself again at the table opposite and smiled one of the raresmiles that illumined his face with such sweetness. 

"Come, Dawn, almost we are quarreling--we who were to have been somatter-of-fact and sensible. Let us make an end of this question. Youwill think of what I have said, will you not? Perhaps I was too abrupt, too brutal. Ach, Dawn, you know not how I--Very well, I will not. "

With both hands I was clinging to my courage and praying for strength toendure this until I should be alone in my room again. 

"As for that poor creature who is bereft of reason, he shall lack nocare, no attention. The burden you have borne so long I shall take nowupon my shoulders. "

He seemed so confident, so sure. I could bear it no longer. "Ernst, if you have any pity, any love for me, stop! I tell you I can never dothis. Why do you make it so terribly hard for me! So pitilessly hard!You always have been so strong, so sure, such a staff of courage. "

"I say again, and again, and again, you do not care. "

It was then that I took my last vestige of strength and courage togetherand going over to him, put my two hands on his great shoulders, lookingup into his drawn face as I spoke. 

"Ernst, look at me! You never can know how much I care. I care somuch that I could not bear to have the shadow of wrong fall upon ourhappiness. There can be no lasting happiness upon a foundation ofshameful deceit. I should hate myself, and you would grow to hate me. Italways is so. Dear one, I care so much that I have the strength to doas I would do if I had to face my mother, and Norah tonight. I don't askyou to understand. Men are not made to understand these things; not evena man such as you, who are so beautifully understanding. I only ask thatyou believe in me--and think of me sometimes--I shall feel it, and behelped. Will you take me home now, Dr. Von Gerhard?"

The ride home was made in silence. The wind was colder, sharper. I waschilled, miserable, sick. Von Gerhard's face was quite expressionlessas he guided the little car over the smooth road. When we had stoppedbefore my door, still without a word, I thought that he was going toleave me with that barrier of silence unbroken. But as I stepped stifflyto the curbing his hands closed about mine with the old steady grip. Ilooked up quickly, to find a smile in the corners of the tired eyes. 

"You--you will let me see you--sometimes?"

But wisdom came to my aid. "Not now. It is better that we go ourseparate ways for a few weeks, until our work has served to adjust thebalance that has been disturbed. At the end of that time I shall writeyou, and from that time until you sail in June we shall be just goodcomrades again. And once in Vienna--who knows?--you may meet the plumpblond Fraulein, of excellent family--"

"And no particular imagination--"

And then we both laughed, a bit hysterically, because laughter is, afterall, akin to tears. And the little green car shot off with a whir as Iturned to enter my new world of loneliness. 

CHAPTER XIV. BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD MAID

There followed a blessed week of work--a "human warious" week, with something piquant lurking at every turn. A week so busy, sokaleidoscopic in its quick succession of events that my own troubles andgrievances were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind and made tolanguish there, unfed by tears or sighs. 

News comes in cycles. There are weeks when a city editor tears hishair in vain as he bellows for a first-page story. There follow days sobristling with real, live copy that perfectly good stuff which, in theordinary course of events might be used to grace the front sheet, issandwiched away between the marine intelligence and the Elgin butterreports. 

Such a week was this. I interviewed everything from a red-handedmurderer to an incubator baby. The town seemed to be running over withcelebrities. Norberg, the city editor, adores celebrities. He neverallows one to escape uninterviewed. On Friday there fell to my lot aworld-famous prima donna, an infamous prize-fighter, and a charming oldmaid. Norberg cared not whether the celebrity in question was notedfor a magnificent high C, or a left half-scissors hook, so long as theinterview was dished up hot and juicy, with plenty of quotation marks, a liberal sprinkling of adjectives and adverbs, and a cut of the victimgracing the top of the column. 

It was long past the lunch hour when the prima donna and theprize-fighter, properly embellished, were snapped on the copy hook. Theprima donna had chattered in French; the prize-fighter had jabbered inslang; but the charming old maid, who spoke Milwaukee English, was tomake better copy than a whole chorus of prima donnas, or a ring full offighters. Copy! It was such wonderful stuff that I couldn't use it. 

It was with the charming old maid in mind that Norberg summoned me. 

"Another special story for you, " he cheerfully announced. 

No answering cheer appeared upon my lunchless features. "A prize-fighterat ten-thirty, and a prima donna at twelve. What's the next choicemorsel? An aeronaut with another successful airship? or a cash girl whohas inherited a million?"

Norberg's plump cheeks dimpled. "Neither. This time it is a nice Germanold maid. "

"Eloped with the coachman, no doubt?"

"I said a nice old maid. And she hasn't done anything yet. You are tofind out how she'll feel when she does it. "

"Charmingly lucid, " commented I, made savage by the pangs of hunger. 

Norberg proceeded to outline the story with characteristic vigor, acigarette waggling from the corner of his mouth. 

"Name and address on this slip. Take a Greenfield car. Nice old maidhas lived in nice old cottage all her life. Grandfather built it himselfabout a hundred years ago. Whole family was born in it, and marriedin it, and died in it, see? It's crammed full of spinning-wheels andmahogany and stuff that'll make your eyes stick out. See? Well, there'sno one left now but the nice old maid, all alone. She had a sister whoran away with a scamp some years ago. Nice old maid has never heard ofher since, but she leaves the gate ajar or the latch-string open, or alamp in the window, or something, so that if ever she wanders back tothe old home she'll know she's welcome, see?"

"Sounds like a moving picture play, " I remarked. 

"Wait a minute. Here's the point. The city wants to build a branchlibrary or something on her property, and the nice old party is sopinched for money that she'll have to take their offer. So the time hascome when she'll have to leave that old cottage, with its romance, andits memories, and its lamp in the window, and go to live in a cheaplittle flat, see? Where the old four-poster will choke up the bedroom--"

"And the parlor will be done in red and green, " I put in, eagerly, "andwhere there will be an ingrowing sideboard in the dining-room that won'tfit in with the quaint old dinner-set at all, and a kitchenette justoff that, in which the great iron pots and kettles that used to hold thefamily dinners will be monstrously out of place--"

"You're on, " said Norberg. 

Half an hour later I stood before the cottage, set primly in thecenter of a great lot that extended for half a square on all sides. Awinter-sodden, bare enough sight it was in the gray of that March day. But it was not long before Alma Pflugel, standing in the midst of it, the March winds flapping her neat skirts about her ankles, filled itwith a blaze of color. As she talked, a row of stately hollyhocks, pink, and scarlet, and saffron, reared their heads against the cottage sides. The chill March air became sweet with the scent of heliotrope, and SweetWilliam, and pansies, and bridal wreath. The naked twigs of the rosebushes flowered into wondrous bloom so that they bent to the groundwith their weight of crimson and yellow glory. The bare brick paths wereoverrun with the green of growing things. Gray mounds of dirt grew vividwith the fire of poppies. Even the rain-soaked wood of the pea-framesmiraculously was hidden in a hedge of green, over which ran riot thebutterfly beauty of the lavender, and pink, and cerise blossoms. Oh, shedid marvelous things that dull March day, did plain German Alma Pflugel!And still more marvelous were the things that were to come. 

But of these things we knew nothing as the door was opened and AlmaPflugel and I gazed curiously at one another. Surprise was writ large onher honest face as I disclosed my errand. It was plain that the ways ofnewspaper reporters were foreign to the life of this plain German woman, but she bade me enter with a sweet graciousness of manner. 

Wondering, but silent, she led the way down the dim narrow hallway tothe sitting-room beyond. And there I saw that Norberg had known whereofhe spoke. 

A stout, red-faced stove glowed cheerfully in one corner of theroom. Back of the stove a sleepy cat opened one indolent eye, yawnedshamelessly, and rose to investigate, as is the way of cats. The windowswere aglow with the sturdy potted plants that flower-loving Germanwomen coax into bloom. The low-ceilinged room twinkled and shone as thepolished surfaces of tables and chairs reflected the rosy glow from theplethoric stove. I sank into the depths of a huge rocker that must havebeen built for Grosspapa Pflugel's generous curves. Alma Pflugel, in achair opposite, politely waited for this new process of interviewingto begin, but relaxed in the embrace of that great armchair I suddenlyrealized that I was very tired and hungry, and talk-weary, and thathere; was a great peace. The prima donna, with her French, and herpaint, and her pearls, and the prizefighter with his slang, and hiscauliflower ear, and his diamonds, seemed creatures of another planet. My eyes closed. A delicious sensation of warmth and drowsy contentmentstole over me. 

"Do listen to the purring of that cat!" I murmured. "Oh, newspapers haveno place in this. This is peace and rest. "

Alma Pflugel leaned forward in her chair. "You--you like it?"

"Like it! This is home. I feel as though my mother were here in thisroom, seated in one of those deep chairs, with a bit of sewing in herhand; so near that I could touch her cheek with my fingers. "

Alma Pflugel rose from her chair and came over to me. She timidly placedher hand on my arm. "Ah, I am so glad you are like that. You do notlaugh at the low ceilings, and the sunken floors, and the old-fashionedrooms. You do not raise your eyes in horror and say: 'No conveniences!And why don't you try striped wall paper? It would make those dreadfulceilings seem higher. ' How nice you are to understand like that!"

My hand crept over to cover her own that lay on my arm. "Indeed, indeedI do understand, " I whispered. Which, as the veriest cub reporter cantestify, is no way to begin an interview. 

A hundred happy memories filled the little low room as Alma Pflugelshowed me her treasures. The cat purred in great content, and the stovecast a rosy glow over the scene as the simple woman told the story ofeach precious relic, from the battered candle-dipper on the shelf, tothe great mahogany folding table, and sewing stand, and carved bed. Thenthere was the old horn lantern that Jacob Pflugel had used a centurybefore, and in one corner of the sitting-room stood GrossmutterPflugel's spinning-wheel. Behind cupboard doors were ranged thecarefully preserved blue-and-white china dishes, and on the shelf belowstood the clumsy earthen set that Grosspapa Pflugel himself had modeledfor his young bride in those days of long ago. In the linen chest therestill lay, in neat, fragrant folds, piles of the linen that had beenspun on that time-yellowed spinning-wheel. And because of the tragedy inthe honest face bent over these dear treasures, and because she tried sobravely to hide her tears, I knew in my heart that this could never be anewspaper story. 

"So, " said Alma Pflugel at last, and rose and walked slowly to thewindow and stood looking out at the wind-swept garden. That window, withits many tiny panes, once had looked out across a wilderness, with anIndian camp not far away. Grossmutter Pflugel had sat at that windowmany a bitter winter night, with her baby in her arms, watching andwaiting for the young husband who was urging his ox-team across the iceof Lake Michigan in the teeth of a raging blizzard. 

The little, low-ceilinged room was very still. I looked at Alma Pflugelstanding there at the window in her neat blue gown, and something aboutthe face and figure--or was it the pose of the sorrowful head?--seemedstrangely familiar. Somewhere in my mind the resemblance haunted me. Resemblance to--what? Whom?

"Would you like to see my garden?" asked Alma Pflugel, turning from thewindow. For a moment I stared in wonderment. But the honest, kindly facewas unsmiling. "These things that I have shown you, I can take with mewhen I--go. But there, " and she pointed out over the bare, wind-sweptlot, "there is something that I cannot take. My flowers! You see thatmound over there, covered so snug and warm with burlap and sacking?There my tulips and hyacinths sleep. In a few weeks, when the coveringis whisked off--ah, you shall see! Then one can be quite sure that thespring is here. Who can look at a great bed of red and pink and lavenderand yellow tulips and hyacinths, and doubt it? Come. "

With a quick gesture she threw a shawl over her head, and beckoned me. Together we stepped out into the chill of the raw March afternoon. Shestood a moment, silent, gazing over the sodden earth. Then she flittedswiftly down the narrow path, and halted before a queer little structureof brick, covered with the skeleton of a creeping vine. Stooping, AlmaPflugel pulled open the rusty iron door and smiled up at me. 

"This was my grandmother's oven. All her bread she baked in this littlebrick stove. Black bread it was, with a great thick crust, and a bittertaste. But it was sweet, too. I have never tasted any so good. I liketo think of Grossmutter, when she was a bride, baking her first batchof bread in this oven that Grossvater built for her. And because the oldoven was so very difficult to manage, and because she was such a youngthing--only sixteen!--I like to think that her first loaves were perhapsnot so successful, and that Grosspapa joked about them, and that thelittle bride wept, so that the young husband had to kiss away thetears. "

She shut the rusty, sagging door very slowly and gently. "No doubt theworkmen who will come to prepare the ground for the new library willlaugh and joke among themselves when they see the oven, and they willkick it with their heels, and wonder what the old brick mound could havebeen. "

There was a little twisted smile on her face as she rose--a smile thatbrought a hot mist of tears to my eyes. There was tragedy itself in thatspare, homely figure standing there in the garden, the wind twining herskirts about her. 

"You should but see the children peering over the fence to see myflowers in the summer, " she said. The blue eyes wore a wistful, far-awaylook. "All the children know my garden. It blooms from April to October. There I have my sweet peas; and here my roses--thousands of them! Someare as red as a drop of blood, and some as white as a bridal wreath. When they are blossoming it makes the heart ache, it is so beautiful. "

She had quite forgotten me now. For her the garden was all abloom oncemore. It was as though the Spirit of the Flowers had touched the nakedtwigs with fairy fingers, waking them into glowing life for her whonever again was to shower her love and care upon them. 

"These are my poppies. Did you ever come out in the morning to finda hundred poppy faces smiling at you, and swaying and glistening andrippling in the breeze? There they are, scarlet and pink, side by sideas only God can place them. And near the poppies I planted my pansies, because each is a lesson to the other. I call my pansies little childrenwith happy faces. See how this great purple one winks his yellow eye, and laughs!"

Her gray shawl had slipped back from her face and lay about hershoulders, and the wind had tossed her hair into a soft fluff about herhead. 

"We used to come out here in the early morning, my little Schwester andI, to see which rose had unfolded its petals overnight, or whether thisgreat peony that had held its white head so high only yesterday, washumbled to the ground in a heap of ragged leaves. Oh, in the morning sheloved it best. And so every summer I have made the garden bloom again, so that when she comes back she will see flowers greet her. 

"All the way up the path to the door she will walk in an aisle offragrance, and when she turns the handle of the old door she will findit unlocked, summer and winter, day and night, so that she has only toturn the knob and enter. "

She stopped, abruptly. The light died out of her face. She glanced atme, half defiantly, half timidly, as one who is not quite sure of whatshe has said. At that I went over to her, and took her work-worn handsin mine, and smiled down into the faded blue eyes grown dim with tearsand watching. 

"Perhaps--who knows?--the little sister may come yet. I feel it. Shewill walk up the little path, and try the handle of the door, and itwill turn beneath her fingers, and she will enter. "

With my arm about her we walked down the path toward the old-fashionedarbor, bare now except for the tendrils that twined about the lattice. The arbor was fitted with a wooden floor, and there were rustic chairs, and a table. I could picture the sisters sitting there with their sewingduring the long, peaceful summer afternoons. Alma Pflugel would bewearing one of her neat gingham gowns, very starched and stiff, withperhaps a snowy apron edged with a border of heavy crochet done by thewrinkled fingers of Grossmutter Pflugel. On the rustic table there wouldbe a bowl of flowers, and a pot of delicious Kaffee, and a plate ofGerman Kaffeekuchen, and through the leafy doorway the scent of thewonderful garden would come stealing. 

I thought of the cheap little flat, with the ugly sideboard, and the bitof weedy yard in the rear, and the alley beyond that, and the red andgreen wall paper in the parlor. The next moment, to my horror, AlmaPflugel had dropped to her knees before the table in the damp littlearbor, her face in her hands, her spare shoulders shaking. 

"Ich kann's nicht thun!" she moaned. "Ich kann nicht! Ach, kleineSchwester, wo bist du denn! Nachts und Morgens bete ich, aber dochkommst du nicht. "

A great dry sob shook her. Her hand went to her breast, to her throat, to her lips, with an odd, stifled gesture. 

"Do that again!" I cried, and shook Alma Pflugel sharply by theshoulder. "Do that again!"

Her startled blue eyes looked into mine. "What do you mean?" she asked. 

"That--that gesture. I've seen it--somewhere--that trick of pressing thehand to the breast, to the throat, to the lips--Oh!"

Suddenly I knew. I lifted the drooping head and rumpled its neat braids, and laughed down into the startled face. 

"She's here!" I shouted, and started a dance of triumph on the shakyfloor of the old arbor. "I know her. From the moment I saw you theresemblance haunted me. " And then as Alma Pflugel continued to stare, while the stunned bewilderment grew in her eyes, "Why, I have one-fourthinterest in your own nephew this very minute. And his name is Bennie!"

Whereupon Alma Pflugel fainted quietly away in the chilly little grapearbor, with her head on my shoulder. 

I called myself savage names as I chafed her hands and did all thefoolish, futile things that distracted humans think of at such times, wondering, meanwhile, if I had been quite mad to discern a resemblancebetween this simple, clear-eyed gentle German woman, and the battered, ragged, swaying figure that had stood at the judge's bench. 

Suddenly Alma Pflugel opened her eyes. Recognition dawned in themslowly. Then, with a jerk, she sat upright, her trembling hands clingingto me. 

"Where is she? Take me to her. Ach, you are sure--sure?"

"Lordy, I hope so! Come, you must let me help you into the house. Andwhere is the nearest telephone? Never mind; I'll find one. "

When I had succeeded in finding the nearest drug store I spent a wildten minutes telephoning the surprised little probation officer, thenFrau Nirlanger, and finally Blackie, for no particular reason. Ishrieked my story over the wire in disconnected, incoherent sentences. Then I rushed back to the little cottage where Alma Pflugel and I waitedwith what patience we could summon. 

Blackie was the first to arrive. He required few explanations. Thatis one of the nicest things about Blackie. He understands by leaps andbounds, while others crawl to comprehension. But when Frau Nirlangercame, with Bennie in tow, there were tears, and exclamations, followedby a little stricken silence on the part of Frau Nirlanger when she sawBennie snatched to the breast of this weeping woman. So it was that inthe midst of the confusion we did not hear the approach of the probationofficer and her charge. They came up the path to the door, and there thelittle sister turned the knob, and it yielded under her fingers, and theold door swung open; and so she entered the house quite as Alma Pflugelhad planned she should, except that the roses were not blooming alongthe edge of the sunken brick walk. 

She entered the room in silence, and no one could have recognized inthis pretty, fragile creature the pitiful wreck of the juvenile court. And when Alma Pflugel saw the face of the little sister--the poor, marred, stricken face--her own face became terrible in its agony. Sheput Bennie down very gently, rose, and took the shaking little figure inher strong arms, and held it as though never to let it go again. Therewere little broken words of love and pity. She called her "Lammchen" and"little one, " and so Frau Nirlanger and Blackie and I stole away, aftera whispered consultation with the little probation officer. 

Blackie had come in his red runabout, and now he tucked us into it, feigning a deep disgust. 

"I'd like to know where I enter into this little drayma, " he growled. "Ain't I got nothin' t' do but run around town unitin' long lost sistersan' orphans!"

"Now, Blackie, you know you would never have forgiven me if I had leftyou out of this. Besides, you must hustle around and see that they neednot move out of that dear little cottage. Now don't say a word! You'llnever have a greater chance to act the fairy godmother. "

Frau Nirlanger's hand sought mine and I squeezed it in silent sympathy. Poor little Frau Nirlanger, the happiness of another had brought heronly sorrow. And she had kissed Bennie good-by with the knowledge thatthe little blue-painted bed, with its faded red roses, would again standempty in the gloom of the Knapf attic. 

Norberg glanced up quickly as I entered the city room. "Get somethinggood on that south side story?" he asked. 

"Why, no, " I answered. "You were mistaken about that. The--the nice oldmaid is not going to move, after all. "

CHAPTER XV. FAREWELL TO KNAPFS

Consternation has corrugated the brows of the aborigines. Consternationtwice confounded had added a wrinkle or two to my collection. We arehomeless. That is, we are Knapfless--we, to whom the Knapfs spelledhome. 

Herr Knapf, mustache aquiver, and Frau Knapf, cheek bones glistening, broke the news to us one evening just a week after the exciting daywhich so changed Bennie's life. "Es thut uns sehr, sehr leid, " HerrKnapf had begun. And before he had finished, protesting German groansmingled with voluble German explanations. The aborigines were strickendown. They clapped pudgy fists to knobby foreheads; they smote theirbreasts, and made wild gestures with their arms. If my protests wereless frenzied than theirs, it was only because my knowledge of Germanstops at words of six syllables. 

Out of the chaos of ejaculations and interrogation the reason for ourexpulsion at last was made clear. The little German hotel had not beenremunerative. Our host and hostess were too hospitable and too polite tostate the true reason for this state of affairs. Perhaps rents weretoo high. Perhaps, thought I, Frau Knapf had been too liberal with thebutter in the stewed chicken. Perhaps there had been too many goldenPfannkuchen with real eggs and milk stirred into them, and withtoothsome little islands of ruddy currant jelly on top. Perhaps therehad been too much honest, nourishing food, and not enough boarding-housevictuals. At any rate, the enterprise would have to be abandoned. 

It was then that the bare, bright little dining room, with its queerprints of chin-chucking lieutenants, and its queerer faces, and itsGerman cookery became very dear to me. I had grown to like Frau Knapf, of the shining cheek bones, and Herr Knapf, of the heavy geniality. Aclose bond of friendship had sprung up between Frau Nirlanger and me. Iwould miss her friendly visits, and her pretty ways, and hersparkling conversation. She and I had held many kimonoed pow-wows, andsometimes--not often--she had given me wonderful glimpses of that whichshe had left--of Vienna, the opera, the court, the life which hadbeen hers. She talked marvelously well, for she had all the charmand vivacity of the true Viennese. Even the aborigines, bristlingpompadours, thick spectacles, terrifying manner, and all, became as dearas old friends, now that I knew I must lose them. 

The great, high-ceilinged room upstairs had taken on the look of home. The Blue-beard closet no longer appalled me. The very purpleness of thepurple roses in the rug had grown beautiful in my eyes because they werepart of that little domain which spelled peace and comfort and kindness. How could I live without the stout yellow brocade armchair! Itsplethoric curves were balm for my tired bones. Its great lap admittedof sitting with knees crossed, Turk-fashion. Its cushioned back stoppedjust at the point where the head found needed support. Its pudgy armsoffered rest for tired elbows; its yielding bosom was made for tiredbacks. Given the padded comfort of that stout old chair--a friendly, time-tried book between my fingers--a dish of ruddy apples twinkling inthe fire-light; my mundane soul snuggled in content. And then, too, thebook-in-the-making had grown in that room. It had developed from a weak, wobbling uncertainty into a lusty full-blooded thing that grew and grewuntil it promised soon to become mansize. 

Now all this was to be changed. And I knew that I would miss the easyGerman atmosphere of the place; the kindness they had shown me; thechattering, admiring Minna; the taffy-colored dachshund; the aborigineswith their ill-smelling pipes and flappy slippers; the Wienerschnitzel;the crushed-looking wives and the masterful German husbands; the verydarns in the table-cloths and the very nicks in the china. 

We had a last family gathering in token of our appreciation of Herr andFrau Knapf. And because I had not seen him for almost three weeks; andbecause the time for his going was drawing so sickeningly near; andbecause I was quite sure that I had myself in hand; and because heknew the Knapfs, and was fond of them; and because-well, I invited VonGerhard. He came, and I found myself dangerously glad to see him, sothat I made my greeting as airy and frivolous as possible. Perhaps Ioverdid the airy business, for Von Gerhard looked at me for a long, silent minute, until the nonsense I had been chattering died on my lips, and I found myself staring up at him like a child that is apprehensiveof being scolded for some naughtiness. 

"Not so much chatter, small one, " he said, unsmilingly. "This pretense, it is not necessary between you and me. So. You are ein bischen blasz, nicht? A little pale? You have not been ill, Dawn?"

"Ill? Never felt more chipper in my life, " I made flippant answer, "andI adore these people who are forever telling one how unusually thin, orpale, or scrawny one is looking. "

"Na, they are not to be satisfied, these women! If I were to tell youhow lovely you look to me to-night you would draw yourself up with chilldignity and remind me that I am not privileged to say these things toyou. So I discreetly mention that you are looking, interestingly pale, taking care to keep all tenderness out of my tones, and still you arenot pleased. " He shrugged despairing shoulders. 

"Can't you strike a happy medium between rudeness and tenderness? Afterall, I haven't had a glimpse of your blond beauty for three weeks. Andwhile I don't ask you to whisper sweet nothings, still, after twenty-onedays--"

"You have been lonely? If only I thought that those weeks have been aswearisome to you--"

"Not lonely exactly, " I hurriedly interrupted, "but sort of wishing thatsome one would pat me on the head and tell me that I was a gooddoggie. You know what I mean. It is so easy to become accustomed tothoughtfulness and devotion, and so dreadfully hard to be happy withoutit, once one has had it. This has been a sort of training for what I mayexpect when Vienna has swallowed you up. "

"You are still obstinate? These three weeks have not changed you? Ach, Dawn! Kindchen!--"

But I knew that these were thin spots marked "Danger!" in ourconversational pond. So, "Come, " said I. "I have two new aboriginesfor you to meet. They are the very shiniest and wildest of all ourshiny-faced and wild aborigines. And you should see their trousers andneckties! If you dare to come back from Vienna wearing trousers likethese!--"

"And is the party in honor of these new aborigines?" laughed VonGerhard. "You did not explain in your note. Merely you asked me to come, knowing that I cared not if it were a lawn fete or a ball, so long as Imight again be with you. "

We were on our way to the dining room, where the festivities were to beheld. I stopped and turned a look of surprise upon him. 

"Don't you know that the Knapfs are leaving? Did I neglect to mentionthat this is a farewell party for Herr and Frau Knapf? We are losing ourhome, and we have just one week in which to find another. "

"But where will you go? And why did you not tell me this before?"

"I haven't an idea where I shall lay my poor old head. In the lap of thegods, probably, for I don't know how I shall find the time to interviewlandladies and pack my belongings in seven short days. The book willhave to suffer for it. Just when it was getting along so beautifully, too. "

There was a dangerous tenderness in Von Gerhard's eyes as he said:"Again you are a wanderer, eh--small one? That you, with your love ofbeautiful things, and your fastidiousness, should have to live in thisway--in these boarding-houses, alone, with not even the comforts thatshould be yours. Ach, Kindchen, you were not made for that. You wereintended for the home, with a husband, and kinder, and all that is trulyworth while. "

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I shrugged my shoulders. "Pooh! Anywoman can have a husband and babies, " I retorted, wickedly. "But mightyfew women can write a book. It's a special curse. "

"And you prefer this life--this existence, to the things that Ioffer you! You would endure these hardships rather than give up thenonsensical views which you entertain toward your--"

"Please. We were not to talk of that. I am enduring no hardships. Since I have lived in this pretty town I have become a worshiper of thegoddess Gemutlichkeit. Perhaps I shan't find another home as dear to myheart as this has been, but at least I shan't have to sleep on a parkbench, and any one can tell you that park benches have long been thefavored resting place of genius. There is Frau Nirlanger beckoning us. Now do stop scowling, and smile for the lady. I know you will get onbeautifully with the aborigines. "

He did get on with them so beautifully that in less than half an hourthey were swapping stories of Germany, of Austria, of the universities, of student life. Frau Knapf served a late supper, at which some oneled in singing Auld Lang Syne, although the sounds emanating from theaborigines' end of the table sounded suspiciously like Die Wacht amRhein. Following that the aborigines rose en masse and roared out theirGerman university songs, banging their glasses on the table when theycame to the chorus until we all caught the spirit of it and banged ourglasses like rathskeller veterans. Then the red-faced and amorous Fritz, he of the absent Lena, announced his intention of entertaining thecompany. Made bold by an injudicious mixture of Herr Knapf's excellentbeer, and a wonderful punch which Von Gerhard had concocted, Fritzmounted his chair, placed his plump hand over the spot where he supposedhis heart to be, fastened his watery blue eyes upon my surprised andblushing countenance, and sang "Weh! Dass Wir Scheiden Mussen!" in anastonishingly beautiful barytone. I dared not look at Von Gerhard, forI knew that he was purple with suppressed mirth, so I stared stonilyat the sardine sandwich and dill pickle on my plate, and felt myselfgrowing hot and hysterical, and cold and tearful by turns. 

At the end of the last verse I rose hastily and brought from theirhiding-place the gifts which we of Knapfs' had purchased as remembrancesfor Herr and Frau Knapf. I had been delegated to make the presentationspeech, so I grasped in one hand the too elaborate pipe that was to makeHerr Knapf unhappy, and the too fashionable silk umbrella that was toappall Frau Knapf, and ascended the little platform at the end of thedining room, and began to speak in what I fondly thought to be fluentand highsounding German. Immediately the aborigines went off intoparoxysms of laughter. They threw back their heads and roared, andslapped their thighs, and spluttered. It appeared that they thought Iwas making a humorous speech. At that discovery I cast dignity asideand continued my speech in the language of a German vaudeville comedian, with a dash of Weber and Field here and there. With the presentation ofthe silk umbrella Frau Knapf burst into tears, groped about helplesslyfor her apron, realized that it was missing from its accustomed place, and wiped her tears upon her cherished blue silk sleeve in the utterabandon of her sorrow. We drank to the future health and prosperity ofour tearful host and hostess, and some one suggested drei mal drei, to which we responded in a manner to make the chin-chucking lieutenanttremble in his frame on the wall. 

When it was all over Frau Nirlanger beckoned me, and she, Dr. VonGerhard and I stole out into the hall and stood at the foot of thestairway, discussing our plans for the future, and trying to smile as wetalked of this plan and that. Frau Nirlanger, in the pretty white gown, was looking haggard and distrait. The oogly husband was still in thedining room, finishing the beer and punch, of which he had already takentoo much. 

"A tiny apartment we have taken, " said Frau Nirlanger, softly. "It isbetter so. Then I shall have a little housework, a little cooking, alittle marketing to keep me busy and perhaps happy. " Her hand closedover mine. "But that shall us not separate, " she pleaded. "Without youto make me sometimes laugh what should I then do? You will bring heroften to our little apartment, not?" she went on, turning appealingly toVon Gerhard. 

"As often as Mrs. Orme will allow me, " he answered. 

"Ach, yes. So lonely I shall be. You do not know what she has been tome, this Dawn. She is brave for two. Always laughing she is, and merry, nicht wahr? Meine kleine Soldatin, I call her. 

"Soldatin, eh?" mused Von Gerhard. "Our little soldier. She is wellnamed. And her battles she fights alone. But quite alone. " His eyes, asthey looked down on me from his great height had that in them which sentthe blood rushing and tingling to my finger-tips. I brought my hand tomy head in stiff military salute. 

"Inspection satisfactory, sir?"

He laughed a rueful little laugh. "Eminently. Aber ganz befriedigend. "

He was very tall, and straight and good to look at as he stood there inthe hall with the light from the newel-post illuminating his featuresand emphasizing his blondness. Frau Nirlanger's face wore a drawn littlelook of pain as she gazed at him, and from him to the figure of herhusband who had just emerged from the dining room, and was makingunsteady progress toward us. Herr Nirlanger's face was flushed and hisdamp, dark hair was awry so that one lock straggled limply down overhis forehead. As he approached he surveyed us with a surly frown thatchanged slowly into a leering grin. He lurched over and placed a handfamiliarly on my shoulder. 

"We mus' part, " he announced, dramatically. "O, weh! The bes' of frien'sm'z part. Well, g'by, li'l interfering Teufel. F'give you, though, b'cause you're such a pretty li'l Teufel. " He raised one hand as thoughto pat my check and because of the horror which I saw on the face of thewoman beside me I tried to smile, and did not shrink from him. But witha quick movement Von Gerhard clutched the swaying figure and turned itso that it faced the stairs. 

"Come Nirlanger! Time for hard-working men like you and me to be in bed. Mrs. Orme must not nod over her desk to-morrow, either. So good-night. Schlafen Sie wohl. "

Konrad Nirlanger turned a scowling face over his shoulder. Then heforgot what he was scowling for, and smiled a leering smile. 

"Pretty good frien's, you an' the li'l Teufel, yes? Guess we'll have towatch you, huh, Anna? We'll watch 'em, won't we?"

He began to climb the stairs laboriously, with Frau Nirlanger's lightfigure flitting just ahead of him. At the bend in the stairway sheturned and looked down on us a moment, her eyes very bright and big. Shepressed her fingers to her lips and wafted a little kiss toward us witha gesture indescribably graceful and pathetic. She viewed her husband'slaborious progress, not daring to offer help. Then the turn in the stairhid her from sight. 

In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von Gerhard held out hishands--those deft, manual hands--those steady, sure, surgeonlyhands--hands to cling to, to steady oneself by, and because I neededthem most just then, and because I longed with my whole soul to placeboth my weary hands in those strong capable ones and to bring thosedear, cool, sane fingers up to my burning cheeks, I put one foot onthe first stair and held out two chilly fingertips. "Good-night, HerrDoktor, " I said, "and thank you, not only for myself, but for her. Ihave felt what she feels to-night. It is not a pleasant thing to beashamed of one's husband. "

Von Gerhard's two hands closed over that one of mine. "Dawn, you willlet me help you to find comfortable quarters? You cannot tramp aboutfrom place to place all the week. Let us get a list of addresses, andthen, with the machine, we can drive from one to the other in an hour. It will at least save you time and strength. "

"Go boarding-house hunting in a stunning green automobile!" I exclaimed. From my vantage point on the steps I could look down on him, and therecame over me a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crispblond hair, and to bring his head down close against my breast for oneexquisite moment. So--"Landladies and oitermobiles!" I laughed. "Never!Don't you know that if they got one glimpse, through the front parlorwindows, of me stepping grand-like out of your green motor car, theywould promptly over-charge me for any room in the house? I shall goroom-hunting in my oldest hat, with one finger sticking out of myglove. "

Von Gerhard shrugged despairing shoulders. 

"Na, of what use is it to plead with you. Sometimes I wonder if, afterall, you are not merely amusing yourself. Getting copy, perhaps, for thebook, or a new experience to add to your already varied store. "

Abruptly I turned to hide my pain, and began to ascend the stairs. Witha bound Von Gerhard was beside me, his face drawn and contrite. 

"Forgive me, Dawn! I know that you are wisest. It is only that I becomea little mad, I think, when I see you battling alone like this, amongstrangers, and know that I have not the right to help you. I knew notwhat I was saying. Come, raise your eyes and smile, like the littleSoldatin that you are. So. Now I am forgiven, yes?"

I smiled cheerily enough into his blue eyes. "Quite forgiven. And nowyou must run along. This is scandalously late. The aborigines willbe along saying 'Morgen!' instead of 'Nabben'!' if we stay here muchlonger. Good-night. "

"You will give me your new address as soon as you have found asatisfactory home?"

"Never fear! I probably shall be pestering you with telephone calls, urging you to have pity upon me in my loneliness. Now goodnight again. I'm as full of farewells as a Bernhardt. " And to end it I ran up thestairs. At the bend, just where Frau Nirlanger had turned, I too stoppedand looked over my shoulder. Von Gerhard was standing as I had left him, looking up at me. And like Frau Nirlanger, I wafted a little kiss in hisdirection, before I allowed the bend in the stairs to cut off my view. But Von Gerhard did not signify by look or word that he had seen it, ashe stood looking up at me, one strong white hand resting on the broadbaluster. 

CHAPTER XVI. JUNE MOONLIGHT, AND A NEW BOARDINGHOUSE

There was a week in which to scurry about for a new home. The daysscampered by, tripping over one another in their haste. My sleepinghours were haunted by nightmares of landladies and impossibleboarding-house bedrooms. Columns of "To Let, Furnished or Unfurnished"ads filed, advanced, and retreated before my dizzy eyes. My timeafter office hours was spent in climbing dim stairways, interviewingunenthusiastic females in kimonos, and peering into ugly bedroomspapered with sprawly and impossible patterns and filled with the odorsof dead-and-gone dinners. I found one room less impossible than therest, only to be told that the preference was to be given to a man whohad "looked" the day before. 

"I d'ruther take gents only, " explained the ample person who carried thekeys to the mansion. "Gents goes early in the morning and comes in lateat night, and that's all you ever see of 'em, half the time. I've triedladies, an' they get me wild, always yellin' for hot water to wash theirhair, or pastin' handkerchiefs up on the mirr'r or wantin' to butt intothe kitchen to press this or that. I'll let you know if the gent don'ttake it, but I got an idea he will. "

He did. At any rate, no voice summoned me to that haven for gents only. There were other landladies--landladies fat and German; landladies leanand Irish; landladies loquacious (regardless of nationality); landladiesreserved; landladies husbandless, wedded, widowed, divorced, andwilling; landladies slatternly; landladies prim; and all hinting of pastestates wherein there had been much grandeur. 

At last, when despair gripped me, and I had horrid visions of my trunk, hat-box and typewriter reposing on the sidewalk while I, homeless, satperched in the midst of them, I chanced upon a room which commanded aglorious view of the lake. True, it was too expensive for my slim purse;true, the owner of it was sour of feature; true, the room itself wascavernous and unfriendly and cold-looking, but the view of the great, blue lake triumphed over all these, although a cautious inner voicewarned me that that lake view would cover a multitude of sins. Iremembered, later, how she of the sour visage had dilated upon thesubject of the sunrise over the water. I told her at the time that whileI was passionately fond of sunrises myself, still I should like themjust as well did they not occur so early in the morning. Whereupon sheof the vinegar countenance had sniffed. I loathe landladies who sniff. 

My trunk and trusty typewriter were sent on to my new home at noon, unchaperoned, for I had no time to spare at that hour of the day. LaterI followed them, laden with umbrella, boxes, brown-paper parcels, andother unfashionable moving-day paraphernalia. I bumped and banged my wayup the two flights of stairs that led to my lake view and my bed, andmy heart went down as my feet went up. By the time the cavernousbedroom was gained I felt decidedly quivery-mouthed, so that I dumped mybelongings on the floor in a heap and went to the window to gaze on thelake until my spirits should rise. But it was a gray day, and the lakelooked large, and wet and unsociable. You couldn't get chummy with it. I turned to my great barn of a room. You couldn't get chummy with that, either. I began to unpack, with furious energy. In vain I turned everygas jet blazing high. They only cast dim shadows in the murky vastnessof that awful chamber. A whole Fourth of July fireworks display, Romancandles, sky-rockets, pin-wheels, set pieces and all, could not havemade that room take on a festive air. 

As I unpacked I thought of my cosy room at Knapfs', and as I thoughtI took my head out of my trunk and sank down on the floor with a satinblouse in one hand, and a walking boot in the other, and wanted tobellow with loneliness. There came to me dear visions of the friendlyold yellow brocade chair, and the lamplight, and the fireplace, andFrau Nirlanger, and the Pfannkuchen. I thought of the aborigines. In myhomesick mind their bumpy faces became things of transcendent beauty. Icould have put my head on their combined shoulders and wept down theirblue satin neckties. In my memory of Frau Knapf it seemed to me that Icould discern a dim, misty halo hovering above her tightly wadded hair. My soul went out to her as I recalled the shining cheek-bones, and theapron, and the chickens stewed in butter. I would have given a year outof my life to have heard that good-natured, "Nabben'. " One aboriginehad been wont to emphasize his after-dinner arguments with a toothpickbrandished fiercely between thumb and finger. The brandisher hadalways annoyed me. Now I thought of him with tenderness in my heart andreproached myself for my fastidiousness. I should have wept if I hadnot had a walking boot in one hand, and a satin blouse in the other. Awalking boot is but a cold comfort. And my thriftiness denied my tearsthe soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on my knees and finished theunpacking. 

Just before dinner time I donned a becoming gown to chirk up my courage, groped my way down the long, dim stairs, and telephoned to Von Gerhard. It seemed to me that just to hear his voice would instill in me newcourage and hope. I gave the number, and waited. 

"Dr. Von Gerhard?" repeated a woman's voice at the other end of thewire. "He is very busy. Will you leave your name?"

"No, " I snapped. "I'll hold the wire. Tell him that Mrs. Orme is waitingto speak to him. "

"I'll see. " The voice was grudging. 

Another wait; then--"Dawn!" came his voice in glad surprise. 

"Hello!" I cried, hysterically. "Hello! Oh, talk! Say something nice, for pity's sake! I'm sorry that I've taken you away from whatever youwere doing, but I couldn't help it. Just talk please! I'm dying ofloneliness. "

"Child, are you ill?" Von Gerhard's voice was so satisfyinglysolicitous. "Is anything wrong? Your voice is trembling. I can hear itquite plainly. What has happened? Has Norah written--"

"Norah? No. There was nothing in her letter to upset me. It is only thestrangeness of this place. I shall be all right in a day or so. "

"The new home--it is satisfactory? You have found what you wanted? Yourroom is comfortable?"

"It's--it's a large room, " I faltered. "And there's a--a large view ofthe lake, too. "

There was a smothered sound at the other end of the wire. Then--"Iwant you to meet me down-town at seven o'clock. We will have dinnertogether, " Von Gerhard said, "I cannot have you moping up there allalone all evening. "

"I can't come. "

"Why?"

"Because I want to so very much. And anyway, I'm much more cheerful now. I am going in to dinner. And after dinner I shall get acquainted withmy room. There are six corners and all the space under the bed that Ihaven't explored yet. "

"Dawn!"

"Yes?"

"If you were free to-night, would you marry me? If you knew that thenext month would find you mistress of yourself would you--"

"Ernst!"

"Yes?"

"If the gates of Heaven were opened wide to you, and they had 'Welcome!'done in diamonds over the door, and all the loveliest angel ladiesgrouped about the doorway to receive you, and just beyond you couldsee awaiting you all that was beautiful, and most exquisite, and mostdesirable, would you enter?"

And then I hung up the receiver and went in to dinner. I went in todinner, but not to dine. Oh, shades of those who have suffered inboarding-houses--that dining room! It must have been patterned afterthe dining room at Dotheboys' hall. It was bare, and cheerless, andfearfully undressed looking. The diners were seated at two long, unsociable, boarding-housey tables that ran the length of the room, andall the women folks came down to dine with white wool shawls wrappedsnugly about their susceptible black silk shoulders. The general effectwas that of an Old People's Home. I found seat after seat at table wasfilled, and myself the youngest thing present. I felt so criminallyyoung that I wondered they did not strap me in a high chair and rambread and milk down my throat. Now and then the door would open toadmit another snuffly, ancient, and be-shawled member of the company. Ilearned that Mrs. Schwartz, on my right, did not care mooch for shteakfor breakfast, aber a leedle l'mb ch'p she likes. Also that the elderlyparty on my left and the elderly party on my right resented beingseparated by my person. Conversation between E. P. On right, and E. P. On left scintillated across my soup, thus:

"How you feel this evening Mis' Maurer, h'm?"

"Don't ask me. "

"No wonder you got rheumatism. My room was like a ice-house all day. Yours too?"

"I don't complain any more. Much good it does. Barley soup again? In myown home I never ate it, and here I pay my good money and get four timea week barley soup. Are those fresh cucumbers? M-m-m-m. They haven'tstood long enough. Look at Mis' Miller. She feels good this evening. Sheshould feel good. Twenty-five cents she won at bridge. I never seen howthat woman is got luck. "

I choked, gasped, and fled. 

Back in my own mausoleum once more I put things in order, dragged mytypewriter stand into the least murky corner under the bravest gas jetand rescued my tottering reason by turning out a long letter to Norah. That finished, my spirits rose. I dived into the bottom of my trunk forthe loose sheets of the book-in-the-making, glanced over the last threeor four, discovered that they did not sound so maudlin as I had feared, and straightway forgot my gloomy surroundings in the fascination ofweaving the tale. 

In the midst of my fine frenzy there came a knock at the door. In thehall stood the anemic little serving maid who had attended me at dinner. She was almost eclipsed by a huge green pasteboard box. 

"You're Mis' Orme, ain't you? This here's for you. "

The little white-cheeked maid hovered at the threshold while I liftedthe box cover and revealed the perfection of the American beauty budsthat lay there, all dewy and fragrant. The eyes of the little maid werewide with wonder as she gazed, and because I had known flower-hunger Iseparated two stately blossoms from the glowing cluster and held themout to her. 

"For me!" she gasped, and brought her lips down to them, gently. Then--"There's a high green jar downstairs you can have to stick yourflowers in. You ain't got nothin' big enough in here, except your waterpitcher. An' putting these grand flowers in a water pitcher--why, it'dbe like wearing a silk dress over a flannel petticoat, wouldn't it?"

When the anemic little boarding-house slavey with the beauty-loving soulhad fetched the green jar, I placed the shining stems in it with gentlefingers. At the bottom of the box I found a card that read: "For it isimpossible to live in a room with red roses and still be traurig. "

How well he knew! And how truly impossible to be sad when red roses areglowing for one, and filling the air with their fragrance!

The interruption was fatal to book-writing. My thoughts were a chaosof red roses, and anemic little maids with glowing eyes, and thoughtfulyoung doctors with a marvelous understanding of feminine moods. SoI turned out all the lights, undressed by moonlight, and, throwing akimono about me, carried my jar of roses to the window and sat downbeside them so that their exquisite scent caressed me. 

The moonlight had put a spell of white magic upon the lake. It was alight-flooded world that lay below my window. Summer, finger on lip, had stolen in upon the heels of spring. Dim, shadowy figures dotted thebenches of the park across the way. Just beyond lay the silver lake, adazzling bar of moonlight on its breast. Motors rushed along the roadwaywith a roar and a whir and were gone, leaving a trail of laughter behindthem. From the open window of the room below came the slip-slap ofcards on the polished table surface, and the low buzz of occasionalconversation as the players held postmortems. Under the street lightthe popcorn vender's cart made a blot on the mystic beauty of the scenebelow. But the perfume of my red roses came to me, and their velvetcaressed my check, and beyond the noise and lights of the street laythat glorious lake with the bar of moonlight on its soft breast. I gazedand forgave the sour-faced landlady her dining room; forgave the elderlyparties their shawls and barley soup; forgot for a moment my wearythoughts of Peter Orme; forgot everything except that it was June, andmoonlight and good to be alive. 

All the changes and events of that strange, eventful year came crowdingto my mind as I crouched there at the window. Four new friends, triedand true! I conned them over joyously in my heart. What a strangecontrast they made! Blackie, of the elastic morals, and the still moreelastic heart; Frau Nirlanger, of the smiling lips and the lilting voiceand the tragic eyes--she who had stooped from a great height to pluckthe flower of love blooming below, only to find a worthless weedsullying her hand; Alma Pflugel, with the unquenchable light ofgratefulness in her honest face; Von Gerhard, ready to act as bufferbetween myself and the world, tender as a woman, gravely thoughtful, with the light of devotion glowing in his steady eyes. 

"Here's richness, " said I, like the fat boy in Pickwick Papers. And Ithanked God for the new energy which had sent me to this lovely city bythe lake. I thanked Him that I had not been content to remain a burdento Max and Norah, growing sour and crabbed with the years. Those yearsof work and buffeting had made of me a broader, finer, truer typeof womanhood--had caused me to forget my own little tragedy incontemplating the great human comedy. And so I made a little prayerthere in the moon-flooded room. 

"O dear Lord, " I prayed, and I did not mean that it should soundirreverent. "O dear Lord, don't bother about my ambitions! Just let meremain strong and well enough to do the work that is my portion from dayto day. Keep me faithful to my standards of right and wrong. Letthis new and wonderful love which has come into my life be a staff ofstrength and comfort instead of a burden of weariness. Let me notgrow careless and slangy as the years go by. Let me keep my hair andcomplexion and teeth, and deliver me from wearing soiled blouses anddoing my hair in a knob. Amen. "

I felt quite cheerful after that--so cheerful that the strange bumps inthe new bed did not bother me as unfamiliar beds usually did. The rosesI put to sleep in their jar of green, keeping one to hold against mycheek as I slipped into dreamland. I thought drowsily, just before sleepclaimed me:

"To-morrow, after office hours, I'll tuck up my skirt, and wrap my headin a towel and have a housecleaning bee. I'll move the bed where thewash-stand is now, and I'll make the chiffonnier swap places with thecouch. One feels on friendlier terms with furniture that one has shovedabout a little. How brilliant the moonlight is! The room is flooded withit. Those roses--sweet!--sweet!--"

When I awoke it was morning. During the days that followed I looked backgratefully upon that night, with its moonlight, and its roses, and itsgreat peace. 

CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW OF TERROR

Two days before the date set for Von Gerhard's departure the book wasfinished, typed, re-read, packed, and sent away. Half an hour afterit was gone all its most glaring faults seemed to marshall themselvesbefore my mind's eye. Whole paragraphs, that had read quite reasonablybefore, now loomed ludicrous in perspective. I longed to snatch it back;to tidy it here, to take it in there, to smooth certain rough placesneglected in my haste. For almost a year I had lived with this thing, so close that its faults and its virtues had become indistinguishable tome. Day and night, for many months, it had been in my mind. Of late someinstinct had prompted me to finish it. I had worked at it far into thenight, until I marveled that the ancient occupants of the surroundingrooms did not enter a combined protest against the clack-clacking of mytypewriter keys. And now that it was gone I wondered, dully, if I couldfeel Von Gerhard's departure more keenly. 

No one knew of the existence of the book except Norah, Von Gerhard, Blackie and me. Blackie had a way of inquiring after its progress inhushed tones of mock awe. Also he delighted in getting down on hands andknees and guiding a yard-stick carefully about my desk with a viewto having a fence built around it, bearing an inscription which wouldinform admiring tourists that here was the desk at which the brilliantauthor had been wont to sit when grinding out heart-throb stories forthe humble Post. He took an impish delight in my struggles with my heroand heroine, and his inquiries after the health of both were of such anature as to make any earnest writer person rise in wrath and slay him. I had seen little of Blackie of late. My spare hours had been devotedto the work in hand. On the day after the book was sent away I wasconscious of a little shock as I strolled into Blackie's sanctum andtook my accustomed seat beside his big desk. There was an oddly pinchedlook about Blackie's nostrils and lips, I thought. And the deep-setblack eyes appeared deeper and blacker than ever in his thin littleface. 

A week of unseasonable weather had come upon the city. June was goingout in a wave of torrid heat such as August might have boasted. The dayhad seemed endless and intolerably close. I was feeling very limp andlanguid. Perhaps, thought I, it was the heat which had wilted Blackie'sdebonair spirits. 

"It has been a long time since we've had a talk-talk, Blackie. I'vemissed you. Also you look just a wee bit green around the edges. I'mthinking a vacation wouldn't hurt you. "

Blackie's lean brown forefinger caressed the bowl of his favorite pipe. His eyes, that had been gazing out across the roofs beyond hiswindow, came back to me, and there was in them a curious and quizzicalexpression as of one who is inwardly amused. 

"I've been thinkin' about a vacation. None of your measly little twoweeks' affairs, with one week on salary, and th' other without. I ain'tgoin' t' take my vacation for a while--not till fall, p'raps, or maybewinter. But w'en I do take it, sa-a-ay, girl, it's goin' t' be a realone. "

"But why wait so long?" I asked. "You need it now. Who ever heard ofputting off a vacation until winter!"

"Well, I dunno, " mused Blackie. "I just made my arrangements for thattime, and I hate t' muss 'em up. You'll say, w'en the time comes, thatmy plans are reasonable. "

There was a sharp ring from the telephone at Blackie's elbow. Heanswered it, then thrust the receiver into my hand. "For you, " he said. 

It was Von Gerhard's voice that came to me. "I have something to tellyou, " he said. "Something most important. If I call for you at six wecan drive out to the bay for supper, yes? I must talk to you. "

"You have saved my life, " I called back. "It has been a beast of a day. You may talk as much and as importantly as you like, so long as I amkept cool. "

"That was Von Gerhard, " said I to Blackie, and tried not to lookuncomfortable. 

"Mm, " grunted Blackie, pulling at his pipe. "Thoughtful, ain't he?"

I turned at the door. "He--he's going away day after to-morrow, Blackie, " I explained, although no explanation had been asked for, "toVienna. He expects to stay a year--or two--or three--"

Blackie looked up quickly. "Goin' away, is he? Well, maybe it's best, all around, girl. I see his name's been mentioned in all the medicalpapers, and the big magazines, and all that, lately. Gettin' t' be a bigbug, Von Gerhard is. Sorry he's goin', though. I was plannin' t' consulthim just before I go on my--vacation. But some other guy'll do. He don'tapprove of me, Von Gerhard don't. "

For some reason which I could never explain I went back into the roomand held out both my hands to Blackie. His nervous brown fingers closedover them. "That doesn't make one bit of difference to us, does it, Blackie?" I said, gravely. "We're--we're not caring so long as weapprove of one another, are we?"

"Not a bit, girl, " smiled Blackie, "not a bit. "

When the green car stopped before the Old Folks' Home I was in seraphicmood. I had bathed, donned clean linen and a Dutch-necked gown. Theresult was most soul-satisfying. My spirits rose unaccountably. Even thesight of Von Gerhard, looking troubled and distrait, did not quiet them. We darted away, out along the lake front, past the toll gate, to the bayroad stretching its flawless length along the water's side. It was alivewith swift-moving motor cars swarming like twentieth-century pilgrimstoward the mecca of cool breezes and comfort. There were proudlimousines; comfortable family cars; trim little roadsters; noisyrunabouts. Not a hoof-beat was to be heard. It was as though thehorseless age had indeed descended upon the world. There was only a hum, a rush, a roar, as car after car swept on. 

Summer homes nestled among the trees near the lake. Through the branchesone caught occasional gleams of silvery water. The rush of cool airfanned my hot forehead, tousled my hair, slid down between my collar andthe back of my neck, and I was grandly content. 

"Even though you are going to sail away, and even though you have thegrumps, and refuse to talk, and scowl like a jabberwock, this is anextremely nice world. You can't spoil it. "

"Behute!" Von Gerhard's tone was solemn. 

"Would you be faintly interested in knowing that the book is finished?"

"So? That is well. You were wearing yourself thin over it. It was thenquickly perfected. "

"Perfected!" I groaned. "I turn cold when I think of it. The lastchapters got away from me completely. They lacked the punch. "

Von Gerhard considered that a moment, as I wickedly had intended that heshould. Then--"The punch? What is that then--the punch?"

Obligingly I elucidated. "A book may be written in flawless style, witha plot, and a climax, and a lot of little side surprises. But if itlacks that peculiar and convincing quality poetically known as thepunch, it might as well never have been written. It can never be asix-best-seller, neither will it live as a classic. You will never seeit advertised on the book review page of the Saturday papers, norwill the man across the aisle in the street car be so absorbed in itscontents that he will be taken past his corner. "

Von Gerhard looked troubled. "But the literary value? Does that notenter--"

"I don't aim to contribute to the literary uplift, " I assured him. "All my life I have cherished two ambitions. One of them is to writea successful book, and the other to learn to whistle through myteeth--this way, you know, as the gallery gods do it. I am almostdespairing of the whistle, but I still have hopes of the book. "

Whereupon Von Gerhard, after a moment's stiff surprise, gave vent to oneof his heartwarming roars. 

"Thanks, " said I. "Now tell me the important news. "

His face grew serious in an instant. "Not yet, Dawn. Later. Let us hearmore about the book. Not so flippant, however, small one. The time ispast when you can deceive me with your nonsense. "

"Surely you would not have me take myself seriously! That's another debtI owe my Irish forefathers. They could laugh--bless 'em!--in the veryteeth of a potato crop failure. And let me tell you, that takes somesense of humor. The book is my potato crop. If it fails it will meanthat I must keep on drudging, with a knot or two taken in my belt. ButI'll squeeze a smile out of the corner of my mouth, somehow. And if itsucceeds! Oh, Ernst, if it succeeds!"

"Then, Kindchen?"

"Then it means that I may have a little thin layer of jam on my breadand butter. It won't mean money--at least, I don't think it will. Afirst book never does. But it will mean a future. It will mean that Iwill have something solid to stand on. It will be a real beginning--abreathing spell--time in which to accomplish something really worthwhile--independence--freedom from this tread-mill--"

"Stop!" cried Von Gerhard, sharply. Then, as I stared in surprise--"Ido ask your pardon. I was again rude, nicht wahr? But in me there is aqueer vein of German superstition that disapproves of air castles. Sicheinbilden, we call it. "

The lights of the bay pavilion twinkled just ahead. The green car pokedits nose up the path between rows of empty machines. At last it drew up, panting, before a vacant space between an imposing, scarlet touring carand a smart, cream-colored runabout. We left it there and walked up thelight-flooded path. 

Inside the great, barn-like structure that did duty as pavilion glassesclinked, chairs scraped on the wooden floor; a burst of music followeda sharp fusillade of applause. Through the open doorway could be seen acompany of Tyrolese singers in picturesque costumes of scarlet and greenand black. The scene was very noisy, and very bright, and very German. 

"Not in there, eh?" said Von Gerhard, as though divining my wish. "It istoo brightly lighted, and too noisy. We will find a table out here underthe trees, where the music is softened by the distance, and our eyes arenot offended by the ugliness of the singers. But inexcusably ugly theyare, these Tyrolese women. "

We found a table within the glow of the pavilion's lights, but stillso near the lake that we could hear the water lapping the shore. Acadaverous, sandy-haired waiter brought things to eat, and we made braveefforts to appear hungry and hearty, but my high spirits were ebbingfast, and Von Gerhard was frankly distraught. One of the women singersappeared suddenly in the doorway of the pavilion, then stole down thesteps, and disappeared in the shadow of the trees beyond our table. The voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There was a moment's hushedsilence. Then, from the shadow of the trees came a woman's voice, clear, strong, flexible, flooding the night with the bird-like trill of themountain yodel. The sound rose and fell, and swelled and soared. Asilence. Then, in a great burst of melody the chorus of voices withinthe pavilion answered the call. Again a silence. Again the wonder of thewoman's voice flooded the stillness, ending in a note higher, clearer, sweeter than any that had gone before. Then the little Tyrolese, hermoment of glory ended, sped into the light of the noisy pavilion again. 

When I turned to Von Gerhard my eyes were wet. "I shall have that toremember, when you are gone. "

Von Gerhard beckoned the hovering waiter. "Take these things away. Andyou need not return. " He placed something in the man's palm--somethingthat caused a sudden whisking away of empty dishes, and many obsequiousbows. 

Von Gerhard's face was turned away from me, toward the beauty of thelake and sky. Now, as the last flirt of the waiter's apron vanishedaround the corner he turned his head slowly, and I saw that in his eyeswhich made me catch my breath with apprehension. 

"What is it?" I cried. "Norah? Max? The children?"

He shook his head. "They are well, so far, as I know. I--perhaps firstI should tell you--although this is not the thing which I have to say toyou--"

"Yes?" I urged him on, impatiently. I had never seen him like this. 

"I do not sail this week. I shall not be with Gluck in Vienna this year. I shall stay here. "

"Here! Why? Surely--"

"Because I shall be needed here, Dawn. Because I cannot leave you now. You will need--some one--a friend--"

I stared at him with eyes that were wide with terror, waiting for I knewnot what. 

"Need--some one--for--what?" I stammered. "Why should you--"

In the kindly shadow of the trees Von Gerhard's hands took my icy ones, and held them in a close clasp of encouragement. 

"Norah is coming to be with you--"

"Norah! Why? Tell me at once! At once!"

"Because Peter Orme has been sent home--cured, " said he. 

The lights of the pavilion fell away, and advanced, and swung about in agreat sickening circle. I shut my eyes. The lights still swung before myeyes. Von Gerhard leaned toward me with a word of alarm. I clung to hishands with all my strength. 

"No!" I said, and the savage voice was not my own. "No! No! No! Itisn't true! It isn't--Oh, it's some joke, isn't it? Tell me, it's--it'ssomething funny, isn't it? And after a bit we'll laugh--we'll laugh--ofcourse--see! I am smiling already--"

"Dawn--dear one--it is true. God knows I wish that I could be happy toknow it. The hospital authorities pronounce him cured. He has been quitesane for weeks. "

"You knew it--how long?"

"You know that Max has attended to all communications from the doctorsthere. A few weeks ago they wrote that Orme had shown evidences ofrecovery. He spoke of you, of the people he had known in New York, ofhis work on the paper, all quite rationally and calmly. But they mustfirst be sure. Max went to New York a week ago. Peter was gone. Thehospital authorities were frightened and apologetic. Peter had walkedaway quite coolly one day. He had gone into the city, borrowed money ofsome old newspaper cronies, and vanished. He may be there still. He maybe--"

"Here! Ernst! Take me home! O God; I can't do it! I can't! I ought tobe happy, but I'm not. I ought to be thankful, but I'm not, I'm not! Thehorror of having him there was great enough, but it was nothing comparedto the horror of having him here. I used to dream that he was wellagain, and that he was searching for me, and the dreadful realness of itused to waken me, and I would find myself shivering with terror. OnceI dreamed that I looked up from my desk to find him standing in thedoorway, smiling that mirthless smile of his, and I heard him say, inhis mocking way: 'Hello, Dawn my love; looking wonderfully well. Grasswidowhood agrees with you, eh?'"

"Dawn, you must not laugh like that. Come, we will go. You areshivering! Don't, dear, don't. See, you have Norah, and Max, and me tohelp you. We will put him on his feet. Physically he is not what heshould be. I can do much for him. "

"You!" I cried, and the humor of it was too exquisite for laughter. 

"For that I gave up Vienna, " said Von Gerhard, simply. "You, too, mustdo your share. "

"My share! I have done my share. He was in the gutter, and he wasdragging me with him. When his insanity came upon him I thanked God forit, and struggled up again. Even Norah never knew what that strugglewas. Whatever I am, I am in spite of him. I tell you I could hug mywidow's weeds. Ten years ago he showed me how horrible and unclean athing can be made of this beautiful life. I was a despairing, coweringgirl of twenty then--I am a woman now, happy in her work, her friends;growing broader and saner in thought, quicker to appreciate the finerthings in life. And now--what?"

They were dashing off a rollicking folk-song indoors. When it wasfinished there came a burst of laughter and the sharp spat of applaudinghands, and shouts of approbation. The sounds seemed seared upon mybrain. I rose and ran down the path toward the waiting machine. Therein the darkness I buried my shamed face in my hands and prayed for thetears that would not come. 

It seemed hours before I heard Von Gerhard's firm, quick tread upon thegravel path. He moved about the machine, adjusting this and that, thentook his place at the wheel without a word. We glided out upon thesmooth white road. All the loveliness of the night seemed to havevanished. Only the ugly, distorted shadows remained. The terror ofuncertainty gripped me. I could not endure the sight of Von Gerhard'sstern, set face. I grasped his arm suddenly so that the machine veeredand darted across the road. With a mighty wrench Von Gerhard righted it. He stopped the machine at the road-side. 

"Careful, Kindchen, " he said, gravely. 

"Ernst, " I said, and my breath came quickly, chokingly, as though I hadbeen running fast, "Ernst, I can't do it. I'm not big enough. I can't. I hate him, I tell you, I hate him! My life is my own. I've made itwhat it is, in the face of a hundred temptations; in spite of a hundredpitfalls. I can't lay it down again for Peter Orme to trample. Ernst, ifyou love me, take me away now. To Vienna--anywhere--only don't ask me totake up my life with him again. I can't--I can't--"

"Love you?" repeated Ernst, slowly, "yes. Too well--"

"Too well--"

"Yes, too well for that, Gott sei dank, small one. Too well for that. "

CHAPTER XVIII. PETER ORME

A man's figure rose from the shadows of the porch and came forward tomeet us as we swung up to the curbing. I stifled a scream in my throat. As I shrank back into the seat I heard the quick intake of Von Gerhard'sbreath as he leaned forward to peer into the darkness. A sick dread cameupon me. 

"Sa-a-ay, girl, " drawled the man's voice, with a familiar littlecackling laugh in it, "sa-a-ay, girl, the policeman on th' beat's got mespotted for a suspicious character. I been hoofin' it up an' down thisblock like a distracted mamma waitin' for her daughter t' come home froma boat ride. "

"Blackie! It's only you!"

"Thanks, flatterer, " simpered Blackie, coming to the edge of the walk asI stepped from the automobile. "Was you expectin' the landlady?"

"I don't know just whom I expected. I--I'm nervous, I think, and youstartled me. Dr. Von Gerhard was taken back for a moment, weren't you, Doctor?"

Von Gerhard laughed ruefully. "Frankly, yes. It is not early. Andvisitors at this hour--"

"What in the world is it, Blackie?" I put in. "Don't tell me thatNorberg has been seized with one of his fiendish inspirations at thistime of night. "

Blackie struck a match and held it for an instant so that the flareof it illuminated his face as he lighted his cigarette. There was nolaughter in the deep-set black eyes. 

"What is it Blackie?" I asked again. The horror of what Von Gerhard hadtold me made the prospect of any lesser trial a welcome relief. 

"I got t' talk to you for a minute. P'raps Von Gerhard 'd better hearit, too. I telephoned you an hour ago. Tried to get you out to the bay. Waited here ever since. Got a parlor, or somethin', where a guy cantalk?"

I led the way indoors. The first floor seemed deserted. The bare, unfriendly boarding-house parlor was unoccupied, and one dim gas jet didduty as illumination. 

"Bring in the set pieces, " muttered Blackie, as he turned two more gasjets flaring high. "This parlor just yells for a funeral. "

Von Gerhard was frowning. "Mrs. Orme is not well, " he began. "She hashad a shock--some startling news concerning--"

"Her husband?" inquired Blackie, coolly. I started up with a cry. "Howcould you know?"

A look of relief came into Blackie's face. "That helps a little. Nowlisten, kid. An' w'en I get through, remember I'm there with the littlehelpin' mitt. Have a cigarette, Doc?"

"No, " said Von Gerhard, shortly. 

Blackie's strange black eyes were fastened on my face, and I saw anexpression of pity in their depths as he began to talk. 

"I was up at the Press Club to-night. Dropped in for a minute or two, like I always do on the rounds. The place sounded kind of still when Icome up the steps, and I wondered where all the boys was. Looked intothe billiard room--nothin' doin'. Poked my head in at the writin'room--same. Ambled into the readin' room--empty. Well, I steered for thedining room, an' there was the bunch. An' just as I come in they give aroar, and I started to investigate. Up against the fireplace, with onehand in his pocket, and the other hanging careless like on the mantel, stood a man--stranger t' me. He was talkin' kind of low, and quick, bitin' off his words like a Englishman. An' the boys, they was starin'with their eyes, an' their mouths, and forgettin' t' smoke, an' lettin'their pipes an' cigars go dead in their hands, while he talked. Talk!Sa-a-ay, girl, that guy, he could talk the leads right out of a ruled, locked form. I didn't catch his name. Tall, thin, unearthly lookin'chap, with the whitest teeth you ever saw, an' eyes--well, his eyes wassomethin' like a lighted pipe with a little fine ash over the red, justwaitin' for a sudden pull t' make it glow. "

"Peter!" I moaned, and buried my face in my hands. Von Gerhard put aquick hand on my arm. But I shook it off. "I'm not going to faint, " Isaid, through set teeth. "I'm not going to do anything silly. I want tothink. I want to. . . Go on, Blackie. "

"Just a minute, " interrupted Von Gerhard. "Does he know where Mrs. Ormeis living?"

"I'm coming t' that, " returned Blackie, tranquilly. "Though for Dawn'ssake I'll say right here he don't know. I told him later, that she wastakin' a vacation up at her folks' in Michigan. "

"Thank God!" I breathed. 

"Wore a New York Press Club button, this guy did. I asked one of theboys standin' on the outer edge of the circle what the fellow's namewas, but he only says: 'Shut up Black! An' listen. He's seen every darnthing in the world. ' Well, I listened. He wasn't braggin'. He wasn'ttalkin' big. He was just talkin'. Seems like he'd been war correspondentin the Boer war, and the Spanish-American, an' Gawd knows where. Hespoke low, not usin' any big words, either, an' I thought his eyeslooked somethin' like those of the Black Cat up on the mantel just overhis head--you know what I mean, when the electric lights is turnedon in-inside{sic} the ugly thing. Well, every time he showed signs ofstoppin', one of the boys would up with a question, and start him goin'again. He knew everybody, an' everything, an' everywhere. All ofa sudden one of the boys points to the Roosevelt signature on thewall--the one he scrawled up there along with all the other celebritiesfirst time he was entertained by the Press Club boys. Well this guy, helooked at the name for a minute. 'Roosevelt?' he says, slow. 'Oh, yes. Seems t' me I've heard of him. ' Well, at that the boys yelled. Thoughtit was a good joke, seein' that Ted had been smeared all over the firstpage of everything for years. But kid, I seen th' look in that man'seyes when he said it, and he wasn't jokin', girl. An' it came t' me, allof a sudden, that all the things he'd been talkin' about had happenedalmost ten years back. After he'd made that break about Roosevelt hekind of shut up, and strolled over to the piano and began t' play. Youknow that bum old piano, with half a dozen dead keys, and no tune?"

I looked up for a moment. "He could make you think that it was a concertgrand, couldn't he? He hasn't forgotten even that?"

"Forgotten? Girl, I don't know what his accomplishments was when youknew him, but if he was any more fascinatin' than he is now, then I'mglad I didn't know him. He could charm the pay envelope away from areporter that was Saturday broke. Somethin' seemed t' urge me t' go upt' him an' say: 'Have a game of billiards?'

"'Don't care if I do, ' says he, and swung his long legs off the pianostool and we made for the billiard room, with the whole gang after us. Sa-a-ay, girl, I'm a modest violet, I am, but I don't mind mentionin'that the general opinion up at the club is that I'm a little wizard withthe cue. Well, w'en he got through with me I looked like little sisterwhen big brother is tryin' t' teach her how to hold the cue in herfingers. He just sent them balls wherever he thought they'd look pretty. I bet if he'd held up his thumb and finger an' said, 'jump throughthis!' them balls would of jumped. "

Von Gerhard took a couple of quick steps in Blackie's direction. Hiseyes were blue steel. 

"Is this then necessary?" he asked. "All this leads to what? Has notMrs. Orme suffered enough, that she should undergo this idle chatter?It is sufficient that she knows this--this man is here. It is a time foraction, not for words. "

"Action's comin' later, Doc, " drawled Blackie, looking impish. "Monologuin' ain't my specialty. I gener'ly let the other gink talk. Younever can learn nothin' by talkin'. But I got somethin' t' say t' Dawnhere. Now, in case you're bored the least bit, w'y don't hesitate oneminnit t'--"

"Na, you are quite right, and I was hasty, " said Von Gerhard, and hiseyes, with the kindly gleam in them, smiled down upon the little man. "It is only that both you and I are over-anxious to be of assistance tothis unhappy lady. Well, we shall see. You talked with this man at thePress Club?"

"He talked. I listened. "

"That would be Peter's way, " I said, bitterly. "How he used to love tohold forth, and how I grew to long for blessed silence--for fewer words, and more of that reserve which means strength!"

"All this time, " continued Blackie, "I didn't know his name. When we'dfinished our game of billiards he hung up his cue, and then he turnedaround like lightning, and faced the boys that were standing around withtheir hands in their pockets. He had a odd little smile on his face--asmile with no fun it, if you know what I mean. Guess you do, maybe, ifyou've seen it. 

"'Boys, ' says he, smilin' that twisted kind of smile, 'boys, I'm lookin'for a job. I'm not much of a talker, an' I'm only a amateur at music, and my game of billiards is ragged. But there's one thing I can do, fellows, from abc up to xyz, and that's write. I can write, boys, in away to make your pet little political scribe sound like a high schoolpaper. I don't promise to stick. As soon as I get on my feet again I'mgoing back to New York. But not just yet. Meanwhile, I'm going to thehighest bidder. '

"Well, you know since Merkle left us we haven't had a day when we wasn'tscooped on some political guff. 'I guess we can use you--some place, ' Isays, tryin' not t' look too anxious. If your ideas on salary can take aslump be tween New York and Milwaukee. Our salaries around here is morewhat is elegantly known as a stipend. What's your name, Bo?'

"'Name?' says he, smiling again, 'Maybe it'll be familiar t' you. Thatis, it will if my wife is usin' it. Orme's my name--Peter Orme. Know alady of that name? Good. '

"I hadn't said I did, but those eyes of his had seen the look on myface. 

"'Friends in New York told me she was here, ' he says. 'Where is she now?Got her address?' he says. 

"'She expectin' you?' I asked. 

"'N-not exactly, ' he says, with that crooked grin. 

"'Thought not, ' I answered, before I knew what I was sayin'. 'She's upnorth with her folks on a vacation. '

"'The devil she is!' he says. 'Well, in that case can you let me haveten until Monday?'"

Blackie came over to me as I sat cowering in my chair. He patted myshoulder with one lean brown hand. "Now kid, you dig, see? Beat it. Gohome for a week. I'll fix it up with Norberg. No tellin' what a guy likethat's goin' t' do. Send your brother-in-law down here if you want tomake it a family affair, and between us, we'll see this thing through. "

I looked up at Von Gerhard. He was nodding approval. It all seemed soeasy, so temptingly easy. To run away! Not to face him until I wassafe in the shelter of Norah's arms! I stood up, resolve lending me newstrength and courage. 

"I am going. I know it isn't brave, but I can't be brave any longer. I'mtoo tired--too old--"

I grasped the hand of each of those men who had stood by me so staunchlyin the year that was past. The words of thanks that I had on my lipsended in dry, helpless sobs. And because Blackie and Von Gerhard lookedso pathetically concerned and so unhappy in my unhappiness my sobschanged to hysterical laughter, in which the two men joined, after onemoment's bewildered staring. 

So it was that we did not hear the front door slam, or the sound offootsteps in the hall. Our overstrained nerves found relief in laughter, so that Peter Orme, a lean, ominous figure in the doorway looked in upona merry scene. 

I was the first to see him. And at the sight of the emaciated figure, with its hollow cheeks and its sunken eyes all terror and hatred leftme, and I felt only a great pity for this wreck of manhood. Slowly Iwent up to him there in the doorway. 

"Well, Peter?" I said. 

"Well, Dawn old girl, " said he "you're looking wonderfully fit. Grasswidowhood seems to agree with you, eh?"

And I knew then that my dread dream had come true. 

Peter advanced into the room with his old easy grace of manner. His eyesglowed as he looked at Blackie. Then he laughed, showing his even, whiteteeth. "Why, you little liar!" he said, in his crisp, clear English. "I've a notion to thwack you. What d' you mean by telling me my wife'sgone? You're not sweet on her yourself, eh?"

Von Gerhard stifled an exclamation, and Orme turned quickly in hisdirection. "Who are you?" he asked. "Still another admirer? Jollytime you were having when I interrupted. " He stared at Von Gerharddeliberately and coolly. A little frown of dislike came into his face. "You're a doctor, aren't you? I knew it. I can tell by the hands, andthe eyes, and the skin, and the smell. Lived with 'em for ten years, damn them! Dawn, tell these fellows they're excused, will you? And bythe way, you don't seem very happy to see me?"

I went up to him then, and laid my hand on his arm. "Peter, you don'tunderstand. These two gentlemen have been all that is kind to me. I amhappy to know that you are well again. Surely you do not expect me to bejoyful at seeing you. All that pretense was left out of our lives longbefore your--illness. It hasn't been all roses for me since then, Peter. I've worked until I wanted to die with weariness. You know what thisnewspaper game is for a woman. It doesn't grow easier as she grows olderand tireder. "

"Oh, cut out the melodrama, Dawn, " sneered Peter. "Have either of youfellows the makin's about you? Thanks. I'm famished for a smoke. "

The worrying words of ten years ago rose automatically to my lips. "Aren't you smoking too much, Peter?" The tone was that of a harassedwife. 

Peter stared. Then he laughed his short, mirthless little laugh. "ByJove! Dawn, I believe you're as much my wife now as you were ten yearsago. I always said, you know, that you would have become a first-classnagger if you hadn't had such a keen sense of humor. That saved you. " Heturned his mocking eyes to Von Gerhard. "Doesn't it beat the devil, howthese good women stick to a man, once they're married! There's a certaindog-like devotion about it that's touching. "

There was a dreadful little silence. For the first time in my knowledgeof him I saw a hot, painful red dyeing Blackie's sallow face. His eyeshad a menace in their depths. Then, very quietly, Von Gerhard steppedforward and stopped directly before me. 

"Dawn, " he said, very softly and gently, "I retract my statement of anhour ago. If you will give me another chance to do as you asked me, Ishall thank God for it all my life. There is no degradation in that. Tolive with this man--that is degradation. And I say you shall not sufferit. "

I looked up into his face, and it had never seemed so dear to me. "Thetime for that is past, " I said, my tone as calm and even as his own. "Aman like you cannot burden himself with a derelict like me--mast gone, sails gone, water-logged, drifting. Five years from now you'll thankme for what I am saying now. My place is with this other wreck--tossedabout by wind and weather until we both go down together. " There came asharp, insistent ring at the door-bell. No answering sound came from theregions above stairs. The ringing sounded again, louder than before. 

"I'll be the Buttons, " said Blackie, and disappeared into the hallway. 

"Oh, yes, I've heard about you, " came to our ears a moment later, in ahigh, clear voice--a dear, beloved voice that sent me flying to the doorin an agony of hope. 

"Norah!" I cried, "Norah! Norah! Norah!" And as her blessed arms closedabout me the tears that had been denied me before came in a torrent ofjoy. 

"There, there!" murmured she, patting my shoulder with those comfortingmother-pats. "What's all this about? And why didn't somebody meet me? Itelegraphed. You didn't get it? Well, I forgive you. Howdy-do, Peter?I suppose you are Peter. I hope you haven't been acting devilish again. That seems to be your specialty. Now don't smile that Mephistopheliansmile at me. It doesn't frighten me. Von Gerhard, take him down to hishotel. I'm dying for my kimono and bed. And this child is tremblinglike a race-horse. Now run along, all of you. Things that lookgreenery-yallery at night always turn pink in the morning. GreatHeavens! There's somebody calling down from the second-floor landing. It sounds like a landlady. Run, Dawn, and tell her your perfectlyrespectable sister has come. Peter! Von Gerhard! Mr. Blackie! Shoo!"

CHAPTER XIX. A TURN OF THE WHEEL

"You who were ever alert to befriend a man You who were ever the firstto defend a man, You who had always the money to lend a man Down on hisluck and hard up for a V, Sure you'll be playing a harp in beatitude(And a quare sight you will be in that attitude) Some day, wheregratitude seems but a platitude, You'll find your latitude. "

From my desk I could see Peter standing in the doorway of the newseditor's room. I shut my eyes for a moment. Then I opened them again, quickly. No, it was not a dream. He was there, a slender, graceful, hateful figure, with the inevitable cigarette in his unsteadyfingers--the expensive-looking, gold-tipped cigarette of the old days. Peter was Peter. Ten years had made little difference. There were queerlittle hollow places in his cheeks, and under the jaw-bone, and at thebase of the head, and a flabby, parchment-like appearance about theskin. That was all that made him different from the Peter of the olddays. 

The thing had adjusted itself, as Norah had said it would. The situationthat had filled me with loathing and terror the night of Peter's returnhad been transformed into quite a matter-of-fact and commonplace affairunder Norah's deft management. And now I was back in harness again, andPeter was turning out brilliant political stuff at spasmodic intervals. He was not capable of any sustained effort. He never would be again;that was plain. He was growing restless and dissatisfied. He spokeof New York as though it were Valhalla. He said that he hadn't seen apretty girl since he left Forty-second street. He laughed at Milwaukee'squaint German atmosphere. He sneered at our journalistic methods, andcalled the newspapers "country sheets, " and was forever talking of theWorld, and the Herald, and the Sun, until the men at the Press Clubfought shy of him. Norah had found quiet and comfortable quartersfor Peter in a boarding-house near the lake, and just a square or twodistant from my own boarding-house. He hated it cordially, as only theluxury-loving can hate a boarding-house, and threatened to leave daily. 

"Let's go back to the big town, Dawn, old girl, " he would say. "We'reburied alive in this overgrown Dutch village. I came here in the firstplace on your account. Now it's up to you to get me out of it. Think ofwhat New York means! Think of what I've been! And I can write as well asever. "

But I always shook my head. "We would not last a month in New York, Peter. New York has hurried on and left us behind. We're just two piecesof discard. We'll have to be content where we are. "

"Content! In this silly hole! You must be mad!" Then, with one of hisunaccountable changes of tone and topic, "Dawn, let me have somemoney. I'm strapped. If I had the time I'd get out some magazine stuff. Anything to get a little extra coin. Tell me, how does that littlesport you call Blackie happen to have so much ready cash? I've never yetstruck him for a loan that he hasn't obliged me. I think he's sweet onyou, perhaps, and thinks he's doing you a sort of second-hand favor. "

At times such as these all the old spirit that I had thought dead withinme would rise up in revolt against this creature who was taking, fromme my pride, my sense of honor, my friends. I never saw Von Gerhard now. Peter had refused outright to go to him for treatment, saying that hewasn't going to be poisoned by any cursed doctor, particularly not byone who had wanted to run away with his wife before his very eyes. 

Sometimes I wondered how long this could go on. I thought of the olddays with the Nirlangers; of Alma Pflugel's rose-encircled cottage;of Bennie; of the Knapfs; of the good-natured, uncouth aborigines, and their many kindnesses. I saw these dear people rarely now. FrauNirlanger's resignation to her unhappiness only made me rebel morekeenly against my own. 

If only Peter could become well and strong again, I told myself, bitterly. If it were not for those blue shadows under his eyes, and theshrunken muscles, and the withered skin, I could leave him to livehis life as he saw fit. But he was as dependent as a child, and ascapricious. What was the end to be? I asked myself. Where was it allleading me?

And then, in a fearful and wonderful manner, my question was answered. 

There came to my desk one day an envelope bearing the letter-head ofthe publishing house to which I had sent my story. I balanced it for amoment in my fingers, woman-fashion, wondering, hoping, surmising. 

"Of course they can't want it, " I told myself, in preparation for anydisappointment that was in store for me. "They're sending it back. Thisis the letter that will tell me so. "

And then I opened it. The words jumped out at me from the typewrittenpage. I crushed the paper in my hands, and rushed into Blackie's littleoffice as I had been used to doing in the old days. He was at his desk, pipe in mouth. I shook his shoulder and flourished the letter wildly, and did a crazy little dance about his chair. 

"They want it! They like it! Not only that, they want another, as soonas I can get it out. Think of it!"

Blackie removed his pipe from between his teeth and wiped his lips withthe back of his hand. "I'm thinkin', " he said. "Anything t' obligeyou. When you're through shovin' that paper into my face would you mindexplainin' who wants what?"

"Oh, you're so stupid! So slow! Can't you see that I've written a reallive book, and had it accepted, and that I am going to write another ifI have to run away from a whole regiment of husbands to do it properly?Blackie, can't you see what it means! Oh, Blackie, I know I'm maudlinin my joy, but forgive me. It's been so long since I've had the taste ofit. "

"Well, take a good chew while you got th'chance an' don't count too highon this first book business. I knew a guy who wrote a book once, an' heplanned to take a trip to Europe on it, and build a house when he gothome, and maybe a yacht or so, if he wasn't too rushed. Sa-a-ay, girl, w'en he got through gettin' those royalties for that book they'ddwindled down to fresh wall paper for the dinin'-room, and a new gasstove for his wife, an' not enough left over to take a trolley trip toOshkosh on. Don't count too high. "

"I'm not counting at all, Blackie, and you can't discourage me. "

"Don't want to. But I'd hate to see you come down with a thud. " Suddenlyhe sat up and a grin overspread his thin face. "Tell you what we'll do, girlie. We'll celebrate. Maybe it'll be the last time. Let's pretendthis is six months ago, and everything's serene. You get your bonnet. I'll get the machine. It's too hot to work, anyway. We'll take a spinout to somewhere that's cool, and we'll order cold things to eat, andcold things to drink, and you can talk about yourself till you're tired. You'll have to take it out on somebody, an' it might as well be me. "

Five minutes later, with my hat in my hand, I turned to find Peter at myelbow. 

"Want to talk to you, " he said, frowning. 

"Sorry, Peter, but I can't stop. Won't it do later?"

"No. Got an assignment? I'll go with you. "

"N-not exactly, Peter. The truth is, Blackie has taken pity on me andhas promised to take me out for a spin, just to cool off. It has been soinsufferably hot. "

Peter turned away. "Count me in on that, " he said, over his shoulder. 

"But I can't, Peter, " I cried. "It isn't my party. And anyway--"

Peter turned around, and there was an ugly glow in his eyes and an uglylook on his face, and a little red ridge that I had not noticed beforeseemed to burn itself across his forehead. "And anyway, you don't wantme, eh? Well, I'm going. I'm not going to have my wife chasing all overthe country with strange men. Remember, you're not the giddy grass widdyyou used to be. You can take me, or stay at home, understand?"

His voice was high-pitched and quavering. Something in his manner strucka vague terror to my heart. "Why, Peter, if you care that much I shallbe glad to have you go. So will Blackie, I am sure. Come, we'll go downnow. He'll be waiting for us. "

Blackie's keen, clever mind grasped the situation as soon as he saw ustogether. His dark face was illumined by one of his rare smiles. "Comingwith us, Orme? Do you good. Pile into the tonneau, you two, and hang onto your hair. I'm going to smash the law. "

Peter sauntered up to the steering-wheel. "Let me drive, " he said. "I'mnot bad at it. "

"Nix with the artless amateur, " returned Blackie. "This ain't nodemonstration car. I drive my own little wagon when I go riding, and Iintend to until I take my last ride, feet first. "

Peter muttered something surly and climbed into the front seat next toBlackie, leaving me to occupy the tonneau in solitary state. 

Peter began to ask questions--dozens of them, which Blackie answered, patiently and fully. I could not hear all that they said, but I sawthat Peter was urging Blackie to greater speed, and that Blackie wasexplaining that he must first leave the crowded streets behind. SuddenlyPeter made a gesture in the direction of the wheel, and said somethingin a high, sharp voice. Blackie's answer was quick and decidedly inthe negative. The next instant Peter Orme rose in his place and leaningforward and upward, grasped the wheel that was in Blackie's hands. Thecar swerved sickeningly. I noticed, dully, that Blackie did not go whiteas novelists say men do in moments of horror. A dull red flush crept tothe very base of his neck. With a twist of his frail body he tried tothrow off Peter's hands. I remember leaning over the back of the seatand trying to pull Peter back as I realized that it was a madman withwhom we were dealing. Nothing seemed real. It was ridiculously like thethings one sees in the moving picture theaters. I felt no fear. 

"Sit down, Orme!" Blackie yelled. "You'll ditch us! Dawn! God!--"

We shot down a little hill. Two wheels were lifted from the ground. Themachine was poised in the air for a second before it crashed into theditch and turned over completely, throwing me clear, but burying Blackieand Peter under its weight of steel and wood and whirring wheels. 

I remember rising from the ground, and sinking back again and risingonce more to run forward to where the car lay in the ditch, and tuggingat that great frame of steel with crazy, futile fingers. Then I ranscreaming down the road toward a man who was tranquilly working in afield nearby. 

CHAPTER XX. BLACKIE'S VACATION COMES

The shabby blue office coat hangs on the hook in the little sportingroom where Blackie placed it. No one dreams of moving it. There itdangles, out at elbows, disreputable, its pockets burned from many a hotpipe thrust carelessly into them, its cuffs frayed, its lapels bearingthe marks of cigarette, paste-pot and pen. 

It is that faded old garment, more than anything else, which makesus fail to realize that its owner will never again slip into itscomfortable folds. We cannot believe that a lifeless rag like that cantriumph over the man of flesh and blood and nerves and sympathies. Withwhat contempt do we look upon those garments during our lifetime! Andhow they live on, defying time, long, long after we have been gatheredto our last rest. 

In some miraculous manner Blackie had lived on for two days after thatghastly ride. Peter had been killed instantly, the doctors said. Theygave no hope for Blackie. My escape with but a few ridiculous bruisesand scratches was due, they said, to the fact that I had sat in thetonneau. I heard them all, in a stupor of horror and grief, and wonderedwhat plan Fate had in store for me, that I alone should have beenspared. Norah and Max came, and took things in charge, and I saw VonGerhard, but all three appeared dim and shadowy, like figures in a mist. When I closed my eyes I could see Peter's tense figure bending overBlackie at the wheel, and heard his labored breathing as he struggled inhis mad fury, and felt again the helpless horror that had come to me aswe swerved off the road and into the ditch below, with Blackie, rigidand desperate, still clinging to the wheel. I lived it all over andover in my mind. In the midst of the blackness I heard a sentence thatcleared the fog from my mind, and caused me to raise myself from mypillows. 

Some one--Norah, I think--had said that Blackie was conscious, and thathe was asking for some of the men at the office, and for me. For me! Irose and dressed, in spite of Norah's protests. I was quite well, I toldthem. I must see him. I shook them off with trembling fingers and whenthey saw that I was quite determined they gave in, and Von Gerhardtelephoned to the hospital to learn the hour at which I might meet theothers who were to see Blackie for a brief moment. 

I met them in the stiff little waiting room of he hospital--Norberg, Deming, Schmidt, Holt--men who had known him from the time when theyhad yelled, "Heh, boy!" at him when they wanted their pencils sharpened. Awkwardly we followed the fleet-footed nurse who glided ahead of usdown the wide hospital corridors, past doorways through which we caughtglimpses of white beds that were no whiter than the faces that lay onthe pillows. We came at last into a very still and bright little roomwhere Blackie lay. 

Had years passed over his head since I saw him last? The face that triedto smile at us from the pillow was strangely wizened and old. It was asthough a withering blight had touched it. Only the eyes were the same. They glowed in the sunken face, beneath the shock of black hair, with astartling luster and brilliancy. 

I do not know what pain he suffered. I do not know what magic medicinegave him the strength to smile at us, dying as he was even then. 

"Well, what do you know about little Paul Dombey?" he piped in a high, thin voice. The shock of relief was too much. We giggled hysterically, then stopped short and looked at each other, like scared and naughtychildren. 

"Sa-a-ay, boys and girls, cut out the heavy thinking parts. Don't makeme do all the social stunts. What's the news? What kind of a rottencotton sportin' sheet is that dub Callahan gettin' out? Who wonto-day--Cubs or Pirates? Norberg, you goat, who pinned that purple tieon you?"

He was so like the Blackie we had always known that we were at our easeimmediately. The sun shone in at the window, and some one laughed alittle laugh somewhere down the corridor, and Deming, who is Irish, plunged into a droll description of a brand-new office boy who hadarrived that day. 

"S'elp me, Black, the kid wears spectacles and a Norfolk suit, andlow-cut shoes with bows on 'em. On the square he does. Looks like one ofthose Boston infants you see in the comic papers. I don't believe he'sreal. We're saving him until you get back, if the kids in the alleydon't chew him up before that time. "

An almost imperceptible shade passed over Blackie's face. He closed hiseyes for a moment. Without their light his countenance was ashen, andawful. 

A nurse in stripes and cap appeared in the doorway. She looked keenly atthe little figure in the bed. Then she turned to us. 

"You must go now, " she said. "You were just to see him for a minute ortwo, you know. "

Blackie summoned the wan ghost of a smile to his lips. "Guess you guysain't got th' stimulatin' effect that a bunch of live wires ought tohave. Say, Norberg, tell that fathead, Callahan, if he don't keep thethird drawer t' the right in my desk locked, th' office kids'll swipeall the roller rink passes surest thing you know. "

"I'll--tell him, Black, " stammered Norberg, and turned away. 

They said good-by, awkwardly enough. Not one of them that did not owehim an unpayable debt of gratitude. Not one that had not the memory ofsome secret kindness stored away in his heart. It was Blackie who hadfurnished the money that had sent Deming's sick wife west. It hadbeen Blackie who had rescued Schmidt time and again when drink got astrangle-hold. Blackie had always said: "Fire Schmidt! Not much! Why, Schmidt writes better stuff drunk than all the rest of the bunch sober. "And Schmidt would be granted another reprieve by the Powers that Were. 

Suddenly Blackie beckoned the nurse in the doorway. She came swiftly andbent over him. 

"Gimme two minutes more, that's a good nursie. There's something I wantto say t' this dame. It's de rigger t' hand out last messages, ain'tit?"

The nurse looked at me, doubtfully. "But you're not to excite yourself. "

"Sa-a-ay, girl, this ain't goin' t' be no scene from East Lynne. Be agood kid. The rest of the bunch can go. "

And so, when the others had gone, I found myself seated at the side ofhis bed, trying to smile down at him. I knew that there must be nothingto excite him. But the words on my lips would come. 

"Blackie, " I said, and I struggled to keep my voice calm andemotionless, "Blackie, forgive me. It is all my fault--my wretchedfault. "

"Now, cut that, " interrupted Blackie. "I thought that was your game. That's why I said I wanted t' talk t' you. Now, listen. Remember mytellin' you, a few weeks ago, 'bout that vacation I was plannin'? Thisis it, only it's come sooner than I expected, that's all. I seen twothree doctor guys about it. Your friend Von Gerhard was one of 'em. They didn't tell me t' take no ocean trip this time. Between 'em, theydecided my vacation would come along about November, maybe. Well, I beat'em to it, that's all. Sa-a-ay, girl, I ain't kickin'. You can't live onyour nerves and expect t' keep goin'. Sooner or later you'll be suein'those same nerves for non-support. But, kid, ain't it a shame that Igot to go out in a auto smashup, in these days when even a airship exitdon't make a splash on the front page!"

The nervous brown hand was moving restlessly over the covers. Finally itmet my hand, and held it in a tense little grip. 

"We've been good pals, you and me, ain't we, kid?"

"Yes, Blackie. "

"Ain't regretted it none?"

"Regretted it! I am a finer, truer, better woman for having known you, Blackie. "

He gave a little contented sigh at that, and his eyes closed. When heopened them the old, whimsical smile wrinkled his face. 

"This is where I get off at. It ain't been no long trip, but sa-a-ay, girl, I've enjoyed every mile of the road. All kinds of scenery--allkinds of lan'scape--plain--fancy--uphill--downhill--"

I leaned forward, fearfully. 

"Not--yet, " whispered Blackie. "Say Dawn--in the storybooks--they--always--are strong on the--good-by kiss, what?"

And as the nurse appeared in the doorway again, disapproval on her face, I stooped and gently pressed my lips to the pain-lined cheek. 

CHAPTER XXI. HAPPINESS

We laid Peter to rest in that noisy, careless, busy city that he hadloved so well, and I think his cynical lips would have curled in abitterly amused smile, and his somber eyes would have flamed into suddenwrath if he could have seen how utterly and completely New York hadforgotten Peter Orme. He had been buried alive ten years before--andNewspaper Row has no faith in resurrections. Peter Orme was not even amemory. Ten years is an age in a city where epochs are counted by hours. 

Now, after two weeks of Norah's loving care, I was back in the prettylittle city by the lake. I had come to say farewell to all those whohad filled my life so completely in that year. My days of newspaper workwere over. The autumn and winter would be spent at Norah's, occupiedwith hours of delightful, congenial work, for the second book was to bewritten in the quiet peace of my own little Michigan town. Von Gerhardwas to take his deferred trip to Vienna in the spring, and I knew thatI was to go with him. The thought filled my heart with a great flood ofhappiness. 

Together Von Gerhard and I had visited Alma Pflugel's cottage, and thegarden was blooming in all its wonder of color and scent as we openedthe little gate and walked up the worn path. We found them in the coolshade of the arbor, the two women sewing, Bennie playing with thelast wonderful toy that Blackie had given him. They made a serene andbeautiful picture there against the green canopy of the leaves. We spokeof Frau Nirlanger, and of Blackie, and of the strange snarl of eventswhich had at last been unwound to knit a close friendship between us. And when I had kissed them and walked for the last time in many monthsup the flower-bordered path, the scarlet and pink, and green and gold ofthat wonderful garden swam in a mist before my eyes. 

Frau Nirlanger was next. When we spoke of Vienna she caught her breathsharply. 

"Vienna!" she repeated, and the longing in her voice was an actualpain. "Vienna! Gott! Shall I ever see it again? Vienna! My boy is there. Perhaps--"

"Perhaps, " I said, gently. "Stranger things have happened. Perhaps ifI could see them, and talk to them--if I could tell them--they might bemade to understand. I haven't been a newspaper reporter all theseyears without acquiring a golden gift of persuasiveness. Perhaps--whoknows?--we may meet again in Vienna. Stranger things have happened. "

Frau Nirlanger shook her head with a little hopeless sigh. "You do notknow Vienna; you do not know the iron strength of caste, and custom andstiff-necked pride. I am dead in Vienna. And the dead should rest inpeace. "

It was late in the afternoon when Von Gerhard and I turned the cornerwhich led to the building that held the Post. I had saved that for thelast. 

"I hope that heaven is not a place of golden streets, and twanging harpsand angel choruses, " I said, softly. "Little, nervous, slangy, restlessBlackie, how bored and ill at ease he would be in such a heaven! Howlonely, without his old black pipe, and his checked waistcoats, andhis diamonds, and his sporting extra. Oh, I hope they have all thosecomforting, everyday things up there, for Blackie's sake. "

"How you grew to understand him in that short year, " mused Von Gerhard. "I sometimes used to resent the bond between you and this little Blackiewhose name was always on your tongue. "

"Ah, that was because you did not comprehend. It is given to very fewwomen to know the beauty of a man's real friendship. That was the bondbetween Blackie and me. To me he was a comrade, and to him I was agood-fellow girl--one to whom he could talk without excusing his pipeor cigarette. Love and love-making were things to bring a kindly, amusedchuckle from Blackie. "

Von Gerhard was silent. Something in his silence held a vague irritationfor me. I extracted a penny from my purse, and placed it in his hand. 

"I was thinking, " he said, "that none are so blind as those who will notsee. "

"I don't understand, " I said, puzzled. 

"That is well, " answered Von Gerhard, as we entered the building. "Thatis as it should be. " And he would say nothing more. 

The last edition of the paper had been run off for the day. I hadpurposely waited until the footfalls of the last departing reportershould have ceased to echo down the long corridor. The city room wasdeserted except for one figure bent over a pile of papers and proofs. Norberg, the city editor, was the last to leave, as always. His desklight glowed in the darkness of the big room, and his typewriter aloneawoke the echoes. 

As I stood in the doorway he peered up from beneath his green eye-shade, and waved a cloud of smoke away with the palm of his hand. 

"That you, Mrs. Orme?" he called out. "Lord, we've missed you! That newwoman can't write an obituary, and her teary tales sound like they werecarved with a cold chisel. When are you coming back?"

"I'm not coming back, " I replied. "I've come to say good-by to youand--Blackie. "

Norberg looked up quickly. "You feel that way, too? Funny. So do therest of us. Sometimes I think we are all half sure that it is onlyanother of his impish tricks, and that some morning he will pop open thedoor of the city room here and call out, 'Hello, slaves! Been keepin' m'memory green?'"

I held out my hand to him, gratefully. He took it in his great palm, and a smile dimpled his plump cheeks. "Going to blossom into a regularlittle writer, h'm? Well, they say it's a paying game when you get thehang of it. And I guess you've got it. But if ever you feel that youwant a real thrill--a touch of the old satisfying newspaper feeling--asniff of wet ink--the music of some editorial cussing--why come up hereand I'll give you the hottest assignment on my list, if I have to takeit away from Deming's very notebook. "

When I had thanked him I crossed the hall and tried the door of thesporting editor's room. Von Gerhard was waiting for me far down at theother end of the corridor. The door opened and I softly entered and shutit again. The little room was dim, but in the half-light I could seethat Callahan had changed something--had shoved a desk nearer thewindow, or swung the typewriter over to the other side. I resented it. Iglanced up at the corner where the shabby old office coat had been wontto hang. There it dangled, untouched, just as he had left it. Callahanhad not dared to change that. I tip-toed over to the corner and touchedit gently with my fingers. A light pall of dust had settled over theworn little garment, but I knew each worn place, each ink-spot, eachscorch or burn from pipe or cigarette. I passed my hands over itreverently and gently, and then, in the dimness of that quiet littleroom I laid my cheek against the rough cloth, so that the scent of theold black pipe came back to me once more, and a new spot appeared on thecoat sleeve--a damp, salt spot. Blackie would have hated my doing that. But he was not there to see, and one spot more or less did not matter;it was such a grimy, disreputable old coat. 

"Dawn!" called Von Gerhard softly, outside the door. "Dawn! Coming, Kindchen?"

I gave the little coat a parting pat. "Goodby, " I whispered, under mybreath, and turned toward the door. 

"Coming!" I called, aloud.