THE BENT TWIG

BY

DOROTHY CANFIELD

1915

CONTENTS

BOOK I_IN ARCADIA_

CHAPTER

I SYLVIA'S HOMEII THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDSIII BROTHER AND SISTERIV EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSEV SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDSVI THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCEVII "WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT . . . "VIII SABOTAGEIX THE END OF CHILDHOOD

BOOK II_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_

X SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATIONXI ARNOLD'S FUTURE Is CASUALLY DECIDEDXII ONE MAN'S MEATXIII AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNEXIV HIGHER EDUCATIONXV MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALSXVI PLAYING WITH MATCHESXVII MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLESXVIII SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICEXIX AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNAREXX "BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!"XXI SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS

BOOK III_IN CAPUA AT LAST_

XXII A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIANXXIII MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNSXXIV ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALKXXV NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERNXXVI MOLLY IN HER ELEMENTXXVII BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINSXXVIII SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?"XXIX A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOODXXX ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCEXXXI SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITYXXXII MUCH ADOXXXIII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED. . . "XXXIV SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTHXXXV "A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR"XXXVI THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEARXXXVII ". . . _His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'Life! Life Eternal_!'"XXXVIII SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET GATEXXXIX SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY

BOOK IV_THE STRAIT PATH_

XL A CALL FROM HOMEXLI HOME AGAINXLII "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, Touching the fringes of the outer stars_"XLIII "_Call now; is there any that will answer thee_?"XLIV "_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly burning wick will He not quench_"XLV "_That our soul may swim We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_"XLVI A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLDXLVII ". . . AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!"

THE BENT TWIG

BOOK I

_IN ARCADIA_

CHAPTER I

SYLVIA'S HOME

Like most happy childhoods, Sylvia's early years lay back of her in along, cheerful procession of featureless days, the outlines of whichwere blurred into one shimmering glow by the very radiance of theirsunshine. Here and there she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, scents: Mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and thefragrance of the baby powder--the pine-trees near the house chantingloudly in an autumn wind--her father's alert face, intent on thetoy water-wheel he was setting for her in the little creek in theirfield--the beautiful sheen of the pink silk dress Aunt Victoria hadsent her--the look of her mother's steady, grave eyes when she was sosick--the leathery smell of the books in the University Libraryone day when she followed her father there--the sound of the rainpattering on the low, slanting roof of her bedroom--these were theoccasional clearly outlined, bright-colored illuminations wrought onthe burnished gold of her sunny little life. But from her seventhbirthday her memories began to have perspective, continuity. Sheremembered an occasional whole scene, a whole afternoon, just as ithappened. 

The first of these must have marked the passing of some unrecognizedmental milestone, for there was nothing about it to set it apart fromany one of a hundred afternoons. It may have been the first time shelooked at what was about her, and saw it. 

Mother was putting the baby to bed for his nap--not thebaby-sister--she was a big girl of five by this time, but anotherbaby, a little year-old brother, with blue eyes and yellow hair, instead of brown eyes and hair like his two sisters'. And when Motherstooped over the little bed, her white fichu fell forward and Sylvialeaned to hold it back from the baby's face, a bit of thoughtfulnesswhich had a rich reward in a smile of thanks from Mother. That waswhat began the remembered afternoon. Mother's smiles were golden coin, not squandered on every occasion. Then, she and Mother and Judithtiptoed out of the bedroom into Mother's room and there stood Father, with his University clothes on and yet his hair rather rumpled up, asthough he had been teaching very hard. He had a pile of papers in hishand and he said, "Barbara, are you awfully busy just now?"

Mother said, Oh no, she wasn't at all. (She never was busy when Fatherasked her to do something, although Sylvia could not remember everonce having seen her sit and do nothing, no, not even for a minute!)Then Father said, "Well, if you _could_ run over these, I'd have timeto have some ball with the seminar after they're dismissed. These arethe papers the Freshmen handed in for that Economics quiz. " Mothersaid, "Sure she could, " or the equivalent of that, and Father thankedher, turned Judith upside-down and right-side-up again so quick thatshe didn't know what had happened, and left them all laughing as theyusually were when Father ran down from the study for something. 

So Sylvia and Judith, quite used to this procedure, sat down on thefloor with a book to keep them quiet until Mother should be through. Neither of them could read, although Sylvia was beginning to learn, but they had been told the stories so many times that they knew themfrom the pictures. The book they looked at that day had the story ofthe people who had rowed a great boat across the water to get a goldsheepskin, and Sylvia told it to Judith, word for word, as Fatheralways told it. She glanced up at Mother from time to time to makesure she was getting it right; and ever afterwards the mention of theArgonauts brought up before Sylvia's eyes the picture of her motherthat day, sitting very straight, her strong brown fingers making anoccasional mark on the papers, as she turned them over with a crisprustle, her quiet face bent, in a calm fixity of attention, over thepages. 

Before they knew it, the work was done, Father had come for thepapers, and showed Sylvia one more twist in the acrobatic stunt theywere learning together. She could already take his hands and run upto his shoulders in one squirrel-like dash; but she was to learn thereverse and come down on the other side, and she still got tangled upwith which foot to put first. So they practised whenever they had, asnow, a minute or two to spare. 

Then Judith was set to play with her blocks like the baby she stillwas, while Sylvia and Mother had a lesson in reading. Sylvia couldremember the very sound of Mother's clear voice as she corrected amistake. They were reading a story about what happened to a drop ofwater that fell into the brook in their field; how, watering thethirsty cornfields as it flowed, the brook ran down to the rivernear La Chance, where it worked ever so many mills and factories andthings. Then on through bigger and bigger rivers until it reachedthe Mississippi, where boats rode on its back; and so on down to theocean. And there, after resting a while, it was pumped up by the sunand made into a cloud, and the wind blew it back over the land andto their field again, where it fell into the brook and said, "Why, how-de-do, Sylvia--you still here?"

Father had written the story, and Mother had copied it out on thetypewriter so it would be easy for Sylvia to read. 

After they had finished she remembered looking out of the window andwatching the big white clouds drift across the pale bright April sky. They were full of hundreds of drops of water, she thought, that weregoing to fall into hundreds of other brooks, and then travel and worktill they reached the sea, and then rest for a while and begin allover again. Her dark eyes grew very wide as she watched the endlessprocession of white mountains move across the great arch of the sky. Her imagination was stirred almost painfully, her mind expanding withthe effort to take in the new conception of size, of great numbers, ofthe small place of her own brook, her own field in the hugeness ofthe world. And yet it was an ordered hugeness full of comfortingsimilarity! Now, no matter where she might go, or what brooks shemight see, she would know that they were all of one family, that thesame things happened to them all, that every one ended in the ocean. Something she had read on a piece of paper made her see the familiarhome field with the yellow water of the little creek, as a part of thewhole world. It was very strange. She tried to tell Mother somethingof what was in her mind, but, though Mother listened in a sympatheticsilence, it was evident that she could make nothing out of theincoherent account. Sylvia thought that she would try to tell Father, the next chance she had. Even at seven, although she loved her motherpassionately and jealously, she was aware that her father's mind wasmore like her own. He understood some things that Mother didn't, although Mother was always, always right, and Father wasn't. She fellinto silence again, standing by her mother's knee, staring out of thewindow and watching the clouds move steadily across the sky doingtheir share of the world's work for all they looked so soft and lazy. Her mother did not break in on this meditative contemplation. She tookup her sewing-basket and began busily to sew buttons on a small pairof half-finished night-drawers. The sobered child beside her, gazingup at the blue-and-white infinity of the sky, heard faintly anddistantly, for the first time in her life, the whirring reverberationsof the great mystic wheel of change and motion and life. 

Then, all at once, there was a scraping of chairs overhead in Father'sstudy, a clattering on the stairs, and the sound of a great manyvoices. The Saturday seminar was over. The door below opened, and thestudents came out, Father at the head, very tall, very straight, hisruddy hair shining in the late afternoon sun, his shirt-sleeves rolledup over his arms, and a baseball in his hand. "Come on, folks, " Sylviaheard him call, as he had so many times before. "Let's have a coupleof innings before you go!" Sylvia must have seen the picture a hundredtimes before, but that was the first time it impressed itself on her, the close-cut grass of their yard as lustrous as enamel, the bigpine-trees standing high, the scattered players, laughing and runningabout, the young men casting off their coats and hats, the detachedfielders running long-legged to their places. At the first sound ofthe voices, Judith, always alert, never wasting time in reveries, hadscampered down the stairs and out in the midst of the stir-about. Judith was sure to be in the middle of whatever was going on. She hadattached herself to young Professor Saunders, a special favorite ofthe children, and now was dragging him from the field to play horsewith her. Father looked up to the window where Sylvia and Mother sat, and called: "Come on, Barbara! Come on and amuse Judith. She won't letSaunders pitch. "

Mother nodded, ran downstairs, coaxed Judith over beyond first base toplay catch with a soft rubber ball; and Sylvia, carried away by thecheerful excitement, hopped about everywhere at once, screamingencouragement to the base runners, picking up foul balls, and sendingthem with proud importance back to the pitcher. 

So they all played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until Mother held up herfinger and stopped the game. "The baby's awake!" she said, and Fatherwent bounding off. When he came back with the downy pink morsel, everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fathands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "He's starved!" said Mother. "He wants his supper, poor little Buddy! He doesn't want a lot ofpeople staring at him, do you, Buddy-baby?" She snatched him outof Father's arms and went off with him, holding him high over hershoulders so that the sunshine shone on his yellow hair, and made acircle of gold around his flushed, sleepy face. Then everybody pickedup books and wraps and note-books and said, "Good-by, 'Perfessor!'"and went off. 

Father and Sylvia and Judith went out in the garden to the hotbed topick the lettuce for supper and then back in the kitchen to get thingsready. When Mother was through giving Buddy his supper and camehurrying in to help, Sylvia was proud that they had nearly everythingdone--all but the omelet. Father had made cocoa and creamedpotatoes--nobody in the world could make creamed potatoes as good ashis--and Sylvia and Judith had between them, somewhat wranglingly, made the toast and set the table. Sylvia was sure that Judith wasreally too little to be allowed to help, but Father insisted that sheshould try, for he said, with a turn in his voice that made Sylviaaware he was laughing at her, "You only learned through trying, allthose many years ago when you were Judith's age!"

Mother put on one of her big gingham aprons and made the omelet, andthey sat down to the table out on the veranda as they always did inwarm weather. In La Chance it begins to be warm enough for outdoorlife in April. Although it was still bright daylight for ever so longafter the sun had set, the moon came and looked at them palely overthe tops of the trees. 

After supper they jumped up to "race through the dishes, " as thefamily catchword ran. They tried to beat their record every eveningand it was always a lively occasion, with Mother washing likelightning, and Father hurrying to keep up, Sylvia running back andforth to put things away, and Judith bothering 'round, handing out drydish-towels, and putting away the silver. She was allowed to handlethat because she couldn't break it. Mother and Judith worked in aswift silence, but a great deal of talking and laughing went onbetween Sylvia and her father, while Buddy, from his high-chair wherehe was watching the others, occasionally broke out in a loud, highcrow of delight. They did it all, even to washing and hanging outthe dish-towels, in eleven and a half minutes that evening, Sylviaremembered. 

Then she and Judith went to sit on the porch on the little benchMother had made them. They tried to see who could catch the firstglimpse of the evening star every evening. Mother was putting Buddy tobed and Father was starting the breakfast cereal cooking on the stove. After a while he went into the living-room and began to play somethingon the piano, something full of deep, swaying chords that liftedSylvia's heart up and down as though she were floating on the water. The air was full of the moist fragrance of spring. When the music heldits breath for a moment you could hear the bedtime note of sleepybirds in the oaks. Judith, who did not care much for music, beganto get sleepy and leaned all her soft, warm weight against her bigsister. Sylvia for the first time in her life was consciously aware ofbeing very happy. When, some time later, the evening star shone outthrough the trees, she drew a long breath. "See, Judith, " she criedsoftly and began to recite, "Star-light, star-bright, First star I've seen tonight--"

She stopped short--it was Aunt Victoria who had taught her that poem, the last time she had come to see them, a year ago, the time when shehad brought Sylvia the pink silk dress, the only dress-up dress withlace and ribbons on it Sylvia had had up to that time. As suddenly asthe evening star had shone out, another radiant vision flashed acrossSylvia's mind, Aunt Victoria, magnificent in her lacy dress, hergolden hair shining under the taut silk of her parasol, her white, soft fingers gleaming with rings, her air of being a condescendinggoddess, visiting mortals . . . 

After a time Mother stepped out on the porch and said, "Oh, quick, children, wish on the shooting star. "

Judith had dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, andSylvia looked at her mother blankly. "I didn't see any shooting star, "she said. 

Mother was surprised. "Why, your face was pointed right up at thespot. "

"I didn't see it, " repeated Sylvia. 

Mother fixed her keen dark eyes on Sylvia. "What's the matter?" sheasked in her voice that always required an answer. Sylvia wriggleduncomfortably. Hers was a nature which suffers under the categoricalquestion; but her mother's was one which presses them home. 

"What's the matter with you?" she said again. 

Sylvia turned a clouded face to her mother. "I was wondering why it'snot nice to be idyllic. "

"_What_?" asked her mother, quite at a loss. Sylvia was having one ofher unaccountable notions. 

Sylvia went to lean on her mother's knee, looking with troubled eyesup into the kind, attentive, uncomprehending face. "Why, the last timeAunt Victoria was here--that long time ago--when they were all outplaying ball--she looked round and round at everything--at your dressand mine and the furniture--_you_ know--the--the uncomfortable way shedoes sometimes--and she said, 'Well, Sylvia--nobody can say that yourparents aren't leading you a very idyllic life. '"

Mother laughed out. Her rare laugh was too sudden and loud to be verymusical, but it was immensely infectious, like a man's hearty mirth. "I didn't hear her say it--but I can imagine that she did. Well, what_of_ it? What if she did?"

For once Sylvia did not respond to another's mood. She continuedanxiously, "Well, it means something perfectly horrid, doesn't it?"

Mother was still laughing. "No, no, child, what in the world makes youthink that?"

"Oh, if you'd heard Aunt Victoria _say_ it!" cried Sylvia withconviction. Father came out on the veranda, saying to Mother, "Isn'tthat crescendo superb?" To Sylvia he said, as though sure of hercomprehension, "Didn't you like the ending, dear--where it soundedlike the Argonauts all striking the oars into the water at once andshouting?"

Sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth. Moreover(perhaps a stronger reason for frankness), Mother was there, who wouldknow whether she told the truth or not. "I didn't hear the end. "

Father looked quickly from Sylvia's face to her mother's. "What's thematter?" he asked. 

"Sylvia was so concerned because her Aunt Victoria had called our lifeidyllic that she couldn't think of anything else, " explained Motherbriefly, still smiling. Father did not smile. He sat down by Sylviaand had her repeat to him what she had said to her mother. When shehad finished he looked grave and said: "You mustn't mind what yourAunt Victoria says, dear. Her ideas are very different from ours. "

Sylvia's mother cried out, "Why, a child of Sylvia's age couldn't havetaken in the significance of--"

"I'm afraid, " said Father, "that Sylvia's very quick to take in such asignificance. "

Sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed, vaguelyashamed of herself, but comforted that Father had not laughed, hadunderstood. As happened so frequently, it was Father who understoodand Mother who did the right thing. She suddenly made an enigmatic, emphatic exclamation, "Goodness _gracious_!" and reaching out her longarms, pulled Sylvia up on her lap, holding her close. The last thoughtof that remembered time for Sylvia was that Mother's arms were verystrong, and her breast very soft. The little girl laid her head downon it with a contented sigh, watching the slow, silent procession ofthe stars. 

CHAPTER II

THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS

Any one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty of the StateUniversity at La Chance would have stated without hesitation that theMarshalls had not the slightest part in the social activities of theUniversity; but no one could have called their life either isolated orsolitary. Sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low, brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter and talkof many voices. To begin with, a good many of Professor Marshall'sstudents came and went familiarly through the plainly furnished rooms, although there was, of course, in each year's class, a little circleof young people with a taste for social distinctions who held alooffrom the very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the Marshallhouse. 

These young aristocrats were, for the most part, students from thetown itself, from La Chance's "best families, " who through parentaltyranny or temporary financial depression were not allowed to go Eastto a well-known college with a sizable matriculation fee, but wereforced to endure four years of the promiscuous, swarming, gratuitouseducation of the State University. All these august victims of familydespotism associated as little as possible with the common rabble oftheir fellow-students, and accepted invitations only from such facultyfamilies as were recognized by the inner circle of the town society. 

The Marshalls were not among this select circle. Indeed, no facultyfamily was farther from it. Every detail of the Marshalls' life was incontradiction not only to the standards and ideals of the exclusive"town set, " but to those of their own colleagues. They did not livein the right part of town. They did not live in the right sort of ahouse. They did not live in the right sort of a way. And consequently, although no family had more visitors, they were not the right sort ofvisitors. 

This was, of course, not apparent to the children for a good manyyears. Home was home, as it is to children. It did not seem strangeto them that instead of living in a small rented house on a closelybuilt-up street near the campus in the section of the city occupied bythe other faculty families, they lived in a rambling, large-roomed oldfarmhouse with five acres of land around it, on the edge of the WestSide. They did not know how heartily this land-owning stability wascondemned as folly by the rent-paying professors, perching on thebough with calculated impermanence so that they might be free toaccept at any moment the always anticipated call to a larger salary. They did not know, not even Sylvia, for many years, that the West Sidewas the quite unfashionable part of town. It did not seem strange tothem to see their father sweeping his third-floor study with his ownhands, and they were quite used to a family routine which includedhousework for every one of them. Indeed, a certain amount of this waspart of the family fun. "Come on, folks!" Professor Marshall wouldcall, rising up from the breakfast table, "Tuesday--day to clean theliving-room--all hands turn to!" In a gay helter-skelter all handsturned to. The lighter furniture was put out on the porch. ProfessorMarshall, joking and laughing, donned a loose linen overall suit toprotect his "University clothes, " and cleaned the bare floor with abig oiled mop; Mrs. Marshall, silent and swift, looked after mirrors, windows, the tops of bookcases, things hard for children to reach;Sylvia flourished a duster; and Judith and Lawrence out on the porch, each armed with a whisk-broom, brushed and whacked at the chairs andsofas. There were no rugs to shake, and it took but an instant to setthings back in their places in the clean-smelling, dustless room. 

This daily drill, coming as it did early in the morning, usuallyescaped the observation of any but passing farmers, who saw nothingamiss in it; but facetiously exaggerated reports of its humors reachedthe campus, and a certain set considered it very clever to lay bets asto whether the Professor of Political Economy would pull out of hispocket a handkerchief, or a duster, or a child's shirt, for it wasnotorious that the children never had nursemaids and that their fathertook as much care of them as their mother. 

The question of clothes, usually such a sorely insoluble problem foracademic people of small means, was solved by the Marshalls in aneccentric, easy-going manner which was considered by the other facultyfamilies as nothing less than treasonable to their caste. ProfessorMarshall, it is true, having to make a public appearance on thecampus every day, was generally, like every other professor, undistinguishable from a commercial traveler. But Mrs. Marshall, whooften let a good many days pass without a trip to town, had adoptedearly in her married life a sort of home uniform, which year afteryear she wore in one form or another. It varied according to theseason, and according to the occasion on which she wore it, but it hadcertain unchanging characteristics. It was always very plain as toline, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor scant, awaist crossed in front with a white fichu, and sleeves reaching justbelow the elbow with white turn-back cuffs. As Mrs. Marshall, thoughnot at all pretty, was a tall, upright, powerfully built woman, witha dark, shapely head gallantly poised on her shoulders, this garb, whether short-skirted, of blue serge in the morning, or trailing, ofruby-colored cashmere in the evening, was very becoming to her. Butthere is no denying that it was always startlingly and outrageouslyunfashionable. At a time when every woman and female child in theUnited States had more cloth in her sleeves than in all the rest ofher dress, the rounded muscles of Mrs. Marshall's arm, showing throughthe fabric of her sleeves, smote shockingly upon the eye of theordinary observer, trained to the American habit of sheep-likeuniformity of appearance. And at the time when the front of everywoman's waist fell far below her belt in a copiously blousing sag, Mrs. Marshall's trim tautness had in it something horrifying. It mustbe said for her that she did not go out of her way to inflict theseconcussions upon the brains of spectators, since she always had inher closet one evening dress and one street dress, sufficientlyapproximating the prevailing style to pass unnoticed. These costumeslasted long, and they took in the long run but little from theMarshall exchequer: for she wore them seldom, only assuming what herhusband called, with a laugh, her "disguise" when going into town. 

For a long time, until Sylvia's individuality began to assert itself, the question of dress for the children was solved, with similar ease, by the typical Marshall expedient, most heartily resented by theirfaculty acquaintances, the mean-spirited expedient of getting alongcomfortably on inadequate means by not attempting to associate withpeople to whose society their brains and cultivation gave them theright--that is to say, those families of La Chance whose incomes werefrom three to five times that of college professors. The Marshallchildren played, for the most part, with the children of theirneighbors, farmers, or small merchants, and continued this humbleconnection after they went into the public schools, where theirparents sent them, instead of to "the" exclusive private schoolof town. Consequently the plainest, simplest clothes made themindistinguishable from their fellows. Sylvia and Judith also enjoyedthe unfair advantage of being quite unusually pretty little girls(Judith being nothing less than a beauty), so that even on the fewoccasions when they were invited to a children's party in the facultycircle their burnished, abundant hair, bright eyes, and fresh, alertfaces made up for the plainness of their white dresses and thickshoes. 

It was, moreover, not only in externals like clothes that thechildhood of Sylvia and Judith and Lawrence differed from that of theother faculty children. Their lives were untouched by the ominousblack cloud familiar to academic households, the fear for the future, the fear which comes of living from hand to mouth, the dread of "beingobliged to hand in one's resignation, " a truly academic periphasiswhich is as dismally familiar to most faculty children as its bluntAnglo-Saxon equivalent of "losing your job" is to children of plainerworkpeople. Once, it is true, this possibility had loomed up largebefore the Marshalls, when a high-protection legislature objectedloudly to the professor's unreverent attitude towards the tariff. Butalthough the Marshall children knew all about this crisis, as theyknew all about everything that happened to the family, they had hadno experience of the anxious talks and heartsick consultations whichwould have gone on in any other faculty household. Their father hadbeen angry, and their mother resolute--but there was nothing new inthat. There had been, on Professor Marshall's part, belligerent, vociferous talk about "freedom of speech, " and on Mrs. Marshall's aquiet estimate that, with her early training on a Vermont farm, andwith the high state of cultivation under which she had brought theirfive acres, they could successfully go into the truck-farmingbusiness like their neighbors. Besides this, they had the resource, extraordinary among University families, of an account in thesavings-bank on which to fall back. They had always been able to paytheir debts and have a small surplus by the expedient of refusing toacknowledge a tenth part of the social obligations under whichthe rest of the faculty groaned and sweated with martyr's pride. Perfidiously refusing to do their share in the heart-breaking struggleto "keep up the dignity" of the academic profession, they were notoverwhelmed by the super-human difficulties of that undertaking. 

So it happened that the Marshall children heard no forebodings aboutthe future, but only heated statements of what seemed to their fatherthe right of a teacher to say what he believed. Professor Marshall hadgone of his own initiative to face the legislative committee which was"investigating" him, had quite lost his temper (never very securelyheld in leash), had told them his highly spiced opinion of theirstrictures on his teaching and of the worth of any teacher they couldfind who would submit to them. Then he had gone home and put onhis overalls. This last was rather a rhetorical flourish; for hiscosmopolitan, urban youth had left him ineradicably ignorant of theprocesses of agriculture. But like all Professor Marshall's flourishesit was a perfectly sincere one. He was quite cheerfully prepared tosubmit himself to his wife's instruction in the new way of life. 

All these picturesque facts, as was inevitable in America, hadinstantly reached the newspapers, which, lacking more exciting newsfor the moment, took that matter up with headlined characterizationsof Professor Marshall as a "martyr of the cause of academic freedom, "and other rather cheap phrases about "persecution" and "America, theland of free speech. " The legislative committee, alarmed, retreatedfrom its position. Professor Marshall had not "been obliged to hand inhis resignation, " but quite the contrary, had become the hero of thehour and was warmly complimented by his colleagues, who hoped toprofit by an action which none of them would have dared to imitate. It had been an exciting drama to the Marshall children as long as itlasted. They had looked with pride at an abominable reproduction oftheir father's photograph in the evening paper of La Chance, and theyhad added an acquaintance with the manners of newspaper reporters totheir already very heterogeneous experience with callers of everyvariety; but of real anxiety the episode had brought them nothing. 

As to that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at the Marshallhouse, one of the University co-eds had said facetiously that youmet there every sort of person in the world, from spiritualists toatheists--everybody except swells. The atheist of her dictum was thedistinguished and misanthropic old Professor Kennedy, head ofthe Department of Mathematics, whose ample means and high socialconnections with the leading family of La Chance made his misanthropya source of much chagrin to the faculty ladies, and who professedfor the Marshalls, for Mrs. Marshall in particular, a wrong-headedadmiration which was inexplicable to the wives of the otherprofessors. The faculty circle saw little to admire in the Marshalls. The spiritualist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolishCousin Parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothesand incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing only bystern pressure from their mother. She always wore a black straw hat, summer and winter, always carried a faded green shopping bag, with asupply of yellow writing paper, and always had tucked under one armthe curious, heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, whichspiritualists call "planchette. " The Marshall children thought thisthe most laughable name imaginable, and were not always successfulin restraining the cruel giggles of childhood when she spoke ofplanchette's writing such beautiful messages from her long-since-deadhusband and children. Although he had a dramatic sympathy for hersorrow, Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made itharder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when CousinParnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse withMilton or Homer. Indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been apositive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing Sylvia, aged ten, how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper, for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbiddenher ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense to his children again. He himself was a stout unbeliever in individual immortality, teachinghis children that the craving for it was one of the egotistic impulsesof the unregenerate human heart. 

Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained CousinParnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor Kennedy, there were manyother habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless studentsof both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere they wereallowed to enter; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named Hecht, whoworked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political pamphlets bynight; Miss Lindström, the elderly Swedish woman laboring amongthe poor negroes of Flytown; a constant sprinkling from theScandinavian-Americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled the regionnear the Marshall home; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor of a luridlyradical Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in private the"old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and mild, ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at theMarshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive. 

These habitués of the house came and went with the greatestfamiliarity. As they all knew there was no servant to answer thedoorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, steppedinto the hall, hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and wentinto the big, low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, theyusually took a book from one of the shelves lining the room and satdown before the fire to wait. Sometimes they stayed to the nextmeal and helped wash up the dishes afterwards. Sometimes they had asatisfactory visit with each other, two or three callers happening tomeet together before the fire, and went away without having seen anyof the Marshalls. Informality could go no further. 

The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely approaching theregularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meetingof the string quartet which Professor Marshall had founded soon afterhis arrival in La Chance. 

It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for theirseance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin andleader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesaleplumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, andold Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. Any one who chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings, on condition that he should not talk during the music, and did notexpect any attention. 

The music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. A little beforethat time, Mrs. Marshall, followed by any one who felt like helping, went out into the kitchen and made hot coffee and sandwiches, and whenthe last chord had stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into thedining-room and partook of this simple fare. During the evening notalk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the musiciansover tempo and shading, but afterwards, every one's tongue, chastenedby the long silence, was loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity. Professor Marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked fasterand louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especialfavorite, brilliant young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back witha sureness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere but inthis give-and-take. Mrs. Marshall poured the coffee, saw that everyone was served with sandwiches, and occasionally when the talk, running over every known topic, grew too noisy, or the discussion toohot, cast in one of the pregnant and occasionally caustic remarks ofwhich she held the secret. They were never brilliant, Mrs. Marshall'sremarks--but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost always whenshe had said her brief say? there loomed out of the rainbow mist ofher husband's flashing, controversial talk the outlines of the trueproportions of the case. 

After the homely feast was eaten, each guest rose and carried his owncup and saucer and plate into the kitchen in a gay procession, andsince it was well known that, for the most part, the Marshalls "didtheir own work, " several of the younger ones helped wash the dishes, while the musicians put away the music-racks and music, and the restput on their wraps. Then Professor Marshall stood at the door holdingup a lamp while the company trooped down the long front walk tothe gate in the hedge, and turned along the country road to thecross-roads where the big Interurban cars whizzed by. 

All this happened with that unbroken continuity which was thecharacteristic of the Marshall life, most marking them as differentfrom the other faculty families. Week after week, and month aftermonth, this program was followed with little variation, except for themusic which was played, and the slight picturesque uncertainty asto whether old Reinhardt would or would not arrive mildly under theinfluence of long Sunday imbibings. Not that this factor interfered atall with the music. One of Sylvia's most vivid childhood recollectionswas the dramatic contrast between old Reinhardt with, and without, hisviolin. Partly from age, and partly from a too convivial life, theold, heavily veined hands trembled so that he could scarcely unbuttonhis overcoat, or handle his cup of hot coffee. His head shook too, andhis kind, rheumy eyes, in their endeavor to focus themselves, seemedto flicker back and forth in their sockets. The child used to watchhim, fascinated, as he fumbled endlessly at the fastenings of hisviolin-case, and put back the top with uncertain fingers. She waswaiting for the thrilling moment when he should tuck the instrumentaway under his pendulous double chin and draw his bow across thestrings in the long sonorous singing chord, which ran up and downSylvia's back like forked lightning. 

This was while all the others were tuning and scraping and tugging attheir pegs, a pleasant bustle of discord which became so much apart of Sylvia's brain that she could never in after years hear thestrumming and sawing of an orchestra preparing to play, without seeingthe big living-room of her father's house, with its low whitewashedceiling, its bare, dully shining floor, its walls lined with books, its shabby, comfortable furniture, the whole quickened by thePromethean glow from the blaze in the grate and glorified by thechastened passion of the singing strings. 

The two Anglo-Saxon, professors were but able amateurs of theirinstruments. Bauermeister, huge, red, and impassive, was by virtue ofhis blood, a lifelong training, and a musical ancestry, considerablymore than an amateur; and old Reinhardt was the master of them all. His was a history which would have been tragic if it had happened toany but Reinhardt, who cared for nothing but an easy life, beer, andthe divine tones which he alone could draw from his violin. He hadoffered, fifty years ago in Vienna, the most brilliant promise of amost brilliant career, a promise which had come to naught becauseof his monstrous lack of ambition, and his endless yielding tocircumstance, which had finally, by a series of inconceivablemigrations, landed him in the German colony of La Chance, impecuniousand obscure and invincibly convinced that he had everything worthhaving in life. "Of vat use?" he would say, even now, when asked toplay in public--"de moosic ist all--and dat is eben so goodt here mitfriends. " Or, "Dere goes a thousand peoples to a goncert--maybe fifefrom dat thousand lofes de moosic--let dose fife gome to me--andI play dem all day for noding!" or again, more iconoclasticallystill, --when told of golden harvests to be reaped, "And for vat den? Ican't play on more dan von fioleen at a time--is it? I got a good onenow. And if I drink more beer dan now, I might make myself seeck!"This with a prodigiously sly wink of one heavy eyelid. 

He gave enough music lessons to pay his small expenses, although afterone or two stormy passages in which he treated with outrageous andunjustifiable violence the dawdling pupils coming from well-to-dofamilies, he made it a rule to take no pupils whose parents employed aservant, and confined himself to children of the poorer classes, amongwhom he kept up a small orchestra which played together twice a weekand never gave any concerts. And almost since the arrival of theMarshalls in La Chance and his unceremonious entrance into the houseas, walking across the fields on a Sunday afternoon, he had heardProfessor Marshall playing the Doric Toccata on the newly installedpiano, he had spent his every Sunday evening in their big living-room. 

He had seen the children appear and grow older, and adored themwith Teutonic sentimentality, especially Sylvia, whom he called his"Moonbeam brincess, " his "little ellfen fairy, " and whom, when she wasstill tiny, he used to take up on his greasy old knees and, restinghis violin on her head, play his wildest fantasies, that she mightfeel how it "talked to her bones. "

In early childhood Sylvia was so used to him that, like the othersof her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhatstartling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands tomatch, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabbycorpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, oldReinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failingenchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of theother instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbingpassion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soulsang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of theParadise where we might live, if we were but willing. 

Even when they were quite little children, Sylvia and Judith, andlater, Lawrence, were allowed to sit up on Sunday evenings tolisten to the music. Judith nearly always slept, steadily; and notinfrequently after a long day of outdoor fun, stupefied with freshair and exercise, Lawrence, and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyesopen, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many littlekittens among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intenselyenjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many forSylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fallasleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again tothe restrained, clarified ecstasy of the four concerted voices. 

And yet it was in connection with this very quartet that she had herfirst shocked vision of how her home-life appeared to other people. She once chanced, when she was about eight years old, to go with herfather on a Saturday to his office at the University, where he hadforgotten some papers necessary for his seminar. There, sitting onthe front steps of the Main Building, waiting for her father, she hadencountered the wife of the professor of European History with herbeautiful young-lady sister from New York and her two daughters, exquisite little girls in white serge, whose tailored, immaculateperfection made Sylvia's heart heavy with a sense of the plebeianinelegance of her own Saturday-morning play-clothes. Mrs. Hubert, obeying an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the littleMarshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so many storiescurrent, and was struck with the decorative possibilities of thepretty child, apparent to her practised eye. As she made the kindlyintended, vague remarks customarily served out to unknown children, she was thinking: "How _can_ any woman with a vestige of a woman'sinstinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace, dark-colored clothes? She would repay any amount of care and"thought. " So you take music-lessons too, besides your school?" sheasked mechanically. She explained to her sister, a stranger in LaChance: "Music is one of the things I _starve_ for, out here! We neverhear it unless we go clear to Chicago--and such prices! Here, there issimply _no_ musical feeling!" She glanced again at Sylvia, who wasnow answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having thebeautiful lady speak to her. The beautiful lady had but an inattentiveear for Sylvia's statement that, yes, lately Father had begun to giveher lessons on the piano. With the smoothly working imagination comingfrom a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert was strippingoff Sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, andwas arraying her in scarlet serge with a green velvet collar--"withthose eyes and that coloring she could carry off striking 'colorcombinations--and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silkon one side--no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her stylebetter. Then, with white stockings and shoes and gloves--or perhapspearl-gray would be better. Yes, with low-cut suede shoes, fasteningwith two big smoked-pearl buttons. " She looked down with pitying eyesat Sylvia's sturdy, heavy-soled shoes which could not conceal theslender, shapely feet within them--"but, what on earth was the childsaying?--"

"--every Sunday evening--it's beautiful, and now I'm getting so big Ican help some. I can turn over the pages for them in hard places, and when old Mr. Reinhardt has had too much to drink and his handstremble, he lets me unfasten his violin-case and tighten up his bowand--"

Mrs. Hubert cried out, "Your parents don't let you have anything to dowith that old, drunken Reinhardt!"

Sylvia was smitten into silence by the other's horrified tone andhung her head miserably, only murmuring, after a pause, in damningextenuation, "He's never so _very_ drunk!"

"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Hubert, in a widely spaced, emphatic phrase of condemnation. To her sister she added, "It's reallynot exaggeration then, what one hears about their home life. " One ofher daughters, a child about Sylvia's age, turned a candid, blanklittle face up to hers, "Mother, what is a drunken reinhardt?" sheasked in a thin little pipe. 

Mrs. Hubert frowned, shook her head, and said in a tone of darkmystery: "Never mind, darling, don't think about it. It's somethingthat nice little girls shouldn't know anything about. Come, Margery;come, Eleanor. " She took their hands and began to draw them awaywithout another look at Sylvia, who remained behind, drooping, ostracised, pierced momentarily with her first blighting misgivingabout the order of things she had always known. 

CHAPTER III

BROTHER AND SISTER

A fuller initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adultstandards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia werealways a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. Only to look atAunt Victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yetthe talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions whenthe beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was hardon Sylvia's sensitive nerves. 

It was not merely that a good deal of what was said wasunintelligible. The Marshall children were quite accustomed toincessant conversations between their elders of which they couldgather but the vaguest glimmering. They played about, busy intheir own absorbing occupations, lending an absent but not whollyunattentive ear to the gabble of their elders, full of odd andridiculous-sounding words like Single-tax, and contrapuntaldevelopment, and root-propagation, and Benthamism, and Byzantine, and nitrogenous fertilizers, and Alexandrine, and chiaroscuro, andsurviving archaisms, and diminishing utility--for to keep up such aflood-tide of talk as streamed through the Marshall house requiredcontributions from many diverging rivers. Sylvia was entirely used tothis phenomenon and, although it occasionally annoyed her that goodattention was wasted on projects so much less vital than those of thechildren, she bore it no grudge. But on the rare occasions when AuntVictoria was with them, there was a different and ominous note to thetalk which made Sylvia acutely uneasy, although she was quite unableto follow what was said. This uncomfortable note did not at all comefrom mere difference of opinion, for that too was a familiar elementin Sylvia's world. Indeed, it seemed to her that everybody who came tothe Marshall house disagreed with everybody else about everything. The young men, students or younger professors, engaged in perpetualdiscussions, carried on in acrimonious tones which nevertheless seemednot in the least to impair the good feeling between them. When therewas nobody else there for Father to disagree with, he disagreed withMother, occasionally, to his great delight, rousing her from hercustomary self-contained economy of words to a heat as voluble as hisown. Often as the two moved briskly about, preparing a meal together, they shouted out from the dining-room to the kitchen a discussion onsome unintelligible topic such as the "anachronism of the competitivesystem, " so loudly voiced and so energetically pursued that whenthey came to sit down to table, they would be quite red-cheeked andstirred-up, and ate their dinners with as vigorous an appetite asthough they had been pursuing each other on foot instead of verbally. 

The older habitués of the house were no more peaceable and wereequally given to what seemed to childish listeners endless disputesabout matters of no importance. Professor La Rue's white mustache andpointed beard quivered with the intensity of his scorn for the modernschool of poetry, and Madame La Rue, who might be supposed to beinsulated by the vast bulk of her rosy flesh from the currents ofpassionate conviction flashing through the Marshall house, had fixedideas on the Franco-Prussian War, on the relative values of Americanand French bed-making, and the correct method of bringing up girls(she was childless), which needed only to be remotely stirred to burstinto showers of fiery sparks. And old Professor Kennedy was nothingless than abusive when started on an altercation about one of thetopics vital to him, such as the ignoble idiocy of the leisure-classideal, or the generally contemptible nature of modern society. No, itwas not mere difference of opinion which so charged the air duringAunt Victoria's rare visits with menacing electricity. 

As a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from her brother andhis wife, the children would never have been able to guess it from theinvariably restrained tones of her fluent and agreeable speech, sodifferent from the outspoken virulence with which people in that housewere accustomed to defend their ideas. But, indefinable though it wasto Sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt that the adventof her father's beautiful and gracious sister was like a drop oftransparent but bitter medicine in a glass of clear water. Therewas no outward sign of change, but everything was tinctured byit. Especially was her father changed from his usual brilliantlyeffervescent self. In answer to the most harmless remark of AuntVictoria, he might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voicewhich made Sylvia look up at him half-afraid. If Aunt Victoria noticedthis sardonic accent, she never paid it the tribute of a break in thesmooth surface of her own consistent good-will, rebuking her brother'sprickly hostility only by the most indulgent tolerance of hisqueer ways, a tolerance which never had on Professor Marshall'ssensibilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its naturalresult. 

The visit which Aunt Victoria paid them when Sylvia was ten years oldwas more peaceable than the one before it. Perhaps the interval offive years between the two had mellowed the relationship; or moreprobably the friction was diminished because Aunt Victoria arrangedmatters so that she was less constantly in the house than usual. Onthat occasion, in addition to the maid who always accompanied her, she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and with characteristicthoughtfulness refused to impose this considerable train of attendantson a household so primitively organized as that of the Marshalls. Theyall spent the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town, alarge new edifice, the conspicuous costliness of which was one of themost recent sources of civic pride in La Chance. Here in a suite offour much-decorated rooms, which seemed unutterably elegant to Sylvia, the travelers slept, and ate most of their meals, making their tripsout to the Marshall house in a small, neat, open carriage, which, although engaged at a livery-stable by Mrs. Marshall-Smith for theperiod of her stay, was not to be distinguished from a privately ownedequipage. 

It can be imagined what an event in the pre-eminently stationary lifeof the Marshall children was this fortnight. To Judith and Lawrence, eight and four respectively, Aunt Victoria's charms and amenities werenon-existent. She was for Judith as negligible as all other grown-ups, save the few who had good sense enough to play games and go inswimming. Judith's interest centered in the new boy, whom theMarshalls now saw for the first time, and who was in every way aspecimen novel in their limited experience of children. During theirfirst encounter, the well-groomed, white-linen-clad boy with hispreternaturally clean face, his light-brown hair brushed till it shonelike lacquer, his polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, aroused a contempt in Judith's mind which was only equaled by herastonishment. On that occasion he sat upright in a chair between hisstepmother and his tutor, looking intently out of very bright blueeyes at the two gipsy-brown little girls in their single-garmentlinen play-clothes, swinging their tanned bare legs and feet from therailing of the porch. They returned this inspection in silence--onSylvia's part with the keen and welcoming interest she always felt innew people who were well-dressed and physically attractive, but as forJudith with a frankly hostile curiosity, as at some strange and quiteunattractive new animal. 

The next morning, a still, oppressive day of brazen heat, it wassuggested that the children take their guest off to visit some oftheir own favorite haunts to "get acquainted. " This process begansomewhat violently by the instant halt of Arnold as soon as they wereout of sight of the house. "I'm going to take off these damn socks andshoes, " he announced, sitting down in the edge of a flower-bed. 

"Oh, don't! You'll get your clean suit all dirty!" cried Sylvia, springing forward to lift him out of the well-tilled black loam. Arnold thrust her hand away and made a visible effort to increase hisspecific gravity. "I hope to the Lord I _do_ get it dirty!" he saidbitterly. 

"Isn't it your best?" asked Sylvia, aghast. "Have you another?" "Ihaven't anything but!" said the boy savagely. "There's a whole trunkfull of them!" He was fumbling with a rough clumsiness at the lacingof his shoes, but made no progress in loosening them, and now begankicking at the grass. "I don't know how to get them off!" he cried, his voice breaking nervously. Judith was down on her knees, inspectingwith a competent curiosity the fastenings, which were of a newvariety. 

"It's _easy_!" she said. "You just lift this little catch up and turnit back, and that lets you get at the knot. " As she spoke, she acted, her rough brown little fingers tugging at the silken laces. "How'dyou ever _get_ it fastened, " she inquired, "if you don't know how tounfasten it?"

"Oh, Pauline puts my shoes on for me, " explained Arnold. "She dressesand undresses me. "

Judith stopped and looked up at him. "Who's Pauline?" she asked, disapproving astonishment in her accent. 

"Madrina's maid. "

Judith pursued him further with her little black look of scorn. "Who'sMadrina?"

"Why--you know--your Aunt Victoria--my stepmother--she married myfather when I was a little baby--she doesn't want me to call her'mother' so I call her Madrina. ' That's Italian for--"

Judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion about it. She recalled the conversation to the point at issue with her usualruthless directness. "And you wouldn't know how to undress yourselfif somebody didn't help you!" She went on loosening the laces in acontemptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resentfully at theback of her shining black hair. Sylvia essayed a soothing remarkabout what pretty shoes he had, but with small success. Already theexcursion was beginning to take on the color of its ending, --anencounter between the personalities of Judith and Arnold, with Sylviaand Lawrence left out. When the shoes finally came off, they revealedwhite silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed a pair ofstartlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now essayed wincingly towalk. "Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!" he cried, holding up first one and then theother from contact with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, "Howdo you _do it_?"

"Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring, " said Judithcarelessly. "You have to get used to it. How old are you?"

"Ten, last May. "

"Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four, " shestated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house. 

After that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulatecomplaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. He wasshown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens sheddingtheir down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in thefascination of scattering grain to them and watching their flutteringscrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one ofthe limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feeda lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown thehouse-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two largebranches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat hiseyes shone with happy excitement. He was evidently about to make somecomment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome little face, unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. He tried the samepolicy when being shown the children's own garden, but Judith trackedhim out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct andsearching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadestdivision-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself upto open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilizedSylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. The new boy was notin the least what he had looked. She longed to return to thecontemplation of Aunt Victoria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual, deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth someenterprise which had nothing to do with any one about him. He wasfrowning and waving his arms, and making stabbing gestures with hisfingers, and paid no attention to the conversation between Judith andthe new boy. 

"What _can_ you do? What _do_ you know?" asked the former at last. 

"I can ride horseback, " said Arnold defiantly. 

Judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to the stall whichwas the abode of the little pinto broncho, left them, she explained, as a trust by one of Father's students from the Far West, who was nowgraduated and a civil engineer in Chicago, where it cost too much tokeep a horse. Arnold emerged from this encounter with the pony withbut little more credit than he had earned in the garden, showing anineptness about equine ways which led Judith through an unsparingcross-examination to the information that the boy's experience ofhandling a horse consisted in being ready in a riding-costume at acertain hour every afternoon, and mounting a well-broken littlepony, all saddled and bridled, which was "brought round" to theporte-cochère. 

"What's a porte-cochère?" she asked, with her inimitable air ofdespising it, whatever it might turn out to be. 

Arnold stared with an attempt to copy her own frank scorn foranother's ignorance. "Huh! Don't you even know that much? It's the bigporch without any floor to it, where carriages drive up so you can getin and out without getting wet if it rains. Every house that's goodfor anything has one. "

So far from being impressed or put down, Judith took her stand asusual on the offensive. "'Fore I'd be afraid of a little rain!" shesaid severely, an answer which caused Arnold to seem disconcerted, andagain to look at her hard with the startled expression of arrestedattention which from the first her remarks and strictures seemed tocause in him. 

They took the pinto out. Judith rode him bareback at a gallop downto the swimming pool and dived from his back into the yellow watershimmering hotly in the sun. This feat stung Arnold into a final fury. Without an instant's pause he sprang in after her. As he came to thetop, swimming strongly with a lusty, regular stroke, and rapidlyoverhauled the puffing Judith, his face shone brilliantly with relief. He was another child. The petulant boy of a few moments before hadvanished. "Beat you to the springboard!" he sputtered joyously, swimming low and spitting water as he slid easily through it at twiceJudith's speed. She set her teeth and drove her tough little body witha fierce concentration of all her forces, but Arnold was sitting onthe springboard, dangling his red and swollen feet when she arrived. 

She clambered out and sat down beside him, silent for an instant. Thenshe said with a detached air, "You can swim better than any boy I eversaw. "

Arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this statement. He lookedat the dripping little brown rat beside him, and returned impulsively, "I'd rather play with you than any girl I ever saw. "

They were immediately reduced to an awkward silence by these twounpremeditated superlatives. Judith found nothing to say beyond a"huh" in an uncertain accent, and they turned with relief to alarumsand excursions from the forgotten and abandoned Sylvia and Lawrence. Sylvia was forcibly restraining her little brother from followingJudith into the water. "You _mustn't_, Buddy! You _know_ we aren'tallowed to go in till an hour after eating and you only had yourbreakfast a little while ago!" She led him away bellowing. 

Arnold, surprised, asked Judith, "'Cept for that, are you allowed togo in whenever you want?"

"Sure! We're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a time, and thenget out and run around for half an hour in the sun. There's a clockunder a little roof-thing, nailed up to a tree over there, so's we cantell. "

"And don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your clothes onthis way?"

"I haven't any clothes _on_ but my rompers, " said Judith. "They'rejust the same as a bathing suit. " She snatched back her prerogative ofasking questions. "Where _did_ you learn to swim so?"

"At the seashore! I get taken there a month every summer. It's themost fun of any of the places I get taken. I've had lessons there fromthe professor of swimming ever since I was six. Madrina doesn't knowwhat to do with me but have me take lessons. I like the swimming onesthe best. I hate dancing--and going to museums. "

"What else can you do?" asked Judith with a noticeable abatement ofher previous disesteem. 

Arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently dashed. "Well--I can fence a little--and talk French; we are in Paris winters, you know. We don't stay in Lydford for the winter. Nobody does. "

"_Everybody_ goes away?" queried Judith. "What a funny town!"

"Oh, except the people who _live_ there--the Vermonters. "

Judith was more and more at a loss. "Don't _you_ live there?"

"No, we don't _live_ anywhere. We just stay places for a while. Nobodythat we know lives anywhere. " He interrupted a further question fromthe astonished Judith to ask, "How'd you happen to have such a dandyswimming-pool out of such a little brook?"

Judith, switched off upon a topic of recent and absorbing interest, was diverted from investigation into the odd ways of people wholived nowhere. "Isn't it great!" she said ardently. "It's new thissummer--that's why I don't swim so very well yet. Why, it was thisway. The creek ran through a corner of our land, and a lot of Father'sstudents that are engineers or something, wanted to do somethingfor Father when they graduated--lots of students do, you know--andeverybody said the creek didn't have water enough and they bet eachother it did, and after Commencement we had a kind of camp fora week--tents and things all round here--and Mother cooked forthem--camp fires--oh, lots of fun!--and they let us children tagaround as much as we pleased--and they and Father dug, and fixedconcrete--say, did you ever get let to stir up concrete? It's great!"

Seeing in the boy's face a blankness as great as her own during hischance revelations of life on another planet, she exclaimed, "Here, come on, down to the other end, and I'll _show_ you how they made thedam and all--they began over there with--" The two pattered along theedge hand-in-hand, talking incessantly on a common topic at last, interrupting each other, squatting down, peering into the water, pointing, discussing, arguing, squeezing the deliciously soft mud upand down between their toes, their heads close together--they mightfor the moment have been brother and sister who had grown up together. 

They were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and candid facesof animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful andqueen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over herstately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quietand observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappilyresponsible; and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at thechildren. 

"Why, Arnold _Smith_!" cried his tutor, too much overcome by thesituation to express himself more forcibly than by a repetition of theboy's name. "Why, _Arnold_! Come here!"

The cloud descended upon the boy's face. "I _will_ not!" he saidinsolently. 

"But we were just _looking_ for you to start back to the hotel, "argued Mr. Rollins. 

"I don't care if you were!" said the boy in a sullen accent. 

Sylvia and Judith looked on in amazement at this scene ofinsubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the boy's actions. He was standing still now, submitting in a gloomy silence to thevarious comments on his appearance, which was incredibly differentfrom that with which he had started on his travels. The starchremaining in a few places in his suit, now partly dried in thehot sun, caused the linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks andmud-streaked humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his verydirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from shapelessknickerbockers. His stepmother looked at him with her usualgood-natured amused gaze. "It is customary, before going in swimming, isn't it, Arnold, to take your watch out of your pocket and put yourcuff-links in a safe-place?" she suggested casually. 

"Good Heavens! His watch!" cried Mr. Rollins, clutching at his ownsandy hair. 

Professor Marshall clapped the boy encouragingly on the shoulder. "Well, sir, you look more like a human being, " he said heartily, addressing himself, with defiance in his tone, to his sister. 

She replied with a smile, "That rather depends, doesn't it, Elliott, upon one's idea of what constitutes a human being?"

Something in her sweet voice roused Judith to an ugly wrath. She cameforward and took her place protectingly beside her new playmate, scowling at her aunt. "We were having a _lovely_ time!" she saidchallengingly. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked down at the grotesque little figure andtouched the brown cheek indulgently with her forefinger. "That toorather depends upon one's definition of a lovely time, " she replied, turning away, leaving with the indifference of long practice theunfortunate Mr. Rollins to the task of converting Arnold into aproduct possible to transport through the streets of a civilized town. 

Before they went away that day, Arnold managed to seek Judith outalone, and with shamefaced clumsiness to slip his knife, quite new andthree-bladed, into her hand. She looked at it uncomprehendingly. "Foryou--to keep, " he said, flushing again, and looking hard into herdark eyes, which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rathersomber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. Judith's smiles werefar from frequent, but the recipient of one did not forget it. 

CHAPTER IV

EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE

In this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines of cleavagewere established in the family party during the next fortnight. Arnoldimperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons, " and when, itwas indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the twobeing always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in anybut the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall mode of lifewould have been called mischief. Mrs. Marshall, aided by the othersin turn, toiled vigorously between the long rows of vegetables anda little open shack near by, where, on a superannuated but stillserviceable cook-stove, she "put up, " for winter use, an endlesssupply of the golden abundance which, Ceres-like, she poured out everyyear from the Horn of Plenty of her garden. Sylvia, in a state ofhypnotized enchantment, dogged her Aunt Victoria's graceful footstepsand still more graceful, leisurely halts; Lawrence bustled about onhis own mysterious business in a solitary and apparently excitingworld of his own which was anywhere but in La Chance; and ProfessorMarshall, in the intervals of committee work at the University, nowabout to open, alternated between helping his wife, playing a greatdeal of very noisy and very brilliant music on the piano, andconversing in an unpleasant voice with his sister. 

Mr. Rollins, for whom, naturally, Arnold's revolt meant unwontedfreedom, was for the most part invisible, "seeing the sights of LaChance, I suppose, " conjectured Aunt Victoria indifferently, inher deliciously modulated voice, when asked what had become of thesandy-haired tutor. And because, in the intense retirement andrustication of this period, Mrs. Marshall-Smith needed littleattention paid to her toilets, Pauline also was apparently enjoying anunusual vacation. A short time after making the conjecture about herstepson's tutor, Aunt Victoria had added the suggestion, level-browed, and serene as always, "Perhaps he and Pauline are seeing the sightstogether. "

Sylvia, curled on a little stool at her aunt's feet, turned anartless, inquiring face up to her. "What _are_ the 'sights' of LaChance, Auntie?" she asked. 

Her father, who was sitting at the piano, his long fingers raisedas though about to play, whirled about and cut in quickly with anunintelligible answer, "Your Aunt Victoria refers to non-existentphenomena, my dear, in order to bring home to us the uncouthprovinciality in which we live. "

Aunt Victoria, leaning back, exquisitely passive, in one of the big, shabby arm-chairs, raised a protesting hand. "My dear Elliott, you don't do your chosen abiding-place justice. There is the newCourt-House. Nobody can deny that that is a sight. I spent a long timethe other day contemplating it. That and the Masonic Building are a_pair_ of sights. I conceive Rollins, who professes to be interestedin architecture, as constantly vibrating between the two. "

To which handsome tribute to La Chance's high-lights, ProfessorMarshall returned with bitterness, "Good Lord, Vic, why do you come, then?"

She answered pleasantly, "I might ask in my turn why you stay. " Shewent on, "I might also remind you that you and your children are theonly human ties I have. " She slipped a soft arm about Sylvia as shespoke, and turned the vivid, flower-like little face to be kissed. When Aunt Victoria kissed her, Sylvia always felt that she had, likeDiana in the story-book, stooped radiant from a shining cloud. 

There was a pause in the conversation. Professor Marshall faced thepiano again and precipitated himself headlong into the diabolicaccelerandos of "The Hall of the Mountain-King. " His sister listenedwith extreme and admiring appreciation of his talent. "Upon my word, Elliott, " she said heartily, "under the circumstances it's incredible, but it's true--your touch positively improves. "

He stopped short, and addressed the air above the piano withpassionate conviction. "I stay because, thanks to my wife, I'vesavored here fourteen years of more complete reconciliation withlife--I've been vouchsafed more usefulness--I've discovered moresubstantial reasons for existing than I ever dreamed possible in theold life--than any one in that world can conceive!"

Aunt Victoria looked down at her beautiful hands clasped in her lap. "Yes, quite so, " she breathed. "Any one who knows you well must agreethat whatever you are, or do, or find, nowadays, is certainly 'thanksto your wife. '"

Her brother flashed a furious look at her, and was about to speak, but catching sight of Sylvia's troubled little face turned to himanxiously, gave only an impatient shake to his ruddy head--now grayingslightly. A little later he said: "Oh, we don't speak the samelanguage any more, Victoria. I couldn't make you understand--you don'tknow--how should you? You can't conceive how, when one is really_living_, nothing of all that matters. What does architecture matter, for instance?"

"Some of it matters very little indeed, " concurred his sister blandly. 

This stirred him to an ungracious laugh. "As for keeping up only humanties, isn't a fortnight once every five years rather slim rations?"

"Ah, there are difficulties--the Masonic Building--" murmured AuntVictoria, apparently at random. But then, it seemed to Sylvia thatthey were always speaking at random. For all she could see, neither ofthem ever answered what the other had said. 

The best times were when she and Aunt Victoria were all alonetogether--or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline inattendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressingher mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria bestalso. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogethermagical to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortablenesswhich always happened when her aunt and her father were together. Asthey came to be on more intimate terms, Sylvia was told a great manydetails about Aunt Victoria's present and past life, in the form ofstories, especially about that early part of it which had been spentwith her brother. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took pains to talk to Sylviaabout her father as he had been when he was a brilliant dashing youthin Paris at school, or as the acknowledged social leader of his classin the famous Eastern college. "You see, Sylvia, " she explained, "having no father or mother or any near relatives, we saw more ofeach other than a good many brothers and sisters do. We had nobodyelse--except old Cousin Ellen, who kept house for us in the summersin Lydford and traveled around with us, " Lydford was another topic onwhich, although it was already very familiar to her from her mother'sreminiscences of her childhood in Vermont, Aunt Victoria shed muchlight for Sylvia. Aunt Victoria's Lydford was so different fromMother's, it seemed scarcely possible they could be the same place. Mother's talk was all about the mountains, the sunny upland pastures, rocky and steep, such a contrast to the rich, level stretches ofcountry about La Chance; about the excursions through these slopesof the mountains every afternoon, accompanied by a marvelouslyintelligent collie dog, who helped find the cows; about the orchardfull of old trees more climbable than any others which have grownsince the world began; about the attic full of drying popcorn andold hair-trunks and dusty files of the New York _Tribune_; about thepantry with its cookie-jar, and the "back room" with its churn andcheese-press. 

Nothing of all this existed in the Lydford of which Aunt Victoriaspoke, although some of her recollections were also of childhoodhours. Once Sylvia asked her, "But if you were a little girl there, and Mother was too, --then you and Father and she must have playedtogether sometimes?"

Aunt Victoria had replied with decision, "No, I never saw your mother, and neither did your father--until a few months before they weremarried. "

"Well, wasn't that _queer_?" exclaimed Sylvia--"she _always_ lived inLydford except when she went away to college. "

Aunt Victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something unusual withher, and finally brought out, "Your mother lived on a farm, and welived in our summer house in the village. " She added after a moment'sdeliberation: "Her uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with ourbutter. Sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen door. "She looked hard at Sylvia as she spoke. 

"Well, I should have thought you'd have seen her _there_!" said Sylviain surprise. Nothing came to the Marshalls' kitchen door which was notin the children's field of consciousness. 

"It was, in fact, there that your father met her, " stated AuntVictoria briefly. 

"Oh yes, I remember, " said Sylvia, quoting fluently from an oftenheard tale. "I've heard them tell about it lots of times. She wasearning money to pay for her last year in college, and dropped ahistory book out of her basket as she started to get back in thewagon, and Father picked it up and said, 'Why, good Lord! who inLydford reads Gibbon?' And Mother said it was hers, and they talked awhile, and then he got in and rode off with her. "

"Yes, " said Aunt Victoria, "that was how it happened. . . . Pauline, getout the massage cream and do my face, will you?"

She did not talk any more for a time, but when she began, it was againof Lydford that she spoke, running along in a murmured stream ofreminiscences breathed faintly between motionless lips that Pauline'sreverent ministrations might not be disturbed. Through the veil ofthese half-understood recollections, Sylvia saw highly inaccuratepictures of great magnificent rooms filled with heavy old mahoganyfurniture, of riotously colored rose-gardens, terraced andbox-edged, inhabited by beautiful ladies always, like Aunt Victoria, "dressed-up, " who took tea under brightly striped, pagoda-shapedtents, waited upon by slant-eyed Japanese (it seemed Aunt Victoria hadnothing but Japanese servants). The whole picture shimmered in theconfused imagination of the listening little girl, till it blendedindistinguishably with the enchantment of her fairy-stories. It allseemed a background natural enough for Aunt Victoria, but Sylvia couldnot fit her father into it. 

"Ah, he's changed greatly--he's transformed--he is not the samecreature, " Aunt Victoria told her gravely, speaking according to herseductive habit with Sylvia, as though to an equal. "The year whenwe lost our money and he married, altered all the world for us. "She linked the two events together, and was rewarded by seeing thereference slide over Sylvia's head. 

"Did you lose _your_ money, too?" asked Sylvia, astounded. It hadnever occurred to her that Aunt Victoria might have been affected bythat event in her father's life, with which she was quite familiarthrough his careless references to what he seemed to regard as aninteresting but negligible incident. 

"All but the slightest portion of it, my dear--when I was twenty yearsold. Your father was twenty-five. "

Sylvia looked about her at the cut-glass and silver utensils onthe lace-covered dressing-table, at Aunt Victoria's pale lilaccrêpe-de-chine négligée, at the neat, pretty young maid deft-handedlyrubbing the perfumed cream into the other woman's well-preserved face, impassive as an idol's. "Why--why, I thought--" she began and stopped, a native delicacy making her hesitate as Judith never did. 

Aunt Victoria understood. "Mr. Smith had money, " she explainedbriefly. "I married when I was twenty-one. "

"Oh, " said Sylvia. It seemed an easy way out of difficulties. Shehad never before chanced to hear Aunt Victoria mention her long-deadhusband. 

CHAPTER V

SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS

She did not by any means always sit in the hotel and watchPauline care for different portions of Aunt Victoria's body. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took, on principle, a drive every day, and Sylvia washer favorite companion. At first they went generally over the asphaltand in front of the costly and incredibly differing "mansions" ofthe "residential portion" of town, but later their drives took themprincipally along the winding roads and under the thrifty young treesof the State University campus. They often made an excuse of fetchingProfessor Marshall home from a committee meeting, and as the facultycommittees at that time of year were, for the most part, feverishlyoccupied with the classification of the annual flood-tide of Freshmen, he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait longhalf-hours in front of the Main Building. 

Sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her simple best, which her mother without comment allowed her to put on every day now, she sat in the well-appointed carriage beside her beautiful aunt, atwhom every one looked so hard and so admiringly. The University workhad not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and assistants, recalled from their vacations for various executive tasks, werepresent in sufficient numbers to animate the front steps of the MainBuilding with constantly gathering and dissolving little groups. Thesecalled out greetings to each other, and exchanged dolorous mutualcondolences on their hard fate; all showing, with a helpless masculinenaïveté, their consciousness of the lovely, observant figure in thecarriage below them. Of a different sort were the professors' wives, who occasionally drifted past on the path. Aunt Victoria might havebeen a blue-uniformed messenger-boy for all that was betrayed by theirskilfully casual glance at her and then away, and the subsequentdirectness of their forward gaze across the campus. Mrs. Marshall-Smith had for both these manifestations of consciousness ofher presence the same imperturbable smile of amusement. "They aredelightful, these colleagues of your father's!" she told Sylvia. Sylvia had hoped fervently that the stylish Mrs. Hubert might seeher in this brief apotheosis, and one day her prayer was answered. Straight down the steps of the Main Building they came, Mrs. Hubertglistening in shiny blue silk, extremely unaware of Aunt Victoria, the two little girls looking to Sylvia like fairy princesses, withpink-and-white, lace-trimmed dresses, and big pink hats with rosewreaths. Even the silk laces in their low, white kid shoes were ofpink to match the ribbons, which gleamed at waist and throat andelbow. Sylvia watched them in an utter admiration, and was beyondmeasure shocked when Aunt Victoria said, after they had steppeddaintily past, "Heavens! What a horridly over-dressed family! Thosepoor children look too absurd, tricked out like that. The one nearestme had a sweet, appealing little face, too. "

"That is Eleanor, " said Sylvia, with a keen, painful recollection ofthe scene a year ago. She added doubtfully, "Didn't you think theirdresses pretty, Aunt Victoria?"

"I thought they looked like pin-cushions on a kitchen-maid'sdressing-table, " returned Aunt Victoria more forcibly than she usuallyexpressed herself. "You look vastly better with the straight linesof your plain white dresses. You have a great deal of style, Sylvia. Judith is handsomer than you, but she will never have any style. " Thisverdict, upon both the Huberts and herself, delivered with a seriousaccent of mature deliberation, impressed Sylvia. It was one of thespeeches she was to ponder. 

Although Professor Marshall showed himself noticeably negligent in thematter of introducing his colleagues to his sister, it was only twoor three days before Aunt Victoria's half-hours of waiting before theMain Building had other companionship than Sylvia's. This was due tothe decisive action of young Professor Saunders, just back from theBritish Museum, where, at Professor Marshall's suggestion, he had beendigging up facts about the economic history of the twelfth century inEngland. Without waiting for an invitation he walked straight up tothe carriage with the ostensible purpose of greeting Sylvia, who was agreat favorite of his, and who in her turn had a romantic admirationfor the tall young assistant. Of all the faculty people who frequentedthe Marshall house, he and old Professor Kennedy were the only peoplewhom Sylvia considered "stylish, " and Professor Kennedy, in spite ofhis very high connection with the aristocracy of La Chance, was socross and depressed that really his "style" did not count. She wasnow greatly pleased by the younger professor's public and cordialrecognition of her, and, with her precocious instinct for social ease, managed to introduce him to her aunt, even adding quaintly a phrasewhich she had heard her mother use in speaking of him, "My fatherthinks Professor Saunders has a brilliant future before him. "

This very complimentary reference had not the effect she hoped for, since both the young man and Aunt Victoria laughed, exchanging glancesof understanding, and said to each other, "Isn't she delicious?" Butat least it effectually broke any ice of constraint, so that thenew-comer felt at once upon the most familiarly friendly terms withthe sister of his chief. Thereafter he came frequently to lean an armon the side of the carriage and talk with the "ladies-in-waiting, "as he called the pretty woman and child. Once or twice Sylvia wastransferred to the front seat beside Peter, the negro driver, on theground that she could watch the horses better, and they took ProfessorSaunders for a drive through the flat, fertile country, now beginningto gleam ruddy with autumnal tints of bronze and scarlet and gold. Although she greatly enjoyed the social brilliance of these occasions, on which Aunt Victoria showed herself unexpectedly sprightly andaltogether enchanting, Sylvia felt a little guilty that they did notreturn to pick up Professor Marshall, and she was relieved, when theymet at supper, that he made no reference to their defection. 

He did not, in fact, mention his assistant's name at all, and yet hedid not seem surprised when Professor Saunders, coming to the Sundayevening rehearsal of the quartet, needed no introduction to hissister, but drew a chair up with the evident intention of devotingall his conversation to her. For a time this overt intention wasfrustrated by old Reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealedfor the beautiful stranger. In the interval before the arrival of thelater members of the quartet, he fluttered around her like an ungainlyold moth, racking his scant English for complimentary speeches. Thesewere received by Aunt Victoria with her best calm smile, and byProfessor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was notrestored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talkthan usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for histête-à-tête. 

It began by the arrival of Professor Kennedy, a little late, delayedat a reunion of the Kennedy family. He was always reduced to biliousgloom by any close contact with that distinguished, wealthy, and muchlooked-up-to group of citizens of La Chance, and this evening hewalked into the front door obviously even more depressed than usual. The weather had turned cool, and his imposingly tall old person waswrapped in a cape-overcoat. Sylvia had no fondness for ProfessorKennedy, but she greatly admired his looks and his clothes, and hishandsome, high-nosed old face. She watched him wrestle himself out ofhis coat as though it were a grappling enemy, and was not surprised atthe irritability which sat visibly upon his arching white eyebrows. He entered the room trailing his 'cello-bag beside him and pluckingpeevishly at its drawstrings, and although Aunt Victoria quite rousedherself at the sight of him, he received his introduction to her withreprehensible indifference. He sank into a chair and looked sadly atthe fire, taking the point of his white beard in his long, taperingfingers. Professor Marshall turned from the piano, where he sat, striking A for the conscientious Bauermeister to tune, and saidlaughingly, "Hey there, Knight of the Dolorous Countenance, whatvulture is doing business at the old stand on your liver?"

Professor Kennedy crossed one long, elegantly slim leg over the other, "I've been dining with the Kennedy family, " he said, with a neat andsignificant conciseness. 

"Anything specially the matter with the predatory rich?" queriedMarshall, reaching for his viola-case. 

Professor Kennedy shook his head. "Alas! there's never anything thematter with them. _Comme le diable, ils se portent toujours bien_. "

At the purity of accent with which this embittered remark was made, Mrs. Marshall-Smith opened her eyes, and paid more attention as theold professor went on. 

"The last of my unmarried nieces has shown herself a true Kennedy byproviding herself with a dolichocephalic blond of a husband, like allthe others. The dinner was given in honor of the engagement. "

Sylvia was accustomed to finding Professor Kennedy's remarks quiteunintelligible, and this one seemed no odder to her than the rest, sothat she was astonished that Aunt Victoria was not ashamed to confessas blank an ignorance as the little girl's. The beautiful woman leanedtoward the morose old man with the suave self-confidence of one whohas never failed to charm, and drew his attention to her by a laughof amused perplexity. "May I ask, " she inquired, "_what_ kind of ahusband is that? It is a new variety to me. "

Professor Kennedy looked at her appraisingly. "It's the kind mostwomen aspire to, " he answered enigmatically. He imparted to thisobscure remark the air of passing a sentence of condemnation. 

Sylvia's mother stirred uneasily in her chair and looked at herhusband. He had begun to take his viola from the case, but nowreturned it and stood looking quizzically from his sister to hisguest. "Professor Kennedy talks a special language, Vic, " he saidlightly. "Some day he'll make a book of it and be famous. He dividesus all into two kinds: the ones that get what they want by taking itaway from other people--those are the dolichocephalic blonds--thoughI believe it doesn't refer to the color of their hair. The other kindare the white folks, the unpredatory ones who have scruples, and getpushed to the wall for their pains. "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned to the young man beside her. "It makes onewonder, doesn't it, " she conjectured pleasantly, "to which type onebelongs oneself?"

In this welcome shifting from the abstract to the understandablypersonal, old Reinhardt saw his opportunity. "Ach, womens, beautifooland goot womens!" he cried in his thick, kindly voice. "Dey are abofebeing types. To every good man, dey can be only wie eine blume, sohold and schön--"

Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in--"So you're still in the 1830Romantische Schule period, are you, Reinhardt?" He went on to Mrs. Marshall-Smith: "But there _is_ something in that sort of talk. Women, especially those who consider themselves beautiful and good, escapebeing _either_ kind of type, by the legerdemain with which they getwhat they want, and yet don't soil their fingers with predatory acts. "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, perhaps, a shade tardy in asking the questionwhich he had evidently cast his speech to extract from her, but afteran instant's pause she brought it out bravely. "How in the world doyou mean?" she asked, smiling, and received, with a quick flicker ofher eyelids, the old man's response of, "They buy a dolichocephalicblond to do their dirty work for them and pay for him with theirpersons. "

"_Oh!_" cried Mrs. Marshall, checking herself in a sudden deprecatorygesture of apology towards her sister-in-law. She looked at herhusband and gave him a silent, urgent message to break the awkwardpause, a message which he disregarded, continuing coolly to inspecthis fingernails with an abstracted air, contradicted by the half-smileon his lips. Sylvia, listening to the talk, could make nothing out ofit, but miserably felt her little heart grow leaden as she looked fromone face to another. Judith and Lawrence, tired of waiting for themusic to begin, had dropped asleep among the pillows of the divan. Mr. Bauermeister yawned, looked at the clock, and plucked at the stringsof his violin. He hated all talk as a waste of time. Old Reinhardt'ssimple face looked as puzzled and uneasy as Sylvia's own. Young Mr. Saunders seemed to have no idea that there was anything particularlyunsettling in the situation, but, disliking the caustic vehemence ofhis old colleague's speech, inter-posed to turn it from the lady byhis side. "And you're the man who's opposed on principle to sweepinggeneralizations!" he said in cheerful rebuke. 

"Ah, I've just come from a gathering of the Clan Kennedy, " repeatedthe older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfullypredatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation ofKennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the risein the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir;the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out andtaking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enoughfor them, if you please. And my woman relatives--" He swept them awaywith a gesture. "When I--"

Mrs. Marshall cut him short resolutely. "Are you going to have anymusic tonight, or aren't you?" she said. 

He looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of his sombereyes. "Do you know, Barbara Marshall, that there are times when youkeep one unhappy old misanthrope from despairing of his kind?"

She had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest astonishment. "I don't know what you're talking about, " she said bluntly. 

Judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. When she saw thatProfessor Kennedy had come in, she did what Sylvia would never havedared do; she ran to him and climbed up on his knee, laying hershining, dark head against his shoulder. The old man's arms closedaround her. "Well, spitfire, " he said, "_comment ça roule_, eh?"

Judith did not trouble herself to answer. With a gesture oftenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her mother, her old friendlaid his cheek against hers. "You're another, Judy, _You'll_ nevermarry a dolichocephalic blond and make him pull the chestnuts out ofthe fire for you, will you?" he said confidently. 

Mrs. Marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose patience isgone. She made a step as though to shield her husband's sister fromthe cantankerous old man. "If I hear another word of argument in thishouse tonight--" she threatened. "Mr. Reinhardt, what are these people_here for_?"

The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation ofhis host's sister, and looked about him. "Ach, yes! Ach, yes!"he admitted. With a glance of adoration at the visitor, he addedimpressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundlysignificant tribute, "Dis night we shall blay only Schubert!"

Sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of themusic-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping. YoungMr. Saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leanedtoward Aunt Victoria and began talking in low tones. Once or twicethey laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy. 

Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on hisrack, lifted his violin to his chin, and--an obliterating sponge waspassed over Sylvia's memory. All the queer, uncomfortable talk, theunpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindlysmiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind. The smooth, swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound. As she listenedand felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she wasbeing floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room wherepersonalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces. 

All that night in her dreams she heard only old Reinhardt's angelvoice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the otherstrings:

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE

One day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and Arnold were latein their daily arrival at the Marshall house, and when the neat surreyat last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure. Discomposurewas no unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made hisappearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revoltagainst his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced, and looked a little scared. His stepmother's fine complexion, onthe contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and hercarriage had less than usual of sinuous grace. Sylvia and Judith randown the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by theiraspect. Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held, and without giving Sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked herpreference for her older niece, walked at once into the house. 

Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by these phenomena, that, even after her aunt's disappearance, she remained daunted andsilent, Judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presenceto restore her coolness. She pounced on Arnold with questions. "What_you_ been doing that's so awful bad? I bet _you_ caught it allright!"

"'Tisn't me, " said Arnold in a subdued voice. "It's Pauline and oldRollins that caught it. They're the ones that ha' been bad. "

Judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-ups might donaughty things. Arnold went on, "If you'd ha' heard Madrina talking toPauline--say! Do you know what I did? I crawled under the bed--honestI did. It didn't last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o'me. " This vigorous expression was a favorite of his. 

Judith was somewhat impressed by his face and manner, but stillinclined to mock at a confession of fear. "Under the _bed_!" shesneered. 

Arnold evidently felt the horror of the recently enacted scene sovividly that there was no room for shame in his mind. "You bet I did!And so would you too, if you'd ha' been there. _Gee_!"

In spite of herself Judith looked somewhat startled by the vibrationof sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her quick sympathy ofdivination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all hisbraggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a sick expressionin his eyes. 

"Was it in your room?" asked Judith. "I thought Pauline's room was onthe top floor. What was she doing down there?"

"No, it was in old Rollins' room--next to mine. I don't know whatPauline was doing there. "

"What did Pauline do when Aunt Victoria scolded her?" asked Sylvia. She had come to be fond of the pretty young maid with her fat, quickhands and her bright, warm-hearted smile for her mistress' littleniece. One day, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith had, for a moment, chanced toleave them alone, Pauline had given her a sudden embrace, and had toldher: "At 'ome zere are four leetle brozers and sisters. America is aplace mos' solitary!" "What did Pauline do?" asked Sylvia again asArnold did not answer. 

The boy looked down. "Pauline just cried and cried, " he said in a lowtone. "I _liked_ Pauline! She was awful good to me. I--I heard hercrying afterwards as she went away. Seemed to me I could hear hercrying all the way out here. "

"Did she go away?" asked Judith, trying to make something coherent outof the story. Arnold nodded. 

"You bet she did. Madrina turned her right out--and old Rollins too. "

"Was _he_ there? What was the matter anyhow?" Judith persisted. 

Arnold twisted uncomfortably, loath to continue bringing up the scene. "I d'n know what was the matter. Yes, old Rollins was there, allright. He's gone away too, the doggoned old thing--for good. That's_something_!" He added, "Aw, quit talkin' about it, can't you! Let'splay!"

"It's my turn to help Mother with the tomatoes, " said Judith. "She'sdoing the last of the canning this morning. Maybe she'd let you help. "

Arnold brightened. "Maybe she would!" he said, adding eagerly, "Maybeshe'd tell us another of the stories about her grandmother. "

Judith snatched at his hand and began racing down the path to thegarden. "Maybe she would!" she cried. They both called as they ran, "Mother, _oh_, Mother!" and as they ran, they leaped and bounded intothe bright autumn air like a couple of puppies. 

Sylvia's mental resiliency was not of such sturdily elastic stuff. Shestood still, thinking of Pauline crying, and crying--and started asidewhen her aunt came out again on the porch. 

"I don't find any one in the house, Sylvia dear, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith quietly. Sylvia looked up into the clear, blue eyes, solike her father's, and felt the usual magic spell lay hold on her. Thehorrid impression made by Arnold's story dimmed and faded. Arnold wasalways getting things twisted. She came up closer to her aunt'sside and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two little hard, muscular hands. In her relief, she had forgotten to answer. Mrs. Marshall-Smith said again, "Where are your parents, dear?"

"Oh, " said Sylvia. "Oh yes--why, Father's at the University at acommittee meeting and Mother's out by the garden putting up tomatoes. Judy and Arnold are helping her. "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith hesitated, looked about her restlessly, andfinally raised her parasol, of a gold-colored silk, a lighter tone, but the same shade as her rich plain broadcloth costume of tan. "Shallwe take a little walk, my dear?" she suggested. "I don't feel likesitting still just now--nor"--she looked down into Sylvia's eyes--"noryet like canning tomatoes, "

That walk, the last one taken with Aunt Victoria, became one ofSylvia's memories, although she never had a vivid recollection of whatthey saw during their slow ramble. It was only Aunt Victoria whom thelittle girl remembered--Aunt Victoria moving like a goddess over theirrough paths and under the changing glory of the autumn leaves. Sheherself was a brighter glory, with her shining blond hair crowned bya halo of feathery, gold-colored plumes, the soft, fine, supplebroadcloth of her garments gleaming in the sunshine with a sheen likethat of a well-kept animal's coat. There breathed from all her persona faint odor of grace and violets and unhurried leisure. 

Sylvia clung close to her side, taking in through all her pores thislovely emanation, not noticing whether they were talking or not, notheeding the direction of their steps. She was quite astonished to findherself on the University campus, in front of the Main Building. AuntVictoria had never walked so far before. "Oh, did you want to seeFather?" she asked, coming a little to herself. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith said, as if in answer, "Just sit down here andwait for me a minute, will you, Sylvia?" moving thereupon up the stepsand disappearing through the wide front door. Sylvia relapsed intoher day-dreams and, motionless in a pool of sunlight, waited, quiteunconscious of the passage of time. 

This long reverie was at last broken by the return of Mrs. Marshall-Smith. She was not alone, but the radiant young man whowalked beside her was not her brother, and nothing could havediffered more from the brilliantly hard gaze which Professor Marshallhabitually bent on his sister, than the soft intentness with whichyoung Mr. Saunders regarded the ripely beautiful woman. The dazzledexpression of his eyes was one of the remembered factors of the dayfor Sylvia. 

The two walked down the shaded steps, Sylvia watching them admiringly, the scene forever printed on her memory, and emerged into the pool ofsunshine where she sat, swinging her legs from the bench. They stoodthere for some minutes, talking together in low tones. Sylvia, absorbed in watching the play of light on Aunt Victoria's smoothcheek, heard but a few words of what passed between them. She had avague impression that Professor Saunders continually began sentencesstarting firmly with "But" and ending somehow on quite another note. She felt dimly that Aunt Victoria was less calmly passive than usualin a conversation, that it was not only the enchanting rising andfalling inflections of her voice which talked, but her eyes, her arms, her whole self. Once she laid her hand for an instant on ProfessorSaunders' arm. 

More than that Sylvia could not remember, even when she was askedlater to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. She wasresolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lacefalling away from her neck and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She hadnot only forgotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boyexisted. She was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming cloth andsmooth voices and the smell of violets. 

After a time she was aware that Professor Saunders shook hands andturned back up the steps. Aunt Victoria began to move with her slowgrace along the road towards home, and Sylvia to follow, soakingherself in an impression of supreme suavity. 

When, after the walk through the beech-woods, they reached the edge ofthe Marshall field, they saw a stiff plume of blue smoke stand up overthe shack by the garden and, as they approached, heard a murmur ofvoices. Mrs. Marshall-Smith stopped, furled her parasol, and surveyedthe scene within. Her sister-in-law, enveloped in a large blue apron, by no means fresh, sat beside a roughly built table, peelingtomatoes, her brown stained fingers moving with the rapidity of aprestidigitator's. Judith stood beside her, also attacking the pile ofcrimson fruit, endeavoring in vain to emulate her mother's speed. Overthe hot, rusty stove hung Arnold, red-faced and bright-eyed, armedwith a long, wooden spatula which he continually dug into the steamingcontents of an enormous white-lined kettle. As, at the arrival ofthe new-comers, Mrs. Marshall's voice stopped, he looked around andfrowned impatiently at his stepmother. "She's just got to the excitin'part, " he said severely, and to the raconteur eagerly, "'N'_en_ what?"

Mrs. Marshall looked up at her husband's sister, smiled, and wenton, --Sylvia recognized the story as one of her own old favorites. "Well, it was very early dawn when she had to go over to theneighbor's to borrow some medicine for her father, who kept gettingsicker all the time. As she hurried along across the meadow towardsthe stile, she kept wondering, in spite of herself, if there was anytruth in what Nat had said about having seen bear tracks near thehouse the day before. When she got to the stile she ran up thesteps--and on the top one she stood still, for there--" She madea dramatic pause and reached for another tray of tomatoes. Arnoldstopped stirring the pot and stood motionless, his eyes fixed onthe narrator, the spatula dripping tomato-juice all along his whitetrousers. "There on the other side, looking up at her, was a bear--abig black bear. "

Arnold's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. 

"My grandmother was dreadfully frightened. She was only seventeen, andshe hadn't any kind of a weapon, not so much as a little stick withher. Her first idea was to turn and run as fast as she could, backhome. But she remembered how sick her father was, and how much heneeded the medicine; and then besides, she used to say, all of asudden it made her angry, all over, to have that great stupid animalget in her way. She always said that nothing 'got her mad up' likefeeling afraid. So what do you suppose she did?"

Arnold could only shake his head silently in an ecstasy of impatiencefor the story to continue. Judith and Sylvia smiled at each other withthe insufferable complacence of auditors who know the end by heart. 

"She just pointed her finger at the bear, and she said in a loud, harsh voice: 'Shame! Shame! Shame on you! For sha-a-ame!' She'd taughtdistrict school, you know, and had had lots of practice saying thatto children who had been bad. The bear looked up at her hard fora minute, then dropped his head and began to walk slowly away. Grandmother always said, 'The great lummox lumbered off into thebushes like a gawk of a boy who's been caught in mischief, ' She waitedjust a minute and then ran like lightning along the path through thewoods to the neighbors and got the medicine. "

The story was evidently over, the last tomato was peeled. Mrs. Marshall rose, wiping her stained and dripping hands on her apron, and went to the stove. Arnold started as if coming out of a dreamand looked about him with wondering eyes. "Well, what-d'you-think-o'-_that?_" he commented, all in one breath. "Say, Mother, " he went on, looking up at her with trusting eyes, searchingthe quiet face, "what do you suppose _made_ the bear go away? Youwouldn't think a little thing like that would scare a _bear_!"

Mrs. Marshall began dipping the hot, stewed tomatoes into the glassjars ready in a big pan of boiling water on the back of the stove. Thesteam rose up, like a cloud, into her face, which began to turn redand to glisten with perspiration. "Oh, I don't suppose it reallyfrightened the bear, " she said moderately, refraining from thedramatic note of completeness which her husband, in spite of himself, gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the pungent, homelysavor of reality, which none relished more than Sylvia and her father, incapable themselves of achieving it. "'Most likely the bear wouldhave gone away of his own accord anyhow. They don't attack peopleunless they're stirred up. " Arnold bit deeply into the solidity ofthis unexaggerated presentation, and was silent for a moment, sayingthen: "Well, anyhow, she didn't _know_ he'd go away! She was a sport, all right!"

"Oh yes, indeed, " said Mrs. Marshall, dipping and steaming, and wipingaway the perspiration, which ran down in drops to the end of herlarge, shapely nose. "Yes, my grandmother was a sport, all right. " Theacrid smell of hot, cooking tomatoes filled the shed and spread to theedge where Sylvia and her aunt stood, still a little aloof. Althoughit bore no resemblance to the odor of violets, it could not be calleda disgusting smell: it was the sort of smell which is quite agreeablewhen one is very hungry. But Sylvia was not hungry at all. She steppedback involuntarily. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, on the contrary, advanced astep or so, until she stood close to her sister-in-law. "Barbara, I'dlike to see you a few minutes without the children, " she remarked inthe neutral tone she always had for her brother's wife. "A ratherunpleasant occurrence--I'm in something of a quandary. "

Mrs. Marshall nodded. "All right, " she agreed. "Scatter out of here, you children! Go and let out the hens, and give them some water!"

Arnold needed no second bidding, reminded by his stepmother's wordsof his experiences of the morning. He and Judith scampered away ina suddenly improvised race to see who would reach the chicken-housefirst. Sylvia went more slowly, looking back once or twice at thepicture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted--her mother, active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled and stained apron, herdark hair bound closely about her round head, her moist, red face andsteady eyes turned attentively upon the radiant creature beside her, cool and detached, leaning willow-like on the slender wand of thegold-colored parasol. 

Professor Marshall chanced to be late that day in coming home forluncheon, and Aunt Victoria and Arnold had returned to the hotelwithout seeing him. His wife remarked that Victoria had asked herto tell him something, but, acting on her inviolable principle thatnothing must interfere with the cheerful peace of mealtime, saidnothing more to him until after they had finished the big plate ofpurple grapes from her garden, with which the meal ended. 

Then Judith vanished out to the shop, where she was constructing arabbit-house for the latest family. Sylvia took Lawrence, yawning andrubbing his eyes, but fighting desperately against his sleepiness, upstairs for his nap. When this task fell to Judith's lot it wasdespatched with business-like promptness, but Lawrence had earlydiscovered a temperamental difference between his two sisters, andSylvia was seldom allowed to leave the small bed until she had paidtribute to her ever-present desire to please, in the shape of a storyor a song. On that day Buddy was more exacting than usual. Sylvia toldthe story of Cinderella and sang, "A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go, " twicethrough, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. Even then, theclutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand did not relax. Whenshe tried to slip her fingers out of his, his eyelids fluttered openand he tightened his grasp with a wilful frown. So she sat still onthe edge of his bed, waiting till he should be really asleep. 

From the dining-room below her rose the sound of voices, or rather ofone voice--her father's. She wondered why it sounded so angry, andthen, mixed with some unintelligible phrases--"turned out on thestreet, in trouble--in a foreign land--Good God!" she caught Pauline'sname. Oh yes, that must be the trouble. Mother was telling Fatherabout Pauline--whatever it was she had done--and he was as mad aboutit as Aunt Victoria had been. If Aunt Victoria's voice had soundedlike that, she didn't wonder that Arnold had hidden under the bed. Ifshe could have moved, she, too, would have run away, although theidea that she ought to do so did not occur to her. There had been nosecrets in that house. The talk had always been for all to hear whowould. 

But when she tried again to slip her hand away from Buddy's the littleboy pulled at it hard, and half opening his eyes, said sleepily, "Sylvie stay with Buddy--Sylvie stay--" Sylvia yielded weakly, said:"Yes--sh! sh! Sister'll stay. Go to sleep, Buddy. "

From below came the angry voice, quite loud now, so that she caughtevery queer-sounding word--"righteous indignation indeed! What elsedid _she_ do, I'd like to know, when she wanted money. The onlydifference was that she was cold-blooded enough to extract a legalstatus from the old reprobate she accosted. "

Sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, "You ought to beashamed to use such a word!" and her father retort, "It's the _only_word that expresses it! You know as well as I do that she cared nomore for Ephraim Smith than for the first man she might have solicitedon the street--nor so much! God! It makes me sick to look at her andthink of the price she paid for her present damn Olympian serenity. "

Sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table. There was arattle of dishes through which her voice rose impatiently. "Oh, Elliott, why be so melodramatic always, and spoil so much goodlanguage! She did only what every girl brought up as she was, wouldhave done. And, anyhow, are you so very sure that in your heartyou're not so awfully hard on her because you're envious of that veryprosperity?"

He admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust. "Very likely. Very likely!--everything base and mean in me, that you keep down, springs to life in me at her touch. I dare say I do envy her--I'mquite capable of that--am I not her brother, with the same--"

Mrs. Marshall said hastily: "Hush! Hush! Here's Judith. For Heaven'ssake don't let the child hear you!"

For the first time the idea penetrated Sylvia's head that she oughtnot to have listened. Buddy was now soundly asleep: she detached herhand from his, and went soberly along the hall into her own room. Shedid not want to see her father just then. 

A long time after, Mother called up to say that Aunt Victoria had comefor her afternoon drive, and to leave Arnold. Sylvia opened the door acrack and asked, "Where's Father?"

"Oh, gone back to the University this long time, " answered her motherin her usual tone. Sylvia came down the stairs slowly and took herseat in the carriage beside Aunt Victoria with none of her usualdemonstrative show of pleasure. 

"Don't you like my dress?" asked Aunt Victoria, as they drove away. "You don't even notice it, and I put it on 'specially to pleaseyou--you're the one discriminating critic in this town!" As Sylviamade no answer to this sally, she went on: "It's hard to get intoalone, too. I had to ask the hotel chambermaid to hook it up on theshoulders. "

Thus reminded of Pauline, Sylvia could have but inattentive eyes forthe creation of amber silk and lace, and brown fur, which seductivelyclad the handsome body beside her. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith gave her favorite a penetrating look. "What's thematter with you, Sylvia?" she asked in the peremptory note which hersweet voice of many modulations could startlingly assume on occasion. Sylvia had none of Judith's instant pugnacious antagonism to anyperemptory note. She answered in one imploring rush of a question, "Aunt Victoria, why should _Father_ be so very mad at Pauline?"

Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked a little startled at this direct referenceto the veiled storm-center of the day, but not at all displeased. "Oh, your mother told him? Was he so very angry?" she asked with a slightsmile. 

"Oh, dreadfully!" returned Sylvia. "I didn't _mean_ to listen, but Icouldn't help it. Buddy wouldn't go to sleep and Father's voice was soloud--and he got madder and madder at her. " She went on with anotherquestion, "Auntie, who was Ephraim Smith?"

Aunt Victoria turned upon her in astonishment, and did not, for amoment, answer; then: "Why, that was the name of my husband, Sylvia. What has that to do with anything?"

"Why didn't Pauline like him?" asked Sylvia. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith replied with a vivacity of surprise which carriedher out of her usual delicate leisure in speech. "_Pauline?_ Why, shenever saw him in her life! _What_ are you talking about, child?"

"But, Father said--I thought--he seemed to mean--" Sylvia halted, notable to remember in her bewilderment what it had been that Father hadsaid. In a blur of doubt and clouded perceptions she lost all definiteimpression of what she had heard. Evidently, as so often happened, shehad grown-ups' affairs all twisted up in her mind. Aunt Victoria wastouched with kindly amusement at the little girl's face of perplexity, and told her, dismissing the subject: "Never mind, dear, you evidentlymisunderstood something. But I wonder what your father could have saidto give you such a funny idea. "

Sylvia gave it up, shaking her head. They turned into the main streetof La Chance, and Aunt Victoria directed the coachman to drive them to"the" drug store of town, and offered Sylvia her choice of any sodawater confection she might select. This completed the "about-face" ofthe mobile little mind. After several moments of blissful anguish ofindecision, Sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream soda, and thereafterwas nothing but sense of taste as she ecstatically drew through astraw the syrupy, foamy draught of nectar. She took small sips at atime and held them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubbleof gas had rendered up its delicious prickle to her tongue. Herconsciousness was filled to its uttermost limits with a voluptuoussense of present physical delight. 

And yet it was precisely at this moment that from her subconsciousmind, retracing with unaided travail a half-forgotten clue, theresprang into her memory a complete phrase of what her father had said. She gave one more suck to the straw and laid it aside for a momentto say in quite a comfortable accent to her aunt: "Oh yes, now Iremember. He said she didn't care for him any more than for the firstman she might have solicited in the street. " For an instant the wordscame back as clearly as though they had just been uttered, and sherepeated them fluently, returning thereupon at once to the charms ofthe tall, foam-filled frosted glass. 

Evidently Aunt Victoria did not follow this sudden change of subject, for she asked blankly, "_Who_? Who didn't care for who?"

"Why, I supposed, Pauline for Ephraim Smith. It was that that madeFather so mad, " explained Sylvia, sucking dreamily, her eyes onthe little maelstrom created in the foaming liquid by the straw, forgetting everything else. The luxurious leisure in which sheconsumed her potation made it last a long time, and it was not untilher suction made only a sterile rattling in the straw that she lookedup at her aunt to thank her. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith's face was averted and she did not turn it backas she said, "Just run along into the shop and leave your glass, Sylvia--here is the money. "

After Sylvia took her seat again in the carriage, the coachman turnedthe horse's head back up the Main Street. "Aren't you going to thecampus?" asked Sylvia in surprise. 

"No, we are going to the hotel, " said Aunt Victoria. She spokequietly, and seemed to look as usual, but Sylvia's inner barometerfell fast with a conviction of a change in the emotional atmosphere. She sat as still as possible, and only once glanced up timidly ather aunt's face. There was no answering glance. Aunt Victoria gazedstraight in front of her. Her face looked as it did when it was beingmassaged--all smooth and empty. There was, however, one change. Forthe first time that day, she looked a little pale. 

As the carriage stopped in front of the onyx-lined, palm-decorated, plate-glass-mirrored "entrance hall" of the expensive hotel, AuntVictoria descended, motioning to Sylvia not to follow her. "I haven'ttime to drive any more this afternoon, " she said. "Peter will take youhome. And have him bring Arnold back at once. " She turned away and, asSylvia sat watching her, entered the squirrel-cage revolving door ofglass, which a little boy in livery spun about for her. 

But after she was inside the entrance hall, she signified to him thatshe had forgotten something, and came immediately out again. Whatshe had forgotten surprised Sylvia as much as it touched her. AuntVictoria came rapidly to the side of the carriage and put out herarms. "Come here, dear, " she said in a voice Sylvia had neverheard her use. It trembled a little, and broke. With her quickresponsiveness, Sylvia sprang into the outstretched arms, overcome bythe other's emotion. She hid her face against the soft, perfumed lacesand silk, and heard from beneath them the painful throb of a quicklybeating heart. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith held her niece for a long moment and then turnedthe quivering little face up to her own grave eyes, in which Sylvia, for all her inexperience, read a real suffering. Aunt Victoria lookedas though somebody were hurting her--hurting her awfully--Sylviapressed her cheek hard against her aunt's, and Mrs. Marshall-Smithfelt, soft and Warm and ardent on her lips, the indescribably freshkiss of a child's mouth. "Oh, little Sylvia!" she cried, in thatnew, strange, uncertain voice which trembled and broke, "Oh, littleSylvia!" She seemed to be about to say something more, said in fact ina half-whisper, "I hope--I hope--" but then shook her head, kissed Sylvia gently, puther back in the carriage, and again disappeared through the revolvingdoor. 

This time she did not turn back. She did not even look back. After amoment's wait, Peter gathered up the reins and Sylvia, vaguely uneasy, and much moved, drove home in a solitary state, which she forgot toenjoy. 

The next morning there was no arrival, even tardy, of the visitorsfrom the hotel. Instead came a letter, breaking the startling newsthat Aunt Victoria had been called unexpectedly to the East, and hadleft on the midnight train, taking Arnold with her, of course. Judithburst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of thecave which she and Arnold had been excavating together. The next daywas the beginning of school, she reminded her auditors, and she'd haveno time to get it done! Never! She characterized Aunt Victoria as amean old thing, an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mothersitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. She read it overtwice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd look to her usuallycrystal-clear countenance. She asked her husband one question as hewent out of the door. "You didn't see Victoria yesterday--or sayanything to her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-forheat, "I did _not_! I thought it rather more to the purpose to try tolook up Pauline. "

Mrs. Marshall sprang up and approached him with an anxious face. Heshook his head: "Too late. Disappeared. No trace. "

She sat down again, looking sad and stern. 

Professor Marshall put on his hat with violence, and went away. 

When he came home to luncheon there was a fresh sensation, and againa disagreeable one. He brought the astounding news that, at the verybeginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his mostvaluable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by hismost-loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, thathe had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of Arnold'stutor, and had entered at once upon the duties of his new position. 

Professor Marshall detailed this information in a hard, level voice, and without further comment handed his wife Saunders' note. She readit rapidly, this time with no perplexity, and laid it down, saying toher husband, briefly, "Will you kindly remember that the children arehere?"

Judith looked at Sylvia in astonishment, this being the first timethat that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most children, had everbeen heard in the Marshall house. Why shouldn't Father remember theywere there? Couldn't he _see_ them? Judith almost found the idea funnyenough to laugh at, although she had not at all in general Sylvia'shelpless response to the ridiculous. Sylvia did not laugh now. Shelooked anxiously at her father's face, and was relieved when he onlyanswered her mother's exhortation by saying in a low tone: "Oh, I havenothing to say. It's beyond words!"

Luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among the children. Sometime later--in the midst of a long story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshallherself brought up the subject again. Buddy was beginning to strugglewith the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tonguedesperately over the tenses. He had just said, "And the rabbit _was_naughty, didn't he was?" when his mother exclaimed, addressing herhusband's grim face, "Good Heavens, don't take it so hard, Elliott. "

He raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the pear he waseating. "To be responsible, as I feel I am, for the pitching into a_cul-de-sac_ of the most promising young--"

His wife broke in, "_Responsible_! How in the world are _you_responsible!" she added quickly, as if at random, to prevent the replywhich her husband was evidently about to cast at her. "Besides, how do_you_ know?--one never knows how things will turn out--she may--shemay marry him, and he may have a life which will give him more leisurefor investigation than if--"

Professor Marshall wiped his lips violently on his napkin and stoodup. "Nothing would induce her to marry him--or any one else. She'sextracted from marriage all she wants of it. No, she'll just keep himtrailing along, in an ambiguous position, sickened and tantalized andfevered, till all the temper is drawn out of him--and then hell bedropped, "

He turned away with an impatient fling of his head. His wife stood upnow and looked at him anxiously. "Go play us something on the piano, "she urged. This was not a common exhortation from her. She cared verylittle for music, and with her usual honesty she showed, as a rule, avery passive attitude towards it. 

Professor Marshall glanced at her with a flash of anger. "Sometimesyou count too much on my childishness, Barbara, " he said resentfully, and went out of the door without further words. 

Decidedly the discomposing effect of Aunt Victoria's visit lasted evenafter she had gone away. But the next day was the beginning of theschool term, the busy, regular routine was taken up, Sylvia waspromoted to the 5A grade, and at home Father let her begin to learnthe Pilgrim's Chorus, from Tannhauser. 

Life for the eager little girl moved quickly forward at its usualbrisk pace, through several years to come. 

CHAPTER VII

"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT . . . "

The public school to which the Marshall children went as soon as theywere old enough was like any one of ten thousand public schools--alarge, square, many-windowed, extravagantly ugly building, once redbrick, but long ago darkened almost to black by soft-coal smoke. Aboutit, shaded by three or four big cottonwood-trees, was an inclosedspace of perhaps two acres of ground, beaten perfectly smooth byhundreds of trampling little feet, a hard, bare earthen floor, soentirely subdued to its fate that even in the long summer vacation nospear of grass could penetrate its crust to remind it that it was madeof common stuff with fields and meadows. 

School began at nine o'clock in the morning and, as a rule, three-fourths of the children had passed through the front gate twentyor thirty minutes earlier. Nobody knew why it should be consideredsuch a hideous crime to be "tardy, " but the fact was that not the mostreckless and insubordinate of the older boys cared to risk it. Anyone of the four hundred children in any public school in the citypreferred infinitely to be absent a day than to have the ghastlyexperience of walking through deserted streets (that is, with nochildren on them), across the empty playground frighteningly unlikeitself, into the long, desolate halls which, walk as cat-like as onemight, resounded to the guilty footsteps with accusing echoes. Andthen the narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and capsand hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom, seated rank onrank with priggishly complacent schoolmates, looking up from theirbooks with unfriendly eyes of blame at the figure of the late-comer. 

AH over that section of La Chance, during the hour between half-pastseven and half-past eight in the morning, the families of schoolchildren were undergoing a most rigorous discipline in regularityand promptness. No child was too small or too timid to refrain fromembittering his mother's life with clamorous upbraidings if breakfastwere late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not ready to the lastbutton, so that he could join the procession of schoolward-boundchildren, already streaming past his door at a quarter past eight. Themost easy-going and self-indulgent mother learned to have at least onemeal a day on time; and the children themselves during those eightyears of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their brains andthe marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit of bendingtheir backs daily to a regular burden of work not selected bythemselves--which, according to one's point of view, is either thebane or the salvation of our modern industrial society. 

The region where the school stood was inhabited, for the most part, byAmerican families or German and Irish ones so long established as tobe virtually American; a condition which was then not infrequent inmoderate-sized towns of the Middle West and which is still by no meansunknown there. The class-rolls were full of Taylors and Aliens andRobinsons and Jacksons and Websters and Rawsons and Putnams, witha scattering of Morrisseys and Crimminses and O'Hearns, and someSchultzes and Brubackers and Helmeyers. There was not a Jew in theschool, because there were almost none in that quarter of town, and, for quite another reason, not a single negro child. There were plentyof them in the immediate neighborhood, swarming around the collectionof huts and shanties near the railroad tracks given over to negroes, and known as Flytown. But they had their own school, which lookedexternally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filledwith laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black throughcoffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blueeyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluishhalf-moon at the base of the finger-nails. 

The four hundred children in the Washington Street School were, therefore, a mass more homogeneous than alarmists would have usbelieve it possible to find in this country. They were, for allpractical purposes, all American, and they were all roughly of oneclass. Their families were neither rich nor poor (at least so far asthe children's standards went). Their fathers were grocers, smallclerks, merchants, two or three were truck-farmers, plumbers, carpenters, accountants, employees of various big businesses in town. 

It was into this undistinguished and plebeian mediocrity that theMarshall children were introduced when they began going to school. 

The interior of the school-building resembled the outside in beingprecisely like that of ten thousand other graded schools in thiscountry. The halls were long and dark and dusty, and because thebuilding had been put up under contract at a period when publiccontract-work was not so scrupulously honest as it notably is in ourpresent cleanly muck-raked era, the steps of the badly built staircasecreaked and groaned and sagged and gave forth clouds of dust under theweight of the myriads of little feet which climbed up and clown thosesteep ascents every day. Everything was of wood. The interior lookedlike the realized dream of a professional incendiary. 

The classrooms were high and well-lighted, with many large windows, never either very clean or very dirty, which let in a flood of ouruncompromisingly brilliant American daylight upon the rows of littleseats and desks screwed, like those of an ocean liner, immovably tothe floor, as though at any moment the building was likely to embarkupon a cruise in stormy waters. 

Outwardly the rows of clean-faced, comfortably dressed, well-shodAmerican children, sitting in chairs, bore no resemblance toshaven-headed, barefooted little Arabian students, squatting on thefloor, gabbling loud uncomprehended texts from the Koran; but thesight of Sylvia's companions bending over their school-books withglazed, vacant eyes, rocking back and forth as a rhythmical aid tomemorizing, their lips moving silently as they repeated over and over, gabblingly, the phrases of the printed page, might have inclined ahypothetical visitor from Mars to share the bewildered amusement ofthe American visitors to Moslem schools. Sylvia rocked and twisted afavorite button, gabbled silently, and recited fluently with the rest, being what was known as an apt and satisfactory pupil. In company withthe other children she thus learned to say, in answer to questions, that seven times seven is forty-nine; that the climate of Brazil ishot and moist; that the capital of Arkansas is Little Rock; and that"through" is spelled with three misleading and superfluous letters. 

What she really learned was, as with her mates, another matter--for, of course, those devouringly active little minds did not spend sixhours a day in school without learning something incessantly. The fewrags and tatters of book-information they acquired were but themerest fringes on the great garment of learning acquired by thesepublic-school children, which was to wrap them about all their lives. What they learned during those eight years of sitting still and notwhispering had nothing to do with the books in their desks or the lorein their teachers' brains. The great impression stamped upon the waxof their minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy--acrude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like every image anideal in this imperfect world, but in its essence a reflection of theideal of their country. No European could have conceived how literallyit was true that the birth or wealth or social position of a childmade no difference in the estimation of his mates. There were noexceptions to the custom of considering the individual on his ownmerits. These merits were often queerly enough imagined, a faculty forstanding on his head redounding as much, or more, to a boy's credit asthe utmost brilliance in recitation, or generosity of temperament, butat least he was valued for something he himself could do, and not forany fortuitous incidents of birth and fortune. 

Furthermore there lay back of these four hundred children, who shapedtheir world to this rough-and-ready imitation of democracy, theirfamilies, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as thechildren themselves, but still by no means unknown in their generalcharacteristics; four hundred American families who were, on thewhole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who werequite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound though narrow inmatters of morals, utterly mediocre in intelligence and information, with no breadth of outlook in any direction; but who somehow livedtheir lives and faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes ofthat Great Adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful fortitude whichmany an acuter mind might have envied them. 

It is possible that the personal knowledge of these four hundredenduring family lives was, perhaps, the most important mental ballasttaken on by the children of the community during their eight years'cruise at school. Certainly it was the most important for thesensitive, complicated, impressionable little Sylvia Marshall, withher latent distaste for whatever lacked distinction and externalgrace, and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was tospring into such fierce life with the beginning of her adolescence. She might renounce, as utterly as she pleased, the associates of herearly youth, but the knowledge of their existence, the acquaintancewith their deep humanity, the knowledge that they found life sweet andworth living, all this was to be a part of the tissue of her brainforever, and was to add one to the conflicting elements which battledwithin her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy radiance ofher youth. 

The families which supplied the Washington Street School being quitestationary in their self-owned houses, few new pupils entered duringthe school-year. There was, consequently, quite a sensation on the dayin the middle of March when the two Fingál girls entered, Camilla inthe "Fifth A" grade, where Sylvia was, and Cécile in the third grade, in the next seat to Judith's. The girls themselves were so differentfrom other children in school that their arrival would have excitedinterest even at the beginning of the school-year. Coming, as theydid, at a time when everybody knew by heart every detail of everyone else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two beautifulexotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were vastly stared at. Sylvia's impressionable eyes were especially struck by the air of raceand breeding of the new-comer in her class. Everything about the otherchild, from her heavy black hair, patrician nose, and large dark eyesto her exquisitely formed hands, white and well-cared-for, seemed toSylvia perfection itself. 

During recess she advanced to the new-comer, saying, with a brightsmile: "Aren't you thirsty? Don't you want me to show you where thepump is?" She put out her hand as she spoke and took the slim whitefingers in her own rough little hand, leading her new schoolmate alongin silence, looking at her with an open interest. 

She had confidently expected amicable responsiveness in the otherlittle girl, because her experience had been that her own frankfriendliness nearly always was reflected back to her from others; butshe had not expected, or indeed ever seen, such an ardent look ofgratitude as burned in the other's eyes. She stopped, startled, uncomprehending, as though her companion had said somethingunintelligible, and felt the slim fingers in her hand close about herown in a tight clasp. "You are so very kind to show me this pump, "breathed Camilla shyly. The faint flavor of a foreign accent which, to Sylvia's ear, hung about these words, was the final touch offascination for her. That instant she decided in her impetuous, enthusiastic heart that Camilla was the most beautiful, sweetest, best-dressed, loveliest creature she had ever seen, or would ever seein her life; and she bent her back joyfully in the service of herideal. She would not allow Camilla to pump for herself, but flew tothe handle with such energy that the white water gushed out in aflood, overflowing Camilla's cup, spattering over on her fingers, andsparkling on the sheer white of her hemstitched cuffs. This made themboth laugh, the delicious silly laugh of childhood. 

Already they seemed like friends. "How do you pronounce your name?"Sylvia asked familiarly. 

"Cam-eela Fingál, " said the other, looking up from her cup, her upperlip red and moist. She accented the surname on the last syllable. 

"What a perfectly lovely name!" cried Sylvia. "Mine is SylviaMarshall. "

"That's a pretty name too, " said Camilla, smiling. She spoke lesstimidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curiousexpression, half apprehension, half hope. 

"How old are you?" asked Sylvia. 

"Eleven, last November. "

"Why, my birthday is in November, and I was eleven too!" cried Sylvia. "I thought you must be older--you're so tall. "

Camilla looked down and said nothing. 

Sylvia went on: "I'm crazy about the way you do your hair, in thosetwists over your ears. When I was studying my spelling lesson, I wastrying to figure out how you do it. "

"Oh, I don't do it. Mattice does it for us--for Cécile andme--Cécile's my sister. She's in the third grade. "

"Why, I have a sister in the third grade too!" exclaimed Sylvia, muchstruck by this second propitious coincidence. "Her name is Judith andshe's a darling. Wouldn't it be nice if she and Cécile should begood friends _too_!" She put her arm about her new comrade's waist, convinced that they were now intimates of long standing. They rantogether to take their places at the sound of the bell; all duringthe rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comerwhenever their eyes met. 

She planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she wasdetained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the frontgate, where Judith was waiting for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight. Judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting forthe Fingál girls and they had been driven away. 

Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to hersurprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia that Judith's tastes andjudgments so frequently differed from hers) that Judith by no meansshared her enthusiasm. She admitted, but as if it were a matter of noimportance, that both Camilla and Cécile were pretty enough, but shedeclared roundly that Cécile was a little sneak who had set out fromthe first to be "Teacher's pet. " This title, in the sturdy democracyof the public schools, means about what "sycophantic lickspittle"means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushingweight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down. 

"_Judith_, what makes you think so?" cried Sylvia, horrified at theepithet. 

"The way she looks at Teacher--she never takes her eyes off her, and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says. And then she looks ateverybody so kind o' scared--'s'if she thought she was goin' to be hitover the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for notdoing it. Makes me feel just _like_ doin' it!" declared Judith, theAnglo-Saxon. 

Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression whichshe had found so touching in Camilla. 

"Why, I think it's sweet of them to look so! When they're so awfullypretty, and have such good clothes--and a carriage--and everything!They might be as stuck-up as anything! I think it's just _nice_ forthem to be so sweet!" persisted Sylvia. 

"I don't call it bein' sweet, " said Judith, "to watch Teacher everyminute and smile all over your face if she looks at you and hold on toher hand when she's talkin' to you! It's silly!"

They argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was filled withappeals to their parents to take sides. Professor and Mrs. Marshall, always ready, although occasionally somewhat absent, listeners toschool news, professed themselves really interested in these newscholars and quite perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautifuldark-eyed children, called Camilla and Cécile Fingál. Judith refusedto twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented, and herversion of the name made it sound Celtic. "Perhaps their fatheris Irish and the mother Italian or Spanish, " suggested ProfessorMarshall. 

Sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried outenthusiastically, "Oh yes--Camilla _looks_ Italian--like an Italianprincess!"

Judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression and remainedsilent, an achievement of self-control which Sylvia was never able toemulate. 

The Fingál girls continued to occupy a large space in Sylvia'sthoughts and hours, and before long they held a unique position inthe opinion of the school, which was divided about evenly between theextremes represented by Sylvia and Judith. The various accomplishmentsof the new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration andsuspicion. They could sing like birds, and, what seemed likewitchcraft to the unmusical little Americans about them, they couldsing in harmony as easily as they could carry an air. And they recitedwith fire, ease, and evident enjoyment, instead of with the show ofgroaning, unwilling submission to authority which it was etiquettein the Washington Street School to show before beginning to "speak apiece. "

They were good at their books too, and altogether, with their quickdocility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please, were the delightof their teachers. In the fifth grade, Sylvia's example of intimate, admiring friendship definitely threw popular favor on the side ofCamilla, who made every effort to disarm the hostility aroused by hertoo-numerous gifts of nature. She was ready to be friends with thepoorest and dullest of the girls, never asked the important rôles inany games, hid rather than put forward the high marks she received inher studies, and was lavish with her invitations to her schoolmates tovisit her at home. 

The outside of this house, which Mr. Fingál had rented a month or sobefore when they first moved to La Chance, was like any one of many inthe region; but the interior differed notably from those to which theother children were accustomed. For one thing there was no "lady ofthe house, " Mrs. Fingál having died a short time before. Camilla andCécile could do exactly as they pleased, and they gave the freedom ofthe house and its contents lavishly to their little friends. In thekitchen was an enormous old negro woman, always good-natured, alwayssmelling of whiskey. She kept on hand a supply of the most meltinglydelicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, "Heah, chile, put yo' han' in the cookie-jah and draw out what you lights on!" wasalways flourished in the faces of the schoolmates of the two daughtersof the house. 

In the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly shiningfurniture, reigned Mattice, another old negro woman, but, unlike thejolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled and silent. She it was whoarrayed Camille and Cécile with such unerring taste, and her skilfulold hands brushed and dressed their long black hair in artful twistsand coils. 

Here, against their own background, the two girls seemed more at theirease and showed more spontaneity than at school. They were fond of"dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of thestories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for actingwhich explained their success in recitations. Once when the fun wasvery rollicking, Camilla brought out from a closet a banjo and, thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a tinglingaccompaniment to one of her songs. The other little girls weredelighted and clamored for more, but she put it away quickly withalmost a frown on her sweet face, and for once in her life did notyield to their demands. 

"Well, I think more of her for that!" remarked Judith, when thisincident was repeated to her by Sylvia, who cried out, "Why, Judy, how_hateful_ you are about poor Camilla!"

Nothing was learned about the past history of the Fingáls beyond thefact, dropped once by the cook, that they had lived in Louisianabefore coming to La Chance, but there were rumors, based on nothingat all, and everywhere credited, that their mother had been aSpanish-American heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying aProtestant. Such a romantic and picturesque element had never beforeentered the lives of the Washington Street school-children. Oncea bold and insensitive little girl, itching to know more of thisstory-book history, had broken the silence about Mrs. Fingál and hadasked Camilla bluntly, "Say, who _was_ your mother, anyway?" Thequestion had been received by Camilla with whitening lips and adesperate silence--ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which toreSylvia's heart. "You mean, horrid thing!" she cried to the inquisitor. "Her mother isn't dead a year yet! Camilla can't bear to talk abouther!"

Once in a great while Mr. Fingál was visible, --a bald, middle-aged manwith a white, sad face, and eyes that never smiled, although his lipsoften did when he saw the clusters of admiring children hanging abouthis daughters. 

Judith held aloof from these gatherings at the Fingál house, herprejudice against the girls never weakening, although Cécile as wellas Camilla had won over almost all the other girls of her grade. Judith showed the self-contained indifference which it was her habitto feel about matters which did not deeply stir her, and made nofurther attempts to analyze or even to voice her animosity beyondsaying once, when asked to go with them on a drive, that she didn'tlike their "meechin' ways, "--a vigorous New England phrase which shehad picked up from her mother. 

 * * * * *

About a month after the Fingál girls entered school, the project of apicnic took form among the girls of the Fifth A grade. One of them hadan uncle who lived three or four miles from town on a farm which waspassed by the inter-urban trolley line, and he had sent word thatthe children could, if they liked, picnic in his maple woods, whichoverhung the brown waters of the Piquota river. There was to be norecess that day in Five A, and the grade was to be dismissed half anhour earlier than usual, so that the girls could go out on the trolleyin time to get the supper ready. The farmer was to bring them back bymoonlight in his hay-wagon. 

The prospect seemed ideal. Five A hummed with excitement andimportance as the various provisions were allotted to the differentgirls and the plans talked over. Sylvia was to bring bananas enoughfor the crowd; one of the German-American girls, whose father kept agrocery-store, promised pickles and olives; three or four togetherwere to make the sandwiches, and Camilla Fingál was to bring along abig bag of the famous rich and be-raisined cookies that lived inthe "cookie-jah. " Sylvia, who always enjoyed prodigiously both inanticipation and in reality any social event, could scarcely containherself as the time drew near with every prospect of fair weather. 

The morning of the day was clear and fine, a perfect example of earlyspring, with silvery pearls showing on the tips of the red-twigosiers, and pussy-willows gleaming gray along the margins of swampyplaces. Sylvia and Judith felt themselves one with this upward surgeof new life. They ran to school together, laughing aloud for noreason, racing and skipping like a couple of spring lambs, their mindsand hearts as crystal-clear of any shadow as the pale-blue, smilingsky above them. The rising sap beat in their young bodies as wellas in the beech-trees through which they scampered, whirling theirschool-books at the end of their straps, and shouting aloud to hearthe squirrel's petulant, chattering answer. 

When they came within sight and hearing of the schoolhouse, theirpractised ears detected (although with no hint of foreboding) thatsomething unusual had happened. The children were not running aboutand screaming, but standing with their heads close together, talking, and talking, and talking. As Judith and Sylvia came near, several ranto meet them, hurling out at them like a hard-flung stone: "Say--whatd'ye think? Those Fingál girls are niggers!"

To the end of her life, Sylvia would never forget the rending shockof disillusion brought her by these blunt words. She did not dreamof disbelieving them, or of underestimating their significance. Athousand confirmatory details leaped into her mind: the rich, sweetvoices--the dramatic ability--the banjo--the deprecatory air oftimidity--the self-conscious unwillingness to take the leadingposition to which their talents and beauty gave them a right. Yes, of course it was true! In the space of a heartbeat, all herromantic Italian imaginings vanished. She continued to walk forwardmechanically, in an utter confusion of mind. 

She heard Judith asking in an astonished voice, "Why, what makes youthink so?" and she listened with a tortured attention to the statementvouchsafed in an excited chorus by a great many shrill little voicesthat the Fingáls' old cook had taken a little too much whiskey foronce and had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highlyentertained audience of neighbors, about the endless peregrinationsof the Fingál family in search of a locality where the blood of thechildren would not be suspected--"an' theah motheh, fo' all hehgood looks, second cousin to Mattice!" she had tittered foolishly, gathering up her basket and rolling tipsily out of the store. 

"_Well_--" said Judith, "did you ever!" She was evidently as muchamazed as her sister, but Sylvia felt with a sinking of the heartthat what seemed to her the real significance of the news had escapedJudith. 

The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia. --"Of course we can'thave Camilla at the picnic. "--"My uncle wouldn't want a _nigger_there. "--"We'll have to tell her she can't come. "

Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them snatchesof similar talk. --"Anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way theydo--just like niggers' voices. "--"They'll have to go to the _nigger_school now. "--"Huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and theirblack dresses--nothin' but niggers!" The air seemed full of that word. Sylvia sickened and quailed. 

Not so Judith! It had taken her a moment to understand the way inwhich the news was being received. When she did, she turned verypale, and broke out into a storm of anger. She stuttered and haltedas she always did when overmastered by feeling, but her words weremolten. She ignored the tacit separation between children of differentgrades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself passionatelyamong the girls who were talking of the picnic, clawing at their arms, forcing her way to the center, a raging, white-faced, hot-eyed littlethunderbolt. "You're the meanest low-down things I ever heard of!" shetold the astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury. "You--you go and s-sponge off the Fingáls for c-c-cakes and rides ands-s-soda water--and you think they're too l-l-lovely for w-words--andyou t-t-try to do your hair just the way C-C-Camilla does. They aren'tany different today f-f-from what they were yesterday--are they? Youmake me sick--you m-m-make m-m-me--"

The big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the formation oflines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant obedience to its voicesent the children all scurrying to their places, from which theymarched forward to their respective classrooms in their usual convictsilence. Just as the line ahead was disappearing into the open door, the well-kept, shining surrey drove up in haste and Camilla andCécile, dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ranto their places. Evidently they had heard nothing. Camilla turned andsmiled brightly at her friend as she stepped along in front of her. 

Sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. Up to thatmoment, she had felt nothing but shocked and intensely self-centeredhorror at the disagreeableness of what had happened, and a wild desireto run away to some quiet spot where she would not have to think aboutit, where it could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stopbeating so furiously. What had she ever done to have such a horridthing happen in her world! She had been as much repelled by Judith'sfoaming violence as by any other element of the situation. If shecould only get away! Every sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a gracefuland comely order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of itall. Up to the moment Camilla came running to her place--this had beenthe dominant impulse in the extreme confusion of Sylvia's mind. 

But at the sight of Camilla she felt bursting up through thisconfusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct ofself-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive--sympathywith Camilla--Camilla, with her dog-like, timid, loving eyes--Camilla, who had done nothing to deserve unhappiness except to beborn--Camilla, always uneasy with tragic consciousness of the swordover her head, and now smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousnessthat it was about to fall. Sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably. She was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the twonatures under her skin, and this, their first open struggle for themastery of her, was like a knife in her side. 

She sat during the morning session, her eyes on the clock, fearingmiserably the moment of dismissal at noon, when she must take someaction--she who only longed to run away from discord and dwell inpeace. Her mind swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling toanother. Every time that Camilla smiled at her across the heads of theother children, sullenly oblivious of their former favorite, Sylviaturned sick with shame and pity. But when her eyes rested on the hard, hostile faces which made up her world, the world she had to live in, the world which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness forher, the world which would now be ranged with her or against heraccording to her decision at noon, she was overcome by a panic at thevery idea of throwing her single self against this many-headed tyrant. With an unspeakable terror she longed to feel the safe walls ofconformity about her. There was a battle with drawn swords in theheart of the little girl trying blindly to see where the _n_ came in"pneumonia. "

The clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. Sylvia had come to nodecision. She could come to no decision! She felt herself consciouslyto be unable to cope with the crisis. She was too small, too weak, tooshrinking, to make herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force. 

It was five minutes of twelve. The order was given to put away booksand pencils in the desks. Sylvia's hands trembled so that she couldhardly close the lid. 

"Turn!" said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice. The childrenturned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the aisle, their eyesmenacingly on Camilla. 

"Rise!" Like a covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the long hours ofimmobility. 

"Pass!" Clattering feet all over the building began moving along theaisles and out towards the cloakrooms. Every one seized his own wrapswith a practised snatch, and passed on, still in line, over the dustywooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, outto the playground--out to Sylvia's ordeal. 

As she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sunlight, she stillhad reached no decision. Her impulse was to run, as fast as she could, out to the gate and down the street--home! But another impulse heldher back. The lines were breaking up. Camilla was turning about witha smile to speak to her. Malevolent eyes were fixed on them from allsides. Sylvia felt her indecision mount in a cloud about her, likeblinding, scalding steam. 

And then, there before her, stood Judith, her proud dark little faceset in an angry scowl, her arm about Cécile Fingál's neck. 

Sylvia never could think what she would have done if Judith had notbeen there; but then, Judith was one of the formative elements of herlife--as much as was the food she ate or the thoughts she had. Whatshe did was to turn as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she hadalways meant to do it, put her arm through Camilla's and draw herrapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited. Judith and Cécilefollowed. The crowds of astonished, and for the moment silenced, children fell back before them. 

Once she had taken her action, Sylvia saw that it was the only onepossible. But she was upheld by none of the traditional pride in arighteous action, nor by a raging single-mindedness like Judith's, whostalked along, her little fists clenched, frowning blackly to rightand left on the other children, evidently far more angry with themthan sympathetic for Cécile. Sylvia did not feel angry with any one. She was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever dreamedpossible. The distance to the surrey seemed endless to her. 

Her sudden rush had taken Camilla so completely by surprise thatnot until they were at the gate did she catch her breath to asklaughingly: "What in the world's the _matter_ with you, Sylvia? Youact so queer!"

Sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting Camilla intosafety, but a little red-headed boy from the second grade, who couldscarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly, pointing his dirtyforefinger at Camilla:

 "Nigger, nigger, never die, Black face and shiny eye, Curly hair and curly toes-- _That's_ the way the nigger goes!"

There was a loud laugh from the assembled children. 

Camilla wavered as though she had been struck. Her lovely face turnedashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with the eyes of one dying. 

From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that look. Sheforgot the crowd, --boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, sheflung her arms about her friend's neck, hiding the white face on hershoulder. Judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla'sarm. "Don't give in! Don't give in!" she screamed. "Don't cry! Don'tlet 'em see you care! Sass 'em back, why don't you? Hit that littleboy over the head! Sass them back, why don't you?"

But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into thecarriage, little Cécile stumbling after, the silent tears streamingdown her face. The two clasped each other, and the surrey drovequickly away, leaving the Marshall girls standing on the curb. 

Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them. "Nasty old things!" she cried, sticking out her tongue at them. Shewas answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walkedaway, pulling Sylvia with her. For a few steps they were followed bysome small boys who yelled in chorus:

 "Judith's mad and I'm glad, And I know what'll please her: A bottle of wine to make her shine, And two little niggers to squeeze her!"

They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when Judithturned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath. At the sight they scattered like scared chickens. 

Judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her small body, and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice: "Nasty oldthings! Just wait till I tell my father and mother!"

As they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia a physicalimpossibility that only that morning they had raced and scamperedalong, whirling their school-books and laughing. 

They ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, and pouring out incoherent exclamations. Sylvia cried a little atthe comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on Mrs. Marshall's lap and closely held. Judith never cried; she had not criedeven when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb;but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing sopronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia whotold the facts. She was astonished to find them so few and so quicklystated, having been under the impression that something of intense andpainful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning. 

But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background ofstrange, passionate prejudice which Sylvia could not phrase, and whichgave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story: "--and so Judithand I walked with them out to the gate, and then that little JimmyCohalan yelled out, 'nigger--nigger'--_you_ know--"

Judith broke in, her nostrils distended, "And they never sassed back, or hit anybody or anything--just crumpled up and cried!"

Sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. "Why, I thought you were on theirside!"

"Well, I _am_!" asserted Judith, beginning to stammer again. "But Idon't have to _like_ 'em any better, do I--because I get mad whena l-l-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin'off--" She stopped, balked by her infirmity, and appealed to herparents with a silent look of fury. 

"What _shall_ we do, Mother?" asked Sylvia despairingly, looking upinto her mother's face from the comfortable shelter of her long, strong arms. Mrs. Marshall looked down at her without speaking. Itoccurred to Sylvia disquietingly that her mother's expression was alittle like Judith's. But when Mrs. Marshall spoke it was only to sayin her usual voice: "Well, the first thing to do is to have somethingto eat. Whatever else you do, don't let a bad condition of yourbody interfere with what's going on in your mind. Lunch is gettingcold--and don't talk about trouble while you're eating. After you'rethrough, Father'll tell you what to do. "

Professor Marshall made a gesture of dismay. "Good Lord, Barbara, don't put it off on me!"

His wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. "I certainly have nothingto say that would be fit for children to hear!" she said in anenergetic tone, beginning to serve the baked beans, which were themain dish for the day. 

After the meal, always rather hasty because of the children's shortnoon-hour, Sylvia and Judith went to sit on their father's knees, while he put an arm about each and, looking from one serious expectantface to the other, began his explanation. He cleared his throat, andhesitated before beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as hewent on. What he finally said was: "Well, children, you've stumbledinto about the hardest problem there is in this country, and thehonest truth is that we don't any of us know what's right to do aboutit. The sort of thing that's just happened in the Washington StreetSchool is likely to happen 'most anywhere, and it's no harder on thesepoor little playmates of yours than on all colored people. But it'sawfully hard on them all. The best we can do is to hope that after agreat many people have lived and died, all trying to do their best, maybe folks will have learned how to manage better. Of course, ifgrown men and women don't know how to help matters, you little girlscan't expect to fix things either. All you can do is to go on beingnice to Camilla and--"

Judith broke in here hotly, "You don't mean we oughtn't to _do_something about the girls being so mean to them--not letting Camillago to the picnic and--"

"What _could_ you do?" asked her father quietly, "that would makethings any better for Camilla? If you were forty times as strong asyou are, you couldn't make the other girls _want_ Camilla at thepicnic. It would only spoil the picnic and wouldn't help Camilla abit. " Professor Marshall meditated a moment, and went on, "Of courseI'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends who areunhappy through no fault of theirs" (Sylvia winced at this, andthought of confessing that she was very near running away and leavingCamilla to her fate), "and I hope you'll go on being as nice to yourunfortunate friends as ever--"

Judith said: "They aren't friends of mine! I don't like them!"

As not infrequently happened, something about Judith's attitude hadbeen irritating her father, and he now said with some severity, "Thenit's a case where Sylvia's loving heart can do more good than youranger, though you evidently think it very fine of you to feel that!"

Judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and Sylvia drooped miserablyin the consciousness of receiving undeserved praise. She opened hermouth to explain her vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiberwas not equal to the effort. She felt very unhappy to have Judithblamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed, but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion. 

Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "It'stwenty minutes to one. You'd better run along, dears, " he said. 

After the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved anunbroken silence, remarked dryly, "So that's the stone we give themwhen they ask for bread. "

Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "My dimgeneralities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, Iadmit, " he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn'tdirectly contradicted by our lives? There's no use telling childrensomething that they never see put into practice. "

"It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives, " suggested hiswife uncompromisingly. 

Professor Marshall drew a great breath of disheartenment. "As long asI can live without thinking of that element in American life--it's allright. But when anything brings it home--like this today--I feel thatthe mean compromise we all make must be a disintegrating moral forcein the national character. I feel like gathering up all of you, andgoing away--away from the intolerable question--to Europe--and earningthe family living by giving English lessons!"

Mrs. Marshall cried out, "It makes _me_ feel like going out right herein La Chance with a bomb in one hand and a rifle in the other!"

From which difference of impression it may perhaps be seen that thetwo disputants were respectively the father and mother of Sylvia andJudith. 

Mrs. Marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon dishes. As shedisappeared into the kitchen, she paused a moment behind the door, agrim, invisible voice, remarking, "And what we shall do is, of course, simply nothing at all!"

CHAPTER VIII

SABOTAGE

Sylvia and Judith walked to school in a profound silence. Sylvia wasshrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of facing again those fourhundred hostile faces; from the new and painful relations with herplaymates which lay before her. She was now committed irrevocably tothe cause of the Fingáls, and she felt a terrified doubt of havingenough moral strength to stick to that position. 

For the moment the problem was settled by their arriving at theschoolhouse almost too late. The lines were just marching into thebuilding, and both girls barely slipped into their places in time. Sylvia noticed with relief that Camilla was absent. 

All the Five A girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes, and in theair of the Five A cloakroom was a strong smell of vinegar. GretchenSchmidt's pickles had begun to soak through the bag, and she borrowedthe cover of a box to set them in. These sounds and smells recalledthe picnic to Sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been lookingforward with such inexpressible pleasure. For an instant she wasaghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas, tied up all readyat home on the sideboard. But the next instant she thought sadly thatshe probably would not be welcome at the picnic. She went to her seatand sat forlorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon. 

The teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her eyes on theclock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as though she were inanother planet. At four o'clock Sylvia filed out with the otherchildren to the cloakroom, but there was not the usual quick, practised grab, each for his own belongings. The girls remainedbehind, exclaiming and lamenting. Such a clamor arose that the teachercame hurrying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior ofher class. Good behavior in the Washington Street School, as in apenitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and immobilityachieved by the inmates. 

The girls ran to Miss Miller, crying out, "Somebody's stolen ourlunches, --we left them here--all our boxes and things--and they're allgone--!"

Sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart from the others, half relieved by the unexpected event which diverted attention fromher. 

One of the boys who had gone ahead in the line now came back, a largecucumber stuck in the corner of his mouth like a fat, green cigar. Heannounced with evident satisfaction in the girls' misfortune that thesteps were strewn with pickles. The bag must have burst entirelyas they were being carried downstairs. Gretchen Schmidt began toweep, --"all them good pickles--!" One of the girls flew at the boy whobrought the bad news. "I just bet you did it yourself, Jimmy Weaver, you an' Frank Kennedy. You boys were mad anyhow because we didn't askyou to come to the picnic. "

Jimmy's face assumed the most unmistakably genuine expression ofastonishment and aggrieved innocence. "Aw, you're off yer base! Iwouldn't ha' gone to your darned old picnic--an' wasn't I in the roomevery minute this afternoon?"

"No, you weren't--you weren't!" More of the girls had come to theattack, and now danced about the boy, hurling accusations at him. "Yougot excused to get a drink of water! And so did Pete Roberts! You didit then! You did it then! You did--"

"Hush, children! Not so loud!" said Miss Miller. "_You'll have thePrincipal down here_!"

At this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat, loweredtheir voices. Jimmy was beginning an angry, half-alarmed protest--"Aw, 'twas a tramp must ha' got in an' saw--" when he was pushed out of theway by a small, vigorous hand. Judith Marshall walked in, her facevery pale. She was breathing hard, and through her parted lips, asthough she had been running fast, her small white teeth showed likethose of an enraged squirrel. "I threw your picnic things in theriver, " she said. 

The older children recoiled from this announcement, and from thesmall, tense figure. Even the teacher kept her distance, as thoughJudith were some dangerous little animal, "What in the world did you do that for?" she asked in a tone ofstupefaction. 

"Because they are n-n-nasty, mean things, " said Judith, "and if theyweren't going to let C-C-Camilla go to the picnic, I wasn't going tolet them _have_ any picnic!"

The teacher turned around to Sylvia, now almost as white as hersister, and said helplessly, "Sylvia, do you know what she's talkingabout?"

Sylvia went forward and took Judith's hand. She was horrified beyondwords by what Judith had done, but Judith was her little sister. "Yes, ma'am, " she said, to Miss Miller's question, speaking, for all heragitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not verycoherently. "Yes, ma'am, I know. Everybody was saying this morningthat the Fingáls' mother was a negro, and so the girls weren't goingto invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made Judith mad. "

"Why, _she_ didn't know Camilla very well, did she?" asked theteacher, astonished. 

"No, ma'am, " said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tearsof fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. "It just made her madbecause the girls weren't going to invite her because she didn't thinkit was anyhow her fault. "

"_Whose_ fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost. 

"Camilla's, " quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall. 

There was a pause. "_Well_--I _never_!" exclaimed the teacher, whoseparents had come from New England. She was entirely at a loss to knowhow to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentateswith a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexitywith a smart show of decision. "You children go right straight home, along out of the building this minute, " she commanded. "You knowyou're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. Sylvia andJudith, stay here. _I'm going to take you up to the Principal'soffice_. "

The girls and Jimmy Weaver ran clattering down the stairs, in anagreeably breathless state of excitement. In their opinion theawfulness of the situation had been adequately recognized by theteacher and signaled by the equally awful expedient of a visit tothe Principal's office, the last resort in the case of the rarelyoccurring insubordinate boy. 

Because Miss Miller had not the least idea what to say in an event sofar out of the usual routine, she talked a great deal during the tripthrough the empty halls and staircases up to the Principal's officeon the top floor; chiefly to the effect that as many years as she hadtaught, never had she encountered such a bad little girl as Judith. Judith received this in stony silence, but Sylvia's tears fell fast. All the years of her docile school existence had trained her in thehabit of horror at insubordination above every other crime. She feltas disgraced as though Judith had been caught stealing, --perhaps moreso. 

Miss Miller knocked at the door; the Principal, stooping andhollow-chested, opened it and stood confronting with tired, kind eyesthe trio before him--the severe woman, with her pathetic, prematurelyold face and starved flat body, the pretty little girl hanging downher head and weeping, the smaller child who gave him one black defiantlook and then gazed past him out of the window. 

"Well, Miss Miller--?" he asked. 

"I've brought you a case that I don't know what to do with, " shebegan. "This is Judith Marshall, in the third grade, and she has justdone one of the naughtiest things I ever heard of--"

When she had finished her recital, "How do you know this child didit?" asked Mr. Bristol, always his first question in cases betweenteachers and pupils. 

"She was so brazen as to come right back and tell us so, " said MissMiller, her tone growing more and more condemnatory. 

Judith's face, capable of such rare and positive beauty, had now shutdown into a hard, repellent little mask of hate. Mr. Bristol lookedat her for a moment in silence, and then at Sylvia, sobbing, her armcrooked over her face, hiding everything but her shining curls. "Andwhat has this little girl to do with anything?" he asked. 

"This is Sylvia Marshall, Judith's sister, and of course she feelsdreadfully about Judith's doing such a dreadful thing, " explained MissMiller inelegantly. 

Mr. Bristol walked back to his desk and sat down. "Well, I think Ineedn't keep you any longer, Miss Miller, " he said. "If you will justleave the little girls here for a while perhaps I can decide what todo about it. "

Thus mildly but unmistakably dismissed, the teacher took herdeparture, pushing Sylvia and Judith inside the door and shutting itaudibly after her. She was so tired as she walked down the stairs thatshe ached, and she thought to herself, "As if things weren't hardenough without their going and being naughty--!"

Inside the room there was a moment's silence, filled almost palpablyby Sylvia's quivering alarm, and by Judith's bitter mental resistance. Mr. Bristol drew out a big book from the shelf over his desk and heldit out to Sylvia. "I guess you all got pretty excited about this, didn't you?" he said, smiling wisely at the child. "You and yoursister sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till youget cooled off, and then I'll hear all about it. "

Sylvia took the book obediently, and drew Judith to a chair, openingthe pages, brushing away her tears, and trying to go through the formof looking at the illustrations, which were of the birds native to theregion. In spite of her emotion, the large, brightly colored picturesdid force their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in everyfiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from the printedpage; and for years afterwards she could have told the names of thebirds they saw during that long, still half-hour, broken by no soundbut the tap-tap-tap of Mr. Bristol's typewriter. He did not once looktowards them. This was partly a matter of policy, and partly becausehe was trying desperately to get a paper written for the nextConvention of Public School Principals, which he was to address onthe "Study of Arithmetic in the Seventh Grade. " He had very fixed andburning ideas about the teaching of arithmetic in the seventh grade, which he longed with a true believer's fervor to see adopted by allthe schools in the country. He often said that if they would only doso, the study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade. 

Judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the book, although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened somewhat in thecontagious quiet of the room. 

When they had turned over the last page and shut the book, Mr. Bristolfaced them again, leaning back in his swivel-chair, and said: "Now, children--all quiet? One of you begin at the beginning and tell me howit happened. " Judith's lips shut together in a hard line, so Sylviabegan, surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the silenthalf-hour of inaction back of her. She told how they were met thatmorning by the news, how the children shouted after Camilla as she gotinto the carriage, how the Five A girls had decided to exclude herfrom the picnic, how angry Judith had been, and then--then--she knewno more to tell beyond the bare fact of Judith's passionate misdeed. 

Mr. Bristol began to cross-examine Judith in short, quiet sentences. "What made you think of throwing the things into the river?"

"I was afraid they'd get them back somehow if I didn't, " said Judith, as if stating a self-evident argument. 

"Where did you go to throw them in? To the Monroe Street bridge?"

"No, I didn't have time to go so far. I just went down throughRandolph Street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, and I got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and droppedthe things in from the other end. "

Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. The Piquota riverran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point. "Weren't you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?" askedthe man, looking at Judith's diminutive person. 

"Yes, I was, " said Judith unexpectedly. 

Mr. Bristol said "Oh--" and stood in thought for a moment. Some oneknocked on the door, and he turned to open it. At the sight of thetall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia'sheart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture. The appearance ofa merciful mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given herkeener or more poignant relief. She and Judith both ran headlong totheir father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms andpressing their little bodies against his. The comfort Sylvia felt inhis mere physical presence was inexpressible. It is one of the puregolden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, saveperhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the powerand loving-kindness of his God. 

Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Principal, introducinghimself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasywhen the children had not returned from school. Mr. Bristol shook theother's hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintancesand assuring him that he could not have come at a more opportunemoment. "Your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack. I needadvice. "

Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their father'sside, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorlessnarration, ending with Judith's exploit with the boat. "Now what would_you_ do in _my_ place?" he said, like one proposing an insolubleriddle. 

Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversationaltone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that Judith had donewell to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion. "Thegirls were sure that Jimmy Weaver had done it. "

"Was that why you came back and told?" asked Professor Marshall. 

"No, " said Judith bluntly, "I never thought of that. I wanted to besure they knew why it happened. "

The two men exchanged glances. Professor Marshall said: "Didn't youunderstand me when I told you at noon that even if you could make thegirls let Camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? Youcouldn't make them like to have her?"

"Yes, I understood all right, " said Judith, looking straight at herfather, "but if she couldn't have a good time--and no fault of hers--Iwasn't going to let _them_ have a good time either. I wasn't trying tomake them want her. I was trying to get even with them!"

Professor Marshall looked stern. "That is just what I feared, Judith, and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business. " Heturned to the Principal: "How many girls were going to the picnic?"

The other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowledge of the matter. "Good Heavens! how should I know?"

Sylvia counted rapidly. "Fourteen, " she said. 

"Well, Mr. Bristol, how would this do for a punishment? Judith hasworked in various ways, digging up dandelions from the lawn, weedingflower-beds, running errands--you know--all the things childrendo--and she has a little more than five dollars in her ironsavings-bank, that she has been saving for more than a year to buy acollie puppy. Would you be satisfied if she took that money, dividedit into fourteen parts, and took it herself in person to each of thegirls?"

During this proposal Judith's face had taken on an expression of utterdismay. She looked more childlike, more like her years than at anymoment during the interview. "Oh, _Father_!" she implored him, with adeep note of entreaty. 

He did not look at her, but over her head at the Principal, who wasrising from his chair with every indication of relief on his face. "Nothing could be better, " he said. "That will be just right--every onewill be satisfied. And I'll just say for the sake of disciplinethat little Judith shan't come back to school till she has done herpenance. Of course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight. All our families live in the vicinity of the school. " He was shakingProfessor Marshall's hand again and edging him towards the door, hismind once more on his paper, hoping that he might really finish itbefore night--if only there were no more interruptions!

His achievement in divining the mental processes of two childrenhysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those flutteringlittle hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step ata critical point in the moral life of two human beings in themaking--all this seemed as nothing to him--an incident of the day'sroutine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness tosociety lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, and he turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the greatlandscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards. 

Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters, explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and Sylvia wouldgo with Judith on her uncomfortable errand. Mrs. Marshall listenedin silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full ofpainfully earned pennies and nickels. Then she bade them into thekitchen and gave Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk. 

She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband'ssentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of thedoor, she ran after them, caught Judith in her arms, and gave her apassionate kiss. 

 * * * * *

The next day was Saturday, and it was suggested that Judith and Sylviacarry on their campaign by going to see the Fingáls and spending themorning playing with them as though nothing had happened. 

As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, theysaw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lacecurtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomelyfurnished room to a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, andJudith rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back ofher. From this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed, "Why, Judy, this isn't the right house--nobody lives here!" The bigroom was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and asthe children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see throughan open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted. 

They ran around the house to the back door and knocked on it. Therewas no answer. Judith turned the knob, the door opened, and they stoodin what had been unmistakably the Fingáls' kitchen. Evidence of wildhaste and confusion was everywhere about them--the floor was litteredwith excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still withcooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with kitchenware whichat the last moment the fugitives had evidently decided to abandon. 

The little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking about themwith startled eyes. A lean mother-cat came and rubbed her thin, pendent flanks against their legs, purring and whining. Three kittensskirmished joyfully in the excelsior, waylaying one another in ambushand springing out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to theirwoolly soft fur. 

"They've _gone_!" breathed Sylvia. "They've gone away for good!"

Judith nodded, even her bold and unimaginative spirit somewhatdaunted by the ghostly silence of the house. Sylvia tiptoed to theswinging-door and pushed it open. Yes, there was the pantry, like thekitchen, in chaotic disorder, tissue paper and excelsior thick on thefloor, and entangled with it the indescribable jumble of worthless, disconnected objects always tumbled together by a domestic crisislike a fire or a removal--old gloves, whisk-brooms, hat-forms, lamps, magazines, tarnished desk-fittings. The sight was so eloquent of panichaste that Sylvia let the door swing shut, and ran back into thekitchen. 

Judith was pointing silently to a big paper bag on the shelf. It hadbeen tossed there with some violence evidently, for the paper hadburst and the contents had cascaded out on the shelf and on thefloor--the rich, be-raisined cookies which Camilla was to have takento the picnic. Sylvia felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and pulledJudith out of the tragic house. They stood for a moment in the yard, beside a bed of flowering crocuses, brilliant in the sun. The forsakenhouse looked down severely at them from its blank windows. Judith wasalmost instantly relieved of mental tension by the outdoor air, andstooped down unconcernedly to tie her shoe. She broke the lacing andhad to sit down, take it out of the shoe, tie it, and put it backagain. The operation took some time, during which Sylvia stood still, her mind whirling. 

For the first time in her steadily forward-going life there was asharp, irrevocable break. Something which had been yesterday was nowno more. She would never see Camilla again, she who recalled Camilla'slook of anguish as though they still stood side by side. Her heartfilled with unspeakable thankfulness that she had put her arms aroundCamilla's neck at that supreme last moment. That had not been Judith'sdoing. That had come from her own heart. Unconsciously she had laidthe first stone in the wall of self-respect which might in the futurefortify her against her weaknesses. 

She stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again at therecollection of its echoing, empty silence. The moment was one shenever forgot. Standing there in that commonplace backyard, staring upat a house like any one of forty near her, she felt her heart growlarger. In that moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid theirshadowy fingers on her shining head. 

CHAPTER IX

THE END OF CHILDHOOD

That afternoon a couple of children who came to play in the Marshallorchard brought news that public opinion, after the fashion of thatunstable weathercock, was veering rapidly, and blowing from a whollyunexpected quarter. "My papa says, " reported Gretchen Schmidt, whonever could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by nomeans to her advantage to proclaim it--"my papa says that he thinksthe way American people treats colored peoples is just fierce; and hesays if he'd ha' known about our not letting Camilla go to the picnic, he'd ha' taken the trouble to me '_mit der flachen Hand schlagen. _'That means he'd have spanked me good and plenty. "

Maria Perkins, from the limb where she hung by her knees, responded, "Yup, my Uncle Eben says he likes Judy's spunk. "

"I guess he wouldn't have, if it'd ha' been his pickles!" Gretchenmade a last stand against the notorious injustice of fickle adultprejudices. 

But the tide had begun to turn. On Monday morning Sylvia and Judithfound themselves far from ostracized, rather the center of muchrespectful finger-pointing on the part of children from the othergrades who had never paid the least attention to them before. Andfinally when the Principal, passing majestically from room to room inhis daily tour of inspection, paused in his awful progress and spoketo Judith by name, asking her quite familiarly and condescendinglywhat cities you would pass through if you went from Chicago to NewOrleans, the current set once and for all in the other direction. Nomention was ever made of the disappearance of the Fingáls, and theMarshall children found their old places waiting for them. 

It was not long before Judith had all but forgotten the episode; butSylvia, older and infinitely more impressionable, found it burnedirrevocably into her memory. For many and many a week, she did notfall asleep without seeing Camilla's ashy face of wretchedness. And itwas years before she could walk past the house where the Fingáls hadlived, without feeling sick. 

Her life was, however, brimming with active interests which occupiedher, mind and body. There was rarely a day when a troop of childrendid not swarm over the Marshall house and barn, playing and playingand playing with that indomitable zest in life which is the birthrightof humanity before the fevers and chills of adolescence begin. Sylviaand Judith, moreover, were required to assume more and more of theresponsibility of the housework, while their mother extracted from theMarshall five acres an ever increasing largesse of succulent food. Sylvia's séances with old Reinhardt and the piano were becomingserious affairs: for it was now tentatively decided that she was toearn her living by teaching music. There were many expeditions on footwith their mother, for Mrs. Marshall had become, little by little, chief nurse and adviser to all the families of the neighborhood; andon her errands of service one of her daughters was needed to carrysupplies and act as assistant. And finally, as the children grewolder, and the family tradition of bookishness took hold ofthem, there were shelves and shelves to be devoured, a strangemixture--Thackeray, Maeterlinck, Fielding, Hakluyt, Ibsen, Dickens, Ruskin, Shaw, Austen, Molière, Defoe, Cervantes, Shakespeare, --thechildren dipped, or tasted or swallowed whole, according to theirtemperaments and the books they happened on. 

When Sylvia was thirteen, almost fourteen years old, she "graduated"from the eighth grade of the public schools and was ready to enter theHigh School. But after a good many family councils, in most of which, after the unreticent Marshall manner, she herself was allowed to bepresent, it was decided not to send her to the huge new Central HighSchool, which had cost La Chance such a big slice of its taxes, but toprepare her at home for her course at the State University. She hadbeen growing very fast, was a little thin and white, and had beenoutgrowing her strength. This at least was the reason given out toinquirers. In reality her father's prejudice against High Schoollife for adolescents was the determining cause. In the course of hisUniversity work he was obliged to visit a good many High Schools, andhad acquired a violent prejudice against the stirring social lifecharacteristic of those institutions. 

Sylvia's feelings about this step aside from the beaten track were, like many of Sylvia's feelings, decidedly mixed. She was drawn towardsthe High School by the suction of the customary. A large number of herclassmates expected as a matter of course to pass on in the usual way;but, with an uneasy qualm, half pride and half apprehension, Sylviawas beginning to feel her difference from ordinary children. She wasnot altogether sorry to say good-bye to her playmates, with whom sheno longer had much in common. She would miss the fun of class-life, ofcourse; but there was a certain distinction involved in being educated"differently. " She might be queer, but since she was apparently fatedto be queer, she might as well not be "common" as well. Finally, because she was still, at fourteen, very much of a child, the scalewas tipped by her thinking what fun it would be to go down-town onerrands in school hours. Charles Lamb, lost in painful wonder at hisown leisure after thirty-six years of incessant office-hours, couldsavor no more acutely than an American school-child the exquisiteflavor of freedom at an hour formerly dedicated to imprisonment. 

As a matter of fact, during the next three years Sylvia's time wasmore constantly occupied than when there was a fixed time-limit to herstudies. Her teachers were always about her, and lightly as the newyoke pressed, she wore it practically without intermission. Herimmersion in the ideals, the standards, the concepts of her parentswas complete, engulfing. Somebody was nearly always teaching hersomething. She studied history and Latin with her father; mathematicswith her mother. She learned to swim, to play tennis, to ride in thesummer-time, and to skate on the frozen swimming-pool in winter, allwithout stirring from home. Old Reinhardt was supposed to come twicea week to give her a piano-lesson, but actually he dropped in almostevery day to smoke meditatively and keep a watchful ear on herpractising. 

Although during those years she was almost literally rooted to theMarshall soil, watered by Marshall convictions, and fed by Marshallinformation, the usual miracle of irresistibly individual growth wentsilently and unconsciously forward in her. She was growing up to beherself, and not her mother or her father, little as any one in herworld suspected the presence of this unceasingly recurrent phenomenonof growth. She was alive to all the impressions reflected soinsistently upon her, but she transmuted them into products whichwould immensely have surprised her parents, they being under theusual parental delusion that they knew every corner of her heart. Herbudding aversions, convictions, ambitions were not in the least theaversions, convictions, and ambitions so loudly voiced about her; anda good deal of her energy was taken up in a more or less consciousreaction from the family catchwords, with especial emphasis laid on anobjection to the family habit of taking their convictions with greatseriousness. 

Her father would have been aghast if he could have felt the slightestreflection from the heat of her detestation of his favorite, Emersonian motto, which, now that he had reached five and forty, hewas apt to repeat with the iteration natural to his age, rousing inSylvia the rebellious exasperation felt by _her_ age for over-emphaticmoralizings. 

On the occasion of one of the annual gatherings at the Marshall houseof the Seniors in her father's classes, she remarked fiercely toJudith, "If Father gets off that old Emerson, 'What will you have, quoth God. Take it and pay for it, ' again tonight in his speech, I'mgoing to get right up and scream. "

Judith stared. The girls were in the kitchen, large aprons over theirbest dresses, setting out rows of plates for the chicken salad whichwas to come after the music. "I don't see anything to scream about inthat!" said Judith with a wondering contempt for Sylvia's notions. 

"I'm so _sick_ of it!" cried Sylvia, tearing the lettuce-leaves apartwith venom. "Father never gets through any sort of a speech that hedoesn't work it in--and I hate it, anyhow! It makes me feel as thoughsomebody had banged a big door in my face and shut me up in prison. "

"Well, for goodness' sakes!" cried Judith, who, at this period oftheir lives, had remained rather more than her three years behindSylvia's intelligence. "How do you get all that out of _that_!"

"You haven't sense enough to know what it means, that's all!" retortedSylvia. "It means something perfectly hateful, the way Father uses it. It means you've got to pay for every single thing you do or get inthis world! It's somebody tagging you round with an account-book, seeing how big a bill you're running up. It's the perfectly horrid wayFather and Mother make us do, of _always_ washing up the dishes wedirty, and _always_ picking up the things we drop. Seems as though I'ddie happy, if I could just step out of my nightgown in the morning and_leave_ it there, and know that it would get hung up without my doingit. "

"Well, if that's all you want, to die happy, " said Judith, theliteral-minded, "I will do that much for you!"

"Oh gracious, no! That wouldn't do any good! You know I couldn't takeany satisfaction letting _you_ do that!" objected Sylvia, peevishly, fuming and fumbling helplessly before the baffling quality of herdesires. "I don't want just somebody to pick it up for me. I want itpicked up by somebody that I don't care about, that I don't see, thatI'd just as soon have do the tiresome things as not. I want somebodyto do it, and me to feel all right about _having_ them do it!"

"Well, for goodness' sakes!" Judith was reduced again to mere wonder. 

Professor and Mrs. Marshall stepped into the kitchen for a moment tosee that everything was progressing smoothly. The professor had hisviola in his hand and was plucking softly at the strings, a pleasant, tranquil anticipation of harmony on his face. He looked affectionatelyat his daughters and thought what dear good children they were. Judithappealed to her parents: "Sylvia's as crazy as a loon. She says shewants somebody to do her work for her, and yet she wants to feel allright about shirking it!"

Mrs. Marshall did not follow, and did not care. "What?" she saidindifferently, tasting the chicken-salad in the big yellow bowl, and, with an expression of serious consideration, adding a little more saltto it. 

But Sylvia's father understood, "What you want to remember, daughter, "he said, addressing himself to his oldest child with a fond certaintyof her quick apprehension, "is that fine saying of Emerson, 'What willyou have, quoth--'" A raw-boned assistant appeared in the doorway. "Everybody here, I guess, Perfesser, " he said. 

When the girls were alone again, Sylvia stole a look at Judith andbroke into noiseless giggles. She laughed till the tears ran down hercheeks and she had to stop work and go to the kitchen sink to washher face and take a drink of water. "You never do what you say you'regoing to, " said Judith, as gravely alien to this mood as to the other. "I thought you said you'd scream. "

"I _am_ screaming, " said Sylvia, wiping her eyes again. 

They were very familiar with the work of preparing the simple"refreshments" for University gatherings. Their mother alwaysprovided exactly the same viands, and long practice had made themletter-perfect in the moves to be made. When they had finishedportioning off the lettuce-leaves and salad on the plates, theyswiftly set each one on a fresh crêpe-paper napkin. Sylvia professedan undying hatred for paper napkins. "I don't see why, " said Judith. "They're so much less bother than the other kind when you're onlygoing to use them once, this way. " "That's it, " asserted Sylvia;"that's the very stingy, economical thing about them I hate, their_not_ being a bother! I'd like to use big, fine-damask ones, allshiny, that somebody had ironed twenty minutes, every one, like thosewe had at Eleanor Hubert's birthday party. And then I'd scrunch themup and throw them in the laundry if there was the least speck onthem. "

"I wouldn't like the job of doing them up, " said Judith. 

"Neither would I. I'd hate it! And I wouldn't, " continued Sylvia, roaming at will in her enchanted garden; "I'd hire somebody to takeall the bother of buying them and hemming them and doing them up andputting them on the table. All I'd do, would be to shake them out andlay them across my lap, " she went through a dainty-fingered pantomime, "and never think a thing about how they got there. That's all _I_ wantto do with napkins. But I do love 'em big and glossy. I could _kiss_them!"

Judith was almost alarmed at the wildness of Sylvia's imaginings. "Why, you talk as though you didn't have good sense tonight, Sylvie. It's the party. You always get so excited over parties. " Judithconsidered it a "come-down" to get excited over anything. 

"Great Scotland! I guess I don't get excited over one of these_student_ parties!" Sylvia repudiated the idea. "All Father's'favorite students' are such rough-necks. And it makes me tired tohave all our freaks come out of their holes when we have company--MissLindström and Mr. Hecht and Cousin Parnelia and all. "

"The President comes, " advanced Judith. 

Sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. "What if he does--oldfish-mouth! _He's_ nobody--he's a rough-neck himself. He used to be aBaptist minister. He's only President because he can talk the hayseedsin the Legislature into giving the University big appropriations. Andanyhow, he only comes here because he _has_ to--part of his job. Hedoesn't like the freaks any better than I do. The last time hewas here, I heard Cousin Parnelia trying to persuade him to haveplanchette write him a message from Abraham Lincoln. Isn't she thelimit, anyhow!"

The girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big, low-ceilingedliving-room, singing like a great sea-shell with thrillingviolin-tones. Old Reinhardt was playing the Kreutzer, with ProfessorMarshall at the piano. Judith went quietly to sit near ProfessorKennedy, and Sylvia sat down near a window, leaning her head againstthe pane as she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside. Her face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling tolimpidity in a crystal vase. Her lips parted a little, her eyes werefixed on a point incalculably distant. Her mind emptied itself ofeverything but her joy in the glorious cadences. . . . 

If she had been asked what she and Judith had been talking of, shecould not have told; but when, after the second movement was finished, old Reinhardt put down his violin and began to loosen his bow (henever played the presto finale), it all came back to the girl as shelooked around her at her father's guests. She hated the way the youngmen's Adam's apples showed through their too-widely opened collars, and she loathed the way the thin brown hair of one of the co-edswas strained back from her temples. She received the President'scondescending, oleaginous hand-shake with a qualm at his loudoratorical voice and plebeian accent, and she headed Cousin Parneliaoff from a second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjustedfalse-front of hair as intensely as ever Loyola hated a heretic. Andthis, although uncontrollably driven by her desire to please, toplease even a roomful of such mediocrities, she bore to the outwardeyes the most gracious aspect of friendly, smiling courtesy. ProfessorMarshall looked at her several times, as she moved with her slim younggrace among his students and friends, and thought how fortunate he wasin his children. 

After the chicken-salad and coffee had been successfully served andeaten, one of the Seniors stepped forward with an awkward crudenessand presented Professor Marshall with a silver-mounted blotting-pad. The house was littered with such testimonials to the influence of theProfessor on the young minds under his care, testimonials which hischildren took as absolutely for granted as they did everything else inthe home life. On this occasion Sylvia was so afflicted because theyoung rustic appointed to make the presentation speech, forgot most ofwhat he had planned to say, that she felt nothing but the liveliestimpatience with the whole proceeding. But her father's quick heart wastouched, and more than half of his usual little speech of farewellto his Seniors was an expression of thanks to them. Before he hadfinished the last part, which consisted of eloquent exhortationsto the higher life, none the less sincerely heartfelt for beingremarkably like similar speeches he had made during the last twentyyears, he had quoted his favorite saying from Emerson. Judith lookedapprehensively at Sylvia; but she was not laughing. She evidently wasnot hearing a word her father said, being lost in the contemplationof the perfect evening costume of the newest assistant in ProfessorMarshall's department. He was a young man from Massachusetts, freshfrom Harvard, who had come West to begin his teaching that year. Hiswas certainly the most modern dress-suit in the University faculty;and he wore it with a supercilious disregard for its perfections whichgreatly impressed Sylvia. 

After these usual formalities were thus safely past, some onesuggested a game of charades to end the evening. Amid great laughterand joking from the few professors present and delighted responsefrom the students who found it immensely entertaining to be on suchfamiliar terms with their instructors, two leaders began to "choosesides. " The young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to hisfriend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter near them:"They won't really go on and _do_ this fool, undignified, backwoodsstunt, will they? They don't expect us to join _in_!"

"Oh yes, they will, " answered his friend, catching up his tone ofsophisticated scorn. He too was from Harvard, from an earlier class. "You'll be lucky if they don't have a spelling-down match, later on. "

"Good Lord!" groaned the first young man. 

"Oh, you mustn't think all of the University society is like _this_!"protested the second. "And anyhow, we can slope now, without beingnoticed, "

Sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage more than theexact words, but it summed up and brought home to her in a cruellyclarified form her own groping impressions. The moment was a terriblypainful one for her. Her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes, she clenched her fists. Her fine, lovely, and sensitive face darkenedto a tragic intensity of resolve. She might have been the youngHannibal, vowing to avenge Carthage. What she was saying to herselfpassionately was, "When _I_ get into the University, I will _not_ be ajay!"

It was under these conditions that Sylvia passed from childhood, and emerged into the pains and delights and responsibilities ofself-consciousness. 

BOOK II

_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_

CHAPTER X

SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

Although there was not the slightest actual connection betweenthe two, the trip to Chicago was always in Sylvia's mind like thebeginning of her University course. It is true that the journey, practically the first in Sylvia's life, was undertaken shortly beforeher matriculation as a Freshman, but this fortuitous chronologicalconnection could not account for Sylvia's sense of a deeper unitybetween the two experiences. The days in Chicago, few as they were, were as charged with significance for her as the successive acts in adrama, and that significance was of the substance and marrow of thefollowing and longer passage in her life. 

The fact that her father and her mother disagreed about theadvisability of the trip was one of the salient points in thebeginning. When Aunt Victoria, breaking a long silence with one of herinfrequent letters, wrote to say that she was to be in Chicago "onbusiness" during the last week of September, and would be very gladto have her sister-in-law bring her two nieces to see her there, Professor Marshall said, with his usual snort: "Business nothing! Shenever has any business. She won't come to see them _here_, that's all. The idea's preposterous. " But Mrs. Marshall, breaking a long silenceof her own, said vigorously: "She is your sister, and you and yourfamily are the only blood-kin she has in the world. I've a notion--Ihave had for some time--that she was somehow terribly hurt on thatlast visit here. It would be ungenerous not to go half-way to meet hernow. "

Sylvia, anxiously hanging on her father's response, was surprisedwhen he made no protest beyond, "Well, do as you please. I can keepLawrence all right. She only speaks of seeing you and the girls. " Itdid not occur to Sylvia, astonished at this sudden capitulation, thatthere might be a discrepancy between her father's habit of vehementspeech and his real feeling in this instance. 

It was enough for her, however, that they were going to take a longjourney on the train overnight, that they were going to see a greatcity, that they were going to see Aunt Victoria, about whom herimagination had always hovered with a constancy enhanced by the oddsilence concerning her which was the rule in the Marshall house. 

She was immensely stirred by the prospect. She made herself, in thebrief interval between the decision and the beginning of the journey, a new shirt-waist of handkerchief linen. It took the last cent ofher allowance to buy the material, and she was obliged, by a secretarrangement with her father, to discount the future, in order to havesome spending-money in the city. 

Mrs. Marshall was quite disappointed by the dullness of Sylvia'sperceptions during that momentous first trip, which she had lookedforward to as an occasion for widening the girls' horizon to newinterests. Oddly enough it was Judith, usually so much less quick thanSylvia, who asked the intelligent questions and listened attentivelyto her mother's explanations about the working of the air-brakes, andthe switching systems in railroad yards, and the harvesting of thecrops in the flat, rich country gliding past the windows. It wasquite evident that not a word of this highly instructive talkreached Sylvia, sitting motionless, absorbing every detail of herfellow-passengers' aspect, in a sort of trance of receptivity. Shescarcely glanced out of the windows, except when the train stopped atthe station in a large town, when she transferred her steady gaze tothe people coming and going from the train. "Just look, Sylvia, atthose blast-furnaces!" cried her mother as they passed through theoutskirts of an industrial town. "They have to keep them going, youknow, night and day. "

"Oh, do they? What for?" asked Judith, craning her neck to watch thesplendid leap of the flames into the darkness. 

"Because they can't allow the ore to become--" Mrs. Marshall wonderedwhy, during her conscientious explanation of blast-furnaces, Sylviakept her eyes dully fixed on her hands on her lap. Sylvia was, as amatter of fact, trying imaginary bracelets on her slim, smooth, whitewrists. The woman opposite her wore bracelets. 

"Isn't it fine, " remarked the civic-minded Mrs. Marshall, "to see allthese little prairie towns so splendidly lighted?"

"I hadn't noticed them, " said Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegantnonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her motherlooked at her askance, and thought that children are unaccountable. 

There were four of the Chicago days, and such important events markedthem that each one had for all time a physiognomy of its own. Yearsafterwards when their travels had far outrun that first journey, Sylvia and Judith could have told exactly what occurred on any givenday of that sojourn, as "on the third day we were in Chicago. "

The event of the first day was, of course, the meeting with AuntVictoria. They went to see her in a wonderful hotel, entering througha classic court, with a silver-plashing fountain in the middle, andslim Ionic pillars standing up white and glorious out of masses ofpalms. This dreamlike spot of beauty was occupied by an incessantlyrestless throng of lean, sallow-faced men in sack-coats, with hats onthe backs of their heads and cigars in the corners of their mouths. The air was full of tobacco smoke and the click of heels on the marblepavement. At one side was a great onyx-and-marble desk, looking likea soda-water fountain without the silver faucets, and it was thethin-cheeked, elegant young-old man behind this structure who gaveinstructions whereby Mrs. Marshall and her two daughters found theirway to Aunt Victoria's immense and luxurious room. She was very gladto see them, shaking hands with her sister-in-law in the respectfulmanner which that lady always seemed to inspire in her, and embracingher two tall young nieces with a fervor which melted Sylvia's heartback to her old childish adoration. 

"What _beautiful_ children you have, Barbara!" cried Mrs. Marshall-Smith, holding Judith off at arm's length and looking fromher to Sylvia; "although I suppose I ought not to tell them that!" Shelooked at Sylvia with an affectionate laugh. "Will you be spoiled if Itell you you are very pretty?" she asked. 

"I can't think of anything but how pretty _you_ are!" said Sylvia, voicing honestly what was in her mind. 

This answer caused her aunt to cry out: "Oh! Oh! And tact too! She'smeant for social success!" She left this note to vibrate in Sylvia'sears and turned again to her sister-in-law with hospitable remarksabout the removing of wraps. As this was being done, she tookadvantage of the little bustle to remark from the other side of theroom, "I rather hoped Elliott would come with you. " She spoke lightly, but there was the tremor of feeling in her sweet voice which Sylviafound she remembered as though it had been but yesterday she had heardit last. 

"You didn't ask him, " said Mrs. Marshall, with her usual directness. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith arched her eyebrows, dropped her eyelids, andshook her head. "No, I didn't ask him, " she admitted, and then with alittle wry twist of her lips, "But I rather hoped he might feel likecoming. " She looked down at her hands. 

Mrs. Marshall surprised her daughters very much by going across theroom and kissing her husband's sister. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took theother's strong, hard hand between her soft fingers. "That's generousin you, Barbara, " she said, looking intently into the pitying darkeyes, "I'm human, you know, "

"Yes, I know you're human, " said Mrs. Marshall, looking down at hergravely. "So are we all of us. So's Elliott. Don't forget that. " Withwhich obscure reference, entirely unintelligible to the two girls, thematter was forever dropped. 

The two ladies thereupon embarked upon the difficult business oflaying out to the best advantage the few days before them so thatevery hour might be utilized for the twofold purpose of seeing eachother and having the girls see the sights. Judith went to the windowduring this conversation, and looked down into the crowded street, thefirst city street she had ever seen. Sylvia sat quietly and imprintedupon her memory every item in the appearance of the two women beforeher, not the first time she had compared them. Mrs. Marshall wasdressed in a dark-blue, well-preserved, ready-made suit, dating fromthe year before. It was in perfect condition and quite near enoughthe style of the moment to pass unnoticed. Sylvia saw nothing to beashamed of in her mother's unaccented and neutral costume, but therewas no denying that she looked exactly like any one else. What wasmost apparent to the discerning eye was that her garb had beenorganized in every detail so as to consume as little thought andeffort as possible. Whereas Aunt Victoria--Sylvia's earnest andthoughtful efforts at home-dressmaking had fitted her, if for nothingelse, for a full appreciation of Mrs. Marshall-Smith's costume. Shehad struggled with cloth enough to bow her head in respect and awebefore the masterly tailoring of the rich, smooth broadcloth dress. She knew from her own experience that the perfection of those weltedseams could not be accomplished by even the most intense temporaryconcentration of amateur forces. No such trifling fire of twigslighted the way to that pinnacle. The workman who had achieved thatskill had cut down the whole tree of his life and thrown it into theflame. 

Like a self-taught fiddler at the concert of a master, Sylvia'sfailures had taught her the meaning of success. Although herinexperience kept her from making at all a close estimate of theliteral cost of the toilet, her shrewdness made her divine the truth, which was that Mrs. Marshall-Smith, in spite of the plainness of herattire, could have clad herself in cloth-of-gold at a scarcely greaterexpenditure of the efforts and lives of others. Sylvia felt that heraunt was the most entirely enviable person in the world, and wouldgladly have changed places with her in a moment. 

That was, on the whole, the note of the Chicago trip, all the dazzlinglights and reflections of which focused, for Sylvia, upon AuntVictoria's radiant person. At times, the resultant beam was almost toomuch for the young eyes; as, for example, on the next day when thetwo made a momentous shopping expedition to the largest and finestdepartment store in the city. "I've a curiosity to see, " Aunt Victoriahad declared carelessly, "what sort of things are sold in a bigWestern shop, and besides I've some purchases to make for the Lydfordhouse. Things needs freshening up there. I've thought of wicker andchintz for the living-room. It would be a change from what I've had. Perhaps it would amuse the children to go along?"

At this, Judith, who had a boy's detestation of shopping, looked somiserable that Aunt Victoria had laughed out, her frank, amused laugh, and said, "Well, Sylvia and I alone, then!"

"Judith and I'll go to Lincoln Park to take a walk by the lake, " saidMrs. Marshall. "Our inland young folks have never seen so much waterall at once. "

Sylvia had been, of course, in the two substantial and well-rundepartment stores of La Chance, when she went with her mother to maketheir carefully considered purchases. They always went directly tothe department in question, where Mrs. Marshall's concise formula ranusually along such lines as, "I would like to look at misses' coats, size 16, blue or brown serge, moderate style, price somewhere betweenten and fifteen dollars. " And then they looked at misses' coats, size16, blue or brown serge, of the specified price; and picked outone. Sylvia's mother was under the impression that she allowed herdaughters to select their own clothes because, after all thesedefining and limiting preliminaries, she always, with a very genuineindifference, abandoned them to their own choice between the four orfive garments offered. 

Even when Sylvia, as she grew older, went by herself to make a smallpurchase or two, she was so deeply under the influence of her mother'sexample that she felt it unbecoming to loiter, or to examine anythingshe knew she could not buy. Besides, nearly all the salespeople, who, for the most part, had been at their posts for many years, knew herfrom childhood, and if she stopped to look at a show-case of newcollars, or jabots, they always came pleasantly to pass the time ofday, and ask how her little brother was, and how she liked studying athome. She was ashamed to show in their presence anything but a casual, dignified interest in the goods they handled. 

After these feeble and diluted tipplings, her day with Aunt Victoriawas like a huge draught of raw spirits. That much-experienced shopperled her a leisurely course up one dazzling aisle and down another, pausing ruthlessly to look and to handle and to comment, even if shehad not the least intention of buying. With an inimitable easeof manner she examined whatever took her fancy, and the languid, fashionably dressed salesladies, all in aristocratic black, showed tothese whims a smiling deference, which Sylvia knew could comefrom nothing but the exquisite tailoring of Aunt Victoria's bluebroadcloth. This perception did not in the least lower her opinion ofthe value of the deference. It heightened her opinion of the value oftailoring. 

They stood by glass tables piled high with filmy and costly underwear, such underwear as Sylvia had never dreamed could exist, and AuntVictoria looked casually at the cobweb tissues which the saleswomanheld up, herself hankering in a hungry adoration of the luxury shewould never touch in any other way. Without apology or explanation, other than Aunt Victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved onto the enchanted cave where, under the stare of innumerable electriclights, evening wraps were exhibited. The young woman who served themheld the expensive, fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of herblack uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. Her instant of glorywas over when Aunt Victoria bought one of these, exclaiming humorouslyabout the quaintness of going from Paris to Chicago to shop. It was ofsilver tissue over white brocade, with a collar of fur, and the pricewas a hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Sylvia's allowance for all herpersonal expenses for a whole year was a hundred and twenty. Toreach the furniture, they passed by, with an ignoring contempt, hugecounters heaped with hundreds and hundreds of shirt-waists, any one ofwhich was better than the one Sylvia had made with so much care andinterest before leaving home. 

Among the furniture they made a long stay. Aunt Victoria wasunexpectedly pleased by the design of the wicker pieces, andbought and bought and bought; till Sylvia turned her head away inbewilderment. She looked down a long perspective of glitteringshow-cases filled with the minor luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs, the collars, the slipper-rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hairornaments, the chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable, perishable as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio totheir fragility. Back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like, simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. It occurred to Sylviaas little as to many others of the crowd of half-hypnotized women, wandering about with burning eyes and watering mouths through theshrewdly designed shop, that the great closets back of these adroitlydisplayed fineries might be full of wearable, firm-textured littledresses, such as she herself had always worn. It required an effort ofthe will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed, waveredand bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly inflamed. Any senseof values, of proportion, in Sylvia was dumfounded by the lavishness, the enormous quantities, the immense varieties of the goods displayed. She ached with covetousness. . . . 

When they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after commentingthat she looked rather flushed and tired, happened to ask, "Oh, by theway, Sylvia, did you happen to come across anything in serge suitsthat would be suitable for school-wear?"

Sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, "_No!_" and turned away, feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. But Aunt Victoriahappened to divert attention at that moment. She had been reading, with a very serious and somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegramjust handed her, and now in answer to Mrs. Marshall's expression ofconcern, said hastily, "Oh, it's Arnold again. . . . It's always Arnold!"She moved to a desk and wrote a brief telegram which she handed tothe waiting man-servant. Sylvia noticed it was addressed to Mr. A. H. Saunders, a name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections nowmuffled and obscured. 

Aunt Victoria went on to Mrs. Marshall: "Arnold hates this school so. He always hates his schools. "

"Oh, he is at school now?" asked Mrs. Marshall. "You haven't a tutorfor him?"

"Oh yes, Mr. Saunders is still with him--in the summers and duringholidays. " Mrs. Marshall-Smith explained further: "To keep him up inhis _studies_. He doesn't learn anything in his school, you know. Theynever do. It's only for the atmosphere--the sports; you know, theyplay cricket where he is now--and the desirable class of boys hemeets. . . . _All_ the boys have tutors in vacation times to coach themfor the college-entrance examinations. "

The face of the college professor's wife continued immovably graveduring this brief summary of an educational system. She inquired, "Howold is Arnold now?" learned that he was seventeen, remembered that, ohyes, he was a year older than Sylvia, and allowed the subject to dropinto one of the abysmal silences for which she alone had the courage. Her husband's sister was as little proof against it as her husband. Asit continued, Mrs. Marshall-Smith went through the manoeuvers which ina less perfectly bred person would have been fidgeting. . . . 

No one paid any attention to Sylvia, who sat confronting herself in along mirror and despising every garment she wore. 

CHAPTER XI

ARNOLD'S FUTURE IS CASUALLY DECIDED

The next day was to have been given up to really improving pursuits. The morning in the Art Institute came off as planned. The girls weremarshaled through the sculpture and paintings and various art objectswith about the result which might have been expected. As blanklyinexperienced of painting and sculpture as any Bushmen, theyreceived this sudden enormous dose of those arts with an instant, self-preservatory incapacity to swallow even a small amount of them. It is true that the very first exhibits they saw, the lions outsidethe building, the first paintings they encountered, made anappreciable impression on them; but after this they followed theirelders through the interminable crowded halls of the museum, theirlegs aching with the effort to keep their balance on the polishedfloors, their eyes increasingly glazed and dull. For a time a feweccentric faces or dresses among the other sightseers penetratedthrough this merciful insensibility, but by noon the capacity for evenso much observation as this had left them. They set one foot beforethe other, they directed their eyes upon the multitudinous objectsexhibited, they nodded their heads to comments made by the others, butif asked suddenly what they had just seen in the room last visited, neither of them could have made the faintest guess. 

At half-past twelve, their aunt and mother, highly self-congratulatoryover the educational morning, voted that enough was as good as afeast, and led their stunned and stupefied charges away to AuntVictoria's hotel for lunch. 

It was while they were consuming this exceedingly appetizing meal thatSylvia saw, threading his way towards them between the other tables, atall, weedy, expensively dressed young man, with a pale freckled faceand light-brown hair. When he saw her eyes on him he waved his hand, a largely knuckled hand, and grinned. Then she saw that it was not ayoung man, but a tall boy, and that the boy was Arnold. The quality ofthe grin reminded her that she had always liked Arnold. 

His arrival, though obviously unexpected to the last degree, causedless of a commotion than might have seemed natural. It was as ifthis were for Aunt Victoria only an unexpected incident in a generaldevelopment, quite resignedly anticipated. After he had shaken handswith everybody, and had sat down and ordered his own luncheon verycapably, his stepmother remarked in a tolerant tone, "You didn't getmy telegram, then?" He shook his head: "I started an hour or so afterI wired you. We'd gone down to the town with one of the masters for agame with Concord. There was a train just pulling out as we went bythe station, and I ran and jumped on. "

"How'd you know where it was going?" challenged Judith. 

"I didn't, " he explained lightly. He looked at her with the teasing, provocative look of masculine seventeen for feminine thirteen. "Sameold spitfire, I see, Miss Judy, " he said, his command of unhackneyedphrases by no means commensurate with his desire to be facetious. 

Judith frowned and went on eating her éclair in silence. It was thefirst éclair she had ever eaten, and she was more concerned with itthan with the new arrival. 

Nobody made any comment on Arnold's method of beginning journeys untilMrs. Marshall asked, "What did you do it for?" She put the questionwith an evident seriousness of inquiry, not at all with the rhetoricalreproach usually conveyed in the formula she used. 

Arnold looked up from the huge, costly, bloody beefsteak he was eatingand, after an instant's survey of the grave, kind, face opposite him, answered with a seriousness like her own, "Because I wanted to getaway. " He added after a moment, laughing and looking again at theyounger girl, "I wanted to come out and pull Judy's hair again!" Hespoke with his mouth full, and this made him entirely a boy and not atall the young man his well-cut clothes made him appear. 

Without speaking, Judith pulled her long, smooth braid around over hershoulder where she could protect the end of it. Her mouth was alsofull, bulgingly, of the last of her éclair. They might have beenbrother and sister in a common nursery. 

"My! Aren't you pretty, Sylvia!" was Arnold's next remark. "You're aregular peach; do you know it?" He turned to the others: "Say, let'sgo to a show this afternoon, " he proposed. "Tling-Tling's in town. Isaw it in the papers as I came in. The original company's singing. Did you ever hear them?" he asked Sylvia. "They beat the other roadcompanies all hollow. "

Sylvia shook her head. She had never heard the name before, theBroadway brand of comic opera being outside her experience to a degreewhich would have been inconceivable to Arnold. 

There was some discussion over the matter, but in the end, apparentlybecause there was nothing else to do with Arnold, they all did goto the "show, " Arnold engineering the expedition with a trainedexpertness in the matter of ticket-sellers, cabs, and ushers which wasin odd contrast to his gawky physical immaturity. At all the stagesof the process where it was possible, he smoked cigarettes, producingthem in rapid succession out of a case studded with little pearls. Hisstepmother looked on at this, her beautiful manner of wise tolerancetightening up a little, and after dinner, as they sat in a glitteringcorridor of the hotel to talk, she addressed him suddenly in a quitedifferent tone. "I don't want you to do that so much, Arnold, " shesaid. His hand was fumbling for his case again. "You're too young tosmoke at all, " she said definitely. He went on with his automaticmovements, opening the case, taking out a cigarette and tapping it onthe cover. "Oh, all the fellows do, " he said rebelliously, and strucka match. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith aroused herself to a sudden, low-toned, ironmasterfulness of voice and manner which, for all its quietness, hadthe quality of a pistol shot in the family group. She said only, "Putaway that cigarette"; but by one effort of her will she massed againstthe rebellion of his disorganized adolescence her mature, well-ripenedcapacity to get her own way. She held him with her eyes as ananimal-trainer is supposed to cow his snarling, yellow-fangedcaptives, and in a moment Arnold, with a pettish gesture, blew out thematch and shut the cigarette case with a snap. Mrs. Marshall-Smithforbore to over-emphasize her victory by a feather-weight of gloating, and turned to her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about thepreposterousness of one of the costumes passing. Arnold sulkedin silence until Judith, emerging from her usual self-containedreticence, made her first advance to him. "Let's us all go thereby the railing where we can look down into the central court, " shesuggested, and having a nodded permission from their elders, the threechildren walked away. 

They looked down into the great marble court, far below them, nowfairy-like with carefully arranged electric lights, gleaming throughthe palms. The busily trampling cohorts in sack-coats and derby hatswere, from here, subdued by distance to an aesthetic inoffensivenessof mere ant-like comings and goings. 

"Not so bad, " said Arnold, with a kindly willingness to be pleased, looking about him discriminatingly at one detail after another ofthe interior, the heavy velvet and gold bullion of the curtains, thepolished marble of the paneling, the silk brocade of the upholstery, the heavy gilding of the chairs. . . . Everything in sight exhaled anintense consciousness of high cost, which was heavy on the air like amusky odor, suggesting to a sensitive nose, as does the odor of musk, another smell, obscured but rancidly perceptible--the unwashed smell, floating up from the paupers' cellars which support Aladdin's palacesof luxury. 

But the three adolescents, hanging over the well-designed solidmahogany railing, had not noses sensitive to this peculiar, verycommon blending of odors. Judith, in fact, was entirely unconsciouseven of the more obvious of the two. She was as insensitive to allabout her as to the too-abundant pictures of the morning. She mighthave been leaning over a picket fence. "I wouldn't give in to Her!"she said to Arnold, staring squarely at him. 

Arnold looked nettled. "Oh, I don't! I don't pay any attention to whatshe says, except when she's around where I am, and that's not so oftenyou could notice it much! _Saunders_ isn't that kind! Saunders is agay old bird, I tell you! We have some times together when we getgoing!"

It dawned on Sylvia that he was speaking of the man who, five yearsbefore, had been their young Professor Saunders. She found that sheremembered vividly his keen, handsome face, softened by music to quietpeace. She wondered what Arnold meant by saying he was a gay old bird. 

Arnold went on, shaking his head sagely: "But it's my belief thatSaunders is beginning to take to dope . . . Bad business! Bad business!He's in love with Madrina, you know, and has to drown his sorrows someway. "

Even Judith, for all her Sioux desire to avoid seeming surprised orimpressed, could not restrain a rather startled look at this lordlyknowledge of the world. Sylvia, although she had scarcely taken in thesignificance of Arnold's words, dropped her eyes and blushed. Arnoldsurveyed them with the indulgent look of a rakish but good-hearted manof the world patting two pretty children on the head. 

Judith upset his pose by bringing the talk abruptly back to where shehad begun it. "But you _did_ give in to her! You pretend you didn'tbecause you are ashamed. She just looked you down. I wouldn't let_any_body look me down; I wouldn't give in to anybody!"

Under this attack, the man of the world collapsed into an awkwardovergrown boy, ill at ease, with red lids to his eyes and prematureyellow stains on two fingers of his left hand. He shifted his feet andsaid defensively: "Aw, she's a woman. A fellow can't knock her down. Iwouldn't let a man do it. " He retreated still further, through anotherphase, and became a little boy, heated and recriminatory: "I'd liketo know who _you_ are to talk! You give in to _your_ mother all thetime!"

"I don't give in to my mother; I _mind_ her, " said Judith, drawing adistinction which Arnold could not follow but which he was not acuteenough to attack other than by a jeering, "Oh, what a crawl! What'sthe diff?"

"And I mind her whether she's there or not! _I_ do!" continued Judith, pressing what she seemed, inexplicably to Arnold, to consider heradvantage. 

Sylvia was vexed with them for talking so loudly and getting sored-faced and being so generally out of key with the booming note ofluxury resounding about them. "Hush! hush!" she said; "don't be sosilly. We ought to be going back. "

Arnold took her rebuke without protest. Either something in thispassage-at-arms had perversely brought a sudden impulse to his mind, or he had all along a purpose in his fantastic trip West. As theyreached the two ladies, he burst out, "Say, Madrina, why couldn't I goon to La Chance and go to school there, and live with the Marshalls?"

Four amazed faces were turned on him. His stepmother evidently thoughthim stricken with sudden insanity and strove distractedly to select, from the heaped pile of her reasons for so thinking, some few whichmight be cited without too great offense to her brother's mode oflife: "Why, what a strange idea, Arnold! What ever made you think ofsuch a thing? _You_ wouldn't like it!" She was going on, as in decencybound, to add that it would be also rather a large order for theMarshalls to adopt a notably "difficult" boy, when Judith broke inwith a blunt divination of what was in her aunt's mind. "You'd haveto wash dishes if you came to our house, " she said, "and help peelpotatoes, and weed the celery bed. "

"I'd like it!" declared Arnold. "We'd have lots of fun. "

"I _bet_ we would!" said Judith, with an unexpected assent. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith laughed gently. "You don't know what you'retalking about, you silly boy. You never did an hour's work in yourlife!"

Arnold sat down by Mrs. Marshall. "I wouldn't be in the way, _would_I?" he said, with a clumsy pleading. He hesitated obviously over the"Mother" which had risen to his lips, the name he had had for herduring the momentous visit of five years before, and finally, blushing, could not bring it out. "I'd like it like anything! _I_wouldn't be . . . I'd be _different_! Sylvie and Judy seem like littlesisters to me. " The red on his face deepened. "It's--it's good for afellow to have sisters, and a home, " he said in a low tone not audibleto his stepmother's ears. 

Mrs. Marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his slack, big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidentlythought a light tone best now, as always, to take. "I tell you, Barbara"--she suggested laughingly, "we'll exchange. You give meSylvia, and take Arnold. "

Mrs. Marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and said seriously:"Why really, Victoria, it might not be a bad thing for Arnold to cometo us. I know Elliott would be glad to have him, and so would I. "

For an instant Arnold's life hung in the balance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-dress of amber satin, satsilent, startled by the suddenness with which the whole astonishingquestion had come up. There was in her face more than one hint thatthe proposition opened a welcome door of escape to her. . . . 

And then Arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth, sent oneend of the scales down, weighted so heavily that the sight of hisstepmother's eyes and mouth told him it could never rise again. In thelittle, pregnant pause, he cried out joyfully, "Oh, Mother! Mother!"and flung his arms around Mrs. Marshall's neck. It was the only timehe had shown the slightest emotion over anything. It burst from himwith surprising effect. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, as she had said, only human, and at thisshe rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive, and shook out theshimmering folds of her beautiful dress. She said casually, pickingup her fan and evidently preparing for some sort of adjournment: "Oh, Arnold, don't be so absurd. Of course you can't foist yourself offon a family that's no relation to you, that way. And in any case, it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational StateUniversity. Not a person you know would have heard of it. You knowyou're due at Harvard next fall. " With adroit fingers, she plucked thestring sure to vibrate in Arnold's nature. "Do go and order a tablefor us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure to have thewaiter give you one where we can see the dancing. "

The matter was settled. 

CHAPTER XII

ONE MAN'S MEAT . . . 

That night after the Marshalls had gone back to their somewhat shabbyboarding-house, "things" happened to the two people they had left inthe great hotel. Sylvia and Judith never knew the details, but it wasapparent that something portentous had occurred, from the number oftelegrams Aunt Victoria had managed to receive and send between thehour when they left her in the evening, and eleven o'clock the nextmorning, when they found her, hatted and veiled, with an array ofstrapped baggage around her. 

"It's Arnold again!" she told them, with a resigned gesture. She laiddown the time-table she had been consulting and drew Mrs. Marshall tothe window for a low-voiced explanation. When she came back, "I'm sosorry, dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming timetogether, " she told the girls. "But the news I've been getting fromArnold's school--there's nothing for me to do but to stop everythingand take him back there to see what can be done to patch thingsup. " She spoke with the patient air of one inured to the sacrificesinvolved in the upbringing of children. "We leave on theeleven-forty--oh, I _am_ so sorry! But it would have been only one daymore. I meant to get you both a dress--I've 'phoned to have them sentto you. "

The rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last momentsbefore train-time--kisses, remarks about writing more often; a promisefrom Aunt Victoria to send Sylvia from time to time a box of olddresses and fineries as material for her niece's dressmakingskill;--from Arnold, appearing at the last minute, a good deal ofrather flat, well-meant chaffing, proffered with the most entireunconcern as to the expressed purpose of their journey; and then thedescent through long, mirrored, softly carpeted corridors to theclassic beauty of the Grecian temple where the busy men, with tiredeyes, came and went hurriedly, treading heavily on their heels. Outside was the cab, Arnold extremely efficient in browbeating thedriver as to the stowing away of bags, more kisses, in the generalcloud of which Arnold pecked shyly at Sylvia's ear and Judith's chin;then the retreating vehicle with Arnold standing up, a tall, ungainlyfigure, waving a much-jointed hand. 

After it was out of sight the three watchers looked at each other in astale moment of anticlimax. 

"Arnold's horrid, isn't he?" said Judith thoughtfully. 

"Why, I _like_ him!" opposed Sylvia. 

"Oh, I _like_ him, all right, " said Judith. 

Then both girls looked at their mother. What next . . . ? They were notto have gone back to La Chance until the next night. Would this changeof plans alter their schedule? Mrs. Marshall saw no reason why itshould. She proposed a sightseeing expedition to a hospital. MissLindström, the elderly Swedish woman who worked among the destitutenegroes of La Chance, had a sister who was head-nurse in the biggestand newest hospital in Chicago, and she had written very cordiallythat if her sister's friends cared to inspect such an institution, shewas at their service. Neither of the girls having the slightest ideaof what a hospital was like, nor of any other of the sights in thecity which they might see instead, no objection was made to this plan. 

They made inquiries of a near-by policeman and found that they couldreach it by the elevated. Their encounter with this metropolitanfacility for transportation turned out to be among the most memorablebits of sightseeing of their trip. Neither of the girls had everimagined anything so lurid as the Saturday noon jam, the dense, packedthrongs waiting on the platforms and bursting out through the openeddoors like beans from a split bag, their places instantly taken byan even greater crowd, perspiring, fighting grimly for foot-room andexpecting and receiving no other kind. Judith was fired contagiouslywith the spirit about her, set her teeth, thrust out her elbows, shoved, pushed, grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in theperformance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatiguedcity-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only apreoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, thatattained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. Judithsecured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh airin abundance and could hang over the grating to watch with extremeinterest the intimate bits of tenement-house life which flashedjerkily by. 

But Sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always found herselfin the exact middle of the most crowded spot, feeling her bodyhorrifyingly pressed upon by various invisible ones behind her andseveral only too visible ones in front, breathing down the back ofsomebody's neck, often a dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathinghotly down the back of her own. Once as a very fat and perspiringGerman-American began to fight the crowd in the endeavor to turnaround and leave the car, his slowly revolving bulbous bulk pushed herso smotheringly into the broad back of a negro ahead of her that shefelt faint. As they left the car, she said vehemently: "Oh, Mother, this makes me sick! Why couldn't we have taken a cab? Aunt Victoriaalways does!"

Her mother laughed. "You little country girl! A cab for as far as thiswould cost almost as much as the ticket back to La Chance. "

"I don't see why we came, then!" cried Sylvia. "It's simply awful! Andthis is a _horrid_ part of town!" She suddenly observed that they werewalking through a very poor, thickly inhabited street, such as shehad never seen before. As she looked about her, her mother stoppedlaughing and watched her face with a painful attention. Sylvia lookedat the tall, dingy houses, the frowzy little shops, the swarms ofdirty-nosed children, shrill-voiced, with matted hair, running andwhooping in the street, at the slatternly women yelling unobeyedorders to them out of half-glimpsed, cheerless interiors, smelling ofcabbage and dishwater. It was Sylvia's first sight of the life of citypoor, and upon her face of disgust and revulsion her mother bent astern and anxious eye. 

"See here, Sylvia!" she said abruptly, "do you know what _I_ wasthinking about back there in the crowd on the elevated? I was thinkingthat lots of girls, no older than _my_ girl, have to stand that twicea day, going to earn their livings. "

Sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this. "I don'tsee that that makes it any easier for us if they _do!_" she said in arecalcitrant voice. She stepped wide to avoid a pile of filth on thesidewalk, and clutched at her skirt. She had a sudden vision of thewhite-tiled, velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of AuntVictoria's hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass, the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchantedlife--roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids. . . . 

"Here we are at the hospital, " said Mrs. Marshall, a perplexed lineof worry between her brows. But at once she was swept out of herself, forgot her seriously taken responsibility of being the mother of agirl like Sylvia. She was only Barbara Marshall, thrilled by a noblespectacle. She looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed façadeabove them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the gas-tanks acrossthe street, and her dark eyes kindled. "A hospital is one of the mostwonderful places in the world!" she cried, in a voice of emotion. "Allthis--to help people get well!"

They passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young woman at a desknodded on hearing their names, and spoke into a telephone. Therewas an odd smell in the air, not exactly disagreeable, yet ratheruncomfortably pungent. "Oh, iodoform, " remarked the young woman at thedesk, hearing them comment on it. "Do you get it? We don't notice it_here_ at all. "

Then came Miss Lindström's sister, powerfully built, gaunt, gray, witha professional, impersonal cheerfulness. The expedition began. "I'lltake you to the children's ward first, " said Miss Lindström; "thatalways interests visitors so much. . . . "

Rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless faces with anawful patience on them, and little white hands lying in unchildlikequiet on the white spreads; rows on rows of hollow eyes turned inlistless interest on the visitors; nurses in white, stepping brisklyabout, bending over the beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftlyunrolling a bandage; heat; a stifling smell of iodoform; a sharpsudden cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully beatingpulse of low, suppressed sobs. . . . 

They were out of the children's ward now, walking along a clean barecorridor. Sylvia swallowed hard. Her eyes felt burning. Judith heldher mother's hand tightly. Miss Lindström was explaining to Mrs. Marshall a new system of ventilation. 

"This is one of the women's wards, " said their leader, opening anotherswinging door, from which rushed forth a fresh blast of iodoform. Morerows of white beds, each with its mound of suffering, each with itshaggard face of pain. More nurses, bearing basins of curious shape, bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes. There was more restlessnesshere than in the children's ward, less helpless prostration before theJuggernaut of disease . . . Fretfulness, moans, tossing heads, wretchedeyes which stared at the visitors in a hostile indifference. 

"Oh, they are just putting the dressing on such an _interesting_case!" said Miss Lindström's voice coming to Sylvia from a greatdistance. She spoke with the glow of professional enthusiasm, withthat certainty, peculiar to sincere doctors and nurses, that acomplicated wound is a fascinating object. 

In spite of herself Sylvia had one glimpse of horribly lacerated redtissues. . . . She gripped her hands together after this and lookedfixedly at a button on her glove, until Miss Lindström's voiceannounced: "It's the Embury stitch that makes that possible: we'vejust worked out the application of it to skin-graft cases. Two yearsago she'd have lost her leg. Isn't it simply splendid!"

She said cordially as they moved forward: "Sister Selma said to treatyou as though you were the Queen of Sweden, and I am! You're seeingthings that visitors are _never_ allowed to see. "

They walked on and on interminably, past innumerable sick souls, each whirling alone in a self-centered storm of suffering; and then, somehow, they were in a laboratory, where an immensely stout andimmensely jovial doctor in white linen got down from a high stool toshake hands with them and profess an immense willingness to entertainthem. ". . . But I haven't got anything much today, " he said, with adisparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "Not a singledeath-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one brought in yesterday. " Hebrought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them notea tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. "That meanshe's a dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair, " heexplained. To the nurse he added, "A fellow in the men's ward, Pavilion G. Very interesting culture . . . First of that kind I've hadsince I've been here. " As he spoke he was looking at Sylvia with anopen admiration, bold, intrusive, flippant. 

They were passing along another corridor, hot, silent, their footstepsfalling dully on a long runner of corrugated rubber, with red borderswhich drew together in the distance like the rails streaming away froma train. Behind a closed door there suddenly rose, and as quickly diedaway, a scream of pain. With an effort Sylvia resisted the impulse toclap her hands over her ears. 

"Here we are, at the minor operating-room, " said Miss Lindström, pausing. "It's against the rules, but if you want to look from acrossthe room--just to say you've been there--" She held the door open alittle, a suffocating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces, like a breath from a dragon's cave. Mrs. Marshall and Judith steppedforward. But Sylvia clutched at her mother's arm and whispered:"Mother! Mother! I don't think I'll go on. I feel--I feel--I'll goback down to the entrance hall to wait. "

Mrs. Marshall nodded a preoccupied assent, and Sylvia fled away downthe endless corridor, looking neither to the right nor the left, downrepeated flights of scrubbed and sterilized marble stairs, into theentrance hall, and, like a bolt from a bow, out of it on the otherside, out into the street, into the sunshine, the heat, the clatter, the blessed, blessed smell of cabbage and dish-water. . . . 

After a time she went to sit down on the top step of the hospitalentrance to wait. She contemplated with exquisite enjoyment thevigorous, profane, hair-pulling quarrel between two dirty littlesavages across the street. She could have kissed her hand to theloud-voiced woman who came scuffling to the window to scold them, clutching a dirty kimono together over a Hogarth-like expanse ofbosom. They were well, these people, blood ran in their veins, theirskin was whole, they breathed air, not iodoform! Her mother had pulledthe string too tight, and Sylvia's ears were full of the ugly twang ofits snapping. 

When, at last, Judith and Mrs. Marshall came out, hand-in-hand, Sylviasprang up to say: "What an _awful_ place! I hope I'll never have toset foot in one again!" But quick as was her impulse to speech, herperceptions were quicker, and before the pale exaltation of the othertwo, she fell silent, irritated, rebellious, thoroughly alien. Theywalked along in silence. Then Judith said, stammering a little withemotion, "M-M-Mother, I want to b-b-b-be a trained n-n-nurse when Igrow up. "

CHAPTER XIII

AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE

As they drew near to their boarding-house late that afternoon, veryhot, very crumpled, very solemn, and very much out of tune with oneanother, they were astonished to see a little eager-faced boy dash outof the house and run wildly to meet them, shouting as he came. 

"Why, Lawrence _Marshall_!" cried his mother, picking him up in strongarms; "how ever in the world did you get here!"

"Father brungded me, " cried the child, clasping her tightly around theneck. "We got so lonesome for Mother we couldn't wait. "

And then Sylvia had stamped on her mind a picture which was to comeback later--her father's face and eyes as he ran down the steps tomeet his wife. For he looked at his daughters only afterwards, as theywere all walking along together, much excited, everybody talking atonce, and hanging on everybody's arm. ". . . Yes, Buddy's right! Wefound we missed you so, we decided life wasn't worth it. You don'tknow, Barbara, what it's like without you--you don't _know_!"

Her father's voice sounded to Sylvia so loud, so gay, so vital, soinexpressibly welcome. . . . She leaped up at his face like a youngdog, for another kiss. "Oh, I'm _awfully_ glad you came!" she cried, wondering a little herself at the immensity of her relief. She thoughtthat she must get him by himself quickly and tell him her side of thathospital story, before her mother and Judith began on any virtuousraptures over it. 

But there was no consecutive talk about anything after they all werejoyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace boarding-house bedroom. They loosened collars and belts, washed their perspiring and dustyfaces, and brushed hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. Sylvia didnot realize that she and her father were the main sources of thisvolubility, she did not realize how she had missed his exuberance, sheonly knew that she felt a weight lifted from her heart. She had beentelling him with great enjoyment of the comic opera they had seen, asshe finished putting the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, andturned, a pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by theexpression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him. 

"Jove! Barbara!" he cried, half laughing, but with a quiver in hisvoice, "it's hell to be happily married! A separation is--well, nevermind about it. I came along anyhow! And now I'm here I'll go to seeVic of course. "

"No, you won't, " said Judith promptly. "She's gone back. To get Arnoldout of a scrape. "

Mrs. Marshall explained further, and incidentally touched upon hersister-in-law's views of the relation between expensive boys' schoolsand private tutors. Her dryly humorous version of this set her husbandoff in a great mirthful roar, to which Sylvia, after a moment ofblankness, suddenly joined a burst of her own clear laughter. At thetime she had seen nothing funny in Aunt Victoria's statement, butshe was now immensely tickled to remember Aunt Victoria's Olympiancertainty of herself and her mother's grave mask of seriousconsideration of the idea. Long after her father had stopped laughing, she still went on, breaking out into delighted giggles. Her newunderstanding of the satire back of her mother's quiet eyes, lent toAunt Victoria's golden calm the quaint touch of caricature which madeit self-deceived complacency. At the recollection she sent up rocketafter rocket of schoolgirl laughter. 

Her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about Sylvia'sdevelopment, and deeply disappointed by the result of the visit to thehospital, ignored this laughter, nor did Sylvia at all guess that shewas laughing away half the spell which Aunt Victoria had cast abouther. When they went down to their supper of watery creamed potatoes, and stewed apricots in thick saucers, she was in such good humor thatshe ate this unappetizing fare with no protest. 

"Now, folks, " said Professor Marshall, after supper, "we have to gohome tomorrow early, so we ought to have one more fling tonight. WhileI was waiting for you to come back this afternoon, I looked up whatChicago has to offer in the way of flings, and this is what I found. Here, Barbara, " he took a tiny envelope out of his upper waistcoatpocket, "are two tickets for the symphony orchestra. By the greatestof luck they're giving a special concert for some charity or other, abeautiful program; a sort of musical requiem. Sylvia mustn't miss it;you take her. And here, " he spun round to face Judith and Lawrence, producing another slim, tiny envelope from the other upper waistcoatpocket, "since symphony concerts are rather solid meat for milk teeth, and since they last till way after bedtime, I have provided anothersort of entertainment; to wit: three seats for moving pictures ofthe only real and authentic Cheyenne Bill's Congress of the World'sFrontiersmen. All in favor of going there with me, say 'Aye. '"

"Aye!" screamed Judith and Lawrence. Everybody laughed in pleasedexcitement and everybody seemed satisfied except Mrs. Marshall, whoinsisted that she should go to the moving pictures while the Professortook Sylvia to the concert. 

Then followed the most amiable, generous wrangle as to which of theparents should enjoy the adult form of amusement. But while theProfessor grew more and more half-hearted in his protestations thathe really didn't care where he went, Mrs. Marshall grew more andmore positive that he must not be allowed to miss the music, finallysilencing his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by sayingperemptorily: "No, no, Elliott; go on in to your debauch of emotion. I'll take the children. Don't miss your chance. You know it means tentimes as much to you as to me. You haven't heard a good orchestra inyears. "

Sylvia had never been in such a huge hall as the one where theypresently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of a top gallery. Theylooked down into yawning space. The vast size of the auditorium sodwarfed the people now taking their innumerable seats, that even afterthe immense audience was assembled the great semicircular enclosureseemed empty and blank. It received those thousands of souls into itsmaw, and made no sign; awaiting some visitation worthy of its bulk. 

The orchestra, an army of ants, straggled out on the stage. Sylvia wasastonished at their numbers--sixteen first violins, she saw by theprogram! She commented to her father on the difficulty of keepingthem all in tune. He smiled at her absently, bade her, with an airof suppressed excitement, wait until she had heard them, and fellto biting his nails nervously. She re-read the program and all theadvertisements, hypnotized, like every one else in the audience, bythe sight of printed matter. She noticed that the first number of thismemorial concert was the funeral march from the Götterdämmerung, whichshe knew very well from having heard a good many times a rather thinversion of it for four strings and a piano. 

The conductor, a solitary ant, made his toilsome way across the greatfront of the stage, evoking a burst of applause, which resoundedhollowly in the inhuman spaces of the building. He mounted a step, waved his antennae, there was a great indrawn breath of silence, and then Sylvia, waiting with agreeable curiosity to hear how a bigorchestra would really sound, gasped and held her breath. The cup ofthat vast building suddenly brimmed with a magical flood of pure tone, coming from everywhere, from nowhere, from her own heart as well asfrom outside her body. The immense hall rang to the glorious qualityof this sound as a violin-back vibrates to the drawn bow. It raineddown on her, it surged up to her, she could not believe that shereally heard it. 

She looked quickly at her father. His arms were folded tightly acrosshis chest. He was looking frowningly at the back of the chair in frontof him. It was evident that Sylvia did not exist for him. She wasdetached from her wonder at his pale sternness by the assault on hernerves made by the first of those barbaric outcries of woe, thatsudden, brief clamor of grief, the shouts of despair, the beating uponshields. Her heart stood still--There rose, singing like an archangel, the mystic call of the Volsung, then the yearning melody of love; suchglory, such longing for beauty, for life--and then brusquely, againand again, the screaming, sobbing recollection of the fact ofdeath. . . . 

When it was over, Sylvia's breath was still coming pantingly. "Oh, Father! How--how wonderful--how--" she murmured. 

He looked at her, as though he were angry with her, and yet scarcelyseeming to know her, and spoke in a hard, bitter tone: "And it is_years_ since I have heard one!" He seemed to cry out upon her for theconditions of his life. 

She had no key for these words, could not imagine a meaning for them, and, chilled and repelled, wondered if she had heard him rightly. 

The funeral march from the Eroica began, and her father's facesoftened. The swelling volume of tone rose like a flood-tide. Thegreat hall, the thousands of human hearts, all beat solemnly in thegrave and hopeless pulsations of the measured chords. The airwas thick with sorrow, with quiet despair. No outcries here, noscreams--the modern soul advancing somberly with a pale composure tothe grave of its love, aware that during all the centuries since thedead Siegfried was lifted high on the shoulders of his warriors not aword of explanation, of consolation has been found; that the modern, barren self-control means only what the barbarian yells out in hisopen abandonment to sorrow--and yet such beauty, such beauty in thatsinging thread of melody--"_durch Leiden, Freude!_"

Not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across Sylvia's life, orthat of her father, to explain the premonitory emotion which now drewthem together like two frightened children. Sylvia felt the inexorablemusic beating in her own veins, and when she took her father's handit seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same rhythm;beauty, and despair . . . Hope . . . Life . . . Death. 

At the end, "Oh, Father--oh, Father!" she said under her breath, imploringly, struggling to free herself from the muffling, envelopingsense of imminent disaster. He pressed her hand hard and smiled ather. It was his own old smile, the father-look which had been herheart's home all her life--but it was infinitely sweeter to her nowthan ever before. She had never felt closer to him. There was a pauseduring which they did not speak, and then there burst upon them thesplendid tumult of "Death and Transfiguration, " which, like a greatwind, swept Sylvia out of herself. She could not follow the music--shehad never heard of it before. She was beaten down, overwhelmed, freed, as though the transfiguration were her own, from the pitiful barriersof consciousness. . . . 

"Was the concert good?" asked Mrs. Marshall, yawning, and reaching outof bed to kiss Sylvia sleepily. She laughed a little at their faces. "Oh, music _is_ a madness! To spend a cheerful evening listening todeath-music, and then come back looking like Moses before the BurningBush!"

"Say, you ought to have seen the stunt they did with their lassos, "cried Judith, waking in the bed on the other side of the room, andsitting up with her black hair tousled about her face. "I'm going totry it with the pinto when we get home. "

"I _bet_ you'll do it, too, " came from Lawrence the loyal, always sureof Judith's strength, Judith's skill. 

Sylvia looked at her father over their heads and smiled faintly. Itwas a good smile, from a full heart. 

"Aunt Victoria sent our dresses, " said Judith, dropping back on thepillow. "That big box over there. Mine has pink ribbons, and yours areblue. "

Mrs. Marshall looked at the big box with disfavor, and then at Sylvia, now sunk in a chair, her hands clasped behind her head, her eyesdreamy and half closed. Across the room the long pasteboard boxdisplayed a frothy mass of white lace and pale shining ribbons. Sylvialooked at it absently and made no move to examine it. She closed hereyes again and beat an inaudible rhythm with her raised fingers. Allthrough her was ringing the upward-surging tide of sound at the end of"Death and Transfiguration. "

"Oh, go to bed, Sylvia; don't sit there maundering over the concert, "said her mother, with a good-natured asperity. But there was relief inher voice. 

CHAPTER XIV

HIGHER EDUCATION

To any one who is familiar with State University life, the colorof Sylvia's Freshman year will be vividly conveyed by the simplestatement that she was not invited to join a fraternity. To any onewho does not know State University life, no description can conveyanything approaching an adequate notion of the terribly determinativesignificance of that fact. 

The statement that she was invited to join no sorority is notliterally true, for in the second semester when it was apparent thatnone of the three leading fraternities intended to take her in, therecame a late "bid" from one of the third-rate sororities, of recentdate, composed of girls like Sylvia who had not been included in themembership of the older, socially distinguished organizations. Cut tothe quick by her exclusion from the others, Sylvia refused this tardyinvitation with remorseless ingratitude. If she were not to form oneof the "swell" set of college, at least she would not proclaim herselfone of the "jays, " the "grinds, " the queer girls, who wore their hairstraight back from their foreheads, who invariably carried off PhiBeta Kappa, whose skirts hung badly, whose shoe-heels turned over asthey walked, who stood first in their classes, whose belts behind madea practice of revealing large white safety-pins; and whose hats, evendisassociated from their dowdy wearers, and hanging in the cloakroom, were of an almost British eccentricity. 

Nothing of this sort could be alleged against Sylvia's appearance, which she felt, as she arrayed herself every morning, to be all thatthe most swagger frat could ask of a member. Aunt Victoria's boxesof clothing, her own nimble fingers and passionate attention to thesubject, combined to turn her out a copy, not to be distinguished fromthe original, of the daughter of a man with an income five times thatof her father. As she consulted her mirror, it occurred to her also, as but an honest recognition of a conspicuous fact, that her suitableand harmonious toilets adorned a person as pleasing to the eye as anyof her classmates. 

During the last year of her life at home she had shot up very fast, and she was now a tall, slender presence, preserved from even theusual touching and delightful awkwardness of seventeen by the traineddexterity and strength with which she handled her body, as muscular, for all its rounded slimness, as a boy's. Her hair was beautiful, abright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant glossbroken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of its waviness; andshe had one other positive beauty, the clearly penciled line of herlong, dark eyebrows, which ran up a trifle at the outer ends with alittle quirk, giving an indescribable air of alertness and vivacity toher expression. Otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she everbecome, so explicitly handsome as her sister Judith, who had at everyperiod of her life a head as beautiful as that on a Greek coin. But when the two were together, although the perfectly adjustedproportions of Judith's proud, dark face brought out theirregularities of Sylvia's, disclosed the tilt of her small nose, mademore apparent the disproportionate width between her eyes, and showedher chin to be of no mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested withfar more pleasure on the older sister's face. A bright, quiveringmobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was notdependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-grained, whiteskin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a mouth quick to laugh andquiver, with pure, sharply cut outline and deeply sunk corners. Evenin repose, Sylvia's face made Judith's seem unresponsive, and whenit lighted up in talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visiblelight. In contrast Judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out ofsome very hard and indestructible stone. 

And yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical outfit, andpre-eminent ability in athletics, Sylvia was not invited to join anyof the best fraternities. It is not surprising that there wasmingled with her bitterness on the subject a justifiable amount ofbewilderment. What _did_ they want? They recruited, from her very sidein classes, girls without half her looks or cleverness. What _was_ thematter with her? She would not for her life have given a sign to herfamily of her mental sufferings as, during that first autumn, dayafter day went by with no sign of welcome from the social leaders ofher new world; but a mark was left on her character by her affrontedrecognition of her total lack of success in this, her first appearanceoutside the sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the realstandards of the actual world of real people. 

The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia's vanity, had she everhad the least knowledge of it, was that upon her appearance in theFreshman class she had been the occasion of violent discussion andalmost of dissension in the councils of the two "best" fraternities. Her beauty, her charm, and the rumors of her excellence in tennis hadmade a flutter in the first fraternity meetings after the opening ofthe autumn term. The younger members of both Sigma Beta and AlphaKappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rushing" of the new prize, butthe Juniors and Seniors, wise in their day and generation, broughtout a number of damning facts which would need to be taken intoconsideration if Sylvia wore their pin. 

There were, in both fraternities, daughters of other faculty families, who were naturally called upon to furnish inside information. Theyhad been brought up from childhood on the tradition of the Marshalls'hopeless queerness, and their collective statement of the Marshalls'position ran somewhat as follows: "The only professors who haveanything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from theWest, with no families; the funny old La Rues--you know what ahopeless dowd Madame La Rue is--and Professor Kennedy, and though hecomes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. They live on afarm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybodyknows. They are never asked to be patrons of any swell collegefunctions. None of the faculty ladies with any social position evercall on Mrs. Marshall--and no wonder. She doesn't keep any help, andwhen the doorbell rings she's as apt to come running in from thechicken house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs--and the_queerest_ clothes! Like a costume out of a book; and they never haveanybody to wait on the table, just jump up and down themselves--youcan imagine what kind of a frat tea or banquet Sylvia would give insuch a home--and of course if we took her in, we couldn't verywell _tell_ her her family's so impossible we wouldn't want theirconnection with the frat known--and the students who go there are aperfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in college. It's enough to mark you one to be seen there--you meet all the crazyguys you see in classes and never anywhere else--and of course thatwouldn't stop when Sylvia's frat sisters began going there. And theirhouse wouldn't do at _all_ to entertain in--it's queer--no rugs--dingyold furniture--nothing but books everywhere, even in their substitutefor a parlor--and you're likely to meet not only college freaks, butworse ones from goodness knows where. There's a beer-drinking oldmonster who goes there every Sunday to play the fiddle that youwouldn't have speak to you on the street for anything in the world. And the way they entertain! My, in such a countrified way! Some of thecompany go out into the kitchen to help Mrs. Marshall serve up therefreshments--and everything homemade--and they play charades, andnobody knows what else--bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe--"

This appalling picture, which in justice to the young delineators mustbe conceded to be not in the least overdrawn, was quite enough to givepause to those impetuous and immature young Sophomores who had lackedthe philosophical breadth of vision to see that Sylvia was not anisolated phenomenon, but (since her family live in La Chance) aninseparable part of her background. After all, the sororities made noclaim to be anything but social organizations. Their standing in thecollege world depended upon their social background, and of coursethis could only be made up of a composite mingling of those of theirindividual members. 

Fraternities did not wish to number more than sixteen or eighteenundergraduates. That meant only four or five to be chosen from eachFreshman class, and that number of "nice" girls was not hard to find, girls who were not only well dressed, and lively and agreeable inthemselves, but who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houseson the right streets of La Chance; with presentable, card-playing, call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for theirentertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizablepocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. The social standing of theco-eds in State Universities was already precarious enough, withoutrunning the risk of acquiring dubious social connections. 

If Sylvia had been a boy, it is almost certain that the deficienciesof her family would have been overlooked in consideration of herpotentialities in the athletic world. Success in athletics was to themen's fraternities what social standing was to the girls'. It must beremarked parenthetically that neither class of these organizationshad the slightest prejudice against high scholastic standing. On thecontrary it was regarded very kindly by fraternity members, as adesirable though not indispensable addition to social standing andphysical prowess. 

But Sylvia was not a boy, and her fine, promising game of tennis, herexcellence in the swimming-pool, and her success on the gymnasiumfloor and on the flying rings, served no purpose but to bring to herthe admiration of the duffers among the girls, whom she despised, and the unspoken envy of the fraternity girls, whose overtures atsuperficial friendliness she constantly rebuffed with stern, woundedpride. 

The sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable publicity ofher ordeal. For, though her family knew nothing of what that firstyear out in the world meant to her, she had not the consolation ofhoping that her condition was not perfectly apparent to every one elsein the college world. At the first of the year, all gatherings ofundergraduates not in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculationsabout who would or would not be "taken" by the leading fraternities. For every girl who was at all possible, each day was a long suspense, beginning in hope and ending in listlessness; and for Sylvia in anadded shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to oneof her temperament. She had been considered almost sure to be earlyinvited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the facultydaughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that whenshe took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept herto see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the "pledged" girl;and when an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casualremark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when thefraternity member moved away again. This atmosphere would have madeno impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or moreunimaginative than Sylvia's (Judith, for instance, was not in theleast affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbidobsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature. It tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been thecrystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health. Shefancied that every one despised her. She imagined that people who werein reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her andwhispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not "inthe swim" as such a girl ought to be--all girls worth their salt were. 

Above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by herimpotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum of personaldignity which she felt was stripped from her by this constant play ofbald speculation about whether she would or would not be considered"good enough" to be invited into a sorority. If only somethingdefinite would happen! If there were only an occasion on whichshe might in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference tofraternities and their actions! If only the miserable business werenot so endlessly drawn out! She threw herself with a passionateabsorption into her studies, her music, and her gymnasium work, cut off both from the "elect" and from the multitude, a proudlyself-acknowledged maverick. She never lacked admiring followers amongless brilliant girls who would have been adorers if she had not heldthem off at arm's length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous, required more delicate food. She wished to be able to cry aloud to herworld that she thought nothing and cared nothing about fraternities, and by incessant inner absorption in this conception she did toa considerable extent impose it upon the collective mind of hercontemporaries. She, the yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, praise-craving Sylvia, came to be known, half respected and halfdisliked, as proud and clever, and "high-brow, " and offish, andconceited, and so "queer" that she cared nothing for the ordinarypleasures of ordinary girls. 

This reputation for a high-browed indifference to commonplace mortalswas naturally not a recommendation to the masculine undergraduates ofthe University. These young men, under the influence of reportsof what was done at Cornell and other more eastern co-educationalinstitutions, were already strongly inclined to ignore the co-eds asmuch as possible. The tradition was growing rapidly that the properthing was to invite the "town-girls" to the college proms and dances, and to sit beside them in the grandstand during football games. Asyet, however, this tendency had not gone so far but that thoseco-eds who were members of a socially recognized fraternity wereautomatically saved from the neglect which enveloped all other butexceptionally flirtatious and undiscriminating girls. Each girls'fraternity, like the masculine organizations, gave one big hop inthe course of the season and several smaller dances, as well aslawn-parties and teas and stage-coach parties to the football games. The young men naturally wished to be invited to these functions, the increasing elaborateness of which kept pace with the increasingsophistication of life in La Chance and the increasing cost of whichmade the parents of the girls groan. Consequently each masculinefraternity took care that it did not incur the enmity of the organizedand socially powerful sororities. But Sylvia was not protected by thisaegis. She was not invited during her Freshman year to the dancesgiven by either the sororities or the fraternities; and the largescattering crowd of masculine undergraduates were frightened away fromthe handsome girl by her supposed haughty intellectual tastes. 

Here again her isolation was partly the result of her own wish. Theraw-boned, badly dressed farmers' lads, with red hands and rough hair, she quite as snobbishly ignored as she was ignored in her turn by thewell-set-up, fashionably dressed young swells of the University, withtheir white hands, with their thin, gaudy socks tautly pulled overtheir ankle-bones, and their shining hair glistening like lacquer ontheir skulls (that being the desideratum in youthful masculine societyof the place and time). Sylvia snubbed the masculine jays of collegepartly because it was a breath of life to her battered vanity to beable to snub some one, and partly because they seemed to her, incomparison with the smart set, seen from afar, quite and utterlyundesirable. She would rather have no masculine attentions at all thansuch poor provender for her feminine desire to conquer. 

Thus she trod the leafy walks of the beautiful campus alone, ignoringand ignored, keenly alive under her shell of indifference to thebrilliant young men and their chosen few feminine companions. 

CHAPTER XV

MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS

The most brilliant of these couples were Jermain Fiske, Jr. , and Eleanor Hubert. The first was the son of the well-known anddistinguished Colonel Jermain Fiske, one of the trustees of theUniversity, ex-Senator from the State. He belonged to the old, free-handed, speech-making type of American statesmen, and, with hisflorid good looks, his great stature, his loud, resonant, challengingvoice, and his picturesque reputation for highly successfuldouble-dealing, he was one of the most talked-of men in the State, despite his advanced years. His enemies, who were not few, said thatthe shrewdest action of his surpassingly shrewd life had been hisvoluntary retirement from the Senate and from political activities atthe first low murmur heralding the muck-raking cyclone which was todevastate public life as men of his type understood it. But everyinhabitant of the State, including his enemies, took an odd pride inhis fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent, toofluent public addresses, and in the manner in which, despite hisdubious private reputation, he held open to him, by sheer will-power, sanctimonious doors which were closed to other less robust badexamples to youth. 

This typical specimen of an American class now passing away, had senthis son to the State University instead of to an expensive Easterncollege because of his carefully avowed attitude of bluff acceptanceof a place among the plain people of the region. The presence ofJermain, Jr. , in the classrooms of the State University had beencapital for many a swelling phrase on his father's part--"What's goodenough for the farmers' boys of my State is good enough for my boy, "etc. , etc. 

As far as the young man in question was concerned, he certainly showedno signs whatever of feeling himself sacrificed for his father'sadvantage, and apparently considered that a leisurely sojourn forseven years (he took both the B. A. And the three-year Law course) in acity the size of La Chance was by no means a hardship for a young manin the best of health, provided with ample funds, and never questionedas to the disposition of his time. He had had at first a reputationfor dissipation which, together with his prowess on the footballfield, had made him as much talked of on the campus as his father inthe State; but during his later years, those spent in the Law School, he had, as the college phrase ran, "taken it out in being swagger, "had discarded his former shady associates, had two rooms in the finestfrat house on the campus, and was the only student of the Universityto drive two horses tandem to a high, red-wheeled dog-cart. His finephysique and reputation for quick assertion of his rights saved himfrom the occasional taunt of dandyism which would have been flung atany other student indulging in so unusual a freak of fashion. 

During Sylvia's Freshman year there usually sat beside him, on thelofty seat of this equipage, a sweet-faced, gentle-browed younglady, the lovely flower blooming out of the little girl who had soinnocently asked her mother some ten years ago what was a drunkenreinhardt. The oldest daughter of the professor of European Historywas almost precisely Sylvia's age, but now, when Sylvia was laboringover her books in the very beginning of her college life, EleanorHubert was a finished product, a graduate of an exclusive, expensivegirls' boarding-school in New York, and a that-year's débutante in LaChance society. Her name was constantly in the items of the societycolumns, she wore the most profusely varied costumes, and shedrove about the campus swaying like a lily beside the wealthiestundergraduate. Sylvia's mind was naturally too alert and vigorous, andnow too thoroughly awakened to intellectual interests, not to seizewith interest on the subjects she studied that year; but enjoy as muchas she tried to do, and did, this tonic mental discipline, there weremany moments when the sight of Eleanor Hubert made her wonder if afterall higher mathematics and history were of any real value. 

During this wretched year of stifled unhappiness, she not only studiedwith extreme concentration, but, with a healthy instinct, spent agreat deal of time in the gymnasium. It was a delight to her to beable to swim in the winter-time, she organized the first water-poloteam among the co-eds, and she began to learn fencing from theCommandant of the University Battalion. He had been a crack with thefoils at West Point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest inwhat seemed to him the only rational form of exercise; but fencing atthat time had no intercollegiate vogue, and of all the young men andwomen at the State University, Sylvia alone took up his standing offerof free instruction to any one who cared to give the time to learn;and even Sylvia took up fencing primarily because it promised to giveher one more occupation, left her less time for loneliness. As itturned out, however, these lessons proved far more to her than atemporary anodyne: they brought her a positive pleasure. She delightedthe dumpy little captain with her aptness, and he took the greatestpains in his instruction. Before the end of her Freshman year shetwice succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust onhis well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her conceit he toldher that he must be losing, along with his slenderness, some of hisyouthful agility, he confessed to his wife that teaching Miss Marshallwas the best fun he had had in years. The girl was as quick as a cat, and had a natural-born fencer's wrist. 

During the summer vacation she kept up her practice with her father, who remembered enough of his early training in Paris to be more than amatch for her, and in the autumn of her Sophomore year, at the annualGymnasium exhibition, she gave with the Commandant a public bout withthe foils in which she notably distinguished herself. The astonishedand long-continued applause for this new feature of the exhibitionwas a draught of nectar to her embittered young heart, but sheacknowledged it with not the smallest sign of pleasure, showing animpassive face as she stood by the portly captain, slim and tall andyoung and haughty, joining him in a sweeping, ceremonious salute withher foil to the enthusiastic audience, and turning on her heel witha brusqueness as military as his own, to march firmly with high-heldhead beside him back to the ranks of blue-bloomered girls who stoodwatching her. 

The younger girls in Alpha Kappa and Sigma Beta were seizing thisopportunity to renew an old quarrel with their elders in thefraternities and were acrimoniously hoping that the older oneswere quite satisfied with their loss of a brilliant member. Theseaccusations met with no ready answer from the somewhat crestfallenelders, whose only defense was the entire unexpectedness of the way inwhich Sylvia was distinguishing herself. Who ever heard before of agirl doing anything remarkable in athletics? And anyhow, now in herSophomore year it was too late to do anything. A girl so notoriouslyproud would certainly not consider a tardy invitation, and it wouldnot do to run the risk of being refused. It is not too much to saythat to have overheard a conversation like this would have changed thecourse of Sylvia's development, but of such colloquies she could knownothing, attributing to the fraternities, with all an outsider'sresentful overestimation of their importance, an arrogant solidarityof opinion and firmness of purpose which they were very far frompossessing. 

Professor and Mrs. Marshall and Lawrence and Judith, up in the frontrow of chairs set for the audience about the running track, followedthis exploit of Sylvia's with naïvely open pride and sympathy, applauding even more heartily than did their neighbors. Lawrence, asusual, began to compose a poem, the first line of which ran, "Splendid, she wields her gleaming sword--"

The most immediate result of this first public success of Sylvia's wasthe call paid to Mrs. Marshall on the day following by Mrs. Draper, the wife of the professor of Greek. Although there had never been anyformal social intercourse between the two ladies, they had for a goodmany years met each other casually on the campus, and Mrs. Draper, with the extremely graceful manner of assurance which was her especialaccomplishment, made it seem quite natural that she should call tocongratulate Sylvia's mother on the girl's skill and beauty as shownin her prowess on the evening before. Mrs. Marshall prided herself onher undeceived view of life, but she was as ready to hear praise ofher spirited and talented daughter as any other mother, and quitemelted to Mrs. Draper, although her observations from afar of theother woman's career in La Chance had never before inclined her totolerance. So that when Mrs. Draper rose to go and asked casually ifSylvia couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea ather house with a very few of her favorites among the young people, Mrs. Marshall, rather inflexible by nature and quite unused to thesubtleties of social intercourse, found herself unable to retreatquickly enough from her reflected tone of cordiality to refuse theinvitation for her daughter. 

When Sylvia came back to lunch she was vastly fluttered and pleasedby the invitation, and as she ate, her mind leaped from one possiblesartorial combination to another. Whatever she wore must be exactlyright to be worthy of such a hostess: for Mrs. Draper was aconspicuous figure in faculty society. She had acquired, throughyears of extremely intelligent manoeuvering, a reputation for choiceexclusiveness which was accepted even in the most venerable of the oldfamilies of La Chance, those whose founders had built their log hutsthere as long as fifty years before. In faculty circles she occupieda unique position, envied and feared and admired and distrusted andcopiously gossiped about by the faculty ladies, who accepted witheagerness any invitations to entertainments in her small, aesthetic, and perfectly appointed house. She was envied even by women withmuch more than her income:--for of course Professor Draper had anindependent income; it was hardly possible to be anybody unless onebelonged to that minority of the faculty families with resourcesbeyond the salary granted by the State. 

Faculty ladies were, however, not favored with a great number ofinvitations to Mrs. Draper's select and amusing teas and dinners, as that lady had a great fancy for surrounding herself with youth, meaning, for the most part, naturally enough, masculine youth. Withan unerring and practised eye she picked out from each class the fewyoung men who were to her purpose, and proclaiming with the mostexpress lack of reticence the forty-three years which she by no meanslooked, she took these chosen few under a wing frankly maternal, giving them, in the course of an intimate acquaintance with her andthe dim and twilight ways of her house and life, an enlighteningexperience of a civilization which she herself said, with a humorousappreciation of her own value, quite made over the young, unlickedcubs. This statement of her influence on most of the young men drawninto her circle was perhaps not much exaggerated. 

From time to time she also admitted into this charmed circle a younggirl or two, though almost never one of the University girls, of whomshe made the jolliest possible fun. Her favorites were the daughtersof good La Chance families who at seventeen had "finished" at MissHome's Select School for Young Ladies, and who came out in society notlater than eighteen. She seemed able, as long as she cared to do it, to exercise as irresistible a fascination over these youthful membersof her own sex as over the older masculine undergraduates of theUniversity. They copied their friend's hats and neckwear and shoes andher mannerisms of speech, were miserable if she neglected them for aday, furiously jealous of each other, and raised to the seventhheaven by attention from her. Just at present the only girl admittedfrequently to Mrs. Draper's intimacy was Eleanor Hubert. 

On the day following the Gymnasium exhibition, when Sylvia, promptlyat five, entered the picturesque vine-covered Draper house, shefound it occupied by none of the usual habitués of the place. Thewhite-capped, black-garbed maid who opened the door to the girl heldaside for her a pair of heavy brown-velvet portières which veiledthe entrance to the drawing-room. The utter silence of this servitorseemed portentous and inhuman to the young guest, unused to the politeconvention that servants cast no shadow and do not exist save whenserving their superiors. 

She found herself in a room as unlike any she had ever seen as thoughshe had stepped into a new planet. The light here was as yellowas gold, and came from a great many candles which, in sconces andcandelabra, stood about the room, their oblong yellow flame as steadyin the breathless quiet of the air as though they burned in a vaultunderground. There was not a book in the room, except one in a yellowcover lying beside a box of candy on the mantelpiece, but every ledge, table, projection, or shelf was covered with small, queerly fashioned, dully gleaming objects of ivory, or silver, or brass, or carved wood, or porcelain. 

The mistress of the room now came in. She was in a loose garment ofsmoke-brown chiffon, held in place occasionally about her luxuriouslyrounded figure by a heavy cord of brown silk. She advanced to Sylviawith both hands outstretched, and took the girl's slim, rather hardyoung fingers in the softest of melting palms. "Aren't you a _dear_, to be so exactly on time!" she exclaimed. 

Sylvia was a little surprised. She had thought it axiomatic thatpeople kept their appointments promptly. "Oh, I'm always on time, " sheanswered simply. 

Mrs. Draper laughed and pulled her down on the sofa. "You clear-eyedyoung Diana, you won't allow me even an instant's illusion that youwere eager to come to see _me_!"

"Oh yes, I _was_!" said Sylvia hastily, fearing that she might havesaid something rude. 

Mrs. Draper laughed again and gave the hand she still held a squeeze. "You're adorable, that's what _you_ are!" She exploded this pointblankcharge in Sylvia's face with nonchalant ease, and went on withanother. "Jerry Fiske is quite right about you. I suppose you knowthat you're here today so that Jerry can meet you. "

As there was obviously not the faintest possibility of Sylvia's havingheard this save through her present informant, she could onlylook what she felt, very much at a loss, and rather blank, with aheightened color. Mrs. Draper eyed her with an intentness at variancewith the lightness of her tone, as she continued: "I do think Jerry'dhave burned up in one flare, like a torch, if he couldn't have seenyou at once! After you'd fenced and disappeared again into that stupidcrowd of graceless girls, he kept track of you every minute with hisopera-glasses, and kept saying: 'She's a goddess! Good Lord! how shecarries herself!' It was rather hard on poor Eleanor right therebeside him, but I don't blame him. Eleanor's a sweet thing, but she'dbe sugar and water compared to champagne if she stood up by you. "

For a good many months Sylvia had been craving praise with a starvedappetite, and although she found this downpour of it rather drenching, she could not sufficiently collect herself to make the conventionaldecent pretense that it was unwelcome. She flushed deeply and lookedat her hostess with dazzled eyes. Mrs. Draper affected to see in hersilence a blankness as to the subject of the talk, and interruptedthe flow of personalities to cry out, with a pretense of horror, "Youdon't mean to say you don't know who Jerry Fiske _is_!"

Sylvia, as unused as her mother to conversational traps, fell intothis one with an eager promptness. "Oh yes, indeed; I know himby sight very well, " she said and stopped, flushing again at asignificant laugh from Mrs. Draper. "I mean, " she went onwith dignity, "that Mr. Fiske has always been so prominent incollege--football and all, you know--and his father being one of ourState Senators so long--I suppose everybody on the campus knows him bysight. " Mrs. Draper patted the girl's shoulder propitiatingly. "Yes, yes, of course, " she assented. She added, "He's ever so good-looking, don't you think--like a great Viking with his yellow hair and brightblue eyes?"

"I never noticed his eyes, " said Sylvia stiffly, suspicious ofridicule in the air. 

"Well, you'll have a chance to this afternoon, " answered her hostess, "for he's the only other person who's to be admitted to the house. Ihad a great time excusing myself to Eleanor--she was coming to take meout driving--but of course it wouldn't do--for her own sake--the poordarling--to have her here today!"

Sylvia thought she could not have rightly understood the significanceof this speech, and looked uncomfortable. Mrs. Draper said: "Oh, youneedn't mind cutting Eleanor out--she's only a dear baby who can'tfeel anything very deeply. It's Mamma Hubert who's so mad aboutcatching Jerry. Since she's heard he's to have the Fiske estate atMercerton as soon as he graduates from Law School, she's like a wildcreature! If Eleanor weren't the most unconscious little bait thatever hung on a hook Jerry'd have turned away in disgust long ago. Hemay not be so very acute, but Mamma Hubert and her manoeuvers are notmillstones for seeing through!"

The doorbell rang, one long and one short tap. "That's Jerry's ring, "said Mrs. Draper composedly, as though she had been speaking of herhusband. In an instant the heavy portières were flung back by avigorous arm, and a very tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven youngman, in a well-tailored brown suit, stepped in. He accosted hishostess with easy assurance, but went through his introduction toSylvia in a rather awkward silence. 

"Now we'll have tea, " said Mrs. Draper at once, pressing a button. Ina moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain, set it down on the table in front of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled ina little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleamingmahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home. On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes andpaper-thin sandwiches. While she poured out the amber-colored tea intothe translucent cups, Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a livelymonologue of personalities, in which Sylvia, for very ignorance of thepeople involved, could take no part. She sat silent, watching withconcentration the two people before her, the singularly handsome man, certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the far fromhandsome but singularly alluring woman who faced him, making such adisplay of her two good points, her rich figure and her fine darkeyes, that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-existent. 

"How do you like your tea, dear?" The mistress of the house broughther stranded guest back into the current of talk with this well-wornhook. 

"Oh, it doesn't make any difference, " said Sylvia, who, as ithappened, did not like the taste of tea. 

"You really ought to have it nectar; with whipped ambrosia on top. "Mrs. Draper troweled this statement on with a dashing smear, savingSylvia from being forced to answer, by adding lightly to the man, "Isambrosia anything that will whip, do you suppose?"

"Never heard of it before, " he answered, breaking his silence with acarefree absence of shame at his confession of ignorance. "Soundslike one of those labels on a soda-water fountain that nobody eversamples. "

Mrs. Draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of despair andturned to Sylvia. "Well, it's just as well, my dear, that you shouldknow at the very beginning what a perfect monster of illiteracy he is!You needn't expect anything from him but his stupid good-looks, andmoney and fascination. Otherwise he's a Cave-Man for ignorance. Youmust take him in hand!" She turned back to the man. "Sylvia, you know, is as clever as she is beautiful. She had the highest rank but threein her class last year. "

Sylvia was overcome with astonishment by this knowledge of a factwhich had seemed to make no impression on the world of the yearbefore. "Why, how could you know that!" she cried. 

Mrs. Draper laughed. "Just hear her!" she appealed to the young man. Her method of promoting the acquaintance of the two young peopleseemed to consist in talking to each of the other. "Just hear her! Sheconverses as she fences--one bright flash, and you're skewered againstthe wall--no parryings possible!" She faced Sylvia again: "Why, mydear, in answer to your rapier-like question, I must simply confessthat this morning, being much struck with Jerry's being struck withyou, I went over to the registrar's office and looked you up. I knowthat you passed supremely well in mathematics and French (what aquaint combination!), very well indeed in history and chemistry, andmoderately in botany. What's the matter with botany? I have alwaysfound Professor Cross a very obliging little man. "

"He doesn't make me see any sense to botany, " explained Sylvia, takingthe question seriously. "I don't seem to get hold of any real reasonfor studying it at all. What difference does it make if a bush is ahawthorn or not?--and anyhow, I know it's a hawthorn without studyingbotany. "

The young man spoke for himself now, with a keen relish for Sylvia'swords. He faced her for the first time. "Now you're _shouting_, MissMarshall!" he said. "That's the most sensible thing I ever heard said. That's just what I always felt about the whole B. A. Course, anyhow!What's the diff? Who cares whether Charlemagne lived in six hundred orsixteen hundred? It all happened before we were born. What's it all_to_ us?"

Sylvia looked squarely at him, a little startled at his directlyaddressing her, not hearing a word of what he said in the vividness ofher first-hand impression of his personality, his brilliant blue eyes, his full, very red lips, his boldly handsome face and carriage, hisair of confidence. In spite of his verbal agreement with her opinion, his look crossed hers dashingly, like a challenge, a novelty in theamicable harmony which had been the tradition of her life. She feltthat tradition to be not without its monotony, and her young bloodwarmed. She gazed back at him silently, wonderingly, frankly. 

With her radiantly sensuous youth in the first splendor of itsopening, with this frank, direct look, she had a moment of brillianceto make the eyes of age shade themselves as against a dazzlingbrightness. The eyes of the man opposite her were not those of age. They rested on her, roused, kindling to heat. His head went up like astag's. She felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as thoughher body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a vigorouslyplucking thumb. It was thrilling, it was startling, it was notaltogether pleasant. The corners of her sensitive mouth twitcheduncertainly. 

Mrs. Draper, observing from under her down-drooped lids this silentpassage between the two, murmured amusedly to herself, "Ah, now you'reshouting, my children!"

CHAPTER XVI

PLAYING WITH MATCHES

There was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which thenext months brought Sylvia. The sudden change in her life had not comeuntil there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the ventingof which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions. As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of thered-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of EleanorHubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. A highcolor burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. Shelooked continually excited. 

At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at theleast breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken andforbearing but thick in the air about her. She neglected her music, she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil overAunt Victoria's chiffons and silks. There was need for many toiletsnow, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she wentwith young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rivaland enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as sheentered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant youngsensation of the college season. 

At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently theexperience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowdsof admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barrensterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, evenin her fever of exultation. She knew the delights of frequently"splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. Shewas plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the lifeof a social favorite at a large State University, that breathlesswhirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for mostof the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academiclife as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those greatWestern commonwealths; and she savored every moment of it, for duringevery moment she drank deep at the bitter fountain of personalvindication. She went to all the affairs which had ignored herthe year before, to all the dances given by the "swell men'sfraternities, " to the Sophomore hop, to the "Football Dance, " at theend of the season, to the big reception given to the Freshman class bythe Seniors. And in addition to these evening affairs, she appearedbeside Jerry Fiske at every football game, at the first Glee ClubConcert, at the outdoor play given by the Literary Societies, and veryfrequently at the weekly receptions to the students tendered by theladies of the faculty. 

These affairs were always spoken of by the faculty as an attempt tocreate a homogeneous social atmosphere on the campus; but this attempthad ended, as such efforts usually do, in adding to the bewilderingplethora of social life of those students who already had too much, and in being an added sting to the solitude and ostracism of those whohad none. Naturally enough, the ladies of the faculty who took mostinterest in these afternoon functions were the ones who cared most forsociety life, and there was only too obvious a contrast between theirmanner of kindly, vague, condescending interest shown to one of the"rough-neck" students, and the easy familiarity shown to one of thosesocially "possible. " The "rough-necks" seldom sought out more thanonce the prettily decorated tables spread every Friday afternoonin the Faculty Room, off the reading-room of the Library. Sylviaespecially had, on the only occasion when she had ventured intothis charming scene, suffered too intensely from the difference oftreatment accorded her and that given Eleanor Hubert to feel anythingbut angry resentment. After that experience, she had passed along thehalls with the other outsiders, books in hand, her head held proudlyhigh, and never turned even to glance in at the gleaming tables, the lighted candles, and the little groups of easily self-confidentfraternity men and girls laughing and talking over their teacups, andrevenging vicariously the rest of the ignored student-body by thecalm young insolence with which they in their turn ignored theirpresumptive hostesses, the faculty ladies. 

Mrs. Draper changed all this for Sylvia with a wave of her wand. Shetook the greatest pains to introduce her protégée into this phase ofthe social life of the University. On these occasions, as beautifuland as over-dressed as any girl in the room, with Jermain Fiske inobvious attendance; with the exclusive Mrs. Draper setting in a richframe of commentary any remark she happened to make (Sylvia wasacquiring a reputation for great wit); with Eleanor Hubert, eclipsed, sitting in a corner, quite deserted save for a funny countrified freakassistant in chemistry; with all the "swellest frat men" in collegerushing to get her tea and sandwiches; with Mrs. Hubert plungedobviously into acute unhappiness, Sylvia knew as ugly moments of meansatisfaction as often fall to the lot even of very pretty young women. 

At home she knew no moments of satisfaction of any variety, althoughthere was no disapprobation expressed by any one, except in one or twocharacteristically recondite comments by Professor Kennedy, who wastaking a rather uneasy triumph in the proof of an old theory of his asto Sylvia's character. One afternoon, at a football game, he came upto her on the grandstand, shook hands with Jermain Fiske, whom he hadflunked innumerable times in algebra, and remarked in his most acidvoice that he wished to congratulate the young man on being theperfect specimen of the dolichocephalic blond whose arrival inSylvia's life he had predicted years before. Sylvia, belligerentlyaware of the attitude of her home world, and ready to resentcriticism, took the liveliest offense at this obscure comment, whichshe perfectly understood. She flushed indignantly and glared insilence with the eyes of an angry young goddess. 

Young Fiske, who found the remark, or any other made by a collegeprof, quite as unintelligible as it was unimportant, laughed withcareless impudence in the old man's face; and Mrs. Draper, for all herkeenness, could make nothing of it. It sounded, however, so quitelike a dictum which she herself would have liked to make, that shecross-questioned Sylvia afterwards as to its meaning; but Sylvia liedfluently, asserting that it was just some of Professor Kennedy'smathematical gibberish which had no meaning. 

In the growing acquaintance of Sylvia and Jermain, Mrs. Draper actedassiduously as chaperon, a refinement of sophisticated society whichwas, as a rule, but vaguely observed in the chaotic flux of StateUniversity social life, and she so managed affairs that they wereseldom together alone. For obvious reasons Sylvia preferred to see theyoung man elsewhere than in her own home, where indeed he made almostno appearance, beyond standing at the door of an evening, veryhandsome and distinguished in his evening dress, waiting for Sylvia toput on her wraps and go out with him to the carriage where Mrs. Drapersat expectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. This discreet manager madeno objection to Sylvia's driving about the campus in the daytimealone with Jermain, but to his proposal to drive the girl out to thecountry-club for dinner one evening she added blandly the imperiousproviso that she be of the party; and she discouraged with firmnessany projects for solitary walks together through the woods nearthe campus, although this was a recognized form of co-educationalamusement at that institution of learning. 

For all her air of free-and-easy equality with the young man, she hadat times a certain blighting glance which, turned on him suddenly, always brought him to an agreement with her opinion, an agreementwhich might obviously ring but verbal on his tongue, but which wasnevertheless the acknowledged basis of action. As for Sylvia, sheacquiesced, with an eagerness which she did not try to understand, inany arrangement which precluded tête-à-têtes with Jerry. 

She did not, as a matter of fact, try to understand anything of whatwas happening to her. She was by no means sure that she liked it, butwas stiffened into a stubborn resistance to any doubts by the unvoicedobjection to it all at home. With an instinct against disproportion, perverse perhaps in this case, but with a germ of soundness in it, she felt confusedly and resentfully that since her home circle was sopatently narrow and exaggerated in its standard of personality, shewould just have to even things up by being a little less fastidiousthan was her instinct; and on the one or two occasions when a suddensight of Jerry sent through her a strange, unpleasant stir of all herflesh, she crushed the feeling out of sight under her determination toassert her own judgment and standards against those which had (she nowfelt) so tyrannically influenced her childhood. But for the mostpart she did little thinking, shaking as loudly as possible thereverberating rattle of physical excitement. 

Thus everything progressed smoothly under Mrs. Draper's management. The young couple met each other usually in the rather close air of hercandle-lighted living-room, drinking a great deal of tea, consuminglarge numbers of delicate, strangely compounded sandwiches, and listening to an endless flow of somewhat startlingly frankpersonalities from the magnetic mistress of the house. Sylvia andJermain did not talk much on these occasions. They listened withedification to the racy remarks of their hostess, voicing thattheoretical "broadness" of opinion as to the conduct of life which, quite as much as the perfume which she always used, was a specialty ofher provocative personality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, asshe drew them into conversation, but their real intercourse was almostaltogether silent. They eyed each other across the table, breathingquickly, and flushing or paling if their hands chanced to touch in theservices of the tea-table. Once the young man came in earlier thanusual and found Sylvia alone for a moment in the silent, glowing, perfumed room. He took her hand, apparently for the ordinary handclaspof greeting, but with a surge of his blood retained it, pressing itso fiercely that his ring cut into her finger, causing a tiny drop ofbright red to show on the youthful smoothness of her skin. At thisliving ruby they both stared fixedly for an instant; then Mrs. Drapercame hastily into the room, saying chidingly, "Come, come, children!"and looking with displeasure at the man's darkly flushed face. Sylviawas paler than usual for the rest of the afternoon, and could notswallow a mouthful of the appetizing food, which as a rule shedevoured with the frank satisfaction of a hungry child. She sat, rather white, not talking much, avoiding Jerry's eyes for no reasonthat she could analyze, and, in the pauses of the conversation, couldhear the blood singing loudly in her ears. 

Yet, although she felt the oddest relief, as after one more escape, at the end of each of these afternoons with her new acquaintances, afternoons in which the three seemed perpetually gliding down asteep incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of someunexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiledentirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. The homesupper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with itscommonplace fare--hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and apple sauce, and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and politics, and smallhome events, and music. As it happened, the quartet had the lack ofintuition to play a great deal of Haydn that autumn, and to Sylviathe cheerful, obvious tap-tap-tap of the hearty old master seemed totypify the bald, unsubtle obtuseness of the home attitude towardslife. She herself took to playing the less difficult of the Chopinnocturnes with a languorous over-accentuation of their softness whichshe was careful to keep from the ears of old Reinhardt. But oneevening he came in, unheard, listened to her performance of the B-flatminor nocturne with a frown, and pulled her away from the piano beforeshe had finished. "Not true music, not true love, not true anydings!"he said, speaking however with an unexpected gentleness, and pattingher on the shoulder with a dirty old hand. "Listen!" He clapped hisfiddle under his chin and played the air of the andante from theKreutzer Sonata with so singing and heavenly a tone that Sylvia, ashelpless an instrument in his skilful hands as the violin itself, feltthe nervous tears stinging her eyelids. 

This did not prevent her making a long détour the next day to avoidmeeting the uncomely old musician on the street and being obliged torecognize him publicly. She lived in perpetual dread of being thusforced, when in the company of Mrs. Draper or Jermain, to acknowledgeher connection with him, or with Cousin Parnelia, or with any ofthe eccentrics who frequented her parents' home, and whom it wasphysically impossible to imagine drinking tea at Mrs. Draper's table. 

It was beside this same table that she met, one day in early December, Jermain Fiske's distinguished father. He explained that he was in LaChance for a day on his way from Washington to Mercerton, where theFiske family was collecting for its annual Christmas house-party, andhad dropped in on Mrs. Draper quite unexpectedly. He was, he added, delighted that it happened to be a day when he could meet the lovelyMiss Marshall of whom (with a heavy accent of jocose significance)he had heard so much. Sylvia was a little confused by the pointedattentions of this gallant old warrior, oddly in contrast with themanner of other elderly men she knew; but she thought him veryhandsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his bright blue eyes, so like his son's, and she was much impressed with his frock-coat, fitting snugly around his well-knit, erect figure, and with thesilk hat which she noticed on the table in the hall as she went in. Frock-coats and silk hats were objects seldom encountered in LaChance, except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographsof life in New York or Washington. But of course, she reflected, Colonel Fiske lived most of his life in Washington, about thecosmopolitan delights of which he talked most eloquently to the twoladies. 

As was inevitable, Sylvia also met Eleanor Hubert more or less at Mrs. Draper's. Sylvia had been rendered acutely self-conscious in thatdirection by Mrs. Draper's very open comments on her rôle in the lifeof the other girl, and at first had been so smitten by embarrassmentas positively to be awkward, a rare event in her life: but she wassoon set at ease by the other girl's gentle friendliness, so simpleand sincere that even Sylvia's suspicious vanity could not feel itto be condescension. Eleanor's sweet eyes shone so kindly on hersuccessful rival, and she showed so frank and unenvious anadmiration of Sylvia's wit and learning, displayed perhaps a trifleostentatiously by that young lady in the ensuing conversation withMrs. Draper, that Sylvia had a fresh, healing impulse of shame for herown recently acquired attitude of triumphing hostility towards theworld. 

At the same time she felt a surprised contempt for the other girl'signorance and almost illiteracy. Whatever else Eleanor had learned inthe exclusive and expensive girls' school in New York, she had notlearned to hold her own in a conversation on the most ordinary topics;and as for Mrs. Draper's highly spiced comments on life and folk, heryoung friend made not the slightest attempt to cope with them or evento understand them. The alluring mistress of the house might talk ofsex-antagonism and the hatefulness of the puritanical elements ofAmerican life as much as she pleased. It all passed over the head ofthe lovely, fair girl, sipping her tea and raising her candid eyesto meet with a trustful smile, perhaps a little blank, the glance ofwhomever chanced to be looking at her. It was significant that she hadthe same smile for each of the three very dissimilar persons who satabout the tea-table. Of all the circle into which Sylvia's changedlife had plunged her, Eleanor, the type of the conventional societybud, was, oddly enough, the only one she cared to talk about in herown extremely unconventional home. But even on this topic she feltherself bruised and jarred by the severity, the unpicturesqueausterity of the home standards. As she was trying to give her mothersome idea of Eleanor's character, she quoted one day a remark of Mrs. Draper's, to the effect that "Eleanor no more knows the meaning of herbeauty than a rose the meaning of its perfume. " Mrs. Marshall kepta forbidding silence for a moment and then said: "I don't take muchstock in that sort of unconsciousness. Eleanor isn't a rose, she isn'teven a child. She's a woman. The sooner girls learn that distinction, the better off they'll be, and the fewer chances they'll run of beinghorribly misunderstood. "

Sylvia felt very angry with her mother for this unsympathetictreatment of a pretty phrase, and thought with resentment that it wasnot _her_ fault if she were becoming more and more alienated from herfamily. 

This was a feeling adroitly fostered by Mrs. Draper, who, in herendless talks with Sylvia and Jermain about themselves, had hit uponan expression and a turn of phrase which was to have more influence onSylvia's development than its brevity seemed to warrant. She had, oneday, called Sylvia a little Athenian, growing up, by the oddest ofmistakes, in Sparta. Sylvia, who was in the Pater-reading stage ofdevelopment, caught at her friend's phrase as at the longed-for key toher situation. It explained everything. It made everything appear inthe light she wished for. Above all it enabled her to clarify herattitude towards her home. Now she understood. One did not scornSparta. One respected it, it was a noble influence in life; but for anAthenian, for whom amenity and beauty and suavity were as essential asfood, Sparta was death. As was natural to her age and temperament, shesucked a vast amount of pleasure out of this pitying analysis of hersubtle, complicated needs and the bare crudity of her surroundings. She now read Pater more assiduously than ever, always carrying avolume about with her text-books, and feeding on this delicate farein such unlikely and dissimilar places as on the trolley-cars, in thekitchen, in the intervals of preparing a meal, or in Mrs. Draper'sliving-room, waiting for the problematical entrance of that erraticluminary. 

There was none of Mrs. Draper's habits of life which made more of animpression on Sylvia's imagination than her custom of disregardingengagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing anddisappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulouslyexact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking anappointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing withtime and bonds and promises had an exciting quality of freedom. 

On a good many occasions these periods of waiting chanced to be sharedby Eleanor Hubert, for whom, after the first two or three encounters, Sylvia came to have a rather condescending sympathy, singularly incontrast to the uneasy envy with which she had regarded her only afew months before. However, as regards dress, Eleanor was still aphenomenon of the greatest interest, and Sylvia never saw her withoutgetting an idea or two, although it was plain to any one who knewEleanor that this mastery of the technique of modern American costumewas no achievement of her own, that she was merely the lovely andplastic material molded, perhaps to slightly over-complicated effects, by her mother's hands. 

From that absent but pervasive personality Sylvia took one suggestionafter another. For instance, a very brief association with Eleanorcaused her to relegate to the scrapheap of the "common" the ready-madewhite ruching for neck and sleeves which she had always before takenfor granted. Eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were always setoff by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid with dexterouscarelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh that they were obviouslyrenewed by a skilful hand after only a few hours' wearing. The firsttime she saw Eleanor, Sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, and immediately struggled to reproduce it in her own costume. Likeother feats of the lesser arts this perfect trifle turned out todepend upon the use of the lightest and most adroit touch. None of thechiffon which came in Aunt Victoria's boxes would do. It must be freshfrom the shop-counter, ruinous as this was to Sylvia's very modestallowance for dress. Even then she spoiled many a yard of the filmy, unmanageable stuff before she could catch the spirit of thoseapparently careless folds, so loosely disposed and yet neverdisplaced. It was a phenomenon over which a philosopher mightwell have pondered, this spectacle of Sylvia's keen brain andwell-developed will-power equally concerned with the problems ofchemistry and philosophy and history, and with the problem ofchiffon folds. She herself was aware of no incongruity, indeed of nodifference, between the two sorts of efforts. 

Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful ofsuggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remembered dictumabout the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-boardwhich warned Sylvia against the multiplication of detail, evendesirable detail. 

Mrs. Hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of distinctionin modern dress, and had grasped with philosophic thoroughness theunderlying principle of the art, which is to show effects obviouslycostly, but the cost of which is due less to mere brute cash than toprodigally expended effort. Eleanor never wore a costume which did notshow the copious exercise by some alert-minded human being, presumablywith an immortal soul, of the priceless qualities of invention, creative thought, trained attention, and prodigious industry. Mrs. Hubert's unchallengeable slogan was that dress should be an expressionof individuality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of theattire of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffleand buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to express thewhole of her own individuality, the conspicuous force of which wasreadily conceded by any observer of the lady's life. 

As for Eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of that veryunobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of hereyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. Itis possible that Mrs. Hubert might have regarded it as an unkindvisitation of Providence that the results of her lifetime of effortin an important art should have been of such slight interest toher daughter, and should have served, during the autumn underconsideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her daughter'ssuccessful rival. 

That she was Eleanor's successful rival, Sylvia had Mrs. Draper's morethan outspoken word. That lady openly gloried in the impending defeatof Mrs. Hubert's machinations to secure the Fiske money and positionfor Eleanor; although she admitted that a man like Jerry had his twoopposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being attracted bytwo such contrasting types as Sylvia and Eleanor. She informed Sylviaindeed that the present wife of Colonel Fiske--his third, by theway--had evidently been in her youth a girl of Eleanor's temperament. It was more than apparent, however, that in the case of the son, Sylvia's "type" was in the ascendent; but it must be set down toSylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competition gaveher no satisfaction. She often heartily wished Eleanor out of it. Shecould never meet the candid sweetness of the other's eyes without aqualm of discomfort, and she suffered acutely under Eleanor's gentleamiability. 

Once or twice when Mrs. Draper was too outrageously late at anappointment for tea, the two girls gave her up, and leaving the house, walked side by side back across the campus, Sylvia quite aware of thewondering surmise which followed their appearance together. On theseoccasions, Eleanor talked with more freedom than in Mrs. Draper'spresence, always in the quietest, simplest way, of small events andquite uninteresting minor matters in her life, or the life of thevarious household pets, of which she seemed extremely fond. Sylviacould not understand why, when she bade her good-bye at the drivewayleading into the Hubert house, she should feel anything but a rathercontemptuous amusement for the other's insignificance, but the oddfact was that her heart swelled with inexplicable warmth. Once sheyielded to this foolish impulse, and felt a quivering sense ofpleasure at the sudden startled responsiveness with which Eleanorreturned a kiss, clinging to her as though she were an older, strongersister. 

One dark late afternoon in early December, Sylvia waited alone in thecandle-lighted shrine, neither Eleanor nor her hostess appearing. After five o'clock she started home alone along the heavily shadedpaths of the campus, as dim as caves in the interval before the big, winking sputtering arc-lights were flashed on. She walked swiftly andlightly as was her well-trained habit, and before she knew it, wasclose upon a couple sauntering in very close proximity. With thesurety of long practice Sylvia instantly diagnosed them as a collegecouple indulging in what was known euphemistically as "campus work, "and prepared to pass them with the slight effect of scorn forphilanderings which she always managed to throw into her high-heldhead and squarely swinging shoulders. But as she came up closer, walking noiselessly in the dusk, she recognized an eccentric, flame-colored plume just visible in the dim light, hanging downfrom the girl's hat--and stopped short, filled with a rush of verycomplicated feelings. The only flame-colored plume in La Chance wasowned and worn by Eleanor Hubert, and if she were out saunteringamorously in the twilight, with whom could she be but JerryFiske, --and that meant--Sylvia's pangs of conscience about supplantingEleanor were swept away by a flood of anger as at a defeat. She couldnot make out the girl's companion, beyond the fact that he was talland wore a long, loose overcoat. Jerry was tall and wore a long, looseovercoat. Sylvia walked on, slowly now, thoroughly aroused, quiteunaware of the inconsistency of her mental attitude. She felt a risingtide of heat. She had, she told herself, half a notion to step forwardand announce her presence to the couple, whose pace as the Huberthouse was approached became slower and slower. 

But then, as they stood for a moment at the entrance of the Hubertdriveway, the arc-lights blazed up all over the campus at once and shesaw two things: one was that Eleanor was walking very close to hercompanion, with her arm through his, and her little gloved fingerscovered by his hand, and next that he was not Jerry Fiske at all, but the queer, countrified "freak" assistant in chemistry withwhom Eleanor, since Jerry's defection, had more or less masked herabandonment. 

At the same moment the two started guiltily apart, and Sylvia halted, thinking they had discovered her. But it was Mrs. Hubert whom they hadseen, advancing from the other direction, and making no pretense thatshe was not in search of an absent daughter. She bore down upon thecouple, murmured a very brief greeting to the man, accompanied by afaint inclination of her well-hatted head, drew Eleanor's unresistinghand inside her arm, and walked her briskly into the house. 

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES

During the autumn and early winter it not only happened unfortunatelythat the quartet played altogether too much Haydn, but that Sylvia'sfather, contrary to his usual custom, was away from home a great deal. The State University had arrived at that stage of its career when, ifits rapidly increasing needs and demands for State money were to berecognized by the Legislature, it must knit itself more closely tothe rest of the State system of education, have a more intimateaffiliation with the widely scattered public high schools, and weldinto some sort of homegeneity their extremely various standards ofscholarship. This was a delicate undertaking, calling for much tactand an accurate knowledge of conditions in the State, especially inthe rural districts. Professor Marshall's twenty years of popularitywith the more serious element of the State University students (thatpopularity which meant so little to Sylvia, and which she so ignored)had given him a large acquaintance among the class which it wasnecessary to reach. He knew the men who at the University had been thedigs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperousfarmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in theircommunities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informalpublic speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the Universityin the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backwardcommunities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring theirschools up to the State University standard. 

If all this had happened a few years sooner, he undoubtedly would havetaken Sylvia with him on many of these journeys into remote cornersof the State, but Sylvia had her class-work to attend to, and theProfessor shared to the fullest extent the academic prejudice againstparents who broke in upon the course of their children's regularinstruction by lawless and casual junketings. Instead, it was Judithwho frequently accompanied him, Judith who was now undergoing thathome-preparation for the University through which Sylvia had passed, and who, since her father was her principal instructor, could carryon her studies wherever he happened to be; as well as have thestimulating experience of coming in contact with a wide variety ofpeople and conditions. It is possible that Professor Marshall'ssociable nature not only shrank from the solitude which his wifewould have endured with cheerfulness, but that he also wished to takeadvantage of this opportunity to come in closer touch with his seconddaughter, for whose self-contained and occasionally insensitive naturehe had never felt the instinctive understanding he had for Sylvia'smoods. It is certain that the result was a better feeling between thetwo than had existed before. During the long hours of jolting overbranch railroads back to remote settlements, or waiting at cheerlessjunctions for delayed trains, or gaily eating impossible meals atextraordinary country hotels, the ruddy, vigorous father, now growingboth gray and stout, and the tall, slender, darkly handsome girl offifteen, were cultivating more things than history and mathematics andEnglish literature. The most genuine feeling of comradeship sprang upbetween the two dissimilar natures, a feeling so strong and so warmthat Sylvia, in addition to her other emotional complications, feltoccasionally a faint pricking of jealousy at seeing her primacy withher father usurped. 

A further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation from him wasthe mere physical fact that she saw him much less frequently and thathe had nothing like his usual intimate knowledge of her comings andgoings. And finally, Lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicatelad of eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his mothermuch occupied with his care. As far as her family was concerned, Sylvia was thus left more alone than ever before, and although she hadbeen trained to too delicate and high a personal pride to attempt theleast concealment of her doings, it was not without relief that shefelt that her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of theextent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her newrelations. She herself shut her eyes as much as possible to the rateat which she was progressing towards a destination rapidly becomingmore and more imperiously visible; and consciously intoxicated herselfwith the excitements and fatigues of her curiously double life ofintellectual effort in classes and her not very skilful handling ofthe shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation. 

But this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by the unexpectedcall upon Mrs. Marshall, one day about the middle of December, of noless a person than Mrs. Jermain Fiske, Sr. , wife of the Colonel, andJerry's stepmother. Sylvia happened to be in her room when the shiningcar drove up the country road before the Marshall house, stopped atthe gate in the osage-orange hedge, and discharged the tall, stooping, handsomely dressed lady in rich furs, who came with a halting step upthe long path to the front door. Although Sylvia had never seen Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made herfamiliar with some items of her appearance, and it was with a rapidlybeating heart that she surmised the identity of the distinguishedcaller. But although her quick intelligence perceived the probablesignificance of the appearance, and although she felt a distinct shockat the seriousness of having Jerry's stepmother call upon her, she wasdiverted from these capital considerations of such vital importance toher life by the trivial consideration which had, so frequently duringthe progress of this affair, absorbed her mind to the exclusion ofeverything else--the necessity for keeping up appearances. If theMarshall tradition had made it easier for her to achieve this not veryelevated goal, she might have perceived more clearly where her rapidfeet were taking her. Just now, for example, there was nothing in herconsciousness but the embittered knowledge that there was no maid toopen the door when Mrs. Fiske should ring. 

She was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen, with awell-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of science, but itmust be admitted that at this moment she reverted with passionatecompleteness to quite another type. She would have given--she wouldhave given a year of her life--one of her fingers--all her knowledgeof history--anything! if the Marshalls had possessed what she felt anydecently prosperous grocer's family ought to possess--a well-appointedmaid in the hall to open the door, take Mrs. Fiske's card, show herinto the living-room, and go decently and in order to summon themistress of the house. Instead she saw with envenomed foresight whatwould happen. At the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who wasplaying dominoes with Lawrence in one of his convalescences, wouldopen the door with her apron still on, and her spectacles probablypushed up, rustic fashion, on top of her head. And then theirillustrious visitor, used as of course she was to ceremony in socialmatters, would not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess;and Mrs. Marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing a richlydressed stranger on the doorstep, and would perhaps think she had madea mistake in the house; and Mrs. Fiske would not know whether to handover the cards she held ready in her whitely gloved fingers--in theinterval between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of thedoorbell Sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an altogetherhateful and horrid affair. 

As a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place. When the bellrang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and openthe door, and so it was Sylvia herself who confronted the unexpectedvisitor, --Sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering theguest into the house with her usual graceful charm of manner. 

She had none of this as a moment later she went rather slowly upstairsto summon her mother. It occurred to her that Mrs. Marshall might veryreasonably be at a loss as to the reason of this call. Indeed, sheherself felt a sinking alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration. What could Mrs. Fiske have to say to Mrs. Marshall that would not leadto some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solution whichduring the past months Mrs. Marshall's daughter had been soindustriously stirring up? Mrs. Marshall showed the most open surpriseat the announcement, "Mrs. Colonel Fiske to see me? What in theworld--" she began, but after a glance at Sylvia's down-hung head andtwisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and rose togo, with no more comments. 

They went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and tall daughter, both sobered, both frightened at what might be in the other's mind, and at what might be before them, and entered the low-ceilingedliving-room together. A pale woman, apparently as apprehensive asthey, rose in a haste that had almost some element of apology in it, and offered her hand to Mrs. Marshall. "I'm Mrs. Fiske, " she saidhurriedly, in a low voice, "Jerry's stepmother, you know. I hope youwon't mind my coming to see you. What a perfectly lovely home youhave! I was wishing I could just stay and _stay_ in this room. "She spoke rapidly with the slightly incoherent haste of shy peopleovercoming their weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blueeyes, at Sylvia and at her mother. In the end she remained standing, looking earnestly into Mrs. Marshall's face. That lady now made a stepforward and again put out her hand with an impulsive gesture at whichSylvia wondered. She herself had felt no attraction towards the thin, sickly woman who had so little grace or security of manner. It wasconstantly surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high insocial rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position. She always felt that she could have filled their places with vastlymore aplomb. 

"I'm very glad to see you, " said Mrs. Marshall in a friendly tone. "Dosit down again. Sylvia, go and make us some tea, won't you? Mrs. Fiskemust be cold after driving out here from town. "

When Sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the guest saying, "My youngest is only nine months old, and he is having _such_ a timewith his teeth. "

"Oh!" thought Sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea. "She's _that_kind of a woman, is she?" With the astonishingly quick shifting ofviewpoint of the young, she no longer felt the least anxiety that herhome, or even that she herself should make a good impression on thisevidently quite negligible person. Her anguish about the ceremony ofopening the door seemed years behind her. She examined with care allthe minutiae of the handsome, unindividualized costume of black velvetworn by their visitor, but turned an absent ear to her talk, whichbrought out various facts relating to a numerous family of youngchildren. "I have six living, " said Mrs. Fiske, not meeting Mrs. Marshall's eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea slowly, "I lostfour at birth. "

Sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through another turn ofthe conversation that the caller, who looked to her unsympathetic eyesany age at all, had been married at eighteen, and that that was onlythirteen years ago. Sylvia thought she certainly looked older thanthirty-one, advanced though that age was. 

The call passed with no noteworthy incidents beyond a growing wonderin Sylvia's mind that the brilliant and dashing old Colonel, afterhis other matrimonial experiences, should have picked out so dull andcolorless a wife. She was not even pretty, not at all pretty, in spiteof her delicate, regular features and tall figure. Her hair was dryand thin, her eyes lusterless, her complexion thick, with brownpatches on it, and her conversation was of a domesticity unparalleledin Sylvia's experience. She seemed oddly drawn to Mrs. Marshall, although that lady was now looking rather graver than was her wont, and talked to her of the overflowing Fiske nursery with a loquacitywhich was evidently not her usual habit. Indeed, she said naïvely, asshe went away, that she had been much relieved to find Mrs. Marshallso approachable. "One always thinks of University families as soterribly learned, you know, " she said, imputing to her hostess, with achild's tactlessness, an absence of learning like her own. "I reallydreaded to come--I go out so little, you know--but Jerry and theColonel thought I ought, you know--and now I've really enjoyed it--andif Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the Colonel will be quitesatisfied. And so, of course, will I. " With which rather jerkyvaledictory she finally got herself out of the house. 

Sylvia looked at her mother inquiringly. "If I go where?" she asked. Something must have taken place while she was out of the room gettingthe tea. 

"She called to invite you formally to a Christmas house-party at theFiskes' place in Mercerton, " said Mrs. Marshall, noting smilelesslySylvia's quick delight at the news. "Oh, what have I got to wear!"cried the girl. Mrs. Marshall said merely, "We'll see, we'll see, "and without discussing the matter further, went back to finish theinterrupted game with Lawrence. 

But the next evening, when Professor Marshall returned from his latesttrip, the subject was taken up in a talk between Sylvia and herparents which was more agitating to them all than any other incidentin their common life, although it was conducted with a great effortfor self-control on all sides. Judith and Lawrence had gone upstairsto do their lessons, and Professor Marshall at once broached thesubject by saying with considerable hesitation, "Sylvia--well--howabout this house-party at the Fiskes'?"

Sylvia was on the defense in a moment. "Well, how about it?" sherepeated. 

"I hope you don't feel like going. "

"But I do, very much!" returned Sylvia, tingling at the first clearstriking of the note of disapproval she had felt for so many weekslike an undertone in her life. As her father said nothing more, bitinghis nails and looking at her uncertainly, she added in the accentwhich fitted the words, "Why shouldn't I?"

He took a turn about the room and glanced at his wife, who was hemminga napkin very rapidly, her hands trembling a little. She looked up athim warningly, and he waited an instant before speaking. Finally hebrought out with the guarded tone of one forcing himself to moderationof speech, "Well, the Colonel is an abominable old black-guard inpublic life, and his private reputation is no better. "

Sylvia flushed. "I don't see what that has to do with his son. It'snot fair to judge a young man by his father--or by anything but whathe is himself--you yourself are always saying that, if the trouble isthat the father is poor or ignorant or something else tiresome. "

Professor Marshall said cautiously, "From what I hear, I gather thatthe son in this case is a good deal like his father. "

"No, he _isn't!_" cried Sylvia quickly. "He may have been wild when hefirst came up to the University, but he's all right now!" She spoke aswith authoritative and intimate knowledge of all the details of Fiske, Jr. 's, life. "And anyhow, I don't see what difference it makes, _what_the Colonel's reputation is. I'm just going up there with a lot ofother young people to have a good time. Eleanor Hubert's invited, andthree or four other society girls. I don't see why we need to be sucha lot more particular than other people. We never are when it's aquestion of people being dirty, or horrid, other ways! How aboutCousin Parnelia and Mr. Reinhardt? I guess the Fiskes would laughat the idea of people who have as many queer folks around as we do, thinking _they_ aren't good enough. "

Professor Marshall sat down across the table from his daughter andlooked at her. His face was rather ruddier than usual and he swallowedhard. "Why, Sylvia, the point is this. It's evident, from what yourmother tells me of Mrs. Fiske's visit, that going to this house partymeans more in your case than with the other girls. Mrs. Fiske came allthe way to La Chance to invite you, and from what she said aboutyou and her stepson, it was evident that she and the Colonel--" Hestopped, opening his hands nervously. 

"I don't know how they think they know anything about it, " returnedSylvia with dignity, though she felt an inward qualm at this news. "Jerry's been ever so nice to me and given me a splendid time, butthat's all there is to it. Lots of fellows do that for lots of girls, and nobody makes such a fuss about it. "

Mrs. Marshall laid down her work and went to the heart of the matter. "Sylvia, you don't _like_ Mr. Fiske?"

"Yes, I do!" said Sylvia defiantly, qualifying this statement aninstant later by, "Quite well, anyhow. Why _shouldn't_ I?"

Her mother assumed this rhetorical question to be a genuine one andanswered it accordingly. "Why, he doesn't seem at all like the type ofyoung man who would be liked by a girl with your tastes and training. I shouldn't think you'd find him interesting or--"

Sylvia broke out: "Oh, you don't know how sick I get of being soeverlastingly high-brow! What's the _use_ of it? People don't thinkany more of you! They think less! You don't have any better time--norso good! And why should you and Father always be so down on anybodythat's rich, or dresses decently? _Jerry's_ all right--if his clothes_do_ fit!"

"Do you really _know_ him at all?" asked her father pointedly. 

"Of course I do--I know he's very handsome, and awfully good-natured, and he's given me the only good time I've had at the University. Youjust don't know how ghastly last year was to me! I'm awfully gratefulto Jerry, and that's all there is to it!"

Before this second disclaimer, her parents were silent again, Sylvialooking down at her lap, picking at her fingers. Her expression wasthat of a naughty child--that is, with a considerable admixture ofunhappiness in her wilfulness. 

By this time Professor Marshall's expression was clearly one ofdownright anger, controlled by violent effort. Mrs. Marshall was thefirst one to speak. She went over to Sylvia and laid her hand on hershoulder. "Well, Sylvia dear, I'm sorry about--" She stopped andbegan again. "You know, dear, that we always believed in letting ourchildren, as far as possible, make their own decisions, and we won'tgo back on that now. But I want you to understand that that puts abigger responsibility on you than on most girls to make the _right_decisions. We trust you--your good sense and right feeling--to keepyou from being carried away by unworthy motives into a false position. And, what's just as important, we trust to your being clear-headedenough to see what your motives really are. "

"I don't see, " began Sylvia, half crying, "why something horrid shouldcome up just because I want a good time--other girls don't have to beall the time so solemn, and thinking about things!"

"There'd be more happy women if they did, " remarked Mrs. Marshall, adding: "I don't believe we'd better talk any more about this now. Youknow how we feel, and you must take that into consideration. You thinkit over. "

She spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she finished sheput her arms about the girl's neck and kissed the flushed cheeks. Caresses from Mrs. Marshall were unusual, and, even through her tenseeffort to resist, Sylvia was touched. "You're just worrying aboutnothing at all, Mother, " she said, trying to speak lightly, butescaped from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up hertext-books and following Judith and Lawrence upstairs. 

Her father and mother confronted each other. "_Well!_" said ProfessorMarshall hotly, "of all the weak, inconclusive, modern parents--is_this_ what we've come to?"

Mrs. Marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone which alwaysquelled her husband, "Yes, this is what we've come to. "

His heat abated at once, though he went on combatively, "Oh, I knowwhat you mean, reasonable authority and not tyranny and all that--yes, I believe in it--of course--but this goes beyond--" he ended. "Isthere or is there not such a thing as parental authority?"

Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "You remember whatCavour said?"

"Good Heaven! No, I don't remember!" cried Professor Marshall, with animpatience which might have been Sylvia's. 

"He said, 'Any idiot can rule by martial law. '"

"Yes, of course, that theory is all right, but--"

"If a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon. "

Professor Marshall cried out in exasperation, "But see here, Barbara--here is a concrete fact--our daughter--our preciousSylvia--is making a horrible mistake--and because of a theory wemustn't reach out a hand to pull her back. "

"We _can't_ pull her back by force, " said his wife. "She's eighteenyears old, and she has the habit of independent thought. We can't goback on that now. "

"We don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in any other way! Weseem to be just weakly sitting back and letting her do exactly as shepleases. "

"If during all these years we've had her under our influence wehaven't given her standards that--" began the mother. 

"You heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and our standardsand--"

"Oh, what she _says_--it's what she's made of that'll count--that'sthe _only_ thing that'll count when a crisis comes--"

Professor Marshall interrupted hastily: "When a crisis! What do youcall _this_ but a crisis--she's like a child about to put her handinto the fire. "

"I trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough nerves topull it out again when she feels the heat, " said her mother steadily. 

Professor Marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall, powerful, helpless. "It's outrageous, Barbara, for all your talk! We'reresponsible! We ought to shut her up under lock and key--"

"So _many_ girls have been deterred from a mistake by being shut upunder lock and key!" commented Mrs. Marshall, with an ironical accent. 

"But, good Heavens! Think of her going to that old scoundrel's--howcan I look people in the face, when they all know my opinion ofhim--how I've opposed his being a Trustee and--"

"_Ah_, --!" remarked his wife significantly, "that's the trouble, isit?"

Professor Marshall flushed, and for a moment made no rejoinder. Then, shifting his ground, he said bitterly: "I think you're forgetting thatI've had a disillusionizing experience in this sort of thing which youwere spared. You forget that Sylvia is closely related to my sister. "

"I don't forget that--but I don't forget either that Sylvia has hada very different sort of early life from poor Victoria's. She hasbreathed pure air always--I trust her to recognize its opposite. "

He made an impatient gesture of exasperation. "But she'll be _in_it--it'll be too late--"

"It's never too late. " She spoke quickly, but her unwaveringopposition began to have in it a note of tension. 

"She'll be caught--she'll have to go on because it'll be too hard toget out--"

"The same vigor that makes her resist us now will give her strengththen--she's not Eleanor Hubert. "

Her husband burst out upon her in a frightened, angry rush ofreproach: "Barbara--how _can_ you! You make me turn cold! This isn't amatter of talk--of theories--we're confronted with--"

She faced him down with unflinching, unhappy eyes. "Oh, of courseif we are to believe in liberty only so long as everything goessmoothly--" She tried to add something to this, but her voice brokeand she was silent. Her husband looked at her, startled at her pallorand her trembling lips, immensely moved by the rare discomposure ofthat countenance. She said in a whisper, her voice shaking, "Ourlittle Sylvia--my first baby--"

He flung himself down in the chair beside her and took her hand. "It'sdamnable!" he said. 

His wife answered slowly, with long pauses. "No--it's all right--it'spart of the whole thing--of life. When you bring children into theworld--when you live at all--you must accept the whole. It's not fairto rebel--to rebel at the pain--when--"

"Good God, it's not _our_ pain I'm shrinking from--!" he broke out. 

"No--oh no--that would be easy--"

With an impulse of yearning, and protection, and need, he leaned toput his arms around her, his graying beard against her pale cheek. They sat silent for a long time. 

In the room above them, Sylvia bent over a problem in trigonometry, and rapidly planned a new evening-dress. After a time she got up andopened her box of treasures from Aunt Victoria. The yellow chiffonwould do--Jerry had said he liked yellow--she could imagine how Mrs. Hubert would expend herself on Eleanor's toilets for this greatoccasion--if she could only hit on a design which wouldn't lookas though it came out of a woman's magazine--something reallysophisticated--she could cover her old white slippers with that bitof gold-tissue off Aunt Victoria's hat--she shook out the chiffon andlaid it over the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmeringfolds and thinking, "How horrid of Father and Mother to go and try tospoil everything so!" She went back to the problem in trigonometry andcovered a page with figures, at which she gazed unseeingly. She was byno means happy. She went as far as the door, meaning to go down andkiss her parents good-night, but turned back. They were not a familyfor surface demonstrations. If she could not yield her point--Shebegan to undress rapidly, turned out the light, opened the windows, and sprang into bed. "If they only wouldn't take things so awfully_solemnly_!" she said to herself petulantly. 

CHAPTER XVIII

SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE

The design for the yellow chiffon dropped almost literally at Sylvia'sfeet the next day, on the frontispiece of a theatrical magazine leftby another passenger in the streetcar in which she chanced to beriding. Sylvia pounced on it with instant recognition of its value. It was "different" and yet not "queer, " it was artistic and yetfashionable, and with its flowing lines it would not be hard toconstruct. It was the creation of a Parisian boulevard actress, knownwidely for her costumes, for the extraordinary manner in which shedressed her hair, and for the rapidity of her succeeding emotionalentanglements. Her name meant nothing to Sylvia. She tore out thepage, folded it, and put it for safe-keeping between the pages of hertext-book on Logic. 

That afternoon she began work on it, running the long seams up on themachine with whirring rapidity, acutely aware of her mother's silent, uncommenting passage back and forth through the sewing-room. With animpulse of secrecy which she did not analyze, she did the trying-on inher own room, craning and turning about before her own small mirror. She knew that her mother would think the dress was cut too low, although, as she told herself, looking with complacency at the smooth, white, exquisitely fine-grained skin thus disclosed, it wasn't nearlyas low cut as the dresses Eleanor Hubert wore to any little dance. Shehad long felt it to be countrified in the extreme to wear the mildcompromises towards evening-dress which she and most of the StateUniversity girls adopted, as compared with the frankly disclosinggowns of the "town girls" whose clothes came from Chicago and NewYork. She knew from several outspoken comments that Jerry admiredEleanor's shoulders, and as she looked at her own, she was not sorrythat he was to compare them to those of the other girl. 

After this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no morethought, working with desperate speed to complete all herpreparations. She had but a week for these, a week filled withincessant hurry, since she was naturally unwilling to ask help of hermother. Judith was off again with her father. 

This absence greatly facilitated the moment of Sylvia's departure, which she had dreaded. But, as it happened, there was only her motherto whom to say the rather difficult good-bye, her mother who could becounted on never to make a scene. 

About the middle of the morning of the twenty-third of December, she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in her hand, well-hatted, well-gloved, freshly veiled, having achieved her usual purpose oflooking to the casual eye like the daughter of a wealthy man. She hadput all of her autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, thosebeing something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. The restof her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat, with itssuccessful and modish touch of the ugly, was the achievement of herown hands. Under its absurd and fashionable brim, her fresh face shoneout, excessively pretty and very young. 

Mrs. Marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at Sylvia'sattempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by saying playfully, "Now, Mother, don't you be such an old worrier!" But she said nothing"uncomfortable, " for which Sylvia was very grateful. 

She had no sooner embarked upon the big Interurban trolley-car whichwas to take her to Mercerton than her attention was wholly divertedfrom uneasy reflections by the unexpected appearance of two of thehouse-party guests. Eleanor Hubert, every detail of her Complicatedcostume exquisitely finished as a Meissonier painting, sat looking outof the window rather soberly, and so intently that she saw neitherSylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her heels, that of a florid-faced, rather heavily built young man with a large, closely shaven jaw, whoexclaimed joyfully at seeing Miss Marshall, and appropriated withready assurance the other half of her seat. 

"Now, this is surely dandy! You're going to the house-party too, of course!" he cried, unbuttoning and throwing back his bright tanovercoat. "Here's where I cut Jerry out all right, all right! Waita minute! _How_ much time have we?" He appealed to the conductoras though a matter of life and death depended on the answer. "Fourminutes?--here goes--" He sprang to his feet, dashed out of the carand disappeared, leaving his coat beside Sylvia. It was evidentlyquite new, of the finest material, with various cunningly stitchedseams and straps disposed upon its surface in a very knowing way. Sylvia noted out of the corner of her eye that the address of themaker, woven into the neckband, was on Fifth Avenue, New York. 

The four minutes passed--and the conductor approached Sylvia. "Yourfriend's coming back, ain't he?" he asked, with the tolerant, good-natured respect natural for the vagaries of expensively dressedyoung men who wore overcoats made on Fifth Avenue. Sylvia, who had metthe young man but once before, when Jerry had introduced him as anold friend, was a little startled at having a casual acquaintance sopublicly affixed to her; but after an instant's hesitation, in whichshe was reflecting that she positively did not even remember her"friend's" name, she answered, "Oh yes, yes, I suppose so--here he isnow. "

The young man bounded up on the back platform panting, holding his haton with one hand, a large box of candy in the other. Sylvia glanced atthe name on the cover. "You didn't go all the way to _Button's!_" shecried. 

He nodded, breathless, evidently proud of his feat, and when he caughthis breath enough to speak, explained, "Yepp, --it's the only place inthis bum town where you can get Alligretti's, and they're the onlykind that're fit to eat" He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishingwith ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paperand gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented the rich layer ofblack chocolates to Sylvia. "Get a move on and take one, " he urgedcordially; "I pretend I buy 'em for the girls, but I'm crazy about 'emmyself, " He bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off hishat, wiped his forehead, and looked at Sylvia with a relish as frankas his enjoyment of the bonbon. "That's a corking hat you got on, "he commented. "Most girls would look like the old Harry with thatdangling thing in their eyes, but _you_ can carry it off all right. "

Sylvia's face assumed a provocative expression. "Did you ever makethat remark to any other girl, I wonder?" she said reflectively. 

He laughed aloud, eyeing her with appreciation, and clapping anotherlarge black chocolate into his mouth. "You're the prompt article, aren't you?" he said. He hitched himself over and leaned towards her. "Something tells me I'm goin' to have a good time at this house-party, what?"

Sylvia stiffened. She did not like his sitting so close to her, shedetected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol, and she was afraidthat Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity. She regrettedhaving succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about thisexpedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the voluble youngman showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the currentof the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, personally admiring note ofwhich had the effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits. Shedid not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but theeffect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and absorbedher attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-questionings wereimpossible. She was also relieved to note that, although the youngman flung himself about in the public conveyance with the sameunceremonious self-assurance that he would have shown in a lady'sdrawing-room, Eleanor Hubert, at the other end of the car, wasapparently unaware of his presence. Perhaps she too had some groundsfor uncomfortable thought, for throughout the hour's journey shecontinued to stare unseeingly out of the window, or to look downfixedly and rather sadly at her gloved hands. 

Even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans, and the needfor constant verbal self-defense against the encroaching familiarityof her companion, the notion flitted across Sylvia's mind thatprobably Eleanor was thinking of the young assistant in chemistry. Howqueer and topsy-turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandiedlively words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to eathis candies, although their rich, cloying taste had already palled onher palate--here was Mrs. Hubert throwing Eleanor at Jerry's head, when what Eleanor wanted was that queer, rough-neck freak of anassistant prof; and here were Jerry's parents making such overturesto Sylvia, when what _she_ wanted--she didn't know what she did want. Yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was somehow paradoxicallyhard to attain. Something always kept spoiling it, --half the timesomething intangible inside her own mind. She gave the candy-box apetulant push. "Oh, take it away!" she said impatiently; "I've eatenso many now, it makes me sick to look at them!"

The donor showed no resentment at this ingratitude, holding the box onhis knees, continuing to help himself to its contents with unabatedzest, and to keep the conversation up to concert pitch: "--the onlygirl I ever saw who'd stop eating Alligretti's while there was oneleft--another proof that there's only one of you--I said right off, that any co-ed that Jerry Fiske would take to must be a uniquespecimen--" He did not further specify the period to which hereferred by his "right off, " but the phrase gave Sylvia a tingling, uncomfortable sense of having been for some time the subject ofspeculation in circles of which she knew nothing. 

They were near Mercerton now, and as she gathered her wraps togethershe found that she was bracing herself as for an ordeal of some sort. The big car stopped, a little way out of town, in front of a longdriveway bordered with maple-trees; she and the young man descendedfrom one end-platform and Eleanor Hubert from the other, into themidst of loud and facetious greetings from the young people who hadcome down to meet them. Jerry was there, very stalwart, his whitesweater stretched over his broad chest. All the party carried skates, which flashed like silver in the keen winter sun. They explained withmany exclamations that they had been out on the ice, which was, so thethree new-comers were assured many times, "perfectly grand, perfectlydandy, simply elegant!"

A big, many-seated sled came jingling down the driveway now, driven byno less a personage than Colonel Fiske himself, wrapped in a fur-linedcoat, his big mustache white against the red of his strongly markedold face. With many screams and shouts the young people got themselvesinto this vehicle, the Colonel calling out in a masterful roar abovethe din, "Miss Marshall's to come up here with me!"

He held in his pawing, excited horses with one hand and helped Sylviawith the other. In the seat behind them sat Jerry and Eleanor Hubertand the young man of the trolley trip. Sylvia strained her ears tocatch Jerry's introduction of him to Eleanor, so that she mightknow his name. It was too absurd not even to know his name! But thehigh-pitched giggles and deeper shouts of mirth from the rest of theparty drowned out the words. As a matter of fact, although he playedfor an instant a rather important rôle in Sylvia's drama, she wasdestined never to know his name. 

The Colonel looked back over the sleighload, shouted out "All aboard!"loosened the reins, and snapped his whip over the horses' heads. Theyleaped forward with so violent a spring that the front runners of thelong sled were for an instant lifted into the air. Immediately all thejoyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before, became asessential silence compared to the delighted uproar which now rose fromthe sleigh. The jerk had thrown most of the young people over backwardinto each other's arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuousmass, they roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and madeineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate themselves. Sylvia had seen the jerk coming and saved herself by a clutch forwardat the dashboard. Glancing back, she saw that Jerry and Eleanor Hubertstill sat upright; although the gay young man beside them had lethimself go backward into the waving arms and legs, and, in a frenzy ofhigh spirits, was shouting and kicking and squirming with the others. It was a joke after his own heart. 

Colonel Fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help his youngguests out of their predicament, laughed loudly and cracked his whipover the horses' ears. They went up the long, curving driveway likea whirlwind, and drew up under the porte-cochère of a very largebrick-and-stone house with another abrupt jerk which upset those inthe sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. Pandemoniumbroke out again, in the midst of which Sylvia saw that Mrs. Fiske hadcome to the doorway and stood in it with a timid smile. The Coloneldid not look at her, Jerry nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, and of all the disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people whocrowded past her into the house, only Sylvia and Eleanor recognizedher existence. The others went past her without a glance, exclaimed atthe lateness of the hour, cried out that they must go and "fix up" forlunch, and ran upstairs, filling the house with their voices. Sylviaheard one girl cry to another, "_Oh_, I've had such a good time! I'vehollered till I'm hoarse!"

After luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was served thanSylvia had ever before seen, Jerry suggested between puffs of thecigarette he was lighting that they have a game of billiards. Most ofthe young people trooped off after him into the billiard-room, butSylvia, after a moment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-firein the hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a billiardtable. She made a pretext of staying to talk to Mrs. Fiske, who satstooping her tall figure forward in a chair too small for her. Sylvialooked at this ungraceful attitude with strong disapproval. What shethought was that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable. What she said was, in a very gracious voice: "What a beautiful homeyou have, Mrs. Fiske! How wonderfully happy you must be in it. "

The other woman started a little at being addressed, and looked aroundvaguely at the conventional luxury of the room, with its highlypolished floors, its huge rich rugs, its antlers on the wall, and itsdeeply upholstered leather chairs. When Sylvia signified her intentionof continuing the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, Mrs. Fiskeroused herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest. After some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract, shedischarged this responsibility through the familiar expedient of thefamily photograph album. With this between them, the two women wereable to go through the required form of avoiding silences. Sylvia wasfearfully bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly unableto distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected talk, betweenthe different sets of the Colonel's children. "This one is Stanley, Jermain's brother, who died when he was a baby, " the dull voice dronedon; "and this is Mattie in her wedding dress. "

"Oh, I didn't know Jerry had a married sister, " murmured Sylviaindifferently, glad of any comment to make. 

"She's only his half-sister, a great deal older. "

"But _you_ haven't a daughter old enough to be married?" queriedSylvia, astonished. 

"Oh--no--no. Mattie is the daughter of the Colonel's first wife. "

"Oh, " said Sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that Mrs. Draper hadspoken of the Colonel's several marriages. She added to explain herquestion, "I'd forgotten that Jerry's mother was the Colonel's secondwife and not his first. "

"She was his third, " breathed Mrs. Fiske, looking down at the pages ofthe album. 

Sylvia repressed a "Good gracious!" of startled repugnance to thetopic, and said, to turn the conversation, "Oh, who is that beautifullittle girl with the fur cap?"

"That is my picture, " said Mrs. Fiske, "when I was eighteen. I wasmarried soon after. I've changed very much since my marriage. "Decidedly it was not Sylvia's lucky day for finding topics of talk. She was wondering how the billiard game was progressing, and was sorryshe had not risked going with the others. She was recalled by Mrs. Fiske's saying with a soft earnestness, "I want you to know, MissMarshall, how I _appreciate_ your kindness to me!"

Sylvia looked at her in astonishment, half fearing that she was beingmade fun of. 

The other went on: "It was _very_ nice of you--your staying here totalk with me instead of going off with the young people--the othersdon't often--" She played nervously with a gleaming pendant on aplatinum chain which hung over her flat chest, and went on: "I--youhave _always_ seemed to me the very nicest of Jerry's friends--and Ishall never forget your mother's kindness. I hope--I hope so much Ishall see more of her. The Colonel thinks so too--we've liked so muchhaving him like you. " The incoherence of this did not prevent Sylvia'shaving a chillingly accurate grasp on its meaning. "It is theColonel's hope, " she went on painfully, "to have Jerry marry as soonas he graduates from the Law School. The Colonel thinks that nothingis so good for a young man as an early marriage--though of courseJerry isn't so very, very young any more. He--the--Colonel is a greatbeliever in marriage--" Her voice died away into murmurs. Her long, thin throat contracted in a visible swallow. 

At this point only Sylvia's perception of the other's anguishedembarrassment prevented her from literally running away. As it was, they sat silent, fingering over the pages of the album and gazingunseeingly at the various set countenances which looked out at themwith the unnatural glare of the photographed. Sylvia was canvassingdesperately one possibility of escape after another when the dooropened, and the lively young man of the trolley-car stepped in. He tiptoed to the fireplace with exaggerated caution, lookingtheatrically over his shoulder for a pursuer. Sylvia positivelywelcomed his appearance and turned to him with a cordiality quiteunlike the cool dignity with which she had planned to treat him. Hesat down on the rug before the fire, very close to her feet, andlooked up at her, grinning. "Here's where I get another one onJerry--what?" he said, ignoring Mrs. Fiske. "Old Jerry thinks he'splaying such a wonderful game in there he can't tear himself away--butthere'll be something doing, I guess, when he does come and findswhere I am!" He had partaken freely of the excellent white wine servedat luncheon (the first Sylvia had ever seen), and though entirelymaster of his speech, was evidently even more uplifted than was hisusual hilarious wont. Sylvia looked down at him, and across at theweak-faced woman opposite her, and had a moment of wishing heartilyshe had never come. She stood up impatiently, a movement which theyoung man took to mean a threat of withdrawal. "Aw, _don't_ go!" hepleaded, sprawling across the rug towards her. As she turned away, hesnatched laughingly at her skirts, crying out, "Tag! You're caught!You're It!"

At this moment Jerry Fiske appeared in the doorway. He looked darklyat his friend's cheerful face and said shortly: "Here, Stub--quit it!Get up out of that!" He added to Sylvia, holding out his hand: "Comeon, go skating with me. The ice is great. "

"Are the others going?" asked Sylvia. 

"Oh yes, I suppose so, " said Jerry, a trifle impatiently. 

The young man on the floor scrambled up. "Here's one that's going, whoever else don't, " he announced. 

"Get yourself a girl, then, " commanded Jerry, "and tell the rest tocome along. There's to be eats at four o'clock. "

 * * * * *

The ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly represented toSylvia. Out of doors, leaning her supple, exquisitely poised body tothe wind as she veered like a bird on her flying skates, Sylvia'sspirits rebounded with an instant reaction into enjoyment. She adoredskating, and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wildpleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. Furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (Mrs. Draper had toldher of the little lake on the Fiske estate) was one of her successes. It had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of AuntVictoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by havingcoffee spilled down the front breadth. Sylvia had had the bold notionof dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush(the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). On her gleamingred-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a small blackwing on either side (one of Lawrence's pet chickens furnished this), and she carried the muff which belonged with her best set of furs. Thus equipped, she looked like some impish, slender young Brunhilde, with her two upspringing wings. The young men gazed at her with themost unconcealed delight. As she skated very well, better than anyof the other girls, she felt, sweeping about the pond in long, swiftcurves, that she was repaid for her ignorance of billiards. 

Jerry and the young man he called Stub were openly in competitionfor her attention, highly jocose on Stub's part and not at all so onJerry's, whose brow did not clear at the constant crackling of theother's witticisms. On the shore burned a big fire, tended by aman-servant in livery, who was occupied in setting out on a long tablea variety of sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. Sylvia hadnever encountered before a real man-servant in livery. She looked athim with the curiosity she might have shown at seeing a mediaevalknight in full armor. Jerry brought her a cup of the bouillon, whichwas deliciously hot and strong. Experienced as she was in the prudentprovisioning of the Marshall kitchen she was staggered to think howmany chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the bigsilver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol lamp. Thetable was set, for that casual outdoor picnic lunch, as she couldhardly have imagined a royal board. 

"What beautiful things your people have!" she exclaimed to Jerry, looking at a pile of small silver forks with delicately carved ivoryhandles. "The rugs in the house are superb. "

Jerry waved them aside as phenomena of no importance. "All of 'emtributes from Dad's loving constituents, " he said, repeating what wasevidently an old joke in the family. "You'd better believe Dad doesn'tvote to get the tariff raised on anything unless he sees to it thatthe manufacturers know who they have to thank. It works somethingfine! Talk about the presents a doctor gets from his gratefulpatients! Nothing to it!"

This picturesque statement of practical politics meant so little toSylvia's mind that she dismissed it unheard, admiring, in spite of hereffort to take things for granted, the fabulous fineness of thelittle fringed napkin set under the bouillon cup. Jerry followedthe direction of her eyes. "Yep--tariff on linen, " he commentedpregnantly. 

The young man called Stub now sped up to them, skating very fast, andswept Sylvia off. "_Here's_ where we show 'em how to do it!" he criedcheerfully, skating backward with crazy rapidity, and pulling Sylviaafter him. There was a clang of swift steel on ice, and Jerry boredown upon them, the muscles of his jaw showing prominently. Without aword he thrust his friend aside, caught at Sylvia's hands, and boreher in a swooping flight to the other end of the pond, now deserted bythe other skaters. 

As they sped along he bent over Sylvia fiercely and said in a low, angry tone, "You don't like that bounder, do you? You _don't_!"

Sylvia was astonished at the heat of his suspicion. She had known thatJerry was not notably acute, but it had seemed to her that her dislikefor his friend must be more than apparent to any one. They had reachedthe edge of the ice now, and Sylvia's hands were still in Jerry's, although they were not skating, but stood facing each other. A bushof osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs near them. Sylvialooked down at it, hesitating how to express her utter denial of anyliking for the hilarious young man. Jerry misunderstood her pause andcried out: "Good God! Sylvia! Don't say you _do. _"

Sylvia's heart gave a frightened leap. "Oh no--no--not a bit!" shesaid hastily, looking longingly across the pond at the group aroundthe fire. Jerry caught his breath with a gasp and gripped her handshard. "It makes me crazy to see you look at another fellow, " he said. He forced her eyes to meet his. "Sylvia--you know--you know what Imean. "

Yes, Sylvia knew what he meant. Her very white face showed that. Theyoung man went on, pressing, masterful, confident, towering over her:"It's idiotic to speak of it now, out here--with all these peoplearound--but it just _got_ me to see you with that--I wasn't sure how Ifelt about you till I saw how I felt when you seemed so friendlywith him, when you got off the car together. Then I knew. It made mecrazy--I _wanted_ you!"

Sylvia had not been able once to look away from him since he began tospeak. Her mouth was a little open in her white face, her eyes fixedwith a painful intensity on his. He moistened his lips with histongue. "Sylvia--_it's all right_--isn't it?"

With no change of expression in her strained face, Sylvia nodded. Assuddenly and apparently as automatically she took a backward step. 

The young man made a great stride towards her--there was a sound ofquick strokes on the ice and--"BOO!" shouted the hilarious young man, bursting between them at railroad speed. He executed a marvelouspirouette and returned instantly, calling out, "Less spooning inthe corners if you please--or if it's got to be, let me in!" Hewas followed closely by a string of young men and girls, playingsnap-the-whip. They "snapped" just as they reached Jerry. The end girlflew off and bumped, screaming with joy, into Jerry's arms. He lookedfuriously over her head towards Sylvia, but she had been enveloped ina ring and was being conveyed away to the accompaniment of the usualsqueals and shouts. The Colonel had come down to take them all back, she was informed, and was waiting for them with the sleigh. 

CHAPTER XIX

AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE

Sylvia dressed for dinner literally like one in a dream. Outwardly shewas so calm that she thought she was so inwardly. It was nothing likeso exciting as people said, to get engaged, she thought as she brushedout her hair and put it up in a big, gleaming knot. Here she had beenengaged for a whole hour and a half, and was getting calmer everyminute, instead of the reverse. She astonished herself by the lucidityof her brain, although it only worked by snatches--there being lacunaewhen she could not have told what she was doing. And yet, as she hadapproached the house, sitting again beside the Colonel, she had lookedwith a new thrill of interest at its imposing battlemented façade. Thegreat hall had seemed familiar to her already as she stepped acrossit on her way to the stairs, her feet had pressed the rugs withassurance, she had been able to be quite nonchalant about refusing theservices of the maid who offered to help her dress. 

It was true that from time to time she suddenly flushed or paled; itwas true that her mind seemed incapable of the slightest consecutivethought; it was true that she seemed to be in a dream, peopled bycrazily inconsequent images--she had again and again a vision, startlingly vivid, of the red-twigged osier beside which she hadstood; it was true that she had a slight feeling of vertigo when shetried to think ahead of the next moment--but still she was going aheadwith her unpacking and dressing so steadily that she marveled. Shedecided again from the depth of her experience that getting engagedwas nothing like so upsetting an event as people made out. She thrustthe last pin into her hair and tipped her head preeningly before thebig triplicate mirror--the first time she had ever encountered thisluxury outside of a ready-made clothes shop. The yellow chiffoncame out from the trunk in perfect condition, looking like a big, silk-petaled flower as she slipped it on over her bare shoulders, andemerged above, triumphant and yet half afraid to look at herself inthe mirror lest she should see that her home-made toilet had not "theright look. " One glance satisfied even her jealous eagerness. It hadexactly the right look--that is, it looked precisely like the picturefrom which she had copied it. She gazed with naïve satisfaction at thefaithfulness with which her reflected appearance resembled that of theParisian demi-mondaine whose photograph she had seen, and settledon her slim, delicately modeled shoulders the straps of shirred andbeaded chiffon which apparently performed the office of keeping herdress from sliding to the floor. In reality, under its fluid, gauzydraperies, it was constructed on a firm, well-fitting, well-fastenedfoundation of opaque cloth which quite adequately clothed the youngbody, but its appearance was of a transparent cloud, only kept fromfloating entirely away by those gleaming straps on the shoulders, aneffect carefully calculated in the original model, and inimitablycaught by Sylvia's innocent fingers. 

She turned herself about, artlessly surprised to see that her neck andshoulders looked quite like those of the women in the fashion-platesand the magazine illustrations. She looked at the clock. It was earlyyet. She reflected that she never _could_ take the time other girlsdid in dressing. She wondered what they did. What could one do, afterone's bath was taken, one's hair done, and one's gown donned--oh, ofcourse, powder! She applied it liberally, and then wiped away everygrain, that being what she had seen older girls do in the Gymnasiumdressing-room. Then with a last survey of her face, unaltered by theceremonial with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door. 

But there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by aninexplicable hesitation about opening the door and showing herself. She looked down at her bare shoulders and bosom, and faintly blushed. It was really very, very low, far lower than any dress she had everworn! And the fact that Eleanor Hubert, that all the "swell" girlswore theirs low, did not for the moment suffice her--it was somehowdifferent--their showing their shoulders and her showing her own. She could not turn the knob and stood, irresolute, frowning vaguely, though not very deeply disquieted. Finally she compromised by takingup a pretty spangled scarf Aunt Victoria had sent her, wrapping itabout her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in moreconfidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. Half-way downshe met Colonel Fiske just coming up to dress. Seeing one of his youngguests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the firstwords rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware which guestshe was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practisedeyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement, of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck andarms. He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressingit to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. Sylvia blushedprettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy unconsciousness, and smiling frankly up into the deeply lined carnal face with thesimple-hearted pleasure she would have felt at the kind word of anyelderly man. The Colonel seemed quite old to her--much older than herfather--like Professor Kennedy. 

"Jerry's in the library, waiting, " his father announced with a slylaugh. "I wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead oftime. " He turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving Sylviato go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promisedto marry. As she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf, loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her excitement andhung lightly about her shoulders. 

The door to the library was shut. She opened it with a rapidly beatingheart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesitating to advance further, looking with agitation at the stalwart, handsome, well-groomed figurewhich stood in an attitude of impatient expectation by the window. Except for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the porchoutside, the big room was in twilight. In the brilliantly lighteddoor-opening, she stood revealed as by a searchlight. 

At the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken in a quaveringvoice, the young man turned, paused an instant as if blinded by thevision, and sprang forward. The door behind Sylvia swung shut, and hereyes, widening in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rushupon her of her lover. She was enfolded strongly in muscular arms, she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful body, whose heatburned through the thin broadcloth, she was breathless, stunned, choked. As the man bent forward over her, clasping her to him, herflexible spine bent and her head drooped backward, her face with itsflush all gone, gleaming white in the dusk. At this he rained kisseson it, on her eyes, hair, cheeks, mouth, the burning softness of hisfull lips seeming to leave a smear on her skin where they pressed it. Still holding her with one arm, pressed to him as though the two youngbodies were gripped together by a vice, he loosened the other arm andthrust it at the back of her dress, through the flimsy gauze of herscarf, down next her body. His stiff cuff caught on the edge of herdress, and his sleeve slid up--it was his bare arm against her nakedflesh. He gave a savage, smothered, gasping exclamation, pressed hisfingers deeply into her side, still kissing her passionately, herneck, her shoulders, burying his hot face in her bosom. 

It was the girl's body which acted, since at the first instant of thewhirlwind which had broken over her, her mind had been shocked intoa swooning paralysis. Only her strong, sound body, hardened by work, fortified by outdoor exercise, was ready in its every fiber for thismoment. Her body bent suddenly like a spring of fine steel, itsstrength momentarily more than a match for his, and thrust the manfrom her with staggering violence. Her reaction from him was asphysical a sensation as though she had bitten into a tempting fruitand found it not sweet--not even bitter--but nasty. She sickened atthe sight of him. 

As he caught his balance, laughing a little but not at allgood-naturedly, and started back towards her with a dangerous darkface of excited anger and desire, his headlong rush was checked aninstant by the fierce eyes which flamed at him from her crimson face. Even her neck and shoulders were now scarlet. She held him off for thespace of a breath, giving one deep exclamation, "_Oh_!" short, sharplyexhaled, almost like a blow in his face. 

But his blood was up as well as hers, and after his momentary pause, he rushed forward again, his handsome, blond face black with passion. 

Sylvia stooped, gathered up her skirts, turned, burst open the door, and fled out of the room, running in her high-heeled satin slippers asshe did on the track in the Gymnasium, with long, deer-like bounds. Ina flash she had crossed the wide hall--which was as it happened empty, although she would not have slackened her pace for all the assembledcompany--and was darting arrow-like up the stairs, her torn scarfflying behind her like a banner. Her flight had been so unexpectedand so swift that young Fiske did not attempt to follow her; but shereached her room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as muchprecipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of standing quitestill, open-mouthed, where she had left him. 

The sharp crack of her slamming door, loud in the quiet house, brokethe spell which held him. His mouth shut, and his clenched handsloosened from their fierce tension. He took an aimless step and drew along breath. A moment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for hiscigarette-case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted itwith fingers that were not steady. The familiar action and the firstpuff of smoke affected him like emerging from a turmoil of darknessinto the quiet and order of a well-lighted room. "Well, may I bedamned!" he said to himself with the beginning of a return of hisusual assurance--"the damn little spitfire!"

He walked about the room, puffing vigorously, feeling with relief hisblood resume its usual rate of circulation. His head seemed to clearof a thick vapor. The startling recollection of the anger in hisfiancée's eyes was fading rapidly from his mind. Now he only saw her, blushing, recoiling, fleeing--he laughed out a little, this time notangrily, but with relish. "Ain't she the firebrand!" he said aloud. Hefound his desire for her a hundredfold enhanced and stood still, hiseyes very lustrous, feeling again in imagination the warm softness ofher bosom under his lips. "Gee!" he exclaimed, turning restlessly inhis pacing walk. 

He was aware that some one in the room moved. "Jermain, " said hisstepmother's faint voice. He looked at her smiling. "Hello, Momma, " hesaid good-naturedly, "when did _you_ gum-shoe in?"

"Oh, just now, " she told him, giving him an assurance which hedoubted, and which he would not have valued had he known it tobe true. He was perfectly indifferent as to the chance that thisnegligible person might have been a spectator to the scene between theson of the house and a guest. If she said anything about it, he meantto give the all-sufficing explanation that he and Miss Marshall hadjust become engaged. This would of course, it seemed self-evident tohim, make it all right. 

But Mrs. Fiske did not make any remark calling forth that information. She only said, in her usual listless manner, "Your sleeve is shovedup. "

He glanced down in surprise, realizing how excited he must be not tohave noticed that before, and remained for a moment silent, looking atthe splendidly muscular white arm, and the large well-manicuredhand. He was feeling in every nerve the reminiscence of the yieldingfirmness of Sylvia's flesh, bare against his own. The color came upflamingly into his face again. He moistened his lips with his tongue. "Jesus _Christ_!" he exclaimed, contemptuously careless of hislistener, "I'm wild in love with that girl!" He pulled his sleeve downwith a quick, vigorous gesture, deftly shot the cuff out beyond theblack broadcloth, and, the picture of handsome, well-groomed youth ineasy circumstances, turned again to his father's wife. "What you inhere _for_, anyhow?" he asked still with his light absence of concernabout anything she did or did not do. 

She hesitated, looking about the room. "I thought Miss Marshall wouldbe here. She promised to come down early to write the names on theplace-cards. I thought I heard her voice. "

"You did, " he told her. "She came down early all right--but she wentback again. " He laughed, tossed his cigarette-end in the fireplace, and vouchsafing no more explanation, strolled into the billiard-room, and began to knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune withgreat precision and vivacity. He was anticipating with quickened bloodthe next meeting with Sylvia. As he thrust at the gleaming balls, hismouth smiled and his eyes burned. 

Mrs. Fiske went upstairs and knocked at Sylvia's door. There was arush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from the other side in amuffled voice, "Who is it?" Mrs. Fiske gave her name, and added, inanswer to another question, that she was alone. The door opened enoughfor her to enter, and closed quickly after her. She looked about thedisordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of yellowchiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and crumpled spangledscarf, and Sylvia herself, her hastily donned kimono clutched abouther with tense hands. 

The mistress of the house made no comment on this scene, looking atSylvia with dull, faded eyes in which there was no life, not even theflicker of an inquiry. But Sylvia began in a nervous voice to attemptan explanation: "Oh, Mrs. Fiske--I--you'll have to excuse me--I mustgo home at once--I--I was just packing. I thought--if I hurried Icould make the eight-o'clock trolley back to La Chance, and you couldsend my trunk after me. " Her every faculty was so concentrated on thesingle idea of flight--flight back to the safety of home, that she didnot think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason forher action. It seemed that it must be self-evident to the universethat she could not stay another hour in that house. 

Mrs. Fiske nodded. "Yes, I'll send your trunk after you, " she said. She drew a long breath, almost audible, and looked down at the fire onthe hearth. Sylvia came up close to her, looking into her lusterlesseyes with deep entreaty. "And, Mrs. Fiske, _would_ you mind nottelling any one I'm going, until I'm gone--_nobody_ at all! It'sbecause--I--you could say I didn't feel well enough to come down todinner. I--if you--and say I don't want any dinner up here either!"

"Won't you be afraid to go down through the grounds to the trolleyalone, at night?" asked Mrs. Fiske, without looking at her. 

"Everybody will be at dinner, won't they?" asked Sylvia. 

Mrs. Fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor. 

Upon which, "Oh no, I won't be afraid!" cried Sylvia. 

Her hostess turned to the door. "Well, I won't tell them if you don'twant me to, " she said. She went out, without another word, closing thedoor behind her. Sylvia locked it, and went on with her wild packing. When she came to the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly andjammed it into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward shesnatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire. The light fabriccaught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room with a roaringheat and flare, which almost as quickly died down to blackenedsilence. 

Sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set jaw and adeeply flushed face. It did not look at all like her own face. 

At a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk strapped andlocked, and Sylvia stood dressed for the street, gloved, veiled, andfurred. Under her veil her face showed still very flushed. She took upher small handbag and her umbrella and opened the door with caution. A faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up to herears. Dinner was evidently in full swing. She stepped out and wentnoiselessly down the stairs. On the bottom step, close to thedining-room door, her umbrella-tip caught in the balustrade and fellwith a loud clatter on the bare polished floor of the hall. Sylviashrank into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath forthe pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed must follow. Themoment was forever connected in her mind with the smell of delicatefood, and fading flowers, and human beings well-washed and perfumed, which floated out to her from the dining-room. She looked about her atthe luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every inch of it. 

If the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something dropped by aservant, for Colonel Fiske, who was telling a humorous story, went on, his recital punctuated by bass and treble anticipatory laughter fromhis auditors: "--and when he called her upon the 'phone the next dayto ask her about it, she said _she_ didn't know he'd been there atall!" A roar of appreciation greeted this recondite climax, undercover of which Sylvia opened the front door and shut it behind her. 

The pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and gratefully onher senses after the warmth and indoor odors of the house. She sprangforward along the porch and down the steps, distending her nostrilsand filling her lungs again and again. These long deep breaths seemedto her like the renewal of life. 

As her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she heard a stealthysound back of her, at which her heart leaped up and stood still. Thefront door of the house had opened very quietly and shut again. Shelooked over her shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, but seeing only Mrs. Fiske's tall, stooping figure, stopped and turnedexpectantly. The older woman came down the steps towards the fugitive, apparently unaware of the biting winter wind on her bared shoulders. Quite at a loss, and suspiciously on her guard, Sylvia waited for her, searching the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry. 

"I--I thought I'd walk with you a little ways, " said the other, looking down at her guest. 

"Oh no! _Don't_!" pleaded Sylvia in despair lest some one notice herhostess' absence. "You'll take a dreadful cold! With no wraps on--_do_go back! I'm not a bit afraid!"

The other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising through theashes of her gray face. "It wasn't that--I didn't suppose you'dbe afraid--I--I just thought I'd like to go a ways with you, "she repeated, bringing out the words confusedly and with obviousdifficulty. "_I_ won't make you late, " she added, as if guessing thegirl's thoughts. She put a thin hand on Sylvia's arm and drew herrapidly along the driveway. For a moment they walked in silence. Then, "How soon will you reach home?" she asked. 

"Oh, about a quarter to ten--the Interurban gets into La Chanceat nine-fifteen, and it's about half an hour across town on theWashington Street trolley. "

"In less than two hours!" cried Mrs. Fiske wildly. "In less than twohours!"

Seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming atall this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer. There was anothersilence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girlsaw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down hercheeks. She stopped short, "Oh . . . _oh_!" she cried. She caught up theother's hand in a bewildered surprise. She had not the faintest ideawhat could cause her hostess' emotion. She was horribly afraid shewould lose the trolley. Her face painted vividly her agitation and herimpatience. 

Mrs. Fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with her palm. "Well, I must be going back, " she said. She looked dimly at the girl's face, and suddenly threw her arms about Sylvia's neck, clinging to her. Shemurmured incoherent words, the only ones which Sylvia could make outbeing, "I can't--I can't--I _can't!_"

What it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable mystery toSylvia, for at that moment she turned away quickly, and went back upthe driveway, her face in her hands. Sylvia hesitated, penetrated, in spite of her absorption in her own affairs, by a vague pity, buthearing in the distance the clang of the trolley-car's bell, sheherself turned and ran desperately down the driveway. She reached thepublic road just in time to stop the heavy car, and to swing herselflightly on, to all appearances merely a rather unusually well-set-up, fashionably dressed young lady, presenting to the heterogeneousindifference of the other passengers in the car even a moreostentatiously abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for youngladies traveling alone. One or two of her fellow voyagers wondered atthe deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment. It was astain which was not entirely to fade from Sylvia's face and body formany days to come. 

CHAPTER XX

"BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!"

She reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock, herunexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of exclamation andquestion not to be suppressed even by the most self-contained familywith a fixed desire to let its members alone, and a firm tradition ofnot interfering in their private affairs. Judith had come home beforeher father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wonderingeyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing hadhappened to break up or disturb the house-party. "I just _felt_ likecoming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw bythe friendly loving eyes and voices about her. She was glad at leastthat her father was not at home. That was one less to look at her. 

"Well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to herimpatient explanation. "And, you children--keep still! Don't botherher!"

Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilingedroom, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. Her knees shookunder her. She made no move to take off her furs or hat. She felt noemotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had beenbeaten. Her mother, coming in five minutes later with a lighted lampand a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment at finding her stillsitting, fully dressed in the dark. She set the lamp down, and withswift deftness slipped out hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned andunlaced and loosened, until Sylvia woke from her lethargy and quicklycompleted the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting into bed. Not a word had been exchanged. Mrs. Marshall brought the cup of hotchocolate and Sylvia drank it as though she were a little girl again. Her mother kissed her good-night, drew the blankets a little moresnugly over her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and shutthe door. 

Sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched at full lengthin the bed, breathing in the fresh air which rushed across her facefrom the windows, feeling herself in a white beatitude of safety andpeace. Especially did she feel grateful to her mother. "Isn't Mother_great_!" she said to herself. Everything that had passed seemed likea confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she wasamazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with drowsiness. Nowthe rôles were reversed. It was her brain that was active, racing andshuddering from one frightening mental picture to another, while herbody, young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor, dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of oblivion. Thecold, pure air blew so strongly in her face that she closed her eyes. When she opened them again the sun was shining. 

She started up nervously, still under the influence of a vividdream--strange. . . . Then as she blinked and rubbed her eyes she saw hermother standing by the bed, with a pale, composed face. 

"It's nine o'clock, Sylvia, " she said, "and Mr. Fiske is downstairs, asking to see you. He tells me that you and he are engaged to bemarried. "

Sylvia was instantly wide awake. "Oh no! Oh no!" she saidpassionately. "No, we're not! I won't be! I won't see him!" Shelooked about her wildly, and added, "I'll write him that--just wait aminute. " She sprang out of bed, caught up a pad of paper, and wrotehastily: "It was all a mistake--I don't care for you at all--not abit! I hope I shall never have to speak to you again. " "There, " shesaid, thrusting it into her mother's hands. She stood for a moment, shivering in her thin nightgown in the icy draught, and then jumpedback into bed again. 

Her mother came back in a few moments, closed the windows, and openedthe register. There was not in her silence or in a line of her quietpresence the faintest hint of curiosity about Sylvia's actions. She had always maintained in theory, and now at this crisis withcharacteristic firmness of purpose acted upon her theory, thatabsolutely unforced confidence was the only kind worth having, andthat moreover, unless some help was necessary, it might be as well forthe younger generation early to acquire the strengthening capacity tokeep its own intimate experiences to the privacy of its own soul, and learn to digest them and feed upon them without the dubiouslypeptonizing aid of blundering adult counsel. Sylvia watched her motherwith wondering gratitude. She wasn't going to ask! She was going tolet Sylvia shut that ghastly recollection into the dark once forall. She wasn't going by a look or a gesture to force her helplesslyresponsive child to give, by words, weight and substance to a black, shapeless horror from which Sylvia with a vivid impulse of sanityaverted her eyes. 

She got out of bed and put her arms around her mother's neck. "Say, Mother, you are _great_!" she said in an unsteady voice. Mrs. Marshallpatted her on the back. 

"You'd better go and take your bath, and have your breakfast, " shesaid calmly. "Judith and Lawrence have gone skating. "

When Sylvia, tingling with the tonic shock of cold water and roughtoweling, and rosy in her old blue sailor-suit, came downstairs, shefound her mother frying pancakes for her in the kitchen blue withsmoke from the hot fat. She was touched, almost shocked by thisstrange lapse from the tradition of self-help of the house, and saidwith rough self-accusation: "My goodness! The idea of _your_ waitingon _me_!" She snatched away the handle of the frying-pan and turnedthe cakes deftly. Then, on a sudden impulse, she spoke to her mother, standing by the sink. "I came back because I found I didn't like JerryFiske as much as I thought I did. I found I didn't like him at all, "she said, her eyes on the frying-pan. 

At this announcement her mother's face showed pale, and for an instanttremulous through the smoke. She did not speak until Sylvia liftedthe cakes from the pan and piled them on a plate. At this signal ofdeparture into the dining-room she commented, "Well, I won't pretendthat I'm not very glad. "

Sylvia flushed a little and looked towards her silently. She had apartial, momentary vision of what the past two months must have beento her mother. The tears stood in her eyes. "Say, Mother dear, " shesaid in a quavering voice that tried to be light, "why don't you eatsome of these cakes to keep me company? It's 'most ten. You must havehad breakfast three hours ago. It'd be fun! I can't begin to eat allthese. "

"Well, I don't care if I do, " answered Mrs. Marshall. Sylvia laughedat the turn of her phrase and went into the dining-room. Mrs. Marshallfollowed in a moment with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. Sylvia pulled her down and kissed her. "You'd prescribe hot chocolatefor anything from getting religion to a broken leg!" she said, laughing. Her voice shook and her laugh ended in a half-sob. 

"No--oh no!" returned her mother quaintly. "Sometimes hot milk isbetter. Here, where is my share of those cakes?" She helped herself, went around the table, and sat down. "Cousin Parnelia was herethis morning, " she went on. "Poor old idiot, she was certain thatplanchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told herto go ahead--but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it tothe blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house. "

Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her mother, refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, shetried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. But inspite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes--above all, the handsome blond face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly, her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her handstrembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. She was silentand talkative by turns--a phenomenon of which Mrs. Marshall took nooutward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent herdaughter out into the piercing December air with the command towalk six miles before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect ofsolitude. "Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry!" shecried. 

"Well, if you skate hard enough, " her mother conceded. 

 * * * * *

The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from Jermain Fiske, a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous ofthe seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled toit. The upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had doneanything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded ifhe thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! Everything hadbeen going on so swimmingly--his father had taken the greatest notionto her--had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way)that if he married that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could havethe house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and couldpractise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once intopolitics--and now she had gone and acted so--what in the world wasthe matter with her--weren't they engaged to be married--couldn't anengaged man kiss his girl--had he ever been anything but too politefor words to her before she had promised to marry him--and what_about_ that promise anyhow? His father had picked out the prettiestlittle mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should beannounced--the Colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out--ifthe trouble was that she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was surethe Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washington, wherewith his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'dhave! And above all he was crazy about her--he really was! He'd neverhad any idea what it was to be in love before--he hadn't slept a winkthe night she'd gone away--just tossed on his bed and thought of herand longed to have her in his arms again--Sylvia suddenly tore theletter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard. In answer shewrote, "It makes me sick to think of you!"

She could not endure the idea of "talking over" the experience withany one, and struggled to keep it out of her mind, but her resolutionto keep silence was broken by Mrs. Draper, who was informed, presumably by Jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encounteringSylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by thegirl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiouslyfriendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance ofher friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirlwho was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for thequeerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "What did you suppose, youbaby? You wouldn't have him marry you unless he was in love with you, would you? Why do you suppose a man _wants_ to marry a woman? Did yousuppose that men in love carry their sweethearts around wrapped incotton-wool? You're a woman now, you ought to welcome life--rich, full-blooded life--not take this chilly, suspicious attitude towardit! Why, Sylvia, I thought you were a big, splendid, vital, fearlessmodern girl--and here you are acting like a little, thin-blooded NewEngland old maid. How can you blame Jerry? He was engaged to you. Whatdo you think marriage _is_? Oh, Sylvia, just think what your lifewould be in Washington with your beauty and charm!"

This dexterously aimed attack penetrated Sylvia's armor at a dozenjoints. She winced visibly, and hung her head, considering profoundly. She found that she had nothing to oppose to the other's arguments. Mrs. Draper walked beside her in a silence as dexterous as herexhortation, her hand affectionately thrust through Sylvia's arm. Finally, Sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they wereapproaching the Marshall house, in sight of which she had no mind toappear, she gave Sylvia's arm a little pat, and stood still. She saidcheerfully, in a tone which seemed to minimize the whole affair intothe smallest of passing incidents: "Now, you queer darling, don'tstand so in your own light! A word would bring Jerry back to younow--but I won't say it will always. I don't suppose you've everconsidered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have hurt hisfeelings! He was awfully sore when I saw him. And Eleanor Hubert isright on the spot with Mamma Hubert in the background to push. "

Sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing scarlet, "Hewas--_horrid_!"

Mrs. Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "Dear littleignorant Sylvia--you don't recognize life when you see it. That's theway men are--all men--and there's no use thinking it horrid unlessyou're going into a convent. It's not so bad either, --once you get thehang of managing it--it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any otherforce of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to youraccount and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try toquarrel with water for running downhill. As long as she herself isn'tcarried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Onlythe stupid women get hurt by it--the silly ones who can't keep theirheads. And after all, my dear, it _is_ a force of nature--and you'retoo intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that. It's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it--and doesn't do anygood besides!" She looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubledface, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "_Good_-bye, darling, " she said, with a final pat on the shoulder. 

Sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead. Her food hadno savor to her. She did not know what she was eating, nor what hermother, the only one at home for lunch, was saying to her. As a matterof fact Mrs. Marshall said very little, even less than was her custom. Her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had wornduring the time when Lawrence had had pneumonia, and his life had hungin the balance for two days; but she went quietly about her usualhousehold tasks. 

After the meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper'silluminating comments on life, which had gone through her entiresystem like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingeniouslady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack hadfailed in the one point which seemed to her important, the possibilityof a reconciliation between Sylvia and Jermain. The girl was deeplyunder the impression made by the philosophy of the older woman; shedid not for the moment dream of denying its truth; but she stoodgranite in a perfectly illogical denial of its implications in her owncase. She did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that sherenew her relations to Jerry Fiske, because with a united action ofall her faculties she refused utterly to consider it for an instant. She would no more have been persuaded to see Jerry again, by aconsideration of the material advantages to be gained, than she couldhave been persuaded to throw herself down from the housetop. Thatmuch was settled, not by any coherent effort of her brain, but by aco-ordination of every instinct in her, by the action of her wholebeing, by what her life had made her. 

But that certainty brought her small comfort in the blackness of thehour. What hideous world was this in which she had walked unawaresuntil now! Mrs. Draper's jaunty, bright acceptance of it affected herto moral nausea. All the well-chosen words of her sophisticated friendwere imbedded in the tissue of her brain like grains of sand in aneyeball. She could not see for very pain. And yet her inward visionwas lurid with the beginning of understanding of the meaning of thosewords, lighted up as they were by her experience of the day before, now swollen in her distraught mind to the proportions of a nightmare:"It's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman--it's not so bad onceyou get the hang of managing it--it's a hold on men--" Sylvia turnedwhiter and whiter at the glimpse she had had of what was meant byMrs. Draper's lightly evasive "it"; a comprehension of which all her"advanced" reading and study had left her mind as blankly ignorant asa little child's. Now it was vain to try to shut her thoughts awayfrom Jermain. She lived over and over the scene with him, she enduredwith desperate passivity the recollection of his burning lips on herbosom, his fingers pressing into her side. Why not, if every man waslike that as soon as he dared? Why not, if that was all that menwanted of women? Why not, if that was the sole ghastly reality whichunderlay the pretty-smooth surface of life?

And beyond this bleak prospect, which filled her with dreary horror, there rose glimpsed vistas which sent the shamed blood up to her facein a flood--if every man was like that, why, so were the men she hadknown and loved and trusted; old Reinhardt, who seemed so simple, what had been his thoughts when he used years ago to take her on hisknee--what were his thoughts now when he bent over her to correct hermistakes on the piano?

The expression of Colonel Fiske's eyes, as he had complimented her, brought her to her feet with a shudder--but Colonel Fiske was an old, old man--as old as Professor Kennedy--

Why, perhaps Professor Kennedy--perhaps--she flung out herarms--perhaps her father--

She ran to the piano as to a refuge, meaning to drown out thesemaddening speculations, which were by this time tinctured withinsanity; but the first chords she struck jarred on her ear like adiscordant scream. She turned away and stood looking at the floor witha darkening face, one hand at her temple. 

 * * * * *

Her mother, darning stockings by the window, suddenly laid down herwork and said: "Sylvia, how would you like to walk with me over to theMartins' to see if they have any eggs? Our hens have absolutely goneback on us. "

Sylvia did not welcome this idea at all, feeling as overwhelming anaversion to companionship as to solitude, but she could think of noexcuse, and in an ungracious silence put on her wraps and joined hermother, ready on the porch, the basket in her mittened hand. 

Mrs. Marshall's pace was always swift, and on that crisp, cold, sunnyday, with the wind sweeping free over the great open spaces of theplain about them, she walked even more rapidly than usual. Not a wordwas spoken. Sylvia, quite as tall as her mother now, and as vigorous, stepped beside her, not noticing their pace, nor the tingling of theswift blood in her feet and hands. Her fresh young face was set indesolate bitterness. 

The Martins' house was about six miles from the Marshalls'. It wasreached, the eggs procured, and the return begun. Still not a word hadbeen exchanged between the two women. Mrs. Marshall would have beeneasily capable, under the most ordinary circumstances, of this longself-contained silence, but it had worked upon Sylvia like a sojournin the dim recesses of a church. She felt moved, stirred, shaken. Butit was not until the brief winter sun was beginning to set redacross the open reaches of field and meadow that her poisoned heartoverflowed. "Oh, Mother--!" she exclaimed in an unhappy tone, and saidno more. She knew no words to phrase what was in her mind. 

"Yes, dear, " said her mother gently. She looked at her daughteranxiously, expectantly, with a passion of yearning in her eyes, butshe said no more than those two words. 

There was a silence. Sylvia was struggling for expression. Theycontinued to walk swiftly through the cold, ruddy, sunset air, thehard-frozen road ringing beneath their rapid advance. Sylvia claspedher hands together hard in her muff. She felt that something in herheart was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that itwould die if she brought it to light. She could find no words at allto ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence impossible for an adultto conceive. Finally, beginning at random, very hurriedly, lookingaway, she brought out, faltering, "Mother, _is_ it true that all menare--that when a girl marries she must expect to--aren't there _any_men who--" She stopped, burying her burning face in her muff. 

Her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in her accent, brought her mother up short. She stopped abruptly and faced the girl. "Sylvia, look at me!" she said in a commanding voice which rang loudin the frosty silences about them. Sylvia started and looked into hermother's face. It was moved so darkly and so deeply from its usualserene composure that she would have recoiled in fear, had she notbeen seized upon and held motionless by the other's compelling eyes. 

"Sylvia, " said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutelycontrasted to Sylvia's muffled tones, "Sylvia, it's a lie that menare nothing but sensual! There's nothing in marriage that a good girlhonestly in love with a good man need fear. "

"But--but--" began Sylvia, startled out of her shyness. 

Her mother cut her short. "Anything that's felt by decent men in loveis felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by womenin love. And if a woman doesn't feel that answer in her heart to whathe feels--why, he's no mate for her. Anything's better for her thangoing on. And, Sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. Sensual feelingisn't bad in itself. It's in the world because we have bodies as wellas minds--it's like the root of a plant. But it oughtn't to be a verybig part of the plant. And it must be the root of the woman's feelingas well as the man's, or everything's all wrong. "

"But how can you _tell_!" burst out Sylvia. 

"You can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to yourself, orlet things like money or social position count. If an honestgirl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's something notright--sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her--andlook here, Sylvia, that's not always the man's fault. Women don'trealize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by theirbodies, " she made her position clear with relentless precision, "whenthey wear very low-necked dresses, for instance--" At this chancethrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over Sylvia's face, butshe could not withdraw her eyes from her mother's searching, honestgaze, which, even more than her words, spoke to the girl's soul. Thestrong, grave voice went on unhesitatingly. For once in her lifeMrs. Marshall was speaking out. She was like one who welcomes theopportunity to make a confession of faith. "There's no healthy lifepossible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life whenit's the only common ground. "

Sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman's face, ardent, compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize it wholly, the vital and momentous character of the moment. She seemed to seenothing, to be aware of nothing but her mother's heroic eyes of truth;but the whole scene was printed on her mind for all her life--thehard, brown road they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of Mrs. Marshall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-trees, and beyond and around them the immense sweeping circle of the horizon. The very breath of the pure, scentless winter air was to come back toher nostrils in after years. 

"Sylvia, " her mother went on, "it is one of the responsibilities ofmen and women to help each other to meet on a high plane and not ona low one. And on the whole--health's the rule of the world--onthe whole, that's the way the larger number of husbands and wives, imperfect as they are, do live together. Family life wouldn't bepossible a day if they didn't. "

Like a strong and beneficent magician, she built up again andilluminated Sylvia's black and shattered world. "Your father is justas pure a man as I am a woman, and I would be ashamed to look anychild of mine in the face if he were not. You know no men who are notdecent--except two--and those you did not meet in your parents' home. "

For the first time she moved from her commanding attitude of propheticdignity. She came closer to Sylvia, but although she looked at herwith a sudden sweetness which affected Sylvia like a caress, she butmade one more impersonal statement: "Sylvia dear, don't let anythingmake you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world aswomen, and they're just as decent. Life isn't worth living unless youknow that--and it's true. " Apparently she had said all she had to say, for she now kissed Sylvia gently and began again to walk forward. 

The sun had completely set, and the piled-up clouds on the horizonflamed and blazed. Sylvia stood still, looking at them fixedly. Thegreat shining glory seemed reflected from her heart, and cast itslight upon a regenerated world--a world which she seemed to see forthe first time. Strange, in that moment of intensely personal life, how her memory was suddenly flooded with impersonal impressions ofchildhood, little regarded at the time and long since forgotten, but now recurring to her with the authentic and uncontrovertiblebrilliance which only firsthand experiences in life can bring withthem--all those families of her public-school mates, the plain, uglyhomes in and out of which she had come and gone, with eyes apparentlyoblivious of all but childish interests, but really recordinglife-facts which now in her hour of need stretched under her feet likea solid pathway across an oozing marsh. All those men and women whomshe had seen in a thousand unpremeditated acts, those tired-faced, kind-eyed, unlettered fathers and mothers were not breathing poisonedair, were not harboring in their simple lives a ghastly devouringwild-beast. She recalled with a great indrawn breath all thefarmer-neighbors, parents working together for the children, thepeople she knew so well from long observation of their lives, whosemediocre, struggling existence had filled her with scornful pity, butwhom now she recalled with a great gratitude for the explicitness ofthe revelations made by their untutored plainness. For all she couldever know, the Drapers and the Fiskes and the others of theirworld might be anything, under the discreet reticence of theirsophistication; but they did not make up all the world. She knew, fromhaving breathed it herself, the wind of health which blew about thoseother lives, bare and open to the view, as less artless lives werenot. There was some other answer to the riddle, beside Mrs. Draper's. 

Sylvia was only eighteen years old and had the childish immaturity ofher age, but her life had been so ordered that she was not, even ateighteen, entirely in the helpless position of a child who must dependon the word of others. She had accumulated, unknown to herself, quiteapart from polished pebbles of book-information, a small treasuryof living seeds of real knowledge of life, taken in at first-hand, knowledge of which no one could deprive her. The realization of thiswas a steadying ballast which righted the wildly rolling keel underher feet. She held up her head bravely against the first onslaught ofthe storm. She set her hand to the rudder!

Perceiving that her mother had passed on ahead of her she sprangforward in a run. She ran like a schoolboy, like a deer, like a manfrom whose limbs heavy shackles have been struck off. She felt sosuddenly lightened of a great heaviness that she could have clappedher hands over her head and bounded into the air. She was, after all, but eighteen years old, and three years before had been a child. 

She came up to her mother with a rush, radiating life. Mrs. Marshalllooked at the glowing face and her own eyes, dry till then, filledwith the tears so rare in her self-controlled life. She put out herhand, took Sylvia's, and they sped along through the quick-gatheringdusk, hand-in-hand like sisters. 

Judith and Lawrence had reached home before them, and the low brownhouse gleamed a cheerful welcome to them from shining windows. For thefirst time in her life, Sylvia did not take for granted her home, withall that it meant. For an instant it looked strangely sweet to her. She had a passing glimpse, soon afterwards lost in other impressions, of how in after years she would look back on the roof which hadsheltered and guarded her youth. 

She lay awake that night a long time, staring up into the coldblackness, her mind very active and restless in the intense stillnessabout her. She thought confusedly but intensely of many things--themonths behind her, of Jerry, of Mrs. Draper, of her yellow dress, of her mother--of herself. In the lucidity of those silent hours ofwakefulness she experienced for a time the piercing, regeneratingthrust of self-knowledge. For a moment the full-beating pulses of heryouth slackened, and between their throbs there penetrated to herperplexed young heart the rarest of human emotions, a sincerehumility. If she had not burned the yellow dress at Mercerton, shewould have arisen and burned it that night. . . . 

During the rest of the Christmas vacation she avoided being alone. Sheand Judith and Lawrence skated a great deal, and Sylvia learned atlast to cut the grapevine pattern on the ice. She also mastered thefirst movement of the Sonata Pathétique, so that old Reinhardt wasalmost satisfied. 

The day after the University opened for the winter term the Hubertsannounced the engagement of their daughter Eleanor to Jermain Fiske, Jr. , the brilliant son of that distinguished warrior and statesman, Colonel Jermain Fiske. Sylvia read this announcement in the SocietyColumn of the La Chance _Morning Herald_, with an enigmatic expressionon her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevineswith greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnitysurprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken thefirst step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved bythe fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking pityingly ofEleanor Hubert's sweet face. 

CHAPTER XXI

SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS

Judith had said to the family, taking no especial pains that hersister should not hear her, "Well, folks, now that Sylvia's gotthrough with that horrid Fiske fellow, I do hope we'll all have somepeace!" a remark which proved to be a prophecy. They all, includingSylvia herself, knew the tranquillity of an extended period of peace. 

It began abruptly, like opening a door into a new room. Sylvia haddreaded the beginning of the winter term and the inevitable sight ofJerry, the enforced crossings of their paths. But Jerry never returnedto his classes at all. The common talk was to the effect that theColonel had "worked his pull" to have Jerry admitted to the barwithout further preliminaries. After some weeks of relief, it occurredto Sylvia that perhaps Jerry had dreaded meeting her as much as shehad seeing him. For whatever reason, the campus saw young Fiske nomore, except on the day in May when he passed swiftly across it on hisway to the Hubert house where Eleanor, very small and white-faced, waited for him under a crown of orange blossoms. 

Sylvia did not go to the wedding, although an invitation had come, addressed economically and compendiously to "Professor and Mrs. Marshall and family. " It was a glorious spring day and in her Greekhistory course they had just reached the battle of Salamis, at themagnificent recital of which Sylvia's sympathetic imagination leapedup rejoicing, as all sympathetic imaginations have for all these manycenturies. She was thrilling to a remembered bit of "The Persians" asshe passed by the Hubert house late that afternoon. She was chantingto herself, "The right wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in goodorder, and we heard a mighty shout--'Sons of the Greeks! On! Free yourcountry!'" She did not notice that she trod swiftly across a trail ofsoiled rice in the Hubert driveway. 

She was like a person recovered from a fever who finds mere health acondition of joy. She went back to her music, to her neglected books, with a singing heart. And in accordance with the curious ways ofProvidence, noted in the proverb relating the different fates of himwho hath and him who hath not, there was at once added to her pleasurein the old elements of her life the very elements she had longed forunavailingly. Seeing her friendly and shining of face, friendlinesswent out to her. She had made many new acquaintances during her briefglittering flight and had innumerable more points of contact with theUniversity life than before. She was invited to a quite sufficientnumber of hops and proms, had quite the normal number of masculine"callers, " and was naïvely astonished and disillusioned to find thatthose factors in life were by no means as entirely desirable andamusing as her anguished yearning had fancied them. She joined one ofthe literary societies and took a leading part in their annual outdoorplay. At the beginning of her Junior year, Judith entered as aFreshman and thereafter became a close companion. Sylvia devouredcertain of her studies, history, and English, and Greek, withinsatiable zest and cast aside certain others like political economyand physics, which bored her, mastering just enough of their elementsto pass an examination and promptly forgetting them thereafter. Shegrew rapidly in intellectual agility and keenness, not at all inphilosophical grasp, and emotionally remained as dormant as a potatoin a cellar. 

She continually looked forward with a bright, vague interest to"growing up, " to the mastery of life which adolescents so trustfullyassociate with the arrival of adult years. She spent three more yearsin college, taking a Master's degree after her B. A. , and during thosethree years, through the many-colored, shifting, kaleidoscopic, disorganized life of an immensely populous institution of learning, she fled with rapid feet, searching restlessly everywhere for thatentity, as yet non-existent, her own soul. 

She had, in short, a thoroughly usual experience of modern Americaneducation, emerging at the end with a vast amount of information, withvery little notion of what it was all about, with Phi Beta Kappa and agreat wonder what she was to do with herself. 

Up to that moment almost every step of her life had been ordered andsystematized, that she might the more quickly and surely arrive at thegoal of her diploma. Rushing forward with the accumulated impetus ofyears of training in swiftly speeding effort, she flashed by the goal. . . And stopped short, finding herself in company with a majority ofher feminine classmates in a blind alley. "_Now_ what?" they askedeach other with sinking hearts. Judith looked over their heads withsteady eyes which saw but one straight and narrow path in life, andpassed on by them into the hospital where she began her nurse'straining. Sylvia began to teach music to a few children, to take onsome of Reinhardt's work as he grew older. She practised assiduously, advanced greatly in skill in music, read much, thought acutely, rebelliously and not deeply, helped Lawrence with his studies . . . Andwatched the clock. 

For there was no denying that the clock stood still. She was not goingforward to any settled goal now, she was not going forward at all. Shewas as far from suspecting any ordered pattern in the facts of life aswhen she had been in college, surrounded by the conspiracy ofsilence about a pattern in facts which university professors soconscientiously keep up before their students. She was slowlyrevolving in an eddy. Sometimes she looked at the deep, glowingcontent of her father and mother with a fierce resentment. "How _can_they!" she cried to herself. At other times she tried to chide herselffor not being as contented herself, ". . . But it's their life they'reliving, " she said moodily, "and I haven't any to live. I can't live ontheir happiness any more than the beefsteaks somebody else has eatencan keep me from starving to death. "

The tradition of her life was that work and plenty of it would keepoff all uneasiness, that it was a foolishness, not to say a downrightcrime, to feel uneasiness. So she practised many hours a day, and tooka post-graduate course in early Latin. But the clock stood still. 

One of the assistants in her father's department proposed to her. She refused him automatically, with a wondering astonishment at histrembling hands and white lips. Decidedly the wheels of the clockwould never begin to revolve. 

And then it struck an hour, loudly. Aunt Victoria wrote invitingSylvia to spend a few weeks with her during the summer at Lydford. 

Sylvia read this letter aloud to her mother on the vine-covered porchwhere she had sat so many years before, and repeated "star-light, star-bright" until she had remembered Aunt Victoria. Mrs. Marshallwatched her daughter's face as she read, and through the tones of theclear eager voice she heard the clock striking. It sounded to herremarkably like a tolling bell, but she gave no sign beyond a slightpaling. She told herself instantly that the slowly ticking clockhad counted her out several years of grace beyond what a mothermay expect. When Sylvia finished and looked up, the dulled look ofresignation swept from her face by the light of adventurous change, her mother achieved the final feat of nodding her head in prompt, cheerful assent. 

But when Sylvia went away, light-hearted, fleeting forward to newscenes, there was in her mother's farewell kiss a solemnity which shecould not hide. "Oh, Mother dear!" protested Sylvia, preferringas always to skim over the depths which her mother so dauntlesslyplumbed. "Oh, Mother darling! How can you be so--when it's only for afew weeks!"

BOOK III

_IN CAPUA AT LAST_

CHAPTER XXII

A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN

Arnold Smith put another lump of sugar on his saucer, poured outa very liberal allowance of rum into his tea, and reached for asandwich, balancing the cup and saucer with a deftness out of keepingwith his long, ungraceful loose-jointedness. He remarked in anindifferent tone to Sylvia, back of the exquisitely appointedtea-tray: "I don't say anything because I haven't the least idea whatyou are talking about. Who _was_ Capua, anyhow?"

Sylvia broke into a peal of laughter which rang like a silverchime through the vine-shaded, airy spaces of the pergola. Old Mr. Sommerville, nosing about in his usual five-o'clock quest, heardher and came across the stretch of sunny lawn to investigate. "Oh, _here's_ tea!" he remarked on seeing Arnold, lounging, white-flanneled, over his cup. He spoke earnestly, as was his customwhen eating was in question, and Sylvia served him earnestly andcarefully, with an instant harmonious response to his mood, puttingin exactly the right amount of rum and sugar to suit his taste, andturning the slim-legged "curate's assistant" so that his favoritesandwiches were nearest him. 

"You spoil the old gentlemen, Sylvia, " commented Arnold, evidentlycaring very little whether she did or not. 

"She spoils everybody, " returned Mr. Sommerville, tasting his teacomplacently; "'_c'est son métier. _' She has an uncanny instinct forsuiting everybody's taste. "

Sylvia smiled brightly at him, exactly the brilliant smile whichsuited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open eyes. Under hersmile she was saying to herself, "If that's so, I wonder--not that Icare at all--but I really wonder why you don't like me. "

Sylvia was encountering for the first time this summer a societyguided by tradition and formula, but she was not without excellentpreparation for almost any contact with her fellow-beings, apreparation which in some ways served her better than that moreconscious preparation of young ladies bred up from childhood tosit behind tea-tables and say the right things to tea-drinkers. Association with the crude, outspoken youth at the State Universityhad been an education in human nature, especially masculine nature, for her acute mind. Her unvarnished association with the other sex inclassroom and campus had taught her, by means of certain rough knockswhich more sheltered boarding-school girls never get, an accuracyof estimate as to the actual feeling of men towards the women theyprofess to admire unreservedly which (had he been able to conceive ofit) old Mr. Sommerville would have thought nothing less than cynical. 

But he did not conceive of it, and now sat, mellowed by therightness of his tea, white-haired, smooth-shaven, pink-gilled, white-waistcoated, the picture of old age at its best, as he smiledgallantly at the extremely pretty girl behind the table. Unlike Sylviahe knew exactly why he did not like her and he wasted no time inthinking about it. "What were you laughing about, so delightfully, asI came in, eh?" he asked, after the irretrievable first moment of joyin gratified appetite had gone. 

Sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explaining. In factshe always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old Mr. Sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "Why, thisvisit to Aunt Victoria is like stepping into another world for me. Everything is so different from my home-life. I was just thinking, asI sat there behind all this glorious clutter, " she waved a slim handover the silver and porcelain of the tea-table, "what a change itwas from setting the table one's self and washing up the dishesafterwards. That's what we always do at home. I hated it and I saidto Arnold, 'I've reached Capua at last!' and he said, " she stopped tolaugh again, heartily, full-throated, the not-to-be-imitated laugh ofgenuine amusement, "he said, 'Who is Capua, anyhow?'"

Mr. Sommerville laughed, but grudgingly, with an impatient shake ofhis white head and an uneasy look in his eyes. For several reasons hedid not like to hear Sylvia laugh at Arnold. He distrusted a younglady with too keen a sense of humor, especially when it was directedtowards the cultural deficiencies of a perfectly eligible young man. To an old inhabitant of the world, with Mr. Sommerville's views as tothe ambitions of a moneyless young person, enjoying a single, brieffling in the world of young men with fortunes, it seemed certain thatSylvia's lack of tactful reticence about Arnold's ignorance could onlybe based on a feeling that Arnold's fortune was not big enough. Shewas simply, he thought with dismay, reserving her tact and reticencefor a not-impossible bigger. His apprehensions about the fate of abigger of his acquaintance if its owner ever fell into the hands ofthis altogether too well-informed young person rose to a degree whichalmost induced him to cry out, "Really, you rapacious young creature, Arnold's is all any girl need ask, ample, well-invested, solid. . . . "But instead he said, "Humph! Rather a derogatory remark about yoursurroundings, eh?"

Arnold did not understand, did not even hear, leaning back, long, relaxed, apathetic, in his great wicker-chair and rolling a cigarettewith a detached air, as though his hands were not a part of him. But Sylvia heard, and understood, even to the hostility in the oldgentleman's well-bred voice. "Being in Capua usually referring to thefact that the Carthaginians went to pieces that winter?" she asked. "Oh yes, of course I know that. Good gracious! I was brought up on theidea of the dangers of being in Capua. Perhaps that's why I alwaysthought it would be such fun to get there. " She spoke rebelliously. 

"They got everlastingly beaten by the Romans, " advanced Mr. Sommerville. 

"Yes, but they had had one grand good time before! The Romans couldn'ttake _that_ away from them! I think the Carthaginians got the best ofit!" Provocative, light-hearted malice was in her sparkling face. Shewas thinking to herself with the reckless bravado of youth, "Well, since he insists, I'll _give_ him some ground for distrusting mycharacter!"

Arnold suddenly emitted a great puff of smoke and a great shout of"Help! help! Molly to the rescue!" and when a little white-cladcreature flitting past the door turned and brought into that quietspot of leafy shadow the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, her golden hair, he said to her nonchalantly: "Just in time to headthem off. Sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-brow I wasbeginning to feel faint, "

Molly laughed flashingly. "Did Grandfather keep his end up? I bet hecouldn't!"

Arnold professed an entire ignorance of the relative status. "Oh, Ifell off so far back I don't know who got in first. Who _was_ this manCapua, anyhow? I'm a graduate of Harvard University and I never heardof him. "

"I'm a graduate of Miss Braddon's Mountain School for Girls, " saidMolly, "and _I_ think it's a river. "

Mr. Sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm, "What mymother would have said to such ignorance, prefaced by 'I bet!' fromthe lips of a young lady!"

"Your mother, " said Molly, "would be my great-grandmother!" Shedisposed of him conclusively by this statement and went on: "And I'mnot a young lady. Nobody is nowadays. "

"What _are_ you, if a mere grandfather may venture to inquire?" askedMr. Sommerville deferentially. 

"I'm a _femme watt-man"_ said Molly, biting a large piece from asandwich. 

Arnold explained to the others: "That's Parisian for a ladymotor-driver; some name!"

"Well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go on drivingyour car at the rate I saw it going past the house this morning, "said her grandfather. He spoke with an assumption of grandfatherlyseverity, but his eyes rested on her with a grandfather's adoration. 

"Oh, I'd die if I went under thirty-five, " observed Miss Sommervillenegligently. 

"Why, Mr. Sommerville, " Arnold backed up his generation. "You can'tcall thirty-five per hour dangerous, not for a girl who can drive likeMolly. "

"Oh, I'm as safe as if I were in a church, " continued Molly. "I keepmy mind on it. If I ever climb a telegraph-pole you can be sure it'llbe because I wanted to. I never take my eye off the road, never once. "

"How you must enjoy the landscape, " commented her grandfather. 

"Heavens! I don't drive a car to look at the landscape!" cried Molly, highly amused at the idea, apparently quite new to her. 

"Will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation once more, andtell me what you _do_ drive a car for?" inquired old Mr. Sommerville, looking fondly at the girl's lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl. 

"Why, I drive to see how fast I can go, of course, " explained Molly. "The fun of it is to watch the road eaten up. "

"It _is_ fascinating, " Sylvia gave the other girl an unexpectedreinforcement. "I've driven with Molly, and I've been actuallyhypnotized seeing the road vanish under the wheels. "

"Oh, children, children! When you reach my age, " groaned Arnold, "andhave eaten up as many thousand miles as I, you'll stay at home. "

"I've driven for three years now, " asserted Molly, "and every time Ibuy a new car I get the craze all over again. This one I have now isa peach of an eight. I never want to drive a six again, --never! I canbring it up from a creep to--to fast enough to scare Grandfather intoa fit, without changing gears at all--just on the throttle--" Shebroke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, "What was it aboutCapua, anyhow?" She went to sit beside Sylvia, and put her arm aroundher shoulder in a caressing gesture, evidently familiar to her. 

"It wasn't about Capua at all, " explained Sylvia indulgently, pattingthe lovely cheek, as though the other girl had been a child. "It wasyour grandfather finding out what a bad character I am, and how Iwallow in luxury, now I have the chance. "

"Luxury?" inquired Molly, looking about her rather blankly. 

Sylvia laughed, this time with a little veiled, pensive note ofmelancholy, lost on the others but which she herself found verytouching. "There, you see you're so used to it, you don't even knowwhat I'm talking about!"

"Never mind, Molly, " Arnold reassured her. "Neither do I! Don't try tofollow; let it float by, the way I do!"

Miss Sommerville did not smile. She thrust out her red lips in awistful pout, and looking down into the sugar-bowl intently, sheremarked, her voice as pensive as Sylvia's own: "I wish I _did_! Iwish I understood! I wish I were as clever as Sylvia!"

As if in answer to this remark, another searcher after tea announcedhimself from the door--a tall, distinguished, ugly, graceful man, who took a very fine Panama hat from a very fine head of brown hair, slightly graying, and said in a rich, cultivated voice: "Am I too latefor tea? I don't mind at all if it's strong. "

"Oh!" said Molly Sommerville, flushing and drawing away from Sylvia;"_Lord_!" muttered Arnold under his breath; and "Not at all. I'll makesome fresh. I haven't had mine yet, " said Sylvia, busying herself withthe alcohol flame. 

"How're you, Morrison?" said Mr. Sommerville with no enthusiasm, holding out a well-kept old hand for the other to shake. 

Arnold stood up, reached under his chair, and pulled out a tennisracquet. "Excuse me, Morrison, won't you, if I run along?" he said. "It's not because you've come. I want a set of tennis before dinnerif I can find somebody to play with me. Here, Molly, you've got yourtennis shoes on already. Come along. "

The little beauty shook her head violently. "No . . . Goodness no! It'stoo hot. And anyhow, I don't ever want to play again, since I've seenSylvia's game. " She turned to the other girl, breathing quickly. "_You_ go, Sylvia dear. _I'll_ make Mr. Morrison's tea for him. "

Sylvia hesitated a barely perceptible instant, until she saw old Mr. Sommerville's eyes fixed speculatively on her. Then she stood up withan instant, cheerful alacrity. "That's _awfully_ good of you, Mollydarling! _You_ won't mind, will you, Mr. Morrison!" She noddedbrightly to the old gentleman, to the girl who had slipped into herplace, to the other man, and was off. 

The man she had left looked after her, as she trod with her long, light step beside the young man, and murmured, "_Et vera incessupatuit dea. _"

Molly moved a plate on the table with some vehemence. "I supposeSylvia would understand that language. "

"She would, my dear Molly, and what's more, she would scorn me forusing such a hackneyed quotation. " To Mr. Sommerville he added, laughing, "Isn't it the quaintest combination--such radiant girlhoodand her absurd book-learning!"

Mr. Sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by silence, as herose and prepared to retreat. 

"_Good_-bye, Grandfather, " said Molly with enthusiasm. 

 * * * * *

As they walked along, Arnold was saying to Sylvia with a listlessappreciation: "You certainly know the last word of the game, don'tyou, Sylvia? I bet Morrison hasn't had a jolt like that for years. "

"What are you _talking_ about?" asked Sylvia, perhaps slightlyoverdoing her ignorance of his meaning. 

"Why, it's a new thing for _him_, let me tell you, to have a girl jumpup as soon as he comes in and delightedly leave him to another girl. And then to thank the other girl for being willing to take him offyour hands, --that's more than knowing the rules, --that's art!" Helaughed faintly at the recollection. "It's a new one for Morrison tomeet a girl who doesn't kowtow. He's a very great personage inhis line, and he can't help knowing it. The very last word onLord-knows-what-all in the art business is what one Felix Morrisonsays about it. He's an eight-cylinder fascinator too, into thebargain. Mostly he makes me sore, but when I think about him straight, I wonder how he manages to keep on being as decent as he is--he'sreally a good enough sort!--with all the high-powered petticoats inNew York burning incense. It's enough to turn the head of a hydrant. That's the hold Madrina has on him. She doesn't burn any incense. Shewants all the incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keepsold Felix down in his place--keeps him hanging around too. You stickto the same method if you want to make a go of it. "

"I thought he wrote. I thought he did aesthetic criticisms andessays, " said Sylvia, laughing aloud at Arnold's quaint advice. 

"Oh, he does. I guess he's chief medicine-man in his tribe all right. It's not only women who kowtow; when old man Merriman wants to knowfor sure whether to pay a million for a cracked Chinese vase, healways calls in Felix Morrison. Chief adviser to the predatory rich, that's one of his jobs! So you see, " he came back to his first point, "it must be some jolt for the sacred F. M. To have a young lady, _justa young lady_, refuse to bow at the shrine. You couldn't have done asmarter trick, by heck! I've been watching you all those weeks, justtoo tickled for words. And I've been watching Morrison. It's been asgood as a play! He can't stick it out much longer, unless I miss myguess, and I've known him ever since I was a kid. He's just waitingfor a good chance to turn on the faucet and hand you a full cup of hisirresistible fascination. " He added carelessly, bouncing a ball up anddown on the tense catgut of his racquet: "What all you girls see inthat old wolf-hound, to lose your heads over! It gets me!"

"Why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked Sylvia. 

"Oh, just as to his looks. He has that sort of tired, dignified, deep-eyed look a big dog has. I bet his eyes would be phosphorescentat night too. They are that kind; don't you know, when you strike amatch in the evening, how a dog's eyes glow? It's what makes 'em lookso soft and deep in the daytime. But as to his innards--no, Lordno! Whatever else Morrison is he's not a bit like any dog that everlived--first cousin to a fish, I should say. "

Sylvia laughed. "Why not make it grizzly bear, to take in the rest ofthe animal kingdom?"

"No, " persisted Arnold. "Now I've thought of it, I _mean_ fish, agreat big, wise old fellow, who lives in a deep pool and won't rise toany ordinary fly. " He made a brain-jolting change of metaphor and wenton: "The plain truth, and it's not so low-down as it seems, is that abig fat check-book is admission to the grandstand with Felix. It _has_to be that way! He hasn't got much of his own, and his tastes aresome--"

"Molly must be sitting in the front row, then, " commented Sylviaindifferently, as though tired of the subject. They were now at thetennis-court. "Run over to the summer-house and get my racquet, willyou? It's on the bench. "

"Yes, Molly's got plenty of _money_, " Arnold admitted as he cameback, his accent implying some other lack which he forgot to mention, absorbed as he at once became in coping with his adversary's strong, swift serve. 

The change in him, as he began seriously to play, was startling, miraculous. His slack loose-jointedness stiffened into quick, flexible accuracy, his lounging, flaccid air disappeared in a glowof concentrated vigorous effort. The bored good-nature in his eyesvanished, burned out by a stern, purposeful intensity. He wasliterally and visibly another person. Sylvia played her best, whichwas excellent, far better than that of any other girl in the summercolony. She had been well trained by her father and her gymnasiuminstructor, and played with an economy of effort delightful to see;but she was soon driven by her opponent's tiger-like quickness intoputting out at once her every resource. There, in the slowly fadinglight of the long mountain afternoon, the two young Anglo-Saxonspoured out their souls in a game with the immemorial instinct of theirrace, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of body and will-powerbrought into play, everything else in the world forgotten. . . . 

For some time they were on almost equal terms, and then Sylvia becameaware that her adversary was getting the upper hand of her. She had, however, no idea what the effort was costing him, until after ablazing fire of impossibly rapid volleys under which she went downto defeat, she stopped, called out, "Game _and_ set!" and added in agenerous tribute, "Say, you can _play_!" Then she saw that his facewas almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath came in short, gasping pants. "Good gracious, what's the matter!" she cried, runningtowards him in alarm. She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyeswere as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-likeswiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechlessreassurance. With his first breath he said, "Gee! but you can hit itup, for a girl!"

"What's the _matter_ with you?" Sylvia asked again, sitting downbeside him. 

"Nothing! Nothing!" he panted. "My wind! It's confoundedly short. "He added a moment later, "It's tobacco--this is the sort of time thecigarettes get back at you, you know!" The twilight dropped slowlyabout them like a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely intheir well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, andadded with moody indifference: "And cocktails too. They play thedickens with a fellow's wind. "

Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no meansadmiringly. Her life in the State University had brought her into suchincessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sittingbeside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr. Sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. When shespoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which mighthave been felt by a fellow-athlete: "What in the world makes you doit, then?"

"Why not?" he said challengingly. 

"You've just said why not--it spoils your tennis. It must spoil yourpolo. Was that what spoiled your baseball in college? You'd be twicethe man if you wouldn't. "

"Oh, what's the use?" he said, an immense weariness in his voice. 

"What's the use of anything, if you are going to use _that_ argument?"said Sylvia, putting him down conclusively. 

He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, "Damn 'f I _know_, Sylvia. " For the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost itstonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity. 

She showed an unflattering surprise. "Why, I didn't know you everthought about such things. "

He looked at her askance, dimly amused. "High opinion you have of me!"

She looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine good-will in hervoice, "Why, Arnold, you _know_ I've always liked you. "

"You like me, but you don't think much of me, " he diagnosed her, "andyou show your good sense. " He looked up at the picturesque whitehouse, spreading its well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terracedhillside before them. "I hope Madrina is looking out of a window andsees us here, our heads together in the twilight. You've guessed, Isuppose, that she had you come on here for my benefit. She thinksshe's tried everything else, --now it's her idea to get me safelymarried. She'd have one surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear whatwe're saying!"

"Well, it _would_ be a good thing for you, " remarked Sylvia, asentirely without self-consciousness as though they were discussing thetennis game. 

He was tickled by her coolness. "Well, Madrina sure made a mistakewhen she figured on _you_!" he commented ironically. And then, nothaving been subjected to the cool, hardy conditions which causedSylvia's present clear-headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feelher there, so close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight. He leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, "See here, Sylvia, why _don't_ you try it!"

"Oh, nonsense!" said the girl, not raising her voice at all, notstirring. "You don't care a bit for me. "

"Yes, I do! I've _always_ liked you!" he said, not perceiving tillafter the words were out of his mouth that he had repeated her ownphrase. 

She laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stirring of warmthdashed, extinguished. "The fact is, Sylvia, " he said, "you're too nicea girl to fall in love with. "

"What a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed. 

"About _you_?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a compliment. "

"About falling in love, " she said. 

"Oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning. 

"What time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "Oh, we'll be late to dress for dinner, " she said in concern, rising andascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them. 

He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He was laughing. "Do you realize that I've proposed marriage to you and you've turnedme down?" he said. 

"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he. 

"It's the nearest _I_ ever came to it!" he averred. 

She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice ripplingwith amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "Well, you'llhave to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go ofit!" she called over her shoulder. Upon which note this very modernconversation ended. 

CHAPTER XXIII

MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS

When they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the sight of oneanother, a merry and shadowless laugh. For an instant they looked likelight-hearted children. The change of Arnold's long sallow face wasindeed so noticeable that Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced sharply at him, and then looked again with great satisfaction. She leaned to Sylviaand laid her charming white hand affectionately over the girl's slim, strong, tanned fingers. "It's just a joy to have you here, my dear. You're brightening us stupid, bored people like fresh west wind!" Shewent on addressing herself to the usual guest of the evening: "Isn'tit always the most beautiful sight, Felix, how the mere presence ofradiant youth can transform the whole atmosphere of life!"

"I hadn't noticed that my radiant youth had transformed much, "commented Arnold dryly; "and Sylvia's only a year younger than I. "

He was, as usual, disregarded by the course of the conversation. "Yes, sunshine in a shady place . . . " quoted Morrison, in his fine mellowtenor, looking at Sylvia. It was a wonderful voice, used withdiscretion, with a fine instinct for moderation which would have keptthe haunting beauty of its intonations from seeming objectionable orflorid to any but American ears. In spite of the invariable good tastewith which it was used, American men, accustomed to the tonelessspeech of the race, and jealously suspicious of anything approachingart in everyday life, distrusted Morrison at the first sound of hisvoice. Men who were his friends (and they were many) were in the habitof rather apologizing for those rich and harmonious accents. The firsttime she had heard it, Sylvia had thought of the G string of oldReinhardt's violin. 

"I never in my life saw anything that looked less like a shady place, "observed Sylvia, indicating with an admiring gesture the table beforethem, gleaming and flashing its glass and silver and close-textured, glossy damask up into the light. 

"It's _morally_ that we're so shady!" said Arnold, admiring his ownwit so much that he could not refrain from adding, "Not so bad, what?"The usual conversation at his stepmother's table was, as he would havesaid, so pestilentially high-brow that he seldom troubled himselfto follow it enough to join in. Arnold was in the habit of dubbing"high-brow" anything bearing on aesthetics; and Mrs. Marshall-Smith'sconversational range hardly extending at all outside of aesthetics ofone kind or another, communication between these two house-matesof years' standing was for the most part reduced to a primitivesimplicity for which a sign-language would have sufficed. Arnold'sphrase for the situation was, "I let Madrina alone, and she don'tbother me. " But now, seeing that neither the façade of Rouen, nor theinfluence of Chardin on Whistler, had been mentioned, his unusualloquacity continued. "Well, if one west wind (I don't mean that as aslam on Sylvia for coming from west of the Mississippi) has done us somuch good, why not have another?" he inquired. "Why couldn't Judithcome on and make us a visit too? It would be fun to have a scrap withher again. " He explained to Morrison: "She's Sylvia's younger sister, and we always quarreled so, as kids, that after we'd been togetherhalf an hour the referee had to shoulder in between and tell us, 'Nixon biting in clinches. ' She was great, all right, Judith was! How _is_she now?" he asked Sylvia. "I've been meaning ever so many times toask you about her, and something else has seemed to come up. I can'timagine Judy grown up. She hasn't pinned up that great long braid, hasshe, that used to be so handy to pull?"

Sylvia took the last of her soup, put the spoon on the plate, andlaunched into a description of Judith, one of her favorite topics. "Oh, Judith's just _fine_! You ought to see her! She's worth tenof me: she has such lots of character! And handsome! You never sawanything like Judith's looks. Yes, she's put her hair up! She's twentyyears old now, what do you _suppose_ she does with her hair? She wearsit in a great smooth braid all around her head. And she has _such_hair, Aunt Victoria!" She turned from Arnold to another woman, as fromsome one who would know nothing of the fine shades of the subject. "Noshort hairs at all, you know, like everybody else, that _will_ hangdown and look untidy!" She pulled with an explanatory petulance at thesoft curls which framed her own face in an aureole of light. "Hers isall long and smooth, and the color like a fresh chestnut, just outof the burr; and her nose is like a Greek statue--she _is_ a Greekstatue!"

She had been carried by her affectionate enthusiasm out of her usualself-possession, her quick divination of how she was affectingeverybody, and now, suddenly finding Morrison's eyes on her with anexpression she did not recognize, she was brought up short. What hadshe said to make him look at her so oddly?

He answered her unspoken question at once, his voice making his everycasual word of gold: "I am thinking that I am being present at aspectacle which cynics say is impossible, the spectacle of a womandelighting--and with the most obvious sincerity--in the beauty ofanother. "

"Oh!" said Sylvia, relieved to know that the odd look concealed nocriticism, "I didn't know that anybody nowadays made such sillyVictorian generalizations about woman's cattiness, --anybody under oldMr. Sommerville's age, that is. And anyhow, Judith's my _sister_. "

"Cases of sisters, jealous of each other's good looks, have not beenentirely unknown to history, " said Morrison, smiling and beginning toeat his fish with a delicate relish. 

"Well, if Judy's so all-fired good-looking, let's _have_ her comeon, Madrina, " said Arnold. "With her and Sylvia together, we'd crushLydford into a pulp. " He attacked his plate with a straggling fork, eating negligently, as he did everything else. 

"She has a standing invitation, of course, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Indeed, I wrote the other day, asking her if she could come hereinstead of to La Chance for her vacation. It's far nearer for her. "

"Oh, Judith couldn't waste time to go visiting, " said Sylvia. "I'vetold you she is worth ten of me. She's on the home-stretch of hertrained-nurse's course now. She has only two weeks' vacation. "

"She's going to be a trained nurse?" asked Arnold in surprise, washingdown a large mouthful of fish with a large mouthful of wine. "What thedickens does she do that for?"

"Why, she's crazy about it, --ever since she was a little girl, fifteen years old and first saw the inside of a hospital. That's justJudith, --so splendid and purposeful, and single-minded. I wish togoodness _I_ knew what I want to do with myself half so clearly as shealways has. "

If she had, deep under her consciousness, a purpose to win moreapplause from Morrison, by more disinterested admiration of Judith'sgood points, she was quite rewarded by the quickness with which hechampioned her against her own depreciation. "I've always noticed, "he said meditatively, slowly taking a sip from his wine-glass, "thatnobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think itlikely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do withthemselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to do _with_. A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more timeto dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is thegainer. " He pointed the reference frankly by a smile at Sylvia, whoflushed with pleasure and looked down at her plate. She was surprisedat the delight which his leisurely, whimsically philosophical littlespeech gave her. She forgot to make any answer, absorbed as she wasin poring over it and making out new meanings in it. How he hadunderstood at less than a word the secret uncertainty of herself whichso troubled her; and with what astonishing sureness he had known whatto say to reassure her, to make her see clear! And then, her quickmind leaped to another significance. . . . All during these past weekswhen she had been falling more and more under the fascination of hispersonality, when she had been piqued at his disregard of her, whenshe had thought he found her "young, " and had bracketed her carelesslywith Arnold, he had been in reality watching her, he had found herinteresting enough to observe her, to study her, to have a theoryabout her character; and having done all that, to admire her as sheadmired him. Never in her life had she been the recipient of flatteryso precisely to her taste. Her glow of pleasure was so warm that shesuddenly distrusted her own judgment, she looked up at him quickly tosee if she had not mistaken his meaning, had not absurdly exaggeratedthe degree to which he . . . She found his eyes on hers, deep-set, shadowy eyes which did not, as she looked up, either smile or lookaway. Under cover of a rather wrangling discussion between Arnoldand his stepmother as to having some champagne served, the older mancontinued to look steadily into Sylvia's eyes, with the effect ofsaying to her, gravely, kindly, intimately: "Yes, I am here. You didnot know how closely you have drawn me to you, but here I am. " Acrossthe table, across the lights, the service, the idle talk of the othertwo, she felt him quietly, ever so gently but quite irresistibly, openan inner door of her nature . . . And she welcomed him in. 

 * * * * *

After dinner, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith lifted her eyebrows at Sylviaand rose to go, Arnold made no bones of his horror at the prospect ofa tête-à-tête with the distinguished critic. "Oh, I'm going in withyou girls!" he said, jumping up with his usual sprawling uncertaintyof action. He reserved for athletic sports all his capacity forphysical accuracy. "Morrison and I bore each other more than's legal!"

"I may bore _you_, my dear Arnold, " said the other, rising, "but younever bored me in your life, and I've known you from childhood. "

To which entirely benevolent speech, Arnold returned nothing butthe uneasy shrug and resentful look of one baffled by a hostiledemonstration too subtle for his powers of self-defense. He picked upthe chair he had thrown over, and waited sulkily till the others werein the high-ceilinged living-room before he joined them. Then whenMorrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old friend, satdown to the piano and began to play a piece of modern, plaintive, verywandering and chromatic music, the younger man drew Sylvia out on thewide, moon-lighted veranda. 

"Morrison is the very devil for making you want to punch his head, andyet not giving you a decent excuse. I declare, Sylvia, I don't knowbut that what I like best of all about you is the way you steer clearof him. He's opening up on you too. Maybe you didn't happen to notice. . . At the dinner-table? It wasn't much, but I spotted it for abeginning. I know old Felix, a few. " Sylvia felt uneasy at therecurrence of this topic, and cast about for something to turn theconversation. "Oh, Arnold, " she began, rather at random, "whateverbecame of Professor Saunders? I've thought about him several timessince I've been here, but I've forgotten to ask you or Tantine. He wasmy little-girl admiration, you know. "

Arnold smoked for a moment before answering. Then, "Well, I wouldn'task Madrina about him, if I were you. He's not one of her successes. He wouldn't stay put. "

Sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted havingintroduced the subject. 

Arnold added thoughtfully, looking hard at the ash of his cigarette, "I guess Madrina was pretty bad medicine for Saunders, all right. "

Sylvia shivered a little and drew back, but she instantly put thematter out of her mind with a trained and definite action of her will. It was probably "horrid"; nothing could be done about it now; whatelse could they talk about that would be cheerful? This was athought-sequence very familiar to Sylvia, through which she passedwith rapid ease. 

Arnold made a fresh start by offering her his cigarette-box. "Haveone, " he invited her, sociably. 

She shook her head. 

"Oh, all the girls do, " he urged her. 

Sylvia laughed. "I may be a fresh breeze from beyond the Mississippi, but I'm not so fresh as to think it's wicked for a girl to smoke. Infact I like to, myself, but I can't stand the dirty taste in my mouththe next morning. Smoking's not worth it. "

"_Well_ . . . " commented Arnold. Apparently he found something verysurprising in this speech. His surprise spread visibly from theparticular to the general, like the rings widening from a thrownpebble, and he finally broke out: "You certainly do beat the band, Sylvia. You get _me_! You're a sample off a piece of goods that Inever saw before!"

"What now?" asked Sylvia, amused. 

"Why, for instance, --that reason for your not smoking. That's not agirl's reason. That's a man's . . . A man who's tried it!"

"No, it isn't!" she said, the flicker of amusement still on her lips. "A man wouldn't have sense enough to know that smoking isn't worthwaking up with your mouth full of rancid fur. "

"Oh gosh!" cried Arnold, tickled by the metaphor: "rancid fur!"

"The point about me, why I seem so queer to you, " explained Sylvia, brightening, "is that I'm a State University girl. I'm used to you. I've seen hundreds of you! The fact that you wear trousers and haveto shave and wear your hair cut short, and smell of tobacco, doesn'tthrill me for a cent. I know that I could run circles around you if itcame to a problem in calculus, not that I want to brag. "

Arnold did not seem as much amused as she thought he would be. Hesmoked in a long, meditative silence, and when he spoke again it waswith an unusual seriousness. "It's not what _you_ feel or don't feelabout me . . . It's what _I_ feel and don't feel about you, that getsme, " he explained, not very lucidly. "I mean liking you so, without. . . I never felt so about a girl. I like it. . . . I don't make itout. . . . " He looked at her with sincerely puzzled eyes. 

She answered him as seriously. "I think, " she said, speaking a littleslowly, "I think the two go together, don't they?"

"How do you mean?" he asked. 

"Why--it's hard to say--" she hesitated, but evidently not at all inembarrassment, looking at him with serious eyes, limpid and unafraid. "I've been with boys and men a lot, of course, in my classes and inthe laboratories and everywhere, and I've found out that in most casesif the men and the girls really, really in their own hearts don't wantto hurt each other, don't want to get something out of the other, butjust want to be friends--why, they _can_ be! Psychologists and allthe big-wigs say they can't be, I know--but, believe me!--I've triedit--and it's awfully nice, and it's a shame that everybody shouldn'tknow that lots of the time you _can_ do it--in spite of the folks whowrite the books! Maybe it wasn't so when the books were written, maybeit's only going to be so, later, if we all are as square as we can benow. But as a plain matter of fact, in one girl's experience, it'sso, _now_! Of course, " she modified by a sweeping qualification theaudacity of her naïvely phrased, rashly innocent guess at a newpossibility for humanity, "of course if the man's a _decent_ man. "

Arnold had not taken his gaze for an instant from her gravelythoughtful eyes. He was quite pale. He looked astonishingly moved, startled, arrested. When she stopped, he said, almost at once, ina very queer voice as though it were forced out of him, "I'm not adecent man. "

And then, quite as though he could endure no longer her clear, steadygaze, he covered his eyes with his hand. An instant later he hadsprung up and walked rapidly away out to the low marble parapet whichtopped the terrace. His gesture, his action had been so eloquent ofsurprised, intolerable pain, that Sylvia ran after him, all one quickimpulse to console. "Yes, you are, Arnold; yes, you are!" she said ina low, energetic tone, "you _are_!"

He made a quavering attempt to be whimsical. "I'd like to know what_you_ know about it!" he said. 

"I know! I _know_!" she simply repeated. 

He faced her in an exasperated shame. "Why, a girl like you can nomore know what's done by a man like me . . . " his lips twitched in amoral nausea. 

"Oh . . . What you've _done_ . . . " said Sylvia . . . "it's what you are!"

"What I _am_, " repeated Arnold bitterly. "If I were worth my salt I'dhang myself before morning!" The heartsick excitement of a man on thecrest of some moral crisis looked out luridly from his eyes. 

Sylvia rose desperately to meet that crisis. "Look here, Arnold. I'mgoing to tell you something I've never spoken of to anybody . . . Noteven Mother . . . And I'm going to do it, so you'll _believe_ me when Isay you're worth living. When I was eighteen years old I was a horrid, selfish, self-willed child. I suppose everybody's so at eighteen. Iwas just crazy for money and fine dresses and things like that, thatwe'd never had at home; and a man with a lot of money fell in lovewith me. It was my fault. I made him, though I didn't know then what Iwas doing, or at least I wouldn't let myself think what I was doing. And I got engaged to him. I got engaged at half-past four in theafternoon, and at seven o'clock that evening I was running away fromhim, and I've never seen him since. " Her voice went on steadily, buta quick hot wave of scarlet flamed up over her face. "He was not adecent man, " she said briefly, and went on: "It frightened me almostto death before I got my bearings: I was just a little girl and Ihadn't understood anything--and I don't _understand_ much now. But Idid learn one thing from all that--I learned to know when a man isn'tdecent. I can't tell you how I know--it's all over him--it's all overme--it's his eyes, the way he stands, the expression of his mouth--Idon't only see it--I feel it--I feel it the way a thermometer feelsit when you put a match under the bulb . . . I _know_!" She brought herextravagant, her preposterous, her ignorant, her incredibly convincingclaims to an abrupt end. 

"And you 'feel' that I . . . " began Arnold, and could not go on. 

"I'd like you for my brother, " she said gently. 

He tried to laugh at her, but the honest tears were in his eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about, you silly dear, " he saidunsteadily, "but I'm awfully glad you came to Lydford. "

With her instinct for avoiding breaks, rough places, Sylvia quicklyglided into a transition from this speech back into less personaltalk. "Another queer thing about that experience I've neverunderstood:--it cured me of being so crazy about clothes. You wouldn'tthink it would have anything to do with _that_, would you? And I don'tsee how it did. Oh, I don't mean I don't dearly love pretty dressesnow. I _do_. And I spend altogether too much time thinking aboutthem--but it's not the same. Somehow the poison is out. I used to belike a drunkard who can't get a drink, when I saw girls have thingsI didn't. I suppose, " she speculated philosophically, "I suppose anygreat jolt that shakes you up a lot, shakes things into differentproportions. "

"Say, that fellow must have been just about the limit!" Arnold'srather torpid imagination suddenly opened to the story he had heard. 

"No, no!" said Sylvia. "As I look back on it, I make a lot more senseout of it" (she might have been, by her accent, fifty instead oftwenty-three), "and I can see that he wasn't nearly as bad as Ithought him. When I said he wasn't decent, I meant that he belonged inthe Stone Age, and I'm twentieth-century. We didn't fit together. Isuppose that's what we all mean when we say somebody isn't decent . . . That he's stayed behind in the procession. I don't mean that man wasa degenerate or anything like that . . . If he could have found a StoneAge woman he'd have . . . They'd have made a good Stone Age marriage ofit. But he _didn't_, the girl he. . . . "

"Do you know, Sylvia, " Arnold broke in wonderingly, "I never before inall my life had anybody speak to me of anything that really mattered. And I never spoke this way myself. I've wanted to, lots of times; butI didn't know people ever did. And to think of its being a girl whodoes it for me, a girl who. . . . " His astonishment was immense. 

"Look here, Arnold, " said Sylvia, with a good-natured peremptoriness. "Let a girl be something besides a girl, can't you!"

But her attempt to change the tone to a light one failed. Apparently, now that Arnold had broken his long silence, he could not stophimself. He turned towards her with a passionate gesture ofbewilderment and cried: "Do you remember, before dinner, you askedme as a joke what was the use of anything, and I said I didn't know?Well, I _don't!_ I've been getting sicker and sicker over everything. What the devil _am_ I here for, anyhow!"

As he spoke, a girl's figure stepped from the house to the veranda, from the veranda to the turf of the terrace, and walked towards them. She was tall, and strongly, beautifully built; around her small headwas bound a smooth braid of dark hair. She walked with a long, freestep and held her head high. As she came towards them, the moonlightfull on her dark, proud, perfect face, she might have been theyouthful Diana. 

But it was no antique spirit which looked out of those frank, fearlesseyes, and it was a very modern and colloquially American greetingwhich she now gave to the astonished young people. "Well, Sylvia, don't you know your own sister?" and "Hello there, Arnold. "

"Why, Judith _Marshall_!" cried Sylvia, falling upon her breathlessly. "However in the world did you get _here_!"

Arnold said nothing. He had fallen back a step and now looked at thenew-comer with a fixed, dazzled gaze. 

CHAPTER XXIV

ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK

"Where's Judith?" said Arnold for sole greeting, as he saw Morrison atthe piano and Sylvia sitting near it, cool and clear in a lacy whitedress. Morrison lifted long fingers from the keys and said gravely, "She came through a moment ago, saying, '_Where's_ Arnold?' and wentout through that door. " His fingers dropped and Chopin's voice oncemore rose plaintively. 

The sound of Arnold's precipitate rush across the room and out of thedoor was followed by a tinkle of laughter from Sylvia. Morrison lookedaround at her over his shoulder, with a flashing smile of mutualunderstanding, but he finished the prelude before he spoke. Then, without turning around, as he pulled out another sheet from the musicheaped on the piano, he remarked: "If that French philosopher wasright when he said no disease is as contagious as love-making, we mayexpect soon to find the very chairs and tables in this house claspedin each other's arms. Old as I am, I feel it going to my head, like abed of full-blooming valerian. "

Sylvia made no answer. She felt herself flushing, and could not trusther voice to be casual. He continued for a moment to thumb over themusic aimlessly, as though waiting for her to speak. 

The beautiful room, darkened against the midsummer heat, shimmereddimly in a transparent half-light, the vivid life of its brightchintz, its occasional brass, its clean, daring spots of crimson andpurple flowers, subdued into a fabulous, half-seen richness. There wasnot a sound. The splendid heat of the early August afternoon flamed, and paused, and held its breath. 

Into this silence, like a bird murmuring a drowsy note over a stillpool, there floated the beginning of _Am Meer_. Sylvia sat, passiveto her finger-tips, a vase filled to the brim with melody. She staredwith unseeing eyes at the back of the man at the piano. She was notthinking of him, she was not aware that she was conscious of him atall; but hours afterward wherever she looked, she saw for an instantagain in miniature the slender, vigorous, swaying figure; the thickbrown hair, streaked with white and curling slightly at the ends; thebrooding head. . . . 

When the last note was still, the man stood up and moved away from thepiano. He dropped into an arm-chair near Sylvia, and leaning hisfine, ugly head back against the brilliant chintz, he looked at hermeditatively. His great bodily suavity gave his every action a curioussignificance and grace. Sylvia, still under the spell of his singing, did not stir, returning his look out of wide, dreaming eyes. 

When he spoke, his voice blended with the silence almost asharmoniously as the music. . . . "Do you know what I wish you woulddo, Miss Sylvia Marshall? I wish you would tell me something aboutyourself. Now that I'm no longer forbidden to look at you, or thinkabout you. . . . "

"Forbidden?" asked Sylvia, very much astonished. 

"There!" he said, wilfully mistaking her meaning, and smiling faintly, "I am such an old gentleman that I'm perfectly negligible to a younglady. She doesn't even notice or not whether I look at her, and thinkabout her. "

A few years before this Sylvia would have burst out impetuously, "Ohyes, I have! I've wondered awfully what made you so indifferent, " butnow she kept this reflection to herself and merely said, "What in theworld did you fancy was 'forbidding' you?"

"Honor!" said Morrison, with a note of mock solemnity. "_Honor!_Victoria was so evidently snatching at you as a last hope for Arnold. She gave me to understand that everybody else but Arnold was to bestrictly non-existent. But now that Arnold has found a characterbeautifully and archaically simple to match his own primitive needs, Idon't see why I shouldn't enjoy a little civilized talk with you. Inany case, it was absurd to think of _you_ for Arnold. It merely showshow driven poor Victoria was!"

Sylvia tried to speak lightly, although she was penetrated withpleasure at this explanation of his holding aloof. "Oh, _I_ likeArnold very much. I always have. There's something . . . Something sortof _touching_ about Arnold, don't you think? Though I must say thatI've heard enough about the difference between training quail dogsand partridge dogs to last me the rest of my life. But that's rathertouching too, his not knowing what to do with himself but fiddlearound with his guns and tennis-racquets. They're all he has to keephim from being bored to death, and they don't go nearly far enough. Some day he will just drop dead from ennui, poor Arnold! Wouldn't hehave enjoyed being a civil engineer, and laying out railroads in wildcountry! He'd have been a good one too! The same amount of energyhe puts into his polo playing would make him fight his way throughdarkest Thibet. " She meditated over this hypothesis for a moment andthen added with a nod of her head, "Oh yes, I like Arnold ever so much. . . One kind of 'liking. '"

"Of course you like him, " assented the older man, who had beenwatching her as she talked, and whose manner now, as he took up theword himself, resembled that of an exquisitely adroit angler, castingout the lightest, the most feathery, the most perfectly controlled ofdry-flies. "You're too intelligent not to like everybody who's notbase--and Arnold's not base. And he 'likes' you. If you had cared towaste one of your red-brown tresses on him, you could have drawn himby a single hair. But then, everybody 'likes' you. "

"Old Mr. Sommerville doesn't!" said Sylvia, on an impulse. 

Morrison looked at her admiringly, and put the tips of his fingerstogether with exquisite precision. "So you add second sight to yourother accomplishments! How in the world could a girl of your age havethe experience and intuition to feel that? Old Sommerville passes fora great admirer of yours. You won't, I hope, go so uncannily far inyour omniscience as to pretend to know _why_ he doesn't like you?"

"No, I won't, " said Sylvia, "because I haven't the very faintest idea. Have you?"

"I know exactly why. It's connected with one of the old gentleman'seccentricities. He's afraid of you on account of his precious nephew. "

"I didn't know he _had_ a nephew. " Sylvia was immensely astonished. 

"Well, he has, and he bows down and worships him, as he does hisgranddaughter. You see how he adores Molly. It's nice of the oldfellow, the cult he has for his descendants, but occasionallyinconvenient for innocent bystanders. He thinks everybody wants tomake off with his young folks. You and I are fellow-suspects. Haven'tyou felt him wish he could strike me dead, when Molly makes tea forme, or turns over music as I play?" He laughed a little, a gentle, kind, indulgent laugh. "_Molly!_" he said, as if his point were morethan elucidated by the mere mention of her name. 

Sylvia intimated with a laugh that her point was clearer yet in thatshe had no name to mention. "But I never saw his nephew. I never evenheard of him until this minute. "

"No, and very probably never will see him. He's very seldom here. Andif you did see him, you wouldn't like him--he's an eccentric of theworst brand, " said Morrison tranquilly. "But monomanias need nofoundation in fact--" He broke off abruptly to say: "Is this allanother proof of your diabolical cleverness? I started in to hearsomething about yourself, and here I find myself talking abouteverything else in the world. "

"I'm not clever, " said Sylvia, hoping to be contradicted. 

"Well, you're a great deal too nice to be _consciously_ so, " admittedMorrison. "See here, " he went on, "it's evident that you're morethan a match for me at this game. Suppose we strike a bargain. Youintroduce yourself to me and I'll do the same by you. Isn't it quitethe most fantastic of all the bizarreries of human intercourse thatan 'introduction' to a fellow-being consists in being informed of hisname, --quite the most unimportant, fortuitous thing about him?"

Sylvia considered. "What do you want to know?" she asked finally. 

"Well, I'd _like_ to know everything, " said the man gaily. "Mycuriosity has been aroused to an almost unappeasable pitch. But ofcourse I'll take any information you feel like doling out. In thefirst place, _how_, coming from such a . . . " He checked himself andchanged the form of his question: "I overheard you speaking toVictoria's maid, and I've been lying awake nights ever since, wondering how it happened that you speak French with so pure anaccent. "

"Oh, that's simple! Professor and Madame La Rue are old friends of thefamily and I've spent a lot of time with them. And then, of course, French is another mother-language for Father. He and Aunt Victoriawere brought up in Paris, you know. "

Morrison sighed. "Isn't it strange how all the miracles evaporate intomere chemical reactions when you once investigate! All the white-clad, ghostly spirits turn out to be clothes on the line. I suppose there'ssome equally natural explanation about your way on the piano--theclear, limpid phrasing of that Bach the other day, and then the colorof the Bizet afterwards. It's astonishing to hear anybody of yourcrude youth playing Bach at all--and then to hear it played right--andafterwards to hear a modern given _his_ right note. . . . "

Sylvia was perfectly aware that she was being flattered, and she wasimmensely enjoying it. She became more animated, and the peculiarsparkle of her face more spirited. "Oh, that's old Reinhardt, my musicteacher. He would take all the skin off my knuckles if I played a Bachgigue the least bit like that Arlésienne Minuet. He doesn't approve ofBizet very much, anyhow. He's a tremendous classicist. "

"Isn't it, " inquired Morrison, phrasing his question carefully, "isn't it, with no disrespect to La Chance intended, isn't it ratherunusually good fortune for a smallish Western city to own a realmusician?"

"Well, La Chance bears up bravely under its good fortune, " said Sylviadryly. "Old Mr. Reinhardt isn't exactly a prime favorite there. He's aterribly beery old man, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. Our housewas the only respectable one in town that he could go into. But then, our house isn't so very respectable. It has its advantages, not beingso very respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feelus so. But I certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in myacquaintance, and I have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of thingslearned from them. I know a little Swedish from Miss Lindström. She'sa Swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't thata weird combination? You just ought to hear what she makes of negrodialect! And I know all the socialist arguments from hearing asocialist editor get them off every Sunday afternoon. And I evenknow how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save themark!--from Cousin Parnelia, a crazy old cousin of Mother's who hangsround the house more or less. "

"I begin to gather, " surmised Morrison, "that you must have aremarkable father and mother. What are _they_ like?"

"Well, " said Sylvia thoughtfully, "Mother's the bravest thing youever saw. She's not afraid of _anything_! I don't mean cows, or thehouse-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, andsickness and poverty and fear. . . . "

Morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciationin his eyes, "Not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid. "

Sylvia went on to particularize. "When any of us are sick--it'smy little brother Lawrence who is mostly--Judith and I are alwayswell--Father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. ButMother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go onjust as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together_tight_. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to acceptlife at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--andnot whimper. "

"Very fine, --very fine! Possibly a very small bit . . . Grim?" commentedMorrison, with a rising inflection. 

"Oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed Sylvia, as if it did not matter; "butI can't give you any idea of Mother. She's--she's just _great_! Andyet I couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up. She's somebody that Seneca would have liked. "

"And your father?" queried Morrison. 

"Oh, he's great too--dear Father--but so different! He and Motherbetween them have just about all the varieties of human nature thatare worth while! Father's red-headed (though it's mostly gray now), and quick, and blustering, and awfully clever, and just adored byhis students, and talks every minute, and apparently does all thedeciding, and yet . . . He couldn't draw the breath of life withoutMother; and when it comes right down to _doing_ anything, what healways does is what he knows will come up to her standard. "

Morrison raised delightedly amused hands to heaven. "The RecordingAngel domiciled in the house!" he cried. "It had never occurred to mebefore how appallingly discerning the eye of the modern offspring mustbe. Go on, go on!"

Elated by the sensation of appearing clever, Sylvia continued witha fresh flow of eloquence. "And there never was such a highly moralbringing-up as we children have had. It's no fault of my family's ifI've turned out a grasping materialist! I was brought up"--she flamedout suddenly as at some long-hoarded grievance--"I was brought up in amoral hot-house, and I haven't yet recovered from the shock of beingtransplanted into real earth in the real world. "

Morrison paid instant tribute to her aroused and serious feeling by agrave look of attention. "Won't you explain?" he asked. "I'm so dull Idon't follow you. But I haven't been so interested in years. "

"Why, I mean, " said Sylvia, trying hard to reduce to articulatenessa complicated conception, "I mean that Father and Mother justdeliberately represented values to me as different from what theyreally are, with real folks! And now I find that _I'm_ real folks! Ican't help it. You are as you _are_, you know. They kept representingto me always that the _best_ pleasures are the ones that are the mostimportant to folks--music, I mean, and Milton's poetry, and a finenovel--and, in Mother's case, a fine sunset, or a perfect rose, orthings growing in the garden. "

No old associate of Morrison's would have recognized the man's face, shocked as it was by surprise and interest out of his usual habitof conscious, acute, self-possessed observation. The angler hadinadvertently stepped off a ledge into deep water, and a very swiftcurrent was tugging at him. He leaned forward, his eyes as eager withcuriosity as a boy's. "Do I understand you to say that you repudiatethose 'best pleasures'?"

"Of course you don't understand anything of the sort, " said Sylviavery earnestly. "They've soaked me so in music that I'm a regularbond-slave to it. And a perfect rose is associated with so many lovelyrecollections of Mother's wonderful silent joy in it, that I couldweep for pleasure. What I'm talking about--what I'm trying to tellyou, is the shock it was to me, when I got out of that artificiallyunworldly atmosphere of home--for there's no use talking, it _is_artificial!--to find that _those_ pleasures aren't the ones that areconsidered important and essential. How did I find things in the realworld? Why, I find that people don't give a thought to those 'bestpleasures' until they have a lot of other things first. Everything_I_'d been trained to value and treasure was negligible, notworth bothering about. But money--position--not having towork--elegance--_those_ are _vital_--prime! Real people can't enjoyhearing a concert if they know they've got to wash up a lot of dishesafterwards. Hiring a girl to do that work is the _first_ thing to do!There isn't another woman in the world, except my mother, who'd takeany pleasure in a perfect rose if she thought her sleeves were soold-fashioned that people would stare at her. Folks _talk_ aboutliking to look at a fine sunset, but what they give their blood andbones for, is a fine house on the best street in town!"

"Well, but you're not 'people' in that vulgar sense!" protestedMorrison. He spoke now without the slightest _arrière-pensée_ offlattering her, and Sylvia in her sudden burst for self-expression wasunconscious of him, save as an opponent in an argument. 

"You just _say_ that, in that superior way, " she flashed at him, "because _you_ don't have to bother your head about such matters, because you don't have to associate with people who are fighting forthose essentials. For they _are_ what everybody except Father andMother--_every_ body feels to be the essentials--a pretty house, handsome clothes, servants to do the unpleasant things, sociallife--oh, plenty of money sums it all up, 'vulgar' as it sounds. And Idon't believe you are different. I don't believe anybody you know isreally a bit different! Let Aunt Victoria, let old Mr. Sommerville, lose their money, and you'd see how unimportant Debussy and Masacciowould be to them, compared to having to black their own shoes!"

"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Morrison. "Are you at eighteenpresuming to a greater knowledge of life than I at forty?"

"I'm not eighteen, I'm twenty-three, " said Sylvia. "The differenceis enormous. And if I don't know more about plain unvarnished humannature than you, I miss my guess! _You_ haven't gone through fiveyears at a State University, rubbing shoulders with folks who haven'tenough sophistication to pretend to be different from what theyare. _You_ haven't taught music for three years in the middle-classfamilies of a small Western city!" She broke off to laugh anapologetic depreciation of her own heat. "You'd think I was addressinga meeting, " she said in her usual tone. "I got rather carried awaybecause this is the first time I ever really spoke out about it. Thereare so few who could understand. If I ever tried to explain it toFather and Mother, I'd be sure to find them so deep in a discussion ofthe relation between Socrates and Christ that they couldn't pay anyattention! Professor Kennedy could understand--but he's such a fanaticon the other side. "

Morrison looked a quick suspicion. "Who is Professor Kennedy?" heinquired; and was frankly relieved when Sylvia explained: "He's thehead of the Mathematics Department, about seventy years old, and thecrossest, cantankerousest old misanthrope you ever saw. And thinkshimself immensely clever for being so! He just loathes people--the waythey really are--and he dotes on Mother and Judith because they're notlike anybody else. And he hates me because they couldn't all hypnotizeme into looking through their eyes. He thinks it low of me to realizethat if you're going to live at all, you've got to live _with people_, and you can't just calmly brush their values on one side. He saidonce that any sane person in this world was like a civilized man withplenty of gold coin, cast away on a desert island with a tribe ofsavages who only valued beads and calico, and buttons and junk. AndI said (I knew perfectly well he was hitting at me) that if he wasreally cast away and couldn't get to another island, I thought thecivilized man would be an idiot to starve to death, when he could buyfood of the savages by selling them junk. And I thought he just wastedhis breath by swearing at the savages for not knowing about the valueof gold. There I was hitting at _him!_ He's spoiled his digestion, hating the way people are made. And Professor Kennedy said somethingnasty and neat (he's awfully clever) about that being rather a lowoccupation for a civilized being--taking advantage of the idiociesof savages--he meant me, of course--and he's right, it _is_ a meanbusiness; I hate it. And that's why I've always wanted to get onanother island--not an uninhabited island, like the one Father andMother have--but one where--well, _this_ is one!" she waved herhand about the lovely room, "this _is_ just one! Where everything'sbeautiful--costly too--but not just costly; where all the horrid, necessary consequences of things are taken care of without one'sbothering--where flowers are taken out of the vases when they wiltand fresh ones put in; and dishes get themselves washed invisibly, inaudibly--and litter just vanishes without our lifting a hand. Ofcourse the people who live so always, can rejoice with a clear mind insunsets and bright talk. That's what I meant the other day--the dayJudith came--when I said I'd arrived in Capua at last; when old Mr. Sommerville thought me so materialistic and cynical. If _he_ did that, on just that phrase--what must _you_ think, after all this _confessionintime d'un enfant du siècle?_" She stopped with a graceful pretenseof dreading his judgment, although she knew that she had been talkingwell, and read nothing but admiration in his very expressive face. 

"But all this means, you extraordinary young person, that you're notin the least an _enfant du siècle!_" he cried. "It means that you'redropped down in this groaning, heavy-spirited twentieth century, troubled about many things, from the exact year that was the goldenclimax of the Renaissance; that you're a perfect specimen of thehigh-hearted, glorious . . . " he qualified on a second thought, "unlessyour astonishing capacity to analyze it all, comes from the nineteenthcentury?"

"No, that comes from Father, " explained Sylvia, laughing. "Isn't itfunny, using the tool Father taught me to handle, against his ideas!He's just great on analysis. As soon as we were old enough to think atall, he was always practising us on analysis--especially of what madeus want things, or not like them. It's one of his sayings--he's alwaysgetting it off to his University classes--that if you have once reallycalled an emotion or an ambition by its right name, you have it bythe tail, so to speak--that if you know, for instance, that it's yourvanity and not your love that's wounded by something, you'll stopcaring. But I never noticed that it really worked if you cared _hard_enough. Diagnosing a disease doesn't help you any, if you keep righton being sick with it. "

"My dear! My dear!" cried the man, leaning towards her again, andlooking--dazzled--into the beauty and intelligence of her eyes, "theidea that you are afflicted with any disease could only occur to themorbid mind of the bluest-nosed Puritan who ever cut down a May-pole!You're wonderfully, you're terrifyingly, you are superbly sound andvigorous!"

Breaking in upon this speech, there came the quick, smooth purr of anautomobile with all its parts functioning perfectly, a streak of darkgray past the shutters, the sigh of an engine stopped suddenly--MollySommerville sprang from behind the steering wheel and ran into thehouse. She was exquisitely flushed and eager when she came in, butwhen she saw the two alone in the great, cool, dusky room, filled toits remotest corners with the ineffable aroma of long, intimate, and interrupted talk, she was brought up short. She faltered for aninstant and then continued to advance, her eyes on Sylvia. "It's sohot, " she said, at random, "and I thought I'd run over for tea--"

"Oh, of course, " said Sylvia, jumping up in haste, "it's late! I'dforgotten it was time for tea! Blame _me!_ Since I've been here, AuntVictoria has left it to me--where shall I say to have it set?"

"The pergola's lovely, " suggested Molly. She took her close motor-hatfrom the pure gold of her hair with a rather listless air. 

"All right--the pergola!" agreed Sylvia, perhaps a little tooanxiously. In spite of herself, she gave, and she knew she was giving, the effect of needing somehow to make something up to Molly. . . . 

CHAPTER XXV

NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN

Sylvia was sitting in the garden, an unread book on her knees, dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. She looked with afixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did notsee them. She saw only Felix Morrison, she heard only his voice, shewas brimming with the sense of him. In a few moments she would go intothe house and find him in the darkened living-room, as he had beenevery afternoon for the last fortnight, ostensibly come in to loungeaway the afternoon over a book, really waiting for her to joinhim. And when she came in, he would look up at her, that wonderfulpenetrating deep look of his . . . And she would welcome him with hereyes. 

And then they would talk! Judith and Arnold would be playing tennis, oblivious of the heat, and Aunt Victoria would be annihilating thetedious center of the day by sleep. Nobody would interrupt them forhours. How they would talk! How they had talked! As she thought of itthe golden fortnight hummed and sang about Sylvia's ears like a LisztLiebes-Traum. 

They had talked of everything in the world, and it all meant but onething, that they had discovered each other, a discovery visibly aswonderful for Morrison as for the girl. They had discovered eachother, and they had been intelligent enough to know at once what itmeant. They knew! And in a moment she would go into the house to him. She half closed her eyes as before a too-great brilliance. . . . 

Arnold appeared at the other end of the long row of gladioli. Hewas obviously looking for some one. Sylvia called to him, with thefriendly tone she always had for him: "Here I am! I don't know whereJudith is. Will I do?"

From a distance Arnold nodded, and continued to advance, theirregularity of his wavering gait more pronounced than usual. As soonas she could see the expression of his face, Sylvia's heart beganto beat fast, with a divination of something momentous. He sat downbeside her, took off his hat, and laid it on the bench. "Do youremember, " he asked in a strange, high voice, "that you said you wouldlike me for your brother?"

She nodded. 

"Well, I'm going to be, " he said, and covering his face with hishands, burst into sobs. 

Sylvia was so touched by his emotion, so sympathetically moved by hisnews, that even through her happy ejaculations the tears rained downher own cheeks. She tried to wipe them away and discovered, absurdlyenough, that she had lost her handkerchief. "Aren't we idiots!" shecried in a voice of joyful quavers. "I never understood beforewhy everybody cries at a wedding. See here, Arnold, I've lost myhandkerchief. Loan me yours. " She pulled his handkerchief out of hispocket, she wiped her eyes, she put a sisterly kiss on his thin, sallow cheek, she cried: "You dears! Isn't it too good to be true!Arnold! So soon! Inside two weeks! How ever could you have thecourage? Judith! My Judith! Why, she never looked at a man before. Howdid you dare?"

His overmastering fit of emotion was passed now. His look was ofwhite, incredulous exaltation. "We saw each other and ran intoeach other's arms, " he said; "I didn't have to 'dare. ' It was likebreathing. "

"Oh, how perfect!" she cried, "how simply, simply perfect!" and nowthere was for an instant a note of wistful envy in her voice. "It's_all_ perfect! She never so much as looked at a man before, and yousaid the other night you'd never been in love before. "

Arnold looked at her wildly. "I said that!" he cried. 

"Why, yes, don't you remember, after that funny, joking talk with me, you said that was the nearest you'd ever come to proposing to anygirl?"

"God Almighty!" cried the man, and did not apologize for theblasphemy. He looked at her fixedly, as though unguessed-at horizonsof innocence widened inimitably before his horrified eyes. And then, following some line of association which escaped Sylvia, "I'm not fitto _look_ at Judith!" he cried. The idea seemed to burst upon him likea thunder-clap. 

Sylvia patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "That's the properthing for a lover to think!" she said with cheerful, commonplaceinanity. She did not notice that he shrank from her hand, because shenow sprang up, crying, "But where's Judy? Where _is_ Judy?"

He nodded towards the house. "She sent me out to get you. She's in herroom--she wants to tell you--but when I saw you, I couldn't keep itto myself. " His exaltation swept back like a wave, from the crest ofwhich he murmured palely, "Judith! Judith!" and Sylvia laughed at him, with the tears of sympathy in her eyes, and leaving him there on thebench staring before him at the living fire of the flame-coloredflowers, she ran with all her speed into the house. 

Morrison, lounging in a chair with a book, looked up, startled at herwhirlwind entrance. "What's up?" he inquired. 

At the sound of his voice, she checked herself and pirouetted with athistle-down lightness to face him. Her face, always like a clear, transparent vase lighted from within, now gave out, deeply moved asshe was, an almost visible brightness. "Judith!" she cried, her voiceringing like a silver trumpet, "Judith and Arnold!" She was poisedlike a butterfly, and as she spoke she burst into flight again, andwas gone. 

She had not been near him, but the man had the distinct impressionthat she had thrown herself on his neck and kissed him violently, ina transport of delight. In the silent room, still fragrant, stillechoing with her passage, he closed his book, and later his eyes, andsat with the expression of a connoisseur savoring an exquisite, aperfect impression. . . . 

 * * * * *

Tea that afternoon was that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremonyof civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presenceof naked emotion. Arnold and Judith sat on opposite sides of thepergola, Judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmlyset lips soft and tremulous; Arnold rather pale, impatient, obliviousto what was going on around him, his spirit prostrated before themiracle; and when their starry eyes met, there flowed from them andtowards them from every one in the pergola, a thousand unseen waves ofexcitement. 

The mistress of the house herself poured tea in honor of the greatoccasion, and she was very humorous and amusing about the mistakescaused by her sympathetic agitation. "There! I've put three lumps inyours, Mr. Sommerville. How _could_ I! But I really don't know whatI'm doing. This business of having love-at-first-sight in one's veryfamily--! Give your cup to Molly; I'll make you a fresh one. Oh, Arnold! How _could_ you look at Judith just then! You made me fillthis cup so full I can't pass it!"

Mr. Sommerville, very gallant and full of compliments and whimsicalallusions, did his best to help their hostess strike the decent noteof easy pleasantry; but they were both battling with something toostrong for them. Unseconded as they were by any of the others, theygave a little the effect of people bowing and smirking to each otherat the foot of a volcano in full eruption. Morrison, picking upthe finest and sharpest of his conversational tools, venturedthe hazardous enterprise of expressing this idea to them. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, trying one topic after another, expressed animpatience with the slow progress of a Henry James novel she wasreading, and Mr. Sommerville, remarking with a laugh, "Oh, you cannothurry Henry, " looked to see his mild witticism rewarded by a smilefrom the critic. But Morrison shook his head, "No, my dear old friend. _Il faut hurler avec les loups_--especially if you are so wroughtup by their hurlements that you can't hear yourself think. I'm justgiving myself up to the rareness, the richness of the impression. "

The new fiancée herself talked rather more than usual, though thismeant by no means loquacity, and presented more the appearance ofcomposure than any one else there; although this was amusingly brokenby a sudden shortness of breath whenever she met Arnold's eyes. She said in answer to a question that she would be going on to herhospital the day after tomorrow--her two weeks' vacation over--oh yes, she would finish her course at the hospital; she had only a few moremonths. And in answer to another question, Arnold replied, obviouslyimpatient at having to speak to any one but Judith, that of course hedidn't mind if she went on and got her nurse's diploma--didn't she_want_ to? Anything she wanted. . . . 

No--decidedly the thing was too big to make a successful fête of. Morrison was silent and appreciatively observant, his eyes sometimeson Sylvia, sometimes on Judith; Mr. Sommerville, continuing doggedlyto make talk, descended to unheard-of trivialities in reporting theiniquities of his chauffeur; Molly stirred an untasted cup, did notraise her eyes at all, and spoke only once or twice, addressing toSylvia a disconnected question or two, in the answers to which she hadobviously no interest. Judith and Arnold had never been very malleablesocial material, and in their present formidable condition they wereas little assistance in the manufacture of geniality as a couple ofAfrican lions. 

The professional fête-makers were consequently enormously relievedwhen it was over and their unavailing efforts could be decentlydiscontinued. Professing different reasons for escape, they moved indisjointed groups across the smooth perfection of the lawn towardsthe house, where Molly's car stood, gleaming in the sun. Sylvia foundherself, as she expected, manoeuvered to a place beside Morrison. Hearranged it with his unobtrusive deftness in getting what he wantedout of a group of his fellow-beings, and she admired his skill, andleaned on it confidently. They had had no opportunity that day for thelong talk which had been a part of every afternoon for the last week;and she now looked with a buoyant certainty to have him arrange anhour together before dinner. Her anticipation of it on that burningday of reflected heat sent thrills of eager disquietude over her. Itwas not only for Judith and Arnold that the last week had been one ofmeeting eyes, long twilight evenings of breathless, quick-ripeningintimacy. . . . 

As they slackened their pace to drop behind Mr. Sommerville, whowalked hand-in-hand with his granddaughter in front of them, Morrisonsaid, looking at her with burning eyes, ". . . An instrument so finelystrung that it vibrates at the mere sound of another wakened tomelody--what mortal man lives who would not dream of its response ifhe could set his own hand to the bow?"

The afternoon had been saturated with emotional excitement and themoment had come for its inevitable crystallization into fateful words. The man spoke as though he were not wholly conscious of what he wassaying. He stepped beside her like one in a dream. He could not takehis eyes from her, from her flushed, grave, receptive face, from herdowncast, listening eyes, her slow, trance-like step as she waited forhim to go on. He went on: "It becomes, my dear, I assure you--the ideaof that possibility becomes absolutely an obsession--even to a manusually quite his own master--"

They were almost at a standstill now, and the two in front of themhad reached the house. Sylvia had a moment of what seemed to her thepurest happiness she had ever known. . . . 

From across the lawn they saw a violent gesture--Molly had thrown hergrandfather's clinging hand from her, and flashed back upon the two, lingering there in the sunlight. She cast herself on Sylvia, pantingand trying to laugh. Her little white teeth showed in what was almosta grimace. "Why in the world are you two poking along so?" she cried, passing her arm through Sylvia's. Her beautiful sunny head came nomore than to Sylvia's shoulder. Without waiting for an answer she wenton hurriedly, speaking in the tones of suppressed excitement whichthrilled in every one's voice that day: "Come on, Sylvia--let's workit off together! Let me take you somewhere--let's go to Rutland andback. "

"That's thirty miles away!" said Sylvia, "and it's past five now. "

"I'll have you there and back long before seven, " asserted Molly. "Come on . . . Come on . . . " She pulled impatiently, petulantly at theother girl's arm. 

"I'm not invited, I suppose, " said Morrison, lighting a cigarette withcare. 

Molly looked at him a little wildly. "No, Felix, you're not invited!"she said, and laughed unsteadily. 

She had hurried them along to the car, and now they stood by the swiftgray machine, Molly's own, the one she claimed to love more thananything else in the world. She sprang in and motioned Sylvia to theseat beside her. 

"Hats?" suggested Morrison, looking at their bare, shining heads. Hewas evidently fighting for time, manoeuvering for an opening. Hissuccess was that of a man gesticulating against a gale. Molly's baldlyunscrupulous determination beat down the beginnings of his carefullycomposed opposition before he could frame one of his well-balancedsentences. "No--no--it takes too long to go and get hats!" she criedperemptorily. "If you can't have what you want when you want it, it'sno use having it at all!"

"I'm not sure, " remarked Morrison, "that Miss Marshall wants this atall. "

"Yes, she does; yes, she does!" Molly contradicted him heatedly. Sylvia, hanging undecided at the step, felt herself pulled into thecar; the door banged, the engine started with a smooth sound ofpowerful machinery, the car leaped forward. Sylvia cast one backwardglance at Morrison, an annoyed, distinguished, futile presence, standing motionless, and almost instantly disappearing in the distancein which first he, and then the house and tall poplars over it, shrankto nothingness. 

Their speed was dizzying. The blazing summer air blew hot and vital intheir faces; their hair tugged at the pins and flew back in flutteringstrands; their thin garments clung to their limbs, molded as closelyby the compressing wind as by water. Molly did not turn her eyes fromthe road ahead, leaping up to meet them, and vanishing under the car. She tried to make a little casual talk: "Don't you love to let it out, give it all the gas there is?" "There's nothing like a quick spin fordriving the nightmares out of your mind, is there?" But as Sylvia madeno answer to these overtures (the plain fact was that Sylvia had nobreath for speech, --for anything but a horrified fascinated glare atthe road), she said suddenly, somberly, "If I were you, I certainlyshould despise me!" She took the car around a sharp curve on twowheels. 

Sylvia clutched at the side and asked wonderingly, "_Why_ in theworld?" in a tone so permeated with sincerity that even Molly felt it. 

"Don't you _know_?" she cried. "Do you mean to say you don't _know_?"

"Know _what_?" asked Sylvia. Hypnotized by the driver's intent andunwavering gaze on the road, she kept her own eyes as fiercelyconcentrated, her attention leaping from one quickly seen, instantlydisappearing detail to another, --a pile of gravel here, --a half-buriedrock there. --They both raised their voices to be heard above the soundof the engine and the rush of the car. "Know what?" repeated Sylvialoudly. 

"Why do you _suppose_ I made myself ridiculous by pulling you awayfrom Felix that idiotic, humiliating way!" Molly threw this inquiryout, straight before her, angrily. The wind caught at her words andhurled them behind. 

In a flash Sylvia understood something to which she had beenresolutely closing her perceptions. She felt sick and scared. Sheclutched the side, watched a hill rise up steep before them andflatten out under the forward leap of the car. She thought hard. Something of her little-girl, overmastering horror of things, rough, outspoken, disagreeable, swept over her. She violently wished that shecould escape from the conversation before her. She would have paidalmost any price to escape. 

But Molly's nerves were not so sensitive. She evidently had nodesire to escape or to let Sylvia. The grim little figure at thesteering-wheel controlled with her small hands the fate of the two. She broke out now, impatient at Sylvia's silence: "Any fool could seethat it was because I couldn't bear to see you with Felix anotherminute, and because I hadn't any other way to get you apart. Everybodyelse there knew why. I knew they knew. But I couldn't help it. Icouldn't bear it another instant!"

She broke the glass of decent reticence with a great clattering blow. It shivered into fragments. There was nothing now between them but thereal issue in all its uncomely bareness. This real issue, themaenad at the wheel now held up before them in a single brutalstatement--"Are you in love with Felix? I am. "

There was something eerie, terrifying, in her casting these wordsout, straight before her. Sylvia looked in awe at the pale, pinchedprofile, almost unrecognizable in its stern misery. "Because if you'renot, " Molly went on, her white lower lip twitching, "I wish you'd keepout. It was all right before you came with your horrible cleverness. It was all right. It was all right. "

Through the iteration of this statement, through the tumult of her ownthoughts, through the mad rush of the wind past her ears, Sylvia heardas clearly as though she sat again in the great, dim, quiet room, amelodious voice saying gently, indulgently, laughingly, "_Molly!_"Secure in her own safe place of favor she felt a great wave ofgenerous pity for the helpless self-deception of her sister-woman. Fired by this and by the sudden perception of an opening for an act ofspectacular magnanimity--would it be any the less magnanimous becauseit would cost her nothing in the end?--she reached for the mantle ofthe _beau rôle_ and cast it about her shoulders. "Why, Molly dear!"she cried, and her quick sympathies had never been more genuinelyaroused, "Molly dear, of course I'll keep out, if you want me to. I'llleave the coast clear to you as long as you please. "

She was almost thrown from the seat by the jarring grind of the carbrought to a sudden standstill. Molly caught her hands, looked intoher face, the first time their eyes had met. "Do you mean it . . . Sylvia?"

Sylvia nodded, much agitated, touched by the other's pain, halfashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss toher, no gain to Molly. In the sudden becalmed stillness of the hotafternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces in shiningclouds. 

"I didn't understand before, " said Sylvia; and she was speaking thetruth. 

"And you'll let him alone? You won't talk to him--play hisaccompaniments--oh, those long talks of yours!"

"We've been talking, you silly dear, of the Renaissance compared tothe Twentieth Century, and of the passing of the leisure class, andall the beauty they always create, " said Sylvia. Again she spokethe literal truth. But the true truth, burning on Molly's tongue, shriveled this to ashes. "You've been making him admire you, beinterested in you, see how little _I_ amount to!" she cried. "Butif you _don't_ care about him yourself--if you'll--_two weeks_, Sylvia--just keep out for two weeks. . . . " As if it were part of theleaping forward of her imagination, she suddenly started the caragain, and with a whirling, reckless wrench at the steering-wheel shehad turned the car about and was racing back over the road they hadcome. 

"Where are you going?" cried Sylvia to her, above the noise of theirprogress. 

"Back!" she answered, laughing out. "What's the use of going on now?"She opened the throttle to its widest and pressing her lips togethertightly, gave herself up to the intoxication of speed. 

Once she said earnestly: "You're _fine_, Sylvia! I never knew a girlcould be like you!" And once more she threw out casually: "Do you knowwhat I was going to do if I found out you and Felix--if you hadn't. . . ?I was going to jump the car over the turn there on ProspectHill. "

Remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she hadwatched on the way out, Sylvia believed her; or at least believed thatshe believed her. In reality, her immortal youth was incapable ofbelieving in the fact of death in any form. But the words put a stampof tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion'ssuffering. She thought of the two weeks which lay before Molly, andturned away her eyes in sympathy. . . . 

 * * * * *

Ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement ofMary Montgomery Sommerville, sole heiress of the great Montgomeryfortune, to Felix Morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics. 

CHAPTER XXVI

MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT

Sylvia faced her aunt's dictum with heartsick shrinking from itsrigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of thefacts. "You can't go home now, Sylvia--everybody would say youcouldn't stand seeing Molly's snatch at Felix successful. You reallymust stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl fromMolly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of Felix's brains. "

Sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that shecared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was sopreposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring thewords past her lips. As a matter of fact, she did care what peoplethought. She always had! She always would! She remained silent, looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across theglorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded byMrs. Marshall-Smith's bedroom. She did not resemble the romanticconception of a girl crossed in love. She looked very quiet, no palerthan usual, quite self-possessed. The only change a keen eye couldhave noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightlyrigid dignity, which had not been there before. She seemed lessgirlish. 

No eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of Mrs. Marshall-Smith. She saw perfectly the new attribute, and realizedperfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified. Shehad never admired and loved Sylvia more, and being a person adept inself-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration andaffection. "Of course, you know, my dear, that _I'm_ not one of theherd. I know entirely that your feeling for Felix was just what mineis--immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments. As a matterof fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of allMolly's money, if you'd really cared to . . . "

Sylvia winced, actually and physically, at this speech, which broughtback to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurdself-deception. What a simpleton she had been--what a little naïve, provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her owncleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she hadbeen in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entiredisinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was anotherinstance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver inthe actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored heryouth--she vented her emotion in despising that idealism and thinkingof hard names to call it. 

". . . Though of course you showed your intelligence by _not_ reallycaring to, " went on Mrs. Marshall-Smith; "it would have meant acrippled life for both of you. Felix hasn't a cent more than he needsfor himself. If he was going to marry at all, he was forced to marrycarefully. Indeed, it has occurred to me that he may have thrownhimself into this, because he was in danger of losing his head overyou, and knew how fatal it would be. For you, you lovely thing ofgreat possibilities, you need a rich soil for _your_ roots, too, ifyou're to bloom out as you ought to. "

Sylvia, receiving this into a sore and raw consciousness, said toherself with an embittered instinct for cynicism that she had neverheard more euphonious periphrases for selling yourself for money. Forthat was what it came down to, she had told herself fiercely a greatmany times during the night. Felix had sold himself for money asoutright as ever a woman of the streets had done. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith, continuing steadily to talk (on the theory thattalking prevents too great concentration of thought), and making theround of all the possible things to say, chanced at this moment upona qualification to this theory of Morrison's conduct which for aninstant caught Sylvia's attention, "--and then there's always thepossibility that even if you _had_ cared to--Molly might have beentoo much for you, for both of you. She always has had just what shewanted--and people who have, get the habit. I don't know if you'venoticed it, in the little you've seen of her, but it's very apparentto me, knowing her from childhood up as I have, that there's a slightcoarseness of grain in Molly, when it's a question of getting what shewants. I don't mean she's exactly horrid. Molly's a dear in her way, and I'm very fond of her, of course. If she can get what she wants_without_ walking over anybody's prostrate body, she'll go round. But there's a directness, a brilliant lack of fine shades in Molly'sgrab. . . . It makes one remember that her Montgomery grandfather hadfirmness of purpose enough to raise himself from an ordinary Illinoisfarmer to arbiter of the wheat pit. Such impossible old aunts--suchcousins--occasionally crop up still from the Montgomery connection. But all with the same crude force. It's almost impossible for atemperament like Felix's to contend with a nature like that. "

Sylvia was struck by the reflection, but on turning it over she sawin it only another reason for anger at Morrison. "You make your oldfriend out as a very weak character, " she said. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith's tolerant, clear view of the infirmities ofhumanity was grieved by this fling of youthful severity. "Oh, my dear!my dear! A young, beautiful, enormendously rich, tremendously enamoredgirl? That's a combination! I don't think we need consider Felixexactly weak for not having resisted!"

Sylvia thought she knew reasons for his not yielding, but she did notcare to discuss them, and said nothing. 

"But whether, " continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, attempting delicatelyto convey the only reflection supposed to be of comfort to a girl inSylvia's situation, "whether or not Molly will find after marriagethat even a very masterful and ruthless temperament may fail entirelyto possess and hold the things it has grabbed and carried off . . . "

Sylvia repudiated the tacit conception that this would be a balm toher. "Oh, I'm sure I hope they'll manage!" she said earnestly. 

"Of course! Of course!" agreed Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Who doesn't hopeso?" She paused, her loquacity run desperately thin. There wasthe sound of a car, driving up to the front door. Sylvia rose inapprehension. Her aunt motioned a reassurance. "I told Tojiko to tellevery one that we are not in--to anybody. "

Hélène came to the door on silent, felt-shod feet, a black-and-whitepicture of well-trained servility. "Pardon, Madame, Tojiko says thatMlle. Sommerville wishes to see Mlle. Sylvie. "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with considerable apprehension at herniece. "You must get it over with some time, Sylvia. It'll be easierhere than with a lot of people staring at you both, and making nastyspeculations. " Neither she nor Sylvia noticed that for an instant, inher haste, she had quite dropped her careful pretension that Sylviacould, of course, if she had really cared to. . . . 

Sylvia set her jaw, an action curiously visible under the smooth, subtle modeling of her young cheeks. She said to Hélène in a quietvoice: "_Mais bien sûr!_ Tell her we're not yet dressed, but if shewill give herself the trouble to come up. . . . "

Hélène nodded and retreated. Sylvia looked rather pale. 

"You don't know what a joy your perfect French is to me, dear, " saidMrs. Marshall-Smith, still rapidly turning every peg in sight in anendeavor to loosen tension; but no noticeable relaxation took place inSylvia. It did not seem to her at just that moment of great importancethat she could speak good French. 

With desperate haste she was saying to herself, "At least Mollydoesn't know about anything. I told her I didn't care. She believedme. I must go on pretending that I don't. But can I! But can I!"

Light, rapid steps came flying up the stairs and down the long hall. "Sylvia! Sylvia!" Molly was evidently hesitating between doors. 

"Here--this way--last door--Aunt Victoria's room!" called Sylvia, andfelt like a terror-stricken actor making a first public appearance, enormously surprised, relieved, and heartened to find her usual voicestill with her. As Molly came flying into the room, she ran to meether. They fell into each other's arms with incoherent ejaculationsand, under the extremely appreciative eye of Mrs. Marshall-Smith, kissed each other repeatedly. 

"Oh, isn't she the dear!" cried Molly, shaking out amply to the breezea victor's easy generosity. "Isn't she the darlingest girl in theworld! She _understands_ so! When I saw how perfectly _sweet_ she wasthe day Arnold and Judith announced their engagement, I said to myselfI wanted her to be the first person I spoke to about mine. "

The approach of the inexorable necessity for her first words rousedSylvia to an inspiration which struck out an almost visible sparkof admiration from her aunt. "You just count too much on my being'queer, ' Molly, " she said playfully, pulling the other girl downbeside her, with an affectionate gesture. "How do _you_ know that I'mnot fearfully jealous of you? _Such_ a charmer as your fiancé is!"

Molly laughed delightedly. "Isn't she wonderful--not to care abit--really!" she appealed to Sylvia's aunt. "How anybody _could_resist Felix--but then she's so clever. She's wonderful!"

Sylvia, smiling, cordial, clear-eyed and bitter-hearted, thought thatshe really was. 

"But I can't talk about it here!" cried Molly restlessly. "I came tocarry Sylvia off. I can't sit still at home. I want to go ninety milesan hour! I can't think straight unless I'm behind the steering-wheel. Come along, Sylvia!"

Mrs. Marshall-Smith thereupon showed herself, for all her amenity andgrace, more of a match of Molly's force and energy than either Sylviaor Morrison had been on a certain rather memorable occasion tendays before. She opposed the simple irresistible obstacle of a flatcommand. "Sylvia's _not_ going out in a car dressed in a lace-trimmednégligée, with a boudoir cap on, whether you get what you want theminute you want it or not, Molly Sommerville, " she said with theauthoritative accent which had always quelled Arnold in his boyhood(as long as he was within earshot). The method was effective now. Molly laughed. Sylvia even made shift to laugh; and Helene wassummoned to put on the trim shirt-waist, the short cloth skirt andclose hat which Mrs. Marshall-Smith selected with care and the historyof which she detailed at length, so copiously that there was noopportunity to speak of anything less innocuous. Her unusual interestin the matter even caused her to accompany the girls to the head ofthe stairs, still talking, and she called down to them finally as theywent out of the front door, ". . . It's the only way with Briggs--he'ssimply incorrigible about delays--and yet nobody does skirts as hedoes! You just have to tell him you _will not take it_, if he doesn'tget it done on time!"

Sylvia cast an understanding, grateful upward look at her aunt andstepped into the car. So far it had gone better than she feared. But atête-à-tête with Molly, overflowing with the confidences of the newlybetrothed--she was not sure that she could get through with that withcredit. 

Molly, however, seemed as little inclined to overflow as Sylvia tohave her. She talked of everything in the world except of FelixMorrison; and it was not long before Sylvia's acuteness discoveredthat she was not thinking of what she was saying. There passed throughher mind a wild, wretched notion that Molly might after all know--thatFelix might have been base enough to talk about her to Molly, thatMolly might be trying to "spare her. " But this idea was instantlyrejected: Molly was not subtle enough to conceive of such a course, and too headlong not to make a hundred blunders in carrying it out;and besides, it would not explain her manner. She was abstractedobviously for the simple reason that she had something on her mind, something not altogether to her liking, judging from the uneasy colorwhich came and went in her face, by her rattling, senseless flow ofchatter, by her fidgeting, unnecessary adjustments of the mechanism ofthe car. 

Sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out uponthe world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. The personality ofthe man they did not name hung between and around the two women like acloud. As they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifullydressed, in the costly, shining car, their clouded faces might to acountry eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that "richcity folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and theirautomobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout ascheerful as a balky horse. "

But the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anythingbut conscious of class differences. It was a desperate need whichreached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flankof the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely woodedroad, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushesand yell at them. 

Sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminineone of fear--a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk--ButMolly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in acloud of dust. "What's the matter?" she shouted as the man sprang upon the running-board. He was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and foran instant could only beat the air with his hands. Then he broke outin a hoarse shout--the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like atocsin: "Fire! An awful fire! Hewitt's pine woods--up that road!" Hewaved a wild, bare arm--his shirt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. "Goand git help. They need all the men they can git!"

He dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through thebushes. They saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was stillexhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard thebushes crash, saw them close behind him. He was gone. 

Sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when shewas thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward ofthe car. She caught at the side, at her hat, and saw Molly's face. Itwas transfigured. The brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smokegoes when the clear flame leaps up. 

"What are you doing?" shouted Sylvia. 

"To get help, " answered Molly, opening the throttle another notch. The first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrificspeed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitablestrength. "Hear her sing! Hear her sing!" cried Molly. In threeminutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into thenearest village, two miles from the woods. It seemed that in thosethree minutes Molly had not only run the car like a demon, but hadformed a plan. Slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the caron a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a passer-by, shefollowed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to abig brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, "PeabodyBrush-back Factory. "

The car stopped. Molly sprang out and ran as though the car were arifle and she the bullet emerging from it. She ran into a large, ugly, comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting theirthin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young womanwho burst through and in at a door marked "Manager. "

"There's a fire on the mountain--a great fire in Hewitt's pine woods, "she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a youngcaptain leading a charge. "I can take nine men on my car. Will youcome with me and tell which men to go?"

A dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpacaoffice coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared ather in a petrified silence. Molly stamped her foot. "There's not aninstant to lose, " she said; "they need every man they can get. "

"Who's the fire-warden of this township?" said the elderly manfoolishly, trying to assemble his wits. 

Molly appeared visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. "Oh, they need help _NOW_!" she cried. "Come on! Come on!"

Then they stood together on the steps of the office. "Those menunloading lumber over there could go, " said the manager, "and I'll getthree more from the packing-rooms. "

"Don't go yourself! Send somebody to get them!" commanded Molly. "Yougo and telephone anybody in town who has a car. There'll be sure to beone or two at the garage. "

Sylvia gasped at the prodigy taking place before her eyes, themasterful, keen-witted captain of men who emerged like a thunderboltfrom their Molly--Molly, the pretty little beauty of the summercolony!

She had galvanized the elderly New Englander beside her out of hisfirst momentary apathy of stupefaction. He now put his own competenthand to the helm and took command. 

"Yes, " he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused. Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of agun: "Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to aforest-fire. Shut down the machinery. Get all the able-bodied menready in gangs of seven. Perkins, you 'phone Tim O'Keefe to bring mycar here at once. And get Pat's and Tom's and the two at the hotel. "

"Tools?" said Molly. 

He nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car:"There are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door. Better takesome axes too. "

In four minutes from the time they had entered the village (Sylvia hadher watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with menin overalls and clustered thick with others on the running-board. Backof them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement ofdisaster. Women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud ofgray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain. There was no soulin that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant. 

Then in a flash the car had left the village and was rushing along thedusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer. Themen stared up at it with sober faces. "Pretty hot fire!" said oneuneasily. 

They reached the place where the man had yelled to them--ten minutesexactly since they had left it. Molly turned the car into the steepsandy side-road which led up the mountain. The men shouted out inremonstrance, "Hey, lady! You can't git a car up there. We'll have towalk the rest of the way. They don't never take cars there. "

"This one is going up, " sang out Molly gallantly, almost gaily, opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed. 

The sound of the laboring engine jarred loudly through all the still, hot woods; the car shook and trembled under the strain on it. Mollydropped into low. A cloud of evil-smelling blue gasoline smoke roseup from the exhaust behind, but the car continued to advance. Risingsteadily, coughing and choking, up the cruelly steep grades, bumping heavily down over the great water-bars, smoking, rattling, quivering--the car continued to advance. A trickle of perspiration randown Molly's cheeks. The floor was hot under their feet, the smell ofhot oil pungent in their nostrils. 

They were eight minutes from the main road now, and near the fire. Over the trail hung a cloud of smoke, and, as they turned a corner andcame through this, they saw that they had arrived. Sylvia drew backand crooked her arm over her eyes. She had never seen a forest firebefore. She came from the plain-country, where trees are almostsacred, and her first feeling was of terror. But then she dropped herarm and looked, and looked again at the glorious, awful sight whichwas to furnish her with nightmares for months to come. 

The fire was roaring down one side of the road towards them, and awayto the right was eating its furious, sulphurous way into the heart ofthe forest. They stopped a hundred feet short, but the blare of heatstruck on their faces like a blow. Through the dense masses of smoke, terrifying glimpses of fierce, clean flame; a resinous dead stumpburning like a torch; a great tree standing helpless like a martyr atthe stake, suddenly transformed into a frenzied pillar of fire. . . . Along the front of this whirlpool of flame toiled, with despairingfury, four lean, powerful men. As they raised their blackened, desperate faces and saw the car there, actually there, incrediblythere, black with its load of men, they gave a deep-throated shout ofrelief, though they did not for an instant stop the frantic plying oftheir picks and hoes. The nine men sprang out, their implements intheir hands, and dispersed along the fighting-line. 

Molly backed the car around, the rear wheels churning up the sand, andplunged down the hill into the smoke. Through the choking fumes ofthis, Sylvia shouted at her, "Molly! Molly! You're _great_!" She feltthat she would always hear ringing in her ears that thrilling, hoarseshout of relief. 

Molly shouted in answer, "I could scream, I'm so happy!" And as theyplunged madly down the mountain road, she said: "Oh, Sylvia, you don'tknow--I never was any use before--never once--never! I got the firstload of help there! How they shouted!"

At the junction of the side-road with the highway, a car wasdischarging a load of men with rakes and picks. "_I_ took my car up!"screamed Molly, leaning from the steering wheel but not slackeningspeed as she tore past them. 

The driver of the other car, a young man with the face of a fightingCelt, flushed at the challenge and, motioning the men back into thecar, started up the sandy hill. Molly laughed aloud. "I never was sohappy in my life!" she said again. 

Both girls had forgotten the existence of Felix Morrison. 

They passed cars now, many of them, streaming south at breakneckspeed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down thestreet to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more menin overalls drawn up, ready, armed, resolute. . . . 

"How strong men are!" said Molly, gazing in ecstasy at this array offactory hands. "I love them!" She added under her breath, "But _I_take them there!"

While the men were swarming into the car, the gray-haired managercame out to report, as though to an officer equal in command, "I'vetelephoned to Ward and Howe's marble-works in Chitford, " he said. "They've sent down fifty men from there. About seventy-five have gonefrom this village. I suppose all the farmers in that district arethere by this time. "

"Will they ever stop it!" asked Sylvia despairingly, seeing wherevershe looked nothing but that ravening, fiery leap of the flames, feeling that terrible hot breath on her cheek. 

The question and accent brought the man for the first time to arealization of the girls' youth and sex. He shifted to paternalreassurance. "Oh yes, oh yes, " he said, looking up the valleyappraisingly at the great volume of the smoke, "with a hundred andfifty men there, almost at once, they'll have it under control beforelong. Everything with a forest fire depends on getting help there_quickly_. Ten men there almost at once do more than fifty men an hourlater. That's why your friend's promptness was so important. I guessit might have been pretty bad if they'd had to wait for help till oneof them could have run to the village. A fire, a bad fire like that, gets so in an hour that you can't stop it--can't stop it till it getsout where you can plow a furrow around it. And that's a terrible placefor a fire up there. Lots of slash left. "

Molly called over her shoulder to the men climbing on the car, "Allready there?" and was off, a Valkyr with her load of heroes. 

Once more the car toiled and agonized up the execrable sandy steepnessof the side-road; but in the twenty minutes since they had been therethe tide had turned. Sylvia was amazed at the total shifting ofvalues. Instead of four solitary workers, struggling wildly againstoverwhelming odds, a long line of men, working with a disciplined, orderly haste, stretched away into the woods. Imperious and savage, the smoke and swift flames towered above them, leaping up into thevery sky, darkening the sun. Bent over their rakes, their eyes on theground, mere black specks against the raging glory of the fire, theline of men, with an incessant monotonous haste, drew away the dryleaves with their rakes, while others who followed them tore at theearth with picks and hoes. It was impossible to believe that suchant-labors could avail, but already, near the road, the fire had burntitself out, baffled by its microscopic assailants. As far as the girlscould see into the charred underbrush, a narrow, clean line of freshlyupturned earth marked where the fiercest of all the elements hadbeen vanquished by the humblest of all the tools of men. Bewildered, Sylvia's eyes shifted from the toiling men to the distance, across theblackened desolation near them, to where the fire still tossed itswicked crest of flames defiantly into the forest. She heard, butshe did not believe the words of the men in the car, who cried outexpertly as they ran forward, "Oh, the worst's over. They're shuttingdown on it. " How could the worst be over, when there was still thatwhirling horror of flame and smoke beyond them?

Just after the men had gone, exultant, relieved, the girls turnedtheir heads to the other side of the road, and there, very silent, very secret and venomous, leaped and glittered a little ring offlames. An hour before, it would have looked a pretty, harmless sightto the two who now sat, stricken by horror into a momentary frozenstillness. The flames licked at the dry leaves and playfully sprang upinto a clump of tall dry grass. The fire was running swiftly towards abunch of dead alders standing at the edge of the forest. Before it hadspread an inch further, the girls were upon it, screaming for help, screaming as people in civilization seldom scream, with all theirlungs. With uplifted skirts they stamped and trod out, under swift andfearless feet, the sinister, silent, yellow tongues. They snatchedbranches of green leaves and beat fiercely at the enemy. It had beenso small a spot compared to the great desolation across the road, theystamped out the flames so easily, that the girls expected with everybreath to see the last of it. To see it escape them, to see itsuddenly flare up where it had been dead, to see it appear behindthem while they were still fighting it in front, was like being in anightmare when effort is impossible. The ring widened with appalling, with unbelievable rapidity. Sylvia could not think it possible thatanything outside a dream could have such devouring swiftness. She trodand snatched and stamped and screamed, and wondered if she were indeedawake. . . . 

Yet in an instant their screams had been heard, three or foursmoke-blackened fire-fighters from beyond the road ran forward withrakes, and in a twinkling the danger was past. Its disappearance wasas incredible as its presence. 

"Ain't that just like a fire in the woods?" said one of the men, anelderly farmer. He drew a long, tremulous breath. "It's so tarnation_quick_! It's either all over before you can ketch your breath, orit's got beyond you for good. " It evidently did not occur to him tothank the girls for their part. They had only done what every one didin an emergency, the best they could. He looked back at the burnedtract on the other side of the road and said: "They've got the bestof that all right, too. I jest heard 'em shoutin' that the men fromChitford had worked round from the upper end. So they've got a ringround it. Nothin' to do now but watch that it don't jump. My! 'Twas aclose call. I've been to a lot of fires in my day, but I d'know as Iever see a _closeter_ call!"

"It can't be _over_!" cried Sylvia, looking at the lurid light acrossthe road. "Why, it isn't an hour since we--"

"Land! No, it ain't _over!_" he explained, scornful of herinexperience. "They'll have to have a gang of men here watchin' it allnight--and maybe all tomorrow--'less we have some rain. But it won'tgo no further than the fire-line, and as soon as there're men enoughto draw that all around, it's _got_ to stop!" He went on to hiscompanion, irritably, pressing his hand to his side: "There ain't nouse talkin', I got to quit fire-fightin'. My heart 'most gi'n out onme in the hottest of that. And yit I'm only sixty!"

"It ain't no job for old folks, " said the other bitterly. "If it hadha' gone a hundred feet further that way, 'twould ha' been in whereEd Hewitt's been lumberin', and if it had got into them dry tops andbrush--well, I guess 'twould ha' gone from here to Chitford villagebefore it stopped. And 'twouldn't ha' stopped there, neither!"

The old man said reflectively: "'Twas the first load of men did thebusiness. 'Twas nip and tuck down to the last foot if we could stop iton that side. I tell you, ten minutes of that kind o' work takes aboutten years off'n a man's life. We'd just about gi'n up when we saw 'emcoming. I bet I won't be no gladder to see the pearly gates than I wasto see them men with hoes. "

Molly turned a glowing, quivering face of pride on Sylvia, and thenlooked past her shoulder with a startled expression into the eyes ofone of the fire-fighters, a tall, lean, stooping man, blackenedand briar-torn like the rest. "Why, Cousin Austin!" she cried withvehement surprise, "what in the world--" In spite of his grime, shegave him a hearty, astonished, affectionate kiss. 

"I was just wondering, " said the man, smiling indulgently down on her, "how soon you'd recognize me, you little scatter-brain. "

"I thought you were going to stick in Colorado all summer, " saidMolly. 

"Well, I heard they were short of help at Austin Farm and I came onto help get in the hay, " said the man. Both he and Molly seemed toconsider this a humorous speech. Then, remembering Sylvia, Molly wentthrough a casual introduction. "This is my cousin--Austin Page--my_favorite_ cousin! He's really awfully nice, though so plain to lookat. " She went on, still astonished, "But how'd you get _here?_"

"Why, how does anybody in Vermont get to a forest fire?" he answered. "We were out in the hayfield, saw the smoke, left the horses, grabbedwhat tools we could find, and beat it through the woods. That's thetechnique of the game up here. "

"I didn't know your farm ran anywhere near here, " said Molly. 

"It isn't so terribly near. We came across lots tolerable fast. Butthere's a little field, back up on the edge of the woods that isn't sofar. Grandfather used to raise potatoes there. I've got it into haynow, " he explained. 

As they talked, the fire beyond them gave definite signs of yielding. It had evidently been stopped on the far side and now advancednowhere, showed no longer a malign yellow crest, but only rollingsullenly heavenward a diminishing cloud of smoke. The fire-fightersbegan to straggle back across the burned tract towards the road, theireyeballs gleaming white in their dark faces. 

"Oh, they mustn't walk! I'll take them back--the darlings!" saidMolly, starting for her car. She was quite her usual brisk, free-and-easy self now. "Cracky! I hope I've got gas enough. I'vecertainly been going _some!_"

"Why don't you leave me here?" suggested Sylvia. "I'll walk home. That'll leave room for one more. "

"Oh, you can't do that!" protested Molly faintly, though she wasevidently at once struck with the plan. "How'd you find your wayhome?" She turned to her cousin. "See here, Austin, why don't _you_take Sylvia home? You ought to go anyhow and see Grandfather. Hell beawfully hurt to think you're here and haven't been to see him. " Shethrew instantly into this just conceived idea the force which alwayscarried through her plans. "Do go! I feel so grateful to these men Idon't want one of them to walk a step!"

Sylvia had thought of a solitary walk, longing intensely forisolation, and she did not at all welcome the suggestion of adaptingherself to a stranger. The stranger, on his part, looked a veryunchivalrous hesitation; but this proved to be only a doubt ofSylvia's capacity as a walker. 

"If you don't mind climbing a bit, I can take you over the gap betweenHemlock and Windward Mountain and make a bee-line for Lydford. It'snot an hour from here, that way, but it's ten miles around by theroad--and hot and dusty too. "

"Can she _climb_!" ejaculated Molly scornfully, impatient to be offwith her men. "She went up to Prospect Rock in forty minutes. "

She high-handedly assumed that everything was settled as she wishedit, and running towards the car, called with an easy geniality to thegroup of men, starting down the road on foot, "Here, wait a minute, folks, I'll take you back!"

She mounted the car, started the engine, waved her hand to the twobehind her, and was off. 

The lean, stooping man looked dubiously at Sylvia. "You're sure youdon't mind a little climb?" he said. 

"Oh no, I like it, " she said listlessly. The moment for her was ofstale, wearied return to real life, to the actual world which she wascontinually finding uglier than she hoped. The recollection of FelixMorrison came back to her in a bitter tide. 

"All ready?" asked her companion, mopping his forehead with a verydirty handkerchief. 

"All ready, " she said and turned, with a hanging head, to follow him. 

CHAPTER XXVII

BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS

For a time as they plodded up the steep wood-road, overgrown withferns and rank grass, with dense green walls of beech and oak saplingson either side, what few desultory remarks they exchanged related toMolly, she being literally the only topic of common knowledge betweenthem. Sylvia, automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse togive pleasure, to be pleasing, made an effort to overcome her somberlassitude and spoke of Molly's miraculous competence in dealing withthe fire. Her companion said that of course Molly hadn't made all thatup out of her head on the spur of the moment. After spending everysummer of her life in Lydford, it would be surprising if so energetica child as Molly hadn't assimilated the Vermont formula for fightingfire. "They always put for the nearest factory and get all hands out, "he explained, adding meditatively, as he chewed on a twig: "All thesame, the incident shows what I've always maintained about Molly:that she is, like 'most everybody, lamentably miscast. Molly's spiritoughtn't to have taken up its abiding place in that highly ornamentalblond shell, condemned after a fashionable girl's education topendulum swings between Paris and New York and Lydford. It doesn't fitfor a cent. It ought to have for habitation a big, gaunt, powerfulman's body, and for occupation the running of a big factory. " Heseemed to be philosophizing more to himself than to Sylvia, and beyonda surprised look into his extremely grimy face, she made no comment. She had taken for granted from the talk between him and Molly that hewas one of the "forceful, impossible Montgomery cousins, " and hadcast her own first remarks in a tone calculated to fit in withthe supposititious dialect of such a person. But his voice, hisintonations, and his whimsical idea about Molly fitted in with theconception of an "impossible" as little as with the actual visiblefacts of his ragged shirt-sleeves and faded, earth-stained overalls. They toiled upwards in silence for some moments, the man still chewingon his birch-twig. He noticed her sidelong half-satirical glance atit. "Don't you want one?" he asked, and gravely cut a long, slim rodfrom one of the saplings in the green wall shutting them into theroad. As he gave it to her he explained, "It's the kind they makebirch beer of. You nip off the bark with your teeth. You'll like it. "

Still more at sea as to what sort of person he might be, and nowfearing perhaps to wound him if he should turn out to be a veryunsophisticated one, Sylvia obediently set her teeth to the lustrous, dark bark and tore off a bit, which gave out in her mouth a mild, pleasant aromatic tang, woodsy and penetrating, unlike any other tasteshe knew. "Good, isn't it?" said her companion simply. 

She nodded, slowly awakening to a tepid curiosity about the individualwho strode beside her, lanky and powerful in his blue jeans. What anodd circumstance, her trudging off through the woods thus with a guideof whom she knew nothing except that he was Molly Sommerville's cousinand worked a Vermont farm--and had certainly the dirtiest face she hadever seen, with the exception of the coal-blackened stokers in thepower-house of the University. He spoke again, as though in answerto what might naturally be in her mind: "At the top of the road itcrosses a brook, and I think a wash would be possible. I've a bitof soap in my pocket that'll help--though it takes quite a lot ofscrubbing to get off fire-fighting grime. " He looked pointedly down ather as he talked. 

Sylvia was so astonished that she dropped back through years ofcarefully acquired self-consciousness into a moment of the starksimplicity of childhood. "Why--is _my_ face dirty?" she cried out. 

The man beside her apparently found the contrast between her looks andthe heartfelt sincerity of her question too much for him. He burstinto helpless laughter, though he was adroit enough to thrust forwardas a pretext, "The picture of my _own_ grime that I get from youraccent is tremendous!" But it was evidently not at his own joke thathe was laughing. 

For an instant Sylvia hung poised very near to extreme annoyance. Never since she had been grown up, had she appeared at such an absurddisadvantage. But at once the mental picture of herself, makinginaudible carping strictures on her companion's sootiness and, allunconscious, lifting to observe it a critical countenance as swart ashis own--the incongruity smote her deliciously, irresistibly! Soreheart or not, black depression notwithstanding, she needs must laugh, and having laughed, laugh again, laugh louder and longer, and finally, like a child, laugh for the sake of laughing, till out through thisunexpected channel she discharged much of the stagnant bitternessaround her heart. 

Her companion laughed with her. The still, sultry summer woods echoedwith the sound. "How human, how lusciously _human_!" he exclaimed. "Neither of us thought that _he_ might be the blackened one!"

"Oh, mine _can't_ be as bad as yours!" gasped out Sylvia, but whenshe rubbed a testing handkerchief on her cheek, she went off in freshpeals at the sight of the resultant black smears. 

"Don't, for Heaven's sake, waste that handkerchief, " cautioned hercompanion. "It's the only towel between us. Mine's impossible!" Heshowed her the murky rag which was his own; and as they spoke, theyreached the top of the road, heard the sound of water, and stoodbeside the brook. 

He stepped across it, in one stride of his long legs, rolled up hisshirt-sleeves, took a book out of his pocket, laid it on a stone, andknelt down. "I choose this for _my_ wash-basin, " he said, indicating alimpid pool paved with clean gray pebbles. 

Sylvia answered in the same note of play, "This'll be mine. " It layat the foot of a tiny waterfall, plashing with a tinkling note intotransparent shallows. She cast an idle glance on the book he had laiddown and read its title, "A History of the Institution of Property, "and reflected that she had been right in thinking it had afamiliar-looking cover. She had dusted books with that sort of coverall her life. 

Molly's cousin produced from his overalls a small piece of yellowkitchen-soap, which he broke into scrupulously exact halves andpresented with a grave flourish to Sylvia. "Now, go to it, " heexhorted her; "I bet I get a better wash than you. "

Sylvia took off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorousablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicatedmany-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, andher merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditionalfeminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at havingunconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined thatno slightest stain should remain on her smooth, fine-textured skin. She felt, as a pretty woman always feels, that her personality wasindissolubly connected with her looks, and it was a symbolic act whichshe performed as she fiercely scrubbed her face with the yellow soaptill its acrid pungency blotted out for her the woodland aroma ofmoist earth and green leaves. She dashed the cold water up on hercheeks till the spattering drops gleamed like crystals on the crispwaviness of her ruddy brown hair. She washed her hands and arms in theicy mountain water till they were red with the cold, hot though theday was. She was chilled, and raw with the crude astringency of thesoap, but she felt cleansed to the marrow of her bones, as thoughthere had been some mystic quality in this lustration in runningwater, performed under the open sky. The racy, black-birch tang stilllingering on her tongue was a flavor quite in harmony with thisseverely washed feeling. It was a taste notably clean. 

She looked across the brook at her companion, now sitting back on hisheels, and saw that there had emerged from his grime a thin, tanned, high-nosed face, topped by drab-colored hair of no great abundance andlighted by a pair of extraordinarily clear, gray eyes. She perceivedno more in the face at that moment, because the man, as he looked upat her, became nothing but a dazzled mirror from which was reflectedback to her the most flattering image of her own appearance. Almostactually she saw herself as she appeared to him, a wood-nymph, kneeling by the flowing water, vital, exquisite, strong, radiant in acool flush, her uncovered hair gleaming in a thousand loosened waves. Like most comely women of intelligence Sylvia was intimately familiarwith every phase of her own looks, and she knew down to the lastblood-corpuscle that she had never looked better. But almost at oncecame the stab that Felix Morrison was not the man who was looking ather, and the heartsick recollection that he would never again be thereto see her. Her moment of honest joy in being lovely passed. She stoodup with a clouded face, soberly pulled down her sleeves, and picked upher hat. 

"Oh, why don't you leave it off?" said the man across the brook. "You'd be so much more comfortable!" She knew that he meant her hairwas too pretty to cover, and did not care what he meant. "All right, I'll carry it, " she assented indifferently. 

He did not stir, gazing up at her frankly admiring. Sylvia made out, from the impression he evidently now had of her, that her face hadreally been very, very dirty; and at the recollection of that absurdascent of the mountain by those two black-faced, twig-chewingindividuals, a return of irrepressible laughter quivered on her lips. Before his eyes, as swiftly, as unaccountably, as utterly as an Aprilday shifts its moods, she had changed from radiant, rosy wood-goddessto saddened mortal and thence on into tricksy, laughing elf. He burstout on her, "Who _are_ you, anyhow?"

She remembered with a start. "Why, that's so, Molly didn't mention myname--isn't that like Molly! Why, I'm Sylvia Marshall, "

"You may be _named_ Sylvia Marshall!" he said, leaving an inference inthe air like incense. 

"Well, yes, to be sure, " rejoined Sylvia; "I heard somebody only theother day say that an introduction was the quaintest of grotesques, since people's names are the most--"

He applied a label with precision. "Oh, you know Morrison?"

She was startled at this abrupt emergence of the name which secretlyfilled her mind and was aware with exasperation that she was blushing. Her companion appeared not to notice this. He was attempting thedifficult feat of wiping his face on the upper part of his sleeve, and said in the intervals of effort: "Well, you know _my_ name. Mollydidn't forget that. "

"But _I_ did, " Sylvia confessed. "I was so excited by the fire I nevernoticed at all. I've been racking my brains to remember, all the wayup here. "

For some reason the man seemed quite struck with this statement andeyed her with keenness as he said: "Oh--really? Well, my name isAustin Page. " At the candid blankness of her face he showed a boyishflash of white teeth in a tanned face. "Do you mean to say you'venever heard of me?"

"_Should_ I?" said Sylvia, with a graceful pretense of alarm. "Do youwrite, or something? Lay it to my ignorance. It's immense. "

He shook his head. He smiled down on her. She noticed now that hiseyes were very kind as well as clear and keen. "No, I don't write, oranything. There's no reason why you should ever have heard of me. Ionly thought--I thought possibly Molly or Uncle George might havehappened to mention me. "

"I'm only on from the West for a visit, " explained Sylvia. "I neverwas in Lydford before. I don't know the people there. "

"Well then, to avoid Morrison's strictures on introductions I'll addto my name the information that I am thirty-two years old; a graduateof Columbia University; that I have some property in Colorado whichgives me a great deal of trouble; and a farm with a wood lot inVermont which is the joy of my heart. I cannot endure politics; Iplay the flute, like my eggs boiled three minutes, and admire GeorgeMeredith. "

His manoeuvers with his sleeve were so preposterous that Sylvia nowcried to him: "Oh, don't twist around that way. You'll give yourselfa crick in the neck. Here's my handkerchief. We were going to sharethat, anyhow. "

"And you, " he went on gravely, wiping his face with the bit ofcambric, "are Sylvia Marshall, presumably Miss; you can laugh at ajoke on yourself; are not afraid to wash your face with kitchen soap;and apparently are the only girl in the twentieth century who has nota mirror and a powder-puff concealed about her person. "

All approbation was sweet to Sylvia. She basked in this. "Oh, I'ma Hottentot, a savage from the West, as I told you, " she saidcomplacently. 

"You've been in Lydford long enough to hear Morrison hold forth on theidiocies of social convention, the while he neatly manipulates them tohis own advantage. "

Sylvia had dreaded having to speak of Morrison, but she was nowgreatly encouraged by the entire success of her casual tone, as sheexplained, "Oh, he's an old friend of my aunt's, and he's been at thehouse a good deal. " She ventured to try herself further, and inquiredwith a bright look of interest, "What do you think of his engagementto your cousin Molly?"

He was petrified with astonishment. "_Molly_ engaged to _Morrison_!"he cried. "We can't be talking about the same people. I mean _Felix_Morrison the critic. "

She felt vindicated by his stupefaction and liked him for it. "Why, yes; hadn't you heard?" she asked, with an assumption of herselfseeing nothing surprising in the news. 

"No, I hadn't, and I can't believe it now!" he said, blinking hiseyes. "I never heard such an insane combination of names in my life. "He went on, "What under the _sun_ does Molly want of Morrison!"

Sylvia was vexed with him for this unexpected view. He was not sodiscerning as she had thought. She turned away and picked up her hat. "We ought to be going on, " she said, and as they walked she answered, "You don't seem to have a very high opinion of Mr. Morrison. "

He protested with energy. "Oh yes, I have. Quite the contrary, I thinkhim one of the most remarkable men I know, and one of the finest. Iadmire him immensely. I'd trust his taste sooner than I would my own. "

To this handsome tribute Sylvia returned, smiling, "The inference isthat you don't think much of Molly. "

"I _know_ Molly!" he said simply. "I've known her and loved her eversince she was a hot-tempered, imperious little girl--which is all sheis now. Engaged . . . And engaged to Morrison! It's a plain case ofschoolgirl infatuation!" He was lost in wonder, uneasy wonder itseemed, for after a period of musing he brought out: "They'll cut eachother's throats inside six months. Or Molly'll cut her own. What underthe sun was her grandfather thinking of?"

Sylvia said gravely, "Girls' grandfathers have such an influence intheir marriages. "

He smiled a rueful recognition of the justice of her thrust and thenfell into silence. 

The road did not climb up now, but led along the side of the mountain. Through the dense woods the sky-line, first guessed at, then clearlyseen between the thick-standing tree-trunks, sank lower and lower. "We are approaching, " said Page, motioning in front of them, "thejumping-off place. " They passed from the tempered green light of thewood and emerged upon a great windy plateau, carpeted thickly withdeep green moss, flanked right and left with two mountain peaks androofed over with an expanse of brilliant summer sky. Before them theplateau stretched a mile or more, wind-swept, sun-drenched, with anindescribable bold look of great altitude; but close to them at oneside ran a parapet-like line of tumbled rock and beyond this a sheerdescent. The eye leaped down abrupt slopes of forest to the valleythey had left, now a thousand feet below them, jewel-like with mysticblues and greens, tremulous with heat. On the noble height where theystood, the wind blew cool from the sea of mist-blue peaks beyond thevalley. 

Sylvia was greatly moved. "Oh, what a wonderful spot!" she said underher breath. "I never dreamed that anything could be--" She burst outsuddenly, scarcely knowing what she said, "Oh, I wish my _mother_could be here!" She had not thought of her mother for days, and nowhardly knew that she had spoken her name. Standing there, poised abovethe dark richness of the valley, her heart responding to those vastairy spaces by an upward-soaring sweep, the quick tears of ecstasywere in her eyes. She had entirely forgotten herself and hercompanion. He did not speak. His eyes were on her face. 

She moved to the parapet of rock and leaned against it. The actionbrought her to herself and she flashed around on Page a gratefulsmile. "It's a very beautiful spot you've brought me to, " she said. 

He came up beside her now. "It's a favorite of mine, " he said quietly. "If I come straight through the woods it's not more than a mile frommy farm. I come up here for the sunsets sometimes--or for dawn. "

Sylvia found the idea almost too much for her. "_Oh!_" shecried--"dawn here!"

"Yes, " said the man, smiling faintly. "It's all of that!"

In her life of plains and prairies Sylvia had never been upon a greatheight, had never looked down and away upon such reaches of farvalley, such glorious masses of sunlit mountain; and beyond them, giving wings to the imagination, were mountains, more mountains, distant, incalculably distant, with unseen hollow valleys between; andfinally, mountains again, half cloud, melting indistinguishably intothe vaporous haze of the sky. Above her, sheer and vast, lay HemlockMountain, all its huge bulk a sleeping, passionless calm. Beyond wasthe solemnity of Windward Mountain's concave shell, full to thebrim with brooding blue shadows, a well of mystery in that day ofwind-blown sunshine. Beneath her, above her, before her, seemingly theelement in which she was poised, was space, illimitable space. She hadnever been conscious of such vastness, she was abashed by it, she wasexalted by it, she knew a moment of acute shame for the pettiness ofher personal grievances. For a time her spirit was disembarrassedof the sorry burden of egotism, and she drank deep from the cup ofhealing which Nature holds up in such instants of beatitude. Her eyeswere shining pools of peace. . . . 

They went on in a profound silence across the plateau, the deep, softmoss bearing them up with a tough elasticity, the sun hot and lustyon their heads, the sweet, strong summer wind swift and loud in theirears, the only sound in all that enchanted upland spot. Often Sylvialifted her face to the sky, so close above her, to the clouds movingwith a soundless rhythm across the sky; once or twice she turned herhead suddenly from one side to the other, to take in all the beauty atone glance, and smiled on it all, a vague, sunny, tender smile. Butshe did not speak. 

As she trod on the thick moss upspringing under her long, light step, her advance seemed as buoyant as though she stepped from cloud tocloud. . . . 

When they reached the other side, and were about to begin the descentinto Lydford valley, she lingered still. She looked down into thevalley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, withhalf-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath:"It's Beethoven--just the blessedness of Beethoven! The valley isa legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, staccato; and the mountains here, the solemn chords. "

Her companion did not answer. She looked up at him, inquiringly, thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeplymoved to speak. She was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked bythe profundity of his gaze upon her. Her heart stood still and gavea great leap. Chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment andincredulity. An hour before he had never seen her, had never heard ofher--and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbedin herself, indifferent. How could he in that hour have . . . 

He looked away and said steadily, "--and the river is the melody thatbinds it all together. "

Sylvia drew a great breath of relief. She had been the victim of someextraordinary hallucination: "--with the little brooks for variationson the theme, " she added hastily. 

He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm acrossthe path. "Here's the beginning of the trail down to Lydford, " hesaid. "We will be there in twenty minutes. It's almost a straight dropdown. "

CHAPTER XXVIII

SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?"

If Sylvia wondered, as she dropped down the heights to the valley, what her reception might be at her aunt's ceremonious household whenshe entered escorted by a strange hatless man in blue overalls, herfancy fell immeasurably short of the actual ensuing sensation. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, her stepson, Felix Morrison, and old Mr. Sommervillewere all sitting together on the wide north veranda, evidently waitingto be called to luncheon when, at half-past one, the two pedestriansemerged through a side wicket in the thick green hedge of spruce, andadvanced up the path, with the free, swinging step of people who havewalked far and well. The effect on the veranda was unimaginable. Sheer, open-mouthed stupefaction blurred for an instant the composed, carefully arranged masks of those four exponents of decorum. Theygaped and stared, unable to credit their eyes. 

And then, according to their natures, they acted. Mrs. Marshall-Smithrose quickly, smiled brilliantly, and stepped forward with welcomingoutstretched hands. "Why, Sylvia dear, how delightful! What anunexpected pleasure, Mr. Page!"

Old Mr. Sommerville fairly bounded past Sylvia, caught the man's arm, and said in an anxious, affectionate, startled voice, "Why, Austin!Austin! Austin!"

Morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirelyexpressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention. " He had not seenSylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. Hegave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance asshe stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordialgreeting of "Well, Page. This is luck indeed!" but he indicated by hisimmobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further untilthe first interchange between blood-kin was over. 

As for Arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouthto speak. A slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. He grinneddelightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finallybroke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene beforehim. 

Four people were talking at once; Mr. Sommerville, a dismayed old handstill clutching at the new-comer, was protesting with extreme vigor, and being entirely drowned out by the others. "Of course he can'tstay--as he _is!_ I'll go home with him at once! His room at my houseis always ready for him!--fresh clothes!--No, no--impossible to stay!"Mrs. Marshall-Smith was holding firm with her loveliest manner of warmfriendliness concentrated on Page. "Oh, no ceremony, Mr. Page, notbetween old friends. Luncheon is just ready--who cares how you look?"She did not physically dispute with Mr. Sommerville the possession ofthe new-comer, but she gave entirely that effect. 

Sylvia, unable to meet Morrison's eyes, absorbed in the difficulty ofthe moment for her, unillumined by the byplay between her aunt and oldMr. Sommerville, strove for an appearance of vivacious loquacity, andcast into the conversation entirely disregarded bits of descriptionof the fire. "Oh, Tantine, such an excitement!--we took nine menwith hoes up such a steep--!" And finally Page, resisting old Mr. Sommerville's pull on his arm, was saying: "If luncheon is ready, and I'm invited, no more needs to be said. I've been haying andfire-fighting since seven this morning. A wolf is nothing comparedwith me. " He looked across the heads of the three nearest him andcalled to Arnold: "Smith, you'll lend me some flannels, won't you? Wemust be much of the same build. "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned, taking no pains to hide her satisfaction. She positively gloated over the crestfallen Mr. Sommerville. "Sylvia, run quick and have Hélène smooth your hair. And call to Tojiko to puton an extra place for luncheon. Arnold, take Mr. Page up to your room, won't you, so that he--"

Sylvia, running up the stairs, heard her late companion protesting:"Oh, just for a change of clothes, only a minute--you needn't expectme to do any washing. I'm clean. I'm washed within an inch of mylife--yellow soap--kitchen soap!"

"And our little scented toilet futilities, " Morrison's cameo ofsmall-talk carried to the upper hall. "What could they add to such aSpartan lustration?"

"Hurry, Hélène, " said Sylvia. "It is late, and Mr. Page is dying ofhunger, "

In spite of the exhortation to haste, Hélène stopped short, upliftedbrush in hand. "Mr. Page, the millionaire!" she exclaimed. 

Sylvia blinked at her in the glass, amazed conjectures racing throughher mind. But she had sufficient self-possession to say, carelessly asthough his identity was nothing to her: "I don't know. It is the firsttime I have seen him. He certainly is not handsome. "

Hélène thrust in the hairpins with impassioned haste and deftness, andexcitedly snatched a lace jacket from a drawer. To the maid's despairSylvia refused this adornment, refused the smallest touch of rouge, refused an ornament in her hair. Hélène wrung her hands. "But see, Mademoiselle is not wise! For what good is it to be so savage! He ismore rich than all! They say he owns all the State of Colorado!"

Sylvia, already in full retreat towards the dining-room, caught thislast geographic extravagance of Gallic fancy, and laughed, and withthis mirth still in her face made her re-entry on the veranda. She hadnot been away three minutes from the group there, and she was to theeye as merely flushed and gay when she came back as when she wentaway; but a revolution had taken place. Closely shut in her hand, sheheld, held fast, the key Hélène had thrust there. Behind her smile, her clear, bright look of valiant youth, a great many considerationswere being revolved with extreme rapidity by an extremely swift andactive brain. 

Swift and active as was the brain, it fairly staggered under the taskof instantly rearranging the world according to the new pattern:for the first certainty to leap into sight was that the pattern wasutterly changed by the events of the morning. She had left thehouse, betrayed, defenseless save for a barren dignity, and she hadre-entered it in triumph, or at least with a valid appearance oftriumph, an appearance which had already tided her over the achingdifficulty of the first meeting with Morrison and might carry her . . . She had no time now to think how far. 

Page and Arnold were still invisible when she emerged again on theveranda, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith pounced on her with the frankestcuriosity. "Sylvia, do tell us--how in the world--"

Sylvia was in the midst of a description of the race to the fire, asvivid as she could make it, when Arnold sauntered back and after him, in a moment, Page, astonishingly transformed by clothes. His heightmeant distinction now. Sylvia noted again his long, strong hands, hisaquiline, tanned face and clear eyes, his thoughtful, observant eyes. There was a whimsical quirk of his rather thin but gentle lips whichreminded her of the big bust of Emerson in her father's study. Sheliked all this; but her suspiciousness, alert for affront, since theexperience with Morrison, took offense at his great ease of manner. Ithad seemed quite natural and unaffected to her, in fact she had not atall noticed it before; but now that she knew of his great wealth, sheinstantly conceived a resentful idea that possibly it might come fromthe self-assurance of a man who knows himself much courted. She heldher head high, gave to him as to Arnold a nod of careless recognition, and continued talking: "Such a road--so steep--sand half-way to thehubs, such water-bars!" She turned to Morrison with her first overtrecognition of the new status between them. "You ought to have seenyour fiancée! She was wonderful! I was proud of her!"

Morrison nodded a thoughtful assent. "Yes, Molly's energy isirresistible, " he commented, casting his remark in the form of ageneralization the significance of which did not pass unnoticed bySylvia's sharp ears. They were the first words he had spoken to hersince his engagement. 

"Luncheon is ready, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Do come in. " Every oneby this time being genuinely hungry, and for various reasons extremelycurious about the happenings back of Sylvia's appearance, the meal wasdedicated frankly to eating, varied only by Sylvia's running accountof the fire. "And then Molly wanted to take the fire-fighters home, and I offered to walk to have more room for them, and Mr. Page broughtme up the other side of Hemlock and over the pass between Hemlock andWindward and down past Deer Cliff, home, " she wound up, compressinginto tantalizing brevity what was patently for her listeners by farthe most important part of the expedition. 

"Well, whatever route he took, it is astonishing that he knew the wayto Lydford at all, " commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "I don't believeyou've been here before for years!" she said to Page. 

"It's my confounded shyness, " he explained, turning to Sylvia with atwinkle. "The grand, sophisticated ways of Lydford are too much forthe nerves of a plain-living rustic like me. When I farm in Vermontthe spirit of the place takes hold of me. I'm quite apt to eat my piewith my knife, and Lydford wouldn't like that. "

Sylvia was aware, through the laughter which followed this jokingremark, that there was an indefinable stir around the table. Histurning to her had been pronounced. She took a sore pleasure inMorrison's eclipse. For the first time he was not the undisputedcenter of that circle. He accepted it gravely, a little preoccupied, a little absent, a wonderfully fine and dignified figure. Under hermisanthropic exultation, Sylvia felt again and again the stab ofher immense admiration for him, her deep affinity for his way ofconducting life. Whatever place he might take in the circle around theluncheon table, she found him inevitably at the center of all her ownthoughts. However it might seem to those evidently greatly struck withher extraordinary good luck, her triumph was in reality only the mostpitiful of pretenses. But such as it was, and it gleamed richly enoughon the eyes of the onlookers, she shook it out with a flourish andgave no sign of heartsick qualms. She gave a brilliantly undividedattention to the bit of local history Page was telling her, of aregiment of Green Mountain Boys who had gone down to the Battle ofBennington over the pass between Windward and Hemlock Mountain, andshe was able to stir Page to enthusiasm by an appreciative comparisonof their march with the splendid and affecting incident beforeMarathon, when the thousand hoplites from the little town of Plataeacrossed the Cithaeron range and went down to the plain to join theAthenians in their desperate stand. 

"How do you _happen_ to come East just now, anyhow?" inquired old Mr. Sommerville, resolutely shouldering his way into the conversation. 

"My yellow streak!" affirmed his nephew. "Colorado got too much forme. And besides, I was overcome by an atavistic longing to do chores. "He turned to Sylvia again, the gesture as unconscious and simple as aboy's. "My great-grandfather was a native of these parts, and aboutonce in so often I revert to type. "

"All my mother's people came from this region too, " Sylvia said. Sheadded meditatively, "And I think I must have reverted to type--upthere on the mountain, this morning. "

He looked at her silently, with softening eyes. 

"You'll be going back soon, I suppose, as usual!" said old Mr. Sommerville with determination. 

"To Colorado?" inquired Page. "No, I think--I've a notion I'll stay onthis summer for some time. There is an experiment I want to try withalfalfa in Vermont. "

Over his wineglass Arnold caught Sylvia's eye, and winked. 

"Still reading as much as ever, I suppose. " Mr. Sommerville was notto be put down. "When I last saw you, it was some fool socialisticpoppycock about the iniquity of private exploitation of naturalresources. How'd they ever have been exploited any other way I'd liketo know! What's socialism? Organized robbery! Nothing else! 'Down withsuccess! Down with initiative! Down with brains!' Stuff!"

"It's not socialism this time: it's Professor Merritt's theories onproperty, " said Sylvia to the old gentleman, blandly ignoring hisignoring of her. 

Page stared at her in astonishment. "Are you a clairvoyant?" he cried. 

"No, no, " she explained, laughing. "You took it out of your pocket upthere by the brook. "

"But you saw only the title. Merritt's name isn't on the cover. "

"Oh, it's a pretty well-known book, " said Sylvia easily. "And myfather's a professor of Economics. When I was little I used to havebooks like that to build houses with, instead of blocks. And I've hadto keep them in order and dusted ever since. I'm not saying that Iknow much about their insides. "

"Just look there!" broke in Arnold. "Did I ever see a young lady passup such a perfectly good chance to bluff!"

As usual nobody paid the least attention to his remark. Theconversation shifted to a radical play which had been on the boards inParis, the winter before. 

After luncheon, they adjourned into the living-room. As the companystraggled across the wide, dimly shining, deeply shaded hall, Sylviafelt her arm seized and held, and turning her head, looked into thelaughing face of Arnold. "What kind of flowers does Judy like thebest?" he inquired, the question evidently the merest pretext todetain her, for as the others moved out of earshot he said in adelighted whisper, his eyes gleaming in the dusk with amused malice:"Go it, Sylvia! Hit 'em out! It's worth enduring oceans of Greekhistory to see old Sommerville squirm. Molly gone--Morrison as poor asa church mouse; and now Page going fast before his very eyes--"

She shook off his hand with genuine annoyance. "I don't know whatyou're talking about, Arnold. You're horrid! Judith doesn't like cutflowers at all, --any kind. She likes them alive, on plants. "

"She _would!_" Arnold was rapt in his habitual certainty that everypeculiarity of Judith's was another reason for prostrate adoration. "I'll send her a window-box for every window in the hospital. " Hisadmiration overflowed to Judith's sister. He patted her on theshoulder. "You're all right too, Sylvia. You're batting aboutthree-sixty, right now. I've always told the girls when they said Pagewas offish that if they could only get in under his guard once--andsomehow you've done it. I bet on _you_--" He began to laugh at herstern face of reproof. "Oh, yes, yes, I agree! You don't know what I'mtalking about! It's just alfalfa in Vermont! Only my low vulgarity tothink anything else!" He moved away down the hall. "Beat it! I slope!"

"Where are you going?" she asked. 

"Away! Away!" he answered. "Anywhere that's away. The air is rank withOscar Wilde and the Renaissance. I feel them coming. " Still laughing, he bounded upstairs, three steps at a time. 

Sylvia stepped forward, crossed the threshold of the living-room, and paused by the piano, penetrated by bitter-sweet associations. IfMorrison felt them also, he gave no sign. He had chosen a chair by adistant window and was devoting himself to Molly's grandfather, whoaccepted this delicate and entirely suitable attention with a ratherglum face. Mrs. Marshall-Smith and Page still stood in the centerof the room, and turned as Sylvia came in. "Do give us some music, Sylvia, " said her aunt, sinking into a chair while Page came forwardto sit near the piano. 

Sylvia's fingers rested on the keys for a moment, her face very grave, almost somber, and then, as though taking a sudden determination, shebegan to play a Liszt Liebes-Traum. It was the last music Morrison hadplayed to her before the beginning of the change. Into its feveredcadences she poured the quivering, astonished hurt of her young heart. 

No one stirred during the music nor for the moment afterward, in whichshe turned about to face the room. She looked squarely at Morrison, who was rolling a cigarette with meticulous care, and as she looked, he raised his eyes and gave her across the room one deep, flashingglance of profound significance. That was all. That was enough. Thatwas everything. Sylvia turned back to the piano shivering, hot andcold with secret joy. His look said, "Yes, of course, a thousand timesof course, you are the one in my heart. " What the facts said for himwas, "But I am going to marry Molly because she has money. "

Sylvia was horrified that she did not despise him, that she did notresent his entering her heart again with the intimacy of thatlook. Her heart ran out to welcome him back; but from the sense offurtiveness she shrank back with her lifetime habit and experience ofprobity, with the instinctive distaste for stealth engendered only bylong and unbroken acquaintance with candor. With a mental action asdefinite as the physical one of freeing her feet from a quicksand sheturned away from the alluring, dim possibility opened to her by thatlook. No, no! No stains, no smears, no shufflings! She was consciousof no moral impulse, in the usual sense of the word. Her imaginationtook in no possibility of actual wrong. But when, with a fastidiousimpulse of good taste, she turned her back on something ugly, sheturned her back unwittingly on something worse than ugly. 

But it was not easy! Oh, not at all easy! She quailed with a sense ofher own weakness, so unexpected, so frightening. Would she resist itthe next time? How pierced with helpless ecstasy she had been by thatinterchange of glances! What was there, in that world, by which shecould steady herself?

"How astonishingly well you play, " said Page, rousing himself from thedreamy silence of appreciation. 

"I ought to, " she said with conscious bitterness. "I earn my living byteaching music. "

She was aware from across the room of an electric message from AuntVictoria protesting against her perversity; and she reflected witha morose amusement that however delicately phrased Aunt Victoria'sprotests might be, its substance was the same as that of Hélène, crying out on her for not adding the soupçon of rouge. She took asudden resolution. Well, why not? Everything conspired to push herin that direction. The few factors which did not were mere imbecileidealism, or downright hypocrisy. She drew a long breath. She smiledat Page, a smile of reference to something in common between them. "Shan't I play you some Beethoven?" she asked, "something with alegato passage and great solemn chords, and a silver melody bindingthe whole together?"

"Oh yes, do!" he said softly. And in a moment she was putting all ofher intelligence, her training, and her capacity to charm into thetones of the E-flat Minuet. 

CHAPTER XXIX

A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD

The millionaire proprietor had asked them all over to the Austin Farm, and as they drew near the end of the very expensive and delicatelyserved meal which Page had spoken of as a "picnic-lunch, " variousplans for the disposition of the afternoon were suggested. Thesesuggestions were prefaced by the frank statement of the owner of theplace that whatever else the others did, it was his own intention totake Miss Marshall through a part of his pine plantations and explainhis recent forestry operations to her. The assumption that MissMarshall would of course be interested in his pine plantations andlumbering operations struck nobody but Miss Marshall as queer. Withthe most hearty and simple unconsciousness, they unanimously felt thatof course Miss Marshall _would_ be interested in the pine plantationsand the lumbering operations of any man who was worth nobody knew howmany millions in coal, and who was so obviously interested in her. 

Sylvia had been for some weeks observing the life about her with verymuch disillusioned eyes and she now labeled the feeling on the part ofher friends with great accuracy, saying to herself cynically, "If itwere prize guinea-pigs or collecting beer-steins, they would all bejust as sure that I would jump up and say, 'Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page!'" Following this moody reflection she immediately jumped upand said enthusiastically, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page!" Thebrilliance in her eyes during these weeks came partly from a relievedsense of escape from a humiliating position, and partly from anamusement at the quality of human nature which was as dubiouslyenjoyable as the grim amusement of biting on a sore tooth. 

She now took her place by the side of their host, and thought, lookingat his outdoor aspect, that her guess at what to wear had been betterthan Aunt Victoria's or Molly's. For the question of what to wear hadbeen a burning one. Pressure had been put on her to don just a lacy, garden-party toilette of lawn and net as now automatically barred bothAunt Victoria and Molly from the proposed expedition to the woods. Nobody had had the least idea what was to be the color of theentertainment offered them, for the great significance of the affairwas that it was the first time that Page had ever invited any one tothe spot for which he evidently felt such an unaccountable affection. Aunt Victoria had explained to Sylvia, "It's always at the big Pageestate in Lenox that he entertains, or rather that he gets his motherto do the absolutely indispensable entertaining for him. " Morrisonsaid laughingly: "Isn't it the very quintessence of quaintness tovisit him there! To watch his detached, whimsical air of not beingin the least a part of all the magnificence which bears his name. Heinsists, you know, that he doesn't begin to know his way around thathuge house!" "It was his father who built the Lenox place, " commentedMrs. Marshall-Smith. "It suited _his_ taste to perfection. Austinseems to have a sort of Marie-Antoinette reaction towards a somewhatpainfully achieved simplicity. He's not the man to take any sort ofpose. If he were, it would be impossible not to suspect him ofa little pose in his fondness for going back to his farmergreat-grandfather's setting. " Guided by this conversation, and byshrewd observations of her own, Sylvia had insisted, even to the pointof strenuousness, upon wearing to this first housewarming a clothskirt and coat, tempering the severity of this costume with asufficiently feminine and beruffled blouse of silk. As their car hadswung up before the plain, square, big-chimneyed old house, and Pagehad come to meet them, dressed in khaki-colored forester's garb, with puttees, Aunt Victoria had been generous enough to admit by aneye-flash to Sylvia that the girl knew her business very well. Therewas not, of course, Sylvia reflected, the slightest pretense ofobscurity between them as to what, under the circumstances, herbusiness was. 

All this lay back of the fact that, as Sylvia, her face bright withspontaneous interest in pine plantations and lumbering operations, stepped to the side of the man in puttees, her costume exactly suitedhis own. 

From the midst of a daring and extremely becoming arrangement of blackand white striped chiffon and emerald-green velvet, Molly's beautifulface smiled on them approvingly. For various reasons, the spectacleafforded her as much pleasure as it did extreme discomfort to hergrandfather, and with her usual masterful grasp on a situation shebegan to arrange matters so that the investigation of pine plantationsand lumber operations should be conducted _en tête-à-tête_. "Mrs. Marshall-Smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look atAustin's lovely view! Think of his having hidden that view away fromus all till now! I want to go through the house later on, and withoutAustin, so I can linger and pry if I like! I want to look at everysingle thing. It's lovely--the completest Yankee setting! It looksas though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wearsteel-rimmed spectacles. No, Austin, don't frown! I don't mean thatfor a knock. I love it, honestly I do! I always thought I'd like towear clean gingham aprons myself. The only things that are out ofkeeping are those shelves and shelves and shelves of solemn books withsuch terrible titles!"

"That's a fact, Page, " said Morrison, laughing. "Molly's hit thenail squarely. Your modern, economic spasms over the organization ofindustrialism are out of place in that delightful, eighteenth century, plain old interior. They threw _their_ fits over theology!"

The owner of the house nodded. "Yes, you know your period! Agreat-great-grandfather of mine, a ministerial person, had left a lotof books on the nature of the Trinity and Free Will and such. They hadto be moved up to the attic to make room for mine. What books will beon those shelves a hundred years from now, I wonder?"

"Treatises on psychic analysis, on how to transfer thought withoutwords, unless I read the signs of the times wrong, " Morrison hazardeda guess. 

Molly was bored by this talk and anxious to get the walkers off. "You'd better be starting if you're going far up on the mountain, Austin. We have to be back for a tea at Mrs. Neville's, where Sylvia'sto pour. Mrs. Neville would have a thing or two to say to us, if wemade her lose her main drawing card. "

"Are you coming, Morrison?" asked Page. 

"No, he isn't, " said Molly decidedly. "He's going to stay to play tome on that delicious tin-panny old harpsichordy thing in your 'bestroom. ' You do call it the 'best room, ' don't you? They always do inNew England dialect stories. Grandfather, you have your cards withyou, haven't you? You always have. If you'll get them out, Felix andArnold and I'll play whist with you. "

Only one of those thus laid hold of, slipped out from her stronglittle fingers. Arnold raised himself, joint by joint, from his chair, and announced that he was a perfect nut-head when it came to whist. "And, anyhow, " he went on insistently, raising his voice as Mollybegan to order him back into the ranks--"And, anyhow, I don't want toplay whist! And I do want to see what Page has been up to all thistime he's kept so dark about his goings-on over here. No, Molly, youneedn't waste any more perfectly good language on me. You can bosseverybody else if you like, but I'm the original, hairy wild-man whogets what he wants. "

He strolled off across the old-fashioned garden and out of the gatewith the other two, his attention given as usual to lighting acigarette. It was an undertaking of some difficulty on that day ofstiff September wind which blew Sylvia's hair about her ears inbright, dancing flutters. 

They were no more than out of earshot of the group left on the porch, than Sylvia, as so often happened in her growing acquaintanceship withPage, found herself obliged entirely to reconstruct an impression ofhim. It was with anything but a rich man's arrogant certainty ofher interest that he said, very simply as he said everything: "Iappreciate very much, Miss Marshall, your being willing to come alongand see all this. It's a part of your general kindness to everybody. I hope it won't bore you to extremity. I'm so heart and soul in itmyself, I shan't know when to stop talking about it. In fact I shan'twant to stop, even if I know I should. I've never said much about itto any one before, and I very much want your opinion on it. "

Sylvia felt a decent pinch of shame, and her eyes were not brilliantwith sardonic irony but rather dimmed with self-distrust as sheanswered with a wholesome effort for honesty: "I really don't know asingle thing about forestry, Mr. Page. You'll have to start in at thevery beginning, and explain everything. I hope I've sense enoughto take an intelligent interest. " Very different, this, from themeretricious sparkle of her, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page. " Shefelt that to be rather cheap, as she remembered it. She wondered if hehad seen its significance, had seen through her. From a three weeks'intensive acquaintance with him, she rather thought he had. His eyeswere clear, formidably so. He put her on her mettle. 

Arnold had lighted his cigarette by this time, offered one to Pagewith his incurable incapacity to remember that not every sane mansmokes, and on being refused, put his hands deep in his pockets. Thethree tall young people were making short work of the stretch ofsunny, windy, upland pasture, and were already almost in the edge ofthe woods which covered the slope of the mountain above them up to thevery crest, jewel-green against the great, piled, cumulus clouds. 

"Well, I _will_ begin at the beginning, then, " said Page. "I'llbegin back in 1762, when this valley was settled and myever-so-many-greats-grandfather took possession of a big slice of thisside of Hemlock Mountain, with the sole idea that trees were men'senemies. The American colonists thought of forests, you know, asplaces for Indians to lurk, spots that couldn't be used for corn, growths to be exterminated as fast as possible. "

They entered the woods now, walking at a good pace up the steeplyrising, grass-grown wood-road. Sylvia quite consciously summoned allher powers of attention and concentration for the hour before her, determined to make a good impression to counteract whatever too greatinsight her host might have shown in the matter of her first interest. She bent her fine brows with the attention she had so often summonedto face a difficult final examination, to read at the correct tempo acomplicated piece of music, to grasp the essentials of a new subject. Her trained interest in understanding things, which of late had beenfeeding on rather moldy scraps of cynical psychology, seized withenergy and delight on a change of diet. She not only tried to beinterested. Very shortly she was interested, absorbed, intent. WhatPage had to say fascinated her. She even forgot who he was, and thathe was immensely rich. Though this forgetfulness was only momentary itwas an unspeakable relief and refreshment to her. 

She listened intently; at times she asked a pertinent question; as shewalked she gave the man an occasional direct survey, as impersonal asthough he were a book from which she was reading. And exactly as anintelligent reader, in a first perusal of a new subject, snatches theheart out of paragraph after paragraph, ignoring the details untillater, she took to herself only the gist of her host's recital. Yes, yes, she saw perfectly the generations of Vermont farmers who hadhated trees because they meant the wilderness, and whose destructionof forests was only limited by the puniness of the forces they matchedagainst the great wooded slopes of the mountains they pre-empted. Andshe saw later, the long years of utter neglect of those hacked-at andhalf-destroyed forests while Page's grandfather and father descendedon the city and on financial operations with the fierce, fresh energyof frontiersmen. She was struck by the fact that those ruthlessvictors of Wall Street had not sold the hundreds of worthless acres, which they never took the trouble to visit; and by the still moresignificant fact that as the older ones of the family died, theAustins, the Pages, the Woolsons, the Hawkers, and as legacy afterlegacy of more worthless mountain acres came by inheritance to thefinanciers, those tracts too were never sold. They never thought ofthem, Page told her, except grumblingly to pay the taxes on them; theyconsidered them of ridiculously minute proportions compared to theirown titanic manipulations, but they had never sold them. Sylvia sawthem vividly, those self-made exiles from the mountains, and felt inthem some unacknowledged loyalty to the soil, the barren soil whichhad borne them, some inarticulate affection which had lived throughthe heat and rage of their embattled lives. The taproot had been toodeep for them to break off, and now from it there was springing upthis unexpected stem, this sole survivor of their race who turnedaway from what had been the flaming breath of life in their brazennostrils, back to the green fragrance of their mutilated and forgottenforests. 

Not the least of the charm of this conception for Sylvia came fromthe fact that she quarried it out for herself from the bare narrationpresented to her, that she read it not at all in the words, but in thevoice, the face, the manner of the raconteur. She was amused, she wastouched, she was impressed by his studiously matter-of-fact version ofhis enterprise. He put forward with the shy, prudish shamefacedness ofthe New Englander the sound financial basis of his undertaking, as itsmain claim on his interest, as its main value. "I heard so much aboutforestry being nothing but a rich man's plaything, " he said. "I justgot my back up, and wanted to see if it couldn't be made a payingthing. And I've proved it can be. I've had the closest account kept ofincome and outgo, and so far from being a drain on a man to reforesthis woodland and administer it as he should, there's an actual profitin it, enough to make a business of it, enough to occupy a man for hislifetime and his son after him, if he gives it his personal care. "

At this plain statement of a comprehensible fact, Arnold's inattentiongave place to a momentary interest. "Is there?" he asked withsurprise. "How much?"

"Well, " said Page, "my system, as I've gradually worked it out, is toclear off a certain amount each year of our mediocre woodland, such asfor the most part grows up where the bad cutting was done a couple ofgenerations ago--maple and oak and beech it is, mostly, with littlestands of white birch, where fires have been. I work that up in myown sawmill so as to sell as little of a raw product as possible; anddispose of it to the wood-working factories in the region. " (Sylviaremembered the great "brush-back factory" whence Molly had recruitedher fire-fighters. ) "Then I replant that area to white pine. That'sthe best tree for this valley. I put about a thousand trees to theacre. Or if there seems to be a good prospect of natural reproduction, I try for that. There's a region over there, about a hundred acres, "he waved his hand to the north of them, "that's thick with seedlingash. I'm leaving that alone. But for the most part, white pine's ourbest lay. Pine thrives on soil that stunts oak and twists beech. Ouroak isn't good quality, and maple is such an interminably slowgrower. In about twenty years from planting, you can make your first, box-board cutting of pine, and every ten years thereafter--"

Arnold had received this avalanche of figures and species with anastonished blink, and now protested energetically that he had had notthe slightest intention of precipitating any such flood. "Great Scott, Page, catch your breath! If you're talking to me, you'll have to useEnglish, anyhow. I've no more idea what you're talking about! Who doyou take me for? _I_ don't know an ash-tree from an ash-cart. Youstarted in to tell me what the profit of the thing is. "

Page looked pained but patient, like a reasonable man who knows hishobby is running away with him, but who cannot bring himself to usethe curb. "Oh yes, " he said apologetically. "Why, we cleared last year(exclusive of the farm, which yields a fair profit)--we cleared abouttwo thousand dollars. " Arnold seemed to regard this statement as quitethe most ridiculous mouse which ever issued from a mountain. He burstinto an open laugh. "Almost enough to buy you a new car a year, isn'tit?" he commented. 

Page looked extremely nettled. An annoyed flush showed through thetan of his clear skin. He was evidently very touchy about his petlumbering operations. "A great many American families consider that asufficient income, " he said stiffly. 

Sylvia had another inspiration, such as had been the genesis of herpresent walking-costume. "You're too silly, Arnold. The importantthing isn't what the proportion with Mr. Page's own income is! What hewas trying to do, and what he _has_ done, only you don't knowenough to see it, is to prove that sane forestry is possible forforest-owners of small means. I know, if you don't, that two thousandis plenty to live on. My father's salary is only twenty-four hundrednow, and we were all brought up when it was two thousand. "

She had had an intuitive certainty that this frank revelation wouldplease Page, and she was rewarded by an openly ardent flash from hisclear eyes. There was in his look at her an element of enchanted, relieved recognition, as though he had nodded and said: "Oh, you _are_my kind of a woman after all! I was right about you. "

Arnold showed by a lifted eyebrow that he was conscious of beingput down, but he survived the process with his usual negligentobliviousness of reproof. "Well, if two thousand a year producedJudith, go ahead, Page, and my blessing on you!" He added in ahalf-apology for his offensive laughter, "It just tickled me to heara man who owns most of several counties of coal-mines so set up overfinding a nickel on the street!"

Page had regained his geniality. "Well, Smith, maybe I needn't havejumped so when you stepped on my toe. But it's my pet toe, you see. You're quite right--I'm everlastingly set up over my nickel. But it'snot because I found it. It's because I earned it. It happens to be theonly nickel I ever earned. It's natural I should want it treated withrespect. "

Arnold did not trouble to make any sense out of this remark, andSylvia was thinking bitterly to herself: "But that's pure bluff! I'm_not_ his kind of a woman. I'm Felix Morrison's kind!" No comment, therefore, was made on the quaintness of the rich man's interest inearning capacity. 

They were now in one of the recent pine plantations, treading awood-road open to the sky, running between acres and acres of thriftyyoung pines. Page's eyes glistened with affection as he looked atthem, and with the unwearied zest of the enthusiast he continuedexpanding on his theme. Sylvia knew the main outline of her newsubject now, felt that she had walked all around it, and was agreeablysurprised at her sympathy with it. She continued with a genuinecuriosity to extract more details; and like any man who talks of aprocess which he knows thoroughly, Page was wholly at the mercy of asympathetic listener. His tongue tripped itself in his readiness toanswer, to expound, to tell his experiences, to pour out a confidentlyaccurate and precise flood of information. Sylvia began to take aplayful interest in trying to find a weak place in his armor, to ask aquestion he could not answer. But he knew all the answers. He knew therelative weight per cubic foot of oak and pine and maple; he knew therailroad rates per ton on carload lots; he knew why it is cheaper inthe long run to set transplants in sod-land instead of seeding it; heknew what per cent to write off for damage done by the pine weevil, hereveled in complicated statistics as to the actual cost per thousandfor chopping, skidding, drawing, sawing logs. He laughed at Sylvia'sattempts to best him, and in return beat about her ears withstatistics for timber cruising, explained the variations of theVermont and the scribner's decimal log rule, and recited log-scalingtables as fluently as the multiplication table. They were in the midstof this lively give-and-take, listened to with a mild amusement onArnold's part, when they emerged on a look-out ledge of gray slate, and were struck into silence by the grave loveliness of the immenseprospect below them. 

"--and of course, " murmured Page finally, on another note, "of courseit's rather a satisfaction to feel that you are making waste land ofuse to the world, and helping to protect the living waters of allthat--" He waved his hand over the noble expanse of sunlit valley. "Itseems"--he drew a long breath--"it seems something quite worth doing. "

Sylvia was moved to a disinterested admiration for him; and it was anot unworthy motive which kept her from looking up to meet his eyeson her. She felt a petulant distaste for the calculating speculationswhich filled the minds of all her world about his intentions towardsher. He was really too fine for that. At least, she owed it to herown dignity not to abuse this moment of fine, impersonal emotion toadvance another step into intimacy with him. 

But as she stood, looking fixedly down at the valley, she was quiteaware that a sympathetic silence and a thoughtful pose might make, onthe whole, an impression quite as favorable as the most successfullymanaged meeting of eyes. 

CHAPTER XXX

ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE

A gaunt roaming figure of ennui and restlessness, Arnold appeared atthe door of the pergola and with a petulant movement tore a brilliantautumn leaf to pieces as he lingered for a moment, listening moodilyto the talk within. He refused with a grimace the chair to whichSylvia motioned him. "Lord, no! Hear 'em go it!" he said quite audiblyand turned away to lounge back towards the house. Sylvia had had timeto notice, somewhat absently, that he looked ill, as though he had aheadache. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced after him with misgiving, and, under coverof a brilliantly resounding passage at arms between Morrison andPage, murmured anxiously to Sylvia, "I wish Judith would give up hernonsense and _marry_ Arnold!"

"Oh, they've only been engaged a couple of months, " said Sylvia. "What's the hurry! She'll get her diploma in January. It'd be a pityto have her miss!"

Arnold's stepmother broke in rather impatiently, "If I were a girlengaged to Arnold, I'd _marry_ him!"

"--the trouble with all you connoisseurs, Morrison, is that you'rebarking up the wrong tree. You take for granted, from your own tastes, when people begin to buy jade Buddhas and Zuloaga bull-fighters thatthey're wanting to surround themselves with beauty. Not much! It's theconsciousness of money they want to surround themselves with!"

Morrison conceded part of this. "Oh, I grant you, there's adisheartening deal of imitation in this matter. But America's new toaesthetics. Don't despise beginnings because they're small!"

"A nettle leaf is small. But that's not the reason why it won't evergrow into an oak. Look here! A sheaf of winter grasses, rightlyarranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as abronze vase of the Ming dynasty. I ask you just one question, How manypeople do you know who are capable of--"

The art-critic broke in: "Oh come! You're setting up an impossiblyhigh standard of aesthetic feeling. "

"I'm not presuming to do any such thing as setting up a standard!I'm just insisting that people who can't extract joy from the shadowpattern of a leafy branch on a gray wall, are liars if they claim toenjoy a fine Japanese print. What they enjoy in the print is the sensethat they've paid a lot for it. In my opinion, there's no use tryingto advance a step towards any sound aesthetic feeling till _some_ stepis taken away from the idea of cost as the criterion of value aboutanything. " He drew a long breath and went on, rather more rapidly thanwas his usual habit of speech: "I've a real conviction on that point. It's come to me of late years that one reason we haven't any nationalart is because we have too much magnificence. All our capacity foradmiration is used up on the splendor of palace-like railway stationsand hotels. Our national tympanum is so deafened by that blare ofsumptuousness that we have no ears for the still, small voice ofbeauty. And perhaps, " he paused, looking down absently at a crumb herolled between his thumb and finger on the table, "it's possible thatthe time is ripening for a wider appreciation of another kind ofbeauty . . . That has little to do even with such miracles as the shadowof a branch on a wall. "

Morrison showed no interest in this vaguely phrased hypothesis, andreturned to an earlier contention: "You underestimate, " he said, "the amount of education and taste and time it takes to arrange thatsimple-looking vase of grasses, to appreciate your leaf-shadows. "

"All I'm saying is that your campaign of aesthetic education hasn'tmade the matter vital enough to people, to any people, not even topeople who call themselves vastly aesthetic, so that they _give_ timeand effort and self-schooling to the acquisition of beauty. They notonly want their money to do their dirty work for them, they try tomake it do their fine living for them too, with a minimum of effort ontheir part. They want to _buy_ beauty, outright, with cash, and haveit stay put, where they can get their fingers on it at any time, without bothering about it in the meantime. That's the way a Turklikes his women--same impulse exactly, "

"I've known a few Caucasians too . . . , " Mrs. Marshall-Smith contributeda barbed point of malice to the talk. 

Page laughed, appreciating her hit. "Oh, I mean Turk as a genericterm. " Sylvia, circling warily about the contestants, looking for achance to make her presence felt, without impairing the masculinegusto with which they were monopolizing the center of the stage, tossed in a suggestion, "Was it Hawthorne's--it's a queer fancy likeHawthorne's--the idea of the miser, don't you remember, whose joy wasto roll naked in his gold pieces?"

Page snatched up with a delighted laugh the metaphor she had laid inhis hand. "Capital! Precisely! There's the thing in a nutshell. Wetwentieth century Midases have got beyond the simple taste of thatfounder of the family for the shining yellow qualities of money, butwe love to wallow in it none the less. We like to put our feet on it, in the shape of rugs valued according to their cost, we like to eat itin insipid, out-of-season fruit and vegetables. "

"Doesn't it occur to you, " broke in Morrison, "that you may beattacking something that's a mere phase, an incident of transition?"

"Is anything ever anything else!" Page broke in to say. 

Morrison continued, with a slight frown at the interruption, "Americais simply emerging from the frontier condition of bareness, and it isonly natural that one, or perhaps two generations must be sacrificedin order to attain a smooth mastery of an existence charged andenriched with possession. " He gave the effect of quoting a paragraphfrom one of his lectures. 

"Isn't the end of that 'transition, '" inquired Page, "usually simplythat after one or two generations people grow dulled to everything_but_ possession and fancy themselves worthily occupied when theyspend their lives regulating and caring for their possessions. Ihate, " he cried with sudden intensity, "I hate the very sound of theword!"

"Does you great credit, I'm sure, " said Morrison, with a faint irony, a hidden acrimony, pricking, for an instant, an ugly ear through hisgenial manner. 

Ever since the day of the fire, since Page had become a more and morefrequent visitor in Lydford and had seen more and more of Sylvia, shehad derived a certain amount of decidedly bad-tasting amusement fromthe fact of Morrison's animosity to the other man. But this was goingtoo far. She said instantly, "Do you know, I've just thought what itis you all remind me of--I mean Lydford, and the beautiful clothes, and nobody bothering about anything but tea and ideas and knowing theright people. I knew it made me think of something else, and now Iknow--it's a Henry James novel!"

Page took up her lead instantly, and said gravely, putting himselfbeside her as another outsider: "Well, of course, that's their ideal. That's what they _try_ to be like--at least to talk like James people. But it's not always easy. The vocabulary is so limited. "

"Limited!" cried Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There are more words in a HenryJames novel than in any dictionary!"

"Oh yes, _words_ enough!" admitted Page, "but all about the same sortof thing. It reminds me of the seminarists in Rome, who have to useLatin for everything. They can manage predestination and vicariousatonement like a shot, but when it comes to ordering somebody to callthem for the six-twenty train to Naples they're lost. Now, you cantalk about your bric-à-brac in Henry-Jamesese, you can take away yourneighbor's reputation by subtle suggestion, you can appreciate a finedeed of self-abnegation, if it's not too definite! I suppose a mancould even make an attenuated sort of love in the lingo, but I'll behanged if I see how anybody could order a loaf of bread, "

"One might do without bread, possibly?" suggested Morrison, pressingthe tips of his beautiful fingers together. 

"By Jove, " cried Page, in hearty assent, "I've a notion that lots oftimes they do!"

This was getting nowhere. Mrs. Marshall-Smith put her hand to thehelm, and addressed herself to Morrison with a plain reminder of thereason for the grotesqueness of his irritability. "Where's _Molly_keeping herself nowadays?" she inquired. "She hasn't come over withyou, to tea, for ever so long. The pergola isn't itself without hersunny head. "

"Molly is a grain of sand in a hurricane, nowadays, " said Morrisonseriously. "It seems that the exigencies of divine convention decreethat a girl who is soon to be married belongs neither to herself, toher family, to her fiancé--oh, least of all to her fiancé--but heartand soul and body to a devouring horde of dressmakers and tailors andmilliners and hairdressers and corsetières and petticoat specialistsand jewelers and hosiery experts and--"

They were all laughing at the interminable defile of words proceedingwith a Spanish gravity, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in, "I don'thear anything about house-furnishers. "

"No, " said Morrison, "the house-furnisher's name is F. Morrison, andhe has no show until after the wedding. "

"What _are_ your plans?" asked Mrs. Marshall-Smith. 

"Nothing very definite except the great Date. That's fixed for thetwenty-first. "

"Oh, so soon . . . Less than three weeks from now!"

Morrison affected to feel a note of disapproval in her voice, and saidwith his faint smile, "You can hardly blame me for not wishing todelay. "

"Oh, no _blame!_" she denied his inference. "After all it's over amonth since the engagement was announced, and who knows how muchlonger before that you and Molly knew about it. No. I'm not one whobelieves in long engagements. The shorter the better. "

Sylvia saw an opportunity to emerge with an appearance of ease from asilence that might seem ungracious. It was an enforced manoeuver withwhich the past weeks had made her wearily familiar. "Aunt Victoria'shitting at Arnold and Judith over your head, " she said to Morrison. "It's delicious, the way Tantine shows herself, for all her veneer ofmodernity, entirely nineteen century in her impatience of Judith'swork. Now that there's a chance to escape from it into the blessedhaven of idle matrimony, she can't see why Judith doesn't give up herlifetime dream and marry Arnold tomorrow. "

Somewhat to her surprise, her attempt at playfulness had no notablesuccess. The intent of her remarks received from her aunt and Morrisonthe merest formal recognition of a hasty, dim smile, and with oneaccord they looked at once in another direction. "And after thewedding?" Mrs. Marshall-Smith inquired--"or is that a secret?"

"Oh no, when one belongs to Molly's exalted class or is about to beelevated into it, nothing is secret. I'm quite sure that the societyeditor of the _Herald_ knows far better than I the names of the hotelsin Jamaica we're to frequent. "

"Oh! Jamaica! How . . . How . . . Original!" Mrs. Marshall-Smith castabout her rather desperately for a commendatory adjective. 

"Yes, quite so, isn't it?" agreed Morrison. "It's Molly's idea. She_is_ original, you know. It's one of her greatest charms. She didn'twant to go to Europe because there is so much to see there, to do. Shesaid she wanted a honeymoon and not a personally conducted trip. "

They all laughed again, and Sylvia said: "How _like_ Molly! Howclever! Nobody does her thinking for her!"

"The roads in Jamaica are excellent for motoring, too, I hear, " addedMorrison. "That's another reason, of course. "

Page gave a great laugh. "Well, as Molly's cousin, let me warn you!Molly driving a car in Jamaica will be like Pavlova doing a bacchanteon the point of a needle! You'll have to keep a close watch on her tosee that she doesn't absentmindedly dash across the island and jumpoff the bank right on into the ocean. "

"Where does F. Morrison, house-furnishing-expert, come in?" asked Mrs. Marshall-Smith. 

"After the wedding, after Jamaica, " said Morrison. "We're to come backto New York and for a few months impose on the good nature of Molly'sgrandfather's household, while we struggle with workmen _et al_. The Montgomery house on Fifth Avenue, that's shut up for so manyyears, --ever since the death of Molly's parents, --is the one we'vesettled on. It's very large, you know. It has possibilities. I havea plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, glass-roofed--something slightly Saracenic about the arches--and whatis now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is tobe made into a long gallery. There'll be an excellent light forpaintings. I've secured from Duveen a promise for some tapestriesI've admired for a long time--Beauvais, not very old, Louis XVII--butexcellent in color. Those for the staircase . . . "

He spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no morerelish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded eachother in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed abovethe surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of preciselythe right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, someuntarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, thefirst she had ever felt for him. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh, what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. "_You!_ with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylviastood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside theriver, " she said, reaching for her parasol. 

"May I tag along?" said Page, strolling off beside her with the easeof familiarity. 

Sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus leftsomewhat unceremoniously in the pergola. She was in brown corduroywith suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume whichbrought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face. "Good-bye, "she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding hergleaming head. 

"She's a _very_ pretty girl, isn't she?" commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith. Morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreedwith her briefly. "Yes, very. Extraordinarily perfect specimen of hertype. " His tone was dry. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawnto the house. "I think I would better go to see where Arnold is, " shesaid. Her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorlesswords. He frowned and said, "Oh, is Arnold . . . ?"

She gave a fatigued gesture. "No--not yet--but for the last two orthree days . . . "

He began impatiently, "Why can't you get him off this time before he. . . . "

"An excellent idea, " she broke in, with some impatience of her own. "But slightly difficult of execution. "

CHAPTER XXXI

SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY

Under the scarlet glory of frost-touched maples, beside the riverstrolled Sylvia, conscious of looking very well and being admired; butcontrary to the age-old belief about her sex and age, the sensationof looking very well and being admired by no means filled the entirefield of her consciousness. In fact, the corner occupied by thesensation was so small that occasional efforts on her part to escapeto it from the less agreeable contents of her mind were lamentablefailures. Aloud, in terms as felicitous as she could make them, shewas commenting on the beauty of the glass-smooth river, with thesumptuously colored autumn trees casting down into it the imperialgold and crimson of their reflections. Silently she was struggling tomaster and dominate and suppress a confusion of contradictory mentalprocesses. At almost regular intervals, like a hollow stroke on abrazen gong, her brain resounded to the reverberations of "The weddingis on the twenty-first. " And each time that she thrust that away, there sprang up with a faint hissing note of doubt and suspicion, "Whydoes Aunt Victoria want Arnold married?" A murmur, always drowned outbut incessantly recurring, ran: "What about Father and Mother?What about their absurd, impossible, cruel, unreal, andbeautiful standards?" Contemptible little echoes from the sillyself-consciousness of the adolescence so recently left behind her . . . "I must think of something clever to say. I must try to seem differentand original and independent and yet must attract, " mingled with anoccasional fine sincerity of appreciation and respect for the humanityof the man beside her. Like a perfume borne in gusts came reaction tothe glorious color about her. Quickly recurring and quickly gone, asharp cymbal-clap of alarm . . . "What shall I do if Austin Page now. . . Today . . . Or tomorrow . . . Tells me . . . !" And grotesquely, thecompanion cymbal on which this smote, gave forth an antiphonal alarmof, "What shall I do if he does not!" While, unheard of her consciousear, but coloring everything with its fundamental note of sincerity, rose solemnly from the depths of her heart the old cry of desperateyouth, "What am I to do with my life?"

No, the eminently successful brown corduroy, present though it wasto the mind of the handsome girl wearing it, was hardly the sure andsufficient rock of refuge which tradition would have had it. 

With an effort she turned her attention from this confused tumult inher ears, and put out her hand, rather at random, for an introductionto talk. "You spoke, back there in the pergola, of another kind ofbeauty--I didn't know what you meant. " He answered at once, with hisusual direct simplicity, which continued to have for Sylvia atthis period something suspiciously like the calmness of a reigningsovereign who is above being embarrassed, who may speak, withoutshamefacedness, of anything, even of moral values, that subject tabuin sophisticated conversation. "Ah, just a notion of mine that perhapsall this modern ferment of what's known as 'social conscience' or'civic responsibility, ' isn't a result of the sense of duty, but ofthe old, old craving for beauty. "

Sylvia looked at him, astonished. "Beauty?"

"Why yes, beauty isn't only a matter of line and color, is it? There'sthe desire for harmony, for true proportions, for grace and suavity, for nobility of movement. Perhaps the lack of those qualities is feltin human lives as much as on canvases . . . At least perhaps it may befelt in the future. "

"It's an interesting idea, " murmured Sylvia, "but I don't quite seewhat it means, concretely, as applied to our actual America. "

He meditated, looking, as was his habit when walking, up at the treesabove them. "Well, let's see. I think I mean that perhaps our race, not especially inspired in its instinct for color and external form, may possibly be fumbling toward an art of living. Why wouldn't it bean art to keep your life in drawing as well as a mural decoration?" Hebroke off to say, laughing, "I bet you the technique would be quiteas difficult to acquire, " and went on again, thoughtfully: "In thismodern maze of terrible closeness of inter-relation, to achieve a lifethat's happy and useful and causes no undeserved suffering tothe untold numbers of other lives which touch it--isn't there anundertaking which needs the passion for harmony and proportion? Isn'tthere a beauty as a possible ideal of aspiration for a race thatprobably never could achieve a Florentine or Japanese beauty of line?"He cast this out casually, as an idea which had by chance been broughtup to the top by the current of the talk, and showed no indication topursue it further when Sylvia only nodded her head. It was one of themoments when she heard nothing but the brazen clangor of "the weddingis on the twenty-first, " and until the savage constriction around herheart had relaxed she had not breath to speak. But that passed again, and the two sauntered onward, in the peaceable silence which was oneof the great new pleasures which Page was able to give her. It nowseemed like a part of the mellow ripeness of the day. 

They had come to a bend in the slowly flowing river, where, insteadof torch-bright maples and poplars, rank upon rank of somber pinesmarched away to the summit of a steeply ascending foothill. The riverwas clouded dark with their melancholy reflections. On their edge, overhanging the water, stood a single sumac, a standard-bearer with athousand little down-drooping flags of crimson. 

"Oh, " said Sylvia, smitten with admiration. She sat down on a rockpartly because she wanted to admire at her leisure, partly because shewas the kind of a girl who looks well sitting on a rock; and as shewas aware of this latter motive, she felt a qualm of self-scorn. Whata cheap vein of commonness was revealed in her--in every one--by thetemptation of a great fortune! Morrison had succumbed entirely. Shewas nowadays continually detecting in herself motives which made hersick. 

Page stretched his great length on the dry leaves at her feet. Anyother man would have rolled a cigarette. It was one of his odditiesthat he never smoked. Sylvia looked down at his thoughtful, clean faceand reflected wonderingly that he seemed the only person not warpedby money. Was it because he had it, or was it because he was a veryunusual person?

He was looking partly at the river, at the pines, at the flaming tree, and partly at the human embodiment of the richness and color of autumnbefore him. After a time Sylvia said: "There's Cassandra. She's theonly one who knows of the impending doom. She's trying to warn thepines. " It had taken her some moments to think of this. 

Page accepted it with no sign that he considered it anythingremarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced theirbest: "She's using some very fine language for her warning, but likesome other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. She forgets thatno doom hangs over the pines. _She's_ the fated one. They're safeenough. "

Sylvia clasped her hands about her knees and looked across the darkwater at the somber trees. "And yet they don't seem to be verycheerful about it. " It was her opinion that they were talking verycleverly. 

"Perhaps, " suggested Page, rolling over to face the river--"perhapsshe's not prophesying doom at all, but blowing a trumpet-peal ofexultation over her own good fortune. The pines may be black with envyof her. "

Sylvia enjoyed this rather macabre fancy with all the zest ofhealthful youth, secure in the conviction of its own immortality. "Yes, yes, life's ever so much harder than death. "

Page dissented with a grave irony from the romantic exaggerationof this generalization. "I don't suppose the statistics as to therelative difficulty of life and death are really very reliable. "

Sylvia perceived that she was being, ever so delicately, laughed at, and tried to turn her remark so that she could carry it off. "Oh, Idon't mean for those who die, but those who are left know somethingabout it, I imagine. My mother always said that the encounter withdeath is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on. She said you might miss everything else irrevocable and vital--fallingin love, having children, accomplishing anything--but that sooner orlater you have to reckon with losing somebody dear to you. " She spokewith an academic interest in the question. 

"I should think, " meditated Page, taking the matter into seriousconsideration, "that the vitalness of even that experience woulddepend somewhat on the character undergoing it. I've known sometemperaments of a proved frivolity which seemed to have passed throughit without any great modifications. But then I know nothing about itpersonally. I lost my father before I could remember him, and sincethen I haven't happened to have any close encounter with such loss. Mymother, you know, is very much alive. "

"Well, I haven't any personal experience with death in my immediatecircle either, " said Sylvia. "But I wasn't brought up with the usualcult of the awfulness of it. Father was always anxious that wechildren should feel it something as natural as breathing--you aredipped up from the great river of consciousness, and death only poursyou back. If you've been worth living, there are more elements offineness in humanity. "

Page nodded. "Yes, that's what they all say nowadays. Personalimmortality is as out of fashion as big sleeves. "

"Do you believe it?" asked Sylvia, seeing the talk take an intimateturn, "or are you like me, and don't know at all what you do believe?"If she had under this pseudo-philosophical question a veiled purposeanalogous to that of the less subtle charmer whose avowed expedientis to get "a man to talk about himself" the manoeuver was eminentlysuccessful. 

"I've never had the least chance to think about it, " he said, sittingup, "because I've always been so damnably beset by the facts ofliving. I know I am not the first of my race to feel convinced thathis own problems are the most complicated, but . . . "

"_Yours!_" cried Sylvia, genuinely astonished. 

"And one of the hardships of my position, " he told her at once witha playful bitterness, "is that everybody refuses to believe in theseriousness of it. Because my father, after making a great many badguesses as to the possible value of mining stock in Nevada, happenedto make a series of good guesses about the value of mining stock inColorado, it is assumed that all questions are settled for me, that Ican joyously cultivate my garden, securely intrenched in the certaintythat this is the best possible of all possible worlds, "

"Oh yes--labor unions--socialism--I. W. W. , " Sylvia murmured vaguely, unable, in spite of her intelligence, to refrain from marking, by asubsidence of interest, her instinctive feeling that those distantquestions could not in the nature of things be compared to present, personal complications. 

"No--no--!" he protested. "That's no go! I've tried for five years nowto shove it out of sight on some one of those shelves. I've learnedall the arguments on both sides. I can discuss on both sides of thosenames as glibly as any other modern quibbler. I can prove the rightsof all those labels or I can prove the wrongs of them, according tothe way my dinner is digesting. What stays right there, what I nevercan digest (if you'll pardon an inelegant simile that's just occurredto me), a lump I never can either swallow entirely down or get upout of my throat, is the fact that there are men, hundreds of men, thousands of men, working with picks underground all day, every day, all their lives, and that part of their labor goes to provide me withthe wherewithal to cultivate my taste, to pose as a patron of thearts, to endow promising pianists--to go through all the motionssuitable to that position to which it has pleased Providence to callme. It sticks in my crop that my only connection with the entirebusiness was to give myself the trouble to be born my father's son. "

"But you _do_ work!" protested Sylvia. "You work on your farm here. You run all sorts of lumbering operations in this region. The firsttime I saw you, you certainly looked less like the traditional idea ofa predatory coal-operator. " She laughed at the recollection. 

"Oh yes, I work. When my undigested lump gets too painful I try towork it off--but what I do bears the same relation to real sure-enoughwork that playing tennis does to laying brick. But such as it is, it'sreal satisfaction I get out of my minute Vermont holdings. They comedown to me from my farmer great-grandfather who held the land byworking it himself. There's no sore spot there. But speak of Coloradoor coal--and you see me jump with the same shooting twinge you feelwhen the dentist's probe reaches a nerve. An intelligent conscienceis a luxury a man in my position can't afford to have. " He began withgreat accuracy to toss small stones at a log showing above the surfaceof the water. 

Sylvia, reverting to a chance remark, now said: "I never happened tohear you speak of your mother before. Does she ever come to Lydford?"

He shook his head. "No, she vibrates between the Madison Avenue houseand the Newport one. She's very happy in those two places. She's Mr. Sommerville's sister, you know. She's one of Morrison's devotees too. She collects under his guidance. "

"Collects?" asked Sylvia, a little vaguely. 

"Oh, it doesn't matter much what--the instinct, the resultantsatisfaction are the same. As a child, it's stamps, or buttons, or corks, later on--As a matter of fact, it's lace that my mothercollects. She specializes in Venetian lace--the older the better, ofcourse. The connection with coal-mines is obvious. But after all, herown fortune, coming mostly from the Sommerville side, is derived fromoil. The difference is great!"

"Do you live with her?" asked Sylvia. 

"My washing is said to be done in New York, " he said seriously. "Ibelieve that settles the question of residence for a man. "

"Oh, how quaint!" said Sylvia, laughing. Then with her trainedinstinct for contriving a creditable exit before being driven to anenforced one by flagging of masculine interest, she rose and looked ather watch. 

"Oh, don't go!" he implored her. "It's so beautiful here--we neverwere so--who knows when we'll ever again be in so . . . "

Sylvia divined with one of her cymbal-claps that he had meant, perhaps, that very afternoon to--She felt a dissonant clashing oftriumph and misgiving. She thought she decided quite coolly, quitedryly, that pursuit always lent luster to the object pursued; but inreality she did not at all recognize the instinct which bade her say, turning her watch around on her wrist: "It's quite late. I don't thinkI'd better stay longer. Aunt Victoria likes dinner promptly. " Sheturned to go. 

He took his small defeat with his usual imperturbable good nature, inwhich Sylvia not infrequently thought she detected a flavor of theunconscious self-assurance of the very rich and much-courted man. He scrambled to his feet now promptly, and fell into step with herquick-treading advance. "You're right, of course. There's no need tobe grasping. There's tomorrow--and the day after--and the day afterthat--and if it rains we can wear rubbers and carry umbrellas. "

"Oh, I don't carry an umbrella for a walk in the rain, " she told him. "It's one of our queer Marshall ways. We only own one umbrella for thewhole family at home, and that's to lend. I wear a rubber coat and puton a sou'wester and _let_ it rain. "

"You would!" he said in an unconscious imitation of Arnold's accent. 

She laughed up at him. "Shall I confess why I do? Because my hair isnaturally curly. "

"Confession has to be prompter than that to save souls, " he answered. "I knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on itso recklessly there by the brook. "

She was astonished by this revelation of depths behind thatwell-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by suchunnatural accuracy of observation. 

"How cynical of you to make such a mental comment!"

He apologized. "It was automatic--unconscious. I've had a good deal ofopportunity to observe young ladies. " And then, as though aware thatthe ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk. "Upon my word, I wonder how Molly and Morrison _will_ manage?"

"Oh, Molly's wonderful. She'd manage anything, " said Sylvia withconviction. 

"Morrison is rather wonderful himself, " advanced Page. "And that's amagnanimous concession for me to make when I'm now so deep in hisbad books. Do you know, by the way, " he asked, looking with a quickinterrogation at the girl, "_why_ I'm so out of favor with him?"

Sylvia's eyes opened wide. She gazed at him, startled, fascinated. Could "it" be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner? "No, I don't know, " she managed to say; and braced herself. 

"I don't blame him in the least. It was very vexing. I went back onhim--so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which hefurnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. _I_ was oneof his devotees, you know. For some years after I got out of college Icollected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do. I even specialized. I don't like to boast, but I dare affirm that noman knows more than I about sixteenth century mezza-majolica. It isa branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularlyappropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century. And of great valueto the world. My collection was one of Morrison's triumphs. "

Sylvia felt foolish and discomfited. With an effort she showed aproper interest in his remarks. "Was?" she asked. "What happened toit?"

"I went back on it. In one of the first of those fits of moralindigestion. One day, I'd been reading a report in one of thenewspapers on the status of the coal-miner, and the connection betweenmy bright-colored pots and platters, and my father's lucky guess, became a little too dramatic for my taste. I gave the collection tothe Metropolitan, and I've never bought a piece since. Morrison wasimmensely put out. He'd been to great trouble to find some fineFontana specimens for me. And then not to have me look at them--Hewas right too. It was a silly, pettish thing to do. I didn't know anybetter then. I don't know any better now. "

It began to dawn on Sylvia that, under his air of whimsicalself-mockery he was talking to her seriously. She tried to adjustherself to this, to be sympathetic, earnest; though she was stillsmarting with the sense of having appeared to herself as undignifiedand ridiculous. 

"And besides that, " he went on, looking away, down the dusty highroadthey were then crossing on their way back to the house--"besides that, I went back on a great scheme of Morrison's for a National Academy ofAesthetic Instruction, which I was to finance and he to organize. Hehad gone into all the details. He had shown wonderful capacity. It'sreally very magnanimous of him not to bear me more of a grudge. Hethought that giving it up was one of my half-baked ideas. And it was. As far as anything I've accomplished since, I might as well have beenfurthering the appreciation of Etruscan vases in the Middle West. Butthen, I don't think he'll miss it now. If he still has a fancy for it, he can do it with Molly's money. She has plenty. But I don't believehe will. It has occurred to me lately (it's an idea that's beengrowing on me about everybody) that Morrison, like most of us, hasbeen miscast. He doesn't really care a continental about the aestheticsalvation of the country. It's only the contagion of the Americancraze for connecting everything with social betterment, taggingeverything with that label, that ever made him think he did. He's fartoo thoroughgoing an aesthete himself. What he was brought intothe world for, was to appreciate, as nobody else can, all sorts ofesoterically fine things. Now that he'll be able to gratify thattaste, he'll find his occupation in it. Why shouldn't he? It'd be ahideously leveled world if everybody was, trying to be a reformer. Besides, who'd be left to reform? I love to contemplate a genuine, whole-souled appreciator like Morrison, without any qualms about theway society is put together. And I envy him! I envy him as blackly asyour pines envied the sumac. He's got out of the wrong rôle into theright one. I wish to the Lord I could!"

They were close to the house now, in the avenue of poplars, yellow asgold above them in the quick-falling autumn twilight. Sylvia spokewith a quick, spirited sincerity, her momentary pique forgotten, herfeeling rushing out generously to meet the man's simple openness. "Oh, that's the problem for all of us! To know what rôle to play! If youthink it hard for you who have only to choose--how about the rest ofus who must--?" She broke off. "What's that? What's that?"

She had almost stumbled over a man's body, lying prone, half in thedriveway, half on the close-clipped grass on the side; a well-dressedman, tall, thin, his limbs sprawled about broken-jointedly. He lay onhis back, his face glimmering white in the clear, dim dusk. Sylviarecognized him with a cry. "Oh, it's Arnold! He's been struck by acar! He's dead!"

She sprang forward, and stopped short, at gaze, frozen. 

The man sat up, propping himself on his hands and looked at her, awavering smile on his lips. He began to speak, a thick, unmodulatedvoice, as though his throat were stiff. "Comingtomeetyou, " hearticulated very rapidly and quite unintelligibly, "an 'countered hillin driveway . . . No hill _in_ driveway, and climbed and climbed"--helost himself in repetition and brought up short to begin again, "--labor so 'cessive had to rest--"

Sylvia turned a paper-white face on her companion. "What's the matterwith him?" she tried to say, but Page only saw her lips move. He madeno answer. That she would know in an instant what was the matterflickered from her eyes, from her trembling white lips; that she didknow, even as she spoke, was apparent from the scorn and indignationwhich like sheet-lightning leaped out on him. "Arnold! For _shame_!Arnold! Think of Judith!"

At the name he frowned vaguely as though it suggested somethingextremely distressing to him, though he evidently did not recognizeit. "Judish? Judish?" he repeated, drawing his brows together andmaking a grimace of great pain. "What's Judish?"

And then, quite suddenly the pain and distress were wiped from hisface by sodden vacuity. He had hitched himself to one of the poplars, and now leaned against this, his head bent on his shoulder at thesickening angle of a man hanged, his eyes glassy, his mouth open, a trickle of saliva flowing from one corner. He breathed hard andloudly. There was nothing there but a lump of uncomely flesh. 

Sylvia shrank back from the sight with such disgust that she felt herflesh creep. She turned a hard, angry face on Page. "Oh, the beast!The beast!" she cried, under her breath. She felt defiled. She hatedArnold. She hated life. 

Page said quietly: "You'll excuse my not going with you to the house?I'll have my car and chauffeur here in a moment. " He stepped awayquickly and Sylvia turned to flee into the house. 

But something halted her flying feet. She hesitated, stopped, andpressed her hands together hard. He could not be left alone there inthe driveway. A car might run over him in the dusk. She turned back. 

She stood there, alone with the horror under the tree. She turned herback on it, but she could see nothing but the abject, strengthlessbody, the dreadful ignominy of the face. They filled the world. 

And then quickly--everything came quickly to Sylvia--there stoodbefore her the little boy who had come to see them in La Chance solong ago, the little honest-eyed boy who had so loved her mother andJudith, who had loved Pauline the maid and suffered with her pain; andthen the bigger boy who out of his weakness had begged for a shareof her mother's strength and been refused; and then the man, stillhonest-eyed, who, aimless, wavering, had cried out to her in miseryupon the emptiness of his life; and who later had wept those puretears of joy that he had found love. She had a moment of insight, ofvision, of terrible understanding. She did not know what was takingplace within her, something racking--spasmodic throes of suddengrowth, the emergence for the first time in all her life of thecapacity for pity . . . 

When, only a moment or two later, Page's car came swiftly down thedriveway, and he sprang out, he found Sylvia sitting by the drunkard, the quiet tears streaming down her face. She had wiped his mouth withher handkerchief, she held his limp hand in hers, his foolish staringface was hidden on her shoulder. . . . 

The two men lifted him bodily, an ignoble, sagging weight, into thecar. She stood beside him and, without a word, stooped and gentlydisposed his slackly hanging arms beside him. 

Dark had quite fallen by this time. They were all silent, shadowyforms. She felt that Page was at her side. He leaned to her. Her handwas taken and kissed. 

CHAPTER XXXII

MUCH ADO . . . 

The rest of October was a period never clear in Sylvia's head. Everything that happened was confusing and almost everything waspainful; and a great deal happened. She had thought at the time thatnothing would ever blur in her mind the shock of finding Aunt Victoriaopposed to what seemed to her the first obvious necessity: writingto Judith about Arnold. She had been trying for a long time now withdesperate sincerity to take the world as she found it, to seepeople as they were with no fanatic intolerance, to realize her owninexperience of life, to be broad, to take in without too much of awrench another point of view; but to Aunt Victoria's idea, held quitesimply and naturally by that lady, that Judith be kept in ignoranceof Arnold's habits until after marriage, Sylvia's mind closed asautomatically, as hermetically as an oyster-shell snaps shut. Shecould not discuss it, she could not even attend with hearing ears toMrs. Marshall-Smith's very reasonable presentation of her case; thelong tradition as to the justifiability of such ignorance on a bride'spart; the impossibility that any woman should ever know all of anyman's character before marriage; the strong presumption that marriagewith a woman he adored would cure habits contracted only throughthe inevitable aimlessness of too much wealth; the fact that, oncemarried, a woman like Judith would accept, and for the most part dealcompetently with, facts which would frighten her in her raw girlishstate of ignorance and crudeness. Sylvia did not even hear thesearguments and many more like them, dignified with the sanction ofgenerations of women trying their best to deal with life. She hadnever thought of the question before. It was the sort of thing fromwhich she had always averted her moral eyes with extreme distaste; butnow that it was forced on her, her reaction to it was instantaneous. From the depths of her there rose up fresh in its original vigor, never having been dulled by a single enforced compliance with aconvention running counter to a principle, the most irresistibleinstinct against concealment. She did not argue; she could not. Shecould only say with a breathless certainty against which there was noholding out: "Judith must know! Judith must know!"

Mrs. Marshall-Smith, alarmed by the prospect of a passage-at-arms, decreed quietly that they should both sleep on the question and takeit up the next morning. Sylvia had not slept. She had lain in herbed, wide-eyed; a series of pictures passing before her eyes with theunnatural vividness of hallucinations. These pictures were not only ofArnold, of Arnold again, of Arnold and Judith. There were all sorts ofodd bits of memories--a conversation overheard years before, betweenher father and Lawrence, when Lawrence was a little, little boy. Hehad asked--it was like Lawrence's eerie ways--apropos of nothing atall, "What sort of a man was Aunt Victoria's husband?"

His father had said, "A rich man, very rich. " This prompt appearanceof readiness to answer had silenced the child for a moment: and then(Sylvia could see his thin little hands patting down the sand-cake hewas making) he had persisted, "What kind of a rich man?" His fatherhad said, "Well, he was bald--quite bald--Lawrence, come run a racewith me to the woodshed. " Sylvia now, ten years later, wondered whyher father had evaded. What kind of a man _had_ Arnold's father been?

But chiefly she braced herself for the struggle with Aunt Victoria inthe morning. It came to her in fleeting glimpses that Aunt Victoriawould be only human if she resented with some heat this entiredisregard of her wishes; that the discussion might very well end ina quarrel, and that a quarrel would mean the end of Lydford with allthat Lydford meant now and potentially. But this perception wasswept out of sight, like everything else, in the singleness of herconviction: "Judith must know! Judith must know!"

There was, however, no struggle with Aunt Victoria in the morning. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, encountering the same passionate outcry, recognized an irresistible force when she encountered it; recognizedit, in fact, soon enough to avoid the long-drawn-out acrimony ofdiscussion into which a less intelligent woman would inevitably haveplunged; recognized it almost, but not quite, in time to shut off fromSylvia's later meditations certain startling vistas down which shehad now only fleeting glimpses. "Very well, my dear, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith, her cherished clarity always unclouded by smallresentments, --"very well, we will trust in your judgment rather thanmy own. I don't pretend to understand present-day girls, though Imanage to be very fond of one of them. Judith is your sister. You willdo, of course, what you think is right. It means, of course, Judithbeing what she is, that she will instantly cast him off; and Arnoldbeing what he is, that means that he will drink himself into deliriumtremens in six months. His father . . . " She stopped short, closing withsome haste the door to a vista, and poured herself another cup ofcoffee. They were having breakfast in her room, both in négligéeand lacy caps, two singularly handsome representatives of differinggenerations. Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked calm, Sylvia extremelyagitated. She had been awake at the early hour of deadly pale dawnwhen a swift, long-barreled car had drawn up under the porte-cochèreand Arnold had been taken away under the guard of a short, broad, brawny man with disproportionately long arms. She was not able toswallow a mouthful of breakfast. 

During the night, she had not looked an inch beyond her blind passionof insistence. Now that Aunt Victoria yielded with so disconcertinga suddenness, she faced with a pang what lay beyond. "Oh, Judithwouldn't cast him off! She loves him so! She'll give him a chance. Youdon't know Judith. She doesn't care about many things, but she givesherself up absolutely to those that do matter to her. She adoresArnold! It fairly frightened me to see how she was burning up whenhe was near. She'll insist on his reforming, of course--she oughtto--but--"

"Suppose he doesn't reform to suit her, " suggested Mrs. Marshall-Smith, stirring her coffee. "He's been reformed at intervalsever since he was fifteen. He never could stay through a whole termin any decent boys' school. " Here was a vista, ruthlessly opened. Sylvia's eyes looked down it and shuddered. "Poor Arnold!" she saidunder her breath, pushing away her untasted cup. 

"I'm dull enough to find you take an odd way to show your sympathy forhim, " murmured Mrs. Marshall-Smith, with none of the acidity the wordsthemselves seemed to indicate. She seemed indeed genuinely perplexed. "It's not been exactly a hilarious element in _my_ life either. ButI've always tried to hold on to Arnold. I thought it my duty. And now, since Felix Morrison has found this excellent specialist for me, it'smuch easier. I telegraph to him and he comes at once and takes Arnoldback to his sanitarium, till he's himself again. " For the first timein weeks Morrison's name brought up between them no insistentlypresent, persistently ignored shadow. The deeper shadow now blottedhim out. 

"But Aunt Victoria, it's for Judith to decide. _She_'ll do the rightthing. "

"Sometimes people are thrown by circumstances into a situation wherethey wouldn't have dreamed of putting themselves--and yet they rise toit and conquer it, " philosophized Aunt Victoria. "Life takes hold ofus with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought. Judith will_mean_ to do the right thing. If she were married, she'd _have_ to doit! It seems to me a great responsibility you take, Sylvia--you may, with the best of intentions in the world, be ruining the happiness oftwo lives. "

Sylvia got up, her eyes red with unshed tears. It was not the firsttime that morning. "It's all too horrible, " she murmured. "But Ihaven't any right to conceal it from Judith. "

Her eyes were still red when, an hour later, she stepped into the roomagain and said, "I've mailed it. "

Her aunt, still in lavender silk négligée, so far progressed towardsthe day's toilet as to have her hair carefully dressed, looked upfrom the _Revue Bleue_, and nodded. Her expression was one of quietself-possession. 

Sylvia came closer to her and sat down on a straight-backed chair. Shewas dressed for the street, and hatted, as though she herself hadgone out to mail the letter. "And now, Tantine, " she said, with theresolute air of one broaching a difficult subject, "I think I ought tobe planning to go home very soon. " It was a momentous speech, and amomentous pause followed it. It had occurred to Sylvia, still shakenwith the struggle over the question of secrecy, that she could, in decency, only offer to take herself away, after so violentlyantagonizing her hostess. She realized with what crude intolerance shehad attacked the other woman's position, how absolutely with claw andtalon she had demolished it. She smarted with the sense that shehad seemed oblivious of an "obligation. " She detested the sense ofobligation. And having become aware of a debt due her dignity, she hadpaid it hastily, on the impulse of the moment. But as the words stillechoed in the air, she was struck to see how absolutely her immediatefuture, all her future, perhaps, depended on the outcome of thatconversation she herself had begun. She looked fixedly at her aunt, trying to prepare herself for anything. But she was not prepared forwhat Mrs. Marshall-Smith did. 

She swept the magazine from her lap to the floor and held out her armsto Sylvia. "I had hoped--I had hoped you were happy--with me, " shesaid, and in her voice was that change of quality, that tremor ofsincerity which Sylvia had always found profoundly moving. The girlwas overcome with astonishment and remorse--and immense relief. Sheran to her. "Oh, I am! I am! I was only thinking--I've gone againstyour judgment. " Her nerves, stretched with the sleepless night and thestrain of writing the dreadful letter to Judith, gave way. She brokeinto sobs. She put her arms tightly around her aunt's beautiful neckand laid her head on her shoulder, weeping, her heart swelling, hermind in a whirling mass of disconnected impressions. Arnold--Judith. . . How strange it was that Aunt Victoria really cared for her--didshe really care for Aunt Victoria or only admire her?--did she reallycare for anybody, since she was agreeing to stay longer away fromher father and mother?--how good it would be not to have to give upHélène's services--what a heartless, materialistic girl she was--shecared for nothing but luxury and money--she would be going abroad nowto Paris--Austin Page--he had kissed her hand . . . And yet she feltthat he saw through her, saw through her mean little devices andstratagems--how astonishing that he should be so very, very rich--itseemed that a very, very rich man ought to be different from othermen--his powers were so unnaturally great--girls could not feelnaturally about him . . . And all the while that these varyingreflections passed at lightning speed through her mind, her nervoussobs were continuing. 

Aunt Victoria taking them, naturally enough, as signs of continuedremorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond withaffectionate peremptoriness. "Don't feel so badly about it, darling. We won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and in this way, with nothing clearly understood, on a foundation indeed ofmisunderstanding, the decision was made, in the haphazard fashionwhich characterizes most human decisions. 

The rest of the month was no more consecutive or logical. Into themidst of the going-away confusion of a household about to removeitself half around the world, into a house distracted with packing, cheerless with linen-covers, desolate with rolled-up rugs and coldlunches and half-packed trunks, came, in a matter-of-fact mannercharacteristic of its writer, Judith's answer to Sylvia's letter. Sylvia opened it, shrinking and fearful of what she would read. Shehad, in the days since hers had been sent, imagined Judith's answer inevery possible form; but never in any form remotely resembling whatJudith wrote. The letter stated in Judith's concise style that ofcourse she agreed with Sylvia that there should be no secrets betweenbetrothed lovers, nor, in this case, were there any. Arnold had toldher, the evening before she left Lydford, that he had inherited analcoholic tendency from his father. She had been in communicationwith a great specialist in Wisconsin about the case. She knew of thesanitarium to which Arnold had been taken and did not like it. Themedical treatment there was not serious. She hoped soon to havehim transferred to the care of Dr. Rivedal. If Arnold's generalconstitution were still sound, there was every probability of a cure. Doctors knew so much more about that sort of thing than they usedto. Had Sylvia heard that Madame La Rue was not a bit well, that oldtrouble with her heart, only worse? They'd been obliged to hire amaid--how in the world were the La Rues going to exist on Americancooking? Cousin Parnelia said she could cure Madame with someSanopractic nonsense, a new fad that Cousin Parnelia had taken uplately. Professor Kennedy had been elected vice-president of theAmerican Mathematical Association, and it was funny to see him try topretend that he wasn't pleased. Mother's garden this autumn was . . . 

"_Well_!" ejaculated Sylvia, stopping short. Mrs. Marshall-Smith hadstopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of tellingHélène which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the Lydfordhouse. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away tothe closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favoriteblack-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how aballoon feels when it is pricked. "

Sylvia agreed ruefully. "I might have known Judith would manage tomake me feel flat if I got wrought up about it. She hates a fuss madeover anything, and she can always take you down if you make one. "She remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbingphrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrelwith Aunt Victoria. She could almost see the expression of austeredistaste in the stern young beauty of Judith's face. Judith was alwaysmaking her appear foolish!

"We were both of us, " commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith dryly, "somewhatmistaken about the degree of seriousness with which Judith would takethe information. "

Sylvia forgot her vexation and sprang loyally to Judith's defense. "Why, of course she takes it like a trained nurse, like adoctor--feels it a purely medical affair--as I suppose it is. We mighthave known she'd feel that way. But as to how she really feels inside, personally, you can't tell anything by her letter! You probablycouldn't tell anything by her manner if she were here. You never can. She may be simply wild about a thing inside, but you'd never guess. "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith ventured to express some skepticism as to theexistence of volcanic feelings always so sedulously concealed. "Afterall, can you be so very sure that she is ever 'simply wild' if shenever shows anything?"

"Oh, you're _sure_, all right, if you've lived with her--you feel it. And then, after about so long a time of keeping it down, she breaksloose and _does_ something awful, that I'd never have the nerve to do, and tears into flinders anything she doesn't think is right. Why, whenwe were little girls and went to the public schools together, two ofour little playmates, who turned out to have a little negro blood, we . . . " Sylvia stopped, suddenly warned by some instinct that AuntVictoria would not be a sympathetic listener to that unforgottenepisode of her childhood, that episode which had seemed to have noconsequences, no sequel, but which ever since that day had insensiblyaffected the course of her growth, like a great rock fallen into theCurrent of her life. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith, deliberating with bated breath between broadclothand blue panama, did not notice the pause. She did, however, add afinal comment on the matter, some moments later, when she observed, "How any girl in her senses can go on studying, when she's engaged toa man who needs her as much as Arnold needs Judith!" To which Sylviaanswered irrelevantly with a thought which had just struck herthrillingly, "But how perfectly fine of Arnold to tell her himself!"

"She must have hypnotized him, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith withconviction, "but then I don't pretend to understand the ways of youngpeople nowadays. " She was now forty-five, in the full bloom of ararely preserved beauty, and could afford to make remarks about theyounger generation. "At any rate, " she went on, "it is a comfort toknow that Judith has set her hand to the wheel. I have not in yearscrossed the ocean with so much peace of mind about Arnold as I shallhave this time, " said his stepmother. "No, leave that blue voile, Hélène, the collar never fitted. "

"Oh, he doesn't spend the winters in Paris with you?" asked Sylvia. 

"He's been staying here in Lydford of late--crazy as it sounds. He wassimply so bored that he couldn't think of anything else to do. He has, besides, an absurd theory that he enjoys it more in winter than insummer. He says the natives are to be seen then. He's been here fromhis childhood. He knows a good many of them, I suppose. Now, Hélène, let's see the gloves and hats. "

It came over Sylvia with a passing sense of great strangeness that shehad been in this spot for four months and, with the exception of themen at the fire, she had not met, had not spoken to, had not evenconsciously seen a single inhabitant of the place. 

And in the end, she went away in precisely the same state ofignorance. On the day they drove to the station she did, indeed, giveone fleeting glimpse over the edge of her narrow prison-house ofself-centered interest. Surrounded by a great many strapped andbuckled pieces of baggage, with Hélène, fascinatingly ugly in herserf's uniform, holding the black leather bag containing AuntVictoria's jewels, they passed along the street for the last time, under the great elms already almost wintry with their bare boughs. Now that it was too late, Sylvia felt a momentary curiosity about theunseen humanity which had been so near her all the summer. She lookedout curiously at the shabby vehicles (it seemed to her that therewere more of them than in the height of the season), at thestraight-standing, plainly dressed, briskly walking women and children(there seemed to be a new air of life and animation about the streetnow that most of the summer cottages were empty), and at the lounging, indifferent, powerfully built men. She wondered, for a moment, whatthey were like, with what fortitude their eager human hearts bore theannual display of splendor they might never share. They looked, inthat last glimpse, somehow quite strong, as though they would careless than she would in their places. Perhaps they were only hostile, not envious. 

"I dare say, " said Aunt Victoria, glancing out at a buck-board, verymuddy as to wheels, crowded with children, "that it's very forlorn forthe natives to have the life all go out of the village when the summerpeople leave. They must feel desolate enough!"

Sylvia wondered. 

The last thing she saw as the train left the valley was the uplandpass between Windward and Hemlock mountains. It brought up to her thetaste of black birch, the formidably clean smell of yellow soap, andthe rush of summer wind past her ears. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

"WHOM GOD HATH JOINED . . . "

They were to sail on the 23d, and ever since the big square invitationhad come it had been a foregone conclusion, conceded with no needfor wounding words, that there was no way out of attending theSommerville-Morrison wedding on the 21st. They kept, of course, noconstrained silence about it. Aunt Victoria detested the awkwardnessof not mentioning difficult subjects as heartily as she did themention of them; and as the tree toad evolves a skin to answer hisneeds, she had evolved a method all her own of turning her backsquarely on both horns of a dilemma. No, there was no silence aboutthe wedding, only about the possibility that it might be an ordeal, orthat the ordeal might be avoided. It could not be avoided. There wasnothing to be said on that point. But there was much talk, during thefew days of their stay in New York, about the elaborate preparationsfor the ceremony. Morrison, who came to see them in their temporaryquarters, kept up a somewhat satirical report as to the magnificenceof the performance, and on the one occasion when they went to seeMolly they found her flushed, excited, utterly inconsecutive, distracted by a million details, and accepting the situation as thenormal one for a bride-to-be. There were heart-searchings as totoilets to match the grandeur of the occasion; and later satisfactionwith the moss-green chiffon for Sylvia and violet-colored velvet forher aunt. There were consultations about the present Aunt Victoriawas to send from them both, a wonderfully expensive, newly patented, leather traveling-case for a car, guaranteed to hold less to thesquare inch and pound than any other similar, heavy, gold-mountedcontrivance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith told Morrison frankly, in thisconnection, that she had tried to select a present which Molly herselfwould enjoy. 

"Am I not to have a present myself?" asked Morrison. "Something thatyou selected expressly for me?"

"No, " said Sylvia, dropping the sugar into his tea with deliberation. "You are not to have any present for yourself. "

She was guiltily conscious that she was thinking of a certain scene in"The Golden Bowl, " a scene in which a wedding present figures largely;and when, a moment later, he said, "I have a new volume of Henry JamesI'd like to loan you, " she knew that the same scene had been in hishead. She would not look at him lest she read in his eyes that he hadmeant her to know. As she frequently did in those days, she rose, andmaking an excuse of a walk in the park, took herself off. 

She was quite calm during this period, her mind full of trivialthings. She had the firm conviction that she was living in a dream, that nothing of what was happening was irrevocable. And besides, as atLydford, for much of the day, she was absorbed in the material detailsof her life, being rubbed and dressed and undressed, and adorned andfed and catered to. They were spending the few days before sailing ina very grand hotel, overlooking Central Park. Sylvia had almost everyday the thought that she herself was now in the center of exactly thesame picture in which, as a child, she had enviously watched AuntVictoria. She adored every detail of it. It was an opening-out, evenfrom the Lydford life. She felt herself expanding like a dried spongeplaced in water, to fill every crack and crevice of the luxurioushabits of life. The traveling along that road is always swift; andSylvia's feet were never slow. During the first days in Vermont, it had seemed a magnificence to her that she need never think ofdish-washing or bed-making. By this time it seemed quite natural toher that Hélène drew and tempered the water for her bath, and put onher stockings. Occasionally she noticed with a little surprise thatshe seemed to have no more free time than in the laborious life of LaChance; but for the most part she threw out, in all haste, innumerablegreedy root-tendrils into the surcharged richness of her new soil andsent up a rank growth of easeful acquiescence in redundance. 

The wedding was quite as grand as the Sommervilles had tried to makeit. The street was crowded with staring, curious, uninvited people oneither side of the church, and when the carriage containing the bridedrove up, the surge forward to see her was as fierce as though she hadbeen a defaulting bank-president being taken to prison. The policehad to intervene. The interior, fern and orchid swathed, very dimlylighted by rich purple stained glass and aristocratic dripping waxcandles instead of the more convenient electric imitations, wasmurmurous with the wonderful throbbing notes of a great organ and withthe discreet low tones of the invited guests as they speculated aboutthe relative ages and fortunes of the bride and bridegroom. Thechancel was filled with a vested choir which, singing and carrying across, advanced down the aisle to meet the bridal party. Molly, whohad not been in a church since her childhood, had needed to be coachedover and over again in the ins and outs of the complicated service. 

Sylvia, seated several guests away from the aisle, saw little of theprocession as it went up into the chancel. She caught a glimpse of amisty mass of white and, beside it, old Mr. Sommerville's profile, very white and nervous and determined. She did not at that time seethe bridegroom at all. The ceremony, which took place far within thechancel, was long and interspersed with music from the choir. Sylvia, feeling very queer and callous, as though, under an anaesthetic, shewere watching with entire unconcern the amputation of one of herlimbs, fell to observing the people about her. The woman in front ofher leaned against the pew and brought her broad, well-fed back closeunder Sylvia's eyes. It was covered with as many layers as a worm ina cocoon. There were beads on lace, the lace incrusted on other lace, chiffon, fish-net, a dimly seen filmy satin, cut in points, and, lowerdown, an invisible foundation of taffeta. Through the intersticesthere gleamed a revelation of the back itself, fat, white, again likea worm in a cocoon. 

Sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture, bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to theburying of structural lines in ornamentation. The cuff, for instance, originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashablefabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming, " which has lost allits meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. Like a stronghand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to sayall this to please Felix Morrison, who was now within fifty feet ofher, being married to another woman. 

She flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence ofspirit. . . . There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, apale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shiningrapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surpliceand took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, theSon, and the Holy Ghost, " he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frownedimpatiently. He was evidently afraid the business in hand would dragalong and make him late to another appointment, "--is now and evershall be, world without end. Amen!" he sang fervently. Sylviarepressed an hysterical desire to laugh. 

The ceremony was over; the air in the building beat wildly against thewalls, the stained-glass windows, and the ears of the worshipers inthe excited tumult of the wedding-march; the procession began toleave the chancel. This time Sylvia caught one clear glimpse of theprincipals, but it meant nothing to her. They looked like wax effigiesof themselves, self-conscious, posed, emptied of their personalitiesby the noise, the crowds, the congestion of ceremony. The ideaoccurred to Sylvia that they looked as though they had taken in aslittle as she the significance of what had happened. The people abouther were moving in relieved restlessness after the long immobility ofthe wedding. The woman next her went down on her knees for a devoutperiod, her face in her white gloves. When she rose, she saidearnestly to her companion, "Do you know if I had to choose onehat-trimming for all the rest of my life, I should make it small pinkroses in clusters. It's perfectly miraculous how, with black chiffon, they _never_ go out!" She settled in place the great cluster of costlyviolets at her breast which she seemed to have exuded like somenatural secretion of her plump and expensive person. "Why don't theylet us out!" she said complainingly. 

A young man, one of those born to be a wedding usher, now came swiftlyup the aisle on patent leather feet and untied with pearl-gray fingersthe great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. Sylviacaught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden thanusual. With no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. Itwas not hard. She felt quite numb. She had been present only duringone or two painful, quickly passed moments. 

But the reception at the house, the big, old-fashioned, very richSommerville house, was more of an ordeal. There was the sight of thebride and groom in the receiving-line, now no longer badly executedgraven images, but quite themselves--Molly starry-eyed, triumphant, astonishingly beautiful, her husband distinguished, ugly, self-possessed, easily the most interesting personality in the room;there was the difficult moment of the presentation, the handclasp withFelix, the rapturous vague kiss from Molly, evidently too uplifted tohave any idea as to the individualities of the people defiling beforeher; then the passing on into the throng, the eating and drinking andtalking with acquaintances from the Lydford summer colony, of whomthere were naturally a large assortment. Sylvia had a growing sense ofpain, which was becoming acute when across the room she saw Molly, in a lull of arrivals, look up to her husband and receive from him asmiling, intimate look of possession. Why, they were _married_! It wasdone!

The delicate food in Sylvia's mouth turned to ashes. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith's voice, almost fluttered, almost (for her)excited, came to her ears: "Sylvia--here is Mr. Page! And he's justtold me the most delightful news, that he's decided to run over toParis for a time this fall. "

"I hope Miss Marshall will think that Paris will be big enough for allof us?" asked Austin Page, fixing his remarkably clear eyes on thegirl. 

She made a great effort for self-possession. She turned her back onthe receiving-line. She held out her hand cordially. "I hope Pariswill be quite, quite small, so that we shall all see a great deal ofeach other, " she said warmly. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH

They left Mrs. Marshall-Smith with a book, seated on a littleyellow-painted iron chair, the fifteen-centime kind, at the top of thegreat flight of steps leading down to the wide green expanse of theTapis Vert. She was alternately reading Huysmans' highly imaginativeideas on Gothic cathedrals, and letting her eyes stray up and down thelong façade of the great Louis. Her powers of aesthetic assimilationseemed to be proof against this extraordinary mixture of impressions. She had insisted that she would be entirely happy there in the sun, for an hour at least, especially if she were left in solitude with herbook. On which intimation Sylvia and Page had strolled off to do someexploring. It was a situation which a month of similar arrangementshad made very familiar to them. 

"No, I don't know Versailles very well, " he said in answer to herquestion, "but I believe the gardens back of the Grand and PetitTrianon are more interesting than these near the Château itself. The conscientiousness with which they're kept up is not quite soformidable. "

So they walked down the side of the Grand Canal, admiring the ratherpensive beauty of the late November woods, and talking, as was theproper thing, about the great Louis and his court, and how they bothdetested his style of gilded, carved wall ornamentation, although hischairs weren't as bad as some others. They turned off at the cross-armof the Canal towards the Great Trianon; they talked, again dutifullyin the spirit of the place, about Madame de Maintenon. They differedon this subject just enough to enjoy discussing it. Page averred thatthe whole affair had always passed his comprehension, "--what thatease-loving, vain, indulgent, trivial-minded grandson of Henri Quatrecould ever have seen for all those years in that stiff, prim, cold oldschool-ma'am--"

But Sylvia shook her head. "I know how he felt. He _had_ to have her, once he'd found her. She was the only person in all his world he coulddepend on. "

"Why not depend on himself?" Page asked. 

"Oh, he couldn't! He couldn't! She had character and he hadn't. "

"What do you mean by character?" he challenged her. 

"It's what I haven't!" she said. 

He attempted a chivalrous exculpation. "Oh, if you mean by charactersuch hard, insensitive lack of imagination as Madame de Maintenon's--"

"No, not that, " said Sylvia. "_You_ know what I mean by character aswell as I. "

By the time they were back of the Little Trianon, this beginning hadled them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historicalconversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. The starthad been a reminiscence of Sylvia's, induced by the slow fall ofgolden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of thelake in the midst of Marie Antoinette's hamlet. They stopped on anoutrageously rustic bridge, constructed quite in the artificiallyrural style of the place, and, leaning on the railing, watched in afascinated silence the quiet, eddying descent of the leaves. There wasnot a breath of wind. The leaves detached themselves from the treewith no wrench. They loosened their hold gradually, gradually, andfinally out of sheer fullness of maturity floated down to their graveswith a dreamy content. 

"I never happened to see that effect before, " said Page. "I supposedleaves were detached only by wind. It's astonishingly peaceful, isn'tit?"

"I saw it once before, " said Sylvia, her eyes fixed on the noiselessarabesques traced by the leaves in their fall--"at home in La Chance. I'll never forget it. " She spoke in a low tone as though not to breakthe charmed silence about them, and, upon his asking her for theincident, she went on, almost in a murmur: "It isn't a story you couldpossibly understand. You've never been poor. But I'll tell you if youlike. I've talked to you such a lot about home and the queer people weknow--did I ever mention Cousin Parnelia? She's a distant cousin of mymother's, a queer woman who lost her husband and three children in atrain-wreck years ago, and has been a little bit crazy ever since. Shehas always worn, for instance, exactly the same kind of clothes, hatand everything, that she had on, the day the news was brought to her. The Spiritualists got hold of her then, and she's been one herself forever so long--table-rapping--planchette-writing--all the horrid restof it, and she makes a little money by being a "medium" for ignorantpeople. But she hardly earns enough that way to keep her fromstarving, and Mother has for ever so long helped her out. 

"Well, there was a chance to buy a tiny house and lot for her--twohundred and twenty dollars. It was just a two-roomed cottage, but itwould be a roof over her head at least. She is getting old and oughtto have something to fall back on. Mother called us all together andsaid this would be a way to help provide for Cousin Parnelia'sold age. Father never could bear her (he's so hard on ignorant, superstitious people), but he always does what Mother thinks best, so he said he'd give up the new typewriter he'd been hoping to buy. Mother gave up her chicken money she'd been putting by for some newrose-bushes, and she loves her roses too! Judith gave what she'dearned picking raspberries, and I--oh, how I hated to do it! but I wasashamed not to--I gave what I'd saved up for my autumn suit. Lawrencejust stuck it out that he hated Cousin Parnelia and he wouldn't give abit. But he was so little that he only had thirty cents or somethinglike that in a tin bank, so it didn't matter. When we put it alltogether it wasn't nearly enough of course, and we took the rest outof our own little family savings-bank rainy-day savings and bought thetiny house and lot. Father wanted to 'surprise' Cousin Parnelia withthe deed. He wanted to lay it under some flowers in a basket, or slipit into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something. ButMother--it was so like her!--the first time Cousin Parnelia happenedto come to the house, Mother picked up the deed from her desk and saidoffhand, 'Oh, Parnelia, we bought the little Garens house for you, 'and handed her the paper, and went to talking about cutworms orBordeaux mixture. "

Page smiled, appreciative of the picture. "I see her. I see yourmother--Vermont to the core. "

"Well, it was only about two weeks after that, I was practising andMother was rubbing down a table she was fixing over. Nobody elsehappened to be at home. Cousin Parnelia came in, her old batteredblack straw hat on one ear as usual. She was all stirred up andpleased about a new 'method' of using planchette. You know whatplanchette is, don't you? The little heart-shaped piece of woodspiritualists use, with a pencil fast to it, to take down their silly'messages, ' Some spiritualistic fake was visiting town conductingséances and he claimed he'd discovered some sort of method forinducing greater receptivity--or something like that. I don't knowanything about spiritualism but little tags I've picked up fromhearing Cousin Parnelia talk. Anyway, he was 'teaching' other mediumsfor a big price. And it came out that Cousin Parnelia had mortgagedthe house for more than it was worth, and had used the money to takethose 'lessons. ' I couldn't believe it for a minute. When I reallyunderstood what she'd done, I was so angry I felt like smashingboth fists down on the piano keys and howling! I thought of my bluecorduroy I'd given up--I was only fourteen and just crazy aboutclothes. Mother was sitting on the floor, scraping away at thetable-leg. She got up, laid down her sandpaper, and asked CousinParnelia if she'd excuse us for a few minutes. Then she took me bythe hand, as though I was a little girl. I felt like one too, I feltalmost frightened by Mother's face, and we both marched out of thehouse. She didn't say a word. She took me down to our swimming-holein the river. There is a big maple-tree leaning over that. It was aperfectly breathless autumn day like this, and the tree was sheddingits leaves like that birch, just gently, slowly, steadily letting themgo down into the still water. We sat down on the bank and watchedthem. The air was full of them, yet all so quiet, without any hurry. The water was red with them, they floated down on our shoulders, onour heads, in our laps--not a sound--so peaceful--so calm--so perfect. It was like the andante of the Kreutzer. 

"I knew what Mother wanted, to get over being angry with CousinParnelia. And she was. I could see it in her face, like somebody inchurch. I felt it myself--all over, like an E string that's beenpulled too high, slipping down into tune when you turn the peg. ButI didn't _want_ to feel it. I _wanted_ to hate Cousin Parnelia. Ithought it was awfully hard in Mother not to want us to have even thesatisfaction of hating Cousin Parnelia! I tried to go on doing it. I remember I cried a little. But Mother never said a word--justsat there in that quiet autumn sunshine, watching the leavesfalling--falling--and I had to do as she did. And by and by I felt, just as she did, that Cousin Parnelia was only a very small part ofsomething very big. 

"When we went in, Mother's face was just as it always was, and we gotCousin Parnelia a cup of tea and gave her part of a boiled ham totake home and a dozen eggs and a loaf of graham bread, just as thoughnothing had happened. "

She stopped speaking. There was no sound at all but the delicate, forlorn whisper of the leaves. 

"That is a very fine story!" said Page finally. He spoke with ameasured, emphatic, almost solemn accent. 

"Yes, it's a very fine story, " murmured Sylvia a little wistfully. "It's finer as a story than it was as real life. It was years before Icould look at blue corduroy without feeling stirred up. I really caredmore about my clothes than I did about that stupid, ignorant oldwoman. If it's only a cheerful giver the Lord loves, He didn't feelmuch affection for me. "

They began to retrace their steps. "You gave up the blue corduroy, "he commented as they walked on, "and you didn't scold your silly oldkinswoman. "

"That's only because Mother hypnotized me. _She_ has character. I didit as Louis signed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, becauseMadame de Maintenon thought he ought to. "

"But she couldn't hypnotize your brother Lawrence, althought he was somuch younger. He didn't give up his thirty-seven cents. I think you'rebragging without cause if you claim any engaging and picturesqueabsence of character. "

"Oh, Lawrence--he's different! He's extraordinary! Sometimes I thinkhe is a genius. And it's Judith who hypnotizes him. _She_ supplies hischaracter. "

They emerged into an opening and walked in silence for some momentstowards the Grand Trianon. 

"You're lucky, very lucky, " commented Page, "to have such an amplesupply of character in the family. I'm an only child. There's nobodyto give me the necessary hypodermic supply of it at the crucialmoments. " He went on, turning his head to look at the Great Trianon, very mellow in the sunshine. "It's my belief, however, that at thecrucial moments you have plenty of it of your own. "

"That's a safe guess!" said Sylvia ironically, "since there never have_been_ any crucial moments in a life so uninterestingly eventless asmine. I wonder what I _would_ do, " she mused. "My own conviction isthat--suppose I'd lived in the days of the Reformation--in the days ofChrist--in the early Abolition days--" She had an instant certainty:"Oh, I have been entirely on the side of whatever was smooth, andelegant, and had amenity--I'd have hated the righteous side!"

Page did not look very deeply moved by this revelation of depravity. Indeed, he smiled rather amusedly at her, and changed the subject. "You said a moment ago that I couldn't understand, because I'd alwayshad money. Isn't it a bit paradoxical to say that the people whohaven't a thing are the only ones who know anything about it?"

"But you couldn't realize what _losing_ the money meant to us. Youcan't know what the absence of money can do to a life. "

"I can know, " said Page, "what the presence of it cannot do fora life. " His accent implied rather sadly that the omissions wereconsiderable. 

"Oh, of course, of course, " Sylvia agreed. "There's any amount itcan't do. After you have it, you must get the other things too. "

He brought his eyes down to her from a roving quest among the topsof the trees. "It seems to me you want a great deal, " he saidquizzically. 

"Yes, I do, " she admitted. "But I don't see that you have any callto object to my wanting it. You don't have to wish for everything atonce. You have it already. "

He received this into one of his thoughtful silences, but presently itbrought him to a standstill. They were within sight of the Grand Canalagain, looking down from the terrace of the Trianon. He leaned againstthe marble balustrade and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Hisclear eyes were clouded. He looked profoundly grave. "I am thirty-twoyears old, " he said, "and never for a moment of that time have Imade any sense out of my position in life. If you call that 'havingeverything'--"

It occurred to Sylvia fleetingly that she had never made any sense outof her position in life either, and had been obliged to do a greatmany disagreeable things into the bargain, but she kept this thoughtto herself, and looked conspicuously what she genuinely felt, asympathetic interest. The note of plain direct sincerity which wasPage's hallmark never failed to arrest her attention, a little toarouse her wonder, and occasionally, for a reason that she did notlike to dwell upon, somewhat to abash her. The reason was that henever spoke for effect, and she often did. He was not speaking foreffect now: he seemed scarcely even to be speaking to her, rather tobe musingly formulating something for his own enlightenment. Hewent on. "The fact is that there _is_ no sense to be made out of mysituation in life. I am like a man with a fine voice, who has no ear. "

He showed surprise that Sylvia failed to follow this, and explained. "I mean the voice is no good to that kind of a man, it's no good toanybody. It's the craziest, accidental affair anyhow, haven't you evernoticed it?--who draws the fine voices. Half the time--more than halfthe time, _most_ of the time it seems to me when I've been recently toa lot of concerts, the people who have the voices haven't any otherqualifications for being singers. And it's so with coal-mines, witheverything else that's inherited. For five years now I've given upwhat I'd like to do, and I've tried, under the best _maestri_ I couldfind, to make something out of my voice, so to speak. And it's nogo. It's in the nature of things that I can't make a go of it. Over everything I do lies the taint that I'm the 'owner'! They aresuspicious of me, always will be--and rightly so. Anybody else notconnected with the mediaeval idea of 'possession' could do better thanI. The whole relation's artificial. I'm in it for the preposterousreason that my father, operating on Wall Street, made a luckyguess, --as though I should be called upon to run a locomotive becausemy middle initial is L!"

Sylvia still felt the same slight sense of flatness when thisrecurring topic thrust itself into a personal talk; but during thelast month she had adjusted herself to Page so that this no longershowed on the surface. She was indeed quite capable of taking aninterest in the subject, as soon as she could modulate herself intothe new key. "Yes, of course, " she agreed, "it's like so many otherthings that are perfectly necessary to go on with, perfectly absurdwhen you look closely at them. My father nearly lost his position oncefor saying that all inheritance was wrong. But even he never hadthe slightest suggestion as to what to do about it, how to get aninheritance into the hands of the people who might make the best useof it. " She was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubtof everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance ofeverything. Professor and Madame La Rue, in actual life devotedlyfaithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationshipssanctioned by the practice of free love. It was perhaps with thisrecollection in her mind that she suggested, "Don't you suppose itwill be like the institution of marriage, very, very gradually alteredtill it fits conditions better?"

"In the meantime, how about the cases of those who are unhappilymarried?"

"I don't see anything for them but just to get along the best theycan, " she told him. 

"You think I'd better give up trying to do anything with myColorado--?" he asked her, as though genuinely seeking advice. 

"I should certainly think that five years was plenty long enough for afair trial! You'd make a better ambassador than an active captain ofindustry, anyhow, " she said with conviction. Whereupon he bestowed onher a long, thoughtful stare, as though he were profoundly ponderingher suggestion. 

They moved forward towards the Grand Canal in silence. Privately shewas considering his case hardly one of extreme hardship. Privatelyalso, as they advanced nearer and nearer the spot where they had leftMrs. Marshall-Smith, she was a little dreading the return to theperfect breeding with which Aunt Victoria did not ask, or intimate, orlook, the question which was in her mind after each of these strollingtête-à-têtes which consistently led nowhere. There were instants whenSylvia would positively have preferred the vulgar openness of a directquestion to which she might have answered, with the refreshing effectto her of a little honest blood-letting: "Dear Aunt Victoria, Ihaven't the least idea myself what's happening! I'm simply lettingmyself go because I don't see anything else to do. I have even no veryclear idea as to what is going on inside my own head. I only know thatI like Austin Page so much (in spite of a certain quite unforgottenepisode) there would be nothing at all unpleasant about marrying him;but I also know that I didn't feel the least interest in him untilHélène told me about his barrels of money: I also know that I feel thestrongest aversion to returning to the Spartan life of La Chance; andit occurs to me that these two things may throw considerable lighton my 'liking' for Austin. As for what's in _his_ mind, there isno subject on which I'm in blacker ignorance. And after being sotremendously fooled, in the case of Felix, about the degree ofinterest a man was feeling, I do not propose to take anything forgranted which is not on the surface. It is quite possible that thissingularly sincere and simple-mannered man may not have the slightestintention of doing anything more than enjoy a pleasant vacation fromcertain rather hair-splitting cares which seem to trouble him fromtime to time. " As they walked side by side along the stagnant waters, she was sending inaudible messages of this sort towards her aunt; shehad even selected the particular mauve speck at the top of the stepswhich might be Mrs. Marshall-Smith. 

In the glowing yellow gold of the sky, a faintly whirring dark-grayspot appeared: an airman made his way above the Grand Canal, passedabove the Château, and disappeared. They had sat down on a bench, thebetter to crane their heads to watch him out of sight. Sylvia waspenetrated with the strangeness of that apparition in that spot andthrilled out: "Isn't it wonderful! Isn't it wonderful! _Here!_"

"There's something _more_ wonderful!" he said, indicating with hiscane the canal before them, where a group of neat, poorly dressed, lower middle-class people looked proudly out from their triumphalprogress in the ugly, gasping little motor-boat which operates attwenty-five centimes a trip. 

She had not walked and talked a month with him for nothing. She knewthat he did not refer to motor-boats as against aëroplanes. "Youmean, " she said appreciatively, "you mean those common people goingfreely around the royal canal where two hundred years ago--"

He nodded, pleased by her quickness. "Two hundred years from now, "he conjectured, "the stubs of my checkbook will be exhibited in anhistorical museum along with the regalia of the last hereditarymonarch. "

Here she did not follow, and she was too intelligent to pretend shedid. 

He lifted his eyebrows. "Relic of a quaint old social structureinexplicably tolerated so late as the beginning of the twentiethcentury, "

"Oh, coal-mines forever!" she said, smiling, her eyes brilliant withfriendly mockery. 

"Aye! _Toujours perdrix!_" he admitted. He continued to look steadilyand seriously into her smiling, sparkling face, until, with a suddenpulse of premonition, she was stricken into a frightened gravity. Andthen, with no prelude, no approach, quite simply and directly, hespoke. "I wonder how much you care for me?" he said musingly, as hehad said everything else that afternoon: and as she positively paledat the eeriness of this echo from her own thought, he went on, hisvoice vibrating in the deep organ note of a great moment, "You mustknow, of course, by this time that I care everything possible foryou. "

Compressed into an instant of acute feeling Sylvia felt the pangswhich had racked her as a little girl when she had stood in theschoolyard with Camilla Fingál before her, and the terrifying hostileeyes about her. Her two selves rose up against each other fiercely, murderously, as they had then. The little girl sprang forward to helpthe woman who for an instant hesitated. The fever and the strugglevanished as instantly as they had come. Sylvia felt very still, veryhushed. Page had told her that she always rose to crucial moments. Sherose to this one. "I don't know, " she said as quietly as he, with asutter a bravery of bare sincerity, "I don't know how much I care foryou--but I think it is a great deal. " She rose upon a solemn wing ofcourage to a greater height of honesty. Her eyes were on his, as clearas his. The mere beauty of her face had gone like a lifted veil. For ainstant he saw her as Sylvia herself did not dream she could be. "Itis very hard, " said Sylvia Marshall, with clear eyes and tremblinglips of honest humility, "for a girl with no money to know how muchshe cares for a very rich man. "

She had never been able to imagine what she would say if the momentshould come. She had certainly not intended to say this. But anunsuspected vein of granite in her rang an instant echo to histruth. She was bewildered to see his ardent gaze upon her deepen toreverence. He took her hand in his and kissed it. He tried to speak, but his voice broke. 

She was immensely moved to see him so moved. She was also entirely ata loss. How strangely different things always were from forecasts ofthem! They had suddenly taken the long-expected stride away from theirformer relation, but she did not know where they had arrived. What wasthe new status between them? What did Austin think she meant? It cameto her with a shock that the new status between them was, on thesurface, exactly what it was in reality; that the avowed relationbetween them was, as far as it went, precisely in accord with thefacts of the case. The utter strangeness of this in any humanrelationship filled her with astonishment, with awe, almost withuneasiness. It seemed unnatural not to have to pretend anything!

Apparently it did not seem unnatural to the man beside her. "You are avery wonderful woman, " he now said, his voice still but partly underhis control. "I had not thought that you could exist. " He took herhand again and continued more steadily: "Will you let me, for a littlewhile longer, go on living near you? Perhaps things may seem clearerto us both, later--"

Sylvia was swept by a wave of gratitude as for some act ofmagnanimity. "_You_ are the wonderful one!" she cried. Not since theday Hélène had told her who he was, had she felt so whole, so sound, so clean, as now. The word came rushing on the heels of the thought:"You make one feel so _clean_!" she said, unaware that he couldscarcely understand her, and then she smiled, passing with her free, natural grace from the memorable pause, and the concentration of agreat moment forward into the even-stepping advance of life. "Thatfirst day--even then you made me feel clean--that soap! that cold, clean water--it is your aroma!"

Their walk along the silent water, over the great lawn, and up thesteps was golden with the level rays of the sun setting back of them, at the end of the canal, between the distant, sentinel poplars. Theirmood was as golden as the light. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes theywere silent. Truth walked between them. 

Sylvia's mind, released from the tension of that great moment, beganmaking its usual, sweeping, circling explorations of its own depths. Not all that it found was of an equal good report. Once she thoughtfleetingly: "This is only a very, very pretty way of saying that itis all really settled. With his great wealth, he is like a reigningmonarch--let him be as delicate-minded as he pleases, when heindicates a wish--" More than once--many, many times--Felix Morrison'scompelling dark eyes looked at her penetratingly, but she resolutelyturned away her head from them, and from the impulse to answer theirreproach even with an indignant, well-founded reproach of her own. Again and again she felt a sweet strangeness in her new position. Thearoma of utter sincerity was like the scent of a wildflower growing inthe sun, spicy, free. She wondered at a heart like his that could beat once ardent and subtle, that could desire so profoundly (the deepvibrations of that voice of yearning were in her ears still) and yetpause, and stand back, and wait, rather than force a hair's breadthof pretense. How he had liberated her! And once she found herselfthinking, "I shall have sables myself, and diamonds, and a house asgreat as Molly's, and I shall learn how to entertain ambassadors, as she will never know. " She was ashamed of this, she knew it to beshockingly out of key with the grand passage behind them. But she hadthought it. 

And, as these thoughts, and many more, passed through her mind, as shespoke with a quiet peace, or was silent, she was transfigured into abeauty almost startling, by the accident of the level golden beams oflight back of her. Her aureole of bright hair glowed like a saint'shalo. The curiously placed lights and unexpected shadows broughtout new subtleties in the modeling of her face. Her lightened heartgleamed through her eyes, like a lighted lamp. After a time, the manfell into a complete silence, glancing at her frequently as thoughstoring away a priceless memory. . . . 

CHAPTER XXXV

"A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR"

As the "season" heightened, the beautiful paneled walls of Mrs. Marshall-Smith's salon were frequently the background for chancegatherings of extremely appropriate callers. They seemed a visibleemanation of the room, so entirely did they represent what that sortof a room was meant to contain. They were not only beautifully butseverely dressed, with few ornaments, and those few a result of thesame concentrated search for the rare which had brought together thefew bibelots in the room, which had laid the single great dull Persianrug on the unobtrusively polished oaken floor, which had set in thehigh, south windows the boxes of feathery green plants with delicatestar-like flowers. 

And it was not only in externals that these carefully brushed andcombed people harmonized with the mellow beauty of their background. They sat, or stood, moved about, took their tea, and talked with anextraordinary perfection of manner. There was not a voice there, save perhaps Austin Page's unstudied tones, which was not carefullymodulated in a variety of rhythm and pitch which made each sentence awork of art. They used, for the most part, low tones and few gestures, but those well chosen. There was an earnest effort apparent to achievetrue conversational give-and-take, and if one of the older men foundhimself yielding to the national passion for lengthy monologues on afavorite theme, or to the mediocre habit of anecdote, there was aninstant closing in on him of carefully casual team-work on the part ofthe others which soon reduced him to the tasteful short commentand answer which formed the framework of the afternoon's socialactivities. 

The topics of the conversation were as explicitly in harmony with thegroup-ideal as the perfectly fitting gloves of the men, or the smooth, burnished waves of the women's hair. They talked of the last play atthe Français, of the exhibitions then on view at the Petit Palais, ofa new tenor in the choir of the Madeleine, of the condition of theautomobile roads in the Loire country, of the restoration of thestained glass at Bourges. 

On such occasions, a good deal of Sylvia's attention being given tomodulating her voice and holding her hands and managing her skirts asdid the guests of the hour, she usually had an impression that theconversation was clever. Once or twice, looking back, she had beensomewhat surprised to find that she could remember nothing of what hadbeen said. It occurred to her, fleetingly, that of so much talk, someword ought to stick in her usually retentive memory; but she gave thematter no more thought. She had also been aware, somewhat dimly, thatAustin Page was more or less out of drawing in the carefully composedpicture presented on those social afternoons. He had the inveteratehabit of being at his ease under all circumstances, but she had feltthat he took these great people with a really exaggerated lack ofseriousness, answering their chat at random, and showing no chagrinwhen he was detected in the grossest ignorance about the latest moveof the French Royalist party, or the probabilities as to the winnerof the Grand Prix. She had seen in the corners of his mouth aninexplicable hidden imp of laughter as he gravely listened, cup inhand, to the remarks of the beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perthabout the inevitable promiscuity of democracy, and he continuallydisplayed a tendency to gravitate into the background, away from thecenter of the stage where their deference for his name, fortune, andpersonality would have placed him. Sylvia's impression of him was farfrom being one of social brilliance, but rather of an almost wilfulnegligence. She quite grew used to seeing him, a tall, distinguishedfigure, sitting at ease in a far corner, and giving to the scene apleasant though not remarkably respectful attention. 

On such an afternoon in January, the usual routine had been preserved. The last of the callers, carrying off Mrs. Marshall-Smith with her, had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. Sylvia turned back fromthe door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, andfound that Austin Page's mood differed notably from her own. He hadlingered for a tête-à-tête, as was so frequently his habit, and nowstood before the fire, his face all one sparkle of fun. "Don't theydo it with true American fervor!" he remarked. "It would take amicroscope to tell the difference between them and a well-rehearsedsociety scene on the stage of the Français! That's their model, of course. It is positively touching to see old Colonel Pattersonsubduing his twang and shutting the lid down on his box of comicstories. I should think Mrs. Patterson might allow him at least thatone about the cowboy and the tenderfoot who wanted to take a bath!"

The impression made on Sylvia had not in the least corresponded tothis one; but with a cat-like twist of her flexible mind, she fellon her feet, took up his lead, and deftly produced the only suitablematerial she had at command. "They _seem_ to talk well, about suchinteresting things, and yet I can never remember anything they say. It's odd, " she sat down near the fireplace with a great air ofpondering the strange phenomenon. 

"No, it isn't odd, " he explained, dropping into the chair opposite herand stretching out his long legs to the blaze. "It's only people whodo something, who have anything to say. These folks don't do anythingexcept get up and sit down the right way, and run their voices up anddown the scale so that their great-aunts would faint away to hearthem! They haven't any energy left over. If some one would only writeout suitable parts for them to memorize, the performance would beperfect!" He threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound ringingthrough the room. Sylvia had seldom seen him so light-heartedlyamused. He explained: "I haven't seen this sort of solemn, genteelposturing for several years now, and I find it too delicious! To seethe sweet, invincible American naïveté welling up in their intensesatisfaction in being so sophisticated, --oh, the harmless dears!" Hecried out upon them gaily, with the indulgence of an adult who lookson at children's play. 

Sylvia was a trifle breathless, seeing him disappear so rapidly downthis unexpected path, but she was for the moment spared the effort toovertake him by the arrival of Tojiko with a tray of fresh mail. "Oh, letters from home!" Sylvia rejoiced, taking a bulky one and a thin onefrom the pile. "The fat one is from Father, " she said, holding it up. "He is like me, terribly given to loquaciousness. We always write eachother reams when we're apart. The little flat one is from Judith. Shenever can think of anything to say except that she is still alive andhopes I am, and that her esteem for me is undiminished. Dear SpartanJudy!"

"Do you know, " said the man opposite her, "if I hadn't met you, Ishould have been tempted to believe that the institution of thefamily had disappeared. I never saw anything like you Marshalls! Youpositively seem to have a real regard for each other in spite ofwhat Bernard Shaw says about the relations of blood-kin. You even, incredible as it seems, appear to feel a mutual respect!"

"That's a very pretty compliment indeed, " said Sylvia, smiling at himflashingly, "and I'm going to reward you by reading some of Judith'sletter aloud. Letters do paint personalities so, don't they?"

He settled himself to listen. 

"Oh, it won't take long!" she reassured him laughingly. She read:

"'DEAR SYLVIE: Your last letter about the palaces at Versailles wasvery interesting. Mother looked you up on the plan of the grounds inFather's old Baedeker. I'm glad to know you like Paris so much. Ourchief operating surgeon says he thinks the opportunities at the Schoolof Medicine in Paris are fully as good as in Vienna, and chances forindividual diagnoses greater. Have you visited that yet?'" Overthe letter Sylvia raised a humorous eyebrow at Page, who smiled, appreciative of the point. 

She went on: "'Lawrence is making me a visit of a few days. Isn't hea queer boy! I got Dr. Wilkinson to agree, as a great favor, to letLawrence see a very interesting operation. Right in the middle of it, Lawrence fainted dead away and had to be carried out. But when he cameto, he said he wouldn't have missed it for anything, and before hecould really sit up he was beginning a poem about the "cruel mercy ofthe shining knives. "'" Sylvia shook her head. "Isn't that Lawrence!Isn't that Judith!"

Page agreed thoughtfully, their eyes meeting in a trustful intimacy. They themselves might have been bound together by a family tie, sowholly natural seemed their sociable sitting together over the fire. Sylvia thought with an instant's surprise, "Isn't it odd how close hehas come to seem--as though I'd always, always known him; as though Icould speak to him of anything--nobody else ever seemed that way tome, nobody!"

She read on from the letter: "'All of us at St. Mary's are feelingvery sore about lawyers. Old Mr. Winthrop had left the hospitalfifteen thousand dollars in his will, and we'd been counting on thatto make some changes in the operating-room and the men's accident wardthat are awfully needed. And now comes along a miserable lawyer whofinds something the matter with the will, and everything goes to thatworthless Charlie Winthrop, who'll probably blow it all in on onegrand poker-playing spree. It makes me tired! We can't begin to keepup with the latest X-ray developments without the new apparatus, andonly the other day we lost a case, a man hurt in a railroad wreck, that I know we could have pulled through if we'd been better equipped!Well, hard luck! But I try to remember Mother's old uncle's motto, "Whatever else you do, _don't_ make a fuss!" Father has been off for afew days, speaking before Alumni reunions. He looks very well. Motherhas got her new fruit cellar fixed up, and it certainly is great. She's going to keep the carrots and parsnips there too. I've justheard that I'm going to graduate first in my class--thought you mightlike to know. Have a good time, Sylvia. And don't let your imaginationget away with you. 

"'Your loving sister, "'JUDITH, '"

"Of all the perfect characterizations!" murmured Page, as Sylviafinished. "I can actually see her and hear her!"

"Oh, there's nobody like Judith!" agreed Sylvia, falling into areverie, her eyes on the fire. 

The peaceful silence which ensued spoke vividly of the intimacybetween them. 

After a time Sylvia glanced up, and finding her companion's eyesabstractedly fixed on the floor, she continued to look into his face, noting its fine, somewhat gaunt modeling, the level line of his browneyebrows, the humor and kindness of his mouth. The winter twilightcast its first faint web of blue shadow into the room. The fire burnedwith a steady blaze. 

As minute after minute of this hushed, wordless calm continued, Sylviawas aware that something new was happening to her, that something inher stirred which had never before made its presence known. She feltvery queer, a little startled, very much bewildered. What was thathalf-thought fluttering a dusky wing in the back of her mind? It cameout into the twilight and she saw it for what it was. She had beenwondering what she would feel if that silent figure opposite hershould rise and take her in his arms. As she looked at that tender, humorous mouth, she had been wondering what she would feel to pressher lips upon it?

She was twenty-three years old, but so occupied with mental effort andphysical activity had been her life, that not till now had she knownone of those half-daring, half-frightened excursions of the fancywhich fill the hours of any full-blooded idle girl of eighteen. It wasa woman grown with a girl's freshness of impression, who knew thatravished, scared, exquisite moment of the first dim awakening of thesenses. But because it was a woman grown with a woman's capacity foremotion, the moment had a solemnity, a significance, which no girlcould have felt. This was no wandering, flitting, wingèd excursion. It was a grave step upon a path from which there was no turning back. Sylvia had passed a milestone. But she did not know this. She sat verystill in her chair as the twilight deepened, only knowing that shecould not take her eyes from those tender, humorous lips. That was themoment when if the man had spoken, if he had but looked at her . . . 

But he was following out some thought of his own, and now rose, wentto Mrs. Marshall-Smith's fine, small desk, snapped on an electriclight, and began to write. 

When he finished, he handed a bit of paper to Sylvia. "Do you supposeyour sister would be willing to let me make up for the objectionableCharlie Winthrop's deficiences?" he asked with a deprecatory air asthough he feared a refusal. 

Sylvia looked at the piece of paper. It was a check for fifteenthousand dollars. She held there in her hand seven years of herfather's life, as much money as they all had lived on from the yearsshe was sixteen until now. And this man had but to dip pen into ink toproduce it. There was something stupefying about the thought to her. She no longer saw the humor and tenderness of his mouth. She looked upat him and thought, "What an immensely rich man he is!" She said tohim wonderingly, "You can't imagine how strange it is--like magic--notto be believed--to have money like that!"

His face clouded. He looked down uncertainly at his feet and away atthe lighted electric bulb. "I thought it might please your sister, " hesaid and turned away. 

Sylvia was aghast to think that she had perhaps wounded him. He seemedto fear that he had flaunted his fortune in her face. He lookedacutely uncomfortable. She found that, as she had thought, she couldsay anything, anything to him, and say it easily. She went to himquickly and laid her hand on his arm. "It's splendid, " she said, looking deeply and frankly into his eyes. "Judith will be toorejoiced! It _is_ like magic. And nobody but you could have done it sothat the money seems the least part of the deed!"

He looked down at her, touched, moved, his eyes very tender, but sadas though with a divination of the barrier his fortune eternallyraised between them. 

The door opened suddenly and Mrs. Marshall-Smith came in quickly, not looking at them at all. From the pale agitation of her face theyrecoiled, startled and alarmed. She sat down abruptly as though herknees had given way under her. Her gloved hands were perceptiblytrembling in her lap. She looked straight at Sylvia, and for aninstant did not speak. If she had rushed in screaming wildly, heraspect to Sylvia's eyes would scarcely have been more eloquent ofportentous news to come. It was a fitting introduction to what she nowsaid to them in an unsteady voice: "I've just heard--a despatchfrom Jamiaca--something terrible has happened. The news came tothe American Express office when I was there. It is awful. MollySommerville driving her car alone--an appalling accident to thesteering-gear, they think. Molly found dead under the car. "

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR

It shocked Sylvia that Molly's death should make so little difference. After one sober evening with the stunning words fresh before theireyes, the three friends quickly returned to their ordinary routineof life. It was not that they did not care, she reflected--she _did_care. She had cried and cried at the thought of that quivering, vitalspirit broken by the inert crushing mass of steel--she could not bringherself to think of the soft body, mangled, bloody. Austin cared too:she was sure of it; but when they had expressed their pity, what morecould they do? The cabled statement was so bald, they hardly couldbelieve it--they failed altogether to realize what it meant--theyhad no details on which to base any commentary. She who had lived sointensely, was dead. They were sorry for her. That was all. 

As an apology for their seeming callousness they reiterated AuntVictoria's dictum: "We can know nothing about it until Felix comes. Let us hold our minds in suspense until we know what to think. " ThatMorrison would be in Paris soon, none of them doubted. Indeed, they united in insisting on the number of natural--oh, perfectlynatural--reasons for his coming. He had always spent a part of everywinter there, had in fact a tiny apartment on the Rue St. Honoré whichdated from his bachelor life; and now he had a double reason forcoming, since much of Molly's fortune chanced to be in French bonds. Her father had been (among other things) American agent for theComptoir National des Escomptes, and he had taken advantage of hisunusual opportunities for acquiring solid French and remunerativeAlgerian securities. Page had said at once that Morrison would need togo through a good many formalities, under the French laws. So pendingfuller information, they did not discuss the tragedy. Their lives ranon, and Molly, dead, was in their minds almost as little as Molly, living but absent, had been. 

It was only two months before Felix Morrison arrived in Paris. Theyhad expected him. They had spoken of the chance of his arrival onthis or that day. Sylvia had rehearsed all the possible forms ofself-possession for their first meeting; but on the rainy Februaryafternoon when she came in from representing Aunt Victoria at areception and saw him sitting by the fire, her heart sank down andstopped for an instant, and when it went on beating she could hear nosound but the drumming of her pulse. The back of his chair was towardsher. All she could see as she stood for a moment in the doorwaywas his head, the thick, graying dark hair, and one long-fingered, sensitive, beautiful hand lying on the arm of the chair. At thesight, she felt in her own palm the soft firmness of those fingers aspalpably as ever she had in reality. 

The instant's pause before Aunt Victoria saw her standing there, gaveher back her self-control. When Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned and gravelyheld out her hand, Sylvia came forward with a sober self-possession. The man turned too, sprang up with an exclamation apparently ofsurprise, "Miss Marshall, you _here_!" and extended his hand. Sylvia, searching his face earnestly, found it so worn, saw in it such darktraces of suffering and sorrow, that the quick tears of sympathy stoodin her eyes. 

Her dread of the meeting, a morbid dread that had in it anacknowledged element of horror, vanished. Before that moment she hadseen only Molly's face as it had looked the day of their desperatetalk, white and despairing, and resolutely bent over thesteering-wheel. She had not been able to imagine Felix' face at all, had instinctively put it out of her mind; but as she looked into itnow, her fear of it disappeared. It was the fine, sensitive face of afine, sensitive man who has known a great shock. What had she fearedshe would see there? He was still holding her hand, very much affectedat seeing her, evidently still in a super-sensitive condition wheneverything affected him strongly. "She loved you--she admired you so!"he said, his wonderful voice wavering and uncertain. Sylvia's tearsfell openly at this. She sat down on a low stool near her aunt'sknees. "I can't believe it--I haven't been able to believe it!" shetold him; "Molly was--she was more alive than anybody I ever saw!"

"If you had seen her that morning, " he told them both, --"like a flameof vitality--almost frightening--so vivid. She waved good-bye, andthen that was not enough; she got out of the car and ran back upthe hotel-step to say good-bye for just those few moments--and wasoff--such youth! such youth in all her--"

Sylvia cried out, "Oh, no! no! it's too dreadful!" She felt the horrorsweep down on her again; but now it did not bear Felix' face amongits baneful images. He stood there, shocked, stricken, but utterlybewildered, utterly ignorant--for the moment in her relief she hadcalled his ignorance utter innocence . . . 

They did not see him again for many days, and when he came, verybriefly, speaking of business technicalities which absorbed him, hewas noticeably absent and careworn. He looked much older. The gray inhis thick hair had increased. He looked very beautiful and austere toSylvia. They exchanged no more than the salutations of arrival andfarewell. 

Then one day, as she and Aunt Victoria and Austin Page strolled downthe long gallery of the Louvre, they came upon him, looking at theRibera Entombment. He joined them, walking with them through the SalonCarré and out to the Winged Victory, calling Sylvia's attention to theBotticelli frescoes beyond on the landing. "It's the first time I'vebeen here, " he told them, his only allusion to what lay back of him. "It is like coming back to true friends. Blessed be all true friends. "He shook hands with them, and went away down the great stairway, asplendid figure of dignity and grace. 

After this he came once and again to the apartment of the Rue dePresbourg, generally it would appear to use the piano. He had none inhis own tiny _pied-à-terre_ and he missed it. Sylvia immensely likedhis continuing to cling for a time to the simple arrangements of hisfrugal bachelor days. He could now of course have bought a thousandpianos. They understood how he would miss his music, and stole inquietly when, upon opening the door, Tojiko told them that Mr. Morrison had come in, and they heard from the salon his delicatelyfirm touch on the keys. Sometimes they listened from their rooms, sometimes the two women took possession of the little octagonal roomoff the salon, all white paneling and gilt chairs, and listened there;sometimes, as the weeks went on and an especially early spring beganto envelop Paris in a haze of sunshine and budding leaves, theystepped out to listen on the wrought-iron balcony which looked downthe long, shining vista of the tree-framed avenue. For the most parthe played Bach, grave, courageous, formal, great-hearted music. 

Sometimes he went away with no more than a nod and a smile to them, but more and more, when he had finished, he came out where they were, and stood or sat to exchange brief impressions on the enchantingseason, or on some social or aesthetic treat which "_ces dames_" hadbeen enjoying. Austin Page was frequently with them, as in the earlierpart of the winter, and it was finally he himself who one day took thestep of asking Morrison if he would not go with them to the Louvre. "No one could appreciate more than Miss Marshall what has always beensuch a delight to us all. "

They went, and not only once. That was the beginning of another phase;a period when, as he began to take up life again, he turned to his oldfriends to help him do it. He saw almost no one else, certainly no oneelse there, for he was sure to disappear upon the arrival of a caller, or the announcement of an expedition in which other people wereincluded. But he returned again and again to the Louvre with them, histheory of galleries necessitating frequent visits. Nothing could bemore idiotic, he held, than to try to see on one occasion all, or evenhalf, or even a tenth part, of a great collection of works of art. "Itis exactly as reasonable, " he contended, "as to read through on thesame day every poem in a great anthology. Who could have anything butnausea for poetry after such a gorge? And they _must_ hate pictures orelse be literally blind to them, the people who look at five hundredin a morning! If I had looked at every picture in the Long Galleryin one walk through it, I should thrust my cane through the TitianFrancis-First itself when I came to the Salon Carré. "

So he took them to see only a few, five or six, carefully selectedthings--there was one wonderful day when he showed them nothingbut the Da Vinci Saint Anne, and the Venus of Melos, comparing thedissimilar beauty of those two divine faces so vitally, that Sylviafor days afterwards, when she closed her eyes and saw them, felt thatshe looked on two living women. She told them this and, "Which one doyou see most?" he asked her. "Oh, the Saint Anne, " she told him. 

He seemed dissatisfied. But she did not venture to ask him why. Theylived in an atmosphere where omissions were vital. 

Sylvia often wondered in those days if there ever had been a situationso precariously balanced which continued to hang poised and stable, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. There weremoments when her head was swimming with moral dizziness. She wonderedif such moments ever came to the two quiet, self-controlled men whocame and went, with cordial, easy friendliness, in and out of theappartement on the Rue de Presbourg. They gave no sign of it, theygave no sign of anything beyond the most achieved appearance of anatural desire to be obliging and indulgent to the niece of an oldfriend. This appearance was kept up with such unflagging perseverancethat it almost seemed consciously concerted between them. They soelaborately avoided the slightest appearance of rivalry that theirgood taste, like a cloth thrown over an unknown object, inevitablyexcited curiosity as to what was concealed beneath it. 

And Sylvia was not to be outdone. She turned her own eyes away fromit as sedulously as they. She never let a conscious thought dwell onit--and like all other repressed and strangled currents of thought, itgrew swollen and restive, filling her subconsciousness with monstrous, unformulated speculations. She was extremely absorbed in the luxury, the amenity, the smooth-working perfection of the life about her. She consciously concentrated all her faculties on her prodigiousopportunity for aesthetic growth, for appreciation of the fine andmarvelous things about her. She let go the last scruple which had heldher back from accepting from Aunt Victoria the shower of beautifulthings to wear which that connoisseur in wearing apparel delightedto bestow upon an object so deserving. She gave a brilliant outwardeffect of enjoying life as it came which was as impersonal as that ofthe two men who looked at her so frequently, and this effect went asdeep as her will-power had command. But beneath--unacknowledged wavesbeating on the shore of her life and roughly, irresistibly, rudelyfashioning it--rolled a ground-swell of imperious questionings. . . . 

Was Felix' perfect manner of impersonal interest solely due to thedelicacy of his situation? Did he feel now that he was as rich asAustin . . . ? But, on the other hand, why did he come now and puthimself in a situation which required the utmost efforts forunconsciousness on everybody's part if not because Austin's beingthere had meant he dared not wait? And Austin's change of manner sincethe arrival of the other man, the film of ceremony which had slidimperceptibly over the tender friendliness of his manner, did thatmean that he would not take advantage of Morrison's temporarily tiedhands, but, with a scrupulousness all his own, would wait until therace was even and they stood foot to foot on the same level? Or had henoticed at once, with those formidably clear eyes of his, some shadeof her manner to Felix which she had not been able to command, and washe waiting for some move from her? And how could she move until shehad some sign from Felix and how could he give a sign? There wasnothing to do but to wait, to hope that the thin ice which now bentperilously under the pleasant ceremonies of their life in common, would hold them until. . . . Even the wildest up-leaping wave of thattossing tide never went beyond the blank wall which came after the"until. . . . "

There were other moments when all that surge swung back and forthto the rhythm of the poisoned recollection of her unacknowledgedhumiliation in Lydford; when, inflamed with determination to avoidanother such blow in the face, Sylvia almost consciously askedherself, self-contemptuously, "Who am I, an obscure, poverty-strickenmusic-teacher out of the West, to fancy that I have but to choosebetween two such men, two such fortunes?" but against this countedstrongly the constantly recurring revelations of the obscure pasts ofmany of the women whom she met during those days, women who were nowshining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success. The serene, stately, much-admired Princesse de Chevrille had been a Miss Sommersfrom Cleveland, Ohio, and she had come to Paris first as a governess. The beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth, now Aunt Victoria'sfavorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men ofletters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chancedcasually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty aboutcar-fares. There was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of theglittering vistas down which Sylvia's quick eye cast involuntaryglances. 

But inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, therecame a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into Sylvia'sconsciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entireirrelevance) there flared up the picture of Molly as she had seenher last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil--then the otherpicture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody andforever stilled--and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrouspossibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible forcredence . . . 

From that shapeless, looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actuallyand physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, enteringanother room, taking up some other occupation. 

Just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she wasnot alone in her fear of this horror. She was sitting near Austin Pageat a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages whichMrs. Marshall-Smith gathered about her. Part of the ensuing chatter onone of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, onautomobiles. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth was an experton such matters, having for some years diverted by an interestin mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted maleAmerican. He was talking incessantly that day of the wonderfulimprovement in steering mechanism the last few years had broughtabout. "I tell you what, Miss Marshall!" he insisted, as though shehad disputed the point with him, "I tell you _what_, there used tobe some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, butnowadays any one who doesn't keep in the road and right side up mustbe just plain _looking_ for a chance to use his car like a dose ofcold poison. " For a moment Sylvia could not conceive why she felt sosickening a thrust at her heart. She turned her eyes from the speaker. They fell on a man's hand, on the arm of the chair next hers. It wasAustin's hand and it was shaking uncontrollably. As she gazed at it, fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket. She did not look athim. In a moment he rose and crossed the room. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth asked for another _petit four_, confessing hisfondness for chocolate éclairs, --and embarked upon demountable rims. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

"_. . . His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him toreturn; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'Life! Life Eternal!_'"

They had been in the Louvre, had spent an hour with Felix in thatglowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as theRubens Medici-Room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decidedto walk home. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, endowed with a figure which showedas yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth's restless likingfor it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering herwaiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent Juno without herpeacocks. 

The three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunnysquare of the Louvre, looking up at the statue of Lafayette, around atthe blossoming early shrubs. Sylvia was still under the spell of theriotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen. Wherevershe looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossysatins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heavingbosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that whiteand ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it. The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered wasa worthy successor to it. They walked down through the garden of theTuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o'clock ofa perfect April afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang withthe gleaming traffic of luxury. Countless automobiles, like glisteningbeetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed andcoiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street withthe proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in themidst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. Up theavenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, morecarriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to itslast detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds andhundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled toa black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing. A little breezestirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees. 

Sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant, enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background. She made a gesture to call her companions' attention to it--"Isn't itin the key of Rubens--bloom, radiance, life expansive!"

"And Chabrier should set it to music, " said Morrison. 

"What does it make you think of?" she asked. "It makes me think of abeautiful young Greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses inhis hair. "

"It makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit, and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine, " said Morrison, his eyes on hers. She felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, andturned to Page to carry it off, "What does it make you think of?" sheasked. 

"It makes me think, " he answered her at once, his eyes on the hazecaught like a dream in the tender green of the budding trees, --"itmakes me think of a half-naked, sweating man, far underground in blacknight, striking at a rock with a pick. "

If he had burst into loud profanity, the effect could not have beenmore shocking. "_Oh!_" said Sylvia, vexed and put out. She began towalk forward. Morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemedthe vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "Look here, Page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! Whatearthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment bylugging him in!"

They were all advancing up the avenue now, Sylvia between the two men. They talked at each other across her. She listened intently, with thefeeling that Morrison was voicing for her the question she hadbeen all her life wishing once for all to let fly at her parents'standards: "What good _did_ it do anybody to go without things youmight have? Conditions were too vast for one person to influence. "

"No earthly good, " said Page peaceably; "I didn't say it did him anygood. Miss Marshall asked me what all this made me think of, and Itold her. "

"It is simply becoming an obsession with you!" urged Morrison. Sylviaremembered what Page had said about his irritation years ago whenAustin had withdrawn from the collector's field. 

"Yes, it's becoming an obsession with me, " agreed Page thoughtfully. He spoke as he always did, with the simplest manner of directsincerity. 

"You ought to make an effort against it, really, my dear fellow. It'ssimply spoiling your life for you!"

"Worse than that, it's making me bad company!" said Page whimsically. "I either ought to reform or get out. "

Morrison set his enemy squarely before him and proceeded to do battle. "I believe I know just what's in your mind, Page: I've been watchingit grow in you, ever since you gave up majolica. "

"I never claimed that was anything but the blindest of impulses!"protested Page mildly. 

"But it wasn't. I knew! It was a sign you had been infected by thespirit of the times and had 'caught it' so hard that it would belikely to make an end of you. It's all right for the collective mind. That's dense, obtuse; it resists enough to keep its balance. But it'snot all right for you. Now you just let me talk for a few minutes, will you? I've an accumulated lot to say! We are all of us livingthrough the end of an epoch, just as much as the people of the oldrégime lived through the last of an epoch in the years before theFrench Revolution. I don't believe it's going to come with guillotinesor any of those picturesque trimmings. We don't do things that way anymore. In my opinion it will come gradually, and finally arrive abouttwo or three generations from now. And it oughtn't to come any sooner!Sudden changes never save time. There's always the reaction to begotten over with, if they're sudden. Gradual growths are what last. Now anybody who knows about the changes of society knows that there'slittle enough any one person can do to hasten them or to put themoff. They're actuated by a law of their own, like the law which makestyphoid fever come to a crisis in seven days. Now then, if you admitthat the process ought not to be hastened, and in the second placethat you couldn't hasten it if you tried, what earthly use _is_ therein bothering your head about it! There are lots of people, countlesspeople, made expressly to do whatever is necessary, blunt chisels fitfor nothing but shaping grindstones. _Let them do it!_ You'll only getin their way if you try to interfere. It's not your job. For the fewpeople capable of it, there is nothing more necessary to do for theworld than to show how splendid and orderly and harmonious a thinglife can be. While the blunt chisels hack out the redemption of theoverworked (and Heaven knows I don't deny their existence), let thosewho can, preserve the almost-lost art of living, so that when themillennium comes (you see I don't deny that this time it's on theway!) it won't find humanity solely made up of newly freed serfs whodon't know what use to make of their liberty. How is beauty to bepreserved by those who know and love and serve her, and how can theyguard beauty if they insist on going down to help clean out thesewers? Miss Marshall, don't you see how I am right? Don't you see howno one can do more for the common weal than just to live, as finely, as beautifully, as intelligently as possible? And people who arecapable of this noblest service to the world only waste themselves andserve nobody if they try to do the work of dray-horses. "

Sylvia had found this wonderfully eloquent and convincing. She nowbroke in. "When I was a young girl in college, I used to have apretentious, jejune sort of idea that what I wanted out of life was tofind Athens and live in it--and your idea sounds like that. The bestAthens, you know, not sensuous and selfish, but full of lovely andleisurely sensations and fine thoughts and great emotions. "

"It wasn't pretentious and jejune at all!" said Morrison warmly, "butsimply the most perfect metaphor of what must have been--of course, I can see it from here--the instinctive sane effort of a nature likeyours. Let's all try to live in Athens so that there will be some onethere to welcome in humanity. "

Page volunteered his first contribution to the talk. "Oh, I wouldn'tmind a bit if I thought we were really doing what Morrison thinks isour excuse for living, creating fine and beautiful lives and keepingalive the tradition of beauty and fineness. But our lives aren'tbeautiful, they're only easeful. They're not fine, they're onlywell-upholstered. You've got to have fitly squared and substantialfoundations before you can build enduring beauty. And all this, " hewaved his hand around him at the resplendent, modern city, "this isn'tAthens; it's--it's Corinth, if you want to go on being classic. As near as I can make out from what Sylvia lets fall, the nearestapproach to Athenian life that I ever heard of, was the life she leftbehind her, her parents' life. That has all the elements of the bestAthenian color, except physical ease. And ease is no Athenian quality!It's Persian! Socrates was a stone-cutter, you know. And even in thereal Athens, even that best Athens, the one in Plato's mind--there wasa whole class given over to doing the dirty work for the others. Thatnever seemed to bother Plato--happy Plato! but--I'm sure I don'tpretend to say if it ultimately means more or less greatness for thehuman race--but somehow since Christianity, people find it harder andharder to get back to Plato's serenity on that point. I'm not arguingthe case against men like you, Morrison--except that there's only oneof you. You've always seemed to me more like Plato than anybody alive, and I've regarded you as the most enviable personality going. I'demulate you in a minute--if I could; but if mine is a case of mania, it's a genuine case. I'm sane on everything else, but when it comesto that--it's being money that I don't earn, but they, those men offthere underground, do earn and are forced to give to me--when it comesto that, I'm as fixed in my opinion as the man who thought he was ahard-boiled egg. I don't blame you for being out of patience with me. As you say I only spoil fine minutes by thinking of it, and as youcharitably refrained from saying, I spoil other people's fine momentsby speaking of it. "

"What would you _have_ us do!" Morrison challenged him--"all turn inand clean sewers for a living? And wouldn't it be a lovely world, ifwe did!"

Page did not answer for a moment. "I wonder, " he finally suggestedmildly, "if it were all divided up, the dirty work, and each of us didour share--"

"Oh, impractical! impractical! Wholly a back-eddy in theforward-moving current. You can't go back of a world-wide movement. Things are too complicated now for everybody to do his share ofanything. It's as reasonable, as to suggest that everybody do hisshare of watchmaking, or fancy juggling. Every man to his trade!And if the man who makes watches, or cleans sewers, or even minescoal--your especial sore spot--does his work well, and is suited to itin temperament, who knows that he does not find it a satisfaction ascomplete as mine in telling a bit of genuine Palissy ware from animitation. You, for instance, you'd make a _pretty_ coal-miner, wouldn't you? You're about as suited to it as Miss Marshall here forbeing a college settlement worker!"

Sylvia broke out into an exclamation of wonder. "Oh, how you do putyour finger on the spot! If you knew how I've struggled to justifymyself for not going into 'social work' of some kind! Every girlnowadays who doesn't marry at twenty, is slated for 'socialbetterment' whether she has the least capacity for it or not. Publicopinion pushes us into it as mediaeval girls were shoved intoconvents, because it doesn't know what else to do with us. It's allright for Judith, --it's fine for her. She's made for it. I envy her. I always have. But me--I never could bear the idea of interfering inpeople's lives to tell them what to do about their children and theirhusbands just because they were poor. It always seemed to me it wasbad enough to be poor without having other people with a little moremoney messing around in your life. I'm different from that kind ofpeople. If I'm sincere I can't pretend I'm not different. And I'm nota bit sure I know what's any better for them to do than what they'redoing!" She had spoken impetuously, hotly, addressing not the menbeside her but a specter of her past life. 

"How true that is--how unerring the instinct which feels it!" saidMorrison appreciatively. 

Page looked at Sylvia quickly, his clear eyes very tender. "Yes, yes; it's her very own life that Sylvia needs to live, " he said inunexpected concurrence of opinion. Sylvia felt that the honors of thediscussion so far were certainly with Felix. And Austin seemed oddlylittle concerned by this. He made no further effort to retrieve hiscause, but fell into a silence which seemed rather preoccupied thandefeated. 

They were close to the Arc de Triomphe now. A brilliant sunset wasfiring a salvo of scarlet and gold behind it, and they stood for amoment to admire. "Oh, Paris! Paris!" murmured Morrison. "Parisin April! There's only one thing better, and that we have beforeus--Paris in May!"

They turned in past the loge of the concierge, and mounted in thelanguidly moving elevator to the appartement. Felix went at onceto the piano and began playing something Sylvia did not recognize, something brilliantly colored, vivid, resonant, sonorous, perhapsChabrier, she thought, remembering his remark on the avenue. Withouttaking off her hat she stepped to her favorite post of observation, the balcony, and sat down in the twilight with a sigh of exquisitelycomplete satisfaction, facing the sunset, the great arch liftinghis huge, harmonious bulk up out of the dim, encircling trees, theresplendent long stretch of the lighted boulevard. The music seemed torise up from the scene like its natural aroma. 

Austin Page came out after her and leaned silently on the railing, looking over the city. Morrison finished the Chabrier and began onsomething else before the two on the balcony spoke. Sylvia was askingno questions of fate or the future, accepting the present with wilfulblindness to its impermanence. 

Austin said: "I have been trying to say good-bye all afternoon. I amgoing back to America tomorrow. "

Sylvia was so startled and shocked that she could not believe herears. Her heart beat hard. To an incoherent, stammered inquiry ofhers, he answered, "It's my Colorado property--always that. It spoilseverything. I must go back, and make a decision that's needed there. I've been trying to tell you. But I can't. Every time I have tried, Ihave not dared. If I told you, and you should beckon me back, I shouldnot be strong enough to go on. I could not leave you, Sylvia, if youlifted your hand. And that would be the end of the best of us both. "He had turned and faced her, his hands back of him, gripping therailing. The deep vibrations of his voice transported her to thatnever-forgotten moment at Versailles. He went on: "When it is--whenthe decision is made, I'll write you. I'll write you, and then--Ishall wait to hear your answer!" From inside the room Felix poured adashing spray of diamond-like trills upon them. 

She murmured something, she did not know what; her breathing oppressedby her emotion. "Won't you--shan't we see you--here--?" She put herhand to her side, feeling an almost intolerable pain. 

He moved near her, and, to bring himself to her level, knelt down onone knee, putting his elbows on the arm of her chair. The dusk hadfallen so thickly that she had not seen his face before. She now sawthat his lips were quivering, that he was shaking from head to foot. "It will be for you to say, Sylvia, " his voice was rough and harshwith feeling, "whether you see me again. " He took her hands in his andcovered them with kisses--no grave tokens of reverence these, as onthe day at Versailles, but human, hungry, yearning kisses that burned, that burned--

And then he was gone. Sylvia was there alone in the enchantedtwilight, the Triumphal Arch before her, the swept and garnished andspangled city beneath her. She lifted her hand and saw that he hadleft on it not only kisses but tears. If he had been there then, shewould have thrown herself into his arms. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET-GATE

Three weeks passed before his letter came. The slow, thrillingcrescendo of May had lifted the heart up to a devout certainty ofJune. The leaves were fully out, casting a light, new shadow on thesprinkled streets. Every woman was in a bright-colored, thin summerdress, and every young woman looked alluring. The young men wore theirhats tilted to one side, swung jaunty canes as they walked, and peeredhopefully under the brim of every flowered feminine headdress. The days were like golden horns of plenty, spilling out sunshine, wandering perfumed airs, and the heart-quickening aroma of the newseason. The nights were cool and starry. Every one in Paris spent asmuch as possible of every hour out of doors. The pale-blue sky fleckedwith creamy clouds seemed the dome, and the city the many-coloredpavement of some vast building, so grandly spacious that thesauntering, leisurely crowds thronging the thoroughfares seemed nocrowds at all, but only denoted a delightful sociability. 

All the spring vegetables were at their crispest, most meltingperfection, and the cherries from Anjou were like miniature apples ofHesperus. Up and down the smaller streets went white-capped little oldwomen, with baskets on their arms, covered with snowy linen, and theychanted musically on the first three notes of the scale, so that thesunny vault above them resounded to the cry, "De la crème, fromage àla crème!" The three Americans had enchanted expeditions to Chantilly, to Versailles again, called back from the past and the dead by themiracle of spring; to more distant formidable Coucy, grimly lookingout over the smiling country at its foot, to Fontainebleau, even a twodays' dash into Touraine, to Blois, Amboise, Loches, jewels set in thegreen enamels of May . . . And all the time Sylvia's attempt to takethe present and to let the future bring what it would, was pitchedperforce in a higher and higher key, --took a more violent effort toachieve. 

She fell deeper than ever under Morrison's spell, and yet the lack ofAustin was like an ache to her. She had said to herself, "I will notlet myself think of him until his letter comes, " and she woke up inthe night suddenly, seeing the fire and tenderness and yearning of hiseyes, and stretching out her arms to him before she was awake. Andyet she had never tried so hard to divine every shade of Morrison'sfastidiousness and had never felt so supreme a satisfaction in knowingthat she did. There were strange, brief moments in her life now, whenout of the warring complexity in her heart there rose the simplelonging of a little girl to go to her mother, to feel those strong, unfailing arms about her. She began to guess dimly, without thinkingabout it at all, that her mother knew some secret of life, of balance, that she did not. And yet if her mother were at hand, she knew shecould never explain to her--how could she, when she did not knowherself?--what she was living through. How long she had waited themoment when she _would_ know!

One day towards the end of May, Morrison had come in for lunch, adelicately chosen, deceptively simple meal for which Yoshida hadoutdone himself. There had been a savory mixture of sweetbreads andmushrooms in a smooth, rich, creamy sauce; green peas that had been onthe vines at three o'clock that morning, and which still had the aromaof life in their delectable little balls; sparkling Saumur; butterwith the fragrance of dew and clover in it; crisp, crusty rolls;artichokes in oil--such a meal as no money can buy anywhere but inParis in the spring, such a simple, simple meal as takes a great dealof money to buy even in Paris. 

"It is an art to eat like this, " said Morrison, more than halfseriously, after he had taken the first mouthful of the golden souffléwhich ended the meal. "What a May we have had! I have been thinking sooften of Talleyrand's saying that no one who had not lived before theFrench Revolution, under the old régime, could know how sweet lifecould be; and I've been thinking that we may live to say that aboutthe end of this régime. Such perfect, golden hours as it has for thosewho are able to seize them. It is a debt we own the Spirit of Thingsto be grateful and to appreciate our opportunity. "

"As far as the luncheon goes, it's rather a joke, isn't it, " said hishostess, "that it should be an Oriental cook who has so caught thetrue Gallic accent? I'll tell Tojiko to tell Yoshido that his effortsweren't lost on you. He adores cooking for you. No, you speak about ityourself. Here comes Tojiko with the mail. "

She reached for the _Herald_ with one hand, and with the other gaveSylvia a letter with the American postmark. "Oh, Tojiko, " saidMorrison with the familiarity of an habitué of the house, "will youtell your brother for me that I never tasted anything like his . . . "

Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in with an exclamation of extremeastonishment. "Oh--what _do_ you think--! Sylvia, did you knowanything about this? Of all the crazy--why, what under the sun--?I always knew there was a vein of the fanatic--any man who won'tsmoke--you may be sure there's something unbalanced--!" She now turnedthe paper as she spoke and held it so that the headlines leaped outacross the table:

 MILLIONAIRE COAL OPERATOR TURNS VAST HOLDINGS OVER TO THE STATE

 Son of Old Peter Page Converted to Socialism

"_What_!" cried Morrison. Even in the blankness of her stupefaction, Sylvia was aware of a rising note in his voice that was by no meansdismay. 

"Yes, " continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, reading rapidly anddisconnectedly from the paper, beginning an item and dropping it, asshe saw it was not the one she was searching for, "'Mr. Page is saidto have contemplated some such step for a long . . . '--m-m-m, not that. . . 'well-known collector of ceramics--Metropolitan Museum--member ofthe Racquet, the Yacht, the Century, the Yale--thirty-two--Mother MissAllida Sommerville of Baltimore, formerly a great beauty'--_here_ itis, " she stopped skimming and read consecutively: "'Mr. Page's planhas been worked out in all detail with experts. A highly paid, self-perpetuating commission of labor experts, sociologists, andmen of practical experience in coal-operating has been appointed toadminister Mr. Page's extremely extensive holdings. The profits forma fund which, under the stipulations of Mr. Page's agreement withthe State, is to be used to finance a program of advanced socialactivities; to furnish money for mothers' pensions, even perhapsfor fathers' pensions in the case of families too numerous to beadequately cared for on workingmen's wages; to change the publicschool system of the locality into open-air schools with spaciousgrounds for manual activities of all kinds; greatly to raise wages; tolengthen the period of schooling before children go into remunerativeoccupations . . . '" Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked up, said, "Oh, _you_know, the kind of thing such people are always talking about, " andbegan to skip again, "'--extensive plans for garden cities--publiclibraries--books of the business to be open to employés--educationalfuture--no philanthropy--and so forth and so forth. '" She glancedhurriedly down the page, caught the beginning of another sentence, and read: "'The news has created an immense sensation all over thecountry. It is prophesied that Mr. Page's unexpected action will throwthe coal business into great confusion. Other operators will find itextremely difficult to go on with the old conditions. Already it isrumored that the Chilton Coal and Coke Company . . . '"

"Well, I should think so indeed!" cried Morrison emphatically, breaking in. "With modern industrial conditions hung on a hair triggeras they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in theworks of a watch. That means his whole fortune gone. Old Peter puteverything into coal. Austin will not have a cent--nothing but thoseVermont scrub forests of his. What a mad thing to do! But it's beengrowing on him for a long time. I've seen--I've felt it!"

Sylvia gave a dazed, mechanical look at the letter she held andrecognized the handwriting. She turned very white. 

Aunt Victoria said instantly: "I see you have a letter to read, mydear, and I want Felix to play that D'Indy Interlude for me andexplain it--Bauer is going to play it tonight for the Princess deChevrille. We'll bother you with our chatter. Don't you want to takeit to your room to read?"

Sylvia stood up, holding the unopened letter in her hand. She lookedabout her a little wildly and said: "Oh no, no! I think I'd rather beout of doors. I'll go out on the balcony. "

"It's raining, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. 

"No, not yet, " said Morrison, making a great effort to speak in anordinary tone. "It's only going to. " He sat down at the piano. Sylviapassed him and went out to the balcony. She opened the letter and readit through very carefully. It was a long one and this took some time. She did not hear a note of the music which poured its plaintive, eeriecadences around her. When she had finished the letter she instantlystarted to read it again, with the sensation that she had not yetbegun to understand it. She was now deeply flushed. She continuallyput back a floating strand of hair, which recurrently fell across herforehead and cheek. 

After a time, Mrs. Marshall-Smith said from the open door: "Felix andI are going to Madeleine Perth's. Would you rather stay here?" Sylvianodded without looking up. 

She sat motionless, looking at the letter long after she had finishedit. An hour passed thus. Then she was aware that it was beginning torain. The drops falling on the open letter dissolved the ink intoblurred smears. She sprang up hastily and went into the salon, whereshe stood irresolute for a moment, and then, without calling Hélène, went to her room and dressed for the street. She moved very quickly asthough there were some need for extreme haste, and when she steppedinto the street she fell at once automatically into the swinging stepof the practised walker who sees long miles before him. 

Half an hour later she was looking up at the façade of Notre Damethrough the rain, and seeing there these words: "I shall be waiting atAustin Farm to hear if you are at all able to sympathize with me inwhat I have done. The memory of our last words together may help youto imagine with what anxiety I shall be waiting. "

She pushed open the greasy, shining leather door, passed into theinterior, and stood for a moment in the incense-laden gloom of thenave. A mass was being said. The rapidly murmured Latin words cameto her in a dim drone, in which she heard quite clearly, quitedistinctly: "There is another kind of beauty I faintly glimpse--thatisn't just sweet smells and lovely sights and harmonious lines--it'sthe beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine, true earfor the loveliness of life lived at its best--Sylvia, finest, truestSylvia, it's what you could, if you would--you more than any otherwoman in the world--if we were together to try--"

Sylvia sank to her knees on a prie-Dieu and hid her face in her hands, trying to shut out the words, and yet listening to them so intentlythat her breath was suspended. . . . "What Morrison said is true--forhim, since he feels it to be true. No man can judge for another. Butother things are true too, things that concern me. It's true that anhonest man cannot accept an ease founded, even remotely, on the miseryof others. And my life has been just that. I don't know what success Ishall have with the life that's beginning, but I know at least itwill begin straight. There seems a chance for real shapeliness if thefoundations are all honest--doesn't there? Oh, Sylvia--oh, my dearestlove, if I could think you would begin it with me, Sylvia! Sylvia!"

The girl sprang up and went hastily out of the church. The nunkneeling at the door, holding out the silent prayer for alms for thepoor, looked up in her face as she passed and then after her withcalm, understanding eyes. Kneeling there, day after day, she had seenmany another young, troubled soul fleeing from its own thoughts. 

Sylvia crossed the parvis of Notre Dame, glistening wet, and passedover the gray Seine, slate under the gray mist of the rain. Under herfeet the impalpable dust of a city turned to gray slime which clung toher shoes. She walked on through a narrow, mean street of mediaevalaspect where rag-pickers, drearily oblivious of the rain, quarreledweakly over their filthy piles of trash. She looked at them inastonishment, in dismay, in horror. Since leaving La Chance, save forthat one glimpse over the edge back in the Vermont mountains, she hadbeen so consistently surrounded by the padded satin of possessionsthat she had forgotten how actual poverty looked. In fact, she hadnever had more than the briefest fleeting glances at it. This wasso extravagant, so extreme, that it seemed impossible to her. Andyet--and yet--She looked fleetingly into those pale, dingy, underfed, repulsive faces and wondered if coal-miners' families looked likethat. 

But she said aloud at once, almost as though she had crooked an arm toshield herself: "But he _said_ he did not want me to answer at once!He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time--to take time . . . "She hastened her steps to this refrain, until she was almost running;and emerged upon the broad, well-kept expanse of the Boulevard St. Germain with a long-drawn breath of relief. 

Ahead of her to the right, the Rue St. Jacques climbed the hill to thePantheon. She took it because it was broad and clean and differed fromthe musty darkness from which she had come out; she fled up the steepgrade with a swift, light step as though she were on a country walk. She might indeed have been upon some flat road near La Chance for allshe saw of the buildings, the people around her. 

How like Austin's fine courage that was, his saying that he did notwant her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she wasdoing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality toconfuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all herwretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciationof his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried to takeyou by force--but you are too fine for that, Sylvia! What you could beto the man you loved if you went to him freely--that is too splendidto risk losing. I want all of you--heart, soul, mind--or nothing!"Sylvia looked up through this clear white light to Austin's yearningeyes, and back through the ages with a wondering pity at the darkfigure of Jerry Fiske, emerging from his cave. She had come a long waysince then. 

And then all this, everything fine, everything generous, ebbed awayfrom her with deadly swiftness, and in a cold disgust with herself sheknew that she had been repeating over and over Morrison's "Austin willnot have a cent left . . . Nothing but those Vermont scrub forests. " Sothat was the kind of a woman she was. Well, if that was the kind ofwoman she was, let her live her life accordingly. She was sick withindecision as she fled onward through the rain. 

Few pedestrians were abroad in the rain, and those who were, shelteredthemselves slant-wise with their umbrellas against the wind, andscudded with the storm. Sylvia had an umbrella, but she did not openit. She held her face up once, to feel the rain fall on it, and thisreminded her of home, and long rainy walks with her father. Shewinced at this, and put him hastily out of her mind. And she had beenunconsciously wishing to see her mother! At the very recollection ofher mother she lengthened her stride. There was another thought to runaway from!

She swung around the corner near the Pantheon and rapidly approachedthe door of the great Library of Ste. Geneviève. A thin, draggled, middle-aged woman-student, entering hastily, slipped on the wet stonesand knocked from under his arm the leather portfolio of a thin, draggled, middle-aged man who was just coming out. The woman did notstop to help repair the damage she had done, but hastened desperatelyon into the shelter of the building. Sylvia's eyes, absent as theywere, were caught and held by the strange, blank look of the man, whostood motionless, his shabby hat knocked to one side of his thin, grayhair, his curiously filmed eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papersscattered at his feet. The rain was beginning to convert them intosodden pulp, but he did not stir. The idea occurred to Sylvia that hemight be ill, and she advanced to help him. As he saw her stoopto pick them up, he said in French, in a toneless voice, veryindifferently: "Don't give yourself the trouble. They are of novalue. I carry them only to make the Library attendants think I am abona-fide reader. I go there to sleep because I have no other roof. "

His French was entirely fluent, but the accent was American. Sylvialooked up at him surprised. He returned her gaze dully, and withoutanother look at the papers, scuffled off through the rain, across thestreet towards the Pantheon. His boots were lamentable. 

Sylvia had an instantly vanishing memory of a pool of quiet sunshine, of a ripely beautiful woman and a radiant young man. Before she knewshe was speaking, an impulsive cry had burst from her: "Why, ProfessorSaunders! Professor Saunders! Don't you know me? I am SylviaMarshall!"

CHAPTER XXXIX

SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY

"No, they don't let you sit down in here if you're as shabby as I am, "said the man, continuing his slow, feeble, shuffling progress. "Theyknow you're only a vagrant, here to get out of the rain. They won'teven let you stand still long. "

Sylvia had not been inside the Pantheon before, had never been insidea building with so great a dome. They stood under it now. She sent herglance up to its vast, dim, noble heights and brought it down to thesaturnine, unsavory wreck at her side. She was regretting the impulsewhich had made her call out to him. What could she say to him now theywere together? What word, what breath could be gentle enough, lightenough not to be poison to that open sore?

On his part he seemed entirely unconcerned about the impression hemade on her. His eyes, his sick, filmed eyes, looked at her with noshrinking, with no bravado, with an entire indifference which gave, through all the desolation of his appearance, the strangest, carelessdignity to the man. He did not care what she thought of him. He didnot care what any one thought of him. He gave the impression of a manwhose accounts are all reckoned and the balance struck, long ago. 

"So this is Sylvia, " he said, with the slightest appearance ofinterest, glancing at her casually. "I always said you would make abeautiful woman. But since I knew Victoria, I've seen that you must bequite what she was at your age. " It might have been a voice speakingfrom beyond the grave, so listless, so dragging was its rhythm. "Howdo you happen to be in Paris?" he asked. "Are your parents stillalive?"

"Oh _yes_!" said Sylvia, half startled by the preposterousness of theidea that they might not be. "They're very well too. I had such a goodletter from Mother the other day. Do you remember Professor Kennedy?He has just given up his position to be professor emeritus. I supposenow he'll write that book on the idiocy of the human race he's beenplanning so long. And old Mr. Reinhardt, he's still the same, they say. . . Wonderful, isn't it, at his age?" She was running on, not knowingwhat to say, and chattering rather foolishly in her embarrassment. "Judith is a trained nurse; isn't that just the right thing for her?I'm visiting Aunt Victoria here for a while. Lawrence is a Freshman at. . . . "

He broke in, his hollow voice resounding in the immense, vault-likespaces around them. "You'd better go home, " he said. "I'd leavetonight, if I were you. " She looked at him startled, half-scared, thinking that she had been right to fancy him out of his mind. She sawwith relief a burly attendant in a blue uniform lounging near a groupof statuary. She could call to him, if it became necessary. 

"You'd better go away from her at once, " went on the man, advancingaimlessly from one bay of the frescoes to another. 

Sylvia knew now of whom he was speaking, and as he continued talkingwith a slow, dreary monotony, her mind raced back over the years, picking up a scrap here, a half-forgotten phrase there, an interceptedlook between her father and mother, a recollection of her own, ahalf-finished sentence of Arnold's . . . 

"She can't be fatal for you in the same way she has been for theothers, of course, " the man was saying. "What she'll do for you is toturn you into a woman like herself. I remember now, I have thoughtmany times, that you _were_ like her . . . Of the same clay. But youhave something else too, you have something that she'll take away fromyou if you stay. You can't keep her from doing it. No one can get thebetter of her. She doesn't fight. But she always takes life. She hastaken mine. She must have taken her bogie-husband's, she took youngGilbert's, she took Gilbert's wife's, she took Arnold's in anotherway. . . . God! think of leaving a young, growing, weak soul in the careof a woman like Victoria! She took that poet's, I forget his name; Isuppose by this time Felix Morrison is . . . "

At this name, a terrible contraction of the heart told Sylvia that shewas listening to what he said. "Felix Morrison!" she cried in stern, angry protest. "I don't know what you're talking about--but if youthink that Aunt Victoria--if you think Felix Morrison--" She wasinarticulate in her indignation. "He was married last autumn to abeautiful girl--and Aunt Victoria--what an idea!--_no_ one was morepleased than she--why--you are _crazy_!" She flung out at him theword, which two moments before she would not have been so cruel as tothink. 

It gave him no discomfort. "Oh no, I'm not, " he said with a spectrallaugh, which had in it, to Sylvia's dismay, the very essence ofsanity. She did not know why she now shrank away from him, far morefrightened than before. "I'm about everything else you might mention, but I'm not crazy. And you take my word for it and get out while youstill can . . . _if_ you still can?" He faintly indicated an inquiry, looking at her sideways, his dirty hand stroking the dishonoring graystubble of his unshaven face. "As for Morrison's wife . . . Let her getout too. Gilbert tried marrying, tried it in all unconsciousness. It'sonly when they try to get away from her that they know she's in themarrow of their bones. She lets them try. She doesn't even care. Sheknows they'll come back. Gilbert did. And his wife . . . Well, I'm sorryfor Morrison's wife. "

"She's dead, " said Sylvia abruptly. 

He took this in with a nod of the head. "So much the better for her. How did it happen that _you_ didn't fall for Morrison's . . . " he lookedat her sharply at a change in her face she could not control. "Oh, you did, " he commented slackly. "Well, you'd better start home for LaChance tonight, " he said again. 

They were circling around and around the shadowy interior, making nopretense of looking at the frescoed walls, to examine which had beentheir ostensible purpose in entering. Sylvia was indeed aware of greatpictured spaces, crowded dimly with thronging figures, men, horses, women--they reached no more than the outer retina of her eye. Sheremembered fleetingly that they had something to do with the story ofSte. Geneviève. She wanted intensely to escape from this phantom whomshe herself had called up from the void to stalk at her side. But shefelt she ought not to let pass, even coming from such a source, suchutterly frenzied imaginings against one to whom she owed loyalty. Shespoke coldly, with extreme distaste for the subject: "You're entirelywrong about Aunt Victoria. She's not in the least that kind of awoman. "

He shook his head slowly. "No, no; you misunderstand me. Your AuntVictoria is quite irreproachable, she always has been, she always willbe. She is always in the right. She always will be. She did nothingto me but hire me to teach her stepson, and when my habits became toobad, discharge me, as any one would have done. She did nothing toArnold except to leave him to the best schools and the best tutorsmoney could buy. What more could any one have done? She had not theslightest idea that Horace Gilbert would try to poison his wife, had not the slightest connection with their quarrel. The youngpoet, --Adams was his name, now I remember--did not consult her beforehe took to cocaine. Morphine is my own specialty. Victoria of coursedeplored it as much as any one could. No, I'm not for a minuteintimating that Victoria is a Messalina. We'd all be better off if shewere. It's only our grossness that finds fault with her. Your auntis one of the most respectable women who ever lived, as 'chaste asunsunned snow--the very ice of chastity is in her!' Indeed, I've oftenwondered if the redoubtable Ephraim Smith himself, for all that hesucceeded in marrying her, fared any better than the rest of us. Victoria would be quite capable of cheating him out of his pay. Sheparches, yes, she dries up the blood--but it's not by her passion, noteven by ours. Honest passion never kills. It's the Sahara sands of heregotism into which we've all emptied our veins. "

Sylvia was frozen to the spot by her outraged indignation that any oneshould dare speak to her thus. She found herself facing a fresco of atall, austere figure in an enveloping white garment, an elderly womanwith a thin, worn, noble face, who laid one fine old hand on a stoneparapet and with divine compassion and tenderness looked out over asleeping city. The man followed the direction of her eyes. "It's Puvisde Chavannes' Ste. Geneviève as an old woman, guarding and praying forthe city. Very good, isn't it? I especially admire the suggestion ofthe plain bare cell she has stepped out from. I often come here tolook at it when I've nothing to eat. " He seemed as flaccidly willingto speak on this as on any other topic; to find it no more interestingthan the subject of his former speech. 

Sylvia was overcome with horror of him. She walked rapidly away, towards the door, hoping he would not follow her. He did not. When sheglanced back fearfully over her shoulder, she saw him still standingthere, looking up at the gaunt gray figure of beneficent old age. Hisdreadful broken felt hat was in his hand, the water dripped from hisfrayed trousers over the rotting leather of his shoes. As she looked, he began to cough, loudly, terribly, so that the echoing reaches ofthe great nave resounded to the sound. Sylvia ran back to him andthrust her purse into his hand. At first he could not speak, forcoughing, but in a moment he found breath to ask, "Is it Victoria'smoney?"

She did not answer. 

He held it for a moment, and then opening his hand let it drop. As sheturned away Sylvia heard it fall clinking on the stone floor. At thedoor she turned for one last look, and saw him weakly stooping to pickit up again. She fairly burst out of the door. 

It was almost dusk when she was on the street again, looking down thesteep incline to the Luxembourg Gardens. In the rainy twilight thefierce tension of the Rodin "Thinker" in front of the Pantheon loomedhuge and tragic. She gave it a glance of startled sympathy. She hadnever understood the statue before. Now she was a prey to those sameravaging throes. There was for the moment no escaping them. She feltnone of her former wild impulse to run away. What she had been runningaway from had overtaken her. She faced it now, looked at it squarely, gave it her ear for the first time; the grinding, dissonant note underthe rich harmony of the life she had known for all these past months, the obscure vaults underlying the shining temple in which she had beenliving. 

What beauty could there be which was founded on such an action asFelix' marriage to Molly--Molly, whose passionate directness had knownthe only way out of the impasse into which Felix should never have lether go?. . . An echo from what she had heard in the mass at Notre Damerang in her ears, and now the sound was louder--Austin's voice, Austin's words: "A beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, thefine true ear for the deeper values, the foundations--" It was Austin, asking himself what beauty could be in any life founded, even remotelyas his was, on any one's misery?

For a long time she stood there, silent, motionless, her handsclenched at her sides, looking straight before her in the rain. Aboveher on his pedestal, the great, bronze, naked, tortured man ground histeeth as he glared out from under the inexorable limitations of hisape-like forehead, and strove wildly against the barriers of hisflesh. . . . 

Wildly and vainly, against inexorable limitations! Sylvia was awarethat an insolent young man, with moist protuberant eyes, had come upwhere she stood there, alone, motionless on the public street. He puthis arm in hers, clasped her hand in a fat, soft palm, and, "_Allons, ma belle!_" he said with a revolting gayety. 

Sylvia pulled away from him, cried out fiercely in English, "Don't youdare to touch me!" and darted away. 

He made no attempt at pursuit, acknowledging his mistake with an easyshrug and turning off to roam, a dim, predatory figure, along thedusky street. He had startled and frightened the girl so that she wastrembling when she ventured to slow down to a walk under the glaringlights of the Boulevard St. Michel. She was also shivering with wetand cold, and without knowing it, she was extremely hungry. As shefled along the boulevard in the direction of her own quarter of thecity, her eye caught the lighted clock at the kiosk near Cluny. Shewas astonished to see that it was after seven o'clock. How long couldshe have stood there, under the shadow of that terrific Thinker, consumed quite as much as he by the pain of trying to rise above merenature? An hour--more than an hour, she must have been there. ThePantheon must have closed during that time, and the dreadful, sickman must have passed close by her. Where was he now? What makeshiftshelter harbored that cough, those dirty, skeleton hands, those awfuleyes which had outlived endurance and come to know peace before death. . . . 

She shivered and tried to shrink away from her wet, clinging clothing. She had never, in all her life before, been wet and cold and hungryand frightened, she had never known from what she had been protected. And now the absence of money meant that she must walk miles in therain before she could reach safety and food. For three cents she couldride. But she had not three cents. How idiotic she had been not tokeep a few sous from her purse. What a sickening thing it had been tosee him stoop to pick it up after he had tried to have the pride notto touch it. That was what morphine had done for him. And he would buymore morphine with that money, that was the reason he had not beenable to let it lie . . . The man who had been to her little girlhood theradiant embodiment of strength and fineness!

Her teeth were chattering, her feet soaked and cold. She tried to walkfaster to warm her blood, and discovered that she was exhausted, tiredto the marrow of her bones. Her feet dragged on the pavement, her armshung heavily by her side, but she dared not stop a moment lest someother man with abhorrent eyes should approach her. 

She set her teeth and walked; walked across the Seine without a glanceat its misted lights blinking through the rain, walked on past theprison of Marie Antoinette, without a thought of that other harmlesswoman who had loved bright and lovely things while others suffered:walked on upon the bridge across the Seine again. This bewildered her, making her think that she was so dazed she had doubled on her tracks. She saw, a long way off, a solitary hooded sergent de ville, anddragged herself across an endless expanse of wet asphalt to ask himher way. But just before she reached him, she remembered suddenly thatof course she was on the island and was obliged to cross the Seineagain before reaching the right bank. She returned weary anddisheartened to her path, crossed the bridge, and then endlessly, endlessly, set one heavy foot before the other under the glare ofinnumerable electric lights staring down on her and on the dismal, wet, and deserted streets. The clocks she passed told her that itwas nearly eight o'clock. Then it was past eight. What must they bethinking of her on the Rue de Presbourg? She tried again to hurry, butcould force her aching muscles to no more than the plod, plod, plod ofher dogged advance over those interminable miles of pavement. Therewas little of her then that was not cold, weary, wet flesh, sufferingall the discomforts that an animal can know. She counted her steps fora long time, and became so stupidly absorbed in this that she made awrong turning and was blocks out of her way before she noticed hermistake. This mishap reduced her almost to tears, and it was when shewas choking them weakly back and setting herself again to the cruellong vista of the Champs-Elysées that an automobile passed her at topspeed with a man's face pressed palely to the panes. Almost at oncethe car stopped in answer to a shouted command; it whirled aboutand bore down on her. Felix Morrison sprang out and ran to her withoutstretched arms, his rich voice ringing through the desolation ofthe rain and the night--"Sylvia! Sylvia! Are you safe?"

He almost carried her back to the car, lifted her in. There werewraps there, great soft, furry, velvet wraps which he cast about her, murmuring broken ejaculations of emotion, of pity, of relief--"Oh, your hands, how cold! Sylvia, how _could_ you? Here, drink this! I'vebeen insane, --absolutely out of my mind! Let me take off your hat--Oh, your poor feet--I was on my way to--I was afraid you might have--Oh, Sylvia, Sylvia, to have you safe!" She tried to bring to mindsomething she had intended to remember; she even repeated the phraseover to herself, "It was an ugly, ugly thing to have married Molly, "but she knew only that he was tenderness and sheltering care andwarmth and food and safety. She drew long quivering breaths like achild coming out of a sobbing fit. 

Then before there was time for more thought, the car had whirled themback to the door, where Aunt Victoria, outwardly calm, but very pale, stood between the concierge and his wife, looking out into the rainydeserted street. 

At the touch of those warm embracing arms, at that radiant presence, at the sound of that relieved, welcoming voice, the nightmare of thePantheon faded away to blackness. . . . 

Half an hour later, she sat, fresh from a hot bath, breathing outdelicately a reminiscence of recent violet water and perfumed powder;fresh, fine under-linen next her glowing skin; shining and refreshed, in a gown of chiffon and satin; eating her first mouthful of Yoshido'sambrosial soup. 

"Why, I'm so sorry, " she was saying. "I went out for a walk, and thenwent further than I meant to. I've been over on the left bank part ofthe time, in Notre Dame and the Pantheon. And then when I started tocome home it took longer than I thought. It's so apt to, you know. "

"Why in the world, my dear, did you _walk_ home?" cried Aunt Victoria, still brooding over her in pitying sympathy. 

"I'd--I'd lost my purse. I didn't have any money. "

"But you don't pay for a cab till you come to the end of your journey!You could have stepped into a taxi and borrowed the money of theconcierge here. "

Sylvia was immensely disconcerted by her rustic naïveté in notthinking of this obvious device. "Oh, of course! How could I have beenso--but I was tired when I came to start home--I was very tired--tootired to think clearly!"

This brought them all back to the recollection of what had set her offon her walk. There was for a time rather a strained silence; but theywere all very hungry--dinner was two hours late--and the discussionof Yoshido's roast duckling was anything but favorable for theconsideration of painful topics. They had champagne to celebrate hersafe escape from the adventure. To the sensation of perfect easeinduced by the well-chosen dinner this added a little tingling throughall Sylvia's nerves, a pleasant, light, bright titillation. 

All might have gone well if, after the dinner, Felix had not stepped, as was his wont, to the piano. Sylvia had been, up to that moment, almost wholly young animal, given over to bodily ecstasy, of which notthe least was the agreeable warmth on her silk-clad ankle as she heldher slippered foot to the fire. 

But at the first chords something else in her, slowly, with extremepain, awoke to activity. All her life music had spoken a language towhich she could not shut her ears, and now--her face clouded, sheshifted her position, she held up a little painted screen to shieldher face from the fire, she finally rose and walked restlessly aboutthe room. Every grave and haunting cadence from the piano brought toher mind, flickering and quick, like fire, a darting question, andevery one she stamped out midway, with an effort of the will. 

The intimacy between Felix and Aunt Victoria, it was strange she hadnever before thought--of course not--what a hideous idea! That book, back in Lydford, with Horace Gilbert's name on the fly-leaf, and AuntVictoria's cool, casual voice as she explained, "Oh, just a youngarchitect who used to--" Oh, the man in the Pantheon was simplybrutalized by drugs; he did not know what he was saying. His cool, spectral laugh of sanity sounded faintly in her ears again. 

And then, out of a mounting foam of arpeggios, there bloomed for hera new idea, solid enough, broad enough, high enough, for a refugeagainst all these wolfish fangs. She sat down to think it out, hot onthe trail of an answer, the longed-for answer. 

It had just occurred to her that there was no possible logicalconnection between any of those skulking phantoms and the goldenlovely things they tried to defile. Even if some people of wealthand ease and leisure were not as careful about moral values as aboutcolors, and aesthetic harmonies--that meant nothing. The connectionwas purely fortuitous. How silly she had been not to see that. Grant, for purposes of argument, that Aunt Victoria was self-centered andhad lived her life with too little regard for its effect on otherpeople, --grant even that Felix had, under an almost overpoweringtemptation, not kept in a matter of conduct the same rigid nicety offastidiousness which characterized his judgment of marbles--what ofit? That did not mean that one could only be fine and true in conductby giving up all lovely things and wearing hair-shirts. What anoutgrown, mediaeval idea! How could she have been for a moment underits domination! It was just that old Puritanism, Spartanism of herchildhood, which was continually reaching up its bony hand from thegrave where she had interred it. 

The only danger came, she saw it now, read it plainly andclear-headedly in the lives of the two people with her, the onlydanger came from a lack of proportion. It certainly did seem to bepossible to allow the amenities and aesthetic pleasures to become soimportant that moral fineness must stand aside till they were safe. But anybody who had enough intelligence could keep his head, evenif the temptation was alluring. And simply because there was thatpossible danger, why not enjoy delightful things as long as they didnot run counter to moral fineness! How absurd to think there was anyreason why they should; quite the contrary, as a thousand philosophersattested. They would not in her case, at least! Of course, ifa decision had to be taken between the two, she would neverhesitate--never! As she phrased this conviction to herself, she turneda ring on her white slim finger and had a throb of pleasure in thecolor of the gem. What harmless, impersonal pleasures they were! Howlittle they hurt any one! And as to this business of morbidly probinginto healthy flesh, of insisting on going back of everything, fartherthan any one could possibly go, and scrutinizing the origin of everydollar that came into your hand . . . Why, that way lay madness! Assoon try to investigate all the past occupants of a seat in a railwaybefore using it for a journey. Modern life was not organized that way. It was too complicated. 

Her mind rushed on excitedly, catching up more certainty, more andmore reinforcements to her argument as it advanced. There was, therefore, nothing inherent in the manner of life she had known theselast months to account for what seemed ugly underneath. There was noreason why some one more keenly on his guard could not live as theydid and escape sounding that dissonant note!

The music stopped. Morrison turned on the stool and seeing her benthead and moody stare at the fire, sent an imploring glance for help toMrs. Marshall-Smith. 

Just let her have the wealth and leisure and let her show how worthilyshe could use it! There would be an achievement! Sylvia came around toanother phase of her new idea, there would be something worth doing, to show that one could be as fine and true in a palace as in ahut, --even as in a Vermont farmhouse! At this, suddenly all thoughtleft her. Austin Page stood before her, fixing on her his clear andpassionate and tender eyes. At that dear and well-remembered gaze, herlip began to quiver like a child's, and her eyes filled. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith stirred herself with the effect of a splendid shipgoing into action with all flags flying. "Sylvia dear, " she said, "this rain tonight makes me think of a new plan. It will very likelyrain for a week or more now. Paris is abominable in the rain. What doyou say to a change? Madeleine Perth was telling me this afternoonthat the White Star people are running a few ships from Portsmouth byway of Cherbourg around by Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean toNaples. That's one trip your rolling-stone of an aunt has never taken, and I'd rather like to add it to my collection. We could be in Naplesin four days from Cherbourg and spend a month in Italy, going north asthe heat arrived. Felix--why don't you come along? You've been wantingto see the new low reliefs in the Terme, in Rome?"

Sylvia's heart, like all young hearts, was dazzled almost to blinkingby the radiance shed from the magic word Italy. She turned, lookingvery much taken aback and bewildered, but with light in her eyes, color in her face. 

Morrison burst out: "Oh, a dream realized! Something to live on allone's days, the pines of the Borghese--the cypresses of the VillaMedici--roses cascading over the walls in Rome, the view across theCampagna from the terraces at Rocca di Papa--"

Sylvia thought rapidly to herself: "Austin _said_ he did not want meto answer at once. He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time!I can decide better, make more sense out of everything, if I--after Ihave thought more, have taken more time. No, I am not turning my backon him. Only I must have more time to think--"

Aloud she said, after a moment's silence, "Oh, nothing could belovelier!"

She lay in her warm, clean white bed that night, sleeping the soundsleep of the healthy young animal which has been wet and cold andhungry, and is now dry and warmed and fed. 

Outside, across the city, on his bronze pedestal, the torturedThinker, loyal to his destiny, still strove terribly against thelimitations of his ape-like forehead. 

BOOK IV;

_THE STRAIT PATH_

CHAPTER XL

A CALL FROM HOME

It was quite dark when they arrived in the harbor at Naples; andthey were too late to go through the necessary formalities of harborentering. In company with several other in-and outward-bound steamers, the _Carnatic_ lay to for the night. Some one pointed out a big linerwhich would sail for New York the next morning, lying like a huge, gaily lighted island, the blare of her band floating over the stillwater. 

Sylvia slept little that night, missing the rolling swing of the ship, and feeling breathless in the stifling immobility of the cabin. Shetossed about restlessly, dozing off at intervals and waking with astart to get up on her knees and look out through the port-hole at thelights of Naples blazing steadily in their semicircle. She tried tothink several times, about her relations to Felix, to Austin--butnothing came to her mind except a series of scenes in which they hadfigured, scenes quite disconnected, which brought no enlightenment toher. 

As she lay awake thus, staring at the ceiling, feeling in the intensesilence and blackness that the fluttering of her eyelids was almostaudible, her heart beating irregularly, now slow, now fast, itoccurred to her that she was beginning to know something of theintensity of real life--real grown-up life. She was astonished toenjoy it so little. 

She fell at last, suddenly, fathoms deep into youthful slumber, andat once passed out from tormented darkness into some strange, sunny, wind-swept place on a height. And she was all one anguish of longingfor Austin. And he came swiftly to her and took her in his arms andkissed her on the lips. And it was as it had been when she was a childand heard music, she was carried away by a great swelling tide of joy. . . But dusk began to fall again; Austin faded; through the darknesssomething called and called to her, imperatively. With great pain shestruggled up through endless stages of half-consciousness, until shewas herself again, Sylvia Marshall, heavy-eyed, sitting up in herberth and saying aloud, "Yes, what is it?" in answer to a knocking onthe door. 

The steward's voice answered, announcing that the first boat for shorewould leave in an hour. Sylvia sprang out of bed, the dream alreadynothing more than confused brightness in her mind. By the time she wasdressed, it had altogether gone, and she only knew that she had hada restless night. She went out on the deck, longing for the tonic ofpure air. The morning was misty--it had rained during the night--andclouds hung heavy and low over the city. Out from this gray smotherthe city gleamed like a veiled opal. Neither Felix nor her aunt was tobe seen. When she went down to breakfast, after a brisk tramp back andforth across the deck, she was rosy and dewy, her triumphant youthshowing no sign of her vigils. She was saying to herself: "Now I'vecome, it's too idiotic not to enjoy it. I _shall_ let myself go!"

Hélène attended to the ladies' packing and to the labeling and careof the baggage. Empty-handed, care-free, feeling like a travelingprincess, Sylvia climbed down from the great steamer into a dirty, small harbor-boat. Aunt Victoria sat down at once on the foldingcamp-chair which Hélène always carried for her. Sylvia and Felix stoodtogether at the blunt prow, watching the spectacle before them. Theclouds were lifting from the city and from Vesuvius, and from Sylvia'smind. Her spirits rose as the boat went forward into the strange, foreign, glowing scene. 

The oily water shimmered in smooth heavings as the clumsy boatadvanced upon it. The white houses on the hills gleamed out from theirpalms. As the boat came closer to the wharf, the travelers could seethe crowds of foreign-looking people, with swarthy faces and cheap, ungraceful clothes, looking out at the boat with alert, speculative, unwelcoming eyes. The noise of the city streets, strange to their earsafter the days of sea silence, rose clattering, like a part of thebrilliance, the sparkle. The sun broke through the clouds, poured aflood of glory on the refulgent city, and shone hotly on the pools ofdirty water caught in the sunken spots of the uneven stone pavement. 

Aunt Victoria made her way up the gang-plank to the landing dock, achieving dignity even there. Felix sprang after her, to hand her herchair, and Helene and Sylvia followed. Mrs. Marshall-Smith sat downat once, opening her dark-purple parasol, the tense silk of which waschanged by the hot Southern sun into an iridescent bubble. "We willwait here till the steward gets our trunks out, " she announced. "It will be amusing to watch the people. " The four made an oasis ofaristocracy in the seething, shouting, frowzy, gaudy, Southerncrowd, running about with the scrambling, undignified haste of ants, sweating, gesticulating, their faces contorted with care over theirpoor belongings. Sylvia was acutely conscious of her significance inthe scene. She was also fully aware that Felix missed none of thecontrast she made with the other women. She felt at once enhanced andprotected by the ignobly dressed crowd about her. Felix was right--inAmerica there could be no distinction, there was no background for it. 

The scene about them was theatrically magnificent. In the distanceVesuvius towered, cloud-veiled and threatening, the harbor shone andsparkled in the sun, the vivid, outreaching arms of Naples claspedthe jewel-like water. From it all Sylvia extracted the most perfectdistillation of traveler's joy. She felt the well-to-do tourist'scare-free detachment from the fundamentals of life, the tourist'ssense that everything exists for the purpose of being a sight for himto see. She knew, and knew with delight, the wanderer's lightened, emancipated sense of being at a distance from obligations, thatcheerful sense of an escape from the emprisoning solidarity ofhumanity which furnishes the zest of life for the tourist and thetramp, enabling the one light-heartedly to offend proprieties andthe other casually to commit murder. She was embarked upon a moralvacation. She was out of the Bastile of right and wrong. She had avision of what freedom from entangling responsibilities is secured bytraveling. She understood her aunt's classing it as among the positivegoods of life. 

A man in a shabby blue uniform, with a bundle of letters in his hand, walked past them towards the boat. 

"Oh, the mail, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There may be some for us. "She beckoned the man to her, and said, "Marshall-Smith? Marshall?Morrison?"

The man sorted over his pile. "Cable for Miss Marshall, " he said, presenting it to the younger lady with a bold, familiar lookof admiration. "Letter for F. Morrison: two letters for Mrs. Marshall-Smith. " Sylvia opened her envelope, spread out the foldedsheet of paper, and read what was scrawled on it, with no realizationof the meaning. She knew only that the paper, Felix, her aunt, thecrowd, vanished in thick blackness, through which, much later, with agreat roaring in her ears, she read, as though by jagged flashes oflightning: "Mother very ill. Come home at once. Judith. "

It seemed to her an incalculably long time between her first glance atthe words and her understanding of them, but when she emerged from theblackness and void, into the flaunting sunlight, the roaring stillin her ears, the paper still in her hands, the scrawled words stillvenomous upon it, she saw that not a moment could have passed, forFelix and her aunt were unfolding letters of their own, their eyesbeginning to run quickly over the pages. 

Sylvia stood quite still, feeling immeasurably and bitterly alone. She said to herself: "Mother is very sick. I must go home at once. Judith. " But she did not know what she said. She felt only an impulseto run wildly away from something that gave her intolerable pain. 

Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned over a page of her letter, smiling toherself, and glanced up at her niece. Her smile was smitten from herlips. Sylvia had a fantastic vision of her own aspect from the gapingface of horror with which her aunt for an instant reflected it. Shehad never before seen Aunt Victoria with an unprepared and discomposedcountenance. It was another feature of the nightmare. 

For suddenly everything resolved itself into a bad dream, --her auntcrying out, Hélène screaming and running to her, Felix snatching thetelegram from her and reading it aloud--it seemed to Sylvia that shehad heard nothing for years but those words, "Mother very sick. Comehome at once. Judith. " She heard them over and over after his voicewas silent. Through their constant echoing roar in her ears she heardbut dimly the babel of talk that arose--Aunt Victoria saying that shecould not of course leave at once because no passage had been engaged, Hélène foolishly offering smelling-salts, Felix darting off to get acarriage to take them to the hotel where she could be out of the crowdand they could lay their plans--"Oh, my poor dear!--but you may havemore reassuring news tomorrow, you know, " said Mrs. Marshall-Smithsoothingly. 

The girl faced her aunt outraged. She thought she cried out angrily, "tomorrow!" but she did not break her silence. She was so torn by thestorm within her that she had no breath for recriminations. She turnedand ran rapidly some distance away to the edge of the wharf, wheresome small rowboats hung bobbing, their owners sprawled on the seats, smoking cigarettes and chattering. Sylvia addressed the one nearesther in a strong, imperious voice. "I want you to take me out to thatsteamer, " she said, pointing out to the liner in the harbor. 

The man looked up at her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown facesobered at once by the sight of her own. He made a reply in Italian, raising his shoulders. Some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on thewharf drew near Sylvia with an indolent curiosity. She turned to themand asked, "Do any of you speak English?" although it was manifestlyinconceivable that any of those typical Neapolitans should. One ofthem stepped forward, running his hand through greasy black curls. "Ikin, lady, " he said with a fluent, vulgar New York accent. "What yewant?"

"Tell that man, " said Sylvia, her lips moving stiffly, "to take me outto the ship that is to leave for America this morning--and now--thisminute, I may be late now!"

After a short impassioned colloquy, the loafer turned to her andreported: "He says if he took you out, you couldn't git on board. Thembig ships ain't got no way for folks in little boats to git on. Andhe'd ask you thirty lire, anyhow. That's a fierce price. Say, ifyou'll wait a minute, I can get you a man that'll do it for--" Mrs. Marshall-Smith and Hélène had followed, and now broke through the lineof ill-smelling loungers. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took hold of her niece'sarm firmly, and began to draw her away with a dignified gesture. "Youdon't know what you are doing, child, " she said with a peremptoryaccent of authority. "You are beside yourself. Come with me at once. This is no--"

Sylvia did not resist her. She ignored her. In fact, she did notunderstand a word that her aunt said. She shook off the older woman'shand with one thrust of her powerful young arm, and gathering herskirts about her, leaped down into the boat. She took out her purseand showed the man a fifty-lire bill. "Row fast! Fast!" she motionedto him, sitting down in the stern and fixing her eyes on the huge bulkof the liner, black upon the brilliance of the sunlit water. She heardher name called from the wharf and turned her face backward, as thelight craft began to move jerkily away. 

Felix had come up and now stood between Mrs. Marshall-Smith and hermaid, both of whom were passionately appealing to him! He looked overtheir heads, saw the girl already a boat-length from the wharf, andgave a gesture of utter consternation. He ran headlong to the edge ofthe dock and again called her name loudly, "Sylvia! _Sylvia!_" Therewas no mistaking the quality of that cry. It was the voice of a manwho sees the woman he loves departing from him, and who wildly, imperiously calls her back to him. But she did not return. The boatwas still so close that she could look deeply into his eyes. Throughall her tumult of horror, there struck cold to Sylvia's heart theknowledge that they were the eyes of a stranger. The blow that hadpierced her had struck into a quivering center of life, so deep withinher, that only something as deep as its terrible suffering could seemreal. The man who stood there, so impotently calling to her, belongedto another order of things--things which a moment ago had beenimportant to her, and which now no longer existed. He had become forher as remote, as immaterial as the gaudy picturesqueness of thescene in which he stood. She gave him a long strange look, and made astrange gesture, a gesture of irrevocable leave-taking. She turned herface again to the sea, and did not look back. 

They approached the liner, and Sylvia saw some dark heads looking overthe railing at her. Her boatman rowed around the stern to the otherside, where the slanting stairs used in boarding the harbor-boatsstill hung over the side. The landing was far above their heads. Sylvia stood up and cried loudly to the dull faces, staring down ather from the steerage deck. "Send somebody down on the stairs to speakto me. " There was a stir; a man in a blue uniform came and looked overthe edge, and went away. After a moment, an officer in white ran downthe stairs to the hanging landing with the swift, sure footing of aseaman. Sylvia stood up again, turning her white face up to him, hereyes blazing in the shadow of her hat. "I've just heard that my motheris very sick, and I must get back to America at once. If you will letdown the rope ladder, I can climb up. I must go! I have plenty ofmoney. I _must_!"

The officer stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs, disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. The dark, heavyfaces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at theboat with a steady, incurious gaze. Sylvia's boatman balanced hisoar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. The boatswayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll of the water, although the ponderous ship beside it loomed motionless as a rock. The sun beat down on Sylvia's head and up in her face from the moltenwater till she felt sick, but when another officer in white, anelderly man with an impassive, bearded face, came down the stairs, sherose up, instantly forgetful of everything but her demand. She calledout her message again, straining her voice until it broke, poised soimpatiently in the little boat, swinging under her feet, that sheseemed almost about to spring up towards the two men leaning over tocatch her words. When she finished, the older man nodded, the youngerone ran back up the stairs, and returned with a rope ladder. 

Sylvia's boatman stirred himself with an ugly face of misgiving. He clutched at her arm, and made close before her face the hungry, Mediterranean gesture of fingering money. She took out her purse, gavehim the fifty-lire note, and catching at the ladder as it was flungdown, disregarding the shouted commands of the men above her to"wait!" she swung herself upon it, climbing strongly and surely inspite of her hampering skirts. 

The two men helped her up, alarmed and vexed at the risk she hadtaken. They said something about great crowds on the boat, and thatonly in the second cabin was there a possibility for accommodations. If she answered them, she did not know what she said. She followed theyounger man down a long corridor, at first dark and smelling of hemp, later white, bright with electric light, smelling strongly of freshpaint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. They emerged in a round hallwayat the foot of a staircase. The officer went to a window for aconference with the official behind it, and returned to Sylvia to saythat there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. Some shabbywoman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near, looking at her with curiosity. Sylvia appealed to them, crying outagain, "My mother is very sick and I must go back to America atonce. Can't any of you--can't you--?" she stopped, catching at thebanisters. Her knees were giving way under her. A woman with a flabbypale face and disordered gray hair sprang towards her and took her inher arms with a divine charity. "You can have half my bed!" she cried, drawing Sylvia's head down on her shoulder. "Poor girl! Poor girl! Ilost my only son last year!"

Her accent, her look, the tones of her voice, some emanation of deephumanity from her whole person, reached Sylvia's inner self, thefirst message that had penetrated to that core of her being since thedeadly, echoing news of the telegram. Upon her icy tension poured aflood of dissolving warmth. Her hideous isolation was an illusion. This plain old woman, whom she had never seen before, was her sister, her blood-kin, --they were both human beings. She gave a cry and flungher arms about the other's neck, clinging to her like a person fallingfrom a great height, the tears at last streaming down her face. 

CHAPTER XLI

HOME AGAIN

The trip home passed like a long shuddering bad dream in which onewaits eternally, bound hand and foot, for a blow which does not fall. Somehow, before the first day was over, an unoccupied berth was foundfor Sylvia, in a tiny corner usually taken by one of the ship'sservants. Sylvia accepted this dully. She was but half alive, all hervital forces suspended until the journey should be over. The throbbingof the engines came to seem like the beating of her own heart, andshe lay tensely in her berth for hours at a time, feeling that it waspartly her energy which was driving the ship through the waters. Sheonly thought of accomplishing the journey, covering the miles whichlay before her. From what lay at the end she shrank back, returningagain to her hypnotic absorption in the throbbing of the engines. Theold woman who had offered to share her berth had disappeared at thefirst rough water and had been invisible all the trip. Sylvia did notthink of her again. That was a recollection which with all its sacredsignificance was to come back later to Sylvia's maturer mind. 

The ship reached New York late in the afternoon, and docked thatnight. Sylvia stood alone, in her soiled wrinkled suit, shapeless fromconstant wear, her empty hands clutching at the railing, and was thefirst passenger to dart down the second-class gang-plank. She ran tosee if there were letters or a telegram for her. 

"Yes, there is a telegram for you, " said the steward, holding out asealed envelope to her. "It came on with the pilot and ought to havebeen given you before. "

She took the envelope, but was unable to open it. The arc lightsflared and winked above her in the high roof of the wharf; the crowdsof keen-faced, hard-eyed men and women in costly, neat-fittingclothing were as oblivious of her and as ferociously intent on theirown affairs as the shabby, noisy crowd she had left in Naples, brushing by her as though she were a part of the wharf as they bentover their trunks anxiously, and locked them up with determination. Itseemed to Sylvia that she could never break the spell of fear whichbound her fast. Minute after minute dragged by, and she still stood, very white, very sick. 

She was aware that some one stood in front of her, looking into herface, and she recognized one of the ship's officials whom she hadnoticed from a distance on the ship, an under-officer, somehowconnected with the engines, who had sat at table with the second-classpassengers. He was a burly, red-faced man, with huge strong hands anda bald head. 

He looked at her now for a moment with an intent kindness, and takingher arm led her a step to a packing-case on which he made her sitdown. At the break in her immobility, a faintness came over Sylvia. The man bent over her and began to fan her with his cap. A strongsmell of stale and cheap tobacco reached Sylvia from all of hisobese person, but his vulgar, ugly face expressed a profoundlyself-forgetful concern. "There, feelin' better?" he asked, his eyesanxiously on hers. The man looked at the envelope comprehendingly:"Oh--bad news--" he murmured. Sylvia opened her hand and showed himthat it had not been opened. "I haven't looked at it yet, " she saidpitifully. 

The man made an inarticulate murmur of pity--put out his thick redfingers, took the message gently from her hand, and opened it. As heread she searched his face with an impassioned scrutiny. 

When he raised his eyes from the paper, she saw in them, in thatgrossly fleshy countenance, such infinite pity that even her swiftintuition of its meaning was not so swift as to reach her heart first. The blow did not reach her naked and unprotected in the solitude ofher egotism, as it had at Naples. Confusedly, half-resentfully, butirresistibly she knew that she did not--could not--stand alone, wasnot the first thus to be struck down. This knowledge brought the tonicsummons to courage. She held out her hand unflinchingly, and stoodup as she read the message, "Mother died this morning at dawn. " Thetelegram was dated three days before. She was now two days from home. 

She looked up at the man before her and twice tried to speak beforeshe could command her voice. Then she said quite steadily: "I live inthe West. Can you tell me anything about trains to Chicago?"

"I'm going with ye, to th' train, " he said, taking her arm and movingforward. Two hours later his vulgar, ugly, compassionate face was thelast she saw as the train moved out of the station. He did not seem astranger to Sylvia. She saw that he was more than middle-aged, he musthave lost _his_ mother, there must have been many deaths in his past. He seemed more familiar to her than her dearest friends had seemedbefore; but from now on she was to feel closer to every human beingthan before to her most loved. A great breach had been made in thewall of her life--the wall which had hidden her fellows from her. Shesaw them face the enigma as uncomprehendingly, as helplessly as she, and she felt the instinct of terror to huddle close to others, eventhough they feel--_because_ they feel--a terror as unrelieved. It wasnot that she loved her fellow-beings more from this hour, rather thatshe felt, to the root of her being, her inevitable fellowship withthem. 

The journey home was almost as wholly a period of suspended animationfor Sylvia as the days on the ocean had been. She had read thetelegram at last; now she knew what had happened, but she did not yetknow what it meant. She felt that she would not know what it meantuntil she reached home. How could her mother be dead? What did it meanto have her mother dead?

She said the grim words over and over, handling them with heartsickrecklessness as a desperate man might handle the black, ugly objectswith smoking fuses which he knows carry death. But for Sylvia noexplosion came. No ravaging perception of the meaning of the wordsreached her strained inner ear. She said them over and over, the soundof them was horrifying to her, but in her heart she did not believethem. Her mother, _her_ mother could not die!

There was no one, of course, at the La Chance station to meet her, and she walked out through the crowd and took the street-car withouthaving seen a familiar face. It was five o'clock in the afternoonthen, and six when she walked up the dusty country road and turned inthrough the gate in the hedge. There was home--intimately a part ofher in every detail of its unforgotten appearance. The pines stood upstrong in their immortal verdure, the thick golden hush of the summerafternoon lay like an enchantment about the low brown house. Andsomething horrible, unspeakably horrible had happened there. Under theforgotten dust and grime of her long railway journey, she was deadlypale as she stepped up on the porch. Judith came to the door, saw hersister, opened her arms with a noble gesture, and clasped Sylvia toher in a strong and close embrace. Not a word was spoken. The twoclung to each other silently, Sylvia weeping incessantly, holding fastto the dear human body in her arms, feeling herself dissolved in avery anguish of love and pain. Her wet cheek was pressed againstJudith's lips, the tears rained down in a torrent. All the rich, untapped strength of her invincible youth was in that healthful floodof tears. 

There were none such in the eyes of Professor Marshall as he came downthe stairs to greet his daughter. Sylvia was immeasurably shocked byhis aspect. He did not look like her father. She sought in vain inthat gray countenance for any trace of her father's expression. Hecame forward with a slow, dragging step, and kissed his daughter, taking her hand--his, she noticed, felt like a sick man's, parched, the skin like a dry husk. He spoke, in a voice which had no resonance, the first words that had been uttered: "You must be very tired, Sylvia. You would better go and lie down. Your sister will go withyou. " He himself turned away and walked slowly towards the open door. Sylvia noticed that he shuffled his feet as he walked. 

Judith drew Sylvia away up the stairs to her own slant-ceilinged room, and the two sat down on the bed, side by side, with clasped hands. Judith now told briefly the outline of what had happened. Sylvialistened, straining her swollen eyes to see her sister's face, wipingaway the tears which ran incessantly down her pale, grimy cheeks, repressing her sobs to listen, although they broke out in one burstafter another. Her mother had gone down very suddenly and they hadcabled at once--then she grew better--she had been unspeakablybrave--fighting the disease by sheer will-power--she had conqueredit--she was gaining--they were sorry they had cabled Sylvia--she hadnot known she was going to die--none of them had dreamed she was goingto die--suddenly as the worst of her disease had spent itself and thelungs were beginning to clear--suddenly her heart had given way, andbefore the nurse could call her husband and children to her, she wasgone. They had been there under the same roof, and had not been withher at the last. The last time they had seen her, she was alive andsmiling at them--such a brave, wan shadow of her usual smile--for afew moments they went about their affairs, full of hope--and when theyentered the sick-room again--

Sylvia could bear no more, screaming out, motioning Judith imperiouslyto stop;--she began to understand what had happened to her; the wordsshe had repeated so dully were like thunder in her ears. Her motherwas dead. 

Judith took her sister again in her arms, holding her close, as thoughshe were the older. Sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing, inexhaustible tears of youth. To both the sisters it seemed that theywere passing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong younghearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy, were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrowbounds of childhood. Henceforth they were to be great enough to harborjoy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side. 

Moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watchingover them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorabledemand for their strength and courage. 

Judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "Sylvia, youmustn't cry any more. We must think what to do. "

As Sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "Somehow Lawrence mustbe taken away for a while--until Father's--either you or I mustgo with him and stay, and the other one be here with Father untilhe's--he's more like himself. "

Sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out:"Oh, Judith, how can you! Now's the time for us all to stay together!Why should we--?"

Judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precautionso extraordinary in that house of frank openness that Sylvia wasstruck into silence by it. Standing by the door, Judith said in a lowtone, "You didn't notice--anything--about Father?"

"Oh yes, he looks ill. He is so pale--he frightened me!"

Judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. Sylvia'sheart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "Why, what _is_ thematter with--" she began. 

Judith covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what to _do_!"she said despairingly. 

No phrase coming from Judith could have struck a more piercing alarminto her sister's heart. She ran to Judith, pulled her hands down, andlooked into her face anxiously. "What do you mean, Judy--what do youmean?"

"Why--it's five days now since Mother died, three days since thefuneral--and Father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and I don't thinkhe's slept at all. I know he hasn't taken his clothes off. And--and--"she drew Sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he sayssuch things . . . The night after Mother died Lawrence had cried so Iwas afraid he would be sick, and I got him to bed and gave him somehot milk, "--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, "That is what Mother would have done"--"and he went to sleep--he wasperfectly worn out. I went downstairs to find Father. It was aftermidnight. He was walking around the house into one room after anotherand out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he couldwalk. He looked so--" She shuddered. "I went up to him and said, 'Father, Father, what are you doing?' He never stopped walking aninstant, but he said, as though I was a total stranger and we were ina railway station or somewhere like that, 'I am looking for my wife. Iexpect to come across her any moment, but I can't seem to rememberthe exact place I was to meet her. She must be somewhere about, andI suppose--' and then, Sylvia, before I could help it, he opened thedoor to Mother's room quick--and the men were there, and the coffin--"She stopped short, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth to stopits quivering. Sylvia gazed at her in horrified silence. 

After a pause, Judith went on: "He turned around and ran as fast ashe could up the stairs to his study and locked the door. He lockedme out--the night after Mother died. I called and called to him--hedidn't answer. I was afraid to call very loud for fear of wakingLawrence. I've had to think of Lawrence too. " She stopped again todraw a long breath. She stopped and suddenly reached out imploringhands to hold fast to Sylvia. "I'm so _glad_ you have come!" shemurmured. 

This from Judith ran like a galvanic shock through Sylvia'ssorrow-sodden heart. She sat up, aroused as she had never been beforeto a stern impulse to resist her emotion, to fight it down. Sheclasped Judith's hand hard, and felt the tears dry in her eyes. Judithwent on: "If it hadn't been for Lawrence--he's sick as it is. I'vekept him in his room--twice when he's been asleep I've managed to getFather to eat something and lie down--there seem to be times when he'sso worn out that he doesn't know what he's doing. But it comes back tohim. One night I had just persuaded him to lie down, when he sat upagain with that dreadful face and said very loud: 'Where is my wife?Where is Barbara?' That was on the night after the funeral. And thenext day he came to me, out in the garden, and said, --he never seemsto know who I am: 'I don't mind the separation from my wife, youunderstand--it's not that--I'm not a child, I can endure that--but I_must_ know where she is. I _must_ know where she is!' He said it overand over, until his voice got so loud he seemed to hear it himself andlooked around--and then he went back into the house and began walkingall around, opening and shutting all the doors. What I'm afraid of ishis meeting Lawrence and saying something like that. Lawrence would gocrazy. I thought, as soon as you came, you could take him away to theHelman farm--the Helmans have been so good--and Mrs. Helman offered totake Lawrence--only he oughtn't to be alone--he needs one of us--"

Judith was quiet now, and though very pale, spoke with her usualfirmness. Sylvia too felt herself iron under the pressure of herresponsibilities. She said: "Yes, I see. All right--I'll go, " and thetwo went together into Lawrence's room. He was lying on the bed, hisface in the pillows. At the sound of their steps he turned over andshowed a pitiful white face. He got up and moved uncertainly towardsSylvia, sinking into her arms and burying his face on her shoulder. 

But a little later when their plan was told him, he turned toJudith with a cry: "No, _you_ go with me, Judy! I want _you_! You'know'--about it. "

Over his head the sisters looked at each other with questioning eyes;and Sylvia nodded her consent. Lawrence had always belonged to Judith. 

CHAPTER XLII

 "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, Touching the "fringes of the outer stars_. ""

And so they went away, Lawrence very white, stooping with the weightof his suitcase, his young eyes, blurred and red, turned upon Judithwith an infinite confidence in her strength. Judith herself was pale, but her eyes were dry and her lips firm in her grave, steadfast face, so like her mother's, except for the absence of the glint of humor. Sylvia kissed her good-bye, feeling almost a little fear of herresolute sister; but as she watched them go down the path, and notedthe appealing drooping of the boy towards Judith, Sylvia was sweptwith a great wave of love and admiration--and courage. 

She turned to face the difficult days and nights before her and forcedherself to speak cheerfully to her father, who sat in a chair on theporch, watching the departing travelers and not seeing them. "Howsplendid Judith is!" she cried, and went on with a break in the voiceshe tried to control: "She will take Mother's place for us all!"

Her father frowned slightly, as though she had interrupted him in someeffort where concentration was necessary, but otherwise gave no signthat he heard her. 

Sylvia watched him anxiously through the window. Presently she sawhim relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes withhis hands. When he took them down, his face had the aged, ravagedexpression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. Nowshe felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pitywhich sent her out to him in a rush, her arms outstretched, crying tohim brokenly that he still had his children who loved him more thananything in the world. 

For the first time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinkingaway from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily toretreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "Youdon't know what you are talking about, " and left her standing there, the tears frozen in her eyes. He went heavily upstairs to his study onthe top floor and locked the door. Sylvia heard the key turn. It shuther into an intolerable solitude. She had not thought before thatanything could seem worse than the desolation of her mother's absence. 

She felt a deathlike sinking of her heart. She was afraid of herfather, who no longer seemed her father, created to protect andcherish her, but some maniac stranger. She felt an impulse like thatof a terrified child to run away, far away to some one who shouldstand before her and bear the brunt. She started up from her chairwith panic haste, but the familiar room, saturated with recollectionsof her mother's gallant spirit, stood about her like a wall, shuttingher in to the battle with her heart. Who was there to summon whom shecould endure as a spectator of her father's condition? Her mother'sempty chair stood opposite her, against the wall. She looked at itfixedly; and drawing a long breath sat down quietly. 

This act of courage brought a reward in the shape of a relaxationof the clutch on her throat and about her heart. Her mother's wisematerialism came to her mind now and she made a heartsick resolve thatshe would lead as physically normal a life as possible, working out ofdoors, forcing herself to eat, and that, above all things, she wouldhenceforth deny herself the weakening luxury of tears. And yet but anhour later, as she bent over her mother's flower-beds blazing in thesun, she found the tears again streaming from her eyes. 

She tried to wipe them away, but they continued to rain down on hercheeks. Her tongue knew their saltness. She was profoundly alarmed andcowed by this irresistible weakness, and stood helplessly at bay amongthe languid roses. The sensation of her own utter weakness, prostratebefore her dire need for strength, was as bitter as the taste of hertears. 

She stood there, among the sun-warmed flowers, looking like a symbolicfigure of youth triumphant . . . And she felt herself to be in a blackand windowless prison, where the very earth under her feet wastreacherous, where everything betrayed her. 

Then, out of her need, her very great need, out of the wide and emptyspaces of her inculcated unbelief, something rose up and overwhelmedher. The force stronger than herself which she had longed to feel, blew upon her like a wind out of eternity. 

She found herself on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, sendingout a passionate cry which transcended words. The child of thetwentieth century, who had been taught not to pray, was praying. 

She did not know how long she knelt there before the world emergedfrom the white glory which had whirled down upon it, and hidden itfrom her. But when she came to herself, her eyes were dry, and theweakening impulse to tears had gone. She stretched out her handsbefore her, and they did not tremble. The force stronger than herselfwas now in her own heart. From her mother's garden there rose astrong, fragrant exhalation, as sweet as honey. 

 * * * * *

For more than an hour Sylvia worked steadily among the flowers, consciously wrought upon by the healing emanations from the crushed, spicy leaves, the warm earth, and the hot, pure breath of the summerwind on her face. 

Once she had a passing fancy that her mother stood near her . . . Smiling. 

CHAPTER XLIII

"_Call now; is there any that will answer thee?_"--JOB. 

When she went back to the silent, echoing house, she felt calmer thanat any time since she had read the telegram in Naples. She did notstop to wash her earth-stained hands, but went directly up the stairsto the locked door at the top. She did not knock this time. She stoodoutside and said authoritatively in a clear, strong voice, the soundof which surprised her, "Father dear, please open the door and let mein. "

There was a pause, and then a shuffle of feet. The door opened andProfessor Marshall appeared, his face very white under the thickstubble of his gray, unshaven beard, his shoulders bowed, his headhanging. Sylvia went to his side, took his hand firmly in hers, andsaid quietly: "Father, you must eat something. You haven't taken a bitof food in two days. And then you must lie down and rest, " She pouredall of her new strength into these quietly issued commands, andpermitted herself no moment's doubt of his obedience to them. Helifted his head, looked at her, and allowed her to lead him down thestairs and again into the dining-room. Here he sat, quite spent, staring before him until Sylvia returned from the kitchen with a plateof cold meat and some bread. She sat down beside him, putting outagain consciously all her strength, and set the knife and fork in hisnerveless hands. In the gentle monologue with which she accompaniedhis meal she did not mention her mother, or anything but slight, casual matters about the house and garden. She found herself speakingin a hushed tone, as though not to awake a sleeping person. Althoughshe sat quite quietly, her hands loosely folded on the table, herheart was thrilling and burning to a high resolve. "Now it is my turnto help my father. "

After he had eaten a few mouthfuls and laid down the knife and fork, she did not insist further, but rose to lead him to the couch in theliving-room. She dared not risk his own room, the bed on which hermother had died. 

"Now you must lie down and rest, Father, " she said, loosening hisclothes and unlacing his shoes as though he had been a sick child. He let her do what she would, and as she pushed him gently back, heyielded and lay down at full length. Sylvia sat down beside him, feeling her strength ebbing. Her father lay on his back, his eyes wideopen. On the ceiling above him a circular flicker of light danced andshimmered, reflected from a glass of water on the table. His eyesfastened upon this, at first unwinkingly, with a fixed intensity, and later with dropped lids and half-upturned eyeballs. He was quitequiet, and finally seemed asleep, although the line of white betweenhis eyelids made Sylvia shudder. 

With the disappearance of the instant need for self-control andfirmness, she felt an immense fatigue. It had cost her dearly, thisvictory, slight as it was. She drooped in her chair, exhausted andundone. She looked down at the ash-gray, haggard face on the pillow, trying to find in those ravaged features her splendidly life-lovingfather. It was so quiet that she could hear the big clock in thedining-room ticking loudly, and half-consciously she began tocount the swings of the pendulum: One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--thirteen--fourteen--

She awoke to darkness and the sound of her mother's name loudlyscreamed. She started up, not remembering where she was, astonished tofind herself sitting in a chair. As she stood bewildered in thedark, the clock in the dining-room struck two. At once from a littledistance, outside the window apparently, she heard the same wildcry ringing in her ears--"_Bar-ba-ra!_" All the blood in her bodycongealed and the hair on her head seemed to stir itself, in theinstant before she recognized her father's voice. 

The great impulse of devotion which had entered her heart in thegarden still governed her. Now she was not afraid. She did not thinkof running away. She only knew that she must find her father quicklyand take care of him. Outside on the porch, the glimmering light fromthe stars showed her his figure, standing by one of the pillars, leaning forward, one hand to his ear. As she came out of the door, hedropped his hand, threw back his head, and again sent out an agonizingcry--"_Bar-ba-ra!_ Where are you?" It was not the broken wail ofdespair; it was the strong, searching cry of a lost child who thinkstrustingly that if he but screams loudly enough his mother must hearhim and come--and yet who is horribly frightened because she does notanswer. But this was a man in his full strength who called! It seemedthe sound must reach beyond the stars. Sylvia felt her very bonesringing with it. She went along the porch to her father, and laidher hand on his arm. Through his sleeve she could feel how tense andknotted were the muscles. "Oh, Father, _don't!_" she said in a lowtone. He shook her off roughly, but did not turn his head or look ather. Sylvia hesitated, not daring to leave him and not daring to tryto draw him away; and again was shaken by that terrible cry. 

The intensity of his listening attitude seemed to hush intobreathlessness the very night about him, as it did Sylvia. There wasnot a sound from the trees. They stood motionless, as though carved inwood; not a bird fluttered a wing; not a night-insect shrilled; thebrook, dried by the summer heat to a thread, crept by noiselessly. Asonce more the frantic cry resounded, it seemed to pierce this opaquesilence like a palpable missile, and to wing its way without hindranceup to the stars. Not the faintest murmur came in answer. The silenceshut down again, stifling. Sylvia and her father stood as thoughin the vacuum of a great bell-glass which shut them away from therustling, breathing, living world. Sylvia said again, imploringly, "Oh, _Father_!" He looked at her angrily, sprang from the porch, andwalked rapidly towards the road, stumbling and tripping over the lacesof his shoes, which Sylvia had loosened when she had persuaded him tolie down. Sylvia ran after him, her long bounds bringing her up tohis side in a moment. The motion sent the blood racing through herstiffened limbs again. She drew a long breath of liberation. As shestepped along beside her father, peering in the starlight at hisdreadful face, half expecting him to turn and strike her at anymoment, she felt an immense relief. The noise of their feet on thepath was like a sane voice of reality. Anything was more endurablethan to stand silent and motionless and hear that screaming call loseitself in the grimly unanswering distance. 

They were on the main road now, walking so swiftly that, in the hotsummer night, Sylvia felt her forehead beaded and her light dresscling to her moist body. She took her father's hand. It was parchedlike a sick man's, the skin like a dry husk. After this, they walkedhand-in-hand. Professor Marshall continued to walk rapidly, scufflingin his loose, unlaced shoes. They passed barns and farmhouses, thelatter sleeping, black in the starlight, with darkened windows. Inone, a poor little shack of two rooms, there was a lighted pane, andas they passed, Sylvia heard the sick wail of a little child. Thesound pierced her heart. She longed to go in and put her arms aboutthe mother. Now she understood. She tightened her hold on her father'shand and lifted it to her lips. 

He suffered this with no appearance of his former anger, and soonafter Sylvia was aware that his gait was slackening. She looked at himsearchingly, and saw that he had swung from unnatural tension to spentexhaustion. His head was hanging and as he walked he wavered. She puther hand under his elbow and turned him about on the road. "Now wewill go home, " she said, drawing his arm through hers. He made noresistance, not seeming to know what she had done, and shuffled alongwearily, leaning all his weight on her arm. She braced herself againstthis drag, and led him slowly back, wiping her face from time to timewith her sleeve. There were moments when she thought she must let himsink on the road, but she fought through these, and as the sky wasturning faintly gray over their heads, and the implacably silent starswere disappearing in this pale light, the two stumbled up the walk tothe porch. 

Professor Marshall let himself be lowered into the steamer chair. Sylvia stood by him until she was sure he would not stir, and thenhurried into the kitchen. In a few moments she brought him a cup ofhot coffee and a piece of bread. He drank the one and ate the otherwithout protest She set the tray down and put a pillow under herfather's head, raising the foot-rest. He did not resist her. His headfell back on the pillow, but his eyes did not close. They were fixedon a distant point in the sky. 

Sylvia tiptoed away into the house and sank down shivering into achair. A great fit of trembling and nausea came over her. She rose, walked into the kitchen, her footsteps sounding in her ears like hermother's. There was some coffee left, which she drank resolutely, andshe cooked an egg and forced it down, her mother's precepts loud inher ears. Whatever else happened, she must have her body in conditionto be of use. 

After this she went out to the porch again and lay down in the hammocknear her father. The dawn had brightened into gold, and the sun wasshowing on the distant, level, green horizon-line. 

 * * * * *

It was almost the first moment of physical relaxation she had known, and to her immense, her awed astonishment it was instantly filled witha pure, clear brilliance, the knowledge that Austin Page lived andloved her. It was the first, it was the only time she thought ofanything but her father, and this was not a thought, it was a vision. In the chaos about her, a great sunlit rock had emerged. She laid holdon it and knew that she would not sink. 

 * * * * *

But now, _now_ she must think of nothing but her father! There was noone else who could help her father. Could she? Could any one?

She herself, since her prayer among the roses, cherished in herdarkened heart a hope of dawn. But how could she tell her father ofthat? Even if she had been able to force him to listen to her, she hadnothing that words could say, nothing but the recollection of thatburning hour in the garden to set against the teachings of a lifetime. That had changed life for her . . . But what could it mean to herfather? How could she tell him of what was only a wordless radiance?Her father had taught her that death meant the return of the spirit tothe great, impersonal river of life. If the spirit had been superb andsplendid, like her mother's, the river of life was the brighter forit, but that was all. Her mother had lived, and now lived no more. That was what they had tried to teach her to believe. That was whather father had taught her--without, it now appeared, believing ithimself. 

And yet she divined that it was not that he would not, but that hecould not now believe it. He was like a man set in a vacuum fightingfor the air without which life is impossible. And she knew no wayto break the imprisoning wall and let in air for him. _Was_ there, indeed, any air outside? There must be, or the race could not livefrom one generation to the next. Every one whose love had encountereddeath must have found an air to breathe or have died. 

Constantly through all these thoughts, that day and for many days andmonths to come, there rang the sound of her mother's name, screamedaloud. She heard it as though she were again standing by her fatherunder the stars. And there had been no answer. 

She felt the tears stinging at her eyelids and sat up, terrified atthe idea that her weakness was about to overtake her. She would goagain out to the garden where she had found strength before. Themorning sun was now hot and glaring in the eastern sky. 

CHAPTER XLIV

"_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly burning wick will Henot quench_, "--ISAIAH. 

As she stepped down the path, she saw a battered black straw hat onthe other side of the hedge. Cousin Parnelia's worn old face anddim eyes looked at her through the gate. Under her arm she heldplanchette. Sylvia stepped through the gate and drew it inhospitablyshut back of her. "What is it, Cousin Parnelia?" she saidchallengingly, determined to protect her father. 

The older woman's face was all aglow. "Oh, my dear; I've had such awonderful message from your dear mother. Last night--"

Sylvia recoiled from the mad old creature. She could not bear to haveher sane, calm, strong mother's name on those lips. Cousin Parneliawent on, full of confidence: "I was sound asleep last night when Iwas awakened by the clock's striking two. It sounded so loud that Ithought somebody had called to me. I sat up in bed and said, 'What isit?' and then I felt a great longing to have planchette write. I gotout of bed in my nightgown and sat down in the dark at the table. Planchette wrote so fast that I could hardly keep up with it. And whenit stopped, I lighted a match and see . . . Here . . . In your mother'svery handwriting"--fervently she held the bit of paper up for Sylviato see. The girl cast a hostile look at the paper and saw that thewriting on it was the usual scrawl produced by Cousin Parnelia, hardlylegible, and resembling anything rather than her mother's handwriting. 

"Read it--read it--it is too beautiful!" quivered the other, "and thenlet me show it to your father. It was meant for him--"

Sylvia shook like a roughly plucked fiddle-string. She seized thewrinkled old hand fiercely. "Cousin Parnelia, I forbid you goinganywhere near my father! You know as well as I do how intensely hehas always detested spiritualism. To see you might be the thing thatwould--"

The old woman broke in, protesting, her hat falling to one side, herbrown false front sliding with it and showing the thin, gray hairsbeneath. "But, Sylvia, this is the very thing that would savehim--such a beautiful, beautiful message from your mother, --_see_! Inher own handwriting!"

Sylvia snatched the sheet of yellow paper. "_That's_ not my mother'shandwriting! Do you think I am as crazy as _you_ are!" She tore thepaper into shreds and scattered them from her, feeling a relief in theviolence of her action. The next moment she remembered how patient hermother had always been with her daft kinswoman and seeing tears in theblurred old eyes, went to put placating arms about the other's neck. "Never mind, Cousin Parnelia, " she said with a vague kindness, "I knowyou mean to do what's right--only we don't believe as you do, andFather _must_ not be excited!" She turned sick as she spoke and shrankaway from the hedge, carrying her small old cousin with her. Above thehedge appeared her father's gray face and burning eyes. 

He was not looking at her, but at Cousin Parnelia, who now sprangforward, crying that she had had a beautiful, beautiful message fromCousin Barbara. "_It_ came last night at two o'clock . . . Just afterthe clock struck two--"

Professor Marshall looked quickly at his daughter, and she saw that hetoo had heard the clock striking in the dreadful night, and that henoted the coincidence. 

"Just after the clock struck two she wrote the loveliest message foryou with planchette. Sylvia tore it up. But I'm sure that if we trywith faith, she will repeat it . . . "

Professor Marshall's eyes were fixed on his wife's old cousin. "Comein, " he said in a hoarse voice. They were almost the first wordsSylvia had heard him say. 

Cousin Parnelia hastened up the path to the house. Sylvia followedwith her father, at the last extremity of agitation and perplexity. 

When Cousin Parnelia reached the dining-room table, she sat down byit, pushed the cloth to one side, and produced a fresh sheet of yellowpaper from her shabby bag. "Put yourselves in a receptive frame ofmind, " she said in a glib, professional manner. Sylvia stiffened andtried to draw her father away, but he continued to stand by the table, staring at the blank sheet of paper with a strange, wild expression onhis white face. He did not take his eyes from the paper. In a moment, he sat down suddenly, as though his knees had failed him. 

There was a long silence, in which Sylvia could hear the roaring ofthe blood in her arteries. Cousin Parnelia put one deeply veined, shrunken old hand on planchette and the other over her eyes andwaited, her wrinkled, commonplace old face assuming a solemnexpression of importance. The clock ticked loudly. 

Planchette began to write--at first in meaningless flourishes, thenwith occasional words, and finally Sylvia saw streaming away from thepencil the usual loose, scrawling handwriting. Several lines werewritten and then the pencil stopped abruptly. Sylvia standing near herfather heard his breathing grow loud and saw in a panic that the veinson his temples were swollen. 

Cousin Parnelia took her hand off planchette, put on her spectacles, read over what had been written, and gave it to Professor Marshall. Sylvia was in such a state of bewilderment that nothing her fathercould have done would have surprised her. She half expected to see himdash the paper in the old woman's face, half thought that any momenthe would fall, choking with apoplexy. 

What he did was to take the paper and try to hold it steadily enoughto read. But his hand shook terribly. 

"I will read it to you, " said Cousin Parnelia, and she read aloudin her monotonous, illiterate voice: "'I am well and happy, dearestElliott, and never far from you. When you call to me, I hear you. All is not yet clear, but I wish I could tell you more of the wholemeaning. I am near you this moment. I wish that--' The message stoppedthere, " explained Cousin Parnelia, laying down the paper. 

Professor Marshall leaned over it, straining his eyes to the rudescrawls, passing his hand over his forehead as though to brush away aweb. He broke out in a loud, high voice. "That is her handwriting. . . . Good God, her very handwriting--the way she writes Elliott--it is from_her!_" He snatched the paper up and took it to the window, stumblingover the chairs blindly as he went. As he held it up to the light, poring over it again, he began to weep, crying out his wife's namesoftly, the tears streaming down his unshaven cheeks. He came back tothe table, and sank down before it, still sobbing, still murmuringincessantly, "Oh, Barbara--Barbara!" and laid his head on hisoutstretched arms. 

"Let him cry!" whispered Cousin Parnelia sentimentally to Sylvia, drawing her away into the hall. A few moments later when they lookedin, he had fallen asleep, his head turned to one side so that Sylviasaw his face, tear-stained and exhausted, but utterly relaxed and atpeace, like that of a little child in sleep. Crushed in one hand wasthe yellow sheet of paper covered with coarse, wavering marks. 

CHAPTER XLV

 "_That our soul may swim We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_"

The two sisters, their pale faces grave in the shadow of their widehats, were on their knees with trowels in a border of their mother'sgarden. Judith had been giving a report of Lawrence's condition, andSylvia was just finishing an account of what had happened at home, when the gate in the osage-orange hedge clicked, and a blue-uniformedboy came whistling up the path. He made an inquiry as to names, andhanded Sylvia an envelope. She opened it, read silently, "Am startingfor America and you at once. Felix. " She stood looking at the paperfor a moment, her face quite unmoved from its quiet sadness. The boyasked, "Any answer?"

"No, " she said decisively, shaking her head. "No answer. "

As he lingered, lighting a cigarette, she put a question in her turn, "Anything to pay?"

"No, " said the boy, putting the cigarette-box back in his pocket, "Nothing to pay. " He produced a worn and greasy book, "Sign on thisline, " he said, and after she had signed, he went away down the path, whistling. The transaction was complete. 

Sylvia looked after the retreating figure and then turned to Judithas though there had been no interruption. ". . . And you can see foryourself how little use I am to him now. Since he got Cousin Parneliain the house, there's nothing anybody else could do for him. Even youcouldn't, if you could leave Lawrence. Not for a while, anyhow. Isuppose he'll come slowly out of this to be himself again . . . But I'mnot sure that he will. And for now, I actually believe that he'd beeasier in his mind if we were both away. I never breathe a word ofcriticism about planchette, of course. But he knows. There's that muchleft of his old self. He knows how I must feel. He's really ever somuch better too, you know. He's taken up his classes in the SummerSchool again. He said he had 'a message' from Mother that he was to goback to his work bravely; and the very next day he went over to thecampus, and taught all his classes as though nothing had happened. Isn't it awfully, terribly touching to see how even such a poor, incoherent make-believe of a 'message' from Mother has more power tocalm him than anything we could do with our whole hearts? But how_can_ he! I can't understand it! I can't bear it, to come in on himand Cousin Parnelia, in their evenings, and see them bent over thatgrotesque planchette and have him look up at me so defiantly, asthough he were just setting his teeth and saying he wouldn't care whatI thought of him. He doesn't really care either. He doesn't think ofanything but of having evening come when he can get another 'message'from Mother . . . From Mother! Mother!"

"Well, perhaps it would be as well for us not to be here for a while, "murmured Judith. There were deep dark rings under her eyes, as thoughshe had slept badly for a long time. "Perhaps it may be better lateron. I can take Lawrence back with me when I go to the hospital. I wantto keep him near me of course, dear little Lawrence. My little boy!He'll be my life now. He'll be what I have to live for. "

Something in the quality of her quiet voice sent a chill to Sylvia'sheart. "Why, Judy dear, after you are married of course you and Arnoldcan keep Lawrence with you. That'll be the best for him, a real home, with you. Oh, Judy dear, " she laid down her trowel, fighting hardagainst a curious sickness which rose within her. She tried to speaklightly. "Oh, Judy dear, when _are_ you going to be married? Or don'tyou want to speak about it now, for a while? You never write longletters, I know--but your late ones haven't had _any_ news in them!You positively haven't so much as mentioned Arnold's name lately. "

As she spoke, she knew that she was voicing an uneasiness which hadbeen an unacknowledged occupant of her mind for a long time. But shelooked confidently to see one of Judith's concise, comprehensivestatements make her dim apprehensions seem fantastic and far-fetched, as Judith always made any flight of the imagination appear. Butnothing which Sylvia's imagination might have been able to conceivewould have struck her such a blow as the fact which Judith nowproduced, in a dry, curt phrase: "I'm not going to be married. "

Sylvia did not believe her ears. She looked up wildly as Judith rosefrom the ground, and advanced upon her sister with a stern, whiteface. Before she had finished speaking, she had said more than Sylviahad ever heard her say about a matter personal to her; but even so, her iron words were few. "Sylvia, I want to tell you about it, ofcourse. I've got to. But I won't say a word, unless you can keepquiet, and not make a fuss. I couldn't stand that. I've got all I canstand as it is. "

She stood by an apple-tree and now broke from it a small, leafybranch, which she held as she spoke. There was something shocking inthe contrast between the steady rigor of her voice and the fury of herfingers as they tore and stripped and shredded the leaves. "Arnold isan incurable alcoholic, " she said; "Dr. Rivedal has pronounced himhopeless. Dr. Charton and Dr. Pansard (they're the best specialists inthat line) have had him under observation and they say the same thing. He's had three dreadful attacks lately. We . . . None of their treatmentdoes any good. It's been going on too long--from the time he wasfirst sent away to school, at fourteen, alone! There was an inheritedtendency, anyhow. Nobody took it seriously, that and--and the otherthings boys with too much money do. Apparently everybody thought itwas just the way boys are--if anybody thought anything about it, except that it was a bother. He never had anybody, you know--_never, never_ anybody who . . . " her voice rose, threatened to break. Shestopped, swallowed hard, and began again: "The trouble is he hasno constitution left--nothing for a doctor to work with. It's notArnold's fault. If he had come out to us, that time in Chicago when hewanted to--we--he could--with Mother to--" Her steady voice gave wayabruptly. She cast the ravaged, leafless branch violently to theground and stood looking down at it. There was not a fleck of color inher beautiful, stony face. 

Sylvia concentrated all her will-power on an effort to speak as Judithwould have her, quietly, without heroics; but when she broke hersilence she found that she had no control of her voice. She tried tosay, "But, Judith dear, if Arnold is like that--doesn't he need youmore than ever? You are a nurse. How can you abandon him now!" Butshe could produce only a few, broken, inarticulate words in a chokingvoice before she was obliged to stop short, lest she burst out in theflood of horror which Judith had forbidden. 

Broken and inarticulate as they were, Judith knew what was the meaningof those words. The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably. Shebit her marble lower lip repeatedly before she could bring out the fewshort phrases which fell like clods on a coffin. "If I--if we--Arnoldand I are in love with each other. " She stopped, drew a painfulbreath, and said again: "Arnold and I are in love with each other. Doyou know what that means? He is the only man I could not take careof--Arnold! If I should try, we would soon be married, or lovers. Ifwe were married or lovers, we would soon have--" She had overestimatedher strength. Even she was not strong enough to go on. 

She sat down on the ground, put her long arms around her knees, andburied her face in them. She was not weeping. She sat as still asthough carved in stone. 

Sylvia herself was beyond tears. She sat looking down at the moistearth on the trowel she held, drying visibly in the hot sun, turningto dust, and falling away in a crumbling, impalpable powder. It waslike seeing a picture of her heart. She thought of Arnold with anindignant, passionate pity--how could Judith--? But she was so closeto Judith's suffering that she felt the dreadful rigidity of her body. The flat, dead tones of the man in the Pantheon were in her ears. Itseemed to her that Life was an adventure perilous and awful beyondimagination. There was no force to cope with it, save absoluteintegrity. Everything else was a vain and foolish delusion, atwo-edged sword which wounded the wielding hand. 

She did not move closer to Judith, she did not put out her hand. Judith would not like that. She sat quite motionless, looking intoblack abysses of pain, of responsibilities not met, feeling press uponher the terrifying closeness of all human beings to all otherhuman beings--there in the sun of June a cold sweat stood on herforehead. . . . 

But then she drew a long breath. Why, there was Austin! The anguishedcontraction of her heart relaxed. The warm blood flowed again throughher veins. There was Austin!

She was rewarded for her effort to bring herself to Judith's ways, when presently her sister moved and reached out blindly for her hand. At this she opened her arms and took Judith in. No word was spoken. Their mother was there with them. 

Sylvia looked out over the proud, dark head, now heavy on her bosom, and felt herself years older. She did not try to speak. She hadnothing to say. There was nothing she could do, except to hold Judithand love her. 

There was nothing, _nothing_ left but love. 

CHAPTER XLVI

A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD

The tall, lean young man, sitting his galloping horse very slackly, riding fast with a recklessly loose rein, and staring with bloodshoteyes down at the dust of the road, gave an exclamation, brought themare upon her haunches, and sprang down from the saddle. A woman, young, tall, grave, set like a pearl in her black mourning dress, stood up from the roadside brook and advanced to meet him. They lookedat each other as people do who meet after death has passed by. Theystammered vague words, their eyes brimming. 

"I--she was always so good to me, " said Arnold, his voice breakingand quavering as he wrung Sylvia's hand again and again. "I neverknew--saw much of her, I know--but when I was a little boy, I used--Iused to dream about her at night. " His thin, sallow face flushed withhis earnestness. "I don't believe--honestly, Sylvia, I don't believeher own children loved her any more than I did. I've thought so manytimes how different everything would have been if I'd--I don't supposeyou remember, but years ago when you and she were in Chicago, I ranaway from school to go out there, and ask if--"

Sylvia remembered, had thought of nothing else from the moment she hadseen far down the road the horseman vainly fleeing the black beaston his crupper. She shook her head now, her hand at her throat, andmotioned him to silence. "Don't! Don't!" she said urgently. "Yes, Iremember. I remember. "

There was a moment's silence, filled by the murmur of the little brookat their feet. The mare, which had been drinking deeply, now liftedher head, the water running from the corners of her mouth. She gave adeep breath of satisfaction, and began cropping the dense green grasswhich grew between the water and the road. Her master tossed the reinsover the pommel and let her go. He began speaking again on a differentnote. "But, Sylvia, what in the world--here, can't we go up underthose trees a few minutes and have a talk? I can keep my eye on themare. " As they took the few steps he asked again, "How ever does ithappen that you're here at Lydford Junction of all awful holes?"

Sylvia took an abrupt resolution, sat down on the pine-needles, andsaid, very directly, "I am on my way to Austin Farm to see if AustinPage still wants to marry me. " Her manner had the austere simplicityof one who has been moving in great and grave emotions. 

Arnold spoke with an involuntary quickness: "But you've heard, haven'tyou, about his giving up all his Colorado . . . "

Sylvia flushed a deep crimson and paid with a moment of bitter, shamedresentment for the other bygone moments of calculation. "Yes, yes, ofcourse. " She spoke with a stern impatience. "Did you suppose it wasfor his fortune that--" She paused and said humbly, "Of course, it'snatural that you should think that of me. "

Arnold attempted no self-exculpation. He sat down by her, hisriding-crop across his knees. "Could you--do you feel like telling meabout it?" he asked. 

She nodded. It came to her like an inspiration that only if she openedher heart utterly to Arnold, could he open his sore heart to her. "There's not much to tell. I don't know where to begin. Perhapsthere's too much to tell, after all, I didn't know what any of itmeant till now. It's the strangest thing, Arnold, how little peopleknow what is growing strong in their lives! I supposed all the timeI only liked him because he was so rich. I thought it must be so. I thought that was the kind of girl I was. And then, besides, I'd--perhaps you didn't know how much I'd liked Felix Morrison. "

Arnold nodded. "I sort of guessed so. You were awfully game, then, Sylvia. You're game now--it's awfully white to fall in love with a manbecause he's rich and then stick to him when he's--"

Sylvia waved her hand impatiently. "Oh, you don't understand. It's notbecause I think _I ought_ to--Heavens, no! Let me try to tell you. Listen! When the news came, about this Colorado business--I was aboutcrazy for a while. I just went to pieces. I knew I ought to answerhis letter, but I couldn't. I see now, looking back, that I had justcrumpled up under the weight of my weakness. I didn't know it then. I kept saying to myself that I was only putting off deciding till Icould think more about it, but I know now that I had decided to givehim up, never to see him again--Felix was there, you know--I'd decidedto give Austin up because he wasn't rich any more. Did you know I wasthat base sort of a woman? Do you suppose he will ever be willing totake me back?--now after this long time? It's a month since I got hisletter. "

Arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "Are yousure now, Sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "It would bepretty hard on Austin if you--afterwards--he's such a square, straightsort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to--"

Sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous:"Oh, Arnold, I could never tell you how sure I am. There just isn'tanything else. Over there in Paris, I tried so hard to think aboutit--and I couldn't get anywhere at all. The more I tried, the baser Igrew; the more I loved the things I'd have to give up, the more I hungon to them. Thinking didn't do a bit of good, though I almost killedmyself thinking--thinking--All I'd done was to think out an ingenious, low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. And then, after Judith's cablegram came, I started home--Arnold, what a journeythat was!--and I found--I found Mother was gone, just gone awayforever--and I found Father out of his head with sorrow--and Judithtold me about--about her trouble. It was like going through a longblack corridor. It seemed as though I'd never come out on the otherside. But when I did--A door that I couldn't ever, ever breakdown--somehow it's been just quietly opened, and I've gone throughit into the only place where it's worth living. It's the last thingMother did for me--what nobody but Mother could have done. I don'twant to go back. I couldn't if I wanted to. Those things don't matterto me now. I don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if youcan have them without losing something finer. And I suppose somepeople's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. But minewouldn't be. I see that now. And I don't care at all--it all seems sounimportant to me, what I was caring about, before. Nothing mattersnow but Austin. He is the only thing that has lived on for me. I'mdown on my knees with thankfulness that he just exists, even if hecan't forgive me--even if he doesn't care for me any more--even if Ishouldn't ever see him again--even if he should die--he would belike Mother, he couldn't die, for me. He's there. I know what he is. Somehow everything's all right--because there's Austin. "

She broke off, smiling palely and quietly at the man beside her. Heraised his eyes to hers for an instant and then dropped them. Sylviawent on. "I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of thisColorado business. It may be that it was quixotic on Austin's part. Maybe it _has_ upset business conditions out there a lot. It's toocomplicated to be _sure_ about how anything, I suppose, is likely toaffect an industrial society. But I'm sure about how it has affectedthe people who live in the world--it's a great golden deed that hasenriched everybody--not just Austin's coal-miners, but everybody whohad heard of it. The sky is higher because of it. Everybody has a newconception of the good that's possible. And then for me, it means thata man who sees an obligation nobody else sees and meets it--why, withsuch a man to help, anybody, even a weak fumbling person like me, canbe sure of at least loyally _trying_ to meet the debts life brings. It's awfully hard to know what they are, and to meet them--and it'stoo horrible if you don't. "

She stopped, aware that the life of the man beside her was one of theunpaid debts so luridly present to her mind. 

"Sylvia, " said Arnold, hesitating, "Sylvia, all this sounds so--lookhere, are you sure you're in _love_ with Austin?"

She looked at him, her eyes steady as stars. "Aren't there as manyways of being in love, as there are people?" she asked. "I don'tknow--I don't know if it's what everybody would call being inlove--but--" She met his eyes, and unashamed, regally, opened herheart to him with a look. "I can't live without Austin, " she saidquickly, in a low tone. 

He looked at her long, and turned away. "Oh yes, you're in love withhim, all right!" he murmured finally, "and I don't believe that theColorado business or any of the rest of what you're saying has much todo with anything. Austin's a live man and you're in love with him;and that's all there is to it. You're lucky!" He took out hishandkerchief, and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. Sylvia, looking at him more closely, was shocked to see how thin and haggardwas his face. He asked now, "Did you ever think that maybe what Austinwas thinking about when he chucked the money was what you'd say, howyou'd take it? I should imagine, " he added with a faint smile, ' "thathe is hard to please if he's not pretty well satisfied. "

Sylvia was startled. "No. Why no, " she said, "I thought I'd looked atevery single side of it, but I never dreamed of that. "

"Oh, I don't mean he did it _for_ that! Lord, no! I suppose it's beenin his mind for years. But afterwards, don't you suppose he thought. . . He'd been run after for his money such a terrible lot, you know. . . Don't you suppose he thought he'd be sure of you one way or theother, about a million times surer than he could have been any otherway; if you stuck by him, don't you see, with old Felix there with allhis fascinations, plus Molly's money. " He turned on her with a suddenconfused wonder in his face. "God! What a time he took to do it! Ihadn't realized all his nerve till this minute. He must have knownwhat it meant, to leave you there with Felix . . . To risk losing you aswell as--Any other man would have tried to marry you first and then--!Well, what a dead-game sport he was! And all for a lot of dirtyPolacks who'd never laid eyes on him!"

He took his riding-cap from his head and tossed it on the driedpine-needles. Sylvia noticed that his dry, thin hair was alreadyreceding from his parchment-like forehead. There were innumerable finelines about his eyes. One eyelid twitched spasmodically at intervals. He looked ten years older than his age. He looked like a man who wouldfall like a rotten tree at the first breath of sickness. 

He now faced around to her with a return to everyday matters. "Seehere, Sylvia, I've just got it through my head. Are you waiting herefor that five-fifteen train to West Lydford and then are you planningto walk out to the Austin Farm? Great Scott! don't do that, in thisheat. I'll just run back to the village and get a car and take youthere in half an hour. " He rose to his feet, but Sylvia sprang upquickly, catching at his arm in a panic. "No! no! Arnold, you don'tunderstand. I haven't written Austin a word--he doesn't know I'mcoming. At first in Paris I couldn't--I was so despicable--and thenafterwards I couldn't either, --though it was all right then. Therearen't any words. It's all too big, too deep to talk about. I didn'twant to, either. I wanted to _see_ him--to see if he still, if hewants me now. He could _write_ anything. He'd feel he'd have to. Howwould I ever know but that it was only because he thought he ought to?I thought I would just go to him all by myself, without his knowingI was coming. _I_ can tell--the first moment he looks at me I cantell--for all my life, I'll be sure, one way or the other. That firstlook, what's in him will show! He can't hide anything then, not evento be kind. I'll know! I'll know!"

Arnold sat down again with no comment. Evidently he understood. Heleaned his head back against the rough bark of the pine, and closedhis eyes. There was a painful look of excessive fatigue about hiswhole person. He glanced up and caught Sylvia's compassionate gaze onhim. "I haven't been sleeping very well lately, " he said very dryly. "It breaks a fellow up to lose sleep. " Sylvia nodded. Evidently he wasnot minded to speak of his own troubles. He had not mentioned Judith. 

She looked up thoughtfully at the well-remembered high line of themountain against the sky. Her mother's girlhood eyes had looked atthat high line. She fell into a brooding meditation, and presently, obeying one of her sure instincts, she sat down by Arnold, and beganto talk to him about what she divined for the moment would most touchand move him; she began to talk about her mother. He was silent, hisworn, sallow face impassive, but she knew he was listening. 

She told one incident after another of her mother's life, incidentswhich, she told him, she had not noted at the time, incidents whichwere now windows in her own life, letting in the sunlight her motherloved so well. "All the time I was growing up, I was blind, I didn'tsee anything. I don't feel remorseful, I suppose that is the waychildren have to be. But I didn't see her. There were so many minordifferences between us . . . Tastes, interests. I always said hatefullyto myself that Mother didn't understand me. And it was true too. Asif it matters! What if she didn't! She never talked morality to us, anyhow. She never talked much at all. She didn't need to. She washerself. No words would express that. She lived her life. And thereit is now, there it always will be for me, food for me to live on. Ithought she had died. But she has never been so living for me. She'spart of me now, for always. And just because I see the meaning of herlife, why, there's the meaning of mine as clear as morning. How canpoor Father crave those 'messages' from her! Everything is a messagefrom her. We've lived with her. We have her in our hearts. It's allbrightness when I think of her. And I see by that brightness what's inmy heart, and that's Austin . . . Austin!" On the name, her voice rose, expanded, soared, wonderfully rang in the ensuing silence. . . . 

Arnold said slowly, without opening his eyes: "Yes, yes, I see. I seehow it is all right with you and Austin. He's big enough for you, allof you. And Felix--he's not so bad either--but he has, after all, ayellow streak. Poor Felix!"

This brought up to Sylvia the recollection of the day, so short a timeago when she had sat on the ground thus, much as she now sat next toArnold, and had felt Judith's body rigid and tense. There was nothingrigid about Arnold. He was relaxed in an exhausted passivity, a beatenman. Let what would, befall. He seemed beyond feeling. She knew thatprobably never again, so life goes, could they speak together thus, like disembodied spirits, freed for once from the blinding, entanglingtragic web of self-consciousness. She wondered again if he would findit in his heart to speak to her of Judith. She remembered somethingelse she had meant to ask him, if she could ever find words for herquestion; and she found that, in that hour of high seriousness, they came quite without effort. "Arnold, when I was in Paris, I metProfessor Saunders. I ran across him by accident. He told mesome dreadful things. I thought they couldn't all be true. But Iwondered--"

Arnold opened his eyes and turned them on her. She saw again, as shehad so many times, the honesty of them. They were bloodshot, yellowed, set deep in dark hollows; but it was a good gaze they gave. "Oh, don'ttake poor old Saunders too seriously. He went all to pieces in theend. He had a lot to say about Madrina, I suppose. I shouldn't paymuch attention to it. Madrina's not such a bad lot as he makes herout. Madrina's all right if you don't want anything out of her. She'sthe way she is, that's all. It's not fair to blame her. We're all likethat, " he ended with a pregnant, explanatory phrase which fell with animmense significance on Sylvia's ear. "Madrina's all right when she'sgot what she wants. "

The girl pondered in silence on this characterization. After a timeArnold roused himself to say again: "I mean she wouldn't go out ofher way to hurt anybody, for anything. She's not the kind that enjoysseeing other folks squirm. Only she wants things the way she wantsthem. Don't let anything old Saunders said worry you. I suppose helaid all my worthlessness at Madrina's door too. He'd got into thatway of thinking, sort of dotty on the subject anyhow. He was terriblyhard hit, you know. I don't deny either that Madrina did keep himstrung on hot wire for several years. I don't suppose it occurredto her that there was any reason why she shouldn't if he were foolenough. I never could see that he wasn't some to blame too. All he hadto do--all they any of them ever had to do, was to get out and stayout. Madrina'd never lift a finger to hinder. Even Saunders, I guess, would have had to admit that Madrina always had plenty of dignity. Andas for me, great Scott! what could you expect a woman like Madrina todo with a boy like me! She never liked me, for one thing; and thenI always bored her almost more than she could stand. But she nevershowed her impatience, never once. She's really awfully good-naturedin her way. She wanted to make me into a salon sort of person, somebody who'd talk at her teas--converse, don't you know. You see_me_, don't you! It was hard on her. If she'd had you, now--I alwaysthought you were the only person in the world she ever really caredfor. She does, you know. All this year you've been with her, she'sseemed so different, more like a real woman. Maybe she's had hertroubles too. Maybe she's been deathly lonely. Don't you go back onher too hard. Madrina's no vampire. That's just old Saunders' addledwits. She's one of the nicest people in the world to live with, if youdon't need her for anything. And she really does care a lot for you, Sylvia. That time out in Chicago, when we were all kids, when I wantedto go to live with your mother, I remember that Madrina suggested toher (and Madrina would have done it in a minute, too)--she suggestedthat they change off, she take you to bring up and I go out to livewith your mother, " He stopped to look at the woman beside him. "Idon't know about you, Sylvia, but I guess it would have made somedifference in my life!"

Sylvia drew back, horrified that he was even in thought, even for amoment robbing her of her mother. "Oh, what I would have been--I can'tbear to _think_ of what kind of woman I would have been without mymother!" The idea was terrible to her. She shrank away from heraunt as never before in her life. The reminiscence brought an idea, evidently as deeply moving, into Arnold's mind. The words burst fromhim, "I might now be married to Judith!" He put his hands over hiseyes and cast himself down among the pine-needles. 

Sylvia spoke quickly lest she lose courage. "Arnold! Arnold! What areyou going to do with yourself now? I'm so horribly anxious about you. I haven't dared speak before--"

He turned over and lay on his back, staring up into the dark green ofthe pine. "I'm going to drink myself to death as soon as I can, " hesaid very quietly. "The doctors say it won't take long. "

She looked at his wasted face and gave a shocked, pitying exclamation, thinking that it would be illness and not drink which was to come tohis rescue soon. 

He looked at her askance, with his bloodshot eyes. "Can you give meany single reason why I shouldn't?" he challenged her. 

Sylvia, the modern, had no answer. She murmured weakly, "Why must anyof us try to be decent?"

"That's for the rest of you, " he said. "I'm counted out. The soonerI get myself out of the way, the better for everybody. That's what_Judith_ thinks. "

The bitterness of his last phrase was savage. Sylvia cried out againstit. "Arnold! That's cruel of you! It's killing Judith!"

"She can't care for me, " he said, with a deep, burning resentment. "She can't ever have cared a rap, or she wouldn't be _able_ to--"

Sylvia would not allow him to go on. "You must not say such a thing, Arnold. You know Judith's only reason is--she feels if she--if she hadchildren and they were--"

He interrupted her with an ugly hardness. "Oh, I know what her reasonis, all right. It's the latest fad. Any magazine article can tell youall about it. And I don't take any stock in it, I tell you. It's justinsanity to try to guess at every last obligation you may possiblyhave! You've got to live your life, and have some nerve about it! IfJudith and I love each other, what is it to anybody else if we getmarried? Maybe we wouldn't have any children. Maybe they'd be allright--how could they be anything else with Judith for their mother?And anyhow, leave that to them! Let them take care of themselves!We've had to do it for ourselves! What the devil did my father do forme, I'd like to know, that I should die to keep my children unborn? Mymother was a country girl from up here in the mountains. Since I'vebeen staying here winters, I've met some of her people. Her aunt toldme that my father was as drunk as a lord on his wedding night--Whatdid he think of _his_ son? Why should I think of mine?"

He was so evidently talking wildly, desperately, that Sylvia made noattempt to stop him, divining with an aching pity what lay under hisdreadful words. But when he said again, "It's simply that Judithdoesn't care enough about me to stick by me, now I'm down and out. Shecan't bear me in her narrow little good world!" Judith's sister couldkeep her silence no more. 

"Look here, Arnold, I haven't meant to tell you, but I _can't_have you thinking that. Listen! You know Judith, how splendid andself-controlled she is. She went all through the sorrow of Mother'sdeath without once breaking down, not once. But the night before Istarted to come here, in the middle of the night, I heard such a soundfrom Judith's room! It frightened me, so I could hardly get my breath!It was Judith crying, crying terribly, so that she couldn't keep itback any more. I never knew her to cry before. I didn't dare go intoher room--Mother would--but I didn't dare. And yet I couldn't leaveher there alone in such awful trouble. I stood by the door in thedark--oh, Arnold, I don't know how long--and heard her--When it beganto be light she was quiet, and I went back to bed; and after a whileI tiptoed in. She had gone to sleep at last. Arnold, there under hercheek was that old baseball cap of yours . . . All wet, all wet with hertears, Judith's tears. "

Before she had finished she was sorry she had spoken. Arnold's facewas suffused with purple. He put his hand up to his collar andwrenched at it, clenched his fists, and finally, flinging hisriding-crop far from him, hid his face in his hands and burstinto tears. "Isn't it damnable!" he said over and over. "Isn't itdamnable!"

Sylvia had nothing more to say. It seemed indeed damnable to her. Shewondered again at Judith's invincible force of will. That alone wasthe obstacle--no, it was something back of Judith's will, somethingwhich even Arnold recognized; for now, to her astonishment, he lookedup, his face smeared like a weeping child's, and said in a low tone, "You know, of course, that Judith's right. "

The testimony was wrung out of him. But it came. The moment was onenever to be forgotten. 

Out of her passionate pity was born strength that was not to bedenied. She took his hand in hers, his dry, sick man's hand. "Arnold, you asked me to give you a reason why you should get the best you canout of yourself. I'll give you a reason. Judith is a reason. Austin isa reason. I'm a reason. I am never going to let you go. Judith can'tbe the one to help you get through the best you can, even though itmay not be so very well--poor, poor Judith, who would die to be ableto help you! Mother wasn't allowed to. She wanted to, I see that now. But I can. I'm not a thousandth part as strong or as good as they; butif we hang together! All my life is going to be settled for me in afew hours. I don't know how it's going to be. But however it is, youwill always be in my life. For as long as you live, " she caught herbreath at the realization of how little that phrase meant, "for aslong as you live, you are going to be what you wanted to be, what youought to have been, my brother--my mother's son. "

He clung to her hand, he clung to it with such a grip that her fingersached--and she blessed the pain for what it meant. 

CHAPTER XLVII

". . . AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!"

They had told her at the farm, the old man and the old woman who hadlooked so curiously at her, that Mr. Page had gone on up the wood-roadtowards the upper pasture. He liked to go there sometimes, they said, to look at the sunset from a big rock that stood in the edge of thewhite birch woods. They added, in extenuation of this, that of coursesomebody had to go up there anyhow, once in a while, to salt thesheep. 

Sylvia had passed on, passed the great, square, many-chimneyed house, passed the old-fashioned garden, and struck into the wood-road beyondthe bars. The sun was so low now, almost below the edge of the Notch, that the rays were level and long behind her. So she had walked, bathed in luminous gold at Versailles, on the day when Austin hadfirst told her that he loved her, on the day she had told him thetruth. From the first moment she had seen him how he had alwaysbrought out from her the truest and best, finer and truer thananything she had thought was in her, like a reflection from his ownintegrity. His eyes that day, what clear wells of loyalty and honor. . . How her mother would have loved him! And that other day, when hesaid farewell and went away to his ordeal . . . She closed her eyes foran instant, pierced with the recollection of his gaze on her! What wasshe, what poor thing transfigured to divinity, that such passion, suchtenderness had been hers . . . Even for a moment . . . Even if now . . . 

She looked timidly up the green tunnel of the arching trees, fearingto see him at any moment. And yet how she hastened her steps towardswhere he was! The moments were too long till she should find herheart's home!

After a time, there came a moment of such terrible throbbing of theheart, such trembling, that she could not go on. She sat down on arock beside the road and pressed her shaking hands on her cheeks. No, it was too awful. She had been insane to think of putting everything, her whole life, to the test of a moment's shock. She would go back. She would write him. . . . 

She looked up and saw her mother's gallant figure standing therebefore her. She smiled, and started on. Strange that she had thoughther mother could be dead. Her first instinct had been right. Hermother, _her_ mother could not die. 

The road turned sharply to the left. She came out from the whitebirches. She was in the edge of the pasture, sweet-fern at her feet, a group of sheep raising startled heads to gaze at her, the sun's rimred on the horizon below her. And up there, the sunlight on his face, above her, stood Austin. 

The sight of him was like a great burst of music in her heart, like agreat flood of light. Her doubts, her uncertainties, they were goneout, as utterly as night goes before the sun. Her ears rang to a soundlike singing voices. For a moment she did not feel the ground underher feet. . . . 

Austin looked down and saw her. He stood like a man in a dream. 

And then he knew. He knew. And Sylvia knew. He gave a great cryof welcome which was to ring in her ears for all her life, like abenediction. He ran down to meet her, and took her in his arms. 

THE END