WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING

BOOKS BY RUPERT HUGHES

We Can't Have Everything

In A Little Town

The Thirteenth Commandment

Clipped Wings

What Will People Say?

The Last Rose Of Summer

Empty Pockets

[Illustration: WAR, THE SUNDERER, HAD REACHED THEM WITH HIS GREAT DIVORCE]

WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING

A NOVEL BY RUPERT HUGHES

AUTHOR OF _What Will People Say?_

ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG

CONTENTS

THE FIRST BOOKMISS KEDZIE THROPP COMES TO TOWN

THE SECOND BOOKMRS. TOMMIE GILFOYLE HAS HER PICTURE TAKEN

THE THIRD BOOKMRS. JIM DYCKMAN IS NOT SATISFIED

THE FOURTH BOOKTHE MARCHIONESS HAS QUALMS

THE FIRST BOOK

MISS KEDZIE THROPP COMES TO TOWN

CHAPTER I

Kedzie Thropp had never seen Fifth Avenue or a yacht or a butleror a glass of champagne or an ocean or a person of social prominence. She wanted to see them. 

For each five minutes of the day and night, one girl comes to NewYork to make her life; or so the compilers of statistics claim. 

This was Kedzie Thropp's five minutes. 

She did not know it, and the two highly important, because extremelywealthy, beings in the same Pullman car never suspected her--neverimagined that the tangle they were already in would be furtherknotted, then snipped, then snarled up again, by this littlemediocrity. 

We never can know these things, but go blindly groping throughthe crowd of fellow-gropers, guessing at our presents and gettingour pasts all wrong. What could we know of our futures?

Jim Dyckman, infamously rich (through no fault of his own), could notsee far enough past Charity Coe Cheever that day to make out KedzieThropp, a few seats removed. Charity Coe--most of Mrs. Cheever'sfriends still called her by her maiden name--sat with her back turnedto Kedzie; and latterly Charity Coe was not looking over her shouldermuch. She did not see Kedzie at all. 

And Kedzie herself, shabby and commonplace, was so ignorant thatif she looked at either Jim or Charity Coe she gave them no heed, for she had never even heard of them or seen their pictures, so frequent in the papers. 

They were among the whom-not-to-know-argues-one-self-unknowns. But there were countless other facts that argued Kedzie Throppunknown and unknowing. As she was forever saying, she had neverhad anything or been anywhere or seen anybody worth having, being, or seeing. 

But Jim Dyckman, everybody said, had always had everything, beeneverywhere, known everybody who was anybody. As for Charity Coe, she had given away more than most people ever have. And she, too, had traveled and met. 

Yet Kedzie Thropp was destined (if there is such a thing as beingdestined--at any rate, it fell to her lot) to turn the lives of thosetwo bigwigs topsy-turvy, and to get her picture into more papersthan both of them put together. A large part of latter-day existencehas consisted of the fear or the favor of getting pictures in thepapers. 

It was Kedzie's unusual distinction to win into the headlines ather first entrance into New York, and for the quaintest of reasons. She had somebody's else picture published for her that time; butlater she had her very own published by the thousand until thelittle commoner, born in the most neglected corner of oblivion, grew impudent enough to weary of her fame and prate of the comfortsof obscurity!

Kedzie Thropp was as plebeian as a ripe peach swung in the sun acrossan old fence, almost and not quite within the grasp of any passer-by. She also inspired appetite, but always somehow escaped pluckingand possession. It is doubtful whether anybody ever really tastedher soul--if she had one. Her flavor was that very inaccessibility. She was always just a little beyond. Her heart was forever fixedon the next thing, just quitting the last thing. Eternal, delicious, harrowing discontent was Kedzie's whole spirit. 

Charity Coe's habit was self-denial; Kedzie's self-fostering, all-demanding. She was what Napoleon would have been if the LittleCorporal had been a pretty girl with a passion for delicaciesinstead of powers. 

Thanks to Kedzie, two of the best people that could be were plungedinto miseries that their wealth only aggravated. 

Thanks to Kedzie, Jim Dyckman, one of the richest men going and oneof the decentest fellows alive, learned what it means to lie inshabby domicile and to salt dirty bread with tears; to be afraidto face the public that had fawned on him, and to understand theportion of the criminal and the pariah. 

And sweet Charity Coe, who had no selfishness in any motive, whoought to have been canonized as a saint in her smart Parisian robesof martyrdom, found the clergy slamming their doors in her faceand bawling her name from their pulpits; she was, as it were, lynchedby the Church, thanks again to Kedzie. 

But one ought not to hate Kedzie. It was not her fault (was it?)that she was cooked up out of sugar and spice and everything niceinto a little candy allegory of selfishness with one pink handover her little heartless heart-place and one pink hand alwaysoutstretched for more. 

Kedzie of the sugar lip and the honey eye! She was going to be carriedthrough New York from the sub-sub-cellar of its poverty to its highesttower of wealth. She would sleep one night alone under a public benchin a park, and another night, with all sorts of nights between, shewould sleep in a bed where a duchess had lain, and in arms Americanlyroyal. 

So much can the grand jumble of causes and effects that we call fatedo with a wanderer through life. 

During the same five minutes which were Kedzie's other girls weremaking for New York; some of them to succeed apparently, some of themto fail undeniably, some of them to become fine, clean wives; someof them to flare, then blacken against the sky because of famousscandals and fascinating crimes in which they were to be involved. 

Their motives were as various as their fates, and only one thingis safe to say--that their motives and their fates had little to dowith one another. Few of the girls, if any, got what they came forand strove for; and if they got it, it was not just what they thoughtit was going to be. 

This is Kedzie's history, and the history of the problem confrontingJim Dyckman and Charity Coe Cheever: the problem that Kedzie was goingto seem to solve--as one solves any problem humanly, which is bysubstituting one or more new problems in place of the old. 

This girl Kedzie who had never had anything had one thing--a fetchingpout. Perhaps she had the pout because she had never had anything. An Elizabethan poet would have said of her upper lip that a beein search of honey had stung it in anger at finding it not the roseit seemed, but something fairer. 

She had eyes full of appeal--appeal for something--what? Who knows?She didn't. Her eyes said, "Have mercy on me; be kind to me. "The shoddy beaux in her home town said that Kedzie's eyes said, "Kiss me quick!" They had obeyed her eyes, and yet the look of appealwas not quenched. She came to New York with no plan to stay. But shedid stay, and she left her footprints in many lives, most deeplyin the life of Jim Dyckman. 

CHAPTER II

Miss Kedzie Thropp had never seen Fifth Avenue or a yacht or a butleror a glass of champagne or an ocean or a person of social prominence. She wanted to see them. To Jim Dyckman these things were commonplace. What he wanted was simple, complex, cheap, priceless things--love, home, repose, contentment. 

He was on the top of the world, and he wanted to get down or havesomebody else come up to him. Peaks are by definition and necessitylimited to small foothold. Climbing up is hardly more dangerousthan climbing down. Even to bend and lift some one else up alongsideinvolves a risk of falling or of being pushed overboard. 

But at present Jim Dyckman was thinking of the other girl, CharityCoe Cheever, perched on a peak as cold and high as his own, but farremoved from his reach. 

Even the double seat in the sleeping-car was too small for Jim. Hesprawled from back to back, slumped and hunched in curves and anglesthat should have looked peasant and yet somehow had the oppositeeffect. 

His shoes were thick-soled but unquestionably expensive, his clothesof loose, rough stuff manifestly fashionable. Like them, he had akind of burly grace. He had been used to a well-upholstered life. 

He was one of those giants that often grow in rich men's homes. Hisfather was such another, and his mother suggested the Statue ofLiberty in corsets and on high heels. 

Dyckman was reading a weekly journal devoted to horses and dogs, and reading with such interest that he hardly knew when the trainstopped. 

He did not see the woman who got out of a motor and got into thetrain, and whose small baggage the porter put in the empty placeopposite his. He did not see that she leaned into the aisle andregarded him with a pathetic amusement in her caressing eyes. Shetook her time about making herself known; then she uttered onlya discreet:

"Ahem!"

She put into the cough many subtle implications. Hardly more couldbe crowded into a shrug. 

Dyckman came out of his kennels and paddocks, blinked, stared, gaped. Then he began to stand up by first stepping down. He bestrode thenarrow aisle like a Colossus. 

He caught her two hands, brought them together, placed them in oneof his, and covered them with the other as in a big muff, and bentclose to pour into her eyes such ardor that for a moment she closedhers against the flame. 

Then, as if in that silent greeting their souls had made a too loudand startling noise of welcome, both of them looked about withan effect of surreptition and alarm. 

There were not many people in the car, and they were absorbed intheir own books, gossips, or naps. Only a few head-tops showingabove the high-backed seats, and no eyes or ears. 

"Do you know anybody on the train?" the woman asked. 

The man shook his head and sank into the seat opposite her, stillclinging to her hands. She extricated them:

"But everybody knows you. "

He dismissed this with a sniff of reproof. Then they settled downin the small trench and seemed to take a childish delight in theperil of their rencounter. 

"Lord, but it's good to see you!" he sighed, luxuriously. "Andyou're stunninger than ever!"

"I'm a sight!" she said. 

She was clad even more plainly than he, and had the same spiritof neglectful elegance. She was big, too, for a woman; somewhat lankbut well muscled, and decisive in her motions as if she normallyabounded in strength. What grace she had was an athlete's, but shelooked overtrained or undernourished. Seeing that she did not lookwell, Dyckman said:

"How well you're looking, Charity. "

She did not look like Charity, either; but her name had been givento her before she was born. There had nearly always been a girlcalled Charity in the Coe family. They had brought the name withthem from New England when they settled in Westchester County sometwo hundred years before. They had kept little of their Puritanismexcept a few of the names. 

This sportswoman called Charity had been trying to live up to hername, of late. That was why she was haggard. She smiled at herfriend's unmerited praise. 

"Thanks, Jim. I need a compliment like the devil. "

"Where've you been since you got back?"

"Up in the camp, trying to get a little rest and exercise. But it'stoo lonesome nights. I rest better when I keep on the jump. "

"You're in black; that doesn't mean--?"

She shook her head. A light of eagerness in his eyes was quenched, and he growled:

"Too bad!" He could afford to say it, since the object of his obloquywas alive. If the person mentioned had not been alive, the phrasehe used would have been the same more gently intoned. 

Charity protested: "Shame on you! I know you mean it for flattery, but you mustn't, you really mustn't. I'm in black for--for Europe. "She laughed pitifully at the conceit. 

He answered, with admiring awe: "I've heard about you. You're awonder; that's what you are, Charity Coe, a wonder. Here's a bighulk like me loafing around trying to kill time, and a little tikelike you over there in France spending a fortune of money and morestrength than even you've got in a slaughter-house of a war hospital. How did you stand it?"

"It wasn't much fun, " she sighed, "but the nurses can't feel sorryfor themselves when they see--what they see. "

"I can imagine, " he said. 

But he could not have imagined her as she daily had been. She andthe other princesses of blood royal or bourgeois had been moilingamong the red human débris of war, the living garbage of battle, as the wagons and trains emptied it into the receiving stations. 

She and they had stood till they slept standing. They had doneharder, filthier jobs than the women who worked in machine-shops andin furrows, while the male-kind fought. She had gone about bedabbledin blood, her hair drenched with it. Her delicate hands had performedtasks that would have been obscene if they had not been sublimein a realm of suffering where nothing was obscene except the causeof it all. 

She sickened at it more in retrospect than in action, and triedto shake it from her mind by a change of subject. 

"And what have you been up to, Jim?"

"Ah, nothing but the same old useless loafing. Been up in the NorthWoods for some hunting and fishing, " he snarled. His voice alwaysgrew contemptuous when he spoke of himself, but idolatrous whenhe spoke of her--as now when he asked: "I heard you had gone backabroad. But you're not going, are you?"

"Yes, as soon as I get my nerves a little steadier. "

"I won't let you go back!" He checked himself. He had no right todictate to her. He amended to: "You mustn't. It's dangerous crossing, with all those submarines and floating mines. You've done your bitand more. "

"But there's so horribly much to do. "

"You've done enough. How many children have you got now?"

"About a hundred. "

"Holy mother!" he whispered, with a profane piety. "Can even youafford as big a family as that?"

"Well, I've had to call for some help. "

"Let me chip in? Will you?"

"Sure I will. Go as far as you like. "

"All right; it's a bet. Name the sum, and I'll mail it to you. "

"You'd better not mail me anything, Jim" she said. 

He blenched and mumbled: "Oh, all right! I'll write you a check now. "

"Later, " she said. "I don't like to talk much about such things, please. "

"Promise me you won't go back. "

She simply waived the theme: "Let's talk of something pleasant, if you don't mind. "

"Something pleasant, eh? Then I can't ask about--him, I suppose. "

"Of course. Why not?"

"How is the hound?--begging the pardon of all honest hounds. "

She was too sure of her own feelings toward her husband to feel itnecessary to rush to his defense--against a former rival. Her answerwas, "He's well enough to raise a handsome row if he saw you and metogether. "

He grumbled a full double-barreled oath and did not apologize for it. She spoke coldly:

"You'd better go back to your seat. "

She was as severe as a woman can well be with a man who adores herand writhes with jealousy of a man she adores. 

"I'll be good, Teacher, " he said. "Was he over there with you?"

She evidently liked to talk about her husband. She brightened asshe spoke. "Yes, for a while. He drove a motor-ambulance, you know, but it bored him after a month or two. They wouldn't let him up tothe firing-lines, so he quit. Have you seen him?"

"Once or twice. "

"He's looking well, isn't he?"

"Yes, confound him! His handsome features have been my ruin. "

She could smile at that inverted compliment. But Dyckman beganto think very hard. He was suddenly confronted with one ofthe conundrums in duty which life incessantly propounds--life thatsquats at all the crossroads with a sphinxic riddle for everywayfarer. 

CHAPTER III

Kedzie--to say it again--did not know enough about New York orthe world to recognize Mrs. Cheever and Mr. Dyckman when she glancedat them and glanced away. They did not at all come up to Kedzie'sidea or ideal of what swells should be, and she had not even grownup enough to study the society news that makes such thrilling readingto those who thrill to that sort of thing. The society notes inthe town paper in Kedzie's town (Nimrim, Missouri) consisted ofbombastic chronicles of church sociables or lists of those presentat surprise-parties. 

This girl's home was one of the cheapest in that cheap town. Herpeople not only were poor, but lived more poorly than they had to. They had, in consequence, a little reserve of funds, which theytook pride in keeping up. The three Thropps came now to New Yorkfor the first time in their three lives. They were almost as ignorantas the other peasant immigrants that steam in from the sea. 

Adna Thropp, the father, was a local claim-agent on a small railroad. He spent his life pitting his wits against the petty greed of honestfarmers and God-fearing, railroad-hating citizens. If a granger lethis fence fall down and a rickety cow disputed the right of way witha locomotive's cow-catcher, the granger naturally put in a claim forthe destruction of a prize-winning animal with a record as an amazingmilker; also he added something for damage to the feelings of thefamily in the loss of a household pet. It was Adna's business to beatthe shyster lawyers to the granger and beat the granger to the lastpenny. One of his best baits was a roll of cash tantalizingly wavedin front of his victim while he breathed proverbs about the delayfulcourts. 

This being Adna's livelihood, it was not surprising that his habitof mind gave pennies a grave importance. Of course, he carried hismind home with him from the office, and every demand of his wifeor children for money was again a test of ability in claim-agencytactics. He fought so earnestly for every cent he gave down that hisdependents felt that it was generally better to go without thingsthan to enter into a life-and-death struggle for them with Pa. 

For that reason Ma Thropp did the cooking, baked the "light bread, "and made the clothes and washed them and mended them till theyvanished. She cut the boys' hair; she schooled the girls to help herin the kitchen and at the sewing-machine and with the preserve-jars. Her day's work ended when she could no longer see her darning-needle. It began as soon as she could see daylight to light the fire by. Inwinter the day began in her dark, cold kitchen long before the sunstarted his fire on the eastern hills. 

She upheld a standard of morals as high as Mount Everest and as bleak. She made home a region of everlasting chores, rebukes, sayings wiserthan tender, complaints and bitter criticisms of husband, children, merchants, neighbors, weather, prices, fabrics--of everything onearth but of nothing in heaven. 

Strange to say, the children did not appreciate the advantagesof their life. The boys had begun to earn their own money early bythe splitting of wood and the shoveling of snow, by the vending ofsoap, and the conduct of delivery-wagons. They spent their eveningsat pool-tables or on corners. The elder girls had accepted positionsin the various emporia of the village as soon as they could. Theycounted the long hours of the shop life as an escape from worse. Their free evenings were not devoted to self-improvement. Theydid not turn out to be really very good girls. They were up to allsorts of village mischief and shabby frivolity. Their poor mothercould not account for it. She could scold them well, but she couldnot scold them good. 

The daughter on the train, the youngest--named Kedzie after an auntwho was the least poor of the relatives--was just growing up intoa similar career. Her highest prayer was that her path might leadher to a clerkship in a candy-shop. Then this miracle! Her fatherannounced that he was going to New York. 

Adna was always traveling on the railroad, but he had never traveledfar. To undertake New York was hardly less remarkable than to runover to the moon for a few days. 

When he brought the news home he could hardly get up the front stepswith it. When he announced it at the table, and tried to be careless, his hand trembled till the saucerful of coffee at his quivering lipssplashed over on the clean red-plaid table-cloth. 

The occasion of Thropp's call to New York was this: he had joineda "benevolent order" of the Knights of Something-or-other in hisearly years and had risen high in the chapter in his home town. When one of the members died, the others attended his funeral infull regalia, consisting of each individual's Sunday clothes, enhanced with a fringed sash and lappets. Also there was a swordto carry. The advantage of belonging to the order was that themember got the funeral for nothing and his wife got the furtherconsolation of a sum of money. 

Mrs. Thropp bore her neighbors no more ill-will than they deserved, but she did enjoy their funerals. They gave her husband an excusefor his venerable silk hat and his gilded glave. Sometimes as shetook her hands out of the dough and dried them on her apron to fastenhis sash about him, she felt all the glory of a medieval countessbuckling the armor on her doughty earl. She had never heard of suchpersons, but she knew their epic uplift. 

Now, Mr. Thropp had paid his dues and his insurance premiumsfor years and years. They were his one extravagance. Also he hadpersuaded Mrs. Thropp's brother Sol to do the same. Sol had diedrecently and left his insurance money to Mrs. Thropp. Sol's own wife, after cherishing long-deferred hopes of spending that money herself, had been hauled away first. She never got that insurance money. Neither did any one else; the central office in New York failedto pay up. 

The annual convention was about to be held in the metropolis, andthere was to be a tremendous investigation of the insurance scandal. Adna was elected the delegate of the Nimrim chapter, for he was knownto be a demon in a money-fight. 

And this was the glittering news that Adna brought home. Small wonderit spilled his coffee. And that wife of his not only had to go andyell at him about a little coffee-stain, but she had to announce thatshe hardly saw how she could get ready to go right away--and who wasto look after those children?

Adna's jaw fell. Perhaps he had ventured on dreams of being set freein New York all by himself. She soon woke him. She said she wouldn'tno more allow him loose in that wicked place than she would--well, she didn't know what! He could get a pass for self and wife as easyas shootin'. Adna yielded to the inevitable with a sorry grace andtold her to come along if she'd a mind to. 

And then came a still, small voice from daughter Kedzie. She spokewith a menacing sweetness: "Goody, goody! Besides seeing New York, I won't have to go to school for--How long we goin' to be gone, poppa?"

Both parents stared at her aghast and told her to hush her mouth. It was a very pretty mouth even in anger, and Kedzie declined tohush it. She said:

"Well, if you two think you're goin' to leave me home, you gotanother think comin'--that's all I got to say. "

She betrayed an appalling stubbornness, a fiendish determinationto subdue her parents or talk them to death. 

"I never get to go any place, " she wailed. "I never been anywhere orseen anything or had anything; I might as well be a bump on a log. And now you're goin' to New York. I'd sooner go there than to heaven. It's my first chance to see a city, and I just tell you right hereand now, I'm not goin' to lose it! You take me or you'll be mightysorry. I'll--I'll--"

"You'll what?" her father sneered. What, after all, could a younggirl do?

"I'll run off, that's what I'll do! And disgrace you! I'll run awayand you'll never see me again. If you're mean enough to not take me, I'm mean enough to do something desprut. You'll see!"

Her father realized that there were several things a young girlcould do to punish her parents. Kedzie frightened hers with herfanatic zeal. They gave in at last from sheer terror. Immediatelyshe became almost intolerably rapturous. She shrieked and jumped;and she kissed and hugged every member of the household, includingthe dogs and the cats. She must go down-town and torment her girlfriends with her superiority and she could hardly live throughthe hours that intervened before the train started. 

The Thropps rode all day in the day-coach to Chicago, and Kedzieloved every cinder that flew into her gorgeous eyes. Now and thenshe slept curled up kittenwise on a seat, and the motion of the trainlulled her as with angelic pinions. She dreamed impossible gloriesin unheard-of cities. 

But her mother bulked large and had been too long accustomed toher own rocking-chair to rest in a day-coach. She reached Chicagoin a state of collapse. She told Adna that she would have to travelthe rest of the way in a sleeper or in a baggage-car, for she justnaturally had to lay down. So Adna paid for two berths. It weakenedhim like a hemorrhage. 

Kedzie's first sorrow was in leaving Chicago. They changed trainsthere, bouncing across the town in a bus. That transit coloredKedzie's soul like dragging a ribbon through a vat of dye. Henceforthshe was of a city hue. 

She was enamoured of every cobblestone, and she loved every man, woman, horse, and motor she passed. She tried to flirt withthe tall buildings. She was afraid to leave Chicago lest she neverget to New York, or find it inferior. She begged to be left there. It was plenty good enough for her. 

But once aboard the sleeping-car she was blissful again, andembarrassed her mother and father with her adoration. In allsincerity, Kedzie mechanically worshiped people who got thingsfor her, and loathed people who forbade things or took them away. 

She horrified the porter by calling him "Mister"--almost as muchas her parents scandalized him the next day by eating their mealsout of a filing-cabinet of shoe-boxes compiled by Mrs. Thropp. Butit was all picnic to Kedzie. Fortunately for her repose, she neverknew that there was a dining-car attached. 

The ordeal of a night in a sleeping-car coffin was to Kedzie anexperience of faery. She laughed aloud when she bumped her head, and getting out of and into her clothes was a fascinating exercisein contortion. She was entranced by the wash-room with its hot andcold water and its basin of apparent silver, whose contents did nothave to be lifted and splashed into a slop-jar, but magicallyemptied themselves at the raising of a medallion. 

She had not worn herself out with enthusiasm by the time the firstnight was spent and half the next day. She pressed her nose againstthe window and ached with regret at the hurry with which towns andcities were whipped away from her eyes. 

She did not care for grass and trees and cows and dull villages, but she thrilled at the beauty of big, dark railroad stationsand noble street-cars and avenues paved with exquisite asphalt. 

The train was late in arriving at New York, and it was nearer tenthan eight when it roared across the Harlem River. Kedzie was glad ofthe display, for she saw the town first as one great light-spangledbanner. 

The car seemed to be drawn right through people's rooms. Everybodylived up-stairs. She caught glimpses of kitchens on the fourth floorand she thought this adorable, except that it would be a job carryingthe wood all the way up. 

The streets went by like the glistening spokes of a swift wheel. They were packed with interesting sights. No wonder most of theinhabitants were either in the streets or leaning out of the windowslooking down. Here it was ten o'clock, and not a sign of anybody'shaving thought of going to bed. New York was a sensible place. She liked New York. 

But the train seemed to quicken its pace out of mere spitefulnessjust as they reached wonderful market streets with flaring lightsover little carts all filled with things to buy. 

When the wonder world was blotted from view by the tunnel itfrightened her at first with its long, dark noise and the flip-flopsof light. Then a brief glimpse of towers and walls. Then the darkstation. And they were There!

CHAPTER IV

Jim Dyckman had always loved Charity Coe, but he let another manmarry her--a handsomer, livelier, more entertaining man with whomDyckman was afraid to compete. A mingling of laziness and of modestydisarmed him. 

As soon as he saw how tempestuously Peter Cheever began his courtship, Dyckman withdrew from Miss Coe's entourage. When she asked him why, he said, frankly:

"Pete Cheever's got me beat. I know when I'm licked. "

Pete's courtship was what the politicians call a whirlwind campaign. Charity was Mrs. Cheever before she knew it. Her friends continuedto call her Charity Coe, but she was very much married. 

Cheever was a man of shifting ardors. His soul was filled withautomatic fire-extinguishers. He flared up quickly, but when histemperature reached a certain degree, sprinklers of cold wateropened in his ceiling and doused the blaze, leaving him unharmedand hardly scorched. It had been so with his loves. 

After a brief and blissful honeymoon, Peter Cheever's capricioussoul kindled at the thought of an exploration of war-filled Europe. His blushing bride was a hurdle-rider, too, and loved a risk-neckventure. She insisted on going with him. 

He accepted the steering-wheel of a motor-ambulance and left hisbride to her own devices while he shot along the poplar-plumed roadsof France at lightning speed. 

Charity drifted into hospital service. Her first soldier, thetortured victim of a gas-attack, was bewailing the fate of hismotherless child. Charity brought a smile to what lips he had bywhispering:

"I am rich. I will adopt your little girl. "

It was the first time she had ever boasted of being rich. The mandied, whispering: "_Merci, Madame! Merci, Madame!_" Anotherfather was writhing in the premature hell of leaving a shy littleunprotected boy to starve. Charity promised to care for him, too. 

At a committee meeting, a week later, she learned of a horde ofwar orphans and divided them up with Muriel Schuyler, Mrs. PerryMerithew, and other American angels abroad. 

When Charity's husband wearied of being what he called "chauffeur toa butcher-wagon, " he decided that America was a pretty good country, after all. But Charity could not tear herself away from her privilegeof suffering, even to follow her bridegroom home. He had cooled toher also, and he made no protest. He promised to come back for her. He did not come. He cabled often and devotedly, telling her howlonely he was and how busy. She answered that she hoped he waslonely, but she knew he was busy. He would be!

When Cheever first returned, Jim Dyckman saw him at a club. He sawhim afterward in a restaurant with one of those astonishing animalswhich the moving pictures have hardly caricatured as a "vampire. "This one would have been impossible if she had not been visible. She was intensely visible. 

Jim Dyckman felt that her mere presence in a public restaurant wasoffensive. To think of her as displacing Charity Coe in Cheever'sattentions was maddening. He understood for the first time whypeople of a sort write anonymous letters. He could not stoop tothat degradation, and yet he wondered if, after all, it would beas degrading to play the informer as to be an unprotesting andtherefore accessory spectator and confidant. 

Gossip began to deal in the name of Cheever. One day at a clubthe he-old-maid "Prissy" Atterbury cackled:

"I saw Pete Cheever at a cabaret--"

Jim asked, anxiously, "Was he alone?"

"Nearly. "

"What do you mean--nearly alone?"

"Well, what he had with him is my idea of next to nothing. I wonderwhat sinking ship Cheever rescued her from. They tell me she wasa cabaret dancer named Zada L'Etoile--that's French for Sadie Starr, I suppose. "

Dyckman's obsession escaped him. 

"Somebody ought to write his wife about it. "

"That would be nice!" cried Prissy. "Oh, very, very nice! It would bebetter to notify the Board of Health. But it would be still better ifhis wife would come home and mind her own business. These Americanswho hang about the edges of the war, fishing for sensations, make mevery tired--oh, very, very tired. "

Prissy never knew how near he was to annihilation. Jim had to holdone fist with the other. He was afraid to yield to his impulse tosmash Prissy in the droop of his mustache. Prissy was too frail tobe slugged. That was his chief protection in his gossip-mongeringcareer. 

Besides, it is a questionable courtesy for a former beau to defendanother man's wife's name, and Dyckman proved his devotion to Charitybest by leaving her slanderer unrebuked. 

It was no anonymous better that brought Charity Coe home. It wasthe breakdown of her powers of resistance. Even the soldiers had tobe granted vacations from the trenches; and so an eminent Americansurgeon in charge of the hospital she adorned finally drove Mrs. Cheever back to America. He disguised his solicitude with brutality;he told her he did not want her to die on their hands. 

When Charity came back, Cheever met her and celebrated her return. She was a new sensation to him again for a week or two, but her needof seclusion and quiet drove him frantic and he grew busy once more. He recalled Miss L'Etoile from the hardships of dancing for hersupper. Unlike Charity, Zada never failed to be exciting. Cheeverwas never sure what she would do or say or throw next. She wasdelicious. 

When Dyckman learned of Cheever's extra establishment it enraged him. He had let Cheever push him aside and carry off Charity Coe, and nowhe must watch Cheever push Charity Coe aside and carry on the nextchoice of his whims. 

To Dyckman, Charity was perfection. To lose her and find her inthe ash-barrel with Cheever's other discarded dolls was intolerable. Yet what could Dyckman do about it? He dared not even meet Charity. He hated her husband, and he knew that her husband hated him. Cheeversomehow realized the dogged fidelity of Dyckman's love for Charityand resented it--feared it as a menace, perhaps. 

Dyckman had two or three narrow escapes from running into Charity, and he finally took to his heels. He lingered in the Canadian wildstill he thought it safe to return. And now she chanced to board thesame train. The problem he had run away from had cornered him. 

He had cherished a sneaking hope that she would learn the truthsomehow before he met her. He was not sure what she ought to dowhen she learned it. He was sure that what she would do would bethe one right thing. 

Yet he realized from her placid manner of parrying his threats ather husband that she still loved the wretch and trusted him. It wasup to Jim to tell her what he knew about Cheever. He felt that heought to. Yet how could he?

It was hideous that she should sit there smiling tolerantly ata critic of her infernal husband as serenely as a priestess whois patient with an unenlightened skeptic. 

It was atrocious that Cheever should be permitted to prosper withthis scandal unrebuked, unpunished, actually unsnubbed, acceptingthe worship of an angel like Charity Coe and repaying it with blacktreachery! To keep silent was to co-operate in the evil--to panderto it. Dyckman thought it was hideous. The word he thought was"rotten"!

He actually opened his mouth to break the news. His voice mutinied. He could not say a word. 

Something throttled him. It was that strange instinct which makescriminals of every degree feel that no crime is so low but thattattling on it is a degree lower. 

Dyckman tried to assuage his self-contempt by the excuse that Charitywas not in the mood or in the place where such a disclosure shouldbe made. Some day he would tell her and then ask permission to killthe blackguard for her. 

The train had scuttered across many a mile while he meditated theanswer to the latest riddle. His thoughts were so turbulent thatCharity finally intruded. 

"What's on your mind, Jim?"

"Oh, I was just thinking. "

"What about?"

"Oh, things. "

Suddenly he reached out and seized the hand that drooped at her kneelike a wilted lily. He wrung her fingers with a vigor that hurt her, then he said, "Got any dogs to show this season?"

She laughed at the violent abruptness of this, and said, "I thinkI'll give an orphan-show instead. "

He shook his head in despairing admiration and leaned back to watchthe landscape at the window. So did she. On the windows their ownreflections were cast in transparent films of light. Each wraithwatched the other, seeming to read the mood and need no speech. 

Dyckman's mind kept shuttling over and over the same rails ofthought, like a switch-engine eternally shunting cars from one trackto another. His very temples throbbed with the _clickety-click_of the train. At last he groaned:

"This world's too much for me. It's got me guessing. "

He seemed to be so impressed with his original and profound discoveryof life's unanswerable complexity that Charity smiled, the same sad, sweet smile with which she pored on the book of sorrow or listened tothe questions of her orphans who asked where their fathers had gone. 

She thought of Jim Dyckman as one of her orphans. There was a gooddeal of the mother in her love of him. For she did love him. And shewould have married him if he had asked her earlier--before PeterCheever swept over her horizon and carried her away with his zestand his magnificence. 

She rebuked herself for thinking of Jim Dyckman as an orphan. He hada father and mother who doted on him. He had wealth of his own andmillions to come. He had health and brawn enough for two. What righthad he to anybody's pity? Yet she pitied him. 

And he pitied her. 

And on this same train, in this same car, unnoticed and unnoticing, sat Kedzie. 

Jim and Charity grew increasingly embarrassed as the train drew intoNew York. Charity was uncertain whether her husband would meet heror not. Jim did not want to leave her to get home alone. She did notwant her husband to find her with Jim. 

Cheever had excuse enough in his own life for suspecting otherpeople. He had always disliked Jim Dyckman because Dyckman hadalways disliked him, and Jim's transparent face had announced thefact with all the clarity of an illuminated signboard. 

Also Charity had loved Jim before she met Cheever, and she made nosecret of being fond of him still. In their occasional quarrels, Cheever had taunted her with wishing she had married Jim, and shehad retorted that she had indeed made a big mistake in her choice. Lovers say such things--for lack of other weapons in such combatsas lovers inevitably wage, if only for exercise. 

Charity did not really mean what she said, but at times Cheeverthought she did. He had warned her to keep away from Dyckman andkeep Dyckman away from her or there would be trouble. Cheever wasa powerful athlete and a boxer who made minor professionals lookridiculous. Dyckman was bigger, but not so clever. A battle betweenthe two stags over the forlorn doe would be a horrible spectacle. Charity was not the sort of woman that longs for such a conflictof suitors. Just now she had seen too much of the fruits of malecombat. She was sick of hatred and its devastation. 

So Charity begged Dyckman to get off at One Hundred and Twenty-fifthStreet, but he would not show himself so poltroon. He answered, "I'dlike to see myself!" meaning that he would not. 

She retorted, "Then I'll get off there myself. "

"Then I'll get off there with you, " he grumbled. 

Charity flounced back into her seat with a gasp of mitigated disgust. The mitigation was the irresistible thrill of his devotion. She hada husband who would desert her and a cavalier who would not. It wasdifficult not to forgive the cavalier a little. 

Yet it would have been better if he had obeyed her command or sheher impulse. Or would it have been? The worst might always have beenworse. 

CHAPTER V

When Kedzie was angry she called her father an "old country Jake. "Even she did not know how rural he was or how he had oppressedthe sophisticated travelers in the smoking-room of the sleeping-carwith his cocksure criticisms of cities that he had never seen. Hehad condemned New York with all the mercilessness of a small-townsuperiority, and he had told funny stories that were as funny asthe moss-bearded cypresses in a lone bayou. While he was denouncingNew York as the home of ignorance and vice, the other men were havingsport with him--sport so cruel that only his own cruelty blindedhim to it. 

When the porter summoned the passengers to pass under the whisk broom, Adna remembered that he had not settled upon his headquarters inNew York, and he said to a man on whom he had inflicted a vile cigar:"Say, I forgot to ask you. What's a good hotel in New York that ain'ttoo far from the railroad and don't rob you of your last nickel?Or is they one?"

One of the smoking-room humorists mocked his accent and ventureda crude jape. 

"You can save the price of a hack-ride by going to Mrs. Biltmore'snew boarding-house. It's right across the road from the depot. "

If Adna had been as keen as he thought he was, or if the porterhad not alarmed him just then by his affectionate interest, evenAdna would have noted the grins on the faces of the men. 

But he broke the porter's heart by dodging the whisk broom andhustling his excited family to their feet. They were permitted tohale their own hand-baggage to the platform, where two red-cappedKaffirs reached for it together. There was danger of an altercation, but the bigger of the two frightened the smaller away by snappinghis shiny eyeballs alarmingly. The smaller one took a second lookat Adna and retreated with scorn, snickering:

"You kin have him. "

The other, who was a good loser at craps or tips, re-examined hisclients, flickered his eyelids, and started down the platform tohave it over with as soon as possible. He paused to say:

"Where you-all want to go to--a taxicab?"

Adna, who was a little nervous about his property, answered withsome asperity:

"No, we don't need any hack to git to Biltmore's. "

"Nossah!" said the red-cap. 

"Right across the street, ain't it?"

"Yassah!" The porter chuckled. The mention of the family's destinationhad cheered him a little. He might get a tip, after all. You couldn'talways sometimes tell by a man's clothes how he tipped. 

While Kedzie stood watching the red-cap bestow the various parcelsunder his arms and along his fingers, a man bumped into her andmurmured:

"Sorry!"

She turned and said, "Huh?"

He did not look around. She did not see his face. It was the firstconversation between Jim Dyckman and Kedzie Thropp. 

Charity Coe, when the train stopped, had flatly refused to walk upthe station platform with Jim Dyckman. She had not only virtue, butSt. Paul's idea of the importance of avoiding even the appearanceof evil. She would not budge from the car till Jim had gone. Hewas forced to leave her at last. 

He swung through the crowd in a fury, jostling and begging pardonand staring over the heads of the pack to see if Cheever were atthe barrier. He jolted Kedzie Thropp among others, apologized, and thought no more of her. 

Cheever had not come to meet his wife. Her telegram was waitingfor him at his official home; he was at his other residence. 

When Dyckman saw that no one was there to welcome the fagged-outCharity, he paused and waited for her himself. When Charitycame along her anxious eyes found nobody she knew except Dyckman. The disappointment she revealed hurt him profoundly. But he wouldnot be shaken off again. He turned in at her side and walked along, and the two porters with their luggage walked side by side. 

Prissy Atterbury was hurrying to a train that would take him for aweek-end visitation to people who hated him but needed him to cancela female bore with. As Prissy saw it and described it, Dyckman cameinto the big waiting-room alone, looked about everywhere, paused, turned back for Charity Coe; then walked away with her, followed bytheir twinned porters. Prissy said "Aha!" behind his big mustachesand stared till he nearly lost his train. 

Atterbury had gained a new topic to carry with him, a topic of suchfertile resources that it went far to pay his board and lodging. He made a snowball out of the clean reputations of Charity and Jimand started it downhill, gathering dirt and momentum as it rolled. It was bound to roll before long into the ken of Peter Cheever, and he was not the man to tolerate any levity in a wife. Cheevermight be as wicked as Caesar, but his wife must be as Caesar's. 

When Charity Coe was garrulous and inordinately gay, Jim Dyckman, who had known her from childhood, knew that she was trying to rushacross the thin ice over some deep grief. 

When he saw how hurt she was at not being met, and he insisted ontaking her home, she chattered and snickered hysterically at hismost stupid remarks. So he said:

"Don't let him break your heart in you, old girl. "

She laughed uproariously, almost vulgarly, over that, and answered:"Me? Let a man break my heart? That's very likely, isn't it?"

"Very!" Jim groaned. 

When they reached her magnificent home it had a deserted look. 

"Wait here a minute, " said Charity when Jim got out to help her out. She ran up the steps and rang the bell. There was a delay beforethe second man in an improvised toilet opened the door to her andexpressed as much surprise as delight at seeing her. "Didn't Mr. Cheever tell you I was coming home?" she gasped. 

"We haven't seen him, ma'am. There's a telegram here for him, butof course--"

Charity was still in a frantic mood. She wanted to escape brooding, at all costs. She ran back to where Jim waited at the motor door. 

"Got any date to-night, Jim?" she demanded. He shook his headdolefully, and she said: "Go home, jump into your dancing-shoes, and come back for me. I'll throw on something light and you cantake me somewhere to dance. I'll go crazy mad, insane, if youdon't. I can't endure this empty house. You don't mind my makinga convenience of you, do you, Jim?"

"I love it, Charity Coe, " he groaned. He reached for her hand, butshe was fleeting up the steps. He crept into the car and went tohis home, flung off his traveling-togs, passed through a hot tuband a cold shower into evening clothes, and hastened away. 

Charity kept him waiting hardly a moment. She floated down the stairsin a something fleetily volatile, and he said:

"You look like a dandelion puff. "

"That's right, tell me some nice things, " she said. She did not tellthe servant where she was going. She did not know. She hardly cared. 

CHAPTER VI

To Kedzie Thropp the waiting-room of the Grand Central Terminal wasthe terminus of human splendor. It was the waiting-room to heaven. And indeed it is a majestic chamber. 

The girl walked with her face high, staring at the loftily columnedrecesses with the bay-trees set between the huge square pillars, and above all the feigned blue sky and the monsters of the zodiacin powdered gold. 

Kedzie could hardly breathe--it was so beautiful, so much superiorto the plain every-night sky she was used to, with stars of tininstead of gold like these. 

Even her mother said "Well!" and Adna paid the architects the tributeof an exclamation: "Humph! So this is the new station we was readin'about. Some bigger'n ours at home, eh, Kedzie?"

But Kedzie was not there. They had lost her and had to turn back. Shewas in a trance. When they snatched her down to earth again and pulledher through the crowds she began to adore the people. They weredressed in unbelievable splendor--millions, she guessed, in far betterthan the best Sunday best she had ever seen. She wondered if she wouldever have nice clothes. She vowed that she would if she had to murdersomebody to get them. 

The porter led the way from the vastitude of a corridor underthe street and through vast empty rooms and up a stairway and downa few steps and through the first squirrel-cage door Kedzie had everseen (she had to run round it thrice before they could get her out)into a sumptuousness beyond her dream. 

At the foot of more stairs the porter let down his burdens, and a boyin a general's uniform seized them. The porter said, mopping his browto emphasize his achievement:

"This is fur's I go. "

"Oh, all right! Much obliged, " said Adna. He just pretended to walkaway as a joke on the porter. When he saw the man's white stareaggravated sufficiently, Adna smiled and handed him a dime. 

The porter stared and turned away in bitter grief. Then his chucklereturned as he went his way, telling himself: "And the bes' of itwas, I fit for him! I just had to git that man. "

He told the little porter about it, and when the little porter, whohad been scared away from the Thropps and left to carry Charity Coe'sdainty hand-bags, showed the big porter what he had received, stillthe big porter laughed. He knew how to live, that big porter. 

Kedzie followed the little general up the steps and around tothe desk. Her father realized that his fellow-passenger had beenteasing him when he referred to this place as a boarding-house, buthe was not at all crushed by the magnificence he was encountering. He felt that he was in for it--so he cocked his toothpick pluckilyand wrote on the loose-leaf register the room clerk handed him:

A. Thropp, wife and daughter, Nimrim, Mo. 

The room clerk read the name as if it were that of a potentate whoseincognito he would respect, and murmured:

"About what accommodation would you want, Mr. Thropp?"

"Two rooms--one for the wife and m'self, one for the daughter. "

"Yes, sir. And about how much would you want to pay?"

"How do they run?"

"We can give you two nice adjoining rooms for twelve dollars--up. "

Mr. Thropp made a hasty calculation. Twelve dollars a week for boardand lodging was not so bad. He nodded. 

The room clerk marked down a number and slid a key to the page, who gathered the family treasures together. Kedzie had more or lesshelplessly recognized the page's admiration of her when he firsttook the things from the porter. The sense of her beauty had chokedthe boy's amusement at her parents. 

Later Kedzie caught the glance of the room clerk and saw that shestartled him and cheated him of his smile at Adna. Still laterthe elevator-boy gave her one respectful look of approval. Kedzie'sNew York stir was already beginning. 

The page ushered the Thropps into the elevator, and said, "Nineteen. "

It was the number of the floor, not the room. Adna warned his womenfolk that "she" was about to go up, but they were not prepared forthat swift vertical leap toward the clouds. Another floor, andMrs. Thropp would have screamed. The altitude affected her. 

Then the thing stopped, and the boy led them down a corridor so longthat Adna said, "Looks like we'd be stranded a hundred miles fromnowheres. "

The boy turned in at a door at last. He flashed on the lights, setthe bags on a bag-rack, hung up the coats, opened a window, adjustedthe shade, lighted the lights in Kedzie's room, opened her window, adjusted the shade, and asked if there were anything else. 

Adna knew what the little villain meant, but he knew what wasexpected, and he said, sternly, "Ice-water. "

"Right here, sir, " said the boy, and indicated in the bathrooma special faucet marked "Drinking Water. "

This startled even Adna so much that it shook a dime out of him. The boy sighed and went away. Kedzie surprised his eye as he left. It plainly found no fault with her. 

Here in seclusion Mrs. Thropp dared to exclaim at the wonders ofmodern invention. Kedzie was enfranchised and began to jump andsqueal at the almost suffocating majesty. Adna took to himselfthe credit for everything. 

"Well, momma, here we are in New York at last. Here we are, daughter. You got your wish. "

Kedzie nearly broke his neck with her hug, and called him the bestfather that ever was. And she meant it at the moment, for the moment. 

Mrs. Thropp was already making herself at home, loosening herwaistband and her corset-laces. 

Adna made himself at home, too--that is, he took off his coat andcollar and shoes. But Kedzie could not waste her time on comfortwhile there was so much ecstasy to be had. 

She went to the window, shoved the sash high, and--discoveredNew York. She greeted it with an outcry of wonder. She called toher mother and father to "Come here and looky!"

Her mother moaned, "I wouldn't come that far to look atNew Jerusalem. "

Adna yawned noisily and pulled out his watch. His very eyes yawnedat it, and he said: "'Levum o'clock. Good Lord! Git to bed quick!"

Kedzie was furious at ending the day so abruptly. She wanted togo out for a walk, and they sent her to her room. She watched atthe window as she peeled off her coarse garments and put her softbody into a rough nightgown as ill-cut and shapeless as she wasneither. She had been turned by a master's lathe. 

She waited till she heard her father's well-known snore seesawingthrough the panels. Then she went to the window again to gaze herfill at the town. She fell in love with it and told it so. She vowedthat she would never leave it. She had not come to a strange city;she had just reached home. 

She leaned far out across the ledge to look down at the tremendouslyinferior street. She nearly pitched head foremost and scrambled back, but with a giggle of bliss at the excitement. She stared at the darkbuildings of various heights before her. There was somethingawe-inspiring about them. 

Across a space of roofs was the electric sign of an electric company, partly hidden by buildings. All Kedzie could see of it was the hugephrase LIGHT--HEAT--POWER. She thought that those three graces wouldmake an excellent motto. 

She could see across and down into the well of the Grand CentralTerminal. On its front was some enormous winged figure facing downthe street. She did not know who it was or what street it was. Shedid not know any of the streets by name, but she wanted to. She hada passionate longing for streets. 

Farther south or north, east or west, or whichever way it was, was a tall building with glowing bulbs looped like the stringsof evergreen she had helped to drape the home church with atChristmas-time. Here it was Christmas every day--all holidaysin one. 

Down in the ravine a little in front of her she could read the signATHENS HOTEL. She had heard of Athens. It was the capital of someplace in her geography. She who had so much of Grecian in her soulwas not quite sure of Athens!

In one of the opposite office buildings people were working late. The curtains were drawn, but the casements were filled with light, a honey-colored light. The buildings were like great honeycombs;the dark windows were like the cells that had no honey in them. Light and life were honey. Kedzie wondered what folks they were behindthose curtains--who they were, and what were they up to. She betit was something interesting. She wished she knew them. She wishedshe knew a whole lot of city people. But she didn't know a soul. 

It was all too glorious to believe. She was in New York! imparadisedin New York!

"Kedzie! Ked-zee-ee!"

"Yes, momma. "

"Are you in bed?"

"Yes, momma. " She tried to give her voice a faraway, sleepy sound, for fear that her mother might open the door to be sure. 

She crept into bed. The lights burned her weary eyes. She could notreach them to put them out. 

By the head of her bed was a little toy lamp. A chain hung from it. She tugged at the chain--pouff! Out went the light. She tugged atthe chain. On went the light. A magical chain, that! It put the lighton and off, both. Kedzie could find no chains to pull the ceilinglights out with. She let them burn. 

Kedzie covered her head and yet could not sleep. She sat up quickly. Was that music she heard? Somebody was giving a party, maybe. 

She got up and out again and ran barefoot to the hall door, openedit an inch, and peeked through. She saw a man and two ladies swishingalong the hall to the elevator. They were not sleepy at all, andthe ladies were dressed--whew! skirts short and no sleeves whatever. They really were going to a party. 

Kedzie closed the door and drooped back to bed--an awful place to gowhen all the rest of the world was just starting out to parties. 

She flopped and gasped in her bed like a fish ashore. Then a gorgeouswhim came to her. She would dive into her element. Light and fun wereher element. She came out of bed like a watch-spring leaping froma case. She tiptoed to the parental door--heard nothing but the rumorof slumber. 

She began to dress. She put on her extra-good dress. 

She had brought it along in the big valise in case of an accidentto the every-day dress. When she had squirmed through the ordealof hooking it up, she realized that its skirts were too long fordecency. She pinned them up at the hem. 

The gown had a village low-neck--that is, it was a trifle V'd atthe throat. Kedzie tried to copy the corsage of the women who passedin the hall. She withdrew from the sleeves, and gathering the waisttogether under her arms, fastened it as best she could. The revelationwas terrifying. All of her chest and shoulders and shoulderbladeswere bare. 

She dared hardly look at herself. Yet she could not possibly denythe fearful charm of those contours. She put her clothes on againand prinked as much as she could. Then she sallied forth, openingand closing the door with pious care. She went to the elevator, andthe car began to drop. The elevator-boy politely lowered it withoutplunge or jolt. 

Kedzie followed the sound of the music. The lobbies were throngedwith brilliant crowds flocking from theaters for supper and a dance. Kedzie made her way to the edge of the supper-room. The floor, likea pool surrounded by chairs and tables, was alive with couples dancingcontentedly. Every woman was in evening dress and so was every man. The splendor of the costumes made her blink. The shabbiness of herown made her blush. 

She blushed because her own dress was indecent and immoral. It wasindecent and immoral because it was unlike that of the majority. In this parish, conventionality, which is the one true synonym formorality, called for bare shoulders and arms unsleeved. Kedzie wasconspicuous, which is a perfect synonym for immoral. If she hadfallen through the ceiling out of a bathtub she could not have feltmore in need of a hiding-place. She shrank into a corner and soughtcover and concealment, for she was afraid to go back to the elevatorthrough the ceaseless inflow of the décolletées. 

She throbbed to the music of the big band; her feet burned to dance;her waist ached for the sash of a manly arm. She knew that she coulddance better than some of those stodgy old men and block-bodied oldwomen. But she had no clothes on--for dancing. 

But there was one woman whom Kedzie felt she could not surpass, a dazzling woman with a recklessly graceful young man. The young mantook the woman from a table almost over Kedzie's head. They left atthe table a man in evening dress who smoked a big cigar and seemednot to be jealous of the two dancers. 

Some one among the spectators about Kedzie said that the woman wasZada L'Etoile, and her partner was Haviland Devoe. Zada was amazingin her postures and gyrations, but Kedzie thought that she herselfcould have danced as well if she had had that music, that costume, that partner, and a little practice. 

When Zada had completed her calisthenics she did not sit down withMr. Devoe, but went back to the table where the lone smoker sat. Nowthat she looked at him again, Kedzie thought what an extraordinarilyhandsome, gloriously wicked-looking, swell-looking man he was. Yetthe girl who had danced called him Peterkin--which didn't soundvery swell to Kedzie. 

He had very little to say to Zada, who did most of the talking. He smiled at her now and then behind his cigar and gave her a queerlook that Kedzie only vaguely understood. She thought little of him, though, because the next dance began, and she had a whole riotof costumes to study. 

There was a constant movement of new-comers past Kedzie's nook. Sometimes people halted to look the crowd over before they wentup the steps, and asked two handsome gentlemen in full-dress suitsif they could have a table. The gentlemen--managers, probably, whogot up the party--usually said no. Sometimes they looked at papersin their hands and marked off something, and then the people gota table. 

By and by two men and an elderly woman dressed like a very youngerlywoman paused near Kedzie. Both of the men were tall, but the onecalled Jim was so tall he could see over the rail, or over the moon, for all Kedzie knew. 

The elderly lady said, "Come along, boys; we're missing a love ofa trot. "

The less tall of the men said: "Now, mother, restrain yourself. Remember I've had a hard day and I'm only a young feller. Howabout you, Jim?"

"I'll eat something, but I'm not dancing, if you'll pardon me, Mrs. Duane, " said Jim. "And I'm waiting for Charity Coe. She'sin the cloak-room. "

"Oh, come along, " said Mrs. Duane. "I've got a table and I don'twant to lose it. "

She started away, and her son started to follow, but paused asthe other man caught his sleeve and growled:

"I say, isn't that Pete Cheever--there, right there by the rail?Yes, it is--and with--!"

Then Tom gave a start and said: "Ssh! Here's Charity Coe. "

Both men looked confused; then they brightened and greeted a newbatch of drifters, and there was a babble of:

"Why, hello! How are you, Tom! How goes it, Jim? What's the goodword, Mary? What you doing here, Charity, and all in black? Oh, I have to get out or go mad. "

Kedzie, eavesdropping on the chatter, wondered at the commonplacenames and the small-town conversation. With such costumes shemust have expected at least blank verse. 

She was interested to see what the stern sentinels would do tothis knot of Toms, Jims, and Marys. She peeked around the corner, and to her surprise saw them greeted with great cordiality. Theysmiled and chatted with the sentinels and were passed throughthe silken barrier. 

Other people paused and passed in or were rejected. Kedzie watchedMr. Cheever with new interest, but not much understanding. He hadnext to nothing to say. After a time she overheard Zada say to him, raising her voice to top the noise of the band: "Say, Peterkin, see that great big lad over there, the human lighthouse by the sea?Peterkin, you can't miss him--he's just standing up--yes--isn'tthat Jim Dyckman? Is he really so rich as they say?"

"He's rotten rich!" said Peterkin. 

Then Zada said something and pointed. She seemed to be excited, butnot half so excited as Peter was. His face was all shot up with red, and he looked as if he had eaten something that didn't sit easy. 

Then he looked as if he wanted to fight somebody. He began to chewon his words. 

Kedzie caught only a few phrases in the holes in the noisy music. 

"When did she get back? And she's here with him? I'll kill him--"

Kedzie stood on tiptoe, primevally trying to lift her ears higherstill to hear what followed. She saw Zada putting her hand onPeter's sleeve, and she heard Zada say:

"Don't start anything here. Remember I got a reputation to lose, if you haven't. "

This had the oddest effect on Peter. He stared at Zada, and his angerran out of his face just as the water ran out of the silver washbowlin the sleeping-car. Then he began to laugh softly, but as if hewanted to laugh right out loud. He put his napkin up and laughedinto that. 

And then the anger he had lost ran up into Zada's face, and shelooked at Peter as if she wanted to kill him. 

Now it was Peter who put his hand on her arm and patted it and said, "I didn't mean anything. "

Mean what? Kedzie wondered. But she had no chance to find out, forPeter rose from the table and, dodging around the dancing couples, made his escape. He reappeared in the very nook where Kedzie watched, and called up to Zada:

"Did they see me?"

Zada shook her head. Peter threw her a kiss. She threw him a shrugof contempt. Peter went away laughing. Kedzie waited a few minutesand saw that Mr. Devoe had come to sit with Zada. 

After a moment the music was resumed, and Zada rose to dance againwith Mr. Devoe--a curious sort of dance, in which she lifted her feethigh and placed them carefully, as if she were walking on a floorcovered with eggs and didn't want to break any. 

But Kedzie's eyes were filling with sand. They had gazed too longat brilliance. She dashed back to the elevator and to her room. She was exhausted, and she pulled off her clothes and let them liewhere they fell. She slid her weary frame between the sheets andinstantly slept. 

 * * * * *

Charity Coe danced till all hours with Jim, with Tom Duane andother men, and no one could have fancied that she had ever knownor cared what horrors filled the war hospitals across the sea. 

She was frantic enough to accept a luncheon engagement with Jim andhis mother for the next day. She telephoned him in the morning: "Yourangel of a mother will forgive me when you tell her I'm lunchingdown-town with my husband. The poor boy was detained at his officelast night and didn't get my telegram till he got home. When helearned that I had come in and gone out again he was furious withhimself and me. I hadn't left word where I was, so he couldn't comerunning after me. He waited at home and gave me a love of a call-downfor my dissipation. It was a treat. I really think he was jealous. "

Jim Dyckman did not laugh with her. He was thinking hard. He had seenCheever at the Biltmore, and a little later Cheever vanished. Cheevermust have seen Charity Coe then. And if he saw her, he saw him. Thenwhy had he kept silent? Dyckman had a chilling intuition that Cheeverwas lying in ambush for him. 

Again he was wrung with the impulse to tell Charity Coe the truthabout her husband. Again some dubious decency withheld him. 

CHAPTER VII

The word "breakfast" was magic stimulant to the Thropps. Kedzie puton her clothes, and the family went down to the elevator together. 

They found their way to the Tudor Room, where a small number of men, mostly barricaded behind newspapers, ate briskly. A captain showedthe Thropps to a table; three waiters pulled out their chairs andpushed them in under them. Another laid large pasteboards beforethem. Another planted ice-water and butter and salt and pepperhere and there. 

Adna had traveled enough to know that the way to order a meal ina hotel is to give the waiter a wise look and say, "Bring me thebest you got. "

This waiter looked a little surprised, but he said, "Yes, sir. Doyou like fruit and eggs and rolls, maybe?"

"Nah, " said Adna. "Breakfast's my best meal. Bring us suthin' heartyand plenty of it. I like a nice piece of steak and fried potatoesand some griddle-cakes and maple-surrup, and if you got any nicesawsitch--and the wife usually likes some oatmeal, and she takes teaand toast, but bring me some hot bread. And the girl--What you want, Kedzie? The same's I'm takin'? All right. Oh, some grape-fruit, eh?She wants grape-fruit. Got any good? All right. I guess I'll takesome grape-fruit, too; and let me see--I guess that'll do to starton--Wait! What's that those folks are eatin' over there? Looks good--spring chicken--humm! I guess you'd like that better'n steak, ma?Yes. She'd rather have the chicken. All right, George, you hustle usin a nice meal and I'll make it all right with you. You understand. "

Adna called all waiters "George. " It saved their feelings, hehad heard. 

The waiter bowed and retired. Adna spoke to his family:

"Since we pay the same, anyway, might's well have the best they got. "

The waiter gave the three a meal fitter for the ancient days whenkings had dinner at nine in the morning than for these degeneratetimes when breakfast hardly lives up to its name. 

The waiter and his cronies stood at a safe distance and watchedthe Thropps surround that banquet. They wondered where the old mangot money enough to buy such breakfasts and why he didn't spend someof it on clothes. 

The favorite theory was that he was a farmer on whose acres somebodyhad discovered oil or gold and bought him out for a million. Mr. Thropp's proper waiter hoped that he would be as extravagantwith his tip as he was with his order. He feared not. His waiterlyintuition told him the old man put in with more enthusiasm than hepaid out. 

At last the meal was over. The Thropps were groaning. They had notquite absorbed the feast, but they had wrecked it utterly. Mr. Throppfound only one omission in the perfect service. The toothpicks had tobe asked for. All three Thropps wanted them. 

While Thropp was fishing in his pocket for a quarter, and findingonly half a dollar which he did not want to reveal, the waiterplaced before him a closely written manuscript, face down, witha lead-pencil on top of it. 

"What's this?" said Thropp. 

"Will you please to sign your name and room number, sir?" the waitersuggested. 

"Oh, I see, " said Thropp, and explained to his little flock. "You see, they got to keep tabs on the regular boarders. "

Then he turned the face of the bill to the light. His pencil couldhardly find a place to put his name in the long catalogue. He noteda sum scrawled in red ink: "$11. 75. "

"Wha-what's this?" he said, faintly. 

The surprised waiter explained with all suavity: "The price ofthe breakfast. If it is not added correctlee--"

Thropp added it with accurate, but tremulous, pencil. The totalwas correct, if the items were. He explained:

"But I'm a regular--er--roomer here. I pay by the week. "

"Yes, sir--if you will sign, it will be all right. "

"But that don't mean they're going to charge me for breakfast? 'Levumdollars and seventy-five cents for--for breakfast?--for a small familylike mine is? Well, I'd like to see 'em! What do they think I am!"

The waiter maintained his courtesy, but Adna was infuriated. Heput down no tip at all. He lifted his family from the table witha yank of the eyes and snapped at the waiter:

"I'll soon find out who's tryin' to stick me. --you or theproprietor. "

The old man stalked out, followed by his fat ewe and their ewe lamb. Adna's very toothpick was like a small bayonet. 

His wife and daughter hung back to avoid being spattered with the goreof the unfortunate hotel clerk. The morning trains were unloadingtheir mobs, and it was difficult to reach the desk at all. 

When finally Adna got to the bar he had lost some of his runningstart. With somewhat weakly anger he said to the first clerkhe reached:

"Looky here! I registered here last night, and another young fellerwas here said the two rooms would be twelve dollars. "

"Yes, sir. "

"Well, they sent me up to roost on a cloud, but I didn't kick. Nowthey're tryin' to charge me for meals extry. Don't that twelve dollarsinclude meals?"

"Oh no, sir. The hotel is on the European plan. "

Adna took the shock bravely but bitterly: "Well, all I got to say isthe Europeans got mighty poor plans. I kind of suspicioned there wasa ketch in it somewheres. After this we'll eat outside, and at theend of the week we'll take our custom somewheres else. Maybe therewas a joke in that twelve dollars a week for the rooms, too. "

"Twelve dollars a week! Oh no, sir; the charge is by the day. "

Adna's knees seemed to turn to sand and run down into his shoes. He supported himself on his elbows. 

"Twelve dollars a day--for those two rooms on the top of the moon?"

"Yes, sir; that's the rate, sir. "

Adna was going rapidly. He chattered, "Ain't there no police inthis town at tall?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Well, I've heard they're the wust robbers of all. We'll seeabout this. " He went back to his women folk and mumbled, "Come onup-stairs. "

They followed, Mrs. Thropp murmuring to Kedzie: "Looks like poppawas goin' to be sick. I'm afraid he et too much of that rich food. "

The elevator flashed them to their empyrean floor. Adna did notspeak till they were in their room and he had lowered himself feeblyinto a chair. He spoke thickly:

"Do you know what that Judas Iscariot down there is doin' to us?Chargin' us twelve dollars a day for these two cubby-holes--a day!Twelve dollars a day! Eighty-four dollars a week! And that breakfastwas 'levum dollars and seventy-five cents! If I'd gave the waiterthe quarter I was goin' to, it would have made an even dozen dollars!for breakfast! I don't suppose anybody would ever dast order a dinnerhere. Why, they'd skin a millionaire and pick his bones in a week. We'd better get out before they slap a mortgage on my house. "

"Well, I just wouldn't pay it, " said Mrs. Thropp. "I'd see the policeabout such goings-on. "

"The police!" groaned Thropp. "They're in cahoots with the burglarshere. This hull town is a den of thieves. I've always heard it, andnow I know it. "

He was ashamed of himself for being taken in so. He began to throwinto the valises the duds that had been removed. 

Throughout the panic Kedzie had stood about in a kind of stupor. When her father tapped her on the shoulder and repeated his"C'm'on!" she turned to him eyes all tears glistening like bubbles, and she whimpered:

"Oh, daddy, the view! The nice things!"

Adna snapped: "View? Our next view will be the poorhouse if we don'thustle our stumps. We got to get out of here and find the cheapestplace they is in town to live or go back home on the next train. "

Kedzie began to cry, to cry as she had cried when she wept inher cradle because candy had been taken from her, or a box ofcarpet-tacks, or the scissors that she had somehow got hold of. 

Adna dropped his valises with a thud. He began to upbraid her. He had endured too much. He had still his bill to pay. He told herthat she was a good-for-nothin' nuisance and he wished he had lefther home. He'd never take her anywheres again, you bet. Kedzielost her reason entirely. She was shattered with spasms of griefaggravated by her mother's ferocity and her father's. She could notgive up this splendor. She would not go to a cheap place to live. She would never go back home. She would rather die. 

Her mother boxed her ears and shook her and scolded with all hervim. But Kedzie only shook out more sobs till they wondered whatthe people next door would think. Adna was wan with wrath. Kedziewas afraid of her father's look. She had a kind of lockjaw of griefsuch as children suffer and suffer for. 

All she would answer to her father's threats was: "I won't! I won't!I tell you I won't!"

Her cheeks were blubbered, her nose red, her mouth swollen, her hairwet and stringy. She gulped and swallowed and beat her hands togetherand stamped her feet. 

Adna glared at her in hatred equal to her own for him. He said tohis wife: "Ma, we got to go back to first principles with that girl. You got to give her a good beatin'. "

Mrs. Thropp had the will but not the power. She was palsied withrage. "I can't, " she faltered. 

"Then I will!" said Adna, and he roared with ferocity, "Come hereto me, you!"

He put out his hand like a claw, and Kedzie retreated from him. Shestopped sobbing. She had never been so frightened. She felt a newkind of fright, the fright of a nun at seeing an altar threatenedwith desecration. She had not been whipped for years. She had grownpast that. Surely her body was sacred from such infamy now. 

"Come here to me, I tell you!" Adna snarled, as he pursued herslowly around the chairs. 

"You better not whip me, poppa, " Kedzie mumbled. "You better nottouch me, I tell you. You'll be sorry if you do! You better not!"

"Come here to me!" said Adna. 

"Momma, momma, don't let him!" Kedzie whispered as she ran to hermother and flung herself in her arms for refuge. 

Mrs. Thropp then lost a great opportunity forever. She tore thegirl's hands away and handed her over to her father. And he, withugly fury and ugly gesture, seized the young woman who had beenhis child and dragged her to him and sank into a chair and wrenchedand twisted her arms till he held her prone across his knees. Thenhe spanked her with the flat of his hand. 

Kedzie made one little outcry; then there was no sound but the thumpof the blows. Adna sickened soon of his task, and Kedzie's silenceand non-resistance robbed him of excuse. He growled:

"I guess that'll learn you who's boss round here. "

He thrust her from his knees, and she rolled off to the floor andlay still. She had not really swooned, but her soul had felt theneed of withdrawing into itself to ponder this awful sacrilege. 

CHAPTER VIII

Her mother knew that she had not fainted. She was sick, too, andblamed Kedzie for the scene. She spurned the girl with her footand said:

"You get right up off that floor this minute. Do you hear?"

Kedzie's soul came back. It had made its decision. It gatheredher body together and lifted it up to its knees and then erect, while the lips said, "All right, momma. "

She groped her way into the bathroom and washed her face, andstraightened her hair and came forth, a dazed and pallid thing. She took up the valise her father gave her and followed her motherout, pausing to pass her eyes about the beautiful room and thewindow where the peaks of splendor were. Then she walked out, and her father locked the door. 

Kedzie saw that the elevator-boy saw that she had been crying, butwhat was one shame extra? She had no pride left now, and no fatherand no mother, no anybody. 

Adna refused the offices of the pages who clutched at the baggage. He went to the cashier and paid the blood-money with a grin of hate. Then he gathered up his women and his other baggage and set outfor the station. He would leave all the baggage there while hehunted a place to stop. 

They could not find the tunnelway, but debouched on the street. Crossing Vanderbilt Avenue was a problem for village folk heavyladen. The taxicabs were hooting and scurrying. 

Adna found himself in the middle of the street, entirely surroundedby demoniac motors. His wife wanted to lie down there and die. Adnadared neither to go nor to stay. Suddenly a chauffeur of an emptylimousine, fearing to lose a chance to swear at a taxi-driver, kept his head turned to the left and steered straight for the spotwhere the Thropps awaited their doom. 

Adna had his wife pendent from one arm and a valise or two fromthe other. Kedzie carried a third valise. Her better than normalshoulders were sagged out of line by its weight. 

When Adna saw the motor coming he had to choose between droppinghis valise or his wife. Characteristically, he saved his valise. 

In spite of his wife's squawking and tugging on his left arm, heachieved safety under the portico of the Grand Central Terminal. He looked about for Kedzie. She was not to be seen. Adna saw thetaxicab pass over the valise she had carried. It left no trace ofKedzie. Her annihilation was uncanny. He gaped. 

"Where's Kedzie?" Mrs. Thropp screamed. 

A policeman checked the traffic with uplifted hand. Adna ran to him. Mrs. Thropp told him what had happened. 

"I saw the goil drop the bag and beat it for the walk, " saidthe officer. 

"Which way'd she go?"

"She lost herself in the crowd, " said the officer. 

"She was scared out of her wits, " Mrs. Thropp sobbed. 

The officer shook his head. "She was smilin' when I yelled at her. It looks to me like a get-away. "

"A runaway?" Mrs. Thropp gasped. 

"Yes, 'm. I'd have went after her, but I was cut off by a taxi. "

The two old Thropps stood staring at each other and the unfathomableNew York, while the impatient chauffeurs squawked their horns inangry protest, and train-missers with important errands thrusttheir heads out of cab windows. 

The officer led his bewildered charges to the sidewalk, motionedthe traffic to proceed, and beckoned to a patrolman. "Tell yourtroubles to him, " he said, and went back into his private maelstrom. 

The patrolman heard the Thropp story and tried to keep the crowd away. He patted Mrs. Thropp's back and said they'd find the kid easy, notto distoib herself. He told the father which station-house to go toand advised him to have the "skipper" send out a "general. "

Thropp wondered what language he spoke, but he went; and asoft-hearted walrus in uniform sprawling across a lofty desktook down names and notes and minute descriptions of Kedzie andher costume. He told the two babes in the wood that such t'ingshappened constant, and the goil would toin up in no time. He sentout a general alarm. 

Mrs. Thropp told him the whole story, putting all the blame onher husband with such enthusiasm that the sympathy of everybodywent out to him. Everybody included a number of reporters whoasked Mrs. Thropp questions and particularly desired a photographof Kedzie. 

Mrs. Thropp confessed that she had not brought any along. Shehad never dreamed that the girl would run away. If she had have, she wouldn't have brought the girl along, to say nothing ofher photograph. 

The amiable walrus in the cap and brass buttons recommended theThropps to a boarding-house whose prices were commensurate withAdna's ideas and means, and he and his wife went thither, wherethey told a shabby and sentimental landlady all their troubles. She reassured them as best she could, and made a cup of tea forMrs. Thropp and told Mr. Thropp there was a young fellow lived inthe house who was working for a private detective bureau. He'dfind the kid sure, for it was a small woild, after all. 

There was a lull in the European-war news the next day--only a fewhundreds killed in an interchange of trenches. There was a dearthof big local news also. So the morning papers all gave Kedzie Throppthe hospitality of their head-lines. The illustrated journalspublished what they said was her photograph. No two of thephotographs were alike, but they were all pretty. 

The copy-writers loved the details of the event. They gave thedialogue of the Thropps in many versions, all emphasizing whatis known as "the human note. "

Every one of them gave due emphasis to the historic fact that KedzieThropp had been spanked. 

The boarding-house was shaken from attic to basement by the news. The Thropps read the papers. They were astounded and enraged atgaining publicity for such a deed. They visited the walrus in his den. But there was no word of Kedzie Thropp. The sea of people had openedand swallowed the little girl. Her mother wondered where she hadslept and if she were hungry and into whose hands she had fallen. But there was no answer from anywhere. 

CHAPTER IX

People who call a child in from All Outdoors and make it their infantowe it to their victim to be rich, brilliant, and generous. KedzieThropp's parents were poor, stupid, and stingy. 

They were respectable enough, but not respectful at all. Childrenhave more dignity than anybody else, because they have not livedlong enough to have their natal dignity knocked out of them. 

Kedzie's parents ought to have respected hers, but they subjected herto odious humiliation. When her father threatened to spank her--anddid--and when her mother aided and abetted him, they forfeited allclaim to her tolerance. The inspiration to run away was forced onKedzie, though she would have said that her parents ran away fromher first. 

Kedzie had preferred her own life to the security of her valise. She dropped the bag without hesitation. When the taxicab parted herfamily in the middle, Kedzie ran to the opposite sidewalk. She sawa policeman dashing into the thick of the motors. Her eye caught his. He beckoned to her that he would ferry her across the torrent. Hewas a nice-looking man, but she shook her head at him. She smiled, however, and hastened away. 

Freedom had been forced on her. Why should she relinquish the boon?

She lost herself in the crowd. She had no purpose or destination, for the whole city was a mystery to her. Soon she noted that part ofthe human stream flowed down into the yawning maw of a Subway kioskas the water ran out of the bath-tub in the hotel. She floated downthe steps and found herself in a big subterrene room with walls tiledlike those of the hotel bathroom. Everybody was buying tickets froma man in a funny little cage. 

Kedzie had a hand-bag slung at her wrist. In it was some small money. She fished out a nickel and slid it across the glass sill as theothers did. 

Beneath her eyes she saw a card that asked, "How many?" She said, "One. "

The doleful ticket-seller was annoyed at the tautology of passinghim a nickel and saying, "One!" He shot out an angry glance withthe ticket, but he melted at sight of Kedzie's lush beauty, recognizedher unquestionable plebeiance, and hailed her with a "Here you are, Cutie. "

Kedzie was not at all insulted. She gave him smile for smile, took upher pasteboard and followed the crowd through the gate. 

The ticket-chopper yelled at the back of her head, "Here, where yougoin'?"

She turned to him, and his scowl relaxed. He pointed to the boxand pleaded:

"Put her there, miss, if you please. "

She smiled at the ticket-chopper and dropped the flake into the box. She moved down the stairway as an express rolled in. People ran. Kedzie ran. They squeezed in at the side door, and so did Kedzie. The wicker seats were full, and so Kedzie stood. She could not reachthe handles that looked like cruppers. Men and women saw how prettyshe was. She was so pretty that one or two men nearly rose andoffered her their seats. When the train whooped round the curvebeneath Times Square Kedzie was spun into the lap of a man readinga prematurely born "Night Edition. "

She came through the paper like a circus-lady, and the man wasindignant till he saw what he held. Then he laughed foolishly, helped the giggling Kedzie to her feet and rose to his own, gave herhis place, and went blushing into the next car. For an hour afterhis arms felt as if they had clasped a fugitive nymph for a momentbefore she escaped. 

This train chanced to be an express to 180th Street in the BronxBorough. If any one had asked Kedzie if she knew the Bronx she wouldprobably have answered that she did not know them. She did not evenknow what a borough was. 

It was fascinating how much Kedzie did not know. She had an infinitefund of things to find out. 

She was thrilled thoroughly by the glorious velocity throughthe tunnel. The train stopped at Seventy-second Street and atNinety-sixth Street and at many other stations. People got onor off. But Kedzie was too well entertained to care to leave. 

She did not know that the train ran under a corner of Central Parkand beneath the Harlem River. She would have liked to know. To rununder a river would tell well at home. 

Suddenly the Subway shot out into midair and became a superway. The street which had been invisible above was suddenly visible below, with street-cars on it. Also there was a still higher track overhead. Three layers of tracks! It was heavenly, the noise they made! Sheenjoyed hearing the mounting numbers of the streets shoutedantiphonally by the gentlemen at either door. 

At 180th Street, however, the train stopped for good, and the handsomeyoung man at the front door called, "All out!" He said it to Kedziewith a beautiful courtesy, adding, "This is as far as we go, lady. "

That was tremendous, to be called "lady. " Kedzie tried to get outlike one. She smiled at the guard and left his protection with somereluctance. He studied her as she walked along the platform. Sheseemed to meet with his approval in general, and in particular. He sighed when she turned out of his sight. 

The station here was very high up in the world. Kedzie countedseventy-seven steps on her way to the level. She was distressedto find herself in a shabby, noisy community where streets radiatedin six directions. Her fears were true. She had left New York. Shemust get home to it again. 

She walked back along the way she had come, on the sidewalk beneaththe tracks. This meandering street was called Boston Road. Kedzie hadno ideas as to the distance of Boston. She only knew that New Yorkwas good enough for her--the New York of Forty-second Street, of course. Kedzie did not know yet how many, many New Yorks thereare in New York. 

She was discouraged by her present surroundings. Along the roughand neglected streets were little rows of shanty shops, and therewere stubby frame residences. 

There was one two-story cottage snuggling against a hill; it hada little picket fence with a little picket gate leading to a littleragged yard with an old apple-tree in it; and there was a pair ofsteps up to the front door, and a rough trellis from there to thewoodshed with a grapevine draped across it. It was of the JamesWhitcomb Riley school of architecture--a house with a woodshed. 

Rich people who were tired of the city, and chanced that way, used to pause and look at that little nook and admire its meekattractiveness. It made them homesick. 

But Kedzie was sick of home. This lowly cot was too much likeher father's. It had a sign on it that said, "To Let. " It wasa funny expression. Kedzie studied it a long time before shedecided that it was New-Yorkese for "For Rent. "

She shuddered at the idea of renting or letting such a house--especially as it was so close to a church, a small, seedy, frame church nearly all roof, a narrow-chested, slope-shoulderedchurchlet with a frame cupola for a steeple. It looked abandoned, and an ivy flourished on it so impudently that it almost closedthe unfrequented portal. 

The bill-boards here made mighty interesting reading. There weremagnificent works of an art on the grand scale of a people'sgallery; one structure promulgated the glories of a notoriouschewing-gum. There was a gorgeous proclamation of a fashionableglove with a picture of an extremely swell slim lady all dressedup--or rather all dressed down--for the opera. 

Kedzie prayed the Lord to send her some day a pair of full-lengthwhite kid gloves like those. As for a box at the opera, she wouldtake her chances on the sunniest cloud-sofa in heaven for an eveningat the opera. And for a dress cut deckolett and an aigret in herhair, she would have swapped a halo and a set of wings. 

There was no end to the big pages of this literature, and Kedzie readdozens of them from right to left in a southerly direction. Finallyshe abandoned the Boston Road and walked over to a better-groomedavenue with more of a city atmosphere. 

But she saw a police signal-station at 175th Street, and she thoughtit better to abandon the Southern Boulevard. She was not sure of herpolice yet, and she had an uneasy feeling that her father and motherwere at that moment telling their troubles to some policeman whowould shortly be putting her description in the hands of detectives. She did not want to be arrested. Poppa might try to spank her again. She did not want to have to murder anybody, especially her parents. She liked them better when she was away from them. 

She hated to waste five cents on a street-car, but finally sheachieved the extravagance. The car went sliding and grinding throughan amazing amount of paved street, with an inconceivable successionof apartment-houses and shops. 

At length she reached a center of what she most desired--noise andmob and hurry. At 164th Street she came to a star of streets wherethe Third Avenue Elevated collaborated with the surface-cars and theloose traffic to create a delicious pandemonium. She loved those highnumbers--a hundred and eighty streets! Beautiful! At home Main Streetdissolved into pastures at Tenth Street. 

She wanted to find Main Street in New York and see what First Streetlooked like. It was probably along the Atlantic Ocean. That also wasone of the things she must see--her first ocean!

But while Kedzie was reveling in the splendors of 164th Street hereye was caught by the gaudy placards of a moving-picture emporium. There was a movie-palace at home. It was the town's one metropolitancharm. 

There was a lithograph here that reached out and caught her likea bale-hook. It represented an impossibly large-eyed girl, coweringbehind a door on whose other side stood a handsome devil in eveningdress. He was tugging villainously at a wicked mustache, and his eyeswere thrillingly leery. Behind a curtain stood a young man who helda revolver and waited. The title of the picture decided Kedzie. Itwas "The Vampire's Victim; a Scathing Exposure of High Society. "

Kedzie studied hard. For all her gipsy wildness, she had a traceof her father's parsimony, and she hated to spend money that washer very own. Some of the dimes and quarters in that little pursehad been there for ages. Besides, her treasury would have to sustainher for an indefinite period. 

But she wanted to know about high society. She was not sure what_scathing_ meant, or what the pronunciation of it was. Sherather inclined to _"scat-ting. "_ Anyway, it looked important. 

She stumbled into the black theater and found a seat among mysteriouspersons dully silhouetted against the screen. This was none ofthe latter-day temples where moving pictures are run through withcathedral solemnity, soft lights, flowers, orchestral uplift, andnearly classic song. This was a dismal little tunnel with one endlighted by the twinkling pictures. Tired mothers came here to escapefrom their children, and children came here to escape from theirtired mothers. The plots of the pictures were as trite and as rancidas spoiled meat, but they suited the market. This plot concerneda beautiful girl who came to the city from a small town. She was agood girl, because she came from a small town and had poor parents. 

She was dazzled a little, however, by the attentions of a swell devilof great wealth, and she neglected her poor--therefore honest--lovertemporarily. She learned the fearful joys of a limousined life, andwas lured into a false marriage which nearly proved her ruin. Thevillain got a fellow-demon to pretend to be a minister, put on falsehair, reversed his collar, and read the wedding ceremony; and theheroine was taken to the rich man's home. 

The rooms were as full of furniture as a furniture-store, and soKedzie knew it was a swell home. Also there was a butler who walkedand acted like a wooden man. 

The heroine was becomingly shy of her husband, but finally went toher room, where a swell maid put her to bed (with a proper omissionof critical moments) in a bed that must have cost a million dollars. Some womanly, though welching, intuition led the bride to lockher door. Some manly intuition led the hero to enter the gardensand climb in through a window into the house. If he had not beena hero it would have been a rather reprehensible act. But to theheroes all things are pure. He prowled through the house heroicallywithout attracting attention. Every step of his burglarious progresswas applauded by the audience. 

The hero hid behind one of those numberless portières that hangeverywhere in the homes of the _moveaux riches, _ and waitedwith drawn revolver for the dastard bridegroom to attempt hishellish purpose. 

The locked door thwarted the villain for the time, and he decidedto wait till he got the girl aboard one of those yachts which richpeople keep for evil purposes. Thus the villain unwittingly savedthe hero from the painful necessity of committing murder, and addedanother reel to the picture. 

It is not necessary and it might infringe a copyright to tellthe rest of the story. It would be insulting to say that the falseminister, repenting, told the hero, who told the heroine after herescued her from the satanic yacht and various other temptations. Of course she married the plain-clothes man and lived happily everafter in a sin-proof cottage with a garden of virtuous roses. 

Kedzie was so excited that she annoyed the people about her, butshe learned again the invaluable lesson that rich men are unfitcompanions for nice girls. Kedzie resolved to prove this for herself. She prayed for a chance to be tempted so that she might rebuke someswell villain. But she intended to postpone the rebuke until she hadseen a lot of high life. This would serve a double purpose: Kedziewould get to see more millionairishness, and the rebuke would bemore--more "_scatting_. " It is hard even to think a word youcannot pronounce. 

Kedzie gained one thing further from the pictures--a new name. Shehad been musing incessantly on choosing one. She had always hatedboth _Thropp_ and _Kedzie, _ and had counted on marriageto reform her surname. But she could not wait. She wanted an aliasat once. The police were after her. The heroine of this picturewas named _Anita Adair, _ and the name just suited Kedzie. Sheintended to be known by it henceforth. 

She had not settled on what town she had come from. Perhaps she woulddecide to have been born in New York. She rather fancied the notionof being a daughter of a terrible swell family who wanted to forceher to marry a wicked old nobleman, but she ran away sooner thansubmit to the _"imfany"_--that was the way Kedzie pronouncedit in her head. It was a word she had often seen but never heard. 

Meanwhile she was sure of one thing: Kedzie Thropp was annihilatedand Anita Adair was born full grown. 

At the conclusion of the film Kedzie was saddened by a ballad sung byan adenoid tenor. The song was a scatting exposure of the wickednessof Broadway. The refrain touched Kedzie deeply, and alarmed hersomewhat. It reiterated and reiterated:

"There's a browkin hawt for everee light ton Broadway-ee. "

Kedzie began to fear that she would furnish one more. And yetit would be rather nice to have a broken heart, Kedzie thought, especially on Broadway. 

CHAPTER X

Kedzie watched the moving picture twice through. The second timeit was not so good. It lacked spontaneity and sincerity. 

At the first vision everything seemed to rise from what preceded;people did what was natural or noble. The second time it lookedmechanical, rehearsed; the thrill was gone, too, because she knewpositively that the hero was not really going to shoot, andthe villain was not really going to break through the door. 

She wandered forth in a tragedy of disillusionment. That was reallythe cause of the pout that seemed to say, "Please kiss me!" She poutedbecause when she got what she wanted she no longer wanted it. 

There are hearts like cold storage. They keep what they get fresh andcool; and there are hearts that spoil whatever is intrusted to them. In Kedzie's hot young soul, things spoiled soon. 

She was hungry, and she could not resist the impulse to enter a cheaprestaurant. She did not know how cheap it was. It was as good asthe best restaurant in Nimrim, Mo. 

Kedzie ordered unfamiliar things for the sake of educating herilliterate mid-Western stomach. She ordered clam chowder and Hamburgersteak, spaghetti Italienne, lobster salad, and Neapolitan ice-cream. She ate too much--much too much. 

The total bill was ninety-five cents, and she was terrified. She hadthought her father a miser for complaining of the breakfast bill ofeleven-odd dollars at the Biltmore, but that was his money, not hers. 

When she finished her meal she did not dream of tipping the waiter. He seemed not to expect it, but he grinned as he asked her to comeagain. He hoped she would. He went to the door and stared after her, sadly, longingly. The dishes she had left he carried away withan elegiac solemnity. 

The streets were darkened now and the lights bewildered Kedzie. The town grew more solemn. It withdrew into itself. People weregoing home. 

Kedzie did not know where to go. She walked for fear of standingstill. The noise fatigued her. She turned west to escape it andfound a little park at 161st Street. 

Many streets flowed thence. There were ten ways to follow, and shecould not choose one among them. 

She was pretty, but she had not learned the commercial value ofher beauty. She was alone in the great, vicious city, but nobodyhad threatened her. Nearly everybody had paid her charm the tributeof a stare or a smile, but nobody had been polite enough to flatterher with a menace. 

She was very pretty. But then there are so very many very prettygirls in every big city! June with her millions of exquisite rosesis no richer in beauty than New York. Yet even New York cannot keepall her beauties supplied with temptation and peril all the time. 

Kedzie sat on the bench wondering which of the ten ways to go. Itturned late, but she could not decide. She began to be a little hungryagain, but she was always that, and she told her ever-willing youngstomach that her late luncheon would have to be an early dinner. 

As she sat still, people began to peer at her through the enveilingdark. A tipsy brewery truck-driver who had absorbed too much of hisown cargo sank down by her side. He could not see Kedzie throughthe froth in his brain, but she found him fearful. When he beganto talk to himself she fled. 

She saw a brilliantly lighted street-car, and she boarded it. She wasall turned around, and the car twisted and turned as it proceeded. She did not realize that it was going north till she heard theconductor calling in higher and higher street numbers. Then sheunderstood, with tired wrath, that she was outbound once more. Shewanted to go toward the heart of town, but she could not afford toget off without her nickel's worth of ride. 

The car was all but empty when the conductor called to a drowsy oldlady, his penultimate passenger:

"Hunneran Semty-seckin! Hey, lady! You ast me to leave you off atHunneran Semty-seckin, didn't yah?"

The woman was startled from her reverie and gasped:

"Dear me! is this a Hundred and Seventy-second?"

"Thass wat I said, didn't I?"

She evicted herself with a manner of apology for intruding onthe conductor's attention. 

Now Kedzie was alone with the man. His coyote bark changed to aninsinuating murmur. He sat down near Kedzie, took up an abandonedevening paper, and said:

"Goin' all the way, Cutie, or how about it?"

"I'm get'n' off here!" said Kedzie, with royal scorn. She resentedhis familiarity, and she was afraid that he was going to provedangerous. Perhaps he meant to abduct her in this chariot. 

Being a street-car conductor, the poor fellow neither understoodwomen nor was understood by them. He accepted Kedzie's blow withresignation. He helped her down the step, his hand mellowing herarm and finding it ripe. 

She flung him a rebukeful glare that he did not get. He gave thetwo bells, and the car went away like a big lamp, leaving the worldto darkness and to Kedzie. 

She walked for a block or two and wondered where she should sleep. There were no hotels up here, and she would have been afraid oftheir prices. Probably they all charged as much as the Biltmore. At that rate, her money would just about pay for the privilege ofwalking in and out again. 

Boarding-houses there might have been, but they bore nodistinguishing marks. 

Kedzie stood and strolled until she was completely fagged. Then sheencountered a huge mass of shadowy foliage, a park--Crotona Park, although of course Kedzie did not know its name. 

There were benches at the edge, and concreted paths went glimmeringamong vagueness of foliage, with here and there searing arc-lightsas bright as immediate moons. Kedzie dropped to the first bench, buta couple of lovers next to her protested, and she retreated intothe park a little. 

She felt a trifle chilled with weariness and discouragement andthe lack of light. She clasped her arms together as a kind of wrapand huddled herself close to herself. Her head teetered and totteredand gradually sank till her delicate chin rested in her delicatebosom. Her big hat shaded her face as in a deep blot of ink, andshe slept. 

Unprotected, pretty, alone in the wicked city, she slept secureand unassailed. 

CHAPTER XI

Miss Anita Adair (_née_ Kedzie Thropp) had dozed upon her cozypark bench for an uncertain while when her bedroom was invaded byvisitors who did not know she was there. 

Kedzie was wakened by murmurous voices. A man was talking to a woman. They might have been Romeo and Juliet in Verona for the poetry oftheir grief, but they were in the Bronx Borough, and he was valetand she a housemaid, or so Kedzie judged. The man was saying in adialect new to Kedzie:

"Ah, _ma pauvre p'tite amie, _ for why you have a _jalousie_of my _patrie_?"

There was a vague discussion from which Kedzie drowsily gleanedthat the man was going to cross the sea to the realm of destruction. The girl was jealous of somebody that he called his _patrie, _and he miserably endeavored to persuade her that a man could loveboth his _patrie_ and his _amie_, and yet give his lifeto the former at her call. 

Kedzie was too sleepy to feel much curiosity. A neighbor's woe isa soothing lullaby. In the very crisis of their debate, the littlemoan of Kedzie's yawn startled and silenced the farewellers. Theystole away unseen, and she knew no more of them. 

Hours later Kedzie woke, shivering and afraid. All about her wasa woodland hush, but the circle of the horizon was dimly lighted, as if there were houses on fire everywhere in the distance. 

Poor Kedzie was a-cold and filled with the night dread. She wasafraid of burglars, mice, ghosts. She was still more afraid to leaveher bench and hunt through those deep shadows for her lost New York. Her drugged brain fell asleep as it wrestled with its fears. Her bodyprotested at its couch. All her limbs like separate serpents triedto find resting-places. They could not stretch themselves out onthe bench. Fiends had placed cast-iron braces at intervals to preventpeople from doing just that. Kedzie did not know that it is againstthe law of New York, if not of Nature, to sleep on park benches. 

Half unconsciously she slipped down to the ground and found a bedon the warm and dewless grass. Her members wriggled and adjustedthemselves. Her head rolled over on one round arm for a pillow;the other arm bent itself above her head, and finding her hat inthe way, took out the pins, lifted the hat off, set it on the ground, put the pins back in and returned to its place about her hair--allwithout disturbing Kedzie's beauty sleep. 

Her two arms were all the maids that Kedzie had ever had. Theywere as kind to her as they could be--devoted almost exclusivelyto her comfort. 

CHAPTER XII

Kedzie slept alone in a meadow, and slept well. Youth spread thesward with mattresses of eiderdown, and curtained out the starswith silken tapestry. If she dreamed at all, it was with the fullfranchise of youth in the realm of ambition. If she dreamed herselfa great lady, then fancy promised her no more than truth shouldredeem. Charity Coe Cheever had a finer bed but a poorer sleep, ifany at all. She had a secretary to do her chores for her and to tellher her engagements--where she was to go and what she had promisedand what she had better do. Charity dictated letters and committeereports; she even dictated checks on her bank-account (which keptfilling up faster than she drew from it). 

While Kedzie was trying to fit her limber frame among the littlehillocks and tussocks on the ground, Charity Coe was sitting ather dressing-table, gazing into the mirror, but seeing beyondher own image. Her lips moved, and her secretary wrote down whatshe said aloud, and her maid was kneeling to take off Charity Coe'sballroom slippers and slip on her bedroom ditto. The secretary wasso sleepy that she tried to keep her eyes open by agitating the lidsviolently. The maid was trying to keep from falling forward acrossher mistress's insteps and sleeping there. 

But Charity was wide-awake--wild awake. Her soul was not in herdictation, but in her features, which she studied in the mirror asa rich man studies his bank-account. Charity was wondering if shehad wrecked her beauty beyond repair, or if she could fight it back. 

Charity Coe, being very rich, had a hundred arms and hands and feet, eyes and ears, while Kedzie had but two of each. Charity had some oneto make her clothes for her and cut up her bread and meat and fetchthe wood for her fire and put her shoes on and take them off. Sheeven had her face washed for her and her hair brushed, and somebodytrimmed her finger-nails and swept out her room, sewed on her buttonsand buttoned them up or unbuttoned them, as she pleased. 

If Kedzie had known how much Charity was having done for her shewould have had a colic of envy. But she slept while Charity couldnot. Charity could not pay anybody to sleep for her or stay awakefor her, or love or kiss for her, and her wealth could not buy thefidelity of the one man whose fidelity she wanted to own. 

Charity had done work that Kedzie would have flinched from. Charityhad lived in a field hospital and roughed it to a loathsome degree. She had washed the faces and bodies of grimy soldiers from the bloodyditches of the war-front; she had been chambermaid to gas-blindedpeasants and had done the hideous chores that follow operations. Nowwith a maid to change her slippers and a secretary to make up hermind, and a score of servants within call, she was afraid that shehad squandered her substance in spendthrift alms. She was a prodigalbenefactress returned from her good works too late, perhaps. Shewondered and took stock of her charms. She rather underrated them. 

Peter Cheever had been extravagantly gallant the morning afterher return from the mountains. He had added the last perfect tributeof suspicion and jealousy. They had even breakfasted together. Shehad dragged herself down to the dining-room, and he had neglectedhis morning paper, and lingered for mere chatter. He had telephonedfrom his office to ask her for the noon hour, too. He had taken herto the Bankers' Club for luncheon in the big Blue Room. He had thensuggested that they dine together and go to any theater she liked. 

Charity Coe's head was turned by all this attention. "Three mealsa day and a show with her own husband" was going the honeymoon pace. 

But she returned to the normal speed, for he did not come hometo dress or to dine or to go to the theater. No word came from himuntil Charity Coe was all dressed; then a clerk telephoned her thather husband regretted he could not come home, as he had to rush forthe Philadelphia train. 

Charity could not quite disbelieve this, nor quite believe. Shehad spent the evening debating married love and honeymoons thatwax and wane and wax again, and a wife's duty and her rights andmight-have-beens, perhapses, and if-only's. 

Charity had put on her jewels, which had not been taken out ofthe safe for years, but he had not arrived. Alarm and resentmentwrestled for her heart; they prospered alternately. Now she trembledwith fear for her husband; now she smothered with wrath at hisindifference to her. 

Who was he that he should keep her waiting, and who were the Cheeversthat they should break engagements with the Coes? It was only at suchtimes that her pride of birth flared in her, and then only enoughto sustain her through grievous humiliations. 

But what are humiliations that we should mind them so? They cometo everybody in turn, and they are as relentless and impersonal asthe sun marching around the sky. Kedzie had hers, and Charity hers, and the streetcar conductor Kedzie had rebuffed had his, and the Czarwith his driven army had his, with more to come, and the Kaiser withhis victorious army had his, with more to come. Even Peter Cheeverhad his in plenty, and of a peculiar secret sort. 

He had honestly planned to spend his evening with his wife. Sheseemed to be coming back into style with him. But the long armof the telephone brought him within the reach of Zada L'Etoile. Zada had plans of her own for his evening-dinner, theater, supper, dance till dawn. Peter had answered, gently:

"Sorry, but I'm booked. "

Zada had seemed to come right through the wire at him. 

"With that--wife of yours, of course!"

She had used a word that fascinated the listening Central, who waslucky enough to transact a good deal of Zada's telephone business. Central could almost see Peter flush as he shook his head andanswered:

"Not necessarily. It's business. "

"You'd better make it your business not to go out with that woman, anywhere, " Zada had threatened. "It's indecent. "

Peter winced. A wife is not ordinarily called "that woman. " Petersighed. It was a pretty pass when a man could not be allowed to goto the theater with his own wife. Yet he felt that Zada was right, in a way. He had forfeited the privilege of a domestic evening. Hewas afraid to brave Zada's fantastic rages. He could best protectCharity Coe by continuing to ignore her. 

He consented to Zada's plan and promised to call up his wife. Zadatook a brief triumph from that. But Peter was ashamed and afraidto speak to Charity even across the wire. He knew that it has becomeas difficult to lie by telephone as face to face. The treacherouslittle quavers in the voice are multiplied to a rattle, and nothingcan ever quite imitate sincerity. So much is bound to be over orunder done. 

Cheever made a pretense of rushing out of his office. He looked athis watch violently, so that his secretary should be startled--ashe politely pretended to be. Cheever gasped, then rushed his liewith sickly histrionism:

"I say, Hudspeth, call up my--Mrs. Cheever, will you? And--er--tellher I've had to dash for the train to--er--Phila"--cough--"delphia. Tell her I'm awfully sorry about to-night. Back to-morrow. "

"Yessir, " said Hudspeth, winking at the gaping stenographer, wholooked exclamation points at her typewriter. 

Hudspeth called up Mrs. Cheever. He was no more convincing thanCheever would have been. A note of disgust at his task and ofdeprecatory pity for Mrs. Cheever influenced his tone. 

Charity was not convinced, but she could hardly reveal that toHudspeth--although, of course, she did. She was betrayed by hervery eagerness to be a good sport easily bamboozled. 

"Oh, I see. Too bad! I quite understand. Thank you, Mr. Hudspeth. Good-by. "

She did not hear Hudspeth growling to the stenographer as he strolledover and leaned on her chair unnecessarily--there were other chairsto lean on, and she was not deaf:

"Rotten business! He ought to be ashamed of himself. A nice wifelike that!"

The stenographer sat forward and snapped, "You got a nice wifeyourself. " She was a little jealous of Zada, perhaps--or ofMrs. Cheever--or of both. 

Peter left his office to escape telephoning Charity, but he couldimagine how the message crushed her. He felt as if he had steppedon a hurt bird. When he met Zada he kept trying to be patient andforgiving with her, in spite of her blameworthiness. 

Zada saw through his sullenness, and for a little moment was proudof her victory. Then she began to suffer, too. She understood thefrailty of her hold on Cheever. His loyalty to her was in the eyes ofthe world a treachery, and his disloyalty to her would be applaudedas a holy deed. She was becoming an old story with him, as Charityhad become one. 

She suffered agonies from the cloud on her title and on her name, and she was afraid of the world. A woman of her sort has no sympathyto expect; her stock in trade vanishes without replenishment, andher business does not build. In spite of herself she cannot helpenvying and imitating the good women. As a certain great man hasconfessed, "There is so much good in the worst of us, " that thereis hardly any fun in being bad. It is almost impossible to be verybad or very good very long at a time. 

So here was Zada already copying a virtuous domestic woe and wonderinghow she could fasten Cheever to her, win him truly for herself. Shehonestly felt that she could be of value to him, and make more ofa man of him than his lawful wife ever could. Perhaps she was right. At any rate, she was miserable, and if a person is going to bemiserable she might as well be right while her misery is going on. 

Zada had dragged Cheever to a cabaret. She could lead him thither, but she could not make him dance. She was one-stepping unwillinglywith a young cad who insulted her subtly in everything he said andlooked. She could not resent his familiarity beyond sneering at himand calling him a foolish cub. She left him and returned to the tablewhere Peter Cheever smoked a bitter cigar. It is astonishing how sadthese notorious revelers look in repose. They are solemner thandeacons. 

"Come on, Peterkin--dance the rest of this with me, " Zada implored. 

Peterkin shook his head. He felt that it was not quite right for himto dance in public with such persons. He had his code. Even the swinehave their ethics. Zada put her hand in Cheever's arm and cooedto him, but in vain. 

It was then that Jim Dyckman caught sight of them. He was slinkingabout the roofs as lonely and dejected as a homeless cat. 

His money could not buy him companionship, though his acquaintancewas innumerable and almost anybody would have been proud to be spokento by such a money monster. But Jim did not want to be spoken to byanybody who was ambitious to be spoken to by him. He wanted to talkto Charity. 

He could not even interest himself in dissipation. There was plentyof it for sale, and markets were open to him that were not availableto average means. Many a foolish woman, irreproachable and countingherself unapproachable, would have been strangely and memorablyperturbed by an amorous glance from Jim Dyckman. 

But Jim did not want what he could get. He was hungry forthe companionship of Charity Coe. 

When he saw her lord and master, Peter Cheever, with Zada, Dyckmanwas enraged. Cheever owned Charity Coe; he could flatter her witha smile, beckon her with a gesture, caress her at will, or leave herin safe deposit, while he spent his precious hours with a publicservant!

Dyckman could usually afford to do what he wanted to. But now hewanted to go to that table and knock the heads of Cheever and Zadatogether; he wanted to make their skulls whack like castanets. Buthe could not afford to do that. 

He was so forlorn that he went home. His sumptuous chariot withninety race-horses concealed in the engine and velvet in its wheelsslid him as on smoothest ice to his father's home near the cathedral. The house was like a child of the cathedral, and he went up itssteps as a pauper entering a cathedral. He gave up his hat and stickand went past the masterpieces on his walls as if he were a visitorto the Metropolitan Art Gallery on a free day. He stumbled upthe stairway, itself a work of art, like a boy sent to bed withoutsupper: he stumbled upstairs, wanting to cry and not daring to. 

His valet undressed him in a motherly way and put him to bed. The valet was feeling very sad. Dyckman realized that he was aboutto lose Jules, and he felt more disconsolate. Still, he surprisedhimself by breaking out:

"I wish you wouldn't go to the war, Jules. "

Jules smiled with friendship and deference subtly blended:

"I wish I would not, too, sir. "

"You might get killed, you know. "

"Yes, sir. "

"So you're a soldier! How long did you serve?"

"Shree years, sir. "

"And I don't know the first thing about soldiering! I ought to beashamed of myself! Well--don't get killed, Jules. "

"Very good, sir. "

But he did. 

Jules said, "Good night, sir, " and faded through the door. Dyckmantossed for a while. Then he got up in a rage at his insomnia. Hecould not find his other slipper, and he stubbed his toe plebeianlyagainst an aristocratic table. He cursed and limped to the windowand glowered down into the street. He might have been a jailbirdgaping through iron bars. He could not get out of himself, or hislove for Charity. 

He wondered how he could live till morning without her. He went tohis telephone to call her and hear her voice. He lifted the receiverand when Central answered, the cowardice of decency compelled himfrom his resolve, and he shamefully mumbled:

"The correct time, please. "

What difference did it make to him what hour it was? He was thevictim of eternity, not time. 

He went back to his window-vigil over nothing and fell asleepmurmuring the biggest swear words he could remember. In his weakmood they had the effect of a spanked boy's last whimpers. 

He was a boy, and fate was spanking him hard. He could not have whomhe wanted, and he resolved that there was nothing else in the worldto want. And all the time there was a girl sleeping out in CrotonaPark on the ground. She was pretty and dangerous, another flowertossing on the girl-tree. 

CHAPTER XIII

When the daylight whitened the black air it found Dyckman sprawledalong his window-lounge and woke him to the disgust of anothermorning. He had to reach up and draw a curtain between his eyesand the hateful sun. 

But Kedzie had only her vigilant arm. It slipped down across herbrow like a watchful nurse coming in on tiptoe to protect a fretfulpatient from broken sleep. 

Kedzie slept on and on, till at length the section of Crotona Parkimmediately beneath her refused to adapt itself longer to hersquirming search for soft spots. She sat up in startled confusionat the unfamiliar ceiling. The wall-paper was not at all what shealways woke to. At first she guessed that she must have fallen outof bed with a vengeance. Then she decided she had fallen out of doorsand windows as well, and into the front yard. 

No, these bushes were not those bushes. That beech almost overhead, seen from below by sleep-thick eyes, was an amazing thing. 

She had drowsy childhood memories of being carried up-stairs by herfather and put to bed by her mother. Once or twice she had wakenedwith her head to the footboard and endured agonies of confusionbefore she got the universe turned round right. But how had she gotoutdoors? Her father had never carried her down-stairs and left herin the yard before. 

At last she saw that she had fallen not merely out of bed and out ofdoors, but out of town. She remembered her wanderings and her lyingdown to sleep. She wondered who had taken her hat off for her. 

She looked about for somebody to ask questions of. There was nobodyto be seen. There were a few housetops peering over the horizonat her. 

English sparrows were jumping here and there, engaged in theireverlasting spats, but she could not ask them. 

Kedzie sat up straight, her arms back of her, her feet erect ontheir heels at a distance, like suspicious squirrels. She yawnedagainst the back of her wrist and began to remember her escapade. She gurgled with laughter, but she felt rumpled and lame, and notin the least like Miss Anita Adair. She almost wished she were athome, gazing from her bed to the washstand and hearing her motherputtering about in the kitchen making breakfast; to Kedzie's youngheart it was the superlative human luxury to know you ought to getup and not get up. 

She clambered to her feet and made what toilet she could whileher seclusion lasted. She shook out her skirts like feathers, and shoved her disheveled hair up under her hat as she had alwaysswept the dust under the rug. 

She was overjoyed to find that her hand-bag had not been stolen. The powder-puff would serve temporarily for a wash-basin. The smallchange in her purse would postpone starvation or surrender fora while. 

She walked out of her sleeping-porch to the path. A few people werevisible now--workmen and workwomen taking a short-cut, and leisurelygentlemen out of a job already beginning their day's work of holdingdown benches. No one asked any questions or showed any interestin Kedzie. 

She found a street-car line, made sure that the car she took wasbound down-town, and resumed her effort to recapture New York. 

Nearly everybody was reading one morning paper or another, but Kedziewas not interested in the news. One man kept brushing her nose withhis paper. She was angry at his absence of mind, but she did notnotice that her nose was being annoyed by her own name in thehead-lines. 

She rode and rode and rode till her hunger distracted her. She passedrestaurant after restaurant, till at last she could stand the famineno longer. She got down from the car and walked till she came toa bakery lunch-room entitled, "The Bon-Ton Bakery by Joe Gidden. " Itwas another like the one she ate in the day before. The same kind ofwaiter was there, a dish-thrower with the manners of a hostler. 

But Kedzie was so meek after her night on the ground that she wasflattered by his grin. "Skip" Magruder was his title, as she learnedin time. The "Skip" came to him from a curious impediment in his gaitthat caused him to drop a stitch now and then. 

Not long afterward Kedzie was so far beyond this poor hamstrungstable-soul that she could not hear the word _skip_ withoutblushing as if it were an indecency. It was an indecency, too, thatsuch a little Aphrodite should be reduced to a love-affair with sucha dismal Vulcan. But if it could happen on Olympus, it could happenon earth. 

Proximity is said to breed love, but priority has its virtues no less. Skip Magruder was the first New-Yorker to help Kedzie in her hourof dismay, and she thought him a great and powerful being profoundlyinformed about the city of her dreams. 

Skip did know a thing or two--possibly three. He was a New-Yorkerof a sort, and he had his New York as well as Jim Dyckman had hisor Peter Cheever his. He sized Kedzie up for the ignoramus she was, but he was good to her in so far as his skippy faculties permitted. He dropped the paper he was reading when she wandered in, and wonher at once by not calling her "Cutie. "

"W'at 'll y'ave, lady?" he said as he skirled a plate and a glass ofice-water along the oil-cloth with exquisite skill, slapped a knifeand fork and spoon alongside, and flipped her a check to be punchedas she ordered, and a fly-frequented bill of fare to order from. 

Kedzie was stumped by the array of dishes. Skip volunteered his aid--suggested "A nor'nge, ham 'n'eggs, a plate o' wheats, anna cuppacorfee. "

"All right, " said Kedzie, wondering how much such a barbecuewould cost. 

Skip went to bellow the order through a sliding door and grab it whenit should be pushed forth from a mysterious realm. Kedzie picked upa newspaper that Skip had picked up after some early client left it. 

Kedzie glanced at the front page and saw that the Germans had takenthree towns and the Allies one trench. She could not pronouncethe towns, and trenches meant nothing in her life. She was about totoss the paper aside when a head-line caught her eye. She read withpardonable astonishment:

SPANKED GIRL GONE

Beautiful Kedzie Thropp, Western Society Belle, Deserts Her WealthyParents at Biltmore and Vanishes

POLICE OF NATION IN SEARCH

Kedzie felt the world blow up about her. Her name was in the New Yorkpapers the second morning of her first visit! Her father and motherwere called wealthy! She was a society belle! Who could ever hereafterdeny these ideal splendors, now that there had been a piece in thepaper about them?

But dog on it! Why did they have to go and do such a thing as putin about her being spanked? She blushed all over with rage. She hadonce planned to go back home with wondrous gossip of her visit tothe big city. She had seen herself gloating over the other girlswho had never been to a big city. 

Now they would all give her the laugh. The boys would make up rhymesand yell them at her from a safe distance. She could kill her fatherfor being so mean to her. It was bad enough to hurt her as he did, but to go and tattle when her back was turned was simply awful. Shecould never go home now. She'd rather die. 

Yet the paper said the police of the nation were searching for her. She understood how Eliza felt with the bloodhounds after her. Shemust keep out of sight of the police. One good thing was the pictureof her that they printed in the paper. It was not her picture at all, and nothing like her. Besides, she had selected a new name. "AnitaAdair" was a fine disguise. It sounded awful swell, too. It soundedlike her folks had money. She was glad to be rid of "Kedzie Thropp. "She would never be Kedzie Thropp again. 

Then the waiter came with her breakfast. It smelled so grand thatshe forgot to be afraid for a while. The coffee smoked aroma; theham and eggs were fragrant; and the orange sent up a golden fumeof delight. 

Skip entered into conversation as she entered into the orange. "Where you woikin' now?" he said. 

Kedzie did not know what his dialect meant at first. When she learnedthat "woikin'" was the same as "wurrkin"' she confessed that shehad no job. She trembled lest he should recognize her from the paper. He eyed her narrowly and tried to flirt with her across the veryhead-lines that told who she was. 

She could not be sure that he did not know her. He might bea detective in disguise looking for a reward. 

Skip had been reading about Kedzie when she came in. But henever dreamed that she was she. He befriended her, however, outof the goodness of his heart and the desire to retain her inthe neighborhood--also out of respect for the good old brass rule, "Do good unto others now, so that they will do good to you later. "

Slap told Kedzie that he knew a place right near where a goil waswanted. When he told her that it was a candy-store she was elated. A candy-store was her idea of a good place to work. 

Skip told Kedzie where to go and what to say, and to mention thatSkip sent her. 

Skip also recommended lodgings next his own in the flat of Mr. AndMrs. Rietzvoller, delicatessen merchants. 

"Nice rooms reasonable, " he said, "and I'll be near to look afteryou. "

"You're awful fresh, seems to me, on short acquaintance, " wasKedzie's stinging rebuke. 

Skip laughed. "Didn't you see the special-delivery stamp onme forehead? But I guess you're a goil can take care yourself. "

Kedzie guessed she was. But she was in need of help. Where elsecould she turn? Whom else had she for a beau in this multitudeof strangers? So she laughed encouragingly. 

"All right. You're elected. Gimme the address. "

Skip wrote it on one of the business cards of the bakery. He added:

"Another thing: I know a good expressman will rustle your trunkover from--Where you boardin' at now?"

Kedzie flushed. She could hardly tell him that she had boardedin a park up-town somewhere. 

Skip saw that she was confused. He showed exquisite tact. 

"I'm wise, goilie. She's holdin' your trunk out on you. I beenin the same boat m'self. "

Kedzie was willing to let it go at that, but Skip pondered:

"But, say--that ain't goin' to make such a hell of a hit--scuse me, lady--but I mean if you tell your new landlady about your trunkbein' left on your old one, that ain't goin' to get you nothin' butthe door-slam in the snoot. .. . I tell you: tell her you just comein on the train and your wardrobe-trunk is on the way unless itgot delayed in changin' cars at--oh, any old place. I guess you didcome in, at that, from Buffalo or Pittsboig or some them Westernjoints, didn' you?"

Kedzie just looked at him. Her big eyes lied for her, and hehastened to say:

"Well, scuse me nosin' in on your own business. Tell the landladywhat you want to, only tell her it was me sent you. That's as goodas a guarantee--that she'll have to wait for her money. "

Kedzie laughed at his excruciating wit, but she was touched alsoby his courtesy, and she told him he was awful kind and she wasterrible obliged. 

That bowled him over. But when she rose with stateliness and, reaching for her money, offered to pay, he had the presence of mindto snarl, amiably:

"Ah, ferget it and beat it. This meal's on me, and wishing you manyhappy returns of the same. "

He certainly was one grand gentleman. The proprietor was away, and Skip could afford to be generous. 

Kedzie left him and found the landlady and got a home; and then shefound the store and got a job. For a time she was in Eden. The dolefulproprietor's doleful wife was usually down-cellar making ice-creamwhile her husband was out in the kitchen cooking candy. Kedzie wasfree to guzzle soda-water at her will. Her forefinger and thumb wentalong the stacks of candy, dipping like a robin's beak. She wasforever licking her fingers and brushing marshmallow dust off herchest. She usually had a large, square caramel outlined in one roundcheek. 

But the ecstasy did not abide. Kedzie began to realize why Mr. AndMrs. Fleissig were sad. Sweets were a sour business; the people whocame into the shop were mainly children who spent whole half-hourschoosing a cent's worth of burnt sugar, or young, foolish girls whogiggled into the soda bubbles, or housewives ordering ice-cream forSunday. 

If a young man appeared it was always to buy a box of candy forsome other girl. It made Kedzie cynical to see him haggle and ponder, trying to make the maximum hit with a minimum of ammunition. It madeher more distrustful to see young men trying to flirt with her whilethey bought tributes of devotion to somebody else. But Kedzie alsofound out that several of the neighborhood girls accepted candyfrom several gentlemen simultaneously, and she drew many cynicalconclusions from the candy business. 

Skip Magruder was attentive and took her out to moving pictureswhen he was free. In return for the courtesy she took her meals at"The Bon-Ton Bakery by Joe Gidden. " Whenever he dared, Skip skippedthe change. He could always slip her an extra titbit. 

On that account she had to be a little extra gracious to him whenhe took her to the movies. Holding hands didn't hurt. 

Not a week had gone before Skip had rivals. He caught Kedzie indeceptions. She kept him guessing, and the poor fool sufferedthe torments and thrills of jealousy. A flip young fellow named Hoke, agent for a jobber in ice-cream cones, and a tubby old codger namedKalteyer, who facetiously claimed to own a chewing-gum mine, wereadded competitors for Kedzie's smiles, while Skip teetered betweenhomicide and suicide. 

Skip was wretched, and Kedzie was enthralled by her own success. She had conquered New York. She had a job in a candy-store, a roomin a flat with the family of a delicatessen merchant; she had asmany flirtations as she could carry, and an increasing waiting-list. What more could woman ask?

And all this was in far upper Third Avenue. She had not yet beendown to First Street. In fact, she was in New York two weeks beforeshe got as far south as 100th Street. She had almost forgotten thatshe had ever dwelt elsewhere than in New York. Her imitative instinctwas already exchanging her Western burr for a New York purr. 

Her father and mother would hardly have known her voice if theyhad heard it. And they would hardly meet her, since they hadgiven her up and gone back home, far sadder, no wiser, much poorer. They did not capture the insurance money, and they had no rewardsto offer for Kedzie. 

Now and then a Kedzie would be reported in some part of the country, and a wild paragraph would be printed about her. Now and then shewould be found dead in a river or would be traced as a white slavedrugged and sold and shipped to the Philippine Islands. The storieswere heinously cruel to her father and mother, who mourned herin Nimrim and repented dismally of their harshness to the bestand pirtiest girl ever lived. 

Meanwhile Kedzie sold candy and ate less and less of it. She beganto see more pretentious phases of city life and to be discontentwith her social triumph. She began to understand how cheap her loverswere. She called them "mutts. " She came to suffer agonies of remorseat the liberties she had given them. 

Mr. Kalteyer, the chewing-gum prince, in an effort to overcomethe handicap of weight and age which Mr. Hoke did not carry, toldKedzie that her picture ought to be on every counter in the world, and he could get it there. He'd love to see her presented as a classydame showing her ivories and proving how "beneficiary" his chewing-gumwas for the teeth as well as the digestion. 

Kedzie told the delicatessen merchant's wife all about his gloriouspromises, and she said, very sagely:

"Bevare vit dose bo'quet fellers. Better as so many roses is ithe should brink you a slice roastbif once. Lengwidge of flowers isnice, but money is de svell talker. Take it by me, money is de svelltalker!"

Kedzie was glad of such wisdom, and she convinced Mr. Kalteyerthat it took more than conversation to buy her favor. He kepthis word under some duress, and took Kedzie to Mr. Eben E. Kiam, a manufacturer of show-cards and lithographs, with an advertisingagency besides. 

Mr. Edam studied her poses and smiles for days before he gother at her best. An interested observer and a fertile suggesterin his office was a young Mr. Gilfoyle, who wrote legends forshow-cards, catch-lines for new wares, and poems, if pressed. 

Gilfoyle had the poet's prophetic eye, and he murmured to Mr. Kiamthat there were millions in "Miss Adair's" face and form if they wereworked right. He took pains to let Kedzie overhear this. It pleasedher. Millions were something she decided she would like. 

Gilfoyle developed wonderfully in the sun of Kedzie's interest. Hetold Kalteyer that there was no money in handling chewing-gum ina small way as a piker; what he wanted was a catchy name, a specialselling-argument, and a national publicity campaign. He advisedKalteyer to borrow a lot of money at the banks and sling himself. 

Kalteyer breathed hard. Gilfoyle was assailed by an epilepsyof inspirations. In place of "Kalteyer's Peerless Gum, " he proposedthe enthralling title, "Breathasweeta. " Others had mixed pepsinin their edible rubber goods of various flavors. Gilfoyle proposedperfume!

Kalteyer was astounded at the boy's genius. He praised him tillKedzie began to think him worth cultivation, especially as he proposedto flood the country with portraits of Kedzie as the BreathasweetaGirl. 

The muse of advertising swooped down and whispered to Gilfoylethe delicious lines to be printed under Kedzie's smile. 

 Kiss me again. Who are you? You use Breathasweeta. You must be all right. 

Kalteyer was swept off his feet. He ran to the bank while Kiam raisedGilfoyle's salary. 

The life-size card of Kedzie was made with a prop to hold it up. Itwas so much retouched and altered in the printing that her own father, seeing it in a Nimrim drugstore, never recognized it. Nearly everydrug-store in the country set up a Kedzie in its show-window. 

The Breathasweeta came into such demand that Kalteyer was temporarilybankrupted by prosperity. He had to borrow so much money to floathis wares that he had none for Kedzie's entertainment. 

Mr. Kiam took her up as a valuable model for advertising purposes. 

He aroused in Kedzie an inordinate appetite for pictures of herself. All day long she was posed in costumes for various calendars, asa farmer's daughter, as a society queen, as a camera girl, asa sausage nymph, and as the patron saint of a brewery. 

In a week she had arrived at classic poses in Greek robes. One by onethese were abbreviated, till Kedzie was being very generally revealedto the public eye. 

The modesty her mother had whipped into her was gradually unlearnedstep by step, garment by garment, without Kedzie's noticing the changein her soul. 

CHAPTER XIV

Just about the hour of that historic day when Kedzie was running awayfrom her father and mother Prissy Atterbury was springing his greatstory about Jim Dyckman and Charity. 

Prissy had gone on to his destination, the home of the Winnsborosin Greenwich, but he arrived late, and the house guests were tooprofoundly absorbed in their games of auction to make a fit audiencefor such a story. So Prissy saved it for a correct moment, though henearly burst with it. He slept ill that night from indigestion dueto retention of gossip. 

The next forenoon he watched as the week-end prisoners dawdled downfrom their gorgeous cells, to a living-room as big and as fullof seats as a hotel lobby. They threw themselves, on lounges andhuge chairs and every form of encouragement to indolence. They threwthemselves also on the mercy and the ingenuity of their hostess. But Mrs. Winnsboro expected her guests to bring their own plansand take care of themselves. They were marooned. 

When the last malingerer arrived with yawns still unfinished, Prissyseized upon a temporary hush and began to laugh. Pet Bettany, who wasalways sullen before luncheon, grumbled:

"What ails you, Priss? Just seeing some joke you heard last night?"

Priss snapped, "I was thinking. "

"You flatter yourself, " said Pet. "But I suppose you've got toget it off your chest. I'll be the goat. What is it?"

Prissy would have liked to punish the cat by not telling her a singleword of it, but he could not withhold the scandal another moment. 

"Well, I'll tell you the oddest thing you ever heard in allyour life. "

Pretending to tell it to Pet, he was reaching out with voice and eyesto muster the rest. He longed for a megaphone and cursed such bigrooms. 

"I was passing through the Grand Central to take my train up here, you understand, and who should I see walk in from an incomingexpress, you understand, but--who, I say, should I see but--oh, you never would guess--you simply never would guess. Nev-vir-ir!"

"Who cares who you saw, " said Pet, and viciously started to changethe subject, so that Prissy had to jump the prelude. 

"It was Jim Dyckman. Well, in he comes from the train, youunderstand, and looks about among the crowd of people waitingfor the train--to meet people, you understand. "

Pet broke in, frantically: "Yes, I understand! But if you say'understand' once more I'll scream and chew up the furniture!"

Prissy regarded her with patient pity and went on:

"Jim didn't see me, you un--you see--and--but just as I was aboutto say hello to him he turns around and begins to stare into thecrowd of other people getting off the same train that he got off, youunderst--Well, I had plenty of time for my train, so I waited--notto see what was up, you un--I do say it a lot, don't I? Well, Iwaited, and who should come along but--well, this you never wouldguess--not in a month of Sundays. "

A couple of flanneled oaves impatient for the tennis-court stoleaway, and Pet said, "Speed it up, Priss; they're walking out on you. "

"Well, they won't walk out when they know who the woman was. Jimwas waiting for--he was waiting for--"

He paused a moment. Nobody seemed interested, and so he hastenedto explode the name of the woman. 

"Charity Coe! It was Charity Coe Jim was waiting for! They had comein on the same train, you understand, and yet they didn't come upthe platform together. Why? I ask you. Why didn't they come upthe platform together? Why did Jim come along first and wait? Wasit to see if the coast was clear? Now, I ask you!"

There was respect enough paid to Prissy's narrative now. In fact, the name of Charity in such a story made the blood of everybodyrun cold--not unpleasantly--yet not altogether pleasantly. 

Some of the guests scouted Prissy's theory. Mrs. Neff was there, and she liked Charity. She puffed contempt and cigarette-smoke atAtterbury, and murmured, sweetly, "Prissy, you're a dirty littleliar, and your long tongue ought to be cut out and nailed up ona wall. "

Prissy nearly wept at the injustice of such skepticism. It was PetBettany, of all people, who came to his rescue with credulity. Shewas sincerely convinced. A voluptuary and intrigante herself, shebelieved that her own ideas of happiness and her own impulses wereshared by everybody, and that people who frowned on vice were eitherhypocrites or cowards. 

She could not imagine how small a part and how momentary a part evilambitions play in the lives of clean, busy souls like Charity. Infact, Pet flattered herself as to her own wickedness, and pretendedto be worse than she was, in order to establish a reputation forcandor. 

Vice has its hypocrisies as well as virtue. 

Pet had long been impatient of the celebration of Charity Coe'ssaintly attributes, and it had irked her to see so desirablea catch as Jim Dyckman squandering his time on a woman who wasalready married and liked it. He might have been interested in Petif Charity had let him alone. 

Pet also was stirred with the detestation of sin in orderly peoplethat actuates disorderly people. She broke out with surprisingearnestness. 

"Well, I thought as much! So Charity Coe is human, after all, the sly devil! She's fooling even that foxy husband of hers. She'splaying the same game, too--and a sweet little foursome it makes. "

She laughed so abominably that Mrs. Neff threw away her cigaretteand growled:

"Oh, shut up, Pet; you make me sick! Let's go out in the air. "

Mrs. Neff was old enough to say such things, and Pet damperedher noise a trifle. But she held Prissy back and made him recounthis adventure again. They had a good laugh over it--Prissy gigglingand hugging one knee, Pet whooping with that peasant mirth of hers. 

The same night, at just about the hour when Kedzie Thropp wasfalling asleep in Crotona Park and Jim Dyckman was sulking alonein his home and Charity was brooding alone in hers, Prissy Atterburywas delighted to see a party of raiders from another house-partymotor up to the Winnsboros' and demand a drink. 

Prissy was a trifle glorious by this time. He had been frequentinga bowl of punch subtly liquored, but too much sweetened. He leanedheavily on a new-comer as he began his story. The new-comer pushedPrissy aside with scant courtesy. 

"Ah, tell us a new one!" he said. "That's ancient history!"

"What-what-what, " Prissy stammered. "Who told you s'mush?"

"Pet Bet. Telephoned it to us this morning. I heard it from threeother people to-day. "

"Well, ain't that abslooshly abdominable. "

Prissy began to cry softly. He knew the pangs of an authorcircumvented by a plagiarist. 

The next morning his head ached and he rang up an eye-opener ortwo. The valet found him in violet pajamas, holding his janglinghead and moaning:

"There was too much sugar in the punch. "

He remembered Pet's treachery, and he groaned that there was too muchvinegar in life. But he determined to fight for his story, and he did. Long after Pet had turned her attention to other reputations, Prissywas still peddling his yarn. 

The story went circlewise outward and onward like the influence ofa pebble thrown into a pool. Two people who had heard the story anddoubted it met; one told it to the other; the other said she hadheard it before; and they parted mutually supported and definitelyconvinced that the rumor was fact. Repetition is confirmation, andhistory is made up of just such self-propelled lies--fact foundedon fiction. 

We create for ourselves a Nero or a Cleopatra, a Washington ora Molly Pitcher, from the gossip of enemies or friends or imaginers, and we can be sure of only one thing--that we do not know the truetruth. 

But we also do wrong to hold gossip in too much discredit. It giveslife fascination, makes the most stupid neighbors interesting. Itkeeps up the love of the great art of fiction and the industry ofcharacter-analysis. A small wonder that human beings are addictedto it, when we are so emphatically assured that heaven itself isdevoted to it, and that we are under the incessant espionage of ourDeity, while the angels are eavesdroppers and reporters carryingnote-books in which they write with indelible ink the least thingswe do or say or think. 

CHAPTER XV

To see into other people's hearts and homes and lives is one ofthe primeval instincts. In that curiosity all the sciences arerooted; and it is a scientific impulse that makes us hanker toget back of faces into brains, to push through words into thoughts, and to ferret out of silences the emotions they smother. 

Gossip is one of the great vibrations of the universe. Like rain, it falls on the just and on the unjust; it ruins and it revives;it quenches thirst; it makes the desert bloom with cactuses andgrotesque flowers, and it beats down violets and drowns little birdsin their nests. 

Gossip was now awakening a new and fearful interest in Charity Coeand Jim Dyckman. 

Two women sitting at a hair-dresser's were discussing the gossipaccording to Prissy through the shower of their tresses. The manicureworking on the nails of one of them glanced up at the coiffeur andgasped with her eyes. The manicure whispered it to her next customer--who told it to her husband in the presence of their baby. The babywas not interested, but the nurse was, and when she rode out withthe baby she told the chauffeur. The chauffeur used the story asa weapon of scorn to tease Jim Dyckman's new valet with. Jules wouldhave gone into a frenzy of denial, but Jules was by now wearing thelivery of his country in the trenches. The new valet--Dallam washis name--tried to sell the story to a scavenger-editor who did notdare print it yet, though he put it in the safe where he kept suchmaterial against the day of need. Also he paid Dallam a retainerto keep him in touch with the comings and goings of Dyckman. 

And thus the good name of a good woman went through the mud likea white flounce torn and dragged and unnoticed. For of courseCharity never dreamed that any one was giving such importance tothe coincidence of her railroad journey with Jim Dyckman. 

No more did Dyckman. He knew all too well what gulfs had partedhim from Charity even while he sat with her in the train. He hadsuffered such rebuffs from her that he was bitterly aggrieved. Hewas telling himself that he hated Charity for her stinginess ofsoul at the very time that the whispers were damning her too greatgenerosity in his favor. 

While gossip was recruiting its silent armies against her for hertreason to her husband, Charity was wondering why her loyalty tohim was so ill paid. She did not suspect Cheever of treason to her. That was so odious that she simply could not give it thought room. 

She stumbled on a newspaper article, the same perennial essay inrecurrence, to the effect that many wives lose their husbands byneglect of their own charms. It was full of advice as to the tricksby which a woman may lure her spouse back to the hearth and fastenhim there, combining domestic vaudeville with an interest in hisbusiness, but relying above all on keeping Cupid's torch alight bybeing Delilah every day. 

Charity Coe was startled. She wondered if she were losing Cheeverby neglecting herself. She began to pay more heed to her dressand her hats, her hair, her complexion, her smile, her generalattractiveness. 

Cheever noticed the strange alteration, and it bewildered him. Hecould not imagine why his wife was flirting with him. She made itharder for him to get away to Zada, but far more eager to. He didnot like Charity at all, in that impersonation. Neither did Charity. She hated herself after a day or two of wooing her official wooer. "You ought to be arrested, " she told her mirror-self. 

There were plays and novels that counseled a neglected wife to showan interest in another man. Charity was tempted to use Jim Dyckmanas a decoy for her own wild duck; but Dyckman had sailed away inhis new yacht, on a cruise with his yacht club. 

The gossip did not die in his absence. It oozed along like a darkstream of fly-gathering molasses. Eventually it came to the noticeof a woman who was Zada's dearest friend and hated her devotedly. 

She told it to Zada as a taunt, to show her that Zada's Mr. Cheeverwas as much deceived as deceiving. Zada, of course, was horriblydelighted. She promptly told Cheever that his precious wife had beenhaving a lovely affair with Jim Dyckman. Cheever showed her whereshe stood by forbidding her to mention his wife's name. He told Zadathat, whatever his wife might be, she was good as gold. 

He left Zada with great dignity and made up his mind to kill JimDyckman. In his fury he was convinced of the high and holy andcleanly necessity of murder. All of our basest deeds are alwaysdone with the noblest motives. Cheever forgot his own wickednessesin his mission to punish Dyckman. The assassination of Dyckman, hewas utterly certain, would have been what Browning called "a spittlewiped from the beard of God. "

But he was not permitted to carry out his mission, for he learnedthat Dyckman was somewhere on the Atlantic, far beyond Cheever'sreach. 

Disappointed bitterly at having to let him live awhile, Cheeverwent to his home, to denounce his wife. He found her reading. Shewas overjoyed to see him. He stared at her, trying to realize herinconceivable depravity. 

"Hello, honey!" she cried. "What's wrong? You've got a fever, I'm sure. I'm going to take your temperature. "

From her hospital experience she carried a little thermometerin her hand-bag. She had it by her and rose to put it under histongue. He struck it from her, and she stared at him. He stoodquivering like an overdriven horse. He called her a name highlyproper in a kennel club, but inappropriate to the boudoir. 

"You thought you'd get away with it, didn't you? You thought you'dget away with it, didn't you?" he panted. 

"Get away with what, honey?" she said, thinking him delirious. Shehad seen a hundred men shrieking in wild frenzies from brains toohot. 

"You and Dyckman! humph!" he raged. "So you and Jim Dyckman sneakedoff to the mountains together, did you? And came back on the sametrain, eh? And thought I'd never find it out. Why, you--"

What he would have said she did not wait to hear. She was human, after all, and had thousands of plebeian and primitive ancestorsand ancestresses. They jumped into her muscles with instant instinct. She slapped his face so hard that it rocked out of her view. 

She stood and fumbled at her tingling palm, aghast at herself andat the lightning-stroke from unknown distances that shattered herwhole being. Then she began to sob. 

Peter Cheever's aching jaw dropped, and he gazed at her befuddled. His illogical belief in her guilt was illogically converted to aprofound conviction of her innocence. The wanton whom he had accusedwas metamorphosed into a slandered angel who would not, could notsin. In his eyes she was hopelessly pure. 

"Thank God!" he moaned. "Oh, thank God for one clean woman inthis dirty world!"

He caught her bruised hand and began to kiss it and pour tears on it. And she looked down at his beautiful bent head and laid her otherhand on it in benison. 

It is one way of reconciling families. 

Cheever was so filled with remorse that he was tempted to writeJim Dyckman a note of apology. That was one of the few temptationshe ever resisted. 

Now he was going to kill everybody who had been dastard enoughto believe and spread the scandal he had so easily believed himself. But he would have had to begin with Zada. He was afraid of Zada. Heenjoyed a few days of honeymoon with Charity. 

He dodged Zada on the telephone, and he gave Mr. Hudspethinstructions to say that he was always out in case of a callfrom "Miss You Know. "

"I know, " Mr. Hudspeth answered. 

One morning, at an incredibly early hour for Zada, she walked intohis office and asked Mr. Hudspeth to retire--also the suspiciouslygood-looking stenographer. Then Zada said:

"Peterkin, it's time you came home. "

His laugh was hard and sharp. She took out a little weapon. She hadmanaged to evade the Sullivan law against the purchase or possessionof weapons. Peter was nauseated. Zada was calm. 

"Peterkin, " she said, "did you read yesterday about that woman whoshot a man and then herself?"

Peter had read it several times recently--the same story withdifferent names. It had long been a fashionable thing: the disprizedlover murders the disprizing lover and then executes the murderer. It was expensive to rugs and cheated lawyers and jurors out of fees, but saved the State no end of money. 

Cheever surrendered. 

"I'll come home, " he said, gulping the last quinine word. It seemedto him the most loyal thing he could do at the moment. It would havebeen unpardonably unkind to Charity to let himself be spattered allover his office and the newspapers by a well-known like Zada. 

Once "home" with Zada, he took the pistol away from her. But shelaughed and said:

"I can always buy another one, deary. "

Thus Zada re-established her rights. Cheever was very sorry. Hecursed himself for being so easily led astray. He wondered why itwas his lot to be so fickle and incapable of loyalty. He did notknow. He could only accept himself as he was. Oneself is the mostwonderful, inexplicable thing in the world. 

So Charity's brief honeymoon waned, blinked out again. 

Jim Dyckman came home from the yacht cruise in blissless ignoranceof all this frustrated drama. He longed to see Charity, but darednot. He took sudden hope from remembering her determination to goback abroad to her nursery of wounded soldiers. 

He had an inspiration. He would go abroad also--as a member ofthe aviation, corps. He already owned a fairly good hydro-aeroplanewhich had not killed him yet--he was a good swimmer, and lucky. 

He ordered the best war-eagle that could be made, and began to takelessons in military maps, bird's-eye views, and explosives. He wasalmost happy. He would improve on the poet's dream-ideal, "Were Ia little bird, I'd fly to thee. "

He would be a big bird, and he'd fly with his Thee. He would call onCharity in France when they both had an evening off, and take her upinto the clouds for a sky-ride. 

He had an ambition. At worst, he could die for France. It is splendidto have something to die for. It makes life worth living. 

He was so ecstatic in his first flight with his finished machinethat he fell and broke one of its wings, also one of his own. Charityheard of his accident and called on him at his mother's house. Hetold her his plans. 

"Too bad!" she sighed. "I'm not going abroad. Besides, I couldn't seeyou if I did. "

Then she told him what Cheever had said, but not how she had slapped. Jim was wild. He rose on his bad arm and fell back again, groaning:

"I'll kill him for that. "

Everybody is always going to kill everybody. Sometimes somebody doeskill somebody. But Dyckman went over to the great majority. Charitybegged him not to kill her husband, and to please her he promisednot to. 

Charity, having insured her husband's life, said: "And now, Jimmieold boy, I mustn't see you any more. Gossip has linked our names. Wemust unlink them. My husband and you will butcher each other if I'mnot careful, so it's good-by for keeps, and God bless you, isn't it?Promise?"

"I'll promise anything, if you'll go on away and let me alone, "Jim groaned, his broken arm being quite sufficient trouble for himat the moment. 

Charity laughed and went on away. She was deeply comforted bya promise which she knew he would not keep. 

Dyckman himself, as soon as his broken bones ceased to shake his soul, groaned with loneliness and despaired of living without Charity--vowedin his sick misery that nobody could ever come between them. Hecould not, would not, live without her. 

Still the gossip oozed along that he had not lived without her. 

CHAPTER XVI

Kedzie had come to town with no social ambitions whatsoever beyonda childish desire to be enormously rich and marry a beautiful prince. Her ideal of heaven at first was an eternal movie show interruptedat will by several meals a day, incessant soda-water and ice-creamand a fellow or two to spoon with, and some up-to-date duds--mostof all, several pairs of those white-topped shoes all the girlsin town were wearing. 

The time would shortly come when Kedzie would abhor the word_swell_ and despise the people who used it, violently forgettingthat she had herself used it. She would soon be overheard sayingto a mixed girl of her mixed acquaintance: "Take it from me, chick, when you find a dame calls herself a lady, she ain't. Nobody whois it says it, and if you want to be right, lay off such words as_swell_ and _classy_. "

Later, she would be finding that it took something still more thanavoiding the word _lady_ to deserve it. She would writhe tobelieve that she could never quite make herself exact with the term. She would hate those who had been born and made to the title, andshe would revert at times to common instincts with fierce anarchy. 

But one must go forward before one can backslide, and Kedzie wason the way up the slippery hill. 

She had greatly improved the quality of her lodgings, her suitors, and her clothes. Her photographic successes in risky exposures hadbrought her a marked increase of wages. She wore as many clothesas she could in private, to make up for her self-denial beforethe camera. Her taste in dress was soubrettish and flagrant, butit was not small-town. She was beginning to dislike ice-cream sodaand candy and to call for beer and Welsh rabbit. She would soonbe liking salads with garlic and Roquefort cheese in the dressing. She was mounting with splendid assiduity toward the cigarette andthe high-ball. There was no stopping Kedzie. She kept rising onstepping-stones of her dead selves. 

Landladies are ladder-rungs of progress, too; Kedzie's historymight have been traced by hers. 

Her camera career had led her from the flat of the delicatessenmerchant, through various shabby lairs, into the pension of avaudeville favorite of prehistoric fame. The house was dilapidated, and the brownstone front had the moth-eaten look of the plushfurniture within. 

Mrs. Jambers was as fat as if she fed on her own boarders, but shewas once no less a person than Mrs. Trixie Jambers Coogan, of Cooganand Jambers. She had once evoked wild applause at Tony Pastor's byher clog-dancing. 

There was another dancer there, an old grenadier of a woman whohad been famous in her time as a _première danseuse_ atthe opera. Mrs. Bottger had spent a large part of her early lifeon one toe, but now she could hardly balance herself sitting down. She held on to the table while she ate. She did not look as ifshe needed to eat any more. 

Kedzie was proud to know people who had been as famous as these twosaid they had been, but Bottger and Jambers used to fight bitterlyover their respective schools of expression. Bottger insisted thatthe buck-and-wing and the double shuffle and other forms of jiggerywere low. Jambers insisted that the ballet was immoral and, whatwas more, insincere. Mrs. Bottger was furious at the latter charge, but the former was now rather flattering. She used secretly to takeout old photographs of herself as a slim young thing in tights withone toe for support and the other resting on one knee. She wouldgloat over these as a miser over his gold; and she would shake herfinger at her quondam self and scold it lovingly--"You wicked littlething, you!" Then she would hastily move it out of the reach of hertears. It was safe under the eaves of her bosom against her heart. 

It was a merry war, with dishonors even, till a new-comer appeared, a Miss Eleanor Silsby, who taught the ultimate word in dancing; sheadmitted it herself. As she explained it, she went back to naturefor her inspiration. Her pupils dressed as near to what naturehad provided them with as they really dared. Miss Silsby said thatthey were trying to catch the spirit of wind and waves and treesand flowers, and translate it into the dance. They translatedseaweed and whitecaps and clouds into steps. Miss Silsby was bookinga few vaudeville dates "in order to bring the art of nature backto the people and bring the people back to the art of nature. " Whatthe people would do with it she did not explain--nor what the policewould do to them if they tried it. 

Miss Silsby had by the use of the most high-sounding phrasesattained about the final word in candor. What clothes her pupilswore were transparent and flighty. The only way to reveal more skinwould have been to grow it. Her pupils were much photographed inairy attitudes on beaches, dancing with the high knee-action so muchprized in horses; flinging themselves into the air; curveting, withthe accent on the curve; clasping one another in groups of nymphishinnocence and artificial grace. It was all, somehow, so shocking forits insincerity that its next to nudity was a minor consideration. It was so full of affectation that it seemed quite lacking in thedangers of passion. 

So gradually indeed had the mania for disrobing spread aboutthe world that there was little or no shock to be had. Peoplegenerally assumed to be respectable took their children to seethe dances, even permitted them to learn them. According to MissSilsby's press-notices, "Members of wealthy and prominent familiesare taking up the new art. " And perhaps they were doing as well bytheir children as more careful parents, since nothing is decent orindecent except by acclamation, and if nudity is made commonplace, there is one multitude of temptations removed from our curiosity. 

But Bottger, whose ballet-tights and tulle skirt were once thehorror of all good people--Bottger was disgusted with the dancesof Miss Silsby, and said so. 

Miss Silsby was merely amused by Bottger's hostility. She scornedher scorn, and with the utmost scientific and ethnological supportdeclared that clothes were immoral in origin, and the causeof immorality and extravagance, since they were not the humanintegument. Jambers was not quite sure what "integument" was, but she thanked God she had never had it in her family. 

An interested onlooker and in-listener at these boarding-house battleswas Kedzie. By now she was weary of her present occupation--of course!She was tired of photographs of herself, especially as they weresecured at the cost of long hours of posing under the hot skylightof a photograph gallery. Miss Silsby gave Kedzie a pair ofcomplimentary seats to an entertainment at which the Silsby sirenswere to dance. Kedzie was swept away with envy of the hilarity, the grace, the wild animal effervescence and elegance of motion. 

She contrasted the vivacity of the dancer's existence with thestupidity of her still-life poses. She longed to run and pirouetteand leap into the air. She wished she could kick herself in the backof the head to music the way the Silsby girls did. 

When she told this to Miss Silsby the next day Miss Silsby waspolitely indifferent. Kedzie added:

"You know, I'm up on that classic stuff, too. Oh, yessum, Greekcostumes are just everyday duds to me. "

"Indeed!" Miss Silsby exclaimed. 

Kedzie showed her some trade photographs of herself as an Athénienne, and Miss Silsby pondered. Although her dances were supposed to purifyand sweeten the soul, one of her darlings had so fiendish a temperthat she had torn out several Psyche knots. She was the demurest ofall in seeming when she danced, but she was uncontrollably jealous. 

Miss Silsby saw that Kedzie's pout had commercial value. Sheinvited Kedzie to join her troupe. And Kedzie did. The wages weresmall, but the world was new. She became one of the most attractiveof the dancers. But once more the rehearsals and the long hoursof idleness wore out her enthusiasm. She hated the regularityof the performances; every afternoon and evening she must expressraptures she did not feel, by means of laborious jumpings andrunnings to the same music. And she abominated the requirementto keep kicking herself in the back of the head. 

Even the thrill of clotheslessness became stupid. It was disgustingnot to have beautiful gowns to dance in. Zada L'Etoile and others hada new costume for every dance. Kedzie had one tiresome hip-lengthshift and little else. As usual, poor Kedzie found that realizationwas for her the parody of anticipation. 

Kedzie's new art danced into her life a few new suitors, but theycame at a time when she was almost imbecile over Thomas Gilfoyle, theadvertising bard. He was the first intellectual man she had met--thatis, he was intellectual compared with any other of her men friends. He could read and write something besides business literature. In fact, he was a fellow of startling ideas. He called himselfa socialist. What the socialists would have called him it would behard to say; they are given to strong language. 

Kedzie had known in Nimrim what church socials were, for they wereabout the height of Nimrim excitement. But young Mr. Gilfoyle was nota church socialist. He detested all creeds and all churches and saidthings about them and about religion that at first made Kedzie lookup at the ceiling and dodge. But no brimstone ever broke throughthe plaster and she grew used to his diatribes. 

She had never met one of these familiar enough figures before, andshe was vaguely stirred by his chantings in behalf of humanity. Headored the poor laborers, though he did not treat the office-boy welland he was not gallant to the scrub-woman. But his theories were asbeautiful as music, and he intoned them with ringing oratory. Kedziedid not know what he was talking about, any more than she knew whatCaruso was singing about when she turned him on in Mrs. Jambers'sphonograph, but his melodies put her heart to its paces, and so didGilfoyle's. 

Gilfoyle wrote her poems, too, real poems not meant for publicationat advertising rates. Kedzie had never had anybody commit poetryat her before. It lifted her like that Biltmore elevator and senther heart up into her head. He lauded Kedzie's pout as well as hermore saltant expressions. He voiced a belief that life in a littlehut with her would be luxury beyond the contemptible stupiditiesof life in a palace with another. Kedzie did not care for the hutdetail, but the idolatry of so "brainy" a man was inspiring. 

Kedzie and Gilfoyle were mutually afraid: she of his intellect, heof her beauty and of her very fragility. Of course, he called herby her new name, "Miss Adair. " Later he implored the priceless joyof calling her by her first name. 

Gilfoyle feared to ask this privilege in prose, and so he put itin verse. Kedzie found it in her mail at the stage door. She huddledin a corner of the big undressing-room where the nymphs prepared fortheir task. The young rowdies kept peeking over her shoulder andsnatching at her letter, but when finally she read it aloud to themas a punishment and a triumph, they were stricken with awe. It ranthus:

 Pretty maid, pretty maid, may I call you "Anita"? Your last name is sweet, but your first name is sweeter. 

Kedzie stumbled over this, because she had not yet eradicatedthe Western final "r" from her pronunciation. She thought Mr. Gilfoyle was awful swell because he dropped it naturally. But sheread on, scrambling over some of the words the way a horse jumpsa fence one rail too high. 

 You are so adorable I find it deplorable, Absurd and abnormal. To cling to the formal 'Twere such a good omen To drop the cognomen. So I beg you to promise That you'll call me "Thomas, " Or better yet, "Tommie, " Instead of th' abomi- Nable "Mr. Gilfoyle. " You can, and you will foil My torments Mephistian By using my Christian Name and permitting Yours Truly To call you yours too-ly. 

 Miss Adair, Hear my prayer Do I dare Call my love when I meet her "Anita"? Anita! Anita!!

In the silence that followed she whisked out a box of shrimp-pinkletter-paper she had bought at a drugstore. It was daintily ruledin violet lines and had a mauve "A" at the top. It was called"The Nobby Note, " and so she knew that it was all right. 

She wrote on it the simple but thrilling answer:

DEAR TOMMIE, --You bet your boots! ANITA. 

By the time she had sealed and addressed the shrimpy envelope andbegun feverishly to make up for lost time in changing her costume, the other girls had recovered a little from the suffocation of herglory. One of them murmured:

"Say, Aneet, what is your first name? Your really truly one. "

Another snarled, "What's your really truly last name?"

A third dryad whooped, "I bet it's Lizzie Smoots or Mag Wimpfhauser. "

The others had other suggestions to howl, and Anita cowered insilence, wondering if one of the fiends would not at any momentguess "Kedzie Thropp. "

The call to arms and legs cut short her torment, and for oncethe music seemed appropriate. Never had she danced with suchlyricism. 

Gilfoyle had the presence of mind to be waiting in the alley afterthe matinee, and took from her hand the note she was carrying tothe mail-box. When he read it he almost embraced her right there. 

They took a street-car to Mrs. Jambers's boarding-house, but crueldisappointment waited for them. Another boarder was entertainingher gentleman friend in the parlor. Kedzie was furious. So wasthe other boarder. 

That night Gilfoyle met Kedzie again at the stage door, but theycould not go to the boarding-house, for Mrs. Jambers occupied atthat time a kind of false mantelpiece that turned out to be a bedin disguise. So they went to the Park. 

Young Gilfoyle treated Kedzie with almost more respect than shemight have desired. He was one of those self-chaperoning young menwho spout anarchy and practise asceticism. Even in his poetry itwas the necessitous limitations of rhyme-words that dragged himinto his boldest thoughts. 

Sitting on a dark Park bench with Kedzie, he could not have beenmore circumspect if there had been sixteen duennas gathered around. The first time he hugged her was a rainy night when Kedzie had tosnuggle close and haul his arm around her, and then his heart beatso fast against her shoulder that she was afraid he would die of it. 

Cool, wet, windy nights in late summer feel very cold, and a dampbench under dripping trees was a nuisance to a tired dancing-girl. Love was so inconvenient that when Kedzie bewailed the restrictionsimposed on unmarried people Gilfoyle proposed marriage. It poppedout of him so suddenly that Kedzie felt his heart stop and listen. Then it began to race, and hers ran away, too. 

"Why, Mr. Gilfoyle! Why, Tommie!" she gurgled. It was her firstproposal of marriage, and she lost her head. "And you a socialistand telling me you didn't believe in marriages!"

"I don't, " said Gilfoyle, with lovely sublimity above pettyconsistencies, "except with you, Anita. I don't believe in anythingexclusive for anybody except you for me and me for you. We've justgot to be each other's own, haven't we?"

Kedzie could think of nothing to add except a little emphasis; soshe cried, "Each other's very ownest own!"

Thus they became engaged. That made it possible for her to have himin her own room at the boarding-house. Also it enabled him to borrowmoney from her with propriety when they were hungry for supper. Fortunately, he did not mind her going on working. Not at all. 

Gilfoyle was a fiend of jealousy concerning individuals, but he wasnot jealous of the public. It did not hurt him at all to have Kedziepublishing her structural design to the public, because he lovedthe public, and the public paid indirectly. He wanted the massesto have what the classes have. That delighted Kedzie, at first. 

What she thought she understood of his socialistic scheme was thatevery poor girl like herself was going to have her limousine andher maid and a couple of footmen. She did not pause to figure outhow complicated that would be, since the maid would have to haveher maid, and that maid hers, and so on, _ad infinitum, adabsurdum. _

Later Kedzie found that Gilfoyle's first intention was to impoverishthe rich, elimousinate their wives, and put an end to luxury. Itastonished her how furious he got when he read of a ball given bypeople of wealth, though a Bohemian dance at Webster Hall pleasedhim very much, even though some of the costumes made Kedzie's Greekvest look prudish. 

But all this Kedzie was to find out after she had married the wretch. One finds out so many things when one marries one. It is like goingbehind the scenes at a performance of "Romeo and Juliet, " seeingthe stage-braces that prop the canvas palaces, and hearing Julietbawl out Romeo for crabbing her big scene. The shock is apt to befatal to romance unless one is prepared for it in advance asan inevitable and natural conflict. 

CHAPTER XVII

Kedzie and Tommie enjoyed a cozy betrothal. He was busy at his shop, and she was busy at hers. They did not see much of each other, andthat made for the prosperity of their love. They talked a great dealof marriage, but it seemed expedient to wait till one or the otheracquired a raise of wage. The Silsby dancers were playing at cutsalaries in accord with the summer schedules, and business was verylight at the advertising agency. 

The last week the troupe was playing at the Bronx Opera House, andthere Skip Magruder chanced to see her--to see more of her than hehad ever expected to on the hither side of matrimony. 

His old love came back with a tidal rush, and he sent her a notewritten with care in a barroom--or so Kedzie judged from the beeryfragrance of it. It said:

DEAR ANITA, --Was considerable supprise to see you to-night as didn'tknow you was working in vawdvul and as I have been very loansomefor you thought would ask you would you care to take supper aftershow with your loveing admirror and friend will wait for anser atstage door hopping to see you for Old Lang's Sign. 

PATRICK X. MAGRUDER--"SKIP. "

Kedzie did not read this letter to the gang of nymphs. She blushedbitterly and mumbled, "Well, of all the nerve!" After some hesitationshe wrote on Skip's note the "scatting" words, _"Nothing doing"_and sent it back by the dismal stage doorkeeper. 

She had hoped Skip would have the decency to go away and die quietlyand not hang round to see her leave with Mr. Gilfoyle. Skip hada hitch in one leg, but Mr. Gilfoyle had a touch of writer's cramp, and Kedzie had no desire to see the result of a conflict between twosuch victims of unpreparedness. 

She forgot both rivals in the excitement of a sudden incursionof Miss Silsby, who came crying:

"Oh, girls, girls, what Do you sup-Pose has Happened? I have beenen-Gaged to give my dances at Noxon's--old Mrs. Noxon's, in Newport. "

Miss Silsby always used the first person singular, though she neverdanced; and if she had, in the costume of her charges, the effectwould have been a fatal satire. 

By now Kedzie was familiar enough with names of great placesto realize the accolade. To be recognized by the Noxons was tobe patented by royalty. And Newport was Mecca. 

The pilgrimage thither was a voyage of discovery with allan explorer's zest. Her first view of the city disappointed her, but her education had progressed so far that she was able to callthe pleasant, crooked streets of the older towns "picturesque. "A person who is able to murmur "How picturesque!" has made progressin snobbical education. Kedzie murmured, "How picturesque!" whenshe saw the humbler portions of Newport. 

But there was a poignant sincerity in her admiration of the homesof the rich. Bad taste with ostentation moved her as deeply as truestateliness. Her heart made outcry for experience of opulence. Shenow despised the palaces of New York because they had no yards. Newport houses had parks. Newport was the next candy-shop she wantedto work in. 

The splendor of the visit was dimmed for her, however, when shelearned that she would not be permitted to swim at Bailey's Beach. Immediately she felt that swimming anywhere else was contemptible. 

Still, she was seeing Newport, and she could not tell what swaggerfate might now be within reach of her hands--or her feet, rather--forKedzie was gaining her golden apples not by clutching at them, but bykicking them off the tree of opportunity with her carefully manicuredlittle toes. 

Also she said "swagger" now instead of "classy" or "swell. " Also sheforgot to telegraph Tommie Gilfoyle, as she promised, of her safearrival. Also she was too busy to write to him that first night. 

CHAPTER XVIII

When Prissy Atterbury started the gossip rolling that he had seenJim Dyckman enter the Grand Central Terminal alone and wait forCharity Coe Cheever to come from the same train it did not takelong for the story to roll on to Newport. By then it was a prettydefinite testimony of guilt in a vile intrigue. When Mrs. Noxonannounced her charity circus people wondered if even she would dareinclude Mrs. Cheever on her bead-roll. The afternoon was for guests;the evening was for the public at five dollars a head. 

One old crony of Charity's, a Mrs. Platen, revived the story forMrs. Noxon at the time when she was editing the list of invitationsfor the afternoon. Mrs. Noxon seemed to be properly shocked. 

"Of course, you'll not invite her now, " said Mrs. Platen. 

"Not invite her!" Mrs. Noxon snorted. "I'll invite her twice. Inthe first place, I don't believe it of Charity Coe. I knew her mother. In the second, if it's true, what of it? Charity Coe has done so muchgood that she has a right to do no end of bad to balance her books. "

To emphasize her support, Mrs. Noxon insisted on Charity Coe's comingto her as a house-guest for a week before the fête. This got into allthe papers and redeemed Charity's good name amazingly. Perhaps JimDyckman saw it in the papers. At least he and his yacht drifted intothe harbor the day of the affair. Of course he had an invitation. 

The Noxon affair was the usual thing, only a little more so. Peopledressed themselves as costlily as they could, for hours beforehand--then spent a half-hour or more fuming in a carriage-and-motortangle waiting to arrive at the entrance, while the heat sweat allthe starch out of themselves and their clothes. 

A constant flood poured in upon Mrs. Noxon, or tried to find herat the receiving-post. She was usually not there. She was likea general running a big battle. She had to gallop to odd spotsnow and then. 

The tradition of her selectness received a severe strain in thepresence of such hordes of guests. They trod on one another's toes, tripped on one another's parasols, beg-pardoned with ill-restrainedwrath, failed to get near enough to see the sights, stood on tiptoeor bent down to peer through elbows like children outside aball-park. 

The entertainment was vaudeville disguised by expense. It was noteasy to hold the attention of those surfeited eyes and ears. Actorsand actresses of note almost perished with wrath and humiliationat the indifference to their arts. Loud laughter from the back rowsbroke in at the wrong time, and appalling silences greeted the timesto laugh. 

The fame, or notoriety, of the Silsby dancers attracted a part ofthe throng to the marble swimming-pool and the terraced fountainwith its deluged statuary. Jim Dyckman and Charity Coe suddenlyfound themselves together. They hated it, but they could not easilyescape. Jim felt that all eyes were bulging out at them. He hadmurder in his heart. 

There was the usual delay, the frank impatience and leg-fag of peopleunused to standing about except at receptions and dressmakers'. Finally the snobbish string-orchestra from Boston, which played onlythe most exclusive music, began to tune up, and at length, after muchmysterious wigwagging of signals to play, it played a hunting-piece. 

Suddenly from the foliage came what was supposed to be a startlednymph. The spectators were startled, too, for a moment, for hercostume was amazing. Even on Bailey's Beach it would have attractedattention. 

Kedzie was the nymph. She was making her début into great society. What would her mother have said if she could have seen her there?Her father would have said nothing. He would have faintedunobtrusively, for the first time in his life. 

Kedzie was scared. She had stage-fright of all these great peopleso overdressed when she was not even underclothed. 

"Poor little thing!" said Charity, and began to applaud to cheer herup. She nudged Jim. "Come on, help her out. Isn't she beautiful?"

"Is she?" said Jim, applauding. 

It did not seem right to praise one woman's beauty to another. Itwas like praising one author's work to another, or praising anotherpreacher's sermon to a preacher's face. 

Still, Jim had to admit that Kedzie was pretty. Suddenly he wantedto torment Charity, and so he exclaimed:

"You're right, she is a little corker, a very pleasant dream!" Angerat Charity snatched away the blindfold which is another name forfidelity. Scales fell from his eyes, and he saw truth in nakedness. He saw beauty everywhere. All about him were beautiful women in richcostume. He saw that beauty is not a matter of opinion, a decisionof love's, but a happening to be regular or curvilinear or warm ofcolor or hospitable in expression. 

Particularly he saw the beauty of Kedzie. There was more of herto see than of those other women behind their screens of silk andlace and linen. His infatuation for Charity Coe had befuddled him, wrapped him in a fog through which all other women passed likeswaddled figures. He felt free now. 

Over Charity's shoulder and through the spray of the goura onher hat he saw Kedzie sharp and stark, her suavities of line andthe milk-smooth fabric of her envelope. He studied Kedzie withemancipation, not seeing Charity at all any more--nor she him. 

For Charity studied Kedzie, too. She felt academically the delightof the girl's beauty, a statue coming to life, or a living beinggoing back into statue--Galatea in one phase or the other. She feltthe delight of the girl's successful drawing. She smiled to beholdit. Then her smile drooped, for the words of the old song came backcrooning the ancient regret:

 How small a part of time they share--

There was elegy now in Kedzie's graces. Youth was of their essence, and youth shakes off like the dust on the moth's wing. Youth is goneat a touch. 

In her sorrow she turned to look up at Jim. She was shocked tosee how attentively he regarded Kedzie. He startled her by thefascination in his mien. She looked again at Kedzie. 

Somehow the girl immediately grew ugly--or what beauty she had wasthat of a poisonous snake. And she looked common, too. Who else buta common creature would come out on a lawn thus unclothed for a fewdollars?

She looked again at Jim Dyckman, and he was not what he had been. Hewas as changed as the visions in Lewis Carroll's poem. She saw thathe had his common streak, too: he was mere man, animal, temptable. But she forgave him. Curiously, he grew more valuable since she feltthat she was losing him. 

There was an impatient shaking at her breast. In anybody else shewould have called it jealousy. This astounded her, made her afraidof herself and of him. What right had she to be jealous of anybodybut Peter Cheever? She felt that she was more indecent than Kedzie. She bowed her head and blushed. Scales fell from her eyes also. Shewas like Eve after the apple had taught her what she was. She wantedto hide. But she could not break through the crowd. She must standand watch the dance through. 

All this brief while Kedzie had stood wavering. There had beena hitch somewhere. The other nymphs were delayed in their entrance. One of them had stepped on a thorny rose and another had ripped hertunic--she came in at last with a safety-pin to protect her fromthe law; but then, safety-pins are among the primeval inventions. 

According to the libretto, the wood-nymphs, terrified by a hunting-party, ran to take refuge with the water-nymphs. The water-nymphswere late likewise. The dryads came suddenly through Mrs. Noxon'simported shrubs, puncturing them with rhythmic attitudes. These lostsomething of their poetry from being held so long that equilibriawere lost foolishly. 

Finally, the water-sprites came forth from cleverly managedconcealment in a bower and stood mid-thigh in the water aboutthe fountain. They attitudinized also, with a kind of childishpoetry that did not quite convince, for the fountain rained onthem, and some of them shivered as cold gouts of water smote theirshoulder-blades. One little Yiddish nymph gasped, "Oi, oi!" whichwas perfect Greek, though she didn't know it. Neither did anybodyelse. Several people snickered. 

The hunting-music died away, and the wood-nymphs decided not to gointo the water home; instead, they implored the water-nymphs to comeforth from their liquid residence. But the water-nymphs refused. The dryads tried to lure them with gestures and dances. It was alldreadfully puerile, and yet somehow worth while. 

The wood-nymphs wreathed a human chain about the marge of the pool. Unfortunately the marble had been splashed in spots by the fountainspray, and it was on the slipperiest of the spots that Kedzie had toexecute a pirouette. 

Her pivotal foot slid; the other stabbed down in a wild effortto restore her balance. It slipped. She knew that she was gone. She made frenzied clutches at the air, but it would not sustain her. She was strangely sincere now in her gestures. The crowd laughed--then stopped short. 

It was funny till it looked as if the nymph might be hurt. JimDyckman darted forward to save her. He knocked Charity aside roughlyand did not know it. He arrived too late to catch Kedzie. 

Kedzie sat into the pool with great violence. The spray she cast upfatally spotted several delicate robes. That would have been of someconsolation to Kedzie if she had known it. But all she knew was thatshe went backward into the wrong element. Her wrath was greater thanher sorrow. 

Her head went down: she swallowed a lot of water, and when she kickedherself erect at last she was half strangled, entirely drenched, andquite blinded. The other nymphs, wood and water, giggled and shookwith sisterly affection. 

Kedzie was the wettest dryad that ever was. She stumbled forward, groping. Jim Dyckman bent, slipped his hands under her arms, and hoisted her to land. He felt ludicrous, but his chivalry wasautomatic. 

Kedzie was so angry at herself and everybody else that she flungoff his hands and snapped, "Quit it, dog on it!"

Jim Dyckman quit it. He had for his pains an insult and a suitof clothes so drenched that he had to go back to his yacht, runningthe gantlet of a hundred ridicules. 

When he vanished Kedzie found herself in garments doubly clingingfrom being soaked. She was ashamed now, and hid her face in her arm. 

Charity Coe took pity on her, and before the jealous Charity couldcheck the generous Charity she had stepped forward and thrown aboutthe girl's shoulders a light wrap she carried. She led the child tothe other wood-nymphs, and they took her back into the shrubbery. 

"Wait till you hear what Miss Silsby's gotta say!" said one dryad, and another added:

"Woisse than that is this: you know who that was you flang out atso regardless?"

"I don't know, and I don't care, " sobbed Kedzie. 

"You would care if you was wise to who His Nibs was!"

"Who was it?" Kedzie gasped. 

"Jim Dyckman--no less! You was right in his arms, and you hadda goan' biff him. "

"Oh, Lord!" sighed Kedzie. "I'll never do. " She was thinking thatdestiny had tossed her into the very arms of the aristocracy andshe had been fool enough to fight her way out. 

Jim Dyckman, meanwhile, was clambering into his car with clothesand ardor dampened. He was swearing to cut out the whole herd ofwomen. 

And Charity Coe Cheever was chattering flippantly with a group ofthe dispersing audience, while her heart was in throes of dismayat her own feelings and Jim Dyckman's. 

THE SECOND BOOK

MRS. TOMMIE GILFOYLE HAS HER PICTURE TAKEN

CHAPTER I

The scene was like one of the overcrowded tapestries of theMiddle Ages. At the top was the Noxon palace, majestic, serene, self-confident in the correctness of its architecture and notafraid even of the ocean outspread below. 

The house looked something like Mrs. Noxon at her best. Just now shewas at her worst. She stood by her marble pool and glared at her mobof guests dispersing in knots of laughter and indifference. Therewere hundreds of men and women of all ages and sizes, and almost allof them were startling the summer of 1915 with the fashion-platesof 1916. 

Mrs. Noxon turned from them to the dispersing nymphs of Miss Silsby'stroupe. The nymphs were dressed in the fashion of 916 B. C. They alsowere laughing and snickering, as they sauntered toward the clumpof trees and shrubs which masked their dressing-tent. One of themwas not laughing--Kedzie. She was slinking along in wet clothes anddoused pride. The beautiful wrap that Mrs. Charity Cheever had flungabout her she had let fall and drag in a damp mess. 

Mrs. Noxon was tempted to hobble after Kedzie and smack her forher outrageous mishap. But she could not afford the luxury. She mustlaugh with her guests. She marched after them to take her medicineof raillery more or less concealed as they went to look at the othersideshows and permit themselves to be robbed handsomely for charity. 

Kedzie was afraid to meet Miss Silsby, but there was no escape. The moment the shrubs closed behind her she fell into the ambush. Miss Silsby was shrill with rage and scarlet in the face. She swore, and she looked as if she would scratch. 

"You miserable little fool!" she began. "You ought to be whippedwithin an inch of your life. You have ruined me! It was the biggestchance of my career. I should have been a made woman if it hadn'tbeen for you. Now I shall be the joke of the world!"

"Please, Miss Silsby, " Kedzie protested, "if you please, MissSilsby--I didn't mean to fall into the water. I'm as sorry asI can be. "

"What good does it do me for you to be sorry? I'm the one to besorry. I should think you would have had more sense than to dosuch a thing!"

"How could I help it, dog on it!" Kedzie retorted, her angerrecrudescent. 

"Help it? Are you a dancer or are you a cow?"

Kedzie quivered as if she had been lashed. She struck back withher best Nimrim repartee, "You're a nice one to call me a cow, you big, fat, old lummox!"

Miss Silsby fairly mooed at this. 

"You--you insolent little rat, you! You--oh, you--you! I'll neverlet you dance for me again--never!"

"I'd better resign, then, I suppose, " said Kedzie. 

"Resign? How dare you resign! You're fired! That's how you'll resign. You're fired! The impudence of her! She turns my life-work intoa laughing-stock and then says she'd better resign!"

"How about to-night?" Kedzie put in, dazed. 

"Never you mind about to-night. I'll get along without you ifI have to dance myself. "

The other nymphs shook under this, like corn-stalks in a wind. 

But Kedzie was a statuette of pathos. She stood cowering bareleggedbefore Miss Silsby, fully clothed in everything but her right mind. There was nothing Grecian about Miss Silsby except the Medusa glare, and that turned Kedzie into stone. She finished her tirade bythrusting some money into Kedzie's hand and clamoring:

"Get into your clothes and get out of my sight. "

Rage made Miss Silsby generous. She paid Kedzie an extra week andher fare to New York. Kedzie had no pocket to put her money in. Shecarried it in her hand and laid it on the table in the tent as shebent to whip her lithe form out of her one dripping garment. 

The other nymphs followed her into the tent and made a Parthenonianfrieze as they writhed out of their tunics and into their petticoats. They gathered about Kedzie in an ivory cluster and murmured theirsympathy--Miss Silsby not being within ear-shot. 

Kedzie blubbered bitterly as she glided into her everyday things, hooking her corsets askew, drawing her stockings up loosely, andlacing her boots all wrong. She was still jolted with sobs as shepushed the hat-pins home in her traveling-hat. 

She kissed the other girls good-by. They were sorry to see her go, now that she was going. And she was very sorry to go, now that shehad to. 

If she had lingered awhile Miss Silsby would have found her therewhen she relented from sheer exhaustion of wrath, and would haverestored her to favor. But Kedzie had stolen away in cravenmeekness. 

To reach the trade-entrance Kedzie had to skirt the accursed pool ofher destruction. Charity Coe was near it, seated on a marble benchalone. She was pensive with curious thoughts. She heard Kedzie'schildish snivel as she passed. Charity looked up, recognized thegirl with difficulty, and after a moment's hesitation called to her:

"What's the matter, you poor child? Come here! What's wrong?"

Kedzie suffered herself to be checked. She dropped on the benchalongside Charity and wailed:

"I fell into that damn' pool, and I've lost my jah-ob!"

Charity patted the shaken back a moment, and said, "But there areother jobs, aren't there?"

"I don't know of any. "

"Well, I'll find you one, my dear, if you'll only smile. You havesuch a pretty smile. "

"How do you know?" Kedzie queried, giving her a sample of her best. 

Charity laughed. "See! That proves it. You are a darling, and toopretty to lack for a job. Give me your address, and I'll get youa better place than you lost. I promise you. "

Kedzie ransacked her hand-bag and found a printed card, crumpledand rouge-stained. She poked it at Charity, who read and commented:

"Miss Anita Adair, eh? Such a pretty name! And the address, mydear--if you don't mind. I am Mrs. Cheever. "

"Oh, are you!" Kedzie exclaimed. "I've heard of you. Pleased tomeet you. "

Then Kedzie whimpered, and Charity wrote the address and repeatedher assurances. She also gave Kedzie her own card and asked her towrite to her. That seemed to end the interview, and so Kedzie roseand said: "Much obliged. I guess I gotta go now. G'-by!"

"Good-by, " said Charity. "I'll not forget you. "

Kedzie moved on humbly. She looked back. Charity had fallen againinto a listless reverie. She seemed sad. Kedzie wondered what onearth she could have to be sorry about. She had money and a husband, and she was swagger. 

Kedzie slipped through the gate out to the road. She did not darehire a carriage, now that she was jobless. She wished she had notleft paradise. But she dared not try to return. She was not "classy"enough. Suddenly a spasm of resentment shook the girl. 

She felt the hatred of the rich that always set Tommie Gilfoyle afire. What right had such people to such majesty when Kedzie must walk?What right had they to homes and yards so big that it tired Kedzieout just to trudge past? Who was this Mrs. Cheever, that she shouldbe so top-lofty and bend-downy? Kedzie ground her teeth in anger andtore Charity's card to bits. She flung them at the sea, but the windbrought them back about her face stingingly. She walked on, loathingthe very motors that flashed by, flocks of geese squawking contempt. 

She walked and walked and walked. The overpowering might of the bighouses in their green demesnes made her feel smaller and wearier, butbig with bitterness. She would have been glad to have a suit-casefull of bombs to blow those snobbish residences into flinders. 

She was dog tired when, after losing her way again and again, shereached the boarding-house where the dancers lodged. She packedher things and went to the train, lugging her own baggage. When shereached the station she was footsore, heartsore, soulsore. Her onlycomfort was that the Silsby dancers had been placed early enoughon Mrs. Noxon's program for her to have failed in time to get homethe same day. She hated Newport now. It had not been good to her. New York was home once more. 

"When's the next train to New York?" she asked a porter. 

"It's wint, " said the porter. "Wint at four-five. "

"I said when's the next train, " Kedzie snapped. 

"T'-marra' marnin', " said the porter. 

"My Gawd!" said Kedzie. "Have I gotta spend the night in this hole?"

The porter stared. He was not used to hearing Mecca called a hole. 

"Well, if it's that bad, " he grinned, "you might take the five-fiveto Providence and pick up the six-forty there. But you'll have togit a move on. "

Kedzie got a move on. The train swept her out along the edge ofRhode Island. She knew nothing of its heroic history. She carednothing for its heroic splendor. She thought of it only as thestronghold of an embattled aristocracy. She did not blame MissSilsby for her disgrace, nor herself. She blamed the audience, as other actors and authors and politicians do. She blazed withthe merciless hatred of the rich that poor people feel when theyare thwarted in their efforts to rival or cultivate or sell tothe rich. Their own sins they forget as absolved, because thesins have failed. It is the success of sin and the sin of successthat cannot be forgiven. 

The little dancer whose foot had slipped on the wet marble ofwealth was shaken almost to pieces by philosophic vibrations toobig for her exquisite frame. They reminded her of her poet, ofTommie Gilfoyle, who was afraid of her and paid court to her. He appeared to her now as a radiant angel of redemption. FromProvidence she telegraphed him that she would arrive at New Yorkat eleven-fifteen, and he would meet her if he loved her. 

This done, she went to the lunch-counter, climbed on a tall stool, and bought herself a cheap dinner. She was paying for it out ofher final moneys, and her brain once more told her stomach thatit would have to be prudent. She swung aboard the train when itcame in, and felt as secure as a lamb with a good shepherd on thehorizon. When she grew drowsy she curled up on the seat and sleptto perfection. 

Her invasion of Newport was over and done--disastrously done, shethought; but its results were just beginning for Jim Dyckman andCharity Coe. 

Eventually Kedzie reached the Grand Central Terminal--a muchdifferent Kedzie from the one that once followed her father andmother up that platform to that concourse! Her very name wasdifferent, and her mind had learned multitudes of things goodand bad. She had a young man waiting for her--a poet, a socialist, a worshiper. Her heavy suit-case could not detain her steps. Shedragged it as a little sloop drags its anchor in a gale. 

Gilfoyle was waiting for her at the barrier. He bent to snatchthe suit-case from her and snatched a kiss at the same time. Hisbravery thrilled her; his gallantry comforted her immeasurably. She was so proud of herself and of him that she wasted never aglance at the powdered gold on the blue ceiling. 

"I'm terrible glad to see you, Tommie, " she said. 

"Are you? Honest?" he chortled. 

They jostled into each other and the crowd. 

"I'm awful hungry, though, " she said, "and I've got oodles ofthings to tell you. "

"Let's eat, " he said. They went to the all-night dairy restaurantin the Terminal. He led her to one of the broad-armed chairs andfetched her dainties--a triangle of apple pie, a circle of cruller, and a cylinder of milk. 

She leaned across the arm of the chair and told him of her mishaps. He was so enraged that he knocked a plate to the floor. She snatchedthe cruller off just in time to save it, and the room echoedher laughter. 

They talked and talked until she was talked out, and it wasmidnight. He began to worry about the hour. It was a long rideon the Subway and then a long walk to her boarding-house and thena long walk and a long ride to his. 

"I hate to go back to that awful Jambers woman and let her knowI'm fired, " Kedzie moaned. "My trunk's in storage, anyhow, andmaybe she's got no room. "

"Why go back?" said Tommie, not realizing the import of his words. It was merely his philosophical habit to ask every custom "Why?"

"Where else is there to go to?" she sighed. 

"If we were only married--" he sighed. 

"Why, Tommie!"

"As we ought to be!"

"Why, Tommie Gilfoyle!"

And now he was committed. As when he wrote poetry the grappling-hooksof rhyme dragged him into statements he had not dreamed of atthe start and was afraid of at the finish--so now he stumbled intoa proposal he could not clamber out of. He must flounder through. 

The idea was so deliriously unexpected, so fascinatingly novel toKedzie, that she fell in love with it. Immediately she would ratherhave died than remain unmarried to Tommie Gilfoyle. 

But there were difficulties. 

CHAPTER II

In the good old idyllic days it had been possible for romanticyouth to get married as easily as to get dinner--and as hard to getunmarried as to get wings. Couples who spooned too long at seasideresorts and missed the last train home could wake up a preacher andbe united in indissoluble bonds of holy matrimony for two dollars. The preachers of that day slept light, in order to save thereputations of foolish virgins. 

But now a greedy and impertinent civil government had stepped inand sacrilegiously insisted on having a license bought and paid forbefore the Church could officiate. And the license bureau was notopen all night, as it should have been. 

Kedzie knew nothing of this, but Gilfoyle was informed. Theoreticallyhe believed that marriage should be rendered impossible and divorceeasy. But he could no more have proposed an informal alliance withhis precious Kedzie than he could have wished that his mother hadmade one with his father. His mother and father had eloped and beenmarried by a sleepy preacher, but that was poetic and picturesque, seeing that they did not fail to wake the preacher. Gilfoyle'sreverence for Kedzie demanded at least as much sanctity about hisunion with her. 

It is curious how habits complicate life. Here were two people whomit would greatly inconvenience to separate. Yet just because it wasa custom to close the license bureau in the late afternoon theymust wait half a night while the license clerk slept and snored, or played cards or read detective stories or did whatever licenseclerks do between midnight and office hours. And just because peoplehabitually crawl into bed and sleep between midnight and forenoon, these two lovers were already finding it hard to keep awake in spiteof all their exaltation. They simply must sleep. Romance could wait. 

Gilfoyle knew that there were places enough where Kedzie and hecould go and have no questions asked except, "Have you got baggage, or will you pay in advance?" But he would not take his Kedzie toany such place, any more than he would leave a chalice in a saloonfor safe-keeping. 

In their drowsy brains projects danced sparklingly, but they couldfind nothing to do except to part for the eternity of the remnantof the night. So Gilfoyle escorted Kedzie to the Hotel Belmont door, and told her to say she was an actress arrived on a late train. Hestood off at a distance while he saw that she registered and wasrespectfully treated and led to the elevator by a page. 

Then he moved west to the Hotel Manhattan and found shelter. Andthus they slept with propriety, Forty-second Street lying betweenthem like a sword. 

The alarm-clock in Gilfoyle's head woke him at seven. He hated tointerrupt Kedzie's sleep, but he was afraid of his boss and he neededhis salary more than ever--twice as much as ever. He telephoned fromhis room to Kedzie's room down the street and up ten stories and wascomforted to find that he woke her out of a sleep so sound that hecould hardly understand her words. But he eventually made sure thatshe would make haste to dress and meet him in the restaurant. 

They breakfasted together at half past eight. Kedzie was aglow withthe whole procedure. 

"You ought to write a novel about us, " she told Gilfoyle. "It wouldbe a lot better than most of the awful stories folks write nowadays. And you'd make a million dollars, I bet. We need a lot of money now, too, don't we?"

"A whole lot, " said Gilfoyle, who was beginning to fret over theprobable cost of the breakfast. 

It cost more than he expected--as he expected. But he was in for it, and he trusted that the Lord would provide. They bought a ring ata petty jewelry-shop in Forty-second Street and then descended toa Subway express and emerged at the Brooklyn Bridge Station. 

The little old City Hall sat among the overtowering buildings likean exquisite kitten surrounded by mastiffs, but Gilfoyle's businesstook him and his conquest into the enormous Municipal Building, whose windy arcades blew Kedzie against him with a pleasant clash. 

The winds of life indeed had blown them together as casually astwo leaves met in the same gutter. But they thought it a divineencounter arranged from eons back and to continue for eons forward. They thought it so at that time. 

They went up in the elevator to the second floor, where, in thefatal Room 258, clerks at several windows vended for a dollar apiecethe State's permission to experiment with matrimony. 

There was a throng ahead of them--brides, grooms, parents, andwitnesses of various nationalities. All of them looked shabby andcommon, even to Kedzie in her humility. All over the world coupleswere mating, as the birds and animals and flowers and chemicalsmate in their seasons. The human pairs advertised their union bynumberless rites of numberless religions and non-religions. Thepresence or absence of rite or its nature seemed to make littledifference in the prosperity of the emulsion. The presence orabsence of romance seemed to make little difference, either. Butit seemed to be generally agreed upon as a policy around the worldthat marriage should be made exceedingly easy, and unmarriageexceedingly difficult. In recruiting armies the same plan isobserved; every encouragement is offered to enlist; one has onlyto step in off the street and enlist. But getting free! That isnot the object of the recruiting business. 

Gilfoyle and Kedzie had to wait their turns before they could reacha window. Then they had a cross-examination to face. 

Kedzie giggled a good deal, and she leaned softly against the hardshoulder of Gilfoyle while the clerk quizzed him as to his full name, color, residence, age, occupation, birthplace, the name of his fatherand mother and the country of their birth, and the number of hisprevious marriages. 

She grew abruptly solemn when the clerk looked at her for answersto the same questions on her part; for she realized that she wasexpected to tell her real name and her parents' real names. Shewould have to confess to Tommie that she had deceived him andcheated him out of a beautiful poem. Had he known the truth hewould never have written:

 Pretty maid, pretty maid, may I call you Kedzie? Your last name is Thropp, but your first name is--

Nothing rhymed with _Kedzie_. 

While she gaped, wordless, Gilfoyle magnificently spoke for her, proudly informed the clerk that her name was "Anita Adair, " thatshe was white (he nearly said "pink"), that her age was--he hadto ask that, and she told him nineteen. He gave her residence asNew York and her occupation as "none. "

"What is your father's first name, honey?" he said, a littlestartled to realize how little he knew of her or her past. Shehad learned much news of him, too, in hearing his own answers. 

"Adna, " she whispered, and he told the clerk that her father's namewas Adna Adair. She told the truth about her mother's maiden name. She could afford to do that, and she could honestly aver that shehad never had any husband or husbands "up to yet, " and that shehad not been divorced "so far. " Also both declared that they knewof no legal impediment to their marriage. There are so few legalimpediments to marriage, and so many to the untying of the knotinto which almost anybody can tie almost anybody!

The clerk's facile pen ran here and there, and the license wasdelivered at length on the payment of a dollar. For one almightydollar the State gave the two souls permission to commit mutualmortgage for life. 

Gilfoyle was growing nervous. He told Kedzie that he was expectedat the office. There were several advertisements to write for thenext day's papers, and he had given the firm no warning of whathe had not foreseen the day before. If they hunted for a preacher, Gilfoyle would get into trouble with Mr. Kiam. 

If they had listened to the excellent motto, "Business beforepleasure, " they might never have been married. That would havesaved them a vast amount of heartache, both blissful and hateful. But they were afraid to postpone their nuptials. The matinginstinct had them in its grip. 

They fretted awhile in the hurlyburly of other love-mad couplesand wondered what to do. Gilfoyle finally pushed up to one ofthe windows again and asked:

"What's the quickest way to get married? Isn't there a preacheror alderman or something handy?"

"Aldermen are not allowed to marry folks any more, " he was told. "But the City Clerk will hitch you up for a couple of dollars. The marriage-room is right up-stairs. "

This seemed the antipodes of romance and Gilfoyle hesitatedto decide. 

But Kedzie, knowing his religious ardor against religions, said:

"What's the diff? I don't mind. "

Gilfoyle smiled at last, and the impatient lovers hurried outinto the corridor. They would not wait for the elevator, but ranup the steps. They passed a trio of youth, a girl and two youngfellows. One of the lads gave the other a shove that identifiedthe bridegroom. The girl was holding her left hand up and staringat her new ring. A pessimist might have seen a portent in thecynical amusement of her smile, and another in the aweless speedwith which Gilfoyle and Kedzie hustled toward the awful mysteryof such a union as marriage attempts. 

The wedlock-factory was busy. In spite of the earliness of the hourthe waiting-room was crowded, its benches full. The only place forKedzie to sit was next to a couple of negroes, the man in Ethiopianfoppery grinning up into the face of a woman who held his hat andcane, and simpered in ebony. 

Kedzie whispered to Gilfoyle her displeased surprise:

"Why, they act just like we do. "

Kedzie liked to use _like_ like that. She felt belittled atsharing with such people an emotion that seemed to her far too goodfor them. Also she felt that the emotion itself was cheapened bysuch company. She wished she had not consented to the marriage. Butit would excite attention to back out now, and the dollar alreadyinvested would be wasted. For all she knew, the purchase of thelicense compelled the completion of the project. 

A group of Italians came from Room 365--two girls in white, abareheaded mother who had been weeping, a fat and relieved-lookingfather, an insignificant youth who was unquestionably the new-bornhusband. 

Gilfoyle kept looking at his watch, but he had to wait his turn. There was a book to be signed and a two-dollar bill to be paid. At last, when the negro pair came forth chuckling, Kedzie andGilfoyle rushed into the so-called "chapel" to meet their fate. 

The chapel was a barrenly furnished office. Its nearest approachto an altar was a washstand with hot and cold running water. Atthe small desk the couple stood while the City Clerk read the pledgedrawn up in the Corporation Counsel's office with a sad mixture ofreligious, legal, and commercial cant:

"In the name of God, Amen. 

"Do either of you know of any impediment why you should not belegally joined together in matrimony, or if any one present canshow any just cause why these parties should not be legally joinedtogether in matrimony let them now speak or hereafter hold theirpeace. 

"Do you, Thomas Gilfoyle, take this woman as your lawfully weddedwife, to live together in the state of matrimony? Will you love, honor, and keep her, as a faithful man is bound to do, in health, sickness, prosperity, and adversities, and forsaking all otherskeep you alone unto her as long as you both shall live?

"Do you, Anita Adair, take this man for your lawfully wedded husbandto live together in the state of matrimony? Will you love, honor, and cherish him as a faithful woman is bound to do, in health, sickness, prosperity, and adversities, and forsaking all otherskeep you alone unto him as along as you both shall live?

"For as both have consented in wedlock and have acknowledged samebefore this company I do by virtue of the authority vested in meby the laws of the State of New York now pronounce you husbandand wife. 

"And may God bless your union. "

The City Clerk had to furnish witnesses from his own staff whilehe administered the secular rites and exacted the solemn promiseswhich so few have kept, and invoked the help of God which is sorarely manifest or so subtly hidden, in the human-animal-angelrelation of marriage. 

And now Anita Adair and Thomas Gilfoyle were officially welded intoone. They had received the full franchise each of the other's body, soul, brain, time, temper, liberty, leisure, admiration, education, past, future, health, wealth, strength, weakness, virtue, vice, destructive power, procreative power, parental gift or lack, domestic or bedouin genius, prejudice, inheritance--all. 

It was a large purchase for three dollars, and it remained to beseen whether either or both delivered the goods. At the altar ofHymen, Kedzie had publicly vowed to love, honor, and cherish underall circumstances. It was like swearing to walk in air or water aswell as on earth. The futile old oath to "obey" had been omittedas a perjury enforced. 

Kedzie Thropp, who had dome to New York only a few months before, had done one more impulsive thing. First she had run away from herparents. Now she had run away from herself. She had loved New Yorkfirst. Now she was infatuated with Tommie Gilfoyle. He was ascomplex and mysterious a city as Manhattan. She would be as longin reaching the heart of him. 

There had been no bridesmaids to give the scene social grace, nomusic or flowers to give it poetry, no minister to give it an odorof sanctity. It was marriage in its cold, business-like actuality, without hypnotism, superstition, or false pretense. Small wonderthat Kedzie had hardly left the marriage-room before she felt thatshe was not married at all. The vaccination had not taken. Shewas not one with Gilfoyle. And yet she must pretend that she was. She must act as if they were one soul, one flesh; must share histenement, his food, his joys and anxieties. Of these last therepromised to be no famine. 

Gilfoyle was in a panic about his office. He told Kedzie to devotethe morning to looking up some place to live. He would join herat luncheon. He fidgeted while they waited for the elevator, Kedziestaring at her ring with the same curious smile as the other girl. 

CHAPTER III

They rode up-town in a Subway express to Forty-second Street. Heir first business treaty had to be drawn up in the crowd. 

"How much do you want to pay for the flat, honey?" said Kedzie. 

Gilfoyle was startled. Already the money-snake was in their Eden. And she asked him how much he "wanted" to pay! It was only a formof speech, but it grated on him. 

"I haven't time to figure it out, " he fretted. "I get twenty-fivedollars a week--darling. That's a hundred a month--dear. " His petnames came afterward, mere trailers. "Out of that we've got to getsomething to eat and to wear, and there'll be street-car fare topay and--tooth-powder to buy, and we'll want something for theatertickets, and--" He was aghast; at the multitude of things marriedpeople need. He added, "And we ought to save a little, I suppose. "

"I suppose so, " said Kedzie, who was as much taken aback by themention of economy at such a time as he was by the mention ofexpenditure. But she rose bravely to the responsibility: "I'lldo the best I can, and we'll be so cozy--ooh!"

Kedzie was used to small figures. He put into her hand all the cashhe had with him, which was all he had on earth--forty-two dollars. He borrowed back the two dollars. Kedzie had her own money, aboutforty more dollars. This, with twenty-five dollars a week, seemedbig; enough to her to keep them in luxury. They parted at the GrandCentral Terminal with looks of devoted agony. 

She set out at once to look at flats and to visit furniture-stores. She bought a _Herald_ and read the numberless advertisements. Something was the matter everywhere. She had gone far and foundnothing but discouragement when the luncheon hour arrived. 

Humble as her ideas were, they rebelled at what she and herbridegroom would have to accept for their home. She had alwaysdreamed of marrying a beautiful man with a million dollars anda steam yacht. She was to have been married by a swagger parson, in a swagger church, and to have gone on a long voyage somewhere, and come back at last to a castle on Fifth Avenue. She had lostthe parson; the voyage was not to be thought of; and the castlewas not even in the air. 

She looked at one or two expensive apartments, just to see what realapartments could be like. They stunned her with their splendors, their liveried outguards, their elevators clanking like caparisonedchariot-horses, their conveniences, their rentals--six or eightthousand dollars a year, unfurnished!--six or seven times herhusband's whole annual earnings. They were beyond the folly ofa dream. 

She would have to be content with what one could rent furnishedfor twenty-five dollars a month. She would have to be her ownhired girl. She would have to toil in a few cells of a beehiveon a side-street. She would be chauffeuse to a gas-stove only. 

She went to the luncheon tryst with a load of forebodings, butGilfoyle did not appear. She heard her name paged by a corridor-crierand was called to the telephone, where her husband's voice told herthat there was a big upset at the office and he dared not leave. He forgot to be tender in his endearments, and he forgot to explainto her that he was talking in a crowded office with an impatientboss waiting for him and a telephone-girl probably listening in. 

Kedzie lunched alone, already a business man's wife. 

She scoured the town all afternoon, and at last, in desperation, took the furnished flat she happened to be in when she could gono farther. She had to sign a year's lease, and pay twenty-fivedollars in advance. 

They would live a condensed life there. Even the hall was sharedwith another family. The secrets were also to be shared, evidently, for Kedzie could hear all that went on in the other home--all, all!

But by this time she was so tired that any cranny would have beenwelcome. She was even wearier than she had been when she occupiedthe outdoor apartment under the park bench where she spent her secondnight in New York. She called that an "aparkment" and liked the punso well that she longed to tell her husband. But that would havecompelled the telling of her real name, and she did not know himwell enough for that yet. She found that she did not know himwell enough yet for an increasing number of things. She began to beafraid to have him come home. What would he be like as a husband?What would she be like as a wife? Those are all-important facts thatone is permitted to learn after the vows of perfection are sealed. 

When Kedzie had rested awhile she grew braver and lonelier. She wouldwelcome almost any husband for companionship's sake. She resolved tohave Tom's dinner ready for him. She dragged herself down the stairsand up the hill to the grocer's and the butcher's and bought the rawmaterial for dinner and breakfast. 

She telephoned Gilfoyle at his office, gave him the address andinvited him to dine with "Mrs. Gilfoyle. " She chuckled over theromance of it, but he was harrowed with office troubles. Her ardorwas a trifle dampened by his voice, but she found new thrills inthe gas-stove, a most dramatic instrument to play. It frightenedher with every manifestation. She turned the wrong handles and gotbad odors from it, and explosions. She burned her fingers andthe chops. 

She stared in dismay at the charred first banquet and then marchedher weary feet down the stairs again and up the hill again toa delicatessen shop. She had previously learned the fatal ease ofthe ready-made meals they vend at such places, and she compiledher first menu there. 

When Gilfoyle came down the street and up the steps into his newhome and into her arms he tried to lay off care for a while. Buthe could not hide his anxiety--and his ecstasy was half an ecstasyof dread. 

He did not like the shabby, showy furniture the landlord had selected. But the warmed-up dinner amazed him. He had not imagined Kedzie soscholarly a cook. She dared not tell him that she had cheated. Hefound her wonderfully refreshing after a day of office toil and toldher how happy they would be, and she said, "You bet. " Kedzie clearedthe table by scooping up all the dishes and dumping them into a bigpan and turning the hot water into it with a cake of soap. Then sheretreated to the wabbly divan in the living-room. 

Gilfoyle went over to Kedzie like a lonely hound; and she laced stilltighter the arms that encircled her. They told each other that theywere all they had in the world, and they forgot the outside world forthe world within themselves. But the evening was maliciously hot andmuggy; it was going to rain in a day or so. That divan would hardlysupport two, and there was no comfort in sitting close; it merelyadded two furnaces together. 

Clamor rose in the adjoining apartment. Their neighbors had children, and the children did not want to go to bed. The parents nagged thechildren and each other. The wrangle was insufferable. And the ideacame to Kedzie and Gilfoyle that children were one of the liabilitiesof their own marriage. They were afraid of each other, now, as wellas of the world. If only they had not been in such haste to bemarried! If only they could recall those hasty words!

Gilfoyle put out the lights--"because they draw the insects, " hesaid, but Kedzie thought that he was beginning to economize. Hewas. Across the street they could see other heat-victims miserablypreparing for the night. They were careless of appearances. 

In the back of the parlor was a window opening into a narrowair-shaft. The one bedroom's one window opened on the same cleft. If the curtain were not kept down the neighbors across the areacould see and be seen. If the window were left open they could beheard; and when the curtain flapped in the occasional little puffsof hot air, it gave brief glimpses of family life next door. Thatfamily had a squalling child, too. Somewhere above, a ricketyphonograph was at work; and somewhere below, a piano was beingmauled; and somewhere else a ukelele was being thumped and adoleful singer was snarling "The Beach at Waikiki. " This racketwas their only epithalamium. It was more like the "chivaree" withwhich ironic crowds tormented bridal couples back in Nimrim, Mo. 

Gilfoyle was poet enough to enjoy a little extra doldrums at whatmight have made a longshoreman peevish. He mopped sweat and fannedhimself with a newspaper till he grew frantic. He flung down thepaper and rose with a yawn. 

"Well, this is one helluva honeymoon. I'm going to crawl intothe oven and fry. "

Kedzie sat alone in the dark parlor a long while. She was cold now. She had danced Greek dances in public, but she blushed in the darkas she loitered over her shoelaces. She was so forlorn and sodisappointed with life that tears would have been bliss. 

Somebody on that populous, mysterious air-shaft kept a parrot. It woke Kedzie early in the morning with hysterical laughter thatpierced the ears like steel saws. There was something uncannilyreal but hideously mirthless in its Ha-ha-ha! It would gurgle withthick-tongued idiocy: "Polly? Polly? Polly wanny clacky? Polly?Polly?"

Kedzie wondered how any one could care or dare to keep such a pest. She wanted to kill it. She leaned out of the window and stared up. Somewhere above the fire-escape rungs she could see the bottom ofits cage. If only she had a gun, how gladly she would have blownPolly to bits. 

She saw a frowsy-haired man in a nightgown staring up from anotherwindow and yelling at the parrot. She drew her head in hastily. 

The idol of her soul slept on. The inpouring day illumined him tohis disadvantage. His head was far back, his jaw down, his mouthagape. During the night a beard had crept out on his cheeks. He wasstartlingly unattractive. 

Kedzie crouched on the bed and stared at him in wonder, in afascination of disgust. This was the being she had selected fromall mankind for her companion through the long, long years to come. This was her playmate, partner, hero, master, financier, bedfellow, lifefellow. For him she had given up her rights to freedom, topraise, to chivalry, to individuality, her hopes of wealth, luxury, flattery. 

She glanced about the room--the pine bureau with its imitationstain, broken handles, and curdled mirror, the ugly chairs, thegilt radiator, the worn rug, the bed that other wretches hadoccupied. She wondered who they were and where they were. 

She remembered Newport, the Noxon home. She tried to picture abedroom there. She saw a palace of the best moving-picture period. She remembered the first moving picture she had seen in New York, and contrasted the Anita Adair of that adventure with the AnitaAdair of this. She recalled that girl locking her door against theswell husband, and the poor but honest lover with the revolver. 

Kedzie wished she had locked her own door--only there was no door, merely a shoddy portière, for there was not room to open a door. Her old ambitions came back to her. She had planned to know richpeople and rebuke their wicked wiles. One rich man had held her inhis arms, lifted her out of the pool. It was no less a man thanJim Dyckman, and she had repulsed him. 

She caught a glimpse of her own tousled head in the mirror, and she sneered at it. "You darn fool--oh, you darn fool!"

At last the parrot woke Gilfoyle. He snorted, bored his fistsinto his eyes, yawned, scratched his head, stared at the unusualfurniture, flounced over, saw his mate, stared again, grinned, said:

"Why, hello, Anita!"

He put out his hand to her. She wiggled away; he followed. Sheslid to the floor and gasped:

"Don't touch me!"

"Why, what's the matter, honey?"

"Huh! What isn't the matter?"

He fumbled under the pillow for his watch, looked at it, yawned:

"Lord, it's only five o'clock. Good _night_!" He disposedhimself for sleep again. The parrot broke out in another horribleHa-ha! He sat up with an oath. "I'd like to murder the beast. "

"Don't! I'm much obliged to it. "

"Obliged to it? You must be crazy. Good Lord! hear it scream. "

"Well, ain't life a scream?"

Gilfoyle was a graceless sleeper and a surly waker. He forgot thathe was a bridegroom. 

He sniffed, yawned, flopped, buried one ear in the pillow and pulledthe cover over the other and almost instantly slept. His head onthe pillow looked like some ugly, shaggy vegetable. Kedzie wanted touproot the object and throw it out of the window, out of her life. That was the head of her husband, the lord and master of her dreams!

Dainty-minded couples have separate bedrooms. Ordinary people acceptthe homely phases of coexistence as inevitable and thereforeunimportant. They grow to enjoy the intimacy: they give and takeinformality as one of the comforts of a home. They see frowsy hairand unshaven cheeks and yawns as a homely, wholesome part of lifeand make a pleasant indolence of them. 

But Kedzie was in an unreasoning mood. She had hoped for unreasonabledelights. Marriage had been a goal beyond the horizon, at the base ofthe rainbow. She had reached it. The girl Kedzie was no more. She wasa wife. Kedzie Thropp and Anita Adair were now Mrs. Thomas Gilfoyle. Her soul cried out:

"This is my honeymoon! I am married, married forever to thattousle-headed, bristle-jawed, brainless, heartless dub. I won'tstand for it. I won't! I won't!"

She wanted to outscream the parrot. Its inarticulate, horriblecachinnations voiced her humor uncannily. She had to bury herpouting lips in her round young arm to keep from insanely echoingthat maniacal Ha-ha-ha! That green-and-red philosopher expressedher own mockery of life and love, with its profound and eloquentHa-ha-ha! Oh, ha-ha-ha! Ee, ha-ha-ha!

CHAPTER IV

Now, of course, Kedzie ought to have been happy. Millions of girlsof her age were waking up that morning and calling themselves wretchedbecause their parents or distance or some other cause prevented themfrom marrying young fellows no more prepossessing asleep than Gilfoylewas. 

In Europe that morning myriads of young girls tossed in their bedsand shivered lest their young men in the trenches might have beenkilled or mangled by some shell dropped from an airship or sent overfrom a cannon or shot up from a mine. And those young men, alive ordead, looked no better than Gilfoyle, if as neat. 

In Europe and in Asia, that morning, there were young girls and nunsand wives who were in the power of foreign soldiers whose languagethey could not speak but could understand all too well--poor, ruinedvictims of the tidal waves of battle. There were wives, young andold, who had got their husbands back from war blind, crippled, foolish, petulant. They had left part of their souls on the fieldwith their blood. 

It was a time when it seemed that nobody had a right to be unhappywho had life, health, shelter, and food. Yet America was perhaps asdiscontented as Europe. 

Kedzie had reason enough to make peace with life. Gilfoyle was asvaluable a citizen as she. She might have helped to make him a goodbusiness man or a genuine poet. What is poetry, anyway, but theskilful advertisement of emotions? She might at least have made ofGilfoyle that all-important element of the Republic, a respectable, amiable, ordinary man, perhaps the father of children who would beof value, even of glory, to the world. 

There was romance enough in their wedding. Others of the couples whohad bought licenses that day were rapturous in yet cheaper tenements, greeting the new day with laughter and kisses and ambition to earnand to save, to breed and grow old well. 

But to be content with what or whom she had, Kedzie would have hadto be somebody else besides Kedzie; and then Gilfoyle would notperhaps have met her or married her. Some man in Nimrim, Mo. , wouldhave wed the little stay-at-home. 

Kedzie, the pretty fool, apparently fancied that she would have beenhappy if Gilfoyle had been a handsomer sleeper, and the apartmenta handsomer apartment, and the bank-account an inexhaustible fountainof gold. 

But would she have been? Peter Cheever was as handsome as a mandares to be, awake or asleep; he had vast quantities of money, andhe was generous with it. But Zada L'Etoile was not happy. She dweltin an apartment that would have overwhelmed Kedzie by the depth ofits velvets and the height of its colors. 

Yet Zada was crying this very morning--crying like mad becausewhile she had Cheever she had no marriage license. She tore herhair and bit it, and peeled diamonds off her fingers and threw themat the mirror like pebbles, and sopped up her tears with point-lacehandkerchiefs and hurled those to the floor--then hurled herselfafter them. She was a tremendous weeper, Zada. 

And in Newport there was a woman who had a marriage license but nohusband. She slept in a room too beautiful for Kedzie to have liked. She did not know enough to like it. She would have found it cold. Charity Cheever found it cold, but she slept at last, though thesalt wind blowing in from the sea tormented the light curtains andplucked at the curls about Charity's face. There was salt in theair, and her eyelashes were still wet with tears. She was cryingin her sleep, for loneliness. 

Kedzie thought her room was small, but it was nearly as big asthe bedroom where Jim Dyckman had slept. He had a bigger room, buthe had given it to his father and mother, who had come to Newportwith him. They were a stodgy old couple enough now, and snoringidyllically in duet after a life of storms and tears and discontentsin spite of wealth. 

Jim's room was big for a yacht, but the yacht was narrow, built forspeed. Thirty-six miles an hour its turbines could shoot it throughthe sea. It had to be narrow. We can't have everything--especiallyon yachts. 

Jim was barefoot, standing in his pajamas at a port-hole and tryingto see the Noxon home, imagining Charity there. He was denied herpresence and was as miserable as any waif in a poor farm attic. Money seemed to make no visible difference in his despair. 

If he thought of Kedzie at all, he dismissed her as a triflingmemory. He wanted Charity, who did not want him. Charity hadCheever, who did not want her. Kedzie had Gilfoyle, and did not wanthim. It looked as if the old jingle ought to be changed from "Finderskeepers, losers weepers" to "Losers keepers, finders weepers. "

The day after Jim Dyckman pulled Kedzie out of the water he madea desperate effort to convince himself that he could be happywithout the forbidden Charity Coe. 

He breakfasted and played tennis, then swam at Bailey's Beach. Beauties of every type and every conscience were there--pale, slimash blondes with legs like banister-spindles, and swarthy, slenderbrunettes of the same Sheraton furniture. There were brunettes ofgenerous ovals, and blondes of heroic rotundities, and every schemeof shape between. Minds were equally diversified--maternal younggirls and wicked old ladies, hilarious and sinister, intellectualand athletic, bookish and horsy, a woman of a sort for every mood. 

And Jim Dyckman was so wealthy and so simple and so likable andimportant that it seemed nobody would refuse to accept him. Buthe wanted Charity. 

Later in the afternoon he gave up the effort to snub her and wentto the Noxon home. It was about the hour when Kedzie in her newflat had been burning her fingers at the gas-stove. Jim Dyckmanwas preparing to burn his fingers at the shrine of Mrs. Cheever. 

He rang the bell and asked for Mrs. Noxon, though her motor waswaiting at the door, as he was glad to note. Mrs. Noxon came downwith her hat on and her gloves going on. She pinched Dyckman's cheekand kissed him and said:

"It's sweet of you, Jimmie, to call on an old crone like me, and sopromptly. She'll be down in a minute. But you must be on your goodbehavior, Jim, for they're talking about you, you know. They'rebracketing your name with Charity's. "

"The dirty beasts! I'll--"

"You can't, Jim. But you can behave. Cheer her up a little. She'sblue about that dog of a Cheever. I've got to go and turn over themoney we earned yesterday. Quite a tidy sum, but I'll never giveanother damned show as long as I live. "

She left, and by and by Charity Coe drifted in, bringing strangecontentment with her. She greeted Jim with a weary cordiality. Hetook her hand and kissed it and laid his other hand over it as usual. She put her other hand on top of his and patted it--then withdrew herslender fingers and sat down. 

They glanced at each other and sighed. Jim was miserably informed nowthat he had made the angelic Charity Coe a theme for gossip. He feltguilty--irritatedly guilty, because he had the name without the game. 

Charity Coe was in a dull mood. She was in a love lethargy. Her mindwas trying to persuade her heart that her devotion to Peter Cheeverwas a wasted lealty, but her heart would not be convinced, though itbegan to be afraid. She was as a watcher who sits in the next roomto one who is dying slowly and quietly. She could neither lose hopenor use it. 

Jim and Charity sat brooding for a long while. He had outstretchedhimself on a sumptuous divan. She was seated on a carved chair, leaning against the tall back of it like a figure in high relief. About them the great room brooded colossally. 

Gilfoyle would have hated Charity and Jim as perfect examples of theidle rich, too stupid to work, too pampered to be worthy of sympathy. But whether these two had a right to suffer or not, suffer they did. 

The mansion was quiet. The other house-guests were motoring or dartingabout the twilit tennis-court or trading in the gossip-exchange atthe Casino. Jim and Charity were marooned in a sleeping castle. 

At length Jim broke forth, "For God's sake, sing. "

Charity laughed a little and said, "All right--anything to makeyou talk. "

She went to the piano and shifted the music. There were dozens ofsongs about roses. She dropped to the bench and began to play andcroon Edward Carpenter's luscious music to Waller's old poem, "Go, Lovely Rose. "

Jim began to talk almost at once. Charity went on singing, smilinga little at the familiar experience of being asked to sing only tobe talked over. Jim grew garrulous as he read across her shoulderwith characteristic impoliteness. 

_"Tell her that wastes her time and me, "_ he quoted; thenhe groaned: "That's you and me, Charity Coe. But you're wastingyourself most of all. "

He bent closer to peek at the name of the author. "Who's thisfeller Waller, who knows so much?"

"Hush and listen, " she said, and hummed the song through. It madea new and deep impression on her in that humor. She felt that shehad wasted the rosiness of her own life. Girlhood was gone; youthwas gone; carefreedom was gone. Like petals they had fallen fromthe core of her soul. The words of the lyric stabbed her:

 Then die that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee. How small a part of time they share That are so sweet and fair. 

Her fingers slipped from the keys and, as it were, died in her lap. Jim Dyckman understood a woman for once, and in a gush of pity forher and of resentment for her disprized preciousness caught at herto embrace her. Her hands came to life. The wifely instinct leapedto the fore. She struck and wrenched and drove him off. She waspanting with wrath. 

"What a rotten thing to do! Go away and don't come near me again. I'm ashamed of you. "

"Me, too, " he snarled. 

CHAPTER V

Jim slunk out and slunk down the marble steps and down the windingwalk and through the monstrous gate into the highway along the sea, enraged at himself and at Charity and at Peter Cheever. If he had metCheever he would have picked him up and flung him over the sea-wall. But there was little danger of Peter Cheever's being found so nearhis wife. 

_"Tell her that wastes her time and me, "_ kept running throughJim's head. He was furious at Charity for wasting so much of him. Hehad followed her about and moped at her closed door like a stray dog. And she had never even thrown him a bone. 

A wave ran up on the beach and seemed to try to embrace the earth, possess it. But it fell away baffled. Over its subsiding pother spranga new wave with the same bosomful of desire and the same franticclutching here and there--the same rebuff, the same destructionunder the surge of the next and the next. The descending night gavea strange pathos to the eternal vanity. 

Jim Dyckman stood and faced the ocean. Once more he discovered thatlife was too much for him to understand. He was ashamed of himselffor his vain endeavor to envelop Charity Coe and absorb her intothe deeps of his love. He was most ashamed because he had failedand must slither back into the undertow with the many other menwhom Charity had refused to love. 

He was ashamed of Charity Coe, too, for squandering her primeand her pride. He was enraged at her blindness to Pete Cheever'sduplicity or her complacency with it. He hated Charity for awhile--nearly. At any rate he was ashamed of her, ashamed ofthe world, in a rebel mood. 

As he stood wind-blown and spray-flogged and glad to be beaten, ashabby old carriage went by. It was piled to overflowing with someof Miss Silsby's girls taking a seeing-Newport tour on the cheap. 

The driver was, or said he had been in his time, coachman to someof the oldest families. He ventured their names with familiarityand knew their houses by heart. He told quaint stories of theirways, how old Mrs. Noxon once swore down a mutinous stableman, howMiss Wossom ran away with her coachman. There was something finelyold-fashioned and conservative about that. A new-rich would haverun away with a chauffeur. 

The driver knew Jim Dyckman's back and pointed him out. The girlslaughed, remembering Kedzie's encounter with him. They laughed soloud that Dyckman turned, startled by the racket. But the carriagerolled them away and he did not hear them wondering what had becomeof Kedzie. The gloaming saddened them, and they felt very sorry forher. But Jim Dyckman gave her no thought. 

He was tearing apart his emotions toward Charity and resolving thathe must never see her again. In the analytical chemistry of the soulhe found that this resolution was three parts hopelessness of winningher, three parts a decent sense of the wickedness of courting anotherman's woman, three parts resentment at her for treating him properly, and one part a feeling that he would make himself most valuable toher by staying away. 

Never a homeless dog slinking through an alley in search of asidelong ash-barrel to sleep in felt more poverty-stricken, woebegone, than Jim Dyckman. He moped along the stately road, as much afraid ofhis future as Kedzie had been, trudging the same highway. She hadwondered if board and lodging would fail her. This was not JimDyckman's fear, but his own was as great, for everybody was somedreadful elbow-companion. 

Lucian showed Jupiter himself cowering on his throne in the sky andtwiddling his thunderbolt with trembling hand as he wondered whatthe fates held in store for him, and saw on earth the increasingimpudence of the skeptics. 

So Jim Dyckman, unconscious that he was following in Kedzie'sfootsteps, walked miserably on his way. He had no place to go tobut the finest yacht in the harbor. He had no money to depend onbut a few millions of his own and the Pelion plus Ossa fortunesof his father and mother and their relatives--a mere sierra ofgold mountains. 

He drifted down to the landing-place and went out to his yachtin a hackney launch. He was received at her snowy sides as if hewere the emperor of somewhere come to visit one of his rear admirals. He went up the steps as if he were a school-boy caught playing hookyand going up-stairs to play the bass drum to his mother's slipper. 

His mother was on the shade-deck, reclining. The big white wickerlounge looked as if a small avalanche had fallen on it. From theupturned points of her white shoes back to her white hair she wasa study in foreshortening that would have interested a draftsman. 

Spread out on a huge wicker arm-chair sat Jim's father, also allwhite, except for his big pink hands and his big pink face. Itseemed that he ought to have been smoking a white cigar. As a matterof fact, he had sat so still that half the weed was ash. 

When the two moved to greet Jim there was a mighty creaking of wicker. There was another when Jim spilled his own great weight into a chair. A steward in white raised his eyebrows inquiringly and Jim noddedthe eighth of an inch. It was the equivalent of ordering a drink. 

Dyckman senior turned to Dyckman seniora and said, "Enter Hamlet inthe graveyard! Where's the skull, my boy, where's the skull?"

"Let the child alone, " Mrs. Dyckman protested. "It's too hot forfooling. You might kiss your poor mother, though. No, don't get up, just throw me one. "

Jim rose heavily, went to her, bent far down, kissed her, andwould have risen again, but her big arms encompassed his neck andheld him, uncomfortably, till he knelt by her side and laid hishead on her bosom. 

He felt exceedingly foolish, but nearer to comfort than he had beenfor a long while. He wished that he might be a boy again in hismother's arms and be altogether content and carefree as he had beenthere. As if children were content and carefree! Great Heavens!do they not begin to squirm and kick before they are born?

Mrs. Dyckman was suffocated a trifle by his weight and her own andher corsets, but her heart ached for him somewhere down deep andshe whispered:

"Can't he tell his mother what he wants? Maybe she can get itfor him. "

He laughed bitterly and extricated himself from her clasp, pattedher fat arm, and turned away. His father jealously seized hissleeve. 

"Anything serious, old man? You know I'm here. "

Jim squeezed his father's hand and shook his head and turned tothe drink which had arrived. He took it from the tray to his chairand sat meditating Newport across the top of his glass. Betweenthe rail of the deck and the edge of the awning he saw a long sliceof it. It was vanity and emptiness to him. He spoke at length. 

"Fact is, folks, I've got to go back to New York or somewhere. "

"Good Lord!" his father said. "I'm all mixed up in a golf tournament. I think I've got a chance to lick the boots off old Wainwright. "

"Oh dear!" sighed Mrs. Dyckman, "there's to be the most interestinglecture by that Hindu poet. And it's so much more comfortable herethan ashore. This boat is the coziest you've ever had. "

"Stay here, darling, " said Jim. "I'll make you a present of her. "

"Oh, that's glorious, " said Mrs. Dyckman. "I've never had a yachtof my own. It's a shame to take it from you, but you can get another. And of course you'll always be welcome here--which is more thana certain other big Dyckman will be if he doesn't look sharp. "

"For the Lord's sake, Jim, don't give it to her. She's the meanestold miser about her own things. " Dyckman senior pushed his chairback against the rail. 

"Watch out!" Mrs. Dyckman gasped. "You're scraping the paint offmy yacht. "

Jim rose again. "I've just about time to make the last trainfor the day, " he said. 

His mother sat up and clutched at his hand. "Can't I help you, honey?Please let me! What is the matter?"

"The matter is I'm a lunkhead and Newport bores me stiff. That's all. Don't worry. I'll go get the packing started. "

He went along the deck, and his parents helplessly craned theirnecks after him. His father groaned. Jim had "everything. " Therewas nothing to get for him, no toy to buy to divert him with. 

"He wants a new toy, and he doesn't know what it is, " saidthe old man. 

But Jim wanted an old toy on a shelf too high for his reach. Heran away from the sight of it. 

And Dyckman was fleeing to Charity's next resting-place, after all, for she also returned in a few days to New York. She was restiveunder the goad to return to France. She repented her selfish neglectof the children of all ages she had adopted abroad. One thingheld her back--the dread of putting the ocean again between herand her husband. 

She thought it small of her to leave so many heroes to suffer withouther ministrations, in order that she might prevent one non-herofrom having too good a time without her ministrations. But womankindhas never been encouraged to adopt the policy of the greatest goodto the greatest number. Hardly!

Charity was conscience-smitten, however, and she cast about for a wayto absolve herself. Money is the old and ever-reliable way of payingdebts physical, moral, and religious. Charity determined to arrangesome big fête to bring in a heap of money for the wounded of France, the blind fathers, and the fatherless children. 

Everybody was giving entertainments at this time in behalf ofsome school of victims of the war. The only excuse for amusementsin America seemed to be that the profits went to the belligerentsin one way or another. 

Charity was distressed by the need of an oddity, a novel note whichshould make itself heard among the clamors for Belgian relief, forPolish relief, for Armenian succor, for German, French, Italian, Russian widows and orphans. 

Charity's secretary, Miss Gurdon, made dozens of suggestions, butnone of them was big enough to interest Charity. One day a cardcame up to her with a letter of introduction from Mrs. Noxon:

CHARITY DEAR, --This will acquaint you with a very clever girl, MissGrace Havender. Her mother was a school friend of mine. Miss Havenderarranges to have moving pictures taken of people. They are everso much quainter than stupid still-life pictures. Posterity oughtto see you with your poor wounded soldiers, but meanwhile we reallyshould have a chance to perpetuate you as you are. You are alwayson the go, and an ordinary picture does not represent you. 

Anyway, you will be nice to Miss Havender, for the sake of

Yours affectionately, MARTHA NOXON. 

Charity did not want a picture of herself, but she went down toget rid of Miss Havender politely and to recommend her to friendsof greater passion for their own likenesses. Miss Havender wasa forward young person and launched at once into a defense ofmoving pictures. 

"Oh, I admire the movies immensely, " Charity interposed. "We hadsome of them in the hospitals abroad. If you could have seen thatdear Charlie Chaplin convulse a whole ward of battered soldiersand make them forget their pain and their anxieties! He was moreof a nurse than a hundred of us. If he isn't a benefactor, I don'tknow who is. Oh, I admire the movies, but I'd rather see them thanbe them, you know. 

"Still, an idea has just occurred to me. You know I'm terribly inneed of a pile of money. "

Miss Havender looked about her and smiled. 

"Oh, I don't mean for myself. I have far too much, but for thesoldiers. I want something that will bring in a big sum. It occursto me that if a lot of us got up a story and acted it ourselves, it would be tremendously interesting to--well, to ourselves. Andour friends would flock to see it. Amateur performances are ghastlyfrom an artistic standpoint, but they're great fun. 

"It just struck me that if we got up a play and had a cast made upof Mr. Jim Dyckman and Tom Duane and Winnie Nicolls and Miss Bettanyand the young Stowe Webbs and Mrs. Neff and people like that itwould be dreadfully bad art, but much more amusing than if we hadall the stars in the world--Mr. Drew and his daughter and his nieceMiss Barrymore and her brothers, and Miss Anglin and Miss Bates orMiss Adams or anybody like that. Don't you think so? Or what do youthink? Could it be done, or has it been--or what about it?"

Miss Havender gasped. She saw new vistas of business openingbefore her. 

"Yes, it has been done in a small way, and it was great fun, as yousay; but it would have been more fun if it hadn't been so crude. What you would need would be a director who was not an amateur. Now, our director is marvelous--Mr. Ferriday. He's the Belasco ofthe photoplays. He's as great as Griffith. He takes his art likea priest. If you had him you could do wonders. "

"Then we must have him, by all means, " said Charity, smiling alittle at the gleam in Miss Havender's eyes. She had a feelingthat Miss Havender had a deep, personal interest in Mr. Ferriday. Miss Havender had; most of the women in his environs had. In thefirst place, he was powerful and could increase or diminish orcheck salaries. He distributed places and patronage with a royalprerogative. But he was hungry for praise and suffered from thelack of social prestige granted "the new art. "

Miss Havender seconded Charity's motion with enthusiasm. After along conference it was agreed that Miss Havender should broach thematter to the great Mr. Ferriday while Charity recruited actorsand authors. 

As Charity rummaged in her hand-bag for a pencil to write MissHavender's telephone number with, she turned out Kedzie Thropp'scrumpled, shabby card. She started. 

"Oh, for Heaven's sake! The poor child! I had forgotten hercompletely. You might be able to do something for her. This MissAdair is the prettiest thing, and I promised to get her a job. Shemight photograph splendidly. Won't you try to find her a place?"

"I'll guarantee her one, " said Miss Havender, who was sure that thefirm would be glad to put Mrs. Cheever under obligations. The firmwas in need of patronage, as Mr. Ferriday's lavish expenditureshad crippled its treasury, while his artistic whims had held upthe delivery of nearly finished films. 

Miss Havender told Charity to send the girl to her at the officeany day and she would take care of her. Charity kept Kedzie's cardin her hand, and, as soon as Miss Havender was gone, ran to her deskto write Kedzie. She told a pale lie--it seemed a gratuitous insultto confess that she had forgotten. 

DEAR MISS ADAIR, --Please forgive my delay in keeping my promise, but I have been unable to find anything likely to interest you tillto-day. But now Miss Grace Havender, of the Hyperfilm Company, hasjust assured me that if you will call on her at her office she willsee that you are engaged. You will photograph so beautifully thatI am sure you will have a great career. Please don't fail to callon Miss Havender. 

Yours, with best wishes, CHARITY C. CHEEVER. 

She sent the letter to the address Kedzie had given her--which wasthat of Kedzie's abandoned boarding-house. 

CHAPTER VI

Since Kedzie, by the time her marriage had reached its firstmorning-after, had already found her brand-new husband odious, there was small hope of her learning to like him or their povertybetter on close acquaintance. 

When he left her for his office she missed him, and her heartwarmed toward him till he came home again. He always brought newdisillusionment with him. He spent his hours out of office inbewailing his luck, celebrating the hardness of the times, andproclaiming the hopelessness of his prospects. 

And then one evening he arrived with so doleful a countenance thatKedzie took pity on him. She perched herself on his lap and askedhim what was worrying him. 

"Nothing much, honey, " he groaned, "except that I've lost my job. "

Kedzie was thunderstruck. She breathed the expletive she learnedfrom her latest companions. "My Gawd!"

Gilfoyle nodded dreadfully: "Business has been bad, anyway. Kalteyer, with his chewing-gum, was about our only big customer, and now he'sgone bust. Yep. The bank's shut down on his loans, and he was caughtwith a mountain of bills on his hands. And the Breathasweeta ChewingGum stopped selling. People didn't seem to take to the perfume idea. "

"I just hate people!" Kedzie growled, pacing the floor. 

Gilfoyle went on, bitterly: "Remember how they all said I was sucha genius for thinking up the name 'Breathasweeta, ' and the perfumeryidea? And how they liked my catch-phrase?"

Kedzie nodded. 

Gilfoyle grew sarcastic: "Well, a man's a genius if he succeeds, anda fool if he doesn't. I'm just as sure as ever that there's a fortunein Breathasweeta. But when Kalteyer's bankers got cold feet I lostmy halo. He and Kiam have been roasting the life out of me. Theyblame me! They've kept knocking me and quoting 'Kiss me again--whoare you?' and then groaning. It's funny. I loved it when everybodyelse said it was great. But I didn't care much for it myself, theway they said it. "

Kedzie flung herself on the tremulous wabbly-legged divan. Kedziedidn't like the phrase, either, now. When he had first smitten itfrom his brain she had thought it an inspiration and him a king. Now it sounded silly, coarse, a little indecent. Of course it hadnot succeeded. How could he ever have been so foolish as to utterit--"Kiss me again--who are you?" Why, it was vulgar!

Gilfoyle looked dismally incompetent as he drooped and mumbled. Itis hard to tell an autobiography of failure and look one's best. 

"Didn't you tell him you was--you were married?" queried Kedzie. 

"I hadn't the courage. "

"Courage! Well, I like that! So you're fired! Just like me. Funny!And here we are, married and all. My Gaw--"

"Here we are, married and all. They'll let me finish the week, butmy goose is cooked, I guess. Jobs are mighty scarce in my line ofbusiness. Everybody's poor except the munitions crowd. I wish I knewhow to make dynamite. "

Kedzie pushed her wet hair back from her brow and tore her waist opena little deeper at the throat. This was carrying the joke of marriagea little too far even for her patient soul. 

Soon Gilfoyle's office was closed to him and he was at home almostall day. That finished him with Kedzie. 

He had not improved on connubial acquaintance. He was lazy andsloven of mornings, and since he had no office to go to he grew moreneglectful of his appearance than ever. His end-to-end cigarettesgot on Kedzie's nerves and cost a nagging amount of money, especiallyas she could not learn to like them herself. 

He tried to write poetry for the magazines and permanently destroyedwhat little respect Kedzie had for the art. Hunting for some littlelove-word that was unimportant when found threw him into frenzies ofrage. He went about mumbling gibberish. 

"What in hell rhymes with _heaven_?" he would snarl. "_Beven, ceven, Devon, fevon, gevin, given_--" And so on to "_zeven_. "Then "_breven, creven, dreven_" and "_bleven, eleven, dleven_" and "_pseven, spleven, threven_" and so forth. 

At length he would hurl his pen across the room, pull at his hair, and light another cigarette. Cigarette always rhymed with cigarette. 

After a day or two of this drivel he produced a brief lyric witha certain fleetness of movement; it had small freight to carry. Hetook it to a number of editors he knew, and one of them acceptedit as a kindness. 

Kedzie was delighted till she heard that it would bring into theexchequer about seven dollars when the check came, which would bein two weeks. 

When Gilfoyle was not fighting at composition he was calling theeditors hard names and deploring the small remuneration given topoets by a pork-packing nation. Or he would be hooting ridiculeat the successful poets and growing almost as furious against thepersons addicted to the fashionable _vers libre_ as he wasagainst the wealthy classes. 

It seemed to Kedzie that nothing on earth was less important thanprosody, and that however badly poets were paid, they were paid morethan they earned. She grew so lonely for some one to talk to thatshe decided to call on old Mrs. Jambers at the boarding-house. Sheplanned to stop in at dinner-time, in the hope of being asked tosit in at a real meal. The task of cooking what she could affordto buy robbed her of all appetite, and she was living mainly onfumes of food and gas. 

She was growing thinner and shabbier of soul, and she knew it. She put off the call till she could endure her solitude no longer;then she visited Mrs. Jambers. A new maid met her at the door andbarred her entrance suspiciously. Mrs. Jambers was out. So was Mrs. Bottger. So were the old boarders that Kedzie knew. New boardershad their rooms, Kedzie was exiled indeed. 

She turned away, saying: "Tell Mrs. Jambers that Anita Adair stoppedto say hello. I was just passing. "

"Anita Adair?" said the maid. "You was Anita Adair, yes? Wait once. It is a letter for you by downstairs. "

She closed the door in Kedzie's face. Some time later she came backand gave Anita the letter from Charity. It was several days old. Sheread it with amazement. The impulse to tear it up as she had tornup Charity's card in Newport did not last long. She went at onceto a drugstore and looked up the telephone number and the addressof the Hyperfilm Company. She repaid the druggist with a smile anda word of thanks; then she took a street-car to the office. 

Miss Havender, who was also a scenario-writer and editor, was verybusy. She had an executive manner that strangely contradicted herabilities to suffer under the pangs of love and unrequited idolatry. But then, business men are no more immune to the foolish venom onCupid's arrows than poets--perhaps less, since they have no outletof rhapsody. That was one of the troubles with Kedzie's poet. Bythe time Gilfoyle had finished a poem of love he was so exhaustedthat any other emotion was welcome, best of all a good quarrel andthe healthful exercise of his poetic gifts for hate. He could hateat the drop of a hat. 

When the office-boy brought Charity's letter of introduction to MissHavender with the verbal message that Miss Adair was waiting outsideMiss Havender nodded. She decided to procure this Miss Adair a goodjob in order to curry favor with Mrs. Cheever. She would advise Mr. Ferriday to pay her marked attention, too. 

But when she caught sight of Kedzie running the gantlet of thebattery of authors and typists, and noted how pretty she was, MissHavender decided that it would not be good for Mr. Ferriday to paymarked attention to this minx. He had a habit of falling in lovewith women more ardently than with scenarios. He was a despot witha scenario, and he could quickly make a famous novel unrecognizableby its own father or mother. But a pretty woman could rule himludicrously while her charm lasted. 

Miss Havender would gladly have turned Kedzie from the door, butshe did not dare. She had promised Mrs. Cheever to give the girla job. But she had not promised what kind of job it should be. 

She received Kedzie with such brusqueness that the frightened girlalmost fell off the small rim of chair she dared to occupy. Sheoffered Kedzie a post as a typist, but Kedzie could not type; asa film-cutter's assistant, but Kedzie had never seen a film; asa printing-machine engineer or a bookkeeper's clerk, but Kedziehad no ability to do things. She could merely look things. 

Finally Miss Havender said: "I'm awfully sorry, Miss Adair, but theonly position open is a place as extra woman. There is a big ballroomscene to be staged tomorrow, and a low dance-hall the next day, andon Monday a crowd of starving Belgian peasants. We could use you inthose, but of course you wouldn't care to accept the pay. "

She said this hopefully. Kedzie answered, hopelessly:

"What's the pay?"

"Three dollars. "

"I'll take it. "

Miss Havender accepted the inevitable, gave her the addressof the studio--far up-town in the Bronx--and told her to reportat eight the next morning. 

Kedzie went back to her home in a new mood. She was the breadwinnernow, if not a cake-earner. Gilfoyle was depressed by her good news, and she was indignant because he was not happy. The poor fellow wassimply ashamed of his own inability to support her in the style shehad been accustomed to dreaming about. 

Kedzie was sullen at having to get the dinner that night. The hotwater would not help to give her hands the ballroom texture. Thenext morning she had to leave early. Gilfoyle was too tired of doingnothing to get up, and she resolved to buy her breakfast ready-madeoutside. Her last glance at her husband with his frowsy hair on hisfrowsy pillow infuriated her. 

The experience at the big studio assuaged her wrath against life. It was something new, and there was a thrill in the concerted actionof the crowds. She wore a rented ball-gown which did not fit her. Seeing how her very shoulders winced at their exposure, one wouldnot have believed that she was a graduate of the Silsby school ofnear to nature in next to nothing. 

She danced with an extra man, Mr. Clarence Yoder, a portly actorout of work. He was a costume-play gentleman, and Kedzie thought himsomething grand. He found her an entrancing armload. He was ratheraggressive and held her somewhat straitly to his exuberant form, buthe gave her so much information that she did not snub him. She didnot even tell him that she was married. Indeed, when at the closeof a busy day he hinted at a willingness to take her out to seea picture that evening, she made other excuses than those thatactually prevented her accepting. She spent a doleful evening athome with her dour husband and resented him more than ever. 

On the second day Kedzie was a slum waif and did not like it. Shepouted with a sincerity that was irresistible. 

Mr. Ferriday did not direct the crowd scenes in these pictures. Hisassistant, Mr. Garfinkel, was the slave-driver. Mr. Yoder cleverlycalled him "Simon Legree. " Kedzie did not know who Mr. Legree was, but she laughed because Mr. Yoder looked as if he wanted her tolaugh, and she had decided that he was worth cultivating. 

During the course of the day, however, Mr. Garfinkel fell afoul ofMr. Yoder because of the way he danced with Kedzie. It was a roughdance prettily entitled "Walking the Dog. " Mr. Yoder, who did aminuet in satin breeches to his own satisfaction, pleased neitherhimself nor Mr. Garfinkel in the more modern expression of thedancer's art. 

Mr. Garfinkel called him a number of names which Mr. Yoder wouldnever have tolerated if he had not needed the money. He quiveredwith humiliation and struggled to conform, but he could not pleasethe sneering overseer. He sought the last resort of those persecutedby critics:

"Maybe you can do better yourself!"

"Well, I hope I choke if I can't, " Garfinkel said as he passed themanuscript to the camera-man and summoned Kedzie to his embrace. "Here, Miss What's-your-name, git to me. "

Kedzie slipped into his clutch, and he took her as if she were asheaf of wheat. His arms loved her lithe elasticities. He draggedher through the steps with a wondering increase of interest. "Well, say!" he muttered for her private consumption, "you're a little bitof all right. I'm not so worse myself when I have such help. "

He danced with her longer than was necessary for the demonstration. Then he reluctantly turned her over to Mr. Yoder. Kedzie did notlike Mr. Yoder any more. She found him fat and clumsy, and his handswere fat and clammy. 

Mr. Garfinkel had to show him again. 

Kedzie could not help murmuring up toward his chin, "I wish I coulddance with you instead of him. "

Garfinkel muttered down into her topknot: "You can, girlie, but notbefore the camera. There's a reason. How about a little roof gardenthis evening, huh?"

Kedzie sighed, "I'm sorry--I can't. "

Garfinkel realized that the crowd was sitting up and taking notice, and so he flung Kedzie back to Yoder and proceeded with the picture. He was angry at himself and at Kedzie, but Kedzie was angered at herhusband, who was keeping her from every opportunity of advancement. Even as he loafed at home he prevented her ambitions. "The dog inthe manger!" she called him. 

Garfinkel paid her no further attention except to take a close-upof her standing at a soppy table and drinking a glass of stale beerwith a look of desperate pathos. She was supposed to be a slum waifwho had never had a mother's care. Kedzie had had too much ofthe same. 

The next day was a Saturday. Kedzie did not work. She was lonely fortoil, and she abhorred the flat and the neighbors. The expressiveparrot was growing tautological. Kedzie went out shopping to berid of Gilfoyle's nerves. He was in travail of another love-jingle, and his tantrums were odious. He kept repeating _love_ and_dove_ and _above_, and _tender, slender, offend her, defender_, and _kiss_ and _bliss_ till the very wordsgrew gibberish, detestable nonsense. 

Kedzie wandered the shops in a famine of desire for some of the newstyles. Her pretty body cried out for appropriate adornment as itsbirthright. She was ashamed to go to the studio a third time inthe same old suit. She ordered one little slip of a dress sent home"collect. " She had hoarded the remnant of her Silsby dollars. Whenshe reached home the delivery-wagon was at the curb and the man wasup-stairs. Gilfoyle greeted Kedzie with resentment. 

"What's this thing? I've got no money to pay it. You know that. "

"Oh, I know that well, " said Kedzie, and she went to the kitchen, where she surreptitiously extracted the money from the depths ofthe coffee-canister. 

She paid for the dress and put it on. But she would not let Gilfoylesee her in it. She did not mind buying his cigarettes half so muchas she minded paying for her own clothes. It outraged the veryfoundation principles of matrimony to have to pay for her ownclothes. 

Sunday was an appallingly long day to get through. She was sofrantic for diversion that she would have gone to church if shehad had anything fashionable enough to worship in. In the afternoonshe went out alone and sat on a bench in upper Riverside Drive. A number of passers-by tried to flirt with her, but it was ratherher bitterness against men than any scruple that kept her eyeslowered. 

She would have been excited enough if she had known that thepictures in which she played a small part were being run off inthe projection-room at the studio for Mr. Ferriday's benefit. 

Everybody was afraid of him. The heads of the firm were hoping thathe would approve the reels and not order them thrown out. They wereconvinced that they would have to break with him before he brokethem. Mr. Garfinkel was hoping for a word of approval from theartistic tyrant. 

But Ferriday was fretful and sarcastic about everything. SuddenlyMiss Havender noted that he was interested, noted it by the negativeproof of his sudden repose and silence. She could tell that he wasleaning forward, taut with interest. She saw that Anita Adair wasfloating across the screen in the arms of Mr. Yoder. 

There followed various scenes in which Kedzie did not appear, close-up pictures of other people. Ferriday fell back growling. Then he came bolt upright as the purring spinning-wheel ofthe projection machine poured out more of Kedzie. 

Suddenly he shouted through the dark: "Stop! Wait! Go back! Giveus the last twenty feet again. Who is that girl--that dream? Whois she, Garfinkel?"

"I don't know her name, sir. "

"Don't know her name! You wouldn't! Well, the whole world will knowher name before I get through with her. Who is she, anyway?"

Miss Havender spoke. "Her name is Adair--Anita Adair. "

"Anita Adair, eh? Well, where did she come from? Who dug her up?"

"I did, " said Miss Havender. 

"Good for you, old girl! She's just what I need. " And now he studiedagain the scene in which Kedzie took down the draught of bitterbeer, and there was a superhuman vividness in the close-up, withits magnified details in which every tiny muscle revealed its soul. 

"Look at her!" Ferriday cried. "She's perfect. The pathos of her!She wants training, like the devil, but, Lord, what material!"

He was as fanatic as a Michelangelo finding in a quarry a neglectedblock of marble and seeing through its hard edges the mellow contoursof an ideal. He was as impatient to assail his task and beat offthe encumbering weight. 

CHAPTER VII

Kedzie wore her new frock when she reached the studio on Mondaymorning. She greeted Mr. Garfinkel with an entreating smile, andwas alarmed by the remoteness of his response. He was cold becauseshe was not for him. He led her respectfully to the anteroom ofthe sacred inclosure where Ferriday was behaving like a lion ina cage, belching his wrath at his keepers, ordering the fund-findersto find more funds for his great picture. It threatened to bankruptthem before it was finished, but he derided them as imbeciles, moneychangers, misers. 

Garfinkel was manifestly afraid of Ferriday's very echo, and hecowered a little when Ferriday burst through the door with manebristling and fangs bared. 

"Well, well, well!" Ferriday stormed. "What do you want, Garfinkel?What do you want, Garfinkel? What do you want?"

"You told me to bring Miss Adair to you as soon as she arrived, and--"

The lion roared as gentle as a sucking dove. 

"And this is Miss Adair, is it? Of course it is. Welcome to ourlittle boiler-factory, my dear. Come in and sit down. Garfinkel, get her a chair and then get out. Sit down, child. I never bitepretty girls. "

Kedzie was pleasantly terrified, and she wondered what would befallher next. She gave the retreating Garfinkel no further thought. Shesat and trembled before the devouring gaze of the great Ferriday. He studied her professionally, but he was intensely, extravagantlyhuman. That was why he appealed to the public so potently. He tooktheir feelings and set them on fire and juggled with them flaming. 

He had such caloric that he kindled actors and actresses tounsuspected brilliances. He made tinder of the dry-as-dusts, and he brought the warm-hearted to a white-hot glow. 

He dealt with primary emotions crudely but vigorously. A soldiersaluting an officer became in a Ferriday picture a zealot renderinga national homage. A maid watching her lover walk away angry becamea Juliet letting Romeo go; a child weeping over a broken doll wasan epitome of all regret. A mother putting a light in the window foran erring daughter's guidance was something new, an allegory as greatas Bartholdi's Liberty putting her lamp in the window of the nation. 

He was as intense with humor as with sorrow. A girl washing dishesbrought shrieks of laughter at the little things she did--thestruggle with the slippery soap, the recoil from the hot plate, the carelessness with the towel. 

Ferriday had not talked to Kedzie two minutes before she was wringingher hands with excitement. He was discovering her to herself. He toldher the story of a picture he wanted to put her in. He had withheldit for months, looking for the right interpreter. He resolved topostpone the completion of the big picture till he had finished afive-reel idyl for the apotheosis of Kedzie. 

"The backers of the enterprise will have apoplexy when they hearof it, " he laughed. "But what do I care?"

The whole army of the studio stood meanwhile at ease, drawing salaryand waiting for Ferriday to remember his day's program and give theorder to go ahead. But he was busy with his new story, in the throesof nympholepsy, seeing visions, hearing voices. 

Kedzie sat in a marble expectancy, Galatea watching Pygmalioncreate her and prepare to bring her to life. She had never lived. She realized that. All her previous existence had been but blindgropings in the womb of time. 

The backers came to remind Ferriday that there was waiting a costlymob of actors, wooed from the speaking drama by trebled salaries. Ferriday howled to them to get out. They did not respect hisinspirations; they suspected his motives toward Kedzie. 

But Ferriday was deep in love with his art; he was panting withthe afflation of Apollo. Old motives, old scenes, old charactersthat had served as "sure-fire stuff" since the earliest Hindu dramanow fell into their ancient places and he thought them new. Kedziewas sure she had never heard such original ideas. Her gratitude toFerriday was absolute. And he was clever enough, or crazy enough, to say that he was grateful to her. He had been looking for justHer, and she had come to him just in time. He made her promisesthat Solomon could not have made to Sheba, or Shakespeare to thedark lady. 

Solomon could offer to his visitor Ophirian wealth, and Shakespearecould guarantee with some show of success (up to date) that hiswords of praise would outlive all other monuments. But Ferridaydid not offer Kedzie minerals or adjectives. He cried:

"Little girl, I'll put you on a girdle of films that will encirclethe world. Your smile will run round the globe like the sun, andlight up dark places in Africa. Your tears will shower the earth. People in thousands of towns will watch your least gesture withanxiety. Queens will have you brought to their palaces to make themlaugh and cry. The soldiers of the world will call you their mascotand write love-letters to you from the trenches. I will have abillion pictures made of you, and you shall breathe and move in allof them. You shall live a million lives at once. I will have yourother self placed in museums so that centuries from now they cantake you out and bring you to life again. "

It was a mighty good speech. It would be hard to find a serenadeto beat it. And he read it superbly. He had sung it to every oneof his only girls in the world, his eternal (pro tem. ) passions. He had had about nineteen muses already. 

Kedzie did not know this, of course. And it would not have matteredmuch. Better the nine-and-ninetieth muse to such a man than thefirst and final gas-stove slave of a Tommie Gilfoyle. 

Kedzie sat in the state of nerves of a little girl alone on amountain-top with lightning shimmering and striking all round her. She was so happy, so full of electrical sparks, that she was fairlyincandescent. As she said afterward, she felt "all lit up. "

Ferriday spun out the plot of his new five-reel scenario until hewas like an unreeled spider. He was all out. The mechanical detailsinterested and refreshed him now. He must order the studio sceneryand select the outdoor "locations. " He must pick the supporting castand devise one or two blood-curdling moments of great peril. 

Kedzie was too excited to note the ghoulish joy with which heplanned to put her into the most perilous plights that had everthreatened even a movie star with death or crippledom. 

"Do they scare you, my dear?" he asked. 

"Scare me?" said Kedzie. "Why, Mr. Ferriday, if you told me to, I'd go out to the Bronx Zoo-ological Gardens and bite the ear offthe biggest lion they got in the lion-house. "

Ferriday reached out, put his arm about her farther shoulder, andsqueezed her to him after the manner of dosing an accordeon. Kedzieemitted the same kind of squeak. But she was not unhappy, and shedid not even say, "Sir!"

The plot of The Kedziad was to be based on the From-Rags-to-Riches_leitmotiv_, Kedzie was to be a cruelly treated waif brought upas a boy by a demoniac Italian padrone who made her steal. She wasto be sent into a rich man's home to rob it. She would find the richman about to commit suicide all over his sumptuous library. Shewould save him, and he would save her from the padrone's revenge, on condition that she should dress as a girl (he had not, of course, suspected that she really was one at the time--had always been one, in fact). She would dress as a girl and conduct a very delicatediplomatic mission with a foreign ambassador, involving a submarinewrecked (in the studio tank) and a terrific ride across one ofthe deadliest battle-fields of Verdun (New Jersey) with a vast armyof three hundred supers. 

When Kedzie had saved two or three nations and kept the UnitedStates from war the millionaire would regret that she was, afterall, only a boy and be overcome with rapture when she told him thetruth. The three hundred supers would then serve as wedding-guestsin the biggest church wedding ever pulled off. 

Kedzie liked this last touch immensely. It would make up for thatdisgusting guestless ceremony in the Municipal Building. 

Ferriday got rid of her exquisitely by writing a note and sayingto her:

"Now you run down and hop into my car and take this note to LadyPowell-Carewe--don't fail to call her 'Pole Cary. ' She is to designyour wealthy wardrobe, and I want her to study you and do somethingunheard of in novelty and beauty. Tell her that the more she spendsthe better I'll like it. "

Kedzie was really a heroine. She did not swoon even at that. 

When Ferriday dismissed her he enfolded her to his beautifulwaistcoat, and then held her off by her two arms and said:

"Little girl, you've made me so happy! So happy! Ah! We'll do greatthings together! This is a red-letter day for the movie art. "

Kedzie never feared that it might have a scarlet-letter significance. She forgot that she was anything but a newborn, full-fledged angelwithout a past--only a future with the sky for its limit. Alas! wealways have our pasts. Even the unborn babe has already centuriesof a past. 

It was Ferriday who brought Kedzie home to hers. 

"What about dinner to-night, my dear? I feel like having a wonderfuldinner to-night! Are partridge in season now? What is your favoritesherry? Let me call for you at, say, seven. Where shall I call?"

Kedzie flopped back from the empyrean to her flat. Gilfoyle againblockaded her. 

She nearly swooned then. Her soul rummaged frantically through abrain like her own work-basket. She finally dug up an excuse. 

"I'd rather meet you at the restaurant. "

Ferriday smiled. He understood. The poor thing was ashamed of herboarding-house. 

"Well, Cinderella, let me send my pumpkin for you, at least. I won'tcome. Where shall my chauffeur find you?"

Kedzie whimpered the shabby number of the shabby street. 

"Shall he ask for Miss Adair, or--"

Kedzie was inspired: "I live in Mrs. Gilfoyle's flat-partment. "

"I see, " said Ferriday. "Miss Anita Adair--ring Mrs. Gilfoyle'sbell. All right, my angel, at seven. Run along. "

He kissed her, and she was ice-cold. But then women were oftenlike that before Ferriday's genius. 

CHAPTER VIII

The things we are ashamed of are an acid test of our souls. KedzieThropp was constantly improving the quality of her disgusts. 

A few months ago she was hardly ashamed of sleeping under a parkbench. And already here she was sliding through the street ina limousine. It was a shabby limousine, but she was not yet readyto be ashamed of any limousine. She was proud to have it lent toher, proud to know anybody who owned such a thing. 

What she was ashamed of now was the home it must take her to andthe jobless husband waiting for her there. She was ashamed ofherself for tying up with a husband so soon. She had married inhaste and repented in haste. And there was a lot of leisure formore repentance. 

Already her husband was such a handicap that she had refrainedfrom mentioning his existence to the great moving-picture directorwho had opened a new world of glory to her--thrown on a screen, as it were, a cinemation of her future, where triumphs followedone another with moving-picture rapidity. He had made a scenarioof her and invited her to dinner. 

She smiled a little at the inspiration that had saved her fromconfessing that she was Mrs. Gilfoyle. It was neat of her to tellMr. Ferriday that she could be addressed "in care of Mrs. Gilfoyle. "In care of herself! That was just what she was. Who else was sointerested in Kedzie's advancement as Kedzie?

She was a bitterly disappointed Kedzie just now. Ferriday had toldher to go to Lady Powell-Carewe and get herself a bevy of speciallydesigned gowns at the expense of the firm. There was hardly a womanalive who would not have rejoiced at such a mission. To Kedzie, whohad never had a gown made by anything higher than a sewing-woman, the privilege was heavenly. Also, she had never met a Lady witha capital L. 

The dual strain might have been the death of her, but she was savedby the absence of Lady Powell-Carewe. Kedzie went back to the street, sick with deferred hope. Ferriday's chauffeur was waiting to takeher home. She felt grateful for the thoughtfulness of Ferriday andcrept in. 

The nearer Kedzie came to her lowly highly flat the less she wantedeven the chauffeur of Mr. Ferriday's limousine to see her enter it. He would come for her again at night, but the building did not lookso bad at night. 

So she tapped on the glass and told him to let her out, please, at the drug-store, as she had some marketing to do. 

"Sure, Miss, " said the chauffeur. 

Kedzie liked that "Miss. " It was ever so much prettier than "Mizzuz. "She bought some postage-stamps at the drug-store and some pork chopsat the butcher's and went down the street and up the stairs to herlife-partner, dog on him!

Gilfoyle was just finishing a poem, and he was the least attractivething in the world to her, next to his poem. He was in his sockfeet; his suspenders were down--he would wear the hateful things!his collar was off, his sleeves up; his detachable cuffs weredetached and stuck on the mantelpiece; his hair was crazy, and hehad ink smears on his nose. 

"Don't speak to me!" he said, frantically, as he thumped the tablewith finger after finger to verify the meter. 

"No danger!" said Kedzie, and went into the bedroom to look overher scant wardrobe and choose the least of its evils to wear. 

She shook her head at her poverty and went to the kitchen to cooklunch for her man. He followed her and read her his poem while sheslammed the oven door of the gas-stove at the exquisitely wrongmoments. She broke his heart by her indifference and he tore upthe poem, carefully saving the pieces. 

"A whole day's work and five dollars gone!" he groaned. He wasso sulky that he forgot to ask her why she had come home so early. He assumed that she had been turned off. She taxed her ingenuityto devise some way of getting to the dinner with Ferriday withoutletting Gilfoyle know of it. At last she made so bold as to tell herhusband that she thought she would drop in at her old boarding-houseand stay for dinner if she got asked. 

"I'm sick of my cooking, " she said. 

"So am I, darling. Go by all means!" said Gilfoyle, who owed her onefor the poem. 

Kedzie was suspicious of his willingness to let her go, but alreadyshe had outgrown jealousy of him. As a matter of fact, he had beeninvited to join a few cronies at dinner in a grimy Italian boarding-house. They gave it a little interest by calling it a "speak-easy, "because the proprietor sold liquor without a license. Gilfoyle'scronies did not know of his marriage and he was sure that Kedziewould not fit. She did not even know the names of the successful, therefore mercenary, writers and illustrators, much less the namesof the unsuccessful, therefore artistic and sincere. 

To Kedzie's delight, Gilfoyle took himself off at the end of aperfect day of misery. He left her alone with her ambitions. Shewas in very grand company. She hated the duds she had to wear, butshe solaced herself with planning what she should buy when moneywas rolling in. 

When Ferriday's car came for her she was standing in the doorway. She hopped in like the Cinderella that Ferriday had called her. Whenthe car rolled up to the Knickerbocker Hotel she pretended that itwas her own motor. 

Ferriday was standing at the curb, humbly bareheaded. He wore adinner-jacket and a soft hat which he tucked under his arm so thathe might clasp her hands in both of his with a costume-play fervor. He had been an actor once--and he boasted that he had been a verybad one. 

Kedzie felt as if he were helping her from a sedan chair. Sheimagined her knee skirts lengthened to a brocaded train, and histrousers gathered up into knee breeches with silver buckles. 

Bitterness came back to her as she entered the hotel and her slimpsylittle cloth gown must brush the Parisian skirts of the richly cladother women. 

She pouted in right earnest and it was infinitely becoming to her. Ferriday was not thinking of the price or cut of her frock. Hewas perceiving the flexile figure that informed it, the virginalshoulders that curved up out of it, the slender, limber throatthat aspired from them and the flower-poise of her head on itswhite stalk. 

"You are perfect" he groaned into her ear, with a flattering agonyof appreciation. 

That made everything all right and she did not tremble much evenbefore the _maître d'hôtel_. She was a trifle alarmed at thecovey of waiters who hastened to their table to pull out the chairsand push them in and fetch the water and bread and butter and silverand plates. She was glad to have long gloves to take off slowly whileshe recovered herself and took in the gorgeous room full of gorgeouspeople. Gloves are most useful coming off and going on. 

Kedzie was afraid of the bill of fare with its complex French terms, but Ferriday took command of the menu. 

When he was working Ferriday could wolf a sandwich with the greed ofa busy artist and give orders with a shred of meat in one hand anda mug of coffee in the other. But when he luxuriated he luxuriated. 

Tonight he was tired of life and dejected from a battle with thestingy backers, who had warned him for the last time once morethat he had to economize. He needed to forget such people andthe loathsome enemy of fancy, economy. 

"I want to order something as exquisite as you are, " he said. "Of course, there could be nothing as exquisite as you are, MissAdair--you were curled up on a silver dish with a little applein your mouth like a young roast pig. Ever read Lamb on pig?"

Kedzie laughed with glancing tintinnabulations as if one tappeda row of glasses with a knife. 

Ferriday sighed. He saw that she had never heard of Lamb and thoughthe was perpetrating an ancient pun. But he did not like bookish womenand he often said that nothing was more becoming to a woman thanignorance. They should have wisdom, but no learning. 

Ferriday was one of those terrifying persons who know, or pretendto know, curious secrets about restaurants and their resources. Wine-cellars and the individualities of chefs had no terror forhim so far as she could see. He expressed contempt for apparentcommonplaces that Kedzie had never heard of. He used French wordswith an accent that Kedzie supposed to be perfect. 

The waiters knew that he did not know much and had merely picked upa smattering of dining-room lore, but they humored his affectations. And of all affectations, what is more futile than the printing ofAmerican bills of fare in French?

"Would you prefer the Astrakhan caviar?" he began on Kedzie, "orsome or-durv? The caviar here is fairly trustworthy. "

Kedzie shrugged her perfectly accented shoulders in a cowardlyevasion, and he ordered the first caviar Kedzie had ever eaten. It looked as if it came from a munitions-factory, but she liked itimmensely, especially as a side-long glance at the bill of fare toldher that it cost one dollar and twenty-five cents per person. 

Next he proposed either a potage madrilène or a crême de volaille, Marie Louise. 

Kedzie chose the latter because it was the latter. She mumbled:

"I think a little cremmy vly Marie Louisa would be nice. "

She was amazed to find later how much it tasted like chicken soup. 

"We don't want any fish, do we?" Ferriday moaned. "Or do we? Theydon't really understand the suprême de sole à la Verdi here, sosuppose we skip to the roast, unless you would risk the aigulettede pompano, Coquelin. The last time I had a tronçon de saumon hereI had to send it back. "

Kedzie said, "Let's skip. "

She shuddered. The word reminded her, as always, of Skip Magruder. She remembered how he had hung over the table that far-away morningand recommended ham 'n'eggs. His dirty shirt-sleeves and his grincame back to her now. The gruesome Banquo reminded her so vividlyof her early guilt of plebeiancy that she shivered. The alertFerriday noticed it and called:

"Have that window closed at once. There's an infernal draught here. "

Kedzie was thrilled at his autocratic manner. He scared off the ghostof Magruder. 

Ferriday pondered aloud the bill of fare as if it were the plot ofa new feature film. 

"Capon en casserole, milk-fed guinea-hen escoffier, plover encocotte, English golden pheasant, partridge--do any of thosetiresome things interest you?"

It was like asking her whether she would have a Gorham tea-set, a Balcom gown, or a Packard landaulet. She wanted them all. 

But her eyes caught the prices. Four dollars for an English pheasant!No wonder they called it golden. It seemed a shame, though, to sticksuch a nice man, after he had already ordered two dollars and ahalf's worth of caviar. 

She chose the cheapest thing. She was already falling in lovewith Ferriday. 

The plover was only a dollar. She was not quite sure what kind ofanimal it would turn out to be. She had a womanly intuition that itwas a fowl of some breed. She wanted to know. She had come to thestomach school. 

"I think I'll take a bit of the plover, " she said. 

"Nice girl!" thought Ferriday, who recognized her vicarious economy. 

"Plover it is, " he said to the waiter, and added, "tell Pierre it'sfor me and he'd better not burn it again. "

The waiter was crushed by Pierre's lapse, especially as the chef'sname was Achille. 

Ferriday went on: "With the plover we might have some champignonsfrais sous cloche and a salade de laitue avec French dressing, yes? Then a substantial sweet: a coupe aux marrons or a nesselrodepudding, yes?"

Kedzie wanted to ask for a plain, familiar vanilla ice-cream, butshe knew better. She ordered the nesselrode--and got her ice-cream, after all. There were chestnuts in it, too--so she was glad shehad not selected the coupe aux marrons. 

Ferriday did not take a sweet, but had a cheese instead, after ananxious debate with the waiter about the health of the Camembertand the decadence of the Roquefort. When this weighty matter wassettled he returned to Kedzie:

"Now for something to drink. A little sherry and bitters to beginwith, of course; and a--oh, umm, let me see--simple things are best;suppose we stick to champagne. " He called it "shah pine, " accordingto Kedzie's ear, but she hoped he meant shampane. She had alwayswanted to taste "wealthy water, " as Gilfoyle called it, but nevercalled for it. 

Kedzie was a trifle alarmed when Ferriday said: "I hope you don'tlike it sweet. It can't be too dry for me. "

"Me, either, " Kedzie assured him--and made a face implying that shealways took it in the form of a powder. 

Ferriday smiled benignly and said to the waiter: "You might bring useen boo-tay de Bollinger Numéro--er--katter--vang--kanz. " He knewthat the French for ninety-five was four-twenties-fifteen, but thewaiter could not understand till he placed his finger on the numberwith his best French accent. He saved himself from collapse by astern post-dictum:

"Remember, it's the vintage of nineteen hundred. If you bring thatloathsome eighteen ninety-three I'll have to crack the bottle overyour head. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"_Non, m'zoo, oui, monzoo_, " said the German waiter. 

"Then we'll have some black coffee and a liqueur--a Curaçao, say, or a green Chartreuse, or a white mint. Which?"

Naturally Kedzie said the white mint, please. 

With that Ferriday released the waiter, who hurried away, hopingthat Ferriday's affectations included extravagant tips. 

Kedzie gobbled prettily the food before her. Ferriday could tell thatshe was anxiously watching and copying his methods of attack. He soonknew that this was her first real meal _de luxe_, but he did notmind that. Columbus was not angry at America because it had neverseen an explorer before. 

It delighted Ferriday to think that he had discovered Kedzie. Hewould say later that he invented her. And she wanted tremendouslyto be discovered or invented or anything else, by anybody who couldfind a gold-mine in her somewhere and pay her a royalty on her ownmineral wealth. 

When her lips met the shell-edge of the champagne-glass and theessence of all mischief flung its spray against the tip of hercleverly whittled nose she winced at first. But she went boldlyback, and soon the sprites that rained upward in her glass weresending tiny balloons of hope through her brain. They soared pasther small skull and her braided hair and the crown of her hat andon up through the ceiling, and none of them broke--as yet. 

Her soul was pleasantly a-simmer now and she could not tell whetherthe wine made her exultant or she the wine. But she was sure thatshe had at last discovered her life. 

And with it all she was dreadfully canny. She was only a littlevillage girl unused to city ways, and the handsome city strangerwas plying her with wine; but she was none of your stencil figuresthat blot romance. 

Kedzie was thinking over the cold, hard precepts that women acquiresomehow. She was resolving that since she was to be as great as hesaid she should be, she must not cheapen herself now. 

Many of these little village girls have come to town since timewas and brought with them the level heads of icily wise women whomake love a business and not a folly. Many men are keeping sobermainly nowadays because it is good business; many women pure forthe same reason. 

Turkish sultans as fierce as Suleiman the Magnificent have boughtcountry girls kidnapped by slave-merchants and have bought tyrantsin the bargain. Ferriday the Magnificent was playing with holocaustwhen he set a match to Kedzie. 

But now she was an attractive little flame and he watched her soulflicker and gave it fuel. He also gave it a cigarette; at least heproffered her his silver case, but she shook her head. 

"Why not?" he asked. "All the women, old and young, are smokinghere. "

She tightened her plump lips and answered, "I don't like 'em; andthey give me the fidgets. "

"You'll do!" he cried, softly, reaching out and clenching herknuckles in his palm a moment. "You're the wise one! I felt surethat pretty little face of yours was only a mask for the ugliestand most valuable thing a woman can possess. "

"What's that?" said Kedzie, hoping he was not going to begin bigtalk. 

"Wisdom, " said Ferriday. "A woman ought to be as wise as the serpent, but she ought to have the eyes of a dove. Your baby sweetness isworth a fortune on the screen if you have brains enough to manageit, and I fancy you have. Here's to you, Miss Anita Adair!"

He drank deep, but she only touched the brim. She saw that he wasdrinking too much--he had had several cocktails while he waitedfor her to arrive. Kedzie felt that one of the two must keep a clearhead. She found that ice-water was a good antidote for champagne. 

When Ferriday sharply ordered the waiter to look to her glass sheshook her head. When he finished the bottle and the waiter put itmouth down in the ice as an eloquent reminder Ferriday acceptedthe challenge and ordered another bottle. He was just thickenedof tongue enough to say "boddle. "

Kedzie spoke, quickly: "Please, no. I must go home. It's later thanI thought, and--"

"And Mrs. Gilfoyle will wonder, " Ferriday laughed. "That's right, my dear. You've got to keep good hours if you are going to succeetheon the screen. Early to bed, for you must early-to-rise. _Garçon, garçon, l'addition, s'il vous_ please. "

While he was paying the bill Kedzie was thinking fleetly of her nextproblem. He would want to take her home in his car, and it would bejust her luck to find her husband on the door-step. In any case, shewas afraid that Ferriday would be sentimental and she did not wantFerriday to be sentimental just yet. And she would not toleratea sentiment inspired or influenced by wine. Love from a bottle isthe poorest of compliments. 

Already she was a little disappointed in Ferriday. He was a greatman, but he had his fault, and she had found him out. If he weregoing to be of use to her she must snub that vinous phase at once. 

The cool air outside seemed to gratify Ferriday and he took off hishat while the carriage-starter whistled up his car. Now Kedzie said:

"Please, Mr. Ferriday, just put me in a taxicab. "

"Nonsense! I'll take you home. I'll certainly take you home. "

"No, please; it's 'way out of your way, and I--I'd rather--reallyI would. "

Ferriday stared hard at her as if she were just a trifle blurred. He frowned; then he smiled. 

"Why, bless your soul, if you'd rather I wouldn't oppose you, Iwouldn't--not for worlds. But you sha'n't go home in any old cabbytaxishab; you'll take my wagon and I'll walk. The walk will do megood. "

Kedzie thought it would, too, so she consented with appropriatereluctance. He lifted her in and closed the door--then leaned into laugh:

"Give my love to old Mrs. Gilfoyle. And don't fail to be at theshudio bright and early. We'll have to make sun while the hayshines, you know. Good night, Miss Adair!"

"Good night, Mr. Ferriday, and thank you ever so much for theperfectly lovely evening. "

"It has been l-l-lovely. Goo-ood night!"

The car swept away and made a big turn. She saw Ferriday marchinggrandiosely along the street, with his head bared to the coolmoonlight. She settled back and snuggled into the cushions, imagining the car her very own. 

She left her glory behind her as she climbed the long stairs, briskly preparing her lies and her defensive temper for herhusband's wrathful greeting. 

He was not there. 

CHAPTER IX

Kedzie had no sooner rejoiced in the fortunate absence of herhusband than she began to worry because he was away. Where was heand with whom? She sat by the window and looked up and down thestreet, but she could find none among the pedestrians who lookedlike her possessor. She forgot him in the beauty of the town--allblack velvet and diamonds. 

Once more she sat with her window open toward her Jerusalem andworshiped the holy city of her desire. That night at the Biltmoreshe was an ignorant country-town girl who had never had anything. Now she had had a good deal, including a husband. But, strangely, there was just as much to long for as before--more, indeed, forshe knew more things to want. 

As the scientist finds in every new discovery a new dark continent, in each atom a universe, so Kedzie found from each acquired desireinfinite new desires radiating fanwise to the horizon and beyond. 

At first she had wanted to know the town--now she wanted to be knownby the town. Then her father stood in her way; now, her husband. Shehad eloped from her parents with ease and they had never found heragain. She had succeeded in being lost. 

She did not want to be lost any more; but she was lost, utterlynobody to anybody that mattered. Now was her chance, but she couldnot run away from her husband and get famous without his finding her. If he found her he would spoil her fun and her fame. She did notknow how many public favorites are married, how many matinée idolsare managed by their wives. She had never heard of the prima donna'shusband. 

She fell asleep among her worries. She was awakened by the noisyentrance of her spouse. He was hardly recognizable. She thoughtat first that her eyes were bleary with sleep, but it was his facethat was bleary. He was what a Flagg caricature of him would be, with the same merciless truth in the grotesque. 

Kedzie had never seen him boozy before. She groaned, expressively, "My Gawd! you're pie-eyed. "

He sang an old song, "The girl guessed right the very first time, very firstime, verfirstime. "

He tried to take her into his arms. She slapped his hands away. Helaughed and flopped into a chair, giggling. She studied him withalmost more interest than repugnance. He was idiotically jovial, as sly as an idiot and as inscrutable. 

Without waiting to be asked he began a recital of his chronicles. He was as evidently concealing certain things as boasting of others. Kedzie rather hoped he had done something to conceal, since thatwould be an atonement for her own subtleties. 

"I have been in Bohemia, " he said, "zhenuine old Bohemia where heartsare true and eyes are blue and ev'body loves ev'body else. Downthere a handclasp is a pledzh of loyalty. There's no hypocrisyin Bohemia--not a dambit. No, sirree. The idle rish with theirshnobberies and worship of mere--mere someshing or oth' have noplace in Bohemia, for in Bohemia hearsh are true and wine is blueand--"

"Oh, shut up!" said Kedzie. 

"Thass way you're always repressin' me. You're a hopelessPhilisterine. But I have no intentions of shuttin' up, my darlin'Anita--Anita--Shh! shh!"

He was hushing himself. He was very patently remembering somethingand conspicuously warning himself not to divulge it. Kedzie loathedhim too much to care. Now that he was safely housed he ceased tointerest her. She went to bed. He spiraled into a chair to meditatehis wickedness. He felt that he was as near to being a hypocriteas was possible in Bohemia. 

He had met two talented ladies at the dinner, one was a sculptressfrom Mr. Samuel Merwin's Washington Square and the other was apaintress from Mr. Owen Johnson's Lincoln Square. Neither ladyhad had any work accepted by the Academy or bought by a dealer. Both were consequently as fierce against intrenched art as Gilfoylewas against intrenched capital and literature. 

They were there in the company of two writers. One of these could notget anything published at all except in the toy magazines, which paidlittle and late and died early. The other writer could get published, but not sold. Both were young and needed only to pound their ironson the anvil to get them hot, but they blamed the world for beingcold to true art. In time they would make the sparks fly and wouldbe in their turn assailed as mere blacksmiths by the next line ofyounger apprentices. They were at present in the same stage as anyother new business--they were building up custom in a neighborhoodof strangers. 

But at present they were suppressed, all four, men and women;suppressed and smothered as next June's flowers and weeds are heldback by the conspiracy of December's snows and the harsh criticismsof March. 

The sculptress's first name was Marguerite and Gilfoyle longed tocall her by it, after his second goblet of claret-and-water. He hada passion for first names. He had the quick enthusiasm of a lawyeror an advertising-man for a new client. Before he quite realizedthe enormity of his perfidy he was pretending to compose a poem toMarguerite. He wrote busily on an old bill of fare which had alreadybeen persecuted by an artist or two. And he wrote his Anita poemover again in Marguerite's honor, _mutatis mutandis_. 

 Pretty maid, pretty maid, may I say Marguerita? Your last name is sweet, but your first name is sweeter. 

And so on to the bitter end. 

He slipped the lyric to Marguerite and she read it with squeals ofdelight, while Gilfoyle looked as modest as such a genius could. The other girl had to read it, of course, while Gilfoyle tried tolook unconscious. He was as successful as one is who tries to holda casual expression for a photograph. 

The other girl's reward was a shrug and the diluted claret ofa "Very nice!" Gilfoyle said, "You're no judge or else you'rejealous. " The two men read it, and said, "Mush!" and "Slushgusher!"but Marguerite's eyes belonged to Gilfoyle the rest of the evening, also her hands now and then. 

Remembering this, Gilfoyle was uneasy. One ought to be careful tokeep an aseptic memory at home. Yet if this was not infidelity, whatwould be? In a rich man Gilfoyle would have called it a typicalresult of the evil influence of wealth. In the absence of wealth itwas a gay little Pierrot-perfidy of the _vie de Bohême_. Still, poets have to be like that. An actor must make love to whateverleading lady confronts him, and so must poets, the lawyers and pressagents of love. 

But when he got home Gilfoyle repented as he remembered. He sufferedon a rack of guilty bliss, but he managed to hold back the secretwhich was bubbling up in him with a bromo-seltzer effervescence. Incidentally his "pretty maid, pretty maid, Marguerite" had keptback the fact that she had a husband in the hardware business inTerre Haute. What the husband was keeping back is none of thishistory's business. 

It was all as old and unoriginal as original sin. The important thingto Kedzie was the fact that shortly after the poem had been revampeda stranger had joined, first in song with Gilfoyle's table-load andthen in conversation. He had ended by introducing his companion andbringing her over. Had it not been for the fine democracy of Bohemiathey would have cut the creature dead. She was a buyer, one of MissFerber's Emma McChesneys on a lark. 

Gilfoyle did not tell Kedzie any of this. He told what followed ashe toiled at the fearfully complicated problem of his shoe-laces, a problem rendered almost insuperable by the fact that he could nothold his foot high very long and dared not hold his head low at all. 

"Wonnerful thing happent t'night, Anita. Just shows you never knowwhere your lucksh goin' to hit you. I'm down there with--er--er--couple of old frensh, you know, and who comes over to our table butbig feller from out Wesh--Chicago--Chicago--Gobbless Ch'cag! His nameis entitled Deshler. In coursh conv'sation I mention BreathasweetaShewing Gum--see?--he says he knew that gum and he'd sheen theadvershments, bes' ol' ad-vershments ever sheen, thass what Mr. Beshler said and I'm not lyin' to you, Anita. No, sir. 

"Whereupon--whereupon I modesly remark, 'Of course they're clever--nashurally they're clever, because they were written by l'i'lMr. ME!' He says, 'You really wrote 'em?' and I say, 'I roallywretem!' And Mr. Keshler says, 'Well, I'll be g'dam'. ' Then hesays, 'Who coined that name Breathasweeta?' And I says, 'I did!'and he says, 'Well, I'll be g'dam'!'

"Anyway, to make long shory stort, Mr. Nestor he says, 'What youdoin' now? Writen copy for the Kaiser or the K-zar?' and I says, 'I am a gen'leman of leisure, ' and he says, 'There's a good jobwaitin' fer lad your size out in Ch'cag! Would you come 'way outthere?' and I says, 'I fear nothing!'

"So Mr. Zeisselberg wrote his name on a card, and if I haven't los'card, or he doesn't change his old mind, I am now Mr. John J. Jobof Chicago. And now I got a unsolishited posish--imposishiblesolishion--solution--unpolusion solishible--you know what I mean. So kiss me!"

Kedzie escaped the kiss, but she asked, with a sleepy eagerness, "Did you tell him you were married?"

"Nashurly not, my dear. It was stric'ly business conv'sation. I didn' ask him how many shildren he had and he didn' ask me ifI was a Benedictine or a--or a pony of brandy--thass pretty good. Hope I can rememmer it to-mor'. "

Kedzie smiled, but not at his boozy pun. She seemed more comfortable. She fell asleep. Next to being innocent, being absolved is the mostsoothing of sensations. 

CHAPTER X

The next morning that parrot, still unmurdered, woke Kedzie early. She buried one ear deep in the pillow and covered the other withher hair and her hand. The parrot's voice receded to a distance, but a still smaller voice began to call to her. She was squirmingdeeper for a long snooze when her foot struck another. 

Her husband!--King Log, audibly a-slumber. She pouted drowsily, frowned, slid away, and tried to commit temporary suicide bydrowning herself in sleep. 

Then her stupor faded as the tiny call resounded again in her soul. She was no longer merely Mrs. Anita Gilfoyle, the flat-dwellingnobody. She was now Anita Adair, the screen-queen. She was neededat the studio. 

She sat up, looked at her husband, her unacknowledged andunacknowledging husband. A mysterious voice drew her from his sideas cogently as the hand of Yahweh drew the rib that became a womanfrom under the elbow of Adam. 

She rose and looked back and down at the man whom the law had unitedher with indissolubly. Eve must have wondered back at Adam withthe same sense of escape while he lay asleep. According to one ofthe conflicting legends of the two gods of Genesis, woman was thenactually one with man. Marriage has ever since been an effort toput her back among his ribs, but she has always refused to beintercostal. It is an ancient habit to pretend that she is, andsometimes she pretends to snuggle into place. Yet she has never been, can never be, re-ribbed--especially not since marriage is an attemptto fit her into the anatomy of an Adam who is always, in a sense, a stranger to her. 

Kedzie gazed on her Adam with a sense of departure, of farewell. She felt a trifle sorry for Gilfoyle, and the moment she resolvedto quit him he became a little more attractive. 

There was something pitiful about his helpless sprawl: his veryawkwardness endeared him infinitesimally. She nearly felt thattenderness which good wives and fond mothers feel for the gawkycreatures they hallow with their devotion. 

Kedzie leaned forward to kiss the poor wretch good-by, but, unfortunately (or fortunately), a restlessness seized him, herolled over on his other side, and one limp, floppy hand struckKedzie on the nose. 

She sprang back with a gasp of pain and hurried away, feelingabused and exiled. 

At the studio she was received by Garfinkel with distinction. Ferriday came out to meet her with a shining morning face and ledher to the office of the two backers. 

A contract was waiting for her and the pen and ink were handy. Kedziehad never seen a contract before and she was as afraid of this oneas if it were her death warrant. It was her life warrant, rather. She tried to read it as if she had signed dozens of contracts, butshe fooled nobody. She could not make head or tail of "the party ofthe first part" and the terms exacted of movie actors. She understoodnothing but the salary. One hundred dollars a week! That bloomed likea rose in the crabbed text. She would have signed almost anythingfor that. 

The deed was finally done. Her hundred-odd pounds of flesh belongedto the Hyperfilm Company. The partners gave her their short, warmhands. Ferriday wrung her palm with his long, lean fingers. Then hecaught her by the elbow and whisked her into his studio. He beganto describe her first scene in the big production. The backers hadinsisted that she prove her ability as a minor character in a playfeaturing another woman. Kedzie did not mind, especially whenFerriday winked and whispered: "We'll make you make her look likesomething the cat brought in. First of all, those gowns of yours--"

She had told him of her ill luck the day before in finding LadyPowell-Carewe out. He sent her flying down again in his limousine. She stepped into it now with assurance. It was beginning to beher very own. At least she was beginning to own the owner. 

She felt less excitement about the ride now that it was not herfirst. She noticed that the upholstery was frayed in spots. Othercars passed hers. The chauffeur was not so smart as some of thedrivers. And he was alone. On a few of the swagger limousines therewere two men in livery on the box. She felt rather ashamed of havingonly one. 

Her haughty discontent fell from her when she arrived at LadyPowell-Carewe's shop. She wished she had not come alone. She didnot know how to behave. And what in Heaven's name did you callher--"Your Ladyship" or "Your Majesty" or what?

She walked in so meekly and was so simply clad that nobody inthe place paid any heed to her at first. It was a very busy place, with girls rushing to and fro or sauntering limberly up and downin tremendously handsome gowns. 

Kedzie could not pick out Lady Powell-Carewe. One of the promenaderswas so tall and so haughty that Kedzie thought she must be at leasta "Lady. " She was in a silvery, shimmery green-and-gray gown, andthe man whom the customers called "Mr. Charles" said:

"Madame calls this the Blown Poplar. Isn't it bully?"

Kedzie caught Mr. Charles's eye. He spoke to her sharply:

"Well?"

He evidently thought her somebody looking for a job as bundle-carrier. She was pretty, but there were tons of pretty girls. They bored Mr. Charles to death. He had a whole beagle-pack of them to care for. 

Kedzie poked at him Ferriday's letter of introduction addressed toLady Powell-Carewe. Mr. Charles took it and, not knowing what itcontained, bore it into the other room without asking Kedzie tosit down. 

He reappeared at the door and bowed to her with great amazement. Sheslipped into a chaotic room where there were heaps of fabrics thrownabout like rubbish, long streamers of samples littering a desk fullof papers. 

A sumptuous creature of stately manner bowed creakily to Kedzie, and Kedzie said, trying to remember the pronunciation:

"Lady Pole-Carrier?"

A little plainly dressed woman replied: "Yes, my child. So you'rethe Adair thing that Ferriday is gone half-witted over. He's justbeen talking my ear off about you. Sit down. Stop where you are. Let me see you. Turn around. I see. " She turned to the stately dame. "Rather nice, isn't she, Mrs. Congdon? H'mm!" She beckoned Kedzieto come close. "What are your eyes like?" She lorgnetted theterrified girl, as if she were a throat-specialist. "Take off thathorrid hat. Let me see your hair. H'mm! Rather nice hair, isn't it, Mrs. Congdon?--that is, if she knew how to do it. Let me see. Yes, I get your color, but it will be a job to suit you and that infernalmovie-camera. It kills my colors so! I have to keep remembering thatcrimson photographs black and cream is dirty, and blue and yelloware just nothing. "

Mr. Charles came in to say that Mrs. Noxon was outside. Kedzierecognized the great name with terror. Lady Powell-Carewe snapped:

"Tell the old camel I'm ill. I can't see her to-day. I'm ill toeverybody to-day. I've taken a big job on. "

This was sublime. To have aristocrats turned away for her!

While Madame prowled among the fabrics and bit her lorgnon instudy, Kedzie looked over the big albums filled with photographsof the creations of the great creatrix. For Lady Powell-Carewe wasa creative artist, taking her ideas where she found them in artor nature, and in revivals and in inventions. She took her colorschemes from paintings, old and new, from jewels, landscapes. Itwas said that she went to Niagara to study the floods of color thattumble over its brink. 

She began to interest herself in Kedzie, to wish to accomplish morethan the mere selling of dress goods made up. She decided to createKedzie as well as her clothes. 

"Do you wear that pout all the time?" she asked. 

"Do I pout?" Kedzie asked, in an amazement. 

"Don't pretend that you don't know it and do it intentionally. Alsowhy do you Americans always answer a question by asking another?"

"Do we?" said Kedzie. 

Lady Powell-Carewe decided that Kedzie was as short on brains asshe was long on looks. But it was the looks that Lady Powell-Carewewas going to dress, and not the brains. 

She ordered Kedzie to spend a lot of money having her hair caredfor expertly. 

She tried various styles on Kedzie, ordering her to throw off herfrock and stand in her combination while Mrs. Congdon and Mr. Charles brought up armloads of silks and velvets and draped themon Kedzie as if she were a clothes-horse. 

The feel of the crisp and whispering taffetas, the elevation ofthe brocades, the warm nothingness of the chiffons like wispsof fog, the rich dignity of the cloths, gave Kedzie rapture onrapture. Standing there with a burden of fabrics upon her and LadyPowell-Carewe kneeling at her feet pinning them up and tucking themhere and there, Kedzie was reminded of those ancient days of sixmonths gone when her mother used to kneel about her and fit on herthe home-made school-dress cut according to Butterick patterns. Now Kedzie had a genuine Lady at her feet. It was a triumph indeed. It was not hard now to believe that she would have all the worldat her feet one day. 

Lady Powell-Carewe used Kedzie's frame as a mere standard to flybanners from. Leaving the head and shoulders to stand out likethe wax bust of a wistful doll, she started a cloud of fabricabout her in the most extravagant fashion. She reined it in sharplyat the waist, but again it flared to such distances on all sides thatKedzie could never have sailed through any door but that of a garagewithout compression. 

On this vast bell of silk she hung streamers of rosettes, flowers ofcolors that would have been strident if they had been the eighteenthof a shade stronger. As it was, they were as delicious as creamcurdled in a syrup of cherries. The whole effect would have beenburlesque if it had not been the whim of a brilliant taste. Menwould look it at and say, "Good Lord!" Women would murmur, enviously, "Oh, Lord!" Kedzie's soul expanded to the ultimate fringe of thefarthest furbelow. 

When the fantasy was assured Lady Powell-Carewe had Kedzie extractedfrom it. Then pondering her sapling slenderness, once more she caughtfrom the air an inspiration. She would incase Kedzie in a sheath ofsoft, white kid marked with delicate lines and set off with blackgloves and a hat of green leaves. And this she would call "The WhiteBirch. "

And that was all the creating she felt up to for the day. She hadKedzie's measure taken in order to have a slip made as a modelfor use in the hours when Kedzie should be too busy to standfor fitting. 

It was well for Kedzie that there was a free ride waiting for her. Her journey to the studio was harrowed by the financial problemwhich has often tortured people in limousines. She did not like toask Mr. Ferriday for money in advance. He might think she was poor. There is nothing that bankrupts the poor so much as the effort tolook unconcerned while they wait for their next penny. 

Kedzie was frantic with worry and was reduced to prayer. "O Lord, send me some money somehow. " The number of such prayers going upto heaven must cause some embarrassment, since money can usuallybe given to one person only by taking it from another--and thatother is doubtless praying for more at the very moment. 

To Kedzie's dismay, when she arrived at the studio and asked forMr. Ferriday, Mr. Garfinkel appeared. He was very deferential, buthe was, after all, only a Garfinkel and she needed a Ferriday. Heexplained that his chief was very busy and had instructed Garfinkelto teach Miss Adair the science of make-up for the camera, to taketest pictures of her, and give her valuable hints in lens behavior. 

Late in the afternoon Ferriday came in to see the result of thefirst lesson. He said, "Much obliged, Garfinkel" and Garfinkelremembered pressing duty elsewhere. 

His departure left Kedzie alone with Ferriday in a cavern pitchblack save for the cone of light spreading from the little hole inthe wall at the back to the screen where the spray of light-dustbecame living pictures of Kedzie. 

Kedzie did not know that the operator behind the wall could peek andpeer while his picture-wheel rolled out the cataract of photographs. Ferriday was careful of her--or of himself. He held her hand, of course, and murmured to her how stunning she was, but he madeno effort to make love, to her great comfort and regret. 

At length he invited her to ride home in his limousine, but he didnot invite her to dinner. She told herself that she would have hadto decline. But she would have liked to be asked. 

While he rhapsodized once more about her future she was thinking ofher immediate penury. As she approached the street of her residenceshe realized that she must either starve till pay-day or borrow. It was a bad beginning, but better than a hopeless ending. Afterseveral gasps of hesitation she finally made her plea:

"I'm awfully sorry to have to trouble you, Mr. Ferriday, butI'm--Well, could you lend me twenty-five dollars?"

"My dear child, take fifty, " he cried. 

She shook her head, but it hurt her to see the roll of bills hedived for and brought up, and the careless grace with which hepeeled two leaves from the cabbage. Easy money is always attendedwith resentment that more did not come along. Kedzie pouted at herfolly in not accepting the fifty. If she had said, "Lend me fifty, "he would have offered her a hundred. But the twenty-five wassalvation, and it would buy her food enough to keep her and heruseless husband alive, and to buy her a pair of shoes and somegloves. 

As the car drew near her corner she cried that she had someshopping to do and escaped again at the drug-store. 

She found her husband at home. There was an unwonted authorityabout his greeting:

"Well, young woman, you may approach and kiss my hand. I am agentleman with a job. I am a Chicago gentleman with a job. "

"You don't mean it!" Kedzie gasped; and kissed him from habit withmore respect than her recent habit had shown. 

"I mean it, " said Gilfoyle. "I am now on the staff of the DeshlerAdvertising Agency. I was afraid when Mr. D. Offered me anunsolicited position (he could say it to-day) that it was the redwine and not the real money that was talking, but he was painfullysober this noon, took me out to lunch, and told me that he would beproud to avail himself of my services. "

"Splendid!" said Kedzie, with sincere enthusiasm. It is alwayspleasant to learn that money is setting toward the family. 

But something told Kedzie that her late acquisition of twenty-fivedollars would not be with her long. Easy come, easy go. "How muchis the fare to Chicago?" she asked, in a hollow voice. 

"Twenty-two dollars is the fare, " said Gilfoyle, "with abouteight dollars extra. I couldn't borrow a cent. I've got onlyfive dollars. "

"I thought so, " said Kedzie. 

"Thought what so?" said Gilfoyle. 

"Nothing, " said Kedzie. "Well, I happen to have twenty-fivedollars. "

"That's funny, " said Gilfoyle. "Where did you get it?"

"Oh, I saved it up. "

"From what?"

"Well, do you want the twenty-five, or don't you?"

Gilfoyle pondered. If he questioned the source of the money hemight find it out, and be unable to accept it. He wanted the moneymore than the hazardous information; so he said:

"Of course I want the twenty-five, darling, but I hate to rob you. Of course I'll send for you as soon as I can make a nest out there, but how will you get along?"

"Oh, I'll get along, " said Kedzie; "there'll be some movie-moneycoming to me Saturday. "

"Well, that's fine, " Gilfoyle said, feeling a weight of horribleguilt mingled with superior wings of relief. He hesitated, hemmed, hawed, perspired, and finally looked to that old source of so manyescapes, his watch. "There's a train at eight-two; I could justabout make it if I scoot now. "

"You'd better scoot, " said Kedzie. And she gave him the money. 

"I'd like to have dinner with you, " Gilfoyle faltered, "but--"

"Yes, I'd like to have you, but--"

They looked at each other wretchedly. Their love was so lukewarmalready that they bothered each other. There was no impulse tothe delicious bitter-sweet of a passionate farewell. She was aseager to have him gone as he to go, and each blamed the otherfor that. 

"I'll write you every day, " he said, "and I'll send the fare toyou as soon as I can get it. "

"Yes, of course, " Kedzie mumbled. "Well, good-by--don't miss yourtrain, darling. "

"Good-by, honey. "

They had to embrace. Their arms went out about each other andclasped behind each other's backs. Then some impulse moved themto a fierce clench of desperate sorrow. They were embracing theirdead loves, the corpses that lay dead in these alienated bodies. It was an embrace across a grave, and they felt the thud of clodsupon their love. 

They gasped with the pity of it, and Kedzie's eyes were reekingwith tears and Gilfoyle's lips were shivering when they wrenchedout of that lock of torment. 

He caught her back to him and kissed her salt-sweet mouth. Her kisswas brackish on his lips as life was. She felt a kind of assault inthe fervor of his kiss, but she did not resist. He was a strangerwho sprang at her from the dark, but he was also very like a poetshe had loved poetically long, long ago. 

Then they wrung hands and called good-bys and he caught up hissuit-case and rushed through the door. 

She hung from the window to wave to him as he ran down the streetto the Subway, pausing now and again to wave to her vaguely, thenstumbling on his course. 

At last she could not see him, whether for the tears or for thedistance, and she bowed her head on her lonely sill and wept. 

She had a splendid cry that flushed her heart clean as a new whistle. She washed her eyes with fine cold water and half sobbed, halflaughed, "Well, that's over. "

CHAPTER XI

Charity Coe Cheever was making less progress with her amateurmovie-show than Kedzie with her professional cinematic career. 

Charity telephoned to ask Jim Dyckman to act, but he proved to becamera-shy and intractable. 

She had difficulties with all her cast. It was impossible to satisfythe people who were willing to act with the rôles they were willingto assume. 

Charity was lunching at the Ritz-Carlton with Mrs. Noxon when she sawJim Dyckman come in with his mother. Mrs. Noxon left Charity and wentover to speak to Mrs. Dyckman. So Charity beckoned Jim over and urgedhim to accept the job of impresario. 

He protested, but she pleaded for his help at least on an errandor two. 

"Jim, I want you to go up to the studio of these people and findthis great man Ferriday and get him to promise to direct for us. And by the way, that little girl you pulled out of the pool, youknow--well, they promised to get her a job at the studio. You lookher up and find out how she's doing--there's a darling. "

He shook his head, resisting her for once, and answered:

"Go to the devil, Charity darling. You won't let me love you, so I'llbe cussed if I'll let you get me to working for you. I've had you badand I'm trying to get well of you. So let me alone. "

That was how Peter Cheever, talking to the headwaiter at the head ofthe stairs, saw his wife and Jim Dyckman with their heads together ata table. He wanted to go over and crack a water-bottle over Dyckman'shead. He did not do it, for the excellent reason that Zada L'Etoilewas at his side. She had insisted on his taking her there "to lunchwith the bunch, " as she expressed it. 

She also saw Charity and Jim and Cheever's sudden flush of rage. Shefelt that the way was opening for her dreams to come true. She was sohappy over the situation that she helped Cheever out of the appallingproblem before him. 

He did not know how to go forward or how to retreat. He could thinkof nothing to say to the headwaiter who offered him his choice oftables. 

Zada caught his elbow and murmured in her very best voice just loudenough for the headwaiter's benefit:

"Mr. Cheever, I'm so sorry--but I'm feeling dizzy. I'm afraid I shallfaint if I don't get out in the air. It's very close in here. "

"It is very close, madam, " said the headwaiter, and he helped tosupport her down the steps quietly and deferentially, just as ifhe believed it. 

Zada and Cheever thought they were escaping from a crisis, but theywere drifting deeper and deeper into the converging currents. Whenthey were safe in the motor outside Zada was proud. 

"Some get-away, that?" she laughed. 

"Wonderful!" said Cheever. "I didn't know you had so much socialskill. "

"You don't know me, " she said. "I'm learning! You'll be proud of meyet. "

"I am now, " he said. "You're the most beautiful thing in the world. "

"Oh, that's old stuff, " she said. "Any cow can be glossy. But I'mgoing in for the real thing, Peterkin. I've cut out the cocktailsand I don't dance with anybody but you lately. Have you noticedthat? It's the quiet life and the nice ways for me. Do you mind?"

"It's very becoming" he said. "Anything for a novelty. "

Yet he liked her surprisingly well in this phase. She had beencutting down his liquor, too. She had been cutting down hisextravagances. She had even achieved the height of denying herselfluxuries--one of the surest and least-trodden short-cuts to a man'sheart--a little secret path he hardly knows himself. 

The affair of Zada and Cheever was going the normal course. It hadlost the charm of the wild and wicked--through familiarity; andit was tending to domestication, as all such moods do if nothinginterrupts them. There are all sorts of endings to such illicitrelations: most of them end with the mutual treachery of two ficklecreatures; some of them end with bitter grief for one or the otheror both; some of them end in crime, or at least disgrace; and someof them finish, with disconcerting immorality, in an inexcusablerespectability. 

The improvement in Zada's mind and heart was, curiously, the mostdangerous thing in the world for Cheever. If she had stayed noisyand promiscuous and bad, he would have tired of her. But she wasgrowing soft and homey, gentle as ivy, and as hard to tear away orto want to tear away. After all, marriage is only the formalizingof an instinct that existed long before--exists in some animals andbirds who mate without formality and stay mated without compulsion. 

When Zada and Cheever had escaped from the Ritz-Carlton they tooklunch at another restaurant. Zada was childishly proud of her tactand of Cheever's appreciation. But afterward, on the way "home"--asshe called what other people called her "lair"--she grew suddenlyand deeply solemn. 

"So your wife is with Dyckman again, " she said. "It looks to melike a sketch. "

Cheever flushed. He hated her slang and he did not accept herconclusion, but this time he did not forbid her to mention his wife. He could hardly do that when her tact had saved him and Charity fromthe results of their double indiscretion and the shame of amusingthat roomful of gossips. 

Zada misunderstood his silence for approval; so she spoke herthoughts aloud:

"If that He and She business goes on I suppose you'll have todivorce the lady. "

"Divorce Charity!" Cheever gasped. "Are you dotty?"

That hit Zada pretty hard, but she bore it. She came back by anotherdoor. 

"I guess I am--nearly as dotty as she is about Dyckman. First thingyou know she'll be trying to get free herself. What if she asks youfor a divorce?"

"I'd like to see her!"

"You mean you wouldn't give her her freedom?"

"Not in a thousand years. "

He was astounded at the sepulchral woe of Zada's groan. "O Lord, and I thought--oh--you don't love me at all then! You never reallyloved me--really! God help me. "

Cheever wondered what Zada would smash first. He hoped it would notbe the window of the car. He hoped he could get her safely indoorsbefore the smashing began. 

He did. She was a grim and murky storm-cloud full of tornado whenthey crossed the pavement and the vestibule of the apartment-houseand went up in the elevator. 

But once inside the door, her breast began to heave, her nostrilsto quiver, her fingers to work. Her maid came to take her hat, andpaled to see her torment. Zada gave her her things and motioned heraway. She motioned her four or five times. The maid had needed onlyone motion. 

Cheever watched Zada out of the corner of his eye and wondered whyhe had ever been fated to fall in love with such a creature. He wasconvinced that he had been fate-forced into the intrigue. He had nosense whatever of volition or wicked intent. He could only feel thathe had tried to be decent and play fair and be generous. 

The thought of what the neighbors were about to hear made him sickwith chagrin. The fact that the neighbors were under suspicionthemselves only aggravated the burden of shame. 

The hardest part of Zada's agony was her pitiful effort to takeher medicine like a lady. It was terrific how hard it was for oneof a wildcat heritage and habit to keep the caterwaul back and theclaws muffled. The self-duel nearly wrecked Zada, but she won it. She was not thoroughbred, but she had tried to be thoroughgoing. She was evidently not a success as a self-made lady. She keptwhispering to herself:

"What's the use? Oh, why did I try? Oh, oh, oh, what a fool I'vebeen! To think!--to think!--to think!"

Cheever was distraught. He had waited for the outbreak, and whenit did not come he suffered from the recoil of his own tension. 

"For the Lord's sake, yell!" he implored. 

She turned on him eyes of extraordinary abjection. She saw at lastwhere her lawlessness had brought her, and she despised herself. Butshe did not love him any the more for understanding him. She saw atlast that one cannot be an honest woman without actually being--anhonest woman. She was going to get honesty if it broke a bone. 

She told her accomplice: "I want you to go away and stay away. Whatever you do, leave me be. There's nothing else you can do for meexcept to take back all the stuff you've bought me. Give it to thatwife you love so much and wouldn't suspect no matter what she did. You love her so much that you wouldn't let her go even if she wantedto leave you. So go back to her and take these things to her with mycomp'ments. "

Now it was Cheever who wanted to scream as he had not screamedsince he was the purple-faced boy who used to kick the floor andhis adoring nurse. But he had lost the safety valve of the scream. He smothered. 

When Zada began to peel off her rings and thrust them out to him heswiftly turned on his heel and fled. He never knew whether Zada wokethe block with her howls or not when he left her forever. 

He forgot to ask when he came back. 

CHAPTER XII

First he went home to take his temper to Charity. On the way heworked up a splendid rage at her for giving such a woman as Zadagrounds for gossip. He went straight to her room and walked inwithout knocking. 

Charity was dictating a letter to her secretary. Cheever surpriseda phrase before she saw him. 

"'Thousands of blind soldiers and thousands of orphans hold out theirhands to us. We must all do what we can--' Why, hello! Where did youdrop from? Give me just a minute while I finish this letter. Let mesee. Where was I?"

The secretary read in a dull, secretarial voice:

"'Thousblinsoldiersorphs--wem'sdo'll we can. '"

"Oh yes, " said Charity. "'You have never failed to respond to suchan appeal, ' comma; no, semicolon; no, period. 'So I shall put youdown for a subscription of dash 'how much' question-mark. 'Thankingyou in adv'--no, just say, 'My husband joins me in kindest regardsto your dear wife and yourself, cordially yours'--and that will beall for the present. "

The secretary garnered her sheaves and went out. Charity saidto Cheever:

"Well, young man, sit down and tell us what's on your mind. But firstlet me tell you my troubles. There's a match on my dresser there. Peter, I'm in an awful mess with this movie stunt. I can get plentyof people to pose for the camera, but I can't find a man to managethe business end of it. I was lunching with Mrs. Noxon at the Ritzto-day. I called your friend Jim Dyckman over from another table andbegged him to take the job. But he refused flatly, the lazy brute. Don't you think you could take it on? I wish you would. It's sucha big chance to make a pile of money for those poor soldiers. "

Cheever was lost. Unconsciously she had cleared up the scandal ofher talk with Dyckman. He remembered that he had seen Mrs. Noxonat another table, standing. He felt like a dog and he wanted tofawn at the heels he had prepared to bite. He felt unworthy to bethe associate of his sainted wife in her good works. He said:

"You flatter me. I couldn't manage a thing like that. I'm busy. I--I couldn't. "

"You've got to play a part, then, " she said. "You're looking so wellnowadays, taking such good care of yourself. Will you?"

"I might, " he said. "I'll think it over. "

She was called to the telephone then and he escaped to his own room. He moped about and sulked in his uncomfortable virtue. He dressed fordinner with unusual care. He was trying to make a hit with his wife. 

In going through his pocket-book he came across two theater tickets. He had promised to take Zada. He felt like a low hound, both forplanning to take her and for not taking her. She would have a dismalevening. And she was capable of such ferocious lonelinesses. Hehad driven away all her old friends. She would recall them now, hesupposed. That would be a pity, for they were an odious gang. Itwould be his fault if she relapsed. It was his duty, in a way, tohelp her to reform. 

The ludicrous sublimity of such an ethical snarl reduced him toinanity. He stayed to dinner. Charity had not expected him to stop. She had planned an evening's excavation into her correspondence andhad not changed her street dress. She was surprised and childishlydelighted to have him with her--then childishly unhappy as sheobserved:

"But you're all togged up. You're going out. "

"No--well--that is--er--I was thinking you would like to see a show. I've got tickets. "

"But it's late. I'm not dressed. "

"What's the odds? You look all right. There's never anybody butmuckers there Saturday nights. We'll miss it all if you stopto prink. "

"All right, " she cried, and hurried through the dinner. 

He was glad at least that he had escaped a solemn evening at home. He could not keep awake at home. 

So they went to the theater; but there was not "nobody there, " ashe had promised. 

Zada was there--alone in a box, dressed in her best, and wearingher East-Lynniest look of pathos. 

The coincidence was not occult. After several hours of brave battlewith grief and a lonely dinner Zada had been faced by the appallingprospect of an evening alone. 

She remembered Cheever's purchase of the theater tickets, and shewas startled with an intuition that he would take his wife in herplace. Men are capable of such indecent economies. 

Zada was suffocated with rage at the possibility. She alwaysbelieved implicitly in the worst things she could think of. IfPeter Cheever dared do such a thing! And of course he would! Well, she would just find out!

She threw a lonely wineglass at the fern-dish and smashed a decanter. Then she pushed off the table about a hundred dollars' worth ofchinaware, and kicked her chair over backward. She had been famousfor her back-kick in her public dancing-days. 

She howled to her maid and went into her wardrobe with both hands. She acted like a windmill in a dress-shop. Finally she came uponwhat she was looking for--the most ladylike theater-gown that evercombined magnificence with dazzling respectability. 

She made up her face like a lady's--it took some paint to do that. Meanwhile, her maid was telephoning speculators for a box. Zadaarrived before Cheever and Charity did. She waited a long time, haughtily indifferent to the admiration she and her gown wereachieving. At last she was punished and rewarded, revenged, anddestroyed by the sight of Cheever coming down the aisle with Charity. They had to pause to let a fat couple rise, and they paused, facingZada. Cheever caught her eye and halted, petrified, long enough forCharity to sit down, look up at him, follow the line of his gaze, and catch a full blast of Zada's beauty and of the fierce look shefastened on Cheever. Charity's eyes ran back on the almost visibleclothes-line of that taut gaze and found Cheever wilting withseveral kinds of shame. 

He sat down glum and scarlet, and Charity's heart began to throb. A second glance told her who Zada was. She had seen the woman oftenwhen Zada had danced in the theaters and the hotel ballrooms. 

Charity found herself thinking that she was not Cheever's wife, but only a poor relation--by marriage. The worst of it was that shewas not dressed for the theater. The gown she wore was exquisite inits place, but it was dull and informal and it gave her no help inthe ordeal she was suddenly submitted to. Her hair had not beencoiffed by the high-elbowed artist with the waving-tongs. Her brainswere not marceled for a beauty-contest with her rival. She was ather worst and Zada was at her supreme. 

Zada was not entirely unknown to Charity. She had not been ableto escape all the gossip that linked Cheever with her, but she hadnaturally heard little of it, and then only from people of the sortwho run to their friends with all the bad news they can collect. They are easily discredited. 

Charity had spent so many bad hours wondering at her husband'sindifference and had heard his name linked with so many names thatshe had temporized with the situation. Cheever was of the sort thatlooks at every woman with desire, or looks as if he looked so. Thewives of such men grow calloused or quit them. 

Charity had not quit Cheever. She had hardly dreamed of it. She hadnot outgrown being hurt. Her slow wrath had not begun to manifestitself. This crushing humiliation smote her from a clear sky. 

She was not ready for it. She did not know what to do. She only knew, by long training, that she must not do what she first wanted to do. She had been taught from childhood what Zada was only now tryingto learn. 

Charity pretended a great interest in her program and laughedflightily. Cheever was morose. He stole glances at Zada and saw thatshe was in anguish. He felt that he had treated her like dirt. He wasunworthy of her, or of his wife, or of anything but a horsewhip. 

He glanced at Charity and was fooled by her casual chatter. Hesupposed that she was as ignorant of the affair with Zada as hewanted her to be. He wished that he could pretend to be unconcerned, but he could not keep his program from shivering; his throat was fullof phlegm; he choked on the simplest words. He thought for some trickof escape, a pretended illness, a remembered business engagement, a disgust with the play. 

He was afraid to trust his voice to any proposal or even to go outbetween the acts. 

The worst of it was that he felt sorrier for Zada than for his wife. Poor Zada had nothing, Charity had everything. How easily we voteother people everything! Cheever was afraid of the ride home withCharity; he dreaded to be at home to-night and to-morrow and always. He longed to go to Zada and help her and let her revile him andscratch him, perhaps, provided only that she would throw her armsabout him afterward. He never imagined that a duel of self-control, a mortal combat in refinement, was being fought over him by thosetwo women. 

Zada's strength gave out long before Charity's; she was newer tothe game. During a dark scene she surrendered the field and decamped. But Cheever and his wife both caught the faint shimmer of herrespectable robe as it floated from the rail and vanished in thecurtains. It was like a dematerialization at a séance. 

Cheever wanted to crane his neck and dared not. Charity felt a greatwithdrawal of support in the flight of her rival. She had not Zada'spresence now to sustain her through the last act. But she sat it out. 

She was bitter against Cheever, and her thoughts dark. The burdenof his infidelity was heavy enough for her to bear, but for him tosubject her to such a confrontation was outrageous. She had no doubtthat it was a cooked-up scheme. That vile creature had planned itand that worm of a husband had consented to it!

The most unforgivable thing of all, of course, was the clothesof it. 

Charity, in the course of time, forgave nearly everybody everything, but she never forgave her husband that. 

On the way home she had nothing to say. Neither had Cheever. Hefelt homesick for Zada. Charity felt homeless. She must have beenthe laughing-stock or the pitying-stock of the whole world fora long time. 

When they reached home she bade Cheever a perfectly cheerfulgood-night and left him to a cold supper the butler had laid outfor him. She did not know that he stole from the house and flewto Zada. 

Charity was tempted to an immediate denunciation of Cheever anda declaration of divorce. She would certainly not live with himanother day. That would be to make herself an accomplice, a silentpartner of Zada's. It would be intolerable, immoral, not nice. 

CHAPTER XIII

The next morning proved to be a Sunday and she felt a need ofspiritual help in her hour of affliction. Man had betrayed her;religion would sustain her grim determination to end the unwholesomecondition of her household. The Bible said (didn't it?), "If thyright hand offend thee, cut it off. " That surely meant, "If thyhusband offend thee, divorce him. "

She went to church, her ancestral Episcopalian church, where herrevered Doctor Mosely, the kindliest old gentleman in the world, had poured sermons down at her like ointment and sent prayers uplike smoke since she was a little girl. But on this day he choseto preach a ferocious harangue against divorce as the chief peril, the ruination of modern society. 

The cowering Charity got from him the impression that home lifehad always been flawless in this country until the last few years, when divorce began to prosper, and that domestic life in countrieswhere there is little or no divorce had always been an unmitigatedsuccess. If only divorce and remarriage were ended, the millenniumof our fathers would return. 

This had not been her previous opinion; it was her vivid impressionfrom Doctor Mosely, as honest an old darling as ever ran factsthrough a sieve and threw away all the big chunks that would notgo through the fine mesh of his prejudices. He abhorred falsehood, cruelty, skepticism, sectarianism, and narrowness, and his sermonswere unconscious mixtures of hand-picked truth and eloquent legends, ruthless denunciations of misunderstood people and views, atheismtoward the revelations of all the sciences (particularly the scienceof biblical criticism, which he hated worse than he hated Haeckel), and a narrowness that kept trying to sharpen itself into a razoredge. 

Fortunately he belied in his life almost all of his pulpit crimesand moved about, a tender, chivalrous, lovable old gentleman. Itwas this phase that Charity knew, for she had not heard one of hissermons for a year or more, though she saw him often in his parishwork. She was the more amenable to his pulpit logic to-day. 

Charity had always assumed that the United States was the mostvirtuous, enlightened, and humane of nations. According to DoctorMosely, it was shockingly corrupt, disgusting. The family as aninstitution was almost completely gone; its only salvation would bean immediate return to a divorceless condition. (Like that of Italyand Spain and France during the Middle Ages?)

Hitherto Charity had not thought much about divorce, except to regretthat certain friends of hers had not hit it off better and had had toundergo cruel notoriety after their private distresses. But divorcewas no longer an academic question to her. It had come home. 

When she realized that her husband had been not only neglectfulof her, but devoted to a definite other woman, she felt at firstthat it would be heinous to receive him back in her arms fresh fromthe arms of a vile creature like Zada L'Etoile. Now she got fromthe pulpit the distinct message that just this was her one importantduty, and that any attempt to break from such a triple yoke would bea monstrous iniquity which the Church could not condone. 

Doctor Mosely implied that when one partner to a marriage wanderedaside into forbidden paths (as he very prettily phrased the very uglymatter) it was always the fault of the other partner. He thunderedthat the wives of to-day were not like their simple-minded mothers, because they played bridge and smoked cigarettes and did not attendprayer-meetings and would not have children. It was small wonder, he said, that their husbands could not be held. Doctor Mosely hadpreached the same sermon at Charity's mother and her generation, and his father had preached it at his generation, with the necessaryterms changed and the spirit the same. He and his kind had beentrying since time began to cure the inherent ills of humanrelationships by railing at old errors and calling them new. 

So in the dark ages the good priests had tried to cure insane peopleby shouting denunciations at the devils that inhabited them. Theless they cured the louder they shouted, and when the remedy failedthey blamed the patients. 

So fathers try to keep their little sons from being naughty anduntruthful by telling them how good and obedient little boys werewhen they were little boys. They tell a silly lie to rebuke a lieand wonder at their non-success. 

Marital unrest is no more a sign of wickedness than stomach-ache is;it is a result of indigestion or ptomaine poisoning, and divorce isonly a strong purge or an emetic, equally distressing and oftenthe only remedy. 

But Doctor Mosely honestly abominated divorce; he regretted italmost as much as he regretted the Methodist Episcopal heresiesor the perverseness of the low-Church doctrines. 

Charity had always been religious; she had wrecked her healthvisiting the sick and cherishing the orphan and she had believedeverything she was told to believe. But now when she went to churchfor strength and comfort she came away feeling herself a condemnedand branded failure, blameworthy for all her husband's sins and sinsof her own that she had not suspected. 

She prayed to be forgiven for causing her husband to sin and askedstrength to win him back to his duty. She reached home in such amood of holy devotion that when she found her husband there shebespoke him tenderly and put out her arms to him and moaned:

"Forgive me!"

"For what?" he said as he went to her from habit before he couldcheck himself. But even as he clasped her she felt that his verysleeves were warm from Zada L'Etoile's embrace and she slippedthrough his arms to the floor. 

When she came to, she was lying on a couch with a cushion underher heels, and Cheever was chafing her wrists and kissing her hand. She drew it away feebly and said:

"Thank you. I'll be all right. Just leave me alone. "

He remembered that Zada had said much the same thing. He was gladto leave the room. When he had gone Charity got up and washed herhands, particularly the hand, particularly the spot, he had kissed. 

She seemed to feel that some of the rouge from Zada's lips had beenleft there by Cheever's lips. There was a red stain there and shecould not wash it away. Perhaps it was there because she tried sohard to rub it off. But it tormented her as she went sleep-walking, rubbing her hand like another Lady Macbeth. 

CHAPTER XIV

On Monday there was a meeting of one of the committees she hadorganized for the furtherance of what she called the movie stunt. The committee met at the Colony Club. Most of the committee werewomen of large wealth and of executive ability, and they accomplisheda deal of business with expedition in their own way. 

There was some chatter, but it was to the point. At length duringa discussion of various forms of entertainment Mrs. Noxon said shewas afraid that the show would be deadly dull with only amateurs init. Mrs. Dyckman thought that professionals would make the amateurslook more amateurish than ever. The debate swayed from side to side, but finally inclined toward the belief that a few professional bitswould refresh the audience. 

And then suddenly Mrs. Neff had to sing out: "Oh, Charity, I'vean idea. Let's get some stunning dancer to do a special number. I remember one who would be just the ticket. What's the name--ZadaLe Something or other. She's a gorgeous creature. Have you seen herrecently?"

Several women began signaling wildly to Mrs. Neff to keep quiet. Charity saw their semaphores at work, but Mrs. Neff was blind--blind, but not speechless. She kept on singing the praises of Zada tilleverybody wanted to gag her. 

An open mind to gossip is an important thing. We ought to keep upwith all the scandals concerning our friends and enemies. Otherwisewe lose many an opportunity to undercut the latter and we areconstantly annoying the former. 

It was Mrs. Neff, of all people--and she loved Charity Coedearly--who caused her public shame and suffering. Mrs. Neffhad defended Charity from the slanderous assumptions of PrissyAtterbury and had refused to listen to Pet Bettany's echoes. 

She had, indeed, a bad reputation for rebuking well-meaningdisseminators of spice. This attitude discouraged several personswho would otherwise have told her all sorts of interesting thingsabout Charity's husband's _entente cordiale_ with Zada. 

Charity had dwelt in a fool's paradise of trust in Peter Cheeverfor a while, then had dropped back into a fool's purgatory of doubt, where she wandered bewildered. Now she was thrown into the fool'shell. She knew that her love had been betrayed. Everybody else knewit and was wondering how she would act. 

Charity was sick. This was really more than she had bargained for. As before, she felt it immodest to expose her emotions in public, so she said:

"Yes, I've seen her. She is very attractive, isn't she? I don't knowif she is dancing in public any more, but I'll find out. "

Mrs. Neff sat back triumphantly and let the meeting proceed. Butthere was a gray pall on the occasion. Women began to look at theirwrist-watches and pretend to be shocked at the lateness of the hour, and all of them shook hands solemnly with Charity. There was a poorlyveiled condolence in their tone. 

Charity carried it off pluckily, but she was in a dangerous humor. She really could not endure the patronizing mercy of these women. 

That night Cheever made again his appearance at the dinner-table. He had some notion of putting Charity off her guard or of atoningto her in part for his resumed alliance with Zada. He could not havetold what his own motives were, for he was in a state of bewildermentbetween his duties to Mrs. Charity Tweedledum and Miss ZadaTweedledee. He could not tell which one had the greater claimon his favors. 

Charity studied him across the table and wondered what he really was, faun or traitor, Mormon or weakling. He was certainly handsome, butthe influence of Zada L'Etoile seemed to hang about him like a greenslime on a statue. 

She could not find any small talk to carry the meal along. At lengthCheever asked:

"What you been up to all day?"

"Oh, committee stuff--that movie thing, you know. "

"How's it coming on? Got a manager yet?"

"Not yet. We were talking about getting some professionals into brighten up the evening. "

"Good work! Those amateurs make me sick. "

"Mrs. Neff proposed that we get some stunning dancer to do a turn. "

"Not a bad idea. For instance--"

He emptied his glass of Chablis and the butler was standing byto refill it when Charity answered:

"Mrs. Neff suggested a dancer I haven't seen on the stage for sometime. You used to admire her. "

"Yes?" said Cheever, pushing his glass along the table towardthe butler, who began to pour as Charity slid home her _coupde grâce_. 

"Zada L'Etoile. What's become of her?"

Cheever's eyes gaped and his jaws dropped. The butler's expressionwas the same. He poured the Chablis on the back of Cheever's handand neither noticed it till Charity laughed hysterically and drovethe sword a little deeper:

"Is she still alive? Have you seen her?"

Cheever glared at her, breathed hard, swore at the butler, wipedhis hand on his napkin, gnawed his lips, twisted his mustache, threw down the napkin, rose, and left the table. 

Charity's smile turned to a grimace. She saw that the butler wasashamed of her. He almost told her that she ought to have knownbetter than subject him and the other servants to such a scene. 

Charity caught herself about to say, "I beg your pardon, Hammond. "

She felt as if she ought to beg the pardon of everybody in the world. 

She could not stand the lonely dining-room long. She rose and walkedout. It seemed that she would never reach the door. It was a _viacrucis_ to her. Her back ached with the sense of eyes upon it. 

The hall was lonely. The thud of the front door jarred her. She wentinto the library. It was a dark and frowning cavern. She went intothe music-room, approached the piano, looked over the music, turnedup "Go, Lovely Rose. " The rose that Jim Dyckman said she was had beenthrown into the mud. She went up to her room. The maid was arrangingher bed for the night. She had turned down one corner of the cover, built up one heap of pillows, set one pair of slippers by the edge. 

Charity felt like a rejected old spinster. She sat and mused andher thoughts were bitter. She remembered Doctor Mosely's sermonand wondered if he would preach what he preached if he knew whatshe knew. She would go to him and tell him. 

But what did she know? Enough to convince herself, but nothing atall that even a preacher would call evidence. 

She must have proof. She resolved to get it. There must be anabundance of it. She wondered how one went at the getting ofevidence. 

CHAPTER XV

While Charity was resolving to tear down her life Kedzie Thropp wasbuilding herself a new one on the foundations that Charity had laidfor her with a card of introduction to Miss Havender. 

In the motion-picture world Kedzie had found herself. Her verylimitations were to her advantage. She would have failed dismallyin the spoken drama, but the flowing photograma was just to hermeasure. 

The actor must not only know how to read his lines and expressemotions, but must keep up the same spontaneity night after night, sometimes for a thousand performances or more. The movie actoris expected to respond to a situation once or twice for rehearsal, and once or twice for the camera. There is no audience to struggleagainst and listen for--and to. The director is always there atthe side calling, reminding, pleading, encouraging, threatening, suggesting the thoughts, the lines, and the expression, doing allthe work except the pantomime. 

That was Kedzie's salvation. Tell her a story and make her theheroine of it, and her excitable heart would thrill to the emotionalcrisis. Take a snapshot of her, and the picture was caught. 

Ferriday soon learned this and protected her from her own helplessvice of discontent. She lapsed always from her enthusiasm afterit was once cold. As an actress she would have been one of thosefrequent flashers who give a splendid rehearsal or two and then sinkback into a torpor. She might have risen to an appealing first-nightperformance. Thereafter, she would have become dismal. The secondweek would have found the audiences disgusted and the third wouldhave found her breaking her contract and running away with somebody. A horse that has run away once is likely to run away again. Kedziehad run away twice. 

But the movie life was just the thing for her. She did not playalways the same set scenes in the same scene sets. She was notrequired even to follow the logic of the story. For a while shewould play a bit in a tiny angle representing a drawing-room. Whenthat was taken she would play, not the next moment of the story, but the next scene in that scene. It might be a year further alongin the story. It was exciting. 

Her second picture had great success. She played the girl brought upas a boy by a cruel Italian padrone who made her steal. Her thirdpicture was as nearly the same as possible. 

Now she was a ragged waif, a girl, who dressed as a boy and soldnewspapers so as to keep her old father in liquor. The garret wasa rickety table, a rusty stove, a broken chair, and a V of paintedcanvas walls with a broken window and a paper snowstorm fallingback of it. There Kedzie was found in very becoming ragged breeches, pouting with starvation. Her father drove her out for gin. 

She walked out of the set, picked up a bottle, and brought it back. The scene in the saloon would be taken later: also the street scenesto and from. 

An officer of the "Cruelty" came and took her from the garret. Thatwas the beginning of a series of adventures culminating in a marriagewith a multimillionaire. While the garret was set, the finish ofthe story was taken. 

She ran and changed her costume to one of wealth with ermine. Shecame in with the handsome young millionaire. It was the next winter. Her father was dying. He asked her forgiveness and gave her hisblessing. Then Kedzie changed back to her first costume and wentin the motor to a dismal street where she was shown coming out ofthe tenement, and going back to it gin-laden, and again with theofficer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. 

She changed once more to her wealthy garb with the ermine and wasphotographed going in with her young millionaire. 

The next day the scene in the Cruelty office was built and she actedin it. The drawing-room in the millionaire's home was assembled andshe acted in that. Then she went out in rags and sold newspaperson a corner. So it went. The chronology hopelessly jumbled, butthe change incessant. 

The studio was a palace of industry. Many of the scenes were playedon the great glass-covered roof. On bright days she would ride ina closed automobile to some street or some lonely glen or to thehome of some wealthy person who had lent his house to the movieson the bribe of a gift to his favorite benevolence. 

There was the thrill of sitting in the projection-room and watchingherself scamper across the scene, or flirt or weep, look pretty orgorgeous, sad or gay. 

One's own portrait is always a terribly fascinating thing, for itis always the inaccurate portrait of a stranger curiously akin toone and curiously alien. But to see one's portrait move and breatheand feel is magic unbelievable. 

In the enlarged close-ups when Kedzie was a girl giantess, the effectwas uncanny. She loved herself and was glad of the friendly dark thathid her own wild pride in her beauty, but did not prevent her fromhearing the exclamations of Ferriday and the backers and the otheractors who were admitted to the preliminary views. 

There was a quality in her work that surpassed Ferriday'sexpectations and made her pantomime singularly legible. Themodulations of her thought from one extreme mood to another werealways traceable. This was true of the least feelings. Ferridaywould say: "Now you decide to telephone your lover. You hesitate, you telephone, a girl answers, you wait, he speaks, you smile. "

Kedzie would nod with impatient zest and one could read eachgradation of thought. "I'd better telephone him. I will. No, I'dbetter not. Yes. No. Shall I? Well, I will. Hello! Hello, Central!Hurry up! Gramercy 816. What takes so long? Is this Gramercy 816?Mr. Monteith. Oh, isn't she smart? What keeps him? Is he out? No, there he is! Oh, joy! I must be very severe. Hello, Harry. "

All these thoughts the spectator could follow. They ran, as itwere, under her skin. There was no stolidity or phlegm. She wasastoundingly alive and real. Unimportant, without sublimity ofemotion or intellectual power, she was irresistibly real. Thepublic understood all she told it, and adored her. 

Her petulance, quick temper, pretty discontent, did not harm heron the screen, but helped immensely, for they gave her character. It was delicious to see her eyes narrow with sudden resentment orgirlish malice and widen again with equally abrupt affection. Shewas so pretty that she could afford to act ugly. 

It took time, however, to get Kedzie from the studio to the negative, then to the positive. There was editing to do, and it seemed to herthat her most delicious bits had to be cut out, because Ferridayalways took three or four thousand feet of film for every thousandhe used. They had to cut out more Kedzie to let in the titles andsubtitles, and it angered her to see how much space was given toother members of the cast. She simply loathed the scenes she was notthe center of, and she developed an acerbity of protest against any"trespass" on her "rights" that proved her a genuine business woman. 

She learned the tricks of the trade with magnificent speed. She wasnever so meek and helpless of expression as when she slipped in frontof another actor or actress and filled as much of the foreground asher slenderness permitted. When she was crowded into the backgroundshe knew how to divert attention to herself during the best momentsof the other people in the scene. And she could most innocently spoilany bit that she did not like to do herself or have done by another. 

In the studio she was speedily recognized as an ambitious young womanzealous for self-advancement. In fact, they called her a "reel hog"and a "glutton for footage. " A number of minor feuds were turned intodeep friendships through a common resentment at Kedzie's impartialrobberies. 

Ferriday did not object to these professional traits. They existin all trades, and success is never won in large measure withoutthem. Almost all businesses are little trusts, monopolies more orless tiny, more or less ruthless. 

Ferriday delighted in Kedzie's battle for space with the othermembers of the troupe. They kept everybody intense. The lover lovedher better on the screen for hating her personal avarice. Her motherin the picture was more meltingly tender in her caresses for wantingto scratch the little cat's eyes out. The clergyman who pointed herthe way to heaven grew more ardently devout for having to gripthe floor with his feet to keep the adoring Kedzie from edging himoff his own pulpit. 

This rivalry is better than any number of chaperons, and Kedziewas saved from any danger of falling in love with the unspeakablybeautiful leading man by the ferocity of her jealousy of him. Shehad once, as a little girl in Nimrim, Missouri, nearly swooned atthe glory of this Lorraine Melnotte, and she had written him a littleletter of adoration, one of some nineteen he received that day fromlovelorn girls about the globe. 

When she met him first in the studio he was painted as delicately asa barber-pole, and he stood sweating in a scene under the full blastof a battery of sick green Cooper-Hewitt lights. He looked aboutthree days dead and loathsome as an iguana. He was in full eveningdress, and Kedzie had always marveled at the snowiness of his linen. 

Now she saw how he got the effect. He wore a yellow shirt, collar, tie, and waistcoat in order that the photographic result should bethe purest white. The yellow linen was the completing horror underthe spoiled mustard color of his face with its mouth the color ofan overripe plum. 

His expression did not redeem his appalling features that day, nordid his language help. While the cameraman leaned on his idle machineand looked weary Lorraine Melnotte was having a sweet little row withthe actress playing his sainted mother. He was threatening to haveher fired if she didn't keep her place. 

That finished him for Kedzie. She could not tolerate professionaljealousy. She never could. Her own was merely a defense of herdignity and her rights against the peculiarly impossible people whoinfested the studio. That was Kedzie's own phrase, for she had notlived with a poet long before she began to experiment with largewords. She practised before a mirror any phrases she particularlyliked. She had probably heard Ferriday use the expression and shegot herself up on it till she was glib. Anybody who can be glibwith "peculiarly impossible" is in a fair way to be articulate. All Kedzie needed was a little more certainty on her grammar; andher ear was giving her that. 

Her contempt for Lorraine Melnotte culminated in a dark suspicionthat that was not his real born name. If Anita Adair was KedzieThropp what would Lorraine Melnotte have been? It was a prettyproblem in algebra. But Kedzie despised a man that would takeanother name. And such a name--as unworthy of a man as a box ofchocolate fudge. 

So the image of Mr. Melnotte fell out of the niche in her heart andwent over into the gallery of her hates. She fought him with everyweapon and every foul thrust known to shy little women in dealingwith big, blustering men. She loved to call him "Melnit" or"naughty Mel. "

He was lost from the start and was soon begging to be released fromhis contract. The backers were too sure of his vogue, however, tolet him go, and it was none of their affair how fiercely Adair andMelnotte indulged in mutual loathing, so long as their screen-lovewas so wholesomely sweet. 

With Ferriday Kedzie's relations were more perilous. He had inventedher and was patenting her. She dreaded his wisdom and accepted hisleast theory as gospel--at first. He combined a remote and godlikeintellect with a bending and fatherly grace. And now and then, likethe other gods of all the mythologies, he came down to earth inan amorous mood. 

Now Kedzie's surety was her canny realization of the value oftantalism. She was not long left in ignorance of his record forflitting fancy and she felt that he would flit from her as soonas he conquered her. Her duty was plain. 

She played him well and drove him frantic. It would have been hardto say whether he hated her or loved her more when he found heralways just a little beyond. He had begun with the greatest gift inhis power. He had promised her world-wide fame, and no other giftcould count till he had made that good. And it would take a long, long while of incessant labor to build. 

Ferriday belittled himself in Kedzie's eyes by his groans of baffledegotism. She could read his plots on his countenance, and thwart himin advance. But this was not always easy for her, and again and againhe had only himself to blame for his non-success with Kedzie's heart. With Kedzie's fame he was having a very sudden and phenomenal triumph--if anything could be called phenomenal in a field which itself wasphenomenal always. 

CHAPTER XVI

Ferriday did not know, of course, that Kedzie was married. She hardlyknew it herself now. Gilfoyle had been three weeks late in sendingher the thirty dollars' fare to Chicago. Then she wrote him that shewas doing fairly well at the studio and she would stick to her work. She sent him oceans of love, but she did not send him the thirtydollars. 

Besides, he had borrowed it of her in the first place, and she hadhad to borrow more of Ferriday. She had neglected to pay him back. She needed so much for her new clothes and new expenses innumerableinflicted on her by her improved estate. 

And, of course, she left the miserable little flat on the landlord'shands. He wasted a good deal of time trying to get the rent paid. Besides, it was rented in Gilfoyle's name and he was safe in Chicago. And yet not very safe, for Chicago has also its Bohemia, its clustersof real and imitation artists, its talkers and dabblers, as well asits toilers and achievers. 

Gilfoyle found some wonderful Western sirens who listened tohis poetry. They were new to him and he to them. His Easternpronunciations fascinated them as they had fascinated Kedzie, and he soon found in them all the breeziness and wholesomenessof the great prairies which are found in the mid-Western womenof literature. 

Gilfoyle had apparently forgotten that his own wife was amid-Westerness, and the least breezy, wholesome, prairian thingimaginable. He saw mid-Western women of all sorts about him, buthe was of those who must have a type for every section of humanityand who will not be shaken in their belief by any majority ofexceptions. 

When Gilfoyle got Kedzie's letter saying that she would not join himyet awhile he wrote her a letter of poetic grief at the separation. But poets, like the rest of us, are the better for getting a griefon paper and out of the system. 

Kedzie did not answer his letter for a long while and he did notmiss her answer much, for he was having his own little triumphs. The advertisements he wrote were receiving honorable mention at theoffice and he was having success with his poetry and his flirtationsof evenings. 

He returned to his boarding-house one night and looked at his facein the mirror, stared into the eyes that stared back. A certainmelting and molten and molting lady had told him that he had poet'seyes like Julian Street's and was almost as witty. Gilfoyle triedwith his shaving-glass and the bureau mirror to study the profilethat someone else had compared to the cameonic visage of RichardLe Gallienne. 

Gilfoyle was gloriously ashamed of himself. In the voice thatsomeone else had compared to Charlie Towne's reading his own verseshe addressed his reflection with scorn:

"You heartless dog! You ought to be shot--forgetting that you havea poor little deserted wife toiling in the great city. You're asbad as Lord Byron ever was. "

Then he wrote a sonnet against his own perfidy and acceptedconfession as atonement and plenary indulgence. 

He was one of those who, when they have cried, "I have sinned, " heara mysterious voice saying, "Poor sufferer, go and sin some more. "

So he did, and he went the way of millions of lazy-minded, lazy-moraled husbands while Kedzie went the way of men and women whosucceed by self-exploitation and count only that bad morals whichis also bad business. And that was the status of the matrimonialadventure of the Gilfoyles for the present. It made no perceptibledifference to anybody that they were married--least of all tothemselves--for the present. But of course Kedzie was obscurelypreparing all this while for a tremendous explosion into publicityand into what is known as "the big money. " And that was bound tomake a vast difference to Gilfoyle as well as to Mrs. Gilfoyle. 

In these all-revolutionary days a man had better be a little politealways to his wife, for in some totally unexpectable way she maysuddenly prove to be a bigger man than he is, a money-getter, afame or shame acquirer--if only by way of becoming the president ofa suffrage association or a best-seller or an inventor of a populardoll. 

And again, all this time--a very short time, considering the changesit made in everybody concerned--Ferriday was Kedzie's alternate hopeand despair, good angel and bad, uplifter and down-yanker. 

Sometimes he threatened to stop the picture and destroy it unless shekissed him. And she knew that he could and would do almost anythingof that sort. Had not his backers threatened to murder him or sue himif he did not finish the big feature? At such times Kedzie usuallykissed Ferriday to keep him quiet. But she was as careful not to givetoo many kisses as she had been not to put too many caramels in halfa pound when she had clerked in the little candy-store. Nowadays shewould pause and watch the quivering scale of policy intently with onemore sweet poised as if it were worth its weight in gold. The abilityto stop while the scale wavers in the tiny zone of just-a-little-too-little and just-a-little-too-much is what makes success in anybusiness of man--or woman-kind. 

It was not always easy for Kedzie to withhold that extra bonbon. There were times when Ferriday raised her hopes and her pride sohigh that she fairly squealed with love of him and hugged him. Thatwould have been the destruction of Kedzie if there had not been thecounter-weight of conceit in Ferriday's soul, for at those times hewould sigh to himself or aloud:

"You are loving me only because I am useful to you. "

This thought always sobered and chilled Mr. Ferriday. He workednone the less for her and himself and he tried in a hundred waysto surprise the little witch into an adoration complete enough tomake her forget herself, make her capable of that ultimate altruismto which a woman falls or rises when she stretches herself out onthe altar of love. 

Ferriday began to think seriously that the only way he could breakKedzie's pride completely would be to make her his wife. He beganto wonder if that were not, after all, what she was driving at--ortrying to drive him to. 

Life will be so much more wholesome when women propose marriageas men do and have a plain, frank talk about it instead of theireternal business of veils and reticences, fugitive impulses realor coquettish, modesties real or faked. 

Ferriday could not be sure of Kedzie, and he grew so curious to knowthat finally he broke out, "In the Lord's name, will you or will younot marry me, damn you?"

And Kedzie answered: "Of course not. I wouldn't dream of sucha thing. "

But that did not prove anything, either. Perhaps she merely wantedto trawl him along. 

She had Ferriday almost crazy--at least she had added one more tohis manias--when Jim Dyckman wandered into the studio and set upan entirely new series of ambitions and discontents. 

CHAPTER XVII

Charity Coe forgot her great moving-picture enterprise for a timein the agony of her discovery that her husband was disloyal andthat the Church did not accept that as a cancellation of her ownloyalty. 

For a long time she was in such misery of uncertainty that she wentup to the mountains to recover her strength. She came back at last, made simple and stoical somehow by the contrast of human pettinesswith the serenity (as we call it) of those vast masses of débristhat we poetize and humanize as patient giants. 

Her absence had left Cheever entirely to his own devices and toZada's. They had made up and fought and made up again dozens oftimes and settled down at length to that normal alternation ofpeace and conflict known as domestic life. 

With Charity out of the way there was so little interruption totheir communion that when she came back Zada forbade Cheever tomeet her at the station, and he obeyed. 

Charity felt that she had brought with her the weight of themountains instead of their calm when she detrained in the throngedsolitude of the Grand Central Terminal. And the house with itssympathetic family of servants only was as home-like as the MammothCave. 

She took up her work with a frenzy. The need of a man to act as heradjutant in the business details was imperative. She thought of JimDyckman again, and with a different thought. 

When he pleaded to her before she had imagined that she was at leastofficially a wife. Now she felt divorced and abandoned, a waif onthe public mercy. 

She wanted to talk to Jim because she felt so disprized anddowntrodden that she wanted to see somebody who adored her. Shefelt wild impulses to throw herself into his keeping. She wanted tobe bad just to spite the bad. But she merely convinced herself thatshe was wicked enough already and deserving of her punishment. 

She made the moving-picture scheme a good excuse for asking Jimto grant her a talk--a business talk. To protect herself from himand from herself she made a convenience of Mrs. Neff's home. Jimmet her there. She was not looking her best and her mood was one ofartificial indirectness that offended him. He never dreamed that itwas because she was afraid to show him how glad she was to see him. 

He was furious at her--so he said he would do her bidding. Shedumped the financial and mechanical ends of the enterprise on hishands and he accepted the burden. He had nothing else pressing forhis time. 

One of his first duties, Charity told him, was to call at theHyperfilm Studio and try to engage that Mr. Ferriday for directorand learn the ropes. 

"While you're there you might inquire about that little girl youpulled out of the pool. I sent her there. They promised her a job. Her name was--I have it at home in my address-book. I'll telephoneit to you. "

And she did. She had no more acquaintance with the historyKedzie was making in the moving-picture world than she had ofthe sensational rise of the latest politician in Tibet. Neitherhad Jim. 

He had been traveling about on his mother's yacht and in lesscorrect societies, trying to convince himself that he was curedof Charity. He did not know that the first pictures of Anita Adairwere causing lines to gather outside the moving-picture theatersof numberless cities and towns. 

When his car halted before the big studio where Ferriday was highpriest Jim might have been a traveler entering a temple in Lassa, for all he knew of its rites and its powers. 

No more did the doorman know the power and place of Jim Dyckman. When Jim said he had an appointment with Mr. Ferriday the doormanthumbed him up the marble stairs. There were many doors, but nosigns on them, and Dyckman blundered about. At length he turneddown a corridor and found himself in the workshop. 

A vast room it was, the floor hidden with low canvas walls and doorsmarked "Keep out. " Overhead were girders of steel from which dependedheavy chains supporting hundreds of slanting tubes glowing with greenfire. 

From somewhere in the inclosures came a voice in distress. It wasthe first time Dyckman ever heard Ferriday's voice, and it puzzledhim as it cried:

"Come on, choke her--choke harder, you fool; you're not a masseur--you're a murderer. Now drag her across to the edge of the well. Pause, look back. Come on, Melnotte: yell at him! 'Stop, stop, youdog!' Turn round, Higgins; draw your knife. Go to it now! Give 'ema real fight. That's all right. Only a little cut. The blood looksgood. Get up, Miss Adair; crawl away on hands and knees. Don'tforget you've been choked. Now take the knife away, Melnotte. Rise;look triumphant; see the girl. Get to him, Miss Adair. Easy on theembrace: you're a shy little thing. 'My hero! you have saved me!'Now, Melnotte: 'Clarice! it is you! you!' Cut! How many feet, Jones?

"Now we'll take the scene in the vat of sulphuric acid. Is the tankready? You go lie down and rest, Miss Adair. We won't want you forhalf an hour. "

As Kedzie left the scene she found Dyckman waiting for her. Helifted his hat and spoke down at her:

"Pardon me, but you're Miss Adair, aren't you?"

"Yes, " said Kedzie, with as much modesty as a queen could show, incidentally noting that the man who bespoke her so timidly wasplainly a real swell. She was getting so now that she could tellthe real from the plated. 

"I heard them murdering you in there and I--Well, Mrs. Cheever askedme to look you up and see how you were getting along. I see you are. "

"Mrs. Cheever!" said Kedzie, searching her memory. Then, with greatkindliness, "Oh yes! I remember her. "

"You've forgotten me, I suppose. I had the pleasure--the sad pleasureof helping you out of the water at Mrs. Noxon's. "

"Oh, Lord, yes, " Kedzie cried, forgetting her rank. "You're JimDyckman--I mean, Mr. Dyckman. "

"So you remember my name, " he flushed. "Well, I must say!"

"I didn't remember to thank you, " said Kedzie. "I was all damp andmad. I've often thought of writing to you. " And she had. 

"I wish you had, " said Dyckman. "Well, well!"

He didn't know what to say, and so he laughed and she laughed andthey were well acquainted. Then he thought of a good one. 

"I pulled you out of the cold water, so it's your turn to pull meout of the hot. "

"What hot?" said Kedzie. 

"I've been sent up here to learn the trade. "

Kedzie had a horrible feeling that he must have lost his money. Wouldn't it be just her luck to meet her first millionaire after hehad become an ex-?

But Dyckman said that he had come to try and engage Mr. Ferriday, and that sounded so splendid to Kedzie that she snuggled closer. Ordinarily when a woman cowers under the eaves of a man's shoulderit is taken for a signal for amiabilities to begin. 

Dyckman could not imagine that Kedzie was already as bad as allthat. She wasn't. She was just trying to get as close as she couldto a million dollars. Her feelings were as innocent and as imbecileas those of the mobs that stand in line for the privilege ofpump-handling a politician. 

Jim Dyckman kept forgetting that he was so rich. He hated to bereminded of it. He did not suspect Kedzie of such a thought. Hestared down at her and thought she was cruelly pretty. He wantedto tell her so, but he found himself saying:

"But I mustn't keep you. I heard somebody say that you were tolie down and rest up. "

"Oh, that was only Mr. Ferriday. I'm not tired a bit. "

"Ferriday. Oh yes, I'm forgetting him. He's the feller I'vecome to see. "

"He can't be approached when he's working. Sit down, won't you?"

He sat down on an old bench and she sat down, too. She had neverfelt quite so contented as this. And Dyckman had not felt so teasedby beauty in a longer time than he could remember. 

Kedzie was as exotic to him as a Japanese doll. Her face was paintedin picturesque blotches that reminded him of a toy-shop. Her eyeswere made up with a delicate green that gave them an effect unknownto him. 

She was dressed as a young farm girl with a sunbonnet a-dangle atthe back of her neck, her curls trailing across her rounded shouldersand down upon her dreamy bosom. She sat and swung her little feetand looked up at him sidewise. 

He forgot all about Ferriday, and when Ferriday came along did notsee him. Kedzie did not tell him. She pretended not to see Ferriday, though she enjoyed enormously the shock it gave him to find herso much at ease with that big stranger. 

Ferriday was so indignant at being snubbed in his own domain byhis own creation that he sent Garfinkel to see who the fellow wasand throw him out. Garfinkel came back with Dyckman, followedby Kedzie. 

Before Garfinkel could present Dyckman to the great Ferriday, Kedziemade the introduction. Dyckman was already her own property. She hadseen him first. 

Ferriday was jolted by the impact of the great name of Dyckman. Hewas restored by the suppliant attitude of his visitor. He said thathe doubted if he could find the time to direct an amateur picture. Dyckman hastened to say:

"Of course, money is no object to us. .. . "

"Nor to me, " Ferriday said, coldly. 

Dyckman went on as if he had not heard: ". .. Except that the morethe show costs the less there is for the charity. "

"I should be glad to donate my services to the cause, " saidFerriday, who could be magnificent. 

"Three cheers for you!" said Dyckman, who could not. 

Ferriday had neither the time nor the patience for the task. Butwhen the chance came to dazzle the rich by the rich generosity ofworking for nothing, he could not afford to let it pass. To tipa millionaire! He had to do that. 

He saw incidentally that Kedzie was fairly hypnotized by Dyckman andDyckman by her. His first flare of jealousy died out. To be cut outby a prince has always been a kind of ennoblement in itself. 

Also one of Ferriday's inspirations came to him. If he could getthose two infatuated with each other it would not only take Kedzieoff his heart, but it might be made to redound to the furtheradvantage of his own genius. A scheme occurred to him. He wasbuilding the scenario of it in the back room of his head whilehis guest occupied his parlor. 

He wanted to be alone and he wanted Dyckman and Kedzie to be alonetogether. And so did Kedzie. Ferriday suggested:

"Perhaps Mr. Dyckman would like to look over the studio--and perhapsMiss Adair would show him about. "

Kedzie started to cry, "You bet your boots, " but she caught herselfin time and shifted to, "I should be chawmed. " Millionaires did notuse plain words. 

Then Dyckman said, "Great!"

He followed Kedzie wherever she led. He was as awkward and out ofplace as a school-boy at his first big dance. Kedzie showed hima murder scene being enacted under the bluesome light. She tookgreat pains not to let any of it stain her skin. She showed hima comic scene with a skeletonic man on a comic bicycle. Dyckmanroared when the other comedian lubricated the cyclist's jointswith an oil-can. 

Kedzie showed him the projection-room and told the operator to runoff a bit of a scene in which she was revealed to no disadvantage. She sat alone in the dark with a million dollars that were crazyabout her. She could tell that Dyckman was tremendously excited. 

Here at last was her long-sought opportunity to rebuff the advancesof a wicked plutocrat. But he didn't make any, and she might not haverebuffed them. Still, the air was a-quiver with that electricitygenerated almost audibly by a man and a woman alone in the dark. 

Dyckman was ashamed of himself and of his arm for wanting to gatherin that delectable partridge, but he behaved himself admirably. 

He told her that she was a "corker, " a "dream, " and "one sweet song, "and that the picture did not do her justice. 

Kedzie showed him the other departments of the picture-factory andhe was amazed at all she knew. So was she. He stayed a long whileand saw everything and yet he said he would come again. 

He suggested that it might be nice if Mr. Ferriday and Miss Adairwould dine with him soon. Ferriday was free "to-morrow, " and so theymade it to-morrow evening at the Vanderbilt. 

Kedzie was there and Dyckman was there, but a boy brought a notefrom Mr. Ferriday saying that he was unavoidably prevented frombeing present. 

Dyckman grinned: "We'll have to bear up under it the best we can. You won't run away just because your chaperon is gone, will you?"

Kedzie smiled and said she would stay. But she was puzzled. Whatwas Ferriday up to? One always suspected that Ferriday was up tosomething and thinking of something other than what he did or said. 

Kedzie was not ashamed of her clothes this time. Indeed, when shegave her opera-cloak to the maid she came out so resplendent thatJim Dyckman said:

"Zowie! but you're a--Whew! aren't you great? Some change-o fromthe little farm girl I saw up at the studio. I don't suppose you'lleat anything but a little bird-seed. "

She was elated to see the _maître d'hôtel_ shake hands withher escort and ask him how he was and where he had been. Jimapologized for neglecting to call recently, and the two saunteredlike friends across to a table where half a dozen waiters bowedand smiled and welcomed the prodigal home. 

When they were seated the headwaiter said, "The moosels vit saucemarinière are nize to-nide. "

Dyckman shook his head: "Ump-umm! I'm on the water-wagon and thediet kitchen. Miss Adair can go as far as she likes, but I've gotto stick to a little thick soup, a big, thick steak, and after, alittle French pastry, some coffee, and a bottle of polly water--andI'll risk a mug of old musty. " He turned to Kedzie: "And now I'veordered, what do you want? I never could order for anybody else. "

Kedzie was disappointed in him. He was nothing like Ferriday. Hedidn't use a French word once. She was afraid to venture on her own. 

"I'll take the same things, " she said. 

"Sensible lady, " said Jim. "Women who work must eat. "

Kedzie hated to be referred to as a worker by an idler. She littleknew how much Jim Dyckman wished he were a worker. 

She could not make him out. Her little hook had dragged out Leviathanand she was surprised to find how unlike he was to her plans forher first millionaire. He ate like a hungry man who ordered what hewanted and made no effort to want what he did not want. He had had somuch elaborated food that he craved few courses and simple. He saidwhat came into his head, without frills or pose. He was sincerelydelighted with Kedzie and made neither secret nor poetry of it. 

Toward the last of the dinner Kedzie ceased to try to find in himwhat was not there. She accepted him as the least affected personshe had ever met. He could afford to be unaffected and carelessand spontaneous. He had nothing to gain. He had everything already. Kedzie would have said that he ought to have been happy because ofthat, as if that were not as good an excuse for discontent as any. In any case, Kedzie said to herself:

"He's the real thing. "

She wanted to be that very thing--that most difficult thing--real. It became her new ambition. 

After the dinner Dyckman offered to take her home. He had a limousinewaiting for him. She did not ask him to put her into a taxicab. Shewas not afraid to have him ride home with her. She was afraid hewouldn't. She was not ashamed of the apartment-house she was livingin now. It was nothing wonderful, but all the money had been spenton the hall. And that was as far as Dyckman would get--yet. 

Kedzie had acquired a serenity toward all the world except whatshe called "high society. " In her mind the word _high_ hadthe significance it has with reference to game that has been keptto the last critical moments, and trembles, exquisitely putrid, between being eaten immediately and being thrown away soon. 

There is enough and to spare of that high element among the wealthy, but so there is among the poor and among all the middlings. Kedziehad met with it on her way up, and she expected to find it inDyckman. She looked forward to a thrilling adventure. 

She could not have imagined that Dyckman was far more afraid of herthan she of him. She was so tiny and he so big that she terrorizedhim as a mouse an elephant, or a baby a saddle-horse. The elephantis probably afraid that he will squash the little gliding insect, the horse that he might step on the child. 

The disparity between Jim Dyckman and Kedzie was not so great, andthey were both of the same species. But he felt a kind of terror ofher. And yet she fascinated him as an interesting toy that laughedand talked and probably would not say "Mamma!" if squeezed. 

Dyckman had been lonely and blue, rejected and dejected. Kedzie wassomething different. He had known lots of actresses, large and small, stately, learned, cheap, stupid, brilliant, bad, good, gorgeous, shabby, wanton, icy. But Kedzie was his first movie actress. Shedwelt in a strange realm of unknown colors and machineries. 

She was a new toy in a new toyhouse--a whole Noah's ark of queertoys. He wanted to play with those toys. She made him a_revenant_ to childhood. Or, as he put it:

"Gee! but you make me feel as silly as a kid. "

That surprised Kedzie. It was not the sort of talk she expectedfrom a world which was stranger to her than the movie studio tohim. He was perfectly natural, and that threw her into a spasm ofartificiality. 

He sat staring down at her. He put his hands under his knees and saton them to keep them from touching her, as they wanted to. For allhe knew, she was covered with fresh paint. That made her practicallyirresistible. Would it come off if he kissed her? He had to find out. 

Finally he said, so helplessly, passively, that it would be moreaccurate to say it was said by him:

"Say, Miss Adair, I'm a dead-goner if you don't gimme a kiss. "

Kedzie was horrified. Skip Magruder would have been eleganter thanthat. She answered, with dignity:

"Certainly, if you so desire. "

That ought to have chaperoned him back to his senses, but he was toofar gone. His long arms shot out, went round her, gathered her upto his breast. His high head came down like a swan's, and his lipspressed hers. 

Whatever her soul was, her flesh was all girlhood in one flower oflithe stem, leaf, petal, sepal, and perfume. There was nothing ofthe opiate poppy, the ominous orchid, or even that velvet voluptuary, the rose. She was like a great pink, sweet, shy, fragrant, commonwild honeysuckle blossom. 

Jim Dyckman was so whelmed by the youth and flavor of her thathis rapture exploded in an unsmothered gasp:

"Golly! but you're great!"

Kedzie was heartbroken. Gilfoyle had done better than that. She hadbeen kissed by several million dollars, and she was not satisfied!

But Dyckman was. He felt that Kedzie had solved the problem ofCharity Coe. She had cleared his soul of that hopeless obsession--hethought--just then. 

CHAPTER XVIII

When a young man suddenly goes mad in a cab, grapples the youngwoman who has intrusted herself to his protection, pins her armsto her sides, squeezes her torso till her bones crunch and she hasno breath to squawk with, then kisses her deaf and dumb and blind, it is still a nice question which of the two is the helpless oneand which has overpowered the other. 

Appearances are never more deceitful than in such attacks, andwhile eye-witnesses are infrequent, they are also untrustworthy. They cannot even tell which of the two is victim of the outrage. The motionless gazelle in the folds of the constrictor may be infull control of the situation. 

It undoubtedly has happened, oftener than it should have, in thehistory of the world that young men have made these onsets withoutjust provocation and have been properly slapped, horsewhipped, orshot for their unwelcome violence. It has also happened that youngmen have failed to make these onsets when they would have beenwelcome. 

But the perfection of the womanly art of self-pretense is whenshe subtly wills the young man to overpower her and is so carriedaway by her own success that she forgets who started it. She droops, swoons, shivers before the fury of her own inspiration, and criesout, with absolute sincerity: "How dare you! How could you! Whatmade you!" or simply moans, "Why, Oswald!" and resists invitingly. 

Kedzie had been hoping and praying that Jim Dyckman would kissher, and mutely daring him to. Yet when he obeyed her tacit behestand asked her permission she was too frightened to refuse. He wasstronger than she expected, and he held her longer. When at lastshe came out for air she was shattered with a pleasant horror. 

She barely had the strength to gasp, "Why, Mr. Dyckman, aren't youawful?" and time to straighten her jumbled hat and hair when herapartment-building drew up alongside the limousine and came toa halt. 

Dyckman pleaded, like a half-witted booby, "Let's take a littlelonger ride. "

But she remembered her dignity and said, with imperial scorn, "I should hope not!"

She permitted him to help her out. 

He said: "When may I see you again? Soon, please!"

She smiled, with a hurt patience, and answered, "Not fora long while. "

He chuckled: "To-morrow, eh? That's great!"

She wished that he would not say, "That's great. " If he would onlysay, "Ripping!" or, "I say, that's ripping!" or, "Awfully good ofyou, " or, "No end"--anything swagger. But he would not swagger. 

He escorted her to the elevator, where she gave him a queenly handand murmured, "Good night!"

He watched her go up like _Medea in machina;_ then he turnedaway and stumbled back into his limousine. It was still fragrantfrom her presence. The perfume she was using then was a ratheraggressive essence of a lingering tenacity upon the atmosphere. But Dyckman was so excited that he liked it. The limousine couldhardly contain him. 

Kedzie felicitated herself on escaping from his thrall just in timeto avoid being stupefied by it. She thanked Heaven that she had notflung her arms around him and claimed him for her own. She had thecleverness of elusion that her sex displays in all the species, fromCleopatras to clams, from butterflies to rhinoceroses. How wiselythey practise to evade what they demand, leaving the stupid maleto ponder the mysteries of womankind!

When Kedzie reached her mirror she told the approving person shefound there that she was doing pretty well for a poor young girl notlong in from the country. She postured joyously as she undressed, and danced a feminine war-dance in much the same costume that shewore when Jim Dyckman fished her out of the pool at Newport. Shesang:

 "I dreamt that I fell in a mar-arble pool With nobles and swells on all si-i-ides. "

She had slapped her rescuer's hands away then and groaned to learnthat she had driven off a famous plutocrat. But now he was back;indeed he was in the pool now, and she had him on her hook. Hehad grievously disappointed her by turning out to be a commonplaceyoung man with no gilt on his phrases. But one must be mercifulto a million dollars. 

The next morning she dreamed of him as a suitor presenting herwith a bag of gold instead of a bouquet. Just as she reached forit the telephone rang and a hall-boyish voice told her that it wasseven o'clock. 

This was the midnight alarm to Cinderella, and she became againa poor working-girl. She had to abandon her prince and run fromthe palace of dreams to the studio of toil. 

She was a trifle surly when she confronted Ferriday. He studiedher, smilingly queerly and overplaying indifference:

"Have a nice dinner last night?"

Kedzie fixed him with a skewery glare: "What's your little game?Why did you turn up missing?"

"I had another engagement. Didn't you get my note?"

"Ah, behave, behave!" said Kedzie, then blushed at the plebeianphrase. She was beginning to have a quickly remorseful ear. As soonas she should learn to hear her first thoughts first, and suppressthem unspoken, she would be a made lady. 

"Oh, you're a true artist, Anita, " said Ferriday. "Nothing canhinder your flight into the empyrean. "

"Don't sing it. Explain it, " Kedzie sneered. 

Ferriday laughed so delightedly that he must embrace her. She shovedhim back and brushed the imaginary dust of his contact from theshoulders that had but lately been compressed by a million dollars. 

"I see you landed him, " said Ferriday. 

"And I see that all your talk about loving me so much was justa fake, " said Kedzie. 

"Why do you say that? I adore you. "

"If you did, would you throw me at the head of another fellow?"asked Kedzie. 

"If it was for the advancement of your career, yes, " Ferridayinsisted. 

"What's Mr. Dyckman got to do with my career?"

"He can make it, if he doesn't break it. "

"Come again. "

"If you fall in love with that big thug, or if you play him fora limousine like a chorus-girl on the make, your career is gone. But if you use him for your future--well, I have a little schemethat might bounce you up to the sky in a hurry. You could have yourmillionaire and your fame as well. "

"What's the little scheme, Ferri darling?"

"I'll tell you later. We've got to go to the projection-room andsee your new film run off. It's assembled, cut, subtitled, readyfor the market. Come along. "

Kedzie went along and sat in the dark room watching the reel go by. Her other selves came forth in troops to reveal themselves: Kedziethe poor little shy girl, for she was that at times; Kedzie thepetulant, the revengeful, the forgiving; Kedzie on her knees inprayer--she prayed at times, as everybody does, the most villainousno less ardently than the most blameless; Kedzie dancing; Kedzieflirting, in love, tempted, tipsy; Kedzie seduced, deserted, forgiven, converted, happily married; Kedzie a mother with a littlehired baby at her little breast. There was even a picture of herin a vision as a sweet old lady with snowy hair about her face, andshe was surrounded by grown men who were her sons, and young motherswho were her daughters. The unending magic of the moving pictureshad enabled her to see herself as others saw her, and as she sawherself, and as nobody should ever see her. 

Kedzie doted on the picture of herself as a dear old lady leaningon her old husband among their children. She shed tears over thatdelightful, most unusual, privilege of witnessing herself peacefully, blessedly ancient. 

Whether she ever reached old age and had a husband living thenand children grown is beyond the knowledge of this chronicle orits prophecy, for this book goes only so far as 1917. But just fora venture, assuming Kedzie to be about twenty in 1916, that wouldmake Kedzie born four years back in the last century. Now, addingsixty to 1896 brings one to 1956; and what the world will be likethen--and who'll be in it or what they may be doing, how dressing, if at all, what riding in, fighting about, agreeing upon--it werefolly to guess at. 

It is safe to say only that people will then be very much at heartwhat they are to-day and were in the days when the Assyrian womenand men felt as we do about most things. Kedzie will be scoldingher children or her grandchildren and telling them that in herday little girls did not speak disrespectfully to their parentsor run away from them or do immodest, forward things. 

That much is certain to be true, as it has always been. The criticsof then will be saying that there are no great novelists in 1956 suchas there were in 1916, when giants wrote, but not for money or forcheap sensations. They will laud the Wilsonian era when Americanot only knew a millennium of golden fiction, poetry, drama, humor, sculpture, painting, architecture, and engineering, but revealedits greatness in moving-picture classics, in a lofty conceptionof the dance as an eloquence; when the nation acted as a sisterof charity to bleeding Europe, pouring eleemosynary millions fromthe cornucopia stretched across the sea, and finally entered the warwith reluctant majesty and unexampled might, her citizens unanimouslypatriotic. Ye gods! even the politicians will be statesmen and theirdebates classics. 

Critics of then will be regretting that American fiction, poetry, drama, art, and journalism are so inferior to foreign work, andforeign critics will admit it and tell them why. Some militarywriters will be pointing out that war is no longer possible, and others will be crying out that it is inevitable and Americaunprepared. 

Doctors will be complaining that modern restlessness is creatingnew nervous diseases, as doctors did in 1916 A. D. , B. C. , and B. A. (which is, Before Adam). Doctors will complain that modern mothersdo not nurse their own babies--which has always been both true anduntrue--and that women do not wear enough clothes for health, notto mention modesty. 

In fact, Kedzie, if she lives, will find the spirit of the worldalmost altogether what grandmothers have always found it. But Kedziemust be left to find this out for herself. 

When, then, Kedzie saw how beautifully she photographed and how wellshe looked as an old lady, she wept rapturously and sighed, "I'llnever give up the pictures. "

Ferriday sighed, too, for that meant to his knowing soul that shewas not long for this movie world. But he did not tell her so. Hetold her:

"You're as wise as you are beautiful. You'll be as famous as you'llbe rich. And this Dyckman lad can hurry things up. "

"How?" asked Kedzie, already foreseeing his game. 

"The backers of the Hyperfilm Company are getting writer's crampin the spending hand. They call it conservatism, but it's reallycowardice. The moving-picture business has gone from the Golcondato the gambling stage. A few years ago nearly anybody could get richin a minute. A lot of cheap photographers and street-car conductorswere caught in a cloudburst of money and thought they made it. Theytreated money like rain, and the wastefulness in this trade hasbeen rivaled by nothing recent except the European war. Some of thebiggest studios are dark; some of the leaders of yesterday are sobankrupt that their banks don't dare let 'em drop for fear they'llbust and blow up the whole business. Most of the actors are notgetting half what they're advertised to get, but they're gettingfour times what they ought to get. 

"There are a few men and women who are earning even more than theyare getting, and that's a million a minute. Now, the one chancefor you, Anita, is to have some tremendous personal backing. You'vecome into the game a little late. This firm you're with is tottering. They blame me for it, but it's not my fault altogether. Anyway, thiscompany is riding for a fall, and down we may all go in the dustwith a dozen other big companies, any day. "

Kedzie's heart stopped. In the dark she clutched Ferriday's arm sotightly that he ouched. To have her career smashed at its beginningwould be just her luck. It grew suddenly more dear than ever, becauseit was imperiled. The thought of having her pictures fail of theirmission throughout the world was as hideous as was the knowledgeto Carlyle that the only manuscript of his history was but ashovelful of ashes. 

Ferriday put his arm about her, and she crept in under his chin forsafety. She felt very cozy to him, there, and he rejoiced that hehad her his at last. Then as before he saw that he was no more toher than an umbrella or an awning in a shower. He wanted to flingher away; but she was still to him an invention to patent andpromote. So he told her:

"If you can persuade this Dyckman to boost your career, get behindyou with a bunch of kale and whoop up the publicity, we can stampedethe public, and the little theater managers will mob the exchangesfor reels of you. It's only a question of money, Anita. Talk aboutthe Archimedean lever! Give me the crowbar of advertising, and I'llset the earth rolling the other way round so the sun will rise inthe west and print no other pictures but yours. 

"There isn't room for everybody in the movie business any more. There's room only for the people who wear lightning-rods and standon solid gold pedestals that won't wash away. Go after your youngmillionaire, Anita, and put his money to work. "

Kedzie pondered. She brought to bear on the problem all the strategicintuition of her sex. She saw the importance of getting Dyckman'smoney into circulation. She was afraid it might not be easy. 

Kedzie sighed: "It's a little early for me to ask a gentleman I'veonly met a couple o' times to kindly pass the millions. He musthave met a lot of women by now who've held out their hands to himand said, 'Please, ' and not got anything but the cold boiled eye. I don't know much about millionaires, but I have a feeling that ifthey started giving the money out to every girl they met, they'dlast just about as long as a real bargain does in Macy's. The womenwould trample them to death and tear one another to pieces. "

"But Dyckman's crazy about you, Anita. I could see it in his eyes. He's plumb daffy. "

"Maybe so and maybe not. Maybe he's that way with every girl underforty. I've never seen him work, but I've seen him in the midst ofthat Newport bunch and they've got me lashed to the mast for clothes, looks, language, and everything. "

"You're a novelty to him, Anita. He's tired of those _blasées_creatures. "

"They didn't look very blah-zay to me. They seemed to be up and doingevery minute. But supposing he was crazy about me, if I said to him, 'You can have two kisses for a million dollars apiece?' can you seehim begin to holler: 'Where am I? Please take me home!'"

Ferriday sighed: "Perhaps you're right. It wouldn't do to givea mercenary look to your interest in him too soon. Let me talkto him. "

"What's your peculiar charm?"

"I'd put it up to him as a business proposition. I'd say, 'Themoving-picture field is the greatest gold-field in the world. ' I'dtell him how many hundred thousand theaters there are in the world, all of them eager for your pictures and only needing to be told aboutthem. I'd tell him that for every dollar he put in he'd take out ten, in addition to furthering the artistic glory of the most beautifulgenius on the dramatic horizon. I'd show him how he couldn't lose. "

"But you just said--"

"Oh, I know, but we can't put on the screen everything we say inthe projection-room. And it is a fact that there is big money inthe movies. "

"There must be, " said Kedzie, "if as much has been sunk in 'emas you say. "

"Yes, and it's all there for the right man to dig up if he onlygoes about it intelligently. Let me talk to him. "

Kedzie thought hard. Then she said: "No! Not yet! You'd only scarehim away. I'll do my best to get him interested in me, and you doyour best to get him interested in the business; and then when thetime is just right we can talk turkey. But not now, Ferri, not yet. "

"You're as wise as you are beautiful, " said Ferriday, again. "Ican't see your beauty, but your wisdom shines in the dark. We'lldo great things together, Anita. "

His arm tightened around her, reminding her that she was stillin his elbow. Before she was quite alive to his purpose his lipstouched her cheek. 

"Don't do that!" she snapped. "How dare you!"

He laughed: "I forgot. The price on your kisses has just skyrocketedto a million apiece. Don't forget my commission. "

She growled pettishly. He spoke more soberly:

"You need me yet, little lady. Don't quench my enthusiasms tooroughly or I might take up some other pretty little girl as mymedium of expression. There are lots and lots of pretties bornevery minute, but it takes years to make a director like me. "

And she knew that this was true. 

"I was only fooling, " she said. "Don't be mad at me. You can kissme if you want to. "

"I don't want to, " he said, as hurt as an overgrown boy ora prima donna. 

The door opened, and a wave of light swept into the room. A voicefollowed it. 

"Is Miss Adair in there?"

"Yes, " Kedzie answered, in confusion. 

"Gent'man to see you. "

It was Jim Dyckman. He followed closely and entered the room just asFerriday found the electric button and switched on the light. 

Kedzie and Ferriday were both encouraged when they saw a look ofjealous suspicion cross his face. Ferriday hastened to explain:

"We've been editing Miss Adair's new film. Like to see an advanceedition of it?"

"Love to, " said Dyckman. 

"Oh, Simpson, run that last picture through again, " Ferriday calledthrough a little hole in the wall. 

A faint "All right, sir" responded. 

Kedzie led Dyckman to a chair and took the next one to it. 

Ferriday beamed on them and switched on the dark. Then, as if by adivine miracle, the screen at the end of the room became a world oflife and light. People were there, and places. Mountains were swunginto view and removed. Palaces were decreed and annulled. Fieldsblossomed with flowers; ballrooms swirled; streets seethed. 

Anita Adair was created luminous, seraphic, composed of light andemotion. She came so near and so large that her very thoughts seemedto be photographed. She drifted away; she smiled, danced, wept, andmade her human appeal with angelic eloquence. 

Dyckman groaned with the very affliction of her charm. She pleasedhim so fiercely that he swore about it. He cried out in the darkthat she was the blank-blankest little witch in the world. Then hegroveled in apology, as if his profanity had not been the ultimategallantry. 

When the picture was finished he turned to Kedzie and said, "My God, you're great!" He turned to Ferriday. "Isn't she, Mr. --Fenimore?"

"I think so, " said Ferriday; "and the world will think so soon. "

Kedzie shook her head. "I'm only a beginner. I don't know anythingat all. "

"Why, you're a genius!" Dyckman exploded. "You're simply great. You know everything; you--"

Ferriday touched him on the arm. "We mustn't spoil her. There isa charm and meekness about her that we must not lose. "

Dyckman swallowed his other great's and after profound thought said, "Let's lunch somewhere. "

Ferriday excused himself, but said that the air would be good forMiss Adair. She was working too hard. 

So she took the air. 

Dyckman had come to the studio with Charity's business as an excuse. He had forgotten to give the excuse, and now he had forgotten thebusiness. He did not know that he was now Kedzie Thropp's business. And she was minding her own business. 

CHAPTER XIX

Peter Cheever was going to dictagraph to his wife. The quaint charmof the dictagram is that the sender does not know he is sending it. It is a good deal like an astral something or other. 

Peter had often telegraphed his wife, telephoned her, and wirelessedher. Sometimes what he had sent her was not the truth. But nowshe was going to hear from him straight. She would have all theadvantages of the invisible cloak and the ring of Gyges--eavesdroppingmade easy and brought to a science, a combination of perfect alibiwith intimate propinquity. 

Small wonder that the device which justice has made such use ofshould be speedily seized upon by other interests. Everything, indeed, that helps virtue helps evil, too. And love and hate findspeedy employment for all the conquests that science can make uponthe physical forces of the universe. 

How Charity's motives stood in heaven there is no telling. It issafe to say that they were the usual human mixture of selfish andaltruistic, wise and foolish, honorable and impudent, profitableand ruinous. She came by the dictagraphic idea very gradually. Shehad plentiful leisure since she had taken a distaste for good works. She had been so roughly handled by the world she was toiling forthat she decided to let it get along for a while without her. 

It was a benumbing shock to learn definitely that her husband wasin liaison with a definite person, and to be confronted in shabbyclothes with that person all dressed up. When she hurried to theChurch for mercy it was desolation to learn from the pulpit thather heart clamor for divorce was not a cleanly and aseptic impulse, but an impious contribution to the filthy social condition of theUnited States. 

Charity had no one to confide in, and she had no new grievance toair. Everybody else had evidently been long assured of her husband'sprofligacy. For her to wake up to it only now and run bruiting thestale information would be a ridiculous nuisance--a newsgirl howlingyesterday's extra to to-day's busy crowd. 

Besides, she had in her time known how uninteresting and unwelcomeis the celebrant of one's own misfortunes. Husbands and wives whotell of their bad luck are entertaining only so long as they arespicy and sportsmanlike. When they ask for a solution they areembarrassing, since advice is impossible for moral people. The trulygood must advise him or her either to keep quiet or to quit. But tosay "Keep quiet!" is to say "Don't disturb the adultery, " while tosay "Quit!" is to say "Commit divorce!" which is far worse, accordingto the best people. 

We have always had adultery and got along beautifully, while divorceis new and American and intolerable. Of course, one can and sometimesdoes advise a legal separation, but that comes hard to minds thatface facts, since separation is only a license to--well, we all knowwhat separation amounts to; it really cannot be prettily described. 

Charity, left alone at the three-forked road of divorce, complacency, or separation, sank down and waited in dull misery for help orsolution, as do most of the poor wayfarers who come upon such abreak in their path of matrimony. She imagined Cheever with Zada andwondered what peculiar incantations Zada used to hold him so long. She wished that she had positive evidence against him--not for publicuse, but as a weapon of self-defense. She felt that from his pulpitDoctor Mosely had challenged her to a spiritual duel in that sermonagainst divorce and remarriage of either guilty or innocent. 

Also she began to want to get evidence to silence her own soul with. She wanted to get over loving Cheever. To want to be cured of suchan ailment is already the beginning of cure. 

Abruptly the idea came to her to put a detective on the track ofZada and Cheever. She had no acquaintance in that field, and it wasa matter of importance that she should not put herself in the handsof an indelicate detective. She ought to have consulted a lawyerfirst, but her soul preferred the risk of disaster to the shameof asking counsel. 

She consulted the newspapers and found a number of advertisements, some of them a little too mysterious, a little too promiseful. Butshe took a chance on the Hodshon & Hindley Bureau, especially as itadvertised a night telephone, and it was night when she reached herdecision. 

She surprised Mr. Hodshon in the bosom of his family. He was dandlinga new baby in the air and trying not to step on the penultimatechild, who was treating one of his legs as a tree. When the telephonerang he tossed the latest edition to its mother and hobbled to thetable, trying to tear loose the clinger, for it does not sound wellto hear a child gurgling at a detective's elbow. 

When Charity told Hodshon who she was his eyes popped and he wasgreatly excited. When she asked Mr. Hodshon to call at once he lookedat his family and his slippers and said he didn't see how he couldtill the next day. Charity did not want to go to a detective's officein broad daylight or to have anybody see a detective coming to herhouse. She had an idea that a detective could be recognized at onceby his disguise. He probably could be if he wore one; and he usuallycan be, anyway, if any one is looking for him. But she could not getHodshon till she threatened to telephone elsewhere. At that, he saidhe would postpone his other engagement and come right up. 

Charity was disappointed in Mr. Hodshon. He looked so ordinary, and yet he must know such terrible things about people. We alwaysexpect doctors, lawyers, priests, and detectives to show the scarsof the searing things they know. As if we did not all of us knowenough about ourselves and others to eat our eyes out, if knowledgewere corrosive!

Charity was further disappointed in Hodshon's lack ofpicturesqueness. He was like no detective she had read aboutbetween Sherlock Holmes and Philo Gubb. He was like no detectiveat all. It was almost impossible to accept him as her agent. 

He seemed eager to help, however, and when she told him that shesuspected her husband of being overly friendly with an insect namedZada L'Etoile, and that she wanted them shadowed, he betrayed aproper agitation. 

Now, of course, women's scandals are no more of a luxury to adetective than their legs were to the bus-driver of tradition or toany one in knee-skirted 1916. Mr. Hodshon was a good man as good mengo, though he was capable of the little dishonesties and compromiseswith truth that characterize every profession. A man simply cannotsucceed as a teacher, lawyer, doctor, merchant, thief, author, scientist, or anything else if he blurts out everything he knowsor believes. No preacher could occupy a pulpit for two Sundays whotold just what he actually thought or knew or could find out. Thedetective is equally compelled to manipulate the truth. 

Hodshon gave his soul to Charity's cause. He outlined the variousways of establishing Cheever's guilt and promised that the agencywould keep him shadowed and make a record of all his hours. 

"It'll take some time to get the goods on 'em good, " he explained, "but there's ways we got. When we learn what we got to know we'llarrange it and tip you off. Then you and me will go to the door andbreak in on the parties at the right moment, and--"

"No, Thank You!" said Charity, with a firm pressure on each word. 

"You better get some friend to go with us, for a detective needsc'roboration, you know. The courts won't accept a detective'suns'ported testimony. And if you could know what some of thesecrooks are capable of you wouldn't wonder. Is that all right? Weget the goods on 'em and you have a friend ready, and we'll bustin on the parties, and--"

"No, thank you!" said Charity, with undiminished enthusiasm. 

This stumped Mr. Hodshon. She amazed him further. "I don't intendto bring this case into court. I don't want to satisfy any judgebut myself. "

But what he had said about the credibility of the unsupporteddetective had set Charity to thinking. It would be folly to paythese curious persons to collect evidence that was worthless whencollected. She mused aloud:

"Would it be possible--of course it wouldn't--but if it were, whatI should like would be to be able to see my hu--Mr. Ch--those twopersons without their knowing about it at all. Of course that'simpossible, isn't it?"

"Well, it was a few years ago, but we can do wonders nowadays. There's the little dictagraph. We could string one up for you andgive you the usual stenographic report--or you could go and listenin yourself. "

"Could I really?" Charity gasped, and she began to shiver withthe frightfulness of the opportunity. 

"Surest thing you know, " said Hodshon. 

"But how could you install a dictagraph without their findingit out?"

"Easiest thing you know. We'll probably have to rent an apartmentin the same building or another one near-by, and--one of thehall-boys there may be workin' for us now. If not, we can usuallybring him in. There's a hundred ways to get into a house and putthe little dictor behind a picture or somewheres and lead the wireout to us. "

"But can you really hear--if they talk low?" Charity mumbled, with dread. 

"Let 'em whisper!" said Hodshon. "The little fellow just eatsa whisper. Leave it to us, madam, and we'll surprise you. "

The compact was made. Charity suggested an advance payment as aretainer, and Hodshon permitted her to write a check and hand itto him before he assured her that it wasn't necessary. 

He went away and left Charity in a state of nerves. Her curiositywas a mania, but she feared that assuaging it might leave her in aworse plight. She hated herself for her enterprise and was temptedto cancel it. But when she heard Cheever come home at midnight andgo to his room without speaking to her she felt a grim resentmenttoward him that was like a young hate with a big future. 

Every night Charity received a typewritten document describingCheever's itinerary for the day. The mute, inglorious Boswell tookhim up at the front steps, heeled him to his office, out to lunch, back to the office, thence to wherever he went. 

The name of Zada did not appear in the first report at all, but onthe second day she met Cheever at luncheon, and he went shopping withher. Charity, reading, flushed to learn that he bought her neitherjewelry nor hats, but household supplies and delicacies. He went withher to her apartment and thence with her to dinner and the theaterand then back, and thence again after an hour to his home. 

The minute chronicle of his outdoor doings, intercalated with themaddening bafflement of his life in that impenetrable apartment, madesuch dramatic reading as Charity had never known. She grew haggardwith waiting for the arrival of her little private daily newspaper. When she saw Cheever she could hardly keep from screaming at himwhat she knew. His every entrance into the house became a hideousinsult. She felt that it was herself who was the kept woman and notthe other. 

She longed to take the documents and visit the Reverend Doctor Moselywith them, make him read them and tell her if he still thought it washer duty to endure such infamy. She felt that the good doctor wouldadvise her to lay them before Cheever and confound him with guilt, bring him to what the preachers call "a realizing sense" of it andwin him home. 

She was tempted to try the imaginary advice on Cheever, but somethingheld her back. She wondered what it was, till suddenly she came toa realizing sense of one fearful bit of news: her soul had so changedtoward him, her love had turned to such disgust, that she was afraidhe might come back to her! He might cast off his discovered partnerin guilt and renew his old claim to Charity's soul and body. Thatwould be degradation indeed!

Now she was convinced that her love had starved even unto death, thatit was a corpse in her home, corrupted the air and must be removed. 

CHAPTER XX

Kedzie lay extended on her _chaise longue_, looking as muchunlike Madame Récamier as one could look who was so pretty a woman. A Sunday supplement dropped from her hand and joined the heap ofpapers on the floor. Kedzie was tired of looking at pictures ofherself. 

She had had to look over all the papers, since she was in them all. At least her other self, Anita Adair, was in them. 

In every paper there was a large advertisement with a large pictureof her and the names of the theaters at which she would appearsimultaneously in her new film. In the critical pages devoted tothe moving-picture world there were also pictures of her and at leasta little text. 

In two or three of the papers there were interviews with the newcomet; in others were articles by her. These entertained her atfirst, because she had never seen the interviewers or the articles. She had not thought many of the thoughts attached to her name. Thepress agent of the Hyperfilm Company had written everything. Hereveled in his new star, for the editors were cordial toward her"press stuff. " They "ate it up, " "gave it spread. "

This was the less surprising since the advertising-man of theHyperfilm Company was so lavish with purchase of space that thepublishers could well afford to throw in a little free readingmatter--especially since it did not cost them a cent for the copy. 

The press agent unaided has a hard life, but when the advertising-mangives him his arm he is welcome to the most select columns. 

In some of the interviews Kedzie gave opinions she had never held onthemes she had never heard of. When she read that her favorite poetwas Rabindranath Tagore she wondered who that "gink" was. When sheread that she owed her figure to certain strenuous flexion exercisesshe decided that they might be worth trying some day. Her advice tobeginners in the motion-picture field proved very interesting. Shewondered how she had ever got along without it. 

She was greatly excited by an article of hers in which she told ofthe terrific adventures she had had in and out of the studio; therewas one time when an angry tiger would have torn her to pieces if shehad not had the presence of mind to play dead. She read of anotheroccasion when she had either to spoil a good film or endanger herexistence as the automobile she was steering refused to answer thebrake and plunged over a cliff. Of course she would not ruin thefilm. By some miracle she escaped with only a few broken bones, andafter a week in the hospital returned to the interrupted picture. These old stories were told with such simple sincerity that shealmost believed them. But she tossed them aside and sneered:

"Bunc!"

She yawned over her own published portraits--and to be able to dothat is to be surfeited indeed. 

Suddenly Kedzie stopped purring, thought fiercely, whirled to herflank; her hands went among the papers. She remembered something, found it at last, an article she had glanced at and forgottenfor the moment. 

She snatched it up and read. It discussed the earning powers ofseveral film queens. It credited them with salaries ten or twentytimes as much as hers. Two or three of them had companies of theirown with their names at the head of their films. 

Kedzie groaned. She rose and paced the floor, shamed, trapped, humbled. The misers of the Hyperfilm Company paid her a beggarlyhundred dollars a week! merely featured her among other stars ofgreater magnitude, while certain women had two thousand a weekand were "incorporated, " whatever that was!

Kedzie longed to get at Ferriday and tell him what a sneak he wasto lure her into such a web and tie her up with such cheap ropes. She would break her bonds and fling them in his face. 

She slid abruptly to the floor and began to go over the filmpages again, comparing her portraits with the portraits of thosehigher-paid creatures. She hated vanity and could not endure it inother women; it was a mere observation of a self-evident fact thatshe was prettier than all the other film queens put together. Shesat there sneering at the presumptuousness of screen idols whom shehad almost literally worshiped a year before. 

Then something gave her pause. The celluloid-queens had certainpages allotted to them, the actresses certain pages. 

But there was another realm where women were portrayed in fashionablegowns--débutantes, brides, matrons. And their realm was called "TheSocial World. " These women toiled not, earned not; they only spentmoney and time as they pleased. They were in "society, " and she wasout of it. They were ladies and she was a working-woman. 

Now Kedzie's cake was dough indeed. Now her pride was shame. Shedid not want to be a film queen. She did not want to work for anysum a week. She wanted to be a débutante and a bride and a matron. 

She had never had a coming-out party, and never would have. Shestudied the aristocrats, put their portraits on her dressing-tableand tried to copy their simple grandeur in her mirror. But shelacked a certain something. She didn't know a human being who wasswell to use as a model. 

Oh yes, she did--one--Jim Dyckman. 

A dark design came to her to dally with him no longer. He had draggedher out of that pool at Newport; now he must drag her into the swim. 

The telephone-bell rang. The hall-boy said:

"A gen'leman to see you--Mistoo Ferriday. "

"Send him along. "

"He's on the way now. "

"Oh, all right. "

As Kedzie hung up the receiver it occurred to her that this littleinterchange was about the un-swellest thing she had ever done. Shehad been heedless of the convenances. Her business life made herresponsible only to herself, and she felt able to take care ofherself anywhere. 

Now it came over her that she could not aspire to aristocracy andallow negro hall-boys to send men up in the elevator and telephoneher afterward. She snatched up the telephone and said:

"That you?"

"Yassum, Miss Adair. "

"How dare you send anybody up without sending the name up first?"

"Why, you nevva--"

"Who do you think I am that I permit anybody to walk in on me?"

"Why, we alwiz--"

"The idea of such a thing! It's disgraceful. "

"Why, I'm sorry, but--"

"Don't ever do it again. "

"No'm. "

She slapped the receiver on the hook and fumed again, realizing thata something of elegance had been lacking in her tirade. 

The door-bell rang, and she did not wait for her maid, but answeredit in angry person. Ferriday beamed on her. 

"Oh, it's you. You didn't stop to ask if I was visible. You justcame right on up, didn't you?"

He whispered: "Pardon me. Somebody else is here. Exit laughingly!"

That was insult on insult. 

"Stop it! There is not anybody else. Come back. What do you want?"

He came back, his laughter changed to rage. 

"Look here, you impudent little upstart from nowhere! I invented you, and if you're not careful I'll destroy you. "

"Is that so?" she answered; then, like Mr. Charles Van Loan'sbaseball hero, she realized with regret that the remark was notbrilliant as repartee. 

Ferriday was too wroth to do much better:

"Yes, that's so. You little nobody!"

"Nobody!" she laughed, pointing to the newspapers spangled withher portraits. 

Ferriday snorted, "Paid for by Jim Dyckman's money. "

"What do you mean--Jim Dyckman's money?"

"Oh, when I saw how idiotic he was over you, and how slow you werein landing him, and when I realized that the Hyperfilm Company wasgoing to slide your pictures out with no special advertising, I wentto him and tried to get him into the business. "

"You had a nerve!"

"Praise from Lady Hubert!"

"Whoever she is! Well, did he bite?"

"Yes and no. He's not such a fool as he looks in your company. Hehas a hard head for business; he wouldn't invest a cent. "

"I thought you said--"

"But he has a soft head for you. He said he wouldn't invest a centin the firm, but he'd donate all I could use for you. It was to bea little secret present. He told me you refused to accept presentsfrom him. Did you?"

Kedzie blushed before his cynic understanding. 

He laughed: "You're all right. You know the game, but you've gotto quicken your speed. You're taking too much footage in gettingto the climax. "

Kedzie was still incandescent with the new information:

"And Jim Dyckman paid for my advertising?"

"On condition that his name was kept out of it. That's why you'refamous. You couldn't have got your face in a paper if you had beenfifty times as pretty if he hadn't swamped the papers with money. And he would never have thought of it if I hadn't gone after him. So you'd better waste a little politeness on me or your first flarewill be your last. "

Kedzie acknowledged his conquest, bowed her head, and pouted upat him with such exquisite impudence that he groaned:

"I don't know whether I ought to kiss you or kill you. "

"Take your choice, my master, " Kedzie cooed. 

He snarled at her: "I guess the news I bring will do for you. Therewas a fire in the studio last night. You didn't know of it?"

Kedzie, dumbly aghast, shook her head. 

"If you'd read any part of the newspapers except your own press stuffyou'd have seen that there was a war in Europe yesterday and a firein New York last night. I was there trying to save what I could. I got a few blisters and not much else. Most of your unfinished workis finished--gone up in smoke. "

"You don't mean that my beautiful, wonderful films are destroyed?"

He nodded--then caught her as her knees gave way. He felt a stab ofpity for her as he dragged her to her _chaise longue_ and lether fall there. She was dazed with the shock. 

She had been indifferent to the destruction of fortresses andcathedrals--even of Rheims, with its titanic granite lace. She hadread, or might have read, of the airship that dropped a bomb throughthe great fresco in Venice where Tiepolo revealed his unequaledmastery of aerial perspective, taking the eye up through the domeand the human witnesses, cloud by cloud, past the hierarchiesof angels, past Christ and the Mother of God, on up to Jehovahhimself, bending down from infinite heights. The eternal loss ofthis picture meant nothing to her. But the destruction of her ownrecorded smiles and tears and the pretty twistings and turnings ofher young body--that was cataclysm. 

She was like everybody else, in that no multiplication of otherpeople's torments could be so vivid as the catching of her own thumbin a door. Kedzie was too crushed to weep. This little personalPompeii brought to the dust all the palaces and turrets of her hopeupon her head. She whispered to Ferriday:

"What are you going to do? Must you make them over again?"

He shook his head. "The Hyperfilm Company will probably shut upshop now. "

"And let my pictures die?"

He nodded. 

She beckoned him close and clung to him, babbling: "What will becomeof me? Oh, my poor pictures! My pretty pictures! The company owes mea week's salary. And I had counted on the money. What's to become ofme?"

Ferriday resented her eternal use of him for her own advantages. "Why do you appeal to me? Where's your friend Dyckman?"

"I was to see him this evening--dine with him. "

"Well, he can build you ten new studios and not feel it. Better askhim to set you up in business. "

Kedzie revolted at this, but she had no answer. Ferriday saw thepapers folded open at the society pages. He stared at them, at her, then sniffed:

"So that's your new ambition!"

"What?"

"'In the Social World!' You want to get in with that gang, eh? HasDyckman asked you to marry him?"

"Of course not. "

"Well, if he does, don't ever let him take you into his own set. "

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just to warn you. Those social worldlings wouldn't stand for you, Anita darling. You can make monkeys of us poor men. But those queenswill make a little scared worm out of you and step on you. And theywon't stop smiling for one minute. "

"Is that so?" Kedzie snarled. There it was again. 

The telephone rang. Kedzie answered it. The hall-boy timidlyannounced:

"Mistoo Dyckman is down year askin' kin he see you. Kin he?"

"Send him up, please, " said Kedzie. Then she turned to Ferriday. "He's here--at this hour! I wonder why. "

"I'd better slope. "

"Do you mind?"

"Not in the least. I'll go up a flight of stairs and take theelevator after His Majesty has finished with it. Good-by. Get busy!"

He slid out, and Kedzie scurried about her primping. The bell rang. She sent her maid to the door. Dyckman came in. She let him waitawhile--then went to him with an elegiac manner. 

She accepted his salute on a martyr-white brow. He said:

"I read about the fire. I was scared to death for you till I learnedthat all the people were safe. I motored up to see the ruins. Someruins! Like to see'em?"

"I don't think I could stand the sight of them. They're my ruins, too. "

"How so?"

"Because the company won't rebuild or go on, and most of my pictureswere destroyed. "

"Your pretty, beautiful, gorgeous pictures gone! Oh, God help us!That's too terrible to believe. "

She sighed, "It's true. "

"Why, I'd rather lose the Metropolitan Art Gallery than your films. Can't they be made over?"

"They could, but who's to stand the expense?"

"I will, if you'll let me. "

"Mr. Dyckman!"

"I thought we'd agreed that my name was Jim. "

"Jim! You would do that for me!"

"Why not?"

"But why so?"

"Because--why, simply--er--it's the most natural thing in the world, seeing that--Well, you're not sitting there pretending that you don'tknow I love you, are you?"

"Oh dear, oh dear! It's too wonderful to believe, you angel!"

And then for the first time she flung her arms about his neck andkissed him and hugged him, knelt on his lap and clasped him fiercely. 

He felt as if a simoom of rapture had struck him, and when she toldhim a dozen times that she loved him he could think of nothing tosay but, "Say, this is great!"

She forgave him the banality this time. When she had calmed herselfa little she said:

"But it would mean a frightful lot of money. "

"Whatever it costs, it's cheap--considering this. " He indicatedher arm about his neck. "I wouldn't let the world be robbed ofthe pictures of you, Anita, not for any money. " He told her to tellFerriday to make the arrangements and send the estimates to him. Andhe said, "I won't ask you to quit being photographed, even when weare married. "

"When we are married?" Kedzie parroted. 

"Of course! That's where we're bound for, isn't it? Where else couldwe pull up--that is, of course, assuming that you'll do me the honorof anchoring a great artist like you up to a big dub like me. Willyou?"

"Why--why--I'd like to think it over; this is so sudden. "

"Of course, you'd better think it over, you poor angel!"

Kedzie could not think what else to say or even what to think. Theword "marriage" reminded her that she had what the ineffable BunkerBean would have called "a little old last year's husband" lyingaround in the garret of her past. 

She went almost blind with rage at that beast of a Gilfoyle who haddragged her away and married her while she was not thinking. He musthave hypnotized her or drugged her. If only she could quietly murderhim! But she didn't even know where he was. 

CHAPTER XXI

The investigations of Messrs. Hodshon & Hindley in the life of Zadaand Cheever prospered exceedingly. In blissless ignorance of it, Zada had been inspired to set a firm of sleuths on Charity's trail. She wanted to be able to convince Cheever that Charity was intriguedwith Dyckman. The operators who kept Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever underespionage had the most stupid things to report to Zada. 

To Zada's disgust, Mrs. Cheever never called upon Jim Dyckman, andhe never called on her. Zada accused the bureau of cheating her, and finally put another agency to shadowing Jim Dyckman. Accordingto the reports she had, his neglect of Mrs. Cheever was perfectlyexplained. He was a mere satellite of a moving-picture actress, a new-comer named Anita Adair. 

The detectives reported that such gossip as they could pick up aboutthe studio indicated that Dyckman was putting money into the firmon her account. 

"A movie angel!" sneered Zada. She had wasted a hundred dollars onhim to find this out, and two hundred and fifty on Mrs. Cheever tofind out that she was intensely respectable. That was bitter newsto Zada. She canceled her business with her detective agency. Andthey called in the shadows that haunted Charity's life. 

The detectives on Zada's trail, however, had more rewarding materialto work with--although they found unexpected difficulties, they said, in getting the dictagraph installed in her apartment. They did notwish to ruin the whole enterprise by too great haste--especially asthey were receiving eight dollars a day and liberal expenses per man. 

At last, however, Hodshon sent word to Mrs. Cheever that thedictagraph was installed and working to a T, and she could listen-inwhenever she was ready. 

Charity was terrified utterly now. New scales were to be shakenfrom her eyes at the new tree of knowledge. She was to hear her mantalking to his leman. 

She had almost an epilepsy of terror, but she could not resist theimportunate opportunity. 

She selected from her veils a heavy crêpe that she had worn duringa period of mourning for one of her husband's relatives. It seemedappropriate now, for she was going into mourning for her own husband, living, yet about to die to her. 

She left the house alone after dark and walked along Fifth Avenuetill she found a taxicab. She gave the street number Hodshon hadgiven her and stepped in. She kept an eye on the lighted clock andin the dark sorted out the exact change and a tip, adding dimes asthey were recorded on the meter. She did not want to have to pausefor change, and she did not wish to make herself conspicuous by anextravagant tip. 

As the taxicab slid along the Avenue Charity wondered if any of thepassengers in other cabs could have an errand so gruesome as hers. She was tortured by fantastic imaginings of what she might hear. Shewondered how a man would talk to such a person as Zada, and how shewould answer. She imagined the most dreadful things she could. 

The taxicab surprised her by stopping suddenly before a brown-frontedresidence adjoining an apartment-house of (more or less literally)meretricious ornateness. She stepped out, paid her fare, and turned, to find Mr. Hodshon at her elbow. He had been waiting for her. Herecognized her by her melodramatic veil. He gave her needed help upa high stoop and opened the door with a key. 

She found herself in a shabby, smelly hall where no one else was. 

He motioned her up the stairway, and she climbed with timidity. Ateach level there were name-plates over the electric buttons. Thevery labels seemed illicit. Hodshon motioned her up and up for fourflights. 

Then he opened a door and stepped back to let her enter a roomunfurnished except for a few chairs and a table. Two men were inthe room, and they were laughing with uproar. One of them had atelephone-receiver clamped to his ear, and he was making shorthandnotes, explaining to his companion what he heard. 

They turned in surprise at Hodshon's entrance and rose to greetCharity with the homage due so great a client. 

Charity could hardly bespeak them civilly. They took her curtnessfor snobbery, but it was not. It swept over her that these peoplewere laughing over her most sacred tragedy. 

She advanced on the operator and put out her hand for the headpiecehe wore. He took it off and rubbed it with his handkerchief, andtold her that she must remove her hat and veil. 

She came out startlingly white and brilliant from the black. Sheput the elastic clamp over her head and set the receiver to herear. Instantly she was assailed by dreadful noises, a jangle ofinarticulate sounds like the barking of two dogs. 

"I can't hear a word, " she protested. 

"They're talkin' too loud, " said the operator. "The only way to beatthe dictagraph is to cut the wire or yell. "

"Are they quarreling, then?" Charity asked, almost with pleasure. 

"Yes, ma'am. But it's the lady and her maid. They been havin' aterrible scrap about marketin'. He--Mr. Cheever--ain't there yet. They're expectin' him, though. "

Charity felt that she had plumbed the depths of degradation inlistening to a quarrel between such a creature and her maid. Whatmust it be to be the maid of such a creature! She was about tosnatch away the earpiece when she heard the noise of a door opening. She looked toward the entrance of the room she was in, but the doorthat opened was in the other room in the other building. 

The voices of Zada and her maid stopped jangling, and she heardthe most familiar of all voices asking:

"What's the row to-day?"

There was an extra metal in the timbre and it had the effect of anold phonographic record, but there was no questioning whose voiceit was. 

Zada's voice became audibly low in answer. 

"She is such a fool she drives me crazy. "

A sullen, servile voice answered: "It ain't me's the fool, and asfor crazy--her wantin' me to bring home what they ain't in no market. How'm I goin' to git what ain't to be got, I asts you. This here waris stoppin' ev'y kind of food. "

Cheever's answer was characteristic. He didn't believe in servants'rights. 

"Get out. If you're impudent again I'll throw you out, and yourbaggage after you. "

"Yassar, " was the soft answer. 

There was the sound of shuffling feet and a softly closed door. Then Zada's voice, very mellow:

"I thought you'd never come, dearie. "

"Awfully busy to-day, honey. "

"You took dinner with her, of course. "

"No. It was a big day on the Street, and there was so much to do atthe office that I dined down-town at the Bankers' Club with severalmen and then went back to the office. I ought to be there all night, but I couldn't keep away from you any longer. "

There were mysterious quirks of sound that meant kisses and sighs andtender inarticulations. There were cooing tones which the dictagraphrepeated with hideous fidelity. 

Zada asked, "Did he have hard daydie old office-ums?"

And he answered, with infatuated imbecility, "Yes, he diddums, butworst was lonelying for his Zadalums. "

"Did Peterkin miss his Zadalums truly--truly?"

The inveterate idioms of wooers took on in Charity's ear a grotesqueobscenity, a sacrilegious burlesque of words as holy to her as prayeror the sacred dialect of priests. When Zada murmured, "Kissings!kissings!" Charity screamed: "Stop it, you beasts! You beasts!"

Then she clapped her hand over her lips, expecting to hear theirpanic at her outcry. But they were as oblivious of her pain or herrage as if an interplanetary space divided them. They went on withthe murmur and susurrus of their communion, while Charity lookedaskance at the three men. They could not hear, but could imagine, and they stared at her doltishly. 

"Leave the room! Go away!" she groaned. 

They slipped out through the door and left her to her shame. 

In the porches of her ear the hateful courtship purled on with itstender third-personal terms and its amorous diminutives, suffixedridiculously. 

"Zada was afaid her booful Peterkin had forgotten her and gone tothe big old house. "

"Without coming home first?"

"Home! that's the wordie I want. This is his homie, isn't it, Peterkin?"

"Yessy. "

"He doesn't love old villain who keeps us apart?"

"Nonie, nonie. "

"Never did, did he?"

"Never. "

"Only married her, didn't he?"

"That's allie. "

"Zada is only really wifie?"

"Only onlykins. "

Charity listened with a greed of self-torment like a fanaticpenitent. The chatter of the two had none of the indecency shehad expected, and that made it the more intolerably indecent. 

She saw that Cheever's affair with Zada had settled down to a stateof comfort, of halcyon delight. 

It had taken on domestication. He was at home with her and an alienin Charity's home. He told the woman his business affairs and littleoffice jokes. He laughed with a purity of cheer that he had long lostin his legal establishment. He used many of the love-words that hehad once used to Charity, and her heart was wrung with the mockeryof it. 

Charity listened helplessly. She was as one manacled or paralyzed andsubmitted to such a torture as she had never endured. She harkenedin vain for some hopeful note of uncongeniality, some reassurancefor her love or at least her vanity, some certainty that her husband, her first possessor, had given her some emotion that he could nevergive another. But he was repeating to Zada the very phrases of hishoneymoon, repeating them with all the fervor of a good actor playingRomeo for the hundredth time with his new leading lady. Indeed, heseemed to find in Zada a response and a unity that he had never foundin Charity's society. Her intelligence was cruelly goaded to therealization that she had never been quite the woman for Cheever. 

She had known that he had not been the full complement of her ownsoul. They had disagreed fiercely on hundreds of topics. He had beenchilled by many of her ardors, as many of his interests had boredher. She had supposed it to be an inevitable inability of a man anda woman to regard the world through the same eyes. She had let himgo his way and had gone her own. And now it seemed that he had inhis wanderings found some one who mated him exactly. The butterflyhad liked the rose, but had fluttered away; when it found the orchidit closed its wings and rested content. 

It was a frightful revelation to Charity, for it meant that Cheeverhad been merely flirting with her. She had caught his eye as a girlin a strange port captivates a sailor. He had haunted her windowwith serenades. Finding her to be what we call "a good girl, " he hadcalled upon her father and mother that he might talk to her longer. And then he had gone to church with her and married her that he mightget rid of her father and mother and her own scruples. And so he hadmade her his utterly, and after a few days and nights had sailed away. He had come back to her now and then as a sailor does. 

Meanwhile in another port he had found what we call "a bad woman. "There had been no need to serenade her out into the streets. Theywere her shop. No parents had guarded her hours; no priest wasintermediary to her possession. But once within her lair he hadfound himself where he had always wanted to be, and she had foundherself with the man she had been hunting. She closed her window, drove her frequenters, old and new, from the door; and he regrettedthat he had given pledges to that other woman. 

It was a pitiful state of affairs, no less pitiful for being oldand ugly and innumerously commonplace. It meant that Cheever underthe white cloak of matrimony had despoiled Charity of her innocence, and under the red domino of intrigue had restored to Zada hers. 

If Charity, sitting like a recording angel, invisible but hearingeverything, had found in the communion of Zada and Cheever onlythe fervor of an amour, she could have felt that Cheever was merelya libertine who loved his wife and his home but loved to rove aswell. She had, however, ghastly evidence that Cheever was only nowthe rake reformed; his marriage had been merely one of his escapades;he had settled down now to monogamy with Zada, and she was his wifein all but style and title. 

There was more of Darby and Joan than of Elvira and Don Juan intheir conversation. He told Zada with pride that he had not had adrink all day, though he had needed alco-help and the other men hadridiculed him. She told him that she had not had a drink for a weekand only one cigarette since her lonely dinner. They were in a stateof mutual reformation!

Where, then, was the sacrament of marriage? Which of the women heldthe chalice now?

It was enforced on Charity that it was she and not Zada who hadbeen the inspirer and the victim of Cheever's flitting appetite. It was Zada and not she who had won him to the calm, the dignity, the sincerity, the purity that make marriage marriage. It was a hardlesson for Charity, and she did not know what she ought to do withher costly knowledge. She could only listen. 

When Zada complained that she had had a dreadful day of blues Cheevermade jokes for her as for a child, and she laughed like the childshe was. For her amusement he even went to a piano and played, withblundering three-chord accompaniment, a song or two. He played jokeson the keyboard. He revealed none of the self-consciousness that hemanifested before Charity when he exploited his little bag ofparlor tricks. 

Charity's mood had changed from horror to eager curiosity, and thenceto cold despair, to cold resentment. It went on to cold intelligenceand a belief that her life with Cheever was over. Their marriage wasa proved failure, and any further experiments with its intimacieswould be unspeakably vile. Or so she thought. 

She had consented to this dictagraphic inspection of her husband'sintrigue merely to confirm or refute gossip. She had had more thanevidence enough to satisfy her. Her first reaction to it was aprimitive lust for revenge. 

Once or twice she blazed with such anger that she rose to tear thewire loose from the wall and end the torment. But her curiosityrestrained her. She set the earpiece to her ear again. 

At length she formed her resolution to act. She called out, "Mr. Hodshon, come here!"

He came in and found her a pillar of rage. 

"I've heard enough. I'll do what I refused before. I'll go with youand break in. "

Hodshon was dazed. He was not ready to act. She had refused his planto break in according to the classic standards. He had let the planlapse and accepted Mrs. Cheever as a poor rich wretch whom he hadcontracted to provide with a certain form of morbid entertainment. He could do nothing now but stammer:

"Well--well--is that so? Do you really? You know you didn't--O' course--Well, let's see now. You know we ain't prepared. I toldyou we had to have a c'rob'rating witness. It wouldn't be legal if wewere to--Still, they probably would accept you as witness and us ascorroboration, but you wouldn't want to go on the stand and tell whatyou found--not a nice refined lady like you are. The witness-standis no place for a lady, anyway. 

"The thing is if you could get some gentleman friend to go with youand you two break in. Then you'd both be amateurs, kind of. You see?Do you know any gentleman who might be willing to do that for you?The best of friends get very shy when you suggest such a job. Butif you know anybody who would be interested and wanted to helpyou--Do you?"

Only two names came to Charity's searching mind--Jim Dyckman'simpossible name and one that was so sublimely unfit that she laughedas she uttered it. 

"There's the Reverend Doctor Mosely. "

Hodshon tried to laugh. 

"I was reading head-lines of a sermon of his. He's down on divorce. "

"That's why he'd be the ideal witness, " said Charity. 

"But would he come?"

"Of course not, " she laughed. "There's no use of carrying thisfurther. I've had all I can stand to-night. Let me go. "

As usual with people who have had all they can stand, Charity wantedsome more. She glanced at the receiver, curious as to what wingedwords had flown unattended during her parley with Hodshon. 

She put the receiver to her ear and fell back. Again she was greetedwith clamor. They were quarreling ferociously. 

That might mean either of two things: there are the quarrels thatenemies maintain, and those that devoted lovers wage. The lattersort are perhaps the bitterer, the less polite. Charity could notlearn what had started the wrangle between those two. 

Slowly it died away. Zada's cries turned to sobs, and her tiradeto sobs. 

"You don't love me. Go back to her. You love her still. "

"No, I don't, honey. I just don't want her name brought into ourconversation. It doesn't seem decent, somehow. It's like bringingher in here to listen to our quarrels. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'mtrying not to, but you're so peculiarly hard to keep peace withlately. What's the reason, darling?"

Charity was smitten with a fear more terrible than any yet. Sheheard its confirmation. Zada whispered:

"Can't you guess?"

"No, I can't. "

"Stupid!" Zada murmured. "You poor, stupid boy. "

Charity heard nothing for a long moment--then a gasp. 

"Zada!"

She greeted his alarm with a chuckle and a flurry of proud laughter. He bombarded her with questions:

"Why didn't you tell me? How long? What will you do? How couldyou?--you're no fool. "

Her answers were jumbled with his questions--his voice terrified, hers victorious. 

"I've kept it a secret for months, because I was afraid of you. It's my right. It's too late to do anything now. And now we'll seewhether you love me or not--and how much, if any. "

There was again silence. Charity could hardly tolerate the suspense. Both she and Zada were hanging breathlessly on Cheever's answer. 

He did not speak for so long that Zada gave up. "You don't love me, then? I'd better kill myself, I suppose. It's the only solution now. And I'm willing, since you don't love me enough. "

"No, no--yes, I do. I adore you--more than ever. But it's such astrange ambition for you; and, God! what a difference it makes, what a difference!"

That was what Charity thought. For once she agreed with Cheever, echoed his words and his dismay and stood equally stunned beforethe new riddle. It was a perfect riddle now, for there was no endto the answers, and every one of them was wrong. 

CHAPTER XXII

Charity let the receiver fall. She had had enough. She sank intoa chair and would have slipped to the floor, but her swimming eyesmade out the blurred face of Hodshon, terrified at her pallor. 

If she fainted he would resuscitate her. She could not add thatto her other ignominies. She clenched herself like one great fistof resolution till the swoon was frustrated. She sat still fora while--then rose, put on her hat, swathed her face in the veil, and went down the flights of stairs and out into the cool, darkstreet. 

She had forgotten that she had dismissed the taxicab. Fortunatelyanother was lurking in the lee of the apartment-house. Hodshonsummoned it and would have ridden home with her, but she forbadehim. She passed on the way the church of Doctor Mosely and hishouse adjoining. She was tempted to stop, but she was too wearyfor more talk. 

She slept exceedingly well that night, so well that when she wokeshe regretted that she had not slept on out of the world. She fellasleep again, but was trampled by a nightmare. She woke trying toscream. Her eyes, opening, found her beautiful room about her andthe dream dangers vanished. 

But the horrors of her waking hours of yesterday had not vanished. They were waiting for her. She could not end them by the closingof her eyes. In the cool, clear light of day she saw still moreproblems than before--problems crying for decisions and contradictingeach other with a hopeless conflict of moralities. To move in anydirection was to commit ugly deeds; to move in no direction was tocommit the ugliest of all. 

She rang for her coffee, and she could hardly sit up to it. Her maidcried out at her age-worn look, and begged her to see a doctor. 

"I'm going to as soon as I'm strong enough, " said Charity Coe. Butshe meant the Reverend Doctor Mosely. She thought that she couldpersuade even him that surgery was necessary upon that marriage. Atany rate, she determined to force a decision from him. She telephonedthe unsuspecting old darling, and he readily consented to see her. She spent an hour or two going over her Bible and concordance. Theygave her little comfort in her plight. 

When finally she dragged herself from her home to Doctor Mosely's hisbutler ushered her at once into the study. Doctor Mosely welcomed herboth as a grown-up child and as an eminent dealer in good deeds. 

She went right at her business. "Doctor Mosely, I loathe myself foradding to the burdens your parish puts upon your dear shoulders butyou're responsible for my present dilemma. "

"My dear child, you don't tell me! Then you must let me help youout of it. But first tell me--what I'm responsible for. "

"You married me to Peter Cheever. "

"Why, yes, I believe I did. I marry so many dear girls. Yes, Iremember your wedding perfectly. A very pretty occasion, and youlooked extremely well. So did the bridegroom. I was quite proudof joining two such--such--"

"Please unjoin us. "

"Great Heavens, my child! What are you saying?"

"I am asking you to untie the knot you tied. "

The old man stared at her, took his glasses off, rubbed them, put themon, and peered into her face to make sure of her. Then he said:

"If that were in my power--and you know perfectly well that it isnot--it would be a violation of all that I hold sacred in matrimony. "

"Just what do you hold sacred, Doctor Mosely?"

"Dear, dear, this will never do. Really, I don't wish to takeadvantage of my cloth, but, really, you know, Charity, you havebeen taught better than to snap at the clergy like that. "

"Forgive me; I'm excited, not irreverent. But--well, you don'tbelieve in divorce, do you?"

"I have stated so with all the power of my poor eloquence. "

"Do you believe that the seventh commandment is the least importantof the lot?"

"Certainly not!"

"If a man breaks any commandment he ought to do what he can toremedy the evil?"

"Yes. "

"Then if a man violates the seventh, why shouldn't he be compelledto make restitution, too?"

"What restitution could he make?"

"Not much. He has taken from the girl he marries her name, herinnocence, her youth--he can restore only one thing--her freedom. "

"That is not for him to restore. 'What, therefore, God hath joined, let not man put asunder. '"

The old man grew majestic when he thundered the sonorities of HolyWrit. Charity was cowed, but she made a craven protest:

"But who is to say what God hath joined?"

"The marriage sacraments administered by the ordained clergyestablished that. There is every warrant for clergymen to performmarriages; no Christian clergyman pretends to undo them. "

"You believe that marriage is an indissoluble sacrament, then?"

"Indeed I do. "

"Who made my marriage a sacrament?"

"I did, as the agent of God. "

"And the minute you pronounce a couple married they are registeredin heaven, and God completes the union?"

"You may put it as you please; the truth is divine. "

"In other words, a man like you can pronounce two people man andwife, but once the words have escaped his lips nothing can evercorrect the mistake. "

"There are certain conditions which annul a marriage, but once itis genuinely ratified on earth it is ratified in heaven. "

"In heaven, where, as the New Testament says in several places, married people do not live together? The woman who had sevenhusbands on earth, you know, didn't have any at all in heaven. "

"So Christ answered the Sadducee who tempted him with questions. "

"Marriage is strictly a matter of the earth, earthy, then?"

"Nothing is strictly that, my child. But what in the name of eitherearth or heaven has led you to come over here and break into mymorning's work with such a fusillade of childish questions? You knowa child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer. Also, achild can ask questions which a wise man can answer to another wiseman but not to a child. You talk like an excited, an unreasoninggirl. I am surprised to hear you ridiculing the institution ofChristian marriage, but your ridicule does not prove it to beridiculous. "

"Oh, it's not ridiculous to me, Doctor Mosely; and I'm notridiculing it. I am horribly afraid of what it has done to meand will do to me. "

"Explain that, my dear. "

She did explain with all bluntness: "My husband openly lives witha mistress. He prefers her to me. "

The old man was stunned. He faltered: "Dear me!"

That is most reprehensible--most! He should be subjected todiscipline. "

"Whose? He isn't a member of your church. And how can you disciplinesuch a man--especially as you don't believe in divorce?"

"Have you tried to win him back to the path of duty, to waken himto a realizing sense of his obliquity?"

"Often and long. It can't be done, for he loves the other woman. "

"Don't use the beautiful word love for such a debasing impulse. "

"But I know he loves her!"

"How could you know?"

"I heard him tell her. "

"You heard him! Do you ask me to believe that he told her that inyour presence?"

"I heard him on the dictagraph. "

"You have been collecting evidence for divorce, then?"

"No, I was collecting it to assure myself that the gossip I hadheard was false--and to submit to you. "

"But why to me?"

"When I first learned of this hideous situation my first impulse wasto rush to the courts. I went to church instead. I heard your sermon. It stopped me from seeing a lawyer. "

"I am glad my poor words have served some useful end. "

"But have they?"

"If I have prevented one divorce I have not lived in vain. "

"You don't think I have a right to ask for one?"

"Absolutely and most emphatically not. "

"In spite of anything he may do?"

"Anything! He will come back to you, Charity. Possess your soulin patience. It may be years, but keep the light burning and hewill return. "

"In what condition?"

"My child, you shock me! You've been reading the horrible literaturethat gets printed under the guise of science. "

"I must wait, then?"

"Yes, if you wish to separate from him for a time, your absence mightwaken him to a realizing sense. There are no children, I believe. "

"None, yet. "

"Yet? Oh, then--"

"If there were, would it make a difference?"

"Of course! an infinite difference!"

"You think a man and woman ought to let their child keep themtogether in any event?"

"Need I say it? What greater bond of union could there be? Is itnot God's own seal and blessing on the wedlock, rendering it, soto speak, even more indissoluble? You blush, my child. Is it true, then, that--"

"A child is expected. "

"Ah, my dear girl! How that proves what I have maintained! The birthof the little one will bring the errant father to his senses. Thetiny hands will unite its parents as if they were the hands of apriest drawing them together. That child is the divine messengerconfirming the sacrament. "

"You believe that?"

"Utterly. Oh, I am glad. Motherhood is the crowning triumph; ithallows any woman howsoever lowly or wicked. And you are neither, Charity. I know you to be good and busy in good works. But were younever so evil, this heavenly privilege would make of you a veryvessel of sanctity. "

Charity turned pale as she sprung the trap. "The child isexpected--not by me, but by the other woman. "

Doctor Mosely's beatitude turned to a sick disgust. Red and whitestreaked his face. His first definite reaction was wrath at thetrick that had been played upon him. 

"Mrs. Cheever! This is unworthy of you! You distress me! Really!"

"I was a little distressed myself. What am I to do?"

"I will not believe what you say. "

"I heard her confess it--boast of it. She agrees with you thatthe tiny hands will bring her and the father together and confirmthe sacrament. "

"It can't be. It must not be!"

"You don't advocate that form of birth-control? They are arrestingpeople who preach prevention of conception. You are not so modernas that. "

"Hush!"

"What am I to do? You advise me to possess my soul in patience foryears. But the child won't wait that long. Doesn't the situationalter your opinion of divorce?"

"No!"

"But if I don't divorce Mr. Cheever and let him marry her the childwill have no father--legally. "

"The responsibility is his, not yours. "

"You don't believe in infant damnation, do you? At least not onearth, do you?"

"I cannot control the evil impulses of others. The doctrines of theChurch cannot be modified for the convenience of every sinner. "

"You advise against divorce, then?"

"I am unalterably opposed to it. "

"What is your solution, then, of this situation?"

"I shall have to think it over--and pray. Please go. You havestaggered me. "

"When you have thought it over will you give me the help of youradvice?"

"Certainly. "

"Then shall I wait till I hear from you?"

"If you will. "

"Good-by, Doctor Mosely. "

"Good-by, Mrs. --Charity--my child!"

He pressed her long hand in his old palms. He was trembling. He waslike a priest at bay before the altar while the arrows of the infidelrain upon him. These arrows were soft as rain and keen as silk. Hewas more afraid of them than if they had been tipped with flint orsteel. 

Charity left the parsonage no wiser than she entered it. She hadaccomplished nothing further than to ruin Doctor Mosely's excellentstart on an optimistic discourse in the prevailing fashion of theenormously popular "Pollyanna" stories: it was to be a "glad" sermon, an inexorably glad sermon. But poor Doctor Mosely could not preachit now in the face of this ugly fact. 

Charity went home with her miserable triumph, which only emphasizedher defeat. 

She found at home a mass of details pressing for immediate actionif the big moving-picture project were not to lapse into inanity. The mere toil of such a task ought to have been welcomed, at leastas a diversion. But her heart was as if dead in her. 

She wondered how Jim Dyckman was progressing with his portion ofthe task. He had not reported to her. She wondered why. 

She decided to telephone him. She put out her hand, but did not liftthe receiver from the hook. She began to muse upon Jim Dyckman. Shebegan to think strange thoughts of him. If she had married him shemight not have failed so wretchedly to find happiness. Of course, she might have failed more wretchedly and more speedily, but thewayfarer who chooses one of two crossroads and meets a wolf uponit does not believe that a lion was waiting on the other. 

CHAPTER XXIII

Charity pondered her whole history with Jim Dyckman, from theirchildhood flirtations on. He had had other flings, and she had flungherself into Peter Cheever's arms. Peter Cheever had flung her outagain. Jim Dyckman had opened his arms again. 

He had told her that she was wasting herself. He had offered her loveand devotion. She had struck his hands away and rebuked him fiercely. A little later she had felt a pang of jealousy because he looked atthat little Greek dancer so interestedly. She had tried to atone forthis appalling thought by interesting herself in the little dancer'swelfare and hunting a position for her with the moving-picturecompany. She had told Jim Dyckman to look for the girl in the studioand find how she was getting along. He had never reported on that, either. Charity smiled bitterly. 

Last night it had come over her that her love for Peter Cheeverwas dead. Was love itself, then, dead for her? or was her heartalready busy down there in the dark of her bosom, busy like a seedgerminating some new lily or fennel to thrust up into the daylight?

The sublime and the ridiculous are as close together as the oppositesides of a sheet of cloth. The sublime is the obverse of the tapestrywith the figures heroic, saintly or sensuous, in battle or temple orbower, in conquest, love, martyrdom, adoration. The reverse of thetapestry is a matter of knots and tufts, broken patterns, ludicrousaccidents of contour. The same threads make up both sides. 

On one side of Charity's tapestry she saw herself as a pitifulfigure, a neglected wife returned from errands of mercy to find herhusband enamoured of a wanton. She spurned the proffered heart ofa great knight while her own heart bled openly in her breast. 

On the other side she saw the same red threads that crimsoned herheart running across the arras to and from the heart of Jim Dyckman. It was the red thread of life and love, blood-color--blood-maker, blood-spiller, heart-quickener, heart-sickener, the red thread ofromance, of motherhood and of lust, birth and murder, family andbawdry. 

In the tapestry her heart was entire, her eyes upon her faithlesshusband. On the other side her eyes faced the other knight; herheartstrings ran out to his. She laughed harshly at the vision. Her laugh ended in a fierce contempt of herself and of every bodyand thing else in the world. 

She was too weak to fight the law and the Church and the publicin order to divorce her husband. Would it be weakness or strengthto sit at home in the ashes and deny herself to life and love? Shecould always go to Jim Dyckman and take him as her cavalier. Butthen she would become one of those heartbroken, leash-broken womenwho are the Mænads of society, more or less circumspect and shy, butnone the less lawless. But wherein were they better than the Zadas?

Charity was wrung with a nausea of love in all its activities; sheforswore them. Yet she was human. She was begotten and conceived inthe flesh of lovers. She was made for love and its immemorial usages. How could she expect to destroy her own primeval impulse just becauseone treacherous man had enjoyed her awhile and passed on to his nextaffair?

There was no child of hers to grow up and replace her in the eternalarmies of love and compel her aside among the veteran women who havebeen mustered out. She was in a sense already widowed of her husband. Certainly she would never love Cheever again or receive him into herarms. He belonged to the mother of his child. Let that woman stepaside into the benches of the spectators, those who have served theirpurpose and must become wet-nurses, child-dryers, infant-teachers, perambulator-motors, question-answerers, nose-blowers, mischief-punishers, cradleside-bards. 

Charity laughed derisively at the vision of Zada as a mother. TheMadonna pose had fascinated this Magdalen, but she would find thatmothers have many, many other things to do for their infants thanto sit for portraits and give them picturesque nourishment--many, many other things. If Zada's child inherited its father's andmother's wantonness, laziness, wickedness, and violence of temper, there was going to be a lively nursery in that apartment. 

Zada had so wanted a baby as a reward of love that she was willingto snatch it out of the vast waiting-room without pausing for alicense. She would find that she had bought punishment at a highprice. The poor baby was in for a hard life, but it would give itsparents one in exchange. 

Charity was appalled at this unknown harshness of her soul; itsneered at all things once held beautiful and sacred. Her soul waslike a big cathedral broken into by a pagan mob that ran aboutsmashing images, defiling fonts, burlesquing all the solemn rituals. Her quiet mind was full of sunburnt nymphs and goatish fauns withshaggy fetlocks. She saw the world as a Brocken and all the Sabbaththere was was a Sabbath orgy of despicably brutish fiends. 

She tried to run away. She went to her piano; her fingers would playno dirges; they grew flippant, profane in rhythm. She could think ofno tunes but dances--andantes turned scherzi, the Handelian largobecame a Castilian tango. She found herself playing a somethingstrange--she realized that it was a lullaby! She fled from the piano. 

She went to her books for nepenthe. There were romances in French, Italian, German, English, and American, new books, old books, allrepeating the same stencils of passion in different colors. Shecould have spat at them and their silly ardors over the same oldbanality: I love him; he loves me--beatitude! I love him; he lovesher--tragedy!

The novelists were like stupid children parroting the ancientmonotony--_amo_, _amas_, _amat_; _amamus_, _amatis_, _amant_; _amo_, _amas_, _amat_--away with such primer stuff! She had learned thegrammar of love and was graduated from the school-books. She wasa postgraduate of love and wedlock. She had had enough of them--toomuch; she would read no more of love, dwell no more upon it; shewould forget it. 

She wanted some antiseptic book, something frigid, intellectual, ascetic. At last she thought she had it. On her shelf she foundan uncut volume, a present from some one who had never read it, but had bought it because it cost several dollars and would serveas a gift. 

It was Gardner's biography of Saint Catherine of Siena, "a studyin the religion, literature, and history of the fourteenth centuryof Italy. " That sounded heartless enough. The frontispiece portraitof the wan, meager, despondent saint promised freedom from romanticbalderdash. 

Charity found a chair by a window and began to read. The prefaceannounced the book to be "history centered in the work andpersonality of one of the most wonderful women that ever lived. "This was the medicine Charity wanted--the story of a woman whohad been wonderful without love or marriage. 

There followed a description of the evil times--and the wickedtown in which Caterina Benincasa was born--as long ago as 1347. Apestilence swept away four-fifths of the populace. One man told howhe had buried five of his sons in one trench. People said that theend of the world had come. 

The word _trench_, the perishing of the people and the apparentend of the world, gave the story a modern sound. It might concernthe murderous years of 1914-16. 

Catherine was religious, as little girls are apt to be. She evenwanted to enter a monastery in the disguise of a boy. Later hersister persuaded her to dye her hair and dress fashionably. Charitybegan to fear for her saint, but was reassured to find that alreadyat sixteen she was a nun and had commenced that "life of almostincredible austerity, " freeing herself from all dependence on foodand sleep and resting on a bare board. 

Charity read with envy how Catherine had devoted herself for threewhole years to silence broken only by confessions. How good it wouldbe not to talk to anybody about anything for years and years! Howblissful to live a calm, gray life in a strait cell, doing no laborbut the errands of mercy and of prayer!

Charity read on, wondering a little at Catherine's idea of God, and her morbid devotion to His blood as the essence of everythingbeautiful and holy. Charity could not put herself back intothat Middle Age when the most concrete materialism was mingledinextricably with the most fantastic symbolism. 

Suddenly she was startled to find that appalling temptations foundeven Catherine out even in her cloistral solitude. It frightenedCharity to read such a passage as this:

There came a time, towards the end of these three years, when theseassaults and temptations became horrible and unbearable. Aerial menand women, with obscene words and still more obscene gestures, seemedto invade her little cell, sweeping round her like the souls of thedamned in Dante's "Hell, " inviting her simple and chaste soul tothe banquet of lust. Their suggestions grew so hideous and persistentthat she fled in terror from the cell that had become like a circleof the infernal regions, and took refuge in the church; but theypursued her thither, though there their power seemed checked. And herChrist seemed far from her. At last she cried out, remembering thewords in the vision: "I have chosen suffering for my consolation, and will gladly bear these and all other torments, in the name ofthe Saviour, for as long as shall please His Majesty. " When she saidthis, immediately all that assemblage of demons departed in confusion, and a great light from above appeared that illumined all the room, and in the light the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, nailed to the Crossand stained with blood, as He was when by His own blood He enteredinto the holy place; and from the Cross He called the holy virgin, saying: "My daughter Catherine, seest thou how much I have sufferedfor thee? Let it not then be hard to thee to endure for Me. "

This terrified Charity, and the further she read the less comfort shegained. Her matter-of-fact Manhattan mind could vaguely understandSaint Catherine's mystic nuptials with Christ; but that definite goldring He placed on her finger, that diamond with four pearls aroundit, frustrated her comprehension. 

When she read on and learned how Catherine's utter self-denialoffended the other churchmen and church-women; how her confessionsof sinful thought brought accusations of sinful deed; how the friarsactually threw her out of a church at noon and kicked her as she laysenseless in the dust; how she was threatened with assassination andwas turned from the doors of the people; and in what torment she died--from these strange events in the progress of a strange soul througha strange world Charity found no parallel to guide her life along. 

For hours she read; but all that remained to her was the vision ofthat poor woman who could find no refuge from her flesh and fromthe demons that played evil rhapsodies upon the harp-strings ofher nerves. 

Charity closed the book and understood fear. She was now not so muchsick of love as afraid of it. She was afraid of solitude, afraid ofreligion and of the good works that cause ridicule or resentment. 

Darkness gathered about her with the closing of the day. She dreadedthe night and the day, people and the absence of people. She knew nowoman she could take her anguish to for sympathy; it would provokeonly rebuke or laughter. The Church had rebuffed her. There remainedonly men, and what could she hope from them? Even Jim Dyckman had notbeen a friend merely. He had told her that she wasted herself as wellas him. 

Beyond this night there were years of nights, years on years of days. She could not even be alone; for who was ever actually alone? Even inthe hush and the gloom of the deepening twilight there were figureshere, shadows that sighed, delicate insinuators. There were no satyrsor bassarids, but gentlemen in polo garb, in evening dress, inyachting flannels. There were moon-nights in Florida, electric floodson dancing-floors, this dim corner of this room with some one leaningon her chair, bending his head and whispering:

"Charity, it's Jim. I love you. "

She rose and thrust aside the arms that were not there. She could notorder him away, because he was not there. And yet he was there. 

She was afraid that he still loved her and afraid that he did not. She was afraid that she had always loved him and that she nevercould. She was afraid that she would go to him or send for him, and afraid that she would be afraid to. She thrust away the phantom, but her palms pleaded against his departure. Softer than a whisperand noisier than a cry was her thought:

"I don't want to be alone, I am afraid to be alone. "

CHAPTER XXIV

Kedzie wanted to be a lady, and with the ladies stand--a tall tiarain her hair, a lorgnette in her hand. 

She had succeeded dizzily, tremendously, in her cinema career. Thetimid thing that had watched the moving-picture director to see howhe held his wineglass, and accepted his smile as a beam of sunshinebreaking through the clouds about his godlike head, now found hisgracefulness "actory, " his intimacy impudent, and his associationcompromising. Ferriday's very picturesqueness and artistry convincedher now that he was not quite the gentleman. 

Kedzie was beginning to imitate the upper dialect already. She whobut a twelvemonth past was dividing people into "hicks" and "swells, "and whose epithets were "reub" and "classy, " was now a generationadvanced. 

Ferriday saw it and raged. One day in discussing the cast of apicture he mentioned the screen-pet Lorraine Melnotte as the manfor the principal male rôle. 

Kedzie sighed; "Oh, he is so hopelessly romantic, never quite thegentleman. In costume he gets by, but in evening clothes he alwayssuggests the handsome waiter--don't you think?"

Ferriday roared, with disgust: "Good Lord, but you're growing. Whatis this thing I've invented? Are you a _Frankenstein?_"

Kedzie looked blank and sneered, "Are you implying that I haveYiddish blood in me?"

She wondered why he laughed, but she would not ask. Along many linesKedzie did not know much, but in others she was uncannily acute. 

Kedzie was gleaning all her ideas of gentlemanship from Jim Dyckman. She knew that he had lineage and heritage and equipage and all thatsort of thing, and he must be great because he knew great people. His careless simplicity, artlessness, shyness, all the things thatdistressed her at first, were now accepted as the standards ofconduct for everybody. 

In life as in other arts, the best artists grow from the complex tothe simple, the tortuous to the direct, from pose to poise, fromtradition to truth, from artifice to reality. Kedzie was beginningto understand this and to ape what she could not do naturally. 

Her comet-like scoot from obscurity to fame in the motion-picture skyhad exhausted the excitement of that sky, and now she was ashamed ofbeing a wage-earner, a mere actress, especially a movie actress. 

If the studio had not caught fire and burned up so many thousands ofyards of her portraiture she would have broken her contract withoutscruple. But the shock of the loss of her pretty images drove herback to the scene. The pity of so much thought, emotion, action, going up in smoke was too cruel to endure. 

It was not necessary for Dyckman to pay the expenses of theirrepetition in celluloid, as he offered. The Hyperfilm Company rentedanother studio and began to remake the destroyed pictures. They werespeedily renewed because the scenarios had been rescued and there waslittle of that appalling waste of time, money, and effort which hasalmost wrecked the whole industry. They did not photograph a thousandfeet for every two hundred used. 

Kedzie's first pictures had gone to the exchanges before the fire, and they were continuing their travels about the world while she wasat work revamping the rest. 

About this time the Hyperfilm managers decided to move their factoryto California, where the sempiternal sunlight insured betterphotography at far less expense. This meant that Kedzie must leaveNew York only partly conquered and must tear herself away from JimDyckman. 

She broke down and cried when she told Dyckman of this, and for thefirst time his sympathies were stampeded on her account. He pettedher, and she slid into his arms with a child-like ingratiation thatmade his heart swell with pity. 

"What's the odds, " he said, attempting consolation, "where you work, so long as you work?"

"But it would mean, " she sobbed--"it would mean taking me away-ayfrom you-ou. "

This tribute enraptured Dyckman incredibly. That he should mean somuch to so wonderful a thing as she was was unbelievably flattering. He had dogged Charity's heels with meek and unrewarded loyalty untilhe had lost all pride. Kedzie's tears at the thought of leaving himwoke it to life again. 

"By golly, you sha'n't go, then!" he cried. "I was thinking of comingout there to visit you, but--but it would be better yet for you tostay right here in little old New York. "

This brought back Kedzie's smile. But she faltered, "What if theyhold me to my contract, though?"

"Then we'll bust the old contract. I'll buy 'em off. You needn'twork for anybody. "

There was enough of the old-fashioned woman of one sort left inKedzie to relish the slave-block glory of being fought over by twopurchasers. She spoke rather slyly:

"But I'll be without wages then. How would I live? I've gotto work. "

Dyckman answered at once: "Of course not. I'll take care of you. I offered to before, you know. " He had made a proposal of marriagesome time before; it was the only sort of proposal that he had beentempted to make to Kedzie. He liked her immensely; she fascinatedhim; he loved to pet her and kiss her and talk baby talk to her; butshe had never inflamed his emotions. 

Either it was the same with her, or she had purposely controlledherself and him from policy, or had been restrained by coldness orby a certain decency, of which she had a good deal, after all andin spite of all. 

Throughout their relations they had deceived Ferriday and othercynics. For all their indifference to appearances, they had behavedlike a well-behaved pair of young betrothed Americans, with acomplete freedom from chaperonage, and a considerable liberalityof endearments, but no serious misdemeanor. 

Kedzie knew what he meant, but she wanted to hear him propose again. So she murmured:

"How do you mean, take care of me?"

"I mean--marry you, of course. "

"Oh!" said Kedzie. And in a whirlwind of pride she twined her armsabout his neck and clung to him with a desperate ardor. 

Dyckman said: "This isn't my first proposal, you know. You said youwanted time to think it over. Haven't you thought it over yet?"

"Yes, " Kedzie sighed, but she said no more. 

"Well, what's the answer?" he urged. 

"Yes. "

She whispered, torn between rapture and despair. 

Any woman might have blazed with pride at being asked to marry JimDyckman. The little villager was almost consumed like another Semelescorched by Jupiter's rash approach. 

In Dyckman's clasp Kedzie felt how lonely she had been. She wanted tobe gathered in from the dangers of the world, from poverty and fromwork. She had not realized how tiny a thing she was, to be combatingthe big city all alone, until some one offered her shelter. 

People can usually be brave and grim in the presence of defeat andperil and hostility. It is the kind word, the sudden victory, thediscovery of a friend that breaks one down. Even Kedzie wept. 

She wept all over Jim Dyckman's waistcoat, sat on his lap andswallowed throat-lumps and tears and tugged at his cuff-links withher little fingers. 

Then she looked up at him and blushed and kissed him fiercely, hugging him with all the might of her arms. He was troubled by thefirst frenzy she had ever shown for him, and he might have learnedhow much more than a merely pretty child she was if she had notsuddenly felt an icy hand laid on her hands, unclasping them. 

A cold arm seemed to bend about her throat and drag her back. Sheslid from Dyckman's knees, gasping:

"Oh!"

She could not become Mrs. Jim Dyckman, because she was Mrs. ThomasGilfoyle. 

Dyckman was astounded and frightened by her action. He put his handout, but she unclenched his fingers from her wrist, mumbling:

"Don't--please!"

"Why not? What's wrong with you, child?"

How could she tell him? What could she do? She must do a lot ofthinking. On one thing she was resolved: that she would not giveDyckman up. She would find Gilfoyle and get quit of him. They hadbeen married so easily; there must be an easy way of unmarrying. 

She studied Dyckman. She must not frighten him away, or let himsuspect. She laughed nervously and went back to his arms, giggling:

"Such a wonderful thing it is to have you want me for your wife!I'm not worthy of your name, or your love, or anything. "

Dyckman could hardly agree to this, whatever misgivings might beshaking his heart. He praised her with the best adjectives in hisscant vocabulary and asked her when they should be wed. 

"Oh, not for a long while yet, " she pleaded. 

"Why?" he wondered. 

"Oh, because!" It sickened and alarmed her to put off the day, buthow could she name it?

When he left her at last the situation was still a bit hazy. He hadproposed and been accepted vaguely. But when he had gallantly askedher to "say when" she had begged for time. 

Dyckman, once outside the spell of Kedzie's eyes and her warmth, feltmore and more dubious. He was ashamed of himself for entertaining anydoubts of the perfection of his situation, but he was ashamed also ofhis easy surrender. Here he was with his freedom gone. He had escapedthe marriage-net of so many women of so much brilliance and prestige, and yet a little movie actress had landed him. 

He compared Anita Adair with Charity Coe, and he had to admit thathis fiancée suffered woefully in every contrast. He could see thelook of amazement on Charity's face when she heard the news. Shewould be completely polite about it, but she would be appalled. Sowould his father and mother. They would fight him tremendously. Hisfriends would give him the laugh, the big ha-ha! They would say hehad made a fool of himself; he had been an easy mark for a littleoutsider. 

He wondered just how it had happened. The fact was that Kedzie hadappealed to his pity. That was what none of the other eligibles hadever done, least of all Charity the ineligible. 

He went home. He found his father and mother playing double Canfieldand wrangling over it as usual. They were disturbed by his manner. He would not tell them what was the matter and left them to theirgame. It interested them no more. It seemed so unimportant whetherthe cards fell right or not. The points were not worth the excitement. Their son was playing solitaire, and it was not coming out at all. They discussed the possible reasons for his gloom. There were somany. 

"I wish he'd get married to some nice girl, " sighed Mrs. Dyckman. A mother is pretty desperate when she wants to surrender her sonto another woman. 

CHAPTER XXV

Kedzie made a bad night of it. She hated her loneliness. She hatedher room. She hated her maid. She wanted to live in the Dyckmanpalace and have a dozen maids and a pair of butlers to boss around, and valets, and a crest on her paper, and invitations pouring infrom people whose pictures were in "the social world. " She wantedto snub somebody and show certain folks what was what. 

The next morning she was sure of only one thing, and that was thatDyckman had asked her to be his wife; and be his wife she would, no matter what it cost. 

She wondered how she could get rid of Gilfoyle, whom she looked uponnow as nothing less than an abductor. He was one of those "cadets"the papers had been full of a few years before, who lured younggirls to ruin under the guise of false marriages and then sold themas "white slaves. "

Kedzle's wrath was at the fact that Gilfoyle was not legally anabductor. She would have been glad merely to be ruined, and shewould have rejoiced at the possibility of a false marriage. In themovies the second villain only pretended to be a preacher, and thenconfessed his guilt. But such an easy solution was not for Kedzie. New York City had licensed Gilfoyle's outrage; the clerk had soldher to him for two dollars; the Municipal Building was the too, toosolid witness. 

She felt a spiritual solace in the fact that she had not had areligious marriage. The sacrament was only municipal and did notcount. Her wedding had lacked the blessing of the duly constitutedministry; therefore it was sacrilegious; therefore it was herconscientious duty to undo the pagan knot as quickly as possible. She reverted to the good old way of the Middle Ages. There wasno curse of divorce then, and indeed there was small need of it, since annulment could usually be managed on one religious groundor another, or if not, people went about their business as if ithad been managed. 

Kedzie felt absolved of any fault of selfishness now, and justifiedin taking any steps necessary to the punishment of Gilfoyle. _Religion_ is a large, loose word, and it can be made to fitany motive; but once assumed it seems to strengthen every resolution, to chloroform mercy and hallow any means to the self-sanctified end. What people would shrink from as inhuman they constantly embraceas divine. 

Kedzie wondered how she could communicate with her adversary. Shemight best go to Chicago and fight herself free there. There wouldbe less risk of Dyckman's hearing about it. 

She shuddered at what she would have to tell him unless she kept thedivorce secret. He might not love her if he knew she was not the nicenew girl he thought her, but an old married woman. And what would hesay when he found that her real name was Mrs. Thomas Gilfoyle_née_ Kedzie Thropp?

But first Kedzie must divorce herself from the Hyperfilm Company. She went to the studio with rage in her heart. She told Ferridaythat she would not go to California. He proposed that she breakwith the Hyperfilm Company and form a corporation of her own withDyckman as angel. 

Kedzie was wroth at this. From now on, spending Dyckman's moneywould be like spending her own. Ferriday, once her accomplice inthe noble business of getting Dyckman to back her, was revealednow as a cheap swindler trying to keep Mrs. Dyckman in trade ather husband's expense. 

"I'm through with the pictures, I tell you!" she stormed. "I'm sickof the cheap notoriety. I'm tired of being public property. I can'tgo out on the street without being pointed at. It's disgusting. Idon't want to be incorporated or photographed or interviewed. I wantto be let alone. I'm tired. I've worked too hard. I need a rest. "

Ferriday hated her with great agility. He had been willing to abether breach of contract, provided she let him form a new company, butif she would not that made a great difference. He reminded her:

"The Hyperfilm Company will hold you to your bond. They want yourhundred and twenty-five pounds of flesh. If you should break withthem they'd have a case against you for damages. "

"How much?" said Kedzie, feeling like Mrs. Croesus. 

Ferriday whistled and murmured: "Spoken like the wife of amultimillionaire! So you've got him at last. "

"To who, " Kedzie began, with an owl-like effect that she correctedwith some confusion, "--to whom do you refer to?"

Ferriday grinned: "You're going to marry out of the movies, andyou're going to try to horn into sassiety. Well, I warned you beforethat if you became Dyckman's wife you would find his world vastlydifferent from the ballroom and drawing-room stuff you pull off inthe studio--strangely and mysteriously different. "

He frightened her. She was not sure of herself. She could not forgetNimrim, Missouri, and her arrival at the edge of society _via_the Bronx, the candy-shop, and the professional camera. 

She felt that the world had not treated her squarely. Why should shehave to carry all this luggage of her past through the gate with her?She wondered if it would not be better to linger in the studios tillshe grew more famous and could bring a little prestige along. 

But Ferriday was already ousting her even from that security. 

"The managers of the Hyperfilm Company will think you have done themdirt, but I'll explain that you are not really responsible. You'veseen a million dollars, and you're razzle-dazzled. They'll want a bitof that million, I suppose, as liquidated damages, but I'll try tokeep them down. "

Kedzie was at bay in her terror. She struck back. 

"Tell 'em they won't get a cent if they try to play the hog. "

"They don't have hogs on Fifth Avenue, Anita. Don't forget that. Well, good-by and good luck. "

This was more like an eviction than a desertion. Kedzie felt alittle softening of her heart toward the old homestead. 

"I'm sure I'm much obliged for all you've done for me. "

Ferriday roared his scorn. 

She went on: "I am. Honest-ly! And I hope I haven't caused you toomuch inconvenience. "

Ferriday betrayed how much he was hurt by his violent efforts toconceal it. 

"Not at all. It happens that I've just found another little girl totake your place. This one drifted in among the extras, just as youdid, and she's a dream. I'll show her to the managers, and they maybe so glad to get her they won't charge you a cent. In fact, if yousay the word, I might manage it so that they would pay you somethingto cancel your contract. "

This was quite too cruel. It crushed the tears out of Kedzie's eyes, and she had no fight left in her. She simply stammered:

"No, thank you. Don't bother. Well, good-by. "

"Good-by, Anita--good luck!"

He let her make her way out of his office alone. She had to skirtthe studio. From behind a canvas wall over which the Cooper-Hewitttubes rained a quivering blue glare came the words of the assistantdirector:

"Now choke her, Hazlitt! Harder! Register despair, Miss Hardy. Tryto scream and can't! That's good. Now, Walsh, jump in to the rescue. Slug him. Knock his bean off. 'S enough! Fall, Hazlitt. Now gather upMiss Hardy, Walsh. Register devotion, gratitude, adoration--now yougot it. Turn on your lamps full power, dearie! Wow! Bully! A coupleof tears, please. That's the stuff. You'll be the queen of the world. Weep a little more. Real tears. That's it! Now clinch for thefade-out. Cut!"

Kedzie tiptoed away. She felt as Eve must have felt sneaking out ofEden and hearing the nightingales wrangling and the leopards at play. 

CHAPTER XXVI

We must fly fast and keep on flying if we would escape from ourpasts. Ambition, adventure, or sheer luck may carry us forward outof them as in a cavalry-foray over strange frontiers, but sooner orlater we must wait for our wagons or fall back to them. 

Kedzie's past was catching up with her. It is a glorious thingwhen one's past comes up loaded with food, munitions, good deeds, charities, mercies, valued friendships. But poor little Kedzie'slittle past included one incompetent and unacknowledged husbandand two village parents. 

Kedzie had concealed the existence of Gilfoyle from her new friendsas anxiously as if he had been a baby born out of wedlock instead ofa grown man born into it. And Gilfoyle had returned the compliment. He had not told his new friends in Chicago that he was married, because the Anita Adair that he had left in New York was, as F. P. A. Would say, his idea of nothing to brag about. 

Gilfoyle had loved Kedzie once as a pretty photographer's model, andhad admired her as an exquisite dancing-creature who seemed to havespun off at a tangent from the painted side of an old Greek amphora. He had actually written poetry to her! And when a poet has done thatfor a girl he feels that he has done more for her than she can everrepay. Even if she gives him her mortal self, what is that to theimmortality he has given her?

When Kedzie telegraphed Gilfoyle that she had lost her job in Newportand had arrived in New York lonely and afraid, had he not taken careof her good name by giving her his own? Not to mention a small matterof all his money!

She had repaid him with frantic discontent. The morning after thewedding, was she not imitating the parrot's shrill ridicule of lifeand love? Did she ridicule his poetry, or didn't she? She did. Instead of being his nine Muses, she had become his three Furies. 

When he lost his job and she went out to get one of her own, had shesucceeded in getting anything with dignity in it? No! She had becomean extra woman in a movie mob. That was a belittling thing toremember. But worst of all, she had committed the unpardonable sinfor a woman--she had lent him money. He could never forgive or forgetthe horrible fact that he had borrowed her last cash to pay his fareto Chicago. 

Next to that for inexcusableness was her self-support--and, worse, self-sufficiency. Gilfoyle had sent Kedzie no money beyond returningwhat he had borrowed, and she had not used that to buy a ticket toChicago with. She had written rarely, and had not asked him for money. That was mighty convenient for him, but it was extremely suspicious, and he cherished it as a further grudge. 

He never found himself quite flush enough to force any money on her, because he had found that it costs money to live in Chicago, too. People in New York get the idea that it costs everything to livein New York and nothing to live anywhere else--if it can be calledliving. 

Gilfoyle also discovered that his gifts were not appreciated inChicago as he had expected them to be. Chicago people seemed tothink it quite natural for New York to call for help from Chicago, and successful Western men were constantly going East; but fora New-Yorker to revert to Chicago looked queer. He appeared topatronize, and yet he must have had some peculiar reason for givingup New York. 

All in all and by and large, Gilfoyle was not happy in Chicago. Thefew persons, mainly women, who took him up as an interesting noveltygrew tired of him. His advertising schemes did not dazzle the alertIllini. For one reason or another the wares he celebrated did not"go big. "

He lost his first job and took an inferior wage with a shabbier firm. He took his women friends to the movies now instead of the theaters. And so it was that one night when he was beauing a Denver woman, whowas on her way to New York and fame, he found the box-line extendingout on the sidewalk and half-way up the block. It was irksome to wait, but people like to go to shows where the crowds are. He took his placein the line, and his Miss Clampett stood at his elbow. 

The queue was slowly drawn into the theater and he finally reacheda place in front of the lithographs. He almost jumped out of hisskin when he saw a colossal head of Anita Adair smiling at him froma sunbonnet streaming with curls. 

The letterpress informed Gilfoyle that it was indeed his own Anita. The people in the line were talking of her as the new star. They werecalling her familiarly by her first name and discussing her with allthe freedom of the crowd:

"That's Anita. Ain't she sweet?"

"Everybody says Anita's just too lovely. "

"Some queen, boy? Me for Anita. She can pack her clothes in mytrunk!"

Gilfoyle felt that he ought in common decency to knock down thisfellow who claimed the privileges belonging to himself. But heremembered that he had abandoned those privileges. And the fellowlooked unrefinedly powerful. 

Gilfoyle gnawed the lip of silence, realizing also that hisannouncement would make a strange impression on Miss Clampett. She was one of those authors one reads about who think it necessaryto hunt experiences and live romances in order to find literarymaterial. 

Gilfoyle had done his best to teach her how wildly well a bornNew-Yorker can play the lute of emotion. To proclaim now that he wasthe anonymous husband of this glitterer on the billboard would havebeen a shocking confession. 

Gilfoyle swallowed his secret, but it made his heart fluttertremendously. When at length he and Miss Clampett were admitted tothe theater and walked down the aisle Kedzie came from the backgroundof the screen forward as if to meet him. She came on and on, andfinally as he reached his seat, a close-up of her brought them faceto face with a vividness that almost knocked him over. She lookedright at him, seemed to recognize him, and stopped short. 

He felt as guilty as if she had actually caught him at a rendezvous. Yet he felt pride, too. 

This luminous being was his wife. He remembered all that she had beento him. Miss Clampett noted his perturbations and made a brilliantguess at their cause. She asked him if he wanted to leave her and goaround to the stage door to meet this wonderful Miss Adair. Gilfoylelaughed poorly at her quip. He was surprised to learn from her thatAnita Adair was already a sensation among the film stars. He had notchanced to read the pages where her press-matter had celebrated her. He defended himself from the jealousy of Miss Clampett very lamely;for the luscious beauty of his Anita, her graphic art, and her swayover the audience rekindled his primal emotions to a greater firethan ever. 

When the show was over he abandoned Miss Clampett on her door-stepand went to his own boarding-house in a nympholepsy. He was a mortalwedded to a fairy. He was Endymion with a moon enamoured of him. Kedzie indeed had come down from the screen to Gilfoyle, clothedin an unearthly effulgence. 

The next morning he turned to the moving-picture columns of theChicago _Tribune_, the _Herald_, and the other papers, andhe found that Kedzie was celebrated there with enthusiasm by KittyKelly, "Mae Tinée, " Mrs. Parsons, and the rest of the critics ofthe new art. On Sunday several of her interviews appeared, and herportraits, in eminent company. 

Gilfoyle's forgotten affections came back to life, expanding andefflorescent. He throbbed with the wonder of it. The moving picturehad brought romance again to earth. 

Thousands of men all over the country were falling in love withKedzie. Who had a better right to than her husband? Unconsciouslyhis resentments against her fell away. His heart swelled with suchplenitude of forgiveness that he might in time have overlookedthe money she lent him. It was not a disgrace to accept money froma genius of her candle-power. 

For a long while he had been afraid that she would telegraph himfor funds, or descend on him in Chicago and bring a heavy baggage ofnecessities. Now he was no longer afraid of that. He was afraid thatif he called on her in New York she might not remember him. 

He had heard of the real and the alleged salaries of moving-picturestars, and he assumed that Kedzie must be as well paid as she waswell advertised. He did not know of the measly little hundred dollarsa week she was bound down to by her contract. If he had known he wouldhave rejoiced, because one hundred dollars a week was about four timesmore than Gilfoyle had ever earned. 

Of course Gilfoyle resolved to go to New York. Of course he startedto telegraph his wife and found the telegram hard to write. Then hebegan a long letter and found it harder to write. And of course hefinally decided to surprise her. He resigned his job. His resignationwas accepted with humiliating cordiality. 

Of course he took the Twentieth Century Limited to New York. It wasmore expensive, but it was quicker; and what did a few dollars matter, now that he was the husband of such an earner? He had unwittinglyhitched his wagon to a star, and now he would take a ride throughheaven. He wrote a poem or two to that effect, and the train-wheelsinspired his prosody. 

He dreamed of an ideal life in which he should loll upon a sofa ofease, thrumming his lyre, while his wife devoted herself to hercareer outside. 

Where would Horace and Virgil have been if they had not had theirexpenses paid by old Mr. Maecenas? Since Mrs. Gilfoyle could affordto be a patroness, let her patronage begin at home. Her reward wouldbe beyond price, for Gilfoyle decided to perpetuate her fame inpowerful rhyme far outlasting the celluloid in which she was writingher name now. 

Celluloid is perishable indeed, and very inflammable. Gilfoyle didnot know that the Hyperfilm studio had burned to the ground beforehe saw Kedzie's picture in Chicago. But he blithely left that cityto its fate and sped eastward. 

CHAPTER XXVII

Gilfoyle reached New York on the Twentieth Century. It was an hourlate, and so the railroad company paid him a dollar. He wished ithad been later. In his present plight time was anything but moneyto him. 

It took him some time to find the Hyperfilm Company's temporarystudio. He learned of the fire, and his hope wavered. When he reachedthe studio Kedzie was not there. The news of her resignation hadpercolated even to the doorman, who rarely knew anything from insideor outside the studio--an excellent non-conductor of information hewas. Gilfoyle had some difficulty in finding Kedzie's address, butat last he learned it, and he made haste to her apartment. 

He was impressed by its gaudy vestibule. He told the hall-boy thathe wanted to see Miss Adair. 

"Name, please?"

"Just say a gentleman to see her. "

"Gotta git the name, or I can't 'phome up. Miss Adair naturallywon't see no gempman ain't got a name. "

"Does she see many men?" Gilfoyle asked, with sudden alarm. 

"Oh, nossa. Mainly Mr. Dyckman. But that's her business. "

"What Dyckman is that, the rich Jim Dyckman?"

"Well, I ain't s'posed to give out info'mation. "

"Are you supposed to take in money?" Gilfoyle juggled witha half-dollar. 

The hall-boy juggled his eyes in unison, and laughed yearningly:"I reckon I might let you up by mistake. Does you know Miss Adairright well?"

"Very well--I'm a relative of hers by marriage. I want to surpriseher. "

"Oh, well, you better go on up. "

Gilfoyle applied the magic silver wafer to the itching palm andstepped into the elevator when it came. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

Kedzie was alone. She had sent her maid out to get some headachepowders. She had had a good cry when she reached home. She hadpondered her little brain into a kink, trying to figure out hercampaign. When she had a headache, or a cold, or a sleepless night, or a lethargy, she always put a powder in her stomach. It never didany good, and she was always changing the nostrum, but she neverchanged the idea. 

She felt ill and took off her street suit and her corsets, put ona soft, veilly thing, and stretched out on her long-chair. 

She was coddling a photograph of Jim Dyckman. He had scrawled acrossit, "To Little Anita from Big Jim. " She kissed the picture andcherished it to her aching breast. 

The door-bell rang. She supposed that, as usual, the maid hadforgotten to take her key with her. She went into the hall in arage, still holding the photograph. She flung the door open--andin walked Gilfoyle. 

She fell back stupefied. He grinned, and took her in with devouringeyes. If he had no right to devour her, who had? He approved of herwith a rush of delight:

"Well, Anita, here I am. And how's the little wife?"

She could not answer him. He stared ferociously, and gasped as ifhe had forgotten how she had looked:

"Golly, but you're beautiful? Where's the little kiss?"

He threw his arms about her, garnering in the full sheaf of herbeauty. She tried to escape, to protest, but he smothered her withhis lips. She had been so long away from him, she had so long omittedhim from her plans, that she felt a sense of outrage in his assault. Something virginal had resumed her heart, and his proprietorshiprevolted her. 

Her shoulders were so constrained that she could not push free. Shecould only raise her right hand outside his left arm, and reachinghis face, thrust it away. Her nails were long and sharp. They toredeep gashes in his cheeks and across his nose. 

He let her go with a yelp of pain and shame. His fists gathered;primeval instinct told him to smash the mask of pale hatred he sawbefore him. But he saw the photograph in her left hand. It had beenbent double in the scuffle. He snatched at it and tore away thelower half. He read the inscription with disgust and growled:

"That's the reason you didn't write me! That's why you don't wantto see me, eh? So he's keeping you! And that's why you resignedfrom the studio!"

The atrocity of this slander was too much. With a little cat-likeyowl she went for him, dropping the broken photograph and spreadingall ten claws. 

He caught her arms and held them apart where she could scratchnothing more than his wrists, which she did venomously. The cattribe is a bad tribe to fight at close quarters. One must kill orbreak loose. 

When Kedzie tried to bite him, Gilfoyle realized that she was in nomood for argument. He dragged her to the living-room door and thenflung her as far as he could from him. She toppled over into a chairand began to cry. 

It was not a pretty scene. Gilfoyle took out his handkerchief andpressed it to his face and the bridge of his nose. Then he lookedat the red marks and held them out for her to observe:

"See what you did to me!"

"I'm glad of it, " she snapped. "I wish I'd torn your eyes out. "

This alone would not necessarily have proved that she did not lovehim devotedly, but in this case it corroborated a context of hatred. Gilfoyle felt rebuffed. There was a distinct lack of hospitality inher welcome. This reception was the very opposite of his imaginedrencounter. 

He did what a man usually does, revealing a masculine inabilityto argue with a woman. He told her all her faults of omission andcommission as if that would bring her to a reconciliating humor. She listened awhile, and then answered, with a perfect logic thatbaffled him:

"All you say only goes to show that you don't love me. You never did. You went away and left me. I might have starved, for all you cared. But I've worked like a dog, and now that I've had a little successyou come back and say: 'How's the little wife? Where's the littlekiss?' Agh! And you dare to kiss me! And then you slander me. Youdon't give me credit for these plain little rooms that I rent withmy own hard-earned money. You couldn't imagine me living in a placelike this unless some man paid for it. Heaven knows I'd have livedwith you long enough before I ever had a decent home. Humph! Well, I guess so! Humph!"

Gilfoyle mopped his face again and looked at his handkerchief. One'sown blood is very interesting. The sight of his wounds did not touchKedzie's heart. She could never feel sorry for anybody she wasmad at. 

Gilfoyle's wits were scattered. He mumbled, futilely, "Well, ifthat's the way you feel about it!"

"That's the way I feel about it!" Kedzie raged on. "I suppose you'vehad so many affairs of your own out there that you can't imagineanybody else being respectable, can you?"

Gilfoyle had not come East to publish his autobiography. He thoughtthat a gesture of misunderstood despair would be the most effectiveevasion. So he made it, and turned away. He put his handkerchief tohis nose and looked at it. He turned back. 

"Would you mind if I went into your bathroom to wash my face?"

"I certainly would. Where do you think you are? You get on out beforemy maid comes back. I don't want her to think I receive men alone!"

Her heart was cold as a toad in her breast, and she loathed hispresence. He repeated his excellent gesture of despair, sighed, "All right, " and left the room. The two pieces of Jim Dyckman'sphotograph were still on the floor of the hall. He stooped quicklyand silently and picked them up as he went out. He closed the doorwith all the elegy one can put in a door with a snap-lock. 

He was about to press the elevator button, but he did not like topresent himself gory to the elevator-boy. He walked down the marbleand iron steps zigzagging around the elevator shaft. 

He paused on various landings to think and mop. He looked at thephotograph of Dyckman, and his heart spoiled in him. He recalledhis wife's anxiety lest her maid should find a man there. He recalledthe hall-boy's statement that Mr. Dyckman was often there. His wifewas lying to him, plainly. 

He had known detectives and newspaper men and had heard them speak ofwhat a friend they had in the usual hall-boy. He thought that he hadhere the makings of a very pretty little bit of detectivity. 

He reached the main floor, but made a hasty crossing of the gaudyvestibule without stopping to speak to the hall-boy. He had left hisbaggage at the station, expecting to send it to his wife's apartmentwhen he found it. He had found it, but he could imagine what wouldhappen to the baggage if he sent it there. 

"All right!" he said to himself. "If it's war she wants, cry havocand let slip the sleuth hounds. "

He went to a drug-store and had his wounds sterilized and plastered, saying that a pet cat had scratched him. 

"Just so, " said the drug clerk, with a grin. "Pet cats are verydangerous. "

Gilfoyle wanted to slug him, but he wanted his wounds dressed more. He walked and walked down the back avenues till he reached his oldboarding-house district near Greenwich Village. He found a landladywho had trusted him often and been paid eventually. He gave hisbaggage checks to an expressman and went into retirement formeditation. 

When his suit-case arrived he got out the poems he had been writingto Anita. He clenched them for destruction, but an exquisite linecaught his eye. Why should his art suffer because of a woman'sperfidy? He had intended to sonnetize Anita into perenniality. She had played him false. Just for that he would leave her mortal. She should perish. 

The poems would keep. He might find another and a worthier clientfor posterity. Or he might put an imaginary name there, as otherpoets had done. He wanted one that would slip into the poetry easily. He could use "Pepita" without deranging the rhyme. 

He glared at the picture of Dyckman. He knew the face well. He hadseen it in print numberless times. He had had the man pointed outto him at races and horse-shows and polo-games and bazaars. 

He struck the photograph in the face, realizing that he could nothave reached the face of the big athlete. He wondered why this fellowshould have been given such stature with such wealth. He was ghastlyrich, the snob, the useless cumberer of the ground!

All of Gilfoyle's pseudo-socialistic hostility to wealth and thewealthy came to the aid of his jealousy. To despoil the man was aduty. He had decoyed Anita from her duty by his millions. Not thatshe was unwilling to be decoyed. And now she would revel in herill-got luxury, while her legal husband could starve in a garret. 

As he brooded, the vision of Dyckman's money grew huger and huger. The dog had not merely thousands or hundreds of thousands, butthousands of thousands. Gilfoyle had never seen a thousand-dollarbill. Yet Dyckman, he had heard, was worth twenty millions. If hiswealth were changed into thousand-dollar bills there would be twentythousand of them in a stack. 

If Gilfoyle peeled off one thousand of those thousand-dollar billsthe stack would not be perceptibly diminished. If Gilfoyle could geta million dollars from Dyckman, or any part of it, Dyckman wouldnever notice it; and yet it would mean a life of surety and poetryand luxury for Gilfoyle. 

If he caught Dyckman and Anita together in a compromising situationhe could collect heavily under threat of exposure. Rather than bedragged into the newspapers and the open courts Dyckman would payalmost any sum. 

There was a law in New York against the violation of the seventhcommandment, and the penitentiary was the punishment. The lawhad failed to catch its first victim, but it had been used inMassachusetts with success. The threat against Dyckman wouldsurely work. 

Then there was the recent Mann Law aimed at white-slavery but a moreeffective weapon for blackmailers. If Gilfoyle could catch Dyckmantaking Anita motoring across the State line into New Jersey orConnecticut he could arrest them or threaten them. 

Also he could name Dyckman as co-respondent in a divorce suit--orthreaten to--and collect heavily that way. This was not blackmailin Gilfoyle's eyes. He scorned such a crime. This was honorable andnecessary vindication of his offended dignity. There was probablynever a practiser of blackmail who did not find a better word forthe duress he applied. 

Gilfoyle needed help. He had no cash to hire a detective with. Buthe knew a detective or two who might go into the thing with him onspec'. 

Gilfoyle began to compose a scheme of poetic revenge. It should behis palinode to Anita. He would keep her under surveillance, but hewould not let her know of his propinquity. A happy thought delightedhim. To throw her off her guard, he wrote and sent a little note:

DEAR ANITA, --Since you evidently don't love me any longer, I will notbother you any more. I am taking the train back to Chicago. Addressme there care of General Delivery if you ever want to see me again. 

YOUR ONCE LOVED HUSBAND. 

He addressed it and gave it to the waitress to drop in the mail-box. He had no money to squander on detectives, but he had a friend, Connery, who as a reporter had achieved a few bits of sleuthingin cases that had baffled the police. That evening Gilfoyle wenthunting for Connery. 

CHAPTER XXIX

Kedzie simmered in her own wrath a long while before she realizedthat she had let Gilfoyle escape. He was the very man she was lookingfor, and she had planned to go even to Chicago to find him. 

He had stumbled into her trap, and she had driven him out. She ran tothe window and stared up and down the street, but there was no traceof him. She had no idea where he could have gone. She wrung her handsand denounced herself for a fool. 

She went to the hall to pick up the photograph of Jim Dyckman. Bothhalves of it were gone. Now she was frightened. Gilfoyle had departedmeekly, but he had taken the picture; therefore he must have beenfilled with hate. He had revenge in his mind. And she trembled ather danger. He might strike at any time. 

She suspected his exact intention. She dreaded to have Jim Dyckmancall on her. She had a wild notion of asking him to take her awayfrom New York--down to Atlantic City or up to the Berkshires--anywhereto be rid of Gilfoyle without being left alone. If she had done thisshe would have done just what Gilfoyle wanted her to, and the MannAct could have been wielded again as a blackjack. 

Meanwhile Anita was afraid to have Dyckman come to her apartmentas he constantly did. She telephoned to him that she would be busyat the studio all day. She would meet him at dinner somewhere. Butafterward she would come home alone on one pretext or another. 

She carried out this plan--and spent a day of confused terrorand anger. 

When Gilfoyle's letter arrived, saying that he was on his way toChicago, it gave her more delight than any other writing of his hadever given her. She need not skulk any more. Her problem was as farfrom solution as ever, but she wanted a respite from it, and shegave herself up to a few days of rapture. She was free from her workat the studio, and she was like a girl home from boarding-school ona vacation. 

Dyckman found her charming in this mood. She made a child of him, and his years of dissatisfaction were forgotten. He romped throughthe festivals of New York like a cub. 

There was no discussion of any date of marriage, and he was gladenough to let the matter drift. He did not want to marry Kedzie. He was satisfied to have her as a playmate. He was afraid to thinkof her as a wife, not only from fear of the public sensation itwould make, but from fear of her in his home. Young men also knowthe timidities that are considered maidenly. He did not dream ofKedzie's reason for postponing always the matter of a wedding date. 

Kedzie had come to depend on Jim for her entertainment. He tookcare of her evenings, gave them vivacity and opulence. He took herto theaters, to the opera, the music-halls, the midnight roofs, and other resorts for the postponement of sleep. Occasionally heintroduced her to friends of his whom they encountered. It painedand angered him, and Kedzie, too, to note that the men were inclinedto eye Kedzie with tolerant amusement. There was a twinkle ofcontempt in their smiling eyes that seemed to say:

"Where did Dyckman pick you up, my pretty?"

Kedzie's movie fame was unknown to Dyckman's crowd. She was treated, accordingly, as some exquisite chorus-girl or cabaret-pony that hehad selected as a running-mate. 

Dyckman could not openly resent what was subtly implied, but ittouched his chivalry, and since he was engaged to Kedzie he feltthat he ought at least to announce the fact. He was getting thegame without the name, and that seemed unfair to Kedzie. 

Kedzie felt the same veiled scorn, and it alarmed her; yet whenDyckman proposed the publication of their troth she forbade itvigorously. She writhed at the worse than Tantalus fate thatcompelled her to push from her own thirsty lips the grapes offelicity. 

She had no intention of committing bigamy, even if she had beentemptable to such recklessness. The inevitable brevity of its successwas only too evident. A large part of the fun of marrying Dyckmanwould be the publication of it, and that would bring Gilfoyle back. She never before longed so ardently to see her husband as now. 

She finally wrote him a letter begging him to return to New Yorkfor a conference. She couched it in luringly affectionate tonesand apologized lavishly for scratching his face when he called. Sheaddressed the appeal to the General Delivery in Chicago, as he haddirected in the letter he wrote as a blind. 

She neglected, as usual, to put her own address on the envelopeor inside on the letter, which she signed with a mere "Anita. "Gilfoyle did not call for the letter in Chicago, since he was inNew York. It was held in Chicago for the legal period and then itwas sent to the Dead Letter Office, where a clerk wasted a dealof time and ingenuity in an effort to trace the sender or theaddressee. 

Kedzie meanwhile had watched for the postman and hunted throughher mail with frenzy. There was a vast amount of mail, for it isone of the hardships of the movie business that the actors are fairlyshowered with letters of praise, criticism, query, and flirtation. 

But there was no letter ever from Gilfoyle. 

Yet Gilfoyle was constantly within hailing distance. With the aid ofhis friend Connery he had concocted a scheme for keeping Kedzie andDyckman under espionage. They had speedily learned that Dyckman wasin constant attendance on Kedzie, and that they were careless ofthe hours alone, careless of appearances. 

Gilfoyle never dreamed that the couple was chaperoned doubly bya certain lukewarmth of emotion and by an ambition to become manand wife. Gilfoyle imagined their relations to be as intimate astheir opportunities permitted. He suffered jealous wrath, and wouldhave assaulted Dyckman in public if Connery had not quelled him. 

Connery kept a cool head in the matter because his heart was notinvolved. He saw the wealth of Dyckman as the true object of theirattack, and he convinced Gilfoyle of the profitableness of a littleblackmail. He convinced Gilfoyle easily when they were far fromKedzie and close to poverty; but when they hovered near Kedzie, Connery had the convincing to do all over again. 

He worked up an elaborate campaign for gaining entrance to Kedzie'sapartment without following the classic method of smashing the doordown. He disliked that noisy approach because it would commandnotice; and publicity, as he well knew, is death to blackmail. 

Connery adopted a familiar stratagem of the private detectives. Hewent to the apartment one day when he knew that Kedzie was out, andinquired for an alleged sister of his who had worked for Kedzie. Heclaimed to be a soldier on furlough. He engaged the maid in a casualparley which he led swiftly to a flirtation. She was a lonely maidand her plighted lover was away on a canal-boat. Connery had littledifficulty in winning her to the acceptance of an invitation to visita movie-show on her first evening off. 

He paid the girl flattering attentions, and when he brought her back, gallantly asked for the key to unlock the door for her. He droppedthe key on the floor, stooped for it, pressed it against a bit ofsoft soap he had in his left palm. Having secured the outline ofthe key, he secured also a return engagement for the next eveningoff. On this occasion he brought with him a duplicate of the key, and when he unlocked the door for the maid this time he gave herthe duplicate and kept the original. 

And now that he and Gilfoyle had an "open sesame" to the dovecotethey grew impatient with delay. Gilfoyle's landlady had also grownimpatient with delay, but Connery forced her to wait for what hecalled the psychological moment. 

And thus Kedzie moved about, her life watched over by an invisiblehusband like a malignant Satan to whom she had sold her soul. 

CHAPTER XXX

Jim Dyckman had many notes from Kedzie, gushing, all adjectives andadverbs, capitalized and underscored. He left them about carelessly, or locked them up and left the key. If he had not done that the lockon his desk was one that could be opened with a hairpin or witha penknife or with almost any key of a proper size. 

There was no one to care except his valet. Dallam cared and read andmade notes. He was horrified at the thought of Dyckman's marrying amovie actress. He would have preferred any intrigue to that disgrace. It would mean the loss of a good position, too, for while Dyckmanwas an easy boss, if he were going to be an easy marrier as well, Dallam had too much self-respect to countenance a marriage beneaththem. 

If he could only have known of Gilfoyle's existence and his quests, how the two of them could have collaborated!

But Dallam's interest in life woke anew when one evening, as he wasputting away the clothes Dyckman had thrown off, he searched hismaster's coat and found a letter from Mrs. Cheever. 

DEAR OLD JIM, --What's happent you? I haven't seen you for ages. Couldn't you spare this evening to me? I'm alone--as always--andlonelier than usual. Do take pity on

Your devotedCHARITY C. 

That note, so lightly written in seeming, had been torn froma desperate heart and written in tears and blood. 

Since she had learned that her husband really loved Zada and thatshe was going to mother him a child, Charity had been unable toadjust her soul to the new problem. 

The Reverend Doctor Mosely had promised her advice, but the poor mancould not match his counsel with the situation. He did not believein divorce, and yet he did not approve of illegal infants. How happyhe could have been with either problem, with t'other away! In hisdilemma he simply avoided Charity and turned his attention to themore regular chores of his parish. 

Charity understood his silence, and it served to deepen her ownperplexity. She was sure of only one thing--that she was cagedand forgotten. 

Cheever came home less and less, and he was evidently so harrowedwith his own situation that Charity felt almost more sorry for himthan angry at him. She imagined that he must be enduring no littlefrom the whims and terrors of Zada. He was evidently afraid tospeak to Charity. To ask for her mercy was contrary to all hisnature. He never dreamed that the dictagraph had brought her withhim when he learned of Zada's intensely interesting condition, andher exceedingly onerous demands. He did not dare ask Charity fora divorce in order that he might legitimize this byblow of his. He could imagine only that she would use the information forsome ruinous vengeance. So he dallied with his fate in dismalirresolution. 

Charity had his woes to bear as well as her own. She knew that shehad lost him forever. The coquetries she had used to win him backwere impossible even to attempt. He had no use for her forgivenessor her charms. He was a mere specter in her home, doomed for hissins to walk the night. 

In despising herself she rendered herself lonelier. She had not evenherself for companion. Her heart had always been eager with loveand eager for it. The spirit that impelled her to endure hardshipsin order to expend her surplusage of love was unemployed now. Shehad feasted upon love, and now she starved. 

Cheever had been a passionate courtier and, while he was interested, a fiery devotee. When he abandoned her she suffered with thedevastation that deserted wives and recent widows endure but mustnot speak of. It meant terribly much to Charity Coe to be leftalone. It was dangerous to herself, her creeds, her ideals. 

She began to be more afraid of being alone than of any other fear. She grew resentful toward the conventions that held her. She was likea tigress in a wicker cage, growing hungrier, lither, more gracefullyfierce. 

People who do not use their beauty lose it, and Charity had lost muchof hers in her vigils and labors in the hospitals, and it had wanedin her humiliations of Cheever's preference for another woman. Herjealous shame at being disprized and notoriously neglected had givenher wanness and bitterness, instead of warmth and sweetness. 

But now the wish to be loved brought back loveliness. She did not knowhow beautiful she was again. She thought that she wanted to see JimDyckman merely because she wanted to be flattered and because--aswomen say in such moods--men are so much more sensible than women. Often they mean more sensitive. Charity did not know that it waslove, not friendship, that she required when at last she wrote toJim Dyckman and begged him to call on her. 

The note struck him hard. It puzzled him by its tone. And he, remembering how vainly he had pursued her, forgot her disdain andrecalled only how worthy of pursuit she was. He hated himself forhis disloyalty to Anita in comparing his fiancee with Charity, andhe cursed himself for finding Charity infinitely Anita's superiorin every way. But he hated and cursed in vain. 

Kedzie, or "Anita, " as he called her, was an outsider, a pretty thinglike a geisha, fascinating by her oddity and her foreignness, but, after all, an alien who could interest one only temporarily. Therewas something transient about Kedzie in his heart, and he had feltit vaguely the moment he found himself pledged to her forever. But Charity--he had loved her from perambulator days. She was histradition. His thoughts and desires had always come home to Charity. 

Yet he was astonished at the sudden upheaval of his old passion. It shook off the new affair as a volcano burns away the weeds thathave grown about its crater. He supposed that Charity wanted totake up the moving-picture scheme in earnest, and he repented thefact that he had gone to the studio for information and had comeaway with a flirtation. 

One thing was certain: he must not fail to answer Charity's summons. He had an engagement with Kedzie, but he called her up and told herthe politest lie he could concoct. Then he made himself ready andput on his festival attire. 

 * * * * *

Charity had grown sick of having people say, "How pale you are!""You've lost flesh, haven't you?" "Have you been ill, dear?"--thosetactless observations that so many people feel it necessary to make, as if there were no mirrors or scales or symptoms for one'sinformation and distress. 

Annoyed by these conversational harrowers, Charity had finally goneto her dressmaker, Dutilh, and asked him to save her from vegetation!He saw that she was a young woman in sore need of a compliment, andhe flattered her lavishly. He did more for her improvement in fiveminutes than six doctors, seventeen clergymen, and thirty financierscould have done. A compliment in time is a heart-stimulant with noacetanilid reaction. Also he told her how wonderful she had been inthe past, recalling by its name and by the name of its French authormany a gown she had worn, as one would tell a great actress whatrôles he had seen her in. 

He clothed her with praise and encouragement, threw a mantle ofcrimson velvet about her. And she crimsoned with pride, and herhard, thin lips velveted with beauty. 

She responded so heartily that he was enabled to sell her a gownof very sumptuous mode, its colors laid on as with the long sweepsof a Sargent's brush. A good deal of flesh was not left to theimagination; as in a Sargent painting, the throat, shoulders, andarms were part of the color scheme. It was a gown to stride in, to stand still in, in an attitude of heroic repose, or to reclinein with a Parthenonian grandeur. 

This gown did not fit her perfectly, just as it came from Paris, butit revealed its possibilities and restored her shaken self-confidenceimmeasurably. If women--or their husbands--could afford it, theywould find perhaps more consolation, restoration, and exaltation atthe dressmakers' than at--it would be sacrilege to say where. 

By the time Charity's new gown was ready for the last fitting Charityhad lost her start, and when Dutilh went into the room where she haddressed he was aghast at the difference. On the first day the gownhad thrilled her to a collaboration with it. Now she hardly stoodup in it. She drooped with exaggerated awkwardness, shrugged hershoulders with sarcasm, and made a face of disgust. 

Dutilh tried to mask his disappointment with anger. When Charitygroaned, "Aren't we awful--this dress and I?" he retorted: "You are, but don't blame the gown. For God's sake, do something for the dress. It would do wonders for you if you would help it!" He believed ina golden rule for his wares: do for your clothes what you would havethem do for you. 

He threatened not to let Charity have the gown at all at any price. He ordered her to take it off. She refused. In the excitement ofthe battle she grew more animated. Then he whirled her to a mirrorand said:

"Look like that, and you're a made woman. "

She was startled by the vivacity, the authority she saw in herfeatures so long dispirited. She caught the trick of the expression. And actors know that one's expression can control one's moods almostas much as one's moods control one's expressions. 

So she persuaded Dutilh to sell her the dress. When she got it shedid not know just when to wear it, for she was going out but rarely, and then she did not want to be conspicuous. She decided to makeJim Dyckman's call the occasion for the launching of the gown. Hisname came up long before she had put it on to be locked in forthe evening. 

When she thrust her arms forward like a diver and entered the gownby way of the fourth dimension her maid cried out with pride, and, standing with her fingertips scattered over her face, wept tearsdown to her knuckles. She welcomed the prodigal back to beauty. 

"Oh, ma'am, but it's good to see you lookin' lovely again!"

While she bent to the engagement of the hooks Charity feasted onher reflection in the cheval-glass. She was afraid that she wasa little too much dressed up and a little too much undressed. Therein Dutilh's shop, with the models and the assistants about, she wasbut a lay figure, a clothes-horse. At the opera she would have beenone of a thousand shoulder-showing women. For a descent upon one poorcaller, and a former lover at that, the costume frightened her. 

But it was too late to change, and she caught up a scarf of gossamerand twined it round her neck to serve as a mitigation. 

Hearing her footsteps on the stairs at last, Dyckman hurried tomeet her. As she swept into the room she collided with him, softly, fragrantly. They both laughed nervously, they were both a littleinfluenced. 

She found the drawing-room too formal and led him into the library. She pointed him to a great chair and seated herself on the cornerof a leather divan nearly as big as a touring-car. In the dark, hardframe she looked richer than ever. He could not help seeing how muchmore important she was than his Anita. 

Anita was pretty and peachy, delicious, kissable, huggable, a pleasant armful, a lapload of girlish mischief. Charity wasbeautiful, noble, perilous, a woman to live for, fight for, diefor. Kedzie was to Charity as Rosalind to Isolde. 

It was time for Jim to play Tristan, but he had no more blankverse in him than a polo score-card. Yet the simple marks on sucha form stand for tremendous energy and the utmost thrill. 

"Well, how are you, anyway, Charity? How goes it with you?" hesaid. "Gee! but you look great to-night. What's the matter withyou? You're stunning!"

Charity laughed uncannily. "You're the only one that thinks so, Jim. "

"I always did admire you more than anybody else could; but, goodLord! everybody must have eyes. "

"I'm afraid so, " said Charity. "But you're the only one that hasimagination about me. "

"Bosh!"

"My husband can't see me at all. "

"Oh, him!" Jim growled. "What's he up to now?"

"I don't know, " said Charity. "I hardly ever see him. He's chuckedme for good. "

Jim studied her with idolatry and with the intolerant ferocity ofa priest for the indifferent or the skeptical. The idol made herplaint to her solitary worshiper. 

"I'm horribly lonely, Jim. I don't go anywhere, meet anybody, doanything but mope. Nobody comes to see me or take me out. Even youkept away from me till I had to send for you. "

"You ordered me off the premises in Newport, if you remember. "

"Yes, I did, but I didn't realize that I was mistreating the onlyadmirer I had. "

This was rather startling in its possible implications. It scaredDyckman. He gazed at her until her eyes met his. There was somethingin them that made him look away. Then he heard the gasp of a littlesob, and she began to cry. 

"Why, Charity!" he said. "Why, Charity Coe!"

She smiled at the pet name and the tenderness in his voice, andher tears stopped. 

"Jim, " she said, "I told Doctor Mosely all about my affairs, andI simply spoiled his day for him and he dropped me. So I thinkI'll tell you. "

"Go to the other extreme, eh?" said Jim. 

"Yes, I'm between the devil and the high-Church. I've no doubtI'm to blame, but I can't seem to stand the punishment with nochange in sight. I've tried to, but I've got to the end of my stringand--well--whether you can help me or not--I've got to talk or die. Do you mind if I run on?"

"God bless you, I'd be tickled to death. "

"It will probably only ruin your evening. "

"Help yourself. I'd rather have you wreck all my eveningsthan--than--"

He had begun well, which was more than usual. She did not expect himto finish. She thanked him with a look of more than gratitude. 

"Jim, " she said, "I've found out that my husband is--well--there'sa certain ex-dancer named L'Etoile, and he--she--they--"

Instead of being astounded, Dyckman was glum. 

"Oh, you've found that out at last, have you? Maybe you'll learnbefore long that there's trouble in France. But of course you knowthat. You were over there. Why, before you came back he was draggingthat animal around with him. I saw him with her. "

"You knew it as long ago as that?"

"Everybody knew it. "

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'm a low-lived coward, I suppose. I tried to a dozen times, but somehow I couldn't. By gad! I came near writing you an anonymousletter. I couldn't seem to stoop to that, though, and I couldn't seemto rise to telling you out and out. And now that you know, what areyou going to do about it?"

"That's what I don't know. Doctor Mosely wanted me to try toget him back. "

"Doctor Mosely's got softening of the brain. To think of your tryingto persuade a man to live with you! You of all people, and him ofall people! Agh! If you got him, what would you have? And how longwould you keep him? You can't make a household pet out of a laughinghyena. Chuck him, I say. "

"But that means the divorce-court, Jim. "

"What of it? It's cleaner and sweeter than this arrangement. "

"But the newspapers?"

"Ah, what do you care about them? They'd only publish what everybodythat knows you knows already. And what's the diff' if a lot ofstrangers find out that you're too decent to tolerate that man'sbehavior? Somebody is always roasting even the President, but hegets along somehow. A lot of good people oppose divorce, but I wasreading that the best people used to oppose anesthetics and educationand republics. It's absolutely no argument against a thing to saythat a lot of the best people think it is outrageous. They've alwaysfought everything, especially freedom for the women. They said itwas dangerous for you to select your husbands, or manage yourproperty, or learn to read, or go out to work, or vote, or be ina profession--or even be a war nurse. The hatred of divorce is allof a piece with the same old habit good people have of trying tomind other people's business for 'em. "

"But Doctor Mosely says that marriage is a sacrament. "

"Well, if a marriage like yours is a sacrament, give me a nice, decent white-slave market. "

"That's the way it seems to me, but the Church, especially ourChurch, is so ferocious. Doctor Mosely preached a sermon againstdivorce and remarriage, and it was frightful what he said aboutwomen who change husbands. I'm afraid of it, Jim. I can't face theabuse and the newspapers, and I can't face the loneliness, either. I'm desperately lonely. "

"For him?" Jim groaned. 

"No, I've got over loving him. I'll never endure him again, especially now that she has a better right to him. "

She could not bring herself at first to tell him what she knewof Zada, but at length she confessed that she had listened to thedictagraph and had heard that Zada was to be a mother. Dyckman wasdumfounded; then he snarled:

"Thank God it's not you that's going to be--for him--Well, don't youcall that divorce enough? How can you call your marriage a sacramentwhen he has gone and made a real sacrament with another woman? Ittakes two to keep a sacrament, doesn't it? Or does it? I don't thinkI know what a sacrament is. But I tell you, there was never a plainerduty in the world. Turn him over to his Zada. She's the worst womanin town, and she's too good for him, at that. I don't see how youcan hesitate! How long can you stand it?"

"I don't know. I'm ready to die now. I'd rather die. I'd better die. "

And once more she was weeping, now merely a lonely little girl. Hecould not resist the impulse to go to her side. He dropped down byher and patted her wrist gawkily. She caught his hand and clenchedit with strange power. He could tell by her throat that her heartwas leaping like a wild bird against a cage. 

His own heart beat about his breast like a bird that has been setfrantic by another bird, and his soul ached for her. He yearned toput his long arm about her and hold her tight, but he could not. 

He had never seen her so. He could not understand what it was thatmade a darkling mist of her eyes and gave her parted lips such animpatient ecstasy of pain. 

Suddenly, with an intuition unusual to him, he understood. He shrankfrom her, but not with contempt or blame. There was something divineabout his merciful comprehension, but his only human response wasa most ungodly wrath. He got to his feet, muttering:

"I ought to kill him. Maybe I will. I've got to beat him withinan inch of his life. "

Charity was dazed by his abrupt revolt. "What do you mean, Jim?Who is it you want to beat?"

He laughed, a bloodthirsty laugh. "I'll find him!"

He rushed out into the hall, caught up his hat and coat, and wasgone. Charity was bewildered out of her wits. She could not imaginewhat had maddened him. She only knew that Dyckman also had abandonedher. He would find Cheever and fight him as one stag another. Andthe only result would be the death of one or both and a far moreodious disgrace than the scandal she had determined to avoid. 

CHAPTER XXXI

Dyckman was at least half mad, and half inspired. Charity had beenhis lifelong religion. He had thought of her with ardor, but alsowith a kind of awe. He had wanted to be her husband. Failing to winher, he had been horrified to see that Cheever, possessing her, wasstill not satisfied. 

He had never dreamed what this neglect might mean to her. He hadnot thought of her as mere woman, after all, with more than prideto satisfy, with more than a mind to suffer. When the realizationoverwhelmed him her nobility was not diminished in his eyes, but to all her former qualities was added the human element. Shewas flesh and blood, and a martyr in the flames. And the ingratewho had the godlike privilege of her embrace abandoned her fora public creature. 

Dyckman felt himself summoned to avenge her. 

It happened that he found the Cheever limousine waiting outside. He said to the chauffeur:

"Where does Miss Zada L'Etoile live?"

The chauffeur was startled. He answered, with a touch of raillery:

"Search me, sir. How should I know?"

"I want none of your back talk, " said Dyckman, ready to maul thechauffeur or anybody for practice. He took out his pocket-book andlifted the first bill he came to. It was a yellow boy. He repeated, "Where does Zada L'Etoile live?"

The chauffeur told him and got the bill. It was better than thepoke in the eye he could have had instead. 

Dyckman had sent his own car home. He had difficulty in findinga taxicab on Fifth Avenue along there. At length he stopped oneand named the apartment-house where Zada lived. 

The hall-boy was startled by his manner, amazed to hear the famousDyckman ask for Miss L'Etoile. He telephoned the name while Dyckmanfumed. After some delay he was told to come up. 

Zada was alone--at least Cheever was not there. She had beenastounded when Dyckman's name came through the telephone. Herfirst thought had been that Cheever had met with an accident andthat Dyckman was bringing the news. She had given up the hopeof involving Dyckman with Mrs. Cheever, after wasting Cheever'smoney on vain detectives. 

When Dyckman was ushered in she greeted him from her divan. 

"Pardon my negligée, " she said. "I'm not very well. "

He saw at a glance that the dictagraph had told the truth. She wasentirely too well. He felt his wrath at Zada vanishing. But thisalso he transferred to Cheever's account. He spoke as quietly ashe could, though his face revealed his excitement. 

"Sorry to trouble you, but I had hoped to find Mr. Cheever here. "

"Mr. Cheever?! Here?!" Zada exclaimed, with that mixture of theinterrogation and exclamation points for which we have no symbol. She tried to look surprised at the unimaginable suggestion ofCheever's being in her environs. She succeeded as well as Dyckmandid in pretending that his errand was trivial. 

"Er--yes, I imagined you might happen to know where I could findhim. I have a little business with him. "

Zada thought to crush him with a condescension--a manicurialsarcasm:

"Have you been to the gentleman's home?"

Dyckman laughed: "Yes, but he wasn't there. He isn't there muchnowadays--they say. "

"Oh, do they?" Zada sneered. "Well, did They tell you he would behere?"

"No, but I thought--"

"Better try his office in the morning. "

"Thanks. I can't wait. What club does he affect most now?"

"Ask They, " said Zada, ending the interview with a labored yawn. But when Dyckman bowed and turned to go, her curiosity bested herindignation. "In case I should by any chance see him, could I givehim your message?"

Dyckman laughed a sort of pugilistic laugh, and his self-consciousfist asserted itself. 

"No, thanks, I'm afraid you couldn't. Good-by. "

Zada saw his big fingers gathering--convening, as it were, into afist like a mace, and she was terrified for her man. She scrambledto her feet and caught Dyckman in the hall. 

"What are you going to do to Mr. Cheever?"

Dyckman answered in the ironic slang, "I'm not going to do a thingto him. "

Zada's terror increased. "What harm has he ever done to you?"

"I didn't say he had done me any harm. "

"Is it because of his wife?"

"Leave her out of it. "

There was the old phrase again. Cheever kept hurling it at herwhenever she referred to the third corner of the triangle. 

Zada remembered when Cheever had threatened to kill Dyckman if hefound him. Now he would be unarmed. He was not so big a man asDyckman. She could see him being throttled slowly to death, leavingher and her child-to-be unprotected in their shameful folly. 

"For God's sake, don't!" she implored him. "I'm not well. I mustn'thave any excitement, I beg you--for my sake--"

"For your sake, " said Dyckman, with a scorn that changed to pityas she clung to him--"for your sake I'll give him a couple of extrajolts. "

That was rather dazzling, the compliment of having Jim Dyckman asher champion! Her old habit of taking everybody's flattery made herforget for the moment that she was now a one-man woman. Her clutchrelaxed under the compliment just long enough for Dyckman to escapewithout violence. He darted through the door and closed it behindhim. 

She tugged at the inside knob, but he was so long that he couldhold the outside knob with one hand and reach the elevator-bellwith the other. 

When the car came up he released the knob and lifted his hat witha pleasant "Good-night. " She dared not pursue him in the garbshe wore. 

She returned terrified to her room. Then she ran to the telephone topursue Cheever and warn him. They had quarreled at the dinner-table. He had left her on the ground that it was dangerous for her to beexcited as he evidently excited her. It is one of the most cravenshifts of a man for ending an endless wrangle with a woman. 

Zada tried three clubs before she found Cheever. When she heardhis voice at last she was enraptured. She tried to entice him intoher own shelter. 

"I'm sorry I was so mean. Come on home and make peace with me. "

"All right, dear, I will. "

"Right away?"

"After a while, darling. I'm sitting in a little game of poker. "

"You'd better not keep me waiting!" she warned. The note was anunfortunate reminder of his bondage. It rattled his shackles. Hecould not even have a few hours with old cronies at the club. Shewas worse than Charity had ever dreamed of being. She heard theresentment in his answer and felt that he would stay away from herfor discipline. She threw aside diplomacy and tried to frighten himhome. 

"Jim Dyckman is looking for you. "

"Dyckman? Me! Why?"

"He wants to beat you up. "

Cheever laughed outright at this. "You're crazy, darling. Whathas Dyckman got against me?"

"I don't know, but I know he's hunting you. "

"I haven't laid eyes on him for weeks. We've had no quarrel. "

Zada was frantic. She howled across the wire: "Come home, I begand implore you. He'll hurt you--he may kill you. "

Again Cheever laughed: "You're having hallucinations, my love. You'll feel better in the morning. Where the deuce did you getsuch a foolish notion, anyway?"

"From Jim Dyckman, " she stormed. "He was here looking for you. Ifanybody's going crazy, he's the one. I had a struggle with him. Hebroke away. I begged him not to harm you, but he said he'd give youa few extra jolts for my sake. Please, please, don't let him findyou there. "

Cheever was half convinced and quite puzzled. He knew that Dyckmanhad never forgiven him for marrying Charity. The feud had smoldered. He could not conceive what should have revived it, unless Charityhad been talking. He had not thought of any one's punishing him forneglecting her. But if Dyckman had enlisted in her cause--well, Cheever was afraid of hardly anything in the world except boredomand the appearance of fear. He answered Zada with a gruff:

"Let him find me if he wants to. Or since you know him so well, tell me where he'll be, and I'll go find him. "

He could hear Zada's strangled moan. How many times, since maleand female began, have women made wild, vain protests againstthe battle-habit, the duel-tribunal? Mothers, daughters, wives, mistresses, they have been seldom heard and have been forced to waitremote in anguish till their man has come back or been brought back, victorious or baffled or defeated, maimed, wounded, or dead. 

It meant everything to Zada that her mate should not suffer eitherdeath or publicity. But chiefly her love of him made outcry now. Shecould not endure the vision of her beloved receiving the hammeringof the giant Dyckman. 

The telephone crackled under the load of her prayers, but Cheeverhad only one answer:

"If you want me to run away from him or anybody, you don't get yourwish, my darling. "

Finally she shrieked, "If you don't come home I'll come there andget you. "

"Ladies are not allowed in the main part of this club, dearest, "said Cheever. "Thank God there are a few places where two men cansettle their affairs without the help of womanly intuition. "

"He wants to pound you to death, " she screamed. "If you don'tpromise me, I'll come there and break in if I have to scratchthe eyes out of the doorkeeper. "

He knew that she was capable of doing this very thing; so he madeanswer, "All right, my dear. I surrender. "

"You'll come home?"

"Yes, indeed. Right away. "

"Oh, thank God! You do love me, then. How soon will you be here?"

"Very shortly, unless the taxi breaks down. "

"Hurry!"

"Surely. Good-by!"

He hung up the reverberant receiver and said to the telephone-boy:"If anybody calls me, I've gone out. No matter who calls me, I'mout. "

"Yes, sir. "

Then he went to the card-room, found that the game had gone onwithout him, cashed in his chips, and excused himself. He was neitherwinning nor losing, so that he could not be accused of "cold feet. "That was one of the most intolerable accusations to him. He couldviolate any of the Commandments, but in the sportsman's decalogue"Thou shalt not have cold feet" was one that he honored in theobservance, not the breach. 

He went down to the reading-room, a palatial hall fifty yards longwith a table nearly as big as a railroad platform, on a tremendousrug as wide and deep as a lawn. About it were chairs and divans thatwould have satisfied a lotus-eater. 

Cheever avoided proffers of conversation and pretended to read themagazines and newspapers. He kept his eyes on the doors. He did notwant to take any one into his confidence, as he felt that, after all, Zada might have been out of her head. He did not want any secondsor bottle-holders. He was not afraid. Still, he did not care to besurprised by a mad bull. He felt that he could play toreador withneatness and despatch provided he could foresee the charge. 

Among the magazines Cheever glanced at was one with an article onvarious modes of self-defense, jiu-jitsu, and other devices by whichany clever child could apparently remove or disable a mad elephant. But Cheever's traditions did not incline to such methods. He had thefisting habit. He did not feel called toward clinching or choking, twisting, tripping, knifing, swording, or sandbagging. His wrathexpressed itself, and gaily, in the play of the triceps muscle. For mobility he used footwork and headwork. For shield he hadhis forearms or his open hands--for weapons, the ten knuckles atthe other end of the exquisite driving-shafts beginning in hisshoulder-blades. 

He had been a clever fighter from childhood. He had been a successfulboxer and had followed the art in its professional and amateurdevelopments. He knew more of prize-ring history and politics thanof any other. He often regretted that his inherited money had robbedhim of a career as a heavy-weight. He was not so big as Dyckman, buthe had made fools of bigger men. He felt that the odds were a triflein his favor, especially if Dyckman were angry, as he must be to goroaring about town frightening one silly woman for another's sake. 

He would have preferred not to fight in the club. It was the bestof all possible clubs, and he supposed that he would be expelledfor profaning its sacrosanctity with a vulgar brawl. But anythingwas better than cold feet. 

Finally his hundredth glance at the door revealed Jim Dyckman. Hewas a long way off, but he looked bigger than Cheever rememberedhim. Also he was calmer than Cheever had hoped him to be, and notdrunk, as he half expected. 

Dyckman caught sight of Cheever, glared a moment, tossed his headas if it had antlers on it, and came forward grimly and swiftly. 

A few members of the club spoke to him. An attendant or two, carrying cocktails or high-balls in or empty glasses out, steppedaside. 

Dyckman advanced down the room, and his manner was challenge enough. But he paused honorably to say, "Cheever, I'm looking for you. "

"So I hear. "

"You had fair warning, then, from your--woman?"

"Which one?" said Cheever, with his irresistible impudence. 

That was the fulminate that exploded Dyckman's wrath. "Youblackguard!" he roared, and plunged. His left hand was out andopen, his great right fist back. As he closed, it flashed pasthim and drove into the spot where Cheever's face was smirking. 

But the face was gone. Cheever had bent his neck just enough toescape the fist. He met the weight of Dyckman's rush with all hisown weight in a short-arm jab that rocked Dyckman's whole frameand crumpled the white cuirass of his shirt. 

The fight was within an ace of being ended then and there, butDyckman's belly was covered with sinew, and he digested the bittermedicine. He tried to turn his huge grunt into a laugh. He wasat least not to be guilty of assaulting a weakling. 

Dyckman was a bit of a boxer, too. Like most rich men's sons, hewas practised in athletics. The gentleman of our day carries nosword and no revolver; he carries his weapons in his gloves. 

Dyckman acknowledged Cheever's skill and courage by deploying andfalling back. He sparred a moment. He saw that Cheever was quickerthan he at the feint and the sidestep. 

He grew impatient at this dancing duet. His wrath was his worstenemy and Cheever's ally. Cheever taunted him, and he heard thevoices of the club members who were rushing from their chairs inconsternation, and running in from the other rooms, summoned bythe wireless excitement that announces fights. 

There was not going to be time for a bout, and the gallery wasbigger than Dyckman had expected. He went in hell-for-leather. Hefelt a mighty satisfaction when his good left hand slashed throughCheever's ineffectual palms, reached that perky little mustacheand smeared that amiable mouth with blood. 

In the counterblow the edge of Cheever's cuff caught on Dyckman'sknuckles and ripped the skin. This saved Dyckman's eye frommourning. And now wherever he struck he left a red mark. Ithelped his target-practice. 

Cheever gave up trying to mar Dyckman's face and went for hiswaistcoat. All is fair in such a war, and below the belt was hisfavorite territory. He hoped to put Dyckman out. Dyckman triedto withhold his vulnerable solar plexus by crouching, but Cheeverkept whizzing through his guard like a blazing pinwheel even whenit brought his jaw in reach of an uppercut. 

Dyckman clinched and tried to bear him down, but Cheever, reachinground him, battered him with the terrific kidney-blow, and Dyckmanflung him off. 

And now servants came leaping into the fray, venturing to lay handson the men. They could hear older members pleading: "Gentlemen!Gentlemen! For God's sake remember where you are. " One or two wentcalling, "House Committee!"

Such blows as were struck now were struck across other heads andin spite of other arms. Both men were seized at length and draggedaway, petted and talked to like infuriated stallions. They stoodpanting and bleeding, trying not to hear the voices of reason. Theyglared at each other, and it became unendurable to each that theother should be able to stand erect and mock him. 

As if by a signal agreed on, they wrenched and flung aside theircaptors and dashed together again, forgetting science, defense, caution, everything but the lust of carnage. Dyckman in freeinghimself left his coat in the grasp of his retainers. 

There is nothing more sickeningly thrilling than the bare-handedferocity of two big men, all hate and stupid power, smashing andbeing smashed, trying to defend and destroy and each longing toknock the other lifeless before his own heart is stopped. Itseemed a pity to interrupt it, and it was perilous as well. 

For a long moment the two men flailed each other, bored in, andstaggered out. 

It was thud and thwack, slash and gouge. Wild blows went throughthe air like broadswords, making the spectators groan at what theymight have done had they landed. Blows landed and sent a head backwith such a snap that one looked for it on the floor. Flesh split, and blood spurted. Cheever reached up and swept his nose and mouthclear of gore--then shot his reeking fist into Dyckman's heart asif he would drive it through. 

It was amazing to see Dyckman's answering swing batter Cheeverforward to one knee. Habit and not courtesy kept Dyckman fromjumping him. He stood off for Cheever to regain his feet. It was notnecessary, for Cheever's agility had carried him out of range, butthe tolerance maddened him more than anything yet, and he ceasedto duck and dodge. He stood in and battered at Dyckman's stomachtill a gray nausea began to weaken his enemy. Dyckman grew afraidof a sudden blotting out of consciousness. He had known it once whenthe chance blow of an instructor had stretched him flat for thirtyseconds. 

He could not keep Cheever off far enough to use his longer reach. He forgot everything but the determination to make ruins of thathandsome face before he went out. He knocked loose one tooth andbleared an eye, but it was not enough. Finally Cheever got to himwith a sledge-hammer smash in the groin. It hurled Dyckman againstand along the big table, just as he put home one magnificent, majestic, mellifluous swinge with all his body in it. It plantedan earthquake under Cheever's ear. 

Dyckman saw him go backward across a chair and spinning over it andwith it and under it to the floor. Then he had only the faintnessand the vomiting to fight. He made one groping, clutching, almightyeffort to stand up long enough to crow like a victorious fightingcock, and he did. He stood up. He held to the table; he did notdrop. And he said one triumphant, "Humph!"

And now the storm of indignation began. Dyckman was a spent andbankrupt object, and anybody could berate him. A member of the housecommittee reviled him with profanity and took the names of witnesseswho could testify that Dyckman struck the first blow. 

The pitiful stillness of Cheever, where a few men knelt about him, turned the favor to him. One little whiffet told Dyckman to hisface that it was a dastardly thing he had done. He laughed. He hadhis enemy on the floor. He did not want everything. 

Dyckman made no answer to the accusations. He did not say that hewas a crusader punishing an infidel for his treachery to a poor, neglected woman. He had almost forgotten what he was fighting for. He was too weak even to oppose the vague advice he heard thatCheever should be taken "home. " He had a sardonic impulse to giveZada's address, but he could not master his befuddled wits enoughfor speech. 

The little fussy rooster who called Dyckman dastardly said that heought to be arrested. The reception he got for his proposal to bringa policeman into the club or take a member out of it into the jailand the newspapers was almost annihilating. The chairman of the housecommittee said:

"I trust that it is not necessary to say that this wretched and mostunheard-of affair must be kept--unheard of. But I may say that I havehere a list of the members present, and I shall make a list of theclub servants present. If one word of this leaks out, each gentlemanpresent will be brought before the council, and every servant willbe discharged immediately--every servant without regard to guilt, innocence, or time of service. "

Dyckman would have liked to spend the night at the club, but itshospitable air had chilled. He sent for his big coat, turned upthe collar, pulled his hat low, and crept into a taxicab. His fatherand mother were out, and he got to his room without explanations. His valet, Dallam, gasped at the sight of him, but Dyckman laughed:

"You ought to see the other fellow. "

Then he crept into the tub, thence into his bed, and slept till hewas called to the telephone the next morning by Mrs. Cheever. 

As he might have expected, Charity was as far as possible fromgratitude. The only good news she gave him was that Cheever hadbeen brought home half dead, terribly mauled, broken in pride, and weeping like a baby with his shame. Dyckman could not helpswelling a little at that. 

But when Charity told him that Cheever accused her of setting himon and swore that he would get even with them both, Dyckman realizedthat fists are poor poultices for bruises, and revenge the worstof all solutions. Finally, Charity denounced Jim and begged himonce more to keep out of her sight and out of her life. 

Dyckman was in the depths of the blues, and a note to the effectthat he had been suspended from his club, to await action lookingtoward his expulsion, left him quite alone in the world. 

In such a mood Kedzie Thropp called him up, with a cheery hailthat rejoiced him like the first cheep of the first robin aftera miserable winter. He said that he would call that evening, with the greatest possible delight. She said that she was verylonely for him, and they should have a blissful evening with justthemselves together. 

But it proved to be a rather crowded occasion in Kedzie's apartment. Her father and mother reached there before Dyckman did, to Kedzie'shorror--and theirs. 

CHAPTER XXXII

Turn a parable upside down, and nearly everything falls out of it. 

Even the beautiful legend of the prodigal son returning home tohis parents could not retain its value when it was topsy-turviedby the Thropps. 

Their son was a daughter, but she had run away from them to battenon the husks of city life, and had prospered exceedingly. It washer parents who heard of her fame and had journeyed to the cityto ask her forgiveness and throw themselves on her neck. Kedziewas now wonderful before the nation under the nom de film of AnitaAdair; but if her father had not spanked her that fatal day in NewYork she might never have known glory. So many people have beenkicked up-stairs in this world. 

But Kedzie had not forgiven the outrage, and her father had nointention of reminding her how much she owed to it. In fact, hewished he had thought to cut off his right hand, scripturally, before it caused him to offend. 

When the moving-picture patrons in Nimrim, Missouri, first sawKedzie's pictures on the screen they were thrilled far beyond theintended effect of the thriller. The name "Anita Adair" had meantnothing, of course, among her old neighbors, but everybody had knownKedzie's ways ever since first she had had ways. Her image had nosooner walked into her first scene than fellows who had kissed her, and girls who had been jealous of her, began to buzz. 

"Look, that's Kedzie. "

"For mercy's sake, Kedzie Thropp!"

Yep, that's old Throppie. "

"Why--would you believe it?--that's old Ad Thropp's girl--the onewhat was lost so long. "

In the Nimrim Nickeleum films were played twice of an evening. Theseven-thirty audience was usually willing to go home and leave spacefor the nine-o'clock audience unless the night was cold. But on thisimmortal evening people were torn between a frenzy to watch Kedziego by again and a frenzy to run and get Mr. And Mrs. Thropp. 

A veritable Greek chorus ran and got the Thropps, and lost theirseats. There was no room for the Thropps to get in. If the managerhad not thrown out a few children and squeezed the parents throughthe crowd they would have lost the view. 

The old people stood in the narrow aisle staring at the apotheosisof this brilliant creature in whose existence they had collaborated. They had the mythological experience of two old peasants seeing theirchild translated as in a chariot of fire. Their eyes were dazzledwith tears, for they had mourned her as lost, either dead in bodyor dead of soul. They had imagined her drowned and floating down theBay, or floating along the sidewalks of New York. They had fearedfor her the much-advertised fate of the white slaves--she might bebound out to Singapore or destined for Alaskan dance-halls. Thereare so many fates for parents to dread for their lost children. 

To have their Kedzie float home to them on pinions of radiant beautywas an almost intolerable beatitude. Kedzie's mother started downthe aisle, crying, "Kedzie, my baby! My little lost baby!" beforeAdna could check her. 

Kedzie did not answer her mother, but went on with her work as ifshe were deaf. She came streaming from the projection-machine inlong beams of light. This vivid, smiling, weeping, dancing, sobbingKedzie was only a vibration rebounding from a screen. Perhaps thatis all any of us are. 

One thing was certain: the Thropps determined to redeem their lostlamb as soon as they could get to New York. Their lost lamb wasgamboling in blessed pastures. The Nimrim people spoke to the parentswith reverence, as if their son had been elected President--whichwould not have been, after all, so wonderful as their daughter'sbeing a screen queen. 

There is no end to the astonishments of our every-day life. Whilethe Thropps had been watching their daughter disport before them ina little dark room in Missouri, and other people in numbers of othercities were seeing her in duplicate, she herself was in none of theplaces, but in her own room--with Jim Dyckman paying court to her. 

Kedzie was engaged in reeling off a new life of her own for theastonishment of the angels, or whatever audience it is for whoseamusement the eternal movie show of mankind is performed. Kedzie'sstory was progressing with cinematographic speed and with transitionsalmost as abrupt as the typical five-reeler. 

Kedzie was an anxious spectator as well as an actor in her own lifefilm. She did not see how she could get out of the tangled situationher whims, her necessities, and her fates had constructed about her. She had been more or less forced into a betrothal with the wealthyJim Dyckman before she had dissolved her marriage with TommieGilfoyle. She could not find Gilfoyle, and she grew frenzied withthe dread that her inability to find him might thwart all her dreams. 

Then came the evening when Jim Dyckman telephoned her that he couldnot keep his appointment with her. It was the evening he respondedto Charity Coe's appeal and met Peter Cheever fist to fist. Kedzieheard, in the polite lie he told, a certain tang of prevarication, and that frightened her. Why was Jim Dyckman trying to shake her?Once begun, where would the habit end?

That was a dull evening for Kedzie. She stuck at home without othersociety than her boredom and her terrors. She had few resources forthe enrichment of solitude. She tried to read, but she could notfind a popular novel or a short story in a magazine exciting enoughto keep her mind off the excruciating mystery of the next instalmentin her own life. Her heart ached with the fear that she might neverknow the majesty of being Mrs. Jim Dyckman. That almost royalprerogative grew more and more precious the more she feared to loseit. She imagined the glory with a ridiculous extravagance. Hertheory of the life lived by the wealthy aristocrats was fantastic, but she liked it and longed for it. 

The next day she waited to hear from Jim till she could endure theanxiety no longer. She ventured to call him at his father's home. She waited with trepidation while she was put through to his room, but his enthusiasm when he recognized her voice refreshed her hopesand her pride. She did not know that part of her welcome was due tothe fierce rebuke Charity Coe had inflicted on him a little beforebecause he had mauled her husband into a wreck. 

That evening she waited for Jim Dyckman's arrival with an ardoralmost akin to love. He had begged off from dinner. He did notexplain that he carried two or three visible fist marks fromCheever's knuckles which he did not wish to exhibit in a publicrestaurant. 

So Kedzie dined at home in solitary gloom. She had only herselffor guest and found herself most stupid company. 

She dined in her bathrobe and began immediately after dinnerto dress for conquest. She hoped that Dyckman would take her outto the theater or a dance, and she put on her best bib and tucker, the bib being conspicuously missing. She was taking a last look atthe arrangement of her little living-room when the telephone-bellrang and the maid came to say:

"'Scuse me, Miss Adair, but hall-boy says your father and motheris down-stairs. "

Kedzie almost fainted. She did not dare refuse to see them. She hadnot attained that indifference to the opinions of servants which isthe only real emancipation from being the servant of one's servants. 

While she fumbled with her impulses the maid rather stated thanasked, "Shall I have 'em sent up, of course?"

"Of course, " Kedzie snapped. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

The Thropps knew Kedzie well enough to be afraid of her. A parentalintuition told them that if they wrote to her she would be a longwhile answering; if they telephoned her she would be out of town. So they came unannounced. It had taken them the whole day to traceher. They learned with dismay that she was no longer "working" atthe Hyperfilm Studio. 

Adna Thropp and his wife were impressed by the ornate lobby of theapartment-house, by the livery of the hall-boy and the elevator-boy, by the apron and cap of the maid who let them in, and by the hallfurniture. 

But when they saw their little Kedzie standing before them in herevening gown--her party dress as Mrs. Thropp would say--they wereoverwhelmed. A daughter is a fearsome thing to a father, especiallywhen she is grown up and dressed up. Adna turned his eyes away fromhis shining child. 

But the sense of shame is as amenable to costume as to the lack ofit, and Kedzie--the shoulder-revealer--was as much shocked by whather parents had on as they by what she had off. 

The three embraced automatically rather than heartily, and Kedziecame out of her mother's bosom chilled, though it was a warm nightand Mrs. Thropp had traveled long. Also there was a lot of her. 

Kedzie gave her parents the welcome that the prodigal's elder brothergave him. She was thinking: "What will Jim Dyckman say when he learnsthat my real name is Thropp and sees this pair of Thropps? They lookas if their name would be Thropp. "

Adna made the apologies--glad tidings being manifestly out of place. 

"Hope we 'ain't put you out, daughter. We thought we'd s'prise you. We went to the fact'ry. Man at the door says you wasn't workin' thereno more. Give us this address. Right nice place here, ain't it? Lookslike a nice class of folks lived here. "

Kedzie heard the rounded "r" and the flat "a" which she had discardedand scorned the more because she had once practised them. Childrenare generally disappointed in their parents, since they cherishideals to which few parents may conform from lack of time, birth, breeding, or money. Kedzie was not in any mood for parents thatnight, anyway, but if she had to have parents, she would have chosenan earl and a countess with a Piccadilly accent and a concert-grandmanner. Such parents it would have given her pleasure and pride toexhibit to Dyckman. They would awe-inspire him and arrange themarriage settlement, whatever that was. 

But these poor old shabby dubs in their shabby duds--a couple whowere plebeian even in Jayville! If there had not been such a popularprejudice against mauling one's innocent parents about, Kedzie wouldprobably have taken her father and mother to the dumb-waiter and sentthem down to the ash-can. 

As she hung between despair and anxiety the telephone-bell rang. JimDyckman called her up to say that he was delayed for half an hour. Kedzie came back and invited her parents in. It made her sick to seetheir awkwardness among the furniture. They went like scows adrift. They priced everything with their eyes, and the beauty was spoiledby the estimated cost. 

Mrs. Thropp asked Kedzie how she was half a dozen times, and, beforeKedzie could answer, went on to tell about her own pains. Mr. Throppwas freshly alive to the fact that New York's population is dividedinto two classes--innocent visitors and resident pirates. 

While they asked Kedzie questions that she did not care to answer, and answered questions she had not cared to ask, Kedzie keptwondering how she could get rid of them before Dyckman came. Shethanked Heaven that there was no guest-room in her apartment. Theycould not live with her, at least. 

Suddenly it came over the pretty, bewildered little thing with herprevious riddle of how to get rid of a last-year's husband so thatshe might get a new model--suddenly it came over Kedzie that she hada tremendous necessity for help, advice, parentage. The crying needfor a father and a mother enhanced the importance of the two she hadon hand. 

She broke right into her mother's description of a harrowing lumbagoshe had suffered from: it was that bad she couldn't neither laynor set--that is to say, comfortable. Kedzie's own new-fangledpronunciations and phrases fell from her mind, and she spoke inpurest Nimrim:

"Listen, momma and poppa. I'm in a peck of trouble, and maybe youcan help me out. "

"Is it money?" Adna wailed, sepulchrally. 

"No, unless it's too much of the darned stuff. "

Adna gasped at the paradox. He had no time to comment before sheassailed him with:

"You see, I've gone and got married. "

This shattered them both so that the rest was only shrapnel aftershell. But it was a leveling bombardment of everything near, dear, respectable, sacred. They were fairly rocked by each detonationof fact. 

"Yes, I went and married a dirty little rat--name's Gilfoyle--hethinks my real name's Anita Adair. I got it out of a movie, firstday I ran off from you folks. I had an awful time, momma--liketo starved--would have, only for clerkin' in a candy-store. ThenI got work posln' for commercial photographers. Did you see theBreathasweeta Chewin' Gum Girl? No? That was me. Then I was a dancerfor a while--on the stage--and--the other girls were awful cats. Butwhat d'you expect? The life was terrible. We didn't wear much clo'es. That didn't affect me, though; some of those nood models are terriblyrespectable--not that I was nood, o' course. But--well--so I marriedTommie Gilfoyle. I don't know how I ever came to. He must havemesmerized me, I guess. "

"What did he work at?" said Adna. 

"Poetry. "

"Is poetry work?"

"Work? That's all it is. Poetry is all work and no pay. You shouldhave seen that gink sweatin' over the fool stuff. He'd work a weekfor five dollars' worth of foolishness. And besides, as soon as hemarried me he lost his job. "

"Poetry?" Adna mumbled. 

"Advertising. "

"Oh!"

"Well, we didn't live together very long, and I was perfectlymiser'ble every minute. "

"You poor little honey child!" said Mrs. Thropp, who felt her lambcoming back to her, and even Adna reached over and squeezed her handand rubbed her knuckles with his rough thumb uncomfortably. 

But it was good to have allies, and Kedzie went on:

"By an' by Gilfoyle got the offer of a position in Chicago, and hecouldn't get there without borrowing all I had. But I was glad enoughto pay it to him. I'd 'a' paid his fare to the moon if he'd 'a' gonethere. Then I got a position with a moving-picture company--asa jobber--I began very humbly at first, you see, and I underwentgreat hardships. " (She was quoting now from one of her favoriteinterviews. ) "My talent attracted the attention of the director, Mr. Ferriday. He stands very high in the p'fession, but he's veryconceited--very! He thought he owned me because he was the firstone I let direct me. He wanted me to marry him. "

"Did you?" said Adna, who was prepared for anything. 

"I should say not!" said Kedzie. "How could I, with a husband inChicago? He wasn't much of a husband--just enough to keep me frommarrying a real man. For one day, who should come to the studiobut Jim Dyckman!"

"Any relation to the big Dyckmans?" said Adna. 

"He's the son of the biggest one of them all, " said Kedzie. 

"And you know him?"

"Do I know him? Doesn't he want to marry me? Isn't that the wholetrouble? He's coming here this evening. "

To Adna, the humble railroad claim-agent, the careless tossing offof the great railroad name of Dyckman was what it would have beento a rural parson to hear Kedzie remark:

"I'm giving a little dinner to-night to my friends Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Mr. Apostle Paul. "

When the shaken wits of the parents began to return to a partialcalm they remembered that Kedzie had mentioned somebody namedGilfoyle--_Gargoyle_ would have been a better name for him, since he grinned down in mockery upon a cathedral of hope. 

Adna whispered, "When did you divorce--the other feller?"

"I didn't; that's the trouble. "

"Why don't you?"

"I can't find him. "

Adna spoke up: "I'll go to Chicago and find him and get a divorce, if I have to pound it out of him. You say he's a poet?"

Adna had the theory that poetry went with tatting and china-paintingas an athletic exercise. Kedzie had no reason to think differently. She had whipped her own poet, scratched him and driven him away indisorder. She told her people of this and of her inability to recallhim, and of his failure to answer the letter she had sent to Chicago. 

Her father and mother grew incandescent with the strain between theobstacle and the opportunity--the irresistible opportunity chainedto the immovable obstacle. They raged against the fiend who hadruined Kedzie's life, met her on her pathway, gagged and bound her, and haled her to his lair. 

Poor young Gilfoyle would have been flattered at the importance theygave him, but he would not have recognized himself or Kedzie. 

According to his memory, he had married Kedzie because she was apitiful, heartbroken waif who had lost her job and thrown herselfon his mercy. He had married her because he adored her and he wantedto protect her and love her under the hallowing shelter of matrimony. He had given her his money and his love and his toil, and they hadnot interested her. She had berated him, chucked him, taken up witha fast millionaire; and when he returned to resume his place in herheart she had greeted him with her finger-nails. 

Thus, as usual in wars, each side had bitter grievances which theother could neither acknowledge nor understand. Gilfoyle was asbitter against Kedzie as she was against him. 

And even while the three Thropps were wondering how they could summonthis vanquished monster out of the vasty deep of Chicago they couldhave found him by putting their heads out of the window and shoutinghis name. He was loitering opposite in the areaway of an emptyresidence. He did not know that Kedzie's father and mother werewith her, any more than they knew that he was with them. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

After a deal of vain abuse of Gilfoyle for abducting their childand thwarting her golden opportunity, Adna asked at last, "Whatdoes Mr. Dyckman think of all this?"

"You don't suppose I've told him I was married, do you?" Kedziestormed. "Do I look as loony as all that?"

"Oh!" said Adna. 

"Why, he doesn't even know my name is Thropp, to say nothing ofThropp-hyphen-Gilfoyle. "

"Oh!" said Adna. 

"Who does he think you are?" asked Mrs. Thropp. 

"Anita Adair, the famous favorite of the screen, " said Kedzie, rather advertisingly. 

"Hadn't you better tell him?" Adna ventured. 

"I don't dast. He'd never speak to me again. He'd run like a rabbitif he thought I was a grass widow. "

Mrs. Thropp remonstrated: "I don't believe he'd ever give you up. He must love you a heap if he wants to marry you. "

"That's so, " said Kedzie. "He's always begging me to name the day. But I don't know what he'd think if I was to tell him I'd beenlying to him all this time. He thinks I'm an innocent little girl. I just haven't got the face to tell him I'm an old married womanwith a mislaid husband. "

"You mean to give him up, then?" Mrs. Thropp sighed. 

Adna raged back: "Give up a billion-dollar man for a fool poet?Not on your tintype!"

Kedzie gave her father an admiring look. They were getting onsympathetic ground. They understood each other. 

Adna was encouraged to say: "If I was you, Kedzie, I'd just laythe facts before him. Maybe he could buy the feller off. You couldprobably get him mighty cheap. "

Mrs. Thropp habitually resented all her husband's arguments. Shescorned this proposal. 

"Don't you do it, Kedzie. Just as you said, he'd most likely runlike a rabbit. "

"Then what am I going to do?" Kedzie whimpered. 

There was a long silence. Mrs. Thropp pondered bitterly. She wasthe most moral of women. She had brought up her children withall rigidity. She had abused them for the least dereliction. Shehad upheld the grimmest standard of virtue, with "Don't!" for itswatchword. Of virtue as a warm-hearted, alert, eager, glowing spirit, cultivating the best and most beautiful things in life, she had noidea. Virtue was to her a critic, a satirist, a neighborhood gossip, something scathing and ascetic. That delicate balance between failingto mind one's own business and failing to respond to another'sneed did not bother her--nor did that theory of motherhood whichinstils courage, independence, originality, and enthusiasm for life, and starts children precociously toward beauty, love, grace, philanthropy, invention, art, glory. 

She had the utmost contempt for girls who went right according totheir individualities, or went wrong for any reason soever. The leastindiscretions of her own daughters she visited with endless tirades. Kedzie had escaped them for a long while. She had succeeded as faras she had because she had escaped from the most dangerous of allinfluences--a perniciously repressive mother. She would have beenscolded viciously now if it had not been for Dyckman's mightyprestige. 

The Dyckman millions in person were about to enter this room. The Dyckman millions wanted Kedzie. If they got her it would bea wonderful thing for a poor, hard-working girl who had had thespunk to strike out for herself and make her own way without expenseto her father and mother. The Dyckman millions, furthermore, wouldbring the millennium at once to the father and mother. 

Mrs. Thropp, fresh from her village (yet not so very fresh--say, rather, recent from sordid humility), sat dreaming of herselfas a Dyckman by marriage. She imagined herself and the greatMrs. Dyckman in adjoining rocking-chairs, exchanging gossip andrecipes and anecdotes of their joint grandchildren-to-be. Justto inhale the aroma of that future, that vision of herself asMr. Dyckman's mother-in-law, was like breathing in deeply oflaughing-gas; a skilful dentist could have extracted a molarfrom her without attracting her attention. And in the vapor ofthat stupendous temptation the devil actually did extract from herher entire moral code without her noticing the difference. 

If Kedzie had been married to Gilfoyle and besought in marriage byanother fellow of the same relative standard of income Mrs. Throppcould have waxed as indignant as anybody. If Kedzie's new suitorhad earned as high as four thousand a year, which was a pile ofmoney in Nimrim, she would still have raged against the immoralityof tampering with the sacrament of marriage. She might havewithstood as much as twenty thousand a year for the sake of homeand religion. She abhorred divorce, as well as other people do(especially divorcées). 

But to resist a million dollars and all that went with it wasimpossible. To resist a score of millions was twenty timesimpossibler. She made up her mind that Dyckman should not escapefrom this temporary alliance with the Thropps without paying atleast a handsome initiation-fee. Suddenly she set her jaw andbroke into the parley of her husband and their daughter:

"Well, I've made up my mind. Adna, you shut up awhile and get onout this room. I'm going to have a few words with my girl. "

Adna looked into the face of his wife and saw there thatred-and-white-striped expression which always puts a wise manto flight. He was glad to be permitted to retreat. When he wasgone Mrs. Thropp beckoned Kedzie to sit by her on the _chaiselongue_. She gathered her child up as some adoring old buzzardmight cuddle her nestling and impart choice ideals of scavengery. 

"Look here, honey: you listen to your mother what loves you and knowswhat's best for you. You've struck out for yourself and you've wonthe grandest chance any girl ever had. If you throw it away you'llbe slappin' Providence right in the face. The Lord would never haveput this op'tunity in your reach if He hadn't meant you to have it. "

"What you talking about, momma?" said Kedzie. 

"My father always used to say: 'Old Man Op'tunity is bald-headedexcept for one long scalplock in the middle his forehead. Grab himas he comes toward you, for there's nothing to lay holt on as hegoes by. '"

"What's all this talk about bald-heads?" Kedzie protested. 

"Hush your mouth and listen to a woman that's older'n what youare and knows more. Look at me! I've slaved all my life. I've beena hard-workin', church-goin' woman, a good mother to a lot ofungrateful children, a faithful, lovin' wife--and what have I gotfor it? Look at me. Do you want to be like me when you get my age?Do you?"

It was a hard question to answer politely, so Kedzie said nothing. Mrs. Thropp went on:

"You got a chance to look like me and live hard and die poor, andthat's what'll happen if you stick by this low-life, good-for-nothingdawg you married. Don't do it. Money's come your way. Grab it quick. Hold on to it tight. Money's the one thing that counts. You takemy word for it. It don't matter much how you get it; the main thingis Get it! People don't ask you How? but How Much? If you got enoughthey don't care How. "

"That's all right enough, " said Kedzie, "but the main question withme is How?"

"How is easy, " said Mrs. Thropp, and her face seemed to turn yellowas she lowered her voice. "This Mr. Dyckman is crazy about you. Hewants you. If he's willin' to marry you to get you, I guess he'llbe still more willin' to get you without marryin' you. "

"Why, momma!"

It was just a whisper. Kedzie had lived through village perils andcity perils; she had been one of a band of dancers as scant of moralsas of clothes; she had drifted through all sorts of encounters withall sorts of people; but she had never heard so terrible a thoughtso terribly expressed. She flinched from her mother. Her mother sawthat shudder of retreat and grew harsher:

"You tell Mr. Dyckman about your husband, and you'll lose him. Youwill--for sure! If you lose him, you lose the greatest chance a girlever had. Take him--and make him pay for you!--in advance. Do youunderstand? You can't get much afterward. You can get a fortune ifyou get your money first. Look at you, how pretty you are! He'd giveyou a million if you asked him. Get your money; then tell him if youwant to; but don't lose this chance. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, " Kedzie sighed. "Yes, momma. "

"Promise me on your solemn honor!"

Kedzie giggled with sheer nervousness at the phrase. But she wouldnot promise. 

The door-bell rang, and the maid admitted Jim Dyckman, who hadnot paused to send his name up by the telephone. While he gave hishat and stick to the maid and peeled off his gloves Kedzie waswhispering:

"It's Jim. "

Mrs. Thropp struggled to her feet. "He mustn't find me here, " shesaid. "Don't tell him about us. "

But before she could escape Dyckman was in the doorway, almost tootall to walk through it, almost as tall as twenty million dollars. 

To Mrs. Thropp he was as majestic as the Colossus of Rhodes wouldhave been. Like the Colossus of Rhodes, he was a gilded giant. 

CHAPTER XXXV

Kedzie was paralyzed. Mrs. Thropp was inspired. Unity of purposeguided her true. She had told her daughter to ignore Gilfoyle asan unimportant detail. She certainly did not intend to substitutea couple of crude parents as a new handicap. 

No one knew Mrs. Thropp's cheapness of appearance better than she did. A woman may grow shoddy and careless, but she rarely grows obliviousof her uncomeliness. She will rather cherish it as the final crueltyof circumstances. Mrs. Thropp was keenly alive to the effect it wouldhave on Dyckman if Kedzie introduced her and Adna as the encumbranceson her beauty. 

Adna, hearing the door-bell and Dyckman's entrance, returned tothe living-room from the bathroom, where he had taken refuge. Hestood in the hall now behind the puzzled Dyckman. 

There was a dreadful silence for a moment. Jim spoke, shyly:

"Hello, Anita! How are you?"

"Hello, Jim!" Kedzie stammered. "This is--"

"I'm the janitor's wife, " said Mrs. Thropp. "My husband had to comeup to see about the worter not running in the bathroom, and I camealong to see Miss--the young lady. She's been awful good to me. Well, I'll be gettin' along. Good night, miss. Good night, sir. "

To save herself, she could not think of Kedzie's screen name. To save her daughter's future, she disowned her. She pushed pastDyckman, and silencing the stupefied Adna with a glare, swept himout through the dining-room into the kitchen. 

It amazed Mrs. Thropp to find a kitchen so many flights up-stairs. The ingenuity of the devices, the step-saving cupboard, the dryice-box with its coils of cold-air pipes, the gas-stove, theelectric appliances, were like wonderful new toys to her. 

Adna was as comfortable as a cow in a hammock, and she would havesent him away, but his hat was in the hall and she dared not go forit. Besides, she wanted to wait long enough to learn the outcomeof Kedzie's adventure with Dyckman. 

As soon as he was alone with Kedzie, Jim had taken her into hisarms. She blushed with an unwonted timidity in a new sense of theforbiddenness of her presence there. 

Her upward glance showed her that Jim had been in trouble, too. Hisjaw had a mottled look, and one eyebrow was a trifle mashed. 

"What on earth has happened to you?" she gasped. 

"Oh, I had a little run-in with a fellow. "

"What about?" said Kedzie. 

"Nothing much. "

"He must have hurt you terribly. "

"Think so? Well, you ought to see him. "

"What was it all about?"

"Oh, just a bit of an argument. "

"Who was he?"

"Nobody you know. "

"You mean it's none of my business?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, honey. I'd just rather not talkabout it. "

Kedzie felt rebuffed and afraid. He had spent an evening away fromher and had reappeared with scars from a battle he would not describe. She would have been still more terrified if she had known that he hadfought as the cavalier of Charity Coe Cheever. She would have beensomewhat reassured if she had known that Jim smarted less under thebruises of Cheever's fists than under the rebuke he had had fromCharity for his interference in her marital crisis. 

Jim was the more in need of Kedzie's devotion for being discardedagain by Charity. The warmth in Kedzie's greeting was due to herfear of losing him. But he did not know that. He only knew thatshe was exceedingly cordial to him, and it was his nature to repaycordiality with usury. 

He noted, however, that Kedzie's warmth had an element of anxiety. He asked her what was worrying her, but she would not answer. 

At length he made his usual remark. It had become a sort of standingjoke for him to say, "When do we marry?"

She always answered, "Give me a little more time. " But to-night whenhe laughed, "Well, just to get the subject out of the way, when dowe marry?" Kedzie did not make her regular answer. Her pretty facewas suddenly darkened with pain. She moaned: "Never, I guess. Never, I'm afraid. "

"What's on your mind, Anita?"

She hesitated, but when he repeated his query she took the plungeand told him the truth. 

Her mother had pleaded just a little too well. If Mrs. Thropp hadbegged Kedzie to do the right thing for the right's sake Kedziewould have felt the natural reaction daughters feel toward motherlyadvice. But the entreaty to do evil that evil might come of itaroused even more resistance, issuing as it did from maternal lipsthat traditionally give only holy counsel. It had a more reformingeffect on Kedzie's crooked plans than all the exhortations of allthe preachers in the world could have had. 

Kedzie turned to honesty because it seemed the less horrible oftwo evils. She assumed the role of a little penitent, and madeJim Dyckman a father confessor. She told her story as truthfullyas she could tell it or feel it. She was too sincere to be just. 

She made herself the martyr that she felt herself to be. She weptplentifully and prettily, with irresistible gulps and swallowingsof lumps and catches of breath, fetches of sobs, and dartings andgleamings of pearls from her shining eyelids. Her handkerchief wassoon a little wad of wet lace, ridiculously pathetic; her lips wereblubbered. She wept on and on till she just had to blow her littlered nose. She blew it with exquisite candor, and it gave forth theheartbreaking squawk of the first toy trumpet a child breaks ofa Christmas morning. 

One radical difference between romance and realism is that in romancethe heroines weep from the eyelashes out; in realism, some of thetears get into the nostrils. In real life it is reality that movesour hearts, and Dyckman was convinced by Kedzie's realism. 

She did not need to tell him of her humble and Western birth. Hehad recognized her accent from the first, and forgiven it. He knewa little of her history, because Charity Coe had sent him to thestudio to look her up, reminding him that she had been the littledancer he pulled out of Mrs. Noxon's pool. 

At length Kedzie revealed the horrible fact that her real name wasKedzie Thropp. He laughed aloud. He was so tickled by her babyishremorse that he made her say it again. He told her he loved ittwice as well as the stilted, stagy "Anita Adair. "

"That's one of the reasons I wanted you to marry me, " he said, "so that I could change your horrible name. "

"But I changed it myself first, " Kedzie howled; and now the truthcame ripping. "The day after you pulled me out of the pool at NewportI--I--married a fellow named Tommie Gilfoyle. "

Dyckman's smile was swept from his face; his chuckle ended in agroan. Kedzie's explanation was a little different from the one shegave her parents. Unconsciously she tuned it to her audience. Itgrew a trifle more literary. 

"What could I do? I was alone in the world, without friends or moneyor position. He happened to be at the railroad station. He saw howfrightened I was, and he had loved me for a long time. He begged meto take mercy on him and on myself, and marry him. He offered mehis protection; he said I should be his wife in name only until Ilearned to love him. And I was alone in the world, without friendsor money--but I told you that once, didn't I?"

Dyckman was thinking hard, aching hard. He mumbled, "What becameof him?"

"When he saw that I couldn't love him he took some money I hadleft from my earnings and abandoned me. I had a desperate struggleto get along, and then I got my chance in the moving pictures, andI met you there--and--learned what love is--too late--too late!"

Dyckman broke in on her lyric grief, "What became of the manyou married?"

"He never came near me till awhile ago. He saw my pictures on thescreen and thought I must be making a big lot of money. He came hereand tried to sneak back into my good graces. He even tried to kissme, and I nearly tore his eyes out. "

"Why?" Jim asked. 

"Because I belong to nobody but you--at least, I did belong tonobody but you. But now you won't want me any more. I don't blameyou for hating me. I hate myself. I've deceived you, and you'llnever believe me again, or love me, or anything. "

She wept ardently, for she was appalled by the magnitude of herdeception, now that it stood exposed. She had no idea of themagnitude of Dyckman's chivalry. She slipped to the floor andlaid her head on his knee. 

It was Dyckman's nature to respond at once to any appeal to hissympathy or his courtesy. Automatically his heart warmed towardhuman distress. He felt a deeper interest in Kedzie than before, because she threw herself on his mercy as never before. His handwent out to her head and fell upon her hair with a kind of apostolicbenediction. He poured, as it were, an ointment of absolution andacceptance upon her curls. 

She felt in his very fingers so much reassurance that she wasencouraged to unburden herself altogether of her hoard of secrets. 

"There's one more awful thing you'll never forgive me for, Jim. Iwant to tell you that, and then you'll know all the worst of me. Myfather and mother came to town to-day, and--and that was my motherwho said she was the janitor's wife. "

"Why did she do that?" said Jim. 

"I had been telling them how much I loved you, and poor dear motherwas afraid you might be scared away if you knew how poor my peopleare. "

"What kind of a ghastly snob do they take me for?" Jim growled. 

"They don't know you as I do, " said Kedzie; "but even I can't expectyou to forgive everything. I've lied to you about everything exceptabout loving you, and I was a long while telling you the truth aboutthat. But now you know all there is to know about me, and I wouldn'tblame you for despising me. Of course I don't expect you to want tomarry me any longer, so I'll give you back your beautiful engagementring. "

With her arms across his knees, one of her delicate hands began todraw from the other a gold circlet knobbed with diamonds. 

"Don't do that, " Jim said, taking her hands in his. "The engagementstands. "

"But how can it, darling?" said Kedzie. "You can't love meany more. "

"Of course I do, more and more. "

"But you can never marry me, and surely you don't want--"

Suddenly she ran plump into the situation her mother had imaginedand encouraged. She blushed at the collision with it, and becamea very allegory of innocence confronted with abhorrent evil. 

"Of course I don't, " said Dyckman, divining exactly what she meant. "I'll find this Gilfoyle and buy him up or beat him to a pulp. "

Kedzie lifted her downcast eyes in gratitude for such a godlikeresolution. But before she could cry out in praise of it she criedout in terror. 

For right before her stood the long-lost Gilfoyle. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

During his long wait this evening Gilfoyle had grown almostuncontrollable with impatience to undertake the assault. His landladyhad warned him not to return to his room until he brought some cashon account. He was for making the charge the moment he saw JimDyckman enter the building, but Connery insisted on giving Dyckmantime to get forward with his courtship. They had seen the maid comeout of the servants' entrance and hurry up the street to the vaintryst Connery had arranged with her to get her out of the way. 

At length, when time had passed sufficiently, they had crossed tothe apartment-house and told the elevator-boy they were expected bythe tenants above. He took them up without question. They pretendedto ring the bell there, waited for the elevator to disappear, thenwalked down a flight of steps and paused at the fatal sill. 

Connery inserted the key stealthily into the lock, turned it, openedthe door in silence, and let Gilfoyle slip through. He followed andclosed the door without shock. 

They heard Kedzie's murmurous tones and the rumble of Dyckman'sanswer. Then Gilfoyle strode forward. He saw Kedzie coiled on thefloor with her elbows on Dyckman's knees. He caught her eye, andher start of bewilderment held him spellbound a moment. Then hecried:

"There you are! I've got you! You faithless little beast. "

Dyckman rose to an amazing height, lifted Kedzie to her feet, and answered:

"Who the devil are you, and what the devil do you want?"

"I'm the husband of that shameless woman; that's who I am, " Gilfoyleshrilled, a little cowed by Dyckman's stature. 

"Oh, you are, are you!" said Dyckman. "Well, you're the very chapI'm looking for. Come in, by all means. "

Connery, seeing that the initiative was slipping from Gilfoyle'sflaccid hand, pushed forward with truculence. 

"None of that, you big bluff! You needn't think you can putanything over on me. "

"And who are you?" said Dyckman. 

"I'm Connery the detective, and I've got the goods on you. "

He advanced on Dyckman, and Gilfoyle came with him. Gilfoyle tookcourage from the puzzled confusion of Dyckman, and he poured forthinvectives. 

"You think because you're rich you can go around breaking up homesand decoying wives away, do you? Not that she isn't willing enoughto be decoyed! I wasn't good enough for her. She had to sell herselffor money and jewelry and a gay time! I ought to kill you both, andmaybe I will; but first I'm going to show you up in the newspapers. "

"Oh, you are, are you!" was the best that Dyckman could improvise. 

"Yes, he is, " Connery roared. "I'm a newspaper man, and your name'sworth head-lines in every paper in the country. And I'll see that itgets there, too. It will go on the wires to-night unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Unless you come across with--"

"Oh, that's it, is it!" said Dyckman. "Just a little old-fashionedblackmail!"

He had tasted the joys of violence in his bout with Cheever, and nowhe had recourse to it again. His long arms went out swiftly towardthe twain of his assailants. His big hands cupped their heads as ifthey were melons, and he knocked their skulls together smartly. 

He might have battered them to death, but he heard Kedzie's littlecry of horror, and forbore. He flung the heads from him, and thebodies followed limply. Connery went to the floor, and Gilfoylesprawled across a chair. They were almost unconscious, their brainsreduced to swirling nebulae. 

Kedzie thought for a moment that she and her love-affairs had broughtabout a double murder. She saw herself becoming one of those littlewomen who appear with an almost periodic regularity in the annals ofcrime, and whose red smiles drag now this, now that great family'sname into the mud and vomit of public nausea. 

She would lose Jim Dyckman, after all, and ruin him in the losing. She clung to his arm to check him in his work of devastation. He, too, stood wondering at the amazing deed of his rebellious hands, and wondering what the result would be. 

He and Kedzie rejoiced at seeing the victims move. Connery beganto squirm on the floor and get to his wabbly knees, and Gilfoylewrithed back to consciousness with wits a-flutter. 

There was a silence of mutual attention for a while. Connery wasgrowling from all-fours like a surly dog:

"I'll get you for this--you'll see! You'll be sorry for this. "

This restored Dyckman's temper to its throne. He seized Connery bythe scruff of his coat, jerked him to his feet, and snarled at him:

"Haven't you had enough, you little mucker? You threaten me orMiss Adair again and I'll not leave enough of you to--to--"

He was not apt at phrases, but Connery felt metaphors enough inthe size of the fist before his nose. He put up his hands, palmsforward, in the ancient gesture of surrender. Then Gilfoyle turnedcry-baby and began to sob. 

"You call her Miss Adair! But she's my wife. Mrs. Gilfoyle is whatshe is, and you've taken her away from me. This is a rotten country, and you rotten millionaires can do nearly anything you want to--butnot quite. You'll find that out. There are still a few courts anda few newspapers you can't muzzle. "

Dyckman advanced against him, but Gilfoyle merely clung to the backof his chair, and his non-resistance was his best shelter. It wasimpossible for Dyckman to strike him. Secure in his helplessness, he took full advantage of the tyranny of impotence. He rose to hisfeet and went on with his lachrymose philippic. 

"You're going to pay for what you've done, and pay high!"

The one thing that restrained Dyckman from offering to buy him outwas that he demanded purchase. Like most rich people, Dyckman wasthe everlasting target of prayers and threats. He could be generousto an appeal, but a demand locked his heart. 

He answered Gilfoyle's menace, bluntly, "I'll pay you when hellfreezes over, and not a cent before. "

"Well, then, you stand from under, " Gilfoyle squealed. "There's alaw in this State against home-wreckers like you, and I can sendyou to the penitentiary for breaking it. "

Dyckman's rage blackened again; he caught Gilfoyle by the shoulderand roared: "You foul-mouthed, filthy-minded little sneak! You saya word against your wife and I'll throw you out of the window. She's too decent for you to understand. You get down on your kneesand ask her pardon. "

He forced Gilfoyle to his knees, but he could not make him pray. AndKedzie fell back from him. She was afraid to pose as a saint worthyof genuflection. Connery re-entered the conflict with a sneer:

"Aw, tell it to the judge, Dyckman! Tell it to the judge! See howgood it listens to him. We'll tell him how we found you here; andyou tell him you were holding a prayer-meeting. You didn't want tobe disturbed, so you didn't have even a servant around--all alonetogether at this hour. "

Then a new, strange voice spoke in. 

"Who said they were alone?"

The four turned to see Mrs. Thropp filling the hall doorway, andAdna's head back of her shoulder. It was really a little toomelodramatic. The village lassie goes to the great city; her fatherand mother arrive in all their bucolic innocence just in time tosave her from destruction. 

Connery, whose climax she had spoiled, though she had probably savedhis bones, gasped, "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm this child's mother; that's who I am. And that's her father. And what's more, we've been here all evening, and you'd better lookout how you swear at me or I'll sick Mr. Dyckman on you. "

If there are gallery gods in heaven, and angels with a melodramatictaste (as there must be, for how else could we have acquired it?), they must have shaken the cloudy rafters with applause. Only onetouch was needed to perfect the scene, and that was for the_First_ and _Second_ Villains to slink off, cursingand muttering, "Foiled again!"

But these villains were not professionals, and they had not beenrehearsed. They were like childish actors in a juvenile productionat five pins per admission. An unexpected line threw them intocomplete disorder. 

Connery turned to Gilfoyle. "Did you ever lamp this old ladybefore?"

Gilfoyle answered, stoutly enough, "I never laid eyes on her. "

Connery was about to order Mrs. Thropp out of the room as animpostor, but she would not be denied her retort. 

"O' course he never laid eyes on me. If he had have he'd never triedto pull the wool over that innocent baby's eyes; and if I'd ever laideyes on him I'd have run him out of the country before I'd ever havelet my child look at him a second time. "

Connery made one last struggle: "What proof have you got thatyou're her mother?"

"Ask my husband here. "

"What good is his word in such a matter?"

Connery did not mean this as in any sense a reflection on Mrs. Thropp's marital integrity, but she took it so. Now, in Nimrimthe question of fidelity is not dealt with lightly, at least inrepartee. Mrs. Thropp emitted a roar of scandalized virtue andwould have attacked the young men with her fists if her husband, who should have attacked them in her stead, had not clung to her, murmuring:

"Now, momma, don't get excited. You young fellers better vamoosequick. I can't holt her very long. "

So they vamosed and were much obliged for the opportunity, leavingKedzie to fling her arms about her mother with spontaneous filialaffection, and to present Dyckman to her with genuine pride. 

Dyckman had been almost as frightened as Kedzie, He had been moreafraid of his own temper than of his assailants, but afraid enoughof their shadowy powers. Mrs. Thropp would have had to be far lesscomely than she was to be unwelcome. She had the ultimate charmof perfect timeliness. He greeted her with that deference he paidto all women, and she adored him at once, independently of hisfortune. 

Adna said that he had always been an admirer of the old Dyckman andwas glad to meet his boy, being as he was a railroad man himself, in a small way. He rather gave the impression that he was at leasta third vice-president, but very modest about it. 

Mrs. Thropp gleaned from the first words that Kedzie had gonecontrary to her advice and had told Dyckman the truth. She tookthe credit calmly. 

"I come on East to clear things up, and I advised my daughter totell you just the way things were--as I always say to my children, use the truth and shame the devil. "

Kedzie was too busy to notice the outrage. She was thanking Heavenfor her impulse to reveal the facts, realizing how appalling itwould have been if Gilfoyle had been the first to inform Dyckman. 

They were all having a joyous family party when it suddenly cameover them that Gilfoyle had once more appeared and resubmerged. But Dyckman said: "I'll find him for you, and I'll buy him. He'llbe cheap at any price. "

He bade good night early and went to his own home, carrying abackload of trouble. He was plainly in for it. Whatever happened, he was the scapegoat-elect. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

The villain in melodrama is as likely as not to be as decent a fellowas any. When he slinks from the stage in his final hissed exit hegoes to his dressing-room, scours off his grease-paint, and probablyreturns to his devoted family or seats himself before a bowl ofmilk-and-crackers in his club. 

Gilfoyle was as decent a fellow as ever villain was. Circumstancesand not himself cast him in an evil rôle, and as actors know, onceso established, it is almost impossible to return to heroic parts. Gilfoyle could not even remove his grease-paint. He could not goback to his dressing-room, for his landlady had told him that theonly key to her front door was cash. He had gone out to bring homea millionaire, and he had achieved nothing but a headache and amoral cataclysm. 

He hardly knew how he escaped from the apartment-house. The darkcool of the street brought him into the night of things. It cameupon him like a black fog what he had tried to do. The bitterdisgrace of a man who has been whipped in a fight was his, butother disgraces were heaped upon it. For the first time he sawhimself as Kedzie saw him. 

He had neglected his wife till she grew famous in spite of him. He had gone back to her to share her bounty. When she repulsedhim he had entered into a conspiracy to spy on her. He had waitedimpatiently for a rich man to compromise her, so that he couldsurprise them in guilt and extort money from them. 

He had not warned the girl of her danger from the other man or fromhimself. He had not pleaded with her to be good, had not asked herto come back to honeymoon again in poverty with him; he had preferredto live on borrowed money and on unpaid board while he fooled withverses and refused the manual tasks that waited everywhere aboutthe busy city. He might have cleaned the streets or earned a decentliving handling garbage in the city scows. But he had preferred tospeculate in blackmail and play the badger-game with his wife asan unwitting accomplice. He had hated millionaires, and counted themall criminals deserving spoliation, but he felt that he had sunklower than the millionaires. 

The remembrance of Kedzie haunted him. She had been supremelybeautiful to-night, frightened into greater beauty than ever. Shewas afraid of him who should have been her refuge, and she hid forprotection behind the man who should have seemed her enemy. 

He recalled her as she was when he first loved her, the prettylittle candy-store clerk, the lissome, living marble in her Greektunic, the quaint, sweet girl who came to him in the Grand CentralTerminal, lugging her suit-case, the shy thing at the LicenseBureau, the ineffably exquisite bride he had made his wife. He sawher at the gas-stove and loved her very petulance and the prettyway she banged the oven door and pouted at fate. 

The lyrics he had written to her sang through his aching head. Hewas wrung to anguish between the lover and the poet he had meantto be, and the spurned and hated cur he had become. He stumbledalong the street at Connery's side, whispering to himself, whilehis earliest verses to Kedzie ran in and out through his thoughtslike a catchy tune:

 Pretty maid, pretty maid, may I call you Anita? Your last name is sweet, but your first name is sweeter. 

He recalled the sonnets he had begun which were to make them bothimmortal. He regretted the spitefulness that had led him to writein another name than hers because she had refused to support him. He had been a viler beast than the cutpurse poet of old France, without the lilies of verse that bloom pure white above the dunghillof Villon's life. 

Gilfoyle's soul went down into a hell of regret and wriggled inthe flames of self-condemnation. He grew maudlin with repentanceand clung to his friend Connery with odious garrulity. Connery wasdisgusted with him, but he was afraid to leave him because he keptsighing:

"I guess the river's the only place for me now. "

At length Connery steered him into a saloon for medicine and boughthim a stiff bracer of whisky and vermouth. But it only threw Gilfoyleinto deeper befuddlement. He was like Charles Lamb, in that athimbleful of alcohol affected him as much as a tumbler another. He wanted to tell his troubles to the barkeeper, and Connery hadto drag him away. 

In the hope that a walk in the air might help to steady him, Conneryset out toward his own boarding-house. They started across ColumbusAvenue under the pillars of the Elevated tracks. 

Habituated to the traffic customs, the New-Yorker crossing a streetlooks to the left for traffic till he gets half-way across, thenlooks to the right for traffic bound in the opposite direction. Connery led Gilfoyle to the middle of the avenue, paused for asouth-bound street-car to go banging by them, darted back of itand looked to the right for a north-bound car or motor. But ataxicab trying to pass the south-bound car was shooting southalong the north-bound tracks. 

Connery saw it barely in time to jump back. He yanked Gilfoyle'sarm, but Gilfoyle had plunged forward. He might have escaped ifConnery had let him go. But the cab struck him, hurled him in airagainst an iron pillar, caught him on the rebound and ran him down. Kedzie Thropp was a widow. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Deaths from the wheeled torpedoes that shoot along the city streetsare too monotonously numerous to make a stir in the newspapers unlessthe victims have some other claim on the public attention. 

Gilfoyle had been writing advertisements of other people's wares, butnobody was going to pay for the advertisement of him. The things thathe might have become were even more obscure than the things he was. The pity of his taking-off would have had no more record than a fewlines of small type, but for one further accident. 

The taxicab-driver whose reckless haste had sent him down the wrongside of the street had been spurred on by the reckless haste of hispassenger. The pretty Mrs. Twyford had been for years encouragingthe reporters to emphasize her social altitude, and had seen thatthey obtained her photographs at frequent intervals. But on thisnight she had gone up-town upon one of the few affairs for whichshe did not wish publicity. She had learned by telephone that herhusband had returned to New York unexpectedly, and she was intenselyimpatient to be at home when he got there. 

When her scudding taxicab solved all of Gilfoyle's earthly problemsin one fierce erasure she made such efforts to escape from theinstantly gathered crowd that she attracted the attention of thepoliceman who happened to be at the next corner. He proceeded totake the name and addresses of witnesses and principals, and hedetained her as an important accessory. 

Connery was one of the news-men who had been indebted to Mrs. Twyfordfor many a half-column of gossip, and he recognized her at once. Hewas a reporter, first, last, and all the time, and he was very muchin need of something to sell. 

He was greatly shattered by the annihilation of his friend, buthis instinctive journalism led him to control himself long enoughto call Mrs. Twyford by name and assure the policeman that she wasa lady of high degree who should not be bothered. 

Neither the policeman nor Mrs. Twyford thanked him. They wereequally rude to him and to each other, Connery thought the incidentmight interest the night city editor of his paper, and so hetelephoned a good story in to the office as soon as he had releasedhimself from the inquisition and had seen an ambulance carry poorGilfoyle away. 

Mrs. Twyford reached home too late, and in such a state of nervesthat she made the most unconvincing replies to the cross-examinationthat ensued. When she saw her name in the paper the next morningher friends also began to make inquiries--and eventually to denythat they were her friends or had ever been. 

It was her name in the heavy type that caught the heavy eyes ofJim Dyckman at breakfast the next morning. It was thus that he cameupon the fate of Thomas Gilfoyle, whose death had been the causeof all this pother. 

Before he could telephone Anita--or Kedzie, as he mentally correctedhimself--he was informed that a Mr. Connery was at the door, askingfor him. He nodded and went into the library, carrying the newspaperwith him. 

Connery grinned sadly and mumbled: "I see you've seen it. I thoughtyou'd like to know about it. "

"I should, " said Dyckman. "Sit down. "

Connery sat down and told of the accident and what led up to it. He spoke in a lowered voice and kept his eye on the door. When hehad finished his story he said, "Now, of course this all comes outvery convenient for you, but I suppose you see how easy it wouldbe for me to tell what I know, and that mightn't be so convenientfor you. "

"Are you beginning your blackmail again so early in the morning?"

"Cut out that kind of talk or there's nothing doing, " said Connery. "I can make a lot of trouble for you, and I can hush up a lot. UnlessI speak I don't suppose anybody else is going to peep about MissAdair being Mrs. Gilfoyle, and about Mr. Dyckman being interestedin his wife. If I do speak it would take a lot of explaining. "

"I am not afraid of explaining to the whole world that Miss Adairis a friend of mine and that her father and mother were presentwhen I called. "

Connery met this with a smile. "But how often were they presentwhen you called?"

Dyckman grew belligerent again: "Do you want me to finish whatI began on you last night?"

"I'm in no hurry, thank you. You can outclass me in the ring, butit wouldn't help you much to beat me up, would it?--or Miss Adair, either. She's got some rights, hasn't she?"

"Has she any that you are capable of respecting?"

"Sure she has. I don't want to cause the little lady anyinconvenience. She and Tommie Gilfoyle didn't belong together, anyway. She was through with him long ago, and the only thingthat saved his face was the fact that he's dead--poor fellow!

"But you see I've got to appear as a witness in the trial ofthe taxicab-driver, who'll be held for manslaughter or something. If I say that Gilfoyle and I had just come from a battle with youand that he got the wits knocked out of him because he accusedyou of making a mistress out of his wife--"

"Be careful!"

"The same to you, Mr. Dyckman. "

Dyckman felt himself nettled. Kedzie's silence about the existenceof a husband had enmeshed him. He would not attempt to justifyhimself. It would do no good to thresh about. The big gladiatorsat still waiting for the _retiarius_ to finish him. ButConnery's voice grew merciful. It was a luxury beyond price toextend an alms to this plutocrat. 

"What I'm getting at, Mr. Dyckman, " he resumed, "is this: Tommieowed some money to his landlady. He owed me some money that I coulduse. He's got a mother and father up-State. He told me he'd nevertold them about his marriage. They'll want him back, I suppose. From what he's told me, it would be a real hardship for them to paythe funeral expenses. You could pay all that, and you could even saythat he had a little money in the bank and send that along with him, and never know the difference. But they would. "

"I see, " said Dyckman, very solemnly. 

"You called me some rough names, Mr. Dyckman, and I guess I earned'em. Looking things over the morning after, I'm not so stuck onmyself as I was, but you stack up pretty well. I like a man who canuse his hands in an argument. My name is Connery, you know. What youdid to me was a plenty, but it looks better to me now than it feltlast night. 

"You know a reporter just gets naturally hungry to see a man facea scandal in a manly way. If you had shown a yellow streak and triedto buy your way out I would have taken your money and thought I wasdoing a public service in getting it away from a quitter. But whenyou cracked my bean against poor Gilfoyle's you made me see a lotof things besides stars. 

"There's nothing to be gained by keeping up this war. I want to putit all out of sight for your sake and for Gilfoyle's mother's sake, and for the sake of that pretty little Adair lady. I don't know whatshe's been or done, but she's pretty and she's got a nice, spunkymother. 

"I'm a good newspaper man, Mr. Dyckman, and that means I've keptquiet about even better stories than I've sprung. If I had a lot ofmoney now I'd add this story to the list and treat Gilfoyle's folksright without giving you a look-in. But being dead-broke, I thoughtmaybe you'd like to see things done in a decent manner. It's goingto be hard enough for that old couple up-State to get Tommie back, as they've got to, without taking any excess heartbreak up in thebaggage-car. Do you follow me?"

"I do, " said Dyckman; and now he asked the "How much?" that hehad refused to speak the night before. 

Connery did a little figuring with a pencil, and Dyckman thoughtthat some life-insurance in the mother's name would be a pleasantthing to add. Then he doubled the total, wrote a check for it, andsaid:

"There'll probably be something left over. I wish you'd keep itas your--attorney-fee, Mr. Connery. "

They shook hands as they parted. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

Dyckman telephoned to Kedzie and asked if he could see her. She saidthat he could, and dressed furiously while he made the distance toher apartment. 

She gleaned from his look and from the way he took her two handsin his that he had serious news to bring her. She had not beenawake long enough to read the papers, and this was her first death. She cried helplessly when she learned that her husband was gone awaywith all her bitterness for his farewell. She remembered the bestof him, and he came back to her for a while as the poet who hadmade her his muse--the only one she could telegraph to when shereturned to New York alone, her first and only husband. 

She was afraid that she belittled herself in Dyckman's eyes whenshe let slip the remorseful Wail, "I wish I had been kinder tothe poor boy!"

But she did not belittle herself in any such tendernesses of regret. She endeared herself by her grief, her self-reproach, her childishhumility before the power of death. Her tears were beautiful in Jim'ssight. But it is the blessing and the shame of tears that they curethe grief that causes them. At first they bleed and burn; then theyflow soft and cool. They cleanse and brighten the eyes and even washaway the cinders from the funeral smoke. 

Dyckman's heart was drawn out of him toward Kedzie and his armsheld her shaken body devotedly. But at length she ceased to weep, and a last long sob became dangerously like a sigh of relief. Shesmiled through the rain and apologized for weeping, when she shouldhave apologized for stopping weeping. Then Dyckman's love of herseemed to withdraw backward into his heart. And his arms suddenlywearied of clasping her. 

When she had seemed hardly to know that he was there he feltnecessary and justified. When she took comfort in his arms andheld them about her he felt ashamed, revolted, profane. 

Mrs. Thropp had wept a little in sympathy with Kedzie, and Adnahad looked amiably disconsolate; but by and by Mrs. Thropp wasmurmuring:

"After all, perhaps it was for the best. The Lord's will be done!"

Dyckman shrank as if a blasphemy had been shouted. In a hideouslyshort time Mrs. Thropp was saying, briskly:

"Of course, honey, you've got no idea of puttin' on black for him. "

"If I believed in mourning, I would, " Kedzie answered without delay, "but the true mourning is in the heart. "

Dyckman felt an almost uncontrollable desire to get away before hesaid something that might be true. He began to wonder what, afterall, poor Gilfoyle had experienced from this hard-hearted littlebeauty. He saw that he was almost forgotten already. He thought, "How fast they go, the dead!" That same Villon had said it centuriesbefore: "_Les morts vont vites_. "

The Thropps settled down to a comfortable discussion of future plans. One ledger had been finished. They would open a new one. Jim saw thatGilfoyle's departure had been accepted as a Heaven-sent solution ofKedzie's problems. 

Abruptly it came to Dyckman that the solution of their problemwas the beginning of a whole volume of new problems for him. Herecalled that while he had become Kedzie's fiancé in ignorance ofhis predecessor, he had rashly promised to buy off Gilfoyle as soonas he learned of him. But death had come in like a perfect waiterand subtly removed from the banquet-table the thing that offended. Nothing had happened, however, to release Dyckman from hisengagement. Gilfoyle's death ought not to have made a moreimportant difference than his life would have made, and yet itmade all the difference in the world to Dyckman's feelings. 

He could not say this, however. He could not ask to be excusedfrom his compact. His heart and his brain cried out that theydid not want this merry little widow for their wife, but his lipscould not frame the words. During the long silences and the evasivechatter that alternated he felt one idea in the air: "Why doesn'tMr. Dyckman offer to go on with the marriage?" Yet he could notmake the offer. Nor could he make the counterclaim for a dissolvingof the betrothal. 

He studied the Thropp trio and pictured the ridicule and thehostility they would arouse among his family and friends--notbecause they were poor and simple and lowly, but because they werenot honest and sweet and meek. The Dyckmans had poor relations andfriends in poverty and old peasant-folk whom they loved and admiredand were proud to know. But Dyckman felt that the elder Throppsdeserved to be rebuffed with snobbery because of their own snobbery. Nevertheless, he was absolutely incapable of administeringdiscipline. 

At last Mrs. Thropp grew restive, fearsome that the marriage mightnot take place, and desperately fearful that she might be cheatedout of her visit in the spare room, at the home of the great Mrs. Dyckman. She said, grimly:

"Well, we might as well understand one another, Mr. Dyckman. Youasked my daughter to marry you, didn't you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Thropp. "

"Do you see anything in what's happened to prevent your gettingmarried?"

"No, Mrs. Thropp. "

"Then I don't see much use wastin' time, do you? Life's too uncertainto go postponin' happiness when it's right within your reach. Kedzie's father and I ought to be gettin' back home, and I'd feela heap more comfortable if I could know my poor little chick wassafe in the care of a good man. "

The possibility of getting Mr. And Mrs. Thropp out of town soon wasthe one bright thought in Dyckman's mind. He felt compelled to say:

"Then let us have the ceremony, by all means. We shall have to waitawhile, I suppose, for decency's sake. "

"Decency!" said Mrs. Thropp, managerially. "My Kedzie hadn't livedwith the man for a long while. Nobody but us knows that she ever didlive with him. He'd abandoned her, and when he came back it was onlyto try to get money out of her. I can't see that she has any callto worry about decency's sake. He's done her harm enough. She can'tdo him any good by keepin' you waitin'. "

"Just as you think best, Mrs. Thropp, " said Dyckman. He began tosmile in spite of himself. He was thinking how many mothers anddaughters had tried to get him to the altar, not because they lovedhim, but because they loved his father's money and fame. Jim haddodged them all and made a kind of sport of it. And now he wascornered and captured by this old barbarian with her movie-beautydaughter who was a widow and wouldn't wear weeds. 

Mrs. Thropp saw Dyckman's smile, but did not dare to ask its origin. She asked, instead:

"Would you be having a church wedding, do you think?"

"Indeed not, " said Dyckman, with such incision that Mrs. Throppfelt it best not to risk a debate. 

"Just a quiet wedding, then?"

"As quiet as possible, if you don't mind. "

Kedzie sat speechless through all this. She wished that Jim wouldshow more ardor for her, but she felt that he was doing fairly wellnot to knock her parents' heads together the way he had her husband'sand his friend's. She was as eager as Jim to get rid of the elderThropps, but she wanted to make sure of the wedding, and her motherwas evidently to be trusted to bring it about. At length Jim spokein the tone of the condemned man who says, "Well, let's hurry upand get the execution off our minds". 

"I'll go and see a lawyer and make inquiries about how the marriagecan be done. "

He started to say to Kedzie, "You ought to know. "

She started to tell him about the Marriage License Bureau in theMunicipal Building. Both recaptured silence tactfully. 

He kissed Kedzie, and he had a narrow escape from being kissedby Mrs. Thropp. 

THE THIRD BOOK

MRS. JIM DYCKMAN IS NOT SATISFIED

CHAPTER I

In the history of nations sometimes a paragraph serves for a certaindecade, while a volume is not enough for a certain day. It is so withthe history of persons. 

In the thirty-six hours after he received Charity Coe's invitation tocall Jim Dyckman passed from being Charity's champion against her ownhusband to being Kedzie's champion against hers. Charity rewarded hischivalrous pommeling of Cheever by asking him never to come near heragain. Kedzie rewarded his punishment of Gilfoyle by arranging thathe should never leave her again. 

It was Charity that he longed for, and Kedzie that he engaged tomarry. 

In that period Peter Cheever had traveled a very short distancein a journey he had postponed too long. Cheever had been hardlyconscious when they smuggled him at midnight from his club to hisown home. He had slept ill and achily. He was ashamed to face theservants, and he wanted to murder his valet for being aware ofthe master's defeat. 

He did not know how ashamed the household retainers were of him andof themselves. The valet and butler had earned good sums on occasionsby taking tips from Cheever on prize-fighters and jockeys. But theyfelt betrayed now, and as disconsolate as the bottle-holders andtowel-flappers of a defeated pugilist. 

They did not know who had whipped their master till the word camefrom the Dyckman household that their master had come home gloriousfrom whipping the stuffing out of somebody. It was easy to put oneand one together and make two. 

One of Cheever's worst embarrassments was the matter of Zada. His battered head suffered tortures before it contrived a properlie for her. Then he called Zada up from his house and explainedthat as he was leaving his club to fly to her, his car had skiddedinto another, with the result that he had been knocked senselessand cut up with flying glass; otherwise he was in perfect shape. Unfortunately, he had been recognized and taken to his officialhome instead of to the residence of his heart. 

Zada was all for dashing to him at once; but he persuaded her thatthat would be quite impossible. He was in no real danger in his ownhouse, and he would come back to his heart's one real first, last, only, and onliest darling love just as soon as he could. 

She subsided in wails of terror and loneliness. They touched hisheart so that he determined to end his effort at amphibian existence, give up his legal establishment and legalize the illegal. 

He wrote a note to Charity with much difficulty, since his knuckleswere sore and his pride was black and blue. His spoken language wasof the same tints. His written language was polite and formal. 

It was a silly, tragic situation that led a husband to writehis wife a letter requesting an interview. Charity sent backa scrawl--"_Yes, in fifteen minutes_. "

Cheever spent a bad quarter of an hour dressing himself. His facewas too raw to endure a razor, and the surgeon had put littlecross-patches of adhesive tape on one of his cheek-bones and atthe edge of his mouth, where his lip had split as the tooth behindit went overboard. 

He yowled as he slipped his arms into a long bathrobe, and he struckat the valet when the wretch suggested a little powder for one eye. 

Charity had seen Cheever brought in at midnight and had lookedto it that he had every care. But now she came into his room with amaidenly timidity. He did not know that she had rebuked Jim Dyckmanwith uncharacteristic wrath for the attack. She did not tell Cheeverthis, even though his first words to her demanded some such defense. 

In the quarrels of lovers, or of those who have exchanged loves, it makes little difference what the accusation is all about: thething that hurts is the fact of accusation. 

Charity was so shamed at being stormed at by her husband that itwas a mere detail that he stormed at her with a charge that shehad goaded Jim Dyckman on to attack him. 

Cheever had a favor to ask; so he put the charge more mildly nowthan he had in his first bewildered rage. He accepted Charity'ssilence as pleading guilty. So he went on:

"The fact that you chose Dyckman for your authorized thug andbravo proves what I have thought for some time, that you love himand he loves you. Now I have no desire to come between two suchturtle-doves, especially when one of them is one of those Germanflying-machine _Taubes_ and goes around dropping dynamite-bombson me through club roofs. 

"I'm not afraid of your little friend, and as soon as I get wellI'll get him; but I want it to be purely an exercise in the fisticart, and not a public fluttering of family linen. So since you wantJim Dyckman, take him, by all means, and let me bow myself out ofthe trio. 

"I'll give you a nice, quiet little divorce, and do the fair thingin the alimony line, and then after a proper interval you andlittle Jimmie can toddle over to the parson and then toddle off tohell-and-gone, for all I care. How does that strike you, my dear?"

Charity pondered, and then she said, "And where do you toddle offto?"

"Does that interest you?"

"Anything that concerns your welfare interests me. "

"I see. Well, don't worry about me. "

"There's no hurry, of course?"

"Not on my part, " said Cheever. "But Dyckman must be growingimpatient, since he tries to murder me to save the lawyer'sfees. "

"Well, if you're in no hurry, Peter, I'm not. I'll think it overfor a few months. It's bad weather for divorces now, anyway. "

Cheever's heart churned in his breast. He knew that Zada could notafford to wait. He should have married her long ago, and there wasno time to spare now. Charity's indifference frightened him. He didnot dream that through the dictagraph Charity had shared with himZada's annunciation of her approaching motherhood. 

He turned and twisted in flesh and spirit, trying to persuadeCharity to proceed immediately for a divorce, but in vain. 

Finally she ceased to laugh at him and demanded, sternly, "Whydon't you tell me the truth for once?"

He stared at her, and after a crisis of hesitation broke andinformed her of what she already knew. Now that he was at her feet, Charity felt only pity for him, and even for Zada. She was sorrierfor them than for herself. 

So she said: "All right, old man; let's divorce us. Will you orshall I?"

"You'd better, of course; but you must not mention poor Zada. "

"Oh, of course not!"

A brief and friendly discussion of ways and means followed, andthen Charity turned to go, saying:

"Well, I'll let you know when you're free. Are there any otherlittle chores I can do for you?"

"No, thanks. You're one damned good sport, and I'm infernallysorry I--"

"Let's not begin on sorries. Good night!"

And such was unmarriage _à la mode_. 

CHAPTER II

And now having felt sorry for everybody else, Charity began tofeel pleasantly sorry for Jim Dyckman. Her own rebuke of him forassaulting Cheever had absolved him. In the retrospect, the attacktook on a knightliness of devotion. She recalled his lonely doggingof her footsteps. If he had played the dog, after all, she loveddogs. What was so faithful, trustworthy, and lovable as a dog?

But how was Charity to get word to Jim of her new heart? She couldnot whistle him back. She could hardly go to him and apologize forhaving been a good wife to a bad husband. And a married lady simplymust not say to a bachelor: "Pardon me a moment, while I divorce mypresent consort. I'd like to wear your name for a change. "

Charity might have been capable even of such a derring-do if shehad known that Jim Dyckman's bachelorhood was threatened withimmediate extinction by the Thropps. But she could not know. For, however Jim's soul may have been mumbling, "Help, help!" he made noaudible sound. Unwilling brides may shriek for rescue, but unwillingbridegrooms must not complain. 

By a coincidence that was not strange Charity selected for her lawyerTravers McNiven, the very man that Jim Dyckman selected. All threehad been friends since childhood. McNiven had been taken into thefamous partnership of Hamnett, Dawsey, Coggeshall, Thurlow & McNiven. 

When Jim Dyckman telephoned him for an appointment he was toldto make it the next morning, as another client had pre-empted theafternoon. Jim was glad enough of an excuse to postpone his marriageby a day, never dreaming that Charity was the client who hadpreempted McNiven. 

McNiven wondered at the synchrony, but naturally mentioned neitherclient to the other. His office was far down-town and far up inthe air. Its windows gave an amplitudinous vision of the Harborwhich Mr. Ernest Poole has made his own, but which was now avestibule to the hell of the European war. All the adjoiningland was choked far backward with a vast blockade of explosivefreight-trains waiting to be unloaded into the unheard-of multitudeof munition-ships waiting to run the gantlet of the Germansubmarines. 

Charity had run that gantlet and was ready to run it again on anothererrand of mercy, but first she must make sure that Zada's baby shouldnot enter the world before its mother entered wedlock. 

After McNiven had proffered her a chair and she had exclaimed uponthe grandeur of the harborscape, she began:

"Sandy, I've come to see you about--"

"One moment!" McNiven broke in. "Before you speak I must as anhonest lawyer warn you against the step you contemplate. "

"But you don't know what it is yet. "

"I don't have to. I know that people come to lawyers only to getout of scrapes or to get into scrapes dishonestly or unwisely. Furthermore, every step that any human being contemplates isa dangerous one and bound to lead to trouble. "

"Oh, hush!" said Charity. "Am I supposed to pay you for that sortof advice?"

"Being a friend, and a woman, and very rich, you will doubtlessnever pay me at all. But let me warn you, Charity, that there isnothing in life more dangerous than taking a step in any possibledirection--unless it is staying where you are. "

"Oh, dear, " sighed Charity, "you're worse than dear Doctor Mosely. "

"Ah, you've been to the dear old doctor! And he's refused to helpyou. When the Church denies a woman her way she comes to the devil. You interest me. It's a divorce, then?"

"Yes. "

McNiven remembered Jim Dyckman's ancient squiredom to Charity andhis recent telephony and he said to himself, "Aha!" But he said toCharity, "Go on. "

"Sandy, my husband and I have agreed to disagree. "

"Then for Heaven's sake don't tell me about it!"

"But I've got to. "

"But you mustn't! Say, rather, I have decided to divorce my husband. "

"All right. Consider my first break unmade. Peter has asked me--Imean, Peter has said that he will furnish me with the evidence onone condition: that I shall not mention a certain person with whomhe has been living. He offers to provide me with any sort of evidenceyou lawyers care to cook up. "

McNiven stared at her and spoke with startling rigor. "Are you tryingto involve me in your own crimes?"

"Don't be silly. Peter says it is done all the time. "

"Not in this office. Do you think I'd risk and deserve disbarmenteven to oblige a friend?"

"You mean you won't help me, then?" Charity sighed, rising witha forlorn sense of friendlessness. 

McNiven growled: "Sit down! Of course I'll help you, but I don'tintend to let you drag me into ruin, and I won't help you geta divorce that would be disallowed at the first peep of light. "

"What can I do then? Peter said it could be managed quicklyand quietly. "

"There are ways and ways, Charity Coe. The great curse of divorceis the awful word 'collusion. ' It can be avoided as other cursescan with a little attention to the language. Remember the old song, 'It's not so much the thing you say, as the nasty way you say it. 'That hound of a husband of yours wants to protect that creaturehe has been flaunting before the world. So he offers to arrangeto be caught in a trap with another woman, and make you a presentof the evidence. Isn't that so?"

"I believe it is. "

"Now the law says that 'any understanding preceding the act ofadultery' is collusion; it involves the committing of a crime. Itwould be appalling for a nice little body like you to connive atsuch a thing, wouldn't it?"

Charity turned pale. "I hadn't realized just what it meant. "

"I thought not, " said McNiven. 

"He'll have to give me evidence of--of something that has alreadyhappened, then, won't he?"

"The law calls that collusion also. "

"Then what am I to do?"

"Couldn't you get evidence somehow without taking it from him?"

Charity was about to shake her head, but she nodded it violently. She remembered the detectives she had engaged and the superabundantevidence they had furnished her. She told McNiven about it and hewas delighted till she reminded him that she had promised not tomake use of Zada's name. 

McNiven told her that she had no other recourse, and advised herto see her husband. She said that it was hopeless and she expresseda bitter opinion of the law. It seemed harsher than the Church, especially harsh to those who did not flout its authority. 

While Charity talked McNiven let his pipe-smoke trail out of thewindow into the infinite where dreams fade from reality and oftenfrom memory, and he thought, "If I can help Jim and Charity to gettogether after all this blundering it will be a good job. "

He was tempted to tell her that Jim was coming to see him, too, buthe was afraid that she knew it. If he had told her--but there goesthat eternal "if" again!

CHAPTER III

It is a fierce and searching test of a woman's mettle when firstshe is confronted with temptation to rebel against the control ofher preacher. Men are used to it, and women must grow more and moreused to it as they advance into their long-deferred heritage. 

Charity Coe Cheever was religious by every instinct. From childhoodshe had thrilled to the creed and the music and the eloquence ofher Sundays. The beautiful industries of Christianity had engagedher. She had been happy within the walls and had felt that herpiety gave her wings rather than chains. 

And then she came abruptly to the end of her tether. She foundher soul revolted by a situation which her pastor commanded herto accept as her lifelong portion. She found that to tolerate, andby tolerating to collaborate in, the adultery of her husband andhis mistress was better religion than to free herself from odioustriplicity. She found that it was better religion to annul herwomanhood and remain childless, husbandless, and comfortless thanto claim the privileges, the freedoms, the renewing opportunitiesthe law allowed. 

She came suddenly face to face with the terrifying fact that theState offered her help and strength that the Church denied her. 

She had reached indeed what the doleful balladists would call"the parting of the ways, " though no poet has yet chosen for hisheroine the distraught wretch who is driven to the bleak refugeof divorce. 

So long as it concerned only her own happiness Charity couldput away the choice. But the more she pondered that unless shedivorced her husband his mistress's baby would come into the worldwith a hideous birthmark, the more she felt it her duty to floutthe Church. She shuddered to think of the future for thatbaby, especially if it should be a girl. She felt curiously amother-obligation toward it. She blamed herself for her husband'sinfidelity. She humbled herself and bowed her neck to the shame. 

She left the Church and went to the law. And then she found thatthe law had its own cruelties, its own fetters and walls andloopholes and hypocrisies. She found that it is not even possibleto be a martyr and retain all one's dignity. One cannot even goto the stake without some guile. 

The wicked law which the Church abhorred had its own idea ofwickedness, and in the eyes of the law the agreement of a husbandand a wife to part was something loathsome. She expressed heramazement to McNiven. 

"It seems to me, " she sighed, "if both husband and wife wanta divorce, they know best; and that fact ought to be sufficientgrounds in itself. And yet you tell me that if the law once getswind of the fact they've got to live together forever. "

"That's it. They've got to live together whether they love togetheror not--though of course you can get a separation very easily, onalmost any ground. "

"But a separation is only a guarantee of--of infidelity, I should think. "

"Of course it is, " said Lawyer McNiven. 

"Then everything seems all wrong. "

"Of course it is. "

"Then why doesn't somebody correct it?"

"Who's going to bell the cat? Anybody who advocates divorce by mutualconsent is sure to be lynched more or less fatally, and especiallylynched by the very people who are making a mockery of matrimony intheir own lives. 

"One marriage in twelve in the United States ends in divorce. You'llnot find anybody who dares to say that that is not a crying scandal. Yet you and I know that home life in America is as pure and honorableas in any other country. I'm an awful heathen, of course, but I'llbet you I'm a true prophet when I say that divorce will increaseas the world goes on, instead of decreasing, and that in all thecountries where divorce is forbidden or restricted it will grow freerand freer. Statistics prove it all over the globe. "

To Charity Coe, the devout churchwoman, this picture was appalling. 

"Oh, in Heaven's name, what will happen? The world will go allto pieces!"

"That's what they said when men asked for the vote and for education, when women asked for education and the vote; that's what they saidwhen people opposed the divine right of kings, and when they askedfor religious freedom; that's what they said when people opposedslavery; that's what they said when people said that insane peoplewere not inhabited by devils and should be treated as invalids. The trouble, Charity, is that a certain spirit has always been abroadin the world fighting imaginary devils with the best intentions inthe world. And in all history there has never been anybody sodangerous to human welfare as the zealot who wants to protect otherpeople from themselves and from the devils. 

"The insane people were never inhabited by devils, and neither arethe sane people. Most men want one wife and most women want onehusband. Even in the polygamous countries you'll not find any morereal polygamy than you find in the countries with the strictestmarriage laws. Bluebeard was a Mohammedan, but Don Juan was aChristian. Spain has no divorce on any grounds; neither has Italy. Would you point to those countries as models of domestic purity?Does any sane person dare say that home life in Spain is purer thanin the United States?

"I tell you, easy divorce goes right along with merciful laws, public schools, clean prisons, free press, free speech. "

Mrs. Cheever was a very good woman, and she abominated divorces. She had very peculiar reasons for wanting one herself, as every onehas who wants one, but she felt her case to be so exceptional thatit proved the rule against divorces. She shrank a little from theiconoclastic lawyer she had come to for aid, and reminded him ofthe solemnity of the theme. 

"Don't you believe in the sanctity of matrimony?"

"Just as much as I believe in the sanctity of personal liberty anda contract and a debt and the obligation to vote and bear arms andequality of opportunity and responsibility and--oh, a lot of othersacred things--just as much and no more. "

"But the Church calls marriage a sacrament. "

"It does now, yes; but it didn't for over fifteen hundred years. "

"What!"

"It's true. The trouble with you religious people is that you neverknow the history of your own religion. And remember one more thing:the marriage rules of the Christian Church are all founded on thetheories of men who never married. No wonder they found it easyto lay down hard and fast rules. Remember another thing: the earlyChurch fathers, Saint Paul, Hieronymus, and thousands of others, believed that marriage was only a little bit better than the worstevil, and that womankind was hardly more than the devil's naturalweapon. 

"It was not until the Church was eleven hundred and sixty-four yearsold that Peter Lombard put marriage among the seven sacraments. Andmarriage did not become an official matter of Church jurisdictiontill the Council of Trent in fifteen hundred and sixty-three. Thinkof that! Marriage was not a sacrament for fifteen centuries, andit has been one for less than four. And at that the Church couldonly manage the problem by increasing the number of impediments tomarriage, which meant that it increased the number of excuses forannulling it. 

"The total number of marriages annulled would amaze you. Historyis full of the most picturesque devices for granting divorcewithout seeming to. Sometimes they would illegitimize two orthree generations in order to find a marriage within the forbiddendegrees. 

"According to Saint Matthew, Christ allowed divorce on the groundof adultery; according to Mark and Luke he made no such allowance. New York State follows Saint Matthew. The Catholic Church followsLuke and John. Old Martin Luther said that marriage was none ofthe Church's business. And that's what I think. "

"You don't believe in the religious ceremony?"

"I'm afraid I don't believe in religious ceremonies about anything. I'm rather a heathen, you know--brought up in a good PresbyterianCalvinistic atmosphere, but I've lost it all. I'll give threecheers for virtue and the home as well as anybody; but my studyand my experience lead me to distrust preachers and preaching. 

"Still, this is a free country, and married people have a right togo to church if they want to, or to stay away. But I believe thatmarriage must be a civil contract and that no preacher has a rightto denounce the State's prerogative, or try to belittle it. It isstrange, but true, that when the Church has ruled the State theworld has always groaned in corruption and cruelty. 

"I believe that the law of New York is ridiculous in allowing onlyone ground for divorce, and if the United States ever arrangesa uniform divorce law it will undoubtedly follow the policy ofthe more liberal States. I believe, with Bernard Shaw and JohnGalsworthy and a number of other good, great men, in cheap andeasy divorce, divorce within reach of the poor. 

"As for morality, you have only to read the literature of the timewhen there was no divorce to realize how little a safeguard it isfor the home. Boccaccio gives a social portrait of such a life, and he is almost too indecent to read. Yet the picture he givesis not half so terrible as Saint Catherine of Siena gives. Theyhad to cut that chapter out of her works. "

"Oh, do you read her works, too?" said Charity, remembering herexperience with that flaming biography. 

"I read a little of everybody. But everything I read and see confirmsmy opinion that too much law is the curse of the world. Still, as Isay, I'm not a lawmaker. I'm a law-manipulator. I've been wonderinghow long you would stand Cheever's scandalous behavior, and how longyou could be convinced that you were helping the morals of the worldby condoning and encouraging such immorality. Now that you've broughtyour troubles to my shop I'm going to help you if I can. But I don'twant to get you or myself into the clutches of the law. You'll haveto take care of your Church relations as best you can. They may turnyou out, and you may roast on a gridiron hereafter, but that's yourbusiness. Personally, I think the only wicked thing I've ever heardof you doing was permitting your husband to board and lodge at yourhouse while he carried on with that--woman. A harem divided againstitself will not stand. "

Charity was terrified by the man's profane view of sacred things, and she was horrified to learn that she could only release herselfand Cheever from the shackles by a kind of trickery. She would haveto make her escape somewhat as she had seen Houdini break from hisropes in the vaudevilles, by retiring behind dark curtains fora while. 

She felt guilty and craven whichever way she turned, and she imaginedthe revulsion with which the good pastor would regard her. Yet shewas in a kind of mania to accept the scapegoat's burdens and be offinto the wilderness. She was resolved to undergo everything for thesake of that poor child of Zada's hastening toward the world. Shethanked Heaven she had no child of her own to complicate her duty. 

She understood why Cheever wanted to protect the name of the child'smother from the courts, and she was baffled by the situation. Thelawyer, who was so flippant about the things the Church held sosacred, was like a priest in his abhorrence of any tampering withthe letter of the law. 

She left his office for a conference with Cheever. She found at homethat he had been telephoning to her. She called him up, and he cameover at once. 

"I'm in a devil of a mess, Charity, " he said. "My lawyer refusesto help me give you evidence, and Zada--Miss L'Etoile--has developeda peculiar streak of obstinacy. She is determined that no other womanshall be named as the--er--co-respondent. She would rather be namedherself. She says everybody knows about our--er--relations, anyway;and she doesn't care if they do. "

Zada's character and her career had rendered her as contemptuousof public disapproval as any zealot of a loftier cause than love. There was a kind of barbaric insolence in her passion that Charitycould not help admiring a little. She felt a whit ashamed of herown timidities and delicacies. The trouble with these proud defiersof the public, however, is that they do not ask the consent of thebabies that are more or less implied in their superb amours. 

Cheever was so distracted between the scruples of his lawyer andZada's lack of them that when Charity confessed how she had setdetectives on him and had secured a dictagraphic record of hisalliance with Zada he was overcome with gratitude. 

So little a shift of circumstances makes all the difference betweena spy and a savior. The deed that he would once have cursed his wifefor stooping to, perhaps have beaten her for, was now an occasionfor overwhelming her with thanks. 

He hurried away to his lawyer, and Charity telephoned McNiven foranother appointment the next afternoon. Jim Dyckman's appointmentwas for the next morning. 

CHAPTER IV

When Jim reached his office the next morning McNiven recommendedthe view to him, gave him a chair, refused a cigar, lighted his pipeinstead, opened a drawer in his desk, put his feet in it, and leanedfar back in his swivel chair. 

Jim began, "Well, you see, Sandy, it's like this--"

"One moment, " McNiven broke in. "Before you speak I must as anhonest lawyer warn you against the step you contemplate. "

"But, damn it, you don't know what it is yet. "

"I don't have to. I know you, and I know that people don't cometo lawyers, as a rule, except to get out of a scrape dishonestlyor to get into one unwisely. "

It was his office joke, and something more, a kind of formula forsquaring himself with his conscience, a phrase for warding offthe devil--as a beggar spits on the penny he accepts. 

Having exorcised the demon, he said, "Go on, tell me: what's hername and how much does she want for silence?"

"How much do you want for silence?" Jim growled. 

"Shoot!"

McNiven was startled and grieved when he learned that Jim was notmaking ready to marry Charity Coe, but some one else. Jim toldhim as much as he thought necessary, and McNiven guessed the rest. He groaned: "It seems impossible to surround marriage with suchdifficulties that people won't break in and out. I've got a friendof yours trying to bust a home as quietly as you're trying tobuild one. "

Of course, he did not mention Charity's name. He tried ferventlyto convince Jim that he ought not to marry Kedzie, but, failing topersuade him from the perils of matrimony, he did his best to helphim to a decent secrecy. His best was the program Jim and Kedziefollowed. 

They motored over to the village of Jolicoeur in New Jersey. Therea local attorney, a friend of McNiven's, met them and vouched forthem before the town clerk, who made out the license. He askedKedzie if she had been married before, and she was so young andpretty and so plainly a girl that he laughed when he asked thequestion. And for answer Kedzie just laughed, too. He wrote downthat she had never been married before. Kedzie had not really lied, and they can't arrest a person, surely, for just laughing. Not thatshe did not believe in the motto which Blanche Bates used to readso convincingly in "The Darling of the Gods": "It is better to liea little than to be unhappy much. "

Jim was shocked at the situation, but he could hardly be so ungallantas to call his fiancée a liar at such a time. Besides, he had heardthat the law is interested in people's persons and not their names, and he was marrying Kedzie personally. 

When the license was made out the lawyer whispered to the town clerkthat it would be made worth his while to suppress the news for thirtydays or more, and the clerk winked and grinned. Business was slowin matrimony, and he needed any little tips. 

Now that they were licensed, Jim and Kedzie, being non-residents ofNew Jersey, must wait twenty-four hours before they could be married. They motored back to New York and went to the theater to kill theevening. The next afternoon Jim called for Kedzie, and they motoredagain to Jolicoeur for the ceremony. Mr. And Mrs. Thropp went alongas witnesses and to make sure. 

The lawyer had found a starveling parson in Jolicoeur who askedthe fatal questions and pronounced the twain man and wife, addingthe warning, "Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder. " JimDyckman was so befuddled that he heard it, "Let no man join whom Godhath put asunder. " But he paid the preacher well and added a largesum for the church on condition that the news of the marriage bekept out of the public records till the last legal moment. 

Dyckman had tried to do the honorable thing by Kedzie. He wascertainly generous, for a man can hardly give a woman more thanhimself and all he has. Dyckman, however, had been ashamed ofa mental reservation or two. He could not repress a sneakingfeeling that he had been less the kidnapper than the napped kidin this elopement. If anybody were to be arrested for abduction, it would not be he. 

He reviled himself for confessing this to himself, and his sympathieswent out to Kedzie because the poor child had to be yoked witha reluctant mate. A bridegroom ought to bring to his bride, aboveall things else, an eager heart. And that Jim could not bring. 

He had been in his time a man and had sowed his measure of wild oats--more than a poor man could, less than a rich man might, far lessthan his unusual opportunities and the greedy throngs of temptressesencouraged. But he had taken Kedzie seriously, never dreaming howlarge a part ambition played in her devotion to him. He had beengood to her and with her. The marriage ceremony had solemnized himfurther. 

He had made a try at secrecy, because he felt shy about the affair. He knew that his name would lead the newspapers to haze him, asthe rustic neighbors deride a rural couple with a noisy "chivaree. "He dreaded the head-lines, as a kind of invasion of the bridalchamber. 

In any case he had always hated flamboyant weddings with crowds andsplendor. He did not believe that a marriage should be circused. 

And thus at last he and Kedzie were united into one soul and oneflesh, for better, for worse, etc. , etc. Then they sped away tothe remotest pleasant hotel to be found in darkest Jersey. 

Jim registered under his own name, but blushed more hotly than ifhe had been engaged in an escapade. He could, perhaps, have takenKedzie so with less regret than under the blessing of the clergy. For now he felt that he owed to her the all-hallowing grace ofthat utter love which was something he could not bestow. 

She was the first wife he had ever had, and he wished a devoutnessin that consummation. Lacking the sanctifying ardor, he wasremorseful rather than triumphant, feeling himself more of abrute than even a bridegroom usually feels. 

Kedzie did not seem to miss any perfection in his devotion, buthe imputed that more to her innocent kindliness than to any graceof his own. The more he studied her the more he wondered why hedid not love her more. She was tremendously exquisite, ferociouslydelicate, and almighty pretty. She was altogether too delectable, too cunningly wrought and fragile, for a hulking Titan like him. 

He was positively afraid of her, and greatly amazed to see thatshe was not at all afraid of him. The moment the parson had donehis worst a new Kedzie had appeared. She took command of everythinginstantly: ordered the parson about, shipped her mother and fatherback to town as if they were bothersome children, gave directionsto Jim's chauffeur in a way that taught him who was to be whothenceforward, and made demands upon the hotel clerk in a tonethat was more convincing of her wifehood than a marriage licensecould have been. 

The quality missing in Kedzie was the sense of terror and meeknessexpectable in brides. Her sole distress was, to Jim's amazement, the obscurity and solitude of their retreat. Kedzie was rapturous, but she had not the slightest desire to hide it from the world. She was Mrs. Jim Dyckman, and she didn't care who knew it. 

Poor Kedzie had her own sorrows to mar her triumph. She was beingdriven to believe that the world was as badly managed as theHyperfilm Studio. Providence seemed to provide tribulations for herlike a scenario editor pursuing a movie heroine. The second reel hadbegun well, the rich but honest lover putting the poor but dishonesthusband to flight. And now Honeymoon Number Two! She had dreamedof a gorgeous church ceremony with two pipe-organs, and an enlargedcast of clergymen, and wedding guests composed of real millionairesinstead of movie "extras. " But lo and behold, her adorer whisks heroff to a little town in New Jersey and the great treaty is sealedin the shoddy parlor of a village parsonage! Gilfoyle's MunicipalBuilding was a cathedral compared to this. 

Then with never a white ribbon fluttering, not an old shoe ora grain of rice hurtling, the limousine of love rolled away toa neglected roadhouse. It was attractive enough as a roadhouse, but it was wretched as an imitation paradise. 

In the face of this outrage everything else was a detail, a minorhumiliation. There was no parrot on an area fire-escape to mock hernext morning, but there was a still earlier rooster to banish sleepand parody her triumph. She slipped out of bed and went barefootto the window-seat and gazed out into a garden. 

She made a picture there that Ferriday would have loved ina "close-up. " Her hair was tumbling down upon and around hershoulders, and her silken nightgown shimmered blissfully about her, sketching her contours in iridescent lines. She gazed, through anElizabethan of small panes, into a garden where sunrise bloomedrosily in petals of light. She was the prettiest thing in thepretty picture; yet she was pouting at Fate--Fate, the old scenariowriter who never could seem to bring off a happy ending. 

Jim Dyckman, waking, saw her there and rubbed his eyes. Then heremembered. He pondered her and saw a tear or two slip out of hereyes, run along her cheek and pitch off into the tiny ravine of herbosom. He felt that he was a contemptible fiend who had committeda lynchable crime upon a tender and helpless victim. He closed hiseyes in remorse, pretending to sleep, tormented like the repentantpurchaser of a "white slave"--or rather a pink slave. 

They breakfasted early and prettily. Kedzie was radiant now. Sheusually was when she was dealing in futures. They took up thequestion of their future residence. Jim proposed all the honeymoonhaunts. Europe was out of the question, so he suggested Bermuda, Jamaica, California, Atlantic City, North Carolina, the Adirondacks. But Kedzie wanted to get back to New York. 

This pained and bewildered him at first, because he felt that weddedrapture should hide itself awhile in its own lovely loneliness. Besides, his appearance in New York with a wife would involve himin endless explanations--and there would be reporters to see, andsociety editors and photographers, and his family and all hisfriends. 

But those were just what Kedzie wanted. And at last she told him so. 

"You act as if you were ashamed to be seen with me, " she cried out. 

The only answering argument to this was to take her back to townat once. The question of how and where they were to live wasimportant. They had not settled it in the flurry of their hastysecret marriage. 

Jim supposed that a hotel would be necessary till they found a house. He loathed the thought of a hotel, but a suitable furnished housemight not be in the market at the moment. He suggested an apartment. 

This reminded Kedzie of how Gilfoyle had sent her out on a flat-hunt. She would have more money now, but there would doubtless be somethingthe matter with every place. The most urgent thing was to get out ofNew Jersey. They could discuss residences in the car. 

And they did discuss them. Building a new house would take years. Buying a ready-made house and furnishing it would take days, perhapsweeks. Kedzie could not choose which one of the big hotels she mostwanted to camp in. Each had its qualities and their defects. 

When they were on the ferry crossing the river she had not yet madeup her mind. Jim had no mind to make up. He was reduced to a merewaiter on her orders. He laughed at himself. This morning at daybreakhe had been reproaching himself for being a vicious gorilla who hadcarried off a little girl; now he was realizing that the little girlhad carried him off and was making a monkey of him. 

Kedzie's mental disarray was the overwhelming influence of infinitemoney. For the first time in her life she could disregard price-marksentirely. Curiously, that took away half the fun of the thing. Itseemed practically impossible for her to be extravagant. She wouldlearn before long that there are countless things that plutocratscannot afford, that they also must deny themselves much, feel shabby, and envy their neighbors. For the present she realized only that shehad oodles of money to sprinkle. 

But it takes training to spend money, and Kedzie was now unpractised. Her wisher was so undeveloped that she could only wish for thingsavailable to people of moderate affluence. She could not wish fora yacht, because Jim had a yacht. She could not wish for a balloonbecause she would not go up in it. She could wish for a house, butshe could not walk into it without delay. She could not live in twohotels at once. Jewelry she could use in quantities, but even at thatshe had only so much surface area to hang it on. In fact, when shecame right face to face with facts, what was there worth wishing for?What was the use of being so dog-on rich, anyway?

And there she hung on the door-sill of her new life like a childcatching sight of a loaded Christmas tree and palsied with inabilityto decide which toy to grab first, horrified to realize that hecannot suck the orange and blow the trumpet at the same time. 

When they reached the New York side of the Hudson the car rolled offthe boat into the ferry-house and into the street, and when Jim saidagain, "Well, where do you want to go?" she had to sigh. 

"Oh, Heavens! let's go home to my old apartment and talk it over. "She gave the address to the chauffeur, and Jim smiled grimly. Itgave him a little cynical amusement to act as passenger. 

On the way up-town Kedzie realized that she was hungry and thathere would be no food in her apartment. They turned to Sherry's. Kedzie left Jim and went into the dressing-room to smooth her hairafter the motor flight. 

And now, just too late, Charity Coe Cheever happened to arrive asthe guest of Mrs. Duane. The sight of Jim alone brought a flush ofhope to Charity's eyes. She greeted him with a breeziness she hadhardly known since she was a girl. There was nothing about hisappearance to indicate that he had just come across from New Jersey, where he had been made the husband of Mrs. Kedzie Thropp Gilfoyle. 

Seeing Charity so unusually bright, Jim said, "What's happened toyou, Charity, that you look so gay and free?"

"That's what I am. "

"What?"

"Gay and free. Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes. "

"I'm getting divorced. "

"My Lord, no!"

"Yes, my lord. "

"Oh, God, and me just married!"

Charity looked for an instant as if an arrow had flashed into herheart and struck her dead. Then with relentless courage she pluckedout the steel and let the blood gush while she smiled. 

"Congratulations, old boy. Who's the lucky lady?"

"It's the little girl I yanked out of Mrs. Noxon's pool. "

"The one I asked you to look out for?"

"Yes. "

"Well, isn't that fine! She was very pretty. I hope you'll be everso happy. "

"Thanks, Charity--thank you. Mighty nice of you! Of course, youknow--er--Well, here she is. " He beckoned to Kedzie, who cameforward. "Mrs. Cheever, my wife. But you've met, haven't you?"

"Oh yes, indeed, " said Charity Coe, with an effusion of cordialitythat roused Kedzie's suspicions more than her gratitude. The firstwoman she met was already trying to get into her good graces! CharityCoe went on, with a little difficulty:

"But Mrs. Dyckman doesn't remember me. I met you at Mrs. Noxon's. "

"Oh yes, " said Kedzie, and a slow, heavy crimson darkened her facelike a stream of treacle. 

The first woman she met was reminding her of the time she was apoor young dancer with neither clothes nor money. It was outrageousto have this flung in her face at the very gate of Eden. 

She was extremely cold to Charity Coe, and Charity saw it. JimDyckman died the death at finding Kedzie so cruel to the one whohad befriended her. But he could not rebuke his wife, even beforehis lost love. So he said nothing. 

Charity caught the heartsick, hangdog look in his eyes, and sheforbore to slice Kedzie up with sarcasm. She bade her a mostgracious farewell and moved on. 

Kedzie stared after her and her beautiful gown, and said: "Say, Jim, who were the Coes, anyway? Did they make their money in trade?"

Jim said that he would be divinely condemned, or words to thateffect. 

CHAPTER V

And now Kedzie Thropp was satisfied at last--at least for the timebeing. She was a plump kitten, replete and purr-full, and the worldwas her catnip-ball. 

There was no visible horizon to her wealth. Her name was one of theoldest, richest, noblest in the republic. She was a Dyckman now, double-riveted to the name with a civil license and a religiouscertificate. Tommie Gilfoyle had politely died, and like an obligingrat had died outside the premises. Hardly anybody knew that she hadmarried him, and nobody who knew was going to tell. 

Kedzie forgot Charity in the joy of ordering a millionaire'sluncheon. This was not easy. She was never a glutton for food;excitement dimmed what appetite she had, and her husband, as sheknew, hated made dishes with complex sauces. 

Kedzie was baffled by the futility of commanding a lot of thingsshe could not eat, just for the fun of making a large bill. She waslike the traditional prospector who struck it rich and, hasteningto civilization, could think of nothing to order but "forty dollars'worth of pork and beans. "

Kedzie had to satisfy her plutocratic pride by bossing the waiterabout, by complaining that the oysters were not chilled and thesherry was. She sent back the salad for redressing and insistedthat the meat was from cold storage. She was no longer the poorgirl afraid of the waiter. 

Kedzie was having a good time, but she regretted that herwedding-ring was so small. She felt that wives ought to wear somespecial kind of plume, the price of the feather varying with thebank account. Kedzie would have had to carry an umbrella of plumes. 

Still, she did pretty well on her exit. She went out like a milliondollars. But her haughtiness fell from her when she reached homeand found Mr. And Mrs. Thropp comfortably installed there, savinghotel bills. 

Charity Coe had gone out feeling a million years old. She leftthe presence of Kedzie in a mood of tragic laughter. She wasin one of those contemptible, ridiculous plights in which goodpeople frequently find themselves as a result of kindliness andself-sacrifice. 

For well-meant actions are as often and as heavily punished inthis world as ill-meant--if indeed the word _punishment_ hasany respectability left. It is certainly obsolescent. 

Many great good men, such as Brand Whitlock, the saint of Belgium, had been saying that the whole idea of human punishment of humanbeings is false, cruel, and futile, that it has never accomplishedanything worth while for either victim or inflictor. They place itamong the ugly follies, the bloody superstitions that mankind hasclung to with a fanaticism impervious to experience. They wouldchange the prisons from hells to schools and hospitals. 

Even the doctrine of a hell beyond the grave is rather neglectednow, except by such sulphuric press agents as Mr. Sunday. But inthis world we cannot sanely allege that vice is punished and virtuerewarded until we know better what virtue is and what is vice. Allthat it is safe to say is that punishment is a something unpleasantand reward a something pleasant that follows a deed--merely followsin point of time, not in proof of judgment. 

So the mockery of Charity's good works was neither a punishmentnor a ridicule. It was a coincidence, but a sad one. Charity hadbefriended Kedzie without making a friend thereby; she had lost, indeed, her good friend Jim. Charity's affection for Jim would makeher suspect in Kedzie's eyes, and Kedzie's gratitude had evidentlyalready cut its sharper-than-a-serpent's wisdom tooth. 

Charity had been patient with her husband and had lost him. Shehad asked the Church for her freedom and had been threatened withexile. Then her husband had demanded his freedom and forced herto choose between blackening her own soul with the brand "divorcée"or blackening her husband's mistress's baby's soul with the brand"illegitimate. "

She had preferred to take the shame upon herself. But who would giveher credit? She knew how false was the phrase that old Ovid utteredbut could not comfort even himself with, "The mind conscious ofrectitude laughs at the lies of gossip. " No woman can afford suchsecurity. 

Charity had such a self-guying meekness, indeed, that instead ofclothing herself in the robes of martyrdom she ridiculed herselfbecause of one thing: In a pigeonhole of her brain a littleback-thought had lurked, a dim hope that if she gave her husbandthe divorce he implored she might be free to remold her shatteredlife nearer to her heart's desire--with Jim Dyckman. Her husband, indeed, had taunted her with that intention, and now she had nosooner launched her good name down the slippery ways of divorcethan she found Jim Dyckman married and learned that her prematureand unwomanly hopes for him were ludicrously thwarted!

She went to McNiven's office with a dark life ahead of her. She hadno desire left except to disentangle herself from Peter Cheever'slife as quietly and swiftly as possible. She told McNiven this andsaid:

"How quickly can the ghastly job be finished?"

"Theoretically it could be done in a day, but practically it takesa little longer. For we must avoid the look of collusion like theplague. So we'll allow, say, a week. If we're lucky with our judges, it may take less. "

Then he outlined the steps to be taken. An unusual chain ofcircumstances enabled him to carry them out with unexpected neatnessand despatch, so that the case became a very model of how gracefullythe rigid laws of divorce could be manipulated in the Year of OurLord 1916 and of the Founding of the Republic 140. 

It may be interesting to outline the procedure as a social documentin chicanery, or social surgery, as one wills to call it. 

McNiven first laid under Charity's eyes a summons and complaintagainst Peter Cheever. She glanced over it and found it true exceptthat Zada L'Etoile was not named; Cheever's alleged income was vastlylarger than she imagined, and her claim for alimony was exorbitant. 

Her first question was: "Who is this unknown woman going by the nameof Sarah Tishler? I thought Miss L'Etoile was to be the only womanmentioned. "

McNiven explained: "L'Etoile is her stage name. She doesn't knowher real name herself, for she was taken from the foundling-asylumas a child by a family named Tishler. We have taken advantage ofthat disadvantage. "

Charity bowed to this, but she protested the income credited toher husband. 

"Peter doesn't earn half as much as that. "

"How do you know what he earns?" said McNiven. 

"He's told me often enough. "

"Do you believe all he told you?"

"No; but, anyway, I don't want any of his old alimony. I have moneyenough of my own. "

"That can be arranged later, but if you don't swear to this as itlies you can't have your divorce. "

"Why not?"

"Because there has to be a contest, and we've got to give his lawyersomething to fight. "

Charity yielded wearily. She fought against making an affidavit tothe truth of the complaint, but when NcNiven said, "No affidavit, no divorce, " she took her oath before the clerk who was called inas a notary public. 

"Now you may go home, " said McNiven; and Charity stole out, feelingherself a perjured criminal. Then the divorce-mill began to grind. 

A process-server from McNiven's office went across Broadway toTessier's office, where Cheever was waiting. He handed the papersto Cheever, who handed them to Tessier, who hastily dictated ananswer denying the adultery, the alleged income, and the proprietyof the alimony claimed. 

Tessier and Cheever visited McNiven in his office and served himwith this answer. The two lawyers then dictated an agreement toa reference, Tessier adding a statement that he considered hisclient equipped with a good defense and that he intended to opposethe suit in good faith. 

Their clerks took this to the County Court House in City Hall Squareand filed it with the clerk of the Supreme Court, Special Term, Part II. 

Justice Cardwell, before leaving his chambers, read the papers andissued an order naming as referee the lawyer Henry Firth. 

Here for a moment the veil of secrecy was rent, for this ordercould not be suppressed. It was published in _The Law Journal_the next morning, and the eager reporters reading therein thatMrs. Peter Cheever was suing her husband for a divorce on statutorygrounds, dashed to the records and learned that she accused himof undue intimacy with an unknown woman going by the name of SarahTishler. 

By selecting an obscure town this publicity might have been deferred, but it would have meant delay in the case as well. 

A flock of reporters sped like hawks for Charity's home, where theywere denied admittance; for Cheever's office, where they were toldthat he was out of town; and even for Zada L'Etoile's apartment, where they were informed that she had left the State, as indeed shehad. Sarah Tishler had a right, being named as co-respondent, toenter the case and defend her name, but she waived the privilege. 

The evening papers made what they could of the sensation, but nobodymentioned Zada, for nobody knew that fate had tried to conceal herby naming her Tishler, and nobody quite dared to mention her withoutlegal sanction. 

On the next day Lawyer Firth held court in his office. Reporters wereexcluded, and the lawyers and detectives and Cheever and Charity, whohad to be present, declined to answer any of the questions rainedupon them in the corridors and the elevators. 

Mr. Firth was empowered to swear in witnesses and take testimony. The evidence of the detectives, corroborated by the evidence ofa hall-boy and a janitor and by proof of the installation of thedictagraph, seemed conclusive to Mr. Firth. 

Cheever denied that he had committed the alleged adultery and gaveproof that his income was not as stated. Attorney Tessier evadedthe evidence of adultery, but fought hard against the evidence ofprosperity. Referee Firth made his report finding the defendantguilty of the statutory offense, and ordered a decree of divorce, with a diminished alimony. He appended a transcript of the evidenceand filed it with the Clerk of the County of New York. The statutoryfee for a referee was ten dollars a day, but the lawyers had quietlyagreed on the payment of a thousand dollars for expediting the case. With this recompense Mr. Firth ended his duties in the matter. 

McNiven prepared a motion to confirm the report of the referee andtook it to Tessier, who accepted service for his client. McNiven thenwent to the county clerk and filed a notice that the motion would becalled up the next morning. The clerk put it on the calendar ofSpecial Term, Part III. 

The next morning McNiven appeared before Justice Palfrey, submittedhis motion, and asked for an interlocutory decree. He left his paperwith the clerk. During the afternoon Justice Palfrey looked overthe referee's report and decided to grant McNiven's motion. In viewof the prominence of the contestants and since he had heard ofCharity's good works, and felt sure that she had suffered enoughin the wreck of her home, he ordered the evidence sealed. Thisharmed nobody but the hungry reporters and the gossip-appetiteof the public. 

McNiven was waiting in the office of the clerk, and as soon ashe learned that the judge had granted the motion he submitted theformal orders to be signed. The clerk entered the interlocutorydecree. And now the marriage was ended except for three months ofgrace. 

The first day after that period had passed McNiven submitted anaffidavit that there had been no change in the feelings of theparties and there was no good reason why the decree should not begranted. He made up the final papers, gave Tessier notice, anddeposited the record with the clerk. Justice Cruden, then sittingin Special Term, Part III. , signed the judgment. And the deed wasdone. Mrs. Cheever was permitted to resume her maiden name, butthat meant too much confusion; she needed the "Mrs. " for protectionof a sort. 

The divorce carried with it a clause forbidding the guilty husbandto marry any one else before five years had passed. But while thedivorce was legal all over the world, this restriction ended atthe State bounds. 

So Peter Cheever and Zada L'Etoile went over into the convenientrealm of New Jersey the next morning, secured a license, and on thefollowing day were there made man and wife before all the world. This entitled them to a triumphant return to New York. And now PeterCheever had also done the honorable thing. This "honorable thing"business will be one of the first burdens dropped by the men whenthe women perfect their claim to equality. 

In about two weeks a daughter was born to the happy twain. Thanks toCharity's obliging nature, it was christened in church and acceptedin law as a complete Cheever. Mr. And Mrs. And Miss Cheever now beganto live (more or less) happily ever after (temporarily). 

Altogether it was a triumph of legal, social, and surgical technic. It outraged many virtuous people. There was a good deal of harshcriticism of everybody concerned. The worthies who believe thatdivorce is the cause of the present depraved state of the UnitedStates bewailed one more instance of the vile condition of thelawless Gomorrah. The eternal critics of the rich used the case asanother text in proof of the complete control that wealth has overour courts, though seventy-five divorces to obscure persons weregranted at the same time without difficulty, with little expenseand no newspaper punishment. 

Dr. Mosely wrote Charity a letter of heartbroken condemnation, and she slunk away to the mountains to escape from the reproachof all good people and to recuperate for another try at the Frenchwar hospitals. She had let her great moving-picture project lapse. She felt hopelessly out of the world and she was afraid to faceher friends. Still, she had money and her "freedom, " and one reallycannot expect everything. 

CHAPTER VI

The ninety days following Charity's encounter with Jim Dyckman andhis bride at Sherry's had been busy times for her and epochal intheir changes. From being one of the loneliest and most approvedwomen in America she had become one of the loneliest and leastapproved. Altruism is perhaps the most expensive of the virtues. 

No less epochal were those months for the Dyckmans, bride and groom. Their problems began to bourgeon immediately after they left NewJersey and went to Kedzie's old apartment for further debate as totheir future lodgings. 

Mr. And Mrs. Thropp were amazed by their sudden return. Adna wasa trifle sheepish. They found him sitting in the parlor in hisshirt-sleeves and stocking feet, and staring out of the window atthe neighbors opposite. In Nimrim it was a luxury to be able to spyinto the windows of one neighbor at a time. Opposite Adna there werea hundred and fifty neighbors whom it cost nothing to watch. Someof them were very startling; some of them were stupid old ladies whorocked, or children who flattened their noses against the windows, or Pekingese doglets who were born with their noses against a pane, apparently. But some of the neighbors were fascinatingly carelessof inspection--and they always promised to be more careless thanthey were. 

Mrs. Thropp came rushing in from the kitchen. She had been tryingin vain to make a friend of Kedzie's one servant. But this maid, like a self-respectful employee or a good soldier, resented thefamiliarity of an official superior as an indecency and an insult. She made up her mind to quit. 

After Mrs. Thropp had expressed her wonderment at seeing her childrenreturn, she turned the full power of her hospitality on poor JimDyckman. He could not give notice and seek another job. 

Mrs. Thropp's first problem was the proper style and title ofher son-in-law. 

"What am I goin' to call you, anyhow?" she said. "_Jim_ soundskind of familiar on short acquaintance, and _James_ is sort ofdistant. _Son-in-law_ is hor'ble, and _Son_ is--How wouldyou like it if I was to call you '_Son_'? What does your ownmother call you?"

"_Jimsy_" Jim admitted, shamefacedly. 

"_Jimsy_ is right nice, " said Mrs. Thropp, and she Jimsied himthenceforward, to his acute distress. He found that he had marriednot Kedzie only but all the Thropps there were. The father and motherwere the mere foreground of a vast backward and abyss of relations, beginning with a number of Kedzie's brothers and sisters and theirwives and husbands. Jim was a trifle stunned to learn what lowlyjobs some of his brothers-in-law were glad to hold. 

Mrs. Thropp felt that it was only right to tell Jim as much as shecould about his new family. She told him for hours and hours. Shedescribed people he had never seen or heard of and would travel manya mile to avoid. He had never cared for genealogy, and his own longand brilliant ancestry did not interest him in the slightest. He hadhundreds of relations of all degrees of fame and fortune, and hefelt under no further obligation to them than to let alone and belet alone. 

His interest in his new horde of relations-in-law was vastly lessthan nothing. But Mrs. Thropp gave him their names, their ages, habits, diseases, vices, mannerisms, idiosyncrasies. She recounteddoings and sayings of infinite unimportance and uninterest. 

With the fatuous, blindfolded enthusiasm of an after-dinner speakerwho rambles on and on and on while the victims yawn, groan, or foldtheir napkins and silently steal away, Mrs. Thropp poured out herlethal anecdotes. 

Jim went from weariness to restiveness, to amazement, to wrath, to panic, to catalepsy, before Kedzie realized that he was beingsuffocated by these reminiscences. Then she intervened. 

Mrs. Thropp's final cadence was a ghastly thought:

"Well, now, I've told you s'much about all our folks, you must tellme all about yours. "

"The Lord forbid!" said Jim. 

Mrs. Thropp took this to mean that he did not dare confess thescandals of his people. She knew, of course, from reading, that richpeople are very wicked, but she did want to know some of the details. 

Jim refused to make disclosures. He was wakened from his coma byMrs. Thropp's casual remark:

"Say, Jimsy, how do folks do, on East here? Will your mother callon me and Kedzie, or will she look for us to call on her first?"

"My God!" thought Jim. 

"What say?" said Mrs. Thropp. 

Jim floundered and threshed. He had never before realized what hismother's famous pride might mean. She had always been only motherto him, devoted, tender, patient, forgiving, amusing, sympathetic, anxious, flattered by his least attention. Yet he had heard herspoken of as a human glacier for freezing social climbers and pushersof every sort. She was huge and slow; she could be frightfully coldand crushing. 

Now he understood what congelation the trembling approachers to hermajesty must have suffered. He was afraid to think what she woulddo to the Thropps. Her first glance would turn them to icicles andher first word would snap them to bits. 

It is hard enough for any mother to receive the news that her sonis in love with any woman and wants to marry her. Mrs. Dyckmanmust learn that her adored child had transferred his loyalty toa foreigner, a girl she had never seen, could not conceivably haveselected, and could never approve. Even the Prodigal Son, whenhe went home, did not bring a wife with him. Ten to one if he hadbrought one she would have got no veal--or if she got it she wouldnot have cared for it. 

Jim could not be blind even now in his alarm to Kedzie's intenseprettiness, but seeing her as through his mother's eyes coldly, he saw for the first time the plebeiance of her grace. 

If she had been strong and rugged her commonness would have had acertain vigor; but to be nearly refined without being quite refinedis as harrowing as singing just a little off the key. To be far offthe key is to be in another key, but to smite at a note and muff itis excruciation. Better far to drone middle C than to aim at high Cand miss it by a comma. 

Yet Jim understood that he could not long prevent the encounter ofhis wife and her relatives with his mother and her relatives. Hecould not be so boorishly insolent as to forbid the meeting, and hecould not be so blind as to expect success. He got away at length onthe pretext of making arrangements with his mother, who was a verybusy woman, he said. Mrs. Thropp could not imagine why a rich womanshould be busy, but she held her whist. 

Jim was glad to escape, even on so gruesome an errand, and now whenhe kissed Kedzie good-by he had to kiss momma as well. He wouldalmost rather have kissed poppa. 

He entered his home in the late afternoon with the reluctanceof boyhood days when he had slunk back after some misdemeanor. He loathed his mission and himself and felt that he had earneda trouncing and a disinheritance. 

He found his mother and father in the library playing, or ratherfighting, a game of double Canfield. In the excitement of the finishthey were like frantic children, tied in knots of hurry, squealingwith emulation. The cards were coming out right, and the speedierof the two to play the last would score two hundred and fifty tothe other's nothing. 

Mrs. Dyckman was the more agile in snatching up her cards andplacing them. Her eyes darted along the stacks with certainty, and she came in first by a lead of three cards. 

Dyckman was puffing with exhaustion and pop-eyed from the effortto look in seven directions at once. It rendered him scarlet tobe outrun by his wife, who was no Atalanta to look at. Besides, she always crowed over him insufferably when she won, and that wasworse than the winning. When Jim entered the room she was laughinguproariously, pointing the finger of derision at her husband andcrying:

"Where did you get a reputation as a man of brains? There must bean awful crowd of simpletons in Wall Street. " Then she caught sightof her son and beckoned to him. "Come in and hold your father'shead, Jimsy. "

"Please don't call me Jimsy!" Jim exploded, prematurely. 

His mother did not hear him, because his father exploded at thesame moment:

"Come in and teach your mother how to be a sport. She won't playfair. She cheats all the time and has no shame when she gets caught. When she loses she won't pay, and when she wins she wants cash onthe nail. "

"Of course I do!"

"Why, there isn't a club in the country that wouldn't expel youtwice a week. "

"Well, pay me what you owe me, before you die of apoplexy. "

"How much do I owe you?"

"Eight dollars and thirty-two cents. "

"I do not! That's robbery. Look here: you omitted my score twiceand added your own up wrong. "

"Did I really?"

"Do five and two make nine?"

"Don't they?"

"They do not!"

"Well, must you have hydrophobia about it? What differencedoes it make?"

"It makes the difference that I only owe you three dollarsand twenty-six cents. "

"All right, pay it and simmer down. Isn't he wonderful, Jimsy? Hejust sent a check for ten thousand dollars to the fund for blindFrench soldiers and then begrudges his poor wife five dollars. "

"But that's charity and this is cards; and it's humiliating tothink that you haven't learned addition yet. "

Mrs. Dyckman winked at Jim and motioned him to sit beside her. He could not help thinking of the humiliating addition he was aboutto announce to the family. While his father counted out the changewith a miserly accuracy he winked his off eye at Jim and growled, with a one-sided smile:

"Where have you been for the past few days, and what mischief haveyou been up to? You have a guilty face. "

But Mrs. Dyckman threw her great arm about his great shoulders, stared at him as she kissed him, and murmured: "You don't lookhappy. What's wrong?"

Jim scraped his feet along the floor gawkily and mumbled: "Well, Isuppose I'd better tell you. I was going to break it to you gently, but I don't know how. "

Mrs. Dyckman took alarm at once. "Break it gently? Bad news? Oh, Jim, you Haven't gone and got yourself engaged to some fool girl, have you? Not that?"

"Worse than that, mother!"

"Oh dear! what could be worse? Only one thing, Jim! You haven't--youhaven't married a circus-rider or a settlement-worker or anythinglike that, have you?"

"No. "

"Lord! what a relief! I breathe again. "

Jim fired off his secret without further delay. "I've been married, though. "

"Married? Already? Married to what? Anybody I ever heard of?"

His mother was gasping in a dangerous approach to heart failure. Jim protested. 

"You never saw her, but she's a very nice girl. You'll love herwhen you meet her. "

Jim's father sputtered as he pulled himself out of his chair:"Wha-what's this? You--you damned young cub! You--why--what--who--oh, you jackass! You big, lumbering, brainless, heartless bonehead!Oh--whew! Look at your poor mother!"

Jim was frightened. She was pounding at her huge breast with onehand and clutching her big throat with another. Her husband whirledto a siphon, filled a glass with vichy, and gave it to Jim to holdto her lips while he ran to throw open a window. 

Jim knelt by his mother and felt like Cain bringing home the newsof the first crime. Her son's remorse was the first thing thatEve felt, no doubt; at least, it was the first that Mrs. Dyckmanunderstood when the paroxysm left her. She felt so sorry for herlad that she could not blame him. She blamed the woman, of course. She cried awhile before she spoke; then she caressed Jim's cheeksand blubbered:

"But we mustn't make too much of a fuss about a little thing likea wedding. It's his first offense of the kind. I suppose he fellinto the trap of some little devil with a pretty face. Poor innocentchild, with no mother to protect him!"

"Poor innocent scoundrel!" old Dyckman snarled. "He probably gother into trouble, and she played on his sympathy. "

This was what Jim sorely needed, some unjust accusation to spur himout of his shame. He sprang to his feet and confronted his father. 

"Don't you dare say a word against my wife. "

"Oh, look at him!" his father smiled. "He's grown so big he canlick his old dad. Well, let me tell you, my young jackanapes, thatif anybody has said anything against your wife it was you. "

"What have I said?"

"You've said that you married her secretly. You've not dared to letus see her first. You've not dared to announce your engagement andtake her to the church like a gentleman. Why? Why? Answer me that, before you grow so tall. And who is she, anyway? I hear that you hada prize-fight with Peter Cheever and got expelled from the club. "

"When did you hear that?"

"It's all over town. What was the fight about? Was he interestedin this lady, too?"

One set of Jim's muscles leaped to the attack; another set heldthem in restraint. 

"Be careful, dad!" he groaned. "Peter Cheever never met my wife. "

"Well, then, what were you fighting him about?"

"That's my business. "

"Well, it's my business, too, when I find the name of my son postedfor expulsion on the board of my pet club. You used to be sweet onCheever's wife. You weren't fighting about her, were you?"

This chance hit jolted the bridegroom so perceptibly that hisfather regretted having made it. He gasped:

"Great Lord, but you're the busy young man! Solomon in allhis glory--"

"Let him alone now, " Mrs. Dyckman broke in, "or you'll have me onyour hands. " She needed only her husband's hostility to inflame herin defense of her son. "If he's married, he's married, and wordswon't divorce him. We might as well make the best of it. I've nodoubt the girl is a darling, or Jim wouldn't have cared for her. Would you, Jimsy?"

"Naturally not, " Jim agreed, with a rather sickly enthusiasm. 

"Is she nice-looking?"

"She is famous for her beauty. "

"Famous! Oh, Heavens! That sounds ominous. You mean she'swell known?"

"Very--in certain circles. "

"In certain circles!" Mrs. Dyckman was like a terrified echo. Shehad known of such appalling misalliances that there was no tellinghow far her son might have descended. 

Old Dyckman snarled, "Do you mean that you've gone slumming fora wife?"

Jim dared not answer this. His mother ignored it, too. But herthoughts were in a panic. 

"What circles is she famous in, your wife, for her beauty?"

Jim could not achieve the awful word "movies" at the moment. Heprowled round it. 

"In professional circles. "

"Oh, an actress, then?"

"Well, sort of. "

"They call everything an actress nowadays. She isn't a--a chorus-girlor a show-girl?"

"Lord, no!" His indignation was reassuring to a degree. 

His father broke in again, "It might save a few hours of dodgingand cross-examination if you'd tell us who and what she is. "

"She is known professionally as Anita Adair. "

So parochial a thing is fame that the title which millions ofpeople had learned to know and love meant absolutely nothing tothe Dyckmans. They were so ignorant of the new arts that even MaryPickford meant hardly more to them than Picasso or Matisse. 

Jim brought out a photograph of Kedzie, a small one that he carriedin his pocket-book for company. The problem of what she looked likedistracted attention for the moment from the problem of what she didand was. 

Mrs. Dyckman took the picture and perused it anxiously. Her husbandleaned over her shoulder and studied it, too. He was mollifiedand won by the big, gentle eyes and that bee-stung upper lip. Hegrumbled:

"Well, you're a good chooser for looks, anyway. Sweet little thing. "

Mrs. Dyckman examined the face more knowingly. She saw in those big, innocent eyes a serene selfishness and a kind of sweet ruthlessness. In the pouting lips she saw discontent and a gift for wheedling. Butall she said was, "She's a darling. "

Jim caught the knell-tone in her praise and feared that Kedzie wasdead to her already. He saw more elegy in her sigh of resignationto fate and her resolution to take up her cross--the mother's crossof a pretty, selfish daughter-in-law. 

"You haven't told us yet how she won her--fame, you said. "

And now Jim had to tell it. 

"She has had great success in the--the--er--pictures. "

"She's a painter--an illustrator?"

"No, she--well--you know, the moving pictures have become veryimportant; they're the fifth largest industry in the world, Ibelieve, and--"

The silence of the parents was deafening. Their eyes rolled togetherand clashed, as it were, like cannon-balls meeting. Dyckman seniordropped back into his chair and whistled "Whew!" Then he laugheda little:

"Well, I'm sure we should be proud of our alliance with the fifthlargest industry. The Dyckmans are coming up in the world. "

"Hush!" said Mrs. Dyckman. She was thinking of the laugh that rivalmothers would have on her. She was thinking of the bitterness ofher other children, of her daughter who was a duchess in England, and of the squirming of her relatives-in-law. But she was too fondof her boy to mention her dreads. She passed on to the next topic. 

"Where are you living?"

"Nowhere yet, " Jim confessed. "We just got in from our--er--honeymoonthis morning. We haven't decided what to do. "

Then Mrs. Dyckman took one of those heroic steps she was capable of. 

"You'd better bring her here. "

"Oh no; she'd be in your way. She'd put you out. "

"I hope not, not so soon, " Mrs. Dyckman laughed, dismally. "She'llprobably not like us at all, but we can start her off right. "

"That's mighty white of you, mother. "

"Did you expect me to be--yellow?"

"No, but I thought you might be a little--blue. "

"If she'll make you happy I'll thank Heaven for her every day andnight of my life. So let's give her every chance we can, and I hopeshe'll give us a chance. "

Jim's arms were long enough to encircle her and hug her tight. Hewhispered to her, "I never needed you more, you God-blessed--mother!"

Her tears streamed down her cheeks upon his lips, and he had a littletaste of the bitterness of maternal love. She felt better after shehad cried a little, and she said, with courage:

"Now we mustn't keep you away from her. If you want me to, I'll goalong with you and call on her and extend a formal invitation. "

Jim could not permit his revered mother to make so complete asubmission as that. He shook his head:

"That won't be necessary. I'll go get Kedzie. "

"Kedzie? I thought her name was Anita. "

"That was her stage name--her film name. "

"Oh! And her name wasn't Adair, either, perhaps?"

"No, it was--er--Thropp!"

"Oh!" She wanted to say "What a pretty name!" to make it easier forhim, but she could not arrange the words on her tongue. She asked, instead, "Is she American?"

"American? I should say so! Born in Missouri. "

Another "Oh!" from the mother. 

Jim swallowed a bit more of quinine and made his escape, saying:

"You're as fine as they make 'em, mother. I won't be gone long. "

The father was so disgusted with the whole affair that he could onlysave himself from breaking the furniture by a sardonic taunt:

"Tell our daughter-in-law that if she wants to bring along her camerashe can have the ballroom for a studio. We never use it, anyway. "

"Shame on you!" his wife cried. "Don't mind him, Jimsy. "

"Jimsy" reminded Jim of Mrs. Thropp and his promise to ask his motherto call on her. But he had confessed all that he could endure. Hewas glad to get away without letting slip the fact that "Thropp" hadchanged to "Dyckman" _via_ "Gilfoyle. "

His mother called him back for another embrace and then let him go. She had nowhere to turn for support but to her raging husband, andshe found herself crying her eyes out in his arms. He had his ownheartbreak and pridebreak, but he was only a man and no sympathy needbe wasted on him. He wasted none on himself. He laughed ruefully. 

"You were saying, mother, only awhile ago that you wished he'd marrysome nice girl. Well, he's married, and we'll have to take what hebrings us. But, oh, these children, these damned children!"

A little later he was trying to brace himself and his wife againstthe future. 

"After all, marriage is only an infernal gamble. We might havescoured the world and picked out an angel for him, and she mighthave run off with the chauffeur the second week. I guess I got theonly real angel that's been captured in the last fifty years. Theboy may have stumbled on a prize unbeknownst. We'll give the kidthe benefit of the doubt, anyway. Won't we?"

"Of course, dear, if she'll give us the same. "

"Well, Jim said she came from Missouri. We've got to show her. "

"Ring for Wotton, will you?"

"What are you going to tell him?"

"The truth. "

"Good Lord! Do you dare do that?"

"I don't dare not to. They'll find it out down-stairs quicklyenough in their own way. "

"I see. You want to beat 'em to it. "

"Exactly. "

For years the American world had been discussing the duty of parentsto teach their children the things they must inevitably learn inuglier and more perilous ways. There were editorials on it, stories, poems, novels, numberless volumes. It even reached the stage. Mrs. Dyckman had left her own children to find things out for themselves. It occurred to her that she should not make the same mistake withthe eager servants who gave the walls ears and the keyholes eyes. 

It was a ferocious test of her courage, but she knew that shewould have all possible help from Wotton. He had not only been thehead steward of the family ship in countless storms, but he had aninherited knowledge of the sufferings of homes. He had learned hisprofession as page to his father, who had been a butler and the sonof a butler. 

Wotton came in like a sweet old earl and waited while Mrs. Dyckmangathered strength to say as offhandedly as if she were merelyannouncing that Jim was arrested for murder:

"Oh, Wotton, I wanted to tell you that Mr. James Dyckman hasjust brought us the news of his marriage. "

Wotton's eyebrows went up and his hands sought each other andwhispered together as he faltered:

"Indeed, ma'am! That is a surprise, isn't it?"

"He has married a very brilliant young lady who has had greatsuccess in--ah--in the--ah--moving pictures. "

The old man gulped a moment, but finally got it down. "The movingpictures! Indeed, ma'am! My wife and I are very fond of the--themovies, as the saying is. "

"Everybody is, isn't they--aren't they? Perhaps you have seen MissAnita Adair in the--er--pictures. "

"Miss Anita Adair? Oh, I should say we 'ave! And is she the younglady?"

"Yes. They are coming to live with us for a time. "

"Oh, that will be very pleasant! Quite an honor, you might say--Thatwill make two extra at dinner, then?"

"Yes. No--that is, we were expecting Mr. And Mrs. Schuyler, butI wish you would telephone them that I am quite ill--not very, youunderstand--a bad cold, I think, would be best. Something to keepme to my room for the day. "

"Very good, ma'am. Was there anything else?"

"No--oh yes--ask Mrs. Abby to have the Louis Seize room made ready, will you?"

"Very good--and some flowers, per'aps, I suppose. "

"Yes. "

"Thank you. "

He shuffled out, bowed under the weight of the calamity, as ifhe had an invisible trunk on his back. He gathered the servantsin solemn conclave in their sitting-room and delivered a funeraloration over young Mr. Jim. There were tears in the eyes of thewomen-servants and curses in the throats of the men. They all adoredMr. Jim, and their recent pride in his triumph over Peter Cheeverwas turned to ashes. He had married into the movies! They supposedthat he must have been drinkin' very 'ard. Jim's valet said:

"This is as good as handin' me my notice. "

But, then, Dallam was a ratty soul and was for deserting a sinkingship. Wotton and the others felt that their loyalty was only now tobe put to the test. They must help the old folks through it. Therewas one ray of hope: such marriages did not last long in America. 

CHAPTER VII

Jim hastened to Kedzie, and she greeted him with anxiety. She sawby his radiant face that he brought cheerful news. 

"I've seen mother, " he exclaimed, "and she's tickled to death withyour picture. She wants to see you right away. She wouldn't listento anything but your coming right over to live at our house tillwe decide what we want to do. "

Kedzie's heart turned a somersault of joy; then it flopped. 

"I've got no clothes fit for your house. "

"Oh, Lord!" Jim groaned. "What do you think we are, a continualreception? You can go out to-morrow and shop all you want to. "

"We-ell, all ri-ight, " Kedzie pondered. 

Jim was taken aback at her failure to glow with his success; andwhen she said, "I hate to leave momma and poppa, " he writhed. 

He had neither the courage nor the inclination to invite them to comealong and make a jolly house-party. There was room enough for a dozenThropps in the big house, but he doubted if there were room in hismother's heart for three Thropps at a time, or for the elder Throppsat any time. After all, his mother had some rights. He protected themby lying glibly. 

"My mother sent you her compliments, Mrs. Thropp, and said she wouldcall on you as soon as she could. She's very busy, you know--as Itold you. Well, come along, Kedzie. I'd like to have you home intime for dinner. "

"You dress for dinner, I suppose. "

"Well, usually--yes. "

"But I haven't--"

"If you dare say it, I'll murder you. What do they care whatyou've got on? They want to meet you, not your clothes. "

She saw that he was in no mood to be trifled with; so she delayedonly long enough to fling into a small trunk a few of her best duds. She remembered with sudden joy that Ferriday had made her a gift ofone or two of the gowns Lady Powell-Carewe had designed for hercamera-appearances, and she took them along for her début into thetopmost world. Jim arranged by telephone for the transportation ofher luggage, and they set out on their new and hazardous journey. 

Kedzie bade her mother and father a farewell implying a beautifuldistress at parting. She thought it looked well, and she felt thatshe owed to her mother her present splendor. She was horribly afraid, too, of the ordeal ahead of her. She was, indeed, approaching oneof the most terrifying of duels: the first meeting of a mother anda wife. 

Kedzie was not half so afraid as the elder Dyckmans were; for shehad her youth and her beauty, and they were only a plain, fat oldrich couple whose last remaining son had been stolen from them bya stranger who might take him from them altogether or fling him backat their feet with a ruined heart. 

In her moving pictures Kedzie had played the millionairess manya time, had driven up in state to mansions, and been admitted bymoving-picture butlers with frozen faces and only three or fourworking joints. She had played the millionairess in boudoir andbanquet-hall; she had been loved by nice princes and had foiledwicked barons. She had known valets and grooms and footmenfamiliarly; but they had all been moving-picture people, actorslike herself. 

As the motor approached the Dyckman palace she recalled what Ferridayhad told her about how different real life in millionairedom was fromstudio luxury, and she almost wished she had stayed married to TommieGilfoyle. 

In her terror she seized the usual armor that terror assumes--bluff. It would have been far better for her and everybody if she hadentered meekly into the presence of the very human old couple at herapproach, and had said to them, not in so many words, but at leastby her simple manner:

"I did not select my birthplace or my parents, my soul or my body ormy environment. I am not ashamed of them, but I want to make the bestof them. I am a new-comer in your world and I am only here becauseyour son happened to meet me and liked me and asked me to marry him. So excuse me if I am frightened and ill at ease. I don't want to takehim away from you, but I want to love you as he does and have youlove me as he does. So help me with your wisdom. "

If she had brought such a message or implied it she would have walkedright into the living-room of the parental hearts. But poor Kedzielacked the genius and the inspiration of simplicity and frankness, and she marched up the steps in a panic which she disguised all toowell in a pretense of scorn that proclaimed:

"I am as good as you are. I have been in dozens of finer homes thanthis. You can't teach me anything, you old snobs. I've got your son, and you'd better mind your p's and q's. "

Wotton opened the door and put on as much of a wedding face as hecould. Jim saw that the old man was informed, and he said:

"This is Wotton, my dear. He's the real head of the house. "

Kedzie might better have shaken hands with him than have given himthe curt nod she begrudged him. She looked past him to see Mrs. Dyckman, in whose arms she found herself smothered. Mrs. Dyckman, in her bride-fright, had rather rushed the situation. 

Kedzie hardly knew what to do. She was overawed by the very bulk aswell as the prestige of her mother-in-law. She did not quite dareto embrace Mrs. Dyckman, and she could think of nothing at allto say. 

Mrs. Dyckman was impressed with Kedzie's beauty and paid itimmediate tribute. 

"Oh, but you are an exquisite thing! No wonder our boy is madabout you. "

Kedzie's heart pranced at this, and she barely checked the giggleof triumph that bounded in her throat. But the only thing she couldthink of was what she dared not say: "So you're the famous Mrs. Dyckman! Why, you're fatter than momma. " She said nothing, but woreone of her most popular smiles, that look of wistful sweetness thathad melted countless of her movie worshipers. 

She was caught from Mrs. Dyckman's shadow by Jim's father, whosaid, "Don't I get a kiss?" and took one. Kedzie returned thiskiss and found the old gentleman very handsome, not in the leastlike her father. Brides almost always get along beautifully withfathers-in-law. And so do sons-in-law. Women will learn how to getalong together better as soon as it ceases to be so important tothem how they get along together. 

After the thrill of the first collision the four stood in silencedembarrassment till Jim, eager to escape, said:

"What room do we get?"

"Cicely's, if you like, " his mother answered. 

Jim was pleased. Cicely was the duchess of the family, and she andher duke had occupied that room before they went to England. Cicelywas a war nurse now, bedabbled in gore, and her husband was amud-daubed major in the trenches along the Somme. Jim saw that hismother was making no stint of her hospitality, and he was grateful. 

He dragged Kedzie away. She was trying to take in the splendor ofthe house without seeming to, and she went up the stairway withher eyes rolling frantically. 

In the Academy at Venice is that famous picture of Titian'srepresenting the little Virgin climbing up the steps of the Temple, a pathetic, frightened figure bearing no trace of the supremeradiance that was to be hers. There was something of the samereligious awe in Kedzie's heart as she mounted the steps of thehouse that was a temple in her religion. She was going up to herheaven already. It was perfection because it was the next thing. 

When Kedzie reaches the scriptural heaven, if she does (and it willbe hard for Anybody to deny her anything that she sets her heart on), she will be happy till she gets there and finds that she is only inthe first of the seven heavens. But what will the poor girl do whenshe goes on up and up and up and learns at last that there is noeighth? She will weep like another Alexander the Great, becausethere are no more heavens to hope for. 

Jim led her into the best room there was up-stairs, and told herthat a duke had slept there. At first she was thrilled through. Later it would occur to her, not tragically, yet a bit quellingly, that, after all, she had not married a duke herself, but only acommoner. She had as much right to a title as any other Americangirl. A foreign title is part of a Yankee woman's birthright. Hundreds of women had acquired theirs. Kedzie got only a plain"Mr. "

Still, she told herself that she must not be too critical, and shelet her enthusiasm fly. She did not have to pose before Jim, andshe ran about the suite as about a garden. 

CHAPTER VIII

Kedzie was smitten with two facts: the canopied bed was raised ona platform, and the marble bath-tub was sunk in the floor. She saton the bed and bounced up and down on the springs. She stared upat the tasseled baldachin with its furled draperies, and fingeredthe lace covering and the silken comforter. 

She sat in the best chairs, studied the dressing-table with itsroyal equipment. She went to the window and gazed out into FifthAvenue, reviewing its slow-flowing lava of humanity--young royaltyoverlooking her subjects. 

Mrs. Abby, the housekeeper, knocked and came in to be presented tothe new Princess of Wales, and to present the personal maid who hadbeen assigned to her. Even Mrs. Dyckman was afraid of Mrs. Abby, who lacked the suavities of Wotton. Mrs. Abby gave Kedzie the chillof her life, and Kedzie responded with an ardent hatred. 

The maid, a young Frenchwoman, found her black dress with its blacksilk apron an appropriate uniform, since her father, three brothers, a dozen cousins, and two or three of her sweethearts were at thewars. Some of them were dead, she knew, and the others were on theirway along the red stream that was bleeding France white, accordingto German hopes. 

Liliane, being a foreigner, saw in Kedzie the pathos of the alien, and with the unequaled democracy of the French, forgave her herplebeiance for that sake. She welcomed Kedzie's beauty, too, and regarded her as a doll of the finest ware, whom it would befascinating to dress up. Kedzie and Liliane would prosper famously. 

Liliane resolved that when Kedzie appeared at dinner she shouldreflect credit not only on "Monsieur Zheem, " but on Liliane as well. When Kedzie's trunk arrived and Liliane drew forth the confectionsof Lady Powell-Carewe she knew that she had all the necessaryweapons for a sensation. 

Kedzie felt more aristocracy in being fluttered over by a Frenchmaid with an accent than in anything she had encountered yet. Liliane's phrase "Eef madame pair-meet" was a constant tributeto her distinction. 

Jim retired to his own dressing-room and faced the veiled contemptof his valet, leaving Kedzie to the ministrations of Liliane, whodrew the tub and saw that it was just hot enough, sprinkled thearomatic bath-salts, and laid out the towels and Kedzie's things. 

Women are born linen-lovers, and Kedzie was not ashamed to haveeven a millionaire maid see the things she wore next to her skin, and Liliane was delighted to find by this secret wardrobe thather new mistress was beautifully equipped. 

She waited outside the door till Kedzie had stepped from the fragrantpool--then came in to aid in the harnessing. She saw nothing butthe successive garments and had those ready magically. She lacedthe stays and slid the stockings on and locked the garters and setthe slippers in place. She was miraculously deft with Kedzie's hair, and her suggestions were the last word in tact. Then she fetchedthe dinner-gown, floated it about Kedzie as delicately as if itwere a ring of smoke, hooked it, snapped it, and murmured littlecompliments that were more tonic than cocktails. 

When Jim came in he was struck aglow by Kedzie's comeliness and bya certain authority she had, Liliane pointed to her, as an artistmight point to a canvas with which he has had success, and demandedhis admiration. His eyes paid the tribute his lips stammered over. 

Kedzie was incandescent with her triumph, and she went down thestairway to collect her dues. 

Her parents-in-law were waiting, and she could see how tremendouslythey were impressed and relieved by her grace. What did it matter whoshe was or whence she came? She was as irresistible as some hauntingphrase from a folk-song, its authorship unknown and unimportant, itsperfection inspired. 

Kedzie floated into the dining-room and passed the gantlet of theservants. Ignoring them haughtily, she did not ignore the suddenchange of their scorn to homage. Nothing was said or done; yet theair was full of her victory. Much was forgiven her for her beauty, and she forgave the whole household much because of its surrender. 

It was a family dinner and not elaborate. Mr. And Mrs. Dyckmanhad arrived at the stage when nearly everything they liked to eator drink was forbidden to them. Jim had an athlete's appetite forsimples, and Kedzie had an actress' dread of fattening things andsweets. There was a procession of dishes submitted to her inspection, but seeing them refused first by Mrs. Dyckman, she declined mostof them in her turn. 

Kedzie had been afraid that she would blunder in choice among along array of forks, but she escaped the test, since each coursewas accompanied by the tools to eat it with. There was a littlechampagne to toast the bride in. 

She found the grandeur of the room belittling to the small party attable. There were brave efforts to make her feel at home and briefsallies of high spirits, but there was no real gaiety. How couldthere be, when there was no possible congeniality? The elder couplehad lived in a world unknown to Kedzie. Their son had dazed them byhis sudden return with a strange captive from beyond the pale. Shewas a pretty barbarian, but a barbarian she was, and no mistake. She was not so barbaric as they had feared, but they knew nothingof her past or of her. 

It is not good manners to deal in personal questions; yet how elsecould such strangers come to know one another? The Dyckmans wereafraid to quiz her about herself, and she dared not cross-examinethem. They had no common acquaintances or experiences to talk over. The presence of the servants was depressing, and when the long mealwas over and the four Dyckmans were alone in the drawing-room, theywere less at ease than before. They had not even knives and forksto play with. 

Mrs. Dyckman said at length, "Are you going to the theater, doyou think?"

Jim did not care--or dare--to take his bride abroad just yet. He shook his head. Mrs. Dyckman tried again:

"Does your wife play--or sing, perhaps?"

"No, thank you, " said Kedzie, and sank again. 

Mrs. Dyckman was about to ask if she cared for cards, but she wasafraid that she might say yes. She grew so desperate at last thatshe made a cowardly escape:

"I think we old people owe it to you youngsters to leave you alone. "She caught up her husband with a glance like a clutching hand, andhe made haste to follow her into the library. 

Jim and Kedzie looked at each other sheepishly. Kedzie was takingher initiation into the appalling boredom that can close down ina black fog on the homes and souls of the very wealthy. She wasastounded and terrified to realize that there is no essential delightattending the possession of vast means. Later she was to find herselfoften one of large and glittering companies where nothing imaginablewas lacking to make one happy except the power to be happy. She wouldgo to dinners where an acute melancholia seemed to poison the food, where people of the widest travel and unfettered opportunities couldfind nothing to say to one another. 

If she had loved Jim more truly, or he her, they could have beenblissful in spite of their lack of hardships; but the excitement offlirtation had gone out of their lives. There seemed to be nothingmore to be afraid of except unhappiness. There seemed to be nothingto be excited about at all. Time would soon provide them with wildanxieties, but he withheld his hand for the moment. 

Jim saw that Kedzie was growing restless. He dragged himself fromhis chair and clasped her in his arms, but the element of pity inhis deed took all the fire out of it. He led her about the houseand showed her the pictures in the art gallery, but she knew nothingabout painters or paintings, and once around the gallery finishedthat room for her forever. There were treasures in the library tofascinate a bibliophile for years, but Kedzie knew nothing and caredless about books as books; and a glance into the somber chamber wherethe old people played cards listlessly drove her from that door. 

The dinner had begun at eight and finished at half past nine. It wasten o'clock now, and too late to go to the theater. The opera seasonwas over. There would be the dancing-places, but neither of the twofelt vivacity enough for dancing or watching others dance. 

For lack of anything better, Jim proposed a drive. He was mad forair and exercise. He would have preferred a long walk, and so wouldKedzie, but she could not have walked far without changing hercostume and her slippers. 

She was glad of the chance to escape from the house. Jim rang forWotton and asked to have a car brought round. They put on lightwraps and went down the steps to the limousine. 

The Avenue was lonely and the Park was lonelier. And, strangely, nowthat they were together in the dark they felt happier; they drew moreclosely together. They were common people now, and they had moonlightand stars, a breeze and a shadowy landscape; they shared them withthe multitude, and they were happy for a while. 

Something in Kedzie's heart whispered: "What's the use of being rich?What's the good of living in a palace with a gang of servants hangingover your shoulder? Happiness evidently doesn't come from orderingwhatever you want, for by the time somebody brings it to you youdon't want it any longer. Happiness must be the going after somethingyourself and being anxious about it. "

If she had listened to that airy whisperer she might have had aninkling of a truth. But she dismissed philosophy as something stupid. She turned into Jim's arms like a child afraid and clung to him, moaning:

"Jim, what do I want? Tell me. I'm bluer than blue, and I don't knowwhy. "

This was sufficiently discouraging for Jim. He had given the petulantchild the half of his kingdom, and she was blue. If anything couldhave made him bluer than he was it would have been this proclamationof his failure. He had done the honorable thing, and it had profitednobody. 

He petted her as one pets a spoiled and fretful child at the end ofa long, long rainy day, with a rainy to-morrow ahead. 

When they returned home the coziness of their hour together was lost. The big mansion was as cozy as a court-house. It no longer had evennovelty. Climbing the steps had no further mystery than the Louvrehas to an American tourist who has promenaded through it once. 

Her room was brilliant and beautiful, but the things she liked aboutit most were the homely, comfortable touches: her bedroom slippers byher chair, her nightgown laid across her pillow, and the turned-downcovers of the bed. 

Liliane knocked and came in, and Jim retreated. It was pleasant forthe indolent Kedzie to have the harness taken from her. She yawnedand stretched and rubbed her sides when her corsets were off, andwhen her things were whisked from sight and she was only KedzieThropp alone in a nightgown she was more nearly glad than she hadbeen for ever so long. 

She flung her hair loose and ran about the room. She sang grotesquelyas she brushed her teeth and scumbled her face with cold-cream, rubbed it in and rubbed it out again. She was so glad to be a meregirl in her own flesh and not much else that she went about the roomcrooning to herself. She peeked out of the window at the Avenue, asquiet as a country lane at this hour, save for the motors that slidby as on skees and the jog-trot of an occasional hansom-horse. 

She was crooning when she turned to see her husband come in in agreat bath-robe; he might have been a solemn monk, save for the bigcigar he smoked. 

He was so dour that she laughed and ran to him and flung him intoa chair and clambered into his lap and throttled him in her arms, crying:

"Oh, Jim, I am happy. I love you and you love me. Don't we?Say we do!"

"Of course we do, " he laughed, not quite convinced. 

He could not resist her beauty, her warmth, her ingratiation. Butsomehow he could not love her soul. 

He had refused to make her his mistress before they were married. Now that they were married, that was all he could make of her. Their life together was thenceforward the life of such a pair. Hesquandered money on her and let her squander it on herself. Theyhad ferocious quarrels and ferocious reconciliations, periods ofmutual aversion and tempests of erotic extravagance, excursionsof hilarious good-fellowship, hours of appalling boredom. 

But there was a curious dishonesty about their relation: it wasan intrigue, not a communion. They were never closer to each otherthan a reckless flirtation. Sometimes that seemed to be enoughfor Kedzie. Sometimes she seemed to flounder in an abyss of gloomydiscontent. 

But sleep was sweet for her that first night in the bed wherethe duchess had lain. She had an odd dream that she also becamea duchess. Her dreams had a way of coming true. 

CHAPTER IX

So there lay Kedzie Thropp of Nimrim, Missouri, the Girl Who HadNever Had Anything. At her side was the Man Who Had Always HadEverything. Under this canopy a duke and duchess had lain. 

There was an element of faery in it; yet far stranger things havehappened and will happen anew. 

There was once a Catholic peasant of Lithuania who died of theplague, leaving a baby named Martha Skovronsky. A Protestant preacheradopted the waif, and while she was yet a girl got rid of her bymarrying her to a common Swedish soldier, a sergeant. The Russiansbombarded the town; the Swedes fled; and a Russian soldier capturedthe deserted wife in the ruins of, the city. He passed her on to hismarshal. The marshal sold her as a kind of white slave to a prince;the prince took her to Russia as his concubine. Being of a liberaldisposition, he shared her capacious heart with the young czar, whohappened to be married. Martha Skovronsky bore him a daughter andwon his heart for keeps. He had her baptized in the Russian Churchas Catherine. He divorced his czaritza that he might marry thefoundling. He set on his bride's head the imperial crown studdedwith twenty-five hundred gems. She became the Empress Catherine I. Of Russia and went to the wars with her husband, Peter the Great, saved him from surrendering to the Turks, and made a success of agreat defeat for him. 

He loved her so well that when she was accused of flirting withanother man he had the gentleman decapitated and his head preservedin a jar of alcohol as a mantel ornament for Catherine's room. Whenhe died she reigned in his stead, recalling to her side as a favoritethe prince who had purchased her when she was a captive. 

Alongside such a fantastic history, the rise of Kedzia Thropp waspetty enough. It did not even compare with the rocket-flight of thatTheodosia who danced naked in a vile theater in Byzantium and laterbecame the empress of the great Justinian. 

Kedzie had never done anything very immoral. She had been a trifleimmodest, according to strict standards, when she danced the Greciandances. She had been selfish and hard-hearted, but she had neversold her body. And there is no sillier lie, as there is no commonerlie, than the trite old fallacy of the popular novels, sermons, editorials, and other works of fiction that women succeed by sellingtheir bodies. It is one of the best ways a girl can find for goingbankrupt, and it leads oftener to the dark streets than to the brightpalaces. 

The credit for Kedzie's staying virtuous, as the word is used, wasnot entirely hers. Probably if all the truth were known women areno oftener seduced than seducing. Kedzie might have gone wrong halfa dozen times at least if she had not somehow inspired in the menshe met a livelier sense of protection than of spoliation. Shehappened not to be a frenzied voluptuary, as are so many of the lost, who are victims of their own physiological or pathological estatesbefore they make fellow-victims of the men they encounter. 

The trick of success for a woman who has no other stock in tradethan her charm is to awaken the chivalry of men, to promise but notrelinquish the last favors till the last tributes are paid. 

Meanwhile the old world is rolling into the daylight when womenwill sell their wits instead of their embraces, and when there willbe no more compulsion for a woman to rent her body to pay her houserent than for men to do the same. The pity of it is that these greatpurifying, equalizing, freedom-spreading revolutions are gainingmore opposition than help from the religious and the conservative. 

In any case Kedzie Thropp, who slept under a park bench when firstshe came to town, found the city honorable, merciful, generous, asmost girls do who have graces to sell and sense enough to set a highprice on them. 

And so Kedzie was sheltered and passed on upward by Skip Magruderthe lunch-room waiter, and by Mr. Kalteyer the chewing-gum purveyor, by Eben E. Kiam the commercial photographer, by Thomas Gilfoyle theadvertising bard, by Ferriday the motion-picture director, on upand up to Jim Dyckman. Every man gave her the best help he could. And even the women she met unconsciously assisted her skyward. 

But there is always more sky above, and Kedzie's motto was arelentless _Excelsior!_ She spurned backward the ladders sherose by, and it was her misfortune (which made her fortune) thatwhatever rung she stood on hurt her pretty, restless feet. It wasinevitable that when at last she was bedded in the best bed in oneof America's most splendid homes, she should fall a-dreaming offoreign splendors beyond the Yankee sky. 

On the second morning of her honeymoon, when Kedzie woke to find thatshe was no duchess, but a plain American "Mrs. " that disappointmentcolored her second impression of the Dyckman mansion. 

She had her breakfast in bed. But she had enjoyed that dubiousluxury in her own flat. Many poor and lazy and sick people had thesame privilege. The things she had to eat were exquisitely cookedand served, when Liliane took them from the footman at the door andbrought them to the bedside. 

But, after all, there is not much difference between the breakfastsof the rich and of the poor. There cannot be: one kind of fruit, a cereal, an egg or two, some coffee, and some bread are about allthat it is safe to put into the morning stomach. Her plutocraticfather-in-law was not permitted to have even that much, and hermother-in-law, who was one of the converts to Vance Thompson's_Eat and Grow Thin_ scriptures, had almost none at all. 

Busy and anxious days followed that morning. There was a great amountof shopping to do. There were the wedding-announcement cards to orderand the list of recipients to go over with Mrs. Dyckman's secretary. There was a secretary to hire for Kedzie, and it was no easy matterfor Kedzie to put herself into the woman's hands without debasingher pride too utterly. 

There was the problem of dinners to relatives, a reception to guestsfor the proper exploitation of the new Mrs. Dyckman. There was theembarrassment of meeting people who brought their prejudices withtheir visiting-cards and did not leave their prejudices as they didtheir cards. 

The newspapers had to have their say, and they did not make pleasantreading to any of the Dyckmans. Kedzie took a little comfort fromreading what the papers had to say about Mrs. Cheever's divorce, but she found that Jim was unresponsive to her gibes. This did notsweeten her heart toward Charity. 

Kedzie was hungry for friends and playmates, but she could not findthem among the new acquaintances she made. She saw curiosity in alltheir eyes, patronage in those who were cordial, and insult in thosewho were not effusive. She got along famously with the men, but theirmanner was not quite satisfactory, either. There was a corrosivesomething in their flattery, a menace in their approach. 

There were the horrible experiences when Mrs. Dyckman called onMrs. Thropp and the worse burlesque when Mrs. Thropp called onMrs. Dyckman. The servants had a glorious time over it, and Kedzieoverheard Mrs. Dyckman's report of the ordeal to her husband. Shewas angry at Mrs. Dyckman, but angrier still at her mother. 

Kedzie's father and mother were an increasing annoyance to Kedzie'spride and her peace. They wanted to get out to Nimrim and make atriumph through the village. And Jim and Kedzie were glad to paythe freight. But once the Thropps had gloated they were anxious toget back again to the flesh-pots of New York. 

The financing of the old couple was embarrassing. It did not lookright to Kedzie to have the father and mother of Mrs. Dyckman acouple of shabby, poor relations, and Kedzie called it shameful thather father, who was a kind of father-in-law-in-law to the duchess, should earn a pittance as a claim-agent in the matter of damagedpigs and things. 

Jim, like all millionaires, had dozens of poor relations and feltneither the right nor the obligation to enrich them all. There isno gesture that grows tiresome quicker than the gesture of shovingthe hand into the cash-pocket, bringing it up full and emptying it. There is no more painful disease than money-spender's cramp. 

Kedzie learned, too, that to assure her father and mother even sopoor an income as five thousand dollars a year would require thesetting aside of a hundred thousand dollars at least in gilt-edgedsecurities. She began to have places where she could put a hundredthousand dollars herself. On her neck was one place, for shesaw a woman with a dog-collar of that price, and it made Kedziefeel absolutely nude in contrast. She met old Mrs. Noxon with herinfamously costly stomacher on, and Kedzie cried that night becauseshe could not have one for her own midriff. 

Jim growled, "When you get a stomach as big as Mrs. Noxon's youcan put a lamp-post on it. "

She said he was indecent, and a miser besides. 

Meanwhile her own brothers, sisters, cousins, and aunts were callingher a miser, a snob, a brute. The whole family wanted to move to NewYork and make a house-party. They had every right to, too, for didnot the Declaration of Independence make all Americans equal?

Relatives whom Kedzie had never heard of and relatives whom she knewall too well turned up in New York with schemes for extracting moneyfrom the Dyckman hoard. Kedzie grew nearly wroth enough to stand atthe window and empty things on them as they dared to climb the noblesteps with their ignoble impertinences. 

When she was not repelling repulsive relatives Kedzie was tryingto dodge old acquaintances. It seemed that everybody she had evermet had learned of her rise in the world. Her old landladies wrotewhining letters. Moving-picture people out of a job asked her fortemporary loans. 

But the worst trial came one day when she was present at a committeemeeting for a war-relief benefit and that fiend of a Pet Bettanyproposed that one of the numbers should be Miss Silsby's troupe ofGreek dancers. She asked if anybody had any objections, and whennobody spoke she turned to Kedzie and dared to ask her if she hadever seen the dancers. 

"Not recently, " Kedzie mumbled, while her very legs blushed undertheir stockings, remembering how bare they had been in the old dayswhen she was one of the Silsby slaves. 

All the other women simmered pleasantly in the uncomfortablesituation till Mrs. Charity Cheever, who chanced to be there, came to the rescue amazingly by turning the tables on the Bettanycreature:

"Anybody who ever saw you in a bathing-suit, Pet, would know thatthere were two good reasons why you were never one of the Silsbies. "

Charity could be cruel to be kind. Everybody roared at Pet, whosecrooked shanks had kept her modest from the knees down, at least. Kedzie wanted to kiss Charity, but she suffered too much from thereminder of her past. 

She fiercely wanted to have been born of an aristocratic family. Of all the vain wishes, the retroactive pluperfect are the vainest, and an antenatal wish is sublimely ridiculous. But Kedzie wished it. This was one of the wishes she did not get. 

CHAPTER X

Mrs. Kedzie Dyckman received many jars of ointment, but her prettyeyes found a fly in every one. She that should have gone aboutboasting, "I came from a village and slept under a park bench, andnow look at me!" was slinking about, wishing that she could rathersay: "Oh, see my wonderful ancestors! Without them you could notsee me at all. "

Kedzie had her picture printed at last in the "Social World"departments of the newspapers. She had full-page portraits of herselfby the mystic Dr. Arnold Genthe and by other camera-masters printedin _Town and Country_ and _The Spur, Vanity Fair, Vogue_and _Harper's Bazar_. But some cursed spite half the time ledto the statement under her picture that she had been in the movies. No adjectives of praise could sweeten that. Small wonder she pouted!

And she found the competition terrific. She had thought that whenshe got into the upper world she would be on a sparsely populatedplateau. But she said to Jim:

"Good Lord! this is a merry-go-round! It's so crowded everybodyis falling off. "

The most "exclusive" restaurants were packed like bargain-counters. She went to highly advertised balls where there were so many peoplethat the crowd simply oozed and the effort to dance or to eat wasa struggle for life. 

New York's four hundred families had swollen, it seemed, to fourhundred thousand, and the journals of society published countlesspictures of the aristocratic sets of everywhere else. There werearistocrats of the Long Island sets--a dozen sets for one smallisland--the Berkshire set, the Back Bay set, the Rhode Island reds, the Plymouth Rock fowl, the old Connecticut connections, the BarHarbor oligarchy, the Tuxedonians, the Morristown and Germantownnoblesse, the pride of Philadelphia, the Baltimorioles, thediplomatic cliques of Washington, the Virginia patricians, thePiedmont Hunt set, the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and all the other State sets, the Cleveland coteries, the Chicagocracy, the St. Louis and New Orleans and San Franciscooptimates. 

Exclusiveness was a joke. And yet Kedzie felt lonely and afraid. Shehad too many rivals. There were young girls in myriads, beauties bythe drove, sirens in herds, millionaires in packs. The country wasso prosperous with the privilege of selling Europe the weapons ofsuicide that the vast destructiveness of the German submarines wasa bagatelle. 

There was a curious mixture of stupendous Samaritanism and tremendousindifference. Millions were poured into charities and millions weresquandered on dissipation. 

Kedzie's funds were drawn away astoundingly faster than even Dyckmancould replenish them. Hideous accounts of starving legions werebrandished before the eyes of all Americans. Every day Kedzie's mailcontained circulars about blind soldiers, orphan-throngs, bread-linesin every nation at war. There were hellish chronicles of Armenianwomen and children driven like cattle from desert to desert, outragedand flogged and starved by the thousand. 

The imagination gave up the task. The miseries of the earth weremore numerous than the sands, and the eyes came to regard them asimpassively as one looks at the night sky without pausing to countthe flakes in that snowstorm of stars. One says, "It is a nicenight. " One said, "These are terrible times. " Then one said, "MayI have the next dance?" or, "Isn't supper ready yet?"

Kedzie tried for a while to lift herself from the common ruckof the aristocracy by outshining the others in charities and insplendors. She soon grew weary of the everlasting appeals for moneyto send to Europe. She grew weary of writing checks and putting oncostumes for bazaars, spectacles, parades, and carnivals. She foundherself circumscribed by so much altruism. Her benevolences left hertoo little for her magnificences. 

She grew frantic for more fun and more personal glory. Theextravagance of other women dazed her. Some of them hadinexhaustible resources. Some of them were bankrupting theirown boodle-bag husbands. Some of them flourished ingeniously byrunning up bills and never running them down. 

The competition was merciless. She kept turning to Jim for money. He grew less and less gracious, because her extravagances were moreand more selfish. He grew less and less superior to complaints. Hestarted bank-accounts to get rid of her, but she got rid of themwith a speed that frightened him. He hated to be used. 

Kedzie took umbrage at Mrs. Dyckman's manner. Mrs. Dyckman triedfor a while to be good to the child, strove to love her, forgaveher for her youth and her humble origin; but finally she tired ofher, because Kedzie was not making Jim's life happier, more useful, or more distinguished. 

Then one day Mrs. Dyckman asked Kedzie for a few moments of hertime. Kedzie was in a hurry to an appointment at her hairdresser's, but she seated herself patiently. Mrs. Dyckman said:

"My dear, I have just had a cable from my daughter Cicely. She hasbroken down, and her physician has ordered her out of England fora rest. She is homesick, she says, and Heaven knows we are homesickfor her. 

"I am afraid she would not feel at home in any room but her oldone, and I know you won't mind. You can have your choice. Some ofthe other rooms are really pleasanter. Will you look them over andlet me know, so that I can have your things moved?"

"Certainly, my dear m'mah!" said Kedzie. 

She walked blindly down the Avenue, snubbing her most preciousacquaintances. She was being put out of her room! She was beingshoved back to the second place. They'd ask her to eat at the secondtable next, or have her meals in her room as the secretaries did. 

Not much! Having slept in a duchess's bed, Kedzie would notbackslide. She would get a bed of her own. She remembered anice young man she had met, whose people were in real estate. She telephoned to him from the Biltmore. 

"Is that you, Polly? This is Kedzie Dyckman. Say, Polly, do youknow of a decent house that is for sale or rent right away quick?Oh, I don't care how much it costs, so it's a cracker jack ofa house. I suppose I've got to take it furnished, being in sucha hurry; or could you get a gang of decorators in and do a rushjob? All right, look up your list right away and telephone me hereat the hairdresser's. "

From under her cascade of hair she talked to him later and arrangedto be taken from place to place. She now dismissed chateaux withcontempt as too small, too old-fashioned, lacking in servants'rooms, what not. She had quite forgotten the poor little Mrs. Gilfoyle she had been, and her footsore tramp from cheap flat tocheap flat, ending in the place that cost three hundred dollarsa year furnished. 

She finally decided not to attempt housekeeping yet awhile, andselected a double-decked apartment of twenty-four rooms andforty-eight baths. And she talked the agent down to a rental often thousand dollars a year unfurnished. She would show Jim thatshe could economize. 

When Kedzie told Mrs. Dyckman that she had decided to move, Mrs. Dyckman was very much concerned lest Kedzie feel put out. But shesmiled to herself: she knew her Kedzie. 

Jim was not at all pleased with the arrangement, but he yielded. In the American family the wife is the quartermaster, selects thecamp and equips it. Jim spent more of his time at his clubs thanat his duplex home. So did Kedzie. She had been railroaded intothe Colony and one or two other clubs before they knew her so well. 

When the Duchess Cicely came back Kedzie was invited to the familydinner, of course. Cicely was Kedzie's first duchess, and thoughKedzie had met any number of titled people by now, she approachedthis one with strange apprehensions. She was horribly disappointed. Cicely turned out to be a poor shred of a woman in black, worn out, meager, forlorn, broken in heart and soul with what she had beenthrough. 

She was plainly not much impressed with Kedzie, and she said toher mother later: "Poor Jim, he always plays in the rottenest luck, doesn't he? Still, he's got a pretty doll, and what does anythingmatter nowadays?"

She tried to be polite about the family banquet. But the food chokedher. She had seen so many gaunt hands pleading upward for a crust ofbread. She had seen so many shriveled lips guzzling over a bowl ofsoup. She had seen so many once beautiful soldiers who had nothingto eat anything with. 

Cicely apologized for being such a death's head at the feast, butshe was ashamed of her people, ashamed of her country for keepingout of the war and fattening on it. All the motives of pacifism, of neutrality, of co-operation by financing and munitioning thewar, were foul in her eyes. She knew only her side of the conflict, and she cared for no other. She found America craven and indifferenteither to its own obligations or its own dangers. She accused theUnited States of basking in the protection of the British navyand the Allied armies. She felt that the immortal crime of the_Lusitania_ with its flotsam of dead women and children wasmore disgraceful to the nation that endured it than to the nationthat committed it. She was very, very bitter, and Kedzie found hermost depressing company, especially for a dinner-table. 

But she excited Jim Dyckman tremendously. He broke out into fiercediatribes against the Chinafying of the United States with itsLilliputian army guarding its gigantic interests. He began to toywith the idea of enlisting in the Canadian army or of joining theAmerican aviators flying for France. 

"The national bird is an eagle, " he said, with unwonted poesy, "and the best place an American eagle can fly is over France. "

When Kedzie protested: "But you've got a family to consider. Letthe single men go, " Jim laughed louder and longer than he hadlaughed for weeks. 

Cicely smiled her first smile and squeezed Jim's hand. 

CHAPTER XI

Kedzie went home early. It was depressing there, too. Now that shehad a house of her own, she found an extraordinary isolation in it. Almost nobody called. 

When she lived under the Dyckman roof she was included in the cardsleft by all the callers; she was invited into the drawing-room tomeet them; she was present at all the big and little dinners, andbreakfasts and teas and suppers. 

People who wanted to be asked to more of the Dyckman meals andparties swapped meals and parties with them and included Kedziein their invitations, since she was one of the family. She wentabout much in stately homes, and her name was celebrated in whatthe newspapers insist upon calling the "exclusive" circles. 

Kedzie laughed at the extraordinary inclusiveness of their HighExclusivenesses until she got her own home. And then she learnedits bitter meaning. It was not that Mrs. Dyckman meant to freezeher out. She urged her to "come in any time. " But, as Kedzie toldJim, "an invitation to come any time is an invitation to stay awayall the time. " Kedzie's pride kept her aloof. She made it so hardto get her to come that Mrs. Dyckman sincerely said to Cicely:

"We are too old and stupid for the child. She is glad to be ridof us. "

Mrs. Dyckman planned to call often, but she was an extremely busywoman, doing many good works and many foolish works that were justas hard. She said, "I ought to call, " and failed to call, just asone says, "I ought to visit the sick, " and leaves them to theirsupine loneliness. 

Thus Kedzie floated out of the swirling eddies where the socialdriftwood jostled in eternal circles. She sulked and consideredthe formalities of who should call on whom and who owed whom a call. New York life had grown too busy for anybody to pay much attentionto the older reciprocities of etiquette. 

Almost nobody called on Kedzie. She took a pride in smotheringher complaints from Jim, who was not very much alive to her hours. He was busy, too. He had joined the Seventh Regiment of the New YorkNational Guard, and it absorbed a vast amount of his time. He hadgone to the Plattsburg encampment the summer before and had kept upwith the correspondence-school work in map problems, and finally hehad obtained a second lieutenancy in the Seventh Regiment. It was hislittle protest against the unpreparedness of the nation as it toppledon the brink of the crater where the European war boiled and smoked. 

One midnight after a drill he found Kedzie crying bitterly. He tookher in his arms, and his tenderness softened her pride so that shewept like a disconsolate baby and told him how lonely she was. Nobodycalled; nobody invited her out; nobody took her places. She had nofriends, and her husband had abandoned her for his old regiment. 

He was deeply touched by her woe and promised that he would takebetter care of her. But his military engagements were not elastic. He dared not neglect them. They took more and more of his eveningsand invaded his days. Besides, he was poor company for Kedzie's mood. He had little of the humming-bird restlessness, and he could not keepup with her flights. She had darted her beak into a flower, and itsnectar was finished for her before she had realized that it wasa flower. 

He felt that what she needed was friends of her own sex. There werewomen enough who would accept Kedzie's company and gad with her, viewith her quivering speed. But they were not the sort he wanted her tofly with. He wanted her to make friends with the Charity Coe type. 

The next day Jim grew desperate enough to call on Charity. She wasout, but expected in at any moment. He sat down to wait for her. The room, the books, the piano--all spoke of her lovingly andlovably. He went to the piano and found there the song she hadplayed for him once in Newport--"Go, Lovely Rose!"

He thought it a marvelous coincidence that it should be there onthe rack. Like most coincidences, this was not hard to explain. Itchanced to be there because Charity played it often. She was lonelierthan Kedzie and almost as helpless to amuse herself. She read vastly, but the stories of other people's unhappy loves were a poor anodynefor her own. She thought incessantly of Jim Dyckman. Rememberingthe song she had played for him, and his bitter comment on the verse, "Tell her that wastes her time and me, " she hunted it out, and theplaintive chimes of Carpenter's music made a knell for her own hopes. 

She had played it this very afternoon and wrought herself to suchsardonic regret that she forced herself into the open air. She walkeda mile or two, but slunk back home again to be rid of the crowds. 

She was thinking of Dyckman when she entered her house. She letherself in with her own key, and, walking into the drawing-room, surprised him at the piano, reading the tender elegy of the rose. 

"Jim!" she gasped. 

"Charity!" he groaned. 

Their souls seemed to rush from their bodies and embrace. But theirbodies stood fast before the abyss that gaped between them. 

She whipped off her glove before she gave him her hand. That meetingof the flesh was so bitter-sweet that their hands unclasped guiltilyby a kind of honest instinct of danger. 

"What on earth brought you here?" Charity faltered. 

"Why--I--Well, you see--it's like this. " He groped for words, but, having no genius in invention, he blurted the truth helplessly: "Icame to ask you if you wouldn't--You see, my poor wife isn't makingout very well with people--she's lonesome--and blue--and--why can'tyou lend a hand and make friends with her?"

Charity laughed aloud. "Oh, Jim, Jim, what a darling old numskullyou are!"

"In general, yes; but why just now?"

"Your wife will never make friends with me. "

"Of course she will. She's lonely enough to take up with anybody. "

"Thanks!"

"Well, will you call?"

"Have you told her you were going to ask me to?"

"Not yet. "

"Then I'll call, on one condition. "

"What's that, Charity Coe?"

"That you don't tell her. You'd better not, or she'll have my eyesand your scalp. "

"But you'll call, won't you?"

"Of course. Anything you say--always. "

"You're the damnedest decentest woman in the world, Charity Coe;and if--"

He paused. It is just as well not to go iffing about such matters. 

Charity stopped short in her laughter. She and Jim stared at eachother again across that abyss. It was terribly deep, but onlya step over. 

They heard the door-bell faintly, and a sense of guilt confusedthem again. Jim rose and wished himself out of it. 

"It's only Prissy Atterbury, " said Charity. 

Prissy came in tugging at the ferocious mustaches that onlyemphasized his lady-like carriage. He paused on the door-sillto stare and gasp, "My Gawd, at it again!"

They did not know what he meant, and he would not explain that hehad seen them together ages ago and spread the gossip that they werein intrigue. The coincidence of his recurrence on their scene was notstrange, for Charity had been using him as a kind of messenger-boy. 

Prissy was that sort. He looked the gentleman and was, a somewhattoo gentle gentleman, but very useful to ladies who needed anuncompromising escort and were no longer young enough to permitof chaperonage. He was considered perfectly harmless, but he wasa fiend of gossip, and he rejoiced in the recrudescence of the Jimand Charity affair. 

Jim confirmed Prissy's eager suspicions by taking himself off witha maximum of embarrassment. Charity went to the door with him--tokiss him good-by, as Prissy gloatingly supposed, but actually tosay:

"I'll call on your wife to-morrow. "

"You're an angel, " said Jim, and meant it. 

He thought all the way home what an angel she was, and Charity wasthinking at the same time what a fool she had been to let PeterCheever dazzle her to the fact that Jim Dyckman was the one man inthe world that she belonged to. She needed just him and he just her. 

CHAPTER XII

Sometimes Jim Dyckman was foolish enough to wish that he had beenhis wife's first lover. But a man has to get up pretty early to bethat to any woman. The minxes begin to flirt with the milk-bottle, then with the doctor, and then to cherish a precocious passion forthe first rag sailor-doll. 

Jim had come as near as any man may to being a woman's first lovein the case of Charity, and what good had it done him? He was thefirst boy Charity had ever played with. Her nurse had bragged abouther to his nurse when Charity was just beginning to take noticeof other than alimentary things. By that time Jim was a blasé rouéof five and his main interest in Charity was a desire to poke hisfinger into the soft spot in her head. 

The nurses restrained him in time, and his proud, young, littlemother of then, when she heard of it, decided that he was destinedto be a great explorer. His young father sniffed that he was morelikely to be a gynecologist. They had a grand quarrel over theirson's future. He became none of the things they feared or hoped thathe would and he carried out none of his own early ambitions. 

His first impressions of Charity had ranged from contempt, throughcuriosity, to protectiveness and affection. She got his heart firstby being helpless. He began by picking up the things she let fallfrom her carriage or threw overboard and immediately cried for again. She had been human enough to do a good deal of that. When thingscumbered her crib or her perambulator she brushed them into spaceand then repented after them. 

Following her marriage to Peter Cheever she did just that with JimDyckman. His love cluttered up her domestic serenity and she chuckedit overboard. And then she wanted it again. Then her husband chuckedher overboard and she felt that it would not be so lonesome out theresince Jim would be out there, too. But she found that he had pickedhimself up and toddled away with Kedzie. And now he could not pickCharity up any more. His wife wouldn't let him. 

Jim did not know that he wanted to pick Charity up again till hecalled on her to ask her to call on his wife and pick Kedzie up outof her loneliness. It was a terrific thought to the simple-mindedJim when it came over him that the Charity Coe he had adored andgiven up as beyond his reach on her high pedestal was now lying atthe foot of it with no worshiper at all. 

Jim was the very reverse of a snob. Kedzie had won his devotion byseeming to need it. She had lost it by showing that she cared lessfor him than for the things she thought he could get for her. Andnow Charity needed his love. 

There were two potent principles in Jim's nature, as in many anotherman's and woman's; one was an instant eagerness to help anybodyin trouble; another was an instant resentment of any coercion. Jimcould endure neither bossing nor being bossed; restraint of any sortirked him. There may have been Irish blood in him, but at any ratethe saying was as true of him as of the typical Irishman--"You canlead him to hell easier than you can drive him an inch. "

When Jim left Charity's house his heart ached to think of herdistressful with loneliness. When he realized that somehow Kedziewas automatically preventing him from helping Charity his maritalbonds began to chafe. He began to understand that matrimony washampering his freedom. He had something to resent on his ownbehalf. 

He had been so troubled with the thought of his shortcomingsin devotion to Kedzie that he had not pondered how much he hadsurrendered. He had repented his inability to give Kedzie hisentire and fanatic love. He saw that he had at least given hisprecious liberty of soul into her little hands. 

Galled as he was at this comprehension, he began to think over thelessons of his honeymoon and to see that Kedzie had not given himentirety of devotion any more than he her. Little selfishnesses, exactions, tyrannies, petulances, began to recur to him. 

He was in the dangerous frame of mind of a bridegroom thinkingthings over. At that time it behooves the bride to exert herfascinations and prove her devotion as never before. 

Kedzie, knowing nothing of Jim's call on Charity or of his new mood, chanced to be in a most unfortunate humor. She criticized Jim;she declined to be amused or entertained; rebuffed his advances, ridiculed his pretensions of love. She even chose to denounce hismother for her heartlessness, his sister for her neglect, his fatherfor his snobbery. That is always bad business. It puts a husbandat bay with his back against the foundation walls of loyalty. Theyquarreled wonderfully and slept dos-à-dos. They did not speak thenext morning. 

The next afternoon Jim saw to his dismay that Kedzie was putting onher hat and gloves to go out on a shopping-cruise. If she went shewould miss Charity's call. 

He knew that he ought not to tell her of Charity's visit in advance. In fact, Charity had pledged him to a benevolent conspiracy in thematter. He put up a flag of truce and resumed diplomatic relations. 

With the diplomatic cunning of a hippopotamus he tried to decoyKedzie into staying at home awhile. His ponderous subtlety arousedKedzie's suspicions, and at length he confirmed them by desperatelyconfessing:

"Mrs. Cheever is going to call. "

Kedzie's first thought was of Peter Cheever's new wife, who had beentaken up by a certain set of those whom one may call loose-principledor divinely tolerant, as one's own prejudices direct. Kedzie couldnot yet afford to be so forgiving. She flared up. 

"Mrs. Cheever! That Zada thing going to call on me? How dare she!"

"Of course not. "

"Oh, the other one, then?"

"Yes. "

"The abandoned one?"

"That's pretty rough. She's been very kind to you and she wantsto be again. "

"Where did you learn so much?"

"We were talking about you. "

"Oh, you were, were you? That's nice! And where was all this?"

He indulged in a concessive lie for the sake or the peace. "I mether in the street and walked along with her. "

"Fine! And how did my name come to come up?"

"It naturally would. I was saying that I wished she'd--er--I wishedthat you and she might be friends. "

"So that you and she could see each other still oftener, I suppose. "

"It's rotten of you to say that. "

"And it's rottener of you to go talking to another woman aboutyour wife. "

"But it was in the friendliest spirit, and she took it so. "

"I see! Her first name is Charity and I'm to be one of her patients. Well, you can receive her yourself. I don't want any of her old alms!I won't be here!"

"Oh yes, you will!"

"Oh no, I won't!"

"You can't be as ill-mannered as that!"

"You talk to me of manners! Why, I've seen manners in your gang thatwould disgrace a brakeman and a lunch-counter girl on one of dad'srailroads. " Her father already had railroads! So many people hadthem in the crowd she met that Kedzie was not strong enough to denyher father one or two. 

Kedzie had taken the most violent dislike to Charity for a dozenreasons, all of them perfectly human and natural, and nasty andunjustifiable, and therefore ineradicable. The first one was thatodious matter of obligation. Gratitude has been wisely diagnosticatedas a lively sense of benefits to come. The deadly sense of benefitsgone by is known as ingratitude. 

No one knows just what the divinely unpardonable sin is, but thehumanly or at least womanly unpardonable sin is to have known one'shusband well before the wife met him, and then to try to be niceto the wife. To have known the wife in her humble days and to havedone her a favor makes the sin unmentionable as well as unpardonable. 

Jim Dyckman had involved himself in Charity's crime by trying to getCharity to help his wife again. It was bad enough that Charity hadgot Kedzie a job in the past and had sent Jim Dyckman to make surethat she got it. But for Jim, after Kedzie and he had been marriedand all, to ask Charity to rescue Kedzie from her social failure wasmonstrous. 

The fact that Jim had felt sorry for his lonely Kedzie marooned onan iceberg in mid-society was humiliating enough; but for Charityto dare to feel sorry for Kedzie, too, and to come sailing afterher--Kedzie shuddered when she thought of it. 

She fought with her husband until it was too late for her to getaway. Charity's card came in while they were still wrangling. Kedzieannounced that she was not at home. Jim told the servant, "Wait!"and gave Kedzie a look that she rather enjoyed. It was what theycall a caveman look. She felt that he already had his hands in herhair and was dragging her across the floor bumpitty-bump. It madeher scalp creep deliciously. She was rather tempted to goad himon to action. It would have a movie thrill. 

But the look faded from Jim's eye and the blaze of wrath dulled toa gray contempt. She was afraid that he might call her what she hadonce overheard Pet Bettany call her--"A common little mucker. " Thatsort of contempt seared like a splash of vitriol. 

Kedzie, like Zada, was a self-made lady and she wanted to conceal theauthorship from the great-grandmother-built ladies she encountered. 

She pouted a moment, then she said to the servant, "We'll see her. "She turned to Jim. "Come along. I'll go and pet your old cat andget her off my chest. "

CHAPTER XIII

Jim thudded dismally along in her wake. Charity was in thedrawing-room wearing her politest face. She could tell fromKedzie's very pose that she was as welcome as a submarine. 

Kedzie said, "Awfully decent of you to come, " and gave hera handful of cold, limp fingers. 

Charity politely pretended that she had called unexpectedly and thatshe was in dire need of Kedzie's aid. She made herself unwittinglyridiculous in the eyes of Kedzie, who knew and despised her motive, not appreciating at all the consideration Charity was trying to show. 

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Dyckman, " Charity began, "but I'vegot to throw myself on your mercy. A few of us are getting up a newstunt for the settlement-work fund. It is to be rather elaborateand ought to make a lot of money. It is to represent a day in thelife of a New York Bud. You can have your choice of several rôles, and I hope you will lend us a hand. "

Kedzie had heard of this project and she had gnawed her bitterheart in a chagrin of yearning to take part in it. She had not beeninvited, and she had blenched every time she thought of it. She wasso much relieved at being asked that she almost forgave Charity forher benevolence. She stammered: "It's awfully decent of you to askme. I'll do my bit with the greatest of pleasure. "

She rather regretted those last five words. They were a bit_Nimrimmy. _

Charity sketched the program for her. 

"The Bud is discovered in bed. A street piano wakes her. There isto be a dance to a hurdy-gurdy. Then the Bud has breakfast. It isserved by a dancing maid and butler. Tom Duane is to be the butler. You could be--no, you wouldn't fancy the maid, I imagine. "

Kedzie did not fancy the maid. 

Charity went on: "The girl dresses and goes to a rehearsal of theJunior League. That's to be a ballet of harlequins and columbines. She goes from there to her dressmaker's. I am to play the dressmaker. I have my _mannequins, _ and you might want to play one of thoseand wear the latest thing--or you could be one of the customers. Youcan think it over. 

"Then the girl is seen reading a magazine and there is a dance ofcover girls. If you have any favorite illustrator you could be oneof his types. 

"Next the Bud goes to an art exhibition. This year Zuloaga is thecraze, and several of his canvases will come to life. Do you carefor Zuloaga?"

"Immensely, but--" Kedzie said, wondering just what Zuloaga did tohis canvases. She had seen a cubist exhibition that gave her aheadache, and she thought it might have something to do with Zulus. 

Charity ran on: "After dinner the Bud goes to the theater and seesa pantomime and a series of ballets, dolls of the nations--Chinese, Polish, also nursery characters. You could select something in oneof those dances, perhaps. 

"And last of all there is a chimney-sweeps' dance as the worn-outBud crawls into bed. If none of these suit you we'd be glad to haveany suggestion that occurs to you. Of course, a girl of to-day doesa thousand more things than I've mentioned. But the main thing is, we want you to help us out. 

"You are--if you'll forgive me for slapping you in the face witha bouquet--you are exquisitely beautiful and I know that you danceexquisitely. "

"How do you know that?" Kedzie asked, rashly. 

"I saw you once as a--" Charity paused, seeing the red run acrossKedzie's face. She had stumbled into Kedzie's past again, andKedzie's resentment braced her hurt pride. 

Charity tried to mend matters by a little advice: "You mustn't blush, my dear Mrs. Dyckman. If I were in your place I'd go around braggingabout it. To have been a Greek dancer, what a beautiful past!"

"Thanks!" said Kedzie, curtly, with basilisk eyes. "I think I'drather not dance any more. I'm an old married woman now. If youdon't mind, I'll be one of the customers at your shop. I'll comein in the rippingest gown Jim can buy. I'll feel more comfortable, too, under your protection, Mrs. Cheever. "

Jim laughed and Kedzie grinned. But she was canny. She was thinkingthat she would be safest among that pack of wolves if she relied onher money to buy something dazzling rather than on the beauty thatCharity alleged. She did not want to dance before those people again. She would never forget how her foot had slipped at Newport. 

Thirdly, she felt that she would be sheltered a little frompersecution beneath the wing of Charity. It rather pleased herto treat Charity as a motherly sort of person. It is the mostdeliciously malicious compliment a woman can pay another. 

Charity did not fail to receive the stab. But it amused her so faras she was concerned. She felt that Kedzie was like one of thoseincorrigible _gamines_ who throw things at kindly visitors tothe slums. She felt sorry for Jim, and wondered again by what strangedevices he had been led to marry so incompatible a girl as Kedzie. 

Jim wondered, too. He sat and watched the two women, wondering as mendo when they see women painfully courteous to each other; wonderingas women must when they see men polite to their enemies. 

Charity and Kedzie prattled on in a kind of two-story conversation, and Jim studied them with shameless objectivity. He hardly heardwhat they said. He watched the pantomime of their so different soulsand bodies: Charity, lean and smart and aristocratic, beautiful ina peculiar mixture of sophistication and tenderness; Kedzie, smalland nymph-like and plebeian, beautiful in a mixture of innocenceand hardness of heart. 

Charity's body was like the work of a dashing painter--long linesdrawn with brave force and direction. Kedzie's body was a thing ofdainty curves and timidities. Charity was fashionable and wise, buther wisdom had lifted her above pettiness. Kedzie was of the village, for all her Parisian garb, and she had cunning, which is the lowestform of wisdom. 

When at length Charity left, Jim and Kedzie sat brooding. Kedziewanted to say something nice about Charity and was afraid to. Thepoor child always distrusted her generous impulses. She thought itcleverer to withhold trust from everybody, lest she misplace it insomebody. At length an imp of perversity taught her how to get ridof the credit she owed to Charity. She spoke after a long silence. 

"Mrs. Cheever must be horribly fond of you. "

"Why do you say that?" said Jim, startled. 

"Because she's so nice to me. "

Jim groaned with disgust. Kedzie giggled, accepting the groan asconfession of a palpable hit. She sat musing on various costumesshe might wear. She had a woman's memory for things she had caughta glimpse of in a shop-window or in a fashion magazine; she hada woman's imagination for dressing herself up mentally. 

As a trained mathematician can do amazing sums in his head, so Kedziecould juggle modes and combinations, colors and stuffs, and wraphem about herself. While Kedzie composed her new gown, her husbandstudied her, still wondering at her and his inability to get pastthe barriers of her flesh to her soul. Charity's flesh seemed butthe expression of herself. It was cordial and benevolent, warm andexpressive in his eyes. Her hands were for handclasp, her lips forgood words, her eyes for honest language. He had not embraced herexcept in dances years before, and in that one quickly broken embraceat Newport. He had not kissed her since they had been boy and girllovers, but the savor of her lips was still sweet in his memory. Hefelt that he knew her soul utterly. 

He had possessed all the advantages of Kedzie without seeming to getacquainted with the ultimate interior Kedzie at all. She was to himwell-known flesh inhabited by a total stranger, who fled from himmysteriously. When she embraced him she held him aloof. When shekissed him her lips pressed him back. He could not outgrow thefeeling that their life together was rather a reckless flirtationthan a communion of merged souls. 

He stared at her now and saw dark eyebrows and eyelashes etchedon a white skin, starred with irises of strange hue, a nose deftlyshaped, a mouth as pretty and as impersonal as a flower, a throatof some ineffably exquisite petal material. She sat with one kneelifted a little and clasped in her hands, and there was somethingmiraculous about the felicity of the lines, the arms pencileddownward from the shoulders and meeting in the delicately contouredbuckle of her ten fingers, the thigh springing in a suave arc fromthe confluent planes of her torse, the straight shin to the curveof instep and toe and heel. Her hair was an altogether incredibleextravagance of manufacture. 

George Meredith has described a woman's hair once for all, andif Jim had ever read anything so important as _The Egoist_he would have said that Kedzie's poll was illustrated in thatwonderfully coiffed hair-like sentence picturing Clara Middletonand "the softly dusky nape of her neck, where this way and thatthe little lighter-colored irreclaimable curls running truant fromthe comb and the knot-curls, half-curls, root-curls, vine-ringlets, wedding-rings, fledgling feathers, tufts of down, blown wisps--wavedor fell, waved over or up to involutedly, or strayed, loose anddownward, in the form of small silken paws, hardly any of them muchthicker than a crayon shading, cunninger than long, round locks ofgold to trick the heart. "

Kedzie's hair was as fascinating as that, and she had many gracesand charms. For a while they had proved fascinating, but a man doesnot want to have a cartoon, however complexly beautiful, for a wife. Jim wanted a congenial companion--that is to say, he wanted CharityCoe. 

But he could not have her. If he had been one of the patriarchs ora virtuous man of Mohammedan stock he could have tried, by marryinga female quartet, to make up one good, all-round wife. But he wasdoomed to a single try, and he had picked the wrong one. 

CHAPTER XIV

What is a man to do who realizes that he has married the wrongwoman?

The agonies of the woman who has been married to the wrong man havebeen celebrated innumerably and vats of tears spilled over them. Sheused to be consigned to a husband by parental choice and compulsion. Those days are part of the good old times. 

For a man there never has been any sympathy, since he has not usuallybeen the victim of parental despotism in the matter of selectinga spouse, or, when he has been, he has had certain privileges ofexcursion. The excursion is still a popular form of mitigating theseverities of an unsuccessful marriage. Some commit murder, somecommit suicide, some commit other things. Marriage is the one fieldin which instinct is least trustworthy and it is the one field inwhich it is accounted immoral to repent errors of judgments or tocorrect them. 

The law has found it well to concede a good deal to the criminals. After centuries of vain cruelty it was found that certain peoplesimply could not be made good by any rigor of confinement or anyheaping up of punishment. So the law has come down to the criminalwith results no worse at the worst than before, and sublimely betterat the best than before. The civil law is doing the same slowly forthe mal-married. 

But Jim Dyckman was not even dreaming of seeking a rescue fromhis mistake by way of a divorce. 

Charity had entered the divorce court and she would always bearthe reproach of some of her most valued friends. She could notimaginably encourage Jim Dyckman to free himself by the samechannel, and if he did, how could Charity marry him? The marriageof two divorced persons would provoke a tempest of horror from partof the world, and gales of ridicule from the rest. Besides, therewas no sign that Kedzie would ever give Jim cause for divorce, orthat he would make use of it if she gave it him. 

Charity could not help pondering the situation, for she saw that Jimwas hopelessly mismated. Jim could not help pondering the situation, for he saw the same thing. But he made no plans for release. Kedziehad given no hint of an inclination to misconduct. She was certainlynot going to follow Gilfoyle into the beyond. Jim was left helplesswith an unanswerable riddle on his mind. 

He could only curse himself for being fool enough to get married, and join the vast club of the Repenters at Leisure. He felt sorrierfor Kedzie than ever, but he also felt sorry for himself. 

The better he came to know his wife the more he came to know howalien she was to him in how many ways. The things she wanted to beor seem were utterly foreign to his own ideals, and if people'sambitions war what hope have they of sympathy?

Jim could not help noticing how Kedzie was progressing in hersnobology. She had had many languages to learn in her brief day. Shehad had to change from Missouri to flat New York, then upward throughvarious strata of diction. She had learned to speak with a certainelegance as a movie princess. But she had learned that people ofsocial position do not talk on stilts outside of fiction. She hadsince been trying to acquire the rough slang of her set. It was noteasy to be glib in it. She had attained only a careful carelessnessas yet. But she was learning! As soon as she had attained a carelesscarelessness she would be qualified. 

But there was another difficulty. She had not yet been able to makeup her mind as to what character she should play in her new world. That had to be settled before she could make her final choiceof dialect, for dialect is character, and she had found, to hersurprise, that the upper world contained as great a variety ofcharacters as any other level. 

There were tomboys and hoydens and solemn students; hard-workingsculptresses and dreamy poetesses; girls who wanted to be boys, andgirls who wanted to be nuns; girls who were frantic to vote, andgirls who loathed the thought of independence; girls who ached toshock people, and girls of the prunes-and-prismatic type, patriciansand precisians, anarchists and Bohemians. 

She encountered girls who talked appallingly about breeding dogs andbabies, about Freudian erotics, and new schools of art, Futurism, Vorticism. Their main interest was Ismism. There were others whoseintellectuality ran to new card-mathematics in pirate bridge, gambling algebra. 

Kedzie was in a chaos of sincere convictions and even more sincereaffectations. She could not select an attitude for herself. She couldnot recapture her own soul or decide what she wanted to be. 

Her life was busy. She had to learn French and numberless intricaciesof fashionable ethics. She had already learned to ride a horse forher moving-picture work, but Jim warned her that she must learn tojump so that she could follow the hounds with him. She watched pupilsin hurdling and dreaded to add that to her accomplishments. It madeher seasick to witness the race to the barrier, the gathering of thehorse, the launch into space, the clatter of the top bar as it cameoff sometimes, the grunting thud of the big brute as he returned toearth and galloped away, not always with the rider still aboard. Sheimagined herself skirled along the tan-bark and was afraid. 

She had to summon all the courage of her movie days before shecould intrust herself to a riding-master. Soon she grew to likethe excitement; she learned to charge a fence, hand the horse hishead at the right moment, and take him up at the exact second. Andby and by she was laughing at other beginners and talking horsy talkwith such assurance that she rather gave the impression of tracingstraight back to the Centaur family. 

Likewise now she watched other new-comers and rank outsiders breakinto the sacred inclosure. She mocked them and derided them. Sheregretted aloud the unfortunate marriages of well-born fellows withactresses and commoners from beyond the pale. Among the first Frenchwords she learned to use was _mésalliance_. 

She began to wonder if she had not made one herself. She foundinside the paddock so many men more brilliant than her husband. There were as many types of man as of woman--the earnest, theascetic, the socialistic, the pious youth, wastrels, rakes, fops. There were richer men than Jim and men of still older family, menof even greater wealth. 

She had been married only a few weeks and she was alreadyspeculating in comparisons! It was a more or less inescapableresult of a marriage for ambition, since each ambition achievedopens a horizon of further ambitions. 

She had a brief spell of delight in the rehearsals of the "Day ofthe Bud. " She met new people informally and they were all so shyand self-conscious that they were not inclined to resent Kedzie'sintrusion. Kedzie would once have ridiculed them as "amachoors";now she wished that she, too, were only an "amaturr" instead ofa reformed professional. 

If some of the ladies snubbed her she found others that cultivatedher; a few of the humbler women even toadied to her position; a fewof the men snuggled up to her picturesque beauty. She snubbed themwith vigor. She hated them and felt smirched by their challenges. That was splendid of her. 

She was beginning to find herself and her party, but outside thecircle of Jim's immediate entourage. And Jim was beginning to findhimself a new ambition and a new circle of friends. 

CHAPTER XV

Jim was becoming quite the military man. His new passion took himaway from womankind, saved him from temptation, and freed histhoughts from the obsession of either Kedzie or Charity. The wholenation was turning again toward soldiering, drifting slowly andresistingly, but helplessly, into the very things it had longdenounced as Prussianism and conscription. A universal mobilizationwas brewing that should one day compel all men and all women, evenlittle boys and girls and the very old, to become part of a giantmachinery for warfare. 

England, too, had railed at conscription, and when the war smote herhad seen her little army of a quarter of a million almost annihilatedunder the first avalanche of the German descent toward Paris. Englandhad gathered volunteers and trained them behind the bulwark of hernavy and the red wall of the bleeding French nation. And England hadgiven up volunteering and gone into the business of making everybody, without distinction of sex, age, or degree, contribute life andliberty and luxury to the common cause. 

Behind the bulwark of the British fleet and the Allied armiesthe United States had debated, not for weeks or months, but foryears with academic sloth the enlargement of its tiny army. It hadaccomplished only the debate, a ludicrous haggle between those whoturned their backs on the world war and said that war was impossibleand those who declared that it was inevitable. 

Some Americans asserted that it was none of America's business whathappened in Europe or how many American citizens died on the freeseas, and that the one way to bring war into our country was to beprepared for it. Other Americans grew angry enough to forswear theirallegiance to a nation of poltroons and dotards; they went to Franceor Canada to fight or fly for the Allies. Many of them died. Yetothers tried to equip themselves at home somewhat to meet the redflood when it should break the dam and sweep across the Americanborders. 

Of these last was Jim Dyckman. Since he had joined the NationalGuard he gave it more and more of his enthusiasm. Unhappily marriedmen have always fled to the barracks or the deck as ill-mated womenfled to convents. 

Night after night Jim spent at the armory, drilling with his company, conferring at headquarters, laboring for recruits, toiling over thepaper work. 

Kedzie pouted awhile at his patriotism, ridiculed it and hated it, and then accepted it as a matter of course. She could either stayat home and read herself to sleep or join the crowds. The rehearsalsof the "Day of the Bud" gave her some business, and she picked upa few new friends. She made her appearance with the company in athree-nights' performance that netted several thousands of dollars. Jim saw her once. She was gorgeous, a little too gorgeous. She didnot belong. She felt it herself, and overworked her carelessness. Her non-success hurt her bitterly. People did not say of her, asin the movies, "How sweet!" but, "Rather common!"

And now Kedzie was bewildered and lost. She found no comfort inJim. She had to seek companionship somewhere. At first she made herengagements only on Jim's drill nights. Soon she made them on nightswhen he was free. 

When they met, each found the other's experiences of no importance. Her indifference to the portentous meanings and campaigns of theEuropean war dazed him. He wondered how any human being could livein such epochal weeks and take no thought of events. She was notinterested even in the accounts of the marvelous sufferings of womenand their marvelous achievements in the munition-plants, the fields, and hospitals. He watched Kedzie skip the head-lines detailing somesublime feat of endeavor like the defense of Verdun and turn tothe page where her name was included or not among the guests ata dinner well advertised by the hostess. She would skip the pages ofphotographs showing forth the daily epics of Europe and ponder theillustrations of some new smock. He shook his head over her as if shewere a doll come to life and nothing stirring within but a music-boxand a sawdust heart. He was disappointed in her--abysmally. Hedevoted himself to his military work as if he were a bachelor. 

For the third year now the Americans were still discussing just whatsort of army it should have, and meanwhile getting none at all. 

The opponents of preparedness grew so ferocious in their attackson the pleaders for troops that the word "pacifist" becameironical. They seemed to think it a crime to assault anybodybut a fellow-countryman. 

All the while the various factions of unhappy Mexico fought togetherand threatened the peace of the United States. The Government thathad helped drag President Huerta from his chair with the help ofVilla and Carranza found itself in turn at odds with both its alliesand its allies at war with each other. 

There were scenes of rapine and flights of refugees that broughta little of Belgium to our frontier. And then the sombreros cameover the border at Columbus, New Mexico, one night with massacreand escape, and the tiny American army under Pershing went over theborder to get its erstwhile ally, Villa, dead or alive, and got himneither way. 

And still Congress pondered the question of the army as if it weresomething as remote and patient as a problem in sidereal arithmetic. Some asked for volunteers and some for universal service and somefor neither. The National Guard was a bone of contention, and whenthe hour struck it was the only bone there was. 

In June Jim Dyckman went to the officers' school of application atPeekskill for a week to get a smattering of tuition under RegularArmy instructors. He slept on a cot in a tent and studied map-makingand military bookkeeping and mimic warfare, and was tremendouslyhappy. 

Kedzie made a bad week of it. She missed him sadly. There was no oneto quarrel with or make up with. When he came back late Saturdaynight she was so glad to see him that she cried blissfully upon hisproud bosom. 

They had a little imitation honeymoon and went a-motoring on Sundayout into the lands where June was embroidering the grass withflowers and shaking the petals off the branches where young fruitwas fashioning. 

They discussed their summer schemes and she dreaded the knowledgethat in July he must go to the manoeuvers for three weeks. Theyagreed to get aboard his yacht for a little cruise before thatdreadful interlude. 

And then, early the next morning, the morning of the 19th of June, the knuckles of his valet on the door woke Jim from his slumberand a voice through the panels murmured:

"Very sorry, sir, but you are wanted on the telephone, sir--it'syour regiment. "

That was the way the Paul Reveres of 1916 summoned the troops toarms. 

Mr. Minute-Man Dyckman sat on the edge of his bed in his silk pajamaswith the telephone-receiver at his ear, and yawned: "H'lo. .. . Whois it?. .. What is it?. .. Oh, it's you, sergeant. .. . Yes?. .. No!. .. For God's sake!. .. I'll get out right away. "

"What's the matter? Is the house on fire?" Kedzie gasped from herpillow, half-awake and only half-afraid, so prettily befuddled shewas with sleep. She would have made a picture if Jim had had eyesto see her as she struggled to one elbow and thrust with her otherhand her curls back into her nightcap, all askew. Her gown wassliding over one shoulder down to her elbow and up to one out-thrustknee. 

Jim put away the telephone and pondered a moment. 

Kedzie caught at his arm. "What's the matter? Why don't youtell me!"

He spoke with a boyish pride of war and a husbandly solemnity: "ThePresident has called out the National Guard. We're to mobilize to-dayand get to the border as soon as we can. They hope that our regimentwill be the first to move. "

CHAPTER XVI

Kedzie's answer was a fierce seizure of him in her arms. She waspalsied with fright for him. She had seen more pictures of deadsoldiers than he knew, and now she saw her man shattered and torturedwith wounds and thirst. She felt in one swift shock what the wivesof Europe had felt by the million. She clung to Jim and sobbed:

"You sha'n't go! I won't let them take you! You belong to me!"

He gathered her awkwardly into his arms and they were more nearlymarried then than they had ever been or should ever be again. 

The pity of it! that only their separation could bring themtogether! Fate is the original Irish-bullster. 

Jim tried hurriedly to console Kedzie. He found her hard to makebrave. The early-morningness of the shock, the panic of scatteredsleep, gave her added terror. He had to be cruel at last. Withoutintention of humor he said:

"Really, honey, you know you just can't keep the Presidentwaiting. "

He tore loose the tendrils of her fingers and ran to his owndressing-room. She wept awhile, then rose to help accoutre him. He had his uniform at home still. 

In the Grecian simplicity of her nightgown, the very cream of silk, she might have been Andromache harnessing Hector. Only there was nobaby for him to leave with her, no baby to shrink in fright fromthe horsehair crest of the helmet that he did not wear. 

When he was all dressed in his olive-drab she still could not lethim go. She held him with her soft arms and twiddled the gun-metalbuttons of his blouse. And when at length she must make an end offarewells she hugged him with all her might and was glad that thehard buttons hurt the delicate breast that he felt against himsmotheringly sweet and perilously yielding. 

Not knowing how tame the event of all this war-like circumstance wasto prove, he suffered to the deeps of his being the keen ache ofseparation that has wrung so many hearts in this eternally battlingworld. War, the sunderer, had reached them with his great divorce. 

When he was free of her at last she followed him and caught newkisses. She ran shamelessly barefoot to the door to have the lastof his lips, called good-by to him when the elevator carried himinto the pit, and flung kisses downward after him. Then she stumbledback to her room and cried aloud. Liliane, her maid, came to helpher and Liliane wept with her, knowing all too well what war coulddo to love. 

Later Kedzie went to the armory and slipped through the massed crowdsto see Jim again. He was gloriously busy and it stirred her martiallyto see his men come up, click heels, salute, report, ask questions, salute, and retreat again. 

A few excited days of recruiting and equipping and then the ceremonyof the muster-in. Jim spent his nights at home, but his terrifiedmother and his none too stoical father were there to rival Kedziein devotion. 

Importance was in the air. There was a stir of history in the publicmood. The flags rippled with a new twinkle of stars and a fiercerwrithing of stripes. The red had the omen of blood. 

On the third day there was a ruffle of drums and a crying of brasson Fifth Avenue. People recalled the great days when the boys inblue had paraded away to the wars. Only this regiment marched up, not down, the Avenue. It was the Sixty-ninth, its flagstaff solidwith the silver rings of battle. It was moving north to themobilization-camp. 

On the ninth day the Seventh went down the Avenue, twelve hundredstrong, to entrain for Texas. The bullets of the foe were not theonly dangers. It was midsummer and these men were bound for thetropics and the cursed fields of sand where the tarantula, therattlesnake, and the scorpion lurked under the cactus. 

Jim's mother thought less of the Mexicans than of the fact thatthere were no sleeping-cars even for the officers. They would getthem on the way, but it would be a fearsome journey ever southwardinto the heat, six days in the troop-trains. 

Kedzie was proud of her husband, quite conceited about him, gladthat he was marching instead of standing on the curb. But her heart, doubled in bulk, pounded against her side like the leaden clapperof a broken bell. 

Jim caught sight of her where she stood on the steps of his father'shouse, and her eyes, bright with tears, saddened him. The fond gazeof his mother touched another well-spring of emotion, and the big, proud stare of his father another. 

But when by chance among the mosaic of faces he saw Charity Coethere was a sorrow in her look that made him stumble, and his heartlost step with the music. Somehow it seemed cruelest of all to leaveher there. 

CHAPTER XVII

The town was monstrously lonely when Kedzie turned back to herwidowhood. Jim's mother and father and sister were touched by hergrief and begged her to make their home hers, but she shook herhead. 

For a while her grief and her pride sustained her. She was theSpartan wife of the brave soldier. She even took up knitting asan appropriate activity. She thought in socks. 

But the hateful hours kept coming, the nights would not be brief, and the days would not curtail their length nor quicken their pace. The loathsome inevitable result arrived. 

Even her grief began to bore her. Fidelity grew inane, and heryoung heart shrieked aloud for diversion. 

If battles had happened down there, if something stirring had onlyappeared in the news, she could have taken some refreshment ofexcitement from the situation. Heroic demands breed heroes andheroines, but all that this crisis demanded was the fidelity oftorpor, the loyalty of a mollusk. 

Nothing happened except the stupid chronicles of heat and monotony. The rattlesnakes did not bite; the tarantulas scuttered away; thescorpions were no worse than wasps. The Mexicans did not attack orraid or attempt the assassinations which popular hostility acceptedas their favorite outdoor sport. Mexico continued her siesta whilethe United States sentineled the bedroom. 

Jim's letters told of scorching heat, of blinding duststorms, andcloudbursts that made lakes of the camps, but nothing else happenedexcept the welter of routine. 

The regiments had only police work to do, and the task grew irksome. Men began to think of their neglected businesses. The men who stayedat home were sharing bountifully in the prosperity of the times. Thevolunteers at the Border were wasting their abilities for fifteendollars a month. 

The officers began to resign by the score, by the hundred. As manyenlisted men dropped out as could beg off. Jim could afford to stay;he would not resign, though Kedzie wrote appeals and finally demandsthat he return to his wretched wife. 

Resentment replaced sorrow in her heart. She began to impute uglymotives to his absence. The tradition of the alluring Mexicansenorita obsessed her. She imagined him engaged in wild romanceswith sullen beauties. She was worried about guitar music andstilettoes. 

If there were beautiful señoritas there in McAllen, Jim did not seethem. His dissipations were visits to the movie shows and excursionsfor dinner to Mr. And Mrs. Riley's hotel at Mission. Liquor wasforbidden to officers and men under dire penalties, and Jim'sconviviality was restricted to the soda-water fountains. He becameas rabid a consumer of ice-cream cones and sundaes as a matinéegirl. It was a burlesque of war to make the angels hold their sides, if the angels could forget the slaughter-house of Europe. 

Jim felt that the Government had buncoed him into this comic-operachorus. He resented the service as an incarceration. But he wouldnot resign. For months he plodded the doleful round of his duties, ate bad food, poured out unbelievable quantities of sweat and easilybelievable quantities of profanity. 

On the big practice hike through the wilderness who that saw himstaggering along, choked with alkali dust, knouted by the sun, stabbed by the cactus, carrying two rifles belonging to worn-outsoldiers in addition to his own load, looking forward to theprivilege of throwing himself down by the roadside for ten minutes'respite, praying for the arrival in camp with its paradise of alittle shelter tent and beans and bacon for dinner or for breakfastor supper--who could have believed that he did not have to do it?That he had indeed at home soft luxuries, a rosy little wife, ayacht, and servants to lift his shoes from the floor for him?

It was easier, however, for him to get along thus there whereeverybody did the same than it was for Kedzie to get alongascetically in New York where nearly everybody she knew was gay. 

She might have gone down to Texas to see Jim, but when he wroteher how meager the accommodations were and how harsh the comforts, she pained him by taking his advice. Like almost all the otherwives, she stayed at home and made the best of it. 

The best was increasingly bad. Her lot, indeed, was none toocheerful. After her clandestine marriage she had confronted herhusband's parents, and the result was not satisfactory. She hadhad no honeymoon, and her husband's friends were chill toward her. Then he marched away and left her for half a year. 

She was young and pretty and restless. She had acquired a greedof praise. She had given up her public glory to be her husband'sprivate prima donna; and then her audience had abandoned her. 

Though her soul traveled far in a short time by the calendar, everymetamorphosis was slow and painful and imperceptible. She wept hereyes dry; then moped until her gloom grew intolerable. The firstdiversion she sought was really an effort of her grief to renewitself by a little repose. Her first amusement was for her grief'ssake. But before long her diversions were undertaken for diversion'ssake. 

She had to have friends and she had to take what she could get. Themore earnest elements of society did not interest her, nor she them. The fast crowd disgusted her at first, but remained the only onethat did not repulse her advances. 

Her first glimpses of the revelers filled her with repugnance andconfirmed her in what she had heard and read of the wickedness ofthe rich. The fact that she had seen also the virtuous rich, solemnrich, religious rich, miserly rich, was forgotten. The fact that inevery stage of means there are the same classes escaped her memory. She had known of middle classes where libertinism flourished, hadknown of licentiousness among the poor shopkeepers, shoddy intriguersin the humble boarding-houses. 

But now she felt that money made vice and forgot that vice is oneof the amusements accessible to the very poorest, to all who inheritflesh and its appetites. 

Gradually she forgot her horror of dissipation. The outswirling eddyof the gayer crowd began to gather and compel her feet. She lackedthe wisdom to attract the intellectuals, the culture to run withthe artistic and musical sets, the lineage to satisfy that curiousfew who find a congeniality in the fact that their ancestors wererespectable and recorded persons. 

In the fast gang she did not need to have or use her brains. Shedid not need a genealogy. Her beauty was her admission-fee. Herrestlessness was her qualification. 

Those who were careless of their own behavior were careless of theiraccomplices. They accepted Kedzie without scruple. They acceptedespecially the invitations she could well afford. She ceased to beafraid of a compliment. She grew addicted to flattery. She learnedto take a joke off-color and match it in shade. 

She met women of malodorous reputation and found that they were notso black as they had been painted. She learned how warm-hearted andcharitable a woman could be for whom the world had a cold shoulderand no charity. 

She extended her tolerance from men whose escapades had beennational topics to women who had been involved in distinguishedscandals and were busily involving themselves anew. Being tolerantof them, he had to be tolerant of their ways. Forgiving the sinnerhelps to forgive the sin. There are few things more endearing thanforgiveness. One of the most appealing figures in literature andart is the forgiven woman taken in adultery. 

And thus by easy stages and generous concessions Kedzie, who hadbegun her second marriage with the strictest ideals of behavior, found herself surrounded by people of a loose-reined life. Thingsonce abhorred became familiar, amusing, charming. 

It was increasingly difficult to resent advances toward her owncitadel which she had smiled at in others. She grew more and moregracious toward a narrowing group of men till the safety-in-numbersapproached the peril-in-fewness. She grew more and more graciousto a widening group of women, and they brought along their men. 

Kedzie even forgave Pet Bettany and struck up a friendship with her. Pet apologized to her other friends for taking up with Kedzie, bythe sufficient plea, "She gives such good food and drink at herboarding-house. "

Kedzie found Pet intensely comforting since Pet was full of gossipand satirized with contempt the people who had been treating Kedziewith contempt. It is mighty pleasant to hear of the foibles of oursuperiors. The illusion of rising is acquired by bringing things downto us as well as by rising to them. When Pet told Kedzie somethingbelittling about somebody big Kedzie felt herself enlarged. 

Pet had another influence on Kedzie. Pet was no more contemptuousof aristocrats than she was of people who were good or tried to be, or, failing that, kept up a decent pretense. 

Pet made a snobbery of vice and had many an anecdote of the lapsesof the respectable and the circumspectable. Her railing way broughtvirtue itself into disrepute and Kedzie was frightened out of herlast few senses. She fell under the tyranny of the _risqué_, which is as fell as the tyranny of the prudish. 

Prissy Atterbury had told Pet without delay of meeting Jim Dyckmanat Charity's home. Now that Pet was a crony of Kedzie's she recalledthe story. Finding Kedzie one day suffering from an attack ofscruples, and declining to accept an invitation because "Jim mightnot like it, " Pet laughed:

"Oh, Jim! What right has he got to kick? He didn't lose much timegetting back to his Charity Coe after he married you. "

"His Charity Coe!" Kedzie gasped. "What do you mean by his CharityCoe?"

"Why, his old reliable sweetheart. He's been silly about her sincebabyhood. When she married Pete Cheever he moped like a sick hound. And didn't he beat up Pete in a club only a few days before hemarried you?"

This was all news to Kedzie and it sickened her. She demanded morepoison, and Pet ladled it out joyously. 

She told Kedzie how Prissy Atterbury found Jim at Charity's home. But Kedzie remembered vividly that Jim had said he met Charity onthe street. And now she had caught him in a lie, a woman-lie! Hewas not there to explain that he visited Charity in Kedzie's behalf, and if he had explained it would only have embittered her the more. 

Being quite convinced now of Jim's perfidy, she denied thepossibility of it. 

"Jim's square, I'm sure. There couldn't be anything wrong with him. And Mrs. Cheever is an awful prig, everybody says. "

Pet whooped with laughter: "They're the worst sort. Why, onlya couple of years ago Jim and Charity were up in the Adirondacksalone together. Prissy Atterbury caught them sneaking back. "

So one lie was used to bolster another. The firmest structures canbe thus established by locking together things that will not standalone--as soldiers stack arms. Pet went on stacking lies and Kedziegrew more and more distressed, then infuriated. Her bitternessagainst Charity grew the more acid. Charity's good repute became nowthe whitewash on a sepulcher of corruption. Her resentment of thewoman's imagined hypocrisy and of her husband's apparent duplicityblazed into an eagerness for vengeance--the classic vengeance ofpunishing a crime by committing another of the sort. Like revengeslike; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a loyalty for aloyalty. 

CHAPTER XVIII

But now, as often happens in evil as in virtue, Kedzie had thewillingness, but not the resolution. She threw her scruples intothe waste-basket, accepted Pet's invitation, went with her andher crowd to one of the most reckless dances in Greenwich Village, where men and women strove to outdo the saturnalia of Montmartre, vied with one another in exposure, and costumed themselves asclosely according to the fig-leaf era as the grinning policemendared to permit. 

Kedzie screamed with laughter at some of the ribaldry and danced ina jostle of fauns, satyrs, nymphs, and maenads. Yet when her partnerclenched her too straitly she could not forget that she was the wifeof an absent soldier. And when on the way home he tried to flirtshe could not quell the nausea in her soul. 

But practice makes perfect and Kedzie was learning to be downrightbad, though yet awhile she gave but stingy reward to her assiduouscavaliers. She was what Pet called a _demi-veuve_ and unprofitableto the men she used as weapons of her revenge against her innocentand unwitting husband. 

There was another factor working toward her debasement and that wasthe emancipation of her pocket-book. It was a fairy's purse now andshe could not scatter her money faster than she found it renewed. Her entertainments grew more lavish and more reckless. She had aninspiration at last. She would put Jim's yacht into commission andtake a party of friends on a cruise, well chaperoned, of course. 

She sent instructions to the master of the vessel to get steam up. Knudsen sent back word that he would have to have an order from theboss. She promised to have him discharged and in her anger fireda telegram off to Jim, demanding that he rebuke the surly skipperand order the boat out. 

The telegram found Jim in a state of doldrums. The food had turnedagainst him, homesickness was like a fever in him, and the monotonyof his routine had begun to get his nerves. He was startled andenraged at Kedzie's request for permission to go yachting and hefired back a telegram:

 Knudsen was right I am astonished at your suggestion do not approve in the slightest. 

He regretted his anger when it was too late. Kedzie, who had alreadymade up her list of guests and received their hilarious acceptances, was compelled to withdraw the invitations. She would have boughta yacht of her own, but she could not afford it! She was not allowedso large a fund. She, Mrs. Dyckman, wanted something and could notafford it! What was the use of anything, anyhow?

Times had changed for Kedzie indeed when the little beggar from thecandy-store who had cried once when Skip Magruder, the bakery waiter, refused to take her to the movies twice in one Sunday, was cryingnow because her miser of a husband forbade her a turbine yacht asa plaything. 

She was crushed with chagrin and she felt completely absolved of thelast obligation. What kind of a brute had she married who would goaway on a military picnic among his nice, warm cacti and deny hispoor deserted wife a little boat-ride and a breath of fresh air?

If she had had any lingering inclination to visit Jim in Texas shegave it up now. She went to Newport instead and took Pet Bettanyalong for a companion--at Kedzie's expense, of course. 

Charity Coe Cheever was visiting Mrs. Noxon again and Kedziesnubbed her haughtily when she met her at the Casino or on Bailey'sBeach. Kedzie was admitted to that sacred surf of the Spouting RockAssociation now and she was as pretty a naiad as there was. 

But now she encountered occasional rebuffs from certain people, not only because she was common, but because she was reputed to befast. When the gossip-peddlers brought her this fierce verdict shewas hardened enough to scorn the respectables as frumps. She grewa little more impudent than ever and her pout began to take the formof a sneer. 

She lingered in and about Newport till the autumn came. Occasionalexcursions on other people's yachts or in her own cars or tohouse-parties broke the season, but she loved Newport. Jim's namehad given her entry to places and sets whence nobody quite had thecourage or the authority to dismiss her. 

At Newport there was a very handsome fool named Jake Vanderveer, distantly related to the charming Van-der Veers as well as the Vander Veers. He was even more distantly related to his own wife atthe time Kedzie met him. 

Pet Bettany had told Kedzie what a rotter Mrs. Jake was, and Kedziefelt awfully sorry for Jakie. So did Jakie. He was sophomoric enoughto talk about his broken heart and she was sophomoric enough tosuffer for him most enjoyably. 

A little sympathy is a dangerous thing. Married people run agreat risk unless they keep theirs strictly mutual and for homeconsumption. 

Jakie said he believed in running away from his grief. Kedzie ranwith him for company. People's tongues ran just as fast. Jakie wasmaking a lot of money in Wall Street and trying to drown his sorrowsthere. Kedzie was thrilled by his jargon of the market and he taughther how to read the confetti streamers that pour out of the ticker. Jakie confided to her a great scheme. 

"The only way I can keep that wife of mine from spending all mymoney is to spend it first. "

"You're a genius!" Kedzie said. A woman usually approves almostany scheme for keeping money away from another woman. 

"I'm going to make a killing next week, " said Jakie, "and I'm goingjust quietly to put a couple of thou. Up for my little pal Kedzie. You can't lose. If you win you can buy yourself five thousanddollars' worth of popcorn. "

Kedzie was enraptured. She would have some money at last that shedidn't have to drag out of her husband. She prayed the Lord fora rising market. 

Then Mrs. Dyckman sent for her. When Kedzie called the servants wereextremely solemn. Kedzie had to wait till the doctor left. He wasvery solemn, too. 

Kedzie found her mother-in-law in bed. She looked like a smallmountain after a snow-storm. It was strange to Kedzie to find oneso mighty brought low and speaking in so tiny a voice. Her husbandwas there and he was haggard with sympathy and alarm, a very elephantin terror. He was less courteous than usual to Kedzie and he left theroom at his wife's signal. Mrs. Dyckman was more gentle than ever. 

"Draw your chair up close, my child, " she whispered. "I want to havea little talk with you and my voice is weak. "

Kedzie was alarmed enough to revert to a simple phrase; "I'm awfullysorry you're sick. Are you very sick?"

"Very. There's such a lot of me, you know. It's disgusting. I'vescared my poor husband to death. I'm glad Jim isn't here to beworried. I hope I'll not have to send for him. But I'd like to. "

Kedzie felt a little quiver of alarm. She did not quite want Jimto come back just yet. She had grown used to his absence. His returnwould deprive poor Jakie of solace. 

Mrs. Dyckman took Kedzie's hand and stared at her sadly. 

"You're looking a little tired, my dear, if you'll forgive me forbeing frank. I'm very old and I very much want you and Jim to winout. Lying here I take things too anxiously, I suppose, but--I'mfrightened. I don't want my boy and you to go the way so many othercouples do. He's left you because his country needed him, or thoughtit did. It wouldn't look well to have him come back and find thatin his absence you had forgotten him. Now, would it?"

"Why, Mrs. Dyckman!" Kedzie gasped, getting her hand away. 

Mrs. Dyckman groped for it and took it back. "Don't be vexed. Or ifyou must be, pout as you used to. You mustn't grow hard, my child. Your type of beauty doesn't improve with cynicism. You must thinksweet thoughts or simply be petulant when you're angry. Don't growhard! If nothing else will move you let me appeal to your pride. You are traveling with a hard crowd, a cruel pack, Miss Bettany'spack, and a silly lot of men like Jake Vanderveer. And you mustn't, my child. You just mustn't get hard and brazen. Couldn't you giveup Miss Bettany? She's an absolutely unprincipled creature. She'sbad, and you must know it. Don't you?"

Kedzie could not answer, or would not. Mrs. Dyckman's voice grewpoignant. 

"I've lived so long and seen so much unhappiness. There is so muchtragedy across the water. My poor daughter has had a cable that herhusband's brother has been killed in France. Her husband has beenwounded; she is sailing back. So many men, so many, many men aredying. The machine-guns go like scythes all day long, and the poorfellows lie out there in the shrapnel rain--Oh, it is unbelievable. And Europe's women are undergoing such endless sorrow; every dayover there the lists contain so many names. So many of Cicely'sfriends have perished. Life never was so full of sorrow, my dear, but it is such a noble sorrow that it seems as if nobody, had anyright to any other kind of sorrow. 

"You are young, dear child. You are lonely and restless; but youdon't realize how loathsome it is to other people to see suchrecklessness going on over here while such lofty souls are going todeath in droves over there. The sorrow you will bring on yourselfand all of us, and on poor Jim, will be such a hateful sorrow, mydear, such an unworthy grief!"

Kedzie choked, and mumbled, "I don't think I know what you mean. "

Mrs. Dyckman petted her hand: "I don't think you do. I hope not. But take an old woman's word for it, be--be Caesar's wife?"

"Caesar's wife?" Kedzie puzzled. "What did she do?"

"It was what she didn't do. Well, I haven't the strength--or theright, perhaps--to tell you any more. Yes, I will. I must say thismuch. You are the subject of very widespread criticism, and Jimis being pitied. "

"Me criticized? Jim pitied? Why? For what?"

"For the things you do, my dear, the places you go, and the hoursyou keep--and the friends you keep. "

"That's disgusting!" Kedzie snarled. "The long-tongued gossips!They ought to be ashamed of themselves. "

Mrs. Dyckman's fever began to mount. She dropped Kedzie's handand tugged at the coverlet. 

"You'd better go, my dear. I apologize. It's useless! When did ageever gain anything by warning youth? I'm an old fool, and you'rea young one. And nothing will stop your ambition to run throughlife to the end of it and get all you can out of it. "

Kedzie felt dismissed and rose in bewildered anger. Mrs. Dyckmanheaved herself to one elbow and pointed her finger at Kedzie. 

"But keep away from Jake Vanderveer! and Pet Bettany! or--or--Sendmy nurse, please. "

She fell back gasping and Kedzie flew, in a fear that the old ladywould die of a stroke and Kedzie be blamed for it forever. Kedziewas so blue and terrified that she had to send for Jake Vanderveerto keep from going crazy. He told her that the market was still onthe climb, and that her sympathy had saved his life. He had beendesperate enough for suicide when he met her, and now he was oneof the rising little suns of finance. 

Mrs. Dyckman did not die, but she did not get well, and Jim'sfather wrote him that he'd better resign and come home. It would dohis mother a world of good, and he was doing the country no gooddown there. 

Jim was alarmed; he wrote out his resignation and submitted it tohis colonel, who showed him a new order from the War Departmentannouncing that no more resignations would be accepted except onthe most urgent grounds. Idleness was destroying the Guard fasterthan a campaign. Jim returned to the doldrums with a new resentment. He was a prisoner now. 

He had gone to Texas to find war and his wife to Newport to findgaiety. She found much more than that. On October 7th the old townwas stirred by something genuinely new in sensations--the arrivalof a German war submarine, the U-53. 

THE FOURTH BOOK

THE MARCHIONESS HAS QUALMS

CHAPTER I

A freight submarine, the _Bremen_, had recently excitedthe wonderment of a world jaded with miracles by crossing fromHelgoland to Norfolk with a cargo. But here was a war-ship thatdived underneath the British blockade. 

The dead of the Lusitania were still unrequited and unburied, butthe Germans had graciously promised President Wilson to sink nomore passenger-ships without warning, and they had been receivedback into the indulgence of the super-patient neutrals. 

And now came the under-sea boat to test American hospitality. It wasreceived with amazed politeness and the news flew through Newport, bringing the people flocking like children. An American submarineconducted its guest to anchorage. Mail for the ambassador was putashore and courtesy visits were exchanged with the commandant of theNarragansett Bay Naval Station. In three hours the vessel, not tooverstay the bounds of neutral hospitality, returned to the ocean. 

A flotilla of American destroyers convoyed it outside and calmlywatched while the monster halted nine ships off Nantucket, graciouslypermitted their crews and passengers to take themselves, but nobelongings, into open boats; then torpedoed the vessels one afteranother. 

The destroyers of the United States Navy stood by like spectators onthe bleachers, and when the submarine had quite finished the supplyof ships the obliging destroyers picked up the fragments in the openboats and brought them ashore. And the U-53 went on unchecked, afterone of the most astounding spectacles in the history of the sea. 

Charity Coe and other women waited on the docks till midnightarranging refuge for more than two hundred victims. It was a novelmethod for getting into Newport mansions. Even Kedzie took in anelderly couple. She tried to get a few young men, but they wereall taken. 

The next morning there was a panic in Wall Street and nearly twomillion shares were flung overboard, with a loss of five hundredmillion dollars in market values. Marine insurance-rates rose froma hundred to five hundred per cent. And it seemed that our oceantrade would be driven from the free seas. But everything had beendone according to the approved etiquette for U-boats, and therewas not even an official protest. 

Once more the Germans announced that they had wrecked the Britishnaval supremacy, as in the battle of Jutland, after which gloriousvictory the German fleet appeared no more in the North Sea. 

Nor was there any check in the throngs of merchant-vessels shuttlingthe ocean for the Allies. And that disgusted the Germans. Theirpromises to Mr. Wilson irked them. They lusted again for their oldpolicy of "ruthlessness"; "_Schrecklichkeit_" joined "_Gottstrafe_" in familiar speech, and Germany added America to her"Hymn of Hate. " Strange, that among all the warring peoples the onenation that went to battle with the most fervent religious spirit, even putting "_Gott mit uns_" on the uniforms of its soldiers, that nation contributed to the slang of the day no nobler phrasesthan "_Schrecklichkeit_" and "_strafe_" and the equivalentsof "scrap of paper" and "Hymn of Hate. "

All this meant little to Kedzie except that Jakie Vanderveer, who hadbeen her devoted squire for some time, was caught and ruined in themarket slump. Otherwise he might have ruined Kedzie, for he had beendazzling her more and more with his lavish courtship. When he losthis money he left Newport and Kedzie never knew how narrow an escapeshe had. She only knew that she did not make the money he promisedto make for her. She said that war was terrible. 

A pious soul would have credited Providence with the rescue. ButProvidence had other plans. One of the victims of the U-53 was ayoung English aviator, the Marquess of Strathdene. If the U-53had not sunk the ship that carried him Kedzie would have had anexceedingly different future. 

Strathdene had been a spendthrift, a libertine, and a loafer tillthe war shook England. He had been well shaken, too, and unsuspectedemotions were aroused. He had learned to fly and insulted the lawof gravity with the same impudence he had shown for the laws ofmorality. 

In due time he was joined to an air squadron. He risked his lifeevery moment he was aloft, but the danger became a negligible thingin the thrill of the liveliest form of big-game hunting thus farknown to man. In mid-sky he stalked his prey and was stalked by it;he chased German Taubes or was chased by them into clouds and out ofthem, up hill and down dale in ether-land amid the showers from belowof the raining aircraft guns. Strathdene knew how to dodge and duck, turn somersaults, volplane, spiral, coast downward on an invisibletoboggan-slide, or climb into heaven on an airy stair. 

The sky was full of such flocks; the gallant American gentlemenwho made up the Escadrille Lafayette went clouding with him, andMr. Robert Lorraine, the excellent actor, and Mr. Vernon Castle, the amiable revolutionist of the dance, and many and many anothereagle heart. Strathdene scouted valuably during the first battleof the Somme, his companion working the gun or the camera or thebomb-dropping lever as the need might be. 

And then one day a burst of shrapnel from the remote earth shatteredhis plane and him. A slug of iron went upward through his hip andanother nicked off a bit of his shoulder. But he brought his woundedmachine safely to earth and toppled into the arms of the hospitalaids; went backward in a motor-ambulance to a receiving-station, thenback in a train, then across the Channel, then across the ocean ina steamer to be sunk by a submarine and brought ashore in a lifeboat. Strathdene had pretty well tested the modern systems of vehiculartransportation. 

The surgeons mended his wounds, but his nerves had felt the shrapnel. That was why the sea voyage had been advised. Strathdene seemed tohave a magnetic gift for adventure. An aircraft gun brought him downfrom the clouds and a submersible ship came up from the deeps to havea try at him. Before long Kedzie would be saying that fate had takenall this trouble just to bring him and her together. 

In the transfer from the ship to the lifeboat Strathdene's woundswere wrenched and his sufferings renewed. He was lucky enough tofall into the hands of Charity Coe Cheever. She was a war nurseof experience, and he was soon well enough to try to flirt withher. But she had been experienced also in the amorous symptoms ofconvalescent soldiers and she repressed his ardor skilfully. Sheput an ice-cap on his heart and head. 

As soon as he was up and about again he met Kedzie. It seemed tobe her business to take away from Charity Coe all of Charity'sconquests, and the young Marquess found her hospitable to hishunger for friendship. 

Before the first day's acquaintance was over Kedzie was as fascinatedby his chatter as Desdemona was by Othello's anecdotes. 

One night Kedzie dreamed that she was a Marquessess or whateverthe wife of a Marquess would be styled. 

Kedzie was herself again. Kedzie was dreaming again. She had anambition for something higher than her station. She made haste toencourage the infatuated Marquess. Counting upon winning him somehowas her husband, she gave him encouragement beyond any she had givenher other swains. 

But Strathdene had no intention of marrying her or any other woman. His heart was in the highlands, the cloudlands; his heart was notthere. 

A purer patriot or a warrior more free of any taint of caution thanStrathdene could not be imagined, but otherwise he was as arranta scamp as ever. While he waited for strength to "carry on" in thebrave, new, English sense, it amused him to "carry on" in themischievous old American sense. 

Kedzie was determined that he should live long enough for her tofree herself from Jim and make the marquisate hers. She seemed to besucceeding. She found Strathdene as easy of fascination as her oldmovie audiences had been. He even tried to write poetry about herpout; but he was a better rider on an aeroplane than on Pegasus. 

Kedzie was soon wishing for Jim's return, since she could not see howto divorce him till he appeared. She tried to frame a letter askingfor her release, but it was not easy writing. She felt that shewould have a better chance of success if Jim were within wheedlingdistance. But Jim remained away, and Kedzie grew fonder and fonderof her Marquess, and he of her. 

Perhaps they were really mated, their pettinesses and selfishnessespeculiarly complemental. In any case, they were mutually bewitched. 

Their dalliance became the talk of Newport. Everybody believed thatwhat was bad enough at best was even worse than it was. Charity Coeheard the couple discussed everywhere. She was distressed on Jim'saccount. And now she found herself in just the plight that hadtortured Jim when he knew that Peter Cheever was disloyal to Charityand longed to tell her, but felt the duty too odious. So Charitypondered her own obligation. She was tempted to write Jim ananonymous letter, but had not the cowardice. She was tempted towrite to him frankly, but had not the courage. She did at last whatJim had done--nothing. 

Jim's mother had heard of Vanderveer's disappearance from Kedzie'sentourage and she had improved with hope. When she learned thatStrathdene was apparently infatuated she grew worse and telegraphedJim to ask for a leave of absence. She did not tell Kedzie of hertelegram or of Jim's answer. 

Pet Bettany flatly accused Kedzie of being guilty, and referred tothe Marquess as her paramour. When Kedzie furiously resented herinsolence Pet laughed. 

"The more fool you, if you carry the scandal and lose the fun. "

Kedzie was more afraid of Pet's contempt than of a better woman's. She began to think herself a big fool for not having been a biggerone. She fell into an altogether dangerous mood and she could nolonger save herself. She almost prayed to be led into temptation. The unuttered prayer was speedily answered. 

She went motoring with Strathdene late one night in a car he hadhired. When he ventured to plead with her not to go back to her homewhere her servants provided a kind of chaperonage, she made onlya formal protest or two. He stopped at a roadside inn, a secludedplace well known for its unquestioning hospitality. 

Strathdene, tremulous with victory, led Kedzie to the dining-roomfor a bit of sup and sip. The landlord escorted them to a nook ina corner and beckoned a waiter. Kedzie was studying the bill of farewith blurred and frightened vision when she heard the footsteps ofthe waiter plainly audible in the quiet room. They had a curiousrhythm. There was a hitch in the step, a skip. 

Her heart stopped as if it had run into a tree. The "skip" broughtdown on her soul a whole five-foot shelf of remembrances of her firstNew York love-affair with the lame waiter in the bakery. All her goodfortune had been set in motion by poor, old, shabby "Skip. " She hadsoared away like some rainbow-hued bubble gently releasing itselffrom the day pipe that inflated it out of the suds of its origin. 

Kedzie had learned to be ashamed of Skip as long ago as when she wasa Greek dancer. She had not seen or heard of him since she sent himthe insulting answer to his stage-door note. And now he had savedhimself up for a ruinous reappearance when she was in the companyof a Marquess--and on such an errand!

What on earth was Skip doing so far from the Bronx and in theenvirons of Newport, of all places? It occurred to Kedzie thatSkip might ask her the same question. 

CHAPTER II

The terror his footsteps inspired was confirmed by the unforgetablevoice that came across her icy shoulder-blades. He slapped the chinaand silver down with the familiar bravura of a quick-lunch waiter, and her heart sank, remembering that she had once admired his skill. 

The Marquess looked up at him with a glare of rebuke as Skip posedhimself patiently with one hand, knuckles down, on the table, theother on his hip, and demanded, with misplaced enthusiasm:

"Well, folks, what's it goin' to be?"

The Marquess had been somewhat democratized by his life in the army, and, being a true Briton, he always expected the worst in America. He proceeded to order a light supper that would not take too long. Skip crushed him by saying:

"Ain't the little lady takin' nothin'?"

Kedzie was afraid to speak. She put her finger on the menu at achafing-dish version of chicken, and the Marquess added it to hisorder. Skip shuffled away without recognizing Kedzie. She waitedonly for his exit to make her own. 

It was terrifying enough to realize that the moment Skip caughta glimpse of her he would hail her noisily and tell the Marquessall about her. There still lingered in Kedzie a little more honestythan snobbery and she felt even less dread of being "bawled out" bya waiter in the presence of a Marquess than of having Skip Magruderknow that she was in such a place even with a Marquess. Skip hadbeen good to her and had counseled her to go straight. 

She felt no gratitude toward him now, but she could not face hiscontempt. That would be degradation beneath degradation. She wasdisgusted with everything and everybody, including herself. Theglamour of the escapade was dissipated. The excitement of an illicitamour so delicious in so many farces, so tenderly dramatic in somany novels, had curdled. She saw what an ugly business she was inand she was revolted. 

Kedzie waited only to hear the swinging door whiff after Skip'ssyncopated feet, then she whispered sharply across the table tothe Marquess:

"Take me out of this awful place. I don't know what I'm doing here. I won't stay! not a moment!"

"But we've ordered--"

"You stay and eat, then. I won't stop here another minute!"

She rose. She smothered the Marquess's protests about theawkwardness, the ludicrousness of such a flight. 

"What will the waiter think?" he asked, being afraid of a waiter, though of no one else. 

Kedzie did not care what the waiter thought, so long as he did notknow whom he thought it of. Strathdene gave the headwaiter a billand followed Kedzie out. He was hungry, angry, and puzzled. 

Skip Magruder never knew what a chaperon he had been. If Providencemanaged the affair it chose an odd instrument, and intervened, asusual, at the last moment. Providence would save itself a good dealof work if it came round a little earlier in these cases. Perhaps itdoes and finds nobody awake. 

Strathdene demanded explanations. Kedzie told him truth but notall of it. 

"It suddenly swept over me, " she gasped, "how horrible it wasfor me to be there. "

She wept with shame and when he would have consoled her she kept himaloof. The astonishing result of the outing was that both came homebetter. It suddenly swept over Strathdene that Kedzie was innocenterthan he had dreamed. She was good! By gad! she was good enough to bethe wife even of a Strathdene. He told Kedzie that he wished to Godhe could marry her. She answered fervently that she wished to God hecould. 

He asked her "You don't really love that Dyckman fella, do you?"

"I don't really love anybody but you, " said Kedzie. "You are thefirst man I have really truly loved. "

She meant it and it may have been true. She said it with sincerityat least. One usually does. At any rate, it sounded wonderful toStrathdene and he determined to make her his. He would let Englandmuddle along somehow till he made this alliance with the beautifulMissourienne. But Kedzie's plight was again what it had been; shehad a husband extra. In some cases the husband is busy enough withhis own affairs to let the lover trot alongside, like the thirdhorse which the Greeks called the _pareoros_. But neither Jimnor Strathdene would be content with that sort of team-work, andKedzie least of all. 

She and Strathdene agreed that love would find the way, and Kedziesuggested that Jim would probably be decent enough to arrange thewhole matter. He had an awfully clever lawyer, too. 

Strathdene had braved nearly every peril in life except marriage. He was determined to take a shy at that. He and Kedzie talked theirhoneymoon plans with the boyishness and girlishness of nineteenand sixteen. 

Then Kedzie remembered Gilfoyle. She had thanked her stars that shetold Dyckman the truth about him in time. And now she was confrontedwith the same situation. Since her life was repeating its patterns, it would be foolish to ignore the lessons. So after some hesitationshe told the Marquess that Jim Dyckman was not her first, but hersecond. She told it very tragically, made quite a good story of it. 

But the Marquess had been intrepid enough to laugh when, out of alarge woolly cloud a mile aloft, a German flying-machine had suddenlycharged him at a hundred miles an hour. He was calm enough now tolaugh at the menace of Kedzie's past rushing out of the pink cloudabout her. 

"The more the merrier, " he said. "The third time's the charm. "

He sighed when he was alone and thought it rather shabby that Cupidshould land him at last with a second-handed, a third-hearted arrow. But, after all, these were war times and Economy was the universalwatchword. The arrow felt very cozy. 

CHAPTER III

Unselfishness is an acquired art. Children rarely have it. That iswhy the Greeks represented love of a certain kind as a boy, selfish, treacherous, ingratiating, blind to appearances, naif, gracefullyruthless. 

Kedzie and Strathdene were enamoured of each other. They were bothzealots for experience, restless and reckless in their zest of life. As soon as they were convinced of their love, every restraint becamean illegal restraint, illegal because they felt that only the law oflove had jurisdiction over them. 

When Kedzie received a telegram from Jim that he had secured a leaveof absence for thirty days and would be in Newport in four she feltcruelly used. She forgot how she had angled for Jim and hustled himinto matrimony. 

She was afraid of him now. She thought of him as many women incaptured cities once regarded and have recently again regardedthe triumphing enemy as one who would count beauty the best partof the booty. 

Her loyalty to Strathdene was compromised, her delicacy washorrified. She was distraught with her plight. 

She had to tell the news to Strathdene and he went into frenzies ofjealousy. She had pledged herself to be his as soon as she could liftthe Dyckman mortgage. If a man is ever going to be jealous he shouldcertainly find occasion for the passion when he is betrothed to thewife of a returning soldier. Strathdene ought to have been on his wayback to the aviation-camp, but he had earned the right to humor hisnerves, and Kedzie was testing them beyond endurance. 

It was a tragical-comical dilemma for Kedzie. Even she, with hergift for self-forgiveness, could not quite see how she was toexplain prettily to her husband that in his absence she had fallenin love with another man. Wives are not supposed to fall in lovewhile their husbands are at the wars. It has been done, but it ishard to prettify. 

Kedzie beat her forehead in vain for a good-looking explanation. Shewas still hunting one when Jim came back. He telegraphed her that hewould come right through to Newport, and asked her to meet him atthe train. She dared not refuse. She simply could not keep her glibpromises to Strathdene. It seemed almost treason to the country fora wife to give her warrior a cold welcome after his tropical service. She met him at the Newport station. He was still in uniform. He hadtaken no other clothes to Texas with him and had not stopped to buyany. He was too anxious about his mother to pause in New York. Hehad telegraphed his tailor to fit him out and his valet to pack histhings and bring them to Newport. 

Kedzie found him very brown and gaunt, far taller even than sheremembered. She was more afraid of him than ever. Strathdene wasonly a little taller than she. She was afraid to tell Jim that shewas another's. 

But she made a poor mimicry of perfect bliss. Jim was not critical. She was more beautiful than he remembered her. He told her so, andshe was flattered by his courtship, miserably treacherous as shefelt. 

She was proud to be a soldier's wife. She was jealous now of hisconcern for his mother. He had to go see her first. He was surprisedto learn that Kedzie was not living with her. His mother had begunto improve from the moment she had Jim's telegram. But her eyes onKedzie were terrible. 

Jim did not notice the tension. He was too happy. He was sick ofsoldiering. His old uniform was like a convict's stripes. He waschildishly ambitious to get into long trousers again. For nearlyhalf a year he had buttoned his breeches at the knee and housedhis calves in puttees and his feet in army brogans. 

It was like a Christmas morning among new toys for him to put onmufti, and take it off. A bath-tub full of hot water was a paradiseregained. Evening clothes with a big white shirt and a top-hat wererobes of ascension. But the clothes made to his old measurementswere worlds too wide for his shrunk shanks. He had lost tons, hesaid, in Texas. 

Before daybreak the first morning he terrified his cellmate, Kedzie, by starting up in his sleep with a gasp: "Was that reveille? My God, I'll be late!"

The joy of finding himself no longer in a tent and of falling backon his pillow was worth the bad dream. Life was one long bad dreamto Kedzie. She was guilty whichever way she turned, and afraid ofboth men. 

Jim had a valet to wait on him. He had the problem of selecting hisscarf and his socks for the morning. Jim had come into a lot ofmoney. He had been earning a bank clerk's salary, with no way ofspending it. And now he had a bank to spend and a plenty of placesto throw it. 

But it was hard for him to believe that he was a free man again. He was amazed to find Newport without cactus and without a scorpion. He kept looking for a scorpion on his pillow. He found one there, but did not recognize her. 

Jim was as much of a parvenu in Newport as Kedzie had ever been. Heswept her away at times by his juvenile enthusiasm and she neglectedStrathdene atrociously for a week. 

A large part of the colony had decamped for New York and Boston andChicago, but those that remained made a throng for Jim. His motherwas not well enough to be moved back to New York, but his sisterhad reached England safely and he was happy in his luxuries. 

But he was the only one that was. His mother was bitter againstKedzie for having fed the gossips. Kedzie was assured that lifewith Jim had nothing new to offer and she resented him as a barrierbetween herself and the glory of her future with Strathdene and"the stately homes of England. "

Her mother and father arrived in Newport. Kedzie tried to suppressthem for fear that Strathdene might feel that they were the lasttwo back-breaking straws. But she needed a confidante and she toldher mother the situation. 

Mrs. Thropp, like Kedzie, had an ambition that expanded as fast asopportunity allowed. She was dazzled by the thought of being elevatedto the peerage. She supposed it made her a relative of royalty. Shewho had once dreamed of being neighborly with the great Mrs. Dyckmanwas now imagining herself exchanging crocheting formulas with QueenMary. She was saying she had always heard the Queen well spoke of. And Adna Thropp spoke very highly of "George. "

They agreed that it was their sacred duty to place the name ofThropp as high as it could go, cost what it would. 

"After all, " said Adna one day, looking up from an article in aSunday paper--"after all, why ain't Thropp as likely a name asWettin? Or Hohenzollern? And what was Romanoff but an ordinaryfamily once?"

The only thing that seemed to stand in Kedzie's way was the odiousname of Dyckman. 

"What's Dyckman, anyway?" said Mrs. Thropp. "Nothin' but a commonold Dutch name. "

But how to shake it off was the problem. Kedzie had to cling toStrathdene with one hand while she tried to release herself fromthe Dyckmans with the other. 

She had a dreadful feeling that she might lose them both if shewere not exceedingly careful and exceedingly lucky. 

Help came to her unexpectedly from Charity Coe, unexpectedly, though Charity was always helping Kedzie. 

CHAPTER IV

Charity Coe had been tormented by the spectacle of her friend's wifeflirting recklessly with the young Marquess of Strathdene while herhusband was at the Border with the troops. But she was far moresharply wrung when she saw Kedzie flirting with her husband, playingthe devoted wife with all her might and getting away with it toperfection. 

There is hardly anything our eyes bring us that is more hideousthan known disloyalty successfully masquerading as fidelity. TheJudas kiss is not to be surpassed in human detestation. 

With almost all the world in uniform, Newport welcomed the sightof one of her own men returned even from what was rather a siestathan a campaign, and old Mrs. Noxon insisted on giving a big partyfor Jim. She insisted so strongly that Kedzie did not dare refuse, though she had vowed never to step inside the grounds where she hadmade her Newport debut as a hired nymph. 

Charity tried to escape by alleging a journey to New York, butMrs. Noxon browbeat her into staying. Charity did not know thatStrathdene was invited till she saw him come in with the crowd. Neither did Kedzie. Old Mrs. Noxon may have invited him for spiteagainst Kedzie or just as an international courtesy to the mostdistinguished foreigner in town. 

She introduced Jim and the Marquess, saying, "You great warriorsshould know each other. "

Jim felt sheepish because he had been to no war and Strathdenefelt sheepish because Jim was so much taller than he. He looked upat him as Napoleon looked enviously up at men who had no glory buttheir altitude. Strathdene was also sheepish because Jim said, verysimply:

"Do you know my wife?"

If he had not been so tall that he saw only the top of Kedzie'scoiffure he would have seen that her face was splashed with red. She mumbled something while Strathdene stammered, "Er--yes--I havehad that privilege. " He felt a sinking sensation as deadly as whenhe had his first fall at the aviation school. 

Kedzie dragged Jim away and paid violent attention to him allthrough dinner. Her sympathy was entirely for her poor Strathdene. She was afraid he would commit suicide or return to England withouther, and she could not imagine how to get rid of Jim. Then shecaught sight of Charity Coe, and greeted her with a smile ofsincere delight. 

For once Kedzie loved Charity. Suddenly it came upon her what abeautiful solution it would be for everybody if Jim could takeCharity and leave Kedzie free to take Strathdene. She told herselfthat Jim would be ever so much happier so, for the poor fellowwould suffer terribly when he found that his Kedzie really couldnot pretend to love him any longer. Kedzie felt quite tearful overit. She was an awfully good-hearted little thing. To turn him overto Charity would be a charming arrangement, perfectly decent, andno harm to anybody. If only the hateful laws did not forbid theexchange--dog-on 'em, anyway!

The more Kedzie studied Charity the more suitable she seemed asa successor. Her heart warmed to her and she forced an opportunityto unload Jim on Charity immediately after dinner. 

There was music for the encouragement of conversation, anexpensively famous prima donna and a group of strings broughtdown from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. 

The prima donna sang Donna Elvira's ferocious aria full ofindignation at discovering Don Giovanni's Don Juanity. 

Charity, noting that Kedzie had flitted straight to Strathdene andwas trying to appease his cold rage, felt an envy of the prima donna, who was enabled to express her feelings at full lung power with thefortissimo reinforcement of several powerful musicians. The primevalwoman in Charity longed for just such a howling prerogative, but theactual Charity was so cravenly well-bred that she dared not even sayto her dearest friend, "Jim, old man, you ought to go over and wringthe neck of that little cat of yours. "

Jim sat beaming at Kedzie and Kedzie beamed back while she murmuredsweet everythings to her little Marquess. Jim seemed to imagine thathe had left her in such a pumpkin shell as Mr. Peter P. Pumpkineaterleft his wife in, and kept her so very well. But Kedzie was not thatkind of kept or keepable woman. 

Jim would have expected that if Kedzie were guilty of any spiritualcorruption it would show on her face. People will look for suchthings. But she was still young and pretty and ingenuous and seemedincapable of duplicity. And indeed such treachery was no morethan a childish turning from one toy to another. The traitors andtraitresses have no more sense of obligation than a child feelsfor a discarded doll. 

Jim paid Charity the uncomfortable compliment of feeling enough athome with her to say, "Well, Charity, that little wife of mine takesto the English nobility like a duck seeing its first pond, eh?"

"She seems to be quite at her ease, " was all that Charity couldsay. Now she felt herself a sharer in the wretched intrigue, as treacherous as Kedzie, no better friend than Kedzie was wife, because with a word she could have told Jim what he ought to haveknown, what he was almost the only person in the room that didnot know. Yet her jaw locked and her tongue balked at the merethought of telling him. She protected Kedzie, and not Jim; feltit abominable, but could not brave the telling. 

She resolved that she would rather brave the ocean and get backto Europe where there were things she could do. 

The support of all the French orphans she had adopted had madedeep inroads in her income, but her conscience felt the deeperinroads of neglected duty. 

It was like Charity to believe that she had sinned heinously whenshe had simply neglected an opportunity for self-sacrifice. Whenother people applauded their own benevolence if they said, "Howthe soldiers must suffer! Poor fellows!" Charity felt ashamed ifher sympathy were not instantly mobilized for action. 

A great impatience to be gone rendered her suddenly frantic. Whileshe encouraged Jim to talk of his experiences in Texas she wasmaking her plans to sail on the first available boat. 

If the boat were sunk by a submarine or a mine, death in thestrangling seas would be preferable to any more of this driftingamong the strangling problems of a life that held no promise ofhappiness for her. She felt gagged with the silence imposed uponher by the code in the very face of Kedzie's disloyalty, adisloyalty so loathsome that seeing was hardly believing. 

It seemed inconceivable that a man or woman pledged in holy matrimonycould ever be tempted to an alien embrace. And yet she knew dozensof people who made a sport of infidelity. Her own husband had foundtemptation stronger than his pledge. She wondered how long he wouldbe true to Zada, or she to him. Charity had suffered the disgrace ofbeing insufficient for her husband's contentment, and now Jim mustundergo the same disgrace with Kedzie. It was a sort of post-nuptialjilt. 

Of course Charity had no proof that Kedzie had been more thanbrazenly indiscreet with Strathdene, but that very indifferenceto gossip, that willingness to stir up slander, seemed so odiousthat nothing could be more odious, not even the actual crime. 

Besides, Charity found it hard to assume that a woman who heldher good name cheap would hold her good self less cheap, sincereputation is usually cherished longer than character. 

In any case, Charity was smothering. Even Mrs. Noxon's vastdrawing-room was too small to hold her and Jim and Kedzie andStrathdene. America was too strait to accommodate that janglingquartet. 

She rose abruptly, thrust her hand out to Jim and said:

"Good night, old man. I've got to begin packing. "

"Packing for where? New York?"

"Yes, and then France. "

"I've told you before, I won't let you go. "

And then it came over him that he had no right even to be dejectedand alarmed at Charity's departure. Charity felt in the suddenrelaxing of his handclasp some such sudden check. She smiledpatiently and went to tell Kedzie good night. 

Kedzie broke out, "Oh, don't go--yet!" then caught herself. She alsofor quite a different reason must not regret Charity's departure. Charity smiled a smile of terrifying comprehension, shook her head, and went her ways. 

And now Jim, released, wandered over and sat down by Kedzie justas she was telling Strathdene the most important things. 

She could not shake Jim. He would not talk to anybody else. Shewished that Charity had taken Jim with her. Strathdene was ascomfortable as a spy while Jim talked. Jim seemed so suspiciouslyamiable that Strathdene wondered how much he knew. 

Jim did not look like the sort of man who would know and becomplacent, but even if he were ignorant Strathdene was toooutright a creature to relish the necessity for casual chatterwith the husband of his sweetheart. 

He, too, made a resolution to take the first boat available. Hewould rather see a submarine than be one. 

Strathdene also suddenly bolted, saying: "Sorry, but I've got torun myself into the hangar. My doctor says I'm not to do any nightflying. "

And now Kedzie was marooned with Jim. She was in a panic aboutStrathdene; a fantastic jealousy assailed her. To the clandestineall things are clandestine! What if he were hurrying away to meetCharity? Charity returned to Kedzie's black books, and Jim joinedher there. 

"Let's go home, " said Kedzie, in the least honeymoony of tones. 

Jim said, "All right, but why the sudden vinegar?"

"I hate people, " said Kedzie. 

"Are husbands people?" said Jim. 

"Yes!" snapped Kedzie. 

She smiled beatifically as she wrung Mrs. Noxon's hand and perjuredherself like a parting guest. And that was the last smile Jim sawon her fair face that night. 

He wondered why women were so damned unreasonably whimsical. Theymay be damned, but there is usually a reason for their apparentwhims. 

CHAPTER V

The next day Kedzie was still cantankerous, as it was perfectlynatural that she should be. She wanted to be a Marchioness and sailaway to the peerful sky. And she could not cut free from her anchor. The Marquess was winding up his propeller to fly alone. 

Jim, finding her the poorest of company, called on his mother. Shewas well enough to be very peevish. So he left her and wandered aboutthe dull town. He had no car with him and he saw a racer that caughthis fancy. It had the lean, fleet look of a thoroughbred horse, andthe dealer promised that it could triple the speed limit. He wentout with a demonstrator and the car made good the dealer's word. Itran with such zeal that Jim was warned by three different policemenon the Boston Post Road that he would be arrested the next time hecame by in such haste. 

He decided to try it out again at night on other roads. He told thedealer to fill up the tank and see to the lights. The dealer toldthe garage man and the garage man said he would. 

That evening at dinner Jim invited Kedzie to take a spin. She saidthat she had to spend the evening with her mother, who was miserable. Jim said, "Too bad!" and supposed that he'd better run in and say"Howdy-do" to the poor soul. Kedzie hastily said that she would beunable to see him. She would not even let Jim ride her over in hisnew buzz-wagon. 

Again he made the profane comment to himself that women areunreasonable. Again this statement was due to ignorance of anexcellent reason. 

Kedzie had tried all day to get in touch with Strathdene. When sheran him down at length by telephone he was dismally dignified andterrifyingly patriotic. His poor country needed him and he mustreturn. 

This meant that Kedzie would lose her first and doubtless her lastchance at the marquisate. She pleaded for a conference. He assentedeagerly, but the problem was where to confer. She dared not invitehim to the house she had rented, for Jim would be there. She couldnot go to Strathdene's rooms at the Hilltop Inn. She thought of theapartment she had stowed her mother in, and asked him there. Thenshe telephoned her mother to suppress dad and keep out of sight. 

She was afraid to have Jim take her to her mother's address lest herwoeful luck should bring Strathdene and Jim together at the door. That was her excellent reason for rebuffing her husband's courtesyand setting out alone. 

Her mother was only too willing to abet Kedzie's forlorn hope. Itwas the forlornness of Kedzie that saved her. When Strathdene sawher in her exquisite despair he was helpless. He was no Hun to breakthe heart of so sweet a being, and he believed her when she told himthat she would die if he tried to cross the perilous ocean withouther. She told him that she would throw herself on Jim's mercy thenext day and implore her freedom. He would not refuse her, sheassured him, for Jim was really awfully generous, whatever faultshe might have. 

Strathdene could well believe that she would have her way with herhusband since he found her absolutely irresistible himself. Theconference lasted long, and they parted at last as Romeo and Julietwould have parted if Juliet had been married to the County Parisbefore Romeo met her. 

Kedzie even promised Strathdene that she would not wait till themorning, but would at once demand her husband's consent to thedivorce. It was only on such an understanding that Strathdene couldendure to intrust his delicate treasure to the big brute's keeping. 

Kedzie entered her home with her oration all primed. But Jim wasnot there. He did not come home that night. Kedzie's anxiety wasnot exactly flattering, but it was sincere. 

She wondered if some accident had befallen him in his new car. She really could not bear the thought of losing another husband bya motor accident. Suppose he should just be horribly crippled. Thenshe could never divorce him. 

She hated her thoughts, but she could not be responsible for them. Her mind was like a lighthouse in a storm. It was not to blame forwhat wild birds the winds brought in from the black to dash againsther soul. 

But Jim was neither killed nor crippled. The cards still ranfor Kedzie. 

CHAPTER VI

Speaking of cards, Jim was like a gambler with a new pack of themand nobody to play with. 

He darted hither and yon in his racer, childishly happy in itspaces, childishly lonely for somebody to show off before. As heran along the almost deserted sea road he passed the Noxon home. 

He knew that Charity was visiting there. He wondered which of thelighted windows was hers. After much backing and filling he turnedin and ran up to the steps. He got out and was about to ring thebell when he heard a piano. He went along the piazza to a window, and, peering in, saw Charity playing. She was alone in themusic-room and very sadly beautiful. 

He tapped on the window. She was startled, rose to leave the room. He tapped again, remembering an old signal they had had as boy andgirl lovers. She paused. He could see her smile tenderly. She cameforward to the window and stared out. He stared in. Only a pane ofglass parted the tips of their flattened noses. It was a sort ofsterilized Eskimo kiss. 

The window was a door. Charity opened it and invited Jim in, wondering but strangely comforted. He invited her out. He explainedabout his gorgeous new car and his loneliness and begged her totake the air. 

She put back her hands to indicate her inappropriate costume, a flimsy evening gown of brilliant color. 

"Mrs. Noxon has gone out to dinner. I was to go with her, but Ibegged off. I'm going to New York to-morrow, and I was blue and--"

"And so am I. I've got an extra coat in my car, and the nightis mild. "

"No, I'd better not. "

"Aw, come along!"

"No-o--"

"Yes!"

"All right. I'll get a veil for my hair. "

She closed the French window and hurried away. She reappeared atthe front door and shut it stealthily after her. 

"Nobody saw me go. You must get me back before Mrs. Noxon comeshome, or there'll be a scandal. "

"Depend on me!" said Jim. 

Muffling their laughter like two runaways, they stole down thesteps. Her high-heeled slippers slipped and she toppled against him. She caught him off his balance, and his arms went about her to saveher and himself. If he had been Irish, he would have said that hedestroyed himself, for she was so unexpectedly warm and silken andlithe that she became instantly something other than the Charityhe had adored as a sad, sweet deity. 

He realized that she was terribly a woman. 

They were no longer boy and girl out on a gay little lark. They werea man unhappily married and a woman unhappily unmarried, settingforth on a wild steed for a wild ride through the reluctant autumnair. The neighboring sea gave out the stored-up warmth of summer, and the moon with the tilted face of a haloed nun yearned over them. 

When Jim helped Charity into the car her arm seemed to burn in hispalm. He hesitated a moment, and a thought fluttered through hismind that he ought not to hazard the adventure. But another thoughtchased it away, a thought of the idiocy of being afraid, and anotherthought of how impossible it was to ask her to get out and go back. 

He found the coat, a heavy, short coat, and held it for her, sawher ensconced comfortably, stepped in and closed the door softly. The car went forward as smoothly as a skiff on a swift, smoothwater. 

Charity was not so solemn as Jim. She was excited and flattered bysuch an unforeseen diversion breaking in on her doleful solitude. 

"It's been so long since a man asked me to go buggy-riding, "she said, "that I've forgotten how to behave. I'm getting to bea regular old maid, Jim. "

"Huh!" was all that Jim could think of. 

It was capable of many interpretations--reproof, anger at fate, polite disbelief, deprecation. 

Jim tried to run away from his peculiar and most annoying emotions. But Charity went with him. She looked back and said:

"Funny how the moon rides after us in her white limousine. "

"Huh!" said Jim. 

"Is that Mexican you're speaking?" she chided. 

"I was just thinking, " Jim growled. 

"What?"

"Oh, nothing much--except what a ghastly shame it is thatso--so--well, I don't know what to call you--but well, a woman likeyou--that you should be living alone with nothing better to do thanrun the gantlet of those God-awful submarines and probably get blownup and drowned, or, worse yet, spend your days breaking your heartnursing a lot of poor mangled, groaning Frenchmen that get shot topieces or poisoned with gas or--Oh, it's rotten! That's all it is:it's rotten!"

"Somebody has to take care of them. "

"Oh, I know; but it oughtn't to be you. If there was any manhoodin this country, you'd have Americans to nurse. "

"There are Americans over there, droves of them. "

"Yes, but they're not wearing our uniform. We ought to be overthere under our own flag. I ought to be over there. "

"Maybe you will be. I'll go on ahead and be waiting for you. "

There is nothing more pitiful than sorrow that tries to smile, and Jim groaned:

"Oh, Charity Coe! Charity Coe!"

He gripped the wheel to keep from putting his hand out to hers. Andthey went in silence, thinking in the epic elegy of their time. 

Jim drove his car up to the end of Rhode Island and across toTiverton; then he left the highway for the lonelier roads. The carcharged the dark hills and galloped the levels, a black stallionwith silent hoofs and dreadful haste. There was so much death, somuch death in the world! The youth and strength and genius of allEurope were going over the brink eternally in a Niagara of blood. 

And the sea that Charity was about to venture on, the sea whoseestuaries lapped this sidelong shore so innocently with such tenderluster under the gentle moon, was drawing down every day and everynight ships and ships and ships with their treasures of labor andtheir brave crews till it seemed that the floor of the ocean mustbe populous with the dead. 

Charity felt quite close to death. A very solemn tenderness offarewell endeared the beautiful world and all its doomed creatures. But most dear of all was this big, simple man at her side, the manshe ought to have married. It was all her fault that she had not. She owed him a profound eternal apology, and she had not the rightto pay the debt--that is, so long as she lived she had not the right. But if they were never to meet again--then she was already dyingto him. 

It was important that she should not depart this life without makingrestitution of what she owed. She had owed Jim Dyckman the love hehad pleaded for from her and would not get from anyone else. 

He had a right to love, and it was to be eternally denied to him. He would go on bitterly grieved and shamed to think that nobodycould love him, for Charity had repulsed him, and some day he wouldlearn that Kedzie had deceived him. 

Lacking the courage to warn him against his wife, Charity feltthat she must have at least the courage to say;

"Good-by, Jim. I have been loving you of late with a great love. "

There would be no injury done to Kedzie thus, for Charity wouldspeak as a ghost, an impalpable departed one. There would be nosin--only a beautiful expiation by confession. She was enfranchisedof earthly restraints, enfranchised as the dead are from mortalobligations. 

But the moods that are so holy, so pure, and so vast while they aremoods resent words. Words are like tin cups to carry the ocean in. It is no longer an ocean when a bit of it is scooped up. It is onlya little brackish water, odious to drink and quenching no thirst. 

Charity could not devise the first phrase of her huge and oceanicemotion. It would have been only a proffer of brine that Jim couldnot have relished from her. He understood better her silence. Theywent blindly on and on, letting the road lead them and the firstwhim decide which turn to take and which to pass. 

And so they were eventually lost in the land as they were lostin their mood. 

And after a time of wonderful enthusiasms in their common griefthe realities began to claim them back. A loud report like apistol-shot announced that the poetry of motion had become prose. 

Jim stopped the car and became a blacksmith while he went throughthe tool-box, found a jack for the wheel, laboriously unshippedthe demountable rim, replaced it with the extra wheel, and setforth again. 

The job had not improved the cleanliness of his hands nor sparedthe chastity of his shirt-bosom. But the car had four wheels togo on, and they regained a main road at last and found a signboardannouncing, "Tiverton, 18 miles. " That meant thirty miles to Newport. 

Charity looked at her watch. It brought her back from thetimelessness of her meditation to the world where the dock hada great deal to say about what was respectable and what not. 

"Good Lord!" she groaned. "Mrs. Noxon is home long ago and scaredor shocked to death. We must fly!"

They flew, angry, both of them, at having to hurry back to schooland a withering reprimand, as if they were still mere brats. Gradually the car began to refuse the call for haste. Its speedsickened, gasped, died. 

Jim swore quite informally, and raged: "I told that infernal houndto fill the tank. He forgot! The gas is gone. "

Charity shrugged her shoulders. "I deserved it, " she said. "I onlyhope I don't get you into trouble. What will your wife say?"

"What won't she say? But I'm thinking about you. "

"It doesn't matter about me. I've got nobody who cares enoughto scold me. "

They were suddenly illumined by the headlights of an approachingcar. They shielded their faces from the glare instinctively. Theyfelt honest, but they did not look honest out here together. 

The car was checked and a voice called from the blur, "Want anyhelp?"

"No, thanks, " Jim answered from his shadow. 

The car rolled on. While Jim made a vain post-mortem examination ofthe car's machinery Charity looked about for a guide-post. She founda large signboard proclaiming "Viewcrest Inn, 1 mile. " She told Jim. 

He said: "I know of it. It has a bad name, but so long as thegasolene is good--I'll go get some. Make yourself at home. "He paused. "I can't leave you alone here in the wilderness atmidnight. "

"I'll go along. "

"In those high-heeled shoes?"

"And these low-necked gown, " sighed Charity. "Oh, what a fool, what a stupid fool I've been!"

But she set forth. Jim offered his arm. She declined it at first, but she was glad enough of it later. They made an odd-lookingcouple, both in evening dress, promenading a country road. All thewealth of both of them was insufficient to purchase them so much asa street-car ride. They were paupers--the slaves, not the captains, of their fate. Charity stumbled and tottered, her ankles wrenched bythe ruts, her stilted slippers going to ruin. Jim offered to carryher. She refused indignantly. She would have accepted a lift fromany other vehicle now, but none appeared. The only lights were inthe sky, where a storm was practising with fireworks. 

"Just our luck to get drenched, " said Jim. 

It was about the only bad luck they escaped, but the threat of itlent Charity speed. They passed one farm, whose dogs rushed outand bayed at them carnivorously. 

"That's the way people will bark when they find out about ourinnocent little picnic, " said Charity. 

"They're not going to find out, " said Jim. 

"Trying to keep it secret gives it a guilty look, " said Charity. 

"What people don't know won't hurt 'em, " said Jim. 

"What they do imagine will hurt us, " said Charity. 

At the top of a knoll in a clandestine group of trees they found"Viewcrest Inn. " It was dark but for a dim light in the office. The door of that was locked. 

Trade was dull, now that the Newport season was over, and onlyan occasional couple from Fall River, Providence, or New Bedfordtested the diminished hospitality. But to-night there had been aconcurrence of visitors. Jim rattled at the door. A waiter appeared, yawning candidly. He limped to the door with a gait that Kedziewould have recognized. 

He peered out and shook his head, waving the intruders away. Jimshook the knob and glowered back. 

The waiter, who, in the classic phrase, was "none other than" SkipMagruder, unlocked the door. 

"Nothin' doin', folks, " said Skip. "Standin' room only. Not a roomleft. "

"I don't want any of your dirty rooms, " said Jim. "I want somegasolene. "

"Bar's closed, " said Skip, who had a nimble wit. 

"I said gasolene!" said Jim, menacingly. 

"Sorry, boss, but the last car out took the last drop we had inthe pump. We'll have some more to-morrow mornin'. "

"My God!" Jim whispered. 

Then the storm broke. A thunder smash like the bolt of an indignantHeaven. It turned on all the faucets above. 

"Where's the telephone?" Jim demanded. 

"T. D. , " said Skip. 

"What's that?"

"Temporary discontinued. " Skip grew confidential. "The boss wasa little slow on the pay and they shut him off. We're takin' ina lot of dough to-night, though, and he'll prob'ly get it goin'to-morrow all right. "

To-morrow again! Jim snarled back at the pack of wolfishcircumstances closing in on him. He turned to Charity. 

"We've got to stay here. "

Charity "went white, " as the saying is. The rain streamed down. 

"We 'ain't a room left, " said Skip. 

"You've got to have, " said Jim. 

"Have to speak to the artshiteck, " said Skip. Then he rubbed hishead, trying to get out an idea by massage. "There's the poller. Big lounge there, but not made up. Would you and your wife wishthe poller?"

He dragged the "wife" with a tone that nearly got him throttled. ButJim paused. A complicated thought held him. To protest that Charitywas not his wife seemed hardly the most reassuring thing to do. He let the word go and ignored Skip's cynical intonation. Jim'sknuckles ached to rebuke him, but he had not fought a waiter sincehis wild young days. And Skip was protected by his infirmity. 

Charity was frightened and revolted, abject with remorse for sucha disgusting consequence of such a sweet, harmless impulse. She wasafraid of Jim's temper. She said:

"Take the parlor by all means. "

"All right, " said Jim. 

Skip fumbled about the desk for a big book, and, finding it, openedit and handed Jim a pen. 

"Register, please, " said Skip. 

"I will not. "

"Rules of the house. "

"What do I care about your rules!"

"Have to wake the boss, then. "

"Give me the pen. "

He started to write his own name; that left Charity's designationin doubt. He glanced at the other names. "Mr. And Mrs. GeorgeWashington" were there, "Mr. And Mrs. John Smith" twice, as wellas "William Jones and wife. "

Jim wondered if the waiter knew him. So many waiters did. At length, with a flash of angry impulse, he wrote: "James D--, " paused, finished "Dysart, " hesitated again, then put "Mr. And Mrs. " beforeit. Skip read, and grinned. He did not know who Jim was, but heknew he was no Dysart. 

Skip led the way to the parlor up-stairs, lighted the lights, and hastily disappeared, fearing that he might be asked to fetchsomething to eat or drink. He was so tired and sleepy that even theprospect of a tip did not interest him so much as the prospect ofhis cot in the attic, where he could dream that he was in New Yorkagain. 

Jim and Charity looked at each other. Jim munched his own curses, and Charity laughed and cried together. Jim's arms had an instinctfor taking her to his heart, but he felt that he must be morerespectful than ever since they were in so respectless a plight. She never seemed purer and sadder to him than then. 

She noted how haggard and dismal he looked, and said, "Aren't yougoing to sit down?"

"No--not here, " he said. "You curl up on that plush horror and getsome rest. "

"I will not!" said Charity. 

"You will, too, " said Jim. "You're a wreck, and I ought to be shot. Get some sleep, for God's sake!"

"What becomes of you?"

"I'll scout round and find a place in the office. I think there isa billiard-room. If worst comes to worst, I'll do what Mrs. LeslieCarter did in a play I saw--sleep on the dining-room table. "

"Not less than a table d'hote will hold you, " Charity smiled, wanly. 

"Don't worry about me. You go by-by and pray the Lord to forgive meand help us both. "

He waved his hand to her in a heartbreak of bemocked and benightedtenderness and closed the door. He prowled softly about the officeand the adjacent rooms, but found no place to sleep. He was in sucha fever of wrath at himself that he walked out in the rain to coolhis head. Then he sank into a chair, read an old Boston paper twice, and fell asleep among the advertisements. 

He woke at daybreak. The rain had ended and he wandered out inthe chill, wet grounds of the shabby inn. The morning light wasmerciless on the buildings, the leafless trees, and on his owncostume. The promised view from the crest was swathed in haze--sowas his outlook on the future. 

His fury at the situation grew as he pondered it. He was like atiger in a pit. He raged as much at himself as at the people whowould take advantage of him. The ludicrousness of the situationadded the ultimate torment. He could not save Charity except byingenious deceptions which would be a proof of guilt if they didnot succeed miraculously. 

The dress he was in and the dress she was in were the veryhabiliments of guilt. Getting back to Newport in evening clotheswould be the advertisement of their escapade. His expansiveshirt-bosom might as well have been a sandwich-board. His broadclothtrousers and his patent-leather pumps would be worse than rags. 

And Charity had no hat. There was an unmistakable dressed-upeveningness about them both. 

This struck him as the first evil to remedy. As with an escapedconvict, his prime necessity was a change of clothes. There wasonly one way to manage that. He went back to the hotel and founda startled early-morning waiter sweeping out the office. Jim askedwhere the nearest telephone was, and learned that it was half amile away at a farm-house. 

Jim turned up his collar, pulled down his motor-cap, and struckout along the muddy road. He startled the farmer's family and theirlarge hands were not wide enough to hide their wider smiles. 

On the long hike thither Jim had worked out his stratagem. He calledup his house, or, rather, Kedzie's house, in Newport, and after muchdelay got his yawning valet to the telephone. He never had likedthat valet less than now. 

"That you, Dallam? My car broke down out in the country, " heexplained, every syllable a sugarless quinine pill in his throat. "That is to say, the gasolene gave out. I am in my evening clothes, so is--er--Mrs. --er--the lady I was with. I want you to bring meat once an outfit of day clothes, and a--one of my wife's longmotor-coats--a very long one--and one of her small hats. Then getout my wife's limousine and send the suit-case and the coat and hatto me here at the Viewcrest Inn, and tell the chauffeur to bringan extra can of gasolene. "

A voice with an intolerable smile in it came back: "Very good, sir. I presume I'd better not waken Mrs. Dyckman?"

"Naturally not. I don't want to--er--alarm her. "

"She was quite alarmed when you didn't come home, sir, last night. "

"Well, I'll explain when I see her. Do you understand thesituation?"

"Perfectly, sir. "

Jim writhed at that. But he had done his best and he would takethe worst. 

The farmer gave him a ride to the hotel in his milk-wagon. When Jimrode up in a parody of state he saw Charity peeping from the parlorwindow. The morning light had made the situation plain to her. Itdid not improve on inspection. It took very little imagination topredict a disastrous event, though Jim explained the felicity ofhis scheme. He had planned to have Charity ride in in the limousinealone, while he took his own car back with the gasolene that was onthe way. 

The twain were compelled by their costume to stay in the parlortogether. They were ferociously hungry and ordered breakfast atlast. It took forever to get it, for guests of that hotel were notordinarily early risers. 

Skip Magruder, dragged from his slumbers to serve the meal, foundCharity and Jim in the room where he had left them. He made suchvigorous efforts to overlook their appearance in bedraggled dinnerclothes at a country breakfast that Jim threatened to break his head. Skip grew surly and was ordered out. 

After breakfast Jim and Charity waited and waited, keeping to theparlor lest the other guests see them. 

At last the limousine arrived. As soon as he heard it coming Jimhurried to the window to make sure that it was his--or, rather, his wife's. 

It was--so much his wife's that she stepped out of it. Also hermother. Also her father. They advanced on the hotel. 

Jim and Charity were stupefied. There was a look on Kedzie's facethat frightened him. 

"She means business, " he groaned. 

Charity sighed: "Divorce! And me to be named!"

"She won't do that. She owes you everything. "

"What an ideal chance to pay off the debt!"

"Don't you worry. I'll protect you, " Jim insisted. 

"How?" said Charity. 

"I'll fight the case to the limit. "

"Are you so eager to keep your wife?" said Charity. 

"No. I never did love her. I'll never forgive her for this. "

But he had not the courage to go and meet Kedzie and her motherand her father. They were an unconscionable time coming. 

He did not know that Kedzie and Skip Magruder were renewing oldacquaintance. 

While he waited the full horror of his dilemma came over him. Kedziewould undoubtedly sue him for divorce. If he lost, Charity would bepublicly disgraced. If he won, he would be tied to Kedzie for life. 

CHAPTER VII

A quick temper is an excellent friend for bolstering up an ailingconscience, especially if itself is bolstered by an inability to seethe point of view of the other party to a conflict. 

Kedzie's wrath at Charity justified to Kedzie any cruelty, especiallyas Kedzie was all harrowed up by the fear of losing the Marquess ofStrathdene. And Kedzie loved Strathdene as much as she could everlove anybody. 

For one thing Strathdene was fiercely jealous of her--and the poorchild had been simply famished for a little jealousy. Her firsthusband had hardly known what the word meant. Before their marriageGilfoyle had permitted her to dance the Greek dances without payingher the compliment of a beating. After their marriage he had goneto Chicago to earn a living and left her alone in New York Citywhere there were millions of rivals. 

Her second husband had been very philosophical about her career andhad taken the news of her previous marriage with disgusting stoicism. Finally he had gone to the Mexican Border for an indefinite stay, leaving her to her own devices and the devices of any man who camealong. It was too much like leaving a diamond outdoors: it cheapenedthe diamond. 

But Strathdene--ah, Strathdene! He turned blue at the mention ofKedzie's husband. When Jim came back from Texas and Kedzie had to bepolite to him Strathdene almost had hydrophobia. He accused Kedzie ofactually welcoming Jim. He charged her with polyandry. He threatenedto shoot her and her husband and himself. He comported himself unlikeany traditional Englishman of literature. He was, in fact, himselfand what he did was like him. He was a born aviator. His heart wasused to racing at unheard-of speeds. He could sustain superhumanexaltations and depressions. 

Being in love with him was like going up in an airship with him, which was one of Kedzie's ambitions for the future. She dreamed ofa third honeymoon _in excelsis. _

Strathdene told her that if she ever looked at another man after shemarried him he would take her up ten thousand feet in the clouds, sethis airship on fire, and drop with her as one cinder into the ocean. What handsomer tribute could any woman ask of a man? He was a loverworth fighting for. 

But she had felt uncertain of winning him till that wonderful morningwhen Jim did not come back home. She woke up early all by herself andheard the valet answer Jim's call from Viewcrest. 

She had made a friend of Dallam by her flirtation with the nobility. The poor fellow had suffered tortures from the degradation of hismaster's alliance with a commoner like Kedzie until Kedzie developedher alliance with the Marquess. Then his valetic soul expanded again. 

He looked upon her as his salvation. 

Over the telephone she heard him now promising Jim that he wouldnot tell Kedzie. If Jim's old valet, Jules, had not gone to Franceand his death he would have saved Jim from infernal distresses, butthis substitute had a malignant interest in his master's confusion. Dallam proceeded forthwith to rap at Mrs. Dyckman's door and spokethrough it, deferentially:

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but could I have a word?"

Kedzie wrapped herself in a bath-robe and opened the door a chink tohear the rest of what she had heard in part. The valet had no collaron and his overnight beard not off, and he, too, was in a bath-robe. Man and mistress stood there like genius and madness, "and thinpartitions did their bounds divide. "

"Very sorry to trouble you, ma'am, " he said, "but I'm compelled to. The master has just telephoned me that his car broke down at theViewcrest Inn out Tiverton way, and he wants his morning clothes, and also--if you'll pardon me, ma'am--he instructed me to send hima long motor-coat of yours and a large hat and your limousine. I wasdirected not to--ahem--to trouble you about it, ma'am, but I 'ardlydared. "

He helped her out so perfectly that she had no need to say anythingmore than, "Quite right. "

She was glad that the door screened her from observation, forshe went through a crisis of emotions, wrath and disgust at Jim'sperfidy _versus_ ecstasy and gratitude to him for it. 

She beat her breast with her hand as if to keep her trembling heartfrom turning a somersault into her mouth. Then she spoke with a calmthat showed how far she had traveled in self-control. 

"Very good. You were quite right. Call the chauffeur and tell himto bring round my closed car. Then send me my maid and have the cookget me some coffee. Then you may telephone my mother and father andask them to come over at once. Please send my car for them. You mighthave coffee for them also. For we'll all be riding out to--did yousay Viewcrest Inn?"

"Yes, ma'am. Very good, ma'am. Thank you!"

He went away thinking to himself. He thought in cockney: "My Gawd!w'at a milit'ry genius! She dictites a horder loike a Proosiangeneral. I'm beginnin' to fink she's gowing to do milord the mokkisprahd. There's no daht abaht it. Stroike me, if there is. "

By the time Kedzie was dressed and coffeed her panicky fatherand mother were collected and fed, and she had selected her bestmotor-coat for the shroud of whatever woman it was at Viewcrest. She dared not dream it was Charity. 

She had time enough to tell her parents all there was to tell onthe voyage, but she had no idea that her limousine was taking herto the very inn that Strathdene had lured her to on that night whenhe tested her worthiness of his respect. 

It had been dark on that occasion and she had been in such a chaosthat she had paid no heed to the name of the place or the dark roadsleading thither. 

She almost swooned when she reached the Viewcrest Inn and foundherself confronted by Skip Magruder. And so did Skip. He had notrecognized the back of her head before, but her face smote him now. There was no escaping him. Her beauty was enriched by her costumeand her mien was ripened by experience, but she was unforgetablyherself. He was still a waiter, and the apron he had on and thenapkin he clutched might have been the same one he had when shefirst saw him. 

When he saw her now again he gasped the name he had known her by:"Anitar! Anitar Adair! Well, I'll be--"

Then his face darkened with the memory of disprized love. Herecalled the cruel answer, "Nothing doing, " that she had indorsedon the stage-door letter he sent her long ago. 

But the military genius that had guided Kedzie this morning inspiredher still. She was not going to lose her victory for any flank attackfrom an ally in ambush. She sent out a flag of truce. 

"Why, Skip!" she cried. "Dear old Skip! I want you to meet my fatherand mother. Mr. Magruder was terribly kind to me when I was aloneand friendless in New York. "

Mrs. Thropp had outgrown waiters and even Adna regretted thereversion to Nimrim that led him to shake hands and say, "Pleaseto meecher. "

The stupefied proprietor of the inn was begging for explanations ofthis unheard-of colloquy, but Skip flicked him away with his napkinas if he were a bluebottle fly and motioned Kedzie to a corner ofthe office. Kedzie explained, breathlessly:

"Skip, I'm in terrible trouble, and I'm so glad to find you here, for you never failed me. I was very rude to you when you sent methat note, but I--I was engaged to be married at the time and Ididn't think it proper to see anybody. And--well, I'm getting mypunishment now, for my husband is here with a strange woman--and--oh, it's terrible, Skip! My heart is broken, but you've got to help me. I know I can rely on you, can't I, dear old Skip?"

The girl was so efficient that she almost deserved her success. Itcost her something, though, to beguile a waiter with intimate appealsthat she might earn a title. But then in time of war no ally is to bescorned and the lowliest recruit is worth enlisting. A Christian canpiously engage a Turk to help him whip another Christian. 

When Kedzie pulled out the tremolo stop and looked up, big-eyed, and pouted at him, Skip was hers. 

"Your husband, Anitar? Your husband here? Why, the low-life hound!I'll go up and kill him for you if you want me to. "

Kedzie explained that she didn't want to get her dear Skip intoany trouble, but she did want his help. Skip found her a goodboarding-place the first time he met her, and now she had to dupehim into securing her furnished rooms and board in a castle. She mayhave rather encouraged him to imagine that once she was free fromJim she would listen once more to Skip. But there is no evidence onthat point and he must have felt a certain awe of her. His prettyduckling had become so gorgeous a swan. 

Her parley with Skip had delayed her march up-stairs to the attack, but Jim and Charity could only wait in befuddled suspense, unwillingand afraid to attempt a flight. 

Kedzie went up-stairs at last, backed by her father and mother andSkip and the chauffeur with the suit-case of Jim's clothes. Kedziewas dazed at the sight of Charity. 

But there was no need of any oration. 

After a little sniffing and nodding of the head she spoke:

"Well, I thought as much! Jim, you telephoned for some thingsof mine and of yours. Here they are. There's a can of gasolenedown-stairs for you. Here's your suit-case, and the coat and hatfor Mrs. Cheever. I presume you will go back in your own car. "

Jim nodded. 

"Then we needn't keep you any longer. Mr. McNiven is your lawyerstill, I suppose. I'll send my lawyer to him. Come along, mother--and father. "

She led her little cohort down-stairs and bade Skip a very cordial_au revoir. _

CHAPTER VIII

The Dyckman divorce farce might have been as politely performedas _l'affaire Cheever_--or even more so than that, sincepractice makes perfect. At least a temporary secrecy could havebeen secured with leisureliness by a residence in another State. 

But Kedzie felt as Zada did, that she simply could not wait, thoughher reason was well to the opposite. Zada had been afraid that achild would arrive before the divorce, but Kedzie that a gentlemanwould depart. 

Strathdene was straining at the anchor like one of his own biplaneswith the wind nudging its wings. In Europe they were shooting downairships by the score nearly every day and Strathdene wanted to goback. "It's not fair to the Huns, " he said. "They haven't had apot-shot at me for so long they'll forget I was ever over. And someof those men that were corporals when I made my Ace, are Aces nowas well and they're crawling up on my score! I'll have to fly allthe time to catch up. "

But he wanted to take with him his beauty. He was jealous of UncleSam and afraid to trust Kedzie to him. The more inconvenient shebecame to him the more determined he grew to overcome the obstaclesto her possession. 

He abominated the necessity of taking his bride through the sidedoor of the court-house to the altar, but he would not give her up. It looked, however, as if he would have to. And then he receivedmysteriously an assignment to the inspection of flying-machinespurchased in the American market. Kedzie told him that it was aHeaven-sent answer to her prayers, and he believed it. 

But it was his poor mother's work; she had written to a friend inthe British Embassy imploring him to keep her precious boy out ofFrance as long as possible. Hecatombs of gallant young lords werebeing butchered and she had lost a son, two brothers, a nephew, and unnumbered friends. The whole nobility of Europe was as deepin mourning as all the other grades of prestige. She wanted a briefrespite from terror. She did not know till later to what furtherrisks she was exposing her boy. 

Kedzie was grimly resolute about getting her freedom from Jim inorder to transfer it to Strathdene. She planned to manage it quietlyfor the sake of her own future. But a sickening mess was made of it. For Kedzie fell into the hands of a too, too conscientious lawyer. It is impossible to be loyal in all directions, and young Mr. AnsonBeattie was loyal first to his wife and children, whom he loveddevotedly. They needed money and clients came slowly to him. 

His wife had relatives in Newport and they chanced to be visitingthere. The relatives were shopkeepers, to whom Pet Bettany owedmuch money. That was how Kedzie came to consult Mr. Beattie. Kedzietelephoned Pet the moment she got back from the Viewcrest Inn, and Pet told her of Beattie. 

When Kedzie drifted into his ken with a word of introduction fromPet Bettany he hailed her as a Heaven-sent messenger. She broughthim advertisement, and big fees on a platter. 

The very name of Dyckman was incense and myrrh. Mr. Beattie smelledgold. When Kedzie poured out her story and explained that the famousMrs. Charity Cheever was the wreckress of her home Mr. Beattie sawhead-lines everywhere. 

If the Dyckmans had been a humble couple he would have tried toreconcile them, perhaps, or he would have separated them with littlenoise. But it was noise he wanted. The longer and louder the trialthe more free space Mr. Beattie would get. 

"It Pays to Advertise" is a necessary motto for all professions. The lawyer is advertised by his hating enemies, Beattie said tohimself, and to his ecstatic wife when he went to her room afterKedzie left. His wife would never have taken a divorce if divorceswere distributed at every door like handbills. Mr. Beattie said toMrs. Beattie:

"Soul o' my soul, I'm going to handle this case in such a way thatit will stir up a smell from here to California. I'll get that littlewoman an alimony that will break all known records and I'll takea percentage of the gate receipts as they come in. I wouldn't trustmy little client a foot away. "

"Don't trust her too close, either, " said his devoted spouse, whowas just jealous enough to be remembered in time of stress. 

Beattie was the sort of lawyer one reads about oftener than onemeets, and he wanted to be read about. He had the almost necessarylawyer gift of beginning to hate the opposition as soon as helearned what it was. If Jim had engaged him he would have hatedKedzie with religious ardor. Kedzie engaged him; so he abominatedJim and everybody and everything associated with him from his nameto his scarf-pin. 

He warned Kedzie not to spend an hour under Jim Dyckman's roof, lestshe seem to condone what she discovered. He advised her to disappeartill Beattie was ready to strike. 

That was the reason why there was no compromise, no concession, nopoliteness in the divorce. If collusion is vicious this case wascertainly pure of it. 

Jim was not permitted a quiet talk with Kedzie from the moment shefound him at the Viewcrest Inn. Her arrival there plus her family hadthrown him into a stupor. It was a situation for a genius to handle, since the honester a man is the more he is confused at being foundin a situation that looks dishonest. Jim was never less a genius thanthen. Even Charity, who usually found a word when a word was needed, said not one. What could she say? Kedzie ignored her, accused her ofnothing, and did not linger. 

When Jim and Charity, left alone together again, looked at eachother they were too disgusted to regret that they had not been asguilty as they looked. Life had the jaundice in their eyes. 

But they had to get back to the world by way of material things. Jim had to change his evening clothes. He asked Charity to wait inthe office below. He pointed to the motor-coat and hat that Kedziehad brought and tossed on a lounge. 

Charity recoiled from wearing Kedzie's cast-off clothes or fromdisguising as Jim's wife, but her downcast eyes revealed her bareshoulders and arms and her delicate evening gown. They had beenexquisitely appropriate to night and night lights, but they wereghastly in the day. 

She put on Kedzie's mantle; it blistered her like the mantle Medeasent to her successor in her husband's love. She sat in the officeand some of the guests passed through. She could see that they tookher to be one of their sort, and shocks of red and white alternatedthrough her skin. 

When Jim was ready he came down with his evening clothes in thesuit-case. The baggage was the final convincing touch. He pickedup the gasolene-can and toted it that weary mile. One of the hotelservants offered to carry it, but Jim was in no mood for company. There are things that the wealthiest man does not want to have donefor him. 

They found the car studded with pools of water from the rain, andCharity shook out the cushions while Jim filled up the tank. 

"Quite domestic, " said Charity, in the last dregs of bitterness. 

Jim did not answer. He flung the can over into a field and hoppedinto the car. He regretted that he had no spurs to dig into itssides, no curb bit to jerk. He owed his destruction to that car. For want of gasolene, the car was lost; for want of the car, areputation was lost. 

He thought with frenzy as he drove. He had little imagination, butit did not require an expert dreamer to foresee dire possibilitiesahead. He was so sorry for Charity that he could have wept. Hewanted to enfold her in his arms and promise her security. He wantedto stand in front of her and take in his own breast all the arrowsof scorn that might shower upon her. 

But the nearest approach to protection in his power lay along thelines of appearing to be indifferent to her. He had not been told ofKedzie's infatuation for Strathdene and he had not suspected it. 

Charity was tempted to refer to it, but she felt that it would becontemptibly petty at the moment. So Jim was permitted to hope thathe could find Kedzie, throw himself on her mercy and implore her tobelieve in his innocence. It was a sickly hope, and his heart filledwith gall and with hatred of Kedzie and all she had brought on him. 

He reached Newport with a terrific speed, and left Charity at Mrs. Noxon's to make her own explanations. Mrs. Noxon had defended Charityagainst gossip once before, but to defend her against appearances wastoo much to ask. 

"Well-behaved people, " she told Charity, "do not have appearances. "

She was so cold that Charity froze also, and set her maid to packing. Mrs. Noxon's frigidity was a terrifying example of what she was toexpect. She returned to New York on the first train. Jim was on it, too. 

He had sped home, expecting to find Kedzie. She was gone and noneof the servants knew where. If he had found her in the ferocioushumor he had arrived at he might have given her the sort of divorcepopular in divorce-less countries, where they annul the wife insteadof the marriage. He might have sent Kedzie to the realm where thereis neither marrying nor giving in marriage--which should save a heapof trouble. 

Jim fancied that Kedzie must have taken the train to New York, sinceshe spoke of sending her lawyer to McNiven. It did not occur to himthat she could find a New York lawyer in Newport. 

He met Charity, and not Kedzie, on the train. That made bad lookworse. But it gave Jim and Charity an opportunity to face thecalamity that was impending. Jim tried to reassure Charity that hewould keep her from suffering any public harm. The mere thought ofher liability to notoriety, the realization that her long life ofdecency and devotion were at the mercy of the whim of a woman likeKedzie, drove her frantic. 

She begged Jim to leave her to her thoughts and he went away to thepurgatory of his own. Reaching New York, he returned to Charity tooffer his escort to her home. She broke out, petulantly:

"Don't take me any more places, Jim. I beg you!"

"Forgive me, " he mumbled, and relieved her of his compromisingchivalry. 

They went to their homes in separate taxicabs. Jim made haste tohis apartment. Kedzie was not there and had not been heard from. 

Late as it was, he set out on a telephone chase for McNiven anddragged him to a conference. It was midnight and Jim was haggardwith excitement. 

There are two people at least to whom a wise man tells the truth--hisdoctor and his lawyer. Neither of them has many illusions left, butboth usually know fact when they get a chance to face it. 

Jim had nothing to conceal from McNiven and his innocence transpiredthrough all his bewilderment. He told just what had happened in itsfarcical-funeral details. McNiven did not smile. Jim finished withall his energy:

"Sandy, you know that Charity is the whitest woman on earth, a saintif ever there was a saint. She's the one that's got to be protected. Not a breath of her name must come out. If it takes the last centI've got and dad's got I want you to buy off that wife of mine. Youwarned me against marrying her, and I wish to God I'd listened toyou. I'm not blaming her for being suspicious, but I can't let hersmash Charity. I'll protect Charity if I have to build a wall ofsolid gold around her. "

McNiven tried to quiet him. He saw no reason for alarm. "You don'thave to urge me to protect Charity, " he said. "She's an angel as wellas my client. All you need is a little sleep. Go to bed and don'tworry. Remember, there never was a storm so big that it didn't blowover. "

"Yes, but what does it blow over before it blows over?" said Jim. 

"You're talking in your sleep already. Good night, " said McNiven. 

CHAPTER IX

The next morning McNiven found Charity at his office when hearrived. She had evidently been awake all night. 

She told McNiven a story that agreed in the essentials with Jim'sexcept that she made herself out the fool where he had blamedhimself. McNiven had no success in trying to quiet her with soothingpromises of a tame conclusion. She dreaded Kedzie. 

"If it were just an outburst of jealousy, " she said, "you might talkto the woman. But she's not jealous of her husband. She was as coolas a cucumber when she found us together. She was glad of it, becauseshe had got a way to get her Marquess now. She's ambitious and LadyMacbeth couldn't outdo her. "

She told McNiven what she had not had the heart to tell Jim aboutStrathdene. It worried him more than he admitted. While he meditatedon a measure to meet this sort of attack, Charity suggested one. It was drastic, but she was desperate. She proposed the threat ofa countercharge against Kedzie. 

McNiven shook his head and made strange noises in his pipe. Heasked for evidence against Kedzie. Charity could only quote thegeneral opinion. 

McNiven said: "No. You allege innocence on your part in spite ofappearances which you admit are almost conclusive. You can hardlyclaim that more innocent appearances on her part prove that she isguilty. Besides, we don't want to stir up any more sediment. We'lldo everything on the Q. T. Money talks, and the little lady is notdeaf. My legal advice to you is, 'Don't fret, ' and my medical adviceis, 'Go to bed and stay there till I send you word that it's allover. ' Remember one thing, there never was a storm so big that itdidn't blow over. "

Charity was not in the least quieted. His sedative only annoyedher ragged nerves. 

"Keep my name clean, " she whispered. 

As she rode home in a taxicab that was like a refrigerator shepassed in the Fifth Avenue mêlée Zada L'Etoile, now Mrs. Cheever, with the tiny little Cheever like a princelet asleep at her breast, hiding with its pink head the letter "A" that had grown there. 

People of cautious respectability spoke to Zada now with amiablerespect, and murmured:

"Funny thing! She's made a man of that good-for-nothing PeterCheever. They're as happy and as thick as thieves. "

Charity had heard this saying, and she dreaded to realize thatperhaps in a few days respectable people would be turning fromherself, not seeing her, or storing up credit by snubbing herand muttering:

"No wonder poor Cheever couldn't get along with her. He took theblame like a gentleman, and now she's found out. She was a sly one, but you can't fool all the people all the time. "

Charity had not been gone from McNiven's office long before alawyer's clerk arrived bearing the papers for a divorce on statutorygrounds in the case of Dyckman versus Dyckman, Mrs. Charity C. Cheever, co-respondent, Anson Beattie counsel for plaintiff. 

McNiven went after Beattie at once and proposed a quiet treaty anda settlement out of court. Beattie grinned so odiously that McNivenhad to say:

"Oh, I remember you. You used to be an ambulance-chaser. What areyou after now--a little dirty advertising?" "What are you after?"said Beattie. "A little collusive juggling with the SeventhCommandment?"

"The one against false witness is the Ninth, " said McNiven, "Butlet's have a conference. This war in Europe might have been avoidedby a little heart-to-heart talk beforehand. Let's profit by thelesson. "

Beattie consented to this, and promised to arrange it on conditionthat in the mean while McNiven would accept service for his client. This was done, and Beattie left. 

He saw his great publicity campaign being thwarted, and changedhis mind. He hankered for fame more than gold. He filed the papersand meditated. He did not know how much or how little Kedzie lovedher husband, and she had told him nothing of Strathdene. He fearedthat a compromise might be patched up and perhaps a reconciliationeffected. He had had women come to him imploring a divorce fromtheir abominable husbands only to see the couple link up again, kiss and make up, and call him an abominable villain for tryingto part them. 

After some earnest consideration of the right of his own careerand his family to the full profit of this windfall, he looked upa reporter and through him a group of reporters and promised thema peep at something interesting. 

He had the privilege of calling for the papers from the clerk ofthe court, so he took them out and permitted the reporters toglance within and make note of the contents. 

Late editions of the evening papers gave the Dyckman divorcea fanfare rivaling the evidence that the Germans were about toresume their unrestricted submarine _Schrecklichkeit_. 

If the spoken word is impossible to recall, how much moreirretrievable the word that is printed in millions of newspapers. The name of Dyckman was a household word. It resounded now in everyhousehold throughout the country, and across the sea, where thename had become familiar in all the nations from the big financialdealings of the elder Dyckman as a banker for the Allies. 

Reporters played about Jim Dyckman that night as if they were_banderilleros_ and he a raging bull. He fought them withthe same success. 

They tried to find Charity, but she was in the doctor's care--actually. The doctor himself dismissed the reporters. He called them"ghouls, " which did not sweeten their hearts toward his patient. 

The next day there was probably not a morning paper in the UnitedStates in any language that failed to star the news that Mrs. Dyckmanhad found her husband's relations with Mrs. Cheever intolerable. 

That morning saw the conference in McNiven's office, as promised byBeattie. But Kedzie did not appear; she had vanished to some placewhere she could not be found by anybody except the man who wroteher highly imaginative affidavits for her and the notary publicwho attested her signature. 

At the conference with Jim, Kedzie was represented by counsel, alsoby father. Jim called the lawyer Beattie some hard old Anglo-Saxonnames, and told him that if he were a little bigger he would givehim the beating that was coming to him. Then he turned to Kedzie'sfather. 

"Mr. Thropp, " he pleaded, "you and I have always got along all right. You know I've tried to do the right thing by your daughter. I'm readyto now. She's too decent a girl to have done this thing on her own. This is the work of that rotten skunk of a lawyer--I apologize to theother skunks and the real lawyers. She has done a frightful injusticeto the best woman on earth. She can never undo it, but surely shedoesn't want to do any more. She's through with me, I suppose, butwe ought to be able to clean up this affair respectably and quietlyand not in the front show-window of all the damned newspapers in theworld. 

"Can't you and I make a little quiet gentleman's agreement towithdraw the charge and let the divorce go through decently? I'llmake any settlement on your daughter that she wants. "

Adna pondered aloud, his claim-agent instincts alert: "Settlement, eh? What might you call settlement?"

"Whatever you'd consider fair. How much would you say was right?"

Adna filled his lungs and mouthed the deliciously liquid word as ifit were a veritable _aurum potabile_:

"Millions!"

"What!" Jim gasped. 

Adna fairly gargled it again:

"Millillions!"

The greed in the old man's eyes shot Dyckman's eyes with blood. He snarled:

"So it's the plain old blackmail, eh? Well, you can go plumbto hell!"

"All right, " said Adna, felicitously, "but we won't go alone. Iand daughter will have comp'ny. Come on, Mr. Beattie. "

After they had gone Jim realized that his hatred of being gouged hadinvolved Charity's priceless reputation. He told McNiven to recallBeattie, but Charity herself appeared in a new and militant humor. 

The first realization that her good name was gone had crushed her. She had built it up like a mansion, adding a white stone day byday. When it fell about her in ruins her soul had swooned with thedisaster. 

After a night and a day of groveling terror she had recaptured thevalor that makes and keeps a woman good, and she leaped from hersick bed and her sick soul into an armor of rage. 

She burst in on McNiven and Jim and demanded a share in the battle. When Jim told her of his latest blunder she spoke up, stoutly:

"You did the right thing. To try to buy them off would be toconfess guilt. The damage is done. The whole world has read thelie. Now we'll make it read the truth. There must be some way forme to defend my name, and I want to know what it is. "

McNiven told her that the law allowed her to enter the case andseek vindication, but he advised her against it. She thanked himfor the information and rejected the advice. She was gray withbattle-ardor and her very nostrils were fierce. 

"I'm sorry to do anything to interfere with your welfare, Jim, forif I win she wins you; but you can get rid of her some other way. The little beast! She thinks she can make use of me as a bridge tocross over to her Marquess, but she can't!"

"Her Marquess?" Jim mumbled. "What does that mean?"

Charity regretted her impetuous speech, but McNiven explained it. 

Jim was pretty well deadened to shocks by this time, but the newsthat his wife had been disloyal found an untouched spot in hisheart to stab. It gave him a needed resentment, however, and amuch-needed something to feel wronged about. 

He caught a spark of Charity's blazing anger, and they resolved tofight the case to the limit. And that was where it took them. 

CHAPTER X

Once the battle was joined, a fierce desire for haste impelled allof these people. Kedzie dreaded every hour's delay as a new riskof losing Strathdene, who was showing an increasing rage at havingthe name of his wife-to-be bandied about in the press, with herportraits in formal pose or snapped by batteries of reporters. 

Her lawyer emphasized the heartbreak it was to her to learn thather adored husband had been led astray by her trusted friend. Thisdid not make pleasant reading for the jealous Strathdene, and hewished himself jolly well out of the whole affair. 

It was not long before his own name began to slip into the case byinnuendo. Once he was in, he could not decently abandon his Kedzie, though he had to prove his devotion by denying it and threateningto shoot anybody who implied that his interest in Mrs. Dyckman wasanything more than formal. 

Jim Dyckman was impatient to have done with the suit, however itended. He was tossed on both horns of the dilemma. He was compelledto fight one woman to save another. He could not defend Charitywithout striking Kedzie and he could not spare Kedzie withoutdestroying Charity. 

In a situation that would have overwhelmed the greatest tacticianshe floundered miserably. He vowed that whatever the outcome ofthe case might be, he would never look at a woman again. Men findit very easy to condemn womankind _en bloc_, and they areforever forswearing the sex as if it were a unit or a bad habit. 

During the necessary delay in reaching trial Jim asked and receivedan extension of his leave of absence; then his regiment came homefrom the Border and was mustered out of the Federal service andreceived again into the State control. Jim felt almost as muchashamed of involving his regiment in his scandal as Charity. 

He had suffered so greatly from the embarrassment of the publicitythat he could hardly endure to face his regiment and drill with hiscompany. He offered his resignation again, but it was not accepted. 

In fact, under the new condition of the National Guard service, hisimmediate officers had nothing to do with his resignation. 

The probability of a call to arms, not against Mexico, but againstthe almost almighty German Empire, was so great that it looked likeslackery or cowardice to ask to be excused. His next dread was thatthe regiment would be mustered in before the case was finished, compelling its postponement and leaving Charity to languishunrevenged. 

For his inclusive anger at Everywoman soon changed back to deeperaffection than ever. The first sight of her on the witness-standat the mercy of the inquisition of the unscrupulous Beattie broughtback all his old emotions for her and unnumbered new. 

He had seen a picture of one of the Christian martyrs whose torturewas inflicted on her by a man armed with steel pincers to pluck offher flesh from her shuddering soul bit by bit. It seemed to himthat his sainted Charity was condemned to like atrocity. Her handswere bound by the thongs of the law, her body was stripped to theeyes of the crowd, and the tormentor went here and there, nippingat the quick with intolerable cruelty. 

And Jim must not go to her rescue. He must not protest or lifta hand in her behalf. He must sit and suffer with her while theanguish squeezed the big sweat out of his knotted brows. 

It had been hard enough to await the appearance of the case onthe docket, to sit through the selection of the jury, and tostudy the gradual recruitment of that squad of twelve sphinxes, all commonplace, yet mysterious, lacking in all divinity ofcomprehension and eager to be entertained with an excitingconflict. 

The fact that a woman was the plaintiff was a tremendous handicapfor Jim, even though a woman was allied with him in the defense. The very name "co-respondent" condemned her in advance in the publicmind. And then she was rich and therefore dissipated in the mindsof those who cannot imagine wealth as providing other fascinatingbusinesses besides vice. And Jim was wealthy and therefore a properobject for punishment. If he had earned his millions it must havebeen by tyrannous corruption; if he had only inherited them thatwas worse yet. 

Beattie lost no chance to play on the baser phases of the noble andessential suspicions of the democratic soul and also on Kedzie'shumble origin, her child-like prettiness proving absolutely achild-like innocence and trust, and the homely simplicity of herparents, who, being poor and ignorant, were therefore inevitablyvirtuous and sincere. 

Jim had realized from the first what a guilty aspect his unfortunateexcursion with Charity must wear in the eyes of any one but her andhim. Even the waiter who was on the ground had unwittingly conspiredwith their delicacy to put them in a most indelicate situation. Skipwent on the stand, reveling in his first experience of fame, baskingin the spot-light like a cheap actor, and acting very badly, yet wellenough for the groundlings he amused. 

Jim and Charity underwent a martyrdom of ridicule during histestimony. A man and woman riding backward on a mule through ajeering mob might seem pathetic enough if one had the heart todeny himself the laughter, but Jim and Charity made their grotesquepilgrimage without exciting sympathy. 

Beattie had tried to get Mrs. Noxon on the stand to confirm the proofthat Charity had spent the night away, but the old lady showed hercontempt of the court and of the submarines by sailing for Europeto escape the ordeal. The chauffeur, the valet, and the Viewcrestservants were enough, however, to corroborate Skip Magruder's storybeyond any assailing, and handwriting experts had no difficulty inconvincing the jury that Jim's signature on the hotel register wasin his own handwriting. He had made no effort to disguise it or evento change his name till the last of it was well begun. 

Mr. And Mrs. Thropp made splendid witnesses for their child andthe old mother's tears melted a jury that had never seen her weepfor meaner reasons. 

When Charity reached the stand the case against her was so completethat all her bravery was gone. She felt herself a fool for havingbrought the ordeal on herself. She took not even self-respect withher to the chair of torture. 

CHAPTER XI

In the good old days of Hester Prynne they published a faithlesswife by sewing a scarlet "A" upon the bosom of her dress. Nowadaysthe word is pronounced "co-respondent, " and it may be affixed to anywoman's name by any newspaper, or any plaintiff in a divorce case. 

So fearful a power was so much abused that since 1911 in New York theco-respondent has been permitted to come into the court and opposethe label. It is in sort a revival of the ancient right to trial byordeal. This hideous privilege of proving innocence by walking unshodover hot plowshares is most frigidly set forth in the statute wherethe lawyer's gift for putting terrible things in desiccated phraseswas never better shown than in Section 1757. 

In an action brought to obtain a divorce on the ground of adultery, the plaintiff or defendant may serve a copy of his pleading on theco-respondent named therein. At any time within twenty days aftersuch service on said co-respondent he may appear to defend suchaction, so far as the issues affect such co-respondent. If no suchservice be made, then at any time before the entry of judgment anyco-respondent named in any of the pleadings shall have the right, at any time before the entry of judgment, to appear either in personor by attorney in said action and demand of plaintiff's attorney acopy of the summons and complaint, which must be served within tendays thereafter, and he may appear to defend such action, so faras the issues affect such co-respondent. In case no one of theallegations of adultery controverted by such co-respondent shallbe proved, such co-respondent shall be entitled to a bill of costsagainst the person naming him as such co-respondent, which bill ofcosts shall consist only of the sum now allowed by law as a trialfee, and disbursements, and such co-respondent shall be entitledto have an execution issue for the collection of the same. 

The exact amount of money was set forth in another place, in Section3251, where it is stated that the sums obtainable are "for trial ofan issue of fact, $30, and when the trial necessarily occupies morethan two days, $10 in addition thereto. "

In other words, Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever, finding her life of goodworks and pure deeds crowned with the infamy which Mrs. KedzieDyckman in her anger and her haste pressed on her brow, had thefull permission of the law to come into the public court, facea vitriolic lawyer, and deny her guilt. 

If she survived the trip through hell she could collect from heraccuser forty dollars to pay her lawyer with. The priceless boon ofsuch a vindication she could keep for herself. And that ended her. 

This is only one of the numberless vicious and filthy and mercilessconsequences of the things done in the name of virtue by those whobelieve divorce to be so great an evil that they will commit everyother evil in order to oppose it. 

In no other realm of law and punishment has severity had more needof hypocrisy to justify itself than in the realm of wedlock. Whatgrosser burlesque could there be than the conflict between the theoryand the practice? The law and the Church, claiming what few peoplewill deny, that marriage is an immensely solemn, even a sacred, condition, have made entrance into it as easy as possible and theescape from it as difficult. It is as if one were to say, "Revolversare very dangerous weapons, therefore they shall be placed withinthe reach of infants, but they must on no account be taken away fromthem, and once grasped they must never be laid down. "

The most stringent rules have been formulated to prevent those peoplefrom marrying each other who are least likely to want to--namely, blood relations. But there is no law against total strangers meetingat the altar for the first time, and the marriage by proxy of peoplewho have never seen each other has had the frequent blessing ofecclesiastic pomp. 

At a time when legal divorce was too horrible to contemplate theymade very pretty festivals of betrothing little children who couldnot understand the ceremony or even parrot the pledge. Who indeedcan understand the pledge before its meaning is made clear by life?

And why should people be forced to make an eternal pledge whosekeeping is beyond their power or prophecy and from which there isno release? What is it but a subornation of perjury?

Those who so blithely scatter flowers before bridal couples andold shoes after them are perfectly benevolent, of course, in theirabhorrence of separating the twain if they begin to throw their oldshoes at each other; for they are sincerely convinced that if peoplewere permitted to do as they pleased, nothing on earth would pleasethem but vice. And so those who have the lawmaking itch set aboutsaving humanity from itself by making inhuman laws, which the cleverand the criminal evade or break through, leaving the gentle and thetimid in the net. 

For there was never no divorce. No amount of law has ever availedto keep those together who had the courage or the cruelty to breakthe bonds. By hook or by crook, if not by book, they will be free. 

The question of the children is often used to cloud the issue, as ifall that children needed for their welfare were the formal allianceof their parents, and as if a home where hatred rages or complacentvice is serene were the ideal rearing-ground for the young. When loveof their children is enough to keep two incompatible souls togetherthere is no need of the law. When that love is insufficient what canthe law accomplish? And what of the innumerable families where therehave been no children, or where they are dead or grown-up?

The experiment of forbidding what cannot be prevented and of refusinglegal sanction to what human nature demands has been given centuriesof trial with no success. 

Marriage is among the last of the institutions to have the daylightlet in and the windows thrown open. For the home is no morethreatened by liberty than the State is, and that pair which iskept together only by the shackles of the law is already divorced;its cohabitation is a scandal. Free love in the promiscuous sense isno uglier than coupled loathing. The social life of that communitywhere divorce is least free is no purer than that where divorce isnot difficult. Otherwise South Carolina, which alone of the Statespermits no divorce on any ground, should be an incomparable Eden ofmarital innocence. Is it? And New York, which has only one ground, and that the scriptural, should be the next most innocent. Is it?

Meanwhile the mismated of our day who are struggling throughthe transition period between the despotism of matrimony and itsrepublic can be sure that the righteous will omit no abuse thatthey can inflict. Those who would free Russias must face Siberias. 

The worst phase of it is that some of those who are determined tobe free and cannot otherwise get free will not hesitate to destroyinnocent persons who may be useful to their escape. 

Mrs. Kedzie Dyckman had her heart set on releasing herself fromthe husband she had in order that she might try another who promisedher more happiness, more love, and more prestige. The husband shehad would have been willing enough to set her free, both because heliked to give her whatever she wanted and because he was not in lovewith their marriage himself. 

But the law of New York State says that married couples shall notuncouple amicably and intelligently. If they will part it must bewith bitterness and laceration. One of the two must be driven outthrough the ugly gate of adultery. They must part as enemies and theymust sacrifice some third person as a blood-offering on the altar. 

It is a strange thing that the lamb, which is the symbol of innocenceand harmlessness, should have always been the favorite for sacrifice. 

Charity Coe had happened along at the convenient moment. 

CHAPTER XII

"Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever, take the stand. .. . "

"Ju swear tell tru thole tru noth buth tru thelpugod?"

"I do. "

McNiven, in the direct examination, asked only such questions asCharity easily answered with proud denials of guilt. Beattie beganthe cross-examination with a sneering scorn of her good faith. 

"Mrs. Cheever, you are the co-respondent in this case of Dyckman_versus_ Dyckman?"

"I am. "

"And on this night you went motoring with defendant?"

"Yes. "

"Was his wife with you?"

"No; you see--"

"Was any other person with you?"

"You see, it was a new car and it was only our intention to--"

"Was any other person with you?"

"No. "

"And you spent the night with the defendant in the Viewcrest Inn?"

"That is hardly the way I should put it. "

"Answer the question, please. "

"I will not answer such an insulting question. "

"I beg your pardon most humbly. Were you registered as thedefendant's wife?"

McNiven's voice: "I 'bject. There is no evidence witness even sawthe book. "

The judge: "Objection s'tained. "

"Well, then, Mrs. Cheever, did you see the defendant write inthe book?"

"I--I--perhaps I did--"

"Perhaps you did. You heard the waiter Magruder testify hereawhile ago that he insisted on defendant registering, and defendantreluctantly complied. Do you remember that?"

"I--I--I believe I do. But I didn't see what he wrote. "

"You didn't see what he wrote. Exhibit A shows that he wrote '_Mr. And Mrs. James Dysart_. ' You heard the handwriting experts testifythat the writing was Dyckman's. But you did not see the writing. Didyou not, however, hear the waiter speak of you as the defendant'swife?"

"Well--I may have heard him. "

"You didn't tell him that you were not the defendant's wife?"

"I didn't speak to the waiter at all. It was a very embarrassingsituation. "

"It must have been. So you did not deny that you were the defendant'swife?"

"You see, it was like this. When Mr. Dyckman asked me to try hisnew car--"

"You did not deny that you were the defendant's wife?"

"I hadn't the faintest idea that we could have gone so far--"

"Answer the question!"

"But I'm coming to that--"

The judge: "Witness will answer question. "

"But, your Honor, can't I explain? Has he a right to ask thesehorrible things in that horrible way?"

The lawyer: "We are trying to get at the horrible truth. But if youprefer not to answer I will not press the point. The waiter showedyou to the parlor, saying that the rest of the hotel was occupied?"

"Yes. "

"He left you there together, you and the defendant?"

"Well, he went away, but--"

"And left you together. He so testified. He also testified that hefound you together the next morning. Is that true?"

"Oh, that's outrageous. I refuse to answer. "

Jim Dyckman rose from his chair in a frenzy of wrath. His lawyer, McNiven, pressed him back and pleaded with him in a whisper toremember the court. He yielded helplessly, cursing himself forhis disgraceful lack of chivalry. 

The judge spoke sternly. "Witness will answer questions of counselor--"

"But, your Honor, he is trying to make me say that I--Oh, it'sloathsome. I didn't. I didn't. He has no right!"

When a woman's hair is caught in a traveling belt and she is drawnbackward, screaming, into the wheels of a great machinery that willmangle her beauty if it does not helplessly murder her there are notmany people whose hearts are hard enough to withhold pity until theylearn whether or not her plight was due to carelessness. 

There are always a few, however, who will add their blame to herburden, and they usually invoke the name of justice for theirlethargy of spirit. 

Yet even the cruelty of that severity is a form of self-protectionagainst a shattering grief; and a perfect heart would have pity evenfor the pitiless, since they, too, are the victims of their owncarelessness; they, too, are drawn backward into the soul-crushingcogs of the world. 

Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever, as good a woman as ever was, was beingdragged to the meeting-point of great wheels, but she had turnedabout and was fighting to escape, at least with what was dearerthan her life. The pain and the terror were supreme, and even ifshe wrenched free from destruction it would be at the cost oflasting scars. Yet she fought. 

It had been all too easy for the infuriated Kedzie Dyckman toentangle Charity in the machinery. Kedzie was a little terrifiedat the consequences of her own act, though she would have said thatshe did it in self-defense and to punish an outrage upon her rights. But when persons set out to punish other persons, it is not oftenthat their own hands are altogether innocent. 

If the Christly edict, "Let him that is without sin cast the firststone, " had been followed out there would never have been anotherstone cast. And one might ask if the world would have been, or couldhave been, the worse for that abstention. For, whatever else may betrue, the venerable practices of justice have been false and futile. 

And now, nearly two thousand years later, after two thousand yearsmore of heartbreaking history, an increasing few are asking bitterlyif punishment has ever paid. 

Vaguely imagining on one side the infinite misery and uglinessof the dungeons and tortures, the disgraces and executions ofthe ages with their counter-punishment on the inquisitors and theexecutioners, and setting against them that uninterrupted stream ofdeeds we call crimes, what is the picture but a ghastly vanity--aneternal process of trying to dam the floods of old Nile by flingingin forever poor wretch after poor wretch to drown unredeemed andunavailing?

Charity was the latest sacrifice. If she had been guilty of lovingtoo wildly well, or of drifting unconsciously into a situation whereopportunity made temptation irresistible, there would be a certainreaction to pity after she had been definitely condemned. There areat times advantages in weakness, as women well know, though Charitydespised them now. 

Kedzie's lawyer, however, felt it good tactics to assume now thepose of benevolent patience with an erring one. Seeing that Charitywas in danger of stirring the hearts of the jurors by her suffering, he forestalled their sympathy and murmured:

"I will wait till Mrs. Cheever has regained control of herself. "

Instantly Charity's pride quickened in her. She wanted none ofthat beast's pity. She responded to the strange sense of disciplinebefore fate that makes a man walk soldierly to the electric chair;inspires a caught spy to stand placidly before his own coffin andface the firing-squad; led Joan of Arc after one panic of terrorto wait serene among the crackling fagots. 

The lawyer was relieved. He had been afraid that Charity would weep. He resumed the probe:

"And now, Mrs. Cheever, if you are quite calm I will proceed. Iregret the necessity of asking these questions, but you were notcompelled to come into court. You came of your own volition, didyou not?"

"Yes. "

"Witnesses have testified and you have not denied that you arrivedat the Viewcrest Inn late at night; that you saw the defendantregister; that you and he went to the only room left; that thewaiter left you together and found you together the next morning. You have heard that testimony, have you not?"

"Yes. "

"Knowing all this, do you still claim that your conduct was abovereproach?"

"For discretion, no. I was foolish and indiscreet. "

"And that was all?"

"Yes. "

"You are innocent of the charge, then?"

"Yes. "

"Do you ask the jury to believe you?"

"I ask them to--yes! Yes! I ask them to. "

"Do you expect them to?"

"Oh, they ought to. "

"If you had been guilty of misconduct would you admit it?"

"Yes. "

"Do you expect them to believe that?"

"If they knew me they would. "

"Well, we haven't all the privilege of knowing you as well as thedefendant does. You may step down, Mrs. Cheever, thank you. "

McNiven rose. "One moment, Mrs. Cheever. You testified on directexamination that the defendant left you immediately after the waiterdid?"

"Yes. "

"And that he did not return till the next morning, just before thewaiter returned. "

"Yes. "

"That is all, Mrs. Cheever. "

McNiven would have done better to leave things alone. The sturdylast answer of Charity and the unsportsmanlike sneer of Kedzie'slawyer had inclined the jury her way. McNiven's explanation awokeagain the skeptic spirit. 

Charity descended from her pillory with a feeling that she had saidnone of the things she had planned to say. The eloquence of herthoughts had seemed incompatible somehow with the witness-stand. At a time when she needed to say so much she had said so littleand all of it wrong. 

CHAPTER XIII

Jim Dyckman's heart was so wrung with pity for Charity when shestepped down and sought her place in a haze of despair that heresolved to make a fight for her himself. He insisted on McNiven'scalling him to the stand, though McNiven begged him to let illenough alone. 

He took the oath with a fierce enthusiasm that woke the jury alittle, and he answered his own lawyer's questions with a fervorthat stirred a hope in the jury's heart, a sorely wrung heart itwas, for its pity for Charity was at war with its pity for Kedzie, and its admiration for Jim Dyckman, who was plainly a gentleman anda good sport even if he had gone wrong, could only express itselfby punishing Kedzie, whose large eyes and sweet mouth the jury couldnot ignore or resist. 

When his own lawyer had elicited from Jim the story as he wantedit told, which chanced to be the truth, McNiven abandoned him toBeattie with the words:

"Your witness. "

Beattie was in fine fettle. He had become a name talked abouttranscontinentally, and now he was crossing swords with the famousDyckman. And Dyckman was at a hideous disadvantage. He couldonly parry, he could not counter-thrust. There was hardly a trickforbidden to the cross-examiner and hardly a defense permitted tothe witness. 

And yet that very helplessness gave the witness a certain shadowyaide at his side. 

Jim's heart was beating high with his fervor to defend Charity, butit stumbled when Beattie rose and faced him. And Beattie faced hima long while before he spoke. 

A slow smile crept over the lawyer's mien as he made an excuse forsilence out of the important task of scrubbing his eye-glasses. 

Before that alkaline grin Jim felt his faith in himself wavering. He remembered unworthy thoughts he had entertained, gracelessthings he had done; he felt that his presence here as a knight ofunassailable purity was hypocritical. He winced at all points fromthe uncertainty as to the point to be attacked. His life was likea long frontier and his enemy was mobilized for a sudden offensive. He would know the point selected for the assault when he felt theassault. The first gun was that popular device, a supposititiousquestion. 

"Mr. Dyckman, you are accused of--well, we'll say co-respondencewith the co-respondent. You have denied your guilt in sundryaffidavits and on the witness-stand here. Remembering the classicand royal ideal of the man who 'perjured himself like a gentleman, 'and assuming--I say 'assuming' what you deny--that you had beenguilty, would you have admitted it?"

"I could not have been guilty. "

"Could not? Really! you astonish me! And why not, please?"

"Because Mrs. Cheever would never have consented. She isa good woman. "

This unexpected answer to the old trick question jolted Beattieperceptibly and brought the jury forward a little. The tears gushedto Charity's eyes and she felt herself unworthy a champion so pious. 

Beattie acknowledged the jolt with a wry smile and returned:

"Very gallant, Mr. Dyckman; you want to be a gentleman and avoidthe perjury, too. But I must ask you to answer the question. Suppose you had been guilty. "

Silence. 

"Answer the question!"

Silence. 

"Will his Honor kindly instruct the witness to answer the question?"

Jim broke in, "His Honor cannot compel me to suppose somethingthat is impossible. "

The jury rejoiced unwillingly, like the crowd in the bleacherswhen a man on the opposing team knocks a home run. The jury likedJim better. But what they liked, after all, was what they falselyimagined. They assumed that Jim had been out on a lark and gotcaught and was putting up a good scrap for his lady friend. He wasa hum-dinger, and no wonder the lady fell for him. Into such slangtheir souls translated the holiness of his emotions, and they votedhim guilty even in awarding him their admiration for his defense. 

Beattie paused again, then suddenly asked, "Mr. Dyckman, how longhave you loved Mrs. Cheever?"

"What do you mean by 'loved'?"

"It is a familiar word. Answer the question. "

"I have admired Mrs. Cheever since she was a child. We have alwaysbeen friends. "

"Your 'friendship' was considerably excited when she marriedMr. Cheever, wasn't it?"

"I--I thought he was unworthy of her. "

"Was that why you beat him up in a fist fight at your club?"

This startled the entire court. Even reporters who had missed thenews were excited. McNiven sprang to his feet, crying:

"I 'bject! There is no evidence before the court that there everwas such a fight. The question is incompirrelvimmaterial. "

"S'tained!" said the judge. 

Beattie was satisfied. The arrow had been pulled out, but its poisonremained. He made use of another of his tantalizing pauses, then:

"It was shortly afterward that Mrs. Cheever divorced her husband, was it not?"

"I 'bject, " McNiven barked. 

"S'tained!" the judge growled. 

"Let us get back to the night when you and Mrs. Cheever wenta-motoring. " Beattie smiled. "There was a beautiful moon on thatoccasion, I believe. "

The jury grinned. The word "moon" meant foolishness. Beattie tookJim through the story of that ride and that sojourn at the tavern, and every question he asked condemned Jim to a choice of answers, either alternative making him out ridiculously virtuous or criminal. 

Beattie rehearsed the undenied facts, but substituted for theglamour of innocence in bad luck the sickly glare of cynicism. Heasked Jim if he had ever heard of the expression, "The time, theplace, and the girl. " He had the jury snickering at the thought ofa big rich youth like Jim being such a ninny, such a milksop andmollycoddle, as to defy an opportunity so perfect. 

The public mind has its dirt as well as its grandeurs; the poolthat mirrors the sky is easily roiled and muddied. It was possiblefor the same people to abhor Jim and Charity for being guilty andto feel that if they were not guilty with such an occasion theywere still more contemptible. 

Thus ridicule, which shakes down the ancient wrongs and the tyrants'pretenses, shakes down also the ancient virtues and the strugglingideals. 

Finally Beattie said, "You say you left the fair corespondentalone in the hotel parlor?"

"I did. "

"All alone?"

"Yes. "

"And you went out into the night, as the saying is?"

"Yes. "

"But you testified that it was raining. "

"It was. "

"You went out into the rain?"

"Yes. "

"To cool your fevered brow?"

Silence from Jim; shrieks of laughter from the silly spectators. The jury was shattered with amusement; the judge wiped a grinfrom his lips. Beattie resumed:

"Where did you sleep?"

"In the office chair. "

"You paid for the parlor! You registered! And you slept in thechair!" [Gales of laughter. His Honor threatens to clear the court. ]"Who saw you asleep in the chair?"

"I don't know--I was asleep. "

"Are you sure that you did not just dream about the chair?"

"I am sure. "

"That's all. "

Jim stepped down, feeling idiotic. 

There is a dignity that survives and is illumined by flames ofmartyrdom, but there is no dignity that is improved by a bladder-buffeting. Jim slunk back to his place and cowered, while theattorneys made their harangues. 

McNiven spoke with passion and he had the truth on his side, butit lacked the convincing look. Beattie rocked the jury-box withlaughter and showed a gift for parodying seriousness that wouldcarry him far on his career. Then he switched to an ardent defenseof the purity of the American home, and ennobled the jury to aknighthood of chivalry and of democracy. As he pointed out, thewell-known vices of the rich make every household unsafe unlessthey are sternly checked by the dread hand of the law. 

He called upon the jury to inflict on the Lothario a verdict thatwould not only insure comfort to the poor little woman whose homehad been destroyed, but would also be severe enough to make evena multimillionaire realize and remember that the despoiler of theAmerican home cannot continue on his nefarious path with impunity. 

The judge gave a long and solemn charge to the jury. It was fairaccording to the law and the evidence, but the evidence had beenjuggled by the fates. 

The jury retired and remained a hideous while. 

CHAPTER XIV

It was only a pleasant clubby discussion of the problem of Jim'sand Charity's innocence that delayed the jury's verdict. One or twoof the twelve had a sneaking suspicion that they had told the truth, but these were laughed out of their wits by the wiser majority whowere not such fools as to believe in fairy-stories. 

As one of the ten put it: "That Dyckman guy may have gone out intothe rain, but, believe me, he knew enough to come in out of thewet. "

A very benevolent old gentleman who sympathized with everybodyconcerned made a little speech:

"It seems to me, gentlemen, that when a man and wife have quarreledas bitterly as those two and have taken their troubles to court, there is no use trying to force them together again. If we givea verdict of not guilty, that will leave Mr. And Mrs. Dyckmanmarried. But they must hate each other by now and that would meanlifelong misery and sin for both. So I think we will save valuabletime and satisfy everybody best by giving a verdict of guilty. Itwon't hurt Dyckman any. "

"What about Mrs. Cheever?"

"Oh, she's gotta lotta money. "

None of the jury had ever had so much as that and it was equivalentto a good time and the answer to all prayers, so they did notfret about Charity's future. On the first ballot, after a properreminiscence of the amusing incidents of the trial they proceededto a decision. The verdict was unanimous that Jim was guilty ascharged. Charity was not to get her forty dollars nor her good name. 

When the jurors filed back into the box the court came to attentionand listened to the verdict. 

Jim and Charity were dazed as if some footpad had struck themover the head with a slingshot. Kedzie was hysterical with relief. She had suffered, too, throughout the trial. And now she had beenvindicated. 

She went to the jury and she shook hands with each member andthanked him. 

"You know I accept the verdict as just one big beautiful birthdaypresent. " It was not her birthday, but it sounded well, and sheadded, "I shall always remember your kindly faces. Never can Iforget one of you. "

Two days later she met one of the unforgetable jurors on the streetand did not recognize him. He had been one-twelfth of her knightlychampions, but she cut him dead as an impertinent stranger when hetried to speak to her. She cut Skip Magruder still deader when hetried to ride home with her. 

He came to call and showed an inclination to settle down as a memberof Kedzie's intimate circle. He had speedily recovered from hisfirst awe at the sight of her splendor. Finding himself necessaryto her, he grew odiously presumptuous. She had not dared to rebukehim. Now she thought she would have to buy him off. Skip had had hiswitness fees and his expenses, and nothing else for his pains. ThenBeattie warned Kedzie that it would look bad to pay Skip any money;it might cast suspicion on his testimony. Kedzie would not have donethat for worlds. Besides, when she learned what Mr. Beattie's feewas to be, she felt too poor to pay anybody anything. 

The only thing she could do, therefore, was to remind Skip of thebeautiful old song, "Lovers once, but strangers now. "

"Besides, Skippie dear, I'm engaged. "

"Already?"

"Yes. "

"You woiked that excuse on me when you tried to explain why youtoined me down when I wrote you the letter at the stage door. "

"Yes, I did. "

"Say, Anitar, you'd oughter git some new material. Your act isgrowin' familiar. "

"I don't know what you mean. "

"Oh no! You wasn't never in vawdvul, was you, oh, no! not a tall!"Kedzie played her pout on him, but Skip glared at her, shook hishead, kicked himself with his game leg, and said, "I gotta giveyou credit, Anitar, you're the real thing as a user. "

"A what?" said Kedzie. 

"A user, " he explained in his elliptical style. "You're one themdames uses a fella like he was a napkin, then trows him down. Youused me twice and used me good. I desoived the second one, for I'mthe kind o' guy gets his once and comes back for more in the sameplace. I'd go tell Jimmie Dyckman I was a liar but I ain't anxiousto be run up for poijury, and I ain't achin' to advertise what aJohn I been. So long, Anitar, and Gaw delp the next guy crossesyour pat'. "

That was the last Kedzie saw of Skip. She did not miss him. She hatedhim for annoying her pride and she hated the law that she used forher divorce, because it required her to wait three months before theinterlocutory decree should become final. The time was hazardouslylong yet short, in a sense, for her alimony was to end at the end ofthree months if she married again, and marrying again was her nextambition. The judge had fixed her alimony at $30, 000 a year, and anallowance for costs. Beattie tried to make a huge cost settlement, but McNiven knew of Kedzie's interest in the Marquess and he refusedthe bait. So Kedzie got only $7, 500. She found it a ruinously smallcapital to begin life as a Marchioness on--she that had had onlytwo dollars to begin life in New York on! The Marquess was verynice about it, and said he didn't want any of Dyckman's dirty money. But Kedzie thought of life in England with alarm, especially asshe had the American comic-opera idea that all foreign peers arepenniless. She dreaded to think what might happen in that threemonths' interregnum between husband II and husband III. Enough washappening in the rest of the world. 

The _annus miserabilis_ 1917 had begun with the determinationof the German Empire to render the seas impassable and to withdrawthe pledge to President Wilson that merchant ships should not besunk till the passengers and crew had a chance to get into openboats. On January 31, 1917, "Frightfulness" began anew, and theundersea fleets, enormously increased, were set loose in shoals. Having no commerce of her own afloat, it was safe for Germany tosink any vessel anywhere. 

Kedzie began to wonder if she would ever dare to sail for hefuture ancestral home, and if she did how long her ship wouldlast. 

On February 3d the U-53, which had sunk Strathdene's ship offNewport, sank an American freighter bound from Galveston toLiverpool. Other American vessels followed her into the depths. On February 27th the Laconia, of 18, 000 tons burden, was torpedoedand twelve passengers died of exposure in the bitter weather. Inone of the open boats a Catholic priest administered the last ritesto seven persons. 

Mrs. Hoy, of Chicago, died in the arms of her daughter and her bodyslipped into the icy waves, to be followed by her daughter's a fewminutes later. 

These seemed to make up a sufficient total of American womendrowned, and on the next day the President declared that thelong-awaited "overt act" had been committed. He asked Congressto declare that peace with Germany was ended. Her ambassador wassent home and ours called home. 

In March the British captured Bagdad and the Germans suddenlyretreated along a sixty-mile front in France; then the Russianrevolution abruptly changed the almighty Czar into a weepingprisoner digging snow. And the vast burying-ground of Siberiagave up its living dead in a sudden apocalypse of freedom. Fiftythousand sledges sped across the steppes laden with returningexiles, chains stil dangling at many a wrist from the dearth ofblacksmiths to strike them off. 

Kedzie did not value the privilege of living in times when epochsof history were crowded into weeks and cycles completed in days. The revolution in Russia disturbed Kedzie as it did many a monarch, and she said to her mother:

"What a shame to treat the poor Czar so badly! Strathie and I wereplanning to visit Russia after the war, too. The Czar was awfullynice to Strathie once and I was sure we'd be invited to live rightin the Duma or the Kremlin or whatever they call the palace. Andnow they've got a cheap and nasty old republic over there! Andthey're talking of having republics everywhere. What could be morestupid? As if everybody was born free and equal. Mixing all thearistocrats right up with the common herd!"

Mrs. Thropp agreed that it was simply terrible. 

"Do you know what?" Kedzie gasped. 

"What?" her mother echoed. 

"I've just had a hunch. I'll bet that by the time I get married toStrathie there'll be nothing left but republics, and no titles attall. His people came over with Henry the Conqueror and his titlewill last just long enough for me to reach for it, and then--woof!Wouldn't it be just my luck to become plain Mrs. Strathdene afterall I've had to go through! Honestly, m'mah, don't I just have thedog-on'dest luck!"

"It's perfectly awful, " said Mrs. Thropp, "but bad luck can't goon forever. "

On April 2d the future Mrs. Strathdene was cheered by anextraordinary spectacle--newspapers in the Metropolitan OperaHouse! Kedzie was there with her waning Marquess. The occasionwas rare enough in itself, for an American opera was being heard:"The Canterbury Pilgrims, " with Mr. Reginald De Koven's music toMr. Percy Mackaye's text. 

Suddenly, in the _entr'acte_ the unheard-of thing--thenewspapers--appeared in the boxes and about the house! Peoplespread evening extras on the rails and read excitedly that PresidentWilson had gone to Congress and asked it to declare that a state ofwar existed and had existed. 

The Italian manager directed the Polish conductor to play "TheStar-Spangled Banner" and the three thousand men and women of theaudience made a chorus on the obverse side of the curtain. 

Mr. Gerard, lately returned from Germany, called for "Three cheersfor President Wilson, " and there were loud huzzahs for him and forthe Allies. 

"You and I are allies now, " Kedzie murmured to the Marquess. Shethought a trifle better of her country. 

The Austrian prima donna fainted and could not appear in the lastact, and everybody went home expecting to see the vigor of Uncle Samdisplayed in a swift and tremendous delivery of a blow long, longwithheld. 

The vigor was displayed in a tremendous delivery of words far betterwithheld. 

It was a week before Congress agreed that war existed and over amonth passed before Congress agreed upon the nature of the army tobe raised. Nearly four months passed before the draft was made. 

Jim Dyckman was almost glad of the delay, for it gave him hopeof settling his spiritual affairs in time to be a soldier. He wasdetermined to marry Charity as soon as the three months' probationterm was over. But Charity said no! Cowering in seclusion from theeyes of her world, she cherished a dream that when the war broke andthe dead began to topple and the wounded to bleed, she might expiatethe crime she had not committed, by devoting to her own people herpractised mercies. She was afraid to offer them now, or even to makeher appearance among the multitudinous associations that sprang upeverywhere in a frantic effort to make America ready in two weeksfor a war that had been inevitable for two years. Not only a warwas to be fought, but a world famine. 

Charity was ashamed to show her white face even at the Red Cross. She busied herself with writing checks for the snow-storm of appealsthat choked her mail. Otherwise she pined in idleness, refusing morethan ever the devotion that Jim offered her now in a longing thatincreased with denial. 

She suffered infinitely, yet mocked her own sufferings as pettytrifles. She contrasted them with what the millions on millionsof Europe's men were enduring as they huddled in the snow-drenched, grenade-spattered trenches, or agonized in all their wounds out inthe No-Man's Land between the trenches. She told herself that herown heartaches were negligible, despicable against the innumerableanguishes of the women who saw their men, their old men, theiryoung men, their lads, going into the eternal mills of the war, while hunger and loneliness and toil unknown to women before madeup their daily portion. 

She accused herself for still remaining apart from that continentalsisterhood of grief. All America seemed to be playing Hamlet, debating, deferring, letting irresolution inhibit every necessaryduty. 

Since her country had disowned her and refused her justice orchivalry, she was tempted to disown her country and claim citizenshipamong those who could fight and could sacrifice and could endure. 

It was not easy to persuade a captain to take a woman passengeraboard his ship, now that the German ambition was to sink a milliontons a month, but she resolved again to go if she had to stowaway. 

First she would finish her affairs, make her will, and burn herletters. She had neglected to change the testament she had signedwhen she became Peter Cheever's wife, and took a pride in making himher sole heir. It would be ridiculous to make him such a post-mortemgift now, now that he had not only money enough, but a wife thatsatisfied him, and a child. 

She wondered whom to leave her money to. Jim Dyckman's name keptrecurring to her and she smiled at that, for he had more money thanhe could use. Besides, the mention of his name in her will wouldconfirm the public belief in their intrigue. She had nobody toinflict her inheritance upon but a few relatives, mostly richenough. She decided to establish a fund for her own orphans, thechildren of other women whom she had adopted. 

Making a will is in sort a preliminary death. Making hers, Charityfelt herself already gone, and looked back at life with a finalityas from beyond the grave. It was a frightful thing to review herjourney from a lofty angel's-eye view. 

Her existence looked very petty. Now that her hope and her senseswere ended, she felt a grudge against the world that she had got solittle out of. She had tried to be a good woman, and her altruismhad won her such a bad name that if Dr. Mosely should preach herfuneral sermon he would feel that he had revealed a wonderful spiritof forbearance in leaving it unmentioned that she was an abandoneddivorcee. 

If she had been actually guilty of an intrigue with Jim DyckmanDr. Mosely would have forgiven her even more warmly, because it wasa woman taken in actual adultery who was forgiven, while Charityhad tactlessly fought the charge and demanded vindication insteadof winsomely appealing for pity. 

By a roundabout road of self-surrender she had come to the samedestination that she might have reached by the straight path ofself-indulgence. She was perilously near to resolving that she hadbeen a fool not to have taken happiness, physical happiness, first. A grand red passion seemed so much more beautiful than a petty blueasceticism. 

When she got home from the will-making session with McNiven shebegan to go over her papers and close the books of her years. She attacked old heaps of bundles of her husband's letters andtelegrams, and burned them with difficulty in her fireplace. 

She felt no temptation to glance over them, though her lip curledin a grimace of sardonic disgust to consider how much Peter Cheeverhad been to her and how little he was to her now. The first parcelsshe burned were addressed to "Miss Charity Coe. " How far off itseemed since she had been called "Miss"!

She had been a girl when Cheever's written and spoken words inflamedher. They blazed now as she had blazed. Into that holocaust had goneher youth, her illusions, her virginity, her bridehood, her wifelytrust. And all that was left was a black char. 

She came upon letters from Jim Dyckman, also, a few. She flung theminto the fire with the rest. He had had nothing from her exceptfriendship and girlish romance and a grass-widow's belated affection. Crimson thoughts stole through her dark heart like the lithe blazesinterlacing the letters; she wondered if she would have done betterto have followed desire and taken love instead of solitude. 

She knew that she could have made Jim hers long ago with a littleless severity, a less harsh rebuff. The Church condemned her foropenly divorcing her husband. She might have kept him on the leashand carried on the affair with Jim that Cheever accused her of ifJim had been complacent and stealthy. Or, she might have kept Jimat her heels till she was rid of Cheever and then have married him. She would have saved him at least from floundering through the marshwhere that Kedzie-o'-the-wisp had led him to ultimate disaster. 

And now that she had taken stock of her past and put it into thefire, she felt strangely exiled. She had no past, no present, anda future all hazy. Her loneliness was complete. She had to talkto some one, and she telephoned to Jim Dyckman, making her good-bysan excuse. 

It was the first time he had been permitted to hear her voice forweeks, and the lonely joy that cried out in his greeting broughtwarm tears to her dull, dry eyes. 

He heard her weeping and he demanded the right to come to see her. She refused him and cut off his plea, hoping that he would come, anyway, and waiting tremulously till the door-bell rang with aforgotten thrill of a caller, a lover calling. 

Her maid, who brought her Jim's name, begged with her eyes thathe should not be turned away again. Charity nodded and prinkeda little and went down-stairs into Jim's arms. 

He took her there as if she belonged there and she felt that shedid, though she protested, feebly:

"You are not unmarried yet. "

They were in that No-Man's-Land. She was neither maid, wife, norwidow, but divorcée. He was neither bachelor, husband, nor widower;he was not even a divorcé. He was a _Nisi Prius_. 

CHAPTER XV

The childish old fates played one of their cheapest jokes on JimDyckman when, after they had dangled Charity Coe just out of hisreach for a lifetime, they flung her at his head. They do thosethings. They waken the Juliets just a moment too late to savethe Romeos and themselves. 

Jim had revered Charity as far too good for him, and now everybodywondered if he would do the right thing by her. Prissy Atterburyin a burst of chivalry said it when he said:

"Jim's no gentleman if he doesn't marry Charity. "

Pet put it in a more womanly way:

"Unless he's mighty spry she'll nab him. Trust her!"

Among the few people who had caught a glimpse of Charity, no one hadbeen quite cruel enough to say those things to her face, but Charityimagined them. Housed with her sick and terrified imagination forcompanion, she had imagined nearly everything dismal. 

And now, when, by the mere laws of gravitation, she had floated intoJim Dyckman's arms for a moment, she heard the popular doom of themboth in the joke he attempted:

"Charity, I've got to marry you to make you an honest woman. "

She wrenched free of his embrace with a violence that staggered him. He saw that she was taking his effort at playfulness seriously, eventragically. 

"No, no, Jim!" she gasped. "I've brought you enough trouble andenough disgrace. I won't let you ruin your life by marrying meout of pity. "

"Pity! Good God!" Jim groaned. "Why, you don't think I meant that, do you? I was just trying to be funny, because I was so happy. I'll promise never to try to be funny again. It was like saying toVenus, 'You're a homely old thing, but I'll let you cook for me';or saying to--whoever it was was the Goddess of Wisdom, 'You don'tknow much, but'--Why, Charity Coe, you're Venus and Minerva and allthe goddesses rolled into one. "

Charity shook her head. 

He roared: "If it's pity you're talking about, isn't it about timeyou had a little for me? Life won't be worth a single continentaldamn to me if I don't get you. "

Charity had needed something of this sort for a long time. Itsounded to her like a serenade by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her acknowledgment was a tearful, smileful giggle-sob:

"Honestly?"

"Honest-to-God-ly!"

"All right, as soon as you're a free man fetch the parson, for I'mpretty tired of being a free woman. "

Jim had learned from McNiven that a part of his freedom, when he gotit, would be a judicial denial of the right to surrender it for fiveyears. He had learned that if he wanted to marry Charity he mustpersuade her over into New Jersey. It did not please Jim to have tofollow the example of Zada and Cheever, and it hit him as a peculiarcruelty that he and Charity had to accept not only an unearnedincrement of scandal in the verdict of divorce, but also a marriagecontrary to the laws of New York. 

New York would respect the ceremonies of New Jersey, but there wouldbe a shadow on the title. Still, such marriages were recognized bythe public with little question, just as in the countries wheredivorce is almost or quite impossible society of all grades hasalways countenanced unions not too lightly entered into or continued. In such countries words like "mistress, " "concubine, " and "morganaticwife" take on a decided respectability with a touch of pathos ratherthan reproach. 

Jim had come to beg Charity to accept a marriage with an impediment. He had expected a scene when he proposed a flight across the riverand a return to Father Knickerbocker with a request for pardon. But her light suggestion of a religious ceremony threw him intoconfusion. He mumbled:

"Is a parson absolutely necessary?"

Charity's lips set into a grim line. 

"I'll be married by a parson or I'll not be married at all. TheChurch has enough against me on account of my divorce and thislast ghastly thing. To get married outside the Church would cutme off entirely from everything that's sacred. There won't beany difficulty about getting a parson, will there?"

"Oh no, not at all!" Jim protested, "only--oh no, not at all, except--"

"Only what? Except what?"

"You'll have to go to New Jersey to be married. "

"Why should I?"

"Entirely on my account, honey. It's because I'm in disgrace. "

This way of putting it brought her over that sill with a rush. To be able to endure something for him was a precious ability. She hugged him devoutly, then put his arms away. 

When he left her he had a brilliant inspiration. He thought howsoothing it would be to her bruised heart, what carron-oil to herblistered reputation, if he got Doctor Mosely to perform theceremony. Jim was so delighted with the stroke of genius that hewent immediately to the pastor's house. The dear old man greetedhim with a subdued warmth. 

"This is an unusual privilege, dear boy. I haven't seen you for--oh, ever so long. Of course, I have read of you--er--that is--what--towhat am I indebted for--"

"You perform marriages, don't you?"

"That is one of my perilous prerogatives. But, of course, I can'tguarantee how well my marriages will wear in these restless times. "

Jim braved a flippancy: "Then, being an honest dealer, you replaceany damaged article, of course?"

"I am afraid I could hardly go so far as that. "

"Could you go as far as New Jersey?"

"In my time I have ventured into Macedonia. But why do you ask?"

"You see, in a day or two, I'll be free from my present--that is, my absent wife; and I wanted to know if you could come over andmarry me. "

"But I thought--I fear--do you mean to say you are marrying someyoung woman from over there?"

"I'm marrying Charity Coe. "

"My dear, dear boy! Really! You can't, you know! She has beendivorced and so have you. "

"Yes, all quite legally. "

"And you ask me to join your hands in holy matrimony?"

"No, just plain legal matrimony. I was joined in holy matrimonyonce, and I don't insist on that part of it again. But Charitywants a clergyman and I don't mind. "

"Really, my son, you know better than to assume this tone to me. You've been away from church too long. "

"Well, if you want to get me back, fasten me to Charity. You knowshe's the best woman that ever lived. "

"She is a trifle too rebellious to merit that tribute, I fear. "

"Well, give her another chance. She has had enough hard knocks. You ought to go to her rescue. "

"Do you think that to be the duty of the Church?"

"It used to be, didn't it? But don't get me into theology. I can'tswim. The point is, will you marry Charity to me?"

"No!"

"Wouldn't you marry her to any man?"

"Only to one. "

"Who's that?"

"Her former husband. "

"But he's married to another woman. "

"I do not recognize that marriage. "

"Good Lord! Would you like to see Charity married to Cheeveragain?"

"Yes. "

"To Peter Cheever?"

"Yes. "

"Whew! Say, Doctor, that's going it pretty strong. "

"I do not care to discuss the sacraments with you in your presenthumor. "

"Did you read the trial of that woman last week who killed herhusband and was acquitted? Mrs. What's-her-name? You must haveread it. "

"I pay little attention to the newspaper scandals. "

"You ought to--they're what make life what it is. Anyway, this womanhad a husband who turned out bad. He was a grafter and a gambler, a drunkard and a brute. He beat her and their five children horribly, and finally she divorced him. The law gave her her freedom in fiveminutes and there was no fuss about it, because she was poor, andthe newspapers have no room for poor folks' marriage troubles--unlessthey up and kill somebody. 

"Well, this woman was getting along all right when some goodreligious people got at her about the sin of her divorce and thebroken sacrament, and they kept at her till finally she consentedto remarry her husband--for the children's sake! There was greatrejoicing by everybody--except the poor woman. After the remarriagehe returned to his old ways and began to beat her again, and finallyshe emptied a revolver into him. "

"Horrible, horrible!"

"Wasn't it? The jury disagreed on the first trial. But on the secondthe churchpeople who persuaded her to remarry him went on the standand confessed--or perhaps you would say, boasted--that they persuadedher to remarry him. And then she was acquitted. And that's why thecivil law has always had to protect people from--"

Doctor Mosely turned purple at the implication and the insolence. He scolded Jim loftily, but Jim did not cower. He was upheld byhis own religion, which was Charity Coe's right to vindicationand happiness. 

At length he realized that he was harming Charity and not DoctorMosely. Suddenly he was apologizing humbly:

"I'm very much ashamed of myself. You're an older man and venerable, and I--I oughtn't to have forgotten that. "

"You ought not. "

"I'll do any penance you say, if you'll only marry Charity and me. "

"Don't speak of that again. "

He thought of his old friend and attorney, money. He put thatforward. 

"I'll pay anything. "

"Mr. Dyckman!"

"I'll give the church a solid gold reredos or contribute any sumto any alms--"

"Please go. I cannot tolerate any more. "

Jim left the old man in such agitation that a reporter named Hallard, who shadowed him, feeling in his journalistic bones that a big storywould break about him soon, noted his condition and called on DoctorMosely. He was still shaken with the storm of defending his idealsfrom profanation, and Hallard easily drew from him an admission thatMr. Dyckman was bent upon matrimony, also a scathing diatribe on theremarriage of divorced persons as one of the signs of the increasingdegeneracy of public morals. 

 * * * * *

Hallard's paper carried a lovely exclusive story the next morningin noisy head-lines. The other newspapers enviously plagiarizedit and set their news-sleuths on Jim's trail. The clergy of alldenominations took up the matter as a theme of vital timeliness. 

Jim and Charity were beautifully suited to the purposes of bothsorts; the newspapers that pulpiteered the news and wrote highlymoral editorials for sensation's sake; and the pulpiteers whoshouted head-lines and yellow journalism from their rostrums, more for the purpose of self-advertisement than for any devotionto Christly principles of sympathy and gentle comprehension. 

Jim was stupefied to find himself once more pilloried and portraitedand ballyhooed in the newspapers. But he tightened his jaws andrefused to be howled from his path by any coyote pursuit. 

His next thought was of the New Jersey clergyman who had marriedhim to Kedzie. He motored over to him. 

Jim had told Dr. Mosely that clergymen ought to keep up with thenews. He found, to his regret, that the New Jersey dominie did. 

He remembered Jim well and heard him out, but shook his head. He explained why, patiently. He had been greatly impressed by theaction of the House of Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Churchconvened at St. Louis in October, 1916. A new canon had been proposeddeclaring that "no marriage shall be solemnized in this Churchbetween parties, either of whom has a husband or wife still living, who has been divorced for any cause arising after marriage. "

This meant that the innocent party, as well as the guilty, shouldbe denied another chance. The canon had been hotly debated--so hotlythat one preacher referred to any wedding of divorced persons as"filth marriage, " and others were heard insisting that even Christ'sacceptance of adultery as a cause for divorce was an interpolationin the text, and that the whole passage concerning the woman taken inadultery was absent from some ancient manuscripts. A halt was calledto this dangerous line of argument, and one clergyman protested that"the question of the integrity of the Scriptures is more importantthan the question of marriage and divorce. " Another clergymanpleaded: "An indissoluble marriage is a fiction. What is the use oftying the Church up to a fiction? It is our business to teach andnot to legislate. " Eventually the canon was defeated. But many ofthe clergy were determined to follow it, anyway. 

In any case, not only was Charity divorced, but she had been involvedin Jim's divorce, and Jim, as the New Jersey preacher pointed outto him, was denied remarriage even by the civil law of New York. Theappeal to New Jersey was plainly a subterfuge, and he begged Jim togive Charity up. 

"You don't know what you ask, " Jim cried. "I'll find somebody witha heart!" And he stormed out. 

CHAPTER XVI

Jim reported to Charity his two defeats and the language he had heardand read. Charity's conscience was so clean that her reaction was oneof wrath. She pondered her future and Jim's. She could not see whateither of them had done so vile that they should be sentenced tocelibacy for life, or more probably to an eventual inevitable horrorof outward conformity and secret intrigue. 

She knew too many people whose wedlock had been a lifelong toleranceof infamy on the part of one or both. Some of the bitterest enemiesof divorce were persons who had found it quite unnecessary. Shefelt that to forgive and to forget became so anti-social a habitin matrimony that no divorce could be worse. 

She was afraid of herself, too. She dared not trust herself with lifealone. She was too human to be safe. Marriage with Jim would protecthim and her from each other and from the numberless temptationsawaiting them. Finally, there were no children in the matter. 

All arguments prove too much and too little, and in the end becomesimply our own briefs for our own inclinations. Charity's mood beingwhat it was, she adopted the line of reasoning that led to her ownambition. She spent much time on her knees, but communed chieflywith herself, and rose always confirmed in her belief that to marryJim Dyckman was the next great business of her existence. 

Jim, too, had grown unwontedly earnest. The marriage denounced bythe religious had taken on a religious quality. He was inclined tobattle for it as for a creed, as the clergymen had battled vainlyfor the new canon. 

He, too, felt a spirit of genuflexion and wanted to speak to Godpersonally; to appeal to Him by a private petition as to a kingwhose ministers denied mercy. 

By his bed he sank down and prayed. He was very solemn, but toouncertain of the solemn voice to use it. He half whispered, halfthought:

"O God, I don't know how you want me to act. I only know that myheart keeps on calling for Charity and a home with her, and childrensome day. There'll never be any children for either of us if we obeythe Church. Forgive me if I doubt what these preachers tell me, butI just can't believe it to be your voice. If it is not your voice, what is it that makes me feel it such a sin not to marry Charity?I'm going to, God, unless you stop me. I may be making a big mistake, but if I am you'll understand. You will not be mad at me any morethan I am mad at my dog when he misunderstands me, for I know he isa good dog and wants to do what I want him to if he can only learnwhat it is. If it is not your will that I should marry Charity tellme now so that I can't misunderstand, for if you don't I'm goingahead. If I have to take the punishment afterward, I'll take itrather than leave that poor soul alone. Bless her, O God, and helpme. Amen. "

And now both Charity and Jim were ready for battle. She set her handin Jim's and said that she would marry him in spite of all, but thatshe would not give up her hope of being married by one of her ownfaith until she had canvassed the entire clergy. 

And then began one of the strangest quests ever undertaken, evenin this transitional period of matrimony as an institution--a questso strange that it would seem impossible if it had not actuallyhappened. Jim and Charity hunted a preacher and the press huntedthem. 

While the journalists waited for the United States to enter the warwith soldiers, the reporters kept in practice by scouting after JimDyckman and sniping him whenever he showed his head. He succeededonly in getting his resignation from his regiment accepted. Heplanned to sail for France and fight for France as soon as he hadmarried Charity. 

When he failed to secure a minister by letter or telegram he setforth to make personal visits. Sometimes Charity went with him sothat there should be no delay or time for a change of mood. 

From city to town they went, from village to city, searching foran Episcopalian clergyman to say the desired words. Jim offered anybribery that might suffice, but ahead of him went his notoriety. 

Many a warm-hearted clergyman felt sympathy for Jim and Charity andlonged to end their curious pilgrimage, but dared not brave the wrathof his fellow-preachers or accept the unwelcome fame that awaitedhis blessing, and the discipline that would be meted out to him. 

Jim's picture was so widely published that when he eluded one crowdanother posse sprang up wherever he reappeared. His entrance intoa town was a signal for the clergy to scurry to cover. Some of them, to put themselves on record and insure themselves against temptation, denounced Jim and his attachée as traveling fiends, emissaries ofthe devil. 

The wealth that was their drag was proclaimed as their weapon. 

The storm grew fiercer and the language more unrestrained. Jim andCharity, reading in the papers the terms applied to them, coweredand shuddered. 

Charity grew haggard and peevish. Her obstinacy was hardly more thana lockjaw of fright, the stubbornness of a drowning child afraid tolet go. 

Jim was almost equally sick. The newspaper pursuit covered him withchagrin. His good old name was precious to him, and he knew how hismother and father were suffering at its abuse, as well as for himin his fugitive distress. 

Jim's mother was very much mother. She took into her breast everyarrow shot at him. When she saw him she held him fiercely in herarms, her big frame aching with a Valkyrian ardor to lift the bravewarrior on a winged horse and carry him away from the earth. 

It is hard for the best of mothers to love even the best ofdaughters-in-law, for how can two fires prosper on the same fuel?It had been a little too hard for Mrs. Dyckman to love Kedzie. Itwas all too easy to hate her now and to denounce her till even Jimwinced. 

"Don't think of her, mother, " he pleaded. "Don't let's speak ofher any more. She's only one of my past mistakes. You never mentionthose--why not let her drop?"

"All right, honey. You must forgive me. I'm only a sour old womanand it breaks my heart to think of that little, common--"

"There you go again, " her husband growled, sick with grief, too. "Let the little cat go. "

"What's killing me, " Jim said, "is thinking of what I've brought onCharity. It makes me want to die. "

"But you'll have to live for her sake--and your mother's, " said hismother. "Charity's the only woman I know that's worth fighting for. I've known her since she was born and I never knew her to do or sayone single petty thing. She hasn't got one of those qualities thatwomen hate so much in women. "

"Then why should she have to suffer such persecution?" Jim cried. "My God! is chivalry dead in the world?"

His father flung his arm around him and hugged him roughly. "Notwhile there's a man like you to fight for a woman like her. I neverwas so proud of anything as I am of being the father of a big fellowlike you, who can make a battle like yours for love of a woman. "

"But why should I have to fight for her? Whose business is it butours that we want to get married decently and live together quietly?Isn't this a free country?"

"Only the press is free, " said his father. "And poor Charity isgetting nothing more than women have always got who've dared to askfor their own way. They used to throw 'em to the lions, or bowstring'em in the harems. And in the days of real chivalry they burned 'emat the stake or locked 'em up in convents or castles. But don't youworry, Jim, Charity has you for a champion and she's mighty lucky. Go on and fight the muckers and the muck-rakers, and don't let thereporters or the preachers scare you away from doing the one rightthing. "

The newspapers kept within the almost boundless limits of thelibel law. Jim had publicity enough, and he did not care to add toit by a libel suit, nor could he bring himself to make a personalattack on any of his pursuers. His discretion took on the lookof poltroonery and he groveled in shame. 

One bitter day he motored with Charity to a village where aclergyman lived who had wearied of the persecution and volunteeredhis offices. When they arrived his wife told Jim that he wasstricken ill. He had fretted himself into his bed. 

Jim bundled Charity into his car and set forth again in a storm. The car skidded and turned turtle in a ditch. By some chance neitherof them was more than bruised and muddied. The hamper of food wasspilled and broken and they had hours to wait by the roadside whilea wrecking crew came from the nearest city to right the car. 

While they waited, forlorn and shivering, like two tramps ratherthan like two malefactors of great wealth, their hunger drove themto banquet on their little store. 

Jim, gnawing at a crust of suspicious cleanliness, studied Charitywhere she huddled in the shelter of a dripping tree, like a queendriven forth into exile. And the tears poured from his eyes andsalted the bread. He had eaten the food of his own tears. He hadtasted life and found it bitter. 

When the men came with the ropes and the tackle necessary andslowly righted the car he found that its engine ran again and hehad speed and strength once more as his servants. He tried toencourage Charity with a figure of speech. 

"They've got us ditched, honey, for a while, but we'll get rightedsoon and then life will be as smooth as smooth. "

She tried to smile for his sake, but she had finished with hope. 

CHAPTER XVII

While Jim and Charity sat by the roadside the Marchioness ofStrathdene, _née_ Kedzie Thropp, of Nimrim, sat on a finecushion and salted with her tears the toasted English crumpetshe was having with her tea. 

She had been married indeed, but the same ban that fell upon Jim'sremarriage had forbidden her the wedding of her dreams. She wasthe innocent party to the divorce and she was married in a church. But it was not of the Episcopal creed, which she was now calling theChurch of England. Kedzie-like, she still wanted what she could notget and grieved over what she got. It is usual to berate people ofher sort, but they are no more to be blamed than other dyspeptics. Souls, like stomachs, cannot always coordinate appetite anddigestion. 

Kedzie had, however, found a husband who would be permanentlyprecious to her, since she would never be certain of him. Likeher, he was restless, volatile, and maintained his equilibrium asa bicycle does only by keeping on going. He was mad to be off tothe clouds of France. There was a delay because ships were sailinginfrequently, and their departure was kept secret. Passengers hadto go aboard and wait. 

Bidding "bon voyage" was no longer the stupid dock-party platitudeit had been. It was bidding "good-by" with faint hope of _"aurevoir. "_ Ladies going abroad, even brides, thought little oftheir deck costumes so long as they included a well-tailoredlife-preserver. 

Mrs. Thropp stared at Kedzie and breathed hard in her creakingsatin. And Adna looked out at her over the high collar that tooka nip at his Adam's apple every time he swallowed it. 

The old parents were sad with an unwonted sorrow. They had money atlast and they had even been hauled up close to the aristocracy asthe tail to Kite Kedzie. But now they had time to realize that theywere to lose this pretty thing they had somehow been responsiblefor yet unable to control. They had nearly everything else, so theirchild was to be taken from them. 

Suddenly they loved her with a grave-side ache. She was their baby, their little girl, their youth, their beauty, their romance, theirdaughter. And perhaps in a few days she would be shattered and deadin a torpedoed ship. Perhaps in some high-flung lifeboat she wouldbe crouching all drenched and stuttering with cold and dying withterror. 

Mrs. Thropp broke into big sobs that jolted her sides and she fellover against Adna, who did not know how to comfort her. He heldher in arms like a bear's and patted her with heavy paws, but shefelt on her head the drip-drip of his tears. And thus Kedzie by herdeparture brought them together in a remarriage, a poor sort ofhoneymoon wherein they had little but the bitter-sweet privilegeof helping each other suffer. 

The picture of their welded misery brought Kedzie a return, too, to her child hunger for parentage. She wanted a mother and afather and she could not have them. She went to put her exquisitearms about them and the three so dissimilar heads were grotesquelyunited. 

The Marquess of Strathdene pretended to be disgusted and stormedout. But that was because he did not want to be seen making an assof himself, weeping as Bottom the Weaver wept. He flung away hissalted and extinguished cigarette and wondered what was the matterwith the world where nothing ever came out right. 

His own mother was weeping all the time and her letters told alwaysof new losses. The newspapers kept printing stories of Strathdene'schums being put away in a trench or a hospital, or falling fromthe clouds dead. 

And starvation was coming everywhere; in England there was talkof famine, and all America had gone mad with fear of it. But stillthe war went on in a universal suicide which nobody could stop, andpeace, the one thing that everybody wanted, was wanted by nobodyon any terms that anybody else would even discuss. 

As he agonized with his philosophy and lighted another cigarette, the street roared like hurricane. Below the windows the FrenchMission was proceeding up Fifth Avenue. Marechal Joseph Joffreand Rene Viviani were awakening tumult in the American heart andstirring it to the rescue of France and of England and of Belgiumand Italy, with what outcome none could know. One could only knowthat at last the great flood of war had encircled the UnitedStates, reducing it to the old primeval problems and emotions:how to get enough to eat, how to get weapons, how to find and beatdown the enemy, how to endure the farewells of fathers, mothers, sons, sisters, sweethearts, wives. Everything was complex beyondunderstanding for minds, but things were very simple for hearts;they had only to ache with sorrow or wrath. 

The Marchioness of Strathdene and her airy husband reached Englandwithout being submarined, and there, to her great surprise, Kedziefound a whole new universe of things not quite right. "If only itwere otherwise!" was still the perpetual alibi of contentment. 

CHAPTER XVIII

From the glory of the festivals of alliance Jim Dyckman and CharityCoe were absent. Both were so eager to be abroad in the battle thatthey did not miss the flag-waving. But they wanted to cross thesea together. The importance of this ambition tempted Charity toa desperate conclusion that the formalities of her union with Jimdid not matter so long as they were together. Yet the risk of deathwas so inescapable and she was so imbued with churchliness thather dreams were filled with visions of herself dead and buried inunhallowed ground, of herself and Jim standing at heaven's gateand turned away for lack of a blessing on their union. 

Her soul was about ready to break completely, but her body gaveout first. It was in a small town in New Jersey that they foundthemselves weather-bound. 

The sky seemed to rain ice-water and they took refuge in thevillage's one hotel, a dismal place near the freight-station. The entrance was up a narrow staircase, past a bar-room door. 

The rooms were ill furnished and ill kept, and the noise ofscreaming locomotives and jangling freight-cars was incessant. But there was no other hospitality to be had in the town. 

Jim left Charity at her door and begged her to sleep. Her dulleyes and doddering head promised for her. 

He went to his own room and laughed at the cheap wretchedness of it:the cracked pitcher in the cracked bowl, the washstand whose lowerdoor would not stay open, the two yellow towels in the rack, thebureau, the cane chairs, and the iron bed with its thin mattressand neglected drapery. 

He lowered himself into a rickety rocker and looked out throughthe dirtier window at the dirty town. The only place to go was tosleep, and he tried to make the journey. But a ferocious resentmentat the idiocy of things drove away repose. 

He resolved that he had been a fool long enough. He would give upthe vain effort to conform, and would take Charity without sanction. He was impatient to go to her then and there, but he dared notapproach her till she had rested. 

He remembered a book he had picked up at one of their villages ofdenial. It was one of those numberless books everybody is supposedto have read. For that reason he had found it almost impossible tobegin. But he was desperate enough to read even a classic. He hopedthat it would be a soporific. That was his definition of a classic. 

The book was the Reverend Charles Kingsley's _Hypatia. _ Jim wasdown on the Episcopal clergy one and all, and he read with prejudice, skipping the preface, of course, which set forth the unusual impulseof a churchman to help the Church of his own day by pointing out thecrimes and errors of the Church of an earlier day; a too, too rareappeal to truth for the sake of salvation by the way of truth. 

As Jim glanced angrily through the early pages, the pictures of lifein the fifth century caught and quickened his gritty eyes. He skimmedthe passages that did not hold him, but as the hours went on he grewmore unable to let go. 

The sacred lunch hour passed by ignored. The rain beat down on theroof as the words rained up from the page. The character of thateminently wise and beautiful and good Hypatia seemed to be Charityin ancient costume. The hostility of the grimy churchmen of that dayinfuriated him. He cursed and growled as he read. 

The persecution of Hypatia wrought him to such wrath that he wantedto turn back the centuries and go to her defense. He breathed hard ashe came to the last of the book and read of the lynching of Hypatia, the attack of the Christians upon her chariot, the dragging of herexquisite body through the streets, and even into the church, and upto the altar, up to the foot of "the colossal Christ watching unmovedfrom off the wall, his right hand raised to give a blessing--ora curse?"

Jim panted as Philammon did, tracing her through the streets by thefragments of her torn robes and fighting through the mob in vain toreach her and shield her. He became Philammon and saw not words ona page, but a tragedy that lived again. 

She shook herself free from her tormentors, and, springing back, rose for one moment to her full height, naked, snow-white againstthe dusky mass around--shame and indignation in those wide cleareyes, but not a stain of fear. With one hand she clasped her goldenlocks around her; the other long white arm was stretched upwardtoward the great still Christ, appealing--and who dare say, invain?--from man to God. 

Her lips were opened to speak; but the words that should have comefrom them reached God's ear alone; for in an instant Peter struckher down, the dark mass closed over her again . .. And then wail onwail, long, wild, ear-piercing, rang along the vaulted roofs andthrilled like the trumpet of avenging angels through Philammon'sears. 

Crushed against a pillar, unable to move in the dense mass, hepressed his hands over his ears. He could not shut out thoseshrieks! When would they end? What in the name of the God of mercywere they doing? Tearing her piecemeal? Yes, and worse than that. And still the shrieks rang on, and still the great Christ lookeddown on Philammon with that calm, intolerable eye, and would notturn away. And over His head was written in the rainbow, "I am thesame, yesterday, to-day, and forever!" The same as He was in Judeaof old, Philammon? Then what are these, and in whose temple? Andhe covered his face with his hands, and longed to die. 

It was over. The shrieks had died away into moans; the moans tosilence. How long had he been there? An hour, or an eternity?Thank God it was over! For her sake--but for theirs?

Startled by the vividness of the murder, Jim looked up from thebook, thinking that he had heard indeed the shrieks of Charityin a death-agony. The walls seemed to quiver still with theirreverberation. 

He put down the book in terror and saw where he was. It was likewaking from a nightmare. He was glad to find that he was not ina temple of ancient Alexandria, but in even that dingy New Jerseyinn. 

He wondered if Charity had not died. He hesitated to go to her doorand knock. She needed sleep so much that he hardly dared to riskwaking her, even to assure himself that she was alive. 

He went to the window and saw two men under umbrellas talking inthe yard between the hotel wings. They would not have been laughingas they were if they had heard shrieks. 

His eye was caught by a window opposite his. There sat Charity ina heavy bath-robe; her hair was down; she had evidently droppedinto the chair by the open window and fallen asleep. 

Jim stared at her and was reminded of how he had stared at Kedzieon his other wedding journey. Only, Kedzie had been his bride, andCharity was not yet, and might never be. Kedzie was girlish againstan auroral sky; she was rather illumined than dressed in silk. Charity was a heart-sick woman, driven and fagged, and swaddled nowin a heavy woolen blanket of great bunches and wrinkles. Kedzie wasnew and pink and fresh as any dew-dotted morning-glory that eversounded its little bugle-note of fragrance. Charity was an oldsweetheart, worn, drooping, wilted as a broken rose left to parchwith thirst. 

Yet it was Charity that made his heart race with love and desireand determination. She was Hypatia to him and he vowed that thechurchmen should not deny her nor destroy her. He clenched hisfists with resolution, then went back to his book and finishedit. He loved it so well that he forgave the Church and the clergysomewhat for the sake of this clergyman who had spoken so sturdilyfor truth and beauty and mercy. He loved the book so well that heeven read the preface and learned that Hypatia really lived onceand was virtuous, though pagan, and was stripped and slain atthe Christian altar, chopped and mutilated with oyster shells ina literal ostracism, her bones burned and her ashes flung intothe sea. 

The lesson Kingsley drew from her fate was that the Church wasfatally wrong to sanction "those habits of doing evil that goodmay come, of pious intrigue, and at last of open persecution, which are certain to creep in wheresoever men attempt to set upa merely religious empire, independent of human relationshipsand civil laws. " The preacher-novelist warned the Church of nowthat the same old sins of then were still at work. 

Jim closed the book and returned to the window to study Charity. He vowed that he would protect her from that ostracism. His wealthwas but a broken sword, but it should save her. 

He felt it childish of her to be so set upon a wedding at the handsof one of the clergymen who stoned her, but he liked her better forfinding something childish and stubborn in her. She was so good, so wise, so noble, so all-for-others, that she needed a bit ofobstinate foolishness to keep her from being absolute marble. 

He put on his hat and his raincoat and went out into the town, hunting a clergyman, resolved to compel him at all costs. The suddenshower became lyrical to his mood as a railroad train clicks to themood of the passenger. 

There was but one Episcopal church in the village and theparsonage was a doleful little cottage against a shabby temple. The hotelkeeper had told him how to find it, and the name of theparson. 

Jim tapped piously on the door, then knocked, then pounded. Atlength a voice came to him from somewhere, calling:

"Come into the church!"

"That's what I've been trying to do for weeks, " Jim growled. Hewent into the church and found the parson in his shirt-sleeves. Hehad been setting dishpans and wash-tubs and pails under the variousjets of water that came in through the patched roof in unwelcomelibations. 

His sleeves were rolled up and he was rolling up pew cushions. Hegave Jim a wet hand and peered at him curiously. It relieved Jimnot to be recognized and regarded as a visiting demon. 

The clergyman's high black waistcoat was frayed and shiny, as wellas wet, and his reverted collar had an evident edge from the waythe preacher kept moistening his finger and running it along therim. In spite of this worse than a hair-shirt martyrdom, the parsonseemed to be a mild and pitiful soul, and Jim felt hopeful of himas he began:

"I must apologize, Mr. Rutledge, for intruding on you, but I--well, I've got more money than I need and I imagine you've got less. Iwant to give you a little of mine for your own use. Is there anyplace you could put ten thousand dollars where it would do somegood?"

Young Mr. Rutledge felt for a moment that he was dreaming ordelirious. He made Jim repeat his speech; then he stammered:

"Oh, my dear sir! The wants of this parish! and my poor chapel! Youcan see the state of the roof, and the broken windows. The peopleare too poor to pay for repairs. My own pittance is far in arrears, but I can't complain of that since so many of my dear flock arein need. I was just about persuaded that we should have to abandonthe fight to keep the church alive. I had not counted on miracles, but it seems that they do occur. "

"Well, I'm not exactly a miracle-worker, but I've got some moneyyou can have if--there's a string to it, of course. But you coulduse ten thousand dollars, couldn't you?"

"Indeed not, " said Mr. Rutledge, feeling as Faust must have feltwhen Mephisto began to promise things. A spurt of water from a newleak brought him back from the Middle Ages and he cried: "You mightlend a hand with this tub, sir, if you will. "

When the new cascade was provided for, Jim renewed his bids forthe preacher's soul:

"If you can't use ten thousand, how much could you use?"

"I don't know. "

"Well, you could use a new roof at least. I'll give you a new roof, and a real stained-glass window of Charity to replace that brokenimitation atrocity, and a new organ and hymn-books, and new pewcovers, and I'll pay your arrears of salary and guarantee yourfuture, and I'll give you an unlimited drawing account for yourpoor, and--any other little things you may think of. "

Mr. Rutledge protested:

"It's rather cruel of you, sir, to make such jokes at such a time. "

"God bless you, old man! I never was so much in earnest. It's easyfor me to do those little trifles. "

"Then you must be an angel straight from heaven. "

"I'm an angel, they tell me, but from the opposite direction. It'splain you don't know who I am. Sit down and I'll tell you the storyof my life. "

So the little clergyman in his shirt-sleeves sat shivering withincipient pneumonia and beatitude, and by his side in the damp pewin the dark chapel Jim sat in his raincoat and unloaded his message. 

The Reverend Mr. Rutledge had heard of Jim and of Charity, and hadregretted the assault of their moneyed determination on the bulwarksof his faith. But somehow as he heard Jim talk he found him simple, honest, forlorn, despised and rejected, and in desperate necessity. 

He looked at his miserable church and thought of his flock. Jim'smoney would put shingles on the rafters and music in the hymns andfood in the hungry. It became a largess from heaven. 

He could see nothing, hear nothing, but a call to accept. He askedfor a moment to consider. He retired to pray. 

His prayer was interrupted by one of his hungriest parishioners, aMrs. McGillicuddy, one of those poor old washerwomen whose woes pileup till they are almost laughable to a less humorous heart than thelittle preacher's. He asked her to wait and returned to his prayers. 

His sheep seemed to gather about their shepherd and bleat forpasture and shelter. They answered his prayer for him. He cameback and said:

"I will. "

 * * * * *

"I do, " was what Jim and Charity said a little later when Jim hadwrested Charity from her sleep by pounding at her door. He waited, frantically, while she dressed. And he had the town's one hack atthe door below. He was afraid that the parson would change his mindbefore they could get the all-important words out of him. 

They rode through the rain like Heine's couple in the old stage-coach, with Cupid, the blind passenger, between them. They ran intothe church under the last bucketfuls of shower. Jim produced thelicense he had carried so long in vain. The washerwoman consentedto be one witness; the sexton-janitor made the other. 

Jim had the ring ready, too. He had carried it long enough. It madea little smoldering glimmer in the dusk church. He knelt by Charityduring the prayer, and helped her to her feet, and the littleclergyman kissed her with fearsome lips. Jim nearly kissed himhimself. 

He did hug Mrs. McGillicuddy, and pressed into her hand a bill thatshe thought was a dollar and blessed him for. When she got home andfound what it was she almost fainted into one of her own tubs. 

Jim left a signed check for the minister, with the sumlines blank, and begged him not to be a miser. They left with him a great doubtas to what the Church would do to him for doing what he had donefor his chapel. But he was as near to a perfection of happinessas he was likely ever to be. 

His future woes were for him, as Charity's and Jim's were for them. They would be sufficient to their several days; but for this blackrainy night there were no sorrows. 

It was too late to get back to the city and luxury--and notoriety. They stayed where they were and were glad enough. They expected tofare worse on the battle-front in France where they would spendtheir honeymoon. 

There was some hesitation as to which of their two rooms at thehotel was the less incommodious, but the furniture had been magicallychanged. Everything was velvet and silk; what had been barrennesswas a noble simplicity; what had been dingy was glamorous. 

The ghastly dinner sent up from the dining-room was a great banquet, and the locomotive whistles and the thunderous freight-cars wereepithalamial flutes and drums. 

Outside, the world was a rainy, clamorous, benighted place. Andto-morrow they must go forth into it again. But for the momentthey would snatch a little rapture, finding it the more fearfullybeautiful because it was so dearly bought and so fleeting, butchiefly beautiful because they could share it together. 

They were mated from the first, and all the people and the trialsthat had kept them apart were but incidents in a struggle toward eachother. Henceforth they should win on side by side as one completedbeing, doing their part in war and peace, and compelling at last fromthe world, along with the blame and the indifference that every onehas always had from the world, a certain praise and gratitude whichthe world gives only to those who defy it for the sake of what theirown souls tell them is good and true and honorable. 

THE END