THE DUST FLOWER

 BOOKS BY BASIL KING ---------------------------- _The Dust Flower_ _The Empty Sack_ _Going West_ _The City of Comrades_ _Abraham's Bosom_ _The Lifted Veil_ _The Side of the Angels_ _The Letter of the Contract_ _The Way Home_ _The Wild Olive_ _The Inner Shrine_ _The Street Called Straight_ _Let No Man Put Asunder_ _In the Garden of Charity_ _The Steps of Honor_ _The High Heart_ ---------------------------- HARPER & BROTHERS Established 1817

[Illustration: THEN SLOWLY, SLOWLY LETTY SANK ON HER KNEES, BOWING HERHEAD ON THE HANDS WHICH DREW HER CLOSER. [See p. 350]]

 THE DUST FLOWER

 _By_ BASIL KING

 _Author of_ "THE EMPTY SACK" "THE INNER SHRINE" ETC. 

 _With Illustrations by_ HIBBARD V. B. KLINE

 _Publishers_ Harper & Brothers New York and London _MCMXXII_

 THE DUST FLOWER

 Copyright, 1922 Harper & Brothers Printed in the U. S. A. 

 _First Edition_ H-W

ILLUSTRATIONS

 PAGE THEN SLOWLY, SLOWLY LETTY SANK ON HER KNEES, BOWING HER HEAD ON THE HANDS WHICH DREW HER CLOSER _Frontispiece_

 BY THE TIME HE HAD FINISHED, HIS HEART WAS A LITTLE EASED AND SOME OF HER TENDERNESS BEGAN TO FLOW TOWARD HIM _Facing page_ 68

 THE PRINCE'S FIRST WORDS WERE ALSO A DISTRACTION FROM TERRORS, AND ENCHANTMENTS WHICH MADE HER FEEL FAINT _Facing page_ 230

 "BUT BY AND BY I CREEPS OUT AND DOWN THE STEPS, AND THERE 'E WAS, ALL 'UDDLED EVERY WYE" _Facing page_ 328

THE DUST FLOWER

Chapter I

It is not often that you see a man tear his hair, but this is exactlywhat Rashleigh Allerton did. He tore it, first, because of being underthe stress of great agitation, and second, because he had it totear--a thick, black shock with a tendency to part in the middle, butbrushed carefully to one side. Seated on the extreme edge of one ofMiss Walbrook's strong, slender armchairs, his elbows on his knees, hedug his fingers into the dark mass with every fresh taunt from hisfiancée. 

She was standing over him, high-tempered, imperious. "So it's come tothis, " she said, with decision; "you've got to choose between astupid, vulgar lot of men, and me. "

He gritted his teeth. "Do you expect me to give up all my friends?"

"All your friends! That's another matter. I'm speaking of half a dozenprofligates, of whom you seem determined--I _must_ say it, Rash; youforce me to it--of whom you seem determined to be one. "

He jumped to his feet, a slim, good-looking, well-dressed figure inspite of the tumbled effect imparted by excitement. "But, goodheavens, Barbara, what have I been doing?"

"I don't pretend to follow you there. I only know the condition inwhich you came here from the club last night. "

He was honestly bewildered. "Came here from the club last night?Why--why, I wasn't so bad. "

Standing away from him, she twirled the engagement solitaire as ifresisting the impulse to snatch it off. "That would be a question ofpoint of view, wouldn't it? If Aunt Marion hadn't been here----"

"I'd only had----"

"Please, Rash! I don't want to know the details. "

"But I want you to know them. I've told you a dozen times that if Itake so much as a cocktail or a glass of sherry I'm all in, whenanother fellow can take ten times as much and not----"

"Rash, dear, I haven't known you all my life without being quite awarethat you're excitable. 'Crazy Rash' we used to call you when we werechildren, and Crazy Rash you are still. But that's not my point. "

"Your point is that that infernal old Aunt Marion of yours doesn'tlike me. "

"She's not infernal, and she's not old, but it's true that she doesn'tlike you. All the more reason, then, that when she gave her consent toour engagement on condition that you'd give up your disgustinghabits----"

He raced away from her to the other side of the room, turning to faceher like an exasperated animal at bay. 

The room was noteworthy, and of curiously feminine refinement. Expressing Miss Marion Walbrook as it did, it made no provision forthe coarse and lounging habits of men, Miss Walbrook's world being awoman's world. All was straight, slender, erect, and hard in the waythat women like for occasions of formality. It was evident, too, thatMiss Walbrook's women friends were serious, if civilized. There was noplace here for the slapdash, smoking girl of the present day. 

The tone which caught your eye was that of dusky gold, thrown outfirst from the Chinese rug in imperial yellow, but reflected from ascore of surfaces in rich old satinwood, discreetly mounted in ormolu. On the French-paneled walls there was but one picture, Sargent'sportrait of Miss Walbrook herself, an exquisite creature, with thestraight, thin lines of her own table legs and the grace which makesno appeal to men. Not that she was of the type colloquially known as a"back number, " or a person to be ignored. On the contrary, she was apioneer of the day after to-morrow, the herald of an epoch when theblundering of men would be replaced by superior intelligence. 

You must know these facts with regard to Miss Walbrook, the aunt, inorder to understand Miss Walbrook, the niece. The latter was not thepupil of the former, since she was too intense and high-handed to bethe pupil of anyone. Nevertheless she had caught from her wealthy andpublic-spirited relative certain prepossessions which guided herpoints of view. 

Without having beauty, Miss Barbara Walbrook impressed you as Someone, and as Someone dressed by the most expensive houses in New York. Forbeauty her lips were too full, her eyes too slanting, and herdelicate profile too much like that of an ancient Egyptian princess. The princess was perhaps what was most underscored in her character, the being who by some indefinable divine right is entitled to her ownway. She didn't specially claim her way; she only couldn't bear notgetting it. 

Rashleigh Allerton, being of the easy-going type, had no objection toher getting her own way, but he sometimes rebelled against her mannerof taking it. So rebelling now, he tried to give her to understandthat he was master. 

"If you marry me, Barbe, you'll have to take me as I am--disgustinghabits and all. "

It was the wrong tone, the whip to the filly that should have beensteered gently. 

"But I suppose there's no law to compel me to marry you. "

"Only the law of honor. "

Her whole personality was aflame. "You talk of honor!"

"Yes I talk of it. Why shouldn't I?"

"Do you know anything about it?"

"Would you marry a man who didn't?"

"I haven't married any one--as yet. "

"But you're going to marry me, I presume. "

"Considering the facts, that's a good deal in the way of presumption, isn't it?"

They reached the place to which they came once in every few weeks, where each had the impulse to hurt the other cruelly. 

"If it's so much presumption as all that, " he demanded, "what's themeaning of that ring?"

"Oh, I don't have to go on wearing it. " Crossing the room she pulledit off and held it out toward him "Do you want it back?"

He shrank away from her. "Don't be a fool Barbe. You may go too far. "

"That's what I'm afraid of--that I've gone too far already. "

"In what way?"

"In the way that's brought us face to face like this. If I'd neverpromised to marry you I shouldn't now have to--to reconsider. "

"Oh, so that's it. You're reconsidering. "

"Don't you see that I have to? If you make me as unhappy as you canbefore marriage, what'll it be afterward?"

"And how happy are you making me?"

Holding the ring between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, she played at putting it back, without doing it. "So there you are!Isn't that another reason for reconsidering--for both of us?"

"Don't you care anything about me?"

"You make it difficult--after such an exhibition as that of lastnight, right before Aunt Marion. Can't you imagine that there aresituations in which I feel ashamed?"

It was then that he spoke the words which changed the current of hislife. "And can't you imagine that there are situations in which Iresent being badgered by a bitter-tongued old maid, to say nothing ofa girl----" He knew how "crazy" he was, but the habit of gettingbeyond his own control was one of long standing--"to say nothing of agirl who's more like an old maid than a woman going to be married. "

With a renewed attempt at being master he pointed at the ring whichshe was still holding within an inch of its finger. "Put that back. "

"I think not. "

"Then if you don't----"

"Well--what?"

Plunging his hands into the pockets of his coat, he began tearing upand down the room. "Look here, Barbe. This kind of thing can'tpossibly go on. "

"Which is what I'm trying to tell you, isn't it?"

"Very well, then; we can stop it. "

"Certainly--in one way. "

"The way of getting married, with no more shilly-shallying about it. "

"On the principle that if you're hanging over a precipice the bestthing you can do is to fall. "

He continued to race up and down the room, all nerves and frenzy. "Don't we care about each other?"

She answered carefully. "I think you care about me to the extent thatyou believe I'd make a good mistress of the house your mother leftyou, and which, you say, is like an empty sepulcher. If you didn'thave it on your hands, I don't imagine it would have occurred to youto ask me. "

"Well, that's all right. Now what about you?"

"You've already answered that question for yourself. " She stiffenedhaughtily. "I'm an old maid. I haven't been brought up by Aunt Marionfor nothing. I've an old maid's ways and outlooks and habits. Iresented your saying it a minute ago, and yet it's true. I've knownfor years that it was true. It wouldn't be fair for me to marry anyman. So here it is, Rash. " Crossing the floor-space she held out thering again. "You might as well take it first as last. "

He drew back from her, his features screwed up like those of a tragicmask. "Do you mean it?"

"Do I seem to be making a joke?"

Averting his face, he swept the mere sight of the ring away from him. "I won't touch the thing. "

"And I can't keep it. So there!"

It fell with a little shivery sound to a bare spot on the floor, rolling to the edge of a rug, where it stopped. Each looked down atit. 

"So you mean to send me to the devil! All right! Just watch and you'llsee me go. "

She was walking away from him, but turned again. "If you mean by thatthat you put the responsibility for your abominable life on me----"

"Abominable life! Me! Just because I'm not one of the white-bloodedNancies which your aunt thinks the only ones fit to be calledmen----"

But he couldn't go on. He was choking. The sole relief to hisindignation was in once more tearing round the room, while MissWalbrook moved to the fluted white mantelpiece, where, with her footresting on the attenuated Hunt Diedrich andirons she bowed her headagainst an attenuated Hunt Diedrich antelope in bronze. 

She was not softened or repentant. She knew she would become so later;but she knew too that her tempers had to work themselves off bydegrees. Their quarrels having hitherto been rendered worth while bytheir reconciliations, she took it for granted that the same thingwould happen once more though, as she expressed it to herself, shewould have died before taking the first step. The obvious thing wasfor him to pick up the ring from off the floor, bring it to her humblywhile her back was turned on him, and beseech her to allow him to slipit on where it belonged; whereupon she would consider as to whethershe would do so or not. In her present frame of mind, so she toldherself, she would not. Nothing would induce her to do anything of thekind. He had betrayed the fact that he knew something as to which shewas desperately sensitive, which other people knew, but which she hadalways supposed to have escaped his observation--that she was like anold maid. 

She was. She was only twenty-five, but she had been like an old maidat fifteen. It had been a joke till she was twenty, after which it hadcontinued as a joke to her friends, but a grief to herself. She wasdistinguished, aristocratic, intellectual, accomplished, and AuntMarion would probably see to it that she was left tolerably well off;nevertheless she had picked up from her aunt, or perhaps had inheritedfrom the same source, the peculiar quality of the woman who wouldprobably not marry. Because she knew it and bewailed it, it had comelike a staggering blow to learn that Rash knew it, and perhapsbewailed it too. The least he could do to atone for that offense wouldbe to beg her, to implore her on his bended knees, to wear his ringagain; and she might not do it even then. 

The dramatic experience was worth waiting for, however, and so withspirit churning she leaned her hot brow against the thin, cool flankof Hunt Diedrich's antelope. She knew by the fierce grinding of hissteps on the far side of the room that he hadn't yet picked up thering; but there was no hurry as to that. Since she would never, neverforgive him for knowing what she thought he didn't know--forgive himin her heart, that was to say--not if she married him ten times over, or to the longest day he lived, there was plenty of time for reachingfriendly terms again. Her anger had not yet blown off, nor had shestabbed him hard enough. As with most people subject to storms of hottemper, stabs, given and received, were all in her day's work. Theyrelieved for the moment the pressure of emotion, leaving no permanentill-will behind them. 

She heard him come to a halt, but did not turn to look at him. 

"So it's all over!"

As a peg on which to hang a retort the words would serve as well asany others. "It seems so, doesn't it?"

"And you don't care whether I go to the devil or not?"

"What's the good of my caring when you seem determined to do itanyhow?"

He allowed a good minute to pass before saying, "Well, if you don'tmarry me some other woman will. "

"Very likely; and if you make her a promise to reform I hope you'llkeep your word. "

"She won't be likely to exact any such condition. "

"Then you'll probably be happier with her than you could have beenwith me. "

Having opened up the way for him to make some protest to which shecould have remained obdurate, she waited for it to come. But nothingdid come. Had she turned, she would have seen that he had grown white, that his hands were clenched and his lips compressed after a way hehad and that his wild, harum-scarum soul was worked up to anextraordinary intensity; but she didn't turn. She was waiting for himto pick up the ring, creep along behind her, and seize the handresting on the mantelpiece, according to the ritual she had mentallyforeordained. But without stooping or taking a step he spoke again. 

"I picked up a book at the club the other day. "

Not being interested, she made no response. 

"It was the life of an English writing-guy. "

Though wondering what he was working up to, she still held her peace. 

"Gissing, the fellow's name was. Ever hear of him?"

The question being direct, she murmured: "Yes; of course. What ofit?"

"Ever hear how he got married?"

"Not that I remember. "

"When something went wrong--I've forgotten what--he went out into thestreet with a vow. It was a vow to marry the first woman he met who'dmarry him. "

A shiver went through her. It was just such a foolhardy thing asRashleigh himself was likely to attempt. She was afraid. She wasafraid, and yet reangered just when her wrath was beginning to diedown. 

"And he did it!" he cried, with a force in which it was impossible forher not to catch a note of personal implication. 

It was unlikely that he could be trying to trap her by any such cheapmelodramatic threat as this; and yet----

When several minutes had gone by in a silence which struck her soon asawesome, she turned slowly round, only to find herself alone. 

She ran into the hall, but there was no one there. He must have gonedownstairs. Leaning over the baluster, she called to him. 

"Rash! Rash!"

But only Wildgoose, the manservant, answered from below. "Mr. Allertonhad just left the 'ouse, miss. "

Chapter II

While Allerton and Miss Walbrook had been conducting this debate adissimilar yet parallel scene was enacted in a mean house in a meanstreet on the other side of the Park. Viewed from the outside, thehouse was one of those survivals of more primitive times which youwill still run across in the richest as well as in the poorestdistricts of New York. A tiny wooden structure of two low stories, itconnected with the sidewalk by a flight of steps of a third of theheight of the whole façade. Flat-roofed and clap-boarded, it had oncebeen painted gray with white facings, but time, weather, and soot haddefaced these neat colors to a hideous pepper-and-salt. 

Within, a toy entry led directly to a toy stairway, and by a door onthe left into a toy living-room. In the toy living-room a man offorty-odd was saying to a girl of perhaps twenty-three, "So you'll not give it up, won't you?"

The girl cringed as the man stood over her, but pressing her hand oversomething she had slipped within the opening at the neck of her cheapshirtwaist, she maintained her ground. The face she raised to him wasat once terrified and determined, tremulous with tears and yet defiantwith some new exercise of will power. 

"No, I'll not give it up. "

"We'll see. "

He said it quietly enough, the menace being less in his tone than inhimself. He was so plainly the cheap sport bully that there could havebeen nothing but a menace in his personality. Flashy male good looksgot a kind of brilliancy from a set of big, strong teeth the whiterfor their contrast with a black, brigand-like mustache. He was so welldressed in his cheap sport way as to be out of keeping with thedilapidation of the room, in which there was hardly a table or a chairwhich stood firmly on its legs, or a curtain or a covering whichdidn't reek with dust and germs. A worn, thin carpet gaped in holes;what had once been a sofa stood against a wall, shockinglydisemboweled. Through a door ajar one glimpsed a toy kitchen where thestove had lost a leg and was now supported by a brick. It was plainthat the master of the house was one of those for whom any lair issufficient as a home as long as he can cut a dash outside. 

Quiveringly, as if in terror of a blow, the girl explained herselfbreathlessly: "The castin' director sent for me just as I was makin'tracks for home. He ast me if this was the on'y suit I had. When I'lowed it was, he just said he couldn't use me any more till I got anew one. "

The man took the tone of superior masculine knowledge. "That wasn'tnothin' but bull. What if he does chuck you? I know every movin'picture studio round N'York. I'll get you in somewheres else. Comenow, Letty. Fork out. I need the berries. I owe some one. I was onlywaitin' for you to come home. "

She clutched her breast more tightly. "I gotta have a new suitanyhow. "

"Well, I'll buy you a new suit when I get the bones. Didn't I give youthis one?"

She continued, still breathlessly: "Two years ago--a marked-downmisses' it was even then--all right if I was on'y sixteen--but nowwhen I'm near twenty-three--and it's in rags anyhow--and all out ofstyle--and in pitchers you've gotta be----"

"They'se plenty pitchers where they want that character--to pass in acrowd, and all that. "

"To pass in a crowd once or twice, yes; but when all you can do is topass in a crowd, and wear the same old rig every time you pass init----"

He cut her protests short by saying, with an air of finality: "Well, anyhow I've got to have the bucks. Can't go out till I get 'em. Sohand!"

With lips compressed and eyes swimming, she shook her head. 

"Better do it. You'll be sorry if you don't. I can pass you that tipstraight now. "

"If you was laughed at every time you stepped onto the lot----"

"There's worse things than bein' laughed at. I can tell you thatstraight now. "

"Nothin's worse than bein' laughed at, not for a girl of my age thereain't. "

Watching his opportunity he caught her off her guard. Her eyes havingwandered to the coat she had just taken off, a worn gray thing withedgings of worn gray squirrel fur, he wrenched back with an unexpectedmovement the hand that clutched something to her breast, thrust twofingers of his other hand within her corsage, and extracted herpay-envelope. 

It took her by such surprise that she was like a mad thing, throwingherself upon him and battling for her treasure, though any possibilityof her getting it back from him was hopeless. It was so easy for himto catch her by the wrists and twist them that he laughed while he wasdoing it. 

"You little cat! You see what you bring on yourself. And you're goin'to get worse. I can tell you that straight now. "

Still twisting her arms till she writhed, though without a moan or acry, he backed her toward the disemboweled sofa, on whose harsh, exposed springs she fell. Then he sprang on her a new surprise. 

"How dare you wear them rings? They was your mother's rings. I boughtand paid for 'em. They're mine. "

"Oh, don't take them off, " she begged. "You can keep the money----"

"Sure I can keep the money, " he grinned, wrenching from her fingersthe plain gold band he had given her mother as a wedding ring, as wellas another, bigger, broader, showier, and set with two infinitesimalwhite points claiming to be diamonds. 

Though he had released her hands, she now stretched them out towardhim pleadingly. "Aw, give 'em back to me. They'se all I've got in theworld to care about--just because she wore 'em. You can take anythingelse I've got----"

"All right, then. I'll take this. "

With a deftness which would have done credit to a professor oflegerdemain he unbuckled the strap of her little wrist-watch, puttingthe thing into his pocket. 

"I give that to your mother too. You don't need it, and it may beuseful to me. What else have you got?"

She struggled to her feet. He was growing more dangerous than she hadever known him to be even when he had beaten her. 

"I ain't got nothin' else. "

"Oh, yes, you have. You gotta purse. I seen you with it. Where isit?"

The fear in her eyes sent his toward her jacket, thrown on the chairwhen she had come in. With an "Ah!" of satisfaction he pounced on it. As he held it upside down and shook it, a little leather walletclattered to the floor. She sprang for it, but again he was too quickfor her. 

"So!" he snarled, with his glittering grin. "You thought you'd get it, did you?" He rattled the few coins, copper and silver, into the palmof his hand, and unfolded a one-dollar bill. "You must owe me thismoney. Who's give you bed and board for the last ten year, I'd like toknow? How much have you ever paid me?"

"Only all I ever earned--which you stole from me. "

"Stole from you, did I? Well, you won't fling that in my face anymore. " He handed her her coat. "Put that on, " he commanded. 

"What for?" She held it without obeying the order. "What's the good o'goin' out and me without a cent?"

"Put it on. "

Her lip quivered; she began to suspect his intention. "I do' wanta. "

"Oh, very well! Please yourself. You got your hat on already. "Seizing her by the shoulders he steered her toward the door. "Nowmarch. "

Though she refused to march, it was not difficult for him to forceher. 

"This'll teach you to valyer a good home when you got one. You'lldeserve to find the next one different. "

She almost shrieked: "You're not going to turn me out?"

"Well, what does it look as if I was doin'?"

"I won't go! I won't go! Where _can_ I go?"

"What I'm doin' 'll help you to find out. "

He had her now in the entry, where in spite of her struggles he had nodifficulty in unlocking the door, pushing her out, and relocking thedoor behind her. 

"Lemme in! Lemme in! Oh, _please_, lemme in!"

He stood in the middle of the living-room, listening with pleasure andsmiling his brigand's smile. He was not as bad as you might think. Hedid mean to let her in eventually. His smile and his pleasure sprangpurely from the fact that his lesson was so successful. With this inher mind, she wouldn't withstand him a second time. 

She rattled the door by the handle. She beat upon the panels. Sheimplored. 

Still smiling, he filled his pipe. Let her keep it up. It would do hergood. He remembered that once when he had turned her mother out atnight, she had sat on the steps till he let her in at dawn before thepolice looked round that way. History would repeat itself. Thedaughter would do the same. He was only giving her the lesson shedeserved. 

Meanwhile she was experiencing a new sensation, that of outrage. Forthe first time in her life she was swept by pride in revolt. Shehadn't known that any such emotion could get hold of her. As a matterof fact she hadn't known that so strong a support to the inner man laywithin the depths of human nature. Accustomed to being cowed, she hadhardly understood that there was any other way to feel. Only within aday or two had something which you or I would have called spirit, butfor which she had no name, disturbed her with unexpected flashes, likethose of summer lightning. 

While waiting for the camera, for instance, in the street scene in"The Man with the Emerald Eye, " a "fresh thing" had said, with a winkat her companions, "Say, did you copy that suit from a pattern in_Chic?_"

Letty had so carefully minded her own business and tried to be nice toevery one that the titter which went round at her expense hurt herwith a wound impelling her to reply, "No; I ordered it at Margot's. You look as if you got your things there too, don't you?"Nevertheless, she was so stung by the sarcasm that the commendationshe overheard later, that the Gravely kid had a tongue, didn't bringany consolation. 

Without knowing that what she felt now was an intensified form of thesame rebellion against scorn, she knew it was not consistent with someinborn sense of human dignity to stand there pleading to be let into ahouse from which she was locked out, even though it was the only spoton earth she could call home. Still less was it possible when, roundthe foot of the steps, a crowd began to gather, jeering at herpassionate beseechings. For the most part they were children, Slavic, Semitic, Italian. Amid their cries of, "Go it, Sis!" now in Englishand now in strange equivalents of Latin, or Polish, or even Hebraicorigin, she was suddenly arrested by the consciousness of personalhumiliation. 

She turned from the door to face the street. It was one of thosestreets not rare in New York which the civic authorities abandon indespair. A gash of children and refuse cut straight from river toPark, it got its chief movement from push-carts of fruit and otherfoods, while the "wash" of five hundred families blew its bannersoverhead. Vendors of all kinds uttered their nasal or raucous cries, in counterpoint to the treble screams of little boys and girls. 

Letty had always hated it, but it was something more than hatred whichshe felt for it now. Beyond the children adults were taking a restfrom the hawking profession to comment with grins on the sight of agirl locked out of her own home. She was probably a very bad girl tocall for that kind of treatment, and therefore one on whom they shouldspend some derision. 

They were spending it as she turned. It was an experience on a largescale of what the girl in the studio had inflicted. She was a thing tobe scorned, and of all the hardships in the world scorn, now that shewas aware of it, was the one she could least submit to. 

So pride came to her rescue. Throwing her coat across her arm she wentdown the steps, passed through the hooting children, one or two ofwhom pulled her by the skirt, passed through the bearded Jews, andthe bronzed Italians, and the flat-nosed Slavs, passed through thewomen who had come out on the sidewalk at this accentuation of thedaily din, passed through the barrows and handcarts and piles ofcabbages and fruit, and went her way. 

Chapter III

Exactly at this minute Rashleigh Allerton was standing outside MissWalbrook's door, glancing up and down Fifth Avenue and over at thePark. It was the hour after luncheon when pedestrians become numerous. For his purpose they could not be very numerous; they must bereasonably spaced apart. 

And already a veritable stream of women had begun to flow down thelong, gentle slope, while a few, like fish, were stemming the currentby making progress against it. None of them was his "affair. " Young, old, short, tall, blond, brunette, they were without exception of theclass indiscriminately lumped as ladies. Since you couldn't go to thedevil because you had married a lady, even on the wild hypothesis thatone of these sophisticated beings would without introduction orformality marry him, it would be better not to let himself in for theabsurdity of the proposal. When there was a break in the procession, he darted across the street and made his way into the Park. 

Here there was no one in sight as far as the path continued without abend. He was going altogether at a venture. Round the curve of thewoodland way there might swing at any second the sibyl who would pointhis life downward. 

He was aware, however, that in sibyls he had a preference. If she wasto send him to the devil, she must be of the type which he qualifiedas a "drab. " Without knowing the dictionary meaning of the word, hefelt that it implied whatever would contrast most revoltingly withBarbara Walbrook. Seeing with her own eyes to what she had driven him, her heart would be wrung. That was all he asked for, the wringing ofher heart. It might be a mad thing for him to punish himself soterribly just to punish her, but he was mad anyhow. Madness gave himthe satisfaction which some men got from thrift, and others fromcleverness. He would keep the vow with which he had slipped out ofMiss Walbrook's drawing room. It was all that life had left for him. 

That was, he wouldn't pick and choose. He would take them as theycame. He had not stipulated with himself that she must be a "drab. " Itwas only what he hoped. She must be the first woman he met who wouldmarry him. Age, appearance, refinement, vulgarity were not to beconsidered. Picking and choosing on his part would only take hisdestiny out of the hands of Fate, where he preferred that it shouldlie. 

Had any one passed him, he would have seemed the more perturbedbecause of his being so well-dressed. He was one of the few NewYorkers as careful of appearances as many Londoners. With the finishthat comes of studied selection in hat, stick, and gloves, as well asall small accessories of the costliest, he might have been going to orcoming from a wedding. 

He was imposing, therefore, to a short, stout, elderly woman with whomhe suddenly found himself face to face as the path took a sharp sweepto the south. The shrubs which had kept them hidden from each othergave place here to open stretches of lawn. When Allerton paused andlifted his hat, the woman naturally paused, too. 

She was a red-faced woman crowned with a bonnet of the styleintroduced by Mrs. Langtry in 1878, but worn on this occasion somedegrees off center. On her arm she carried a flat basket of which thecontents, decently covered with a towel, might have been freshlylaundered shirts. Being stopped by a gentleman of Allerton'simpressiveness and plainly suffering expression, her face grewmotherly and sympathetic. 

"Madam, I wish to ask if you'll marry me?"

Even a dull brain couldn't fail to catch words hammered out with thisforce of precision. The woman didn't wait to have them repeated. Dropping her basket as it was, she took to flight. Flight was theword. A modern Atalanta of Wellesley or Bryn Mawr might have enviedthe chamois leaps which took the good creature across the grass to theprotection of a man with a lawn-mower. 

Allerton couldn't pause to watch her, for a new sibyl was advancing. To his disgust rather than not, she was young and pretty, a nursemaidpushing a baby-cart into which a young man of two was strapped. Whilefar more likely to take him than the stout old party still skippingthe greensward like a mountain roe, she would be much less plausibleas a reason for going to the evil one. But a vow was a vow, and he wasin for it. 

His approach was the same as on the previous occasion. Lifting his hatceremoniously, he said with the same distinctness of utterance, "Madam, I wish to ask if you'll marry me?"

The girl, who had paused when he did, leaned on the pusher of hergo-cart, studying him calmly. Chewing something with a slow, rotarymovement of the lips and chin, she broke the action with a snap beforequite completing the circle, to begin all over again. "Oh, you do, doyou?" was her quiet response. 

"If you please. "

She studied him again, with the same semi-circular motion of the jaw. She might have been weighing his proposal. 

"Say, is this one of them club initiation stunts, or have you just gota noive?"

"Am I to take that as a yes or a no?"

"And am I to take you as one of them smart-Alecks, or a coily-headednut?"

He saw a way out. "I'm generally considered a curly-headed nut. "

"Then it's me for the exit-in-case-of-fire, so ta-ta. " She laughedback at him over her shoulder. "Wish you luck with your next. "

But fate was already on him in another form. A lady of fifty orthereabouts was coming up the path, refined, sedate, mistress ofherself, the one type of all others most difficult to accost. All thesame he must do it. He must keep on doing it till some one yielded tohis suit. The rebuffs to which he had been subjected did no more thaninflame his will. 

Approaching the new sibyl with the same ceremoniousness, he repeatedthe same words in the same precise tone. The lady stood off, eyed himmajestically through a lorgnette, and spoke with a force which camefrom quietude. 

"I know who you are. You're Rashleigh Allerton. You ought to beashamed with a shame that would strike you to the ground. I'm a friendof Miss Marion Walbrook's. I'm on my way to see her and shall _not_mention this encounter. We work on the same committee of the Leaguefor the Suppression of Men's Clubs. The lamentable state in which Isee you convinces me once more of the need of our work, if our men areto become as we hope to see them. I bid you a good afternoon. "

With the dignity of a queen she passed on and out of sight, leavinghim with the sting of a whiplash on his face. 

But the name of Miss Walbrook, connected with that of the League whichwas her pet enthusiasm for the public weal, only served as anincitement. He would go through with it now at any cost. By nightfallhe would be at police-headquarters for insulting women, or he wouldhave found a bride. 

Walking on again, the path was clear before him as far as he couldsee. Having thus a few minutes to reflect, he came to the conclusionthat his attacks had been too precipitate. He should feel the groundbefore him, leading the sibyl a little at a time, so as to have hermentally prepared. There were methods of "getting acquainted" to whichhe should apply himself first of all. 

But getting acquainted with the old Italian peasant woman, bowedbeneath a bundle, who was the next he would have to confront, beingout of the question, he resolved to side-step destiny by slipping outof the main path and following a branch one. Doing so, he came intoless frequented regions, while his steps took him up a low hillburnished with the tints of mid-October. Trees and shrubs wereflame-colored, copper-colored, wine-colored, differing only in theirdiffuseness of hue from the concentrated gorgeousness of amaranth, canna, and gladiolus. The sounds of the city were deadened here to adull rumble, while the vibrancy of the autumn afternoon excited histaut nerves. 

At the top of the hill he paused. There was no one in sight who couldpossibly respond to his quest. He wondered for a second if this werenot a hint to him to abandon it. But doing that he would abandon hisrevenge, and by abandoning his revenge he would concede everything tothis girl who had so bitterly wronged him. Ever since he couldremember they had been pals, and for at least ten years he had vaguelythought of asking her to marry him when it came to his seeking a wife. It was true, the hint she had thrown out, that he had felt himself inno great need of a wife till his mother had died some eighteen monthspreviously, and he had found himself with a cumbrous old establishmenton his hands. That had given the decisive turn to his suit. He hadasked her. She had taken him. And since then, in the course of lessthan ten weeks, if they had had three quarrels they had had thirty. Hehad taken them all more or less good-naturedly--till to-day. To-daywas too much. He could hardly say why it was too much, unless it wasas the last straw, but he felt it essential to his honor to show herby actual demonstration the ruin she had made of him. 

Looking about him for another possibility, he noticed that at the spotwhere the path, having serpentined down the little hillside, rejoinedthe main footway there was a bench so placed that its occupant wouldhave a view along several avenues at once. Since it was obviously avantage point for such strategy as his, he had taken the first stepsdown toward it when a little gray figure emerged from behind a groupof blue Norway spruces. She went dejectedly to the bench, sitting downat an extreme end of it. 

Wrought up to a fit of tension far from rare with him, Allerton stoodwith his nails digging into his clenched palms and his thin lipspressed together. He was sure he was looking at a "drab. " All theshoddy, outcast meanings he had read into the word were under thebedraggled feathers of this battered black hat or compressed withinthe forlorn squirrel-trimmed gray suit. The dragging movement, thehint of dropping on the seat not from fatigue but from desperation, completed the picture his imagination had already painted of someworld-worn, knocked-about creature who had come to the point at which, in his own phrase, she was "all in. "

As far as this described Letty Gravely, he was wrong. She was not "allin. " She was never more mentally alert than at that very minute. Ifshe moved slowly, if she sank on the seat as if too beaten down byevents to do more, it was because her mind was so intensely centeredon her immediate problems. 

She had, in fact, just formed a great resolution. Whatever became ofher, she would never go back to Judson Flack, her stepfather. This hadnot been clearly in her mind when she had gone down his steps andwalked away, but the occasion presented itself now as one to beseized. In seizing it, however, the alternatives were difficult. Shewas without a cent, a shelter, a job, a friend, or the prospect of ameal. It was probable that there was not at that minute in New York ahuman being so destitute. Before nightfall she would have to find somenominal motive for living or be arrested as a vagrant. 

She was not appalled. For the first time in her life she wasrelatively free from fear. Even with nothing but her person as shestood, she was her own mistress. No big dread hung over her--that is, no big dread of the kind represented by Judson Flack. She might jumpinto the river or go to the bad, but in either case she would do it ofher own free will. Merely to have the exercise of her own free willgave her the kind of physical relief which a human being gets fromstretching limbs cramped and crippled by chains. 

Besides, there was in her situation an underlying possibility ofadventure. This she didn't phrase, since she didn't understand it. Sheonly had the intuition in her heart that where "the world is allbefore you, where to choose your place of rest, and Providence yourguide, " Providence _becomes_ your guide. Verbally she put it merely inthe words, "Things happen, " though as to what could happen betweenhalf-past three in the afternoon and midnight, when she would possiblybe in jail, she could not begin to imagine. 

So absorbed was she in this momentous uncertainty that she scarcelynoticed that some one had seated himself at the other end of thebench. It was a public place; it was likely that some one would. Shefelt neither curiosity nor resentment. A lack of certain of thefeminine instincts, or their retarded development, left her withoutinterest in the fact that the newcomer was a man. From the slightglance she had given him when she heard his step, she judged him to bewhat she estimated as an elderly man, quite far into the thirties. 

She went back to her own thoughts which were practical. There werecertain measures which she could take at once, after which there wouldbe no return. Once more she was not appalled. She had lived too nearthe taking of these steps to be shocked by them. Everything in life isa question of relativity, and in the world which her mother hadentered on marrying Judson Flack the men were all so near the edge ofthe line which separates the criminal from the non-criminal that itseemed a natural thing when they crossed it, while the women. .. . 

But as her thoughts were dealing with this social problem in itsbearing on herself, her neighbor spoke. 

"Funny to watch those kids playing with the pup, isn't it?"

She admitted that it was, that watching children and young animals wasa favorite sport with her. She answered simply, because beingaddressed by strange men with whom she found herself in proximity wassanctioned by the etiquette of her society. To resent it would beputting on airs, besides which it would cut off social intercoursebetween the sexes. It had happened to her many a time to have engagingconversations with chance young men beside her in the subway, neverseeing them before or afterward. 

So Allerton found getting acquainted easier than he had expected. Theetiquette of _his_ society not sanctioning this directness of responseon her part, he drew the conclusion that she was accustomed to"meeting fellows halfway. " As this was the sort of person he waslooking for, he found in the freedom nothing to complain of. 

With the openness of her social type she gave details of her biographywithout needing to be pressed. 

"You're a New York girl?"

"I am now. I didn't use to be. "

"What were you to begin with?"

"Momma brought me from Canada after my father died. That's why I ain'tgot no friends here. "

At this appeal for sympathy his glance stole suspiciously toward her, finding his first conjectures somewhat but not altogether verified. She was young apparently, and possibly pretty, though as to neitherpoint did he care. He would have preferred more "past, " more"mystery, " more "drama, " but since you couldn't have everything, ayoung person utterly unfit to be his wife would have to be enough. Hecontinued to draw out her story, not because he cared anything abouthearing it, but in order to spring his question finally without makingher think him more unbalanced than he was. 

"Your father was a Canadian?"

"Yes; a farmer. Momma used to say she was about as good to work a farmas a cat to run a fire-engine. When he died, she sold out for fourthousand dollars and come to New York. "

"To work?"

"No, to have a good time. She'd never had a good time, momma hadn't, and she was awful pretty. So she said she'd just blow herself to itwhile she had the berries in her basket. That was how she met JudsonFlack. I suppose you know who he is. Everybody does. "

"I'm afraid I haven't the pleasure. "

"Oh, I don't know as you'd find it any big pleasure. Momma didn't, notafter she'd give him a try. "

"Who and what is he?"

"He calls hisself a man about town. I call him a bum. Poor mommamarried him. "

"And wasn't happy, I suppose. "

"Not after he'd spent her wad, she wasn't. She was crazy about him, and when she found out that all he'd cared about was her four thousandplunks--well, it was her finish. "

"How long ago was that?"

"About four years now. "

"And what have you been doing in the meanwhile?"

"Keepin' house for Judson Flack most of the time--till I quit. "

"Oh, you've quit?"

"Sure I've quit. " She was putting her better foot forward. "Now I'm inpitchers. "

He glanced at her again, having noticed already that she scarcelyglanced at him. Her profile was toward him as at first, an irregularlittle profile of lifts and tilts, which might be appealing, but wasnot beautiful. The boast of being in pictures, so incongruous withher woefully dilapidated air, did not amuse him. He knew how large aplace a nominal connection with the stage took in the lives of certainladies. Even this poor little tramp didn't hesitate to make theclaim. 

"And you're doing well?"

She wouldn't show the white feather. "Oh, so so! I--I get along. "

"You live by yourself?"

"I--I do now. "

"Don't you find it lonely?"

"Not so lonely as livin' with Judson Flack. "

"You're--you're happy?"

A faint implication that she might look to him for help stirred herfierce independence. "Gee, yes! I'm--I'm doin' swell. "

"But you wouldn't mind a change, I suppose?"

For the first time her eyes stole toward him, not in suspicion, andstill less in alarm, but in one of the intenser shades of curiosity. It was almost as if he was going to suggest to her something "off thelevel" but which would nevertheless be worth her while. She was usedto these procedures, not in actual experience but from hearing themtalked about. They made up a large part of what Judson Flackunderstood as "business. " She felt it prudent to be as non-committalas possible. 

"I ain't so sure. "

She meant him to understand that being tolerably satisfied with herown way of life, she was not enthusiastic over new experiments. 

His next observation was no surprise to her. "I'm a lawyer. "

She was sure of that. There were always lawyers in these subterraneanaffairs--"shyster" was a word she had heard applied to them--and thisman looked the part. His thin face, clear-cut profile, and skin whichshowed dark where he shaved, were all, in her judgment, signs of thesinister. Even his clothes, from his patent leather shoes with spatsto his dark blue necktie with a pearl in it, were those which an actorwould wear in pictures to represent a "shark. "

She was turning these thoughts over in her mind when he spoke again. 

"I've an office, but I don't practise much. It takes all my time tomanage my own estate. "

She didn't know what this meant. It sounded like farming, but youdidn't farm in New York, or do it from an office anyhow. "I guess he'sone of them gold-brick nuts, " she commented to herself, "but he won'tput nothin' over on me. "

In return for her biography he continued to give his, bringing out hisfacts in short, hard statements which seemed to hurt him. It was thishurting him which she found most difficult to reconcile with her goldbrick theory and the suspicion that he was a "shark. "

"My father was a lawyer, too. Rather well known in his day. One timeambassador to Vienna. "

Ambassador to Vienna! She didn't know where Vienna was or the natureof an ambassador, but she did know that it sounded grand, so shelooked at him attentively. It was either more gold brick or else. .. . 

Then something struck her--"smote her" would be perhaps the moreaccurately descriptive word, since the effect was on her heart. Thisman was sick. He was suffering. She had often seen women suffer, butmen rarely, and this was one of the rare instances. Something in herwas touched. She couldn't imagine why he talked to her or what hewanted of her, but a pity which had never yet been called upon wasastir among her emotions. 

As for the minute he said no more, her next words came out onlybecause she supposed them to betray the kindly interest of which hewas in need. 

"Then I suppose he left you _a_ big fat wad. "

"Yes; but it doesn't do me any good. I mean, it doesn't make mehappy--when I'm not. "

"I guess it'd make you a good deal less happy if you didn't have it. "

"Perhaps so; I don't think about it either way. " He added, after tensecompression of the lips; "I'm all alone in the world--like you. "

She was sure now that something was coming, though of what nature laybeyond her speculative power. She wondered if he could have fallen inlove with her at first sight, realizing a favorite dream she often hadin the subway. Hundreds of times she had beguiled the minutes byselecting one or another of the wealthy lawyers and bankers, whom shesupposed to be her fellow-travelers there, seeing him smitten by aglance at her, following her when she got out, and laying his heartand coronet at her feet before she had run up the steps. If this manwere not a shyster lawyer or a gold brick nut, he might possibly bedoing that. 

"It's about a girl, " he burst out suddenly. "Half an hour ago shekicked me out. "

"Did she know you had all that dough?"

"Yes, she knew I had all that dough. But she said that since I wasgoing to the devil, I had better go. " He drew a long breath. "Well, I'm going--perhaps quicker than she thinks. "

"Will you do yourself any good by that?"

"No, but I'll do her harm. "

"How?"

"I'll show her what she's made of me. "

"She can't make anything of you in half an hour or in half a year--notso long as you've got your wad back of you. If you was to be kickedout with your pay-envelope stole, and your mother's rings pulled offyour fingers, and her wrist-watch from your wrist, and even yourcarfare----"

"Is that what's happened to you?"

"Sure! Half an hour ago, too. Judson Flack! But why should I worry?Something'll happen before night. "

He became emphatic. "Yes, and I'll tell you what it will be. You putyour finger on it just now when you said she couldn't make anythingout of men in half an hour. Well, it's got to be something that wouldtake just that time--an hour at the most--_and fatal_. Now do yousee?"

She shook her head. 

He swung fully round on her from his end of the bench. "Think, " hecommanded. 

As if with a premonitory notion of what he meant, she answered coldly:"What's the good o' me thinkin'? I've got nothin' to do with it. "

"You might have. "

"I can't imagine what, unless it'd be----" Realizing what she had beenabout to say, she broke off in confusion, coloring to the eyes. 

He nodded. "I see you understand. I want you to come off somewhere andmarry me. "

She took it more calmly than if she hadn't thought him mad. "But--butyou said you'd be--be goin' to the devil. "

"Well?"

His look, his tone, conveyed the idea, which penetrated to her mindbut slowly. When it did, the surging color became a flush, hot andpainful. 

So here it was again, the thing she had been running away from. It hadoutwitted and outrun her, meeting her again just at the instant whenshe thought she was shaking it off. She was so indignant with the_thing_ that she almost overlooked the man. She too swung round fromher end of the bench, so that they confronted each other, with thelength of the seat between them. It was her habit to put thingsplainly, though now she did it with a burning heart. 

"This is the way you mean it, isn't it?--you'd go to the devil becauseyou'd married _me_. "

The half-minute before he answered was occupied not merely in thinkingwhat to say but in noticing, now that he had her in full-face, thather large, brown irises seemed to be sprinkled with gold dust. Otherwise her appearance struck him simply as blurred, as if it hadbeen brightly enough drawn as to color and line, only rubbed over anddefaced by the hand of misery. 

"I don't want you to get me wrong, " he explained. "It's not a questionof my marrying you in particular. I've said I'd marry the first girl Imet who'd marry me. "

The gold-brown eyes scintillated with a thousand tiny stars. "Say, andam I the first?"

"No; you're the fourth. " He added, so that she should be under nomisconception as to what he was about: "You can take me or leave me. That's up to you. But if you take me, I want you to understand thatit'll be on a purely business basis. "

She repeated, as if to memorize the words, "A purely business basis. "

"Exactly. I'm not looking for a wife. I only want a woman to marry--awoman to whom I can point and say, See there! I've married--that. "

"And _that'd_ be me. "

"If you undertook the job. "

"The job of--of bein' laughed at--jeered at----"

"I'd be the one who'd be laughed at and jeered at. Nobody would thinkanything about you. They wouldn't remember how you looked or know yourname. If you got sick of it after a bit, and decided to cut and run, you could do it. I'd see that you were well treated--for the rest ofyour life. "

She studied him long and earnestly. "Say, are _you_ crazy?"

"I'm all on edge, if that's what you mean. But there's nothing for youto be afraid of. I shan't do you any harm at any time. "

"You only want to do harm to yourself. I'd be like the awful kind o'pill which a fellow'll swaller to commit suicide. " She rose, notwithout a dignity of her own. "Well, mister, if I'm your fourth, Iguess you'll have to look about you for a fifth. "

"Where are you going?"

He asked the question without rising. She answered as if her choice ofobjectives was large. 

"Oh, anywheres. "

"Which means nowhere, doesn't it?"

"Oh, not exactly. It means--it means--the first place I fetch up. "

"The first place you fetch up may be the police-station, if the thingsyou said just now are true. "

"The police-station is safe, anyways. "

"And you think the place I'd take you to wouldn't be. Well, you'rewrong. It'll be as safe as a church for as long as you like to stay;and when you want to go--lots of money to go with. "

Facing away from him toward the city, she said over her shoulder:"There's things money couldn't pay you for. Bein' looked down on isone. "

She was about to walk on, but he sprang after her, catching her by thesleeve. 

"Look here! Be a sport. You've got the chance of your lifetime. It'llmean no more to you than a part they'd give you in pictures--just arôle--and pay you a lot better. "

She was not blind to the advantages he laid before her. True, it mightbe what she qualified as "bull" to get her into a trap; only shedidn't believe it. This man with the sick mind and anguished face wasnone of the soft-spoken fiends whose business it is to ensnare younggirls. She knew all about them from living with Judson Flack, andcouldn't be mistaken. This fellow might be crazy, but he was what hesaid. If he said he wouldn't do her any harm, he wouldn't. If he saidhe would pay her well, he would. The main question was as to whetheror not, just for the sake of getting something to eat and a place tosleep, she could deliberately put herself in a position in which theman who had married her would have gone to the devil _because_ he hadmarried her. 

As he held her by the sleeve looking down at her, and she, halfturned, was looking up at him, this was the battle she was fighting. Hitherto her impulse had been to run away from the scorn of herinferiority; now she was asking herself what would happen if she tookup its challenge and fought it on its own ground. What if I do? wasthe way the question framed itself, but aloud she made it. 

"If I said I would, what would happen first?"

"We'd go and get a license. Then we'd find a minister. After that Ishould give you something to eat, and then I'd take you home. "

"Where would that be?"

He gave her his address in East Sixty-seventh Street, only a few doorsfrom Fifth Avenue, but her social sophistication was not up to thepoint of seeing the significance of this. Neither did her imaginationtry to picture the home or to see it otherwise than as an alternativeto the police-station, or worse, as a lodging for the night. 

"And what would happen to me when I got to your home?"

"You'd have your own room. I shouldn't interfere with you. You'dhardly ever see me. You could stay as long as you liked or as short asyou liked, after the first week or two. "

There was that about him which carried conviction. She believed him. As an alternative to having nowhere to go, what he offered her wassomething, and something with that spice of adventure of which she hadbeen dreaming only a few minutes earlier. She couldn't be worse offthan she was now, and if it gave her the chance of a hand-to-handtussle with the world-pride which had never done anything but lookdown on her, she would be fighting what she held as her worst enemy. She braced herself to say, "All right; I'll do it. "

He, too, braced himself. "Very well! Let's start. "

The impetuosity of his motion almost took her breath away as she triedto keep pace with him. 

"By the way, what's your name?" he asked, before they reached FifthAvenue. 

She told him, but was too overwhelmed with what she had undertaken todare to ask him his. 

Chapter IV

"Nao!"

The strong cockney negative was also an exclamation. It came from Mrs. Courage, the cook-housekeeper, who stood near the kitchen range makingthe coffee for breakfast. She was a woman who looked her name, bornnot merely to do battle, but to enjoy being in the midst of it. 

Jane, the waitress, was the next to speak. "Nettie Duckett, you oughtto be ashymed to sye them words, you that's been taught to 'ope thebest of everyone. "

Jane had fluttered in from the pantry with the covered dish for thetoast. Jane still fluttered at her work, as she had done for the pastthirty years. The late Mrs. Allerton had liked her about the tablebecause she was swift, deft, and moved lightly. A thin little woman, with a profile resembling that of Punch's Judy, and a smile ofcheerful piety, she yielded to time only by a process of drying up. 

Nettie Duckett was quick in her own defense, but breathless, too, fromgirlish laughter. "I can't 'elp syin' what I see, now can I? There shewas 'arf dressed in the little back spare-room. Oh, the commonestthing! You wouldn't 'a wanted to sweep 'er out with a broom. "

"Pretty goin's on I must sye, " Jane commented. "'Ope the best ofeveryone I will, but when you think that we was all on the topfloor----"

"Pretty goin's off there'll be, I can tell you that, " Mrs. Couragedeclared in her rich, decided bass. "Just let me 'ave a word withMaster Rashleigh. I'll tell 'im what 'is ma would 'ave said. She left'im to me, she did. 'Courage, ' she's told me many a time, 'that boy'llbe your boy after I'm gone. ' As good as mykin' a will, I call it. Andnow to think that with us right 'ere in the 'ouse. .. . Where's Steptoe?Do 'e know anything about it?"

"Do 'e know anything about what?" The question came from Steptoehimself, who appeared on the threshold. 

The three women maintained a dramatic silence, while the oldbutler-valet looked from one to another. 

"Seems as if there was news, " he observed dryly. 

"Tell 'im, Nettie, " Mrs. Courage commanded. 

Nettie was the young thing of the establishment, Mrs. Courage's ownniece, brought from England when the housemaid's place fell vacant onBessie's unexpected marriage to Walter Wildgoose, Miss Walbrook'sindoor man. Indeed she had been brought from England before Bessie'smarriage, of which Mrs. Courage had had advance information, so thatas soon as Bessie left, Nettie was on the spot to be smuggled into theAllerton household. Steptoe had not forgiven this underhand movementon Mrs. Courage's part, seeing that in the long-ago both she and Janehad been his own nominees, and that he considered the household postsas gifts at his disposal. "I'll 'ave to make a clean sweep o' the loto' them, " he had more than once declared at those gatherings at whichthe English butlers and valets of upper Fifth Avenue discuss theircomplex of interests. Forty years in the Allerton family had made himnot merely its major-domo but in certain respects its head. His tonetoward Nettie was that of authority with a note of disapprobation. 

"Speak, girl, and do it without giggling. What 'ave you to tell?"

Though she couldn't do it without giggling Nettie repeated the storyshe had given to her aunt and Jane. She had gone into the small singleback bedroom on the floor below Mr. Allerton's, and there was ahalf-dressed girl 'a-puttin' up of 'er 'air. ' According to her ownstatement Nettie had passed away on the spot, being able, however, toarticulate the question, "What are you a'doin' of 'ere?" To this theyoung woman had replied that Mr. Allerton had brought her in on theprevious evening, telling her to sleep there, and there she had slept. Nettie's information could go no further, but it was considered to gofar enough. 

"So what do you sye to _that_?" Mrs. Courage demanded of Steptoe; "youthat's always so ready to defend my young lord?"

Steptoe was prepared to stand back to back with his employer. "I don'tdefend 'im. I'm not called on to defend 'im. It's Mr. Rashleigh's'ouse. Any guest of 'is must be your guest and mine. "

"And what about Miss Walbrook, 'er that's to be missus 'ere in thecourse of a few weeks?"

Steptoe colored, frostily. "She's not missus 'ere yet; and if she evercomes, there'll be stormy weather for all of us. New missuses don'tgenerally get on with old servants like us--that's been in the familyfor so many years--but when they don't, it ain't them as getsnotice. "

A bell rang sharply. Steptoe sprang to attention. 

"There's Mr. Rashleigh now. Don't you women go to mykin' a to-do. There's lots o' troubles that 'ud never 'ave 'appened if women 'adbeen able to 'old their tongues. "

"But I suppose, Steptoe, you don't deny that there's such a thing asright. "

"I don't deny that there's such a thing as right, Mrs. Courage, but Ionly wonder if you knows more about it than the rest of us. "

In Allerton's room Steptoe found the young master of the house halfdressed. Standing before a mirror, he was brushing his hair. His faceand eyes, the reflection of which Steptoe caught in the glass, werelike those of a man on the edge of going insane. 

The old valet entered according to his daily habit and withoutbetraying the knowledge of anything unusual. All the same his heartwas sinking, as old hearts sink when beloved young ones are introuble. The boy was his darling. He had been with his father for tenyears before the lad was born, and had watched his growth with a morethan paternal devotion. "'E's all I 'ave, " he often said to himself, and had been known to let out the fact in the afore-mentioned group ofEnglish upper servants, a small but exclusive circle in the multiplexlife of New York. 

In Steptoe's opinion Master Rash had never had a chance. Born manyyears after his parents had lived together childlessly, he had comeinto the world constitutionally neurasthenic. Steptoe had never knowna boy who needed more to be nursed along and coaxed along byaffection, and now and then by indulgence. Instead, the system ofseverity had been applied with results little short of calamitous. Hehad been sent to schools famous for religion and discipline, fromwhich he reacted in the first weeks of freedom in college, gettinginto dire academic scrapes. Further severity had led to furtherscrapes, and further scrapes to something like disgrace, when the warbroke out and a Red Cross job had kept him from going to the bad. Themother had been a self-willed and selfish woman, claiming more fromher son than she ever gave him, and never perceiving that his was anature requiring a peculiar kind of care. After her death Steptoe hadprayed for a kind, sweet wife to come to the boy's rescue, and theanswer had been Miss Barbara Walbrook. 

When the engagement was announced, Steptoe had given up hope. Of MissWalbrook as a woman he had nothing to complain. Walter Wildgoosereported her a noble creature, splendid, generous, magnificent, onlyneeding a strong hand. She was of the type not to be served but to bemastered. Rashleigh Allerton would goad her to frenzy, and she woulddo the same by him. She was already doing it. For weeks past Steptoecould see it plainly enough, and what would happen after they weremarried God alone knew. For himself he saw no future but to hang onafter the wedding as long as the new mistress of the house would allowhim, take his dismissal as an inevitable thing, and sneak away anddie. 

It was part of Steptoe's training not to notice anything till hisattention was called to it. So having said his "Good-morning, sir, " hewent to the closet, took down the hanger with the coat and waistcoatbelonging to the suit of which he saw that Allerton had put on thetrousers, and waited till the young man was ready for hisministrations. 

Allerton was still brushing his hair, as he said over his shoulder:"There's a young woman in the house, Steptoe. Been here all night. "

"Yes, sir; I know--in the little back spare-room. "

"Who told you?"

"Nettie went in for a pincushion, Mr. Rash, and the young woman wasa-doin' of 'er 'air. "

"What did Nettie say?"

"It ain't what Nettie says, sir, if I may myke so bold. It's what Mrs. Courage and Jane says. "

"Tell Mrs. Courage and Jane they needn't be alarmed. The young womanis--" Steptoe caught the spasm which contracted the boy's face--"theyoung woman is--my wife. "

"Quite so, sir. "

If Allerton went no further, Steptoe could go no further; but inwardlyhe was like a man reprieved at the last minute, and against all hope, from sentence of death. "Then it won't be '_er_, " was all he could sayto himself, "'er" being Barbara Walbrook. Whatever calamity hadhappened, that calamity at least would be escaped, which was so muchto the good. 

His arms trembled so that he could hardly hold up the waistcoat forAllerton to slip it on. But he didn't slip it on. Instead he wheeledround from the mirror, threw the brushes with a crash to the toilettable, and cried with a rage all the more raging for being impotent:

"Steptoe, I've been every kind of fool. "

"Yes, sir, I expect so. "

"You've got to get me out of it, Steptoe. You must find a way to saveme. "

"I'll do my best, sir. " The joy of cooperation with the lad almostmade up for the anguish at his anguish. "What 'ud it be--you mustexcuse me, Mr. Rash--but what 'ud it be that you'd like me to save youfrom?"

Allerton threw out his arms. "From this crazy marriage. This frightfulmix-up. I went right off the handle yesterday. I was an infernalidiot. And now I'm in for it. Something's got to be done, Steptoe, andI can't think of any one but you to do it. "

"Quite so, sir. Will you 'ave your wystcoat on now, sir? You're readyfor it, I see. I'll think it over, Mr. Rash, and let you know. "

While first the waistcoat and then the coat were extended and slippedover the shoulders, Allerton did his best to put Steptoe in possessionof the mad facts of the previous day. Though the account he gave wasincoherent, the old man understood enough. 

"It wasn't her fault, you must understand, " Allerton explainedfurther, as Steptoe brushed his hat. "She didn't want to. I persuadedher. I wanted to do something that would wring Miss Walbrook'sheart--and I've done it! Wrung my own, too! What's to become of me, Steptoe? Is the best thing I can do to shoot myself? Think it over. I'm ready to. I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a relief to get out ofthis rotten life. I'm all on edge. I could jump out of that window aseasily as not. But it wasn't the girl's fault. She's a poor littlewaif of a thing. You must look after her and keep me from seeing heragain, but she's not bad--only--only--Oh, my God! my God!"

He covered his face with his hands and rocked himself about, so thatSteptoe was obliged to go on brushing till his master calmed himself. 

"Do you think, sir, " he said then, "that this is the 'at to go withthis 'ere suit? I think as the brown one would be a lot chicker--tonein with the sort of fawn stripe in the blue like, and ketch the notein your tie. " He added, while diving into the closet in search of thebrown hat and bringing it out, "There's one thing I could say rightnow, Mr. Rash, and I think it might 'elp. "

"What is it?"

"Do you remember the time when you 'urt your leg 'unting down in LongIsland?"

"Yes; what about it?"

"You was all for not payin' it no attention and for 'oppin' about asif you 'adn't 'urt it at all. A terr'ble fuss you myde when the doctorsaid as you was to keep still. Anybody 'ud 'ave thought 'e'd bordereda hamputation. And yet it was keepin' still what got you out o' thetrouble, now wasn't it?"

"Well?"

"Well, now you're in a worse trouble still it might do the syme again. I'm a great believer in keepin' still, I am. "

Allerton was off again. "How in thunder am I to keep still when----?"

"I'll tell you one wye, sir. Don't talk. Don't _do_ nothink. Don'tbeat your 'ead against the wall. Be quiet. Tyke it natural. You'vedone this thing. Well, you 'aven't committed a murder. You 'aven'teven done a wrong to the young lydy to whom you was engyged. By what Iunderstand she'd jilted you, and you was free to marry any one youtook a mind to. "

"Nominally, perhaps, but----"

"If you're nominally free, sir, you're free, by what I can understand;and if you've gone and done a foolish thing it ain't no one's businessbut your own. "

"Yes, but I can't stand it!"

"O' course you can't stand it, sir, but it's because you can't standit that I'm arskin' of you to keep just as quiet as you can. Mistykesin our life is often like the twists we'll give to our bodies. They'llache most awful, but let nyture alone and she'll tyke care of 'em. It's jest so with our mistykes. Let life alone and she'll put 'emstryght for us, nine times out o' ten, better than we can do it byworkin' up into a wax. "

Calmed to some extent Allerton went off to the club for breakfast, being unable to face this meal at home. Steptoe tidied up the room. Hewas troubled and yet relieved. It was a desperate case, but he hadalways found that in desperate cases desperate remedies were close athand. 

Chapter V

"See that the poor thing gets some breakfast, " had been Allerton'sparting command, and having finished the room, Steptoe went down theflight of stairs to carry out this injunction. 

He was on the third step from the landing when the door of the backroom opened, and a little, gray figure, hatted and jacketed, crept outstealthily. She was plainly ready for the street, an intentionunderstood by Beppo, the late Mrs. Allerton's red cocker spaniel, whowas capering about her in the hope of sharing the promenade. 

As Steptoe came to a halt, the girl ran toward him. 

"Oh, mister, I gotta get out of this swell dump. Show me the way, forGod's sake!"

To say that Steptoe was thinking rapidly would be to describe hismental processes incorrectly. He never thought; he receivedilluminations. Some such enlightenment came to him now, inducing himto say, ceremoniously, "Madam can't go without 'er breakfast. "

"I don't want any breakfast, " she protested, breathlessly. "All I wantis to get away. I'm frightened. "

"I assure madam that there's nothink to be afryde of in this 'ouse. Mr. Allerton is the most honorable--" he pronounced the initial_h_--"young man that hever was born. I valeted 'is father before 'imand know that 'e wouldn't 'urt a fly. If madam'll trust me--Besides, Mr. Allerton left word with me as you was to be sure to 'ave yourbreakfast, and I shouldn't know how to fyce 'im if 'e was to know thatyou'd gone awye without so much as a hegg. "

She wrung her hands. "I don't want to see him. I couldn't. "

"Madam won't see 'im. 'E's gone for the dye. 'E don't so often heat at'ome--'ardly never. "

Of the courses before her Letty saw that yielding was the easiest. Besides, it would give her her breakfast, which was a consideration. Though she had nominally dined on the previous evening, she had notbeen able to eat; she had been too terrified. Never would she forgetthe things that had happened after she had given her consent in thePark. 

Not that outwardly they had been otherwise than commonplace. It wasgoing through them at all! The man was as nearly "off his chump"--theexpression was hers--as a human being could be without laying himselfopen to arrest. After calling the taxi in Fifth Avenue he had walkedup and down, compelling her to walk by his side, for a good fifteenminutes before making her get in and springing in beside her. At thehouse opposite he had stared and stared, as if hoping that some onewould look out. During the drive to the place where they got thelicense, and later to the minister's house, he spoke not a word. Inthe restaurant to which he took her afterward, the most glorious placeshe had ever been in, he ordered a feast suited to a queen, but shecould hardly do more than taste it. She felt that the waiter waslooking at them strangely, and she didn't know the uses of the knivesand forks. The man she had married offered her no help, neitherspeaking to her nor giving her a glance. He himself ate but little, lost in some mental maze to which she had no clue. 

After dinner he had proposed the theatre, but she had refused. Shecouldn't go anywhere else with him. Wherever they moved, a thousandeyes were turned in amazement at the extraordinary pair. He sawnothing, but she was alive to it all--more conscious of her hat andsuit than even in the street scene in "The Man with the Emerald Eye. "Once and for all she became aware that the first standard for humanvaluation is in clothes. 

In the end they had got into another taxi, to be driven round andround the Park and out along the river bank, till he decided that theymight go home. During all this time he hardly noticed her. Once heasked her if she was warm enough, and once if she would like to getout and take a walk along the parapet above the river, but otherwisehe was withdrawn into a world which he kept shut and locked againsther. That left her alone. She had never felt so much alone in herlife, not even in the days which followed her mother's death. It wasas if she had been snatched away from everything with which she wasfamiliar, to find herself stranded in a country of fantastic dreams. 

Then there was the house and the little back room. By the use of hislatchkey they had entered a palace huge and dark. Letty didn't knowthat people lived with so much space around them. Only a hall lightburned in a many-colored oriental lamp, and in the half-gloom therooms on each side of the entry were cavernous. There was not aservant, not a sound. The only living thing was a little dog whichpattered out of the obscurity and, raising his paws against her skirt, adopted her instantaneously. 

"He was my mother's dog, " Allerton explained briefly. "He likes women, but not men, though he's never taken to the women in the house. He'llprobably like you. His name is Beppo. I'll show you up at once. "

The grandeur of the staircase was overpowering, and the little backspare-room of a magnificence beyond all her experience outside ofmovie-sets. The flowers on the chintz coverings were prettier thanreal ones, and there was a private bath. Letty had heard of privatebaths, but no picture she had ever painted equaled this daintyapartment in which everything was of spotless white except where aflight of blue-gray gulls skimmed over a blue summer sea. 

The objects in the bedroom were too lovely to live with. On the toilettable were boxes and trays which Letty supposed must be priceless, anda set of brushes with silver backs. She couldn't brush her hair with abrush with a silver back, because it would be journeying too farbeyond real life into that of fairy princesses. On opening the closetto hang up her jacket the very hangers were puffed and covered withthe "sweetest flowered silks, " so she hung her jacket on a peg. 

But she wasn't comfortable, she wasn't happy. Alice had traveled toofar into Wonderland, and too suddenly. Unwillingly she lay down in abed too clean and soft for the human form, but she couldn't sleep init. She could only tremble and toss and lie awake and wish for themorning. With the dawn she would be up and off, before any one caughtsight of her. 

For Allerton had used words which had terrified her more than anythingthat had yet happened or been said--"the other women in the house!"Not till then had she sufficiently visualized the life into which hewas taking her to understand that there would be other women there. Now that she knew it, she couldn't face them. She could have facedmen. Men, after all, were simple creatures with only a rudimentarypower of judgment. But women! God! She pulled the eiderdown about herhead so as not to cry out so loudly that she would be heard. What madthing had she done? What had she let herself in for? She didn't askwhat kind of women they would be--members of his family or servants. She didn't care. All women were alike. The woman was not born whowouldn't view a girl in her unconventional situation, "and especiallyin that rig"--once more the expression was her own--without acondemnation which Letty could not and would not submit herself to. Soshe would get up and steal away with the first gleam of light. 

She got up with the first gleam of light, but she couldn't steal away. Once more she was afraid. Unlocking the door, she dared not ventureout. Who knew where, in that palace of cavernous apartments, she mightmeet a woman, or what the woman would say to her? When Nettie walkedin later, humming a street air, Letty almost died from shame. For onething, she hadn't yet put on her shirtwaist, which in itself was poorenough, and as she stood exposed without it, any other of her sexcould see. .. . She had once been on the studio lot when a girl of abouther own age, a "supe" like herself, was arrested for thieving in thewomen's dressing-rooms. Letty had never forgotten the look in thatgirl's face as she passed out through the crowd of her colleagues. InNettie's presence she felt like that girl's look. 

She had no means of telling the time, but when she could no longerendure the imprisonment she decided to make a bolt for it. She hadn'tbeen thieving, and so they couldn't do anything to her--and there wasa chance at least that she might get away. Opening the doorcautiously, she stole out on the landing, and there was, not a woman, but a man!

Joy! A man would listen to her appeal. He would see that she was poor, common, unequal to a dump so swell, and would be human and tender. Hewas a nice looking old man too--she was able to notice that--with along, kindly face on which there were two spots of bloom as if he hadbeen rouged. So she capitulated to his plea, making only the conditionthat if she took the hegg--she pronounced the word as he did, notbeing sure as to what it meant--she should be free to go. 

"Certainly, if madam wishes it. I'm sure the last thing Mr. Allertonwould desire would be to detain madam against 'er will. "

She allowed herself to be ushered down the monumental stairs and intothe dining-room, which awed her with the solemnity of a church. Sheknew at once that she wouldn't be able to eat amid this statelinessany more than in the glitter of last evening's restaurant. She hadyielded, however, and there was nothing for it but to sit down at thehead of the table in the chair which Steptoe drew out for her. Guessing at her most immediate embarrassment, he showed her what to doby unfolding the napkin and laying it in her lap. 

"Now, if madam will excuse me, I'll slip awye and tell Jyne. "

But telling Jyne was not so simple a matter as it looked. The councilin the kitchen, which at first had been a council and no more, was nowa council of war. As Steptoe entered, Mrs. Courage was saying:

"I shall go to Mr. Rashleigh 'imself and tell 'im that hunder the symeroof with a baggage none of us will stye. "

"You can syve yourself the trouble, Mrs. Courage, " Steptoe informedher. "Mr. Rash 'as just gone out. Besides, I've good news for all ofyou. " He waited for each to take an appropriate expression, Mrs. Courage determined, Jane with face eager and alight, Nettie titteringbehind her hand. "Miss Walbrook, which all of us 'as dreaded, is nota-comin' to our midst. The young lydy Nettie see in the backspare-room is Mr. Rashleigh's wife. "

"Wife!" Mrs. Courage threw up her hands and staggered backward. "'Imthat 'is mother left to me! 'Courage, ' says she, 'when I'm gone----'"

Jane crept forward, horrified, stunned. "Them things can't be, Steptoe. "

"Mr. Rash told me so 'imself. I don't know what more we want thanthat. " Steptoe was not without his diplomacy. "It's a fine thing forus, girls. This sweet young lydy is not goin' to myke us no troublelike what the other one would, and belongs right in our own class. "

"'Enery Steptoe, speak for yourself, " Mrs. Courage said, severely. "There's no baggages in my class, nor never was, nor never will be. "

Jane began to cry. "I'm sure I try to think the best of everyone, butwhen such awful things 'appens and 'omes is broken up----"

"Jynie, " Steptoe said with authority, "the young missus is wytin' for'er breakfast. 'Ave the goodness to tyke 'er in 'er grypefruit. "

"Jyne Cakebread, " Mrs. Courage declared, with an authority evengreater than Steptoe's, "the first as tykes a grypefruit into thatdinin'-room, to set before them as I shouldn't demean myself to nyme, comes hunder my displeasure. "

"I couldn't, Steptoe, " Jane pleaded helplessly. "All my life I'vewyted on lydies. 'Ow can you expect me to turn over a new leaf at mytime o' life?"

"Nettie?" Steptoe made the appeal magisterially. 

"Oh, I'll do it, " Nettie giggled. "'Appy to get another look at 'er. Isye, she's a sight!"

But Mrs. Courage barred the way. "My niece will wyte on people ofdoubtful conduck over my dead corpse. "

"Very well, then, Mrs. Courage, " Steptoe reasoned. "If you won't servethe new missus, Mr. Rashleigh, will 'ave to get some one else whowill. "

"Mr. Rashleigh will 'ave to do that very selfsame thing. Not anothernight will none of us sleep hunder this paternal roof with them thattheir very presence is a houtrage. 'Enery Steptoe was always atime-server, and a time-server 'e will be, but as for us women, weshall see the new missus in goin' in to give 'er notice. Not a month'snotice, it won't be. This range as I've cooked at for nearly thirtyyears I shall cook at no more, not so much as for lunch. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What's the world comin' to?"

In spite of her strength of character Mrs. Courage threw her apronover her head and burst into tears. Jane was weeping already. 

"There, there, aunt, " Nettie begged, patting her relative between theshoulders. "What's the good o' goin' on like that just because a sillyass 'as married beneath 'im?"

Mrs. Courage pulled her apron from her face to cry out with passion:

"If 'e was goin' to disgryce 'imself like that, why couldn't 'e 'ataken you?"

So Steptoe waited on Letty himself, bringing in the grapefruit, thecoffee, the egg, and the toast, and seeing that she knew how to dealwith each in the proper forms. He was so brooding, so yearning, sotactful, as he bent over her, that she was never at a loss as to thefork or spoon she ought to use, or the minute at which to use it. Under his protection Letty ate. She ate, first because she was youngand hungry, and then because she felt him standing between her and allvague terrors. By the time she had finished, he moved in front of her, where he could speak as one human being to another. 

Taking an empty plate from the table to put it on the sideboard, hesaid: "I 'ope madam is chyngin' 'er mind about leavin' us. "

Letty glanced up shyly in spite of being somewhat reassured. "What'udbe the good of my changin' my mind when--when I'm not fit to stay?"

"Madam means not fit in the sense that----"

"I'm not a lady. "

Resting one hand on the table, he looked down into her eyes with anexpression such as Letty had never before seen in a human face. 

"I could myke a lydy of madam. "

At the sound of these quiet words, so confidently spoken, somethingpassed through Letty's frame to be described only by the hard-workedword, a thrill. It was a double current of vibration, partly ofupleaping hope, partly of the desperate sense of her own limitations. A hundred points of gold dust were aflame in her irises as she said:

"You mean that you'd put me wise? Oh, but I'd never learn!"

"On the contrary, I think madam would pick up very quick. "

"And I'd never be able to talk the right----"

"I could learn madam to talk just as good as me. "

It seemed too much. She clasped her hands. It was the nearest pointshe had ever reached to ecstasy. "Oh, do you think you could? You talksomethin' beautiful, you do!"

He smiled modestly. "I've always lived with the best people, and Isuppose I ketch their wyes. I know what a gentleman is--and a lydy. Iknow all a lydy's little 'abits, and before two or three months wasover madam 'ud 'ave them as natural as natural, if she wouldn't thinkme overbold. "

"When 'ud you begin?"

The bright spot deepened in each cheek. "I've begun already, if madamwon't think me steppin' out o' my plyce to sye so, in showin' madamthe spoons and forks for the different----"

Letty colored, too. "Yes, I saw that. I take it as very kind. But--"she looked at him with a puzzled knitting of the brows--"but whatmakes you take all this trouble for me?"

"I've two reasons, madam, but I'll only tell you one of 'em just now. The other'll keep. I'll myke it known to you if--if all goes as I'ope. " He straightened himself up. "I don't often speak o' this, " hecontinued, "because among us butlers and valets it wouldn't beunderstood. Most of us is what's known as conservative, all for thebig families and the old wyes. Well, so am I--to a point. But----"

He moved a number of objects on the table before he could go on. "Iwasn't born to the plyce I 'old now, " he explained after getting hismaterial at command. "I wasn't born to nothink. I was what they callsin England a foundlin'--a byby what's found--what 'is parents 'avethrown awye. I don't know who my father and mother was, or what was myreal nyme. 'Enery Steptoe is just a nyme they give me at theHorphanage. But I won't go into that. I'm just tryin' to tell madamthat my life was a 'ard one, quite a 'ard one, till I come to New Yorkas footman for Mr. Allerton's father, and afterward worked up to be'is valet and butler. "

He cleared his throat. Expressing ideals was not easy. "I 'ope madamwill forgive me if I sye that what it learned me was a fellow-feelin'with my own sort--with the poor. I've often wished as I could go outamong the poor and ryse them up. I ain't a socialist--a little bit ofa anarchist perhaps, but nothink extreme--and yet--Well, if Mr. Rashleigh had married a rich girl, I would 'a tyken it as natural anddone my best for 'im, but since 'e 'asn't--Oh, can't madam see?It's--it's a kind o' pride with me to find some one like--like what Iwas when I was 'er age--out in the cold like--and bring 'er in--and'elp 'er to tryne 'erself--so--so as--some day--to beat the best--themas 'as 'ad all the chances----"

He was interrupted by the tinkle of the telephone. It was a relief. Hehad said all he needed to say, all he knew how to say. Whether madamunderstood it or not he couldn't tell, since she didn't seize ideasquickly. 

"If madam will excuse me now, I'll go and answer that call. "

But Letty sprang up in alarm. "Oh, don't leave me. Some of them womenwill blow in----"

"None of them women will _come_--" he threw a delicate emphasis on theword--"if madam'll just sit down. They don't mean to come. I'llexplyne that to madam when I come back, if she'll only not leave thisroom. "

Chapter VI

"Good morning, Steptoe. Will you ask Mr. Allerton if he'll speak toMiss Walbrook?"

"Mr. Allerton 'as gone to the New Netherlands club for 'is breakfast, miss. "

"Oh, thanks. I'll call him up there. "

She didn't want to call him up there, at a club, where a man must liketo feel safe from feminine intrusion, but the matter was too pressingto permit of hesitation. Since the previous afternoon she had gonethrough much searching of heart. She was accustomed to strongreactions from tempestuousness to penitence, but not of the violenceof this one. 

Summoned to the telephone, Allerton felt as if summoned to the bar ofjudgment. He divined who it was, and he divined the reason for thecall. 

"Good morning, Rash!"

His voice was absolutely dead. "Good morning, Barbara!"

"I know you're cross with me for calling you at the club. "

"Oh, no! Not at all!"

"But I couldn't wait any longer. I wanted you to know--I've got it onagain, Rash--never to come off any more. "

He was dumb. Thirty seconds at least went by, and he had made noresponse. 

"Aren't you glad?"

"I--I could have been glad--if--if I'd known you were going to doit. "

"And now you know that it's done. "

He repeated in his lifeless voice, "Yes, now I know that it's done. "

"Well?"

Again he was silent. Two or three times he tried to find words, producing nothing but a stammering of incoherent syllables. "I--Ican't talk about it here, Barbe, " he managed to articulate at last. "You must let me come round and see you. "

It was her voice now that was dead. "When will you come, Rash?"

"Now--at once--if you can see me. "

"Then come. "

She put up the receiver without saying more. He knew that she knew. She knew at least that something had happened which was fatal to themboth. 

She received him not in the drawing-room, but in a little den on theright of the front door which was also alive with Miss Walbrook'smodern personality. A gold-colored portière from Albert Herter's loomsscreened them from the hall, and the chairs were covered with bits ofHerter tapestry representing fruits. A cabinet of old white Benningtonfaience stood against a wall, which was further adorned with three orfour etchings of Sears Gallagher's. Barbara wore a lacy thing inhydrangea-colored crêpe de chine, loosely girt with a jade-greenribbon tasselled in gold, the whole bringing out the faintly Egyptiannote in her personality. 

They dispensed with a greeting, because she spoke the minute hecrossed the threshold of the room. 

"Rash, what is it? Why couldn't you tell me on the telephone?"

He wished now that he had. It would have saved this explanation faceto face. "Because I couldn't. Because--because I've been too much ofan idiot to--to tell you about it--either on the telephone or in anyother way. "

"How?" He thought she must understand, but she seemed purposely dense. "Sit down. Tell me about it. It can't be so terrible--all of a suddenlike this. "

He couldn't sit down. He could only turn away from her and gulp in his drythroat. "You remember what I said--what I said--yesterday--about--aboutthe--the Gissing fellow?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes. Go on. Get it out. "

"Well--well--I've--I've done that. "

She threw out her arms. She threw back her head till the littlenut-brown throat was taut. The cry rent her. It rent him. 

"You--_fool_!"

He stood with head hanging. He longed to run away, and yet he longedalso to throw himself at her feet. If he could have done exactly as hefelt impelled, he would have laid his head on her breast and wept likea child. 

She swung away from him, pacing the small room like a frenzied animal. Her breath came in short, hard pantings that were nearly sobs. Suddenly she stopped in front of him with a sort of calm. 

"What made you?"

He barely lifted his agonized black eyes. "You, "

She was in revolt again. "I? What did I do?"

"You--you threw away my ring. You said it was all--all over. "

"Well? Couldn't I say that without driving you to act the madman? Noone but a madman would have gone out of this house and--" She claspedher forehead in her hands with a dramatic lifting of the arms. "Oh!It's too much! I don't care about myself. But to have it on yourconscience that a man has thrown his life away----"

He asked meekly, "What good was it to me when you wouldn't have it?"

She stamped her foot. "Rash, you'll drive me insane. Your life mightbe no good to you at all, and yet you might give it a chance fortwenty-four hours--that isn't much, is it?--before you--" She caughtherself up. "Tell me. You don't mean to say that you're _married_?"

He nodded. 

"To whom?"

"Her first name is Letty. I've forgotten the second name. "

"Where did you find her?"

"Over there in the Park. "

"And she went and married you--like that?"

"She was all alone--chucked out by a stepfather----"

She burst into a hard laugh. "Oh, you baby! You believed that? Thekind of story that's told by nine of the----"

[Illustration: BY THE TIME HE HAD FINISHED, HIS HEART WAS A LITTLE EASEDAND SOME OF HER TENDERNESS BEGAN TO FLOW TOWARD HIM]

He interrupted quickly. "Don't call her anything, Barbe--I mean anykind of a bad name. She's all right as far as that goes. There's akind that couldn't take you in. "

"There's _no_ kind that couldn't take _you_ in!"

"Perhaps not, but it's the one thing in--in this whole idioticbusiness that's on the level--I mean she is. I'd give my right hand toput her back where I found her yesterday--just as she was--but she'sstraight. "

She dropped into a chair. The first wild tumult of rage having more orless spent its force, she began, with a kind of heart-brokencuriosity, to ask for the facts. She spoke nervously, beating a palmwith a gold tassel of her girdle. "Begin at the beginning. Tell me allabout it. "

He leaned on the mantelpiece, of which the only ornaments were achild's head in white and blue terra cotta by Paul Manship, balancedby a pair of old American glass candlesticks, and told the tale asconsecutively as he could. He recounted everything, even to thebringing her home, the putting her in the little, back spare-room, andher adoption by Beppo, the red cocker spaniel. By the time he hadfinished, his heart was a little eased, and some of her tendernesstoward him was beginning to flow forth. She was like that, all wrathat one minute, all gentleness the next. Springing to her feet, shecaught him by the arm, pressing herself against him. 

"All right, Rash. You've done it. That's settled. But it can be undoneagain. "

He pressed her head back from him, resting the knot of her hair inthe hollow of his palm and looking down into her eyes. 

"How can it be undone?"

"Oh, there must be ways. A man can't be allowed to ruin his life--toruin two lives--for a prank. We'll just have to think. If you made itworth while for her to take you, you can make it worth while for herto let you go. She'll do it. "

"She'd do it, of course. She doesn't care. I'm nothing to her, not anymore than she to me. I shan't see her any more than I can help. Isuppose she must stay at the house till--I told Steptoe to look afterher. "

She took a position at one end of the mantelpiece, while he faced herfrom the other. She gave him wise counsel. He was to see his lawyersat once and tell them the whole story. Lawyers always saw the way outof things. There was the Bellington boy who married a show-girl. Shehad been bought off, and the lawyers had managed it. Now theBellington boy was happily married to one of the Plantagenet Jonesgirls and lived at Marillo Park. Then there was the Silliman boy whohad married the notorious Kate Cookesley. The lawyers had found theway out of that, too, and now the Silliman boy was a secretary of theAmerican Embassy in Rome. Accidents such as had happened to Rash wereregrettable of course, but it would be folly to think that a perfectlygood life must be done for just because it had got a crack in it. 

"We'll play the game, of course, " she wound up. "But it's a game, andthe stronger side must win. What should you say of my going to seeher--she needn't know who I am further than that I'm a friend ofyours--and finding out for myself?"

"Finding out what?"

"Finding out her price, silly. What do you suppose? A woman can oftensee things like that where a man would be blind. "

He didn't know. He thought it might be worth while. He would leave itto her. "I'm not worth the trouble, Barbe, " he said humbly. 

With this she agreed. "I know you're not. I can't think for a minutewhy I take it or why I should like you. But I do. That's straight. "

"And I adore you, Barbe. "

She shrugged her shoulders with a little, comic grimace. "Oh, well! Isuppose every one has his own way of showing adoration, but I must saythat yours is original. "

"If it's original to be desperate when the woman you worship drivesyou to despair----"

There was another little comic grimace, though less comic than thefirst time. "Oh, yes, I know. It's always the woman whom a manworships that's in the wrong. I've noticed that. Men are neverimpossible--all of their own accord. "

"I could be as tame as a cat if----"

"If it wasn't for me. Thank you, Rash. I said just now I was fond ofyou, and I should have to be to--to stand for all the----"

"I'm not blaming you, Barbe. I'm only----"

"Thanks again. The day you're not blaming me is certainly one to bemarked with a white stone, as the Romans used to say. But if it comesto blaming any one, Rash, after what happened yesterday----"

"What happened yesterday wasn't begun by me. It would never haveentered my mind to do the crazy thing I did, if you hadn't positivelyand finally--as I thought--flung me down. I think you must do me thatjustice, Barbe--that justice, at the least. "

"Oh, I do you justice enough. I don't see that you can complain ofthat. It seems to me too that I temper justice with mercy to a degreethat--that most people find ridiculous. "

"By most people I suppose you mean your aunt. "

"Oh, do leave Aunt Marion out of it. You can't forgive the poor thingfor not liking you. Well, she doesn't, and I can't help it. She thinksyou're a----"

"A fool--as you were polite enough to say just now. "

She spread her hands apart in an attitude of protestation. "Well, if Idid, Rash, surely you must admit that I had provocation. "

"Oh, of course. The wonder is that with the provocation you can----"

"Forgive you, and try to patch it up again after this frightful gashin the agreement. Well, it _is_ a wonder. I don't believe that manygirls----"

"I only want you to understand, Barbe, that the gash in the agreementwas made, not by what I did, but what you did. If you hadn't sent meto the devil, I shouldn't have been in such a hurry to go there. "

She was off. "Yes, there you are again. Always me! I'm the one! Youmay be the gunpowder, the perfectly harmless gunpowder, but it wouldnever blow up if I didn't come as the match. _I_ make all theexplosions. _I_ set you crazy. _I_ send you to the devil. _I_ make yougo and marry a girl you never laid eyes on in your life before. "

So it was the same old scene all over again, till both were exhausted, and she had flung herself into a chair to cover her face with herhands and burst into tears. Instantly he was on his knees beside her. 

"Barbe! Barbe! My beloved Barbe! Don't cry. I'm a brute. I'm a fool. I'm not satisfied with breaking my own heart, but I must go to workand break yours. Oh, Barbe, forgive me. I'm all to pieces. Forgive meand let me go away and shoot myself. What's the good of a poor, wrecked creature like me hanging on and making such a mess of things?Let me kill myself before I kill you----"

"Oh, hush!"

Seizing his head, she pressed it against her bosom convulsively. Bythe shaking of his shoulders, she felt him sob. He _was_ a poorcreature. She was saying so to herself. But just because he was, something in her yearned over him. He _could_ be different; he couldbe stronger and of value in the world if there was only some one tohandle him rightly. She could do it--if she could only learn to handleherself. She _would_ learn to handle herself--for his sake. He wasworth saving. He had fine qualities, and a good heart most of all. Itwas his very fineness which put him out of place in a world like thatof New York. He was a delicate, brittle, highly-wrought thing whichshould be touched only with the greatest care, and all his life he hadbeen pushed and hurtled about as if he were a football player or abusiness man. With the soul of a poet or a painter or a seer, he hadbeen treated like the typical rough-and-ready American lad, till thesensitive nature had been brutalized, maimed, and frenzied. 

She knew that. It was why she cared for him. Even when they werechildren she had seen that he wasn't getting fair treatment, either athome or in school or among the boys and girls with whom they both grewup. He was the exception, and American life allowed only for the rule. If you couldn't conform to the rule, you were guyed and tormented andejected. Among all his associates she alone knew what he suffered, andbecause she knew it a vast pity made her cling to him. He had forcedhimself into the life of clubs, into the life of society, into thelife of other men as other men lived their lives, and the effect onhim had been so nearly ruinous that it was no wonder if he was alwayson the edge of nervous explosion. His very wealth which might havebeen a protection was, under the uniform pressure of American socialhabit, an incitement to him to follow the wrong way. She knew it, andshe alone. She could save him, and she alone. She could save him, ifshe could first of all save herself. 

With his head pressed against her she made the vow as she had made itfifty times already. She would be gentle with him; she would bepatient; she would let him work off on her the agony of his sufferingnerves, and smile at him through it all. She would help him out of theidiotic situation in which he found himself. The other girl was onlyan incident, as the show-girl had been to the Bellington boy, andcould be disposed of. She attached to that only a secondary importancein comparison with the whole thing--her saving him. She would savehim, even if it meant rooting out every instinct in her soul. 

But as he made his way blindly back to the club, his own conclusionswere different. He must go to the devil. He must go to the devil now, whatever else he did. Going to the devil would set her free from him. It was the only thing that would. It would set him free from the otherwoman, set him free from life itself. Life tortured him. He was amisfit in it. He should never have been born. He had always understoodthat his parents hadn't wanted children and that his coming had beenresented. You couldn't be born like that and find it natural to be inthe world. He had never found it natural. He couldn't remember thetime when he hadn't been out of his element in life, and now he mustrecognize the fact courageously. 

It would be easy enough. He had worked up an artificial appetite forall that went under the head of debauchery. It had meant difficultschooling at first, because his natural tastes were averse to thatkind of thing, but he had been schooled. Schooled was the word, sincehis training had begun under the very roof where his father had senthim to get religion and discipline. There had been no let-up in thiseducational course, except when he himself had stolen away, generallyin solitude, for a little holiday. 

But as he put it to himself, he knew all the roads and by-paths andcross-country leaps that would take him to the gutter, and to thegutter he would go. 

Chapter VII

And all this while Letty was in the dining-room, learning certainlessons from her new-found friend. 

For some little time she had been alone. Steptoe finished hisconversation with Miss Walbrook on the telephone, but did not comeback. She sat at the table feeding Beppo with bread and milk, butwondering if, after all, she hadn't better make a bolt for it. She hadhad her breakfast, which was an asset to the good, and nothing worsecould happen to her out in the open world than she feared in thisgreat dim, gloomy house. She had once crept in to look at thecathedral and, overwhelmed by its height, immensity, and mystery, hadcrept out again. Its emotional suggestions had been more than shecould bear. She felt now as if her bed had been made and her food laidout in that cathedral--as if, as long as she remained, she must eatand sleep in this vast, pillared solemnity. 

And that was only one thing. There were small practical considerationseven more terrible to confront. If Nettie were to appear again . .. 

But it was as to this that Steptoe was making his appeal. "I sye, girls, don't you go to mykin' a fuss and spoilin' your lives, whenyou've got a chanst as'll never come again. "

Mrs. Courage answered for them all. To sacrifice decency toself-interest wasn't in them, nor never would be. Some there might be, like 'Enery Steptoe, who would sell their birthright for a mess ofpottage, but Mary Ann Courage was not of that company, nor any otherwoman upon whom she could use her influence. If a hussy had been putto reign over them, reigned over by a hussy none of them would be. Allthey asked was to see her once, to deliver the ultimatum of givingnotice. 

"It's a strynge thing to me, " Steptoe reasoned, "that when one poorperson gets a lift, every other poor person comes down on 'em. "

"And might we arsk who you means by poor persons?"

"Who should I mean, Mrs. Courage, but people like us? If we don't 'angby each other, who _will_ 'ang by us, I should like to know? 'Ere'sone of us plyced in a 'igh position, and instead o' bein' proud of it, and givin' 'er a lift to carry 'er along, you're all for mykin' it as'ard for 'er as you can. Do you call that sensible?"

"I call it sensible for everyone to stye in their proper spere. "

"So that if a man's poor, you must keep 'im poor, no matter 'ow 'etries to better 'imself. That's what your proper speres would cometo. "

But argument being of no use, Steptoe could only make up his mind torevolution in the house. "The poor's very good to the poor when one of'em's in trouble, " was his summing up, "but let one of 'em 'ave anextry stroke of luck, and all the rest'll jaw against 'im like so manymagpies. " As a parting shot he declared on leaving the kitchen, "Thetrouble with you girls is that you ain't got no class spunk, andthat's why, in sperrit, you'll never be nothink but menials. "

This lack of _esprit de corps_ was something he couldn't understand, but what he understood less was the need of the heart to touchoccasionally the high points of experience. Mrs. Courage and Jane, tosay nothing of Nettie, after thirty years of domestic routine hadreached the place where something in the way of drama had becomeimperative. The range and the pantry produce inhibitions as surely asthe desk or the drawing-room. On both natures inhibitions had beenpacked like feathers on a seabird, till the soul cried out to bereleased from some of them. It might mean going out from the home thathad sheltered them for years, and breaking with all their traditions, but now that the chance was there, neither could refuse it. To avirtuous woman, starched and stiffened in her virtue, steeped in it, dyed in it, permeated by it through and through, nothing so stirs thedramatic, so quickens the imagination, so calls the spirit to thepurple emotional heights, as contact with the sister she knows to be ahussy. For Jane Cakebread and Mary Ann Courage the opportunity wasunique. 

"Then I'll go. I'll go straight now. "

As Steptoe brought the information that the three women of thehousehold were coming to announce the resignation of their posts, Letty sprang to her feet. 

"May I arsk madam to sit down again and let me explyne?"

Taking this as an order, she sank back into her chair again. He stoodconfronting her as before, one hand resting lightly on the table. 

"Nothink so good won't 'ave 'appened in this 'ouse since old Mrs. Allerton went to work and died. "

Letty's eyes shone with their tiny fires, not in pleasure but inwonder. 

"When old servants is good, they're good, but even when they're good, there's times when you can't 'elp wishin' as 'ow the Lord 'ud bepleased to tyke them to 'Imself. "

He allowed this to sink in before going further. 

"The men's all right, for the most part. Indoor work comes natural to'em, and they'll swing it without no complynts. But with the womenit's kick, kick, kick, and when they're worn theirselves out withkickin', they'll begin to kick again. What's plye for a man, for themain't nothink but slyvery. "

Letty listened as one receiving revelations from another world. 

"I ain't what they call a woman-'ater. _I_ believe as God made womanfor a purpose. Only I can't bring myself to think as the human race'as rightly found out yet what that purpose is. God's wyes is alwaysdark, and when it comes to women, they're darker nor they areelsewheres. One thing I do know, and we'll be a lot more comfortablewhen more of us finds it out--that God never made women for the'ome. "

In spite of her awe of him, Letty found this doctrine difficult toaccept. 

"If God didn't make 'em for the home, mister, where on earth would youput 'em?"

The wintry color came out again on the old man's cheeks. "If madamwould call me Steptoe, " he said ceremoniously, "I think she'd find iteasier. I mean, " he went on, reverting to the original theme, "that 'Edidn't make 'em to be cooks and 'ousemaids and parlormaids, and allthat. That's men's work. Men'll do it as easy as a bird'll sing. Inever see the woman yet as didn't fret 'erself over it, like a wildanimal'll fret itself in a circus cage. It spiles women to put 'em to'ousework, like it always spiles people to put 'em to jobs for whichthe Lord didn't give 'em no haptitude. "

Letty was puzzled, but followed partially. 

"I've watched 'em and watched 'em, and it's always the syme tyle. They'll go into service young and joyous like, but it won't be two orthree years before they'll have growed cat-nasty like this 'ere JyneCykebread and Mary Ann Courage. Madam 'ud never believe what sweetyoung things they was when I first picked 'em out--Mrs. Courage ayoung widow, and Jynie as nice a girl as madam 'ud wish to see, onlywith the features what Mrs. Allerton used to call a littlehover-haccentuated. And now--!" He allowed the conditions to speak forthemselves without criticizing further. 

"It's keepin' 'em in a 'ome what's done it. They knows ittheirselves--and yet they don't. Inside they've got the sperrits ofyoung colts that wants to kick up their 'eels in the pasture. Theydon't mean no worse nor that, only when people comes to Jynie's ageand Mrs. Courage's they 'ave to kick up their 'eels in their own wye. If madam'll remember that, and be pytient with them like------"

Letty cried in alarm, "But it's got nothin' to do with me!"

"If madam'll excuse me, it's got everything to do with 'er. She's themissus of this 'ouse. "

"Oh, no, I ain't. Mr. Allerton just brung me here----"

Once more there was the delicate emphasis with which he had correctedother slips. "Mr. Allerton _brought_ madam, and told me to see thatshe was put in 'er proper plyce. If madam'll let me steer the thing, I'll myke it as easy for 'er as easy. "

He reflected as to how to make the situation clear to her. "I've beenreadin' about the time when our lyte Queen Victoria come to the throneas quite a young girl. She didn't know nothin' about politics orpresidin' at councils or nothin'. But she had a prime minister--a kindof hupper servant, you might sye--'er servant was what 'e alwayscalled 'imself--and whatever 'e told 'er to do, she done. Walkedthrough it all, you might sye, till she got the 'ang of it, but onceshe did get the 'ang of it--well, there wasn't no big-bug in the worldthat our most grycious sovereign lydy couldn't put it all hover on. "

Once more he allowed her time to assimilate this parable. 

"Now if madam would only think of 'erself as called in youth to reignhover this 'ouse----"

"Oh, but I couldn't!"

"And yet it's madam's duty, now that she's married to its 'ead----"

"Yes, but he didn't marry me like that. He married me--all queer like. This was the way. "

She poured out the story, while Steptoe listened quietly. There beingno elements in it of the kind he called "shydy, " he found it romantic. No one had ever suspected the longings for romance which had filledhis heart and imagination when he was a poor little scullion boy; butthe memory of them, with some of the reality, was still fresh in hishidden inner self. Now it seemed as if remotely and vicariouslyromance might be coming to him after all, through the boy he adored. 

On her tale his only comment was to say: "I've been readin'--I'm agreat reader, " he threw in parenthetically, "wonderful exercise forthe mind, and learns you things which you wouldn't be likely to 'eartell of--but I've been readin' about a king--I'll show you 'is nyme inthe book--what fell in love with a beggar myde----"

"Oh, but Mr. Allerton didn't fall in love with me. "

"That remynes to be seen. "

She lifted her hands in awed amazement. "Mister--I mean, Steptoe--you--you don't think----?"

The subway dream of love at first sight was as tenacious in her soulas the craving for romance in his. 

He nodded. "I've known strynger things to 'appen. "

"But--but--he couldn't--" it was beyond her power of expression, though Steptoe knew what she meant--"not _him_!"

He answered judicially. "'E may come to it. It'll be a tough job tobring 'im--but if madam'll be guided by me------"

Letty collapsed. Her spirit grew faint as the spirit of Christian whenhe descried far off the walls of the Celestial City, with the DarkRiver rolling between him and it. Letty knew the Dark River must bethere, but if beyond it there lay the slightest chance of theCelestial City. .. . 

She came back to herself, as it were, on hearing Steptoe say that theprocession from the kitchen would presently begin to form itself. 

"Now if madam'll be guided by me she'll meet this situytion fyce tofyce. "

"Oh, but I'd never know what to say. "

"Madam won't need to say nothink. She won't 'ave to speak. 'Erethey'll troop in--" a gesture described Mrs. Courage leading theadvance through the doorway--"and 'ere they'll stand. Madam'll sitjust where she's sittin'--a little further back from thetyble--lookin' over the mornin' pyper like--" he placed the paper inher hand--"and as heach gives notice, madam'll just bow 'er 'ead. See?"

Madam saw, but not exactly. 

"Now if she'll just move 'er chair----"

The chair was moved in such a way as to make it seem that theoccupant, having finished her breakfast, was giving herself a littlemore space. 

"And if madam would remove 'er 'at and jacket, she'd--she'd seem morelike the lydy of the 'ouse at 'ome. "

Letty took off these articles of apparel, which Steptoe whisked out ofsight. 

"Now I'll be Mrs. Courage comin' to sye, 'Madam, I wish to givenotice. ' Madam'll lower the pyper just enough to show 'er inclinin' of'er 'ead, assentin' to Mrs. Courage leavin' 'er. Mrs. Courage will beall for 'avin' words--she's a great 'and for words, Mrs. Courageis--but if madam won't sye nothin' at all, the wind'll be out o' Mrs. Courage's syles like. Now, will madam be so good----?"

Having passed out into the hall, he entered with Mrs. Courage'smajestic gait, pausing some three feet from the table to say:

"Madam, things bein' as they are, and me not wishin' to stye no longerin the 'ouse where I've served so many years, I beg to give noticethat I'm a givin' of notice and mean to quit right off. "

Letty lowered the paper from before her eyes, jerking her headbriskly. 

"Ye-es, " Steptoe commended doubtfully, "a lettle too--well, toohabrupt, as you might sye. Most lydies--real 'igh lydies, like thelyte Mrs. Allerton--inclines their 'ead slow and gryceful like. First, they throws it back a bit, so as to get a purchase on it, and thenthey brings it forward calm like, lowerin' it stytely--Perhaps ifmadam'ud be me for a bit--that 'ud be Mrs. Courage--and let me sitthere and be 'er, I could show 'er----"

The places were reversed. It was Letty who came in as Mrs. Courage, while Steptoe, seated in the chair, lowered the paper to the degreewhich he thought dignified. Letty mumbled something like the words thehypothetical Mrs. Courage was presumed to use, while Steptoe slowlythrew back his head for the purchase, bringing it forward incondescending grace. Language could not have given Mrs. Courage soeffective a retort courteous. 

Letty was enchanted. "Oh, Steptoe, let me have another try. I believeI could swing the cat. "

Again the places were reversed. Steptoe having repeated the rôle ofMrs. Courage, Letty imitated him as best she could in getting thepurchase for her bow and catching his air of high-bred condescension. 

"Better, " he approved, "if madam wouldn't lower 'er 'ead _quite_ sofar back'ard. You see, madam, a lydy don't _know_ she's throwin' back'er 'ead so as to get a grip on it. She does it unconscious like, because bein' of a 'aughty sperrit she 'olds it 'igh natural. Ifmadam'll only stiffen 'er neck like, as if sperrit 'ad made 'er abouttwo inches taller than she is----"

Having seized this idea, Letty tried again, with such success thatMrs. Courage was disposed of. Jane Cakebread followed next, withNettie last of all. Unaware of his possession of histrionic ability, Steptoe gave to each character its outstanding traits, fluttering likeJane, and giggling like Nettie, not in zeal for a newly discoveredinterpretative art, but in order that Letty might be nowhere caught ata disadvantage. He was delighted with her quickness in imitation. 

"Couldn't 'ave done that better myself, " he declared after Nettie hadbeen dismissed for the third or fourth time. "When it comes to theinclinin' of the 'ead I should sye as madam was about letter-perfect, as they sye on the styge. If Mr. Rash was to see it, 'e'd swear as 'isma 'ad come back again. "

A muffled sound proceeded from the back part of the hallway, withsome whispering and once or twice Nettie's stifled cackle of a laugh. 

"'Ere they are, " he warned her. "Madam must be firm and control'erself. There's nothink for 'er to be afryde of. Just let 'er thinkof the lyte Queen Victoria, called to the throne when younger eventhan madam is----"

A shuffling developed into one lone step, heavy, stately, andfunereal. Doing her best to emulate the historic example held up toher, Letty lengthened her neck and stiffened it. A haughty spiritseemed to rise in her by the mere process of the elongation. She wasso nervous that the paper shook in her hand, but she knew that if theCelestial City was to be won, she could shrink from no tests whichmight lead her on to victory. 

Steptoe had relapsed into the major-domo's office, announcing from thedoorway, "Mrs. Courage to see madam, if madam will be pleased toreceive 'er. "

Madam indicated that she was so pleased, scrambling after the standardof the maiden sovereign of Windsor Castle giving audience to princesand ambassadors. 

Chapter VIII

"I'm 'ere. "

Letty couldn't know, of course, that this announcement, made in amenacing female bass, was due to the fact that three swayingbodies had been endeavoring so to get round the deployed paperwings as to see what was hidden there, and had found their effortsvain. All she could recognize was the summons to the bar of socialjudgment. To the bar of social judgment she would have goneobediently, had it not been for that rebelliousness against being"looked down upon" which had lately mastered her. As it was, shelengthened her neck by another half inch, receiving from theexercise a new degree of self-strengthening. 

"Mrs. Courage is 'ere, madam, " Steptoe seconded, "and begs to sye asshe's givin' notice to quit madam's service----"

The explosion came as if Mrs. Courage was strangling. 

"When I wants words took out of my mouth by 'Enery Steptoe or anybodyelse I'll sye so. If them as I've come into this room to speak todon't feel theirselves aible to fyce me----"

"Madam'll excuse an old servant who's outlived 'er time, " Steptoeintervened, "and not tyke no notice. They always abuses the kindnessthat's been showed 'em, and tykes liberties which----"

But not for nothing had Mrs. Courage been born to the grand manner. 

"When 'Enery Steptoe talks of old servants out-livin' their time andtykin' liberties 'e speaks of what 'e knows all about from personalexperience. 'E was an old man when I was a little thing not _so_high. "

The appeal was to the curiosity of the girl behind the screen. Tojudge of how high Mrs. Courage had not been at a time when Steptoe wasalready an old man she might be enticed from her fortifications. Butthe pause only offered Steptoe a new opportunity. 

"And so, if madam can dispense with 'er services, which I understandmadam can, Mrs. Courage will be a-leavin' of us this morning, with allour good wishes, I'm sure. Good-dye to you, Mary Ann, and God blessyou after all the years you've been with us. Madam's givin' you yourdismissal. "

Obedient to her cue Letty lowered her guard just enough to incline herhead with the grace Steptoe had already pronounced "letter perfect. "The shock to Mrs. Courage can best be narrated in her own terms toMrs. Walter Wildgoose later in the day. 

"Airs! No one couldn't imagine it, Bessie, what 'adn't seen it fortheirselves--what them baggages'll do--smokin'--and wearin' pearlnecklaces--and 'avin' their own limousines--all that I've seen and 'adgot used to--but not the President's wife--not Mary Queen ofEngland--could 'a myde you feel as if you was dirt hunder their feetlike what this one--and 'er with one of them marked down sixty-ninecent blouses that 'adn't seen the wash since--and as for looks--why, she didn't 'ave a look to bless 'erself--and a-'oldin' of 'erself likewhat a empress might--and bowin' 'er 'ead, and goin' back to 'erpyper, as if I'd disturbed 'er at 'er readin'--and the dead andspitten image of 'Enery Steptoe 'imself she is--and you know 'ow manytimes we've all wondered as to why 'e didn't marry--and 'im withsyvings put by--Jynie thinks as 'e's worth as much as--and you knowwhat a 'and Jynie is for ferritin' out what's none of 'erbusiness--why, if Jynie Cykebread could 'a myde 'erself JynieSteptoe--but that's somethink wild 'orses wouldn't myke poor Jyniesee--that no man wouldn't look at 'er the second time if it wasn't forto laugh--pitiful, I call it, at 'er aige--and me always givin' theold rip to know as it was no use 'is 'angin' round where I was--as ifI'd marry agyne, and me a widda, as you might sye, from my crydle--andif I did, it wouldn't 'a been a wicked old varlet what I alwayssuspected 'e was leadin' a double life--and now to see them two fycestogether--why, I says, 'ere's the explanytion as plyne as plyne canmake it. .. . "

All of which might have been true in rhetoric, but not in fact. Forwhat had really given Mrs. Courage the _coup de grace_ we must go backto the scene of the morning. 

Ignoring both Letty's inclination of the head and Steptoe'sbenediction she had shown herself hurt where she was tenderest. 

"Now that there's no one to ryse their voice agynst the disgrycebrought on this family but me----"

"Speak right up, Jynie. Don't be afryde. Madam won't eat you. Sheknows that you've come to give notice----"

Mrs. Courage struggled on. "No one ain't goin' to bow me out of the'ouse I've been cook-'ousekeeper in these twenty-seven year----"

"Sorry as madam'll be to lose you, Jynie, she won't stand in the wyeof your gettin' a better plyce----"

Mrs. Courage's roar being that of the wounded lioness she was, thepaper shook till it rattled in Letty's hand. 

"I _will_ be listened to. I've a right to be 'eard. My 'eart's been asmuch in this 'ouse and family as 'Enery Steptoe's 'eart; and to seeshyme and ruin come upon it----"

Steptoe's interruption was in a tone of pleased surprise. 

"Why, you still 'ere, Mary Ann? We thought you'd tyken leave of us. Madam didn't know you was speakin'. She won't detyne you, madam won't. You and Jynie and Nettie'll all find cheques for your wyges pyde up toa month a 'ead, as I know Mr. Rashleigh'd want me to do. .. . "

Shame and ruin! Letty couldn't follow the further unfoldings ofSteptoe's diplomacy because of these two words. They summed up whatshe brought--what she had been married to bring--to a house of whicheven she could see the traditions were of honor. Vaguely aware ofvoices which she attributed to Jane and Nettie, her spirit was inrevolt against the rôle for which her rashness of yesterday had lether in, and which Steptoe was forcing upon her. 

Jane was still whimpering and sniffling:

"I'm sure I never dreamed that things would 'appen like what 'as'appened--and us all one family, as you might sye--'opin' the best ofeveryone----"

"Jynie, stop, " Mrs. Courage's voice had become low and firm, withemotion in its tone, making Letty catch her breath. "My 'eart'sbreakin', and I ain't a-goin' to let it break without mykin' themthat's broken it know what they've done to me. "

"Now, Mary Ann, " Steptoe tried to say, peaceably, "madam's grytelypressed for time----"

"'Enery Steptoe, do you suppose that you're the only one in the worldas 'as loved that boy? Ain't 'e my boy just as much as ever 'e wasyours?"

"'E's boy to them as stands by 'im, Mrs. Courage--and stands by themthat belongs to 'im. The first thing you do is to quit----"

"I'm not quittin'; I'm druv out. I'm druv out at a hour's notice fromthe 'ome I've slyved for all my best years, leavin' dishonor andwickedness in my plyce----"

Letty could endure no more. Dashing to the floor the paper behindwhich she crouched she sprang to her feet. 

"Is that me?" she demanded. 

The surprise of the attack caught Mrs. Courage off her guard. Shecould only open her mouth, and close it again, soundlessly andhelplessly. Jane stared, her curiosity gratified at last. Nettieturned to whisper to Jane, "There; what did I tell you? The commonestthing!" Steptoe nodded his head quietly. In this little creature withher sudden flame, eyes all fire and cheeks of the wine-colored damaskrose, he seemed to find a corroboration of his power of diviningcharacter. 

It seemed long before Mrs. Courage had found the strength to live upto her convictions, by faintly murmuring: "Who else?"

"Then tell me what you accuse me of?"

Mrs. Courage saw her advantage. "We ain't 'ere to accuse nobody ofnothink. If it's 'intin' that I'd tyke awye anyone's character it's athing I've 'ardly ever done, and no one can sye it _of_ me. All wewant is to give our notice----"

"Then why don't you do it--and go?"

Once more Steptoe intervened, diplomatically. "That's what Mrs. Courage is a-doin' of, madam. She's finished, ain't you Mary Ann?Jynie and Nettie is finished too----"

But it was Letty now who refused this mediation. 

"No, they ain't finished. Let 'em go on. "

But no one did go on. Mrs. Courage was now dumb. She was dumb andfrightened, falling back on her two supporters. All three togetherthey huddled between the portières. If Steptoe could have calmed hisprotégée he would have done it; but she was beyond his control. 

"Am I the ruin and shame to this house that you was talkin' about justnow? If I am, why don't you speak out and put it to me plain?"

There was no response. The spectators looked on as if they were at thetheater. 

"What have you all got against me anyhow?" Letty insisted, passionately. "What did I ever do to you? What's women's hearts madeof, that they can't let a poor girl be?"

Mrs. Courage had so far recovered as to be able to turn from one toanother, to say in pantomime that she had been misunderstood. Janebegan to cry; Nettie to laugh. 

"Even if I was the bad girl you're tryin' to make me out I shouldthink other women might show me a little pity. But I'm not a badgirl--not yet. I may be. I dunno but what I will. When I see thehateful thing bein' good makes of women it drives me to do the otherthing. "

This was the speech they needed to justify themselves. To be good madewomen hateful! Their dumb-crambo to each other showed that anyone whosaid so wild a thing stood already self-condemned. 

But Letty flung up her head with a mettle which Steptoe hadn't seensince the days of the late Mrs. Allerton. 

"I'm not in this house to drive no one else out of it. Them that havelived here for years has a right to it which I ain't got. You can go, and let me stay; or you can stay, and let me go. I'm the wife of theowner of this house, who married me straight and legal; but I don'tcare anything about that. You don't have to tell me I ain't fit to behis wife, because I know it as well as you do. All I'm sayin' is thatyou've got the choice to stay or go; and whichever you do, I'll dodifferent. "

Never in her life had she spoken so many words at one time. The effortdrained her. With a torrent of dry sobs that racked her body shedropped back into her chair. 

The hush was that of people who find the tables turned on themselvesin a way they consider unwarranted. Of the general surprise Steptoewas quick to take advantage. 

"There you are, girls. Madam couldn't speak no fairer, now couldshe?"

To this there was neither assent or dissent; but it was plain that noone was ready to pick up the glove so daringly thrown down. 

"Now what I would suggest, " Steptoe went on, craftily, "is that we allgo back to the kitchen and talk it over quiet like. What we decide todo we can tell madam lyter. "

For consent or refusal Jane and Nettie looked to Mary Ann, whoseattitude was that of rejecting parley. She might, indeed, haverejected it, had not Letty, bowing her head on the arms she rested onthe table, begun to cry bitterly. 

It was then that you saw Mrs. Courage at her best. The gesture withwhich she swept her subordinates back into the hall was that of thesupremacy of will. 

"It shan't be said as I crush, " she declared, nobly, directingSteptoe's attention to the weeping girl. "Where there's penitence Ipity. God grant as them tears may gush out of an aichin' 'eart. "

Chapter IX

By the time Letty was drying her eyes, her heart somewhat eased, Steptoe had come back. He came back with a smile. Something hadevidently pleased him. 

"So that's all over. Madam won't be bothered with other people'scat-nasty old servants after to-dye. "

She felt a new access of alarm. "But they're not goin' away on accounto' me? Don't let 'em do it. Lemme go instead. Oh, mister, I can't stayhere, where everything's so different from what I'm used to. "

He still smiled, his gentle old man's smile which somehow gave herconfidence. 

"Madam won't sye that after a dye or two. It's new to 'er yet, ofcourse; but if she'll always remember that I'm 'ere, to mykeeverythink as easy as easy----"

"But what are you goin' to do, with no cook, and no chambermaid----?"

Standing with the corner of the table between him and her, he wassaying to himself, "If Mr. Rash could only see 'er lookin' up likethis--with 'er eyes all starry--and her cheeks with them dark-redroses--red roses like you'd rubbed with a little black. .. . " But hesuspended the romantic longing to say, aloud:

"If madam will permit me I'll tyke my measures as I've wanted to tyke'em this long spell back. "

Madam was not to worry as to the three women who were leaving thehouse, inasmuch as they had long been intending to leave it. Both Mrs. Courage and Jane, having graduated to the stage of "accommodating, "were planning to earn more money by easier work. Nettie, since comingto America, had learned that housework was menial, and was going to bea milliner. 

Madam's remorse being thus allayed he told what he hoped to do formadam's comfort. There would be no more women in the house, not tillmadam herself brought them back. An English chef who had lost an eyein the war, and an English waiter, ready to do chamberwork, who hadleft a foot on some battlefield, were prepared under Steptoe'sdirection to man the house. No woman whose household cares had notbeen eased by men, in the European fashion, knew what it was to live. A woman waited on by women only was kept in a state of nerves. Nerveswere infectious. When one woman in a household got them the rest weresooner or later their prey. Unless strongly preventative measures wereadopted they spread at times to the men. America was a dreadfulcountry for nerves and it mostly came of women working with women;whereas, according to Steptoe's psychology, men should work with womenand women with men. There were thousands of women who were bitter inheart at cooking and making beds who would be happy as linnets inoffices and shops; and thousands of men who were dying of boredom inoffices and shops who would be in their element cooking and makingbeds. 

"One of the things the American people 'as got back'ards, if madam'llallow me to sye so, is that 'ouse'old work is not fit for a white man. When you come to that the American people ain't got a sense of thedignity of their 'omes. They can't see their 'omes as run by anythingbut slyves. All that's outside the dinin' room and the drorin' roomand the masters' bedrooms the American sees as if it was a low-downthing, even when it's hunder 'is own roof. Colored men, yellow men, may cook 'is meals and myke 'is bed; but a white man'd demean 'imself. A poor old white man like me when 'e's no longer fit for 'ard outdoorwork ain't allowed to do nothink; when all the time there's womenworkin' their fingers to the bone that 'e could be a great 'elp to, and who 'e'd like to go to their 'elp. "

This was one reason, he argued, why the question of domestic aid inAmerica was all at sixes and sevens. It was not considered humanly. Itwas more than a question of supply and demand; it was one of nationalprejudice. A rich man could have a French chef and an English butler, and as many strapping indoor men--some of them much better fitted formanual labor--as he liked, and find it a social glory; while a familyof moderate means were obliged to pay high wages to crude incompetentwomen from the darkest backwaters of European life, just because theywere women. 

"And the women's mostly to blyme, " he reasoned. "They suffers--nobodyknows what they suffers better nor me--just because they ain't got thespunk to do anything _but_ suffer. They've got it all in their own'ands, and they never learn. Men is slow to learn; but women don't'ardly ever learn at all. "

Letty was thinking of herself, as she glanced up at this fount ofwisdom with the question:

"Don't none of 'em?"

Having apparently weighed this already he had his answer. "None that'sbeen drilled a little bit before 'and. Once let woman feel as so andso is the custom, and for 'er that custom, whether good or bad, isthere to stye. They sye that chyngin' 'er mind is a woman's privilege;but the woman that chynged 'er mind about a custom is one I never metyet. "

She took him as seriously as he took himself. 

"Don't you like women, mister--I mean, Steptoe?"

He pondered before replying. "I don't know as I could sye. I've never'ad a chance to see much of women except in 'ousework, where they'reout of their element and tyken at a disadvantage. I don't like noneI've ever run into there, because none of 'em never was no sport. "

The inquiry in her golden eyes led him a little further. 

"No one ain't a sport what sighs and groans over their job, and don'tdo it cheerful like. No one ain't a sport what undertykes a job andain't proud of it. If a woman _will_ go into 'ousework let 'er do ithonorable. If she chooses to be a servant let 'er _be_ a servant, andnot be ashymed to sye she _is_ one. So if madam arsks me if I like 'emI 'ave to confess I don't, because as far as I see women I mostly 'ear'em complyne. "

Her admiration was quite sincere as she said: "I shouldn't thinkthey'd complain if they had you to put 'em wise. "

He corrected gently. "If they 'ad me to _tell_ 'em. "

"If they 'ad you to _tell_ 'em, " she imitated, meekly. 

"Madam mustn't pick up the bad 'abit of droppin' 'er haitches, " hewarned, parentally. "I'll learn 'er a lot, but that's one thing Imustn't learn 'er. I don't do it often--Oh, once in a wye, mybe--butthat's something madam speaks right already--just like allAmericans. "

Delighted that there was one thing about her that was right alreadyshe reminded him of what he had said, that women never learned. 

"I said women as 'ad been drilled a bit. But madam's different. Madamcomes into this 'ouse newborn, as you might sye; and that'll myke iteasier for 'er and me. "

"You mean that I'll not be a kicker. "

Once more he smiled his gentle reproof. "Oh, madam wouldn't be akicker any'ow. Jynie or Nettie or Mary Ann Courage or even me--wemight be kickers; but if madam was to hobject to anything she'dbe--_displeased_. "

She knitted her brows. The distinction was difficult. He saw he hadbetter explain more fully. 

"It's only the common crowd what kicks. It's only the common crowdwhat uses the expression. A man might use it--I mean a real 'ighgentleman like Mr. Rashleigh--and get awye with it--now and then--if'e didn't myke a 'abit of it; but when a woman does it sherubberstamps 'erself. Now, does madam see? A lydy couldn't be alydy--and kick. The lyte Mrs. Allerton would never demean 'erself tokick; she'd only show displeasure. "

With a thumb and two fingers Letty marked off on the table the threepoints as to which she had received information that morning. She mustsay brought, and not brung; she must say tell, and not put wise; shemust not kick, but show displeasure. Neither must she drop heraitches, though to do so would have been an effort. The warning onlyraised a suspicion that in the matter of speech there might be ahigher standard than Steptoe's. If ever she heard Rashleigh Allertonspeak again she resolved to listen to him attentively. 

She came back from her reverie on hearing Steptoe say:

"With madam it's a cyse of beginning from the ground up, more or lessas you would with a byby; so I 'ope madam'll forgive me if I drop a'int as to what we must do before goin' any farther. "

Once more he read her question in the starry little flames in hereyes. 

"It's--clothes. "

The damask red which had ebbed surged slowly back again. It surgedback under the transparent white skin, as red wine fills a glass. Herlips parted to stammer the confession that she had no clothes exceptthose she wore; but she couldn't utter a syllable. 

"I understand madam's position, which is why I mention it. You mightsye as clothes is the ABC of social life, and if we're to work fromthe ground up we must begin there. "

She forced it out at last, but the statement seemed to tear her. 

"I can't get clothes. I ain't got no money. "

"Oh, money's no hobject, " he smiled. "Mr. Rash 'as plenty of that, andI know what 'e'd like me to do. There never was 'is hequal for the'open 'and. If madam'll leave it to me. .. . "

 * * * * *

Allerton's office was much what you would have expected it to be, bearing to other offices the same relation as he to other businessmen. He had it because not to have it wouldn't have been respectable. A young American who didn't go to an office every day would hardlyhave been a young American. An office, then, was a concession topublic sentiment, as well as some faint justification of himself. 

It was in the latter sense that he chiefly took it, making it asubject of frequent reference. In his conversation such expressions as"my office, " or "due at my office, " were introduced more often thanthere was occasion for. The implication that he had work to do gavehim status, enabling him to sit down among his cronies andgood-naturedly take their fun. 

He took a good deal of fun, never having succeeded in making himselfthe standardized type who escapes the shafts of ridicule. It waskindly fun, which, while viewing him as a white swan in a flock ofblack ones, recognized him as a swan, and this was as much as he couldexpect. To pass in the crowd was all he asked for, even when he onlypassed on bluff. If he couldn't wholly hide the bluff he could keep itfrom being flagrantly obtrusive; and toward that end an office was ahelp. 

It was an office situated just where you would have expected to findit--far enough downtown to be downtown, and yet not so far downtown asto make it a trouble to get there. Being on the eastern side ofWashington Square, it had a picturesque outlook, and the merit ofaccess from East Sixty-seventh Street through the long straight arteryof Fifth Avenue. 

It was furnished, too, just as you might have known he would furnishit, in the rich and sober Style Empire, and yet not so exclusively inthe Style Empire as to make the plain American business man fear hehad dropped into Napoleon's library at Malmaison. That is whatRashleigh would have liked, but other men could do what in him wouldbe thought finicky. To take the "cuss" off his refinement, as he putit to Barbara, he scattered modern American office bits among hisluscious brown surfaces, adorned with wreaths and lictors' sheaves ingold, though to himself the wrong note was offensive. 

But wrong notes and right notes were the same to him as, on thisparticular morning, he dragged himself there because it was the hour. His office staff in the person of old Mr. Radbury was already on thespot, and had sorted the letters for the day. These were easily dealtwith. Reinvestment, or new opportunities for investment, were theirprincipal themes, and the only positive duty to attend to was in theendorsement of dividend checks for deposit. A few directions beinggiven to Mr. Radbury as to such letters as were to be answered, Allerton had nothing to do but stroll to the window and look out. 

It was what he did perhaps fifty times in the course of the two orthree hours daily, or approximately daily, which he spent there. Hedid so now. He did so because it put off for a few minutes longer thefierce, exasperating, acrid pleasure of doing worse. To do worse hadbeen his avowed object in coming to the office that morning, and notthe answering of letters or the raking in of checks. 

Looking down from his window on the tenth floor he asked himself thefruitless question which millions of other men have asked when follyhas got them into trouble. Among these thousands who, viewed from thatheight, had a curious resemblance to ants, was there such a fool as hewas? From the Square they streamed into Fifth Avenue; from FifthAvenue they streamed into the Square. In the Square and round theSquare they squirmed and wriggled and dawdled their seemingly aimlessways. Great green lumbering omnibuses disgorged one pack of themmerely to suck up another. Motors whirled them toward uptown, towarddowntown, or east, or west, by twos and threes, or as individuals. Like ants their general effect was black, with here and there a movingspot of color, or of intermingling colors, as of flowers in the wind, or tropic birds. 

He watched a figure detach itself from the mass swirling round adebouching omnibus. It was a little black figure, just clearly enoughdefined to show that it was a man. Because it was a man it had been afool. Because it had been a fool it had dark chambers in its lifewhich it would never willingly open. But it had doubtless gotsomething for its folly. It might have lost more than it had gained, but it could probably reckon up and say, "At least I had my fun. "

And he had had none. He had squandered his whole life on a single actof insanity which even in the action had produced nothing but disgust. He hadn't merely swindled himself; he had committed a kind of suicidewhich made death silly and grotesque. The one thing that could savehim a scrap of dignity--and such a sorry scrap!--would be going to thedevil by the shortest way. 

He had come to the office to begin. He would begin by the means thatseemed obvious. Now that going to the devil was a task he saw, as hehad not seen hitherto, how curiously few were the approaches thatwould take him there. Song being only an accompaniment, he was limitedto the remaining two of the famous and familiar trio. 

Very well! Limited as he was he would make the most of them. Knowingsomething of their merits he knew there was a bestial entertainment tobe had from both. It was a kind of entertainment which his cursedfastidiousness had always loathed; but now his reckoning would bedifferent. If he got _anything_ he should not feel so wastefullythrown away. He would be selling himself first and making his bargainafterwards; but some meager balance would stand to his credit, ifcredit it could be called. When the devil had been reached the worldhe knew would pardon him because it was the devil, and not--what itwas in truth--an idiotic state of nerves. 

At the minute when Letty was leaping to her feet to take her stand heswung away from the window. First going to Mr. Radbury's door heclosed it softly. Luckily the old man, an inheritance from his, Allerton's, father, was deaf and incurious. Like most clerks who hadclerked their way up to seventy he was buried in clerking's littleround. He wouldn't come in till the letters were finished, certainlynot for an hour, and by that time Allerton would be. .. . He almostsmiled at the old man's probable consternation on finding him sobefore the middle of the day. Any time would be bad enough; but in thehigh forenoon. .. . 

He went to a cabinet which was said to have found its way viaBordentown from the furnishings of Queen Caroline Murat. Having openedit he took out a bottle and a glass. On the label of the bottle was akilted Highlander playing on the pipes. A siphon of soda was also inthe cabinet, but he left it there. What he had to do would be donemore quickly without its mitigation. 

 * * * * *

While Allerton was making these preparations Judson Flack, in pajamasand slippers, was standing in his toy kitchen, looking helplessly at asmall gas stove. It was the hour in the middle of the morning at whichhe was accustomed to be waked with the information that his coffee andeggs were ready. The forenoon being what he called his slack time hefound the earlier part of it most profitably used for sleep. 

"Curse the girl!"

The adjuration was called forth by the fact that he didn't know whereanything was, or how anything should be done. From the simpleexpedient of going for his breakfast to one of the cheap restaurantswith which he was familiar he was cut off by the fact of an unluckyprevious night. He simply didn't have the bones. This was not to saythat he was penniless, but that in view of more public expenses laterin the day it would be well for him to economize where economy was soobvious. He never had an appetite in the morning anyway. Withirregular eating and drinking all through the evening and far towarddaylight, he found a cup of coffee and an egg. .. . 

It was easy, he knew, to make the one and boil the other, but he wasout of practice. He couldn't remember doing anything of the sort sincethe days before he married Letty's mother. Even then he had nevertried this new-fangled thing, the gas stove, so that besides being outof practice he was at a loss. 

"Curse the girl!"

The resources of the kitchen being few exploration didn't take himlong. He found bread, butter, milk that had turned sour, the usualcondiments, some coffee in a canister, and a single egg. If he couldonly light the confounded gas stove. .. . 

A small white handle offering itself for experiment, he turned ittimidly, applying a match to a geometrical pattern of holes. He jumpedback as from an exploding cannon. 

"Curse the girl!"

Having found the way, however, the next attempt was more successful. Soon he had two geometrical patterns of holes burning in steady bluebuttons of flame. On the one he placed the coffee-pot into which hehad turned a pint of water and a cupful of coffee; on the other asaucepan half full of water containing his egg. This being done heretired to the bathroom for the elements of a toilet. 

"Curse the girl!"

Washing, shaving, turning up his mustache with the little curlingtongs, he observed with self-pity his increasing haggardness. Heobserved it also with dismay. Looks were as important to him as to anactress. His rôle being youth, high spirits, and the devil-may-care, the least trace of the wearing out would do for him. He had noticedsome time ago that he was beginning to show fatal signs, which had themore emphatically turned his thoughts to the provision Letty mightprove for his old age. 

"Curse the girl!"

It was cursing the girl which reminded him that he had allowed morethan the necessary time for his breakfast to be ready for consumption. Hurrying back to the kitchen he found the egg gracefully dancing asthe water boiled. He fished it out with a spoon and took it in hishand, but he didn't keep it there. Dashing it to the table, whence itcrashed upon the floor, he positively screamed. 

"Curse the girl!"

He cursed her now licking and sucking the tips of his fingers andexamining them to see if they were scalded. No such calamity havingoccurred he took up the coffee pot, leaving the mashed egg where itlay. Ladling a spoonful of sugar into a cup, and adding the usualmilk, he poured in the coffee, which became a muddy dark brownmixture, with what appeared to be a porridge of seeds floating on thetop. One sip, which induced a diabolical grimace, and he threw thebeverage at the opposite wall as if it was a man he meant to insult. 

"Curse the girl!"

The appeal to the darker powers being accompanied now by a series ofup-to-date terms of objurgation, the mere act of utterance, mental orarticulate, churned him to a frenzy. Seizing the coffee pot which hehad replaced on the gas stove he hurled it too against the wall. Itstruck, splathered the hideous liquor over a hideous calsomining whichhad once been blue, and fell to the floor like a living thing knockedinsensible. 

The resemblance maddened him still more. It might have been Letty, struck down after having provoked him beyond patience. He rushed atit. He hurled it again. He hurled it again. He hurled it again. Theexercise gave relief not only to his lawful resentment against Letty, but to those angers over his luck of last night which as "a goodloser" he hadn't been at liberty to show. No one knew the repressionshe was obliged to put upon himself; but now his inhibitions could comeoff in this solitary passion of destruction. 

When the coffee pot was a mere shapeless mass he picked up the emptycup. It was a thick stone-china cup, with a bar meant to protect hismustache across the top, a birthday present from Letty's mother. Theassociation of memories acted as a further stimulus. Smash! After thecup went the stone-china sugar bowl. Smash! After the sugar bowl theplate with the yellow chunk of butter. Smash! After the butter platethe milk jar, a clumsy, lumpy thing, which merely gurgled out a splashof milk and fell without breaking. 

"Curse the girl! Curse the girl! Curse the girl! I'll learn her to goaway and leave me! I'll find her and drag her back if she's in. .. . "

Chapter X

While Letty was beginning a new experience Judson Flack was doing hisbest to carry out his threat. That is to say, he was making the roundof the studios in which his step-daughter had occasionally found work, discreetly asking if she had been there that day. It was all he couldthink of doing. To the best of his knowledge she had no friends withwhom she could have taken refuge, though the suspicion crossed hismind that she might have drowned herself to spite him. 

As a matter of fact Letty was asking the question if she wasn't makinga mistake in not doing so, either literally or morally. Never beforein her life had she been up against this problem of insufficiency. Among the hard things she had known she had not known this; and nowthat she was involved in it, it seemed to her harder than everythingelse put together. 

In her humble round, bitter as it was, she had always been consideredcompetent. It was the sense of her competence that gave her theself-respect enabling her to bear up. According to her standards shecould keep house cleverly, and could make a dollar go as far as othergirls made two. When she got her first chance in a studio, through anacquaintance of Judson Flack's, she didn't shrink from it, and hadmore than once been chosen by a director to be that member of a crowdwho moves in the front and expresses the crowd psychologically. Hadshe only had the clothes. .. . 

And now she was to have them. As far as that went she was not merelyglad; she was one sheer quiver of excitement. It was not the end sheshrank from; it was the means. If she could only have had fiftydollars to go "poking round" where she knew that bargains could befound, she might have enjoyed the prospect; but Steptoe could only"take measures" on the grand scale to which he was accustomed. 

The grand scale frightened her, chiefly because she was dressed as shewas dressed. It was her first thought and her last one. When Steptoetold her the hour at which he had asked Eugene to bring round the carthe mere vision of herself stepping into it made her want to sink intothe ground. Eugene didn't live in the house--she had discoveredthat--and so would bring the stare of another pair of eyes under whosescrutiny she would have to pass. Those of the three women havingalready scorched her to the bone, she would have to be scorchedagain. 

She tried to say this to Steptoe, as they stood in the drawing-roomwindow waiting for the car; but she didn't know how to make himunderstand it. When she tried to put it into words, the right wordswouldn't come. Steptoe had taken as general what she was trying toexplain to him in particular. 

"It'll be very important to madam to fyce what's 'ard, and to do itbryve like. It'll be the mykin' of 'er if she can. 'Umble 'ill ispretty stiff to climb; but them as gets to the top of it is tough. "

She thought this over silently. He meant that if she set herself totake humiliations as they came, dragging herself up over them, shewould be the stronger for it in the end. 

"It'd 'ave been better for Mr. Rashleigh, " he mused, "if 'e'd 'ad 'adsomethink of the kind to tackle in 'is life; it'd 'ave myde 'im moreof a man. But because 'e adn't--Did madam ever notice, " he broke offto ask, "'ow them as 'as everythink myde easy for 'em begins right offto myke things 'ard for theirselves. It's a kind of law like. It'sjust as if nyture didn't mean to let no one escype. When a man's gotno troubles you can think of, 'e'll go to work to create 'em. "

"Didn't _he_"--she had never yet pronounced the name of the man whohad married her--"didn't _he_ ever have any troubles?"

"'E was fretted terrible--crossed like--rubbed up the wrong wye, asyou might sye, --but a real trouble like what you and me 'ave 'adplenty of--never! It's my opinion that trouble is to char-_ac_-terwhat a peg'll be to a creepin' vine--something to which the vine'll'ook on and pull itself up by. Where there's nothink to ketch on tothe vine'll grow; but it'll grow in a 'eap of flop. " There was atremor in his tone as he summed up. "That's somethink like my poorboy. "

Letty found this interesting. That in these exalted circles therecould be a need of refining chastisement came to her as a surprise. 

"The wife as I've always 'oped for 'im, " Steptoe went on, "is onethat'd know what trouble was, and 'ow to fyce it. 'E'd myke a grand'usband to a woman who was--strong. But she'd 'ave to be the wallwhat the creepin' vine could cover all over and--and beautify. "

"That wouldn't be me. "

"If I was madam I wouldn't be so sure of that. It don't do toundervalyer your own powers. If I'd 'a done that I wouldn't 'a beenwhere I am to-dye. Many's the time, when I was no more than a poorlittle foundlin' boy in a 'ome I've said to myself, I'm fit forsomethink big. Somethink big I always meant to be. When it didn't seempossible for me to aim so 'igh I'd myde up my mind to be a valet and abutler. It comes--your hambition does. What you've first got to do isto form it; and then you've got to stick to it through thick andthin. "

To say what she said next Letty had to break down barrier beyondbarrier of inhibition and timidity. "And if I was to--to form the--theambition--to be--to be the kind of wall you was talkin' about justnow----"

"That wouldn't be hambition; it'd be--consecrytion. "

He allowed her time to get the meaning of this before going on. 

"But madam mustn't expect not to find it 'ard. Consecrytion is always'ard, by what I can myke out. When Mr. Rash was a little 'un 'e usedto get Miss Pye, 'is governess, to read to 'im a fairy tyle about alittle mermaid what fell in love with a prince on land. Bein' in lovewith 'im she wanted to be with 'im, natural like; but there she was inone element, as you might sye, and 'im in another. "

"That'd be like me. "

"Which is why I'm tellin' madam of the story. Well, off the littlemermaid goes to the sea-witch to find out 'ow she could get rid of 'erfish's tyle and 'ave two feet for to walk about in the prince'spalace. Well, the sea-witch she up and tells 'er what she'd 'ave todo. Only, says she, if you do that you'll 'ave to pye for it withevery step you tykes; for every step you tykes'll be like walkin' onsharp blydes. Now, says she, to the little mermaid, do you think it'dbe worth while?"

In Letty's eyes all the stars glittered with her eagerness for thedénouement. "And did she think it was worth while--the littlemermaid?"

"She did; but I'll give madam the tyle to read for 'erself. It's inthe syme little book what Miss Pye used to read out of--up in Mr. Rash's old nursery. "

With the pride of a royal thing conscious of its royalty the carrolled to the door and stopped. It was the prince's car, while she, Letty, was a mermaid born in an element different from his, andencumbered with a fish's tail. She must have shown this in her face, for Steptoe said, with his fatherly smile:

"Madam may 'ave to walk on blydes--but it'll be in the Prince'spalace. "

It'll be in the Prince's palace! Letty repeated this to herself as shefollowed him out to the car. Holding the door open for her, Eugene, who had been told of her romance, touched his cap respectfully. Whenshe had taken her seat he tucked the robe round her, respectfullyagain. Steptoe marked the social difference between them by sittingbeside Eugene. 

Rolling down Fifth Avenue Letty was as much at a loss to account forherself as Elijah must have been in the chariot of fire. She didn'tknow where she was going. She was not even able to ask. The successionof wonders within twenty-four hours blocked the working of herfaculties. She thought of the girls who sneered at her in thestudios--she thought of Judson Flack--and of what they would say ifthey were to catch a glimpse of her. 

She was not so unsophisticated as to be without some appreciation ofthe quarter of New York in which she found herself. She knew it wasthe "swell" quarter. She knew that the world's symbols of money anddisplay were concentrated here, and that in some queer way she, poorwaif, had been given a command of them. One day homeless, friendless, and penniless, and the next driving down Fifth Avenue in a limousinewhich might be called her own!

The motor was slowing down. It was drawing to the curb. They hadreached the place to which Steptoe had directed Eugene. Letty didn'thave to look at the name-plate to know she was where the great starsgot their gowns, and that she was being invited into Margot's!

You know Margot's, of course. A great international house, Margot--thesecret is an open one--is but the incognita of a business-like Englishcountess who finds it financially profitable to sign articles oncostume written by someone else, and be sponsor for the newestfashions which someone else designs. As a way of turning animpoverished historic title to account it is as good as any other. 

Without knowing who Margot was Letty knew what she was. She couldn'thave frequented studios without hearing that much, and once or twicein her wanderings about the city she had paused to admire the door. Itwas all there was to admire, since Margot, to Letty's regret, didn'tdisplay confections behind plate-glass. 

It was a Flemish château which had been a residence before businesshad traveled above Forty-second Street. A man in livery would havebarred them from passing the wrought-iron grille had it not been forthe car from which they had emerged. Only people worthy of beingcustomers of the house could afford such cars, and he saw that Steptoewas a servant. What Letty was he couldn't see, for servants of greathouses never looked so nondescript. 

In the great hall a beautiful staircase swept to an upper floor, butapart from a Louis Seize mirror and console flanked by two Louis Seizechairs there was nothing and no one to be seen. Steptoe turned to theright into a vast saloon with a cinnamon-colored carpet and walls ofcool French gray. A group of gilded chairs were the only furnishings, except for a gilded canapé between two French windows draped withcinnamon-colored hangings. A French fender with French andirons filledthe fireplace, and on the white marble mantelpiece stood a _garniturede cheminée_, a clock and two vases, in biscuit de Sèvres. 

At the end of the room opposite the windows a woman in black, withcoiffure à la Marcel, sat at a white-enamelled desk working with aledger. A second woman in black, also with coiffure à la Marcel, stood holding open the doors of a white-enamelled wardrobe, gazing atits multi-colored contents. Two other women in black, still withcoiffure à la Marcel, were bending over a white-enamelled drawer in aseries of white-enamelled drawers, discussing in low tones. There wereno customers. For such a house the season had not yet begun. Though inthis saloon voices were pitched as low as for conversation in achurch, the sharp catgut calls of Frenchwomen--and of Frenchdressmakers especially--came from a room beyond. 

Overawed by this vastness, simplicity, and solemnity, Steptoe andLetty stood barely within the door, waiting till someone noticed them. No one did so till the woman holding open the wardrobe doors closedthem and turned round. She did not come forward at once; she onlystared at them. Still keeping her eye on the newcomers she called theattention of the ladies occupied with the drawer, who liftedthemselves up. They too stared. The lady at the desk stared also. 

It was the lady of the wardrobe who advanced at last, slowly, withdignity, her hands genteelly clasped in front of her. She seemed to besaying, "No, we don't want any, " or, "I'm sorry we've nothing to giveyou, " by her very walk. Letty, with her gift for dramaticinterpretation, could see this, though Steptoe, familiar as he waswith ladies whom he would have classed as "'igher, " was not daunted. He too went forward, meeting madam half way. 

Of what was said between them Letty could hear nothing, but theexpression on the lady's face was dissuasive. She was telling Steptoethat he had come to the wrong place, while Steptoe was saying no. Fromtime to time the lady would send a glance toward Letty, not indisdain, but in perplexity. It was perplexity which reached its climaxwhen Steptoe drew from an inside pocket an impressive roll of bills. 

The lady looked at the bills, but she also looked at Letty. The honorof a house like Margot's is not merely in making money; it is in itsclientèle. To have a poor little waif step in from the street. .. . 

And yet it was because she was a poor little waif that she interestedthe ladies looking on. She was so striking an exception to their rulethat her very coming in amazed them. One of the two who had remainednear the open drawer came forward into conference with her colleague, adding her dissuasions to those which Steptoe had already refused tolisten to. 

"There are plenty of other places to which you could go, " Letty heardthis second lady say, "and probably do better. "

Steptoe smiled, that old man's smile which was rarely ineffective. "Madam don't 'ave to tell me as there's plenty of other plyces towhich I could go; but there's none where I could do as well. "

"What makes you think so?"

"I'm butler to a 'igh gentleman what 'e used to entertyne quite a bitwhen 'is mother was alive. I've listened to lydies talkin' at tyble. No one can't tell me. I _know_. "

Both madams smiled. Each shot another glance at Letty. It was plainthat they were curious as to her identity. One of them made aventure. 

"And is this your--your daughter?"

Steptoe explained, not without dignity, that the young lady was nothis daughter, but that she had come into quite a good bit of money, and had done it sudden like. She needed a 'igh, grand outfit, thoughfor the present she would be content with three or four of the dressesmost commonly worn by a lydy of stytion. He preferred to nyme nonymes, but he was sure that even Margot would not regret herconfidence--and he had the cash, as they saw, in his pocket. 

Of this the result was an exchange between the madams of comprehendinglooks, while, in French, one said to the other that it might be wellto consult Madame Simone. 

Madame Simone, who bustled in from the back room, was not in black, but in frowzy gray; her coiffure was not à la Marcel, but as Lettydescribed it, "all anyway. " A short, stout, practical Frenchwoman, shehad progressed beyond the need to consider looks, and no longerconsidered them. The two shapely subordinates with whom Steptoe hadbeen negotiating followed her at a distance like attendants. 

She disposed of the whole matter quickly, addressing the attendantsrather than the postulants for Margot's favor. 

"Mademoiselle she want an outfit--good!--bon! We don't know her, butwhat difference does that make to me?--qu'est ce que c'est que cela mefait? Money is money, isn't it?--de l'argent c'est de l'argent, n'est-ce pas?--at this time of year especially--à cette saison del'année surtout. "

To Steptoe and Letty she said: "'Ave the goodness to sit yourselves'ere. Me, I will show you what we 'ave. A street costume first formademoiselle. If mademoiselle will allow me to look at her--Ah, oui!Ze taille--what you call in Eenglish the figure--is excellent. Trèschic. With ze proper closes mademoiselle would have style--del'élégance naturelle--that sees itself--cela se voit--oui--oui----"

Meditating to herself she studied Letty, indifferent apparently to theactual costume and atrocious hat, like a seeress not viewing what isat her feet but events of far away. 

With a sudden start she sprang to her convictions. "I 'ave it. J'ysuis. " A shrill piercing cry like that of a wounded cockatoo went downthe long room. "Alphonsine! Alphon_sine_!"

Someone appeared at the door of the communicating rooms. Madame Simonegave her orders in a few sharp staccato French sentences. After thatLetty and Steptoe found themselves sitting on two of the gildedchairs, unexpectedly alone. The other ladies had returned to theirtasks. Madame Simone had gone back to the place whence they hadsummoned her. Nothing had happened. It seemed to be all over. Theywaited. 

"Ain't she goin' to show us nothin'?" Letty whispered anxiously. "Theyalways do. "

Steptoe was puzzled but recommended patience. He couldn't think thatMadame could have begun so kindly, only to go off and leave them inthe lurch. It was not what he had looked for, any more than she; buthe had always found patient waiting advantageous. 

Perhaps ten minutes had gone by when a new figure wandered towardthem. Strutted would perhaps be the better word, since she steppedlike a person for whom stepping means a calculation. She was aboutLetty's height, and about Letty's figure. Moreover, she was pretty, with that haughtiness of mien which turns prettiness to beauty. Whatwas most disconcerting was her coming straight toward Letty, andstanding in front of her to stare. 

Letty colored to the eyes--her deep, damask flush. The insult wasworse than anything offered by Mrs. Courage; for Mrs. Courage afterall was only a servant, and this a young lady of distinction. Lettyhad never seen anyone dressed with so much taste, not even the starsas they came on the studio lot in their everyday costumes. Indignantas she was she could appreciate this delicate seal-brown cloth, withits bits of gold braid, and darling glimpses of sage-green whereverthe lining showed indiscreetly. The hat was a darling too, brown witha feather between brown and green, the one color or the otheraccording as the wearer moved. 

If it hadn't been for this cool insolence. .. . And then the young ladydeliberately swung on her heel, which was high, to move some five orsix yards away, where she stood with her back to them. It was adarling back--with just enough gold braid to relieve the simplicity, and the tiniest revelation of sage-green. Letty admired it the morepoignantly for its cold contempt of herself. 

Steptoe was not often put out of countenance, but it seemed to havehappened now. "I _can't_ think, " he murmured, as one who contemplatesthe impossible, "that the French madam can 'ave been so civil to beginwith, just to go and make a guy of us. "

"If all her customers is like this----" Letty began. 

But the young lady of distinction turned again, stepping a few pacestoward the back of the room, swinging on herself, stepping a few pacestoward the front of the room, swinging on herself again, and all thewhile flinging at Letty glances which said: "If you want to see scorn, this is it. "

Fascination kept Letty paralyzed. Steptoe grew uneasy. 

"I wish the French madam'd come back agyne, " he murmured, from halfclosed lips. "We 'aven't come 'ere to be myde a spectacle of--not forno one. "

And just then the seal-brown figure strolled away, as serenely andimpudently as she had come. 

"Well, of all----!"

Letty's exclamation was stifled by the fact that as the first younglady of distinction passed out a second crossed her coming in. Theytook no notice of each other, though the newcomer walked straight upto Letty, not to stare but to toss up her chin with a hint of laughtersuppressed. Laughter, suppressed or unsuppressed, was her note. Shewas all fair-haired, blue-eyed vivacity. It was a relief to Letty thatshe didn't stare. She twitched, she twisted, she pirouetted, strikingdull gleams from an embroidery studded with turquoise and jade--butshe hadn't the hard unconscious arrogance of the other one. 

All the same it pained Letty that great ladies should be so beautiful. Not that this one was beautiful of face--she wasn't--onlypiquant--but the general effect was beautiful. It showed what moneyand the dressmaker could do. If she, Letty could have had a dress anda hat like this!--a blue or a green, it was difficult to saywhich--with these strips of jade and turquoise on a ground of thepurplish-greenish-blue she remembered as that of the monkshood in theold farm garden in Canada--and the darlingest hat, with one longfeather beginning as green and graduating through every impossibleshade of green and blue till it ended in a monkshood tip. .. . 

No wonder the girl's blue eyes danced and quizzed and laughed. As amatter of fact, Letty commented, the eyes brought a little too muchblue into the composition. It was her only criticism. As a whole itlacked contrast. If she herself had worn this costume--with hergold-stone eyes--and brown hair--and rich coloring, when she had anycolor--blue was always a favorite shade with her--when she couldchoose, which wasn't often--she remembered as a child on the farm howshe used to plaster herself with the flowers of the blue succory--thedust-flower they called it down there because it seemed to thrive likethe disinherited on the dust of the wayside--not but what theseal-brown was adorable. .. . 

The spectacle grew dazzling, difficult for Steptoe to keep up with. Heand Letty were plainly objects of interest to these grand folk, because there were now four or five of them. They advanced, receded, came up and studied them, wheeled away, smiled sometimes at each otherwith the high self-assurance of beauty and position, pranced, pawed, curveted, were noble or coquettish as the inner self impelled, butalways the embodiment of overweening pride. Among the "real gentry, "as he called them, there had unfailingly been for him and hiscolleagues a courtesy which might have been called only a distinctionin equality, whereas these high-steppers. .. . 

It was a relief to see the French madam bustling in again from theroom at the back. Steptoe rose. He meant to express himself. Lettyhoped he would. For people who brought money in their hands thistreatment was too much. When Steptoe advanced to meet madam, she wentwith him. As her champion she must bear him out. 

But madam forestalled them. "I 'ope that mademoiselle has seensomething what she like. Me, I thought the brown costume--_coeur de lemarguerite jaune_ we call it ziz season----"

Letty was quick. She had heard of mannequins, the living models, though so remotely as to give her no visualized impression. Suddenlyknowing what they had been looking at she adapted herself beforeSteptoe could get his protest into words. 

"I liked the seal-brown; but for me I thought the second one----"

Madame Simone nodded, sagely. "Why shouldn't mademoiselle 'ave both?"

Chapter XI

While this question was being put, and Steptoe was rising to what hesaw as the real occasion, Rashleigh Allerton too was having a newexperience. He couldn't understand it; he couldn't understand himself. Not that that was strange, since he had hardly ever understood himselfat any time; but now he was, as he expressed it, "absolutelystumped. "

He had put on the table the bottle on which the kilted Highlander wasplaying on the pipes; he had poured himself a glass. It was what hecalled a good stiff glass, meant, metaphorically, to kill or cure, andhe hoped it would be to kill. 

And that was all. 

He had sat looking at it, or he had looked at it while walking about;but he had only looked at it. It was as far as he could go. Now thatto go farther had become what he called a duty the perversity of hisnerves was such that they refused. It was like him. He could always dothe forbidden, the dare-devil, the crazily mad; but when it came tothe reasonable and straightforward something in him balked. Here hewas at what should have been the beginning of the end, and the demonwhich at another time would have driven him on was holding him back. Temptation had worked itself round the other way. It was temptationnot to do, when saving grace lay in doing. 

An hour or more had gone by when Mr. Radbury knocked at the door, timidly. 

"Come in, Radbury, " Allerton cried, in a gayety he didn't feel. "Havea drink. "

Mr. Radbury looked at the bottle and the glass. He looked at his youngemployer, who with his hands in his pockets, was again standing by thewindow. It was the first time in all the years of his service, firstwith the father and then with the son, that this invitation had beengiven him. 

"Thanks, Mr. Rash, " he said, with a thick, shaky utterance. "Liquorand I are strangers. I wish I could feel----"

But the old man's trembling anxiety forced on Allerton the fact thatthe foolish game was up. "All right, Radbury. Was only joking. No harmdone. Had only taken the thing out to--to look at it. "

Before sitting down to read and sign the letters he put both glass andbottle back into the keeping of Queen Caroline Murat, saying tohimself as he did so: "I must find some other way. "

He was thrown back thus on Barbara's suggestion of a few hoursearlier. He must get rid of the girl! He had scarcely as yetconsidered this proposal, though not because he deemed it unworthy ofhimself. Nothing could be unworthy of himself. A man who was so littleof a man as he was entitled to do anything, however base, and feel noshame. It was simply that his mind hadn't worked round to looking atthe thing as feasible. And yet it was; plainly it was. The law allowedfor it, if one only took advantage of the law's allowances. It wouldbe beastly, of course; and more beastly for him than the average ofmen; but because it was beastly it were better done at once, beforethe girl got used to luxurious surroundings. 

But even this resolution, speedy as it was, came a little late. Byevening Letty was already growing used to luxurious surroundings, andfinding herself at home in them. 

First, there were no longer any women in the house, and with the threemen--Steptoe's friends being already installed--she found herself safefrom the prying and criticizing feminine. 

Secondly, some of the new clothes had already come home, and she wasnow wearing the tea-gown she had long dreamt of but had never aspiredto possess. It was of a blue so dark as to be almost black, with aflame colored bar across the breast, harmonizing with her hair andeyes. Of her eyes she wasn't thinking; but her hair. .. . 

That, however, was another part of the day's fairy tale. 

When the dresses had been bought and paid for madame presumed toSteptoe that mademoiselle was under some rich gentleman's protection. Taking words at their face value, as she, Letty, did herself, Steptoeadmitted that she was. Madam made it plain that she understood thishonor, which often came to girls of the humblest classes, and the needthere could be for supplementing wardrobes suddenly. After that it wasconfidence for confidence. Madame had seen that in the matter oflingerie mademoiselle "left to desire, " and though Margot made nospecialty in this line, they happened to have on an upper floor aconsignment just arrived from Paris, and if monsieur would allowmademoiselle to come up and inspect it. .. . Then it was Madame Simone'scoiffeur. At least it was the coiffeur whom Madame Simone recommended, who came to the house, after Letty had donned a peignoir from theconsignment just arrived from Paris. .. . And now, at half past nine inthe evening, it was the memory of a day of mingled agony andenchantment. 

Having looked her over as he summoned her to dinner, Steptoe hadapproved of her. He had approved of her with an inner emphasisstronger than he expressed. Letty didn't know how she knew this; butshe knew. She knew that her transformation was a surprise to him. Sheknew that though he had hoped much from her she was giving him morethan he had hoped. Nothing that he said told her this, but somethingin his manner--in his yearning as he passed her the various dishes andtactfully showed her how to help herself, in the tenderness with whichhe repeated correctly her little slips in words--something in thisbetrayed it. 

She knew it, too, when after dinner he begged her not to escape to thelittle back room, but to take her place in the drawing-room. 

"Madam'll find that it'll pass the time for 'er. Maybe too Mr. Rashleigh'll come in. 'E does sometimes--early like. I've known 'im tocome 'ome by 'alf past nine, and if 'is ma wasn't sittin' in thedrorin' room 'e'd be quite put out. Lydies mostly wytes till their'usbands comes in; and in cyse madam'd feel lonely I'll leave thedoor open to the back part of the 'ouse, and she'll 'ear me talkin' tothe boys. "

The October evening being chilly he lit a fire. Drawing up in front ofit a small armchair, suited for a lady's use, he placed behind it atable with an electric lamp. Letty smiled up at him. He had never seenher smile before, and now that he did he made to himself anothercomment of approval. 

"You're awful good to me. "

He reflected as to how he could bring home to her the grammaticalmistake. 

"Madam finds me _horfly_ good, does she? P'rhaps that's because madamdon't know that 'er comin' to this 'ouse gratifies a tyste o' mine forwhich I ain't never 'ad no gratificytion. "

As he put a footstool to her feet he caught the question she so easilytransmitted by her eyes. 

"P'raps madam can hunderstand that after doin' things all my life forpeople as is used to 'em I've 'ad a kind o' cryvin' to do 'em for themas 'aven't 'ad nothink, and who could enjoy them more. I told madamyesterday I was somethink of a anarchist, and that's 'ow I am--wantin'to give the poor a wee little bit of what the rich 'as to throwawye. "

Later he brought her an old red book, open at a page on which sheread, _The Little Mermaid_. 

Her heart leaped. It was from this volume that Miss Pye had read tothe Prince when he was a child. She let her eyes run along the openingwords. 

"Far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petals of thecornflower, and clear as the purest glass. "

She liked this sentence. It took her into a blue world. It wascurious, she thought, how much meaning there was in colors. If youlooked through red glass the world was angry; if through yellow, itwas lit with an extraordinary sun; if through blue, you had thesensation of universal happiness. She supposed that that was why blueflowers always made you feel that there was a want in life which oughtto be supplied--and wasn't. 

She remembered a woman who had a farm near them in Canada, who grewonly blue flowers in her garden. The neighbors said she was crazy; butshe, Letty, had liked that garden better than all the gardens sheknew. She would go there and talk to that woman, and listen to whatshe had to say of Nature's peculiar love of blue. The sea and sky wereloveliest when they were blue, and so were the birds. There were bluestones, the woman said, precious stones, and other stones that werelittle more than rocks, which said something to the heart when pearlsand diamonds spoke only to the eyes. In the fields, orchards, andgardens, white flowers, yellow flowers, red flowers were common; butblue flowers were rare and retiring, as if they guarded a secret whichmen should come and search out. 

To this there was only one exception. Letty would notice as shetrudged back to her father's farm that along the August roadsidesthere was a blue flower--of a blue you would never see anywhere else, not even in the sky--which grew in the dust, and lived on dust, andout of the dust drew elements of beauty such as roses and liliescouldn't boast of. "That means, " the crazy woman said, "that there'snothing so dry, or parched, or sterile, that God can't take it andfashion from it the most priceless treasures of loveliness, if we onlyhad the eyes to see them. "

Letty never forgot this, and during all the intervening years the dustflower, with its heavenly color, had been the wild growing thing sheloved best. It spoke to her. It not only responded to the ache shefelt within herself, but gave a promise of assuagement. She had neverexpected the fulfilment of that promise, but was it possible that nowit was going to be kept?

With her eyes on the fire she saw the color of the dust flower closeto the flaming wood. It was the closest of all the colors, the one theburning heart kept nearest to itself. It seemed to be, as the crazywoman said, dear to Nature itself, its own beloved secret, the secretwhich, even when written in the dust of the wayside, or in the fire onthe hearth, hardly anyone read or found out. 

And as she was dreaming of this and of her Prince, Rashleigh waswalking up the avenue, saying to himself that he must make an end ofit. He was walking home because, having dined at the Club, he foundhimself too restless to stay there. Walking relieved his nerves, andenabled him to think. He must have the thing over and done with. Shewould go decently, of course, since, as he had promised her, she wouldhave plenty of money to go with--plenty of money for the rest of herlife--and that was the sole consideration. She would doubtless be asglad to escape as he to have her disappear. After that, so his lawyerhad assured him in the afternoon, the legal steps would be relativelyeasy. 

Letting himself in with his latchkey he was surprised to see a lightin the drawing-room. It had not been lighted up at night, as far as hecould remember, since the days when his mother was accustomed to sitthere. If he came home early he had always used the library, which wason the other side of the house and at the back. 

He went into the front drawing-room, which was empty; but a fire burntin the back one, and before it someone was seated. It was not the girlhe had found in the park. It was a lady whom he didn't recognize, butclearly a lady. She was reading a book, and had evidently not heardhis entrance or his step. 

With the shadows of the front drawing-room behind him he stood betweenthe portieres, and looked. He had looked for some seconds before thelady raised her eyes. She raised them with a start. Slowly there stoleinto her cheek the dark red of confusion. She dropped the book. Sherose. 

It wasn't till she rose that he knew her. It wasn't till he knew herthat he was seized by an astonishment which almost made him laugh. Itwasn't till he almost laughed that he went forward with the words, which insensibly bridged some of the gulf between them:

"Oh! So this is--_you_!"

Chapter XII

Letty had not heard Allerton's entrance or approach because for thefirst time in her life she was lost in the magic of Hans Andersen. 

"The sun had just gone down as the little mermaid lifted her headabove the water. The clouds were brilliant in purple and gold, andthrough the pale, rose-tinged air the evening star shone clear andbright. The air was warm and mild; the sea at rest. A great ship withthree masts lay close by, only one sail unfurled, for there was nobreath of air, and the sailors sat aloft in the rigging or leanedlazily over the bulwarks. Music and singing filled the air, and as thesky darkened hundreds of Chinese lanterns were lighted. It seemed asif the flags of every nation were hung out. The little mermaid swam upto the cabin window, and every time she rose upon the waves she couldsee through the clear glass that the room was full of brilliantlydressed people. Handsomest of all was the young prince with the greatdark eyes. "

Allerton's eyes were dark, and though she did not consider himprecisely young, the analogy between him and the hero of the tale wassufficient to take her eyes from the book and to set her to dreaming. 

"He could not be more than sixteen years old, and this was hisbirthday. All this gaiety was in honor of him; the sailors danced uponthe deck; and when the young prince came out a myriad of rockets flewhigh in the air, with a glitter like the brightest noontide, and thelittle mermaid was so frightened that she dived deep down under thewater. She soon rose up again, however, and it seemed as if all thestars of heaven were falling round her in golden showers. Never hadshe seen such fireworks; great, glittering suns wheeled by her, fieryfishes darted through the blue air, and all was reflected back fromthe quiet sea. The ship was lighted up so that one could see thesmallest rope. How handsome the young prince looked! He shook handswith everybody, and smiled, as the music rang out into the gloriousnight. It grew late, but the little mermaid could not turn her eyesaway from the ship and the handsome prince. "

Once more Letty's thought wandered from the page. She too would havewatched her handsome prince, no matter what the temptation to lookelsewhere. 

"The colored lanterns were put out, no rocket rose in the air, nocannon boomed from the portholes; but deep below there was a surgingand a murmuring. The mermaid sat still, cradled by the waves, so thatshe could look in at the cabin window. But now the ship began to makemore way. One sail after another was unfurled; the waves rose higher;clouds gathered in the sky; and there was a distant flash oflightning. The storm came nearer. All the sails were taken in, and theship rocked giddily, as she flew over the foaming billows; the wavesrose mountain-high, as if they would swallow up the very masts, butthe good ship dived like a swan into the deep black trough, and rosebravely to the foaming crest. The little mermaid thought it was amerry journey, but the sailors were of a different opinion. The shipstrained and creaked; the timbers shivered as the thunder strokes ofthe waves fell fast; heavy seas swept the decks; the mainmast snappedlike a reed; and the ship lurched heavily, while the water rushed intothe hold. Then the young princess began to understand the danger, andshe herself was often threatened by the falling masts, yards, andspars. One moment it was so dark that she could see nothing, but whenthe lightning flamed out the ship was as bright as day. She sought forthe young prince, and saw him sinking down through the water as theship parted. The sight pleased her, for she knew he must sink down toher home. But suddenly she remembered that men cannot live in thewater, and that he would only reach her father's palace a lifelesscorpse. No; he must not die! She swam to and fro among the driftingspars, forgetting that they might crush her with their weight; shedived and rose again, and reached the prince just when he felt that hecould swim no longer in the stormy sea. His arms were beginning tofail him, his beautiful eyes were closed; in another moment he musthave sunk, had not the little mermaid come to his aid. She kept hishead above water, and let the waves carry them whither they would. "

Letty didn't want Allerton's life to be in danger, but she would haveloved saving it. She fell to pondering possible conditions in whichshe could perform this feat, while he ran no risk whatever. 

"The next day the storm was over; not a spar of the ship was left insight. The sun rose red and glowing upon the waves, and seemed to pourdown new life upon the prince, though his eyes remained closed. Thelittle mermaid kissed his fair white forehead and stroked back his wethair. He was like the marble statue in her little garden, she thought. She kissed him again, and prayed that he might live. "

Letty saw herself seated somewhere in a mead, Allerton lyingunconscious with his head in her lap, though the circumstances thatbrought them so together remained vague. 

"Suddenly the dry land came in sight before her, high blue mountainson whose peaks the snow lay white, as if a flock of swans had settledthere. On the coast below were lovely green woods, and close on shorea building of some kind, the mermaid didn't know whether it was churchor cloister. Citrons and orange trees grew in the garden, and beforethe porch were stately palm trees. The sea ran in here and formed aquiet bay, unruffled, but very deep. The little mermaid swam with theprince to the white sandy shore, laid him on the warm sand, takingcare that his head was left where the sun shone warmest. Bells beganto chime and ring through all parts of the building, and several younggirls entered the garden. The little mermaid swam farther out, behinda tiny cliff that rose above the waves. She showered sea-foam on herhair that no one might see its golden glory, and then waited patientlyto see if anyone would come to the aid of the young prince. "

To Letty that was the heart-breaking part of the story, the leavingthe beloved one to others. It was what she and the little mermaid hadin common, unless she too could get rid of her fish's tail at the costof walking on blades. But for the little mermaid there the necessitywas, as she, Letty read on. 

"Before long a young girl came by; she gave a start of terror and ranback to call for assistance. Several people came to her aid, and aftera while the little mermaid saw the prince recover his consciousness, and smile upon the group around him. But he had no smile for her; hedid not even know that she had saved him. Her heart sank, and when shehad seen him carried into the large building, she dived sorrowfullydown to her father's palace. "

Lifting her eyes to meditate on this situation Letty saw Allertonstanding between the portières. Her dream of being little mermaid tohis prince went out like a pricked bubble. Though he neither smilednor sneered she knew he was amused at her, with a bitterness in hisamusement. In an instant she saw her transformation as it must appearto him. She had spent his money recklessly, and made herself lookridiculous. All the many kinds of shame she had ever known focused onher now, making her a glowing brand of humiliations. She stoodhelpless. Hans Andersen dropped to the floor with a soft thud. Nevertheless, it was she who spoke first. 

"I suppose you--you think it funny to see me rigged up like this?"

He took time to pick up the book she had dropped and hand it back toher. "Won't you sit down again?"

While she seated herself and he followed her example she continued tostammer on. "I--I thought I ought to--to look proper for the house aslong as I was in it. "

Her phrasing gave him an opening. "You're quite right. I should likeyou to get whatever would help you in--in your profession beforeyou--before you leave us. "

Quick to seize the implications here she took them with the submissionof those whose lots have always depended on other people's wills. 

"I'll go whenever you want me to. "

Relieved as he was by this willingness he was anxious not to seembrutal. "I'd--I'd rather you consulted your own wishes about that. "

She put on a show of nonchalance. "Oh, I don't care. It'll bejust--just as you say _when_. "

He would have liked to say when at that instant, but a pretense atcourtesy had to be maintained. "There's no hurry--for a day or two. "

"You said a week or two yesterday. "

"Oh, did I? Well, then, we'll say a week or two now. "

"Oh, not for me, " she hastened to assure him. "I'd just as soon goto-night. "

"Have you hated it as much as that?"

"I've hated some of it. "

"Ah, well! You needn't be bothered with it long. "

Her candor was of the kind which asks questions frankly. "Haven't yougot any more use for me?"

"I'm afraid--" it was not easy to put it into the right words--"I'mafraid I was mistaken yesterday. I put you in--in a false positionwith no necessity for doing so. "

It took her a few seconds to get the force of this. "Do you mean thatyou didn't need me to be--to be a shame and a disgrace to you _atall_?"

"Did I put it in that way?"

"Well, didn't you?"

The fact that she was now dressed as she was made it more embarrassingto him to be crude than it had been when addressing the homeless andshabby little "drab. "

"I don't know what I said then. I was--I was upset. "

"And you're upset very easy, ain't you?" She corrected herselfquickly: "aren't you?"

"I suppose that's true. What of it?"

"Oh, nothing. I--I just happen to know a way you can get over that--ifyou want to. "

He smiled. "I'm afraid my nervousness is too deeply seated--I may aswell admit that I'm nervous--you saw it for yourself----"

"Oh, I saw you was--you were--sick up here--" she touched herforehead--"as soon as you begun to talk to me. "

Grateful for this comprehension he tried to use it to his advantage. "So that you understand how I could go off the hooks----"

"Sure! My mother'd go off 'em the least little thing, till--till shedone--till she did--the way I told her. "

"Then some of these days I may ask you to--but just now perhaps we'dbetter talk about----"

"When I'm to get out. "

Her bluntness of expression hurt him. "That's not the way I shouldhave put it----"

"But it's the way you'd 'a' meant, isn't it?"

He was the more disconcerted because she said this gently, with thesame longing in her face and eyes as in that of the little mermaidbending over the unconscious prince. 

The unconscious prince of the moment merely said: "You mustn't thinkme more brutal than I am----"

"Oh, I don't think you're brutal. You're just a little dippy, ain't--aren't--you? But that's because you let yourself go. If whenyou feel it comin' on you'd just--but perhaps you'd rather _be_ dippy. Would you?"

If he could have called these wide goldstone eyes with their tinyflames maternal it is the word he would have chosen. In spite of thedifficulty of the minute he was conscious of a flicker of amusement. 

"I don't know that I would, but----"

"After I'm gone shall we--shall we _stay_ married?"

This being the real question he was glad she faced it with thedirectness which gave her a kind of charm. He admitted that. She hadthe charm of everything which is genuine of its kind. She made nopretense. Her expression, her voice, her lack of sophistication, allhad the limpidity of water. He felt himself thanking God for it. "Healone knows what kind of hands I might have fallen into yesterday, crazy fool that I am. " Of this child, crude as she was, he could makehis own disposition. 

So in answer to her question he told her he had seen his lawyer in theafternoon--he was a lawyer himself but he didn't practice--and thegreat man had explained to him that of all the processes known toAmerican jurisprudence the retracing of such steps as they had takenon the previous day was one of the simplest. What the law had joinedthe law could put asunder, and was well disposed toward doing so. There being several courses which they could adopt, he put them beforeher one by one. She listened with the sort of attention which showsthe mind of the listener to be fixed on the speaker, rather than onanything he says. Not being obliged to ask questions or to makeanswers she could again see him as the handsome, dark-eyed prince whomshe would have loved to save from drowning or any other fate. 

Of all he said she could attach a meaning to but one word:"desertion. " Even in the technical marital sense she knew vaguely itssignificance. She thought of it with a tightening about the heart. Anydesertion of him of which she would be capable would be like that ofthe little mermaid when she dived sorrowfully down to her father'spalace, leaving him with those to whom he belonged. It was thisthought which prompted a question flung in among his observations, though the link in the train of thought was barely traceable:

"Is she takin' you back--the girl you told me about yesterday?"

He looked puzzled. "Did I tell you about a girl yesterday?"

"Why, sure! You said she kicked you out----"

"Well, she hadn't. I--I didn't know I'd gone so far as to say----"

"Oh, you went a lot farther than that. You said you were goin' to thedevil. Ain't you? I mean, aren't you?"

"I--I don't seem able to. "

"You're the first fellow I've ever heard say that. "

"I'm the first fellow I've ever heard say it myself. But I triedto-day--and I couldn't. "

"What did you do?"

"I tried to get drunk. "

She half rose, shrinking away from him. "Not--not _you!_"

"Yes. Why not? I've been drunk before--not often, but----"

"Don't tell me, " she cried, hastily. "I don't want to know. It'stoo----"

"But I thought it was just the sort of thing you'd be----"

"I'd be used to. So it is. But that's the reason. You're--you'redifferent. I can't bear to think of it--not with you. "

"But I'm just like any other man. "

"Oh, no, you're not. "

He looked at her curiously. "How am I--how am I--different?"

"Oh, other men are just men, and you're a--a kind of prince. "

"You wouldn't think so if you were to know me better. "

"But I'm not goin' to know you better, and I'd rather think of you asI see you are. " She dropped this theme to say: "So the othergirl----"

"She didn't mean it at all. "

"She'd be crazy if she did. But what made her let you think so?"

"She's--she's simply that sort; goes off the hooks too. "

"Oh! So there'll be a pair of you. "

"I'm afraid so. "

"That'll be bloody murder, won't it? Momma was that way with JudsonFlack. Hammer and tongs--the both of them--till I took her in hand, and----"

"And what happened then?"

"She calmed down and--and died. "

"So that it didn't do her much good, did it?"

"It did her that much good that she died. Death was better than theway she was livin' with Judson Flack--and it wasn't always his fault. I do' wanta defend him, but momma got so that if he did have a quietspell she'd go and stir him up. There's not much hope for two marriedpeople that lives like that, do you think?"

"But you say your mother, under your instruction, got over it. "

"Yes, but it was too late. The more she got over it the more he'dlambaste her, and when her money was all gone----"

"But do you think all--all hot-tempered couples have to go it in thatway?"

She made a little hunching movement of the shoulders. "It's mostly catand dog anyhow. You and her--the other girl--won't be much worse thanothers. "

"But you think we'll be worse, to some extent at least. "

She ignored this to say, wistfully: "I suppose you're awful fond ofher. "

"I think I can say as much as that. "

"And is she fond of you?"

"She says so. "

"If she is I don't see how she could--" Her voice trailed away. Hereyes forsook his face to roam the shadows of the room. She added toherself rather than to him: "I couldn't ha' done it if it was me. "

"Oh, if you were in love----"

The eyes wandered back from the shadows to rest on him again. Theywere sorrowful eyes, and unabashed. A child's would have had thisunreproachful ache in them, or a dog's. Though he didn't know what itmeant it disturbed him into leaving his sentence there. 

It occurred to him then that they were forgetting the subject in hand. He had not expected to be able to converse with her, yet somethinglike conversation had been taking place. It had come to him, too, thatshe had a mind, and now that he really looked at her he saw that theface was intelligent. Yesterday that face had been no more to him thana smudge, without character, and almost featureless, while to-day. .. . 

The train of his thought being twofold he could think along one line, and speak along another. "So if you go to see my lawyer he'll suggestdifferent things that you could do----"

"I'd rather do whatever 'ud make it easiest for you. "

"You're very kind, but I think I'd better not suggest. I'll leave thatto him and you. He knows already that he's to supply you with whatevermoney you need for the present; and after everything is settled I'llsee that you have----"

The damask flush which Steptoe had admired stole over a face floodedwith alarm. She spoke as she rose, drawing a little back from him. "Ido' want any money. "

He looked up at her in protestation. "Oh, but you must take it. "

She was still drawing back, as if he was threatening her withsomething that would hurt. "I do' want to. "

"But it was part of our bargain. You don't understand that Icouldn't----"

"I didn't make no such--" She checked herself. Her mother had rebukedher for this form of speech a thousand times. She said the sentenceover as she felt he would have said it, as the people would have saidit among whom she had lived as a child. The cadence of his speech, thehalf forgotten cadences of theirs, helped her ear and her intuitions. "I didn't make any such bargain, " she managed to bring out, at last. "You said you'd give me money; but I never said I'd take it. "

He too rose. He began to feel troubled. Perhaps she wouldn't be at hisdisposition after all. "But--but I couldn't stand it if you didn't letme----"

"And I couldn't stand it if I did. "

"But that's not reasonable. It's part of the whole thing that I shouldlook out for your future after what----"

"I know what you mean, " she declared, tremblingly. "You think thatbecause I'm--I'm beneath you that I ain't got--that I haven't got--nosense of what a girl should do and what she shouldn't do. But you'rewrong. Do you suppose I didn't know all about how crazy it was when Iwent with you yesterday? Of course I did. I was as much to blame asyou. "

"Oh, no, you weren't. Apart from your being what you call beneathme--and I don't admit that you are--I'm a great deal older thanyou----"

"You're only older in years. In livin' I'm twice your age. Besides I'mall right here----" she touched her forehead again--"and I could seefirst thing that you was a fellow that needed to be took--to betaken--care of. "

"Oh, you did!"

She strengthened her statement with an affirmative nod. "Yes, I did. "

"Well, then, I've always paid the people who've taken care of me----"

"Oh, but you didn't ask me to take care of you, and I didn't take nocare. You wanted me to be a disgrace to you, and I thought so littleof myself that I said I'd go and be it. Now I've got to pay for that, not be paid for it. "

Her head was up with what Steptoe considered to be mettle. Though thepicture she presented was stamped on his mind as resembling the proudmien of the girl in Whistler's Yellow Buskin, he didn't think of thattill later. 

"There's one thing I must ask you to remember, " he said, in a tone hetried to make firm, "that I couldn't possibly accept from you anythingin the way of sacrifice. "

Her eyes were wide and earnest. "But I never thought of _makin'_anything in the way of sacrifice. "

"It would be sacrifice for you to help me get out of this scrape, andhave nothing at all to the good. "

"But I'd have lots to the good. " She reflected. "I'd haverememberin'. "

"What have you got to remember?"

With her child's lack of self-consciousness she looked him straight inthe eyes. "You--for one thing. "

"Me!" He had hardly the words for his amazement. "For heaven's sake, what can you have to remember about me that--that could give you anypleasure?"

"Oh, I didn't say it would give me any pleasure. I said I'd _have_ it. It'd be mine--something no one couldn't take away from me. "

"But if it doesn't do you any good----"

"It does me good if it makes me richer, don't it?"

"Richer to--to remember _me_?"

She nodded, with a little twisted smile, beginning to move toward thedoor. Over her shoulder she said: "And it isn't only you. There's--there's Steptoe. "

Chapter XIII

Making her nod suffice for a good-night, Letty, with the red volume ofHans Andersen under her arm, passed out into the hall. It was not easyto carry herself with the necessary nonchalance, but she got strengthby saying inwardly: "Here's where I begin to walk on blades. " Theknowledge that she was doing it, and that she was doing it toward anend, gave her a dignity of carriage which Allerton watched withsharpened observation. 

Reaching the little back spare room she found the door open, andSteptoe sweeping up the hearth before a newly lighted fire. Beppo, whose basket had been established here, jumped from his shelter to pawup at her caressingly. With the hearth-brush in his hand Steptoeraised himself to say:

"Madam'll excuse me, but I thought as the evenin' was chilly----"

"He doesn't want me to stay. "

She brought out the fact abruptly, lifelessly, because she couldn'tkeep it back. The calm she had been able to maintain downstairs wasbreaking up, with a quivering of the lip and two rolling tears. 

Slowly and absently Steptoe dusted his left hand with the hearth-brushheld in his right. "If madam's goin' to decide 'er life by whatanother person wants she ain't never goin' to get nowhere. "

There were tears now in the voice. "Yes, but when it's--_him_. "

"'Im or anybody else, we all 'ave to fight for what we means to mykeof our own life. It's a poor gyme in which I don't plye my 'and forall I think it'll win. "

"Do you mean that I should--act independent?"

"'Aven't madam an independent life?"

"Havin' an independent life don't make it easier to stay where you'renot wanted. "

"Oh, if madam's lookin' first for what's easy----"

"I'm not. I'm lookin' first for what he'll _like_. "

Hanging the hearth-brush in its place he took the tongs to adjust asmoking log. "I've been lookin' for what 'e'd like ever since 'e wasborn; and now I see that gettin' so much of what 'e liked 'asn't beengood for 'im. If madam'd strike out on 'er own line, whether 'e likedit or not, and keep at it till 'e 'ad to like it----"

"Oh, but when it's--" she sought for the right word--"when it's sohumiliatin'----"

"Humiliatin' things is not so 'ard to bear, once you've myde up yourmind as they're to be borne. " He put up the tongs, to busy himselfwith the poker. "Madam'll find that humiliation is a good deal likethat there quinine; bitter to the tyste, but strengthenin'. I'veswallered lots of it; and look at me to-dye. "

"I know as well as he does that it's all been a crazy mistake----"

"I was readin' the other day--I'm fond of a good book, I am--occupiesthe mind like--but I was readin' about a circus man in South Africa, what 'e myde a mistyke and took the wrong tryle--and just when 'e wasa-givin' 'imself up for lost among the tigers and the colored savages'e found 'e'd tumbled on a mine of diamonds. Big 'ouse in Park Lyne inLondon now, and 'is daughter married to a Lord. "

"Oh, I've tumbled into the mine of diamonds all right. The questionis----"

"If madam really tumbled, or was led by the 'and of Providence. "

She laughed, ruefully. "If that was it the hand of Providence 'd haveto have some pretty funny ways. "

"I've often 'eard as the wyes of Providence was strynge; but I ain'tso often 'eard as Providence 'ad got to myke 'em strynge to keep pycewith the wyes of men. Now if the 'and of Providence 'ad picked outmadam for Mr. Rash, it'd 'ave to do somethink out of the common, asyou might sye, to bring together them as man had put so far apart. " Helooked round the room with the eye of a head-waiter inspecting a tablein a restaurant. "Madam 'as everythink? Well, if there's anythink elseshe's only got to ring. "

Bowing himself out he went down the stairs to attend to those dutiesof the evening which followed the return of the master of the house. In the library and dining-room he saw to the window fastenings, andput out the one light left burning in each room. In the hall he lockedthe door with the complicated locks which had helped to guarantee thelate Mrs. Allerton against burglars. There was not only a bolt, achain, and an ordinary lock, but there was an ingenious double lockwhich turned the wrong way when you thought you were turning it theright, and could otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with thistask he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted frontdrawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, hishands clasped behind him, and his head bent, in an attitude ofmeditation. 

Steptoe, having much to say to him, felt the nervousness of a primeminister going into the presence of a sovereign who might or might notapprove his acts. It was at once the weakness and the strength of hisposition that his rule was based on an unwritten constitution. Beingunwritten it allowed of a borderland where powers were undefined. Powers being undefined his scope was the more easily enlarged, thoughnow and then he found that the sovereign rebelled against the mayor ofthe palace and had to be allowed his way. 

But the sovereign was nursing no seeds of the kind of discontent whichSteptoe was afraid of. As a matter of fact he was thinking of the wayin which Letty had left the room. The perspective, the tea-gown, theeffectively dressed hair, enabled him to perceive the combination ofresults which Madame Simone had called _de l'élégance naturelle_. Shehad that; he could see it as he hadn't seen it hitherto. It must havegiven what value there was to her poor little rôles in motionpictures. Now that his eye had caught it, it surprised, and to somedegree disturbed, him. It was more than the show-girl's inaneprettiness, or the comely wax-work face of the girl on the cover of amagazine. With due allowance for her Anglo-Saxonism and honesty, shewas the type of woman to whom "things happen. " Things would happen toher, Allerton surmised, beyond anything she could experience in hiscumbrous and antiquated house. This queer episode would drop behindher as an episode and no more, and in the multitude of futureincidents she would almost forget that she had known him. He hoped toGod that it would be so, and yet. .. . 

He was noting too that she hadn't taxed him, in the way of calling onhis small supply of nervous energy. Rather she had spared it, and hefelt himself rested. After a talk with Barbara he was always spent. Her emotional furies demanded so much of him that they used him up. This girl, on the contrary, was soothing. He didn't know how she wassoothing; but she was. He couldn't remember when he had talked to awoman with so little thought of what he was to say and how he was tosay it, and heaven only knew that the things to be said between themwere nerve-racking enough. But they had come out of their own accord, those nerve-racking things, probably, he reasoned, because she was agirl of inferior class with whom he didn't have to be particular. 

She was quick, too, to catch the difference between his speech and herown. She was quick--and pathetic. Her self-correction amused him, witha strain of pity in his amusement. If a girl like that had only had achance. .. . And just then Steptoe broke in on his musing by enteringthe room. 

The first subject to be aired was that of the changes in the householdstaff, and Steptoe raised it diplomatically. Mrs. Courage and Jane hadtaken offense at the young lydy's presence, and packed themselves offin dishonorable haste. Had it not been that two men friends of his ownwere ready to come at an hour's notice the house would have beenservantless till he had procured strangers. No condemnation could betoo severe for Mrs. Courage and Jane, for not content with leaving thehouse in dudgeon they had insulted the young lydy before they went. 

"Sooner or lyter they would 'a' went any'ow. For this long time backthey've been too big for their boots, as you might sye. If Mr. Rash'ad married the other young lydy she wouldn't 'a' stood 'em a week. Itdon't do to keep servants too long, not when they've got no more thana menial mind, which Jynie and Mrs. Courage 'aven't. The minute they'eard that this young lydy was in the 'ouse. .. . And beautiful the wyeshe took it, Mr. Rash. I never see nothink finer on the styge nor inthe movin' pictures. Like a young queen she was, a-tellin' 'em thatshe 'adn't come to this 'ouse to turn out of it them as 'ad 'ad it astheir 'ome, like, and that she'd put it up to them. If they went she'dstye; but if they styed she'd go----"

"She's going anyhow. "

Steptoe moved away to feel the fastenings of the back windows. "That'll be a relief to us, sir, won't it?" he said, without turninghis head. 

"It'll make things easier--certainly. "

"I was just 'opin' that it mightn't be--well, not too soon. "

"What do you mean by too soon?"

"Well, sir, I've been thinkin' it over through the dye, just as youtold me to do this mornin, ' and I figger out--" on a table near him hebegan to arrange the disordered books and magazines--"I figger outthat if she was to go it'd better be in a wye agreeable to allconcerned. It wouldn't do, I syes to myself, for Mr. Rash to bring ayoung woman into this 'ouse and 'ave 'er go awye feelin' anythink butglad she'd come. "

"That'll be some job. "

"It'll be some job, sir; but it'll be worth it. It ain't only on theyoung lydy's account; it'll be on Mr. Rash's. "

"On Mr. Rash's--how?"

The magazines lapping over each other in two long lines, hestraightened them with little pats. "What I suppose you mean to do, sir, is to get out o' this matrimony and enter into the other as youthought as you wasn't goin' to enter into. "

"Well?"

"And when you'd entered into the other you wouldn't want it on yourmind--on your conscience, as you might sye--that there was a younglydy in the world as you'd done a kind o' wrong to. "

Allerton took three strides across the corner of the room, and threestrides back to the fireplace again. "How am I going to escape that?She says she won't let me give her any money. "

"Oh, money!" Steptoe brushed money aside as if it had no value. "Shewouldn't of course. Not 'er sort. "

"But what _is_ 'er sort. She seemed one thing yesterday, and to-dayshe's another. "

"That's somethink like what I mean. That young lydy 'as growed more intwenty-four hours than lots'd grow in twenty-four years. " Heconsidered how best to express himself further. "Did Mr. Rash evernotice that it isn't bein' born of a certain kind o' family as'll mykea man a gentleman? Of course 'e did. But did 'e ever notice that aman'll often _not_ be born of a certain kind o' family, and yet be agentleman all the syme?"

"I know what you're driving at; but it depends on what you mean by agentleman. "

"And I couldn't 'ardly sye--not no more than I could tell you what thesmell of a flower was, not even while you was a-smellin' of it. Youknow a gentleman's a gentleman, and you may think it's this or thatwhat mykes 'im so, but there ain't no wye to put it into words. Nowyou, Mr. Rash, anybody'd know you was a gentleman what merely lookedat you through a telescope; but you couldn't explyne it, not if youwas took all to pieces like the works of a clock. It ain't nothink youdo and nothink you sye, because if we was to go by that----"

"Good Lord, stop! We're not talking about me. "

"No, Mr. Rash. We're talkin' about the queer thing it is what mykesa gentleman, and I sye that I can't sye. But I _know_. Now, tykeEugene. 'E's just a chauffeur. But no one couldn't be ten minutes withEugene and not know 'e's a gentleman through and through. Obligin'--good-mannered--modest--polite to the very cat 'e is--andalways with that nice smile--wouldn't _you_ sye as Eugene was agentleman, if anybody was to arsk you, Mr. Rash?"

"If they asked me from that point of view--yes--probably. But what hasthat to do with it?"

"It 'as this to do with it that when you arsk me what sort that younglydy is I 'ave to reply as she's not the sort to accept money fromstrynge gentlemen, because it ain't what she's after. "

"Then what on earth _is_ she after? Whatever it is she can have it, ifI can only find out what it is. "

Steptoe answered this in his own way. "It's very 'ard for the poor tosee so much that's good and beautiful in the world, and know that theycan't 'ave none of it. I felt that myself before I worked up to whereI am now. 'Ere in New York a poor boy or a poor girl can't go out intothe street without seein' the things they're cryvin' for in theirinsides flaunted at 'em like--shook in their fyces--while the law andthe police and the church and everythink what mykes our life says to'em, 'There's none o' this for you. '"

"Well, money would buy it, wouldn't it?"

"Money'd buy it if money knew what to buy. But it don't. Mr. Rash must'ave noticed that there's nothink 'elplesser than the people withmoney what don't know 'ow to spend it. I used to be that wye myselfwhen I'd 'ave a little cash. I wouldn't know what to blow myself towhat wouldn't be like them vulgar new-rich. But the new-rich is vulgaronly because our life 'as put the 'orse before the cart with 'em, asyou might sye, in givin' them the money before showin' 'em what to dowith it. "

Having straightened the lines of magazines to the last fraction of aninch he found a further excuse for lingering by moving back into theiraccustomed places the chairs which had been disarranged. 

"You 'ave to get the syme kind of 'ang of things as you and me've got, Mr. Rash, to know what it is you want, and 'ow to spend your moneywise like. Pleasure isn't just in 'avin' things; it's in knowin'what's good to 'ave and what ain't. Now this young lydy'd be like achild with a dime sent into a ten-cent store to buy whatever 'e'dlike. There's so many things, and all the syme price, that 'e's kindof confused like. First 'e thinks it'll be one thing, and then 'ethinks it'll be another, and 'e ends by tykin' the wrong thing, because 'e didn't 'ave nothink to tell 'im 'ow to choose. Mr. Rashwouldn't want a young lydy to whom 'e's indebted, as you might sye, tobe like that, now would 'e?"

"It doesn't seem to me that I've got anything to do with it. If Ioffer her the money, and can get her to take it----"

"That's where she strikes me as wiser than Mr. Rash, for all she don'tknow but so little. That much she knows by hinstinck. "

"Then what am I going to do?"

"That'd be for Mr. Rash to sye. If it was me----"

The necessity for getting an armchair exactly beneath a portraitseemed to cut this sentence short. 

"Well, if it was you--what then?"

"Before I'd give 'er money I'd teach 'er the 'ang of our kind o' life, like. That's what she's aichin' and cryvin' for. A born lydy she is, and 'ankerin' after a lydy's wyes, and with no one to learn 'em to'er----"

"But, good heavens, I can't do that. "

"No, Mr. Rash, but I could, if you was to leave 'er 'ere for a bit. Icould learn 'er to be a lydy in the course of a few weeks, and 'er soquick to pick up. Then if you was to settle a little hincome on 'ershe wouldn't----"

Allerton took the bull by the horns. "She wouldn't be so likely to goto the bad. That's what you mean, isn't it?"

Moving behind Allerton, who continued to stand on the hearthrug, Steptoe began poking the embers, making them safe for the night. 

"Did Mr. Rash ever notice that goin' to the bad, as 'e calls it, ain'tthe syme for them as 'ave nothink as it looks to them as 'aveeverythink? When you're 'ungry for food you heats the first thing youcan lie your 'ands on; and when you're 'ungry for life you do thefirst thing as'll promise you the good you're lookin' for. What peoplelike you and me is hapt to call goin' to the bad ain't mostly no morethan a 'ankerin' for good which nothink don't seem to feed. "

Allerton smiled. "That sounds to me as if it might be dangerousdoctrine. "

"What excuses the poor'll often seem dyngerous doctrine to the rich, Mr. Rash. Our kind is awful afryde of their kind gettin' a little bitof what they're longin' for, and especially 'ere in America. Whenwe've took from them most of the means of 'aving a little pleasurelawful, we call it dyngerous if they tyke it unlawful like, and we goto work and pass laws agynst them. Protectin' them agynst theirselveswe sye it is, and we go at it with a gun. "

"But we're talking of----"

"Of the young lydy, sir. Quite so. It's on 'er account as I'm syin'what I'm syin'. You arsk me if I think she'll go to the bad in cysewe turn 'er out, and I sye that----"

Allerton started. "There's no question of our turning her out. She'ssick of it. "

"Then that'd be my point, wouldn't it, sir? If she goes because she'ssick of it, why, then, natural like, she'll look somewhere else forwhat--for what she didn't find with us. You may call it goin' to thebad, but it'll be no more than tryin' to find in a wrong wye what life'as denied 'er in a right one. "

Allerton, who had never in his life been asked to bear moralresponsibility, was uneasy at this philosophy, changing the subjectabruptly. 

"Where did she get the clothes?"

"Me and 'er, Mr. Rash, went to Margot's this mornin' and bought abunch of 'em. "

"The deuce you did! And you used my name?"

"No, sir, " Steptoe returned, with dignity, "I used mine. I didn't giveno 'andle to gossip. I pyde for the things out o' some money I 'ad in'and--my own money, Mr. Rash--and 'ad 'em all sent to me. I thought aswe was mykin' a mistyke the young lydy'd better look proper while wewas mykin' it; and I knew Mr. Rash'd feel the syme. "

The situation was that in which the _fainéant_ king accepts the act ofthe mayor of the palace because it is Hobson's choice. Moreover, hewas willing that she should have the clothes. If she wouldn't takemoney she would at least apparently take them, which, in a measure, would amount to the same thing. He was dwelling on this bit ofsatisfaction when Steptoe continued. 

"And as long as the young lydy remynes with us, Mr. Rash, I thoughtit'd be discreeter like not to 'ave no more women pokin' about, andtryin' to find out what 'ad better not be known. It mykes it simpleras she 'erself arsks to be called Miss Gravely----"

"Oh, she does?"

"Yes, sir; and that's what I've told William and Golightly, the waiterand the chef, is 'er nyme. It mykes it all plyne to 'em----"

"Plain? Why, they'll think----"

"No, sir. They won't think. When it comes to what's no one's businessbut your own women thinks; men just haccepts. They tykes things forgranted, and don't feel it none of their affair. Mr. Rash'll 'avenoticed that there's a different kind of honor among women from whatthere is among men. I don't sye but what the women's is all right, only the men's is easier to get on with. "

There being no response to these observations Steptoe made ready towithdraw. "And shall you stye 'ome for breakfast, sir?"

"I'll see in the morning. "

"Very good, sir. I've locked up the 'ouse and seen to everythink, ifyou'll switch off the lights as you come up. Good-night, Mr. Rash. "

"Good-night. "

Chapter XIV

While this conversation was taking place Letty, in the back spareroom, was conducting a ceremonial too poignant for tears. There weretears in her heart, but her eyes only smarted. 

Taking off the blue-black tea-gown, she clasped it in her arms andkissed it. Then, on one of the padded silk hangers, she hung it far inthe depths of the closet, where it wouldn't scorch her sight in themorning. 

Next she arrayed herself in a filmy breakfast thing, white with acopper-colored sash matching some of the tones in her hair and eyes, and simple with an angelic simplicity. Standing before the long mirrorshe surveyed herself mournfully. But this robe too she took off, kissed, and laid away. 

Lastly she put on the blue-green costume, with the turquoise and jadeembroidery. She put on also the hat with the feather which shadeditself from green into monkshood blue. She put on a veil, and a pairof white gloves. For once she would look as well as she was capable oflooking, though no one should see her but herself. 

Viewing her reflection she grew frightened. It was the first time shehad ever seen her personal potentialities. She had long known thatwith "half a chance" she could emerge from the cocoon stage of the oldgray rag and be at least the equal of the average; but she hadn'texpected so radical a change. She was not the same Letty Gravely. Shedidn't know what she was, since she was neither a "star" nor a "lady, "the two degrees of elevation of which she had had experience. All shecould feel was that with the advantages here presented she had thecapacity to be either. Since, apparently, the becoming a lady was nowexcluded from her choice of careers, "stardom" would still have beenwithin her reach, only that she was not to get the necessary "half achance. " That was the bitter truth of it. That was to be the result ofher walking on blades. All the same, as walking on blades would helpher prince she was resolved to walk on them. For her mother's sake, even for Judson Flack's, she had done things nearly as hard, when shehad not had this incentive. 

The incentive nerved her to take off the blue-green costume, kissingit a last farewell, and laying it to rest, as a mother a dead baby inits coffin. Into the closet went the bits of lingerie from theconsignment just arrived from Paris, and the other spoils of the day. When everything was buried she shut the door upon it, as in her heartshe was shutting the door on her poor little fledgling hopes. Nothingremained to torment her vision, or distract her from what she had todo. The old gray rag and the battered black hat were all she had nowto deal with. 

She slept little that night, since she was watching not for daylightbut for that first stirring in the streets which tells that daylightis approaching. Having neither watch nor clock the stirring was allshe had to go by. When it began to rumble and creak and throb faintlyin and above the town she got up and dressed. 

So far had she travelled in less than forty-eight hours that the oldgray rag, and not the blue-green costume, was now the disguise. Inother words, once having tasted the prosperous she had found it thenatural. To go back to poverty was not merely hard; it was contrary toall spontaneous dictates. Dimly she had supposed that in reverting tothe harness she had worn she would find herself again; but she onlydiscovered that she was more than ever lost. 

Very softly she unlocked her door to peep out at the landing. Thehouse was ghostly and still, but it was another sign of herdevelopment that she was no longer afraid of it. Space too had becomenatural, while dignity of setting had seemed to belong to her eversince she was born. Turning her back on these conditions was far morelike turning her back on home than it had been when she walked awayfrom Judson Flack's. 

She crept out. It was so dark that she was obliged to wait tillobjects defined themselves black against black before she could seethe stairs. She listened too. There were sounds, but only such soundsas all houses make when everyone is sleeping. She guessed, it was pureguessing, that it must be about five o'clock. 

She stole down the stairs. The necessity for keeping her mind onmoving noiselessly deadened her thought to anything else. She neitherlooked back to what she was leaving behind, nor forward to what shewas going to. Once she had reached the street it would be time enoughto think of both. She had the fact in the back of her consciousness, but she kept it there. Out in the street she would feel grief for theprince and his palace, and terror at the void before her; but shecouldn't feel them yet. Her one impulse was to escape. 

At the great street door she could see nothing; but she could feel. She found the key and turned it easily. As the door did not then yieldto the knob she fumbled till she touched the chain. Slipping that outof its socket she tried the door again, but it still refused to open. There must be something else! Rich houses were naturally fortresses!She discovered the bolt and pulled it back. 

Still the door was fixed like a rock. She couldn't make it out. Alock, a chain, a bolt! Surely that must be everything! Perhaps she hadturned the key the wrong way. She turned it again, but only with thesame result. She found she could turn the key either way, and stillleave the door immovable. 

Perhaps she didn't pull it hard enough. Doors sometimes stuck. Shepulled harder; she pulled with her whole might and main. She couldshake the door; she could make it rattle. The hanging chain dangledagainst the woodwork with a terrifying clank. If anyone was lyingawake she would sound like a burglar--and yet she must get out. 

Now that she was balked, to get out became an obsession. It becamemore of an obsession the more she was balked. It made her firstimpatient, and then frantic. She turned the key this way and that way. She pulled and tugged. The perspiration came out on her forehead. Shepanted for breath; she almost sobbed. She knew there was a "trick" toit. She knew it was a simple trick because she had seen Steptoeperform it on the previous day; but she couldn't find out what it was. The effort made her only the more desperate. 

She was not crying; she was only gasping--in raucous, exhausted, nervous sobs. They came shorter and harder as she pitted her impotenceagainst this unyielding passivity. She knew it was impotence, and yetshe couldn't desist; and she couldn't desist because she grew more andmore frenzied. It was the kind of frenzy in which she would havedashed herself wildly, vainly against the force that blocked her withits pitiless resistance, only that the whole hall was suddenly floodedwith a blaze of light. 

It was light that came so unexpectedly that her efforts were cutshort. Even her hard gasps were silenced, not in relief but inamazement. She remained so motionless that she could practically seeherself, thrown against this brutal door, her arms spread out on itimploringly. 

Seconds that seemed like minutes went by before she found strength todetach herself and turn. 

Amazement became terror. On the halfway landing of the stairs stood afigure robed in scarlet from head to foot, with flying indigo lapels. He was girt with an indigo girdle, while the mass of his hair stood upas in tongues of forked black flame. The countenance was terrible, inmingled perplexity and wrath. 

She saw it was the prince, but a prince transformed by condemnation. 

"What on earth does this mean?"

He came down the rest of the stairs till he stood on the lowest step. She advanced toward him pleadingly. 

"I was--I was trying to get out. "

"What for?"

"I--I--I must get away. "

"Well, even so; is this the way to do it? I thought someone wastearing the house down. It woke me up. "

"I was goin' this way because--because I didn't want you to knowwhat'd become of me. "

"Yes, and have you on my mind. "

"I hoped I'd be takin' myself off your mind. "

"If you want to take yourself off my mind there's a perfectly simplemeans of doing it. "

"I'll do anything--but take money. "

"And taking money is the only thing I ask of you. "

"I can't. It'd--it'd--shame me. "

"Shame you? What nonsense!"

She reflected fast. "There's two ways a woman can take money from aman. The man may love her and marry her; or perhaps he don't marryher, but loves her just the same. Then she can take it; but when----"

"When she only renders him a--a great service----"

"Ah, but that's just what I didn't do. You said you wanted me to sendyou to the devil--and now you ain't a-goin' to go. "

He grew excited. "But, good Lord, girl, you don't expect me to go tothe devil just to keep my word to you. "

"I don't want you to do anything just to keep your word to me, " shereturned, fiercely. "I only want you to let me get away. "

He came down the remaining step, beginning to pace back and forth ashe always did when approaching the condition he called "going off thehooks. " Letty found him a marvelous figure in his scarlet robe, andwith his mass of diabolic black hair. 

"Yes, and if I let you get away, where would you get away _to_?"

"Oh, I'll find a place. "

"A place in jail as a vagrant, as I said the other day. "

"I'd rather be in jail, " she flung back at him, "than stay where I'mnot wanted. "

"That's not the question. "

"It's the biggest question of all for me. It'd be the biggest for youtoo if you were in my place. " She stretched out her hands to him. "Oh, please show me how to work the door, and let me go. "

He flared as he was in the habit of flaring whenever he was opposed. "You can go when we've settled the question of what you'll have tolive on. "

"I'll have myself to live on--just as I had before I met you in thePark. "

"Nothing is the same for you or for me as before I met you in thePark. "

"No, but we want to make it the same, don't we? You can't--can't marrythe other girl till it is. "

"I can't marry the other girl till I know you're taken care of. "

"Money wouldn't take care of me. That's where you're makin' yourmistake. You rich people think that money will do anything. So it willfor you; but it don't mean so awful much to me. " Her eyes, her lips, her hands besought him together. "Think now! What would I do withmoney if I had it? It ain't as if I was a lady. A lady has ways ofdoin' nothin' and livin' all the same; but a girl like me don't knowanything about them. I'd go crazy if I didn't work--or I'd die--or I'ddo somethin' worse. "

It was because his nerves were on edge that he cried out: "I don'tcare a button what you do. I'm thinking of myself. "

She betrayed the sharpness of the wound only by a deepening of thedamask flush. "I'm thinkin' of you, too. Wouldn't you rather haveeverything come right again--so that you could marry the othergirl--and know that I'd done it for you _free_--and not that you'djust bought me off?"

"You mean, wouldn't I rather that all the generosity should be on yourside----"

"I don't care anything about generosity. I wouldn't be doin' it forthat. It'd be because----"

He flung out his arms. "Well--why?"

"Because I'd like to do something _for_ you----"

"Do something for me by making me a cad. " He was beside himself. "That's what it would come to. That's what you're playing for. Ishould be a cad. You dress yourself up again in this ridiculousrig----"

"It's not a ridic'lous rig. It's my own clothes----"

"Your own clothes _now_ are--are what I saw you in when I came homelast evening. You can't go back to that thing. We can't go back in anyway. " He seemed to make a discovery. "It's no use trying to be what wewere in the Park, because we can't be. Whatever we do must be in theway of--of going on to something else. "

"Well, that'd be something else, if you'd just let me go, and do thedesertion stunt you talked to me about----"

"I'll not let you do it unless I pay you for it. "

"But it'd be payin' me for it if--if you'd just let me do it. Don'tyou see I _want_ to?"

"I can see that you want to keep me in your debt. I can see that I'dnever have another easy moment in my life. Whatever I did, and whoeverI married, I should have to owe it to _you_. "

"Well, couldn't you--when I owe so much to you?"

"There you go! What do you owe to me? Nothing but getting you into aninfernal scrape----"

"Oh, no! It's not been that at all. You'd have to be me to understandwhat it _has_ been. It'll be something to think of all the rest of mylife--whatever I do. "

"Yes, and I know how you'll think of it. "

"Oh, no, you don't. You couldn't. It's nothin' to you to come intothis beautiful house and see its lovely kind of life; but for me----"

"Oh, don't throw that sort of thing at me, " he flamed out, striding upand down. "Steptoe's been putting that into your head. He's strong onthe sentimental stuff. You and he are in a conspiracy against me. That's what it is. It's a conspiracy. He's got something up hissleeve--I don't know what--and he's using you as his tool. But youdon't come it over me. I'm wise, I am. I'm a fool too. I know it wellenough. But I'm not such a fool as to----"

She was frightened. He was going "off the hooks. " She knew the signsof it. This rapid speech, one word leading to another, had always beenher mother's first sign of super-excitement, until it ended in ascream. If he were to scream she would be more terrified than she hadever been in her life. She had never heard a man scream; but then shehad never seen a man grow hysterical. 

His utterance was the more clear-cut and distinct the faster itbecame. 

"I know what it is. Steptoe thinks I'm going insane, and he's made youthink so too. That's why you want to get away. You're afraid of me. Well, I don't wonder at it; but you're not going. See? You're notgoing. You'll go when I send you; but you'll not go before. See? I'vemarried you, haven't I? When all is said and done you're my wife. Mywife!" He laughed, between gritted teeth. "My wife! That's my wife!"He pointed at her. "Rashleigh Allerton who thought so much of himselfhas married _that_--and she's trying to do the generous by him----"

Going up to him timidly, she laid her hand on his arm. "Say, mister, would you mind countin' ten?"

The appeal took him so much by surprise that, both in hisspeech and in his walk, he stopped abruptly. She began tocount, slowly, and marking time with her forefinger. "One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten. "

He stared at her as if it was she who had gone "off the hooks. " "Whatdo you mean by that?"

"Oh, nothin'. Now you can begin again. "

"Begin what?"

"What you was--what you were sayin'. "

"What I was saying?" He rubbed his hand across his forehead, which waswet with cold perspiration. "Well, what was I saying?"

He was not only dazed, but a pallor stole over his skin, the moreghastly in contrast with his black hair and his scarletdressing-gown. 

"Isn't there no place you can lay down? I always laid momma down aftera spell of this kind. It did her good to sleep and she always slept. "

He said, absently: "There's a couch in the library. I can't go back tobed. "

"No, you don't want to go back to bed, " she agreed, as if she washumoring a child. "You wouldn't sleep there----"

"I haven't slept for two nights, " he pleaded, in excuse for himself, "not since----"

Taking him by the arm she led him into the library, which was in anell behind the back drawing-room. It was a big, book-lined room withworn, shiny, leather-covered furnishings. On the shiny, leather-covered couch was a cushion which she shook up and smoothedout. Over its foot lay an afghan the work of the late Mrs. Allerton. 

"Now, lay down. "

He stretched himself out obediently, after which she covered him withthe afghan. When he had closed his eyes she passed her hand across hisforehead, on which the perspiration was still thick and cold. Sheremembered that a bottle of Florida water and a paper fan were amongthe luxuries of the back spare room. 

"Don't you stir, " she warned him. "I'm goin' to get you something. "

Absorbed in her tasks as nurse she forgot to make the sentimentalreflections in which she would otherwise have indulged. Back to theroom from which she had fled she hurried with no thought that she wasdoing so. From the grave of hope she disinterred a half dozen of thespider-web handkerchiefs to which a few hours previously she had bid atouching adieu. With handkerchiefs, fan, and Florida water, she flewback to her patient, who opened his eyes as she approached. 

"I don't want to be fussed over----" he was beginning, fretfully. 

"Lie still, " she commanded. "I know what to do. I'm used to people whoare sick--up here. "

"Up here" was plainly the forehead which she mopped softly with aspecimen from Margot's Parisian consignment. He closed his eyes. Hisfeatures relaxed to an expression of relief. Relief gave place torepose when he felt her hand with the cool scented essence on hisbrow. It passed and passed again, lightly, soothingly, consolingly. Drowsily he thought that it was Barbara's hand, but a Barbara somehowtransformed, and grown tenderer. 

He was asleep. She sat fanning him till a feeble daylight through anuncurtained window warned her to switch off the electricity. Comingback to her place, she continued to fan him, quietly and deftly, withno more than a motion of the wrist. She had the nurse's wrist, slender, flexible; the nurse's hand, strong, shapely, with practicalspatulated finger-tips. After all, he was in some degree the drowningunconscious prince, and she the little mermaid. 

"He'll be ashamed when he wakes up. He'll not like to find me sittin'here. "

It was broad daylight now. He was as sound asleep as a child. Sinceshe couldn't disturb him by rising she rose. Since she couldn'tdisturb him even by kissing him she kissed him. But she wouldn't kisshis lips, nor so much as his cheek or his brow. Very humbly she kneltand kissed his feet, outlined beneath the afghan. Then she stoleaway. 

Chapter XV

The interlacing of destinies is such that you will not be surprised tolearn that the further careers of Letty Gravely, of Barbara Walbrook, of Rashleigh Allerton now turned on Mademoiselle Odette Coucoul, whosename not one of the three was ever destined to hear. 

On his couch in the library Allerton slept till after nine, waking ina confusion which did not preclude a sense of refreshment. At the sameminute Madame Simone was finishing her explanations to MademoiselleCoucoul as to what was to be done to the seal-brown costume, whichSteptoe had added to Letty's wardrobe, in order to conceal the factthat it was a model of a season old, and not the new creation itspurchasers supposed. Taking in her instructions with Gallic precisionmademoiselle was already at work when Miss Tina Vanzetti paused at herdoor. The door was that of a small French-paneled room, once theboudoir of the owner of the Flemish chateau, but set apart now byMadame Simone for jobs requiring deftness. 

Miss Vanzetti, whose Neapolitan grandfather had begun his Americancareer as a boot-black in Brooklyn, was of the Americanized type ofher race. She could not, of course, eliminate her Latinity of eye andtress nor her wild luxuriance of bust, but English was hermother-tongue, and the chewing of gum her national pastime. Shechewed it now, slowly, thoughtfully, as she stood looking in onMademoiselle Odette, who was turning the skirt this way and that, searching out the almost invisible traces of use which were to beremoved. 

"So she's give you that to do, has she? Some stunt, I'll say. Gee, she's got her gall with her, old Simone, puttin' that off on thepublic as something new. If I had a dollar for every time Mamie Gunnhas walked in and out to show it to customers I'd buy a set of silverfox. "

Mademoiselle's smile was radiant, not because she had radiance toshed, but because her lips and teeth framed themselves that way. Shetoo was of her race, alert, vivacious, and as neat as a trivet, asbecame a former midinette of the rue de la Paix and a daughter ofBatignolles. 

"Madame she t'ink it all in de beezeness, " she contented herself withsaying. 

With her left hand Miss Vanzetti put soft touches to the big blackcoils of her back hair. "See that kid that all these things is goin'to? Gee, but she's beginnin' to step out. I know her. Spotted her theminute she come in to try on. Me and she went to the same school. Lived in the same street. Name of Letty Gravely. "

Seeing that she was expected to make a response mademoiselle couldthink of nothing better than to repeat in her pretty staccato English:"Name of Let-ty Grav-el-ly. "

"Stepfather's name was Judson Flack. Company-promoter he calledhimself. Mother croaked three or four years ago, just before we movedto Harlem. Never saw no more of her till she walked in here with theold white slaver what's payin' for the outfit. Gee, you needn't tellme! S'pose she'll hit the pace till some fella chucks her. Gee, I'msorry. Awful slim chance a girl'll get when some guy with a wad blowsalong and wants her. " The theme exhausted Miss Vanzetti askedsuddenly: "Why don't you never come to the Lantern?"

In her broken English mademoiselle explained that she didn't know theAmerican dances, but that a fella had promised to teach her the steps. She had met him at the house of a cousin who was married to a waiterchez Bouquin. Ver' beautiful fella, he was, and had invited her to achop suey dinner that evening, with the dance at the Lantern to windup with. Most ver' beautiful fella, single, and a detective. 

"Good for you, " Miss Vanzetti commanded. "If you don't dance you mightas well be dead, I'll say. Keeps you thin, too; and the music at theLantern is swell. "

The incident is so slight that to get its significance you must linkit up with the sound of the telephone which, as a simultaneoushappening, was waking Judson Flack from his first real sleep after anuncomfortable night. Nothing but the fear lest by ignoring the callthe great North Dakota Oil Company whose shares would soon be on themarket, would be definitely launched without his assistance draggedhim from his bed. 

"Hello?"

A woman's voice inquired: "Is this Hudson 283-J?"

"You bet. "

"Is Miss Gravely in?"

"Just gone out. Only round the corner. Back in a few minutes. Say, sister, I'm her stepfather, and 'll take the message. "

"Tell her to come right over to the Excelsior Studio. Castin'director's got a part for her. Real part. Small but a stunner. Outcastgirl. I s'pose she's got some old duds to dress it in?"

"Sure thing!"

"Well, tell her to bring 'em along. And say, listen! I don't mindpassing you the tip that the castin' director has his eye on that girlfor doin' the pathetic stunt; so see she ain't late. "

"Y'betcha. "

That an ambitious man, growing anxious about his future, was thusplaced in a trying situation will be seen at once. The chance of alifetime was there and he was unable to seize it. Everyone knew thatby these small condensations of nebular promise stars were eventuallyevolved, and to have at his disposal the earnings of a star. .. . 

It seemed providential then that on dropping into the basement eatingplace at which he had begun to take his breakfasts he should fall inwith Gorry Larrabin. They were not friends, or rather they were betterthan friends; they were enemies who found each other useful. Mutuallyantipathetic, they quarrelled, but could not afford to quarrel long. Afew days or a few weeks having gone by, they met with a nod, as if nohot words had been passed. 

It was such an occasion now. Ten days earlier Judson had called Gorryto his teeth "no detective, but a hired sneak. " Gorry had retortedthat, hired sneak as he was, he would have Judson Flack "in the jug"as a promoter of faked companies before the year was out. One word hadled to another, and only the intervention of friends to both partieshad kept the high-spirited fellows from exchanging blows. But themoment had come round again when each had an axe to grind, so that asJudson hung up his hat near the table at which Gorry, having finishedhis breakfast, was smoking and picking his teeth, the nod ofreconciliation was given and returned. 

"Say, why don't you sit down here?"

Politely Gorry indicated the unoccupied side of his own table. It wasa small table covered with a white oil-cloth, and tolerably clean. 

"Don't mind if I do, " was the other's return of courtesy, friendlyrelations being thus re-established. 

Having given his order to a stunted Hebrew maid of Polish culture, Judson Flack launched at once into the subject of Letty. He did thisfor a two-fold reason. First, his grievance made the expression ofitself imperative, and next, Gorry being a hanger-on of thatprofession which lives by knowing what other people don't might be ina position to throw light on Letty's disappearance. If he was he gaveno sign of it. As a matter of fact he was not, but he meant to be. Heremembered the girl; had admired her; had pointed out to several ofhis friends that she had only to doll herself up in order to knockspots out of a lot of good lookers of recognized supremacy. 

Odette Coucoul's description of him as "most ver' beautiful fella"was not without some justification. Regular, clean-cut features, longand thin, were the complement of a slight well-knit figure, of whichthe only criticism one could make was that it looked slippery. Slipperiness was perhaps his ruling characteristic, a softness ofmovement suggesting a cat, and a habit of putting out and drawing backa long, supple, snake-like hand which made you think of a pickpocket. Eyes that looked at you steadily enough impressed you as untrustworthychiefly because of a dropping of the pupil of the left, throughmuscular inability. 

"Awful sorry, Judson, " was his summing up of sympathy with hiscompanion's narrative. "Any dope I get I'll pass along to you. "

Between gentlemen, however, there are understandings which need not beput into words, the principle of nothing for nothing being one ofthem. The conversation had not progressed much further before Gorryfelt at liberty to say:

"Now, about this North Dakota Oil, Judson. I'd like awful well to getin on the ground floor of that. I've got a little something to blowin; and there's a lot of suckers ready to snap up that stock beforeyou print the certificates. "

Diplomacy being necessary here Judson practiced it. Gorry might indeedbe seeking a way of turning an honest penny; but then again he mightmean to sell out the whole show. On the one hand you couldn't trusthim, and on the other it wouldn't do to offend him so long as therewas a chance of his getting news of the girl. Judson could onlytemporize, pleading his lack of influence with the bunch who weregetting up the company. At the same time he would do his utmost towork Gorry in, on the tacit understanding that nothing would be donefor nothing. 

 * * * * *

Allerton too had breakfasted late, at the New Netherlands Club, andwas now with Miss Barbara Walbrook, who received him in the same room, and wearing the same hydrangea-colored robe, as on the previousmorning. He had called her up from the Club, asking to be allowed tocome once more at this unconventional hour in order to communicategood news. 

"She's willing to do anything, " he stated at once, making theannouncement with the glee of evident relief. "In fact, it was by puremain force that I kept her from running away from the house thismorning. "

He was dashed that she did not take these tidings with his ownbuoyancy. "What made you stop her?" she asked, in some wonder. "Sitdown, Rash. Tell me the whole thing. "

Though she took a chair he was unable to do so. His excitement now wasover the ease with which the difficulty was going to be met. He couldonly talk about it in a standing position, leaning on the mantelpiece, or stroking the head of the Manship terra cotta child, while she gazedup at him, nervously beating her left palm with the black and goldfringe of her girdle. 

"I stopped her because--well, because it wouldn't have done. "

"Why wouldn't it have done? I should think that it's just what wouldhave done. "

"Let her slip away penniless, and--and without friends?"

"She'd be no more penniless and without friends than she waswhen--when you--" she sought for the right word--"when you picked herup. "

"No, of course not; only now the--the situation is different. "

"I don't see that it is--much. Besides, if you were to let her runaway first, so that you get--whatever the law wants you to get, youcould see that she wasn't penniless and without friends afterwards. Most likely that's what she was expecting. "

His countenance fell. "I--I don't think so. "

"Oh, you wouldn't think so as long as she could bamboozle you. I wassimply thinking of your getting what she probably wants to giveyou--for a price. "

"I don't think you do her justice, Barbe. If you'd seen her----"

"Very well; I shall see her. But seeing her won't make any differencein my opinion. "

"She'll not strike you as anything wonderful of course; but I knowshe's as straight as they make 'em. And so long as she is----"

"Well, what then?"

"Why, then, it seems to me, we must be straight on our side. "

"We'll be straight enough if we pay her her price. "

"There's more to it than that. "

"Oh, there is? Then how much more?"

"I don't know that I can explain it. " He lifted one of the Stiegelcandlesticks and put it back in its place. "I simply feel that wecan't--that we can't let all the magnanimity be on her side. If sheplays high, we've got to play higher. "

"I see. So she's got you there, has she?"

"I wish you wouldn't be disagreeable about it, Barbe. "

"My dear Rash, " she expostulated, "it isn't being disagreeable to havecommon sense. It's all the more necessary for me not to abnegate that, for the simple reason that you do. "

He hurled himself to the other end of the mantelpiece, picking up thesecond candlestick and putting it down with force. "It's surely notabnegating common sense just to--to recognize honesty. "

"Please don't fiddle with those candlesticks. They're the rarestAmerican workmanship, and if you were to break one of them Aunt Marionwould kill me. I'll feel safer about you if you sit down. "

"All right. I'll sit down. " He drew to him a small frail chair, sitting astride on it. "Only please don't fidget me. "

"Would you mind taking _that_ chair?" She pointed to something solidand masculine by Phyffe. "That little thing is one of Aunt Marion'spet pieces of old Dutch colonial. If anything were to happen toit--But you were talking about recognizing honesty, " she continued, ashe moved obediently. "That's exactly what I should like you to do, Rash, dear--with your eyes open. If I'm not looking anyone can pullthe wool over them, whether it's this girl or someone else. "

"In other words I'm a fool, as you were good enough to say----"

"Oh, do forget that. I couldn't help saying it, as I think you oughtto admit; but don't keep bringing it up every time I do my best tomeet you pleasantly. I'm not going to quarrel with you any more, Rash. I've made a vow to that effect and I'm going to keep it. But if I'm tokeep it on my side you mustn't badger me on yours. It doesn't do meany good, and it does yourself a lot of harm. " Having delivered thishomily she took a tone of brisk cheerfulness. "Now, you said over thephone that you were coming to tell me good news. "

"Well, that was it. "

"What was it?"

"That she was ready to do anything--even to disappear. "

"And you wouldn't let her. "

"That I couldn't let her--with nothing to show for it. "

"But she will have something to show for it--in the end. She knowsthat as well as I do. Do you suppose for a minute that she doesn'tunderstand the kind of man she's dealing with?"

"You mean that----?"

"Rash, dear, no girl who knows as much as this girl knows could helpseeing at a glance that she's got a pigeon to pluck, as the Frenchsay, and of course she means to pluck it. You can't blame her forthat, being what she is; but for heaven's sake let her pluck it in herown way. Don't be a simpleton. Angels shouldn't rush in where foolswould fear to tread--and you _are_ an angel, Rash, though I supposeI'm the only one in the world who sees it. "

"Thank you, Barbe. I know you feel kindly toward me, and that, as yousay, you're the only one in the world who does. That's all right, Iacknowledge it, and I'm grateful. What I don't like is to see youtaking it for granted that this girl is merely playing a game----"

"Rash, do you remember those two winters I worked in the Bleary StreetSettlement? and do you remember that the third winter I said that I'drather enlist in the Navy that go back to it again? You all thoughtthat I was cynical and hard-hearted, but I'll tell you now what thetrouble was. I went down there thinking I could teach thosegirls--that I could do them good--and raise them up--and have themcall me blessed--and all that. Well, there wasn't one of them whohadn't forgotten more than I ever knew--who wasn't working me when Isupposed she was hanging on my wisdom--who wasn't laughing at mebehind my back when I was under the delusion that she was following mygood example. And if you've got one of them on your hands she'll foolthe eyes out of your head. "

"You think so, " he said, drily. "Then I don't. "

"In that case there's no use discussing it any further. "

"There may be after you've seen her. "

"How can I see her?"

"You can go to the house. "

"And tell her I know everything?"

"If you like. You could say I told you in confidence--that you're anold friend of mine. "

"And nothing else?"

"Since you only want to size her up I should think that would beenough. "

She nodded, slowly. "Yes, I think you're right. Better not giveanything away we can keep to ourselves. Now tell me what happened thismorning. You haven't done it yet. "

He told her everything--how he had been waked by hearing someonefumbling with the lock of the door, whether inside or outside thehouse he couldn't tell--how he had gone to the head of the stairs andswitched on the lower hall light--how she had flung herself againstthe door as a little gray bird might dash itself against its cage inits passion to escape. 

"She staged it well, didn't she? She must have brains. "

"She has brains all right, but I don't think----"

"She knew of course that if she made enough noise someone would come, and she'd get the credit for good intentions. "

"I really don't think, Barbe. .. . Now let me tell you. You'll _see_what she's like. I felt very much as you do. I was right on the jump. Got all worked up. Would have gone clean off the hooks if----"

There followed the narrative of his loss of temper, of his wild talk, of her clever strategy in counting ten--"just like a cold douche itwas"--and the faint turn he so often had after spells of emotion. Toconvince Miss Walbrook of the queer little thing's ingenuousness hetold how she had made him lie down on the library couch, covered himup, rubbed his brow with Florida water, and induced the best sleep hehad had in months. 

She surprised him by springing to her feet, her arms outspread. "Yougreat big idiot! Really there's no other name for you!"

He gazed up at her in amazement. "What's the matter now?"

Flinging her hands about she made inarticulate sounds of exasperationbeyond words. 

"There, there; that'll do, " she threw off, when he jumped to her side, to calm her by taking her in his arms. "_I'm_ not off the hooks. _I_don't want anyone to rub Florida water on my brow--and hold myhand--and cradle me to sleep----"

"She didn't, " he exclaimed, with indignation. "She never touched myhand. She just----"

"Oh, I know what she did--and of course I'm grateful. I'm delightedthat she was there to do it--_delighted. _ I quite see now why youcouldn't let her go, when you knew your fit was coming on. I've seenyou pretty bad, but I've never seen you as bad as that; and I must sayI never should have thought of counting ten as a cure for it. "

"Well, _she_ did. "

"Quite so! And if I were you I'd never go anywhere without her. I'dkeep her on hand in case I took a turn----"

He was looking more and more reproachful. "I must say, Barbe, I don'tthink you're very reasonable. "

She pushed him from her with both hands against his shoulders. "Goaway, for heaven's sake! You'll drive me crazy. I'm _not_ going tolose my temper with you. I'll never do it again. I've got you to bearwith, and I'm going to bear with you. But go! No, go now! Don't stopto make explanations. You can do that later. I'll lay in a supply ofFlorida water and an afghan. .. . "

He went with that look on his face which a well meaning dog will wearwhen his good intentions are being misinterpreted. On his way to theoffice he kept saying to himself: "Well _I_ don't know what to do. Whatever I say she takes me up the wrong way. All I wanted was for herto understand that the little thing is a _good_ little thing. .. . "

Chapter XVI

While Allerton was making these reflections Steptoe was summoned tothe telephone. 

"Is this you, Steptoe? I'm Miss Barbara Walbrook. "

Steptoe braced himself. In conversing with Miss Barbara Walbrook healways felt the need of inner strengthening. "Yes, Miss Walbrook?"

"Mr. Allerton tells me you've a young woman at the house. "

"We 'ave a young lydy. Certainly, miss. "

"And Mr. Allerton has asked me to call on her. "

Steptoe's training as a servant permitted him no lapses of surprise. "Quite so, miss. And when was it you'd be likely to call?"

"This afternoon about four-thirty. Perhaps you could arrange to haveme see her alone. "

"Oh, there ain't likely to be no one 'ere, miss. "

"And another thing, Steptoe. Mr. Allerton has asked me just to call asan old friend of his. So you'll please not say to her that--well, anything about me. I'm sure you understand. "

Steptoe replied that he did understand, and having put up the receiverhe pondered. 

What could it mean? What could be back of it? How would thisunsophisticated girl meet so skilful an antagonist. That Miss Walbrookwas coming as an antagonist he had no doubt. In his own occasionalmeetings with her she had always been a superior, a commander, to whomeven he, 'Enery Steptoe, had been a servitor requiring no furtherconsideration. With so gentle an opponent as madam she would order andbe obeyed. 

At the same time he could not alarm madam, or allow her to shirk theencounter. She had that in her, he was sure, which couldn't but winout, however much she might be at a disadvantage. His part would be toreduce her disadvantages to a minimum, allowing her strong points totell. Her strong points, he reckoned, were innocence, an absence ofself-consciousness, and, to the worldly-wise, a disconcerting candor. Steptoe analyzed in the spirit and not verbally; but he analyzed. 

For Letty the morning had been feverish, chiefly because of heruncertainty. Was it the wish of the prince that she should go, or wasit not? If it was his wish, why had he not let her? If, on the otherhand, he desired her to stay, what did he mean to do with her? He hadpassed her on the way out to breakfast at the Club--she had beenstanding in the hall--and he had smiled. 

What was the significance of that smile? She sat down in the libraryto think. She sat down in the chair she had occupied while he lay onthe couch, and reconstructed that scene which now, for all her life, would thrill her with emotional memories. There he had lain, his headon the very indentation which the cushion still bore, his feet here, where she had pressed her lips to them. She had actually had her handon his brow, she had smoothed back his hair, and had hardly noted atthe time that such was her extraordinary privilege. 

She came back to the fact that he had smiled at her. It would havebeen an enchanting smile from anyone, but coming from a prince it hadall the romantic effulgence with which princes' smiles are infused. How much of that romantic effulgence came automatically from theprince because he was a prince, and how much of it was inspired byherself? Was any of it inspired by herself? When all was said and donethis last was the great question. 

It brought her where so many things brought her, to the dream of loveat first sight. Could it have happened to him as it had happened toherself? It was so much in her mental order of things that she was farfrom considering it impossible. Improbable, yes; she would admit asmuch as that; but impossible, no! To be sure she had been in the oldgray rag; but Steptoe had informed her that there were kings who wentabout falling in love with beggar-maids. She would have loved beingone of those beggar-maids; and after all, was she not?

True, there was the other girl; but Letty found it hard to see her asa reality. Besides, she had, in appearance at least, treated himbadly. Might it not easily have come about that she, Letty, had caughthis heart in the rebound? She quite understood that if the prince_had_ fallen in love with her at first sight, there might beconvulsion in his inner self without, as yet, a comprehension on hispart of the nature of his passion. 

She had reached this point when Steptoe entered the library on one ofhis endless tasks of re-arranging that which seemed to be insufficiently good order. Putting the big desk to rights he said overhis shoulder:

"Perhaps I'd better tell madam as she's to 'ave a caller thisafternoon. "

Letty sprang up in alarm. "A--_what_?"

"A lydy what'll myke a call. Oh, madam don't need to be afryde. She'san old friend o' Mr. Rash's, and'll want, no doubt, to be a friend o'madam too. "

"But what does she know about me?"

"Mr. Rash must 'a told 'er. She spoke to me just now on the telephone, and seemed to know everything. She said she'd be 'ere this afternoonabout four-thirty, if madam'd be so good as to give 'er a cup o'tea. "

"Me?"

Having invented the cup of tea for his own purpose Steptoe went on toexplain further. "It's what the 'igh lydies mostly gives each otherabout 'alf past four or five o'clock, and madam couldn't homit itwithout seemin' as if she didn't know what's what. It'll be veryimportant for madam to tyke 'er position from the start. If the lydyis comin' friendly like she'd be 'urt if madam wasn't friendly too. "

Letty had seen the giving and taking of tea in more than one scene inthe movies, and had also, from a discreet corner, witnessed theenacting of it right in the "set" on the studio lot. She rememberedone time in particular when Luciline Lynch, the star in _Our CrimsonSins_, had driven Frank Redgar, the director, almost out of his sensesby her inability to get the right turn of the wrist. Letty, too, hadbeen almost out of her senses with the longing to be in LucilineLynch's place, to do the thing in what was obviously the way. But nowthat she was confronted with the opportunity in real life she saw thesituation otherwise. 

"And I won't be able to talk right, " was the difficulty she raisednext. 

"That'll be a chance for madam to listen and ketch on. She's horflyquick, madam is, and by listenin' to Miss Walbrook, that's the lydy'snyme, and listenin' to 'erself--" He broke off to emphasize this lineof suggestion--"it's listenin' to 'erself that'll 'elp madam most. It's a thing as 'ardly no one does. If they did they'd be 'orrified attheir squawky voices and bad pernounciation. If I didn't listen tomyself, why, I'd talk as bad as anyone, but--Well, as I sye, this'llgive madam a chance. All the time what Miss Walbrook is speakin' madamcan be listenin' to 'er and listenin' to 'erself too, and if she mykesmistykes this time she'll myke fewer the next. "

Letty was pondering these hints as he continued. 

"Now if madam wouldn't think me steppin' out of my plyce I'd suggestthat me and 'er 'as a little tea of our own like--right now--in thedrorin' room--and I'll be Miss Walbrook--and William'll beWilliam--and madam'll be madam--and we'll get it letter-perfect before'and, just as with Mary Ann Courage and Jyne. "

No sooner said than done. Letty was already wearing the white filmything with the copper-sash, buried with solemn rites on the previousnight, but disinterred that morning, which did very well as atea-gown. Steptoe placed her in the corner of the sofa which the lyteMrs. Allerton had generally occupied when "receivin' company", andWilliam brought in the tea-equipage on a gorgeous silver tray. 

Before he did this it had been necessary to school William to hispart, which, to do him justice, he carried out with becoming gravity. Any reserves he might have felt were expressed to Golightly by a winkbehind Steptoe's back before he left the kitchen. The wink was themore expressive owing to the fact that Golightly and William hadalready summed up the old fellow as "balmy on the bean, " while theirpart was to humor him. Plain as a bursting shell seemed to WilliamMiss Gravely's position in the household, and Steptoe's chivalrytoward her an eccentricity which a sense of humor could enjoy. Otherwise they justified his reading of the fundamental non-moralityof men, in bringing no condemnation to bear on anyone concerned. Beingthemselves two almost incapacitated heroes, with jobs likely to prove"soft, " it was wise, they felt, to enter into Steptoe's comedy. Athalf past ten in the morning, therefore, Golightly prepared tea andbuttered toast, while William arranged the tea-tray with thoseover-magnificent appointments which had been "the lyte Mrs. Allerton'styste. "

From her corner of the sofa Letty heard the butler announce, in avoice stately but not stentorian: "Miss Barbara Walbrook. "

He was so near the door that to step out and step in again was thework of a second. In stepping in again he trod daintily, wriggling theback part of his person, better to simulate the feminine. In orderthat Letty should nowhere be caught unaware he put out his handlanguidly, back upward, as princesses do when they expect it to bekissed. 

"So delighted to find you at 'ome, Mrs. Allerton. It's such a veryfine dye I was sure as you'd be out. "

Rising from her corner Letty shook the relaxed hand as she might haveshaken a dog's tail. "Very pleased to meet you. "

From the histrionic Steptoe lapsed at once into the critical. "I thinkif madam was to sye, 'So glad to be _at_ 'ome, Miss Walbrook; do letme ring for tea, ' it'd be more like the lyte Mrs. Allerton. "

Obediently Letty repeated this formula, had the bell pointed out toher, and rang. The ladies having seated themselves, Miss Walbrookcontinued to improvise on the subject of the weather. 

"Some o' these October dyes'll be just like summer time! and thenagyne there'll be a nip in the wind as'll fairly freeze you. A goodtime o' year to get out your furs, and I'm sure I 'ope as 'ow themoths 'aven't gone and got at 'em. Horfly nasty things them moths. They sye as everything in the world 'as a use; but I'm sure I don'tsee what use there is for moths, eatin' 'oles in the seats ofgentlemen's trousers, no matter what you do to keep the coat-closetaired--and everything like that. What do you sye, Mrs. Allerton?"

Letty was relieved of the necessity of answering by the entrance ofWilliam with the tray, after which her task became easier. Used tomaking "a good cup of tea" in an ordinary way, the doing it with thisformal ceremoniousness was only a matter of revision. As if it wasyesterday she recalled the instructions given to Luciline Lynch, "Lemon?--cream?--one lump?--two lumps?" so that Miss Walbrook wasstartled by her readiness. She, Miss Walbrook, was betrayed, in fact, into some confusion of personality, stating that she would have creamand no sugar, and that furthermore Englishmen like herself 'ardly evertook lemon in their tea, and in her opinion no one ever did to whomthe tea-drinking 'abit was 'abitual. 

"It's a question of tyste, " Miss Walbrook continued, sipping with asoft siffling noise in the way he considered to be ladylike. "Themthat 'as drunk tea with their mother's milk, as you might sye, 'lltyke cream and sugar, one or both; but them that 'as picked up the'abit in lyter life 'll often condescend to lemon. "

What the rehearsal did for Letty was to make the mechanical taskfamiliar, while she concentrated her attention on Miss Walbrook. 

It has to be admitted that to Barbara Walbrook Letty was a shock. Having worked for two years in the Bleary Street Settlement she hadher preconceived ideas of what she was to find, and she foundsomething so different that her first consciousness was that of being"sold. "

Steptoe had received her at the door, and having ushered her into thedrawing-room announced, "Miss Barbara Walbrook, " as if she had beencalling on a duchess. From the semi-obscurity of the back drawing-rooma small lithe figure came forward a step or two. The small lithefigure was wearing a tea-gown of which so practiced an eye as MissWalbrook's could not but estimate the provenance and value, while asweet voice said:

"I'm so glad to be at home, Miss Walbrook. Do let me ring for tea. "

Before a protest could be voiced the bell had been rung, so that MissWalbrook found herself sitting in the chair Steptoe had used in themorning, and listening to her hostess as you listen to people in adream. 

"Beautiful weather for October, isn't it? Some of these Octoberdays'll be just like summer time. And then again there'll be a nip inthe wind that'll fairly freeze you. A good time of year to get outyour furs, isn't it? and I'm sure I hope the moths ain't--haven't--gotat them. Awfully nasty things moths----"

Letty's further efforts were interrupted by William bearing the trayas he had borne it in the morning, and in the minutes of silence whilehe placed it Miss Walbrook could go through the mental process knownas pulling oneself together. 

But she couldn't pull herself together without a sense of outrage. Shehad expected to feel shame, vicariously for Rash; she had not expectedto be asked to take part in a horrible bit of play-acting. Thisdressing-up; this mock hospitality; this desecration of the thingswhich "dear Mrs. Allerton" had used; this mingling of ignorance andpretentiousness, inspired a rage prompting her to fling the back ofher hand at the ridiculous creature's face. She couldn't do that, ofcourse. She couldn't even express herself as she felt. She had come ona mission, and she must carry out that mission; and to carry out themission she must be as suave as her indignation would allow of. _She_was morally the mistress of this house. Rash and all Rash ownedbelonged to _her_. To see this strumpet sitting in her place. .. . 

It did nothing to calm her that while she was pressing Rash's ringinto her flesh, beneath her glove, this vile thing was wearing a plaingold band, just as if she was married. She could understand that ifthey had absurdly walked through an absurd ceremony the absurdminister who performed it might have insisted on this absurd symbol;but it should have been snatched from the creature's hand the minutethe business was ended. They owed that to _her_. _Hers_ was the onlyclaim Rash had to consider, and to allow this farce to be enactedbeneath his roof. .. . 

But she remembered that Letty didn't know who she was, or why she hadcome, or the degree to which she, Barbara Walbrook, saw through thisfoolery. 

Letty repeated her little formula: "Lemon?--cream?--one lump?--twolumps?" though before she reached the end of it her voice began tofail. Catching the hostility in the other woman's bearing, she felt itthe more acutely because in style, dress, and carriage this was themodel she would have chosen for herself. 

Miss Walbrook waved hospitality aside. "Thank you, no; nothing in theway of tea. " She nodded over her shoulder towards William's retreatingform. "Who's that man?"

Her tone was that of a person with the right to inquire. Letty didn'tquestion that right, knowing the extent to which she herself was anusurper. "His name is William. "

"How did he come here?"

"I--I don't know. "

"Where are Nettie and Jane?"

"They've--they've left. "

"Left? Why?"

"I--I don't know. "

"And has Mrs. Courage left too?"

Letty nodded, the damask flush flooding her cheeks darkly. 

"When? Since--since you came?"

Letty nodded again. She knew now that this was the bar of socialjudgment of which she had been afraid. 

The social judge continued. "That must be very hard on Mr. Allerton. "

Letty bowed her head. "I suppose it is. "

"He's not used to new people about him, and it's not good for him. Idon't know whether you've seen enough of him to know that he'ssomething of an invalid. "

"I know--" she touched her forehead--"that he's sick up here. "

"Oh, do you? Then I shouldn't have thought that you'd have--" but shedropped this line to take up another. "Yes, he's always been so. Whenhe was a boy they were afraid he might be epileptic; and though henever was as bad as that he's always needed to be taken care of. Hecan do very wild and foolish things as--as you've discovered foryourself. "

Letty felt herself now a little shameful lump of misery. This womanwas so experienced, so right. She spoke with a decision and anauthority which made love at first sight a fancy to blush at. Lettycould say nothing because there was nothing to say, and meanwhile thedetermined voice went on. 

"It's terrible for a man like him to make such a mistake, becausebeing what he is he can't grapple with it as a stronger or a coarserman would do. "

But here Letty saw something that might be faintly pleaded in her owndefence. "He says he wouldn't ha' made the mistake if that--that othergirl hadn't been crazy. "

Barbara drew herself up. "Did he--did he say that?"

"He said something like it. He said she went off the hooks, just likehe did himself. " She raised her eyes. "Do you know her, MissWalbrook?"

"Yes, I know her. "

"She must be an awful fool. "

Barbara prayed for patience. "What--what makes you say so?"

"Oh, just what _he's_ said. "

"And what has he said? Has he talked about her to _you_?"

"He hasn't talked about her. He's just--just let things out. "

"What sort of things?"

"Only that sort. " She added, as if to herself: "I don't believe hethinks much of her. "

Barbara's self-control was miraculous. "I've understood that he wasvery much in love with her. "

"Well, perhaps he is. " Letty's little movement of the shoulders hintedthat an expert wouldn't be of this opinion. "He may think he is, anyhow. "

"But if he thinks he is----"

Letty's eyes rested on her visitor with their compelling candor. "Idon't believe men know much about love, do you, Miss Walbrook?"

"It depends. All men haven't had as much experience of it as I supposeyou've had----"

"Oh, I haven't had any. " The candor of the eyes was now in the wholeof the truthful face. "Nobody was ever in love with me--never. I neverhad a fella--nor nothing. "

In spite of herself Barbara believed this. She couldn't help herself. She could hear Rash saying that whatever else was wrong in theridiculous business the girl herself was straight. All the same thediscussion was beneath her. It was beneath her to listen to opinionsof herself coming from such a source. If Rash didn't "think much ofher" there was something to "have out" with him, not with this littlestreet-waif dressed up with this ludicrous mummery. The sooner sheended the business on which she had come the sooner she would get alegitimate outlet for the passion of jealousy and rage consuming her. 

"But we're wandering away from my errand. I won't pretend that I'vecome of my own accord. I'm a very old friend of Mr. Allerton's, andhe's asked me--or practically asked me--to come and find out----"

For what she was to come and find out she lacked for a minute theright word, and so held up the sentence. 

"What I'd take to let him off?"

The form of expression was so crude that once more Barbara wasstartled. "Well, that's what it would come to. "

"But I've told him already that--that I want to let him off anyhow. "

"Yes? And on what terms?"

"I don't want any terms. "

"Oh, but there must be _terms_. He couldn't let you do it----"

"He could let me do it for _him_, couldn't he? I'd go through fire, ifit'd make him a bit more comfortable than he is. "

Barbara could not believe her ears. "Do you want me to understandthat----?"

"That I'll do whatever will make him happy just to _make_ him happy?Yes. That's it. He didn't need to send no one--to send anyone--to askme, because I've told him so already. He wants me to get out. Well, I'm ready to get out. He wants me to go to the bad. Well, I'mready----"

"Yes; he understands all that. But, don't you see? a man in hisposition couldn't take such a sacrifice from a girl in yours----"

"Unless he pays me for it in cash. "

"That's putting it in a nutshell. If you owned a house, for instance, and I wanted it, I'd buy it from you and pay you for it; but Icouldn't take it as a gift, no matter how liberal you were nor howmuch I needed it. "

"I can see that about a house; but your own self is different. I couldsell a house when I couldn't sell--myself. "

"Oh, but would you call that selling yourself?"

"It'd be selling myself--the way I look at it. When I'm so ready to dowhat he wants I can't see why he don't let me. " She added, tearfully:"Did he tell you about this morning?"

She nodded. "Yes, he told me about that. "

"Well, I would have gone then if--if I'd known how to work the door. "

"Oh, that's easy enough. "

"Do you know?"

"Why, yes. "

"Will you show me?"

Miss Walbrook rose. "It's so simple. " She continued, as they wenttoward the door: "You see, Mr. Allerton's mother always kept a lot ofvaluable jewelry in the house, and she was afraid of burglars. She hadthe most wonderful pearls. I suppose Mr. Allerton has them still, locked away in some bank. Burglars would never come in by the frontdoor, my aunt used to tell her, but--" They reached the door itself. "Now, you see, there's a common lock, a bolt, and a chain----"

Letty explained that she had discovered them already. 

"But, you see these two little brass knobs over here? That's thetrick. You push this one this way, and that one that way, and the dooris locked with an extra double lock, which hardly anyone wouldsuspect. See?"

She shook the door which resisted as it had resisted Letty in themorning. 

"Now! You push that one this way, and this one that way--and there youare!"

She opened the door to show how easily the thing could be done; andthe door being open she passed out. She had not intended to go inthis way; but, after all, was not her mission accomplished? It wasnothing to her whether this girl accepted money, or whether she didnot. The one thing essential was that she should take herself away;and if she was sincere in what she said she had now the means of doingit. Without troubling herself to take her leave Miss Walbrook wentdown the steps. 

Before turning toward Fifth Avenue she glanced back. Letty wasstanding in the open doorway, her flaming eyes wide, her expressionpuzzled and wounded. "It's nothing to me, " Barbara repeated to herselffirmly; but because she was a lady, as she understood the word lady, almost before she was a woman, she smiled faintly, with a distant, andyet not discourteous, inclination of the head. 

Chapter XVII

It was because she was a lady, as she understood the word lady, thatby the time she had walked the few steps into Fifth Avenue MissWalbrook already felt the inner reproach of having done somethingmean. To do anything mean was so strange to her that she didn't atfirst recognize the sensation. She only found herself repeating twowords, and repeating them uneasily: "_Noblesse oblige!_"

Nevertheless, on the principle that all's fair in love and war, shefought this off. "Either she must go or I must. " That she herselfshould go was not to be considered; therefore the other must go, andby the shortest way. The shortest way was the way she had shown her, and which the girl herself was desirous to take. There was no morethan that to the situation. 

There was no more than that to the situation unless it was that thestrong was taking a poor advantage of the weak. But then, whyshouldn't the strong take any advantage it possessed? What otherwisewas the use of being strong? The strong prevailed, and the weak wentunder. That was the law of life. To suppose that the weak must prevailbecause it was weak was sheer sentimentality. All the same, those twoinconvenient words kept dinning in her ears: "_Noblesse oblige!_"

She began to question the honesty which in Letty's presence hadconvinced her. It was probably not honesty at all. She had knowngirls in the Bleary Street Settlement who could persuade her thatblack was white, but who had proved on further knowledge to be lyingall round the compass. When it wasn't lying it was bluff. It waspossible that Letty was only bluffing, that in her pretense atmagnanimity she was simply scheming for a bigger price. In that caseshe, Barbara, had called the bluff very skilfully. She had put her ina position in which she could be taken at her word. Since she wasready to go, she could go. Since she was ready to go to the bad. .. . 

Miss Walbrook was not prim. She knew too much of the world to beeasily shocked, in the old conventional sense. Besides, her BlearyStreet work had brought her into contact with girls who had gone tothe bad, and she had not found them different from other girls. If shehadn't known. .. . 

She could contemplate without horror, therefore, Letty's takingdesperate steps--if indeed she hadn't taken them long ago--and yet sheherself didn't want to be involved in the proceeding. It was one thingto view an unfortunate situation from which you stood detached, andanother to be in a certain sense the cause of it. She would not reallybe the cause of it, whatever the girl did, since she, the girl, was afree agent, and of an age to know her own mind. Moreover, the secretof the door was one which she couldn't help finding out in any case. She, Miss Walbrook, could dismiss these scruples; and yet there wasthat uncomfortable sing-song humming through her brain: "_Noblesseoblige! Noblesse oblige!_"

"I must get rid of it, " she said to herself, as Wildgoose admittedher. "I've got to be on the safe side. I can't have it on my mind. "

Going to the telephone before she had so much as taken off her glovesshe was answered by Steptoe. "This is Miss Walbrook again, Steptoe. Ishould like to speak to--to the young woman. "

Steptoe who had found Letty crying after Miss Walbrook's departureanswered with resentful politeness. "I'll speak to Mrs. Allerton, miss. She _may_ be aible to come to the telephone. "

"Ye-es?" came later, in a feeble, teary voice. 

"This is Miss Walbrook again. I'm sorry to trouble you the secondtime. "

"Oh, that doesn't matter. "

"I merely wanted to say, what perhaps I should have said before Ileft, that I hope you won't--won't _use_ the information I gave you asI was leaving--at any rate not at once. "

"Do you mean the door?"

"Exactly. I was afraid after I came away that you might do somethingin a hurry----"

"It'll have to be in a hurry if I do it at all. "

"Oh, I don't see that. In any case, I'd--I'd think it over. Perhaps wecould have another talk about it, and then----"

Something was said which sounded like a faint, "Very well, " so thatBarbara put up the receiver. 

Her conscience relieved she could open the dams keeping back thefiercer tides of her anger. Rash had talked about her to this girl! Hehad given her to understand that she was a fool! He had allowed it toappear that "he didn't think much of her!" No matter what he hadsaid, the girl had been able to make these inferences. What was more, these inferences might be true. Perhaps he _didn't_ think much of her!Perhaps he only _thought_ he was in love with her! The idea was soterrible that it stilled her, as approaching seismic storm will stillthe elements. She moved about the drawing-room, taking off her gloves, her veil, her hat, and laying them together on a table, as if she wasafraid to make a sound. She was standing beside that table, notknowing what to do next, or where to go, when Wildgoose came to thedoor to announce, "Mr. Allerton. "

"I've seen her. " Without other form of greeting, or moving from besidethe table, she picked up her gloves, threw them down again, pickedthem up again, threw them down again, with the nervous action of thehands which betrayed suppressed excitement. "I didn't believeher--quite. "

"But you didn't disbelieve her--wholly?"

"It's a difficult case. "

"I've got you into an awful scrape, Barbe. "

She threw down the gloves with special vigor. "Oh, don't begin onthat. The scrape's there. What we have to find is the way out. "

"Well, do you see it any more clearly?"

"Do you?"

He came near to her. "I see this--that I can't let her throw herselfaway for me. I've been thinking it over, and I want to ask youropinion of this plan. Let's sit down. "

She thought his plan the maddest that was ever proposed, and yet sheaccepted it. She accepted it because she was suspicious, jealous, andunhappy. "It'll give me the chance to watch--and _see_, " she said toherself, as he talked. 

In his opinion Letty couldn't take their point of view because she wasso inexperienced. It seemed to her a simple thing to go away, leavingthem with the responsibilities of her future on their consciences; andit would not seem other than a simple thing till she saw life more asthey did. To bring her to this degree of culture they must be subtlewith her, and patient. They mustn't rush things. They mustn't let herrush them. To end the situation in such a way as to make for happinessthey must end it at a point where all would be best for all concerned. For Barbara and himself nothing would be best which was not also bestfor the girl. What would be best for the girl would be some degree ofeducation, of knowledge of the world, so that she might go back to thelife whence they had plucked her less likely to be a prey to thevicious. In that case, if they supplied her with a little income shewould know what to do with it, and would perhaps marry some man in herown class able to take care of her. 

Barbara's impulse was to cry out: "That's the most preposteroussuggestion I ever heard of in my life!" But she controlled this quitereasonable prompting because another voice said to her: "This willgive you the opportunity to keep an eye on them. If he's not true inhis love for you--if there _is_ an infatuation on his part for thiscommon and vulgar creature--you'll be able to detect it. " Jealousyloving to suffer she was willing to inflict torture on herself for thesake of catching him in disloyalty. 

Expecting a storm, and bringing out what he considered his wiseproposals with great embarrassment, Allerton was surprised and pleasedat the sympathetic calm in which she received them. 

"So that you'd suggest----?"

"Our keeping her on a while longer, and making friends with her. I'dlike it tremendously if you'd be a friend to her, because you could domore for her than anyone. "

"More than you?"

"Oh, I'd do my bit too, " he assured her, innocently. "I could put herup to a lot of things, seeing her every day as I should. But you'rethe one I should really count on. "

Because the words hurt her more than any she could utter; she said, quietly: "I suppose you remember sometimes that after all she's yourwife. "

He sprang to his feet. Knowing that he did at times remember it hetried to deny it. "No, I don't. She's not. I don't admit it. I don'tacknowledge it. If you care anything about me, Barbe, you'll never saythat again. "

He came and knelt beside her, taking her hands and kissing them. Laying his head in her lap, he begged to be caressed, as if he hadbeen a dog. 

Nevertheless by half past nine that evening he was at home, sitting bythe fireside with Letty, and beginning his special part in the greatexperiment. 

"She's not my wife, " he kept repeating to himself poignantly, ashe walked up the Avenue from the Club; "she's not--she's _not_. Butshe _is_ a poor child toward whom I've undertaken graveresponsibilities. "

Because the responsibilities were grave, and she was a poor child, hisattitude toward her began to be paternal. It was the more freelypaternal because Barbe approved of what he was undertaking. Had shedisapproved he might have undertaken it all the same, but he couldn'thave done it with this whole-heartedness. He would have been hauntedby the fear of her displeasure; whereas now he could let himself go. 

"We don't want to keep you a prisoner, or detain you against yourwill, " he said, with regard to the incident of the morning, "but ifyou'll stay with us a little longer, I think we can convince you ofour good intentions. "

"Who's--we?"

She shot the question at him, as she lay back in her chair, the redbook in her lap. He smiled inwardly at the ready pertinence with whichshe went to a point he didn't care to discuss. 

"Well, then, suppose I said--I? That'll do, won't it?"

She shot another question, her flaming eyes half veiled. "How longwould you want me to stay?"

"Suppose we didn't fix a time? Suppose we just left it--like that?"

The question rose to her lips: "But in the end I'm to go?" only, onsecond thoughts she repressed it. She preferred that the situationshould be left "like that, " since it meant that she was not at once tobe separated from the prince. The fact that she was legally theprince's wife had as little reality to her as to him. Could she havehad what she yearned for law or no law would have been the same toher. But since she couldn't have that, it was much that he shouldcome like this and sit with her by the fire in the evening. 

He leaned forward and took the book from her lap. "What are youreading? Oh, this! I haven't looked at it for years. " He glanced atthe title. "_The Little Mermaid!_ That used to be my favorite. Itstill is. When I was in Copenhagen I went to see the little bronzemermaid sitting on a rock on the shore. It's a memorial to HansAndersen. She's quite startling for a minute--till you know what itis. Where are you at?"

Pointing out the line at which she had stopped her hand touched his, but all the consciousness of the accident was on her side. He seemedto notice nothing, beginning to read aloud to her, with no suspicionthat sentiment existed. 

"Many an evening and morning she rose to the place where she had leftthe prince. She watched the fruits in the garden ripen and fall; shesaw the snow melt from the high mountains; but the prince she neversaw, and she came home sadder than ever. Her one consolation was tosit in her little garden, with her arms clasped round the marblestatue which was like the prince----"

"That'd be me, " Letty whispered to herself; "my arms clasped round amarble statue--like my prince--but only a marble statue. "

"Her flowers were neglected, " Allerton read on, "and grew wild in aluxuriant tangle of stem and blossom, reaching the branches of thewillow-tree, and making the whole place dark and dim. At last shecould bear it no longer and she told one of her sisters----"

"I wouldn't tell my sister, if I had one, " Letty assured herself. "I'dnever tell no one. It's more like my own secret when I keep it tomyself. Nobody'll ever know--not even him. "

"The other sisters learned the story then, but they told it to no onebut a few other mermaids, who told it to their intimate friends. Oneof these friends knew who the prince was, and told the princess wherehe came from and where his kingdom lay. Now she knew where he lived;and many a night she spent there, floating on the water. She venturednearer to the land than any of her sisters had done. She swam up thenarrow lagoon, under the carved marble balcony; and there she sat andwatched the prince when he thought himself alone in the moonlight. Sheremembered how his head had rested on her breast, and how she hadkissed his brow; but he would never know, and could not even dream ofher. "

Letty had not kissed her prince's brow, but she had kissed his feet;but he would never know that, and would dream of her no more than thisother prince of the little thing who loved him. 

Allerton continued to read on, partly because the old tale came backto him with its enchanting loveliness, partly because reading aloudwould be a feature of his educational scheme, and partly because itsoothed him to be doing it. He could never read to Barbara. Once, whenhe tried it, the sound of his voice and the monotony of his cadences, so got on her nerves that she stopped him in the middle of a word. But this girl with her uncritical mind, and her gratitude for smallbits of kindliness, gave him confidence in himself by her rapt way oflistening. 

She did listen raptly, since a prince's reading must always be morearresting than that of ordinary mortals, and also because, bothconsciously and subconsciously, she was taking his pronunciation as astandard. 

 * * * * *

And just at this minute her name was under discussion in a brilliantgathering at The Hindoo Lantern, in another quarter of New York. 

If you know The Hindoo Lantern you know how much it depends onatmosphere. Once a disused warehouse in a section of the city whichcommerce had forsaken, the enthusiasm for the dance which arose about1910, has made it a temple. It gains, too, by being a temple of theesoteric. The Hindoo Lantern is not everybody's lantern, and does notswing in the open vulgar street. You might live in New York a hundredyears and unless you were one of the initiated and privileged, youmight never know of its existence. 

You could not so much as approach it were it not first explained toyou what you ought to do. You must pass through a tobacconist's, whichfrom the street looks like any other tobacconist's, after which youtraverse a yard, which looks like any other yard, except that it isbounded by a wall in which there is a small and unobtrusive door. Beside the small and unobtrusive door there hangs a bell-rope, of theancient kind suggesting the convent or the Orient. The bell-ropepulls a bell; the bell clangs overhead; the door is opened cautiouslyby a Hindoo lad, or, as some say, a mulatto boy dressed as a Hindoo. If you are with a friend of the institution you will be admittedwithout more inspection; but should you be a stranger there will be ascrutiny of your passports. Assuming, however, that you go in, youwill find a small courtyard, in which at last The Hindoo Lantern hangsmystic, suggestive, in oriental iron-work, and panels of coloredglass. 

Having passed beneath this symbol you will enter an antechamber richin the magic of the East. In a reverent obscurity you will find Buddhaon the right, Vishnu on the left, with flowers set before the one, while incense burns before the other. Somewhere in the darkness anOriental woman will be seated on the ground, twanging on a sarabar, and now and then crooning a chant of invitation to come and share indarksome rites. You will thus be "worked up" to a sense of themysterious before you pass the third gate of privilege into the shrineitself. 

Here you will discover the large empty oval of floor, surrounded bylittle tables for segregation and refreshment, with which the past tenyears have made us familiar. The place will be buzzing with the hum ofvoices, merry with duologues of laughter, and steaming with tobaccosmoke. A jazz-band will strike up, coughing out the nauseated, retching intervals so stimulating to our feet, and two by two, indriblets, streamlets, and lastly in a volume, the guests will take thefloor. 

In the way of "steps" all the latest will be on exhibition. You willsee the cow-trot, the rabbit-jump, the broom-stick, the washerwoman'sdip. Everyone who is anyone will be here, if not on one night then onanother, in a jovial fraternity steeped in the spirit of democracy. Revelry will be sustained on lemonade and a resinous astringent knownlocally as beer, while a sense of doing the forbidden will be in theair. For commercial reasons it will be needful to keep it in the air, since in the proceedings themselves there will be nothing more occult, or more inciting to iniquity, than a kindergarten game. 

Hither Mr. Gorry Larrabin had brought Mademoiselle Odette Coucoul, toteach her the new dances. As a matter of fact, he had just led herback to their little table, inconspicuously placed in the front row, after putting her through the paces of the camel-step. Mademoisellehad found it entrancing, so much more novel in the motion than theantiquated valses she had danced in France. Mr. Larrabin had retreatedlike a camel walking backwards, while she had advanced like a camelgoing forwards. The art was in lifting the foot quite high, throwingit slightly backwards, and setting it down with a delicatedeliberation, while you craned the neck before you with a shake of theAdam's apple. To incite you to produce this effect the jazz-band urgedyou onward with a sob, a gulp, a moan, an effect of strangulation, till finally it tore up the seat of your being as if you had beensuddenly struck sea-sick. 

"Mon Dieu, but it is lofely, " mademoiselle gurgled, laughing in herbreathlessness. "It is terr-i-bul to call no one a camel--_unchameau_--in France; but here am I a--_chameau_!"

Gorry took this with puzzled amusement. "What's the matter withcalling anyone a camel? I don't see any harm in that. "

Mademoiselle hid her face in confusion. "Oh, but it is terr-i-bul, terr-i-bul! It is almost so worse as to call no one a--how you say zatword in Eenglish?--a cow, n'est ce pas?--_une vache_--and zat is themost bad name what you can call no one. "

Looking across the room Gorry was struck with an idea. "Well, there'sa--what d'ye call it--_a vashe_--over there. See that guy with thegirl with the cream-colored hair--fella with a big black mustache, like a brigand in a play? There's a _vashe_ all-righty; and yet I'vegot to keep in with him. "

As he explained his reasons for keeping in with the "vashe" inquestion mademoiselle contented herself with shedding radiance andpaying no attention. Neither did she pay attention when he went on totell of the girl who had disappeared, and of her stepfather's reasonsfor finding her. She woke to cognizance of the subject only when Gorryrepeated the exact words of Miss Tina Vanzetti that morning: "Name ofLetty Gravely. "

It was mademoiselle's turn for repetition. "But me, I know dat name. I'ear it not so long ago. Name of Let-ty Grav-el-ly! I sure 'ear zatname all recently. " She reflected, tapping her forehead with vivacity. "Mais quand? Mais oui? C'était--Ah!" The exclamation was the sharp cryof discovery. "Tina Vanzetti--my frien'! She tell me zis morning. Zatgirl--Let-ty Grav-el-ly--she come chez Margot with ole man--what hekeep ze white slave--and he command her grand beautifultrousseau--Tina Vanzetti she will give me ze address--and I will tellyou--and you will tell him--and he will put you on to _richeaffairs_----"

"It'll be dollars and cents in the box office for me, " Gorryinterpreted, forcibly, while the band belched forth a chord like thegroan of a dying monster, calling them again to their feet. 

 * * * * *

"'Remember, ' said the witch, " Allerton continued to read, "'when youhave once assumed a human form you can never again be a mermaid--neverreturn to your home or to your sisters more. Should you fail to winthe prince's love, so that he leaves father and mother for your sake, and lays his hand in yours before the priest, an immortal soul willnever be granted you. On the same day that he marries another yourheart will break, and you will drift as sea-foam on the water. ' 'Solet it be, ' said the little mermaid, turning pale as death. '"

Allerton lifted his eyes from the book. "Does it bore you?"

There was no mistaking her sincerity. "_No!_ I _love_ it. "

"Then perhaps we'll read a lot of things. After this we'll find a goodnovel, and then possibly somebody's life. You'd like that, wouldn'tyou?"

Her joy was such that he could hardly hear the "Yes, " for which he waslistening. He listened because he was so accustomed to boring peoplethat to know he was not boring them was a consolation. 

"Is there anybody's life--his biography--that you'd be speciallyinterested in?"

She answered timidly and yet daringly. "Could we--could we read thelife of the late Queen Victoria--when she was a girl?"

"Oh, easily! I'll hunt round for one to-day. Now let me tell you aboutHans Andersen. He was born in Denmark, so that he was a Dane. You knowwhere Denmark is on the map, don't you?"

"I think I do. It's there by Germany isn't it?"

"Quite right. But let me get the atlas, and we'll look it up. "

He was on his feet when she summoned her forces for a question. "Doyou read like this to--to the girl you're engaged to?"

"No, " he said, reddening. "She--she doesn't like it. She won't let me. But wait a minute. I'll go and get the atlas. "

"'On the same day that he marries another, ' Letty repeated to herself, as she sat alone, 'your heart will break, and you will drift assea-foam on the water. ' 'So let it be, ' said the little mermaid. "

Chapter XVIII

On the next afternoon Allerton reported to Miss Walbrook the successof his first educational evening. 

"She's very intelligent, very. You'd really be pleased with her, Barbe. Her mind is so starved that it absorbs everything you say toher, as a dry soil will drink up rain. "

Regarding him with the mysterious Egyptian expression which had attimes suggested the reincarnation of some ancient spirit Barbaramaintained the stillness which had come upon her on the previous day. "That must be very satisfactory to you, Rash. "

He agreed the more enthusiastically because of believing her at onewith him in this endeavor. "You bet! The whole thing is going to workout. She'll pick up our point of view as if she was born to it. "

"And you're not afraid of her picking up anything else?"

"Anything else of what kind?"

"She might fall in love with you, mightn't she?"

"With me? Nonsense! No one would fall in love with me who----"

Her mysterious Egyptian smile came and went. "You can stop there, Rash. It's no use being more uncomplimentary than you need to be. Andthen, too, you might fall in love with her. "

"Barbe!" He cried out, as if wounded. "You're really too absurd. She's a good little thing, and she's had the devil's own luck----"

"They always do have. That was one thing I learnt in Bleary Street. Itwas never a girl's own fault. It was always the devil's own luck. "

"Well, isn't it, now, when you come to think of it? You can't takeeverything away from people, and expect them to have the samestandards as you and me. Think of the mess that people of our sortmake of things, even with every advantage. "

"We've our own temptations, of course. "

"And they've got theirs--without our pull in the way of carrying themoff. You should hear Steptoe----"

"I don't want to hear Steptoe. I've heard him too much already. "

"What do you mean by that?"

"What can I mean by it but just what I say? I should think you'd getrid of him. "

Having first looked puzzled, with a suggestion of pain, he ended witha laugh. "You might as well expect me to get rid of an oldgrandfather. Steptoe wouldn't let me, if I wanted to. "

"He doesn't like me. "

"Oh, that's just your imagination, Barbe. I'll answer for him when itcomes to----"

"You needn't take the trouble to do that, because I don't like him. "

"Oh, but you will when you come to understand him. "

"Possibly; but I don't mean to come to understand him. Old servantscan be an awful nuisance, Rash----"

"But Steptoe isn't exactly an old servant. He's more like----"

"Oh, I know what he's like. He's a habit; and habits are alwaysdangerous, even when they're good. But we're not going to quarrelabout Steptoe yet. I just thought I'd put you on your guard----"

"Against him?"

"He's a horrid old schemer, if that's what you want me to say; butthen it may be what you like. "

"Well, I do, " he laughed, "when it comes to him. He's been a horridold schemer as long as I remember him, but always for my good. "

"For your good as he sees it. "

"For my good as a kind old nurse might see it. He's limited, ofcourse; but then kind old nurses generally are. "

To be true to her vow of keeping the peace she forced back herirritations, and smiled. "You're an awful goose, Rash; but then you'rea lovable goose, aren't you?" She beckoned, imperiously. "Come here. "

When he was on his knees beside her chair she pressed back his faceframed by her two hands. "Now tell me. Which do you love most--Steptoeor me?"

He cast about him for two of her special preferences. "And you tellme; which do you love most, a saddle-horse or an opera?"

"If I told you, which should I be?--the opera or the saddle-horse?"

"If I told you, which would you give up?"

So they talked foolishly, as lovers do in the chaffing stage, shetrying to charm him into promising to get rid of Steptoe, he charmedby her willingness to charm him. Neither remembered that technicallyhe was a married man; but then neither had ever taken his marriage toLetty as a serious breach in their relations. 

 * * * * *

While he was thus on his knees the kindly old nurse was giving toLetty a kindly old nurse's advice. 

"If madam 'ud go out and tyke a walk I think it'd do madam good. "

To madam the suggestion had elements of mingled terror and attraction. "But, Steptoe, I couldn't go out and take a walk unless I dressed upin the new outdoor suit. "

"And what did madam buy it for?--with the 'at and the vyle, andeverythink, just like the lyte Mrs. Allerton. "

It was the argument she was hoping for. In the first place she wasused to the freedom of the streets; and in the second the outdoor suitwas calling her. Letty's love of dress was more than a love ofappearing at her best, though that love was part of it; it was a loveof the clothes themselves, of fabrics, colors, and fashions. When herdreams were not of wandering knights who loved her at aglance--bankers, millionaires, casting directors in motion-picturestudios, or, in high flights of imagination, incognito Englishlords--they dealt in costumes of magic tissue, of hues suited to herhair and eyes, in which the world saw and greeted her, not as the poorlittle waif whom Judson Flack had put out of doors, but the true LettyGravely of romance. The Letty Gravely of romance was the real LettyGravely, a being set free from the cruel, the ugly, the carking, thesordid, to flourish in a sunlight she knew to be shining somewhere. 

Oddly enough her vision had come partly true; and yet so out of focusthat she couldn't see its truth. It was like the sunlight which sheknew to be shining somewhere, with a wrong refraction in its rays. Theworld into which she had been carried was like that in a cubistpicture which someone had shown her at the studio. It bore a relationto the world she knew, but a relation in which whatever she hadsupposed to be perpendicular was oblique, and whatever she hadsupposed to be oblique was horizontal, and nothing as she had beenaccustomed to find it. It made her head swim. It was literally truethat she was afraid to move lest she should make a misstep through anerror in her sense of planes. 

But clothes she understood. In the swirling of her universe theyformed a rock to which her intelligence could cling. They kept hersane. In a sense they kept her happy. When all outside was confusionand topsy-turvyness she could retire among Margot's cartons, and findherself on solid ground. I should be sorry to record the hours shespent before the long mirror in the little back spare room. Here herimagination could give itself free range. She was Luciline Lynch, andMercola Merch, and Lisabel Anstey, and any other star of whom sheadmired the attainments; she could play a whole series of parts fromwhich her lack of a wardrobe had hitherto excluded her. From time totime she ventured, like Steptoe, to be Barbara Walbrook herself, though assuming the role with less intrepidity than he. 

It was easier, she found, to be any of the stars than BarbaraWalbrook, for the reason that the latter was "the real thing. " She wasliving her part, not playing it. She was "letter perfect, " inSteptoe's sense, not because a director moved her person this way, orturned her head that way, but because life had so infused her that shedid what was right unconsciously. Letty, by pretending to enter at thedoor and come forward to the mirror as to a living presence, studiedwhat was right by imitation. Miss Walbrook walked with a swift, easygait which suggested the precision of certain strong birds whenswooping on their prey. Between the door and the mirror Letty aimed atthe same effect till she made a discovery. 

"I can't do it her way; I can only do it my way. "

The ways were different; yet each could be effective. That too was adiscovery. Nature had no rule to which every individual was obliged toconform. The individual was, in a measure, his own rule, and got hisattractiveness from being so. The minute you abandoned your own giftsto cultivate those with which Nature had blessed someone else you lostnot only your identity but your charm. 

Letty worked this out as something like a principle. However many thehints she took it would be folly to try to be anything but herself. After all, it was what gave her value to a star, her personality. IfLuciline Lynch whom Nature had endowed with the grand manner had triedto be Mercola Merch who was all vivacious wickedness--well, anyonecould see! So, if Barbara Walbrook suggested an eagle on the wing andshe, Letty Gravely, was only a sparrow in the street, the sparrowwould be more successful as a sparrow than in trying to emulate theeagle. 

And yet there was a value to good models which at first she founddifficult to reconcile with this truth of personal independence. Thistoo she thought out. "It's like a way to do your hair, " was her methodof expressing it. "You do what's in fashion, but you twist it so thatit suits your own style. It isn't the fashion that makes you lookright; it's in being true to what suits you. "

There was, however, in Barbara Walbrook a something deeper than thiswhich at first eluded her. It was in Rashleigh Allerton too. It was inLisabel Anstey, and in a few other stars, but not in Mercola Merch, nor in Luciline Lynch. "It's the whole business, " Letty summed up toherself, "and yet I don't know what it is. Unless I can put my fingeron it. .. . "

She was just at this point when Steptoe addressed her on the subjectof going out. That she do so was part of his programme. Madam wouldnot be madam till she felt herself free to come and go; and till madamwas madam Mr. Rash would not understand who it was they had in the'ouse. That he didn't understand it yet was partly due to madam'erself who didn't understand it on 'er side. To cultivate thisunderstanding in madam was Steptoe's immediate aim, in which Beppo, the little cocker spaniel, unexpectedly came to his assistance. 

As the two stood conversing at the foot of the stairs Beppo lilteddown, with that air of having no one to love which he had worn duringall the eighteen months since his mistress had died. The cockerspaniel's heart, as everyone knows, is imbued with the principle ofone life, one love. It has no room for two loves; it has still lessroom for that general amiability to which most dogs are born. Amongthe human race it singles out one; and to that one it is faithful. Inseparation it seeks no substitute; in bereavement it rarely forms asecond tie. To everyone but Beppo the removal of Mrs. Allerton hadmade the world brighter. He alone had mourned that presence with agrief which sought neither comfort nor mitigation. He had followed hisroutine; he had eaten and slept; he had gone out when he was taken outand come in when he was brought in; but he had lived shut up withinhimself, aloof in his sorrow. For the first time in all those eighteenmonths he had come out of this proud gloom when Rashleigh's key hadturned in the door that night, and Letty had entered the house. 

The secret call which Beppo had heard can never be understood by mentill men have developed more of their latent faculties. As he lay inhis basket something reached him which he recognized as a summons to anew phase of usefulness. Out of the lethargy of mourning he had jumpedwith an obedient leap that took him through the obscurity of the houseto where a frightened girl had need of a little dog's sympathy. Ofthat sympathy he had been lavish; and now that there was newdiscussion in the air he came with his contribution. 

In words Steptoe had to be his interpreter. "That, poor little dog as'as growed so fond of madam don't get 'alf the exercise he ought to begive. If madam was to tyke 'im out like for a little stroll up theHavenue. .. . "

Thus it happened that in less than half an hour Letty found herselfout in the October sunlight, dressed in her blue-green costume, withall the details to "correspond, " and leading Beppo on the leash. Tolead Beppo on the leash, as Steptoe had perceived, gave a reason foran excursion which would otherwise have seemed motiveless. But she wasout. She was out in conditions in which even Judson Flack, had he mether, could hardly have detected her. Gorgeously arrayed as she seemedto herself she was dressed with the simplicity which stamps the Frenchtaste. There was nothing to make her remarked, especially in a doubleprocession of women so many of whom were remarkable. Had you looked ather twice you would have noted that while skill counted for much inher gentle, well-bred appearance, a subtle, unobtrusive, nativedistinction counted for most; but you would have been obliged to lookat her twice before noting anything about her. She was a neatlydressed girl, with an air; but on that bright afternoon in FifthAvenue neatly dressed girls with an air were as buttercups in June. 

Seizing this fact Letty felt more at her ease. No one was thinking herconspicuous. She was passing in the crowd. She was not being "spotted"as the girl who a short time before had had nothing but the old grayrag to appear in. She could enjoy the walk--and forget herself. 

Then it came to her suddenly that this was the secret of which she wasin search, the power to forget herself. She must learn to do things soeasily that she would have no self-consciousness in doing them. In bigthings Barbara Walbrook might think of herself; but in all littlethings, in the way she spoke and walked and bore herself towardothers, she acted as she breathed. It seemed wonderful to Letty, thisassurance that you were right in all the fundamentals. It wasprecisely in the fundamentals that she was so likely to be wrong. Itwas where girls of her sort suffered most; in the lack of theelementary. One could bluff the advanced, or make a shot at it; butthe elementary couldn't be bluffed, and no shot at it would tell. Itbetrayed you at once. You must _have_ it. You must have it as you hadthe circulation of your blood, as something so basic that you didn'tneed to consider it. That was her next discovery, as with Beppotugging at the end of his tether she walked onward. 

She was used to walking; she walked strongly, and with a trudgingsturdiness, not without its grace. She came to the part of FifthAvenue where the great houses begin to thin out, and vacant lots, asif ashamed of their vacancy, shrink behind boardings vivid with thenews of picture-plays. It was the year when they were advertising thescreen-masterpiece, _Passion Aflame_; and here was depicted LucilineLynch, a torch in her hand, her hair in maenadic dishevelment, leadingon a mob to set fire to a town. Letty herself having been in that mobpaused in search of her face among the horde of the great star'sfollowers. It was a blob of scarlet and green from which she droppedher eyes, only to have them encounter a friend of long standing. 

At the foot of the boarding, and all in a row, was a straggling bandof dust-flowers. It was late in the season, yet not too late for theirbit of blue heaven to press in among the ways of men. She was notsurprised to find them there. Ever since the crazy woman had pointedout the mission of this humble little helper of the human race she hadnoted its persistency in haunting the spots which beauty had deserted. You found it in the fields, it was true; but you found it rarely, sparsely, raggedly, blooming, you might say, with but little heart forits bloom. Where other flowers had been frightened away; where thepoor crowded; where factories flared; where junk-heaps rusted; wherebackyards baked; where smoke defiled; where wretchedness stalked;where crime brooded; where the land was unkempt; where the humanspirit was sodden--there the celestial thing multiplied its celestialgrowths, blessing the eyes and making the heart leap. It matteredlittle that so few gave it a thought or regarded it as other than aweed; there were always those few, who knew that it spelled beauty, who knew that it spelled something more. 

Letty was of those few. She was of those few for old sake's sake, butalso for the sake of a new yearning. Slipping off a glove she picked afew of the dusty stalks, even though she knew that once taken fromtheir task of glorifying the dishonored the blue stars would shutalmost instantly. "They'll wither in a few days now, " she said, inself-excuse; "and anyhow I'll leave most of them. " Having shaken offthe dust she fastened them in her corsage, blue against herblue-green. 

They were her symbol for happiness springing up in the face ofdespair, and from a soil where you would expect it to be choked. Sheherself was happy to-day as she could not remember ever to have beenhappy in her life. For the first time she was passing among decentpeople decently; and then--it was the great hope beyond which shedidn't look--the prince might read with her again that evening. 

But as she turned from Fifth Avenue into East Sixty-seventh Street theprince was approaching his door from the other direction. Even she wasaware that it was contrary to his habits to appear at home by five inthe afternoon. She didn't know, of course, that Barbara had sostimulated his enthusiasm for the educational course that he had comeon the chance of taking it up at the tea hour. He could not rememberthat Barbara had ever before been so sympathetic to one of his ideas. The fact encouraged his feeble belief in himself, and made him loveher with richer tenderness. 

In the gentle girl of quietly distinguished mien he saw nothing but astranger till Beppo strained at his leash and barked. Even then ittook him half a minute to get his powers of recognition into play. Hestopped at the foot of his steps, watching her approach. 

By doing so he made the approach more difficult for her. The heartseemed to stop in her body. She could scarcely breathe. Each step waslike walking on blades, yet like walking on blades with a kind ofecstasy. Luckily Beppo pranced and pulled in such a way that she wasforced to give him some attention. 

The prince's first words were also a distraction from terrors andenchantments which made her feel faint. 

"Where did you get the poor man's coffee?"

The question by puzzling her gave her some relief. Pointing at thesprays in her corsage he went on:

"That's what the country people often call the chicory weed inFrance. "

She was able to gasp feebly: "Oh, does it grow there?"

"I think it grows pretty nearly everywhere. It's one of the mostclassic wild flowers we know anything about. The ancient Egyptiansdried its leaves to give flavor to their salad, and I remember beingtold at Luxor that the modern Copts and Arabs do the same. You seeit's quite a friendly little beast to man. "

It eased her other feelings to tell him about the crazy woman inCanada, and her reading of the dust-flower's significance. 

"That's a good idea too, " Allerton agreed, smiling down into her eyes. "There are people like that--little dust-flowers cheering up thewayside for the rest of us poor brutes. "

She said, wistfully: "I suppose you've known a lot of them. "

[Illustration: THE PRINCE'S FIRST WORDS WERE ALSO A DISTRACTION FROMTERRORS, AND ENCHANTMENTS WHICH MADE HER FEEL FAINT]

As he laughed his eyes rested on a man sauntering toward them from thedirection of Fifth Avenue. "I've known about two--" his eyes came backto smile again down into hers--"or _one_. " He started as a man startswho receives a new suggestion. "I say! Let's go in and look up chicoryand succory in the encyclopedia. Then we'll know all about it. Itseems to me, too, " he went on, reminiscently, "that I read a littlepoem about this very blue flower--by Margaret Deland, I think itwas--only a few weeks ago. I believe I could put my hand on it. Comealong. "

As he sprang up the steps the pearly gates were opening again beforeLetty when the man whom Allerton had seen sauntering toward themactually passed by. Passing he lifted his hat politely, smiled, andsaid, "Good afternoon, Miss Gravely, " like any other gentleman. He wasa good-looking slippery young man, with a cast in his left eye. 

Because she was a woman before she was a lady, as she understood theword lady, Letty responded with, "Good afternoon, " and a littleinclination of the head. He was several doors off before she bethoughtherself sufficiently to take alarm. 

"Who's that?" Allerton demanded, looking down from the third or fourthstep. 

"I'm sure I haven't an idea. I think he must be some camera-man who'sseen me when they've been shooting the pitch--" she made thecorrection almost in time--"who's seen me when they've been shootingthe _pick-tures_. I can't think of anything else. "

They watched the retreating form till, without a backward glance, itturned into Madison Avenue. 

"Come along in, " Allerton called then, in a tone intended to dispersemisgiving, "and let's begin. "

Ten minutes later he was reading in the library, from a big volumeopen on his knees, how for over a century the chicory root had beendried and ground in France, and used to strengthen the cheaper gradesof coffee, when Letty broke in, as if she had not been following him:

"I don't think that fella could have been a camera-man after all. Nocamera-man would ha' noticed me in the great big bunch I was alwaysin. "

"Oh, well, he can't do you any harm anyhow, " Allerton assured her. "I'll just finish this, and then I'll look for the poem by Mrs. Deland. "

With her veil and gloves in her lap Letty sat thoughtful while hepassed from shelf to shelf in search of the smaller volume. Of herreal suspicion, that the man was a friend of Judson Flack's, shedecided not to speak. 

Seated once more in front of her, and bending slightly toward her, Allerton read:

 "Oh, not in ladies' gardens, My peasant posy! Smile thy dear blue eyes, Nor only--nearer to the skies-- In upland pastures, dim and sweet-- But by the dusty road Where tired feet Toil to and fro; Where flaunting Sin May see thy heavenly hue, Or weary Sorrow look from thee Toward a more tender blue. "

Allerton glanced up from the book. "Pretty, isn't it?"

She admitted that it was, and then added: "And yet there was the timeswhen the castin' director put me right in the front, to register whatthe crowd behind me was thinkin' about. He might ha' noticed methen. "

"Yes, of course; that must have been it. Now wouldn't you like me toread that again? You must always read a poem a second or third time toreally know what it's about. "

 * * * * *

Meanwhile a poem of another sort was being read to Miss BarbaraWalbrook by her aunt, who had entered the drawing-room within fiveminutes after Allerton had left it. During those five minutes Barbarahad remained seated, plunged into reverie. The problem with which shehad to deal was the degree to which she was right or wrong inpermitting Rashleigh to go on in his crazy course. That this outcastgirl was twining herself round his heart was a fact growing tooobtrusive to be ignored. Had Rashleigh been as other men decisiveaction would have been imperative. But he was not as other men, andthere lay the possibilities she found difficult. 

If the aunt couldn't help the niece to solve the difficult questionshe at least could compel her to take a stand. 

As she entered the drawing-room she came from out of doors, a slender, unfleshly figure, all intellect and idea. Her vices being wholly ofthe spirit were not recognized as vices, so that she passed as thehighest type of the good woman which the continent of America knowsanything about. Being the highest type of the good woman she had, moreover, the privilege which American usage accords to all good womenof being good aggressively. No other good woman in the world enjoysthis right to the same degree, a fact to which we can point withpride. The good English woman, the good French woman, the good Italianwoman, are obliged by the customs of their countries to direct theirgoodness into channels in which it is relatively curbed. The goodAmerican woman, on the other hand, is never so much at home as whenshe is on the warpath. Her goodness being the only standard ofgoodness which the country accepts she has the right to impose it byany means she can harness to her purposes. She is the inspiration ofour churches, and the terror of our constituencies. She is behindstate legislatures and federal congresses and presidential cabinets. They may elude her lofty purposes, falsify her trust, and for a timehoodwink her with male chicaneries; but they are always afraid of her, and in the end they do as she commands. Among the coarsely, stupidly, viciously masculine countries of the world the American Republic isthe single and conspicuous matriarchate, ruled by its good women. Ofthese rulers Miss Marion Walbrook was as representative a type ascould be found, high, pure, zealous, intolerant of men's weaknesses, and with only spiritual immoralities of her own. 

Seated in one of her slender upright armchairs she had theimpressiveness of goodness fully conscious of itself. A document sheheld in her hand gave her the judicial air of one entitled to passsentence. 

"I'm sorry, Barbara; but I've some disagreeable news for you. "

Barbara woke. "Indeed?"

"I've just come from Augusta Chancellor's. She talked about--thatman. "

"What did she say?"

"She said two or three things. One was that she'd met him one day inthe Park when he decidedly wasn't himself. "

"Oh, it's hard to say when he's himself and when he isn't. He's whatthe French would call _un original_. "

"Oh, I don't know about that. The originality of men is commonplace asit's most novel. This man is on a par with the rest, if you call itoriginal for him to have a woman in the house. "

Barbara feigned languidness. "Well, it is--the way he has her there. "

"The way he has her there? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean what I say. There's no one else in the world who would take agirl under his roof in the way Rash has taken this girl. "

"How, may I ask, did he take her?"

Having foreseen that one day she should be in this position Barbarahad made up her mind as to how much she should say. "He found her. "

"Oh, they all do that. They generally find them in the Park. "

"Exactly; it's just what he did. "

"I guessed--it was only guessing mind you--that he also tried to findAugusta Chancellor. "

"Oh, possibly. He'd go as far as that, if he saw her doing anything hethought not respectable. "

"Barbara, please! You're talking about a friend of mine, one of mycolleagues. Let's return to--I hope you won't find the French phraseinvidious--to our mutton. "

"Oh, very well! Rash found the girl homeless--penniless--with nofriends. Her stepfather had turned her out. Another man would haveleft her there, or turned her over to the police. Rash took her to hisown house, and since then we've both been helping her to--to get onher feet. "

"Helping her to get on her feet in a way that's driven from the housethe good old women who've been there for nearly thirty years. "

"Oh, you know that too, do you?"

"Why, certainly. Jane, that was the parlor maid, is very intimate withAugusta Chancellor's cook; and she says--Jane does--that he's actuallymarried the creature. "

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "I can't help what the servants say, Aunt Marion. I'm trying to be a friend to the girl, and help her topull herself together. Of course I recognize the fact that Rash hasbeen foolish--quixotic--or whatever you like to call it; but he hasn'tkept anything from me. "

"And you're still engaged to him?"

"Of course I'm still engaged to him. " She held out her left hand. "Look at his ring. "

"Then why don't you get married?"

"Are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?"

The question being a pleasantry Miss Walbrook took it with a gentlesmile. When she resumed it was with a slight flourish of the documentin her hand and another turn to the conversation. 

"I went to the bank this morning. I've brought home my will. I'mthinking of making some changes in it. "

Barbara looked non-committal, as if the subject had nothing to do withherself. 

"The question I have to decide, " Miss Walbrook pursued, "is whether toleave everything to you, in the hope that you'll carry on mywork----"

"I shouldn't know how. "

"Or whether to establish a trust----"

"I should do that decidedly. "

"And let it fall into the hands of a pack of men. "

"It will fall into the hands of a pack of men, whatever you do withit. "

"And yet if you had it in charge----"

"Some man would get hold of it, Aunt Marion. "

"Which is what I'm debating. I'm not so very sure----"

"That I shall marry in the end?"

"Well, you're not married yet . .. And if you were to change yourmind . .. The world has such a need of consecrated women with menso unscrupulous and irresponsible . .. We must break their powersome day . .. And now that we've got the opportunity . .. All I wantyou to understand is that if you shouldn't marry there'd be agreat career in store for you. .. . "

Chapter XIX

By the end of twenty-four hours the possibility of this great careerquickened Barbara's zeal for taking a hand in Letty's education. Notonly did that impulse of furious jealousy, by which she meant at firstto leave it wholly to Rash, begin to seem dangerous, but there was aworld to consider and throw off the scent. Now that Augusta Chancellorknew that the girl was beneath Rash's roof all their acquaintanceswould sooner or later be in possession of the fact. It was Barbara'spart, therefore, to play the game in such a way that a bit ofquixotism would be the most foolish thing of which Rash would besuspected. 

That she would be playing a game she knew in advance. She must hideher suspicions; she must control her sufferings. She must pretend tohave confidence in Rash, when at heart she cried against him as aninfant and a fool. Never was woman in such a ridiculous situation asthat into which she had been thrust; never was heart so wild to easeitself by invective and denunciation; and never was the padlock fixedso firmly on the lips. Hour by hour the man she loved was being weanedand won away from her; and she must stand by with grimacing smiles, instead of throwing up her arms in dramatic gestures and calling onher gods to smite and smash and annihilate. 

Since, however, she had a game to play, a game she would play, thoughshe did it quivering with protest and repulsion. 

"Do you mind if I take the car this afternoon, Aunt Marion, sinceyou're not going to use it. "

"Take it of course; but where are you going?"

"I thought I would ask that protégée of Rash Allerton's, of whom wewere speaking yesterday, to come for a drive with me. But if you'drather I didn't----"

"I've nothing to do with it. It's entirely for you to say. The car isyours, of course. "

The invitation being transmitted by telephone Steptoe urged Letty toaccept it. "It'll be all in the wye of madam's gettin' used tothings--a bit at a time like. "

"But I don't think she likes me. "

"If madam won't stop to think whether people likes 'er or not I thinkmadam 'd get for'arder. Besides madam'll pretty generally always findas love-call wykes love-echo, as the syin' goes. "

Which, as a matter of fact, was what Letty did find. She found it fromthe minute of entering the car and taking her seat, when Miss Walbrookexclaimed heartily: "What a lovely dress! And the hat's too sweet!Suits you exactly, doesn't it? My dear, I've the greatest bother everto find a hat that doesn't make me look like a scarecrow. "

From the naturalness of the tone there was no suspecting the cost ofthese words to the speaker, and the subject was one in which Letty wasat home. In turn she could compliment Miss Walbrook's appearance, dulyadmiring the toque of prune-colored velvet, with a little bunch ofroses artfully disposed, and the coat of prune-colored Harris tweed. In further discussing the length of the new skirts and the chances ofthe tight corset coming back they found topics of common interest. Thefact that they were the topics which came readiest to the lips of bothmade it possible to maintain the conversation at its normalgive-and-take, while each could pursue the line of her own summing upof the other. 

To Letty Miss Walbrook seemed friendlier than she had expected, onlyspasmodically so. Her kindly moods came in spurts of which theinspiration soon gave out. "I think she's sad, " was Letty's comment toherself. Sadness, in Letty's use of words, covered all the emotionsnot distinctly cheerful or hilarious. 

She knew nothing about Miss Walbrook, except that it appeared fromthis conversation that she lived with an aunt, whose car they wereusing. That she was a friend of the prince's had been several timesrepeated, but all information ended there. To Letty she seemedold--between thirty and forty. Had she known her actual age she wouldstill have seemed old from her knowledge of the world and generalsophistication. Letty's own lack of sophistication kept her a childwhen she was nearly twenty-three. That Miss Walbrook was the girl towhom the prince was engaged had not yet crossed her thought. 

At the same time, since she knew that girl she brought her to theforefront of Letty's consciousness. She was never far from theforefront of her consciousness, and of late speculation concerning herhad become more active. If she approached the subject with the princehe reddened and grew ill at ease. The present seemed, therefore, anopportunity to be utilized. 

They were deep in the northerly avenues of the Park, when apropos ofthe dress topic, Letty said, suddenly: "I suppose she's awfullystylish--the girl he's engaged to. "

The response was laconic: "She's said to be. "

"Is she pretty?"

"I don't think you could say that. "

"Then what does he see in her?"

"Whatever people do see in those they're in love with. I'm afraid I'mnot able to define it. "

Dropping back into her corner Letty sighed. She knew this mysteryexisted, the mystery of falling in love for reasons no one was able toexplain. It was the ground on which she hoped that at first sightsomeone would fall in love with her. If he didn't do it for reasonsbeyond explanation he would, of course, not do it at all. 

It was some minutes before another question trembled to her lips. "Does she--does she know about me?"

"Oh, naturally. "

"And did she--did she feel very bad?"

Barbara's long eyes slid round in Letty's direction, though the headwas not turned. "How should you feel yourself, if it had happened toyou?"

"It'd kill me. "

"Well, then?" She let Letty draw her own conclusions before adding:"It's nearly killed her. "

Letty cowered. She had never thought of this. That she herselfsuffered she knew; that the prince suffered she also knew; but thatthis unknown girl, whatever her folly, lay smitten to the heartbrought a new complication into her ideas. "Even if he ever did cometo--" she held up her unspoken sentence there--"I'd ha' stolen himfrom her. "

There was little more conversation after that. Each had her motivesfor reflections and silences. They were nearing the end of the drivewhen Letty said again:

"What would you do if you was--if you were--me?"

"I'd do whatever I felt to be highest. "

To Letty this was a beautiful reply, and proof of a beautiful nature. Moreover, it was indirectly a compliment to herself, in that she couldbe credited with doing what she felt to be highest as well as anyoneelse. In her life hitherto she had been figuratively kicked and beateninto doing what she couldn't resist. Now she was considered capable ofacting worthily of her own accord. It inspired a new sentiment towardMiss Walbrook. 

She thought, too, that Miss Walbrook liked her a little better. Perhaps it was the fulfillment of Steptoe's adage, love-call wakeslove-echo. She was sure that somehow this call had gone out from herto Miss Walbrook, and that it hadn't gone out in vain. 

It hadn't gone out in vain, in that Miss Walbrook was able to say toherself, with some conviction, "That's the way it will have to bedone. " It was a way of which her experiences in Bleary Street had madeher skeptical. Among those whom she called the lower orders innocence, ingenuousness, and integrity were qualities for which she had ceasedto look. She didn't look for them anywhere with much confidence; butshe had long ago come to the conclusion that the poor were schemers, and were obliged to be schemers because they were poor. Something inLetty impressed her otherwise. "That's the way, " she continued to nodto herself. "It's no use trusting to Rash. I'll get her; and she'llget him; and so we shall work it. "

Arrived in East Sixty-seventh Street she went in with Letty and hadtea. But it was she who sat in dear Mrs. Allerton's corner of thesofa, and when William brought in the tray she said, "Put it here, William, " as one who speaks with authority. Of this usurpation of theright to dispense hospitality Letty did not see the significance, being glad to have it taken off her hands. 

Not so, however, with Steptoe who came in with a covered dish ofmuffins. Having placed it before Miss Walbrook he turned to Letty. 

"Madam ain't feelin' well?"

Letty's tone expressed her surprise. "Why, yes. "

"Madam'll excuse me. As madam ain't presidin' at 'er own tyble I wasafryde----"

It being unnecessary to say more he tiptoed out, leaving behind him adeclaration of war, which Miss Walbrook, without saying anything inwords, was not slow to pick up. "Insufferable, " was her comment toherself. Of the hostile forces against her this, she knew, was themost powerful. 

Neither did Rash perceive the significance of Barbara's place at thetea-table when he entered about five o'clock, though she was quick toperceive the significance of his arrival. It was not, however, apoint to note outwardly, so that she lifted her hand above thetea-kettle, letting him bend over it, as she exclaimed:

"Welcome to our city! Do sit down and make yourself at home. Letty andI have been for a drive, and are all ready to enjoy a little malesociety. "

The easy tone helped Allerton over his embarrassment, first in findingthe two women face to face, then in coming so unexpectedly face toface with them, and lastly in being caught by Barbara coming home atthis unexpected hour. Knowing what the situation must mean to her headmired her the more for her sangfroid and social flexibility. 

She took all the difficulties on herself. "Letty and I have beenmaking friends, and are going to know each other awfully well, aren'twe?" A smile at Letty drew forth Letty's smile, to Rashleigh'ssatisfaction, and somewhat to his bewilderment. But Barbara, handinghim a cup of tea, addressed him directly. "Who do you think isengaged? Guess. "

He guessed, and guessed wrong. He guessed a second time, and guessedwrong. There followed a conversation about people they knew, withregard to which Letty was altogether an outsider. Now and then sherecognized great names which she had read in the papers, tossed backand forth without prefixes of Mr. Or Miss, and often with petdiminutives. The whole represented a closed corporation of intimaciesinto which she could no more force her way than a worm into a billiardball. Rash who was at first beguiled by the interchange ofpersonalities began to experience a sense of discomfort that Lettyshould be so discourteously left out; but Barbara knew that it wasbest for both to force the lesson home. Rash must be given tounderstand how lost he would be with any outsider as his companion;and Letty must be made to realize how hopelessly an outsider she wouldalways be. 

But no lesson should be urged to the quick at a single sitting, sothat Barbara broke off suddenly to ask why he had come home. In thesame way as she had given the order to William she spoke with theauthority of one at liberty to ask the question. Not to give the realreason he said that it was to write a letter and change his clothes. 

"And you're going back to the Club?"

He replied that he was going to dine with a bachelor friend at hisapartment. 

"Then I'll wait and drop you at the Club. You can go on from thereafterwards. I've got the time. "

This too was said with an authority against which he felt himselfunable to appeal. 

Having written a note and changed to his dinner jacket he rejoinedthem in the drawing-room. Barbara held out her hand to Letty, with abriskness indicating relief. 

"So glad we had our drive. I shall come soon again. I wish it could beto-morrow, but my aunt will be using the car. "

"There's my car, " Allerton suggested. 

"Oh, so there is. " Barbara took this proposal as a matter of course. "Then we'll say to-morrow. I'll call up Eugene and tell him when tocome for me. "

With Allerton beside her, and driving down Fifth Avenue, she said: "Isee how to do it, Rash. You must leave it to me. "

He replied in the tone of a child threatened with the loss of his rôlein a game. "I can't leave it to you altogether. "

"Then leave it to me as much as you can. I see what to do and youdon't. Furthermore, I know just how to do it. "

"You're wonderful, Barbe, " he said, humbly. 

"I'm wonderful so long as you don't interfere with me. "

"Oh, well, I shan't do that. "

She turned to him sharply. "Is that a promise?"

"Why do you want a promise?" he asked, in some wonder. 

"Because I do. "

"That is, you can't trust me. "

"My dear Rash, who _could_ trust you after what----?"

"Oh, well, then, I promise. "

"Then that's understood. And if anything happens, you won't go hedgingand saying you didn't mean it in that way?"

"It seems to me you're very suspicious. "

"One's obliged to foresee everything with you, Rash. It isn't as ifone was dealing with an ordinary man. "

"You mean that I'm to give you carte blanche, and have no will of myown at all. "

"I mean that when I'm so reasonable, you must try to be reasonable onyour side. "

"Well, I will. "

As they drew up in front of the New Netherlands Club, he escapedwithout committing himself further. 

If he dined with a bachelor friend that night he must have cut theevening short, for at half past nine he re-entered the backdrawing-room where Letty was sitting before the fire, her red book inher lap. She sat as a lover stands at a tryst as to which there is nopositive engagement. To fortify herself against disappointment she hadbeen trying to persuade herself that he wouldn't come, and that shedidn't expect him. 

He came, but he came as a man who has something on his mind. Almostwithout greeting he sat down, took the book from her lap and proceededto look up the place at which he had left off. 

"Miss Walbrook's lovely, isn't she?" she said, before he had found thepage. 

"She's a very fine woman, " he assented. "Do you remember where westopped?"

"It was at, 'So let it be, said the little mermaid, turning pale asdeath. ' You know her very well, don't you?"

"Oh, very well indeed. I think we begin here: 'But you will have topay me also----'"

"Have you known her very long?"

"All my life, more or less. "

"She says she knows the girl you're engaged to. "

"Yes, of course. We all know each other in our little set. Now, ifyou're ready, I'll begin to read. "

"'But you will have to pay me also, ' said the witch; 'and it is not alittle that I ask. Yours is the loveliest voice in the world, and youtrust to that, I dare say, to charm your love. But you must give itto me. For my costly drink I claim the best thing you possess. I shallgive you my own blood, so that my draught may be as sharp as atwo-edged sword. ' 'But if you take my voice from me, what have Ileft?' asked the little mermaid, piteously. 'Your loveliness, yourgraceful movements, your speaking eyes. Those are enough to win aman's heart. Well, is your courage gone? Stretch out your littletongue, that I may cut it off, and you shall have my magic potion. ' 'Iconsent, ' said the little mermaid. "

Letty cried out: "So that when she'd be with him she'd understandeverything, and not be able to tell him anything. "

"I'm afraid, " he smiled, "that that's what's ahead of her, poorthing. "

"Oh, but that--" she could hardly utter her distress--"Oh, but that'sworse than anything in the world. "

He looked up at her curiously. "Would you rather I didn't go on?"

"No, no; please. I--I want to hear it all. "

 * * * * *

At The Hindoo Lantern Mr. Gorry Larrabin and Mr. Judson Flack foundthemselves elbow to elbow outside the rooms where their respectiveladies were putting the final touches to their hats and hair beforeentering the grand circle. It was an opportunity especially on Gorry'spart, to seal the peace which had been signed so recently. 

"Hello, Judson. What's the prospects in oil?" Judson's tone waspessimistic. "Not a thing doin', Gorry. Awful slow bunch, that lumpof nuts I'm in with on this. Mentioned your name to one or two of 'em;but no enterprise. Boneheads that wouldn't know a white man from acrane. " That he understood what Gorry understood became clear as hecontinued: "Friend o' mine at the Excelsior passes me the tip thatthey've held up that play they were goin' to put my girl into. Can'tget anyone else that would swing the part. Waitin' for her to turn upagain. I suppose you haven't heard anything, Gorry?"

Gorry looked him in the eyes as straight as was possible for a manwith a cast in the left one. "Not a thing, Judson; not a thing. "

The accent was so truthful that Judson gave his friend a longcomprehending look. He was sure that Gorry would never speak with suchsincerity if he was sincere. 

"Well, I'm on the job, Gorry, " he assured him, "and one of these daysyou'll hear from me. "

"I'm on the job too, Judson; and one of these days----"

But as Mademoiselle Coucoul emerged from the dressing-room and shedradiance, Gorry was obliged to go forward. 

Chapter XX

It was May. 

In spite of her conviction that she knew what to do and how it to doit, Barbara perceived that at the end of seven months they were muchwhere they had been in the previous October. If there was a change itwas that all three, Rashleigh, Letty, and herself, had grown strainedand intense. 

Outwardly they strove to maintain a semblance of friendship. For thatBarbara had worked hard, and in a measure had succeeded. She had heldRash; she had won Letty. 

She had more than won Letty; she had trained her. All that in sevenmonths a woman of the world could do for an unformed and ignorantchild she had done. Her experience at Bleary Street had helped her inthis; and Letty had been quick. She had seized not only those smallpoints of speech and action foundational to rising in the world, butthe point of view of those who had risen. She knew how, Barbara wassure, that there were certain things impossible to people such asthose among whom she had been thrown. 

Since it was May it was the end of a season, and the minute Barbarahad long ago chosen for a masterstroke. Each of the others felt thecrisis as near as she did herself. 

"It's got to end, " Letty confessed to her, as amid the softloveliness of springtime, they were again driving in the Park. 

Barbara chose her words. "I suppose he feels that too. "

"Then why don't he let me end it?"

"I fancy that that's a difficult position for a man. If you ask hispermission beforehand he feels obliged to say----"

"And perhaps, " Letty suggested, "he's too tender-hearted. "

"That's part of it. He _is_ tender-hearted. Besides that, his positionis grotesque--a man with whom two women are in love. To one of themhe's been nominally married, while to the other he's bound by everytie of honor. No wonder he doesn't see his way. If he moves toward theone he hurts the other--a man to whom it's agony to hurt a fly. "

"Does the other girl still feel the way she did?"

"She's killing herself. She's breaking her heart. Nobody knows it buthim and her--and even he doesn't take it in. But she is. "

"I suppose she thinks I'm something awful. "

"Does it matter to you what she thinks?"

"I don't want her to hate me. "

"Oh, I shouldn't say she did that. She feels that, consideringeverything, you might have acted with more decision. "

"But he won't let me. "

"And he never will, if you wait for that. "

"Then what do you think I ought to do?"

"That's where I find you weak, Letty, since you ask me the question. No one can tell you what to do--and he least of all. It's a situationin which one of you must withdraw--either you or the other girl. But, don't you see? he can't say so to either. "

"And if one of us must withdraw you think it should be me. "

"I have to leave that to you. You're the one who butted in. I know itwasn't your fault--that the fault was his entirely; but we recognizethe fact that he's--how shall I put it?--not quite responsible. Wewomen have to take the burden of the thing on ourselves, if it's everto be put right. "

In her corner of the car Letty thought this over. The impression onher mind was the deeper since, for several months past, she hadwatched the prince growing more and more unhappy. He was less nervousthan he used to be, less excitable; and for that he had told her thecredit was due to herself. "You soothe me, " he had once said to her, in words she would always treasure; and yet as his irritabilitydecreased his unhappiness seemed to grow. She could only infer that hewas mourning over the girl to whom he was engaged, and on whom he hadinflicted a great wrong. For the last few weeks Letty's mind hadoccupied itself with her almost more than with the prince himself. 

"Do you think I shall ever see her?" she asked, suddenly now. 

Barbara reflected. "I think you could if you wanted to. "

"Should you arrange it?"

"I could. "

"You're sure she'd be willing to see me?"

"Yes; I know she would. "

"When could you do it?"

"Whenever you like. "

"Soon?"

"Yes; sooner perhaps than--" Barbara spoke absently, as if a new ideawas taking possession of her mind--"sooner perhaps than you think. "

"And you say she's breaking her heart?"

"A little more, and it will be broken. "

By the time Letty had been set down at the door in East Sixty-seventhStreet the afternoon had grown chilly. In the back drawing-roomSteptoe was on his knees lighting the fire. Letty came and stoodbehind him. Without preliminary of any kind she said, quietly:

"Steptoe, it's got to end. "

Expecting a protest she was surprised that he should merely blow onthe shivering flame, saying, in the interval between two long breaths:"I agrees with madam. "

"And it's me that must end it. "

He blew gently again. "I guess that'd be so too. "

She thought of the little mermaid leaping into the sea, and tremblingaway into foam. "If he wants to marry the girl he's in love with he'llnever do it the way we're living now. "

He rose from his knees, dusting one hand against the other. "Madam'squite right. 'E won't--not never. "

She threw out her arms, and moaned. "And, O Steptoe! I'm so tired ofit. "

"Madam's tired of----?"

"Of living here, and doing nothing, and just watching and waiting, andnothing never happening----"

"Does madam remember that, the dye when she first come I said therewas two reasons why I wanted to myke 'er into a lydy?"

Letty nodded. 

"The one I told 'er was that I wanted to 'elp someone who was likewhat I used to be myself. "

"I remember. "

"And the other, what I didn't tell madam, I'll tell 'er now. Itwas--it was I was 'opin' that a woman'd come into my poor boy's lifeas'd comfort 'im like----"

"And she didn't come. "

"'E ain't seen that she's come. I said it'd be a tough job to bring'im to fallin' in love with 'er like; but it's been tougher than whatI thought it'd be. "

"So that I must--must do something. "

"Looks as if madam'd 'ave to. "

"I suppose you know that there's an easy way for me to do it?"

"Nothink ain't so very easy; but if madam 'as a big enoughreason----"

She felt the necessity of being plain. "I suppose that if he hadn'tpicked me up in the Park that day I'd have gone to the bad anyhow. "

"If madam's thinkin' about goin' to the bad----"

She threw up her head defiantly. "Well, I am. What of it?"

"I was just thinkin' as I might 'elp 'er a bit about that. "

She was puzzled. "I don't think you know what I said. I said Iwas----"

"Goin' to the bad, madam. That's what I understood. But madam won'tfind it so easy, not 'avin 'ad no experience like, as you might sye. "

"I didn't know you needed experience--for that. "

"All good people thinks that wye, madam; but when you tackle itdeliberate like, there's quite a trick to it. "

"And do you know the trick?" was all she could think of saying. 

"I may not know the very hidentical trick madam'd be in want of--'erbein' a lydy, as you might sye--but I could put 'er in the wye offindin' out. "

"You don't think I could find out for myself?"

"You see, it's like this. I used to know a young man what everythinkwent ag'in' 'im. And one dye 'e started out for to be a forgererlike--so as 'e'd be put in jyle--and be took care of--board andlodgin' free--and all that. Well, out 'e starts, and not knowin' thelittle ins and outs, as you might sye, everythink went agin 'im, justas it done before. And, would madam believe it? that young man 'ehended by studying for the ministry. Madam wouldn't want to myke amistyke like that, now would she?"

Letty turned this over in her mind. A career parallel to that of thisyoung man would effect none of the results she was aiming at. 

"Then what would you suggest?" she asked, at last. 

"I could give madam the address of a lydy--an awful wicked lydy, sheis--what'd put madam up to all the ropes. If madam was to go out intothe cold world, like, this lydy'd give 'er a home. Besides theaddress I'd give madam a sign like--so as the lydy'd know it wassomethink special. "

"A sign? I don't know what you mean. "

"It'd be this, madam. " He drew from his pocket a small silver thimble. "This'd be a password to the lydy. The minute she'd see it she'd knowthat the time 'ad come. "

"What time?"

"That's somethink madam'd find out. I couldn't explyne itbefore'and. "

"It sounds very queer. "

"It'd _be_ very queer. Goin' to the bad is always queer. Madamwouldn't look for it to be like 'avin' a gentleman lead 'er in todinner. "

"What's she like--the lady?"

"That's somethink madam'd 'ave to wyte and see. She wouldn't _seem_ sowicked, not at first sight, as you might sye. But time'd tell. Ifmadam'd be pytient--well, I wouldn't like to sye. " He eyed the fire. "I think that fire'll burn now, madam; and if it don't, madam'll only'ave to ring. "

He was at the door when Letty, feeling the end of all things to be athand, ran after him, laying her fingers on his sleeve. 

"Oh, Steptoe; you've been so good to me!"

He relaxed from his dignity sufficiently to let his hand rest on hers, which he patted gently. "I've been madam's servant--and my boy's. "

"I shall never think of you as a servant--never. "

The frosty color rose into his cheeks. "Then madam'll do me a greatwrong. "

"To me you're so much higher than a servant----"

"Madam'll find that there ain't nothink 'igher than a servant. There'sa lot about service in the pypers nowadyes, crackin' it up, like; butnobody don't seem to remember that servants knows more about that thanwhat other people do, and servants don't remember it theirselves. Solong as I can serve madam, just as I've served my boy----"

"Oh, but, Steptoe, I shall have gone to the bad. "

"That'd be all the syme to me, madam. At my time o' life I don't seeno difference between them as 'as gone to the bad and them as 'as goneto the good, as you might sye. I only sees--people. "

Left alone Letty went back to the fire, and stood gazing down at it, her foot on the fender. So it was the end. Even Steptoe said so. In asense she was relieved. 

She was relieved at the prospect of being freed from her dailytorture. The little mermaid walking on blades in the palace of theprince, and forever dumb, had known bliss, but bliss so akin toanguish that her heart was consumed by it. The very fact that theprince himself suffered from the indefinable misery which her presenceseemed to bring made escape the more enticing. 

She was so buried in this reflection as to have heard no sound in thehouse, when Steptoe announced in his stately voice: "Miss BarbaraWalbrook. " Having parted from this lady half an hour earlier Lettyturned in some surprise. 

"I've come back again, " was the explanation, sent down the long room. "Don't let William bring in tea, " the imperious voice commandedSteptoe. "We wish to be alone. " There was the same abruptness as shehalted within two or three feet of where Letty stood, supportingherself with a hand on the edge of the mantelpiece. "I've come back totell you something. I made up my mind to it all at once--after I leftyou a few minutes ago. Now that I've done it I feel easier. "

Letty didn't know which was uppermost in her mind, curiosity or fear. "What--what is it?" she asked, trembling. 

"I've given up the fight. I'm out of it. "

Letty crept forward. "You've--you've done _what_?"

"I told you in the Park that one or the other of us would have towithdraw----"

"One or the other of--of _us_?"

"Exactly and I've done it. "

With horror in her face and eyes Letty crept nearer still. "But--but Idon't understand. "

"Oh, yes, you do. How can you help understanding. You must have seenall along that----"

"Not that--that you were--the other girl. Oh, not that!"

"Yes, that; of course; why not?"

"Because--because I--I couldn't bear it. "

"You can bear it if I can, can't you--if I've had to bear it all theseweeks and months. "

"Yes, but that's--" she covered her face with her hands--"that's whatmakes it so terrible. "

"Of course it makes it terrible; but it isn't as terrible now as itwas--to you anyhow. "

"But why do you withdraw when--when you love him--and he lovesyou----?"

"I do it because I want to throw all the cards on the table. It's whatmy common sense has been telling me to do all along, only I've neverworked round to it till we had our talk this afternoon. Now Isee----"

"What do you see, Miss Walbrook?"

"I see that we've got to give him a clean sheet, or he'll never knowwhere he is. He can't decide between us because he's in an impossibleposition. We'll have to set him absolutely free, so that he may beginagain. I'll do it on my side. You can do--what you like. "

She went as abruptly as she came, leaving Letty clearer than ever asto her new course. 

By midnight she was ready. In the back spare room she waited only tobe sure that all in the house were asleep. 

She had heard Allerton come in about half past nine, and thewhispering of voices told that Steptoe was making his explanations, that she was out of sorts, had dined in her room, and begged not to bedisturbed. At about half past ten she heard the prince go upstairs tohis own room, though she fancied that outside her door he had pausedfor a second to listen. That was the culminating minute of herself-repression. Once it was over, and he had gone on his way, sheknew the rest would be easier. 

By midnight she had only to wait quietly. In the old gray rag and thebattered black hat she surveyed herself without emotion. Since makingher last attempt to escape her relation to all these things hadchanged. They had become less significant, less important. Theemblems of the higher life which in the previous autumn she had buriedwith ritual and regret she now packed away in the closet, with hardlya second thought. The old gray rag which had then seemed the livery ofa degraded life was now no more than the resumption of her reality. 

"I'll go as I came, " she had been saying to herself, all the evening. "I know he'd like me to take the things he's given me; but I'd ratherbe just what I was. "

If there was any ritual in what she had done since Miss Walbrook hadleft her it was in the putting away of small things by which shedidn't want to be haunted. 

"I couldn't do it with this on, " she said of the plain gold band onher finger, to which, as a symbol of marriage, she had never attachedsignificance in any case. 

She took it off, therefore, and laid it on the dressing table. 

"I couldn't do it with this in my pocket, " she said of the pursecontaining a few dollars, with which Steptoe had kept her supplied. 

This too she laid on the dressing table, becoming as penniless as whenJudson Flack had put her out of doors. Somehow, to be penniless seemedto her an element in her new task, and an excuse for it. 

Since Allerton had never made her a present there was nothing of thiskind to discard. It had been part of his non-committal, impersonalattitude toward her that he had never given her a concrete sign thatshe meant anything to him whatever. He had thanked her on occasionsfor the comforting quality he found in her presence. He had, in somany words, recognized the fact that when he got into a tantrum ofnerves she could bring him out of it as no one else had ever done. Hehad also imparted to her the discovery that in reading to her, andtrying to show her the point of view of a life superior to her own, hehad for the first time in his life done something for someone else;but he had never gone beyond all this or allowed her to think that hisheart was not given to "the girl he was engaged to. " In that at leasthe had been loyal to the mysterious princess, as the little mermaidcould not but see. 

She was not consciously denuded, as she would have felt herself sixmonths earlier. As to that she was not thinking anything at all. Hermotive, in setting free the prince from the "drag" on him which shenow recognized herself to be, filled all her mental horizons. Sodominated was she by this overwhelming impulse as to have no thoughteven for self-pity. 

When a clock somewhere struck one she took it as the summons. From thedressing-table she picked up the scrawl in Steptoe's hand, giving thename of Miss Henrietta Towell, at an address at Red Point, L. I. Sheknew Red Point, on the tip of Long Island, as a distant, partiallydeveloped suburb of Brooklyn. In the previous year she had gone with ahalf dozen other girl "supes" from the Excelsior Studio to "blow in" aquarter looking at the ocean steamers passing in and out. She had nointention of intruding on Miss Towell, but she couldn't hurt Steptoe'sfeelings by leaving the address behind her. 

For the same reason she took the silver thimble which stood on thescrap of paper. On its rim she read the inscription, "H. T. From H. S. "but she made no attempt to unravel the romance behind it. She merelyslipped the scrawl and the thimble into the pocket of her jacket, andstood up. 

She took no farewells. To do so would have unnerved her. On thelanding outside her door she listened for a possible sound of theprince's breathing, but the house was still. In the lower hall sheresisted the impulse to slip into the library and kiss the place whereshe had kissed his feet on the memorable morning when her hand hadbeen on his brow. "That won't help me any, " were the prosaic wordswith which she put the suggestion away from her. If the little mermaidwas to leap over the ship's side and dissolve into foam the best thingshe could do was to leap. 

The door no longer held secrets. She had locked it and unlocked it athousand times. Feeling for the chain in the darkness she slipped itout of its socket; she drew back the bolt; she turned the key. Herfingers found the two little brass knobs, pressing this one that way, and that one this way. The door rolled softly as she turned thehandle. 

Over the threshold she passed into a world of silence, darkness, electricity, and stars. She closed the door noiselessly. She went downthe steps. 

Chapter XXI

Having the choice between going southward either by Fifth Avenue or byMadison Avenue, Letty took the former for the reason that there wereno electric cars crashing through it, so that she would be lessobserved. It seemed to her important to get as far from EastSixty-seventh Street as possible before letting a human glance takenote of her personality, even as a drifting silhouette. 

In this she was fortunate. For the hour between one and two in theearly morning this part of Fifth Avenue was unusually empty. There wasnot a pedestrian, and only a rare motor car. When one of the latterflashed by she shrank into the shadow of a great house, lest some eyeof miraculous discernment should light on her. It seemed to her thatall New York must be ready to read her secret, and be on the watch toturn her back. 

She didn't know why she was going southward rather than northward, except that southward lay the Brooklyn Bridge, and beyond the BrooklynBridge lay Beehive Valley, and within Beehive Valley the ExcelsiorStudio, and in the Excelsior Studio the faint possibility of a job. She was already thinking in the terms that went with the old gray ragand the battered hat, and had come back to them as to hermother-tongue. In forsaking paradise for the limbo of outcast soulsshe was at least supported by the fact that in the limbo of outcastsouls she was at home. 

She was not frightened. Now that she was out of the prince's palaceshe had suddenly become sensationless. She was like a soul whichhaving reached the other side of death is conscious only of releasefrom pain. She was no longer walking on blades; she was no longerattempting the impossible. Between her and the life which BarbaraWalbrook understood the few steps she had taken had already marked thegulf. The gulf had always been there, yawning, unbridgeable, only thatshe, Letty Gravely, had tried to shut her eyes to it. She had tried toshut her eyes to it in the hope that the man she loved might come todo the same. She knew now how utterly foolish any such hope had been. 

She would have perceived this earlier had he not from time to timerevived the hope when it was about to flicker out. More than once hehad confessed to depending on her sympathy. More than once he had toldher that she drew out something he had hardly dared think hepossessed, but which made him more of a man. Once he harked back tothe dust flower, saying that as its humble and heavenly bloombrightened the spots bereft of beauty so she cheered the lonely andcomfortless places in his heart. He had said these things not as onewho is in love, but as one who is grateful, only that betweengratitude and love she had purposely kept from drawing thedistinction. 

She did not reproach him. On the contrary, she blessed him even forbeing grateful. That meed he gave her at least, and that he shouldgive her anything at all was happiness. Leaving his palace she did sowith nothing but grateful thoughts on her own side. He had smiled onher always; he had been considerate, kindly, and very nearly tender. For what he called the wrong he had done her, which she held to be nowrong at all, he would have made amends so magnificent that the mereacceptance would have overwhelmed her. Since he couldn't give her theone thing she craved her best course was like the little mermaid totremble into foam, and become a spirit of the wind. 

It was what she was doing. She was going without leaving a trace. Agirl more important than she couldn't have done it so easily. ABarbara Walbrook had she attempted a freak so mad, would be discoveredwithin twenty-four hours. It was one of the advantages of extremeobscurity that you came and went without notice. No matter howconspicuously a Letty Gravely passed it would not be remembered thatshe had gone by. 

With regard to this, however, she made one reserve. She couldn'tdisappear forever, not any more than Judith of Bethulia when she wentto the tent of Holofernes. The history of Judith was not in Letty'smind, because she had never heard of it; there was only the impulse tothe same sort of sacrifice. Since Israel could be delivered only inone way, that way Judith had been ready to take. To Letty her princewas her Israel. One day she would have to inform him that theHolofernes of his captivity was slain--that at last he was free. 

There were lines along which Letty was not imaginative, and one ofthose lines ran parallel to Judith's experience. When it came to loveat first sight, she could invent as many situations as there weremillionaires in the subway. In interpreting a part she had views ofher own beyond any held by Luciline Lynch. As to matters of dress herfancy was boundless. 

Her limitations were in the practical. Among practical things "goingto the bad" was now her chief preoccupation. She had always understoodthat when you made up your mind to do it you had only to presentyourself. The way was broad; the gate wide open. There were wickedpeople on every side eager to pull you through. You had only to go outinto the street, after dark especially--and there you were!

Having walked some three or four blocks she made out the figure of aman coming up the hill toward her. Her heart stopped beating; herknees quaked. This was doom. She would meet it, of course, since herdoom would be the prince's salvation; but she couldn't help tremblingas she watched it coming on. 

By the light of an arc-lamp she saw that he was in evening dress. Thewicked millionaires who, in motion-pictures, were the peril of younggirls, were always so attired. Iphigenia could not have trodden to thealtar with a more consuming mental anguish than Letty as she draggedherself toward this approaching fate; but she did so drag herselfwithout mercy. For a minute as he drew near she was on the point ofbegging him to spare her; but she saved herself in time from thisfrustration of her task. 

The man, a young stock-broker in a bad financial plight, scarcelynoticed that a female figure was passing him. Had the morrow's marketbeen less a matter of life and death to him he might have thrown hera glance; but as it was she did not come within the range of hisconsciousness. To her amazement, and even to her consternation, Lettysaw him go onward up the hill, his eyes straight before him, and hisprofile sharply cut in the electric light. 

She explained the situation by the fact that he hadn't seen her atall. That a man could actually _see_ a girl, in such unusualconditions, and still go by inoffensively, was as contrary to all shehad heard of life as it would have been to the principles of a Turkishwoman to suppose that one of this sex could behold her face and notfall fiercely in love with her. As, however, two men were now comingup the hill together Letty was obliged to re-organize her forces tomeet the new advance. 

She couldn't reason this time that they hadn't seen her, because theirheads turned in her direction, and the intonation of the words shecouldn't articulately hear was that of faint surprise. Further thanthat there was no incident. They were young men too, also in eveningdress, and of the very type of which all her warnings had bidden herbeware. The immunity from insult was almost a matter for chagrin. 

As she approached Fifty-ninth Street encounters were nearly asnumerous as they would have been in daylight; but Letty went on herway as if, instead of the old gray rag, she wore the magic cloak ofinvisibility. So it was during the whole of the long half mile betweenFifty-ninth Street and Forty-second Street. In spite of the fact thatshe was the only unescorted woman she saw, no invitation "to go to thebad" was proffered her. "There's quite a trick to it, " Steptoe hadsaid, in the afternoon; and she began to think that there was. 

At Forty-second Street, for no reason that she could explain, sheturned into the lower and quieter spur of Madison Avenue, climbing anddescending Murray Hill. Here she was almost alone. Motor-car traffichad practically ceased; foot-passengers there were none; on each sideof the street the houses were somber and somnolent. The electric lampsflared as elsewhere, but with little to light up. 

Her sense of being lost became awesome. It began to urge itself in onher that she was going nowhere, and had nowhere to go. She was back inthe days when she had walked away from Judson Flack's, without thesame heart in the adventure. She recalled now that on that day she hadfelt young, daring, equal to anything that fate might send; now shefelt curiously old and experienced. All her illusions had been dishedup to her at once and been blown away as by a hurricane. The littlemermaid who had loved the prince and failed to win his love in returncould have nothing more to look forward to. 

She was drifting, drifting, when suddenly from the shadow of a flightof broad steps a man stalked out and confronted her. He confronted herwith such evident intention that she stopped. Not till she stoppedcould she see that he was a policeman in his summer uniform. 

"Where you goin', sister?"

"I ain't goin' nowheres. "

She fell back on the old form of speech as on another tongue. 

"Where you come from then?"

Feeling now that she had gone to the bad, or was at the beginning ofthat process, she made a reply that would seem probable. "I come froma fella I've been--I've been livin' with. "

"Gee!" The tone was of deepest pity. "Darned sorry to hear you're inthat box, a nice girl like you. "

"I ain't such a nice girl as you might think. "

"Gee! Anyone can see you're a nice girl, just from the way you walk. "

Letty was astounded. Was the way you walked part of Steptoe's "trickto it?" In the hope of getting information she said, still in thesecondary tongue: "What's the matter with the way I walk?"

"There's nothin' the matter with it. That's the trouble. Anyone cansee that you're not a girl that's used to bein' on the street at thishour of the night. Ain't you goin' _anywheres_?"

Fear of the police-station suddenly made her faint. If she wasn'tgoing _anywheres_ he might arrest her. She bethought her of Steptoe'sscrawled address. "Yes, I'm goin' there. "

As he stepped under the arc-light to read it she saw that he was afatherly man, on the distant outskirts of youth, who might well have afamily of growing boys and girls. 

"That's a long ways from here, " he said, handing the scrap of paperback to her. "Why don't you take the subway? At this time of nightthere's a train every quarter of an hour. "

"I ain't got no bones. I'm footin' it. "

"Footin' it all the way to Red Point? You? Gee!"

Once more Letty felt that about her there was something which put herout of the key of her adventure. 

"Well, what's there against _me_ footin' it?"

"There's nothin' against you footin' it--on'y you don't seem thatsort. Haven't you got as much as two bits? It wouldn't come to that ifyou took the subway over here at----"

"Well, I haven't got two bits; nor one bit; nor nothin' at all; so Iguess I'll be lightin' out. "

She had nodded and passed, when a stride of his long legs brought himup to her again. "Well, see here, sister! If you haven't got two bits, take this. I can't have you trampin' all the way over to RedPoint--not _you_!"

Before knowing what had happened Letty found her hand closing over asilver half-dollar, while her benefactor, as if ashamed of his act, was off again on his beat. She ran after him. Her excitement was suchthat she forgot the secondary language. 

"Oh, I couldn't accept this from you. Please! Don't make me take it. I'm--" She felt it the moment for making the confession, and possiblygetting hints--"I'm--I'm goin' to the bad, anyhow. "

"Oh, so that's the talk! I thought you said you'd gone to the badalready. Oh, no, sister; you don't put that over on me, not a nicelooker like you!"

She was almost sobbing. "Well, I'm going--if--if I can find the way. Iwish you'd tell me if there's a trick to it. "

"There's one trick I'll tell you, and that's the way to Red Point. "

"I know that already. "

"Then, if you know that already, you've got my four bits, which ismore than enough to take you there decent. " He lifted his hand, with awarning forefinger. "Remember now, little sister, as long as you spendthat half dollar it'll bind you to keep good. "

He tramped off into the darkness, leaving Letty perplexed at the waysof wickedness, as she began once more to drift southward. 

But she drifted southward with a new sense of misgiving. Danger wasmysteriously coy, and she didn't know how to court it. True, there wasstill time enough, but the debut was not encouraging. When she hadgone forth from Judson Flack's she had felt sure that adventure lay inwait for her, and Rashleigh Allerton had responded almostinstantaneously. Now she had no such confidence. On the contrary; allher premonitions worked the other way. Perhaps it was the old grayrag. Perhaps it was her lack of feminine appeal. Men had never flockedabout her as they flocked about some girls, like bees about flowers. If she was a flower, she was a dust flower, a humble thing, at home inthe humblest places, and never regarded as other than a weed. 

She wandered into Fourth Avenue, reaching Astor Place. From AstorPlace she descended the city by the long artery of Lafayette Street, in which teams rumbled heavily, and all-night workers shoutedraucously to each other in foreign languages. One of a band ofItalians digging in the roadway, with colored lanterns about them, called out something at her, the nature of which she could only inferfrom the laughter of his compatriots. Here too she began to noticeother women like herself, shabby, furtive, unescorted, with terribleeyes, aimlessly drifting from nowhere to nowhere. There were not manyof them; only one at long intervals; but they frightened her more thanthe men. 

They frightened her because she saw what she must look like herself, athing too degraded for any man to want. She was not that yet, perhaps;but it was what she might become. They were not wholly new to her, these women; and they all had begun at some such point as that fromwhich she was starting out. Very well! She was ready to go this road, if only by this road her prince could be freed from her. Since shecouldn't give up everything for him in one way, she would do it inanother. The way itself was more or less a matter of indifference--notentirely, perhaps, but more or less. If she could set him free in anyway she would be content. 

The rumble and stir of Lafayette Street alarmed her because it was soforeign. The upper part of the town had been empty and eerie. Thisquarter was eerie, alien, and occupied. It was difficult for her totell what so many people were doing abroad because their aims seemeddifferent from those of daylight. What she couldn't understand struckher as nefarious; and what struck her as nefarious filled her with thekind of terror that comes in dreams. 

By these Italians, Slavs, and Semites she was more closely scrutinizedthan she had been elsewhere. She was scrutinized, too, with a hint ofhostility in the scrutiny. In their jabber of tongues they said thingsabout her as she passed. Wild-eyed women, working by the flare oftorches with their men, resented her presence in the street. Theyinsulted her in terms she couldn't understand, while the men laughedin frightful, significant jocosity. The unescorted women alone lookedat her with a hint of friendliness. One of them, painted, haggard, desperate, awful, stopped as if to speak to her; but Letty sped awaylike a snowbird from a shrike. 

At a corner where the cross-street was empty she turned out of thishaunted highway, presently finding herself lost in a congeries ofold-time streets of which she had never heard. Her only knowledge ofNew York was of streets crossing each other at right angles, numbered, prosaic, leaving no more play to the fancy than a sum in arithmetic. Here the ways were narrow, the buildings tall, the night effectsfantastic. In the lamp light she could read signs bearing names asunpronounceable as the gibbering monkey-speech in Lafayette Street. Warehouses, offices, big wholesale premises, lairs of highlyspecialized businesses which only the few knew anything about, offeredno place for human beings to sleep, and little invitation to theprowler. Now and then a marauding cat darted from shadow to shadow, but otherwise she was as nearly alone as she could imagine herselfbeing in the heart of a great city. 

Still she went on and on. In the effort to escape this overpoweringsolitude she turned one corner and then another, now coming outbeneath the elevated trains, now on the outskirts of docks where shewas afraid of sailors. She was afraid of being alone, and afraid ofthe thoroughfares where there were people. On the whole she was moreafraid of the thoroughfares where there were people, though her fearsoon entered the unreasoning phase, in which it is fear and nothingelse. Still headed vaguely southward she zigzagged from street tostreet, helpless, terrified, longing for day. 

She was in a narrow street of which the high weird gables on eitherside recalled her impressions on opening a copy of _Faust_, illustrated by Gustave Doré, which she found on the library table inEast Sixty-seventh Street. On her right the elevated and the dockswere not far away, on the left she could catch, through an occasionalside street the distant gleam of Broadway. Being afraid of both shekept to the deep canyon of unreality and solitude, though she wasafraid of that. At least she was alone; and yet to be alone chilledher marrow and curdled her blood. 

Suddenly she heard the clank of footsteps. She stopped to listen, making them out as being on the other side of the street, andadvancing. Before she had dared to move on again a man emerged fromthe half light and came abreast of her. As he stopped to look acrossat her, Letty hurried on. 

The man also went on, but on glancing over her shoulder to make surethat she was safe she saw him pause, cross to her side of the street, and begin to follow her. That he followed her was plain from his wholeplan of action. The ring of his footsteps told her that he was walkingfaster than she, though in no precise hurry to overtake her. Rather, he seemed to be keeping her in sight, and watching for someopportunity. 

It was exactly what men did when they robbed and murdered unprotectedwomen. She had read of scores of such cases, and had often imaginedherself as being stalked by this kind of ghoul. Now the thing whichshe had greatly feared having come upon her she was nearly hysterical. If she ran he would run after her. If she only walked on he wouldovertake her. Before she could reach the docks on one side or Broadwayon the other, where she might find possible defenders, he could easilyhave strangled her and rifled her fifty cents. 

It was still unreasoning fear, but fear in which there was anotherkind of prompting, which made her wheel suddenly and walk back towardshim. She noticed that as she did so, he stopped, wavered, but came onagain. 

Before the obscurity allowed of her seeing what type of man he was shecried out, with a half sob:

"Oh, mister, I'm so afraid! I wish you'd help me. "

"Sure!" The tone had the cheery fraternal ring of commonplacesincerity. "That's what I turned round for. I says, that girl's lost, I says. There's places down here that's dangerous, and she don't knowwhere she is. "

Hysterical fear became hysterical relief. "And you're not going tomurder me?"

"Gee! Me? What'd I murder you for? I'm a plumber. "

His tone making it seem impossible for a plumber to murder anyone shepanted now from a sense of reassurance and security. She could see toothat he was a decent looking young fellow in overalls, off on anearly job. 

"Where you goin' anyhow?" he asked, in kindly interest. "The minute Isee you on the other side of the street, I says Gosh, I says! Thatgirl's got to be watched, I says. She don't know that these streetsdown by the docks is dangerous. "

She explained that she was on her way to Red Point, Long Island, andthat having only fifty cents she was sparing of her money. 

"Gee! I wouldn't be so economical if it was me. That ain't the onlyfifty cents in the world. Look-a-here! I've got a dollar. You musttake that----"

"Oh, I couldn't. "

"Shucks! What's a dollar? You can pay me back some time. I'll give youmy address. It's all right. I'm married. Three kids. And say, if yousend me back the dollar, which you needn't do, you know--but if you_must_--sign a man's name to the letter, because my wife--well, she'sall right, but if----"

Letty escaped the necessity of accepting the dollar by assuring himthat if he would tell her the way to the nearest subway station shewould use a portion of her fifty cents. 

"I'll go with you, " he declared, with breezy fraternity. "No distance. They're expecting me on a job up there in Waddle Street, but they'llwait. Pipe burst--floodin' a loft where they've stored a lot ofjute--but why worry?"

As they threaded the broken series of streets toward the subway heaired the matrimonial question. 

"Some think as two can live on the same wages as one. All bunk, I'llsay. My wife used to be in the hair line. Some little earner too. Hadan electric machine that'd make hair grow like hay on a marsh. Twodollars a visit she got. When we was married she had nine hunderdsaved. I had over five hunderd myself. We took a weddin' tour;Atlantic City. Gettin' married's a cinch; but _stayin_' married--she'sall right, my wife is, only she's kind o' nervous like if I looksideways at any other woman--which I hardly ever do intentional--onlymy wife's got it into her head that. .. . "

At the entrance to the subway Letty shook hands with him and thankedhim. 

"Say, " he responded, "I wish I could do something more for you; but Igot to hike it back to Waddle Street. Look-a-here! You stick to thesubway and the stations, and don't you be in a hurry to get to youraddress in Red Point till after daylight. They can't be killin' nobodyover there, that you'd need to be in such a rush, and in the stationsyou'd be safe. "

To a degree that was disconcerting Letty found this so. Havingdescended the stairs, purchased a ticket, and cast it into thereceptacle appointed for that purpose, she saw herself examined by thecolored man guarding the entry to the platform. He sat with his chairtilted back, his feet resting on the chain which protected part of theentrance, picking a set of brilliant teeth. Letty, trembling, nervous, and only partly comforted by the cavalier who was now on his way toWaddle Street, shrank from the colored man's gaze and was going downthe platform where she could be away from it. Her progress wasarrested by the sight of two men, also waiting for the train, who onperceiving her started in her direction. 

The colored man lifted his feet lazily from the chain, brought hischair down to four legs, put his toothpick in his waistcoat pocket, and dragged himself up. 

"Say, lady, " he drawled, on approaching her, "I think them two fellasis tough. You stay here by me. I'll not let no one get fresh withyou. "

Languidly he went back to his former position and occupation, but whenafter long waiting, the train drew in he unhooked his feet again fromthe chain, rose lazily, and accompanied Letty across the otherwiseempty platform. 

"Say, brother, " he said to the conductor, "don't let any fresh guy getbusy with this lady. She's alone, and timid like. "

"Sure thing, " the conductor replied, closing the doors as Lettystepped within. "Sit in this corner, lady, next to me. The first muttthat wags his jaw at you'll get it on the bean. "

Letty dropped as she was bidden into the corner, dazed by thebrilliant lighting, and the greasy unoccupied seats. She was alone inthe car, and the kindly conductor having closed his door she felt acertain sense of privacy. The train clattered off into the darkness. 

Where was she going? Why was she there? How was she ever to accomplishthe purpose with which two hours earlier she had stolen away from EastSixty-seventh Street? Was it only two hours earlier? It seemed liketwo years. It seemed like a space of time not to be reckoned. .. . 

She was tired as she had never been tired in her life. Her head sankback into the support made by the corner. 

"There's quite a trick to it, " she found herself repeating, though inwhat connection she scarcely knew. "An awful wicked lydy, she is, what'd put madam up to all the ropes. " These words too drifted throughher mind, foolishly, drowsily, without obvious connection. She beganto wish that she was home again in the little back spare room--oranywhere--so long as she could lie down--and shut her eyes--and go tosleep. .. . 

Chapter XXII

It was Steptoe who discovered that the little back spare room wasempty, though William had informed him that he thought it strange thatmadam didn't appear for breakfast. Steptoe knew then that what he hadexpected had come to pass, and if earlier than he had looked for it, perhaps it was just as well. Having tapped at madam's door andreceived no answer he ventured within. Everything there confirming hisbelief, he went to inform Mr. Rash. 

As Mr. Rash was shaving in the bathroom Steptoe plodded round thebedroom, picking up scattered articles of clothing, putting outsidethe door the shoes which had been taken off on the previous night, digging another pair of shoes from the shoe-cupboard, and otherwisebusying himself as usual. Even when Mr. Rash had re-entered thebedroom the valet made no immediate reference to what had happened inthe house. He approached the subject indirectly by saying, as he laidout an old velvet house-jacket on the bed:

"I suppose if Mr. Rash ain't goin' out for 'is breakfast 'e'll putthis on for 'ome. "

Mr. Rash, who was buttoning his collar before the mirror said over hisshoulder: "But I am going out for my breakfast. Why shouldn't I? Ialways do. "

Steptoe carried the house-jacket back to the closet. 

"I thought as Mr. Rash only did that so as madam could 'ave the dinin'room to 'erself, private like. "

As a way of expressing the fact that Allerton had never eaten a mealwith Letty the choice of words was neat. 

"Well? What then?"

"Oh, nothink, sir. I was only thinkin' that, as madam was no longer'ere----"

Allerton wheeled round, his fingers clawing at the collar-stud, hisface growing bloodless. "No longer here? What the deuce do you mean?"

"Oh, didn't Mr. Rash know? Madam seems to 'ave left us. I supposedthat after I'd gone upstairs last night Mr. Rash and 'er must 'ave 'adsome sort of hunderstandin'--and she went. "

"Went?" Allerton's tone was almost a scream. Leaping on the old man hetook him by the shoulders, snaking him. "Damn you! Get it out! Whatare you trying to tell me?"

Steptoe quaked and cowered. "Why, nothink, sir. Only when William saidas madam didn't come down to 'er breakfast I went to 'er door andtapped--and there wasn't no one in the room. Mr. Rash 'ad better goand see for 'imself. "

The young man not only released the older one, but pushed him asidewith a force which sent him staggering backwards. Over the stairs hescrambled, he plunged. Though he had never entered the back spare roomsince allotting it to Letty as her own he threw the door open now asif the place was on fire. 

But by the time Steptoe had followed and reached the thresholdAllerton had calmed suddenly. He stood in front of the open closetvaguely examining its contents. He picked up the little gold band, chucked it a few inches into the air, caught it, and put it down. Helooked into the little leather purse, poured out its notes and penniesinto his hand, replaced them, and put that also down again. He openedthe old red volume lying on the table by the bed, finding _The LittleMermaid_ marked by two stiff dried sprays of dust flower, which morethan ever merited its name. When he turned round to where Steptoe, white and scared by this time, was standing in the open doorway, his, Allerton's, face was drawn, in mingled convulsion and bewilderment. With two strides he was across the room. 

"Tell me what you know about this, you confounded old schemer, beforeI kick you out. "

Shivering and shaking, Steptoe nevertheless held himself with dignity. "I'll tell you what I know, Mr. Rash, though it ain't very much. Iknow that madam 'as 'ad it in 'er mind for some time past that unlessshe took steps Mr. Rash'd never be free to marry the young lydy what'e was in love with. "

"What did she mean by taking steps?"

"I don't know exactly, but I think it was the kind o' steps as'd giveMr. Rash 'is release quicker nor any other. "

Allerton's arm was raised as if to strike a blow. "And you let her?"

The old face was set steadily. "I didn't do nothin' but what Mr. Rash'imself told me to do. "

"Told you to do?"

"Yes, Mr. Rash; six months ago; the mornin' after you'd brought madaminto the 'ouse. I was to get you out of the marriage, you said; but Ithink madam 'as done it all of 'er own haccord. "

"But why? Why should she?"

Steptoe smiled, dimly. "Oh, don't Mr. Rash see? Madam 'ad give 'erselfto 'im 'eart and spirit and soul. If she couldn't go to the good for'im, she'd go to the bad. So long as she served 'im, it didn't matterto madam what she done. And if I was Mr. Rash----"

Allerton's spring was like that of a tiger. Before Steptoe felt thathe had been seized he was on his back on the floor, with Allertonkneeling on his chest. 

"You old reptile! I'm going to kill you. "

"You may kill me, Mr. Rash, but it won't make no difference to madam'avin' loved you----"

Two strong hands at his throat choked back more words, till the soundof his strangling startled Allerton into a measure of self-control. Hescrambled to his feet again. 

"Get up. "

Steptoe dragged himself up, and after dusting himself with his fingersstood once more passive and respectful, as if nothing violent hadoccurred. 

"If I was Mr. Rash, " he went on, imperturbably, "I'd let well enoughalone. "

It was Allerton who was breathless. "Wha--what do you mean by wellenough alone?"

"Well the wye I see it, it's this wye. Mr. Rash is married to oneyoung lydy and wants to marry another. " He broke off to ask, significantly: "I suppose that'd be so, Mr. Rash?"

"Well, what then?"

"Why, then, 'e can't marry the other young lydy till the young lydywhat 'e's married to sets 'im free. Now that young lydy what 'e'smarried to 'as started out to set 'im free, and if I was Mr. Rash I'dlet 'er. "

"You'd let her throw herself away for me?"

"I'd let 'er do anythink what'd show I knowed my own mind, Mr. Rash. If it wouldn't be steppin' out of my place to sye so, I wish Mr. Rashcould tell which of these two young lydies 'e wanted, and which 'e'dbe willin' for to----"

"How can I tell that when--when both have a claim on me?"

"Yes, but only one 'as a clyme on Mr. Rash now. Madam 'as given up 'erclyme, so as to myke things easier for _'im_. There's only one clymenow for Mr. Rash to think about, and that mykes everythink simple. "

An embarrassed cough drew Steptoe's attention to the fact that someonewas standing in the hall outside. It was William with a note on asilver tray. Beside the note stood a small square package, tied with awhite ribbon, which looked as if it contained a piece of wedding cake. His whisper of explanation was the word, "Wildgoose, " but a cocking ofhis eye gave Steptoe to understand that William was quite aware ofwading in the current of his employer's love-affairs. Moreover, thefact that Steptoe and his master should be making so free with thelittle back spare room was in William's judgment evidence of drama. 

"What's this?"

Glancing at the hand-writing on the envelope, and taking in the factthat a small square package, looking like a bit of wedding cake stoodbeside it, Allerton jumped back. Steptoe might have been presentinghim with a snake. 

"I don't know, Mr. Rash. William 'as just brought it up. Someone seemsto 'ave left it at the door. "

As Steptoe continued to stand with his offering held out Allerton hadno choice but to take up the letter and break the seal. He read itwith little grunts intended to signify ironic laughter, but whichbetrayed no more than bitterness of soul. 

 "DEAR RASH:

 I have come to see that we shall never get out of the impasse in which we seem to have been caught unless someone takes a stand. I have therefore decided to take one. Of the three of us it is apparently easiest for me, so that I am definitely breaking our engagement and sending you back your ring. Any claim I may have had on you I give up of my own accord, so that as far as I am concerned you are free. This will simplify your situation, and enable you to act according to the dictates of your heart. Believe me, dear Rash, affectionately yours

 BARBARA WALBROOK. "

Though it was not his practice to take his valet into the secret ofhis correspondence the circumstances were exceptional. Allerton handedthe letter to Steptoe without a word. As the old man was feeling forhis glasses and adjusting them to his nose Mr. Rash turned absentlyaway, picking up the volume of Hans Andersen, from which the spraysof dust flower tumbled out. On putting them back his eyes fell uponthe words, which someone had marked with a pencil:

"Day by day she grew dearer to the prince; but he loved her as oneloves a child. The thought of making her his queen never crossed hismind. "

A spasm passed over his face. He turned the page impatiently. Here hecaught the words which had been underlined:

"I am with him every day. I will watch over him--love him--andsacrifice my life for him. "

Shutting the book with a bang, and throwing it on the table, hewheeled round to where Steptoe, having folded the letter, was takingoff his spectacles. 

"Well, what do you say to that?"

"What I'd sye to that, Mr. Rash, is that it's as good as a legaldocument. If any young lydy what wrote that letter was to bring ahaction for breach, this 'ere pyper'd nyle 'er. "

"So where am I now?"

"Free as a lark, Mr. Rash. One young lydy 'as turned you down, and theother 'as gone to the bad for you; so if you was to begin agyne with athird you'd 'ave a clean sheet. "

He groaned aloud. "Ah, go to ----"

But without stating the place to which Steptoe was to go he marchedout of the room, and back to his dressing upstairs. 

 * * * * *

More dispassionate was the early morning scene in the little basementeating house in which the stunted Hebrew maid of Polish culture wasserving breakfast to two gentlemen who had plainly met byappointment. Beside the one was an oblong packet, of which some of thecontents, half displayed, had the opulent engraved decorations ofstock certificates. 

The other gentleman, resembling an operatic brigand a little the worsefor wear, was saying with conviction: "Oil! Don't talk to me! No, sir!There's enough oil in Milligan Center alone to run every car in Europeand America at this present time; while if you include North Milligan, where it's beginnin' to shoot like the Old Faithful geyser----"

"Awful obliged to you, Judson, " the other took up, humbly. "I thoughtthat bunch o' nuts 'd never----"

"So did I, Gorry. I've sweated blood over this job all winter. Queerthe way men are made. Now you'd hardly believe the work I've had toshow that lot of boneheads that because a guy's a detective in oneline, he ain't a detective in every line. Homicide, I said, was GorryLarrabin's specialty, and where there's no homicide he's no more adetective than a busted rubber tire. "

"You've said it, " Gorry corroborated, earnestly. "One of the cussedthings about detectin' is that fellas gets afraid of you. Thinkbecause you're keepin' up your end you must be down on every littlething, and that you ain't a sport. "

"Must be hard, " Judson said, sympathetically. 

"I'll tell you it's hard. Lots of fun I'd like to be let in on--butyou're kept outside. "

The drawbacks of the detective profession not being what Judsonchiefly had on his mind he allowed the subject to drop. An interval ofsilence for the consumption of a plateful of golden toastiespermitted Gorry to begin again reminiscently. 

"By the way, Judson, do you remember that about six months ago you waschewin' over that girl of yours, and what had become of her?"

To himself Judson said: "That's the talk; now we're comin' tobusiness. " Aloud he made it: "Why, yes. Seems to me I do. She's beengone so long I'd almost forgot her. "

"Well, what d'ye know? Last night--lemme see, was it last night?--no, night before last--I kind o' got wind of her. "

"Heaven's sake!"

"Guy I know was comin' through East Sixty-seventh Street, and therewas my lady, dressed to beat the band, leadin' one of them little toydogs, and talkin' to a swell toff that lives in one of them houses. Got the number here in my pocket-book. "

While he was searching his pocket-book Judson asked, breathlessly:"Couldn't be no mistake?"

"It's nix on mistakes. That guy don't make 'em. Surest thing on theforce. He said, 'Good afternoon, Miss Gravely'; and she said, 'Goodafternoon' back to him--just like that. The guy walked on and turned acorner; but when he peeped back, there was the couple goin' into thehouse just like husband and wife. What d'ye know?"

"What do I know? I know I'll spill his claret for him before the weekis out. "

"Ah, here it is! Knew I had that address on me somewheres. " He handedthe scrap of paper across the table. "That's his name and number. Seems to me you may have a good thing there, Judson, if you know howto work it. "

 * * * * *

In another early morning scene the ermine was cleaning her nest; andyou know how fastidious she is supposed to be as to personalspotlessness. The ermine in question did not belie her reputation, asyou would have seen by a glance at the three or four rooms which madeup what she called her "flat. "

Nothing was ever whiter than the wood-work of the "flat" and itsfurnishings. Nothing was ever whiter than the little lady's dress. Thehair was white, and even the complexion, the one like silver, theother like the camelia. Having breakfasted from white dishes placed ona white napkin, she was busy with a carpet-sweeper sweeping uppossible crumbs. In an interval of the carpet-sweeper's buzz she heardthe telephone. 

"Hello!" The male voice was commanding. 

"Yes?" The response was sweetly precise. 

"Is this Red Point 3284-W?"

"It is. "

"Can I speak to Miss Henrietta Towell?"

"This is Miss Henrietta Towell. "

"This is the Brooklyn Bridge Emergency Hospital. Do you know a girlnamed Letitia Rashleigh?"

There was a second's hesitation. "I was once a lady's maid to a ladywhose maiden name was Rashleigh. I think there may be a connectionsomewhere. "

"She was found unconscious on a car in the subway last night andbrought in here. "

"And has she mentioned me?"

"She hasn't mentioned anyone since she came to; but we find youraddress on a paper in her pocket. "

"That seems singular, but I expect there's a purpose behind it. Isthat everything she had?"

"No; she had forty-five cents and a thimble. "

"A thimble! Just an ordinary thimble. "

"Yes, an ordinary thimble, except that it has initials on the edge. 'H. T. From H. S. ' Does that mean anything to you?"

"Yes; that means something to me. May I ask how to reach thehospital?"

This being explained Miss Towell promised to appear without delay, begging that in the meantime everything be done for Miss Rashleigh'scomfort. 

She was not perturbed. She was not surprised. She did not wonder whoLetitia Rashleigh could be, or why her address should be found in thegirl's pocket. She was as quiet and serene as if such incidentsbelonged to every day's work. 

Dressed for the street she was all in black. A mantua covered withbugles and braid dropped from her shoulders, while a bonnet which roseto a pointed arch above her brow, and allowed the silver knob of herhair to escape behind, gave her a late nineteenth century dignity. Before leaving the house she took two volumes from her shelves--readfirst in one, then in the other--sat pensive for a while, with headbent and eyes shaded--after which she replaced her books, turned thekey in her door, and set forth for Brooklyn Bridge. 

Chapter XXIII

"Why you should hold me responsible, " Barbara was saying, "I can'tbegin to imagine. Surely I've done everything I could to simplifymatters, to straighten them out, and to give you a chance to rectifyyour folly. I've effaced myself; I've broken my heart; I've promisedAunt Marion to go in for a job for which I'm not fitted and don't carea rap; and yet you come here, accusing me----"

"But, Barbe, I'm _not_ accusing you! If I'm accusing anyone it'smyself. Only I can't speak without your taking me up----"

"There you go! Oh, Rash, dear, if you'd only been able to controlyourself nothing of this would have happened--not from the first. "

She was pacing up and down the little reception room, and rubbing herhands together, while the twisting of the fish-tail of herhydrangea-colored robe, like an eel in agony, emphasized heragitation. Rashleigh was seated, his elbows on his knees, his headbowed between his hands, of which the fingers clutched and tore at themasses of his hair. Only when he spoke did he lift his woe-begoneblack eyes. 

"Well, I didn't control myself, " he admitted, impatiently; "that'ssettled. Why go back to it? The question is----"

"Yes; why go back to it? That's you all over, Rash. You can do what noone else in his senses would ever think of doing; and when you'veupset the whole apple cart it must never be referred to again. I'm toaccept, and keep silence. Well, I've _kept_ silence. I've gone allwinter like a muzzled dog. I've wheedled that girl, and kow-towed toher, and made her think I was fond of her--which I am in a way--youmay not believe it, but I am--and what's the result? She gets sick ofthe whole business; runs away; and you come here and throw the wholeblame on me. "

He tried to speak with special calmness. "Barbe, listen to me. What Isaid was this----"

She came to a full stop in front of him, her arms outspread. "Oh, Rash, dear, I know perfectly well what you said. You don't have to goall over it again. I'm not deaf. If you would only not be soexcitable----"

He jumped to his feet. "I'm excitable, I know, Barbe. I confess it. Everybody knows it. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm notexcited _now_. "

She laughed, a little mocking laugh, and started once more to pace upand down. "Oh, very well! You're not excited now. Then that'sunderstood. You never are excited. You're as calm as a mountain. " Shepaused again, though at a distance. "_Now?_ What is it you're going todo? That's what you've come to ask me, isn't it? Are you going to runafter her? Are you going to let her go? Are you going to divorce her, if she gives you the opportunity? If you divorce her are you goingto----?"

"But, Barbe, I can't decide all these questions now. What I want to dois to _find_ her. "

"Well, I haven't got her here? Why don't you go after her? Why don'tyou apply to the police? Why don't you----?"

"Yes, but that's just what I want to discuss with you. I don't _like_applying to the police. If I do it'll get into the papers, and thewhole thing become so odious and vulgar----"

"And it's such an exquisite idyll now!"

He threw back his head. "_She's_ an exquisite idyll--in her way. "

"There! That's what I wanted to hear you say! I've thought you were inlove with her----"

He remembered the penciled lines in Hans Andersen. "If I have been, it's as you may be in love with an innocent little child----"

She laughed again, wildly, almost hysterically. "Oh, Rash, don't tryto get that sort of thing off on me. I know how men love innocentlittle children. You can see the way they do it any night you chooseto hang round the stage-door of a theatre where the exquisite idyllsare playing in musical comedy. "

"Don't Barbe! Not when you're talking about her! I know she's anignorant little thing; but to me she's like a wild-flower----"

"Wild-flowers can be cultivated, Rash. "

"Yes, but the wild-flower she's most like is the one you see in thelate summer all along the dusty highways----"

She put up both palms in a gesture of protestation. "Oh, Rash, pleasedon't be poetical. It gets on my nerves. I can't stand it. I like youin every mood but your sentimental one. " She came to a halt besidethe mantelpiece, on which she rested an elbow, turning to look at him. "Now tell me, Rash! Suppose I wasn't in the world at all. Or supposeyou'd never heard of me. And suppose you found yourself married tothis girl, just as you are--nominally--legally--but not really. Wouldyou--would you make it--really?"

They exchanged a long silent look. His eyes had not left hers when hesaid: "I--I might. "

"Good! Now suppose she wasn't in the world at all, or that you'd neverheard of her. And suppose that you and I were--were on just the sameterms that we are to-day. Would you--would you want to marry me?Answer me truly. "

"Why, yes; of course. "

"Now suppose that she and I were standing together, and you were ledin to choose between us. And suppose you were absolutely free anduntrammelled in your choice, with no question as to her feelings ormine to trouble you. Which would you take? Answer me just as truly andsincerely as you can. "

He took time to think, wheeling away from her, and walking up and downthe little room with his hands behind his back. It occurred to neitherthat Barbara having broken the "engagement, " and returned the ring, the choice before him was purely hypothetical. Their relations were nomore affected by the note she had written him that morning than by theceremony through which he and Letty had walked in the previous year. 

To Barbara the suspense was almost unbearable. In a minute or two, andwith a word or two, she would know how life for the future was to becast. She would have before her the possibility of some day becoming ahappy wife--or a great career like her aunt's. 

Pausing in his walk he confronted her just as he stood, his handsstill clasped behind his back. Her own attitude, with elbow resting onthe mantelpiece, was that of a woman equal to anything. 

He spoke slowly. "Just as truly and sincerely as I can answer you--Idon't know. "

She stirred slightly, but otherwise gave no sign of her impatience. "And is there anything that would help you to find out?"

He shook his head. "Nothing that I can think of, unless----"

"Yes? Unless--what?"

"Unless it's something that would unlock what's locked in mysubconsciousness. "

"And what would that be?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. "

She moved from the mantelpiece with a gesture of despair. "Rash, you're absolutely and hopelessly impossible. "

"I know that, " he admitted, humbly. 

With both fists clenched she stood in front of him. "I could killyou. "

He hung his head. "Not half so easily as I could kill myself. "

 * * * * *

Letty's judgment on Miss Henrietta Towell was different from yours andmine. She found her just what she had expected to see from thewarnings long ago issued by Mrs. Judson Flack in putting her daughteron her guard. In going about the city she, Letty, was always to besuspicious of elderly ladies, respectably dressed, enticinglymannered, and with what seemed like maternal intentions. The more anyone of these traits was developed, the more suspicious Letty was tobe. With these instructions carefully at heart she would have beensuspicious of Henrietta Towell in any case; but with Steptoe'sdescription to fall back upon she couldn't but feel sure. 

By the time Miss Towell had arrived at the hospital Letitia Rashleighhad sufficiently recovered to be dressed and seated in the armchairplaced beside the bed in the small white ward. On one low bedpost thejacket had been hung, and on the other the battered black hat. 

"There's nothing the matter with her, " the nurse explained to MissTowell, before entering the ward. "She had fainted in the subway, butI think it was only from fatigue, and perhaps from lack of food. She'squite well nourished, only she didn't seem to have eaten any supper, and was evidently tired from a long and frightening walk. She gives usno explanation of herself, and is disinclined to talk, and if ithadn't been that she had your address in her pocket----"

"I think I know how she got that. From her name I judge that she's arelative of the family in which I used to be employed; but as theywere all very wealthy people----"

"Even very wealthy people often have poor relations. "

"Yes, of course; but I was with this family for so many years that ifthere'd been any such connection I think I must have heard of it. However, it makes no difference to me, and I shall be glad to be ofuse to her, especially as she has in her possession an article--athimble it is--which once belonged to me. "

At the bedside the nurse made the introduction. "This is the ladywhose address you had in your pocket. She very kindly said she'd comeand see what she could do for you. "

Having placed a chair for Miss Towell the nurse withdrew to attend toother patients in the ward, of whom there were three or four. 

Letty regarded the newcomer with eyes that seemed lustreless in spiteof their tiny gold flames. Having a shrewd idea of what she would meanto her visitor she felt it unnecessary to express gratitude. In acertain sense she hated her at sight. She hated her bugles and braidand the shape of her bonnet, as the criminal about to be put to deathmight hate the executioner's mask and gaberdine. The more Miss Towellwas sweet-spoken and respectable, the more Letty shrank from thesetokens of hypocrisy in one who was wicked to the core. "She wouldn'tseem so wicked, not at first, " Steptoe had predicted, "but time'dtell. " Well, Letty didn't need time to tell, since she could see forherself already. She could see from the first words addressed to her. 

"You needn't tell me anything about yourself, dear, that you don'twant me to know. If you're without a place to go to, I shall be gladif you'll come home with me. "

It was the invitation Letty had expected, and to which she meant torespond. Knowing, however, what was behind it she replied moreungraciously than she would otherwise have done. "Oh, I don't mindtalking about myself. I'm a picture-actress, only I've been out of ajob. I haven't worked for over six months. I've been--I've beenvisiting. "

Miss Towell lowered her eyes, and spoke with modesty. "I suppose youwere visiting people who knew--who knew the person who--who gave youmy address and the thimble?"

This question being more direct than she cared for Letty was carefulto answer no more than, "Yes. "

Miss Towell continued to sit with eyes downcast, and as if musing. Twoor three minutes went by before she said, softly: "How is he?"

Letty replied that he was very well, and in the same place where hehad been so long. Another interval of musing was followed by thesimple statement: "We differed about religion. "

This remark had no modifying effect on Letty's estimate of MissTowell's character, since religion was little more to her than a word. Neither was she interested in dead romance between Steptoe and MissTowell, all romance being summed up in her prince. That flame burnedwith a pure and single purpose to wed him to the princess with whom hewas in love, while the little mermaid became first foam, and then aspirit of the air. It took little from the poetry of this dissolutionthat it could be achieved only by trundling over Brooklyn Bridge, andthrough a nexus of dreary streets. In Letty's outlook on her missionthe end glorified the means, however shady or degraded. 

It was precisely this spirit--mistaken, if you choose to call itso--which animated Judith of Bethulia, Monna Vanna, and Boule de Suif. Letty didn't class herself with these heroines; she only felt as theydid, that there was something to be done. On that something a man'shappiness depended; on it another woman's happiness depended too; onit her own happiness depended, since if it wasn't done she would feelherself a clog to be cursed. To be cursed by the prince would meananguish far more terrible than any punishment society could mete outto her. 

"If you feel equal to it we might go now, dear, " Miss Towellsuggested, on waking from her dreams of what might have been. "I wishI could take you in a taxi; but I daresay you won't mind the tram. "

Letty rose briskly. "No, I shan't mind it at all. " She looked MissTowell significantly in the eyes, hoping that her words would carryall the meaning she was putting into them. "I shan't mind--anythingyou want me to do, no matter what. "

Miss Towell smiled, sweetly. "Thank you, dear. That'll be very nice. Ishan't ask you to do much, because it's your problem, you know, andyou must work it out. I'll stand by; but standing by is about all wecan do for each other, when problems have to be faced. Don't you thinkit is?"

As this language meant nothing to Letty, she thanked the nurse, smiledat the other patients, and, trudging at Miss Towell's side with herquaintly sturdy grace, went forth to her great sacrifice. 

 * * * * *

Allerton had drawn from his conversation with Barbara this onepractical suggestion. As he had months before consulted his lawyer, Mr. Nailes, as to ways of losing Letty after she had been found, hemight consult him as to ways of finding her now that she had beenlost. Mr. Nailes would not go to the police. He would apply to somediscreet house of detectives who would do the work discreetly. 

"Then, I presume, you've changed your mind about this marriage, " wasMr. Nailes' not unnatural inference, "and mean to go on with it. "

"N-not exactly. " Allerton was still unable to define his intentions. "I only don't want her to disappear--like this. "

Mr. Nailes pondered. He was a tall, raw-boned man, of raw-bonedcountenance, to whom the law represented no system of divine justice, but a means by which Eugene Nailes could make money, as his father hadmade it before him. Having inherited his father's practice he hadinherited Rashleigh Allerton, the two fathers having had along-standing business connection. Mr. Nailes had no high opinion ofRashleigh Allerton--in which he was not peculiar--but a client with somuch money was entitled to his way. At the same time he couldn't havebeen human without urging a point of common sense. 

"If you _don't_ want to--to continue your--your relation withthis--this lady, doesn't it strike you that now might be a happyopportunity----?"

Allerton did what he did rarely; he struck the table with his fist. "Iwant to find her. "

The words were spoken with so much force that to Mr. Nailes they wereconclusive. It was far from his intention to compel anyone to commonsense, and least of all a man whose folly might bring increased feesto the firm of Nailes, Nailes, and Nailes. 

It was agreed that steps should be taken at once, and that Mr. Naileswould report in the evening. Gravely was the name Allerton was sureshe would use, and the only one that needed to be mentioned. It neededonly to be mentioned too that Mr. Nailes was acting for a client whopreferred to remain anonymous. 

It was further agreed that Mr. Nailes should report at Allerton'soffice at ten that evening, in person if there was anything todiscuss, by telephone if there was nothing. This was convenient forMr. Nailes, who lived in the neighborhood of Washington Square, whileit protected Rash from household curiosity. At ten that night he was, therefore, in the unusual position of pacing the rooms he had hardlyever seen except by daylight. 

Not Letty's disappearance was uppermost in his mind, for the moment, but his own inhibitions. 

"My God, what's the matter with me?" he was muttering to himself. "AmI going insane? Have I been insane all along? Why _can't_ I say whichof these two women I want, when I can have either?"

He placed over against each other the special set of spells which eachthrew upon his heart. 

Barbara was of his own world; she knew the people he knew; she had thesame interests, and the same way of showing them. Moreover, she had ina measure grown into his life. Their friendship was not only intimateit was one of long standing. Though she worried, hectored, andexasperated him, she had fits of generous repentance, in which shemothered him adorably. This double-harness of comradeship had workedfor so many years that he couldn't imagine wearing it with another. 

And yet Letty pulled so piteously at his heart that he fairly meltedin tenderness toward her. Everything he knew as appeal was summed upin her soft voice, her gentle manner, her humility, her unquestioningfaith in himself. No one had ever had faith in him before. To Barbe hewas a booby when he was not a baby. To Letty he was a hero, strong, wise, commanding. It wasn't merely his vanity that she touched; it washis manliness. Barbe suppressed his manliness, because she herself wasso imperious. Letty depended on it, and therefore drew it out. Becauseshe believed him a man, he could be a man; whereas with Barbe, as witheveryone else, he was a creature to be liked, humored, laughed at, andgood-naturedly despised. He was sick of being liked, humored, andlaughed at; he rebelled with every atom in him that was masculine atbeing good-naturedly despised. To find anyone who thought him big andvigorous was to his starved spirit, as the psalmist says, sweeter alsothan honey and the honeycomb. In having her weakness to hold up hecould for the first time in his life feel himself of use. 

If there was no Barbe in the world he could have taken Letty as themate his soul was longing for. Yet how could he deal such a blow atBarbe's loyalty? She had protected him during all his life, fromboyhood upwards. Between him and derision she had stood like a younglioness. How could he deny her now?--no matter what frail, gentlehands were clinging around his heart?

"How can I? How can I? How can I?"

He was torturing himself with this question when the telephone rang, and he knew that Letty had not been found. 

"No; nothing, " were the words of Mr. Nailes. "No one of the name hasbeen reported at any of the hospitals, or police stations, or anyother public institution. They've applied at all the motion-picturestudios round New York; but still with no result. This, of course, isonly the preliminary search, as much as they've been able toaccomplish in one afternoon and evening. You mustn't be disappointed. To-morrow is likely to be more successful. "

Rash was, therefore, thrown back on another phase of his situation. Letty was lost. She was not only lost, but she had run away from him. She had not only run away from him, but she had done it so that hemight be rid of her. She had not only done it so that he might be ridof her, but. .. . 

His spirit balked. His imagination could work no further. Horrorstaggered him. A mother who knows that her child is in the hands ofkidnappers who will have no mercy might feel something like thedespair and helplessness which sent him chafing and champing up anddown the suite of rooms, cursing himself uselessly. 

Suddenly he paused. He was in front of the cabinet which had come viaBordentown from Queen Caroline Murat. Behind its closed door there wasstill the bottle on the label of which a kilted Highlander wasdancing. He must have a refuge from his thoughts, or else he would gomad. He was already as near madness as a man could come and still bereckoned sane. 

He opened the door of the cabinet. The bottle and the glass stoodexactly where he had placed them on that morning when he had tried tobegin going to the devil, and had failed. Now there was no longer thatsame mysterious restraint. He was not thinking of the devil; he wasthinking only of himself. He must still the working of his mind. Anything would do that would drug his faculties, and so. .. . 

It was after midnight when he dragged himself out of a stupor whichhad not been sleep. Being stupor, however, it was that much to thegood. He had stopped thinking. He couldn't think. His head didn'tache; it was merely sore. He might have been dashing it against thewall, as figuratively he had done. His body was sore too--stiff fromlong sitting in the same posture, and bruised as if from beating. Allthat was nothing, however, since misery only stunned him. To bestunned was what he had been working for. 

Out in the air the wind of the May night was comforting. It soothedhis nerves without waking the dormant brain. Instead of looking for ataxi he began walking up the Avenue. Walking too was a relief. Itallowed him to remain as stupefied as at first, and yet stirred thecirculation in his limbs. He meant to walk till he grew tired, afterwhich he would jump on an electric bus. 

But he did not grow tired. He passed the great milestones, FourteenthStreet, Twenty-third Street, Forty-second Street, Fifty-ninth Street, and not till crossing the last did he begin to feel fagged. He wasthen so near home that the impulse of doggedness kept him on foot. Hewas a strong walker, and physically in good condition, without beingwholly robust. Had it not been for the kilted Highlander he wouldhardly have felt fatigue; but as it was, the corner of EastSixty-seventh Street found him as spent as he cared to be. 

Advancing toward his door he saw a man coming in the other direction. There was nothing in that, and he would scarcely have noticed him, only for the fact that at this hour of the night pedestrians in thequarter were rare. In addition to that the man, having reached thefoot of Allerton's own steps, stood there waiting, as if withintention. 

Through the obscurity Rash could see only that the man was well built, flashily dressed, and that he wore a sweeping mustache. In his mannerof standing and waiting there was something significant and menacing. Arrived at the foot of the steps Allerton could do no less than pauseto ask if the stranger was looking for anyone. 

"Is your name Allerton?"

"Yes; it is. "

"Then I want my girl. "

It was some seconds before Rash could get his dulled mind into play. Moreover, the encounter was of a kind which made him feel sick anddisgusted. 

"Whom do you mean?" he managed to ask, at last. 

"You know very well who I mean. I mean Letty Gravely. I'm her father;and by God, if you don't give her up--with big damages----"

"I can't give her up, because she's not here. "

"Not here? She was damn well here the day before yesterday. "

"Yes; she was here the day before yesterday; but she disappeared lastnight. "

"Ah, cut that kind o' talk. I'm wise, I am. You can't put that bunkover on me. She's in there, and I'm goin' to get her. "

"I wish she was in there; but she's not. "

"How do I know she's not?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it. "

"Like hell I'll take your word for it. I'm goin' to see for myself. "

"I don't see how you're going to do that. "

"I'm goin' in with you. "

"That wouldn't do you any good. Besides, I can't let you. "

The man became more bullying. "See here, son. This game is my game. Did j'ever see a thing like this?"

Watching the movement of his hand Rash saw the handle of a revolverdisplayed in a side pocket. 

"Yes, I've seen a thing like that; but even if it was loaded--which Idon't believe it is--you've too much sense to use it. You might shootme, of course; but you wouldn't find the girl in the house, becauseshe isn't there. "

"Well, I'm goin' to see. You march. Up you go, and open that door, andI'll follow you. "

"Oh, no, you won't. " Allerton looked round for the policeman whooccasionally passed that way; but though a lighted car crashed downMadison Avenue there was no one in sight. He might have called in thehope of waking the men upstairs, but that seemed cowardly. Though in aphysical encounter with a ruffian like this he could hardly helpgetting the worst of it--especially in his state of halfintoxication--it was the encounter itself that he loathed, even morethan the defeat. "Oh, no, you won't, " he repeated, taking one stepupward, and turning to defend his premises. "I don't mean that youshall come into this house, or ever see the girl again, if I canprevent it. "

"Oh, you don't, don't you?"

"No, I don't. "

"Then take that. "

The words were so quickly spoken, and the blow in his face sounexpected, that Rash staggered backwards. Being on a step he hadlittle or no footing, and having been drinking his balance was themore quickly lost. 

"And that!"

A second blow in the face sent him down like a stone, without astruggle or a cry. 

He fell limply on his back, his feet slipping to the sidewalk, hisbody sagging on the steps like a bit of string, accidentally droppedthere. The hat, which fell off, remained on the step beside the headit had been covering. 

The man leaped backward, as if surprised at his own deed. He lookedthis way and that, to see if he had been observed. A lighted carcrashed up Madison Avenue, but otherwise the street remained empty. Creeping nearer the steps he bent over his victim, whose left hand layhelpless and outstretched. Timidly, gingerly, he put his fingers tothe pulse, starting back from it with a shock. He spoke but two words, but he spoke them half aloud. 

"Dead! God!"

Then he walked swiftly away into Madison Avenue, where he soon found acar going southward. 

Chapter XXIV

Barbara was late for breakfast. Miss Walbrook, the aunt, was scanningthe morning paper, her refined, austere Americanism being asnoticeable in the dining-room as elsewhere in the house. Everythingwas slender and strong; everything was American, unless it was thePersian rug. On the paneled walls there were but three portraits, aBoston ancestress, in lace cap and satins, painted by Copley; aPhiladelphia ancestor in the Continental uniform, painted by GilbertStuart; and her New York grandmother, painted by Thomas Sully, lookingover her shoulder with the wild backward glance that artist gives tothe girl Victoria in the Metropolitan Museum. In a flat cabinet alonga wall was the largest collection of old American glass to be found inthe country. 

Barbara rushed in, with apologies for being late. "I didn't sleep awink. It doesn't seem to me as if I should ever sleep again. Where'smy cup?"

"Wildgoose will bring it. As the coffee had grown cold he took thatand the cup to keep warm. What's the matter?"

Wildgoose stepped in with the missing essentials. A full-fed, round-faced, rubicund man of fifty-odd he looked a perennialtwenty-five. Barbara began to minister to herself. 

"Oh, everything's the matter. I told you yesterday that that girl hadrun away. Well, I begin to wish she'd run back again. "

Miss Walbrook, the elder, had this in common with Miss HenriettaTowell, that she believed it best for everyone to work out his ownsalvation. Barbara had her personal life to live, and while her auntwould help her to live it, she wouldn't guide her choice. Shecontinued, therefore, to scan the paper till her niece should saysomething more. 

She said it, not because she wanted to give information, but becauseshe was temperamentally outspoken. "I begin to wish there were no menin the world. If women are men in a higher stage of development, whydidn't men die out, so that we could be rid of them? Isn't that whatwe generally get from the survival of the fittest?"

Miss Walbrook's thin, clear smile suggested the edge of a keenlytempered blade. "I've never said that women were men in a higher stageof development. I've said that in their parallel states of developmentwomen had advanced a stage beyond men. You may say of every generationborn that women begin where men leave off. I suppose that that'swhat's meant by the myth of Eve springing from Adam's side. It was tobe noticed even then, in the prehistoric, in the age that formed thegreat legends. Adam was asleep, when Eve as a vital force leaped awayfrom him. If it wasn't for Eve's vitality the human race would stillbe in the Stone Age. "

Barbara harked back to what for her was the practical. "Some of us arein the Stone Age as it is. I'm sure Rash Allerton is as nearly anelemental as one can be, and still belong to clubs and drive inmotorcars. "

Miss Walbrook risked her principles of non-interference so far as tosay: "It's part of our feminine lack of development that we're alwaysinclined to look back on the elemental with pity, and even withregret. The woman was never born who didn't have in her something ofLot's wife. "

"Thank you, Aunt Marion. In a way that lets me out. If I'm no weakerthan the rest of my sex----"

"Than many of the rest of your sex. "

"Very well, then; than many of the rest of my sex; if I'm no weakerthan that I don't have to lose my self-respect. "

"You don't have to lose your self-respect; you only risk--yourreason. "

Barbara stared at her. "That's the very thing I'm afraid of. I'd giveanything for peace of mind. How did you know?"

"Oh, it doesn't call for much astuteness. I don't suppose there's amarried woman in the world in full command of her wits. You've noticedhow foolish most of them are. That's why. It isn't that they were bornfoolish. They've simply been addled by enforced adaptation to mates oflower intelligence. Oh, I'm not scolding. I'm merely stating anatural, observed, psychological fact. The woman who marries saysgood-bye to the orderly working of her faculties. For that she may getcompensations, with which I don't intend to find fault. Butcompensations or no, to a clear-thinking woman like----"

"Like yourself, Aunt Marion. "

"Very well; like myself, if you will; but to a clear-thinking womanit's as obvious as daylight that her married sisters are partiallydemented. They may not know it; the partially demented never do. Andit's no good telling them, because they don't believe you. I'm onlysaying it to you to warn you in advance. If you part with your reason, it's something to know that you do it of your own free will. "

Once more Barbara confined herself to the case in hand. "Still, Idon't believe every man is as trying as Rash Allerton. "

"Not in his particular way, perhaps. But if it's not in one way thenit's in another. "

"Even he wouldn't be so bad if he could control himself. At the minutewhen he's tearing down the house he wants you to tell him that he'scalm. "

"If he didn't want you to tell him that it would be something equallypreposterous. There's little to choose between men. "

Barbara grew thoughtful. "Still, if people didn't marry the human racewould die out. "

"And would there be any harm in that? It's not a danger, of course;but if it was, would anyone in his senses want to stop it? Lookinground on the human race to-day one can hardly help saying that thesooner it dies out the better. Since we can't kill it off, it's wellto remember----"

"To remember what, Aunt Marion?"

Miss Walbrook reflected as to how to express herself cautiously. "To remember that--in marrying--and having children--children whowill have to face the highly probable miseries of the nextgeneration--Well, I'm glad there'll be no one to reproach me with hisbeing in the world, either as his mother or his ancestress. "

"They say Rash's father and mother didn't want _him_ in the world, andI sometimes wish they'd had their way. If he wasn't here--or if he wasdead--I believe I could be happier. I shouldn't be forever worryingabout him. I shouldn't have him on my mind. I often wonder if it's--ifit's love I feel for him--or only an agonizing sense ofresponsibility. "

The door being open Walter Wildgoose waddled to the threshold, wherehe stood with his right hand clasped in his left. "Mr. Steptoe at Mr. Allerton's to speak to Miss Barbara on the telyphone, please. "

Barbara gasped. "Oh, Lord! I wonder what it is now!"

Left to herself Miss Walbrook resumed her scanning of the paper, butshe resumed it with the faintest quiver of a smile on her thin, cleanly-cut lips. It was the kind of smile which indicates patienthope, or the anticipation of something satisfactory. 

"Oh!"

The exclamation was so loud as to be heard all the way from thetelephone, which was in another part of the house. Miss Walbrook letthe paper fall, sat bolt upright, and listened. 

"Oh! Oh!"

It was like a second, and repeated, explosion. Miss Walbrook rose toher feet; the paper rustled to the floor. 

"Oh! Oh!"

The sound was that which human beings make when the thing told them ismore than they can bear. Barbara cried out as if someone was beatingher with clubs, and she was coming to her knees. 

She was not coming to her knees. When her aunt reached her she wasstill standing by the little table in the hall which held thetelephone, on which she had hung up the receiver. She supportedherself with one hand on the table, as a woman does when all she cando is not to fall senseless. 

"It's--it's Rash, " she panted, as she saw her aunt appear. "Somebodyhas--has killed him. "

Miss Walbrook stood with hands clasped, like one transfixed. "He'sdead?--after all?"

Barbara nodded, tearlessly. She could stammer out the words, but nomore. "Yes--all but!"

 * * * * *

In the flat at Red Point there was another and dissimilar breakfastscene. For the first time in her life Letty was having coffee andtoast in bed. The window was open, and between the muslin curtains, which puffed in the soft May wind, she could see the ocean withsteamers and ships on it. 

The room was tiny, but it was spotless. Everything was white, exceptwhere here and there it was tied up with a baby-blue ribbon. Anythingthat could be tied with a baby-blue ribbon was so tied. 

Letty thought she had never seen anything so dainty, though herexperienced eye could detect the fact that nothing had really costmoney. As an opening to the career on which she had embarked thesetting was unexpected, while the method of her treatment wasbewildering. In the black recesses of her heart Miss Henrietta Towellmight be hiding all those feline machinations which Mrs. Judson Flackhad led Letty to believe a part of the great world's stock-in-trade;but it couldn't be denied that she hid them well. Letty didn't knowwhat to make of it. "There's quite a trick to it, " Steptoe had warnedher; but the explanation seemed inadequate to the phenomena. 

Sipping her coffee and crunching her toast she was driven to ponder onthe ways of wickedness. She had expected them to be more obvious. Allher information was to the effect that an unprotected girl in a worldof males was a lamb among lions, a victim with no way of escape. Thatshe was a lamb among lions, and a victim with no way of escape, shewas still prepared to believe; only the preliminaries puzzled her. Instead of being crude, direct, indelicate, they were subtle andmisleading. After twenty-four hours in Miss Towell's spare room therewas still no hint of anything but coddling. 

"You see, my dear, " Miss Towell had said, "if I don't nurse you backto real 'ealth, him that gave you the thimble might be displeased withme. "

It was not often that Miss Towell dropped an _h_ or added one; but inmoments of emotion early habit was too strong for her. 

Coming into the room now, on some ermine's errand of neatness, shethrew a glance at Letty, and said: "You don't _look_ like a Rashleigh, do you, dear? But then you never can tell anything about families fromlooks, can you?"

It was her nearest approach as yet to the personal, and Lettyconsidered as to how she was to meet it. "I'm not a Rashleigh--notreally--only by--by marriage. Rashleigh isn't my real name. It's--it's the name I'm going by in pictures. "

"Oh!"

Miss Towell's exclamation was the subdued one of acquiescence. Sheknew that ladies in pictures often preferred names other than theirown, and if Letty was not a Rashleigh it "explained things. " That is, it explained how anyone called Rashleigh could be wandering about inthis friendless way, though it made 'Enery Steptoe's intervention themore mysterious. It was conceivable that he might act on behalf of agenuine Rashleigh, however out at elbow; but that he should take suchpains for a spurious one, and go to the length of sending the sacredsilver thimble as a pledge, rendered the situation puzzling. 

Schooled by her religious precepts to taking her duties as those of aminute at a time Miss Towell made no effort to force the girl'sconfidence, and especially since Letty, like most young people introuble, was on her guard against giving it. So long as she preferredto be shut up within herself, shut up within herself she shouldremain. Miss Towell felt that, for the moment at least, her ownresponsibility was limited to making the child feel that someone caredfor her. 

At the same time she couldn't have been a lonely woman with alove-story behind her without the impulse to dwell a little longinglyon the one romantic incident in her experience. Though it had nevercome to anything, the fact that it had once opened its shy littleflower made a sweet bright place to which her thoughts could retire. 

The references came spasmodically and without context, as the littlewhite lady busied herself in waiting on Letty or in the care of herroom. 

"I haven't seen him since a short time after the mistress went away. "

Letty felt herself coloring. Though not prudish there were words shecouldn't get used to. Besides which she had never thought thatSteptoe. .. . But Miss Towell pursued her memories. 

"It always worried him that I should hold views different from his butI couldn't submit to dictation, now, could I, dear?"

Once more Letty felt herself awkwardly placed. The only interpretationshe could put on Miss Towell's words referring to moral reformation onher hostess's part she said, as non-committally as might be: "He's agood deal of a stickler. "

"He's been so long in a high position that he becomes--well, I won'tbe 'arsh--but he becomes a little harbitrary. That's where it was. Hewas a little harbitrary. With a mistress who allowed him a great dealof his own way--well, you can hardly blame him, can you, dear?"

Letty forced herself to accept the linguistic standard of the world. "I suppose if she hadn't allowed him a great deal of his own way he'dhave looked somewhere else. "

"That he could easily have done. He had temptations enough--a man likehim. Why, dear, there was a lady in Park Avenue did everything shecould that wasn't positively dishonorable to win him away----"

"He must have been younger and better looking than he is now, " Lettyhazarded, bluntly. 

"Oh, it wasn't a question of looks. Of course if she'd consideredthat, why, any foolish young fellow--but she knew what she would havegot. "

Not being at her ease in this kind of conversation, and finding theeffort to see Steptoe as Lothario difficult, Letty became blunt again. "He must have had an awful crush on the first one. "

"It wasn't her exactly; it was the boy. "

"Oh, there was a boy?"

"Why of course, dear! Didn't you know that?"

"Whose boy was it?"

"Why, the mistress's boy; but I don't think _he_----" Letty understoodthe pronoun as applying to Steptoe--"I don't think _he_ ever realizedthat he wasn't his very own. " Straightening the white cover on thechest of drawers Miss Towell shook her head. "It was a sad case. "

"What made it sad?"

"A lovely boy he was. Had a kind word for everyone, even for the cat. But somehow his father and mother--well, they were people of theworld, and they hadn't wanted a child, and when he came--and he sodelicate always--I could have cried over him. "

Letty's heart began to swell; her lip trembled. "I know someone likethat myself. "

"Do you, dear? Then I'm sure you understand. "

Partly because the minute was emotional, and partly from a sense thatshe needed to explain herself, Letty murmured, more or lessindistinctly: "It's on his account that I'm here. "

Failing to see the force of this Miss Towell was content to say: "I'mglad you were led to me, dear. There's always a power to shepherd usalong, if we'll only let ourselves be guided. "

To Letty the moment had arrived when plainness of speech wasimperative. Leaning across the tray, which still stood on her lap, shegazed up at her hostess with eager, misty eyes. "_He_ said you'd teachme all the ropes. "

Miss Towell paused beside the bed, to look inquiringly at the tenselittle face. "The ropes of what, dear?"

"Of what--" it was hard to express--"of what you--you used to beyourself. You don't seem like it now, " she added, desperately, "butyou were, weren't you?"

"Oh, that!" The surprise was in the discovery that an American girl ofLetty's age could entertain so sensible a purpose. "Why, of course, dear! I'll tell you all I know, and welcome. "

"There's quite a trick to it, isn't there?"

"Well, it's more than a trick. There are two or three things which yousimply _have_ to be. "

"Oh, I know that. That's what frightens me. "

"You needn't be afraid, once you've made up your mind to it. " Sheleaned above the bed to relieve Letty of the tray. "For instance--youdon't mind my asking questions do you?"

"Oh, no! You can ask me anything. "

"Then the first thing is this: Are you pretty good as aneedle-woman?"

Letty was astounded. "Why--why you don't have to _sew_, do you?"

"Certainly, dear. That's one of the most important things you'd becalled on to do. You'd never get anywhere if you weren't quick withyour needle and thread. And then there'd be hair-dressing. You have toknow something about that. I don't say that you must be aprofessional; but for the simpler occasions--after that there'spacking. That's something we often overlook, and where French girlshave us at a disadvantage. They pack so beautifully. "

Letty was entirely at sea. "Pack what?"

"Pack trunks, dear. "

"What for?"

"For travel; for moving from town to country; or from country to town;or making visits; you see you're always on the go. Oh, it's more thana trick; it's quite an art; only--" She smiled at Letty as she stoodholding the tray, before carrying it out--"only, I shouldn't havesupposed you'd be thinking of that when you act in moving pictures. "

"I--I thought I might do both. "

"Now, I should say that that's one thing you couldn't do, dear. If youtook up this at all you'd find it so absorbing----"

"And you're very unhappy too, aren't you? I've always heard youwere. "

"Well, that would depend a good deal on yourself. There's nothing inthe thing itself to make you unhappy; but sometimes there are otherwomen----"

Letty's eyes were flaming. "They say they're awful. "

"Oh, not always. It's a good deal as you carry yourself. I made it apoint to keep my position and respect the position of others. Itwasn't always easy, especially with Mary Ann Courage and JanieCakebread; but----"

Letty's head fell back on the pillow. Her eyes closed. Amerry-go-round was spinning in her head. Where was she? How had shecome there? What was she there _for?_ Where was the wickedness she hadbeen told to look for everywhere? Having gone in search of it, andexpected to find it lying in wait from the first minute of passing theprotecting door, she had been shuffled along from one to another, withexasperating kindness, only to be brought face to face with JaneCakebread and Mary Ann Courage at the end. 

Miss Towell having borne away the tray, Letty struggled out of bed, and put on the woollen dressing gown thrown over a chair by thebedside. This was no place for her. Beehive Valley was not far off, and her forty-five cents would more than suffice to take her there. She would see the casting director. She would get a job. With food toeat and a place to sleep as a starting point she would find her ownway to wickedness, releasing the prince in spite of all the mishapswhich kept her as she was. 

But she trembled so that having wrapped the dressing gown about hershe was obliged to sit down again. She would have to be crafty. Shemust get this woman to help her with her dressing, without suspectingwhat she meant to do. How could she manage that? She must try tothink. 

She was trying to think when she heard the ring of the telephone. Itsuggested an idea. Some time--not this time, of course--when thetelephone rang and the woman was answering it, she, Letty, would beable to slip away. The important thing was to do her hair and get herclothes on. 

"Yes?. .. Yes?" There was a little catch to the breath, a smotheredlaugh, a smothered sigh. "Oh, so this is you!. .. Yes, I got it. .. . Seeing it again gave me quite a turn. .. . I never expected that you'dkeep it all this time, but. .. . Yes, she's here. .. . No; she didn't comeexactly of her own accord, but I--I found her. .. . I could tell youabout it easier if you were--it's so hard on the telephone whenthere's so much to say--but perhaps you don't care to. .. . Yes, she'squite well--only a little tired--been worked up somehow--but a day orso in bed. .. . Oh, very sensible . .. And she wants me to teach her howto be a lady's maid. .. . "

So that was it! Steptoe had been treacherous. Letty would neverbelieve in anyone again. She could make these reflections hurriedlybecause the voice at the telephone was silent. 

"Oh!"

It was the same exclamation as that of Barbara Walbrook, but inanother tone--a tone of distress, sharp, sympathetic. Pulling thedressing gown about her, frightened, tense, Letty knew that somethinghad gone wrong. 

"Oh! Oh!. .. Last night, did you say?. .. Early this morning. .. . "

Letty crept to where her hostess was seated at the telephone. "What isit?"

But Miss Towell either didn't hear the question or was too absorbed toanswer it. "Oh, 'Enery, _try_ to remember that God is his life--thatthere can be no death to be afraid of when----"

Letty snatched the receiver from the other woman's hands, and fell onher knees beside the little table. "Oh, what is it? What is it? It'sme; Letty! Something's happened. I've got to know. "

Amazed and awed by the force of this intrusion Miss Towell stood up, and moved a little back. 

Over the wire Steptoe's voice sounded to Letty like the ghost of hisvoice, broken, dead. 

"I think if I was madam I'd come back. "

"But what's happened? Tell me that first. "

"It's Mr. Rash. "

"Yes, I know it's Mr. Rash. But what is it? Tell me quickly, for God'ssake. "

"'E's been 'it. "

Her utterance was as nearly as possible a cry. "But he hasn't been_killed_?"

"Madam'd find 'im alive--if she 'urried. "

When Letty rose from her knees she was strong. She was calm, too, andcompetent. She further surprised Miss Towell by the way in which shetook command. 

"I must hurry. They want me at once. Would you mind helping me todress?"

Chapter XXV

"The queer thing about it, miss, " Steptoe was saying to Barbara, "isthat I didn't 'ear no noise. My winder is just above the front door, two floors up, and it was open. I always likes an open winder, especially when the weather begins to get warm--makes it 'ealthierlike, and so----"

"Yes, but tell me just how he is. "

"That's what I'm comin' to, miss. The minute I see what an awful stytewe was in, I says, Miss Walbrook, she'll 'ave to know, I says; and soI called up. Well, as I was a-tellin you, miss, I couldn't sleep allnight, 'ardly not any, thinkin of all what 'ad 'appened in the 'ouse, in the course of a few months, as you might sye--and madam runawye--and Mr. Rash 'e not 'ome--and it one o'clock and lyter. Not butwhat 'e's often lyter than that, only last night I 'ad that kind of afeelin' which you'll get when you know things is not right, and youdon't 'ardly know 'ow you know it. "

"Yes, Steptoe, " she interposed, eagerly; "but is he conscious now?That's what I want to hear about. "

Steptoe's expression of grief lay in working up to a dramatic climaxdramatically. He didn't understand the hurried leaps and bounds bywhich you took the tragic on the skip, as if it were not portentous. In his response to Miss Walbrook there was a hint of irritation, andperhaps of rebuke. 

"I couldn't sye what 'e is now, miss, as the doctor and the nurse iswith 'im, and won't let nobody in till they decides whether 'e's tolive or die. " Rocking himself back and forth in his chair he moaned instricken anticipation. "If 'e goes, I shan't be long after 'im. I maylinger a bit, but the good Lord won't move me on too soon. "

Barbara curbed her impatience to reach the end, going back to thebeginning. "Well, then, was it you who found 'im?"

"It was this wye, miss. Knowin' 'e wasn't in the 'ouse, I kep' goin'to my winder and listenin'--and then goin' back to bed agyne--Icouldn't tell you 'ow many times; and then, if you'd believe it I must'ave fell asleep. No; I can't believe as I was asleep. I just seemedto come to, like, and as I laid there wonderin' what time it was, seems to me as if I 'eard a kind of a snore, like, not in the 'ouse, but comin' up from the street. "

"What time was that?"

"That'd be about 'alf past one. Well, up I gets and creeps to thewinder, and sure enough the snore come right up from the steps. Seemsto me, too, I could see somethink layin' there, all up and down thesteps, just as if it 'ad been dropped by haccident like. My bloodfreezes. I slips into my thick dressin' gown--no, it was my thindressin' gown--I always keeps two--one for winter and one forsummer--and this spring bein' so early like----"

"But in the end you got down stairs. "

"If I didn't, miss, 'ow could I 'a' found 'im? I ain't one to beafryde of dynger, not even 'ere in New York, where you can be robbedand murdered without 'ardly knowin' it--and the police that slow aboutfollerin' up a clue----"

"And what happened when you'd opened the front door?"

"I didn't open it at once, miss. I put my hear to the crack andlistened. And there it was, a long kind of snore, like--only it wasn'tjust what you'd call a snore. It was more like this. " He drew a deep, rasping, stertorous breath. "Awful, it was, miss, just like somebodyin liquor. 'It's liquor, ' I says, and not wantin' to be mixed up in nolow company I wasn't for openin' the door at all----"

"But you did?"

"Not till I'd gone 'alf wye upstairs and down agyne. I'm like that. Ioften thinks I'll not do a thing, and then I'll sye to myself, 'Now, perhaps I'd better, and so it was that time. 'E's out, I says, and whoknows but what 'e's fell in a fynt like?' So back I goes, and I peepsout a little bit--just my nose out, as you might sye, not knowin' butwhat if there was low company----"

"When did you find out who it was?"

"I knowed the 'at, like. It was that 'at what 'e bought afore 'ebought the last one. No; I don't know but what 'e's bought two since'e bought that one--a soft felt, and a cowboy what he never wore butonce or twice because it wasn't becomin'. You'll 'ave noticed, miss, that 'e 'ad one o' them fyces what don't look well in nothinkrakish--a real gentleman's fyce 'e 'ad--and them cowboy 'ats----"

"Well, when you saw that hat, what did you do?"

"For quite a spell I didn't do nothink. I was all blood-curdled, asyou might sye. But by and by I creeps out, and down the steps, andthere 'e was, all 'uddled every wye----"

His lip trembled. In trying to go on he produced only a few incoherentsounds. Reaching for his handkerchief, he blew his nose, before beingable to say more. 

"Well, the first thing I says to myself, miss, was, Is 'e dead? It wasa terrible thing to sye of one that's everythink in the world to me;but seein' 'im there, all crumpled up, with one leg one wye, and theother leg another wye, and a harm throwed out 'elpless like--well, what was I to think? miss--and 'im not aible to sye a word, and meshykin' like a leaf, and out of doors in my thin dressin' gown--if I'd'ad on my thick one I wouldn't 'a' felt so kind of shymeful like----"

"You might have known he wasn't dead when you heard him breathing. "

"I didn't think o' that. I thought as 'e was. And when I see 'is poorharm stretched out so wild like I creeps nearer and nearer, and me'ardly aible to move--I felt so bad--and I puts my finger on 'ispulse. Might as well 'ave put it on that there fender. Then I looks at'is fyce and I see blood on 'is lip and 'is cheek. 'Somethink's struck'im, ' I says; and then I just loses consciousness, and puts back my'ead, as you'll see a dog do when 'e 'owls, and I yells, 'Police!'"

"Oh, you did that, did you?"

"I'm ashymed to sye it, miss, but I did; and who should come runnin'along but the policeman what in the night goes up and down our beat. By that time I'd got my 'and on 'is 'eart, and the policeman 'e callsout from a distance, 'Hi, there! What you doin' to that man?' ThoughtI was murderin' 'im, you see. I says, 'My boy, 'e is, and I'm tryin'to syve 'is life. ' Well, the policeman 'e sees I'm in my dressin'gown, and don't look as if I'd do 'im any 'arm, so 'e kind o' picks up'is courage, and blows 'is whistle, and another policeman 'e runs upfrom the wye of the Havenue. Then when there's two of 'em they ain'tafryde no more, so that the first one 'e comes up to me quite boldlike, and arsks me who's killed, and what's killed 'im, and I tells'im 'ow I was layin' awyke, with the winder open, and Mr. Rash bein'out I couldn't sleep like----"

"How long did they let him lie there?"

"Oh, not long. First they was for callin' a hambulance; but when Itells 'em that 'e's my boy, and lives in my 'ouse, they brings 'im inand we lays 'im on the sofa in the libery, and I rings up Dr. Lancing, and----"

But something in Barbara snapped. She could stand no more. Not to cryout or break down she sprang to her feet. "That'll do, Steptoe. I knownow all I need to know. Thank you for telling me. I shall stay heretill the doctor or the nurse comes down. If I want you again I'llring. "

[Illustration: "BUT BY AND BY I CREEPS OUT AND DOWN THE STEPS, AND THERE'E WAS, ALL 'UDDLED EVERY WYE. "]

Lashing up and down the drawing-room, wringing her hands and moaninginwardly, Barbara reflected on the speed with which Nemesis hadovertaken her. "If he wasn't here--or if he was dead, " she had said, "I believe I could be happier. " As long as she lived she would hearthe curious intonation in Aunt Marion's voice: "He's dead?--afterall?" It was in that _after all_ that she read the unspeakableaccusation of herself. 

Waiting for the doctor was not long. On hearing his step on the stairBarbara went out to meet him. "How is he?" she asked, without wastingtime over self-introductions. 

"It's a little difficult to say as yet. The case is serious. Just howserious we can't tell to-day--perhaps not to-morrow. I find no traceof fracture of the cranium, or of laceration of the brain; but it'stoo soon to be sure. Dr. Brace and Dr. Wisdom, who've both been here, are inclined to think that it may be no more than a simple concussion. We must wait and see. "

Relieved to this extent Barbara went on to explain herself. "I'm MissWalbrook. I was engaged to Mr. Allerton till--till quite recently. We're still great friends--the greatest friends. He had no nearrelations--only cousins--and I doubt if any of them are in New York aslate in the season as this--and even if they are he hardly knowsthem----"

The doctor, a cheery, robust man in the late thirties, in his own lineone of the ablest specialists in New York, had a foible for socialposition and his success in it. Even now, with such grave news tocommunicate, he couldn't divest himself of his dinner-party manner orhis smile. 

"I've had the pleasure of meeting Miss Walbrook, at the Essingtons'dinner--the big one for Isabel--and afterwards at the dance. "

"Oh, of course, " Barbara corroborated, though with no recollection ofthe encounter. "I knew it was somewhere, but I couldn't quiterecall--So I felt, when the butler called me up, that I should behere----"

"Quite so! quite so! You'll find Miss Gallifer, who's with him now, amost competent nurse, and I shall bring a good night nurse beforeevening. " The professional side of the situation disposed of, hetouched tactfully on the romantic. "It will be a great thing for me toknow that in a masculine household like this a woman with knowledgeand authority is running in and out. The more you can be here, MissWalbrook, the more responsibility you'll take off my hands. "

"May I be in his room--and help the nurse--or do anything like that?"

"Quite so! quite so! I'm sure Miss Gallifer, who can't be there everyminute of the time, you understand, will be glad to feel that there'ssomeone she can trust----"

"And he couldn't know I was there?"

"Not unless he returned unexpectedly to consciousness, which ispossible, you understand----"

Her distress was so great that she hazarded a question on which shewould not otherwise have ventured. "Doctor, you're a physician. I canspeak to you as I shouldn't speak to everyone. Suppose he did returnunexpectedly to consciousness, and found me there in the room, do youthink he'd be--annoyed?"

It was the sort of situation he liked, a part in the intimate affairsof people of the first quality. "As to his being annoyed I can't say. It might be the very opposite. What I know is this, that in thecoming back of the mind to its regular functions inhibitions areoften suspended----"

"And you mean by that----?"

"That the first few minutes in which the mind revives are likely to beminutes of genuine reality. I don't say that the mind could keep itup. Very few of us can be our genuine selves for more than flashes ata time; but a returning consciousness doesn't put on its inhibitionstill----"

"So that what you see in those few minutes you can take as thetruth. "

"I should say so. I'm not in a position to affirm it; but theprobabilities point that way. "

"And if there had been, let us say, a lesser affection, something ofrecent origin, and lower in every way----"

"I think that until it forged its influence again--if it everdid--you'd see it forgotten or disowned. "

She tried to be even more explicit. "He's perfectly free, in everyway. I broke off my engagement just to make him free. The--the otherwoman, she, too, has--has left him----"

"So that, " he summed up, "if in those first instants of returning tothe world you could read his choice you'd be relieved of doubts forthe future. "

Having made one or two small professional recommendations he was aboutto go when Barbara's mind worked to another point. "You know, he'sbeen very excitable. "

"So I've understood. I go a good deal to the Chancellors'. You knowthem, of course. I've heard about him there. "

"Well, then, if he got better, is there anything we could do aboutthat?"

"In a general way, yes. If you're gentle with him----"

"Oh, I am. "

"And if you try to smooth him down when you see him beginning to beruffled----"

"That's just what I do, only it seems to excite him the more. "

"Then, in that case, I should say, break the conversation off. Go awayfrom him. Let him alone. Let him work out of it. Begin again later. "

"Ye-es, only--" she was wistful, unconvinced--"only later it's solikely to be the same thing over again. "

He dodged the further issue by running up to explain to the nurse MissWalbrook's position in the house, and as helper in case of necessity. By the time he had come down again Barbara's anguish was visible. "Oh, doctor, you think he _will_ get better, don't you?"

He was at the front door. "I hope he will. Quite--quite possibly hewill. His pulse isn't very strong as yet, but--Well, Dr. Brace and Dr. Wisdom are coming for another consultation this afternoon; only hiscondition, you understand, is--well, serious. "

Barbara divined the malice beneath Steptoe's indications, as heconducted her upstairs. "That was the lyte Mrs. Allerton's room;that's the front spare room; and that's our present madam's room--whenshe's 'ere--heach with its barth. I'm sure if Miss Walbrook wasinclined to use the front spare room I'd be entirely welcome, and'ave put in clean towels, and everythink, a-purpose. "

When Rash's door was pointed out to her she tapped. Miss Galliferopened it, receiving her colleague with a great big hearty smile. Great, big, and hearty were the traits by which Miss Gallifer wasknown among the doctors. Healthy, skilful, jolly, and offhand, shecarried the issues of life and death, in which she was at home, with alightness which made her easy to work with. Some nurses would haveresented the intrusion of an outsider--professionally speaking--likeMiss Walbrook; but to Miss Gallifer it was the more the merrier, evenin the sickroom. The very fact of coming to close quarters with thetype she knew as a "society girl" added spice to the association. 

For the first few seconds Barbara found her breeziness a shock. Shehad expected something subdued, hushed, funereal. Miss Gallifer hardlylowered her voice, which was naturally loud, or quieted her manner, which, when off duty, could be boisterous. It was not boisterous now, of course; only quick, free, spontaneous. Then Barbara saw thereason. 

There was no need to lower the voice or quiet the manner or soften theswish of rustling to and fro, in presence of that still white formcomposed in the very attitude of death. If Barbara hadn't known he wasalive she wouldn't have supposed it. She had seen dead men before--herfather, two brothers, other relatives. They looked like this; thislooked like them. She said _this_ to herself, and not _he_, because itseemed the word. 

But by the time she had moved forward and was standing by the bed MissGallifer's businesslike tone became a comfort. You couldn't take sucha tone if you thought there was danger; and in spite of the hemmingand hawing of the doctors Miss Gallifer didn't think there was. 

"Oh, I've seen lots of such cases, and _I_ say it's a simpleconcussion. Old Wisdom, he doesn't know anything. I wouldn't consulthim about an accident to a cat. Laceration of the brain is always hisfirst diagnosis; and if the patient didn't have it he'd get it to himbefore he'd admit that he was wrong. "

Barbara put the question in which all her other questions wereenfolded. "Then you think he'll get better?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. "

"Would you be surprised--the other way?"

"I think I should--on the whole. Pulse is poor. That's the worstsign. " She picked up the hand lying outside the coverlet and put herfinger-tips to the wrist, doing it with the easy nonchalantcarelessness with which she might have seized an inanimate object, yetknowing exactly what she was about. "H'm! Fifty-six! That's prettylow. If we could get it above sixty--but still!" Dropping the handwith the same indifference, yet continuing to know what she was about, Miss Gallifer tossed aside the index of the pulse as whollynon-convincing. "I've known cases where the pulse would go down tillthere was almost no pulse at all, and _yet_ it would come up again. "

"So that you feel----?"

"Oh, he'll do. I shouldn't worry--yet. If he wasn't going to pullthrough there would be something----"

"Something to tell you?"

"Well, yes--if you put it that way. I most always know with a patient. It isn't anything in his condition. It's more like a hunch. There'soften the difference between a doctor and a nurse. The doctor goes bywhat he sees, the nurse by what she feels. Nine times out of ten thedoctor'll see wrong and the nurse'll feel right--and there you are!You can't go by doctors. A lot of guess-work gumps, I often think; andyet the laity need them for comfort. "

Making the most of all this Barbara asked, timidly: "Is there anythingI could do?"

"Well, no! There isn't much that anyone can do. You've just got towait. If you're going to stay----"

"I should like to. "

"Then you can be somewhere else in the house so that I could callyou--or you could sit right here--whichever you preferred. "

"I'd rather sit right here, if I shouldn't be in the way. "

"Oh, when you're in the way I'll tell you. "

On this understanding Barbara sat down, in a small low armchair notfar from the foot of the bed. Miss Gallifer also sat down, nearer tothe window, taking up a book which, as Barbara could see from the"jacket" on the cover, bore the title, _The Secret of Violet Pryde_. It was clear that there was nothing to be done, since Miss Gallifercould so easily lose herself in her novel. 

Not till her jumble of impressions began to arrange themselves didBarbara realize that she was in Rash's room, surrounded by the objectsmost intimate to his person. Here the poor boy slept and dressed, andlived the portion of his life which no one else could share with him. In a sense they were rifling his privacy, the secrecy with which everyhuman being has in some measure to surround himself. She recalled aday in her childhood, after her parents and both her brothers haddied, when their house with its contents was put up for sale. Sheremembered the horror with which she had seen strangers walking aboutin the rooms sanctified by loved presences, and endeared to herholiest memories. Something of that she felt now, as Miss Galliferthrew aside her book, sprang lightly to her feet, hurried into Rash'sbathroom, and came out with a towel slightly damped, which she passedover the patient's brow. She was so horribly at ease! It was as ifRash no longer had a personality whose rights one must respect. 

But he might get better! Miss Gallifer believed that he would! Barbaraclung to that as an anchor in this tempest of emotions. If he gotbetter he would open his eyes. If he opened his eyes it would be, fora little while at least, with his inhibitions suspended. If hisinhibitions were suspended the thing he most wanted would be in hisfirst glance; and if his first glance fell on her. .. . 

Chapter XXVI

Waiting was becoming dreamlike. She didn't find it tedious, orover-fraught with suspense. On the contrary, it was soothing. It was alittle trance-like, too, almost as if she had been enwrapped in Rash'sstillness. 

It was so strange to see him still. It was so strange to be stillherself. Of her own being, as of his, she had hardly any concept apartfrom the high winds of excitement. Calm like this was new to her, andbecause new it was appeasing, wonderful. It was not unlike content, only the content which comes in sleep, to be broken up by waking. Somewhere in her nature she liked seeing him as he was, helpless, inert, with no power of enraging her by being restive to her will. Itwas, in its way, a repetition of what she had said that morning: "Ifhe wasn't here--or if he was dead!" Longing for peace, her stormy soulseemed to know by instinct the price she would have to pay for it. Forpeace to be possible Rash must pass out of her life, and the thoughtof Rash passing out of her life was agony. 

While Miss Gallifer was downstairs at lunch Barbara had the sweet, unusual sense of having him all to herself. She had never so had himin their hours together because the violence of their clashes hadprevented communion. Seated in this silence, in this quietude, shefelt him hers. There was no one to dispute her claim, no one whoseclaim she had in any way to recognize as superior. Letty's claim shehad never recognized at all. It was accidental, spurious. Lettyherself didn't put it forth--and even she was gone. If Rash were toopen his eyes he would see no one but herself. 

She was sorry when Miss Gallifer came back, though there was no helpfor that; but Miss Gallifer was obtrusive only when she chatted ormoved about. For much of the time she pursued the secret of VioletPryde with such assiduity that the room became quiescent, andcommunion with Rash could be re-established. 

The awesome silence was disturbed only by the turning of MissGallifer's pages. It might have been three o'clock. Once more Barbarawas lost in the unaccustomed hush, her eyes fixed on the white face onthe pillow, in almost hypnotic restfulness. The pushing open of thedoor behind was so soft that she didn't notice. Miss Gallifer turnedanother page. 

It was the sense that someone was in the room which made Barbaraglance over her shoulder and Miss Gallifer look up. A little grayfigure in a battered black hat stood just within the door. She stoodjust within the door, but with no consciousness of anything or anyonein the room. She saw only the upturned face and its deathlike fixity. 

With slow, spellbound movement she began to come forward. Barbara, whohad never seen the Letty who used to be, knew her now only by aterrified intuition. Miss Gallifer was entirely at a loss, andsomewhat indignant. The little gray vagrant was not of the type shehad been used to treating with respect. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked quickly, as soon as speech cameto her. 

Letty didn't look at her, or remove her eyes from the face on thepillow. A woman in a trance could not have spoken with greaterdetachment or self-control. "I came--to see. "

"Well, now that you've seen, won't you please go away, before I callthe police?"

Of this Letty took no notice, going straight to the bedside, whileMiss Gallifer moved toward Barbara, who stood as she had risen fromher chair. 

"Do you know who she is?" Miss Gallifer asked, with curiosity greaterthan her indignation. 

Barbara nodded. "Yes, I know who she is. I thought she'd--disappeared. "

"Oh, they never disappear for long--not that kind. What had I betterdo? Is she anything--to _him_?"

Barbara was saved the necessity of answering because Letty, who was onthe other side of the bed, bent over and kissed the feet, as she hadkissed them once before. 

"Is she dotty?" Miss Gallifer whispered. "Ought I to take her by theshoulders and put her out the door? I could, you know--a scrap of athing like that. "

Barbara whispered back. "I can't tell you who she is, but--but Iwouldn't interfere with her. "

"Oh, the doctor'll do that. _He'll_ not----"

But Letty raised herself, addressing the nurse. "Is he--dead?"

Miss Gallifer's tone was the curt one we use to inferiors. "No, he'snot dead. "

"Is he going to die?"

"Not this time, I think. "

Letty looked round her. "Well, I'll just sit over here. " She went to achair at the back of the room, in a corner on a line with the door. "Iwon't give any trouble. The minute he begins to--to live I'll go. "

It was Barbara who arranged the matter peaceably, mollifying MissGallifer. Without explaining who Letty was she insisted on her rightto remain. If Miss Gallifer was mystified, it was no more than MissTowell was, or anyone else who touched the situation at a tangent. Tothat Barbara was indifferent, while Letty didn't think of it. 

In rallying her forces Barbara's first recollection had been, "I mustbe a sport. " With theoretical sporting instincts she knew herself thekind of sport who doesn't always run true to form. Hating meanness shecould lapse into the mean, and toward Letty herself had so lapsed. That accident she must guard against. The issues were so big thatwhatever happened, she couldn't afford to reproach herself. Self-reproach would not only magnify defeat but poison success, since, if she availed herself of her advantages, no success would ever proveworth while. 

For her own sake rather than for Letty's she made use of the hourwhile the doctors were again in consultation to explain thepossibilities. She would have the whole thing clearly understood. Whether or not Letty did understand it she wasn't quite sure, sinceshe seemed cut off from thought-communication. She listened, nodded, was docile to instructions, but made no response. 

To be as lucid as possible Barbara put it in this way: "Since you'veleft him, and I've broken my engagement he'll be absolutely free tochoose; and yet, you must remember, we may--we may both lose him. "

That both should lose him seemed indeed the more probable after theconsultation. All the doctors looked grave, even Dr. Lancing. Hisdinner-party manner had forsaken him as he talked to Barbara, hisemphasis being thrown on the word "prepared. " It was still one ofthose cases in which you couldn't tell, though so far the symptomswere not encouraging. He felt himself bound in honor to say as much asthat, hoping, however, for the best. 

Closing the front door on him Barbara felt herself shaken by afrightful possibility. If he never regained consciousness that would"settle it. " The suspense would be over. Her fate would be determined. She would no longer have to wonder and doubt, to strive or to cry. Nolonger would she run the risk of seeing another woman get him. Shewould find that which her tempestuous nature craved beforeeverything--rest, peace, release from the impulse to battle anddominate. Not by words, not so much as by thought, but only in wildemotion she knew that, as far as she was concerned, it might be betterfor him to die. If he lived, and chose herself, the storm would onlybegin again. If he lived and chose the other. .. . 

But as to that she could see no reasonable prospect. She had only tolook at Letty, shrinking in her corner of the bedroom, to judge anysuch mischance impossible. She was so humble; so negligible; so mucha bit of flotsam of the streets. She had an appeal of her own, ofcourse; but an appeal so lowly as to be obscured by the wayside dustwhich covered it. What was the flower to which Rash had now and thencompared her? Wasn't that what he called it--the dust flower?--thatragged blue thing of byways and backyards, which you couldn't touchwithout washing your hands afterwards. No, no! Not even the legal tiewhich nominally bound them could hold in the face of this inequality. It would be too grotesque. 

The hours passed. The night nurse was now installed, and was reading_Keith Macdermot's Destiny_. She was one of those tall, slender womenwhom you see to be all bone. As businesslike as Miss Gallifer, andquite as detached, Miss Moines was brisk and systematic. It being herhabit to subdue a household to herself before she entered on herduties her eyes regarded Miss Walbrook and Letty with the startledglance of a horse's. 

For before going Miss Gallifer had given her a hint. "You'll have todo a lot of side-stepping here. This is the famous House of Mystery. You'll find two nuts upstairs--that's what I'd call them if they weremen--but they're women--girls, sort of--and you've just got to leavethem alone. One's a high-stepper--regular society--was engaged to thepatient and now acts as if she'd married him; and the other--well, perhaps you can make her out; I can't. Seems a little off. May be thepoor castaway, once loved, and now broken-hearted but faithful, youread about in books. Anyhow, there they are, and you'd best let thembe. It won't be for more than--well, I give him twenty-four hours atthe most. I begin to think that for once old Wisdom is right. Good-looker too, poor fellow, and can't be more than thirty-five. Iwonder what could have happened? I suppose they'll go into that at theinquest. "

But Miss Moines was too systematic to have companions in the roomwithout marshaling them to some form of duty. They needed to eat; theyneeded to sleep. Now and then someone had to go out on the landing andcomfort or reassure Steptoe, who sat on the attic stairs like agrief-stricken dog. 

Letty was the first to consent to go and lie down. She did so aboutnine o'clock, extracting a promise that whatever happened she would becalled at twelve. If there was any change in the meantime--but that, Miss Moines assured her, was understood in all such ride-and-tiearrangements. At twelve Letty was to return and Barbara lie down tillthree, with the same proviso in case of the unexpected. But, so to putit, the unexpected seemed improbable, in view of that rigid form, andthe white, upturned face. 

"And yet, " Miss Moines confided to Barbara, "I don't think he's as fargone as they think. Miss Gallifer only changed her mind when theytalked her round. A doctor just sees the patient in glimpses, whereasa nurse lives with him, and knows what he can stand. "

About eleven Miss Moines closed _Keith Macdermot's Destiny_, and tookthe pulse. She nodded as she did so, with a slight exclamation oftriumph. "Ah, ha! Fifty-eight! That's the first good sign. It may notmean anything, but----"

Barbara was too exhausted to feel more than a gleam of comfort. Thelassitude being emotional rather than physical Miss Moines detected iteasily enough, and sent her to rest before the hour agreed upon. Shewent the more willingly, since the pulse had risen and hope couldbegin once more. 

On the stairs Steptoe raised his bowed head, with a dazed stare. Seeing Miss Walbrook he stumbled to his feet. 

"'Ow is 'e now, miss?"

She told him the good news. 

"Ah, thank God! Perhaps after all 'E'll spare 'im. "

Steptoe informed Letty, who right on the stroke of midnight returnedto her post. "Pulse gone up two of them degrees, madam. 'E's goin' topull through!"

To Letty this was a signal. On going to rest in the little backspare room she had thrown off her street things, worn during allthe hours of watching, and put on the dressing gown she had leftthere a few nights earlier. She was still wearing it, but atSteptoe's news she went back again. On passing him the second timeshe was clad in the old gray rag and the battered hat in which itwould be easier to escape. Steptoe said nothing; but he nodded tohimself comprehendingly. 

A clock struck two. Miss Moines was hungry. Expecting to be hungry shehad had a small tray, with what she called a "lunch, " placed for herin the dining-room. Had there been immediate danger she would not haveleft her post; but with Letty there she saw no harm in taking ten orfifteen minutes to conserve her strength. 

For the first time in all those hours Letty was alone with him. Notexpecting to be so left she was at first frightened, then audacious. Except for the one time when she had approached the bedside and kissedhis feet she had remained in her corner, watching with the silent, motionless intentness of a little animal. Her eyes hardly ever leftthe white face; but at this distance even the white face was dim. 

Now she was possessed by a great daring. She would steal to thebedside again. Again she would see the beloved features clearly. Againshe would have the amazing bliss of kissing the coverlet that coveredthe dear feet. When Miss Moines returned she would be back again inher corner, as if she had never left it. If the pulse rose higher, ifthere was further hope, if he seemed to be reviving, she could slipaway in the confusion of their joy. 

She rose and listened. The house was as still as it had been at othertimes when she had listened in the night. She glided to the bed. 

He lay as if he had been carved in stone, propped up with pillows tomake breathing easier, his arms outside the coverlet. He was a littleas he had been on the morning when she had passed her hand across hisbrow. As then, too, his hair rose in tongues of diabolic flame. 

She was near him. She was bending over him. She was bending not abovehis feet, but above his head. She knew how mad she was, but shecouldn't help herself. Stooping--stooping--closer--closer--her lipstouched the forked black mane of his hair. 

She leaped back. She leaped not only because of her own boldness, butbecause he seemed to stir. It was as if this kiss, so light, soimperceptible, had sent a galvanic throbbing through his frame. Sheherself felt it, as now and then in winter she had felt an electricspark. 

Her sin had found her out. She was terrified. He lay just as he hadlain before--only not quite--not quite! His arms were not just as theyhad been; the coverlet was slightly, ever so slightly, disturbed. Thenurse would see it and know that. .. . 

There was a stirring of a hand. It was so little of a stirring thatshe thought her eyes must have deceived her when it stirred again--arestless toss, like a muscular contraction in sleep. She was notalarmed now, only excited, and wondering what she ought to do. Sheought to run to the head of the stairs and call Miss Moines, only thatshe couldn't bring herself to leave him. 

Then, as she stood in her attitude of doubt, the eyes opened andlooked at her. They looked at her straight, and yet glassily. Theylooked at her with no gladness in the look, almost with norecognition. If anything there was a kind of sickness there, as if thefinding her by his bedside was a disappointment. 

"I know what it is, " she said to herself. "He wants--_her_. "

But the eyes closed again. The face was as white, the profile asrigid, as ever. 

She sped to Barbara, who was lying on a couch in the front spare room. "Come! He woke up! He wants you!"

Back in the bedroom she effaced herself. They were all therenow--Barbara, Steptoe, and Miss Moines. 

"It's what he would do, " Miss Moines corroborated, "if he was comingback. "

Letty had told part of what she had seen, but only part of it. Therest was her secret. The little mermaid's kiss had left the prince asinanimate as before; hers had brought him back to life!

It was the moment to run away. Miss Moines had said that having onceopened his eyes he would open them again. When he did he mustn't findher there. They were all so intent on watching that this was heropportunity. 

They were all so intent--but Steptoe. She was buttoning her jacketwhen she saw his eyes steal round in her direction. A second later hehad tiptoed back into the hall, and closed the door behind him. 

It was vexing, but not fatal. He had probably gone for something. While he was getting it she would elude him. One thing wascertain--she couldn't face the look of disappointment in those sickdark eyes again. She opened the door. She shut it noiselessly behindher. Steptoe wasn't there, and the way was free. 

Barbara stood just where Letty had described herself as standing whenthe eyes had given her that glassy stare. To herself she seemed tostand there for ever, though the time could be counted in minutes. Thepounding of her heart was like a pulsating of the house. 

The eyes opened again. They opened, first wearily, and then with afretful light which seemed to be searching for what they couldn'tfind. 

Barbara stood still. 

There was another stirring of the hand, irritated, impatient. A littlemoan or groan was distinctly of complaint. The eyes having rolledhither and thither helplessly, the head turned slowly on the pillow soas to see the other side of the room. 

"He's looking for something that he misses, " Miss Moines explained, wonderingly. "What do you suppose it can be?"

"He wants--_her_. "

Barbara found her at the street door, pleading with Steptoe, whoactually held her by the arm. The loud whisper down the stairs was acry as well as a command. 

"Come!"

At the bedroom door they parted. With a light instinctive push Barbaraforced Letty to go back to the spot on which she had stood earlier. She herself went to the other side of the bed, only to find that thehead, in which the eyes were closed again, was now turned that way. 

As if aware that some mysterious decision was approaching Miss Moineskept herself in the background. Steptoe had hardly advanced from thethreshold. Neither of the women by the bedside seemed to breathe. 

When the eyes opened for the third time the intelligence in them waskeener. On Barbara they rested long, quietly, kindly, till memory cameback. 

With memory there was again that restless stirring, that complainingmoan. Once more, slowly, distressfully, the head turned on thepillow. 

On Letty the long, quiet, kindly regard lay as it had lain on Barbara. They waited; but in the look there was no more than that. 

From two hearts two silent prayers were going up. 

"Oh, God, end it somehow--and let me have _peace_!"

"Oh, God, make him live again--and give them to each other!"

Then, when no one was expecting it, a faint smile quivered on thelips, as if the returning mind saw something long desired andcomforting. Faintly, feebly, unsteadily, the hands were raised towardthe dust flower. The lips moved, enough to form dumbly the one word, "Come!"

The invitation was beyond crediting. Letty trembled, and shrank back. 

But from the support of the pillow the whole figure leaned forward. The hands were lifted higher, more firmly and more longingly. Strengthcame with the need for strength. A smile which was of life, not death, beamed on the features and brought color to the face which had allthese hours seemed carved in stone. 

"He'll do now, " the nurse threw off, professionally. "He'll be up in afew days. "

It was Barbara who gave the sign to both Steptoe and Miss Moines. Bythe imperiousness of her gesture and her uplifted head she swept themout before her. If she was leaving all behind her she was leaving itsuperbly; but she wasn't leaving all. Back of her tumultuous passionsa spirit was crying to her spirit, "Now you'll get what you want farmore than you want this--rest from vain desire. "

Letty approached the bedside slowly, as if drawn by an enchantment. Tothe outstretched hands she stretched out hers. The door was closed, and once more she was alone with him. 

But neither saw that for the space of a few inches the closed door wasopened again, and that an old profile peered within. Then, as slowly, slowly, slowly, Letty sank on her knees, bowing her head on the handswhich drew her closer, and closer still, a pair of old lips smiledcontentedly. 

When the head drew back, the door was closed again. 

THE END

Transcriber's Notes:

 Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed in the original book except for the following changes. 

 Page 38: burred to blurred (her appearance struck him simply as blurred)

 Page 207: musn't to mustn't (They mustn't rush things. )

 Page 264: unbridgable to unbridgeable (The gulf had always been there, yawning, unbridgeable, )

 Missing/extra quote marks were silently corrected, however, punctuation has not been changed to comply with modern standards. Inconsistency in hyphenation and accented words has also been retained. 

 Two deviations in paragraph-ending punctuation in the original book should be noted: on Page 14, the paragraph beginning, "Within, a toy entry led. .. . " and on Page 42, "There was that about him. .. . " Both paragraphs end with a comma and have been retained, although throughout the book a colon was used to end these types of paragraphs in which dialogue immediately followed.