[Illustration: THE TRIMMING of GOOSIE by JAMES HOPPER]

 The Trimming of Goosie

 BY JAMES HOPPER Author of "Caybigan, " "9009, " etc. 

 NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1909

 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

 Published, September, 1909

 THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N. J. 

THE TRIMMING OF GOOSIE

CHAPTER I

"Why, Goosie, what are you doing?"

Goosie, otherwise Mr. Charles-Norton Sims, dropped his arms hastily downhis sides and stood very still, caged in the narrow space betweenporcelain tub and gleaming towel-rack. The mirror before which he hadbeen performing his morning calisthenics faced him uncompromisingly; itshowed him that he was blushing. The sight increased his embarrassment. For a moment panic went bounding and rebounding swiftly in paintedcontagion from Goosie to the mirror, from the mirror to Goosie; theblush, at first faint on Charles-Norton's brow, flamed, spread over hisface, down his neck, fell in cascade along his broad shoulders, and thenrippled down his satiny skin clear to the barrier of the swimming trunkstight about his waist. It was some time before he mustered the courageto turn his foolish face toward the door through which had sounded thecooing cry of his little wife. 

The door was but a few inches a-jar; it let pass only the roundlittle nose of the round little wife, between two wide-open blue-flowersof eyes. "What are you doing, Goosie?" she repeated in a tone slightlyamused but rich with a large tolerance; "what are you doing, Goosie, eh?"

"Nothing, Dolly, " he answered, his straight, athletic body a bit gawkywith embarrassment; "nothing. "

Then, as she peered, still doubtful, through the crack: "It's a newexercise I have--a dandy. See?"

And lamely he placed both his hands beneath his armpits and waved hiselbows up and down three times. 

"Oh, " she said, as if satisfied. 

But, as a matter of fact, this was not the accurate repetition of whatshe had seen. He had been standing before the mirror very straight, then, a-tip-toe, his chest bulging; his arms, bent with hands beneath theshoulders, had been beating up and down with a rapidity that made of thema mere white vibration, their tattoo upon his ribs like the beating of adrum; and suddenly, as if to some singular ecstasy, his head had goneback and out of his rounded mouth there had clarioned a clearcock-a-doo-del-doo-oo, much like that of chanticleer heralding the sun. 

"It's fine--it's fine for the pectoral muscles, " he went on, more firmly. 

"Well, " she said charitably, "jump into your bath, quick, dear. Breakfastis ready, and you'll be late at the office again if you don't hurry. " Sheclosed the door softly upon him. 

It was seldom that she intruded thus upon the mystery of his morninghygienics. It was with a clothed Charles-Norton that she had first fallenin love; and like most women (who, being practical, realize that, sinceit is dressed, after all, that men go through the world, it is dressedthat they must be judged) Dolly appreciated her handsome young husbandbest in his broad-shouldered sack-coat and well-creased trousers. 

Charles-Norton, still rather abashed, dropped into the cold green tub, splashed, rubbed down, dressed, and sat down to breakfast. As he ate hiswaffles, though, out of the blue breakfast set which Dolly's charming, puzzle-browed economy had managed to extort from the recalcitrant familybudget, his usual glowing loquacity of after-the-bath was lacking. Hiseyes wandered furtively about the little encumbered room; thoughts, visibly, rolled within his head which did not find his lips. And when hebade Dolly good-by, on the fifth-story landing, she missed in his kissthe usual warm linger. 

CHAPTER II

When Charles-Norton reached the street, a narrow side-street in whichlike a glacier the ice of the whole winter was still heaped, a whiff ofsoft air, perfumed with a suspicion of spring, struck him gently in theface. He drew it in deep within his lungs, and exhaled it in a long sigh. And then he stopped abruptly, and was standing very still, listening;listening to this sigh, to the echo of it still within his consciousness, as if testing it. He shook his head disapprovingly. "Gee, " he said; "hopeI'm not getting discontented again!"

As if in response, another gentle gust came down the street; he caughtit as it came and drew it deep within him. His chest swelled, his eyesbrightened. And then suddenly he tensed; he rose a-tip-toe, heels closetogether, his head went back; his hands stole to his armpits, and hiselbows began to wave up and down. 

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, catching himself up sharply; "here goes thatdarned flapping again!"

He looked up and down the street, assuming a negligent attitude. Hisforehead was red. "Nope, " he said. No one had seen him. "_She_ saw methis morning, " he thought, and the red of his forehead came down to hischeeks. "It's getting worse; a regular habit. Let me see--two, three; itbegan three weeks ago----"

He shook his head perplexedly and resumed his way toward the Elevatedstation. 

"It may have been all right when I was a boy, " he said to himself as heswung along. "But now!

"Let me see. I was fourteen, the first time. "

A picture rose before his eyes. It had happened in a far western land--aland that now remained in his memory as a pool of gold beneath aturquoise sky. He was lying there in the wild oats, upon his back, andabove him in the sky a hawk circled free. He watched it long thus, relaxed in a sort of droning somnolence; then suddenly, to a particularlyfine spiral of the bird in the air, something like a convulsion had shotthrough his body, and he had found himself erect, head back and chestforward, his arms flapping----

"'Twas the day before I ran away with the circus, " he soliloquized in themidst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum onbrake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I wentoff in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time thatflapping business came first. Every time I've done something wild andfoolish, I've flapped first like this. First I'd flap, then I'd feel likedoing something, I wouldn't know what, then I'd do it--and it would besomething foolish----"

The train slid up to the platform; he boarded it and by some miraclefound on the bench behind the door of the last car a narrow space inwhich he squeezed himself. 

"I'll have to stop it, " he said decisively. 

He drew from his breast pocket a note-book and a pencil. Opening the bookout across his knees, he bent over it and began to draw. He worked withconcentration, but seemingly with little result, for he drew onlydetached lines. There were spirals, circles, ovals, parabolas; linesthat curved upward, broke, and curved again downward, like gothic arches;lines that curved in gentle languor; lines that breathed like theundulations of a peaceful sea; and then just zipping, swift, straightlines that shot up to the upper end of the paper and seemed to continueinvisibly toward an altitudinous nowhere. This is all he drew, and yet ashe worked there was in his face the set of stubborn purpose, and in hiseyes the glow of aspiration. He tried to make each line beautiful andfirm and swift and pure. When he succeeded, he felt within himthe bubbling of a sweet contentment. This would be followed bydissatisfaction, renewed yearning--and he would begin again. 

"By Jove!" he muttered in sudden consternation, straightening away fromthe book. 

And then, "They began at the same time. "

And a moment later, "And they are the same. "

It had struck him abruptly that the strange urge which made him drawlines was like that which at times convulsed his body into thatmysterious manifestation which, for the want of a better word, he calledhis "flapping. " The two things had begun together, and they were of thesame essence. The impulse which possessed him as he tried for beauty withpaper and pencil was the same which swelled his lungs and his heart, which made him rise a-tip-toe and wave his arms. It came from a feelingof subtle and inexplicable dissatisfaction; it was made of a vague andvast longing. It was the same which, when a boy, had sent him to thebrake-beam, the circus, and the sea; it was to be distrusted. 

He slammed the book shut and put it in his pocket. "No more of this, " hesaid. 

A certain confidence, though, came gradually into his eyes. "After all, these things do not mean much now, " he thought. "I was a boy, then, andunhappy. I am a man, now, and happy. "

His mind idled back over the two years since his marriage, over the warmcoziness of the last two years. What a wife, this little Dolly! What alittle swaddler! She wrapped up everything as in cotton--all theasperities of Life, and the asperities of Charles-Norton himself also. Gone for the two years had been the old uncertainties, the vaguetumults, the blind surges. Yes, he was happy. 

This word happy, for the second time on his tongue, set him a-dreaming. A picture came floating before his eyes. And curiously enough, it wasnot of Dolly, nor of the padded little flat----

It was of a boy, a boy in blue overalls and cotton shirt, lying on hisback amid the wild oats of a golden land, his eyes to the sky, watchingup there the free wide circle of a hawk----

"Soy, Mister, wot the deuce do you think you're doing?" shouted a huskyand protesting voice in his ear. 

And Charles-Norton came back precipitously to the present. By his side apale youth was squirming indignantly. Charles-Norton's elbow was in theyouth's ribs, and his elbow was still stirring with the last oscillationof the movement that had agitated it. "Soy, " cried the youth in disgust;"d'yous think you's a chicken?"

"I beg your pardon, " said Charles-Norton, in an agony of humility; "I begyour pardon. "

But the youth refused to be mollified. Though he said nothing more, hekept upon Charles-Norton the snarl of his pale face and at regularintervals rubbed his ribs as though they pained him exceedingly. Charles-Norton was glad to reach his station. 

That morning, in his glass cage, he muddled his columns several times. Hewas far from an admirable accountant at his best; but this day he waswhat he termed "the limit. " Totals fled him like birds, with a whir ofwings. A sun-gleam hypnotized him once, for he did not know how long; andhis nose, a little later, followed for several gymnastic minutes theflutter of a white moth. 

At lunch, in Konrad's Bakery, he found himself seated, by a singularchance, next to the very same youth whose ribs he had crushed on theElevated a few hours before. The young man was in more amiable mood. Hegrinned. "Don't you flap again and spill me coffee, Mr. Chicken, " hesaid, with delicate persiflage. 

"I won't, " said Charles-Norton. "I'll buy you another cup if I do. "

"Got a dollar?" asked the youth, irrelevantly. His thin, pale nosequivered a bit. 

"I don't know, " said Charles-Norton, hesitatingly. Dollars were big inhis budget. "Why?"

The youth drew from a pocket a yellow cardboard. "Got a lottery ticket Iwant to sell, " he said easily. "Little Texas. Hundred Thousand firstprize and lots of other prizes. Got to sell it to pay me lunch. Playedthe ponies yesterday. "

Charles-Norton eyed the ticket doubtfully. Usually, he would not haveconsidered the matter a moment. But somehow the incident of the morninghad placed him at a disadvantage toward the pale youth. Vaguely he wasmoved by a wish to regain by some act the respect of this exactingperson. He bought the ticket. 

"Maybe this was the foolish act that all this flapping announced, " hesaid to himself, once outside, in answer to a not uncertain prick of hismarital conscience. "Buying this ticket is like buying a lightning-rod;it may draw off the lightning!"

But his singular malady, during the afternoon, did not disappear. Itwaxed, in fact; it passed the borders of the spiritual and assumedphysical symptoms. "Dolly, " he said, when he was again within the warmthof the little flat in the evening; "Dolly, would you mind looking at myshoulders after a while?"

"Why, of course, I'll look at them, Goosie, " answered Dolly, immediatelyalert at the possibility of doing something for the big man; "what is thematter with your shoulders, Goosie?"

"I don't know, " he said, sinking a bit wearily into the Morris chair. "They pain; just like rheumatism or growing pain. And they tickle too, Dolly; they tickle all the time. " He crossed his arms, raising a hand toeach shoulder, and rubbed them with a shiver of delight. "It's anuisance, " he said. 

"Well, we'll see about it right away, " said Dolly. "Right after supper. "Her eyes grew big with concern. "You may have caught cold. Come on, dear, " she said, brightening; "I've the dandiest, deliciousest soup, right out of the _Ladies' Home Journal_, for you!"

CHAPTER III

"Why, Goosie; I tell you the lumps are growing. They're great big now, Goosie. Oh, why don't you let me take you to the doctor! I _know_something is the matter!"

Dolly had tears in her eyes almost, and her voice was very dolorous. Forthe fourteenth time in two weeks, she was treating the singular shouldersof Charles-Norton. He was sitting beneath the glow of the evening lamp, his coat off, his shirt pulled down to his elbows; and she, standingbehind the chair, was leaning solicitously over him. A wisp of her haircaressed his right ear, but somehow did not relax his temper. "Well, letthem alone, Dolly, " he growled; "let them alone. Good Lord, let themalone!"

For two weeks he had been getting more and more peevish. To be sure, for two weeks, daily, his shoulders had been washed and rubbed andmassaged and lotioned and parboiled and anointed and fomented andcapsicon-plastered, till his very soul was sensitive and a suspicionwas agrowl within him--a bad, mean feeling that Dolly was finding a bit, just a bit, of something akin to pleasure in the ardor of herministrations. Besides, he was fighting a moral fight of his own. Greatbursts of dissatisfaction swept through him every day now; and it wasonly by a constant vigilance that he kept his vagrant elbows closeto his ribs. 

"Let them be for a while, Dolly, " he repeated in gentler tone. "Besides--besides----"

But he left unsaid the thought following the "besides. " "Now, dear, " saidDolly, kindly, but with a certain firmness; "you've simply got to let mesee what I can do. Why, Goosie, you can't go on in this way! You'd begetting humps on your back! No--no; we'll try a nice little ice-packto-night. "

"I don't want any ice-packs!" yelped Charles-Norton (what a bad-manneredyoung man he had become!); "I'm tired of fomentations and things!Besides"--and this time the besides did not pause, but burst out of himlike a stream from a high-pressure hydrant--"besides, it isn't what Iwant----" And to an irresistible impulse his right hand reached out for abrush and, crossing over to his left shoulder, began rubbing itvigorously. 

"Goosie, Goosie, my clothes-brush, my best clothes-brush!"

But the lament in Dolly's voice had little effect upon Charles-Norton. Hewas brushing himself with grave concentration. "Get the flesh-brush, " hemumbled between set teeth, rubbing the while; "Gee, this feels good. Getthe pack to-night. "

Dolly ran into the bath-room and returned with the flesh-brush;Charles-Norton made an exchange without losing a stroke. "That'ssomething like it, " he murmured. 

"But, Goosie, " began Dolly. Her voice was low now; she stood withdrawnfrom him as if a bit afraid; her hands were clasped and her lipstrembled. "Goosie, dear; don't do that. Oh, don't; you'll hurt yourself. It's getting all red, Goosie. You're rubbing the skin off, I tell you. Why, it's almost bleeding--Goosie, Goosie, stop it, stop it!"

"Feels lots better, " he said unfeelingly. "Look at it. " And transferringthe brush to his left hand, he began to rub the right shoulder, raisinghis left for Dolly's inspection. 

She approached timidly. "You've rubbed all the poor skin off, " sheannounced. "It's bleeding. " He felt the light touch of her fingers. "Why, Goosie--there's something--something. Why, Goosie!"

The last was almost a cry, and the silence that followed had anawe-stricken pulse. "What is it?" he asked, still busily brushing. 

"Why, there's something"--again he felt the tender touch of herfingers--"there're a lot of little things--a lot of little thingspricking right through the skin!"

"Let me rub it some more, " he said, transferring the brush. "Now, look atit, " he said, after several more vigorous minutes of his strangetreatment. 

"Goosie!"

This time it was a cry to stab the heart. He dropped the brush and lookedup at her. She was pale, and her eyes were very big. "Well, what is thematter now, " he asked impatiently. 

She came near again, still pale, but with lips tight. "A-ouch!" heyelped. 

For with a sudden sharp movement, she had plucked something out of hisshoulder. A smart came into his eyes; it was as if a lock of hair hadbeen pulled out by the roots. "Look at this, Goosie, " she said withforced calmness, and placed something in his hand. 

It was very small and very soft. He dropped his eyes upon it as it laylightly in his palm. "Good lord!" he ejaculated, his bad humor gonesuddenly into a genuine concern; "Good Lord!" he said, rising to his feetin consternation; "it's a; it's a----"

"It's a feather, " said Dolly, with sepulchral finality; "it's a feather. "

It was a feather--a soft, downy, white, baby feather. Charles-Nortonlooked at it long, as it lay, shivering slightly, there in his palm. Hetook it up and passed the luster of it slowly through his fingers. Something like a smile gradually came into his face. He raised thefeather against the light of the lamp. His eyes brightened. 

"Isn't it pretty, Dolly?" he said. "Isn't it pretty? just look at it. Sowhite, and fresh, and new, and glistening. And see the curve, the slendercurve of it--oh, Dolly, isn't it pretty and fine?"

But Dolly, collapsed in a chair, broke out a-crying. "Oh, Goosie, Goosie, what are we going to do now?" she wailed; "what are we to do? O--O----"

"Well, " said Charles-Norton, the spirit of contradiction which forseveral days had been within him rising to his lips; "well, _I_ don't seewhat there is to make so much fuss about. A few feathers are not going tohurt a man, are they? 'Tisn't as if I were insane, or had hydrophobia!"

"But, Goosie, Goosie, _no_ one has feathers on his shoulders! No one_ever_ had feathers on his shoulders! No other man _in the world_ everdid that; none in the world _ever_ had feathers on his shoulders thatway! Oh, Goosie, Goosie, what shall we do!!!"

"Let them alone, " said Charles-Norton, now quite vexed. "They're mine;they don't hurt _you_, do they? Let 'em alone!" He raised his arms andbegan to slip his shirt up again. 

The tears ceased to drip from Dolly's eyes. "You can't do that, " shesaid, a maternal firmness coming into her voice. "Why, Goosie, what wouldthey think of you down at the office?"

"At the office? Why, they won't know it!"

"But _you'll_ know it, Goosie. All the time, you'll know it. Goosie, youdon't want to be different, do you? You want to be like other men, don'tyou? You don't want to be _different_?"

This argument had some effect on Charles-Norton. He stood very still, scratching his head pensively. "Well, " he said finally, "maybe you'reright. Maybe we had better keep them cut short. "

"Oh, Goosie!" cried Dolly, joyously, and bounded from the room. She camerunning back with the scissors. "Come, quick!" she panted. "I'll cutthem, short. 'Twon't be much trouble after all, will it? I'll cut themevery day. It will be just like shaving--no more trouble than that!"

And she slid the scissors along Charles-Norton's skin with a cold, decisive little zip. He could see her head, cocked a bit side-ways withconcentration, reflected in the glass panes of the side-board as she cutand cut, closer and closer. Her rosy nostrils were distended slightly;upon her tight lip the tip of a small white tooth gleamed. A light shiverpassed along Charles-Norton's spine. "Gee, I didn't think she could looklike this, " he thought. 

CHAPTER IV

Following this little disturbance the Sims couple, lowering their heads, side by side, resolutely regained the smooth rut of their placidexistence. Everything in this world is easier than is imagined. Mucheasier. In the case of the Sims' household, it was just a matter ofadding each morning, to the daily shave of Charles-Norton, anotheroperation quite as facile. 

"Dolly, " he would call, as soon as his hot towel had removed from hisruddy cheeks the last bubbles of lather. 

And Dolly, her hungry little scissors agleam in her hand, trotted inalacriously. She sat Charles-Norton on the edge of the tub and bent overhim her happy, humming head. Zip-zip-zip, went the scissors, zip-zip--anda soft white fluff that looked like the stuffing of a pillow (an A-onepillow; not the kind upon which Charles-Norton and Dolly laid theirmodest heads) eddied slowly to Charles-Norton's feet while he shiveredslightly to the coldness of the steel. (Dolly cut very close. )

Then, "All right; all done, " she sang, dropping the scissors into theround pocket of her crackling apron; "now to breakfast, quick! Andhere's a kiss for the good boy. "

Placing her red lips upon his, she whisked off to the kitchenette; andCharles-Norton, emerging all dressed a little later, found the cheerfulblue ware on the table, and his waffles upon his plate, hot beneath hisnapkin. After which, stuffing the morning paper into his pocket, hedeparted with another kiss on the landing, and strode forth for the L. Life was just as before. 

And yet, not quite. Because, to tell the truth, Charles-Norton was notabsolutely happy. 

He could not have told what was the matter. Mostly, it was an emptiness. An emptiness is hard to analyze. He knew that there was much of which heshould be content. With the careful repression of the vagaries of hisshoulders, there had come to him a new attentiveness at his work. Hisnose, now, never wandered after passing butterflies, and his salary hadbeen raised to twenty-two dollars a week. Also, the ridiculous flappinghad gone, and the impulse to draw fool lines upon a card. 

But with these--and that was the trouble--other things had vanished. Thatdeep filling of his lungs with spring, for instance. And the longing thatwent with it. That was it--the longing. He longed for the longing--ifthat is comprehensible. He longed vaguely for a longing that had beenhis, and which was gone. He never saw, now, a land that was as a goldenpool beneath a turquoise dome; nor a boy in the wild oats watching acircling hawk. 

And there was something else, something more definite. He felt thatDolly--yes, Dolly took too much pleasure, altogether too much pleasure inthat clipping business. Of course, the clipping had to be. He knew that. A respectable man can't have feathers on his shoulders. It was necessary. But somehow he would have felt that necessity more, if Dolly had feltit--less. He would have liked a chance to voice it himself. If Dolly, now, only would, some fine morning, say, "Oh, Goosie, let them beto-day; they are so pretty, " then he could have answered, very firmly, "No, clip away!" But she never gave him that chance. She was always soradiantly ready! As he watched her head in the mirror, bent upon the busyscissors with an expression of tight determination, a distinct irritationseized him sometimes. 

Charles-Norton, in short, was accumulating, drop by drop, a masculinegrouch. A grouch deeper than he realized, till that morning. 

That morning Dolly, in the midst of the daily operation, paused withscissors in air, a sudden inspiration upon her brow. 

"Oh, Goosie, " she exclaimed; "How would it be to cauterize them?"

Charles-Norton gave a jump. "Cauterize!" he cried; "cauterize what?"

"Why, the little feathers. Supposing we burned the place, you know, withnitrate of silver, or something like that. They do it to people who havemoles--or when they have been bitten by a mad dog. Maybe--maybe it wouldstop it--altogether. "

Charles-Norton looked up at her. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes werebright; she was excited and pleased with her ingenious idea. A cold waverose about Charles-Norton and closed over his head. "Say, '" he bawledungraciously; "what do you take me for! Think I'm made of asbestos?"

Discreet Dolly immediately dropped the subject; though somehowCharles-Norton had the distinct impression that it was only discreetlythat she did so, that, in fact, she was not dropping the idea, but merelytucking it away somewhere within the secret hiding-places of her being, for further use. He could still see it, in fact, graven there upon thewhiteness of her voluntary little forehead. 

He brooded black over it all day. He brooded on other things, too--insignificant things that had happened in the past, that had notmattered one whit then, but which now, beneath his fostering care, beganto grow into big, flapping boog-a-boos. And when he returned that night, he was a very mean Charles-Norton. He spoke hardly a word at dinner, pretended he did not like the vanilla custard over which Dolly had toiledall day, her soul aglow with creative delight, sipped but half of hisdemi-tasse (as though the coffee were bitter, which it wasn't), and wentoff to bed early with a good-night so frigid that Dolly's little nosetingled for several minutes afterward. 

And the next morning, when Dolly, astonished at the delay, finally peepedinto the bath-room, scissors in hand, she found Charles-Norton fullydressed, his coat on. 

"Why, Goosie, " she said in surprise; "I haven't clipped you yet!"

"No?" he growled enigmatically. 

"Take off your coat, dearie, " she went on. 

"And you're not going to, " said Charles-Norton, finishing his statementwith complete disregard of hers. 

Dolly stood there a moment, looking at him with head slightly cocked toone side. "All right, Goosie, " she said cheerily. "Only, don't get mad atpoor little me. Come on to breakfast, you big, shaggy bear, you!"

"I don't _want_ any breakfast, " growled Charles-Norton between closedteeth (as a matter of fact, he did, and a fragrance of waffles from thekitchen was at the moment profoundly agitating the pit of his being). "Idon't _want_ any breakfast--where's my hat--quick, I'm in ahurry--good-by. "

And tossing the hat bellicosely upon his head, he pulled to himself thehall door, swaggered through, and let it slam back on his departingheels, right before the astonished nose of his little wife. 

She remained there before this rude door, examining its blank surfacewith a sort of objective curiosity. At the same time she was listening tothe sound of steps gradually diminishing down the five flights. She shookher head; "the bad, bad boy!" she said. 

She pivoted with a shrug of the shoulders and went back to the kitchenand sat down at the table, all set for breakfast. She took up her forkand cut off a bit of waffle. She placed it in her mouth. Her eyes wentoff far away. 

It took it a long time, this little piece of waffle, to go down. Lordie, what a tough, resilient, flannelly, bit of waffle this was! Suddenly herhead went forward. It lit upon the table, in her hands. A cup of theprecious blue ware, dislodged, balanced itself a moment on the edge ofthe table, then, as if giving up hope, let go and crashed to the floorat her feet in many pieces. She gave it no heed. Her head was in herhands, her hands were on the table, her hair lay like a golden deltaamong plates and saucers; and the table trembled. 

CHAPTER V

Meanwhile Charles-Norton was not having such a good time either. Startingoff swaggeringly, he had halted three times on his way to the station, and three times had taken at least two steps back toward the flat whichhe felt desolate behind him. And now in his glass cage, a weight was athis stomach, a constant weight like an indigestible plum-pudding. Atregular intervals, as he bent over his books, he felt his heart descendswiftly to the soles of his feet; he paled at the sight of a telegraphmessenger, at the sound of the telephone bell. He had visions ofhospitals--of a white cot to which he was brought, a white cot aboutwhich grave men stood hopelessly, and on the pillow of which spread acascade of golden hair. Too imaginative, this Charles-Norton, tooimaginative altogether!

He did not know that after a while Dolly had risen, and a bit wearily, with heavy sighs, had washed the dishes; that after this she had put thelittle flat in order; that during this operation, in spite of her bestefforts, she had felt her woe slowly oozing from her; that theprovisioning tour in the street and stores gay with gossipy, bargainingyoung matrons, had almost completed this process; and that a providentialpeep in a milliner's window, which had suddenly solved for her theharassing problem of the spring hat (she had seen one she liked and witha flash of inspiration had seen how she could make one just like it outof her old straw and some feathers long at the bottom of her trunk) hadsent her bounding back up her five flights of stairs with a song purringin her heart. 

So that when, returning in the evening, Charles-Norton opened the doorwith bated breath, to find Dolly humming happily in the kitchen, he wasstruck by something like disappointment. "She's shallow, " he thought;"doesn't feel. " He did not mean by this, of course, that he wished shehad in despair done something catastrophic. He meant merely--well, he didnot know what he meant. He was disillusioned, that was all. This was buta prosy world after all. Few Heroics here!

And immediately a warning knocked at his consciousness. He must becareful if he were to hold what advantage he had gained in the day. Heturned from the kitchen threshold and silently slunk back into the roomwhich was both dining and sitting-room, and isolated himself behind thespread pages of the evening paper. He was curt and cold the entireevening. And in the morning he again left with calculatedviolence--breakfastless and unsheared. 

This time, Dolly did not weep. She sat long on the edge of her bed, thinking silently; then a silver rocket of sound broke the sepulchralquiet of the flat. Dolly had had a vision of what must inevitably happen;and Dolly was laughing. 

It took just ten days to happen--ten days which were rather disagreeable, of course, but which Dolly, sure of the trumps in her little hands, borewith jolly fortitude. All that time, Charles-Norton glowered constantly. He was monosyllabic and ostentatiously unhappy. This more than wasnecessary, and very deliberate. It had to be deliberate; for, as a matterof fact, on the outside Charles was not having at all a bad time. 

The exaltation of the ante-clipping days had returned--returnedheightened, and was still growing day by day. A constant joyous babbling, as of some inexhaustible spring, lay at the bottom of his soul. Hissenses were singularly acute. He thrilled to a leaf, to a bud, to a patchof blue sky; and the thrill remained long, a profound satisfaction withinhim, after the stimulant had gone. With the resolution of a roué plungingback into his vice after an enforced vacation, he had brought a largesketch book; and he passed much time drawing lines into it--rapid beautystreaks that gave him a sensation of birds. He saw often, now, a landwhich was as a pool of gold beneath a turquoise sky; and a boy in thewild oats watching a circling hawk. At such times his lungs filled deepwith the spring, and his arms were apt to beat at his sides in rapidtattoo. This, in fact made up solely his morning exercises now. Standingwith legs close together, a-tip-toe, head back and chest forward, placinghis hands beneath his shoulders he waved his arms up and down in a beatthat rose in fervid crescendo, till his eyes closed and there wentthrough him a soaring ecstasy that threatened at times to lift him fromthe floor. 

All this, of course, was not without its disadvantage. Vaguely he feltthat in some subtle way he was gaining the disapproval of his fellows. Men were apt to look at him askance, half doubtful, half-indignant. Theytread on his toes in the Elevated. His work, too, was going to pot; hecould not stick to his figures. His chief, an old fragile-neckedbook-keeper, had spoken to him once. 

"Mr. Sims, " he had said, after a preliminary little cough; "Mr. Sims, youought to take care of your health. You are not well. "

"Oh, yes I am, " answered Charles-Norton, absent-mindedly. His eyes wereon the ceiling, where a fly was buzzing. "I'm all right!"

"You should--er--you should consult--a specialist, Mr. Sims. Don't youknow--your shoulders, your back--you should consult a spine-specialist, Mr. Sims. "

"Oh, that's all right, " said Charles-Norton, easily. "Don't worry. " Andthus he had sent back the old gentleman baffled to his high stool. 

And then came Dolly's day. 

"Dolly! Dolly! Dolly!"

It was morning, before breakfast. Charles-Norton was in the bedroom;Dolly was setting the table in the living-room. She paused, and stoodvery still, while a little knowing smile parted her lips. 

"Dolly! Dolly! Dolly!" Again came the call, unmistakable, music toDolly's ear. She tip-toed to the door. From within sounded a threshingnoise, as of a whale caught in shallows. "Yes. What is it?" she calledback melodiously, mastering her desire to rush in. 

"Come here, Dolly, " said the male voice. "Come here. "

"I'm coming, " said Dolly, and went in with a slightly bored expression. 

"Help me, Dolly, " said the perspiring and be-ruffled gentleman within. "Ican't--can't--get my coat on. "

"Why, Goosie; of course I'll help you. "

But the help, although almost sincere, was powerless. The coat would notgo on. The sleeves rose to the elbows smoothly, half way to theshoulders with more effort--but here they stuck, refusing to slide overthe top of the shoulders. On each side of the spine, almost cracking theshirt, a protuberance bulged which the coat could not leap. 

He stood there puffing, his hair mussed up, his eyes wrathful. "Well, " hegrowled at length; "why don't you go get your scissors. "

"Shall I?" she said doubtfully--and at the same time bounced out like alittle rabbit. "Take off your shirt, Goosie, " she said, returning withthe gleaming instruments, now symbolical of her superior common-sense. 

She aided him. She took off his collar and tie, unfastened the buttons, and then she was tugging at the shirt. It slid down, uncovering theshoulders. There was a dry, crackling sound, as of a fan stretchedopen--and Dolly sat down on the floor. "Oh-oh-oh, " she cried, "Go-oo-oo-ssie-ie!"

He stood there, looking out of the corner of his eye at his reflection inthe mirror, red-faced and very much abashed. For with the slipping of theshirt, on his shoulders there had sprung, with the movement of areleased jack-in-the-box, two vibrant white things. 

Two gleaming, lustrous, white things that were----

"They're wings, " said Dolly, still on the floor. "_They are wings_, " sherepeated, in the tone of one saying, _He is dead_. "Now, Goosie, you_have_ done it!"

But a change had come in Charles-Norton. The blush had left his brow, thefoolish expression his face; he was pivoting before the mirror like awoman with a new bonnet. 

"I _like_ them, " he said. 

And then, "Just look at them, Dolly. Just look at the curve of them. Isn't it a beautiful curve! And the whiteness of them, Dolly--like ababy's soul. And how downy--soft like you, Dolly. Look at them gleam. And they move, Dolly, they move! Dolly, oh, look!"

The wings were gently breathing; their slender tips struck his waist ateach oscillation. The movement quickened, became a beat, a rapidpalpitation. A soft whirring sound filled the room; the newspaper on thebed, dislodged, eddied to the floor; the wings were a mere white blur. Suddenly Charles-Norton's feet left the floor, and he rose slowly intothe air. "Look, look, Dolly, " he cried, as he went up, hovering aboveher up-tilted nose and her wide eyes, as she sat there, paralyzed, uponthe ground; "Dolly, look!"

The humming sound took a higher note; a picture crashed down; the roomwas a small cyclone. "Dolly, watch me; look!"

And with a sudden leap, Charles-Norton slanted up toward the ceiling andlit, seated, on the edge of the shelf that went along the four walls. "Look, " he said with triumph, balancing smilingly on his perch. 

But immediately his expression changed to one of concern, and he sprangdown quickly and quietly. Dolly was now stretched full-length along thecarpet; her face was in her arms. He turned it to the light. Her eyeswere closed. 

Dolly had fainted. 

CHAPTER VI

A husband who has a wife that faints is in the grasp of the great It. 

Full of fear, pity, remorse, and self-hatred, Charles-Norton danced abouthelplessly for several minutes, sprinkling water upon Dolly's brow (muchof it went down her neck); trying to pour bad whiskey between her pearlyteeth; calling himself names; chafing her hands, promising to be good, todo always what she wanted; loosening her garments; proclaiming the factthat he was a brute, she an angel--while the wings, loose down his back, flapped after him in long, mournful gestures. And when finally, from thecouch upon which he had drawn her, Dolly opened upon him her blue eyes, humid as twin stars at dawn, he placed her little scissors in her hand, and with head bowed low, in an ecstatic agony of self-renunciation badeher do her duty. The little scissors could not do it this time, though. It took the shears. 

After which there were a mingling of tears, murmurings, embraces, andDolly said that the bad, bad times were all over now, and he agreed thatthey could never come again; and she said they would be happy everafterward, and he agreed they should be happy always. Then Dolly, still abit languid, in a voice still a bit doleful, drove him off to the office. 

Where he arrived very late, and had to pass the gauntlet of his chiefsfrigid ignoring of the dereliction. 

When Charles-Norton had gone, Dolly suddenly sat up with a click of smallheels upon the floor. She remained thus some time, a frown between hereyes. She was not triumphant, she was worried. She seemed to recognizedanger; her transparent nostrils dilated to the smell of powder; andplainly, you could see her steel her being. After a while she nodded toherself, curtly and very decidedly, and went on about her work. 

She met Charles-Norton at the door when he returned in the evening. Hewas somewhat limp after a day of _mea culpas_! and she, a quarter of anhour before the time for his reappearance, had powdered her nose--which, she knew, gave her an expression half amusing, half piteous, just likethat of the clown who is playing his tricks at the circus while hislittle daughter is dying at home. "Hello, Goosie, " she said breathlessly(also she had rubbed a trace of rouge under her eyes); "hello, just intime for dinner! Made a fine chocolate cake. Poor dear, you look sotired!"

And after supper, which in spite of Dolly's very ostensible effort atexuberance, was rather silent, for Charles-Norton, with a man'sdetestation of "scenes, " still felt somewhat embarrassed at thehappenings of the morning, she drew up the Morris chair to the lamp, satCharles-Norton in it, and filled his pipe for him. When thus "fixed upcomfy, " he felt a soft breath upon his neck, and two little hands at hisneck-tie. Off came tie and collar, and then the coat, and then the shirt, and then--zip-zip. 

"Say, Dolly, " he remonstrated mildly; "couldn't you wait till morning?"

"There, " she said; "it's almost all done. Just a wee bit more here. There! Now here is a kiss! It didn't hurt, Goosie, did it?"

And Charles-Norton had to concede that it did not hurt. How could he haveexplained the subtle feeling within him, that sort of swooping descent ofhis inwards that came with, and the dullness of all things which followedalways his shearings?

"No, it didn't hurt, " he repeated. But a vague dissatisfaction like ayeast stirred within him, and a flicker, --beaten down immediately, it istrue, trampled, smothered, --of revolt. 

Calmly, coolly, efficiently, though, Dolly had taken the upper hand. Thenext morning she sent him sheared to the office; she sent him sheared thesame night to bed. 

And thus day after day for many days. Every morning Charles-Norton wentout to his work full of emptiness (if that phrase is permissible), emptyof heart, empty of mind, without a desire, without an anger. The warmJune days had come; he had changed his underwear. He felt the season onlyas a discomfort. The emerald explosions visible at the end of each streetas the L train passed along Central Park did not stir him; the tepid airsdrifting lazily from the sea, the fragrant whiffs from the depths of thegerminating land, passed over him as though he were made of asbestos. Aninsulation was about him, removing him from all things that thrill, allthings that distend; there was no color, no vibration in the world;iridescences had ceased; the chamber of his soul had been painted a dulldrab. 

He had regained, though, the esteem of his fellows. The subtle andunerring instinct which had made them suspicious in the days ofhis--misfortune, now in the same inexplicable way told them that he wasnormal again. They looked at him no longer askance. In fact, they did notlook at him at all. They accepted him without question in crush of streetand L; gave him his rightful space (nine and a half inches in diameter);trod on his feet only when forced to (by the impulse to obtain a morecomfortable position); poked their elbows into his stomach only whennecessary (that is, when they had to get out or in ahead of him); and onthe whole surrounded him with that indifference which at the bottom is asort of regard, which means that one conforms, that one's derby, sack-suits, socks and shoes, habits, ideas, morals and religion are justexactly like the derbies, sack-suits, socks and shoes, habits, ideas, morals and religion of everyone else, and hence right. At the office hehad regained the appreciation of his chiefs; his salary had been raisedto twenty-two dollars and a half a week and his working hours from eightto nine hours. His home life was the standard ideal one. That is, he gotup at the same time every morning, left punctually at the same hour, tookthe L, arrived at the office on the minute, worked with his nose close tothe ruled pages, steadily, without a distraction, till 12. 30, had hismacaroon tart and cup of coffee at Konrad's Bakery, smoked his five-centcigar in the nearby square till 1. 30, worked again till 5. 30, returnedhome on the L, pressed tight like a lamb on the way to the packing-house, had a cozy little dinner upon which Dolly had spent all her ingenuity, smoked his pipe in the Morris chair, and then read the paper till thesudden contact of his chin with his chest and Dolly's amused warning senthim off to bed. A very moral, regular, exemplary existence. Dolly wasvery happy. 

And then, just as this couple could see the track clear ahead, stretching smooth and nickel-plated to infinity, an ugly complicationbegan to worm itself into the serenity of their lives. 

This complication arose from the fact that the suppressed wings ofCharles-Norton began to grow faster. Each day, now, Charles-Norton, returning home, brought with him to Dolly a task more serious andconsiderable. She had long ago discarded the little scissors and usedspecial shears made to cut heavy cardboard; and she finished off with asafety razor. 

The result of this increase in the rate of winged growth was that, whereas Charles-Norton every morning left home placid and docile, hischaracter gradually changed during the day. Starting at his work in thespirit of a blind horse at the mill, by ten o'clock he was apt to findhimself, pen-holder in mouth, nose up in the air, following theevolutions of a buzzing flylet. By eleven o'clock, the cage had becomevery stuffy; spasmodic intakes swelled his chest, ghost longings stirredwithin him. When he got out at 12. 30 the sun seemed to pour right throughhis skin, into the drab chamber of his soul, gilding it. He hurried overhis macaroon tart and cup of coffee, and then had three-quarters of anhour left to idle in the square. 

He prepared for this gravely, as for a ceremony; first by buying aPippin. A slender, light-brown Pippin, scientifically sprinkled withgolden freckles, for five cents. (A daily Pippin was a recognized item ofthe family budget; at one time Charles Norton had carried his pipe withhim, but Dolly, noticing the doubtful fragrance given by said pipe to theclothes of Charles-Norton, had insisted upon the extravagance of thedaily Pippin). Having bought the Pippin, Charles-Norton did not light itright away. Oh, no. He ambled first to the square. He selected his benchcarefully--one upon which the sun shone, but shone with a light filteredby the leaves of a low-branching elm. He sat down; he stretched his legsstraight before him. Then slowly, with deliberation of movement, hescratched a match. He brought the spluttering end near his nose. ThePippin began to send forth effluvia, an exquisite vapor, faintly-blue. Charles-Norton half closed his eyes; his soul began to purr. 

Before him a fountain plashed; about the fountain were red blossoms; theelms rustled gently against the blue sky; through the delicate lace oftheir leaves the sun eddied down like a very light pollen; and all this, through the Pippin's exquisite atmosphere, was enveloped and smoothed andglazed into a picture--a slightly hazy dream-picture. Charles-Nortonstretched his legs still more; his shoulders rose along the sides of hishead. He was as at the bottom of the sea--a warm and quiet summer sea. Down through its golden-dusty waters, a streak of sun, polished like arapier, diagonaled, striking him on the breast; and to its vivifying burnhe felt within him his heart expand, as though it would bloom, like thered flowers about the fountain. 

Upon the other benches sprawled some of the city's derelicts. The sun wasupon them also; they stirred uneasily to its caress, with sighs andgroans, their warped bodies, petrified with the winter's long cold, distending slowly in pain. Pale children in their buggies slept withmouths open, gasping like little fish; some played upon the asphalt. 

Charles-Norton, by this time, was apt to be far away; far in anotherland. He lay upon his back and watched a hawk on high. 

The sparrows usually brought him back. They played about his feet; theychirped, hopped, and tattled; they peered side-ways at him and gave himjerky nods of greeting. At times one of them, to a sudden inspiration, sprang into the air; with a whir he flashed up to the top of a tree. Tothe movement, something within Charles-Norton leaped to his throat. 

Across the park, gaunt behind the trees, rose the tall steel frame of anew building; and away up at the top of it (which was higher every day) aworkingman, on a girder, ate his lunch. Charles-Norton liked this man; acurrent of comradeship always ran from him to the little figuresilhouetted up against the blue. He should have liked to eat his lunch upthere, side by side with this man, his legs swinging next to his, withthe void beneath. And then, he thought, after lunching, he would like tostand erect, away up there, at the tip edge of one of the projectingbeams; to stand there a bit, and then spring off; spring off lightly, andwhiz down; down, down, down with outspread arms. 

Which was a very foolish thought for a man that worked in a cage todream. Very foolish, even if the cage were of glass. Just about that timethe Pippin went out in a black smolder, and from a nearby church, hiddenbetween great sky-scrapers, a big ding-dong bell said resonantly that itwas half-past one. 

He returned to the office. Every afternoon, now, was a tingling trial. Heworked with head down, sweating with repression. An obsession tormentedhim. He wanted to walk out of his glass cage. Out, not through the door, but through the glass. Not gently, like Alice going into Wonderland, butwith ostentation and violence, with a heralding crash of shattered panes, scandalously. Out of his cage, into the next; out of that, into the next;from one end of the big room, in fact, to the other, crashingly, throughcage after cage--and then out upon the street through the plate front. Half-past five finally freed him; and taking his place in a packedherring-box on wheels, he was rolled back to Dolly--and the shearing. 

Thus for a while did the young people live securely on a clown'stissue-paper hoop. Then one evening, just as Charles-Norton, aftersuccessfully resisting all day his anarchistic glass-smashing impulse, was watching the hands of the clock approach the minute that was to freehim, his chief, raising his bald head at the end of his long, thin neck, said casually, "We work all night, to-night, you know, Mr. Sims. "

CHAPTER VII

"We work all night to-night, Mr. Sims. " It is always with just such asentence, quiet, drab, and seemingly insignificant, that Mr. Catastropheintroduces himself. 

"Yes?" said Charles-Norton, adjusting his neck-tie and looking at thecalendar. 

He was not surprised, for this happened twice a year. Twice a year, on aday in December and a day in June, a part of the force worked all nightto prepare a statistical table for the benefit of the stockholders. 

He telephoned to Dolly. Her voice came to him over the wire in a scaredlittle squeak. "Oh, Goosie, " she pleaded; "come up before starting inagain. I'll let you go off right away. But please come up, please do!"

"Can't, " shouted Charles-Norton. "We're allowed only an hour for dinner, and it would take more than that just to go up and back. "

"They won't care if you are a little late, " suggested Dolly. 

"No, can't come up, " said Charles-Norton, astonished at his own firmness(it is much easier to be firm over a telephone, anyway). "There's toomuch to do. I'll be up in the morning, maybe. "

"But Goo-oo-sie----"

"Nope. Can't. Good-by, dearie, " said Charles-Norton, and hung up thereceiver, and with a bad conscience and a soaring heart, went off todinner. No shearing to-night--gee! He ordered a dinner which made thered-headed waitress gasp. "Must have got a raise, eh?" she diagnosed. 

"No, not a raise, not a raise, " hummed Charles-Norton; "skip now; I'mhungry. "

The night was a long and toilsome one, but an inexhaustible bubble was atthe pit of Charles-Norton's being; gradually through the night he felt, beneath his coat, his shoulders deliciously swelling. And when in themorning he stepped out upon the sidewalk, a cry left his lips. 

It had showered during the night, and to the rising sun the whole citywas glowing as with a golden dew. The air was fresh; Charles-Nortongulped it down. He felt as though a broad river were streaming throughhim--a clear, cool river. Suddenly, his heels snapped together, his headwent back; his hands rose to his armpits and his arms began to vibrate upand down. A policeman came running across the street. "Say, wot de 'ellare you doing?" he bellowed, red-faced and outraged. 

"I'm going to breakfast, " answered Charles-Norton, cockily. 

He went into the bakery, his hat a-tilt, with the air of a conqueror. Forhe had decided not to go up to the flat, but to breakfast right here andto spend an hour in the square before going back to the glass cage atnine. His chest pouted; his eyes glistened; wine ran in his veins. Heordered ham-and-eggs and hot-cakes. An orgy!

He was eating fast, in a hurry for the Pippin and the loll on the bench, when he felt someone sit down by him. There was a pause; then, "hello, chicken!" piped a thin voice in his ear. 

"Hello, Pinny, " answered Charles-Norton, even before looking. He hadrecognized the voice of the pale youth whom he had elbowed on the L afew weeks before, and whom later he had placated here in the bakery. 

"S'pose you're a millionaire by this time, chicken, " said the youth, jocularly. 

"Sure, Pinny, " answered Charles-Norton. 

"But really, honest, did yuh win anything?" went on Pinny, moreseriously. 

"Win?" Suddenly Charles-Norton remembered the lottery ticket that he hadbought. He had forgotten it completely. "The drawings was three daysago, " Pinny was saying; "got 'em here, " and out of his pocket he drew asoiled newspaper clipping. 

Charles-Norton also was searching his pockets with much contortion; andit was some time before his hand flashed out triumphantly with a piece ofdog-eared, yellow cardboard. "Wot's your number?" asked Pinny. 

"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven, " Charles-Norton read. 

Pinny was perusing the clipping in his hand. "Wot did you say, " he pipedsuddenly; "_wot's_ the number?"

"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven, " repeatedCharles-Norton. 

The pale youth seemed to collapse. His chin went forward on his greentie, his back slid down the back of his chair, his hands dropped limpupon the table. "Well, I'll be eternally dod-gum-good-blasted, " he saidweakly. 

"You've done it, " he continued, solemnly; "you've gone and done it. " Helooked at his clipping again. "Lemme see your ticket, " he said. He placedthe ticket and the clipping side by side; his stubby, black-fringedfinger slid from one to the other. 

"You've done it, partner, " he repeated, with the same funereal intoning. "Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven! And I've held thatticket in my hands, right in these hands! Eight hundred dollars. --Nineteenthousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven wins eight hundred dollars"--histongue lingered, as if it tasted it, upon each opulent number--"Eighthundred dollars; that's what you win. And all owing to me, too. "

Charles-Norton had forgotten his ham-and-eggs. He took the ticket and theclipping from Pinny's nerveless fingers and compared them. 19897! Thatwas right. He had won eight hundred dollars. "Where do you cash in?" heexclaimed with a sudden ferocity. 

"I'll take you to it, " murmured Pinny, still in a daze. "Gee--and I hadthat ticket in this here pair of hands. I'll take yuh to it. It's downtown. No trouble getting the money. You'll treat on it, eh? You'll treat, won't yuh?"

His sharp face was almost beneath Charles-Norton's chin; his paleeyes rolled upward wistfully. A sudden gust of pity went throughCharles-Norton. "Surely, " he said. "Better than that; we'll share. "He paused, coughed. A wave of prudence was modifying his impulse--theprudence that inevitably comes with wealth. "I'll give you--I'll giveyou twenty-five dollars!" he announced. 

"Come on!" said Pinny; "come on--we're losing time, eating in this joint. Say, you'll have all you want to eat now, won't yuh--oysters and wine andgrape-fruit and everything. And girls, eh? Autos and wine and girls--Gee!"And his eyes remained fixed on the vision of splendor, of the splendor ofCharles-Norton, missed so narrowly by himself. 

Together they went down to the offices of the Little Texas, where afterhaving been warmly congratulated by an oily man with a diamond stud, andafter signing seven feet of documents and testimonials, Charles-Nortonwas given a long yellow check, which was forthwith photographed, as wasalso Charles-Norton. Then the fat, oily man, the clerk who had preparedthe documents, Pinny, and Charles-Norton went downstairs and, standing upagainst a polished walnut counter, drank to the long life of the LittleTexas and to the success of Charles-Norton. After which the courteousoily man introduced Charles-Norton to the cashier of a bank, whereCharles-Norton deposited his check, receiving in return a little yellowdeposit-book, and a long green check-book. 

With Pinny, Charles-Norton rode back toward the office. They stopped atthe square, and stood a while watching the fountain, each a bituncertain. Finally Pinny put out his hand. "Well, so long, old man, " hesaid; "so long. "

"So long, " said Charles-Norton, indecisively. 

But Pinny still stood there, abashed and uncertain. "You was goingto--but you've changed yer mind, I suppose; I suppose you've changed yermind--You was going to----" His eyes were on the ground; he shuffled onefoot gently. "You was going to----"

"Oh, of course!" cried Charles-Norton. "I was going to give you a shareof the swag--of course, of course, of course!"

They sat on a bench. Charles-Norton took out of his pocket the longcheck-book and opened it out, with a little crackling sound, on its firstclean page. He took out his fountain pen. "No. 1, " he wrote down withgreat decision. He paused, looking about him for a moment, in enjoymentof this new occupation. "June 19, " he wrote on, slowly, languorously. "Pay to the order of, " the page said next. "Of _Frank Theodore Pinny_, "wrote Charles-Norton. "Dollars, " the check said next, at the end of ablank line. Charles-Norton paused, pen poised above paper. 

"Twenty-five, " he thought. That is what he had promised. "_T-w-e-n-t-y_, "he wrote. The pen stopped again, hovering hesitatingly above the paper. "Twenty-five is a whole lot, " he thought. "Just for selling a ticket. Just for selling a piece of cardboard!" And eight hundred dollars was notso much, either. An hour before, eight hundred dollars had seemed animmense sum. Now it seemed a modest amount, a very modest amount. Andtwenty-five, twenty-five to give away--that seemed quite big. "Pay to theorder of Frank Theodore Pinny, " he re-read, "twenty----"

The pen made a sudden descent. "And no-hundredths, " it wrote swiftly. 

Charles-Norton signed the check, tore it from the book, folded it, andpresented it to Pinny, a bit patronizingly. Pinny stuck it into a sidepocket without looking at it. He was standing on one leg and seemed in ahurry to get away. Charles-Norton, suddenly, had the same feeling. Thesense of comradeship which had been with them for the last hour hadabruptly flown with this passing of money. Each man was embarrassed, asbefore a stranger. "So long, " said Pinny; "so long, " said Charles-Norton. Pinny, with averted head, turned and walked away. 

Charles-Norton pivoted on his heel, and started for the office, worriedsuddenly by the thought that he was late. He took three long steps, collided with a sodden old gentleman who was just arising from abench--and then was standing very still, looking about him as in a daze, unconscious of the mutter of apology which, together with an odor ofstale beer, was fermenting beneath his nose. The old gentleman, pursuinga ray of sun, slipped on to a farther bench. But Charles-Norton stillstood there, gazing about him in a sort of mild astonishment, as if, while he was not looking, the scene about him had been transformed likeso much cardboard scenery. 

To the shock of the collision, as to the stroke of a finger upon achemical beaker the reluctant crystallization abruptly takes place, therehad come to Charles-Norton the realization _that he did not have to go tothe office_. 

He did not have to go to the office! Here, against his heart, representedby three black figures within a little yellow book, was eight hundreddollars, practically eight months' salary, the assurance of eight monthsalmost of independence, of freedom!

"And Dolly?"

You will think, perhaps, that Charles-Norton was seized by an ardentdesire immediately to run to Dolly, spring up the five flights ofstairs, push open the door, catch her by the waist and, seating her onhis knees, to pantingly tell her of the wondrous news? You are mistaken. 

For with the vision of Dolly, the thought that irresistibly came toCharles-Norton was----

That he didn't have to go to Dolly. 

He didn't have to go to Dolly and be clipped. He didn't have to go to theglass cage, and he didn't have to go to Dolly. The scissors of Dolly. 

Charles-Norton, very pale, his long, strong legs trembling beneath him, sank upon the nearest bench, and tried to catch hold of the world again, of the reality of the world. His hands, unconsciously expressing hismental attitude, held the bench's rim tight with white knuckles. 

Eight hundred dollars was not so much. Besides, it was only seven hundredand eighty now. And Dolly was a good little wife. A good, faithful, loving little wife. In a few months the money would all be gone if hestopped working. If he went back to the office and worked, the eighthundred (minus twenty) could be kept in the savings bank as a preciousresource against ill-luck. And some of it could be used to buythings--furs for Dolly, for instance, brave little Dolly. Her householdallowance could be increased a bit--brave, cheerful, careful, economical, busy, loving little Dolly!

In the silence of his cogitation, Charles-Norton suddenly heard withgreat distinctness a furtive creaking within the shoulders of his coat. 

"Dear Little Dolly!" he exclaimed ostentatiously, making a brave effortto keep his eyes upon his beacon. 

But right from between his feet a sparrow, like a firecracker exploding, sprang and went whirring up in the sky. Charles-Norton followed it withhis eyes as it went winging, winging up in a series of lines, each ofwhich ended in a droop, toward the high sky-scraper. And when his eyesreached, with the bird, the top of the building, they lit upon a cloud, a great white galleon of a cloud which, with all sails set, flanksopulently agleam with the swell of impalpable freights, went slidingby with streaming pennons, toward the West. 

And Charles-Norton felt as though he were going to die. A great, sadyearning seemed to split his breast. He rose to his feet, his eyes uponthe cloud. A turbulence now churned within him; his shoulders palpitatedwithin their cloth prison (you see, they had not been sheared for a fulltwenty-four hours); a wave of madness, of daring, of revolt, rose intothe head of Charles-Norton. "No, no, no, " he growled. "No more, no more, I can't, I can't, no more, no, _no_!"

The last no was as a trumpet note--a defiant negative hurled at the Forceof the Universe. And Charles-Norton began to race around the fountain, striking with his right fist his left hand, muttering unintelligible andtremendous protests. You see, his wings had grown altogether too long. He could feel their ligatures reaching like roots to his soul. When, atthe end of the third lap, he came to his bench again, his mind was madeup. Only details remained to be determined. 

And when he rose for the last time from the bench, these were fixed. Hisappearance was one of great calmness tense above a suppressed ebullition. Before him his programme stretched like a broad, clear road. He followedit. 

Firstly he went to the bank and drew out three hundred dollars in cash. 

With the roll in his breast-pocket, he walked up Broadway till he came toa Cook's Tourist agency; entering, after a short discussion aided by theperusal of a map, he exchanged part of his roll for a long, green, accordeon-pleated ticket. 

Then he went out and bought himself a tawny, creaky suit-case, and then, successively, going from store to store:

Two collars. 

A comb. 

A neck-tie. 

A tooth-brush. 

A safety razor. 

A little can of tooth-powder. 

A shaving brush and a cake of soap. 

A cap. 

A pair of much abbreviated swimming trunks. 

All of which he placed in his new suit-case. 

Then after a moment of frowning consideration, he purchased two thickwoolen double-blankets which he rolled up and strapped. 

After which he boldly strode into the Waldorf-Astoria. 

Such affluence, by this time, did his person emanate that fourbrass-buttoned boys simultaneously sprang to their feet and came runningup to him. He waved them aside with a commanding gesture and went intothe writing-room. 

He opened his check-book. "3, " he wrote firmly in the right hand corner. "Pay to the order of, " he read; "Dolly Margaret Sims, " he wrote, "Fourhundred and eighty and no-hundredths dollars. "

He signed the check, tore it off, and let the now looted check-book dropnegligently to the floor. He placed the folded check in an envelope, wrote a little letter and placed it by the check, sealed the envelope, and wrote upon it, MRS. CHARLES NORTON SIMS 267 West 129th St. New York

and rang for a messenger boy, to whom he gave the letter. 

Then calling for a taxi-cab, he whizzed away to the Grand Centralstation. 

Ten minutes later, amid a ding-donging of bells and a roaring of steam, a big, luxurious train began to strain at its couplings on its wayoverland. As it slid slowly out beneath the resonant cupola, Charles-Norton emerged from the rear door and stepped out upon theobservation platform. 

And there, upon this wide, large platform, which was much like aminiature stage, Charles-Norton appeared for a moment in undignifiedpantomime. Leaning over the shining rail, chin thrust out, he shook bothfists at the receding city, and spit into its face. 

CHAPTER VIII

Charles-Norton's letter came to Dolly in the evening, after a day fullof worry. It read:

 "DEAR DOLLY:--Enclosed is $480. It's for you. I'm going away. I simply can't stand it, that's all. I think I still love you, Dolly, but I can't stand the life. I can't, that's all. I must have, I must have--well, I can't stand that clipping business any longer. 

 "Please don't grieve. Some day you'll meet a man who is real fond of you and who will make you happy--one that hasn't any wings. There are lots of them. 

 "Yours always (in thought), "CHARLES-NORTON. "

 "P. S. --Please don't feel too bad about this. 

 "C. N. "

At the reading of this tactful epistle, Dolly, of course, immediatelyburst out into hysterics. These shall remain undescribed here. There issomething mysterious about hysteria which paralyzes the pen. Not theleast mysterious thing about it is the fact that the word, pronounced inan assembly of men and women, will simultaneously call up haggard lineson the faces of the men and cooing sniggles in the throats of the ladies. 

Anyway, poor little Dolly had it bad all that night, and all the nextday, and all the next night. By the morning of the second day, it hadpassed to a lamentable wandering to and fro within the cage-likeapartment, with disordered garments and unkempt hair, through which eyesshone with a glint of madness. By the afternoon of the same day, it wastaking some interest in its reflection as it passed the several mirrorsin its ceaseless pacing. The reflection reminded of Ophelia. Finally, when in the evening it caught itself nibbling cracker and cheese in theupset kitchen, it realized that it needed new stimulus. It telegraphedfor Dolly's Boston aunt. 

The calculation proved correct. When, twelve hours later, the Bostonaunt pressed the button at the landing, she found herself almostimmediately tackled around the neck, while a shriek pierced her rightear. This was followed by a palpitant hugging, from the folds of whichemerged vague, bubbling sounds. The aunt bore the demonstration withstoicism and with a certain reservation of self. She was very much unlikeDolly--tall and spare, with bushy brows, beneath the deep arcade of whichglowed two limpid gray eyes. These eyes, during Dolly's littleperformance, remained somehow outside of the enveloping flutter. Theypeered over Dolly's shoulder in an alert examination of the disorderevident within the flat, and in their serene depths a slightwill-o'-the-wisp seemed discreetly dancing. When finally Dolly's outbursthad moderated, the old lady spoke. "Where is the bath-room?" she said. 

Dolly dropped her convulsive hold and drew back a step. "The bath-room!"she exclaimed, her eyes very big; "you want to know where the bath-roomis!"

"Yes, the bath, " repeated Auntie, as though astonished at theastonishment. 

Dolly showed it to her. A calmness had come over her, a calmness ofindignation. Auntie gave the bottom of the tub a hurried cleaning, adjusted the faucet to a tepid flow, dropped in the stopper, and sat downon the edge of the porcelain as the water rose within. "I'm going to giveyou a bath, " she announced to Dolly, who stood there petrified with hurtamazement. 

And when the tub was full, she rose lightly to her feet and began to takeoff Dolly's soiled kimono. Dolly, in a daze, felt the garment slip fromher, and then slid into the warm, green pool, which closed softly abouther neck. "You lie there a while, " said Auntie; "I'll come back and giveyou a shampoo. "

And Dolly remained alone in the steaming room. Little by little, to thepersistent caress of the warm water, she felt her body relax; she shuther eyes; from beneath the closed lids tears exuded softly; they camefreely, without a pang. After a while, even these ceased. From thebedroom came the sound of a bed being rolled, a flapping of sheets, awhirring of blinds. Auntie returned. "Now, " she said alacriously. 

Dolly's head was being rubbed; a snow-white bubbly mountain was risingupon it, a mountain like an island--that is to say, like that confectionknown as a floating island; she could feel on her scalp the wise, soothing fingers of her aunt breaking down the resistance of her nerves;her eyes, shut at first merely to keep out the soap, remained closed insemi-ecstasy. 

"Now, out you go!" suddenly boomed a voice, as a patter of waterdescended upon her head; and Dolly stepped out into the vigorous embraceof a turkish towel. It was passing over her body with a firm, rotarymotion as of machinery; she swayed within it like a palm in a tempest. Itslid up into her hair and finally twisted itself about it in a turban. Afresh night-dress descended about her; "to bed, now, " said the voice. 

The room was gray and cool within the lowered blinds; passively, Dollyslipped in between the fresh white sheets; her head sank into thecrackling pillow. A little sob rose in her throat. "O, Auntie, " she said, "O-o-o. "

"Not a word now!" the capable lady immediately broke in. "I know allabout it. You can tell it to me when you wake up. Go to sleep now. "

It was a pleasant sort of violence; as a harness of flowers the obedienceof Dolly's childhood slipped again about her. She shut her eyes, thenlike a puppy-dog snuggling to its mother, turned and dug her round littlenose into the pillow. A snifflet of a sigh sounded--and as it soundedbecame the first long breath of sleep. 

The Boston aunt stood some time by the bed, tall and straight like agrenadier on watch. Suddenly she stooped down and placed a kiss upon thecurve of cheek emerging from the folds of the pillow. Immediately she waserect again. "Poor darned little girl!" she said. 

She paused again, out in the dining-room, her eyes far away. "_He_ triedthat once on me, " she said reminiscently. A gleam of humor lit up hergray eyes. "I fixed him, " she said decidedly. And then, with sometenderness: "Poor great big things, " she said; "what chance have theyagainst us!"

Upon which she went into the kitchen where lay a pile of viscous dishes, eloquent of the home's demoralization. 

When Dolly emerged from her room some twenty-four hours later, her facewas pale and her little nose was red, and she seemed a bit dazed. 

"Hello, Dolly, " said the Boston aunt, looking up and giving thesofa-cushion she was arranging a final thump; "hello, Dolly; come intothe kitchen and have some breakfast. "

Upon the gas stove she toasted bread and poached two eggs, which she laidbefore Dolly like two triumphant suns glowing through a fragrant haze ofcoffee. Dolly successively suppressed the joyous acclaim whichinstinctively rose from her whole being at the sight; but she ate. Rathermincingly, of course; but still, on the whole, efficiently. At times sheclosed her eyes, and then from beneath the lowered lids a few tears camegliding without friction. "Now, " said the aunt, after the last crumb oftoast had disappeared; "let's go into the other room and hear about it. "

She led the way into that little room, which was fairly encumbered withcoziness. She took one of the rocking-chairs. Dolly sank into the other. By keeping the same rhythm, there was space for both to swing at thesame time. Dolly swayed back and forth three times, and then burst intotears. "He has left me, Auntie; Goosie is gone; ooh-ooh!" The aunt'schair ceased rocking with an abruptness that made their knees bump. Dolly's chair stopped; she looked at her aunt in astonishment. AuntHester was sitting up very straight. "Do you mean to say, " she began, andthen paused as though unable to believe the evidence; "do you mean tosay, " she went on, "do you mean to say, Dolly Sims, that you made me comedown all the way from Boston just because Charles-Norton is gone?"

"Why, yes, " answered Dolly, petrified. "Why, yes. Isn't that enough;isn't it _enough_? My life is ruined! Ruined! Oo-oo-ooh"--and her eyes, ablaze for an instant, became veiled by a filmy cascade. 

"Pooh, " said Aunt Hester, decidedly; "pooh. Charles-Norton is gone; well, he'll come back. "

"He's not coming back, " wailed Dolly, indignantly; "he's _not_! He hasdee-s-s-er-ted me!"

"Deserted, " jeered Aunt Hester. "Charles-Norton! A fine chanceCharles-Norton has to desert you, Dolly! First of all, he couldn't makehimself want to, no matter how much he tried. And if he did want to, hecouldn't. You wouldn't let him, Dolly!"

"Wouldn't let him! Oh! Do you think, Auntie, that I am so low, so base, so devoid of pride, as to keep a man who----"

"Toot-toot, " said Aunt Hester; "toot-toot--you can't help it. Have youever read that fellow Darwin, Dolly?"

"Darwin, " said Dolly, rather astonished at the turn taken by theconversation; "Darwin--did he write 'When Knighthood was in Flower'?"

Aunt Hester opened her mouth like a fish suddenly whisked out of water. She closed it again. By the time she spoke, she had suppressed something. "No, no, Dolly, " she said. "_Darwin_, the--well, it doesn't matter. We'vebeen reading him lately, anyway, at the Cooking Club. That chap _knows_things, Dolly. He didn't tell me anything I didn't know ahead myself; buthe _explained_ lots of things I had found out. You should read him. "

"I'll read him, Auntie, " said Dolly, with dolorous voice. "I suppose I'llhave to read now, or paint china, or do something like that, now thatCharles, that Charles, that Charles----"

"Oh, Charles, Charles, Charles, " echoed Aunt Hester, but in muchdifferent tone; "you'll get your Charles back. Charles-Norton! He has asmuch chance to escape you--as the earth has to stop whirling around. Youbaby! Why, you've got all Nature on your side, plotting and scheming foryou. _His_ dice are loaded; he can't win!"

"Aunty, what _are_ you talking about! Here I am, un-unhappy, and needing, needing, needing friendship, and you sit and talk--I don't know what. "

"For, what is Charles-Norton?" continued the Boston lady, as though shehad not heard Dolly. "What is Charles-Norton? A man. Hence, a clung-to. "

"A clung-to!" exclaimed Dolly, a dreadful suspicion beginning to additself to her greater trouble. 

"Just so--a clung-to. And the direct heir of hundreds and hundreds andthousands and thousands of clung-tos. For of the men since the beginningof the world, Dolly, it's only the clung-tos that survived, or ratherthat had babies that survived----"

"Auntie!" admonished Dolly. 

"Certainly, " went on Aunt Hester, seemingly misinterpreting Dolly'sinterruption. "They alone had babies that survived. The babies of theothers--well, they starved, or fell into the fire, or were massacred inthe wars. So that now there _are_ no others. There are only descendantsof clung-tos, and hence clung-tos. Charles-Norton, Dolly, is a clung-to!"

"But, Auntie, " protested Dolly, "he isn't any horrid such thing. And he'sgone, he's gone--and I certainly won't _force_ him to----"

"And you, Dolly, " pursued Aunt Hester, unruffled, as though a professoraddressing a group of freshmen. "And you, Dolly, what are you? A woman. Hence a cling-to. "

"A cling-to!" screamed Dolly. 

"Certainly. A cling-to. The end of a line of thousands and thousands ofcling-tos. For of the women since the beginning of the world, Dolly, which survived? The cling-tos. They alone were able to live, and to havebaby-girls who survived--if cling-tos. The others, and the babies of theothers, they starved; that's all, Dolly, they starved. No mastodon steakfor them, Dolly; no nice wing-bone of ictiosaurus--they starved. So thatthere are now no others--or mighty few. You, Dolly, being alive and welland a woman, are inevitably a cling-to. "

"Auntie! Auntie!" murmured Dolly, puzzled and horrified. 

"To recapitulate, " Aunt Hester swept on. "To recapitulate: Charles-Nortonis a clung-to; you are a cling-to. Neither of you can help him orherself. For it is the very essence of the being of the one to hold, ofthe other to be held. "

"How horrible!" said Dolly, with a shudder. 

"In other words, my dears, " went on the aunt; "in other words, you are_dreadfully_ in love with each other and can't keep apart. "

"Love!" moaned Dolly. 

"Love, " the aunt repeated firmly. 

Dolly rocked for a time; tears again were dropping fast from the end ofher eye-lashes. "But he _doesn't_ love me, " she wailed at length. "And he_isn't_ a, a--that horrid Chinesy word you call him, and he is gone, gone!"

"Oh, my dear, of course, " said Aunt Hester; "of course, things are notquite as simple as I have been describing them. A woman has to use somesense about it these days. This clinging business has become morecomplicated with civilization. You may have erred in the details. Now, tell me what has happened, all that has happened. "

And Dolly, in a rush of words, told the lamentable story of her domesticwoe, of her struggle with the wings of Charles-Norton. 

Aunt Hester was silent for a time; then she nodded her headaffirmatively. "Yes, that's it, my dear, " she said. "It is as Isuspected. You have been clinging with your eyes shut. And in theseperilous times it is necessary to cling with eyes open. You----"

But Dolly had risen to her feet, vibrant. "Do you mean to say, " shebegan, and her voice was very low and tense; "do you mean to say that Ishould be subjected to living with a man--with a man"--her voicerose--"with a man, Auntie, who has _Wings_?"

"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Aunt Hester, hastily, "you mistake me. Of_course_, I am not asking _that_ of you. But that is not necessaryeither. The essential--it is to let Charles-Norton _believe_ that he hashis wings, not that he should have them. And then, my dear, to be frank, to be just, I must say that this seems to me a case for compromise. Yes, dear, you should allow Charles-Norton part of his wings; oh yes, youshould really let him have a bit of these wings. And _that_ bit, Dolly, if you are the wise and capable little girl I think you can be, youshould turn to the advantage, to the preservation, to theprosperity--hem--of the home!"

Dolly sat down, weak and trembling. She was silent for a long time. Whenshe spoke again, it was in a tired voice. "Auntie, " she said, "you meanwell. I know that you are trying to help me and am very thankful to you. But we have differing views of Life. I am willing to do much forCharles-Norton--Oh, so much! I am willing to meet him half-way, three-quarters of the way, the whole way, on ever so many things, and Ihave done so. But when it comes to a question, Auntie, of self-respect, of morality, of _Decency_, then, Auntie, never! On that, there can be nocompromise. Charles-Norton cannot have wings. "

"Oh, very well, " said Aunt Hester, plainly nettled; "very well, verywell. Then, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing, " said Dolly, decidedly. "I will give him up, " she said veryfirmly. "I will give him up, " she repeated grandiloquently. "I will givehim up, " she said a third time--and broke out weeping. 

"That, " said Aunt Hester, "is what is known as the _grand stunt_, and israther popular these days. I've seen many try it, and mighty few achieveit. And you, Dolly"--she rose and stood with a hand upon the shakingshoulders beneath her--"and you, you little soft Dolly, why, you areabout the last----"

"I shall not lift a finger, " interrupted Dolly. "If he, he, he does notlove me, I, I shall, not stoop to hold him!"

"Well, " said Aunt Hester, briskly, "I am going now. I----"

"Going!" cried Dolly, desolately. 

"I am going, " repeated Aunt Hester, firmly. "There is nothing I can dohere. And there're Earl's socks to be looked after (he is just enteringCambridge, you know), and Ethel's frocks (she's at the High School), andthen there is your uncle--suppose he gets it into _his_ head to sproutfeathers! No, no--I'm going home. _I'm_ willing to be what Nature said Ihad to be. _I_ don't take any chances with those new-fangled grand-stunts. Besides, if you are just going to do nothing, why, then, you can do thatwithout me. "

And setting her bonnet upon her nice gray hair, Aunt Hester picked up hergrip and marched out into the hall. 

"Auntie! Auntie!" cried Dolly, running after her. 

Aunt Hester stopped at the opened door and turned. She confronted Dolly, and the will-o'-the-wisp was dancing in the profundities of her deep-seteyes. A tenderness came into them; she dropped her grip, seized Dolly, and drew her close. 

"Dear little Dolly, " she whispered; "you'll do it, don't you fear. You'llbring back your Charles-Norton, you soft little woman, you; you'll gethim! And now, kiss me good-by. Write to me--when you decide. "

The door closed, and leaning against it, Dolly wept a long time. Thenshe went within and in a more comfortable position, wept more. She weptfor a whole week. And then, suddenly, one afternoon, she stood up in thecenter of the room and began stamping her foot. 

"I won't, " she said, with each stamp of the little foot. "I won't, Iwon't, I won't!"

And saying "I won't, " she did. She sat down at the table and on her paleblue letter paper, wrote:

 "DEAR AUNTIE:--Yes, you were right, I guess. I _am_ a cling-to. I want him. I don't care: he's mine and I _won't_ give him up. Tell me how to do it, Auntie, oh, tell me how! Quick, Auntie, quick!"

The answer was not long in coming. "Dearest Little Dolly, " wrote AuntHester; "of course, I knew you would, and I am glad. As to telling youhow--well, that is very simple. Just go to him, Dolly. Go to him (not toosoon; wait a while) and just stick around. Your instincts will tell youthe rest. Rely on your instincts, Dolly, " went on this incorrigibleDarwinian. "They are better than your reason, for they are the reason ofyour mother and grandmother, and all the line of mothers that came beforeyou. _They_ had to be right, Dolly, or they wouldn't have been, and then_you_ wouldn't be. Go to him, and stick around, and do as you feel likedoing. In all probability you'll be nice, and humble, and snuggledy, andwarm. And then, make--your arrangements. _He_ can't help himself. Natureis on your side. His dice are loaded. Cling, Dolly, cling. "

Dolly blushed. "Auntie is horrid, " she said. And then, after a while, "But right, " she said. 

CHAPTER IX

Meanwhile, unaware of this discussion and of this decision, Charles-Norton, inflated with fancied freedom, captain of his soul andmaster of his Fate, was having a beautiful time. 

Tableau:

A meadow by a lake, on the western slope of a high Sierra. 

Below, and far to the west, lies a great plain, liquid with distance asthough it were a sea of gold. From its nearer edge, the land comesleaping up in wide smooth waves of serried pines, to the meadow. Therethe pines stop abruptly, in the leaning immobility of a man who hasalmost trodden upon a flower. From their feet the meadow spreads, freshand lush, susurrant with the hidden flow of a brook, and jeweled here andthere with flowers that are like butterflies. It stops, in its turn, before a chute of smooth granite in the form of a bowl. In the curve ofthe bowl lies a lake--a silvery lake in the depths of which dark bluehues pulse, and over the face of which light zephyrs pass, like paintedshivers. 

On the other side of the lake, to the east, the land continues to rise, in accelerated assault, first in long lustrous leaps of glacier-polishedgranite, then in a chaos of dome and spire, and finally breaks up againstthe sky in a serrated edge like the top-crest of a great wind-flagellatedwave which, attacking Heaven, should have been suddenly petrified by aWord. 

On the border of the pine-forest, its one door upon the meadow and facingthe lake, is a log-cabin. 

It is early morning, and the air is crisp and cold. To the left of thecabin, in the dusk of the trees, a fuzzy little donkey stands immobile asif still frozen by the night. 

The sun, still behind the high crest to the east, aureoles it with rose;its light passes in a broad sheet athwart the sky, leaving the meadow ina lower darkish plane, as if in the still half-light of a profound sea;it strikes here and there, among the pinnacles, a glacier thatscintillates frigidly. To the west, above the plain, which is as yet butan opalescent gray shift, the last star hangs humidly, like a tear at theend of a lash. 

The rose halo deepens along the mountain top; the dark-blue dome of thesky fills with a lighter azure; the star swoons, and the sun peers overthe crest. It ascends. Its rays plunge into the pool of darkness stillupon the meadow; they pierce it, at first separately as with rapierthrusts, and then finally billow down into it in a cascade of moltengold. The shadows flee; the sunlight strikes the cabin; andCharles-Norton Sims appears at the door. 

Immediately, the little donkey, rousing to life, comes braying to himacross the green. Charles-Norton gives him a handful of salt, and with aslap sends him off again. 

And then he stands in the door-way with arms folded, facing the sun. Heis nude--except for the abbreviated swimming-trunks which were his lastbuy in New York--and to the light his skin, polished like ivory, takes ona warm and subtle glow. From his shoulders there hangs behind him, to hisheels, something that might be a cloak, except that it does not cloakhim. It does not envelop him; rather does it stand behind him inornamental background, with a certain sculptural effect. And it is white, a wondrous gleaming white, against which the whiteness of his skin seemsrosy. Starting from his shoulders, it goes out and up in gentleundulation to either side, and then descends in two swift slight curvesthat meet in a gothic tip at his heels. It is in shape like a Greek urn, but has with it a flowing quality--and the whiteness. It is like a Greekurn of pure alabaster that would have turned liquid, and would be pouringdown behind him in lustrous cascade. 

Charles-Norton steps forward--and suddenly this background, this mantle, this singular ornament, parts in two glistening sections which risehorizontally to either side of him. By Jove, they are wings! The wings ofCharles-Norton. They have been growing, since that _coup-de-tête_ of his. 

He raises them horizontally, and with a dry rustling sound they open outlike fans. He waves them gently, up and down; his chest fills, his headgoes back; and from his open mouth, as from a clarion, there goes out agreat clear cry which, striking the mountain, rebounds along from rockto rock in golden echoes. He rises into the air. 

He goes up slowly, in wide, negligent circles, with slow, strong flap ofwings, his body, with pointed feet close together, hanging lithe, a warmivory white between the colder and more radiant whiteness of the wings. He turns and floats above the lake, then, folding his wings, like a whitearrow shoots down into the water. A fountain of foaming drops springstoward the sky. Charles-Norton Sims is having his morning bath. 

He swims with smooth breast-stroke, his feet and hands below the water, but his wings raised above. Their roots, at his shoulders, cleave theglazed surface like a prow, leaving, behind, a slender wake; they followabove, swinging a bit from side to side, like glorious becalmed sails. 

And thus, like a large Nautilus, he drifts to the shore. He emerges, glistening, upon a little beach which curves there like a little moondropped by a careless Creator; he takes a hop, a skip, and a jump, andlands headlong upon the yellow sand. 

He stretches himself taut, his hands, straight above him, clutching thesand, his toes digging into it, and spreads his wings in fans at hissides. The earth is there beneath him, in his embrace; he feels herstrength flowing into his veins. The sun is up there, above him; he feelspouring upon him, penetratingly, its hot life. Content croons in hisheart. 

But after a while, an uneasiness stirs him. He moves vaguely severaltimes, he finally rises to his knees. Oh yes, of course, it is hisstomach--the old tyranny. He walks to the cabin, kicks into incandescencethe heap of coals in front of the door, and throws a handful of dry brushupon them. He seizes a long pole which is leaning against the façade ofthe cabin, goes back to the lake, climbs a large bowlder, and sittinghimself comfortably in a hollow of it, extends the pole, and drops intothe crystalline waters at his feet a bit of red flannel. Immediatelythere is a small convulsion and he whisks out of the lake a vibrantlittle object that looks like a fragment of rainbow. He whisks outanother, another--twelve in succession. He goes back to the fire with hisrainbows. 

There, he--fries them; and--eats them. 

Upon which he squats contentedly upon the grass, and fills and lights hispipe. He sits there very quietly, his feet drawn up, his wings behind himlike a resplendent mantle; he smokes gravely his little black pipe. Hiseyes are half-closed, watching the hazy blue puffs of the bowl risetoward the turquoise-blue dome of the sky. Far above him, a hawk iscircling; to the sight, after a while, a vague melancholy enters hisheart, a subtle and inexplicable yearning. He rises slowly to it, hispipe dropping from his loosened lips. He tucks the pipe into his trunks(that is why he wears the trunks); his wings spread out to both sides. Hegives a little spring--and is up in the air. 

He hovers above the meadow a while, a bit aimlessly, as though waitingfor an inspiration, rising, falling, rising with slow strong flap ofwing--then suddenly he is off, like a streak, in a whirring diagonal forthe high crests. He dwindles, higher and higher, farther and farther, smaller and smaller, till finally he is among the tip-top pinnacles, amere white palpitation, a snow-flake in the whirl of a capricious wind, a little glistening moth flitting from glacier to glacier as from lily tolily. 

Down in the deserted meadow, the little donkey opens his mouthcreakingly, and throws forth a lonesome bray. 

CHAPTER X

This is what Charles-Norton Sims is doing while his little wife, back inNew York, sits desolate in her empty flat. 

On the fourth day of his flight, sitting at the wide window of a Pullmanwhich was clicking slowly along a high summit, he had caught between twosnow-sheds a rapid glimpse of this nook in the chaos of the World. In apicture flashed clear for a moment to his eyes, he had seen the cabin, the meadow, and the lake; and his heart had given a leap like that of theanchor of a ship which at last has come to port. When, thirty minuteslater, the train, now on the down-grade, had slid with set brakes by alittle mining-camp huddled at the foot of a great red scar torn in theheart of a slanting pine forest, Charles-Norton, without more ado, hadseized his grip and his blankets, and sidling out to the platform, hadjumped lightly and neatly to the ground. 

When the last gleaming rail of the train had vanished around a bend, Charles-Norton descended to the camp. It was a decrepit camp, the minehaving given out. Charles-Norton found the whole population in thegeneral store. It consisted of five men, about which seemed thrown aninvisible but heavy cloak of somnolence. They had entered languidly butpolitely into his plans. The storekeeper had gladly parted with one-thirdof the comestible stock which was slowly petrifying on shelf and rafter;a little burro, grazing on the dump, had been transformed into apack-animal; and after standing treat three times around, Charles-Norton, leading by a rope his fuzzy four-footed companion, to a great flapping ofamicable sombreros had taken the trail winding toward the high hills. 

The little burro, now obscurely melancholic, grazed in the meadow. Withinthe cabin, depending from the smoke-polished rafters, a sack of flour, abag of sugar, a ham, and several sides of bacon were strung, while apyramid of tins leaned against the blackened fireplace. The bunk againstthe right wall held Charles-Norton's blankets; the one on the left wallwas empty. In spite of this empty bunk, which at times yawned with anair of vague reproach, the cabin, with its wide fireplace, in the centerof which a rotund kettle hung, with its neatly strung and stackedprovisions, had a certain coziness, a sober, sedate expression ofassurance for days to come. 

And it was a fine life to live. 

He would get up early in the morning, and reached the sill of the doorwith the sun. He would have his swim, his breakfast, and his smoke--andthen he was off. 

He was off for an all-day winged romp. He made straight for the crest atfirst and lit upon the tip-top of its highest pinnacle, rising there outof the rocky chaos like an exclamation of gleaming granite. Its top, hollowed by the weathers, made a seat which just fitted him. To the northand to the south, the saw-toothed crest extended for miles to purpledisappearances; within its folds, here and there, a glacier scintillatedlike a jewel. To the west and to the east, the mountain descended; atfirst in a cataract of polished domes and runs, then in long velvetywaves of stirring pines, and finally in pale-yellow foothills, to theplains. These were very far and were elusive of aspect. Sometimes theywere as a haze; sometimes like a carpet of twined flowers upon a slowlyheaving sea; sometimes they were liquid, and then the one to the east wasbluishly white, like milk, the one to the west like pooled molten gold. 

Charles-Norton sat here long, his elbow on his knees, his chin in hishand, his wings drooping behind, along the perpendicular smoothness ofthe rock, and pondered his happiness. A profound satisfaction was withinhim; it was as if his blood, at last, were flowing submissively along agreat cosmic stream, to some eternal behest. After a time, he rosea-tip-toe, like a diver above a gleaming sheet, extended his wings, andsprang. 

At first he dropped plumb, into the abyss; then his spread wings caughtthe air and held his fall. He gave one soft flap, and then another, androse. He floated upward; he was even with the top of the pinnacle, passedit slowly, saw it beneath his feet, and still, with slow, strong beat ofwing, continued ascending. It was joyous work; he rose on powerfulpinion; it was as if his head and shoulders continuously were emergingfrom one layer of the atmosphere into another more fresh and clear andmore beautiful; the air streamed along his skin in a clean, cold caressthat enveloped his soul. He passed big sad eagles that flew with loweredbeaks, their wrinkled and worried eyes upon the peaks below; he laughed, and astounded, they fell off beneath him in vertiginous circles. Theearth beneath was like a bowl, a bowl full of plashing sunshine. He kepton up, rising straight in the cold and hollow air, into a great silence, the only sound that of his wings, beating a solemn measure. He looked nolonger down, now. Head rearing back, face to the sun, with half-closedeyes he went on up with outspread wings, an ecstasy clutching at hisheart; clutching at it, clutching at it, till finally it was tooexquisite to bear, and half-swooning, with dangling pinion he let himselfswoop back through the dizzy spaces, back to the earth. 

Again upon his pinnacle, he lay very still, long, on his back, breathingdeeply, while slowly the ecstatic languor left his body. He was a littleafraid of this game, this perpendicular assault of infinities, andallowed it to himself only once a day. It was his dissipation; there wassomething vaguely perilous in the absorption of it. So, having restednow, he betook himself to less audacious pastimes. 

He selected a peak some ten miles away, and shot to it in a line whichwas impeccably straight. Then he repeated the flight, this time in aslight even curve, flowing and smooth as the rise, swell, and gradualfall of a musical chord. The next time, he flew to the peak in a zippingparabola that was as the course of a rocket. 

This game was the consummation of the old yearning which, in days goneby, had impelled him to draw lines upon a sheet of paper. Where before, miserably and inadequately, tormented by a sense of impotence, he haddrawn with a pencil lines upon paper, he now drew, with his wholegleaming white body, stupendous lines of beauty upon the blue of the sky. 

He liked this. He sensed his evolution. He seemed to have within hisbrain a delicate instrument that recorded the movements of his body. Ashe cut through the azure, each flown line was deposited within him in arecord of beauty. He flew from peak to peak, in lean, sizzling whitelines; in shooting diagonals; in gentle floating curves; in zig-zags asof lightning; in rising and drooping lines that hoped and despaired; insoarings that aspired and broke; in arabesques that laughed; in gothicarches that prayed; in large undulations that wept. Sometimes he drewwhole edifices--fairy castles, domes, towers, spires--which, oncecreated, went floating off forever on the blue, freighted with theirfantastic inhabitants, invisible, impalpable, and imperishable. Andalways within him was the record of the created thing, the record ofcreated beauty, etched forever in the inner chamber of his soul. 

Sometimes he played with his shadow; he tried to lose it. With a suddenbound that was meant to take it unaware, he was off, along the crest, atvertiginous speed. He went on thus, mile after mile; mile after mile, razing the peaks, he passed along the crest like a white thunderbolt, hiswings a blur, his body streaming behind like an arrow. His head struckthe air, broke it, parted it; it slid along his flanks in a caress thatpenetrated to his heart. But always beneath him, like a menace inwater-depths, springing from peak to peak in huge flaccid leaps, stubborn and black his shadow followed him. 

Of all the lines he knew, however, the one that he loved best was the onehe drew when returning to the cabin at sunset. He would come to themeadow from the mountains at a high altitude, and then, placing himselfcarefully above it, he would fold his wings and drop. 

He shot down like an arrow, in a long palpitant line, and then, twohundred yards from the sward, opened his wings in an explosion of fluffywhiteness. 

Out of this line he obtained a profound sensation of beauty, of beauty insimplicity. It was as though he had drawn a long, slender stalk thatopened in a white chalice; as though he had planted a flower, a cosmicflower, there in the bosom of the sky. 

In the evening, after his meal and his pipe, he winged away to a lastadventure which was as a prayer. Leaving the warm glow of his camp-fire, he soared upward into the violet night. The earth fell away beneath him, a blue blur, a shadow, till finally the shadow itself whelmed innocturnal profundities, and of the earth there remained nothing but thelittle fire, the little fire gleaming red in the clearing. He rose. Thenight accepted him with silence and solemnity, in a velvety envelopment. He rose. The stars, at first, were all above him; gradually new cohortsof them appeared to his right and his left, on all sides; and finally, his fire, down in the clearing, itself become a star, closed a perfectsphere. He was the center of a universe of stars; the soft beating of hiswings was as the hushed tolling of their eternities; the rustle of hiswings the crackling of their flames. They moved as he moved; always theircenter, he could not approach them. And thus encircled, sometimesbewildered, he lost his way. He forgot which star was his; seized withsudden fright, he winged one way and another in mad dashes toward coldorbs which fled him. 

But always, finally remembering, he could find his way merely by foldinghis wings. 

He folded his wings, and immediately, of all the stars the little winkingred one came rushing to him while the others slid by. It came rushing tohim fiercely, with a sort of jealous and almost ludicrous haste, its facered with effort. And with it came the earth, a shadow, a fragrance; itswarm, sweet breath fanned his cheek. Spreading largely his wings, he litsoftly upon the meadow-grass, by the little fire, by the cabin, home forthe night. 

CHAPTER XI

Man changes. Toward the end of summer, Charles-Norton found himselfinsensibly altering the glorious routine of his altitudinous existence. 

One day he was tempted by the great plain that lay golden in the West. Idly, he let himself float down the mountain sides, in long descendingdiagonals, and suddenly found himself above a farm in the plain. Inthe backyard, children were playing; a man was sharpening a plowshareat a wheel, and out of the kitchen-shed there came a clatter of dishesand the voice of a woman in song. Seized by a sudden perverse humor, Charles-Norton swooped into the chicken-yard and snatched a hen which, feeling herself rising in his hand, straightway shut her eyes and diedof imagination. A scream rose from the earth, and looking down, Charles-Norton saw the three little children, legs apart, hands behindthem, gazing up with white eyes; the man, back to the wheel, had hismouth open, as if inviting his vanishing fowl to drop back into it; andout of the kitchen door a wide woman suddenly popped, her lips workingin malediction. His amusement a bit dampened by this consternation andby the unforeseen conduct of the hen, Charles-Norton went winging back, the dead fowl dangling at the end of his arm, to his retreat, and thatnight, when the pangs of his conscience had somewhat moderated, enjoyedthe best dinner he had had for many days. 

This incident reawakened in Charles-Norton a certain interest inhuman-kind. He began to visit the Valley more often. 

The Valley was some hundred miles south of his meadow. It was a greatcleft that split the mountain range from crest to center. Its walls wereperpendicular and glacier-polished, and sculptured at the top into smoothdomes and fretted spires. Down these sheer walls, here and there, comingto them without suspicion, whole rivers fell--some in rockets ofdiamonds, others chastely, in thin flight, like shifting and impalpableveils, others in great lustrous columns that struck the rocky bottom withthunderous impact and rebounded high in clouds of pulverized silver. 

The Valley seemed full of people. They came in from the West, in stages. They lived in a large structure, at the bottom, which Charles-Nortonsurmised to be a hotel, and hundreds camped along the banks of the river, which wound light-green through the dark-green meadows. They wanderedabout incessantly, like ants; most of the time, at the bottom, but a gooddeal of the time also along the vertical sides, toiling pantingly upnarrow trails, laid like the coils of a riata, till they reached pointsof vantage--domes, pinnacles, heads of falls--whereupon they immediatelysat down and devoured sandwiches. 

When Charles-Norton had first discovered the Valley, he had fled from itat the sight of human beings. But now, often, a secret impulse urged himto it. He spent days there, crouching upon the top curve of a greathalf-dome from which he could look down and watch the little beings attheir lives--walking about, cooking their meals, eating them, orfollowing the arduous windings of the trails with sweating noses. Atnight their fires twinkled red; and once, when Charles-Norton, wrapped inthe secrecy of the dark, had slowly floated the whole length of theValley above them, there had come to him, softened and blended bydistance, the harmony of their voices in song. 

At first, he had felt but disdain for them, but gradually another feelinghad come to him, they were so slow, and crawly, and helpless--and yet soindomitable. A vague pity, almost a respect, swelled within him as hewatched them panting, and perspiring, and toiling up the slopes, reachingthus with untold effort heights insignificant to him, from which theypresently tumbled down again after their inevitable lunch of sandwiches. This new interest expressed itself rudimentarily in a perverse desire totease them. Yielding to it one afternoon, in broad daylight he sailed thewhole length of the Valley, going slowly, resplendent in the sun. Hecould see the little beings gather in groups, and see the little yellowfaces screwed up toward him; and upon the stage, gliding in from the Westlike a Cinderella coach drawn by six white mice, all the passengers werestanding with milling arms. With a few strong beats, he whizzed out ofrange and returned to his meadow, chuckling. 

He was back again the next day, though, and the next; and of evenings hebegan to hover about the Upper Inn. 

The Upper Inn was a little chalet built on the edge of the Valley'snorthern wall. It crouched there, small as a toy in the chaos of hugedomes surrounding it, backed up against a great granite-rooted tamarackas if in fear of the abyss yawning at its feet. From its veranda, aglance fell sheer, along the glacier-polished wall, to the valley floor, three thousand feet below. 

Charles-Norton, of evenings, liked to hover in the void in front of theInn, his head even with the veranda, his body dangling beneath, while helooked through the glass door into the hall within. . . . Always a red fireglowed there, within a large black fireplace; and about it, men andwomen, in garments fresh and clean after the day's climbing, sat chattingor reading. Among them was a young woman who interested Charles-Norton. She was slim and very fair, with hair that lay light upon her head as agolden vapor, and she wore upon her shoulders, negligently draped, ascarf within the white shimmer of which a color glowed like a flame. Beside her nearly always hovered a big young fellow, dark and handsome, but who did not seem very happy. 

One evening she rose abruptly, and before Charles-Norton could guess herintention, she had opened the door, and was out upon the veranda, gazingtoward him with eyes yet blind with the darkness. Charles-Norton did notmove. They two remained thus long, she looking straight out into thevoid, divining perhaps--who knows?--a vague palpitant whiteness, like asoul, out there in the night; he, moving his great wings slowly andsoftly, while his heart within him thumped loud. Then he let himself sinksilently, till beneath the plane of the Inn's floor, circled, and risingagain, took a position at the end of the veranda, from which, peeringaround the corner of the house, he could still observe her. 

She stood there, tight against the rail, as though she had brought upabruptly against it, making impetuously for the void. He could see herslight pliant form, silhouetted against the jeweled horizon; upon hershoulders, her scarf floated like a vague phosphorescence, and her facewas whitely turned toward the stars. He heard her take a long deep breathof the night, and then her arms went up and out in a vibrant gesture. 

She remained thus, a long moment, her eyes toward the stars, her armstoward the stars, and her whole slender body, arched slightly backward, seemed to offer itself to the stars. Then suddenly her head dropped, herarms dropped, and she straightened, leaning against the rail. The doorbehind had opened and closed again, and upon the veranda, now, was thebig loom of another form, a form which carried, at the height of thehead, a warm pulsing glow, like the incandescent point of a red-heatedpoker. 

They stood immobile, the two, a long time. She had not stirred since herfirst start; she remained with her back to the door, her eyes out intothe void. Then the point of light on the larger form slid down, till itdangled at the end of what Charles-Norton guessed was an arm, and a lowvoice toned in the silence. "Why did you leave me?" he said; "why do youalways leave me?"

Her voice answered immediately, clear and warm as a red crystal. "Oh, Iwanted to say good-by to the stars, " she said; "I wanted to say good-byto the stars!"

"And why did you want to say good-by to the stars?" he asked, speakingsoftly, as to a child. 

"Because, " she said, "I am leaving them. Because I am leaving the stars. "

"And why are you leaving the stars?" he asked, taking a step toward her. 

She turned toward him, now, and laid both her hands lightly upon hisshoulders. "Because, John, I am going to you, " she said; "because, John, I love you. "

"Dora!" he cried. 

She arrested him with a gesture. "I have loved you long, John, " she wenton; "I have loved you long--but I have fought it, fought it, fought it, John!"

"And why have you fought it?" he asked, again gently, as to a child. 

"Because, John--oh, I don't know. Because, John, there is somethingwithin me--which I don't know. Something which yearns, John--for I don'tknow what. For peaks, John, for skies, for the stars; for--I don'tknow----"

"Dora, Dora, " he said, a bit sadly. 

"And so I fought it, John, I fought your love. But it has poured into me, John, as honey fills a chalice; gradually, sweetly, it has filled myveins, my blood, my heart, John. And to-night, John, my whole being wasswollen with it, John, with the love of you, John, and I came out to saygood-by to the stars----"

"Dora!" he cried again; and this time enveloped her in his arms. 

A horrid, impish feeling suddenly pricked Charles-Norton; taking wing heslid along the veranda and seized, as he passed, from the shoulders ofthe girl, the scarf, from the conceited head of the young man, his derbyhat, and flapped off with them in the darkness. The crash of anastonished chair and a faint little cry followed him for a moment, thendropped off behind. 

Charles-Norton laughed all the way home. Half-way over he dropped, intothe deepest abyss he knew, the derby hat, which arrived at the bottom, nodoubt, in very bad condition. But the scarf was still with him as healighted in the meadow and felt against his hand the humid greeting ofNicodemus, the lonely little donkey. 

Across the cabin, as he went to sleep, the empty bunk yawned, somehow, with unusual insistence. "I wonder what Dolly is doing, " he said vaguely, as he slid down the slumber-chute. 

CHAPTER XII

Dolly was getting along very well, thank you. Mostly, she was reading thepapers. For if Charles-Norton thought for a moment that his indiscretionswere to go unrecorded, he was very much mistaken. 

Cuddled in the big Morris chair of the little flat, a be-ribboned sackloose about her comfortable little body, her head golden in the softcascade of light falling from the lamp, an open box of candy at herelbow, Dolly was reading the evening paper. It was all aboutCharles-Norton Sims, the paper, though it did not mention him by name, but variously, according to the temperaments of its correspondents, as acondor, an ichthyosaurus, the moon, an aeroplane, a Japanese fleet, amyth, a cloud, a hallucination, a balloon, and a goose. As she read, shealternately frowned and laughed. Her brows would draw together veryseriously, and then suddenly her red lips would part to let through asparkling rocket of laughter, and then her brows would again knit inconcern. The laughter was of triumph at seeing her prophecy come true, for of course, all the time, she had known that Charles-Norton, leftalone, would make a fool of himself; the concern was at the thought that, still alone, he would continue to make a fool of himself. 

"Well, " she said finally, as the paper slipped from her knees to thefloor; "well, it's about time I rescued the poor dear. I must go to him. "

She sat gazing mentally back over the lonely two months, the period ofher existence now about to terminate, and was astonished to find that, after all, it had not been so bad. Ever since the first crisis, eversince she had made up her mind to hold on to Charles-Norton, the worst, somehow, had been over. It had seemed as if, that determination oncemade, there was little left to worry over, that things could not possiblycome out wrong, that the cosmos itself was with her. And so, she had notworried. And she had had a pretty good time; a pretty good time. Better, in fact, in some ways than----

"Sh-sh-sh, " she hissed, stilling the thought. 

But why was that?

Well, first of all, there had been the engrossing mystery of the springhat; this, followed by the still more exciting problem of the summer hat;and now she was planning for the fall hat--she had seen the cutestfeathery toque, that came low down about her face, pushing to all sideslittle wisps of golden curls and making her look--well, very nice indeed. Then, of course, there had been less housework, and she had had much moretime to herself, more time and more freedom. The acquaintance withFlossie, the young wife of the floor-walker in the flat across thelanding, had helped a lot. Together they had plunged deep into theintoxication of the shops. And several times they had gone off, a bitdefiantly, on little orgies. They would go to the matinee, and then havea chocolate ice-cream soda at Huyler's, and called that "having a fling. "All this, of course, had been impossible when Charles-Norton had beenabout. But why? Oh, because he worked so hard, and there wasn't much, there wasn't so much----

Dolly paused and blushed. "Oh, that money, " she said deprecatingly;"that horrid, horrid mon----"

She rose to her feet to a sudden new thought and went into her room, where from beneath ribbons, stockings, gloves, and theater-programmes, she drew out of a drawer a little yellow book and a longer, more narrow, green one. 

When she returned, she was a bit pale, and sank rather limply into herchair. "Ooh, " she exclaimed disconsolately; "ooh, now I've _got_ to getto him; get to him _soon_!"

Go to him. But where--how--where?

She knew where he was now, it is true--but only relatively. The firstreport of his antics had come from a little town in the Californiafoothills; the second from a summer resort in a Valley of the CalifornianSierra. He was being reported pretty well all over the United States now, but the first news in all probability were the only valuable clew. Theywere desolately vague though. A man who flies covers much ground. Wheredid he sleep? Where was his lair--or his nest, rather? It was sleeping, not flying, that he was to be caught. How could she locate him? It wouldtake time, to do this, and money. And the check-book--oh, Lordie, thatcheck-book!

Little Dolly, always at the bottom a pretty level-headed creature, hadbecome wonderfully patient in the past month. Patient with adetermination fixed as a star, as a law of Nature; a determination whichwas stronger far than herself; which was outside herself; which she couldfeel, almost, a huge pressure behind her, as of great reservoirs filledthrough trickling æons; and which astonished her. She had written of it, once, to her aunt. 

"Dear Dolly, " had answered this Darwinian lady; "you are right. It is notof you. It is of all women that have gone before you, of the millions andmillions of women who have fought, and plotted, and intrigued in order tokeep alive the spark of Life and hand it down to you. It is, Dolly, thePersistence of Woman; the inexorable persistence of Woman, Dolly, holdingMan. Holding Man, Dolly, in spite of his superior physical strength, ofhis superior brutality; holding him through the ages. The terrificpersistence of Woman holding Man, Dolly, Man--the restless, the moody, the incomprehensible; the erratic one, ever dissatisfied, ever boundingto the end of his chain in blind surges toward painted things of the airwhich _we_ know do not exist. 

"Oh, no; you cannot help it, dear little Dolly. Cling, Dolly, cling!"

"That's horrid, " Dolly had said, when she had finished this epistle. 

And then, after a while, but this time with a smile; "how _perfectly_horrid!"

But now, this patience, this persistence, was indeed a precious thing. Itenabled her to wait calmly for the turn of chance which would enable herto find Charles-Norton. She read the papers every day. Truth to tell, they promised little help, for by this time they were announcingCharles-Norton simultaneously in New Orleans, Quebec, Key West, andVictoria. Wisely, Dolly had preserved the first clippings. And after all, it was from the papers that was to come the solution. The paper, onemorning, after describing appearances of Charles-Norton in Vladivostock, Paris, and Timbuctoo, had slid from her knees to the floor, when her eyeslit upon an advertisement on the up-turned back-page. 

 BISON BILLIAM

 AND

 HIS WORLD-RENOWNED WILD-WEST SHOW

 PERMANENTLY

 NOW

 AT THE HIPPODROME

 NIGHTLY

 * * * * *

 HENRIQUE FARMANO, IN HIS AEROPLANE, WILL FLY FIFTY FEET!!

"Ooh!" said Dolly, suddenly clapping both her hands to her heart; "ooh, I've got it!"

She sat there, a little weak with excitement, while a rosiness came toher cheeks and a light in her eyes. "Yes, " she said at length; "yes;that's it!"

Upon which she dressed very carefully, put on her hat, and went downtownto the Hippodrome. 

Once there, she hesitated a moment before the glazed-glass door with itsshining brass plate, then knocked like a little mouse. A big bass voicetold her to come in. 

The owner of the voice was seated at the desk, leaning back in hisrolling-chair, a big firecracker of a cigar in the corner of his mouth. His feet were on the desk, and Dolly noticed them first: they wereencased in high-heeled boots that seemed very soft and fitted likegloves. A soft, wide-brimmed felt hat sat rakishly upon his head. Hat, cigar, and boots dropped to a simultaneous disappearance. The man rose, and Dolly saw that his hair was very white and long, and cascaded incurls to his shoulders; and that, what with this hair, the little whitegoatee at the end of his chin, and the long rapier-like mustachios, ofthe same color, upon his upper lip, he looked like a French musketeer ofthe seventeenth century. He bowed, sweepingly. Now he was like a Spanishgrandee. But the little eyes beneath his bushy eyebrows were blue andshrewd. 

Recovering from her first movement of surprise, Dolly made straight forthe desk, her eyes set, her lips firm. "Mr. Bison Billiam?" she asked. 

He bowed again in assent. "And at your service, madam, " he said, and benthis head down toward her in courteous attention. 

But at the first rush of words from her, an agitation came over him; hisshrewd little eyes flitted here and there about the room as thoughsuspicious. He stopped her with a wide gesture. "Sh-sh, " he hissedgently; "this is very important indeed; we must not be overheard. Won'tyou step into my private office. Do me this favor, " he asked, opening aheavily-paneled door behind him. 

Dolly had a glimpse of a broad polished mahogany table, of heavy chairs. She went in; he followed her; the door closed. 

Fifteen minutes later, she stood again at the outer door, Bison Billiam, knob in hand, arching above her in deferential leave-taking. "I will seeto everything, " he assured her; "everything. This is certainly mostworthy of being looked into. And I shall do it myself. Myself, " herepeated, emphasizing the two little syllables as though that fact wereof tremendous importance; "myself. " He bowed again, to the ground. Thedoor closed. 

Dolly, alone on the landing, suddenly slid the length of the hall in anairy jig. "Oh, " she said, "we're going to be rich. I'll have a butler;and things!"

"Clang!" went the elevator, stopping at the floor. Dolly abruptly becameagain a very dignified little lady. Once out on the street, however, shewent straightway to the milliner's, where she purchased almost with thelast of her bank account the coveted fall hat. It was a furry toque, witha white aigrette; it came down to her ears and made her look like alittle Cossack. 

CHAPTER XIII

On the other side of the continent, Charles-Norton's retreat began to behaunted. 

He was taking his flight above the lake, one morning, in the cool gold ofsunrise, when suddenly a suspicion, a vague sensing of peril, passed likea cloud between him and the light. Immediately he let himself eddy to thebeach, and there, stretched low along the sand, with craning neck hepeered carefully about him. 

At first he could see nothing. Twice he half rose to resume his flight, but each time flattened out again to the same subtle sense of presence. And at last, with a thump of his heart, he saw him--on the edge of themeadow, a man upon a horse, in the dusk of the pines. 

They stood there, man and beast, framed by the pines, immobile andsilent. The horse was a beautiful silken white, with a bridle of twistedrawhide heavily plaqued with silver; the saddle, of high-pommeled Spanishstyle, was also heavily incrusted; and the man sat it as though he hadbeen poured molten into it. He wore a wide, flapping sombrero, setcavalierly upon long white hair that descended to the shoulders of hisfringed buckskin jacket; the belt at his waist drooped loosely to theweight of a great holster, out of which protruded the lustrous butt of asilver-mounted revolver; long gleaming boots rose to his hips, their toeswithin carved tapaderos, their heels, high to the point of feminity, roweled with long rotary spurs. 

They stood there a long time, man and beast, motionless, a sculpturedgroup but for the slight forward pricking of the horse's pointed ears, and the man gazed steadily at Charles-Norton, his eyes shaded by hisheavily-buckskinned hand. Charles-Norton, hypnotized, gazed back. Therewas something about the man, his flaming accouterment, specially aboutthe gesture--the theatric peering from beneath gauntleted hand--whichsomehow stirred Charles-Norton with a sense of past experience. Theygazed thus long at each other in immobility and silence; then suddenlythere ran lightly through the meadow the resonance of a champed bit; thehorse, rising on his hind legs, pivoted, the man's waist bending pliablyto the movement--and they were gone. A soft thudding of hoofs camemuffled through the trees; it rose to a flinty clatter, which in its turndiminished, and ceased. 

Charles-Norton, after a while, went on with his usual routine. He had hisswim, his breakfast, and his pipe. But an uneasiness was with him now; hecast abrupt, suspecting glances about him, about his profaned retreat. And during the day's long flight, something seemed to follow him like animpalpable menace. 

When he returned at sundown, the man was again there. This time he wasamong the rocks overlooking the cabin, and was afoot, his white horsemotionless behind him with long bridle dropped to the ground. Charles-Norton watched him from behind a tree. He stood there long, hisright hand negligently upon the horse's neck, his left hand shielding hiseyes as he looked; and to the posture, somehow, the whole landscapegradually changed its aspect, seemed to take on an air subtly theatrical, the waning sunlight like calcium, the rocks like cardboard, the treespainted. "Where, oh, where have I seen that before?" murmuredCharles-Norton, intrigued in the midst of his panic. 

The man mounted, the horse came forward, and with a silvery tinkle ofspur and bit, they went slowly across the meadow and into the forest, toward the trail that led to the camp. 

"_Where_ have I seen that geezer before?" murmured Charles-Norton again, as he was going to sleep that night. 

The question was to remain unanswered. The man did not appear again. Buton the Sunday following, at dusk, as the lake was aflash with leapingtrout, Dolly came running to him out of the trees. 

CHAPTER XIV

Dolly came suddenly out of the fringe of the trees. It was dusk; the lakewas aflash with leaping trout. And she came to him across the darkenedmeadow like a fawn panting for her retreat. He stood there petrified, butas she neared, felt his arms open in an irresistible and large movement;she nestled within them, her head on his heart. 

They stood there long, without speaking a word, in the center of thedusky meadow, by the sparkling lake. Her face was on his breast; his armswere about her, but his eyes were looking straight ahead into theobscurity. He could feel her palpitate softly against him, and atenderness like a warm pool was collecting in his heart. 

"Dolly!" he said at length. 

But she did not answer; only pushed farther into his embrace in a blindlittle snuggling movement like that of a puppy. He dropped his eyes downupon her, slyly. He could see her shoulders, agitated as if she wereweeping, and a wisp of her golden hair, and one tip of a rosy ear; andthen, nearer, he saw the furry toque with its white aigrette. 

"You little Cossack!" he said, a bit huskily. 

Again there was a silence; then he felt the vibration of her muffledvoice against his chest. "Do you like it?" she asked timidly. 

"It's dandy, " he said. 

The silence that followed was like that of a kitten after a cup of cream. Then the voice sounded again within the depths of his embrace. 

"O, Goosie, " she sobbed; "I've been so miserable!"

"Poor little girl, " he growled, above there in the dark; "poor littlegirl!"

"All my money is gone, Goosie--and the janitor was impolite and treatedme dreadfully, and oh, Goosie, I've had such a terrible time!"

"Yes, yes, yes, " he said soothingly (I'll kill that janitor, he thought, gnashing his teeth). 

"Goosie, " began the voice again; "you won't drive me away, will you? Youwon't drive me away; I can stay to-night, can't I? It's so dark, and socold! And in the morning, if you still don't want me, I'll--I'll go away, Goosie. I'll go away and never, never bother you any more, Goosie; never!But let me stay to-night; Goosie, don't drive me away to-night!"

"Good God!" groaned Charles-Norton, horrified at the very possibility, and suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of the enormity of his past conduct. "Good God, Dolly! don't, don't----"

"I can stay--then--to-night?" she asked, with a glimmer of hope, of hopethat cannot believe itself. "I can stay to-night, Goosie?"

"Oh, Dolly, you can stay to-night, you can stay to-morrow night, youcan stay always, Dolly, poor little Dolly, " moaned the agonizedCharles-Norton. "We'll stay here, always, together, Dolly. Never will Imove from you again, Dolly; Dolly, my little wife, my love, my----"

Dolly snuggled back close. "Oh, Goosie, " she said, "if you let me stay, I'll be so good! I won't bother you at all, Goosie. You can do just whatyou want; I'll let you have--anything! I won't bother you, you won't knowI'm here. I'll just hide around and take care of you, Goosie, I'll do_anything_! If only you'll let me stay, Goosie!"

"Come, " he said, not daring to give his voice much of a chance; "come;let us go in. "

The little nose suddenly popped out like a squirrel's out of its hole. She no longer wept, though he could see a tear still at the end of one ofher lashes, agleam in the dark. She raised her head out of his arms andlooked about her. "Oh, " she cried, "is that your house? What a cutebaby-house! It's pretty here, isn't it?"

"It is beautiful!" he said enthusiastically. "We'll be happy here. Come, "he said; and very close, her head upon his shoulders, his arm about herwaist, they went slowly across the meadow to the cabin. 

It was pleasant, somehow, the next morning, to loll about with trailingwings, undesirous of flight. The cabin, the meadow, had taken on acertain intimacy, a coziness; it was pleasant to remain there all day, upon earth, idle-winged. 

Charles-Norton had his morning swim alone after vain attempts to enticeDolly, her eyes still full of blue sleep, into the crystal waters. Thenhe fished from his rock--twice as long as he usually fished. And when hereturned with his string of rainbows, Dolly, uncovering the dutch-ovenwhich he had bought on his arrival, but the mystery of which he had nevermastered, proudly showed him the cracked golden dome of a swelling loafof bread. Its warm fragrance mingled with the pungent puffs coming fromthe curved nozzle of the coffee-pot, set in the glowing coals. He gaveher the fish, all cleaned, and rolling them in corn-meal, she laid themdelicately in the sizzling frying-pan, each by the side of a marbledstrip of bacon. 

There was no doubt that this breakfast was an improvement on breakfaststhat had gone before. Bread is mighty good when one has not had any fornearly two months; and warm golden bread just out of the oven and made byDolly is more than mighty good. The coffee had undeniably an aroma thatit had not had of past mornings. And as you held up to the light, delicately between thumb and finger, a little trout with crisply-curvedtail, and slipped it head first between eager white teeth, your eyessmiled into two other eyes (like blue stars), smiling back at you overjust such another troutlet, golden crisp, entering in successivemovements between just such eager teeth (small pearly ones, these). 

Oh, you Charles-Norton!

He wore a blanket on his back, undulating from his shoulders, over hiswings, to the ground. Dolly had put it there, fearing he would catchcold. Now and then, by some reflex action of which Charles-Norton wasunconscious, the wings stirred uneasily to the burden and let it slip tothe ground, upon which Dolly, springing up with a laugh, quickly replacedit. This happened so often that it became a game. 

After breakfast Dolly, instead of throwing the dishes in a shallow spotof the lake, as it was the habit of Master Charles-Norton, placed them ina pot of boiling water, at the bottom of which, with wonder-eyes, he sawthem miraculously dissolve to brightness. "You're a genius, Dolly, " hesaid. She laughed, a silver peal that filled the clearing, then, goinginto the cabin, returned with his pipe all filled. Nicodemus came to themfor his salt, then wandered off again. They sat side by side, their backsagainst the cabin-wall, the meadow before them, sloping to the lake; hesmoked, and she was silent. The sun had risen. It inundated the westernslopes with a cascade of light; here and there on the crest glaciersflashed signals; far to the west the plain palpitated liquidly; andabove, the sky domed very high, a miracle of pellucid azure. A big sighescaped Charles-Norton, with a blue wafture of smoke. "Isn't thisbeautiful?" he said; "isn't it beautiful?"

She said nothing, and so he repeated, "Isn't it beautiful?" And then, curious of her silence, he turned to her. She was looking about her, atthe trees, at the lake, and the great crags above, and as she looked, with an unconscious movement, she withdrew closer to him. "It's awfullybig, " she said, and her voice was almost a whisper. 

"It's big with beauty, " he said. "Look at the lake, " he went on, detailing with the pride of a suburban proprietor; "isn't it silvery andfresh and clean!"

"It's cold, isn't it?" said Dolly. 

"And the crest up there. Look at it. It is sculptured--domes, spires, castles. And those gothic arches. They are like joined hands; the graniteprays. And see the glisten of that glacier in the haze, like a star inthe veil of a bride! It's all beautiful!"

"They're terribly big mountains, aren't they?" said Dolly. 

"See the plain away down there. It seems to heave slowly, like the floodafter the rain had ceased. "

"Do people live there?" asked Dolly. 

"And the sky; did you ever see such sky! And the meadow here, how freshand lush; and the pines, and the cabin, and the lake--isn't it all quietand peaceful?"

She was silent, and after a while he turned to her. A tear was tremblingat the end of one of her long lashes. "Goosie, " she whispered, and shesnuggled up against him; "Goosie, isn't it a bit--lonely here?"

"_We_ won't find it lonely, " he answered stoutly, and drew her closewithin his arms. 

The day drawled on, slowly and deliciously. "Let's take a little walk, "said Dolly, after a while. 

"All right, " said Charles-Norton, "I guess I still know how. I haven'twalked much lately. "

"I suppose not, " said Dolly, hesitatingly. They were going side by sideacross the meadow, and Charles-Norton could feel her looking at him outof the corner of her eye. "I suppose--you have been--doing somethingelse. "

"Yes, " laughed Charles-Norton, flushing a bit; "yes--something else. "

Somehow they did not look at each other for a time after that, and walkeda bit apart. 

They drew together again little by little as they wandered over theclearing, in a close examination of their domain, which Charles-Norton, with his passion for big flights and sweeping outlooks, had up to nowneglected. They found a miniature cascade that purled over a mossy log; acave, so small and clean and regular that it seemed not the work of thebig Nature about them, but of delicate, elfin hands; and then, on theedge of forest and grass, a flower, a trembling white chalice upon thevirginal bosom of which one small touch of color burned like a flame. Andthus, little step after little step, they went from little wonder tolittle wonder. Dolly liked small things; it was the microscopic aspect ofNature that touched her heart; she had an adjective all her own for such:they were "baby" things--baby flowers, baby brooks, baby stars. Thisappealed less to Charles-Norton, hungry for big sweeps. And even now, hecaught himself yawning once, and casting a look at the crest far away. 

In the afternoon, in the full warmth of the clear sun, he inveigled herinto the lake for a swim. They splashed in the silver waters like mermanand mermaid; and when, after a glistening disappearance within the cabin, Dolly emerged again, she was tucked in a fuzzy bathrobe that made herlook like a little bear. 

They sat long afterward on a warm slope in the sun. Crickets hopped aboutthem; Charles-Norton at intervals heard by his side Dolly's musicalgiggle as one of them struck her. A bird on a long twig balanced abovethem, and for a time a squirrel chattered at them in mock scolding fromthe top of a pine. Little by little Charles-Norton sank into a profundityof well-being. He could see ahead, now, his life stretching placid andcolored, solved at last, with both Dolly and the wings, uniting love andfreedom, the ecstasies of flight with the tenderness of home----

"Goosie, " said Dolly; "let's go in. "

The sun was gone. It had sunk into the plain, far off. "Wait, " hewhispered, looking toward the crest, inflamed with living light. Thepeaks gleamed, the domes glowed, the glaciers flashed, the whole sky-linecrackled with a great band of color. Then swiftly from the plain a shadowran up the mountain sides, extinguished, one after the other, peak, anddome, and glacier; it went up toward the clouds with its long swift lope:the clouds became burned rags. 

"Let us go in, " said Dolly. 

"Wait, " he said. 

The night was pouring in over the crest, filling the meadow, the domeabove; a velvety blueness palpitated vaguely about them; a star, as iftouched by an unseen torch, suddenly sprang to light. 

"Wait, " murmured Charles-Norton; "it is beautiful at this hour. "

But Dolly pressed against him with a little shiver. "I'm cold, Goosie, "she cried; "let us go in. "

They rose, went down the slope and across the meadow. Along the grass afrigid little haze was forming; it was true that it was cold. IfCharles-Norton had been a practical man he would have observed that forthe last two weeks, in fact, the nights had been growing more and morecold--which might have introduced a disturbing factor in his dream of thecoming days. But Charles-Norton, as has been seen, was not a practicalman. 

They sat within, by a glowing fire. "It's nice to be home, " said Dolly. "It's fine, " said Charles-Norton, stoutly. 

CHAPTER XV

For three days Charles-Norton remained on earth sedulously. It was apleasant earth. They wandered together in the small area about the cabin;they walked, swam, fished, picked flowers, and spent hours concocting, onthe fire before the cabin, nice little dishes which they negotiatedgourmandly, like children. On the second day Nicodemus, furry and fatwith idleness, was saddled, and they three went down the trail toward thecamp. Charles-Norton hid on the fringe of the forest while Dolly shoppedsagely in the general store, to the general approval of the somnolentinhabitants who, by this time, had diminished to five; and then theyreturned in the twilight, Nicodemus a bit wistful with the weight of themany useful and good things within his bags. They worked about the cabinthe next day, and Dolly performed wonders with burlap and chintz. Curtains draped the three small windows, a carpet spread upon the floor, and on the big tree-trunk which, sawed off evenly in the center of thecabin, served as a table, a shining lamp was set, promising of calmevenings. 

"We'll live here forever!" cried Charles-Norton, enthusiastically. 

Dolly did not answer; her back was turned and she was busy tacking chintzalong one of the bunks. 

On the fourth morning Charles-Norton felt a vague hunger which breakfastdid not satisfy. It was with him all day as he wandered on the ground, the tips of his long wings stained with grass. It was with him strongerthe following morning; and after breakfast, he sprang suddenly into theair. "Look!" he cried to Dolly. 

And before her, above the meadow, he went through his flying repertory. He cut clashing diagonals through the air; he rose and fell inundulations like music; he shot about, gleaming white against the bluesky; and finally he came down to her from the very zenith of the dome ina sizzing straight line which opened, almost at her feet, in a whiteexplosion of suddenly extended wings. 

"You baby!" said Dolly, as once more he stood before her, pantingslightly, and his eyes dilated; "you baby!" she said, indulgently. 

Charles-Norton, shifting his position to one foot, scratched his head. Somehow, this was not quite what he had expected. He had thought Dollymore changed about this flying business; and here she seemed--well, notso very much changed. Within him he felt something vaguely bristle. Itwas still bristling there the next morning, and gave to his voice acertain brusqueness when, kissing Dolly on the forehead after breakfast, he said: "Well, so long, Dolly!"

"So long, " he said; and Dolly, from her seat on the sward, saw him leapfrom her and wing away in powerful flight. He made straight for thecrest; she saw him, flitting up there, a little white confetti in theeddy of a breeze. Rising, falling, darting capriciously, he graduallyslid off down the range, and was gone. 

Dolly rose. The meadow suddenly had become very quiet. A tree, sap-bursting, cracked resoundingly; the sound went through her like asliver. She stood there, poised as if for flight, feeling upon her fromevery tree, rock and bush, the hostile eyes of peering things; and shewas mighty glad when Nicodemus came running to her resonantly across theclearing, demanding a pancake. 

Somehow, Charles-Norton did not enjoy his flight as much as he hadexpected. He bore with him a vague uneasiness which no amount of speedingcould quite lose. He could feel, all the time, Dolly away down therealone in the deserted meadow. He returned much earlier than usual. 

Dolly was cooking by the fire in the clearing, and she greeted himcheerfully, without the slightest sign of reproach. After a while, though, he noted upon her right cheek a little smudge. It was shaped likea miniature comet; it was, rather, like the slight sediment left upon awindow-pane by a drop of rain. Charles-Norton, determinedly, refused tosee it. But it was there all the same. 

And it was there the next day when he returned, and the next, and thenext. Each night, as he lit again upon earth after his long voyagingof the air, Dolly greeted him with an ostentatious cheerfulnessbeneath which could be felt something subtly plaintive, and on hercheek--sometimes the right, sometimes the left--always would bethe little accusing smudge. 

It spoiled his flights. Following the three days spent on earth, thehunger of the spaces had come back to him, gnawing at his vitals; eachmorning he was leaving earlier, each evening he was returning later. Butall the time, in his wildest soarings, there went with him . . . A leadenpellet, a little leaden pellet, very stubborn and indissoluble, there inhis heart . . . The knowledge that, alighting, at the end he would have toface that little black smudge; that he would have to meet Dolly'scheerful greeting with its subtle, plaintive undercurrent, and the faintsmudge upon her cheek. 

Dolly, as a matter of fact, was not weeping all the time, down there inthe meadow. The care of the cabin, the preparation of the meals, gave hereach day several hours of humming content; and in the afternoon she wouldhave several good romps with Nicodemus. But there were also heavy hoursduring which the solitude of the land seemed to draw nigh from allsides; when she panted, almost, to its pressure, and felt very littleand miserable indeed. So that Charles-Norton, dropping like an archangelout of the sky, found always upon her cheek the trace of an erasure madecompletely enough to show a determination to hide tears, but not quiteenough to obliterate the determination; and leaving in the morning, hefelt her eyes wistful upon him in a humble and unspoken reproach whichall day followed him, stubborn as his own shadow, the shadow which hecould never escape. He fought well, did Charles-Norton. He tried hard notto see the little black smudge, not to think about it; and above all, notto let her know that he saw it. But all the time the weight was therewithin him, spoiling his flights. 

One morning, seeing in a sudden flash of naïve hope a solution of theirproblem, he tried to take her with him. Making a sling out of a strip ofblanket, he passed it about his waist, sat her in the slack, and rose inthe air. Thus, holding her beneath the shadow of his wings as in a swing, he flitted about, above the meadow, rising, chuting down in long, smoothslants, circling, soaring. Once he thought he heard from her a slightsuppressed cry, and then, after a while, astonished at her silence, hecame down to the shore of the lake. 

Her eyes were closed, her cheeks were white, and her hands were cold; andit was only after he had dashed water upon her that she revived. 

"Dolly, Dolly, " he murmured. 

She looked at him, smiling bravely with her white lips. "Goosie, dear, "she said, a bit wearily; "Goosie, dear, I can't. I can't dear. I getdizzy. It makes me dreadfully sick. "

He stood there on one leg, embarrassed. He wanted to take her in his armsin great tenderness, but was held back by the tenacity of his purpose, bythe knowledge of the peril of such a course. 

"Go on, " said Dolly, finally. "Go, Goosie; go on and fly. I'll stay here. With Nicodemus, " she added wistfully. 

And Charles-Norton, the brute, still inexorable, flapped his great wingsand went away, leaving her there in the meadow alone, with Nicodemus. 

But he was to get his punishment. A few days later, returning at night, he found Dolly truly weeping. 

She was kneeling by the fire, frying-pan in hand, preparing the eveningmeal; and at regular intervals two big dew-drops trickled out from herlowered lashes and dropped upon her hand. Charles-Norton, abashed andpuzzled, went about a while, making a great show of occupation, andpretending not to see. And then, suddenly, out of the corner of his eyeshe noted the rag which she had wrapped about the handle of thefrying-pan. It was not the usual rag. It was a filmy thing within whichran a color like a flame. Lordy--it was the scarf which, several weeksbefore, he had stolen one night from the girl on the veranda, in the innabove the valley, and which he had since forgotten in the clothes-bagthat served him as pillow. 

He kept a prudent silence, and pretended not to see it, though vaguelytormented by the very menial service to which Dolly successively put thatonce radiant scarf. And Dolly said not a word about it. She went on withher little housekeeping routine very carefully and submissively, whilenow and again a tear oozed from her long lashes. But Charles-Norton feltvaguely now that the balance had swung, that he was fighting now at aterrible disadvantage. 

CHAPTER XVI

Charles-Norton began to grow peevish. 

"Good Lord, " he would growl, as he flew along the crest; "why can't shesmile once, for a change, as I leave her in the morning; why can't shespeed me away with a smile, instead of that look. Why can't she be happyin her own way down there, and let me be happy up here? Why, why, why?"

He was passing just then a deep gorge, blue beneath him. From it hisquestion reascended to him, tenuous and fluttering, like a lost bird onuncertain wings. "Why--why--why?"

"She looks at me--as if I were a murderer. Just because I want to fly. Just because I have wings. Just because everything in me says, Fly! And Ihave to carry that look around with me all day long, just like a net, just like a net of crape. Dam!"

"Dam!" said the profundities. 

Charles-Norton evidently had arrived at the self-pitying stage--which wasa bad sign, if he only had known it; which showed a certain weakening ofhis moral fiber. He fought on, though. Resolutely he continued to refuseto notice the daily little black smudge upon Dolly's cheek. She was moresubmissive and dolorous than ever. She had made him, with blankets, aunion-suit that buttoned ingeniously about the roots of his wings; he putit on every morning, but hid it behind a rock till night as soon as hewas out of sight. 

But the very elements, the perversity of matter, seemed againstCharles-Norton. "There's no more flour, Goosie, " said Dolly one morning. 

Charles-Norton did not catch the significance of this remark right away. Perched on one foot, just in the act of taking wing, he had becomeabsorbed in the examination of a fluffy and cold little white objectwhich had just then settled upon his nose. He looked at it close as itdisappeared between his fingers in a silver trickle. It was a snow-flake. He glanced upward; the sky was very gray. 

"Goosie, the flour is gone, " repeated Dolly. 

Charles-Norton came back to earth. "Well, we'll have to buy some more, "he said, again preparing for flight. 

Dolly was silent, evidently considering this remark. "Have you--have youany more--money?" she asked at length, hesitatingly. 

Charles-Norton dropped his wings. "No, " he said. "No, that I haven't--nota cent. It's--it's gone. Have you?"

"_I_ haven't any, " said Dolly. Her eyes were very big. 

Charles-Norton stood there motionless a while, a bit disturbed. Then hislower jaw advanced; he shrugged his shoulders: "Well--I'll see about it;to-morrow, " he said airily, and was off. 

But he didn't see about anything "to-morrow" or after. He had a fine timethat day. A snow-flurry was passing down the Sierra, and he went with italong the crest, mile after mile, to the South, the center of its softwhite whirl, its winged tutelary God. When he returned, that night, asnow-carpet extended down from the top of the chain, down the slopes, tothe edge of the meadow. Dolly was inside of the cabin, close to thefireplace. "Ooh, Goosie, but it's cold, " she cried. "Yes, " admittedCharles-Norton; "it is cold. " His wings were encased in ice, and hesparkled rosily in the fire's glow. 

The next day, though, was warmer; the carpet of snow gradually retreatedup the slopes. It remained on the crest, however, frozen andscintillating. It was a world of increased beauty that now spread beneathCharles-Norton. The crest glittered from horizon to horizon; here andthere little lakes gleamed like hard diamonds; and lower, the willows inthe hollows lay very light, like painted vapor. 

The next morning Dolly said: "There's no sugar, Goosie. "

"Coffee is better without sugar, " said Charles-Norton, sententiously. 

For a few days the young couple, with wry faces, drank unsweetenedcoffee. Then this difficulty disappeared. Taking up the tin beforebreakfast, Dolly discovered that there was no more coffee. 

The last of the canned fruit followed, and the last slice of bacon. 

"Thank the Lord we can live on trout, " said Charles-Norton, piously. 

As if in answer, the next morning, the trout refused to take his bait ofred flannel. 

Alone there on the shore of the lake, while Dolly waited within thecabin, Charles-Norton passed a bad quarter-of-an-hour. Then he went upthe slopes back of the meadow and captured a handful of grasshoppersspringing there in the rising sun. The trout took them with gratitude. "Whee!" said Charles-Norton, when at last he had his catch. 

And then, to a cold blast from the East, a few days later, thegrasshoppers all disappeared. Charles-Norton took his axe, went into thewoods, and chopping open mouldy logs, obtained a store of white grub. Thetrout took them. 

But Fatality now was dogging him close. When, with tingling skin, heopened the cabin-door a few mornings later, a cry escaped him. Asnow-carpet spread from the crest over the face of the whole visibleworld, clear down to the western plain. It covered deep the meadow, hungin miniature mountain-chains on the boughs of the pines, filigreed thelake. The lake was frozen. 

Charles-Norton chopped a hole in the ice, then chopped logs andreplenished his supply of grubs. The trout refused them. They could notbe blamed; the grubs, hibernating, had shrunk themselves into hard littlesticks devoid of the least suspicion of succulence. 

Charles-Norton and Dolly went breakfastless that morning. All dayCharles-Norton roamed above the land with a vague idea of catchingsomething. But living creatures seemed to have withdrawn into the earth;the few still out had put on white liveries; when Charles-Norton flewlow, they fled him, and when he flew high, he could not distinguish themfrom the earth's impassive mantle. He thought once of the ranch in theplain and of its chicken-yard, but dropped the idea immediately. Dolly'svigorous little New England conscience would never accept a compromisesuch as this. 

Charles-Norton and Dolly that night went supperless to bed; they arose inthe morning with no prospect of breakfast. Charles-Norton moped long atthe fire while Dolly, very wisely silent, trotted about her work. Suddenly Charles-Norton rose with a smothered exclamation. In twostrides he made for the door, opened it, and took wing; Dolly saw himflitting among the branches of the pines in mysterious occupation. Hereturned in great triumph and threw on the table a double handful ofsmall, dry objects that looked like wooden beans. "We'll eat pine-nuts!"he cried enthusiastically. "Pine-nuts are just chuck full of protein!"

For three days they lived on pine-nuts. And then, as on the thirdevening, they sat before the little heap which made their meal, Dollyfell forward on the table with a wide movement of her arms that scatteredthe supper in a dry tinkle to the floor, and remained thus with heavingshoulders. 

Charles-Norton rose and stood above her. Dolly was weeping this time, truly weeping, beyond the slightest doubt, openly and freely. This wasthe end; he was cornered at last, his last twisting over. She wept therein an abandonment of woe, her face in her arms, her hair desolate on thesurface of the table, her shoulders palpitating. And as he gazed downupon her, a great, vague mournfulness slowly rose through him, amournfulness part regret, part sacrifice; he stood there gazing downupon her as a child gazing down on a broken toy, a broken toy in the ruinof which lay the ruin of his dreams. She wept; and he felt as if awreath, a wreath soft and flowery but very heavy, had fallen about hisneck and were drawing him down, down out of the altitudes of his will. And so, gently, he asked the question, the answer of which he knew, theasking of which was renunciation. 

"Dolly, Dolly, " he whispered; "what is the matter, Dolly?"

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, " sobbed Dolly; "ooh, Goosie, I can't--can't eatpine-nuts, Goosie! I can't!"

Her shoulders shook, the table trembled, her wail rose to a perfectlittle whistle of woe. Charles-Norton sat down by her and took her in hisarms. "Well, we won't have to, Dolly, " he said gently; "us won't have to. We--we'll go back!"

They remained thus long, entwined, while little by little the violence ofDolly's despair moderated. At length she freed herself, with a smile likethe sunlight of an April shower, and still with a little catch in herthroat, took the lamp from the table and set it on the sill of thewestern window. 

Half an hour later there was a knock at the door. 

CHAPTER XVII

After a moment of indecision, during which Dolly, rosy with excitement, was hurriedly rearranging her disordered apparel, Charles-Norton, pickingup the lamp, strode to the door and opened it. His lips were unable tohold a short exclamation of surprise. For, framed in the door-way, herestood the mysterious stranger whom twice he had caught watching him inthe meadow. 

He stood there, very tall, soft hat in hand, his white hair and cavaliermustachios shining softly in the rays of the lamp, the fringes of hisbuckskin garments all aglitter with the cold; above his right shoulderthere peered affectionately the white face of his horse, the vague loomof whom could be divined behind in the night. He placed his right footupon the lintel, and to the movement his long spur tinkled in a singlesilver note. "May I come in?" he asked gravely. 

"Why, yes; why, yes, " exclaimed Charles-Norton, recovering from hismomentary petrifaction; "come in, make yourself at home, have a chair, have a seat!"

"Back!" said the man, over his shoulder, and to the command theinquisitive nose of the white horse receded in the darkness. The man shutthe door, behind which, immediately, a philosophical munching of bitbegan to sound. He walked across the room with a low bow which caused thewide brim of his hat to sweep the floor; and to Charles-Norton'sinvitation sat himself on the bench by the fireplace. Dolly perchedherself on the side of her bunk, Charles-Norton on his. They formed thusa triangle, of which the stranger was the apex. Dolly's face was flushed, her eyes were bright, but she kept them carefully averted from thegleaming visitor. Charles-Norton, on the contrary, stared at him frankly. A reminiscence was coming slowly, like a light, into his brain. 

"I've seen you before, " he said. "Twice I've seen you with your horse, here, among the rocks. "

"Did you see me?" said the man, with a smile. 

"I couldn't place you then. But now I know. I know who you are. You'reBison Billiam, aren't you; Bison Billiam, the great scout. "

"So I am popularly known, " said the man, with a bow. 

"I remember you. It's ten, twelve years ago. You came out of a lot ofcardboard scenery at the end of the hall, hunting buffaloes. The calciumlight was on you, and you looked like this----"

Here Charles-Norton placed his right hand above his eyes in most approvedscouting style, and peered to right and left. "Humph, " said BisonBilliam, seemingly not altogether delighted with this representation. 

"And you saw the buffalo--three of them--father and mother and son, Iguess--standing in the center of the arena. You galloped right into them, and emptied the magazine of your Winchester into them--but they wouldn'trun. They knew you too well, I suppose. "

"I suppose, " agreed Bison Billiam. "The buffaloes I've hunted in the lasttwenty years have known me pretty well. It was not so once, " he saidreminiscently; "not so, not so----"

There was a little silence at this evocation of the melancholy of gonedays. The fire crackled. It was Bison Billiam who spoke first. "I've beenwatching you fly, " he said. 

"Yes?" exclaimed Charles-Norton, flushing with pleasure and doubt. 

"I have a permanent show in New York now, " went on Bison Billiam. 

"Yes?" said Charles-Norton. 

"I want you to fly there, " said Bison Billiam. 

"Yes?" said Charles-Norton. 

"I'll give you four hundred a week. "

Charles-Norton fell backward into his bunk, his legs swayingperpendicularly in the air like two derricks gone amuck. From the depthsof his involuntary position he heard the silvery pealing of Dolly'slaughter. When he rose again though, Dolly had ceased laughing, and BisonBilliam's face had a gravity which somehow vaguely impressedCharles-Norton as without solidity, like fresh varnish. The two looked asthough they had been gazing at each other, but their eyes now werecarefully averted. 

"I didn't understand, " said Charles-Norton, with dignity, andsurreptitiously took a firm hold of the edge of the bunk. 

"The matter is simply this, " said Bison Billiam. "I have a permanent WildWest show in New York. I want a new feature for it. You are it. I'll giveyou three hundred a----"

"Four hundred; you said four hundred!" exclaimed Dolly. 

He turned to her with a bow which held homage. "Four hundred, " hecorrected. 

"What will I have to do?" asked Charles-Norton, still somewhat dazed. 

"Just fly. Fly every night, and at the matinees, Wednesdays andSaturdays. The police will stand for it, I think--except on Sundays. Butwe'll settle the details later. Meanwhile, here's the contract. " Hefumbled in the inside of his buckskin jacket and drew out a typewrittendocument. 

Charles-Norton stood long over the contract, spread out on the table. Hepretended to read it, but was too agitated to do so. The little purplecharacters danced in the glow of the lamp. Upon his right shoulder hecould feel Dolly's chin; it rested there tenderly, with wistfulness, inprayer. Mixed with his excitement was a vague sadness, a sadness, somehow, as though he were saying farewell to someone. But he hadalready gone through the crisis; to Dolly's heart-rending cry upon thedietary inadequacy of pine-nuts, he had yielded his whole being insupreme sacrifice. An exultation possessed him at the thought, a madnessof self-gift. He straightened to his full height; "I'll sign!" he criedwith ringing accent. 

He felt Dolly turn about him; she laid her head upon his breast. "Sh-sh, sh-sh, " he whispered, patting her; "it's all right, Dolly. " He raised hishead once more. "I'll sign!" he declared again loudly. 

"Well, I should say so, " murmured Bison Billiam, a bit amazed at all thisceremony. Out of the holster which hung on his belt, he drew afountain-pen, which lay snugly by the silver-mounted revolver. AndCharles-Norton, his left arm about Dolly, with his right hand signedfirmly the contract. 

"I'll be back in the morning, " said Bison Billiam as he mounted hishorse. "You'll give me an exhibition, and we'll settle on your stunt andon the size of your machine--your----"

But his last word flew away with him in the night. Charles-Norton closedthe door. There was a little silence. "What did he mean?" askedCharles-Norton; "what did he mean by the size, the size of----"

"Oh, I don't know, " said Dolly. "Goosie, you are a dear; a darling, Goosie. Goosie----"

"That's all right, little girl, " said Charles-Norton with largemagnanimity; "glad to do it for you. " And then, nudging Dolly with hiselbow, "four hundred a week, Dolly; four hundred! Gee!" he cried. 

The practical side of Charles-Norton seemed at last awakened; he dancedaround the table in glee. But Dolly, singularly, did not join in. 

The next morning, bright and early, Dolly and Charles-Norton heard ahaloo outside and, emerging, found Bison Billiam erect upon hismotionless horse in the center of the snow-covered meadow. "You've hadbreakfast?" he asked pleasantly. 

"Well--yes, " said Dolly; "just got through, " said the little liar (therewasn't anything within the cabin to breakfast upon). 

"We'll begin right away, then, " said Bison Billiam. "We leave at noon. "

He dismounted, and Dolly and he seated themselves side by side, withbacks against the cabin, while Charles-Norton gave them an exhibition. 

He winged off first directly for the crest gleaming high in the distance, making his line straight and swift; then returned in a perfect curve thatspanned the distance like a rainbow. Remaining above the meadow, now, hedrew all his fantasies against the sky and finally, rising high till hewas a mere dot in the heavens, he shot down like a white thunderbolt andlanded at their feet in snowy explosion of extended wings. 

He found Bison Billiam and Dolly conferring earnestly. "Two feet, Ithink, " Bison Billiam said. Dolly ran into the cabin and returned with apair of glittering scissors. 

"What are you going to do?" asked Charles-Norton, suddenly cold anddistrustful. 

"Cut off two feet, " said Dolly, laughingly. "Mr. Billiam says to cut offtwo feet. "

"Off my wings?" yelped Charles-Norton; "off my wings?"

Dolly turned her eyes to Bison Billiam in doubt, in appeal. "It's in thecontract, young man, " said Bison Billiam. "Haven't you read the contract?"he said, drawing the document from his jacket. 

"No, I haven't, " said Charles-Norton, shortly. "Let me see it. "

And he read, beneath Bison Billiam's pointing finger: "It shall beregarded as a part of this agreement that the length of the flyingapparatus, whatsoever it may be, shall be determined by the party of thefirst part. "

"I won't!" thundered Charles-Norton. 

"Goosie, dear, " implored Dolly; "Goosie, dear, only two feet, and it's inthe contract, Goosie, dear----"

He turned upon her fiercely. "Why can't you eat pine-nuts?" he cried;"why, why, why?"

She drew back a step and looked at him with great large eyes, and as hemet them, he saw them fill slowly with tears. "I can't, " she said simply;"I can't, Goosie. " Again Charles-Norton had that sensation of a wreathfalling about his neck, a heavy wreath within the soft flowers of whichwas hidden a good stout chain. "All right; go ahead, " he said, with asigh. 

Dolly, with the firmness of a surgeon inexorably sure of what is bestfor his patient, curtailed the "flying apparatus" to the required length. "Now, let's see you, " said Bison Billiam. 

And Charles-Norton repeated his performance, more heavily this time, insmaller compass. But when he descended, again he was met by BisonBilliam's disapproving head-shake. "We'll have to take off another foot, "said Bison Billiam. 

"But why?" remonstrated Charles-Norton (with the first cut there hadalready come to him a certain lassitude, an indifference, almost, whichmade him much more tractable). "Why do you want my wings short?" (also hewas conscious of a feeling of aspiration amidships, of aspiration forsomething else than pine-nuts). "Don't you want me to fly well? What thedeuce is the matter?"

"It won't do; it won't do at all, " said Bison Billiam, in a tone almostof discouragement. "Can't you _see_ it won't do?" he went on impatiently. "It's too smooth; there's no effort in it. Lord, you do it as though itwere _easy_! And there's no _danger_ in it, man! Lord, I sit here andwatch you without batting an eye-lid; feeling sure you can't fall. That'snot what I want. I want the audience to get excited, to palpitate! Idon't want them to sit there like lambs watching a cloud, or a birdflying. Your act isn't worth two-bits a week. I want men to groan, children to scream, women to faint! Lop 'em off!"

Again Charles-Norton submitted himself to Dolly's gentle fingers and coldscissors, and repeated his act with shortened wings. This happened threetimes. Three times the scissors zipped, down eddied to the ground, andCharles-Norton tried again, more heavily, more soddenly, his beinginvaded by the emptiness of the old days, the shorn days. 

At the end of the third flight, Bison Billiam remained silent a longtime, evidently the prey of a heavy discouragement. Suddenly the light ofinspiration sprang to his brow; his voice rang clear in the glade. "Cutsix inches off the left wing, " he cried, "and leave the right as it is. Shear the left and leave the right as it is!"

Charles-Norton gazed at him open-mouthed. But by this time there waslittle left in him strong enough for rebellion. He closed his mouthagain. Dolly interceded with a glance of her soft eyes, but BisonBilliam was aglow with his idea. "Cut!" he cried. 

Dolly cut. 

This time the result was eminently satisfactory. With great effort, withcracking sinew and sweating brow, Charles-Norton managed to circle themeadow once with heavy, awkward flapping. His neck was awry with theuneven pressure, his fine body was twisted; he almost struck the groundbetween each stroke, and as he was passing his audience on the beginningof a second lap, he lost control suddenly, turned clear over, and floppedto earth at their feet. 

Bison Billiam could not restrain his enthusiasm now. He clapped hishands, he skipped about like a child. "Fine; fine!" he cried, and hisdeep voice rang clear to the crest; "that's the stuff; now we've got it!By Jove, " he swore, his satisfaction rising to delirium, "I'll give youfour hundred _and fifty_ a week!"

They left immediately, Charles-Norton dressing, for the first time in manydays, in his city suit of clothes. The wings, even though--rectified, bulged the coat, but this was hidden by the cape of his mackintosh, whichDolly, providentially, had brought with her from the city. They wendedtheir way back along the trail to the camp, Charles-Norton bronzed like afarmer, choking in his white collar, Dolly very pretty in her tailorsuit, her furs, and her toque, Bison Billiam resplendent on his whitehorse; and before them Nicodemus trotted demurely, a dress-suit case ineach saddle-bag, another slung atop. They left him at the camp, grazingphilosophically on his old dump. Charles-Norton gave him an affectionatefarewell slap, Dolly kissed him on the nose, and they then climbed aboardthe shining private-car which stood ready for them on the siding. One endof the private-car was a luxurious stable, in which the white horseclimbed along a cleated gang-way. A half-hour later the passing Overlandtrain picked up the car, and slowly clicking along the summit, they saw, between two snow-sheds, the little meadow, its lake, and its cabin, passby, out of their vision, out of their lives. 

Charles-Norton took off his coat, which felt very tight. A private-carhad a freedom, and comforts, which a public-car has not; a faintappreciation of this fact came to Charles-Norton as he settled back, coatless, in his upholstered chair, and with it the first vague snuggleof readjustment. This feeling became clearer after the dainty breakfastserved by Bison Billiam's white-capped cook, and expressed itself in asigh almost of content when Bison Billiam, with the coffee, passed him agreat fat cigar. Charles-Norton threw a surreptitious glance at the heavyband; it was a dollar cigar. 

Life, after all, has its compensations. 

CHAPTER XVIII

And now, how about Charles-Norton and Dolly?

Well, they are getting along very well; very well, very well indeed. 

Of course, they have their little differences--as have most couples. Mostly, it is about wings. There seems to be a something fundamentalabout both Charles-Norton and Dolly which irresistibly makes them divergeon the question of the proper length of wings (male wings at least). Fora time, in fact, during the first months of their intoxicating publicsuccess and before they had arrived to the present adjustment, thequestion threatened to bring the conjugal craft to a final wreck. Strangely enough (or naturally enough) it is a catastrophe that eased thesituation. One night, after Dolly, in a sudden access of resentment, hadtaken an immoderate whack out of the left wing, Charles-Norton tumbledto the ground in the midst of his performance, and broke his ankle. 

It was, of course, in an agony of remorse that Dolly nursed her husbandduring his long month of enforced and bed-ridden idleness. Luckily, BisonBilliam behaved beautifully. He let the salary run on during the wholecourse of Charles-Norton's incapacity, and then, with genial inspiration, prevailed upon him, when he had recovered, to make his publicreappearance with the heavy plaster-of-paris cast still upon the injuredleg--which immensely increased the Flying Wonder's popularity andsuccess. 

A _modus vivendi_ was agreed upon after this, which is still in force andworks very well. Bison Billiam was made the permanent arbitrator of thewing question. Whenever they have a little difference now, Charles-Nortonand Dolly go to Bison Billiam, and, standing before him hand in hand, listen to a sage adjudication of their rights and their wrongs. They callhim Papa Bison. 

And so, they are quite happy. Dolly, of course, takes a keen pleasure inher home. She has a neat little brick house, with a white door, near theRiverside Drive, and a butler. A butler always had been Dolly's secretdream. 

Charles-Norton, also, though unconsciously perhaps, gets a good deal ofpleasure out of the house (and the butler), for Dolly, with innategenius, has given it an air of quiet elegance and culture which hesecretly enjoys. There is, also, a certain contentment in living lifealong a definite routine. He flies every night but Sunday, and twoafternoons a week. And then, if Dolly has her house, he has hisautomobile. 

A big, high-powered, red automobile. He goes out in it with Dolly everySunday. When he arrives to a certain point in a certain highway, wherethe road is smooth and hard, and undulates up and down like a ConeyIsland chute for many miles, he leans forward and puts his chin close tothe back of the chauffeur, who is French, and looks like Mephistopheles. 

"Let her out, " he says. 

The chauffeur, with a grin, "lets her out"--and they swoop down and up, down and up, in increasing speed. The road is a ribbon, which she rollshungrily within her; the trees, the rare houses on both sides, coalesceinto two solid, whirling walls. 

"Faster, " says Charles-Norton. 

The world becomes two parallel planes of solid atmosphere, rushing alongclose to right and left; the air strikes their faces like a fist, closingtheir nostrils till they gasp; the machine's hum becomes a cry; its flapsrise like wings. 

"Faster, " says Charles-Norton. 

He seems to leave his body; it wafts off behind on a current of air, likea hat--and he is only a soul, a delicious kernel of soul ecstaticallydrunk, floating like an atom through the eternities. 

"Faster, " he says. 

But he is aware now of a shrill, insistent, strident sound. It drillsinto his soul; it will not be quiet; it will not let him be. Bing! Hisbody, catching up from behind, drops about him again--and then he knows. It is Dolly; Dolly screaming, poor little Dolly hysterical with fear. 

"Slow up, " he says to the chauffeur. 

The world gradually changes from a mere blur of parallel lines to visiblegroupings of matter. Trees, houses, the road, the sky reappear as througha curtain torn before them. The chauffeur wipes his brow. "Ah, Monsieur!" he says. 

And Dolly, very pale, says with an impatience that seems weary, as thoughit were repeating itself for the thousandth time "Oh, Goosie, why, why, why will you scare me so?"

Charles-Norton is penitent, but a bit morose. "Gee, " he says; "thatwasn't fast. That wasn't fast. " His eyes go off, very far; a vague, vagueyearning, covered over with layer and layer of resignation, palpitatesfaintly at the pit of his being. "You don't know what speeding is, " hemurmurs; "you don't know----"

The machine, at smooth half-speed, is returning toward the city. "I won'tgo with you again, " says Dolly. 

But she always does. She doesn't like to ride fast, and he does, but shenever lets him ride alone. 'Cause she loves him!

He will have to be more careful now, however. The other evening, as theysat in the cozy reading-room (lined with editions de luxe) after theperformance, she got upon his knee and, hiding his eyes with her hands sohe could not look at her, whispered something in his ear. 

Charles-Norton sat silent a long moment after that. Then he said, asthough speaking to himself: "I wonder if _he_ will--if _he_ will also--if_he_ will----"

"I wonder; I wonder!" said Dolly, ecstatically, her eyes wide upon asplendid vision. 

"We could keep them down, " said Charles-Norton, consideringly, "bybeginning early. By beginning early, with bandages, we could keep themdown----"

To his great amazement, Dolly dissented. "Oh, no, no, no, no!" she cried. "Oh, he would look so cute with them--just like a little angel! Just likea little angel, Goosie!"

And Charles-Norton is still wondering about this differentiation inDolly's wise little head, wondering why _he_ can, while Goosie--can't. 

 THE END

Transcriber's notes

The following were identified as spelling or typographicerrors and have been emended as noted. 

page 3 - corrected calisthenics

The mirror before which he had been performing his morningcalesthenics faced him uncompromisingly;

page 27 - corrected you're

"Well, " he said finally, "maybe your right. 

page 41 - corrected telephone

at the sound of the telphone bell. 

page 42 - corrected harassing

which had suddenly solved for her the harrassing problem ofthe spring hat

page 82 - corrected resonant

As it slid slowly out beneath the resonnant cupola, page 105 - corrected susurrant

From their feet the meadow spreads, fresh and lush, sussurant with the hidden flow of a brook, page 130 - corrected gliding

and upon the stage, giding in from the West like aCinderella coach drawn by six white mice, page 135 - added opening quotation mark

And so I fought it, John, I fought your love. 

page 172 - left as is - sizzing as unclear what was correct

and finally he came down to her from the very zenith of thedome in a sizzing straight line which opened

page 203 - added closing quotation mark

"It shall be regarded as a part of this agreement that thelength of the flying apparatus, whatsoever it may be, shallbe determined by the party of the first part. 

All other unusual, colloquial or non-standard spelling andpunctuation has been left as in the original book.